tell me something i don't know

a certain population of my friends (i have so many friends, don't even bother guessing,) is obsessed with google analytics. they use them to track who is looking at their web-posted information, like blogs or whatever, to figure out WHO is viewing their content.

like with crossword puzzles, i kind of missed the analytics boat. i mean, yeah, it's a good use of time when you've got nothing else to do, and there is something intrinsically valuable about them, but at most points in time, it's just time that could be spent thinking about something else. there is something nice about people checking in on you without talking to you about it. you can't really put a price-tag on that, i suppose, but there is also something to be said for the fact that they haven't said anything to you about it. as a somewhat empirical person, i try to set more by what people say and do with me that proves they were listening to what i was saying.

i'll admit there is something insidiously interesting about analytics, of course. they are interesting when tracking how many plays my band gets on its bandcamp, but become boring when confirming obvious facts like the fact that no one besides perhaps 3 people who are close to me (and my parents and brother when they google me) read my blog. (also some random spam people and indian people who google my name) and yeah, it would be a little more awesome if you could google analytics your facebook page and find out who was looking at you.

i think i would prefer analytics if it measured things i participate in say if there were analytic data about my conversations with people in person. it would measure useful things, like
% of eye contact
average interpersonal distance
frequency of interaction
duration of average interaction
amount of self-related pronouns used in conversation
amount of times they used my name in conversation
amount of times i used theirs
amount of times i used the word "like"
posture, position
pitch
audibility

you know, useful shit like that. i think that would be the holy grail of analytics, because i'm pretty sure people are kind of obvious if you pay attention to those types of things. there should be a rule that everyone has to tell you if they're reading your blog anyway. 

There is nothing for me here anymore.

That has been the resounding cry permeating my life as of late. I have this thing where I self-isolate and I don't include myself even in the what I am included in. My passions are far-reaching, but somehow remote. I have somehow compartmentalized every part of my life to the point where I am only somewhat included within them and not immersed in anything fully. I feel like I'm playing hard-to-get in everything I do, whether it be making my room a temple, or making plans with the people I care about, for example.

It confuses me that everything goes on without me. Coming to this realization has catapulted me into even greater withdrawal, and self-isolation. I have a headache, I can't write this anymore

sometimes failure is just failure

sometimes, you should just stop

bring me a dream!

me: hey

 becca: hey what's up

12:54 AM me: not too much gonna go to the old sandman

  and sleep with him

  or something

 becca: yeah i was 'bout to do the same

  we're tight me and that sandman dude

  he came to me earlier today, too

 me: hands off sister

 becca: i think he has a thing for me

  he like, visits me during class and stuff

 me: we have this mad crazy chemistry

  it's like we want each other

  but like, we're both too afraid to say so

12:55 AM becca: well, for all the time you spend avoiding him at night he's probably getting the wrong idea

 me: i have priorities

  i can't just wait around for him

12:56 AM he always comes to me in the end though

 becca: too far

  goodnight

  :D

  sleep tight

  hope he brings you good dreams

  hahah

  i'm exhausted, srrsly i gotta sleep

 me: he practically won't let me get up in the morning

 becca: oh yeah, i guess you guys do have that special time

 me: hehehee

 becca: that morning time when he won't let you go

  he's like

  obsessed with you or something

  whatever

  GOOD NIGHT

12:57 AM sandwoman

 me: night!

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.

people in my life

the people in my life often upset me, in unspoken ways.

i never talk about it. part of me feels that it's a storm in me that will pass, and part of me feels that it's a storm within the other person that needs to be dealt with before i can pass judgment. i tend to think these that petty fights and unspoken tensions are transient, when in reality many of them are structural problems. 

to clarify, what i'm talking about is those points of contention that people who are close have, those points that they don't talk about. in my life, i feel like the healthiest relationships i have are with my brother and with that person- the person who was my boyfriend, but isn't anymore- or whatever you call it. 

the reason for that is that i feel i can say whatever it is i'm thinking to that person, and still have their respect, and their love, because i know that they will never question my essence, the fact that i'm inherently someone worth caring about. in that way, i feel that some people just lend themselves to being confidants. you feel like you can just open up your heart to and have them listen, and care, and you will know that they care because they don't get angry with you for feeling the way you do, but they will still slowly jolt you back to reality, toward what is right. you know that they care about you because they demonstrate the fact that they have thought of you, not in a superficial, i remembered your birthday type of way, but in a i noticed you sneeze when we go camping, so i brought benadryl just in case. 

 

but some people you could tell just about everything to you, but there will still not be the feeling of deep caring, of carefulness, and of thought. maybe you're afraid to get too close and realize it wasn't real, or maybe you're just two people living your lives away from each other, but still warmly. 

some relationships have space built into them. some people in your life maybe never got too close, or aren't close enough to talk about what's weighing on your heart with. some people, you might be able to tell about your worries and your joys, but you still can't admit to them that you love them.  some people can go away for days without you missing them or without them missing you, but when you see them, you enjoy each other. and some people you miss, and they miss you too, but for some reason, you've forgotten the words to be able to let them know it.

i wish i always had the courage to tell people how i feel without the fear of them judging me, or telling people when they hurt me without fighting with them, or expressing my love sincerely instead of through teasing and humor. 

i wish i could interpret distance as something other than a reflection of another's regard for me. i wish i knew if it was just stormy season or a stormy climate. 

This is a downtown thing.

So I was looking for this blog, and I made the wonderful mistake of using dot com instead of dot org and stumbled onto this sexy thing (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXnd8DoCPpk):

This is another one of those pieces of culture that makes me want to go to New York and live out my fantasies. Jelly Jells is a multi-tasking New York-based musician, who has his own record company and DJs weekly/nightly in addition to this project, as well as a band called the Harlem James Gang that was on America's Got Talent (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKHdEz2iLyA):  

 

Obviously the music is fresh, but the ambition is more refreshing. I guess being on holiday has made me long for something fresh in my home life, and I love the idea of someone taking a good idea and running with it-- I love the idea of building an empire up from the ground, fired by the fuel of one's own passion.

*Check him out http://jellyjells.tumblr.com

*Check out the incarnation of my passion, The Rose Lights.

reflections on my ethnic studies

so i'm taking a class.

journalism 662: mass media and minorities not only fulfills my ethnic studies requirement, but also serves as a bridge over which I could amble toward journalistic study. it's really an excellent class, and i've been learning about stuff that i'm actually interested in in a real way. that is to say, i'm learning about stuff that i might have already given a damn about before entering the classroom. it appeals to me because caring about what the media does is often deemed a frivolous activity that should be cast aside in favor of studying subatomic particles or something, but this class gives it importance.

if you think about it, media portrayals are really important because they reveal how the power structure and the artistic elite view the world and its history (usually in a really racist, bigoted way). because of this class, more than ever, i feel like those responsible for the dissemination of information are among the most powerful people in the world. they have the surreptitious and sometimes insidious power to shape opinion by presenting sympathetic portrayals or stereotypes. this is especially true when there is little exposure to the group of people or subject being represented.

take for example, my changing views about sexual orientation, specifically "gayness" as i was growing up.
i remember my first exposure to homosexuality. my mom took me to her co-worker's house for a mary kay party when i was about 10 years old.
as we slipped in, my mom nonchalantly whispered to me, "oh by the way, ____ is ____'s partner."
"like her work partner? i thought you were her work partner?"
"no. they're romantic partners."
"WHAT? that's... gross..." i said, barely understanding what was going on. i had heard about gay men, but not gay women. i had thought they were fictional anyway.
"NO." my mom said, "it's not gross. they are in love, and they have a daughter."

i still thought it was kind of gross (even at that age not understanding what sex was and that people did it routinely,) but i shut up about it and played with her partner's partner's daughter from a previous marriage. i asked her if it was hard, and she said, at first it was hard to explain but now no one really cares, and i said, "that's cool." she had two moms, one of whom made good-tasting cheese-cupcake-looking-things and was really nice.

we spent the rest of the afternoon putting on makeup and my mom's co-worker's partner told my mom her eyes were sexy. my mom bashfully said, "oh, nonsense," but i piped up in whole-hearted agreement and then said something attention-seeking like, "..but we have the same eyes!"

i didn't think much of it later, except to whisper about it to some friend at some later date. i remember it being like a dirty secret i had to hide away. the whole idea seemed so austere, so unlike anything i'd ever encountered. it wasn't until i watched degrassi that the whole matter of gayness came up again.

say what you will about degrassi, it broke down barriers in the agni household. yes, it's over the top. yes, sometimes the dialogue is silly and forced. yes, their canadian accents are funny. but it also shed light on a lot of things that i would've been embarrassed to think about. like getting your period, or thinking about having sex, or whatever. they talked about condoms and bullying and cutting and a whole bunch of other stuff.

it was this show that replaced all the fuzzy cotton contained in my brain about gay people with solid facts and empathy. i watched as the character marco struggled with his sexuality, how he wanted desperately to fit in, to date this girl that he felt nothing but friendship toward, how he couldn't reveal this part of himself to his own family, and how he dealt with bullying when he finally came out. this show did more to educate me about human sexuality than any health class ever did. it humanized gay people, who had previously been reduced to some freak novelty in my childish mind. it wasn't my fault either. other than marco, there were no portrayals in the media i consumed, and no gays that i knew from my community.
after more portrayals and encounters... theatre experience and bend it like beckham in particular had effects on me ("but you're indian!")... questions of orientation just kind of brushed off of me, it no longer had great importance in my life.

it was later that i noticed gay people were all around me and i realized i didn't really care what sexual orientation a person was unless i wanted to get sexy with them. after having several people tell me they were bisexual, i just kind of stopped keeping track. i'm not trying to be insensitive.. it just seemed to me a fact of life that some people like boys and some people like girls and some people like both, and this fact is mutually exclusive of their gender. that is not to take away importance from the LGBT community at all.

i've talked to my brother about this too and he agrees that the sympathetic portrayal of a gay character marco on degrassi also made him understanding and sympathetic of homosexuality as a whole. i think people don't even realize how media depictions affect them. if you don't think that's true, think of what you know about native americans, and who they are. is your image accurate? would you even know if it is?

i know that i for one do not have any knowledge on the subject due to a lack of research and/or personal encounters with native americans, but i cannot say that every person with the same amount of exposure would claim the same thing.

a similar logic can be applied to africans and their media portrayal. i still hear left and right the racist sentiment that african conflict is fueled by some kind of primitive 'tribal hatred;' this is a direct (and absurd) result of rhetoric perpetuated by mainstream media stereotyping and stupid talking heads in the political arena that use such stereotypes to leverage agendas of inaction.

the problem with media is that it makes you feel like you know something about someone, when you don't, especially in this day and age where people feel like experts for having read an article on some subject. the best media can do is to portray any kind of minority in an individual, sympathetic manner, instead of reinforcing some negative stereotype that feeds directly into the minds of the ignorant and impressionable.

note: here i've talked about tv, but stereotypes are reinforced by the news, film, magazines, books, and advertising. (...duh.) even if you don't watch a ton of tv, you are probably still very affected by media portrayals.

nonsense

things much haven't been going. i grammatical sentences make not. why bother? it hot be and i roast.

the first sentence of this post is ludicrous. things much have been going, episodically. but not much of particular interest and importance to a reader of average attention span. can you believe that i am not approaching this post with a thought process but merely a series of micro-decisions occurring at each word birth?

i think so.

i shall see this again on facebook in approximately half a month. facebook sucks.

situations that stress me out, make me question humanity/the universe

this is basically a list of situations that give me the heebie-jeebies.
DISCLAIMER: anyone/everyone/I can be guilty of some of the person-related pet peeves, so no offense meant to anyone.
DISCLAIMER 2: this post might be boring/poorly punctuated. that is because i'm sick and my life is that of a bum.

-when your parent thinks that he/she will be nice and give you an ice cream sandwich in the wrong flavor and force you to/watch you eat it, and then decide they want one too and go get the flavor you would have chosen had you the autonomy and commence eating it in front of you, while you watch and wish you'd never eaten the damn ice cream sandwich at all

-when you are talking to a catch of the opposite sex and they ask you about yourself and things are going really well, but then you see your boss/your friend's mom/a teacher you didn't really know in high school and they make eye contact with you and interrupt your conversation and you have to exchange pleasantries until you can politely go back to your old conversation, for which all hope has already been lost thanks to the interruption

-when someone takes a bite of something of yours in your early stages of eating it and braves uncharted territory. this means, they start eating the hot fudge that you have meticulously eaten around to save it for the end, or they break the crust on the bottom of the pie/chocolate mousse parfait, thereby denying you that satisfaction. i mean it's YOUR dessert for god's sake. hasn't anyone heard of boundaries?

-when people plan a future party at a current party/discuss a previous social event that not all those present at the party were invited to in retrospect --> rude. similarly, when someone was at an event but not in any of the event pictures, pretty lame. fire your photographer. sometimes people need to realize that not everything is them-related.

-one-text conversations. similarly, three-text conversations. actually, text conversations.

-when one person is talking in a group and obviously no one is listening and then their voice just gets softer and softer and fades out

-couples that only pay attention to each other, even in public, even at parties, who leave to go talk to each other, be alone together inappropriately often or for inappropriately long periods of time, alienating everyone else who doesn't happen to be inside their relationship

-being the only person in a group with a certain opinion, and feeling like you have to represent everyone of your opinion. "Well Glee is actually a really good show, so what if it's over the top! It lives up to its NAME! You should give it a chance!"

-when people exclaim and declare their hatred of the one and only thing that is being served at a party. "oh chocolate, gross! i just hate chocolate! you should've considered making a caramel souffle!" if you don't like chocolate, or vegetables or something, you should consider that other people don't hate totally awesome things and shut the fuck up.

-when you have a birthday, special event coming up, and X person asks you what you want, putting you in the awkward position of being like oh, nothing! everyone knows the rules are to be a thoughtful friend and demonstrate that you care.

-making a personal comment about someone in front of a group, as if their feelings don't matter, as if you're not like shining an abrupt unwanted spotlight on them.

-when you google something and it becomes clear that all of the results contain the same information plagiarized from the first source, rephrased in different ways

-when everyone you know likes something and it just makes you want to hate it

-when someone rips on something I like and I actually want to punch them in the face because I like that thing so much or even if I don't like something but I completely believe in its right to be liked and respected and not ripped on. especially if it's like some broadway singer singing a really difficult ballad beautifully and effortlessly. then some bro is like "this sucks!" and i'm like are you kidding me? could you do this? should this person be rapping? JUST cuz it's not your thing DOESN'T MEAN IT'S NOT A THING. show some respect.

-every time a class is about to end and large amounts of people noisily pack up before the bell rings, i want to kill those people.

-when you fall in love with someone who is completely wrong for you and you have to lie to yourself to keep it at bay by controlling yourself and everything around you.

-when you do the little work, and get rewarded for it. life's not fair.

i die fast in this city, outside i die slow

so i've written a few posts that haven't really panned out and thus have gone unpublished.
and here you thought, aarushi's blog is so stream-of-conscious! she just writes whatever she thinks ever. not so, my friends. it's actually all very scripted like those reality tv shows where humiliating acts of depravity are theatrically reenacted for the cameras.

whenever a post is filled with inside jokes or is otherwise unintelligible or half-formed i try not to post it. but i don't really have any hard-and-fast rules, or really a filter. feel free to disregard everything i've ever said.

BUT ANYWAY.

i am up very late again, and i don't know who to blame (myself). i just can't get my thoughts to quiet down and hence, blog entry. the amount of confusion i'm having about what to put into a blog entry is implicative of the fact that i don't have enough stories to tell, or enough mind to think interesting thoughts at rest.

 i don't know what's wrong with me, but i am constantly thinking of how bad i am at thinking of interesting things. others would call this being bored. but it's not boredom as much as it is a lack of interest in the world and a sort of reversion into pre-existing thought ruts. alas.

it is not untrue that there are a million things i find interesting. the problem these days is that i have not been excavating them. after the whole sri lanka trip fell through (public health + immunosuppressed body = no public health for you missy), all of my big ideas have kind of lost momentum.

maybe it's this country.
petty, i know, to blame geography. except that it's not petty, tom.

like it or not, geography is intimately and weirdly connected to how the entire world lives- a fact that i realize is both duh-worthy and profound. it is geography that inspired the europeans to colonize the uncharted world, and geography that kept china from doing the same. (the british didn't have anything in terms of natural resources and not that much in terms of manpower, so they had to search for there supper.)

geography and water decided where the hubs would be, and decided that pretty much no one lives in wyoming. it is geography that makes some white people obsessed with tanning and indian people crave fairness of the skin.

geography decided things like the placement of the rivers that gave rise to the movement of (lots of) people to the water sources that gave rise to cities, where so much happens thanks to the thousands of people that built stores and businesses and started families, and specialized and innovated and created centers of entertainment.

well that was a weird digression. what i meant was that i'm craving a place where the concentration of life is higher. i want to go some place that's the opposite of wyoming, and most certainly the opposite of the american midwest where i live with an IV hooked from my arm into the computer, where i'm addicted to the comfort and amenities of medium-sized town life and the friendships i've had since childhood and the destination of medium success and a relatively small sphere of influence. some place where i engage with people every day, some place where there is bustling and noise, kind of like india.

becca is in kenya right now, and the thought of it induces flashbacks to my summer trip to india circa post-junior year of high school. everyday i'd come home exhausted with so many thoughts in my head. but not the achey can't-sleep-but-want-to-but-haven't-mentally-tired-myself-enough kinds of thoughts, but the discovery, confusion, exciting thoughts, like what is normal here and how is it different from my normal? and isn't it amazing how little you really need to be happy and invigorated? 


those days i couldn't shut my blog thoughts down. and i was doing things and i was helping things out. i never want to become a selfish jackass who just pads my comfortable lifestyle with blue-ray discs and copies of the new yorker. fat talk, i know. i fear not being able to live up to my own high-brow, snot-faced aspirations.

as much as i claim to embrace change, i also fear it intensely. that's normal i guess-- i don't want the good things to go away. it's funny though, because sometimes i do want better things to replace them. i just... can't decide what.

hello opportunity cost, my old friend

here we reach the impasse we always reach. where will i take the leap?

my brain and tongue just met and they ain't friends so far

i sometimes try to take an inventory on what makes me happy so that i can figure out what i really want to do. to be honest, it's very difficult. the semester always ends leaving me with this feeling of non-closure and an empty space of time ahead of me that i'm supposed to paint with life experiences. every time i'm faced with time, it forces me to ask myself why.

why do i give up my soul for school, why do i take difficult classes, why do i go through the motions and why do i submit myself for judgment in this system? jaded thoughts, i know. school is wonderful. education is wonderful. you just sit there and people just tell you stuff about your world and you are free to just sit there and soak up new knowledge. it is incredible, don't get me wrong. it's just that i thought all this learning would bring me closer to knowing who i want to be and what i want to do with myself.

WHY do i do anything? and WHAT do i want to be? what even makes me happy?

i initially was going to be a journalism major, a track that i might be returning to. i was always drawn to the idea of being a journalist because i can turn a phrase with the best of them and because i can sort out complex ideas and lay them in order. i'm beginning to question whether i can even do that. i turned away from this endgame when i began to feel that being a journalist implies spectatorship and not being involved with the action, and i might just spend my life regurgitating stories while my ass gets cushiony, or giving up and making a last-ditch attempt to write a book when i'm forty-five, jobless and lonely.

in high school i began to see the appeal of science. until this point, i'd never thought about it at all. it was when i took AP biology that i realized that i was good at science and above that, it fascinated me. it was tangible and measurable-- the idea that our body is this system that works, that we can depend on, that has evolved in a way that maximizes efficiency, an efficiency that technology can't hope to emulate as hard as it tries.

...but i wasn't an automaton about it like some of my peers. i've never grabbed onto the idea of systematically learning/memorizing stuff and applying it and being tested on it and moving on.  i'd never been good at studying-- i'm still really not. this changed a lot in college as it became easier to want to study things, but still i feel i'm not winning at my game. i fear most that i'm burning myself out with my plethora of interests, my constant need to have more than one job, my failure to have hobbies other than singing in a band and watching online television and doing a radioshow, my thoughts that are constantly about people, even though eleanor roosevelt thinks that only small-minded people are concerned with other people (this thought ALWAYS occurs to me whenever i think a thought about another human being, and i'm just like, "Shut up dead Eleanor, you don't know me!")

more and more, i start to feel like the only way to really do anything great is to singly focus on that one thing. immerse yourself, learn everything about it. the fact that i know a little bit about everything and spread myself thin thinking about lots of things will not serve me well in the afterlife. the aftercollegelife, that is.

it's funny, but sometimes i think the only thing that consistently pleases me in life is watching television.  i get so involved with the plots and the humor and the characters and the writing. and i wonder if maybe i'm overlooking a fantastic life as a comedian or a script-writer for television. but just because i enjoy television doesn't mean i'm any good at writing it, and i'm already too old to go audition for things and make a name for myself, without doing something that will make my parents disown me like moving to new york or something. plus, all the people who are hilarious on my tv, they all started out doing stand-up. i'm funny and i could probably even make up and memorize a monologue, but nothing could ever prepare me for the torture of playing a silent room. i think if that ever happened to me, i'd just launch into an a cappella of bohemian rhapsody. what else could i do?

the only major i feel sure about is international studies, which is funny, because i might drop it to pick up journalism. i love how focused it is in boiling down current events. learning something in one of these classes just makes you a better citizen. it's true. although it gets unnerving how much you have to learn about global warming and how there is such a large probability that your teacher is biased or a hippie or both.

ah well, i promise i will not waste this time i have been given. i promise i will use it to make myself better in some godforsaken way. maybe i'll find a biocore syllabus for next semester and do all of those readings. or cook. or languish. alas.

let me go

there's something oddly empowering about getting over something or someone. it's like the knot that clenched your heart together was loosened, and you could breathe freely again. there's something about being stuck in a phase that gets grating after a while. thinking the same thoughts, reviewing the same notes over and over again, memorizing everything back and forth, and not even being graded on how freaking well you have learned your subject. but then one day, you think through it all. you expel it all from your mind like you're taking a huge ass final, and after thinking it all through, you're like "meh. whatever." </poor metaphor that purports universality when this phenomenon probably applies only to me>

i am one of those people who perpetually enters and exits phases. no week is the same. every time i hit a phase i'm like "this is it! this is the one thing. this ends it all."

but then inevitably, i change my mind, i decide i'm not feeling it anymore after a couple of ruts, and then something else strikes my fancy.  i'm not trying to say i'm flighty, because i'm not.  it's just that being stuck in the same place for so long is unhealthy for me -- i want nothing less than i want stagnation.

oh by the way, i'm 20. i was a little over being 19, but it seems so strange to no longer be a teenager. now it seems that i'm old enough to read ladies' magazines like cosmo or vanity fair-- but i am probably not, since none of those articles apply to my generation, and they all spew this asinine pseudo-feminist dogma about how women are supposed to act that in fact just re-boxes them in, alongside advertisements for beauty products. 

i think i'm growing less and less afraid of taking matters into my own hands, and of making friends. i've become more honest with myself about the qualities i really enjoy in others - and although sometimes it is disillusioning to think that i haven't encountered yet that which i want to do, or haven't yet realized it, i think it's out there, and it seems that the more i acquaint myself with the system (that is- the world and what's out there), the smaller the gap is between my hypotheses and my knowledge.

but getting back to my original point, about getting over things...
it stresses me out that everyone seems to want to just know what they want to do, or like, who they want to marry right away. of course, yes, those are probably good things to want to know. but i feel that sometimes it's better just to bounce around (responsibly), and try many things on before settling on what's best for you. setting your heart on something that you won't get is stupid, and setting your heart on something you don't actually want is also stupid. i firmly believe that you have to know yourself well to know what you want, and most people at my age have only scratched the surface of themselves. (figuratively. but haha nevertheless).

so i guess the biggest revelation that came from turning 20 is the realization of my own youth... despite all my advances in knowledge, i am still not close to knowing what i really want.