Climb, Climb Up Sunshine Mountain...

Update: the Health Center has sent me into isolation at Mount Hope. Apparently, I do in fact have The Swine. Or at least enough symptoms to put me in quarantine. Woohoo. Basically, they didn't even do a test; the nurse just took note of my symptoms, took my temperature, declared it too high considering I'd taken Tylenol a few hours earlier, and told me to go home and pack a bag.

Which means if I don't have The Swine and actually have, like, a cold or something, I will probably get it from being isolated in a house with other Swineys. My housemate raised this very valid point to me earlier, and it is a little concerning.

This should be fun.

More importantly, I can't believe I didn't bring my camera...this place is crazy. Basically a huge mansion sitting in the middle of acres and acres of green. Chandelier and old-style fridge and all. It's such a temperate, gorgeous day that the winding drive up here was like something out of a period-piece movie. Minus the fact that the driver, the other kid in the car, and I were all wearing surgical masks. As we made our way off campus, a little piece of me died in shame every time someone looked at me through the car window with such fear and judgment in their eyes. They saw that mask and knew I was a dirty, flu-carrying danger.

I'm in a lovely room with two other strangers/compatriots, debating if I should go join the movie party downstairs, write my Shakespeare paper, or just take a nap. Probably the last.

I also didn't bring my phone charger, but one of my friends/housemates is on his way over so hopefully that will be remedied soon.

Peace out and see you on the other side.

Illest Girl on the Block

After my confident declaration last week that I would not get sick because sickness would NOT fit into my schedule, never mind that 4 of my good friends were simultaneously ill, I woke up this morning with a foreboding tickle in my throat.

And a weird soreness in my chest.

And a strangely warm forehead.

But never mind. I shall carry on. There is much to be done today.

Plus, my school's isolation plan for H1N1 involves taking students to a place called--no joke--Mount Hope to be quarantined. For the longest time, this was only a contingency plan, so we finally relaxed into believing it would never happen.

...Until the end of last week, when the whispers and the rumors began. "Have you heard? Alfred was taken to Mount Hope!" "I just talked to Dora. She's leaving this afternoon." "They're taking her, too?!" No official word came from above to let us know that the contingency plan had been made a real-life-right-now plan, but friends and acquaintances quietly vanished from campus, packing their bags to go to Mount Hope. Never to be seen again.

More like Mount Doom.

Dun dun dun.

Just kidding. Actually, when I found out my friend was being taken to Mount Hope on Friday, I laughed for about 10 minutes and then texted her to say, "Tell me what it's like when you get there!!" I've been envisioning clean white sheets and fluffy towels and nurses who wear those little caps, like from WWII movies. And soothing voices that tell you to focus on getting better instead of worrying about school. I wouldn't mind one of those voices in my ear right now.

Anyway, what I've got is much more like a boring old cold, sans sympathy, which three of my other friends had last week. As long as it doesn't devolve into strep or anything, I'll just have to soldier on. How terribly lame. (Therefore, the title of this post is obviously pure hyperbole, in more ways than one.)

Speaking of health, here's an old link from earlier in the week: Nicholas Kristof on the health care myth. As in, "America has the best health care system in the world." I've been sick [ha, ha] of hearing that one for months now, because it's just not true. Regardless of what you think about the proposed reforms, it's stupid to say we don't need ANY reform because we're SOOO AWESOME. If you're going to take a stand against Obama's health care reform plans, at least man up and say it like it is: "Yes, our health care system is broken. It's not okay that the U.S. ranks 31st in life expectancy, 37th in infant mortality, and 34th in maternal mortality. There are obvious disparities in the quality of health care different segments of our society are receiving. But no, these proposals are not the solution..." You can even take it a step further and get useful: "But THESE are." 'Kay?

Signed, Sick and Grumpy.

Things that Have Nothing to Do with Anything.

Miracle: I'm at 6,745 words, which is right around the target for today. Granted, it's only 4 days in. I'll probably fall off the word count wagon somewhere around the middle of next week.

Terrible: Everyone is sick. I'm scared. Like actually scared, guys. I want to quarantine myself in my room and hibernate. Okay, that's not actually a sign of my fear. It's a sign of my general laziness and love of sleep. And my room. But still.

Miracle: Someone found my ID card and returned it to me.

Terrible: SCHOOLWORK.

Random: I am now switching topics.

[This story is from a month ago.]

Today when I was walking to my 1:10 class, trusty cup of coffee in hand, because I always fall asleep in that time slot without it, I saw a girl walking in my exact path, only from the other direction. She was also Asian and around my size, but she had short, shaggy hair and was wearing an oversize beige sweater and baggy jeans, while I was wearing a bright pink shirt and brown boots. Our eyes met, and at just the moment when I lifted my cup to my lips to take a sip, she raised a cigarette to her lips. I swallowed. She exhaled. We passed each other.

It was weird.

[Back to real life.]

Oh, but speaking of boots. Because we were. I have a love-hate relationship with boots: love them in theory--tall-ish ones, I mean--hate them in practice, because they don't fit me. Sometimes they don't go over my calves, initiating great waves of self-doubt about the shape of the bottom half of my legs. Or if they do manage to fit over my apparently monstrous legs, they are entirely the wrong proportions, so they come up too high and leave a weird gap at the top because they hit me at a strange place. This is the great burden of the short-legged shorty.

I have bought boots that I like in the past, but I even forgot to bring them to school with me because the gap thing really bugs me.

When I got to Ireland, this became an issue, because I swear every European girl wears boots ALL the time. So I caved and started searching for my perfect boots: brown, slouchy, buckles, square heel. A tall order, because it was so specific. And miracle of miracles, I found those exact boots, a super-cheap pair, at Penneys, the world's greatest cheap clothing store. It was an Irish miracle. They were a size too big, so I wore thick, fuzzy socks with them and put in some gel cushions to prevent blisters...and then we were good to go.

And friends, I wore those boots...everywhere. All over Dublin, in England, in Scotland, in Italy. To school, to museums, to pubs.

See? In England, at the Tower of London.

I wore them so often that I wore them right out. Seriously--I wore the two-inch heels to little half-inch stubs. (They were cheap, so it wasn't that hard.) Sadly, I had to toss them out when my semester ended.

I sort of figured I'd never find boot-love again, but I recently ordered a pair from DSW that are working out okay. I was looking for flat boots this time (flat = comfy, and comfy = default when I'm at school). Brown. Sort of equestrian-style. The pair I ended up buying are SUPPOSED to be "mid-height" boots, but after doing some quick calculations in my head I realized that these boots would fit me almost like "tall" boots. Because I am about 2 inches tall.

So the moral of the story is...it's easier to find a good pair of boots than a good man.

HA. Just kidding. I crack myself up. That had nothing to do with anything.

Meanwhile...other things that have nothing to do with anything include the following pictures, which I found while searching through iPhoto for the one above:

I took this on Photo Booth one day in Ireland when I was having a lazy Saturday and happened to glimpse my reflection in the mirror. I was both horrified and fascinated by the crazy hair I saw there. So I took this picture.

This is from the Young Life fall conference-y thing senior year of high school. I edited at some point a few years ago, and upon rediscovering it, I really want to know what I did with that sweater.

Oh condiments. I took this in Howth (in Ireland), when I discovered the macro setting on my camera.


Ooh. And don't forget to keep the random suggestions coming re: the novel. I mean, I have a story, but at some point I'm going to run out of words and will need some filler, fosho.

November. Already.

*Thanks for all the room love, not that I have anything to do with how palatial my space is this year. This week was a huge blur, and now it's the end of the month, which is downright scary. I've been busy...studying, but not enough; working on my thesis, but not enough; hanging out with friends, but not enough. Definitely not watching enough TV. I have been dancing, though, and because my company is doing a "how other forms have influenced Irish and vice versa" theme, I've been learning old-style Irish ("sean nos"), which sometimes resembles tap...or really lazy contemporary Irish dance. And Scottish dance. And flamenco. It seems like everyday I wake up with a new muscle group sore.

*Okay. That was written on Saturday. I also had a Very Full Weekend. It included more dancing. Not the in-a-studio kind, though. Haha! Further bullets:

*I dressed up as the very abstract "night sky" for Halloween. Basically, I bought a crazy dress/top at the local secondhand clothing store and pinned a bunch of stuff to it. See: (I also had an awesome homemade star headband, not pictured...)


*I lost my ID card today. AGAIN. Somewhere between getting tea at Snack Bar and coming home 5 hours later. I do this several times a year; sometimes I'm lucky enough to be reunited with it. Other times...bleh. I have to buy a new one. It is the key to my house as well as my swipe card for dining and stuff, so. I need it. Obvs.

*Arabic and I are in a rocky phase of our relationship, where I go from being elated that we're getting along so well to feeling the loss of complete desertion in times of need. I'm only bothering to whine about this because I had an Arabic-full day and met with both my tutor and my TA today. And for the most part, things were okay. We clicked just fine, fell into our rhythm, did our thing. But it didn't feel like that at all yesterday; it felt like A was still mad at me for leaving for a semester and was getting back at me by burrowing into the recesses of my mind and sulking in a corner where I couldn't find it.

*NaNoWriMo has begun. I'm already behind. Oops. I just realized that November will be a stressfully busy month, and I'm frightened. Thank goodness I didn't have a meeting tonight like I thought I did, or I would probably have had a total breakdown. On the plus side, I picked a topic for my novel. It is fun, but a secret for now. I will only tell you that I am using J's suggestion about being inspired by songs as well as incorporating magical animals.

*If you have any other random suggestions you think I should try to work into my novel--words or concepts or little phrases--tell me now and then, and I will look for a way to do it. Like I did with Boleslaw. (Thanks E-love!) I think that would make things pretty hilarious.

*I had other things to say. But now I forget.

*Happy first week of November! Hope the wind doesn't sound like it's going to break down your window, wherever you are. And that you're not cowering under your covers because it's kind of scary. Not that I'm doing that right now. At all.

Room Tour!

Just a few more days to give me novel novel ideas (heh). Seriously, do it, if you haven't already.

Anyway. Long-awaited room tour! Here we go.

My room is L-shaped, and this is the short-end of the L. On the far right you can see the corner of the door, and my wardrobe and shoe shelf are right next to it. The shoe shelf is a new thing--I decided I needed some kind of table-surface by my bed where I could safely land my Macbook at night, so I dumped my shoes out of their crate and flipped it upside down. And then I needed someplace to put my shoes. I had to shift around my books, but I like it better like this.

If you stand by the shoe shelf with your back to the door, this is what you see. The black chair, disguised in the corner, I bought for 5 bucks at the Congo church tag sale. And there is my fake fireplace! I am still contemplating something to put up on the big wall space above it (so much wall space!).

If you stand with your back against the spot about where the mirror is in the previous picture, you get this lovely view of the long side of the L. My bed, desk, dresser, etc are all on that side. I should also note that my floor is never this clutter-free. Usually there are books and clothes piled up all over the place.

Now if stand by the desk and look at my bed, where I spend most of my time in this room, you see this. Heh. I didn't clean my bed area at all except for sloppily pulling my blanket up, so all the books/windowsill clutter is all-natural. Professor Boleslaw's in there somewhere. (Also, I Spy the Urbana 09 poster above my school calendar! And next to my Disney princess pictures, from another old calendar. Nice.)

If you sit on the bed and face the opposite wall, you can see my dresser, my jewelry boards (idea stolen from friend), bookshelf, and Container Store drawers that my dad and I bought before the start of freshman year. Like most of the stuff in my room, it has appeared in some form or another in every iteration of my living space at school. Also, the wall hanging is just a piece of fabric I bought in Swaziland.

Stay on the bed. Face the pillow. Admire the long wall, with the backdrop some of my girls painted for VBS 2008, a map of Howth, my fave Dublin getaway spot, postcards, etc. Fun fact: the mini-fridge is not actually turned on and serves more as a table than anything else right now. Somewhere between storage and transport, something in its inner workings jostled loose, and it is insanely loud when plugged in. It still functions fine, but I have no tolerance for that rattling.

And now for some detail shots. Shoe shelf + bulletin/white board + toiletries because we're not allowed to keep anything in our bathrooms--even though this is a house of nine, not a regular dorm building--to keep H1N1 from spreading.

I picked up these 3 bulletin boards for 50¢ each at the tag sale as well. And now I use it to store/display my jewelry. Not all of it. Actually, my 3 favorite pairs of earrings went missing at the end of the summer (aka I can't remember what I did with them, but I couldn't find them anywhere when I was packing). Sigh.

I only ever sit at this desk when I am desperate to get some work done and I know I'll fall asleep if I try to work on my bed. It has a nice view, though, and slants a little because the floor is slanted. When my friend was helping me move in, he declared that it was a "novel-writing desk" because of its old-school appearance and dreamy nook.

Speaking of nooks, there's a built-in set of drawers beneath a mini-alcove at the foot of my bed, and between that and the mantel of my bricked-up fireplace, I have a wide assortment of knicknacks, souvenirs, and gifts displayed. Including but not limited to: now-classic "BE MY GF" frames, bird lamp, cigar boxes, plates from Israel, plush narwhals, a Moroccan jewelry box, my collage from my artsy sesh with Fiat in August, plastic Belle figurine, and more. It's cute because I'm young, but when I'm old, all my tchotchke hoarding is just going to be creepy.

I decided to dress up my windows by cutting up and strategically thumb-tacking a bedsheet to the frames. I get a lot of sunlight during the day, so I usually leave my blinds up. On the other hand, when the sun sets, the lighting in my room is pretty bad because I forgot to bring my standing lamp. Also, I like having my bed against a window because it means I can stack up important books on my windowsill for easy access...like all of my "thesis research."

Wall stuff: scarves, postcards, photos and Fresh Ink cards, which have impressively accumulated over the years. That's what happens when your BFF is a former Hallmark employee...

If I weren't totally lazy, I'd snap some photos of our HUGE kitchen, living/dining room, and exterior of the house, too. But I am. So instead, I'll leave you with this glorious sunset picture, which I took through my window. The end!

Choose Your Own Adventure

A friend and I have been toying with the idea of joining in with NaNoWriMo this year. NaNoWriMo stands for "National Novel Writing Month," and it's when tons of people all over the country try to knock out 50,000 words in one month (November). I've briefly considered doing it before, but I usually opt against it because it pains me to think about churning out sheer awfulness.

But, I've decided that I'm definitely going forward with this because it's an exercise in seat-of-the-pants (SOTP) writing, which is not my strength. I'm an over-thinker, a too critical editor, and a bad plotter. So nothing I ever attempt to write moves forward. Therefore, the following excerpt from the About page basically why I'm doing this:

"Because of the limited writing window, the ONLY thing that matters in NaNoWriMo is output. It's all about quantity, not quality. The kamikaze approach forces you to lower your expectations, take risks, and write on the fly.

Make no mistake: You will be writing a lot of crap. And that's a good thing. By forcing yourself to write so intensely, you are giving yourself permission to make mistakes. To forgo the endless tweaking and editing and just create. To build without tearing down."

I've never really done that before--building without tearing down. Except once in a while when I'm blogging. I have serious doubts about whether I'll be able to push through a whole month, but I think if I set aside just a little time each day (perhaps cut out some of my aimless Internet wanderings), I'll at least have a chance. It could also prove to be a great procrastination tool. Most importantly, since I'll have someone doing it alongside me, we can "write laughably awful yet lengthy prose together" (also from the About page).

The most important thing, though: one of the rules is that you're not supposed to work on anything you've started before Nov 1, and you're not allowed to include any prose written before then. The reasoning makes sense: if you've already started it, you're probably invested in it, which will keep you from outputting laughably awful yet lengthy prose.

Anyway, all that means...I need YOU to be my idea factory. You have until Nov 1 to come up with a novel premise or inciting plot idea. It can be as outlandish or ridiculous as you want, for whatever audience or genre you like, and there is no limit to the number of suggestions you may make. This is not a serious undertaking. (The idea can be serious, too, though.) I will pick my fave and run with it.

Ready? And...GO.

More Music.

[Too lazy to update time stamp, so I'm leaving the one from when I wrote this.]

I am often behind the times when I'm at school in terms of music and movies. TV I can keep up with online, but without commercials, I never see movie trailers or whatever. Anyway, a few days ago I contemplated buying this song on iTunes (DON'T judge, you know you secretly like it, too):



Okay, I don't LIKE it, lyrically or otherwise (to be honest, I don't even really get it, and Miley's voice is way way overproduced on this track), but I like hearing it. It's good for spontaneous in-car dance parties. Which is why I also have "Waking Up in Vegas" in my iTunes.

I didn't end up buying it, though, because I got distracted by the Top Singles sidebar at the iTunes store, where I found, at #2, behind "Party in the USA," this song that you probably already know:



(Embedding is disabled for the actual music video, which can be viewed here.)

"Fireflies," by Owl City. I loved it immediately and was quite intrigued, so I went to Owl City's Myspace and Wikipedia'd him at the same time. This multi-tasking effort meant that right after I contemplated how uncannily similar this dude sounded to Matt Thiessen of Relient K, I discovered that Matty T was a guest vocalist on "Fireflies." Hah. In any case, I like. More of his songs here.

Also, The Swell Season (aka the lead actors and songwriters from the movie Once, which I wrote about, long ago, and for which I have even greater affection now that I've lived in Dublin) is about to release their new album. There was a great article in the NYT about them and this album. I'm a fan.

This and That, Lately

Gathering the tidbits, yet again. I keep starting/stopping posts, so I'm pulling the pieces together here. Also, I'm going to unload my camera soon, so watch out for pictures.

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From a while ago:

Over on Scot McKnight's Jesus Creed blog, a youth pastor named Jeremy Berg wrote a great post about the "dark side of Bible reading" with questions like "How does this apply to my life?" and "What does this have to do with me?" in mind. He offers a well-written, different posture for approaching the Bible. I think my favorite point is probably number 2:

Instead of "applying the Bible to our lives" (which again assumes we are the fixed center point and the Word is just a holy ointment to be applied to our souls) let's instead try to "apply ourselves to the Bible." Put narratively, let's not give God a convenient place within our own story; but rather find ourselves swept up in God's much larger Story!

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From last last Friday:

Friend: "Knock, knock."
Me: "No."
Friend: "Who's there?"
Me: "WHO?"
Friend: "I don't think we're doing this right."

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From last Thursday:

I laughed out loud:
"Today, I was helping my brother with his homework. He had to complete the sentence: "Mario and ___ were walking the dog" with either "me" or "I." Instead, he immediately filled in "Luigi." My brother is awesome. MLIA." [From My Life Is Average.]

Also:
"Today, I had to do a recording assignment for a language class. I was getting frustrated, so I finished the recording and sent it without playing it back. I listened to it just now, and you can clearly hear my father screaming at my brother to hide the body before Mom gets home. He was talking about a mouse, but my instructor doesn't know that. MLIA."

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Still Thursday:

This weather is insanely cruel. It's mid-October and feels like death outside. I'm being melodramatic, yes, but only because I'm so upset about not getting Mountain Day this year [because tomorrow's forecast pretty much seals the deal]. Also, I don't like that I've had to break out the winter coat already.

[Today: I eat my words, because we DID have Mountain Day after all. They called "Siberian Mountain Day" because I think they sensed a student riot on their hands. And it turned out not to be so Siberian, anyway.]

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Also Thursday:

My professors have made my day. I emailed the profs who wrote me recs to let them know I got an interview, and the one who is on leave offered to go over things with me on the phone (which I will decline because, as you know, I hate the phone), and the other responded by telling me that he "would have made a ruckus" if I had not scored an interview, at least. Haha! And finally, I ran into my favorite prof ever on the sidewalk today, and as I was abroad for a semester and he was on sabbatical last year, I haven't seen him in a while. He gave me a huge hug and immediately chastised me for not coming to visit him during office hours, so I promised I would soon and ran off grinning. He is the ultimate in cool and kind of a big deal for those who are in the know, so I felt, obviously, pretty cool myself.

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Are Women Human? An RJS post on Jesus Creed. An intriguing Dorothy Sayers excerpt is included. I love Dorothy Sayers; I think she's witty and sharp, and if you haven't read her Lord Peter mysteries, you should...along with me, because I'm woefully underexposed. My knowledge of her prose comes from random other sources, like her theological writings and a book I have about her. Anyway, here's the excerpt:

God, of course, may have his own opinion, but the Church is reluctant to endorse it. I think that I have never heard a sermon preached on the story of Martha and Mary that did not attempt, somehow, somewhere, to explain away its text. Mary's of course was the better part - the Lord said so and we must not precisely contradict Him. But we will be careful not to despise Martha. No doubt He approved of her too. We could not get on without her, and indeed (having paid lip-service to God's opinion) we must admit that we greatly prefer her. For Martha was doing a really feminine job, whereas Mary was just behaving like any other disciple, male or female; and that is a hard pill to swallow.

Perhaps it is no wonder that women were the first at the Cradle and the last at the Cross. They had never known a man like this Man - there never has been another. A prophet and teacher who never nagged at them, never flattered or coaxed or patronized; who never made arch jokes about them, never treated them as "The women, God help us!" or "The ladies, God bless them!"; who rebuked without querulousness and praised without condescension; who took their arguments seriously; who never mapped out their sphere for them, never urged them to be feminine or jeered at them for being female; who had no axe to grind and no uneasy male dignity to defend; who took them as he found them and was completely unself-conscious. There is no act, no sermon, no parable in the whole Gospel that borrows its pungency from female perversity; nobody could possibly guess from the words or deeds of Jesus that there was anything "funny" about woman's nature.

But we might easily deduce it from his contemporaries, and from His prophets before Him, and from His Church to this day. Women are not human; nobody shall persuade that they are human; let them say what they like, we will not believe it, though One rose from the dead. (p. 46-47 from 1981 printing)

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Finally, how hilarious is this video?!



(I think Brian's the one who sent it to me. Like three weeks ago. Hahah. But anyway.)

Okay if you read all that, you should win some kind of prize, because I doubt there's any one person who was actually interested in all of those pieces.

Bostonian Recap

I'm safely back home now, but I had a seriously wonderful weekend. I got to play with my cousins, whom I adore and miss already, chat with my aunt and uncle, hang out with my dad--who flew up to meet me--and eat DELICIOUS food. Plus, I came back armed with rice cooker (sent from home, hooray!), Korean foodstuffs (thanks to H-Mart and my aunt, hooray!), and a different duffel bag (boo). My dad confiscated mine and made me switch because apparently the raggedy old denim thing, purchased when I was...perhaps seven...is too embarrassing to use now. I bet he's going to throw it away. Sniff.

On Sunday I went to church twice, as predicted. I love visiting churches, so it was pretty much just fun for me. And I got to see Lannie, who graciously allowed me to barnacle onto her for the rest of the afternoon at the Topsfield Fair, where I saw animals, vegetables, and overpriced fair food.

On Monday my dad and I drove up to Gordon-Conwell to check out his old haunts. We toured his old lecture halls, his mentor's office, the location of his own office (he taught there, briefly, years ago), and all the food joints. We passed a KSA bulletin board in one of the buildings, at which point he told me the fun fact that he was the first Korean student there when he attended (if you don't include the one or two from when G and C were separate entities).

Then we went to Gloucester to eat a seafood lunch by the water, and Rockport to wander the streets and many many small art galleries. Dinner with the family at home, and afterwards we sat around the family room eating fruit (which I peeled and sliced--I am not completely useless in the domestic sphere, see?) and talking about family and church and ministry: we compared their kids and my brothers/me, finding astonishing similarities that are only now being revealed as their boys get older. At one point, we got onto the topic of modern worship music--having thought about this recently after Eric's post on the subject, I laid out my concerns (okay, complaints), only to learn that my uncle had been complaining about the same things of late. My dad made fun of me for being an old man.

There was a funny moment when my 10-year-old cousin came downstairs and sleepily asked us to "please keep it down," because he couldn't fall asleep. And I realized with a start that I'd become one of those dinner guest grownups, the ones I'd secretly resented for being allowed to sit around in the family room long after my bedtime, with their loud, inconsiderate laughter floating up the stairs. Sometimes I'd sneak out of bed and lie on my stomach at the top of the staircase, straining to eavesdrop on jokes I didn't understand. And now, finding myself on the other side of that familiar schema, I felt a jolt of wonder.

Today was a lazy day because of the windy drizzle outside. I hung out in my dad's hotel room and did some work, then dragged him along on my own pilgrimage, because across the street from his hotel was an Anthropologie store. I considered this to be beyond fortuitous, practically a sign from the heavens, because last week I spent an embarrassing amount of time sighing over the Anthro website and then eBay-stalking certain items for no reason. When I solidified my plans for the weekend, I briefly considered taking advantage of the city trip to find the Anthropologie store and just touch things for a while, but I abandoned that plan because of my notorious lack of directional sense and complete unfamiliarity with the city. So you know the word "magical" slipped from my mouth when I looked across the street as I entered the hotel, only to see that glittering mecca smack dab across from me.

Anyway, I bought a sweater.

But onto homework, I guess. The party's over. Big sigh. At least my room smelled good when I returned. I like my air freshener.

Driving to Boston + Jon Foreman

Driving to Boston along the Mohawk Trail was practically worth the 3-hour journey itself. First, as I left W-town, my mountains were bright and colorful and there was a fast-moving fog rolling over them at the very top, which was quite lovely despite the fact that I still didn't feel quite awake when I pulled out of my driveway. Plus, steering my way around those winding roads and hairpin turns (very slowly, of course) was pretty fun. But the best part was probably that the whole trail itself was a surprise--I almost followed my GPS and did the boring highway route, but when I double-checked on Google Maps, taking Route 2 seemed faster. So I picked it out of convenience, and every little thing I encountered along the way felt like a sudden treasure: the two black birds, swooping in tandem, wing-to-wing, above my car; the kitschy Native American gimmicks that popped up for a stretch ("Indian Powwow Here!"...whatever that means, and at a rundown auto shop parking lot, no less); the bright patches of sunlight breaking through the cloudy skies; the picturesque town of Greenfield, MA, where I got tangled up in traffic near the farmer's market; the unanticipated appearance of a bridge I had to cross, lined with camera-wielding autumn tourists, and the gorgeous expanse of river it crossed (some careful Google Maps detective work has allowed me to discover that this was the French King Bridge).

Being alone and silent in my car again while experiencing things was also nice. I broke out in smiles when I passed something interesting, hummed along to my music, and enjoyed the journey. Anyway, if I sound like a commercial for western-ish Mass, it's because I really do love it, and you should visit me sometime. Preferably in the autumn. That gives you about two weeks.

I am with familia now, and we went into the city for a bit this afternoon to explore Cambridge (I haven't been in years). Tomorrow I'm going to church with them--twice: the main campus (theirs) and the Brookline campus (where Lannie and my aunt's sister go). Supposedly David will also be there. Haha. Small worlds collide.

Finalmente, I listened to only one artist all the way over, and when I exhausted his music, I turned on my This American Life podcast. But I don't think I've really mentioned this music much even though these are easily my favorite album(s) of the past year, so here we go. (Oh oops, that was a lie. I mentioned one song like the day after I bought his music, here.) Anyway, you know Switchfoot? The lead singer/songwriter, Jon Foreman, released a handful of solo EPs last year. I've loved his songwriting ever since I accidentally/on purpose bought the A Walk to Remember soundtrack in, like, 9th grade. Little known fact: he wrote many of the songs on the soundtrack, including the famous "Only Hope" (and I like his version of the song a little better than Mandy's).

Anyway, his EPs--Fall, Winter, Spring, Summer--are a little more raw, experimental, and stripped-down than his stuff with Switchfoot. They're also both more blatant in their spiritual themes and more opaque in the way they explore them. If that makes sense. Clearly, it's not for everyone, but these songs somehow speak to me on an intense, internal level. I feel like he gets me, or maybe I get him, but he voices the things I've thought, felt, wished, wondered. Several of his songs are like prayers or psalms. Others are like playful conversations or haunting stories.

On a personal level, his music was about the only thing I could listen to when I was dealing with the crazy stuff (not the word I'm really thinking, but I'm trying to keep it clean) of last January. That's probably when I actually grew so attached to it. But on that first night alone in my hostel in Ireland, shaking with cold and grief and fear and rage, as hour after hour after hour passed while I lay in bed and tried to "shut it down," in desperation, I finally dug out my iPod and tried to find something to quiet my mind. When nothing else worked, I turned on Jon's music. "Learning How to Die" hit me in a literal and terrible place, and I wept through its entirety. "The Cure for Pain": same thing. But when the playlist rolled onwards and landed on "Your Love Is Strong," I found something turning inside me, and I cried still, but it felt different now...and somewhere between that song fading out and the final song beginning, I fell asleep at last. He ended up being my go-to music for the rest of the month.

So: I added a few songs I found randomly to the playlist on the right, if you're interested. And as a special bonus, added my favorite mashup ever right after them. Seriously--you won't be disappointed. Hahaha.