That Fresh Feeling

New year, new classes, new experiences, fresh music.

The title of this post comes from "Fresh Feeling" by The Eels. The motivation behind it comes from the love, support, dedication, and mere presence of everyone who is currently a part of my life--from my fellow camp staff of the past two summers, to the lovely HT14 Oxford crew, to the school friends I abandoned way too much over the past several months, to my amazing family who I wish I could see more often, and everyone in between.

I hope the slower melodies in this collection don't get you down. I've always loved slower music; I feel a strange kind of hopefulness from it. I hope you can find some hope in knowing life's not just the sad times, but using the moments of sadness to remember why sadness is important, why grieving things we've lost is important, and that there's always good stuff to come.

This is for all of you. Listen here.

Tracklisting:
All The Way - Timeflies
Jungles - Stepdad
Lying Beast - Run River North
Anna Sun - Walk the Moon
Tiger Striped Sky - Roo Panes
Let Go (Instrumental) - Kraddy
You - Keaton Henson
Beware the Dog - The Griswolds
Walk On By - Noosa
Gold - Wake! Owl
Don't Believe You - Thief
All Comes Down - Kodaline
Papaoutai - Stromae
Hello, I'm In Delaware - City & Colour
Empire - Shakira
Saturn - Sleeping At Last
Blue Skies - Noah and the Whale
Rather Be (jackLNDN Remix) - Clean Bandit & Jess Glynne
Agape - Bear's Den

The Countdown

10 days until I turn in my last paper.
13 days until my time in Oxford is over.
16 days until I return to America.
19 days until I'm back at school.


A poem I wrote a few years back, briefly revisited.

Don’t ask me to let you go.

I will not do it now.

I will let you go when we’ve lived

out this grinding,

future-driven life. I will

let you go when eternity shines

from the tunnel’s end.

I will let you go when I can’t help

but have forgotten who we both are

and what we might have been

back then.

Don’t ask me before we’ve watched

the sun set

and the stars break through

black curtains of the night.

Don’t ask me

before the actors bow

and the lights come up for good.

I won’t do it unless

the children are grown;

we’ve taken care of it all.

Don’t ask me to watch you leave

before the end has come.

The Reality: A Random Smattering

A series of things loosely based on a message I sent to my friend Anna last week.

• Spring break in Wales was one of the top 2 greatest experiences of my life
• I feel closer to everyone in my house all of a sudden
• I started riding my bike again after almost two months of only walking
• Stonehenge really is just a big pile of rocks
• But an impressive pile of rocks
• I've woken up before 9am almost every day the past week and a half
• And I'm happy about it
• The staff and other speakers have made history more interesting than it ever was before
• I climbed a cathedral tower with 332 steps
• It's been in the 50s almost every day for the past few weeks
• And the sun's been out
• Prawn cocktail (aka shrimp cocktail) Pringles are really good
• I ate half a jar of peanut butter for lunch yesterday and learned a lot about my life
• Making myself feel better about stuff doesn't always mean sitting alone and crying
• But it also doesn't always mean forcing myself to socialize and get plenty of exercise
• I'm really bad at judging the size of international stamps when writing postcards
• Adult things are stressful
• But they don't have to be
• One thing at a time, right?
• Oliver Cromwell disapproved of the Magna Carta and instead called it the "Magna Farta"
• Actually a large majority of historical figures had senses of humor and/or did stupid things that are extremely amusing
• There is pen all over my hands for the first time in a long time because let me tell you ink does not dry quickly when applied to the backs of postcards
• Online groceries are a godsend
• I am about to read a lot of books in a very short amount of time
• The British education system is wonderful but I miss having month-long (or more) warnings for my paper prompts
• And only writing papers with a small number of short sources
• And only having to walk 2 minutes to class instead of biking 15+ or walking 40+
• I miss restaurants and stores that are open past 6pm
• I miss Taco Bell
• I miss living in the Eastern time zone
• I miss driving
• I miss reading books for fun
• I miss the rest of my wardrobe
• I miss having a roommate
• Especially one who manages to ruin my life in a good way
• I miss not being surprised by the conversion rates when I check my bank balance
• But soon I'm going to miss living in a house with 30+ other people
• I'm going to miss morning and afternoon tea
• I'm going to miss late nights in the kitchen talking about life
• I'm going to miss the staff and tutors and JDs and other Oxfordians that have taken such good care of us
• I'm going to miss large group meals and fumbling through recipes we found online
• I'm going to miss having dozens of heavy coins in my wallet that add up to almost $20
• Okay that was a joke
• I can't wait to get back to mostly paper money
• I'm going to miss the insane library system
• I'm going to miss the sight of a crowded Cornmarket Street
• I'm going to miss my daily passing of buildings older than America
• I'm going to miss Oxford and all these wonderful people
• When the time comes I know I'll be ready to go
• Ready to see family and friends again
• But right now I have a book to read, a paper to write, and groceries on the way
• I hope you all have a wonderful week

Life Songs: A Music Update

My spring break in Wales starts in less than 24 hours!
I've done this kind of thing a few times, but not since November, and anyone who knows me is aware that I like music maybe a little bit more than a lot. So here's another collection of my favorite tracks that I've discovered and listened relentlessly to over the past month. (Note: this doesn't mean everything listed is new, just that it's new to me.)
I'm including links with every song in this batch for the convenience of anyone who's curious. I hope it motivates you to at least give a brief listen to a few tracks.
I've also sorted them a bit based on the moods I've been in over the past month. If dubstep and electronic stuff isn't for you, skip the first section. The second is non-electronic upbeat songs. The third has a few instrumentals and generally less hardcore stuff.
*Disclaimer: Not all lyrics or videos are clean, particularly from the first two sections. Click at your own risk.

Song - Artist

Party-ish/dancey/dubstep stuff:
Falling Down (xKore Remix) - Sub Focus
Damaged - Adrian Lux
All Day I Dream (Getter Remix) - Fei-Fei
Halogen - Kevin Drew
The Source (Chaos & Confusion) - The Bloody Beetroots
Fat Lip (Acetronik Remix) - Sum 41 (I've been listening to this for weeks now)
End of Pretend - Black Cards & Matthew Koma (this video is a little weird)
(Black Cards was one of Pete Wentz's side projects and you should definitely download this entire 38 track album free here because it is magical)

Not-dubstep upbeat things:
Stay The Night (feat. Hayley Williams) - Zedd
White Light Moment - Tove Styrke
Red Lights - Tiësto
Pulse - Hit The Lights

Chillers:
For You - Wolf Rider
Always Gold - Radical Face
I Giorni - Ludovico Einaudi (this man is spectacular and everyone should listen to his music)
The Hymn of Acxiom - Vienna Teng (gorgeous -- all of her stuff is powerful)
Running Up That Hill - Placebo
Byegone - Volcano Choir (this video gives me chills)
Start A Riot - Jetta (itunes does an amazing job yet again in picking this single of the week)
By The Time - Mika
State Hospital - Frightened Rabbit
Bridges - Broods
Boats & Birds - Gregory and the Hawk
Riptide - Vance Joy
Where Have You Been? - Manchester Orchestra

Highly recommended albums:
The Prince of Egypt Soundtrack
No Mythologies to Follow - MØ
The Radio In My Head: Live at 54 Below - Aaron Tveit
seriously, anything and everything by Ludovico Einaudi (and he has a lot of stuff)

Oxford: The 2 Month Mark

Tomorrow (Monday--it's 1:17am) marks 2 months since I first arrived in Oxford, and some things are coming to an end. The craziness that was the first three days of this week is over, I am pleased to say. I am also extremely pleased with how well my final Creative Writing meeting went.
I said I would maybe talk a bit about my Shakespeare tutor in this post so I'll do that now. Dr. Thorpe is easier to talk to than most professors/teachers I have ever had the pleasure of working with. Early on, we had a discussion about my extreme distaste for academic writing. Or, what I thought academic writing was.
Dr. Thorpe helped me delve into the real reasons I dislike writing papers and ways to remedy them. His requirements for his students' papers are not about the number of words or pages or secondary sources. Rather, he looks for us to explore ideas we find interesting. Every week, he lets me pick which play I wish to read, and a few days later I either let him know what I want to write about or ask him for a random question. By the third week, he was complimenting how much my writing had improved since I started using my strengths instead of following the typical American standards.
We've also had conversations about Forrest Gump, the American opinion of Brits and vice versa, my experiences in Paris and Belgium, his experiences in Liverpool and Stratford, among other things. I ended up picking him to advise me on my seminar paper. My last tutorial with Dr. Thorpe is on Monday, but I look forward to working with him some over the rest of this semester.
Anyway, since I'm not about ask anyone to suffer through an entire paper on the puzzling nature of Shakespeare's sonnets, here is the ballad I wrote for my final meeting with Dr. Winn this past week in its unedited form. Happy Saturday/Sunday.

Adventures in Misplaced Trust

Little old Harry was a lively man,

Always ready to see.

But his buddy Jed was a tad unstable

So Harry offered a key.

Harry made a deal one day to Jed,

“I’ll do anything for no fee.”

He promised he’d do whatever Jed wished

As long as Harry was free.

Time arrived too soon for Harry’s tastes

That Jed came on a spree.

He knocked that day on Harry’s red door

And little old Harry was free.

“I’ve killed a man,” Jed said to him,

“I need you to help me.”

And Harry became the best gravedigger

That little old Harry could be.

When the cruiser pulled up, Jed disappeared;

Didn’t give the cops his plea.

They said someone would have to pay the price,

And little old Harry said, “Me.”

He was loaded up and processed quick.

Not even time for tea.

He served his sentence, twenty years in a cell,

But then little old Harry was free.

A month or two later, Harry found Jed,

Intending to change Jed’s plea.

But Harry, after spotting Jed’s uniform,

Let his good friend be.

A Study in Oxford Habits (AKA: I should be studying right now)

In case anyone didn't know at this point, I have not been in America since 2013. Yes, that is a true fact. I left on the last day of last year and am currently out experiencing the world British-style.

I've been in Oxford, England for over 50 days now and will be for about another 50. I have walked more miles, eaten more carbs, drunk more tea, read more books, stayed up later nights, worn more dresses, and spent more money this semester than any before.

I won't even try to explain the schooling system here because it's incredibly convoluted to those that are unfamiliar with it. Having said that, some of my favorite (and most intimidating) moments of the term so far have been meetings with my Creative Writing tutor, Dr. Winn. None of us knew what to think of him at first, but after sharing four meetings, three cups of tea, six of my own poems, and about a hundred jokes with him, I am extremely thankful for every moment he has spared for my benefit. I didn't know what it meant to have your work torn to pieces until I worked with Dr. Winn. I can say, however, that it has been a life-changing experience. I've read entire poetry books and written better verse than I thought I was capable of. Tomorrow (Tuesday, since it's 4:45am on Monday here) is my last meeting with him, and it truly saddens me to think of all the instruction I haven't received yet.

Anyway, in honor of the nearing end of my tutorials, and in prayer for the end of winter back home in Ohio, here's one of the sonnets I've spent the last three weeks working on.

Winter Song

I learned in all the snippet days I’ve seen

I can’t forget the winter’s touch. I love

Each one; brisk wind propels me like a shove.

I feel a portion of my soul careen.

When childhood calls me like a time machine,

And in soft light I fight the flakes above,

It is the cold that wrestles me enough

To prompt another thought about the scene.

I dare to dig and scour through piles of white

To find the mislaid pieces of my heart.

For though my search escorts me now through sand,

I never can recover from the sight

That winter made by sun and earth apart;

My summer-children cannot understand.

Dr. Winn said to me in our last meeting, "You tense up when you're scared of something. It makes everything harder. Just relax your shoulders and let it flow naturally. It'll take work, but there's no need to be scared." I hope all you cool people take this to heart (not necessarily about poetry, but whatever you need it for) and let yourselves relax once in a while. Happy Spring!

(P.S. My Shakespeare tutor has been equally encouraging and wonderful to work with. Perhaps I'll dedicate a post to him next week.)