GIRLS

I knew there was another reason why I liked the television show Girls so much. It's not that I'm embarrassed to admit that I watch it, because I find it rather smart and funny. (Maybe the end of season 2 was kind of weird, and season 3 was starting to get aggravating) but now season 4 is here and it's really quite good. And as I was watching it the other day (because even though it's on Sunday, I rarely get around to it until a few days or sometimes a week later) I noticed that in a scene with Hannah's parents, they were driving a car with a Michigan license plate. Why I didn't realize this before I'm not sure. I remember some mention of her being from the midwest, but I figured it was Minnesota or something. Come to find out - thanks Wikipedia! - that our protagonist, Hannah Horvath, was born and raised in East Lansing!! And her parents are professors at (we can only assume) Michigan State University! This is so brilliant for me. I do promise, however, not to get into any mellow-dramatic story lines while I'm at MSU or start thinking about moving to NYC.

Returning

My little visit

I arrived back in Lansing on Thursday evening after being out of town for a few days for spring break. During this break, I had a lot of time to sit and think, one of my favorite activities. I really needed some space to process things, and have some elbow room for my thoughts and feelings. Coming back, I felt a little swell of happiness, because I knew Lansing was my home, and I was coming home. It hasn't been easy to accept this, however I think it is time. It would be distracting for me to constantly be thinking of some other place. Hidden in this other place is my inability to live in the present, so that means I am also constantly in the past or in the future, making things up about what might happen.

I feel a great deal of relief to know that Lansing is my home. I've been here for 7 months now, and have had my ups and downs. Now, however, I think it's time to put some of that to bed, tuck it in, and say, "It's okay to just nap, and dream. Ups and downs, you can sleep now." I've always had a hard time figuring out how my environment connects to who I am. I haven't moved a great deal in my life, or at least, I have moved a lot but it's always been around the northwest. Being in Michigan has been an awakening of trying to learn how this landscape settles inside of me because it is so completely foreign to anything I have ever lived with. But I'm finding peace now, and as a mentioned earlier, a little swell of happiness.

Prairie Home

One of my classmates mentioned Garrison Keillor the other day, and I couldn't help but feel much closer to Mr. Keillor these days. (I also confess that half of the people we were chatting with didn't know who he was and I suddenly felt like a 54 year old savings and loan officer at the local credit union who also volunteers to help people register to vote). I've had a long history with Garrison Keillor. During my late teens and early twenties I was an avid Prairie Home Companion listener. Every Sunday at noon during college, I could turn on NPR and he was there, singing a little off key and telling me stories. He was part of my sabbath. As the years went by, I listened to the show less and less, but could still hum along to Ketchup and the Powdered Milk Biscuit song. Then about 5 or 6 years ago, I realized that sometimes it was actually kind of annoying. All of the weird skits and sound effects, and loud nose breathing in a microphone started to drive me crazy. However, since moving to Michigan, I feel a kindredness with Mr. Keillor and the stories he tells about how cold it is in the Midwest. Because I too, live that cold. I find myself wanting to listen to the show more these days because there is a camaraderie I feel with him, and everyone in his audience in Beautiful Saint Paul. I have a greater understanding for butterscotch pudding and the humor that is evident here, which oftentimes didn't make sense to me in Seattle. Maybe by this time next year I'll be able to call myself a true Midwesterner.

The Paper was Written in Passive Voice (by Zombies)

I'm going to use this trick the next
time I write a paper

This week I got my first graded assignment back for the semester. You may be thinking, "But the semester is over half way finished and you're just now turning in assignments?" Well, kind of. I turned it in a while ago, it takes a couple of weeks to get it graded. Anyway, I got it back. I did just fine! (Even though grades don't matter). And even though I did just fine, one reason I didn't do great is because I have an issue with passive voice. Don't let this be confused with passive aggressive voice, I'm very good at that. No, it's simply passive voice. During my master's program, it was drilled into me to use passive voice. I don't exactly know why, but whatever the case I was never allowed to use "I" in any papers and had to focus on the result, rather than who made it happen. Basically, my writing was rather dry. Now that I am in an education department, the opposite is happening - my professors are asking, requiring, me to use active voice. This is hard, because I have to re-train my brain how on to do this. I often have to go back and switch all of my sentences around once I've finished a paper. This also deletes about half a page because passive voice is just so darn wordy. It is a good exercise, and I'm glad to be able to write in a way that is more to the point and insert my own voice into my papers. However it is also trying sometimes. And annoying when in one week I have three professors tell me not to be so passive.

Mojo

My man Bob Dylan is pretty excited
that I have my study groove on.

Last night during my marathon Tuesday I commented to a classmate that I finally feel like I have some of my mojo back. "At the beginning of the semester I just felt like I was always waking up on the wrong side of the bed" I reflected while we stood in the hall during our break. He laughed and also nodded his head in agreement (not because he thought I was always a grump but because he too, was slightly disoriented during the first month of the semester). I'm glad to say that I feel that I have some of my mojo back. This could be for several reasons: 1) I have made it through 22 of 29 Tuesday nights (7 more left!!) 2) I know what my topics are for all of my papers that I have to write 3) Spring break is next week. I also haven't had a major malfunction, i.e., slipping on ice and breaking my wrist, crying in front of my advisor, or burning any of my textbooks because I just hate some of them. So, all in all, the mojo is back. It's these little things that I can look to in order to give me some spirited encouragement.

Bathrobes and Snow

The weirdest things happen on my street in Lansing. First, I was not prepared for it be snow today. I was just looking at the temperatures on my phone this morning, and was very happy to see a high of 38 degrees. Unfortunately, THIS IS A LIE. Maybe this isn't all that weird, but I just don't like it when I think it might be "warm." But what is weird is when my neighbors re-arrange their cars in their drive-way in their bathrobes at 8am. This is very odd. I was saying good-bye to Kevin as he went to work, and putting the garbage can out (of which we had to shovel out a little cubby in the snow) and then, there's a guy in his bathrobe and slippers getting into one car, then leaving it running, then into another and pulling in and out of the driveway. ??? I get it, it's another wintry mix today, and maybe this kind of stuff happens. But this is just weird.

Sick Study

I've never been more tempted to buy
an ostrich pillow

I discovered there is something worse than having to do homework all weekend. It's having to do it while sick. I had been priding myself on not getting sick since moving to Lansing. I think this is in part due to the fact that I don't work around people who insist on coming into the office sick and blowing their germs all over my desk. It's also because I'm only on campus a few times a week, so I shelter myself in my little health-home bubble. Unfortunately, I was around a few people last week that had some kind of icky cough or congestion, and I blame this on them. And if you're wondering, yes, I did get a flu shot. And yes, my head cold isn't nearly as bad as it could be.