Rats Holding Things

Rats holding things is just about the cutest thing I have ever seen.

Take a look:

especially holding teddy bears...

self sabotage

I'm pretty sure I've been sabotaging myself since I came to college.  It's not that I don't want to do well, because I really do, but I'm afraid of what will happen if I actually apply myself.  That is to say, I'm more accepting of doing well when I'm not trying than I am of failing when I'm doing my best. 

It's really screwed up. And I don't know how to stop myself. I'm skipping class right now. No particular reason, I just didn't feel like going. WHY DO I CONTINUE TO DO THIS? I don't have an answer.  All I know is I'm never going to get anywhere in life if I continue this bad habit.  I'm probably depressed... but I do such a good job of hiding it from everyone including myself that I have a hard time figuring out when I'm depressed. 

Maybe I need to read this book. Maybe I just need to get my shit together.

Dreams/Nighmares

A month or so ago I watched David Lynch's Mulholland Dr. I've always been fascinated by the dream world, but that movie really pointed out just how fucked up dreams can be sometimes. 

A couple nights ago I had one of the most horribly vivid dreams.  

It started off with me and some friends playing around with samurai swords.  A friend and I were pretending to fight each other, but he accidentally decapitated me and sliced my torso away from my bottom half so I was lying on the ground in three pieces. I was begging people to help me and I thought that I needed a doctor, but no one seemed to really think it was that big of a deal. Eventually they put me back together, but throughout the rest of my dream I had problems with my head falling of my shoulders.  Every time my head fell off I felt this cold achy sensation in my neck.  I never made it to the doctor. The most interesting part was that I wasn't really bleeding. It wasn't THAT  gory actually. Just miserable.

This morning I had a lucid dream.

That was fun... I didn't notice I was dreaming until about halfway through the dream.. but when I came to the realization, I changed the whole plot to the dream and time travelled and brought people back from the dead.  I love lucid dreaming.

There's not really a point to this post besides me stating that I love dreams and hearing about dreams... even when they're more like nightmares.

January

January is always the crummiest month of the year...

• It's the coldest month.
• It's the greyest month.
• It's the loneliest month at Luther College.

Here at Luther College we have a transition term between our semesters. It's called J-term. Typically, this is a time for people to get gen-eds out of the way or study away or abroad. So most people are either super stressed out by their single class that meets every day and is very crammed OR they are off campus. The campus is very dead over J-term. The students that ARE on campus avoid going outdoors as much as possible because the windchill is 20 below.

I'm taking a snowboarding class this January. I needed a break from learning. My brain needed to cool down. The snowboarding class meets once a week (Tuesdays, from 3-10:30ish PM). It's nice that I have some time to rearrange my life and focus on filling out my study abroad application paperwork, but it sucks at the same time. I sit in my room until dinnertime almost every day of the week. IT'S NOT HEALTHYYY like I had hoped J-term would be. Thankfully, it is almost over... but it's scary at the same time. I had made a goal to study chinese over J-term, and completely overlooked it. I START CHINESE AGAIN IN ONE WEEK. I HAVEN'T SPOKEN/WRITTEN CHINESE IN 8 MONTHS. yikes.

I have at least 7 friends that are studying abroad this spring, including 3 of my 4 future housemates. I'm not going to see them for an entire year. I'm really sad about this.

I'm going home this wednesday and I hope that I will be able to get together with my old friends that I really didn't get to see/talk to much over winter break. That should be good.

TIME IS GOING TOO FAST. I'm going to be in Australia in less than 6 months.

My mind is all over the place this evening.

Okay, Maybe Australia.

Turns out the educational system is quite a bit different in NZ... They don't have any studio art classes I guess. SO NOW I MIGHT GO TO AUSTRALIA.

I've been looking at a University in Townsville... It's RIGHT on the Great Barrier Reef and has a lot of studio classes I'm interested in...

It's a couple thousand dollars cheaper than New Zealand too.


In other news, I gotta tattoooo... It has finally stopped itching and pealing.

I got it because I love Iowa, and the Gold finch is Iowa's state bird. Even though I am probably not going to live here for the rest of my life, it will be there perched on my shoulder to remind me of my ROOTS.

New Zealand???

I might be hanging out with Kiwis from July-November '10... If I get my shitttt together. I have a meeting in the study abroad office on Thursday.

WE'LL SEEEEE...

Here I am...

I am back at Luther College and doing well. This school year has been great so far... I've got 3 fantastic roommates and four great classes.

Painting is making me a little crazy... but that's because I've never worked with oils before. I'm starting to get the feel for it little by little. I dread going to class and doing still life paintings.. but it's good for me.

It hasn't rained since I've gotten here (three weeks ago) and the leaves are finally changing to orange, yellow, red, and brown.

Things are just beautiful... minus my painting abilities.