1+1-1

I think I lost a friend.
I think I did.
I have spoken about her before.
She was the unconventionally conventional girl.
The amazing girlwoman who spiced up my life.
Made me a better person.
The friend whom I love.
She was so slippery to begin with.
So hard to get a hold of.
So hard to find.
Now, she is lost.
Lost to us.
My friend and I thought we knew her.
Apparently, we knew her less that the other girl we thought we knew.
The one whom I lost but did not care.
I do not know what to do to recuperate her friendship.
See, she joined a sorority.
A bad, bad, bad one.
I'm not hating on sororities.
I am part of one myself.
Yet, I have not been engulfed by it.
It has been an addition to my life.
Not my life.
It has made her change in ways my friend and I find embarrassing.
Unclassy.
Un-her.
I hope she has not had to do things she hates.
Feels ashamed of.
I think about her a lot.
I hope she's OK.
I just don't know what to do.
I don't know if she cares about my friendship still.
I care.
Really I do.
I am just lost in what to do.
I miss her.
So much.
So we are two.
abcdefghijkLmNopqrstuvwxyz.

He'll

I am feeling this huge surge of personal strength.
Decision.
Assertiveness.
The "what the hell" attitude.
The "what have I got to lose" feeling.
The "I only live once" reason.
The "what's life without a little embarrassment" motto.
The "What's the worse that could happen?" mantra.
The "I don't think anyone has died of embarrassment" reassurance.
At least, I don't think anyone has.
Hopefully.
I need to research that before I do anything drastic.
My life could be in danger here.
Huge danger.
Life or death.
So, I should look into that.
Oh, and what am I speaking about?
Yes, I'm being a dumb girl again.
I'm speaking about this boy.
A boy I've been wanting to talk to since last semester.
A boy that I happen to see every Tuesday and Thursday.
Not in a class.
The lobby of the engineering center, a.k.a ec.
It's a bit awkward because we never talked in class.
But hell (I hate it how this thing always "corrects" hell with he'll), I am tired of not doing anything.
Of not going for what I want.
This extends beyond meaningless boys (even if they are cute!).
I'm talking about my life.
I'm not assertive enough.
I'm so shy.
So nervous.
I have no reason to be.
I am strengthened through God.
I am not deformed.
I am a capable girlwoman.
I need to burst out of my shell and start taking charge of some things.
Yes, I do.

Sent from my iPad

up in the air

Things I like/have noted about airports (I write this as I sit in jfk and my fligt has been delayed, once again):
- they're religious places. Flying in itself is a religious experience. I can almost always expect to see someone cross themselves or hold onto a cross pendant as we are takig off. This may have to do with the physical closeness flying brings us to heaven, it may just have to do with fear.
-they're places of lonliness as well as conviviality. You see some people putting up their defenses and sitting, eating, reading, surfing the web by themselves. You see others trying to get someone elses attention, in a desperate attempt to make a very temporarily temporary friend.
-jfk is by far my favorite airport. Handsdown beats mia, pdx, lag, lba, sdq, mad, fll, fco, zsa, ord, den...I really like memorizing airport codes

Things I noticed/wrote while on the airplane:
-it's always good to talk to the person sitting next to you. Right now there's an empty seat in between me and this young man and we were joking about how we were gonna take turns sleeping on it...we ended up putting our coats on it. This airplane is about 40 percent empty. Riiiiidiculous (in that way kanye says it)
-my flight to Portland from new York is exactly six hours, if you add the two hours and fifteen minutes that it took to get to new York it is eight hours and fifteen minutes total travel time. 8hrs15mins. Am I really ready to travel that much at least four times a year? (it could be eight if I really wanted to go back to Florida for those on between breaks)   

mother dearest

I read this article (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704111504576059713528698754.html) entitled " Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior" and I didn't know what to think. I heard the end of an interview with this article's writer, Amy Chua, earlier this week and she was not making the same argument that she seemed to have made in this article. She was backing down a little and kept saying that she didn't mean it as a comment on Chinese mothers as a whole but rather as a comment/reflection on her own parenting style and experiences with that.
As upset as I was with this article, I suppose there is some validity in it, though it definitely is a sweeping generalization (fallacy, ms Scott!). That being said, I feel like the methods mrs chua used are not entirely exclusive to Chinese mothers. I can say that my own mom, a Latin American mother, lived up to chua's policies concerning sleepovers, theatre, instrument practices, grades, and body fat. She upheld these policies until she saw how it hurt us, her daughters. Mrs Chua's children must been either a) really emotionally strong or b) unhappy wight their lives to the point of their mother ignoring their unhappiness.
Anyway; I came here to say that and that I'm a bit disappointed in the writer. She was bold enough to write this, kudos to her, but I'm weary ( is that the word I'm looking for) of how she suddenly seems to be backing down from her argument after getting all this criticism/praise. Now I'm going to make a generalization and say that I feel that women do this/ are more prone to do this than their male counterparts and it really upsets me. We need stronger women in the world. I guess it all goes back to those lines that I'm constantly thinking of in the Heidi Chronicles:
heidi- actually, I was wondering what mothers teach their sons that they never bother to tell their daughters
scoop- what do you mean?
heidi- I mean, why the fuck are you so confident?

And I guess sometimes we forget that mothers are daughters too.
Readers, please comment if you have any thoughts, criticisms, remarks or reflections on this. (no, those words do not mean the same thing.)

Ms. Sunshine

I got a text from you today.
It made my day.
I was happy to know that our e-mail exchange has helped you.
Me.
They're therapeutic like this blog.
Journals are nice and everything but you are basically talking to yourself.
Emails and blogs at least give you an audience.
It gives it a little human warmth.
A hope that someone out there cares what we say.
Anyway, it brought a little light to my day.
I've have free time.
Free time to think.
I shouldn't think so much.
It is not healthy.
Doubts and insecurities float up and dampen my spirit.
This all goes back to my personality.
I am a little melancholic.
It's natural, I guess.
I take these times with stride and hope that they won't last.
They really aren't fun.

Sent from my iPad

desperate housewife? metaphor gone too far?

lately i've been feeling like a thirty-something year old housewife.

the kind that drop their children off at school in the morning,

go home, workout, take baths, run errands, go shopping and shopping and shopping--

i mean, after all, it is your hard working husband's money you are spending--

then i pick up the kids and watch a soap opera (read:gilmore girls).

like a young emily Gilmore, that's what i feel like.

i articulated these feelings to matt, who laughed at me and proceeded to tell me i'm on my way to becoming a shopaholic. it's not MY fault i received a million gift cards for christmas, and they must be used, right?.

and then night comes, and i watch the news, and read my books for class that start soon[!!] (btw, Socrates was SUCH A COOL GUY), and fall asleep..

when i left for reed it felt like i was putting my life on hold and going on a vacation. somewhere along the line, i'm not sure where, the vacation spot became home. now, i feel like my life is back there and it is on hold and i'm on vacation here, as a housewife in the suburbs with nothing to do but complain about her great life. arhhggggg

also/ i heard our president say this and decided i want to practice law. what?

We should be civil because we want to live up to the example of public servants like John Roll and Gabby Giffords, who knew first and foremost that we are all Americans, and that we can question each other’s ideas without questioning each other’s love of country and that our task, working together, is to constantly widen the circle of our concern so that we bequeath the American Dream to future generations.

love this

we are all Americans, [...] we can question each other’s ideas without questioning each other’s love of country and [...] our task, working together, is to constantly widen the circle of our concern so that we bequeath the American Dream to future generations

Dear A,

You are currently here...in the same city as me. I miss writing emails to you. This, by no means, indicates that I don't like you being here. I really like you here. It's just so great. Still, writing emails seems to be therapeutic. Since you are here, however, I am going to write it on the blog. So here's the deal: I am followed by people that I do not find physically appealing. I know. It is terrible but I just cannot help being a little superficial. I mean, I am single. Anyway, it is not looking good in that department. Let me show you why. Yesterday, in my dynamics class, I saw the typical engineering center boys. Unclean and unappealing. The professor was her hilarious self though. Anyway, in my differentials class it did not get any better. Neither did it get better in my computer class. Yet! (because, yes, there is a yet!) There is still hope. There was this one weirdly cute guy in my philosophy class and also I didn't have a good look at everyone in my other classes. I didn't notice the cute guy in my physics class last semester until a little bit into the semester. I feel like such a dumb girl saying all of this but w-h-a-t,ever (when you read that it is important that you spell the what in whatever. I feel that it gives it attitude. Thank you). My differentials professor is such a nerd. I think I like him. It wasn't like my calc tres professor who did not seem to have much of a personality. I'm watching a police show and I just can't help finding uniforms so extremely appealing. Anyway, I just don't want to babble ridiculousness and stupidity anymore. Thus, I will end this here now.

With love, your friend who is a little nutty at times,
L

Ps. I was thinking about it and I really enjoyed Annie Hall. Thank you!

Sent from my iPad

And the magic disappears...

Oh, yes.
First two day of classes done with.
I enjoy the first two days of classes.
The uncertainty of new professors.
New classmates.
New rooms.
It's always so fun.
Nervewracking.
I will always be nervous the first day of classes.
Butterflies and expectations.
I just can't help it.
When I was younger, it was worse.
It started days before the first day of classes.
I used to have nightmares of different ways in which the first day of school could go wrong.
One time I dreamt that I was wearing the crispest shirt with the fliest shoes but I was not wearing my uniform skirt.
It wasn't nice.
Kind of freaked me out a little.
I just wished the magic of the first two days wouldn't disappear.
Like footprints in the sand.
Or frozen yogurt.
It would make everything so much better.
Really it would.

Sent from my iPad

confortable

quite possibly the comfiest my bed has ever looked.

levity

youtube videos/songs that perfectly capture the last couple of months:

collective disordered talk

in the dark of the night, alone in the car, alone on the road;

in that no voices i desired to listen to on the radio, i made my own voice pronounced.

recreating the year, month by month, i recounted the story of 2010.

the moments of stress, frustrations, anxieties,

and those of bliss and ecstasy that made everything right again.

i've never believed in resolutions.

i just cannot fathom how a person decides to act in a certain manner for the remainder of a year because [s]he is a person. a living, changing person. constantly learning, evolving, seeing life from a new perspective. resolutions, to me, seem stifling to the very nature of the human spirit. how can you grow if you're expecting yourself to act the same way for the time it takes the earth to revolve around the sun.

i thought. or rather, talked to myself about this as i took the long, winding road home.

instead of resolutions, i gathered observations about myself from this year:

1. i'm happiest when i'm doing what i love. and i love school. i truly enjoy learning. it's nerdy and i don't care. i knew this about myself but i really knew it after talking with other people about their first semester college experiences.

2. i like being in motion. dancing. walking. skipping. running. i'm absolutely fascinated by my [or any human] body and how it moves. i think it's really fucking cool.

3. i'm surprisingly opinionated. though often worried about hurting others by expressing those opinions whenever they are uncalled for. it's a terrible thing. like being a charitable smoker: you give away all your cigarettes, then what are you left with. except i guess in my case i'm keeping most of them to myself, and only giving out the necessary ones. although, i've learned that being polite is often times overrated and sometimes you have to hurt people.

4. i both astound and confuse myself in social situations. i guess i hold a warped image of myself in my mind as the shy 12 year old i used to be, but i'm kind of a social butterfly. oh god, i'm embarrassed by the word and the fact that i'm using, still there is no other way to put it. i'm really not as awkward as i make myself out to be in my head. interesting.

a final observation i made as i sat in the car, parked in the driveway– because the car ride was finally over and i still had things to talk about. not about myself necessarily (i apologize for the obscene number of times i've used the word 'i' here. i don't usually like talking about myself), but about something i've learned this year...or these in these past 5 months to be exact:

home is such a loaded word.

New Year/Whole Year

Oh hey hey.
We have completed a year of blogging.
Un año completo.
Yes.
This is a big deal!
We have not giving up on this.
We have endured, succeeded.
I think this is a good thing.
Yes, it is a good thing.
I don't think I've kept up with something for so long.
Never mind, I lied.
I've kept up with my journals.
But well, this is also good.
I also wish to comment on this new year.
That was a VERY awkward way of stating that.
I wont erase it.
I'm starting to appreciate its awkwardness.
So anyway, this year.
It is a new year.
I am terribly enjoying the fact that a new semester starts.
A new semester full of surprises.
New things.
I will repeat my first class.
I will get my first internship (God willing, of course!).
I will be 21.
This is a good year.
A year of awesomeness.
A year were the foundation, our foundation, will become huge.
(By the way, VISIT: www.funpavi.org)
Yeah.
I'm feeling good about this.
(Even my room started clean!)
Oh hey hey, this is good.