Burheim Forest

It's been a long day, a long week (emotionally). I could complain, but I bought a paper journal for that. I plan to burn it once it's full.

I spent some hours at Berheim forest today. Though, really, it feels more like an extensive park. Not that I'm complaining. I love it and have wanted to go back since I visited last summer for my painting class. It was just what my trite heartsickness needed. That and a healthy dose of JJ Heller music and some dripping out of that internal vitriol into the journal.

My latest art project is horrible. Horrible...might be too kind of a word. The only way it could be worse is if it were a blob of over-wet clay, or made to poorly resemble a penis. It's not done, I wasted all my clay on it. Critique is tomorrow.

Have I mentioned I'm a perfectionist?

So, when other people think "aw, shucks," my brain almost automatically goes to 'why is suicide a bad option?' (answer; "Because it always is. Any permanent solution to a temporary problem is a VERY BAD OPTION)

Now, I would call this a fit of pique, but that would be like calling a tsunami a "bit of a wave."

There's a reason I don't trust my own emotions, especially at first. This is pretty much why. I'm high affect intensity.

Get this, perfectionist and high affect intensity. Yeah, I know.

Now, 5 years ago an episode like this would have resulted in me being sucked into the miry black pit of despair for days, or giving up all together.

Now, I got to my car and cry, mope around for a few hours in the forest, and pick myself back up with a plan. That plan is to beg my professor to let me sit out of critique tomorrow and just start over, even if that means my last piece isn't fired.

There's more to the plan, but there was more to me being upset and that's just for me to know.


A picture of Bernheim from the Ky toursim website

Berheim was lovely, even without much color, or warmth. Actually, I loved the cold weather because I didn't spend the entire time terrified of ticks. Ticks are, to me, what spiders are to most. They are, literally, the stuff of my nightmares. Anything to reduce the likelihood of those disease infested blood suckers attaching their armoured bodies to me is good in my book.

That said, the grasses were lovely, the pond was lovely, the gnarled twisted trees were lovely, the ground cover was lovely. It was nice. I saw birds I don't usually see. I got to read a bit in my psychology book, which made me feel productive, which is vital to making me feel not depressed and despairing.

I got to practice being mindful and in-the-moment.

The silent peaceful moment.

It was nice. I needed it. I hope to go back soon.

The evening ended with a chat on the phone with a friend and a red ale at the local micro-brewery.

This week has been rough on my psyche. I could complain, but I won't.

Review of a Dresen File Audio Book; Changes, by Jim Butcher, read by James Marsters

When I decided that it would be a good idea to listen to an audio book while I was on the stair machine, I was pretty excited. I mean, what's there not to be stoked about when you're both being active and getting to see a story inside your head? I picked up Changes because I already love the Dresden Files.

Do you hear me? I love them. They're witty and interesting, they flow along quickly, they're shockingly believable. The author does a great job of following the rules that his universe sets out and of suspending disbelief. The voice is awesome... Yeah, I love the books. I'm also fan of James Marsters. I had a crush on him for about half a decade. I lost that crush when I realized he'd spent his time on Buffy looking like a cross between a redneck and an undead hipster, and that he has a terrible British accent (and I promptly outgrew him), but I still like to watch all the shows and movies he's in, and see convention footage and I thoroughly enjoyed him in Smallville and on Torchwood.

Sooooo, I thought that this would be a perfect marriage, Butcher and Marsters.

I was wrong.

I squealed in glee to hear "sexy voice" voicing Harry Dresden...until I realized the voice didn't change. It...it didn't change. This, this was not a dramatic reading. This was a strait reading. A boring boring strait reading of an awesome text.

By chapter three I was starting to screech "What?! Come on man! Use those acting chops!" as I gasped out an inconsistent stucco on the stair machine.

By chapter 4 I gave up. I couldn't do it. Marsters' reading had successfully reduced a series that mesmerises me into something that could put me to sleep. I put the CD back in its case (very glad, now, that I'd never given into that whim and spent money on buying a Marsters' read Dresden book) and took it back to the library.

Just because we're grown ups doesn't mean we don't appreciate a good dramatic reading of a story. If we didn't the Lord of the Rings movies wouldn't be so very popular.

Overall, I give the reading a 2 out of 5 stars. It could have been blander, it could have been read at a really inconsistent pace, which it wasn't. But, I didn't like it, and didn't enjoy it. Hard core Marsters' fans will love it. I think most everyone else will be a bit disappointed. Ah well. You win some you lose some.

The book itself gets a 4.2 out of 5 stars. That's only because there are some truly life changing books out there, but this one is still pretty awesome.

Review for Burning Alive by Shannon K. Butcher

Yes, I read a romance novel. So sue me. I spent an hour perusing books in the library trying to find one where the plot didn't make me snort and a few pages I could actually make it through.

The positives;
It's an ambitiously detailed story. No pwp here.
The dialogue is better than the dialogue of the other romance novels I'd been perusing.
It's not pwp.
The "voices" of the characters are reasonably consistent.

The negatives:

Let's start with the cover. The cover above is the one on the book I read. It is a horrible photomanip. What are the spikes on his arms? Oh, wait, are those supposed to be the branches of the tree that does down only one side of his body? And his hair is supposed to be either wavy or curly (can't remember) but it's not that mullet. Also, he's supposed to have a silver choker on through most of the book. Did we forget that super important part?

The book. Okay, I understand the need for suspended disbelief, I really do, but you have to establish the rules of your world, and do it as fast as possible. I feel as if the author said "rules, I don't need no stinking rules!" and the story really suffers for it.
We start off with a character who seems like she could be interesting, I mean, she's been having these terrible dreams about being burnt alive and this dude looking on and laughing about it and then there's the dude. Cue freaking out. Reasonably so. Except, the guy comes over, and he and his friends manhandle her elderly friend (who's name...Miss Mable I think, got really old after about the 20th time it was said. She's not a Miss, she's 80, and we don't live in the 70's. I mean, apparently the main character didn't even know the woman's first name, which is lame for a caregiver) and her "cool" friend.

Also, the "panic attacks" that she kept experiencing were not at all like panic attacks as I know them, which always pisses me off, when books project panic attacks in ways that are not real to life. First of all, it's not just about breathing, it's about this overwhelming FEAR response, and eventually the fear of the fear. It's an ugly fear cycle that sucks you down in some of kind vicious black undercurrent. I was also bothered because having a panic disorder and being a coward are not the same thing, and yet, in this book, they seemed to be.

Trust and sexual tension didn't build too fast, but it was still unbelievable. The lack of voicing concerns even when the situation gave the opportunity for it was also irritating. The love interest (Blane?) was irritating both in his aggression, his conviction to leave the heroine (I may have misspelled that word) completely in the dark, and then tell her everything, and then mind-f*** her.

The heroine (again, possibly misspelled) was also bothersome in that she didn't...think like a normal person. There was just a lot (like the vampires/witches) that wasn't explained. A lot that presumed on the reader having extensive supernatural knowledge. And, then, I had this moment where the protagonist (there I can spell that word) was all like "I'm psychic? I didn't know it! I mean, that can't be possible, I've only been having these visions for years which I was totally sure were real and I'm being chased by fire, and man, I saw you coming, like, two years before I met you. But I can't be psychic. I just know the phone is going to ring sometimes." And then, "Woah! I can lift a big rock! I haz soopurpowrz!" It was such a disgustingly ...marrysue? moment that I almost put down the book. If the author's bid, and I'm sure it was, was to give the readers a moment where they thought they could be the protagonist, that was it. She chose something that almost everyone experiences and said it was really special, except the effort was really transparent and so it felt like a gimmick.

The mythology was troublesome. It was like the author tried to throw an entire book series' worth of mythology at us in one book. The bit about "they're what you call demons" was irritating. If they are what we call demons, call them demons, don't give them a new name. If they're like what we call demons but different, or our understanding of them is fundamentally flawed, explain. Each chapter seemed to add new mythology without explaining, or with barely an explanation of, the old. The stuff about breeding the protagonist stank of a number of other mythos, and felt tagged on. The main characters themselves seemed to be a mix of Feehan's Carpathians and another author I've read but am too tired to recall, some kind of eternal guardian... Anyway, it's not that taking things from leaders in the genre is bad, it's not, but it has to feel like your own work, or the nod to the inspiration has to be obvious.

I stopped reading after the friend committed suicide, which was already probably 50 pages later than I should have. The sex scene was not sexy. The bathroom scene was kind of sexy but totally different than all the other sexual tension scenes.

This brings me to another point. The voices were fairly consistent but the characters themselves were not. The male protagonist especially often changed gears or attitudes without so much as a by your leave to the readers. Not cool. And, for a guy who is really really really old, he has pretty modern (read; selfish and kinky) ideas about sex.

I never finished the book, I wasn't going to waste my time on another 100 pages when more than 200 hadn't been enough to keep me reading.

I really wanted this to be a good book. But it wasn't.
If I was giving it a rating it would get a 2.5 of 5 stars. It could have been worse.

New Computer and Some New Goals

So, my other computer died on the day I got this new computer. That is, yesterday. So, I have a new doorstop and a new laptop.

I have some goals for this new computer. First, I want to keep it as pristine as possible. Only the most neccessary programs (eg, Word, iTunes, my GPS updater, minesweeper...). I'm going to seriously reconsider whether I should do any of the "fixing" updates that Windows was always doing on my
old computer. I think it may just slow things down. I also want to continue to back everything up and/or save everything on my external hard drive.

Also,  I don't want to go to Yahoo on this computer. I don't want it in my computer history. I don't want it anywhere. It's a trash site. It's like the Enquirer of online sites. Except it's taken seriously. It's like US Weekly, the Enquirer, and the New York Times had a disgusting mutant internet baby. That baby is Yahoo.

And, the Yahoo comments section mostly makes me lose my hope in humanity. I gave up television because it was a negative and time-sucking influence on me. I plan to do the same with Yahoo.

My other goal is to go to the store and buy a real physical journal. One just for journaling, not writing story ideas or taking notes or writing directions or shoping lists, though those are all good things. That's because I want to be free to write non-incriminating stuff on this blog and I find it very hard to only write some things. Like speaking, I want to write everything. Everything is going to come out at some point, so I have to filter where certain things go. And, since blogger doesn't let me limit my viewers (that I know of, tell me if I can), and I'm too lazy to write on three blogs (also, can't even remember the last time I wrote on LiveJournal; got tired of everyone talking about the communities and having no idea how to get into the "in" groups), this will be perfect. I can write all the angsty stuff on paper, aka secret, when I'm in the angsty moment, and then I can write the less angsty stuff here, where the world will read it. Yay for solutions!

Easter '13

Happy Easter everyone.
Easter is definitely my favorite holiday. I love the preparation. 40+ days of fasting culminates in a lot of excitement about Easter!

Should I ever have the opportunity to celebrate Easter in my own fashion, rather than following my parents' interestes, I will make it into an all day event. Palm Sunday will be celebrated. Good Friday will not be skipped. The meal will be savory and wonderful, full of variety. There will be eggs painted. I will find other activities, too. Music will play in the background. It will be awesome.

A celebration befitting the day we commemorate what it is that makes Christianity special.

____________________________________________________________________________

The day itself was very nice. I managed to get to the 9:15 service (though, sadly, I missed the music) and sat with my community group. I like sitting with them, and where, before, I thought I would never want to sit with a group or participate in church as a social event, I can definitely say that it feels nice to sit with and worship with people who I know, and like, and trust.

The sermon was very good. And, it was then that I realized whe music and sermon were short; baptistms!

Wow, to be baptised on Easter. Intense.

Then to the parents for supper (dinner? lunch? the afternoon meal?) and later to home.

I...got in!

Today I found out that I was accepted to the Art Therapy Graduate program at George Washington University. I had been trying to get a hold of them. Apparently, they'd been trying to get a hold of me, too. I was told that my UofL email wasn't working (why do I feel like that has happened before? but I even looked it up on the UofL system to double check...).

Well, I finally got that email, and they accepted me!

Of course, I'm saying yes.

Guess I'll be in D.C. sometime soon.

I can't wait to become an art therapist.

I'm definitely finding I need to shift my plans. Since I hadn't heard back from them I'd, reasonably, started to make plans in my mind for attending EVMS. I imagined what kind of housing I could have, looked up where grocery stores were and how to get to the beach, considered the likelihood of dating a bright eyed doctor. Now I get to make new plans, have new ideas.

In the end I was accepted by 5 schools, which is shocking to me, even now. Pleasant, but shocking.

I am grateful that I have learned to try my best and not give up, even if I have not yet learned to expect a positive outcomes from it. I'm glad I tried, I'm glad I didn't give up.

I feel a bit light headed. Nervous and excited to start this new turn in the path of my life.

_____________________________

For the record: both EVMS and GWU appear to be great schools. Both have excellent teachers and a good history and both are well connected with the local military. Both appear to have great internships. I was impressed with all the professors and thought they all asked very good very challenging questions. I think, however; that GWU (and DC, by extension) seemed...really nice. I left kind of feeling like "yeah, I could go here. I could live here."  So, while both schools seemed very nice (and I want to give a shout out to Springfield, which also seemed quite nice), and of a very high quality, and I don't want anyone to think that one is better, I just think D.C. is probably better for me.

Why I don't Tell People my Age

Really, I don't care about how old I am. I don't care about how old I look. This may be because I don't look older than I am, it may not. That being said, I don't have a problem with my age, or telling people, but I don't offer that information without being asked.

Today was an example of why. My students asked me if I had kids. Nope. How old was I? 29. Do I have a husband? Nope. No husband. Will I be married next year? Nope, no boyfriend. Why?!

They asked why.

I shrugged and said "No one has asked."

An older gentleman in my class took off his class ring and offered it to me. I laughed. Everyone laughed.

I hate giving my age. Because when you're 29 and single people want to know why. And if I had an answer to that which didn't rip out my heart with a spoon, I would give it.

And change it.

Ah well. 30, you're just around the bend, and then people will hear my age and think I must be a freak that no one married me. So, I think I'll just enjoy 29 while I have it.