you to miss.

i'm not running scared

i will stay right where

i gave you my word that i would be

i don't want to hurt

but i know i have to feel

i do it to be close to you

just to keep you real

and i don't want to cry

but tears are part of life

they conquer the impossible

and make you feel alive

and i'm so glad, my love, that i have you to miss.

--> love and theft, "you to miss"

i had the most amazing weekend in holland.

i got to see friends, and laugh, and get hugged, and be happy.

and yes, i'm sad that i had to leave so soon.

but i have them to miss. and i have hope to miss. and holland to miss.

and friends, i'm so glad, my loves, that i have you to miss.

life ain't always beautiful, but it's a beautiful ride.

i have an exam tomorrow, so i won't write much.

sometimes, i'm disenchanted with the world. i have days where i'm not sure which way is up and were i'm supposed to be. or if i'm doing the right thing at all. but then... then something reminds me.

i get scared out of my mind at a haunted house, but i have someone's hand to hold.

i think this place is lonely and boring, and then i take a walk through ruined buildings that predate the declaration of independence.

i don't believe i'm good enough or smart enough or prepared enough to present on a paper in journal club, until i get a text that simply says "rock that presentation."

i lie in bed late into the morning because i know i have a day of studying ahead of me, and when i get up and check my email, a good friend has some time to chat.

i sit in my lonely apartment while my roommate and her fiance are on a date, and i get a phone call from another good friend. or my daddy.

i'm sitting through a boring and awful biochemistry lecture, and yet another good friend texts me with a story that makes me laugh.

i may not always believe in myself. but people believe in me. it's true, the world isn't always perfect. but life is like a biochemical reaction. everything is coupled. for every bad thing that makes us not want to continue, something good gives us the energy to move forward. sometimes i hate it here. but that's ok. because other times i spend an hour of the afternoon walking through the trees with the late afternoon sun shining down on me. or i hold the small body of a baby monkey and feel his heart beating fast against my fingers while he is sedated for a brain scan. or i hear the familiar sound of a text message reaching my phone as a friend i left behind in the midwest thinks of me.

i'm not great at change. i can adjust, i can adapt, but i don't necessarily like it.

that's all right. i'm doing just fine. life ain't always beautiful...

but it's a beautiful ride.

every day is a revolution.

so apparently there was some news about neutrinos last week. maybe they move faster than the speed of light. or, maybe they don't. last fall, some crazies thought there were arsenic-based life forms living in volcanic lakes or something. and that was false. but still.

the new york times wrote an article about it. and xkcd did a comic about it. so this is big news.

it has made me realize how dynamic life is. it's always changing. every day is a revolution.

things are happening all the time. for example, i have decided to return to hope college for homecoming in a short 2 1/2 weeks. crazy, right? but i've decided something.

my classes are picking up. i added two new ones this week, and i need to give a presentation in journal club on tuesday. i'm going to need to really buckle down in these next two and a half weeks. i need to do well. and i'm interested in this stuff, mostly. so. here i go.

i'm going to disappear for the next two and a half weeks. maybe then people will miss me enough to be really excited to see me. hopefully.

well, all i have to say is... welcome to the future.

you find your faith has been lost and shaken.

i have always had a little trouble putting a name on my faith. i was raised catholic, and still identify with that, because it's all i've ever known. but i have this analytical mind that causes me to question a lot of things about religion. so i've... well, sort of stopped identifying with a specific religion, per se. i'm a christian, and i always will be a christian. however... i don't find god at church. i've never understood that. he's everywhere. i find him everywhere.

i find him on the roads, as i drive around winston-salem. every time i see a certain kind of car, i know someone's looking out for me. i followed someone driving that kind of car through the worst part of a downpour on friday, as i traveled north to washington dc. people can call me crazy if they want to. but it's comforting to me to see these vehicles. to me, they are perseverance. they are faith in something that doesn't always make sense. isn't that what religion is?

i find him on the radio. god, in my opinion, knows what i need to hear. this morning, i needed to hear jason aldean, and that's what he played. and several times during my drive, he's played "gotta have faith" for me. and what is more fitting than that?

mostly, though, i find him in country music. i've always wondered about the people at the gathering at hope college who feel compelled to throw their hands in the air. i know it was in praise for the lord. but i never understood why they felt the need to do that. i loved the gathering, but not that much. i didn't know what to do with those people. that sounds like i'm lumping everyone together, and i apologize for that. but this weekend, i began to understand. brad paisley was onstage, and my hands went up on their own. because my faith shows its true colors in country music.

i don't know why. but i don't feel like it needs to be explained. other people find faith in church. in prayer. in the bible. in gospel music. why does this have to be any different?

country brings me back to my roots. to watching cmt in the afternoons with my daddy when i was little. to singing along with the radio while my dad worked on the house. to middle school, when i was so grossly misunderstood. to holland, when i rediscovered it when i needed to heal the most. country music revives me. it makes me believe that i can be better. it makes me laugh, and cry, and love so deeply.

this is what i'm talking about.

country is faith. country is hope. and country is love.

"you're not supposed to say the word cancer in a song. and telling folks that jesus is the answer can rub them wrong. it ain't hip to sing about tractors, trucks, little towns, and mama, yeah, that might be true. but this is country music, and we do. do you like to drink a cold one on the weekends and get a little loud? do you want to say i'm sorry or i love you, but you don't know how? do you wish somebody had the nerve to tell that stupid boss of yours to shove it, next time he yells at you? this is country music, and we do."

--> brad paisley, "this is country music"

Why grad school exams suck

An editorial by Amanda Gernentz

Maybe I was spoiled in undergrad. I loved Hope College, and it is pretty easy to see that the professors there love their students. Exams, in most classes, just seemed like a way to prove that learning had taken place. Yes, they counted for the majority of the grades earned in the courses, but there were so many ways that the professors helped the students beforehand and during. They made sure that the students were prepared. And they allowed questions, if there was confusion. Yes, I was probably spoiled at Hope College. But this is just ridiculous.

We were told that we couldn't ask the professors about the exam ahead of time. I understand that - it seemed like it hadn't been written yet until a couple of days ago. And I can see where that would get old, having to field the same questions over and over again. I'm sure a good majority of students just wanted to know what to study. However, some of us truly just wanted to know how the exam was going to be structured, and didn't care if the professors wouldn't tell us specifically what was on it. That did not matter to them - they would not even hear the questions. They gave us no indication of how it was going to be structured ahead of time. They said we could bring a calculator, and that was it. Well, cripes. That is soooo helpful. Thanks.

But none of this is the reason why I'm angry. I am angry because the proctor/professor would not field any questions during the exam either. Again, I understand that if a student does not understand a concept at this point, they are pretty much doomed. But I had a very pressing question during the exam. One of the choices was grammatically incorrect. And I mean, it was bad. I couldn't even figure out what they were trying to say. There was either an extra word or it was missing a word. Either way, I had no idea. So, I went to the front. Before I even opened my mouth, the professor proclaimed "I'm not answering any questions about the exam!" Loud enough so everyone thought I was an idiot, since he already said that. Of course. But I asked anyways. I just said "I don't need help, but there's something wrong with this question choice. It doesn't make sense." He looked at it for about half a second before saying "I don't know, do your best, sit back down." Seriously?

So I circled it. After reading through it about eight times, I'm pretty sure it had an extra word. It was a proper sentence if I took one of the words out. But I circled it and marked all over it and made sure that they knew my displeasure with their lack of proofreading. How rude. I mean, it's fine if you don't want to answer questions during the exam. I've always found that distracting anyways. But seriously. If you're going to be a stickler, at least hire a fucking copy editor so that your exam questions are grammatically correct.

Who the hell can I talk to about this? It needs to be fixed, or this grad student is going to take her English minor and petition to copy edit all exams from this day forward. Wait... can I do that? That would solve a whole slew of problems. Hmm.

Amanda is currently seething at her cubicle in the graduate student office. She has 39 minutes before she must interact with her supervisor, so hopefully she'll cool down by then. In the meantime, she's singing Eric Church's "Drink in My Hand" and wishing she had a drink in her hand.

love the one you're with.

i have always had strong reactions to multimedia - books, movies, tv shows, music. something about it makes me feel things that normal life isn't ever able to get me to feel. i'm not sure if this is a bad thing. i've never taken the time to analyze why i get so attached to fiction. but it's just something i do. i feel emotions so strong that it sometimes affects my life.

and right now, i'm pissed.

i just finished the book "love the one you're with," by emily griffin. she is the author who wrote "something borrowed" and "something blue," both of which i liked, because they put interesting spins on situations where people usually feel little sympathy. most notably, infidelity. i think this is her newest book, recently released. in any case, it made me feel angrier than i have felt in a very long time.

it's not a very hard story to explain. a woman, ellen, is recently married to a successful lawyer from a wealthy atlanta family, who also happens to be her best friend's brother. his name is andy. one day, she randomly runs into her ex, leo, with whom she had a very turbulent and intense two year relationship before she started dating andy. the book is entirely about her internal struggle to not feel like she settled when she married andy, because leo was so much more passionate than andy. or whatever. it doesn't even matter, because it fucking pissed me off.

here is what i have always believed. and, incidentally, it's the title of the book: love the one you're with. those are not the words i would have used, but it means the same thing. cheating, above anything else, makes me completely lose all respect i ever held for people. there is no excuse for cheating. and i will explain why i think this after this little sidenote.

i mentioned that emily griffin wrote in a way that made me feel something other than utter hatred for people who had committed infidelity. that still stands. however, there are so many other answers besides cheating. the person in the relationship should have ended said relationship before he started a new one. for instance.

there are so many people in the world who are without love. last summer, i was in a similar situation as ellen. i was dating someone, but probably shouldn't have been anymore. and then someone new came into my life, and i was smitten. it was a mess, needless to say. but there was no infidelity. even though i didn't want to be in a relationship with my now ex-boyfriend anymore, i had enough respect for him that i could never have cheated on him. to this day, over a year after the relationship ended, i believe that what we had was perfect while we were together. i still hold a little bit of love for him in my heart. and i respect him deeply, because i knew who he was and loved him for it. my point is this: i think cheating is the most selfish act someone can commit. in my head, it is saying that you are selfish enough to take more than one person's love. you can't choose, so you can't share. maybe this only makes sense to me. but my point is simple - cheating is cowardly, and selfish, and despicable. and unforgivable.

i'm a very forgivable person. but i would have a lot of trouble even looking a cheater in the eye, let alone forgiving that person for his actions. that kind of disrespect, of hurt, cancels out love. it wouldn't matter how much love i had for that person. if he cheated on me, it would be the end. i believe that i deserve the best. i may not have found him yet, but i believe that for myself. and when i finally make a lifelong commitment with someone, that's exactly what it will be. i'd rather be alone than live with having cheated on someone.

that's my line in the sand. there's nothing else to it.

now, to be fair, i've been on the other side of it too. there was a time, not long ago, when a couple of friends of mine told me these simple words: "if you tried, you could break up his relationship." in that moment, i remember hearing a rushing sound in my ears. my feelings became instantly conflicted. i enjoyed this particular person's company, and there was a lot of harmless flirtation going on when we were together. but i had always been aware of that line in the sand. he was in a relationship, so the most we could ever be is friends. it wasn't something that ever really bothered me. i was leaving michigan soon after this anyways. but as soon as those words were spoken, things started to shift. i pictured myself with a scarlet letter. words like "whore" and "harlot" crossed my mind - and this is ridiculous, because nothing had ever happened between us. he was one of my best friends. and i couldn't imagine hurting him in any way - or his girlfriend either, who i had never met.

my point is this - i think things can stop on either side of the situation. let's be real here. i'm an idiot, and if this friend who i just mentioned is reading this, he has to agree with me. i'm not a whore. i'm not a harlot. because he was able to do the seemingly impossible - he somehow kept true to that line in the sand while maintaining our friendship as though nothing had changed, even though i emailed him one night, thinking i was changing everything. i'm an idiot, but that doesn't matter. because i'm a lovable idiot.

infidelity can always be helped. and if you're with someone and love them, don't tempt the fates. everyone deserves to be loved, so share the love! love the one you're with, and let someone else love the outliers. it's that simple. cheaters never win, and winners never cheat. it's as true in relationships as it is in sports.

"well, i'll roll with her, so she won't get hurt. here it is, i'll lay it out for you. here it is, i'm telling you the truth. hey alli, i'm falling faster all the time. hey alli, take this heart of mine. i'm in too deep. i fall to my knees. she's the girl of my dreams."

--> runner runner, "hey alli"

sometimes, you just need to be hugged.

i am discouraged.

simple. straight to the point. that's how i am, usually. people always say that girls are complicated, but i disagree. maybe some girls are complicated, but i'm easy to figure out. i laugh when things are funny. i smile when i'm happy. i'm sassy and snarky when someone annoys me. and i'm sarcastic 100% of the time. it doesn't take much for me to like people, and i'm pretty forgiving when it comes to mistakes. what does this have to do with anything?

right now, i am discouraged.

classes aren't going as well as i had hoped. i am not sure what i was expecting, since undergrad was never easy for me. i think i was just assuming i'd be super motivated to do work when i got here, since this is grad school and all. but that hasn't been the case. i spend most of my time missing my friends at home, missing the lab i did research in at hope, missing everything i left behind. i'm having trouble adjusting here. i think it is in part because i do not want to adjust to living here full time. because if i do that, then it's accepting the fact that i'm not sure when i'll see my friends again after january. i was doing fine, i thought. my head was solidly above water, and though i was pretty stressed, i wasn't worried. i just... didn't care enough to worry, i guess. how awful does that sound?

well, as it turns out, i'm made of glass. i had a little crack in me, but i was still pretty solid. it would have taken quite a jarring event to break me. i had experienced a bad date, loneliness, hope-sickness, a hurricane, an earthquake, paperwork up the wah-zoo, and the stress of starting a phd program, all with that crack in me. i stayed intact. well, then i got jarred.

yesterday, after sitting through yet another meeting about classes i can't forget to go to, more work i need to do, there was a picnic. i was having a good time - free food, interesting people. i was walking to the table to get ice cream when i was approached by one of the higher-ups in the program. she didn't understand how i did so poorly on my assignment. she said she was heartbroken that i didn't go to her for help. and that was all it took. i could feel the tears burning in my eyes, but i blinked them back. the crack was splitting wide, revealing the actual state of my existence - which is a broken person, a lost person, someone who isn't even sure this is where she belongs. i'm struggling. and i'm alone in it.

what i need is a hug from someone familiar. the best feeling in the world is for someone to know you and to love you despite knowing who you are. i left all of those people up north. i think of the goodbyes i had with the people i love the most. i gave a lot of hugs, because i was going to miss a lot of people. but two hugs stick out in my mind - from two of my best friends from lab this summer. first, from my best companion, the person i clicked with more quickly than anyone else i'm still currently friends with. i was at a wedding, and he came to say goodbye to me anyways. his leaving set my world spinning uncontrollably, because that meant that i was soon going to be leaving as well. but when he held his arms out and i fell into them, i felt grounded again. he squeezed enough to take the breath from my lungs, and i felt tears about to break the surface. that is the kind of hug i need right now. i would drive just about any distance to feel that again, even for a couple of seconds. the second hug was different. my friend refused to say goodbye, because she said she'd see me again. she left the room, and i stood there, feeling small and alone. then she came back into the room like a windstorm, catching me in her flurry of movement, pulling me in for a quick squeeze and then leaving as unexpectedly as she came in. the tears fell that day. because i felt warm and loved and knew it wasn't really goodbye, even though it felt like it.

both of those hugs were over a month ago. i haven't had a hug since my mom left me after i moved here. i need one. i need the steadiness, i need to be grounded. i want to cry, get it all out so that i can start over again. and i need to stop spinning on my axis.

two things are going to get me through to january, when i can hug these people again.

1. skype. sometimes, it's all that keeps me from crawling into bed forever. because if people can see me, then i have a reason to not look like a scrub.

2. fasthockey.com. because i can watch hope, i can watch one of my best friends, i can get involved in a sport i love, and i can feel connected. hockey, ice, the smell of an arena - that's home for me. even if i can't smell it, can't feel the atmosphere, i'll know it's there. only 44 days.

until then, i'm going to try to get back on track. do my work. study. concentrate. do what i came here to do. meet with this professor who set the crack in motion. try to fix what i've already messed up. i can do it. get set, go.