Depression is everywhere

and I'm as guilty as the next person of it.  Looking over friend's blogs and websites (as well as talking to them in person), it's hard not to notice a pattern.  Everyone is depressed, feeling dejected, frustrated, sad and alone.  Whatever you want to call it, I think it's an epidemic.  

I wish I could help my friends... no one wants to see people they love in so much pain.  I'm no pinnacle of cheer, but I can see the good things, too.  In old movies, the characters' hearts were broken and they thought life would never recover but then they see something good and innocent, like children playing in the street, and suddenly they remember why they and all of us must go on.  There are so many simple pleasures in life.  As good as it feels to earn grades, go onto graduate school, get internships, etc., the real things that keep me going at St. Olaf are not career preparations and resume builders.  It's things like walking behind Mellby a dozen times a day in the fall when the sidewalk is engulfed by a tunnel of color and rustling.  Or being able to sit under the trees and read.  Or smelling the Malt-O-Meal, going for walks into town, coming inside on a cold night, watching snow fall for hours at a time, and making easy mac.  These keep me happy (and sane) when nothing else will.  Even if you're doing well in school, have friends, maybe even a fabulous boyfriend, it's the minutae that makes all the difference as far as I'm concerned. 

Maybe it's part of living in the moment.  In Star Wars, Yoda chides Luke for always looking to the future.  When I was younger, I thought that perhaps Yoda had had one too many fights with R2.  What's wrong with looking to the future if you're unhappy in the present?  After years of watching that movie, I decided the implication that inevitably the future would come and suddenly the present would be alluring and livable is dangerous.   What if the future isn't all it's cracked up to be?  What if you don't get into your top grad/law/med school?   For many people, it's these big, risky aspects (perhaps the more societally recognized things?) that make or break life, but I think that if everyone got excited about drinking lemonade, brushing their pet, or going for a walk outside in the sun and let themselves live in that moment instead of passing it over as unimportant and just filler material until the next big break, the world would be a much better place. 

 

Less than an hour to go...

I think the best thing about these long, mid-week sampling trips are the added benefit that I either work for a few hours on Fridays or get them off.  Today, it's the former, but I have so little to do that the work day is consisting of catching up on emails and blogs.  Another added benefit of being in the field is the color you pick up.  For instance, I no longer look like a Scandinavian ghost.  It's lovely.  I have tan cleavage.  Mmmmhmmm.  I've also had time to catch up on finances.  I've spent about $200 on trips that needs to be filed for reimbursement.  It's like opening a big Christmas present, even though you bought, wrapped, and placed it under the tree yourself.  I'm trying to look on the bright side of things.  I also tried to be a good parent to Noah last night, trying to make him feel better after he got his modem taken away.  He decided that this meant he could blame on me because of course he should be able to tie up the phone line whenever he pleases.  My venture into parenting was short-lived.  Pity I was really not that bad.  Aitkin County is kinda like Mexico in that being there makes you feel guilty.  They aren't very well off up there and a lot of people live in old trailers.  I realized how well off people in the burbs are.  And how lazy that makes us.  Maybe it's better to struggle.  You appreciate things more when they don't come easily to you.  But then again, I realize things like that because I am wealthy enough to travel and perceive differences.  What a catch-22. 

Tonight's the last Community Band concert.  While I'm excited for certain parts of going back to school, I could leave a lot of others.  For instance, taking Remote Sensing/GIS with Welch, the most close minded professor I've yet heard of at St. Olaf.  Or perhaps the parking permit that I was supposed to get over two months ago from NiNi Hopkins thus enabling the coffeehouse to operate.  Still, there are good things, like living next to Bridget and Jennifer in Mellby, having my very own room, seeing all sorts of people (like Vanna) from school again, feeling redeemed because by God, I had a damn reputable internship over the summer.  Band... hmmm... that one's mixed.  I feel like a fish out of water.  I would love to be someone that people remember is in the room or maybe even acknowledge in the hallways of Christiansen, but until I either become a music major or play an instrument that puts me in the spotlight (HAHA to both of those), I guess I'll be content with the backseat.  The actual act of playing is joyful.  It's more the bureaucratic pieces that pull it down.  A lot of things are like that, actually.  Look at state agencies! 

I don't like people and they don't like me

It was a long weekend.  They always are.  Because of the trips for work each week, I usually have half or most of Friday off.  This week was no different so I went up to Askov with Jimmy for a long overdue visit to the farm.  Between band concerts in Superior, embarassing talks with his mother, and still being sick from the week, it was not the most pleasant stay imaginable in the Northland.  I came home to struggle with my dad to be able to work on my floor's door decortations in our living room.  I did get the new car, which is lovely if unnamed (strangely everyone asks if it has a name yet -- I'm thinking).  I went out and spent too much money on gas, cheesecake, and a movie with gals from high school.  The next day (Sunday) I decided it was high time to get to the beach.  Amanda, the Johns, and I went to Excelsior to swim off the point.  And that short bit of time was heavenly.  However, it was short as the others were hungry and thus we spent less than two hours there at all between walking and eating.  Sigh.  That evening I tried again to be social, only to be teased and part of my NEW car ripped off.  Amanda's boyfriend, Rory, who I thought (and still think probably) to be a nice guy, stole the hubcap to my car, ran with it, and then proceeded to tease me ala middle school while Amanda and her friend laughed at the situation.  How fun.  To those reading, do NOT steal any pieces of your friend's brand new car and then rip into someone.  It will only inspire entries like the following:
 
 
"I think I'm throwing the human interaction towel in. 
 
"Another weekend of trying to fit in left me feeling more than a bit empty.  There's simply no use in hovering around a desperate desire to find people with whom I feel more than a passing connection that doesn't inevitably fade into an awkward nothingness.  I look back at the defining points of my short and often trite life.  Photographs record little more than a brief moment in time, yet I surround myself, as if placing them in succession will somehow make the parade more complete.  But I see holes everywhere that I would wish to fill with meaning.  The people around me are most likely extraordinary, but we're surrounded in fog for as much as we realize it.    
 
"How is that people can be so downtrodden in a land of such plenty?"

back from the field

I haven't been blogging much lately due to the small amount of time I've had free in the office. Instead, I've been out in the field taking the lake samples that are constituting the better part of what's left of my time at the PCA. And I'm not complaining! I think that next time, I'll get better sunscreen and put it on right away to avoid the sunburn that it making it hard to move my shoulders currently. I will also try to even out the racerback tank tan (one pale stripe down my back that looks remarkably like a skunk). I think that I'll have the better part of Friday off this week, which means that it's time to hit the beach. Beach days (despite the numerous hours spent on the lakes) have been in pitiful supply this summer with the total at a whopping zero. I hope that it stays nice and that Jimmy and I could hightail it to somplace fun and relaxing. Next week will be full of more field work, this time up in Aitkin County. I hope that I can effectively fight off whatever cold or such I've caught that's making it hard to think or sit straight. There's still no update on my car. No one is sure what's wrong with it and it's been in a garage for nine days... It looks like I might be buying that 2001 Prizm. Who knows. Well -- happy midweek to everyone. Time for me to stop being such a slacker.

my car!

Wow -- I was looking at an article and was pleasantly suprised by some good environmental news. Paper recycling is at an all-time high in America. 50% of paper produced comes back to be recycled. That's awesome! Just more proof that education and awareness work pretty damn well to change public actions.

In case you can't tell, it's been a slow day at work. I only hit the environmental news sites as a final resort. I was supposed to spend two days looking over a lake report... needless to say I've read the 40 pages allotted and am sitting here dawdling. I haven't had an abundance of tasks to be completed at the PCA thus far, so it's not like I can fall back on some piece of work I was too busy to finish before.

I guess I ought to update everyone, eh? My car is most likely dying. She could be ok, but I don't think the chances are swell. She overheats, but her radiator is fine. That's never an omen of good things to come. It could be her head-gasket, it could be a cracked cylinder, or it could be a repair under the $2000 mark. My uncle, the car aficionado of the family, said cars ought to have their radiator fluid flushed from time to time. It prevents acid from building up and doing nasty things to one's engine. Apparently, my dad should've known to do this. So folks, do yourself a favor and flush that fluid! Even if My Antonia is ok for now, this could be the point at which to pass her on. I'll have a car at school (if NiNi ever bothers to writeup my permit request for the coffeehouse) for the next two years. Should I upgrade now that I've found a couple of sweetass deals? Is that selling out? At what point is it time to trade in your faithful compatriot of many happy years? I don't want to be the one to junk her. Besides, Civics are such notoriously good cars that I could easily get a lot of money to resell her, provided this head-gasket or cracked cylinder business blows over (hopefully not literally). I'm in car limbo. How is it that these vehicles become extensions of our personalities? Amanda would never dream of giving up the Cougar despite its atrocious safety and gas mileage because it's a damn cool car and it completes her music dreams. Grant loves his Blazer; like a good Buddhist, he didn't kill me when I backed into it. And then there's me. My Honda was my partner in crime: she's sleek and always dependable; has good gas mileage; was there for ever tear, peal of laughter, and explosion of loud Moulin Rouge, and I never really considered her mortality. One day or another, she'll kick the bucket. It might be kinder to both of us to pass her before I'd have to witness that day. Either way, there's something about your first car like there is about the first time you really fall in love: you take it with you wherever you go.

I feel like a toad

How much discretion should a blogger exercise? I feel like this handy little journal is an outlet for me in which to pour everything noteworthy (both good or bad)that happens. I don't try to be overly-dramatic, though I know that's a flaw inherent in myself. I ought to say nicer things about subjects like my home life, but it's really hard to half the time! Do you gloss over all the things that make you fret? I've lived in other places and I've certainly been in other homes. I think ours could improve in ambience and general comfort, but it's not anywhere near the bottom of the heap. It just is what it is. I get angry and frustrated; it just builds up with nowhere to go but here. I know every family has their problems and that some have more than their fair share. There must be others out there that have less to average everything out. My parents are well-intentioned and my mother is certainly aware of how depressed (and therefore difficult to live with) my dad can be. I guess that's all that matters. They want the best for Noah and I and they try their hardest to see it through. That's as much as any parents could do. And I in turn am trying to balance being as selfless as I can (*note: my abilities are sadly lacking) while not forgetting what I think are basic human rights when it comes to the domestic explosions that inevitably occur. I'm never perfect, or even close, but I've been trying for as long as I can remember to improve myself. I wish my parents, especially my dad, saw that so they could see that they really are doing a great job.

nothing welcomes you back to the office like a krispy kreme!

I've been up around Grand Rapids for the past three days doing lake sampling. You haul up a boat and a bunch of gear and hit lakes for about 11 hours in the day, going out to the deepest points, collecting data and samples. It was a swell time AND I learned how to drive a boat, along with a lot of other practical knowledge. I also put in 35 hours in the last 3 days, which means I only have to stay today until 1:30 and I have tomorrow off! My first weekday off since probably Easter. It feels real good. I think I'll drink spiked lemonade to celebrate [at home]. Today is treat day (always a favorite of mine) and there on the table, were Krispy Kremes. I don't want to think about calories or carbs. I just want to indulge and play the happy "I'll pretend this is good for me" game. Yum -- patriotic srinkles.

But I'll stop fancying colored bits of sugar for a moment. While up north, I couldn't help but realize how peaceful life was. The lakes are everywhere and most of them are of good quality. Driving a boat and seeing miles of blue ripples rush forward would have its appeal to even the blackest of anti-environmentalists. A lot of the towns we stopped in were quite small and conversation in the diners and cafes was fairly constricted. Still, there was a sense of being in no hurry and that's a fair tradeoff in my opinion. I was welcomed home by rush hour, hail, and rows of houses as far as the eye could see. Compared to beautiful oak savannas and naturally grown trees, it was a bit of a shock.

After that wore off, I turned to the upcoming delights of the 4th of July. For the first time in over four years, I won't have to work on the 4th. I'm positively giddy. I think I'll be in Northfield. I know that Jimmy, Meg and Grant will be, too. Is anyone else hanging around campus? I have three hours left of work... not including a lunch break. And, I've nearly finished a major project. The sky is blue. The lakes are clear. I'm a green and it's time to celebrate!