Dear Blog,

I made this catalogue of things I want to tell a person/people...but I haven't really had the chance lately to sit down and talk to someone, as in have a legit conversation that's not about college, where do I want to go, what do I want to study, and "Emaline, make sure you apply to BYU." So here's some things I wanted to tell someone(s):

I kinda sorta got a nine on my AP lit essay. My first. We had to write an essay about a character in fiction that's portrayed in such a way that we see them as evil or immoral, and yet the author somehow still manages to make their reader feel sympathetic towards their character. I wrote mine on Heathcliff, and my teacher said she felt more sympathy for him than she had ever felt in her life. This makes me feel very accomplished.

I'm writing a literary analysis on Alexander Pope's The Rape of the Lock. Is it terribly nerdy that I'm enjoying it? Because I am. Immensely. It's an awesome poem. I love satire/mock epics.

I spent two nights my Thanksgiving break reading in Barnes and Noble. One night I read all of Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Sonnets from the Portuguese. It makes me want some guy to write me poetry like that. But seriously, I love them.

Speaking of EB Browning, I'm on a poetry kick right now. Like I'm reading it quite often. As in, I bought Immortal Poems of the English Language last night and have not stopped reading it ever since. I never really thought of myself as a poetry kind of girl until recently.

Swimming. Swimming, swimming, swimming. Why did I do this again? Oh, yeah, to stay in shape. Is it worth it? ....That last question has yet to be answered. I'm just so frustrated with the people on my team. It's ridiculously easy and yet they still manage to constantly complain. Seriously, stop talking and swim. I'm really close to saying this to certain people on my team.

Why am I having feelings of doubt about college? Where do I want to go again? Should I apply to UT Knoxville or the U of U? How the heck am I going to pay for this? Why did I have a moment where I forgot I wanted to major in art history? I have no back-up plan. I wrote an essay, pg 87 of my autobiography, and told the readers at VCU I wanted to be a curator in Germany at that point in my life. Truthfully, I have no idea where I'll be in one year, five years, or ten years.

I kinda sorta...entered in a wrong digit for my SSN on my college apps. How does this make me feel? Horribly stupid? Spacey? Embarrassed? Discouraged? All of the above.

I just finished Madame Bovary. I think it's terrible that for the first section of that novel, I kept thinking to myself, "yeah, I can relate to that." I mean, it's about this married woman who regrets her marriage and out of boredom and dissatisfaction with her life commits adultery with two different men. In the end she commits suicide by eating arsenic. What could I possibly relate to in such a story? Her feelings of disappointed hopes, things not turning out how I pictured them or how I wanted them to turn out. Never being satisfied, always wanting more. Being bored with monotony, feeling as if my life would be a straight, dead line on an EKG screen. But then I see Flaubert's masterful skill in which he subtly reminds the reader that she had a lot to be thankful for. Her daughter, her home, a husband who simply adored her. And then I hate Madame Bovary, and I hate myself for sympathizing with her, for being discontent with a life that is so abundant. I didn't expect this novel to impact me like this.

Luke comes home in April. Gosh, I miss that kid. The older I get, the more I see myself doing things he did. I wish I was more like him though.

We're going to Utah for Christmas. I'm kinda disappointed about this, kinda excited though. I'll get to see all my family, which will be nice. I have a very large extended family, and as a result they're fun to be with. I'm not anticipating the 27 hour car-ride however. That. Will. Suck. Somehow I've done this before....maybe I'll just have to take some Benedryl before I leave so I can sleep for most the way.

For some, weird, unknown reason, I keep referring to people in my mind as "darling." Why? This reminds me of Humphrey Bogart or some black-and-white film character. I sincerely hope I never accidentally say it out loud. That would be odd.