Oh Life, you're so cool sometimes, let's be friends.

Well i visited Saint Mary's today and shadowed a nursing student. it was super interesting to see what the school is like from a student perspective, I liked it. I also got to miss school so that helped a little :)
I'm super excited because I get to go visit my sister Annie at IU this weekend! Yayyy, I never get to see her, so I'm super excited. im driving down with two of my besties too, so it should be a fantastic roadtrip as well. Fuunnnn yay. I have a whole week off school next week, so a bunch of my friends are coming in town and staying with me and im SO excited to see them all! I have amazing friends :)
my mom cleaned my room today and I feel like a new woman. Very empowered. I feel like I can like, run around my room and not trip over anything... which is perfectly true. i love having clean spaces. OH. and my drawers are organized. Is my mom a saint or what?
In other news, i am getting fed up with Descartes. His arguments are sooo frustrating!! and so hard to prove! Apparently he's like the king of logic, but nothing's seeming very logical to me... ohhh man. no fun. I'm sure Ill appreciate it later though.
For lent, I think Ive decided to not eat any sweets or after dinner and to run at least 4 times a week. Keep me honest people! I'm really wanting to follow through. Discipline is so good for me, as soon as I develop the habit haha.
As for tomorrow, MARDI GRAS! I hope you all are eating loads of king cake and finding creepy little gold babies in it. Party on.

Who I Am

I'm impatient with who I've made myself to be...
the true me seeps through my skin a beat too slowly to catch up with
the rest of my life's rhythm.
hurry, please hurry.
there is dark and there is light, there are frowns, smiles, and waning sunsets
waiting for me to capture with an eye, a camera lens, a memorized moment.
God, I want to fill the world with the entire
moon-ful of thoughts and adventures that fill my
inspired, chaotic head.
The beauty of this world astounds the breathe straight
from my chest every time I think about it.
For real, can you even begin to think about everything?
the whole world is breaking full of thoughts,
and you're only ONE of the gazillion thinkers.
I ache to project the person in my head who sees, cries at this crazy beautiful life,
embraces the chaos, and doesn't pretend to understand it.
I want you to know that it's me that
lets go
falls free and wild
shoots across ideas like a ricocheting bullet,
captivated by spontaneity.
Can we get lost on purpose?
I want to see where that dirt road takes me,
I'll just sit in a cornfield under the stars of a midwest summer
and let the fuzzy dusk seep into my skin like an ocean.
I wander and love the rush of not knowing where I am,
call it wanderlust, I'm addicted
to this feeling of wonder.
Can you see this me, the true, real, aching to break out of this skin, wanting to run
run with pounding, persistant, motivated steps?
Hear my inspiration thump and echo into the concrete under my feet,
you'll be amazed to see how much of myself is
carried in the beat.

My Happiness

it's when a scrap of construction paper is
faded and grayed by hours of stale, warm sunlight.
it's when a ten-color glint in a shard of broken glass
under dusty road pebbles nudged against the curb catches a tired eye.
it's when a crinkled, dry leaf slowly shrivels and smokes black
under a magnifying glass of a child giddy with curiosity.
it's when a face thick with sweat and salt breathes deep
after the last strides of a race have been run.
it's when the lens of a camera reveals a stunning angle
and you realize that ordinary is breathtaking and absolutely yours.
it's when midnight, snow-covered railroad tracks flooded in orange streetlight infuse your heart with
that sentiment of lonely, longing, mystery and
complete contentment
all at once.
it's when i see your face, your eyes in mine and i realize why i fell for you
and the echo of emptiness and acceptance
when I remember achingly that I did the right thing by letting you go.

it's when you realize that
the beauty, the simplicity, the heartbreak, the perseverance
all are what make your life
completely extraordinary.

Because Rambling is What I Do Best...

Well, it's 2010 folks! Graduation year!!! Soo stoked. I'm back into the same old school routine, with a slightly altered schedule. I am in drama class now and we are putting on a show of the play "A Doll's House" which should be pretty awesome, I'm excited despite my disappointingly small and slightly lame role. Oh well, life goes on, yes?
A few weeks ago, I went into Chicago with my friend by train and we played downtown for most of the day and ended up both getting our cartilages pierced on a whim. It was spectacular, gosh I love spontaneity.
So being back into school after Christmas break also means getting back into my running schedule which has become all but completely destroyed due to holiday feasting and laziness. Needless to say, after my pretty pathetic two-mile run yesterday, I am sore today. Not a good sign, my friends. I hate being out of shape!!!! I really want to train for a half marathon... which seemed possible last year at this time when I could run 7 miles a day no problem. Grr I hate getting lazy. Oh well, i have a lot of time since most of my scholarship apps are done, so I'm hoping to motivate myself enough to get faithfully dedicated again. I do love it, after all, it's just a bit of a love-hate thing for the first two/three weeks of getting back into the swing of things.
In other news, I am completely excited because I only have a 2 DAY school week coming up. why do you ask? Well, Martin Luther King Jr. Day on monday, I'll go to school tuesday and wednesday, thennn on wednesday afternoon, my friend from indianapolis is driving up here, staying here that night, then on thursday morning, she and I and my sister are all taking a roadtrip to washington dc!! Woooot. we are going for the March for Life and also to visit the many awesomee friends we have there. I am sooooooo excited. wowwow.
I'm not feeling creative right now or talkative, I just kind of feel like sleeping. Ever have those days where you just feel like even when people LOOK at you, it's too loud? Everything bothers you? Yeah it's one of those dumb-no-reason-for-my-bad-mood days. I think i'll take a nap, thank you.
Until next time where I ave nothing of substance to say again.

Merry Cookies

I got to wake up bright and early this freezing Saturday morning and work at the annual Trinity School Christmas Bazaar Cookie Walk. Every family who has children attending Trinity needs to make 7 dozen cookies per child attending. My poor mother had to slave over 28 dozen cookies. Ridiculous. Anyway, I never fully realized how much people really like cookies... I mean, they were legitimately frantic over getting the kinds of cookies they wanted. Old ladies were shuffling down the cookie line with an unnatural, flustered intensity as they were determined to get the best cookies before the others in the line got to them. It was hardcore entertaining for me. My job was to replenish the half- empty trays of cookies and keep them filled with the hundreds of varieties of cookies. The cookie walk began at 9 in the morning, and all the cookies were gone by 10:15. Before the walk started, the line for it was out the door of the building. That is pathetic, people. Forreal, it's weird that you're so desperate to get your clammy hands on holiday themed cookies. This is why America harbors the world's biggest population of obese people. It's unfortunate that Trinity School's fundraiser contributes to that statistic, but at least we're getting money to pipe heat through our school's ancient radiators. Honestly, every time the heat turns on in our school, it sounds like the building is finally ready to collapse, or at the very least, an army of very small people is tromping through the walls, ceilings, and pipes. Every time the heat begins to turn on, there never fails to be a muffled whisper of "they're coming for us!" from someone in the classroom.
In other news, I'm excited to watch the Florida v. Alabama game today... although, I have yet to decide who I want to root for. I'm going to watch it with a hardcore bama fan, and I'm tempted to root for Florida just to be contrary. I may get ostracized though, haha.

Gosh, I really have eaten a lot of cookies today. We got to take home a large bag of broken cookies, and it's sitting right next to me practically ASKING me to eat them. It's tough, really. I think I'll go on a run later...
I hope it snows more today! It snowed some this morning and it was very pretty, and actually began to stick, but then the sun came out and it stopped. In my opinion, if it's going to be under thirty degrees, it may as well be snowing, because cold weather is miserable, and if it's not even snowing, then it's completely pointless.
Well, I'm off to continue being lazy, feel bad about myself for being so lazy, and then probably end up having another cookie to cope with my self pity, and then feel even fatter.
Sweeeet.

Painfully Ordinary

So today, I basically felt mentally impaired. i don't know what it was, but there was some kind of wall between my hearing something, comprehending, and responding. Example from Spanish class- Teacher:"Mary will you read the next example?" Me:"Do the next example?" Teacher:"Yes, read it in Spanish please." Me:"Wait, where are we? I'm sorry I was writing something down, I don't know where we are." Teacher: "The last sentence on the page." Me:"Wait, but I thought I was supposed to do all of the examples?"
....Yep.
That is pretty much the story of how my entire day went. I was acting and feeling completely dysfunctional and stupid. Why?! I blame it on schoolwork. Namely MATLAB. If you don't know what matlab is, don't even worry about it, just know that it is the spawn of Satan and it will kick you in the butt. I just spent like 3 hours working on a linear algebra project that we had to do with matlab.... it was truly a walk in the park, a joyride, a real JOY. You should try it sometime.

My neighborhood is all lit up with Christmas lights and its really fun to run in. I normally get sick of running in my neighborhood because it feels small, but now it's fun because I can look at all the lights when I run by :) The only downer is that there are tons of cars b/c people tour the streets to look at the lights. It also legit snowed for the first time today! Even though I'm not a big fan of winter, it still kinda gave me warm fuzzies when snowflakes were clustering in my hair and making little piles on the sidewalks.

Quote of the day: "Pain of Discipline, Pain of Regret - pick one".

Remember to wear red to support our troops tomorrow!!!

What a Wonderful World

Fun dress

The whole family :)

Me and my gorgeous sisters

Me and my cousin Emily

Me and my cousin Gracie

Candid.

my crazy hair with the pool in the background. I LOVE the colours.