Memory/Dream

Source: flickr.com via Carlie on Pinterest

Sometimes, while I sleep, my memories and my dreams mix up together and take me to the few faraway places I've been, only in the present or the near future instead of in the past.  I usually wake up with a distinct sense of wanderlust and memory.  Almost every time, I've travelled to Poland again.

That's a part of my story you don't know.  It was just two weeks of one summer, my teenage years, and it was one of those experiences that shaped the person I've become--not just because of the travel, the expanding world, but because of something that happened in my heart, something still rather ineffable because I'm not sure what it was.  It could have happened anywhere, I suppose, but it happened there.

It's part of the story that I want to write, that I need to write, but have yet to form.  Yes, it's been around that long--six and a half years now.  I wonder how long it'll be until the words reach the page?  My friends from high school would laugh to hear me talk about Poland again.  I guess some experiences just never leave your heart, even if you're not sure how they got there.

My photos from the trip don't look like this one, but my memories do.

Renegotiations

Source: weheartit.com via Katie on Pinterest

Life is a constant series of renegotiations of self and perspective.  Perhaps those should be plural--selves and perspectives, really.  We go through different selves, different perspectives on the world and our experience of it.  We cycle from one thing to the next, sometimes forward, sometimes backward, always moving.

It's times like right now that I feel it most, when I am trying to negotiate who I am becoming at the same time that I discover I am not becoming who I once thought I would be by now.  It's not a bad thing; it's just the interplay of personal growth and environmental changes.  It is simply what is.

I know I'm being obtuse in a way, but I don't have much to say that I haven't already said before, which you could read if you clicked those links...

Things are changing here.  We've moved from the in-between stage to our new life, the one where my husband has a really great job and I keep hitting the books and we go forward until we tumble into a new routine.

I don't yet know if this blog is going to go with us.  I keep feeling the change, coming with the color of the leaves and the sliding temperatures and the curiously rainy fall we're having, but I don't know yet what it means.

I do know that it's Wednesday and this is the first time I've been able to sit at my laptop and type a few words for you since last week.  Would you still stop by if I only wrote once a week?

Adventuring

A few of the posts in my google reader this morning have given me a serious case of wanderlust.

There was this one on decor8...

Source: decor8blog.com via Katie on Pinterest

...and these on the English Muse...

Source: theenglishmuse.blogspot.com via Katie on Pinterest

Source: theenglishmuse.blogspot.com via Katie on Pinterest

Some dear friends went to Greece last month and they aren't helping things.

And my dad is taking off for Scotland for work this weekend.  He plans to golf at St. Andrews, but if I were going, you'd find me exploring the landscape.  It's so unlike anything I've experienced and I am pretty sure the photos I've seen don't do it even the slightest bit of justice.

{by vtveen on flickr}

All images link to their sources, except the second-to-last.  That one is by my friend Abby.  

so sweet

I might be just a little blip in the blogosphere, but even I have experienced the genuine kindness and friendliness that other bloggers seem so intent on sharing.  Thank you for offering ideas or for simply commiserating with me.  Yesterday's post was a little more personally emotional than I tend to be online and I was more than a little nervous about putting my worries and dreams out there for others to see.

In the midst of my frustration and indecision yesterday, Cory suggested a trip to the library during one of his study breaks.  So I went on a hunt for some written advice and came across a little book called Careers for Book Lovers.  Now, the cover was horribly designed and most of the advice was outdated, but it was somehow still full of ideas for people who, like me, can't seem to care about studying anything besides the written word.  I realized that I have options for careers when I graduate--choices besides teaching college students (which is in fact what I want to do, but the job market is tiny)--and then I remembered some advice I once gave a student worker in my old office.

You have to chase after what you want to do based on your interests and passions.  If you chase after a career just because the jobs are expected to be around when you're done with school or training, you might make some money for awhile, but even that is not certain.  A job that exists and is paid well right now may not be there in a few years or even a few months, and even if it is, there is no guarantee that it'll be there for the rest of your working life.  Do what you want to do with your life, because any career will have times of success and times of failure; in those times of failure, you may as well be doing something you enjoy.

Source: google.com via sarah on Pinterest

I think I also added that you should be smart and careful with your money along the way, and avoid going into debt to finance those dreams if at all possible.  Dreams can be a little practical, can't they?

With all of that said, I'm going to plan out my classes for the fall, and take a few literature courses and try to get in to a sociolinguistics class that's full (and ignore the fact that blogger says I misspelled sociolinguistics).
Images link back to their sources.

interruptions: between the dreaming and the coming true

I'm going to do a double post today, because I wasn't done saying what I had to say, but it seems to exist in two parts in my head.  Also, you might get bored, because this post is a mildly narcissistic one bemoaning the difficulty of translating my area of interest into a job.

Source: everythingsright.com via Katie on Pinterest

I hear a lot about seeking out your passion, being yourself, chasing your dreams, even when they seem impossible.  I think that is all good; I often repeat it myself.  But sometimes life and dreams and practicality and desire all collide.  Sometimes the different dreams you have for your life conflict with each other.

Although I know earning a terminal degree in a humanities field (for me, eventually a Ph.D. in English) is difficult, I have also been discovering more than ever that it's impractical.  Over half of all Ph.D. in English graduates cannot find a job in their field, and those who do often have to move.  I would like to have that advanced degree attached to my name (Dr. Snyder!) and, far more than that, I would like to be so thoroughly immersed in study and research that I earn that degree.  Yet I'm debating the merits of the decision I will eventually make. 

Is this a dream that I should pursue, or is it one of those dreams that should be set aside in order to pursue other dreams?  Besides, when I get to the point that I've achieved this dream, will the reality be anything like what I imagine?  I do not want to spend years and money chasing a wisp of a dream that doesn't exist. 

{via weheartit}

I don't have to decide today, of course, and I know I want to pursue the MA in English--I was definitely not done with my studies in the subject when I graduated in December.  But being admitted to the MA program has me pondering the next step and exactly what I should do now in order to get there, even if I have two years to decide (and that's assuming I finish my MA in two years).  For those of you who are a little older and hopefully wiser than me, how did you decide what to do when you finished your undergraduate degree?  

Post title credit goes back to this Bebo Norman cd I had in high school.  He's the only Christian musician I ever listen to anymore; I still love the poetry of his songs, especially this one from another cd.

dreaming versus doing

I've been thinking about dreams and next steps lately.  I hate getting stuck in waiting periods--waiting to hear if I have a job, waiting for paperwork from other people to be submitted so I can be officially accepted into a graduate program and register for classes, waiting for our life to settle down so I don't have to shuttle between two cities and live out of a suitcase constantly, waiting for...

I'll stop there.  

Do you dream like I do, with wonder and hope tempered by a dose of anxiety and an occasional touch of angst?  Lately, I've been wondering what, exactly, I'm dreaming of, and how, exactly, I will achieve something that I can't even seem to name.  Part of the problem with being a lover of language and a student of the liberal arts is that your area of study rarely translates into real-world work and practice (the other part of the problem, in my opinion, is the constant sense that you have to justify your area, yourself, and your work if you find it).  I want to do good in my life, to give back at least some of the blessings with which my life has been filled, but it's hard to figure out how the gifts I have could translate into something I can actually do.  

For now, then, I will keep dreaming of a sort of life that I can't seem to put into words and trying to figure out how I can begin living that life--how my dreaming can translate into doing.

These three posts from Not Your Average Ordinary probably played a role in sparking these thoughts to a much greater flame (compared to the little flicker that they've been for the last few months in which I've been only partially employed and the ember for years before that).  Those pictures are by nicole pierce photography, a happy accidental discovery on flickr.

flickr photo :: When fairytales jump in reality...

When fairytales jump in reality...

Originally uploaded by ivy style33

I'm reading fairy tales, attempting to write a term paper discussing the tale type categorization as well as the emotional power of "The Ugly Duckling," and dreaming that I live in a castle.

Someday, I shall have to take a romantic getaway (with Cory, whether he likes it or not) to a European manor and imagine myself to be a new heroine in yet another tale.