hurricane earl

a few weeks ago hurricane earl hit texas
...it was a fail. a major, major fail.

no trees blown down, no school cancelled, no flooding, no school cancelled.
all that happened was some horrid ridiculous ginormously ridiculous rain
and by rain... i mean buckets of rain being thrown at campus with force from every possible direction at once, making my walk from the back of parking lot b all the way across to west campus RIDICULOUS, textbook ruining, clothes-soaking (try sitting in all your air-conditioned classes soaked to the bone and shivering and see if you can concentrate!)

when i finally got home it was soooo nice to touch dry things, cause everything, inside and outside, on campus was soaking wet all day. oh dry pants. i love you.

(the above is a picture taken as i sat in my car debating whether getting out of the car and going to class was actually worth it. i decided yes. bad decision!!! make good choices people!!)

would you like to know a secret?

... i have kind of a crazy far-reaching insane person dream job.

firstly... my major is arts and performance, with an emphasis on visual art and a potential minor in arts in tech/animation.

(how i wish i could have multiple minors and pursue that drama/dance minor also... blah! maybe i'll double-major after all. don't you love my typical freshman indecisiveness?)

someday i hope to write children's books

i've thought about looking into animation as a career, also

not so much the digital side of it, as the aesthetic co-ordination side of it.

and the perfect oh so perfect wishicouldhaveit job for me...

working as a aesthetic team member at pixar.

ooooohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh... it pains me to know that such a perfect wonderful job in such a wonderful place exists. it's like that job is a celebrity, and i can't even talk to it it's so much fancier than me.

and the thing is... they offer paid internships.

hmm. san francisco? =/

to the carnival with you, away!

Tonight sister and brothers and I went to a street carnival! It was ever so much fun... we rode scaaary rides and ate slightly scaaaary food and had a delightful time!

I love how many things are happening here.

I was scared of this, but rode it anyway and it was amazing! ... so there's another thing off the I'm-scared-of-this list!

Inside the wonderful spinning bears... we spun that thing faster than anyone else, so we WIN!

Sceeered!

The view from the very top of the Ferris Wheel.

Dan took this from the seat in front of us... I love how you can see how tiny the roller coaster is, and yet we're freaking out! We're wimpy wimpersons!

Franklin Trip - Friday

Friday morning we headed off towards Nashville.

The view from my window on the way to Nashville.

A building in Nashville that I liked.

After lunch (at a brewery! it was so fun, I know how beer is made now.) we went to the park in Nashville

Everything was so pretty with the autumn leaves!

There was a big stage, and I couldn't resist the urge to dance on it. And we all know about my dancing skills. ;)

Yeah, so maybe I just told you we were in Nashville. We were really in Rome.

(post-edit: it has been pointed out that the parthenon is in greece. i knew this, in the back of my mind... which doesn't make me feel any less stupid.)

Just kidding, this is the Nashville Parthenon. It was huge, and it was awesome.

There was a huge art exhibit inside, including statues from the real Parthenon.

Oh yeah, and the Elgin Marbles (two horses heads) who I met at Lord Elgin's castle... he told me their names, one was Humphrey and the other I don't remember. It was funny seeing something I'd met and touched before ... in a museum.

Yes, she was that big. HUGE. I kept imagining what would happen if she came to life.

Me and my bro Leo, the winged beast of scariness. Just chillin.

Nice ancient artifact storage system, guys. Seriously.

FAIL.

Getting his hand bitten, a la Roman Holiday.

You can't tell, but we were doing the Wizard of Oz dance.

That evening we went to Franklin and had dinner at this really cool restaurant in a house next to the church. Everyone sits at a table together, and you get to meet people! There was this one very proper southern lady with huge hair who told us about how she worked one day a week at Stein Mart, and "that was socially acceptable."

After, at the film conference, I got to meet Dr. George! who is even more awe inspiring in person. That night's movie was "Dead Poets' Society" ... which I thought I'd seen all of, but apparently I had missed the ending and a lot of important parts in the middle. The theme of the conference was "Epistemology, or how we know what we know", and that was really interesting, seeing the different viewpoints in the movies. Dead Poets' Society was really interesting, because it shows 2 near opposite philosophies - romanticism and rationalism/traditionalism - and cautions that both are extremes.

Franklin Trip - Thursday

On Thursday we packed up our bags and went our merry way to Memphis!

The view out the window the whole way to Memphis.

I decided to be annoying trip photographer and scare the driver... and this is his delightful road trip face.

Dr. George (the owl) and I in the back seat... we played I spy. He won. He was so awfully excited to meet his doppelganger and to go to Franklin!

And it seems I was rather excited also...

We stopped in Mt. Vernon for lunch... at this awesome place with a huge rooster on the roof. On the menu they had not a vegetable of the day, but a "Fried Vegetable of the Day", which of course I ordered. Fried okra, yum. And by the way, dear father wasn't spitting his roll out, though it sort of looks that way.

Letters from back home, no.I

Our dear Beatrice,

How we miss you! Things are awfully confusing around here without you... for instance, remind us again how to turn on the record player? We've tried and tried as silly old Cecil wants to listen to Elgar (It's not silly, it's greater art than that hoo-hoo-hoo stuff you listen to!) I'm sorry, that was Cecil. He's mad at me because I said the only reason I don't like alpacas is that they aren't pretty.

How are things in Franklin? COME HOME SOON!!! Tell Dr. George (the owl) that we miss him!

Friendlily,
Percival Eugene "Percy" Worthington

(Post Scriptum: I do not approve of Percy's exuberent use of capital letters and exclaimation points, but did not want to neglect my communicative duties. Sincere regards, Cecil Alexander Beatley.)

someday will be me

Pitiful is the person who is afraid of taking risks. Perhaps this person will never be disappointed or disillusioned; perhaps she won't suffer the way people do when they have a dream to follow. But when the person looks back--she will hear her heart.
Paulo Coelho

--

i have a list.

a list of things i will do... someday. and they are brave things, wild things, things to happen when the wind blows. i know these things are in me... just not here yet.

i want to jump into the ocean with all my clothes and shoes on, and lie in the waves until i feel the rhythm of the tide is part of me. i want to ride a train to someplace with cobblestone streets and mist... i want to ride a bicycle with no hands, and do somersaults by a lake.

this is not the whole list. it goes on and on. and these things will happen.

-photo via sabino

chim chim cheree!

Last night I went to the amazing Emily's birthday party, with Isaac and Erika. We had cupcakes and girly food (which Isaac was very obliging about) and watched 17 Again, which I honestly enjoyed lots! It was rather silly though, I admit. After Erika left, the three of us sailed paper boats in the freezing pool and climbed onto the roof to see the stars and the city in the distance. We pretended ... ok, so I pretended to be on a barn outside of Lyons.

And felt awfully, terribly brave. Heights, roofs... are kind of high up on the scaredy list. So this was a part of my new experiment. Next on the list?

Overcoming my fear of YMCA Lifeguards. Yes, I'm serious.

They're kinda creepy, and oh so very judgy judgerson. Their faces just scream "oh eh heh heh, I can swim so very much faster than that." But someday soon I'm going to just do it.

I'm going to go to the Y and swim laps,

because right now I'm running, and I Really Hate Running, but I love swimming. I love the water running over my shoulders, and the feeling when you've stretched every muscle you can. It's fun, which is refreshing compared to running, which hurts my brain, it's all bouncy and painful, and therefore I have come to the conclusion that this fear is stupid, and silly.

things you should know

target employees don't have a sense of humour.

they don't take kindly to people taking roller skates out of the box and "testing" them.

they especially dislike it when this person is out of balance due to wearing the wrong size of skates.

and they really don't like it when that person makes even the quietest indian war cries.

i really really hope this information comes in handy someday.

meet your flight attendant, earnestine

well, i just got home. sunday night turned into monday afternoon, which turned into monday night... which turned into tuesday morning. wow.

so on my flight back from birmingham (free, thanks to my friend! yay dan!) the flight attendant was obviously loving her opportunity to have a microphone and a literally captive audience. she kept making spunky jokes. yech. also... and i'm very curious about this... she thanked us for all wearing clothing ...? oh and right after the part where the flight attendants do their funny security interpretive dance, it got really quiet and this guy behind me's phone went off and it was really loud and it sounded like a dying duck!

cecil and percy say they have felt something akin to locked-in syndrome with me gone so long. i told them they were being dramatic when they said this, but ok, fine. they want sympathy.

"it feels like we're really doing it, jim! it feels like we're finally having an adventure!"

so... i love last minute plans. lots. lots o love in my heart for those.

in exactly 2 hours my plane will be taking off! i go to see a bunch of my dearest friends in the world!! tonight i'll be at the blevins, then spend the weekend with the greens. yay!

and yes i do love flying almost as much as boats. airports are FUN! honestly i even think airport security is exciting, with the cool x-ray boxes and funny talkative security ladies. whoop!

those somalian pirates were visually disappointing. no eyepatches?

i want a boat. not just any boat... a smallish, beautiful, blue and white and brown wooden sailboat. with fancy ropes that i can pull, and a mop that i can swab the deck with, and one of those fancy helms. i'm just feeling the need to go a'boating today. i've only been on a few boats in my life, but all these experiences have been marvelous. one time in historical jamestown i got to walk around on a really big frigate replica, and it rocked around and creaked and was wonderful and i felt like it was finally adventure time, and that i might do anything... go off to some amazing place or do something incredible and historical that nobody else could have done. and then the tour guide came running over and made me stop weighing anchor. bah! where was his sense of adventure?