Fireflies and Big-Girl Lives

"Wasn't it easier in your firefly-catching days?"


Thank you, Taylor Swift, for this lyric that so accurately speaks my feelings right now.  Lately, I've found myself wondering how and when did I grow up?  I have such a big-girl life now.  A for-real job.  A house.  A car.  Car repairs.  Responsibility.   


It seems like just yesterday I was running around in shorts and shanilas (Tagalog for flipflops), climbing trees or riding bikes with my brothers. Or learning to swim.  Or itching to be old enough to get my driver's license.  Or studying for my first college final exam.  Or counting down the days till commencement.    


But this morning I woke up in a bed that I bought, in a house where I pay the bills (well, not REALLY cause I'm housesitting right now, but normally, I would). I go to work all day, come home from work to some evening commitment or grading for the online classes I teach.  No playing out in the sunshine or climbing trees.  Not that I don't have fun, but it's a different kind of fun that you get to have as a 20-something than you had as a kid.  A less carefree fun.  A yes-I'm-having-fun-but-I-know-I-have-responsibilities-to-keep-in-mind fun.  


This is seeming a bit depressing as I'm rereading it.  It's not that I'm not enjoying this chapter of life and the independence I have.  This is the time when I'll have the most flexibility and the most means more than any other time.   So I really do enjoy this time.  Honest!  I like being able to up and drive to PA for the weekend without having to ask anyone's permission.  I like being able to go shopping online and buy something just because I can.  I like calling my own shots.  It's just that some days and weeks (like this one), I miss the young innocence and freedom of the kid version of myself.  I mean, who wouldn't miss this?

I just keep reminding myself that fireflies can be caught by big girls, too.

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Water for Elephants

My roommate Miranda and I recently crafted a list of 50 books we would like to read in the next year.  You can see the list (and read more about my wonderful roommate) here.  If we want to finish the list within a year, we're each going to have to read about a book a week.  That's a lot of reading, but that's also the point of the list - for us to read a lot.  We came up with the list on April 6.  So, we have until April 6, 2012 (with a little room for give or take) to finish 50 books.  I've already been able to check one off the list.

Unbeknownst to me, Miranda had already chosen to give me a book from the list for my birthday which was the day after we came up with our list.  Needless to say, I started with that one, Water for Elephants.  I finished it this week (within seven days, so I'm on a good pace for a book a week) and am looking forward to Miranda reading it soonish so we can talk about it.  (I say soonish because she started with the whopping 1024 page novel Gone with the Wind.)  Once we both read it, we'll see the movie.  One of my favorite things to do is to compare a movie to the book on which it's based.  And it's always more fun when there's a friend with whom to do the comparing.  

So, about the book.  Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen is the tale of an accidental member of a traveling circus.  Jacob looks back on the events of his life from the nursing home where he lives.  After unexpectedly losing his parents just before completing his final exams for vet school, he stumbles (ok, more like leaps) upon a circus train and ends up traveling with "The Most Spectacular Show on Earth" as the circus vet.  Torn between his developing affection for one of the performers and his moral obligation to respect her husband, Jacob struggles with the lifestyle and culture of a traveling circus.  

I can't give away anymore of the plot (and I'm bad at cliffhangers), but I will say that the story didn't turn out the way I expected it to.  Not being sure what to expect, I was surprised at parts of the story and how the conflict was resolved.  I'm looking forward to how the movie will depict this interesting series of events and character development.  A bit of a warning - the novel is quite graphic in parts, so I can't fully condone it.  I hope the movie is more tasteful, but I'm trying not to set my expectations too high.  

Have you read Water for Elephants?  I'd love to hear your thoughts!

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Post Numero Uno

It seems like you just have to dive into a blog.  I've been pondering how the first post should look, but there are too many ideas and too many directions I could go with this.  Do you give a bio about yourself?  Do you explain what the blog is going to do?  I don't know, but either way, you have to start it off somehow.  So, here's the obligatory first blog post.


I'm enamored by blogs.  I follow about a bajillion of them.  Most of them are by people I know; a couple are not.  I like hearing other people's stories and thoughts.  You get to see into someone a little more with a blog.  How do they write?    Do they use capitalization?  Punctuation?  Proper grammar?  How do they design this window into their lives?  Serif fonts?  Sans serif?  (Seriously, I notice these things.)  Because I like observing others through blogs, I decided that it would be fun to create one myself to allow others to notice silly details about me.


Another reason I thought the whole blog-writing deal might be good is my intermittent desire to say something to an audience, any audience really.   I'll think of something, want to verbalize it somehow, but not have the appropriate medium in which to do so.   A blog solves that problem.  I can think of something to share, type it out, read it over to prevent anything embarrassing or grammatically incorrect from going public, and click "Publish Post." 


So, there you have it.  First post.  Hope you enjoy!

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