Optimism

Reasons to be happy today include, but are not limited to,
The beautiful weather. Bright blue sunshine and a temperature so perfect I didn't mind the walk from Elings to Rasmussen, even with my ginormous bag hitting my knees and attempting to cripple me.
Happy memories. In philosophy class today, instead of thinking about Descartes, my mind inexplicably picked up on a memory that made me smile. For the life of me, I don't remember what it was-just that it had Tate and I in it and we were laughing.
Good music. Melodies wrapping around you, blocking out the world when you want to simply by turning the music up. Plus, you look cool with headphones in and you know it.
My favorite clothes-my sister jeans, my striped lightweight sweater and my yellow converse. That's like pulling on a smile and a hug at the same time.
The fact that Tate's gonna be here in 30 minutes so we can go get soda and chill in the writing lab before I have to tutor.
The fact that after *that*, i'm going to go celebrate one of the coolest girls in the world's birthday, at my favorite restaurant in the world, with some of my favorite people in the world.
and then after THAT, I'm going to go to a cooking club with my big sister, who also happens to be one of the coolest girls in the world, and also happens to be on the short list of my favorite people in the world.
Lists. Not many things can perk me up than making lists of reasons to be happy, or keep me organized like lists of all the crap I have to do, or make me feel guilty when I ignore them than lists do. I still like them.
That I just found the absolutely-perfect-Christmas-gift for some of my people, and perfect bday presents for Tytom and Richard.
That the $50 purse I've been coveting is now $12.50 on Target.com/clearance. Yippee. Good things DO come to those who wait.
That I've been blessed to be able to go to school. Even though I whine about homework, and heaven help you if you speak to me on Friday between 7 a.m and 12:50, I do love this place and everything I get to do. Keep your eye out for the new issue of Bifrost, GVC's literary mag, coming out in the spring-guess whose name is gonna be under the "Editor" slot? This girl.
Opportunities. Whenever I see something cool or artistic or beautiful or admirable, I think "I wish I had gotten to do that." Then I realize I've got all the time God's given me to do just that. I could learn to play the violin, I can watch those films and read those books, I can write that story, and I can travel wherever the heck I want. I can volunteer my time, I can learn to quilt, I can rescue a puppy. The world is pretty much a limitless possibility at this point, and I still have my family to come back to to ground me. How many people can say that?
Grape soda. This one needs no explanation.
Good hair days. Neither does this one.
Trick-or-treating. I can't wait to take the sibs out to hear them tell lame jokes and giggle and get handfuls of candy, especially since I've placed dibs on all the Snickers.
Getting homework done ahead of time. I am thisclose to having all my homework done that's due between now and Monday morning. Two response papers and one journal entry to go, and this girl is a free bird.
Thanksgiving. Can I put this one on here when I've just put down trick-or-treating? Actually, it's my list, so I'm gonna go ahead and put the day before Thanksgiving on here too. There isn't another day in the year that I'm as happy and secure as when I'm standing in the kitchen with my mom and sisters the day before Thanksgiving, baking up goodness and listening to christmas carols. Then comes Thanksgiving itself, which is full of cinnamon rolls, parade watching, more food, Day-after-Thanksgiving ads, and the best part-being surrounded by family and friends. And it's *justaroundthecorner.*
The fact that I'm 2/3rds of the way through the semester, and after that, only one semester left til I graduate. I love what I've learned and gotten to do, but I am ready to see what comes next. Real life? Grad school? Homeless-with-an-English-degree? who knows, but I can't wait to find out.
The fact that we get to vote next Tuesday. When you think about how few the years between now and when some of us didn't get to vote, it makes me that much more thankful for the opportunities we have now. No matter who's elected in 6 days, I'm still going to be proud of this country.
The fact that Brandon and Ty are coming home from IA city for the weekend in 1.5 weeks.

Well, I guess I should get back to that whole homework thing. But I'm keeping the headphones in, cuz even though I'm not blogging anymore, I still want to look cool.

Awkward Turtle

So I realized today-my life tends to be a series of awkward moments. Pretty much whatever I do, I realize at some point that some aspect of whatever I did could have been done better. Then there's always that period of decision-should I go back and explain myself, or try to subtly bring it up in conversation so they'd know what it is that I really meant, etc, etc. Maybe I should just drop it. Maybe I should blog about it in the hopes that people will read it, and the next time I do something stupid, they'll be like "Oh yeah...Bri said she often does stupid, awkward things. That's just her. I'm sure she didn't mean to blow me off or belittle me." That's really my hope of what happens.

I also realized that my reading list has grown and grown and grown, but I'm not knocking stuff off very fast. So I'm going to write it down and possibly add to it, and just maybe actually get reading.

1.Winesburg,Ohio-Sherwood Anderson
2.A Farewell to Arms-Hemigway
3.The Old Man and The Sea-also Hemingway!
4.In Our Time-Hemingway again.
5.The Sun Also Rises-the last of my Hemingway list.
6.Maggie-Stephen Crane
7.The Red Badge of Courage-Stephen Crane
8.The Natural-Malamud
9.Anna Karenina-Tolstoy
10. The Grapes of Wrath-Steinbeck
11.Tortilla Flat-Steinbeck
12. Collected works by Flanner O'Connor. (Note: I have bought copies of most of 1-12, using my prize money from my poem. That was about two years ago. I have not read them.)
13. Not My Will. The book from Katie that I borrowed probably a year ago and haven't read yet.
14. Brisinger. 170 pages in to a 700 page book. Read in the 30 minute intervals that I'm doing, I might have it done by Christmas. Thankfully, my friends thath have read it understand the importance of NOT SPOILING THE ENDING.
15. Mere Christianity-C.S. Lewis.
16. The Year of Magic Thinking- Joan Didion
17. Two or Three Things I Know for Sure-Can't remember the author
18. A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius-Dave Eggers
19. Of Mice and Men-Steinbeck
20. Secret Life of Bees-Too lazy to look up the author
21. The LOTR trilogy- J.R. R. Tolkien
22. Something, ANYTHING, by James Joyce, basically so I can say I read him.
23. Something by Salman Rushdie, for the same reason as 22. And because I think I can name-drop and sound pretty pretentious.
24. Pere Goriot- Honore de Balzac
25. Moby Dick
26. The Great Gatsby
27. To Kill a Mockingbird
28. Slaughterhouse-5
29. Love In the Time of Cholera
30. Water for Elephants (just because I'm behind on reading the NY Times bestsellers that were hip and cool to have read and talk about a year ago (example-20,29,30...) doesn't mean I don't want to read them and be hip and cool TOO.)
31. Lolita
32. Animal Farm
33.One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
34. Reading Lolita in Tehran
35. The KJV Bible, all the way through
36. Most of Shakespeare's major works
37. One Hundred Years of Solitude
I think that's where I'll stop for now. Yes, I am an English senior, and I have not read those books on that list. That was basically a 37-point admission of guilt right there.

I shall also start a list of books I want to add to my collection. This is not a hint for birthday presents, it's more just a reminder to myself so I can keep track of the books I'm coveting. Pretty much, anyway.
1. The Chronicles of Narnia
2. The Lord of the Rings trilogy
3. The Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Anderson collections of fairy tales. Notably, the ones at Borders that are beautifully bound and presented, at $19.99 each. I have coveted these for a while. I would not mind these ones as a birthday gift.

I guess that's really it for now. I'll wait to add to this one after I've read the ones on my other list and decided if it's worth owning.

What a strange tangent this post took.

...

...I am so tired today. My wonderful, crazy-filled weekend has caught up to me. Blech. On the plus side, I did just finish a Spanish quiz in 15 minutes, because I'm awesome. AND i'm fairly caught up on homework so I don't really have to do any homework today, also because I'm awesome.
The girl next to me is looking at photos on the computer, and unexplicably, I keep looking over there. I think I'm weirding her out.
Has anyone seen the lineup for movies this fall? all i can say is Yippee!! or i guess I could also say YAYYY!! "Holla!" might also be appropriate. There are some truly fantastic looking movies coming out, AND i just found out that Leatherheads came out on DVD last month! So much goodness, I don't know what to do with myself! Except maybe stop by the movie store tonight!
Oh, and I hope everyone notices that I added new music to my playlist, and I finally uploaded the 500 pictures on my camera, so yesterday was productive. Yes, I do qualify doing these things as actually accomplishing something.
I think it's time to go get some caffeine. at least i ALMOST made it to noon without it.

I wanna know...have you ever seen the rain?

How many times do we go through our day without stopping to consider all the fantastic things going on? Entire hours-days-weeks (!!) go by and I don't remember anything that happened. I woke up. Went to school. Went to the lab. Went to work. Went to bed. Repeated it all over again...but I didn't take time to take joy, and that's what we remember. When all I can remember about the week is the episode of The Office, I know something's wrong. Even though The Office is really, really funny. Example: Monday was an almost-perfect afternoon. We got to test-drive a Mini, go shopping and go to dinner with my sisters, mom and aunt. The Good-new clothes, girl time, pizza, zipping down the freeway... The Bad- Courtney couldn't make it, and they wouldn't just give me the car. Something about "profit" or some such nonsense. Anyway, long story short-it was a fantastic day. So how come when I think about this week, that seems so far away and yesterday's mad dash of fruitlessness seems much clearer?
Today, I saw a small white dog, dressed in a black and red plain jacket, running in mad circles around a tree. But the tree base spread so wide and his legs were so short that he was running on the lower part of the tree, seemingly avoiding gravity. Every so often, he'd stop and leap impossibly high, as if this time, this time, THIS TIME, he'd get high enough to catch the squirrel. I stopped and watched and wished my sisters could see it with me, because I knew it'd make them laugh too.
Today, I drove to a gas station to get a drink. I figured, Hey, I've got time, so I took the longer way around. I twisted through tree-lined streets and tidy houses with my window open and the beautiful fall breeze coming in and it made me relax just a little. I could have gone to the cafeteria to get a drink, but why pass up the opportunity for a drive when the weather's this nice? Also, I would have missed hearing one of my fave Third Eye Blind songs on the radio and a new song that I decided I loved. I would have also missed seeing a fantastic representation of East Des Moines in the form of a short, curly haired white she-mullet. And who'd wanna miss that?
Today, I finished the draft of a paper not due for days. Me, the great procrastinator. Now all I have to do is polish it up, and I can enjoy a Saturday off from work to the fullest without it hanging over my head all weekend. I could think about the fact that I still have to study for a American Literature midterm, or my Spanish test on Monday, but right now, I'm just looking forward to my fantastic Saturday plans.
And I wonder why I'm so content today. Nothing has happened that makes it different from any other Wednesday spent balancing school and work. I got up just as early. I missed breakfast again. I went to all my classes and had to listen to the same stupid student that I always do. I think the reason I'm so happy today is that I've looked up and noticed my world around me, and it's pretty frickin beautiful.
In this season of change and uncertainty, nobody knows what's going to happen next. We can read the polls, we can watch the weather, we can wonder...it's still all up in the air. So if we can't predict the future, why not enjoy today? Go notice something funny, or clever, or beautiful. Give someone a hug, or tell someone you like their necklace. Read something. Watch The Office. Ignore the headlines for just a day. Pull on a hoodie. Take time to take joy, and see what you remember. That's what I'm gonna do.