laughing with leelee, a retrospective.

so I realized today that I started this blog pretty much a year ago and I was at such a totally different place in my life -- it's crazy to think that you'll be able to predict the outcome of future events. really, you cannot. last year, my life looked a little like this: unsure where I would get in to college, unsure where I would go to college, unsure where I would even end up applying to college (!), confused/crazy/upset with dan, kind of involved with someone else, feeling miserable on a daily basis (not in a depressed way, just in a shitty way), challenging myself to find myself & be comfortable with myself and convinced that nothing would work out in the end.

well. hello macaulay. hello coming to terms with college acceptances/rejections/waitlistings. hello dan. hello prom. hello self. hello happiness. hello college friends. hello new life. hello typical sarah.

things just worked out. didn't I always say that they would? and I am so grateful they did. reading back I was so unhappy with so much of what was going on and now I'm just kind of floating, existing, being. and I'm happy. granted, I still regret not getting into columbia, but whatever. I'm at macaulay. I went grocery shopping today. I went out for dinner tonight. please. I am happy.

I'm glad I started this blog to challenge myself to think about the world, others and myself. it was a good project, a good endeavor. it gave me a lot of space to think out things and gave a lot of other people a good read. all in all, well done, self.

apocalyptica?

so I'm not usually the type of person to be swayed by politics. for the most part I'm pretty down to earth, maintaining an everything-will-be-fine attitude. well, with these crazy wikileaks, I'm suddenly feeling this burden of "oh no, what if everything is not fine?"

so while I'm thinking this and day after tomorrow, war of the worlds, armageddon, etc. images are playing through my head (cue impending-doom music as well), I realize that, well, there's a possibility of a nuclear war. and I don't even know what that really means, I just know that it means a lot of death, a lot of destruction, and a lot of world war III.

not that I have the first idea of how to go about fixing this situation (please, I'm no politician), but it's a relatively scary thought that this round-the-world arms race is happening. even with countries trying to establish peace, what is getting done? how will we solve this? I guess this is why every beauty pageant (okay maybe this is just a miss congeniality reference) contestant asks for world peace but it's pretty scary to think of the other possibility -- the opposite of world peace being world war (thanks hobbes?), which could happen now. uh-oh.

the infinite fight.

I'm really sick of feeling lonely. I don't know why, sometimes it just hits. especially now, when I know break is next week so there's isn't THAT much work but there's still stuff to do that I keep thinking I can put off and it's cold out so I don't want to go for a walk or go grocery shopping or anything. It's kind of like an I-just-want-to-nap-so-I-don't-have-to-think-about-anything kinda thing, which cannot be good for your health, just saying.

I just feel like I feel this way a lot. okay, I know I'm not the only college freshman to not be adjusted & comfortable yet (I mean, I feel like I'm adjusted & comfortable which is the weirder part) but it really sucks! I'm not whining, swearsies, I'm just meh. feeling meh. which, as psych100 tells us, is a mood-dependent cue. so, since I'm unhappyish I'm going to keep feeling this way. so, guess the only thing to do is take a nap & focus on something nice like friends being home for thanksgiving and going out tonight. it'll all be better in an hour or so, I can feel it.

why the internet sucks.

dirpy? shut down. pitchfork & npr won't let me download. soundcloud doesn't let most people download also. mojo? apparently no longer existent.

seriously -- what the fuck? I just want to listen to music. I get it -- artists want money -- but seriously, most of the money that they make off online downloads DOESN'T GO TO THEM. they get most of their profit from concerts which I would obviously go to IF I could listen to their music.

what bullshit.

(how ironic that I'm writing this online.)

rhymes with armistice.

...homesickness. or not even homesickness. lack-of-a-real-college-campus-and-parents-because-they're-in-madrid-need-a-break-from-school-ness. that's right. I miss my parents. I wish I had a campus. I need a break from school.

why on earth would I miss my parents (other teenagers are definitely feeling the blasphemy here)? I see my parents once a week. that's a perfect amount to help out a little bit in the office, get dinner & catch up, get a ride home and NOT get sick of them. so missing that one week is a lot for me. it's alright, they got home yesterday, I went with dad to get mom from the airport and we went out for dinner and today was tuesday which is our weekly dinner night so I got two nights back to back AND I got presents from madrid. I also love my parents. they're really cool and easy to talk to and just kind of awesome. I definitely lucked out in that category.

needing a campus? that was a recent thing. it just hit me that I have NO school community. I don't feel connected to hunter AT ALL. I love my friends here, in the dorm (yeah, the ONE dorm) but college feels more like high school than college and I don't really know what to do about that. there's no roll-out-of-bed-run-to-class-dining-hall-dinner kind of college experience here and, while I thought I would be okay with it, I'm really not. it's the only time in my life I'll ever have the option of having that experience and I feel like I'm going to look back in 20 years and feel like I cheated myself out of a great "college experience." I know that's the typical college experience and I'm not typical but once in a while I'd like the typical experience too. everyone else gets it and I know I'm able to handle this arrangement and be happy, but I think I would be happier somewhere else. as mom put it...I "would only be happy at columbia." tough nougies for me.

and needing a break from school? not that things are particularly difficult here (I didn't study for my psych test, I got a 97), it's just that I haven't had a real break since school started. we had off for holidays but I go to shul for holidays or have family dinners for holidays so they're not REAL holidays. I'm just ready for a break.

lonely so soon?

sucks to leave cornell and not have dan at my disposal. in general, it sucks going back to college where there's no boyfriend to hug. I'm so lucky that I have my girls -- don't know what I would do without them -- but I miss cuddling. maybe it's because I listen to depressing music? seriously, I have zero motivation to do work. not that I have anything due tomorrow that I haven't already done (zero percent chance I'm editing a rough draft of a paper. not happening. seriously. it's anthro) and I don't reeeeeeally want to work in advance (please, this is so not sarah's-life-at-heschel-part-II) but sadly there are no more minutes in my netflix watch instantly so I guess I won't be watching 30 rock.

in which case...what to do? read? I mean I guess I have eat pray love that I could crack open or I could read mill (because oddly enough I enjoy his stuff) and...oh shit. I thought we only had to read chapters 3 & 4. apparently it's 3, 4 & 5. fuck my life.

ever wondered why guys don't ever open up?

after a conversation last night with the boy, I realized I was one step from becoming the whiney, needy girlfriend! that is not who I want to be! at all! I realized right before taking the wrong step (luckily I stepped back to psychoanalyze myself and my behavior at the right moment) that I was about to ask the wrong questions and make the wrong assumptions that would, in effect, push the boy away.

see when guys open up (maybe this is just my guy), they talk about how it's hard being at parties when I'm not there. he said last night "I'm a guy" and I wanted to shout, "yeah, you have testosterone -- I get it!" but it's like to another girl (okay maybe I'm giving myself a little credit here) "wow, you don't want to be with me, you'd rather be hookin' up with randoms." now I know that the boy loves me a lot and does really want to be in a relationship with me, so I didn't say that, but see how freakin' easily the story could get spun way damn out of proportion?

exactly. so my theory is that boys (to save their own asses) don't open up very frequently because it's usually stuff that they know we won't be cool about. be honest, girls freak more than guys, it happens whatever but don't then go freaking probing about shit you don't wanna hear. it's like ma always says: don't ask questions you don't want answers for. smart ma.

new, old tune?