Loaded Learning

I’ve got to know, where does time go?

Why does it seem to speed by so quickly? Yet I distinctly recall moments where time stopped.

Always questions, will I have enough time? when is the right time? when will there be more time?

It makes me think about the larger picture, am I doing enough with my time? Am I spending my time wisely and what does that mean? There are so many equations for time, what one do I use?

For now I think it is time to sleep. I guess I’ll have to return to the problems of time, once I find the time to think about it again.

Today’s 100-word topic: Fire

The bonfire hypnotized us into silence those late nights in Liz’s backyard. We were savoring the last summer before we all went off to college and started our new lives apart. There was the usually chat of random nonsense that we had all grown accustomed to, and when we had stared long enough into the fire and our souls we imagined the future. Those late nights never accomplished anything.

We were on the cusp of a new beginning. Waiting for the time where we would rise up, like a phoenix, from the embers of those nights into an unknown future.

I’ve you haven’t heard of “This Date, From Henry David Thoreau’s Journal” blog, it is an interesting read. As stated everyday there is a blog post from a journal entry. In some ways it brings Thoreau back to life, more accessible.

Here is today’s journal entry from 1859, enjoy:

Sometimes in our prosaic moods, life appears to us but a certain number more of days like those which we have lived, to be cheered not by more friends and friendship but probably fewer and less. As, perchance, we anticipate the end of this day before it is done, close the shutters, and with a cheerless resignation commence the barren evening whose fruitless end we clearly see, we despondingly think that all of life that is left is only this experience repeated a certain number of times. And so it would be, if it were not for the faculty of imagination.

Thought I should break the blog silence (not a long one but when you are blogging everyday three days feels like a lot). Besides recovering from being sick the work load is starting to pick up in all my classes and I haven’t had much time to think (heh). So a bit of random nonsense.

I’m in the middle of so many books right now I don’t know what to do and because the class work has increased my outside reading has come to a halt, which I find annoying. Destroying my intellectually curiosity one class at a time…sorry thats a bit cynical and not entirely true.

I have a lot of trouble getting my brain to go to sleep. Some people seem to be able to shut down at night, I have yet to figure out how to do it effectively. I’ve been reading some articles and even downloading some relaxation podcasts, we will see if it works. So until I get more sleep/I have less work I am afraid all you will get from my blog is this crap.

Todays 100-word topic: Blisters

Every camp I’ve been to I have brought back a sticker and placed it on the door to my room. They move along in chronological order, showing a timeline of my summer adventures. After I would get home from a new camp I’d stick the new piece of memory to my door. Inevitably the sticker would not go on right and there are no re-dos with those kinds of stickers. At first the blistering annoyed me. But now I like to imagine them as pocketfuls of oxygen exhaled in deep breath of contentment, a bit of memory in a bubble.

Today’s 1oo-word topic: Transition

I’ve never really understood transitions. It has taken me the longest time to learn how to write them into papers, but still my words seem to run on and confuse. When I speak, my sentences do not invoke images of coherent ideas, but rather choppy nonsense in my own tongue. It is hard for me to take notice of the transitions, the changes in my life; although I am aware they happen. Maybe I feel like I’m in a constant state of transition and that this life is just changing me for the next. Who knows what lies ahead?

Today’s 100-word topic: Wednesday

Wednesday, I have lived through a thousand of them, none in my memory more exceptional than another. Wednesday and I are merely acquaintances, meeting once a week. Despite this, Wednesday has seen me at my best and worst, and it has quietly passed in the background, without a word of encouragement or praise. In all fairness I have never reached out to Wednesday either. But Wednesday always comes, faithfully, ignoring my hopeless dependency on its passing every week. I’ve often wondered though, when the day comes that I miss my meeting with Wednesday, will it even notice I never showed?

PS - I’ve been sick the last couple days. Trying hard to finish off some non-100-word posts.

Seeing as I missed Saturday’s 100-word topic because I was away I thought I’d go back to that, so today’s topic: Fresh

It was probably around day five on the sea kayaking trip when we reached the waterfall. We were tired and the hot weather beat down on us as we paddled, but we arrived. Our clothes and bodies were caked in salt, dirt, and food.
The waterfall’s freezing water had probably been snow covering the top of a Canadian mountain only a few hours earlier. But despite the frigid temperatures we all jumped in, thankful for salvation from the salt water we had paddled through all week. The fresh water rained down on us as we stood underneath the cleansing downpour.

I’ve got a non-1oo-word post headed your way tomorrow.

Today’s 100-word topic is: Victory

I often have dreams where I am a foot soldier in a war. I’ll hold my gun close and sit against a tree, waiting for some orders from an officer in charge. During these dreams I never think about the overall victory of winning the war, that big large concept that makes us blind to the lives that are sacrificed for victory. No, I’m concerned about my life and the lives of my fellow dream soldiers. And from that moment of intense dream reality I am reminded that each mouthful of air is in its own way a small victory.

As I was reading through new blog post on the UMWblogs site, I found this one titled “A Story Everywhere”. Right away the title has my attention and at the first line I am hooked:

“The simple truth of the matter is that people fascinate me.”

The post is a brief story about the author’s interaction with a cashier, named Dawn, at the Giant. I recommend reading it, it is not too long, and it manages to fit a lot into a short post. Here is just an excerpt:

I was thinking about Dawn, my Dawn, my fast cashier, and her life in New Mexico, and ’how did she end up here?’ and ‘why would anybody want 4 loafs of bread at once?’ In that moment I realized for the first time that Dawn had a story. She had hopes, dreams, fears; she became real to me, more real than our autopilot interactions of the past 6 or so months.

The author brings it home at the end with:

My experience today with Dawn served as a simple reminder that everyone has something to say, and perhaps something to teach you. We as artists(or individuals) can never stop learning. It is the single most fundamental and necessary part of our art; we must always find new ideas in people, and learn from them.

I love moments like this and when someone can put it into words well I soak it up in all its extraordinary ordinariness.

So in the spirit of ordinary moments I will briefly share something that happened to me a few months ago that I recalled while reading the previously mentioned post.

It was back in the fall semester when I was in a real deep funk. I went to my car to drive around and maybe stop at the store, but mostly I drove so I could have a private place to feel frustrated and defeated. While I was out I stopped at the Walmart and I silently walked the aisles looking for something I can’t remember. As I was standing in the the school supply aisle a lady approached me. She did not speak English very well, but she asked if I could help her find school supplies for her child. She pointed to the list that she held, indicating what she needed to find. Despite my mood, I willingly obliged to help her find the items. After I would pull the item off the shelf I would point to what it was on the list so she could diligently cross it out. When we had finished and we parted ways I could not help, but wonder about the women I had just helped. How long had she been in the country? What must it be like to struggle to find school supplies for your child because you don’t know the language of your new country? Many thoughts were racing through my head and because of that moment I felt grounded again. I was connected to the world around me, a world that is far more complex then my small little existence.