Blog has a new home!

My blog has a new home. I'm tired of trying to keep up with two google accounts. Blogspot merged with google after I got gmail and already had a blogspot account, too. Thanks Google for taking over the world. :)

www.amandamaclean.blogspot.com

Come, and follow me...

Musings in Scotland

I'm sitting in a hostel in Glasgow. It's pretty cool. There is a disco ball on the ceiling and techno music playing. The room is fine - a hostel room with three double bunks. I'm just stopping here for the night on my way to the Isle of Mull for my visit to Duart Castle over the next two days. I'm going to the Castle MacLean!

I'm learning so many life lessons. One is: Never lie. Even the littlest lies cause you to lie further to cover your ass. Just don't lie.

Don't be worried about what other people think about you. Don't be worried that everyone else knows more than you somehow. They probably don't. Everyone else is experiencing this current moment of their existence for the very first time. Time and even age mean so much less than we think they mean. Consciousness is something altogether different.

I just have to figure out what it is I really want in life.

I really used to think that I was single-handedly responsible for saving the world. Like everything was all on me - revolutionizing EVERYTHING somehow. Man. Now I just want to sit at home and have a cup of coffee and...blog. I don't want to do anything! I feel I've lost some motivation, but in a sense it is good. My motivation before was driven by fear. Now I am being freed in order to be able to see what my real desires are and dream based off of that passion deep inside me. I don't have to be afraid.

I can, like Maculay Culkin in Home Alone, run out the front door and yell, "HEY! YOU HEAR ME?? I'M NOT AFRAID ANYMORE!" (except unlike him in the movie I won't see the old man shoveling the sidewalks and scream and run back inside all scared. Ok, I might, but I'll just come back out again once I've gotten over that fright).

Seeing plays has really made me want to get involved in the theatre. I used to love being in plays in high school. I gave it up because I had this complex about doing things for God and spending all my time focusing on "ministry." Whatever I thought that was. I don't know....I don't understand how I could have really thought that giving up the things I enjoyed was somehow a service to God. But whatever, I am done being mad at myself for that. I am who I am because of the choices I have made and what God's mercy has shaped in my character out of it. A sadder but wiser girl I am...I am...

I also know that I need to be playing the guitar and singing and writing songs again. I need to set up a little recording studio in my house wherever I live next. (Wherever I live...now there's an idea, living somewhere - a locale, base, a location. Hmmm).

I need to be doing photography. I want to be doing photography. I want to be doing weddings. I've realized that I really LOVE the aesthetics of a wedding. I would love to be a wedding coordinator or planner or creative designer or something of that sort. I don't even know how to break into that. I just need to start.

I just need to start being creative, and actually executing my creativity. I need to be able to be independent and support myself and create my own schedule. I want to be able to travel.

I want to learn an artistic craft in a focused, disciplined way. Actually, I want to learn many artistic crafts. But I ought to start with photography, since that is sort of the one I'm the most devoted to the mechanics of already, and it is going to provide me with more money and flexibility to do the rest of the things I want to do.

I'm really excited to start living in Seattle / Seattle-esque. I feel that it is a new day. It's a new day!

Ok.

Hello from the Kingdom

The United Kingdom, that is.

Here I am. It has been one hellish hell of a summer for me...one that has not consisted of anything I thought it would. But I am finally here. I can breathe to that.

I've done a few pretty awesome things since I've been here. I got to spend time at C.S. Lewis' old favorite pub, where he and Tolkien and other friends would discuss their writings.



Today our group took a trip to West Wycombe, the home of the Dashwood family, who may have inspired some of Jane Austen's literary devices in Sense and Sensibility.



This weekend I'm going to head to Ireland. I'm going to Scotland the weekend after that, to visit the castle of the MacLean Clan.

All I can say is...




Woo Hoo!

mary jane

"Mary Jane"

What's the matter Mary Jane, you had a hard day
As you place the don't disturb sign on the door
You lost your place in line again, what a pity
You never seem to want to dance anymore

It's a long way down
On this roller coaster
The last chance streetcar
Went off the track
And you're on it

I hear you're counting sheep again Mary Jane
What's the point of trying to dream anymore?
I hear you're losing weight again Mary Jane
Do you ever wonder who you're losing it for?

Well it's full speed baby
In the wrong direction
There's a few more bruises
If that's the way
You insist on heading

Please be honest Mary Jane
Are you happy?
Please don't censor your tears

You're the sweet crusader
And you're on your way
You're the last great innocent
And that's why I love you

So take this moment Mary Jane and be selfish
Worry not about the cars that go by
All that matters Mary Jane is your freedom
Keep warm my dear, keep dry

Tell me
Tell me
What's the matter Mary Jane...

-Alanis Morrisette

Dear God

Dear God:

I thought it was your job to make the universe run smoothly. I have news for You: it's not.

Have You noticed?

Sincerely,

Amanda

Do not think you can escape her...

She had to choose Texas, didn't she?

Mary Jane LaRue was the mother of four and then some on a ranch in Billings. I don't know if I've ever been told (I've certainly never asked) the name of the ranch. (Burger Ranch? No - different childhood memory, stick to your main idea, MacLean, like you learned in your writing classes).

The ranch - in Billings, Montana. But she was a Texas girl.

She may have worn a "designer gown" similar to the one I wore on Saturday night, sitting beneath a tower exploding with fireworks to celebrate my completion of the requirements for a Bachelor's in Arts. She just had to bring me to Texas, and to Austin, and to her Alma Mater. And if that wasn't enough, she had to usher me into Parlin and Calhoun Halls, where I might have sat in one of her old seats, where she worked towards her own degrees in French, Spanish and English (I dared not attempt to compete with that - one academic focus was good enough for me, thank you). I hadn't the faintest idea when I applied to UT (to major in film?) that I would glide through those same halls like her ghost incarnate. (Sounds like an episode of Are You Afraid of the Dark? doesn't it?)

Oblivia - such an appropriate superhero alter-ego name for a clueless grand daughter like me.

She just had to pick Texas. And I just had to go. One does not argue with one's own dead grandmother's spirit.

Well, it is nearly finished. I'm on the home stretch, huffing and puffing to actually finish the requirements I was affirmed as having already completed on Saturday (thank you UT for letting me experience the ceremonial glory before actually earning my triumph). I'm about to leave "the island" and see where my next flight will take me. England. Australia (that's not a LOST joke, I'm really going there). I'll become Jane, sit with Bill on The Globe's planks, and then...come back for an air-conditionless roadtrip to California just before heading across the world again for Vegemite, eucalyptus leaves and koalas (not bears - people...they are not bears).

My experience as a university student has been one of the most invaluable treasures - priceless - without words - mere cliches - SHUT UP AMANDA there just ARE no WORDS why are you even BLOGGING about this?? I came to change the world, and my whole being was deconstructed. I came to be equipped to become what I was going to be when I grew up. Instead I lost all sense of time and age and being grown up and of usefulness and readiness and those words hardly mean anything to me anymore. I'm just here. I'm just alive. More than I ever hoped to be.

Childhood was shortened by loss, abuse, and my own anxiousness to be anything but a child. Grandma, thanks for taking 2 years out of eternity to make sure one of your girls got some TLC and a few kicks in the pants to realize that the world is big, that life is lovely, and all of our fears are completely overrated.

Till Oxford, I'll spend my days swimming in the pool, doing my math homework, sitting on the computer and not knowing who's going to call me on my phone and offer me another new surprise trip across the world. I'm just gardening in my bare feet learning that I can't argue with the ground if it refuses to germinate my carefully watered seeds. I'm just chopping tomatoes. Making my breakfast tacos. Listening to the resonant droning and drumming of Interstate 35. Yelling at the neighbors for their loud drunken partying. Eating dirt ice cream. And remembering the past.

I'm just a kid with a camera and an eye full of wonder again.




"Till Gabriel blows his horn..."

wow

So it's been a big weekend and I should probably blog something about my graduation.

But right now all I can think about is how incredible the series finale of LOST was.

LOST! I love you. I am going to buy all of your DVD's and watch you over and over again, every year.

Farewell!