hell of a good man

it takes a hell of a good man
to be better than no man at all
~hell of a good man (blues song)

so true. so damn true. single and lonely are not the same thing. it's possible to enjoy not having a man; being obligated to nobody but yourself, not hurting anyone but yourself, taking care of nobody but yourself, the list goes on and on. and after all, almost good enough isn't good enough. sometimes you need time off from relationships to realize how much you yourself are worth. there's no need to settle for less just to have someone. hold out for special, not average. you deserve it.

attainable goals

i want to be happy like a bird with a french fry.
such a simple goal, to be pleased with little things instead of worrying about the whole world.
that is what i really want.

summer research?

O. M. G.
i've been looking for summer research positions (and when i say i've been looking, i mean i started sending emails last night and sent one out before i got distracted by the internet). nonetheless, the one i sent last night is super-important, because the lab does EXACTLY what got me interested in biological engineering in the first place. guess what's sitting in my inbox when i wake up? there might be a spot open for me for this summer!
i am honestly so excited it is not even funny. i think i might be a huge dork.

absence : love :: wind : fire

absence intensifies real love in the same way that the wind will cause a forest fire to grow.
and skype still qualifies as an absence.
i miss my boyfriend and i am trying to go the week of spring break without going insane on days that we don't get to talk. this is difficult. but the learning, it happens.
loving someone is allowing them to cause you the pain of missing them.

passions

i sometimes wonder if i've chosen the right major. they tell you to choose something you're passionate about, something that'll make you happy to go to work, but they never tell you what to do when you have one but not the other.
music is what i do. it's always been a part of my life, but in the past less-than-a-year it's become more so than it used to be. and last week in rehearsal i found a part of me that gets so incredibly fired up by what i do that it seems to tap into something inside that i never knew i had and yes, i become an incoherent little ball of energy, so much so that i can't help but want to share it with everyone around me.
but i don't feel that for anything else. i'm not including interpersonal relationships in that "anything else", because i think they are an entirely different sort of thing and need to be handled exquisitely carefully. but bioengineering? i'm fascinated by it, yes, but i can't find that passion. and i don't know whether i used to have it and it's just been submerged by my general indifference towards my classes, or whether i genuinely don't have it at all. and that makes me afraid, because while i don't want to be a starving artist (even for the sake of doing something i genuinely love), neither do i want to wake up some morning thirty years from now and realize that i should have been a music major after all.
i just want to find that fire and be able to use it towards everything in my life. i feel like i would be so much better at everything if i could.

the new facebook

people need to shut up about how much they hate the new facebook. yes, it's imitating twitter, which annoys me in and of itself. yes, it updates you on the mindlessly insignificant things that people do on facebook. no, i don't care what groups people join or what they post, but i am adult enough to ignore that and just get on with my life. and if you bothered to look at the rest of the site before making your judgements and filling my feed with stupidity, you would have seen that only the homepage has changed significantly. do i like it? i think i'm ambivalent. but just like you got used to it the last time facebook changed, you can suck it up and get used to it again. now please, get lives.

worry

yes okay i know i am ridiculously screwed up but why do people feel the need to worry about me? worry about your own damn lives! it just makes me feel worse to know that i'm on your mind and that you don't think i'm okay. i have less than a week till spring break and i am handling things as well as i possibly can. stop distracting me from it by saying you're worried because I ALREADY KNOW YOU ARE SO AM I GODDAMNIT I CANNOT HELP THE SHIT THAT IS GOING ON IN MY LIFE.
it feels better to get that out. but seriously, people need to stop worrying about me. it bothers me.

halo

everywhere i'm looking now
i'm surrounded by your embrace
baby i can see your halo
you know you're my saving grace
halo~ beyonce

this is what it feels like to be loved in spite of your failings. to know that yeah, i may be crazy messed up, but there's at least one person out there who wouldn't want me any other way. it makes life feel better somehow.

simple wishes

all i want right now is a day where nothing happens that makes me want to cry. is that too much to ask?

stuck on a rollercoaster

why is it that life ping-pongs between being really awesome and sucking really absurdly hard?
it would be more okay if it happened day-by-day, but hourly? i don't understand at all why it has to happen like this; whether the universe is messing with me or if it's me having mood swings or what is going on. all this stress i suppose is just getting to me and there doesn't seem to be any way i can get it to go away! even spring break doesn't look like much of a reprieve...

chill.

wow. people can be so awesome.
so the world decided to SUCK this morning, for a variety of reasons that are unfortunately almost all related to classes. and it was so depressing and i was soooo frazzled, to the point that my calc test almost gave me a panic attack. yup, fun.
BUT the test was actually okay it turns out. and i had lunch with awesome people afterwards, and seriously just hanging out with them and not worrying about life made things so much better. and it's awesome to be proposed to by a friend even when you know he's joking.
AND my advisor is such an awesome woman. dropped by her office later today & we basically hung out for an hour. and we talked about making the world a better place one person at a time and it completely restored my faith in the world.
so basically what i am trying to say is that when you're stressed out, take some time out to chill. eat chips, watch stupid videos on youtube, whatever you do when you're not working. it's so much healthier than you could imagine.

bless the broken road

every long-lost dream
led me to where you are
others who broke my heart
they were like northern stars
pointing me on my way
into your loving arms
this much i know is true
that God blessed the broken road
that led me straight to you

i totally just fell in love with this song. it makes me feel so zen about life in general. like, it sucks sometimes, but sometimes it puts you in a really awesome place and you have to stop and wonder "would i be here now if everything had been perfect way back when?" and you know what? a lot of the time the answer is no. and i think it's much more difficult to be bitter about the past when you look at the big picture.

boston, why do you suck?

specifically this whole ADD weather thing we have going on. tis ridiculous. like yesterday it was 60 degrees out and it was beautiful and i was running around in a tank top. today? there is slush coming out of the sky. not rain, not snow, slush. like seriously boston? what is your problem?

watchmen

the default state of humanity is savagery. we are innately selfish, disorderly beings with little, if any, regard for anyone other than ourselves. and all of mankind's achievements have been built on the bodies of others, both literally and figuratively speaking. there is much to despair of in our society, and unfortunately we seem to be reverting to the me-first mindset now. am i afraid for the future? absolutely. we keep finding more efficient and detached ways to kill each other, as though it will protect us from death. salvation does not come from within.

god have mercy on us all.

human existence

will i lose my dignity
will someone care?
will i wake tomorrow
from this nightmare?

i was watching rent tonight for the millionth time. and this song never fails to make me cry. and i always wondered why, until it hit me tonight. this song is the anthem of human existence. no matter what goes on in your life, the ultimate question most people seem to ask is not 'when will this crap end?' they say instead 'is there somebody, anybody, who will care enough to talk to me, to listen, enough to just be here for me?' they ask 'will this destroy who i am? will it consume me into nothingness? am i wasting my time? will anyone at all hear me?'

and quite often, nobody does. that's not the way things should be. as people we are placed on this planet not to indulge ourselves, but to make it a better place. that friend of yours with the self-esteem issues? the girl who's always alone at lunch? don't pass them by. be there when they need you. you could change a life.

simplicity?

all you need to make life seem okay is something to look forward to.

like instead of how i'm going to get owned by my physics test tomorrow, i can think about how there'll be a new xkcd up in the morning. or how i have no bio homework due friday so i can effectively start my weekend a day early! or how i could get marshmallow peeps again!

gosh. simple things for simple minds?

frat boys!

you know how awesome it feels when one of your friends tells you he might be in love with you?

yeah, neither did i until yesterday. seriously, i love frat boys. or at least this particular frat, because the guys are awesomely cool (yes, it helps that it's my boyfriend's frat, but that's not actually the main reason i love them), the food is good, and they have a hamster. a freaking HAMSTER. and she is adorbs. and tickles when she walks on your arm =).

so i eventually got out of bed at 4 yesterday afternoon. had dinner at the frat, studied for bio, tried to study for physics, and then proceeded to have really weird conversations. about roombas and sodium hydroxide and gun licenses. and mice. and stuff. and despite the fact that i probably didn't actually get much done, yesterday felt so good. such a nice little break from the insanity that is MIT, actual human interactions, basically a lot of good stuff.

i'm feeling better about life now. also, my bio test was the easy.

the little things in life

why is it that little things can make such a difference in life?

last night was interesting, and a whole lot of fun for the most part, and i didn't go to bed till nearly 5 this morning. i finally got out of bed at 4 this afternoon and i'm actually making an effort to be productive. and i ran into some of my awesome friends when i went to get lunch/dinner/whatever you call it and was forcibly reminded of why life doesn't suck.

i guess life can't be that bad when you've got people who think you're awesome despite all evidence to the contrary. or when you have marshmallow peeps. yellow bunnies.