cutting it close

1. packed for college.
2. baked chocolate almond biscotti.
3. watched 6th harry potter.

pretty baller day, if I may say so myself. anyway, this is gonna be close! I wanted to talk really quickly about magic. it may seem silly, but I have always believed in magic! maybe the influence of Fantasia or too many fantasy books growing up, but magic is something I see in life everyday. okay, not everyday, but a fair amount of them. and magic is not always fantastical or mystifying or impossible to understand; sometimes it's just...life. this is a pre-post for my topic tomorrow night. I try to avoid planning topics, but this is a special scenario. so look for tomorrow's post about...magic and the lack thereof in life...

good friends=good times

1. unpacked and uploaded pics of the nyc trip. it was so fun and a perfect way to start out 2010! again, referring to my first post, I have a lot of hope and excitement for this new year (and decade). my 20th year on this planet is all set to be promising.
2. had lunch with one of my besties. good food (why does my life revolve around food? see previous post), good friends, cold weather!
3. had dinner with the family and watched star trek for the second time. chris pine is who I pine for (get the corny joke?). it made me want to go back and watch all the old star trek episodes. maybe in all my free time (that doesn't exist, but maybe my alternate reality self has free time and can watch them for me?).

as the title may suggest, as well as my second groovy thing that happened today, tonight's post is about friendship. connections with other people, be it through friendship, marriage, business, random meetings, etc., have propagated human existence. isn't it weird to think about all the people in the past who met and talked and engaged in some way to make up each individual on this planet? but that is a bit too broad of a scope for this post (note to self: write about history later).
I am an independent person, but friends are people I cannot live without. some friends, I have had since before elementary school started or day one (or two) of kindergarten. one friend in particular, I was close with from kindergarten up until midway through high school. we eventually drifted apart, which was hard for me. while we are still friends, it's nothing like we used to have. another friend, the day two friend, and I have been close since then. while we don't talk every day or spend a lot of time together, I still consider him to be a best friend. it's one of those relationships in which stuff just...works. it's hard to explain, but I think he understands, if no one else does. and college, oh boy, I met some of my bffl (you know who you are). and even leading up to college, I became close with two people who I wasn't uberclose with before college, but I now consider to be some of my best friends. another friend I only actually started to talk to in high school, and through some random turns of events, we became best friends. he is my rock and I know he will be a friend for life. so while friends may leave life and drift away, new ones always enter. no friendship can be replaced, and old ones will always hold places in the heart, but new friends open ample doors for new memories and new good times. and I wish I could post a picture of all my friends, but that is impossible, so a random internet picture will have to suffice.

getting tired

1. traveled back from NYC today and made it safely! it was a long day. 
2. going back to school on sunday...I just unpacked and now I have to pack it all back up again. that sounds terrible. I hate packing. I just wish I could tell someone what to pack and they would do it for me and make everything fit.
3. snowed again today, calling for more tomorrow-saturday. where was all this snow my senior year of high school? all these kids are so darn lucky. 

tonight, sleep is an appropriate topic. I love sleep. sometimes, when I'm really tired, I'll look at my bed and just start to daydream about sleep. naps are the best thing now, if time allows me to take one. I usually get enough sleep, but it seems like I'm way busier in college than I ever was in high school. sleep is restorative and has powers beyond a lot of things in this world. I also love to dream. my dreams are most always in color and hi-def. one time, I had a dream in spanish--that was pretty cool. overall, there is nothing I love more at the end of a long day (like today) than sleeping for a good nine or ten hours. on that note, a picture, and then sleep in my home bed (not a hotel one)!

too late

1. central park today! I'm very excited. 
2. there is just too much to type in these sections when one is in nyc...
3. still no red shoes. darn.
   

briefly, I want to talk about beauty. beauty seems like such a confusing topic. the media says this, your mom says that, your boy/girlfriend says blah, your friend says bleh. it's just, like, what is beautiful? this question has plagued all societies for centuries. I am one to think that humans have inherent vanity and are trying to look good at all times, especially for the opposite sex. but beauty is just...different for each person. and not only personal beauty, but beauty in nature, art, etc. is all different. again, I apologize for the late post; I feel awful for falling off the wagon only six days into it...

"she is a beautiful girl"

1. I shopped 'til I dropped. literally. we shopped all day up and down 5th avenue--it was great. but then we were both exhausted and took a nap before an amazing dinner (see below).
2. still on the search for the perfect red, rounded toe, preferably leather pumps. come on new york, don't let me down.
3. dinner at Arno was...bella e delizioso. zuppa, gnocchi alla pesto, sauvignon blanc, e cappuccino. words cannot describe how much I love italian food (again, see below).

to me, food has always been a pleasure unmatched by other things. I. love. food. as mentioned above, we went to an amazing italian restaurant. everyone was treated like a regular and the waiters were charmed by our manners and humor. the table next to us of older men walked in a saw me and the oldest man said "she is a beautiful girl--you all know I love beautiful women." politely, I said grazie, and continued my meal. this is just a glimpse into all the reasons I love italian food. it's complicated, though. I feel so fortunate that I am able to enjoy food. I attempt to practice mindful eating. that means enjoying every bite--how it smells, feels, tastes, looks, etc. enjoying food slowly makes me more appreciative of the blessings of really good food. to put it simply, I love food. end of story.

empire state of mind

1. arrived in NYC!!!!
2. bought gloves and a scarf because it is COLD.
3. had an amazing dinner at a family-owned italian restaurant--vino, zuppa de pesce, cozze, cappucino, etc. 

 I figured that an apropos topic for today is travel. there could be nothing in this world I love more to do than travel. the world is so big and so different--obvious statements, I know, but it's so true. how someone could not want to travel everywhere and experience everything is beyond me. I've been lucky enough to go to Italy, Mexico, the Dominican Republic, France, Spain, and Hawaii. picking a favorite is impossible. I love each country, each city, each town for multiple reasons, but they all make me happy (to say the very least). and there are so many other places I want to visit, I can't name them all. anyway, not much time tonight--so much to do! but travel is...incredible and does more to broaden horizons than anything else...so on that note, a travel picture from Italy will follow!

just one of those days

1. as my title suggests, today was just one of those days. it was slow. not much happened. lazy sunday..."lazy sunday/wake up in the late afternoon..." the song "lazy sunday" by the lonely island always makes me laugh.
2. but really, I did nothing today other than continue packing, break up a bird fight (weird, I know), and watch some telly and read some magazines. 

today I want to write a brief statement about characteristics. I have always been an independent person--my own woman, I guess you could say. flaws and faults I have aplenty, the most important being my stubbornness. ask anyone, I am hard-headed, stubborn as a mule, and bullish in my fierceness. while I have long accepted this facet of my personality, I also accept it was both a merit and a fault. stubbornness means that I have principles and stick by them; it also means I am not easily talked into things that I don't see as good (generic vocab choice). and while I appreciate my stubborn nature, I know that it can be frustrating and that I can be inflexible and hard to deal with. on the note of double-sided characteristics, I bring up my empathetic quality. I understand feelings of others, especially those in pain or trouble, and most would say that this is a merit. having lived with it for some time now, I see it as a double-edged sword. I love that I am compassionate and empathetic, but it only makes me thin-skinned and vulnerable and hard to distance myself from others. why is this a bad thing? well, it isn't always; but it definitely can be detrimental. use your imagination to see all the ways this characteristic could screw me in life. overall, I think it's hard to paint a person into good and evil, virtuous and malicious. we all have characteristics that can work for or against us. what is most important is accepting that people cannot be one or the other--by nature we are all a shade of gray (not literally, of course, I see myself as a different color on each day--that's another post). it may be hard to see the value of the tenacity that a suicide bomber has, or see the detrimental effect that taking too much care of other people can have; but having this vision and insight is crucial to understanding people for who they really are--not just judging by one facet or another of his/her personality.

I almost forgot! my very first item for my goals list (since it is a sunday). it was hard to just...think of something I wanted to accomplish. but after some thought, I have decided that a goal of mine is to return to hawaii. it was a beautiful and shaping place for me, and a return trip is mandatory!