paradise lost : Book One

I've made it through the first book (chapter)! I'm slowly but surely getting it. I tried reiterating what I thought happened to Nick and then double checked my work by reading what SparkNotes said it was about. Rockin! I got the basic concept. HOORAY! I'm enjoying reading it at this point in my academic career because I can now see how other authors alluded to it. Within the first few pages I saw the words "darkness visible." The title of William Styron's memoirs of depression.

So far, it just reminds me that the old poets used a lot of words to say a little bit. *sigh* so unlike us in the 21st century where we use 140 characters to sum up our lives on twitter. Let's see can I sum up Book One in 140 characters??

Satan: kicked out of Heaven. Released from chains in the lake of fire. gathers demons @ Pandemonium to see if war w/ God is viable option.

that 139, yo! what up, Milton!

Pandemonium: temple the demons build in hell. Other cool fact: The spirit demons can morph into different sexes and sizes like a shape shifter on Heroes.

...let freedom ring...

The American Colonial independence was not achieved alone. The original American Revolutionaries stood up together for what they believed. Which, apparently, was that rich white men deserved to do what they wanted. Luckily, the revolutionaries keep coming and keep fighting for freedoms.

Our weekend started chatting with Karli on the front porch, having beers and lemonade awaiting the arrival of our lovely friends, the Plummers. :) What a great way to kick off the weekend!!

On Friday of Independence Day weekend I stood with my Canning Revolutionaries, led by Kristina, to make some strawberry jam. I swiped this picture from Kami who describes our day fabulously HERE.



I spent the 4th beginning to give my thesis it's own revolution, or at least a little love by getting it bound and ready to be hand delivered to Dr. Alwes this morning. I also BBQed with my dad and Sue and attended a B-Mets baseball game to see the fireworks. Family fun with Toby Keith's war-cry that we, the USA, will "stick a boot in your ass its the American way." (don't get me started, that's an entire other blog post)



Sunday we hiked at one of my favorite spots, Salt Springs. Aahh, the meadow. Thank you, HP for the perfection of that moment.


I also worked on the kitchen, taping and painting.


2 more coats and it'll be complete and on to the bedrooms. I got a pedi on my way home from the final thesis submission this morning. My students love green and I miss them already but *sigh* I do love summer.

done.

*sigh*

i just finished my first year of teaching. i said good-bye to some children that I will never see again.

*sigh*

what a wild year. i'm gonna miss those kids. :*(

brilliant warrior goddess.

So, what the hell does "Brilliant Warrior Goddess" mean you might ask yourself...

Am I so enamored with myself that I gave myself that moniker to remind me how awesome I am? No. Not at all.

It came to into being when I found myself alone, again, in State College, PA in 2000. When I say alone I mean without people around me and not lonely. I have very rarely felt lonely in my life; I have continually felt that my writing has kept me company through times when I could have felt that way. But I was alone. I had moved to State College to attend Penn State. I enrolled at Penn State because there was no way in hell Nick and I were going to remain together at the age of 20 if we weren't in the same town. We had spent a LOOONG distance love (remember, he was in Rome from 1/2000-4/2000...we started dating 8/1999) and that was enough. Without getting into an entire side story, let's just say I knew that the path the Universe wanted me to take was to head to PSU. So there I was.

I started out with two roommates and they moved out to live with their boyfriends. Big house, Kate Miller, art and writing supplies and plenty of music but no friends. Sure, I knew people through Nick but I like to have my own friends. I did not want to get into a position where we broke up and I found myself alone again. Yadda, yadda, miss independent rears her head. Oh, and remember I'm only 20 at this point and Nick has been 21 for almost a year as have all of his buddies. We made do but there was a lot of time to be alone.

Again, being alone was nothing new to me. I spent a year in Columbus, Ohio feeling completely alone and after that another year back home. But as I sat there reflecting on all I had seen and been through by the age of 20- the words brilliant warrior goddess came to me. I felt like my entire life, for different reasons, I had to be strong like a warrior. I learned to dig deep deep inside me, keep my head up, my armor at the ready to defend against whatever was being thrown my way. I do not mean to define this in a woe is me way, quite the opposite. It has a lot to do with the way I was raised: to never let anyone get you down, to never let anyone think that they can hurt you or that they are better than you. This is not a violent warrior that I acknowledge inside of me but a protector, a shield.

I'll spare the details but by the age of 20 I had been through, what I see as some pretty awesome battles. I learned a term in my psych class called "learned optimism" which is the antithesis of "learned helplessness." Some people go through life beaten down, when life throws tomatoes at them they let the acid burn their wounds. I, on the other hand, feel as though I thank the Universe for the opportunity to learn how to make sauce. This is where the brilliance comes in. Not brilliance as in intelligence. Brilliant, in this case, refers to a quality of light, really. A sparkle or brightness reflecting in color.

As my old neighbor in State College said when he found out I grew up as the daughter of a farmer in Upstate New York (he, too, grew up on a farm) "I should have known you were from good stock, a good hearty person." I believe he's right. I believe that growing up with your strong family surrounding you makes you different from other people. Every single day my sister and I, despite anything else, had my grandmother's strong loving arms wrapped around us. We had our Dad right. there. We witnessed first hand his hard work, we rode in the tractor with him, went to Cow-well-wells with him to pick up parts, he even cut a little broom down so I could help him sweep the barn. It was the. best. ever. When I sat there, alone, at the table in State College on a Friday night reflecting on this I realized that everything I'd experienced, EVERYTHING, had developed this strength inside of me that I had a reverence for. There was a Brilliant Warrior Goddess deep down that I could call upon, conjure up for lack of a better term.

The Buddhists believe that everything you need to obtain Enlightenment, you have, you just have to access it. The Buddha, they believe, resides within each and everyone one of us. I suppose this goes along with the Christian belief of your body being a temple, you are a child of God. I think the Buddhist idea goes a little further, though, a little closer to my own beliefs. You call upon different aspects of Buddha to help you on your Eight Fold Path. I think my BWG is my own aspect of Buddha or the HP or the Universe that I call upon. My belief that there is something more guiding me in this life, within me she is called the Brilliant Warrior Goddess. She kicks ass, she takes names. She writes poetry and draws her soul. She loves intensely and protects more so.

Sometimes I let this get away from me. Sometimes I stop listening and let self-doubt and ugly thoughts get into my head. Luckily, I find myself surrounded by people like myself. People who have found or are finding their inner strength, self, love. The beauty and strength in them helps me find the beauty and strength in me (as the idea of the term namaste).

...and there you have the story of the origins of the Brilliant Warrior Goddess.

someday i'll find the picture I drew that night and post it...

my best friend rocks.

I have three questions today:
#1 What is the symbolism of a female cardinal?
#2 How do you write an ode to your best friend without seeming corny and making others feel bad?
#3 What IS the Great American Novel?

My former (?) professor, Dr. Reid writes on his blog that blogging can help you become a better writer, it can help you work out ideas, etc. I paraphrase, of course, but generally you get the idea. So I figure that makes blogging a great excuse for me to sit here and type my thoughts on the computer to share with all 4 people who read this blog. Because, as my father-in-law so importantly reminded me the other night if you love writing you write for yourself and who cares what anyone else thinks. (again, i paraphrase) This is a topic he wrote on in HIS blog. Blogging: we are all indelibly connected.

It was also my darling father-in-law who got me thinking about the Great American Novel. He and my mother-in-law (from here on out known as FIL and MIL) were discussing the possibilities of my future writing ventures and he suggested that mine could be the next Great American Novel (i love their belief in me, aren't i lucky?). My first thoughts, due to my feminist/postmodern conspiracy theorist ways was "that will never happen as I'm not a white dude." As my best friend, Karlton, pointed out that is truly unfair.

The question "What constitutes the Great American Novel" is debated in university English classrooms all over the country. And, apparently, in my kitchen over beers on a Thursday night (here's where the Ode to my best friend comes in). The Great American Novels (GANs?) ARE ALL Künstlerromane people! or at least Bildungsromane. The topic of my thesis, the transcultural künstlerroman highlights two Great American Novels. The fact is, we need to get them into the conversation or at least keep them there. We do this by making sure our schools teach them. As important as the old white dudes are to our national identity, equally are authors with other camping parts and skin colors.

I have never been interested in the old white dudes much. Anything I can remember reading (meaning I enjoyed them) from high school or undergrad was usually by women writers or crazy postmodernists. This was the conversation brewing in my kitchen last night. The qualities of the amazing novels we had read. The Pain in Literature (a course I took and the actual pain you can feel sometimes from pieces of literature). How lucky am I to have a best friend who not only gets my English-nerdiness but has her own bout of it? This is not the first, nor is it the last Miller-Corcoran-Sbarra passionate discussion about the finer points of literature, or lack thereof (i am, remember, about to embark on Paradise Lost) and I am so thankful for that!!

Now, what about that female cardinal? We have two cardinals residing somewhere in our vicinity. I see her all the time, I don't know what her mate is busy doing but she can often e seen on the garage rooftop I can see from my office window or in the back yard. Today she was checking out the white climbing roses on my garage while I was doing dishes. Suddenly, I think is this bird stalking me? Is she a sign? So here's the sparknotes version of her symbolism::: The cardinals voice is strong and clear and reflects an air of importance. This power-packed bird can teach you how to express your truth, develop confidence, and walk your talk. It can indicate a turn of events or a life changing situation. The feminine energy is linked to intuition.

I think her visits are pretty appropriate.

here's the plan, stanley.

Okay. Obviously, I'm having difficulty letting go of my thesis and being an English major. But, I don't feel like I'm ready to take the plunge and run off in the sunset to the land of even higher education. Honestly, the biggest reason is because I don't feel prepared in my readings. Oh sure, I've taken classes in which I was SUPPOSED to read the classics, and I passed them. This is because I am a rockstar bullshitter, people. Seriously. I also have a fabulous memory and sparknotes was pretty much the reason I got through the Brit Lit Survey courses.

Yeah, well, I need to be familiar with these things to move further into my education. Especially because I will be required to take the Literature in English GRE Subject Test. Which I think if I took tomorrow would cause me to be the laughing stock of any PhD program I applied to. I found a book list online and I am going to begin brushing up on what I have read (re: sparknotes, once again) and reading what I was supposed to have read.

Step One: Milton's Paradise Lost.

I am trying to be positive. Really. So much of literature is based upon this piece, right? *sigh*

But these are the steps I'm going to have to take.

Oh yeah, and I'm spending the entire summer writing. Another part of the thesis I didn't get to write and furthering the silly project I've been working on for the past decade.

That should be fun... I just wish I had a laptop so I could do it in the sun!! I guess the office will be the room with the AC in it!!

Oh, and I totally bought this from half.com (thanks, aunt syl for introducing me to that site) because I am blacklisted at every library from here to maryland to ohio!




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on a side note, its more than official: i am totally losing my hearing. today one of my students kept saying "your hair looks like hairspray" and all i kept hearing, as she repeated "hairspray" over and over was "assbrain" ...not to mention the fact that my mother-in-law told me chastity bono is getting a sex change and I thought she said chastity boner...which kind of makes sense if you think about it...

good-bye, dear friend...

"All learning is accompanied by pain."

(Aristotle)

Right. I'm in the midst of finding out just how I am supposed to get this thesis of mine approved by the English Department at SUNY Cortland. Whose chair, my dear Dr. Alwes, is stepping down as of next Tuesday. Katherine Mary, you are a nut. Am I a procrastinator? of sorts, I suppose. I thought there would be directions on this, or at least snacks on my journey.

Sorry, that's from listening to too much Andrew Bird over the course of my writing.

What strikes me as being really sick or sadistic is that I don't want to stop this writing. I want to write another thesis now. I want to write one completely with all the research I did and DID NOT USE on Lan Cao.

It's like my nerdiness will never cease... I'm still trying to figure this out. I'm trying to figure out why I don't feel like I'm all that fabulous in the realm of English yet don't want to stop writing. And why couldn't I felt like this about all my classes?

Why do I shed tears after turning in my final draft to my prof? I mean, seriously, I want to sit here with my head on my desk and cry, as if I lost a dear friend and not out of relief. I feel bereft.