Date:	2008-01-25 01:29
Subject:	Four Boxes, One Without A Lid
Security:	Public
Mood:	contemplative
Music:	"My Favorite Things" - Outkast

How could I not feel at least a little nostalgic. I just sorted through the final piles of old folders and homework from college. The result: four boxes neatly stacked in the corner of my room. Two of these boxes, the ones on the bottom, I haven't touched in years. I filled these up the first time I moved off campus and carted them with me until eventually putting them in the corner of my bedroom. I find in them the remains of my darkroom hobby and my successful years in Chem class. The box on top of these, I remember is the box I used to move the top drawer of my bedroom from one apartment to another. Every time I moved, I would fill the box with the odds and ends and precious peices that I kept in my top drawer. I look in and find the wire rimmed glasses I bought last year, my back up pair, and I pull them out. I forgot about these and I need to get them re-set to fit my eyes. I see a folded red item and put the lid back on the box. I remember the day I shoved the sweatshirt into my the top drawer. I didn't want to look it, but even more I didn't want anyone else to remember it and take it away from me. Now I don't know what to do with it, so I decide I won't reorganize the box tonight. I will leave the lid shut. The last box is the result of three hours of work tonight, sorting through my back-pack and back-up back-pack. I end up with one big bag of trash, things not worth keeping, and a pile of paper and pencil type products to reuse in the future. I also found some other folders sitting with the boxes and these help fill the last box. It doesn't have a lid. I think it's best to leave it open now. I may find other things to put in it, or take something out eventually, but most likely I will just leave it alone. The job is done. I feel accomplished with the task, yet it feels strange to say: this is all that's left of my college life, four years of boxes in the corner of my room.

Date:	2008-01-22 19:32
Subject:	Sick Again
Security:	Public
Mood:	anxious
Music:	the ringing in my ears

This is getting frustrating: once I get over one bug, I get another. I've been sick on and off since Christmas, and this bug is the worst one yet. I woke up early this morning with a splitting headache and got sick and made some soup and passed out before I finished my glass of coke. I'm feeling better now, but I'm frustrated by being sick so often. It's not like I've been doing anything stressful--I've been taking it pretty easy, feeling lazy. Yet whenever I start to feel ambitious and use my time well, I get sick and sicker and have to slow down. Maybe I should just resign myself to the fact that these interim weeks before I leave are going to be leisurely, not the kind of pace I usually keep up. Maybe I need the rest, and that's why I keep getting sick. Maybe I'm getting every version of the cold and flu virus in the world as providence--that way I can't get sick in China because I'll be immune to everything, my immune system bulked up. Of course, it's much more likely that the viruses in China are entirely different from the ones here, and I will be generally weakened by my bouts with illness now. Sigh, I hope I get better soon. Maybe if I stop running outside in the cold or other things, I can get better in time for traveling. I want to get strong and healthy by time I leave. I'd rather be sick now than in China.

Date:	2008-01-18 02:26
Subject:	Idyllic Discovery
Security:	Public
Mood:	content
Music:	"15 Steps" - Radiohead

One of the things I miss about living in AA is the park where I used to go running. While I had always used the paved pathways by the river, only this semester did I discover the back paths through the woods. It was a discovery that made my running habit so much more sustainable. It became a meditation to run, cutting my way through the trees on the narrow path, watching my step for rocks or roots jutting up to trip me. I lost track of time and could get lost in thought. Today as I went out for a run in my neighborhood, I decided to follow a golf-cart track as far back as I could, expecting perhaps it would take me behind the golf course. Instead I lost track of the golf course entirely as I discovered a mesh of trails through a small park or nature preserve by a little creek. It was quiet with only a few other people around jogging or walking dogs on the outskirts. I followed the trails in further, though, and got myself lost--which was my goal. It kept me running because I knew I had to find the way out before I got too cold to stay outside. It was snowing, big white flakes thought the bare trees which were just thick enough to shield out the wind. Perfect. I had my gloves and hat and new music playing, so I was content to run and run until I found my way out. I found a road eventually that I could take directly back to the street. I must have run a mile or two of paths as I had to run a mile just to get back to the place where I started out. I got back to my house only a few minutes after I had planned to be done with my run, so I think I'll try the route again this weekend. I am happy to find a place where I can go and have my meditative running pace. I would get bored quickly making my way through the neighborhood or around the block again and again.
It's not quite the same as my park, but it'll do for the next few weeks.
Later this week I might buy new running shoes. The pair I wear now were for tennis, I think--in highschool. They've held up well, but the tread is wearing down now that I go running more often. If I'm gong to make running one of "my things" right now, then I should probably invest in adequate equipment right?
Hmm... how much is okay to spend on running shoes? So expensive...

Date:	2008-01-16 19:20
Subject:	Little Did I Know... Folk Meets 90's Rock
Security:	Public
Mood:	artistic
Music:	Spit On A Stranger

This afternoon I was surprised to find that one of my all-time favorite Nickel Creek songs is actually a cover of a Pavement song. As the original is often better than the cover, I went ahead a bought the album (some itunes gift cards waiting to be used up). I had been chasing links in the itunes store for a while, debating between buying something new or expanding my collection of some artist already in my library. Pavement was one of the bands introduced to me by an ex so it's hard to know whether my opinion about the band is subjectively biased because of the mixed-sentiment. But then, the same was true for Dylan and the Smiths, and it only took a little more investment in their music to realize that they were just that good, that it doesn't take sentiment to appreciate Dylan and no amount of bitter feeling is going to make me stop listening to it. When I saw the Nickel Creek cover, I was sure of it: I had been listening to that song for years before. In the same way that covers of Radiohead eventually swayed me to accept my appreciation of their music (for a long time, I refused to like them because every "non-conformist" kid did, and I was too non-conformist for that...) good song writing is what makes the band. Nickel Creek's cover is enjoyable, but I probably listened to it over and over because of the song itself, and that credit goes to Pavement. Little did I know, I was a Pavement fan long before I ever heard their albums. And now, I will listen to them of my own volition. If you haven't heard them, I'd say go out and get "Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain" and see how you like it. From what I understand of the 90's rock scene, their music is important.

Date:	2008-01-04 03:46
Subject:	Insomnia (and a gross story)
Security:	Public
Mood:	tired
Music:	"Automatic Stop" - The Strokes

When I'm nervous about something, I can't sleep. That's why it's easier to stay up late and do my work, which helped in college because usually what I worried about WAS the work I needed to get done. Thus, the habit of late nights. Now, however, I have no work to do, leading to a trend of insomnia without purpose. So here I am, starting my journal again. I looked back over my old entries tonight and noted the many times I have officially "restarted" my journal, just to dump it again a few weeks later. I didn't write a single entry in 2007, not a one. Albeit, during that time I did keep a journal on my computer, but I'm sick of doing that. I wrote over 250 pages of journal this semester. 250 pages! I would rather write here, where at least it has the chance of being seen at some point. Anyway, I find that I get stressed out about things without really feeling it, or acknowledging it. But over the past few days, as my sister was carted back to school and I am left here in my parents cold, cold house, I think I've been a bit out of sorts about being done with college and adjusting to the change of pace. I haven't been able to sleep at night and wake up dead tired at four in the afternoon, which only makes getting to sleep the next night all that much harder. The past few days, I've had a terrible migrane constantly, well until this afternoon--and this is where the story gets gross. As I woke up with a headache again (at three, an improvement) I decided the right cure may be to get out of the house for a while. I decided to cook tonight and came up with a short list of things I would need and then drove out to the supermarket. I took a long, meandering way, listening to some of my new music and trying to enjoy the drive, but the migrane only increased. Finally, I pulled into the parking lot, and I was--literally--muttering a few obsceneties to the pain behind my eyes. As I walked into the supermarket, the bright lights hit me, the faint music wafting in the high ceilings, the smug old lady greeting at the door. I knew I was going to be sick. The smug old lady directed me to the bathroom, which was unfortunately at the other entrance across the length of the store. She handed me a plastic bag from the check-out lines, and yes, yes, indeed I did need it. As I walked past people, I had the unique and unthrilling experience of throwing up in my own mouth. With as much poise as I could, spat the bile into the plastic bag and acknowledged the stare of another smug woman at the guest-services station. I bought a coke right away to get the taste out of my mouth. The only good thing was that the migrane was gone--absolutely gone, and I felt completely better, my head clear and and my mind at ease. I found everything I wanted to buy and left the story quickly. I've felt fine the rest of the night, except that now I can't sleep.
Tomorrow I have a lot of things to do--writing some letters, backing up my computer, that kind of thing. When I got home from the store my mom had already started cooking dinner, so I still have cooking to do tomorrow night. Fantastic. I think I've just had too much down-time lately. Time to get going.

Date:	2005-10-31 12:31
Subject:	Trick or Treat or Chemistry
Security:	Public
Mood:	stressed
Music:	library noise

Halloween will be scarier than ever this year--because there's nothing scarier than an Orgo exam... Except for maybe a four hour lab session. And I have both.
Hope you all have fun today!

Date:	2005-10-27 01:22
Subject:	Good... Night...
Security:	Public
Mood:	weird
Music:	Summer Time *irony*

Body, you betray me. Common mind, get it together. Mind over body, right? Right says my mind. Wrong says my twitching knee. I need to chill out. No wait, strike that. As Hattie knows, I am a winter person.
It feels a whole lot like winter this week, Hattie. And so far, this winter has no clear direction.

Date:	2005-07-08 01:44
Subject:	Look: A Fun Quiz!!
Security:	Public
Mood:	awake
Music:	Daysleeper - R.E.M.

Just a quick note from the coffee-shop-girl herself:

You Are an Espresso

At your best, you are: straight shooting, ambitious, and energetic At your worst, you are: anxious and high strung You drink coffee when: anytime you're not sleeping Your caffeine addiction level: high

Date:	2005-06-04 15:15
Subject:	California Here I Come!
Security:	Public
Mood:	indescribable
Music:	Walk On - U2

Yesterday at this time I had no idea that tomorrow at this time I'd be seeting out across the country on a road trip out to California. No joke--I'm really going. Everything fell into place yesterday afternoon for this impromptu journey.
Situation: My friend Ann is driving herself out to California as she moves to take her new job in LA. She called me up--offering a flight back to Michigan in exchange for my company on the cross country drive--on the off chance that I could go. (Chance has never been so unbelievably 'off' as it was yesterday.)
Time: Rather conveniently, I have some involuntary time off work this week while we wait for the new Sweetwaters to open. Chances are I won't actually miss any work while I'm away. I had only one obligation keeping me in town for next week, but Ann pulled a few strings for me and got me free to go.
Money: Nearly everything on this trip has been taken care of already. Still, travel is expensive. Fortunately, when I went yesterday to speak my boss about leaving town for a few days, he not only gave me leave but gave me a nice, big paycheck.
Thus, it happened that after only a few minutes on the phone explaning the plans to my parents, and even fewer to get a ride home from the airport on Thursday, I found myself in the clear on all fronts to go to California. Brilliant!
It all sounds to good to be true, so I'm crossing my fingers, knocking on wood, and praying hard that this will actually work out. Just one more day to wait!

Date:	2005-05-27 16:08
Subject:	Brief History
Security:	Public
Mood:	thoughtful
Music:	David Crowder Band

Memorial Day Weekend approaches. Here's some history. (Seeing as I am from the south-side of central campus, I do appreciate the southern roots of Memorial Day.)

"Women’s groups in the South, where most of the Civil War battles took place, had begun placing flowers on the graves of soldiers by the end of the Civil War. The first official observance of Memorial Day occurred in 1868, on the order of General John Alexander Logan, the leader of a veterans’ group called the Grand Army of the Republic. Logan designated May 30 as a day for “strewing with flowers, or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion.” By “the late rebellion,” he meant the Civil War, which had taken 600,000 lives. On May 30, 1868, war orphans and veterans placed flowers on the graves of the Civil War dead in Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Virginia, across the Potomac River from Washington, D.C."

Have a good weekend, everyone!

Date:	2005-05-20 19:15
Subject:	Wedding Prep
Security:	Public
Mood:	happy
Music:	Goin' to the Chapel

This afternoon Pearl and Janelle and I went shopping for the wedding tomorrow. After we searched through several stores, Janelle handed me a dress which, despite my initial dismissive laugh, has actually turned out to be quite perfect. Pinkish with a swept-almost-off-the-shoulder neckline and a bell-shaped skirt. Brilliant! Unfortunately, we couldn't find anything for Pearl, but she managed to find someone who could loan her a dress.
It should be great to have everyone together, happy and pretty tomorrow afternoon. Weddings are great social affairs, really, and I do look forward to them. What's even better is when it's a wedding for friends, like Liz and Dan, who we know well and can be happy for in a genuine way. It should be a really good time. I'm excited. (:

Date:	2005-05-15 16:38
Subject:	Just a Question:
Security:	Public
Mood:	curious
Music:	John Mayer

This afternoon, we (myself, Hattie, Tracy, Janelle) went dress shopping for the wedding on Saturday. Unlike formals, I actually like dressing up for weddings, and shopping today was actually very fun. I'd forgotten that it could be. Shopping seems to have a redemptive power on female friendships, which must be why it's become a stereotype of female socialization. I remember that even when things were on the rocks with friends in highschool, we could always get along when we were shopping--albeit our relational problems did need to be worked out eventually. Also, "shopping" would often be the default activity when cousins or others I didn't know well would stay at my house. We would always have just as much fun as if I were shopping with good friends. I'm just curious as to why this stereotype seems to prove true. What is it that makes girls/people like shopping together?

Date:	2005-05-13 16:02
Subject:	Only a Small Bit of Bad Luck
Security:	Public
Mood:	thankful
Music:	Jamie Cullum

It's Friday the Thirteenth. How appropriate that I choose today to check grades. So, the damages are in, and I have to say I can't complain. Over all I averaged out at about an A- in every course--with the higher/lower exceptions of Photo and Orgo. Although I'm disappointed not to have made my ambitious goal of an A in Orgo, after that final I'm very thankful for what I got. Well, I don't much like to dwell on grades anymore--although I have learned that it is a good idea to check them. So, I'll just conclude this grade dwelling by saying that I'll just have to put just a bit more effort into next semester to keep my GPA in med-school acceptable range. No pre-med shame cycle for me--it's summer and I don't have to worry about classes for a good four months now. For now, I'm going to take some time off from school to bask in carefree/homeworkfree bliss.

Date:	2005-05-12 21:37
Subject:	And She Begins Again
Security:	Public
Mood:	peaceful
Music:	Such Great Heights

It has been an interesting year. Will I ever be able to record those events which occurred, which I first omitted and then at last forsook in my chronicle of experience? Probably not. Too much has happened. Too much has changed. The past few months were far too dynamic in terms of both situation and thought to record as they happened let alone now. Perhaps as I begin my writing regularly I will share some of what has been left unwritten. Then you will know that it mattered. An old new-friend, commenting upon my lack of writing, told me that he saw the empty spaces of my journal as the periods of time during which I had grown. I have certainly grown a lot these past months. And now I am ready to begin again.
Today marks in my mind the beginning of my summer. Yet as winter came to its end, resolution came too. I feel resolved about so many things I have not written about here. Ask me and I'll tell you, but I am content to keep these things and simply wonder at them. Happy growth. Change by choice. Joy throughout. Although I know I would be naive to assume that it is entirely over, for now I have the relief of concluding this winter and beginning again with summer. And I begin again.
This morning I woke to lovely white light streaming through my window. I drifted in and out of sleep until I could distinguish between dreaming and the reality of waking up in Ann Arbor in the spring. Then I sat up on my bed and reached for my devo book. Free of any obligation to Sweetwaters Cafe on this particular day, I decided that a walk/run would be a good choice on this morning of new beginning. I did not know that I owned a complete jogging suit from The Gap, but the discovery of this was certainly pleasing. (As Hattie my summer roommate points out, I do not, or did not previously, jog; thus, my owning a complete jogging ensemble is really quite ridiculous. It is a costume, really, and I did feel a bit like I was playing dress up.) Anyway, on my walk/run I discovered that we have a park not five minutes from our house. I spent a good hour exploring it this morning before I came back. It will be a good place to go this summer--with pathways running along side of the Huron River and charming trails and footbridges. I will go back tomorrow to explore it further.
Sketches from the rest of today: Later in the day, Hattie and I lounged in Bubble Island, looking at magazines and waiting until five when Hattie would go to her exam and Pearl would join me to run some errands. After five, en route to these errands, Pearl and I wandered into a lush boutique on Main Street where we looked at and tried on dresses. When we were finished with window shopping and errand running, we came back to my summer house on Catherine street where we made dinner of chicken and rice and salad. Hattie reappeared after her exam, and we ate together and watched a movie.
Now, I'm writing about today. And having caught up with myself, I have only left to say that today was very nice indeed. I should hope that the days to come will be this pleasant. Although some, I am sure, will be worse and others will be unimaginably better, today was a great way to start the summer.
Look for more updates in the days to come!

Date:	2005-04-27 16:08
Subject:	Waiting For What When Where How Why
Security:	Public
Mood:	restless
Music:	I Will Survive - Cake

Watch as the expectation drains out through my clenched fingers. I try to hold on, but it spurts out and drizzles down around my ankles. I'm standing of a pool of it, rotting and evaporating, and I smell it. Close my eyes, hold my breath, and wait. But what am I waiting for... I can't wait for anything. I have no more expectation. I step forward out of this waste. I take what ever expectation I still have inside my hands and fling it away.
Empty and hollow, I search for something. Watch as I choose patience. All the patience in the world. I take it in my empty arms, and absorb it. It fills me. Patience is pink and red and warm. I breath deeply and fall backward into it. Finally, I am full of patience. And I wait. I wait. I wait without expectation. With all the patience in the world, I wait, though I don't know what is coming or when or where or how or why. I wait and I live on without knowing.

Date:	2005-01-06 23:11
Subject:	Another Semester Beginning
Security:	Public
Mood:	nostalgic
Music:	Garden State

Someone down the hall is playing the Garden State sound track. I know this because at this point I've heard it so many times that even the slightest trailing music wafting into my room triggers my mind to start filling in that "there's beauty in the break down..." with perfect clarity. Coming off of break, I feel more than ready to start, work hard, have fun, and come out in the spring with a good semester behind me. It shouldn't be too difficult to manage: 6 credits of Chemistry, 6 credits of intro English courses, and a wonderful photography class. After a long arduous struggle, I finally fixed up my schedule today. I'd have to say it's the ideal schedule for me. I got the brilliant Chemistry teacher, I can't imagine having better English classes (the reading list is AMAZING), and everything else seems to be working out, too. So, I'm happy. I don't feel dread or exhaustion. This semester will be great.
Just one thing. Something is bothering me, and I can't quite communicate it... Coming off of break, having spent a very fun weekend with some old and new friends, I have a feeling a little like when I had just come back from France. I remember how the feeling seemed to glow through me for days after. Then, little by little, I felt it slipping away. Little by little, it was replaced by a feeling of intense desperation as I tried to cling to what remained. It seemed the more I tried to preserve it, the more it slipped from my grasp. Then I remember when I saw them--everyone who had experienced it with me. For a moment, the feeling was back for all of us again, but then it slipped away even faster as we realized we had all been losing it and would continue to let it go. How sad it was the first time I saw them once again, and we felt no need even to acknowledge each other. Now they are just names on my instant messenger screen. I can't bring myself to delete even the ones for which I no longer remember a specific face.
Not that this feeling now is anywhere near that intensity. Certainly not. It just reminds me that sometimes things happen, things change, but not for good, not forever. And after a while, things just slip back to the way they had been before. Sometimes, change is only a fluctuation and nothing permanent. Other times, though, change can be lasting and meaningful. Sometimes, I remind myself of how unpredictable change can be, and it makes me feel this way. I can never quite tell which it will be. I guess I should just let go... or at least, that's what the song would suggest as it drifts to my ears without any context but my own thought.

Date:	2004-11-17 00:34
Subject:	Reflection
Security:	Public
Mood:	rejuvenated
Music:	Jamie Cullum - Twenty Something

Looking in the mirror, I see a girl who's twenty now. Yet I agree with that story about the ugly red sweater: underneath this twenty, I'm still 19 and 17 and 12 and 7 and 4 and 2 and all the ages in between compounded together to make me what I am. Looking at my old drivers license with 17 year old me, pointy chin, bangs, I can still see that girl in the reflection. I can still feel her, and she's writing this right now, too. All the experiences of 20 years, each as significant as any other. Some more memorable, but all influential on this, yes this very piece of writing, this girl 20 years passed.
Birthdays used to make me feel a bit sullen. I would go to bed knowing that in the morning I would never be 8 or 12 or 16 again, and I would feel sad that a part of me was passing on. After reading that story, I realized I had been wrong. The part of me that's 7 and loves red umbrellas and rain storms. She's still here. The part that's 5 and decided then she was meant to be a doctor. She's still very much here. The part of me that's 13 and invented her own characters on paper during history class, she's still here. The part of me that's 17, almost dizzy in Paris after that last dance of the night, of their friendship. She's here, (almost overwhelmingly). So, I have no need to morn the passing of these ages. It's just that now I have another to grow in and add to what I've become through twenty years of experience and change and ever compounding meaning.

Date:	2004-11-11 00:07
Subject:	Rough Spot
Security:	Public
Mood:	pensive
Music:	Walk On - U2

This is what they call a trial. Every so often, just when things are getting good, one of these comes along and changes everything. It's up to me whether I let it change things for good or bad. That's the only way to explain it. I did my best. I've been doing my best all semester now, and yet things are crashing and burning all around me. It gets me to a point of worry that I'm about to let one lowsy exam, one bad number, in the context of what would have been difficult but bearable, I'm about to let that mere possibility of getting a bad mark for the semester change my mind about a life-long commitment. Sitting here, thoughts go through my head: maybe I'm just not smart enough to do this pre-med thing, maybe I don't have the coping skills to deal with the stresses of school, maybe I should just give up and do something easier so I won't ever have to feel this bad again... NO. It ends here. Nothing can change what happened in that exam. I couldn't have predicted or prevented it. I did my best, pushed myself to the point of exhaustion in trying to be super-college-student-girl, and finally succombed physically to the illness I've been fighting for months now. I had big white splotches on the back of my throat that night, but I didn't quit. And I'm not going to now. This is what they call a trial.
It's when something relatively out of your control happens that makes you call yourself into question. It makes you question what your priorities are and what they should be. When things go well, it's easy to forget who to thank. I'd been trying to be super-college-student-girl, but I'd forgotten what sustains me. More importantly, I'd forgotten that I don't have to be super-college-student-girl to be doing what I need to do. As I heard last year at the Genesis convention: "If you are living your life in an appropriate balance, you won't be as successful. That is the sacrafice you make." Of course, the first thing that ran through mind in light of my shortcoming in that exam was: Maybe I should just pull out of everthing, bury myself in a library for the next two months and get through this, or maybe I should just give up on being pre-med. Neither one of those is a good solution. I know two things: I am meant to be in medicine. I'm going to use that ability for ministry in whatever context is necessary. Thus it would be a falacy to believe I should give up either of those aspects of my life right now. Here, now, I need to be building relationships and preparing for ministry by being in ministry. Meanwhile, I need to foster my abilities to one day do what I'm meant for. As possibilities for my future become clearer this semester, it may be expected that I face doubts and grievance which would cause me to call that commitment into question. This is just a trial. I will make it through, but I need to ask for help. I need to press on and continue on the path I started down 15 years ago and hold tight to the guiding line that will bring me to where I need to go. This trial will be over soon. I've been through trials worse than this, and many more will come, but for now I press on.

Date:	2004-11-06 01:06
Subject:	As I Write Another Wretched Report
Security:	Public
Mood:	curious
Music:	"3x5" John Mayer

This week has been a week of stupid mistakes. Actually, no... this semester has been a semester of stupid mistakes. Or perhaps nothing has changed and I'm only now realizing that I make them left and right. My exams this week were riddled with stupid mistakes. It's not that I didn't know the material. I knew it so well I neglected the stupid technicalities that would have taken five minutes to see. Well, it's over now and all I can do is press on and hope to be stupid no longer. Right now I'm very tediously and carefully writing my lab report in hopes of making up for the stupid mistakes of last time. It's good that I have a weekend alone in my room to work through this tedious analysis.
Recently I downloaded i-tunes which is a miraculous invention. For those of you who don't know what it is, i-tunes is a program that allows you to access the playlists currently on any computer networked to your's. So, if you had two computers in your home, it wouldn't be necessary to double copy your music because you can listen to it from either computer without downloading. Well... in a dorm, i-tunes is plugged into hundreds of computers, so I can listen to anyone's music. Right now I'm listening to Room For Squares off of Alexa's computer. Thanks, Alexa whoever you are. Room For Squares is quickly becoming a favorite album of mine. Listen to "Love Song for No One" and you'll see why. Oh, did you catch that my first paragraph is, in fact, in reference to things in addition to academics? (:
Anyway... back to the books and back to my thoughts and back to John Mayer and "Back to you, it always comes around, back to you..." La la la.

Date:	2004-10-02 16:02
Subject:
Security:	Public
Mood:	happy
Music:	"Shiver" - Cold Play

Looking back on last year, I see a specific point at which I believe my life as I know it began at U of M. It was a period of change and establishment, marked by moments of intense emotion and bizarre extravagance. We barely recognized it at the time, but afterwards we realized that that time was the time which would set the dynamic for the rest of the year. Last year it was the weekend of mini-golf and the ticket sale which began this moment of beginning. I remember being shoved into a photo booth with people who are no-longer strangers, lying on 6 am grass with people who would eventually be known as friends; and all that time I had a general sense of well-being, serenity and calm. Though school began to bear down with massive homework, life was as I had always imagined was impossible.
Anyone who knows me well, knows that I like view my life through quite a Romantic lens. Often I know that reality doesn’t match my Romanticized outlook, but it’s far more interesting that way. Still, during that time, I had no need to elaborate. Remarkable things just happened, things which I will never forget and never cease to reference with those who experienced it with me. I remember when Kristen and I said our goodbyes this summer. As we stood outside her car during our last conversation, we watched the sunny sky turn gray. We talked on, waiting for the rain; and as the sky held back its closure from us and we wallowed in the moment of trying to find the right moment to depart for what would be several months, Kristen exclaimed, “Where are the flaming batons?” And I flashed back to last fall, and that first morning we were friends in any real sense of the word… Beneath the thinning branches of a regal tree, we lay with a multitude of others, drowsily looking up at the dark sky, the only light coming from a single figure in the distance, juggling fire.
Now, I find myself in that phase again. The past few weeks, I’d felt unsettled here as so many things had changed. Yet again, with the fall, remarkable things are happening, and I feel content with the way things are becoming clear for me. Last Saturday began this phase with a late night adventure with new friends. We climbed stair after stair only to find all the windows locked, so we climbed some more. When we reached our destination, though we hadn’t known it would be so, we looked out across the night-lit city though dusty glass. We toasted to new friends and a new year, and drank our faux-wine and talked and laughed together beneath dusty books and records. And this we did for no other reason than that we could.
The week continued with great conversations which I almost missed—great opportunities which almost completely passed me by. Epilogue was particularly good for many reasons. The next day Cat and I jammed and talked all afternoon. Wednesday we endeavored into the first our pranks this year (running across campus at 3 am with my roomies to get back at the punks who chalked the word, “Sassy” more than 150 times over the space of 2 city blocks just to bother us). After this adventure, we walked into Pizza House for chocolate-somethings, and met a group of musicians out of NY. They gave Sarah and me a copy of their cd, and on our way out, they introduced us to one of their members who also plays with Maroon 5. Fascinating.
This weekend continued this time of remarkable things. Against my better judgment I went to the lock-in, and I couldn’t be happier that I did. It was great to run around with people, and to sit with people in front of a huge fire even though, or maybe especially since, it was almost raining on us at times. And it was great to talk until 4 in the morning, playing silly card games; and then it was not so great to be woken up by the same people, conspiring to steal away my bed from under me. No loss, though, once I was awake, we went for great coffee. And as I was drinking this coffee and eating hot home made applesauce, and standing with people all chatting happily, I realized that I am in the midst of that moment again. I recounted all of the things that have been happening, and I realized that though things have changed again this year, that I will feel settled. And my life, however tossed up it felt when this year began, will be established again. And as good as last year was, hard as it is to imagine, it’s looking like this year could turn out to be even better. Who knows what may be ahead of us yet.