In Which it was 2005 and I Began my College Days: Part One

Disclaimer:  These are my personal memories, and the details may be slightly hazy.  However, I will do my best to recount the days of my past as accurately as possible.  Please enjoy!

It was my senior year in high school, Class of 2005, and arguably my laziest to date.  I had completed the necessary courses for my standard diploma and filled the rest of my school schedule with “easy A’s”.  Drama, choir, English, and a strange class called “Teacher’s Assistant”.  I liked to call that one “Free Art Class” because that’s what I did the entire semester.  It was just an empty space in my schedule, but it had to be filled because I couldn’t graduate early, so I at least made it worth my time. 

One morning, I was reminded, along with the entire Senior student body, that we needed to set up an appointment with the Guidance Counselor to talk about our ‘future careers’ and ‘college plans’.  I had a vague idea of what to expect, and by vague I really mean “College is somehow free, I can skip class as much as I want, go whenever I want, and live on campus, and come out with a degree that guarantees me a career for the rest of my life” vague.  Needless to say, my naiveté was vast and relentless.  To my credit, however, my high school teachers and staff were not very clear on what exactly college life entails, so I was haphazardly left to my own devices to figure out what exactly I would be experiencing.   

I would ride the bus home and think about all the good things that college would be.  It was rumored that college was nothing like high school.  It was much more laid back.  Nobody really picked on you for your lack of fashion sense or if your hair was dyed, because it was a place filled with students that had multi-colored hair, who went to class in their pajamas, and sat in the back of the room as they either caught up on sleep or fiddled with their cellphones.  There would be no point in even taking notes because the teachers would just post it online to the class website.  You only needed to show up for attendance. 

When class was over for the day, you wouldn't have to leave!  You could just walk around on campus, drinking coffee or getting free meals from the cafeteria; clearly pre-paid by the vast amounts of Grants and Scholarships that had no bounds and were available to everybody who ‘opted in’ to this whole college thing.  You’d probably just show them a card or something at every store and they’d swipe it, all while wearing a “Welcome to your Brand-New, Pristine, College Life” smile as 50’s style elevator music played from the ceiling speakers.  Do you need to buy your books for class?  Look no further than the Book Store located right on campus.  Just walk in, hand them your class schedule, and your books will be given to you absolutely free!  That’s right, no charge!  This isn’t the grim ‘outside’ world, after all.  Here, you are taken care of.  Here, you are successful. 

Do you want to call it a day and head on to get some sleep for the night?  Well you absolutely can!  Just walk over to the luxurious and spacious college dorms, offer your name to the RA in the front hallway, and they will guide you to your new living quarters.  Whether you’re an early riser or a night owl, they’ve got you covered.  Are you an anti-social hermit, or a party animal?  It doesn’t matter; they have everything to accommodate your specific style of living!  Enjoy your brand new furniture, TV, mini-fridge, and daily meals brought to your room right on time.  And for those students who are especially studious, you’ll be offered a free, top-of-the-line, state-of-the-art, computer of your choice!  It comes complete with the fastest and most reliable internet in the country! 

But let’s not forget the true meaning of what it means to go to college.  After all, you’re here for a reason, and a thumpin’ good one at that!  It’s all about education of the next generation.  And it’s no secret either; your parents and their parents before you have been able to reach their career goals with higher education and receiving their college degrees, just like that!  When you have a college degree, anything is possible for your career goals, even achieving the American Dream!  It’s simple:  Just show up for class, receive your assignments, get along with your peers and classmates, turn in your completed homework, ace those midterms and finals, and you’ll be walking down the aisle in no time.  With our 24/7 staff and tutoring facilities, full of teachers and mentors who are ready and willing to mold and shape your pliant minds, chances of failure are at an all-time low! 

After your graduation, you can begin your path to a lifetime career right away with our daily job fairs.  You’ll be able to live worry-free, in a nice house within a nice neighborhood, and hey, go ahead and get that nice new car too!  You can afford everything with your highly paying new job, so be proud and enjoy your new life!  You’ve made your parents proud, impressed your friends, made your enemies jealous, and achieved that beautiful American Dream.  Congratulations!

So with all of that in mind, I had swallowed the sweet little lie of what it would mean to go to college and pursue higher education.  That is how I see it now, here in the end days of July 2013.  I say that simply because, even with all the over-the-top and pie-in-the-sky ideas that I had of what college life was going to be and where it was going to get me, there is still a solid grain of truth in it.  Turns out that money plays so much more of a role than what I had ever imagined.

End Part One.  Stay tuned for Part Two!

In Which it was the Mid 90’s and Jigsaw Puzzles were Better than the Internet

It was 1996 and I lived in Central Kentucky.  I lived in a little one-light town named Pleasureville, and by God it sure was.  People were generally nice and considerate, but then again I was an 8 year old and nobody paid attention to 8 year olds unless they were being loud or breaking things.  Luckily, I was neither and so nobody paid me much mind.

I quickly evolved into a silent and pensive girl, one who turned to books and puzzles for hours a day.  My personal record was putting together a 1500 piece puzzle by myself in about a week.  Cardboard soot covered my fingers as I carefully studied each shape, sorting out the corners, arguably the easiest and hardest part simultaneously, because they were unique and easy to spot, but there were only 4 a midst thousands, and therefore harder to find.  Once I found them, I moved to the next logical step, the edge pieces.  These were the most important ones, as they not only gave the puzzle structure and natural limitation, but provided a further hint to where in inner pieces were to go.  Then, depending on the kind of puzzle, I would either sort them by shape, stacking them as high as they would go against the wall, or I would sort them by color. 

It was all a matter of elimination by then.  I had made a methodological approach to jigsaw puzzles.  When they were finally finished, I would either glue the puzzle together and keep it under my bed, or I would fold the completed puzzle in half and stuff it back in its box.  My favorite kinds of puzzles were the fresh, stiff kind.  They stayed in place even after I folded them twice over.   Of course, once a puzzle has been solved, I didn’t see much use to it otherwise, and so I requested more.  I would get them for my birthday and for Christmas.  I quickly became bored of the usual jigsaws, and wanted something more challenging.  When I was 10, I got a 3D puzzle of the Empire State Building, measuring at just under a meter tall.  When I was 10 and a half, I was given a puzzle where all the inner pieces were the same exact shape and I had to truly pay attention to the pattern printed on the pieces.  And at 11, I was given another 3D puzzle, but this one was a globe that had to be carefully built from bottom to top, or else the structure would collapse.  And finally at 12, I was gifted a puzzle that not only had identical pieces, but there were no edge or corner pieces.  Each piece was also double-sided, so there was no blank cardboard to help me look at the cut of the cardboard.  On the box, this puzzle boasted “The most difficult jigsaw in the world”. 

You might want to think that took the challenge.  I can assure you that I truly wanted to.  I wanted to defeat that final puzzle and be crowned Queen of the Jigsaws and Ultimate Puzzle Solver Extraordinaire.  Nothing could ever stump me after I achieved those titles and then everything was downhill from there.  Other kids would know of my supreme skills and call me the smartest kid in the world.  I saw myself moving upwards.  I dreamed of untangling all those plastic Slinkys up in the attic and sharing them with my classmates at recess.   I wanted to do a speed challenge of every 15 block sliding puzzle I found.  But of course, those were baby toys compared to the famed legend of the Rubik’s Cube.  I searched at yard sales whenever I had the chance, but I never came across them.  My pre-teen self was convinced that they were highly rare and collectible, as well as ‘old’ and therefore not sold in stores anymore. 

I kept up with the puzzles for a few more months, satisfied that I could still find a bit more fun in the ones I already owned, barring that none of them had missing pieces.   For that time, the elusive Rubik’s Cube would remain a distant goal.  Soon, I was introduced—no, rather I was indoctrinated—into a life of technology.  The World Wide Web, where I would play on Java Applets and put together puzzles of any jpeg image I could upload.  My Gameboy Original and Color, which held so much more than Puzzle games like Tetris, as well as my Super Nintendo given to me by my uncle, where I played Tetris Attack with my sister for hours, or until one of us got frustrated and ran upstairs.  Finally, in Christmas of 2001, my sister and I got a Playstation 2 as a gift and from there… the rest is history. 

I still have many of my puzzles from my childhood and early teens, including a few that I bought myself while I was overseas.  They remain a relic of my past, never needing to be recharged nor having batteries replaced.  They aren't affected by time and don’t take a terrible amount of skill.  It’s a sort of lost art, and sadly one that even I have put away for years.  The boxes sit in my closet, neatly stacked by box length, waiting for the day when I decide that I’m utterly exhausted by technology and want to pour the pieces out on the table, prop up the box art for reference, and spend an evening transforming a jumbled mess into a work of art. 

A little confession to wrap up:  I have a Rubik’s Cube and have never legitimately solved it.  I think if I had had one as a kid, I would have done it for real.  Maybe then it would have meant something.  But perhaps it was just never meant to be.  I can just hang on to the one I have and hope that my own child can take advantage of that little cube puzzle more than I ever did. 

Anyway, until the next dawn!  

The Tuesday in July and How I Obtained a Blog at 6 AM

Hello and Welcome to my very first blog and my very first blog post, which I have christened "Soda at Dawn".  Since I am starting fresh and anew, I would like to kindly warn everyone that I have not a clue what I'm going to do with this blog, or exactly what will become of it.  However, I feel an eagerness to fill the page, and perhaps this will become something really nifty in the future.

I am no stranger to writing on the walls of the Internet, and it wasn't until half an hour ago that I decided to bite the bullet and create my own space here.  I feel as if that is a common pattern in my adult life.  I stay up late browsing a few forums or watching a show on TV, and then suddenly I'm struck with a bit of inspiration! What am I to do, but write it down?  So I write and write, and while I'm writing, I might as well put on some music.  While I have music going, might as well sing along.  Oh, the singing has made me thirsty?  I should have a drink.  And since I'm up, I'll clean up some so I don't have to do it later.  Suddenly, I'm on my hands and knees scrubbing my kitchen floor, and I've forgotten all about what I was going to write next.  When I finally do remember, I come back to my laptop and find that it's suddenly 6 AM and I haven't finished my soda.

Therefore, Soda at Dawn.

So even though this is my first blog post, and I could technically get away with just a simple introduction, I don't feel like that is my style.  I will give a friendly warning that I tend to free-write most of the time, so please excuse any run-ons or strange syntax.  Let me start with the reason that I write.  To put it in the simplest terms, it would be inspiration.  But what inspires me to write? 

Thoughts, of course.  I believe that everything begins with a single thought, whether it came from outside inspiration, or an inward brainstorm.  Something somewhere at some time influences me to have more than just a fleeting wonder.  The more time I spend on those thoughts, the more they transform into ideas.  I consider the simple things, the things I can observe, the people I interact with, and how I perceive myself and others through the day.  It can provide happiness, maybe from a well-performed joke I saw on an online blog. It can be melancholic, like feelings of nostalgia when I read through an old novel.  Sadness, regret, anger, joy, pensiveness, curiosity, excitement… all these things can emerge from just one thought. 

What do these emotions from thought make me want to do?  The fact that emotions make me want to do anything is fascinating in itself as well, simply because emotions can compel me.  Or they can hold me back.  I've experienced embarrassment, shame, fear, and even terror.  These emotions make me freeze up and my life seems to slow to a halt.  But then I've experienced the opposite, with emotions like elation, inspiration, ferocity, and creativity.  I want to make things happen.  The urge is so terribly present, and it’s not exactly something pushing me forward.  Rather, I chase after it like there’s no tomorrow.  That is the beauty of those emotions. 

Sometimes the actual urge isn’t really that strong.  But it’s presence, however subtle, is a consistent nag.  These seemingly inactive urges can mostly be ignored, and rationalized away.  It’s the feeling of waking up in the middle of the night and wanting to suddenly go outside.  Not for any sort of life-changing epiphany, but just to be there.  To be outside, feeling the cool, night breeze and looking up at the stars between the tree tops.   The sensation of nothing around you but silence, and stillness.  Why would this urge even appear?  What purpose does it have?  Logically, I don’t think things like that have, again, a life-changing purpose of epiphany. 

However, sometimes these small urges hit and it is for a good reason.  I believe that sometimes our bodies and minds can come to the conclusion that we need a break in life.  Sometimes we just get that little whisper in our ears to tell us to go to that little corner store we've always wanted to see, even if we don’t have anything in mind to buy, but just the act of going somewhere new.  We get that urge to phone up that friend we haven’t talked to in ages, just to catch up.  We get the urge to take the day off and spend time watching that new blockbuster or indie film at the theater.  We want to finally take up that new hobby of cooking or jogging or sketching.  And then there’s someone like me, who just wants to write her thoughts down for the sake of it. 

My inspirations have been far and wide, and yet so narrow at the same time.  I've found much joy throughout the years in my writing, even if it was a simple high school essay or one-shot fan fiction.  Yes, even I have greatly indulged in taking two of my favorite characters from a TV show or book and writing an alternate scenario for them, even if all they ended up doing was confessing their feelings to one another.  Either way, it was a lot of fun first and foremost, and a good personal writing exercise.  I know that if I were to ever teach an English class, I would want my students to pick some well-known characters and write an alternate scenario for them, just to practice.  The fact that I did that kind of writing on my own is kind of fascinating.  I remember countless, endless students, year after year in my classes, who hated reading and writing, and they would never read out loud, and they despised having to write a 3 paragraph personal biography, let alone a 3 page essay or short story! 

Not I.  I reveled in it.  I relished the day when the teacher finally erased the board and said “Okay, go ahead and get started on your paper.”  This was especially apparent if the paper I got to write was fictional or even ‘bendable’ in any way.   I wanted to give life to the pages, to create characters based off of the ones I had written on before in my fan fictions, and all it would take was a little tweaking and a little name-changing, and the teacher was never the wiser.  This continued through high school and when I went back to college the second time.  I would get an idea in class and just jot it down, and sometimes I couldn't help myself and began writing scenarios altogether.  I would wake up in the middle of the night and suddenly have a burst of mental energy, the words and ideas flowing out of me and into my notebook.  It seemed quite unstoppable.  The best part was, I never really suffered from it.  When people found out that I willingly wrote stories on my own, even if it was just anime or Harry Potter fan fiction, they seemed pretty impressed.  Confused, maybe, but still impressed.  It wasn't something that people normally did, not outside of class at the very least.  And it was something I grew from. 

The same story happened with art.  Sure, you could find maybe a few more artists than writers in a typical class, what with people doodling in the margins of their notebooks, so it wasn't very unusual in the least.  However, those who not only took art classes in school, but out of school, and who did sketches and paintings all on their own, were something else entirely.  I was all of those things.  I made a few friends just because of my drawings.  I was also attracted to boys who could draw.  Even if all I did was start out by drawing anime or little fairy girls, or kittens and flowers, just overall cute things, people were still impressed.  I drew more and more, and even got a little confidence out of it.  People started asking for portraits, and I told them that I only do ‘caricature’ style, although really it was anime style, but they didn't seem to mind.  I remember in my Senior year of high school, a popular girl came up to me in Drama class and wanted me to draw her right then and there, and when I did it, she showed all her friends.  To get that kind of recognition was pretty amazing for a social introvert like me. 

The art story unfortunately has been on a great hiatus, though I hope it will return someday.  For now, I continue writing and fleshing out my free-style thoughts.  This is one thing in my life that I have never dropped since I picked it up.  Those who have a natural inclination to write instead of talk will understand where I'm coming from.  

To conclude this (rather lengthy) blog, I'll tentatively say that I would like to explore a bit more on why we write, and what it can accomplish, as well as what to do with what we've written.  Or I'll just free-write some more and my dear readers will have to put up with my antics a little longer.  Anyway, I hope this will be the beginning of a decent writing space, a space where we can find relaxation and form idea-creating thoughts. So until next dawn... have a great day!