i know, i'll never be lonely. i've got songs in my blood!

i'm trying to keep a better record of my feelings of the day as a part of an initiative to not lose control in the hustle and bustle that is my daily life.

things that i liked today:
-i suppose you readers will tire of hearing this, but i like the amazing stillness and tranquility that comes with bouncing from place to place with headphones on. this feeling is amplified (haha) by the fact that around me there is actually much noise, lots of drama and activity and PEOPLE all around me. but i have created a space of peace within myself, within the sound.

-i like thinking funny little thoughts. things like, "oh chemistry applies to love given the fact that bond distance is the point of time where you are not too close that your negative charges repel their negative charges, and not too far that there's no interaction at all, but you're at just the length that you can maximize the positive to negative charge balance in the most effective way to reduce individual energy." yeah, little thoughts like that.

-i like noticing things that other people did well. like today, one of the daily cardinal comics made an arrested development joke out of the blue. i love that!

-i like knowing and loving the people that live with me. i love becca whose birthday it is today, and i love connie, and the fact that we constantly analyze each other.

-i like having a great conversation with someone i barely know, or someone i just met. it makes me feel that people are really good at heart, and all worth meeting.

-i like to make playlists. i make them for days, seasons, concepts, and mostly, people. when i make someone a mix, i keep it forever. i listen to it and think of them. it's like my own narrative (through other people's words and music) of that person and what they were to me at that time.

-i like it when i get a test back and i go through all the things i actually did correctly. in that moment i think, oh my, i've learned so much. i could do this and i bask in that small delight before i look at the final score and how things conspiratorially stacked up against me.

-i like feeling that there's no end to the knowledge that can be gained and discovered but also at the fact that i could live my life just reading all the books i have now over and over again and i'd still probably have loads to think about. and i'm really not even that into books except for harry potter and random other stuff like wayside school and a series of unfortunate events and freakonomics, shrug

-i love my journalism professor, she's so smart and capable, but also she levels with us and is hilarious, and sometimes uses clips from SNL just for the hell of it. :)

-i like those mornings where i just don't talk. instead, i listen to everything i learn with open ears and no mental commentary.

- i like reaching out to people and having them like it.

i don't like:

-feeling overwhelmed by schoolwork, or feeling like i can't control my own progress.

-knowing i feel like listening to a certain song, but not knowing which song it is. or having that looming feeling that the song i want to listen to doesn't exist yet.

-admitting to myself or someone else that i suck at something, or that i'm not entirely sure of myself.

-the feeling that i want to just do what i want and act how i feel, but realizing that doing such things invites consequences and interpretations i can't control. but i try to remember, "be who you are and say how you feel because those who mind don't matter, and those who matter don't mind." that dr. seuss seemed like he was doing lots of drugs from his illustrations, but he knows his shit, let me tell you.

-feeling like everything in my future is set in stone

-staying up late doing something crazy. :/

:)

i kept walking down the streets, and the sun was bouncing across everything, and there was a song on my lips and surrounding my ears, and i couldn't help but keep this goofy grin on my face the entire day

the west coast is not the same if i'm not with my best friend

there is some chemical reaction that occurs when one is in the process of making a new friend.
it's like an infrared spectrometer is turned on, and suddenly all of your bonds are rotating and vibrating. anyway that's how it feels.

it's so interesting how you can go from day 1 indifference to day 2 interest to day 3 oh my god, where were you before? did you exist before you entered my life?

many, if not most, of my friends i've discovered over time. it's not always friendship at first sight. most of the time, it's more of a growing process. i always like to say that people grow into my life like benign tumors.

you barely even realize that they're there until you look around after a few months, and they're a part of the fabric of your existence, they've somehow implanted themselves into your life. and it's funny because once someone's in your life, they create a little world, right there in the middle of your already fixed structure.  suddenly their ecosystem is linked into yours. every person you have a relationship with has a little narrative attached to their existence in your narrative.

and you just can't undo it. some people get so wrapped up in your fabric that if you remove them from your life, you'll have to unweave all of it, and re-sew it back up (and it will be smaller when that's over). some people are more like sequins sewn on sloppily whose presence isn't really that missed. but most people are patches. they hold you together, and maybe they can replaced, but they'll never be able to fill exactly the same space as the old patch did.

</mushy post> 

these are my confessions

1. just when i thought i said all i could say, my chick on the side said she's got one on the way. full disclosure: this was the first song i liked by usher

2. i take video at most concerts, but then i can't do anything with it because i sing along and it's very embarrassing.

3. i have an obsessive personality. i have a tendency to LOVE things that i like. like, i watch tv-shows non--stop or listen to songs over and over again in one day or start a project at 3AM. i'm not very rational when i'm excited about something.

4. one time, gina and i got in trouble for singing this song in bio class.  we were doing a really good job too. whatever. https://mywebspace.wisc.edu/agni/15%20Utopia.mp3

5. i think i'm the only person who noticed that in the 7th harry potter movie, the lightning-bolted P of Potter in the logo grew an extra ridge.

6.  i believe that sometimes talking about problems just makes them worse. but i also believe that if you think your gripes all the way through about 90 times, you'll bore yourself to death with how repetitive your thoughts are and just move on to something more interesting.

7. words i use that lots of other people i know don't use: "dope" "lolz" (usually not out-loud) "boss" "zomg" (online only as well) and of course "badonk" and "ridonkulous" whateva, i do what i want

8. if i were going to spend a day with any singer/actress women, they would be: regina spektor, amy poehler, tina fey, mila kunis, alia shawkat

9. if i were going to date any fictional men, they'd be: tom from daria, floyd from 30 rock (jason sudeikis), ben from parks and recreation (adam scott), ron from harry potter, jim from the office, michael scott (like the way he is when he leaves the office), michael bluth, marshall from how i met your mother, henry from party down (also, adam scott), sean from boy meets world, ron from kim possible, darryn from as told my ginger, arnold from hey arnold (hey, i was little when i watched that show), cappie from greek, dave (who dated lane for one season) on gilmore girls, gilbert blythe from anne of green gables, that guy from a wrinkle in time with the red hair, michael from the princess diaries (and i met the guy who played him in real life (because he's the lead singer of rooney), and he totally initiated a hug with me! crazy) --> god, i'd date a lot of fictional men.

10. i think that colors matter so much. you might not remember them, but they hit you right in the eye and they make your memories different in weird ways. they affect the way you perceived a mood, and can alter history. when they finally invent time machines, or those "what-if" machines like on futurama, they will change colors of things and see how it changed history.

11. this confessions list devolved into a talk about random things list. ah well.

12. i will always like these songs no matter how overrated they become:
i try- macy gray, somebody to love - queen, diamonds and rust- joan baez, in the middle of the night; piano man - billy joel, faith - george michael, high and dry- radiohead, kissing the lipless- the shins, dream a little dream of me - doris day, or someone else, the best is yet to come - frank sinatra, sound of silence - simon & garfunkel, you're going to make me lonesome when you go - bob dylan, stand by me - ben e. king,  a tisket a tasket - ella fitzgerald, just my imagination - the temptations, strange fruit - billie holiday, ragged wood - fleet foxes, it doesn't matter anymore - buddy holly, lullaby - cat empire

13. singing is the only thing in the whole world that always makes me happy 

a mehpdate

currently i'm miserable with school stuff. so i was thinking, maybe just maybe, i could drop my biology major and just do international studies and a journalism degree plus my pre-med requirements of which i have more than half fulfilled. that way if it's even possible, i can apply to public health school or madison's MD/MPH program, and i could do some kind of public health related strategic communication.

this is all so new i can't stand it. i'm worried though that if i go through with this idea, all of the science i've done will be invalidated. i just want to make the most of my time in undergrad, i want to hone the skills that i'm really, really good at. i'm okay at science, i'm pretty good at best. but what i'm really good at is taking what i know in science and realizing how it applies to the bigger picture. i'm not going to be one of those people who studies one micro-organism forever. so i think i could actually, despite my bad test-taking experiences, become a good doctor if that's what i want to do, but currently, i'm pretty sure i'm interested in something related more to public health, and i'm best at analysis on an in-depth scale and skills related to journalism. but i don't believe in "creating awareness" as much as changing behaviors. i think with something like strategic communication i could try to essentially market better health behaviors and outcomes to people, but also working to change conditions in an environment that structures risk.

i guess the reason i don't want to do a bio major is because i don't want to kill myself. i exist for reasons other than school. i'm good at things other than science. things that also deserve respect for reasons other than getting good grades. i know, yeah, i could put in minimal effort and ace those classes but they're too important for that. i take classes to better myself, not to achieve the bare minimum.

oh god, that club behind my apartment is SO ANNOYING. i can tell the lead singer is way overconfident just because he's probably had a few or 12. i've never heard such a bad rendition of sweet caroline, and i've heard some REALLY BAD ones. he's not even in key.

this shit is bananas

don't let the title of this video deter you from watching it.  this SHOULD be seen. it sheds light on a gaping problem that people seem to straight up ignore.

Miss Representation 8 min. Trailer 8/23/11 from Miss Representation on Vimeo.

don't look down at the chasm, keep your eye on the horizon

i always hope that i can just start typing here and stumble onto something to write about. that's what happens whenever i get the 'feeling' i want to write a blog entry. sometimes i'm legitimately processing something and it feeds its way out of my fingers, but lately there hasn't been one thing on the forefront of my mind. i always knew that if i studied too much, i'd get boring.

things have settled into something of a schedule although everything is different beyond what i could've imagined. at the beginning of this year, i was in a vastly different place than i am now. i feel as if there have been multiple phase shifts this year; maybe this year is about trying on a bunch of different hats- the journalistic hat, the singer hat, the taking-more-of-a-proactive-role-in-my-own-life hat, the i-don't-care-what-you-think-of-my-relationships hat, the yes-i-will-drive-900-miles-to-see-my-favorite-band hat, and on top of that, the i-will-finally-learn-guitar hat.

disclaimer: i don't really like hats that much. itchy head, hat hair, you know the drill.

weird, weird things develop in my life, and little happenchances become reality. the funny thing is that i can pinpoint the decisions leading up to this point in my life, taking an ethnic studies over the summer, for example, or looking for guitarists for our band. my brain always does this thing where it jumps into a let's-do-it mentality. doing things just leads to me doing other things in an exponential fashion... i'm trying to reel it in this hyper-stressful semester.

i don't believe in fate. in fact, i epically don't believe in fate. i believe in controlled randomness. while it may seem like something was supposed to happen, i think it's actually that there are certain things in life that are extremely probable if x situation occurs. i have this creepy ability to call things. but the reason i can do those things is because i'm kind of good at reading people.

isn't it odd that some people notice things that other people don't? what i mean is that each person has a unique set of criteria for looking at the world, and thus they notice different things in their quotidian world. when i walk around, i notice probably 80% the same things as most other people, but that extra 20% could make all the difference. i notice that some people make really hilarious facial expressions when they walk, i monitor the numbers of people listening to iPods and those who are just talking, or count how many people i can pass. those kinds of things. i started thinking about this because i've discussed with people what they like about certain things- e.g. music- and they like different things than i do, and object to different things than i do. for example, i don't like bon iver's voice at all. i find it to be breath-y and i think the whole thing is so low key that there's nothing to latch on to, but someone else who listens to it may enjoy the music for its atmospheric quality, and not find his weird voice to be a deal-breaker. i can't decide other people's deal-breakers for them. (although sometimes i really wish i could...)

going back to the hat thing, i'm striving to be the best me i can be in the student/appreciating-and-gaining-from-my-education/person. i'm confident in myself, i know that i have something great to offer the world. it's a matter of knowing this and matching my actions to this philosophy so that i can be the optimal me- the one that minimizes her weaknesses and amplifies her strengths. that's at least the best example i can set for my brother and the students i teach at the Free Press. that means being proactive, being friendly, reaching out to people, and being creative-- but those are the things i'm already good at. it also means not procrastinating, giving everything my all, putting in the time to teach myself all that i need to know, living and letting live, watching what i say sometimes, and not second-guessing myself too much.

i think there were a lot of things in this post that could've made their own posts.... i'm warming back up, please forgive me my digressions, it's 3AM. i tried to not to stay up this late.

p.s. i'm afraid i might suddenly start liking bon iver like tomorrow. in which case, i'm sorry, and i will post an edit. but as of yet, i don't get what the big deal is. i like music with flourishes and tempo, melodic or dynamic changes that reflect the intensity of life. bon iver's music seems to not have anything jump out of its fabric. 

i miss playing music

something must be done.