university
An Invocation for Beginnings
I’m Scared. I’m scared that my abilities are gone.
I’m scared that I’m going to fuck this up, and I’m scared of you.
I don’t wanna’ start, but I will.
This is an invocation for anyone who hasn’t begun, whose stuck in a terrible place between 0 and 1.
Let me realize that my past failures that follow through are no indication of my future perforamnce, they’re just healthy little fires that are gonna warm up my ass.
If my FLDI* is strong, let me keep him in a velvet box until I really, really need him.
If my FLDI* is weak let me feed him oranges and not let him gorge himself on ego and arrogance.
Let me not hit up my Facebook like it’s a crack-pipe, keep the browser closed.
If I catch myself wearing a too-too (tutu), too fat, too late, too old; let me shake it off like a donkey would shake of something it doesn’t like.
When I get that feeling in my stomach, you know that feeling when all of a sudden you get a ball of energy and it shoots down into your legs and up into your arms and tells you to stand up and go to the refrigerator and get a cheese sandwich – that’s my cheese monster talking. And my cheese monster will never be satisfied with cheddar, only the cheese of accomplishment.
Let me think about the people that I care about the most, and how when they fail or disappoint me I still love them. I still give them chances, and I see the best in them – let me extend that generosity to myself.
Let me find and use metaphors to help me understand the world around me, and give me the strength to get rid of them when it’s apparent that they no longer work.
Let me thank the parts of me that I don’t understand or are outside of my control, like my creativity and my courage. Let me remember that my courage is a wild dog, it won’t just come when I call it. I have to chase it down and hold on as tight as I can.
Let me not be so vain to think that I am the sole author of my victories, and a victim of my defeats.
Let me remember that the unintended meaning that people project on what I do is neither my fault, or something that I can take credit for.
Perfectionism may look good in his shiny shoes, but he’s a little bit of an asshole and no one invites him to their pool parties.
Let me remember that the impact of criticism is often not the intent of the critic, but when the intent is evil that’s what the block button is for.
And when I eat my critique, let me be able to separate out the good advice from the bitter herbs.
A big impact on a few can be worth more than a small impact. There are few people who won’t be disarmed by a genuine smile.
Let me not think of my work only as a stepping stone to something else. And if it is, let me become fascinated by the shape of the stone.
Let me take the idea that has gotten me this far, and put it to bed. What I’m about to do will not be that. But it will be something.
There is no need to sharpen my pencils anymore, my pencils are sharp enough – even the dull ones will make a mark. Warts and all.
Let’s start this shit up.
And God, let me enjoy this. Life isn’t just a sequence of waiting for things to be done.
*FILDI: Fuck It Let’s Do It
-Ze Frank
Reading Week Study Dip
For those of you who don’t know, I LOVE chips and I like them even better when there is some dip to go along with them. So I decided to have some chips and dip while I study (I have been doing way too much procrastinating) but I came to the conclusion that any dip I buy will not be nearly as good as one that I make myself (more procrastinating). I looked at a couple of recipes and decided to make one up myself. It turned out really well and was a huge hit so here is the recipe if you want to try it yourself.
Cut these up and put in a large bowl:
1 Red Pepper
1/2 Onion
1 Jalapeño Pepper (With seeds)
1 Can of Corn
Mix in a smaller bowl:
1 Avocado
8oz Cream Cheese
1/4 Cup Miracle Whip / Mayo / Sour Cream
1 Package of Ranch Dressing Mix
Scoop the dressing mixture into the large bowl with the vegetables and mix together thoroughly. Eat with chips, veggies or crackers.
If you decide to try it let me know how it turns out!
Enjoy!
I’m a big girl now.
Well it is official, I now live in an apartment. Even writing that seems weird. I recently had my 21st birthday and due to this event I have found myself thinking about growing up. For as long as I can remember I have always wanted to be grown up. I was always the teacher when we played school, I was the mom when we played house and when we had family friends over I much preferred hanging out with the adults than with the other kids. I wanted to wear makeup sooner than I should have and I wanted to be the most mature…But the people that know me will know that I am not the most mature 21 year old out there and I have never really been mature for my age despite my yearnings for it. I have gone through different phases when it comes to growing up, and I’m sure that lots of people go through phases, but for me when I’m in these phases I always think that I’ve made it. Since my 21st birthday I have come to the harsh realization that I have not “made it” and I probably will never “make it” because no matter what age I am society and the people around me have standards and I will not ever meet all of those standards.
Another funny realization that 21 has brought for me is that 21 is the last birthday that people look forward to, after this people just complain about getting old. YAY! I am finally legal to consume alcohol and gamble all across the world…yippee…Considering I am neither a party person nor a gambler neither of these things excite me, so the only reason I looked forward to this birthday was that I am older. As much as I love getting older it is some pretty scary shit. The real world is WAY more complicated than it seemed when I was playing house 15 years ago. I have a major in my degree and by the will of God I will graduate next year but I don’t have a hot clue about what I’m going to do after that…maybe I’ll take my leftover student loans and travel a little…or maybe I’ll just get a dead beat job like the next guy. But if I’m lucky I will land a job that I love and I can earn some money to pay back that student loan I spent on traveling.
I know this isn’t much but it is a little bit of what I’ve been thinking about lately. I have no conclusion to these points, no beautiful quote to tie it all together. Until next time.
2:2:2
Will you regret it in two hours? What about two days? Two weeks?
If you answered yes to any of the above questions then you should probably not go through with said thing.
This little piece of wisdom I recently got from an episode of Glee. Now is not the time or place to go into the fact that I watch Glee, it is one of those things you will have to accept and move on with.
I have used this trick to make a couple decisions in the past two weeks and it has stopped me from making some pretty rash choices. I am the type of person that goes either all in or not at all, I’m not good at waiting for something I know will happen anyway. I also tend to jump into things with two feet without really thinking them through first. Due to this little piece of my character I have gotten myself into things that I really didn’t want to be involved in. Not that they were bad things but I should really have thought about them more.
Recently I have been seriously thinking about switching schools and going into the Red River College Media and Communications Program. My reasons for wanting to switch are that I have a hard time taking in information via reading it or being talked at in a lecture style. I am much more of a tactile learner and thrive when what I am assigned to do are hands on projects. I know that if I tried hard enough I could apply myself and really get some work done but I don’t think that I have learned really good ways of studying and taking in information. These weaknesses mixed with the idea of an almost completely hands on program made me very open to the idea of leaving my community, friends and all that is familiar to me.
Along with my weaknesses regarding school, I have always been the type of person that quits easily. Pain scares me, failing scares me as does disappointing people. Therefore quitting and making really good excuses for it seems to be a good alternative. Blaming it on the fact that “It really didn’t feel right and I don’t think this is where God wants me” is always an easy excuse to fall back on. I should know, I have done that countless times. Reality is, I’m just too scared of failing and when I am challenged to the point of feeling like I can’t take anymore I am very easily persuaded to quit.
Quitting has never been a good thing for me, yes I have made it through without scrapes and bruises for the most part but I think sometimes its good to fail and to lean on the people who are there to help you up. As cliché as this sounds, I’m not the first person to go through lots of these experiences and I won’t be the last. Sticking to something and not quitting is a huge accomplishment on its own, doesn’t matter if you failed along the way. You didn’t quit, you persevered. I can accredit most of the situations in which I haven’t quit to my faith, I know that God has a plan for me and that He will guide my path. All I need to do is look to Him and have faith and patience…Easier said than done.
So to pull this full circle; I am not quitting my degree and moving to a different school. I will push through and learn what I need to even though it will be really hard and I won’t like it. I will trust God and the plan that He has for me…or at least I will try. I will think before I leap because it is the times that I don’t look that I end up falling flat on my face.
One day at a time
If you read my previous blog post you will know that my life has not been all that fantastic as of late. It has been almost a month and a half now since we broke up and I’m not going to say that I’m doing 100%. It is a struggle but I’m hanging on, moving one day at a time.
How not to get engaged.
*SIGH*
So much has been going in my life lately…I know I haven’t updated this in a very long time but in the time that I have been gone I got engaged! I know this should be exciting and it very much is…was. I was not expecting him to propose so soon and when he did I was dumb founded! I didn’t know what to say, of course I said yes, how could I not?!? There was a handsome man kneeling in front of me asking to spend the rest of his life with me, it seems like a dream come true and as much as I wanted it to be it wasn’t. From the moment I said yes to his proposal I was second guessing my decision, I didn’t know if I was ready to settle down and I had not yet made up my mind whether I wanted to do it with him. (Now I know this seems really ridiculous and everybody said that I shouldn’t have said yes, but I couldn’t say no). He did ask my parents the day that he proposed and they said a tentative yes but wanted to wait until we could have a discussion together, they were not expecting him to propose that day. After he asked me we got home and I was overjoyed, after all this was what I thought I wanted. My mother did not talk to me for about a day and a half and when she did she was in tears the whole time and my father although he tried to be supportive and happy for me, I could tell that he was not completely sold on the idea of me getting married so young to someone I had met on the Internet only a year and a half prior. We continued to plan our wedding and discuss a wedding date which ended up being the subject of most of our arguments, we fought a lot in the two and a half months that we were engaged. We fought about the table arrangements, what kind of food to serve, where to have our wedding. Needless to say we were not in a very healthy relationship. Almost as soon as we got engaged he went off to camp to work there for two months meaning I would only get to talk to him on weekends and only for a couple hours which would be a huge stretch from our routine of talking a couple hours a day. While he was away at camp I had a lot of time to do some thinking and really figure out whether this was something I really wanted. In the last two weeks of us being apart something hit me, I knew for a fact that I couldn’t marry him. It was like all of the questions that I had ever had in our whole relationship just came and slapped me in the face. I was a complete mess for those two weeks, crying myself to sleep every night not wanting to admit to anyone or myself that this was something that I couldn’t do. There was one day when I had just had enough of pretending to be okay, I told my mom that I was having second thoughts about everything and that I didn’t think I could continue my relationship with him. She asked me why and this was the tough part, how was I supposed to put into words all the feelings that I had been caging up inside my mind and my soul. How was I supposed to show my inmost feelings and lies. I told her that him and I had to many major differences and that I had so many bigger dreams for my life then feeling like I was settling for something I wasn’t completely happy with. I knew that love wasn’t a fairytale and that love is not like it is in the movies, but I also knew that love had to be better than what he and I had. I then continued to call him and I told him that we needed to take a break so I could collect myself, I needed time to figure out how I was going to break up with the man who thought I loved him. I kept putting it off which only made things worse. He came to my house to surprise me a couple days after I told him we needed a break. He took me out for supper and we hung out a little bit but when he left I knew what I had to do. There was no option anymore, I was no longer in love with him and I could no longer lead him on. I moved into residence at university the day after and proceeded to catch up with friends and get back into the groove of school. The worst part of this was that everybody still thought that we were engaged and I wasn’t going to tell them otherwise until I had broken up with him. He came to see me the day before my birthday which was about five days after I moved to school, he had baked me cookies and brought me ice cream. I felt so bad because never in our year and a half relationship had he ever baked me anything. I sat him down on my bed and read him the letter that I had written out earlier that day because I knew when it came to it I would have a hard time saying what I needed to if I did not writhe it all down. He took it well but I was a complete mess, he held me while I cried then we talked for a little while then he left and I have not seen him since.
Many people ask me how I let it get that far, I don’t really have a good answer to that question but I do know that I felt as though if I let this go I would never have anything like this again. I didn’t want to give up having a best friend and someone that loved me for potentially being single forever. In our relationship I felt very put down and like all my dreams, talents and ambitions were being forced down so I could fit the square mold that he was trying to put me into. I am more than a house wife who will wait around for her husband and answer to his every beck and call. I am a loving person and I know I will make a great wife someday…SOMEDAY! If it is God’s will for my life I will fall in love again, but for now I am single and I am free to make my dreams happen one day at a time.
Good Morning World.
It has been about a month since my last blog post because I have been so terribly busy with all my assignments and tests and choir practices that I never had time to sit down and think about what I want to say. I only have one exam left and so I feel like I deserve some “me” time.
So, for the past week or so I have been taking a picture outside my window ever morning when I wake up hoping to see a change in the scenery after a while. I haven’t been seeing much of a change at all because even though it is close to the middle of december we still have very little snow.
Here are a few of my favorites:
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| The blue sky and the clouds are beautiful. |
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| I love the golden light reflecting off of the “castle” |
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| The hoarfrost is spectacular. |
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| Clear skies, golden light…what a good morning. |
The final picture was taken this morning before my exam. Talking about exams…I can not believe that this semester is over. Time has flown by so fast I can barely catch my breath. I think I did alright in all of my courses but I know for a fact that if I work harder I can be better; the problem is finding the motivation to be better and work harder. I really hope that I can do well next semester too, I hope that I have settled into the routine of university life by now.
Coffee.Coffee.Coffee
I was never really a coffee person before I came to university but already today I have had two cups. What happened to me?!?
My dad always drank coffee at home and for the longest time I wanted to be able to drink it too but I was one of the sad recipients of the “Drinking coffee too young will stunt your growth” myth. I always wanted to be tall so I was so afraid that if I drank coffee I would end up very, very short. Much to my joy, I am tall…almost too tall in my opinion. But back to my point, I NEVER had coffee. Then when my parents decided (or got too tired of me begging) I could finally have a taste of this heavenly drink that everyone seemed enamored with *drum roll* I didn’t like it. I was horrified, I just assumed that my taste buds were off and pretended to like it just so I could prove that I hadn’t waited for nothing. So I went through a “I will drink it anyway to prove I’m not a wimp” phase. Eventually though, I just couldn’t handle it anymore…I really didn’t like the stuff. So then I resorted to tea, I LOVE tea. I drink all kinds of tea, but my favorite teas are very much not caffeinated. I was okay with that for a while; back when I actually got sleep. But now being in university I need something to wake me up for my 8:30 class in the morning, especially after staying up till 2:30 the last night attempting to work on a paper. So I tried out the coffee thing again. It’s amazing, it wakes me up and keeps me going…for the most part. Even though the coffee in our cafeteria is not exactly the best out there (it’s actually pretty disgusting). I put up with it because it does wonderful things to my mental processes…it actually gives me some.












