Interests:Chillin', BNAD, running amok, galloping and cavorting with malicious intent, reading, knitting, cooking, BIOLOGY, UCSD, manga, drawing, writing, meditating (altho I rlly suck), talking w/ friends, HW, the great outdoors, different cultures, songs, brass choirs, singing, HP, etc. Expertise:thinking, BIOLOGY (at least, I suspect I will once I major in some component of it XD), F horn & Mello, speed-reading, procrastination, cracking jokes (at least, I think they're funny...*crickets*), finishing hw @ school, listening, giving handshakes, giving hugs, letting ppl feel better,
Saturday I'm moving all my things out. Sunday I go to D.C. I can't really believe it.
Sunday I kiss my boyfriend goodbye for 4 months. o.0 I am going to be a nervous wreck with the missing-ness.
Finally petitioned a few classes today, will petition other ones tommorrow. Realized that after petitioning these classes, I will pretty much only need 2 classes to graduate. (shit.) Which means I'll be needing to get a job 3 months (er, make that six months) earlier than I had been planning. (shit again.)
Planning on being a part-time student Winter quarter..which means I will need a part-time job. I really want my own room. My current roommate seems like she's out to get me.
In the past, I've "kidnapped" my brother's girlfriend to go to movies/plays because I wanted to get to know her, and had free tickets for things, and whatnot. (My brother jokes, "Kathleen, stop taking my girlfriend out on dates!" I joke back, "Well, you weren't there, and I was the next best thing around!" )
Well, they're both in the East Coast. So I kidnapped my brother's girlfriend's new roommate instead. MUAHAHA. This would be a profitable business if it weren't for the fact that I'm trying to get rid of a lot of my crap and gave her a bunch of dishes/yogamatt/boogyboard etc.
Yes. So. D.C. Not yet believing it. And yet I got running shoes today. Oh holy fuck.
Attempting to diminish/eliminate caffeine dependency.
Had a tablespoon.5 of insta-coffee this morning (considering a few weeks ago, I was using 3 and saying, "look, I'm cutting back!" this is still an accomplishment.)
Withdrawal headache. temptation looms. Course, I would have to get up to find coffee, and head drooping sleepily. Library is comfy.
May have to resort to getting coffee before work, don't want to be a zombie for the kiddies....(muahaha excuse...)
I'm sitting in the UCSD library, working on my take-home final due Saturday (that I want to turn in tommorrow/thursday so as to not have anything to do thursday or friday), I can't seem to stop my mind from wandering back to a familiar path, a subject it has been drawing back to over and over again in the recent weeks: the future.
My constant re-tracing of thoughts about the future is somewhat vexing to me; one of my personal rules is to avoid thinking about the future, based on the idea that if I think about the future, I would distract myself from relishing the present; that I might come up with all sorts of unrealistic expectations that, because they would never come to fruition, would break my heart; that I'll freak out worrying about things that I have no way of being able to do anything about. I feel this system has generally worked out well for me, apart from several incidents involving my complete inability to plan (eg: hiding from crazies and cops in a closed train station in a little town in France hopped up on so much espresso I couldn't tell if the reason why my hand was shaking was due to fear or caffeine...oh, and the time I spent the night freezing underneath an overhang in Spain when it was raining...etc). What comes to pass has come to pass; my life, without any conscious effort on my part, was already following a plan, although I guess through following instincts, I've accidentally deviated from the norm. I've almost never spent more than 3 consecutive years at one school; I've left pieces of my heart in the hands of friends I never thought I would be lucky enough to have; I traveled to places I never imagined I'd see, with people I never imagined I could learn from; I fell in love despite circumstances no one believed were realistic. I'm grateful to my instincts for every time they've taken me off the path of well-worn expectations.
And yet, as I'm reaching the beginning of my (potentially) last year of formal instruction, I can't help but think about the future. Since as I mentioned before, I have absolutely no capability to plan, this preoccupation with the future seems to be a subconscious plot conceived by the subversive part of my brain to torture me. Many of my friends and acquaintances have graduated and are already "out there" on the path of making their dreams manifest in a tangible form, while I'm still doddering away finishing take-home finals. I'm starting to think my ideas about leaving the future to the future were misguided and escapist rather than sensible life plans…because here I am, standing at the end of the pre-planned plank, staring into a formless, unending depth and trying to see into it as if it were a scrying bowl.
The future has never been more unknown to me. I knew after elementary school there was middle school; that after middle school there was high school, and then on to college. Sure, I didn’t know which middle school, high school, or college I was going to—but it didn’t necessarily matter, because I was convinced that no matter what school I went to, all I had to do was work hard and I would turn out alright. The question now is not “Which institution will I go to next”, but “will I go to an institution?” Before me lies a myriad of choices—Peace Corp? If so, which country? ESL certificate? Take a course in Quechua? Go straight to the American Work Force? If so, for global issues or local issues? Should I try my luck getting a job in Latin America? Should I go to Grad School? If so, what should I be going to grad school for?
I know I should be thinking of this precipice of the unplanned as an opportunity, not as something to fear—life is a blank page, its unwritten (as Natasha Beddingfield would say), what freedom to shape your own life! But of course, to anyone who has had to write ANYTHING EVER and had a deadline to turn it in, a blank page is freakishly scary. (Have you ever said, “oh goody, the page is blank, this essay could turn out in any way whatsoever!” I seriously doubt it.) And there is a deadline. When I graduate, in either 8 months or a year, I will have to do something; and whatever it is that I choose, it will involve giving up things I hold dear for other things I hold dear. Worse, I’m used to thinking of things in assignments: once its done, its done; once the page is written, its written, and I can move on—but this page is an ongoing project, one that will not be finished until the day I die. (And with my luck, probably mid-sentence.)
I guess whatever I do directly after I graduate won’t alter the course of my life for good or for bad; but it could. I want to live the life worth living, and I’m afraid that I’ll fall into the patterns I’ve been accustomed to, following what is prescribed rather than cutting my own way through the jungle. I want to write a book or 12, I want to bring world peace; some of my goals in life seem as though the fulfillment of one would mean the ignoring of others.
And this is the point at which my thoughts once again devolve into helpless sputtering; so many choices, so many options, and so much confusion. I guess I’ll be going back to that take-home final.
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I'm sitting in the UCSD library, working on my take-home final due Saturday (that I want to turn in tommorrow/thursday so as to not have anything to do thursday or friday), I can't seem to stop my mind from wandering back to a familiar path, a subject it has been drawing back to over and over again in the recent weeks: the future.
My constant re-tracing of thoughts about the future is somewhat vexing to me; one of my personal rules is to avoid thinking about the future, based on the idea that if I think about the future, I would distract myself from relishing the present; that I might come up with all sorts of unrealistic expectations that, because they would never come to fruition, would break my heart; that I'll freak out worrying about things that I have no way of being able to do anything about. I feel this system has generally worked out well for me, apart from several incidents involving my complete inability to plan (eg: hiding from crazies and cops in a closed train station in a little town in France hopped up on so much espresso I couldn't tell if the reason why my hand was shaking was due to fear or caffeine...oh, and the time I spent the night freezing underneath an overhang in Spain when it was raining...etc). What comes to pass has come to pass; my life, without any conscious effort on my part, was already following a plan, although I guess through following instincts, I've accidentally deviated from the norm. I've almost never spent more than 3 consecutive years at one school; I've left pieces of my heart in the hands of friends I never thought I would be lucky enough to have; I traveled to places I never imagined I'd see, with people I never imagined I could learn from; I fell in love despite circumstances no one believed were realistic. I'm grateful to my instincts for every time they've taken me off the path of well-worn expectations.
And yet, as I'm reaching the beginning of my (potentially) last year of formal instruction, I can't help but think about the future. Since as I mentioned before, I have absolutely no capability to plan, this preoccupation with the future seems to be a subconscious plot conceived by the subversive part of my brain to torture me. Many of my friends and acquaintances have graduated and are already "out there" on the path of making their dreams manifest in a tangible form, while I'm still doddering away finishing take-home finals. I'm starting to think my ideas about leaving the future to the future were misguided and escapist rather than sensible life plans…because here I am, standing at the end of the pre-planned plank, staring into a formless, unending depth and trying to see into it as if it were a scrying bowl.
The future has never been more unknown to me. I knew after elementary school there was middle school; that after middle school there was high school, and then on to college. Sure, I didn’t know which middle school, high school, or college I was going to—but it didn’t necessarily matter, because I was convinced that no matter what school I went to, all I had to do was work hard and I would turn out alright. The question now is not “Which institution will I go to next”, but “will I go to an institution?” Before me lies a myriad of choices—Peace Corp? If so, which country? ESL certificate? Take a course in Quechua? Go straight to the American Work Force? If so, for global issues or local issues? Should I try my luck getting a job in Latin America? Should I go to Grad School? If so, what should I be going to grad school for?
I know I should be thinking of this precipice of the unplanned as an opportunity, not as something to fear—life is a blank page, its unwritten (as Natasha Beddingfield would say), what freedom to shape your own life! But of course, to anyone who has had to write ANYTHING EVER and had a deadline to turn it in, a blank page is freakishly scary. (Have you ever said, “oh goody, the page is blank, this essay could turn out in any way whatsoever!” I seriously doubt it.) And there is a deadline. When I graduate, in either 8 months or a year, I will have to do something; and whatever it is that I choose, it will involve giving up things I hold dear for other things I hold dear. Worse, I’m used to thinking of things in assignments: once its done, its done; once the page is written, its written, and I can move on—but this page is an ongoing project, one that will not be finished until the day I die. (And with my luck, probably mid-sentence.)
I guess whatever I do directly after I graduate won’t alter the course of my life for good or for bad; but it could. I want to live the life worth living, and I’m afraid that I’ll fall into the patterns I’ve been accustomed to, following what is prescribed rather than cutting my own way through the jungle. I want to write a book or 12, I want to bring world peace; some of my goals in life seem as though the fulfillment of one would mean the ignoring of others.
And this is the point at which my thoughts once again devolve into helpless sputtering; so many choices, so many options, and so much confusion. I guess I’ll be going back to that take-home final.
Right now I'm frustrated with the rate of writing on the essay I'm making for my MMW class (that six-week long course that ppl in my college have to take as a GE.) Its got to be at least 8 pages, turned in on Thursday, and so far I've got about 5. I suppose I should give myself a pat on the back that I'm working on it now instead of putting it off further, but still I'm annoyed that I haven't at least gotten further on the quota I established for myself by tonight (needs to be 6 pages before I go to sleep).
My essay is about Spain (surprise!) While I really like Spain, its hard to care about an essay, because its overall hard to care about the class. Everything that the professor has said, everything that has been covered in the reading, I HAVE ALREADY LEARNED. On the plus side, its a nice refresher on 20th century world history, but its a bit of a damper that I actually have to take a class on things I've already learned. Sometimes I'm bored in class because its painful trying to listen to information I've already absorbed and memorized. (Surprise! World war one was fought in Trenches, everybody! Chairman Mao's cultural revolution really really sucked!)
So that's one thing that's annoying. I'm also really frustrated about my poetry class. So on the plus side, I got an email today from the prof asking if I could re-send her one of my poems so she could share it with the class...but. (there's always a but. ) I don't really like my group. there's two guys in it who just really, really suck. One of them doesnt' ever seem to do homework or give us poems to look at or say any useful comments (i exagerate a little...but not much.) Everytime the other one speaks, I want to thwack him upside the head. Actually, no one in the class likes him much, because he doesn't seem to really understand appropriateness, how one can talk about certain subjects, or what kinds of inflections one is supposed to use with certain words. He sounds like a really big jerk every time he talks. (mental THWACK!!!) And his poems suck. a lot. I mean, really, really suck. On monday he submitted a poem about superheroes, but it was really hard to read because it was so....incredibly bad.
you are fast you are good we look up to you bullets don't hurt you
etc. (that's superman)...
GRAAAAR!!! My inner poet dies. Its very hard to get the incentive to write anything good when every class I'm presented with really really crappy writings each week.
I'm also upset with myself because I don't think I've been submitting things worth reading the last few times (yet the people in my group seem to like them--but I would prefer to use my own standard of good than others, just because my standard is usually set higher and is therefore more desirable, at least to me. ) When I'm feeling really uninspired, I end up just writing poems about things that happened in my past, which feels cheap to me because I can make those really shocking and virulent without trying very hard, which makes it feel like cheating. This week I rather felt sick when I turned in my assignment, because the poems I wrote were really connected with some of the darker parts of my past, and it seems sick to me that I have to share those parts of me with the dumbasses in my group because its the only thing I could come up with at two am the day the assignment was due. meh.
I also felt ill because I dug up memories probably better left forgotten in order to write it...meh. Oddly enough, my paper for MMW is all about supression of memories, too.
hm...share the poem? hm. meh. why not. I'm hopefully not connected to anyone I really dislike on xanga anyway. (and there's the whole 'no one reads it' factor. )
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Abuse
Door slamming, I remember the sound, the screams, clutching
the golden, golden knob to close it, shoving clothes, stuffed animals under
crevice between wood and floor, pushing chairs, our tearful selves against it,
but he charged in anyway.
I don’t
remember what followed.
Eyes flashing, I remember the horrid blue gleam, running
away into a barricaded room, afraid of dying, burying hiding under laundry
suffocating from the force of my own lungs beating pounding choking on
teardrops, screaming voice “You can’t leave until you forgive me.”
I don’t
remember what followed.
She tells me, what she remembers, he hit and denied, hit and
denied and laughed when we cried and said we were beautiful, but stupid inside
and bit, ruptured pride and screamed and broke things but always
