lowercase thoughts

because this blog comes up on google, i can't really name names unless i say something positive, which is upsetting because i think a lot of negative things, but whatever, it's probably better this way, because the more i say negative things, the more people think negative things about you, and to be honest, when i feel negative things, it's really more of a reflection of the negativity i feel around whatever the object of my negativity is. when someone makes me feel stupid, or makes me feel uprooted, naturally, i feel negatively toward them even if they are the best person in the world and they are just being honest.

i am a stupid person, when it comes to certain acts of tact or levels of prudence or this specific habit i have of snatching things, and interrupting people or saying how i feel out loud when no one cares, or standing right in someone's way,  i fail miserably at life, and no one can really respond in any way but ignoring it or saying something like "aarushi, get out of the way," that's when i know that i've done something stupid, and then it's awkward because i should just stop or apologize. usually just stopping is the path of least resistance. it's at these times, i wish i were quieter and less obtrusive.

a weird thing is jealousy. the more you act on jealousy, the more you have a reason to be jealous. i've tried to stop being a jealous person, because it gets you nowhere in life. as far as envy goes, i do that even less, because i actually like being myself, because i think that it's the only way i can really function. i am a person who is empathetic, i am a person who likes to learn, i am a person who cries at something legitimately moving like that one sequence in "Up," and gets too excited when something musically poetic happens. 

something weird about relationships is that in order for a relationship to work, you have to be able to work without the relationship. or at least, this is my opinion. you shouldn't be half a person when the person you're with is not around. a relationship is legit when it is the meeting of two minds who support each other, not two halves of one mind.

about politics. it's complicated, i don't like writing people off, and so i don't want to write off obama. i think he's doing good things, and compromising to get things done. i know that makes him unpopular, but better that he be willing to get a little unpopular to push forward change. i don't agree with each and everything he does in my idealism, but i trust that he has a good idea of what's right.  i don't normally write about politics, because i feel like i have no right to waste the internetspace with my musings about bipartisanship, etc, etc.

maybe i don't want to be a scientist? i love the idea of science, i love the feeling of satisfying a question, finding answers. but i want to answer specific questions, so that they may be enacted in reforms to the world. this semester, not taking an international studies course, i often forget that feeling of justice or injustice that comes with knowing about the bottom billion and the ways that education can build a better world. when i reported on that story for the simpson street free press last summer, about julie bolles and her time in afghanistan building schools, that's when i knew that i didn't want to be the journalist who wrote about these magical changes that mobilized previously frozen populations of oppressed people, but the peacemaker who brought about the change. it's crazy, though, i don't know if i can ever be that person. i feel i have the capacity, but knowing that and doing something about it are two different things.

so as for science, i'd want to use it to fix the problems of disease running rampant through populations of the poor and the uneducated, the forgotten. i would not use it so i could work in an office all day and see patients who are otherwise fine, besides the fact that they need a foot x-ray because they sprained their ankle biking. these people are deserving, don't get me wrong. but that's not what i'm passionate about.

i gotta know the science to do what i want, but to what extent, i wonder? should i go to med school and be a doctor sans frontieres ? or should i get trained in political science? should i become fluent in french? or would it be smarter to become fluent in hindi because i can understand it already?

too many life questions.  i'll be 19 tomorrow.