a crocodile of math professors opens to swallow me

Excerpt from Parliament Hill Fields by Syliva Plath.

From the linked ponds that my eyes wince

And brim; the city melts like sugar.

A crocodile of small girls

Knotting and stopping, ill-assorted in blue uniforms,

Opens to swallow me. I’m a stone, a stick.

One child drops a barrette of pink plastic;

None of them seem to notice.

Their shrill, gravelly gossip’s funneled off.

Now silence after silence offers itself.

The wind stops my breath like a bandage.

Look up the whole poem and read it. Because it deserves to be read in a fluid manner. These are just my two favorite stanzas, so I had to post them. I feel so cheesy when I read poems that I love. I probably look a lot like Anne Shirley in the opening scene of the BBC film. Especially lately. I’ve noticed that my love for literature and writing has intensified during the past few months. I positive why this is,  but reading poems has almost become a craving lately.

It probably started when I got an e-mail last week from the Registrar’s office, telling me that I needed to fulfill my math proficiency requirement this spring. I felt like breaking my computer as I read the message. Most Linfield students arrived on campus prepared to take college-level calculus. I arrived with the ability to count on my fingers and use skip counting songs as tools to attack multiplication problems. I still remember sitting in my advisor’s office after taking Linfield’s math placement test. He pulled out my folder and set it between us on his desk.

“We both know you scored low on this test. You probably knew it while you were taking the test and I knew it because I looked at your SAT scores. “

He went on to tell me that I was lucky that my verbal and writing scores had been high, because I “certainly wouldn’t have been considered for my math scores.” 

Thankfully, this didn’t depress me. I have been a math-reject since the beginning of my existence. My father, who is an engineer, probably feels sad when he sees me doing things like measuring objects by using  my index finger.

After I received the Registrar’s notice, my creative writing advisor (not my mass communication advisor who had seen my test scores) e-mailed me with a similar message. He even recommended a class for me. It’s called, “Great Ideas in Math.”  Here is the course description, because it made me smile: (Yes, there must be others like me in this world. )

Description: The beauty and significance of mathematics in the history of human thought. Focus on concepts of fairness, distribution of power, infinity, and chaos. The impact of mathematics on human knowing, its strengths and limitations. Prerequisites: high school algebra I and geometry, or equivalent. Satisfies mathematics proficiency requirement. Preference for registration will be given to students who have not fulfilled the mathematics proficiency requirement. NOTE: Not for General Science majors. 3 credits (QR) Location: MELR 202

Until the class starts, I’ll be brushing up on my skip counting skills:

More October snapshots

 1. I had been sitting in a coffee shop, working on a literature report all Sat. afternoon. I’m not sure if it was the caffeine or the joy that reading Fern Hill brings me, but I suddenly got the urge to pierce my ear lobes. Immediately. So I rushed back to my room, burst through the door, and informed my roommate that we needed to go to the Salem Center. Sarah, who is always up for adventure but who is also much more responsible than me, got directions from McMinnville to the mall and checked the times that piercing parlors would be open. About an hour later, I perched in a chair- which I had to share with a teddy bear- at Claire’s and watched as an employee loaded a piercing gun with my earrings. “Don’t count to three,” I begged the lady, “just go for it.” Sarah stood by me the whole time and tried not to laugh at the fact that I was a college student getting my ears pierced in a pink, preteen store. Last January, I had the cartilage on my right ear pierced ( in a non-preteen store, even!) and I have to say that getting my lobes pierced was a much less painful experience.

 2. I’ve been listening to NPR as a way to relieve stress about my Information Gathering class. I’m not sure why listening to journalism helps take my mind off my journalism homework, but there’s something comforting about good old Terry Gross and Ira Glass. This American Life is my new favorite show. How can you not love it? Same for Fresh Air.

3. I think blood drives are turning into my new hobby or something. I was sitting in class this morning and could barely stay awake as the professor droned on about cubic inches and other topics that reminded me of math. So I pulled out my planner and wrote a quick to-do list. On the bottom of the list, I wrote, “Search for blood drives in McMinnville.” I know it’s weird. But what is even weirder is that I got home after class and googled it. I’m planning on going to the Veteran’s Day blood drive at the local air & space museum. I told my mom all this, and she said it was “sick.” I guess we can’t all love volunteerism and philanthropy.

4. I know I chose the right majors. Yesterday, I was sitting in my Critical Methods of Literature Study class and found myself wanting to curl up in a poem and die because the conversation was so wonderful. After spending most of the class analyzing “Fern Hill” by Dylan Thomas, we had a conversation about the criteria that people use to identify “good literature.” We were in a heated debate about reader-response criticism and new criticism, when one boy raised his hand and said that he had a difficult time using new criticism. “I want to feel something when I read. I want it to be an intimate experience,” he said. “If we start letting a list of guidelines (new criticism) dictate the way we classify literature, we might as well be in a math class. I HATE MATHY THINGS!” he exclaimed. Everyone (even supporters of new criticism) nodded their heads in approval and smiled. I looked around the room and knew I was in the right college and classroom and major. Amen for hating mathy things!

October is about Greek Food

 I just had the best Greek-food experience ever. Last night a group of Linfield kids piled in a van and went to Greek Cusina, which is a Greek restaurant in Portland (  around the riverfront & downtown area).

When we arrived, everyone felt a bit uncomfortable in the Birkenstocks and designer flannel shirts they had come in. The fake-hippy look didn’t blend with the quiet, candle-lit setting.

However, the waiter promptly whisked us upstairs. There were already a few larger groups sitting at long, wooden tables with heavy benches. A bachelorette party, which was infused with feather boas and fancy drinks, was already in full swing. We had barely ordered our meals before live music started playing. A chubby, olive-skinned Greek man started pulling people from their seats to the dance floor. Everyone in the room gathered around the floor, held hands, and started learning these crazy, Greek dance moves. It was hard to keep a grip on some peoples’ hands because everyone was sweating so much. Good thing I’m not afraid of germs.

“RIGHT! LEFT! RIGHT! SLIDE! SLIDE! OPAHHH!” the dance instructor shouted.

At one point, each person had to jump in the middle of the circle and do a “free-style” dance. It was amazing to see everyone from a 60-year-old man, to a mother, to college students, to a bride-to-be, bust out their best moves.

After letting us eat our delicious food, the dance instructor started handing out ceramic plates for a plate-smashing ceremony.

The people with plates stood in the middle of the dance floor while the whole room counted to three in Greek.

Shards of white plates flew everywhere as everyone screamed and clapped.

Another great thing about the evening? Linfield has an activity program that allows students to do things like this for incredibly inexpensive prices. 20 dollars of food, an evening of dancing, and transportation only cost each person $2. My grandma would have been delighted!

Have a happy week and embrace the rest of October. (There are a pair sparkly fairy wings hanging in my little dorm-room closet,  which are just waiting to be worn for a Halloween party next weekend. Too bad there are newspaper articles and stacks of homework that have to completed before then…)

“Anything one does every day is important and imposing and anywhere one lives is interesting and beautiful.”

 

1. Downtown Third Street is lovely during October. Dozens of trees line the narrow street, almost creating a tunnel of red and gold. I keep finding myself sipping tea at Union Block Coffee while working on ridiculous amounts of Information Gathering homework. I always notice professional-looking women who come clicking in after work wearing pumps and dark pea-coats. I always console myself with the fact that maybe if I ever finish getting my degrees, I’ll be like them. Of course, I also notice the moms who bring their kids and order pumpkin spice lattes. Part of me would love to look like them as well.
2. I’m so tired of my Information Gathering class. It’s a core course for Linfield Mass Communication majors, so there’s no way for me to get out of it. Supposedly the new department chair has spent the past four years vamping the program up to make it more like a graduate level course.  Students spend all week writing  11 pages of work. The professor displays these papers on a smart board and critiques them in front of the entire class. At first this bothered me, but now I’m so used to public criticism that I don’t even mind anymore. Eventually everyone will turn in a 75 page paper. I plan to bring it home and hear the loud “thump” it will make on my parent’s oak table. “This is what you’ve been paying for,” I’ll say.
3. I’m on The Linfield Review staff this semester. I’ve been covering a lot of volleyball, which is not the kind of journalism I’m excited about, but it’s good experience and I’m learning a lot.
4. I just found out that I have been invited to an interview for a study abroad semester in England. If I do well in the interview, I’ll be studying at the University of Nottingham next fall. It’s both scary and exciting. Pray that I do well and act like I know what I’m talking about during the interview.
5. I’m coming home during January Term this year. I stayed on campus last year and took a photojournalism class. It was very useful and rewarding, but after this semester I know I’ll need a break. I got an internship at the community paper for the month. It should be interesting and I’ll be able to learn how to use In-design (a formatting program).
6. I had a brief stint with teen fiction during September. It was shameful and I promised myself it will never happen again. My roommate loves Sarah Dessen and Meg Cabot books, so she recommended that I read them. My academic and extracurricular life was so busy and tiring that they seemed relaxing and easy to read. Since this was the first time I have ever read teen fiction, I was amazed to find that it was similar to eating spoonfuls of pure sugar and cream. Yesterday I looked at my bedside table, felt ashamed, and returned all of them. I’m only alive so long. There’s no way my days on earth will be filled with titles like, “How to Deal.”
7. I haven’t been going home very much. I stay busy and happy on campus and the time at home seems more special if I’m not home every single weekend. Hugs and kisses to mom and dad.
8. I’ve been going to a women’s bible study through New Hope Christian Fellowship. We’re studying Joshua right now and I’m really enjoying it. All the women are older than me so I get lots of hugs and encouragement that 19-year-olds on campus don’t hand out so freely. God has been really working through this study to show me what courage and peace look like in everyday life. I’m slowly feeling much less bitter about church and Christian sub-culture.  Holding cynicism close to your heart is painful. Especially if you let it stay there for extended periods of time. And I think it’s been a long time.

“Daniel’s Birthday Ballad”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEdtBiPIvc0

We have a dancing, singing rat tradition in the Peterson family. Every year, the birthday child/parent gets to listen to the birthday-rat song. This year, for Daniel’s 17th birthday, I decided to spice the celebration up a little with a costume. Apparently, he didn’t like it. My mother recorded the event for your viewing pleasure.

“And summer passed into a hot and fragrant autumn.”

It’s been a happy summer. I’ve gone on beach trips, enjoyed a Sun River  vacation, cried and laughed at the Livestrong Challenge in Seattle, done yoga in the grass with strangers (including a homeless man), read “East of Eden” while driving combine, swam in the river at midnight with friends,  and jumped in huge piles of wheat with coworkers. I’ve seen two friends from Germany, sat around fires with old classmates, slept under the stars in our front lawn, and attended a play with my closest friend.

Now all the valley’s fields are dry and dusty and the crops are harvested. The combines are parked in big barns until next July. January will eventually roll around and 2009 will become 2010. But I can’t help feeling like the new year is about to begin now. In September.

Amber by Body Language

When I was in 10th grade, my best friend and I took a guitar class as our East Linn elective. Instead of learning chords and worship songs like the other students, we strummed wildly on our cheap guitars and wrote songs. In fact, these songs became an obsession. We even made an imaginary band named “Body Language”. We were the only members in the band and we pretended we were nudists who were fighting for rights through our music.

In retrospect, I genuinely feel sorry for our teacher. I remember quite a few classes that had to lay his head down on his desk and close his eyes. He could only handle so many conversations about nudism and album covers.

This all came rushing back to me yesterday when I found a folder from sophomore year. It held dozens of our drawings (of the faculty, us as skaters, and the school swimming in the swamp). It also contained this hit single by Body Language. I apologize in advance.

Amber by Body Language

CHORUS: He had a heart for her

Her name was Amber

And though he never said

He wished that they could be wed.

 

He was locked up in his room

Just sitting there with gloom

He knew it wasn’t menopause

But his life was at a loss

Because of the love they never shared

He longed to run his fingers through her hairrrrr.

-CHORUS-

He was walking through the hall

As though he was in the mall

Then he saw her standing there

With roses in her hair

He got nervous and walked right past

But later he always wished that he had asked

-CHORUS-

(Guitar Solo here)

Ten years have passed

And he still hasn’t asked

He still thinks about her at night

And the way she almost glowed in the light.

(Second Guitar Solo here)

He tries to forget about her

So he grabs a newspaper

Then he sees a familiar face

There in print lies her name.

His heart drops to the floor

He can’t breathe anymore

His eyes tear up and he drops his head

As he sees his true love is dead.

-CHORUS-

With a razor in his hand

He tries to take it like a man

He made a crimson stain

To try and erase the pain

But even a drop of blood

Can’t make him forget his true love.

I don’t really know what to say other than…sorry, guitar teacher. I felt a tiny bit of your pain today while reading this.

When Words Strike Back.

“Don’t call yourselves journalists unless you start reading the news everyday,” my media writing professor said. “How many of you even subscribe to a paper?”

Two adult students raised their hands. The rest of us squirmed in our chairs and tried to look like we were taking important notes.

“Also, I’d like to see more of an interest in new words and a desire to expand your vocabularies. A good way to do that is by subscribing to a word-of-the-day widget for your igoogle pages,” he continued.

Everyone wrote “word-of-the-day” on their notebooks and nodded.

That evening, I studiously signed up for Dictionary.com’s word-of-the-day widget and learned my first new vocabulary word. Little did I know, this widget would become a curse to my nerdy little existence.

For a few weeks, I faithfully learned my vocabulary words and even occasionally tried to use them in conversation. It felt good. I even made a note about it in my personal journal with a little star by the entry, just to remind myself what a delightful student I was becoming.

However, one afternoon I did poorly on a media writing exam and felt extremely discouraged. What if I can never be a journalist? I thought. Some people I know would have washed their sorrows away with a few shots of vodka, but I chose a far more rebellious form of pain relief.

I didn’t click on my word-of-the-day.  The world was “venerate”. It sat there on my igoogle page all day, but I refused to learn the definition. Take that, stupid, meanie-face professor! I thought.

I was feeling guilty by the end of the day. I stood in line at Dillin Hall and got dinner with some friends. Venerate. Venerate. Venerate. I took a shower and shaved my disgustingly hairy legs. Venerate. Venerate. Venerate. I did some last-minute literature reading while eating fruit leather. Venerate. Venerate. Venerate. I brushed my teeth before crawling into bed. With each brush-stroke, the word pulsed through my guilty mind.

My roommates and I said good-night to each other and turned off the lights. I heard their breaths slow down and deepen. I laid awake for awhile, thinking about the day’s events. But the word wouldn’t get out of my head. I glanced at my cell phone and it was 11:45. I knew that in about 15 minutes the word would change at midnight and I would never have to think about it again.

11:55. I threw my covers off and crept to my computer. I quickly logged in and brought up my igoogle page.

I clicked on the word at two minutes until midnight.

Venerate: To treat someone or something with deep respect, reverence or deference; to revere.

When I was a little kid, I saw countless flannel graphs with Christian from Pilgrim’s Progress. The little flannel graph character would kneel at the cross and  his heavy backpack would always fall off and he would feel light and free.

I don’t mean to be sacrilegious, but those flannel graph images came to my mind as I felt the guilt wash away from me.

Memo(s) to self:

-delete word-of-the-day widget .

- stop being a Mass Comm / Creative Writing major

- stop being so nerdy.

Awkward.

Sometimes after I do well on an assignment or bother to clean my closet out, I get a little prideful inside. But it only takes one visit to facebook or my photo albums to put me in my correct place.

Recently, my friend found these photos of highschool days and posted them on the web:

 

( note on last photo: I even slide into pictures what aren’t about me and find a way to make them creepy/abnormal).

Full disclosure of my awkward middle-child existence is the best method of reminding myself that I don’t snap into the mold of more sophisticated sphere.

A Thought on “Real” from my Child. Lit. Class…

“Real isn’t how you are made…It doesn’t all happen at once,” said the Skin Horse. “You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t often happen to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.”

 

-          The Velveteen Rabbit by Francesco Bianco