The View from My Window on a Thursday Night

A few weeks ago, while I was still in school, I wrote a short piece as a writing exercise. I thought I'd share that for a blog post. :)

College campuses are stereotypically portrayed as social hubs, the genesis of wild, Greek parties and drunken excursions and like quite a few stereotypes, this has a basis in fact. But let me present to you a slightly different view of a college campus at night.

Its about 10:30 p.m. and the sun has been set for a few hours now. It is most definitely nighttime, the witching hour is right around the corner. The street lights illuminate the sidewalks just enough to find your way around campus with an almost eerie, orange glow which casts a strange tint on one's skin when they walk beneath it.

There are three dorm buildings directly outside my window and there are lights on in every building and quite a few rooms. For a party night there seem to be a lot of people staying in. Of course, finals are next week. I see a group of people gather on the porch of one of the dorm buildings and light up their cigarettes in unison. The smoke rises from their heads in curling streams. They kind of look like a hamlet of houses with smoking chimneys from cozy, little fires built within. I wish they wouldn't turn to nicotine for stress relief but its better than drugs and alcohol so everyone lets them be.

Night is the only time you can ever really see how lonely some people are. I see lone figures trudging along the sidewalks, shoulders bent, feet dragging. They look like they are carrying the weight of the world and I can't help but think, 'I know exactly how you feel.'

A car with the bass on its stereo turned up all the way just drove by. I can feel the beat in the base of my stomach. Its a very unsettling feeling and I wonder how they can stand it when it bothers me all the way up on the eighth floor? I assume they're doing it to impress someone but really they're just announcing how obnoxious they are. I mean, at that decibel, is it even music anymore?

Other than that, its a pretty quiet night. The stars twinkle sedately in the sky, the creek has settled into a comfortable rhythm after the run off from all the rain we've had. Its nights like these that bring out the philosopher in me. I can't wait for the sun to rise tomorrow.

Current thoughts about this: My college has announced their plans to ban smoking from their campus starting in July. I seriously doubt that's going to go over well. I mean, a LOT of students smoke. And with the work the professors load us down with can certainly drive one's stress level through the roof. I expect protests and such, or at least many murmured dissenting opinions. As for myself, if they would only ban smoking on the sidewalks to and from class I would be happy. Its hard for me to walk and breathe smoke in from the person's cigarette in front of me and I'm usually wheezing from it when I get to class.Another thought, not really related to college; I wish the American version of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone hadn't changed it to Sorcerer. I love the Philosopher aspect of the creation of the stone. Sorcerer, to me, translates to wizard and the book's full of them. Just saying.

Unwritten

I've been struggling with inspiration lately. As far as poetry goes, I'm fine, but anything above the length of a status update has had me stumped. I know I'm not the only one to experience this seeming drought of the imagination, there are hosts of YouTube videos and blog posts concerning just this, but it can seem like you're all alone when its happening. I can't help but question everything, my eating habits, my level of exercise, how much TV I watch, how many people I've talked to that day, ridiculous things. Finally, after not updating for a few weeks, I knew I had to post something, so why not talk about writer's block?

I've found I experience it more when I am the least productive. When I had my work study in my college's English department, I wrote all the time. I have a notebook filled with at least seven novel ideas and a couple short stories. I would think of a brilliant idea in class and scribble in the margins of my notes. And while cleaning or doing homework, words would just come to me like water from a faucet. There was no limit. Since school has gone out and I don't have a job, I've been busy taking care of my grandmother, visiting my grandfather in the hospital, and keeping up with the summer reruns. And I find I have a lot of spare time in the afternoons and nights...of which I take no advantage of. I have a notebook I carry around in case inspiration sparks but nada. I've been working on some poetry and I have come up with a couple more novel ideas, but what's an idea without follow through? Just scribbled words on a piece of college ruled paper. Easily disposed of.

I have two fanfictions I need to complete, a short story I would love to have done before my creative writing course in the fall (squeal!!!), and a novel I would love to have halfway finished before school starts. Luckily, http://www.nanowrimo.org/ is hosting a summer session of its notorious 30 day novel writing event, complete with message boards, encouraging e-mails, and a social network of like-minded individuals, all at my fingertips. I'm hoping to use this time to a.) jumpstart my summer writing and b.) finish this novel idea I've had percolating for a couple of years now. I've completed two novels using this method and a half a novel which I may go back to some day, so I know its effective, if a little stressful.

Other than that, my summer is looking pretty empty. What are your summer plans? Leave a reply in the comments, I'd love to hear from you!

Tales from My Childhood, Vol. 1

A child's only limitations are those imposed on their imaginations. Growing up in the country with two siblings and a close cousin right down the road offered me no end of play time and fun games. However, I found some of my most memorable childhood episodes are those involving only myself.

A movie came out in '96 or '97 by the name of Harriet the Spy, maybe you've heard of it? After watching it I took a great interest in spy work, since Michelle Tractenburg made it look so fantastical and fun. So I grabbed a handy little notepad, my mom's binoculars, some darkish clothes and unleashed my skills on my neighborhood.

Unlike Michelle's, my neighbors were extremely dull. I observed one fix the roof of a shelter he was building, another ride a bike down the road, and a third sit on his porch and sip Mountain Dew. Hardly hard-hitting stuff, so I had to spice it up for my notebook! I remember observing the bike rider as being very suspicious and most likely a military operative. The man on the roof also became a shady character with top secret military weapons hidden on his person and he was maintaining communication with the bike rider through a gadget inserted in both their brains. The man on the porch ...remained the man on the porch, though I remarked that perhaps his Mountain Dew had been poisoned.

I continued my spying in this fashion for a couple hours before my cousin came up and we started spying on boys instead, not half as interesting as the game I'd been so involved in before but I'd never have admitted it at the time.

The "Smart People Wear Glasses" Fallacy

I don't know how many times I've heard, "people who wear glasses are nerds", that they're typically the smartest people in school, yada yada yada. I haven't encountered as much of this at college as I did in middle and high school but it's always bothered me. I'm not saying it's a completely obsolete assumption but it is certainly not true of everyone who wears glasses. I've worn them since the fourth grade when my vision started going down hill. The reason? Part genetics, part Toonami (remember Sailor Moon, Tenchi Muyo, Dragon Ball Z?). Not constant studying.

I was a pretty average kid-intelligence wise-and hardly what one would call a nerd. It wasn't until I got my glasses that that stigma was slapped on me. Of course, later I took a great interest in reading and studying and I gladly accept that I am nerd, much better than "dumb blonde", right? I just wish people would think twice before assuming something about someone based on a superficial contraption.

I remember one time in high school, a teacher had put us into groups for an assignment. I was paired into what was arguably the dumbest group of boys in my grade so of course I wound up doing all the work. As they were copying the assignment, word for word, they were giggling Beavis and Butthead style that they would get a good grade because I was so smart. Now they had no way of knowing I was smart. They had never seen my grades and I was very quiet in all my classes. It was my glasses. Unlucky for them, the subject was not my best and I only half understood the assignment, so really I wrote down a bunch of random nonsense. I don't fully remember the grade I got on that assignment but I'm positive it wasn't anything above a C.

My point is, everyone has their strengths and weaknesses, regardless of what they look like or what you may think they're like based on a stereotype and if you depend solely on these assumptions, you could find you are way off base, as the group of boys did when they received their grades.

My first post...

I feel like the first post on any blog should be incredibly poignant, incredibly witty, or set up the stage for any following post. If anything, this post will be closest to the third.

I suppose I can start out by introducing myself and explaining why you should take the time out of your busy day to read what I have to say. My name is Evelyn Gaerke. I'm not afraid of saying this on the Internet because I have nothing to lose, except a four year old laptop that could die any day and a used Gamecube I bought a few weeks ago. Have at it. Anyway, I'm 21 years old and hardly the type of person to take advantage of it.

I'm a sophomore in college, thanks to having a lovely year off due to financial aid difficulties last year, but I can't really complain. It was a maturing experience, taking a break from school and I had a lot of time to do some serious soul searching. By the way, still searching. I learned that its hardly the kind of thing one can achieve in as short an amount of time as a year, but rather its a lifelong search. Anyway, it was a good bonding experience with my family.

I'm an English major and yes, I know the stigma surrounding it. I don't care. I'm not everyone else and my future is mine. I control what happens to me and trust me, I will not spend the rest of my life asking if you want fries with that.

As a blogger, it probably comes as no surprise that I'm an aspiring author. I love to write, though I'm not the most ambitious of people, I hope to publish a best-seller someday. I know, I know, Keep Dreaming. Trust me, I will. I've written a few novels, a host of short stories, and tons of poems, though hardly any of it is worthy of publication. However, a few years ago I did submit a short novel to PublishAmerica, a print-on-demand publisher (vanity publisher, though they deny it) and it was accepted as it everything else submitted. It was a pretty cool experience, despite the lack of credibility and I learned a great deal about publishing, such as, read the fine print. I won't tell you the title of the book in the hopes that you won't look it up. I wrote it when I was 16. Believe me. You can tell.

I live in Eastern Kentucky, in the foothills of the beautiful Appalachian Mountains and I wouldn't trade it for anywhere in the world as my home. I love it here. Everything comes together to form my very own Paradise. I can sit out on my front porch and listen to the birds serenade the sun, watch the wind blow through the trees which cover the rolling hills, and smell the flowers, the grass, anything but exhaust and stale air. There is power in the atmosphere here, something that blows right through you and elevates your mind above the worries of mankind. This is where I was raised and this is where I want to die.

Anyway, enough about me...and probably enough for this first post. I hope to get into some pretty interesting topics in the coming posts so keep an eye out and bear with me. I want to entertain you...I may just need some practice first!

Until next time, adieu!