blurbs

My first semester as an English major taught me the joys of blurbs. These are shorter (or longer, depending on the prof) written responses to readings. In every English class I took, for every separate reading, I was required to write a blurb. At first, blurbs stumped me. I'd stay up late wracking my brain for something useful to say. The blurbs I had the most confidence in tended to garner mediocre grades. The ones that were my true responses, but (I thought) somewhat coarse and lacking brought in more comments from professors and, often, better grades. After a while, writing blurbs became more natural. The way I thought as I read even changed. I started asking myself questions while reading, looking for patterns, noting seemingly useless details, and paying attention to the things that might be overlooked---these were the things that made blurbing fun; these were the skills, I suppose, the profs wanted us to develop.

Hence, mostly owing to nostalgia, I have chosen to allow 'blurbs' rather than 'comments' on my blog. Part of me, though, does long for that analytical rigor and practice of writing blurbs. I've attempted to do something similar on my own, but without the classroom discussion and the prof's feedback, blurbing just isn't the same.

Happy blurbing!

things to note

I'm going to have to be careful after we're married, and I'm around while Trey is studying or preparing sermons. When he was translating a passage and pronouncing a certain Hebrew word that had a rather gutteral sound, I kept wanting to ask him if he needed a drink of water or if he would please finish clearing his throat. hee.

shopping

mom and i have concluded that we are not the best shopping buddies for each other. we love spending time together, you must understand, but we are amazingly accomplished at talking ourselves out of buying things. couple that with our unfittable bodies (my shape is beautiful and unique, therefore, no one makes clothes that fit me), and you have clothes shopping disaster.

we do find success, though, in buying purses and jewelry, which is what we resorted to tonight to console ourselves after spending several hours failing to find dresses suitable for our needs. they had some good sales, and we found beautiful accessories for less! i believe my earrings and necklace will make one of my dresses the perfect outfit for one of these wedding events.

in other news, i feel generally useless right now. it's amazing that no matter how unpleasant work may be, the fact that you bring in an income makes your sense of worth much higher. maybe that's just my problem, though. i think doing work that is frustrating and unfulfilling has a different effect on self-worth. but maybe self-worth is overrated like self-esteem. maybe it's just a construct of my culture, and i should do what i have to do when i have to and forget the self- stuff. hm.

oh well

It has been ages since I posted, so I'm sure everyone has quit reading my blog.

I'm living in a house with no internet now, so my cyber social life has dwindled into almost nothing. I'm unemployed, and trying to tie up the last few BIG decisions that need to be made for the wedding. Then there will be a couple million details and a few thank-you notes to take care of. We've already gotten lots of beautiful gifts from Trey's home church.

The heat has put everyone in a bad mood, including me. I'm about to go take a short nap. Maybe tomorrow I'll find some inspiration for a livelier post.

back

hello. i made it back to mississippi. i came back to all things familiar and found nothing the same. jackson is the same and my friends are still here (except the ones who left, sarah jo, but i still love you and always will) and the interstate still has the same curves. saint mary street is still in the same place and i still shop at the same grocery store.

however, i am not who i was when i left. i was newly engaged, but it was still new. now it's more of a reality. i don't have a job. i don't know what kind of job i'm going to get, assuming i'm able to. i have a new roommate, a new room, and i'm moving again in two months (in with a boy. isn't that crazy? but i like him, so i think we'll do okay).

and wedding stuff . . . i think my to do list is buried in one of the boxes from my move.

instead of finishing unpacking my boxes, i decided to do trey's laundry. i don't think he's done it in a month. well, the decision to do that set off some kind of domestic bomb and so i decided to tidy up his room and clean his bathroom, too. um. the shower. see, i just can't believe that a girl could go for a year without cleaning the shower and have that much gunk on the walls. i think guys have some kind of icky guy gunk that makes their showers extra nasty. at one point, i passed the point of being grossed out and was just in total awe of what was coming off the walls. anyway, it was a very satisfying job, and even if trey doesn't notice, i still enjoyed the before/after trasition. if he doesn't notice, though, i'm having his eyesight checked.