peace and rain

I marvel at how wonderful it is to be on campus when most people have already left. It's a tranquil Wednesday night and the rain is falling outside my window onto some much needed earth. I also marvel at how good it feels to have a nearly-empty room. Right now, 501 Larson is clean and open and I just feel at peace inside of it. There is little clutter, no posters or bits of paper tacked to the walls. It's like the man-made image of nature. I only wish Jimmy was still around! It's lovely to have some time to think and be peaceful, but I know I'll have a lot of quiet nights this summer after work and I wish I could just be with him for right now. I talked to him on the phone, so that's some consolation. But still, perhaps there's a sweet calm to this melancholy that makes it much easier to bear than the confinement of home. I could live like this for months on end.

cursed superego!

I think I've figured out what my problem is! I have an overactive superego! I'm way too rule-conscious with other people ("oh, that's not polite!") -- blah blah, so who cares? No one will suddenly hate you if you're not on your best behavior. I think my superego is my parents! Guilt, catholicism, academia, being "perfect" and "good" all time. My superego is the messed up one, I should just not worry! While I love Freud, I do have a bone to pick with him: I don't think that your entire personality is formed by the age of 5! Look at me! Until age 5, serious parental depression was out of the picture! It was after age 5 that that set in and I got pretty messed up hearing all kinds of traumatic things, like what a bad kid I was. So honestly Mr. Freud, sheesh! J/k. It's ok. Everyone has history. Sometimes it's just really crippling, that's all. Anyway, thus ends my con-prompted ponderings. :) Nighty night all you Freudian sex fiends!

HAHAH! Houston, we have TITLE!

Mwa hahahah! Blogger rocks my world. I decided to boycott studying for a bit longer in order to check out my potential blog possibilities. Y'all can comment and such. How exciting! It's time to bite the bullet (or perhaps the contralto mouthpiece?) and get ready for jury, finals, and other such important events in the next day or two. Good luck everyone!

itunes!

My computer got a facelift! I'm so proud! It's all beautiful with Mozilla and itunes! I'm excited to perhaps clean up some of the junk I've got about... :) yay!!!

Lauren = slacker

Halloa! I feel like a bit of a slacker for taking a 12 day blog break, but ah well.

Exciting things have happened! I have an internship! It's at the MN Pollution Control Agency and I'll be all over the state take lake water samples to analyze and look for trends in MN water quality. It should be fun, but it'll be mighty tricky to figure out how I will a) commute, b) balance my time between Chanhassen and Northfield and manage to get from place to place with gas prices, c) squeeze in orgo someplace since i won't be taking classes this summer.

What else... hmmm... it's getting to be that time -- moveout! My neighbors on the 5th floor have all began to move boxes around and have their parents take loads of stuff home and here I sit with a lot stuff to pack up and put into cockroach-infested Mellby storage. This, my friends, is why we invented plastic! Six storage containers ought to fit a lot! Hopefully? Haha... ummm... yeah. Now it's off to the last class of the year. Craziness.

Hmmm... this is going to be a terribly deep and thoughtful post, but I want to list the delicious movies (yes, I said delicious) I've seen lately that I highly recommend.

Big Fish -- The movie floats by like a dream, with the same bizarre characters and settings, but it's hilarious and absolutely tear-provoking in places. At the end, you feel that life is worth living and one must strive to understand it all. Moreover, Ewan McGregor is hott. With two "t"s.

Love Actually -- This movie has been on in our room too many times to count in the last week. It starts by saying love actually is all around and by god, it makes its case well. There are too many fine Brit actors to count (Colin Firth! Colin Firth? Colin Firth!!!!) and the various stories all interweave nicely.

Finding Nemo -- Disney and Pixar should always make movies. Or rather, Pixar should go all dominatrix and make Disney its bitch. I love this movie! Everyone loves this movie! That's reason enough, besides the way cool marine ecosystems and talking specimens one enounters while watching.

Star Wars -- Go for the classics, go for the gold. Honestly, that's the pinnacle of our favorite galaxy far, far away, though Yoda's lightsaber scene in Ep. II kicked some major ass. Still, nothing beats Sir Alec Guiness, banter between Leia and Han, an animatronic Yoda with bedhead, and Mark Hamil's only real acting roles.

Lord of the Rings -- Who in their right mind wouldn't love these movies with an open heart? They're like one giant orgasm with everything you could ever want in your life. Wow. Go Peter Jackson. Go hobbits. Them's the best darn films y'all'll (?) find round these parts. Seriously.


Other ones I need to buy: American Beauty, Chocolat, Matrix Revolutions (or the original for that matter), Office Space, but these are all classics, at least in my book.


And now I'm done. I hope you've enjoyed this lovely regression -- Have a good evening!

Wow! I just wasted many minutes of my life with this sad but strangely enticing game: happy battings!

Though sadly the curator of this site cannot spell "penguin" nor will the blogger let me actually add a link (alas!), so copy and paste and it's worth your time.

http://home.tele2.fr/kcv/pinguin.swf

I'm telling my little brother that there's something wrong with me and it's absolutely heartbreaking. How do you tell someone you love that well that you're sick? I can't stop crying, but I've realized that a lot of people don't know what's going on with me and I ought to tell them. I feel like I've unintentionally hurt feelings by being sensitive about things like getting enough sleep, finding a place to sleep, being exhausted, or getting sick a lot. If you were one of them, I'm really, really sorry. Ever since having mono in high school, I noticed that I didn't have a good immune system and I never seemed to feel rested. It got a lot worse when I came to college, so that it is hard for me to sleep at night, much less get enough sleep, and be able to feel healthy and go to class. It was getting really bad so I decided to go to the doctor. About a thousand visits and blood tests, we ruled out everything and I had enough symptoms to get the loose diagnosis of "chronic fatigue syndome." Basically, my body doesn't sleep the way other people's do. No matter how much sleep I get, I don't wake up feeling good or rested. If I get less than 8 or 9 a night (which is hard with 8am classes), I feel nauseous and dizzy sometimes to the point of not being able to sit or stand. I usually have a headache and just going through the motions of a normal day completely wipes me out. It's hard to get through college and work and activities like band and still do well, but I'm trying. I think I can lead a normal life as long as I'm careful, but I just want everyone to know what's going on. I know we all have problems that are difficult to deal with, but it feels good to get all this out finally. Anyway... it's time to sleep. :) Goodnight.

Hi everyone. I haven't posted in a while because I haven't really known what to write. It's been a really difficult week for me CFS-wise because of the tests, sleep hazards, and the eco lab in the rain. I wish I could just normally deal with homework and school and have a normal amount of feeling sick and being dizzy and exhausted, but that's just not possible. I want to not get frustrated when I feel like people don't get it, but sometimes I find myself getting mad, like it's just not fair. I need to get over it, I know.

And so here comes ponderance numero deux:
It's true that your upbringing has a lot of effect on your personality. I feel like a lot of things about how I was raised were wonderful: I know what it means to work hard, to be frugal, to disappear into your imagination, to love the Earth and the creatures within it, and have been encouraged in all things academic. However, I feel like I didn't learn how to be happy, how to be totally honest with people close to me without worrying that they would take advantage of vulnerabilities, how to feel confident in myself, or how to just live without worrying about something or feeling sad about something. All these need to be relearned and some things simply put into the past. I am having trouble doing this! I wish I could go back to what my nature was before things got bad at home and start over, but I know I'd be a different person and that would be no good. Oh well -- what's the point of life if not to travel from the person you used to be to the one you will become?

Well... time to go to work. :) Happy evening all!

Hmmmm... Easter was lovely. Had a great time at Jimmy's, like I always do. I feel more free away from home and academics both. However, the start of class again smacked me upside the head. Four hours on the lab paper from hell not counting many more hours spent in lab. It'll be about two days until I am in my room to relax. Oh well. The band is performing at MENC and off I go!

However, the best part of today was undoubtedly roomdraw because I am going to be an RA IN MELLBY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! YAY! I'm so excited for training that it's sad! :)

So, that's all for tonight -- time to cram a chemistry assignment into my rehabilitation moments before bed.

I was napping before our French petite examen but I'm afraid that I just cannot ignore some hunger pangs and it's time to munch. Cheese and crackers a wonderful part of existence. I know I've babbled on about them two posts ago, but honestly, YUM! I think I would be content roaming around outside with friends, sleeping under trees, and eating hunks of bread, meat and cheese as meals forever.... just like Robin Hood! I remember reading the full and arduously difficult version of "The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood" when I was younger. It was so thick and difficult that it was all my reading points for the whole quarter. But I never forgot that idea of freedom... just to be outside, to live simply, and to follow just and noble causes. What decadence have I been living since then? I think that college is (and is rightfully so) an inherently selfish time because it's all about you. You pursue your own education, tastes, and pursuits and hopefully these are tempered and at the end you emerge as a butterfly of sorts. Still, I always feel I'm missing something large and vast and that I can just barely taste it to know it's there yet still outside my grasp. Maybe it's religion, maybe it's freedom, maybe it's just as simply as some truly free time. But it's out there and that's what matters.

This was a great weekend. The band concert went well. I read outside. I spent some quality time with the Jimmy. I talked with my roommate. I went into town with the Megan. I didn't leave all my homework for Sunday. I saw my mom and my brother. And now I'm going to talk with friends, do some chemistry and feast on tea and a poptart. Yum yum.

Friday!

I spent my absolutely favorite time of the week outside reading, and inside watching Jeopardy as I finally hung up some posters in my room while munching on some good cheese and crackers. In an hour, the Jimmy is going to show me all the food and plans he's been concocting for our "Six Months Observed" festivities. I love Fridays! On what other day of the week do you get forced to be productive and then are rewarded with relaxation and the prospect of a whole weekend??? Mmmm... blue skies smiling at me, nothing but blue skies do I see.

Ok, so the last month has been rough. But everyone goes through these bad times that test the soul and strengthen the character. So you buck up and get through it and something will start going your way. However, if nothing starts to get better and the downspiral just keeps going farther and farther, then what do you do? Being at school isn't fun at all and you dread it, but then going home only seems to make everything worse because all your family ever does is scream at one another. I was hoping that Spring Break would give me a breather so I could start with new patience, but living in one's tiny bedroom eating on your lap because you want to avoid the chaos out your door isn't at all comforting and I wish I could just be done with everything. Grrrrrrrrr.

Happy Spring Break to everyone!

Larson 501 is a bower of luxury, full of futon, large living space, and christmas lights hooked into a clapper. It was really sad to look at 612, all empty and sterile-looking, and lock the door for the last time. I picked it in room draw and fell in love with it, so I guess it'll always feel like home. Still, Vanna has been wonderfully sweet and I feel like the end of the year will be better.

ANYWAY! :) Jimmy went home today after spending the week with me at home and at Grant's. Sometimes I'm afraid that I forget how good we are together! Jimmy is my other half and it's easy to look over how natural that feels until woop he's driving away and suddenly I think "wow, I'm never gonna meet another guy like that in a million years." I suppose it's good for life to feel normal as long as you can remember the wonderfully little things. Mmm... like manically doing one's hair in the mirror.

Happy travels everyone.

Now that I know so many of you keep up with the happenings at Mansfield Park, I'm sure you'll wonder where my entries went. I decided to take them out because they were being misunderstood and I want to avoid judgment for recording what I'm think here. So, other than some news briefs, I am going to keep the blog pretty fluffy for the next several entries.

News:

-I am moving out of my room to hopefully another place in Larson. It gets sticky because I can't leave the dorm if I want to keep my desk job, so I am going to explore vacancies on the 2nd, 5th, and 9th floors.
-With any luck, this will be an empowering and sanity-saving decision for everyone concerned.
-If you're on campus for Friday night and want to help me move (yee-haw), please drop me an email at andersol@stolaf.edu.

What else! Hmmm... lots of decisions for everyone come out this week, so good luck RA/JC/summer job/study abroad hopefuls -- I'll be wishing you luck!

4 days until the end of classes... we can do it!

omg... look at this message I got while trying to change my password: Please avoid two-word combinations like "chas" and "kategorische". needless to say, they were onto my efforts to "kategorische". damn them.

-omitted-

Tonight is the night of the environmental studies discussion reunion with Beth and Brittany at 5:30 for dinner! YUM! And of course, tomorrow is Jimmy's birthday, so I have lots of fun stuff to get ready for him. :) Talk to you all later and have a great night!

-omitted-

Hey guys... I'm realizing my quaint little blog has a larger readership than I had previously thought. I'd like to clarify a few things:

-this is a journal for me to talk about my life, the world as I perceive it, and a place to vent.
-it is not meant to put anyone else down or to make pointed comments intended to hurt, frustrate, or anger anyone
-things written here are recorded as I observe them and view them and I realize it won't be 100% impartial because nothing really ever can be
-the link in my profile (which I will be deleting tonight) says "read at your own risk" -- I realize that things that go on in the world and in everyone's lives are often controversial and mine is no different, so please do not hold me accountable for recording what happens to me and how I feel about
-if you have a problem with what you read here, I suggest writing me an email or coming to talk to me -- it would probably make you feel better in the long run
-and speaking of talks, I'm all for honesty, but I think that true honesty incorporates a considerable amount of compassion, politeness and some tact

Phew, I think I'm done for the moment. This has been the worst few days I've had yet in college and that includes being very depressed for most of last year. A little understanding would be greatly appreciated and it's no less than I would do for any of you.