Pity Party

Oh man, oh man, oh man. Hello friends. I'm sitting here in the library, looking out at another dreary Scottish day and feeling depressed about grad school. I'm writing my personal statement and researching schools and descending into that sad state of melancholy uselessness that can only come from being someone as overly dramatic as Tut. Just when Issy was posting about sunnier subjects.

GAH! No matter where I go, no matter where I turn, it seems like something, someone, or some random circumstance is telling me that I'm inadequate. From the Edinburgh prof saying that I couldn't possibly have anything to say about Richardson to the grape vine information from Bree that some guy in the postgrad Christian group is surprised that I even have any friends because all I do is study. From my own qualms that I have nothing interesting to say in class or that there's nothing I could say in grad school. From Erica and Ben (my two English major friends from Penn) talking about what a ball they're having in grad school and how great everything is. From the stats charts on the grad school sites saying that my GRE scores are too low, my gpa is too low, that I know no foreign languages (uhhh, besides really terrible Chinese and Japanese that can't even be claimed). Tut is feeling the weight of mediocrity.

You know, I'm really nothing special and that's sort of disappointing for someone who likes to distinguish themselves. Okay, no one wants to feel plumb useless, but I have these frequent bouts of it. Which is utterly ridiculous, because God has been so faithful to Tut, sending her to Penn, giving her nice Engleesh profs at Penn, giving me Clarissa, letting me come to Edinburgh. Really, I have nothing to complain about. I'm not starving or dying or working a minimum wage job at Ann Taylor, so what am I talking about? Well, maybe it's because it's so easy to get swallowed up by the world here and trick yourself into believing this is an ultimate vs. just a good thing (thankee Tim Keller). I have to remember that going to grad school is not the end all of life. Most of my time I spend contemplating whether I even like scholarship. I know it shouldn't really really really matter (Mom said yesterday that I can't get depressed if I get rejected from all the schools...), but poops, in our sinful state of trying to make identities outside of God, it does matter.

There is another world out there. A world of family, a world of f-f-frie...I mean, more family, and life outside of the university. I just need to stop being so self-absorbed. Maybe I really am Betsy--afterall, she didn't even finish undergrad, she dropped out. But she also married Joe and became a housewife, so all of that was less of an issue. I guess we can't all be acupuncturists. It's good to learn these lessons now, that we can't boast in anything but Christ because we are zeroes and raisins (zeroes are nothing and raisins taste like dirt).

I can't wait for Issy to come. When I use to feel sick and tired of making miniscule profits, I would just go shopping with Issy at Penn. No pain could be deeper, no life could be cheaper, eh Wug? By all accounts it doesn't make sense. I wish I could make a deal with a peasant.

Fall Fun

Just so you know that Issy's life is not all thunderclouds and rainstorms (though she may occasionally make it seem that way), here is one of the fun trips that Issy took recently. Scott and his friends take a trip every year, and this year I tagged along. We went to go see fall foliage near Albany, NY in mid-October.

Here are a couple of pictures. It was beeyewtifal!


Scott and me pretending to be small animals.


The view from the top:

reflections

Wow, I'm sorry everyone. I did not know that the blog was still in existence and thus have not checked for about a year now...Thousand apologies oh patient one.

I was just being nostalgic and looking back at some of our old posts. Life sure seemed a lot happier three years ago when we started the blog. Tut and Issy smiling in front of the theater, Tut with her (used to be) crowds of RCF friends, Issy's students writing lovely "odes to Kristen". Man, life seemed good. Compare to now: Issy's job stinks. Tut is living in a toilet-paperless land of icky meat. And Wug is having some serious job/internship crises here in Princeton. Sigh.

Why do you think our blog posts went from happy latkes to morose brooding about life? I guess it means we're more comfortable with one another, but I think that life in general gets more complicated as you get older (minus retirement when you can finally build that summer home with Wug's thirty-seven digit retirement fund...hey, inflation is real. Thirty-seven digits will be nothing by then.) First we learn how to be content as kids, then as college students, then as workers in the real world, then as wives/mothers (!#$*#).

I have no idea where I'm going with this. Actually, I should go and do something useful (like read Slug's Ichiro blog), but I wanted to show that I still was aware of the blog's existence. I think I just wanted to say that life really ain't so bad. In light of Thanksgiving, here are some things Wug is thankful for:
-family, especially sisters...Wug is really really thankful for Tut and Issy. Tut, because she periodically puts grandiose engleesh thoughts in Wug's lil pea-sized brain to mull over and because she spices up Wug's life with spiciness. Issy, because she is Wug's role model/supah-hero (ouch my toe! okay, who remembers da supah-dupah from Homer Price??? simply mah-velous). I mean, come on, who doesn't want to be like Issy when they grow up? Issy takes care of us, Issy is an altruistic human being who saves orphans in Honduras, Issy actually has f-f-f-friends (sorry, not part of Tut and Wug's vocabulary. eh wug, speak for yourself. okay, not part of Wug's vocabulary). And Issy has a mighty fine Christmas present coming her way in a few months (stop hyping it up, Wug...okay really Issy, it isn't that cool, so this will be my last mention of it).
-student-dom....Being a college student is stressful sometimes, but man oh man, when I look at post-college life, I never want to leave. All I have to do here is eat, sleep, and study (in that order, of course).
-basic health and safety...I think about this more after I went to Ghana and saw all those kids drinking muddy water. Can you imagine being born in another country?

Hey, didn't we do this in a previous year? Say all the things we're thankful for? Erm, as you know from my excellent HP retention, I have no memory so someone should please inform me. I'll write more later. TTFN. Terrible tomatoes fight nefariously. Oooo, GRE vocab word.