Thoughts, more procrastination, day-in-the-procrastinated-life, fandoms, and more.

Not sure what this is going to be about yet. All I know is things are changing and I'm a-liking.

That was cheesy. So in all seriousness, this is what is filling my brain just now:

• Doctor Who "Journey to the Center of the TARDIS" episode
• Bogey le boyfran is in town because he is taking patient physicals and histories for his second week of med school exams over at the downtown hospital (he normally lives in Bloomington, IN, one of the 8 or 9 IU Medical School campuses in Indiana. But I won't bore you with that). But having him around for Sunday and Monday is making our soon-to-be-living-together-situation feel like a reality.
• We realized earlier today that we've been saying "when we live together next year" but suddenly, it's here, and in fact "when we live together in 2 or 3 weeks..." WHOA.
• I'm wearing a dress with anchors on it. 
• Did I mention Doctor Who
• Animorphs books
• Too much Tumblr
• 1 exam, 1 giant research paper, and a fiction portfolio
• Target has everything I want and need
• My cat has too much hair. I can't touch her without getting a handful of gray fur
• Dr. Pepper is delightful
• Studying for my history of rock and roll exam
• Watching Supernatural is like studying for my rock and roll exam, right?
• My own stories
• I'm watching Lost Girl and really enjoying it
• YouTube steals hours of my day
• grilled cheeses
• Greek food
• Friends with Chron's disease
• Friends with psychologically abusive boyfriends
• Guy friends are the best friends sometimes
• Not having a car
• Seeing sunlight for the first time in what feels like a week or more
• Almost there

OH AND I WAS EMAILED ABOUT A JOB INTERVIEW!

So generally, this is how I function: 

     I get up, shove contacts in my eyes, judge my hair, and usually don't feed myself. My cat meows at me to be pet, but I have other stuff I need to do so I throw a pencil for her to play with, but she'd unimpressed.

     I usually sit in front of the computer to see what the weather is like, but depending on what day it is, I might have time to check Facebook... or Tumblr. And if I get on Tumblr, I'm never leaving, basically. It's the black hole of my time. I could sit on there for hours reblogging things and not making my blog personalized at all. YouTube too. Another black hole of time. Once in awhile I'll do something productive, but not until 1 or 2 hours has passed.

     When 1 or 2 hours has been sucked away from my life just like the machine they use on Westley in Princess Bride, I might finally get dressed and attempt to style my hair and put on makeup. Failing at the hair, I'll spend more time on makeup. Sometimes I stare at my clothes for 10 minutes wondering why I can't whip something cute out of my imagination. I usually end up wearing a Target V-neck tee and skinny jeans. All winter, I wore my brown combat boots. It's a good thing it's spring now though, because I'm out of socks. Flip-flops full-steam ahead!

     If I have homework to do, I generally don't get it done unless I leave the house. I am describing one of those days. My other days during this last semester consisted of anything from 8-13 hour days from Tuesday-Friday. Mondays I couldn't get work hours and had no classes. It was so weird. And yet so enjoyable. 

     It's finals week now, so I should be highlighting my research paper resources, possibly typing up some paragraphs, etc, etc. But this just sounded more fun. And I was overdue for a post anyways.

     I changed the blog title again. I'm hoping to keep it this. I wanted to invoke hope and forward-thinking and future and all that bullcrap. Successful? I hope!

     Today is different. Today, the Bogey will return from his exams about now-time and we might go running out in the spring air down Mass Ave., where trendy people drink coffee at Starbucks and buy trinkets at trendy little gift shops and Global Gifts and drink craft beer and eat good bar-food outside under umbrellas... And then we will shower and then we will eat ourselves. Being a med students, he hasn't has much time this year for television. Although he did finish Lost, much to his surprise and joy. I have been bugging this man to watch Doctor Who for a year now, since my rapid induction into full-formed Whovian last summer (I watched seasons 4-6 in one week. Contributing factors to this were I had no internet and my friend burned them on DVDs for me to watch at home. I watch season 3 in 2 weeks on public computers at school. It was a little mind-boggling. Oh, and ALL THE FEELS). (Had to say it.) (Because it's true.) 

     And what did he tell me the other day? That he started watching some of season one with Rose and Nine all on his own! We watched some more over the weekend too. I have to say, one of my favorite things is sharing books and TV shows that I love with others. I want them to love the things as much as I do--so it'd hard when they don't sometimes. But, oh it just feels so good when they do! I got Bogey to watch the first 5 seasons of Supernatural and the first season of Buffy and now he's on Doctor Who. I'll take it all.

     I'd say I belong to a lot of fandoms. What a strange concept--only because our generation is the first to do it. In the past, they existed, but weren't defined so factually as they are now. Or maybe they were just called fan clubs. Now there's so much, they have a fan-kingdom (lol). I grew up with Harry Potter. I was the same age as him for a few years. I even got the fifth book when I was in England when I was 14 going on 15. Then there was Supernatural, and then BBC took over the world--Sherlock, Doctor Who's revival, Skins, Misfits, on and on and on... Those are just the ones I watch. Tumblr and other sites have certainly facilitated fandom-making, but all of this is not what's strange to me. What's strange, and incredibly exciting and amazing, is the fact that it's COOL to like this stuff now. I used to be mercilessly teased for reading books, liking Harry Potter, still owning my Animorphs books (admittedly, my friends still tease me about that, but now I don't care!), watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Dragonball Z with my brothers and on and on... everything cool now, I was teased for back then--granted I didn't have the best of friends, but that's a vat of worms right there. I take to heart what John Green so famously stated once:

“…because nerds like us are allowed to be unironically enthusiastic about stuff… Nerds are allowed to love stuff, like jump-up-and-down-in-the-chair-can’t-control-yourself love it. Hank, when people call people nerds, mostly what they’re saying is ‘you like stuff.’ Which is just not a good insult at all. Like, ‘you are too enthusiastic about the miracle of human consciousness’.”

     I just wish I'd heard that when I was 14 and feeling like shit for liking what I liked. It's all in the past now of course, but I can't help wishing he'd been around when I was small because I needed to hear that. I suppose I've heard it now, and kids are hearing it now, and I'll be telling my kids about it--about how it's okay to LOVE things even if everyone else doesn't. I'm not talking he should start stealing other people's things or hotwiring cars or teasing the bullies back to make them feel like crap too, because he thinks it's fun, but you know what I mean.

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Two weeks and counting/excuses and procrastination/Little 500

I'm a fairly unproductive person. I know a lot of people say that. And I'm sure for a lot of those people it's true. But when I say unproductive, I am sincerely and wholeheartedly admitting that my productivity level on any given day is about 55%. I just suck. I have no motivation. I used to, but it always surfaces in gasps and then flutters away, only to return after I needed it. For the last two weeks, I have finished every paper and every project and studied for every exam the day of. What did I do when I should have been studying? Tumblr... Game of Thrones... Doctor Who... Tumblr... reading non-academic books... Tumblr... Buffy the Vampire Slayer re-watch... EVERYTHING but what I should have been doing, even if I knew how to do it.

Again, the sucking.

Two weekends ago, Bogey the boyfriend was taking one of the myriad of practice exams he has available to him as a student of the medical sciences and this one happened to be covering their psychology section. He called me over when he was done cringing at his score (which was awesome because he's so damn smart), and had me read one of the questions that went something like "you have a friend named John. John often gets very stressed out. So stressed out that he actually doesn't get any of his work done..." So I'm reading this and he's watching me for my reaction and I just start laughing because a test question has never summed me up so well--If only my name were John. The answer to this question was something called "generalized anxiety disorder" (should I capitalize that? But my Chicago Style Manual is so... far... away...) (and I just... don't... care...). Anyways. I know this most likely isn't something I have, but it made me realize just how desperately we all want to have an explanation for why things are the way they are as a way of comforting ourselves. Obviously I've run into this often enough throughout my life, as we all have: "I stubbed my toe because the dog barked and startled me,I wasn't being clumsy," and "I got a bad grade because the teacher obviously doesn't like me, not because I didn't do the reading," and "I cried to Titanic so hard because I was PMSing, that was totally out of my control," and of course, "I've had a bad week, it's okay to eat five candy bars because I feel like shit." This stuff happens a lot. Especially that last one there, I'm certainly a stress eater. If there were chocolate in my house right now, I'd somehow find a way to eat it and type at the same time.

Either way, we make these excuses to make us feel better temporarily. But that's not going to work in the real world--I can't tell myself it's someone or something else's fault to make myself feel better. I've had a lot of practice taking on deserved blame too, but it's just so hard. Excuses and procrastination are toxic. For the majority of the semester, I've felt like I was slipping down a vast hole, possibly a sarlacc pit. (From Star Wars. The pit. Come on guys, the one with the snake that ate Boba Fett...? Fine! Don't appreciate the nerdiness I went through to use that. And make sure I spelled it correctly.)

BUT TODAY my friends, I WON! I beat procrastination's ass! (And still slid in last week's Game of Thrones episode! Whee!) I paid my bills, pumped air into my always-deflating bike tires, got my birth control (yes, I'm a modern young woman who has been with the same dude for two and a half years. And I'm 24. Got a problem? Go away.) I also spent time in a Starbucks on this absolutely gorgeous spring day, drinking coffee and catching up on an assigned novel I have to write a response to. Granted, I didn't get the response written, but I did write a thesis for the 3-4 page paper that will exist by tomorrow's class time. I also ate something green! An improvement, believe me, Bogey'd be proud.

All in all, a successful day. And it just FEELS so much better than excuses and procrastination do. So now, I'm going to have some much deserved Tumblr time before the Bogey pre-bedtime phone chat (we're long-distance, but not for long!) and possibly attempt to cuddle my cuddle-hating kitty. Now if only the neighbors upstairs would stop sounding like dinosaurs and hippos rearranging their furniture like they do every single goddamn night. I wish slamming on the ceiling with a broom worked, like in the movies, because I'd be doing that right now. And eating chocolate if I had any. Thanks for the ramble-times.

Things I have seen/watched/read/listened to that are influencing me now:

• Motorcycles and Sweetgrass by Drew Hayden Taylor
• Brave soundtrack
• sunny days
• downtown Indianapolis
• chucks
• ninja turtle t-shirts
• Little 500 in Bloomington, IN--the greatest college weekend in existence (next post all about that hopefully)
• "Buffy the Vampire Slayer"
• "Parks and Recreation"
• Mumford and Sons
• Birdy
• Emeli sande
• "Downton Abbey"
• "Game of Thrones" (show)
• cello music in the hallways of my apartment
• Starbucks
• bike riding
• tea
• caramel macchiatos
• Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron soundtrack
• Native American culture, myths, and authors
• Reel Injun documentary
• Sherman Alexie
• Animorphs (Yes, the book series. We can get into that nerdiness later too.)
• Bloomington
• Yats (food)
• bad pizza
• cover bands
• dancing
• Little 5 spontaneous adventures (ours this year involving a few mile's walk, a grocery cart, and alcoholic gummy bears.)
• good sleep
• skirts and floral prints
• my own writing
• almost done.

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Breathing....

     Hi. My names Katie--a pretty average name if you were born in the late 80s-early 90s. a quarter of my age group is name Katie. The other quarters are named Ashley, Jessica, and maybe a mixture of Brittany and Kelly. I'm of average height, average build with average curves and average brown hair and brown eyes. I'm even an average age right now--24 to be exact and finally graduating from higher education after a long and circuitous route to my happy place as an English major (concentration in Creative Writing). It's where I should have always been, they say--they being my mother, my brothers, my cousins, my aunts, my uncles, my friends... I've been writing since kindergarten, it seems, entering contests and winning little awards. Not until age 11 did I realize I could write books like the ones I read. It was an astounding realization really, one that made me sit right down on my magenta-colored bedspread with it's tulle princess canopy. And from there, I never stopped.
     Literally.
     I wrote 100-page novels on paper, then 500-page stories on my first computer in 8th grade, then I filled up every notebook in every class, through middle school and then high school and then college...
     No wonder it took 5 years + a year off to graduate.
     But the fact that I should have always been a writer isn't all they say lately. Lately, it's more along the lines of: "Aren't you so excited to graduate?" (I guess?) "Do you know what you want to do?" (editing and publishing?) and of course, the DREADED question: "Oh English! So you want to teach, right?" Grrrrrrr. Oh and my favorite: "How's the job search going?"

NOT AT ALL.

     I've been too busy trying to pass my classes and working my work-study job at the children's hospital where I scan things and taking 5 classes and walking everywhere because I'm a carless individual. And I won't have the work study job when I graduate.
     So here I am.

     Oh wait. that's the back of my head. Let me try again.

OHP still not getting it! But I do LOVE my boots (Target). I've worn them nonstop since September and they're still going strong!

I like this one. Except this is a little more "selfie" than I would like it to be. So here is an accurate representation of my face in most photos I take:

It's literally one or the other: open mouthed or fish-faced. To the left is my friend Emily and to the right is Bogey, my boyfriend. Looking way cooler than me.

Now that was entirely too many photos of my face. Or shoes. So I promise to leave that for a while. 

     Wow my hair is short in those! And where did that necklace go!? Anyways. Where was I? The mounting pressure of societal expectations along with familial expectations pushing me to hurry up and locate a career in fear of me becoming an unemployed bum or something like that? Yes. There.

     But seriously, there is a lot of pressure in this day and age to have it all figured out right now, right here, to have a ready and waiting answer when people ask what you want to do and where you want to go. And you know what? I don't know. I don't know what's going to happen, but I know it's going to be different and I think I'm okay with that. Maybe that's all I can do. I'm moving in with said BF in less than a month, then he takes the boards and then we're off to Ireland for a week with his family. And all I can hope is that I'll be employed so we don't have to depend on his school loans for income. That's all I can hope. (And that's whole 'nother bag of drivel about dependency and being independent in a relationship and money and yada yada).

      Either way, change is a-coming. I will get to this job search thing soon, but first I have to get my head to stop spinning about the research paper for my Senior Project (haven't even started yet), editing the stories I'm including in my Senior Project (due Wednesday, I'll do them Wednesday), figuring out who's bringing the food to my school's literary magazine, which I am head of (or co-head of) and will be running alone because my co-head managing editor is on bedrest (which means talking in front of people Thursday), and studying for my geography exam and writing my Native American literature research paper and squeezing as many work study hours out of my job before I have to give it up when school ends and maybe feeding myself (and the food won't be healthy. It's almost 9 p.m. and I'm still sipping an energy drink) (Oh god I should stop I'll never sleep!) 

     It's just, on top of 5 courses, 3 oncoming papers, one of which is due this week, two oncoming exams, an entire release party to run for the lit mag and attempting to take care of myself... I have no more energy left to figure out where jobs exist on this thing called the internet. I'm lucky to have a thoughtful mom who sends me jobs she comes across in her own job searches, but I'm scared to submit. Because on top of all of this... stuff... I'm having an identity crisis.

     Or maybe I'm just tired. Maybe I need to take a bite of my leftover Easter candy, jump in the shower, read my lit novel, and then go to sleep. Maybe....

Yeah right. The most I can do right now, right this very second, is to breathe. And even if I have to pull all-nighters, I can at least go into them knowing I may not have to do them again for a very long time. So. Welcome to my blog of neurotic, paranoid ramblings on the future. There will also be fun topics and other stuff. Hopefully it's interesting. :D

And breathe....

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