New photojournalism assignemt: Create a photo essay using powerpoint that answers the question "Who am I?" It'll be interesting and naturally consume too much of my time, considerably so since I know have a full-out research paper to swollow. Which reminds me, I need a thesis for tomorrow... Dance was hard today. It's really frustrating and the best I can do is laugh it off until I get it. I just don't like spinning. I feel like I have clubbed feet that react ten seconds slower than I want them to. But the Panda was good. At least we have our fortunes--and the cookie. Lots and lots of rain--just like every place in the world I guess, but we're really enjoying it. Kids will. They won't think the grown-up thoughts containing scarey words like "flood" or "damage." When I was little I loved a heavy rainfall because the greenbelt in my neighborhood would become a lake and one time it was large enough to bring our canoe out there and paddle around. Freshmen year of high school I can remember getting out of softball practice in the gym and meeting some friends outside during a monsterous downpour. We danced around and jumped and skipped, soaking to the bone and loving every second of it. That's actually one of the best memories I have of high school, isn't that odd? David and I used to joke about the rain all the time, always threatening to go dancing with our clothes off the next time it poured. It was all sport of course, but it was the essence of the joke that was important. I miss my friend. I miss a lot of friends. And strangely enough, I miss my self. Senior year has changed so much, and maybe it's because "I" am now a "we", but it's remarkable still how much my daily, nightly patterns have changed. It's amazing how much I have changed--my interests, my passions...I sat down this evening to just attempt to get a few lines down in Sin is a Myth. I think I jotted down a miniscule paragraph and that was all, inerrupted by the chores of being a daughter, student, girlfriend; involved. I have 20 pages on that novel. 25 if you count all my little jots and paragraphs soon to be added. That's really pathetic considering how long I've been working on it. I was researching some authors today and scanned down a list of published works with envy. I can't imagine writing so much so quickly. I think its my constant failure to get past the beginning that has me so discouraged in the writing world. I was much happier when I was content be a crappy writer, mostly because, at the time, i didn't realize it was crappy work. It was just something to do, to keep me entertained. Now it's...well, hell, it's work. I've let the question of "what are you going to do with the rest of your life?" presuade me into thinking that my longest-living passion is the only answer. But I never used to write to live, I lived to write. And these past couple of years have changed that. I can understand now why some authors only published things after their deaths. It may be silly to think about all this now, to focus in on a future that is still, in retrospect, far enough away to be let alone, but every day I can feel myself slipping away from who I used to define myself as. Instead of creating new things, I am drawn back to old things, clawing at ancient poetry, abandoned novels, things that were brilliant not so long ago and now look dismal and forlorn. I can't give up and won't let go, but what is it going to take in order to hold on? How white are my knuckles going to be before my grasp is tight enough? Do we ever lose a side of ourselves, or are we just shedding a layer of personality that we no longer need? Carrie