drip, drip, drop, little April shower...

Oh wait, it's still March. No matter--it's still raining. Actually, it's rained quite frequently during these last few days. But I believe this is our first lasting shower of the season. I walked slowly back from choir today and let the cool drops fall on my face. It was lovely. I'm not such a big fan of mud, but I do like the rain. Sullivan pond is filing up, and has again become the home of a couple of ducks. It's fun to hear them quacking in the rain. But the duck wasn't the only bird to make its voice heard today. This morning, as I made my way to Jordan for class, I heard the all-too-familiar cry of the Canadian goose. It was perched (if a bird with webbed feet can even be said to perch) on the chimney of Pierce Hall. And it was honking. Loudly. So loudly, in fact, that it echoed off every building and made me wonder whether there might be other geese on campus rooftops. But I'm fairly certain it was just the one.

At any rate, waterfowl was not what I had in mind to talk about today. And I will refrain from making some cheesey pun about bills. Why bills? Because the topic flying all over campus this week seems to be money. I can't speak for anyone else, but I've gotten rather fed up with how the universtiy is handling my money. Not long before spring break, I received an unexpected bill, claiming that I still owed money for this semester. When I asked then about it, we discovered that the fee for my violin lessons had not been charged to my account until the end of February. And it wasn't until nearly two weeks after that, that I even got the letter about an unpaid bill. So for a while I was pretty sure I was going to be broke for the rest of the semester. Then, after break I went back in and they had changed their minds. One of my scholarships--which they knew was coming--came in late and has just been applied to my account. So now, they owe me money (about as much as they were charging me, oddly enough), which is a great relief. But I'm still frustrated with them. The school thinks they're already giving me too much money--I can't even have a music scholarship on top of the one big one they're giving me--but I would argue that this scare proves there is still a gap.

But all that talk about money leads us into my job search. I desperately want to stay in SuFu this summer instead of going home to chop vegetables in the salad bar. I'd rather work in a library, or just about anywhere that isn't retail or food service. I realize that doesn't leave many options, but for now I'll be optimistic and selective. After all, I can always fall back on the broccoli if nothing else pans out.

Segue! Segue! Segue!

So, as long as we're talking about work, here are some thoughts from class. We've been working our way though a book called The Path, which is supposed to prepare us for finding the career and calling just right for us. Or something like that. I'll admit that I haven't done all the activities, but the ones that I have done have proven interesting. At one point the author leads you through a series of exercises designed to help you establish your mission statement.
Mine went like this:

My mission is to write, resonate, and illuminate faith, love and integrity with books for youth.

It must have been a really good day that I wrote that. Well, it was spring break, so perhaps the sense of peace that comes with getting adequate sleep and eating food with real nutritional value can account for my idealism. And it only gets better. The next chapter asked us to write down what we'd like to be doing in the next year, two years and five years. We were encouraged to dream big and write as if we were certain. This was the result:

Next spring my book will have been picked up by a well-known publishing company. I'll be negotiating with them about cover art and distribution as I plan my graduation party and prepare my English colloquia.

The year after that, I'll be at library school, with a job in the campus library to pay my way. I'll make time every day to finish editing the sequel to my book, which I finished writing during the summer.

Upon graduation i'll land a job as a children's librarian in a large library. I will work only part-time in order to keep writing and finish books quickly. Within my first few years I'll have the surreal experience of shelving my own book, as well as reading it to kids at story time.

Eventually I'll make enough money from my writing that all of my library work is on a volunteer basis.

And so, we get another liberal dose of idealism. But hey, I've got to have a dream, right?

-Kim