The end of a not-so-era.

In four days, my time in College Station will come to an end. A definite, final, complete end.

I'm sitting here at my computer, thinking about the past three years (roughly three, anyway) that I have been here. I'm musing over the things that I have seen, the people I have met, things that have happened to me. It's a wonder how anyone can manage to keep themselves at least relatively composed when they go through so much.

Between the loss of family members, hurricanes and some rather disappointing trials of love, it is some kind of marvel that I am able to look back on the past few years and consider my life a lucky one. But I AM lucky. I have my life, I have fair health, I have a small, tightened group of friends who mean the world to me.

I do, however, feel like my writing is lacking in quality lately. Something happened recently that has made me doubt my own abilities. As much I tend to pride myself on being able to thrive without the approval of others, it really does hack my nerves when someone knocks on something that I have spent quite a bit of time writing. I'm one of the first people who will criticize my own work, and I know I am not an impeccable writer, but what happened is an insult to me. It isn't personal, but as a writer, I am fairly unsettled.

With all of that being said, I'm soooo ready to move home. I am sad to be leaving College Station for a few very good reasons, but moving on to this next chapter in my life is much less daunting than it previously was.

I have to say, I'm pretty thrilled to be enjoying some damn good home cooking for a little while...

Camping is more fun when the temperature agrees with you.

Also, Melatonin is spectacular and a lifesaver, and I would recommend it to anyone who ever has any trouble falling asleep.

Oh, readers, what have I done? I told myself that I would keep up with my blog and here I am with a time span close to a month  between now and the last time I updated. Crap, indeed.

Anyway, I suppose it is about time to start yammering about my life and what is new.

Insite is going fairly well. I have been pretty consistently busy for the past few weeks with interviews and stories and whatnot. I'm trying to use my experience with Insite as a jumping off point for deciding whether or not I want to stick with magazines. The main issue with this is the realization that Insite is not the type of magazine I would like to work or write for. Although the circulation runs at right around 5,000 readers/subscribers, it's not quite what I'm really interested in. Realistically speaking, I doubt I will ever actually work for National Geographic or Aperture, but a girl can hope...right?

Let's see what else is new... I haven't gotten my diploma yet, even though I graduated two months ago. For those of you who were unaware, I had some... "issues" with a couple of classes right at the time of graduation, and my diploma is being withheld until all of these issues are resolved. The main thing that is getting on my nerves is the fact that the final problem keeping me from having that piece of paper is not something I can control. I suppose it would help to have a little bit of a background story for this.

This past semester, I took a class that actually uses student work to produce a magazine and circulate it. We, as students, find the stories, do the interviews, take the photos, write the stories, design the layouts and sell advertisements. I was on the editorial staff as a Copy Editor (a position I was pretty proud of myself for earning). My work involved seeing the magazine to completion, and because the magazine is not finished, I have an 'Incomplete' for my grade for the class.

The real issue is that the thing that is keeping the magazine from being totally finished is the placement and finalization of ads. That's it. All we have needed for the past two months is for our ads to be placed in the magazine. That's all. Nothing else but the procrastination of other people is keeping me from my diploma.

By golly and jumping Jesus, I am livid. I want my diploma! Ugh.

EDIT: I have been made aware that there was more to do than place ads in order for the magazine to be finished, and my rant about the fact that I haven't gotten my diploma yet because of this class was taken in the wrong light. Let me make something abundantly clear...my job as Copy Editor included being 100% available to anyone who needed my help. Whether someone needed my help with designing a layout or getting a picture, I made sure to let people know that I was willing and able to assist in any way I could. I went so far as to even ASK people if they needed my help, and this included other members of the editorial staff. After the end of the semester, I was never asked for help or assigned anything to do for the completion of the magazine, even though I had made it known that I was staying in College Station for the remainder of the summer and that it wouldn't be any trouble to lend a hand. It was my job, after all, and I was determined to see it to completion. When my questions about whether or not I could do anything were shot down repeatedly, I STOPPED ASKING. My frustration, maybe a tad misplaced, is justified and will remain so until the situation is rectified. Until that time, please keep your passive aggressive comments to yourself, and stop trying to defend yourself to me. I am very aware that you have done your work and you have done it well, and I understand that you may be frustrated also. I admire your hard work and diligence. I admire your intelligence and motivation and passion. But, as I said, keep your passive aggressive comments to yourself. They are unnecessary and ill-judged, and I am not going to sit on my thumbs and allow you to speak to me that way.

It didn't stay in Vegas...

Alright, readers, I want to start (yet again) with an apology.

I apologize. I realized the other day that it has been an unreasonable amount of time since I have regaled you with my rants and bitchy tirades. Honestly, I have way more than what should be a realistic amount to whine about, but I'm going to try and change my pace...at least for now, that is.

Life for the past couple of weeks has been something of a...(family, please excuse the foul language) clusterfuck. Beyond "work" at the magazine, I have kept fairly busy with friends and traveling and an overtly ridiculous amount of some kind of drama or another.

But you know what? Things aren't bad. I'm actually happy. I'm feeling fulfilled and loved and needed. I'm meeting people, I'm traveling to places I've never been and, thank God above, I'm not fretting over classes.

....Ah, screw it, I'm just not as good at being all touchy and sentimental as I am with being negative and bitchy. I may be happy, but there is plenty of things to complain about.

People. Are. Difficult. Readers, I don't know what to do about a lot of things. There are people who have been my friends for a very long time who just don't act like I mean anything to them anymore. I feel like I have done and said a lot for these people. I feel like I have been as good a friend as I can possibly be.

Why aren't I being commended for that?

You know, I have a problem with those who deem it necessary to make a potentially wonderful friendship into a one-way street. To hell with that. If I can't rely on you when my problems are so relentlessly stressful that I break out into hysterics in the middle of the night, then maybe you aren't worth my effort and time.

In a matter of three days, two of my best friends have called me crying. In a matter of three days, I have done what I can to calm them down and reassure them that despite the harrowing nature of their situations, they are both strong, capable, intelligent people with the ability to overcome the most difficult of obstacles. If I were able to, I would be a professional friend. By golly and sunny cheese wiz, I am AMAZING at being a friend.

I make it a personal priority to remain as accessible and loyal and viciously protective of my friends. Think of me as that ratty, scraggly junkyard mutt with the spiked collar and a set of teeth that would haunt an orthodontist for weeks. You mess with my pals, I will have your throat.

IT'S ALIIIIIIIIVE.

I promise I will update soon.

The past couple of weeks have been hectic, to say the least.

Give me a couple of days to put on my big girl panties and deal with a few things.

If you can...

If you can pronounce correctly every word in this poem, you will be speaking English better than 90% of the native English speakers in the world.

(This is not my poem!)

Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.
Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it’s written.)
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as plaque and ague.
But be careful how you speak:
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.
Hear me say, devoid of trickery,
Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,
Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
Exiles, similes, and reviles;
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far;
One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
Scene, Melpomene, mankind.
Billet does not rhyme with ballet,
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.
Viscous, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward.
And your pronunciation’s OK
When you correctly say croquet,
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.
Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
And enamour rhyme with hammer.
River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
Doll and roll and some and home.
Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.
Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,
Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,
Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,
And then singer, ginger, linger,
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.
Query does not rhyme with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury.
Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.
Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath.
Though the differences seem little,
We say actual but victual.
Refer does not rhyme with deafer.
Foeffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Mint, pint, senate and sedate;
Dull, bull, and George ate late.
Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific.
Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.
We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
Mark the differences, moreover,
Between mover, cover, clover;
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police and lice;
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.
Petal, panel, and canal,
Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor.
Tour, but our and succour, four.
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
Sea, idea, Korea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.
Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion and battalion.
Sally with ally, yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.
Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.
Heron, granary, canary.
Crevice and device and aerie.
Face, but preface, not efface.
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
Large, but target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.
Ear, but earn and wear and tear
Do not rhyme with here but ere.
Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,
Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.
Pronunciation (think of Psyche!)
Is a paling stout and spikey?
Won’t it make you lose your wits,
Writing groats and saying grits?
It’s a dark abyss or tunnel:
Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,
Islington and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict.
Finally, which rhymes with enough,
Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
Hiccough has the sound of cup.
My advice is to give up!!!