write it down

January 27th, 2012. The day that my favorite artist in the whole world emailed me. His name is Stephen Christian, and he is the lead singer of Anberlin. He has an acoustic side project/band called Anchor & Braille. They do soft folksy acoustic type music that I adore. SO the morning of the 27th, I was on facebook and saw that he had posted that the first five people to email him would be sent a demo song for Anchor & Braille's upcoming album, The Quiet Life. I figured, "why not?" I knew there had probably been a few more than five people that had already emailed him, but I quickly sent him this anyways---


A&B,
I'd love to hear the demo! I was at the Felt album release show in Nashville, and I've been waiting since to hear more! So excited about the new stuff!

Hope all is well.

Rebecca Mullen


Not even a minute after I had emailed him, the post on facebook disappeared (probably to prevent tooo many flooding emails for him). I crossed my fingers and went on to my first class of the day. After class, I grabbed a bagel and sat outside of Einstein's waiting for my english class to start. I then opened my email ohso hopeful that there would be something special in my inbox from the man that I love.
AND GUESS WHAT! THERE WAS AN EMAIL. My heart seriously jumped out of my chest and started racing. His message (read it and weep, below) was followed by an audio file and a photo of him and some bandmates..one of them being Micah Tawlks (another one of my favorite artists).

ok friends, let me explain. a demo is a rough cut of a song as most of you know. so this song is called 'a hymn for her', and it is just me and my out of tune piano. if you listen close you can hear my dog walking around in the background. this is the slowest song on the record, but still one of my favorites. 

hope this finds you well,

stephen

ok amis, laissez-moi vous expliquer. une démo est un rough cut d'une chansoncomme la plupart d'entre vous connaissent. donc cette chanson s'appelle «un hymne pour elle», et il est juste moi et mon piano, hors de ton. si vous écoutez attentivement, vous pouvez entendre mon chien se promener dans l'arrière-plan.cela est le plus lent chanson sur le record, mais encore l'un de mes favoris.

espérons que cela vous trouve bien,

stephen

ok kaibigan, ipaalam sa akin ipaliwanag. Ang demo ay isang magaspang na hiwang isang awit ng karamihan sa inyo alam. kaya ang awit na ito ay tinatawag na 'isang awit para sa kanyang', at ito ay lamang sa akin at sa aking labas ng tunepiano. kung makinig ka isara naririnig mo ang aking aso paglalakad sa paligid sa background. ito ang pinakamabagal na kanta sa the record, ngunit pa rin ay isa ng aking mga paborito.
asa na ito hahanapin mo rin,

stephen

の友人は、私に説明してみましょう。デモでは、多くの人が知っているように、曲の大まかなカットです。ので、この曲は"彼女のために賛美歌"と呼ばれ、そしてそれはちょうど私と曲のピアノの私の外です。あなたが近くに聞けばあなたは私の犬がバックグラウンドで歩き回って聞くことができます。これは記録上最も遅い曲ですが、それでも私のお気に入りの一つ。
、これはあなたによく見つける願って,

stephen

After I read the message, I grabbed my head phones and pressed play. The song is called "A Hymn For Her". It's beautiful, and I think anyone with any type of musical taste would agree to that. As I sat there and listened, it took everything in me not to cry. The crying wasn't because THE Stephen Christian emailed me but because of the words of the song--they hit me straight in the face. They are beautiful and encouraging and heartfelt and everything that I could ever want in a good hopeful love song. "A Hymn for Her" is all about being hopeful and patient and waiting for someone that's worth it to come along.

I still look at the place that I was sittting that morning outside of Einstein's and relive how excited I was as I sat there and listened to the song for the first time. What a beautiful morning it was.

This is a hymn, a hymn for her
to the one that I'll adore


Please, listen.

untitled1

Most of the time, I don't feel like writing in complete thoughts. Blogging is tough for me in that way. Sometimes I'm just too lazy to organize my thoughts and being on a computer doesn't help the process. I always have so much useless information running around in my head. I try to start out anything that I write on paper, so I can get my scatterbrainedness out and things in order. With blogging, I tend to just go for it, so things are either super choppy or really long and annoying--- until I've written a whole paragraph about the fact that I'm crazy.

ANYWAYS.
I passed my guarding class today. Thank the good Lord. This weekend has been a real test to my faith. From the YOKE lock-in Friday night and lifeguarding saturday and sunday, I wasn't sure I could do it. I felt like I could physically feel the weight of stress these past few days, but I saw God do some seriously obvious prayer answering. Why do I worry? I don't know. It's what we do as humans but females especially or something like that. I try to rely on myself, and it just doesn't work. Is it a lack of faith? Why yes, it absolutely is. I'm working on it. I'm working on a lot of things. But He's changing my heart all the time, and I am certain He will finish the good work He started in me. I must remember that He has prepared in advance the things that I am supposed to do.

Sometimes my heart gets a good dose of calmness.

I must register for classes tomorrow.
I must go to bed.
So much to do this week.
Trusting.
Trusting.
Trusting.
Trusting that I will manage everything alright.
I'm ready for summer, and it feels good to say that.

Bore post.

I survived my first weekend of the lifeguarding class. One more to go. It was better than I expected. We got there at 8am. They sequestered us into a tiny classroom, told us to go change into our swimsuits, and get ready to swim a three hundred, which is six laps--breast stroke and free style. I was a bit relieved that it was less than I expected, but I still wasn't quite prepared to swim nonstop for so long. It was so tiring and by just the second lap I wasn't sure if I would make it. I have little to no upper-body strength, so I spent my time catching my breath and kicking as hard as I could so my leg strength would get me by. Our next pretest was to tread water for two minutes without using our arms. Afterwards, the two minutes seemed like they went by pretty quickly...But it was a scary moment when our instructor said that only thirty seconds had passed when it felt like it'd been thirty minutes. In the next part of the pretest we had to swim across the pool, do a surface dive, and get a weight from the bottom of the fifteen foot diving well. A lot of people had trouble getting the brick since they couldn't see without goggles, and it hurts your ears pretty badly to swim down that deep, but we all (almost) ended up getting it. I suppose the point of all the pretest stuff is to weed out the wienies and make sure we can all decently swim. Throughout the day we watched vidoes about how to save people in different situations and different techniques for entering the water and getting victims out safely, and then we practiced all the techniques. It was all very intense and demanding. I just have to get through this upcoming weekend, and I will be able to breathe.

I forgot my wallet.

I can feel my stomach eating itself.

I don’t skip lunch unless it’s for a dire cause—aka an art history test or quiz, eeeh. But right now I must be here ….not eating lunch, but sitting through Art History  173.  I like watching the people around me tumble and stumble and pin and poke and post and tweet on their social networks. I also like to watch the studious children take notes, and I dream of the day that I once took notes that I never read. I’ve been all about the week-before-the-exam cram this semester.

My soul hates lecture classes.

Anthropology will be the death of me…not looking forward to that final cram session.  Sometimes I like to lie myself into thinking that I’m actually interested in the alleged human origin from alleged monkeys and such, but that’s tough. I don’t care. I don’t care about science of any sorts. Things happen. It’s amazing, but I just don’t feel like knowing why.

There are just better things to be done and thought about at the moment than some of the unnecessary information that’s coming from the front of this cramped lecture hall. 

I’m so hungry that I’m getting cranky. I hope I have the energy to drag myself to food. This isn’t very healthy preparation for life guarding this weekend. Caroline and I practiced swimming the other night. I’m kind of excited about this weekend since my sister and I acclimated ourselves to the pool environment. I think we’re as mentally prepared as possible. I think we’ll go swimming again tonight. I heard through the grape vine that the life guarding pretest is swimming somewhere between 10-20 laps. Goodness gracious. My arms may very well fall plum o-f-t. 


I can't get the font size right... I swapped this over from a word document and it's being all fussy. Oh well. Deal with it, self.

Back to the grind.

Spring break is sadly over.  My sister and I planned on going home Friday morning, but Thursday night we decided "What what what are we doing? Let's go home now!" We packed up super quick....made sure to grab all the now unneeded winter frocks and boots to save some space in our room for spring time... then we headed out! We didn't tell the parents that we were coming home earlier then planned, so it was a nice little surprise to knock on our backdoor and see their faces when they realized it was us. The whole empty nest syndrome gets to them sometimes, I think. It was great to be home. Just the smell of my house is a comfort. My older sister Abby came to stay with us the first weekend we were in. Oooh, and that was a treat! Hahh. Abby is one of my favorite people in the universe and definitely one of my best friends.

It was really nice to be home for a bit knowing that I won't be there all summer. My sister Caroline and I are working at a christian camp this summer in Kentucky. We'll only be home a few weeks at the most at the end of the year before we ship off to camp for ten weeks. I'm excited and hesitant about a few things at the same time. I start my life guard certification class this weekend, and I must must must pass it. I'll be ready and excited for camp once I get through the life guarding class. Let's hope it'll be over before I know it. Maybe, I'm speaking too soon, but I'm already expecting one of the best summers of my life. It'll be "the hardest job I'll ever love", and I can't wait.

Messy room, wet hair, and everything

I am going to sleep before 10pm tonight if it kills me. I can't wait. I got barely over two hours of sleep last night but doing well on my anthropology test was worth it. I'd rather be sleepy than do terribly on an exam. It's weird... the days that I get the least amount of sleep are the ones that I tend to be able to make it through the easiest. It's like naturally something in me knows that I have to put in the extra effort to be awake and alert, so I don't even notice it.

There just seems to have been SO much this week. Yaaa know that feeling when you have a ton of stress built up and then it's over and you can't even remember why you worried so much? I always try to remember that when I'm studying for a test or writing a paper. I try to realize that before I know it I will be in the classroom turning it in all finished, so there isn't a need in the world to fret. It is true. Tomorrow always comes...especially due date tomorrows.

I must've been stressing pretty badly because I feel kind of brain dead right now. I don't know what to do with myself.

I can't wait to get home and rest for a few days. It's going to be a good week off with the family.  There's not a place in the world I'd rather be next week. Cannoooot waaiiiitttttt. Life is beautiful.

I had critique Tuesday for my press mold project. They were made by making a mold of a nail polish container with plaster and clay. Once all that set up, I removed the actual nail polish bottle from the clay and plaster and then was able to press clay into the mold and make multiples that were later fired. I made some of them nicer and solid, some cracked and piecey, and some of them are only fragments. There are about 120 casts, including the fragmented pieces.

I think I blogged earlier about my issue with materialism/consumerism and all that jazz that really irks me about the world. I personally paint my nails about a trillion times a week on average, so the polish bottle itself is pretty personal to me. I think my concept can say a lot of different things, but it's a pretty clear message when you get right down and simple with it... Material items do not last.  Take what you want and leave what you want.

"Crit" went swell for the project. I remember first getting into art 101 here and realizing we'd have to go around and talk about each person's work as a group. This idea was a bit scary for me at first. I've come to love it though. It's so interesting and beneficial to hear feedback about what your work means to other people. It can all be so subjective and personal, but at the same time art can be very obvious and this-is-what-I'm-saiying. What does it mean, how does it make you feeel (haha, I've always gotten a kick out of that one), what is it saying about the artist, about life, about society, culture or just plain-old what does it look like and how does that work for the viewer? etc etc etc etc etc.  The list goes on and on. Can I just say that I adore critique days? I love hearing what people personally think about their own work and what they were trying to say with it, compared to how other people view and feel about the work. The more and more I get into art, I realize I cannot simply make aesthetically pleasing, pretty things. Meaning is so subjective but must be there in some way, or we become mere decorators and embellishers rather than artists. It's crazy how all the projects that I do are each related and connected in different subtle (and sometimes not so subtle) ways that I never intended. It's amazing to see connections in my classmates' work as well. It's all so interesting just to see the things that people dream up and create. Love lovelovelove.

UhhHuhh.

Silence officially broken. I knew it was coming. More damage done? Hope not. I don’t know if he understands, but I hope one day he will or he’ll just let it go like I had to.
 

You know.... that awkward moment... when my best friend says she’s a nursing major at a Christian Science church that doesn’t believe in medicine.  Hmmm…“Undecided, Journalism, Nursing…, Graphic Design," we said. At that moment, I thought her answer sounded best. Little did I remember that Christian Scientists believe illness is an illusion, and they deny most (if not all) medical attention.  I don’t have the time or energy to explain my feelings about that afternoon, but I will not be back. The whole feel-like-the-minority thing worked. I was so out of place. I should eventually write it all down. The whole situation got my heart searching and aching for those people. Do I believe in absolute truth, they ask? Yes, yes I do. I have to. What's the point of believing if I don't?

So much going on lately. Not enough time to sort out my thoughts.

Yesterday, I went from about 6:30 to 9:30 non stop.

My hands are dry and stained.

Working with clay that sucked every bit of moisture out of my already dry hands and ink from the letterpress shop did a number on my hands.

I've been making  a billion clay replicas of nail polish bottles for a project in my Art 103 class. I got to work in the Letterpress shop last night. It was a dream come true. I feel like I could really fall in love with letterpress. Typography is a beautiful thing. Don’t tell me that print is dying. It is very much alive, and we shall keep it that way.

A Matter of Time

Almost a month of silence. This is what I wanted. I just didn’t think it would be so easy. The moment I started explaining myself, I knew he wouldn’t try to stop me. Can’t say I was surprised.  I suppose I should appreciate that.

            Didn’t get to post last week. Got a bit busy, let it slip the mind, didn’t feel I could make anything make sense, and also feel like I never have a point to any of my posts. They’re just rando brain spewings that don’t belong anywhere. I apologize. I think it’d be neat to write a blog about a very specific subject. They say those are the ones that really get out there.

I shopped online this week. Got some things in the mail yesterday, didn’t like them, and took them back only to get more things that I don’t need. One more dress will make my wardrobe complete…Oh, the lies my mother told me (LMN reference, not mother reference. My mom has never condoned careless shopping). What a lie, a filthy rotten lie. Something has gotten into me, and it’s called consumerism, the belief in benefits of consumption. It’s never satisfied. There are no benefits, just me feeling fancy for a moment and then feeling rotten the next since I blindly spend my money on things that I do not need and were probably produced in sweatshops anyways.

            On a lighter note, my sister and I found the most perfect apartment to live in next year! And it absolutely calls for an exclamation point. I am so excited! I can’t wait to get out of this dorm room. It’s difficult living in one room. On our way to check out the apartments, my sister and I were both pretty annoyed about the whole thing. We haven’t felt good about anywhere that we have looked at or even thought about living, but the place we decided on is really great. It’s so beautiful and special and we both love it and feel good about it. Just as we both talked about how we wished something good would fall into our laps--something did. Hopefully it’ll all become official soon. Summer will be here and gone before we know it, and we’ll be all moved in and excited about life! 

Cleanest break I've ever made.

The door next door keeps rattling. The building must be adjusting from the brand new freeezing cold weather, so everything's askew.

I have two papers due next week. Sheesh. I may brave the cold to get to the library soon. I wish there were underground tunnels.

Caroline and I are drinking monsters, so we can wake up.  She says we're like blooming flowers. Caroline is addicted. "Don't tell Dad," she says. She's confessed to drinking them during her 8am math class, and she even leaves early to go buy them. She only has one a day though. "NEVER FEAR!" she says. She loves her Monsters...kisses the cans and whispers, I love you. No joke. It's becoming an issue I'm afraid. Intervention soon.

I want my twitter back, so I can tweet stupid things that I refuse to post on Facebook. Maybe, I'll reactivate it. It stays hidden and inactive for thirty days when you deactivate and then after thirty days if it hasn't been reactivated it will be fully deleted from twitter. I've reactivated mine a million times since I got rid of it in October, so it's never quite been fully deleted from twitter. I had tweeted for a good three years but woke up one day and decided I had to be done for a bit.

I can't really stand social media, but I feel so dependent on it to stay in touch with the world. How dumb is that? Why do I only feel like I exist if I have personal pages online that show that I exist? Do I really believe people are interested in what I have to say and what I'm doing? No, they aren't. It's dumb. I tend to be a minimalist. Get rid of the unnecessary, I say. Twitter is unnecessary, but it's so fun at the same time. Ehhh, I'm such a torn person sometimes.Wanting all the things I don't need, and then being annoyed at myself that I ever wanted them in the first place since I don't need them. Blah blah blah. #whocaressowhat

I just reactivated it. Hah... Here's to living an unnecessarily-social-media-ly cluttered life for the moment. Indecisiveness rules my life. Next week it'll be gone again. One day I'll get rid of Facebook. I get so excited for people that have the guts to cut the tangled strings of Facebook out of their lives. One day, I will. Social media is tricksy. It feeds the selfish beasts we all have living inside of us. Brilliant plan, world, brilliant plan.

(feeling british)
xx

I am a soul.

I am not a body that has a soul. I am a soul that has a body.—as C.S. Lewis once quite correctly put it.

Sometimes my body gets the best of me.

Went home to Nashville this weekend. It’s nice. I needed the weekend away from Knoxville. It can be suffocating. I feel like I’m in an alternate universe that tends to suck the life out of me. As much as I love it, I can’t stand it sometimes.   

Home feels kind of odd now. I remember the first time I went home after I had moved away to Knoxville. I didn’t go home for a few good months after we moved in, and walking into my house, I felt like a complete stranger. Going into my room was the worst part. I felt like I was 15 again but like I’d been away for years at the same time. I felt like an intruder in the space that I’d grown up in. Weird feeling.

I’ve mostly gotten past the weirdness of being back home by now. It’s been good to get back and see my big sister, Abby, my parents, and some good good friends. So good. Of course, I haven’t gotten anything done that I’ve needed to do. Heading back tomorrow on Super Bowl Sunday will be interesting. There are about a million things that I could do Sunday, but I should really sit in my room and wrap my head around the things I need to tackle this week. I’ll figure it out. Maybe Caroline will want to drive home. Fingers crossed!

Been getting a little crazy lately. I’ve allllways been one to question every single move that I make. Been getting a wee bit fearful of the future and the fact that I feel like I’m going too safe with the course of my life thus far. I can’t help but think there’s more than the comfortable life that I think I want. I’m scared of mediocrity. I wonder sometimes if where I am and what I’m doing is too normal, too typical, too expected. Normalcy? No thank you, I’ll pass. Break the mold, cast, whatever. Just do it. Empty passion is not my thing. Never has been, never will be.  I’ll figure it out. Or won’t. That’s probably the point.

I look up definitions of random words all the time, usually simple words that I want something else for... Just looked up passion—

Passion (noun)

1.     Suffering of Jesus Christ

2.     Story of Jesus Christ’s suffering

He’s everywhere. In my face. All the time.  I can’t even explain it.

Good Morning.

Weird night.
I can barely think to write.

I finally finished my paintings after almost 20 hours of work. They are finished! A+'s don't really exist or something silly at UT, but the fact that my professor specifically wrote A"+" in his gradebook made my day. What a beautiful thing!
 

So much going on lately. Classes are starting to pick up. I'm about to drown myself in schoolwork for a good bit... until the end of the semester. Good idea, right?

I have YOKE today. I volunteer Wednesdays at a middle school in east Knoxville. The kids are some crazy youngsters. But they are kids, and I'd expect nothing less from a group of middle schoolers. I've been working with the club in east Knox for the past two or three weeks. I've been a little bit hesitant about it, but last week I realized that it's where I'm supposed to be serving right now. If I can't commit to serve and share the gospel once a week at YOKE, how do I expect to fully commit to the ten weeks straight I'll be working at a camp this summer?

I know that some of the kids have very few reliable people in their lives. I can't be another one of those people, so I've got to stick with it and really love them the way that I am intended to love them. With so many influences out there, I hope to be a positive one. I know I needed that as a middle schooler. Even if I befriend just one young girl, that's enough. Middle school is so tough. I honestly believe it's the first time kids start to personally decide what kind of people they are going to become.  It's when "the seas split", as my Mom has always said. It's when everyone finds their way into different groups and cliques and when young girls become young women and young boys stay young boys but pretend to be men. There's so much potential and malleability there. I can't forget that.

Sometimes I have a lot to say. Sometimes I do not.

Perhaps. It’s the weather.

Woke up this morning and felt the miracle of good health coming upon me like a freight train…Okay, it actually took getting to class in one piece and drinking a Gatorade to really feel it, but I knew when I woke up that all would be well in my soul soon enough. I hesitated about going to class since I still felt crappy… I also knew I’d have to start painting and painting my first stroke for a project in class is nerve racking. I figured that I could stay in my room, email my teacher about my ailment, and be able to actually start the paintings all by my lonesome the way that I like it. There’s some kind of odd pressure about being around 15 other people and putting the first stroke of paint on canvas. I sat in class for a good hour and sanded my canvases that I had gesso-ed before I was sick while I gathered the nerve to actually start. It turns out everyone in my class feels the same way. It's pretty hilarious. We’re all in the same boat scooting along the best ways we know how. Finally, I got around to it and made my attack. Be confident in all things, I say. I'm working on it. I should take a class on assertiveness. I read about those once.

People are so sweet. I can’t even count how many people have offered to go get me soup or tea or food or medicine these past few days. Love 'em all. I am so lucky.

Sometimes, like right now, I sit at my computer writing or thinking, and I want to turn on some music.. I get sidetracked, forget to turn it on, and end up sitting in silence for a good fifteen minutes before I remember that I wanted music in the first place.  

Just did it again. 

I do appreciate silence. It gives time to actually think without interruption. Sometimes I just drown out thoughts with music, which isn’t the best policy. 

Just did it again… 

On my cursor’s journey to the itunes icon on my computer, it gets lost quite often. Oh well.

Now. I have tunage. Can’t get enough of Esau and the Giant. Talk about pure young talent that’s really going somewhere. Calling it. 

Figured out what I’m doing for my semester “artist’s book” project today. I’m excited about it. Must start collecting pronto before all the books in the world get gobbled up by the Art103 students at UT. Go big or go home, right.

Shifting through some of the blogs from my English class and different randoms found on blogspot... Love seeing how everyone has a different point of view, central things that they write about, and all the different ways people choose to write. I've said it before and I'll say it again. I think writing is healthy. Mmm, everyone has a vision, a way of expressing themselves…in words, in no words, in pictures, in actions, in feelings, in dress, in paintings, in frustration, you know. Does saying that I believe all people are artists take away from the fact that I want to be an artist? Or that I am going to school to be an artist? A fine artist actually is what I shall become. Inspiration and influences. Everywhayyyer! What grinds my creative gears may not grind someone else’s. The imagination is a beautiful thing. I love seeing people’s art and the way that it somehow shows exactly who they are in every way. I love it. It makes me wish everyone was realllllly an artist of some sort just so I could blatantly see what some of their insides look like. I wonder what kind of art my sister would make. She calls it “stupid” sometimes, but that’s a go-to word for her, so ya knooow… I wonder if she’d get past her pink glitter phenomena stage and do something unexpected. I’d like to make her try. Hmph. 

My brain is being stuffed with visual literacy, and I love it.

I hear someone’s phone vibrating through these cinder block walls. As faint as it is, I still think it’s mine.

"What what what are you doing?" they say. I do not know. I do not know.

Oh please, oh please. Excuse my poor grammar. 

...probably drawing more attention rather than doing any good. Consider these unedited.

Immune Attack

I will never take good health for granted ever again. Sunday morning I woke up as sick as a dog.  There's nothing worse than being sick away from home, but at least I have my sister to help me out. I went to the UT student medical center today. Luckily, it was a nice day out, so I didn't have a terrible time walking there. The very nice lady doctor gave me a rapid strep test which turned out negative. She decided that it's some sort of virus rather than the flu or strep throat or something that I was afraid of. I've decided that I most likely got sick from either the company I have been keeping or the fact that I may have accidentally licked an ice skate. Either way, something got me, and it's quite unfortunate. Today was a better day, but my fever is currently back up. I am so hot and so cold at the same time. My neck is super duper sore and I can barely swallow. I skipped all my classes today and slept and slugged around. Hopefully I'll have the energy to go to class tomorrow. If I wake up feeling terrible again sitting through a three hour studio class at 9:40 in the morning may not happen for me. I can't stand missing class, but I think being ill with a high fever is a solid enough reason... too bad it's the beginning of the semester. I hope my health stays in tact, so none of this has to happen again. I really don't get why I am sick! I've been eating oranges like they're going out of style. I suppose my body is just poorly adjusting to my hectic schedule after being chilled out on Christmas break.

I always realize the moment I start feeling sick how amazing it is to feel fine and how much I really don't appreciate my good health when I have it. Let's hope I'll wake up in the morning, and my immune system will have taken care of everything. I can't wait to feel normal again. I just can't do a third day of this.

An Introduction of Sorts

"Hi, my name is..." Rebecca. I'm from White House, Tennessee. After nineteen years, I've spread my small town wings and gotten out of the only place I've ever known to live, White House... where I grew up and lived my entire life.  I now reside in Knoxville, Tennessee where I go to school at the University of Tennessee. I live in a tiny box (which some like to call a dorm room) with my twin sister, Caroline. She's my other half, and I am so blessed to have been born with my best friend. I always say that God knew that we needed each other. He did. He did. He knew.

I am a hopeful major in graphic design with a minor in studio art here at UT and loving every minute and opportunity. This blog will probably see many of my frustrations, inspirations, and all the things that don't quite make it to my sketchbook.

I must say that I once wrote a blog and tired of it within a good year... It's pretty heavy to spew thoughts and personal experiences for the world to read. But! One day I ran accross a thought on writing that rings true in every way.

But all of them are vulnerable and all of them are tense. They are driven by a compulsion to put some part of themselves on paper, and yet they don’t just write what comes naturally. They sit down to commit an act of literature, and the self who emerges on paper is far stiffer than the person who sat down to write. The problem is to find the real man or woman behind the tension. Ultimately the product that any writer has to sell is not the subject being written about, but who he or she is.

—	Willaim Zinsser On Writing Well

William Zinsser sums it up pretty well.  Writing is vulnerability, compulsion, and so often "the self that emerges on paper is far stiffer than the person who sat down to write". Good stuff. True stuff.