Re-start

So it has been quite a long time since I have last posted... That is also an understatement. So things have definitely changed? shifted? morphed? since the last time I updated. I have though been planning this particular entry for maybe the past 2 years. Laziness indeed is quite a deterrent.

So at the moment I am in my new apartment attached to a church behind a cemetery in a relatively fabulously wealthy neighborhood in Connecticut with two super awesome dental students who have been helping me for the past 2.5 hours connect my internet. Talk about totally awesome. (...and run-on sentences...) I have a camera and maybe when it stops raining I'll take some fantastic pictures to add. I am very excited to be busy again, decorating my new room with no supplies and no money are just not cutting it.

I am very much out of practice with blogging so perhaps tomorrow I will write a longer and more satisfying entry. I miss everyone immensely and I look forward to correspondence and future adventures! (ALSO this post is dedicated to my absolute bestest friend in the whole world who I found out actually still reads my almost defunct blog- I would have never have guessed)

I'm Back!

So as a potential cure for my seasonal depression, I thought that maybe I should go back to writing- finally.
Wow, I don't even remember the last time that I posted! It all seems to be a vague memory simply floating around in my mind. It actually reminds me of something I just received in the mail: my letter to myself. Now I had written this long, fairly vague, and in all actuality, quite useless letter to myself last year in Sociology. Ms. Syme had told us that she would be mailing our letters to us this Christmas as she collected our hastily-written and much procrastinated scribbles as well as that of our bestest friends. Now back that of our bestest friends... So, Alison and Nate both wrote me letters. Now, I'm not quite sure if this is a proverb or not, but there really should be something about "You can judge a character by the style and content of their writing," or something to that effect. Simply from reading those letters I could see that other than perhaps the latest situation at hand, or the juicy gossip of the now, nothing had changed, and for that matter, nothing will. It gives me immense confidence to realize that in 4 years as I am awaiting my graduation from college (probably with not nearly as much pleasure as I have awaiting my departure from Athens High School), that Nate will still be complaining that I "heavily persuaded" him into doing something last minute that he very well absolutely did not want to do.
There is so much more to write, so so much more. But as I feel my eyelids droop, I sense that deep within me, that writer's block that had situated itself so comfortably during my attempts to write college essays, may have nudged. Albiet slightly, but who knows? Maybe all those pent-up thoughts, mirroring the forthcoming wind and ice, will simply not deign to be contained in my head anymore and release in a torrent of words.
Perhaps?

Summerness

Finally. Summer.
Actually, that's a lie. It has technically been 17 days since it has been summer, but I don't know if I can even really count the end of June as summer. I mean, who does? It always seems like the end of June is kinda, I don't know, the "lost days". You know what I'm talking about, the days where you basically laze around and do nothing but scheme for what you are going to accomplish, and eat. Oh yeah, I forgot, the days where you eat whatever is in from of you, not caring the nutritional value and how incredibly fat it is going to make you (okay, you care, but honestly, not nearly enough to actually do something about it) and then wondering why the hell are you still starving after eating an entire bar of chocolate and a bag of tostitos with salsa.
But I digress.
At the moment I am faced with a momentous time in the history of me- past, present and future.
College.
I know that I have fretted about it before, but that was before it was imminent. It is imminent now but surprisingly, it still has yet to feel real. I know this can't be good, but I recognize the "non-goodness" of it and I am preparing myself for the upcoming blow that I am sure will hit me like an 18-wheeler on the freeway. Oh I am GREATLY excited.
So for the past couple days, I have been feverishly checking commonapp.org and the different college websites to see whether or not their "stuff" is up yet. It is. I looked. I'm scared.
After so long, this is it! The big one! *insert whatever other cliche you'd like here*
And it's freaking overwhelming..
So we'll see.
I just going to sit here and try to be inspired. Unfortunately, I cannot command inspiration so I'll be sitting here for who knows how long. I'll update soon, and hopefully with a more eloquent post than this..
(this was sort of word vomit don't you think?)

btw, Nate, see! I did update! I'm just a couple months late...
w00t!

For Nate..

So my dear friend Nate became very angry at me because I have not updated my Blog in long time.
Well, a really REALLY long time..
Like over a month.
What can I say, I've been busy!
But that excuse never works when you are trying to get out of homework, so I guess it really shouldn't work here either.
So what HAS been going on?
There has been the ACT, SAT, failing at life, winning at life, nervous breakdowns, spontaneous dance parties, forensics, drumline, Tandav, the Charity dance, AMag, boys, one particular boy, fights, hugs, econ, obama, adventures... the list goes on an on.
How can one document life and give it justice?
Is it possible to record the outbusrts of joy, sudden sensations of sorrow, the smell of the fresh world right after the rain?
I will leave you, my dear dedicated readers to ponder this quandry.
Until later!
And Nate, I promise, I will write a longer post.
:)

Everyone likes to think that they are a good person.

I'm sure that no one out there really TRULY wants to be know as "that nasty person" or whatever. People want to believe that they are doing good to the world, not screwing it over. I mean, there are those few sadistic psychopaths who want to screw everyone over, but even if you look into their psyche, they believe they are doing what is "right". Hell, I bet even Hitler, though completely warped, thought he was doing what was best for the world.

I have always thought that I was a pretty good person. I felt that I was more understanding, more accepting and more intelligent than everyone else. Looking back, that just proves how un-understanding/accepting/intelligent I really was. In fact, my vanity is my biggest flaw and causes most of my problems.
So I'm sure you all can guess that it came as kind of a shock to me when I realized that I was NOT the person I thought I was. In fact, it was kind of like in those cartoons when you see the frying pan smashing into the toon's skull and there are birds twittering in a circle. Well, the frying pan was smashing and the birds were twittering.
The person whom I had thought that I was only existed in my mind. I knew that I was that person but no one else did because that was not the person I portrayed. I spoke out against gossip, judging people, being silly and most of all hypocrisy, but that is exactly what I was becoming.
It was awful.
When I realized that people saw me as this empty-headed bimbo I was to say, at the least, disturbed. Everything that I stood against was now my image? How the hell did I get myself into this situation?
Well, I guess you could say I live a double life. Other than my family (my immediate family at that), I think there is a grand total of 2, maybe 3 people who actually know me. Both sides of me are very much mine but just different aspects of the same being. There is the one side of me who is the social butterfly, talks to people, loves attention, and is loud confident and melodramatic. But then there is the part of me that does not like people at all, who sits and watches rather than talks and someone who would rather curl up with a good book than anything else. Finding a happy medium is.. difficult.
People see what they want to see but they can only only see what you show. I think that by acknowledging my faults, I'm getting somewhere, right? I've decided that I'm going to try and just be. That's right, just be; not be better or be myself, because honestly, I don't even know who myself is.
Hopefully, one of these days I will find who I really am, but for now, I'll just hope that I get close.

Why yes, we are Textually Involved.

I admit it. I am a textually active teen. But then again, aren't we all?
When you are walking down the streets, shopping at the mall or even just chilling at home, you are bound to see fingers flying over a miniature keyboard: texting, of course.
Apparently the record for the is 160 letters in 45 seconds. I say apparently because I gleaned this information from wikipedia, and we all know how incredibly accurate wikipedia is. Everyone may not text as fast as 3.5 letters per minute but I can guarantee that the majority of the American Youth texts, not even mentioning the adults who do as well. But yet, I am reprimanded many times for the amount of texts that I send and how constantly. But maybe my parents do have a point, maybe texting really isn't healthy.

Does texting ruin a relationship or does it help?
Many of the people that I consider my closest friends have gotten close to me only through texting. For example, my best friend Nate. (I know you are probably reading this and I doubt that you care so I'm using you as an example) I can guarantee that there is absolutely no way that we would have nearly as good friends as we are now if it wasn't for the fact that we both had the Verizon Unlimited Texting plan. I mean sure, we were both in Drumline and had like one class together, but if you really look at it, that's about it. To be honest, I don't even remember when I got his number or when I started texting him, but that's not the point. The point is that I did. And we became best buddies through these past three years. When I first met him, I actually thought that he had no friends and I was doing him a favor by making him my project to be my best friend by January of that year. Looking back, I was probably the one who had no friends and needed the favor.. Anyways, imagine the same situation but no texting. I for one could never gotten him to talk to me if I didn't text him constantly. And I wouldn't be able to bother him constantly if I had to rely on just seeing him every once in a while at school. But unlike a lot of textual relationships that are super close on the phone but then incredibly awkward off, I think it turned out rather nicely.
But Mitch on the other hand...
When you are on opposite sides of a phone, with no voice to betray you or no awkward silences to fill, you are suddenly a whole different person. You're braver, bolder, sassier than you have ever been. You have the time to be witty and make sure things make sense.
I abhor talking on the phone. If I wanted to talk to someone, in preference order, I would want to either see them in person or text. I'm big about body language and signals, that kinda stuff is obsolete when talking on the phone. When talking in person, physical affection is permissible which makes awkward silences well, less awkward.
But when you are texting, there is always the presence of that person with you. You're always connected. And that is another ambiguous situation. Do you really want your best friend's bf constantly connected to you? You can always pretend you didn't get the text, but then you risk being rude.
The major problem with texting is probably its best attribute, you're not WITH the person.
How do you possibly know what their tone is, what is there voice inflection, does the exclamation points mean they're excited or furious (there are those who also don't use any punctuation which is 10 times more aggravating *cough cough*)? The whole thing is a quandary. Sarcasm is completely lost, as are tears. Is constant conversation worth the loss of emotion?
With conversation devoid of emotion what does love mean? What does hate mean? What does I want you mean? "I Love You" is thrown around like an old sock. Does it even have a meaning?
I guess all I can say is that relationships are built and and ended through texting and sometimes they are real, but sometimes it seems like they just fade into your memory like a figment of your imagination.
Yes, I am textually active and probably will always be, along with the rest of my generation. I just hope that we don't all lose a bit of our humanity transposing warm feelings into digital messages.
After all, I love you all, but can you tell?

What REALLY makes me sick.. ugh.

I feel slightly bad that I haven't written in a couple days, but I honestly did not know what to write about. Sure, many things have happened since Wednesday: an unpleasant surprise, a bunch of laughs, ridiculous math problems, 100%'s, awkward moments, broken hearts, a couple of books, just to name a few. But I really didn't know whether I wanted to write about it or not. So I decided I will write about my biggest issue yet. In fact, as I think about it right now, I'm getting the shakes and my stomach feels very very sick. What else could I be talking about?
College.
Duh!
It's my most dreaded and anticipated subject. It's on my mind 24/7 whether I like it or not and I do believe the stress that is stemmed from it is the number one cause of my breakouts. Will I get into college or not? If I do get in, will I fit in? Will I be able to pay for it? And most importantly, how will I know if I made the right choice?

So first things first. Will I actually get in?
My dream school is University of Chicago. It seems like my perfect school and I want to get in so SO very much. The only problem is that actual getting in. It's a very tough school, and though it has a higher acceptance rate than Yale (which has a whopping 8%) it is still very hard to get in. I don't have a 4.0. I lost that coming in as a freshman. In fact, I have a 3.7. Not good, not good at all. My test scores are OK. I have around a 2010-2100 on the SAT as of now and when I took the ACT I got a 29 (in awful circumstances though, I mean really, who makes Velociraptor noises in the middle of the ACT? Are they stupid?? Wait, they are. Never mind.). Many people think that that's great and that they would be happy with that. But what people tend to forget is that I am close friends with the smartest kids in the school. I am willing to bet money that Alison is the smartest kid of our class, and she's my best friend!
There's a LOT of pressure on me.
I'm not an academical genius (far from it in fact), or incredibly talented at anything. But I dream big, and when I say big, I mean BIG. I want to go somewhere in my life. I want my name to be written down in history books and I'm willing to work my ass off to make sure that happens. I want my name to be such a legacy that people will still know my name a 100,000 years from now. But if I want to go somewhere in life, I need to start off on the right foot and that means going to only the best colleges. Right?
My GPA is pretty low at a 3.7/3.6 and my test scores are all right. What are things I have working for me? Well, I can write a good essay, I do a ridiculous amount of extracurricular activities, and I really care. If I really love something, I will put my whole heart into it and never look back. True, it's very hard to find something I care that strongly about, but if I do feel strongly about it, it will happen.
But is that good enough to get me in?
I know that I can easily get into schools like Central or State, but I don't want to go there. I really want to go to a place where I am challenged to my breaking point. I have realized that I am the strongest in the face of adversity and I need to be somewhere that will help me bloom to my fullest. I just need to get in, and I can figure out the rest.
I really don't know which college I'll fit in to. I know a couple things: no medical or engineering colleges, preferably as little Greek/athletic life as possible, most likely a small liberal arts college with a Core program, easy access to professors, and most importantly, an intelligent student body. As snobby as it sounds, I want nothing more than to surround myself with intelligent people and distance myself from stupid people as much as I possibly can. I abhor ignorance and stupidity. I may not be all that smart, but I'd rather be the dumbest of the bunch and learn as much as I possibly can than be the smartest person in a group but have to dumb down to everyone else's level.
Paying for college will be difficult. I'm happy that my parents are completely honest with me so I'm not living in some fantasy. They don't have the money. They can't afford to put me through college without completely screwing over Sree, my baby brother. And I understand, I will probably have to work my way through school as well as applying to various scholarships, grants, and most likely end up taking a loan. It sucks. There really is no other word for it. But I have to do it. In the wise words of Keoleian, No amount is too much for an education. And there really isn't. True with the current economy, it would be nice to be not completely in debt, but if you are uneducated how could you ever be financially successful? I'm a firm believer in the self-made man and though there are awful situations people can be thrown into, people can always make the best out of it and education is probably one of the clearest paths to success.
I'll be taking a practice SAT tomorrow morning, going to dance class, choreographing a dance, writing a couple essays and then studying my butt off for midterms.
Not much fun but necessary.
I hope that one day, I will look back, and laugh. But until then, here I'll be, working towards greatness.