Nice Surprises

I was in the psyc lounge reading before class, and I had finished the massive chapter on the difficultly of naming learning disabilities so I went outside to smoke.  And I got a voicemail, and it was from Nathan.  

I thought that he was already in Japan, I did not realize how much I had missed talking to him.  And apparently I am one of the few people he wants to keep in contact with, I did not know I meant that much to him.  I am in his top five, that means so much to me.  But then again, we have been friends since middle school.  I am so excited for him and the experience he is about to have.  I am jealous actually.  I want to go spend two years in a foreign country.  He is going to change so much, and he went through miraculous changes in college.  

So I have to go home this weekend, I am going to help Michelle in Hillsville Virginia.  It is this huge flea market kind of thing and she has a booth, and so Mom and I are going to go up and help her Friday.  Since I am going to be home this Thursday I might get to see Nathan before he leaves for Japan.  That will be one good thing.

Graduation is in sight

So I am now taking four, yes, four psych classes.  All of them reading intensive and a few with some major writing.  But, I can do this.  I will have all nights free, and work on the weekends.  

That is if I get hired.

I ran all over campus today to get everything taken care of.  I went to class, declared my minor, sent an e-mail to Dr. Brown to get into research Methods 2, then realized this was the last drop/add day, so waited outside his office until he showed up and then got signed in.  But on the upside, there is not a book for RM2.  

I have some reading to do and then an interview to get to and then to the studio to do work for tomorrow and then class again.  So all I have to do now is get through all of these classes and in December I get to walk across a stage and get a VERY expensive piece of paper.  But I will graduate, and I will be fine.  

Super Parents to the Rescue

I talked to my parents today about having to drop my minor.  Mom listened and said that if that is what I need to do, then do it.  And then she called back.  She had talked to Dad and he did not hesitate to tell me that I was being ridiculous and that my education will always come first.

I knew that was true before, but the lack of an income has left its toil on my family.  I knew that I needed a job, that I need to be able to supply for myself to some degree, but Dad told me that I would never get this chance again.  Sure, I will now only be working weekends, and going home will not be happening, and I will be stressed to the max taking 16 hours and working 15-20 hrs a week, but I can do it.  I can still get my minor, and graduate in December and pay all my bills, except my rent, and live.  My life my not be include much buying, but since my bad influence spending friend is gone, this might be easier than I think.

Without my parents none of this would be possible, what can I say, I love them.

Bullshit Liberal arts!!!

I am having to drop my actually minor to take another quantitative class.  I was told that Stat 185 would fulfill my math and quantitative requirement, Tynes was wrong.  So I am having to drop the last class that would fulfill my minor, and take a math related course so that I can work at least two afternoons during the week and two days of the weekend.  I hate this.

I hate that I have to do the bullshit.  I don't need another fucking math requirement, I need to know how to deal with people, how to do what will one day be my job.  But I will still have the shit I need for grad school, just not my minor.  I am going to be stressed to max once I start working.  I have 9 am classes everyday, and it does not seem to matter what time I go to sleep, I am still tired at those classes.  But in 4 months it will be over.  I am counting down the days to 9 months of retail and no rent.

120 days to go until I walk.

Oh and I have an interview at Lane Bryant on Monday and I had one at Eddie Bauer today.  I want the LB one, but I just need a job, a way to make money and give some reprieve to my parents.

Old friends

So I had a weird experience the other week.  

I was in bed in Wilkes and my cell rings.  I was just getting up to get ready for work, and when I read the caller ID, I almost dropped the phone.  Wade called me.  I answered, but was in shock.  I did not know why.  And I still don't.

He is going to Western now, and just wanted to know if I was still in Asheville.  I wanted to hang out.  So I called him when I got back to Asheville.  And then last night we hung out.

I was nervous and sacred.  I did not know what to expect.  He was so cruel to me, but I have forgiven him, and thought that maybe he had changed.  And to my disappointment he had not.

He was still the same.  Still doing the same shit that I could not stand 3 years ago.  It was a superficial evening.  I did not feel any connection to him, I did not feel that he trusts me anymore than I can trust him.  Sure he divulged personal details from his life in the last 3 years, but I felt he did it to check my response, not to share with me or mend broken ties.  It was just because he was near Asheville.

I will never be close to him again, and I am surprising ok with that.  There was a time in my life when I thought that we would be friends forever, and now, he is just some guy I went to high school with.  No big deal.  I like that I can talk to him and it not hurt.  But the trust is gone, and I don't think that I will ever let it sneak back into my life.

He will forever be superficial friend, an old memory.

Out West Day 2 pt 2 and Day 3

Day Two part 2: Monday May 19th

So we continued driving into the night, and then Kristen and I see this sign.  A road sign that made us both squeal.  But before I can explain the excitement, I need to tell ya'll about a part of my friendship with Kristen.  

When Kristen and I were juniors in college, we started watching a cheesy television series that lasted a year in the early 90's.  Roar was a Celtic show that starred Heath Ledger.  It was amazingly awful, but it started a trend with us.  We next moved on the X-Files and then Kristen got to pick a show.  And she picked a show that was currently on TV and in its' second year.  It is the next generation of X-Files. Supernatural suddenly filled our lives.  Supernatural is a show about two young brothers that hunt the supernatural to make the world a safer place for the clueless to the paranormal.  The family in the show, the Winchesters, are from a small town in Kansas.  And we drove through Lawrence Kansas.  We got to be in the place that was the birth place of two of the sexiest hunters alive. 

Kristen is a Dean Winchester fan, while I love Sam.  Kristen likes the bad boy while my heart goes out to the sentimental smart one.  And we got to drive through the hometown of our Hollywood husbands.

Why, Hello there Dean.

Oh Sammy.

Day 3: Tuesday May 20th

I got up early yet again to continue driving.  Kansas was beautiful, nice rolling hills and lots of cows.  Which Aly and Kristen found highly amusing.  The quote "Julie, I gotta go, we've got cows" from Twister was quoted throughout the trip.  We stopped at another truck stop to shower, this time it was 10 dollars and Kristen and I shared the cost and shower.  Girl bonding at its' finest.  

Pretty Kansas Picture.

While in Kansas we saw several signs of the highway screaming at us to get saved and that abortion was a sin.  Nice conservative state, which we found highly enjoyable.  Kansas was beautiful until we were close to Colorado, and then the hills became flat prairie.  

After the shower, Kristen wanted to drive, and then the GPS got us lost again.  It got us lost early by directing us to a nonexistence truck stop.  Then it told Kristen to take a right to the highway when the highway was on the left.  We ended up a straight road out in the middle of nowhere.  The GPS kept telling Kristen to turn onto these dirt roads that ran through cornfields.  She would not do it, so I took over.  Kristen was convinced that we were all going to die at the hands of some back country farmer.  It was fine, although Aly swears that she saw a rabbit that could have eaten us.  

The rest of the trip was just driving to Boulder.  

Our first shot of the Great Rocky Mountains.

We made it to Denver just in time for rush hour, but then it was only a short drive to Boulder.  We tried to find a campground in Boulder, and the GPS took us to a country club and a dead end street.  After using two driveways and taking out a mailbox (joking, about the mailbox anyways) we made it to a KOA in Longmont, just outside of Boulder, we made camp.  We stayed that night in the wal-mart across the street to save money and go to camp ground the next day.

We drove to downtown Boulder and parked at a hotel and ate at a wonderful Mexican restaurant.  It was nice and peaceful.  Then we walked to the main campus of my school on Arapaho Drive.  It was a collection of building and homes and very artsy.  Then we went back to the wal-mart to sleep.

Out West Day two pt. 1

Day Two Part 1: Monday May 19th

So I got up early, at about 6:30 to take a shower and start driving.  I wanted to get to Boulder on the 20th, since my appointments were all on the 21st.  I really wanted to experience Boulder, since that would be were I could be living for three years.  So getting as many miles driven as possible, and during the daylight, I had to get up early.

So around noon, I stopped to let Kristen take a shower.  She has to have a shower everyday, and shave for that matter.  I had the generator running so that Aly and I could watch TV while Kristen showered.  Then Kristen started yelling about the water still being cold, and that the water stopped.  I get up from the couch and walk over to check the pump and I step in water.  Not just a little, but a puddle, and it was gushing from under the kitchen sink.  I open the cabinet and water gushes out all over my feet.  I jump up and turn off the pump, and Kristen gets out of the shower, only a little wet.  

The next hour I spent trying to reach Dad and try to fix the sink.  The hose had popped and the hole was right at the top of the tube and the sink did not have a shut off valve.  I tried stopping it, and it kept leaking.  After going through almost an entire roll of Teflon tape, the leak would not stop.  By this time I had to get back on the road, and the RV fix-it place we called could not see us that day.  

Trying to fix the sink.  Aly was relying Dad's instructions to me.

St. Louis, the Arch to the West.

I did not enjoy driving through St. Louis.  The highway took us straight the heart of the city, which was nice to see, but the traffic was horrendous.  I am keeping to the right hand lane so that I can drive slower and have a shoulder to use if I need to; and then there was a car on the shoulder.

This guy was on the side of the road and the driver decides to open his car door right as I am going by.  I slam on my breaks because his car door goes over the white line.  So when I put on the breaks, a 5 pound coffee mug full of pens and pencils falls from above my head and almost knocks me out.  And a flying pen barely misses taking out Kristen's eye.  That was the only incident in St. Louis.  I cussed the guy on the side of the road and then kept driving.  

Kristen, after not having her shower!!!

Kristen is the shower Nazi.  She showers and shaves everyday, and to not be able to made her slightly irritable.  The above picture was taken in jest, but it is true.  She was curt the whole day.  So I stopped at a truck stop to dump and replenish the water for when we did get it fixed in Boulder.  And Kristen being desperate for a shower went to ask the truck stop if they had public showers.  Even if I had not gotten a shower that day, I can survive three days without a shower.  But Kristen was determined, so her and Aly took a 6 dollar shower together.  Kristen was much happier after that.

It was Aly's job to dump, since she never drove.  Kristen was at least willing, so Aly took the dirty job.

Kansas City

One thing that needs to be said is that I had a dream, a dream of listening to Kansas in Kansas, and I got to live that dream on the second day of this trip. It was at dusk, so Kansas City was beautiful. We rolled the windows down and Carry on my Wayward Son blared from the speakers. Then we got lost.

We got lost in downtown Kansas city and I had to drive through the ghetto on roads that I had to do a five point turn to make a right turn at an intersection. But we eventually made it to the high-way and kept driving. I was not tired, so this was my first night driving experience.  

To Be Continued....

Summer is ending

My printmaking class is over, and I am feeling a little of a loss as to what to do now.  I have never gotten so close to a group in my class before.  I have hanging out with them outside of class, that has not been a norm for me in the last 4 years.  It has been nice.

I went with Tegan over to Ben's last night.  It was just the printmaking crowd and Ben lives in a fantastic house.  I am enjoying my life right now.  I am trying to live in the moment, and it has been easier.  

I applied at Target today.  I should be hearing back in about a week.  

Now I get to go home for a week.  I am excited about this.  I have not been home much in last month, and I miss my parents.  It will be a nice break before the start of the Fall semester.  Where papers and work will run my life once again.  

Saving the World, and myself

I can't sleep right now.  I went to bed at 12 and slept for a few hours, but then I woke up and life took a weigh in and I am awake.  I can't sleep due to the over whelming problems of money and what I am going to when I graduate.  

I know what I want to do, but I feel that I staring into dark abyss of the unknown.  I never knew how much I relied on my parents money as a back up to my wayward life.  I am an artist, a career choice I made thinking that I would always have my parents to help me.  Now that I know that it is all on me, I am doubting everything.  Can I make a living as an art therapist in this economic state.  I am going to be in a career that is not a necessity in life, and I have to put myself in major debt to do it.  I know that I want this, that I want to help people, I want my art knowledge to enrich others life.  But I am feeling at a loss to be able to do.

I know that a part of this is simply because I am feeling sorry for myself, that I am just wallowing in the unknown of my future.  But i can't help it. I cant make it stop.  It consumes my every thought, except when I am in the studio.  My art has always been an escape, a way to make myself feel better.  I finally understand what Kristen meant.  I knew what she meant when she said Mark was her escape, but I never felt that way about anything.  But before, my art was all consuming, I did not have the time to think about my life without it.  

The next 2-5 years will solely be art therapy, not studio related.  That scares me.  Writing papers and reading texts is all that my life will be.  When will I have the time to do art when I have three papers to write, 100 pages to read and a job so that I can live.  Do I really have the strength to do this?  Am I really good enough.  The critic that I had at the end of last semester surly said no.  I do believe that I can do this, damn it I can do this.  I work 20+ hours a week and still maintain my GPA.  And if that means that my art life gets reduced to my studio, so be it.  And later my art life will be reduced to simply drawing at night, so be it.  It will still be a part of me right?  

I am nervous about the fact that I need spiritual growth, but I recently realized that my art is my religion.  I have never felt more myself as when I am drawing.  It was never casting, or painting, always drawing.  Always making my mark.  And the thing about drawing, it can go with me everywhere.

I already feel better about this.  It was a moment of weakness in the wee hours of the morning.  But I am still scared of the future.  But I can do it.  I did my senior show, and it was hard, but I did it.  I can do this and I will save the world.