Life Takes A Turn For The Awesome(er)

So I had a month and a half off for Columbia's Winter Break, and toward the end of it, I was feeling miserable and unproductive and horrible and so not creative... it was a tearful, depressing few weeks.

BUT classes have started again-- my final semester of undergrad-dom-- and with them, life is looking better. Here's why:
1. My classes are amazing and so are my teachers. I have a Critical Reading and Writing: Ray Bradbury class with Sam Weller, who is Bradbury's authorized biographer, which is amazing. I mean, how many classes with a focus on one author do you get to take with the one guy (besides the author him or herself) who knows the most about the author? [Did that make sense? I can't tell] AND how many classes do you take where you TALK TO THE AUTHOR ON THE PHONE at the end of it? I mean, this thing is amazing. The only downside is there are not a few brown-nosers in the class, so I anticipate I'll be doing lots of mental eye-rolling and silent groaning. So that class rocks, but my other class rocks, too. It's an Advanced Fiction class (basically just writing and writing and writing) taught by Joe Meno, who is one of my favorite authors. I've been wanting to take a class with him since I came to Columbia and found out he taught here, and finally, in my last semester, I am! It's almost a little intimidating, and I hope I can actually be productive and not just write to impress JM.

2. My internships. I have two of them right now. One, I haven't started yet, so I can't say whether it rocks my socks or not. But one of them, I have indeed started, and I am in love with it. It's my dream internship. It's the internship I wanted from the second I started thinking about internships. I'm interning with the crew at featherproof books, which is an awesome indie press based in Chicago and run by some awesome sauce people. I'm just way, way too excited about everything, I think.


Anyway, I feel much, much better about life now and I had to write down why, because it feels more real when I write it down.

I Like To Take Pictures Of Things

Reading "Into the Wild" Again Is Changing My Life

"The very core of a man's living spirit is his passion for adventure. The joy of life comes from our encounters with new encounters, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun." - Chris "Alexander Supertramp" McCandless

Priscilla and Malificent

So back when I had a crappy job but made a lot of money because I worked more than I did anything else, I bought this camera:



Canon Powershot SD 1000 Digital Elph, 7.1 Megapixels, pre Maria Sharapova ad campaign. I named this camera Malificent. Malificent and I went everywhere together. She completed me. Then, in April of 2008, my drunk cousin dropped Malificent while using her without my permission, breaking her and ending forever the relationship I thought would last at least a few more years. I was devastated. Went for months without a camera, always mourning the loss of Malificent, promising never to love again. After a while, I forgot what it was like to have a lover and constant companion as sweet as Malificent had been to me. I thought I was fine without her. But on December 25th, 2008, everything changed; Priscilla arrived.



She swept into my life, all shiny, new, browny-red and 8 whole megapixels. It was love at first sight. And in the few days I've been hanging out with her, I've realized this: I am happier when I have a camera. Even if it's just a nice point and shoot as opposed to a fancy pants beaut of a camera. I just love taking pictures of people and things and places. I can't believe I went from April to December without having a camera. Malficent, I will always love you, but Priscilla and I are for real.