...something new

oh right. amherst.

2010-09-26T23:45:00.003-04:00

i've had a lot of time to myself recently, and i've spent a lot of that time thinking. some of it has been pretty bad, but some of it has been pretty damn good.

the bad: it's my freshman year all over again, just without the understood permission to be awkward. i'm a junior and somehow have to act like one. it's kind of been a semester of trial and error. second guessing has been the name of the game and often i feel like i've guessed wrong, and that guessing is all i've been doing. i also caught that virus for the fourth time this year, which set back my running, so the 10k may not be possible. i don't text nearly as much as i used to. this past summer i learned that i thrive on hope and a desire for that hope - i've recently learned that i also need longevity. forever starting over is starting to get to me.

the ugly: sometimes i really don't know if i can do this. positivity is really damn hard at times. people can be so empty.

the good: the summer of learning to appreciate things has leaked over into the fall. i appreciate my health, the friends who know me, the knowledge i am gaining, the life lessons i'm constantly learning. i'm learning new ways of catharsis and re-discovering old ones. i'm forced to try in so many new ways. i'm an rc of a dorm building this year, which has not only given me a network of co-rc peers to ask for help, but an excuse to have tea time, eat candy and carve pumpkins. i also inherited a bike from a graduate. score.

the translation: this semester has been way harder than i'd like to admit. my classes are wonderful and, for the most part, pretty interesting. i get to be a part of the wonderful rc gang and have their support. geoff and i have been dating for six months this tuesday, even though i haven't seen him for a good half of that. which, duh, has been hard as well. i'm taking the semester at least off from plays but i've started dancing again, as well as continuing my cello lessons and taking a painting class. my ideal goal would be to join the symphony senior year (excepting if i do a thesis), and maybe even get to the point where a half or possibly full marathon would be possible by graduation. we'll see.

the conclusion: i would love any and all support, even if its just an invitation to a coffee study date, the seat next to you at the library, or a texted smily face. i'm hoping to live up to a quote i heard, rudely paraphrased as: "if you want it, go get it. if you can give, then give. if you have love, go love". cheesy, but it helps me.

sidenote: this picture is the background on my computer because her feet look exactly like mine, which makes me and my abnormally short toes happy.

a song is worth however many words are in it

2010-08-18T11:44:00.001-04:00

and in this case, only the title five apply. yay boston!

leave it all behind

2010-08-13T21:12:00.000-04:00

today was my last day of work. my boss told me i could go, we exchanged the usual "thanks, great summer, have a good rest of your life" chit-chat, i walked out of the mason f. lord building into the relatively nice weather for the last time and ran smack into one of the biggest and most important revelations of my life. I'm a people person.

...wait, what??

how the hell does it take 20 years for someone to figure that out? but as i walked to my car this afternoon, nearly in tears, it really hit home for me. i'm not the life of the party, talk to anyone, anywhere for any reason type people person. but i was definitely put here to be with people - to talk to people and listen and just be with them. to connect with other humans, and love them the best i can. to be here with other people. even if i resist it, and insist on being by myself some of the time. which is why i've probably not been completely content the large majority of my life. i always considered myself somewhat of a loner. and while i definitely enjoy my alone time, i need people in my life. i need conversation, phone calls and someone to sit with at dinner. people to give things to and hug sometimes.

this summer has really been a summer of big life lessons pushing through all the negativity that this place has put on me. it's made me appreciate everything i've had in my life all along so much more now that it's been taken, or at least temporarily removed from my life. i'm beginning to realize the philosophy behind my life story. and so when i leave baltimore on monday, i'm going to do exactly that: leave this place behind me. drop the negativity, the hatred, lethargy and laziness, complaining and ungratefulness, all the baggage i've found collecting here that's just getting too heavy. it took baltimore for me realize how much it's affected me, for which i'm grateful to the city. there is SO much for me to do, i can't afford to have this place in my life with me anymore.

i turn 21 in almost exactly 2 and a half months. and as my present to me, i've decided to run a 10k race in boston the weekend before my birthday. this next semester is going to be incredibly hard for me, and while i welcome the challenge, i ask for your support in not only this goal, but to bear with me while i try and figure all this out. for those of you who are going abroad, please please know that i'm always here if you guys need a familiar face, and some english practice ha. i'm going to try and update this more often to keep you guys up to date, and you better keep me in the loop with your lives too!! for those of you back home (if there are any of you who still read this old thang), i'd love to hear from you and talk with you sometime :) skype me or something.

but it's super late and i have packing/car getting ready things to do tomorrow. and more free books to get. and a farmers market to raid. all fairly early. if you guys made it to the end of this, kudos :D i'll leave you with my most recent song obsession. by none other than pearl jam, whodathunkit??

baltimore's final salute

2010-08-12T18:20:00.001-04:00

so this damn city decided that it couldn't let me go without one more final injury (it's already insulted me several times). for those of you with weak constitutions, i urge you to not read this.

ahem.

wake up in the morning feeling shii-ii-iity, grab my glasses i'm out the door, i'm bout to hit the minuteclinic. before i leave, grab my jhu i.d. with its cheapass lanyard, cause when i leave for the day, i have to go straight to work. i'm talkin, bacteria on my lips lips...

translation: apparently my face got infected again. for those of you who don't know what happened to my face back in march, basically, it exploded. i got this nasty rash, my eyes were all puffy, i could smile or eat anything really, cause well. it's graphic. anyways, i went to bed last night with the vague feeling that it may be happening again, and sure enough, i woke up this morning and my lips were on fire. last time i waited about a week before getting it checked out, thinking it was just a cold sore or something, but as i know now that i for sure don't have herpes, i knew it must be the same stupid bacterial infection. so, for the SIXTH time this year, i'm on antibacterial meds and a medicated lip balm.

thank you. frickin. baltimore.

anyways. work got me a coffee mug as a good bye present, so yay. unbeknownst to me, today was actually supposed to be my last day (WOO HOO YAY SURPRISE AWESOME), but on my way out the door, my boss said he "may" need my help tomorrow and that i should come in, but to take my time (his way of saying "come in some ambiguous time later than you usually do"). it's like dangling candy in front of a kid and saying, nope! not until you eat this pile of cement! and by eating cement, i mean laboriously purifying 30 samples. equally pleasant.

sigh. one day of work, one weekend of packing and car maintenance, a couple adventure-mischief-and-rose-icecream-packed days in boston with los amigos (or i guess, la amiga), then finally back home to amherst.

yeah i said it. home. what's it to ya punk?

thunder is the sound lightning makes

2010-08-09T01:03:00.000-04:00

cuh-razy past little while for yours truly. after getting the bajeezus scared out of me a couple weeks ago with one stabbing/death a block south of me (awful awful story) and a robbery at gunpoint a couple blocks north, i ran away to san diego for a week. definitely the right choice. just one week of hanging out with the ainslie family, and eating suuuuuch yummy homemade food, and sitting on the beach in the sun without absolutely melting my face off, and of course getting to hang out with my hunk of a bf, made me feel infinitely better. rope swinging, star wars (IV), ice skating, even salsa/bachata dancing and kayaking in the ocean!! unbelievably amazing time :)

beach near geoff's house

baltimore has seemed all the more gray and bleak though, coming back from such a wonderful week in the sun. this city is really starting to get to me, get under my skin. i need to get out, and soon. thankfully i only have one more week left of my internship, a weekend of car mantainence and packing, a paycheck to pick up and i'll be headed to nyc, amherst, boston, and then back to amherst for RC training. and not a moment to soon.

this weekend was pretty neat though - it's late and i'm tired so here's a quick summary: went down to my aunt's house and took two of her huge gorgeous golden retriever dogs to downtown frederick. it was a "bring your dog" weekend, so there were TONS of other dogs walking around, most of them dwarfed by our two (except the two GIGANTIC mastiffs we saw), with a bunch of doggy activities and freebies, a free concert, etc. pretty cool! then we went and had dinner at one of her friend's houses, who cooked a wonderful meal and we all hung around chatting and laughing until after 11. the next morning we got up pretty early and went into dc to spend a couple hours at the international spy museum, which was awesome! the first part was basically: what we can fit explosives, cameras and bullets into besides a stick of dynamite, a nikon, and a gun. but there was a lot of history of espionage with a lot of hands on stuff. pretty cool way to spend a weekend otherwise spent sitting in my room :)

bedtime for me!

so much for endless summer

2010-07-25T13:05:00.000-04:00

i think i've written in my blog like twice this entire summer? whoops.

there's really not much to update though. job is still mediocre at best, annoying at its worst. baltimore is still hot as hell and nearly as boring (though there are exceptions to both of these). school is fast approaching and i feel like i haven't actually had a two month long break. i am, however, going to california in two days.

yesterday there was an excessive heat warning out (again), calling it to reach 100 degrees, 110 with heat index (humidity and city elements included). and as most of you know, i don't have a/c in my apartment. so it was either spend all day moving as little as possible in front of the fan, go to barnes and noble and drool over all the books i can't buy, or go tubing down a lazy river with my housemate and two of his friends. like an actual river. needless to say, i chose option 3. the river was soooooo cold. my butt was numb the entire time, but man was it worth it. so relaxing and cool (by the end, i was actually shivering a little because the sun was on its way to setting), especially since we brought our own tubes instead of renting them - giving us a headrest and cup holders. i think we got called "pros" at lazy rivering about fifteen times. and since the air was so hot and humid and the water was freezing, this weird mist kinda hovered over the water the whole way down. all in all it took about 3 hours to do - GREAT way to spend a ridiculously hot saturday.

today i'm cleaning and doing laundry (yayyyy), and generally getting ready to go to san diego on tuesday. i cannot even tell you how excited i am to be in normal weather again, and be able to sleep under the sheets. and i get to spend a whole WEEK there!! you don't even know how many hours i'm going to spend on the beach :D i really need a break from this city, and i'm SO pumped to see geoff again!

then once i get back, i have a week and two days left of work until i'm headed up to boston for a couple days to see friends and despicable me and boston in general (shout out to rebecca huuuuu for letting me sleep with her, i mean, letting me stay in her apartment :D SO EXCITED!!). then up to amherst for RC training (bleh), freshman orientation (woo), and... school again.

how did that happen?

okay fine

2010-07-08T21:30:00.000-04:00

i'm in serious need of some human contact. i've realized that that's what makes me so uncomfortable and just plain lonely here - there's no one to talk to. yeah, there's the guy sitting next to me at the laundromat, and my housemate, and the person who makes coffee for me. but i haven't had a real conversation with someone here... ever i guess. through no fault of theirs i suppose, the people here are nice enough as long as you lock your car and don't set your purse down anywhere stupid. it's partially because i'm just young enough for most people to kind of exclude me from their hanging out crew i.e. not 21 yet. i'm totally fine not being 21 yet, but in order to actually socialize in the "real world", i guess that's kind of the defining moment. there's an invisible line that i've both crossed, living on my own in a new city, going to school 1000 miles away from home, and am still very much bound by, still at least mostly dependent on my dad, still not fully legally an adult.

i think that people need something to look forward to, to hope for, to work towards, to aspire for. and right now i don't have that. i go to work each morning, do work just this side of interesting, look forward to getting off, sit around on my computer, make myself some dinner, maybe read a little, then go to bed. it's a good day when i talk with four people. and this is the part of adulthood that i'm terrified of, and what i'm realizing i love about college and amherst in particular. there is SO much to learn and do and such a variety of people to interact with now, so much to look forward to and so much more that i enjoy every day - in ten years, i'll have co-workers. the same co-workers for years probably. my boss runs western blots pretty much weekly. does the same procedures almost daily. it's working towards a goal yes, but 6 weeks of this already has me a little loopy. i cannot do this the rest of my life.

only very rarely have i ever felt completely comfortable and happy and at home with the place i'm in, and this is definitely not one of those times. baltimore is a really colorful city, filled with character and life (ha and death - read an article about 10 people shot, though not all killed, a couple weekends back, which is pretty average) but i need more space and... i don't know. more people i guess ironically.

anyways. i think i'm going to the beach this weekend and to my aunts house to play with puppies, and maybe back to d.c. to see the spy museum (a complete history of espionage!) etc. i really am gonna try to update this with more substance of what i'm actually doing (less journal-y stuff i promise!) more often, so stay tuned :D

good morning baaaaaaaltimoooooore

2010-06-13T11:46:00.000-04:00

yes. i had to. because one, its technically still morning when i'm beginning this, and two, i feel especially "bawlmy" this morning (what the locals call themselves), because i'm about to go to the HonFest!! (www.honfest.net please check it out, it's hilarious. beehive hair, feather boas, cateye glasses, HON at the end of every sentence. yeah.) apparently baltimore-ians, aka Bawlmers, have the habit of saying "hon" a lot. as in "honey". and here i thought baltimore was only known for the wire. i'll post pictures later.

in related news, i do think i saw my first robbery. or at least the aftermath of it. bawlmers are also known for the baltimore walk and the baltimore bump. the latter has to do with parallel parking and therefore nothing to do with this story. the baltimore walk however, is just that. people walk, at whatever pace they please, wherever they please, whether or not it is on a designated sidewalk or crosswalk. which means at any given moment you in your car will be dodging people meandering across the street. the police don't mind people doing it, but do mind you running them over, so needless to say grand theft auto does not apply here.

anyways, so i'm sitting at a red light on my way home and all of a sudden, this kid just bolts behind my car and across the street. i just barely have time to think to myself, "man this kid has it right! at least someone isn't asking to get hit by a c..." when i see a police man running shall we say, after the kid.

oh.

and speaking of work. typical day for me so far. wake up around 8:30 or 9am, get dressed, do my thing, leave for work around 10, hit up the lab coffee pot around 10:30, walk by shengbing's (the guy i'm working with) desk on my way to my own desk so he knows i'm there, check email repeatedly (or begin frantically wikipedia-ing what western blots are) until around 11 or 11:30 when he'll ask me to watch him mix some chemicals and centrifuge some cells, etc. be put in charge of changing chemical bath, feel really important for about ten minutes, (and here's the exciting part), wait an hour, eat lunch, change chemicals. wait ten minutes, change, ten minutes, change, ten minutes, change, wait an hour.... change, ten minutes, change, ten minutes, change, ten minutes, wait an hour. repeat as necessary.

there's a lot of waiting. but i finally met Jenny, the head of the lab on friday when we had a lab bbq, which was pretty fun actually. we all headed out to this park by a lake and grilled and hung out. i'm one of about three americans in a lab of about 20. there's some canadians, a woman from czech republic, a few from china and korea, i think a russian or two, an italian, etc. but they're all about 28 and above. mostly 35+. meaning not too many opportunities for a 20 year old to make good friends. on the up side though, they're all super funny and laid back, fun to work with.

so talking with Jenny, my job will eventually let me start running the western blot experiments all on my own (not terribly difficult, just hard to keep the formulas for which chemical at what point straight), some cloning which will be awesome, and when i have downtime, maybe help some of the other people in the lab with their projects. so yes, i will be stuck in a lab for 8 hours a day all summer, but i'm learning a ton (i think i actually fried a couple neurons trying to figure out all this biochem stuff, but i'm starting to get the hang of it!) and actually getting to be a part of research that's trying to understand and prevent heart failure. pretty legit stuff.

plus i have a whole city to explore. and speaking of that, hon, i need to head to this festival :)

skype me sometime please!

discoveries

2010-06-06T18:16:00.000-04:00

1. things are a whole lot more fun when you have someone else to do them with.

2. my sense of direction is absolutely nil in a city...

3. hence me getting lost literally every time i've gotten into my car

4. it is really nice having animals in your house

5. there are parts of "real life" that are just damn awesome. and some that still make me want to just crawl back into bed.

6. pesto is really easy to make, but super hard to make well, especially because...

7. pine nuts are being recalled because of salmonella??

love at first doubt

2010-06-03T18:41:00.000-04:00

i'm sitting in my apartment living room, listening to a simon and garfunkel vinyl record with my dog and cat (ember and august respectively), after finishing a dinner that i cooked myself. and man, i could get used to this. earlier i kind of scoped out the area near my apartment, and found not only a barnes and noble, but also an adorable little coffee shop called carma's cafe, a coldstone, and a starbucks. though i think i'm gonna stay away from starbucks this summer - too much of a money suck. i also found the whole foods and post office nearby, both a short drive away.

and you know, when i first got here, i totally did not think i could do this whole living completely on my own, getting stabbed with needles and getting a job, figuring my way around a whole new city, hundreds of miles from anyone i know - no dining hall, no classes, no parents, no friends, paying rent and bills. the whole nine yards. but know what? i'm actually doing it, and better, i'm actually enjoying it :)

2010-05-21T21:11:00.000-04:00

sorry i've been so out of the loop recently friends. for those of you who don't know yet, i am officially going to be working in Baltimore this summer for Johns Hopkins (once i untangle myself from all the stupid red tape), and am slightly scared out of my mind. it will be fun, and i am excited. but Baltimore is kind of scary, and so is the fact that i'll be living 100% on my own for the first time. no more Safe Rides back to my cozy, key card access only dorm building. no more "free" meals in Val. oh boy.

for the past week, i've been squatting in Amherst, waiting around for the tent parties and commencement. today i got super sick, and am just now kind of recovering (hence why this "update" is so short), but the rest of the week was incredibly fun - Puffer's Pond, laying around/sleeping in, watching movies, eating "good" food. it's been really nice.

i'm just so unbelievably unprepared for all these goodbyes.

2010-05-08T00:57:00.001-04:00

i don't want to leave...

i love her voice

2010-05-04T20:32:00.000-04:00

it's been a while

2010-04-30T11:32:00.000-04:00

a list

2010-04-08T11:04:00.000-04:00

1. i'm (almost) officially going to be working in Baltimore this summer. (western blots on an eastern coast.)

2. probably going to Sicily before, probably going to Iceland after, and probably going to South Carolina somewhere in the middle. (if i'm not studying abroad, dammit, i'm still gonna go abroad. /travel in general.)

3. i also will probably have a car and a sister up here next year. (welcome to amherst, bob and bea.)

goodness gracious alive

2010-04-05T14:39:00.001-04:00

it is beautiful outside. it's supposed to thunderstorm tomorrow, then be 88 on wednesday. and it's kinda sunny, kinda windy, and really warm out today. i'm pretty content with that.

looks like i've got more decisions coming up, all to be made much more quickly than i care to admit. they're not life or death but they'll have a pretty big impact on how excited/inspired i'll be this summer, and possible job/networking opportunities available to me in the future. i'm probably going to be doing research this summer, but whether its dna gel running and western blotting, or unconscious cognition or philosophical motivation is yet to be determined. to be doing something new and total out of your sphere in a new place away from home and school, or to be relatively close to people you know and doing something you're pretty interested in already?

oh and by the by. i'm gonna miss you kids that are gone in the fall, but damn. it's shaping up to be a gooooood semester for me :D

thanks

2010-03-25T18:56:00.000-04:00

at some point in the last three months, i've in succession temporarily lost my ability to hear, eat, smile, and for a time, see, as well as all the small things that go along with these: being able to touch or scratch my own face, wear contacts, yawn, talk with friends in the dining hall, wear chapstick, laugh, go to the gym, even just go out in public without feeling ashamed.

and yes, you don't know what you've got until you lose it. i love being able to smile, and listen to both headphones. i'm glad i can walk. i'm glad i was built the way i was, and even more grateful that i can appreciate it.

sick as a dog

2010-03-23T12:39:00.000-04:00

things that have occurred in the past 6 hours:

i woke up, attempted to make this cheiosis that's taken over my face look presentable (total fail), took a shower, got dressed, printed out my coupon for a free starbucks pastry (with purchase of any handcrafted beverage!!), took my medicine, texted my friend to tell him i'm leaving, immediately start feeling sick, have to lie down, throw up, sleep through two classes, wake up feeling totally better.

yeah. i'm sick AGAIN. and i'm on antibiotics. AGAIN. i swear my body is plotting against me.

good news, i'm feeling better. now i need to work on staying better. cause this sucks.

dear diary

2010-03-20T23:29:00.000-04:00

i made the mistake of opening some of my old journals from high school tonight while packing. diaries always bring out such a strange conglomerate of emotions in me: nostalgia of course, regret occasionally, surprise at memories i had forgotten or not thought about in ages, contentment knowing that the things i was so worried and upset about then are nothing to me now (which is encouraging today), frustration at my friends and how i saw them. sadness quite a bit actually, especially at realizing how many i began and never finished. this seems to be a theme in my life. i want so much, i know i can give so much, but it always will fall flat if i only go halfway. which i do more frequently that i can even admit. i love reading journals, even with this odd mix. they remind me. after all, they are me. they're little love notes about my life, from me, to me. why on earth did i ever stop writing?

2010-03-17T18:28:00.000-04:00

i hate flying. but i'll have to admit there are some really nice things about being 35,000 feet in the air in a tin can going 400 miles an hour. like the view. coming home from california was absolutely gorgeous, especially in the southern cali and arizona part of it. plus i saw the most brilliant sunset i've ever witnessed coming from cincinatti (which in itself is a fugly city) back to nashville - intense red on one side of the plane, total black and stars on the other. its a beautiful world we live in. even though tennessee weather makes me want to cry, compared to san diego's sun and beaches. i swear i got enough vitamin D in the past weekend to last me until at least... next week. i LOVE the sun. i can't even explain how happy it makes me.

also, just when i had decided not to go abroad, my dad sends me an email from a friend of his in australia saying he'd be willing to put me in contact with someone at the university. and now even more of my friends are going to be abroad in europe. i'm wondering if denmark or australia wouldn't be a good idea after all. sighhhh. indecision is actually the worst feeling ever. especially when i'm terrified of turning my back on such an amazing opportunity.

so for now i'm just chilling back in the 615, getting some work done, figuring out internship things, relaxing, probably watching a ton of movies. woot woot!

misc.

2010-03-10T18:23:00.000-05:00

frustrated can't even begin to describe. angry, exasperated, disappointed, disheartened, discouraged, infuriated.

and yes, i've deactivated facebook temporarily. i need to get my shit together.

i have no vision

2010-03-09T10:34:00.001-05:00

what do i want to do with my life?

that would make things a lot easier.

2010-03-02T20:47:00.000-05:00

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion. For most men, it appears to me, are in a strange uncertainty about it, whether it is of the devil or of God, and have somewhat hastily concluded that it is the chief end of man here to "glorify God and enjoy him forever."

-Thoreau

make a decision, dammit. trust yourself. ENJOY.

how can i keep from singing?

2010-02-22T20:53:00.000-05:00

so a few of you guys know that i recently picked up cello. recently meaning, touched a cello for the first time three weeks ago and had my first lesson last week. and i promised myself that i wouldn't go on about it, but i can't help it.

i. absolutely. LOVE. the cello.

i didn't realize it until i actually sat with one and put bow to string, but your sternum pretty much rests on the body. and when you play it right your whole chest, and heart, resonates with the instrument. as my insightful (and hilariously russian) instructor told me when he held up the bow, "this is your instrument. not this (touching the cello). your bow is what you play. your bow is your voice. with it, you sing - you feel it in your chest and in the cello. you push the sound out of the cello the same way you would if you were singing. the cello is the most beautiful because it is the closest instrument to the human voice. this is your voice." and considering my one disappointment in life is not being able to sing, i'm officially in love with the cello.

i'm also officially in love with the band Mumford & Sons, as well as the John Butler Trio. both pretty incredible bands/musicians. i don't know what it is about music that makes everything melt away and life okay for 2 1/2 minutes, but i'm addicted. it's a beautiful, wonderful thing.

(i dare you not to smile.)

(this song he always plays slightly differently. that's right. that shit is semi-improvised. look it up when he plays at federation square too. it's pretty dang incredible.)

also, i've finally decided what i want to do for my pseudo-lent. yeah i know, i'm not catholic. oh well. it'll be good for me :) i've decided to be more honest, or rather, to be more of a genuine person. i want authenticity in my life. which means: i'm going to wear make up less. i'm going to say what's on my mind more. i'm going to spend less time in my room and more time in yours. i'm going to be more honest with, and more kind to, myself. i'm going to go out less, be there for myself and my friends more, indulge less. i've already taken off the ring i've worn for the past two years - it's time to let go.

and lastly, some things that have been on my mind recently:

-have you ever just laid down on the floor and let go? as in, completely relax your muscles, wash all thoughts from your mind, sinking down, letting the earth hold you up and support your skeleton. try it sometime, it's wonderful.
-i've been sad recently. and tired and angry. and i don't know why. but i'm sorry.
-how much honesty is required in order to be a good friend? where's the line to draw between giving enough and demanding too little? when do i say "stop, this is me now"?

how i deserve to love

2010-02-16T23:08:00.000-05:00

looks like snow is still my blank canvas. we got 3ish inches of it today. no matter how much snow i see in my life, i don't think i'll ever get over its purity and ability to muffle the world to every sense. definitely one of the most beautiful sights.

ironically, as each move i make causes a little more of my sense of peace to break off, the white-as-snow seems to pull it back together. or at least regain hope that i can forgive and be forgiven.

so here i go again.

foggy

2010-02-16T00:38:00.000-05:00

what i wouldn't give for another fresh start.

shit.

disease of the mind

2010-01-27T01:19:00.000-05:00

having a bit of an existential crisis at the moment. just as i decide what i want to do, that i want to branch out and try new things, that i really want to own my life and live it to its fullest - i come upon a paradox. in order to live life to the fullest, i cannot. the options are infinite. i can almost literally do anything i want, but i can't. i can't do everything. this sounds kind of childish and pouty of me, but i don't want the next 20 years of my life to be like the last 20. i want to take advantage of all the opportunities i have, but recently my hand's been getting shut in the door each time i reach out for one. i feel like doing anything less than the maximum is wasting my time. it is worth it to take another art class, considering how expensive this school is and the other classes i could be taking? what if i choose a career for which an amherst degree is totally irrelevant? is it four years and a heck of a lot of money wasted? should i be doing something more "meaningful" with my life now? or is it really all about the experience and gaining of knowledge? i have a very limited amount of time here. i'm almost halfway done, and what's been gained - am i smarter, more capable of thinking and reasoning, more creative, a better socialite and orator?

how to i live life to the fullest? how do i find happiness? what in my life am i lacking, or missing so terribly? how do i come to trust myself, that my decisions are mine and good and right?

my mind is actually so confused right now, i don't know what i'm upset about. but something is definitely wrong.

trivial pursuit

2010-01-22T21:22:00.000-05:00

so many new beginnings. it's not that i don't have a chance for new things - it's almost that i have too many. it's a matter of figuring out which is worthwhile. opportunities are many and time is little. and i've got a bad case of wanderlust. all i really want to do is travel, meet new ideas and people and places. pretty much anything that isn't here and now and ordinary. i love love love everyone around me, don't get me wrong. but i need new.

i want to study abroad but i don't know when. i want to take new subjects but i don't know if i can. i want to find new talents, but i don't know how. i want to prove, to myself if nothing else, that i can change. that i AM changing. there's more to this but i don't particularly want to go into it here and now. talk to me if you want.

at least something is changing. i've found the strong desire to give back.

idan, not ida.

2010-01-13T20:40:00.000-05:00

it took only six hours of dancing with idan cohen to realize how ridiculously out of shape i am. how sore am i exactly? my right hamstring will barely hold me up, both my shoulders have legit bruises on them, both my shins and especially my knees are covered in bruises and floor burns, i can't touch my upper torso without my rib muscles hurting (yeah that's right. rib muscles.), sitting up from lying in bed takes about 2 minutes longer than it should, i can't support myself on my palms because they're so sore/slightly bruised, and sitting hurts my gluteus maximus muskels.

et cetera, et cetera. i'm sore. and in case that isn't enough bodily blegh, i am also sick. cold, stuffy nose, sore throat, waking myself up coughing. and an ear infection. i think. colds make your ears all weird. planes make your ears all weird. planes + cold = my ears pop on my second flight and i have a second where i think i've gone deaf in my right ear. upon closer inspection (and very loud headphones), i realize i've only lost most of my hearing. upon landing, nothing has changed. and that was three days ago. and when i got into the clinic, the nurse gives me amoxicillan. which, in case you haven't had an ear infection recently, isn't the yummy bubble gum flavored liquid we all knew and loved as children. it's now a pill about the size of my pointer finger. plus decongestants. all together, i'm taking about 9 pills a day. it's wonderful.

but enough complaining. my break was good - got to spend time with the family in TN and WI (and eat WONDERFUL italian cooking, thank you aunt kim and g-ma!), work at my beloved buca a little bit, see my friends (and even make a couple new ones! woot!), relax and do nothing at home, and catch up on sleep. but at the end of the three weeks, it was definitely time to leave. partially because i was cooped up in the basement and partially because i was ready to DO something again. so on sunday, freakishly early, i left.

i already whined about the flights (ear issues, ick), so i'll skip that part. so viola! i'm back in amherst, with my own lovely bed in my own lovely room with a de-lovely window. and non-wood-paneling walls :) speaking of which, as soon as i clean up the tornado that has been terrorizing my room, i need to take pictures for you guys. i'm purty dern proud of my decorating.

and ever since i've been back, i've been watching a ton of movies with les amies (sorry, i don't speak french... i guessed), attempting to sleep (attempting key word here - all that sleep at home plus my cold apparently prevents me from sleeping much here :/), eating and dancing. oh! let me tell you about this dance class, besides the fact that it is total boot camp. the instructor is a guy named Idan Cohen (who is NOT to be mistaken with Ida Cohen, the inventor of the wonderbra, as wonderful as i'm sure it was). he IS however, an internationally known choreographer from israel. and absolutely amaaaaazing. i love love love his choreography, even considering how little of it i can actually do. the first day of class, the songs he used to warm everyone up with were by damien rice, including two of my favorite ones by him. SUCH a good way to start a dance class.

he is literally ALWAYS smiling, even when he asks us to do impossible things. you can just tell he is absolutely in love with dancing - he radiates. and he's just an all around funny choreographer: yesterday he stopped in the middle of class to ask, in his accent of course, "you know, i was sitting in the bath this morning trying to remember my english vocabulary and... what is the word for this bug? (he makes the motion of a caterpillar with his hand)". then today, after asking us to loosen up our hip joints and was like "don't you think it's funny that we use that word all the time in class? joint. hehe".

can't remember the word for caterpillar (or sometimes, that we have a right FOOT, not a right FEET), yet he's making mary-jane jokes? umm yes please.

anyways. i'm thinking that the next two weeks are going to be pretty damn important weeks. i'll explain later. but for now, i'm late for some s'mores making :D

bye guys <3

tomorrow

2009-12-31T22:47:00.001-05:00

i'll be you're expecting me to say something insightful and meaningful about tomorrow - it's not just another day, it's another year, another place to start over right? it's a time for resolutions and beginnings.

well, all i can say is that starting tomorrow (and not particularly because it happens to be january 1st) i'm going to try. these past two weeks have been... interesting. and i'm going to try.

how's the weather?

2009-12-08T23:06:00.000-05:00

i really do love photography. i also really think it would drive me bonkers if i seriously pursued it, but there's a sense of magic (or at least wonder) about taking a little box, pushing a couple buttons, swishing it all around in some chemicals and POOF! six hours later, you have a physical memory in your hands. a manipulatable memory if you will, but a little copy of it nonetheless.

quite a few of my friends have recently found what they want (either temporarily or life-long), and have made ways to go after it. and are actually getting it. a couple of them i can't say i exactly agree with, but it makes me a little envious to know that they're running after what they want out of life. there are three things in my life that i know i want (and one of them is something to be passionate about, to know what i really want. ironic?). how do i run? i feel like i'm losing some metaphorical race that i've created in my mind - one that everyone else is unaware of, but still winning somehow.

can "learning" just be my thing? i enjoy learning. i think that's the only part of all this that i actually enjoy - learning about something or someone, getting to know a process or an idea. once it's known and conquered, it loses some of its thrill. ideas need to learn how to play hard to get. though ironically, the subject i've come to be most frustrated with is the one (of a couple i can think of) unconquerable subjects: philosophy. i just don't think my mind works that way, as much as i would like it to. to be quite honest, it makes me feel like an idiot when i can't work through an idea and it's implications and the pure (if not simple) logic behind it. i wish i knew what questions to ask. but... is it the real unconquerables that i want to learn? the thought of quitting school for a year has definitely crossed my mind. i won't. but what if, ya know?

ugh this is all going by too quickly.

say whaaaaaa??

2009-11-29T21:28:00.000-05:00

ugh i hate it when i do this. i finally make it to a break or vacation. i'm having a grand ol' time, relaxing and eating and taking baths. then i have to go and frickin blink. and now i'm back in amherst already. HOW DID THIS HAPPEN???

but for real, this week, and this semester in general, have absolutely flown by. i really don't understand how time can speed up like this. but geez, i finally made the connection this week that i'm STILL waiting for "real life" to start - when i graduate, or when i go to grad school, when i get married, etc. but whoops, this is "real life". i do actually know what i'll be doing tomorrow, and the day after, but there's still this big "SO WHAT" question dangling over it all. and i think there are days when i can ignore it and just enjoy it all, but then before i know it, a week of break is over and i'm the same at the end as i was at the beginning.

well, sort of. this week was almost overwhelmingly good for me. i got to see my wonderful girls up at knoxville for a couple days, see my poor old cat again, show ben around tennessee for a week, walk around my home town again and marvel at how it's changed in the (relatively) short time i've been away, be a tourist in my big city, eat massive amounts of (really good) food... so many little things. it's been an oddly grounding week. home peeps, be expecting letters. promise.

i must go unpack and start re-focusing on school. sigh.

knox/nashvegas

2009-11-23T18:38:00.000-05:00

i'm hoooome!!! finished my biopsych exam friday morning, spent the rest of the day cleaning and packing, got on a shuttle at 5am saturday morning, two planes later, and i'm back in tennessee for the first time in 5 months. and yeah, everything's different. for one, none of my friend's are back yet, but we have a foreign exchange student from the netherlands and my friend ben from college here. SO much construction has changed franklin into something almost unrecognizable. though i supposed in a good way. besides having pretty terrible weather, it's just as beautiful as i remember it being.

showed ben around nashville today. kinda felt bad cause weather didn't allow us to really walk around and see much of anything. plus there's a predators hockey game on tonight, plus rush hour traffic. hopefully we'll be back up there later this week when everyone's home. walked around franklin for a bit, got distracted in a music store and of course, all my old favorite clothes stores :D i definitely need to go shopping before i go back to school. winter's a'comin folks!

tomorrow early we're off to knoxville to visit all my friends over there who are still in school, woo hoo!! i'm stoked, haven't seen some of them since like graduation... but gonna be there overnight, then back here for thanksgiving with the fam. my goodness i needed this break.

i need to put up darkroom pictures one of these days.

day 2

2009-11-13T21:51:00.001-05:00

i'm 2/3 of my way through these midsummer performances. holy cow. yesterday's show was baller, tonight was a smidgen less than baller (for me at least, only because of a hilarious "mistake" in our epic fight scene). i really don't know what i'm going to do with myself after this is over. i absolutely love performance and don't know what i'm going to do without it. i used to be horribly scared of pubic speaking, let alone acting and singing. and now i'm doing all that in front of half the school. yesterday i was shaking and nearly gave myself an ulcer before the show, but tonight... was fine. it was natural, enjoyable. acting is definitely not the life for me, but still. there's something about the stage that i keep coming back to. is that too narcissistic of me?

anyways, it's been a crazy week, lots of papers and stress but it's nearly over and weirdly, i don't want it to be. i go home next week though, which i'm super excited about. shout out to my home girls :P i love you chicas! i'm coming to see you all at utk!!!

question for you all: i'm thinking about doing my final photo project about the differences in truth/authenticity/realism and fakeness/falsities/masking. what do you think? any suggestions?

blog-worthy

2009-11-01T16:03:00.000-05:00

thursday last week, i decided that i wanted to go blonde, for myself but also for my play. friday night, i got my hair dyed. and after a week of kind of freaking out about it and hating it, i'm beginning to get used to it. dare i say it, i actually kind of LIKE being blonde. i don't think i'll stay this way permanently, but for the next while, i think it works. pictures forthcoming.

the madness that was haunted haus... is finally over. over a month of planning, a week of hardcore stressing, a good 9 hours of set up, 2 hours of scaring the pants off other amherst kids, 1 slight complication in plans, enough make up and face/body paint to kill a small horse (and enough sweat to wash it all off by the end of those two hours), all to put together the scariest alice in wonderland/bowels of marsh haus tour amherst has ever seen. needless it say, it was incredible. definitely worth it.

but definitely worth it only once. by the end, i was exhausted. i'm so relieved it's finally over, i have so much more time on my hands now, and i need it for these next few weeks. this upcoming week isn't going to be terrible, besides writing a paper, but then it's tech week for midsummer, it's performance, and a biopsych exam. a week of nothing, and thanksgiving. i haven't been home since june. it feels odd to even think about.

i went out exploring today for the first time in a very long time. well. it was only semi-true spontaneity, because i'd heard of this place called amethyst brook before from like 4 people and finally decided to go check it out. i woke up, looked outside, saw sun. i then realized i had about 8 rolls of unused film and a photo project due tuesday entitled "a place you've never been". perfect much? anyways, being the hardcore explorer that i am, i looked up where this place was on google (sarcasm intended) and found it was only about a 5 minute bike ride away. grabbed a jacket, got my camera, my phone and my backpack and took off.

when i first got there i was rather unimpressed. just kind of a dirt/rocky path thing leading into a semi-wooded area then into a field. after about 50 yards of this i got bored and noticed this fenced in dirt area to the side, surrounded by tall grass. (you'll have to excuse my lack of pictures, my digital camera was dead) i wandered towards the fence and after looking around for a minute, realized i was standing in a mostly dead and rather poorly tended garden. turns out it was the amethyst community garden, and considering it's november, i suppose it's condition is excusable. i meandered my way to the back of the garden and noticed that although the vast majority of things were gone for the winter (sunflowers, tomatoes, random flowers) much more was still alive than i originally thought - a couple tiny pumpkins were still laying around, some peppers and squash, all sorts of leafy green salad plant, and an odd herb looking thing.

but i was still feeling totally uninspired. it was a pretty place, but something wasn't clicking for pictures. i walked back to my bike to make sure it wasn't gone, and found myself standing in the middle of what appeared to be hundreds of tiny balls of lace. i'm still not quite sure what they were, but some still had what looked like a miniature green tomato inside. i swear i must have spent nearly 2 rolls of film on these little guys. they were just absolutely gorgeous.

long story short, i explored the garden and some of the pathway, brook, and a clearing near the path for about 2 1/2 hours before it started getting dark (thank you daylight savings time/winter daylight hours...). but i ended up not only bringing home 4 rolls of pictures but one of those small pumpkins, a bumpy squash, and some carrots (which i discovered after looking at the weird herb looking thing closely). definitely one of the best afternoons this week. especially considering now i get to spend 6 hours in my batcave, i mean the darkroom tonight.

overall, a very good weekend.

and so it is

2009-10-28T02:03:00.000-04:00

i find myself two hours into my 20th year.

nothing exploded, no bones broke, my eyesight is no better or worse than three hours ago...

so then what happens now?

snow white

2009-10-27T01:30:00.001-04:00

a story from facebook at adam's request:

so yesterday it was absolutely gorgeous (and today as well, but my story is about yesterday, so that's beside the point). it was a good 65 degrees all day, cloudless, slight breeze, such a welcome change from the nasty rain we've had for the entire weekend. i couldn't stand being cooped up in my room so worked outside for a good two hours, reading a book about brazilian transgendered prostitutes and their silicone behinds. it started getting a little chilly so i walked back up to my room. where, upon opening my door, i saw for a few seconds a tiny bird sitting contentedly on my bed. finally noticing me, he fled to my window sill where he sat contemplating me for a while, i staring back at him. i wasn't quite sure if i was supposed to sing to him and twirl around in a 1930's feminine manner. i decided not to. he decided not to stay, hopped around, and flew off. although upon further inspection, i realized he had left a present on my bed for me. i thanked him by changing my sheets.

later that night, i was told that there were bunnies hopping all around my house.

and so i say again. what an interesting day.

sun

2009-10-26T16:02:00.000-04:00

i think things are good. i know i haven't updated my blog in like two weeks, but i just don't feel like there's much i want to say. yes, things have happened and i've had moments, but i haven't felt like writing any of them down. some of the things have been too personal, some too whiney, some too real.

but my birthday is in two days. i'll be 20. it seems like a number so much bigger than myself, how i see myself. i'm just getting used to being 19. where did 18 go? i was just 17 the other day, right? i'm not ready to be old. 20 is so far away. 20 is two days away. maybe 20 is just what i need.

the end of the year isn't just creeping up, it's stomping up with elephant feet and big nasty teeth.

this weekend: halloween/marsh haunted haus/my birthday weekend

next weekend: amherst family weekend

the weekend after: my play performance (EEK!)

and the next weekend: thanksgiving break

then barely 4 more weeks of studying and writing a million papers, and it's christmas break. it appears einstein was correct: time is so relative. the older you get, the quicker it goes.

that's all for now folks. i'll get there eventually.

this is just too much

2009-10-12T21:35:00.001-04:00

this week is the week of excess. excessive bonding, excessive work and stress, excessive sleep deprivation, excessive room deterioration... last night i got violently sick from too much cast bonding (though i still love my castmates - shoutout to zach and adam for finding my blog!) and pretty much slept all day today. i couldn't do much else, my stomach is just too sensitive for stuff like this.

and now that i am awake and up, i have to face the tangible stress that not only i, but that everyone else around me seems to be feeling too. i can usually handle it, but looking at my schedule, and everything i have due, i actually don't know if i can do it all. i mean this seriously, literally. i don't know if i have the time this week to write an 8 page paper and study for this monster of a biopsych exam, then spend six or seven hours in the darkroom developing pictures. and it's not just me that has no time - all of my friends are feeling the pressure too, which just makes this all too much. maybe it's just cause i'm sick but this much stress is just too much. i can't help myself, let alone help ease the pain of those around me...

i think i'm going to go for a walk, develop my film, and start working on this paper. if i'm still alive at the end of this week, i'm going to the spa.

a poorly lit location in space

2009-10-09T20:00:00.000-04:00

i've reached that point in my philosophical career where i begin to question why i'm spending my time doing this. i mean, what's the point of it all? should i make a "better use of my time" and learn something more practical and ultimately perhaps, useful? don't get me wrong, i think it's absolutely fascinating to really look at what makes me, me and not you. but that realist part of me has a "it doesn't matter - i AM me, not you, why does it matter why that is or what it means to BE ME. i just AM me" knee-jerk reflex.

anyways, school has finally started for me. i have an anthro paper (that i should be writing right now...) due thursday, a huge biopsych exam on friday, plus five prints due on thursday (self portraits without using my body in the frame - no mirrors, no shadows) and an off-book run through of midsummer on tuesday. eek! it's crunchtime in amherst. oh boy.

as for my play, i love it. practices mostly consist of me trying to stay in character and not dissolve into a fit of giggles. but parts of this things absolutely terrify me. i won't ruin the "surprise" for those of you who will actually get to see this play, but just the whole singing, throwing myself at boys, public speaking (all in front of like 150 people) just scares the stuffing out of me. but oddly, i'm okay with that. it's scary and intimidating working with these other amazing, and apparently completely uninhibited, actors but it makes it just that easier for me to try and be someone other than myself.

in anthro the other day we were talking about how college should be a "play space" - a space in which things can be said that if said outside of the space would be dangerous. as gewertz put it, a nip invokes the bite, but not the bite's consequences. and of course, i extended this into the world of acting. because yes, it's "me" doing all these things, but it's understood that it's not me, or of my own volition. yeah, maybe i've never actually done these things and so can't quite empathize with helena yet. but it's just yet. in the woods, i can do whatever helena wants.

i haven't really been in a writing mood, but hopefully i'll have more interesting things to write about soon. after this week of hell. but two final things: one, i want to lose ten pounds for midsummer. doubtful, considering it's barely over a month away, but it's a goal.

and two, if i could relive my life, i would dance.

he's here

2009-10-06T21:09:00.000-04:00

nicole's beautiful baby boy is finally here. and i won't get the chance to see him.

this breaks my heart much more than it should.

perhaps this means it's finally time for me to let go of these last few strings. i guess i only have one home now.

2009-10-02T07:12:00.000-04:00

this just cannot happen again.

it all comes down to this

2009-09-24T23:42:00.000-04:00

obviously something needs to change. as i've said probably a million times before. but this is the key difference that i've begun to accept and incorporate without even knowing it:

choice.

i read something the other day that literally sent a shock up my spine (the dorsal side :P biopsych joke...). George Bernard Shaw said: "Behold me, therefore, in my twentieth year, with a business training, in an occupation which I detested as cordially as any sane person lets himself detest anything he cannot escape from."

and this, my dearest friends, is the root of all my problems. slowly, slowly, comes the full power of choice and the lasting decisions that follow.

ferreal

2009-09-22T22:55:00.000-04:00

alright. so what's really going on with me?

to be honest, i don't know. i feel like fog has taken permanent residence between my ears. and it would be really great if it would find some other cranium to inhabit. i just can't figure out why i should desire to know the anthropologists' views on gender. or what the phenomenon of blindsight implies about consciousness. no matter how interesting it all is. what's the purpose of arguing all this? (one could say that by asking why we discuss these things, i give irrevocable proof that i am not a philosopher. i've always called myself a realist though, so maybe i can come to terms with this suggestion.)

but i think this deeper meaning behind all this learning will come - with time, with patience, with thought... i'm not sure. but i think it's coming.

in the meantime, i pretty much love my classes. well. most.

photography is inspiring. and childishly fascinating. push some buttons, take a long sheet of paper and put some chemicals on it in the dark, and you have perfect little people smooshed into the paper that look exactly like my friends. i'll have to say, i got unreasonably excited when i learned that i got my own personal enlarger/workstation and locked drawer for all my stuff in the darkroom. key and everything. i'm enthralled as of now. we'll see how i feel in about six weeks when everything starts really giving me its full weight.

mysteries of the mind is slightly disappointing so far. there's about 15 people out of a 35 person class that can sit at the large table in the middle of the room, with the rest scattered on one side. sitting at the table seems to imply permission to engage in discussion with each other, while those on the outside are stuck waving their hands in the air trying to get a chance to speak. or, as most of the class does, sit passively. i personally haven't talked much only because i find the tangents we get stuck in are completely unrelated to the subject at hand. and while they are extremely important, they belong in a philosophy 101 class. not this special topics seminar. if you wanted to just debate semantics (or worse, put into question the purpose of philosophy in the first place, as yes, i have done here, but it's more a personal quest for me, not doubting the legitimacy of philosophy period...), go take intro. sigh. we'll see.

i had my first quiz in biopsych yesterday, which was kind of terrifying in itself, but it taught me several points. one, it's reinstated my urge and need to actually study and just straight up memorize things. this class is a good 70% memorization of terms and their meanings/uses. (it also reinforced my belief in study groups - i tend to get stuck on a few topics by myself. it also forces me to explain things to others and have them explain things to me in a manner different from the prof) it was also an important lesson in procrastination. learning what the hell the telencephalon is at 2am just plain sucks. 'nuff said. in a nerdy way, a fascinating class.

then good ol anthropological perspectives of gender. or as i've called it on several occasions: women. though the class is most definitely co-ed, i am female (as is the professor) and therefore gravitate to that half of class readings and discussions. it's very interesting to learn what our/other cultures mean when they say "female", "brother", or even just "person". because no, not everyone defines things by the biological divisions we use - we call brothers one thing, but others define relations by food or social ties or non-biological relationships. same with "people", etc.

but overall, i think things are going up. or at least going to go up. i'm in control right?

though siobhan just told me that i might have laryngitis. yeah. who just spelled that right on the first try. woo. and boo.

black and white

2009-09-22T22:33:00.000-04:00

recently i've been asking myself a question that it seems many people encounter at some point in their lives: why am i here? what am i doing here, what have i come here for? in this particular dorm room, in that particular bed, in this school, not at that party, with the friends i have and don't have, with the things i do and don't do...

but more importantly, since i've become tired of dealing with my past, what am i going to do about it now that i am here? if i'm here and don't want to be, why don't my footprints lead away from this place?

i enjoy challenging myself. not in a high school transcript kind of way, but in a sense that i like to make myself uncomfortable, do something i don't normally do, i think as a direct consequence of me tending to stick with my own norm, my own habit of things, my own inward turning. being uncomfortable can either force someone more inward, or force them to dive headfirst into that discomfort. challenging myself allows a different part of me to come out and grow, allows a part of me to lead me a few steps away from where i am.

i joined a play in which i am extremely uncomfortable, but completely happy. i'm excited for a chance to not be me, to be something that is me but other than the me i am, if that makes any sense. i'm excited to dive headfirst into this. i'm taking a philosophy class. i've found that my ability to really get at the heart of matters, to understand the implications of an essay or concept for example, is nearly nonexistent. i'm excited to have to throw myself in and make those connections, both neural and cognitive.

so where to i want to be? i want to be at a place where i'm honest, an authentic person. someone you look at and go, yep, she's for real. i want to be responsible and silly and creative. cause damnit, i'm nearly 20. i know it sounds/is a little cliche, but i want to start living already. i want to be really damn good at something, to be really passionate about anything. what's more, i want to stop wanting.

chicken sex

2009-09-09T20:01:00.000-04:00

so instead of trying and catching up from where i left off until now (which would be tremendously long and i couldn't possibly expect you guys to one, care or two, read the entire thing), here's where i am now.

i've now had my first two days of classes, a tuesday-as-monday and a wednesday-as-wednesday. meaning we basically repeated the same schedule. though so far i really like my classes. they start at 10am everyday and are done by noon everyday except wednesday, on which i have a seminar form 2-5. it's called gender: an anthropological perspective and the professor is absolutely hysterical. i really think it's going to be a mind-bending class, full of interesting people and insights. though half the class i was distracted trying to figure out who the professor (gewertz) reminded me of. i finally figured it out: stockard channing!! or as most of you know her, Rizzo from the movie Grease (yayy google :D). i'm super pumped for this class.

i'm also taking biological psych (known also by its affectionate name, biopsych). it's what it promises, explaining the biological events that lead to a psychological effect, but at a pace that promises to give any note-taker carpel tunnel. luckily for me, i found out how to record lectures from word :) macs are the bomb. and call me a nerd, but i actually find this stuff fascinating. pumped for this one too.

i haven't gone to my philosophy class, called mysteries of the mind, and it has the potential to be awesome or absolute crap. it's basically the philosophy of unexplained psychological phenomena (phantom limb, out of body experiences, etc). it's in a building called the octagon, and i'm almost as excited to just see the inside of the building as i am for the actual class...

then i'm split between basic drawing/photography and modern poets with this adorable old professor called pritchard. he's subtly SO funny, but it's 10am, he's a little quiet, and it'll be the second poetry inundated semester i'll have had in a row. so not sure about it. i'd LOVE to get into either basic drawing or photography, but they're uber popular and it's not so likely that i'll get in :/

but besides that, things are pretty good i guess. i'm still waiting for some of my negatives to be shipped to me from home so i can blow 'em up and slap 'em on my walls (neatly of course) and complete my home-making-out-of-a-tiny-dormroom process. though i've been spending some time out on the roof (shhh) which a rather relaxing benefit to my room's location. after telling people i have roof-access from my room, most people's first response is, oh do you go up there to smoke??? no sorry kids, i don't smoke... but it is a beautiful view of downtown.

only a few things have changed i suppose since the last time most of you have talked to me (and i promise, letters will be forthcoming and they will have more explicit details of the past few months :P). first, i've been trying to open up with more people. those of you who know me best know that i tend to block everyone off from what i'm really thinking or feeling. yes i know very childish, teenage angsty of me. but i do and i'm trying not to. and actually succeeding for once. i could ramble about this, and how i've seen my friends handle college, but i'll save that for another blog. it'll take a while :)

another way i'm stepping out is that i've officially decided to not only try out for two plays and a dance piece, but for choral society (insert rebecca and ben squealing here) as well. i want to be more involved in amherst, with like the social council or even just the outing club. i eventually want to try my hand at cello and MAYBE eventually an intramural sport (squash? tennis?). we'll see.

also, and perhaps more difficult for me to admit on a blog, i've recently noticed that i've gained more weight than i'd like to admit. meaning, i've lost a TON of muscle. which i really don't like. i'm physically uncomfortable in my own body. not that i'm more self-conscious than i was before - i feel physically awkward walking around in my "new" body. it doesn't do what i want it to. which i suppose would be natural in 20 years, but at 19 years old, i should still be functional. i know a few of you who will yell at me for this, but it's true no matter what you say, and i honestly just want to get back to being healthy. i'm really only saying this (out loud? ha.) so you guys will hold me accountable. it's not your job, but i'd appreciate the support. thanks :)

oh, and in edinburgh, the people sharing the apartment with us were a group performing a play about chicken sex. think chaucer's canterbury tales (aka chauntecleer and pertelotte), but HILARIOUS. i nearly cried my eyes out at this girl and guy acting out this play. and never could look at them the same way. hahahaha

adventurous adventures

2009-09-02T19:34:00.000-04:00

italy was pretty damn fantastic.

last friday night, charlotte walks in my room and asks if i wanted to go to cava grande. her friend's son is bilingual and offered to take me along with him. i thought, hmm, i've never been spelunking so, sure! and she handed me a list of things to bring (bathing suit cause there's a swimming area, waterbottle, hat, etc) and tells me they'll pick me up at 7:15 in the morning.

around 7:06 the next morning i jump out of bed, shove a hat on my head and run out the door (dressed appropriately in shorts and said bathing suit of course). we pick up david, the son, and head for la cava grande. i start asking about it, like is it popular, do you go there a lot, etc. he says, yes he goes almost twice a week, its a very popular spot, it's kind of like the sicilian version of the grand canyon.

...wait, canyon? not cave?

nope. canyon. alright, that's cool, sounds like a pretty place to hike down and swim for a bit. as we approached the mountains, david pointed out these little dug out caves (cava pequenos? no, that's spanish...) where until the 1600's, people used to live in the rock of the mountain. in 1683 an earthquake struck and 8 cities were forced to move to the coasts (including noto, the city i stayed in, and avola, the city david lived in). some of these rock houses were surprisingly elaborate, several rooms deep with arched doorways and connected to other houses.

once we finally get up, david asks his dad when he would be picking us up again, and he says 5:30.

...it's 9:30 in the morning. 5:30?

yep. 5:30. alrighty, that's cool too, 8 hours alone with a guy i just met today, speaking his secondary (and my only) language. this should be interesting at least. we walk to the edge of the canyon and after checking in, start walking down the path. as i said before, david has done this trail a million times before, so he's powerwalking down this thing. poor little unathletic, out of shape me, was definitely trailing behind.

once we get down to the bottom and see the "swimming areas" though, it was absolutely worth it. we were there before pretty much anyone else got there and had these entire pools to ourselves for a good hour or so, but by midday, there were easily 200 people.

between the two pools, looking back at the one closest to the trail. kids would jump off the ledge to the very left of the picture - scaryyyy

from between the pools again, but facing the other way, towards the second one. note the sunning rock :)

looking at one side of the cliff. the area between the pools was PERFECT for suntanning/warming up from the frigid water

the sunset from inside the canyon

and before you ask, no this area wasn't a manmade spa/resort. it's a completely natural oasis. absolutely perfect. david and i spent the day jumping into the water, getting cold, sunbathing until we got hot, jumping into the water, repeat. oh and did i mention that because i thought i'd be in a cave, i didn't bring sunscreen? but it was really interesting talking to him about life in sicily (did you know that sicilian and italian are two totally different languages??), the differences and similarities. we did get some weird looks though, as we were talking in english, and david has a huge tattoo of the sicilian symbol on his back. i will say that his mother, who was from ohio, taught him english well. when a man sat down near us wearing a bright pink speedo with a tramp stamp that read "made in italy", he turned to me and said "this is what you call 'flaming', right?" i nearly died laughing. nearly every guy in italy wears speedos, but this guy was just too much. the day flew by and after we both fell asleep in the sun, it was time to get back.

however. if you look at these pictures, you kind of get an idea of how far down we had to get to this place. and therefore, how far up we had to climb to get out again...

let's just say david would have gotten up in about 20 minutes without me. with me? a good 45 minutes during which i seriously almost threw up.

that little patch of blue in the middle of the picture is one of the lakes we were at. you have no idea how proud i was of myself for climbing out of there without dying.

this is getting long already, so i'll finish the rest of my italian adventure here (later), and continue with what's happened in amherst in another one soon. :)

languages

2009-08-24T07:23:00.000-04:00

things i've discovered thus far in italy:

nutella

asiago cheese

italian men

the mediterranean sea

swordfish

cold showers

la cava grande (story to come when i can upload pictures)

things i've rediscovered:

my tan

sunburn

almonds

being lazy

gelato

lots and lots and lots of mosquitos

so i'd say that so far it's been a pretty damn good trip.

well. minus two things. first, i don't have a european converter. only british. so i have to borrow charlotte's charger pretty much every day. and now that my camera has died, i can't take any more pictures. boo.

two, i don't speak italian. i can't have conversations with anyone here, or at least not proper ones. yes, you can gesture, point at your foot or mouth, smile and laugh and ask how much. maybe even carry on awkward, but poignantly funny and memorable small talk for a while... but i can't know stories. i can't know histories or character traits or personalities. right now i'm sitting on the porch eating grapes i just picked from charlotte's vine. but in about 5 minutes, and for the next three hours after, i will be surrounded by italian words, random bouts of laughter, and the pitying looks of strangers who glance every now and again at me sitting silently, sometimes asking questions absurdly loudly in the off chance that volume will make up for what their language cannot. but then they eventually forget i'm listening. because really, i'm not. i can't. it's one of the most frustrating, isolating, and lonely feelings i've ever had. i don't mean to pity myself, i know they would talk to me if they could. if i listen really really closely, i can even make out some of what they're saying now with a mix of spanish semantic assumptions and random words i've picked up.

i've never realized how much i, how much we, rely on language for each other. maybe i want to study linguistics after all. or at least english.

but all that aside, it really has been nice to be away from everything i can know for certain for a while, first in london and edinburgh, now here. but i think by thursday, i'll be ready to stop running and just go back to someplace i can call home.

bellisimo!

2009-08-19T16:03:00.000-04:00

beautiful house, beautiful trees, beautiful ocean, beautiful sunset, beautiful dinner, beautiful people... good grief i love italy.

but really. first of all, let me rant about the people here. i spent most of my afternoon just sitting on the beach, less than half a mile from the house i'm staying at. one, most of the guys wear speedos. which is totally fine by me, cause the men here are GORGEOUSSSSS. the guy who helped me find my bus was seriously the real life portrait of a gucci ad. i have no idea why he was working at the airport bus station. he could be having pictures taken of that beautiful face, holy geez. i mean, tall dark and handsome doesn't even begin to describe these people. yes they had their fair share of average people, but the ratio of gorgeous people to average people was just ridiculous.

sighhh. let me regain a normal heartbeat here...

okay. though i could go on, moving on. so until school starts, i'm going to be in italy. why? cause i can. well, really just cause cause my dad is pretty much the bomb-diggity. and speaking of people, i met my first italian friend within hours of touching down here. on the bus ride from the airport to Noto, a guy overheard me talking to dad on the phone, in english obviously. a few minutes after i hang up, he turns to me and asks "you, english?" we then proceed to have an hour-long half english, half mimed conversation. i find out his name's corrado and he's actually a student in catania, but lives in noto and for those of you who know yusuf, he acted and even laughed exactly like him. sweet guy. and when we get off the bus, he bought me "granite" (pronounced grah-nee-tay) which is basically sweet bread dipped into a lemon icee. very good.

anyways, so i was then picked up by charlotte, the family friend i'm staying with here. this old woman is incredible. she's gotta be close to 80 but she speaks like 14 different languages, used to be a professor in the states, met my grandfather and then father there (hence how my family knows her) and knows pretty much everything there is to know about italy. she said tonight while we were talking about the divide in italy after Mussolini was kicked out, "i should be charging you for these italian history lessons". hehe. but she really should... plus she's teaching me a little bit of italian, which is really cool, cause i know about four words.

it's only been about 24 hours here, so that's pretty much it. i already feel more relaxed, like i have time to just BE, ya know? i can easily walk to the ocean, or just sit around and read, or OH! eat grapes from the vine that's growing over the front porch. yeah. jealous yet? :) but yeah, i'm really hoping to do as little as possible over the next week, while really just giving myself time to think and organize myself, before school starts and i just won't have this kind of time anymore. i'm trying to read my bible more now that i'm here, getting my priorities straight, getting my mind focused on what i want to do in the future, and even who i want to be.

well. i'm sure you're sick of these ridiculously long rambling blog posts, so kudos if you've gotten this far :) i've kind of unofficially declared a break from the internet while i'm here, so i won't be on much, but i'll update you whenever i get on next.

love from italy, ciao!

sometimes life can be cool

2009-08-16T18:18:00.000-04:00

random post about my day :)

so i finally found a show here at the edinburgh fringe festival that i really really wanted to see today, a dance (aka "physical theatre") piece called "the chair" - amazing reviews, very intriguing premise and storyline, etc. the whole she-bang.

so of course when i show up to buy my ticket 5 minutes before the show starts, they're sold out. great minds, right?

but i decided to not let it ruin my night and went and plopped myself on the nearest patch of grass, which happened to be a small park with rose bushes and wild daisies everywhere. i sat there for about a half hour, eating trail mix and watching the clouds. they weren't the big puffy kind (cumulus?) but just the airy light ones. so i don't have any funny shapes-in-the-clouds stories, but it was pretty nonetheless. so then i got a little cold/hungry and wandered down to where street performers usually have somethin goin on. and then watched this hilarious man fight an adorable little girl (who incidentally didn't speak english and had to have her dad translate everything the man said for her, only increasing the hilarity - the crowd tried to help, but overall failed miserably) with water guns for another half hour.

ahem. i refuse to admit that i was slightly jealous.

and now i'm eating mini strawberries. and exotic flavored solero. mmmmmmm. kudos to sinead :)

i'd say that's an afternoon quite accomplished.

tomorrow, i begin my flight to italy!

notes from scotland

2009-08-16T05:45:00.000-04:00

1. these people know how to make a damn good mocha. end of.

2. while the weather might be nice and let you have sun for the first few days you're here, don't let it fool you. it's just a ploy to get you to like the country. it's now been back to it's normal "spitting" for the past three days straight (yes, that's the proper meteorological term for it here).

3. there are quite a few homeless people. which makes me sad. but what makes me sadder is the fact that i haven't stopped to help any of them yet.

4. choco-wheatabix are addictive. and orange fanta without the chemicals and preservatives and artificial flavors... is just not orange fanta :(

5. the people who come to this festival would much rather watch a play detailing how to survive a zombie apocalypse, or facebook: the musical (for those who haven't had enough time on the life-sucker on a given day and must get their fix someway, anyway) than a heartwrenching, legitimate (and much better acted) play about child abuse.

6. it is completely possible to have a generation gap in the space of only 5 years.

7. it is also completely possible to eat an entire carton of blueberries in one sitting.

8. for those of you who haven't admitted to this fact yet, it's true. english accents are just plain hotttt. and yes, they deserve four t's. and no, scottish accents are just plain incomprehensible.

9. i was going to ask one of my flatmates why they decided they wanted to act. but then my brain went on a half hour long philosophical debate with itself discussing the ramifications and insinuations that follow when one person dedicates their entire life to pretending to be a person that someone else has created and decided that this person would be exactly the right person to be this person and not the one that they currently are, or if one were to get stuck in the dress-up stage in life, and whether or not this was a result of their parents not giving them enough hugs as a child, or whether it was just because they had no personality of their own and therefore had to assume someone else's or even just if it was because they had a large cocaine addiction and the only profession this is accepted and encouraged (for reasons of health and diet, of course) is that of an actor. and then i decided i'd better not ask after all.

10. laundry machines here are so incredibly difficult to figure out (too many buttons and one large dial that only has some random letters around it... how can you wash clothes with the alphabet??) that only 1 of 7 adults in the flat with me can successfully wash her clothes the first time. and no, unfortunately that person isn't me. on a related note, the sinks don't have sprayer attachments (annoying!), and the knobs turn front to back, not side to side. this is such a weird little island.

11. according to google earth, not only is narnia located in italy, but the fountain of youth and heaven as well. thank you mlia. and too much free time. and the internet. which really sucks here.

the littlest church

2009-08-14T08:47:00.001-04:00

you know, i remembered something about my trip up here to edinburgh that made me stop and think a little:

we took the train here a couple weeks ago, and i think i've really fallen in love with the countryside here. i'm definitely still partial to ireland, but scotland has these incredible rolling hills and open fields that back right up into the ocean. we rode right by these enormous cliffs that dropped straight into the water, and i saw a glimpse of this crumbling old church perched on the side of one. it didn't have a roof anymore, just the straggly remains of what once must have been a small but beloved community church. or maybe it was meant only for the passersby, the ones who walk down the beach, or down the highway, maybe hitchhiking their way somewhere, to someplace or away. i really don't know how anyone would be able to get down to it, or even how it was built there, but it was there, and for that second, it was known. i think i'd like to go back someday and say hello to those old bones, those old stones that used to support such prayer and hope. maybe they can stand supporting one more prayer, one more message, one more breath of awe.

there is such beauty here. in some rocks piled on top of each other, on a train whizzing by a beach, in a piece of metal in someone's lap, hands ringing (or wringing) out song... there is such great beauty out there.

i just hope i notice it more often.

leaving, then arriving

2009-08-13T17:19:00.000-04:00

so it's official: i'm leaving edinburgh for london next monday, and leaving london for sicily on tuesday. then the following thursday, i'm leaving sicily to go back to london, then immediately abandoning it for amherst. i feel like the high school whore of cities...

but yeah i have one final weekend here in edinburgh at the festival, then a little over a week sitting on the beach here:

my family has a house in this little town called lido di noto, but i'll be staying with this sweet old woman named charlotte who was kind of worried that i'd be young and crazy and get in trouble partying with boys and she'd have to come pick me up when i blackout half naked in a basement halfway across the island surrounded by people who don't speak my language. and she doesn't drive at night. but i'm mostly just looking forward to literally doing nothing. sitting on the beach, getting my poor, long lost tan back. finishing this damn book that i started about midway through july.

basically, to be quite honest, i'm glad i'm leaving. for one, i just don't feel needed here. yeah i'm sure i'm kinda helping getting the show some publicity, handing out flyers and all, but the audiences are still pathetically small for such a straight-up good show (and trust me, there's some unworthy, absolute crap shows here that are getting ridiculously large audiences - see "how to survive a zombie apocalypse" or "facebook: the musical"). it's kinda frustrating, cause this wasn't exactly what i was expecting to be doing and for the past couple days, i'm the only one whose been doing it. which is kinda understandable, considering sasha wasn't here, and i'm sure the other two girls are exhausted.

but i still feel like i was just thrown into this mid-stride.

and two, i don't even feel particularly wanted here. i'm just not a wild crazy actress without inhibitions. i'm inhibited, yes. perhaps too much, but still. then there's the generation gap. which is only about five or six years, but it's still enough to feel like the baby in the house, the little sister everyone talks to out of courtesy. but i'm just not interesting enough to be entertaining, and not open enough to be friends.

don't get me wrong. the people here are sweet and beautiful and just great human beings. but i just don't feel comfortable here. which is why when my dad offered to send me to italy for the rest of the time until school starts again, i agreed. it kinda sucks that i only got a week here, but i just don't think me being here benefits anyone - me or the show.

two more thoughts: first, a conversation with the director here almost made me cry. we were talking about girly things: growing up self conscious about our bodies, her shopping with her mom, boys that have been in and out of our lives, old music and food. as many of you know, i never shopped with my mom. she didn't help me pick out my prom dress, wasn't there when i got my period, couldn't give me advice to help when acne attacked my teenage self, wasn't in the state to comfort me when a boy broke my heart for the first time. none of which i blame her for anymore - it was circumstance, and my own refusal to allow her. but i've never really had those crazy, personal talks with any sort of mother figure, or older sister figure. i think from now on, i'm going to try to let more girls into my life, more supporting friends. i know that sounds weird, but i've realized recently that i have quite a few close guy friends, but very few girls that i feel comfortable going to with my problems. which i've analyzed myself, and this leads to thought number two:

i'm still a little girl. i'm a 19 year old little girl. i'm so far from becoming the grown-up, independent, responsible, mature, confident, Godly, pure woman i want to, and should be. i seek attention, but then refuse honest concern and friendship. i can directly compete with and feel less than other girls - there's not that competition with guys, only attention. not that i'm saying being friends with guys is at all wrong, one of my closest friends is a boy. but there are definitely times when having a girl and her advice is just more appropriate (i.e. complaining about cramps and boys :P). i'm also not saying that i have no girl friends, my very best friend has always been there fore me, even if 1000 miles away. but i feel the distance sometimes. i feel the distance i put there, that has been put there, the distance i feel in myself from myself to what i am showing everyone i am. i feel the things i hide, the things we hide from each other. i'm just not comfortable within my own body anymore (physically, not in a metaphorical sense. i've gained weight in the past year, and i can feel it - i'm not comfortable here). and i think that's also a large part of these past five or so years.

all to say: i'm trying. but i think i'm going to try just a little bit harder. cause this shit just needs to turn itself around. or just leave. josht, you were right. you always were :/

oh. last thing. just because i don't say it enough: i really do love you guys. with all my heart. i'm so thankful to have all the friends i do, and i honestly want to be here for you. even if we aren't "best friends". i'm here. or there. wherever you need me most :P

kilts and sheep and theatre, oh my!

2009-08-06T18:35:00.001-04:00

this is now officially the longest i've been alone in a room for over a week. i can listen to my own music. i can write and open windows and jump on the couch. or i can just sit here and look at baby pictures again, giggling to myself over a bowl of cereal. all of which definitely have or will happen. though i might just sit on the window sill - it's another beautiful night, but this time it's a scottish night.

(the next morning)

well, ironically, i'm sitting on another window sill in the apartment, watching a scottish morning. which has a blink 182 soundtrack, courtesy of one of the surrounding buildings.

anyways, just got into edinburgh, scotland yesterday afternoon (it's pronounced edinburough, by the way) on the train. it was only a 4 1/2 hour trip and i was asleep most of the time, so not too bad. plus scotland is just beautiful. not quite as much as ireland, but still a helluva lot better than london. loved it there, but i can actually see the sky here, and it's much greener, two essential presences in my life. i'll have to take a picture from my window.

we took a cab to the apartment we'll be sharing with 5 other people (that's 7 people in a 3 bedroom, 1 bathroom apartment) and met them all. they're all actually super nice and funny, mostly being actors. in total, there's sasha and i, ellie (our play's director), gloria (our play's actress), and three other people from another play about chicken sex and chaucer. quite interested in going to see that one.

so after eating lunch with everyone, we all went out to pass out flyers - my main job while here, which is cool. our play, unlike many other plays here, is a drama. and just for cliche kicks, it's a lyrical (award winning!) show about the family secret everyone knows, a young woman's struggle to deal with her mother's denial and family abuse. quite a heart-breaking one-woman show. this poor actress has to perform this all by herself (she plays all the characters and actually wrote the play herself) every night for the next month. i don't know how she's going to do it without going absolutely crazy. it's some heavy stuff.

anyways, so after a nap, we head over to the venue to watch the show. our venue only seats 50 people, so i was expecting like 15-20. it's the very beginning of the run, there's not a ton of people here at the festival yet, but that's a decent show size. 6 people besides the crew show up. needless to say, i was very disappointed until someone pointed out that the average crowd a fringe festival play attracts each night consists of two people. then i was pretty happy.

the show itself was very powerful, like i've said a million times before. she's a really good actress.

afterwards, a few people from the show went out, but i just came back to the apartment - i've just been exhausted recently. i basically emailed a bunch of people and passed out. i haven't been sleeping well recently, partially because of all the smoke everywhere (it gives me a wicked headache - woke up with one again today), and partially cause i just don't sleep well in places that aren't "my bed".

anyways, we're about to go flyer again, so i'll give a better update on how i'm doing later. plus i owe rebecca a story about fire retardant bales of hay and chicken sex :P

i'm in great britain triiiiick

2009-08-02T17:11:00.000-04:00

(written while in the airport on thursday night)

I hate being 19 – not old enough to know how to fill a prescription, but too old to avoid looks when I lay on the floor at the airport.

I don’t want looks, and I especially don’t want to miss my flight by falling asleep on the airport floor. So I won’t lie on the floor. Though I really want to.

As you can tell from my dilemma, I’m currently sitting in the airport waiting for my flight to London. First of all, kudos to DBarnes for driving me all the way out here! And second, I really hate airports. Well, mostly I just hate flying. But considering flying is only reason I go into airports, I hate them by association. The Ugly: I get sick on planes very easily. The Bad: I have to take medicine (Dramamine) for it, and it makes me hella drowsy. The Good: it’s an overnight flight. Oh yeahhhhh :D (The Surprising: I’m dyslexic…)

Third of all, have I mentioned yet how SUPER FREAKIN EXCITED I am about going abroad for the next month?? It’ll be good to be away from some place I call “home”. I’ve been to London once before, for like 5 days, and it just so happened to be the 5 days a year that London has sun and blue skies. We’re going to Edinburough, Scotland for a couple weeks or most of the month for the gigantic theatre/arts festival that goes on there. By the end of this trip, I will have gone to most of that island’s countries (every one but Wales…), and is it odd that I’m most excited about hearing all their crazy accents? I kinda wonder what my accent sounds like to someone who doesn’t think English is an accent. Especially if people here in America think that how I talk sounds funny sometimes (see: “hey ya’ll” and “daynce”).

Well. This past month I think has solidified my loyalty and love for this school. I absolutely love pretty much every person I’ve met and gotten to know better on this trip.

(i was then interrupted by a phone call from dad telling me i'd better call my bank otherwise they'll freak out if i try to withdraw money while in london and the machine will quite literally eat my card)

but yeah. so after a really long flight, in which i was stuck in the last row of my section, in the corner, with no window, i'm in london!!! i got here rather early on friday morning and sasha picked me up at the airport and a driver took us to his flat in a car that had wifi. weird. i get to his flat, meet his mom (who is AWESOMMMMME), wander around googly-eyed for a while, then sit down on my bed and immediately fall asleep. for 4 hours. so much for sucking it up and just getting used to the time change.

woke up, walked around canary wharf a bit, went to downtown london proper to eat at an excellent thai restaurant downtown and actually got to order wine with dinner. i love this country. haha but yeah, nothing too eventful.

saturday night on the other hand, was a little bit crazier. went shopping around london all morning, realized i couldn't afford ANYTHING/london people have insane tastes in clothing (yet oddly cool?) so didn't end up buying anything. well, i suppose it didn't help that we were walking down one of the most expensive streets in london. which is an already expensive city. i could feel my money straining to be released from my pockets. i really think they left a bruise. actually there is a gigantic bruise on my right thigh, but i think its most likely from moving on thursday, not from british pounds...

moving on, sasha and i headed back to the flat to get ready to go to the theatre that night. we had tickets to see "all's well that ends well" and it was fantastic!! the acting was really wonderful, except for one girl who almost ran into one of the prop trees, the set was beautifully built, and we had very good seats. plus i finally got to wear the dress i made FOREVER ago, and heels, which i haven't worn in probably a good three or four months.

afterwards we met up with a few of sasha's friends at this club called mahiki and spent the rest of the night socializing and dancing there. a few words on at least this british club: the guys weren't "grind and go" - every guy i danced with waited until he had made eye contact with me and i had agreed to dance with him until he even touched me, and even then it wasn't all creepy and gross. one guy even tried to salsa with me but i think he was a little too far gone (and the song waaaaay too fast) for it to work too well. but it was probably the best "party" i've ever been to. then again, sitting in a trashcan covered in leftover Val food is about as much, or possibly more, fun as all the socials parties i've been to, so that's not saying too much. but it really was a good time - plus his friends were great, two being british, one being american (sorta). so for once, i wasn't terribly self conscious of my accent. or lack thereof.

sunday: woke up and did my first bit of my "job" here - cleaned up and organized sonja's (sasha's mom) work studio so that we can start working there for real sometime later on this week.

oh right. what i'm doing in london: i'm working for sonja, who owns her own theatre production company. she's currently working with four different plays, but i'm mostly going to be helping her PR for one of them called Monday that's going to be performed up at the theatre festival in edinburough, scotland. she's actually up there right now, getting everything all settled and arranged for sasha and i to go up there during the festival starting thursday or so. and that's actually where i'll be for the next couple weeks i think, just kind of being sonja's correspondent and general lackey for the producer and actor (yes, singular - it's a one woman show). but i've heard the festival is incredible, so i'm super excited to actually start working for real.

back to sunday, after i cleaned up, we went on a tremendously long walk down the thames river, just kind of exploring – made it all the way to the London bridge. when we finally got back, i made the best chicken parmigiana EVER. no really, it took me like 3 attempts, but i finally got it right :D excellent really. then we watched a movie called sliding doors (i LOVE british humor - such a funny romance movie!!) and i totally crashed.

by the way, what they say about london/english weather is SO true. there's sun MAYBE 15 minutes out of the day. that's definitely one reason i'd never be able to live here - i need more sun than this place provides. and it's summer. i can't imagine what winter would be like. but friday and especially today have been just gorgeous. seeing the sun here just makes it so much better, since its so rare. today we walked around everywhere, from westminster abbey to the courts of london, just a bunch of random hidden gardens right of london's main roads. i even had high tea! well, i had coffee for some odd reason served out of a shotglass, and it was the most potent shotglass of coffee i've ever had in my life, but there were crumpets and biscuits! in about 20 minutes, there will be about 200 pictures of my adventures from the past few days. there were quite a few mini adventures today, but i'll explain them alongside the pictures they belong to because as usual, i've slacked off writing in this blog and therefore had to make up for it with a ridiculously long blog that no one will actually read to completion. oh well.

as for now, there's a beautiful view of the sunset from the roof of the flat (yes, that's right, SUNset. as in i can actually see the sun. yayyy!!!)

2:46 disaster

2009-07-29T05:50:00.000-04:00

i watched the world, my world, wake up this morning.

looks like rain.

odd

2009-07-28T14:05:00.000-04:00

this week/weekend was so incredibly refreshing.

first, on i think thursday of last week, a few friends approached me about going to new york city for the weekend. no real reason except one guy was going home and invited us to spend the weekend with him. so of course i couldn't pass up going to the big apple.

so friday afternoon, chris drove ben, dan, siobhan and i the two-ish hours to his house just outside the city. the entire backseat, including me, was totally passed out for most of the trip, but the last leg of the trip was absolutely gorgeous - this kinda twisty highway surrounded by trees. once we got there, we had some chinese food, watched our favorite cartoon (spongebob of course!) and decided to go to the nearby amusement park.

playland as it was called, was fairly small, but still a ton of fun - i even went on my first superman type rollercoaster!! i was so proud of me. there was a surprisingly big fireworks show a little while after we got there, bigger than umass's 4th of july display actually... and a little girl doing a tightrope routine with two guys on bikes. it was rather impressive. talk about your balance.

then more chinese food while watching a bunch of elderly people swing dance (some were actually really good!) and a huge storm rolling in. dinner and a show. after heading back to chris's, we ended up watching the terminator (also a first for me). yay friday :D

then saturday was spent walking around new york city itself, kinda touristing, kinda shopping, , kinda just drooling over the abercrombie models standing outside the store. i mean really??? getting paid to stand around and look pretty? yeah its objectifying men and shallow blah blah, but after thousands of years of getting whistled at by construction workers, i think the female population of the world has the right to admire this hunka good-lookin' body:

yay for advertising clothes by not wearing any :) oh baby oh baby.

umm ate some delish vietnamese food, got some new clothes, got my first taste of java juice (excelente!!), then headed back to chris's house for more food and more spongebob, and of course, terminator 2. by the way, both these movies are absolutely ridiculous. like really, it's kind of hysterical. and nonsensical. and silly. arnold comes back as the good robot??? i still don't get it.

anyways, so we turn the movie off and start watching the cable channel that pops up - something about aliens, kinda star-wars-ish with space ships flying everywhere. this girl alien's eyes turn this funky cat-like shape so ben immediately dubs the show "cateye galaxia", as the sound is off and we have no idea what it actually is. some ships start heading toward and surrounding earth, so ben then yells out "don't attack earth!" another girl alien pops up on the screen, but this time wearing nothing but laser beam eyewear. and she's definitely touching herself. that's right. we watched about two minutes of an alien porn movie before chris's dad could turn it off. i don't think we stopped laughing for like 15 minutes.

the next morning we watch still more spongebob, have some AMAZING peach pancakes (kudos to chris and siobhan!!) and head back. again, the backseat is passed out by like 20 minutes into the ride, all slumped over on each other. i'm sure it was pretty adorable looking :P

oh man, then sunday night. we're all making dinner when it starts POURING down rain. a few of us run upstairs to watch the storm, see if we can see the lightning. dan f decides to go run around in the rain a little, so we all join him, and walk to the back of newport. a few more people join, and this time dan yells "let's run to jchap!!"

so of course we all run. by the time we get there, we are completely soaked. like, drenched, clothes dripping. possibly the most fun thing i've done the entire time i've been here. we stand around taking some pictures in the rain, then decide to run to memorial hill and a few of the boys decide to sled down it. and by sledding i mean running, jumping, and sliding down on their butts. it worked surprisingly well actually.

after about an hour or so, it's stopped raining so we all head back, dry off and watch james bond goldfinger.

all in all, this weekend was just incredible. the people i've met here, or gotten to know better, are all amazing. it's just so good to know that i have such wonderful friends, who do random crazy stuff and make me laugh constantly, but still look after me when its late and raining and i have to walk all the way back to my dorm. this weekend really has done my heart good.

i know this is a rather poorly written blog, and hopefully i'll be able to fill in the gaps of what's been going on with my job/the future for me, but for now, this is already ridiculously long. so, i'll end with this: i love you guys!!

uncreative title to be changed later

2009-07-19T16:29:00.000-04:00

whew. so this morning an entire chapter of my life closed for good. which is kinda scary, considering this means i actually have to walk forward now. i no longer have an option to drop the chains, they're just no longer there.

my only question is: what now?

as for today, i'm about to go explore, make banana bread and write back to the million people who've sent me various forms of messages in the past week or so who as of yet haven't received a reply, then make a delicious (and healthy!) dinner. oh and re-dye my hair.

we haven't had rain like this in quite a while

2009-07-18T00:50:00.001-04:00

and i feel bad that i wasted it.

tonight probably would have been just as/more enjoyable with a book and a blanket on a porch somewhere.

i want to pick up an instrument again.

synaptic stimuli

2009-07-14T13:23:00.000-04:00

"We process the seamless flow of our experience into segments of distinction. Our conscious mind ponders, processes and deconstructs this seamless flow into things. We then compare and contrast, and rate these things, based on our souls innate desire for truth. From which our taste emerges. Our taste is simply our desire for a particular reality. To express a choice. A preference. An intent."

(from synapticstimuli.com/taste)

collaboration and revival

2009-07-12T11:44:00.000-04:00

i've gotten into the really bad habit of taking naps during the day, cause duh, i'm really tired. but when i wake up, i just feel like shit. all groggy and grumpy and like i want to just keep sleeping. i've been having crazy nightmares too (including chasing two bees around a house, killing two people and having them come back to life, something about a birthday party?). revival after death has been a major theme of recent dreams come to think of it - any interpretations?

it's just been a very weird past few days.

but i'm going to the lake. maybe some sun will wake me up.

from yeeeeeeeesterdayyyy

2009-07-09T12:47:00.001-04:00

i have that song stuck in my head.

but yesterday was 07/08/09. pooh :( i forgot all day until the woman at plato's closet reminded me. so i missed 12:34:56 of 07/08/09. this won't happen again for a hundred years. dumb.

anyways. recap of the past few days: really tired, really rainy, really annoying kids, sorta wonderful kids, really wonderful cupcakes, really wonderful friends.

but i'm off to release my inner child, and take a nap :)

i haven't been up this early since graduation

2009-07-06T07:02:00.000-04:00

(update: so my family will be hosting a Dutch exchange student for the next 10 months?!? what??? this is craziness!! :D )

i woke up this morning at 6:45 AM to the sound of iron & wine, and the smell of coffee brewing.

(later)

wow. i'd totally forgotten how absolutely insane 7th graders can be. and how incredibly boring 7th grade teachers can be. it's only the first day though, so i'm withholding final judgement until at least the end of this week.

so obviously i've started my internship FINALLY. no more trainings woo hoo!! but now i'm actually in the classroom working with these kids, which is kinda terrifying to be honest. i want so much to help them, encourage them, and support them as they learn- but if you remember being 12, probably none of these were top priorities. especially the learning during the summer thing. i'd resent me too. but on the flip side, i think the kids are actually responding well so far. i haven't really gotten a chance to get to know them, nor them, i. but as soon as we walk out the classroom doors, they talk to me and ask me questions and see me as a person, not a teacher. which is the fine line i've realized i have to tread these next three weeks: i'm not quite old enough to be the mean old boring teacher (though one kid, upon hearing my favorite number was 28 asked me if that's how old i am. when i said no, he said, are you older? grrr) and not quite young enough to be their peer and best friend. i'm neither friend nor foe, nor really anything yet.

after academic time was over, we had snack and tried to shepherd the kids into some semblance of an organized activity, which was actually kinda fun for about 20 minutes. we played this absolutely hysterical game called dwarf wizard giant (superhero) and the kids really got into it. then all pretenses of order collapsed and dodgeball reigned the freshman quad. so... two weeks and four days more of this. i'm just hoping i don't screw it up...

oh. and during our mid-morning break, two kids got stung by a bee while sitting on this brick wall outside the classroom. i walk over to see why one kid is standing alone by said wall, and get stung by said bee behind my effing ear. HOW THE HELL DOES THIS HAPPEN??? stupid nature.

in other news, i had a very manly few days this weekend :) i put together my bike almost entirely by myself, though ben helped me devise a wrench from some pliers. which ended up totally not working. the axis of my back wheel wasn't fully screwed in, so when i tried to start pedaling, it just pulled out and the wheel hit the frame and refused to move. so! manly elizabeth part two: i went to home depot (i know right??) and got myself a wrench and bike lock. and long story short, i have a bike now :D

yeah, i know. but i'm proud of myself.

ohhh and speaking of this last weekend - the fourth!! yayyy!!! sorta. it actually kinda sucked. mostly. didn't really do much all day, took a nap for four hours, went to get on marsh roof, realized i couldn't see ANY fireworks from there, so headed back to tyler to get my bike. winds up a few other interns from pipeline were about to go sit on the octagon roof (for you non-amherstites, its a building on campus that's shaped like, that's right, an octagon. we're a creative bunch here) so i went with them. turns out there was a thin row of pine trees between us and the fireworks. we could still see them, but it was definitely hazy.

went back to my dorm, watched troy. yay!

really nothing else has been going on in my oh so terribly exciting life. well. besides a very creepy event that i won't write on here for discretion's sake. but ask if you want. it's odd. anyways, i'm off to go make pancakes in newport. woo hoo!!

miss all you guys back home, love you all :)

just because i've had a very grown-up day

2009-06-29T17:20:00.001-04:00

here's something incredibly immature :)

in love with

2009-06-26T17:04:00.001-04:00

i'm slightly disappointed that this video is directed by shia lebeouf... excellent song for you however :)

So. obviously i'm back on campus again. the trip here and moving in process was both frustrating and absolutely hilarious. first, i head to the airport on tuesday, only to have the woman checking me in tell me i don't have a reservation for that day. my dad checks his iphone, incredulous that it could have gotten canceled or something, and sure enough i didn't have a flight that day. it was wednesday.

turns out that we had changed the flight date back in march and i still had a copy of the old itinerary. but i drove home, had a nice quiet day at home (sorta), got sick that night from something i ate i think, and headed to the airport the next morning. ted picked me up and we finally make it back to amherst. ben and i take ted's car to go get all our stuff out of our storage unit (which was a disaster and a half - a ten by ten foot space stuffed full of untaped boxes vomiting clothing, posters, and tea kettles, mattresses performing a very delicate balancing act, a white chair that magically appeared sometime over the summer, and underneath it all - my poor boxes getting the life slowly crushed out of them). we then arrive at my new dorm, tyler house, alllllll the way up on the hill, with all my impossibly heavy boxes only to realize two vital pieces of information: i'm on the third floor. and tyler doesn't have an elevator.

long story short, moving all these boxes upstairs turns into one of the most exhausting and hilarious adventures of this week. ben and i are both pretty delirious from the past few days (me traveling and him working), so moving quickly dissolves into an unstoppable train of "that's what she said" jokes - don't judge! - but after a couple hours, everything is in my room one way or another.

i finally get moved in and unpack most of my stuff that night. i debated for a while about decorating and putting stuff on walls, but eventually realized i could never live like this for five weeks:

i hate living in a room that isn't mine. so i put up a few of my paintings that i had brought with me and a ton of pictures of friends (including a lovely collage i got for my last birthday :D). it's not a lot though, so it should be a fairly quick move-out.

then thursday my internship here with the amherst cooperative group Project Pipeline started. this project is active during the year, tutoring and mentoring kids, but they also have a 3 week long summer camp for rising 7-10th graders which is what i'm helping out with (i'm working with a class of 10 seventh graders - eek!). basically the project takes kids who are either part of a minority group, a low socioeconomic status, or who tested low on the MCAS (for you folks back home, its kinda like our TCAPs) - or preferably more than one of these qualifications - and puts them into this three week long academic intensive "camp" at the college. the kids will eat breakfast each morning in val (our lovely dining hall) at 8 a.m. with all of us interns. yeah not looking forward to getting up at 7 each morning. but then from 9-12 we try to get them to not so much actually learn facts and figures and how to write the perfect essay, and how exactly to analyze huck finn, but rather instill the desire to know, the love of learning again.

there's some interesting research out there that shows there's a sort of breaking point that happens for kids around middle school, or right with the transition into high school - they either gain the mindset that learning might not be fun all the time, but by golly its worth it. or they'll fall off. so many straight A students in middle school will fail out of high school. and that's what the program is trying to avoid. they invite back the same teachers and students until the students age out of the program to create consistency and try to engage the kids beyond just one summer.

so far i like and agree with the program, but their pretty much total lack of framework i've found extremely frustrating. like i didn't know which grade i'd be working with until the day before i arrived (ha another funny story there). or the keys to our dorm room in tyler house weren't at campus police until a few hours after some of us had arrived. or that the new teachers didn't even know what subjects they'd be teaching. the lack of organization and coordination is frustrating, but i think once we get rolling it will be a lot easier.

amherst, i'm hoooome

2009-06-24T22:25:00.000-04:00

so i'm back at amherst. way too early, but far too late for my own satisfaction. maybe i'm greedy wanting both worlds, but when i can't reconcile the two, i find i can't decide which i want to live in more. so for now, i'll organize and decorate this one, and pretend the other doesn't exist.

more substance later.

that's what friends are for

2009-06-16T01:12:00.001-04:00

i think what i love most about writing letters is the anticipation, the waiting that has to happen. no instant messages, no spontaneous reactions, no time to waste words or paper. then after your physical thoughts have left your control, they might have to travel hundreds of miles to reach the other - across oceans, mountains... heck your letters might see more adventure and danger than you will. just think of all the hands that will have to hold it, all the eyes that will see it, all the other letters and bills and hopes and crushed dreams and advertising your words will be pressed against, just so it can find its way home. and if it finally does make it (better or worse for wear), then the person has physical proof of your message. not just pixels in front of their eyes, or the fleeting sound of static electricity in their ear. they have your letter, your paper, your words, your hand, your ink and pen. in some small way, they have a part of you again. and there's no knowing if it ever survived its trip, or if the other person will give a part of themselves back. or when - days, weeks, months later perhaps, the reassuring sign of another's presence. is this not more peaceful, more human? perhaps not fast enough for our lifestyles, but more satisfying then? the conversation can have no awkward silences, or interruptions (from others or between the two). it is permanent; once sent, it is never to be retrieved. words must mean more, convey more, hold more. (and for those of you know know lanham, i use this word for a reason here:) words must be more than just words. especially if separated by long distances, these words are all you have of the other person - the words must be a representation of yourself. because that's all they have. they're waiting for you in a little white envelope. give it to them.

painting

2009-06-12T02:25:00.001-04:00

hands are the best palette

"suck the marrow out of life"

part of one of my paintings. this pattern's been stuck in my hands for quite a while now.

the final word in the final sentence

2009-06-11T10:28:00.001-04:00

Make This Go On Forever - Snow Patrol

today

2009-06-10T02:09:00.001-04:00

i painted for the first time in a long time. and decided its okay if i just kinda throw paint around, its okay to experiment and fail.
i finally pulled out my 35mm camera again a couple nights ago to take pictures of friends at the fair. sometimes being on the ground has its advantages.
i've come crawling back to my journal. and have finally been keeping up with it.
plus i got a letter from a good friend in the mail,
ate dinner with another in lovely downtown franklin,
and finally talked to him, after far too long.

it's been a good day.

pictures soon,
but for now:

my feel good song of the week:

2009-06-07T18:32:00.001-04:00

you can't not sing it with an accent. seriously.

oh. and recently fallen in love with this one. dance people dance!!!

i forget...

2009-06-07T01:07:00.001-04:00

is college supposed to make me more, or less sure of myself?
is an education supposed to help me understand the world, or complicate it?

is ignorance a black abyss, or bliss?

i suck at blogging

2009-06-05T22:53:00.000-04:00

but its okay, i've started journaling again. man, i've missed writing. its so nice to be able to just talk, and be able to remember. there's something about writing a situation down, or a feeling or conversation that really solidifies it - you really have to remember it and understand it and know how you feel about it. or at least well enough that you can put it into words. comprehensibility i suppose is of secondary importance. still no creative writing, but i've promised max i would by the end of the week, so guess i should get started on that huh :P

also, being home has kind of thrown me either into or way out of perspective - i haven't decided which. i kind of want to just be a recluse and not see anyone, yet at the same time, i want to get to know my friends again. but over the next week or so, i've decided to assume the role of tourist in my own town. it's been a while since i've really explored (reading over some of my high school papers made me ache with the urge to really explore again - long story) and there's so much of nashville, and even my own little franklin that i don't know. tomorrow i'm going to see the parthenon in centennial park. it should be amazing to really see, after my greek architecture class. then next week i'm going to a concert in the park by the nashville symphony (for free!), and maybe up to dyer observatory to go look at stars (again, for free! i <3>

and yes, all you nashville kids are more than welcome to come :)

on a slightly heavier note, i've been told several times by people who think they know everything (and this isn't meant as sarcasm - sometimes i really do believe they do) that i pity myself too much. or at least that i pity myself to the point of debilitating myself. i can't move, i can't think, i second guess myself, never good enough, etc. but i've realized that they're totally wrong. yes, i do pity myself but its deeper than that.

i'm angry with myself.

for not doing, for doing, for many things, but i'm just so angry. yet here i sit. i obsess and obsess and obsess. but there's no compulsion beyond the temporary.

anyways, i have letters to write, and emails to finally respond to, so this is still a very incomplete picture of my summer, but hopefully i'll have something coherent eventually.

some songs

2009-05-26T22:48:00.000-04:00

Sia - Soon We'll Be Found

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fSts_0sCUeg

waiting

2009-05-21T23:07:00.000-04:00

one, happy birthday to my big brother!!!! <33>

and two, i'm not in a very wordy mood today. so here's some pictures.

i hope i make you happy.

if i let myself...

someone wise once told me this. make a decision based on what you know now, based on what you feel is right now. you are not today who you were yesterday, or who you will be tomorrow. and mistakes will happen.

you are such a comfort.

i'm trying.

things always look better in the light of the sun.

yes?

i'm trying. i'm waiting. i'm breathing.

10:50 AM, Friday.

2009-05-15T10:50:00.000-04:00

and I'm officially done with my first year of college.

umm.

forever?

2009-05-14T20:02:00.000-04:00

i go home in two days. my roommate leaves tomorrow. rebecca is already gone.

my little sister went to prom last weekend, my brother turns 23 in a week, i can drink legally next year.

my house is not my home, and a ring isn't just jewelry anymore.

each keystroke will add up to my future.

it's not fair, and it's not slow,

but it sure is beautiful.

[later]

and i can't get you out of my head.

learned

2009-05-08T13:55:00.001-04:00

to not shrug off when you find under your bed that someone told you to make a brownie/cookie hybrid and that they're here for you too, as much as you allow them to be. k?

-s.r.

do something that scares you

dancing should not be confined to a studio. loving should not be bound to a room. and warmth should not be kept for special occasions.

believe. for by belief we are proven.

live like huck finn, but not by stories. be easy, be gentle.

"your mind commands attention, breaks physics...

i don't know what metal you're made of

but it's the first one ever discovered to photosynthesize.

consider: the way a person thinks can change her life.

that's how powerful we are, but we forget.

this is why you are rare. you who trusts yourself, makes yourself strong.

i'm dying to know what you're afraid of,

what you whisper to yourself when no one hears.

how do you carry all that love around with you?

do you keep it in your backpack? do you absorb it in the sun?

you must have a secret scattered like memories around your room.

i imagine this is why you are a photographer,

collecting your past rather than living in it,

always moving forward, the fastest car on the road."

-Adam Gottlieb

letters and cardboard boxes hold much more than paper and cookies.

windows make a room.

the past is something to let go of. waiting isn't such a bad thing.

(i am me at this moment. but i am not now what i will become - what threads do i want to keep? allow yourself to make the other decision, it's okay. don't hold yourself back. don't second guess yourself out of experiences. it's alright to make a decision without knowing what will happen - this is the best you know, the decision you feel you should make, what feels right? keep your core, you know where your center is.)

-a.w., a.s.

patience

2009-05-07T12:56:00.000-04:00

patience is a fucking virtue.

and so are trust and thankfulness.

learn it already.

just a few things

2009-05-05T00:05:00.000-04:00

1. confirmed: two cases of swine flu on campus. i'm fine, everyone i know is fine, the two swine flus are fine. it's all good.

2. i was going to go on a long rant about life. but i'm kind of not in the mood. and just don't know what i would say. i definitely need a break from all this or my brain is going to explode. so instead i'll just give you this:

3. my new (and final!!) poem for class:

I find my joy in laundry sheets,

and the clergy’s armadillo song.

I walk all day to patterned beats,

and know where both my feet belong.

I’m old as keys, in black and white,

and didn’t tell who scared the crow.

When moved by frozen men at night,

I left my footprints in the snow.

if you guys get it, i will be so impressed. and i'll bake you a cookie.

that is all.

oh right. answer: Richard Wilbur.

look it up :)

but everyone else is doing it!

2009-04-29T23:10:00.000-04:00

my "color" profile:

You are under considerable stress and you are almost about to 'blow your top' but you are fortunate enough to be able to exert control. Control is the name of the game and it is so good to realise that whatever the situation may be a this time - it will pass. You need to get away from everything for a while and if you do, you will find that, strangely enough, it will seem that most of your problems and situations will seem to wash away, just as the sea may wash away 'footprints' in the sand.

Being a likeable person you get on well with neighbours and friends. You don't need anything to 'Rock your boat'. You want to 'love' and to be loved'.

Loneliness is soul destroying and at this time you feel lost and lonely, perhaps it is because you feel so frustrated that you are prepared to go out of your way to become emotionally involved with someone who could accept you for what you are. You are egocentric, antagonistic and quick to take offence, although it must be said, you can control your pent-up up emotion and thus avoid open conflict.

Setback after setback has resulted in considerable stress and now you have got to the stage where you are continuously on your guard, not only to protect yourself from others but to protect yourself from yourself. It would seem that many of your unfulfilled hopes and dreams have led to uncertainty and suspicion. You no longer wish to answer to others and you are insisting on freedom of thought. You feel that you are fully self-sufficient and can control your own destiny. You are seeking ways to protect yourself from further loss of prestige and against further setbacks. You have become very dependent and you doubt that matters could possibly get any better in the immediate future and this negative attitude is leading you to exaggerate your claims and to refuse reasonable compromise.

You need to be needed and would like a situation where you will no longer be subjected to pressures and demands from those about you. There is no harm in 'dreaming' but it is you - and only you - that can be able to realise those dreams and to turn them into reality.

true much?

-------------------------------------

why do i have to work so much harder to be able to handle everything? am i really just the slowest paper writer on the planet? why? why are these connections so hard for me to make? what happened?

i'm beginning to doubt myself. i'm not asking you to console me, just be aware please.

wait, what?

2009-04-22T17:06:00.001-04:00

they liked my poem?

i'm confused.

[later on]

so this has been the weirdest pretty good day ever.

it's definitely had its downsides... i still have NO idea what i'm going to do over the summer and its really uber stressing me out. but i just won't know until all these employers get back to me :/ i've also been having some money issues lately (as my dad could tell you), and that makes me even more anxious. i absolutely hate having to depend on my dad bailing me out. i know he will, but it's almost a reminder of the places i fail. i don't know what i'm going to do this summer about money either. a couple of the internships are paid, but a couple aren't. and will probably end up costing me quite a bit of money... sighhh we'll just see. plus i've been having this weird throat thing thats really annoying and makes it hurt to swallow at all. and there's a few people i'm annoyed at that i know i shouldn't be, but still am. i should probably talk to them huh. but i'm kind of just hoping it will blow over?

anyways. i applied for this really cool marketing/pr company in london, which would be AMAZING to work at. in the ad it said "we have a lot of unique marketing events coming up, including four days on the beach". can you say hell yeah?

also, i have an exam on friday in my archaeology of greece class, which i surprisingly feel decently prepared for. i'm actually studying for it now (well, taking a break from studying) - kinda odd for me, since i've never really studied for anything hxc. except maybe the geo exams.

it's been pretty raining and nasty all day, but that's okay because last night i saw LIGHTNING!! twice!!! i was so excited. i never really realized how much i missed storms, like honest to god storms, with lightning and thunder and rain that sounds like it could break glass.

oh and tomorrow/this weekend... is supposed to be up to 80+. i don't freakin remember what 80 degrees feels like!!! it's going to be weird walking around without my jacket. i've realized that my jacket has kind of become my safety blanket whenever i walk outside. it's very odd walking around without it.

i had a really nice conversation with a friend here who i haven't seen/talked to in forever, which was really really nice. she's just such a light and joy to be around, always laughing and smiling. one of the most spiritually sound people i've met.

then in poetry class, it was actually fairly entertaining. we laughed and had fun, and though we didn't get to critique my poem, prof sofield said we would do mine next week. which is really weird. we've never really carried over poems to the next week, usually he's like oh well, didn't get to it. he's even letting me revise it if i want. and the three responses i've gotten have all been really encouraging. so yay :)

well. enough procrastinating. i need to finish this studying.

questions of a moral nature

2009-04-21T17:30:00.000-04:00

I'll tell you how the sun rose,--

A ribbon at a time.

The steeples swam in amethyst,

The news like squirrels ran.

The hills untied their bonnets,

The bobolinks begun.

Then I said softly to myself,

"That must have been the sun!"

But how he set, I know not.

There seemed a purple stile

Which little yellow boys and girls

Were climbing all the while  

Till when they reached the other side,  

A dominie in gray  

Put gently up the evening bars,  

And led the flock away.

-ED

i want to write something like this. something not driven by anxiety, interior, figure me out kind of emotions and mental processes. but just something beautiful, equal to that exterior sensation that i'm writing about. sometimes i just feel like i'm damaging the beauty, the essence of what i'm trying to say by putting it into words, containing it in this little box of iambic pattern. there are some who can do it, capture beauty in a frame of words, like a photograph that can finally capture the beauty of a sunset. i don't think i can... can one be taught how to do this? i'm not so sure anymore. and this hesitancy is what holds me back. or maybe it's just that i can't. which i suppose i'll have to be okay with. there must be some other way for me to frame beauty, to capture it and show you exactly what this sensation, object, emotion, person, whatever, means and looks like to me. i want to find a way for you to feel the exact same way i do.

or, maybe, (i've been reading merton again, you'll have to forgive me) this is part of the solitude we face as humans - ironically. which i suppose is the point of the poem that i wrote for class this week. how can i use these words (that i'm terrible at manipulating) to get you to understand exactly what i'm feeling. somehow those three little words that everyone seems to use to mean about a million different things and in a million different contexts until its deep passionate implications are all but lost, just don't seem to be enough sometimes. (and in case you guys are wondering, i am not in love, nor do i think i'm in love. just contemplating it. like i said, the combination of merton, rilke and morrison - had to discuss song of solomon in class today - are just not a good thing for my emotional psyche...)

what happens when everything i known says "should", my failing faith says "shouldn't" but everything in me says "can't", but becomes "is" anyways, and is still not "want"? and the whole thing is just slightly "awkward".

and unfortunately, completely "irreversible".

slacking

2009-04-20T12:26:00.000-04:00

sighhhh so i haven't blogged in a very long time.

first things first: text me your name people. i had to replace my old phone with a new barbie phone (plastic, pink, hysterical) and therefore do not have your number. my old phone's screen died so i can't go and transfer my numbers. please and thank you.

other than that, i really don't have anything to actually talk about. or at least things i can clearly put into words. the past couple weeks have been really bad. not like, i'm dying and never want to face the light of day again. but i just can't concentrate. on anything. i feel like i have no drive to do well anymore. my grades are slipping (not like failing, but by like a letter grade) and i feel like i've spent of all my academic abilities - like i've used all the reserves i've had stored up, so i'm in a constant game of catch up. i make wonderful plans that will never work out. because i just don't follow them. i really want to do a lot of things that i just will never do.

i want a few days to literally do nothing but sit and think, and sleep. i've felt like that a lot recently.

sighh well. if i can't explain the abstract, let me catch you all up on the facts (since you haven't texted me your number and so can't just TELL you...). three weeks of school left before exams. i still have no set summer plans (but 6 or 7 possibilities). i am behind in all of my classes. i wrote a decent poem this past week. i'm now dating sasha white. and i definitely should be writing a response paper.

toodles.

those three words are said too much

(a sonnet dedicated to someone who will probably never read this)

I’ve found you make me lose my faith in words,

and their duty to relay what’s in, to those

without. What word for “green” could ever voice

the light that glows when music’s in your eyes?

They dance, but more, they burn; they move my hand

to yours. And any sound would but betray

this instant, when skin touches skin and lightning strikes

and winged things awake within my belly.

Yet must I place my trust in faulty words?

These flattened sounds can’t be our only bridge.

If our metered forms constrain, can silence free?
Perhaps when words exhale their final breath,

your eyes will leave the page to find my own.

Look close, they’ll tell you what I dare not say.

i have a fever baby

2009-04-14T12:27:00.000-04:00

AND ITS CALLED SPRING!!!!!

i'm taking a break from writing my paper to say:
i'm working outside, on the quad, in the sun, without a jacket, in flip flops, for the first time since like october!!!!!! I AM SO HAPPY WITH LIFE RIGHT NOW!!!! (minus the whole writing a paper thing, which actually isn't so bad either, cause it's not a bad paper - i'm halfway proud of it. yay fanon!) this week is going to be the shit. up to 70 on friday?? what?!? :D :D

bahaha. there's a kid just aimlessly walking around barefoot on the quad, shoes in hand. i love amherst.

a slightly louder rebellion

2009-04-11T19:52:00.000-04:00

baha. bahaha. bahahaha. i'm rather proud of this. even if no one gets it.

Whodunit

They found the poor thing later on,
with legs and paws all scattered.
An eye was found cast down outside,
and the fur was torn and tattered.

Apparently, the story‘s this:
the creature found a door
and wandered in, in hopes of food,
or maybe to explore.

But the man despised four-legged things,
so when he saw the cat,
he chopped his head off with an axe,
and beat the rest with a bat.

Although some heard the meow of pain,
not one did rush to aid.
Cause after all, a curious cat
will always end dismayed.

Then you tell me, who’s fault it was,
for such a furry affair:
Do we blame the man who fell the axe,
or the cat who put his neck there?

hmm

2009-04-10T10:34:00.001-04:00

remind me not to go to you guys whenever i need inspiration :P

but after 7 hours of wasted life, i think i've finally found what i want to write about. it's kind of redundant, cause its the only thing it seems i write about that my professors seem to like. but whatever. i think its a cute idea. i don't know if its song worthy, but we will see! hopefully i can get across what i want to without being hokey.

dad, bea and anna are here :) off to class!

news alert!

2009-04-08T12:57:00.001-04:00

alright kids, i've been totally slacking. but to be fair, it's been a crazy week.

so. this is what's been going on in my life.

wait! but first! shoutout to my favorite jessica s. from back home!! i just got a letter from her yesterday and it totally made my week so much better <3>

dance: so you know that dance piece i've been working on all year over at hampshire? yeah, final performance was this past weekend. which meant last week i did nothing but tech rehearsals, dress rehearsals, and shows. it was ridiculous. the show itself was amazing, friday night probably being our best performance. to be honest though, it was really weird performing. i don' t know if i can really explain how - besides the fact that it was the first strictly dance show i've been in, in probably 4 years (in every show in the past 4 years i've had a flag/rifle/sabre in my hand). plus, i was performing without my usual group of girls, without my usual warm up routine, without the crowd feedback, and strangely, without gloves. i dunno, i just have very mixed feelings about the end of this whole dance thing. its odd not having that group there anymore. now that it's over, it feels like the end of a relationship, like my boyfriend just broke up with me or something... anyways...

class scheduling: preregistration for our classes began this week, and i freaking have the hardest time figuring out what classes i want/need to take. especially because i have 3 potential majors. well, i'm pretty sure i AM majoring in psych, but i might double major in english or art/art history. but! after a long, drawn out, headache filled week, i think i've got it down: biopsych (biological psychology - apparently its really hard, all about memorization. but gotta do what you gotta do - counts toward my major requirements), mysteries of the mind (philosophy class about psychological issues - looks AMAZING), modern english poets (with pritchard, who i've heard is amazing - also counts toward my possible english double major), and basic drawing (come on. who wouldn't want to take this class?? though i'm going to see if i can switch this to photography I in the fall. you have to audition and majors/people who have already taken basic drawing get priority). so yay. now all i have to do is hunt down my advisor and get him to sign my stupid form.

internships: so i've applied to three internships and heard back from none of them. one's in cali (music@menlo festival intern), another's in nashvegas (frist art museum summer camp assistant), and the other's here at the amherst admissions office. there's two more i've found that i would really really love to get (one in cali, one in chicago maybe?). hopefully i'll be home for a few weeks over the summer, then at an internship makin the bucks the rest of the summer. so all you kids better be home for that part of the summer so i can actually see you!!!! sighh my goodness.

anyways, i've been sick the past couple days so i have to go get ready for my poetry class. wee.

writing writing blah blah blah [edited]

2009-03-31T23:27:00.000-04:00

apparently hampshire college inspires me. maybe its all the "fumes" in the air, or maybe just coming off the dancing high, or maybe i'm just bored while waiting 45 minutes for the bus. any way, i wrote two.5 new pieces. enjoy/comment <3

walking back from your house

the sky tonight felt as a man returning home,

to a house made out of glass,

and sees his lawyer at the door

while strangers' eyes trespass.

your wife and kids are dead, he said,

robbed and killed by bastard hands.

He set the papers on the step,

says he'll be back and stands.

the man is left alone with words

he won't and cannot read.

there are no sounds to make

when nakedness can lead

to fright and more, amazement for

what a body lacks.

in a house of glass you'll lose

everything and still not ask for more.

----------------------------

(this one is still primarily in the conception stage)

inspired by graffiti in Hampshire College bus station: "Give love" and someone else replied, "Receive bacon"

she sacrificed herself last night

to make him feel like some

one cared. her body lay

and felt him move - it's sex

but isn't making love.

that's the thing she doesn't see

or want to see or understand.

all night long she gave him

thoughts of love - of waking up

and kissing her,

confirming her desire -

but he made her breakfast when he woke,

she's hungry when she doesn't sleep.

unreservedly she gave last night,

but still receives just bacon.

-----------------------------------------

(this one is totally not finished. but here ya go anyway)

on the busride home (aka busventures)

The bus tonight was empty - well,

that's a lie. someone was driving

and it wasn't me.

how odd it is to ride for miles and miles

and never speak to the one who

holds your life in a large tin can.

but then a man walked on,

so then three of us stared.

well - one drove, one read and one stared.

i forgot my book at home,

and i still wasn't driving.

then! an alarm explodes inside the bus -

there's a fire in the engine, the driver says,

get off.

well, he didn't find anything.

get on.

how odd it is we trust the one

who now holds our lives in a flaming tin can,

yet says, come on back!

and we don't know any better.

well, that's a lie.

we do.

yes, rebellion [answered]

2009-03-29T23:26:00.000-04:00

alright kids. to make up for my horribly boring/depressing/selfish last few posts, here's my entry for this week's poetry class. we were supposed to right something in meter, but instead of coming up with anything epic, i decided to take a week off and write some more riddles :) and yes, i consider it a small rebellion.

1. With just one touch of my light hand,

upon your skin laid bare,

you’ll feel a tingle down your spine,

and motionless, you’ll stare.

With that, I’ve caught you in my spell,

like a marionette on wire.

We’ll dance the whole night through

or at least til you expire.

2. Two brothers, ever side by side,

attached at hips, they often say.

They’re kind and love to play with kids,

a giving pair, they meet midway.

If one should dare to stand between,

they'll find themselves cut off, clean.

Just one’s no good without his friend –

(unless someone, you want to end).

oh. and no, i'm not posting the answers. though i will tell you if you're right :D as always, comments are appreciated <3

[edit]

alright, alright. here's your answers, you lazy kids.

1) electricity and 2) scissors

woah

2009-03-26T11:41:00.000-04:00

hey, sorry its been so long since my last update. it's been a weird/crazy week. which i guess i should be used to by now huh.

first off, RIP Squishy :( you were a good fish while you lasted.

i found him floating, well, sitting i suppose on the bottom of my tank yesterday afternoon. i think he ate too much poor guy. either that or it was a romeo and juliet type suicide cause rebecca's fish jumped tank the same morning. eerie. and i guess i should rename dopey to mopey, cause all he's doing now is moping around now that his friend is gone. poor little fella. i'll have to go spent 35 cents to buy him a new buddy.

second, and on a slightly more serious note, yesterday i had my writing poetry class to discuss my poem that i've been stressing about for the past two weeks. i was pretty excited and well, neither of my professors understood or liked my poem. which probably upset me more than i'd like to admit. it seems like every time i write something that i see is a huge improvement and development in my person style, they like it even less. i mean, yeah it is a poem that you have to think about for a while, but (at least i hope) its not totally opaque. i didn't like very many poems that my peers wrote this week, but for some reason my professors picked the ones i liked the absolute least. one guy even admitted he wrote it in about 20 minutes - one which i thought was unnecessarily profane and just ridiculous, but apparently i'm wrong cause everyone else found it hilarious, even though they admitted to not understanding it. i think the author specifically said "this is a poem of failed intentions". which it was. to be fair, it was a wonderful concept, with a fairly good stab at it. but it just didn't work for me on so many levels.

ugh. this class is really getting underneath my skin. i don't know how much more i can handle it.

plus i'm stressing about finding an internship and making a legit resume and ugh. the real world is collapsing upon me way too quickly. i've never made a resume before, i've never had a "real" job, i'm going to graduate with no marketable skills... what the hell do i do?

transfer?

but anyways, i have to go talk to a couple professors about project proposals due monday. if i think of anything else interesting that's gone on in my life recently, i'll probably end up editing this.

i'm about to deface a dictionary

2009-03-20T15:20:00.000-04:00

yeah.

i have a few new art projects that i'm pretty excited about. i'm really hoping i can tap into my more creative open side in what we have left of the semester. summer is coming up, and the sunshine always inspires me to create. so i will.

so just a heads up, i've got some poetry and photography coming up here in the next few days/weeks. i really LOVE feedback from you guys - good or bad, i don't get offended easily.

a wonderful friend suggested last night something that seems like such an obvious thing: why don't i major in dance?

what do you think?

-------------------------------

i think i'm going to get very little sleep tonight. i just have too much in my head that needs to come out tonight. it's been up there wayyyy too long.

plus i have to pack. and catch up. and do laundry. and clean my room. and say hello to everyone i haven't.

-------------------------------

tonight i'm letting go of things that will grow back, things that will heal and restore and become greater than the sum of their separated parts.

-------------------------------

i feel like a rockstar at midnight, with my blacked out nails and empty red bull can. my giraffe hoody and 5 dollar target christmas clearance pj pants, however, tell me otherwise.

the only ten-i-see

2009-03-19T13:44:00.000-04:00

ha.

okay, no more puns.

my goodness, my brain is absolutely fried. i'm writing this poem for my poetry class, and it's well... epic. there's just so much i want to fit into it, i don't know if i can even handle writing this poem. it's there, i know it is - all i have to do is find it and write it down. but it's so massive. i hate to settle and just leave it as i have it, but really, i think this poem is going to drive me insane. writing is madness.

especially when you're writing about madness.

well, not really madness. more like death and God and life and love.

ya know, the little things in life.

but maybe its supposed to be unfinished, unsettled and unsettling... i mean, that's what life is right? that's what death is. hmmm.

anyways.

so i'm home now. and it's been... interesting. i'd write more, but i have to go to work. i'll finish tomorrow.

okay. so home. i got home on tuesday night, and immediately rushed out to one of my (now distant) friend's concerts in dt nashville. his band, Rest, is absolutely incredible - they give me chills every time i hear them live. put on some good headphones, crank up the volume, and close your eyes. it's powerful stuff. anyways, so i finally saw one of my friends (i'll call him Austin T.) who i haven't spoken to in four months. i was actually extremely nervous... which is odd because he's the one person i've ever met who i was immediately and completely comfortable with. from the very first time we walked around pinkerton park, i knew we were going to be friends. skip ahead a year and a half, and for reasons i can't explain here, i'm finally ridding myself of the remnants of that friendship. he is an amazing person, don't get me wrong, but... i think even i don't realize how deep our friendship really was. and to be terrifyingly honest, i'm afraid he might have been my last chance.

for a very long time at least.

though in other news, i am finding out who my friends are. and who i want my friends to be. i'm working to fix that. jt, i need more friends like you. i don't tell you how good you are to me, or thank you, nearly enough. clone yourself so i can date you.

interesting thing of this week number two. basically, i love my family, really. we're dysfunctional and we don't talk and we don't know how to, so we just leave it all alone, but i love them. yet sometimes i just need to leave. i think that's why i like being able to drive so much. psychoanalyze this all you want, but i just enjoy being able to control my environment, and leave a situation if it becomes too much for me to handle. i've never really been able to handle confrontation very well, it sometimes makes me physically sick to hear people fighting. and wednesday night i leave for work, and probably 5 minutes later i hear that my family is at it again. my stepmom, for all the pain in the ass bitchyness she is, is the last chance at love for my dad. and for that reason only do i make an attempt at peace with her. i really want my dad to be happy, especially because i know he rarely is nowadays it seems. if she leaves, then what is he left with? four kids who don't really know each other, or him, and an empty house once we all graduate. we all want someone to witness our lives - fathers are no exception.

i spent most of this week working. at buca. working at target motivated me to do well in school so i'd never end up 40 years old and still asking "do you want to get a redcard today?" buca motivates me to get a real job. the people there are fun to work with (not to mention a generally very attractive bunch), but sometimes feel like fake friends. i've not really clicked with any of the people there, which is partially my personality's fault, partly my insecurities fault, partially my own fault, but mostly i think my age's fault. when i began working there (TWO YEARS AGO. AH.) i was only 17, so everyone kind of looked down on me, like awww how cute. and i think that's stuck. for the most part. i dunno. hopefully that's changing.

but i feel like i wasted my break for money. i mean, i have like 8 bucks in my account right now so i need it, but would my time have been better spent with my friends?

to be fair, i did go out with some friends this week, which was SO much fun (and very sobering at the same time) so it wasn't spent entirely working... but aren't spring breaks supposed to be for roadtrips and camping and sitting on the beach? (ha. well, i got 1.5 of those :P) oh well. perhaps next year. or over the summer. i think if i don't get an internship - fingers crossed i will though!! - i'm going to take a few weeks off working and just do what i want to do. maybe. we'll see.

but that's pretty much my week in summary. i have a couple emails to write, some letters to start, and my art projects to work on (ha i swear my next blogs will be more organized/chronological...) so i'll leave this as this. i leave in 11 hours for the airport, and campus again. three papers to write still. hee.

skype me sometime :)

califor-ni-ay

2009-03-17T10:25:00.000-04:00

so i know this is a little postmortem vacation but oh well. most of it i wrote this past weekend, so i can pretend.

i'm in L.A. bitch (and that's about all the song i know...) but really. i'm in the OC, surrounded by ferraris and louis vitton purses. it's kind of ridiculous. i can't decide if i'm jealous of all of these people or totally offended by the amount of plastic their faces contain. i swear i saw a woman with an entirely plastic face - it just didn't move. at all. and she was covered in tattoos and hair dye and a fake tan, which didn't help her case. i mean, it would be awesome to live this life and have everything they have (they're all so tiny!!) but what would i have to give up? my sanity for one. i don't know, it was incredible to be in cali for the weekend. it seems so much fun, but of course, just superficially. or at least that's what we're told huh.

anyways, so we stayed in this "really nice" hotel that was uber expensive. i say "really nice" cause it was the crappiest really nice hotel i've been in. well, yeah there was like three pools and the lawn was hand-cut with scissors and they served duck caviar at one of their trillion restaurants (well, not really. that wouldn't work. you get the point). But the rooms were nothing extraordinary by any means, the shampoo absolutely killed my hair, and the only suntan lotions they had were (15 dollar bottles each of) 15 and 50 spf. it just seemed like a very plasticly expensive hotel.

entrance to our building at the hotel - Balboa. palm trees!

hotel aside, the first night i just kind of passed out. it's a three hour time change from the MA so my poor circadian rhythm was going nuts. plus i had like 8+ hours of flights (three separate flights that day) and for those of you who don't know... i HATE flying. lyke, a lot. it just doesn't make sense to me, and that roller-coaster zero-gravity feeling you get in the plane makes me sick. but i had a ton of meds so i was fine :)

an alright picture from the plane - it was an amazing sunset

so the next morning we woke up and as my dad had meetings all day, my brother and i took a taxi to the nearby laguna beach (oddly enough, the last time i was at the beach was at laguna beach, on the opposite coast - florida - and getting baptized. weird.) which was surprisingly not crowded, though it was sunday at like 11am so i guess we shouldn't have been surprised. i have like a million pictures of this beach, and i'll put up a couple once i figure out how to upload them without my camera cord, but basically for two hours i had a little strip of cliffed beach all to myself. i <3>

Laguna Beach

my view of the ocean

after i was sufficiently burned, my brother and i had lunch at this actually very good restaurant (don't laugh) called BJ's (you laughed. you're so immature...) and you'll never guess what i got. chicken strips! yayyy!! i'm reaching out :D hehe. after lunch we just kinda walked around and explored. long story short, we called four separate taxis, got impatient, didn't wait longer than 20 minutes for any of them (well, one we waited for almost 45 minutes then left), got smoothies and almost ran into a taxi walking out. so we finally got home. i spent the rest of the day by the pool, then at dinner with dad and daniel at this really really good italian place back at laguna beach (we took the rental car.)

then monday, we pretty much did the same thing. except we went to huntington beach for a couple hours, which was absolutely devoid of people, though there were a bajillion surfers. okay well maybe 20. but it was awesome - i got a beach to myself again. (pictures as soon as i upload them...) so we left to get dinner at this AWESOME restaurant, the rusty pelican. right on the water. and my brother and i ate outside, which made it all the better. though it was kind of windy, so our food almost blew away a couple times (and some of the delicious salad i had really did blow away :/) but it was excellent. daniel had swordfish... yummmm :)

there's no one here......

bunch of surfers

some guy filming the surfers. weird.

then monday afternoon - probably the best part of the trip. we were just kind of driving around looking at what there was to see in good ol' cali, and we saw this sign that said "crystal cove state beach" so we turned in, like suuuuure let's check it out. oh. my. goodness. the most BEAUTIFUL beach i've ever seen (yes ben, it was amazing, i don't care what you say.) you had to walk down this little sand path to get to the water, and it was like in a movie - you heard the hallelujah chorus as you walked around the bend and the beach just spread out below you. the path kinda wound down to the beach, but it probably took me 20 minutes to get down there cause i kept stopping and taking pictures. the beach went along forever, cliffs just looming over this gorgeous, almost deserted strip of water. daniel and i found these really cool rocks (yes, i can say that), one i think is a limestone (the one that's just made up of old shells), one's just a cool looking sandstone, and one's well, not really a rock. it's coral (shhh don't tell! :D).

hallelujah chorus begins...

so pretty!!

it had some really cool rock formations too

what kind of rock is this?? it's got like 15 colors...

omg. just a beautiful day. oh, we had thai food for dinner (which was alright, not excellent) and after a very prolonged u-turn, found balboa island, which was absolutely adorable. think dtf, but an island, surrounded by boats, and with about 30 ice cream shops and the rest couture clothing stores.

my brother and i thought this was kinda funny. ha.

all in all, i absolutely love california. i'm seriously considering going back and visiting over the summer for a week or something, especially if i can't find an internship. it's incredible. it was SO good to see the sun and be able to just sit outside, doing nothing, after three months of 10 degree weather, feet of snow, and a ton of school stress-o-rama. i can't even explain how good for me it was to go to california. i am SO glad i did.

sunset! palm trees!

plus! i have a (semi) tan now!!! :D

reincarnation

2009-03-11T13:20:00.000-04:00

wow. so big news. one, my room is clean.

(what is it about a clean and organized room that just makes me feel so much better?? i hate feeling uncomfortable in my own living space. if its clean and neat and not all "hit by a tornado"esque, i dunno, i just feel more calm. i'm sure Frued would have something to say about that...)

so already i've had a productive day.

and then two, i got into marsh next year!!!! :D :D yayyyy!!!! i'm really so so so excited - i know almost everyone who got in next year, and i love them all!! it's going to be a blast with these kids up on the hill next year. especially since the rest of the houses up there are closed, so its just us! hehe. i'm still hoping for a single (how awesome would that be?!) but that's just wishful thinking. we'll see. i'm just so happy to have a home for next year.

for all you kids not living in marsh next year: get a futon. i'll come visit :D

so yeah. it's already been a productive day. i'm still feeling a little unsettled in some areas of my life, but i suppose that will come with time. i'm slowly working my way towards what i really should be doing. though i'm definitely not there yet ha. but spring break starts friday, and i'll be headed to cali on saturday for the weekend, which will be an AMAZING change from the cold, snowy (and today, nasty and wet) MA weather. then i'm going out with my girls the rest of the week and hopefully get some down time/get my balance back.

oh duh! postsecret was here last night!! I LOVE POSTSECRET! i admit, i have an addiction, really. its kind of pathetic. but its just so fascinating to see how many of these secrets i can relate to, and how many just break my heart. (i hope these two don't mind me sharing this) but a girl last night said that she was afraid she was running out of time with her parents, like she never really had a good relationship with them, and was afraid that they might even die before she ever got the chance to know them. if i wasn't in a room full of people i didn't really know, i would have been on the floor bawling. then another girl (god, she's brave) got up and said "i heard that 1 in 4 women gets raped. i'm glad, cause that means 3 of my best friends are safe" - which just ripped my heart out.

so here's my secret. or rather, a few.

1. my poetry are my thoughts, words i need to get out, speeches i wish i had given, hidden messages for friends or lovers (secret or not). there is always a deeper meaning in everything i write.

2. i obsess with my body image. i'm abnormally self conscious about my weight, especially since it isn't the stereotypical "dancer body." i mostly worry about my body because i feel it inhibits me becoming the great dancer i want to be - i just want to know my body, feel comfortable in it, and be able to control it. but for now, i disrespect it, in so many ways.

3. i also obsess with hands. i find them absolutely fascinating.

4. i know there is a stronger side of me, but its hidden by the scared side of me sometimes. so i'm sorry.

5. there are three people in my life that i regret hurting the most: rebecca l, andrew n, and my mother.

6. there's a reason the secrets that the girls shared at postsecret hit me so hard: because i could have said those words.

[edit]

new flickr updates!

spring fever

2009-03-08T13:20:00.000-04:00

oh. my. goodness. its 60 degrees outside, and BEAUTIFUL.

i can see the quad. like, the entire quad. grass and everything.

i've never appreciated grass so much in my life.

now if you'll excuse me, i have some rays to catch and some books to read.

outside.

:D :D :D

changes

2009-03-07T16:27:00.000-05:00

so there are things in my life that need changing.

this seems to be the mantra of my life: constantly craving change, yet never actually seeking it. then worse, actively resisting it.

i'm tired of being the one who makes all the stupid mistakes.

but thanks to some absolutely incredible friends, hopefully that will be changing.

(thanks sr, bl, jt, rh, sm, tl, bc, dc, rm, momma k, and everyone else - i've learned so much from you guys)

it's 40 degrees outside, with 6 inches of snow on the ground

2009-03-05T16:38:00.000-05:00

and i see a kid wearing a tshirt outside.

welcome to amherst :)

actually, it's kind of sad because i've definitely acclimated to the cold as well. if the wind wasn't blowing, and i didn't go in shade very much, it would definitely be a tshirt kind of day. sighhh tennessee summers are going to suck.

anyways. i'm actually very conflicted at the moment. i feel like i have so much to do, and i really really want to just get ahead and get it all done and over with. but at the same time i really have no motivation to actually do it? i'm feeling pretty bummed about my poetry, and going to the no-mic open-mic thing last night didn't help. i'm resisting the temptation to fall into what "everyone else" is writing, and sort of conform to that style, but yet, that's what makes "good poetry" - meter and rhythm and rhyme and some sort of pattern, organization. i just can't get words to say what i want them to say. which is really annoying, cause most of the time, i feel like i have something to say and although the words say it back to me, they don't say it to anyone else. i want to say something that will be remembered, a nagging feeling that there's something more and it's staring you right in the face - something you want to tell someone else. but most often it doesn't work.

i'm also a little torn with my personal life. i won't go into details here (ask me if you really want to know) but basically, i've started talking with some old friends, and it's been really hard to have to start over, and not know really what to do. plus the past two weeks have just been kind of hard in general, so that isn't helping. boys are just annoying. i'm starting to agree with my sister's decision to become asexual.

anyways, on a lighter note, I'M GOING TO CALI OVER SPRING BREAK!!!! :D i'm getting a taaaaaaan and sitting by the beach aaaaaaaall day, and it's going to be 80 degrees!!!!! 80!!!! i don't even remember what that feels like!!!! i'm so exciteddddd!!!! (oh, quick shout out to all my cali readers :P but sorry, i'll be in SoCal....) YAYYYY!!!!!!!

hmm what else. next summer i might get to go to Greece to work on an archaeological dig site!!! yeah. how awesome would that be??? it's this really cool temple to zeus that a guy (dr. romano) has been working on the past three or four years. apparently it could be the prototype for the temple to zeus at olympia. AMAZING! now all i have to do is figure out what the hell i'm going to do this summer. ugh.

ideal plan A for the next year: get awesome summer internship for a month or so, make a ton of moolah, take dance and voice lessons, get back all my guard skills (plus some i never had). use moolah i made over summer to try out for (and make!) sacred heart WG in boston. get into marsh house but spend every single weekend of my sophomore year sweating and gross at WG practice instead of going out with friends, but ultimately have an amazing year (WGI championships?!?). this all assumes that i don't become an RC next year. otherwise....

ideal plan B: everything exactly the same except i save the ton of moolah i make over the summer and get more money being an RC and get to go out with my friends on weekends and live in a really nice dorm.

it's a win win. if everything goes according to plan that is :)

sighhh. "if."

ummm. okay well i'm done procrastinating homework. i need to go translate a poem. woo. and read a TON. like usual :)

teehee

2009-03-03T21:44:00.000-05:00

i just got paid to spend two hours updating my flickr page, editing pictures, and oh yeah, helping kids learn names of igneous rocks. :) yay for geo TA-ing! but yeah. go check my new pictures. some of them i think are rather good.

sighhh but now time to actually do homework. well. a ton of reading, and that's about it.

[edit]

for ben:

flickr

[edit number 2]

i wish i could write as well as i used to think i could.

my mind does this weird thing where if it isn't occupied or have something to do, it freaks out and creates stress. it's like i always have to be stressed about something. or if not stressed, then at least busy. i like being busy. which saddens me. i feel guilty for spending an afternoon just sitting on my bed thinking. i feel like i should be going out and making new friends, or just doing something. but all i want to do is sit and think about all the things i'll do tomorrow.

sick or what.

i'm tired. but i really don't want to sleep.

i need a hobby.

what more can be said of snow?

2009-03-02T13:03:00.001-05:00

i went to bed last night, and the quad was a puddle.

i wake up this morning, and the quad is under 8 inches of snow.

YAYYY!!!! haha i think i'm one of the few kids left who still enjoy the snow. i think its one of the most beautiful sights. its really incredible to see and think about. these tiny little flecks of ice are the subject of poetry and writing and music and paintings, its a wonderful sight, yet can incapacitate humanity just because we drive cars and rely on telephone poles for our electricity. think about that for a minute.

but enough snow musing. i've had very unproductive day, meaning i've done nothing i should have, but wrote some "poetry" instead. i've written two so far, but not finished with the second yet. enjoy :)

(no title yet)

I’m always unsatisfied, it seems.

Infinity is there (what more can be said of snow and children?),

but my mouth and my fingers cannot form

or capture it.

Words come so easy

when I do not think of them.

They better tell what is not than what is.

I am not well versed.

But I have a floor and a roof

and four walls in between (thank God),

with people who say I love you, sometimes.

Plus rosin and 88 keys.

So perhaps it is selfishness

or talent lacking that causes words to be

incoherent to anyone but me (and sometimes, including)

But oh well.

Twenty-six letters do not define me.

[edit]

i feel like i've had a semi-productive day for the first time in a long time. i need to have more like these. laundry is done, i played piano today, had a good dance practice, almost finished with my reading form for tomorrow, then just some music reading and i get sleep!

and as per Ted's request, here's my list of 50 things to do this year :)

1. learn to cook again/cook all my own meals for a week
2. go a week without internet
3. go a day without electricity
4. lose 15 pounds
5. go to italy
6. ~~crochet a blanket~~
7. run three times a week
8. pick up guitar/piano again
9. develop my own film and pictures
10. go camping
11. go on a cross-country roadtrip
12. make a kusudama
13. write music/lyrics
14. read a book outside of class each month
15. journal at least once a week
16. go to a dance club
17. go to Play
18. take vocal lessons
19. get a polaroid camera
20. buy slinky underwear
21. write a letter to each of my friends
22. incorporate a new word into my vocabulary each week
23. eat healthier
24. build a house
25. get all A's
26. learn to like tea
27. train for a half marathon
28. visit boston
29. snowboard
30. 365 pictures
31. start learning italian
32. memorize 15 verses
33. read and study 3 Bible books
34. sleep under the stars
35. go to a concert
36. watch the sunrise
37. play in the rain
38. kiss in the snow
39. throw a five on sabre and rifle
40. take a roadtrip without a destination
41. do the scorpion
42. get abs
43. get a tattoo
44. discover 3 new bands
45. make a video
46. go on a photoshoot
47. do splits all three ways
48. wear heels for a week
49. get colored contacts
50. design another tshirt