![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
i fold in half so easily when i put myself in the picture of success
It's my second livejournal birthday today. Last year I thought such an anniversary significant of something, but I've observed no one else celebrating their own lj birthdays, so clearly I'm an odd one.
I do think it's significant though. Call me sentimental. I won't deny it. But I think it's important to reflect, if only briefly, on the importance of livejournal in my life.
I kept a lot of journals in my formative years, but they all inevitably fizzled and died after a few short months. So there is something noteworthy in the fact that I've kept this thing successfully and regularly for two years. I think a large part of it is my weakness for fun little internet features, like user icons and style editing and such, and especially the typing vs. handwriting thing, as I am most coherent when the words come at close to the same pace as the thoughts.
I use the "friends only" feature more than I'd ideally like to. It's probably a last-ditch panic effect whenever I feel I'm being at all revelatory - I generally only switch to friends only just before I post - as though it really makes any difference. Because the fact is, there are thirty-one people on my friends list. Three are close friends in real life and already know everything there is to know about me. Two are fellow Smithies, one of whom I've shared a class with but neither of whom I've had so much as a conversation with in person. Several I developed good online relationships with in fandoms long ago. But the majority are random people I've added on occasion or who have added me and aside from a few shared interests, it's all very arbitrary. Sometimes I've commented on entries, but there are some I've never exchanged words with at all. And yet I love reading about these strangers' lives; I love that I know more about them, in a sense, than I do about the majority of acquaintences I see on a regular basis in my real life. And likewise.
I'm pretty low-key about the whole "community" aspect of my livejournal - my journal is primarily for me, and it's certainly primarily about me. It's always a complement when someone finds something I say interesting, and I always appreciate advice and suggestions. The friends element isn't a huge deal to me but lately I've been feeling more appreciative of it. I get a great deal out of the livejournal experience - it's overwhelming to realize the personal depths of strangers. I think I'd probably be a great deal more compassionate towards the random people I pass on the street if only I remembered that they're thinking whole worlds all the time, just like me, that the distance between their outer demeanor and their inner person is miles and miles wide.
That's what livejournal has helped me realize. So, thanks, is what I guess I'm trying to say.
\\\\\\\\
In the ongoing saga of my AmeriCorps application process, I have secured one of my references. The other has yet to respond... argh. The question is whether to keep waiting, or talk to my husband Doug Patey about a reference instead? The other reference is kind of the ideal reference - the woman I worked with at the camp last summer - but I have no idea what she's doing or if she's even in Syracuse, and Doug's not exactly a terrible reference - he's my advisor and I've taken two of his classes. I'm going to need to ask him for law school recommendations anyway - well, we'll see. I really wanted to get my applications in this week.
Regardless, my apps are thisclose to being done, as in I've done everything *I* can possibly do, including peer editing of my motivational statements. I also actually *decided* on which programs I'm applying to. Below are the seven that made the cut (at least for round one - I am fully prepared to apply to every single AmeriCorps program in the country until one of them accepts me.)
1) BAYAC, San Francisco, CA
2) St. John Education Threshold Center, San Francisco, CA
3) North Country AmeriCorps, Berlin, NH
4) Redwood Community Action Straight Up, Eureka, CA
5) YouthServe, McKinleyville, CA
6) Sonoma State Service Collaborative, Rohnert Park, CA
7) Partnerships for Student Achievement, Forest Grove, OR
I'm too lazy to go to the AmeriCorps website to look up each program's description; suffice it to say, they all pretty much involve working with kids in some way. Not included on the list is AVAP, in NH, which has a more involved application process than any of the above and a couple of potentially fatal scheduling issues, but which I'm still incredibly tempted by. I'm meeting a former lj-er and current AVAP member next week to get the real deal, so hopefully after that I can make up my mind whether or not to go for it.
I am truly amazed by my ability to whip my future in to shape. Three months ago I had not a clue what life held after graduation, and now I have something resembling an entire life plan. Graduate in May, enjoy a summer of nothing, relocate in August to either (I'm assuming) California, New Hampshire, or Oregon for a year in AmeriCorps. Then three years of law school, in either San Francisco, Chicago, Philadelphia, or Baltimore, and then a lovely if poorly-paid career in government service in the form of criminal prosecution. (That's excluding my little plan that reads like a detective novel, wherein the thankless life of a criminal prosecutor leads to the inevitable burnout and alcoholism and addiction to nicotine, at which point I quit law to chase down philandering husbands as a private investigator, until one unassuming day when an old acquaintance shows up at my door with a case I just can't resist, and I'm drawn unwillingly back into the fold...)
Yes, there should be no question as to what my genre of choice is.
I'm going to shut up now, seeing as this endless entry was all just a ploy to avoid finishing my gender and sexuality midterm.
no subject
over at sarahjupiter.
i don't post there anymore. because i'm no longer sarah but daniel.
so one day i'll have an lj/me anniversary.
anyhow congrats on keeping it up.
i too have trouble with paper journals.
have you read house of leaves?
daniel
no subject
and i'm glad you've stuck around. i love reading your journal.