sometimes when i think to myself

i feel like there are levels of awareness

it is like there is the day to day

then there is what i think about the day to day

then there is how i think about everything

and then there is the outer layer which is hard to think of

it is like i am looking at it from the inside and trying to imagine what

it looks from outside but i can only speculate

but i can only think about it for so long because it is just too hard

so hard that if i try for too long i will snap back to the first layer

until i can muster up the courage to climb back out again

I have always been very good at being alone. I don't know what it is.

I think I've convinced myself that it is just the way I am. I am most comfortable

random unconnected unfinished thoughts

To state the obvious, the world has become an increasingly globalized place. This has been furthered by the advancement of communication technology which has produced increased interaction between and mutual awareness of formerly distinct spheres. The proliferation of ideas has reached instantaneous rates. This is an exciting thing. While we may take it for granted, the speed at which we are able to not only attain ideas but to also exchange ideas has monumental effects on who we are and what we are capable of. When we expand our spheres of influence and awareness, we expand the potential of our ideas. But this increased assimilation (although I say assimilation, the cultural exchange is mutual and less imperialistic than previous cultural interactions that would typically be associated with the term "assimilation" ) also has the effect of blurring the lines of previously distinct entities. While the movement towards universality and commonality seems like a positive one, do we not also lose something in the process? . . . .

Whenever I think about myself

on second thought

i am happy with what I have, who I am, what I am doing.

honestly

nothing really excites me anymore

is that so terrible? yes. probably. i'm not unhappy. i think i'm just bored with everything.

I think it's so strange to have moved back to Austin and then now to be back home again. I feel like it's hard to think clearly because I am not completely stabilized or else because I am consuming my thoughts and concerns with the structured, regimented, and time consuming world of school. Or maybe I am never thinking clearly because thinking clearly reveals too many things that I just cannot be bothered with or that I just do not want to admit. I have not the foggiest clue as I cannot think clearly about whether I am thinking clearly or not. 

It's weird to feel envy for things that you don't really want for yourself

I suppose that just iterates the separation between desire and rational thought, between pathos and logos

I am

terribly excited for this year. I don't know what it is. I think I am just happy with my state of mind right now. Whether that will continue once I get back is questionable but for now I am happy.

MS Paint

customizing blogs at work requires use of minimal tools

dearest friends,

I say 'dearest' because i want to greet you and also because if you are reading this you are probably some of the most dear to me. I wonder if that's where the letter greeting originated? Circumventing that tangential thought, I shall return to the thought at hand. I have decided to establish this - to declare it really - because to say it aloud or to type it out acknowledges it and gives it substance. It makes it less than mere words floating in my head that can be easily dismissed. And saying it to you gives it even more weight, like a covenant of sorts.

As a person who has a less-than-solid belief system (religious or otherwise whatever that may be), I find it difficult as all of us do to find meaning in life. I don't want to get to carried away with that notion because it is very easy to get carried away with it and my point is a little off-center from that. Essentially what I want to do is establish a direction for myself or maybe less a direction than a foundation. So that if I ever feel lost or uncertain I can have something to go back to as the basis for what I believe in and for what I stand for.

Ultimately it comes down to this. I want to be a good person. Not only that, but I want to continually better myself. After all, what purpose do we have than to be the best person we can be? Not to say that I am all of a sudden going to go on a world-saving mission (although that isn't an awful idea) but I just want to know that every action that I take is in line with principles I can stand by. I would say that I am generally morally relaxed in the scope of traditional moral standards and this will be reflected in the moral standards I establish for myself. So this won't be a dramatic change from how I already think and feel. This is not something where I all of a sudden take a moral stand against premarital sex or something like that. I have not thought it is morally objectionable and will not think it is so. Instead this is moreso a solidification/clarification of what I already believe to be true for myself.

So now what? Now I will generally outline the fundamental ideals for the basis of my actions.

• Always be open-minded. I think that I am an open-minded person but I don't want to take this assumption for granted because the funny thing about close-mindedness is that you don't recognize it in yourself. I want to always try to see things from each perspective even when an idea or answer seems obvious
• Realize the consequences of my actions, not only short-term but long-term and not only direct but indirect. I am pretty good about immediate direct consequences but I tend to have a disregard for the long term. This goes with the first bulletpoint -- I need to be aware of who is affected by my actions and how
• While it is good to be selfless and sensitive to other people, I need to equally weigh in how I am affected. My ambitions and wellbeing are equally important.
• Realize everyone has different circumstances and try to not make assumptions or develop prejudices about people before knowing them

I know it's kind of silly to do this (especially since these principles aren't exactly groundbreaking ideas) but I want to know that what I am doing is right. I know that I will make mistakes but luckily I am pretty forgiving of myself.

So how do you factor into this? As I said before, by putting into words and telling you, I am held accountable. Just because I don't believe in an almighty judge to reprimand me for my actions does not mean that I shouldn't be held accountable for them.

So that's it. Not terribly lifechanging stuff or maybe it is. Maybe by developing the habit of becoming aware of how I feel and think and act, I can live my life to its utmost potential. I want to better my life and myself and as much as I can the lives of other people and I want to rid myself of sources that are detrimental to these purposes.

I don't expect to do everything right -- not even close -- I just don't want to always settle for "alright."

i talked before

about how for once i feel the effects of getting older and as i said before, i am not mourning the loss of my youth because that would be foolish -- i am still so very young. i guess what i am saying is that i don't feel as young as i once was. but maybe that's how we always feel at each stage of our life because all we have is to look back and think how foolish we once were. but i think now i have accepted that i am still foolish but not as foolish as i once was to think that i wasn't foolish at all.

I think one of my biggest flaws right now is my willingness to take the immediately easier route. That is how I am. I like ease and immediacy of results. This is reflected in many aspects of my life from my everyday decisions to life-altering ones. It isn't that I don't have foresight, I just don't acknowledge the long-term consequences.

There isn't much more to say. I can say that I'm doing better with this but I still make mistakes and that's all I can really say.

it's a funny thing

to care and not care and forget and not forget
that's really me in a nutshell

for the most part i am flowing through the days of my life freely, stumbling past pylons and hurdles and roadblocks which I pass over wondering in the back of my head if they were mere pebbles or potholes but not giving them much second thought. I suppose the pieces of glass and rubber and metal and plastic build up and I have to stop and wonder where they all came from and I need to take a moment to mend and build myself back up again. I don't know if it's the same as it was before or if it's worse or better but pretty soon I'm back up and rolling through and past and over and under again as if nothing had happened.

stinescanofwoopash

.tumblr.com

if you want to join ashley and me and our ramblings you are invited
we can always change the name

Is it appropriate

to unzip your skirt a little at work so you have some breathing room?

oops
too late
just did it
feels right

Does it

ever blow your mind that this is the one life that we have
that this life that we have is finite and fragile
it drives me crazy this thought
because it's so scary
because it makes you want to do everything and nothing
it makes you want to grab people by their shoulders and shake them until they realize that they are wasting their time worrying about trivial things
and it makes you wonder why we do what we do

life is just too short
this is a saying we frequently hear
so much so that when we do hear it we don't really listen to it anymore
that's what happens with sayings -- we become conditioned to them so that they have a meaning that is taken at face value
-- but if you really think about it -- life is too short
it's scary, inconceivable because our lives are too short
my life is too short
this one life that I have -- the only life that I know

there's permanency in my actions -- i can't go back and change what's already happened
and yet there's transcience in my actions -- my life is but a fleeting moment in the scope of everything

i wish there was some sort of resolution to these thoughts
because wouldn't that be nice?

but instead i'll just go on with my life same as i always have because it's all i have and all i know how to do and then some time from now i'll think about it again and again and again

and it will just keep blowing my mind

while at work

i try to see how long i can last before warming up my lunch
i feel like it makes the day go by faster
but i realize that sometimes if i go to long without eating
and only having coffee occupy my stomach
i get a little crazy/lightheaded/dizzy

workplace woes

burnt tongue sipping coffee
in the bloodstream making
fingers jittery mind racing
wobbling through aisles
with high heels unsure of footing
placing one after the other
one two one two
like the ones and the twos
three four fives
that tell where mines hide

It appears that I

get sad about unusual things

and that I don't get sad about usual things

i get really

anxious at work,
so apologies if you were sideswept
by my restlessness.

Working hard like usual

540 dollars

(including taxes) gets you to madrid for three weeks

put that on my credit card, right quick

but

i don't want to go to work today

forgot

about that last post entirely until right now

drinking

wine in the summertime

this wine's pretty foul

i might get sick

just killed a mosquito on the computer screen

i can see the bright dots on the edge of my lashes

thinks the moral of the story is lost

might accidentally pass out in the living room 

with a thermos half full

wouldn't that be funny in the funny way where

it's not really funny at all

sweep those mines

i just

want to say i'm sorry
and i just want to rewind
or slow down or pause
the play button's jammed in
for now i've put it all on mute

i feel a little bit

like i'm falling apart; at the same time
i feel like i don't feel anything

the weird thing is

nothing's changed

Every night

since I've been back home I have had a dream
what's going on

why

getting older

is a strange thing. I never thought that I would ever feel

 older or notice myself growing up. In fact I remember 

being young and thinking this exact thing. That it seemed 

strange to me how my parents and how adults are and how 

one day I'd be expected to be one of them. Now that I'm older

I have noticed the changes in myself and the people around

me or in some the lack of changes. It's a strange thing to see

 the same look in the eyes of younger people that I remember

 seeing in my own not so long ago or what seemed not so long ago.

I see certain things that have developed in myself that I 

recognize as what had seemed so foreign to me

all those years ago in my parents and adults. 

I still make plenty of childish mistakes and 

sometimes I fail to have the same honed awareness

 that my parents seem to have but it is still certainly a strange thing

 to finally feel the effects of age or maybe maturity. 

the bad part

about being able to be happy anywhere 

is that you never strive for anything better

it might not be good to always be satisfied

Pops

spending the day with the pops

running errands

grilling steak

wearing new clothes

feeling relaxed

Dang

If everything in the world is going bad

we are going to be bad as well

Frustrated

I haven't felt this way in a long time. I don't know what it is exactly. I can pinpoint several things but I am still unsure whether that is what is causing it. I feel restless again and dissatisfied and anxious. I feel the need to do something drastic to jog everything back into equilibrium.

Toni&Guy

has this thing where if you submit yourself to being a hair model, you get a free cut. I'm into taking risks so we'll see what happens. 

honestly

i feel a little guilty

you probably heard it in my silence

i felt a little disappointed

which i tried to hide

i feel a little dizzy now 

but maybe that's just the wine

i feel a little uncertain 

but maybe this is how it's supposed to be

And so it goes

Hey, sorry my reply took so long, I thought I may have ended up seeing you earlier in the week. First of all, what are you doing tomorrow (thursday)? Let's hang out, I'm done with school for good at around 1:30. Second, thanks for telling me how you feel, it really means a lot to me. I agree that we'll both be alright. I have an undeniable peace about it, and its because of how genuine our relationship is. We both need to do whats best for ourselves, and if that means we need to part, then thats ok, as long as its whats best. And someday, if whats best for you is me, then that's what you have to do. I'll call you and see you soon --- On Sun, 5/10/09, Kristine Fernandez wrote: Subject:  Date: Sunday, May 10, 2009, 10:23 PM Adam, I just wanted to let you know how I really feel because I've made it painfully obvious that I'm really bad at that kind of thing in person. I'm going to miss you -- really, the idea of not seeing you again hasn't sunk in. Whether or not you realize it, meeting you has meant a lot to me. In a selfish sort of way, meeting you has made me realize things about myself. I've always had a fairly distinct idea of who I am as a person but I had lost some of that clarity. Meeting you brought me back. In a less selfish sort of way, I really do care about you. I've tried to keep you at a distance because of the circumstances and because of my personality in general but I just can't help falling for that damn smug face of yours hahaha -- I'm going to miss you but I know that we'll both be alright. It's weird because I really do feel like things will be alright for both of us. That doesn't mean that I'm not sad that things had to turn out this way. But I'm happy for you because I know that this is something that you need to do. I know that feeling of restlessness (albeit mine are of a smaller scale). I also know that you'll be alright because you're a good, strong person. I think you know this but if you ever had any doubts, forget about them -- I have credibility in this kind of thing (probably not true but take my word anyway). I know I'm going to see you before I leave but I just wanted you to know all of this. Just please don't rub in the sappiness when you see me -- I won't take it. Like, I'll see you later I guess, (With love,) Kristine

these are the shortlived adventures

of hardly two months

of sarcastic banter,

of playful wrestling,

of waking up next to you

despite the barring circumstances,

of silly trysts in strange places,

of smug faces and frank conversations,

of uncertainty and of clarity,

of bittersweet endings,

of terrible timing,

of wants and of needs,

of disappointment and of acceptance,

of caring too much and of caring too little,

of finding and of losing,

of finding myself and of losing you,

these are the shortlived adventures.

I don't like

to be dependent on anything but myself

i like not having to wait on other things or people

so i don't like that i feel dependent on you

I guess

I just want it to be over already

Or want to be over it already

Or both or none or something

I am feeling a little off

I think I might be getting sick
Something smells ripe
I think it's that banana

I think it's also everything else

I'm ready to go

there

is a feeling in the pit of my stomach that
i know is not really there
that i know is merely what i feel
that i have swallowed in hopes of
not having to see it or admit it
it pushes up climbing the walls of my
esophagus trying to escape past my teeth
but i swallow and push it back down again

i guess

either you don't understand what is going on
or you understand too well

i suppose i feel the same
push and pull
if that is what you are feeling too

i suppose i just wish i wouldn't
feel it so much at all

didn't get to hang out with adam at all this weekend. kind of missed him a little bit. but only when i would think of it at all.

i like

that i am beginning to form
the walls
beginning to fill in the gaps

what i had thought was
substance underneath
had only been
reflections off the surface
of the other bodies

i squinted at the forms
thinking that they must be
what i had expected them to be
that they were the things
that i saw in the bodies around me

and then i realized they were so
familiar because these things
and the things that i saw were
one and the same

well, that was obvious

I had a dream the other night that I had asked Adam if he wanted to get married and he had asked are you serious and i said yes and he said yes. it was only until afterwards that i questioned my certainty. I began to get scared and wondered what if I was making a horrible mistake and I thought this is a big deal and we talked about how we were going to tell my parents. I don't know what happened next but the next thing that I knew was that Tony had somehow become confused and was telling my parents that I was marrying him and my parents seemed uneasy and Adam showed up and thought that Tony was telling them that Adam and I are getting married but I explained to him what had happened. And so we ran away and hid from Tony and from my parents and that was the end.

I did not mean to post this; my project

reconstructing a dream

how thoughts interlace with reality which interlaces with imagination

algorithm of a dream

More recently, around 1973, researchers Allan Hobson and Robert McCarley set forth another theory that threw out the old psychoanalytical ideas. Their research on what was going in the brain during sleep gave them the idea that dreams were simply the result of random electrical brain impulses that pulled imagery from traces of experience stored in the memory. They hypothesize that these images don't form the stories that we remember as our dreams. Instead, our waking minds, in trying to make sense of the imagery, create the stories without our even realizing it -- simply because the brain wants to make sense of what it has experienced. While this theory, known as the activation-synthesis hypothesis, created a big rift in the dream research arena because of its leap away from the accepted theories, it has withstood the test of time and is still one of the more prominent dream theories.

random generation of numbers

numbers coincide with a certain noun, verb, adjective, adverb (with accomodating picture/video/sound) which create a dream mad lib

When I look back

on my life, I find it hard to believe that I've been doing this whole thing for two decades now. I feel like although plenty of things have happened, I haven't really lived. I think this feeling is aided by the fact that my life has been fairly structured, especially with school. I think it's strange that how I perceive my life in retrospect is largely constructed by school. It's weird that our lives are like this -- that from childhood to adulthood we are engaged in these systematic institutions. It makes sense for the sake of efficiency because there are so many of us but it's also easy to get lost or consumed by it. I think these thoughts have become realized for me because of how I've been feeling about these past two semesters. I think because I didn't want to be overwhelmed by the bigger scope of things I lived so that I could focus on the day to day or the week to week. Except I became so engrained in this way of thinking that I should focus on the short term that I became ambivalent about what was going on just as long as I could get the day over with, so I could get the week over with. I mean, I think that's how plenty of people work -- especially people with heavy workloads. It's hard to see what is going on or even want to bother with what's going on when you have something to do. Not that this semester was terribly difficult, but I definitely found myself just plowing from task to task with nothing in between. I would fill the time between with senseless, mindless things merely to pass the time. For a while the monotony was comforting. It was placid and stable. But now I realize that a little turbulence is good to keep your mind active and alert. Because if you're life is a flat line, you may as well be dead.

Despite everything

that I've been unsure about these past couple days
I am happy because all of this excitement (whether
it be good or bad) has woken me from my state
of sleepwalking that I have been in for I don't
know how long now. It feels good to feel something
even though the feeling wasn't necessarily a good one.
I think my productivity had been reduced to a minimum
and so had my desire to do anything. I felt like I was
merely passing the time. I feel like it will feel good
to have to be productive. I feel like I'm living again.


I went over to Yasmin's house and we cooked a delicious
pot full of shrimp pasta salad with feta cheese and tomatoes
and peppers and cucumbers and downed a huge bottle of
wine between the both of us. It was so good to just lounge
and cook and eat and talk and just exchange our thoughts
and grievances freely. It was a good way to reiterate
how I've been feeling and the changes in my perspective
as of late.

It's strange

to see how we approach the subject
mostly because we do so with caution
i'm not sure what to say because i don't
want you to take it in the wrong way
you don't know what to say because
of the implications that are involved
i don't know what i'm supposed to do
or how i'm supposed to act
or what i'm supposed to say
or if there is anything to do or say

adam is going to join the navy unless his brother-in-law offers him a job on his tour. one or the other. no ifs, ands, or buts.

what i did

i have trained myself to be unaffected by people
i have done this to preserve myself as a person
what has happened instead is that i've become less of a person
or maybe a less formed person
i have found that the form that i tried to preserve was not fully formed
and that it is hard to hold together something that isn't really there

I had gotten lost a month or so ago and I was walking in circles trying to find a familiar bus or street that would take me home. I thought I would be more concerned or scared. Instead I realized I didn't feel much of anything. I don't know if it was merely a state of delirium but I remember thinking that if something bad happened to me I probably wouldn't care all that much. I don't think I really feel that way all of the time but the severe case of detachment kind of puzzled me. I guess I had known that I am like that as a person but to see it taken to such an extreme made the feeling so much more lucid.

what happened to me
don't i care about anything anymore

the strange thing is that i'm not depressed but detached
i don't think i've always been this way or maybe i have
i really don't remember anymore

i think that who

i have become as a person
has been defined by
my need to be as
inoffensive as possible
i don't have any boundaries
to bump into
because i don't want
to block anyone out
and because i don't like
the discomfort of friction
instead i dodge
weave and spin
around your borders
or let you pass effortless
pass mine
thinking this is what it is like to
be human(e)
what has happened instead
is that, yes, you have been
let passed the wall
but because that wall
was so thin you didn't
feel it and you didn't
feel the impact
as you passed on
through to the other side
we might turn to look at each
for a moment but only to wonder
whether it had all really happened

i have always

wondered why i am so callous
how i could be so detached
today i found that maybe it is because i never
really cared about anyone before
yet you made me sad today
because i cared. you made me
cry because i couldn't believe it
i worry because maybe i am like those
people you talk about that maybe
it is just fleeting and that it could
just be anyone. it is strange only
because i have always thought
that way too and sometimes i
think it about myself. i don't
want to hold you back nor
do i think that i could or would
ever will it. i just wanted to say
these things but i couldn't.
i wasn't sure if it would come
out in the right way. i feel like
maybe i shouldn't. why do we
even bother then at all?

it is strange to me

to think of you
as someone like me

that you might
see me and think that
it is strange to you
to think of me
as someone like you

the tension

between you and i
is the pretension
from you on my
open mind
and open eyes

it is my apprehension
of your disguise
of your sly eyes
that see me
that pretend to not
see me

that is the tension between you and i

it is 'tween our lives
that there is a great divide
that we find
when they are side by side

that is the tension
between you and i

(something is wrong with the rhythm here that I can't quite peg)

And then it occurred to me

what I had known all along
what I had forgotten
which had withered away
which would have withered away
had it not resurfaced
it became real again
instead of just a vague memory
with dotted outlines
and faded colors
its pieces became whole
its edges became sharp
and i was stung by the edges
once again

I think what I like about you

is you put it all out there
you don't hide
which is so hard to find
people are always hiding
because people are always scared
are you not scared too
i am scared too
yet you make me want to come out of hiding

Sitting on my bed a little tipsy still head still rushing from the lights flashing the bodies dancing

and yet all i can think of is that one phone call that predicts the coming days the one phone call i'll hear soon

&c

I think that sometimes people notice that I may not be as emotionally open and that is probably true. What I have noticed though is that it is not merely because I reserve my emotions for myself and shy away from sharing it with others but also because the emotions themselves are unclear to me even. Is that strange? When we think about how we feel, our sensations, emotions, &c., these seem to be concrete things -- concrete being that they are rigid not material. And rigid being that they are defined and not ambiguous. I sometimes find myself confused trying to decipher them -- my own feelings. Why must I have to decipher them? It is common to have to decipher other people's emotions and feelings, but to have to realize my own seems like an unusual undertaking.

And yet even as I sit here, I can feel something within me but I do not know what it is. I want to let my fingers glide across the keyboard as if they were not on a keyboard but a ouija board, moving from letter to letter as if beyond my control, transcending the physical limitations of the biological, neurological, and electrical processes within myself and outside of myself that must ensue in order for the thoughts to become realized on the screen -- as thoughts become processed into neurons and neurons become processed as muscle contractions and muscle contractions become processed as typing and typing becomes processed as letters and letters become processed as words and back and forth and through and under and around and backwards -- the pathway is too controlled. I want to free myself from these processes because what I want to read may become filtered or dissipated or altered in some way without being conscious of it. I want to breathe onto the screen and purge directly from source to destination. The brightness of the screen blinds me and I find myself caged within these 10 x 13 square inches.

And now my hands are frozen yet my fingers are tingling with anticipation. They wait for their commands but there is none. Nothing but heavy breathing and the sound of silence.

Push/Pull

I feel as though the last semester, hell, the last year has been taking me by the hand and pulling me forward and I have let it. I have let the colors whizz by me as well as the people. I see their faces in the distance but really all I see is a blur as my eyes try to focus -- I'm moving too fast. I look down and I see that my feet are moving me along, reminding me that it is still me that is running yet when I look down at my feet I realize that they are blurs too. I remember wondering every now and again whether I should slow down and see what is happening around me, but then I feel my hand being tugged away again and I become caught in the mad rush as I had been before.

Now. I have finally stopped. No, I've slowed down. I look down and I see my feet again. They are still moving but I can see them distinctly following my legs up and seeing that yes, indeed, they are my own. I look up around me and I see what I had been missing. Really what I see now are not what I had been missing before because those things are already passed. Those blurred images are forever gone. Now these are new faces and new things yet they serve as a reminder of what had been there before. I see it now and even though I wonder what it had been like, I am still too busy looking for more.

Improvised creative writing

The air seemed unfittingly cold for the day as it had seemed when it had been framed by the white trusses of the window that morning. She thought it funny that she would look outside and trust how she felt it should feel instead of looking at the passersby who would probably be more reliable indicators of the present weather. She noticed them now as she walked by huddled in her own masses, which were not people or warm bodies but her books and her bag. She was walking briskly in a rhythm that the force of the wind coerced her into adopting as it pushed her body, her face, and her arms back and as she felt she must push the wind with her arms, body, and face forward. The immediate pure force of the wind made her feel as though if she did not push back that she might also not live. She found it funny to think that this is why she pushed so heavily against it. Thinking these thoughts made her also think that if this force had instead been her father, her life would have turned out much differently.

(What this is, I do not know. Intro to a short story perhaps? Felt the need to stir the flow of those creative juices that have since stagnated and coagulated to become a lumpy unidentifiable ball of crap that resembles something that I used to know long ago)

{Also doesn't the style remind you of some American Literature novel about a girl who experiences some sort of awakening or coming of age)

A new feeling

Being the detached person that I typically am when it comes to opposite-sex relations, I have surprised myself by feeling that I might, dare I say it, "like" someone. I rarely lust or pine or obsess or even crush on guys. Although I have had the tendency to fall into situations where it might seem like I do. Sometimes I wonder if maybe I just don't give people (and by people, I mean male courters) a chance and close the options before they can become realized. Or maybe I just have not met anyone that I had felt deserved my time. However, this time around I feel a genuine interest and even a genuine longing to be with him when I'm not with him. Whether this is just an illusion that has placed a veil over my eyes and confused my senses from the stimuli of hand holding and lip locking because for once they do not seem sheathed as weapons of seduction, I do not know. For now though, I am holding these reservations aside and letting things fall as they may.

Talking it over

I'm meeting with a professor for advising because Plan II basically forces it upon us. We had to pick three faculty members and they would try to pair us up with one of them to talk to. I had e-mailed the professor whom I had been paired with and he let me know that he couldn't find the "sophomore statement" that we were required to turn in earlier this year basically summing up where we are, what we want to do, etc., etc. I couldn't find my copy either so I began to write out how I felt about where I am, who I am. . . and it turned into a very frank thing -- much moreso than the original statement had been.  I guess I figured what did I have to lose. Maybe if he knows everything that I feel about careers and about what I want and why I'm doing what I'm doing, he could really help me. I guess I'll just have to wait until next week when I meet with him to find out.

Revised Sophomore Statement:

I am currently a Civil Engineer and Plan II major. Originally I had been a Chemical Engineer and I had realized it wasn't quite what I wanted. I had toyed with the idea of switching to Architecture or Architectural Engineering or Civil Engineering. Ultimately I wanted to keep my scholarship so I stayed within the College of Engineering. This has been my first semester as a civil engineer and it already feels much more fitting than chemical engineering ever did. I've always enjoyed designing and creating and problem solving and this seemed to me to be the most practical application career-wise. To be honest, I have always enjoyed the creative/aesthetic realm than the science/mathematic side so I think it surprises people that have gotten to know me to find that I am an engineer. However, I think it was important for me to understand the scientific knowledge that underpins the structural design. Whether this route will be as satisfying for me is somewhat up in the air. (One thing that is certain about this route though, as my dad continually mentions, is the job stability which I suppose is relevant to these sorts of decisions.) In regards to my specific aim, I am not entirely sure what I would like to do. I went to the Engineering Expo and spoke to some Arch/Civil Engineering Firms to see if I could secure a position as an intern this summer so I could get an idea of what I want to do. Unfortunately, many firms were not hiring as many interns as they normally would because of the state of the economy and most recommended to me specifically to try again next year as I am only technically in my first semester as a civil engineering student. I am still hopeful about finding a summer internship that will give me experience and insight about my future.

Interesting tidbits.

School is a lot of work

As per usual I feel like I've fallen behind on my schoolwork. As a matter of fact I had been going to the wrong class for the first 3 weeks. It didn't help that I was already lost in the class that I thought I was in.

It seems like I run into plenty of people who didn't finish college or who didn't go to college at all. Ok, so none of these people are prime examples of who I want to be or who I look up to or anything, but sometimes it just seems that we should be living rather than preparing for 'real life' which will turn out to be a bunk job living in the suburbs.

There really isn't that much substance in this post right now. I think I just wanted to post that animated .gif, which is not even related really.

Awh

It has certainly been a while, blog world.

And to mark my debut into blogging once again, I wanted to share with you what's going on right now. Here I sit with this in my possession:

20 tablets that when ingested, manipulate your taste bud receptors so that what would normally be considered sour will taste sweet. People apparently have 'flavor-tripping' parties with this stuff. And yours truly has some. For a project, of course. Really the project is just an excuse to trip on flavors. Come on, you know you're curious.