A People's History
These are the topic of the day:
*Began reading A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn today on my lunch break.
*Cleaning up my room
*Reading emails
*Missing everyone
*"Growing up" sucks.
1. I've been reading snippets of books here and there. I've been jonesing to read A Peoples' History for a few weeks. We were out of it at the bookstore for a while, so there was no reading of that. Instead, I started reading A Death in Brazil by Peter Robb and A Concise History of Brasil by someone that I cannot recall.
I didn't finish either of those--too much going on. So while I should have been doing some peer editing while on my break, I began Zinn's book. The first chapter didn't have anything I hadn't known already--all about Columbus and his contribution to the end of a continent of people. In the middle of the chapter, he made a nice, clean break in order to address what it means to write history and what his intentions for the book were. A good break, if you ask me. Very concise and philosophic--straight to the point.
I simply cannot get enough of the history of the United States. Just read it for hours and hours and hours. The more I know, the better it all is. I hope beyond all hopes that there is a section on the internments that happened in the mid-1900s. Next, after this, I'll move on to all the Asian-American lit I should have read a million years ago. There's also some book called Living on the Hyphen that I need to locate and devour.
2. Finally. The room is being cleaned. Who would have thunk it, but there's little else to do to take my mind off everything. I'm finding scraps of paper with story ideas and random thoughts. Tonight, or tomorrow (or sometime soon in the finite future), I'll paste them into this little red journal I purchased that's supposed to be my writing journal. It's come in handy so far--I've glued in a few pictures I printed back in high school. This one I took in Royal Oak back sometime in high school, somewhere along the train tracks.
3. For whatever reason, cleaning my room has made me incredibly sad. That and my quick pause to read email. There was a short email from Shirley--a really cute email that someone had written for her as an endorsement that she hadn't known about.
I'm not sure if it's because I'm tired from working so much the past few days, or just having to be so damn nice to everyone and their mom who came into the store today, but ug. Just missing people is so fucking bogus. Becki left yesterday and.... I feel like I've gone back in time to when I was about fourteen years old and saying goodbye to my friends was the worst feeling in the book. If I wanted to say something stupid about looking at the good in this whole situation, I'd mention how at least now I know who are the most fantabulous people that I've met in the last four years, who means the most, etc. But--I'm not in that sort of mood.
The mood I'm in only allows for wanting to eat ice cream with my best friends, jump in some puddles, go to the bar and slam a few shots, then dance all night until the boys can't handle it anymore.
It feels silly to want to cry because you miss somebody so much.
As Billy Pilgrim would say, So it goes. Except... this situation is a bit different--but a bit too much the same.
4. Ann Arbor is calm. Things are changing around here just as much as they always do. It's funny. Soon, hardly anyone from the family will still live here. The grandparents just moved out to an area of Ypsitucky, which is actually very nice and perfect for them. They'll be happier there than in Ann Arbor. It's ridiculous what a name and an idea of a place can do to the real estate. If you could just see the houses around the city--you'd realize they're just about as shitty as those in the student slums.
A city built subsisting on an idea; a student bubble in the centre of it all.
The heat is disgusting right now. Even the rain doesn't cool anything off. It just seems to make it more humid and miserable. I imagine that Brasil will feel like something similar, but who cares? All I have to think is: the men dont' speak the same language, they dance until the early hours of the morning and I'm thousands of miles away from Michigan.
So it goes.
*Began reading A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn today on my lunch break.
*Cleaning up my room
*Reading emails
*Missing everyone
*"Growing up" sucks.
1. I've been reading snippets of books here and there. I've been jonesing to read A Peoples' History for a few weeks. We were out of it at the bookstore for a while, so there was no reading of that. Instead, I started reading A Death in Brazil by Peter Robb and A Concise History of Brasil by someone that I cannot recall.
I didn't finish either of those--too much going on. So while I should have been doing some peer editing while on my break, I began Zinn's book. The first chapter didn't have anything I hadn't known already--all about Columbus and his contribution to the end of a continent of people. In the middle of the chapter, he made a nice, clean break in order to address what it means to write history and what his intentions for the book were. A good break, if you ask me. Very concise and philosophic--straight to the point.
I simply cannot get enough of the history of the United States. Just read it for hours and hours and hours. The more I know, the better it all is. I hope beyond all hopes that there is a section on the internments that happened in the mid-1900s. Next, after this, I'll move on to all the Asian-American lit I should have read a million years ago. There's also some book called Living on the Hyphen that I need to locate and devour.
2. Finally. The room is being cleaned. Who would have thunk it, but there's little else to do to take my mind off everything. I'm finding scraps of paper with story ideas and random thoughts. Tonight, or tomorrow (or sometime soon in the finite future), I'll paste them into this little red journal I purchased that's supposed to be my writing journal. It's come in handy so far--I've glued in a few pictures I printed back in high school. This one I took in Royal Oak back sometime in high school, somewhere along the train tracks.
3. For whatever reason, cleaning my room has made me incredibly sad. That and my quick pause to read email. There was a short email from Shirley--a really cute email that someone had written for her as an endorsement that she hadn't known about.
I'm not sure if it's because I'm tired from working so much the past few days, or just having to be so damn nice to everyone and their mom who came into the store today, but ug. Just missing people is so fucking bogus. Becki left yesterday and.... I feel like I've gone back in time to when I was about fourteen years old and saying goodbye to my friends was the worst feeling in the book. If I wanted to say something stupid about looking at the good in this whole situation, I'd mention how at least now I know who are the most fantabulous people that I've met in the last four years, who means the most, etc. But--I'm not in that sort of mood.
The mood I'm in only allows for wanting to eat ice cream with my best friends, jump in some puddles, go to the bar and slam a few shots, then dance all night until the boys can't handle it anymore.
It feels silly to want to cry because you miss somebody so much.
As Billy Pilgrim would say, So it goes. Except... this situation is a bit different--but a bit too much the same.
4. Ann Arbor is calm. Things are changing around here just as much as they always do. It's funny. Soon, hardly anyone from the family will still live here. The grandparents just moved out to an area of Ypsitucky, which is actually very nice and perfect for them. They'll be happier there than in Ann Arbor. It's ridiculous what a name and an idea of a place can do to the real estate. If you could just see the houses around the city--you'd realize they're just about as shitty as those in the student slums.
A city built subsisting on an idea; a student bubble in the centre of it all.
The heat is disgusting right now. Even the rain doesn't cool anything off. It just seems to make it more humid and miserable. I imagine that Brasil will feel like something similar, but who cares? All I have to think is: the men dont' speak the same language, they dance until the early hours of the morning and I'm thousands of miles away from Michigan.
So it goes.
3 Comments:
Do it dude, SA rocks. =) Or, console your loneliness by ROCKING OUT AT NECTO with me, because believe it or not I will be home in only 3 short weeks. WOW. This week will fly by with crazy Culture Pre Depart sessions on Weds and Fri (wish me luck!), and �so it goes�...
ps--survived my first quake yesterday. 5.4 not bad. =)
It pains me to hear you this sad. Believe me, life in Fayetteville is no adrenaline rush either. Sorry I missed your call the other day....in the midst of moving and what not. I'll return it shortly. Feel better, Brazil will be at your doorstep very soon.
i feel like puddles, ice cream, shots and dancing too... we should be closer, twin. i miss you. i'll call you soon so that we can catch up.
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