Carbon Copy

Cute Bangs!

About a month ago, I succumbed to the swoopy bangs trend and got some cut. Now a line is drawn in my life and every day fits into one of two categories: a good bangs day or a bad bangs day. I just can't get consistency. Sometimes my bangs look cute and I like them. Behold!

But some days they just don't work, like today for instance. (sorry, no picture.) Luckily, I can bobbypin them back and pretend they don't exist. If only everything I didn't like were that easy to erase.

On Second Thought

I've decided my problem with school right now isn't so much the people. It's more the vastness of it. All the things that I should know, but don't. This is exaggerated by my field, which - due to its interdisciplinary nature - says that I can't just focus on literature, but I need to have a holistic understanding of the way economics, politics, history, and social practices affect it, leading to the overwhelming recognition that I can't know it all.

Thus the urge to move from ideas to objects, something concrete and tangible. I need to see progress. I need to feel like I'm getting somewhere in all of this, not just treading the water.

Just Checking In

Well, I don't have anything exciting to add. Lately I've been caught up in school and in reconsidering the course of my life. All this time I've been planning on going on and getting a Ph.D., but I just don't know anymore. I hate academics. Not the thing, the people. Do I really want to surround myself with that (err... them)?

So I've been trying to think of some alternatives. Here's what I've come up with:

1. Archivist: I've been taking (for two whole weeks!) a class on archival theory and practice, and I'm really excited about this. We went to the Tippecanoe County Historical Association (TCHA) for the first time last Monday and got to dig around the archives. Yeah, there's stuff like mortgage loans from 1831 and farm ledgers from 1874, but there's also awesome stuff like shelves of shoes and china and lots of quilts and postcards and calling cards. It's kind of like being on the Antiques Roadshow. I'm actually quite serious about this. I've been looking for internships for the summer.

2. Ok... this is where it gets vague. I have no idea what kind of jobs are out there. Suggestions, anyone?

C You in C'ville

Sometimes I do things backward. For instance, last Monday, Erica, Cristen and I celebrated the late Dr. Martin Luther King by taking a drive down to Crawfordsville, Indiana. Just now, I was looking up some facts online so I could be more informed about this hamlet when I wrote up our little travel log. Duh! I should've done this before we went! Then I wouldn't have missed out on the Ben-Hur library and I would've known that the Old Jail Museum was closed on Mondays. Also, I would've been more appreciative of the fact that Crawfordsville is known as "the Athens of Indiana." I guess it's a good thing that it's only about 40 minutes away. I can go to this literary and cultural center of Indiana (and thus America!) any time I want.

But enough of what might have been. Let's look at what was.

First off, Crawfordsville has a cute little Main Street, but what first grabbed our attention was all the spoils available at Of Cabbages and Kings, an antique store that goes on for miles! (By miles, I mean about 4 stories.)

There were lots of treasures inside (such as a New Kids on the Block puzzle, Shave Ken doll, racist memorabilia, and plastic 50s decor), but I personally fell in love with these lamps:

It's just a shame that I don't have any money right now. This store would've been a bonanza!

Then we walked down to what I am assuming is City Hall, but maybe not. It was a disginguished buildings with a monument and cannons at its front. The monument said, "We feel sorry about the soldiers who died fighting for this country." But the cannons stood as a reminder of the fighting we have left to do. Anyway, that's enough politicizing. Let's see some pictures!

We ate lunch at the diner across the street. It was like what Potbelly's is trying to be, but real. Before we could leave, I wanted to see the campus of Wabash College. So we parked the car and wandered around. We felt a little odd, though, and couldn't figure out why. We wondered if people could tell that we didn't go to the school. Afterwards, I found out that Wabash College (home of the Little Giants) is an all men's school. Yeah, I think they could tell we didn't go there. Also, we were taking pictures like tourists.

The campus of Wabash was pretty nice, though. We especially liked how friendly (in a menacing way) their signs were.

There was this one building at the head of the circle that looked like a church, so I took a picture of it.

Wait, wait... that wasn't how it was supposed to be. Let's try this one:

There was a nice library (probably better than Purdue's!):

And a good view of the stadium:

But my favorite was this little garden nook by the student building where you could go to relax and get away from it all. You could also check out what time it was on the sundial.

Even though it was a holiday, we still had a lot of reading to do, so we had to make our visit to C'ville brief. Seriously, though... that Ben Hur museum is calling my name.

Consequences

Every action has consequences. (Sometimes when I write these entries, I like to pretend that there's a voiceover going on, too, like on TV.) Sometimes the actions of others (robots and humans alike) have consequences that aren't so pleasant for the rest of us. The actions of pornbots and pillbots and casinobots have created some consequences here on carboncopy.

Unfortunately, I have been forced to shut off the comments feature. I just can't take the heartache every day of seeing that I have anywhere from 1 to 110 new emails and finding out that every one of them is spam. Not one thing was directed personally to me. My hopes have been dashed too often. I have ceased to trust in my inbox.

So, if you really have a comment, feel free to email me. Most of you have my address already, but if not, you can find me kea@soccerriot.com.

"that's where we wanna to go... way down to kokomo!"

Last weekend, I was bored. So I called up Erica and persuaded her to go on a short little road trip with me. We debated between a couple locations, but finally settled on the most exotic of all - Kokomo! Although encouraged to get there fast and then take it slow, we switched that around and got there slow. We only had a few hours of daylight left, so we wanted to take the scenic route (through Flora and Delphi and past the Tippecanoe Battleground). Of course, we weren't expecting bodies in the sand or cocktails melting in our hands, but we were hoping for a cute little downtown area with brick buildings and a little diner or brewing company where we could eat. Unfortunately, we saw the sun set just as we came to a detour in the road that set us back a couple miles, so by the time we got to Kokomo, it was dark. The highway was lined with chain stores and car dealerships, so we struck out (in a circuitous fashion) for the heart of city. We finally found it, but it was empty. No little diner. No quaint brewing company. We were starving, so we followed all the locals to... where else... the Golden Corral.

Don't worry. More adventures to exciting destinations (such as Crawfordsville, Bloomington, Greencastle, Fort Wayne, and South Bend) are sure to come up. I'm determined to travel more this semester.

Back in Indiana

I was hoping to feel the familiar comfort of being at home when I landed at the Indianapolis airport on Wednesday. You know how coming back from being away for a while can do that? Well, I didn't feel it. I blame the weather. It was so crisp and sunny and blue in the air and then we had to descend through fifteen minutes of darkening cloud that left millions of thumbprints on my little window. When we landed, it was to a drear, drizzly earth. Then I had to wait for about forty-five minutes for my luggage. They do that so you have to pay for parking, I think. By the time I finally made it to Lafayette, it was so dark that nothing seemed familiar.

I'm in my new house. I unpacked everything yesterday. Bought some shelves at Target and put them together, but I'm constantly worried that they will fall over because there was a warning that they are top heavy and you're supposed to attach them to the wall, but I can't because the molding around the floor makes them stick out too much from the wall. I also dropped my box spring on my toe yesterday. It's not broken, nor even really black and blue, but I never realized how much you use your big toe. But it's nice to have everything open for inspection. I like to wonder what people would think of me if they walked into my room and had to come up with conclusions about me based on what they find lining the shelves and the little knick-knacks I've carried so carefully around with me my whole life. I think that's why little kids always want to show you their room if you go to visit them. It's their whole world. I've never really outgrown that yet.

Resolutions

I'm not one to come up with New Year's Resolutions. I've always thought they engendered a sense of failure when I inevitably don't keep them, but since I have a pretty healthy sense of failure in general, I might as well give up trying to feel successful and embrace the tradition. So, with the full knowledge that I will forget about them right after I've written them except for every once in a while when they will punctuate my already guilt-ridden existence with even more guilt over the fact that I have no self-control, here are some resolutions:

• Limit soap opera watching to once a week (preferably Friday, which is always the most dramatic).
• Read books for fun and not just school.
• Drink water instead of soda.
• Get less sleep. Really, I think I can exist on 5 hours and then I'd have 3-4 extra hours to watch soap operas and read for fun, not school.

That's all I can think of right now. Of course there's always the be healthier, more spiritual, better friend, and smarter kind of stuff, but I just don't want to worry about that right now.