I planned to go to church this morning. I was going to leave at about 9:40 in order to be there at 10:00. And I was going to try my very hardest to break my recent streak of COMPLETELY sleeping through my alarm.

So you can imagine my disappointment when I rolled over this morning and read “9:30″ on the bright display of my alarm clock this morning. Goshdarnit, I thought to myself, not again. I rolled over and went back to sleep, feeling slightly defeated.

I was planning to go to my parents’ house after church, which usually ends at 11:30. So when I finally got up just after 12:00, I felt I should call them to let them know I was still coming.

First I called my Mom’s phone: no answer. Then I called my Dad’s phone: no answer. Two minutes later, My phone rang. It was dad.

“Erin! Did you just call me?” He sounded slightly alarmed.

“Yes, I did. Is your phone off? It went straight to voicemail!”

“That’s because I hung up on you.”

“Why?!”

“Because you called me in the middle of church!!”

…

“WHAT?! But, it’s after noon!”

“No, Erin, it’s 11:15!”

…

And that is when I remembered that my alarm clock is not a normal alarm clock. It is a super fancy, sort of expensive alarm clock that adjusts itself automatically for Daylight Savings Time. But you see—my super fancy, sort of expensive alarm clock was not notified that Daylight Savings Time changed this year… that it, in fact, happened three weeks ago. It thought that Daylight Savings Time began last night, and moved itself one hour forward accordingly.

After cursing my alarm clock, apologizing to my Dad for interrupting church, and having a good laugh at the whole ridiculous situation, I realized what a feeling of freedom that extra hour gave me—I could actually be on time to my parents’ house. I could be early, even. Amazing! Apparently, a firm belief in an incorrect time is the only way to get me up on time.

Maybe I should set my clock an hour ahead more often.

… who are willing, at a moment’s notice, to drop everything, come TP your car, and then leave you menacing comments about it on your blog.

Makes a girl feel loved. sniff

(P.S. Actually, it kind of ticked me off—at least until I found out it was someone I know that did it. )

… but this one probably didn’t.

I should have known I was in trouble as soon as I left the house. I needed to be somewhere only twenty minutes away at 4:15, and I was leaving at 3:45—giving me a good ten minutes to spare. This never happens.

“Hmmm,” I thought to myself, “I’m not sure if I like the idea of being early and just sitting around waiting. Maybe I should take a longer route there.” And I almost did, before reminding myself, “Hey, I’m never early to anything. Why not savor this moment. I’ll just make sure to drive exactly the speed limit the whole way there—that should use up a little more time.”

So I did. I got on the freeway and I concentrated on fastidiously following the speed limit; I made it a little game with myself. (I daresay cars around me did not appreciate this little game.)

Pretty soon I started thinking about where I was headed: to get a haircut. Now, getting my hair cut requires me to summon up a bit of courage; not only because it involves interaction with other human beings (and we know that doesn’t always go so well.), but because I have only been to a hairdresser one other time in my entire life. On top of that, this was going to be the first time I would have my hair cut by a guy. Would that be weird?

These are the kinds of thoughts that were going through my head, combined with my obsessive watch over the speedometer… as I drove past my exit.

At first, I refused to believe what had just happened. No, that wasn’t my exit… couldn’t have been… there’s no way that I just drove by it… Oh, bother, it was my exit. Well, I’ll just turn around and go back.

And this is where my important life lesson for today comes in: it turns out that there’s this funny thing about freeways… you can’t turn around on them.

As this fact began to sink in, I admit that I started becoming a tiny bit irrational. “What?? I can’t just… turn around? This is the 21st Century, people! We can speak to our toasters and tell them to do things for us! I should be able to TURN AROUND ON THE FREAKING FREEWAY!!!”

Then I saw a sign on which the first town listed was at least an hour away—and that’s when I almost burst into tears. Suddenly my “going to be a bit early for my haircut” had turned into “going to be horrifically late for my haircut.”

In actuality, the next exit off of the freeway was ‘only’ 10 miles from the exit I meant to get off at… which, when you count the time it took me to drive back after I had turned around, gave me plenty of time to consider the sheer stupidity of what I had done.

The blog-worthiness of the whole situation did not escape me, of course, even at the time—nor did the irony of the fact that the one time… the ONE TIME I was going to be EARLY for something… I ended up still being five minutes late.

The moral of the story is: Don’t try to be early to anything. You will just end up bungling it.

Right?

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.

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.

Well, that is just disgraceful. Three posts in as many weeks?! It’s really high time to update—otherwise you might think that ridiculous things have stopped happening to me! But don’t you worry your pretty little head. They still hunt me down like pigs after truffles.

Like, for instance, the time when I drove into the gas station and then discovered that I did not actually have any way to pay for my gas. Ridiculous.

Or the time that I stuck the takeout container in the microwave, took it out again and wondered why there were little burn marks around the METAL handle in the paper container. Perilously ridiculous.

But by far the most ridiculous episode in my recent history happened a few weeks ago, on a seemingly innocent Wednesday afternoon. My classes were over, so I headed down to one of Gutenberg’s secondary houses to visit some friends.

I was carrying my precious Macbook Pro in my arms, and as I was walking I started thinking things like, “Hmmm, what if someone came running up from behind me and just knocked my computer out of my arms? Or what if they just grabbed it from me and started running? What would I do?!”

These thoughts absorbed me as I approached the front door, warily eyeing strangers passing by on the sidewalk behind me. In fact, I was still thinking about it as I started walking up to the porch—except that by “walking,” I really mean, “taking one step on the muddy stairs and having both of my feet fly out from underneath me.”

It’s funny how, as you are arching rather ungracefully towards the pavement, time seems to stretch out enough to allow you to have coherent thoughts in the space between standing upright and lying splayed on the ground. My coherent thoughts, in this particular instance, were, and I quote: “SAVE THE COMPUTER! SAVE THE COMPUTER! SAVE THE COMMPPPUUUTTTEEEERRRR!!!!!”

I clutched the laptop to my chest. It was not until my face actually connected with the pavement that I realized, “Oh, perhaps I could get hurt as well.”

So much for coherent thoughts.

Amazingly, aside from a couple silly little bumps on my forehead and the bridge of my nose that stuck around for a few days, I was fine. I consider myself very fortunate, as head-on impacts with concrete steps do not always end so well.

The whole incident made me question my priorities—was my computer really more important than my life? Probably not. Although, as I pointed out to one of my classmates, if I had died I wouldn’t have had to worry about my computer being broken.

In other words, I am still a living reminder of the bittersweet truth that just because one is a college student, one does not necessarily possess any common sense.

Or, as Natalie once put it, “It’s okay, Erin. The world has to have people like you, too!”

:-p

One year ago today, I wrote a little post called “Welcome to Lylium.org.”

Happy birthday, Lylium. It’s been quite a year.

… That is the sound that disturbed the slumber of many a Gutenberg student (and no doubt a few people in the southern hemisphere) last night when I, at approximately 10:30 pm, discovered that my blog was a finalist for Best Teen Weblog in the 2007 Bloggies.

A. FINALIST. FOR. BEST. TEEN. WEBLOG.

To the people who nominated Lylium.org, and the people who have already emailed me to let me know that they decided to vote for it: Thank you, friends. You have no idea how much joy it brings me to know that enough people have enjoyed this blog to get it nominated in the Bloggies. I appreciate your support more than you know.

To every single person who is reading this post: GO VOTE. And I don’t necessarily mean you have to vote for ME… I highly encourage you to check out all the other finalists, as there is apparently some serious teen talent on the net. But at the very least, vote for SOMEONE!

Good luck everyone… and thank you again for the honour.

Don’t let me down, camera.

Don’t let me down, weather.

Don’t let me down, mind.

Don’t let me down, hands.

Don’t let me down, eyes.

Wish me luck, all.

(P.S. Figures I would pick today to majorly break out. At least I’ll be on the right side of the camera, eh?)