Valley

I've hit a low. It's kinda weird. Got up early today, feels like hours ago, accomplished things to the degree that I wanted them to be accomplished by a given time, then suddenly... it was like the key in my back stopped turning. I decided to take a nap and clear my head of stuff, and that sort of worked. I woke up slightly disoriented as always though with Passion Pit's "Sleepyhead" jaunting around my head, refreshed but somehow sadder than before.

I'm actually pretty sure that it's a function of afternoon light. I realize now that I don't really like afternoon light. It's a little depressing and, counter-intuitively, just doesn't have the same quality as morning light. It seems like once 12 noon rolls around, the rest of the solar cycle should just be a rewinded version of what took place that morning. But no.

I'm really such a morning person, assuming I can ever get my ass out of bed in time. I like the dark before the sun rises, and I like the sparse white light that you get before 8am, and I like how bright the world seems until 11:59. The morning moves more slowly than the afternoon. It's easier to focus in the morning and there's nothing to be afraid of in the morning (well... unless something really horrible is about to happen... usually late morning or the afternoon). If shit does go down in the morning, you have the rest of the day to recover.

It's harder to light a room in the afternoon. Right now, the setting sun is kinda making things dark, making shadows longer and so on, and so I've turned on a lot of lights. You kind of can't tell, and everything's still got that rusty tint to it.

Don't even get me started on evenings.

It's also right about now that everyone's going to sleep back home, so I can look forward to a whole lotta isolation over the next several hours.

Thanks to my deadline, I haven't exactly left the apartment since I got back on Friday afternoon. I've only been able to communicate with a few people, via the internet mostly, since then. I guess that's depressing too. Can't wait until the 6th, when I get a slight reprieve from all this. I mean, I could really only afford to take like a weekend off, but how good is that going to feel? I'm looking forward to the New Year with like every fiber of my being... with the exception of the ones now dedicated to the task at hand. Those cry: "NO! MORE TIME MORE TIME"

Back to work! The afternoon's short (another reason it depresses me), but it's gonna be a much longer night ahead than I'd thought.

Save me!

oh WOW this is a DISASTER! I can't write anything but the most useless drivel for this absurd essay. There's no obvious reason why this shouldn't have been done 5 hours after I started it LAST FRIDAY. And I'm now behind and running out of steam on this whole project. I may... sleep very little tonight. Anyways, I'm just going to complain a little bit about this to blow off some, um, more steam, and then I'll go back to whatever it was I was doing (sobbing inwardly in front of a defaced word processor screen). So, as I was saying earlier, I'm having a hard time talking about my good points without sounding like either a douchebag or a department store mannequin. So the irony here is that I come off looking way worse at the end of it all, which, I'm thinkin, isn't quite the point. There's something... something I'm doing wrong. I know it. I still haven't figured out what yet, well, outside of "everything," but nothing specific/helpful in the the slightest yet. All I know is that this is the incorrect approach. The research team that I've deployed to look into this matter has returned absolutely nothing of substance quite yet, but their desperate voices have suggested that I look into writing the weaknesses essay instead. At least that way I get to defame myself to my heart's content and that's easily upwards of 500 words at this point. Honestly, this whole "describe your strengths thing" was never my bag anyways. Sure, we can converse about it off the record or we can hang out for a bit and you can figure them out for yourself, but who honestly wants to offer up their insides on a silver platter just so a group of higher up hoo-has can compare it against other people's silver platters and then somehow make a value judgement based on its contents? And just how important is the platter? Does it matter whether it's like the "chills in the curio until the queen of france comes to visit" type of platter or the "i found a box of forks on the roadside and recycled them with the blowtorch in my garage" type of platter? You know which I'd prefer. Ok my left hand is wigging out again. Best I save it for the real battle.

Recidivism

Does anyone remember Amazin' Fruit gummy bears and how they were such a big deal when they first came out? I just thought of them because every time something is "amazing" a peal of "amaaaaazin'" sounds in my head.

Anyways, I've taken to doodling again, something I haven't really done so much since maybe junior high, and the margins of my notebook are getting kind of crowded and a little awkward. Also recurring: impulsive snacking and ceaseless whining. Also looking to others for comforting words when the true keeper of my salvation is someone I don't really want to have anything to do with at this point (that'd be me). Falling back into the old habits of distress. I think if I'd been a smoker at any time in my life and quit, I'd probably be lighting up right about now too.

Bleeeeeh. Bleeeeeeeh.

What obviously upsets me is the simplicity of this particular essay prompt. How injurious.

Well now I'm just angry thinking about it. I oughta go knock some teeth out of this thing. BRB.

Not one of them

Struggling here. In my quest for a satisfactory intro to this essay, I came up with this:

I have gone skiing a few times. My performance on each occasion could be fairly summarized as gleefully riding a chairlift up a big hill, skidding to the edge of the plateau, then commencing a sustained roll down the side of the hill, flinging equipment hither and yon, acting as a moving obstacle for teams of graceful 5-year-olds, and perhaps maintaining an upright position for a few fleeting moments before wiping out at last in front of the lodge. Skiing is not one of my strengths.

Neither, as has been painfully evident over the years, is writing introductory paragraphs.

Naming conventions

Currently trying to put together an essay for UC San Diego. It's the classic problem though of just how to begin. I spent all afternoon brainstorming and harassing people for their opinions, and I think I know where I'm bound with this topic, but... that first paragraph? Elusive as ever. But in the interest of writing something somewhere, I'm going to put down something I've been giggling about to myself for weeks now.

It's always fun to contemplate the origins of the English names you encounter among friends and students in this country. Generally it's as one would expect, middle school classes where Bobs and James' predominate thanks to a hasty scan of the textbook, and your requisite Lily's and Linas thanks to their resemblance to the pinyin of the person's actual name. Among certain high schoolers you get names like "Killer" and "Wolf King" as either defiant self expression or an in-your-face to the teacher that one rationalizes with "well, at least he's using English." Among others, you meet Kobe Bryant and Alan Iverson. Then, though, you find surprisingly high concentrations of Irises and Fionas, which leads me to my favorite aspect of all this. I know I'm guilty of this too in the name lists that I've drawn up, but you can always tell a little bit about the foreigners who have preceded you in any given place by the trail of English names that they've left in their wake. I remember naming students with Russ one day and hearing a number of suggestions that might have been more en vogue in byegone days. So I was thinking, how would you feel if you walked into a room of Chinese people and discovere that their names were all...

1) a series of preppy names like "blake" and "aspen"
2) post-prep androgyny, like "bryce" and "avery"
3) of the tradition that brought us "k'neisha" and "deshawn"
4) familiars like "jim bob" and "emmylou"
5) the entire cast of the star wars films
6) disney characters
7) characters from prime time TV
8) Arthurian legends
9) from the old testament
10)brought to you by the letter "G"
11) not English

I'd be so happy.

What do I do now?

I just got a tremendous urge to buy something. You know, just to boost the endorphins a bit. I probably would not have actually made a purchase, but I wanted to alleviate this feeling by doing a little online window shopping. It always makes me feel a bit better and it seems like as good a time as any to get a little bit distracted.

Imagine my distress then when I realized that THERE'S NOTHING I WANT TO BUY. I can't even think of anywhere to shop! An odd sensation, I assure you. I honestly can't even remember where all the things I currently own came from. All right that's figurative, but like... the shorts I'm wearing was a Dick's purchase, my t-shirt was from a concert, my sweatshirt Bear Necessities, the bra was the result of a fun morning at Victoria's Secret, and I can't remember what underwear I have on but I'm sure it's really old anyways.

So... what now?

I count!

After weeks of hand-wringing and nervous ranting:

So it's not too crazy to believe that my vote was in there somewhere today!