clarifications and celebrations

I was at my grandpa's 80th birthday party yesterday (at which I was surrounded by my family filling my heart with so much thanks)... and I got a lot of "what the hell was that bubble thing about"? So let me try to clarify...

In the Buddhist way of thinking humans are the universe. You let go of the clinging to your possessions, your attachments, you desires - you are not "Kate", you are a piece of the universe. When I saw all of these people standing there jamming and dancing in such a way that they were not individuals but an experience, I thought of this quote. They are GrassRoots. Even up in the stands, you can feel it. The energy radiates this sense of "we're all in it together" (for the most part). It's incredible.

I also want to celebrate that MY THESIS IS OFFICIALLY SIGNED OFF ON AND COMPLETE!!!!

thank. god.

I handed it in on my way up to the lake last Tuesday. Now I feel as though I can compose my list of gratitude.

Here I am finishing the dang thing (nick came in the room and took it without my knowing, nice posture, ey?)



a couple of views from the lake:

GrassRoots : 2009

A myriad bubbles were floating on the surface of a stream. 'What are you?' I cried to them as they drifted by. 'I am a bubble, of course' nearly a myriad bubbles answered, and there was surprise and indignation in their voices as they passed. But, here and there, a lonely bubble answered, 'We are this stream', and there was neither surprise nor indignation in their voices, but just a quiet certitude. - Ask the Awakened by Wei Wu Wei...

Thesis Saga Part 92836152368

My thesis, yes the never ending SAGA of my thesis. As I said, I finally turned it in to the department with the blessings and love of my thesis advisor.

Here was the verdict on Friday::

Kate,

I am almost finished reading your thesis, and will have it in the mail to you on Monday. There are not many things to work on, but there are surface errors and some wording problems that need to be revised. The MA thesis must be pristine, as you know, so I will send it to you Monday for your revisions.

Just so I have a record of who it is, let me know the name of your thesis advisor. Thanks.

It is a lovely topic, and, for the most part, well executed.

****************************************************************************

Verdict Yesterday:::
Kate,

I did not make the morning mail, so your paper will go out tomorrow instead of today.

The main thing I need to say is that the paper had more problems than I had thought it would when I began reading it, and when I wrote to you on Friday.

You will see what I mean when you receive your paper, but because you had a thesis advisor who apparently did not see the problems in his editing of your paper, I am asking you to make sure you understand what they are, and to work to get the paper in shape. I know you are aiming for an August graduation deadline, and I want you to be able to succeed in that, so any revisions that I ask you to make will be, I understand, minimal.

The problems are still largely surface ones, but I have pointed out some areas that would be up for rewriting, if I had the time to work with you. Do what you can, and get the paper back to me when you have made it acceptable for the MA degree. Feel free to talk to me if you don’t understand my comments.

Thanks Kate.



****************************************************************

Am I friggen crazy? Did that turn on a dime when I told her who my thesis advisor was? (he is leaving the college, if you remember...) and BTW, he is a professional rhetorician so what happened??? Does it sound more like she's pissed at my advisor for some reason?? OY! I mean, if he thought it was a piece of shit do you think that he would have said "hand it to the department"??

His final verdict was::
Thanks Kate,

Good work here. Congrats on completing your thesis.


----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Thank God for Nick, who, as I was bawling my head off last night, reminded me of the total schizophrenia of the situation. He reminded me how much respect I have for my thesis advisor and his views on writing/creating (not only because he enjoyed my labor of love). I'm just so mad that she said she was nearly finished on friday and then totally turned it around on me yesterday. And then I HAVE TO WAIT TO SEE WHAT SHE MEANS UNTIL THE DAY BEFORE I LEAVE FOR GRASSROOTS!!

you know, just to add a cherry on top.


this is currently causing me to feel that I will NEVER leave early childhood education!! but as we know I'm super dramatic so who really knows... :)

*sigh*

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

on another note, without the thesis as a creative outlet I've been trying my hand at sewing and more painting. And also being an enabler for my cat's addiction to faucet water.


My awesome abilities to sew in a straight line:::





The latest paint color. yes, it too is green...but this time its called "MOTHER EARTH" and its in the bedroom::




Bug in action::

"ooh, the nectar of the shower gods"


"you have to wait for just the right temp and speed of flow...too hot and it burns, too fast and it goes all over my pretty face"


"ahhh...that's the good stuff"





yes i just put words into my cats mouth...and with that I am officially the cat lady...

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...