pea-can pie and other things

Today is my last day at home before I head back to Luther and kick off the Christmas at Luther Week From Hell festivities. Three hour rehearsal tomorrow night............... Yay.
Anyway, Thanksgiving was lovely. We had less people at the house than we normally do, but the food was spectacular, as usual, and the pies... Oh, the pies. I think I must have eaten half my weight in pie on Thursday night.
Saw some old friends, went to my high school football game (undefeated!), took a few late night trips to Kroger for bagel bites and movies, annual Christ our Shepherd chili supper, TCBY, Mike and C's, Tech/UGA football, Brenda and Alex. Good break. :-)

Musings about being home:

I stood in the Minneapolis airport waiting to catch a flight (On the F concourse, thankfully. None of that B-concourse Narnia nonsense.) and texted Dan Fernelius, "Is it weird that I miss Luther already and haven't even gotten on the plane yet?"
For the first time in a long time, it was weird to walk in my house. As soon as I stepped in, it smelled like summer and it absolutely scared the shit out of me. I contemplated running away that night.
But thankfully, I survived the first day of being home for the first time in 3 months, and remembered how awesome it is to be spoiled by showers with excellent water pressure, fridges full of delicious food, and my mother's debit card.
I don't know, you know? It was weird being home, but at least I got this visit first awkward visit out of the way and so when I come home again in December, I'll know what to expect. I am a lot stronger than I think I am - I guess this summer and the first couple months at school toughened me up for onslaught of emotions that awaited me when I got back to Atlanta. It's all good, though. I am alive and well and looking forward to going back to Luther for another couple of weeks. Anyway, lots of things to look forward to for December. There's Christmas at the Dietmeyer's which is always lovely, and Laura's getting married on New Year's Day (I'm the MOH). Then after the wedding? One word, baby: Vienna.

My list of things to be thankful for:

Home and family and friends
Green Bean casserole
Pianos
the Windham Hill Thanksgiving album
Hot Chocolate
Debit cards
candle light
hair cuts
email
birthday cards
you


Me and the short hair.



Happy Thanksgiving, ya'll. :-)

lexical morphology in agrammatism

Linguistics and I are just not getting along very well these days.
We have a giant project due Tuesday... it's 7:37pm on Saturday, November 20th, and I have nothing done. Well, that's not entirely true. I do have two articles and a vague hypothesis, as well as 80 minutes left in the library to get something done.


That code of conduct link that I posted from Stumbleupon in the last post? Love it. Especially #19: You will always succeed in trying. The past two weeks have been ______ (I can't think of the right word)- trying to get work done, trying take care of myself, trying to keep people happy, trying to be a leader for an hour and half every day and give 1000% each time even when I don't even have 50% to give. Add in trying to get 8 hours of sleep every night and trying to see my friends every once in awhile, and it's just a recipe for heartache and exhaustion. That's where I am right now.

And yet, in the midst of this mess, I can still come up with a list of wonderful things:

1. Harry Potter premiere
2. Maroon 5
3. www.rockyourday.com
4. getting homework done 12 hours before class :-)
5. high of 48°F and the first (unofficial) snow
6. Gordon Goodwin's Big Phat Band
7. Dan Fernelius
8. pumpkin pie in the caf
9. checking things off my super long to-do list
10. COFFEE
11. singing and dancing the Berries & Creme song with Mara
12. StumbleUpon
13. aerobics
14. getting my sister's wedding invitation in the mail


I'm so ready for a break in 3 days. Not sure how I feel about going home, but I will be excited to listen to the Windham Hill Thanksgiving album with my dad, play Nancy Drew computer games, see my awesome cousin Erik Johnson when he comes home from West Point, should I just start another list? :-)
It will be nice to jam out to tunes in my mom's giant blue van while I drive to CFA or Kroger. Looking forward to real pumpkin pie and my real ginormously (enormous + giant + Level 1 suffix -ly = [A]) wonderful bed. I'll get to see Brenda and continue our epic Bitchin' & Wine Club while we watch the Home Shopping Network and make paper roses. Golf cart rides and arguing with my sister about who's going to take the kiddos for a ride. Gah I love Thanksgiving.

What else...

Tomorrow starts my mega awesome 3-day marathon of work. Here's what tomorrow looks like:

8am: Wake up, coffee, shower
9am: German homework, Linguistics poster, theory composition
10:45am: Joe Carey rehearsal
12pm: Jazz Orchestra lunch
1pm: Chamber Orchestra call time
2pm: LCCO concert
4pm: Jazz Orchestra concert
6pm: Dinner with the grandparents
8pm: change, homework
10pm: Joe Carey recording
12am: sleep.

Want to see Monday? I don't think you do. Tuesday? Ha.

Wish me luck.

harry, sally, and staying in bed all day

Today is a Sunday. It is also the second consecutive day that I have spent in bed due to illness. Just kinda sitting here, waiting for it to go away. It's the worst kind of illness, the kind that when you're laying down or sitting somewhere you feel fine and you think that you can get up and do stuff. But as soon as you stand up and move around, you're forced to sit back down cause the wooziness is too much to handle. I'm supposed to have 2 rehearsals today, too. This is The Suck.

So what is new with me...

I feel like I'm finally embracing my "projectness." I'm in a place where I am absolutely forced to take care of myself totally on my own, and it's good. It sucks, but... it's really good for me. All of my attachments are transforming themselves into fond memories, at least for right now. I can't say how things will be in a month or two, but right now I am glad for more Fond Memories and less Attachments.

I've been throwing myself into school and violin in the past couple of weeks. Kinda seems like me being sick is the outcome of overextending myself, but that's okay. I've hit both extremes on the Productivity Spectrum this semester, and hopefully I will find my way to a balance. SAC Spotlight had its final event this Friday night - Battle of the Bands! It went really well, I think. Six bands and about 350 people in the audience, Top Banana, a fabulous committee. All in all a good event. Theo and I were supposed to have an Eval Party today to finish all of our event evaluations, but we can't cause I'm stuck here in bed.

What else...

Oh man. A good friend just dropped off a giant carton of OJ and a sandwich from the co-op. Life is good.


I'm addicted to Stumbleupon. Some of my favorites:

love this

life hacks

orgasmic

:-)

life code of conduct


Happy Daylight Savings Time! :-)

level-ordering in lexical development

I'm in Oneota, participating in one of my favorite past times:
Drinking coffee and writing a paper.
I have approximately one hour to finish it, and I will be so happy if I can actually achieve that.
So why am I on Blogger?
Wanted to get a head start on this caffeine high I feel coming on and do some random writing. Also, I wanted to point out the large cup of coffee in the background of my blog. I think it's fabulous.

I just recently started drinking coffee on occasions other than Thanksgiving and Christmas, and I don't know how I made it through my 20 years of living with out it. My 16 oz Breakfast blend that's sitting in front of me reminds me of this one time at handbell rehearsal when I was a freshman in high school, and Davis Grisham was telling my sister that she was going to have back problems and stay super short if she kept drinking as much coffee as she did. I used to agree with him because I hated the taste of coffee. Seems my mind has been changed, though. Perhaps it is an acquired taste, like olives. Still haven't managed to get over my fear of olives - mostly because my father once told me they tasted like chocolate, and when I tried one, I discovered that he was very, very wrong.

It is starting to get very chilly here in Decorah, and I am glad to say that I have all the appropriate Fall/Winter gear now, so I'm not suffering as much as I did last year. I remember the cold being one of the reasons I wanted to transfer... Silly Karla. Just put more clothes on. Suck it up. :-)

One more random digression, and then I have to power out this essay.

Growing up sucks. I think I've finally come to terms with the fact that there will always be emotional inconsistencies, and it's my job to handle them with grace and zero drama as much as I can, no matter how much it hurts. Just have to keep on keeping on.

Shout out to Theo Adwng and Erika Lord... Thanks for being my comic relief. :-)

Linguistics paper.... Ready go!

change of scenery

I've decided two things:

1. I'm going to stop writing in all lowercase. I usually write in lowercase when I'm lazy or sad or both, so that's going to stop.

2. My laundry fetish also needs to be done. It promotes staying up late at night waiting for things, and I can't do that anymore either.

So here's to the lovely Japanese lanterns that remind me of the ones over my bed, hoping that the fabulous color will infuse itself into my grayscale existence.

Wow, I'm emo today.

I'm in Wisconsin at my sister's apartment. I've been enjoying a few days of literally doing nothing except checking email, playing violin, and eating good food. It has been lovely. Unfortunately I have to go back to Luther tomorrow evening. It will probably be a good thing because I don't think I do well with vacations. I either don't know how to relax or I just don't know what to do with myself if I'm not running in 5 different directions at the same time. Something to work on.

This is for my sister: I had a lovely time at the brewery tonight, even if I was distracted. The ribs were amazing, the cheesecake was to die for, and I enjoyed your company more than both of those things combined. I'm so glad that we are as close as we are - I know it will only get better as we get older. I love you.

This is for me: You have grown so much since the summer. Please don't fall back into feeling sorry for yourself over mistakes you made. The best things you have learned are how to move on from those mistakes, accept who you are, and forgive yourself without feeling like you need to be punished. You are not responsible for the way other people feel! You are responsible, however, for taking care of yourself and doing what makes you happy. I love you.

two-a-days

so this is me apologizing for posting twice in one day, but i need to give in to this overwhelming feeling of stress and confusion just for this post, and then when i'm done writing i will go back to doing my german and attempt to get work done.

i feel constantly at odds with the person i was over the summer. and not in terms of decisions i made, just like allowing myself to feel guilty for things that i want to do, or letting other people influence how i feel. it's not okay and i don't want to be who i was over the summer. i thought i was done with that.
maybe i still haven't totally forgiven myself for whatever, i'm not sure what it is. i'm just fighting it and tonight i've lost.

i guess it takes longer than 4 months to be free of whatever it is that is holding me back.

also, this whole transferring thing. it keeps coming up. and i'm not sure how i feel about it. i like the way things are going here... i feel like i'm working hard, like i'm making a difference, like this is a place where i belong and can come back to. if i leave, i feel like i'll be running away. i don't exactly have anything to run to except something i knew before and a completely different way of life. not sure that's what i need right now. and i sure as hell know that i shouldn't run away from things anymore. that turned me into a scared, lying little girl. and all these fights i put up against arguments about not leaving... i'm just scared of turning into the person i know i will be if i stay here. the more i think about who that is, the more i realize that Yeah, Karla, That's Who You Want to Be. someone who doesn't run from shit, who can stand up for herself, not feel guilty about the things she wants, who took advantage of every freaking opportunity given to her and made this place her own, who will leave behind big shoes for the next generation of LC string students to fill, who challenged herself and accepted the hard work that comes with being Karla Marie Dietmeyer. it's all me. i don't need the big pond to become who i really am. my mom put one of my favorite quotes by e.e. cummings in a frame for christmas last year - "it takes courage to grow up and become who you really are." i really should keep it here with me - every time i look at it when i'm home, i have to look away because i secretly know that i'm not really being courageous. i'm finding every way not to be courageous, not to be honest with myself, and i've found every excuse to fight my future and live through my past. this has got to end somewhere, doesn't it? where's the point where i finally, god help me, finally do the things i say i'm going to do, be the person who i am honestly longing to be?

i will say that i've been doing better since i got back to school. i'm trying. just not trying hard enough quite yet. maybe i'll get it eventually.

look, it's not even 2 am yet! i'm so proud. still gotta do laundry, though. :-)

oktoberfest

things i love about october:

1. you can totally tell that it's fall when you walk outside. it just feels like october. mmmmm.

2. my burfday. my best friend's burfday. my sister's burfday. RELIENT K!! it's a month full of parties!!

3. my parents come to visit and bring me money. and lots of hugs. :-)

4. i get to wear cute jackets.

5. getting up in the morning and dancing, just because it's october.

6. apfel cider, hot chocolate, bon fires.

7. october is the beginning of the Karla Performance Series. look for her in a recital hall near you.

8. every day is happy and the air is crisp and cool. pumpkin pie in the caf.

9. Fall Break 2010. weddings, hotel parties, green bay, 1/2 price pizza on sundays, laura val, franny. 'nough said.

10. halloween. i'm going to be mickey mouse this year. :-)


happy october 5th! t minus 10 days until epic festivities are under way. :-)