finals week

my last finals week of undergraduate career equates:

seven finals and a portfolio/exit interview

three today
one tomorrow + work
one wednesday
two thursday + baccalaurete practice
and finish the porfolio/exit interview somewhere in there.

oh gosh.

but on saturday?
i graduate.
and i must must must be thankful for this unique period in my life consisting of early mornings and study guides and last minute choir concerts and seven hours in the MIDI lab.
i will never know this again - this time from eighteen to twenty-two.

i stink

sometimes i must say to myself,
in the face of distraction and wanting to know:

just stop caring.
mind your business.
live your own life.

i have a feeling this will be my most difficult lesson to learn -
as evidence by the years it's taken for me to even say those things to myself.
i stink at learning it.

, but gosh

today has been wonderful.
had a small bout of anxiety to push through.
but wonderful.
the sky took my breath away all day long. even now, as i look through my doorway and out my window... wow.
clouds, though they usually mean oncoming rain or a chilly day, are my favorite.

and now,
i must start something.
ahem.
i mean finish something:
worldview paper. my projected number of total pages? forty.
eeks.
i'm close, but gosh it's a lot.

i saw this today on [pinterest]*:

i can relate.
off i go.

*ew. the feller calls it a den of comparison. i wholeheartedly agree. but sometimes it's not so bad.

with the confidence

a week from now i will be taking my last final of my undergraduate career.

there is still so much to be done.

so much.

but i've decided to care for myself.

to let the quiet on the inside grow.

to focus on the task at hand.

to sleep a good amount of sleep.

to avoid some social media.

to rest my voice.

to spend an hour or two daily with friends, family, and the feller.

to wake up early instead of going to bed late.

to take things one day at a time.

i think my graduation experience varies from the majority of people here at school.

for the past four years i lived my life mostly outside this campus and community.

i had other communities, other friends, other ways to spend my time.

and while i've gleaned much from my professors, i didn't develop friendships with them outside of a coffee here or there.

i went to school for classes, not friendships.

and not until recently did i begin to subtly change how i approach this all.

especially on choir tour. 

that being said, i'm not sure how to approach this graduation experience.

i still, after so many years of feeling this way, see myself as an outsider in some ways.

and wonder if i create that boundary, if that's inherently a bad thing -

being an observer and not particpator. 

more reflection on this later.

today the quiet in me swelled under a grey sky.*

sleeping more than usual, with the confidence that an assignment turned in late won't affect my grade.

wearing kick-back clothes and no make up, with the confidence that i am beautiful apart from high waisted shorts and colored lips.

driving in the silence, with the confidence that i need more silence in my life.

walking an empty campus, with the confidence that i am impacting these children's lives.

and while waiting for children to be dropped off at 6:45 am.

there is always a lull after i clock in and before the first one arives.

and i always, to-do list aside, dedicate this time to the Lord.

because He is deserving and because it aligns my soul in everywhich way.

i began reading through psalm 121 this morning.

(the one that has been made into songs again and again and again).

and took solace in my Helper - the Maker of heaven and earth.

and took delight in this watchful One, this One who cares enough to stay awake, alert, engaged.

today will be a good day. 

much to do tonight after classes and work.

but good nonetheless.

*i am painting my bathroom grey soon. next week, i'm sure. thinking about it makes my heart glow.

keeps living

waking up at three thirty isn't so bad when you went to bed at around nine pm.

did you know the birds are awake at this hour?
the world keeps living while i am sleeping and typing.
and while i may feel uneasy about this at times, it is encouraging to know that the world does not hang on my attention to it. that i am, as important as i'd like to believe that i am, not all that important. well, at least not in the sense that i keep the world going.
just a thought at 5 in the morning before i shower and eat and type more.

helps me

dustin o'halloran helps me do homework.

simple piano fingering.
swelling strings.
ethereal background noise.

yup.
it helps ease this massive headache.
it helps focus this tired, sleepy girl.

did i mention i have three more weeks until graduation?

bahhhh.

right now, i do not want to do homework.
i want to
paint.
go on a walk outside with the feller.
read.
do my eyebrows.
clean.
sit in silence.
write.
make something.
do laundry.
sing.
make a fruity dessert.

anything but homework.

three
more
weeks.

bahhhh.
graduation come soon!
but not too soon.
but soon enough so i don't collapse under due dates.

this weekend was crazy.
rollercoaster much?
such is life when people are broken and messy and are looking for protection, security, and peace in dark dark places.

today i sang in my last spring concert. so much truth in our repetoire.
more on this later.

tomorrow i'm not washing my hair.
this is the advice i get from choir people.
let's hope it doesn't look too dirty.

there is so much to say.
so much i want to write about:

tour - the characters, the communities and places i touched, smelt, and listened to.
stories for stories sake.
not forsaking the Rock.
health issues.
the power of God in the face of darkness.
yadayadayada...

i think this post, having no point and zigzagging every which way, is my pitiful attempt to avoid homework.
eeks.

even my soul is wet.

did you know that this month is national poetry month?

the library at my school reminded me with this poster. 

fact: i love watercolors.

i want to write. in color and sideways on paper without lines. in black and white on screens with fonts much more legible than my own. i want to write. feelings. not just about feelings. but to completely encompass and write out the feeling itself - in all of its vibrancy, in all of its melancholy. i think this is why the romantic period is my favorite period in music history. the feelings aren't explained or deconstructed - they are experienced.

here is a poem for today, and probably this month (because this month i graduate and there is not much time for poetry, or posting poetry, when one is graduating):

Here I love you.
In the dark pines the wind disentangles itself.
The moon glows like phosphorous on the vagrant waters.
Days, all one kind, go chasing each other.

The snow unfurls in dancing figures.
A silver gull slips down from the west.
Sometimes a sail. High, high stars.
Oh the black cross of a ship.
Alone.

Sometimes I get up early and even my soul is wet.
Far away the sea sounds and resounds.
This is a port.

Here I love you.
Here I love you and the horizon hides you in vain.
I love you still among these cold things.
Sometimes my kisses go on those heavy vessels
that cross the sea towards no arrival.
I see myself forgotten like those old anchors.

The piers sadden when the afternoon moors there.
My life grows tired, hungry to no purpose.
I love what I do not have. You are so far.
My loathing wrestles with the slow twilights.
But night comes and starts to sing to me.

The moon turns its clockwork dream.
The biggest stars look at me with your eyes.
And as I love you, the pines in the wind
want to sing your name with their leaves of wire.

Pablo Neruda

in the middle

this morning as i write my concert report, i am listening to Bruch's Concerto No. 1 in G Minor for Violin and Orchestra, Op. 26.

the soaring emotion evoked from the violin is breathtaking.

the lines sing themselves.

the phrasing pulls and releases; all passion and vigor, known well to the heart of any man or woman who has encountered longing and contentment and felt the terrible inevitable tension in the middle.

it is all drama and richness - the two victors of the Romantic period's war against the obsessive concern with form and concise expression that swept through the prior century. intellectualism left no room for tension in the middle.

le sigh.

is it strange to say that i have a sort of infatuation with the tension in the middle? 

that i indulge the tension, for the sake of the tension?

that i relish in every ascending line, slow crescendo, and hanging fermata?

i do.

i do i do i do.

p.s. the picture above is a daguerre, entitled "dioramanea". he is a romantic painter - all drama and richness. i love it.  

myself.

day two of feeling incredibly myself.

wake up at 6.
oatmeal with the feller at 6:30.
work on MIDI project 7-8.
class 8-10.
finish MIDI project 10-11.
class 11-12:30.
lunch/grad fest 12:30-1.
class 1-4.
group project meeting 4-6.

and right before the meeting started, finding my keys were locked in my car. this hasn't happened in so long. i've followed my professors advice the past year and a half or so and would check to make sure my keys were in my hands before i shut the door to my car. and if it weren't for the stack of text books, notebooks, and other miscellaneous items i was holding i would have caught this. but i didn't. and i didn't worry either. i just worked on my project. with my group. however, i was assisted after the group meeting by three boys and a hanger. my keys were pulled with force out of the small crack i left open for fresh air. enough force to frighten me and threaten their lives if they broke my window. they did it and i said thank you and we laughed at how ghetto* we all were. i went home in slight traffic. some people mind traffic. and if i have a place to be at, i suppose i do - in varying degrees - as well. but with no place to go but home and nothing to do but homework i enjoy slower drives. to think. to drink water. to be alone. to turn the radio on and off, switching stations, cds and finally deciding on silence. always, silence. (well, not always. most days. but not always.) to roll down all the windows or none depending on how quickly i get goosebumps.

now homework.
at the end of this month


i
will
be
graduating.

what a relief.
what an accomplishment.

*and when i say ghetto... i mean mexican. because i am mexican. and the person who suggested the hanger idea? mexican. the other two weren't. but they knew how mexican the whole situation was. as did the people walking by, giving us skeptical looks as we folded a hanger and wedged it through a small crack.

so delighted.

today i felt fully myself. those kinds of days are more frequent than a year ago, for that i am thankful.

as of late i have been listening to soundtracks from musicals.
duh.
specifically chicago, jekyll and hide, and phantom of the opera.
i will see chicago this summer.
with the feller and the roommate/his girlfriend we don't often hang out with.
how exciting!
i think i want to perform in a musical after i graduate.
sometime within the first year, maybe next spring.
the ensemble is enough to satisfy me - i just love the music, the movement, the stories, the expressions...
all of it.


four weeks until i graduate.
eeks!

today is good.
mother just called me down for dinner.
chicken.. rice pilaf... need i say more?
then off to school and a night spent in costa mesa.
acting, recording music, reading and writing.
and sleeping on a floor that isn't mine but one i've grown to love.
today is good, did i mention that?


also, i love my life.
and the professors who help me untangle things.
and the professors who offer to help the feller and i untangle things.
love works through things. for the joy set before it.
love is not about a winner or a loser (though it is so easy to divide into camps and declare war instead of serving, sacrificing, and prefering the other, instead of sitting in front of eachother, hands held, tears rolling, lives committed, working with eachother).
love perseveres.
and persevere, we will.*

sigh.
i am so delighted with my lot.

*love does and is many other things. and while i may know them, i desire to learn through life experiences and the demands of relationships. it will be hard work. but if these past months have been an indicator of anything... it's that all of the hard work is worth it. all of it.

go at it alone,

and though i will go at it alone,
today will better.

spent

the drive home was all nausea and headache.
it was tiredness and dismay.
it was fury and fraility.

the demands of these last five weeks intimidate me.
school, work, internship.
relationships with family and friends.
and the looming decisions i must make, though i feel pressed and pressured and backed into a corner by the loved and the loathed.
i feel as though the loved and loathed have determined to dismantle what little rest and peace i have right now in my busy, busy life by questioning me (desiring only my submission) and having me reevaluate and restate my reasoning until i feel as if my very reasoning is no more than the unbalanced, delirious logic of an equally unbalanced delirious young woman.

i am spent.
i feel the quiet fracturing of my will.
my patience.
my wonder.
my stamina.
my passion.
my trust.

in all of my undone-ness i slipped out of today's apparel and into my sister's eighth grade basketball sweats and the feller's t-shirt. i borrow clothes. i keep the clothes i borrow. within five minutes underneath white sheets and watercolored comforter, i fell asleep. heavy, deep, and deserved. and while i am no more made up than i was before the nap, i have the advantage of a more rested body.

the fracturing is still there.
some things are too difficult for me to do.
some things i just refuse to do or further discuss.

and in my ungraceful collapse under the difficulty of situations and my own refusal to comply to the wishes of the loved and the loathed,
i am spent.

like i know

oh, i have so much to write!

but for now, as the second day of spring bleeds into the third, i have this song:

nothing says spring like brooke fraser.
i almost saw her once with the feller for our annual christmas dinner with jackie+josh. but the feller and i were both twenty and too young to legally attend. instead we spent the evening at balboa park while the other two enjoyed dim lighting and jokes hailing from new zealand. that was a hard night on stone steps in a quiet stubborness under a luminous moon. it was followed by a blissful afternoon on cold grass in a crescendo of vulnerability under a dance between the sun and the shadows the next day. and a kiss on the forehead goodbye. the first one. december '10. chills. and surprise. and laughter. just lovely.

sigh


God is so good. i know this like i know my heart is beating like i know my nailpolish is chipped like i know wooden floors are smooth and carpeted floors are rough. His goodness, though not always obvious, is real and concrete.

the lord reigns

the lord reigns, he is robed in majesty;
the lord is robed in majesty
and is armed with strength.

the world is firmly established;
it cannot be moved.
your throne was established long ago;
you are from all eternity.

the seas have lifted up, o lord,
the seas have lifted up their voice;
the seas have lifted up their pounding waves.
mightier than the thunder of the great waters,
mightier than the breakers of the sea -
the lord on high is mighty.

your statutes stand firm;
holiness adonrs your house
for endless days, o lord.

psalm 93

all of that energy

fact: i am busy

this week:
fifty short answer questions for worldview
first (and) second round of scenes from doubt for acting
finale project for midi
interview due for abnormal psychology
voice recital
voice performance class
start and finish research for presentation for world civilization
attend two hour classical music performance
usher at a play
prepare for onslaught of exams next week

next week:
four exams (abnormal psychology, cognitive psychology, music history/literature, and worldview)
reason project for midi
paper about play i ushered at
and on friday i will leave for choir tour, which happens to be placed during spring break (my only possible opportunity for rest dashed!).

[all of this in between classes, work, and an internship]

fact: i do not have time to work things out and extend myself to remedy situations. i do not have the energy to even try and approach such things. because all of that energy is being poured into all eight of my classes, my own attempts at self care and my disciplined and joyous care for those i am closest too.

make well

this morning i am holding thankfulness closely.

and letting it make well my sick, fearful heart.

perpetually cold

i want to write. i need to write.
but because the weeks go by quickly and the hours even quicker
i have not written.

i am a busy girl this semester.
22 units.
internship.
work.

but before i endeavored a few more hours of brisk typing,
i was perusing blogs.
and i found this:

dear whoever is reading this,

this is me. add a sweater. leggings underneath the sweats. and it's even better.

love,
a perpetually cold young lady.

look again.

past all difficulty.

this week i am learning that life getting better doesn't mean you have gotten past all difficulty. it also doesn't mean that you won't be bothered by the things you thought you resolved days, months, and years ago.

and while i would love for life to be this way. while i wish some people would disappear completely (because, let's face it people are messy and i'd rather leave the excessively messy ones behind. or at least the ones who stir things up that i'd rather be left alone. oh, and the ones who just won't go away and insist on being an impeding presence in some area of my life.). while i wish things could be resolved once and once only.

i know that something good will

come out of this...

more self-love

a surer sense of who i am

a well-primed ear to listen

a well-trained tongue to speak

better conflict resolution skills

strengthened relationships

it doesn't mean i always want to push through and cry through and work through and think through and talk through and process process process. because it's tiring and i have had enough of life's difficulties. and i have exams to study for and papers to finish and presentations to prepare and an internship and work to attend. the busyness of right now paints processing as not worth it, not productive, not conducive to maintaining low-stress.

but this evening, as i cared for myself in small ways,* i was able to gain some perspective

and some clarity. and while the fog hasn't lifted completely - feelings never lift and clear easy, do they? - i know that the processing is worth it. even though i hate it at times.

*making my bed. folding a weeks worth of clothes i wore and didn't wear piled on a chair. putting dark clothes to wash. working out. long shower. plucking my eyebrows. it's amazing how these small things soothe a mind weary of unresolved conflict.

p.s. i also wrote out five pages today, in between classes and on breaks, to help me think more clearly in preparation for a conversation that is happening tomorrow. i only do this in situations that are tangled like hair that hasn't been brushed.

p.s. i wish difficulty didn't come at such an inopportune time. my birthday is friday for goodness sakes! but i cannot schedule in difficulty. how unfortunate.