A Cottage in the Woods

I have a strange love for travel. I don’t just mean going to new and different places, I mean the very act of travel. I enjoy being in transit, the odd limbo of car rides, airport terminals, and trains. Right now I am flying over an arctic landscape of clouds, tinted pink by the morning sun. I feel as if I am flying over an ocean of cotton candy. Straight ahead is the horizon, a hazy band of gold stretching across the point where land and sky must meet, blending the pink and blue. All of this is neatly framed by the tiny airplane window. I am off to Philadelphia, then Manchester, then Holderness. Holderness. It sounds like wilderness; according to my friend, that is about right. If I am lucky, I will also visit Boston and Connecticut. My friend and her mother have also theorized that I am secretly a New Englander at heart. We shall test that.

I am so glad to be getting away, to leave. It feels good to be up here, despite my cramped economy seat, the exhaustion that comes from staying up late and getting up early, and the fact that the bagel I ate this morning is not doing much to satiate my hunger. It is all worth it, just to feel the moment when the plane leaves the ground. I know that part terrifies some people. Noe had to grab my hand when we took off. But I love it, the feeling of somehow magically defeating gravity. Now we ride, tiny people in a tiny plane across a vast and unending sky, buffeted here and there.

***

I wrote that yesterday morning, in transit (obviously). Travel is exhausting, but inspiring and exciting as well. Flying up to New Hampshire has made me more excited about going to London (I am going, it's inevitable now). My appetite has been whetted.

Now I am settled cozily in to my friend's home, a cottage in the foothills in NH. It is very cold here; the air snaps at you when you walk outside, and the leaves are magnificent. If feels so good to be here, I love it already. My new fantasy is to someday (when I am ready to settle down and write my magnum opus) buy a cottage in New England in the woods and write, while a lazy cat dozes in my lap.

In the meantime, homework calls (the life of student never ends, not even on fall break!).

I am a bad, bad blogger. I realize this, and I will try and increase my output.

But not right now. Right now I have a midterm. Tomorrow, I fly to the frozen hinterlands of New Hampshire!

I'm too lazy for titles today...

I am unsure what to say. I am writing out of a feeling of obligation. I am also writing because I feel a little overwhelmed. I feel scattered. Perhaps that is only because it is Monday, and I always feel scattered on Monday.

At any rate, I survived my (possible) bout of swine flu. I even turned the harrowing experience into a stunning op-ed piece for the student newspaper. (Stunning may be an exaggeration, but it was a pretty neat little piece of writing, if I may say so myself.)

A few days ago I was planning to write an inspiring blog entry about working with clay and how connected throwing made me feel; connected to the clay, connected to myself. Now I would like to write about how fickle clay is. It could easily be my own lack of skill, but some days are good and some days are bad. Some days, everything falls into place and I make something beautiful. Other days (like this morning) I can't even center the clay no matter how hard I try. This bouncing back and forth is very trying for me. Just when I think I'm starting to get it, I fall back to utter incompetence.

Such is ceramics, I suppose.

I do love writing for the paper, as stressful as it can be. I would do it again. I am even more convinced that I would enjoy writing columns for a living. If only such jobs were more plentiful.

Still no word on my London application. In an act of faith, I am going to apply for my passport as soon as possible anyway.

I think that I am very lucky to the people I have. I don't exactly know how it happened, but I have some really good friends. Also, I have an amazing boyfriend. Usually I don't wax on about him here (well, I try not to) but after sticking it out with me for a year and a half, I think he deserves it.

I can't stop rambling. My head hurts. My nap earlier was entirely ineffective. Tomorrow I have to give a speech for which I am unprepared. Eh.

The pace of things excites me and exhausts me. I don't know if I like it or hate it.

This post has devolved enough. I think I will cut things off now and write some more when I am feeling more lucid and less sleepy.

Oink, oink?

So. Here I am. In bed. Again.

Remember my last post? Happy, positive, energetic? Well, just put that on hold and revive it next week.

I have swine flu. Maybe. I have the flu, that's for certain. I spent two hours at urgent care Monday night with a high fever. Only, for young, hale and healthy college students like me, they don't test for the H1N1 virus. They just give you TamiFlu and tell you to avoid contact with the outside world for a few days.

So, here I am. An invalid, lounging in my room waiting for my body to stop disagreeing with me.

Yesterday I spent the day in a stupor. Mostly I slept. Today I feel well enough to at least pick up a book (hello class readings!). I might even have the energy to work on my application essay for London. (For the benefit of my Chicago Ant: I am applying for a semester-long study abroad program in London next semester. If I get in, I will be living in Kensington, taking classes though FIE, and I'll have an internship the second half of the semester. I intend to take a course in Shakespeare, and I do hope that I'll be able to go see my ancestral lands. You and Grasshopper and who ever else wants to come should visit me there so we can all go together.)

I have plans for productivity. So far, though, I've been knitting and watching Anthony Bourdain.

I think getting sick was partially the universe telling me to lighten up a little. I know what I said in my last post. But my battle with perfectionism is a one step forward, two steps back kind of thing. I really managed to string myself out over the weekend. Getting sick always reminds me that everything will be okay, even if I'm forced to drop a ball here and there from the juggling act. I just wish I could hold onto that better (or maybe find an easier way to be reminded).

I'd just like to say that, even though I hate being sick, there are some perks. One is that lying in my room all day with the window open (bless you, mother nature, for cooling things off this week) has led to me to discover the joys of open-window eavesdropping. I may be on the top floor, but I can hear with perfect clarity all that is said below my window. It is very entertaining. Invisible boy below my window: I don't know who you are or what you look like. But I heard you bragging to your friend about how you had sex in the bathroom on the second floor of the telecommunications building at three in the morning. I'm not impressed.

That is all for now, faithful (or not-so-faithful) readers. More later.

Welcome back...

So it ends: the first week of classes. It was a big "hello to Junior Year" this week.

I'm still not sure exactly what happened.

Moving in is a blur. At any rate, my stuff is here and put away. I love my apartment. I love having my own room. It feels like such a luxury after dorm life. I vividly remember getting up for the first day of classes - feeling excited and nervous... I remember walking across campus and looking at all the other wan souls who had a class at 8:30 Monday morning. They all looked a little shocked to be up that early and headed to class.

From that point on the week is a jumbled mix of syllabi, new professors, old faces, grocery shopping, filling out forms, assignments. I hate getting through my first flush of assignments. I just get so nervous and paranoid. I'm worried that over the summer I've somehow lost my ability to write well, to read fast, and to ask the right questions in class. Or, I worry that whatever I had last semester won't be enough this time around. Mostly I stay anxious until I know what the standards for evaluation are, and then I relax.

I feel different this semester, though. Even though my usual anxieties are poking their thorny claws into my thoughts, I feel more confident than I ever have before. More relaxed. Perhaps a little more open to mistakes and discomfort. I know I'll be fine. Better than fine, even.

I realize that now I've finally had time to relax and process things a little bit. Today I made myself eggs for breakfast, puttered around the ceramics studio, and had a wonderful chat with my my favorite professor. I turned in the first draft of my first story for the newspaper, which made me nervous. But I am working on letting that go. Now my biggest problem is resisting the urge to go buy a new dress for myself. Tonight, I think I will go dancing.

It just feels so good to be back here at school. I'm so excited for this semester, and excited for London in the Spring.

Life is good.