Catherine

i don't know how much more of this i can handle. i am literally falling apart. i found out on tuesday that i have an incurable skin condition. that MIGHT go away on its own...in a month or 2, or i might have it for the rest of my life. they MIGHT be able to control the symptoms, so that i can be touched without breaking out in hives and an uncontrollable itch. joel could hardly touch me last weekend without intense pain. i can't even take a shower without experiencing pain afterwards. i couldn't even wear a bra today because the rash around the bottom band is really bad. i was handling everything ok this morning, until i got home from work and showered and the pain and itch afterwards was just awful. and it's spreading up my neck and down my legs. on top of all of this, tonight i got a yeast infection, probably from the medicine i'm taking that's supposed to make the hives go away. so i had to go to wal mart at midnight to get one of those stupid kits to cure it. i come back to my apartment to a person parked in my fucking garage spot. i mean, seriously, kick me while i'm down. i left them a bitchy note and parked a block away. i was fuming as i walked that block back to my apartment. and now i've collapsed into tears in bed. i'm so frustrated and itchy. i literally just scratched myself until i started to see blood. i'm sure that will be great in the morning. i'm so over this. i hate my body. i hate how i'm always sick. i hate the way i feel. i hate the way i look. it's all culminating into just this...pile of negativity. i just want to crawl into bed and sleep through the rest of the week...but, oh wait...if i stay in one position in bed too long, i break out in even more hives. so i can't even fucking do that without more itching. i'm sick of it all.

I hugged a homeless man on Sunday after Church Under the Bridge. It moved me. More thoughts to come, I need time to process.

One of the many people I stalk on the internet is the always charming Hayley G Hoover. I started watching her on youtube and have recently started reading her blog. She is amazing, she writes about day to day stuff, but somehow it makes me laugh out loud or think. She's definitely gifted when it comes to writing. I wish I could write half as well as her, I'm going to work on being much more interesting. I have begun to feel very disconnected from campus life lately. I'm only on campus on Monday through Wednesday and these classes all occur after 4 p.m. I think I've read the Daily once, maybe twice. This past week was Homecoming week, which, really is just a glorified Greek Week. I forgot that it was Homecoming until I drove past a frat working at all hours on their lawn display. I'm looking forward to practicum being over, so I can be back on campus during the day. My parents came with to tailgating and the game. I definitely introduced them to the world of college binge drinking, they both found it hilarious and neither left too concerned about my relationship with alcohol, so overall the day was a success. I came home from work today to find a friend request waiting for me from Burt. Needless to say, I was shocked. The last conversation we had (was via text) and ended rather awkwardly and it happened right before he left for basic. I sent the first message, just told him how glad I was he got ahold of me because I had been wanting to tell him about Bernadette. I mean, she lived in his apartment for a summer and he really liked her a lot. I just, I wonder what's changed in his head. I feel like I need forgiveness in the whole situation, I need some sort of closure on it. I just hope this will bring me that closure.

Hi! My name is Catherine Lowe, I am (almost) 22 years old and I live in grand ol’ Ames, Iowa. I am a senior in Elementary Education at Iowa State University and I’m planning on graduating in December of 2010. To be quite honest, I never really know what to write when talking about myself, I don’t know if you want the facebook profile rundown or the “deep emotional” side of me. So, I’m going to just going to keep it short I guess. I spend most of my time going to class, working at Cold Stone Creamery (glamorous, I know) going out with my friends and reading books. I can’t cook but I can bake cookies like it’s nobody’s business, I’m notoriously clumsy and I’m a huge nerd at heart. I’m applying to Ford because growing up, my Mom always mentioned your agency in this sort of reverent way, like she was talking about a historic monument or something. I wanted to pack up and move to LA and do the whole, “be a waitress until I’m discovered thing” right after high school, but, my parents told me I had to go to college first. In retrospect, they were pretty wise in their decision to keep their naive 18 year old near home. College is winding down now, and most of my life I’ve had people tell me that I should model. (I’m sure you hear that all the time) I honestly don’t know if I “look” like a model, most of my friends just go off of the fact that I am generally considered “pretty”, am naturally thin and I get compared to celebrities by total strangers, which, is kind of creepy, but, flattering nonetheless. Basically, this is something I’ve wanted for a long time. I love photography (though, admittedly I am an amateur at it) and the aesthetics of the body fascinate me. I want the chance to be a part of that world. I want the chance to experience something new, have an adventure and challenge myself and my way of life. Thanks for taking the time to read my application and I hope you’re having a great day, wherever you are.

I think I want to start a new blog. I think this is an impulse I will indulge on another day. My first week of classes went well, aside from all of the lame get to know you games. I hate those. I never feel like I can fully explain myself in two words or in the short time where I say my name, major and a fun fact about me. It always depends on my mood for the day, so few people really know all of the sides of me, because, I'm always changing which side people see. It's my deep deep desire to be well liked. I'm working on getting better...but it's a slow process. I went to visit Joel over the weekend. It was fun, I could tell he liked introducing me to his friends. It was so interesting to see the world he lives in, it's so very different from mine. There are so many contrasts. I went to church with him on Sunday morning. Honestly, I was kind of uncomfortable at first and I'm embarrassed to admit that I was extremely anxious and nervous about it all. Mostly because I assumed when I met people that they would ask where I was from and where I went to church. Thankfully, only Mark asked me, and he's one of Joel's best friends, so I wasn't afraid to be honest and tell him that I don't really go to church. Quite honestly, I'm terrified of going back. I haven't even really sorted through all of my thoughts about it. I mean, it really wouldn't be going back, because I wouldn't know very many people at the churches here in Ames. James invited me to the Salt kickoff on Thursday, but, it was outside and raining so I didn't go. I just feel weird about it, because I know that of all the churches and church groups on campus that Salt will have the most people that I know. I don't know that I want to face that yet. I'm so frustrated about it all. I had started a few months ago telling people I was agnostic if they asked, or if it came up in conversation. I was confident in my answer. I could answer questions people asked me about my belief, because it was mine. I didn't have to answer for the other agnostics they had met, I didn't have to explain the atrocities people had committed in the name of my god, it was just me, being honest about what I thought about religion and god and faith. It's all topsy turvy in my head now. I nearly cried in church. We were singing a hymn I vaguely remembered from my childhood and I just had a flashback to being a kid and singing songs in church, with my Dad kneeling between my sister and me. Every Sunday, when worship started, he would get on his knees, down to our level so that he could listen to us singing. It was a memory that I had all but forgotten. I had to fight back tears for the rest of the song. It made me think of Jenna's graduation party over the summer and how it was the first time I had ever been honest to someone's questions from DMC about church. I flat out told her that I didn't go anymore because I had had enough of it and I was done with church. She was one of my parent's friends and my parents were right there listening. I was elated after it happened, it was like a weight had been lifted, I was incredibly proud of myself, I rarely stand up for myself like that. But, at that moment in church, for the first time, I thought about how it probably embarrassed and disappointed my parents. I hate disappointing them. I wonder if my Dad ever thought about who Elizabeth and I would become when we got older. I wonder if I'm anywhere near what he imagined. It's strange how one situation can cause two incredibly opposite emotional reactions. I just, I want to live what I believe. What I was taught to believe is so different from what I have seen since moving from home and so different from what life has taught me. A lot of terrible and a lot of beautiful things have happened to shape my beliefs over the last few years. I survived and grew in those terrible things on my own, without desperate cries to a god who doesn't listen to me and the beautiful things were incredible moments of joy in my life, and were no less joyous because I don't put my faith in a god. That's where I am.