I think I made you up inside my head

This part of me wants to run away from everyone because I feel like everyone is asking something of me that I cannot give them, or asking nothing of me when I want to give them more.

Why do I have to be anyone's or anything's at all?

I don't want to be a pessimist and that's why I don't want to be like you and that may just be the only reason.

A portrait of a young woman on a night like this

I am sitting, thinking nothing at all
in a place I will find myself more than once this semester
in the bottom of a building filled with people
most of whom I will never truly  know besides a sideways glance or a smile

Is this my home? I don't know, nor do I care for the moment,
I am living the life of someone I know only through her song
in a language I only know by a set of trivial circumstances

Her voice whistles and bristles and wanes and wails
with a vibrato that never quits
a big band background that transports me to the rues that I will never visit
It's the fault of the piano, and the accordion and the imaginary night sky that I am removed from in this castle of wire-driven enterprise

I wonder if life will be like this movie in my mind.
I wonder if I imagine everything around me
and I wonder if the complex algorithms that make me myself can ever be cracked or derived or reduced into a simpler form
But I am small; I am nothing at all; the illusion of importance gives me light and it allows me to become bigger than myself.

Maybe it is a crazy joke, by Dieu or some other heavenly entity...
and maybe they watch me on TV
and maybe I am their cartoons
and maybe they live in a 5 dimensions that my human mind cannot comprend
and maybe that's all right
because there is no such thing as a tesseract.

You have WHAT twice a week?

Sex.
Well, Human Sexuality, that is. It's a course about the psychology, biology, sociology, etc of sex.
The class lends itself well to abbreviation, we call Chemistry Chem, we call Biology Bio, and now, Human Sexuality is delightfully deemed Sex.

This will be an experience.

It hit me today, the reality of taking a class like this, where the guy next to me screamed out the word "Cock," when the professor asked for slang words for male genitalia. Then it hit me again (it hits me like once a week) that EVERYONE is affected by sex, not just me or the people I know. The guy next to me, the girl in front of me, my teacher. Eww. Like, when I realized everyone poops. But it hit me so much worse this time because it's not a fleeting thought, it's like bombarding me in the face with its sheer reality.

I consider myself to be a very very open person. I am fine with people knowing my schedule, my favorite color, my opinions,  what experiences were embarrassing for me, and  whether or not it's impossible for me to find a good dress, etc. This openness is somewhat shattered in a class like human sexuality. The way people don't like to talk about grades, I don't like to talk about my experiences in that field of my life with others that much. And not because I'm that squeamish, just because I feel that those things about people are incredibly intimate. To me, it's not not a big deal; it's a piece of me that I'm pretty sure most people don't want to know about.

 And don't get me wrong, I'm pretty okay with what other people do and say and what they choose to share and who they choose to share it with and all, but I'm just a little quiet about it because I feel like when you talk about it, you take it out of context, and it will never mean to other people as much as what it meant to you.

I guess it's just what I learned from being brought up Indian (it's surprising that this is what has stuck with me, rather than dancing skills or being able to cook). I just feel that it's an act of modesty to not talk about these things in relation to myself. Maybe it's a cultural thing-- it's funny that I'm not shy about anyone else's doings. This unwillingness to accept blame, I guess, is from being Indian as well. It's in the language, "Lateness happened upon me," "Happiness is felt by me."

I have a feeling that my "systematic desensitization," (as said by my teacher), though I doubt it will be painful, will be delightfully awkward for me. But I'm pretty good at adapting, so it'll probably be okay.

I have hope

because I know that more people than I simply want to see others out of their pain.

It's an issue of our world, our common home, and the people in it. We are not as different from one another as we think. I always think about the fact that I could have been born someone else. And usually I think maybe it wouldn't be so bad, like when I meet someone with a hairier upper lip than me, but other days, like when I was in India and little girls tapped on my car window with desperate looks in their eyes, or when I watched the news and saw a man who had lost five members of his family to an earthquake of all random undeserved crises, I think, if that were me, what would make me keep going? How could I survive that? How could I survive even one death, let alone five?

Knowing that I could've been born as anyone in any situation gives me the will to fight for these people. What's crazy is that knowing about a problem and being able to combat it are two different things. I know of so many needs, but once I find just one thing I can do for one need, I will put all of myself into it. It's not like choosing subjects for school; you can't just spend 3 hours a week on the issue and have the problems fix themselves. I think sometimes it's kind of a curse for us as humans with access to media that alerts us to problems to see how much there is to do without realizing how much time it takes to accomplish one piece of one thing.

But knowing that people besides me  who want to solve these problems exist gets me excited about what I can really do and what everyone can do if there is focused will. There have already been thousands of donations toward the cause of helping the Haitian people, while the US, the UK and the Dominican Republic are doing what they can to help. And I feel that this will be the first of many steps to our world becoming a kinder place. Yes, there are many challenges to any kind of world-bettering operation; there are often huge negative ramifications to our attempts to turn the tables. But the fight is still worth fighting, and it will never be won with pessimism and apathy. I like to capitalize on the hope that we have because I know that it is this hope that will allow us to tread through these storms, rather than doubt.

I just want to have a conversation with you

without the endless dings of popping up IMs
without a thousand twangling instruments humming about our ears
without the TV in the background
without a million people trying to listen in and make a joke
without the pictures of Facebook popping up
without having to play a game


I just want you to listen to me and I just want to listen to you. Alone.

I want to feel safe. I want to know you're there. I don't want to fight to be heard. I want to share my thoughts with you and see your face because then I will know that you really care.

It's weird when you can tell exactly what someone's impact is on you

by examining what happens to you when they're not around.

Sometimes I think I'm going insane because my sleeping pattern is all wrong and I'm hopped up on Claritin and Advil Cold and Sinus. But I'm going to work on my song.

Please please please let me get what I want this time,

Lord knows, it would be the first time. 


Actually that's not true. There are a lot of things I have wanted that I have gotten, but for the most part it has been in terms of friendship, which is cool because you know how when you first meet someone cool and you think, "oh this person is MUCH too cool for me!" Well, I did that with some people, and it turned out they were cool, and as a function of them being cool, we became friends! Happy ending.

Of course there are the times when I think this person is MUCH too cool for me and then they do something majorly not cool and I'm like whatever, get away. That is why you should never think people are too cool for too long because you will lose your sense of reality and get whirled up into a cyclone of dumb thoughts that are not intelligent. (Redundancy is in, I don't care what you say.)

Other things that I have wanted, in terms of material possessions, grades, awards, I feel have come and gone with the chances. I'm happy to say that I've gotten a few things I have wanted badly.

My biggest fear is that I'll have a chance at something I thought I could never get and I'll completely blow it.

That might be happening right now.

The dashboard melted but we still have the radio

I know no one is listening, but sometimes when I say things they mean so much more than how it looks. I feel like that one relationship psychologist who looked at micro-expressions on couples' faces that determined their potential divorceness in Malcom Gladwell's Blink was probably onto something. I feel that my life is kind of movie-like in that you could tell how I was feeling pretty easily if you weren't there and if you watched me closely enough like those cameras that capture every angle and expression and twitch. We give movies a lot of crap for not being like reality, but I think that most of those movies about people are somewhat realistic even if the people are uglier in real life and wear sillier clothing and commit political, social and fashion faux pas. To that person, she looked that beautiful. Who is to say that someone's life is not like a movie without the cutting?

I tend to look at things through my own weird paradigm of confusion. I have to say that I pretend to have shit under control in my head more than I should because I can't deal with the idiocy of having sinful thoughts that don't make any sense. I'm worried that when people look at me, they can tell how much my drive reducing tendencies are affecting my actions and what exactly I want and if and how it differs from reality. I wonder if I say things because I want them to be true and whether that's a bad thing or whether they really are true but I'm not totally confident about it.

But mostly I'm wondered that I'm not gonna wake up because it is already 4:05 am. I also wonder:

• if when we think a song in our head it is in the key it's supposed to be in, and why we can hear it in our head but not really be able to totally remember what it is if we try to think about it too hard
• if anyone notices what i look like besides me when I walk around
• if Cosmo ever really knows what it's talking about
• whether being feminist is just one of those things that people do because it sounds good but they actually passively just think that women should have equal rights, and how far it can go before you're just crazy and how liberal you can be about it before you're not a feminist
• whether it's actually derogatory for a guy to use the word "bitch" and why it's okay for "bitch" magazine to be called bitch magazine and also if it's the same way with the n-word
• if a non-athletic guy and an athletic girl could ever be together in harmony, or vice versa-- what causes us to be compatible anyway?
• why the songs off of my favorite artist's worst records are still better than anything i could ever write. also, why i can feel so deeply but never be able to put it in the perfect words when i want to be able to.
• if anyone will ever read this and relate to it
• why, after everything, people still give me a chance
• why turning off your emotions and screwing up your heart into a tight knot is still much worse than feeling all of your blobby emotions that can just be so frustrating to have re-listen to like a top 40 hit gone terribly sour from being replayed in every department store, coffee shop, airport, restaurant, and party you ever go to.
• whether it's okay to finish a sentence with a preposition.
• who gives a fuck about an oxford comma?

I need to find just one thing

to do, by myself, utterly alone that will give me fulfillment
that does not involve myself.

My dad used to draw pictures of other people.

I wish I didn't waste my life away surrounded by things other people have done.

i hate depending on others to be happy. i need to disappear.

Some (mostly cool) things I did in 2009

• Grew out of my straightened hair. That was cool. Got a super chic haircut that turned heads upon getting curly hair. :)
  
• Started eating beef again? I'm anemic and I have to start eating red meat in order to get more iron because my ferrous sulfate tablets threaten to make me hurl and I think pork is too chewy.
• Ate at Five Guys with a homeless guy who tried to give us a necklace in turn for a burger and then Jason felt bad for him and said he'd give him some fries to which he responded "Please, I've had so many fries!"
  
• Gone on a camping trip with my friends complete with swimming in a lake, not showering, kissing boys, making breakfast in the morning and singing in the car both ways.
• Visited Washington DC with my best friend and stayed at my fabulous teacher's house. Rode the subway every day and lived the good life for about a week.
  
• Had a summer of dreams: working at a great internship, hanging out with friends every day, watching television and actually getting life things accomplished (as well as the aforementioned two trips)
• Got a 5 on my Calc AP test and passed the UW Calc 221 placement test-- I'm not so great at tests, who would've thought?
• Survived my stupid dance class, getting into college and also the whole forgetting to send in my housing deposit thing.
  
• Opened up a checking account and credit card with a bank as an 18-year-old.
• Got good grades at college because of what I actually knew and learned and tried to do and not because I crammed for my finals or because I did lots of extra credit, but because I tried my best and wanted to learn what I was learning.
  
• Made (some) new friends. Kept the old! :) Built lasting friendships through experiences and had some of the best times of my life!
  
• Organized all this stuff only to have it fall apart again, of course.
  
• Realized that I might just really want to be fluent in French.
  
• Allowed myself to fall back in love with music and get really excited about it.
• Oh yeah, did I mention that I'm in a band full of sweet ass musicians? We are not named yet.
  
• Got a faux-new years kiss the hour before the new year from a very delicious hunk of man.
  
• Rang in the new year before everyone else while doing college applications in India
• Actually succeeded in making some great gifts for people and some awesome mix CDs too.
• Got an ass like Bascom. Well, kind of.
  
• Was industrious, was not shy and schmoozed up people.
  
• Was not afraid to ask for help, to speak my mind, and to flaunt my talent and was frequently rewarded for it.
  
• Received one of the "best" scores on a midterm and got part of it copied for the class to read.
  
• Got to do a duet with one of my best friends.
• Sang an arrangement of "Fidelity" in a Benefit Concert for glioblastoma, arranged by Jason Shao.
  
• Got into a really weird collegiate sleeping pattern, hung out late, party-hopped, and friend-juggled
• Was single for some of the time, but taken the rest of the time. Was single during prom, but still had the most perfect romantic evening.
• Went to state for forensics. Won lots of tournaments. Almost qualified for nationals in oratory.
  
• Won 2nd place in a sweet poetry contest and received an actual ESSAY that an ACTUAL poet wrote analyzing MY poems. Talk about the most flattering thing ever :)!
  
• I got my job at the Free Press which taught me a lot about how to write journalistically.
  
• Realized that only I can fill the hole in my life.
  
• Made friends with people I thought were too cool to hang out with me.
• Got Respect. I'm not really happy unless I'm gettin' respect. I felt like I showcased the good things about me a lot, and I think that means I've grown a lot as a person.
• Re-read some of the books I loved as a kid.
  
• Made a total fool of myself, but I think it made me a better person most of the time :)

DISCLAIMER: sorry if this is boring, and sorry if it seems conceited. but really, 2009 was a pretty great year for me in retrospect.