(via dearprishy)
THE GUY ON THE RIGHT IS BOONE FROM LOST!
He’s still good-looking, even after dying in the first season :)
State of the Union
So I’m watching the State of the Union (on Youtube because TV is almost nonexistent in most residential colleges, it turns out). The major thing I notice, you ask? Whenever Obama talks about something traditionally Democratic (like the stimulus plan or protecting the environment), more than half the room stands and applauds. The rest are evidently Republicans who disagree, and who sit and mutter to each other as the Democrats clap and clap and clap. And then Obama will say something more traditionally Republican (like getting rid of taxes or increasing security), and the Republicans will stand and clap, and a few Democrats will clap but stay seated, and the rest of the Democrats just sit there.
If you play it on high speed, it would be one really funny sight: sit, stand, sit, stand, other side sits, other side stands…
It’s almost like there are just a few key words that get either side riled up and excited. Breathe the words “tax cuts” and Republicans will practically dance in front of you. Like, “TAX CUTS? Sounds like MY kind of government! Yeah! Go go tax cuts! Woo!” And whisper “clean energy” to a Democrat, and the Democrat will think, “CLEAN ENERGY!!?? That’s exactly what this f***ing country needs! Woo-hoo! Hell yeah! Clean! Energy!”
It’s better than reality TV.
Then again, almost anything is better than reality TV.
Full Circle
The first part of coming full circle that I just realized now is that Kim and I both watched movies we liked recently and Priscilla doesn’t like talking about sad stuff in blogs but I do for the exact opposite reasons she doesn’t.
Anyway. I watched Wall-E today, just now in Bio, and it was fantastic. I was giggling every five seconds and almost crying every five minutes. It’s such a great story. I love this movie, absolutely love it. So awesome.
So that’s the first part. The second part is the sudden acknowledgement that occured to me that this is the very end of my high school career. Oh my god. Can you believe that? I’m wasting my time here in tech class (techclassboredom.com!) and there are so few days left in school. The time should be spent laughing with classmates and watching movies like Wall-E and enjoying the little learning left in the most fun ways possible. We should be making a full circle. See, it feels like this thing called high school is just a series of days, back-to-back, that just follow a straight path to nowhere. There is no coming back to what we love about life. I mean, this is the end of high school, and we haven’t waken up to that, and we’re going around thinking that it’s the middle of October.
It might as well be, with all this fog.
I guess beyond all this pretending that it’s not the end of an entire phase of life, it does seem like we’ve come full circle. Things are ending so they can begin again. After high school we don’t just sit and do nothing (I would hope not at least), so we will be starting something. We will be starting. The start gets closer the closer the end gets.
Sorry to go all philosophical on you. I’m just doing some thinking out loud.
I’m So Excited!
I’m back to repeating what I couldn’t stop repeating at my Barnard interview: “I’m so excited!” At the interview I said it partly because I was but partly just because I was nervous, but this time, I am genuinely really really excited. Oh my god, I am so excited, I am just so excited! Because now I get to start thinking about all my classes (woo-hoo, Intermediate Spanish I!). And when I start thinking about my classes I start thinking about the campus, and then I think about the Underground Tunnel, and then I start thinking about the included clinic services somewhere in the lower level of the building that are free because that’s what you’re paying for in your standard college fees, and I start thinking about how it’s a women’s school and how the girls in the course selection book thingie sound so positive and comunity-ish, and I realize I made a great choice to go to Barnard, and I’m going to have so much fun and I’M SO EXCITED! It’s all so exciting!
And I get to read a book called Gilgamesh.
What IS It?
What is it about family that screws some of us up so badly?
My soon-to-be college roommate, whoever it’s going to be, is going to despise my sloppiness because I grew up in a very sloppy household in which nobody really conditioned me to clean. I’m probably going to have love-life issues forever because of my daddy issues. My need to run away probably stems from my lack of extended family communication, an extended family that should have anchored me at home. Don’t even get me started on how my friend’s dad, and even to some extent the other members of her family, have screwed up HER life. At least for the time being, until she can finally get free of their chains, if she ever does.
So what IS it about family?
What Was That?
There is so much you can learn from listening. Just listening, really good, listening between the lines. By looking back at how badly I’ve listened in the past, I see all the holes I coul’ve filled by being a better friend and all the stupid little things I said that I could have avoided saying because I know those stupid little things I said either did nothing to help or only made things worse.
I really have to stop breathing down people’s backs. And I have to listen better.
For all my quietness, I’m still not as good of a listener as I once thought I was. Stupid overzealous pride.
Overzealous! I’m so over-proud of myself that I use words like overzealous even in the most modest of situations!
Maybe that’s the root of the problem, then: my pride gets in the way of my listening.
They Really DO Exist!
I always thought that I was doomed to have a tiny family, just me and the parental units, and half of a sister, haha. I mean, there are people I am related to that my mom sometimes revealed to me when I pried her for information about where I come from. But they had been out of my life since I had my own consciousness.
So it was a surprise to hear my uncle’s voice yesterday. He lives only about an hour away, too, and he has a whole family of his own. And he’s real. He exists. I have a family.
Little happy things do happen, just like in all the Disney movies. Imagine that.
I’m Gonna Soak Up the Sun
…Gonna tell everyone to lighten u-up…
It’s exactly like being locked up in a dungeon, a dark abysmal hole, and then being given a free key out, and then opening the door gradually to a world of sunhine and happiness. Ecstasy, that’s what it is. That’s what it’s like when a summer-like spring finds its way to the dreary Bay. Even those who say they like the dark fog and the cold, even they are happier now that the sun is out and smiling at us. They just don’t admit it.
I’m starting to think that I will be emotionally miserable and wrecked by choosing to to go Barnard. USC sounds so warm and happy right now… How will I be able to give up days like today’s rare gem of a day? New York, after all, has real seasons, and extremes of them all. I will sneeze my lungs out in the spring, swelter into the shape of a raisin in the summer (or come home for a n-ice cold summer), start to feel the winter blues in the fall, and die in the winter. I don’t know if I want that.
But everything else at Barnard, I want, and I want it badly. Like New York after considering the weather, like a nice community, like never having to need a car, like meeting Columbia boys, like access to Columbia, like small classes and great reading and cool professors and there’s always more to love. So I guess I just need to compromise. And enjoy this nice rare day while it lasts.
