As Fast As You Can

Post #240: Dedicated to: Sawdust Man; Ben Kweller

"The great moments of your life won't necessarily be the things you do, they'll also be the things that happen to you. Now, I'm not saying you can't take action to affect the outcome of your life, you have to take action, and you will. But never forget that on any day, you can step out the front door and your whole life can change forever. You see, the universe has a plan, kids, and that plan is always in motion. A butterfly flaps its wings, and it starts to rain. It's a scary thought but it's also kind of wonderful. All these little parts of the machine constantly working, making sure that you end up exactly where you're supposed to be, exactly when you're supposed to be there. The right place at the right time."

- How I Met Your Mother, Right Place Right Time (2009)

Soul Sisters

Post #239: Dedicated to: Ghost; Ingrid Michaelson

Monday night, I had the pleasure of going into Philly to eat dinner with A- and then go to an Ingrid Michaelson concert.

It was a fantastic night.

Last year, spring semester, A- and I saw each other every single day without fail. Whether we were singing together for Outskirts or grabbing an early dinner or working in Admissions or chilling in her room or going to Starbucks or working late into the night in Zubrow, we hung out all the time. I missed that and her so much while abroad, and it was so so so wonderful to see her again. It's weird being here without her, but my only consolation is that she is just a short train ride away in Philly.

And Ingrid Michaelson...oh goodness. She is so supremely talented and a pretty funny entertainer, too. It was a short concert – only an hour – during which she sang the songs off her new album, Human Again, which we got a free copy of after the show!

Nights like these remind me of how lucky I am, and what a great city Philadelphia truly is.

To more soul sister bonding.

Why I Write

Post #238: Dedicated to: Summer is Over; Jon McLaughlin feat. Sara Bareilles

"I write to make peace with the things I cannot control. I write to create fabric in a world that often appears black and white. I write to discover. I write to uncover. I write to meet my ghosts. I write to begin a dialogue. I write to imagine things differently and in imagining things differently perhaps the world will change. I write to honor beauty. I write to correspond with my friends. I write as a daily act of improvisation. I write because it creates my composure. I write against power and for democracy. I write myself out of my nightmares and into my dreams. I write in a solitude born out of community. I write to the questions that shatter my sleep. I write to the answers that make me complacent. I write to remember. I write to forget. I write to the music that opens my heart. I write to quell the pain. I write with the patience of melancholy in winter. I write because it allows me to confront that which I do not know. I write as an act of faith. I write as an act of slowness. I write to record what I love in the face of loss. I write because it makes me less fearful of death. I write as an exercise in pure joy. I write as one who walks on the surface of a frozen river beginning to melt. I write out of my anger and into my passion. I write from the stillness of night anticipating -- always anticipating. I write to listen. I write out of silence. I write to soothe the voices shouting inside me, outside me, all around me. I write because I believe in words. I write because it is a dance with paradox. I write because you can play on the page like a child left alone in sand. I write because it is the way I take long walks. I write because I believe it can create a path in darkness. I write with a knife, carving each word from the generosity of trees. I write as ritual. I write out of my inconsistencies. I write with the colors of memory. I write as a witness to what I have seen. I write as witness to what I imagine. I write by grace and grit. I write for the love of ideas. I write for the surprise of a sentence. I write with the belief of alchemists. I write knowing I will always fail. I write knowing words always fall short. I write knowing I can be killed by own words, stabbed by syntax, crucified by understanding and misunderstanding. I write past the embarrassment of exposure. I trust nothing especially myself and slide head first into the familiar abyss of doubt and humiliation and threaten to push the delete button on my way down, or madly erase each line, pick up the paper and rip it into shreds -- and then I realize it doesn't matter, words are always a gamble, words are splinters from cut glass. I write because it is dangerous, a bloody risk, like love, to form the words, to say the words, to touch the source, to be touched, to reveal how vulnerable we are, how transient. I write as though I am whispering in the ear of the one I love."

- Terry Tempest Williams.

Why do you write?

Get Set Go

Post #237: Dedicated to: Walk in the Park; Beach House

Aaaaand, we're back.

It's so good to be back and to see all of my old friends, but at the same time it's tough. It's tough going to upper level seminar classes and being intimidated almost to death by my brilliant classmates.

Still, though. It looks to be a promising semester. One with tons of reading (especially lots of the densest social, anthropological theorists you can imagine) and writing (so many papers in every class...on the upside – no final exams!) and plenty of meetings and planning and organizing and singing and tours and hosting and such little sleep.

Am I ready?

Maybe, maybe not.

At the very least, I'm more than ready to cheer/heckle/scream for the basketball boys during tonight's Swat game, where Swat will inevitably be crushed with their egos melted into a puddle of sweat on the court, as is the case year after year.

Back

Post #236: Dedicated to: Sweeter; Gavin DeGraw

I leave in a few short days for school again, and I am both excited and terrified to be back. Excited because I've missed everyone so much – the Outskirts, the Admissions office, FAB, my good ole' friends – but terrified because I'm going to be knee-deep in work for the next year and a half. And not just work, but hard, demanding work. Work that's inevitably going to result in a lot of emotional, mental, and physical breakdowns; work that is going to be exhausting and draining; work that means little to no sleep. It's going to be so much harder than anything I encountered in Denmark, and for that I'm terrified.

But I'm still so excited to be back.

In other news, check this out – it'll give you insight into what my upcoming internship in Ghana will be all about!

The History of Love

Post #235

I can't even describe it. I don't even know where to start.

It just builds up. It builds up inside me until it feels like I'm going to explode. It builds up inside me like it's suffocating. It builds up inside me like it needs to escape.

But it's not bad. It's neither bad nor good.

It's a feeling of the book's magnificence. It's importance. It's excellence.

It's so good that I can't seem to contain whatever emotions in my mind, or in my body. It's so good that I feel like someone, something is obstructing the blood vessels to and from my heart.

There's something about it.

It's just so. good.

Yes, Please!

Post #234: Dedicated to: After Midnight; Blink-182

Being home means I get to do wonderful things like make homemade marshmallows with M-!

It was quite fun! Well, I mostly just watched...and then dried dishes at the end of the night.

We used Alton Brown's recipe to make these vanilla flavored marshmallows – they were a bit too vanilla-y, and M-'s mom thought the vanilla extract should be replaced with real vanilla beans, and I wholeheartedly agree. It was still delicious, though!

The little marshmallow cubes were so fun. They're just so jiggly and cheerful on the tray! It was fun to poke them, and coating them/tapping off the powdered sugar was a joyful task.

M-'s mom spent a lot of time upon completion looking up ways to tweak the recipe – there are a ton of ideas out there. Peppermint marshmallows, mocha marshmallows, chocolate marshmallows, marshmallows cut into cute shapes...the list goes on and on.

Seriously, though. You should make your own marshmallows! They're sooooooo much better than the store-bought ones, and they weren't hard to make at all! Although you do need a stand mixer – apparently the motor will burn out on hand-held ones...which unfortunately means I will be unable to make these at my own home. (I'm waiting to invest in a fun-colored kitchen-aid stand mixer until I move into my own place!)

The Day After Tomorrow

Post #233: Dedicated to: Life in Color; OneRepublic

Hope.

Hope, Hope, Hope.

Hope.

And lots of it.

Here's to a spectacular 2012. (If only because of the 2012 Summer Olympics and Michael Phelps.)