Thanksgiving Reunions

I have one of the weirdest educational histories you will ever encounter, because I have transferred a lot. And I don't just mean in colleges - although that is definitely the case - but I also attended two middle schools and two high schools. And then 3 colleges, before returning to the first one again, which is so different at this point it may as well be considered a 4th college.

I wouldn't really trade the experiences at each of these schools because they were so different. One middle school was a very large public school and one was a small private school; one high school was a gifted student magnet school which was housed inside of an inner city Richmond school, which was well known across the state, and the other was a tiny private school in the middle of Powhatan that no one has ever heard of. As for the colleges, one has been an amazing experience both times, one was in the middle of nowhere, VA and a mistake that I had to make in order to learn a lot about myself, and one was a community college that helped me figure out what I wanted to do with my life.

Each one of those schools helped make me who I am today - I'm thankful for that.
But the one side effect of all of this switching around is that friendships are really hard to hang on to, especially those from before the days of facebook. Every time I switched schools I was in a completely new group of friends, which meant I lost touch with the old ones. It was just too much to keep up with. On the plus side, I became very comfortable with being "the new girl," which is a good skill to have when you have a chronic case of the transfers.

Thankfully for my sanity, however, there is one group of friends that I spent years growing up with, and that is the girls from the barn where we grew up riding together. We all started young and went through everything together. No one understands the misery of a bad show or the frustration of a bad lesson, as well as the highs of a good one, as well as the girls who have been there with you from the beginning of all of it. When you are so upset that you want to give up they are the reason that you stick through. You spend hours and hours together, getting up early to travel to shows and cheering each other on in competitions. Riding isn't really a team sport in the strictest sense but you do develop a bond with each other.

Now that we are all older it is a lot harder to get together; a lot of girls aren't in town as often anymore, and those that are just don't have the time to ride as much as they'd like. But for the last few years we have gotten together over Thanksgiving and gone for a ride. It's like we're 12 years old again, cantering around Calais field, gossiping about boys, the best of friends. I look forward to it every year.

Lauren and I on "the twins" - Pride and Comet, this year's Thanksgiving ride.

Tis the Season!

Procrastination (Part 2)

With finals approaching, my skills of procrastination have become even more fine-tuned.

Sorry for the lack of updates, with so much going on right now it's hard to find a moment to write. Between finding excuses not to do work, calling my boyfriend to whine about all the work I have to do, and finally sucking it up and getting the work done, I hardly remember that I have a blog to be working on.

Right now I'm actually taking a study break - be proud. Well, be sort of proud. I have a Latin quiz tomorrow on a lot of stuff that I have been studying for on and off this weekend. I also have 4 essays due for history at the end of the semester that I haven't started on. Oh, and I really need to start prepping for finals. And I haven't done any of that.

But I have watched Season 1 of Dexter, Season 1 of 30 Rock, Season 1 of Nip/Tuck, and all 3 seasons of Veronica Mars. Oh yes, time well spent. Netflix, if I fail anything this semester, I have only you* to blame.

*Okay, yeah, and myself too.

They Might Be Birds

In Betty Terry's dining room she had a big glass table, and over it hung this painting, a sort of swirl of color. Mostly dark colors with a little white and red and green, coming together in almost a picture. Apparently it was painted by a neighbor who was going to throw it out, and BT saved it, and hung it up on her wall, where I'd always known it. When she moved from her big house to her place in the nursing home, it kept its home above the glass table.

One of the things I'll always remember about holidays at Betty Terry's were the discussions about this painting. I guess when you get old you begin to have the same conversations over and over; one of Boop's favorites was telling the story about the time I made everyone go on a parade around the house with my toy instruments, and she made sure to tell that one every Christmas. But the other one we always had was about this painting; what IS it? It's like a Rorschach test, the sort of painting you can look at and discuss and see a few different things within.

Ultimately,  though, we always came to the same conclusion, and that was this: they might be birds.
When she passed away and Mom asked me what I wanted from the house, it was one of the first things that came to mind.

I don't have a good picture of it, this is pretty awful actually, and eventually I'd like to get a better image of it. But how do you go about getting a picture of a painting? I guess standing at a 90 degree angle would be a start, huh? But anyway. What do you see?

Petals

Switch

As a history major, it is pretty safe to say that as a general rule, I like old stuff.

Everything in this house is older than I am, and to me that is neat. There are lots of old pictures and when I got bored I find cool things that just happen to be sitting around and I look at them, or take their picture, or just take note that at one point they were important enough to be held onto.

Old stuff is NEAT.

This is the light switch in my bedroom. It's just an old light switch, but I think that makes it pretty cool, as far as switches go.

BT

When someone dies, two things happen: everything changes, and nothing changes.

Someone you've known and loved your entire life is no longer a part of it, and, your life changes. They're never going to be there again.

But at the same time, your life will continue on exactly as it did before. You'll still have Latin homework to do and a new episode of Gossip Girl to watch. And it feels wrong that something so normal can still be happening. So the only thing you can do is remember the good times and the things that person taught you and let those memories make you a better person.

BT was a cool lady, she was very generous, and she loved Santa Claus. She was "marvelous". And she will be missed.