Personal Interview (In Progress)

Tell me about yourself.

My name is Wendy. I'm a sophomore at the University of Tennessee at Martin. I want to write. I come from a white, middle-class background. I was raised in the mountains.

How would you describe yourself?

I'm easy-going and irresponsible. I like to have a good time at the expense of a lot of other things.

How would a good friend describe you?

I like to have a good time. I'm funny. I'm irresponsible but good to talk to if you have a problem.

How would a supervisor/boss/professor describe you?

As a person who needs to accept the basic responsibilities of my role as a college student. Yep. That was said.

What are your three strongest qualities? Three worst?

Three strongest:
-Loyalty
-Patience
-Humor

Three worst:
-Tardiness
-Laziness
-Apathy

What mistakes have you made? What have you learned from them?

Oh god, there are way too many to count. I've blown off opportunities that quite a few people would give their eye-teeth for. I've squandered money and intelligence on easy-living. I've given up the chance to be a lady in order to have fun. I have fucked up school, my writing, my relationships, my bank account, my car, my life, and yet, I'm still going. I'm still surviving, and maybe that says something about me. That instead of giving up, I embrace my failure and move past it, and I've had one hell of a life in the process.

Outside of your career, what goals have you set for yourself?

A bunch! I want to learn to play bluegrass (guitar, banjo, dulcimer, sing, you name it.) I am soo not musically inclined though. I want to learn to read tarot cards. I want to become involved with the network of authors from the Appalachian region. I want to fight mountain-top removal. I want to live in Asheville. I want to see the world. I want to have a family. I want to go to the fucking Kentucky Derby!!! The list goes on and on.

What is one of the hardest decisions you have ever had to make?

To move 6 hours away from my family, my friends, the mountains, life as I know it. Hands down.

What do you really want to do in life?

Live in the mountains and write for a living. Be successful. Have a family. Be that person that everyone remembers for being kind and intelligent and generally kickass.

What is success to you?

Helping others achieve a state of happiness that they would not have been in without my existence.

What are your greatest accomplishments?

One time, I ate a bunch of wasabi. I've drunk people under the table/drunk myself under the table. Hell, I've had quite a few academic accomplishments, and I've had people tell me that I'm going far, but that isn't the stuff that matters. Talking people down off of ledges and putting smiles on children's faces and being the one that somebody calls when the shit is going to hit the fan and they need back-up, that's the stuff that matters. I could have buckled down and gone to the big fancy school and gotten the fan-flipping-tastic scholarship/job/grant, but hey, I'm not that person, am I?

Tell me about a bad decision you have made.

One time I and a friend of mine who shall remain unnamed decided to call and impersonate two high school students' mothers in order to sign them out of school. Not the best decision.

What are your hobbies? How do you fill free time?

Reading, because English majors have lots of free time for reading. *sigh* Writing, quilting, internet, television (God, how I love television.) Tarot reading, flying stunt kites when I can, traveling, drinking, and generally wasting time.

Why did you choose to study English ?

Because when you're given a gift, a natural talent for something, and you feel like it is your destiny, you generally don't piss that away. Even if you, as a loser, are prone to pissing away most of the other good things in your life. English is what I was BORN to do. The Fates decided to give me this, who am I to judge?

What is your resume not telling us about you?

Why is your GPA not higher?

Hahaha. I ask myself that every day, and the answer is always that I'm too trifling to go to class.

Tell me about a time in which you worked effectively under pressure.

Tell me about a project you initiated. Was it successful?

How do you collect information and analyze problems?

Give an example of a time you had to make a difficult decision.

Tell me about a breakthrough idea or ‘outside the box’ solution you came up with.

Describe an occasion when you were forced to function effectively under ambiguous circumstances.

Do you prefer to work by yourself or with others?

How well do you work in teams? Are you a good leader?

Have you ever had to be assertive? Resolve a conflict?

Tell me about a time when you had to work with a person you did not like.

Give me an example of a time you disagreed with someone in your team.

Can you give us an example you have witnessed of successful teamwork?

What are the qualities of a good leader?

How do you handle conflict?

Give a specific example of a time when you had to conform to a policy with which you did not agree.

Every fucking time I go to class in a general studies course when we aren't having a test. If you KNOW that your class is bullshit, then don't make me sit through it. Let me just show up on test day and to turn shit in if I want to.

Can you tell us about a difficult situation you have recently been in? How did you handle it?

Dirt

This is a poem that I wrote while sitting in my Astronomy class one evening. I really rather enjoy it because of the yin and yang principle that it presents: that you can know and understand something by its opposite. While I admit that I am not a conventionally religious person, I see "God" in everything, in all of it, even what others would consider to be 'dirt.' How could a creator that put so much detail into evil as well as good not be a god of love? A god of humanity. Well, here's to a brief experiment. We will see how it goes.

What now?

Oh, heaven knows I've messed up again. Isn't it incredible? This knack I have for ruining every good opportunity I've ever had? I wish I could be practical, prudent, intelligent. I'm not good for much of anything. I've spent my life scraping by on my butt, and with the real world fast approaching, all of those people who called me out as a phony are echoing in my head. They were right, you know. I can never admit that, not to the people who don't know better than to give me a second chance.

I have no idea whether I am going to be able to transfer to UT Martin this next semester. It is quite feasible that they will not accept me, which would be devestating. I have no idea what lies in the future for me. I have no idea where I am going, what I am doing. I would be content to spend the rest of my days like I have been. Just floating along in a puddle of almost existence, but lives aren't meant to be that way.

I could write. Hypothetically.
I want to write.
I yearn for writing more than for any lover.
I should write.

And I want to tell my story, to connect with people once again, to be meshed up in the world with all of its uncertainties and tiny joys.

I will return to this idea.

Again

I went to a flag dedication ceremony with my mother on Tuesday. There was something very beautiful and poetic about standing in the snow listening to the Honor Guard play "Taps" as they lowered a tattered flag to the ground and handed it to Jessica. My life has changed so much since the 6th of April; it's crazy to think that I could ever be that person that I was before. I can't return to the waters of youth, and it's foolish to even try.

There is such loss here, such complete insanity. We collapsed when we finally came back from Charles and Irene's house and slept until three this morning. I haven't lived that way since that bygone summer of insanity. We are so young and... lost, I suppose. I don't have the faintest idea what we are doing.

Foutch is hiding again. I've got to go and try to find him. Maybe this incident will be inspiration.

Goodbye, Gaia.

I need to stop logging on there. I'm on even now. Why is it taking me so long to just get the fuck out of there? I'm so tired and confused right now. I have to go back to counselling Monday, and I want to have something to show for the weeks that I've been gone, but nothing has changed. Not one damn thing. At least I have showered since then although my hair is greasy enough now that no one would know it. I have to get out of there. It's eating away at my soul. I've forgotten what the light of day looks like.

I'm frazzled and aimless. My room needs to be cleaned; laundry needs to be done; I need to visit my family. I'm pretty sure that my brain has fallen asleep. One thing that I know to be true currently, is that I need to sever most of my ties with Gaia and soon. I've wasted too much of my life there already.

Eavesdropping

There is absolutely no stability in my life. I'm weaving all these webs of secrets and lies, and now I am fast running out of places to hide. What can I do when I've let my guard down enough to have the demons peak through? They are coming faster and faster, and I can't stop them.

Reading has left me. God, I want to pick up a book and lose myself in his covers. I want to write poetry as freely as I once did. I hate this new room. Since when is it perfectly okay to trod all over me? Well, fuck all of you and the horses that you rode in on. It's not my fault that you are fucking him up. You should have thought all of that before you elected to make him a social outcast. Epic fail, family, epic fail.

And you know what? I'm proud of my grades. I'm fucking proud of the fact that I can skip class and not study and still make A's and B's. I told you this place was a joke, but you didn't listen, did you? Now I've gone and proved you wrong, and I can't even tell you.

I wish that I was concerned with bigger and better things, but I'm not. I'm trying to stay afloat. I'm trying to puzzle out who and what I am. I need to make a list, a list of things I need to do.

-- Read more. (I probably have close to fifty books in my room currently that I haven't even read. How sad is that?)

-- Think more. (I need to stop pushing away the big issues and actually sit down and figure out what they mean.)

-- Practice my fucking guitar. (I bought the thing. Now I have to practice.)

--Write more. (I'm supposed to write everyday. A poem, blog, part of Mr. Foutch's novel, anything.)

-- Work on my tarot readings. (How else am I going to travel around in an RV of voodoo?)

-- Keep in touch with my family. (I feel like I'm losing sight of them.)

-- Study. (I won't learn anything in college if I don't study the material and do the homework.)

-- Exercise. (I need to start going to yoga again, using the treadmill, something.)

-- Stop spending money like crazy.


It seems I've merely traded one set of sins for the other.

The Spider and the Fly

I'm back again. Was I ever gone? I've come back to graze upon your waters, gaze into your eyes and see what? Myself, perhaps.

I would like to think that I've grown up, that all of these signs are pointing toward a positive future, but there's just one problem. Oh so tiny and quite frail, my writing is dismal at best. I'd like to think that I am deep, one who must be read. The truth is my thinly veiled writing is not worth the time it takes to puzzle it out.

Does this deter me?
Possibly.

Will I stop altogether?
Probably not.

There is this thing inside me. This thing with Mr. Foutch. I know him, and I desire him like the serpent slithering through the Garden. I want his story to fill my head, to cloud my thoughts with a lust for him. I need all of him within me so that I can spill him out onto the page. This sounds mad. Maybe it is. Maybe Foutch is the name of the madness within me at the moment. I don't think I'll ever get relief from this. I'm out now. I'll return again to tell you that I have abandoned him, that have sunken back into my depression. Fare the well until then.