I forgot that I took this picture while home for Thanksgiving break. It’s too adorable not to share I’ve decided.

Yep, that’s my father and my sister’s dog sharing a blanket as a pillow.

Don’t worry. He’s still alive, or at least was last time I saw him. I kidnapped Woodstein and took him to a new home. I suppose it wasn’t actually kidnapping because I told Rikki first. As she pointed out, he just wasn’t doing well in the newsroom.

So I gave him to the veterans in the CUB. They agreed to take responsibility for the little guy. For now he’s living in a coffee pot carafe until I get him a better bowl. I wasn’t going to clean out his current bowl. It’s too gross. I did buy a toothbrush, though, and gave his skull a good cleaning. I couldn’t part him from that.

Just to clarify, I’m talking about my senior year of high school. One of the first assignments (or maybe it was one of the last, I can’t really remember) for my final high school English class was to write a “Who I Am” essay. It could be no longer than one page, single spaced. I found mine when I was going through some boxes in my closet and decided to share excerpts. I feel like I’ve changed so much since high school, I was surprised to find that a lot of what wrote still remains true.

Though for some time sheltered, I was never lacking for ambition and as a child, dreamed of being the first woman president. Older and wiser, now I would settle for merely becoming a lawyer, though I fear my younger self would be ashamed.

I love nothing more than a good book and have been reading since I can remember. Along with reading, I have always loved writing. I joined the school’s newspaper staff in my sophomore year, and that class has now become my favorite.

If I was to be honest with myself, I would also have to say I love to lead. I, however, am not a truly good leader because although I do try to look out for the people I’m leading, the real reason I lead is not for them, but for me. It makes me feel in control and important.

I need to be in control because I worry like no other person I’ve met.

If my life wasn’t full, however, I fear I would feel unsatisfied, and I’ve been doing so much for so long, I dare not change things now. I don’t handle change well.

And indeed it is hard for me to think about past mistakes, for the emotion I dislike above all others is embarrassment. Sadly, I get embarrassed extremely easily. The fear of this very emotion will keep me from drama and anything else that requires drawing large amounts of attention to myself while doing things I wouldn’t normally do.

Concentrating on the future more than I should, I find it difficult to see who I am, for I focus so much more often on who I want to be.

The essay definitely sounds like me. And it’s written like me, comma splices and multiple-claused sentences and all. I have changed since I wrote the essay, but a lot of the core elements of my character that I described remain mostly the same. I have gotten better at not letting fear of embarrassment stop me from doing some things, but it’s still a work in progress.

I’m determined, however, that my embarrassment shall not keep me from my dreams. I have big plans for life and whether I become a journalist or do indeed become a lawyer, I’m determined to feel as though I succeeded.

My father got a copy of this note from our relatives when he went to my great-uncle’s funeral a couple months ago. It was the note my grandfather’s mother wrote to her father after she was married. It’s dated Dec. 9 1912. She married below her class, thus the elopement. Transcript below because of poor picture quality.

                                                                                        Dec: 9th 1912

Dear Father,

                   Just a line to let you know I am married, was married at 10′ o’ clock this morning. I hope you will forgive me, and will let me come and see mother when she comes home,

                                I remain your daughter,

                                                                            Florrie

After they were married, my great-grandfather moved to America from England to find work. He sent for my great-grandmother right after my grandfather was born, and they both followed him.

As I left work at Ferdinand’s yesterday, I came across this little guy in my path. I’ve always been fond of chickadees as they’re adorable. Their name is fun to say, they’re adorably small, and they are pretty quiet – no obnoxious sounds. I decided I wanted to take a picture. I took one from a reasonable distance, then moved closer and closer, seeing how close I could get before it flew away. But it never flew away. So I couldn’t help myself. I tried to pick it up.

And it let me. It didn’t struggle or chirp. It just let me scoop it up, which meant something was wrong. And now I had involved myself. I felt bad for the little guy, but what are you supposed to do with a sick chickadee?

If I hadn’t picked it up, I probably would have left it and let nature take its course. But it was too late for that now. I couldn’t take it home and risk it recovering so I’d have a lose chickadee in my room. So I decided to walk over to the veterinary hospital and ask them what to do. I didn’t think there was much that could be done, but at least then the bird wouldn’t be my problem anymore, and I could have a clean conscious knowing I had done what I could.

But then I felt too foolish to go into the vet hospital. Somehow I didn’t think a lethargic chickadee would rate very high on their priority list, and I figured they would tell me what I already knew – I should have left it alone.

Luckily, in my pacing around outside the hospital entrance trying to figure out what to do, the chickadee perked up and started hopping around on my arm/hand.

Thinking it probably just got too cold sitting in the spot I originally found it – on the sidewalk in the shade – I put in the sun on some nice, warm landscaping bark.

I like to think it warmed up, fully recovered and flew away.

I have returned to the Evergreen, kind of and only temporarily. I started last week helping at the News desk. This week I filled in as copy editor two nights and News editor on Thursday. I am amazed at how quickly and easily it is to get sucked back in.

Other than dropping in to meet Rikki before going to a class we both have, I’ve pretty much stayed away from the newsroom. I thought it would seem mocking to hang out there without having any work related to the paper to do. But it still seems so natural to be back in the newsroom, even with my previous absence.

A lot of the faces are different, and Dom and Rikki did do a pretty good job of cleaning the newsroom out. I was happy to discover a few of my things left though. One the quotes I chose is still hanging by the news desk. Also, a sticky note is still on a news desk drawer warning people not to throw away anything inside the drawer. I put it there the summer before I became news editor because I didn’t trust the summer  news editor with my documents.

Two weekends ago, my room flooded while I was out for the weekend. Apparently a pipe between two of the suites got clogged, and so grayish sewer water came up through the drains. My roommates were kind enough to move my stuff in my room so everything survived.

This is Hubie, my de-humidifier. We had three of these monsters in the suite for more than a week trying to dry everything out. Our rooms hummed. Environmental Health & Safety kept taking wall and floor samples too. Now they want to entirely replace my carpet.

Last weekend, I drove out to Palouse to do a story on Haunted Palouse for one of my classes. I also ended up giving it to the Evergreen. How did I not know that Palouse was home to a printing museum?

I also got a tour of the whole town, which unsurprisingly, didn’t take very long. It was quite interesting though. The event is adding a Haunted Hay Ride this year. It’s going to run through Shady Lane (actual name of a wide walking path behind town). Shady Lane was Palouse’s red light district back when it was near a stagecoach stop, according to townspeople.

In addition to those adventures, I had my first CUB Advisory Board meeting, first President’s Student Advisory Board meeting (which I’m coordinating), Student Conduct training, two papers due, another article, a class debate and work at Ferdinand’s.

September was a very busy month. But now that I have survived, I hopefully won’t have to do another catch up post for a while.

I have only recently started reading my news online. There is an abundance of newspapers on campus, so even working at the Evergreen, instead of surfing the internets for my news I would just walk to a nearby building and grab a paper. In part it may be that I hoped my resistance to internet news would somehow save the print industry.

But because all my efforts to resist advances in technology have proved fruitless, and because internet news is nothing if not convenient, I have started reading the news on my computer before I leave for class in the morning. One of the problems I have discovered, however, is that there’s no way to fool myself. I can’t pretend to be an intellectual who forgoes reading entertainment news and instead keeps up to date on real, actually important issues. I have to consciously pick the links I want to read, making what news I am interested in undeniable. It’s not like reading the paper where you glance at every page and can pretend to be interested in the third health care reform story from that day’s paper.

Still, being forced to admit to what I actually want to read and what I don’t care to hasn’t bothered me too much until today. The darn New York Times just had to have the link Baby Mongooses!.  Nevermind world and U.S. news, there were baby animals. I tried to resist and continued reading about Gabon, China and North Korea, but then I gave in. I included Baby Mongooses in my precious amount of news reading time this morning. Completely worth it, but I am slightly ashamed and worried that some day this interest in not real news will lead me to USA Today.

The photo below is from the front page of Monday’s Daily Evergreen. Can you find me?

There I am, or at least there is the top six inches of my head.

For the story that goes with the photo, go here.

Idaho bartender upon seeing my temporary, vertical, enhanced license: “Wtf is this.”

So I begin to explain. I get about four words in, “It’s a new enhanced,” and the bartender cuts me off. “Never mind. I don’t care.” He hands me my drink.