Passionate Things

In response to my loyal and supportive readers (all 2 of you):

I do love English, a whole lot in fact. It's always been good to me too. I've probably spent more hours reading, and certainly more hours speaking, than I have sleeping, and I like almost nothing more than a good exchange of witty repartee. On a somewhat selfish and potentially conceited note [but hey, it's my own blog, right? where else do I put my thoughts] I've always measured whether I was putting my full efforts into school by if my English grade was the best in my class. I am a grammar freak extraordinaire. I was president of English Honor Society and head editor of literary magazine. I made a perfect score on the SAT verbal and the highest score category on the AP. I won the WordMasters national medal in 5th grade and won my school spelling bee the same year. I received the freshman, junior, and senior English department awards. I've published articles. Words and the art of molding them just comes naturally to me.

Everything would point to me majoring in English, right? Practically what I was born to do? Just like I always said I was going to do?

But for some reason, it doesn't feel right. Something tells me I need to be in the social sciences (another passion that has proved rather fruitful), as if it's time to take my proficiency and love for language to another level and apply it to the world's problems (a tall order of course, but I have nothing but the highest aspirations and an arsenal of tenacity). That is the standard I hold my career to: its capacity to help the world. Granted, English can of course, very obviously, be applied in that way too. But I just want to understand the forces of the world- the workings of the political, the economic, and the social, what's going wrong and direction toward solutions. I want the power of my words, something I have a natural affinity and capacity for, along with world class instruction in, to be applied to people and solutions.

(Despite all of that, writing does need to be involved somehow. I have a physical reaction to writing things that I feel passionate about, as evidenced by my response to the above paragraph. Speaking certainly does it too. I start shaking and can barely sit in my seat when seized by that excitement.)

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My heart is pretty full with satisfaction right now.

The conference cross country meet was this morning, on home turf. The day started off a complete jumble, as my uniform never arrived here, I put my chips on the wrong shoes, forgot my sunglasses, and had the sloshy mcslosh stomach again. BUT- I knew from all of that that I would have a great race. Warmup was freezing cold and the hill was still terrifying. However...while I was sitting on the tarp, fixing my shoe mixup and listening to my Kanye pump up, I got really excited. Even at the starting line, staring up at the monster before me, I just wanted to hear that bang and dig my spikes into the dirt. We were in box 4, which meant a straight shot down the middle (i.e. fantastic). I took off at a far too fast pace, staying on the pack leaders' heels. I barely noticed the hill the first time, just blasted up it. Mile 1 split...and I can think nothing but "holy shit" and knew I had to slow down. Dropped back a little, but no worries, all strategy. The 3rd mile was a killer, with round 2 on the hill. Worked really hard to pass a few girls and rally the troops with some positive talk (my secret recipe to success..cheering on the opponent). I hit a huge wall at the top of the last hill, legs shaking, lungs closing, stomach grinding, head swimming. Had to have a little chat with "the thing inside" (as Coach so eloquently put it) to keep moving. The last 200 yards were straight downhill, and I knew I had to push on, despite how badly my body was rejecting the idea. Unfortuately, the girls I'd worked so hard to pass had more than I did at the end, but I still finished the absolute hardest that I could. Crossing the finish line, I burst into tears and stumbled sideways off the course, not able to speak for a good 5 minutes. My lungs felt like someone had crawled inside and started punching them.

It was not at all in vain. I PRed by over a minute, guaranteeing my ticket to Virginia. I have no idea how I managed to find that inside of me. We all did, in fact. Every girl on the team PRed, half by at least a minute. We still only got 5th in conference, but that is a respectable and traditional finish for us.

I'm really glad my family was up here to see that race. They've been there for every race of my pre-college life, and I know it kills them to not get to see all of them now. They even got to meet the boy. (My grandpa LOVES him, which is no surprise.) We all ate at Monument Cafe for lunch (chocolate/pecan pie mmmmmmm). It was pretty hard to say good bye to my sister, because we really need each other right now. I know she's going through a lot. I'm glad she at least got to spend the night with me and get away. She even skipped her homecoming game to come. College makes me realize how much my family is a part of me, how I don't make sense out of context. I can't wait for Thanksgiving!

The joy of endorphins and family.

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I'd like to marry someone whose last name starts with an M, an E, a P, an F, a G, an S, a T, or a Z. Combinations of U and those letters or UM (first/middle) and those letters makes for some fun.