It pains me to say that I love Aloe Blacc's music, especially when he has a song called "I Love USC (I Hate UCLA)." Considering his Trojan history, his song "I Need a Dollar" is rather ironic, no?
It appears as if I need a lot of fixing recently. For one thing (okay, probably the only thing), I've misplaced my health and I don't know when I can expect to get it back. My stuffy nose, incessant cough, and lost voice are making my life unnecessarily difficult. In spite of this, I'm excited. Big changes are happening- new quarter, new job, new people... and I love it!
I can understand the comfort people find in routine. The unknown can be scary. But ultimately, I live for change. I like challenges. I like learning new things. I like gaining life experience. Change is inevitable, and I feel lucky that I can embrace it.
I'm not sure how it's possible for me to be so optimistically focused about the future while having a tendency to overanalyze the past, so I guess I'm living some sort of paradox. The end result: Being so tired and not being able to sleep. I have a million thoughts that I'm trying to wrap my head around. How do I fix this?
And because I love quotes, here's some food for thought:
“And in the end, it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years.” - Abraham Lincoln
How do you know which people are going to be in your life temporarily, and which ones you'll be in touch with forever? (Forever meaning more than just the occasional "hey, how's it been?" on Facebook.)
See, I'm quite fond of a lot of people in my life right now. I share friendships with them that take so much time to develop. I don't want to lose them. And yet I can think of plenty of people who I truly cherished at one point, and are now practically strangers. That's just life I guess. Everything that's worthwhile takes effort.
I was recently thinking about a friend who I now have very little in common with and who I can no longer even call a friend. At the time, I was academically-oriented and absorbed in my own life, and he was driven by his own hobbies and passions, and our different ways of going about life left us disconnected from each other. That disconnection made it easy for us to stop being friends. I know I couldn't have predicted the fate of our friendship, but I wish I had told him how much I admired him for having genuine talents. I wish I had encouraged him in his passions instead of being so absorbed in my own. Maybe it could have salvaged our friendship.
I wish I could express my thoughts to the people who have impacted my life and yet are absent from it now. I would have a million things to say. I guess for now I'll have to settle for the occasional "hey, how's it been?"s.
I was looking through old family photos and came across this. Easily one of my favorite pictures ever. Just me horsing around with my big sis. I can tell I was really happy at that moment because of that double-chin thing that I always get when I'm laughing really hard (not cute).
It's weird to think about the past. If you could live life all over again, would you? When I think about the countless things I wasted my time and energy on, I think I would, in hopes of making better decisions. But when I think that every seemingly insignificant event has made me who I am today, I guess I'd choose to not relive the past. I'm happy now, so that counts for everything, right?
I just wish I could stop with the coulda, woulda, shouldas. Has anyone ever told me that I over-analyze everything? I don't think anyone has, but they should.
Can't explain exactly why, but I'm happy. I've had a pretty good week! It's about time my good karma points got cashed in.
I'm sitting in the living room doing research for an interview tomorrow morning and listening to drunk people walking by outside. For someone who usually hates being alone, I'm extremely relaxed. And content.
I was talking to my dad last week and he said something to the extent of, "I'm so glad Monday is March 1st." And then we turned to each other and said at the same time, "I HATE February." We had a pretty good vent session about why we hate the entire month and always have. Even just looking at the blogs I wrote in February (literally last week), I was pretty distraught, emotional, and overall crazy... so I'm blaming it on the essence of February.
Maybe it's all in my head, but I feel like good things are just waiting to happen. I'm going to fully embrace my optimistic feelings. They're rare.
"Life is a battle between the limbic system and the neocortex."
- Dr. Arnold Schiebel, Professor of Neurobiology at UCLA
The limbic system supports emotion while the neocortex is involved in reasoning and conscious thought. It makes perfect sense. I can credit this fun trivia to Sarah, who always quotes this whenever I expressed my frustration with a particular situation.
I've come to the realization that I insist on living my life the hard way. My family always reminds me of this. I often know the outcome of events and still insist on "figuring it out" on my own. It makes me feel like the kid who touches the hot stove to see if it's really hot or if mom is just BSing. It's exactly like that. Why don't I ever just say "Fuck it, I know this isn't worth my time"?
Why is it so hard to turn away from things you know are toxic? Is it just part of being human? Part of life experience? Do other people knowingly make stupid decisions like I do? Is there a method to my madness?
How do you control your emotions before they control you?
The funny thing is that I've always thought of myself as someone who tries to rationalize their feelings. It's something I've always prided myself in. When I control my emotions, I don't feel vulnerable or exposed. It makes people think everything rolls off my back, but nothing ever truly does. Recently I feel like my emotions are getting the best of me. They're clouding my thoughts, affecting my judgment, dictating my actions.
I don't know if I've had a particularly hard day, or if I've just reached my breaking point, but I feel like I'm going to explode. When I analyze elements of my life separately, piece-by-piece, it's not so bad. Collectively, it's too much for me to handle.
It's not how you start; it's how you finish.
And it's not where you're from; it's where you're at.
Everybody gets knocked down,
Everybody gets knocked down,
How quick are you gonna get up?
-The Hours, "Ali in the Jungle"
I heard this song in a Nike commercial and was intrigued. I really like it and its message. (There's a much better music video to go along with this, but Youtube won't let me post that version.)
Got a lot on my mind. What else is new? That's not a complaint.
I'm struggling with a bit of writer's block so I asked Sarah what I should write about. She offered the following suggestions:
"Umm, write about how you don't like Ke$ha.. or how your hair falls out when you shower and straighten your hair... or about how you were going to go to gym but then didn't."
I'm not taking any of her suggestions.
Anyway, I've been thinking a lot about my future and post-grad plans lately. I went to the Career Center on campus last week and Xeroxed tons of pages on internship opportunities in SF and NYC. And this past weekend I looked on Craigslist at apartments for rent in both areas. The possibility of living in a 'roach-free and safe environment with my income is slim to none. Wait, you mean rent in Manhattan isn't $0 a month? Why is this news to me??
The truth is that I spend a lot of time wondering what's going to happen to me in the future, and not nearly enough time on the means to get to where I want to be. I look at my friends who know exactly what they want to do in life and comparatively, it seems as if I don't have real goals and aspirations. But I do. I'm just looking forward to quite an adventure on the road to self-discovery. Sounds kinda naive when I type it all out like that.
Laziness, senioritis, just a bad week? Hard to say.
Lately I've been feeling pretty unmotivated to do anything besides eating, listening to new music and watching horrible TV shows. I've put so much pressure on myself these past few weeks that when one thing doesn't go my way, I immediately get discouraged to do anything else and become a bum. It doesn't make sense, but it happens.
I gave up a couple internship and job opportunities to focus my attention on applying to this one thing in particular and recently found out I didn't get it. I'm not going to chalk up the entire situation to favoritism or nepotism, but I'm bitter, so maybe I will.
I hate feeling like I've made wrong decisions. I focused my attention on something I really wanted, failed, and have now lost focus on everything else. Looking forward to getting my act together in the near future.
