yikes

things that have been on my mind as of late:

tonsillectomy
as you like it
self-evaluation
faculty-evaluation
london
packing
summer
senior year
chicago
career
sex
baby names (I actually spent the better part of an hour looking at baby names online...why?)
celtic music
edinburgh
water
coffee
diets
liquid diets
throat scopes
nephews
mom
juries
biology finals
laundry
liquid pain killers
cleaning
pizza
alcohol
life in general
more alcohol

and the kicker:
at 5:20pm tomorrow, I will officially be a senior in college

and more alcohol

I found the small rock I picked up off the shore of Loch Lomond tonight. It was sitting on my desk (has been all semester) but I haven't really noticed it. I guess we notice things when we're meant to notice them. I remember how cathartic Scotland was for me, especially Loch Lomond. I was able to put my life into perspective after being there. I think it's a sign that it's time for me to put my life into perspective again. So I picked up my journal and found my Scotland entry. Maybe typing it here will help me to realize what that small sign is trying to tell me right now. Here goes:

My journal is now laden with sand from Loch Lomond. I didn't put it there. It blew in, and as I tried to brush it away, it occurred to me that I should keep it. What's wrong with a natural keepsake? I think the shores of Scotland want a piece of themselves to go with me back home. And I want a piece of Scotland to follow me. Actually, I think I'd be perfectly happy to call Scotland home. It's picturesque and untouched perfection before my eyes. Too breathtaking and beautiful to be adequately captured in a picture. Like an untamed William Wallace, untamed Scotland fights captivation of any form- even as a member of the United Kingdom. The clouds are so low, I feel like I could reach up on my tip-toes and pull them down. But they'd fight it too. Robert the Bruce, inspired by a persevering spider said, "if at first you don't succeed, try, try, again." So Scotland did, has, and will. And so I will as well-- taking my inspiration from that wild beauty that is Scotland......

Random thoughts come on random pages today. I couldn't write continuously and thought trying to pick up where I left off just felt wrong. Maybe my attitude has already been somehow altered, so trying to pick up isn't right. To sum up this weekend, I might simply say: I love Scotland.

It's old and Gothic and spectacular, and I could spend years exploring all of its beauties and still never feel satisfied that I'd seen it all. Continuing my thoughts from beside Loch Lomond, I feel so utterly cleansed and refreshed. Untamed, beautiful Scotland has inspired me to "try, try again" and reminded me that with only five weeks left abroad, there is no need to waste my time with negativity. There are worse things in the world than the frustrations I feel in class. Take for instance the strangely saddening story of Hamish, the famous highlands cow, who is quarantined because of Mad Cow Disease. he has no "cow-mates", so he feeds off of the human contact he gets from tourists who come to visit, smile, talk to him, and take his picture. Fourteen years old and totally alone. I tried to put my self in his...hooves...and I got really depressed. Makes me want to give up beef for a while, honestly. I don't know what it is about Scotland that just captured a piece of my heart. I know I'm an absolute romantic about old world charm and such, but it was different than Bath, somehow. I keep coming back to the idea of capturing and taming and Scotland's apparent disdain for both. Yes, there are modern buildings and conveniences, but it's mostly this wild country that, though it has changed a great deal in 350 million years since it sat on the equator, it hasn't done much changing in a couple thousand years. Its natives are proud and strong. They have the reputations of William Wallace and Rob Roy to live up to, and they like their way of life just fine. Just note the plaid fabric on the bus seats. Again, it frustrates me and amuses me and amazes me that I can't even capture Scotland adequately in my digital photographs, let alone in my humble journal entries. Maybe I'm only meant to experience certain things. Just open my eyes and look, open my ears and listen, open my nose and smell, my mouth and taste, my hands and touch...rather than look through a view finder and snap, hoping to convey to my family and friends how amazing everything was. And they'll look at the photos and read my journal and they'll think it's all beautiful and fantastic, but they won't know what it felt like to stand in the mucky sands of the beach of Loch Lomond, practically touching the clouds, watching the water ripple, and feeling truly alive and open for the first time in a long time. Feeling like I could try my hand at some poetry and it might actually be kind of decent. I could conquer anything in Scotland- fears, enemies, goals, ambitions. "What should I fear having all joys about me?" When I stress out, freak out, act out, I think I'll just put myself back on that little patch of grass beside the Loch, try to breathe in the Scottish air, and calm myself down. "Oh, I'll take the high road, and you'll take the low road, and I'll be in Scotland before you..." My mantra. Thank you, beautiful, untamed Scotland, for all that you are, and all that you will forever mean to me.

I have opened my journal up to that entry every single time I've felt out of control or lost this semester. And I always feel better.

ugg...(the vocal release of emotional tension, not the trendy boot)

This end of this school year is quickly approaching, bringing with it a tilt-o-whirl of feelings I can't quite grasp. Part of me is so totally thrilled to be done with school for a while. I kind of can't wait to get these monstrosities that are my tonsils laser-ed off of me, even though it means I'm unable to do any kind of theatre/singing work this summer. I DO, however, get to lie on my ass recovering, probably watching bad reality TV marathons (please, oh, please, ANTM), drinking liquid Vicodin, sleeping, reading, and losing 15 lbs from being unable to eat due to earth-shattering pain. And that's just the first couple of WEEKS of summer. Then I'll get a temp job being an office monkey and a part time job at Borders (for the discount), and slowly but surely discover my singing voice again. I'll get to play with my darling toddler of a nephew, Carter, and my ridiculously cute newborn nephew, Dane, and hang out with the best mother in the world, and turn that lost 15 lbs into 30 lbs by taking as many spinning, kickboxing, yoga and pilates classes as I can handle. THEN, in the middle of July, just as the "God, I miss my college life and why am I wasting away in DES MOINES!?!?!" summer blues start to hit, I get to take off and spend 2 blissful weeks in Chicago taking improv and sketch comedy writing classes at The Second City. (note to self: must find place in Chicago to live for 2 weeks. Surely someone has room on their couch and would like a fun, clean, non-annoying, 21-year-old who's willing to pay rent) After that, more work, possibly a trip to Las Vegas, and the infamous Iowa State Fair. I don't think this summer will be too shabby.

I just re-read the beginning of this blog and realized that I meant to talk about a mix of emotions for impending summer. I guess I'm really just ready to be done with school for a while. I'm sick of everything. I hate feeling stuck in AMS, I hate feeling taking this stupid biology class, I hate doing this dialects project that I haven't even started yet. Ugg. And I've come full circle.

Think about summer, Anna. Just don't think about being a senior...eeek.

late night journal entries

I spend a significant amount of time everyday contemplating my future. That future, that was once so far away, now looms over me like one of those really black rain clouds that, at any moment, could open its pores and drench me to the bone. Life really will come at me just like that. And it's okay. I think I'll be ready for it. I won't be so ready that I'll have an umbrella, but at least I'll be prepared enough that the first downpour won't shock me. Sooner or later, I'll step under a canopy and dry off a bit, only to step out into the storm again and again. I know that's how my life will be at first. I chose this path, and I don't regret it. And it doesn't worry me that I'm scared. I don't feel any less driven, just unfocused. I want to do too many things, see too many places. I don't know how to micromanage and fit everything in. Bottom line: I'm not a naturally organized person. I'm clean, but I'm messy. And I want to have my shit together. I HAVE to have my shit together. There's no getting around that fact. My future is, indeed, looming. I think my perception of it will change. When everything starts to fall into place, it will be a light at the end of the tunnel or some other metaphorical bullshit cliche. For now, though, I'll stick with the rain cloud...but I've always loved a good thunderstorm.

I have recently started looking at Craig'sList on a regular basis. It started with me trying to find a summer job in Des Moines that won't mind me not being able to speak the first couple of weeks after my tonsilectomy. Then I decided to click on the US city of Chicago to look at jobs. Then I started looking at apartments...and subsequently falling in love with apartments...that I can't afford. Now I've gone off the deep end and started looking at New York. This has to stop. I'm still terrified about being a senior, but I'm strangely excited to be looking at jobs and apartments that aren't in Des Moines. Overall, I'm confoozled. So many things to be scared about, so many things to be excited about...usually the same things...EEK. Adulthood: friend or foe? Guess I'll find out soon enough.

On a roll

Two posts within minutes of each other; guess I've got nothing better to do.

Anyway, I clicked on my "view full profile" thing, and glanced at the picture that I chose as my profile pic: Me, writing in my journal, in front of the birthplace of William Shakespeare in Stratford-Upon-Avon. I knew it was cheesy and typical of my to post a picture of myself physically writing on a blogging website, but I guess I have a tendency to be cheesy and typical at times. I love that picture, though. I remember how badly I felt the need to write something, anything in front of that house, and I know that's cheesy, too, but get over it. I love Shakespeare. After a semester spent on pretty much nothing but Shakespeare, my awareness of his brilliance has only been heightened. I know there a billions of theories out there about the improbability of that caliber of genius existing in a poor tradesman's song with limited schooling, but I don't care about them. I love the idea of Shakespeare. And I love the ideas of Shakespeare's. And I think I would be content to spend the rest of my life performing Shakespeare (fingers crossed: for the Royal Shakespeare Company...someday...) I love that he's so brilliant, he gives you everything you need to know in the words, if you know how to read them. I get so tired of all this naturalistic, subtext-soaked LaBute/Mamet elipses bullshit sometimes. Yes, it's good theatre, I understand, but you have to work too hard for that text. You could argue for days about objectives and tactics and the subconscious. Shakespeare didn't call for subconscious, he wrote asides. The audiences of his time weren't smart enough to get subtext, and, honestly, most audiences of our time aren't smart enough to get it either. So you end up working your ass off for nothing. Shakespeare simplified everything, and I know that sounds crazy because people spend so much time COMPLICATING Shakespeare. It's really cut-and-dry. I firmly believe that. And the beauty of it is, you don't HAVE to hear/understand every single word of every single line of every couplet of every speech of every scene so help you God, if they actors do their jobs, you understand. I fell in love with the histories in Stratford. The Histories, for God's sake, because they were so compelling. I don't know what sparked this rant, I just felt the need to declare my love of Shakespeare to the great "out there" since he's no longer around for me to tell him face-to-face.

I've been thinking a lot about my London semester recently. I revisited my travel journal, and found an early entry where I discovered I was becoming a local. It goes as follows:

Sunday, September 23, 2007

I ventured out alone for the first time since I’ve been here. Granted, it was only for a ten minute walk from the South Kensington tube station to my residence hall on Manresa Road. All the same, it liberated me. For the first time, I felt like London was home, or at least that little corner of Chelsea, was home. My turf, my neighborhood, my people. I had a pleasant skip in my step as I walked, tea in hand by the white pillared homes. Past couples holding hands, jolly older Englishmen with their bags of groceries from Waitrose, women walking their King Charles spaniels, and bicyclist after bicyclist. For some reason, EVERYONE was on a bike today.
It was such a beautiful day to be just walking, too. I couldn’t wipe the slight smile from my face. And I found myself wanting to smile at everyone I passed. The mother carefully lifting the stroller that held her sleeping child was happy to exchange a grin. As was the older man out for a stroll who seemed pleasantly surprised that I even made eye-contact, his jovial ear-to-ear almost made me giggle. And I found something else to love about this city: random acts of smiling. In New York, people don’t bother to even make eye-contact, let alone smile. Maybe it’s that old world charm that still exists in England, but I’ve found, especially on serene and beautiful Sunday afternoons, that people are more than willing to share in your silent elation.

God, I miss it.