A little reflection

January 1, 2008 at 6:59 pm (Uncategorized)
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2007 is over and 2008 is here. So much has happened in my life in 2007. I’ve gone from looking years into the future to just trying to make it through the day and back a few times over. I’ve loved, I’ve been loved, and I’ve seen love and this is what I have to say about it: Love does not conquer all. All is not fair in love and war. I never believed those cheap cliches in the first place, but this year has done much to reinforce my disbelief. It’s astounding how love can happen between so many different pairings of people. Go ahead and call me a cynic on the matter, but at the same time I still believe in the grandeur and beauty of love. I believe that it is worth more than can be put into words, but it is not worth giving up your whole self for it.

In a year, I’ve gone from being third in my class to not attending any class. I’ve seen death, been depressed, had mono for longer than anyone should, heard abuse, known friends’ pains, and more. I’m not going to lie…this past year has stripped me of my goals. I thought I had an idea. I was one of those that people would gush that could “do anything she puts her mind to doing.” Now, I’m starting from scratch. Where will I go with my life? What do I want to do with my life? I honestly don’t know right now. It is a difficult thing to realize about oneself…having no real goals. Sure, there are plenty of things that I’d like to do with my life, but that is not the same as purposely aiming and striving for something. Oh dear, I suppose I must go and “find myself” now…but that isn’t quite right, because I do know who I am. I just don’t yet know where I am and where I am going to go.

This year has brought some delightful times with it. I have learned much and enjoyed much. There have been such times with people from whom I’ve since drifted and more with those with whom I’ve gotten closer. I can’t be grateful enough to those who’ve been there for me through both laughter and tears.

I don’t regret the last year. No, I certainly don’t.

Here’s to this year being more so excellent and to finding purpose in it.

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Problemas con la computadora

December 31, 2007 at 11:29 am (Uncategorized)
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My laptop…I think I’ve killed it. It’ll turn on and off, log in, and usually get to the desktop, but not much after that. It’ll freeze up and do nothing, or just show a black or pale blue screen, or restart itself. This is very annoying! And then, when I go to look for my USB flash drive, it’s nowhere to be found! Arghaldybarghaldybarg!!!

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Ice Cream

December 27, 2007 at 10:01 pm (Uncategorized)
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Salivation is called the Cold Stone Creamery.I have neither been to a Cold Stone Creamery in my life nor have I ever consumed a bit of a Cold Stone product of which I am aware. However, I was led to temptation by a Facebook News Feed item. You see, it seems that some of my friends on le interwebz will be getting something along the lines of free ice cream from Cold Stone on one upcoming January 7th. Immediately, I set out to find such a creamery near me, but none was to be found. However, I did find myself nearly entranced by the Cold Stone homepage. Let me tell you, that company’s advertising is working on me! Tall, Dark, and Minty…Cake Batter Batter Batter…Dark Chocolate Peppermint…Pumpkin…such ice cream flavors sound and look oh so inviting to my taste buds. Plus, I just discovered that you can create your own custom ice cream flavor. Perhaps it is just me and my feminine predisposition for ice cream, but I kind of want to eat my computer screen when I look at those pictures.

In all fairness, the more local Ben & Jerry’s Homemade Ice Cream is quite delicious and this I know from experience but…their main site just doesn’t have the same effect on me as that of Cold Stone!

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Thought Storm

December 26, 2007 at 9:05 pm (Uncategorized)
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What a whirlwind day. The leaves would not stir and the waves would not crash but my mind did billow like tides out of sync. Matters of heart, mind, and common humanity flew into me and left me feeling like a tornado’d passed through me. What is it that makes a person crave? What is it that drives someone to grand ambitions? And, harshest wind of all, what is it that pushes a man to hate? To hate and to hit, to aim to destroy another’s being…why? It is something unexpectedly thrashing out from the blue, or rather, out of the grey, for that seems a less noteworthy color (or lack thereof). It is horrid.

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Anais Nin

December 26, 2007 at 12:17 am (Regarding literature)
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I ended up buying Delta of Venus by Anais Nin because, well, why not? It looked like it might be fun, so I’m giving it a shot. So far, some good, some bad. I must say that I’m not a fan of the pedophilial encounters. Sure, I’ve read Nabokov’s Lolita but that’s a different matter altogether. Lolita is a disturbing read but beautiful all the same. It never seems to aim too explicitly at arousing a reader with sexual descriptions of pedophilia, but a couple of the stories in Delta of Venus do. Some trysts are too forced for my tastes as well. Granted, this is just erotica and not the actual acts, so I won’t yet throw Nin to the bottom of my mind. After all, there are a number of better parts. Plus, I haven’t even finished reading the collection yet. Perhaps I will elaborate more at a later date.

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Courses

December 23, 2007 at 9:58 pm (Uncategorized)
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Last week I made up a list of the courses (and their brief descriptions) that I’m interested in taking for the spring semester (I’ll be non-matriculated so I can’t register until a couple weeks from now). I just took a gander at that list. It’s fifteen pages long. Fifteen! I started counting the courses but when I got to forty I stopped, so I’m guessing that there are literally far more than sixty courses that I’d like to take next semester. Guess it’s time to weed out the ones I’d like to take from the ones I’d love to take, huh? I’m ridiculous indeed. Back at my high school, a student could exhaust the course offerings given just a couple extra years past the usual four. Here I go!

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Senior Quote

December 23, 2007 at 9:40 pm (Regarding literature)
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SO. Last year I was looking for my senior quote to put in the yearbook and all and I came across and decided upon something to the effect of “The risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom” by Anais Nin. It was no big deal for me – just had to pick something. Hah…I never bothered to look up what Anais Nin is known for…just the other day I found out by chance as I was perusing random books in the regular ol’ fiction section of Borders. I happened upon Anais Nin’s books while sitting on the floor in the middle of an aisle next to my friend, who was laying on my coat talking to another friend on the phone and having a planning dilemma with him. Lo and behold, Nin’s books’re basically books of erotic literature! It isn’t the sort that one would find among porno mags/websites/etcetera, but it was definitely erotica. As it turns out, I used something from an erotica author for my senior quote. Great, huh? I love it. I have to wonder if anyone picked up on that on their own, just flipping through the yearbook. (Hey, at least I didn’t quote Jenna Jameson! Yes, someone at my high school did do that once upon a time.)

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Prayer for Children

December 16, 2007 at 7:00 pm (Poetry)
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This is by Ina J. Hughes, but I think that its message is quite strong enough to warrant my posting it here. Just think about it.

Prayer for Children

We pray for children
who sneak popsicles before supper,
who erase holes in math workbooks,
who can never find their shoes.

And we pray for those
who stare at photographers from behind barbed wire,
who can’t bound down the street in a new pair of sneakers,
who never “counted potatoes,”
who are born in places we wouldn’t be caught dead,
who never go to the circus,
who live in an X-rated world.

We pray for children
who bring us sticky kisses and fistfuls of dandelions,
who hug us in a hurry and forget their lunch money.

And we pray for those who never get dessert,
who have no safe blanket to drag behind them,
who watch their parents watch them die,
who can’t find any bread to steal,
who don’t have any rooms to clean up,
whose pictures aren’t on anybody’s dresser,
whose monsters are real.

We pray for children
who spend all their allowance before Tuesday,
who throw tantrums in the grocery store and pick at their food,
who like ghost stories,
who shove dirty clothes under the bed, and never rinse out the tub,
who get visits from the tooth fairy,
who don’t like to be kissed in front of the carpool,
who squirm in church and scream in the phone,
whose tears we sometimes laugh at and
whose smiles can make us cry.

And we pray for those
whose nightmares come in the daytime,
who will eat anything,
who have never seen a dentist,
who aren’t spoiled by anybody,
who go to bed hungry and cry themselves to sleep,
who live and move, but have no being.

We pray for children who want to be carried and for those who must,
for those we never give up on and for those who don’t get a second chance.

For those we smother…
and for those who will grab the hand of anybody kind enough to offer it.

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Decision

December 16, 2007 at 6:02 pm (Uncategorized)
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I have come to a decision. I am staying at home for the next semester. This would be as opposed to petitioning to return to Brandeis in mid-Jaunary. And why? Well, let’s see…first off, what uses do I have for college courses?

  • In four or however many years it takes, they can lead to having a bachelor’s degree in (fill in the blank).
  • They teach how to “learn/think/read/write/speak/communicate/etcetera better/more creatively/etcetera.”
  • They teach background information that may be useful in a future job.
  • They can make for fascinating conversations with friends and others.
  • They “broaden one’s mind.”

These reasons are all great and I do appreciate them (and also know that many people could come up with many more reasons, but they are not relevant to me right now), but as someone I was talking to recently said to me, maybe following academic pursuits full-time just isn’t where my heart is at right now. At this point in my life, I want something with some more immediate returns. We’re living in a culture geared toward instant gratification after all, aren’t we? Just joking about that (well, only partly). I used to think that if I wasn’t spending a ton of energy on academics that I wasn’t working to my full potential. I expected myself to do that just because I knew that I could do so well academically without ever really stopping to wonder why. Sure, I enjoy learning about a whole bunch of different subject areas and I’ve gotten good enough marks in these things, but so what? I also love to dance. Going back to Brandeis in January would mean that I’d be a full-time student squeezing in other stuff when I could get the time. Staying here means that I can be a part-time student, have more of a job, take dance classes, and explore other activities more. Brandeis and other colleges tend to have a million and one clubs and activities available, but who really has the time and energy to take advantage of all of that stuff? My time at Brandeis was a time living under high pressure, high stress circumstances (given that I was also dealing with medical and social stressors simultaneously). That’s okay for some people, but if I can have the choice to explore more of what I enjoy, whether it be Spanish or some other academic area or photography or dance or something else without having to get so greatly stressed about it, then I’m going to take it. Now I have that choice.

Both of my parents as well as my sister have taken time off from full-time college and then gone back later, and I think it’s safe to say that it hasn’t done them any harm. If anything, it’s helped them. I hope it’ll do the same for me.

I’ll miss everyone at Brandeis – that’s for sure. I’ll just have to arrange some visits. It won’t be the same, but all in all it’s the best thing for me. I was sick and while I feel incredibly better, I still have to be careful not to dive too deep into something more stressful than I can be fully sure I’m ready to take. Chances are that I’ll be returning to Brandeis full-time at some point, but just not yet. If I don’t return, then so be it. Perhaps I will find another path to follow that’ll be more fulfilling to me than academics. Truth be told, a couple of years ago, I’d been intending on taking a year off between high school and college to work part of the year and to volunteer abroad part of the year, but I never got to do that. I think I need a bit more of a chance to explore because when people ask me what my major is going to be and I say that I’m “undecided,” I mean it in more than just the academic way. I’m undecided if I want my major focus to be Spanish or psychology or English or education or maybe even something more science-y or math-y or maybe even something that can’t be found as a major at Brandeis like dance. Maybe I’ll take up music again. I’ve always been interested in learning nearly any kind of dance that there is, but so far I’ve gotten to go seriously only for belly dancing. Maybe I can change that. I could get more into volunteer work like I used to when I was much younger. I can be more relaxed and make sure that what I’m doing is really what I want to be doing and not just what I’m expecting myself to be doing for no real reason.

Later, if I do return to Brandeis, I’ll be able to do so more confidently and intently, without worrying about getting dragged under by things that shouldn’t even be affecting me.

So there you have it. I am staying here.

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