Things I Wrote Today

So I started to expand and revise my paper on driving home for the first time after the tornado hit Newburgh. I've decided that this essay is going to be alot longer when I'm done revising it, because there are some things that I am ready to delve into, and it has been asked of me.
In the draft that was returned to me Todd had underlined certain passages and asked that I expand on them. So my goal today was just that.

SUMMARY: the essay is about fall semester of my sophmore year, when a tornado went through my home town amidst other personal chaos, and the different methods of coping with this. It goes through the initial shock, processing, anger, outlash, preperation for returning, and finally getting home.

LINE ONE:
"The churning bile in my stomach" (upon being told that a tornado went through)
The lining of your stomach is amazingly thin for all of the acids it contains in order to digest. The feeling of all of this eroding inside of me was what I used as a momentary distraction as I dialed. So I didn't have to think about how to react if my home was gone, if my parents were hurt, if my dog and cats were now stray and injured.

LINE TWO: "I let him know exactly what I thought of him and his opinions." (aka: that one time I bitched out a guy in my Symbolic Logic Class. Originally I just left the bitching out to the reader's imagination.)
My voice and my words cast a larger shadow over the classroom than I am physically capable of casting. I remember noticing my classmate's faces as I spoke, rather than thinking about what I was saying. They were either watching, jaws slightly ajar, or looking down with guilt. Guilt that wasn't theres to feel. Guilt I was enducing.
They didn't cause the tornado. There was no one to blame. But I was giving a verbal lashing so that for a moment, they could feel a lesser version of what I was going through, of what my friends were going through, of what all of those families were going through.
We were all helpless. There was nothing any of us could have done to prevent the tornado, or anticipated it more. There was nothing that my classmates could do to prevent me from verbally lashing out at this guy. His seemingly harmless sarcasm had snapped something in me. I went into a mode of communicaiton that is unhindered, I verbally unleashed a rare side of me, the blatant side, the side that is uncompromising and void of forgiveness.

LINE THREE: How this all shaped my character. Because I keep saying it did, but I don't say how.
"I started to really make decisions for myself in this time. I decided who I wanted to be, to operate in the image of the woman that I want to grow up to be. I thought alot about how she, that grown and mature adult version of myself, would act in these situations. I started to respect her opinions and values, I started to respect my own. I started to view myself as valuable and capable, as independent and consistant.

SOON TO COME: "Indiana-grey"
For those of you who live here, you know what I'm talking about. Indiana deserves its own grey crayon. If you don't believe me, look out at the overcast sky.