It's kinda been a while...

Sorry! I couldn't remember how to long into this dang thing but now I do remember so here...is...life! A new semester started and I pretty much love all of my classes which is rare. I'm excited because I am taking classes I am interested in (ie not classes that just fulfill a Gen. Ed. requirement) and I'm doing all of this crazy stuff that I've never done before.
Granted it is kind of frightening because one of these classes is a musical theatre class in which I have no performance experience...at all but it's been fun and demanding in a good way (my body's gotten a pretty good workout).
Also I am taking a Zen class where we are learning about Buddhism and throwing in some philosophy too which has me thinking in a different direction then I ever thought my mind would go. The teacher went through the Buddhist discipline and is from somewhere in Eastern Asia. Pretty much a badass.
My other classes are more up my alley. Voice lessons and choir again. Also Japanese and Creative Writing which I hope will help smash my writer's block to little pieces (take that!). All with awesome profs (hope I'm still singing that tune in the future...).
Personal life has been pretty much the same. I'm gonna go clubbing and to Broadway this weekend so can't wait for that. And...yeah...
That sounds about good for now. Just gotta keep on plugging away ya know?
Here's to March and the warmer weather that comes with it!


Also all my lovelies I leave you with the refrain from Mad World, a beautifully tragic song from Donnie Darko, a beautifully (and rather weird I admit it) movie. It's been stuck in my head.

And I find it kind of funny
I find it kind of sad
The dreams in which I'm dying
Are the best I've ever had
I find it hard to tell you
I find it hard to take
When people run in circles
It's a very, very
Mad World

-Rachel

I can't help but smile at everything today

So for a list of totally awesome things that have happened recently

1. I got a date for P-Ball with someone totally sweet
2. I get to chill at home for a week and do nothing of importance
3. My books for next semester only cost $70
4. Everything just seems to be going good right now.

I can't really be mad at anyone right now cause even if you get under my skin so much good is happening right now that it doesn't matter.

Yay happy cloud :D

I am usually not this dreamy I swear.

-Rachel

EXCITEMENT ABOUT THE FUTURE!!!!!!!!!!!!

So after a long time of "What the frick can I do with this English major?" or in the words of Princeton from Avenue Q "plenty of knowledge has earned me this useless degree"...that's frightening to think about...I have decided to go into publishing. I'm kinda embarrassed that it took me this long to figure this out because now it makes perfect sense. I love books (always have. My mom incidentally has some stories about me at 2 years old, before I could read, carrying a book around our house), I wouldn't have to work with a ton of people but I still would be around some people and I could help some author get published! The entry salery (or any chance of getting a salery without a couple years of internships) is kinda lousy but I think I would be really happy doing this. Part of this is from my January class where we have been studying books for the whole month and also me actually thinking about the future (which I usually try to avoid). I will try everything I can to get some form of internship this summer to get some experiance.

I know this wasn't quite me observing the world but I got so excited about what can be possible that I had to write it down somewhere. Well, now I am off to the library to creep (I mean "observe") people in the library. Let the fun begin!

-Rachel

The death of 80's learning materials

In my J-term class we learned about this book warehouse in Detroit that caught fire over 20 years ago and all of the materials that were for kids in the Detroit public school system were wasted. It hasn't been cleaned up and the old building hasn't been torn down because there is no money in the city budget to do so. The building stands as a testament not only to the pitfalls of the public school system (not that I have much against it, I am a public school alumni from K through 12) but also to the positive things that can happen from something so sad. We did a free writing exercise in class and instead of writing a journal entry, I ended up writing a poem. So first here's a link to the pictures of the depository that we looked at in class and then the poem;

http://www.flickr.com/photos/sweetjuniper/sets/72157603302647339/

Broken Depository
The box is a broken shell
knowledge damp and rotting inside,
books charred beyond salvation
and children playing, curled at the edges.
A phoenix-bird, rare except for
on graffiti, flies in color on the
dull walls, ashes at its feet.
The markers and paint, still wrapped
and safe in plastic,
probably will be for 100,000 more years
as plastic takes so long to decay.
Yet, in the midst of all this
unplanned massacre of education,
a giant tree grows & blooms
feeding off of the dead
of the public school system.

1/14/09

First post here ever!

Hey! So I decided that I wanted to put out some of my ideas/thoughts about life/writings I've done/whatever else comes to mind so I decided on a blog here to do so. This will be kinda random (and anyone who knows me knows I'm totally not random *sarcasm*) and hopefully not sad but that depends on my mood or my musings of whenever I update this. But anyway this is supposed to be short so I will sign off now and try to remember where my notebook with most of my personal writings are (ugh).

-Rachel