[  My Blog will likely celebrate its ·20,000th· view with the launch of this post, which is a mind-blowing thought. ]

   

      I moved home a few weeks ago, taking the ultimate retreat to my parent's house. There are rules similar to when I was in high school, my room arranged like I had it in the eighth grade, and the mindless monotony of the space takes me back to elementary school.

                          My room is a sanctuary, and if walls could talk they would be laughing and crying all at once. I've been applying for jobs in mass quantities and the interviews are just starting to come in. It's as if everyone left for the summer and companies, governments, and firms all over just checked out for the month of June. 

   I've decided to video my experiences when I move. I think it will be an exciting time--More so than the last eight times. I'm ready to settle down just as badly as I'm ready to get out of my hometown. 

    My social life has been a mixture of self loathing due to the fact I live at home again, and unrequited love that has ended in more depressing outcomes. In fact this year has been the worst on record for dating. I had a more successful love life in Kindergarten and the year I was in the hospital for 65 days straight than I have in 2014.  Suddenly I'm painting again and doing stuff that is meant to occupy my mind from going crazy. I'm writing posts about my lack of social life on my blog as I listen to my new depressing anthem, Dark Paradise on repeat. This is usually the time I chime in with some sort of hopeful proverb of empowerment that is meant to give hope and belief in the future. ["There can be no rainbow without the rain." "An arrow can only be shot when pulled in reverse." "You can only get a new car if you survive the wreck."] 

    

    Okay maybe I fabricated that last one, but I think it's the best. I decided the day I moved home that I would make it my goal to apply to at least one job a day until I got results. I mean think about what Aristotle tells us in his works on Politics, "Poverty is the parent of revolution and crime."Trust that when I was being forced to read Aristotle in school I never believed it would be applicable to my life as an unemployed recent graduate. 

EASTER: The REAL struggle.

Let's face it: EASTER IS THE MOST TERRIFYING HOLIDAY of all the holidays. 

Maybe I missed something as a kid when they told me I was suppose to be excited about a giant animal sneaking into my house and bringing me a basket of candy? I only voiced my fear a few times, but it was there.. it was constantly there. I just imagined this massive beast-though white and fluffy- abnormally large, with massive eyes and unusually good hearing, coming out of the dark wood behind my house. This same dark wood was the origin of most of my terrors when I was younger. (Witches, the ghost of the socially wronged native American Chieftain,  human trafficking kid-nappers, you name it-they all come out of the woods. 

Anyway, soooo theres this large bunny that's going to bring me candy. He sneaks into my house and hides the basket. (WHO HIDES THE GIFT!?) There's something fishy about giving a person something and then not wanting them to actually receive it. I was always the last kid in my family to find my basket. Mainly my sisters found it for me. Okay okay, fast forward to church. They made me dress up in pastel colors, which I have nothing against now, but my second grade self did NOT agree. I thought it was de-masculating. Get to church and have to sit through hours of listening to the same easter hymnals (ALL OF WHICH MAKE ME WANT TO SCREAM!)

 If you haven't let the giant bunny take you away or all the pink get to you, the old time-y gospel hymns may take you down. Need I mention the hour and something spent listening to how someone plotted, publicly embarrassed and successfully killed Jesus, which as a kid I was thoroughly confused about why we had to keep rehashing this horrible tale.  I thought it would all be better off just to stop dwelling on it, and sweep it under the rug. 

Alas, at the end of it all, Easter was one holiday my kid self could do without. I wanted no part in it. As an adult it has come to represent so much more to me, but still holds some of those old meanings too -It is the gateway to summer, it is a time of good food, celebration, and tons of CANDY just like it was when I was seven. The religious stuff is just the icing on the pastel cake. 

    “Do not fall in love with people like me. I will take you to museums, and parks, and monuments, and kiss you in every beautiful place, so that you can never go back to them without tasting me like blood in your mouth. 
  I will destroy you in the most beautiful way possible. And when I leave you will finally understand, why storms are named after people.” -Caitlyn Siehl

                       "Which way did our last chance go and can we Get out if we go right now?
               It seems that with the malls and the mega-church stadiums We would get out if we knew just how with the radio on"

 Last night I decided to go to the gym at 12:30 am. It was strange being the only one there. I decided that it would do me the most good rather than midnight mass or some club. I've been down lately, and my sleep being off the wall isn't helping. I pulled an all nighter yesterday and when I tried to get home to sleep it wouldn't take. Today is my day off and I'm working on job applications. I have to kick out of this slump. I need some good news hopefully this week will bring me some. This seems to be the best song ever right now. "I've got a worried mind I know..."

Founder's Day

    "Jefferson didn't work in a vacuum", he was in constant contact with people like Latrobe, Thornton, Neilson, and Cocke. The idea of a university came after over thirty years of working on legislation on education. The built plan for the university evolved over five years until it became an elongated ten pavilion plan. The professors would live and teach in the pavilions and the rotunda housed the library. It was a complete package that demonstrates through architecture the orders-modern, classic, and their relation to each other. It is also a UNESCO World Heritage site. Tonight the fire works are blazing in celebration. It's the 271st anniversary of JT's birth being celebrated this weekend.  It's going to be an exciting night.