reiterating song lyrics and otherwise being inarticulate

lately i've had little to say that's of any worth or any productive worth anyway.
i've been hooked on a feeling (high on believing!) and have just been singing and listening and thinking the same things over and over again. what's funny is that i'm stewing and brewing and not really doing much in the form of doing. anything. i did maybe 3 things this week that i'd say i was proud of. but in contrast to the maybe 134 things that i'm not proud of which are not limited to:

-starting my problem set early and then waiting to 11 o'clock the night before it was due to think about looking at it again
-lying to myself
-overthinking when i said i wouldn't
-underthinking when i said i wouldn't
and it's always the wrong thing that i'm doing the thinking act about!
-exhibiting the fact that i'm stressed in situations where i'm usually calm and collected
-bumping into stuff
-letting someone hinge on my confusion

it just reminds me of the feist song that i'm listening to right now. she says, "ooh i'll be the one to break my heart." she's saying it in the context of a breakup, but i'm saying it in a context of me. i have control over everything in my life, and i'm really the one who breaks my own heart. this isn't even really the case with a lot of people. some people fall for people who give them the wrong idea or something, and then their hearts get broken. no, me, i'm the one who breaks my heart.

sometimes i feel like i'm all talk. i'm always thinking of stuff. i'm always distracting myself into some dream world that exists in this weird musical Fth dimension. i'm always thinking of really good interesting thoughts that i'd be too shy to bring up with the people i want to talk to them about.
i think that all my worlds can be described through song lyrics and poetry-- this isn't true. lately it's been working because i've been holding some rather cliche emotions: the perceived lack of control, apathy, dark humor related to my general hopelessness-- and i know i'm not alone in this.
i've noticed over the course of biocore that people are casually getting meaner over dumber things. not everyone, but i can feel the vibe. and some are addicted to caffeine pills.

 to be honest, the reason i feel like i'm being inarticulate is because i haven't really viewed my life with real honesty in november. i've just been getting by, day-to-day, living the unexamined life. it's not that i don't care about stuff, i care about so many things, perhaps too many. it's that i feel like my life is like a badly written essay that demands structure (similar to the rambling nature of this post.)
everything looks perfect from far away

i hate it when i can tell that i'm being boring, or a broken record. i've been thinking too much about the green revolution and corporations so much that it gets abstracted and i can't even explain it properly (stay tuned for that). and lately i feel like i've been letting it slide when i do something out of line, or mean where i wouldn't before. maybe this is what it's like to be jaded. this is a shitty side of me that doesn't need to have a home here.

it's way too late to be this locked inside ourselves...

so i'm unlocking a little bit.

some things about me that are true.

-if i go out of my way to talk to you, i probably like you a lot more than i let on.
-i'm actually really neutral about a lot of things
-i wish people could read my mind and act accordingly but not as though they are reading my mind.
-there are so many parts of me that i feel i want to improve, but it's hard for me to actually improve. for this reason, i don't appreciate it when people try to predict my behavior, because i want not to be the same me tomorrow as i am today at least in some facet or another. evidently, it does not always work out. changes for me are gradual but real, sometimes as reflected as change in mindset more than a huge shift in actions. i like to do things with the hope that they will inspire me to do other things i want to do, like buy post-it notes or borrow books. i like to surround myself with options.
 -i generally try to avoid helping people when i don't know if i can actually help them. i feel like it's better for us both.
-i have little expendable time. but the time i do have, i do a great job of expending.
-i have a zit on my nose which is in a terrible terrible place because it would be irritated if anyone were to rub noses with me. but rubbing noses is kind of unsanitary.
-i like to walk too fast while listening to music and imagine that everyone is looking at me and thinking i am so cool.
-sometimes i just wish that i'd been a different person so i could do something drastically different in a different place than i am now. i think this comes from a desire to feel what it's like to live somewhere else and to be in a place where people don't know me. i'm sure everyone has the same feelings as i do on this matter.
-i forget what i look like all the time.
-i am pretty sensitive about weird stuff.
-i rarely give up on things, even when i probably should.
-i block things out of my memory quite frequently to avoid dwelling. left to my own devices, i dwell. i need to do things and see people and see the world with renewed excitement everyday in order not to get lost in my own head.

picking battles

there are different types of arguments: there are the kinds that are carefully, methodically lain out, with no clear opponent-- the fight for truth against falsehood; there are arguments created to make way for better, deeper arguments; there are playful arguments between potential lovers; and there are angry, bitter arguments between two people who care about one another very much.


when is the argument worth it? when will it damage more than it resolves? when does a joke argument turn into a real argument? when does a statement of observation become a jab?

where does an argument start from?
it starts from a "difference" that two people have. "having differences" has become a rather stupid colloquialism that connotes an inability to agree on something with the person with whom you have that difference. i think it's dumb because, dur, we all "have our differences."
this difference could be minute like "coke or pepsi" or slightly less minute like "republican or democrat" or maybe still minute like "do you eat your food right away or keep it for when you know you want it?"

what fuels an argument is two things:
1. you feel your side of the argument is legitimately true and you believe that you're right
2. once the argument is started, you want to win at all costs

a little bit of both of these elements fuels a good argument... but i'd say you can characterize by how much these two factors are at play.

so like, if you're exhibiting a 2:1 ratio of feeling like you're right and wanting to win, then you are probably having a structured debate, not unlike those that occur in a high school debate situation. if you have a 1.5:1 ratio, you might be a pretty "good" politician (in that you care more about what's right than winning but if you're a really good politician maybe you want closer to a 1:1 ratio, because in order to achieve number 1, you've gotta be able to do #2.) i feel like the ratios exhibited in most passionate, spur of the moment fights with people you care about is a 1:2 for the offensive arguer. sometimes it's even more in the direction of #2 because the arguer is very often not even arguing about the thing, but the greater meaning behind that thing. they want to get the attention of the other person in some way, by getting mad at them, by being right. oh and the ratios between people who are being playful don't matter really at all.

so where is this coming from?

i guess i just never know where or when to pick my battles with people. this might be because i don't think of them much as battles as they are sharing opinions and putting down evidence for them (that is until #2 takes over). i don't like it when people dismiss arguments before they are fully formed. but i also realize that some arguments are a lost cause, like preferences. (or can you? what causes preferences? to be discussed at a later date.)
i always get all tangled up when people don't share my preferences because i think they just need to see something in the same light as i do and then they'll understand. what i should realize is that our world is richer because people have preferences.
then we wouldn't have people who knit or people who paint or even computers. i think that argumentation can be particularly harmful when one person tries to say what's best for everyone. often, it's simply not what's best for everyone. people are different, they have different modes of operation, different comforts, different weaknesses, different fears.
what i guess i really wish, though, was that people (self included) would be more open-minded about people, places, things and ideas encountered in life. i feel like so many things get dismissed "on" some "principle" that's founded in some preference that someone else has. sometimes it gets dismissed on circumstance... e.g. "i was in a bad mood when i met this person and misjudged him."

enough rambling for tonight, i still have plenty of orgo to keep me warm.

the definition of insanity

is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. - albert einstein

as demonstrated by aarushi, this weekend, and last weekend, and the weekend before that.

will i ever learn? will the benefit of being a good girl early ever outweigh the cost of staying up late on sunday screwed as hell? will i write my global health paper before the day before it's due the day i get back from boston?

more importantly, will i become less selfish? lately, in my attempts to be me-first/independent, i think that i am becoming increasingly self-absorbed.

maybe i'm just pupating

they don't love you like i love you

i am not always the biggest fan of karen o -- but i fully believe in giving credit where it's due. this song, from fever to tell, has this feeling about it that i guess does this thing where it encapsulates a feeling that i think gets had more than people want to say.


she kind of pulls from some really tender place probably located somewhere in her id and she feels like she can say something so upfront and polarizing- "they don't love you like i love you." the idea of simple devotion, care and shared laughter seems so alien these utilitarian days of college life.

i sometimes wish that what i want in my heart of hearts-- which i fully believe is something really unselfish-- could be justifiable or even possible in this universe.
i mean, of course it's possible... anything is probably possible given time and resources and will. but it's really not that easy, and it's really hard to know why you want something and if just wanting something is reason enough to pursue.

all this time i thought that i didn't have a wall up against the world. i thought that others kept people out with their pretend callousness and their cavalier attitudes toward others, but i am slowly realizing that i have slowly but surely and maybe accidentally constructed some kind of barricade against the world. i know because i frequently bump into it when i try to express my feelings to someone or another. for some reason the prospect of showing any weakness or regard for what other people think can seem so daunting.

i need to be nicer

to start, some offensive words
-cock: to describe someone who is a pompous, arrogant jerk. someone can be this and still be a good person.. usually used with a qualifer as in that guy we studied with was kind of a cock but can be used more outright john mayer just seems like such a cock

-turd: to describe someone mildly jerkish as in quit poking me you turd or that's my guac, you turd

sorry to anyone who may be offended by this post. it's a post. get over it.

i really have become a lot meaner lately. maybe it's the fact that all of my time is allotted to doing something. i never do nothing anymore (intentional double negative).

sometimes it just comes with the territory of being honest and sometimes it's in self-defense. but i mean, i get it. chances are if you're my friend, you're my good friend. most of the time, i'm a linking force between people i know (it might be the middle child in me) and thus, people feel like they can rag on me because they know me and if they rag on others it's not as okay because they don't know the others all that well. it's like what they do to relate to other people in the group. and i get that this is probably a good position to be in, and also that i'm sometimes just up for a fight.

i need to stop being so caring. this is what it all comes down to anyway. people never try to mess with people who are elusive and cold. but when i don't care, i'm automatically mean. it's an extinction vortex!

i feel like meanness stems from the fact that sometimes i just feel like i wish people would be more honest about things. i really believe that people would do better to say what they think instead of pretending like they're cool with stuff to avoid clashing with people.

i think it's cowardly to say one thing and do another, to act in a way that's misleading. being nice is not about telling people what they want to hear, it's about telling the truth while minimizing the stress of others. it's about treating others with real respect.

regardless of this, i'm going to burn up into flames because i am goddess sitala and then be reborn like the phoenix that i am and then i'll be super nice to everyone.

also, check out this great music.

I never do as much as I want to do.

Also, I wish I were Salma Hayek. You slay me, beautiful woman.


Apparently, Becca's and my Unrequited Love show got everyone depressed. I'm sorry. Unrequited love sucks for everyone involved... we all know it.  Thankfully, we have our platonic friends and our 30 Rock and Mexican candies to get us through all the hard times and that's all we really need, I think.

It's getting colder outside, which means the layers and the feelings of not wanting to get out of bed ever are back, my friend. Tomorrow I'm going to have a great, productive day. And by tomorrow, I mean today.

Goals for the upcoming week:
-Do well on Biocore Test
-Study successfully
-Finish Global Health Essay and get a better grade than Jason does (So doable if I keep my head up)
-Find innovative ways to look good in cold weather
-Become more aware of political issues
-Brainstorm song ideas for the Rose Lights

i have confidence in sunlight

so... the only way to live such a hectic life is to not second-guess myself.
-i often sing this song to myself when i feel down:


and i remember what connie wu constantly repeats to me:
"no one can make you feel inferior without your consent" via eleanor roosevelt...
 and also what my friend meredith walsh said, "when you're confident, people just think about you more, and you won't even realize it."

i am in a good mood, because i was not too shy to request a couple of things i needed and am now better off! i think we all spend too much time hesitating.

"Human potential is the same for all. Your feeling, "I am of no value", is wrong. Absolutely wrong. You are deceiving yourself. We all have the power of thought- so what are you lacking? If you have willpower, then you can change anything. It is usually said that you are your own master."

"With the realization of one's own potential and self-confidence in ones ability, one can build a better world. According to my own experience, self-confidence is very important. That sort of confidence is not a blind one; it is an awareness of ones own potential. On that basis, human beings can transform themselves by increasing the good qualities and reducing the negative qualities."
Both quotes from the Dalai Lama

it's been an interesting few days at the apartment

in general, i think things are coming along nicely...

as roommates we're pretty close, but we're not insufferably close... it's a little like living with parents, because i feel like connie and becca are always looking out for me, and i definitely stay up the latest and make the most noise, and have the most drama of the three of us. i am also the least initiative taking as it comes to things like cooking, and i'm the instigator of all the apartment hangouts that have happened thus far.

(i'm definitely the baby of this roommate situation, as i am in a lot of other cases-- my band although i think i share that position with scott, and at home, despite the fact that i have a younger brother, and in the lab.)

school has made me busy, busy, busy with purposeful activities, so i'm quite pleased to be quite honest. i'm delighting in the discoveries that make me feel so young, when during the summer, i felt that i'd seen it all. this cuts into my time to explore my hobbies, but i'm bettering so much as a person in such a short time that i almost don't care. living with such good examples as becca and connie is very beneficial for me; i couldn't ask for two roommates that care more about me and offer stimulating conversation.

i just did a little bit of ochem conquering with the help of gina and jessica and jason, and now i'm off to bed to have another busy day. this might be a boring post, but i just wanted to note my feelings for the moment.

i wanna be forgotten, and i don't want to be reminded

here it comes, the raw angst.

i swear, i'm so one of those pathological, use humor as a shield people, and i didn't even see it coming. me? yes, me.
see, it goes back to that idea of self-sabotage. what makes us do things we know are wrong?!


shuck, shuck me.

dare i say that i'm excited for this semester?

i am excited for this semester. yes, i doth deigned to say such a controversial statement and i stand behind it. today was so busy. today was awesome. i mean, not all of it, but it was packed full of life experience and learning, while retaining the sheen of newness that i hope will never fade, although i know it will probably inevitably grow dull.
i woke up at 7 (admittedly much too early) and failed to fall back asleep for long enough to add hours to my sleep-account. i fumbled and put on clothes that weren't the best choice for the day, but i still wore them the whole day through. my "i fought the law" (points if you knew that it's by the clash covering bobby fuller four) shirt and my tight jeans that jason bought from re-threads and then re-gifted to me because they were too tight and had no pocket space (and they were girl-pants.)
i packed a lunch! small triumph. little did i know that it would be delicious despite the fact that becca refused to buy real pepper jack, opting instead for the imitation pepper jack cheese product singles.
i went to organic chemistry and totally zoned out and had nothing to say to my "neighbors" when we were forced to kamikaze "discuss" NMR. that's a class i'm going to fall behind in fast.
failed to make good conversation with guy in my ochem II class that i met last semester in a discussion, accidentally told him that recognizing strangers like him on the street was a "plague" that i suffer.
got a cappucino before going to hindi, amazingly had enough time to do so.
failed at speaking hindi in hindi class but did not fail at making people laugh.
ran into my entire lab convoying to a lab lunch while walking down the hill.
interviewed my friend priyanka for my radioshow, got glimpse into freshman life and into newly renovated chadbourne and best veggie quesadilla i've ever tasted. good till the last bite. did an interview in a stairwell, lent a real authenticity to the reporting.
answered questions in the lecture of the class i have with all upper classmen, professor learned my name, felt intelligent.
drank some kind of caffeinated water beverage on hour-long commute to work sitting in front of terribly obnoxious people who caused me to suffer temporary hearing loss because i tried to drown them out with headphones.
suffered four and a half hours at work with a stomach ache although my boss sang the song that it says on my shirt. ("i fought the law," remember? that was foreshadowing.) apparently he's seen every band from the 70s that is on my iPod at least 309483048 times. very cool.
my dad picked me up from work to save me from staying there until tomorrow, which is now.
went to the radio station, pre-recorded my radio show for thursday.

voila, my 16-hour day. sorry to those who bore with me.

and we're back

school is back in session, la dee da and i am already tired.

between ochem ii, biocore + lab, hindi, international health and global society, lab job and simpson street, i barely have time to feel a little bit insecure before i dive into a nervous breakdown just thinking about it.

already, i have to pre-record my radio show in advance because there is no time on the schedule that becca and i and the studio are all three available.

adding to my stressors is the fact that i have to print out all my readings but anyone will agree with me when i say that binders are the shittiest invention for holding paper for which nothing better has yet been invented, it's a pain in the ass to print stuff. also, my beautiful blue textbook came in the mail today and then my sister saw it and went Ohmygod, you're using the same textbook as me! I got the International edition MUCH CHEAPER on EBAY!! RETURN THIS NOOOW!!! so i live in fear until the international edition comes, next wednesday, the day of my first lab. meanwhile, i have to stare at the beautiful textbook that is pretty and has a nice cover that i just can't have unless i can say bye-bye to a sweet deal.

i haven't even started any of my homework yet. also, i am like 2 or 3 days behind in my lab work for lab. god help me.

30% of couples met online according to Time

i've thought as much about work in the past few days as i should've been thinking about it all summer.

so i've decided to use post-it notes and put them around my head-side of the bed to remind me what i have to do otherwise i'll totally forget.

to-do list for tomorrow:
-get early start, which means go to bed soon
-find ways to drink milk before its due date (i am drinking maxwell house instant chai tea latte right now-- so good!)
-buy eggs, other forms of protein (maybe those pre-cooked chicken strips you can put into salad and also some turkey), redhot sauce (which people don't know is actually buffalo sauce, yum) to eat with non-recalled eggs, and random other foods for jason's birthday celebration
-guilt trip parents into giving some of chobani yogurt stash. maybe just buy some of the strawberry kind since that's the best anyway
-pack lunch
-find bike lock holder thing and summon courage to take bike for a spin (but not tomorrow, no time)
-mail Becca's Mad Men DVD back
-go to work in Gilroy lab, fix problems with plants, read more of paper on aquaporins, become intelligent.

self-sabotage

you know it well.

as humans, we know what's best for us.

for example, if i have a big test this thursday (i don't), i know it would behoove me to study. but instead, i often just procrastinate until i near the point of no return.
why do i do this? maybe i like the drama.
maybe the thought of improving my life or myself in some way summons in me a fear of change. maybe i fear that if i get what i want i'll miss something else, or somehow be unhappy.

i'm kind of sick of this self-sabotage thing. too often do i look at life as a win-lose situation... i think that if i gain something, i inevitably lose something else.
i don't know if that's necessarily true.

lately i've just been in this spin where i waste all my time thinking and worrying about my problems and not doing anything (save a few runs) about it. so many things are fixed by taking the initiative, by focusing outward, by remembering the big picture. i'm always apologizing to people, but the person i really need to apologize to is myself. i can't think of life with this "oh what will they think of me" "oh am i doing this right?" mentality. i just have to figure things out by myself and instead of saying "sorry i made you have to do this," i should say, "thank you for doing this for me."

i need to stop thinking about what i have to say and just say it sometimes. i need to feel rather than think.
i can't just worry about whether or not i have what it takes to make someone care about me. i just have to be someone who i would want to care about.

and who is that person?
that is someone who is kind and selfless. someone who is courteous and gentle. someone who takes pleasure in simplicity, but appreciates and comprehends complexity. someone who sees beauty in roughness and reality. someone who is just friendly. someone who will do something even if the end-result is not clear. someone who is strong enough to ask for what they want. someone who sings to himself despite not knowing the words or the melody. someone who doesn't mind spending a day alone. someone who is innately curious. someone who reads. someone who believes that people are inherently good. someone who believes in love. someone who is content with waiting for what they want. someone who makes the most of things. someone who sees the value in others.

i'm gonna work this new attitude.

does it bug anyone else that...

quaker's steak and lube has the word "lube" in the name and the menu boasts of different types of LUBE you can LUBE up your sandwiches with? cute, but kind of sickening, which kind of goes for the whole place. i got the sauce that was 10X spicier than regular hot, and it wasn't that hot, so pat on the back for my spiceholding capabilities.

sorry for the asinine, boorish commentary, but i paid $4 (for an iced chai) to get on the internet and out of the heat today and I'd like to get my money's worth from this "free" internet. there ain't no such thing as free wi-fi.

so i've grown to really enjoy having the two-roomer to myself. i walk around in my underwear and listen to music whenever i want and boil eggs all the time, having extended my bedroom to include the whole apartment. i watch a ton of daria, but i've finished it as of this morning... also, my bike is in the apartment because i don't want to teach myself how to use the big scary Kryptonium lock yet so i have to step around it to make coffee. as everyone knows, moveout day is in 2 (two) days and cohabitation will commence yet again with becca & connie... two of my best friends, strong women who are very, very different. naturally, i'm really excited to see how this goes. i just feel like it'll be really interesting.

whoa, i've been writing this for a while.

yesterday night, becca and i met michael moscovitz (princess diaries, anyone?) or his real self, robert schwartzmann of rooney. this is the man whose voice narrated each and every heartbreak i've had since 7th grade when i bought their CD. we were at the rooney concert, which was chock full of girls like us, who love boys who sing about breaking girls' hearts. robert totally gave us hugs. good ones, too, that he initiated. point for team beccaarushi. that looks funny.


don't tell me not to live, just sit and putter. life's candy, and the sun's a ball of butter.
don't send around a cloud to rain on my parade!

things i like (fall 2010 edition):
casual friendships. hanging out during the day with nochem hanging over my head. going out to lunch with checca. non-deep conversations. not worrying. falling asleep on a bare mattress with daria. combining words. being happy with myself. the strokes. rooney. the shins. i gotta learn how to write songs like these people. things, like friendship or thinking for example, that are free, but super awesome quality anyway. knowing in my heart that i've got it going on.

things i don't like.
the fact that my id talks before i can stop it, and then my superego has to step in and explain that my id is overactive, and it never makes it better. my beloved 80 gig iPod may or may not be slowly nearing its inevitable end of life. stupid blogger won't let me move around my cursor without use of the arrow keys. moving & everything associated with it. the feeling that i'm not being productive when i could be. oh well. falling for someone even though i should know better.

i wake up every evening

"I'll always be honest with you-- painfully so. All I ask is that you're honest with me, too."

i suck at posting.

i say this not because i haven't posted in a while... it really has not been that long. i say this only because i always start writing a post and then abandon it halfway through either because i'm not sure i want everyone i know to read it or because it feels half-baked in some way.  (also, half-baked ben & jerry's is overrated. yeah, i went there.)

i'm thinking it's better when i'm stream of consciousness anyway.

one of the best things in the world is hanging out with my family, especially my little brother. but i don't know that i can really handle being at home anymore, if not only because there's way way too much food in this place. for breakfast, i ate 3 eggs, half a bowl of cereal (the rest of which i pawned off on chet as any good sister would) while watching fareed zakaria GPS and then reliable sources. fareed zakaria ROCKS, he is very good at interviewing people and getting real answers out of them. he's one of those people that stops CNN from towing the bipartisan line by just getting out the facts. that's because he just really knows his shit about foreign policy. he talked to john kerry and the ambassador from pakistan about the state of affairs regarding the Taliban and the Pakistani govt and got kerry to say that the republicans are putting a huge block in Congress against anything left and it just straight-up sucks more than it ever has before and it's allowing people like China to get ahead on things like carbon credits-- something that's just going to make them even more powerful than us as a world power.

then i went and took a nap and did ochem on chet's bed while listening to his music, (which is just kind of a mix of soundtracks to tv shows and random musical numbers from musicals and beatles... the kid has pretty good tastes in that i don't have to switch the song very frequently). it was the first of two naps. i woke up because my dad had randomly decided to make mango lassi (it's essentially a mango-flavored indian yogurt smoothie) and bring it to me, because it's only like, my favorite indian beverage. so i drank a glass of that, but then papa decided it wasn't mango-ey enough, so he made me another glass. so that was post-breakfast. later, i was called upon again to eat the aloo ki sabzi, which is only my other favorite indian dish in the whole world, which according to my dad is the "uttar pradesh comfort food."
so that was my lunch-ish.
after that, i got distracted because chet was playing the glee soundtrack over the bose system, so naturally, there was a singing-dancing interlude before mom started getting stressed that maybe the neighbors/golfers could hear us because the windows were open and made us turn it off.
chet is like, one of the only people who understands how fucking wonderful a release it is to have a musical interlude. i miss this at college. no one likes it when you sing at college! (except for the gilroy lab.. they've been pretty understanding of it.)

so i went and wasted time on my computer for two hours, but got told i was beautiful/respectable, so that was cool. then i ate again. this time it was beef soup that was too bland so i added salt and crushed red peppers liberally. mom tried to tell me not to put salt in it ("maybe you should try not to....") and then just trailed off because she realized what kind of poor taste decision she was expecting me to make and how she herself would not have been able to follow it. my mom's a doctor so she's just trying to prevent us from all getting hypertension. (but she's also an indian cook, so she realizes how necessary salt is.) apparently, it's a problem for indians because our food is so damn salty, but it's not as big of a deal because in india people sweat a ton more to compensate. this was kind of my dinner, so i ate a yogurt (chobani, holla!) and a chocolate skinny cow thingy.

then i studied again, but had to use the computer, which means i talked to jason more than i'm really supposed to, and then printed off more ochem stuff. then chet and papa decided they wanted to go canoe-ing without me (well, they decided they wanted to go canoe-ing whether or not my studying schedule would make it impossible for me to go) so the whole family left as i studied ochem further. to wake myself up, at this point, i felt really tired. i started to look for ice, because i didn't want to make myself boring coffee, but then found frozen raspberries, and then i got really excited and made myself a raspberry-pineapple-orange juice smoothie. then, as dessert, i had a shitty cold coffee, because our ice machine sucks.  (smoothies consumed today: 3)

 so then i did more ochem, and then i finally gave into tiredness and took a nap, knowing my family would wake me up when they got home. they brought me my favorite type of salad from culver's because they felt bad for me... the strawberry fields salad. (favorite things consumed today: 3)

and now i'm here. gotta go do ochem.

truthin'

if you don't know the word "truth" when used as a verb, you probably never heard the song "these boots are made for walking" by nancy sinatra.  i know this song because my Nana sings it.
she looks so sexy in that video, i pity the fool who lied when he should've been truthing, and samed when he should've been changing.

so i thought i could truth a little bit before i head off to ochem. i gotta use this free internet somehow!

truthing:

-i found a french radio station on iTunes a few seconds ago. it ROCKS. like, for real, it's so nice to hear the french talk. i can totally understand it when it's slow enough. i'm going to get fluent in french. i can feel it. une energie joyeuse c'est positive. mais, aussi la musique n'est pas toujours la meilleure. mais la phrase precedente n'etait pas francais. i'm currently listening to "du contrat social" par jean jacques rousseau.

-you should watch this video. it's hilariously done.  it's part of a project by Joseph Gordon-Levitt of 500 Days of Summer / 3rd Rock From the Sun/ 10 Things I hate about you fame to consolidate the talent of young awesome directors and actors over the internet and make freaking amazing stuff. watch the video, i implore you.  it's exactly the kind of thing i'm into.

-we have neurons in our brain that make us like the music that we've heard more than once. at first, it hates music that seems not to have a pattern it can understand, but soon they work very very hard and decode the music so that we can love it. i learned about that from WNYC Radiolab's podcast entitled "Musical Language,"  which you should download and listen to if you ever get the chance. i've been getting the chance because i work in relative solitude in the lab all the time.

-i have to find more new music to listen to. it's a constant struggle.  i've decided i like phoenix, but  i don't want to make music like theirs. in general, i've decided i don't like the way music encapsulates a feeling that is oftentimes a destructive one, like the one of falling into stupid unabashed first love or the one of dwelling on the relationships you're not in. i think it's weird that our band has no love songs under its belt. the closest thing is "a study in blue" but it's not really a love song at all. it's more about finding meaning.

-i did my laundry by my lonesome last night and made a friend in my building who is a psychology post-doc from chile, who witnessed me drop my underwear no less than 3 times in the puddles in our laundry room due to flooding from the recent freak tornado/thunderstorm.

tornado schmwarning

so... i'm stuck in birge hall, the hall in which i work due to tornado warning stuff that's been happening today.

so of course this is one of those poetic times where you're stuck at the hands of some higher power that has control over you. your 500 days of summer dates get canceled and you're just sitting there at a big computer and thinking maybe probably you should be doing something more intellectual or at least take advantage of this time by getting ahead on seed planting...

no matter. i'm writing a blog entry because how much internet do i really get access to?
actually a lot. despite the fact that i don't have internet between the hours of 7:30 and 10 in the morning on an average day, i still get to use it in crowded, public places from insecure ports. so my knowledge of current affairs has suffered a bit.


i've been trying to think of more interesting things lately...

this was my first weekend spent totally downtown.

with that comes some observation:

-i think i decided that platonic friends are the best kind. since i'm single, that makes that everyone, which is good. this is probably a bad thesis to reach right before my radioshow tomorrow about sexual tension, but whatever.

-it's not a good idea to miscategorize people into different categories than they fit into. in my experience, it's a bad idea to force anything or think of things in a what-if sense.

-i am in birge hall trying to do ochem because kohl lent me his key and i keep hearing ghosts but i don't really mind them that much.

-um, it's like, super easy to forget when to eat. also, it sucks to not have internet. it just does. internet is such a nice thing and i will never ever take it for granted again.


here is a small list of things i'd rather do than ochem:
-join the circus for that tongue rolly thing i do
-become a cruise ship singer
-callgirl for charity
-oh yeah, singer in a band
-walk the perimeter of campus
-go shopping at urban 3 times in preparation for the exam (this i actually did)
-eat indian buffet and make chem-related metaphors to describe my love life