Archive for February 26th, 2010

Alright, you can accuse this blog of being a bit egocentric (hey, it’s about me again!). Lets count how many times the word “I” shows up in the following…

I admit, it seems somewhat of a cop-out to re-post something, but oh well. I think it is fascinating; a blog I wrote over a year ago, where I considered my impending transfer to TCU. I ran across it in the archives, as it were. It appears unfinished; somewhat indicative of the moment, as I was in the middle: things had just begun, and were not yet complete. Somewhat like life overall.

This was originally posted on December 9, 2008, which was, I believe, during finals week. About to leave Southwestern, where I had been for a semester, I would soon return home, and begin at TCU. There are a few points which, looking back, are very poignant. And, I notice, my writing style hasn’t changed much; it’s still verbose and has way too many commas and semicolons; it’s still hyperbolic and, yes, still has way too many movie/book/TV/music references.

So, in one episode of The Office, Jim looks at his high school yearbook photo, and says “Oh, young Jim, there are so many things I wish I could warn you about!” Looking back at myself at this time, I put my arm around young Tonia and say “Oh, young Tonia, it’s going to be alright!”

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Listening to (for about the fiftieth time): Love Story by Taylor Swift. (From the playlist I made for the Admin of this site, my mother, who requests popular music from me for the listening pleasure of herself when she sits at her desk in the dark, wee hours pouring ink onto pages)

I write this on the brink of a move, a transfer, and a holiday; in the midst of finals, pre-Christmas preparations, and the winding down of the semester. Upon leaving work, the circulation department of the campus library, today, I was greeted by a phone call, whereupon I was called upon to produce a blog “by midnight, preferably three hundred to five hundred words.”

“I’ll get right to it” – despite the fact that I spent almost every hour from noon to eight today translating Horace (Latin poetry).

The truth is, I don’t mind. I am tired, but I have just returned from adoration and am ahead of schedule for studying – a rarity, at best.

So, I shall speak about my impending transfer to TCU, which has enabled me to write for this blog as Fort Worth College Girl. I attended Southwestern University this fall, a small (twelve hundred students) liberal arts school in Georgetown, TX, which is about thirty miles north of Austin. I could go into the reasons for leaving for a while, but it boils down to a desire to be on a larger campus, and one that is closer to home.

So, I made the decision last week, quite late into the semester. It has been weird telling people about it – as one can imagine, it is a bit awkward to admit that one is rejecting the school that was previously shared by both the members of the conversation. However, I have rummaged up the courage, and, surprisingly to me, have been greeted with a fair amount of understanding, and sadness – being somewhat of a fiercely independent, loner sort much of the time, I didn’t realize I had many friends. It is a pleasant realization and one I will take with me as I go on, in regard to both the friends here and the ones I will make.

I have received kind letters, notes on the dry-erase board outside my room by all my hall-mates (organized by my roommate). Groups want to see me before we all leave. It is all quite bewildering – and a little sad. But, that is the story of life.

One realization I have made is that this is one of the first choices I have made as an adult, one largely on my own, an idea of my own making and a process maneuvered by myself. These are the decisions that make differences. In Memoirs of a Geisha, Chiyo is described as having a personality full of “water” which “flows from place to place quickly and always finds a crack the spill through.” I am not sure if my character is such – my eyes are blue, like Chiyo’s – but whether or not, I am flowing along the current of life, and though the decisions are my own, I feel I am floating on the life force of the world, sometimes gliding on a shimmering lake, sometimes playing atop a gurgling creek, and, sometimes, rushing along atop a cascading river.