World News

I have enough money for a plane ticket. I'm buying one and going somewhere far away. Alone.

The question is...

to where?

"Why are we so full of restraint? Why do we not give in all directions? Is it fear of losing ourselves? Until we do lose ourselves there is no hope of finding ourselves." - Henry Miller

narcissist

I wish you would just swallow your pride.

Because I miss you too.

Jack of all trades, master of none

I was sitting watching Henry play guitar today and it kind of got me down. Not his playing; he's awesome at it. I just came to the realization that I'm not particularly good at anything, and come to think of it, I never really have been. My parents never coerced me into playing sports, but even if they had I'm pretty sure the other kids would have gotten injured due to my lack of hand-eye coordination. I did ballet for about 9 years, but 5 of those years I was forced to do so and I was the class clown and never took anything seriously. Not to mention, pointe is the most excruciating thing to endure, I like being able to walk thank you very much. They never forced me to play an instrument (I only played the clarinet in 8th grade so that I could go on the Disney trip).

I look at my friends and I see that some are exceptional photographers. Others are awesome at rock climbing. A few are out of this world musicians. Everyone has their forte. What's mine? I like writing, but it's just something I'm always doing, not necessarily excelling at. Sometimes I'm scared I only picked my major because if I wasn't doing journalism...I don't know what the hell I'd be doing. Does everyone have unnerving thoughts like this? Or is everyone in this mindset of "well thank God I'm freakishly good at circular breathing, I have no doubts about my oboe playing abilities"?

I'm tired of being a generalist, at best. I'm relatively competent at a lot of things but not outstanding at anything. I want an awesome talent. Something that makes me distinguishable.

"Oh that's Emma. She is INSANE at (water polo/tightrope walking/neurosurgery)."

Gotta love GQ magazine.

Dear (Possibly Doomed) Class of 2010:

Well, you finally made it. You graduated! You spent four years (or eight, or ten–no judgments!) and eleventy billion dollars of your parents’ money, and now you’re a bunch of learned-ass adults.

Now for the bad news. You’re joining the workforce in the middle of a jobless recovery, which is basically the O’Doul’s of economic rallies. It’s no picnic out here. Or, okay, it’s a picnic, but it’s a Cormac McCarthy The Road type of picnic, there’s not enough canned peaches in the shopping cart, and everybody’s calling dibs on the one bullet. And also there are fire ants.

Mighty institutions people once took for granted–banks, newspapers, American Idol–are crumbling, and while most of them deserve to, the problem with a world without mighty institutions is that mighty institutions used to employ a lot of people. You could always get The Man to finance your lifestyle. No more. That unpaid internship you’ve got your eye on? Be prepared to flight somebody for it. Possibly your dad.

You’ve never known hardship. You’ve also never lived in a world without Intenet, which means you’ve grown up with an exaggerated sense of your own self-importance. You posted ‘response’ videos on YouTube; poured out your every typeable thought on a glittering, blinking MySpace page.

You had access to all the machinery of self-promotion before you really had a self. You thought of fame as a birthright. And now you’ve been booted into a world that will LOL at your sense of awesome-life-entitlement, then offer to ‘hire’ you to blog for free.

Having a thousand Facebook friends means about as much in 2010 as a personalized-license-plate key chain meant in 1990. We live in a moment when anybody can make a name for themselves; the game you’re suiting up for is about making that name matter.

- GQ

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So who's excited about graduating???!!!!????

Wide Eyes

"All the men of faith and men of science had their questions.

Could it ever be on earth as it is in heaven?"

Re-Arrange

After writing that previously miserable post, I got to thinking. Whenever I have a free moment (which only seems to be between the hours of 11:30 p.m. and 7:30 a.m.) I daydream about how kick ass the summer is going to be a) Sidelines will be strictly online, no print edition. woot woot. b) I won't spend 40+ hours a week in the mass comm building; seriously, I'm friends with the janitorial staff and I'm surprised the school isn't charging me rent, and c) FREEE TIME. omgz

There are a few things to look forward to. First and foremost, I'm going to be making a little road trip to Arkansas to visit my beloved friend Sam Walker. This trip is long overdue and he calls me at least 2-3 times a week to remind me of this fact. I need to get out of TN for a little while and what better place to go than...um...Arkansas. Yeeeah.

I'm taking a feature writing class in June and my favorite professor is teaching it. When I say he's my favorite, that's not an understatement. The man brings us cookies to class for godsakes. I'm just happy to finally be taking a class that will teach me how to write properly because I've been wingin it this past semester as the features editor.

BONNA-FREAKIN-ROO. nuff said.

Upright bass lessons with Quinton? Yessuh. No one believes that I used to play piano or any instrument for that matter. It's cool because neither do I.

Hopefully the list will grow and I will accomplish the things on said list.

In other news, I'm looking forward to next fall semester because I'm looking to get more involved on campus in a way that doesn't involve the paper. For starters, Raiders Against Animal Cruelty, MT Outdoor Pursuits, and TOMS shoes campus club are things I'm going to be getting into. I'm tired of not being allowed to join groups like these because it's a "conflict of interest." F that. I just wrote an article on TOMS and it got me really giddy, so much so that I bought another pair. The fact that I bought a pair of shoes for a child that needs them gives me immeasurable happiness. Plus, Oprah thinks they're the shiz, so obviously, everyone else should too.

High five you're alive

The days keep morphing together, so much so that sometimes I forget what day it is. My 20th birthday came and went. I know the end of the semester is around the corner. It's just not in sight.

I sat outside today, watching Roz pace back and forth on the sidewalk, her disheveled bleached hair glinting in the sunlight.

"My life's gone to shit, Emma," she informed me as I quietly picked the gold polish off my nails.

"That's not necessarily.......true," I paused on the last word as I realized what I was telling her was, in fact, a blatant lie. She looked down at me, and we both knew it, letting out simultaneous sighs.

I suggested she take two hours out of a day to clean up her apartment, get the bills in order, forget about the paper and call her friend that's in a really bad place. But even as I suggested it, we both knew it was a stupid suggestion. She doesn't have two hours. She barely has two minutes.

Call me naive, but having responsibilities blows. I miss the times when people would call to ask how you were doing instead of "I need something from you." The weather has been so beautiful lately, but the only time I get to enjoy it is when I'm walking from class to class.

Is it this town that makes it so hard to be content? I can't say I've ever encountered anyone who has professed their love for it. The first time I ever came here I remember thinking "everything is gray and there are too many gas stations."

It's like none of us belong here and we all know it. But we don't do anything about it except complain. We all have this notion that we have to pay our dues and hopefully, things will pay off and get better. Q made me all depressed yesterday. He wants to get out so bad, this town has nothing for him. It's a cesspool filled with people who have big dreams, who talk up these big dreams, who daydream about these big dreams...but never actually fulfill them. I argued that this wasn't necessarily....true. I paused. I thought about all my aspirations and suddenly couldn't swallow the lump in the back of my throat.

I'm all for snapping out of this dismal mood. Things could be worse. But I hope they get better.