Sophomore Year…

I was looking through old lists today and discovered this review of Sophomore year at Endicott. Here are some of my best observations and what not from the end of my 2nd year of college:

• You have the ability to make anything happen if you just ask
• A knock on the door is probably not a knock on your door, i.e. knocks echo and white board markers are loud
• 6 classes is not too many, adding 4 clubs and a job is
• There’s a difference between being busy around people and being busy with people
• Late night chats are the best, especially with roommates
• Making a pact to survive the semester works
• ‘Never Have I Ever’ is possibly the best way invented to get to know your friends
• Communicating thru fb messages, wall posts, texts, in person, and juggling what all the subtext means is messy and confusing
• ^Thats what friends are for
• Boys are also confusing
• ^Thats also what friends are for
• Save your on campus flex til the end
• Savor every beach day
• ^Tupper always smells, brindle is like grass above the beach, I suggest Winthrop at low tide
• Salem light pollution can actually be really beautiful
• Stay open to new things
• Shraytown is always right
• Twinkly lights are technically dorm room illegal, but if the under construction dining hall uses them, you can too
• Allergies suck but spring sea air is beautiful: you can have both or none
• Mental breakdowns are both normal and accepted, try yo do them around friends
• Do not share drinks, every season is mono season in college
• Do ASB
• Staying up late is the fastest way to meet and make new friends
• Enjoy the long hours of being forced to do art, you’ll miss it and learn to make time for it
• Laughter really is the best medicine
• Be resourceful: dining hall dishes make great dorm room dishes, mirrors are white boards, AC vent covers are fridge doors
• Netflix and prides nights are underrated

The light…

“A candle loses nothing by lighting another candle”
-James Keller

Summer 2014 Wishlist

So here’s the thing, I’m not making a big bucket list at all this year.

That’s weird for me. Very weird. But here’s my thinking… See last year I had my 2013 Bucket List, with 100 things I wanted to do. Some of them were really big goals, some of them were just little things. And the funny part is, some things didn’t get done and I am 100% okay with that. The things that really went something to me, they still happen. I don’t know how to explain it other than through my swirly theory that the universe will make things from my lists happen, just because I concentrate enough on them by thinking of them and writing them on my list. It probably doesn’t make any logical sense, but I’m a firm believer in magic, and this kind has been proven through the tests of time. From my 2013 list, some things just took more time to come to fruition. Like #67: See a shooting star/ meteor shower, which happened on my 20th birthday this year, or #1: Drop pennies Stargirl style for a day, which I did in Boston, and #14: Cracker Barrel, where I went with my mom this past winter. I mean I can just keep listing things- #36, #87- from this and other lists, that happen after the fact, because of the listing and the universe and all.

Some things, like #61: Pack a bug-out bag or #27: Go strawberry picking, sounded great at the time but fell off my radar and are some of those things that didn’t happen because they just weren’t as important to me  as they used to be. So, no bucket listing for me for now. I will, however, continue to post lists of my wishes for summer. And for my other adventures to come this fall when I’m abroad.

I’ll post new ideas for adventures and mark those that have passed here: My Summertime Wish List for 2014

But in the meantime, I’m going to do some painting, email about internship, and watch The Parent Trap with my loverly sister, and enjoy this moment while we’re together. See here’s the thing about my summer wish list- unlike my big bucket lists, it isn’t something made to fill every moment of boredom nor is it something I need to revolve my life around. These are just thoughts of things that have been floating around my head recently. Some will happen, and some won’t, but I’ll let them evolve on here whenever I get the chance.

In the words of F. Scott Fitzgerald, I’m filled with “that familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer”. 

Lots of love,
<3′ Me

Spreading the Light

This isn’t going to be a very long post. I owe you guys and myself a really good end of the year wrap up, but I’m so proud I haven’t written in a while! I’ve been doing really well at the spontaneous living thing that most people my age do, sans the listing. I do have some updating to do, but for now I just have to share this.

I attended a Vesak Day celebration and light ceremony at the Meditation Center in Quincy last week. We were lucky enough to have one of the Monks come to our cross cultural art therapy course earlier this semester, and our Professor invited us to join in this celebration and meditation with all of them in Quincy. I went and oh my goodness the entire day really, but especially that afternoon was beyond my imagination. That day in both my Cross Cultural Practices class and my C.A.T. Studio, we exchanged art gifts, just little momentos to each other as memories and to acknowledge how much we had shared and grown together. It got me steadfast into a full on nostalgia kick, but not the bad kind like I’d been feeling. The good kind where I felt kinda numb in a soft way, where I just feel able to go with the flow and witness my feelings as they roll on through but without getting overly wavy about it all.

We- Lupa, me, Anna, and another CAT friend who we’ll call Cala- drove to Quincy in the afternoon (after I had a great day, and bought lots of friends smoothies with my extra on campus flex dollars, and spent time on the beach with hales, and got Capt. Dusty’s with Penny & Bethany), and all the while we had just genuinely nice conversation about the future and classes and dream jobs and study abroad and adventures and all. Then we got there, and not gonna lie I felt so awkward. I mean, we were 4 very white girls showing up at a Buddhist meditation center and we had no idea where to go, and the only familiar face was our semi crazy Professor. In about 10 minutes it turned into such a fantastic experience though! They were all so welcoming and it was such a neat environment to absorb. I tried their homemade spring roles and had Tai Ice Tea. I even succeeded in having my usual klutzy moment where I knocked my entire place down, and they were apologizing to *me* and trying to help me clean it up! After that, I knew the worst had passed, and not been the worst at all.

We got to see their offering ceremonies and were invited to join in the meditation. They then had a walk around the center with candles, and then a lighting ceremony all in the name of creating and spreading peace. I know it sounds corny, the belief that meditating can create world peace, but it was so amazing to hear of people who completely believed that by embracing this form of personal peace, they could spread goodness to the world. I admire that so much.

Then, to conclude the most random evening of fantasticalness, we went over to our Professor’s house. He and his wife are two of the most random and knowledgeable people, and they are so welcoming. We got to tour their studio’s in their house and eat pizza and talk for hours. After all of that, we got surprises in the mail the other day- books our professor had been telling us about, and a little advice.

So the words I’ll leave you with at the end of all of this are his: “may you keep leaping and throwing yourself into the universe”!

Until next time,
<3′ Me

 

City Skies

“One belongs to New York instantly, one belongs to it as much in five minutes as in five years”

Turn to Art

When life feels hard, turn back to art. Your brushes will not laugh at your problems, the paints do not judge. If you’re alone or overwhelmed or lost in your own mind, it feels like you can’t go on. So don’t try to. Stop trying to push yourself to go. Let yourself stay; let your mind go. Take a journey on roads of alkyd under cerulean skies. Your canvas will absorb your layers of pain. Always turn back to art, and remember that art will always be there for you.

Ponderings…

So here’s the deal: I organize soundtracks to my life. Very surprising, I know, given my tendency to organize and sort and list my life and all… I started doing it at the end of senior year. Sometimes my playlists are based around the event in my life, like graduation playlists in June 2012. I can still play any of those songs and remember fun and funny and terrifying and hilarious moments, because they were always playing. I have a playlist for each “summer bucket list” I made, before both junior and senior year back in high school. And when fall of my freshman year hit, and pandora and other people’s music started to become part of the soundtrack of my life, I started organizing my music into monthly folders based on when I downloaded it.  Sound has such a deep impact on us, and we internalize it in ways we’re not always aware of. But the best part, is that I’m creating auditory time capsules and they’re fabulous.

My point to all of that long ramble, was that I started to listen to some of my more nostalgic inducing months last night, and continuing this morning. Then, Alex posted on my Facebook wall forbidding my to study abroad because she’ll miss me. *cue tears* But it was so sweet and that’s why I love that girl- she’s such a good friend! Not to mention, the other night I was talking to Walter at our LLS meeting, and he casually asked if he cooked spaghetti every night for me this fall, would I stay. Like these people kill me- they’re so super sweet!!

The exciting part is… I’m studying abroad in the fall! It’s officially OFFICIAL!! I’ll be attending the Florence University of the Arts in fall 2014 and I am so so very excited! It’s going to be such an amazing time and I know I’m going to learn SO MUCH and have some unbelievable experiences. It’s honestly going to be a 4 month or so adventure, with every moment consisting of lots of other little adventures. So I’ll just come back after and be an adventurer. And the stories. I’m a big rambler-er and a big story teller, and I plan on coming back with more stories than you’d ever think possible! So get excited, because I’lll be including some of this info right here, so you too can share in my adventuring.

Anyway, this week was also pretty big because it was the series finale of How I Met Your Mother. I’ve watched this show for so long, and it is ever heart wrenching and gut busting. And the thing is, this is my generation’s group of friends. We’re going through the stuff they just went through, and we’re looking toward their lives in our 20s and up. There’s nothing more comforting through the thick of it than getting to see people, even if they’re just characters, staying friends through everything. Now I’m getting all sentimental about this looking back, but half of what was awesome about this show was the insanity. The Robin Sparkles and the “Have you met Ted?” and the “legen…. wait for it… dary!” moments and the bangity bang song and Marshmellow and Lilypad and the doppelgängers and the flashbacks and and the NYC of it all. It was always there, and now its ended.

I guess the hardest part was that they kept flashing forward, to the inevitable fact that people move on. That our lives change, and we grow apart, or maybe together if we’re lucky, and our family is always there but we get friends as family too. And I got to watch al this with one of my very best friends here: Bethany. Now she wasn’t the biggest fan of the finale, and I’m not really sure where I fall, except for being sad there isn’t any more. Robin and Lily say in the episode that they’ll always be there for the big moments. And I guess that’s why I’m feeling nostalgic, remembering some people from high school who I thought would always be in my big moments who aren’t now and thinking about people in my life now, hoping that I’ll be lucky enough for them to stick around for those moments coming up.

Well I oughta go to bed. I’ve got an early day of clay rhino sculpting and oil painting for my classes, and I should probably get some shut eye.

Always,
<3′ Me

Boys.

For the next month and a half, I am still a teenager. And since everyone escaped me being a stereotypical boy-crazy teenage girl in high school, you get to hear all about my overly analyzed boy based struggles now.

(If you choose to skip reading this post, I understand. I personally find it amusing in the most annoying ways, so I get it…)

If you’re eyes are still here, I guess I can begin. I don’t do the “guy” thing well. I’ve never had many friends that were guys, and I haven’t had a boyfriend. I just generally don’t really interact with guys, and that isn’t for lack of trying sometimes. It just happens that I picked an art therapy major in college, one of like a dozen people in the entire program (small school probs), and guess what gender we all happen to be…? Not to mention, that my entire academic school, the Art program, is primarily girls. And the handful of guys have been in my class for the last 2 years, and now we’re all like a bunch of siblings- sometimes I like them and sometimes I don’t, but theres nothing romantic-y about it. Most of the guys I meet through my extra curricula’s are great people, but they’re so great they’re already taken. And of course there’s the meeting people at parties thing, but I don’t really understand the college culture I’m a part of, so participating in all that is another level of difficult.

Now here’s the unfortunate part:
There’s a guy a really like. We’ll call him Harris. But we’re just friends. In fact, we’re not even close to being more than friends. And he’s a great friend actually, a generally great person, which makes it suck more. I mean maybe at one point there is the slightest chance we could’ve been something else other than friends, but I’m now a citizen of the friend-zone and he is unquestionably off limits. But I still see him around a lot and I’m not gonna get into it cuz I’ve decided that we are in fact just friends, and I’m just gonna keep repeating that. Plus I have total phobia of a Harriet the Spy scenario with the stuff I post here…

Now I thought there was a possible something going on with this guy Lee earlier this fall, and it was kinda similar to the Harris thing. I mean, I also saw him around but I didn’t think he was interested in me at all, and then I did, and then I decided that I think his personality just seemed like he was interested in me like that. But the thing is, unlike with Harris, I actually wanted to be just friends with Lee. So maybe the first situation here is karma for this whole Lee thing.

Ugh.

Okay, so then last but definitely not least is the fact that the only time a guy has legitimately actively asked me out happened to be a complete stranger who cannot pick up social cues, who is more awkward that I am, and who caused me more stress than I deserved. We’ll call him Jonathan. I don’t know him as well and am not friends with him, nor am I trying to be friends. Also I don’t think he even knows my blog exists, but at this point I don’t care a whole awful lot. (Normally I’d never say, and maybe not even think, that kind of a thing. But in this scenario, I think I’m more than entitled to share my bitter thoughts.)

To translate the full scale of this experience, let me outline all the happenings a bit more for you. Pretty much I tried to say no thanks and never ask me again in the nicest way possible, but the social cues I was being advised to drop weren’t getting across, which led to several awkward encounters. And I finally had to send a rather curt text to stake things, but now they’re dead and buried finally.

Anyway, I’m lucky enough to have my friends to help me through it all. This semester in the spirit of my constant need to set goals, I have three trusted advisors in my lack of a love life this spring. Regina, my lovely and ever insane (in the best ways) roommate, has volunteered as my personal Rafiki. She will be charged with my emotional wellbeing and generally dealing with me throughout my adventures. Alex, my outgoing and super duper connected friend who I swear knows everyone, has been named as my Mufasa. She’s going to be my agent of sorts, possibly introducing me to new people. Hermione is back at school this semester, so she’s going to use her expertise with the English language to be my wordsmith. Basically, I’m gonna use her to help me write texts and and speak to people my own age through deciphering the subtleties of modern day communication. And I recently added a new possible advisor or two to the committee from my ASB trip, but I’ll fill you in on more as it unfolds.

Now I’m back from my Alternative Spring Break with Habitat for Humanity. I got to spend a week in sunny Florida with some of the best people at my school- we built houses and played games and saw the Sox and went to the beach and stayed up late and laughed and cried. Now I’m far away from them and it’s sad but I’m glad that I got so close I can miss them, and it gives me something else to focus on a bit.

Anywho, I’ll be sure to update you soon!
<3′ Me

Every 48

So Wednesday was Every 48 at my university. This is the second annual, and each spring we do a day long event to raise awareness about the effects of impaired driving. Pretty much, about every 48 minutes in the US someone is lost in a drunk driving accident. In that spirit, someone on campus symbolically “passed away” every half hour for 12 hours. That means that every 30 minutes, another student put on all black and a little sign with an explanation around his or her neck, and could no longer participate in the life thing. I “died” at 7 am today. So for 12 hours, I couldn’t talk to people, I couldn’t text, or use social media, or email, or use sign language, or point and nod and act things out to try to communicate. I was just there, a place holder to act as a reminder of who could be lost because of drunk driving.

And it doesn’t matter if you *think* you’re just buzzed, because you could still be impaired enough to lose control for a second. And it doesn’t matter if you didn’t drink at all, because a drunk driver could hit you. Everyone is at risk of becoming another statistic in a drunk driving accident, and the only remedy is to raise awareness and make sure everyone knows that impaired driving is dangerous, drunk driving is dangerous, buzzed driving is dangerous, and even distracted driving is dangerous.

Also, it’s really weird to go a day without talking. Even weirder to go a day without texting. And yes, I checked my email and my Facebook, but I couldn’t reply, I could’t hit “like”. I couldn’t communicate. And let me tell you, it’s really weird to be trapped in your head while you’re surrounded by people. Here are some of my thoughts that I jotted down throughout the day, so I could share some of the experience afterward:

• (2 hours in) I was surprised by how gloomy it gets when people do nice things today. I feel so weighted down, so heavy. When you can’t express gratitude to someone, it’s an awful feeling. But then again think of how many times we choose not to tell something thank you, or it’ll be okay, or that we’re thinking of them. Think of all the times we don’t tell someone what they mean to us. And then when you can’t, it’s like you can’t think about doing anything else.
• I had to ignore someone asking me a question on homework, multiple someone’s. I couldn’t tell my friend to stop freaking out, because internship grades come out around the time of housing selection each year. I couldn’t tell someone thank you for printing my assignment out for me, or for giving me a hug. I couldn’t tell someone who was having a miserable day that it’d be okay, I couldn’t tell her not to worry about her phone, and I couldn’t try to talk to distract her.
• You know how hard it is when you know something that you can’t tell someone? What about when you know something, but you can’t even tell someone that you know it…
• I keep having conversations with people in my head. Like I imagine me saying what I want to say and I’m just making up all their responses because it’s getting lonely in here
• I feel invisible. The class keeps going around me and everyone keeps talking, sometimes speaking for me, sometimes through me. I think I actually did become a ghost.
• I feel like I keep responding, to everything and everyone. But I feel like I’m just invisible or in a make-believe world, because no one knows what I’m saying, so even though I’m talking to them, they can’t hear me, they don’t know, and they don’t respond.

Well, the good news is that I’m able to talk again! The weird part is that I feel more comfortable with the silence now, like a residual from my day of “vocal rest:. I mean, I’ve always talked a lot and I continue to talk a lot, starting the second I was allowed to speak again. I hope it touched someone. I know it touched me. I hope it will make someone think twice.

I know it’s small, but I’m choosing to believe that this is one step that will change someone’s world.

<3′ Me

Beach Daze in March