in which i write a girly blog post about choosing a career

Dress shopping is a fascinating and personality-revealing phenomenon. You browse through store after store, finding all the dresses you think are beautiful. Then you try them on, one after another, discarding all the ones that don’t fit quite right.

Then you are left with the most difficult task of all — determining which of these beautiful dresses suit you. Which one is actually your style? Which one reflects your personality, your understanding of the way clothes should function as self-expression? Maybe this one pushes your style a little bit but is undeniably you, maybe that one is classic you, and maybe that one over there (yes, the green polka-dotted one) fits well but isn’t right at all.

Choosing is hard. Because you want to choose something you’ll love until it wears out, possibly years down the road.

Career options are the same way. It seems logical to think that once you’ve chosen your major (or in my case, majors), your career will just follow. But no, choosing a major is like choosing all the dresses that are beautiful. Then, throughout your classes, you figure out what, specifically, within that major fits you well. Like photography or printmaking, creative writing or literature analysis.

Then the hardest part. You have to figure out which, of all the things you loved about your (possibly multiple) majors suits you. Does art or English suit me more? Photography or printmaking? Editing or writing? How could I most happily spend my life, 8 hours a day, 5 days a week?

And if you’re lucky, the things that suit you will also fit you (i.e. you’ll be able to find a job opening in that area). If not, well, learn to make your own clothes I guess.

The good thing is, there are plenty of stores and employers out there. . . .

And that ends girly metaphor hour with Mackenzie. Tune in next time, to hear me compare marriage to the process of doing your nails.

(Just kidding. I don’t know anything about marriage and I never do my nails.)

today i read an absurd thing,

which I wanted to share with you. In reading the BBC News website, I came across a profile of (the recently deposed) King Gyanendra of Nepal. It described his takeover of the country after the death of his brother (a largely figurehead monarch) in a palace massacre. It talked about how he dismissed the elected government of Nepal, declared a state of emergency, and consolidated his power, then was removed from his position by a Maoist insurgency (now referred to as “newly installed Maoist-led government”). The article ends, and I quote, “His hobbies include reading and writing poetry.”

Not something I would expect to read in a profile of a recently-deposed absolute monarch.

But hey, if I ever become an absolute monarch, I definitely want to be remembered for liking to read and write poetry.

In other news, Memorial Day weekend proved to be the best vacation I could imagine. Greg and I made the 27-hour trek home and back (actually more like 30-hour trek, due to accidents and consequently congested roadways) and I have subsequently started house-sitting. The cat who lives in the house which I sit is the most adorable, friendly, cat you could imagine. So I think it will be a fun time.

In alternate news, I think I’m abandoning my summer novel-writing endeavor before it even gets properly started. I realized I would much rather try to design a website for myself.

Can you tell I’m not used to having free time, time in which to do anything I want?

Also, I learned that “daikin” in Japanese means “white turnip that nobody really wants to eat.” So the Daikin Fest which I attended in my home town this past weekend? It’s named after a white turnip that nobody really wants to eat.

ah, the summer. . . .

It’s summer in all but the weather. The majority of my contemporaries are now at home and entering their summer groove. Tomorrow I go home to Alabama for a few days to chill with my family. So, my readers, I will not be posting on my customary Friday. (I feel so nineteenth century when I address you — “Dear Reader. . . “)

In any case, the urge to work on my novel has not subsided. In fact, I now have a proper speaker to mediate the action of the story, and I’m hoping that will solve a great deal of my problems, narratively speaking. Of course, I have yet to get into the revision process more than a page, so I’m probably speaking way too early.

I checked out six books for my 26 hours of driving, and I think that should be about sufficient. Wish us good luck on our travels! If I remember, I will take a picture or two of the famed Daikin Fest near my home town (it’s like the county fair, except the food is free and they also have elements of Japanese culture they try to educate us with).

watch the long light fall

I have begun re-reading Art and Fear, and it is very good. “The function of the overwhelming majority of your artwork is simply to teach you how to make the small fraction of your artwork that soars,” authors Ted Orland and David Bayles remind me when I pick up the book. So even though I fear my next project will be a failure, it will serve some purpose in propelling me towards the next project, the next skill learned and mastered. The authors also challenge me with this thought: “What separates artists from ex-artists is that those who challenge their fears continue; those who don’t, quit.” It is as simple as that. If I want to be an artist, I only have to keep making art.

This is a similar dictum to the one Crystal Downing, an English professor here, states firmly: “Writers write.” To call yourself a writer you must merely write. That is deceptively easy; although I say “merely,” I agree with Gene Fowler, who says, “Writing is easy: All you do is sit staring at a blank sheet of paper until drops of blood form on your forehead.”

So why do we keep making art even though there’s fear associated with our vocation, even though it is not easy in the least? I keep asking myself that. I’ve been asking myself that for the last four years. I think, as a senior, I might have the smallest glimmer of an answer about why many artists, poets, or writers find it worthwhile.

Making art is a way through which we engage in and with the world on a whole different dimension from regular life. To really observe an object is to be filled with delight in it, to come to love it in some way. So making art keeps us full of vitality, observing the world and falling in love with it. The process of making art is sometimes pleasant and sometimes frustrating, but it always forces us to see the world in a way that enriches us.

There are a lot of authors (and some of my professors here) who’ve said the same thing, in one way or another, through this past year of study. So I’m not really being original in writing all this down. I’m also (hopefully) not entirely wrong.

I just know that creation necessitates removing blinders from the sides of my eyes. And when I stop to observe and meditate, creation flows naturally from that engagement with the outside world.

you’re the moon, i’m the water

I couldn’t leave blogging until Friday, not after that last depressing acknowledgement of graduation’s sad side! But it is hard not to mourn the ending of something so influential, so elemental to the person I am now. For me, the classroom experience continues, but the social community aspects of college will change drastically.

At least I get to hang out with cool people like Professor Perrin for a while longer. Seriously, working with her for my honors project was one of the most meaningful and good things that happened to me during college.

This week, though, it’s carpe diem (did I spell that right?) — spend as much time together with the people you love as you can before . . . (gasp) THE END OF COLLEGE. For my art majors, that meant going miniature golfing last night after the senior class picnic. For some of my other friends, that means planning Thai dinners and hangouts. And possibly MST3King a movie.

And it’s good — once we knew that we were sad, we could get past it and actually talk about our plans, what we want, what we’re uncertain of, that one place on earth we’ll never move. Which, you know, is just tempting a certain divine someone to decide that’s what we need for our vocational development! =)

This summer, I think I’d like to write a novel.

Yes, you can laugh. I already have obligations to provide 7 pieces of art for a little exhibit at a coffee shop in Lebannon, so there is plenty of work I will end up doing instead. But still. . . novel writing has this allure. . . .

“thunder rumbles in the distance, a quiet intensity. i am willfull, your insistence is tugging at the best of me.”

Oh, rain. You would choose finals week to begin pouring down on our houses of jubilation.

I say houses of jubilation, but (despite my finals going well) I am not feeling very jubilated. In fact, I am already feeling lonely, like my friends have all left me already, and I will have to sit in rain for the next nine months until I graduate.

I feel a little like I need to be unfailingly happy and up-beat in these last few days, so that I can take advantage of my last few hangouts before the end of most everyone’s college careers. But today, even though it breaks my tradition of excited Friday afternoon blog posts, I’m taking this opportunity to acknowledge that graduation is bittersweet.

I’m very excited for my friends that have already found jobs and moved into excited packing mode. I’m very excited for those of my friends who are getting married this summer. But I am sad that I’ll be left behind to finish up my degree. Oh, dear. Remind me why I am a double major?

Still, I guess now that I’ve acknowledged that I am sad, I should move into sharing the excitement of my friends. After all, we still have a week together.

“is it enough to write a song and sing it to the birds?”

When I wake up early, it’s cool and it smells like summer, there’s a lawn mower in the distance, I feel like I should grab my jump rope and run down to play underneath our clotheslines for the morning. The holly hocks would be blooming by the side of the white farm house, both my brothers still sleeping (one only a baby), the black-spotted cat would run from the porch to the barn when she heard me coming.

Of course, now that I’m not seven, I usually get up early only for important things like work or class.

Usually over the summer I rush home to start working, because if I don’t, I will slip into a boredom that threatens my sanity. This summer is a little different. I feel ready to relax. I have a summer job, here as a student writer, so I do not have to worry about what I will do with my time. This school year I worked harder than I ever have in my life. All of my senior projects are now finished. Oh, and I’m getting married next January. All in all, I’m ready for a little bit of a vacation. =)

Luckily, I will be taking a little bit of a break in May to visit my family in Alabama. I mapped out my summer reading list and am ready to dive into it. And Greg and I have a small show in a cafe near his hometown slated for July, so I am ready to start work on that imagery. Is it odd that I consider those things a vacation?

Probably.

In any case, if you are bored of your music and want something summery and acoustic, I recommend the Weepies. They are nice, and their lyrics have provided titles for quite a few of my last posts.

(10 days until graduation)

“sometimes rain that’s needed falls”

–The Weepies

Wow. Can it be that there are only 15 more days until graduation? I can’t believe it! In a lot of ways I wish I were graduating with my class, but I am also relieved to put off the job search process for a few more months. I’m certainly going to treasure and store up these 15 more days with the people I love before we scatter across the U.S.

This week I finished my honors project by giving a poetry reading. Actually, as much as I dreaded it, it was great fun. More faculty showed up than I expected, and they were all very interested and supportive. My mom came up from Alabama for the reading, which was SO much fun. It felt like a real party with her here. Afterwards, my mentor and poetry-mother had us over to her house for dinner to celebrate. So wonderful! And my grandmother and aunt from Indiana passed through on their way to a genealogy conference and saw my senior show. I appreciated that they took the time to see it.

I’m so tired! So happy to be done with these major projects, so happy that they went well, but so ready for rest. Luckily, I do not have homework over the summer. I will be working here, in the Office of Marketing and Public Relations, as a student writer still. So I will also continue to blog.

Until next week, then, my readers, when I will update you on our senior art major canoe trip and picnic, final exams, and all the great honors projects I saw in the past few weeks. . . .