Blog 55

I don’t have a specific favorite place, rather a favorite category of places that can be applied across various locations. To be clearer, I love libraries. It doesn’t particularly matter which library I’m in, I simply find serenity in emerging myself in volumes of information, of knowledge and of the legacies of people that came before me.

At OSU, You can find me in the stacks. If I could read for the rest of my life, for a living, and for nothing but my personal gratification, I would. Sadly, I’ve looked into it and that’s not feasible in today’s job market.

There’s something magical about being able to understand how those who came before you felt or knew or experienced. I have a suspicion that this is part of why I am a history major. My dad always encouraged me to read into other people and words and I don’t think it’s something I’ll ever loose or miss about it.

The library is also a superb place to curl up with tome and doze off. I’m sure I sound like an old person when I say that, but it’s true. If it’s a good one, it has climate control, and I simply love the dusty old book smell that comes with it. I associate libraries with ideas that are larger than myself, and If I ever need to escape from me, I can do so.

My first kiss was in a library, and hopefully they’ll be more between the shelves of awesomeness.  

Blog 54

All of these stories are true, but they aren’t all mine. Guess which one isn’t!

1. My dad is a mercenary. He’s American, but lives in another country as a gun for hire by a Middle Eastern government. He’s ex-military, but before that printed newspapers and marched in a world class Drum Corps (marching band on steroids). Obviously, this had a large impact on how I grew up.

2. I love reptiles. In my senior year of high school, my best friend went on Craigslist and bought two desert Leopard Geckos. To her surprise, they ended up being opposite genders and to stop the vicious “fighting”, I got a gecko. Unoriginally, I named him Lizzie. I’d stick him in a large hamster ball and we’d frolic around together. Last summer, he stopped eating and was severely suffering.  On the pet store’s advice, I froze him to be humane. What do you do with a frozen gecko corpse? I threw him ceremonially down a waterfall not far from campus and hoped that he would get eaten and that his molecules would get recycled into the great cycle of life

3.  My aunt is truly a phenomenal woman. Until recently, she lived on a mountain in Colorado, where she raised wolves on her property and kept them as semi-docile pets. At some point in her life, she was the principal of a high school, and always a devout Catholic. Although I don’t share her faith, I’ve always admired her patience and dedication to being a nun. Last year she was appointed Mother Superior! (of the Franciscan Order)

Blog 53

“Imperial” is an adjective. It’s classy, it’s regal, and it’s somewhat snobby. If imperial were a woman, it’d wear fur coats and saunter down aisle ways at the royal wedding. It makes me think of a deep purple and of fat kings and aloof cats from a Disney movie that wear jewel-studded collars and eat of people bowls.

To others the word “imperial” is a statement of fear and hate and racism. European powers not too long ago slaughtered men and women of advanced and complex civilizations in Africa, India, and Asia in its name. They measured the skulls of other races and claimed that the white man was further evolved than them because of his physical, religious, industrial, and social differences. It claimed that some had the moral responsibility to make everyone else like their own and killed a lot of good culture in the process. “Imperial” in many ways disgusts me.

To some “imperial” strikes a chord in their nationalistic pride. It makes them think of days past when the spirit of their fellow man was embodied in the being of a monarch or another ruler. It holds morally heavy connotations of romanticism and patriotism, a throwback to the years when men didn’t bicker in public over the country’s policies and everything was a matter of principle.

“Imperial” has grown from diverse roots to form a single tree of meaning. People visit the idea of it every day and are emotionally moved by its definition.

It is a powerful word. 

Blog 51

Technically, I am still a Biology major. I picked biology because I excelled at science in high school, but when I started taking classes at OSU I decided that it wasn’t for me. I could definitely get a Biology degree. The classes are challenging but I’m confident that I could do so, I just found myself longing to do something with more feeling and missing the arts.

Therefore, I’m unofficially a History major (I have yet to go through the process of getting it switched over). History is something that has always captivated me, and something that I found always came easily. Most importantly, history is a study of everything. I can bury myself in any subject that I want and see how  it relates to people and places and how everything got to be how it is today.

I’m fascinated in the explanation of how cultures and places developed. It gives me a sense of pride to understand how something acquired its identity.

Contrary to how many people perceive it, pursuing a degree in history is full of unique challenges. I won’t be spending hours in the lab and doing calculus, but I will need the patience and humility to learn how to gain insight, and how communication alters facts by perception. At OSU, history is in the college of Arts and Sciences and is regarded as an art. I’ll have to use skills that no other field does and craft them into the observations that compose modern history. 

Blog 50

I really struggled with coming up with an answer for this question; it is not something that I usually dwell on. Aside from my history homework, I rarely ruminate on the significance of people that aren’t in my immediate life, and I’m certainly not one to follow celebrities. In fact, I’m not sure that I could recognize many if asked.

When it comes down to it, I do have people that I admire, that inspire me to be better than I am. Don’t laugh, but Lady Gaga is one of those people. She presents herself in a quite ridiculous way; she looks like a slut, wears ugly outfits, isn’t ashamed that she’s not a great dancer, and most of all, she embraces the aspects of her personality that most people would (and do) ridicule her for. She reminds me that I’ve got to accept all of my personality, even the parts that are geeky or obnoxious.

Like the biggest loser in the world, I blast her song, “Born This Way” in my car on the way to school, and I’m not at all ashamed of it. Sometimes, I can be a ho, or look ridiculous or even make a fool out of myself. I’d like to meet Lady Gaga not to ask her how to do this better, or to fawn over her like a fangirl, but to thank her for being the best kind of role model that someone can be- that is, someone that doesn’t inspire you to be like them, but someone that  inspires you to be like you. 

Blog 49

Most of the time, I don’t have dreams that I can recall. On some occasions, I wake up with a jolt and what stays in my mind is a crazily random hodge podge of images. Sometimes I can discern a string of events from them and rarely can I remember a story line.

After taking psychology last quarter, I am convinced that Freud’s dream theory is a crock of bull and that my personal experiences point to an activation-synthesis theory of dreams (a term that I’m very surprised that I have remembered a day after that final). It all seems to be the product or random firing of neurons, or something equally by chance.

My best friend swears that his dreams point to inner struggles or even reveal truths about his emotional state. I wish that I could find meaning in mine, even if it was after the fact. Sadly, I’m just too rational to be able to sort through the mumbo jumbo.

I woke up this morning and remembered the following: the purple sweatshirt I left at Disney land, running with a purpose, probably in a marathon, being well groomed, my uncle’s beef stew, and feeling stressed out. Who knows what the hell this means? I’m sure a psychic with a dream book could charge me twenty dollars to let me know, but I don’t care enough to pursue it.

I guess that is what it comes down to: I don’t put much stake in my dreams, and as a result, they’re a very small part of my life. 

Blog 48

This is going to sound a little creepy, but babies fascinate me. I feel like I must provide readers with a disclaimer: I’m way too young and not at all ready to reproduce, but babies in general make intrigued in a very non-goo goo gaga way.

I don’t want to fawn over them, to make cooing noises or exaggerated facial expressions. My ovaries don’t ache when I hear one laugh- I just think they are, well, the shit. They’re phat. They’re a biological wonder. They make me marvel at the genius of human development and the intricacies of our composition.

When a fertilized egg becomes a baby, a miracle happens. Somewhere along the way, a soul is formed. It doesn’t matter if you believe this is a spiritual occurrence, or a scientific feat that we just don’t understand, it’s something sacred to all. People can make other people and embryonic development even holds the secret to evolutionary descent!

This is why I go crazy over ultrasounds and wish that there was a momma belly in the form of a transparent jar. I wish I could witness the exciting process.

What I’m crazy about is that hopefully one day when I’m ready, I’ll get to make one. Maybe then I’ll get it a little bit more. Untill then, I’m going to be the creepy chick who stares at babies when their parents aren’t looking (we’ve all done it), and pray that my sister gets knocked up soon like she wants to so I can stalk her pregnancy.