On blathering

Today's the last day of classes. I have a paper due today, then I have to finish my final report for this class (both only need minor revisions), then I'm dooooone.

But first, I need to write this blog entry.

One of my goals with keeping this blog was to improve my writing. I wanted to improve at elaboration (the fine art of not rambling while not being too concise) and brainstorming topics. Did I accomplish that? Eh.

In my main writing class last semester, we were given only one or two writing prompts, and I'd just sit down and write like crazy. This semester, I have a different teacher, so obviously there's a new writing-prompt-style I had to adjust to. We always got between two and four prompts - seven for this last paper - and it's become more of a challenge to think of good topics. You'd think that with seven different writing prompts, I'd be able to think of something. Apparently not.

Sure, I'll still think of good ideas... for a paper that's maybe a page or two. The current requirement is five to seven pages. Yikes.

One of the prompts for this assignment was to "write the paper you've wanted to write all semester." Or, in other words, "write whatever the hell you want." At the last minute I ended up rambling about how I've changed a lot in the past year; how I miss certain aspects of myself/my life, but at the same time, I'm excited about the changes. It kinda fell into the rant/rave prompt, it kinda fell into the "what have you learned about yourself" prompt, but mostly it just fell into "write whatever you want."

It's a completely different writing style than what I'm used to. All my papers this semester have employed humor. I'm jealous of everyone else and their eloquent writing, and I've wanted to try it all semester. I'm okay with humor, but I don't want to be known just for that. I even wrote a bit about this in my paper. This time, there's maybe a couple lines that'll make people chuckle; the rest of it is all holycrapemotion. And right now, I feel pretty good about it.

...Um, I guess I went on a tangent of sorts. Oh well, that's okay. But I'm at work right now, and someone's bound to walk in at any minute, so I should post this now.

On the bonnie, bonnie banks

Post-choir tour illness is fun. I have almost no voice and I'm at work. Awesome.

Tour started off on the wrong foot. We had to sing at a church service here in town, and in between our sets, there was a guest speaker instead of the regular pastor. Now, this church is semiangry Baptist to begin with (no intention of bashing Baptists there, though), but this guy was angry. He started with a business spiel about all the tapes/books/etc he was selling and the sermon he was giving at some other church that night (he wanted us to be free in worshiping the lord, but we all "needed to attend" the sermon). Then he led a prayer asking the lord to "quiet all the crying children so their parents can listen." Then he referred to abortion as "slaughtering babies" and named it as the cause of the Virginia Tech massacre. Then he said it's our fault we feel angry at our parents/bosses/etc. Then he said that women have no ambition and made some comment about bringing the apples home.

And this went on for 53 minutes.

I'm quite pissed. And not just because I'm agnostic; there are some devout Christians in the group who were pissed. He had the potential for a good message: if we bind together and pray/worship, we can start good vibes in this town, which will spread elsewhere, which will put an end to the world's bad stuff. Hell, being agnostic doesn't even have anything to do with it, because the way he went about presenting this "message" was so angry it wasn't even Christian.

Anyway.

Morale just sunk throughout the rest of tour. I finally got on the intercom en route and gave a couple pep talks. Needless to say, I ended up conducting the entire half-hour medley, and confidence went through the roof. I guess I just had an epiphany or something while bored on stage that morning. I realized that if I want morale to improve, I can't sit around and bitch with everyone else. I have to take action. If everyone feels like giving up, or like the director's giving up on us... I'm not giving up. I got a pretty big cheer on the bus for that line. And then we started a half-hour jokeoff that made us feel a whooooole lot better.

Otherwise, the usual fun aspects of tour were indeed fun. I made some new friends, I stayed up late one night (even though I felt like puking the next morning because of it), and I got to spend time with some of my favorite people. I miss that aspect of tour, but aside from that, I'm glad it's over.

I also brought along a bunch of knitting stuff, thinking I'd be knitting on every bus trip. I brought my expensive hat yarn, the cotton I'd purchased a while back for socks, and the bag I've been working on** periodically. I didn't get much done. I was able to cast on enough stitches for the hat, and discover that it wouldn't be long enough to work on the circular needle I'd purchased for it. Grr. Oh well, at least I know how to knit with double-pointed needles.

**scroll down to bottom of post to see the correct picture

Aaaand... I think I'm caught up. "Caught up," meaning, caught up to the current time, not caught up to the number of posts I'm supposed to have right now. Blah. I'll have to work on this a lot this weekend.

Yikes.

ArghIhavenotime.

I just finished a paper that's due in 20min.
I'm falling behind on my blogging.
I don't have my choir music memorized.
I need to unravel yarn.

I was bad when I put choir posters up around town. I stopped at the craft store downtown, with intentions of only buying one set of needles so I could make socks while on tour. I left with two sets of needles, and a hank of green yarn that will become a hat. I could have just looped the hank around my feet and rewound it into a ball, but I was dumb, thought socks!, and started trying to split the yarn in half. Grr. It's getting close, but I still have three tangled piles of yarn. Hopefully I can at least finish untangling before the show tonight.

Yeah, it's opening night. I'm not too nervous, as our light cues are pretty easy this year. We decided to do a formal dress theme for the show, though; it was the guys' idea, and now I have to shave my legs so I can wear a skirt, those bastards.

I'm more nervous about the music. We leave for tour on Sunday. There's a part of one song that we didn't go over until today. Yeah. We're all gonna flub words, and it's gonna suck. Whee.

And that leaves blogging. Well, I've only been in my room for a couple hours each day, which involves eating (to stave off the vertigo) and yarning (so I have something to do on tour), so yeah. I'll try to blog at least once more in the next couple days...

Open Letter

Dear blog,

I am sorry I have been neglecting you as of late. I realize this is a personal blog, but there are things going on in my life that I feel are too personal to discuss in a public setting like this. There is something I'd like to celebrate, but it's only a rumored event thus far, so I'll wait until something actually happens before I talk about it.

So, for now, I guess I will do little updates.

I ended up discarding my teacher's advice and changing the topic of my last paper. I decided to profile my parents and how I was treated growing up. It was kind of therapeutic to get it all out.

We're singing Beauty School Dropout in choir. We started discussing how to cheese the piece up, i.e. pink hair, curlers, etc. I joked that I could knit a pink wig (I'm serious, here's the link). I think I'm being expected to make it now.

I still need to do my taxes. And my laundry. And finish my resume. And figure out what I'm cooking on Sunday. And find motivation to do it all. Blah.

Goal setting

This blogging daily thing is getting frustrating. I keep thinking of topics to write about, but then I always get distracted and don't post when I should, and then multiple topics pile up and I feel like I have to write a little bit about all of them. That wasn't my goal with this blogging project. I wanted to challenge myself to write as much as possible about a single topic. Overviews and summaries would, for the most part, not fly. By allowing myself to slack, I'm really not living up to my challenge, and that kinda disappoints me.

That being said, I'm almost done with the headband ear warmer thing. I just have to sew on a button or bead or something. That'll be tomorrow after work. Hopefully I can have pictures and thoughts on my knitting progress posted by Monday. (Goal #1.)

I also had some thoughts about my future (read: jobs) today that will surely continue tomorrow, so unless something major happens, I plan to post about that after work tomorrow. (Goal #2.)

I'm too tired to come up with any more coherent thoughts. In closing, the boyfriend says "don't you wish those hookers were hot like me." Yeah, I don't understand him either.

I also used the f-word three times

I just finished writing a paper for my Advanced Writing class that ends with the sentence "I am a better person today simply because I am a fast food whore."

That is all.

oops

I seem to have fallen a bit behind in the reading for this class already. Shite. I'm working on it, I swear. I'll have some sort of commentary up either tomorrow or Sunday.

In other news, today I meandered over to the rec and worked out for the first time in forever (aka sophomore year). Man, did that feel good. I think I'm gonna go there a few times a week now. Assuming I have time, anyway.

Oh! and I checked out my finances earlier. I'll probably wait until my next round of paychecks in two weeks, but with my loan money coming in I should have enough money leftover to buy a new computer. I will have a spiffy piece of technology sooner than I was expecting! I'm so excited. And I just can't hide it. Woah no no no no.

...

Um. I need to crash.