Friday Stream of Consciousness

So it's Friday, there's a foot of snow on the ground, and I'm going to the Feve for happy hour. Then I'm going to go home and write a paper and go to bed. Because everyone knows that cheap cocktails are conducive to paper writing. I know this because my friend Cynthia told me.

I like Cynthia a lot. We both have best friends who are abroad, both are learning how to write grants, both have frustrations with Oberlin boys. She comes over to my apartment and we sit on my couch and do homework and talk about how stupid boys are and do homework and talk about how much the people in our classes who seem to be majoring in acting pretentious suck and do homework. She is frustrated that there are no good boys here, and I am frustrated because there are plenty of good boys here but no good men. And she makes me laugh and I make her laugh and at moments like those I think, "I should be a stand-up comedian."

Because sometimes I feel like everything I say is part of a comedy show and I get to where I'm going laugh-a-minute. It's a defense mechanism I've developed to mask academic incompetence. No one wants to be in a group with the girl who loathes SPSS and doesn't remember anything from statistics, but everyone wants to be in the group with the girl who cooks big pots of soup for the group and finds humor in stressful situations and is really really good at answering e-mails. The other day in my adolescent psych lab I was giving a presentation, and seriously considered starting with "I just flew in from Firelands, and boy are my arms tired!" What?!? I didn't probably because I'd just been in the Student Union and not in Firelands and because it wasn't a presentation about bad jokes it was about national surveys and why didn't I make a powerpoint so people could focus on that instead of the fact that I was wearing the same clothes I went to the gym in earlier in the day.

But it all turned out well and I think I made people laugh for the right reasons and I remembered that there isn't much market for a straight, shy, female comedian. At this point, I guess I'm counting on charisma and networking to get me a job. But lord, ain't it hard.

And after my meeting with my grant-writing teacher today, who indicated that she thought I was fairly competent today, I went home to my apartment and did some homework but first ordered makeup online, because everyone knows that owning slate grey nail polish and eyeshadow called "Swimming Pool" will get you far in life.

And I'm going to the Feve for Happy Hour with Cynthia and I'm gonna write a paper and it's Friday afternoon.

Strength-training and the Entrepreneurial Spirit

After a crazy busy week, I got a much better idea of what my work load will be like this semester. Heavy. But I have to do things like observe middle schoolers and high schoolers in their natural environment (the Oberlin streets!), read Modernist literature, research positive risk-taking, and write an elevator speech. So at least my homework is either fun, or feels useful.

In realms outside the academic classroom, my women's strength-training class has been absolutely amazing! I loathe exercising in gyms unless they have TVs, which the gym at Oberlin doesn't. What can I say, running or biking in place is just plain boring. I like to go on running adventures or do pilates in my room, so I can huff and puff in the privacy of my own home, or at least be taking in some pretty scenery. But I love the weight room. There's something about feeling your muscles engaging, noticing how you can use your breathing to help you lift, and the weakness and soreness afterwards that I find really appealing, and believe it or not, relaxing. It's a workout where speed doesn't help you at all, and you can really take the time to feel how your body works. Not to mention the fact that I am slowly getting ripped, and I imagine that it will be much easier to move out of my apartment than it was to move in. I love being a strong woman mentally and emotionally, and now I'm looking forward to being one physically.

After speaking with an amazing professor at Oberlin college who won the Watson and Fulbright fellowships, has received grant money up the wazoo, and has been on the board of many fellowship committees in my grant-writing class on Friday, I am feeling so inspired to figure out how to get money to do something I've wanted to do for a couple of years: go to India. There are so many fellowships out there and it would be foolish for me not to apply for at least one of them before I get tied down with doing whatever it is I'll be doing, work, research, grad school, starting a business. I've been feeling the entrepreneurial spirit lately, and since I go to a school that has a program that can give you start-up money, I feel like I should take advantage of it. The real question is: what exactly do I want to do? This summer will be filled with lots of plotting and planning and writing out all my crazy business schemes like inventing the ultimate sunscreen, creating the Night Before Pill, opening a used bookstore, an instrument repair shop, a Subaru moving service, a school of knitting, etc. and see which ones are actually feasible (i.e. the Night Before Pill is not). It's all very exciting and hard to think about when I'm busy with school all the time.

Somehow through all the scheming and dreaming and reading and writing I've managed to have a social life. I've cooked some really excellent food for folks, had some fun lunch dates with good friends, friend homework nights, and even *gasp* gone out dancing on a Wednesday night (after all of my homework was done, of course). Anyway, long story short, it's been fun, and I've still been getting all of my work done and showing up for class on time. I met with 4 professors on Friday, kind of a dumb idea in retrospect, because my poor little brain was overwhelmed, but it made me feel much better about my classes. I think the general verdict of this semester thus far, has been, I am smarter than I think I am. After 4 semesters of self-doubt and feeling like an ignoramus, I'm finally starting to get it and starting to remember that I'm smart. And it feels so good. So I'm going to do the smart thing, and finish Part 2 of The Good Soldier, then see what I can find about National Survey research on adolescents. Have a great weekend!

Oh-Berlin-Oh!

After waking up extremely happy this morning for no particular reason, I decided that it was high time for a real blog post. You know, the ones that take an hour to write, filled with funny anecdotes, wry remarks, controversial opinions, and witty commentary on my life.

I've been feeling pretty blessed lately. I usually don't like it when people say they've been blessed, because usually it's followed by something about Jesus and how I could feel blessed too if I let him into my life. While I think it's awesome that this person feels this way, I have enough problems of my own without being made to feel like all of my unhappiness is due to the fact that I haven't gone to church in months. So for me to say that I feel blessed is a rare occurrence. But I do feel blessed right now and it has nothing to do with me accepting Jesus into my life.

I feel blessed because the first week of this semester has been the best first week of school ever. This is the first first week where I haven't felt hopelessly behind and stupid from day one. I feel like there's nothing work-wise in this semester that I can't handle, and actually mean it. And it's not like I'm taking a particularly light load either (although this is the first semester where I'm not taking a math or stats class, which makes a big difference).
Plus, the Resed gods bestowed upon me an amazing single apartment. It's bright, well-insulated, clean, has a great view, and everything I need. This is the first place that I have lived that feels like it is truly mine and decorated and arranged in a way that reflects my personality (eww gross, shut up inner Martha Stewart!). So coming home after class to a clean, warm apartment does wonders for my mood.
Not to mention the fact that it's really good when I keep running into people who are really glad to see me and have reconnected with a lot of good friends. When I'm away from Oberlin, all I can think about are the people there who annoy me, but now that I'm back I realize that these people are only a small fraction of who I interact with day to day.
Finally, I've started exercising again, partially due to my women's strength training class, and partially due to my beautiful, talented, and wise fellow sexy redhead friend Gabi, who started working out over last semester and has inspired me with her tales of leg muscle and 4 mile runs. And boy do I feel amazing. Sore much of the time, but amazing.

Of course, there are some things that are getting me down, like the fact that I ate lunch alone in the dining hall yesterday, and that several of my classes have very vocal people in them who already know everything there is to know about the subject and want to make sure the whole class knows it too. (Seriously though, if you've already read the books we're reading in class, why take that course? If you've already written a bazillion funded grants and are an expert on the subject, why take grant-writing?). Fortunately, the silly Oberlin social scene that has seriously bummed me out in the past just seems stupid to me now. I feel like I've done pretty well for myself at Oberlin for a girl from Pocahontas County High School, and that's good enough for me. There's no need to social climb or feel lame because I like South Park, soup beans, and bad pop music and not something cooler.

And it's the weekend and I have no plans, but I'm just going to follow my feet and find something fun to do with people who make me feel happy and hopefully end up in bed at a decent hour so I can wake up and do some research on information processing in adolescence. I'm blessed that I have this opportunity to go to this academically amazing school, have some pretty awesome friends, a place to call home in Oberlin, and folks that I care about who are only a Skype call away. Here's to education! Happy Friday!

Nothing to Report Here

I am becoming a total and complete nerd again. And it's feeling pretty good.

First of all, my classes thus far are excellent. But the best part is they have interesting homework. I spent about an hour yesterday in the library researching Modernism for my English class. I sat on the floor of Mudd (Oberlin's library) and read. And I didn't even think about falling asleep. It took me a lot longer to read my cognitive psychology chapter. But read it I did, and let me tell you, cognitive psychology is fascinating. It feels a little uncomfortable to think about the way the brain, something that everyone has inside their heads at all times, works. But once you get over that, it's pretty durn cool.

Aside from doing my homework diligently, I have started working out again, taking care of my apartment, and catching up with folks I haven't seen in a while. Most of these people seem pretty glad to see me, which always surprises me a little bit. This time, I'm glad to see them too. As long as I can stay on target school-wise, and avoid becoming a complete hermit, I feel like this semester will be a good one.

Janney's February Transition Adventures

When I'm sitting here in the red chair by the wood stove at my home in Green Bank, it's hard to imagine that over a year ago I started this blog and began a string of crazy adventures that lead me here today. From an objective perspective, these adventures don't seem that weird. I mean, okay, so I've lived in three different states (one three separate times), been to two weddings, one baby shower, two music festivals, and Hawaii, in the past 13 months, but it doesn't feel like it's been that crazy (although I'm sure my family members would beg to differ - I'm sorry Lockman-Brown-Woodwards - this summer's for you). And while I could go on a rant about how much the past year has been filled with emotional-mental-social-spiritual-physical growth, that would be boring. Because that's sort of already what this blog is about. And it just so happens that most of my understanding of this growth comes when I'm in the mountains.

This weird break between Winter Term and Spring Semester has always been like a pause button between transitions. I come home, I sleep a lot, I eat a lot of chocolate, I take long walks in the cold, play guitar, and get rid of things.

And then I always go back to school, with a head full of things that I'm going or not going to do. And then I go back and do what I was going to do anyway. And somehow I come out at the end of the spring semester, stronger than ever before. I'm not predicting gloom and doom, a lot of really amazing and beautiful things have happened to me in the last couple springs. But it's not always easy.

I've started a record collection and am in the market for a record player. I have a fantasy of myself coming home after class, putting on a record and preparing dinner. We'll see how long the cooking lasts, but I'm excited to enter the world of people who listen to records. Most of my records have been given to me by friends or obtained through strange circumstances. The rest are from my parents' abandoned collection. My record player is my present to myself for going back to school. It's pretty silly that I should have to give myself a present for doing something that I am incredibly privileged to be able to do, but it's what I'm doing, it's how I'm feeling, and it's what's right for me at this point in my life.

I'll leave you all with two tidbits of wisdom.

1. From Meatloaf: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9NTDHjVKQyo

I'm trying to figure out what lessons can be learned from Meatloaf. I mean, it's pretty weird to be learning lessons from a formerly obese Republican musician. I think the main lesson is that you don't have to be skinny or beautiful to sing epically sexy songs.

2. From Leopold "Butters" Stotch, my favorite South Park character (in an episode where he falls in love with a waitress at "Raisins" only to find that she doesn't really want to be his girlfriend and is just trying to get tips by flirting with him):

"Well yeah, and I'm sad, but at the same time I'm really happy that something could make me feel that sad. It's like, it makes me feel alive, you know? It makes me feel human. And the only way I could feel this sad now is if I felt somethin' really good before."

Between Meatloaf and Buttters, I've been easing my way through this transition. I can't wait for the adventures that come next! Stay tuned for Janney's January (only not in January) Appalachian (only not in Appalachia) Adventures!