I have decided to have a new blog. I got tired of having to explain to people the whole soap reference in my blog, so I decided to go with a more generic name. My new blog, "So Very Carrie" can be found at:

www.CarrieSoVery.blogspot.com

I'll probably still post at both somewhat, but eventually I want to move over there.

Pregnant People-

I just found out today that my friend Jen Grantham (nee VerHage) who I haven't seen in forever is pregnant! I'm so happy for her! She and her husband are such beautiful people, I know that their baby will have to be uber-cute. I also found out that another Veritas/Truth alumni- Mitzi- has had a baby. I hope that it inherits her southern accent!!

I've Been Published!

I just thought I should mention that the dream I've had since roughly second grade has come true- I am a published author! Its only in a small newspaper- County Wide Newspaper, and it is definetly not my finest work, but 10,000 copies of it go out every week and I am being paid for my words, so I'm celebrating.

Oddly, I am stepping down as a weekly contributor to the paper though. They are mainly into selling advertising, and when I went for my interview with writing samples on prostitution and September 11th anniversary (from a post I put here on my blog) my interviewer said, "Yeah, we don't really cover things that are depressing. So, if there is a murder or robbery- we don't really cover that because it would make people sad. We like lots of bright happy faces." I soon found this to be a little too much the norm.

I believe in the power of words, to change people's hearts, to open them up to perspectives they never would have considered otherwise, and inspire them to great deeds. How can you instill a longing for change and not discuss the failures and problems of society? I spoke to Dr. Thralls- a very wise woman- about my literary snobbery and my deisre to write pieces with more meat to them, and she basically implied that I may have outgrown my job. She has read things that I have written and I really appreciate the critiques that she has put on my pieces, and I trust her when she has said that I should look into other freelance opportunities. Shes not the only reason that I came to this decision- the deadlines were also very inconvenient for my need to get stuff done for school. I asked my editor if I could step back and write some of the regular features, which is the stlye that I write more naturally in, but I think that she is more concerned with selling advertising.

(I've been making a deliberate stab at being more optimistic on my blog, but in this case I think that I am merely relating the events as they happened and therefore it is warranted)

I am thankful though for the chance to achieve this milestone, and now I can cite my work at CWN as experience on my resume, which will help with future freelancing jobs.

I have a new "most embarrasing moment"

I found out today that I may have inadvertantly asked out the professor of my geology lab out on a date last semester and only just realized it.

I never use the email on WebCT on WMU's website, but today I finally went there to clean out old emails and such, and I see an email from my prof. In this lab I partnered with this girl, Crystal, who I felt led to pray for and decided to invite her out to coffee with a group of us from church on the night of our midterm in lab. She was still taking her test when I was ready to go, so I wrote out a note and gave it to our prof.-- obviously I didn't want to give it to her and have him think that we were cheating. I handed it to him and said, "Can you give this to her? (I pointed at Crystal) I want to invite her to coffee with a group of my friends." He gave me kind of an odd look at the time, but I really didn't think anything of it. When Crystal didn't show up at Water Street that night I simply assumed that she had other plans or simply didn't want to.

Anyways, today as I read the email, I had a sudden sinking feeling in my chest. It roughly said that he was sorry and that he couldn't make it for coffee because he was grading midterms, but thanks for the invite. I was HORRIFIED! My immediate reaction was to email him and tell him that I hadn't been inviting out my married PROFESSOR, and that I am aghast that he had operated the last half of the semester under the assumption that I had been hitting on him. Discernement won over though, and I decided to leave well enough alone. Who am I to deprive him of a good story about a desperate female student, and the grades are all in and finalized for the class, so there is no point on that account. I did get a good grade in that class though- curious.