Wow. My last post here was in February of 2011. It's not September of 2012. And a lot has happened.

I only read over the last two posts, and I won't really go into the entire year that I forgot/chose not to blog about. But I will mention the important things (most of which have been happening recently).

Since my last post, I have:

• Spent two weeks in Europe
• Got a tattoo 
• Begun an internship that has changed my life 
• Taken the LSAT (going to take it again in two weeks) 
• Taken a few creative writing courses (beginning and now in intermediate fiction) 
• Taken an experimental law class (which was amazing, but I didn't do very well grade-wise)
• Turned 21 
• Got another tattoo 
• Applied for an internship at Florence Prison 
• Begun working on my thesis project
• Been invited to join Phi Beta Kappa 
• Applied to Teach for America (tomorrow. Hopefully tonight) 
• Started the process of applying to law school 

My life's been pretty hectic recently. I even kicked myself off of tumblr so that I could get certain things done, which has been working out rather well, unfortunately. So I figured that I would make an update here. I love this blog and I want to keep it, at least until my real life starts as an adult, so probably until after law school.

Or...grad school. Or whatever it is that I'm going to end up doing.

I had my first flat tire today. Pretty good for having spent the last three years driving. I guess my record is ruined by the fact that my Amigo BLEW UP, but who's really keeping track?

Before that happened, though, I went in to see Dr. Farmer who is my professor for Victorian Literature. I had sent him an outline for my Wuthering Heights paper over e-mail and apologized for not having written a draft of the actual paper. My actual words were these:

"I've attached the vague semblance of an outline for my paper on Wuthering Heights so that we might talk about some of my ideas tomorrow during your office hours. I apologize for there being so little for you to look over, but I thought that anything would be better than nothing!"

When I got to his office this morning (where there's a gigantic poster of Keats. Why am I not surprised?), he was looking over it. "'Not much to look over?' You have an outline here for a twenty page paper!"

He ended up telling me that I had figured out the dirty, little secret of literary criticism (being that you can take any argument, chop it into little pieces, and quotes those little pieces so that they conform to your own argument) and that my main idea is very good. Then we talked about how Catherine and Heathcliff are TEXTBOOK Sadistic Personality Disorder. Among other things, of course.

But I'm happy to be on the right track with the paper, and to have started so early. Hopefully I'll be able to start writing this weekend so that I'm not trying to finish on Tuesday night...

In other news, I went in to buy a MacBook Pro today and was told to wait THREE MORE DAYS before getting it, seeing as their releasing a new version and the Computer Store's stock will end up being significantly cheaper. I'm sad now. I really wanted to play with a new computer today...

But I've decided to write a new post here about a conversation that I had with my friend the other day.

The conversation's beginnings are a little too hard to explain, but I will preface it by saying that I was emotional from the get-go. I'm still not sure why, but the situation was as it was.

Moving on.

I've come to the realization that now is not the time for me to be concerned about writing. It's an activity that I enjoy and which relieves stress, but between schoolwork and regular work, I just haven't had much time for it lately. Sure, I get a couple of creative sentences down here and there, but it's mostly if something brilliant strikes me, which tends to be very rare.

That being said, my friend was firmly aghast by this statement of 'writing isn't my priority right now'. She said to me: "But being an author is all you've ever cared about. You want it more than anything."

That was true. And becoming an author is still very important to me. I want it very badly.

It is not, however, my number one goal nor my raison d'être, like it was from about the age of seven to eighteen. Something happened to me in my first year of college, or actually in the summer between high school and college, which made me realize that while being an author would be amazing, I am capable of more. Or I need to feel as though I can accomplish more.

I have no illusions about how great I'll be at one thing or another; who knows how much I'll be able to achieve as a lowly worker of an NGO? Who knows if my stories that I write (and will continue to write) will ever become anything? I'm trying desperately not to be hung up on the "ifs" of the situation. I've decided what I want and I'm going for it, right now.

I want, more than anything, to be a fighter and an active participant in the world around me, for the benefit of humanity. I want to change people, communities, governments, and societies. I simply want to help the people who need it and who cry out for help. Could this be accomplished through writing? Possibly. That's a question which I've been asking myself for a while now (and am also writing a paper on, at the moment).

I believe, with all of my little heart, that I can be more effective (possibly affective?) as an activist and champion by using my presence, by being an actual body, instead of merely an idealist sitting somewhere behind a computer screen and/or notebook.

I hope I've made clear that I don't doubt the legitimacy of literature or writing to cause change, because I definitely believe that it can and does on a regular basis. But within myself, to feel as though I've done good in this world, I understand that I need to be active. And perhaps this all stems from an issue that I have as a writer where all of my work is introspective as opposed to fiction which looks outward and at the world for what it truly is. I acknowledge that my stories are character-driven and about people and psychology and never about bigger issues than what one character thinks and feels and how that changes over time.

Someday, I hope to combine the two ideas. But now, I am acutely aware that I am incapable of doing so. I need experiences. Hopefully my choice in careers will further aid my endeavor to produce a good piece of writing, but the career choice is what's important and ever-prevalent in my mind.

Yes, I want to be an author. But I want to be the best human being that I can be, first and foremost.

I have no excuse as to why I haven't posted in a while. I'll breeze through the last month or so in once sentence. Are you ready? I've been busy: school started, Sam ended, work's crazy, and I'm tired.

As for school, which is the central sphere of influence for me at the moment, I'm in two literature classes (which I enjoy) and two human rights courses (which entail a lot more reading than I would have expected). And let's not forget French. Ugh, french.

Anyways, I've been working on my papers for my Victorian Novel class (sado-masochism in Wuthering Heights) and my Honors project through Violence, Conflict, and Human Rights which involves reading novels about human rights conflict and examining whether I think that there's a moral/ethical breach somewhere when an outsider decides to write a book about atrocities which have nothing to do with them. So on top of the 25 books or so that are required for my classes, I've taken on two extra. Yep.

But I thrive when I'm over-worked with no sleep. So I'm not terribly worried about my work load, although I do love complaining about it.

In other news, er...I've got nothing. Haven't been writing very much, although every day I get new ideas for Alex and Phae, or at least things become a little more clear and their characterization more concrete. I'll probably post a picture of my storyboard sometime. But right now, I'm off to do my analysis of Great Expectations.

I spoke too soon about that boy.

We'll see how this goes. :D

The last time that I posted here was around October, which is really depressing. So much has been going on.

So let me start off by saying that I quit NaNoWriMo, again, but this time at nine days in. I have multiple reasons for doing so this time around which include, but are not limited to: I got sick, I hated my characters, I had no plot, I'm still addicted to writing fan-fiction for Hetalia, and I have three papers due within the next two weeks. As much as I hate being a quitter, I would have killed myself. Or all of my characters, even though they all would deserve it.

So I've been thinking about my ACTUAL novel and have been deciding on some of the elements of religion and sexuality that I want to include. Progress is progress is progress, right?

I still have all A's, at the moment. That's good.

But my personal life is kind of in the shitter. I won't go into great detail as most people already know the story, but I've been "dating" this guy for almost three months now and realized that I don't give a shit about him. I care as little for him as he does for me, at this point. And I'm only sad that it took me this long to realize it when I've been stressed out and upset for the last three months. Boys suck. No offense to the good guys who do exist out there. I'm just really not into dating right now. If it happens at some later date, cool. I don't want it right now, though.

Maybe after law school. And after I have a lucrative, fulfilling career. And after I bought a little cottage in the woods for myself and my three dogs. And after I sell my first novel. And after...And after...

Anyway, I should be studying or researching for my papers. One rough draft is due on Friday. And I haven't really started it yet...even though I have all of my sources. Time to get busy!

This month has been slightly hell-ish, but at least the weather was fun.

I'm gearing up for my French Oral Exam (Wednesday) and for my next few papers that will be due in two weeks. I'm really sad that my mom, Cody, and Brynn are all going to California without me next week...but maybe I'll be able to get more work done. Maybe.

Other than that, it's officially NaNoWriMo season and I have to begin jotting down plot bunnies so that I can roll with my flow come November. I'm just going to do my romance-esque story and hope that it ends up being 50,000-ish words. I think I can handle it. My MC is an endless supply of snark.

Anyway.............I'll update again when something exciting happens. IF something exciting happens...