autumnreverie

In recent years, I have taken to holding back my complaints about the world. My philosophy is, essentially, that nobody wants to hear about it. I figure, if I don't want to hear about other people's petty problems, since there's nothing they or I can do about them, then it probably stands for other people and my problems, too.

So, I keep things to myself. Sometimes, I will write out my grievances to the universe, in a journal or an unread blog (i.e. here) so that I can feel like someone is listening or sympathizing, even if only in interwebby space. Then I don't have to burden people with the uncomfortable situation that is complaining and commiserating. I don't know if I ever really seek overt, sympathy; I just want to vent and have a living, breathing someone to listen. Maybe I do want sympathy, but I would never admit that. Ha.

This is not to say that I hate listening to other people's problems. I have been told I am a good listener, probably because when I listen I either a) rack my brains for a solution to the speaker's mess of a life, or b) conclude to myself that there is no solution and so just keep my mouth shut.

At the same time, I think it has become increasingly difficult for people of this age - people who are hyperbolically connected through social media and texting and blah blah blah all our modern vices - to realize that their problems are really not of interest to the rest of the world. People in general are fairly mundane, nobodies essentially. It's silly to complain, because everybody complains, and it makes you even more of a nobody to continue complaining when a very small percentage of the world cares.

But in the end, eh, it's just another tally mark on the list of random things that make us human: we love to complain.

This weekend was superb. Friday was my friend's birthday, so we went to dinner and salsa dancing with a few of her friends from church. Everyone there was really nice, and it was enjoyable. Got a little dressed up and danced (?!?!). It was a little uncomfortable because the guys were all older and not my type at all, but maybe that was for the best since I had no idea what I was doing with my feet and made a fool of myself. I need to take lessons or practice more or something.

Then yesterday. Oh yesterday. HALLOWEEN. Got a free burrito bol from Chipotle by wearing a sham of a burrito costume - aluminum foil wrapped around my torso. God I love burrito bols. EVEN THE GUAC WAS FREE!! The guac guy behind the counter indulged my shout of glee when I discovered that EVEN THE GUAC WAS FREE.

The rest of the night was spent dressed as a doll, with pigtails, rainbow earrings, doll makeup, a dress, and stripey socks. I went out with a different friend and her boyfriend plus several other pals, and it rained on the parade. Only literally; the figurative did not apply, because people came out in full spirit despite the rain. In any case, the rain inspired us to find somewhere to dry off, and we did, in several bars. Got a little tipsy and enjoyed myself more than I would have if I'd been without substance (unfortunate but true). The night ended with my friend's boyfriend, dressed as Fred from Scooby Doo (the girl was Velma! Not the right pairing but it was cute), hurling in the middle of Waverly Place.

I celebrated the end of the holiday weekend today by working out, spending $65 at Trader Joe's and doing research in the library.

YEAH!

My first article for the magazine... Asterix & Obelix, naturally. I am not interested in journalism, but this internship is good so far. :)

Et même si la vie nous joue des tours
En attendant les beaux jours
Je rêve encore en silence

Et même si la vie nous joue des tours
Comme en rythme d'un tambour
Doucement mon coeur balance



And even if life plays its tricks on us
While I wait for the spring
I still dream silently

And even if life plays its tricks on us
Like a tambourine's beat
My heart rocks softly

I'm a bad translatorrrrrrrrr

I read back through this LJ and had lots of feelings. Those feelings made me want to write a pretentious little abstract of my life up until now, but in trying to inject it with honesty and realism, I think I missed the vein.

Where I am now, fall 2009:
- I'm feeling really done with academia. I think this is the more mature strain of senioritis, but I'm just ready to have a life and contribute to the world instead of sitting in a classroom where people bicker about whether things are constituents or not.
- I applied to Teach for America.
- I'm (supposedly) working on sociolinguistic teacher talk research.
- I have an internship with a prominent French culture magazine and I'm also working nights at the NYU library. Glamorous existence.
- This fall I feel much more isolated than last. Several of my good friends here have either graduated or moved off campus, so I don't see them much and that leads to relationships that trail away.
- A big step for me was de-activating my Facebook for a few weeks because it was enabling some bad habits I have. I had to re-activate it for my internship, which I think is ironic.

I think I'm too serious. I also have too few good memories that result from actively living my life, and too many days of my life erased by doing nothing important.

Lurking high-school LJ posts of people I'm not LJ-friends with is realllly interesting... I miss high school. I'm probably the only one who does. I wish I had been more confident back then to take advantage of the social experience. I never really hit my stride socially in high school. Or college, come to think of it. I can live vicariously through people I don't know very well, but if I know people who have better friendships than me, I get very very jealous.

I have a small sliver of hope that someone from my past is interested enough in living vicariously through me through my LJ... but eh, if not it's cool.

I have never read French texts as incredibly frustrating as the pop-lit mysteries we're reading in my senior seminar, Le neo-polar. I have to underline and look up at least ten words per page (at least!), and it is helping neither my comprehension nor my self-esteem.

Whining: When do I get to be fluent? When do I get to read popular novels like a native and not feel that my nine years of studying this language have been useless? NINE YEARS. I've read books upon books throughout those nine years, yet I am suddenly seeing words I've never seen or heard before? Is every language like this? Is this even fair? Why am I doing this to myself?

So right now I'm using the "Tea House" theme for Gmail, which changes according to the time of day. I really love that kind of dynamic theme, and I was using the "Bus Stop" one, which changed with the weather, for a while until I decided I liked the tea house one better. The one thing about the tea house theme, though, is that the little fox is always out doing something or other in the garden. Even now, it is 12:22 a.m. and he is working his sad little tail off in the dark!! GO TO SLEEP, FOX! You make me sad.

This guy has an amazing portfolio - looking at his food pictures, I actually said to myself, "That is one beautiful sliced radish." It was amazing and bemusing.

In other news, the most recent blog project I started has already gone down the drain; I think I'm ok with not having a purpose-driven blog right now. LJ should be enough, and I have a real journal that has been feeling neglected for a while.

I want to join fun clubs this year. I don't want to do my research anymore. I am basically failing at that and I wake up sweating every morning from nerves that I will shame my university, my country and my family.

Why is it always the bathroom where I organize my thoughts the best? It's not like I necessarily spend that much time there, but somehow anything involving mindless routine - showering, brushing my teeth - lets my mind wander and sometimes sifts the best thoughts to the top of the pile. (The slush pile?)

I have grand plans for productivity on my airplane home this Friday. I raided my local library for YA fiction. I'm excited to read Gossip Girl in public and (hopefully) not be ashamed. Please, GG, live up to your reputation. I also want to write some vignettes for my new project. I don't think I write as well longhand as I do with a keyboard, so we'll see how it goes.

As usual, thinking about the future worries me. But I'm trying this new thing, optimism. It's a real treat in the morning when I remind myself that I can change how I think and that I don't have to resign myself to anger and boredom every day.

People getting their degrees in computer/tech related stuff should feel very lucky that their talents are actually in demand right now. I feel like the internet is saturated with start-ups and engineering opportunities. It's also full of creativity, so much so that I often can't take it all in at once, otherwise it numbs me. I am starting to understand the fear that technology brings information overload, and I recall that there are actually legitimate cases of people taking in too much knowledge and becoming obsessive. That is weird.

I'm really stressed about school right now. Red tape is everywhere. It's like a red spiderweb and I'm stuck thrashing in it, trying to find a way out.

I just found out, looking at my degree progress report, that I essentially took an entire semester's worth of courses (16 credits) for nothing. They don't count for anything. My three German courses and a stupid elective course about Versailles. I suppose it's not a big deal considering I didn't take them all at once, and everyone should be allowed some electives, but it's making me nervous because I have to petition to stay at NYU another year to do my research and finish my major and minors. They're trying to take away my financial aid for this next year because I've done 125 credits already and typically people graduate after 128.

I've also been having nightmares lately about assorted acquaintances. For example, this morning at 2:15 I woke up abruptly after an otherwise normal dream about an amusement park that struck me with fear when one character, a boy I work with in the fifth grade class, miscalculated his cannonball jump into an elevated swimming pool. His expression of glee morphed instantly into blankness as he hit his head on the wooden rim and tumbled 20 feet to the ground, blood gushing from his injuries.

Ugggh why am I so bad at deadlines? The one for submitting my resume to the NYU class of 2010 resume book, which the school sends out to future employers for recruitment, was May 14, but I amazingly got an extension when I asked nicely via e-mail, so I went into the Career Development office to turn my stuff in. The woman accepted it, telling me there was one more step to complete by 5 p.m. today. Did I do it?

NO, I let it completely erase itself from my mind because I felt like I was finished with that stupid chapter of my to-do list, and I went and got a buttload of stuff from Trader Joe's, and mailed a present to my friend in Maryland. Then I also started downloading The Sims 3 for my roommate from an online torrent. WHY WHY WHY Then of course I didn't remember those "further steps" until 10 tonight, when they had already been erased from the Career Development site and I was unable to complete them because I was 5 hours late on my two-week late extension!

This is just like college applications all over again. Can't wait for grad school.

I wonder if anyone in another country has ever found as much patriotic enjoyment from a takeout meal as I just did from my hamburger (with lettuce/tomato/ketchup), seasoned fries and vanilla milkshake. Like, do Japanese people get sushi and udon takeout when they're sick and take obscene pleasure from eating a gastronomical symbol of their homeland? Or maybe Mexican people and quesadillas with margaritas? I probably don't know enough about international cuisine to be making these comparisons, but all I know is I was intensely proud to be American during the ten minutes it took my flu-ridden self to scarf down half my delectable meal.

I have the flu! :( It is unpleasant, and the guy at the health center was rude, but he was also very helpful. For instance, I am really not informed about how to take care of my body when I am sick like this; I generally just ride it out like some sort of stubborn Amish person and avoid any and all medication. (Do Amish people do that?) But I got some Benadryl and Sudafed, which I have never purchased or owned before, and I've been gargling with mouthwash to kill the virus bacteria in my mouth.

I had a fever of 101.3 when I dragged myself into the health center - which is thankfully still open for the summer - and honestly I wanted to die pretty much the entire day today. The elementary school had its Field Day at the Battery Park baseball diamonds, and I could barely keep my attitude above mildly perky, because my head was pounding and my whole body ached. For some dumb reason, I thought these symptoms were from allergies, even though I have never had allergies this bad in my life, and it didn't really add up. Yesterday I thought it might have been the excessive dander from my flatmate's cat, who is in heat at 1 year old and insists on rubbing her cat body all over my possessions and person when I let her out of S's room and into the apartment. Trivia fact: apparently it is not the hair of a cat itself that irritates humans, but the nasty saliva residue on their fur.

Anyway, I have been feeling really grouchy and irritable from this illness, and when the rude guy at the health center told me in his very asshole-ish way that I had the flu, I sort of tiredly panicked and asked if he meant the swine flu. He was like, yeah, if you want to call it the swine flu, but honestly it's just the same as all 200 other forms of the flu that exist, and the news is making a big deal about it even though it's not any worse than those other kinds.

I probably got it from the stupid teachers at the school who insist on coming in and GASP doing their job even when they're sick, and the children whose parents GASP go to work and can't take time off to nurse them in their own home, thus letting the kids cough all over everything/everyone while in school.

Despite my sarcasm, I am actually very understanding of modern teachers' and parents' reluctance to take time off work for a sickness, whether theirs or their children's. It's a very 2000s way to live life, to just stick it out and get the important things done despite the body's insistence that it needs rest. But I think that people should probably practice better going-to-the-doctor habits, cause I mean, doctors are helpful.

Uggh Firefox is killing me. It keeps freezing up my entire computer every time I try to open it. :( I have to use Safari now... which is fine, but it doesn't have my old toolbars and I didn't get a chance to import my Firefox bookmarks. NERDY TEARS...

Anyway, I'm moved in to my new apartment and I like it a lot. It is very very New York (mostly in its size haha) and the roommates are actually great. I think my clarinet was lost forever in my epic move here though. :( I feel like a very uninteresting person, so it's a good thing I'll be going back to work tomorrow.

Ode to a Bagel

O Bagel,
You are my world
My whole wheat everything, toasted please ya heard
Your salty brown self, with veggie spreaded hat
Is where it’s at, where it’s at
Riding on the bus, my writing hand slack,
I looked in my tummy’s mind for a perfect post-final snack.
Cookies too rich, PB&J too bland,
I was running out of time before my bus would land.
That’s when I saw, out of the window by my head
Pick a Bagel on Third!
My tummy stopped dead.
I descended from the bus, excited and nervous
For your sweet crispy body, oh so curvous
Just a few short minutes, and I had you in my hands,
The tastiest snack ever, man oh man
Ran up to the dorm, sampling a corner on the way,
Crazy and happy, you made my day.
Crunching poppy and sesame,
Salty tastes so good ta’ me
And that silky veggie spread got the colors I need
Carrots, onions, green things make me so free
My teeth tear at you, my round bready G,
And sometimes, bagel buddy, you’re hard to eat
But it’s ok cause you made my day SWEET

© AYF 2009

Maybe I'm delirious from all the studying/cramming, but looking back at this e-mail from my professor (of "Metaphors of Modern Theatre" - e.g. Sartre, Beckett) really made me laugh at the wonders of caps lock.

( ALL THE BEST FOR A FINE SUMMER!!!!!!!! )

He's an old fellow and not great at being organized/open-minded so I am rather glad I will not see him in a class again after my final today. But the picture of him YELLING at the top of his lungs things like "SELF-ADDRESSED ENVELOPE OR POST CARD" and "FINE SUMMER" brings to mind a crazy dictator at a podium not really sure of how to go about this whole tyrant thing, and it makes me laugh.

Rarely does the majority of items on a clothing site instill in me such a consistently strong consumerist/fashion lust, but apparently ShopRuche.com is the exception. I mean look at some of this stuff.


Mellow mustard embroidery sundress


Flowie garden love bow linen bag


Ferns and flowers charm necklace