feeling pissy tonight...

what does it say about me that right now, i can't find it in me to deal with other people and their problems?
most of my close friends are trying to handle a lot of stuff right now. finals are stressing everyone out, there's personal stuff thrown in, and basically everyone is going insane. and i know i need to try and find a way that i can give some time to the people who're important to me, especially since i've dealt with some of what they're going through right now: but i can't seem to find a way. i have nothing left in me that i can give to anyone, and it makes me so annoyed sometimes that people expect so much from me when they themselves know how difficult college can be. i feel like i'm being guilted into being someone for others to lean on because if i don't, i'm clearly just a shitty friend.
but i have been there for others for such a long time that i've managed to neglect myself. it's okay for them to disappear off the face of the earth so they can get time to themselves, but god forbid i need to study at MIT, right?

plots and plans

the trouble with being a woman at a top-tier engineering school is that you often lose sight of your own intentions. it feels as though we're not allowed to want to be domestic at all, simply because we want successful careers; but when you start suppressing bits of your consciousness you start going a little crazy at the same time.
i don't know where my career will be in ten years. i see myself in a house with a big, sunny kitchen, a sprawling back garden, and a piano in my living room. we're not supposed to want to be mothers, because it makes us bad feminists. but ever since acknowledging this to myself, i'm somewhat more at peace with the uncertainty of my future. i have none of it figured out, but i still feel better about all the confusion.

i'm making it through

"I’ve heard recently some very sad stories of students just like me struggling just as hard as i am to cope with all the difficulties of college: the work, the teachers, the usual assholes of school, the usual drama. But these kids, for some reason felt like they couldn’t pull through till the end, and ended it. My heart goes out to all the friends and family of these students, and to all the students out there who are feeling down, and who might be thinking this isn’t meant for them. And what I say to that is: how did you make it this far if your not meant for it? They say nowadays that a college degree is the best thing you can have, not because of the money you’ll make after, but because of everything you’ll learn, the goals you’ll pursue, and eventually achieve. Achievement is a beautiful thing, don’t ever forget that. All of you who are feeling down look up and look around. There are people around you who love you, and who’ll notice you’ll be gone, and who will miss you terribly. But don’t only look around, look at a mirror, and you’ll see the beautiful self that you’ve become, that beautiful person who has gone through so much to get to where you are now. Getting to college is such an achievement: now finish it. Achieve your goal. Walk down that aisle to get your degree. Its what you want right? Wouldn’t that be such a wonderful and amazing feeling? So pull through. Thats all I have to say. It’s an amazing feeling. And no one ever said it’ll come easy. If you feel like the work is piling on and you can’t handle it take a sanity break. Step back from the work and just release yourself. Let YOU come out and smile and spread some love. Reach out to a friend. You’ll be amazed at what they can do and eventually you’ll look back and see how amazing that trip was to your destination. Hang in there everyone <3"
reblogged from apt.vagabond, one of my favorite people ever
for this to turn up in my google reader after one of the worst weeks ever is nothing short of beautiful. sometimes all you need is a reminder of why you are where you are; and this was what i needed today. thank you.

the best laid plans

i realized last week that i have no idea what to do with my life, and that i needed to drop a class to stay sane this term. so i dropped it, and changed my major. i don't know what's going to happen with my life, or what i'll tell my parents, or where anything is going, but last sunday when i realized that i don't know anything at all, it was the most wonderfully liberating epiphany i've ever had.
it would be a lie to say that i no longer worry about grad school or whether i'll get a job once i graduate, because those are still very real concerns. but for now, it's enough for me to do what i want to do with my life. yes, it's still sometimes a struggle to find a good reason to get out of bed, but there are so many more of them now. i am no longer living day to day looking for something to keep me going till the next; i just want to be happy, and it is beautiful.

baby sisters

my little sister turned 13 last week, and it terrifies me. i remember realizing a few years ago that she was turning 10 and being freaked out then, but it's worse now because she's only a year away from high school and i still clearly remember the morning she was born. it makes me feel old to come home and discover that she's grown another few inches, or to call and find out that she took the SATs last weekend and is now treasurer of her school's service club. one day next year she's going to start high school, and then eventually go to college, and then graduate, and i am just going to be getting older and older while she goes through the same stuff that i did. i try to call her every so often so that we don't disconnect, and every time i do she talks and talks and asks me for advice and it struck me a few weeks ago that she looks up to me. worst realization ever, especially considering that she's probably smarter than i am. she tells me about the musical she's planning to audition for and i realize that i still haven't watched the video from her last one, this past spring. and then she reminds me that she's taller than i am now, and i think of all the times i used to carry her around, because she was my baby sister and that's how things go, and it makes me a little sad that i can't do that anymore. but then she asks me what to do about the boy that has a crush on her and i remember that i'm still her big sister, because never in a million years would she ever talk to anyone else like she talks to me. i guess i just have to get used to her growing up.

light reading

people seem concerned about me yet again. yes, i am reading a history of suicide. no, i am not reading it for inspiration. everyone has issues in their lives, but mine are not such that i feel i need to take that route out. i am reading it because i feel like it, because it was on the shelf next to a book that a response to a post on gawker this morning mentioned. i borrowed both. the post was about subway jumpers. it's relevant. and i don't really see why i need to justify my choice of light reading to anyone. maybe i'm dabbling in amateur psychology. maybe i'm interested in how religion affected people's lives from the middle ages onwards. maybe, just maybe, i don't actually need to see a therapist.
sometimes a cigar really is just a cigar.

best friends?

instead of doing my incomprehensible physics homework i tend to wander the internets; or in this case my facebook feed. i keep coming across the same note/quiz/thing done by different people, & this time i stopped to read one done by a good friend of mine. and for some reason it got me thinking, do people back home still think of me as a friend? i'm an insanely busy person with a stressful life, but who really understands that? i don't deliberately ignore people, but if someone's life consumes them and they fall off the face of the earth can you still consider them a friend?