Teeth, Love, and Growing Up

Greetings EN502! I am writing to you from my kitchen table with a fresh cup of tea. I have been trying to write this post for a while now, but I have not lent myself enough time for reflection.  I have just come out of an interview for a job I would really like. It is competitive and I am keeping my expectations low, but it is the first real lead I have had on this job hunt and it is hard not to daydream.  The job search is horrid. I wish I had better things to say about it, but it is definitely worse than the college decision process (at least for me). While applying to college, I had the confidence of a white man in business. I felt accomplished and qualified (whether that be the truth or not). I am trying to emulate the same energy for these job applications, but I just feel like I was more interesting on paper before I got to college.  Objectively, this is probably not true. Especially given all of the personal growth I have gone through during my time at university. ...

Seattle: driving, So far I drove into Seattle on the Second of September Started Screaming haven’t Stopped. In Short: Small hometown roots meet Sleepless Skyscraper Seattle Steeply Sloped Side Streets in Slick rain Skidding Screaming Sliding Swearing (Staunchly against driving on james Street again.) Six lane interState Swerving merging praying Screaming no turn Signals (why don’t Seattle drivers use turn Signals?) Sudden Stops Shaking Screaming Sweating Seventeen-minute delay SIXTY-minute delay (at 4 pm on a friday… makes Sense.) Seattle: everything else, so far I love the Pacific Northwest. I have never experienced such lush, abundant greenery before; I cannot stop gawking at each moss-covered tree towering over me as I pass by. And the ocean! I swam in the bioluminescence for the first time in Bellingham Bay. My friends and I floated in the cold, dark ocean, watching the moon rise above the trees, and the water around us glowed green and glittered like thousands of stars. I’m fi...

On Thursday , I drove to Laguna Beach to see my friend for the last time before she moved back to Boston. Our other friend had left the week before. Now, I'm the only one from our little group who's left in Southern California.          Driving on long stretches of freeway feels meditative when I'm not being cut off by oil tankers or testing the limits of my gas pedal to accelerate past cement mixers in time for my exit. That particular morning, a deep white fog hung over the horizon -- it didn't occlude my immediate vision, as it sometimes does, but it made the entire sky look opaque as china. I found it unnatural and strange, but also calming. With such scenery, what better album to put on than Björk's Vulnicura ?     I've driven up north a few times this summer, and early on I decided to use any 1+ hour long car rides to listen to albums in full. I started with Kate Bush's The Kick Inside , then Weyes' Blood's And in the Darkness, Heart's Aglo...