powerful together

Hello, world.

It's been a while (again). I was on a bit of a roll with my posts back in June and then summer travels and the fall semester turned me into a slacker. Now 4 months later I'm finally getting back to posting.

In addition to falling off the wagon with blog posts, the summer and fall have not been good for exercise. I'm going to work to change both of those things and soon.

Friday I was talking with Stacey, and she inspired me to get back to the gym. We're going to be encouraging each other to stay physically active and eat healthily. It's always easier to do these things with a partner in crime, so we're going to keep each other accountable. As my dear friend Laura once said, "We're powerful when we're together." She may have said that in reference to a different friend group, but it's true nonetheless. As with many things in life, exercise and diet are easier when we don't try to do it all on our own.

I've been doing yoga twice a week, and while that's great for flexibility and strength, it isn't enough on its own to keep me in shape. A better diet and some cardio are in order.

So steps I've taken so far...

1. Joined a gym. Yes, I've always had free access to the university's rec center, but the thought of competing for exercise equipment with 20,000 undergrads is not a motivating one. Plus, if I'm paying for the gym membership, I'll be much more likely to use it.

2. I started tracking calories again using the My Fitness Pal app. I've done this on and off over the years and have found that when I use it consistently, it makes a big difference in my eating habits, particularly when it comes to snacking.

3. Bought a new sports bra and yoga pants. You know, because I needed a reward for accomplishing steps 1 & 2... Actually, I had been needing to purchase both for a while now since my existing ones are getting worn and raggedy. Also, I find that I'm more motivated to exercise if I like what I'm wearing. Shallow? Perhaps. But if it helps me get my butt to the gym, I'll do it.

4. Went to the gym for a first workout. Nothing too intense. I went through the orientation for the fitness equipment and then walked 3 miles on the treadmill.

I think that health and fitness aren't always about big steps; rather, they're about many, many little steps that, when taken all together, make a long term impact.

Wish us luck!

working my way back out

So I realize it has been almost an entire year since my last post. I'm sorry about my long silence. I won't try to rewrite the entire past year for far too much has passed between then and now, but I will say it has been a very hard year. Trying in ways I never guessed it would be. God is faithful through it all, but it has not been a particularly easy year.

Right now I'm trying to declutter both physically and emotionally. It is a long process. Every weekend I tackle one part of my life and find myself with bags of trash and recycling to haul out to the dumpsters, both literal and metaphorical. Every time I think I'm nearing the end there's a new stash of stuff and more tears to shed that I didn't know were left behind. I think it will be a while longer before I get to the end of all the junk, but I believe there will be an end in sight eventually.

Ephesians 2:1-7
And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.

by hand

Some may think it unnecessary work with modern conveniences like bread machines, but I really love making bread by hand. I don't do it that often, but I find it very satisfying (and delicious) when I do. I guess my reasons for this are many.

For one, living in an apartment with a tiny kitchen makes extra appliances, which require storage that I do not have, not very appealing. Plus, a bread machine takes away the satisfying part of bread making: kneading the dough. It's an excellent exercise if you're feeling stressed, upset, or any number of other things. Plus, I can see the progress as I work the dough from a sticky or floury mess to a smooth ball of dough. I find it fascinating that five simple ingredients - flour, salt, yeast, water, and oil - can make so much deliciousness.

Another thing I'm realizing about bread making is that it makes me feel more connected with family. My mom always made bread when we were growing up and would sometimes rope us kids into helping. I remember the smell of bread baking in the oven and how it was always (even now) such a treat to get that first slice as soon as the loaf was cool enough to slice. Her mother made homemade bread too. Even now, I think grandma still makes all her bread from scratch. So now, when I make bread, I mix the dough in a stainless steel bowl that used to belong to my great grandmother (my mom's mom's mom - did you get that?), and I wear an apron that my sister bought me. And so when I make bread, I'm perhaps just a little closer to all of them.

the very odd day

This morning as I was getting ready for church I noticed my nose for no particular reason. It seemed bigger, longer than normal. Since it probably didn't grow overnight, I assume it's just an optical illusion, but every time I looked in the mirror it just looked odd. It was as though my nose had been replaced in the night with some foreign nose.

It's rather like when you read or say one word repeatedly and for no apparent reason it starts to seem not quite right. The spelling doesn't look correct, and the sounds feel awkward in your mouth. Everything about the word is strange.

That's how my nose seemed this morning. And like with words that have acquired a certain strangeness, given distance and time, things reverted to normal. When I got home from church, my nose appeared just as it should.

---

We've been having scattered thunderstorms for the past several days. So when I looked out my living room window 20 minutes ago, I wasn't surprised to see drops falling from the sky. What was unusual was that all I could see were sunshine and blue skies, so I stepped outside to take a look. I expected to see a cloud hovering above the building, out of sight from my inside vantage point, but no, there were nothing but blue skies overhead and all around excepting one or two very tiny, white clouds a little ways in the distance. And yet, there I stood in the sunshine with raindrops falling all around. There wasn't really any wind either, so I'm positive the drops weren't blowing off of any tree leaves. It was rather like an unusual omen that might happen in a children's fantasy movie before something rather strange and amazing happens.

---

There is something wrong with the keyboard on my MacBook. At the strangest times, the cursor just starts jumping around the text box. It will move up into other sentences and highlight random words. It's most annoying and makes it a chore to type anything. This post, for instance, took twice as long as it ought to have because I kept having to correct for the errant cursor. I think it's time to visit a Mac Genius.

cold comfort

In less than 2 weeks I will pass out of my 20s and into my 30s. I'm not impressed with this turn of events. No lie. I'm not angry about it like I was when I turned 27 and passed out of my late-mid 20s and into my late 20s, but I'm generally not having any of this.

I think it's just not time for me to be 30. You may think I'm being ridiculous, but I don't really care. There are just so many things I thought would be different about my life when I hit 30. Book publishing and tenure and promotion and such are cold comforts at best.

But, as one of my colleagues pointed out, if I consider the options, it may not be so horrible. 30 or death? Death or 30? Given those options, I choose life, which I suppose means I choose 30.

When I set out to write this post, I thought I would make it funny. I don't think I've succeeded. Perhaps 30 is just not very funny.

lost and found

Some of you know this and some of you may not, but I broke up with Diego almost two months ago. Although I changed my relationship status on Facebook, I immediately deleted the notification that would have shown up on all 350 of my "closest" friends' news feeds. At the time I just couldn't handle the potential stream of e-mails and phone calls and questions, and the thought of having to repeat the story (or variations of it) over and over again just seemed overwhelming. So I took a very passive approach to breaking the news.

Even now I don't feel up for any sort of mass announcement, so this post--whatever you might thing it is--is not intended to rehash the break up, to cast blame, or to paint anyone as a villain. I have no need to disrespect him or us and post all of the tiny reasons for and nuances of the break up for anyone to read. The only thing I will say about it is that it was my choice and that I believe I made the right choice. I have a lot of peace about the decision even now.

What this post is about is how I feel like part of me got lost over the last few years. I am largely to blame for that. I think the people-pleasing part of my personality is such that I want to make others happy, to be who they want me to be, to make things easier for them. I have never been a fan of conflict. Wait... that was an understatement. Let me rephrase: I have a huge aversion to interpersonal conflict. So perhaps over time, I let bits and pieces of myself slip away without even realizing it. Maybe it was easier to let those things about myself slide than to make issue over what individually seemed like small things.

Right now I'm in the process of finding those pieces of myself. I'm remembering the things that brought me here. I'm looking to the future with optimism and hope. I think it will be an interesting journey, one I'm very excited to embark on.

nostalgia + narcissism

Every once in a while, I remember an old post I wrote back when my blog lived on Upsaid instead of Blogger (see the nevada project archives below). It may be a bit of narcissism combined with a much larger dose of nostalgia, but it makes me ridiculously happy to read many of those old posts. I love reading them for a number of reasons that I'm not going to explain in any detail whatsoever:

* It helps me remember who I was before I was here.
* It makes me feel more hopeful and optimistic about the future.
* It reminds me that I can be a decent writer when I choose to be.
* It makes me love all of you dear friends even more.
* It reminds me that I used to write more often about more interesting topics.
* It makes me feel whole.

time travel

Last night I had a dream that I time traveled. I was walking down a staircase when me from 40 minutes in the future opened a door at the bottom of the stairs. We ran towards each other, meeting in the middle of the staircase. We gave each other an enormous hug, and future me whispered something profound in my ear. And of course, now I can't remember what I told myself.

mental math

Ever since I was in grade school, I have had this tendency to look at numbers, say, on a clock or a license plate and add them together. For instance, right now it's 9:43 a.m. I might start by adding the individual digits together until I'm only left with a single number. It goes something like this...

9:43
9+4+3=16
1+6=7

And then I'll wonder whether I'd get a different results if I changed how I combined the numbers.

9:43
(9+4)=13
1+3=4
4+3(the original 3 from the time)=7

I try to think of different ways the numbers could be combined, typically only using addition) to see whether the result is always the same. The goal is typically to get down to a single digit. Let's say a license plate was 25E 627.

2+5+6+2+7=22
2+2=4

But then I'll switch the method so that with each addition has to be added down to 1 digit before the next number can be added in. I'll bold the original numbers below.

2 | 5 | 6| 2 | 7
2+5=7
7+6=13
1+3=4
4+2=6
6+7=13
1+3=4

More often than not, no matter how I combine the numbers, the result is the same. I find that fascinating.

Am I the only one who does this? I suspect it's not something most people do when they look at strings of numbers. You can just file this away as thing #174390 that is quirky about Melissa. Or, to simplify...

1+7+4+3+9+0=24
2+4=6

:)

thoughts on writing a book

It's been a while since my last post, I know. Between then and now I revised my book manuscript twice, and I guess I just really wanted to finish and have been focusing on that. I haven't written much about the book-writing process over the last couple years even though many of you have heard periodic updates about my progress.

On Tuesday earlier this week, I e-mailed the final revised chapters and accompanying materials to my editors. They've gone through the entire manuscript twice, and now it's in the hands of the editor above them. He may have some feedback, in which case my editors will pass that on to me. If not, it goes straight to production from there. The production phase could take up to 6 months, so my best estimate is that the book will be published and available for sale sometime this fall.

It feels amazing to have finished what I set out to accomplish. Even though there is still some work yet to be done, most of what remains is on the publisher's end. I may have a few minor revisions to make here and there, and I definitely will have to review the page proofs when they're ready. For all intents and purposes, however, I've done my part.

When I submitted the proposal in March 2008, I felt confident that I could write this book. I felt I knew enough about Victorian literature and library research to teach others how to research it as well. I don't think that I had an overly-inflated view of my own knowledge and skills, but looking back, I'm amazed at how much I didn't know when this project began. I have learned so much about research and writing and literature, and now I can say that I wrote the book on researching Victorian literature. How cool is that? I wish that I had known what I know now back when I was working on my MA. How much more would I have gotten out of my classes?

I feel like this is something I can really be proud of. Because Victorian literature is so heavily researched, I felt a lot of pressure to do this right. I imagined my two Victorian literature professors--Emily Haddad (USD) and Jen Hill (UNR)--reading the book and using it in their classes. All of their writing advice bounced around in my head throughout the writing process. I hope that they're pleased with the outcome.

So far the feedback I've gotten from my editors has been really great. They said it "is a wonderful volume" and that they enjoyed reading it. I can't wait to see the page proofs and to hold the printed volume and to read the first reviews (although that part scares me a bit).

Anyway, thanks for bearing with me through this process :) I know it has been a very long ride.

for the literature lovers

This morning I led a discussion of Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre with six home schooled high school students who are part of a co-op group. Immediately after agreeing to do this a month or so ago, I started kicking myself. It has been so long since I've been in high school and the MA in English changed the way I read and discuss literature, so I was afraid I wouldn't know the proper way to approach the text with a group of 15 to 17 year old kids. Then I pulled my copy of Jane Eyre off the shelf and began re-reading it.

I had forgotten how much I love that novel. The last time I read it was for my MA comps, and I was certainly reading it with a different purpose and lens at the time. This time, while I kept possible discussion topics and questions in the back of my mind, I could just soak in the book.

One of the many things I love about Victorian fiction is how rich the descriptions are. The authors don't just propel the reader from one plot point to another, they paint a vivid, imagination-capturing picture of what life was like in nineteenth century Britain, and they told stories that were deeply rooted in what it means to be human. Today's novels seem almost skeletal in comparison. I love how these books show that in spite of the different cultures and time periods and technologies between that time and this, people are essentially the same. We have the same passions, the same motivations, the same struggles, and the same triumphs. For all of our great progress, we are them, and they painted us so well.

So I decided to share that with these 6 high schoolers. For context I gave them a mini lecture about the life of Charlotte Brontë and the connections between her and the character Jane Eyre. Then we dove into the novel. We had an amazing discussion about the tension between duty and desire and how perhaps it is not either-or but both-and that Brontë advocates. We talked about the role of the governess, the condition of charity boarding schools in the mid-nineteenth century, and the significance of phenomenology and physiognomy during the Victorian age. They had some really great insights into the texts and were so willing to share their ideas and questions about the text.

In short - it was a smashing success. I will very likely guest "teach" a book for their group next semester.

For now though I have an itch to find another long-lost and much loved novel tucked away somewhere on my bookshelf.

foot update

The podiatrist appointment went fine. I have sesamoiditis in my left foot. Basically, what that means is that one of my sesamoid bones (two tiny bones located beneath the big toe joint) is inflamed.

It's typically caused by activities that place pressure on the ball of the foot like running, jumping, or dancing. People with high arches (which I have) are more prone to developing sesamoid problems, and frequently wearing high heels can contribute to the problem. The doctor couldn't say for sure what had caused the inflammation, but it's likely a combination of dancing, high arches, and high heels. Sad.

For now I'm wearing an insert in my left shoe that takes the pressure off the ball of my foot and can take OTC anti-inflammatory medicines as needed. I have a follow-up appointment the Monday after Thanksgiving. If the current treatment does the trick, then I'm good to go. If not, there will be orthotics in my future, and that will be a very sad day.

Tomorrow morning at 8:30 a.m. I have an appointment with the podiatrist. For the past year or so, I have intermittently felt a stabbing pain in the ball of my left foot. It happens most often when I'm wearing flat shoes and my foot bends at the ball. I actually have purposely worn heels less often in the past year, in hopes that the pain would stop on its own. No such luck.

I'm afraid that the doctor will say I shouldn't wear heels anymore and recommend that I wear flat, practical shoes with orthotics. That just might do me in for the year.

So to torture myself even more, I "window shopped" at the Nine West website earlier today and found these shoes:



They're so pretty. Flat shoes are never that pretty. If my foot ends up being OK, I'm going to buy them.

student journalism strikes again

Having spent four years working at The Volante as an undergraduate, I have a certain affection for student newspapers in a very vague, general sense. I also tend to be highly critical of them. I know how important that experience can be for an aspiring young journalist, but I also know how crucial it is for them to learn certain lessons early on in the game.

Lesson 1: Do your homework before showing up to the interview. Even if you just received the assignment 45 minutes ago and are on a tight deadline, have a list of questions to bring with you. Do a little preliminary research. Your interviewee will respect you more and likely give you more information if you appear to know what you're talking about.

Lesson 2: Ask permission prior to recording someone. Your source may have reasons for not wanting to be recorded. Plus, recording may be prohibited in certain locations.

Lesson 3: Get the facts right. Yes, it matters if little details are correct in your story. Your credibility as a journalist and that of your newspaper depend upon it. Fact check, fact check, fact check!

Lesson 4: Get your sources' names right. This is certainly related to lesson 3 and is just as important. No one likes to see their name mangled, no matter how difficult it is to spell, so show your sources the courtesy of spelling theirs correctly.

Thus ends our journalism lesson for the day.

Sorry, an article just came out in The Breeze, our student paper, about the banned book reading that I planned and hosted in the library last week. Said aspiring journalist either forgot or never learned the above lessons. The interview was so poorly executed it was comic. The article said the reading was on Thursday when it was on Wednesday (he even attended it, so he should have known that).

But my favorite part is that from the article, I learned that my name is actually "Michelle Van Vurren." I'm so glad to know that. I'll have to correct my business cards and e-mail signature. How intuitive of him to discern the proper spelling and first name when the card I gave him and the e-mails I sent him contained such erroneous information. Silly me.

Said article may be read here: http://breezejmu.org/2009/10/05/printed-controversies/

ringing in the ears

Back in my days of late-night paper writing and studying as a undergrad and then a grad student, I found that if I stayed up too late working, at some point I would start to hear a high-pitched ringing in my ears. I had not heard that sound in a very long time, but tonight, thanks to my determination to finish editing chapters 8 and 9, I heard that familiar sound once more.

And now - it is time for this girl to go to bed.

Good night!

me on the political spectum

My Political Views
I am a centrist social moderate
Right: 0.96, Authoritarian: 0.67

Political Spectrum Quiz


My Foreign Policy Views
Score: 1.27

Political Spectrum Quiz


My Culture War Stance
Score: 4.28

Political Spectrum Quiz

graying

More depressing than finding those first white hairs is shedding full-length ones. I've been getting white hairs since I was 21. I credit the gene that causes early graying to my father, who grayed quite early. I used to studiously pull out my white hairs, and they are truly white not gray, but I've long since given up on that. There are just too many of them to waste time hunting them down. Of course, if a white hair happens to make itself too noticeable, it will be plucked out in an instant, but that is a different scenario.

Those of you with blond or lighter-colored hair are quite lucky because your hair tends not to gray as quickly, and even if it does, the color-contrast is so minimal that your gray and white hairs are probably unnoticeable. Not so with darker-shades of hair. Fortunately, while I have more white hair than I'd like, most of my hair remains its original color, so you wouldn't really know about all my white hairs except that I'm blogging it for the world to read.

To get back to the beginning, however, it was utterly depressing for me realize that I was shedding white hairs along with my brown ones. It was as traumatic as finding the first white hair. Not only did the shed hair exist, but it existed long enough to grow to a foot or so in length, live a full hair lifespan, and be shed naturally just as a colored hair. Ugh.

If you think I'm exaggerating or being a bit melodramatic, you probably haven't been "blessed" with your first white or gray hair yet. Just wait. Someday you'll understand.

monday night memory

This evening in the midst of a conversation with Rochelle, I stumbled across a memory that had long been buried in the farthest back recesses of my mind. Hidden in the far left corner under piles of old papers, childhood toys, layers of dust, and cobwebs was a beautiful memory. I will share it with you. Consider this my late-Monday night gift to you.

At some point when we lived together, we decided that we really detested the color of the vinyl on the kitchen floor. It was a lovely combination of mustard yellow and orange that really fit quite nicely with the whole 70s domestic look we had going between the floor, the hand-me-down dishes, the ugly couch, and the brown shag carpet. During some conversation we came up with a solution, at least for the kitchen flooring.

We decided that a perfect fix for the ugly floor would be to cover it with a patterned contact paper, like the stuff you would use to line drawers and shelves. It would be so simple and inexpensive. We would only need a roll or two, less than 5 minutes, and voilà -- shiny new floor!

I'm not sure that this idea ever came to fruition. I vaguely recall determining that the floor might end up being too slippery with the contact paper on it. Whatever actually deterred our innovative home decorating solution, it's probably good that this particular "genius" idea of ours was never fully implemented :)

time has flown

When April began several weeks ago, it seemed so full of promise and opportunity and time. Time was what I was most excited about. I would have time to work on my play indexing, time to complete a few more book chapters, and time to exercise and lose those irritating pounds before my sister's wedding. Of course, that time was whisked away by planning for the impending construction of Starbucks in our reference area, reassigning reference books, countless meetings, a general slump in motivation outside of work hours, and a little bit of personal drama for kicks. Then just when I was recouping from all that, allergies hit with a vengeance, followed by a particularly evil sinus infection, from which I am just now recovering.

The bottom line is yesterday I finally woke up from all that yuck and funk of the last 6 weeks and realized that it's nearly mid-May already. How did that happen? I need that time back! No seriously, I need that time back. Somehow I don't think I'm going to get a rain check on this one. The coming weeks don't look good for productivity either. C'est la vie!

This post brought to you by the number 13, the color gray, and a general overwhelming sense of gloom and doom.

poor pinkie

Saturday I spent the day at the University of Virginia's Alderman library. I researched and I wrote. I wrote and I researched for seven hours straight. I didn't even break for lunch. I was in such a zone and got so much work done. Seriously, I have eight single-spaced, typed pages to prove it.

The other unexpected outcome was a hand injury. I woke up Sunday morning with the worst pain in my right hand between my pinkie and ring fingers. It was incredibly sore (still is). I guess I used my pinkie finger to hit the delete, return, shift, and arrow keys a few hundred times too many.

The sad thing is that this is not my first typing injury. The first happened back in March 2004 when I wrote 25 pages in 24 hours for my Master's comps. That time it was the center knuckle on my left pinkie. To this day that knuckle aches when the weather changes.

In spite of my aching hand, I had a fabulous day at UVA. I really needed a productive day like that to help me feel not quite so panicked about my book. Plus, it was so nice to research in a "real" library. Yes, I know I work in a library, but it's an undergraduate library not a research library, and there's such a vast difference between the two. I have collection envy now. I want to work at a research library :( Sniff. Pout.

I'm going back on Friday to spend another full day at their library. I just hope my hand feels better by then and that I don't injure it again.