sleepyhead.

Best remix I've heard in awhile; it's Passion Pit's "Sleepyhead" with the Jackson 5's "I Want You Back." One of the few things adding little bit of sunshine to my ridiculous week!

Things to look forward to (if I survive this week):

WEDNESDAY
-Lecture on The Godfather (I'VE BEEN WAITING ALL SEMESTER FOR THIS)
-Trivia!

THURSDAY
-Turning in my paper on Blue Valentine

FRIDAY
-Turning in the rough draft of my thesis (!!!!)
-FLYING BACK TO LA FOR PASSOVER!

blue valentine.

Nothing lasts forever. We're born, we live, and we die. What happens after that, no one knows, and although we have no control over our birth or our death, we certainly have much to do with the quality of our lives while we're living. There's no such thing as "forever," at least in my mind, and that was one of my favorite parts of Blue Valentine--the acknowledgement of the idea that we live and love in the moment, but that's all we can do. We don't know what the future will hold, so how can we control it, or pretend to think that we know what will work 30 years from now? We don't, and we won't. I'm quickly learning that it's all about living in the moment. I know we all have our share of bad days, but it's about trying to see what we don't like and taking it upon ourselves to fix it. It's easy to let the negativity get to us, and much too easy to let it overwhelm us. I'm incredibly guilty of this, but I'm trying to fight back.

Today I was talking to my boss, complaining about the last few days. They'd been pretty shitty, to be honest--thesis-ing is stressful (as much as I love my topic, it's a bit daunting), and add lots of work, root canal recovery, hundreds of pages of complex reading, a 3 hour silent film about white supremacy (watched for a race & film class, mind you) and an unexpected break-up to the mix and you've got all the makings for disaster. "But you know," I said, "life goes on and all that jazz." My boss made a comment about admiring my positive attitude, and it caught me off-guard. Me, positive? When did that happen? The truth of the matter is, I was always a negative kid. It would drive my parents crazy how I would always find *something* to complain about or be upset about. But, reading through my past few blog posts and my own personal journal, I realize that I've made a complete 180 in terms of the way I look at the world. It's been a slow process, but all of the sudden I am finding the best in everything around me. Dumped unexpectedly? It sucks, definitely...BUT, I am super busy with my thesis/last semester of undergrad...and who wants to be tied down when I've got the world ahead of me? There's always a silver lining. It was what it was, and it was lovely while it lasted, but it's over and that's that. Time to move on, focus on my research, my future, and my life. My friend Morgan and I were discussing this over mimosas at La Note and decided that this is going to be known as "Fresh-Start February," a clean slate to start over with. As President Bartlet would say, "What's next?"


Speaking of my thesis, I'm writing it on the Internet, identity, and privacy--why do people post what they post, and how does this determine the image they want to give off to the world? Obviously, I don't have an answer yet, but in terms of myself, I've always found that writing is the most therapeutic way to deal with the world. The reason I post is that I hope that someone will read this and find that my words help them through a similar situation, or that they feel that they have an ally in the world, even if only on the Internet.

the good that won't come out.

Today I woke up late and got to work 30 minutes after I was supposed to. Work was okay, and despite an unusual number of phone calls to the front desk I was able to get a lot of homework done. As soon as I got off, I ran to interview an informant for a paper on suburban families. She was late so I began to worry; however, she finally showed up and the interview went extraordinarily well. Afterward, I finally had the chance to go home for a minute and just sit. I took a quick shower and then went to go take one of my best friends from community college out for a birthday dinner. It's a unique experience, what we went through, and it helped to create a bond that I'm pretty sure will be there forever. In any case, it was SO good seeing her and another friend from our CC and eating Cheeseboard--the pizza today was roasted leeks with sweet chard, fontina and mozzarella cheeses, citrus zest and garlic olive oil, in case you were wondering. After an absolutely hectic week, it was exactly what I needed--especially considering how crazy busy this weekend is going to be. It's hard to find people you can be completely at ease with, in which you can be yourself without any limits and not worry about being judged.

Afterward, I went home and watched an episode of Mad Men, and once I was done I realized I was completely alone--neither of my roommates were home, and all of a sudden I was left alone with my thoughts. I was completely overwhelmed; I've been so frustrated all week but so busy that I didn't even have time to process or deal with how upset I was. The second I cleared my mind of papers, work and stress in an attempt to relax, the negativity seeped in. Everything that I had pushed back came rushing forward, and it was everything I could do to not burst out in tears. It's unnecessary to detail all of what I was thinking about, but I quickly realized that a lot of it was, for lack of a better term, petty bullshit. That's when I made a decision.

I'm done with letting the little things get me down. I'm done with having any sort of negative personalities around me. I'm done with playing stupid games and I'm done wasting my time on people who aren't worth it. I am at Berkeley, at my dream school, and I've only got a month left in this semester and then one more before I graduate and enter the real world. I worked so hard--harder than most people realize--to get where I am today and I'm not going to waste a single second of it worrying about stupid things that I cannot change. I'm a junior transfer and on top of going to school full-time I have two part-time jobs. Quite frankly, I'm too busy to waste time letting bullshit get to me; if I'm not getting something out of what I'm spending my time on, I'm cutting it out of my life.

I'm going to do my best and work my hardest and that's all I can do. I'm going to write the best papers I can and if I don't get an A, then fuck it, whatever! Life is too short to worry about grades that won't matter ten years down the line and life is too short to spend it crying about past regrets. No one knows how long they have to live, so I'm not going to throw away a single second. I'm going to work hard and play harder, because I know that I'll only be young for so long and I don't want to waste my best years. I'm going to enjoy every moment of every day and take every chance that comes my way because I don't want to look back and regret anything. Though I'm looking ahead, I'm done attempting to have a set plan, because let's face it, that's not how life works. I'm going to go with the flow and just live.

Maude said it best, "*Reach* out. Take a *chance*. Get *hurt* even. But play as well as you can. Go team, go! Give me an L. Give me an I. Give me a V. Give me an E. L-I-V-E. LIVE!"

That's exactly what I'm going to do.