Today I learned the history of the world. Not only that, I also learned the history of the human psyche, religion, and poetry. Interestingly enough, all of these things are so intertwined that it is difficult (and impractical) to try to separate them from each other. This is a huge insight for me, because I often feel disconnected from things in my life, as if my poetry is completely separate from my school work, and both are separate from my relationship with my boyfriend, and all or separate from my friends and family and... whew! No wonder I always used to choose numbness over engagement--when I believed I had so many separate lives it felt impossible to live all of them at once, so I just gave up.
My insight for the day is that I live one life. The Monica that is a student is the same Monica that loves her boyfriend is the same Monica that writes poetry is the same Monica that knits... There may be different facets of me, and different ways I choose to live my life based on where I am and what I'm doing and who I'm with at the time, but when it comes down to it, all the facets make up one complete whole.
The way I have lived my life as long as I can remember (probably stemming from my parent's divorce when I was still inelementary school) can be described like this:
I had different lives--let's say, for the sake of visualization, different circles. One circle for school, one circle for love, one circle for writing. I lived only one third of each circle, so each circle felt incomplete and not always worth living. I tried putting each of the thirds together into a new circle two years ago and fell into a very dangerous place. I didn't realize that I had to live each facet--each circle--of my life fully and create a bigger circle encompassing the wholeness of all parts of my life. By putting the thirds together I was only compacting the problem, not expanding my life.
Today, this is the biggest thing I struggle with. I am afraid to dive into my life fully because if I make a mistake I will feel it even more harshly. But the other side is that when I succeed I will feel it a thousand times more wonderfully.
I am going to a weekend training in Chicago this weekend that I know will push me into zones of discomfort, and also that I will have more tools when I leave to help me live a fuller life. As I will have limited access to computers starting tomorrow afternoon, I probably wont be posting again until Monday. But I know I can count on having a lot to say, many new insights, and more things learned about myself than I will be able to articulate when I get back. I am both extremely excited and very scared. Yay!!
Learning lots,
Monica
Thursday, January 14, 2010
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Rut (for Janice)
I am in a rut! I had an incredibly moving, motivating, painful, inspiring, inspired, creative, risk-taking semester before winter break, and whether because I'm afraid to go back there again or I'm just tired--or probably both--I've slipped back into my familiar, complacent/apathetic rut. While this rut is familiar and dangerously welcoming, I'm not longer comfortable in it. I've begun to notice a distinct nauseous, physically painful feeling in my body when I'm stuck and numb (strange, that I should feel something when I'm numb... oxymoronic? yes. true? also, yes) and unengaged.
Hence, this blog. This is a way for me to follow through on the things I have committed to--leading a fuller life, having more adventures, learning and making mistakes. I feel obligated to you all to continue posting and, secondarily, obligated to myself to follow through with this resolution. I hope to switch my priorities so that sticking to this resolution is less painful and more enjoyable and so that not letting myself down is the most important factor in keeping true to my word.
Something that I know will help me with this resolution, but that I am having trouble accepting gracefully, is the death of my DVD player. I had given up watching TV addictively a few months ago, and to my dismay, slowly began to watch DVDs addictively in its place. It was very difficult for me to turn off my DVD player and be with myself in the silence of my room, or play music instead--there is something comforting to me about seeing and hearing another human in the room with me, even if it is a 2D fictional person speaking and moving quietly in the background. So yesterday when my DVD player quietly broke, I desperately tried disc after disc hoping that maybe it was a disc-error and not a problem with the machine.
Now that I do not watch or have cable in my room, nor a way to watch movies (except my laptop, which I abhor watching movies on), I have myself, my music, my writing and my imagination. And my knitting. I am in the process of learning to inspire myself and not rely on the short-cut method of finding inspiration. I was able to do this for my thesis last year, and change almost entirely the way in which I live my life and the person I want to become, and I know I can do it again now. I am taking direction from my fellow blogger, Janice (grapejuicemusings.blogspot.com... I recommend following it!) and pushing myself to do anything and everything I can to be the writer I know I can be and lead the life I am inspired to lead.
Learning lots,
Monica
Hence, this blog. This is a way for me to follow through on the things I have committed to--leading a fuller life, having more adventures, learning and making mistakes. I feel obligated to you all to continue posting and, secondarily, obligated to myself to follow through with this resolution. I hope to switch my priorities so that sticking to this resolution is less painful and more enjoyable and so that not letting myself down is the most important factor in keeping true to my word.
Something that I know will help me with this resolution, but that I am having trouble accepting gracefully, is the death of my DVD player. I had given up watching TV addictively a few months ago, and to my dismay, slowly began to watch DVDs addictively in its place. It was very difficult for me to turn off my DVD player and be with myself in the silence of my room, or play music instead--there is something comforting to me about seeing and hearing another human in the room with me, even if it is a 2D fictional person speaking and moving quietly in the background. So yesterday when my DVD player quietly broke, I desperately tried disc after disc hoping that maybe it was a disc-error and not a problem with the machine.
Now that I do not watch or have cable in my room, nor a way to watch movies (except my laptop, which I abhor watching movies on), I have myself, my music, my writing and my imagination. And my knitting. I am in the process of learning to inspire myself and not rely on the short-cut method of finding inspiration. I was able to do this for my thesis last year, and change almost entirely the way in which I live my life and the person I want to become, and I know I can do it again now. I am taking direction from my fellow blogger, Janice (grapejuicemusings.blogspot.com... I recommend following it!) and pushing myself to do anything and everything I can to be the writer I know I can be and lead the life I am inspired to lead.
Learning lots,
Monica
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Feminism, Poetry and Myself
Yesterday I went to my first ever class about feminism. It turns out "Interdiscplinary Studies in Literature" is actually "Women's Literature and Feminist Theory" here at BG. Who knew?? Well, apparently everyone but me. I stayed for the hour and fifteen minutes of the first class and then decided, Hey, I'm pro-women's rights, but I don't think I'm a feminist. I'm not sure how to feel about this--as a woman, should I be a feminist? Or is it a label I can do without but still hold many of the same ideals? I think I will do more research on feminism to find out more about it--meanwhile, I have dropped that class.
Today I went to my second round of BG's 4000-level poetry workshop class. It is being taught by visiting poet James Ragan who already seems like a wonderful potential mentor, or at least really cool guy with neat ideas and an interesting background. The more I am exposed to poetry the more I realize that I actually really like it, and listening to James Ragan speak made me realize, again, that I want to do something about it. Up until recently my poetry hasn't had much of anything to say because I was afraid to say much of anything, but after taking classes with Theresa Williams (a wonderful mentor and friend and one of the greatest sources of inspiration in my life) and now James Ragan, as well as being inspired by my peers, I am thirsty to write things of meaning. I have statements to make and beliefs and my own mythos, and I want to speak to the public instead of to myself or the few people who read my stuff in workshops. I want to be more active with my writing, both poetry and fiction. I want to put myself out there and take more risks and make more mistakes. I think words are a powerful form of activism, and this is something I want to explore more within myself.
Learning lots,
Monica
Today I went to my second round of BG's 4000-level poetry workshop class. It is being taught by visiting poet James Ragan who already seems like a wonderful potential mentor, or at least really cool guy with neat ideas and an interesting background. The more I am exposed to poetry the more I realize that I actually really like it, and listening to James Ragan speak made me realize, again, that I want to do something about it. Up until recently my poetry hasn't had much of anything to say because I was afraid to say much of anything, but after taking classes with Theresa Williams (a wonderful mentor and friend and one of the greatest sources of inspiration in my life) and now James Ragan, as well as being inspired by my peers, I am thirsty to write things of meaning. I have statements to make and beliefs and my own mythos, and I want to speak to the public instead of to myself or the few people who read my stuff in workshops. I want to be more active with my writing, both poetry and fiction. I want to put myself out there and take more risks and make more mistakes. I think words are a powerful form of activism, and this is something I want to explore more within myself.
Learning lots,
Monica
Sunday, January 10, 2010
The Michigan Left
I made my first Michigan left turn today. I also explored Mount Clemens and went to a movie by myself--Sherlock Holmes, and I was disappointed.
I could have avoided making one of the crazy Michigan left turns, but I decided that I wanted it to be my new learn/do for the day. For those of you who aren't familiar with the Michigan Left, it goes something like this: On many major roads, instead of making a direct left turn onto it, you need to make a right turn then get into the left lane and, a few yards later, make a quick u-turn-like left to go on the opposite direction. These left turns involve crossing a wide "median" and often waiting for a light to turn green and cross-traffic to stop. This is the only occasion that I am aware of where it is legal for right-side-of-the-road drivers to make a left turn on red, since you wouldn't have to be crossing traffic, just pulling out into it.
I also learned that I am comfortable going to the movies by myself, eating lunch by myself, and sitting in a public place (like a Panera) while reading or knitting by myself.
That's all for now!
Learning lots,
Monica
I could have avoided making one of the crazy Michigan left turns, but I decided that I wanted it to be my new learn/do for the day. For those of you who aren't familiar with the Michigan Left, it goes something like this: On many major roads, instead of making a direct left turn onto it, you need to make a right turn then get into the left lane and, a few yards later, make a quick u-turn-like left to go on the opposite direction. These left turns involve crossing a wide "median" and often waiting for a light to turn green and cross-traffic to stop. This is the only occasion that I am aware of where it is legal for right-side-of-the-road drivers to make a left turn on red, since you wouldn't have to be crossing traffic, just pulling out into it.
I also learned that I am comfortable going to the movies by myself, eating lunch by myself, and sitting in a public place (like a Panera) while reading or knitting by myself.
That's all for now!
Learning lots,
Monica
Saturday, January 9, 2010
Knitting--Changing Colors
Well I'm up in Detroit with my boyfriend for his MC drill weekend, and I spent today lounging around the hotel room knitting, reading and looking up new recipes on FoodNetwork.com. I decided to start a different scarf for my sister--the 55-stitch across scarf I had started was too long to sit comfortably on my knitting needles, and took way too long to get across one row. The new scarf is 35-stitches across and much more managable. Since this afternoon, I've knit about three inches and I just changed colors from red to white! However, learning how to change colors was more than "just" doing it.
I spent about an hour on the internet today looking up the proper way to change colors for a striped, knit scarf. I found different advice, from tying (leaving a knot) the new color onto the old, or knitting it in for a full row and then dropping the old color, or knitting the new color in for just a stitch and then dropping the old, or not dropping the old color at all and just carrying it up a few rows until I need it again. Holy cow! How is a woman to choose??
Despite my reservations (what if I messed up? what if it was bad advice? What if the scarf unravelled and I had to start all over all over again?), I chose the third option, knitting the two colors together for one stitch in the new row and then dropping the red, leaving a tail to sew in later--which leaves me with the necessity of finding a needle large enough for a piece of yarn very, very soon. Perhaps my local craft store? I can only hope.
The scarf seems to be holding together nicely despite having now three loose tails that have yet to be secured, but I feel bouyed by success and hopeful that the final project will turn out nicely.
Tomorrow I will be making my first Michigan left turn. I have much to say about the Michigan Left, but I will leave that for tomorrow. You can wait with anticipation for my rant, and it will be satisfying, at least to me.
Learning lots,
Monica
p.s. Ever wonder what the things on the bottom of jet wings next to the engines (they look kind of like elongated silver footballs... see the pic below) are? They are hydraulic actuator covers--aerodynamic covers for the hydraulics that move the flaps on the wings! Thanks, Yahoo!, for this bit of trivia.
I spent about an hour on the internet today looking up the proper way to change colors for a striped, knit scarf. I found different advice, from tying (leaving a knot) the new color onto the old, or knitting it in for a full row and then dropping the old color, or knitting the new color in for just a stitch and then dropping the old, or not dropping the old color at all and just carrying it up a few rows until I need it again. Holy cow! How is a woman to choose??
Despite my reservations (what if I messed up? what if it was bad advice? What if the scarf unravelled and I had to start all over all over again?), I chose the third option, knitting the two colors together for one stitch in the new row and then dropping the red, leaving a tail to sew in later--which leaves me with the necessity of finding a needle large enough for a piece of yarn very, very soon. Perhaps my local craft store? I can only hope.
The scarf seems to be holding together nicely despite having now three loose tails that have yet to be secured, but I feel bouyed by success and hopeful that the final project will turn out nicely.
Tomorrow I will be making my first Michigan left turn. I have much to say about the Michigan Left, but I will leave that for tomorrow. You can wait with anticipation for my rant, and it will be satisfying, at least to me.
Learning lots,
Monica
p.s. Ever wonder what the things on the bottom of jet wings next to the engines (they look kind of like elongated silver footballs... see the pic below) are? They are hydraulic actuator covers--aerodynamic covers for the hydraulics that move the flaps on the wings! Thanks, Yahoo!, for this bit of trivia.
Friday, January 8, 2010
Mythbusters
Today I learned a few things (from Mythbusters, my source of endless, useless factoids--as well as endless entertainment):
1. You cannot ricochet a bullet off three objects and have it come back to the shooter with lethal force. It is possible to angle materials (steel, lead, concrete) so that the bullet returns to the shooter, but by the time it comes back it will have lost most of its energy and would not be lethal. You can, however, bend a steel pipe almost into a full circle and shoot a gun into it and have the bullet return to the shooter with lethal force.
2. You cannot use a tree to catapult a dead body over 40-foot walls of a castle that's 100-feet away. Conifers are the ideal tree to use, but even using the most elastic tree (I think it was a kind of spruce), chopping off the done and all the branches, and pulling it back to its near-breaking point, Buster (the Mythbuster crash-test dummy) could not fly over the castle walls.
3. Milk is the best way to cool a mouth and ease the pain of eating too many hot peppers. Some other remedies tested were water, beer, tequila, toothpaste, wasabi, and petroleum jelly. Milk wins!
I really do enjoy Mythbusters. It is the only show that I still look forward to watching occasionally since I have given up my TV addiction. Plus it makes me feel smart :-)
Learning lots,
Monica
1. You cannot ricochet a bullet off three objects and have it come back to the shooter with lethal force. It is possible to angle materials (steel, lead, concrete) so that the bullet returns to the shooter, but by the time it comes back it will have lost most of its energy and would not be lethal. You can, however, bend a steel pipe almost into a full circle and shoot a gun into it and have the bullet return to the shooter with lethal force.
2. You cannot use a tree to catapult a dead body over 40-foot walls of a castle that's 100-feet away. Conifers are the ideal tree to use, but even using the most elastic tree (I think it was a kind of spruce), chopping off the done and all the branches, and pulling it back to its near-breaking point, Buster (the Mythbuster crash-test dummy) could not fly over the castle walls.
3. Milk is the best way to cool a mouth and ease the pain of eating too many hot peppers. Some other remedies tested were water, beer, tequila, toothpaste, wasabi, and petroleum jelly. Milk wins!
I really do enjoy Mythbusters. It is the only show that I still look forward to watching occasionally since I have given up my TV addiction. Plus it makes me feel smart :-)
Learning lots,
Monica
Thursday, January 7, 2010
Breaks! Pool and Nose Surgery -- for Sarah
Sorry I missed my post yesterday, for the few of you who are following this blog. I was out playing pool with my boyfriend and some of our friends, and then woke up this morning feeling quite under the weather.
I am not an avid pool player--I enjoy the occasional game with friends--and I almost never break at the beginning of the game. I tried it once and was so embarrassed by the results (cue ball in side pocket, no more than four or five balls moving out of the formation) that I didn't want to try again, and I've gotten along just fine without knowing how to break for many, many years. But last night my boyfriend and one of our friends doggedly urged me to break, so though I was resistant to learning a new skill (funny for the woman whose resolution it is to learn new things!) I got help setting up the angle of the cue ball to the formation, the "proper" way to hold the cue (note my cynicism, haha), and I just went for it. It was a fairly successful break, but I ended up losing that game.
----
Today, in honor of my friend Sarah who got nose surgery this morning after a terrible break and then weeks of doctors giving her bad advice, I looked up information about nose surgery per her request. The break in her nose did not deviate the bone (cock it to the side and make it look crooked like you ordinarily think of when someone breaks their nose), but rather it broke straight on so it didn't even look like anything was wrong. Because of this odd breakage, the doctor she saw at first told her that she couldn't have surgery because there was nothing that could be done unless it healed poorly, and then she could have it fixed. But then after seeing a specialist she found out that, in fact, she did need to have surgery immediately or else it would heal badly and that would create a slew of other problems. So this morning she went unter the knife and from what I hear was in recovery by 10:45--and I still didn't know anything about nose surgery.
As the internet savvy woman that I am (aren't we all, in this digital age?), I hopped onto google to find out what I could. At first I googled "nose surgery," then "non-deviated nose break" then "non-deviated nose surgery," and came up with peanuts. Mostly I found out what I already knew--in the case of deviation, the doctors need to reset the nose within 7-10 days, the surgery can cause breathing problems, numbness, nose asymmetry, scarring, swelling, and the possibility of revisional surgery (this I had not thought of!). I assume that, excepting the resetting, non-deviated nose surgery risks about the same things.
I looked up nasal reconstruction and found this website, for those of you who are interested: http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/876456-overview.
Here is Sarah's take on the surgery: "All I know is they're gonna break the shit out of it and then put it back together like a puzzle. And that it's different from a nose job." She also told me that they're going to make an incision arund her mouth as well, and that the list of things she cannot do after the surgery ranges from no wearing shirts unless they zip/button down, to no brushing her teeth, to no vigorous exercise or anything that get's her breathing heavily. They even went so far as to ban sneezing, as if any human can prevent that.
I will probably learn more about this particular surgery when Sarah is functional and emotionally ready to tell me the details, and if I learn anything of note I will be sure to record it here.
Also, if anyone is wondering, I have about an inch and a half on my sister's 55-stitch-across scarf! But shhhh, don't tell her!
Learning lots,
Monica
I am not an avid pool player--I enjoy the occasional game with friends--and I almost never break at the beginning of the game. I tried it once and was so embarrassed by the results (cue ball in side pocket, no more than four or five balls moving out of the formation) that I didn't want to try again, and I've gotten along just fine without knowing how to break for many, many years. But last night my boyfriend and one of our friends doggedly urged me to break, so though I was resistant to learning a new skill (funny for the woman whose resolution it is to learn new things!) I got help setting up the angle of the cue ball to the formation, the "proper" way to hold the cue (note my cynicism, haha), and I just went for it. It was a fairly successful break, but I ended up losing that game.
----
Today, in honor of my friend Sarah who got nose surgery this morning after a terrible break and then weeks of doctors giving her bad advice, I looked up information about nose surgery per her request. The break in her nose did not deviate the bone (cock it to the side and make it look crooked like you ordinarily think of when someone breaks their nose), but rather it broke straight on so it didn't even look like anything was wrong. Because of this odd breakage, the doctor she saw at first told her that she couldn't have surgery because there was nothing that could be done unless it healed poorly, and then she could have it fixed. But then after seeing a specialist she found out that, in fact, she did need to have surgery immediately or else it would heal badly and that would create a slew of other problems. So this morning she went unter the knife and from what I hear was in recovery by 10:45--and I still didn't know anything about nose surgery.
As the internet savvy woman that I am (aren't we all, in this digital age?), I hopped onto google to find out what I could. At first I googled "nose surgery," then "non-deviated nose break" then "non-deviated nose surgery," and came up with peanuts. Mostly I found out what I already knew--in the case of deviation, the doctors need to reset the nose within 7-10 days, the surgery can cause breathing problems, numbness, nose asymmetry, scarring, swelling, and the possibility of revisional surgery (this I had not thought of!). I assume that, excepting the resetting, non-deviated nose surgery risks about the same things.
I looked up nasal reconstruction and found this website, for those of you who are interested: http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/876456-overview.
Here is Sarah's take on the surgery: "All I know is they're gonna break the shit out of it and then put it back together like a puzzle. And that it's different from a nose job." She also told me that they're going to make an incision arund her mouth as well, and that the list of things she cannot do after the surgery ranges from no wearing shirts unless they zip/button down, to no brushing her teeth, to no vigorous exercise or anything that get's her breathing heavily. They even went so far as to ban sneezing, as if any human can prevent that.
I will probably learn more about this particular surgery when Sarah is functional and emotionally ready to tell me the details, and if I learn anything of note I will be sure to record it here.
Also, if anyone is wondering, I have about an inch and a half on my sister's 55-stitch-across scarf! But shhhh, don't tell her!
Learning lots,
Monica
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