Tearing down the walls.

Been gone a while. No blog posts. Not sure why. Guess I have Facebook Updates to substitute for these longer rants and raves, taking all of my thoughts and packaging them into little 32-character snippets that get tossed into the wild winds of the Internet. Come to think of it, that's how my thoughts appear nowadays. Hard to tell if I'm losing focus as I age and can't think about one thing long enough to form a cohesive thought about it, or if FB has shaped the way I think to spit out only small half-formed witticisms and bits of randomness.

Anyway. I've spent a lot of time in the last year walling myself in. Trying to figure out things for myself and in the process attempting to force everything around me to fit into my picture of how things should be. Did not realize I was doing this until tonight, and as the realization washed over me, it caused a small emotional breakdown. Felt good, actually. I hadn't allowed myself to feel emotions for a while because they didn't fit into that perfect picture. Emotions had taken such a backseat to the point where I'd convinced myself they weren't worth feeling; I didn't care enough about them to let them work their way out. To be more precise, my general apathy towards most things had extended to the little things that are, when you face them, big things. In ignoring the little things, I ignored the feelings too. Wish it were easy to tear down the walls. I know it's not, but I want to start trying.

For a while, I was thinking of ways to escape the country. Nothing worked out, and I'm still here, albeit with a different job. But I think that's about to change. Looking to head out to Berlin for a little while in the springtime. Not sure why, but it's something I feel I need to do. Haven't been to Germany since 2008 and I'm starting to really feel it. I've been doing some traveling stateside, which is all well and good, but my passport is begging me to dust it off and take it on a ride. I'm more than happy to oblige.

Musings on a Brighter Future

This is ridiculous. I'm in the library with hours of access to a great, high-speed desktop computer. I ventured here for the express purpose of preparing for my interview in two days. Instead of researching and taking notes, I have been looking at all sorts of other stuff on the Internet: information about nursing programs, my pregnant cousin's pictures on her blog, job postings on the UW website, salary information for various career pathways. Of course, Facebook and Gmail factor highly on the list, as well. But back in college, I used to procrastinate using solely those two websites as my distractions, plus the occasional joke website or cute Lolzcat picture. Now, after spending 2 hours on a computer without having tackled my interview prep, I feel that though I'm putting off my main goal, it's not a waste of time because I have not merely been browsing but actively researching. Thinking about things like the future, which in college my brain simply did not have time to process. I was too busy looking at the trees to notice the forest, too preoccupied with waiting for everything to slow down to wonder if I would hate it when it finally did.

And I'm there now. I'm working and it's boring. I have held the same weekly volunteer position for nearly 3 years. I live in the same house as last year. All my life, my circumstances have changed every fall, and I accepted it as frenzied but normal. All of a sudden, normal has become this feeling of treading water. Not regular water, either. Something thicker that inhibits movement. Oatmeal, perhaps?

Perhaps this is what settling down feels like. I'm not ready for it. Will I ever be? I can't answer that now, but I can set myself back on the track I used to ride, and see where it takes me. And that's exactly what I intend on doing.

Time

My time this weekend was mostly spent on a bike or in a halloween costume, and sometimes both simultaneously. I'm kind of sore now, but I feel great.

My time today was spent in class, all day long. I was going strong at first, but now it's 4 pm and I'm tired. Considering calling in sick to my volunteer commitment. Not sure if this is a good idea.

Time I spent trying to figure out my schedule for next quarter, which is also my last quarter of school: 2 hours.

The time I have to be up tomorrow to get to work on time: 3 am. I believe I'll call in sick to my volunteer thing so I can sleep a full 8 hours tonight, and not be so tired at lab tomorrow.

That is all I have to say about time... except that there is never enough of it.

Did you miss me?

New things are happening, new life developments and all that jazz. Life's a whirlwind and I have a hard time catching up on occasion. I should be happy about living in the here and now, and I am, really. It's just that once in a while, I'd like to have a chance to glimpse into the future, and figure out what I want to do with it.

I must go now... and nap.

Back from the Bay Area

And it was wonderful.

I'll add some more stories on here soon when I get a chance. Yesterday coming back was one of the weirdest days I've had, ever. A lot of funny things happened that make for great tales, and I'm hoping to share them all with you in the near future. But of course, life goes on in the interim, and I have lots to do in the next days. Tomorrow will be spend having a grand old time, since I have, oh, let's see, FIVE different events scheduled. FIVE. All with different people or groups of people. Should be a good time. Busy, but good.

Thursday will be spent mostly at work, which I did not expect. But that will allow me to have Friday off, and that shall be most excellent, as it will allow me to *hopefully* get my butt down to Oly and hang out with my family.

and THEN I will work every day from Saturday until Wednesday, 4:30 to midnight. Oh, the joys of a menial summer job. Sigh.

Next weekend I will hopefully pop up to Vancouver to see my German host father, who is going there on a business trip and will be staying for two weeks. The Bob Saget show is also that weekend, on a Friday, and I am REALLY excited for that.

Wow, so much to do. I love SUMMER!

create your own visited country map
or check our Venice travel guide

I thought I'd been to a lot of places. The countries that are not in red are the ones I have yet to visit. I have a lot of travel ahead of me...

Last midterm was today. Whoo hoo. Now it's time to knuckle down and study for finals... after I check all my blogs and networking sites, of course... man. I have a hard time concentrating sometimes. The internet doesn't help, either. I would like to go to Uwajymaya right now. Anyone wanna come?

ACK ok I'm going to go do my homework now. This blog is becoming less and less coherent.

Yesterday was a really weird day. Actually, this week has been a little bit strange, all in all...

Wednesday I went to College Inn for international night, but hardly anybody shows up anymore. I guess it's kind of hard when there's so much homework to do, and so much to take care of before everybody goes back to their respective countries... But I did get to catch up with an old friend, and that in itself made the night worth it. (And worth the fact that I had to get up early the next day to finish my homework.)

Yesterday was a day full of randomness. After finishing my assignment, I went to class and was unusually attentive and engaged in the material. After class, I spent some time with Jeff, which hasn't happened much lately because I've been busy and he's been sick. (Actually, I think I'll go visit him at his house after this...) Then I studied for a bit with Andrea at Cafe on the Ave. We had Mochi and enjoyed the sunshine while trying to work on our stuff. After this, I went to Lucas' house and watched Waking Life, a really awesome movie. We talked through parts of it, but it was nice to watch a movie on something so ethereal as dreams, and to talk about them. According to Lucas, if you sleep through half the night, and then wake up and stay up until you are fully awake, and then go back to sleep, you are much more likely to have a lucid dream. A lucid dream is where you're in your dream, and you're aware that you're dreaming, so you're able to control everything that happens in the dream. Imagine the possibilities... I think I might try to have one of these lucid dreams sometime soon.

After the movie, I bopped out to the Freemont fire pit to sit around a campfire and play violin with some of my cousin's friends from SPU. It was rad! Apparently they do this on a fairly regular basis. I shall have to come with them again sometime. Then my cousin came with her .83 friends straight from their bike ride. I've never been on a .83 ride, or even Critical Mass, so I got to talk with them about it and find out a bit more about the different programs and offerings. Some of us rode back to the U-District together, which was cool because it was kind of an introduction to .83 for me. I think I'm ready to ride with them...

Then I hung out with a few friends from work, because Erica turned 21 last night and it was time to buy her drinks. Actually, buying her a drink was my main goal of going to the bar they were at, but she declined, saying she'd had enough for the day, and asked me to wait until tomorrow to buy her a drink. Besides that, it was pretty fun. It was already late, though, by the time I got back to the U-District, and by the time we settled in at Finn's, it was 1 AM already. Makes me mad that Seattle bars close by 2! But, whatever. Gotta uphold the peace, or something. I can go to New York or Vegas (or Europe, for that matter) if I want to stay out all night.

Just got a call from Jeff - his cousin's finally here. Which means I gotta run so I can (finally) meet him. Have a good weekend and if you get down, just watch the video I posted in my last post. Man. Make me laugh every time.

There was an event last week that came as a surprise, and not in a good way. I don't want to discuss the details, but suffice it to say that I'm an adult, and deserve to be treated like one. That includes asking before taking. The person doing the taking understands that I have a right to be mad, and is trying to pacify me with promises of "being fair" and "evening everything out". He's right about me being angry, but he hasn't quite understood why. It's not that I want equality; that's not the point. I want honesty. That's the only way to perpetrate good relations among everybody involved.

Something of a similar nature happened once upon a time last September, and remnants of this still linger in my mind, and have negatively impacted relations. This damaging poison was released because he refused to be honest. This time, he was partially honest, but only because this time, it affected me directly. It's not because he learned from his mistakes.

And the worst part of it all is, I don't think he ever will.

Last post was the 600th one on this blog. Happy belated blog day... to me.

Today was a good day. None too efficient, but I managed to entertain myself quite well. Went to play class for two hours and had fun playing the improv game where you re-dub old movies. In German, this managed to be hilarious, as we were dubbing German over an old kung fu movie. I guess you kinda had to be there. (lots of my stories have ended that way lately. Is that a bad sign?)

I also played frisbee, went on a small bike ride and had a chat with an old friend on a balcony overlooking Lake Union. It was pleasant, to be sure, but now I know I should probably be at the library. And I really don't want to go... it would mean I'd have to put more clothes on. And I am usually opposed to putting clothes on.

This weekend looks promising. My sister is coming up to hear the Senate play on Friday with me, and then Saturday we will hopefully go hiking. If that doesn't sound awesome, I don't think your definition of awesome is correct.

Speaking of awesome, I am on the verge of buying plane tickets for a weekend in San Francisco in June. I've never been there, and Tina says she'll put up with me for 3-4 days, so I'm 99% sure I'm going to go ahead and do it.

Alright, time to blowdry my hair and get going to the library.

drowning in skooooooooooool

got the day off today. it's been nice. went to coffee with Andrea nice and early, got some schoolwork done, bought 2 shirts for 2 dollars, went to the farmer's market, saw a coworker I hadn't seen for a while and heard some good news. am now cooking pork roast and cleaning my room (the second part is debatable). waiting for dad to call me back. tonight is kevin's 21st birthday party, and it's at my house. don't gotta go anywhere, the party's coming to me. sweet.

all in all, a rather nice day. am not looking forward to going to work tomorrow. or to school on monday. but that's how it goes.

sorry the video below is gone due to copyright. it was pretty funny... you can probably find it on the original website somewhere if you didn't get the chance to see it.

I'm sick. I need to go home and sleep.

There's stuff I need to get done today. Group paper due at 4:30. Field ecology at 1:00. German at 11:30. At least I finished reading the book.

Work was dumb last night. A bunch of things happened that pissed me off. I fell into bed exhasted and didn't get stuff done like I should have.

This is easily the worst day of the week, right here. Gah. At least I have friends who let me vent to them. Thanks, friends! I love you all.

Okay, back to writing my paragraph for that stupid paper.

My life is rolling downhill at astounding speeds, and I haven't figured out how to catch up with it yet.

This show is an obvious rip-off of The Daily Show. I don't think it will enjoy any of the widespread success that The Daily Show enjoyed (and, to some extent, still does), and it will probably prove to be nothing more than a feeble attempt on FOX's part to create a popular, intelligent, engaging show, even at the risk of being unoriginal. (Note to FOX: You had an original, witty show with Arrested Development! Why did you drop that wonderful gem?)

I've been feeling very contemplative lately, but too busy to think through my thoughts. Tomorrow I'll be cross-country skiing my way through the mountains, and hopefully the cold air and the natural beauty will bring me some moments of clarity. So I'd better go get some sleep!

I'm beginning to become spoiled by my bike. I'm used getting to class from home in 5 minutes, and my feet aren't used to walking a lot anymore. Oh well, biking is sweet and I love it. Plus, I get a little bit of exercise every day from riding up hills. My thighs are solid and super-buff. Which is good, I think.

Speaking of my bike, I rode it yesterday to pick up pizza at Pizza Hut on 65th and 15th. I usually don't consider myself that awesome, but last night I felt totally rad as I pedaled back down 15th with two pizza boxes strapped to the back of my bike. I felt European, but instead of flowers or baguettes in my bike basket, I had pizza taped to the rack. ROCK.

The last few days have been a whirlwind, and I'm just now getting my act back together. Once I'm done with class at 12:30, I think I'm going to go do something fun and/or relaxing. Preferably both.

I'm at the library. I hate Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays. They are so intense with class (and consequently homework) that it's ridiculous...

My travel mug is definitely ready to be retired. Somewhere in the inner lining, a leak has occured, and icky coffee remnants are now living in the space between the lining and the outer plastic cover. You can see the gross liquid moving about when I drink from the mug. This wouldn't really bother me except for the fact that some of this liquid gets back into the inner part every time I fill it up with something. So when I drink anything from that mug (and I drink lots of stuff out of there - tea, water, juice), it all has this slight tinge of disgusting coffee to it. It's kind of moldy, and really gross.

So basically, I'm in the market for a rad new coffee travel mug. Anybody have any suggestions as to where to find one? I want to buy it ASAP because I really do use my mug all the frickin' time. It's great because I get cheaper drip coffee and free hot water at the shops on campus if I bring my own mug, but what's more, I'm not constantly using and throwing away paper coffee cups, plastic cups and bottles, etc. That's actually my main motivation for having a travel mug. And I need one soon. So - any suggestions as to where to find one?

Today was at once terribly busy and awesomely fantastic. I got about 5 hours' worth of sleep, and had to drag myself to class. But once I got there, I actually found some of the stuff I did interesting, if not downright fun. After Eco lecture, I spent a bit of time in the Quad, soaking up the sun and calling a few friends to get the daily update... and then I had to go to work, which was okay, but I realized today that I don't remember anything from work, ever. Like, I don't mind being there (usually), and time flies because there's always something to do and coworkers to joke around with, but I really just don't remember anything. It's like seven hours of my time were taken away from me and replaced with an hourly wage. Seriously, if you asked me about work today, I could tell you only a few things: 1. I was on register for 3 hours; 2. I had to work in the bread section a lot, and 3. we had to stay 15 minutes late to finish everything.

The highlight of work today came after work, when I finally escaped and got to join Max's 21 run. The ironic part was that I organized the whole thing, and then couldn't make it there until I got off at 12. They were at College Inn by the time I got off, having already visited Flowers. Max was given many drinks and seemed to be enjoying himself. I wish I could have been there from the beginning, because I had a splendid time for only being there for an hour. My coworkers rock.

So tomorrow's gonna be lame, because I'll have school again. But I'll probably make it out for College Inn again, this time with the international group. And of course, I won't have school on Thursday, but I will have a dentist appointment. In Olympia. Yeah. LAME.

There's more exciting stuff going on this weekend, but I'll stop now because 1. it's time for bed, 2. I'm kind of rambling, and 3. who wants to hear about the mundane goings-on of my life, anyway?

snowshoeing at steven's pass today = awesome.

me = really ridiculously tired.

group meetings for school at the library on a Saturday night = dumb.

my motivation to do our work = low.

party tonight at brittany's = good, if I'm not completely useless in a few hours.

"You're good at stating things that are true."

(title provided by Jeff on 1/22)

Facts:
- Today was beautiful.
- I didn't smell good today. All I could think about during work was how nice a shower was going to be.
- My sister and Andrea are awesome people.
- Physics sucks.
- Gotta get back to Germany soon.
- Cold Franziskaner Hefeweizen is outstanding.
- I've been going going going for days now. Tomorrow I get the whole day to myself.
- I should have been in bed two hours ago.
- I'm going snowshoeing for the first time ever on Saturday.
- There is never enough time to reflect.

Check out the following video from MTV Belgium. Look for Sara and Andrea around minute 1.40:

I would really like to bake a pie sometime this week. Anybody want to help?

I used the snow today as a reason to not go to any of my classes. I am the worst student ever. But I got emails from all my classes saying that they were either cancelled, or we could make up the points tomorrow and Thursday. I know I shouldn't have used the snow as an excuse, but I was tired and I felt I needed today to play catch-up. And I've been doing just that - I finally bought the ecology book so I could do my homework. I hate being raped by the UW bookstore every quarter. So I'm allowed to turn in my assignments for Eco tomorrow instead of today, and I can go to physics tutorial on Thursday. The only bummer is that I'll have to make physics lab up later, and I probably should have gone to it today, so I could have a better understanding of this week's subject matter. But I'll catch up, I swear. This is my week.

Back to that pie. Who wants to play? I'm thinking cherry or apple.

Also:

-I found my stupid physics tutorial book, so I can do my homework now. Yay.

-Physics really sucks. I'm going to have to do some major learning about electromagnetics in the next week.

-My sister visited me in Seattle this weekend (yay!), but got a major ticket for parking in a rented space (boo!). I can't believe that it happened, and I've got to call her about it tomorrow.

-It was awesome seeing my sister and her friend. We didn't have much to do, but we had fun doing it (at least I did).

-Max was really sick yesterday, so I brought him some tea and EmergenC today before work. I think he appreciated it. It's hard to dicern emotions from someone whose default expression is "angry."

-People's birthdays are coming up fast. I gotta get working on presents.

-Damien Rice has some good stuff on his new album, "9".

-A customer asked me at work today if I had children. It occured to me that from here on out, such a question will become less and less uncommon for me. Huh. I tried to take it in stride, but it did shock me a little. To be fair, she was quite young and her first child was due last week - I asked her if she had any big plans for the evening, and she replied that she would be sitting at home, waiting to go into labor. Only then did I notice she was pregnant. It was nice talking to her about it - by far the most memorable interaction with any of my customers today.

-I need to stop making bullet points and start doing physics. Bye.