2010 in review

SPRING:

New Years day at Grandma's & seeing Avatar and getting a headache at it & FINALLY seeing Muna & seeing Fantastic Mr. Fox & visiting old friends and going into school & watching the Golden Globes & the new Project Runway & watching Lost with Megan & my first real dance party & the Olympics (and that hockey final and dinner afterwards) & Monroe lunches & getting IHOP with small group and going ice skating with IV & making cupcakes for Monroe & campus golf & squircle dinners & DC with Jamie Andrea Jessica and Samatar & Shutter Island & meeting Dani & becoming friends with Kelliann and Emily & Dance Marathon (VELOCIRAPTORS) and how we slept in except for Diana and how I had to go to dinner when I woke up & being pretty with Danyah & getting overrides & the awesomeness that is adventuring with Marynn & Wren 10s & lunch bunch & changing into my King and Queen's dress like five times & Pancake House & Sleeperstar and cupcakes and movies & finals and tooooo muchhhh mountain dew

SUMMER:

ROCKBRIDGE and becoming retreat friends with Jenn and actual friends with Katie & the LOST FINALE with people who knew it and people who didn't & getting dinner with the Zingers (they have a BABY) then moving into Jamestown with Jamie and watching Whip It which is not a game & becoming friends with Taylor and hanging with the summer gang & trashy playlists and so many adventures in cars (me calling shotgun) & Cake Boss and Toddlers&Tiaras with Taylor and Will & cup wars!!! & trying to do research and going to the beach instead & pretending to follow the world cup & free cheese shop & going to the zoo and getting cupcakes with Kaveh & shopping for Shevy's father's day present & making goat soap & seeing Inception and the Mets beating the Nats and so many fireworks with Chelsea & changing three times in one day with Katie & summer small group & CHICAGO and Jamie and Julia & Langton and the Cardinals and coffee and more Project Runway & Ethan and pizza & taking Mom to Georgetown & seeing Something Corporate with Ross and Megan and then the second half of the event & actually getting Chipotle with Czaplyski & catching up with Mrudula & seeing Maroon 5/Owl City at Jiffy Lube Live lolol Leah & finally getting a cheesecake dinner with our group

FALL:

moving in and skyping Abby and rearranging the room with Katie and bringing the ginge some food from the cookout & screen on the green & DOUBLE DOWNS & starting out small group with Maggie and apples to apples & the one time Jessie and I actually watched Veronica Mars & the bacon party & the pasta party & meals with Medina & rush week and pledge meetings & meeting the geology department and stargazing with Jamie and Night Marisa & Kaila's birthday & NEW STUDENT RETREAT and meeting so many new kids & testing out fed challenge & Kennis's baptism and bacon yummies with Emily and Jamie & a-fam dinners and bowling & green&gold & adopting Marigene and Kris & learning about rocks with Diana & chick flick sundays & doing Diana's clue with Jamie & lunches with Maggie & Jamie's birthday & working on my monroe project with Julia and Megan & coming up with halloween costume ideas with LJ (and our later contemplation) & Fiona's homebrew and being late & trick or treating & hanging with Carolyn and doodling with LJ & quitting NaNo & having four halloween costumes & the cider run with Chelsea & our Monroe reunion dinner & Expressions and formal & Melanie visiting (sarcasm) & skyping Lisa and Muna and Chelsey & M&M DD which happened like twice & Fakesgiving and the epic group chat & the special social & meeting with Sarah Parks & fall conference & seeing Deathly Hallows & a blue clue week and a lulzy revelation and a-big points and escort & eating pie and looking at Walex's pictures with Natalie & Krismas with a K & West Wing Wednesdays & exam craziness with Abby & our suite Christmas & ChrisDao's profile pictures & my small groupies :)

WINTER:

as in the last week...making Megan's mix cd & getting lunch with Ashley & making fudge & shopping with Chelsea & setting up the tree & LJ's phone call :)

My novel lolol

So...I've decided to let people read my most recent novel. And by most recent, I mean the one from 2009. I started a novel this year and it turned into a lengthened short story and it never really went anywhere so I quit at around 11,000 words (which is granted a huuuuuuge short story). So I have a few things to say about it (if you recall this is the one about space/time travel).

If you want to read it, I'll email it to anyone over winter break. Just ask! The only thing that I ask is that you let me know what you thought about it! Writing is about a) expressing something inside of you and b) stirring up emotions and thoughts in your reader. I know I succeeded at a), but I'd like to know what kinds of things people get from reading it.

So with that in mind, here are a few of my thoughts on it. First of all, I started re-reading it and I actually don't mind most of it. Usually I hate reading my old writing because I'm like WHY AM I SO STUPID THAT'S NOT A THING. But in this case I was like, huh, that's kind of cool. I mean some of it is stupid because I started out thinking that I was writing one kind of novel and then it turned into another kind of novel. By which I mean that the journalist subplot at the end was entirely made up at the end to fill up some space and give some semblance of a resolution. I think it works okay and it also explains the random poems and introduction as some upstarty journalist who thinks that she can write prose, and in that way it's self-mocking and I kind of like that about it. Slash really like that about it. It's kind of a good out for bad writing.

Also, I intended on doing something with an event horizon and them literally getting caught on like a black hole or whatever and then having the question of whether they're in a reality or whether they can contact the outside world or not. I mean, you can still take that as a possible outcome of it I guess but I never emphasized that because I'm so passive in my writing style and it's all in them recounting the story so they're all biased narrators. I really wanted to play with that and have one of them outright lying about a lot of things but I kind of got lazy and that takes a lot of planning.

Also I am obviously in love with Alexandre. He's clearly my favorite and I always wanted to switch over to him but I forced myself to write from the other's view points as much as possible so I didn't run out of his parts. I mean, he's a dreamboat, everyone's in love with him, and he's such an intellectual and romantic and perfect. I tried to not make him too perfect but come on. He's fantastic. Andy's cool and all but I pictured this really pompous guy in my head for him (like Jeremy Renner with a bad attitude and obviously no mustache as that would be gross). Also kind of Woody from Toy Story. Speaking of which, the pilot (this is terrible I don't remember my character's name) looks like Kenneth from 30 Rock in my head. I don't know how other people pictured him...oh yeah and David (yeah? is that his name?) is like the cover of Richard Rodriguez's Hunger of Memory with a smaller nose. I don't even know what I had in mind for old guy. Oh man. I actually really like this novel as a whole which is strange because I hate a lot of it too, but that's just me fishing for compliments so pay me no mind.

Being twenty

So now that I'm pretty old, I think I'm pretty responsible too. I just came up with a list of twenty things to be responsible for over the next 364 days, and this blog post is now timestamped evidence of the fact that I at one point thought that this would be a manageable goal. It's certainly a good plan. We'll see where it goes.

Favorite people

When I say "you're the best," I do mean it. But I tend to say it a lot and it has got me to wondering...who are my favorites? There are a lot. I tend to like everyone for some reason. There's no particular order in general. But here are some of my favorite people ever.

Roger Ebert - I trust his movie opinions so much because he's old but he knows when something's marketed to younger audiences if it's good for them or not. I just love reading his blog and reviews and he's a wonderful writer.

Andrew McMahon - I love his voice, obvi, but his strength and sensibility are really cool too.

Adam Young - well, he's just silly.

All 74 people who ever see me online on facebook...you are wonderful. I was considering listing all of you and what I like about you but I realized there are too many of you and you are too wonderful for a short summary each! I could write a novel about most of you and I admire you lots and lots more than you know. I love the differences between us and our commonalities are pretty cool too. And if you never see me online on facebook, either I'm just not online enough (which I'm not) or we should talk more because the more I learn about a person the more I think he or she is amazing in his or her own individual completely unique and beautiful way.

And there are lots of amazing teachers (both formal and informal) in my life who I can't imagine who I would be without, and they're definitely on the list for their own wonderfulness but I feel like I'm rambling now.

I love people.

tribe choices

It's something we like to say a lot.

What'd you do last night?

Studied chemistry.

Oh, that's a tribe choice. I went to wawa and watched a Star Wars marathon.

I brought sunblock!

Look who's making a tribe choice.

Yeah, that's cool I guess. We all slip into saying it sometimes. But I just started thinking about what it means. It's really not about a tribe at all. Yes, it's sort of making fun of the school for saying that we should make good decisions (aka tribe choices), but what the phrase tends to be applied to situations where the individual makes a difficult choice, something that the rest of the tribe isn't doing. Most of the good decisions we make that are worth noting (as in, not just rolling out of bed and brushing our teeth) are ones that most people don't make. The tribe choice isn't popular, gets noted with a passing comment, and then is forgotten by everyone who didn't make it. So while everyone makes these choices once in a while (making them tribe appropriate...think along the lines of twamps, which we all are sometimes even though we aren't all total nerds all of the time), it's in going against the group that we make good decisions and get called out on them. Huh.

nanowrimo

It's pronounced naa-no-rye-mo (naa as in gnat, no as in got no money, rye as in there's a gnat on my rye bread, mo as in want mo' money) and it stands for National Novel Writing Month. Every year for the past five years I've written a short novel (50,000 words or more) within the month of November (30 days). Every year I get I asked what my novels are about and if they're going to be published or whether I'll let someone read them. The answer is always "I don't know."

So here's my real answer: I do know what they're about but they're pretty weird and take a lot of explanation. They're never going to be published and they would only be read after serious editing on my part...so, never? Maybe one day I'll write a novel someone will want to read and that I'll want someone to read. To give you an idea (and to keep it for my own records), here's a rundown of the novels from memory (the first four are on my computer at home).

2005: Shadow of Forever? (Or something equally ridiculous and purposely cheesy, I don't know)

This girl in high school is preparing for her junior year and gets her schedule...only to find that her classes are the same as last year's. She complains to her counselor who sees nothing wrong and she soon finds out that everyone is repeating the previous year, which no one thinks is weird. She has a crush on this guy. Her mom gets in a car accident. She goes to this cool place with a garden and meets an interesting old lady and eventually her crush comes to her and professes his love and she's all like thank goodness that was just a dream...and then he asks her if it really was one or not. The end.

2006: One Dink Short

Set in a small town newspaper office, the editor nobody likes ends up dead in the office one morning and nobody knows why. The new reporter is asked to investigate everyone's motives and is privy to their files. Everyone has motives. Someone gets blamed after a series of questioning and he insists he's innocent. Flash forward twenty years, it turns out that the editor in chief paid the new reporter (the protagonist) for something or another. (Basically it was an elaborate plan to get rid of the editor.) Intriguing!

2007: Scripting October

Andrea is a predictable girl who works for a big corporation and has a secret crush on the owner's rogue son, Jack Scarlett (lolol perfect naming right), but she's never actually met him. She fantasizes about him being perfect and standing up to his father and taking over the company and then falling in love with her. And then she meets him and gets involved in a hostage situation? I don't even remember how it ended or why the title supposedly made sense.

2008: no idea

1920's or sometime, Chicago, a respectable studious fellow gets caught up in his mother's family, a bunch of gangsters. They decide to let him in on their plan to rob the Federal Reserve bank of Chicago, and pick him as their inside man because he has no clear connections to them. He interviews and gets the job and meets a cute girl. They become friends. Then one day he's going to work and gets caught in a shoot-out near the train. The rest of the novel is narrated from his point of view as a ghostly being, from his family's failed plans to his mother's grief to his own eulogy. He gets really depressed about being dead, but then he finally moves on.

2009: Amaranthine Doubt

Purportedly the best of the bunch, this novel follows five astronauts through their travels in space (and time?!). It's based on an alternate history in which Franz Ferdinand was never assassinated and World War 2 is fought not based on this crime but because of the great depression (which occurred for other reasons). This elevated the space race between what is essentially the EU and NAFTA, so the first craft to be sent into space does so in 1936 with these five men. What was two years for them, however, was 60 years on earth. The novel documents them realizing that they were traveling faster in time, their communications with their families, them nipping a black hole (and losing their pilot) and them trying but failing to return to earth (basically they can't slow it down without their pilot). It's narrated by each of the men in short chapters, and towards the end it's revealed that these are a series of interviews being held in 2006 by a journalist who wants to find out how the pilot died. The men are idolized and none since them have kicked into hyperdrive (so none age slowly like they do)...one says that he could fall in love with the journalist just as he did a previous correspondent, but she ends the novel saying that her life is waiting for more contact from them and that she doesn't want to fall in love, just document their story and pass it on for the next listener. It all sounds cooler than it really is, though, because everything is told passively.

So that's it. Pretty strange? They all have reasons and meanings but I'll leave those for future analysis.

becoming an adult

Why is it such a struggle for people to admit to themselves that they're adults? I want to put it off as long as possible because I feel the same way that I did last year and the year before; there is no one achievement that makes you an adult (contrary to a common belief perpetuated by various sources). I know I want to avoid major responsibility for another couple of years but I don't want to be a kid forever either. We seem to want what's worst for us, just as I'm attracted to carrot cake instead of carrots and chocolate chip banana bread instead of bananas. I mean, who needs fruit or vegetables when you can eat desserts incorporating them? Anyway, we want to make goofy memories with our friends instead of making good use of our time and responsible decisions, but we also want to be free of our parents' control. We want unhindered freedom, and that comes with adulthood--but so does responsibility for making those freedom-inspired decisions. There's nothing wrong with being a college student (taking silly pictures and staying out late even though we have to wake up at sunrise), but it has to end and nobody wants that too soon. We want to be students, and somehow we can't do that and be adults at the same time.

I think the only way to change this is a personal decision--it's a matter of perspective, after all. I think I have to recognize that I'm always going to be a student, whether formally or informally. And based on that frame of mind, I can recognize that I can be an adult and a student; therefore, I can be an adult now. Or you know, maybe in a few months.

the power of names

Everyone knows names are important. Hermione Granger wouldn't be our favorite know-it-all in quite the same way if her last name were Puckle (not a random example: Rowling originally chose this last name for her; now you know I'm a Harry Potter nerd :)). When I'm writing stories, the character names take days of deliberation: Andy Smith is not the same and cannot be thought of in the same way as Arthur Smaggasgale (Google it). Andy's a typical guy who doesn't like work...Arthur strives for perfection and wears knitted sweaters instead of baseball caps. No comparison. Arthur's a cooler character.

You know how everyone responds to their own name and it's like the most important word to them? It's true whether you have a popular or unique name: it's special to you. If someone says my name they're usually referring to me. I kind of don't like the fact that other people have friends with my name...because I don't want to be confused with anyone else.

And everyone spends time thinking names for their kids. For guys it probably starts several years after girls, but my friends have all listed some of the cool names they're thinking of...some of them are completely unique, some are unusually spelled, some have family significance. All of them are important in some way.

So what's really cool to me is that God knows us by name, and he recognizes that names are important too. Some people he gave names to before they were born and some he gave new names to in order to reflect a change. I really like in Hosea how he gives names to Hosea's children: Jezreel (as punishment for the massacre at Jezreel), Lo-Ruhamah (not loved) and Lo-Ammi (not my people). But instead of letting these names continue to describe Israel, God says he will call them by new names and says "I will show my love to the one I called 'Not my loved one.' I will say to those called 'Not my people,' 'You are my people'; and they will say, 'You are my God'" (Hosea 2:23). How neat is that? God changed these horrible names into promises of mercy.

But what really struck me was the importance of a name is a classic story. When Mary Magdalene comes to the empty tomb where Jesus had been buried, she cries because she believes someone stole his body. He appears to her and asks her who she's looking for; she responds with an even temper that if he has stolen the body she wants to know where it is so she can get him. Now here's the neat part: "Jesus said to her, 'Mary.' She turned toward him and cried out in Aramaic, 'Rabboni!' (which means Teacher)" (John 20:16). He knows her by name and in the moment he says it he reveals himself to her. He doesn't say anything about himself; he chooses her name.

So it just struck me that God knows us by name - "He put the stars in the sky and he knows us by name," right? - and he knew us before we were thought of by anyone else. And if our names are so special in defining us, how much more powerful is his name? Just a thought.

why?

I need a new blog because I like starting fresh, like when I pull out a new piece of paper and forget everything else I've ever written and just have to go with whatever my pen spits out. Also, I feel like facebook notes are tacky for this sort of thing.

So now when I look back on this I'll be reminded of why I wanted a new blog, but I won't fully understand it because my mindset will be different. That's ok. I like insisting to myself that I'm the same person all the time, and while it's true to an extent, my memories, thought processes, decisions and interests do change (five years ago I would have included a comma after decisions; now I consciously point out that I exclude it; maybe later I'll make a different decision). I like that. Who wants to be the static character?

One letter short...what does that mean? It comes from the title I came up with for my 2006 NaNoWriMo novel, but it's different. I like the idea of "letters to..." something because it makes me sound important. I also like the idea of "one...short" because it makes me sound flawed. My name is one letter short of what everyone assumes it should be and likewise I'm always going to be incomplete on my own (it's not really a likewise statement but I really like the sentence flow).

I like taking pictures of bugs because I'm scared of them and when I pull out my camera it's like I'm protected by a photographer's shield. I know I'm not invincible but if I document the experience and look at it as just a little insect it makes me feel better. Even if it's just a little ladybug.

I also like playing with foreground/background stuff just because it gives different perspectives. It's ok if it turns out blurry or there's too much flash or it just doesn't work out...I just like trying it. I like to think I'm doing something new and original even though it's been done (better) before.

I really just like taking pictures and then seeing what it means to me. Why did I do this? Why did I create this? I will look at this blog with a similar eye in the future. So. Marisa, I guess this is my space to compose and create and pray and explore. Maybe more later.