I should have known that watching the big lebowski would remind me of stoops. between the movie and the dylan it was inevitable. goddamn and ouch.

I saw good night and good luck which I thought was really well done and well acted. But too black and white (metaphorically). They were trying to draw a connection between the current situation and mccarthyism especially the censorship and the atmosphere of fear. But the movie took the retrospective point of view; mccarthy was unambiguously evil and cbs was on the side of good. At the time it couldn't have seemed so clear. People were legitamately scared of the communist threat. There must have been at least some people who thought that some measures needed to be taken to protect the country.

And now, there are people who think that some surveillence and censorship are justified to protect us from terrorists. Maybe they're right. It's harder to see things in absolutes when you're in the moment in question because you can't assess the danger correctly. I think the movie would have been better if it had presented both sides, some shades of grey.

so warm out

Its been so nice out the last two days. I've spent like 6 hours each day either reading outside or playing frisbee. Barefoot. In a skirt. I really like me barefoot in a skirt playing frisbee. I think its one of my best looks. I should have gone for a run today; I had an unseemly amount of energy. Too bad no one wanted to play mini with me. But my legs were still stiff from running steps last night. I didn't want to push it.

I wonder if everyone's mood depends so heavily on how their body is feeling at that exact moment. I feel like I'm always aware of it. Stumach aches = anxiety and worry. Head aches = tension and stress. Those are the easy ones. Then there's the weird feeling in my throat that only comes out when I'm passive agressive. And a huge range of exercise induced leg feelings. Like right now, they're tired in a good way cause i just stretched. I've got to go to the lab soon and do some work so this day won't be a total waste of my life.

yay townhouse

Well either the gods or Steve helped me out cause my group got a sweet lottery number. I mean 619 doesn't sound very good but because the Columbia system is so weird, we're actually the 6 or 7 group of our size to pick. So we'll get a townhouse. Actually a lot of the 3-2s did really well. Alex's group is the first group of their size to pick and Brian's group is right behind us. I hope the Brian-Chris-Jake group get a townhouse right next to ours because I plan to spend a lot of time there cause I like them better then a lot of my group.

Also, I can't work when its nice out. I lose all motivation. And its really nice out. I thought I had the day pretty much free but then i realized that I have a lunch date, a b day party (11:30 PM), a dodgeball game (11 PM), a disc golf obligation (midnight) and a random girl from Berekley staying with me which means that i also need to take a run and go grocery shopping and clean my room. At least none of that is school work.

Saturday ended up being such a good day, despite getting off to a shakey start. I think most of the reason i love hanging out with the frisbee guys is that they are so chill. So the car won't start.... who cares? We'll just sit here and toss and play with four year olds until AAA gets here. Se we're lost in New Jersey, going the wrong direction.... no problem, we'll just bet on what direction to go next and hope we find it in the end. And once we got there, playing disc golf was so fun. I did badly, but not that badly, and unlike Casey and Ben, I stayed out of the water hazard (also known as a big ass lake). Being in a car again and doing random things with people I feel totally comfortable with reminded me of my high school group. I haven't always felt that way in college. It was a really good day. And today i saw Spamalot. I wasn't blown away but it was definetely a fun way to spend the afternoon

boring

I hate feeling boring. I've been so good this week. Every day I've gone up to Mudd around 9 and stayed until 6 or 7 doing all my work, studying for my midterm and finishing my project. And in exchange, I get to relax in the evening. I'm in control, I'm staying afloat, I'm not failing.

But I'm not fun either. I'm content I guess, and I like being ahead on my work so I don't have to stress out. But I'm so booooring. I wouldn't talk to me if I met me now. I'm glad I'm going to Seattle this summer and I'm glad I'm going to disc golf this weekend. I'm glad for every little thing I manage to do that makes me less intolerably uninteresting and and utterly unoriginal.

dreams

I had a dream that I went home with someone new one night after a party or something. It was that time of the night when you're both pretty sure its going to happen but nothing definate has been said or done yet. It turned into a nightmare, as my dream turned into a panic attack and the guy (whoever he was) dissapeared. How scary is it to let someone see you, naked and vulnerable? To let someone else know what you like and what you don't and what you do during your most private times? To put your body and your reputation in someone else's hands? Suddenly it seemed like such a momentous step that I was sure (in my dream) that I would never take that step again, never put myself out for that kind of judgement again, never let anyone see me like that.

When I woke up, I knew it wasn't true; sometime people, sex would seem casual, fun, joyful again. But that feeling of fear, of risk, of the significance of it persists.

That wasn't very coherent.

so fucking tired

I've been up pretty much since 7:30 am yesterday. For some reason, I thought the trip wouldn't be so bad this year, but it was. Luckily I had good people in my car, though it was funny to see Goose and Anne together. There are some people I wouldn't have wanted to spend 14 hours with. And when we finally got back at 5:30 this morning, I had to find parking which took me more than a half hour. I tried to parallel park it behind a dumpster and it didn't work and i got really frustrated.

Still, it was a good trip. Lots and lots of driving but fun. Not as good a group as last year (one measure of group goodness is how many of the guys I would hook up with. Last year I put the count at about 5, this year it was at a very qualified 2. Not that I would have hooked up with anyone last year or this year). Anyway, not as many outgoing people that you need to keep a party going for a week, but still fun. I really like our rookies a lot, and it was a lot of fun to see how much better the team was this year. And I went skinny dipping. And I got Jessie to go skinny dipping. And I heckled Retail for having no game.

I'm also glad I went to see Uncle Rich and Aunt Barb. They're some of my favorite relatives and they seemed so happy to see me. Uncle Rich was so excited to take me out on his little motor canoe and show me a manatee and take me biking. Too bad he can't steer a boat. Aunt Barb: Rich, its getting shallow here, Rich i think you should turn. Rich cut the engine!" They've got a sweet house right on a canal and they seem happy with their retirement.

And, I like being warm. I hate shivering all the time. Got an e mail from Stoops which got me upset all over again, but it'll be ok. I spent that morning by myself.
And now I'm back, still awake, trying to finish my assignment that's due today/ tommorrow before I fall asleep where I sit.

what ifs

I was thinking about my first frisbee spring break and realizing that I have almost no memories of the people that I'm now good friends with. I remember chilling on the beach with mara, part of the car ride in sai's car, and talking to sam. I remember rookie challenge with gabi and austin giving me a disc anyway. Krishna turning on ESPN 24 hours a day. Amanda yelling at me for telling her to turn down the music at 5:30 am. I remember stoops video taping our games and gabi sitting on his lap. And that's about it.

But it makes me wonder what could have happened if I had loosened up a little that week and gotten to know people. If I had started talking to the guys, casey, tao, ben who must have been there but i can't remember, and realized that there were cool guys out there. If I had started talking to stoops. What could have happened if we had noticed each other my sophomore year, instead of being peripheral for so long.

Maybe things had to happen the way they did; I'm glad I took a while to get into the ultimate scene because now i have friends outside it, and now that I'm older I don't have to worry about people making me drink, which i was really uncomfortable with as a freshman. Until me and steve broke up, I didn't really have a lot of interest in that group. Though part of that is that it takes me a while to get comfortable with a group of people. And relatonship-wise i learned a lot with/from steve. a lot of growing up and maturing went on, as well as a lot of good times. So most of it wasn't wasted.

But part of me still wishes very much I hadn't overlooked him.

unfocused

I hate how distractable I've been lately like my mind is trying to do 10 things at any one time and suceeding at none of them. I keep starting tasks and not finishing them. Not just school work either, sometimes just basic "read this website, eat this sandwich" things.

Spring break will help. I'm really starting to look forward to it. It looks like I'll have a good car all the way down which i was kind of worried about. I mean there are very few people that I dislike on the team, but there are some that I wouldn't want to spend a long car ride with. And once we get there, I'm sure its going to be fun and at the very least warm. I'm not sure how much debauchery I'll be up for. I'm so old compared to most of the people going, but we'll see. I have to call my Uncle Rich to make sure I can visit him while I'm down there. He's pretty awesome, and if I plan it right I'll be able to see a bunch of my cousins too, before I head down to Miami to see Tracy and Sheera.

I'm even looking forward to going home. I need to do a lot of logistical planning for finding a place in Seattle, deciding when to start work, and getting there, while working about my graduation and my brother's graduation (my Mikey is so old!). My parents will be able to help me get a lot of those things settled.

why I don't want to be an engineer....

In one sentance: I don't like it and I'm not good at it.

It's important to me to be able to use all part of my brain. It's practically how I define myself ("I may be an english major, but I'm also an engineer. Isn't that cool?"), but I think I've pushed it as far as I can. I don't want to beat my head against the wall or take my life in directions that will make me unhappy just to prove a point. And I have a lot of other strengths; I'll just fall back on them. It's not that easy of course. Engineering has been my plan for the last four years and to discover that its not for me has been a real shock. I guess I'm just trying to spin the experience into something other than a failure.

Practically, I don't know what that decisian means yet. I could finish this year and be done with school for good. I'll have a BA from Barnard and a shitload of engineering classes, and I'd go find a job or travel. Or I could finish the program and use it as a jumping off point to a consulting job, as a way to distinguish myself from the crowd of econ majors.

But there are so many unknown factor and questions.... If I stay the extra year, am I really going to get a benefit from it that would make it worth the huge investment of time and money? If I don't stay, will potential employers question my follow through or find me less of an attractive canidate as "just" an English major? Would it prevent me from getting into grad school? Am I absolutly positive that I don't want to do engineering or any related career? Am I going to regret this (whatever this is)?

This feels like a very big choice. The idea of working as an engineer makes my stumach hurt, but I could do the extra year if I thought it would help me in the end. I'm a good enough student for that. I just don't know.

space nuts

That was the name of the porn that my friend's boyfriend got her for her birthday. Not as a gag gift. Normally, he's such a good guy too; last year he took her to a play and was so cool. He must have had a total brain fart. I mean, the movie was kind of funny. It was a take off on star wars so it was a geek thing. We watched it in fast forward so we wouldn't have to hear the dialogue, but the girls' boobs were all so weird and the sex scenes all followed the exact same sequence. So weird.

frustration

Articles like this make me want to never get married or have kids...
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/02/business/02work.html?_r=1&incamp=article_popular_2&oref=slogin

Honestly when I picture "family" or "marriage" all I can think about is what it will feel like to work til 6 or 7 or whenever and come home and find the breakfast dishes still in the sink, the kids running around without dinner, and a husband on the couch, not even noticing the mess. It stresses me out just to think about. Which is weird because my parents have a good marriage and I had a great family growing up. Yet, it was always my mom who had to make dinner or vacuum or get the kids to practice. Or she had to be the one to tell someone else (me or my dad) to do it. Things didn't get done unless she did them herself or nagged, and I'm so afraid that that's the way it has to be. It made her unhappy, bitter, angry in a way you could feel even when she didn't seem aware of it herself, and I'm so afraid it will do the same to me.

It also seems like a lose-lose situation. If I go to work then I have to come home to that second shift and end up, in reality working 14 hour days and having to pay some other woman to look after my kids. If I leave the work force, I'm turning my back on my intelligence, wasting my education, becoming financially dependent on my husband, and probably being bored to tears.

But when I picture a life without a family, without those close relationships, I just get depressed. I am supremely ambivilent and every new article that comes out about Yale graduates deciding to be stay at home moms, or statistics about how women are happier when their husbands make much much more then them make me think about things and wonder how I'm ever going to find a path that suits me.

unknown

I have no idea what movie i'm watching but....
"boy meets girl, boy loves girl, boy loses girl, girl finds boy, boy forgets girl, boy remembers girl, girl loves boy, girl dies in tragic blimp acccident....."

"you really mean that jane? you're not just saying that because we exchanged bodily fluids?"

Sometimes being easily amused comes in handy.

Thank you, pod

I like this
http://www.gbhtv.com/videofestival/lowbudgethighconcept.html

Stoooooooops

I knew it would hurt but goddamn... Yesterday I was fine all day. I held it together. I studyed for my midterms today. And then I made the mistake of clicking on his facebook profile, and saw that under relationship status it said "single." I totally lost it. I don't want him to be single! I want him to be with me, and I'm jealous of every new experience he's going to have without me and every person he's going to talk to who isn't me. It took me a long time to calm myself down. I lay there in bed, making up stories for myself about what I was going to do on spring break or how my move to Seattle was going to go or just what I was going to do the next day until I finally fell asleep.

The worst is that I can't talk about it with anyone. I can't expect sympathy because I knew exactly what I was getting into and did it anyway. And I can't expect understanding; I talked to very very few people about how things stood between us. Hell, half our friends didn't even know we were at all together until we'd been that way for several months. And I spent a lot of time playing it cool. So I'm avoiding people. All of them.

Luckily I'm seeing Karen this weekend. I can talk to her, cause in a weird way, she is my emotional half. When we were 14, a guy I had been "dating" (it wasn't real, i wasn't even sure I liked him) broke up with me, and she cried for me, many more tears than that 2 month fake relationship was worth. The point is, it'll be good to see her.

I just got offered a job in Seattle. With an engineering consulting firm. I accepted it, of course. At the beginning of the semester when I was starting to plan out my summer, I asked myself what my ideal job would be and decided it would be an engineering job in Seattle or Portland. Since then I got distracted by companies like KPL and PPL and industries like management consulting, but now I'm back to plan A. I can't get over how things worked out like that. I've never been to Seattle. Or the northwest in general so I can't wait to explore.

I've been in New York so long, for the last two summers and four school years. Its a great city, it really is and I love it. But there's so much else out there, and I'm getting antcy. Time to be hitting the dusty trail and so forth. Also, I have nothing to keep me here. I have no boyfriend, my friends will scatter after graduation, I don't want to go home to MA for the summer, I can play ultimate anywhere. Why not get the hell off of this coast and try another one?

On a similar note, I'm pretty sure I don't want a normal job after graduation whenever that might be. I want an experience along the lines of the Peace Corps. Part of that might be because the way my grades are going, I won't be in a position to get the kind of job I want. But part of it is just plain restlessness and a strong sense that this is my time to adventure.

jumping on the bandwagon

Starting this is a terrible idea. For one thing, I have way to much to do to be wasting my time messing around this this. For another thing, making your first public statement in a time of emotional trauma is not a good idea. Well, emotional trauma might be overstating the case, but it has been a rough month. But by starting now I could either jump in and start writing about the wreck that is currently my life. Or I could go into back stories. Then there is the question of honesty. How honest can you really be in a public forum? Oh well, I'll start with this and get bored of it soon enough.

Anyway, in the last month I've (in no particular order) broken my nose, pierced my nipple, loved, lost, watched my GPA go down the tubes and with it my chance of getting hired by a top consulting firm, decided to graduate, found a job, found a job I wanted, made a new friend, alienated some old friends, gotten into a fight with my mom, resolved a fight with my mom, and cried. Among other things. Most of these epic struggles are on going and I need to talk about them. But not now. I have two midterms tommorrow.