Saturday, September 26, 2009

Reflection Points

I know that when those of you who are following me see that I've updated (usually just Heather, really, let's be real since I haven't really figured this out yet) it usually means that I have a new addition in the "Murphy and Me" pile. Those of you who somehow stumble upon this and read it, thank you so much for doing so. However, if you look at my earlier posts (Early June and May and before that) you'll see that some of them are reflective and oddly introspective. But, it's not like I'm ripping pages out of my journal for the world to look at it. I'm just...I don't really know what I'm doing, which actually reflects my everyday living habits.

See, there's this whole notion that when you get to college, you automatically either know what you want to do with your life, and you figure it out very quickly once you get here. Well, I'm the type of person that A) I don't know what I want to do, and B) I don't want to limit myself. I like a lot of things: I like to write (which is something, I'm going to say, that I do fairly well), I like to act, sing (sometimes not publicly, and if you catch me singing, then I either know you extremely well or you got really lucky), take midnight adventures, go on general adventures, bake, cook, and simply do and be a variety of things. College is a chance to branch out and explore your horizons. That's what they tell us. When you get there, however, they want to know what you like so that they can put you in classes and maybe channel you into something structured by the end of your freshman year. But you don't actually have to declare until the end of your sophomore year.

I'm a sophomore.

I'm currently going out of my mind this semester because I'm a chemistry major and somehow taking organic chemistry II and physics I not only in the same semester, but back to back. Couple that with my teaching placement twice a week (I was worried about hours and it's fun) and a history class that chugs its way through a chapter of an English Narrative History a day (we meet three times a week, by the way) and it's a recipe for disaster.

Now this is where I would normally say that I also have soccer. But, for the first time in fourteen years of playing, I don't get to say it. I'm still in the program, yes, but I'm completely on my own, doing fitness work to get my fitness level to where it needs to be. It's not what I expected, and certainly not what I wanted. Then again, life is rarely fair. Mr. Murphy and I get along quite nicely, and I don't mean the one in "Murphy and Me" and I sure don't mean the The Boondock Saint. That's the way I've always rolled. And I will continue to roll that way.

This wasn't meant as a sort of free-for-all in terms of bitching about the amount of work to do (it's college, it's meant to be a challenge) but more of a general reflection point because I've had all this bottled up in my chest for the past week and a half, almost two weeks. And it's not even October. But I'm not alone. There are the rest of my sophomore class currently in the same boat, maybe even worse off than I am (I know people who take multiple languages/people who take genetics and orgo in the same semester) and the way we get through it is by doing the little things. Going out with our friends; having movie nights in with the girls; going to the outlets; and, in my case, writing.

Which brings me inevitably to my novel. And how my writer's block on my current composition book is gone, but the one on my typed stuff still remains. Considering that I'm currently "off book" (gone on a tangent, if you will, because it's better than what was originally there) there's not really much I'm going to be able to do until I can kick my brain into helping me get back on track. And I think I know part of the reason that it's such a struggle.

The part that I'm currently at is when, after Ralurick comes back from being captive among the enemy (The Baron) and has escaped with his healer, (Keina, Jack's mother), the love of his life Bella (if anybody so much as mentions Twilight there may be no Murphy for quite a while) says that she's leaving him. Which puts Ral in an emotionally raw situation. Considering the clusterfuck that my love life is, I think my mind is trying to steer away from something potentially reaming. That's all well and good, but I really need to get this written. I really need to finish this thing. And I really need to find a publisher willing to look at an unsolicited manuscript, read, and go "Hey, this chick is good. Let's publish her!"

I'd like to not be on the outside anymore. I'd rather be in the middle, not knowing which direction to look in because everything's happening at once. And the chaos is beautiful.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

"I'd like to not be on the outside anymore. I'd rather be in the middle, not knowing which direction to look in because everything's happening at once. And the chaos is beautiful."

Amen to that. Good luck with your book btw. (:

"The difference between life and the movies is that a script has to make sense, and life doesn't."

-Joseph L. Mankiewicz