Yosemite: Now With Visual Pictures!

This is a cool picture that I took from the top of Glacier Point in Yosemite National Park in California. It was cold as balls that day! There is a picture of me standing near this same spot...it's a color picture. I look really gnarly. Anyway, I thought this little tree looked like a bonzai tree. I found it interesting because you can find postcards of Yosemite Park with this exact tree in it. Notice, in the distance the iconic Half Dome. That appears on the back of the California quarter.

Well, basically, I just wanted to post this picture so if I talk to Stacey about how to do this, I will have had the experience of actually doing it, and therefore know what I'm talking about when trying to walk her through it.

Brains

One cool thing about working in a high school is that every once in a while I get to participate in these little assessment exercises that the kids do in class. Yesterday in Biology we did this questionnaire to figure out whether we were right brained or left-brained. It was just a bunch of questions like, "I like to be organized" and things like that...Well, the short version is that I came out to be middle-brained. Which, of course, is something that I've known all along, but it was good to get validation of that. I think that most people I know either see one side of that or the other. People usually don't see both sides. For anyone who doesn't know, people who are right-brained tend to be more artistic in nature while people who are left-brained tend to be more logical. We in the middle exhibit some characteristics of both. So, I was very happy to see that I was a middle-brained person. That must mean I'm well-rounded!

Oh, so one more quick thing before I go off to work: apparently, I'm getting married soon. One of the girls from work--the OT, Hannah--has decided that I have to marry her friend. She is setting up this Christmas dinner thing with a bunch of her girl friends and invited me so that I could meet her friend. She says that instead of bringing some dish, I could just bring a ring!

The Week in Review

I've been wanting to write a blog about so many things that happened over the last week, but just havne't gotten around to it yet.

On Monday, I had a reunion dinner of sorts with Jeff Friedman and some of the girls from our poetry class that we had my last year of undergrad. It's interesting, all of us pretty much met in that class, but have, to a degree kept in touch. So, it was me, Leni, Laura and Sara. Laura was sort of a surprise addition to the party. None of us had heard from her in a while. Then, out of the blue, she ran into Leni somewhere around town and it was discovered that the two of them lived on the same street. Go figure. That street, by the way, is about two blocks away from where I live. It certainly is a small world living in New Hampshire. So, the only non-townie these days is Sara. She's the one who just recently was accepted into our MFA program. She knows Laura pretty well, I guess, so when I told her that she was going to be there, she was very eager to go. Well, the dinner was pretty fun. We sat around and gossiped mostly. It was good to have us all in one place together at one time. The only person who was missing, really, from our little group that we had in that poetry class was Claire. So, we talked about Claire a bit. I'm beginning to understand that Claire is not very well-liked by a lot of the girls that I know. I wonder what it is about that??? Even Jeff sort of hinted at the idea that she was not the kind of girl that I ought to be associating with, although his idea was a much more benevolent one--like, well, you're just two different kinds of people. Whereas Leni just flat out said, I don't think Claire is a person who I would get along with. That's not the first time I've heard that one. But, I have to admit...I think that Claire is one of those "femme fatale" girls. I think every guy has one. The girl that you should not associate with. The "wrong one". But, you cannot resist. I think Claire is that one for me. I know that she is not the kind of girl I should be putting energy into. But, you know, I'd be right there at the drop of a hat if the opportunity presented itself.

Anyway, so it was a good dinner...good to see all those people again. But, it kind of got in the way of another important piece of my life that was going on...I had to mail off my MFA packet the next day and hadn't done any work on it. So, I had a drink at dinner, which didn't really put me in a mood to do the work when I got home at 9:00 o'clock that night. So, I went to bed instead. I set my clock for 3am so that I could do some of it before I went to work. Then, I finished up the packet after work. Actually, I'm lucky. I work with such understanding people. They let me switch out with another girl and have her go to science with my student so that I could have fourth block to work on my poetry stuff. So, I worked feverishly on it from 12:30 in the afternoon until 5:00 o'clock and was able to get it all together and get it to UPS to send it next day air to Pittsburgh where my professor lives. She just called me this afternoon to tell me that she thinks my masters thesis on James Wright is coming along very well and that she's really proud of the work that I'm doing with that. Which makes me feel good. Still, I'll be so happy when this semester is over. James Wright is such a huge influence on my poetry. But, I feel like I've gone to the depths of hell with him and I'm looking forward to not having to go so deeply into that work. I think it's keeping me from really finding my own groove.

Another thing that happened on Monday night, and which made me not want to do my schoolwork is that Jillian called me to tell me that her grandfather had died. The funeral for him was on Thursday in Montpelier. So, I went up for that on Thursday morning. It's a two hour drive from Keene to Montpelier. And I've never been there before. When I got there, I basically got lost. I called Jacob to try and figure out what I was doing...because I got to downtown Montpelier, but couldn't find the road I needed to be on. And there were churches everywhere! But, Jacob was no help. He didn't really have any idea where I was or where to go. So, I just ended up saying, screw it, I'll just drive around and hope I find it. I had a hunch which way to go. I don't know where the hunch came from. It just did. So, I went that way. I found the place within about two minutes. Right where my hunch led me. I had a much larger problem finding a place to park. Jacob's grandfather knew a lot of people!!! So, all of the relatives from all over the country were there. People I hadn't seen for years. It was good seeing all of these people, but, you know, those kinds of crowds really overwhelm me. So, at the reception, which was at the Knights of Columbus......bunker?......compound?.....on some back road in the middle of nowhere, I just settled into a table with Margaret, Jill, Jill's boyfriend Chris, Aileen, Raymond, Janine and Tim. The only thing I got up for was food. Afterwards, I caught a ride with Jacob's mother back to my car, which I had left parked somewhere in the vacinity of the church. On the way, we stopped by the place where Jacob's mother had grown up. It was a little apartment in a house. It was so interesting. The apartment was so small, with three tiny bedrooms. This little space housed eight people--Deb and her five siblings, plus two parents. It was pretty amazing to see.

So, since that, I have done nothing but rest. I stayed at my mother's house this weekend, and I think I only left to go to breakfast on Saturday morning. Other than that, I've just been lazing around. Which is ok. I think I've earned that for a change...

Water

I don't think I've been well this weekend. Everything is acidy. Perhaps my body is purging itself of all the stress that I've been experiencing lately. This is the first weekend where I've just been able to sit around and do absolutely nothing. Today, I took a nap in the middle of the rainy, cold afternoon. It was a perfect day for it.

Last night wasn't as peaceful. I woke up in the middle of the night sweating. It wasn't long before I began feeling nauseous. Still in a half-sleep stupor, I made my way down to the bathroom expecting the worst. Nothing happened beyond the feeling of a deep need to lay down on the floor before I passed out. So, that's what I did. It didn't help so much...I was lying there feeling like my body was trying to turn itself inside out. Then--it's hard to explain--there was something inside of me that was just telling me to drink water. But, it was so far to go from the soft, warmth of the bathroom rug all the way up to the faucet. I felt like Odysseus crossing the Aegean. But, I managed to sit up, or rather climb up to my knees and turn on the faucet, cup my hands and fill them with a pool of cool water. I was in such an awkward position: as I brought the water up to my mouth, I couldn't keep my fleshy cup together, and the water, to a large degree, escaped. I did manage to get some in my mouth. And I could feel it work its way down into my stomach. And then, I could feel it "working". I don't know what it was working on exactly, but it was working. So, I took some more. And some more. Then, I wiped my wet hands on my forehead and cheeks. Then, feeling somewhat weary from this exertion, I laid back down on the floor and rested. Within a few minutes, to my surprise, I began to feel better. Not better better, but relatively better. I slowly came to realize that I was not about to rehash the entirety of my daily intake of calories into the toilet. So, I got up and went to the living room to sleep on the couch--just in case...you know. I made a stop in the kitchen on the way there and grabbed a bottle of water. The more water I drank, the better I felt. Still, it was a rocky night. I didn't sleep much. Probably because the couch is not comfortable. So, that is why I napped today in my cool bed; listening to the sound of my roof catching the drops of rain water.

Grad School Stuff

I'm just posting this particular blog to see if it works ok.

Yesterday, I went and turned in all of the information that my old professors wanted from me so that they could write me letters of recommendation for graduate schools. I sat and talked to Dr. Viveiros for about an hour about all the different aspects of the schools to which I was applying. She seemed to think that I would definitely get in to a couple of schools, though maybe not my top choice. She did say that I was a shoe-in for the SUNY Albany program because it is a PsyD program instead of a PhD program. The difference--which I've discovered by talking to Dr. Baker--is that a PsyD program is more geared towards applied work while the PhD has more research involved. Well, that's what the original difference was. I've been told that now, the difference is becoming less and less so that they are basically the same thing. It's only the reputation associated with each that is different.

So, anyway, all looks good on that front. This weekend is going to be the get that MFA work done. My next packet is due next Wednesday. No being late this time. So, I have to do another draft of my paper this weekend, which shouldn't be too bad, because Judith has already told me that the paper is well on its way, and that really I'm just touching up and adding some detail here and there. So, that shouldn't be too bad. The kicker is that I still have some reading to do and I only have one poem written. So, I'm looking to the inspiration gods to look favorably down upon me this weekend. I have a Genesh figure on a table here in my apartment that Lea had given me last residency. I'll be rubbing his belly a lot this weekend!!!