Summer's Out For School

Sometimes it feels like the older I get, the less magical summer becomes. As a kid, summer meant scraped knees and street hockey, juice boxes and cartoons, sidewalk chalk and swimming pools. Years passed and I became a teenager. Summer was freedom, breaking the rules, staying out all night and sleeping all day. Summer was my first kiss, driving with the windows down and music up, making waves in the air, stargazing, and being (not feeling, BEING) completely invincible. But as time goes by, these symbols of childhood and freedom have faded, if not disappeared completely. Sure, I had a juice box last week, but it didn't mean what it used to. I've driven with the windows down hundreds of times, but the same songs don't make me cry and scream anymore. I'm twenty-one years old and I'm afraid that I've lost something irreplaceable. Don't get me wrong, I had an incredible summer. I spent time with old and new friends, enjoyed days with my amazing boyfriend, acted silly and spontaneous, but the back of my mind always had a place reserved for the real world. Job applications. Graduate school. Moving out. Now these issues have come to a head. I'm worried about my life. And I'm afraid that my summer has long been over.

Greetings strangers, friends

It's been almost seven months since I used this blog. So what has been up in my incredibly interesting life? Graduated from college, spent three months as a volunteer tutor at 826michigan (and will be leading my first creative writing workshop there this week), applied to grad school, and got my first job in four years. A lot has changed and I'm enjoying everything.

I can't promise that I'll use this blog often, but hopefully I don't completely ignore it.

I love junk mail

Dear Good Friend,

First of all I will like to thank you for your attention to read my mail and for your interest,I pray that my plan with you shall be of good success.It's my pleasure to contact you for a business venture which are ,intend to establish in your country. Though I have not meet with you before but I believe as a Christian that one have to take risk to succeed in life.
Trusting you is one, succeeding with you is another.

I want to discuss about my family heritage 5.5 million dollar's which my late Father kept for in the bank here before he was assassinated by unknown armed rebels last two years in khorogo.

I have decided to sort for a trustworthy person,that I can confide my trust and I shall give you all the detail to help me claim fund and after that you have to help me to come over to meet you before we start investment with the fund.

I am facing lot of problems here because I cannot afford to travel because my traveling passport have been taken from me by my uncles who where supposed to be kind with me,but turned to be wicked on me after the death of my father so i decided to run out of my country to a rest country refugee camp.

I do not have any experience in business and also I don't trust my uncles there in my country because they have been wicked to me since the death of my father.

There are so many problems i am facing in my country that have forced me out of my family mansion. Everything will be explained to you later, but i want you to confirm to me your noble intention and condition to get this done successfully.

I want you to be my guardian, and beneficiary of my family heritage. I
await your soonest response.

Extend my greeting to your entire family.pls

Thank you and God bless you till i hear from you dear as soon as you can reply me i will get back to you in my private e-mail address for security purpose please.

Best Regards,
Ms. Fatima

COMING ATTRACTION

Arriving soon at We're All Strangers Here: the New Moon drinking game.

What else would I write a blog about?

Books read in September
55. The Plato Papers - Peter Ackroyd, novel 20C British
56. The Rose and the Beast - Francesca Lia Block, short stories 21 C American
57. Darkly Dreaming Dexter - Jeff Lindsay, novel 21C American
58. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad, novel 20C British
59. Beowulf - Anonymous, epic poem 6-8C British
60. Dreaming in Cuban - Cristina Garcia, novel 20C Cuban
61. The House on Mango Street - Sandra Cisneros, novel 20C American
62. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight - anonymous, early Anglo-Saxon

Books read in October

63. Whip It - Shauna Cross, novel 21C American
64. Embroideries - Marjane Satrapi, graphic novel 21C Iranian
65. Pop Salvation - Lance Reynald, novel 21C American
66. Wide Sargasso Sea - Jean Rhys, novel 20C Dominican
67. Undiscovered Gyrl - Allison Burnett, novel 21C American
68. Everyman - anonymous, play 15C British
69. Eating Animals - Jonathan Safran Foer, non-fiction 21C American

Books read (so far) in November

70. Prozac Nation - Elizabeth Wurtzel, non-fiction 20C American
71. Poems Retrieved - Frank O'Hara, poetry 20C American
72. Endgame - Samuel Beckett, drama 20C British

The numbers indicate my year-t0-date total of books read. I'm still working on Dexter, Eating Animals, and Prozac Nation. I'm very impressed with what I've read of Eating Animals so far. It's well researched, yet doesn't read like a research paper. Foer is one of my favorite authors and he hasn't let me down yet. If I wasn't already a vegetarian, I might become one after reading just the first 50 pages of this book. Dexter isn't too exciting because it basically follows the first season of the TV show to a T, so no surprises await me. I just started Prozac Nation, so not much to say about it yet.

In September, I read mostly for school. Beowulf was easier to read than I expected. Heart of Darkness was incredibly dense. Dreaming in Cuban was a fantastic look at three generations of a Cuban family and the different routes their lives took.

October was mostly frivolous reading. I enjoyed Embroideries immensely; it's definitely a book that can be read in one sitting and is extremely reminiscent of Satrapi's style in Persepolis. I also found myself incredibly surprised by Undiscovered Gyrl. The title itself threw me off, but I started it anyways and was actually shocked by it. It's an incredibly poignant look at a turbulent year in the life of a young woman who has decided to postpone college. The ending honestly blew me away. It's an easy read, but much deeper than it may appear to be. I read 90% of Pop Salvation while pooping because it just didn't deserve much attention.

why i never fall

The way you’d touch my hair
when you thought I wouldn’t notice.
And how I’d never say, “I love you, too,”
just, “I know.”

November 10, 2005

The Waste Land

Your arms full, and your hair wet, I could not
Speak, and my eyes failed, I was neither
Living nor dead, and I knew nothing,
Looking into the heart of light, the silence.

T. S. Eliot