Shaking Hands

So today was a wonderful day. I woke up at 9:00 (all on my own with no alarm clock just because. What kind of a college student am I?) and wrote four pages of a seven page research paper. I then failed at getting breakfast (I'll skip that part of the day. Not being able to access food in the cafeteria because it's so crowded with perspective students was not wonderful) but then I went to read a short story to some of the writing specific possible future students and talk a little bit about my experience at Champlain. 

The talking part wasn't as smooth as it could have been, and half way through I completely blanked on everything and just stared at my professor and shrugged. Anyway, a couple people specifically came to talk to me about the story after. 

Also, I'm totally friends with  the upperclassmen writing students and they're so cool and it's pretty great that I'm a first year and can still sit on a table and laugh with juniors and seniors. Just saying. Champlain is pretty neat. 

Then I came back, lounged on the floor of my room with a few friends as we browsed Pinterest to plan our future hairstyles. (I'm pretty sure I'm going to get a haircut tomorrow and I'm really excited...) 

Then everyone left and I wrote the rest of my paper and then worked on my journalism News Commentary and got a phone call from one of my best friends who had found a poem she wanted to read to me. Michelangelo's, um, something about grapes. It was fantastic. 

Anyway, I then went to an end of semester poetry/story/moth/improv presentation put on by the school's Literary Magazine class I'm part of, and got to spend the rest of my afternoon eating guacamole and listening to some amazing poets. I read that Hole-y Sky poem way back from April 2nd. 

Anyway, I got back just in time to call my sister and talk to her a little bit, and now I'm just crazy excited at the thought of getting to spend my summer with her. Agh! I can't wait!!!

Without further ado, here's a poem about how it feels to read your creative non-fiction to a group of awkward high school wanna be writing students and their uncomfortable, nervous, soon to be empty nest parents.

I clutch the paper tightly

and pound my fists against the wood

to keep my hands from shaking

my words sound foreign

in the crowded air

but I try my best to swallow,

let the words come smoothly

keep the crackle from my voice

I finish and sit quickly

my face red

my hands hot

and try to laugh with someone else

to ease the tension in my chest

when it’s all over

someone comes up

“I liked your story”

his eyes meet mine, familiar

though we’ve never met

“What mission are you with?”

and for some reason I forget

"Latin America World United Mission"

I stammer and bite my lip

He tells me about Wycliffe friends

and I miss Oaxaca

Someone else comes up

“I liked your story”

He says he wants to write fiction

He’s not much of a poet

wants to write screenplays

I let the others talk about filming

and the specifics of each major

and I sit there and feel my face turn pink

and try to keep my hands

from shaking.

My Demons Look Like Stars

I found this on Pinterest and traced it back to this place.

Today's poem was inspired by this picture. I have this Pinterest board full of writing prompt pictures, and sometimes I go through the board and write one sentence for each picture. It's  a really good practice for me, because as a novelist I tend to want to say so much more about my topic and have a hard time writing anything short. Sometimes my one sentences don't stay at just a sentence. Sometimes, like today, they turn into poems.

My Demons Look Like Stars

My whole body holds untold stories
like birds afraid to migrate.
They are huddled
inside my head
and their eyes show a thousand stars
glowing in the midnight of my mind.

I am afraid
if I do not walk slowly enough
they will unleash-
pull the blood from my veins
up through strands of the hair
on my head and,
in a flurry of hateful cries,
they will carry me away
until I, too, am only stars.

Etsy, Corn, and Hipster Fashion

I discovered Pinterest a while ago as I planned out dresses with the other bridesmaids for my sister's wedding. However, since college I've spent an embarrassing amount of time looking for ideas for new hairstyles and cute quotes to write in letters that I send my friends.

Recently, someone told me about the world of Etsy, which normally would be safe, but is such a distraction now that I'm looking for gift ideas for this Christmas. Except, it doesn't work all that well, seeing as I've spent hours searching the site and so far only have a present for my boyfriend. I should probably consider getting something for my family...

So, there you have it. The truth is out that I still have a lot of free time, and while I'm at that point where I may start complaining about having too much to do... it's a lie. After six o'clock just about every day I have nothing to do but stare at my computer screen, either wasting time on Pinterest or Etsy or talking to people on Facebook or Skype or just repeatedly punching the orange StumbleUpon button or choosing one hundred songs to listen to on Grooveshark even if I know I'll only listen to about twenty of them.

I do have a few projects now, and have actually been writing for school, which is exciting, seeing as I am a Professional Writing Major... It's nice to, you know, finally write.

Someone keeps stealing letters from my College's Welcome Sign. It's rather obnoxious, really.

As for corn and hipster fashion, both of them pretty much just go right back to my missing Mexico. I love corn, and miss having a freezer always stocked with a bag of frozen corn that I could mix in to basically any meal. And corn tortillas, I definitely miss corn tortillas since they're the base of any good Mexican Meal that I could consider cooking over Thanksgiving Break when I'll have to make my own food again. Ah, I miss corn.

I got to Skype one of my best friends the other day, who told me that my old school was busy with Spirit Week last week. So of course I asked what the theme for the next day was, "Hipster/Hippie" and decided to dress up like a hipster for the day.

Unfortunately, I go to a very hipster school and fit the hipster definition given by Google Images when I searched hipster fashion. So I just wore my normal clothes and blended into the crowd. I don't think that counts as hipster anymore.

But, speaking of new and non-mainstream, I now have an article written for our online magazine which will be super cool and original when it actually becomes a thing. But now I officially will have something to contribute. So that's cool.

Now I just need to be cool and get back to this blog and update it more than once a month. That would be good. Plus, then I can actually give specific details about cool things in my life, like the snow that will hopefully come soon and I am so stoked to write about, rather than just vague updates.

I mean, I didn't even write a thing about Equity Blue in this entry. Then again, I also haven't written much in her story lately. However... I've been having a blast writing little snap stories of the Whisperers in the future, so maybe someday something will come out of that... Who knows, only time can tell.