Hip hip hooray!!

First of all, I need to start this post with a great big CONGRATULATIONS to my little sister, who was just accepted yesterday by her TOP CHOICE COLLEGE!! Woohoo!! She's been working hard these last couple of years and I'm really proud of her. If someone would like to take a picture of her holding up her acceptance letter (hint, hint, Mom), I'd be happy to scrap it. But since I don't, I just whipped up this little card type thing. Ok, I suppose that "whipped up" is stretching it a little bit. I'm half watching a movie, half paying attention to the computer, so it took me a lot longer than it should have. Everything is from Sara Carling's "Authentic" kit and the font is Stamp Act Jumbled.

And nextly (yes I have decided that "nextly" is now a word), I would just like to say that I made it using the full version of photoshop!! Woohoo!! My wonderful uncle gave it to my wonderful parents who sent it to me! Sooooo nice not to be in Elements anymore. Elements is a nice program, but I've definitely outgrown it as far as digi-scrapping goes. It's not CS2, it's just CS, so I am considering purchasing the upgrade. I can get it for $150 on newegg.com. I probably won't get it right away since CS is pretty amazing by itself, but I would like the FULL full version at some point.

Hmm I feel like there was more that I wanted to blog about. Ohhh yes. Y'all remember when I posted my last story? Well, I have another one to share. Our assignment was to write a full-length story and I wasn't sure that I had when I re-read my work this morning, but then I read it in class and it got good reviews from my prof and the other people in my class. So, here it is for your reading pleasure! It doesn't have a title, not yet anyway, so feel free to suggest one. It's a little bit different from the stuff I usually write, but I really like it. It definitely needs work and could stand to be fleshed out a little, but that's a project for another time.

He stared at the notebook in front of him and tapped his pen against the page, thinking about the way her hair fell over her face when she dipped her head to read something. Those beautiful strands, hanging delicately and brushing against her eyelashes until she blew them away with an irritated burst of air or pushed them back with a quick swipe of her hand. There was poetry in that gesture, in every gesture she made, and his heart ached with the beauty of it all. He wanted to capture it, to lasso those words that would represent her, that would be her, and trap them within the swift strokes of his pen so that everyone could see those gestures as he did.

He just needed a beginning. And an ending, too. Or maybe it didn’t matter, maybe for him they were one and the same, for either one meant he had to put pen to paper, and that was an act that seemed far too sacred for him to accomplish. There was something gloriously tragic about an unfinished poem. After all, was it really necessary to finish poems to be considered a poet? He thought not. A poet, he believed, was a sensitive soul, one in whom the rhythm of language beat strongly and the music of words flowed freely. Yes, he was a sensitive soul; he was a poet. He was bursting with words, with metaphors and images and gestures like her pushing her hair back from her face, but he could not release them. He was swollen; gravid with these words, but strain as he might he was not able to bring them into the world.
He liked that. Could a poem actually be born? He chewed on the cap of his pen and thought about whether he would be its father or mother or midwife. Probably the mother. He carried the poems but never to term, always aborting them and flushing their remains from his mind. He mourned each death and paid homage to their passing by spending hours contemplating the blank notebook page, a tombstone to mark the potential of a life that had not really begun. Each pristine page was like the soul of an unborn child, completely and perfectly untarnished.

And forever would they remain untouched. At least, that’s what she had said, but she hadn’t said it quite so poetically. Will you quit playing at being a writer and get a real goddamn job, she’d said. But she was wrong. He wasn’t playing at it; he was a writer, a poet, an artist. He was a craftsman, breathing energy and life into everyday objects, actions, gestures, and turning them into works of art. She would be immortalized, couldn’t she see that? She would be famous and everyone would see her beauty, would know her hands and her face and the way her hair fell across it. She would live forever.

But she didn’t want that and he couldn’t understand why. He would like to be immortalized, but there was no beauty in his hands or his face or his hair. Maybe if she were a poet too, she would have seen it in him, would have recognized in him an artistic counterpoint.

He slouched over his desk and rested his head in his hands. He supposed it didn’t really matter; it would be difficult for two poets to live under one roof. It was enough for him to be a writer. It was a burden but also a gift to appreciate the beauty, the poetry of every day life. When she had said those things, he had read the frustration in her eyes, heard the disappointment in her tone, and felt the slight tremor of the apartment as she had slammed the door. He had thought that it would be best expressed with a metaphor of the keening cry of the loon.

Or maybe not.

Maybe he had seen her eyes, heard her voice, and been so shaken by the slamming of the door that it was he himself who was the anguished creature, crying wordlessly because he had no words; they were all aborted and buried.

And finally, some general housecleaning stuff. I changed the font back because I received some complaints that it was too small. I previewed the blog with the old font and compared it to the new one and whaddya know, it IS quite a bit smaller. So, I changed it back. I also fixed the background image in the center of the page so if anyone was having viewing problems they should be cleared up now.

That's about it for today! Now that my money-spending binge of last week is over, I'll be staying in this week and catching up on my scrapping. I don't have class until 2 tomorrow so hopefully I'll be able to do a layout tomorrow morning and post it tomorrow night.

I hope everyone had a good first day of spring! The weather is finally starting to get a little warmer here - you can definitely tell that spring WANTS to be here. Is the time change this weekend? I think it is. I hate that I lose an hour of sleep but let's face it, when you only have class 3 days a week no one really has any sympathy if you have to get up an hour earlier. So I won't complain! The extra hour of sunlight will be FABULOUS and I really can't wait. And guess what else! My mom will be here in three weeks!! I can't wait. I have a lot to do between now and then in terms of planned. We'd like to do a daytrip, possibly to the American Cemetary in Normandy. I went there first semester with my program but I'd love to go back. It is such a deeply moving experience, I can't even begin to describe it.

Anyway, I'm off to have a video conference with one of my uncles. Isn't technology grand? Man, I am so lucky to have all this stuff while I'm abroad. I can't even imagine only being able to communicate with people through letters. That would pretty much suck. I'll take Skype and video conferencing, thank you very much!