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.