our existence has serious side effects

seh61 — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 08:31:38 +0000

got a tumblr yesterday:

recordyearforrainfall.tumblr.com

seh61 — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 01:19:49 +0000

got my plane ticket to Boston for August 27.

can’t wait to get the fuck off this coast.

Love/hate

seh61 — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 03:29:32 +0000

So when it comes down to it…I really only have a month and a half left of school…two weeks of which are pretty much just packing/prepping for and taking finals so they don’t count really. And despite being overjoyed with the ending of my sophomore year of college, I’m slightly nervous for the end of school. I haven’t been home for the summer in four years you see. And the longest I’ve been home since I graduated was a month this year at winter break. I’ve managed to skip town for large chunks of time by traveling to LA, Vancouver BC, roadtripping to San Francisco and all the way down the California coast and working at a summer camp in the forest for the past four summers.

Needless to say, May 16 to August 28 is a rather long time. I have to find a job, maybe find an internship and some friends. Stat. I am friends with a few people at home who I’ve been good friends with since elementary school but the overwhelming majority of people I went to high school with I haven’t talked to or seen since I got off the bus after my senior all night party two years ago. So when I make my triumphant return to the City of Roses I will be (mostly) friendless, relationship-less,(some what penniless), unemployed (but still covered under my dad’s health insurance…thanks Obama you’re a pal!) and will have minimal prospects on all fronts. I’m excited to go home but I can’t shake the anxiety. I’d like to enjoy my first summer at home in four years…no matter how different it will be since I was last there for long, hot July days, fireworks on the 4th of July and running around the city with friends.

I suppose Ed Droste was correct in the lyrics of “On a Neck, On a Spit” by Grizzly Bear. You really can’t go home again. And each time it really is different. But I’ll keep crossing my fingers that it will be better.

Oh! And on a slightly major side-note…I was nominated for a Society of Professional Journalists “Mark of Excellence Award” for best breaking-news photograph in a weekly college newspaper for Region 11 (includes California, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Hawaii and Guam). I received at least 3rd place for the award and will find out my actual placing May 2. I don’t know if I’ll get first place but I am up against only two other people at this point so here’s to hoping. If I get first I go on to the national awards.

New life goal #345

seh61 — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 21:28:28 +0000

This trip is my new life goal.

http://www.umass.edu/journal/sicilyprogram/Sicily_2010/Sicily_Home.html

It will probably cost about $3000. None of which I have but I will do my darndest to acquire it by next year because ZOMGZ it sounds so amazing.

Round 2

seh61 — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 06:06:22 +0000

I got accepted to the National Student Exchange program next year at University of Massachusetts – Amherst. Glad to know all my productivity and straight A’s and designation as a Presidential Scholar got me somewhere.

So anyway. I’m stoked. Preparing myself for snow. Preparing myself for having to teach people how to say “Oregon” correctly and correcting them when they think I’m from Portland, Maine. No. The other Portland. The one that was almost “Boston, Oregon” had the flip of a coin gone the other way. New adventures. No more forests. And did you know I’m out of school in a month and a half?

apparently protests are my thing

seh61 — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 04:11:00 +0000

Protest cover of my university’s newspaper #2:

my my what a busy week i’ve had

seh61 — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 07:16:31 +0000

Sometimes, if you’re lucky, journalism and photography take you places you ordinarily wouldn’t go. And that applies both in the larger and smaller sense. This week I’ve been many places I usually don’t go. I spent vast quantities of time running around campus and scrambling to get pictures for the paper before deadline. I’ve been to the gym (multiple times), a protest for public education in California and to a “cultural cacophony” concert at my university that consisted of performances by Tim’m West, a queer feminist poet, a slam poetry group called the Paid Poets Society and a hip hop group.

Anyway here’s some shots from what I’ve been doing this week and as always, the rest are on my Flickr.

Protest for public education at the Eureka courthouse

“Cultural Cacophony”

Click my Flickr links to view more pictures from the protest and the concert

slacking

seh61 — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 22:43:42 +0000

It’s been a bit since I last updated…I’ve been unfortunately consumed with school for the past few weeks and Law of Mass Communication is eating up my life. I also haven’t done anything particularly interesting. Took some pictures for the student newspaper…they’re nothing exciting but I’ll post them later.

Anyways now that I have have some semblance of downtime…I’m slightly bored and urge you to indulge me by asking me questions of any sort. http://www.formspring.me/pitseleh09

I Am Jack’s Complete Lack of Surprise

seh61 — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 08:12:11 +0000

So I’ve had a lot of free time on my hands lately. Except I really haven’t but in between doing French homework and reading for Law of Mass Communication, I’ve started watching the show Skins again.

For those of you who don’t know, Skins is a British show about teenagers in Bristol, England who basically spend each episode snorting, smoking, popping and fucking anything they can get their hands on. It’s a pretty great show and unique in that it actually uses really young writers rather than a bunch of 30 somethings who have to work at figuring out what exactly kids these days actually say and do. Sometimes it can be a little ridiculous in that it sometimes come off as a slight distortion of reality-an almost fantasy parallel universe where everything is almost the same but not quite; people light up joints in classrooms and parents are (with the exception of a few characters’ storylines) out of the picture, ala Charlie Brown.

Anyways. The point is that watching the wreckless abandon with which the characters of Skins lead their lives for the past few days has reminded me a little too much about my own tendencies. No, I’ve never done mdma (which the characters in the show name drop like its Lady Gaga) or set my locker at school on fire. I’ve never driven a car into a harbor or stolen a boat in a random town. I’ve never even been to a party that could be classified as a “rager.” But I do have my own wreckless tendencies. Not so much in what I actually do (because I’m tend to live life on the straight and narrow-I’ll take a brownie and tea on a Saturday night thanks, sans the weed) But in what I would do if I let myself. I caught myself thinking yesterday that if I had friends like those characters in high school, I would be just like them. If the opportunities would’ve presented themselves, I would’ve done it. The draw wouldn’t have been the drugs or the booze but the sheer temptation to just not care.

I’ve been catching myself thinking this a lot lately. That I just don’t care. Despite only being sophomores in college, I can’t go a day without hearing talk about grad school and future careers come from my friends and roommates. Graduating school with great grades and an unblemished record in order to graduate in a couple years and jump right back into school. Getting into a “good” grad school. Taking the LSAT. Having a career. And after all this, I realized that I just don’t care.

That’s actually a lie. Because I do care. I obviously care enough to have gotten mostly straight A’s since beginning college. But I don’t care about college itself. I hate school. I’m good at it but I’ve always hated it . I don’t care about grad school or starting a career the second I take off my cap and gown. I’ve been to school for 14 years in a row now, I think I’ll need a break after a couple more.

Which is why I plan on not caring about anything when I graduate. Is that an oxymoron, to plan to not care? Fuck it. The point is, when I graduate I’m giving into my tendencies. I’m not going to go wild and crazy. But I do plan on leaving and I don’t plan on knowing when I’m coming back. I’m saying fuck grad school. Fuck a career. I’m going to do the stereotypical thing-take off to Europe and Asia. Travel. Experience the world. I’m going to let myself do what I’ve always wanted to. So what if its stereotypical? I don’t care.

overload

seh61 — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 02:58:53 +0000

Okay so two posts in a day might be a little excessive for me especially following the novel that I posted earlier. But I’m currently feeling sick and am laying on my couch completely bundled up and bored. Therefore I have nothing else to do except dig up old pictures on my Flickr that I took in the time that I stopped posting on my blog and the time that i picked it back up again. So here you go.