Hey. I’m really not very good at goodbyes, but..I’m leaving Tumblr. Possibly not for good, but probably for a long time. I just want a change, a new blogging platform, and hopefully the ability to spend more time writing and less time distracted by the wonders of my Dashboard.

You can find me, for now, at: lean into the light
You can also drop me a line at randomactsofinspiration@gmail.com. I don’t check that email account often, though. If you’d like to keep in touch on a more regular basis, email me there & I’ll provide you with my main email address.

Thanks for being such loyal readers, great followers, and wonderful people in general. And thanks to some of you for being such amazing writers and inspiring me every single day.

Good luck in everything you do! 

P.S. I’ll continue maintaining my pop culture blog for the next few weeks..and I’ll probably delete it once the term ends (it’s part of a project for a class).

Love, always,
Katie 

first snow of the year. it’s not winter; it’s barely halloween. woke up this morning, back aching, stomach churning, mind spinning. dreams of political prisoners, escape, infidelity, passion…guilt. loss.
when dreams are not as good as real life that’s when you know you’re doing something right. i am watching the snow fall and hoping the trees stay standing tall. i am thinking about you, and all of the mornings we’ve lain in bed together and watched snow fall. the first snow of the season reminds me of the first day we met. it was the day after christmas and the weatherman predicted: blizzard.
i drove by myself to a place i’d never been before. i got lost and had to call you for directions. i was worried about getting caught in the storm; i was listening to music to try and calm myself down but i was shaking. we’d talked the night before, agreed we had to take this risk, because we’d regret it forever if we didn’t. i was still nervous, though. nervous we wouldn’t ‘click’ in that magical, almost unexplainable way, nervous we wouldn’t fit together perfectly, that being together would not be effortless and natural.
then i parked the car, watched you walk up the hill with a smile the size of texas spreading across your face. i ran out of the driver’s seat and into your arms, and i’ve stayed there ever since that snowy december morning.
i kissed you when we were sitting in my car because i had half-seriously promised i would, but also because it’s what felt right, in that moment. you held my hand for the entire car ride back down to my house. we hadn’t discussed becoming a couple much before that day, but i think as we sat in the car and listened to the mix cd you’d made me, we were both sure of what we wanted.
you stayed with me for days. we were a couple less than 24 hours after meeting for the first time. we said “i love you” during the first 48 hours of knowing one another, and meant it. i remember when you looked at my bookshelf and made fun of me for my ayn rand novels. i remember the next morning we stayed in bed all day, talking and listening to music, watching the world disappear under a blanket of white.
and that was it- sort of. i knew, even back then, that what we had was rare, special. that i would maybe never find someone like you again. and after not very much time at all, i knew you were, as they say, “the one.” you have never felt unfamiliar to me, never felt like a stranger- even during the first five minutes we spent together i felt you were an old friend, someone i’d known my whole life.
and now you’re my best friend, my everything, my better half…my soon-to-be fiance, and future husband. i don’t think i will ever find a way to say “i love you” that’s powerful enough to capture the depth of my feelings, but i promise i will spend the rest of my life trying. 

does anyone else experience this? ever? regularly?

sometimes it’s not the specific people you’re with that matters- it’s just the fact that you’re with people, and that you feel like you’re a part of something larger than yourself, however insignificant that something may be. i am so much happier, most of the time, when i’m sitting downstairs and people are making food and music and conversation all around me, then when i’m sitting alone in my room (and usually not “being productive,” anyhow). 

this is one of the reasons why i came here, to find this sense of community/belonging. sometimes i forget i have found it, which is sad, but true. i need to remember because when i forget, it makes me almost unbearably sad.

I feel too many things and I have too many things to do. WHERE IS BALANCE?!?

I am really annoyed right now. Why? Because, for ONE CLASS, I have almost 100 pages of reading and a 3 hour film to watch…we were given almost a week to do this, I suppose, but we just had our fall break weekend. Not to mention, in the last class before break, our professor forced us to stay until 5:30, making our class THREE HOURS LONG. During that class he also attempted to give us his copy of the film we have to watch, but it was too big for everyone’s USB drives…so now I’m forced to watch it illegally online. The picture quality is terrible and these ad videos keep playing about every 2 minutes and I can’t get them to stop…so I’m just ignoring them since the movie isn’t in English, anyway.

Lesson learned? Don’t take too many classes with new visiting professors (aka visting professors that haven’t been teaching here for a couple of years).

I’m really looking forward to next term- the aforementioned class will be over, as will my equivalent to a freshman seminar course. Next term I’m taking-

• Negotiating Educational Policy
• America in the 21st Century: End of Empire?
• Constructing Visual Narrative

I’m hoping to replace the last class with History of Natural History…if I get in (I’m 15th on a long wait-list). I also don’t know very much about Constructing Visual Narrative so there’s a chance I will replace it with something else. I’m also looking forward to not having to work off-campus winter term. I’m assisting one of the professors here who is working on getting debate-related activities started. It’ll just be 10-12 hours a week, minimum wage, but still- it’s grocery/gas money. ALSO hopefully my boyfriend will be starting here in January! That will make pretty much everything better/easier.

I have the feeling tonight may be my first all-nighter here. I still have almost all of the reading I mentioned to get through…in addition to finishing this movie which I’m not enjoying much at all. Still have about an hour left. Oh and did I mention I’m supposed to read TWO ENTIRE BOOKS by Friday? And finish an art project for Tuesday?

I’m working 20 hours this week but it’s my last week of work…and I really do need the money. I also have a bonus coming in a couple of weeks.

I really love it here, but this first term has been crazy…all I’ve really had time for is school and work, sleeping and eating. I’ve been neglecting running/exercise, in general. I wish I had more free time to do a whole bunch of things. I think I’ll find a balance eventually. 

Time to go be productive again.

Cried when she should and she laughed when she could
Here’s to the man with his face in the mud
And an overcast play just taken away
From the lover’s in love at the centre of stage yeah
Loving is fine if you have plenty of time
For walking on stilts at the edge of your mind

(so many things)

+ went to the gym
+ worked for 4 hours; had some ice cream
+ hysterical laughter
+ went to the best restaurant with one of my favorite people here
+ went on an (almost) 2 hour hike BY MYSELF and got lost
+ had a delicious dinner
+ film screening for my education class

still need to-

+ do laundry
+ pack
+ finish up a few school-related things
+ play an “online board game” with my boyfriend
+ FINISH WRITING LETTERS
+ make a certain someone a birthday card! 

arghhhhh. also one of my friends’ here is turning 19 tomorrow! i really want to go to her birthday pancake breakfast but it’s SO EARLY. i need to get up at 5:30 again so i can fit my run in and shower before that breakfast. it’s doable. sometimes my body just will NOT get out of bed. 

“I Remember” by Damien Rice is probably the most beautiful song in the world right now. Maybe all the time.

Want you here tonight, want you here
Cause I can’t believe what I’ve found
Want you here tonight, want you here
Nothing is taking me down, down, down
Except you my love
Except you my love

I get to see my boyfriend Wednesday night! And I’ll be with him till Sunday afternoon. I’m not even going to attempt to explain how happy that makes me.

Other things are good. I want to start writing more..so look for that. If I ever get around to it. Lawl.

“Shouldn’t you have a few more bites of that?”

“I told you, I ate before I got here…I’m not hungry.” 

I stare at the wilted lettuce leaves in a small pile on my plate, the sprinkling of shredded carrots, the single cherry tomato. I can’t even remember what salad dressing tastes like, but it doesn’t matter. I’ve lost track of how many promises I’ve made to myself- promises to grab my demons by the horns and throw them into oblivion. Promises to eat only natural unprocessed foods, promises to think more about eating, promises to think less about eating. Promises to eat, to give myself some sort of nourishment. Sometimes I don’t think food is the nourishment I need, that I can survive without it. Sometimes I feel like I can live in the pages of my books- not even the pages, but the words, and not just the words, but the individual letters they contain. I can curl up into the curve of an “e,” slide down the steep lines of a “w,” sit perched atop a “t.” 

Just wrote this on one of my other blogs (it’s part of a class project). Please read it and tell me what you think!!

katiedoespopculture:

Everything I’ve read in the past few days for two of my classes seem to relate to one another in one major way (or rather, they all pose the same question): do consumers have the ability to make choices that actually challenge or protest against the corporations producing these commodities, or…