Apples and Appleton

I decided that I need one more post for November. Next month I'll hopefully be able to blog more than five times. I'm so excited for December. With December will come all of the much needed changes I've been so longingly waiting for. I also can't wait to allow my mind to be freely creative without guilt. I constantly think of things I want to write about, paint, or even hear songs I want to choreograph to but I have too much school work to worry about right now. I could put aside all of these matters of "great consequence" and indulge in my creative urges, but knowing that I am procrastinating on things I ought to be doing slightly stifles my process and thus the end result is not as purely imaginative as I would like. I figure I might as well just get all of the unimportant stuff like exams and papers out of the way before I can focus on what is truly important to me.

I am so utterly exhausted today. Thanksgiving break was absolutely wonderful, and incredibly relaxing but I feel like it took a toll on me. It was very emotional for some reason. I guess I'm just an emotional person, but I feel like I was even more so this past week. The Dells was nice. Except I sliced my finger real good trying to cut an apple. (It's funny because as I'm typing this entry I am eating an apple.) I stood at the kitchen sink stating, "Ow it hurts. It really, really hurts. Ow. It REALLY HURTS!" for about five minutes. It didn't stop bleeding for two hours and about 20 paper towels went to their capacity that night for my dear finger. There was talk of possibly going to the ER, but it ended up being a pretty little cut. It sure didn't seem little as it bled for two hours though!

After the Dells I went to Appleton to visit my boyfriend's family. It is still so surreal to me that I have a boyfriend, especially such a kind, fun-loving, forgiving boyfriend. Anyhow I spent Friday through Sunday at his house and it was really easy going. Much more easy going then I am accustomed to. It was really nice finally being able to see everything he always talks about. It's crazy how well you can picture something that someone is talking about without ever having been there, but you really do get a much clearer understanding of a person when you see them in the environment they grew up in or are spending much of their time in. I can't wait till I can visit a good friend of mine at college in North Dakota so I can understand her new life better.

On Saturday we watched Up and if you haven't seen this movie, see it! It is absolutely adorable. It may sound silly but I was just bawling during a couple parts of it. It really hit me hard and actually made me have some revelations.

I think I ought to stop for now and actually get to all of the matters of "great consequence" that are currently accumulating in my life. Yuck. I will leave you with a song with "November" in it by a band I never really heard of, but they're aren't that bad.

I won't do minimalism on MY walls.

Thanksgiving seemed to come real fast this year. I'm super excited because I'm going to the dells tomorrow. I normally wouldn't be all that excited about the dells, but the dells mixed with Thanksgiving is very exciting because my entire family goes up. By entire family I'm not just referring to my Mom, Dad, sister, two brothers and a brother-in-law. Whole family is my extended family and my extended family includes my grandparents, 12 aunts and uncles, and all their children. I think the total of all us cousins is somewhere around 25 I think more even. I love my family. They are so, so much fun. Everyone laughs a lot and it seems that as soon as one person starts laughing everyone has to out do that person and laugh harder and louder until pretty soon their is an explosion of laughter. Ahhh...I can't wait. All of us cram into a few condos like a whole slew of happy sardines and we eat and play games until late in the night. It's absolutely marvelous.

I dearly pray that the rest of the semester goes real fast. I only have about ten more days of actual class from here on out, though. I just can't wait to move into my own space and decorate it with all my quirky pictures and things but I don't like a lot of junk every where (Plus I don't have all that much stuff...) but I definitely don't want the walls to be bare. My parents are extreme minimalists when it comes to decorating walls; they just don't believe in hanging family pictures up, school pictures, or anything like that. In fact, I don't think we've had a family photo since I was two. My parents even had another kid five years ago and they still haven't taken a family photo. It's actually Kyle's (my little brother's) birthday today. Anyhow there's this website I really like called "the selby" the reason I mention it is because I was writing about decorating and this is the ultimate, indie decorum site (at least in my eyes.)

"The selby features photographs, paintings and videos by todd selby of interesting people and their creative spaces" I love it. It's basically just a whole bunch of pictures of artsy people and where they live. I especially like the most recent house featured. I love the country feel of it and how they have a ping pong table in that rustic garage and I can totally see myself painting in some little country garden and their fireplace that isn't really used for a fireplace is sweet. check it: http://www.theselby.com/

It's tempting to Alexander Supertramp it.

I was in the musical, A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum, at my college this fall. It was fun, but I'm glad it's over in a way. It was definitely good for me, however. I need structured activity. Now that I have a little more time to do what I please with I'm thinking a lot more. Thinking is usually a good thing, but I tend to think too much. I also have a wild imagination and a small amount of common sense. This combination often leads me to think of such things like going places on a whim. Today for example I have a horrible urge to run away on a greyhound to some place down south, take all my earnings (which are awfully, awfully slim.) and find a super, crappy shack in the woods where I can be like Thoreau and isolate myself from everyone and everything and just write. I get so into these ideas that I look online to see how much a shack down south would cost. Sometimes I even look into the price of greyhound tickets. Don't worry though, thankfully I'm not selfish enough to Alexander Supertramp it; though I get horribly, terribly tempted at times. As silly as this all sounds it's a serious issue for me. I'm praying that I have the strength to fight such urges. If I ever do give in I'll be sure to tell people first, though. I'm kind of going somewhere next semester that resulted from such musings, but actually I've been thinking about it for over three months now. I'm transferring schools. Crazy I know. This whole school situation has been absolutely insane for me. My mom and I frequently joke that I should just collect as many student IDs as I possibly can. I already have two. One for UofM and one for Carroll University. My third is going to be for UWM. I'm pretty sure this is going to be my third and final, however. It's funny how I ended up back where I began. That's where I was going to go before getting accepted to UofM. I'm absolutely thrilled for Milwaukee. I love the city of Milwaukee. Everything about it. (well...except that it gets so cold, but that's out of MKE's control anyways.) I'm going to move into a studio apartment downtown all on my lonesome. I'm most excited for this aspect of it; slightly nervous, but I believe it will do me a lot of good. I'm a very, very independent person and I thrive on being able to apply that independence. I've spent more time day dreaming about grocery shopping and eating oatmeal at my small little breakfast table in my bathrobe while listening to NPR in the mornings far more than I ought. I can so clearly see myself sitting on my pull out couch (the only piece of furniture I'll probably be able to fit in the place)and writing and listening to classical music. I'll get to jam to Weezer in my underwear while vacuuming and I'll be able to sprawl my canvases all over my floor. It will be wondrous. I'm also looking forward to having the power of public transportation. Sure it's slow, but since I'll be a UWM student I'll get a free bus pass. FREE. Who wouldn't want free transportation even if it's slow! Don't get me wrong, I know there will be tough times. There will be some scary nights and other nights it'll be so cold I won't want to make the trek to get food and I'll opt to let my tummy grumble and complain, but I've wanted to live this way since I was fourteen. I truly will miss some things about my current situation such as how easy it is to register for classes and my wonderfully chill and fun roommate, but I've done all the growing I could possibly do at Carroll. It's time for me to move on; expand my horizons. I still have four more weeks where I'm at though and I have lots and lots of papers due, so back to writing a five page 11 pt. font paper about the fonts and other various typographical elements of two magazines. How Exciting! (That statement was obviously dripping with sarcasm, no make that drenched with sarcasm.)

Post about distaste for technology...on a blog. Oh the irony.

On Sunday I discovered that my phone was out of commission. When I turned it on all that appeared were colorful bars. It was quite pleasing to look at, but awfully disappointing to know my phone could only display colorful bars showing it's inability to be anything but functional. I didn't get a working one until Thursday and it was definitely an interesting four days. I didn't realize how dependent of my phone I had become.
This whole situation made me realize, however, that I have never cared for technology all that much. I always thought that life would just be a lot simpler in so many ways with out it. By simpler I mean more easy going, chill and wholesome. But goodness, if the Internet was taken away from me I don't know what I'd do. I just love researching things (This statement once again reinforces my nerdism.) Actually I do know what I'd do if I didn't have the Internet. I'd get a lot more done and I'd probably be an overall more productive person because one really doesn't actually need the Internet for papers. There's so much information in books; lots. Sadly books are neglected because of the Internet. I could definitely do without television and all that as well. I love, love, love to read and would take a good book over a television program any day. I frequently wish that I was born back in the times of Jane Austen or even Little House On The Prairie but I'd definitely prefer Jane Austen's time. I think I'd like that a lot.
I've been thinking about these times more and more lately for some strange reason. I really don't know why I am suddenly drawn to the days where woman only wore dresses and stayed at home, especially because I'd consider myself a slight feminist. But life was more romantic in multiple ways. People had no other choice but to send letters to one another (which would be so much nicer than texts or facebook messages) and formality was necessary in courtship. Don't take me wrong, just kicking it back and watching a football game is nice (even if I don't know what's always going on...) but it'd be so much nicer to go for a stroll in the garden or a horseback ride through the English moors. I'd especially love to don myself in an empire waist dress of Austen's time and have my handsome courter escort me to a ball where we'd dance like civilized and beautiful human beings rather than like raucous animals.
Last year I had the privilege of being Jane Bennett in my high school's production of Pride and Prejudice. It was probably a couple of the greatest months of my life. I adore the character of Jane Bennet. Some people might think think her boring, but I think of her as such a pleasant and charming character. I love how she sees the good in all. I am definitely more like Elizabeth Bennet, though. However if I had to describe my personality using any literary characters it'd probably be a mix between Jo from Little Women, Ramona Quimby, and a small dash of Scout Finch. Out of curiosity I took two different literary character quizzes and based off of those questions I got Galadriel from Lord of the Rings on one and for the other I got Alice from Alice In Wonderland. Here's the links to them:

http://www.abebooks.com/docs/Community/Featured/LiteraryCharacterQuiz/character-quiz.shtmlhttp://www.morethanwordsuk.com/flash/

They are real short and fun. Comment and let me know what character you ended up getting!

Since I'm so sappy I'm also including the final scene from the Kiera Knightley version of Pride and Prejudice.

I like to give wild hugs.

In a previous post I mentioned Where The Wild Things Are. I enjoyed it so much that I wanted to write a short post about my feelings on it. When I told my dad that I was going to see it he told me that NPR did not like it. Here’s a link to their review:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=113653755lates/story/story.php?storyId=113653755.
Since I am very impressionable and also a big fan of NPR I became slightly hesitant to go see the movie after hearing this information from my pops. After seeing it I understood their take on it, but I actually enjoyed it a whole lot. It was really interesting to see how a children’s book was adapted on screen. It was a little hard to watch because Max was so rude to his mother and because the “wild things” were awfully neurotic and mean, but that was what the screenwriters wanted to portray. It’s not a movie I’d take a young child to by any means, but the soundtrack and cinematography was absolutely gorgeous. The artistic aspect of the film has extended into clothing and apartment decorum featured by Urban Outfitters. It's overpriced but terribly charming. I especially like the "art work". I'm still confused on the message of the movie and what everything meant. I wasn't sure what each character (or whom each character was supposed to represent.) The movie was intensely philosophical. I hope more children's books are converted in movies like this. Children's books are such a beautiful and honest genre. They have a lot of potential for expansion. But I gues part of the beauty of a children's book is simplicity. A children's book that would make for a very interesting film would be The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein. I adore Shel Silverstein. I love him so much that I want a tattoo of one of his charming little drawings. I'd especially like one of the stump from The Giving Tree. That book means a lot to me. Ever since I was a little one I have gravitated towards Shel Silverstein's work. I feel like Shel Silverstein's poetry captures the essence of my childhood philosophy (which just so happens to be pretty much the same today.) Like Hug O' War for example.

That is how life should be. Everyone rolling around and laughing and winning. Life is not like that. Not at all. That is OK. I will make my life like that; well as much as I possibly can. It may involve tackling friends and family and forcing them to be happy which goes against the whole point of the poem. I don't know. This world is imperfect and due to sin that's the way it will remain. However, I am going to do my best to spread this message of "Hug O' War" and maybe perfect the imperfection of it all just a hare.