Category Archives: Thoughts

In the Books: On Finishing My Novel

Posted on by

5

I know I haven’t been blogging much lately. I think you’ll understand why, though.

I was sitting here thinking about how I have trouble finishing things, but then it occurred to me that it’s not really true. I can think of fewer than five books that I’ve never finished and don’t intend to. Even when they’re really bad or boring, I try to slog my way through them. I tried to quit softball after 6th grade when I should have been moving up from pigtail to ponytail league. I was afraid that it was going to be more difficult and I’d look stupid. About a quarter of the way into that first summer, I told myself to suck it up and go back to practice, so I did, and I played until I was getting ready to leave for college. I waited a whole year of being unhappy at my first real-world job before I quit that, and I agonized so long over my decision to quit calculus in college that I missed the drop/add deadline and took a voluntary F. And when I say I agonized over that decision, I mean that I found myself in the Dean of Students’ office nearly in tears.

So I guess I don’t quit well. Continue reading →

5 Facebook Habits That Annoy Me

Posted on by

4

No, I couldn’t come up with a more clever title. It’s hot. My brain is lagging hours – maybe days – behind my body.

I think it’s pretty safe to say that those of us for whom Facebook is an integral part of life are all guilty of some kind of obnoxious and/or annoying Facebook behavior. That’s totally to be expected. I will be the first person to admit that, especially when I’m bored, I update my status way too often, and usually not with anything close to revelatory. In an attempt to justify my own less-than-ideal habit by pointing out that it could be worse, I’ve come up with the 5 Facebook habits that most irritate me, and why. This is not in any way meant to offend any of my friends (although it would appear that it’s mostly just randoms, mostly in California, who are reading my blog, anyway). Then again, when you consider that most of the people a person is friends with on Facebook aren’t really that person’s good friends…. well, I’ll get to that. Continue reading →

Between Gears

Posted on by

0

I think that one of the most difficult parts of growing up is feeling placeless.

When I was out on my own, I rarely minded the occasional night in by myself. Looking back, I think it’s because I knew I had a choice. I’ve never been big on hanging out in bars. Once in a while it’s okay, but it’s really not my cup of tea. Too many people, and so many of them annoy me.  Still, I knew that I could, if I wanted to, and sometimes I did (and sometimes I still do). If I wanted to go sit on the couch at a friend’s place and watch t.v., I could. If I wanted to have friends over to my place, I could. I am growing increasingly frustrated, though, with being home (as in, the house I grew up in) and not having that option. As a result, I keep getting the distinct feeling that I have no place.  Continue reading →

Occupational Hazard

Posted on by

0

It’s not really hard-hitting news if I tell you that I don’t sleep at night. When I was employed, I had myself trained to go to bed and wake up, but with nothing else to do, I can’t sleep at night. This is my writing time. This is also when it’s finally quiet, and therefore when I get a chance to think about things enough for them to get under my skin, but this time it’s in a sad way. Continue reading →

Enjoy the Silence

Posted on by

2

Yes, I did just reference Depeche Mode in my blog title.

I have, on several occasions, mentioned how I like to think. I won’t get into how that is sometimes not really a good thing, but I’ve been thinking about thinking, so I decided to write about it (at least to some extent).

As I type this, it has just turned 2:00 a.m. For my entire life, I have been somewhat nocturnal. I love the quiet and the peace of just enjoying time to myself when no one else is awake, and I use this time to do a lot of thinking and reflecting (and, in college, homework). Sometimes I take this time to collect my thoughts and process them into something that will resemble a coherent blog. Tonight is not one of those nights. This is Renee Unplugged. And speaking of Unplugged, there is music.

I’m sure that when I was in high school, I used to stay up late and listen to music. It’s always been such an integral part of my life that I can’t see how I wouldn’t have done that. In fact, most of the time, I would rather turn on iTunes than watch TV. It wasn’t really until I got to college, though, that I realized the pure joy that comes from just lying in a pitch black room, thinking to music.  Continue reading →

Making and Breaking My Stride (I’ve got to keep on moving)

Posted on by

1

When I crossed the 50,000 word mark to become a NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) 2009 winner in November, I estimated that I would need somewhere around another 10,000 words to finish my novel. As of last night (I haven’t worked on it yet tonight), my word count was just shy of 67,800 words. Obviously, I grossly underestimated what it would take me to finish. I am, however, happy to report that I have the pieces coming together. This is good because virtually nobody knows anything about this novel. Literally, I think I’ve given only two people details, and even those were rather skimpy. Knowing that I struggle with endings, I’ve been very tight-lipped about it because I wasn’t entirely sure where it was going. Or rather, I didn’t know if it would work. Perhaps in the next few months I will get to a point where some of those who have expressed interest in reading it will be able to take a look at some of it.  Continue reading →

Feeling Old Vs. Being Old

Posted on by

0

I have friends who think they’re old. These friends are mostly in the 26-30 age bracket, and in no way constitute as being such (unless you’re asking a nine year old), but it’s just what they think. I have never said that I’m old. I’m 27 and I don’t feel or look like I am.

There’s the adage “You’re only as old as you feel.” I don’t know if I believe that, either.

A friend of mine turned 23 on Friday, and we went out for her birthday to a local sports bar. After her mother, I was the oldest person there, and I found myself saying out loud that I felt old – something I don’t usually say. But I think there’s an important line to distinguish here: I FELT it. Sometimes I feel sick, but it doesn’t mean that I am. So saying that I’m as old as I feel makes absolutely no sense to me. My age would change constantly. I felt 27, but empirically, I was older than the rest of her friends there. Continue reading →

Dichotomy

Posted on by

3

This past Saturday I had the unique experience of celebrating life in two completely contrasting ways: a wake followed by a birthday party.

Obviously the party was a lot more upbeat and happy; it was a celebration. The wake was exactly how one expects a wake to be: there were a lot of hugs and flowers, and there were a lot of people crying. Yet, in their barest and most simplistic forms, they each represented the same thing.   Continue reading →

I’m Sorry You Majored In… (anything other than teaching)

Posted on by

0

Though I touched upon this in an earlier post, and I tried so hard not to bring this up, the abundance of snowy days this winter and the amount of whining and complaining I keep reading have driven me to feel the need to say something. First and foremost, I’m not saying any of this to be overly harsh and I’m not out to disrespect or alienate anybody. I’m also going to say right now that I’m using “you” in the most general sense because it’s easiest for my purpose. I am not yelling; I just want to make my side heard. That being said…

Look, I’ll be perfectly honest with you. I’m sorry that you weren’t an education major, but until you’ve taught for three weeks in a school, I really don’t want to hear you say snarky things like “Oh, I wish I still had snow days” or “Gee, it must be so nice to be a teacher right about now.” People like me are becoming silently infuriated at you, and my guess is that you know more than one teacher.

I’m not entirely sure where the idea got started that teachers have this luxurious, easy life. Just because when you were in school you did nothing at night, on the weekends, over holidays, and during the summer doesn’t mean that teachers follow the same schedule. In fact, many of the days the students aren’t at school, the teachers are. They’re sitting through horrible professional development seminars and in-service presentations. The funny thing is that, in many districts, they have to sit through those same things periodically during the summer.

First, Pennsylvania has a really good teacher education program that permits reciprocity in something like 35 or 38 other states. That’s why we churn teachers out of here. It’s not an easy program though, and so while many people I knew of had light semesters of 16 credits and went out drinking and partying all the time or had a lot of downtime, I can think of two semesters in my entire college career where I had 18 or fewer credits. Usually I had a course load of anywhere between 20 and 24 credits so that I could make myself as well-qualified as possible for the job I wanted. You know how your senior year spring break was so awesome because you either went on some crazy trip with your friends or you just went home and relaxed? Education majors were still at school doing their student teaching.   Continue reading →

Possibly Offensive Commentary: The “Why I Don’t Respect Skanks” Edition

Posted on by

3

Recently I have been doing a lot of thinking about the image I want to convey and the impression that I want to leave. This has led to an awful lot of pondering about what it means to be respectable. Sure, I could say that I don’t care what people think about me, but it seems that somewhere in there, nearly all self-respecting people care at least a little about how others see them.

I’m not a huge bar person, so when I’m out, I’m not there looking to impress anyone. I really don’t believe in finding quality relationships in bars. A wise friend (who is male) once told me that the guys I would meet in such establishments are not the kind of guys I would want to date, anyway. When I go out, I like to observe, and I’ve enjoyed many hours of sizing people up from afar. Is that judgmental? Maybe, but I don’t really think it is. And besides, perhaps we shouldn’t be so fast to say that judgment is a bad thing. Good judgment has kept me away from a lot of unfavorable situations and unsavory people. It’s also helped me to realize why self-respect is so important. Continue reading →