there's a bunch of liberal intellectual types who've been sucking me into the vortex of their verbalizing/socializing activity lately. i'm not sure why, and i don't know if that's what i wanna become (cos i'm sure as hell not like them right now, even though i 'respond' well to their prodding). i credit my artsier classes for opening up this universe.

then there're those who pull me back down to earth every now and then. esp hx, who exerts a gravitational self-belief that i don't know how to deal w positively still. she and the people in my more "concrete" govt classes serve as a nice foil to the chain-smoking liquor-quaffing loquacious "where do you think you're going" confusing ones who i dream about after connecting with them cos their words slide into my consciousness so.

psychoanalyzed by psychologist friend
me: girls like to touch me (unfortunate remark, easily miscontrued)
she: cos you're cute (sees my horrified face) i mean, you're earnest, you're genuine. you know, some people are reserved and when you talk to them they're still distant, and i don't like that, whereas others are endearing and people feel protective towards them

also, i should go into academia cos of the response papers i write every tues (that suck my soul from sun night to tue afternoon)? my eyes protest.

how do people talk so much and so quickly? i'm getting quite an education in bullshitting while sounding intellectual here

Happy times with people i'm closest to in my program over the past few weeks



happy times from before school started

man i wish i could just hike all the time
mount kilimanjaro next year, anyone?

these days i don't think or feel in the same way as I did at Berkeley
it's just a lot of doing
wish i could slow down - two months have gone by! and the grind of work (school and club) + social obligations is making time whiz by
good or bad? i like how not unhappy i am now, how free i feel facing the world, how all i need to worry about is self-actualization rather than basic human securities
but being less burdened also means thinking less about family and the past and forgetting all that has brought me where i am today

aiyah these 9 months are just intense lah. i love my work even though it's hyperstressful, i enjoy people's company, some more than others', i'm developing a taste for loads of wine with food to make talking easier and happier, i run 5.5-6 miles almost everyday and can feel vital strength pump through me on good days, i've stopped pitying myself - but still need to give more to others. i realized i reveal painfully little about myself, unconsciously really. because there's loads or nothing to hide?

dim sum with people from my program

The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers:
Little we see in nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
This sea that bares her bosom to the moon;
The winds that will be howling at all hours
And all are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
It moves us not....

By Raymond Carver

Late Fragment

And did you get what
you wanted from this life, even so?
I did.
And what did you want?
To call myself beloved, to feel myself
beloved on the earth.

a peek into a soul

Confession:
“Keep still, Rakitka, you don’t understand anything about us! And don’t you dare speak familiarly with me again, I forbid it… And now, Alyosha, I will tell the whole, pure truth to you alone, so that you can see what a creature I am! I tell it to you, not to Rakitka. I wanted to ruin you, I was quite determined, that is the great truth: I wanted it so much that I bribed Rakitka with money to bring you. And why did I want it so much? You knew nothing, alyosha, you used to turn away form me, you’d walk by me with your eyes on the ground, but I looked at you a hundred times before, I began asking everyone about you. Your face stayed in my heart: ‘He despises me,’ I though, ‘he doesn’t even want to look at me.’ And finally such a feeling took hold of me that I was surprised at myself: why should I be afraid of a boy like him? I’ll eat him up and laugh. I was so angry! Believe me, no one here dares to say or think they can come to Agrafena Alexandrovna for that bad thing; I have only the old man here, I’m bought and sold to him, Satan married us, but there’s no one else. Yet looking at you, I was determined: I’ll eat him up. Eat him up and laugh. See what a wicked bitch I am, and you called me your sister! Now the man who wronged me has come, I’m sitting here waiting for his message. Do you know what this man has been to me? It’s five years since Kuzma brought me here – I used to sit hiding from people, so that people wouldn’t see or hear me, a silly slip of a girl, sitting and crying, not sleeping all night, thinking: ‘Where is he now, the man who wronged me? He must be laughing at me with some other woman, and what won’t I do to him, if only I ever see him, if only I meet him: I’ll make him pay! How I’ll make him pay!’ At night, in the dark, I sobbed into the pillow and kept thinking it all over, I tore my heart on purpose, to ease it with spite: ‘How I’ll make him pay, oh, how I will!’ I would sometimes even scream in the darkness. Then I would suddenly remember that I was not going to do anything to him, but that he was laughing at me now, or maybe had quite forgotten me, just didn’t remember, and then I would throw myself from my bed onto the floor, flooding myself with helpless tears, and shake and shake till dawn. In the morning I would get up worse than a dog, ready to tear the whole world apart. And then you know what: I began saving money, became merciless, grew fat – and do you think I got any smarter? Not a bit. No one sees it, no one in the whole universe knows it, but when the dark of night falls, I sometimes lie just as I used to, as a young girl, five years ago, gnashing my teeth and crying all night, thinking: ‘I’ll show him, oh, yes, I’ll show him!’ Do you hear what I’m saying? Now try to understand me: a month ago I suddenly received this letter: he’s coming, his wife died, he wants to see me. it took my breath away. Lord, I suddenly thought: what if he comes and whistles for me, calls me, and I just crawl to him like a little dog, guilty and beaten! I thought of it and couldn’t believe myself: ‘Am I so base? Will I just run to him?’ And I’ve been so angry with myself all this month that it’s even worse than five years ago. Now you see how violent, how wild I am, Alyosha, I’ve spoken out the whole truth to you! I’ve been toying with Mitya so as not to run to the other one. Keep still, Rakitin, it’s not for you to judge me, I’m not telling it to you. Before you came I was lying here waiting, thinking, deciding my whole fate, and you will never know what was in my heart. No, Alyosha, tell your young lady not to be angry for two days ago…! No one in the whole world knows how I feel now, or can know… Because maybe I’ll take a knife with me today, I haven’t decided yet…”

“Misha,” he said, “don’t be angry. You’re offended with her, but don’t be angry. Did you hear her just now? One cannot ask so much of a human soul, one should be more merciful…”