Finals Week Has Arrived!

Bridge Over Troubled Water

I don't know if any of you have felt heart break before, and I mean feeling that something that really just makes you ache and mourn down to your very soul. But recently I have gone through some real hard moments in my life. None of it due to romantic heartbreak but something entirely different. In the past few months my parents have split up and are due to divorce. Coming as a shock to me, who I guess naively suspected nothing, everything felt like it was coming tumbling down all around me. It is hard to try and emotionally have a handle on something you have absolutely no control over. I felt helpless, and had a really hard time connecting with the people around me for a while: my family and friends. You see these kind of things happen on tv or to other people and you never think it could happen to you, but when it does it never turns out as you imagine it could. Even though it was my parents splitting, I felt deep and penetrating heartbreak. All your life you imagine a certain kind of future for yourself and your family, and all the sudden everything has completely changed course.

For months I have been in a bad place, but recently I have been turning a new leaf. Even though there are things greatly out of my control, I have been taking this time of heartbreak to renew myself and take a time for self reflection and discovery. It is in our hardest times that we can discover how strong we actually can be. In these passed months I have discovered that I am a strong young woman with a lot of greatness ahead of me. I have made new dreams for myself, and learned to look forward with positivity and optimism. With Paul Simon as my emotional guide I have started to heal and callus my wounds. I have never so much felt the healing power that music can give until listening to the beautiful lyrics of Paul Simon while I was down. The man is a genius, and I infinitely owe him. Good music really heals down to the soul. Heartbreak is only temporary, and happiness can last a lifetime. I just needed to break through trial to discover the happiness that can be gained.

Life throws us curve balls, we just need to learn to outsmart it and learn to hit the ball right on.

Native American Literature

This semester I have taken a course that I have completely fallen in love with, Native American Literature. Before taking this class I didn't really think too much about their being a whole separate genre for Native literature, but as I have been engrossing myself in these novels I have come to realize that Native writers do in fact have this beautiful and unique style of writing that I have not had the pleasure of reading in any other books. The books I have read have such a strong sense of identity and what it means to be apart of something, the Native culture. And being the English major I am, I love to devour symbolism, trying to find the meaning hidden in simple things. These books are chalk full of that like no other genre I have read. So to you I suggest, if you have not already, to find a Native American novel and you will be pleasantly surprised as you read and open your mind to a beautiful culture.

Books I suggest:

Love Medicine, by Louise Erdrich.

Winter in the Blood, by James Welch

Ceremony, by Leslie Marmon Silko

Bone Game, by Louis Owens

If you feel so inclined, pick up one of these books, and you will not regret it.