Winter

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It snowed today. White little flakes reminding me of winter. I feel like I should go and gather nuts so that I will have food for the season that kills. But who's afraid of the snow when we have H1N1 virus floating around. H1N1 has BYU paranoid....and their constant e-mails to professors has been the best! I've been missing school because I've been sick and teachers have to be nice (the e-mails say so.) Thank you swine flu, thank you.

Welcome October

Happy Fall

First Leaf

by Lia Purpura October 5, 2009

That yellow

was a falling off,

a fall

for once I saw

coming—

it could

in its stillness

still be turned from,

it was not

yet ferocious,

its hold drew me,

was a shiny switchplate

in the otherwise dark,

rash, ongoing green,

a green so hungry

for light and air that

part gave up,

went alone,

chose to leave,

and by choosing

embellishment

got seen.

long time, no blog

Welcome to the CANDY SHOPPE. The snapshot is of some of my best friends and I in front of the house that we live in, properly named the candy shoppe. Already this year has been a blast. The people in the picture (from left to right) are me, Mandi, Mary, Kellee, Reb, and Kylie. I love the house, partly because it is so nice but mostly because I get to go home to some of my favorite people every day. Notice the porch, yesterday my friends and I enjoyed a chilled dr. pepper and talked--absolute bliss for me.

My senior year of college is going to be filled with a lot of school, but this time it's fun school. Tomorrow I go to mt. view high school to start working with the teacher who I will be doing my student teaching with in January. It's amazing that they are going to trust me to teach students how to write and enjoy english. Cross your fingers that it goes well. The rest of my time is trying to figure out poetry and transcendalist authors.

Anyway, I just wanted to say that I am excited for the new year and appreaciative of all the blessings that I recieve and remember girls 09 is our year!

Ps: Below are some random pictures that were taken the same day. I'm sure you're curious who the amazing photographer is....and it should come to no surprise that it was Kylie. She is so talented.

Kel and I

MJ, Mandi and I swinging on our neighbors swing. We wish it was on our porch but for now we'll take the chairs and dp.

Bat, the animal...not the sporting equipment

This last week I was able to go to my cabin in Idaho. Lets clarify cabin really quick. It's more like a house, well it is a house, complete with all the amenities and a fire pit in the front so it 'feels' like camping. Yes sir, that is how I rough it in the wilderness. The days were filled with early morning mountain bike rides and canoe trips. Smores dominated the nights, while i discovered possibly my new favorite short story writer (read Flannery O'conner's short story A Good Man is Hard to Find or Good Country People--they definitely make you think). Anyway it was my kind of vacation, lots of food, family, and no cell phone service. Then it all changed.

I have been having difficulty sleeping recently and so I was sitting in my bed listening to music that erica, once again, so kindly donated. I looked out my door and saw my dad sitting on the stairs. I asked him what he was doing and he coolly replied "I think I just saw a bat." My retort was laughter and I quickly reminded him that I was mocking him and bats prior to his going to bed so it must have been that conversation that caused him to dream of bats. He was not convinced so he went down stairs. An hour later I was still up and this time thinking about bats. I couldn't go to sleep so I meandered down stairs, curled up on a couch and watched the ceiling. I must have drifted off to sleep because i had a terrifying dream of bats attacking me and a mine worker coming after me. I was, once again, awake.

The solution? I couldn't stop thinking about the bats so the 21-year-old mature almost college grad, myself, did the only think I could think of. I went and slept on my parent’s floor. Then, somewhere around four am my mom shrieks "BAT." We scramble to exit the room. My aunt and uncle who were up there with us run out. There might have been screaming and profanity. Then, after we were all armed with pillows we see a silent, gliding bat effortlessly cut through the air, with the illusion that it was magic creating his flight.

When I had gone into my parent’s room I had shut the door which means that the flying rat had crawled into the room--right by my head--disgusting. Luckily my fearless, bat attacking uncle went after the nocturnal being and captured it. While the bat was chewing on his leather gloves my uncle showed an act of stupid (but endearing) charity and released the bat out in the wild.

Why are bats scary you ask? True they are creepy, yes they make high pitched scary noises, and yes they do have a reputation of morphing into vampires but the truth is even more scary. The bats can bite you without you feeling it and you can get rabies. Safe to say I was happy when the bat was gone. Anyway, i hope the attached picture is scary enough for you because i find it revolting. Word to the wise-watch out for the bats.

Three Cups of Tea

Last summer I read a book titled "Three Cups of Tea" by Greg Mortenson. This books is an idealistic tale of building schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan in hopes that the women there can rise above their impoverished world and create a better world for themselves and their children. In a society where sexism is the norm, the goal of Mortenson gave me a rush of hope in humanity. There is a great article about it by Thomas Friedman called "Teacher, Can We Leave Now? No." It takes a step back from the political world of wars and contention and looks at the potential for improvement that these undeveloped nations have, and illustrated that there is a promise for a better future.

Anyway, it's a good book which I would highly recommend. In other news I went to Toronto CA where I realized that Canada struggles from a severe identity crisis. They hail the queen, cross the boarder for American health care, and claim their own independence. Poor Canada, it has no idea what it is. It doesn't even know which language to speak. Regardless, it was so cool and I loved being back in a city with streets by the name of Queen and King. I also went to Niagara falls where I rode a boat into a cavern made of walls of rushing water. It was so funny. I also went to Palmyra NY which was interesting. Ps: no one lives there.

a little reminder.....

I just got an e-mail, --and no my eye's didn't light up like little miss meg ryans do in you've got mail-- but i still get excited. so, an e-mail came to my overly crowded and disorganized inbox, each unopened letter begging to be answered and read....anyway that inbox had a new note. It was from the Provo library reminding me my book is due in three days. I wish that most things in life came with an e-mail reminder; it would be so helpful. Just little hints at what is coming up. It was great. I wonder what little notes would come with the secrets of the new week.

look outside, go outside, be outside

What is that green, fuzzy, oxygen releasing thing covering this world. That, my friend, is nature. Nature has this amazing ability to be the sublime; it takes the minuscule and powerful and after time reduces it to parts, atoms, and then seemingly nothing. The cruelty can seem oppressive while the intricacy may delight, and so it is in the duplexity of this purpose the inspires awe. Don't believe me? Look at the littered apple that evaporates within weeks outside, or on a grandeur scale that Aztec ruins that are slowly, but surely, being feed to the ravenous hunger of the nature.

It may seem like I'm personifying nature, but i don't feel like that. If anything nature has a type of spirit or reality that we can not relate to, but is evidenced in its action. This inability to relate has resulted in the continual musings of the artist. This dissonance with nature explains why poetry is often focused on nature. cloleridge, wordsworth, dickensons all have almost unnatural obsessions of nature, as well as the monets and seurats of the world.

So as i sit in my office, in a small concrete jungle, or descend below nature to a cubical on the first floor of the library I hear nature calling me to experience it. Urging and daring me to attempt to make my own criticisms of the power and effects it has on us. But alas, that philosophical deliberation about its purpose must wait as i study, and sit.

...all i want to do is go and play in the sun