25 November 2010

thank you

biggest grateful news: i passed my oral comprehensive exam!! this means that i am done with comps and am on to the main event! i feel so happy, so thankful, for the miracle of passing writtens and orals. yay, yay, and another yay for being past that. yay for my committee, yay for my brilliant, supportive, and cool director, yay for the nineteenth century, yay for the eighteenth, yay for their beautiful and amazing literature and yay for their crazy and cool and interesting ideas, yay for novels, yay for poetry, yay for school. YAY!!

yay for:
health. i went on my own little turkey trot this morning on lake murray dam and thought about how lucky i am to be healthy. i really take that for granted.
family
friends
great roomie and living like every day is a slumber party
teaching and students
diet coke
church and the gospel and that i miraculously have it in my life.
pumpkin pie
books and getting lost in them and reading until way too early
movies and movie theaters
beds and bedtime
baths
perfume--i love good smells
fall and everything it stands for--newness and fresh starts, school, changing leaves, crisp air, sweaters and hoodies, school supplies, scarves, Christmas is coming
babies and a new nephew on the way
clean kitchens
chocolate
well put together outfits
vacations and trips
sunshine
weather of all sorts
gum
slippers and blankets
haircuts
bread and toast
milk
board games and card games
nature
mountains
beaches
water and swimming
family--again, because it's my favorite one.

happy day!

21 November 2010

Victorians

"Carrion Comfort"

Not, I'll not, carrion comfort, Despair, not feast
on thee;
Not untwist--slack they may be--these last strands
of man
In me or, most weary, cry I can no more. I can;
Can something, hope, wish day come, not choose
not to be.

But ah, but O thou terrible, why wouldst thou
rude on me
Thy wring-world right foot rock? lay a lionlimb
against me? scan
With darksome devouring eyes my bruised bones?
and fan,
O in turns of tempest, me heaped there; me frantic
to avoid thee and flee?

Why? That my chaff might fly; my grain lie, sheer
and clear.
Nay in all that toil, that coil, since (seems) I kissed
the rod,
Hand rather, my heart lo! lapped strength, stole
joy, would laugh, cheer.
Cheer whom though? The hero whose heaven-
handling flung me, foot trod
Me? or me that fought him? O which one? is it
each one? That night, that year
Of now done darkness I wretch lay wrestling with
(my God!) my God.

--Gerard Manley Hopkins.

That's why. Now I remember.

20 November 2010

Whiney whiney whinerton.

I hate my life right now. I have to take my oral exam and I'm NOT ready because I stink Stink STINK at studying and focusing and using my time well. And I don't want to study. And I don't want to read poetry. And I don't want to read criticism. And I don't want to read Carlyle. And I don't want to be in my messy room. And I don't want to clean it. And I don't want to take notes or look over my notes or think or grade. Or take my exam.

I just want to sleep and watch movies and tv and maybe go to the gym and take baths and be a whiney baby.

06 November 2010

Happy Halloween!

i've always enjoyed halloween. candy. dress up. running around outside in the evening. fall. frosted sugar cookies. all great things. this year brookie and i dressed up for the ysa dance. we decided to be rockstars and had a great time putting together outfits, punking out our hair, and experimenting with makeup (neither of us are experts in that department--but luckily b is a total rockstar and owns the sass department). the evening was a blast, and here it is in pictures:

prepping. check out our sweet hair.


in the car, getting reading to dance like we've never danced before:


at the dance, and our outfits:


check out the hott shoes:


with the peeps at the dance:

our dear friend derek as a surfer--which he, in fact, is.

karelyn g: planner of the dance and stylist extraordinaire:

brooke with papa smurf (david coats) and olive oil (darling jean marie)
being sassy on the dance floor:

us with jeremy, the bomb, as a ref. he also had a great tv screen.
our dear mara:

post dance car pics.

we had a great time!

and were very sassy.


happy halloween! we're considering being rockstars on a regular basis. a definitely solid plan b.