And so, after an excruciatingly long night full of writing and not writing and accidentally falling asleep and the consumption of obscene amounts of junk food, I turned in my final papers this morning.

Another quarter has sauntered to a close, and I am a free woman—For a week and a half.

It’s hard to believe that I’ve already put the bookend on my second quarter at Gutenberg. It truly seems like only yesterday that I was pacing back in forth in my parents’ garage in the waning summer, trying to decide if I wanted to embark on this adventure that could potentially turn my world upside down.

I did. And it has. And I’m glad.

This quarter has also seen another major transition in my life: my move out of my parents’ house and into a house with other students. The process of adjusting myself to life semi on my own has yielded quite a few humorous anecdotes (and perhaps a few sober reflections) that I really ought to share with you.

Which I should have plenty of time to do, because… in an effort to kick-start my blogging mojo, I am going to force myself to post once a day, every day, until spring break is over. Think of it as a mini NaBloPoMo. Or think of it as my effort to suck up to you after neglecting you for an entire quarter. Either way, it will hopefully make Lylium.org a more interesting place for the coming weeks.

So. Until tomorrow.

Green is basically my favorite color. I am part Irish. I have red hair. My name means Ireland, for heaven’s sake.

All of this means that I am contractually obliged to get excited about St. Patrick’s Day.

So it was with much jubilation that yesterday I donned my very green apparel and prepared for a big night of… grocery shopping. And watching movies with friends. And taking pictures of myself in my room at 1:00 in the morning, while the UofO campus caroused drunkenly around my house.

Personally, I bet I had more fun.

For some reason, my subconscious feels that the best time…

… to start designing my photography website is the night I have a 20Below column due.

… to redecorate my wall with pictures and paintings is the night before my synopses are due.

… to have lots of deep thoughts that must be written in my journal is the night before my Greek and Euclid finals.

But don’t imagine that I’ll do any of those things when I actually have time for them.

Heavens, no! That would be far too sensible.

Every person on the planet has a set of defining characteristics. Whether we consciously articulate it or not, I think you and I both have a list of things that we take for granted about ourselves; things that we assume we can’t change because they are just a part of us.

My own list of these kind of characteristics has defined me for as long as I can remember. I am a redhead. I am creative and I procrastinate and I like to follow rules and be right. I loathe spiders. These are some of the things that make me me.

Also on this list, for as long as I can remember, has been the fact that I cannot sing. I still remember the patience with which my father tried to to teach me a song I had to sing for a play I was in—and my sad realization that it was not going to work out. I still remember my aunt telling me how her voice teacher in high school had dismissed her with the horrifying edict, “You just don’t have the pipes. Maybe you should join a choir.”

Through my entire childhood and adolescence, I assumed that I, also, did not “have the pipes.” I loved to sing on Sunday morning with the rest of our church and belt out songs when nobody else was in the house, but I still believed that I “couldn’t sing.” Of course I couldn’t. That was just part of being Erin.

So I was as surprised as anyone else when I decided to join the Gutenberg College “A Cappella Gospel Choir” that began practicing at the beginning of winter term. It probably had something to do with the fact that the flyer advertising the choir proudly proclaimed “No skill necessary!”

But a funny thing happened as the choir began to practice—I didn’t find out that I secretly have an operatically strong voice (because I don’t), but I did discover that I have a voice… I discovered that I could match a pitch successfully, that I could carry a tune, that I had a range and a name (soprano!)—in short, I discovered that I could sing.

And so it was with deep satisfaction that I stood in front of the gathered crowd with my choir last night at the annual Gutenberg College Student Art Show. I was not the strongest voice, or even close, but I sang my heart out. Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine myself there. Life never ceases to surprise me.

One month—it is, as far as I can remember, the longest unintentional hiatus I have taken from Lylium.org since it began last February.

I say the hiatus was unintentional, and I mean it. Almost every night I have intended to write about something or other that was happening—about the stressfulness of school, about something funny my friends said, about this or that aspect of photography, about the fact that I moved out for the first time (!).

But it’s funny how evenings slip into days into weeks into… months. And there always seems to be a pressing assignment, an important conversation, and an existential crisis ready and waiting to fill that space of time that might have been used for blogging. It seems that no matter what I do these days, life is too full of living to make room for blogging.

I am not, however, giving up. Now that I have broken my month-long silence, I am going to make a concerted effort to blog more often—to let those assignments and conversations and crises seep into my writing instead of preventing me from writing at all.

I hope you all will come along for the ride.

P.S. I recently uploaded a multitude of photos to Flickr. Here are the highlights:

At the beginning of last December I had the privilege of a portrait session with some friends from our church and their children. You can view some highlights of that session here.

I mentioned at the end of last year that I was shooting a wedding all by myself. I have finally uploaded my very favorites from that wedding to Flickr, and you can view them in a set here.

And last but not least, I have updated my set of photos from college with some from the last several weeks—including a few of my new room and roommate! You can view that set here.

P.P.S. I apologize that the pictures are appearing in a wonky way right now. I am too tired to fix it tonight.