If anybody's looking for a rather chill/haunting winter mix of music, let me point you to: http://8tracks.com/totempole/a-journey-that-wasn-t

If anyone wants Estonia updates:

http://totempole.tumblr.com/

LATE 80s EARLY 90s NO QUESTION!!!!

Anecdote: Last Friday some drunk asshole tore my hat off me and was like "Hipster trash! Wearing beanies ironically..." and proceeded to mumble and trail off. I grabbed it back and was like, "My mom knitted this for me four years ago!" This is true. He suddenly started repeating everything I said in a mocking British accent and insisted I was from England. This is the second time someone has thought I was from Europe (the first was a receptionist at Lenscrafters.)

The point of this is that, like all good hipster trash, I got a Tumblr. I made it for sort of banal daily life things--photos, links I find, thoughts about my day--and I'll reserve LJ for problems or things I need to work out, which I've used it for so far. But pleeeeease stalk me on my Tumblr.

http://totempole.tumblr.com

My god. I can't believe I live tonight. I exist tonight. I participate in tonight. Western politics is fundamentally changed. In terms of pure symbolism of someone elected--we've progressed past milestones. A black man elected president. I'm... I can't even articulate how I feel right now. Vassar is seething. People are screaming outside. And I joined them. And I hugged strangers. And I loved. And I watched McCain concede, and it was dignified earnest and beautiful.

And Obama's presidency represents a huge step forward not only for African Americans and other racial minorities, but also women with a pro-choice individual in power. It provides a step forward for the LGBTQ community with a relatively progressive step forward in sexually inclusive policies. I'm awed. I'm... I feel ineffably. This is incredible...

Let's just hope for a big fucking NO on prop 8, and we're golden. Today is a beautiful day. Will type more on the future. My life is changing on a personal level alongside America. Ugh... Fuck... This is...

I don't know... I don't have the words.

I do not have the words.

So I'm thinking about changing my major to Art History. I'd have to take 3 or 4 art history classes next semester to catch up if I still want to go abroad for a year. Ugh... I was planning a long entry about my change of heart, but this will have to do.

Thoughts?

I want to lock myself in a space, a room, and just listen to music, drink, dance, and sing, until I figure out something I need to--or just sort of do this pseudo-meditative thing until something... "SOMETHING" is revealed to me.

Shit guys! I'm incredibly sorry for my huge internet-absence. I can't get online here for more than half an hour. So I wander around Krakowian internet cafes and finally decide to update LJ.

Krakow is absolutely in-fucking-credible. I've never become so attached so quickly to a place and a group of people. I've really stumbled upon a good bunch. Up until a few days ago where the students staying with the program for three weeks left, my little posse consisted of a guy who's leaving Poland after the program to direct plays in Tel Aviv and take them back to Krakow and Wroclaw, a feminist French Lit MA who's going to Yale for dramaturgy, and a waifish sexually-questionable child psychologist from Scotland. And we just sort of get drunk at noon after class and wander blissfully around Krakow, weaving in and out of archways in the Jewish quarter, through vine-covered courtyards behind huge decaying flats. It's unbelievable. Things are cheap, everything's great. The weather's cool... Ah... I could go on. I'm also, obviously, learning quite a bit of Polish. I think I'm at the point now where I can head home and sort of talk to my mom sneakishly in Polish about other people and they won't know. And she'll be able to understand me.

Ah man. There's so much I want to say but it would really take a lot out of me to sort of sit here and transcribe everything I've been thinking/feeling. I definitely think I'm changing a lot. Sometimes when I'm alone I'll wander into a little kawiarnia and order a gin and tonic and sit and write for inordinate amounts of time in my moleskine about my sort of wanderlusting, international, lovelorn life. Haha. If someone ever found that, it would look like the journal from Seven--just pages upon pages of tiny scrawl ramblings.

But yes!! Tell me how you all are doing. I feel like I've been neglecting you. Just know the internet has been without my presence for a while anyway. Feel privileged!

As I sit here, I notice my feet smell terrible.

If any of you are bored and have a cool 48 minutes to cheer yourself up, check out this: http://totempolar.muxtape.com

My friend showed me this site today, and continuing in the spirit of mixtape creation, I decided to make one. Twelve songs. I sort of tried to go for a very contented vibe. I imagine myself living in a cramped Soviet realist flat in Kraków's Nowa Huta someday, waiting for the tram, and having this be the playlist to my life.

ENJOY! Leave me your thoughts.

EDIT!: You actually DON'T need to listen to the whole thing. You can listen to one or two songs or just peruse the playlist. DOLLA DOLLA BILL Y'ALL

My relationship with art is so disgustingly strained and removed I don't even know where to begin mending. High school, at least for me, was so completely devoid of any creative output that any circuits or whatever that need to fire within me are tired, rusty, or whatever circuits get like when they're shit and unused. So to mend this I've sort of just been trying to do little things here and there--find art in anything, you know? I'm taking two classes next semester which will ideally force me to put something of myself out there, but even then. I just wonder. How do I even go about creating? I'm so not a scientist, but I've convinced myself I was for so long that a huge part of like... my fucking soul... was just repressed, haha. I feel anymore that I just want to do things that make me happy. Making playlists makes me happy. Embroidering centipedes on my t-shirts makes me happy. And I mean, there's something beautiful and simple about that. Anyway, I've just been sort of thinking about going about creating. And how to go about fishing for meaningful ideas. Or at least, ideas that'll be meaningful to me. And maybe if an idea is meaningful to me, I'll put myself into expressing it. And when I put myself into doing stuff like that, I sometimes manage to pull something off.

So I don't know. I just feel like I need to start committing to something. Committing to projects or something. And I need to center them around something I really love. And I feel like in the larger scope of artwork maybe parts of artwork can be other people's artwork? Does that make sense? Like... say you're inspired by Duchamp's toilet thing. And like... you get a print or whatever of it printed onto textile and you use it as a square in a quilt. And sort of make this beautiful ornate quilt based off of toilets and black and write modern art(?) prints. I mean, that's art! What you did, as far as I'm concerned, is absolutely art! Maybe this isn't a revelation to anyone. In fact, I'm sure it's not. I don't even know if it is to me. Anyway. A lighter example: a mixtape! There is such a simple art to making a good mixtape. And I think you can absolutely center a mixtape around one song.

Now, public art. I feel like I just have these images in my head that I love and I need to flesh out and do something with. Obviously this entry wasn't fleshed out. Is it art? Is it a seed of art? Is it art about art? What's writing? I definitely don't normally write entries this sort of eccentric and flighty. Whatever! Leave your thoughts, your love, your art. Muse me!

Oh man, this summer is turning out so wonderfully lax and uneventful. On one hand, I can go for walks, think, watch television--just be a total self-indulgent vegetable; but on the other hand, I've been feeling so unfulfilled. I'll be going back to Sears starting tomorrow (but only for two weeks) just for something to do. Otherwise, my days have been really uneventful. Just sort of lounging about and going out at night. But it's great to catch up with friends who I don't get to hang out with during the school year, being 9 hours away from home.

Yeah... I feel like nothing significant is going to come out of this post, but hey! What can you do? I've just been sort of flighty, happy, content, but scared and guilty recently. It's such a weird combination of emotions. I'm sort of floating along contently, with no real obligations this summer, and am happy that I'm seeing people, talking to people, meeting people, etc. I'm sort of nervous about heading off to Poland, soon, and some plane-ticket drama is going on. The organizations I'm going through for the program are possibly the most disorganized I've ever dealt with. The Kosciuszko Foundation, who hands out the scholarships, just told me today that I had gotten one, which is wonderful, so I can't complain too much about their doings. But yeah, they've just gotten to people so late that the travel agency hasn't been able to fill up the group flights yet, and it's just sort of a mess. I'm essentially about 3 weeks away from departing for Kraków and I still don't have a plane ticket. Isn't that really unsettling? That's about it though. For some reason, though, I've been feeling so guilty about things. Haha, I think a big part had to do with me smoking back in January and then being petrified I somehow failed my pre-employment drug test a few weeks ago. Once that all turned out though, I relaxed.

Ah, but yeah. I'll just keep floating along for a while. I'm excited to head abroad, though. My cousin, who just had a child, completely offered me a place in her apartment in Warsaw for a week after I'm done, which is really great. So now I'll get to visit family and spend time in Warsaw!

Alright, well, I read y'alls journals so I know what's going on with you. It's been a very quiet time in my life now. That's not totally true. Quiet isn't the right word. It's not quiet, but not busy. Or it is busy, but I'm sort of not caught up in the business, which is nice for a change.

I'll surely be updating more with language frustrations and whatnot when I'm struggling through eastern Europe for six weeks.

Tschüss homies!

So life as of late has been relatively uneventful. I've grown a bit tired of my living situation, so I've been treating the dorm like it's an apartment--I do my hanging-out/work elsewhere and sleep here. I think you just end up growing tired of the people who you're forced to be around so much, and it's sort of culminated in obvious tension/shit-sessions that I've just needed to remove myself from. I wonder if it's just a small liberal arts college, or if dorms at bigger universities have this problem. I feel like, here at least, they're definitely social institutions. Yeah, you live there, but you also depend on the people around you as friends of convenience--getting meals with them and whatnot, who knows. I could very well be a little cynical right now. There are definitely some great people in my hall and some people who are huge fucking psychopaths and suck. I just need to distance myself from all of them now or else I'll suffocate.

My friend was dog-sitting this weekend so I spent most of my time doing work/watching trashy television with her. We went to a dance performance which was... alright... and then a musical which was very good. It was Merrily We Roll Along which was supposably a huge flop, but it was probably my favorite piece of musical theater I've ever seen, and I really don't like musicals very much.

I've been sort of planning out going to Poland this summer. It's pretty much for sure (knock on wood), but I'm not sure if I'll be able to go to Berlin like I had originally been thinking. It was never for sure, but I feel like it's becoming less and less likely I'll have a place to stay. That's alright, though. I think I'll end up flying into Kraków if I don't go to Berlin, which would be great too. I'll be happy with any outcome that takes me to Poland this summer, to be perfectly honest. I feel terrible bothering the woman who runs the program, but I just sent her what's likely to be my ninth email asking her if she got all my application materials.

Otherwise, school's going well. My last final is the 19th, so my schedule is looking like this: classes end the 6th when I have my final paper for Screening Terrorism due, then I have my final paper for my German African Diaspora class due the 9th, then I'd like to do my journals/final paper for my Russian independent study before the 14th when I have my "manifesto" for urban studies due. Then I've just got a stats final the 16th and neuropsychology final the 19th. Everything's really well balanced, so I just need to squeeze in a trip to NYC and my year will be complete! I'm probably going to go to NYC with my parents, too, around the 20th and drive back up to Erie the 21st. So I've still got a while till I go back home, but less than a month till school's over!

I have quite possibly just experienced the most awkward/embarrassing parental situation in my entire life. This is a story that's situational-comedy worthy--I would think it would be the most absolutely hilarious thing ever if it had happened to anyone but myself.

So some background: there's an organization at Vassar called "CHOICE" that organizes a lot of pro-choice events and distributes contraceptives around campus and whatnot. If you email them with a request for condoms/lube or something of that nature, they put it in a plain bag and put it in your mailbox. Now, last semester I thought it would be hilarious to email someone's box number and then they'd get a surprise of some dental dams in their mail box. It's really not THAT funny, but I thought it was hilarious at the time. So, when I was over at my friend's house one night, her computer was on. So I went into her email and sent an email to choice for 4 dental dams and then immediately deleted them so she wouldn't know. So, she got the dental dams, thought it was hilarious and actually forwarded them to me at home over winter break with a "Merry Christmas" note. For some reason I didn't throw them away and I just left them in one of my drawers.

Fast forward to this morning. I want to get my case and DVD drive replaced on my Macbook because they're not working very well. I went to the Apple store at school and they said that they couldn't help me until I'd registered for Applecare, which I bought but hadn't yet registered or anything. So I call my dad to see if he can root through my drawers to find the box it was in. It was a simple conversation, but it went something like this:

"Hey dad, so it's in a white box, I think it's in my middle drawer."
"Hm... I see a white box."
"Does it have an Apple logo on it? Or does it say Applecare?"
"No, it's just white."
"Well, could you look inside it and tell me what's there? Maybe that's it."
"Um... Planned parenthood... O_O"

The O_O is what I imagined followed. If only he would have been like a normal dad and been like "WTF?" but instead he immediately changed the subject and was sort of somber for the rest of the conversation. AWKWARD. I decided to call back and try to explain the story. So I prefaced the conversation with "Could you check this other drawer?" and he seemed a bit happier now. I then said, "Oh, hahaha... about that "planned parenthood" box you found..." and I nervously told him the truth. The moment after I finish he immediately changes the subject. I imagine it sounded unbelievable, but it's totally true! AHHH! I was like, "You know this is true, right?" And he was like "yeah..." Oh man. It's hilarious, and he seemed pretty happy. Maybe he's (wrongly) comforted by the idea that I might be having sex all the time? Or at least licking so many assholes/vaginas that I need to keep a stock of dental dams on hand back home in Erie.

Oh well, I imagine I'll call my mom tonight and try explain it to her. I just need to cauterize any potential awkwardness that could arise from this misunderstanding. I feel like the story is so unbelievable, yet so true. AHHHHHHHHH! FRUSTRATION!

I can't imagine that these are interesting for anyone to read, but it's good for me to put my thoughts down. So... Preregistration has started for classes for next year, and I have (as always, it seems) a super shitty draw number. Regardless, two of my classes are unlimited enrollment and I have special permission (and they're also pretty unpopular). Then I have another two that seem like I'll be able to get into them. And then there's a fifth class that I absolutely MUST TAKE, but because of my draw number, might not get into. Regardless, let me walk you through them all.

1. Soviet Ideology in Literature- A Russian literature class in translation that seems like it would fit well into my prospective Contemporary Central and Eastern European Cultures and Histories major. Hahaha. I feel like it would definitely be nice to have one literary analysis class too, to balance things out. Even though this is in sort of a political/philosophical/ideological context. It's also unlimited enrollment so I know I'll get it.

2. Organic Chemistry- This is sure to be the bane of my existence. I've come to terms that this will most likely be the most difficult class of my college career. I think I'm still going to go through with premed. I don't know if I've really chronicled my recent internal journey of self-doubt and exploration and whatnot where I decided that I really just want to go abroad when I graduate and maybe not do medicine. Then sort of deciding maybe I still would do medicine. Now wondering if maybe I'll live abroad for a while and go to med school somewhere down the road. Either way, it'll be a challenge, and I think it will ultimately be good for me. Definitely, though, I decided I would only take organic chemistry and no other lab sciences, so I can focus on it and do well. My science GPA needs to be built up after first semester. Ah--I loathe this GPA-centric premed way of thinking. I refuse to succumb to it. My mentality is that I will pursue my premed requirements as a means to the end that is medical school as long as they don't get in the way of my undergraduate academic interests. I think ultimately my academic interests could be medicine. But I definitely have some more soul searching for now. Either way, I think one class should be enough to get the left-brain working.

3. Introductory Swedish- I am so inexplicably drawn to Swedish. I've taken German for 5 years and I've heard from people who've learned Swedish as well as the Swedish professor that having taken German will help me a lot with vocabulary as they're both Germanic languages. Even though German is a south Germanic language and Swedish is a northern Germanic language. Whatever--I've sort of been going crazy with Wikipedia language articles in preparation. I'm so excited. I'd eventually like to use Swedish to learn Danish and Norwegian as they're all mutually intelligible to a degree. I just love the way they sound. ÅND I LØVE THE LETTERS THEY ÜSË!!!!! But yeah... Swedish and then Norwegian and Danish and eventually--dare I say it!?--Icelandic and even Faroese!?!? Maybe even Finnish someday even though it's totally unrelated. Regardless, this is the class I'm probably most excited about. (Or second most excited about.)

4. Urban Theory- Intro to Urban Studies is probably the one class that made me realize how terrible a lot of things are with society. The stratification of place and whatnot were really brought to my attention in this class. It made me really excited and I decided I wanted to minor in it and this class is required. Regardless, I think it's really exciting to me. And I want to focus in architectural history, but I couldn't get into one of the other classes I wanted this semester, so I think this will do just fine. It could even change my mind about my potential minor or at least what I want to focus on. Either way, I think it'll be very good for me and I'm excited!

5. Composition- The class I'm absolutely dying to get into but am worried I won't be able to because of my shitty shitty draw number. I think that a creatively-focused, fiction-oriented writing class would be THE BEST THING for me right now. I don't know why, but I'm so incredibly dead set on taking this class when I'd sworn off ever taking another English class again only last semester. The semester keeps drawing me back in! Plus, I put my first choice section as the one with this professor who I had last semester who's absolutely wonderful. Either way, I feel like things have a way of working out and if I need to be in this class I will be. Otherwise I will find myself in another amazing class that I'm in for some weird particular reason. Haha.

Well, that's probably more than anyone wanted to know about what I want to take next semester. Two quick points which I may or may not elaborate on in the future: my potential roommate successfully transfered into Noyes (my dorm) so he is now my future roommate! Secondly, M.I.A. was amazing. She touched me. I sang into her microphone. I felt so connected to her when she sang World Town. Words fail me.

Words always fail me.

So M.I.A. is performing at Vassar tonight, which is absolutely amazing. I wasn't very excited about it until today. In fact, I've been a very vocal M.I.A. fan until I found out she was performing here. I know that sounds absolutely bizarre--but I was really afraid of a shitload of hipster fuckfaces ruining the experience for me somehow. It's sort of selfish--but up until now I've sort of had this mentality that M.I.A. was MY thing (I know, it's absurd, but I think a lot of people feel that way about things.)

Regardless, today I was listening to Galang's bonus track and I realized that M.I.A. is a societal call to action. I think most people appreciate her for her style and for the catchiness of her music, but looking past that there's a really pervasive and important political element. Whatever. There are many layers where you can appreciate M.I.A. I think tonight's going to be amazing, regardless. I'm also very excited for Rye Rye.

On another note: often I feel like I have so much excitement and intensity that sort of burns around in my head and I don't have the ability to translate it into writing. Hopefully taking composition next year will help me sort of... I don't know... tame the proverbial beast. I really feel like I can't adequately express how I'm feeling, but I'm sure I'm not the only one. It's so frustrating, though. Ahhhhh...

Hopefully more eloquent and insightful entries will follow someday in the future.

Not a very expository, exciting post now, but I absolutely love this quote:

But, yeah, I do believe that music can solve things. Probably a bit naïve, but I think sometimes it's better just to go out on a Saturday night, have a few drinks, just go and thump your feet for a few hours and you wake up the next day and you have solved a couple of things. -- Björk

Spring break is starting on Friday and midterms are trickling back--not terrible, but I always want to do better. Hopefully I don't miss my train! I'm excited to get back to Erie.

I'm such a tragically infrequent poster, and for that I'm sorry! There might be a catch-up post about second-semester life at Vassar in the works sometime, but who knows how that's going to go. For some reason today, I've felt so academically inspired. Not academic in the sense that I want to do work or do my reading, but in the sense that I want to learn. I was looking into a Watson fellowship today, and I think that would be amazing. Something really obscure, like studying viticulture in Africa and the Causasus or something would be so fucking amazing. I've started loving wine for some reason, recently. I love wine-drinking--the taste, the way it makes me feel, everything. I'd take a few glasses of wine over a few shots any day. I'm thinking of having my roommate buy me a bottle so I can just have a glass some weeknights before bed or something. It's so fun to just have a friend over and share a glass of wine. I feel like it's the equivalent of a hookah (me and Sierra have discussed this)--a sort of conversational lubricant.

Career issues have been haunting me so much recently. Medicine is back in the cards after taking a few month hiatus, but now I have so many more interests. I think I'm going to take all my prerequisites, but not major in a science. I'm not going to be a fuckface premed and do whatever I need to to get into medical school. Science interests me, but I'd much rather work at a public health firm or free clinic than do biochemical research somewhere. And if med schools don't like that, that's fine. There are shitloads of other things I'm interested in. I really feel like everything's going to be alright right now. I feel like I've finally realized there's absolutely no end of the road for me, academically. If I wanted to turn around my senior year of college and become an engineer, I could. I could take all my prerequisites as a post-bac after I graduate. I could leave college as a chemical major (not happening) and run off and become a journalist. It's a wonderful, untethered feeling. I can't wait to go to Poland this summer, too. I feel like it has to happen. I was talking to my dad today, who I feel like I've grown much closer to after I've left for college, and I almost tremble when I talk about the future. And excited tremble. I just want to learn. German film is so fucking amazing and I love my class. I love learning about the RAF and the Weather Underground and learning about all their crazy ideals and about how terrible some of the things they did were. I love that I'm getting this picture of humanity and society and everything that I wouldn't have gotten if I just swallowed the pill and sold my soul for some preprofessional program at a big university. Really, my Vassar education is not meant to secure me into a career, which is what I felt earlier. I felt like going to this elite institution was my ticket to success, but it's not! It doesn't matter that I go to Vassar or anywhere. It matters that this place and the people here and the professors and everything has fallen into place and has opened my eyes and made me this vibrant, impassioned learner. I feel like that's what's right for me. When I procrastinate, I don't just sit around on Facebook the whole time (though I won't lie and say that doesn't take up a large part of my time) but I go to JStor and read. I love that I learn for fun now. Ugh! I don't even know what more to say.

I just feel good today. I bet I sound like a crazy person in this post, but I just feel like there's so much out there right now. I just feel so excited. But I do need to do my work. I find it so interesting, too, and I don't know why I don't keep up with my reading as much as I do! I'm probably really hypocritical in that sense, but whatever. I do do the reading and I love the reading. I guess I just don't like clamoring for a grade as much as I thought I would. That's why I've really distanced myself from the whole premed bunch. I refuse to be one of them. I refuse to sell my soul for a ticket into med school. I feel like if I care about what I do, everything will fall into place. I really feel like things are fated sometimes. Like who I come in contact with, who I become friends with, how they change me. What I read, the classes I take, and how THEY change me! Ah!!! Everything's so exciting. Life is good. Life is very good.

Tschüss Leute!

PS: I should take some pictures of Vassar. It snowed a shitload yesterday and the campus looks absolutely beautiful!

I feel like I have so much to say about Vassar, but when I sit down to put it into words, I find it incredibly difficult. I've tried to post a ton of times since I've gotten here, but for one reason or another, gave up. It's weird--not good, or bad, just so bizarrely different. I built up Vassar to seriously be the promised land, and it's not quite, but it's still good. It's a great place, I just have yet to really settle down and establish a base of friends like I had at home, though what did I expect after only two weeks at college.

I think that at first we latch on to people just so we're not alone, forcing friendships, really. I think I've done that a lot here--falsely attaching myself to relationships that just won't hold water after a few months. I just don't know sometimes. I won't say college is bad, it's just so weird, and I feel like I'm losing myself a little bit. Or maybe not necessarily losing, but sort of burying because I don't know how to express myself here yet and how I'd be received. It's weird, very much like some weird academic limbo. There are good days and bad, but whatever. It might just be my mood right now. Just thought I'd give you guys an update--and I'll try to sort of get back into the swing of things more soon.

Quick update!

I leave tomorrow at 8 in the morning.
I'm very excited.
Wish me luck!

Sometimes we just need the physical recollection of a moment--written, cataloged, ironed between two slices of wax paper and shoved into an old book somewhere, never meant to be found but to give comfort knowing that it simply is. If I ever want to revisit them, I'll flip through dusty half-read copies of Kafka's Amerika and Dostoyevsky's The Idiot and find my high school years neatly folded, packaged and hidden away--not out of disgust or shame, but because they're already in my head clearer than they'd ever be on paper--because of some fleeting, irrational fear, if there's no low quality, carbon-copy backup somewhere I run the risk of completely losing something so important to my development and growth.

High school wasn't good or bad. It wasn't the best time of my life, nor the worst, but an arrhythmic heartbeat--a digital read with inconsistent, patternless peaks, valleys, and crests. Distinct ascents and descents defining adolescence are not unlike those defining childhood and what I imagine will define adulthood, yet distinctly different. A unique marker of years that passed too quickly, possibly too quickly for me to even adequately miss them yet.

At this point, the only thing that'll quell the nigh wistful empty feeling I felt driving past Collegiate Academy tonight with my friend crying in the front seat, ready to say good-bye, is to give some of it away--explain and express this intangible, indescribable life transition to other people who have felt their own similar, yet beautifully different experiences. I need to write my name in concrete, carve it in a tree, hammer it into a slab of concrete in someone's head so that the imprint's no longer my own. So that I don't feel I'm in this bittersweet limbo myself.

I'm holding off on declaring moods for entries until I muster up the motivation to get a decent moodtheme. I can't seem to find one that isn't lame and/or designed for a girl. Anyway, I don't think there's such a thing as the August blues, nor am I really down or anything--just sort of bored and restless. College is creeping up on me, only two weeks away (not even) and I'm as physically prepared as I can be: bookshelves, office supplies, laptop, all bought; CDs, movies, games, (some) clothes, all packed; but, I can't seem to shake the feeling that I'm leaving something behind. Ugh, not to get side-tracked, but I think sometimes my entries should be read like a choose-your-own-adventure. Look at that semi-colon use! I give up. Honestly, I have no clue how to correctly use them, I just sort of splash them into my sentences to break them up in a way that might be appropriate--but right there, in that previous enumeration of things--totally wrong. Now that I've totally marred my journal-flow (woe is me) I'll get back to that slightly/almost insightful comment. I don't know what I'm leaving behind. I'm consciously aware of the change that's about to occur, but it hasn't really "hit" me. Does that make any sense? It's just really this phantom lingering feeling that... Haha, I don't really know.

Anyway, some notes:

• I got drunk for the first time (and... unfortunately, made some phone calls--thank god they got it away before I called my old English teacher)
• My friend Erica (rather unsuccessfully) taught me how to drive standard today
• I need a hot plate and a ceramic tea pot for college. I decided I need to get into tea-brewing, you know--with infusers and all. Wegmans has some cheap bulk tea that you can get--I love the descriptions, it makes me feel so esoteric
• I need to get a head start on some reading--more specifically finishing Amerika, In the Lake of the Woods, The Idiot, Battle Royale, and then I will be ready to just start reading regularly again.
• I'm going to Lily Dale--America's largest spiritualist community this weekend. I'm going with brittnik and my friend Jon. We're going to pray at inspirational stumps and forest shrines.
• I'm downloading music by Nouvelle Vague and Harry Belafonte to help aggrandize my hipster ego
• I need to take more photographs! I love my new camera and iPhoto. Expect an update from Lily Dale

Sorry this wasn't the most substantial entry. It started off with some momentum but lost it quickly. You'll get something better someday soon--don't think less of me!

Have I mentioned to anyone how much I love this machine (my Macbook, that is.) It's seriously one of the most beautiful pieces of computing equipment I've ever used. The interface is just ridiculous. I can't really even describe it--it's not even like computing. I almost feel like this Macbook is just a vessel to the internet and to better means for myself to communicate with people. That sounds so weird and hippy-ish, but let me explain. It takes a second to boot up, is silent, and just sleeps whenever I'm not really using it. I open it up and all my programs are there just as I left them and I can just boot up a word processor, look up something on wikipedia, post something on a forum, then put it away. It just seems so seamless and easy. When I use Windows, I feel like I have to "get on the computer," you know? Not so with Mac--it totally integrates with everything else I do. It's difficult to explain, but let me say that I'm pleased and I think everyone should try a Mac (not even necessarily buying it, but just get on a friends and check it out, see if it's for you.)

( More med school meandering... )

But I figure most of my current friends don't really care very much about all this med school stuff so I've taken to joining premed communities and soliciting friends there. That's not weird is it?

In other news, I have to get up at 6 tomorrow to go volunteer at Hamot. I emailed the head of the ER to tell her I was coming but she didn't respond like she normally does. I'm just going to go anyway--it's not like it inconveniences them me being there. I just sort of stand around and help if needed. I need to see my volunteer coordinator about watching a surgery and I also want to casually ask one of the ER docs if they know anyone I can shadow. I want to sort establish some clout with some of the docs there. There's this one that's sort of unapproachable, but she went to Dartmouth, and I think it'd be really cool to talk to her about everything. We'll see, though. I also would like to shadow a neurologist. There's one that went to a DO school in Michigan who I helped at Sears once. She was pretty nice--sort of eccentric--but nice. Maybe I can shadow the neurologist in Erie and an ER physician in Poughkeepsie. I also need to talk to the volunteer coordinator about somehow getting an ER volunteering thing going in Poughkeepsie. On the medical center's website, they didn't seem to have anything like that, but I'm wondering if I can squeeze my way in. I'm also thinking of taking EMT classes when I get there. That way I could work on Vassar's EMT crew and work as a tech at Hamot whenever I'm back in Erie. But if I did that I wouldn't be able to volunteer there, which I love doing. Plus I'd get less exposure to the docs as a tech, I think, because they just sort of do whatever, but when I"m a volunteer I can just sort of wander around and help whoever. But we'll see. I really better get to bed. G'night all!

I don't know precisely why I got a new LJ. akumulator originally served to keep me in the circle of some people who I don't really talk to anymore. So now I've got a new school, new computer, new lots of things, and I thought I could move on to something more meaningful--at least to me. Sort of a symbolic re-e-birth, but nothing of much significance. But maybe if I feel better about my LJ in some weird intangible way (though what online is tangible?) I'll be more inclined to write in it. So here's my first post!


( Testing out my new Canon Powershot (and iPhoto) on a nice August afternoon )
( Prospective career musings. )