I'm a college graduate.

Jess on May 18, 2008

Weird, eh?  I guess it’s more significant than is registering with me, and it will be weird to not be at Washburn most of the time anymore.  I only cried when Bearman hugged me coming out of the tunnel of faculty and said “Congratulations, Jess.”  That one pretty much did it for me.  Sad times.  But mostly, I’m just super glad to be done and get moving on with the rest of my life.  I’ve got some good plans and big dreams.

Also, I started my internship the other day and it is awesome.  Completely.  I love it.  I could work in museums for my whole life, judging from the first day. However, I’m somewhat concerned that at some age you outgrow being a hipster and have to work in a classical art museum instead of a contemporary one.  No fun.

squalor victoria

Jess on April 17, 2008

Rarely do I tell stories of semi-personal embarassment over the internet, I delight in them because they make me happy but I don’t often share them because I only blog in these weird moments of “oh i should update the world” that tend to overlook the little miniscule things. But it’s spring and miniscule is hip so here’s a fun story from my life of late. For those of you keeping track of my psychological development, this one tells you two things. 1) I’m still pretty bad at telling stories. 2) I’m a lot more relaxed than I was when you started paying attention.

The story begins with a clean closet and ends with a post on Bethany’s facebook wall that goes like this:

Jess wrote
at 6:12pm
Inventory of things in my closet:
1. Blue bookbag containing graduation garb and notebook with invitation list to wedding.

Should I call WUPO and let them know the case is closed?

Approximately two weeks ago on a Monday (so one and a half weeks, whatever) I went to school on a Monday to turn some things in for Prasch, ie my thesis, and do some printing in the library. I showed up early because it was a Monday which means Mondays at Mabee and I wanted some of the good discussion and free pizza. So I had a chat and then I went over to the computer and printed my things and then I went to class and I handed it in and discussed how far along we all were on our thesises and then I headed home for the day or maybe to work or somewhere else. The next Wednesday I was getting ready to go to class and went to put my laptop in my bookbag to find my backpack missing. I figured I’d probably just left it in the car because I know I didn’t take my laptop to class on Monday so there was no real reason to warrant bringing it in the house. I look around my room for it in it’s usual haunts (my chair, my couch, wherever) So I take my tote bag to campus with my laptop in tow and call it a good day.

For the next week I think about things that could be in that bag to decide if it’s worth finding. The worst thing that I’m losing is a list of invitees to the wedding. And about 40 sheets of paper that say some combination of Jessica Lynn MyLast and HisLast all mashed together like I’m somehow going to figure out which name combo fits best if I write it over and over. So I decided it’s replacable and not that big of a deal and I mention off hand that I should probably look for it but I never really do. Meanwhile I contemplate cutting the wedding guest list down to about 50 anyway so it wouldn’t really matter if we had the old list.

Flash to today. I wake up and in a montage that took place before I opened my eyes realized that all my graduation regalia is in that bookbag. so i sort of need it or else I’m going to have to pay 24 dollars again, and I don’t want to pay 24 dollars again. Thus, Bethany and I go on a mission (she was going to Morgan and I tagged along) to find it. We went by the police department, after watching some ducks on campus for probably an eery amount of time, and filed a report. The funny part was that they asked when I lost the bookbag. Answer: “I don’t know, about two weeks ago?”

I came home after no luck on campus and took a nap and then I looked for the bookbag in my room again, and there it was, hanging out in my closet. Which I cleaned a few days before it got lost. Apparently the little guy just found a niche and didn’t leave.

Losing my chomps

Jess on April 15, 2008

I had a pretty nice weekend in Independence, Kansas and then getting caught up on things before I got my wisdom teeth taken out yesterday.  I’m pretty well on track with everything, or at least caught up with a usual tuesday.  I just need to spend a chunk of time working on f&f stuff on thursday and the apeiron is friday.  when i got home from surgery yesterday i found out that Kyle’s grandmother passed away which makes me sad.  I never knew her but it’s just hard and I hate that I can’t be there for him.  I think distance at times like these is really when distance is the hardest because we could both really use each others physical presence, what with my recovering from surgery where one of the instructions is not to talk much and with him not really liking to talk about what’s going on.  I just really wish that we were closer, I guess.  And I can’t wait until that happens.  I applied for three museum internships today so hopefully one of those comes through.  And I’m applying for an actual job with the pitch but i haven’t been able to do that yet even though I now have a professional resume ready to go.  I should probably show around for more places to start putting in an application.  I’m very excited about kind of knowing what we’re doing and having some time before the move to put in applications and look for jobs.

Sleeping in for the wrong team

Jess on April 8, 2008

For some reason, I’m sort of exhausted.  Maybe because I played Smash Brothers most of yesterday and maybe because I spent like 9 hours this weekend finishing up my thesis, not bad for the last push on my thesis but still sort of exhausting.  And right now I’m at that place with a paper where I can’t look at what I did.  I just know I feel sorta like I wrecked my car.  I’m sure I’ll re-read it and it won’t be as bad as I think… and I’m sure I’ll get it mostly cleared up in the parts where it is bad, but still.  I’ve vowed not to think about it for the next day or so.

WordPress changed the layout of the internal part of the site.  Here is a message to the people responsible for this change: I don’t like it.  It is silly.  And the first thing I am going to do is change it back if that’s possible and it probably is.

Kyle and I did our engagement photos. Pictures are up in an album on Cari’s account and I’m probabaly gonna snipe them for flickr in a bit too.   i’m trying to hold off until they’ve been editted but at this point, meh, whatever, i’m just taking them.  i’ll edit them on photoshop express or something.  speaking of, i’ve been experimenting with seashore which is the gimp build for mac because it’s free and i like free things.  so far, i’m only fussy about how it does brushes (this is a big deal if you know anything about my design habits) but otherwise it’s good little software.  i also assume this is just part of the learning curve.  I also have been using Scribus which is an opensource desktop publisher.  it has a huge learning curve but now that i’m figuring out I probably like it about as much as InDesign.  Certainly when you consider the difference in price tag its way better… also because I don’t typeset.  I could see it maybe being a pain in the ass if you were working with lots and lots of content, but then, I think InDesign is that way on my laptop as it is…

It’s so like me to try to update the world on wedding prep and instead get distracted with a conversation about opensource design software.  ack.  I mean, I guess it all relates cos we’re doing our own programs, invites, blah blah blah all of that.  so i sort of need the software for something semi-practical for once in my life.

I also bought us a copy of “The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work” by John M. Gottman, Ph. D.  I’m only a chapter+ in right now so I don’t feel like I can make a royally long critique of the book but so far I like it.  I like it cos I don’t like Active Listening even though I’ve been trained in it (I call it passive aggressive listening… ahem).  So Gottman criticizes it because he says that it’s really meant to be an individual therapist-to-patient method of listening and not really that applicable when all the “I statements” are criticizing the listener.  A good point.  And he mostly talks about how good he is at his job which is sorta sweet.  And he comes really highly recommended.

Sorry I don’t have long treacherous reports about the ins and outs of my life these days.  I guess things are really good, or just kind of unknown.  I’m hoping to have some blanks filled in by the end of the month but there is no sense rushing a lack of information. On the right side, I have been updating you with far more poetry which is good for us both.  Another one is hopefully on the way soon.

Life is a list

Jess on March 17, 2008

Kyle is a national champion in debate!

I have new shoes.

My car got an oil change.

I leave for Illinois tomorrow.

I’m officially a candidate to graduate, and I’m summa cum laude… a distinction I cannot even fuck up.

Everything is happy!

yah, you made me merry.

Jess on February 24, 2008

i’ve been busy, busy, busy, busy.  take, for example this weekend.  friday, i needed to spend all day at the kansas state historical society because i’m a little bit behind on non-interweb research for my history thesis.  i also feel behind on this in general because it’s i am not doing the thesis which i began in 395 which is what most students do… so i would gather that a lot of students are way ahead of where we’re supposed to be while i’m way behind.  a lot of the reason for this is that i’ve simply been impossibly busy and i’m not really in the swing of school because of some snow days and the fact that i only have classes on wednesdays.

so, friday i slept in cos i needed to after two nights of only four or so hours of sleep and then i went to lunch and the library.  i spent three-ish hours on microfilm and then headed to campus to help set up for history day, stopping en route at Livingston’s Bridal which is going out of business and has lots of expensive dresses on super sale.  setting up took about an hour and then we all headed to the bearman’s where we had dinner and i finally asked formally for the children to fill the traditional child roles in my wedding.  after dinner, i headed to work for four hours.  then i came home and tried to get to sleep early (which idnd’t really work out.)

I woke up at 6 to start getting ready to be at campus by 7 or just after for history day.  i spent all of saturday running around and helping out with minor administrative duties of history day.  at that point i wasn’t running anything, i was just like second-level damage control.  but i kept the volunteers coordinated and i think that overall this was a really good history day competition.  in between the morning judging and the afternoon awards ceremony, i headed to barnes and noble to read more DIY wedding books to get good ideas for what i can do more cheaply to subvert the wedding industrial complex.  i then headed back to campus for awards and then ventured home, hoping to get a nap.  the nap didn’t really work out because my mom needed to argue about the wedding again.

i promise you, i am so impossibly stressed out because she won’t just support kyle and my decision to get married now.  she wants us to instead postpone the wedding until sometime in the indefinite future.  this is not going to happen unless for some reason it’s recommended by the clergy.  but the thing is… it’s just driving me crazy this back and forth.  i hate that i don’t even want to be in the kitchen because half the time she’s sane and settled about the wedding and the other half of the time she’s in some crazy rage.  i can’t take it.  and usually i go through life pretending that my relationship with my mom is pretty normal.  i often downplay the things going on at home or wherever to my friends because it’s just easier than trying to explain everything she says or does.  but in the past week she’s just been in a fit screaming at me and treating me like i am a child.  she puts me in ridiculous double-binds, she virtually hates the catholic church, she says terrible things about kyle, and last sunday she basically explained to me that i had already failed at life??a fear that is very real to me right now so it hurt a bit more than when she says things of the sort normally.   i learned at a very young age that it’s best not to take her outbursts personally.  she doesn’t mean them.  she just.  well, she’s bad at expressing what is actually bothering her.  but in the occasional times that she decides to apologize for upsetting me, she’s possibly revealed some of what the issue is.  and i think i get it.  so instead of saying things i don’t mean that are still true, which is my weakness in situations like this, i’ve been trying to just stress while she yells at me how much it is hurting me that she’s not being supportive while i plan my wedding.  and that i really just want her involved in all of the fun things about planning a wedding.

and shes not even doing that, for the record.  i made all the calls about reception sites, i visited the row house, iv’e decided all of the little things about the wedding itself.  it’s not like i’m even asking for help or overburdening her.

so that aside is over.  back to the retelling of my too-busy weekend.

after my failed attempt at a nap, i met reanne at panera for a quick dinner before we went to see a memory, a monologue, a rant, and a prayer… the latest eve ensler monologue series which was performed at washburn this weekend.  it was good, but probably not as good as last week’s showing of the vagina monologues.  and i think it portrayed women as helpless victims in too many situations and never really reached a point where i identified with the woman in the story.  some of the monologues were just effing bizarre. but overall i think it was worth going.

then, i met joey for drinks at buffalo wild wings cos i hadn’t seen him in about a month and a half.  it was nice to see him and i was sorry that our chat couldn’t last longer… but two hours is probably long enough for drinks and shrimp.

today, i need to finish up that outline that’s due tomorrow and i should really write a paper about this journal article called “Men of Columbine” that i sort of disagree with, the documentary “Tough Guise” which I really agree with, and MMPR which i’m not sure fits in with the first two.  Also, i should write a paper about this article called “Talking about Down There” and the Vagina Monologues which I’m already started on, I guess.  Both papers are only 2-3 pages and not due until Wednesday so I feel fine putting them off a bit.  Also, at 4:30 we’re going bridal gown shopping.  Oi.  Wish me luck.

Things on my mind: losing my bi identity as i permanently embrace the world of mono-socio-sexuality, an everburdgeoning fear of the wedding industrial complex which is the scariest place anyone could ever live, and what last name i should have seven months from now??probably an unpunctuated hyphenation, and the imminent arrival of what i presume to be my second rejection letter from a grad school.

sometimes, it’s a wonder i can drag myself out of bed at the morning.  luckily, kyle is wonderful and supportive and engaged in the process of making our wedding happen and preparing for our marriage and i am so happy that he will be in town in like four days.

didn't even have to use my a.k.

Jess on February 1, 2008

I feel very productive today. I woke up early to take my mom to work and then I came home and finished my night’s sleep. I moved all of my stuff out of the van (I’m finally, finally, finally all the way out of the apartment which is a huge stress off my back. It’s great. I never want to move again, basically. But I will… in four-six months. Ugggh.) Then I brushed all of the loose fur out of Bear’s coat. He’s such a good dog. He just wouldn’t sit still for me to finish the whole coat. 🙂 After that, I went to campus for my afternoon swim. I’m hoping to really get in the habit of an afternoon swim. I think it would be really good for me to do that so the plan is to continue that into next week. I also had a meeting for the history department hiring committee. It went well. I still need to write my meeting summary so that I remember what happened in it next time I go. When I got home, I cleaned my room… now I’m finishing season 1 of desperate housewives. It’s probably not as good as most of the other shows I watch. Which is sort of sad.

It’s better than LOST though. Lost sucks.

Oh, I went to see James the other day. We went to Paolucci’s which was alright but not as good as the cost. It was really good to see him! I feel a lot better about things after that, i think. David moves into his new apartment next weekend probably! How exciting. Apparently it’s in the downtown CoreFirst building and the rent is not nearly as high as i would’ve expected. Awesome.

the parting of the sensory

Jess on January 21, 2008

it seems that lately the only thing i want to blog openly about are my dreams. i have strange ones. i have dreams about unsolvable addictions. walking into every room to find people with pills boiled down into a substance injectable into their veins, and that is not the half of it because i cannot begin to explain the predictive dreams, waking from a sleep that was so sound to recall that sometime a few short hours before i woke my brain decided to betray me. i dream that i’m hunted like in munich for claiming that we should never have granted diplomatic recognition to israel (i don’t even believe that when i’m awake), being dipped into little alleys that all look like the route to the bathroom at my favorite mediterranean cafe in westport, grabbed by young palestinian beauties wrapped in their best hijabs, and i don’t even full understand it. i always remember waking up at some point before so i know my dreams only get bad before i wake up. it’s strange, and a nuissance.

i’m in illinois right now, which has been nice. i’m finally starting to talk about and deal with things again. sometimes i feel like my oversensitivity toward having feelings is somewhat of a burden, you know, i can’t just suck it up and move on. but sometimes i have opposite thoughts. for the last week, the only thing i’ve been able to feel is angry. i’ve been prickly around the house because my mom broke her hip a few months ago and so during the day I have to take care of her, which is fine. she’s great about being nice about everything which is quite a pleasant change, and she tries to let me have rests and things too. it’s just i felt like all week i’d just get settled doing something relaxing and then she’d need something else. and i knew the whole time that was only my perception of it. but i don’t know, i couldn’t really have real emotions about things i probably needed to explore and so it was making me kind of impossible in every area of life. i finally broke down that gate on saturday night and now i feel much, much better. i can’t even begin to explain it. i feel like i had been carrying around an extra weight and it’s gone now and i can hold my head up a little better. i feel like making eye contact again.

school starts wednesday. i’m pretty excited to be back and at my last semester of undergraduate ever. and i’m so anxious and nervous and EXCITED to start hearing back from grad schools. my life is going in a new direction and kyle is going with me and i cannot contain myself. i want to know where it is that we’re going and what it is that we’re doing and i can’t wait to start living it all out and making new memories.

sunday, bloody sunday

Jess on December 14, 2007

I’m officially done with the semester, thank God. I’m so happy that it’s over, and next semester should be relatively relaxing. It’ll just be a lot of writing and editing paper and not a lot of going to class, something that I can really look forward to, let me tell you.

Kyle’s on his way into town tonight which I’m excited about. I haven’t seen him since November 27 in the morning, which is not fun at all. I generally like to go less than two full weekends without seeing my boyfriend, and its worse when we sandwich full work weeks around them. agh. but we’re both done with the semester and get to spend a few weeks together, including some time in albuquerque in the beginning of January.

Overall, I have to say there isn’t that much new going on in my life. I’m not really stressed out about anything except that I work too much and don’t have time to just get away (the weekend is a brilliant invention). I got my application in to Minnesota and as of today they have all the materials that go along with that, long story about the graduate school admissions office being two weeks behind on processing mail could go here but instead i’ll just leave out the details and say its all taken care of which is the important part. Now, I’m focusing on getting my apps in to Boston and Iowa or wherever else I decide to apply whose deadline hasn’t already passed. Honestly, i’m just really focused on Boston and Minnesota. If I don’t get those, I don’t really want a whole lot of anything else. And that’s just how it is..

James is seeing a girl. Her name is Lauren. He’s pretty smitten in a way that I haven’t really seen him in a few years which is really nice. I mean, he’s a great guy and he deserved to have a doting female at his side, and I really like this one. It puts me in that weird place where it’s hard to be good friends with exes again because Emily is taking the news about as well as one would expect, but they’ve always been good about not making me be in the middle. Mostly, I’m just glad to have James back. He’d sort of disappeared there for a while and this girl seems to keep him up during the day (lol, and up at night being all giddy talking about her). It’s a nice change.

Mysteries of your passing luck

Jess on November 29, 2007

i was talking to tim the other day about really obvious signs that i’m probably about to hit another cycle of depression.  here’s two: 1) i delete all the information on my facebook; 2) i stop blogging.  for those of you who have picked up on the second, i figured i should toss an update your way.

i’ve been emersed in the joys of thanksgiving, finishing my one term paper of the semester (one?! i’ve only written 10 constructive pages this semester?! brilliant.  i spoil myself sometimes.), and getting my application ready to send off to minnesota.  this semester has really reaffirmed my desire to be an historian for the rest of my life.  specifically, it’s knocked out my desire to go to grad school in art history and my sneaking suspicion that i might really like anthropology.  the truth is, i don’t.  and here’s why.  i’ve always referred to art history as the mistress to my wife that is my history degree.  i love it, i get excited to go see it, and sometimes i  imagine how my life would be if i’d chosen it from the beginning instead of history.  but this semester i’ve been spending more time in art history than history and it’s turn out as expected… i really love history not art history.  the upsides are that i really like cari, and erin and sarah, and the other girls in my art history class who i see regularly.  i’ve met new people who are intelligent and help me have conversations that aren’t nearly as abrasive as the ones i have with historians.  the downsides are that it turns out i don’t like to write art history term papers.  it’s like you read description after description after description and then you write a description.  not exactly my cup of tea.  i’m sure it would be more exciting if it were a primary interpretation of a work of art and not a secondary one.  but we’re left with what we’re assigned…. and that’s basically meant i’ve been staring down Sowei masks for the last three weeks and all i can seem to say about them is “those rings around their neck are just indentations which are thought to be pretty.”  The paper’s good though, and I’m proud of it.  So that matters.

Anthropology is a whole other set of problems.  I think I’ve struggled with the difference between anthropology and history in terms of African history because so much of African history is based on ethnographies and both building on the work of anthropologists and trying to correct errors they made when they asked the wrong questions or looked at the world the wrong way.  So I’m finally in an anthro class this semester (well it’s my second go at it, I withdrew last year because the professor was so dumb that she was sucking the life out of my brain).  It has a lot of similar experiences as art history.  I discuss things a little differently… I’ve met new people on campus.  It also has the added benefit of helping me to remember the ideals I had when I started college.  I’m much more rallied for the fight against irrational constructions of gender, race, and class.  I feel like it’s a good idea to speak up against sweatshops and those sorts of things.  I really appreciate anthropology for that reason.  But I can now put my finger on why I want to go into African history and not African anthropology.  You ready?  It’s one word: context.  I feel like anthropology just ignores the context of culture.  Like what it means to be Ju/wasi is what it meant to be Ju/wasi in 1954.  So even though being Ju/wasi now means an entirely different set of circumstances which aren’t nomadic… anthropology just looks at modern Ju/wasi as victims of apartheid.  and it ignores all the changes and adaptations of those cultures.  Often, I feel like the lone historian in the room who has to contextualize subjects we talk about.  Today, we talked about foot binding and one guy compared it to bulimia.  Which is a misclassification of bulimia which generally arises from a psychological desire to control which emerges in part but not exclusively from social expectations to be thin.  But also.  It ignores all of the class elements of foot binding, the trauma of maoist cultural reforms, et cetera.

So I don’t want to be an art historian because I don’t like to describe things and I don’t want to be an anthropologist so I can contextualize things.  And that makes me more excited to be an historian.

In other news, I’m surprised by how quickly diet soda became a normal taste for me and how the aspertame just neutralizes out of the flavor very quickly.

Also, Sunday I’m watching all of season six of 24.  start to finish at my parents house.  not getting out of bed except for food.  I’m so damn excited.