January 2012
44 posts
I think you're a genuine human being. Every time I ask you a question or advice, I really listen to what you have to say. I think you're a good person to look up to.
I never know how to properly respond when people say they look up to me because I feel like I have so much growth left, but that’s the highest compliment you could have given me. Thank you :)
December 2011
45 posts
This year, I want to find the balance between realism and optimism. The glass is half full, half empty, full of some liquid. It’s all perception.
“When things break, it’s not the actual breaking that prevents them from getting back together again. It’s because a little piece gets lost - the two remaining ends couldn’t fit together even if they wanted to. The whole shape has changed.”
—John Green, Will Grayson, Will Grayson
I want to throw my cell phone, computer, and any other electronic devices into the depths of the ocean. I will assemble my thoughts and compile them without the dull illumination from a myriad of screens. How can I connect effectively with others when I feel I have so much to learn about myself? This constant barrage of communication leaves me overwhelmed. Solitude has become a lost art.
It seems so unreal that everything can be connected in this way, this invisible assortment of strings that hold us together personally, all in this highly intricate web that comprise all the choices and emotions and people and fancies of this life.
Winter 2011 Playlist!
I make CDs every year for my close friends, so I figured I would spread the love and post the mix for all of you wonderful people too. Fair warning: my music taste is all over the place. Feel free to reblog if you like it.
Enjoy, and happy holidays!
Tracks:
- Embers and Envelopes - Mae
- Stay Young, Go Dancing - Death Cab for Cutie
- Boy - Ra Ra Riot
- Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels) - Arcade Fire
- Skeleton Key - Margot & The Nuclear So and So’s
- Walking the Dog - fun.
- Hallelujah - Jeff Buckley
- From the Clouds - Jack Johnson
- Bedouin Dress - Fleet Foxes
- Dear Old Greenland - Andrew Bird
- Those to Come - The Shins
- Gronlandic Edit - Of Montreal
- Fortress - Pinback
- Paradise - Coldplay
- Postcards from Italy - Beirut
- She Doesn’t Get It (Acoustic) - The Format
- I Will Follow You into the Dark - Death Cab for Cutie
“I always find it more difficult to say the things I mean than the things I don’t.”
—W. Somerset Maugham, The Painted Veil
“There was a star riding through clouds one night, and I said to the star, ‘Consume me.’”
—Virginia Woolf, The Waves
“It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
“We are the bright new stars born of a screaming black hole, the nascent suns burst from the darkness, from the grasping void of space that folds and swallows—a darkness that would devour anyone not as strong as we. We are oddities, sideshows, talk show subjects. We capture everyone’s imagination.”
—Dave Eggers, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
Only after the lights have been dimmed for a while do we realize how much we rely on our vision, but it raises an interesting question: how much do we see? As humans we are not immune to prejudices, as our insights are shaped by every person and object we have ever known. I can’t help but wonder how clouded my eyes are by irrelevant thoughts. It is a problem with no solution, an infinite loop. Even staring at the most powerful light source does not improve the situation. The sun is blinding.
It is an interesting feeling, this one of wanting company but being unsatisfied with the selection of people available. I know that sounds terrible, but as much as I crave human interaction as a means of distraction, I feel better off alone.
The amount of caffeine I consume normally is a bit overwhelming.
The amount of caffeine I consume during finals week should not be spoken of.
“There are some things you learn best in calm, and some in storm.”
—Willa Cather, The Song of the Lark
I get annoyed when people say, “You’re only human,” as if that is a get out of jail free card for not living up to our potentials. We are limited by nature, but that is not an excuse to avoid becoming the best people we can.
“We were together. I forget the rest.”
—Walt Whitman
I wish I were pretty.
But who needs beauty when you can properly use the subjunctive tense?
