. . . . . entries for 25.5.11 . . . . .
Off to the Symposium. Listening to this before I go. Derp.
. . . . . entries for 24.5.11 . . . . .
Holy last-test-at-Princeton fail, Batman. Sigh. Oh well. Nusuth.
I had a strange realization, which I think now I mostly made up (but who knows?), when I finally saw Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, and that is: it never occurred to me that I would not someday be as famous as an Alexander Hamilton or an Abraham Lincoln. Surely at one point I did intend to appear in history books but I surprised myself by thinking that way anyway. If I ever move events I doubt anyone will know about it.
Wonder what my advice-giver of yesterday did with that email he meant to send me. It'd be terribly useful to have it.
. . . . . entries for 23.5.11 . . . . .
Also I finally saw Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. It was good but I think too trumped up in my imagination to have the right impact. I just want it to be shown to government classes in public school, like badly. Like very very badly.
It may be that my future is bright. It may even be, yet, that my whole generation's future is bright.
But: there's that asinine "Jesus Christ why is this sprinkled about in my life soundtrack" Coldplay song, and the fact that one of those things that is supposed to be - well, one of the things that I supposed to be relatively straightforward, in my life, isn't. Or at least . . . it is, in some ways, in unusual ways. But in usual ways it is stupidly head-bashingly complicated and impossible.
What's the thing. "Grad school is a wretched homewrecker." It's on buttons, I think, or something close is. I don't think it's grad school, I think it's just . . . individual passions. And of course I could never give mine up - I would die first, because why not, at that point? - and I'm sure he wouldn't give his up either. So it's a kind of friendly, shrugging, selfish-unselfish impasse, each unable to bear to sacrifice or to force the other to sacrifice, teeth not in each other's throats but deep in their respective kills, hunted and pursued separately, but with the occasional touch of tails and crossing of glances. We are such different animals.
But - and this is really unrelated, but since the first thing was brought up by some damn unrelated thing in my environment, surely it deserves another - we've known for a while that grizzlies and polar bears are close enough, genetically, so that they can not only breed, but produce fertile offspring themselves. "Grolar bears" they're called. And sometimes they have these pretty ombre'd coats, like they were dip-dyed in a warmer climate. And they eat meat - just the predator that our predatory instincts would create, as we force herbivorous grizzlies north.
Climate change affects where animals settle and with whom. Me too. Damn it.
. . . . . entries for 19.5.11 . . . . .
Well, I'm done with my coursework, waiting on my grades, hoping to hear back about a couple or three possible interviews, planning on going to a symposium next week, and overall life feels fairly weird and unfinished - not much like I'm about to graduate, just like I'm floating on to the next thing. It felt so tremendous, so much like a pinnacle of life, at the end of high school, probably because I had utterly owned everything that had been thrown at me and my future represented only the symbol of my prowess, not a challenge to my ability to achieve - not yet. But now all of that is quite different. Now I am much more concerned with what I can do, and less so with what I am.
My room is severely messy. I really need to tidy up and then, you know, pack. Ho hum.
. . . . . entries for 12.5.11 . . . . .
Strange abortive non-Dean's Date due date + travel + parents = what SLEEP SCHEDULE!?
. . . . . entries for 10.5.11 . . . . .
The night (or, rather, early morning) before my thesis defense, and my tumblr is covered in LOTR stuff, and I don't know how to make my presentation shorter. Ho hum.
Last Dean Scream ever and I don't even have anything due at 5. Anticlimactic? Sort of - but the Whitman Wail (did I just coin that phrase?) is pretty epic whether or not I'm in that mode.
. . . . . entries for 5.5.11 . . . . .
I untagged a handful of my (completely excessive quantity of) facebook photos just now. It made me realize how much has happened in the past four years - which, I realize, is a ludicrously inane thing to say, but I mean it. I got braces and got rid of them. I went from not really knowing my roommates to counting them as the majority of my close college friends. But the thing that actually kicked realization into gear was the fact that I used to drag people onto my lap and assail them with Photobooth to take embarrassing pictures of us together. This was, like, a Thing That I Did. A trademark. A kind of novelty, since I was the only one with a Mac in my room.
So I was tempted to think "ah, I suppose I have gotten older in these four years," but I don't know if I could go so far. I have accumulated some experience, but that is all I can say for sure.
. . . . . entries for 3.5.11 . . . . .
Oh, and also to-do lists.
Tomorrow:
-re-print thesis at a different printer so it's sufficiently dark and hand into Triangle
-go to Adam's defense
-go to checkout fair
-go to Ting's reading
-uhhhh I dunno read I guess
My relative dearth of long-form writing in the past couple of years-ish, I think, is attributable mostly to me feeling busy and overrun and incapable of writing much except to vent or to get course credit. But if I had to rationalize it and give it a good reason, if a false one, it would be that consciously thinking about a thing often doesn't make your decision about it any better, or you feelings any clearer or truer. Sometimes writing can be cathartic, if you can find just the right way to say something you haven't thought the right way yet, but sometimes, especially recently, it has felt more like banging my head against a wall to me.
My professor-friend recommended tonight that those of us who write should write something every day. I think maybe that's what I should do with this blog now that I have all of these other damnable platforms of social media stuff, because I never know what to put where and end up aimlessly cycling from thing to thing because of it. Good plan?
Had lunch with the lab today; nattered pleasantly; found out my thesis has been graded (well, sort of, at least - no actual grade yet) and comments are in my box in Green (oh god!); epic failed to walk with lab some distance back to campus from the restaurant because I am destined to always feel obviously, prominently misplaced there ever since I didn't get in/decided not to go to grad school this time around. HOO BOY
. . . . . entries for 1.5.11 . . . . .
Holy shit, posterity, Osama bin Laden was killed today by American operatives. His body is in our custody.
But as I told ye olde book of face, some enemies are snakes but many are hydras. I wonder what will happen next and I don't imagine it will be better or easier. And it's so hard to be elated when the day since which we've waited - that damnable political tagline day, now - that day has been sullied through disrespect to its heroes, demands that they fulfill special expectations, lest they steal money and funnel it to terrorists. As if they would.
I guess it's just another ended chapter, without a special flourish to speak of. I will be waiting for more weighty developments for me, and for future generations.
come home?
.:people:.
{ting}
she looks like the real thing
{mari}
out and about
[kelsey]
THIS IS AMERICA
{yianni}
stop being depressed
{alisa}
other
[shannon]
close and far
{frank}
islands where no islands should go
[cassie]
eating knowledge
{colin}
my dm
[emily]
shoulder to the wheel
[brian]
nostalgic for fantasy
[nicole]
industry insider
{elle}
angry enviro
[matt]
never heard of miyazaki
[pirate dan]
are you reading this?
[olga]
distracted
[messiah dan]
messiah/believer
{max}
approach focus
[natalie]
wait a minute
[susan]
solitude
{greg}
manbeargreg
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.:skin:.
turtles! turtles! by araglas
(heavily modified by yours truly)