Springtime

I don't know that anyone even reads this anymore, but maybe some of you will be bored and decide to see if I have written anything and then you will be pleasantly surprised by this happy story: 

I saw pretty dancing girl-flowers today and it made me feel like spring time.

It's finals week and I've been absolutely buried in work.  I'm not technically done with things until Friday, but today I had a huge final project due and we had to do a presentation, and the whole thing has pretty much consumed my life the past week or so (except that, while being consumed by this, I was also being consumed by everything else, so that was problematic).  It was a HUGE weight off my shoulders to be done with it, and despite my stress and sense of defeat, I think we pulled together a pretty solid report and presentation.  

We spent pretty much all day finishing everything up, but it's been SO pretty out today that all I wanted to do was go play outside and enjoy the sunshine (which I did a little at lunch, but not enough).  So when we finished presentations, I was really conflicted between wanting to play outside, go to sleep, or go for a run.

This is where I come to my story.  I was riding my bike home, thinking about how great it was to be riding in the sun instead of the rain, and trying to decide which of my three options I liked best, and starting to think that realistically I should go home and do a bunch of work that I have to turn in tomorrow, when I saw it.  These two girls who looked like they might have been twins in bright orange tutus with hugely wide skirts that looked like flowers, and they were skipping up and down the sidewalk. 

It was an AMAZING thing to see and I really wish I had a picture.  I think that kids are such appropriate measures of the seasons.  It's like...as we grow up, we start to regulate ourselves so that we don't really respond to changes.  So many people dress more or less the same all the time, with a few changes when needed to fit the weather.  We do the same things, like I ride my bike to and from school whether it's snowing or sunny...it's all just fairly monotone (although I try not to be like that as much as possible).  But kids, they see that it's the first day in way too long that the sun is out, and they're out there being dancing flowers and announcing that it's spring time.  I love it.  It makes me SO happy!

Now I'm trying not to let it get me down that I missed most of the sunshine and that I have too much to do, and I'm sitting on my front stoop listening to some old timey music that my neighbors across the street are playing (I should know who it is because it's someone famous but I can't figure it out for the life of me...the first three songs I was pretty sure it was Jacques Brel but he was singing in english in a southern accent...silly) and it's actually really chilly but I want to enjoy the coming spring time as long as possible.  

I think I shall go for a run to stay outside but be kinda warm.  I hope that everyone else has beautiful "It's Spring!" moments soon!!

Lists

A number of my friends have been doing this on facebook, and I found it intriguing.  I guess probably most of the people who read this blog regularly have facebook, but I feel like this blog was a more permanent way to post this list.  And it gives me the opportunity to expand it, and maybe come back and use some of them as inspiration for future bloggy introspections.

1. If I could have any superpower, it would be the ability to speak and understand all languages. 
2. I'm starting to regret ditching Spanish after 7th grade (même si je ne peux pas imaginer ma vie sans français)
3. I have a really strong need to do things for the people I care about, and I often forget to take care of myself.
4. A year ago I lost one of the most influential people in my life, but I still have a hard time convincing myself that that loss was real. 
5. I'm really afraid of not living up to my own expectations and those of the people around me, and sometimes I feel like the bar is set SO high, but the thought of trying to lower it is too much like giving up.
5. I am a huge grammar and spelling Nazi. Finding stupid errors in peoples' writing is one of the most annoying things EVER. But the only person I will accept editing or criticism about my own grammar from is my mother.
6. I plan and make lists because doing so gives me a sense of control over my life that I can't give up.
7. I really want to travel and go on adventures, but the thought of doing those things spontaneously is horrifying to me.
8. Dancing makes me really happy. It's incredibly therapeutic and probably my biggest turn-on. I especially love just letting go of myself at a concert or a club.
9. I wish that music just radiated from my body so that it would always be there.
10. Hearing my sister's voice on the phone makes me feel warm inside.
11. I feel like an outsider everywhere I go, and that makes me kind of hate who I am--the color of my skin, my heritage, where I come from, what I've done in my life, etc.
12. My two favorite views are the Sandias at sunset and just after sunrise, and looking up the Rhône from Pont Gallieni in the evening or at night. They make me feel at home.
13. I'm a huge over-achiever and teacher's pet. Doing well in school is one of the things that I feel gives me worth.
14. My parent's wouldn't agree with this, but I'm really obsessive about cleaning things. But only if I know I can get my space to an acceptable state of cleanliness.
15. I feel like a huge hypocrite about these because they're really bad for the environment, but I LOVE driving my car just for the sake of driving it, and just standing under a hot shower.
16. I always need something to do--I fill my life up with school, work, meetings, and other activities because I don't like to have too much time to myself. I'm scared both of feeling like I'm wasting time and of being left too long to my own thoughts.

Also, I've decided to add a couple more...

17. I can't seem to stay in one place, which is exciting at times, but it really messes up my prospects for love and romance, and it impedes on my friendships. I feel like I'm constantly having to say goodbye.

18. My friends are some of the most amazing people ever.

19. I get really frustrated because my relationships are really spread out across both geographical and social space, and it's probably impossible to have all the people I care about together at once.

20. I have a really strange memory.  I remember faces and places and stories really well, but as soon as I finish a test, paper, or presentation, I forget everything.  This is true of books and movies as well.  I have to reread even my favorite books regularly or I forget what happens in them.

21. I can't use drunkenness as an excuse for most of the silly things I do when I'm drunk, because I'm usually cognizant that they are out of the norm for me, and even kind of stupid...I just don't care.

22. I can't imagine myself really becoming an adult or growing old.  I don't plan my wedding, I can't imagine myself pregnant, I can't see myself with grey hair and a cane.  Even though I know that I will probably have arthritis and a messed up body from figure skating, I can't imagine ever not being able to dance.  Sometimes I feel like my future doesn't exist.

23. I don't actually like to share my feelings with people, but I love to listen to theirs.  Still, I sometimes feel really selfish when people only talk about themselves and I can't talk about me.

Ok, that's enough for now.  I think I like this exercise because I love listing things.  It's a nice way of giving some organization to my random trains of thought.

A little down and out

Surrounded, drowning, lost...that's how I feel right now.  Death and loss and sadness seem to be rampant around me these past couple of days.  I'm dealing with the anniversary of my own loss, and meanwhile my mom tells me about a family friend who is quickly fading from cancer, a friend of a friend whose father just passed away, a good friend whose grandfather is not doing well at all...a number of my friends are in these weird funks for various reasons...and then there's the global turmoil and all of the deaths in Mumbai, that feels so far away, and yet so close.  Everyone around me is lost in the fog that is deadweek and finals preparation for finals.  I spent the last two nights in the library until the wee hours of the morning working on papers, and thankfully, today, I was able to sit and have a therapeutic cup of tea with an amazing friend, and then come home and drown myself a little bit.  Not so much in a bad way, just let myself face the things that are causing all this pain.  I still don't have any answers and I'm not over it, but at least I wrote some of them down and shed some serious tears and let the stress go for a night.  Hopefully it's enough to get me through to next Thursday when I get to go home.  And at least maybe escape the oppressive cloudcover bearing down on Eugene and making me feel really trapped.  I definitely need a change of scenery.

I hate to leave this on a down note, but that's kind of where I'm at and I need to get some sleep because I'm STILL sick and haven't been getting much sleep at all.  There's still a long haul to get through, too.  

Bisous. 

Sickkkk

I can't stop coughing, which might be the worst thing ever.  And what makes it worse is that I more or less feel fine, but I hate going places cuz I have these loud outbursts of coughing and I can't stop.  It is lame.  And I sound like a smoker...even though I'm not.  My lungs are not big fans of me right now.

This weekend is basically my last weekend here before dead week (and then it's finals, and then HOME!), which is scary cuz it means I really need to get to work on all the stuff thats due right before or after Thanksgiving, as I pretty much won't be able to work on them any other weekend.  Library, here I come!  Huzzah.

Bisous!!  

It never ceases to amaze me how some people can express my feelings before I even know I feel that way.  Maybe it's just me projecting myself into their words, but I really feel like I constantly come across songs or blogs or stories where I know just exactly what the speaker is going through.  Or, I think I do.  It doesn't so much surprise me that people, during their lifetimes, often have similar experiences and thoughts, but that I come across those similar things in such a timely manner.

During my sophomore year, I would read my friend's blog a lot and was always so amazed at the emotions she would express.  In retrospect, I think a lot of what drew me was the way she was able to express herself...very flowy and beautiful, in comparison to my much more technical way of expressing myself.  My desire to find a reflection in her words was strong enough that I managed to always do it.  That and we both have a strong sense of connection to home, and are pretty far away from home, so often the homesickness present in her writing was equally present within me.

More often than not, there are a number of songs that I get obsessed with at a given time, and that I can't stop listening to because they are so pertinent to me.  

Lately I've come across an old friend from high school that I don't actually know all that well.  As it went in my high school, we all thought we knew each other and had interactions with each other on some personal level, but that doesn't necessarily mean we actually knew each other all that well.  She posts a lot of notes on facebook that I've found myself really drawn to.  Sometimes I'm simply fascinated by the things she says and the way she says them, but there are moments when what she says reaches out and grabs me and wont let me go because it's so totally what is going on in my head.

I could go on, but I should get back to work.  I just needed to express my unceasing moments of shock at how well other people can, unknowingly, tap into my own feelings through theirs.

Bisous.

(A little) less bittersweet

I feel like the sun should be shining, but I'm in Oregon and, luckily, global warming has not gotten THAT disastrous, yet.  Last night was amazing.  It was so good to be with a bunch of my friends celebrating the great change that has come to this country.  And it was amazing to watch New Mexico's results come in.  Udall, Obama, Heinrich, Lujan, Teague(, Toulouse...even though county clerk wasn't on KOAT's website).  I'm SO proud to be from a state that elected an amazing democratic delegation to send to Congress.  Young and inexperienced as they may be.  

It's kind of ironic that my home state, an historically red state (although, despite our voting in the presidential elections, I like to think that, within New Mexico, we aren't as red as you might guess) elected all these new blue senators and representatives, while true blue states like Oregon and California kind of fell off in some ways.  I mean, Yay!  They were blue on the presidential map, but I'm disappointed to see how close the Senate race between Merkley and Smith still is.  Maybe we'll have a third Udall cousin in the Senate after all, although I'm glad Smith wont really tarnish the Udall name, since few people know about his family ties.  It's also too bad that Kitty lost the mayoral election here in Eugene.  And then there's Prop 8 in California (and similar ballot measures passing in Arizona, Arkansas, and Florida).  Really?!?!?  I can't believe how much good change there has been in the past 24 hours, and yet how much change was stopped in its tracks.  Thank goodness for Michigan voting for stem cell research (and medical marijuana), and Colorado not voting for an amendment that would define life as starting at the moment of conception, and California and S Dakota not instituting abortion limits, or I might really lose faith.  

I sincerely hope that, with a new democratic government, and a great, strong-willed president, we can overcome these kinds of ignorant decisions.  I have to keep telling myself that Prop 8 is not indefinite, that it is subject to change when people wake up and stop trying to control each other's lives.

We've come so far and so much good has come of this election.  I really hope people don't become complacent and let that good momentum go to waste.  There are still important things to fight for!  At the same time, though, it's important not to lose faith because of some losses.  Great things are happening and we are living them.  Don't waste that!  Own it!

Dear you...

First, to all of the people I can't be with to hug and celebrate with, I love you SO much!!!  For all the lost elections we've been together for, this is one for the books, and I wish I could celebrate with you!  You guys mean more to me than I can say and I miss you so much!

But most of all, to the person that isn't here to see this.  I can't imagine what it would have meant to you to celebrate this with us and I can only believe that you are here with me.  You made it possible for me to be the person I am today and you would have been so happy to vote for the first black president of the US.  Knowing what this would mean to you makes it that much more important to me.  I love you so much and I miss you more than I can say.  What a way to come near the anniversary I've been dreading.  I know you are here and, as Devika says, I know you are dancing amongst your unabridged copies of Les Mis (which are here with me now!!!).  And I'm glad that, at least, I can know how proud you would be to see Obama and Udall and Heinrich, and so many other amazing people win this election. 

To everyone who worked their butts off on this election and to everyone who voted for the first time (myself included...for president at least!!), or voted at all, you are amazing!

All my love,

~~Terra~~