finally

It's time.

I just ordered two lenses for my digital SLR. Granted, they are relatively cheap and won't last me very long professionally speaking, but they'll work just fine.

I've taken three weeks off from photography. It wasn't really planned, but I was so burned out after one of the most grueling semesters ever, photo-wise. Plus, I had to turn in all of the J-school's camera equipment (which is, usually, one of the saddest days of the year! thousands of dollars worth of beautiful equipment at my fingertips for (essentially) free. It's one of the wonderful things about Carolina's photojournalism program...there is so much money circulating that school!) Anyways, so come summer vacation, and I have no good equipment, one broken lens, and a really exhausted artistic spirit. That equals...a photo hiatus.

It was definitely a good thing for me...much needed. But right now I am looking at Women in Photojournalism best of show photographs...beautiful, inspiring art, and I am wanting so badly to just take pictures. To get back at it.

Photography is like poetry for me. I wish I could be a song-writer or the next William Carlos Williams, but I just don't have the gift for that. I want to immerse myself in a world of beauty and contrasts, in a world slowed down by the quick opening and closing of my camera's shutter.

goodbye, may. hello, june

Oh dear, it's nearly June. One month of my summer has nearly passed, and I don't have much to show for it. A nice tan-line, a vintage dress, and one 1000-piece puzzle. I have enjoyed the time to just read (I finished Harry Potter books 5 and 6, Life of Pi, and have picked at Mere Christianity, and various Christian lit). But my wandering spirit is screaming to go discover some new place and challenge myself socially.


This past year has been filled with such exciting adventures: hanging out with boarding school students in Chile, swimming with a river-shrimper in Peru, getting hit-on by a 72-year old Indian Chief in Cherokee, N.C. (ha!), ending my teenage years with a bang on a bus in Panama, when the clock struck midnight...sigh. I guess those were the cross-cultural adventures, although I'm forgetting all over the wonderful hidden secrets of UNC, of solidifying meaningful relationships with unsuspecting folks, of discovering rope-swing trees and magical places in the woods, of delving deeper into photojournalism and, concomitantly, the larger Chapel Hill/Triangle community. I suppose this is me in hindsight, romanticizing the past year's experiences. Oh, but I am so thankful for them!


Ben told me in one of our last talks of the semester that he hoped I had a boring year, for a change. (Based on current circumstances, I wonder if he is a prophet?) (I am kidding). I do see the merit of suddenly having no obligations...it's such a hard thing for me, since I sort of thrive on the External. But it's pushing me to pray more and working out my salvation in practical terms. I'm not doing too well at loving my family and keeping myself immersed in community, but that pushes me to rely on God's grace all the more. I guess I have all sorts of time to experience my own stench and waywardness...a state of sin and misery that can easily go unnoticed when I'm doing all sorts of things at school. (Not that doing things is bad...we're called to be part of community and to love others). I guess this is what Ben was thinking of when we had that discussion about my immediate future/decision-making.

Well, I will be very excited to start school in the fall...UNITAS is going to be really challenging but quite excitng, I hope. It will bring those international travles right to my living space. I didn't want to do it for awhile after I got accepted, but now I'm warming up drastically to the program. Yay for theme housing. Yay for diversity.

vanity

I'd like to get a nose ring. On my left-side. I still can't bring myself to do it...I can't think of a good enough reason, other than "it's cute" and "I'm bored with my pierced ears." I guess it's one of those things where you can't really come up with an "original" reason to jump on the bandwagon.

today's mood--->

I finished the 5th Harry Potter book today. I'm really excited about the new book and the new movie...ahhhh. It's one of those nice pleasures that you forget about while your studying "real" things at the University. But Harry Potter is wicked.

I guess that concludes this post. I don't have any profound thoughts of the day. It's just been a pleasant, lazy summer afternoon. Oh, and I made afternoon scones today. Tomorrow I think I might make a summer squash medley and ride my bike to the pool.

green cotton dress

I'm wearing a green cotton dress right now. I couldn't find a nightgown, but I really wanted to wear something freeing and flowy before I went to sleep. I'm in my room, as usual. It's been a nice cave of sorts the past three days...I read, sleep, nap, watch old movies, nap some more, etc. in here. I didn't leave it once yesterday except to run around the neighborhood and release pent-up energy/frustration.

Summer is frustrating. I feel like a high school student at home...my room is a shrine to my high school self with all it's pictures and dangling medals and high school english lit books. I want to be an adult, but for now I'm just an "adult" (not sans quotations yet): jobless, dependent on my family for money/food/shelter/loving. As far as the job situation goes...it's weird how God has changed my plans. I wasted so much of second semester not just applying for photojournalism internships at newspapers, but worrying about it! Then when that fell through and I no longer wanted to be a full-fledged, independent photojournalist for three months (the thought frightens me terribly), my back-up job with Ami fell through. And now...my high school self wants to find at a coffeeshop or as a nanny, but my professional, "adult"-like self is telling me to get a job doing photography. A real job. Hmm...I don't think it's bad to want to work at a clothing store or a restaurant. I'm having a huge mental/spiritual fight against what journalism professors spend all semester telling us: "You're not a worthy person if you get a "normal" job. You don't want to be working at McDonalds over the summer when you could be honing your skills and working at a newspaper. Internships! Internships!" Gah. I could have had a "worthy" job this summer, but I turned it down. And now I don't have any job, yet, and I am anxious.

Wow, it's crazy how much of my security I place in my work and expectations for the future...something that's not even real! I feel like a different person at home...without the photojournalism classes, photojournalism talk, intense projects, obligatory career nights, Daily Tar Heel assignments. I'm suddenly not engaged on all those future-oriented tasks...and it's good, even though it's hard. In a way, it''s strangely liberating. So liberating that I don't know what to do with myself. (This is not a good feeling, I must admit). I guess it's like...say you were in outerspace in a tiny, confined spaceship for a year. You would get uesd to the obvious boundaries and limitations. You would be comfortable up there, used to your routine. When you come back to earth, you suddenly have an entire world at your feet. You can swim in the vast ocean, you can run a marathon, you can go to the Great Wall of China. The freedom can be paralyzing...you don't know what to do first. The way you defined yourself in space (i.e. based on your surroundings) cannot be applied to Earth. Since you have a different externals, different limitations, you define yourself differently. It's almost like you have to start all over.

The transition from college campus to home can be like that, I guess. Don't get me wrong, I love my family, I love reading and relaxing, I love being outside. But I also love being on campus, involved in meaningful work, surrounded by friends and tons of interesting strangers...dying to get a glimpse into their lives. I have different boundaries there, and I make many decisions based on my aspirations with photojournalism. But those boundaries don't apply to home, and photojournalism is pretty much absent here. It's not a smooth transition.

Yes, so obviously I AM the same person. And I know that my identity is only found in Christ: me dwelling in Him, and Him in me. But how does this play out practically? Practically, I let work, friends, external environment, external boundaries define who I am. I don't like that. I know it's human...we all have our own idols. And it's a horrid thing. All I can do is repent and pray that God infiltrates all aspects of my life. I guess that's why it's a good thing that I'm not doing some intense photo-related thing this summer: because I have put so much of my trust and comfort in that, and it's not even real!

Hmm, I haven't completed my thoughts on the matter. And I haven't attained a level of peace yet, but that's fine.

I'm going to go finish Harry Potter 5 and listen to some Derek Webb. In my green cotton dress, in my cave, before I sleep.

These inward trials I employ
From self and pride to set thee free
And break thy schemes of earthly joy
That thou mayest seek thy all in me

looking forward to looking back

I have to write a religion paper on the purpose of reflection, but I'm not feeling that philosophical/academic right now. Besides, I'd rather reflect on real-world experiences than reflect upon reflection. It's a cool topic though. I just have to be in the right setting to think. (right setting=on this rainy saturday afternoon, either by the fireplace at the e. franklin st. caribou coffee, or davis library. I just can't work on anything in my dorm.


Dad came today and helped me move 2/3 of my stuff. I forgot how much I love being around him...we have more in common than I thought in high school. In a way, we've both gone through similar life-changing experiences within the past two years. He finally quit his computer-related job, a source of great unhappiness and frustration, and took on something that more suits his free spirit: truck-driving. He stopped doing what he thought he should be doing and did what he wanted to do...but it was a long process of finding that. College did the same thing to me...heck, I found an old college application essay to UNC with my "professional statement" on it and laughed for a long time. It was a sad laughter, since I was so trapped then...pursuing what I thought I should do (science, pre-med) instead of finding my true desires. I guess that's just a long process, though...I was so tied up in Westmonsterland and family legacies and what not that I wasn't able to explore my real interests. Pastor Byron expressed to me on Tuesday his awe over how much I've blossomed this past year, for lack of better terminology. I've discovered my artistic side here, something that I used to cultivate when I was eight years old and writing crazy short-stories. And then there's the relational realm...a brand new conception for me. And now...I can't imagine a life without photography. Or people. I feel like it's always been a part of me...and maybe it has. I was still a photographer in high school...I just didn't have the equipment. At any rate, I've been freed from my enslavement to academic perfectionism, in God's grace, in coming to Chapel Hill. And I can't really put a finger on when the transition started. It was so gradual...mostly ignited by Chile in June 2006.


Anyways, Dad and I are both free-spirits, I suppose. Prone to wandering and longing to break past the boundaries of scheduled monotony. We both like traveling...the highs that come from seeing new places and meeting new people and then the periods of solitary reflection before returning home. He admitted to me that North Carolina/Wake Forest doesn't feel like "home" for him. He said, "My home is on the road." That's exactly how I feel. Chapel Hill is, admittedly, becoming more of a home. But my real home is out there...out in the world...whether that be on the drive to St. Louis as I pass through the beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains and sing Regina Spektor in my car, or on a chiva in Panama with my new friend Olmedo and an old gringo friend beside me, or in a new area: a Cherokee reservation in the Smokies, up north with my sister at an Ivy, out west. I really can't imagine settling down and still don't know if what it's what I really want. I want marriage, I want to learn how to love someone other than myself...but I don't want the suburban package that typically accompanies it. I guess I need to find another wanderer like myself.

Anyways, I'd love to go with Dad on one of his trips. I want him to get a trip out to the Grand Canyon, or Montanta, or Idaho. He said it's not likely unless he transfers to a new company, but oh man...how unforgettable that would be. Me and Dad on the road. Speaking of roads, I need to read On the Road. Carolyn said it's good...and I know it's one of Jules' obsessions. Thank goodness for summer...reading.

I'm sad that the semester/year is coming to a close. I've had so many positive experiences these past nine months...I've made so many unlikely new friends, learned important life-lessons, messed up a good number of times but have grown from it.

I like the rainy Saturday-afternoon mood. It's a good thinking/writing atmosphere. I like peeking out my window in the dorm and watching families take pictures at the Old Well. I think it's a visual that I'm going to miss from sophomore year.

Yelling out my window to RUFers as they convened there for a scavenger hunt in the fall, screaming in ecstasy with Carolyn the first day we moved in and saw our spectacular view, seeing the first snow over the Well in January and taking pictures from my lofted bed,

photographing Carolyn and her friends there in the closing weeks of school, with pink flowers in full bloom.

And just talking on the phone at midnight in that general area. Gah...yeah, I'm going to miss the Old Well "experience," since there's not a specific memory that sums it all up.

Well, I think I'll be on my way to Caribou to start this paper.

I'll leave you with a good refrain that's playing on my computer, and it's a pretty sound:

"Walking out in the freezing rain, I feel nothing because I've numbed the pain. I'm looking forward to looking back on this day." ~Over the Rhine