T Shirt Quilt!

I have a terrible habit of collecting all sorts of trinkets that serve as reminders. And not just cards and pictures- somewhere, I have a broken hilt of a sword, multiple shrivled up balloons, ticket stubs, little plastic toys, pens... you get the idea.

I keep them all in boxes, each labeled for the year. It works really well, because they mostly stay out of the way but organized. However, they're starting to take over my room. I also have two suitcases full of tshirts, so I decided it was finally time to commit to my big craft project; a t shirt quilt.

 

I really like the last one, with the pieces of fabric just sewn in between. It looks so colorful and abstract! But I'm just going to go with a simple pattern this time, and work my way up to the more complicated ones. I'm working on just highschool right now, and then I'll do my travel tshirts, and eventually my collegiate ones. I have so many letters shirts, and since I've been de-lavaliered I can't wear a lot of them, but I still want to hold on to what it means. Plus, it's a really nice way to make old stuff useful again!

Mine is going to end up more like this:



So right now, I'm just working on cutting out the squares of fabric and ironing them to a thicker backing that won't let them stretch out quite so much. Then, I bring those squares to my dear grandmother, who is prepared to deal with the hot mess that is her granddaughter with a sewing machine.

I believe in recycling the past, so it fits in the future.

Future

So, I have my dream grad school and grad program. Now I just need to get through the next two years and be awesome, so that I can get accepted here:

http://www.emerson.edu/

They have an awesome publishing grad program, and I love Boston. Also, it was the college I wanted to go to for undergrad, I just was too scared to move there. Now, I'm not.

I believe in dreaming for the future.

Manly Men Jobs

This weekend, I spent some time with the ex Doug and realized; as much as I want to be independent, and prove how self sufficient I am- just being alone doesn't cut it. Doing the same things I have been doing, knowing the same things I know- I'm not growing or changing. I'm just being me, singularly.

I think of it like learning a language. I can teach myself to a certain extent, but I'll never really be sure until I speak it with someone else. I want to learn through people. I want to build relationships through my search for independence. I need to stop being so stubborn, and start accepting a little help.

So, I learned how to not be this girl:



And can now say that I have successfully changed my first tire, along with learning what all the parts under the hood of my car are. I can find my spark plugs. I can check my oil. I can even jump start my car. But most importantly- I can change a tire.

It's a little insignificant, but also one more thing that I never have to worry about, because I know I can take care of it myself. There is now one more situation in life that I can handle on my own, with confidence. I also learned the value of keeping a pair of tennis shoes in my car. That's really a good idea, and if nothing else, I hope you take that advice.

I believe in letting myself learn from other people.

Optimism

I wrote a letter to the editor today. Someone wrote a potentially slanderous (I'm sure it wasn't, but my law class isn't until next semester, so I don't know what loopholes there are) about our superintendent, who I used to really admire. She was my Sunday school teacher, until she left our church for reasons I disagreed with her on. Little high school Paige felt abandoned, but she's made a point to try and reconnect, which I regrettably didn't reach out towards much.

But I felt like I needed to say something, so I did. And then I said a little more. People blame my generation, the "facebook generation" for the subtweets and the pronoun accusations. You know, when your status is something like "I hate "you", because you're an asshole", and everyone sort of knows who you're talking about, but you didn't want to be assertive and confront that person?

Holy long sentence, batman. Hopefully that made sense. 

Anyway, I'm not sure why, but I tolerate that in my newsfeed, but not my newspaper. So I called my city out on it. The jist of it was, decide if you want to complain or if you want to change a bad situation. Then I followed with saying everyone complains that there is no good news, and only the sad stories get reported. But we perpetuate that by only writing about bad things in our editorials, as well.

So I decided, every week, I'm going to try to write a blog about something great in Franklin. Because I love my city. There are a lot of really great things. And while my uncle does a lot of that in his weekly articles in the newspaper, I think other people need to be following suit.

I believe in acknowledging the beautiful, inspiring, good.

Everything's gonna be alright...

rockabye.

She's seen her share of devils, in this angel town.

Does everyone remember this song? Because it is undoubtedly my guilty pleasure. I always feel better when I listen to it. Even though it's not really a happy song. It's comforting.


I believe in being prettier when you smile, once and a while.

TEFL

I've been thinking a lot about the future, and what I want to do with my life. I know that:

1. It involves traveling
2. it pushes me out of my comfort zone
3. Arts, not Science
            a. Language(s), preferably



And one of the things I thought of was to teach English in a foreign country. I've done some research, and it seems like Asian countries have a higher demand for teachers, but European countries also offer jobs. It seems to be a growing field, and I know two people that have done it already and it seems to have worked for them! Obviously it wouldn't be without struggle, but I think it could be really rewarding. There's a lot of information on how to do it, so it's easy to find sites like:
http://www.languagecorps.com/
 and this:
http://www.teflworldwideprague.com/?gclid=CMGhjLWZ_7ACFUgDQAodCzx_Gg
and lots and lots of others, like this one too:
http://www.goabroad.com/teach-abroad

Almost information overload. I don't know if one program is really better than another, but I'm considering doing an online certification, and then I can do my in class hours abroad after I graduate. I don't know if this will put me behind my peers in the job field as for a long term career, but if the economy is the way it is now, it could be a great way to get a job after college.

For right now, it's just a thought I'm playing with, but I think it's a good idea to start forming some idea of what I want to do after graduation. There's also a center in Cleveland where I can volunteer to help tutor people practicing for their language proficiency exam to gain citizenship, and hopefully I can find that contact again.

I believe in imagining something unexpected.

Baraka

I'd really like to see this, but I can't find it anywhere. He has another documentary called "Samsara" that imdb says came out last year, but I know it's supposed to have a showing in NYC the end of August.

I believe in trying something new.