My Confessions

So, I was listening to Owl City today, and I want to tell you all... Damn, are they catchy. Like, seriously. It's ridiculous. I listen, I say things like, "wow, you are a whinier Postal Service with nonsensical lyrics." Then I start humming.
Normally I would put this on my Twitter, but I'm friends with people on the radio, and I am ashamed of this. Augh.
Kate

Arts I have recently perfected:
1. Ordering coffee and looking like I need it to survive the next five minutes/hour/day
2. Putting my hair up with a pen, pencil, chopstick, any sort of straight object
3. Making helpful playlists on Pandora
4. Pretending I'm working when really I'm doing crosswords
5. Finding books in the library

Success? Success.

I've been getting headaches lately.
In other news, I whine way too damn much.
In other other news, when I originally wrote "much" up there I wrote music instead. and then I wrote "muuch" too too many times after that.
And my eye twitches.
See, I can't stop myself...

So, some boys I know talk about putting "pussy on a pedestal" and I never really thought about it from the other side. How does the pussy feel? After utterly disappointing some young man, but not because she was wrong in anyway but because she wasn't perfect or the kind of perfect the young man wanted. That must suck.

I just want to roll so I can actually be happy at some point instead of mildly annoyed or fine all the time. I'm moving in moderations and speaking in extremes.
Whatever.
My constant battle seems to be the same as everyone else's: finding people I like, hanging out with them, finding a way to stay away from the people I don't like, finding a way not to dislike the people I like. Blech.

Things I am really into right now:
1. Tylonel Cold Daytime (Nightime sucks. Know this.)
2. Coffee
3. Frye Harness Boots
4. Peonies
5. Sweet Peas
6. Black
7. Seattle
8. Sea food

I'm trying to start seeing my parents as people, not just voices running around saying crazy things.
Many questions are being asked, and I'm steeling myself for their answers.
Summer project!

Awkwardness

Why is it that all the most awkward nights are always the ones that a. I tell stories about later and b. I have the most fun? Never is there a night when I'm completely comfortable that I am really pleased with. It's always the times that my voice goes too high and I say way too much dumb shit that I end up looking back on and laughing.
24 hour breakfast places also seem to have a really solid role in this... I'm not mad. I am a little mad that my waffle was so small tonight, though. That... needed to be said.

Todaytoday

Too much stress has been managed today! I just took a few hour long break to eat and read and clean and now I'm going to read. Hopefully tomorrow I will get most of a paper done and will have Invisible Man finished. These are the goals.

This makes me smile, though. I secretly love order, even if I'm bad at creating it. Antha, it made me think of you.

Spring WILD

Things that have annoyed me today:
1. people coming into Brook and I's room and commenting on how messy it is. Do they do this when they enter other people's homes? Does no one realize that's super rude, unless you're a mother figure? Next time I go into Amy's room I'm just going to yell that it's too clean and I can't be in there anymore. Jeez Louise.
2. people who come to concerts super drunk and make out/grind for the entire show and are icky.
3. how awesome The Black Keys are. Seriously. So awesome. My brain hurts.

http://kateily.mybrute.com

I found that... And frankly, I'm confused. Become my pupil! Yay!

So, I think I have figured out my problem.
Recently I have joined a bunch of groups because I'm finding things I enjoy and doing them. Which seems awesome, and I'm all excited about it, until I remember how ridiculously awkward I am and the fact that there are people in these groups who I don't know, that I will have to make friends with while pretending to be a normal person. No easy feat. So I tend to skulk at meetings, in the back, or leave early because I hate having to put myself out there.
And I have figured out why: I think I come from a place where I assume people don't like me. Which, you know, is totally great when they do, then it's like this great surprise, hey, someone thinks I'm great, and if they don't then really, I never expected them to anyway. The problem is when I am forced to meet and greet I assume I shouldn't bother people and should just leave them to their lives. I need to get over this. I blame a childhood of being too well-read for my own good and not having very many friends.

Kate has a sweet beret and relates.

Quickly Approaching Critical Mass

I wish I had a clear vision for my future. Sometimes I think I want to be a teacher, or an academic, or a mom. Or all three. And I just don't know how good I am at balancing. And then I see seniors and while they are not that much different from me, they seem to have more of an idea of who they are and what they are doing.
I hope that comes with time, but the coming of age movies tell me it doesn't.
I just hope I don't get married right out of college.

Drinking Games

In my head lately I have been inexplicably coming up with drinking games. Everytime someone lights a cigarette on Mad Men, drink. Everytime Fed Festwick talks about Brooklyn, drink. Everytime BS Girl talks about being a twin, drink. Everytime I say um on the radio, drink. Everytime I go to facebook when I should be doing work, drink. Everytime Barney says legendary on How I Met Your Mother, drink. Everytime I see someone from my French class, drink. Everytime Brook and I have a conversation that no one else understands, drink. Everytime Ted does something stupid in How I Met Your Mother, drink. Everytime Don from Mad Men sleeps with someone inappropriate, drink. Everytime someone in Mad Men drinks, drink. Everytime I reference a television show no one else has seen, drink.

Considering how dehydrated I usually am and that I would do these with water, I really should start doing these with little shot glasses. Knocking it back for my health. Making the day more interesting.

Ireland, Sligo

We went to Derry today, in Northern Ireland. Where Bloody Sunday took place. It was awesome, in the true meaning of the word, not the surfer way. I almost cried. A lot.
On a lighter note... I'm sleeping in a castle tonight! A real castle!
Kate

Ireland, UNCENSORED.

I am leaking tea out my eyeballs.
I wish life could be like this always, but with far less rain and bumpy roads.
So, really, I'm just going to buy a tea pot and make myself tea in it all the time, because frankly... my little Asian hot pot does not really convey the kind of I'm Having Tea and Sitting Here Enjoying Myself and My Friends moment that I really want in my life. So. KNOW THIS NOW.
Fed Festwick is a major dick, but I still want to hang out with him. Fed, how do you manage such a feat?
Kate

Ireland

I am currently on my friend's mac in the Chicago international terminal waiting to get on my plane to Ireland.  :)  I'm super excited.  Expect good things to come and too many stories.  I am very excited.  

Looooove

Kate

My handiness

I put clear nail polish on fortune telling Jesus and stopped him from spewing crack. It was a successful day.

I wish I could get a new paint job

I hate hate hate white walls. I have attempted to cover them with pictures and posters, with much success, but there's only so much one can do! I really just want a crazy colourful room. I suppose I will just have to wait until I go home to my glowing Barney room.

'Knocked Up' was a bad choice to watch with the family

I didn't realize all of the sexual things would be quite so explicit. Lap dances at a strip club was not something I needed to witness with my grandma, mom, aunt, and uncle sitting next to me. Also, the mushroom induced scene was much much funnier when I watched it with my friends. Ulk. Definitely not a fun experience.

Movies and Books of 2009

I'm going to try to remember to keep this updated. School stuff will be included.

Books
1. The Country Girls by Edna O'Brien
2. A Long Way Down by Nick Hornby

Movies
1. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
2. Empire Records
3. Stepbrothers
4. High Fidelity
5. Season 1 of Weeds
6. Season 2 of Weeds
7. Saved!
8. Slumdog Millionaire
9. Walking Ned Devine
10. Dr. Horrible's Sing-A-Long Blog
11. The Rocky Road to Dublin
12. Bloody Sunday
13. Quarterlife
14. American Psycho
15. Season 1 of How I Met Your Mother
16. Eulogy
17. 28 Days
18. Adaptation
19. Girl, Interrupted
20. Bon Voyage
21. Le Chemin du Retour
22. Season 2 of How I Met Your Mother
23. Season 1 of Chuck
24. Season 3 of Weeds

Shows Seen
1. The Virgins (with Anya Marina and Lissy Trullie) @ The Gargoyle
2. Los Campesinos (with Titus Andromedus) @ The Gargoyle
3. Spring Awakening @ The Fox
4. The Vagina Monologues @ Graham Chapel
5. Marble @ The Abbey
6. Cut Copy (with Matt & Kim) @ The Gargoyle
7. The Hold Steady @ The Gargoyle (because life is cruel I only saw the last 20 minutes...)
8. Jack's Mannequin (with Low and Diamond and Matt Nathanson) @ UMSL
9. Mother Courage @ Edison Theater
10. Footloose @ Beaumont Pavilion
11. Black Keys (with Fillegar, B.o.B., and Cool Kids) @ Spring WILD, Beaumont Pavilion

Remind me of things I forget?

Injuries Today:
(2) Fingers hurt plate twirling
(1) Brain hurt Wheel of Fortuning

Spring Awakening was approximately the best experience of my entire life. It was so good. Like. Beyond good. I. There aren't even proper words, just know that I have been smiling for the past... since it started. It was SO GOOD.

Haha, but the dropping of knowledge that seems to be going on is just a little bit odd. I feel... I feel like laughing. And like my self esteem relies on these kinds of moments just a little too much.

You'll find "Nylon" atop my toilet

"Nylon"
This fantastic mixture of fashion, music, movies, and all things good and unexpected. It's really beautiful, I save every edition and cut them into ribbons. Perfection

"Newsweek"
NEWSSSSS, and occasionally a really delightful piece on some actors. Their covers are always really interesting as well.

"Instyle"
I'm addicted to fashion. And shopping. And pretty things.

"Lucky"
Same reason. I'm a little ashamed at the list I have created...

Advice:

1. Go to pandora.com
2. click "create a station"
3. type in "sk8er boi"
4. listen to junior high until your ears fall off from all the disgustingly sweet nostalgia.
5. repeat anytime you want to die because your school work won't end.

That is all.

My trip from Bentonville, AR to Chicago, IL

I went to Lollapalooza! Which I still cannot spell. While I recognize this is actually not that epic of a road trip, it is the longest one I have taken at this point in my life. I'm looking forward to many more. Who doesn't love spending way too much time in a car? I know I do! Ahhh!

To Avoid My Essay on this Poem

Perhaps the World Ends Here
Joy Harjo

The world begins at a kitchen table. No matter what, we must eat to live.

The gifts of earth are brought and prepared, set on the table. So it has been since creation, and it will go on.

We chase chickens or dogs away from it. Babies teethe at the corners. They scrape their kneeds under it.

It is here that children are given instructions on what it means to be human. We make men at it, we make women.

At this table we gossip, recall enemies and the ghosts of lovers.

Our dreams drink coffee with us as they put their arms around our children. They laugh wioth us at our poor falling-down selves and as we put ourselves back together once again at the table.

This table has been a house in the rain, an umbrella in the sun.

Wars have begun and ended at this table. It is a place to hide in the shadow of terror. A place to celebrate the terrible victory.

We have given birth on this table, and have prepared our parents for burial here.

At this table we sing with joy, with sorrow. We pray of suffering and remorse. We give thanks.

Perhaps the world will end at the kitchen table, while we are laughing and crying, eating of the last sweet bite.

Hier soir

Yesterday I suffered a traumatic porn experience with a porn star that reminded me of Mrs. Thompson.
Then I went to a four and a half hour long meeting only to discover I didn't get onto Treasury.
It was an interesting night.
Kate

A Poem For The Moment

This is so applicable to my life right now:

Kind of an Ode to Duty
Ogden Nash

O Duty,
Why hast thou not the visage of a sweetie or a cutie?
Why glitter thy spectacles so ominously?
Why art thou clad so abominously?
Why art thou so different from Venus?
And why do thou and I have so few interests mutually in common between us?
Why art thou fifty per cent martyr?
And fifty-one per cent Tartar?

Why is it thy unfortunate wont
To try to attract people by calling on them either to leave undone the deeds they like, or to do the deeds they don't?
Why are thou so like an April post-morem
Or something that died in the ortumn?
Above all, why dost thou continue to hound me?
Why art thou always albatrossly hanging around me?

Thou so ubiquitous,
And I so iniquitous.
I seem to the be one person in the world thou art perpetually preaching at who or to who;
Whatever looks like fun, there art thou standing between me and it, calling yoo-hoo.
O Duty, Duty!
How noble a man should I be hadst thou the visage of a sweetie or a cutie!
But as it is thou art so much forbiddinger than a Wodehouse hero's forbiddingest aunt
That in the words of the poet, When Duty whispers low, Thou must, this erstwhile youth replies, I just can't.

Hint: A trip to The Melting Pot would be nice this Valentine's Day

The Melting Pot
Um, a deep found and unquenchable love of fondue. That's why. Really, any day would be a good day for me to go to the Melting Pot. Any and all of the days. I also love dressing up to eat out. And fondue. Did I mention my love of fondue?

Any Art Museum Ever
It makes me smile. And geek out.

Los Campesinos

Tonight's show was outrageously good. Like. Mind-blowingly good. My ears are still buzzing with the overwhelming awesome. So. Good.

People Who I Stood Behind Who Sucked:
1. The Mountain of a Man who decided to stand right in front of me. Literally 6.5 feet, minimum. A hulking, looming, humpback whale type person. Who didn't even seem pleased to be there!
2. Girl with Ponytail (and co.) who came in after the opening act (who rocked, by the ways) and decided it was their right to stand in front and directly in front of me. I very nearly got smashed in the face with her ponytail a number of times until she finally put her hair down. Possibly because i kept "accidentally" hitting it with my hand to maybe hint that she was all up in my grill.
3. The Girl With Too Much Hair whose long hair tickled my arm. Which would have been minorly annoying, but fine, until her scent washed over me. Initially she smelled oddly of attics, musty and kind of sweaty, but then the dog poop smell hit as she danced. Unpleasant.

But beyond those silly moments the show was fantastic.
Ahhhhhh!

My fear of spiders

I've always had this fear, I suspect it's my mom's fault. There were many wolf spider scares in my childhood. I can kill spiders up to a certain size, but once they get to be moderately large I freeze up and freak out. And get the jeeblies. And the urge to jump on furniture and scream.

If you pay me enough, I'll sing these songs at a karaoke bar

These are not things I'm proud of.

Bye Bye Bye by N*Sync

Womanizer by Britney Spears

Maps by Yeah Yeah Yeahs

Brook's Crazy G-Ma

So, since I really can't think of any bizarre gifts I've received because I am always very specific with what I want, or they're just delightful and from Chelsea, I will discuss ones Brook has received from her G-Ma. The most odd is this tan, zip-up, collared vest. Which is already awkward enough, right? Especially since it's this fantastic polyester material. But to add to the glory, it has pumps all over it, like... The red hat club style, if you catch my drift. It's the best thing ever, and we walk around our room in it a lot if anyone is sad. No one can be sad when that vest is on.

If I had easy access to a helicopter, I'd fly to Colorado this weekend

We've been talking in my lit. class about release of energy and my professor mentioned listening to Beethoven's 5th Symphony as the mountains came into view from Kansas. I went to Colorado when I was a little kid. I think we drove, but I don't even remember. I remember someone threw up on the train up Pike's Peak and left the window open the whole time and I was very cold. I want to re-experience the mountains now that I can, maybe, actually appreciate them on some level. Any level at all.

My ideal Super Bowl halftime show would include The Beatles

The Beatles
Because I can't think of any other really good band that I would a. be excited about seeing on my TV and b. not be super upset that I'm not there for.

Britney Spears
Because it would be outrageous! Just imagine, she'd be skanking around, they'd be playing and being delightful. Seriously. Beauty in the awkward.

What I have done with my day:
1. Creation
2. Destruction of some fro yo









And what more can you ask of a girl?
I got a purple sweatshirt from American Apparal in today, and let me just say, it may not be as long as I wanted it to be, but it's making me feel better about all this awful snow.

Internet

For me, writing is 75 percent procrastinating and 25 percent actually sitting down and working

— Zooey Deschanel

What is she so delightful? Go out and listen to She & Him right now. That's exactly how I feel about writing. Exactly.

I'm rediscovering the internet. And here I thought getting a legitimate blog was big.

Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind- bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space.
— Douglas Adams

ontheradioohoh

Websites I have discovered/been shown in an effort to not to homework:
1. Unicornology
2. Upon the Mountain Top
3. Plinky
4. Go Fug Yourself

A star-studded list, no doubt.
I hope you all liked my radio shooooow. Or, well, if you listened. Would you like me to put the playlist up here? Or maybe on the group on facebook? Thoughts?
I really liked it. :)

whispers

I went to a poetry slam last night and remembered why I hate going to those things: loud audience members. It's like they weren't even there to see the poetry, they just wanted to be around people watching poetry to get some sort of sweet vibes.

Things That Annoy Me to the Point of Rudeness
1. People speaking when others are performing
2. People talking through good movies
3. People asking questions about good movies or TV shows that they should know will be answered in the next five minutes.
4. People walking slowly or standing in what is obviously a main thoroughfare.

Now there are a solidly large group of people who think I'm an uber jerk for telling them to be quiet last night. Or glaring at them if they were too far away.

poetry

Man in Space

by Billy Collins

All you have to do is listen to the way a man

sometimes talks to his wife at a table of people

and notice how intent he is on making his point

even though her lower lip is beginning to quiver,

and you will know why the women in science

fiction movies who inhabit a planet of their own

are not pictured making a salad or reading a magazine

when the men from earth arrive in their rocket,

why they are always standing in a semicircle

with their arms folded, their bare legs set apart,

their breasts protected by hard metal disks.


things I enjoy when forced to do them
1. read poetry
2. reading in general
3. writing

I really like the above poem, it makes me smile, oddly.
Kate

Notes in the margins

My lists have begun infiltrating my course work now that I no longer have car rides to clear my head in... Suddenly Banned in Ireland's Preface and Introduction make me think of things I love, while notes from my Lit. class remind me of works I've begun to hate.

I Love To...
1. highlight as I read
2. write notes in school books knowing either I will reread them years from now or someone else will wonder what I meant a la Nazi girl in Antha's copy of The Importance of Being Earnest
3. sit in crowded areas and lose myself in reading, then look up and realize I was just In It, that I actually like what I'm doing for school, that I'm finally fully engaged. Even if I am doing the reading a day late.
4. take off my coats after entering a building.

Works English Classes Have Made Me Hate
1. Waiting for Godot (I'm being forced to read two plays by Beckett this semester, we'll see if I like him better the second time around or if I still think it's mostly BS.)
2. Birches, Robert Frost (Thank you, Professor Henke. I hope this one is added prematurely and having to write in the meter doesn't kill Frost for me... again.)
3. Mark Twain, any and all writing.
4. Frankenstein, Mary Shelley

Now I go to scourge through this and my live journal for any kind of epiphany moments for my Writing 1 exercise. Yes, I would like to write a descriptive piece. Yes, I am oozing excitement out my ears. Yes, I do hope I finish this by the time The Office comes on, because Yes, I will stop writing to watch NBC's solid hour of Thursday night comedy.

“The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.” - F. Scott Fitzgerald

I'm not sure I continue to function, but I sure am trying.

Things That Made Today Good
1. I journeyed along a tunnel to one of my classes.
2. Fruit was eaten!
3. Sequined shirts
4. Catch phrase
5. Day 2 with my silver fox of a Parisian French teacher
6. Getting to write a silly essay about an awesome bus driver

Things I Understood Better the Second Time Around
1. French
2. "Birches," by Robert Frost
3. The Hobbit, by J.R.R. Tolkien
4. the metro
5. that some things ache forever, but if you bury them it makes it better
6. poetry in general

Things That Are Perfect
1. Raspberry Iced Tea

Beauty

While I was in Chicago I made us go to the Art Institute and I geekily wrote down all of the things I liked best on my map. A selection:









































I really like museums.

Things I Have Enjoyed Recently...

...That I Didn't Think I Would
1. the driver of the Megabus that we took from Chicago to St. Louis's sweet lessons on life that basically amounted to: rent your house if you ever lose your job, pay your credit cards off as soon as you get the bill, and a nice history of Megabus
2. Walking through the intense amount of snow in Chicago
3. Frozen hair
4. Skiing
5. the Genius results for "Hot N Cold," by Katy Perry
6. "Hot N Cold," by Katy Perry
7. Korean food, Kimchi specifically. So spicy though!

I'm guilty of an addiction to pop. But not Korean Pop, because that stuff is awful and seems to give me an automatic headache.

Tomorrow I begin my classes...

1. Biomedical Ethics
2. French 2
3. Writing I
4. Literary Culture of Modern Ireland
5. Introduction to Literary Studies

I have concerns...
We Will Seeeee!

Later expect sweet snow pictures I took on Michael's camera. :)

Things I Am Anxious About:
1. how much my luggage weighs
2. my flight
3. packing
4. checking in for a non-American Airlines flight
5. things changing

Once again, I seem to have saved the best for last. I... am starting to see that my image of my life in twenty years is unlikely. And for that I am extremely sad, but for all the wrong reasons.
Oh well, that's life, I guess.

So this is the new year...

...and I have no resolution.

To Do 2009
1. get shit done.
2. stop spending all my money at urban outfitters
3. don't run out of meal points before the semester is over
4. have a meeting with my ireland teacher and talk about my writing in a legit kind of way, I need the feedbacks
5. buy a new printer that actually works
6. add to the bitchen' collage
7. smoke hookah
8. try something new and fantastic
9. fall in love with the world around me
10. notice God in the everyday

That last one is the most important, and the one I seem to be forgetting the most. I don't regret moving away, I don't regret going to a dirty hippie school, I don't regret that everyone I know is either an atheist or evangelical, but I do regret that I have not been fighting back. In a "they will know we are Christians by our love, by our love," kind of way.
I miss my accountability group meetings, even if we did talk about boys a lot.
Love,
Kate