this. [Oscar Wilde]

this. i saw this on a plane. on my plane back to here.
a man with oscar wilde in his pocket.
i wonder if he knew that i recognized it from the picture.
the picture that wasn't him.

found here via pinterest

The Records I Kept | Reflections on the Weeks

week 1: my patient was kind, so kind. i made mistakes on my homework, but i will recover in later weeks.

week 2: something.

week 3: i think i knew what i was doing. it was easy but hard. so tired, so tired. so worth it.

week 4: i don't think i've ever met someone who talks so much more than me in my entire life. i want to be just like her when i grow up: spunky and full of worthwhile stories.

It has been far too long.

It has been far too long since last I appeared in this space.
I did not mean to disappear simply and lightly, but I have.
Perhaps I shall start again somewhere new.
Or not.

Camp

I've been at camp y'all!
I bet you knew that.
But that's why I've been absent from the field of writing this time.

So now I'm part of this new family of crazies and I'm watching kids and telling them the gospel everyday. I love my job.

On another note, I finally saw "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" and loved it.

i might

you know that feeling when you finish a good book for the first time?

         like you'll never find anything good to read... ever again
           at least not something that fits nicely with you, 
                    and the pieces of you that swim in your head
        even the pieces you don't really like
          like maybe the bottom of your stomach will fall out
                kind of dizzy
       the middle joints in your fingers, especially your pinkies, feel loose
                           maybe you also read it way too fast

i might still take a chance on another book

i might

Frozen II Roommate Reprise

So another study break :) I know, major drama queens... or princess... whatever.




And if you're interested in outtakes you can look here :D

Remember

This is just one of those "to remember" things a friend sent me. I think it's lovely.

Crazy Roommate Love

I love my roommate, but sometimes we are crazy.

Here we are, studying late into the night, once again.

Thanks for being there for me dear friend.

Letter to you

Dear Kate,

there will be nights without sleep.
Or more specifically: there will be 2AMs with many projects begun all over the floor and checklists building in your mind, and you will want to stay up all night.
You will, of course, try the whole sleep thing.
After all, night is when people sleep and you have places to be tomorrow, hypothetically.
But let's face it, you're not very good at sleep.
Aside from everything you want to be doing, there's everything you need to get done. And when you do what you know you should, there are the thoughts to chase away the sleep with the broom.
I really just thought you should know.

Best wishes,
Future Self

PS: You've always been this way, so you probably already knew. It was just in case. Or it will be, I guess.

Wallflower

Every time someone says "wallflower"
I just picture some really beautiful intricate wallpaper with detailed flowers all over it.
I'm not sure that's what it is truly referring to.
I mean, I know it's people, but the metaphor is what?
I don't care.
This is lovely.

Catch me if you can

Today I feel all caught up!
This may be a complete illusion but it will be one I will continue running at.
It's great.
Nursing classes have ended for all of us pre-clinicals for the week! We can all breathe!
[worry not, we still have fluff tomorrow]
It's pre-Friday. Let's all celebrate.

Thanks for the Rosehips

I love rosehips. Truly, they are one of my favorite things about autumn.
I'm aware that it's winter.
But actually our winter was friday, now it's gone.
Still, it's not quite spring.
So I'm thinking about autumn.

Let me back up.

When I left Germany I had a jar of rosehips.
I eventually had to throw them away.
They dried out, kind of started to rot...

More background.

Listening to a sad, emotional song (not for the sake of melancholy, it's just in the playlist.)
Watching a video that makes you cry (again, I didn't know it was coming.)
It would be easy to just sink into it.

But then you remember about rosehips.
On every walk there are those things you see, special rocks, feathers, flowers, rosehips.
(If you're wondering which of these are best, let me give you a hint: rosehips. Always rosehips. Seaglass too. Always seaglass. Same principle.)

So in life, there are rosehips too.
Something someone says. An old treasured memory. A special, spontaneous, parking-lot group-hug. A loud dinner party that goes late and stays happy. Remembering something from a book you read as a child, that makes you laugh out loud. God's hand at work.

So to the people who carry the rosehips in, thank you.
Life's rosehips never dry out.

Ben's List

{Twelfth Grade English Edition}

The Passionate Shepherd to His Love - Marlowe

The Nymph's Reply to the Shepherd - Raleigh

#130: My Mistress' Eyes are Nothing Like the Sun  - Shakespeare

Utopia - Sir Thomas Moore

A Valediction Forbidding Mourning - Donne

Death Be Not Proud - Donne

Batter My Heart - Donne

Meditation 17 - Donne

Of Studies - Sir Francis Bacon

On My First Son - Ben Johnson

Areopagitica - Milton

When I Consider How my Light is Spent - Milton

The Spectator 249 -Addison

A Modest Proposal - Jonathan Swift

School for Scandal - Richard Sheridan

Rime of the Ancient Mariner - Coleridge

The Poison Tree - Blake

Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey - Wordsworth

The World Is Too Much With Us - Wordsworth

Childe Harold's Pilgrimage: "Storm in the Alps" - Byron

England in 1819 - Shelley

On First Looking Into Chapman's Homer - Keats

When I Have Fears - Keats

Vindication on the Rights of Women - Wollstonecraft

The Lady of Shallot - Tennyson

The Memoriam - Tennyson

Home Thoughts, From Abroad - Robert Browning

My Last Duchess - Browning

Preludes - T.S. Eliot

The Door in the Wall - H.G. Wells

The Rocking Horse Winner - D.H. Lawrence

Across the Bridge - Graham Greene

The Garden Party - Katherine Mansfield

Shooting an Elephant - Orwell

A Room of Her Own - Virginia Woolf

Paradise Lost - Milton

The Ballad of Reading Gaol - Wilde

Miss Youghal's Sais - Kipling

When I finished my senior year I was throwing away paper. My friend, Ben, caught me throwing away my English notes. He was obviously aghast. All those poems; whoosh. All those notes; gone. 

So to keep him from freaking out, I wrote this list of things that would be worth revisiting in later years. Some I did revisit, in the one college English course I shall ever take. (At least, that's the plan.) I think I should revisit a few more.

More recently, I had the opportunity of landing back in my old English classroom. Shalyn, another relanded alumni, requested Ben's List. So here it is for anyone who wants it. And for good measure, a picture of me and Shalyn revisiting Miss Young and causing (not too much) trouble.

20 words about my self

homework turned introspective

• talkative
• outgoing
• ambiverted
• optimist
• assertive
• fragmented
• (sometimes) numb
• deep-feeler
• connector
• planner
• creative
• quirky
• procrastinator
• learner
• night-owl
• dreamer
• lover-of-stillness
• list-maker
• seeking-out [life flavors, friends, etc...]
• contented

back again | January, darling | list of 10

So I'm back. Yes, I've been gone from here forever. I'm so sorry. There was break and painting and writing and not getting things done to be done. 

~~~

Dear January, 

hello, my darling. You have a lovely name. I always forget that I love you. I hope you never do. I thought I would wish you to bring snow. You haven't, but I'm not disappointed. The warmish Texan winds, Virginian drizzly days, and German fogs have been perfect so far. Thanks.

Yours,

Kit 

xoxo

~~~

I was thinking today about jumping right back into school. My tired brain wasn't truly ready for this leap. I should really go to bed now and perhaps avoid the dreary feeling coming back tomorrow. I've somehow managed to leave my family scattered back over the globe and I miss them already. 

So, thought I don't do New Years Resolutions, here is a list. 

10 things to do to keep from going crazy as you start nursing school: 

1. stay totally open to amending this list.

2. dance in the living room.

3. practice french.

4. call your family and friends.

5. paint. 

6. roommates.

7. prayer.

8. don't let work run away with itself. 

9. watch your favorite films.

10. reorganize

Driving

Things heard, that somehow make logical sense now that I'm here.


"I'm not sure, because I've been a lot of ways home."
"Can't we just go the way we came?
"Oh. This is the way to the golden tulip."
"The zoo entrance is up here on the right I think."
"Guys, I don't think this should be this hard."
"I think I recognize this. I think we can go straight or left."
"There's the zoo entrance."
"Guys, we came this way. This should really not be this hard."
"The light is red!"
"I thought that didn't matter?"
"It doesn't matter, unless you're American."
"This is the way we came."
"Oh yeah those are the gates. Turn right."
"Left."
"You can't go this way this is a one way."
"Come on!"
"Yeah it should be fine."
"There are cars coming. This is not going to work. Well, you can't turn left again."
"Mais, si."
"There we go. Now right."
"Don't all these signs look French? You can tell it wasn't the Germans who came. They have different signs."
"There's the golden tulip."
"Where? I don't see it."
"I think I'm actually doing pretty well. Sometime I should tell him the way to get to the house and see if I can get it right."
"I really don't get why we can't just go the way we came."
"Go straight but not over that big bump."
"I think this was the bump we were trying to miss."
"No, this is a pothole. She was talking about that bridge."
"Just squeeze between these two."
"Mom, you told me that meant right. I've been saying left."
"So now just right here."
"Oh yeah, this is right. Because we passed that Happy Birthday graffiti on the way here."
"I actually knew that one. Because of the napkins."
"This actually is hopping during the day."
"Sometimes the carpenters block the door. Once I left and there were two. I came back and there were five. Can't you see I'm running errands."
"See you tomorrow. We'll text you to check your messages."
"During the day there aren't really any rules, but since it's night I don't think we can turn left here."
"I still don't see why we can't go the way we came."
"Well this isn't a road."
"We're home."
"Oh. I didn't realize it was so close."

Frost!

There was frost on the knoll next to the apartamento this morning! What is happening to Texas?

Happy Finals Week everyone! Drive safely on your journeys home.

Hello December!

Hello December! Hello Christmas, and Hannah, and travel, and parents!
Hello cold, and snow (maybe), and singing carols.
Hello to winter, lovely and frosty.
I cannot wait for all of you.

Birthday

Friday was Kat's birthday, so thursday night we celebrated the end of her teen-hood with a special dinner and dessert and movies in a special blanket fort. Then we celebrated the last minute by running around the building right before the rain (happiness.)

I feel so blessed to have these three lovely ladies in my life. I learn so much just from just being with you three. I love you and I pray that each year continues ever more amazing than the last. 

Happy 20th Kat! 

A thought | a quote

James Fraser wrote "The aim of Satanic power is to cut off communication with God. To accomplish this aim he deludes the soul with a sense of defeat, covers him with a thick cloud of darkness, depresses and oppresses the spirit, which in turn hinders prayer and leads to unbelief-- thus destroying all power (instead of seeing Heb 11:1)."

I just liked this. Thought I would share.