The Voices in My Head

So, I think its safe to say that thoughts are made up of various theories and ideas. Not all of them are original and not all of them are even ours. A professor once told me: We're all speaking someone else's theory, the trick is to figure out whose.

I think I've gone one step further. I think I've started labeling the different, swirling theories and fears in my head. This may or may not make crazy.

I want a cookie! - that's probably my hunger talking... unless its my inner child. You're never going to be a writer, or an 'A' student, or a good person; and people SUCK!  Is my inner cynic... he sounds a little like Darth Vader and I think he's friends with Doubt (such a bastard!).

Granted, these voices don't all shout out at once, and they certainly don't tell me to burn things (thank goodness). That would make me schizophrenic or a sufferer of Multiple Personality Disorder... which I am not.

However, I did have a... let's call it an incident. I think it was my inner grownup warring with my inner child. And I don't mean the sweet, happy inner child. I mean the upset, sacred of the world, let's hide until it all goes away child... you know? The one that most of us never really grow out of.

It went a little something like this.

Inner grown-up (who sounds oddly like Sam the American Eagle from the Muppets): Huzzah, I have finished a solid portion of my big essay due next week. Time to walk into the other room and grab the necessary primary source to continue this essay.

[I stood up and walked towards me stack of books... and then I walked right by them, into my bedroom, got under the covers and didn't move]

Inner grown-up: Jenny? What are you doing? You have a paper to finish.

Me (or possibly that inner child I was talking about): No.

Inner grown-up: Jenny, big girls don't hide from their homework. You are graduate student now. Graduate students don't hide under the covers.

Me: shhhhh! The laptop might hear you.


And that's the gist of it. I, a rational, functioning wannabe adult, hid like a small child from my homework. I hid, like it was going to eat me, or make scary faces at me... or something.

This is just further proof that our societal opinions about adulthood, grownups and the joys of independence may, in reality be a big pile of crap. We don't grow up, we just wear bigger shoes and more expensive coats.

And if we're lucky, no one will notice.

The light at the end of the tunnel

The end of November is nigh.

I have a cooked. I have worn my apron, although I have not always written about it. I have written many a paper. More of a paper than I thought I would have to in the merry months of autumn. December looms with its holiday cheer and snow storms; and at this moment in time, I am content.

Today did not start out well, oh no. Today, like so many other weekend mornings, I waited for a bus that did not come and eventually I had to walk ten minutes down the road to wait for a bus that eventually did come. The wind was beastly, a howling rogue wailing and flailing until my ears were numb and I couldn't feel my feet.

Work was bustling and busy with boardgames flying, children running and customers making great pains to let the store know that they were terribly busy and important. The poor dears had to wait in line just like all the rest. The day was rewarding though, with customers full of thank yous and special stories about long lost childhood books and the perfect toy for little Timmy. A good shift. A fine shift.

Then, good student that I am trying to be, I went to the library. I skipped my perfect bus that stops at the foot my street, in favour of a bus that drops me off in front of the library of my university. My plan was simple, get the books that I'd spent my lunch break hunting down shelf codes for. Fortified with personal strength and the sense that I was where I ought to be, I pushed at the doors of the house of knowledge... and they resisted me.

But wait. A man. A man with spectacles and keys was coming towards the door. An oversight. Surely I had not ventured out after my long day of work and my hour long wait in the cold that morning only to find that a university library would inconsiderately close its doors at 5:45. That would be ridiculous.

The gentleman pushed open the doors with a smile and said: "Library's closed" in the most cheerful voice he could muster. I'm pretty sure I started at him like he was an idiot... which in turn meant that he stared at me like I was an idiot. Good times.

However, I did not bus all the way to school to simply turn around. I'm much more stubborn than that; and I have keys to my department. ha ha. Alone on the fourth floor of the Education Building (which has a proper name that I never seem to be able to remember), I clack clacked away at the website of knowledge (often linked to the house of knowledge, though wirelessly). Much of my search lead me to writing down more shelf numbers that I will have investigate on a day that the library is open (perhaps sometime in December, when classes aren't in session, and no on needs to use the place). But some of my research brought me to the site of jstore and the like, so all was not lost... much thanks and homage to the great glory of scholar.google.ca (amen).

I arrived home tired, but accomplished and excited - because all day, this is what I had been looking forward to. My man and I had made plans, you see we'd decided that tonight was going to be homemade fish&chips night to go with our English ale that was splurged on! Perhaps a game of Scrabble. Perhaps an episode of Doctor Who? Who knows? The point is that my day, no matter the ridiculousness, was not going to get me down, because I had something to look forward to.

And this is what I learned. When you have a light at the the end the tunnel, you can put up with a lot of dark.

That, and St. John's has some truly messed up ideas about when people should be allowed in a university library.

Cheers!

P.S. It snowed last night.