Valley Love

There's no place I'd rather be than the San Joaquin Valley. I know I haven't been that many places (and I would love to travel) but after moving only 450 miles away, I know that I can never permanently leave the Valley. Nothing is like it. I feel so free there-- I can be my complete SELF there. In Riverside, I have to mix and match and mask different aspects of my personality because people think that I'm odd or eccentric or, I don't know. Most people, with the exception of Ben, Anthony, and Chanel (and maybe Max and Tony) don't really know ME, I would say. Maybe there's a hint as to who I might be, but without observing me in my natural habitat, it's really quite difficult to understand. Anyway, whatever. The Valley is the best. I'm going to wait out the rest of my undergraduate career in Riverside, but as for graduate school... I still have time to think about it. I'm not sure what I want to do...

The University of Iowa for their Creative Writing Workshop would be AMAZING, but it's highly unlikely. I'm still going to take it into consideration and work toward something like that, but there are so many more options that will arise as I continue through college. We'll see what happens. I'm just saying I'm going to go back to the Valley. I want to live in Oakdale. I would LOVE to live in Knights Ferry. I'm just saying that, no matter how ill-traveled I am, I don't think I can live anywhere else and call it Home.

The Valley = love

I'm back in Riverside. The wedding reception was beautiful. The music was awesome and the people were great and Love is beautiful. I danced all night (another something I can only really do at Home, although I have to work it up). Larry and His Flask was brilliant... I know people who LOVE them and people who don't like them so much, but I definitely fit into the former category. Listen to them here:http://www.myspace.com/larryandhisflask

Walked through the covered bridge with Professor and a friend of Jason's who was at the reception-- David. We took off without Aaron, Aubrie, Troy, and Robert, and we were pretending that everything was haunted. Professor was telling us stories (both personal and fictional) about the jail and "the hangman's house". We decided to play a trick on Aaron, so Professor went ahead and was a little lost, telling Aubrie that he had no clue where David and I were (David and I were hiding in separate places). A hesitant Aubrie found me and when I came out, David ran up behind her and scared her. When we tried a second time with Aaron, it was unsuccessful. He walked by, and when I ran up behind him, I was too loud. I was wearing shoes, and I'm not so graceful in shoes. Anyway, we just hung out on the other side of the covered bridge, talking and chilling and being bros and whatnot.

Eventually, we went back to the backyard and there was campfire time. People were playing songs and reciting poetry and having a good time. People were slowly going to bed; there were tents pitched on the lawn by the river; there were sleeping bags around the campfire. I wanted to be able to be awake for as long as possible, since I won't be back to the Valley for another few weeks. I went to bed around 4 and slept for three hours. Then I got up and just sorta kicked it in the backyard; helped clean up and talked to friendies.

It was a lot more eventful than I made it sound, but a summary is good. A summary will evoke my memories and leave you (the reader) striving to know exactly what is going on. And if you really want to know what conversations were had and what songs were played, then I'll be more than happy to tell you, but it would take too long to write, and I've got homework to do.

Yesterday, on the train back to Riverside, my Amtrak train hit a car. I was sitting in the first car headed south, so my train car was the one to hit the car. I felt a jolt, a shake, and heard a loud crash-- I thought the train was derailing. The power went out automatically. I looked out the window and saw the light box (for the flashing red lights at the intersection) falling down and flying out... it was really weird. There were car parts everywhere. The train stopped and everyone was automatically on their cell phones. In the two hours that we were stuck in Fresno, three firetrucks, four ambulances, and an abundance of police officers were at the scene. Nobody died, but people were seriously injured. Here's the Fresno news article for it:http://www.fresnobee.com/2010/04/25/1910267/car-hits-amtrak-train-in-fresno.html

Anyway, I ended up getting to Riverside at 10:30 instead of 8:30. I didn't go running. I did some homework and talked with Chanel and Ben and James. Persiah asked me, for an essay, about something I desire but can never have: Riverside being four hours closer to home. With the exception of Kat, everyone in the room is from San Jose/The Bay Area, and they all immediately agreed. I would want the same people, the same environment, the same campus, but maybe in a more central location... UC Riverside in Fresno, maybe? Then there would be two Central California schools (Riverside and Merced are the schools with the crappier reputations, the only two UCs that the Regents would ever consider discontinuing). In fact, you should read this uncyclopedia article: http://uncyclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/University_of_California

I keep misspelling "article" as "articule". What's going on with my fingers?

Anyway, so now I'm here. I've got articles to read and an Islam midterm to study for, and I think I might have an essay to write, and I've got some stories to revise and critique. I thought of an idea of how to "fix" my flash fiction, although it involves changing the whole story. So, just for class, I'm going to revise it one way and I'm going to elaborate on it another way when I have spare time (summer, I mean. I'll be doing a lot of elaborations in the summer). So, except some new stories soon. They're going to get a lot better, but a lot more crude. I'm a cynical creative writer, bad things are going to happen. I want my characters to struggle. I want you to see how they endure. I want you to have faith in them, long for their well-being. And sometimes, I want you to be disappointed.