Quiet in the Noisy Swirl

My life this past week turned into a noisy swirl.  I led an ordered life during the summer: in June, I read during the day and attended class in the evening.  In July, I spent carefree days in Williamsburg, reading in the mornings, watching movies during the afternoons, and visiting friends in the evenings.  In August, I spent a lovely week at the beach, finishing a book for my thesis, completing a Rosetta Stone unit, and starting on a cross-stitch sampler.  Then it all changed, and suddenly the noise came back to my head, telling me to read more and do more and that I'm not enough.

This week, I had meetings to go to, appointments to attend, interviews, and events to plan.  Suddenly the rapidly approaching change of seasons started to agitate me; how will I withstand the cold of another winter?  Why are we drinking pumpkin spice lattes in August?  Then I begin to have anxiety about how will I ever learn Spanish and have all these hours been for nothing, because I can't even read children's books without stumbling over at least a few words, and why am I not perfectly fluent yet, and will I ever be? (My perfectionism won't let me appreciate my small accomplishments as I learn more and more words.)  Mostly, I began to panic again about my thesis project and the seeming impossibility of it, and dread that seeps into my bones when I try to imagine writing another thesis.  I know this dread is of the moment, and will dissipate as I read and formulate ideas (better-- will turn into joy! I do love the eighteenth century) but that doesn't stop it from feeling awful now.

So on Wednesday I decided to try to quiet my mind.  I walked up the hill listening to my Frankenstein audiobook, feeling productive (I am loving audiobooks).  I stepped inside the Bayou Bakery, where zydeco music is always playing and the smell of chicory coffee and beignets fills the air.  I ordered a glass of sweet tea and a slice of freshly made blackberry-almond coffee cake, still warm from the oven.  One gooey bite of warm blackberry dispelled most of my worry.  I opened my new book, the one I really didn't need to buy at the beach, but that I felt I needed to buy at the beach, and I began to read.  Then I stopped, because this book is too good and I don't want it to ever end, plus I needed another bite of that warm crunchy coffee-cake top.  With a bit of blackberry, too.  Then I read a bit more, and I think some odd sixth-sense must have led me to this book, or maybe this book-- like the house it's about-- is magic and it knew that I needed it and it placed itself on the shelf just so, that my eye might catch its bright cover.  I'm only twenty-two pages in, but already I think this may be a book I read again and again, like Eat Pray Love or The Alchemist.  I feel comfortable in its pages, even though I'm still new to it.

Then I finished my tea and coffee cake, and I walked further up the hill, listening to Frankenstein, and I bought a pair of crop jeans and I used up the last of a Barnes and Noble gift card on a Spanish children's book full of illustrations and some words I understand and lots of words I don't understand, but have faith that I will learn.  Then I walked home in the warm-but-not-too-warm evening sunshine, and I cleaned up the apartment a bit, which helped my mood considerably.  The noisy swirl inside my head felt calmer; my mind felt clearer.  And even now, as anxiety again tugs at the corners of my thoughts, whispering horrible things about my academic preparedness and the state of my thesis research, I try to remember that my adviser told me not to harden my thoughts, and that I'm on track, and that I have two books ILLed that should arrive at the library anyday, and in the meantime I'm just a short walk from sweet tea and just a few pages from a magical house full of hope.

Pumpkin Ale and Research Plans

It's the end of August.  The weather has been shockingly mild this summer, so the air already feels like a Virginia September.  The light quality is changing, too.  I'm noticing the days getting shorter; I see the way the sunbeams slant in the afternoons a bit more richly than in high summer.  I caved; despite saying I would wait until September, I've bought both Woodchuck Fall cider (my favorite) and pumpkin ale.  I even drank a pumpkin ale last night at our back-to-school Pizza/BBQ party that EGSA hosted.  It ended up being a great party-- we got pizza from Pizza Paradiso, everyone mingled, lots of laughter, new faces, old faces.  I still haven't seen a few of my closest friends, as they are spread across the world currently (they don't have class 'til next week, either), so I'm still looking forward to a few joyous reunions.

Today, too, is the first day of classes, so perhaps it's alright that I'm embracing that autumn feeling and those autumn flavors.  I don't technically have a class until next week, but I have spent the past two days on campus, and yesterday I had a meeting with my thesis adviser.  It was a reassuring meeting.  Just after it, I felt very confident in my lack of solid direction, but last night the anxiety started to return a bit.  I know I've been instructed to read, think, and make notes for the next month-- without hardening my thoughts and feelings-- but I want to have hard feelings.  I'd feel so much more secure-- even though I know my adviser is right, and the more reading I do this month, the better my words will be when I do finally start writing.  Looks like I'm going to become very well acquainted with the library this September.  I also want to become familiar with the Library of Congress.  A few of my classmates mentioned getting a reader card there, and I think I will, too.

Plus, I have a bit of personal research to do on some very interesting eighteenth-century personas and the history of science...and I can't wait to dig in!

Back-to-School Feeling

Wow.  In the past couple of days, my calendar has really filled up.  Must mean that it's time to go back to school!  I have not one, not two, not three, but FOUR orientation events to attend/organize between now and Tuesday.  I have coffee with a former teacher, an interview (!), brunch with a friend, and more.  Meanwhile, I'm trying not to have a panic attack about my thesis and (what I perceive as) my woeful state of preparedness.  I know once I get into it I'll be fine, but if last semester and this summer were anything to go by, I'm not sure when I will feel into it.  On the other hand, the last paper that I wrote for my adviser was one that I really loved-- and loved writing.  I just need to latch onto what kinds of questions I want to ask of my subject... and why those questions matter.

But, yesterday I had a mini-EGSA meeting with two other board members, which got me kind of got excited about the semester starting up.  It's just nice to see people again.  We have such a good cohort, and I can't wait to make memories together as second years.  So, between the meeting, planning events for the first week of classes, and Pumpkin Spice Latte suddenly showing up in my Twitter newsfeed, I'm beginning to think maybe I'm ready for this autumn after all.

The First Young Love Baby Shower

On Saturday, the girls of Nunes House Flat 5, Spring 2008 reunited at Shea's baby shower.  Yes, one of our own is pregnant!  She's set to have a baby boy in October.  We haven't all four of us been together at the same time since Shea's wedding in 2010.

Shea's mother hosted a lovely shower.  We played three games.  First, we had to identify by feel ten baby items in sealed bags.  The first three items were easy-- a bottle, a pacifier, and a rattle-- but that pretty much exhausted my knowledge of baby items.  In the second game, we taste-tested baby food, trying to guess the flavor by the smell, color, and taste.  I only missed banana; for whatever reason, the banana one tasted too tart to me.  The third game took place as Shea opened her gifts: it was a BINGO game, and we put a sticker on each time she opened an item on our card (such as teddy bear, changing mat, onesie, monitor, bath items, etc.).  I got the last BINGO prize!  Ten dollars to Dunkin Donuts!  So excited.  Shea's mother also put out a lovely lunch for all of the guests, with tuna and chicken salad sandwiches, homemade meatballs, coleslaw, deviled eggs, chicken nuggets, chips with a homemade layer dip, potato salad, and more!  For dessert we had sheet cake and homemade chocolate-covered strawberries.  My favorite touch was the rubber duckies floating in blue punch.

After the shower itself ended and most of the guests took their leave, Shea, Ali, Danielle and I sat out by the pool catching up on life.  We reminisced about England, and about other get-togethers we've had since 2008-- the wedding, a trip to NYC, last year's housewarming party, etc.  We planned for a Christmas get-together after Shea's baby is born, so we can meet him.  The sun set, and more food came out for dinner, then we broke out a board game called Moods.  We played out on the screened in porch, in the warm summer night air.  There was much laughter, and instead of finishing the game at one round, we decided that to win we needed to get around the board two, no three, times.  Danielle and I tied and had a 'tie-breaker' round that elicited even more laughter.

Now, we're all again many miles apart... looking forward to a December reunion.  Young Love!

Invasion of Oktoberfest and a Return of Lizzie Bennet!

Today has felt entirely too fall-like for August.  Don't get me wrong, I love this weather, but... it's unsettling.  Is this recompense for the harsh winter?  Or does it mean a harsher winter ahead?  It also brings thoughts of melting glaciers and rising sea waters to my mind.  Sometimes I just can't let myself enjoy a good thing.  But I should, because, I mean, this weather might be the only silver lining!

And, strangely, it's like everyone else is conspiring to make fall happen in the middle of August, too.  I ordered a seasonal ale today at a pub up the street, and I was told that they now had the Oktoberfest on tap.  What?!  What happened to my summer seasonals?  I understand that clothes lines get in fall merchandise early, since people start buying for the season in anticipation of the season-- but beer?  I want my pumpkin ales and Oktoberfest brews in autumn, not August!  Right now I want to continue to savor my wheat ales... and my days without classes.  Especially those.

Because days without classes mean time to read (okay, most of that reading is for my thesis, but it feels so relaxing and pressure-free right now!), time to use my Rosetta Stone, and time to listen to audiobooks while driving and/or cross-stitching!  I've started a free trial of Audible and got the audiobook of The Secret Diary of Lizzie Bennet.  It's a companion to the webseries The Lizzie Bennet Diaries, which you may remember I became totally obsessed with last year.  It's an eight-ish hour long audiobook, and I'm about four hours in.  Surprisingly, I really like it.  I thought it would just sort of be a recap of the videos, but it's not.  It's like seeing behind the scenes into "Lizzie's" life.  I'm learning all sorts of salacious details omitted from her videos!  It makes me miss last year when I could look forward to new videos and tweets from the characters, and when Megan and I had lunch at the Blue Talon and gossiped about the Jane, Lizzie, and Lydia as if they were real life people.  Interactive webseries are the way of the future, people.*

So, that's where I'm at right now.  Trying to enjoy the last few days of summer, despite the world (and the weather) suddenly pushing onto autumn.  Tomorrow I'm attending a baby shower for a friend, on Monday Zan starts some pre-classes school stuff, and I'm going to do my best to finish at least one more research related book before my own classes start, in an effort to sharpen/focus my topic.  Wish me luck!

*As in the post I linked to, this is not a sponsored post for The Lizzie Bennet Diaries or Audible.  I just really like The Lizzie Bennet Diaries and, now, the audiobook of The Secret Diaries of Lizzie Bennet.  

At The Beach

At the beach, you're allowed to have peanut pie and tea for breakfast.

At the beach, you're allowed to have eggs, bacon, and toast at lunch.

At the beach, you're allowed to wake up late.  You can read for hours on the front porch, or in the sunroom, or on a couch.  You can work on your language skills; you can play silly iPad games.  You can start a new cross-stitch pattern, or you can play a Mario game on the Wii U.  You can play card games at night, or watch movies during the day. 

At the beach, you can get ice cream in the afternoon, or buy a new book from a local bookstore.  Even though you know that the last thing you need is a new book.  You can also get Classic Literature-themed MadLibs.  Because when was the last time you played MadLibs?

At the beach, you can start the day in the hot tub.  You can also end the day in the hot tub.

At the beach, you can actually go to the beach.  You can also run into the ocean and play with the waves, and there's a long sandbar.  You can lounge on the sand or swim or wade.

At the beach, you can do whatever you please.


But the best part is that peanut pie for breakfast.

Beginning of Summer Closing

Soon it will be my birthday, and that's always signaled the beginning of the end of summer.  Growing up, I was one of those lucky kids that got to have pool parties and never had to go to class on my birthday.  But a bittersweetness hung over it all, because my birthday fell on one of the last real days of summer, before classes started up seemingly earlier and earlier every August.  Since I've taken the grad school route, my birthday still signals the beginning of the end-- I'm already deep into planning for Orientation for the new first years, and I'm scrambling to read all those books I thought I'd read for my thesis.  These twilight days of summer are both lovely and terrible.

But this past weekend was all loveliness.  We drove up to Pennsylvania for the wedding of our friends S and T.  They got married in a gorgeous early 20th-century theater.  The theme was 1920s, and the space definitely fit the bill with its art deco lobby and antiquity-fad frescoes.  Google maps lied to us, and what we thought would be a three and a half hour drive turned into a five hour drive with traffic and heavy rain.  We missed the rehearsal, but made the rehearsal dinner, and I drank a little too much wine and had a wonderful time meeting the wedding party.  The next morning, I went to the salon with the bridal party, and had my hair done in a vintage-style side chignon, then I helped carry things for the photos in the afternoon, and the bride's six-year-old half-sister took a liking to me primarily because I had a Disney's Frozen game on my iPad.  The ceremony itself was beautiful, and T wore an actual 1930s wedding gown that fit her perfectly.  She looked radiant, and S looked handsome.  We had hors d'oeurves and cocktails in the lobby, and dinner and dancing on the stage, and saw old friends and met new. 

But all weekend--all of August really, and even moments at the end of July-- the weather hinted at the coming fall, and on the drive home Zan asked, "When do we get pumpkin ale?"  Laughingly, I said, "Soon," before really realizing just how soon we would find pumpkin ales on menus and at the grocery store, and apple cider and all manner of other autumnal goodies.  I love autumn, but this summer took so long to arrive I can't quite get excited just yet for its imminent departure.  Here's to a few more muggy nights and glasses of sweet tea and tank tops and flip flops.