Welp, That Was Fun - Back to Real(ish) Life

So, I'm off to a trawling start in 2011. I have been reading and "writing" and puttering around on the computer, doing a little experimental cooking, keeping a fairly low profile. I've still been thinking about new themes to put up, and I'm entranced with the idea of posting about pants/trousers (in my lexicon, they are the same thing).

You have seen this before.

However, part of me also thinks that it's okay just writing about myself, my works and days. Riiight now, however, I am searching for internships for this summer. They are the banes of my holidays.

I officially dislike searching for internships, because what you're looking for in terms of company/experience isn't exactly what prospective companies are offering. Companies and organizations are forever looking for the perfect, cancer-curing intern. I don't know exactly what I'm looking for, and I have a feeling that companies aren't looking for me.

It feels like every advert for intern jobs goes something like this.

"We want a creative, energetic, intelligent, self-motivated intern to do a few menial jobs and learning the basics about our industry. She must be willing to wash away the tears of blood that her forebears have shed with her own lignin. At all times her body must resonate at a perfect A flat that will bring harmony to the universe while entertaining her superiors. Her skin must shine through rainbows, and her brain must be able to sense macro- and microwaves. Being able to microwave leftovers with said brain is a huge plus.

"P.S. This internship is unpaid, but we might be willing to give you some compensation. Like a bus pass."

Sigh. Bus passes are better than nothing, though.

Part of landing an internship is to sell yourself, but there can't be too much of a discrepancy between what you are and how good you make yourself sound. I may have done so a bit last year, which is why I wasn't that great of an intern, I feel.

Last year's internship did come with some pretty awesome experiences, though, and overall I did learn a lot.

Whoa, Wait - Thesis?

I think I just had an idea for my thesis. Yesterday I was walking back from the grocery store, listening to “Howling at the Moon” by the Ramones on my iPod. All of a sudden, an idea just popped into my head about what I wanted to write about – nothing too specific, but a topic at least.

I have always thought of thesis as something vague and far-off, and whenever any of my friends talked about thesis and topics, I always retreated back into the safety of thinking that I would probably write something about John Keats. What, exactly, about John Keats, I did not know.

However, my thoughts about thesis took me completely by surprise. There I was, walking along the street, and like a great gust of wind the idea was in my head, and the feeling “I want to write about this for thesis” was in my head. It didn’t even have the decency to wait until I was at a computer or had a pen and paper in my hand.

I rushed back to the apartment as quickly as I could, stuffing the groceries into the fridge, booting up my computer, and then waiting for it to warm up so I could record my thoughts. Already the thoughts and ideas and whatever chemicals that gave me such a rush were leaking out of my head. I got the bare bones of the idea down - and a few more authors in addition to Keats - all at a point of time when thesis wasn't even on my mind. It might be an answer to a question I've had on my mind the past week, but it's still too early to tell.

Spooniness in Full Force

I first wrote this post in April of 2009. I never posted it, but I think today might be a good time, especially considering today's other post. Please bear with me.

I was reading an interview with my high school theater teacher the other day, and I have a few fall-out thoughts from the interview and my theater teacher's beliefs I would like to share. Not only is my former teacher a Shakespearean actor, he is also a poet and very interested in Keats. He comes from the similar Judeo-Christian background that I do, but he has adapted some of our common beliefs to suit his own purposes. In doing so, he has only expanded the scope and realm of those beliefs. If you want to know more about what I’m talking about, check the interview out for yourself here.

He talks about inspiration. Other authors have discussed how inspiration, how genius, is something more along the demons, a thing that comes and goes. I agree more with Mr. Tanner; it is not a demon that visits us, but inspiration is rather a conduit that can be opened directly to God.

"Pillars of Creation" - Hubble images

Naturally, I desire to open this conduit. It seems like with many things, however, that it is not to be, try as might. As Mr. Tanner indicates, most people never reach this state. Only after much skill has been acquired, only after much suffering for the sake of craft, only after utter mastery can the craftsmen and craftswomen let go of their training, become vulnerable, open themselves up to God, and become artists. They walk into the dark. This darkness is the light of illumination, of inspiration. We have to lose ourselves in order to find what is bigger than ourselves.

I do not think I have a lack of desire. As I am right now, I lack skill, mastery, and patience, but I know that if I desire this thing to be and put in all my effort, my God will take care of my inadequacies. The following is a poem where I try and overcome my inadequacies, where I try and practice resisting those deficiencies.

“The Violet Hulled Ship”
Elizabeth Lain

My body lies curled around a

rock like a pillow,

naked and waiting.

A straight vine-line cracks my head,

fractures with images of matchmakers

Oozing onto the cement, playing

their game in amber tones.

The line is heavy, the air is old.

Where I am, it shall not be there also

on this empty shore bereft of all

but the vine-line.

My vision fades, into nothing but

the gray on this abysmal handmade shore.

My heart lacks the pulsing fire, it

has not yet been on the pyre. The refiner,

the purifier’s tinctures will remain unscathing. The heart

made of hardened, hand-packed ash cannot rest

in tomes of flesh or flames of respiration.

I lie curled on this shore, waiting for

the ship with the violet hull

which will never come

to bring to life the small violet buds

of the vine-line.

For the violet-hulled ship has already passed,

lingering no longer amidst

a forlorn and forgotten body that cannot

capture the capability.

Nails grate against the cement,

scraping, perfect points of tendon’s tension,

of bone striving against muscle, of dust against rock.

The ship does not return.

Somewhere, beyond the line and empty shore, two

violet orchids wrap around a fractured ivory skull,
kissing it in the darkness.

"Krakatau and Driftwood" - Unknown

Mormon Blogs

I was taking a look at some other blogs earlier today to get a better sense of what some other people are saying. So that no equivocations may be made, I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (popularly known in the media as "Mormons"). Mormon blogs have piqued my interest recently, and I became familiar with Brother Matsby's "My Religious Blog." It led me down the rabbit hole into a compendium of LDS blogs about children, marriage, and life at BYU (generally).

No comprehensive evaluation of the blog quality and content has been taken, but after one blog about how cute someone's kids are, I started to get bored. My dissociative personality order has arisen again: my nascent editor-self wanted to critique many of these blogs for craft and content. A few points about these people stood out to me, which I repeat below.

Someone thought everyone else appreciated her quality of "telling it like it is and appreciating [her] for it." Another person said she was a good driver, yet she had been in multiple accidents. A slightly more interesting blog critiques the U.S. government and says that his blog is the place where reason, rationality, and politics meet, but it makes swathing assumptions about people that would not be acceptable at a Californian liberal arts college and distorts the terms "common sense" and "reason."

This motions to the discrepancies between self-perception and how the self is perceived by others. Various ideas in my head are resounding about the spotlight effect and the individual's aggrandized view of self-importance, but I cannot critique more. I do the same thing myself. I want to resent these blogs because they're Mormons writing about themselves. Whether I don't like it because they're normal people trying to write about themselves, that they're not talking about religion, or that their writing gives Mormons a "bad intellectual name," I don't know. I want to distinguish myself from them; although Mormons have been officially encouraged to gain education by our Church leaders, an intellectual tradition still seems far from being realized. I feel that education is a means to an end for many Mormons - that end being a job. Sometimes, I feel that tug, too, to give up my intellectual pursuits and get a job because intellectual work is exhausting, and it's difficult to see sometimes what I am creating and producing.

However, I cannot remain in my caustic little bubble for long. I am touched by the endearing "list of things I will do" this year or throughout the course of my life; that reminds me of what my brother does, and what I have done as well. The irascible double-standard is encoded in my thought processes just as much as it is in anyone else's. I castigate the girl who's gotten into three car accidents while claiming still to be a good driver, but I accept the dreamer who wants to do a hundred improbable things before he dies. Perhaps because dreams are outside of the realm of the rational and go to the core of the individual's psyche. How can I judge the core of an individual? And despite our politics and intellects, dreams are something we all have in common.