Stiffness

There's a stiffness in my joints

That comes from running too far

Running for miles, dawn to dusk, again

There is sweat and ache

And a stiffness

Or maybe it's from thinking about running

There's a stiffness in my joints

That comes from walking too long

Waling everywhere, without care,

Direction, and purpose

With a stiffness

Or maybe it's from thinking about walking.

There's a stiffness in my joints

That comes from standing all day

Standing straight and firm much too long

The work is never done 

It brings stiffness 

Or maybe it's from thinking about standing

There's a stiffness in my joints

That comes from sitting at least

Sitting through old and hard and sad

Why did I ever stand?

There is a stiffness

Or maybe it's from thinking about sitting.

There is a stiffness in my joints

That comes from flying at night

Flying up to places unreal

For they are too perfect

For the stiffness

Or maybe it's from dreaming about flying.

Updated Bucket List

1. Play a really good prank on someone

2. Run a 10k

3. Go zip-lining through the rainforest

4. Read Le Petit Prince and understand it

5. Watch all the Harry Potter films in a row without stopping

6. Meet... 

-Hank Green

-Neil Gaiman

-JK Rowling

7. Knit a blanket

8. Learn to crochet

9. Hike the Appalachian Trail

10. Grow a vegetable garden

11.  Go to...

- Italy

-Paris

-The Great Wall of China

-The gum wall in Seattle

-Disneyland

-Japan

-Antartica

-Yellowstone Park

-King's Cross Station

-India

-Australian Outback

-London

-Belgium

-Greece

-New Zealand

-Prague

-Istanbul

-The Grand Canyon
-Asheville

12. Sing kareoke

13. Hike El Camino De Santiago again

14. Marry someone I love

15. Go skinny dipping

16. Finish writing a novel

17. Have someone recognize me on the street from something I've done

18. Voice a character in a Disney animated film

19. Learn to ice skate backwards

20. Memorize the song "The Nations of the World" from the Animaniacs

21. Graduate cum laude

22. Appear on a game show

23. Have my palm read

24. Stop biting my nails

25. Ride on the back of a motorcycle

26. See a Ringling Brothers circus

27. Drink Champagne in Champagne, France

28. See the Yi Peng lantern festival in Thailand

29. Go skydiving (with a buddy)

30. Learn how to french braid

31. Win a short story contest

32. Give blood

Whelp, I haven't actually done much to cross off my bucket list yet...but that's okay! That's what dreams and goals are for, right? Right?

What Have I Been Doing?

So, I've been in Virginia for a month now and I wanted to give a little update on what I've been doing. I started this whole blog with the intention and promise to Do Something--capital letters and all. I'm not sure how much progress I've made Doing Something in the manner I meant it when I made myself that promise. My main goal was to not waste so much time. Instead of re-watching my favorite videos on Youtube or stalking pregnant acquaintances I would be doing something more productive. I'd be learning a new skill or hobby, volunteering, reading, and ideally writing.

I'm an expert procrastinator, so I knew this would be a challenge--and it has. I still spend a lot of time on Youtube and I haven't read a book since my internship started. To be honest, I come home at the end of the day, help make dinner, and basically just collapse on my bed watching Youtube videos. And while part of me is like "It's okay, you've had a long day. Relax, don't worry about doing something right now. Have you watched that new Vlogbrothers video yet?" the other part of me is disappointed in myself.

That's not to say I've been completely lazy, and that's what I'd like to focus on today. Call it a self-given pep talk, if you will. I need some motivation right about now.

1) Internship: As I mentioned before, I've been interning with FEMA for the summer. So far the job is...well, pretty boring to be honest. I don't feel like I'm earning my keep because nobody ever has anything for me to do. Most of my day is spent secretly playing bejeweled on my ipod and hoping someone comes by with something (anything) for me to do. The problem is that the people I'm working with deal with a lot of classified material, and I have zero clearance. So I literally can't help out with much. But hey, if they're paying me to sit in my own office with my own bathroom and drink tea all day that's fine with me. Even if it is extremely boring.

There was one fun aspect of my internship this week. I got to go on a site visit! Basically, some of the roofs needed to be replaced throughout the facility. I got to go around with the contractors working on the roofs and inspect them. This means that I was climbing up and down ladders and traipsing across scorching hot roofs all morning with a bunch of old men in work boots. These were the good kind of old men. The kind that call you ma'am and say things like, "Don't be afraid of that ladder; you don't weigh enough to do anything to it," I just smiled sheepishly at that and tried not to think of the 4 sprinkle donuts I'd eaten that morning.

Other than that the internship has taught me about tea. I've always wanted to be a tea drinker. I can't stand the smell or taste of coffee, but I felt like I needed to be able to order something besides a smoothie or a cookies-n-cream milkshake at a coffee shop, and now I can order tea. My aunt is a tea fanatic and has a whole cupboard of different kinds of tea at work. I've been trying a new one each day to find out what kinds I like. So far chamomile, green tea, and blueberry-flavored green tea are my favorites. I know this doesn't sound like Doing Something, but I think it counts as expanding my horizons. Right?

2) Family Stuff: I've been spending a lot of time with my extended family since I came to VA. I hardly ever get to see them all, so I've really appreciated this opportunity. I spent a weekend with my aunt and uncle and their two little girls in Arlington, which was lovely. The girls are brats thought (don't tell them I said that!). I went to two separate Father's Day dinners with a father that wasn't my own. One was at the Peking Gourmet Inn where we all pigged out on delicious duck. I'd only been there once before and I was younger so it was lovely to go back and be able to really experience the new food. Also, they had Jasmine tea, which was wonderful.

The second Father's Day dinner was at my uncle's parents' house. They are from Switzerland and have the most incredible house there with an amazing view of the Matterhorn. They also have a ping-pong table in their basement, where my cousin Erich and I played before dinner.

The most exciting family event I've participated in was a bridal shower. The bride was already married by the time we through this shower (apparently I come from a whole family of procrastinators) and she wasn't even present. Instead we all filmed the shower and my uncle is going to edit the film and send it down to her. It was my first bridal shower ever, I didn't know the bride, and she wasn't even there. It was unusual, to say the least. 

What was so fun about the bridal shower was that it was thrown in a house just three doors down from where my Great Granny raised her thirteen children. That's right, 13 kids. And you should see this house! So small--and no air-conditioning! I don't know how she did it. We took a walk down to her old house and she told us stories and those of her children that were present reminisced. Being so far away from my family I don't get to hear many of these stories, so it was an experience I'm really grateful for.

3) Sandwiches: I helped make 1,780 peanut butter and jelly sandwiches today. I had to wear gloves and a hairnet and everything. A bicycle tour is coming through this middle-of-nowhere town in VA. It is a very scenic town, but I'm still surprised so many people are coming. Anyway, my uncle happens to be the mayor of this very small town and so is in charge of providing a snack of all these cyclists. My aunt, uncle, and I and about 10 other volunteers spent our Friday night making sandwiches, cutting up fruit, and probably wishing we lived somewhere else--but then again, maybe not. There was a great sense of community there. Or that could have just been peanut butter. Tomorrow is the day of the ride where we actually pass out the sandwiches. I have to wake up extra early for a Saturday. Wish me luck.

4) Italy: I bought my plane ticket to Italy. I'm officially broke, but hopefully I'll get paid soon. Buying the ticket kind of solidified how real this is in my mind. It's happening. I'm really going to Florence--for a whole semester no less. Crazy. My mind can't even process this right now.

Well, that's all I've been doing for now. My plan is to start writing for realz on Sunday--did I mention how good I am at procrastination.

Dance Marathon

Dance Marathon was an interesting experience. There was definitely a lot that could be improved upon and that was worse than last year, but there was some good parts too. I'll focus on the bad first so we can end on a high note, shall I?

The most major problem this year was the lack of advertising. If you weren't already a part of Dance Marathon, or if your sorority or fraternity didn't already have a team, you didn't know anything about it. NOBODY knew it was happening, and thus the turnout sucked. As a consequence of this, we raised less money, had a ton of leftover t-shirts, and had only 5 non-staff dancers stay the whole night. FIVE!

I'm not counting the pledges. There was a fraternity that required their pledges to stay the whole night, but they snuck off and slept and ended up sitting down, so I don't count them. They didn't participate (except for when we played dodgeball) and had surly attitudes that made me want to shove cancerous children in their faces til they'd cried so much they were dehydrated.

Because nobody stayed the whole night, our Schedule of Activities kind of disintegrated by 3 a.m. We just gave up on the games and teaching that god-awful morale dance and let everybody chill, which was okay, except you got really bored and really tired really fast. But our schedule was pretty much shit anyway. We didn't start until an hour later than we were supposed to, so everybody had a lot of bored-down time when they arrived--not a good way to start a 16 hour dance marathon.

One of my fellow morale team members had a lot of good suggestions for what to do next year, and she's planning on joining the exec team to get her voice heard. Some of her more stellar ideas were: a bouncy castle, mood lighting (bright lights does not promote dancing), better advertising, not having it form 5 p.m.-9 a.m., but from 12 p.m.-4 a.m. or something, NOT making it longer, a simpler morale dance, vegetarian/Catholic during Lent food options, not allowed to leave, and tons of others that made a lot of sense to me at 5 in the morning that I'm having trouble remembering right now.

So that was the bad, but what about the good? There were some definite improvements from last year. First of all, I didn't have to pay extra for the morale tank top, and I got to get a t-shirt of every color since we had so many left-over. The morale dance was a full two mintues shorter than last year, although I still think it's a little too complicated for the masses to learn and memorize at 4 in the morning.

The entertainment this year was also a lot of fun. We had TigerRoar and Take Note (Clemson's premier a cappella groups) come and sing to us, which was fabulous! Clemson's gospel choir came, the dance team, Tigerstrut, a yoga instructor, a relaxation instructor, a breakdancing teacher, an isolations teacher, a jazzer-size instructor, a zumba instructor, and a belly-dancing teacher. We also had a lot of fun games that worked well this year (or at least better than last year). The most successful games we had were a fun partner game that I think is called Monkey-in-a-Tree, Human Knot (*cough*my idea*cough*) , Hula Hoop Pass, and Dodgeball (*cough*my idea*cough*). So there was a lot going on and plenty to keep you entertained...in the beginning. I don't know why but from the hours between 3 a.m. and 6 a.m. we had NO entertainment. I understand people might not want to come out and teach a jazzer-size class that late, but really? Those are the toughest hours! That's when we need all the distraction from our aching feet and drooping eyes that we can get!

I will say that I was a heck of a lot less sore this year than last year. I don't know if it's just because I knew what to expect or what, but I felt fine...well, not completely fine. My feet hurt like crazy and my sleep schedule is all out of whack, but it wasn't as dramatic as last year.

I know that overall this has been a pretty bitchy post, but I don't want to discourage you from participating in Dance Marathon at all. This is Clemson's third year doing DM, and we obviously still have a lot of bugs to work out, but it is totally worth it! Because the tiredness and aching feet and piss-poor four-in-the-morning attitude is all FTK, For The Kids. And that's what it's all about.

If you want to learn more about Dance Marthon, go here. I encourage you to do it!

While this year's Dance Marathon might not have been everything I was hoping it would be, I still think it falls under the category of 'do something'. So that's another step towards my goal :) It's the bright side, bitches, the bright side!

Lent

It's that time of year again...you guessed it, LENT! Woohoo!

For those of you who don't know, Lent is the 40(ish) days between Ash Wednesday (hint, today) and Easter Sunday. It is a time of prayer, reflection, sacrifice, and fasting. As a Catholic, I have been participating in Lent my entire life. Up until recently, all that meant was giving up chocolate for 40(ish) days and then pigging out Easter Sunday. But now I feel like I'm ready for the Big Kid Lent--you know, the adult kind that actually means something. Basically what that means is that I will be following through with the fasting, prayer, and reflection portions of Lent that I have neglected in the past. By taking a more grown-up view of Lent this year, I am hoping to contribute to my goal of Doing Something.

You are required to fast on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday during Lent between the ages of 18 and 59. This is actually pretty awesome, because up until yesterday I thought you had to fast every day, and I wasn't sure how I was going to handle that. I can do two days. Fasting involves eating one normal sized meal and two small meals that cannot equal your normal meal combined. You also can't snack in between. So you won't really go hungry, but it would be slightly uncomfortable for someone like me who enjoys snacking throughout the day. You are also not allowed to eat meat on fridays during Lent. My dad usually 'forgets' and has a meatball sub for lunch at work, but I've been pretty good about this rule for a few years now.

The prayer and reflection portions of Lent are pretty self explanatory. We are called to pray all the time, but maybe make extra effort during Lent. We are also called to reflect on our lives and our faith, which often leads to people flooding the confessional to cleanse themselves of their sins. Lent is such a happy time.

The most interesting part of Lent is the sacrifice portion. And no, I don't mean goats and chickens. Sacrifice during Lent is about giving up something you enjoy, or giving up a bad habit that holds you back, so that you can reflect on Jesus' suffering on the cross, the suffering in the world as a whole, and the changes needed within yourself. In the past, I have always given up chocolate. I'm still giving up chocolate this year, but I've decided to add negativity to the list--it seems like a pretty grown-up thing to give up. This means no cursing, no complaining, no gossiping, no whining, no making fun of my friend Whitney (hardest one, I swear), and no bad song lyrics. I have a propensity to get in a bad mood and then tell everyone about it, which isn't good. I feel like this Lent will be a good opportunity for me to decrease the amount of negativity in the world, the little bit of Worldsuck I'm contributing to. Phoebe Buffay from Friends would tell me I was 'cleansing my aura' or something. I think it's a good thing.

Lots of people give up chocolate for Lent. It's like, the thing to do. Partly because it's so easy and partly because it makes people feel a little healthier. Other popular things to give up for Lent are: junk food, soda, Facebook, meat, tv, cursing, or, my brother's favorite, homework. My dad gives up Lent. The men in my family are truly gems.

A really fun thing to do to the people who give up Facebook for Lent is to rally your friends together and do everything you can to give them as many notifications as possible by Easter. Poke them. Write on their wall. Tag them in every photo you can find. Tag them in all your statuses. I saw one girl post a paragraph from her history textbook on her friends wall one word at a time. Do that. They get pissed on Easter, but it makes them feel kind of loved too. And you can have really embarrassing photos of them up all Lent that they won't even know about. Fun times.

Another way I'm going to make this Lent an official grown-up event is by not skipping the Sundays. Technically, Lent is 40 days if you take out the Sundays, meaning that I could technically eat chocolate and bitch to my hearts content on the sabbath...but that kinda feels like cheating, doesn't it? So I'm not doing it this year! It will truly be a chocolate-free Lent!

If you have any questions about Lent you can go here, it's pretty legit and does a way better job of explaining things than I ever could.

Annndd in case you were wondering, I have drawn my second face! It is only marginally better than the first.

Her name is Edith Walters and she is a 12-year-old girl at her first Clemson Football Game. Don't judge me, please. It's Lent, so say nice things.

I am listening to I Like it Like That by Hot Chelle Rae. It's so catchy!

Meet Amanda

In the spirit of Doing Something I have decided to stop doing nothing. Or at least spend less time doing nothing. This means less time on the internet (Pinterest is my new addiction) and less time re-reading books I've already memorized (*cough*Harry Potter*cough*) and less time watching Friends. It makes me sound kind of pathetic to admit how much of my life that takes away. I spend a disgusting amount of time looking up Big Bang Theory clips on Youtube.

So, I'm doing things to stop the nothing and start the something, even if the something I'm doing that day isn't groundbreaking. It can be simple. For instance, yesterday I sat down and drew. Just to get this out there, I am no artist--by any means. I do quite a bit of doodling (which is largely why I almost failed AP Chemistry in high school) but even that isn't exactly artistic. My doodles mostly consist of pirate ships, smiley faces, hearts, palm trees, the occasional rocket ship, and snails. But I've always admired people who draw and wanted to try even if I couldn't do it well. So here is my FIRST EVER attempt at a human face. Please don't laugh.

For a first attempt, I don't think she's so bad. I think the main problem is her eyes... and bangs...and jawline...okay, so she's not very good. I love her anyway. I've decided to name her Amanda, doesn't she look like an Amanda? Maybe Amanda Finkle. I'm going to keep practicing my drawing until I am able to make something that, while not necessarily good, is at least something I can feel proud of. Although I do like Amanda's lips, they're so voluptuous! Again, please don't laugh. All my drawings before Amanda looked like this:

So I think you can understand why I'm so happy with Amanda.

In other news, I just got back from seeing The Chronicle. Two of my friends went to see The Vow, but my friend Julia and I weren't really into that. Channing Tatum is sexy like none other, but I didn't really need to see the movie. I pretty much could make up the plot myself.

Opening Scene: Couple is happy. Channing is sexy. Rachel McAdams is charming. They are the perfect couple. There is probably a scene of them undressing and getting ready for their 'special hug' time.

Conflict!: Rachel McAdams is hit by a car or something (as I gathered from the preview). She wakes up after accident and UH-OH doesn't remember who Channing, her new husband, is. Sadness ensues.

Filler: Rachel doesn't want to move back in with a man she doesn't know, so she ignores Channing's blatant sexiness and says, "No thanks, I'd rather move back home to my parent's house, thanks." Finally, she agrees to let the sexy and lovable man woo her all over again. Channing is thrilled! We begin to feel hope that the two shall one day be reunited!

Wooing: Channing most likely tries to recreate their past. Their second first date at the same place where their first first date was. Maybe he talks about how he first saw her and the utter fool he made out of himself because he thought she was so lovely. The wooing works. Sort of.

Climax!: Rachel has a panic moment. Can she really love Channing? Who knows! There is yelling. But the sad kind of yelling, with tears and lots of hand gestures.

Resolution: Against all odds, the couple makes up. Maybe they kiss in the rain, or the snow, or they ride off into the sunset, or there is fireworks--either way there is some kind of scenery going down. My guess is rain, cause then Channing's shirt will stick to his body and that is half the appeal of the movie anyway.

Do you see why I didn't watch it? The Chronicle, however, was awesome. I wasn't expecting much going into the film, but was pleasantly surprised. The storyline was excellent. The writers weren't afraid to leave things open; all the ends weren't nicely tied up and there was real tragedy and sadness in the film. It had layers. Did The Vow have layers? No. I don't want to give any spoilers, so the trailer for the film is here. I REALLY recommend that you go see it. I would say if anything it was similar to Super 8, which was also good, but this was better. So. Much. Better.

In other news, I'm watching my roommates make fools of themselves playing wii Just Dance. And one of them is wearing pink, fuzzy pajama pants with happy penguins on them. Can you picture it?

I am listening to Celebrity Status by Marianas Trench.