it's gonna be good.

it's been weeks since i've had the mental energy to function at 100%. every day had a routine: get up, be bright and sparkling at work, then get home and crash on the couch til somebody tells me to go sleep in my own bed.
but today i made my way out of the fog of lethargy, and decided that i'd break one of my rules as a sort of reward.
months ago, i realized that i was so fixated on the idea of the perfect future that i was ignoring the needs of the moment. so i promised myself that i wouldn't plan more than six months ahead, and told my friends that they were to ignore me if i started talking about abstract plans. and that's the rule i decided to temporarily break, just to give myself the incentive to stay at more than borderline functionality.
i won't talk about my plans yet, because if they don't work out i don't really want to have to explain that in any detail. but when they get off the ground, things will be on their way back from "fine" and maybe even make it to "great."
a life should have secret plans, just to have something to look forward to.

feeling sentimental

i come home in the evenings to a house full of light.
of everything that's changed in the past few months, this is what i notice most. the laughter, the hugs, the "where were you? we missed you at dinner!" - that's what's making the difference. yes, my job kind of sucks; and yes, i kind of hate not being a full-time student right now; but i live with people who like me, and maybe even love me, and that makes everything worthwhile.

8 miles, and then some

yesterday we went kayaking down the delaware. 8 miles, supposedly a 3 1/2 hour trip. and the best thing i've done for myself in a long time.
i was with my family and a couple of friends, but managed to get myself way out in front of everyone else. and up front there, it was just me, the river, and the birds. no phone, no ipod, nothing.
to be completely cut off from absolutely everything was just what i needed. it's been too long since i was last completely unattached, & to really feel that is wonderfully liberating. no boys randomly trying to contact me, no drama chasing me around, nothing; just the sound of the water.
with everyone so far behind that they were inaudible, and the rest of the river ahead of me, it felt like i could do anything. and even though that doesn't completely translate to the rest of my life, for a few hours it was completely true. bliss.

spring cleaning!

Spring cleaning is a wonderful feeling.
Throwing out the bags and bags of crap that accumulate over the past months and seeing your floor again; being able to find everything right where you left it for once; the light and space in the room when it's clean; nothing really describes how healthy it is to be finished.
Thing is, how often do you remember to do the same in the rest of your life?
We've all got baggage, whether it's fragments of past relationships or people themselves. And sometimes the pieces only float around your personal bubble, but sometimes they trail behind you and weigh you down.
Only thing you can really do is cut them loose: all the so-called "friends," the pathological liars and unhealthy friendships; the insecurity stemming from your past; the fear radiating towards you from the future and its uncertainty.
You don't need any of that.
Every moment is a fresh start, waiting for you to make your magic. No one can stop you.

accountability

this morning i signed into facebook to find a post from a friend of my cousin, who lives in boston and suggested that i come check out fenway church (since i still don't go anywhere regularly *shamefaced*). i met him almost two months ago, and owing to my having been out of town pretty consistently on weekends i still haven't been able to go at all. it was a nice surprise to hear from him, and i will be going weekly once the freshman cease their invasion of my life, because it's much easier to remember to go to church when you know someone there will call you up and ask why you weren't there last week.

=)

OMG noise-canceling skull candy earbuds. best shit ever.

birthday weekend

you know how you who your friends are? the people who fly up from florida and/or drive 500 miles one way to spend less than two days in boston for your birthday. and who think that a copy of the american bartenders' handbook is a good birthday present.
this weekend has been seriously epically amazing. dinner with 30 friends being seriously rambunctious at vinny t's; wandering out to a bar in the pouring rain; blowing things up in the microwave because wikipedia said it was a good idea; a zillion other things that i can't remember...
birthdays are awesome. i have the best friends ever.

what happens when you spend saturday night at an orchestra concert

• you fall in love with saint-saens all over again
• you rediscover an ambivalence towards violin concerti
  
• you decide the second movement of beethoven 5 would make an epic wedding recessional and it distracts you for the rest of the night
• until you listen to ravel's gaspard de la nuit, at which point you wish you actually played piano
• and you regret not having time to play in the symphony orchestra
  
• and then you text all your wind ensemble friends from high school because you miss them a lot
• but you go download recordings of your senior concert and feel a little bit better
• and then you remember that you also have super awesome musician friends up in boston and feel better still
  

tony awards (somewhat) liveblog

minor alert. i am not blogging the awards themselves, just my reactions to the whole thing. enjoy the madness.
8:03 OMG PURPLE DRESS karen olivo you are ahhhh gorg
8:04ish OH GOD IT IS BRET MICHAELS MY SOUL DIES
8:07 dolly parton should definitely be falling over. physics fail.
8:12 NEIL PATRICK HARRIS TAKE OFF YOUR CLOTHES your suit: is it leather? it shines much. also, you are hot.
8:15 damn jane fonda looks good. and she's 72. I WANT TO AGE LIKE HER.
8:28 GRATUITIOUS WICKED REFERENCE yeah shrek!
8:29 "and btw" oh neil patrick harris for speaking internet.
8:48 i want that purple dress so much and i must go see west side story
9:06 i suddenly feel the need to go see rock of ages. GRATUITOUS CROTCH SHOT WHAT
9:14 liza minelli is definitely drunk already. what. and you know if they turn the music up on her she will be like DO NOT CUT ME OFF BITCHES
9:18 sound fail. gosh.
9:20 I LOVE HIS VOICE and OMG WHERE DID SHE COME FROM WHAAAT that is not in guys and dolls. my high school is doing guys and dolls this fall.
9:28 WHAT are you wearing? both of you. feathers? a stripey bow? seriously?
9:29 i actually think i might love the bow.
9:32 OMG KAREN OLIVO I LOVE YOU she is bawling and it is adorable
9:51 broadway is dark.
10:03 i want to see god of carnage now.
10:08 good lord. the angry dance out of billy elliot. good lord.
10:16 YEEEE GREEK CHORUS legally blonde looks adorableeeee
10:35 HAIR
10:38 oh cheno =) you are so cute
10:43 this has been such fun, evidently i must do it for every awards show from now on, but i am so done for the night
10:51 OMG THE LITTLE BOYS AHHHH SO CUTE okay i am done for tonight

surprises

came home this evening and found these on my desk =) i love surprises

open letters =)

you make me mute with surprise and delight
you and your adorable singing and awkward choreographed-on-the spot dancing
frustratingly i have no words for you
beyond that i am gloriously happy with you

i write open letters because i can't express myself sufficiently any other way. absurdly happy? check. want the world to know it? check. on the other hand, take your butt out of my face? yes please.

anna molly

i have somehow fallen in love with this song. i think a cappella has somehow expanded what i listen to, because i would never have considered listening to incubus in high school. don't know why.
but the MIT Logarhythms covered anna molly on their most recent cd (Give Us Back Our Spyplane) and it's better than the original. both are good, but it's better a cappella. and i am in love.
it's intense and painful. a song for listening to in the rain.

kissing your cares goodbye

the world could not possibly be more awesome today.
i've dropped physics because my comprehension of the class never really recovered from those two weeks of deadness.
this droppage won't negatively impact the rest of my undergrad. and it'll make my grades awesome for the rest of the semester. yay having a decent GPA!
declared my major today (or rather, my undeclared-ness because it's not possible to declare bioengineering until sophomore year). yay, i'm a real person now!
oh wait, the world could be more awesome. it could be properly warm out. and sunny. but it's not raining!

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.

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.

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.

i'm back!

viral infection? sure. cleared up by wednesday? not so much.

had a nasty bout of flu last week; today was literally only my second day really out of the building in a week (in my book, spending six hours at medical on wednesday doesn't count as out of bed. not with an IV in the back of your hand anyway.) and i am pooped.

not too tired to blog my latest epiphany, though! my boyfriend's been seriously amazing the past week: picking up meds for me, dropping by to check on me before & after classes, and really i seem to be more of a handful when i'm sick and can't get out of bed than when i'm bouncing around all lively and obnoxious. kid doesn't complain. ever. and i feel weird that he does so much for me (i don't know if i mean actually physically doing stuff, though he does) cuz it just boggles that i can't put my feelings about that into words. i dunno...this is rambling a lot i guess...but like i call him when i need something or if i get freaked about something cuz he's just always solidly there and normal. like when my nose bleeds (like now: yeah parenthetical statements!) i can call him cuz he knows some stuff just weirds me out and bugs me and he's okay with my weirdness and he is a reminder to Chill Out sometimes.

seriously though, my nose is bleeding. and my mac is white. it's time to go.

vienna teng and love, in unequal amounts

sail your sea

meet your storm

all i want

is to be your harbor

~harbor- vienna teng

is this what it means to be in love?

to be always there for someone not because you want to feel needed, just to be there as though it can somehow confer stability when they need it?

to walk life's roads together because you can, because you want to?

lobby 7 > prozac =)

there is something about the combination of music and perfect architecture that is better than prozac. yesterday was an iffy sort of day (i'm really bad at spacing out my work, so i end up doing it all the night before it's due) and we had rehearsal and i really didn't want to go. to cut a long story short, though, we ended up singing in lobby 7. lobby 7 has the best acoustics ever. notes just hang in the air like clouds of golden and beautiful and honestly it made life so much better, if only briefly. music is unbelievable.

PHD comics

Piled Higher and Deeper

i love this strip. absurdly. it is making me afraid of grad school but it is awesome nonetheless. including shakespeare in the strip? a happy for me.

man i'm a dork.