This YA novel, which the lovely trapunto recommended me, is all about going off and doing a new thing (art school), and meeting new people (art people), and growing up. It explores that opening-up of choices that happens when you leave home, when your world gets bigger in good ways and in bad, and because it is bigger it is hard to navigate. Growing up into adulthood has turned out to be way more difficult than I anticipated as a kid. Because I remember when I was little, and grown-ups would go on and on about how I didn’t know how good I had it being a kid, I’d think, Yes, yes, I do too. I have it very good. It is fun to be me. But, see, no. I was wrong to think they were wrong. I was going on the fact that I liked childhood. I completely failed to factor into my calculations that ADULTHOOD SUCKS.
I feel like that wasn’t where I meant to go with this. I feel like I was heading in a different direction. Oh, that’s right, I was aiming for hope and possibility. Missed it by a hair. On to hope and possibility:
I applied for, and then got, a summer internship! In the editorial department of an Impressive Academic Press! Won’t that be good? I love editing. I will learn all sorts of new things. My big sister lives in the Impressive Academic Town where I will be living, which is exciting because she and I have not had high quality extended bonding time for, like, years. We’re going to get hooked on Damages (it’s about lawyers, Anna! I am sure we will love it!), and build pillow forts, and see Eclipse, and then, you know, we’ll talk about our goals and dreams and the Supreme Court nominee. Because that’s what sister bonding is all about.
Jenny's Books 
Congratulations about the internship! It sounds perfect. And how wonderful that you get to spend more time with your sister!
Thank you! My sister’s just told me she has important law student things to do this summer so it may not be quite as much time as I was hoping…but still! Fun!
Congrats! That sounds wonderful. 🙂
Thank you! I’m really excited about it!
“Because I remember when I was little, and grown-ups would go on and on about how I didn’t know how good I had it being a kid, I’d think, Yes, yes, I do too. I have it very good. It is fun to be me. But, see, no. I was wrong to think they were wrong. I was going on the fact that I liked childhood. I completely failed to factor into my calculations that ADULTHOOD SUCKS.”
Jenny,
It sounds like you will enjoy your internship. Kudos!
All I remember as a child is that I wanted to get to be an adult so I could do all those forbidden things—whatever they were. :–)
We now have an 18 year old grandson in the house. He is so different than I was at that age that its not funny. We are worlds apart, but all I can do is set an example, the rest is up to our Lord.
I perused “Trapunto” and that was a trip.
Caio!
Charlie
I partly wanted to be an adult, to see what everyone was talking about, and I mean I wouldn’t go back to being a kid. But it was easier…
Congratulations! That’s so exciting 😀 😀 😀
Thanks! I totally didn’t think I was going to get it! I was thrilled when I got the email saying I had. 🙂
Adding my congratulations on your internship! 😀 I’m totally jealous; I’m stuck doing classes again, myself.
But classes can be fun too. Now that I’m a few years out of college, I am sort of missing taking classes. My sister’s boyfriend’s got this amazing Tom Stoppard class he’s doing this semester, which I would have loved. Sigh.
Congratulations on your internship! 🙂
Thank you!
…Jen? I already scream MIRANDIZE MIRANDIZE at the television when watching Castle sometimes. I found a way to connect Con-Law with the last episode of Dr. Who, and I yelled at the screen in the trial in battlestar galactica about how they were upsetting centuries of tradition in their underlying criminal principles. You should be very, very afraid of watching a show about lawyers with me. Just giving you fair warning.
Oh, and also, we may have to settle for a blanket teepee, I don’t think there’s enough pillows for a good fort. Don’t worry: I have LOTS of blankets.
And I disagree. Adulthood is nice. Childhood was fun and all, but I like adulthood better.
I was kidding. I will never watch a lawyer show with you. EVER. You are awful to watch lawyer films with, which is funny because you were all up in tim’s business when A Beautiful Mind came out and she was bothered that the math didn’t make any sense.
They cannot always Mirandize them on screen! Miranda rights take up script page lines, and that takes up minutes, and there are not enough minutes. Miranda rights do not contribute to dramatic action and plotlines.
I thought tim was funny, and it was kinda fun getting her going.
No, I don’t scream mirandize at the screen for normal interview stuff. I just assume that they’ve already done it off screen. No, it’s the spontaneous confessions I scream it for, where they weren’t expecting the person to say anything, and so clearly wouldn’t have mirandized off screen.
Funny thing? American tv is so full of miranda that in other countries when people get arrested, they often assert miranda rights, which they don’t actually have in their country.
…..and anyway, aside from legally blonde, what lawyer films have you watched with me?
Woo-hoo on the internship…and for the pillow forts in your future!
Thank you! Though actually, Anna’s got a point – we didn’t really do pillow forts so much as blanket tepees. Blanket tepees were brilliant, we used to do them in the dining room all the time. Mm, the good old days. 🙂
This is very exciting news! Congrats on the internship and the sister-bonding opportunities it affords!
Thanks! I’m looking forward to it sooo much!
Congratulations, Jenny! I am really happy for you 🙂 What academic town will you be residing in?
Thank you! Do you mind if I don’t say what the town is? I don’t mind you knowing, or any of my regular commenters actually, but I am paranoid about The Internets like an old old lady. 😛
Congratulations! I hope you love your time in the internship and treasure the time with your sister!
Thank you so much! I will!
Congratulations on your internship! (And booo about those other news. Does it sound too super-villainy if I say “They will regret it one day?” :P)
Adulthood sucks indeed. I keep thinking, “I wish somebody had told me”, but they DID. I just didn’t listen.
Hahahaha, I think it sounds exactly super-villainy enough. 🙂 And thank you!
Yep, people told me all the time. I just wish they’d been able to impress upon me the fact that they remembered that childhood was trying, and yet still found adulthood even more so. But maybe they did. I know I wasn’t listening.
congrats, jenny!!
Thanks, Laura! I want to see y’all before I leave, so we must plan a get-together. 🙂
Congratulations on the internship! How exciting for you!
I love sister bonding time too, though I don’t get it much these days. My much older than me (I like to rub that bit in) sister may live five minutes away from me, but she has tiny children she can’t be separated from and who don’t like not being paid attention to, so whenever I see her it’s just basically me cuddling the kids and she telling me not to have kids because they make you soooo tired.
Anyway, adulthood is much different than I expected – I was desperate to have a job and earn money and live by myself when I was a student but I didn’t realise that the downsides of this would involve being stuck in a small room with a computer for most of my day, every day, bills, bills, and more bills, that suck all of my money away, and annoying flatmates who make mess and watch rubbish TV. But saying that there are many positives and I do enjoy my independence and freedom – I’ll enjoy it even more when I actually find a job I like, I think! And a home of my own!
Oh, God, and can I just say, having your own flat is like a heavenly revelation from God and it is like dancing on clouds with angels, all the time. I can do all my weird single girl behavior and eat my weird single girl foods, and play my guitar in the early hours of the morning (but quietly so as not to wake the neighbors), and nobody judges me or makes me stop. And the only mess to clean up is what I’ve made myself, and nobody brings over their friends for extended stays and then they clog up the toilet and leave for a day giving me hope they’ve gone away forever but then they come back hours later with enough food and films and Cosmo sex tips to last them a lifetime and I AM TRAPPED AND CAN NEVER ESCAPE AND THE POWER IS OUT SO IT IS ALSO MURDEROUSLY HOT AND STUFFY.
Ahem. So yeah, having your own flat, that never happens. On the other hand, that never happened when I was a kid and lived at home either, so it may not be a point in favor of adulthood.
Congratulations on the internship, Jenny! That is fabulous news and your summer plans sound blissful.
I text my much-younger sister on my birthday (we are in different cities/countries to be technically accurate) to tell her that I had a chocolate caterpillar birthday cake that she wasn’t going to destroy (longstanding family joke as she decimated a birthday cake of mine as a toddler); she text back with “is this Claire?” There’s nothing like the complete disinterest of a sister to bring you crashing down to reality 😉
Adulthood totally sucks; adulthood is overrated.
I had a semi-similar text conversation with my brother around christmas. It’s always such a letdown when siblings don’t recognize your number.
Adulthood is incredibly overrated.
Hahaha, I love it when I say something that I think most people do not agree with, and then it turns out everybody does. VALIDATION.
Congratulations! That is wonderful news. And having spent two years in grad school (and having failed to get into a Ph.D. program, but that’s another story) I can confirm that those grapes are definitely sour.
Thanks! What grad school program was it, can I ask?
Hopefully none of my professors are reading this, though at this point it can’t do much harm – I’ve been getting my Master’s in English at NYU. Some of my classes were very good, but on the whole I wish I had done something else with the past two years.
Hooray!
I know! I am very excited!
Looks like someone has to speak up for adulthood, so I say this: personally, I think marriage (to an dearly loved husband) and parenthood (to dearly loved daughters) beats blowing bubbles and running thru the sprinkler (awesome as those things are.) Bills stink, though.
Blowing bubbles and running through the sprinkler with dearly loved daughters is good, right? It’s like having the perks of childhood (fun) without having to ask your moms permission to put the sprinkler under the trampoline.
IT”S SO MUCH FUN TO PUT THE SPRINKLER UNDER THE TRAMPOLINE! It’s especially fun if you put a bit of dish detergent on the trampoline!
Well, I appreciate your fondness for us and Daddy, but I think my childhood was more idyllic than yours. What with living in a warm climate, and Daddy being around all the time and not traveling, and not getting our hands hit with wooden spoons, and no nuns! And no school uniforms, and the word “y’all” – and anyway, I’m just saying, your vote may not be a reliable one.
I do not consider a warm climate as something that makes the childhood more idyllic.
Cold climates do have some great childhood moments – I love skating and sledding – but you so rarely get to do them. Give me shirt-sleeves in December any day.
I shall admit right now that I am incredibly jealous that you are going to be doing editing work.
Jealousy aside (because that is something which I have wanted to get into for a long time), congratulations. Enjoy bonding time with your sister and far too many good books to read together.
Thank you! Have you applied for editorial internships and stuff? There are loads of them out there. I was incredibly lucky as an undergraduate to have a research assistant job that gave me the opportunity to do some editing work. I expect that’s why this press agreed to have me in spite of my obvious unimpressiveness. 😛
Woot woot!! Squealing with excitement for you! What an aamzing opportunity. And sister’s are THE best thing ever. I’m so glad you’ll get to spend so much time with her.
I know, it’s a great opportunity! I was hoping so much that this would be the one I’d get, because of the proximity to my lovely sister. 🙂
Congrats on the internship and being in the city that allows much sistertime. (I don’t have a sister, but I do adore my SILs; my bro did good and my hub’s sis is wonderful, too. but alas, all are far away…) HUGS for that other thing. LOVe the theme to aim for hope and possibility!
Thank you!! My sisters are all living out of town this year for the first time ever, and it has been depressing for me. I’m close with all of them and I get forlorn with no sisters time.
Congrats on your internship! Sounds like this will be an amazing opportunity – plus, sister bonding time! Yay 🙂
And, as always, love your tags.
Congratulations! I’m so jealous! I would just love to learn how to edit properly and be surrounded by new books going into production. Such fun! Do tell us all about it, won’t you?