To The Graduate

A year from now, you might face the same sinking feeling that's been nipping at my heels for the past month… It's been a year since I graduated? Already?! What do I even have to show for it?

You might feel the need to report on what you've been up to out there in the real world in a nice succinct "I'm going somewhere with my life" manner. Accountability, to put a positive spin on it. Social pressure, to spin it in the other direction.

When I graduated, I felt the pressure to have an awesome answer to the question "So, what's next?" But that question never leaves. A year later, the big picture is still ambiguous. I highly doubt it'll resolve into crystal clear clarity anytime soon.

In other words, it's completely okay to not know what you're doing next or what "The Plan" is.

So go explore. Read. Meet people. Talk to strangers. Enter their worlds. Expand your world. Do stuff.

But stop for stillness and reflection.

And though I'm giving advice, take advice lightly. Don't discount it. But take it lightly.

It's a balance.

Because we need the guidance of others. But we also need to understand how their paths parallel or intersect with our own, even if we don’t have a clear picture of where our path is headed.

A Short Little Tale Regarding the Importance of Mushrooms

A peek into the mind of my high school self (November 2003!) via a short story I wrote for English in my junior year. Unfortunately, the external harddrive on which all my pre-college work resided went and died on me, so this is one of the few digital bits that remain. Thanks to... get this... a floppy disc! It had two whole word documents on it, the second of which is titled, A Wild Sheep Chase, Chapter 35 ¾.

So why post this? For one, I like traipsing into the mind of past selves. For two, it reflects my high school concerns quite well. And, for three, threads of those high school concerns have wound their way into the present. Things evolve as time progresses, but do they really change?

Note: My high school self had a thing for mushrooms. It showed up in my nickname, in a series I did for art, and of course, this story... So, without further ado...

A Short Little Tale Regarding the Importance of Mushrooms

In a world entirely unrelated to our own, the pursuit of life is not happiness, but mushrooms. Now before you start to think of little people zooming around and snatching more mushrooms to add to the already large piles in their arms, understand this – these mushrooms are not ones you eat. It has never even so much as crossed the minds of the inhabitants of the world that mushrooms are items to be ingested. Mushrooms grow, most certainly, but not in the way you might imagine…

Tutu, two-two, 22!

It is officially my birthday. Based on time-span, that is. Based on date, however, yesterday was my birthday. I spent most of it on a bus between Opononi and Auckland.

But at one stop, I got to laugh at hungry cows!

The gal in the picture is from Germany but is nannying in Auckland. We met her and her friend last week on the bus out of Auckland. They stayed in Paihia while we traveled on to Opononi. Reunited on the bus back to Auckland, they surprised me by remembering my birthday and singing to me in the morning! They couldn't remember my name, but hey, I'm far more impressed with them remembering my birthday.

Back in Auckland at night, I said the line that will go down as one of the most ridiculous things I've ever said to Scott:

"Thanks for my bastard!"

Yes, Scott gave me a bastard for my birthday.

That is, a Bastard Burger from BurgerFuel in downtown Auckland. A deeelicious Bastard Burger stuffed with 1/3 Pound ground beef, melted cheddar, beetroot, mango, avocado, bacon, salad, relish, and aioli.

The burger is even more massive than the picture shows... I'd already eaten 1/4 of it before caving into my tourist-taking-pictures-of-everything desires.

I feel odd saying I'm 22. Still young--very young--but somehow more dignified-sounding than 21, if any age in the 20s can be considered dignified!

Oh, what the hey am I talking about. I'm still young and undignified. Heehee!

On clouds and bladders, Round Two

(Round one from a year ago: On clouds and bladders)

I had no say in the matter this time.

Qantas only allows you to state whether you prefer clouds or bladders. (That is, window or aisle for those who just visited confusion.)

I'm all about the clouds. Ahem, I prefer clouds. Er, window. But, it was bladder that was assigned.

A disappointment at first, to be sure, especially when the gal who scored clouds promptly chose sleep in lieu of sprawling LA lights.

But as the flight progressed, the bladder did protest once... twice... thrice... But only mildly before the aisle seat proved it's worth and prevented mild protests from growing into full-scale rebellions.

I'm beginning to grow fond of this bladder seat. But to willingly choose bladder over clouds?

It feels like the day I started pairing my socks rather than wearing them gloriously mismatched. It feels like the day I stopped using goofy voicemail messages.

Oh wait, my name is currently recorded as "Fern, like a plant."

Fine. It feels like the gradual decrease in the goofiness of my voicemail messages.

In other words, a slow loss of a playful, impractical spirit. In other words, growing up.

That's depressing.

Where's Peter Pan when you need him? He doesn't have to choose between clouds and bladders. He can fly!

It's a late birthday post...

My creativity and energy are being horded by my classes here, hence, no recent posts. Not that I didn't try… I've been attempting a post on food and another one on dessert forks and just couldn't get it out. If I can't write about food and dessert, I REALLY must be drained of all creative juices! Oh, art...

Hence, a picture post, three days late, on what the Fern did on her 21st birthday, as halfway promised to her dear parents!


Had SEVEN hours of class.
(Printmaking, Drawing, Italian)

(Here's part of my attempt at landscape during Drawing. You can kinda see the lake on the upper right of the next picture...)

Finally satisfied my craving for fried eggs and soy sauce!

(This is going to be my self portrait for Drawing.

And yes, I'm sure I baffled many tourists as I ran out to the wall with a camera and plate of fried eggs in my hands and a massive bottle of soy sauce under my arm. Not exactly a common sight in Tuscan hill towns! Then again, short asian girls with afro-like-porcupine hair isn't exactly a common sight either...)

Watched another gorgeous sunset...

(Cortona beats everywhere else I've been for best horizon sunsets, but Lubbock, Texas still wins hands down for full-sky sunsets.)

Visited one of my favorite spots… the park!

(I can usually be found perched on the steps to the right of the lamp and below the leaves on the right side of the picture. Excellent people and dog watching spot!)

Sat on the steps of the Palazzo Comunale in Piazza della Repubblica...

(ya know, the steps where the choir sang during a chilly winter night in Under the Tuscan Sun)

…and watched cute old men socialize (hehe).

Bought some pesto, foccacia bread and pecorino fresco cheese from the Molesini alimentari

(which are pretty much grocery stores the size of a single aisle at Wal Mart)

Then bought fruit and tomatoes from the corner fruitissima...(It's actually a visual feast in daylight. Dusk lighting + indoor lighting makes for confused cameras and oddly colored pictures.)

Enjoyed the view of the valley on the way back up to the dorms…

(Again, this doesn't even begin to capture the view.)

Then headed back down to Tonino for dinner with the entire University of Georgia group (as we do every weeknight) whereupon my camera decided that it didn't like the batteries that I had just put in that morning.

But it cooperated for the picture taking of food!

For the first course, fun hat-shaped suction cup pasta with not quite so fun meat...

(it suctions your tongue sometimes!)

For the second course, yummy fish that was incredibly well presented…

(Look, Christmas!)

And then lights out for an incredible fun and raucous round of the Happy Birthday song and a HUGE deeelicious birthday dessert!

(This picture is pretty bad. I assure you it looked (and tasted) far more amazing in real life!)

Aaaand... the birthday celebration ended on the wall overlooking the night lights of the entire valley below with a bottle of dessert wine (vino dolce, not dolce vino) served in white plastic cups (for which I had to pantomime since my attempts at asking for "Coppa, per favore. Otto coppe? Coppa?" failed miserably.)

Oh, and you can't forget us singing "Little Bunny Foo Foo" and bopping people on the head with my happy bouncy green balloon from Dolce Vita (which Amber so kindly procured for me)!

(Yes, we sang Little Bunny Foo Foo. Yes, this was my twenty-first birthday. Shush!)

Yay Italy!