Maia, though not 'my' Maia (I wasn't named after any of this, obviously, but I still feel like it applies to me--probably because the name is so unique), has an amazing number of linguistic and mythological coincidences associated with it.

Just about every language, because of the universality of bilabial stops and nasals (they are the first sounds a baby makes, likely because putting his two lips together and pulling them apart again mimics breastfeeding) and some basic glides--not to mention the 'ah' vowel, which ALSO comes close to being the most universal, has some meaning for "Maia." In Hindi, the sounds mean "illusion," (but in a good way! I was assured, when I didn't like that one), in Russian, "mine," and I'm sure a bazillion other things. However, when I saw that the astronomical/mythological Maia was actually spelled the same way as mine, and took its meaning directly from the Sanskrit mine comes from: "she who is great," then I realized I was dealing with a direct descendent!

--Maia is the 20th brightest (apparent brightness, which figures in distance as well as true luminosity) star in the constellation Taurus, the bull. It's also part of an unofficial cluster of seven faint stars, called the Pleiades, meant to represent seven sisters in the mythology of Ancient Rome.
--Maia was the eldest and most beautiful of the sisters, who were the daughters of Atlas and Pleione (some sort of water-queen).
--She's from the mountains.
--She was, after a time, seduced by Zeus (no surprise there) and gave birth to Hermes.
--The seven sisters were living in the wilderness, when Orion the hunter caught sight of them and naturally fell head-over-heels for them. He chased them for seven years, until Zeus finally heard their pleas for help and turned them all into white doves, whereupon they flew up into the sky. The seven stars are meant to be an image of these doves. Interestingly, the constellation Orion is posed for action in their direction, as though he were chasing them.
--There's another Roman Maia, this one the goddess of spring. The month of May is named for her. However, I don't think she made it into immortality in the night sky.
--In Tolkien's mythology, a Maia (pl. Maiar) is a being much like a demigod. I forget what its place/purpose in the narrative is, but I do remember that Gandalf and Galadriel are Maiar, even though they've taken on wizardly/elven form during the books. A friend borrowed my copy of The Silmarillion and dropped it in the toilet before I could get any further.
--I cringed to see that Maia is very close to Merope, another of the Pleiades, whose star is right next door and closest in brightness. Merope, in the Harry Potter books, is Tom Riddle's (Voldemort's) horrendously ugly and poverty-stricken mother, who feeds his father love potions to delude him into thinking he's in love with her. When she lets them wear off in hopes he'll love her true self as well, he reacts violently, and, disgusted, high-tails it off at the next opportunity. Heart-broken Merope wanders the streets, pregnant with Tom, until she collapses in an orphanage and dies in childbirth. That character could very well have been Maia!

Interesting to find that your name yields so many parallel correspondences! I return the task to all of you: what's the background of your name, and why did your parents give it to you? Who else shares it?

All righty. It's certainly been long enough, hasn't it? I'm not sure why that is. Maybe because I have a different mode of chronicling days, usually--in conversations with parents and friends, and of course, the camera. A photo is an imperfect mode of preservation...you may not remember how you felt when that picture was taken, or how warm it was, or how, exactly, the subject caught your eye, but there's built into each of us a perfect preserving agent: growth. You are now the cumulative record of your experiences up to this point (hopefully--some people choose not to learn).

I find that there's a great, stabilizing, peaceful force at work in me. All my life I've sweated the small things more than most, and built them up into mountains in my life. There's little doubt where I got it from. My mum has been even worse as long as I can remember, but because I was 18 19 20 instead of 38 39 40, I just went about it with more dramatics and crying than she did. I've also been whiny. I'm not sure why...out of habit, more than anything else, and a lack of being accustomed to governing my tongue. A few weeks ago, the corner was turned on both those issues. I even remember when: I was in the bathroom at the hotel room in Cape Canaveral visiting my dad; he had gone to meetings, and I had gotten not nearly enough sleep due to 1) his snoring and then 2) the uncomfortableness of the couch I then fled to and then 3) worrying about getting enough sleep. Now, I've historically hated sleep deprivation above almost all other things. It ruled my life, and I lived in terror of my roommates partyin' it up and what I'd feel like the next day and then how that day would be ruined because I always have so much to do! and I wouldn't be performing 110%, like I know I can and usually do and thrive on. I felt like I'd been hit by a truck, and with my head in my hands, I let my mind wander forward, to when I have kids. New mothers are almost chronically sleep-deprived. So are old mothers, sometimes. I realized that although that time is a long way off, what percentage of the intervening years will I have wasted simply on worrying? With less than two months to go to graduation, now, I realize that every minute I spend worrying is a sad waste of quickly dwindling moments. I'll never get this time back again.

Since then, not worrying has become much effortless. I don't fuss and worry about classes and tests and deadlines. For one, their importance in my ever-looming sense of life perspective has gone way down. Today, when Astronomy class proved to be dull and repetitive as usual and it was a beautiful, balmy day outside and I knew that a friend I hadn't seen in a while and will likely not see again was at Krishna Lunch for only twenty more minutes, I got up and walked out in the middle of the class. I don't regret it.

On writing: I've been surprised at how easy it's been recently for me to write seeming volumes for my classes and in emails to friends, and since that's what I've been doing, there's been little left for this journal. It's all coming naturally, and I'm not feeling like I have to fill up those several pages, but striving not to. This speaks even better when you contrast my previous writing style, so over-the-top eloquent that you'd have to reach way down into it to pull the point out, with my writing style now, which has occasional grammatical errors and many less-than-perfect words, but (I feel) much more substance.

I put this topic to a friend in an email, but I'd also like to put it out here in the light. O ye four/five people who read my journal, feel free to feedback give. Copied and pasted: "Recently, I've been coming to the realization that the friendships I form quickly, while they might be 'stronger,' at least regarding the amount of time spent together, almost never last more than a month or two, and sometimes end in misunderstandings and bad feelings. However, friendships that you may not think as much of at first, that have time to develop a solid foundation, are usually the 'true' ones, long-lasting friendships that you get more out of than any others and that you have for years to come. The slow development of a friendship doesn't necessarily mean that it'll blossom like that, but as a rule, the 'fast friends immediately' experiences are very brittle, because they're bonds formed before the materials have a chance to harden and settle. My question is, what are your thoughts on/experiences regarding this?" Of course, I could have learned that years ago if I had listened to my parents, but that was one of my 'hard way' lessons.

For Valentine's this year, a few (single) female friends and I are thinking of getting each other all the normal hoo-hah--you know, candy, cards, teddy bears, etc.--and having a dinner. I'll love this turn of events, because while I normally don't lament Valentine's Day, getting something from a female friend will be the most I've ever gotten! (That sounded self-pitying, but was more amused.)

While running today, the slight discomfort in my lower back, that I assumed was caused by a too-straight, arching posture that I've adopted recently, became much more than slight. It's sharp and crippling now, and almost feels like a slipped disc. Debating whether or not to go to the emergency room.

While checking MySpace for the first time in a long time, I notice The Duhks have announced new tour dates. Thinking that they may be making their first round to Colorado in a long time, I eagerly check the listings. I am correct! They're coming straight to downtown Boulder, when the closest they've been before was Lyons.

The problem? They're doing it exactly one month before I graduate. Oy!

Well, those fellers'll be around a long time. I'm sure I'll get another chance. Thinking of paying for a one-day ticket to Springfest this time around, and heading up just to see them/shop at the awesome vendors/eat Sugar Shack.

While I was answering a definitional test for Business Finance, the answer "pension" came up, and I realized that its root is the Latin word meaning "to think." So, if we're paying them to think now,

1) Why weren't they thinking before?

and

2) What are they doing with it?

This is what you could be seeing on your campus every night. Be sure to click on the image for a full view!

Cleaned out my closet and drawers, filling three large bags with completely unused clothing. If I were to add the rarely-used clothing to that, I'd probably have six bags. They're going to Goodwill tomorrow.

After moping tremendously all day and wallowing in my loneliness/homesickness, I've been broadsided with the significance of a parallel between this day and 365-ish days ago...pretty much a year ago to the day, I was presented with a tough decision that involved me choosing between what I knew was right and a somewhat more appealing, far more emotional choice. I chose wrongly at the beginning of 2006, and I spent much of the year paying for it in ways great and small. It was a big bad decision. Although I probably shouldn't get a cookie for not repeating that stupidity (lit. this time: doing something when you know not to), it is significant that I acknowledged my emotions but then without hesitation turned and did what I knew to do. No dramatics. No confusion. It is significant in that it's the flagship, so to speak, for a very different kind of year.

The good:

One of the people my friend's DM (district manager) at Starbucks referred me to wants to call me and talk about career opportunities in Denver! I know this isn't anything remotely committed, but I'm happy to be making connections and finding out directly from the source!

The bad:

The textbook for Business Finance does not remotely want to cooperate, nor is the professor interested in working toward a solution (and, to his absolution, not sure what he could do anyway) so I gave up, and at my dad's urging ("Stop being a cheap college student," etc.), purchased a hard copy for $115. This is actually covered by my textbook deferrment, but the gap between this purchase and the time when my extra book money will be deposited into my account is what I had to take a leap of faith on.

I broke through my wall of pessimism and negative feeling and just confessed the truth: I'm scared and lonely. Scared that I'll lose myself here, that I'll be somehow diminished. Scared that I'll compromise on something because I'm lonely. Just scared of bein' lonely, dammit. You'd think I'd be used to both by now. You'd think that I wouldn't mind so much now, because the end is in sight.

The ugly:

My roommate Beth baked brownies, and since I saw she had no one to help her eat them (what a waste), I offered to assist. After being in the fridge, they were hard, but my craving for chocolate was such that I got out a butter knife and spoon and went away at it like picking at a wall of ice, then snatching up the little crumbs that ensued and eating them. Yum.

So, after attending all my classes, I realized that this semester ain't gonna be no piece o' cake, by any stretch, mostly due to the (point-filled, necessary, and useful) rigors of Business Finance (additional difficulty added by the fact that I can't read the essential eTextbook I purchased, because it dislikes my Mac. Plan is to go to school PC, download, convert to plain text, and mail to myself), and that the one-credit Astronomy laboratory, which demands four-page papers every week and two twenty-page term projects, had to go. Instead, I picked up a Florida Geology lab, to be attended on Friday, which sounds much more down-to-earth (haha) and much more in the vein of my normal activities anyway. Hike, poke around in the dirt, take pictures of the dirt, etc.

Not to say that Business Finance won't still be a doozy, even after I get the textbook into a readable format.

Plus, yikes! My iPod has given up the ghost he clung thinly to for so long, and after tearing it apart to see if I could fix it myself and then realizing 1) I couldn't and 2) buying a new one would be cheaper than having anyone else fix it, I bought a new one, a Creative Zen Nano, a 1GB little dealie that will hold plenty of songs to run on. I don't carry it for any purpose other than running, preferring not to drown out productive thought and other people with a constant soundtrack, so another full-blown iPod would have been pointless and far too expensive.

Trying to quell a disturbing impulse, once I got back to Florida, to socialize simply so I wouldn't have to be alone, after the perfect, peaceful, at-home family life of Colorado. Gainesville is a much colder place for me, since it doesn't hold home or family, but I had found a very happy equilibrium in making myself and God my home and family, and not letting the setting matter so much. Now, have I lost that? It's on the brink of my consciousness, but if I continue pushing it out with the distraction of other people, I might just lose it.

The good news!: after finding that I need not complete thesis, but only 'comparable research project', now realize that am eligible for highest honors!

March 2007, after publication of article and knowledge of what sort of honors I'll be getting con degree: update and polish résumé (must find résumé first...it ran off when it thought I wasn't looking)
April 2007: apply! apply! apply! interview, if possible!
May 2007: in-person interviews
_____________________________

So, after in-person canvassing at local banks, I have

Compass Bank (top choice. Warm, personable atmosphere, emphasis in the right place, opportunity to advance to investment consulting)
Heritage Bank (other top choice; merging with First Community Bank in couple months. Position would be more multi-tasking and slower to advance at first, but solid base)
Wells Fargo (way too uptight, not emphasis on best serving clients, but on sales quotas and numbers. Will apply anyway. Can't hurt)
Vectra Bank (less information on these guys, but also promising)


There's also Starbucks, which would be absolutely wonderful and ideal to work for an international strategic capacity...it would be being where I want to be eventually, immediately. There are opportunities available to me, for which I would very likely be accepted, but the problem is that they're pretty much all in Seattle, Starbucks' headquarters. I've emailed a local friend's district manager, asking him to tell me what the corporate scenario is here in Denver, but I haven't heard back yet.

2007
________________________________________
Run a half-marathon, successfully.
Find an integral, healthy, right balance in socialization: with good people, at good times, a good amount.
Cook for friends once a month.
Get out into the workforce in a forward-thinking, vision-filled way!
Cut out my arrogance and impatience with anyone slower than I; become kinder.
Really listen to and benefit from others’ knowledge and wisdom more.
Sell my first photographic prints in a gallery.
Act on all I know; don’t backstep.
Stay firmly grounded in reality, not dreamland.
Yet, dream big. Huge. Impossible. It’ll happen.
Become more meaningful about giving—not out of obligation, but wisely, thoughtfully, and where it will not be lost on someone.
Completely cease to be ashamed of my beliefs—much more open in conversation.
________________________________________
I'm also working on "Lifetime" dreams and goals, but am not sure whether I'll put them up here.

This Christmas Break is already turning out to be interesting and edifying. After living as a single adult for many months solid, it's odd to be 'the child of the family' for more than three days running; more than that is testing my patience and refining my reactions to a lot of situations (most of the trial has been error, sadly). However, there have been wonderful friends, wonderful fun, and wonderful amounts of snow.

Yep, there was a blizzard, beginning two days ago and finally clearing up early this afternoon. Snow of about four feet in some places, and all roads pretty well unnavigable. The entirety of the Denver area shut down yesterday and today; 4700 people spent the night in the airport. At least I wasn't stranded like that, but two days of inactivity drove me pretty well batty, as well as listening to my mum and grandmother exclaim over the snow every two seconds. This morning was much better, with getting out and shoveling the driveway for several hours, cheering on those brave souls who would take their 4x4s out of the subdivision, and seeing more neighbours at one time than ever before. The blizzard also unfortunately snowed out plans with a couple friends, but there will be times for these things.

After all this, I called a friend from Gainesville (who, predictably enough, had just returned from the beach in 80-degree weather), and was surprised how good it was to hear his voice and others from school. I don't think I knew until now how much I'll miss my Gainesville friends...but maybe I'll find it easier when the time comes. Four more months.

2007. I remember, back when I started college, I would say, "Yeah, I'm gonna graduate in 2007," but I don't know if the year was ever real to me. It is now. Already looking at real estate in the area, as well as jobs with a number of financial firms. Will hopefully get a few interviews in during the break. But first, all this damn snow has to melt.

I learned the value of hard work once again this semester's end--in a panic that I might not get everything done on time to leave Gainesville for my Dec. 14 flight, I worked almost constantly as soon as the semester ended (taking breaks, of course, for sweets and swing dancing), and found myself on Saturday afternoon with a whole pile of completed work behind me, and five glorious work-free days ahead. Have seen a number of friends I haven't seen in quite a while, made new friends, including one very good one, helped put on a barbecue, played pool (lost, but looked like Braveheart with chalk as war-paint), attended parties (calm ones!) read several books for fun, run 8.5 miles...and now, I'm about ready to leave for a long day of travel. At the end, 2 AM EST and 12 AM MST on Dec. 15, I shall hear the words, "Welcome to Denver. The local temperature is thirty-one degrees. Thank you for flying with Delta, and Happy Holidays," and they'll be the most welcome words I've heard all year.

Why the Dickens won't my images on the main page and the research paper page show up? They're small; they are in my public_html folder, and I did insert the right images (those that are on my server). I've fought with the silly things for hours now, and despite my having coded for four hours to get my paper up, it doesn't have that right spruced-up feeling without the little picture of the diving penguin at the bottom.

Some things, like seeing your name on a diploma or stepping onto a tract of land that you and only you own, are extremely rewarding, even though they're just beginnings for much greater endeavours. This is one of those things for me.

I would like to live a day in Gainesville and not feel so emotionally bankrupt. Like someone closer than two thousand miles away gives a damn and can actually say something to make it better. I can't get enough of news from home, talk from mum & dad, true friends and family...I'm so hungry for it. Never been this homesick before. I wish I had the conviction or at least the idea that there's still something good here for me. But instead I feel stalled. My flight has been delayed. With the pace the past week has gone by, the six months I have here feels like six years, for any day without the kind of fellowship I really need (every day, lately) can't end soon enough. Forget taking it one day at a time. I'm working on the minutes.

I spent Thanksgiving alone in Gainesville (and by alone, I really do mean alone. Never seen this place such a ghost town), and it was quite a good one. I must admit I missed the ceremony of the holiday just a little bit, but I more than made up for it.

This morning, I got up and exercised my privileges as temporary sole occupant of the apartment by singing loudly and blasting music (all in my underwear, of course)(not really). Got a good morning call from my mum, and it was so refreshing to talk to her that I almost felt I was there, and that I wasn't alone. I could actually visualize what she was doing because I've seen it all before...sitting at that table, with just this quality of light coming in the French windows...chastising the cats for standing on the Thanksgiving ads (and, since I've seen the cats do that before, I could visualize them too). Then, since it was a gorgeous, cloudless day with a high of around 70 degrees, I took my bicycle and camera and set off down the Hawthorne trail, with a quest only of enjoyment, rejuvenation, and fulfillment. So many of the things I'm thankful for are implied right there in nature--God's infinite, painstaking, and interwoven invention reminds me just how good of hands I'm in. Everything, where I am now, who I am now, where I'm going, why I don't need to worry about where I'm going, is written in the pattern of mottled colors on each leaf. I'm not an 'artist' in many senses of the word--fortunately I'm too balanced for that--but I've never had such a muse. My main aim in photography is to somehow capture what I feel in nature on film...and removed from a competitive environment, I seem to have acquired that aim again.

Discovered (well, not discovered, because I've heard and even seen her live before, at MagFest, but for some reason the click didn't happen then) a wonderful, inspiring, completely different new artist, Abigail Washburn. Does clawhammer banjo, writes all her own songs (extremely well), and even sings bluegrass in Chinese. This sounds wrong, but trust me, it's completely right.

After the bike ride, in which I rode a total of thirteen gorgeous miles, I sought urgently an open grocery store, for I was out of food and very hungry. Am now completely out of food money for the rest of November, but full of split-pea soup and carrot cake. Yeehaw! The rest will just have to stretch.

My imagination runs away with me too frequently. Imagination is a great thing, but when you imagine that reality was elsewise so vividly that you're disappointed with the truth, then that can be bad.

This heart is more than a dime-store treasure
And these lips are more than a cause
These eyes are more than a mirror for your own
I'm worth more than your applause

You'd felt just for the sake of feeling, baby
To prove you could be true
But ev'ry word you whispered and kiss you gave me
Was for no one else but you