jumbled thoughts of a discontent mind

[I like the form of poetry, but I kind of fail at finding poetical ways to put things. I should stick with prose.]

If I could live on a mountaintop, free from the pollution of human bickering and the hum of machinery, my mind would be clear as the fresh piney air.

At least, that is the delusion I cling to. I keep expecting outward changes to make me feel better. A change of scenery, a change of friend groups. College vs home.

But instead, when I'm here, I wish I was there. When I'm doing this, I wish I could be doing that.

I am never content. Lately, I've been even more so.

I've been considering, very seriously, applying for the AFA Class of 2016. I felt slightly pathetic not being able to do ROTC this past year, but I realize now it's one or the other. It's impossible to mix both of my passions at this point. If I stay in the Conserv, there's no way I could do crosstown AFROTC. If I drop out of the Conserv and stay at Wheaton, I could probably juggle AFROTC, but why would I make my parents pay tens of thousands of dollars for a normal education? OH WAIT. AFROTC includes scholarships if I commit. But still...why?

So the way I see it, it's AFA or bust! Or rather, AFA, or piano performance at Wheaton.

But here comes the long list of problems.

First of all, would I even get into the AFA? That's kinda a toss up. All my life I've been humanities/arts, and now to enter a school where the core curric is mostly sciences? I have the high school creds and the SAT scores, but would I die of the academic workload? Athletics/general physical fitness is another area I'm super iffy on. No team sport, no consistent sport at all, and yeah, I kinda fail at running a mile anywhere near 8:00.

Points in my favor - I'd knock the leadership and non-athletic ECs outta the park. Earhart award? Check. Cadet Commander of CAP Encampment? Check. 14 years of piano? Check. Drama and choir for all of high school? Check. Plenty of volunteer service too. Also, I can BS my way out of anything that involves writing.

Yeah, that's lookin' a little scrawny. But. I have heard that the AFA, like any college, looks for diversity, so maybe it'd be kinda cool that I'm a bit...different?

And like my mom said, I could probably handle the academics. I'm smart, just super lazy.

Oh yeah, that's another thing...parents. um, in multiple ways. Yeah, M and D are mostly okay with it. Basically, they're like, if you get in, go for it. I think deep down they're kinda shocked that they've raised a daughter who's so gungho about the military, but they're rollin' with it. They're cool like that. But they have been saying, make sure you're not acting on a whim (I'm not!) and do you really think you can handle it?

It'd be the greatest achievement of my life if I got in, and if I graduated in four years, commissioning as an AF Lieutenant.

But. What about the rest of my life goals? You know, the "marry the best man in the world" part, and the "have 6 kids and homeschool them" part. It's kinda hard to homeschool when you're in the active duty. And I don't want to get married at 35...I wanna have kids early! Except...getting married involves finding a spouse and that part's totally out of my control anyway.

How do you know whether a desire you have comes from God, or from your own wayward heart? Is it only because I'm not in the musically-steeped environment of the Conserv that I've lost my passion to work hard for music?

But, I'm not giving up my musical dreams for a life of ease or anything. No, I'd have to work ten times as hard if I went to the AFA.

But what about the whole "where I am right now is right where God wants me" thing? I was so sure Wheaton was where God wanted me to be, and now, I'm not so sure. I want this other dream so badly, and I reason that it's now or never...why get stuck in a rut at so early an age?

See, I could go to the AFA, serve my time, all the while staying involved with my music stuff. Whereas...the other way round doesn't really work. Get my BM in piano at Wheaton then...what? Enlist in the USAF? Officership all the way, man. Enter the AFA class of 2018? Goodness. That's a little bit too long.

GAHH I wish God would tell me what to do. This is like college decisions all over again.

If I could do my life over...I'd not do ballet, join CAP at 12, get my private pilot's license at 16, get ground team certified at 16, do a sport, do IACE and PJOC, and apply for AFA Class of 2014. THAT'S WHAT ALL OF MY SONS ARE DOING.

feminism, femininity?

I've chosen to write about American Girl dolls for my next essay on "the consumer gaze." I think I talked about it here already so I won't go into what I'm writing about. What I want to talk about and perhaps rant about is the sources I have to use. We have to use at least two sources, so I spent some time researching in the library and came up with some stuff. There's actually quite a bit out there about AG, how they're marketed, the effect they have had on girls, even stuff like the political ideologies embedded in them. I was a little surprised. But that's all good for my purposes, more sources to quote, right?

Well, the one book I interlibrary-loaned is called "Debutantes and Delinquents" and is basically a collection of essays by women on girlhood, girls, how they're portrayed, what types of media are aimed at them. What annoys me most is the emphasis on how all the depictions of girls are "traditional." Needless to say most of the authors in there are really liberal/progressive and want us to rise up against motherhood and all that good stuff.

I read one line that complained about the dearth of literature for girls, and I was like, really? Are you kidding me??? Because growing up I had no trouble finding plenty of interesting books with female protagonists - Little Women, P&P, Anne of Green Gables, Little House books, Betsy and Tacy. Seriously. When Stephen was looking for good books to read, I couldn't think of much because these were all "girly" books. Then I read a bit more and realised that the author was talking about how all these books still depicted girls "traditionally" and encouraged them to fall into conventional roles - mothers, demure, secondary to men.

[continued on the next day]

So I don't exactly know where I'm going with this. I haven't thought through gender roles and feminism and all that stuff well enough to discuss it intelligently. To be honest, it's always been one of those topics that I just dismiss because I find it too troubling. So maybe this paper will be good for me because it will force me to think more about some of these things.

I pray for discernment.

so I have this addiction....

It's called "eating." It's pretty much true, yeah, because I've gained 4.5 pounds since coming to Wheaton. No joke. It's bad, man. those saga desserts are just so tempting. I really need to build up self control in so many areas, maybe food is a good place to start. Seriously, if I'm not careful I'm going to develop an eating disorder. I almost feel guilty sometimes when I eat too much. Almost being the key word here. And yes, I indulge in mindless eating. My mouth is itching for food but my stomach isn't really hungry. Like what I just did. Had beef jerky, pistachios and cheerios. ok ew that sounds gross. this was after the random cookies and snacks I consumed in various places today. You know what, maybe if I write everything I eat down, I'll eat less. Because when I typed it out like that I realized how much I actually ate and that sort of grossed me out.

Maybe that's my biggest struggle here. ha.

Anyway, today was a good day. Well let's start with last night. I really liked Sovereign Grace Church again, so I decided to check out the "Care Group" they have for young adults. Didn't quite know what to expect, I guess I thought it would be a Bible study type thing. It turned out to be more of a fellowship/sharing time based on a theme, which happened to be Time Management. How timely! haha, ha, ha... anyway. People shared about their struggles with time--using it wisely, temptations to waste time, etc. And then others asked questions to clarify and gave advice as they saw fit. But what pleased me was that a lot of the advice given wasn't just "I think you should..." but backed up by biblical references. Amazing. We also had a prayer time which was really good. Very refreshing. At first I felt a little weird about the whole thing because right now the group is four college girls and four guys who are all recent grads of Wheaton, but it turned out to be a real blessing. I'm definitely sticking with it.

When I got back to campus I went straight to homework, because we had been tipped off that T7 was gonna raid us that night ;) In a way I was a little disappointed that it wasn't a complete surprise, but it was still really awesome because I had no idea what to expect. The guys really put a lot of effort into it. The theme that tied the whole thing together was a little loose/confusing, but the individual stations were really fun. Especially the main terminal set up, complete with sound system and flashing lights and voice warper. Good stuff. Love those T7 guys.

Today was actually a really boring day, come to think of it. Theory was review in preparation for the midterm, Wellness got out early, also because of the midterm. Didn't have English because...wait for it...it's midterm time! So I bummed and I practiced and I debated getting coffee, oh yeah, I worked out. Skipped open recital and practiced instead. Went to ST's recital in the evening. A bummy day. Gah. I need to be less lazy.

A lot of people have told me recently that my smiling face makes them happy. That's one of those things I absolutely don't notice myself. I don't feel like I smile especially much, but apparently I do it a lot. And of course, being me, I proceed to analyze why I smile so much. Is it because I'm always happy? Certainly not. But I have to say a lot of the time my smile is genuine. Am I trying to get a response from people? Or am I trying to please people? Or maybe I'm trying to make myself feel good? I DON'T KNOW. I don't even know why there's a need to analyze this. Actually there is no need.

As you can see, I need to work on my logic.
ok BYE time to finish my homework -_-