I've been making good use of my pockets lately - they are turning out to be super handy hand-keepers (heehe) whenever I stroll up and down picturesque aisles of books about chemistry and physics things I don't understand (The Physics of Inorganic Chemistry and Supersymmetric Gauge Field Theory and String Theory and AHH). I'm working at the Chemistry and Physics Libraries this summer, for UVA. It is a bit of an outdated thing, I know - this whole searching for books at the library and actually using them as resources business - but to my quiet delight, I have found that people actually do use these books. They look up call numbers and browse the tall stacks and pull out these intimidating titles from their cozy little bookspaces among their brethren and open them and ask them for information - to avert Chemistry crises and Physics fixes.
The library, for these (mostly) graduate students and faculty members, is more than just a place that provides an excuse to get together and "study" (especially during the summer). They are immersed in their work here, truly - writing theses and looking up other people's theses and studying for MCATs and running their hands over the bindings of colorful reference books not just to look/feel picturesque
that's me!
but actually ending up at the one special book that holds the secret end to their mini search. The index finger stops its journey along: first, the rows of books, then the rows of fine print, then there is the nod. Then, a satisfactory grin (optional) and a return to the table to resume studies and researchings and more nodding and looking and reading and studying. They open up these books and glean information, asking the fine print to surrender some bit of obscure clarity - with words that are total blabber to me, but gigantic, shiny "AH hAH" moment for these thinkers of science. And...okay it's creepy that I watch, I guess, but this whole endeavor still kind of a novelty for me and it makes me happy to see these ridiculous books fulfilling their purpose.
Life at the library behind the mysterious "Library Staff" desk entails more than creepily watching people find books, though (or noting how many times they get up to refill their water bottles...this guy has refilled his 1029013892 mL water bottle like 3 times within the past 1.5 hours!!). Here are some ultra-exclusive insights to the (not-so-)secret life of a librarian, just for you, dear reader:
There's a large, gray box that comes to the library from the outside world, once each day, holding books and journals and things returning home or being delivered to the Department that all need to be discharged, sorted, and shelved or delivered to faculty mailboxes. On the crazy days, it is teeming (~6 books), and on slow days it is practically empty. It all depends, really, and every opening of the box is an exciting event - like a plasticky box of papery chocolates. Okay not really but still exciting!
We also send out his twin - a different large, gray box - filled with books and articles to be sent to other libraries and departments once every day. A delivery man named Sam (HE'S HERE RIGHT NOW!) comes and delivers/picks up our "gray trays" - he is our man with the dolly. He has a lot of tattoos and always asks how we're doing.
Sometimes there are new editions of journals that come in, asking to be cataloged and added to the collection. This is exciting because it's like initiating a baby into the family. I sticker him and enter him into The System (dun dun dun), and shelve him in his own little place, right next to his kind. Very cute.
Once in a while, the phone rings and I have to collect myself before answering. It's usually not a big deal, just "Hello, Chemistry/Physics Library" is enough, but I always have a mini freak out because picking up the phone is kind of nerve wracking! What if they ask me something I don't know? What if I'm alone and can't ask anyone for help? What if I STUTTER. All these questions are silly because I know what to do in each situation (ask supervisor, take down name and email and forward to supervisor, laugh at self and try again), but I guess it doesn't help that I don't get to practice much since phone calls are not that frequent.
For the copy machines, we get the ultimate privilege of using this magical swipey card with a maximum limit of 10,000 copies per swipe. I know, it's thrilling. But the copies are for faculty members requesting articles and stuff. No butt-copying or any monkey business like that here!!
Not a part of the standard librarianship of the Physics Library, but on certain special days I also water the plants. HEEHEEHeH :)
Actually, there are TONS of useful resources that are probably very underused - through the library website and stuff; basically the things that our high school librarians made presentations on that I never really paid attention to (database searches and stuff, you know). I'm very enthused about it, so ask me if you EVER need help finding specialized articles or resources for research papers blahblah.
Anyways, so far I love my summer jobs - which isn't saying much, I spose, since I'm sitting here updating you, little blog. Title credits to Vicky, my supervisor in Physics, and Cheryl, in Chemistry. Real life quotes, respectively. hahaha
Standing in front of me this very moment is the owner of the longest eyebrow hairs in the entire world. His facial hairs are confusing - no excessive beard hairs or nose hairs or even ear hair tufts poking out like you often see in old men's ears...but the eyebrow hairs are so long and...bounteous (thanks, thesaurus.com!). Yes, bounteous. Plentiful and abundant and fertile, flush, generous. Prolific and replete. Swiiiiimming. Teeeeeeming.
He owns a head full of white hair - with a (somehow) not-unpleasantly-receding hairline - and kind eyes and smile wrinkles. He is clean-shaven, appropriately-dressed in a not-overly-fancy-but-well-put-together in a science professor kind of way. He is articulate as he formulates his complicated questions about bibliographic searches one can conduct in the library system, but I hear nothing as Cheryl, master librarian of the Chemistry Library and my supervisor, has taken over and I sit back - pretending to be attentive to their conversation like a good trainee, but in truth only watching his eyebrow hairs move up and down with the rest of his expression like small insects with lots of long, wiry legs. Or two teeny claws extending their long nails in a friendly hello.
They are not unpleasant, these extremely long eyebrow hairs. They add to his conversation, like a small, politely enthusiastic third party chiming in its agreement or confusion, whatever the situation calls for. They are like his own small cheerleaders - approving and punctuating and ever enthusiastic.
I wonder if they provide his eyes with extra shade. I wonder if they get in the way when he runs a tired hand over his face on an especially stressful days. I wonder if he likes them, or if he minds them, or if he has tried to battle them before in his youth but has come to accept them now. I wonder if they have grown longer in his older age, cause I know that happens with old men and their ear hairs. I wonder if they make his brow any heavier than mine. I wonder if he has developed extra muscle - however minuscule - in his forehead from carrying the weight of these extra-long hairs around. I wonder what kind of provisions and blessings God has given this man through these extraordinary eyebrow hairs. I wonder.
Okay first things first, the title is supposed to be "one grows" except in olde Englysh (haha not really) - that's why it's one groweth, cause it's like "He drinketh some coffee...eth." Okay fine really not really; actually Old English is like a completely different language it's pretty crazy.
And second things second, I really have to preface this with a "WHAT?! WHERE DID FIRST YEAR GO? HOW DID THIS HAPPENNN!!!??!" I know everyone is saying that around here, just about their respective school years being over (except the high schoolers...oops), but it really is crazy. How can this year already be over? I'm not done being a first year yet - not done being new at everything, not done living at Maupin, not done being roommates with Maddie, not done eating breakfast at O'Hill everyday...seriously. But I guess I'm being kicked out. Done. Boom. Out out. No more living close to every other first year, no more walking everywhere due to lack of knowledge of the bus system (I'm learning), no more being physically and socially lost (...weeeellll...).
So before it all falls out of my brain, here are a few of my favorite memories (warning: not in chronological or alphabetical or any other kind of order)...
...of my first year at UVA 2010-2011!!
They are small, big, and medium and probably boring for a lot of people, but they were momentous to me, and I'm just trying to keep a record so I can look back and remember. Sorry about the monster-sized post ahead!! The scrollbar will probably be really tiny after I'm done with this.
1. One fateful bike ride with Maddie when everything went wrong at the same moment - 29340984 cars appeared from nowhere, pedestrians popped up to get in the way, bike pedal fell off - but we were too busy crazy-laughing to care too much.
2. Yodeling like these people after one especially sugar-loaded brunch at Runk.
3. 40-minute walk down McCormick Road from Old Cabell to Maupin - just cause I could. I think it was Friday and I was done with all my classes and felt like walking s u p e r s l o w l y because I wanted to revel in not trying to get somewhere so fast. With my iPod and blue-toed flats, savoring every. slow. step. and hopefully not annoying too many people...heeehe I tried to stay on the edge of the sidewalk, like the slow edge of the track, you know?
4. Taking the scenic route up to my room from the beginning of the Maupin sidewalk. AKA walking purposely a little extra distance (like 3 feet, no big deal) instead of straight up the close-by stairs because the trees in front of our building are like a canopy under which one feels like a forest princess (or prince, yes).
5. Cramming into one tiny practice module at Old Cabell with Rajni, Densey, and Ericsam to practice this incredibly sad song over and over:
6. Naming Eric Ericsam - I've never had much luck with nicknames until E.S.! His real name is Eric but on the first day we met I think I decided (what a brat) that he looked more like a Sam and called him that for days until he finally broke down in tears and pleaded with me to at least call him Ericsam (just kidding about the tears). Wait a minute - I just realized how close this is to Samneric, from LOTF...WOAH.
...WOAH!!
7. The first night of art explosion when Maddie and I started scribbling all over our walls and officially became friends, not just roommates.
before (left): awkward and naked
after (right): comfortable and decorated! haha sorry Maddie...it's another sleeping picture...
(maddie and walls, respectively)
8. Lovey-dovey couple sighting at Clemons with Tim. I think they were in the pre-official, flirting stage so they would keep just sneaking looks at each other and being subtly annoying with their giggles and ticking each other. There was a bit of internal drama for the girl for a while because the guy went somewhere and didn't come back for a long time - she kept looking around, worried, unable to move on from the one page she was reading for like 400 minutes. And also she looked a little bit like a lion. I don't know - something about her...nose/mouth area. I had been chatting with Tim and told him to come over and see the small spectacle these people were making of themselves and at first he was like nah they're not so bad, but soon agreed with me that they were kind of ridiculous. Anyways by the end of the night (or day, whenever it was), they (and I) had gotten no work done. Absolutely none.
"bleh we like each other so much but we're not officially dating yet just flirting so it's kinda awkward! bleh we're gonna keep distracting other people around us by being cute/noisy/annoying! bleh! bleh! bleh!" (them, not us)
9. "Homeworking" at Crossroads with Maddie in the booth next to the extremely loud bro who was talking about girls and weekends - seriously I have never heard anyone with a louder conversational voice. The homeworking attempt just ended up with me and Maddie just making loud, obnoxious noises once in a while, half imitating the bro, half hoping he would take the hint. And then laughing about it like this: beweehwhahahhhHEIhihihulhuoohohlhlhuhuhlahahaaalal!!
10. Eating nova-originated pho and feeling a little bit bad about stinking up Crossroads - delivered by David "da bait" Densey. Seriously THE BEST <3
11. Finding, and freaking out about, the straightest banana in the world.
I mean just LOOK AT IT!!
12. Exam-induced mania that resulted in secret identities.
Stanislov and Boris
13. One solitary afternoon spent exploring the Rotunda and all its symmetry! I think I got distracted on my way home from class and ended up here. It was a Monday. Solo adventures are the best - sometimes you just gotta be alone, and that's O.K!
from inside - hellooooooo Old Cabell!
boO
trying to take a timer picture in the Dome Room, fulfilling so many stereotypes: asian, tourist, noob first year...
14. Going to Skyline and oooh-aah-ing at the 2 billion shooting stars that decided to fall that night! Then coming back to Earth and eating McDonald's with John, Clarisse, Kenneth, David at the Lambeth amphitheater.
15. First day of Musicians on Call when mystery shopkeeper gave me a tiny paper bag with 3 Lindt truffles inside with a quiet "thank you."
16. Finding a wardrobe of mysterious purposes in Webb Lounge - "The Morgue" - and deciding to hide in it and then deciding to do a whole photoseries about explorer Maddie discovering a strange creature inside the weird wardrobe.
17. Christmas celebration in Maupin 220s for which we were never given our rightful reward of 1 Arch's ice cream pie. Though we spent 2.5 hours waiting for the judges to come and way too many dollars at the dollar store on cheap decor, it was worth the suite bonding and general Christmas merriment.
18. Plucking a certain DH's overgrown eyebrows in Christina's common room and being walked in on by Jacqueline, our RA. Taking pictures to document the evening's activities but swearing to never ever publicize them.
19. Skipping February 7th of my a-picture-a-day calendar because it pictured a woman so ugly it was frightening. Seriously, what were they (the artist, museum personnel who chose to make the painting important, calendar publisher...everyone who had a part in causing the painting to reach my eyeballs) thinking?! Shudder...
21. Every time that this happened in chem postlab. Though all green doesn't necessarily mean you're all right...haha.
so excited I took a screen capture of it...
22. Discovering our downstairs (like through the ceiling and through the floor) neighbors in 123!! And proceeding to jump up and down while facebook chatting, "CAN YOU HEAR US?!" and yelling out the window and being responded with chairs banging on their ceiling/our floor. SO MAGICAL! :D
23. Spending an entire month of wintry nothingness, reveling in the beauty that is college vacation time. Being a baby at home and drinking hot chocolate all the time out of giant mugs and bathing Binky and building fires in the fireplace every night.
24. Texting Joshua Hahm about the state of current precipitation whenever it was raining.
25. Coffee date with Josh Larosa - opposite-soul-revealing, etc. Coffee, blogtalk, discovering how different our brainwaves are.
this isn't from THE coffee date^, just a random time I happened to take a picture of Josh with a cup of coffee
26. Valentine's Day blahblah don't careboutit blah sorrybout it lalala. Okay seriously though - from GCF first year boys' awesomeness to lovenotes in Italian to secret stuff that was crazy but not regretted, really truly.
27. Amy and David's wedding in Philadelphia over Spring Break. It was my first real wedding (one for "my person" getting married, not a family friend or someone my parents know or something) and so touching and crazy (people I know as my sort of peers are getting married now?!) and also they played the Amelie soundtrack at the reception <3
not Amy and David HEEEHEEee
28. This obnoxiously gigantic apple that I found at O'Hill one day that followed me, like, everywhere, and demanded that I take pictures of it in like, every pose.
29. Unplanned all nighter at Clemons that snuck up on me, but was somehow enjoyable in lots of different ways: because of boys talking about basketball (or something...), candy thrown into the air, early morning texts about being "awake as ever EVER!" and the stupid IR final that justified the all-nighter in the first place.
30. Easter Eve, ordering kabobs to Clemons and then ice cream cake at midnight to break Lent. Nuff said. ...Okay but with that said, must add: also doing healthily happy things with Maddie, like spending my entire last day at school together picnicking in New Cabell, sun-lounging and clover-searching in front of Maups, taking good pictures of one another and talking and laughing about everything.
31. Creating several-minute-long videos, trying to capture my life at certain memorable moments and ending up with shaky footage of things anyone not in the video will skip through (actually I can see some people in the video skipping through it, too). Haha but it doesn't matter because it makes me laugh and remember and marvel at a time "so long ago!" when so many things were different, but also the same. Oops sorry for saying stuff that amounts to nothing.
33. Convocation: sitting facing the Rotunda and thinking about how we'll turn around to face Old Cabell in just a few years. Lots of people complained that it was boring and cheesy, but I really liked it.
34. Train traveling down to Charlottesville from a short stay in nova. It was too short of a ride for all the pictures I wanted to take, all the reading I wanted to do, all the chocolate I wanted to eat picturesquely.
35. Taking Claire Lyu, who blew my mind every Tuesday and Thursday with her brilliance, out to lunch (despite my secret fear of Western utensils). My notes from FREN 3032 are full of emoticons like this ":o !!!!!!!!!!!!!!" At lunch, we both had the chicken caesar salad, talked about France/Korea/America, and wondered about each other's brains, I think.
36. James Cargile, the only reason for me not dropping Symbolic Logic like 309482 times. He enjoys banana bread as dessert to his lunch, works "for freedom", often forgets (to turn on) his hearing aids then sheepishly grins about it. Unfortunately I will probably never again take another class with him (at least let us hope not...for my academic sanity's sake) - I shall miss his brilliance, kindness, and weird humor that makes him admit his "minor pedagogical tragedies."
37. Eunice NO FEAR Jang, the common denominator to so many delightful things in my life this year: prayer team, being tablemates at Amy and David's wedding reception, GNO (girls' night out, as abbreviated by Bobbie) with much Enchanted sing-along-ing, Anne of Green Gables party with kimchi bokeum bap and cookies, crashing a sleepover at Aileen's with a funny collection of people :)
38. Planning to write a blogpost about all the ways in which "one groweth" during the first year of college and realizing what a baby I still am and therethusforthly not being able to write that original post at all. Realizing that I'm a work in progress and all the ways in which God provides and being okay with not even having that much closure. Learning that I'm immature in ways that I didn't even imagine - how bad I am at moving out and saying goodbye. And at ending blogposts. eep.
I've done it a lot of times, but I'm finding that I'm terrible at packing up and moving out.
Trying to move out of 223 Maupin right now. Taking all the scraps and junks off the wall. Taking down posters. Looking around constantly, uselessly. Heart beating harder. Drowning in my own sentimentality. It's scary. This is like dismantling a life. A bigger deal than anticipated. Why is it? Why is it such a big deal? I've moved so many times before. Packed up boxes and left places, blowing kisses and hiding tears or not hiding them. But this time is different from the other times.
I think it's because every scrappy scrap of sticker and crap and sticky note and piece of junk is completely mine. A scrappy piece of life that I've made on my own, completely own - or at least as "on my own" as I've been in my life. Everything I'm going to have to pack up was put in its messy place was put there by my hand or foot or whatever. Every piece of writing or drawing on the wall was created by me or by friends or friends of friends and I experienced it being created. Every mess is mine. Every beautiful thing is mine. Every.thing. is a part of this life I've made. Here. And it's hard to take it all down, I guess.
And all that just magnifies and makes me think of how it'll all be forgotten after us. Especially with Maupin being torn down. All these memories we made and places we touched will be gone. And we will probably never be together in one place like this again - even the people I never got to meet, dear unknown Maupin-mates (this strange first year identity that will hold us together as this weird group forrreverrrr). Yeah I'm a sentimental Sally, but can you really blame me for fearing my own forgetfulness? It's the scariest thing, I think - my own surprising ability to lose things from my brain and heart. Stuff just tumbles out - that's why I photograph documentarily and write so often about "thisverymoment"s instead of doing homework.
maddie and madison at maupin
So anyways, here I sit, with all my sticky notes still up around my desk carrel and sitting in the midst of my books and postcards and posters and pictures I have yet to take down. Drowning. Tired. Kind of...really scared. And all this talking about on my own/the fact that Maddie is sleeping making me feel really alone - haha silly. The only thing that constructively keeps building up is the increasing volume of the sighs filling the atmosphere. And can you really even call sighs constructive?
I know I'll probably look back at this post and feel dumb but here's to capturing the moment. Clicking the PUBLISH POST button...n o w !
My life is so full of cuteness right now. And I've been kind of itching to blog in the midst of finals (and name it "libarry crazy," but for other reasons than those listed below) - maybe to defy...stuff. Probably mostly myself. Hm I don't know; I'm tired. So here's my excuse: my life is so full of cuteness right now.
Cuteness 1.
JJ Heller - When I'm with You (discovered this thanks to Rebecca - youtube repeating like crazy ever since)
Cuteness 2. Boys. More specifically, studying (..."studying") with boys and sitting and listening to them talk all excitedly about sports mumbo jumbo that I don't understand. It really is like a language that I just don't get. Flows into one ear and jumps out the other. Really. (But I did learn about this guy - apparently he eats a lot of candy...obviously that would be the only part I understand.)
Cuteness 3. Boys. More specifically, being with them when their Bible study leaders bring them bags of candy for morale, which they proceed to immediately throw up into the air in celebration so it's like raining candy. Okay actually only one boy did that but it was still like cute overload (hope he never reads this cause he doesn't need to know I think he's cute).
Cuteness 4. Sitting in Clemons but not feeling hostile towards it haha. Actually, sitting in Clemons and actively feeling happy and stuff because I'm just people watching (and actively not studying...) - watching people be hopeful in the midst of exams, being solidarity-y with each other, sharing junky food, and smiling even though they're studying hard (or not so hard). Wutevers!
Cuteness 5. Feeling things for other people who are...not me. I've been so wrapped up in myself, my tiredness, my busy-ness lately that I forget to think of other people, feel for them. Making wishes for other people and praying for them when I see them run hurriedly and worriedly toward some unknown location - that they get there soon/on time, and safely. Hm sorry sorry sorry this makes no sense :(
Cuteness 6. Confessing to people that my shoulders are in pain and tentatively asking for back massages but receiving terrible, albeit very very well-meaning ones. Hahahaha oh well.
Cuteness 7.
it's the same song but sounds a little different. cause i like circular progression of things.
EDIT: 5/10/11 12:51 am
Just found this on my desktop! It's from the morning after this post was originally written, at Clemons. I ended up pulling an allnighter and being joined by another libarry crazy, sitting in the booth behind me. HAHA!
My laptop is way too heavy to carry around to all of my classes. So I don't. Then I justify this with all sorts of excuses: "with a computer in class, I'll just be distracted!"..."taking notes by hand makes me feel like a real student!"..."motor memory...yay?!" (irrelevant when you can't read the notes afterwards because they are only a mass of sleepy scrawlings all over the notebook pages...sigh).
But...let's be real - the one true reason is that carrying my laptop around is cause it tips over the weight limit of my backpack from heavy to backbreaking. I have a weak back, I think.
But Thursday, April 28th was a day that truly made me regret this silly habit of never bringing my laptop to class. It was a day when I wished I could write as fast as I could type - to capture all the words falling from my French professor's mouth, from her brilliant brain.
FREN 3032 was my daily inspirations class of the semester. I mistakenly thought it was going to be taught by a TA, but it turns out that Claire Lyu is not only NOT a TA, but a science genius tri-lingual lover of French poetry - basically the adult I want to be when I grow up. And on this past Thursday, our last real class of the semester since we're taking our final test on our actual last class, she was more full of beautiful words than usual. She wanted to send us off on...good feet, I think. Or something. Obviously I am far from the eloquence that is my French professor.
She said that she had experienced "un moment émouvant" - an emotional moment, a touching moment - the night before, while reading this collection of literary criticisms. The passage she wanted to share with us was about the song of a bird. I know it sounds super sappy, but no worries because honestly I didn't get it all either and thusly will not expound upon it...hahaha. But she was talking about how powerful some literature can be - how some works have the ability to switch up the power dimensions of a relationship you can have with it ( :P kind of like this). Usually when you're reading something, you're in power. The subject is you and the object is it. You hold it, open it up on the webpage, pick up the book that contains it and control it. You read it and judge it and analyze it and finally pronounce that it is good or rather bad or quite mediocre, while it sits quietly and looks up at you and simply exists. Naked and vulnerable.
But...Claire Lyu shared with us that some works of literature take that power position away from you. Totally and surprisingly. You had no idea it would happen, but then there you are - suddenly pierced through the heart and defenseless, and the thing is staring at you instead of you looking at it. Suddenly it knows your heart and what you love and hate and mediocrely like. And to sum it up, she read to us from the book. That
"On ne sorte pas indemne de ce gen de livre."
"One does not escape unscathed from such a book."
And that that's why we study literature. Because sometimes, it has this power to make us buckle at the knees and cry or laugh, or stay completely quiet. Because it has the power to make you reveal your soul to it and to others - and that is the difficulty of humanities classes (gross generalization - please excuse me). I know I (self-destructively) stand right alongside the engineering school kids when they joke about our School of "Arts and Crafts" classes, but truly, humanities classes are difficult in their own way. When you analyze a piece of literature, even in just discussing it, you're revealing a piece of your soul: what you think about this piece of someone else's brain, heart, and how you believe it applies to your brain and heart. When you create a piece of art, you're undressing a little bit of your secret self and representing it concretely for whoever happens to walk by to see - it's bravery at its finest. When you write an essay, analyzing and synthesizing (at least when you do it right), you're investing a chunk of your brainwaves to this clean slate of paper and bringing into being not just some inky letters but an idea, a new thing, fresh and alive into the world. It's an emotional thing - you invest your heart in it a little (or a lot).
When was the last time you were brave enough to get naked for a math equation? Do molecular structures inspire you to tears or pierce through your heart or render you completely helpless and reveal a part of your soul (not counting those times when you despaired like a baby because you didn't get the concept)?
These are the questions and affirmations that Claire Lyu inspired on the second to last day of my French class. As we all responded in the various ways that we usually do - from yawning to acting cool/like we understand everything she just said to sitting on the chairseat edges trying to engrave into our minds every pearly bead of wisdom that fall from her mouth - Madame Lyu remarked that maybe it's because of all the talk of bird songs, but that she felt like a mama bird letting all her babies fly out of the nest.
buh-bye!
And with that image, I said a bittersweet goodbye and floated out of room. Feeling broken into, a little bit taken by surprise, and a tiny bit...more naked than I had felt going into class on that fateful Thursday afternoon.
There is a unicorn in my International Relations discussion.
PLIR 1010.
Wednesday afternoon, 4 p.m. to 4:50 p.m., SHARP.
In the (fittingly) mystical land of Nau Hall.
Okay okay I'm just kidding; you got me. But in all seriosity, in this weird...mythical-creatures-existing-in-everyday-life kind of way, she is a little bit like a unicorn to me - singular magical horn and all. It all started with an innocent game of ASSASSINS. You know - dorm bonding fun activity at the beginning of the Fall semester, getting us to get to know our buildingmates by formulating complicated plots to kill each other as targets of our assassinary and forming alliances and suffering bitter betrayals and surprise strikes. And stuff. If you signed up, said "yes, I shall participate!", this grand assassin scheme-master would plug you into his very complicated system and email you a target to kill and if you succeeded, you would take on the mission of killing your target's target and on and on until one ultimate assassin reigned over all of our dead bodies (our method of killing was sock-throwing, targeted below the head. Relatively safe). The game also involved silly immunities and stuff. Lots of people changed their facebook identities and it got very complicated and intense - people carrying around dining hall take-out boxes for entire days was not an uncommon occurrence.
So I was assigned this girl. And really, did everything "right" - looked her up on facebook, carried my sock around faithfully, watched all crowds of people carefully, always on the lookout for a redhead female looking a little fearful for flying socks bulleting toward her. Even found out where she lived, cause I'm friends with one of her suitemates (one floor below me, SO CLOSE and so far!). But alas, fate was not on my side - no redhead I encountered was the redhead of my purpose!
...Until one rainy morning, while walking out of Maupin on my way to Symbolic Logic, I spotted them. The red hairs. Peeping out from under a gray hoodie, which was in turn peeping out from under a black umbrella. Albeit hiding and peeping, they were real, and calling to me. So it was only natural that I chased her down and (because I felt a little bit bad about totally ambushing her when she was so off-guard and tired looking from the morning being so early) after tentatively yelling, "...hey...!", gently tossed my sock at her arm. And this is the embarrassing story that went down after the sock launch:
redheaded mystery girl: *looks confused*
me: wait...are you Clara Barton ? (not her real name)
rmg: um...no.
me: ....I AM SO SORRY I THREW A SOCK AT YOU YOU SEE I'M PLAYING ASSASSINS FOR MY DORM ASSOCIATION AND AND
rmg: ...it's okay...
me: D:
rmg: *walks away*
So the only real encounter I had with this redheaded target of mine was...not even real. Tragic. But then some days and weeks and months passed and I got over it (oh, and I got killed by this trumpet player who refrains from shoes. In the next door suite). I also heard that she talked to someone about me, how "yeah I was supposed to be playing assassins, but no one ever tried to kill me or anything. I didn't even do any of the immunities!" Sigh. If only she knew.
So imagine my surprise when I saw her sitting in my IR discussion! Wearing clothes that I would wear if my mom didn't already object so much to all my "hobo-like clothing," saying intelligent things while blushing just slightly - basically, all the bases for a beautiful friendship. And now that I can't kill her anymore, I see her around everywhere and all the time. And each passing occurrence of a chance encounter with the redheaded mystery girl (the real one, that is. Though I also see the non-real one everywhere, too. Eeep), I want to reveal myself: It was me. I was your assassin! And I really did try my best to find and destroy you - you were just never the right redhead!! Please understand... But for some reason, I never do. Strange, because I talk to random strangers about intimate things all the time. Err...more frequently than the average person, I think.
But anyways, yeah. I've sat next to her at coffee shops and libraries and IR discussions without saying a word. Because there's a sense of magic in keeping (benign) secrets forever. Because she is a unicorn. Because this way, she is forever mysterious, far away, distinctly unreachable. Distinctly...shouldn't be reachable, in a way, because what if I talk to her and she turns out to not appreciate differentness and never emailed people back or something like that? So for me, she shall forever stay a mystery.
& forever a unicorn
Put this way, I suddenly can't wait to go to discussion tomorrow! Yayayayay for sitting several seats away from unicorns and admiring them from a respectful distance and never revealing your assassin status and keeping benign secrets forever. And for finishing blog posts - whew
Well right now I'm breathing, blogging, and...flossing muh teeths.
If you wur wondering.
(strawberry alert hurhur) Today was a muggy, muggy day. High of 88/low of doesnt-matter;still-warmish, and a humidity of about 2093480293 percent. But it never quite rained, so all the water was forever stuck in the atmosphere - all, like, holding its breath and clenching its eyes shut and crouching on the verge of curling into droplets but never quite going over the invisible line to condensificationing....you know? It was sunny and gross, wet and breezy, simultaneously beautiful and a little suffocating.
So, naturally, I was feeling
and looking
pretty gross all day so at the end of it, decided to take a c o o l shower - uncharacteristic, because I usually like to take (almost) scaldingly hot showers...even in the summer, sometimes. And today's shower was weird. Not only because of the novelty/rarity, but because the faucet seemed confused that I wanted to take such a non-hot shower and kept wavering annoyingly, endearingly, between c o o l and w a r m until I coaxed its handle gently but decisively to the left, at which it finally gave in and allowed me a decisively cool shower. Closer to the plunge into freezing than I ever get in the span of my usual 12-minute showers. But anyways this is getting too too strawberry-ish so here's the point:
As I was taking my decisively cool shower, I noticed a small trend currently active in my life (trend being 2 whole instances): just like my escape from shower climate dilly-dallyings, I am actively escaping (err trying to. trying. to. escape.) lukewarmity in my walk with Christ. A little while ago, I had a conversation with someone who was trying to explain to me why lukewarm Christianity was even worse than being completely cold and far from God. How being bitterly distanced and heartbreakingly glacial is a preferable alternative to halfhearted indecisiveness, right in the middle of the spectrum (which reminds me of...mediocrity, but that's another story). At first, I really didn't get it. How could "super-far-from-God" be better than "kinda-far-from-God"? The kinda-far kind of far-ness means less distance to run back. It means, at least, glimpses and touches, though that's a far cry from direct embrace, I know. The kinda-far kind of far-ness keeps you kinda-safe from the biggest dangers, because while you're kinda-far from saving grace, you're also kinda-far from the cliffs. Kinda.
But God has been opening my kinda-closed eyes to the kinda-obvious answer lately. Through shivery building conversations and introspective coffee dates and decisively cool showers, I've been realizing exactly how scary lukewarmity is. Lukewarm means numbness. Lukewarm is blind to itself. Lukewarm makes you resigned to, and okay with: "Oh well." Because of the lack of complete lack - because you (I, we) don't feel the ache of an absolute void, you (I, we) think this kinda far awayness okay...when it's so not. It's a self-sustained monster, only medium-level scary. AHH the worst kind of them all. At least when the monster is huge and smelly, roaring and in your face, when you're suffering sorely with all your soul, you know you have to do something about it. Run away. Poke its boogery nose with your wand. Start using exclamation points!! So someone will hear and come to help!!!!!! YOU KNOW?!?!!!
At least complete cold pushes you to push yourself to be not so far away anymore. So yes. I get it. In these redundantly-expressed ways and much more, lukewarmity, sneaky and subtle, is the real creature (woah)to be feared.
Yeah, I'm kind of dumb. This lukewarm thing is actually a huge phenomenon, apparently - google says so. Oops - minus 10 points for living under a religious rock.
Scalding, please.
P.S. I kind of cannot believe that I haven't used the word "tepid" this entire post.
Lukewarm, the conceited jerk, makes you write entire blog posts about itself and then end them with thoughts like
First, click the play button on the video below and listen while you read. Then after you're done reading, listen to the words again carefully. Sorry if you feel bossed around - you don't have to if you don't want to heeheee
There are many things that make me feel like a nobody, a noob. n00b. Taking the bus. Crossing unfamiliar crosswalks. Talking about nice and not so nice cars. But most of the time when that happens, it's okay. I actually kind of like feeling small - like I'm just a teeny piece of something bigger, something greater and more purposeful, like yeah I don't understand what's right in front of me but zoom out and you'll see a more coherent, make-sensical picture and ultimately everything really does make sense, at some level - that's nice. And it's good to be honest about one's noobishness and unashamedly so, sometimes (um yeah I'm having a little trouble figuring out which way to go in this FOUR-WAY crosswalk, but hey it's like only my 4th time here and there are so many cars and persons all around and this thang is complicated!), cause it makes for a good learning experience.
But the thing is, sometimes I feel like a noob about things I claim to love - things I know I do love. Things people think I'm good at (eeeeeep!), just by virtue my appreciation of them, combined with the semi-obscurity of said topics. Poetry. Art. Conversationing about human hearts. Blabbering words and sentences and not being sure I make sense, and even worse, experiencing someone else's elegant eloquence - extremely excellent - and being dwarfed by their genius. Don't misunderstand me - it's not about being jealous or bitter that I'm not smart enough. It's more like...being reminded about how much genius is truly out there in the big world, outside of my own head and feeling kind of scared because I'm supposed to "be good at this," cause supposedly, "omg I luff poetry!" you know? But do I dare even utter these things? Do I dare declare myself an English major? Who will care about what I say, do, make, write, synthesize, create? Am I even worthy of claiming that I love these things, when I know so little and am so inept at even expressing my love? I have no idea.
Art
For those of you who will not click the play button above:
"Art, art, I want you. Art, you make it pretty hard not to.
Parcels possess potential. A package wrapped in parchment paper, arriving in the pitch-black of a pristine winter night, packed with peanut brittle. A present containing a purple umbrella – protection against the pitter-patter of a rainy day in Pennsylvania. A paperback Pride and Prejudice with a petite pile of post-it notes, for Professor Pavlo's English 101: the personal reading assignment. It can be anything you want it to be, up until the moment you peel back the wrappings – a pleasant surprise, a mysterious perfection.
Parcel pronounces prettily. The perfect elision from the 'par-' to the '-cel' presenting a poetic partnership of syllables paired in auditory heaven; the two separated ever-pining for each other in the most pathetic of parted-lovers' sighs. One without the other is powerless, pitiful, perished. Preposterous perspiration and panic-inducing paralysis of my pulmonary system demonstrate my most profound passion for 'parcel.'
Parcels play phonetically. With so many possibilities for fortunate spelling faux-pas of this divine word, misspelling is probably more profitable than pernicious. Some strikingly pleasant examples: parsley, atop a prodigious portion of steak, for example; a parasol, for protection against the parching blaze of the summer sun; and Parseltongue, resulting froma particularly egregious error leading to the name of a peculiar language spoken by a certain Mr. H. Potter.
Elle est debout sur mes paupières
Et ses cheveux sont dans les miens,
Elle a la forme de mes mains,
Elle a la couleur de mes yeux,
Elle s'engloutit dans mon ombre
Comme une pierre sur le ciel.
Elle a toujours les yeux ouverts
Et ne me laisse pas dormir.
Ses rêves en pleine lumière
Font s'évaporer les soleils,
Me font rire, pleurer et rire,
Parler sans avoir rien à dire.
Paul Éluard
Beloved She is standing on top of my eyelids
And her hair is in my hair,
She has the shape of my hands,
She has the color of my eyes,
In my shade she is engulfed
As a stone against the sky.
Her eyes are always open
And she does not let me sleep.
Her dreams in the bright day
Make the suns evaporate,
And me laugh, cry, and laugh,
Speak without having anything to say.
I'm all about the "natural tendencies" of things. Like, thinking thinking thinking hard about something complicated or discussing a controversial issue or just doing something repeatedly and coming to the same type of conclusion at the end of every try. The belief that the natural core-being...ness of something being a certain way leads you to the same conclusion every time. Does this make any sense? Probably not :/ Okay let me try some examples:
Like learning about issues of development and reaching a gloomy conclusion every time (no matter what specific thing you're discussing or whatever context the issue is put in): that, yeah, the world is kind of messed up and developing the undeveloped parts of it is a difficult, maybe impossible, thing to do. The AH-what-have-we-done-and-what-are-we-supposed-to-do-now! conclusion at the end of every depressing discussion, because maybe there really is no solution. All we can do is learn about it and keep thinking about it, and weep because we can never fix it.
Or maybe psychology. Or sociology. Evaluating different studies that are supposed to reveal aspects of "human nature (stuff we're all supposed to have in common. human universals.)" and deciding - dun dun dun, that we really are innately bad, or something (the "or something" here is supposed to indicate my lack of real knowledge, just sayin'). Sorry, try again, Mr. Idealist - "people are all just bad and there's nothing you can do about it" (quoting Mr. Realist, obvi.)
Ahh I'm sorry I suck at not being general and indecisive and confusing and hyphenated. I'm not trying to be mysterious - I just really suck at coherency sometimes. Lots of times. But the idea is that
because something is so inherently ___, no matter how much or in what way you discuss it or think about it or WHATEVER, your conclusion will always end up as . Those are just the natural tendencies of the ___. ...Yap.
this is the music in the background of my life during the moments I've been taking to write this post.
just trying to recreate the scene of this gross incoherency. maybe the recreation will make it better.
Despite all the Negative Nancytude that this post is demonstrating about the whole natch.tendencies thang, what I truly wanted to say (what really inspired this late-night blogging) follows thusly: whenever I am communicating with God, whenever I am praying (thankfully about the happy things, complaingingly about the complanatory things; the good-the mediocre-the bad, the whole spectrum of conversation topics you know), no matter what the subject of the moment, I always end up with a "God I love you"
I cannot believe how close I am to having lived for more than 19 years. Anticipating the (maybe) justly-due wrath I may incur from the upperclassmen/even older people by saying this but deciding to say it anyways, let me just exclaim:
I am so old. I A M S O O L D.
Actually, that's not true. I know it's not true. I am actually probably closest to the peak of my physical, mental, emotional health, being, whatever, that I've been in my life thus far - an exciting thought (yay). But it's just that relative to me and my life history up til now, I am also the oldest I've ever been, and this craziness even more exacerbated by the fact that I'm entering the next decade of my life. Which, I realize, has already happened once (maybe even twice, if you're being technical), but this is sentient me. Almost adult me becoming almost-almost adult me. Soooo significant because I will officially no longer be a teenager. The number of times I say the morpheme "-teen" as a part of my introduction (Hi, my name is Madison and I am nineteen years old) will probably decrease drastically!
And there are 5 days left. I wish I knew at what time of day I was born so I could dramatize this even more, but alas, I only know the date. So there are 5 days left, and I decided today that I will do something distinctly immature or kiddie to celebrate each of those 5 days...and then continue to do more things for the first three days of my life as a twenty-year-old so the total will be 8 (because it's symbolic, you know? A continuation of kiddiness, leaning a little more heavily on the 19-side because that just makes sense. And 8 because that's my favorite number (because that's my birth date and also once I won bingo cause of 8 (hah))).
(Read the first part of this, if you don't understand what the strawberries are all about. My mind just jumped to this thing - sorry if it was too abrupt!)
So,
Strawberry #1 (3/3/11): swinging on the tree-swing outside of Brown with Beks.
real picture to come later, but LOOK IT'S A STRAWBERRY ON A SWING!
Strawberry #2 (3/4/11):
A piece of leftover cake for breakfast (thank you for the surprise party!) - skipping real breakfast to try to finish up a take-home exam before my day begins.
again not a real (my) picture...but I forgot my camera cord at Maups
Strawberry #3 (3/5/11):
Was reminded about being a child of God. Spring Retreat 2011!
googled: gcf spring retreat, and this came up!!! I see...Yekyung, possibly Grace Pyon and Joyce Min, and Ed Bahng...! okay so it's from the gcf website, but still coooooool
Strawberry #4 (3/6/11):
Went puddle-splashing in muh rain boots in the muddy moat m-around Maupin. Didn't think to take a picture cause this wasn't on purpose; it just happened haha
my splashings weren't nearly as picturesque as this persons'^
Strawberry #5 (3/7/11):
Spent the morning reading (left-handed) cartoons, i.e.
some immature buffoonz, like me.
Strawberry #6 (3/8/11):
Okay not necessarily child-like or immature, but kinda related to old and young ness - looked through past emails in search of my xanga and found a string of emails between me and a good friend. Forwarded him our silliness and reconnected by laughing over how embarrassing and weird we were.
just a little snippet of what I wrote to him - profoundly confused about this new, hip, personal site thing called facebook and whatnot...hahaha
Strawberry #7 (3/9/11):
Broke Lent on the first day. No pictures, no mo words. Sighz what a baby
Strawberry #8 (3/10/11):
Took a nap. Well it was like 3 hours long so you decide if that's a "nap" or a mini-sleep. I know grown-ups nap all the time, but I usually don't, no matter how tired I am. I'm just not good at it - I know I won't wake up in time for the next activity I'm supposed to be alive for...People who can power nap are one of the biggest mysteries to me. I need a good 3 hour chuck at least. So when I fell asleep after lunch and woke up to dinner time today, it was a special occasion! Haha
What if you fell asleep and didn't wake up for twenty years?
Sitting in a sea of people. All taking up similar amounts of physical space. The long, sturdy wooden table divided into chocolate squares of eight beings' elbowrooms, punctuated by two lamps and endlessly expanding bubbles of private thoughts and non-thoughts. We're all existing here, together and next to one another, but also so far apart and deep away, tucked snugly in our respective worlds of gchat, blogging, and wolfram alpha (that's me in the middle of Mr.GChat and Calc-2 Girl).
We're together and alone.
This is something I noticed a lot over my summer spent in Korea - especially in Seoul. People are so good at tuning the world out when forced to share a certain quantity of air with other beings. They exist all pressed up against each other without even seeing - without even noticing that the girl whose outer thigh area is slightly touching their outer thigh area across the continuous metro seat looks like she's about to cry. Without ever seeing the soldier-man in camo, riding the bus standing up (cause he's a man - no need for comfort of the butt or feet!) with a package next to his combat boots-ed feet, wrapped in pink-hearts-galore wrapping paper (the package, not the boots). So many small tragedies and sweetnesses of lives pressed up against yours that you never pursue to investigate or care about...!
But I mean it must be a matter of survival, too. Yeah, we're all social beings, but everybody's minds need alone time, albeit in varying degrees. In big cities where you're always hustling and bustling and jostling with other people doing the same right next to you, it's hard to have alone-in-the-zone time. When you can just stare blankly and think about blank things, which is just a fancy way of saying "nada nada limonada" (which is just another fancy way of saying "nothing") - crucial for sanity. So we zone out of the physical world around us and zoom into ourselves, our computers, our daydreams, our Things To Do lists - create our own thought-bubble-existence worlds, while everyone else does the same. Exist all together and completely alone at the same time. What a weird, weird thing.
Apparently, if you gather all the people in the world and get them to stand shoulder to shoulder and face to face, we would all fit into the city of L.A. (source: fun fact shared over Sunday lunch - MK, also known as michiecream). ...le WOAH. If this happened for real, the world would probably explode in a metaphysical way or something, due to the concentration of so many big and small and medium sized thought bubbles. Imagine all the different trains of thought that would be going through the airspace above our collective heads! Imagine all the same ones! And everyone lost in their own worlds...
...until someone across the table from you accidentally nudges your foot because she was readjusting herself and you were readjusting yourself and both of your feet met in the same space at the same moment in a tiny collision that brought you back to the real world of Clark Library, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, U.S.A., Earth.
