After endless hours of airplane travel and many cricks in my neck, I've arrived in Scotland. I'm happy to say that I won't be on a plane for a good long while; it's a wretched place to sleep. It's 10:30 am here, which means it's something like 3:30 am in Utah. My body's freaking out on me; it's so confused. Luckily I have night quil so I'll be able to knock myself out tonight (thanks for the tip Andrea).
Our program doesn't start until thursday, so we have a couple days to hang out here in Edinburgh. We're going to head out to see some castles and scotish livestock. Word on the street is that the billy goats here speak in a keen scotish accent. We saw some sweet oreo looking cows on the way over and I'm pumped about that. Mostly, I'm just a little delerious from jet lag and no sleep (Ann and I pulled an all nighter before we left). Anywho, I just wanted you to know that we have arrived safely and I hope you are all doing well. I'm about to take some knarly pictures...so stay posted.
Much love,
Ev
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
Friday, April 20, 2007
Off to the Motherland!
Ok Familypants,
I'll be off on my little adventure in a few days here and things are a bit hectic with finals, packing, moving, and my crazy new hair color to deal with. However, I figured since I'd be leaving ya'll during two very important and event-filled months, I'd try to keep in touch via blog.
In case you're wondering, I leave for England on Tuesday the 24th and I'll be backpacking in the motherland until my study abroad program ends on June 15th. After that, I'll be going on another sort of adventure with some of my more daring friends. We'll be spending the next three weeks in Italy, Switzerland, France, and Spain. I'll try not to get too lost, or mugged too much. I will, however, try to gain as much chocolate weight as possible and try my shot at skinny dipping in each country (just for kicks). I'll be carefully documenting my little trip and I'll post pictures
every chance I get (probably not of the skinny dipping).
Just in case I don't get too many chances in Europe, here are some pictures of me in Utah (I know, boring). This way, every time you are missing me and your heart feels like it's going to combust due to an
overload of Evelyn nostalgia, you can just hop on the net, look at these photos, remember me, and cry some more.
Family! I really will miss you. I'm interested to see how I will handle homesickness, because let's face it, Provo Canyon's the farthest I've lived from home for an extended peroid of time.
Good luck on all the babies and birthdays and baptisms and all that other jazz. I'll miss you all! Please take care of Muddy for me...she's such a good kitty. Oh, and if the attic goes up in flames, please try your hardest to retrieve my snowboard, it's such a pretty thing. Anywho, I hope you all know that I love you to pieces and I appreciate all of your encouragement and support!
Much love,
Evelyn
I'll be off on my little adventure in a few days here and things are a bit hectic with finals, packing, moving, and my crazy new hair color to deal with. However, I figured since I'd be leaving ya'll during two very important and event-filled months, I'd try to keep in touch via blog.
In case you're wondering, I leave for England on Tuesday the 24th and I'll be backpacking in the motherland until my study abroad program ends on June 15th. After that, I'll be going on another sort of adventure with some of my more daring friends. We'll be spending the next three weeks in Italy, Switzerland, France, and Spain. I'll try not to get too lost, or mugged too much. I will, however, try to gain as much chocolate weight as possible and try my shot at skinny dipping in each country (just for kicks). I'll be carefully documenting my little trip and I'll post pictures
every chance I get (probably not of the skinny dipping).Just in case I don't get too many chances in Europe, here are some pictures of me in Utah (I know, boring). This way, every time you are missing me and your heart feels like it's going to combust due to an
overload of Evelyn nostalgia, you can just hop on the net, look at these photos, remember me, and cry some more.Family! I really will miss you. I'm interested to see how I will handle homesickness, because let's face it, Provo Canyon's the farthest I've lived from home for an extended peroid of time.
Good luck on all the babies and birthdays and baptisms and all that other jazz. I'll miss you all! Please take care of Muddy for me...she's such a good kitty. Oh, and if the attic goes up in flames, please try your hardest to retrieve my snowboard, it's such a pretty thing. Anywho, I hope you all know that I love you to pieces and I appreciate all of your encouragement and support!Much love,
Evelyn
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
The RM
I had to write a victorian monologue for one of my classes. I think it turned out pretty neat.
The RM
From foreign lands and cities grand,
I return home, glory bound.
With honor pristine, and conscience clean,
I hunt, my prize to be found.
I served honorably and that makes me,
A bachelor, of grandest sort.
Which is lucky for me; I must hunt with speed.
(It’s been 3 weeks since my final report.)
The Prez told me, “After you’re released,
Go out and find a wife.”
So I search young and old, for a girl I can mold,
To serve me throughout life.
Freshmen, I find, are the most malleable kind.
Their minds too young and naive,
To realize that I whisper sweet lies.
Upon my cheap words they’ll believe.
I met her there, on Brigham Square.
I told her by the library,
“I just feel that it’s right,” and without any fright,
I asked her to marry me.
She’s only eighteen, and what a bride she’ll be.
“The wedding’s next week!” we announce.
It’s truth I’ve been told, “Don’t let them get old,
Or they’ll wise up before you can pounce.”
The RM
From foreign lands and cities grand,
I return home, glory bound.
With honor pristine, and conscience clean,
I hunt, my prize to be found.
I served honorably and that makes me,
A bachelor, of grandest sort.
Which is lucky for me; I must hunt with speed.
(It’s been 3 weeks since my final report.)
The Prez told me, “After you’re released,
Go out and find a wife.”
So I search young and old, for a girl I can mold,
To serve me throughout life.
Freshmen, I find, are the most malleable kind.
Their minds too young and naive,
To realize that I whisper sweet lies.
Upon my cheap words they’ll believe.
I met her there, on Brigham Square.
I told her by the library,
“I just feel that it’s right,” and without any fright,
I asked her to marry me.
She’s only eighteen, and what a bride she’ll be.
“The wedding’s next week!” we announce.
It’s truth I’ve been told, “Don’t let them get old,
Or they’ll wise up before you can pounce.”
A whole bunch of spontaneous rubbish and incoherant rambling
Alright, so I haven't done this very much, and I'd like to blame it on writer's block, when in reality, I know there is a deeper issue at hand. I think I'm really just afraid that if I began to take this writing thing seriously, I'd write something absolutely horrible and then I'd have to face up to the cold typed-up proof that I am artistically, rhetorically, and stylistically challenged in every way, shape, and form. In cruel irony, my own clumsily written words would stare out at me from my computer screen and in their own silent way, spell out yet another failed endeavor at greatness. Art, dance, music and their required muses have all abandoned me in the past. I'm afraid to shine a light in on the cob-webbed corner of my mind's attic that I've reserved for writing. If I should find it empty and wanting, what is left for me, but a mere appreciation and meloncholy yearning for the humanities? It's not enough for me to just appreciate; to sit in the audience and through some strange osmosis, soak in the bohemian spirit. It is not enough. I need to create it, find it, feel it within myself.
My hands are fevered, but my fingertips are cold to the touch.
I heard a quote today that went a little something like this: "Good writing is produced when the walls of safety are broken down."
But it's so easy to play it safe. There are so many things I fear. As previously mentioned, and most of all, I fear failure. Failed genius. We can't all be a Wordsworth, an Eliot, a Keats, or an Orwell. If everyone were geniuses, where would the novelty lie? And if that is true, then is there shame in normality? Is it ok to just be a Mather? Sometimes my understanding is not crystalline, and my memory often fails me. Is that alright? Is it enough to be satisfied with the alotted amount of brains I have been given? I am who I am, and I should be content and settled with that idea, because I really am quite fond of my life and what I've done with it so far. But is it enough? I can't help but want to fill the shoes of the prolific writers mentioned above. I am man, afterall, and as such I strive to improve myself, even to perfection. But where does one draw the line between the realistic and idealstic ambitions that beset our minds. Although I have many fears regarding this complex issue, my biggest fear is this: What if my ambitions exceed my abilities?
Why do I write in the first place? Certainly it's not to be well read, as most of my writing is private, with small exceptions, including this blog (scary). But if anyone has read to this point of my lengthy ramblings, they are either madly sticken with love for me or are waiting out an unfortunate case of insomnia. If it is the latter, may I recommend, dear reader, briefly jotting down whatever troubles your mind in a journal, drinking a tall glass of milk, and then settling into bed, leaving all your worries in your journal until the morning. Sleep will come and the you won't need to read my ramblings any further.
Oh, tangents-another great downfall.
So why do I write?
I should be writing for myself, as if there was no one else in the world who was going to be sifting through the complexities of my exposed mind. But I do write for others. I write for all those in academia, stretching my neck out and balancing on my tippy-toes, hoping to measure up to their prestigious expectations of excellence and brilliance. I write for my family, hoping to stand out against the backdrop of their loud talents, hoping to find my own individuality, hoping to find something I can put my personal stamp on and claim as my own. And there is this pukishly romantic side of me (that I will only claim as one of my sides, and not fully as myself) that writes for him. Who is he? The name is irrelevant, because it changes from year to year. Call him a muse. Call him a catalyst. Call him Dick, Mark, or John. It doesn't matter. He's more of an idea than a man. He's the one who, unlike you, my poor insomniactic reader, is madly sticken with love for me. It's true. Even at this very moment he is falling in love with each nonsensical sentence streaming from my fingertips, each misplaced semi-colon, each wanting attempt at rhetoric.
I write for him, and I write for them, but who are they and is it enough?
Is it enough? I'm not so sure.
I have decided to start something new and uncomfortable. I am breaking my carefully built walls of safety down, brick by brick, word by word, and I am now writing for me.
Just for me.
So do not be alarmed, offended, or hurt, dear reader, if I do not address you all too often in the future. Any further references made to a crazy insomniac will be directed soley to myself. Please do not think this too selfish. But I'm writing for me now, and not for you.
Perhaps when I have mastered writing for myself, I can then write something truly useful for others, and by doing so, realize my own unique inner-genius. I gather that I won't find a Coleridge or a Dickensen by any means, large or small. But I hope to find a Mather who is no longer afraid to mark her work with her name, a Mather who is proud to be just that-Evelyn Mather.
My hands are fevered, but my fingertips are cold to the touch.
I heard a quote today that went a little something like this: "Good writing is produced when the walls of safety are broken down."
But it's so easy to play it safe. There are so many things I fear. As previously mentioned, and most of all, I fear failure. Failed genius. We can't all be a Wordsworth, an Eliot, a Keats, or an Orwell. If everyone were geniuses, where would the novelty lie? And if that is true, then is there shame in normality? Is it ok to just be a Mather? Sometimes my understanding is not crystalline, and my memory often fails me. Is that alright? Is it enough to be satisfied with the alotted amount of brains I have been given? I am who I am, and I should be content and settled with that idea, because I really am quite fond of my life and what I've done with it so far. But is it enough? I can't help but want to fill the shoes of the prolific writers mentioned above. I am man, afterall, and as such I strive to improve myself, even to perfection. But where does one draw the line between the realistic and idealstic ambitions that beset our minds. Although I have many fears regarding this complex issue, my biggest fear is this: What if my ambitions exceed my abilities?
Why do I write in the first place? Certainly it's not to be well read, as most of my writing is private, with small exceptions, including this blog (scary). But if anyone has read to this point of my lengthy ramblings, they are either madly sticken with love for me or are waiting out an unfortunate case of insomnia. If it is the latter, may I recommend, dear reader, briefly jotting down whatever troubles your mind in a journal, drinking a tall glass of milk, and then settling into bed, leaving all your worries in your journal until the morning. Sleep will come and the you won't need to read my ramblings any further.
Oh, tangents-another great downfall.
So why do I write?
I should be writing for myself, as if there was no one else in the world who was going to be sifting through the complexities of my exposed mind. But I do write for others. I write for all those in academia, stretching my neck out and balancing on my tippy-toes, hoping to measure up to their prestigious expectations of excellence and brilliance. I write for my family, hoping to stand out against the backdrop of their loud talents, hoping to find my own individuality, hoping to find something I can put my personal stamp on and claim as my own. And there is this pukishly romantic side of me (that I will only claim as one of my sides, and not fully as myself) that writes for him. Who is he? The name is irrelevant, because it changes from year to year. Call him a muse. Call him a catalyst. Call him Dick, Mark, or John. It doesn't matter. He's more of an idea than a man. He's the one who, unlike you, my poor insomniactic reader, is madly sticken with love for me. It's true. Even at this very moment he is falling in love with each nonsensical sentence streaming from my fingertips, each misplaced semi-colon, each wanting attempt at rhetoric.
I write for him, and I write for them, but who are they and is it enough?
Is it enough? I'm not so sure.
I have decided to start something new and uncomfortable. I am breaking my carefully built walls of safety down, brick by brick, word by word, and I am now writing for me.
Just for me.
So do not be alarmed, offended, or hurt, dear reader, if I do not address you all too often in the future. Any further references made to a crazy insomniac will be directed soley to myself. Please do not think this too selfish. But I'm writing for me now, and not for you.
Perhaps when I have mastered writing for myself, I can then write something truly useful for others, and by doing so, realize my own unique inner-genius. I gather that I won't find a Coleridge or a Dickensen by any means, large or small. But I hope to find a Mather who is no longer afraid to mark her work with her name, a Mather who is proud to be just that-Evelyn Mather.
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