Today was our first day of classes at Gutenberg… and suddenly life does not fit into all the neat little boxes which I have so carefully set aside for it. Not because all of a sudden I feel a paradigm shift coming on, but because now I am juggling transportation and classes and homework and socializing and all my responsibilities outside of school and work and sleep and nutrition and good-lord-how-do-you-people-survive.

Dad spent the better part of this evening trying to talk me off the ledge of self-pity and overwhelmedness upon which I found myself today. He says that all students, and especially Gutenberg students, have to go through this transition period… and that it’s an even bigger deal for the students who have moved here away from home for the first time. And I know that he’s right.

But the thing is, I’ve never been a big fan of the whole “throw you in the water and you will learn how to swim” deal. I always preferred to cling to the clammy edge of the pool until all the blood drained out of my arms or until I felt completely 100% sure that I wouldn’t screw up. Guess which usually came first.

I guess that’s my way of saying that I KNOW that balancing life takes practice and I KNOW that I just have to learn to deal, but you’re going to have to drag me kicking and screaming into actually LEARNING those lessons, goshdarnit.

Good thing that’s why I signed up in the first place.

Yesterday (Friday) was my mom’s birthday. I was not sure exactly how to begin this post, because whereas I began the post about my birthday with the words “Yesterday was my 18th birthday,” I believe that Mom would like me to be less forthcoming with her digits, so I will just say that “Yesterday was my mom’s birthday upon which time she reached an undisclosed, definite age.”

Let me take a moment to tell you what a remarkable woman my mother is. She and I have had our fair share of scuffles, especially in the last few years, mostly because we are so darned alike. And, as a result, I rarely give her the respect that it is both my duty to give her and that she deserves. But the fact is, my mother is one of the most admirable people I have ever met.

Her life, like every person’s who is willing to admit it, is not neat. She makes mistakes. She makes choices she knows she doesn’t want to make when she makes them. But Mom has always modelled humility, honesty, and graciousness of character for my brother and I in her everyday interactions with other people. She is always thinking of other people before herself—a fact that, to my great shame, I often do not recognize as she provides for me. She also has real wisdom born of experience, and has shared it with me to my great benefit on many occasions. (Not to mention the fact that she is insanely organized and has done a fantastic job of making sure our household runs smoothly for decades.)

I do not think my mother is a perfect person. And sometimes, all that my blind eyes can see are her faults, perhaps because I know so many of them are also my own and I am afraid to own them. But when God opens my eyes, I see that she is a true woman of Character and Virtue, who has been faithfully doing her best to serve God and her family through the years.

I talk a lot about what a big deal this period of transition to adulthood, of starting college, of moving on and growing up has been for me. But it has been just as big a deal to Mom. She has watched me grow and struggle and learn. She has watched me prove what a selfish sinner I am time and again. She has watched me succeed and fail and encouraged me to look at what things are really important in life. Heck, she even faithfully reads my blog (and all your comments, FYI ).

And I know that she is proud of me, but I can also see that as she watches me prepare to leave the nest, her heart aches with that bittersweet mother-ache that I suppose I can’t yet fully understand.

I don’t know if I can possibly make that ache better, but I hope that letting her know how much I appreciate her will help. Thank you, Mom, for being a role model, a teacher, a comfort, and a friend. Thank you for sharing wisdom and caring and endless patience. Thank you for supporting my crazy ideas and interests, and for always being there for me. Please forgive me for the disrespect I have showed you and the pain I have caused you. I really do not think I could have had a mother better-suited to me. God knew what He was doing. I love you. Happy birthday.

(Update: I apologize to the people who were startled by this post’s title and opening sentence. I really didn’t intend to worry anyone. Perhaps it was just a stupid idea for a post. So just forget about that part and scroll down and watch those videos about Gutenberg!)

I am sorry to report that Erin Julian, the highschooler, along with all associated free time possessed by her, passed away Monday morning, September 18th, at approximately 9:00 am. She was last seen walking into the classroom in a small but fantastic Great Books college tucked away on a street corner in Eugene, Oregon. Friends and family members were unavailable for comment, but Erin Julian, the college student, had this to say about her former self: “There were good times, there were great times, there were crying-myself-to-sleep-awful times. Also, I have a feeling that Gutenberg is about to rock my world.”

She will probably not be very missed.

But anyway.

Now we have experienced two days of orientation. But, in all honesty, it feels more like TWO MILLION YEARS. I think that feeling has a lot to do with the fact that Monday morning I sat down with a group of seventeen mostly-strangers, and with every hour that has passed since then those strangers look a lot more like friends. I would love to tell you all about them, but since I haven’t really discussed my blog with most of them yet I don’t feel like I have permission. But someday, perhaps.

Since I am spending my week getting to know Gutenberg even better than I have ever known it, I figured it was only fair that I give you the opportunity to do the same. In the last few years, a filmmaker who is a friend of the college graciously took on the project of making short films to educate incoming students and interested parties about Gutenberg College and its institutes, Mckenzie Study Center and Art Project. Those films have recently been posted to Google Video, and I invite you to watch any or all of them if you are interested in learning more about my school:

(Because I am a n00b when it comes to embedding video, I am going to be weak-sauce and just link you to each one. Sorry.)

Students talk about Gutenberg College
(This is my favorite one.)

About Gutenberg College

About Gutenberg College as it relates to its Institutes

About Mckenzie Study Center

About Art Project

There you go! I know not all of you may find those videos riveting, but that’s okay. I figure if you’re not interested in it you don’t have to watch it.

(Oh, and before anyone asks me why the music in some of those videos is the score from The Village, the answer is: I don’t know.)

Let me tell you a story…

Once there was a girl. She was going to be starting college soon, and she needed a laptop! So her parents decided, as a graduation/birthday present, to help her buy a Macbook Pro. She was such a lucky girl! So lucky, in fact, that her Macbook Pro arrived almost a week before she thought it would… on a hypothetical date that could have been September 7th, 2006.

And this girl immediately fell in love with her new Macbook Pro. She loved its camera and its clean lines and its lovely operating system. She lost no time in moving her files to this wondrous new machine and settling in to her new computing home. She spent the whole weekend geeking out on her new computer, loading songs onto her new iPod Nano and working on websites and getting things done and video chatting with Glynnis and realizing, “Why yes, Macs are the shiznit.”

But this poor, naive girl was much deceived. Her new Macbook Pro was not the happy, well-adjusted companion which she assumed it to be; no, it was very depressed. It knew that it was only a matter of time before it was Jobs’ed… any day now his Steveness would release some brand spanking new laptop that would permanently demote it on the Apple totem pole. No longer able to handle the stress of such a fragile existence, it committed suicide one grim Sunday evening, mere days after the girl in question welcomed it into her home.

Never did this girl suspect that her new friend would resort to such desperate measures; imagine her shock and dismay when its lovely, bright, colorful display suddenly went black! She tried everything: she hit control-command-power button, she reset the PRAM, she reset the Power Manager, she gave it mouth to mouth, she sacrificed chickens, she promised it her firstborn child, but the little Macbook Pro would not turn on.

So she went to bed that night disheartened and distressed, unwilling to believe that the plucky little machine had actually given up the ghost. When she awoke the next morning, she tried again to revive her friend. She whispered sweet words into its metallic ears; she assured it that she would love it just as much if Apple released a newer, faster Macbook Pro. It would always be the spiffiest Macbook Pro in her eyes. Crossing her fingers, she touched the power button once more… and, lo and behold, tones chimed and the hard disk spun and the screen lit up! It turned on!

After giving it a celebratory pat on the keyboard, the girl pranced off to eat some breakfast. But when she returned, she realized her mistake; without her there to offer encouragement, her Macbook Pro had once again tried to take its own life. And this time, no honeyed words could coax it back to this world.

She knew what she had to do now. So she carried her poor, stricken Macbook Pro down to the neighborhood Mac Store. And there she spoke to a young man who seemed confident in the ways of Apple computers, and who wasted no time in showing her how his expertise would solve this problem. So he tried to turn it on. And he tried again. And he tried all of the tricks that our girl had tried the night before (minus the firstborn child bit). And after trying all of his tricks he looked resignedly at the screen and uttered these words of immeasurable wisdom and value: “Wow, it really won’t turn on, will it?”

The girl resisted the urge to roll her eyes, instead filling out the necessary forms to check her little Macbook Pro into the Mac hospital. The young man assured her that their personal Tech Man would look at it as soon as he could—which, he said, was probably a week from when she dropped it off. She sighed and tried to act grateful and walked out of the store with a sadly empty baby-blue laptop sleeve hanging limply from her arm.

And now this lucky, college-bound girl has been without her Macbook Pro for as many days as she had it—so long, in fact, that she hardly remembers what it was like in the first place. But when she does remember it, she hopes and prays that it will receive the therapy necessary to bring it home safe and sound, and COMPLETELY UN-SUICIDAL.

The end.

Yesterday was my 18th birthday.

This means I can now…

• vote.
• get married.
• gamble.
• smoke.
• get a credit card.
• go skydiving.
• buy things from infomercials.

… and generally do whatever the heck I want all the time. Right? That’s how this adulthood stuff works, right, Mom and Dad?

In all seriousness, it is blowing my mind a little bit that I am actually eighteen. Being eighteen was one of those things—you know the ones—that is always in the future and will never actually happen. But here it is. I can’t argue with the date on my birth certificate.

I was very close to—don’t laugh!—getting my nose pierced yesterday. There’s a tattoo parlor in Eugene that gives free piercings on one’s eighteenth birthday. I had actually been planning on doing this for a year or more… but I realized, as the day approached, that I actually did not really want my nose pierced. What I wanted was to feel eighteen. I wanted a tangible mark upon myself that would make me feel older and more capable of handling the world, I guess. But I didn’t really want my nose pierced.

… So I decided to start smoking instead.

Just kidding! Actually, I gave myself the gift of an eighteenth birthday portrait sitting. It may not have left a mark on my face to let others know that I am now “an adult,” but it did seem like a fitting way to comemmorate the day. I’m still me—it’s (sadly) not like I’ve changed into a magically more competent person overnight—but I have reached a milestone of sorts, and I think that’s worth remembering.

My dear friend Natalie indulged me in this endeavor and performed the role of photographer, using my camera. Unfortunately, because I am quickly being swallowed whole by the gaping maw that is “Gutenberg/all the stuff I need to get done before Gutenberg starts ON MONDAY” I have not been able to edit the portrait shoot yet.

Instead, here is a picture my brother took of the evening cake festivities:

So. Growing up, moving on, becoming a college student.

Yikes.