everyone is doing it

1. woke up laaaaate. like, freshman year late. it felt great.
2. went to the mall with my girls, ate dinner, now just hanging out and seeing where the night will take me. 
3. had a crazy intense dream last night. i love my dreams (usually). i have a few that reoccur relatively often. some are scary, some are great. but i am glad that i remember my dreams.

mistakes. everyone makes them. everyone is affected by their own and others'. some mistakes turn out to be life-changing, others we can't remember the next day that we made them. and while the concept that "everyone makes mistakes" is accepted and understood, it's still hard to deal when other people let you down or do the wrong thing. or when you make a mistake and then have to live with the fallout. everyone has made a mistake that has changed their life (or if you haven't yet, you will). but sometimes when it happens, you don't know the full impact of what has just happened. life has a funny way of revealing surprises later down the road. i'd rather not get specific on this blog, but i've had a few of those mistakes that only later i realized how big of a deal they actually were. or sometimes, when you make a decision and only figure out later how important that decision actually was...those are weird moments. like realizing that a decision while driving saved your life, or a meeting with a professor changed your career. moments like that blow my mind. it's still so crazy to me how much life works out so much of the time. one thing happens and that leads to something else and then another thing, and before you know it the course of your life has changed. and i always think back, what if i hadn't done x, y, or z? where would i be now? thinking about the multiple paths in life has always been hard for me to comprehend. would i end up in the same place in the end, just by different means? who can say, really. i only get "one shot" at this particular life, right? so yeah, this post has turned into a tangent, but that's fine with me. signing off...

why why why

1. had a great day. had lunch with a friend, spent a lot of time replying to important emails, relaxed. i love fridays. went out to dinner, now hanging out with new friends.
2. got two packages today. so exciting. i love packages.
3. did i actually purchase jeans with holes in them? yes, but only because they were originally $80 and i got them for $20. am i a sucker for good deals? yes.

it seems like a growing trend that i don't have much to say on the weekend. maybe when i'm living (alone) this summer, my weekends will be more boring. i think a good subject for tonight is something i have noticed lately...a difference between men and women. while women support their friends "'does this dress look okay on me?' 'yes! are you crazy? everything looks good on you,'" men give their guy friends hell. for everything. "'did you get with that girl?' 'no, man, it didn't work out.' 'ohhh, what a loser!'" "'did you get with that girl?' 'yeah man, she was so hot.' 'ohhh, i can't believe you actually did her. so gross.'" i don't get it. truly, how can guys stand being cut down 24/7?! yes, yes, it's all in jest. but really, my self-esteem would plummet if my girls gave me as much hell as guys give to one another. but maybe, since they all make fun of each other all the time, it has less significance? i don't know. i wish i could figure out what goes through guys' heads. i would make a million dollars. but guys are...simple creatures. so it shouldn't be that hard, right? au contraire. end of story, guys are confusing. yes, girls are crazy, but guys are confusing. i wish everyone could just say what they mean! but then, life would be simple because guys would be simple. and we just can't have that.

let's get this understood

1. class all day today. i had to really drag myself to class today. but of course i went and of course i took notes and of course i contributed. geez. 
2. but i got out of class-related activities around 8:30 and got ready for my night out with friends! it was fun, being with (most) of my girl friends again and having fun. makes me excited for living off campus!
3. so, a confession. i ate alpine bagel three, yes three, times today within a seven hour period. what is wrong with me?! it's like lent starts and i give up all this junk food, so i just overcompensate with alpine bagel. but i don't even care, it was amazing each time. and i'm pretty sure the staff all love me.

so i had this important talk today with one of my lab advisers. grad-student-mentioned-in-last-night's-post and i talked some yesterday about how to approach this meeting. needless to say, it was a delicate meeting. we talked about...my academic career? even though i'm a sophomore? (really, i just wanted to say "i'm 19." and let the awkward silence happen; grad student, this reference is for you). anyway, this is all relatively irrelevant to what i want to talk about tonight, which is that feeling. you know what i mean, that feeling that things are just...going well. i get this sense that my life is on the up-and-up. i know what i want and know that i have the gumption to make this happen. i believe in myself more than ever right now, and i don't even know why! it's just this sense i get that things are dovetailing perfectly. this rarely happens in life, maybe like once or twice for me before this, but it's happening again. and i could be totally wrong? but i'm not. i can feel it in my heart and know in my head that i am doing things right. i am living 2010 how it needs to be lived so far, and i want to stay on this track. i am beyond excited for this summer, for the me time that will last three months. and it's almost spring break, which means my school year is almost over too, which is weirdly exciting. and i'm excited about housing for next year and my friends. this is one of those days when life is extraordinarily beautiful. and that's what this whole blog was about, right? finding the beauty in each day? i want to continue on this path of...being fully myself and loving myself for that.

this life of mine

1. oh you know, did the wednesday thing. GSH (jersey shore fans understand this reference, the uncultured do not). gym, shower, homework. then a few meetings here and there. now back to homework and hopefully going to bed early! 
2. had a talk with a grad student from one of my labs. we talked about a lot of stuff. please, read on to hear more about it...
3. this is one of those days like i mentioned in my first post (http://livinglife2010.blogspot.com/2010/01/beginning.html). there just isn't that much to say about the day-to-day life on a wednesday (usually). 

a theme in the conversation i had today with aforementioned grad student was about how to balance different professional paths. i have, for the longest time, wanted to help people. i guess it's called "a calling" but it's just something that has always been a part of me. i have to help people how people in my life have helped me. so another thing i have wanted is to be famous. not necessarily famous but...i want people to know my name. so the obvious juncture of these two wants is to do good things in this world that make me well-known. now, how to go about doing this is a different story. i want to say more and be more specific, but i can't. however most of you readers know enough about me to have a general idea of what my major is, what i want to do when i grow up, etc. so what can i do with this life of mine that makes me happy? all the things i want...i just feel this urge to be all i can be and to live my life to the absolute tip top. how can i maximize the good that i do in this world? questions like this are always on my mind, to some degree or another. more specifically what we talked about today was how to take the hard reality of life and meld it with lofty academic research world. i want my name in print, i want to change my field; but i also want to reach out to the people who are suffering and offer any guidance i can. i haven't been able to make it where i am without people reaching out to me, so how can i offer that same help to other people dealing with life? it's just all so confusing now. i know what i want...but how to get there? how to be all i can be? man, don't we all wish we knew the answer to that question. i want to repay the people in my life by being that person for someone else. i wish this didn't all sound so abstract, but i can't really get specific in this blog. and i feel like i've been rambling and repeating myself. but the basic points: i want to be great. i want to help people. how do i mesh the two in this convoluted world?

life=hard

1. sometimes, life is hard. thus, blogging is hard. there are things i want to say, but can't. the fact that this is online and public makes it a little harder...sometimes i just want privacy. but hey, i started this blog and i will finish it. some days are just harder than others. there are things i want to scream and say but i can't. there are things i want to cry about and ask for sympathy but i can't.
2. class was pretty painless today. and it was mardi gras, so i got to wear purple, green, and gold! but i'm jst tired. i need to sleep and recover my normal thought process.
3. lent starts tomorrow--giving up candy, cookies, ice cream, and soda (not that i drink that much...). so basically i'm giving up the stuff that is bad for me. this list may be added to at some point, but i'm not sure yet. we'll see as lent progresses if i want to be more ambitious--but this list suffices for now. 

i guess i have one thing to talk about, which i mentioned above. i'm struggling with wanting to just spill out my life details on this blog, but there is so much i can't say. i have people who read it and those people (no one, actually) needs to know the minute details of my life. but it's been getting difficult lately to manage keeping my privacy and anonymity and still sharing with the online world like i wanted to do when i started this blog. and i know some of my readers will want me to stop blogging, especially if this is starting to cause me some minor stress. but these same readers know how stubborn and dedicated i am--i will follow through. and i will continue to blog until december 31st of this year. isn't that weird? i will have blogged every day of the entire year of 2010. so i need to reiterate to myself that every day is a beautiful day, at least in some way. i need to remember why i'm writing this blog--so that's what i'm doing tonight. reinforcing my mission, almost 1.5 months into this year...

ain't no sunshine

1. wished every second of today that i was back in hawaii. 
2. it rained all day which matched perfectly my mood.
3. booked my spring break trip (the only real high point).

not a good night. not much to say. i guess this had colored my views of how my day actually was (it was pretty good). i just...i guess...want to talk about life. and how confusing and complicated it is and always will be. when people say "life doesn't have to be hard," they are very wrong. people are incredibly complicated and confusing, so life is thus that way too. i was just writing this post and looked up and saw my card that says "fly." i guess that's what i'm needing to do right now...just fly. please have faith in me.

"love stinks"

1. i love waking up at noon. and hate those heart-shaped chocolate boxes with mystery chocolates.
2. so yes, it was valentine's day and i ate frozen food for dinner (alone), watched youtube videos and ate half a pint of ben & jerry's (alone), and did homework (alone). that's my kind of day!
3. but really, i enjoy beautiful, chilly days and days when i can regroup and get "me time." today combined both of those, so i am content.

despite all my hating on valentine's day, this has been a surprisingly mild day. i'm happy for all my friends who are happy either in relationships or single, and i'm grateful for my friends and family who make me feel loved every day, and not just on one day! but i promised some stories about valentine's day memories. my worst valentine's day ever was my junior year of high school. it was my boyfriend-at-the-time's first valentine's day with me and we wanted it to be special (ugh). so we went to a new restaurant and had a nice time..until he got food poisoning. it was awful. i spent the rest of the night trying to make him feel better until i had to go home to meet curfew. oh, did i mention that it wasn't even on valentine's day because he had practice after school? i was deferred for sports practice, yes indeed. but to give some credit, they were state champions. needless to say, it was not a fun night. one year, in seventh grade, i was dating a guy and he got me a huge stuffed white teddy bear, a silver ring, flowers, and a balloon. it was a little bit of overkill, i'm not going to lie, especially since i had to walk to the school office to get all my stuff. embarrassing. another time, in elementary school (please see previous post), a boy gave me a bouquet of flowers from our playground flower beds and said "will you be mine?". okay, what happened to those days of innocent little kid love? of course i said yes. so those are my short stories of loves come and gone. hopefully i won't be a valentine's day curmudgeon for the rest of my life...but i know i will. love to all those who read my blog, speaking of love.

get floor seats at an [unnamed team] vs. [unnamed team] basketball game.