Ramble On

Scripps 2009 - to go or not to go?

sophomore slump sucks.

I don't know if there was ever any way of fighting it, because there's nothing explicitly wrong. classes suck because classes in general suck, but they're more interesting than last year, and if you have to go to class it might as well be interesting. I suppose a good way of fighting it would have been to have gotten more involved, but I just don't want to. it's so freaking small here and none of the organizations actually DO anything. if I have to plan another damn awareness event I'm going to go out of my mind. (awareness events are absolutely pointless. nobody who actually needs to be made more aware actually goes to those events. and while obnoxiously socially conscious people are at the event, congratulating themselves for being so "aware," everyone else is in their room drinking or doing their orgo homework [or both].)

nobody cares. I mean, they do, but in a superficial way. it's the kind of caring where you get to feel good about yourself because you donate a dollar a month to an orphan in Ghana, and the kind of caring where you call 911 if you see someone bleeding out of their eyeballs. but it's not the kind of caring where you actively pay attention to other people.

and believe me, I count among those who don't care. it's ironic, because I came here thinking that it would teach me to be a better person - but right now, I just feel like it's taught me just how much things don't matter to me.

how do you become a less selfish person? any ideas? because again, it's not active antipathy. it's that I'm so oblivious to other people that I don't even notice when I'm being thoughtless. (guess it's kind of the definition of thoughtless - just not thinking about others.) it's hard to change something you do if you don't even notice when you're doing it. maybe there's no way to change it. maybe everyone does it and does a better or worse job hiding their thoughtlessness, and that's why some people appear to be better than others.

frankly, I don't have the energy to change now anyway. it's all this damn apathy.

Current Music: change - kt tunstall [how ironic]

it's been a really really REALLY long time since I've done anything like this. I'm just too busy for it. however, considering that I took three tests this week (goddamn midterms, I took three tests the week before fall break too), I think it's ok for me to spend some time NOT working. it's kind of hard to just start talking though. it's like, a lot has changed and I don't even know when things started changing, so it's not like I can just pick up where I left off.

guess the big things are:
- I'm a bio major. it's fucking hard, but unfortunately, I love bio. didn't think that this would happen at all, because I hated bio in high school, but it's seriously the most fascinating thing to learn. chem didn't pan out. it's not that I can't do it (I'm still more comfortable with chem than bio, which is really bizarre because everyone else thinks that bio is really easy). it's just...kind of boring. I really couldn't care less about cyclohexane. it just doesn't matter in my life. but diseases are really interesting, so I'll study that instead.
- I may be pre-med - don't know. am leaving my options open so that I don't end up being one of those people who realizes they want to go to med school their senior year and have to waste the next years of their life making up the 2 billion credits that dumbass med schools require for entry (I guess I'm just wasting THESE four years instead).
- I haven't been home since August and won't go home until December. I'm spending maybe a month total in Portland over the next year. it kind of sucks. I miss the west coast a lot a lot a LOT. but it's my choice because I can't do everything I want in Portland. I did get to spend fall break in San Diego with Justin, which was fantastic and I highly I recommend it.
- what do you think: study abroad in Costa Rica, Barbados, or England?
- this semester sucked until recently (fall break, to be precise). sophomore year blows. why? I have no idea. it just does. but my classes are awesome and I don't have a single bad professor, so I'm happy. plus I work at a kindergarten now and it's awesome.

fuck, I don't know what else. I'm sure I'm missing something. oh well.

Goodbye Haverford...for a few months. God - I'm going to miss this place. As thrilled as I am to be going home (and I am), this is my second home, and these people are my family. I can't believe Kira won't be my roommate...I can't believe I won't have Jason picking me up and putting me in the trash can every time I say something vaguely insubordinate...I can't believe that I won't get to hear Haein drunk mumbling Guns and Roses...I can't believe there won't be any more 1 AM renditions of Total Eclipse of the Heart...I can't believe that my hall won't be together anymore. I can't believe that freshman year is over.

Don't get me wrong. I love my life. I can't be all that sad, because there's nothing in the future that I'm not looking forward to. Next year looks to be better, if anything, and I can't even envision a time in the near future that I'm dreading (except maybe graduation). I just wish I could take my family back to Portland with me. They've already done so much for me - I'm so lucky here. I'm happiest because this is one of the few times where my expectations were met - Haverford is everything I had hoped it would be, and I love it exactly the way it is.

Current Mood: content
Current Music: I Believe in a Thing Called Love - The Darkness

self scheduled finals make my life. three finals down, one to go...it's the home stretch. fucking chemistry ruining everything.

p.s. how are you all doing? haven't talked to any of you in a while.

p.p.s. I'll only be effectively home from the 14th of May until the 14th of June, so if any of you guys want to see me, that's the time to do it.

Current Mood: accomplished
Current Music: Get Over It - OK Go

So to state the obvious, I'm actually posting. I kind of doubt anyone reads this anymore, but I guess it wouldn't hurt - and the longer I spend on this, the longer I DON'T have to be writing a paper on the heteroglossia of history in Don Quixote. (yeah, what the fuck, right? I think the professor actually made up that word)

When's the last time any of you saw me or even talked to me, anyway? College has completely consumed my life. I sometimes forget that I had a life before college. (I know, not a good way to make/keep facebook friends, as anyone reading this is part of life before college.) Was winter break really the last time? Was that really only two months ago?

Some bigger developments, in bulleted form for your ADD convenience:
- I have whooping cough. Not even kidding (don't I wish I were). Yes, it still exists. Yes, I was vaccinated. Apparently the vaccine wears off in some people as they get older, and I'm one of the lucky few. No, it's not contagious (for the most part). It lasts up to ten weeks, and I'm on week 8 right now - I haven't coughed in a few days, so I'm hoping it's gone. It means I can't play rugby this season, though.

- I applied for a bunch of internships over the summer. Not going to go into details - the short summary is that the odds that I'll be in Portland over the summer are very slim. Depending on which internship I get, it's possible that I'll be in Portland for a few weeks at the beginning and then head to...someplace. (Here, San Jose, or New Hampshire are looking like the most likely locations.)

- I think I'm a bio major instead of a chem major, and I also may or may not be pre-med. Not really useful information in the least, since it's not even definite, but it is a somewhat major development in my life.

- I was in West Virginia building houses over break with Habitat for Humanity (yeah, Haverford has a ridiculously early break).

Good luck for those of you hearing back from colleges next week, and give me a call if you ever want to talk. (empty offer, I know, because nobody will do it - does anybody ever actually call people when they say that? I don't) Hope life is going well...

Current Mood: calm
Current Music: Slide - Goo Goo Dolls

So, in sort of an act of desperation - does anyone know of anyplace where I could work in a lab over the summer? I've been looking at internships online, and almost all of them require rising junior and senior status. I kind of doubt anyone can help here, but it's worth trying.

What is this completely fucking useless snow? Just enough to close everything, not enough to do anything with, turning to ice in a few hours from goddamn freezing rain, and the timing! The day after winter break starts - it can't even fucking close schools! How completely, utterly asinine is that? It's cold and wet and inconvenient and possibly taking a chunk out of what was supposed to be a fun winter break, and it makes me angry.

the only really fun part of this was watching my cat brain herself on our deck while attempting to annihilate the snowflakes (a noble idea that, sadly, entirely failed)

Current Mood: angry

Putting off taking my (ugh) Latin final - you know I must be desperate if I'm on here.

It snowed here, like everywhere else. Thing is that I don't really like snow. I like it for maybe a day or two, and then I'm ready for spring. I should have gone to school in California.

I'm coming home next week for break on Thursday. I'll hopefully visit Lincoln on Friday, especially because I haven't seen Herr Duggan for over a year (!) and I want to tell Scheffler that I'm a chem major. I really would like to see people over break, so please give me a call on my cell if you'd like to hang out - the number is 503-997-7852. You could also leave a message here, but odds are I won't see it until break's over.

Life is really wonderful.

Hey ya'll! I know you're all just dying to know how I'm doing in college (hence the title of the entry). Short answer: college is pretty awesome. I love my roommates, my customs group is like family, I love my classes, JSU is awesome, I might be doing birthright over winter break, I'm hiking in the Appalachians over fall break (those hills East Coast people call mountains), I'm still not used to lots of drunk people, and the guys are surprisingly attractive (albeit somewhat short, and not nearly Jewish enough...and most of the good ones are taken). I am surprised by three things:

1. I don't miss my family at all.
2. Most of the girls here decided to keep their boyfriends (there's like a boyfriend club on our hallway, and we've already had three incidents of sexilism)
3. I DON'T have three tons of reading to do

That last one might be due to the lack of humanities classes I'm taking. I have physics, math, Latin, and history - and the last is the only one that assigns reading. Although admittedly I'm procrastinating on doing reading for it right now, I'm a little surprised at how much free time I have. Oh, I lied...four things I'm surprised about. I'm also surprised that physics is my favorite class. I'm in "intensive physics," which is a nice way of saying "physics for morons," but I chose it of my own volition and it means that the material is actually really easy. So I'm happy with that. Definitely happy that I decided to go the science route, rather than the history route, considering my current history class (which is by far my worst....and was the class I was looking forward to the most).

Anyway, I'm gonna "peace out" (as my roommate would say), because I have to go read about the (apparently really boring) Arabs. Have fun wherever you are!

Current Mood: happy
Current Music: Free Falling - Tom Petty

So here I am on the East Coast. Still hasn't hit me that I'm not going back - it sorta feels like a permanent vacation.

Last week was New York. People over there are fucking nuts. I'm so serious. New York is waaaayyyyy too intense for me (and I love big cities). It's just this constant swarming mob of people EVERYWHERE. Always loud, always crowded, and always dirty. I didn't think I could ever get sick of city, but there's just so much of it there with no respite. Still, it was a lot of fun in its own way. I took my poor mother to the Metropolitan with me - I don't think she'd mind if she never saw art again. The museums there are just...damn. Huge. Absolutely enormous. It's kind of an all or nothing city. Seeing "The Lion King" on Broadway was pretty amazing, though, and the bagels are to die for. Plus there are a lot of really attractive men.

Now I'm in Philadelphia. I LOVE PHILADELPHIA. It's such a nice city! It's like a bigger Portland. Seriously. They have the red streets downtown, and there's a huge park in the middle of the city, and there's even two rivers, including one that divides Pennsylvania from another state (Jersey). And the people we've met have been just ridiculously nice and helpful. The only drawbacks are that it's really difficult to navigate downtown if you don't know what you're doing (just like Portland), and it can be really humid. But it's basically been amazing times since we got here. And I even ran into my customs person (sort of like an RA) when I went to show my dad the college. It was funny...after the tour, my brother said that he actually would like to go to Haverford. (ha ha ha, not gonna happen if I have anything to say about it) I'm not enjoying the vacation as much as I could be, though, because I just can't wait to get to school. I'm so excited!

Alright kids, I hope you're having as much fun as I am.

Current Mood: cheerful

So as of 8 minutes from now, I have exactly 7 more hours left in Portland. Today has been kind of surreal. But wow has this summer been awesome...I can't imagine going off to college in a better state of mind. Closest thing to a perfect summer there is.

I'm really going to miss you...all of you. Really.

Current Mood: bittersweet
Current Music: constitution cd

So it's 1:00 AM, and I'm on just to say that my mom and my friends are absolutely amazing. I don't know how much I showed it tonight (I was pretty tired), but I was so stunned by all that you guys did for me, and so amazed that you cared enough to do it. I really felt loved...I haven't been this happy in months. This was by far the best birthday party I've had in my life. I don't know how I could have ever thought that I could be content leaving all this behind. I'm just heartbroken that I'm only now realizing how much I'm going to miss you...I wish I could have seen sooner so that I could have had more time.

Thank you SO MUCH.

Current Mood: enthralled

T-minus 15 days and counting until I go...

goddamn terrified. What happened to the summer? I need more time...I've been looking forward to this for four (+) years, and now I'm getting scared at the last second. jesus christ

So my idiot college makes me get all these vaccinations so I won't contaminate their crystal-pure East Coast air, and yesterday I had THREE shots, including two in one arm. Except now the arm that I had the hep A shot in is essentially paralyzed and approximately three times its normal size, and now I have to go BACK to the damn doctor's office (it's nothing personal, I just hate doctors) and I bet they're going to run all kinds of tests and give me more shots and then cut off my arm and I'll spend the rest of my days asking my roommates to put deodorant under my left arm. All because of stupid college. I can just picture the exit interview.

"What did you get from your college education?"
"An amputation."

damn you, Haverford, daaaammmmn yoooooouuuuu

Come on you idiot Haverford people - tell me where I'm going to be sleeping next year

So I've been writing entries and deleting them becauses I keep thinking "nobody really cares." Which is pretty much true...I would just make them all private, except it seems to kind of defeat whatever weird voyeuristic purpose there is to this. So whatever, for the sake of just getting it out, I'll tell ya'll what I've been up to - even though there's nothing more boring than somebody else's life. (Especially if it's been going smoothly.)

I guess the big thing lately is the zoo. I have spent just a ridiculous amount of time there - come Tuesday it'll be 10 consecutive days. But oh my god, it is SO much fun being a TL (team leader, for those not in the know - the person sort of in charge of running shifts). Honestly, I'd never realized how much I enjoy having power. Although when I stop and think about it, I only really control a bunch of snotty teens and some goats (which require strikingly similar methods of persuasion). This kind of scares me. I think about Mr. Neal and the power trip he gets out of bossing around high school kids and can (shudder) definitely see myself doing the same thing.

Ok, before zoo people start to freak out, I don't ACTUALLY control anything. In fact, I'm still at the stage where I'm pretending that I know what I'm doing. Interesting story related to that...and by interesting, I mean really really really disgusting, so you might want to stop reading if you made it up to this point. So it was my first morning shift working at the farm. We have to hose down the goat and sheep pens, right? I was so proud of myself for actually remembering this from last year that I got started on it as soon as I could. Thing with the goat pens is that all the water drains into this gutter, which needs to be declogged of grass and crap (literally) BEFORE the hosing so that it doesn't turn into Swamp Feces. Naturally, being a stupid first year TL, I completely forgot that. Oh. My. God. The mess. To be graphic, it was pretty much liquified shit, oh...everywhere. And the absolute worst part was that in order to get rid of the water, it was necessary to stick your (GLOVED) hand in the middle of the whole steaming pile, so that you could yank the clogs out of the drain. Yeah, uh, guess who ended up doing that?

Speaking of steaming piles, I've spent the last week running after second graders as a "junior counselor" at camp. They are just adorable, but they are also clearly lacking in frontal lobe development. Check that, I don't think ANY part of their brain is fully functional yet.

"Hey Taylor (we had THREE Taylors, jesus christ), how about we NOT hit ourselves on the head with our water bottle?"
"It's not a good idea to feed the peacocks crayons, ok?"
"Tell you what, you can run in front of cars all you want as soon as you get home and ask your mother's permission."

(If you think I'm kidding, shows how much you know.)

The kids naturally also got a big kick out of their junior counselor, which they view as sort of a giant chew toy. You can't show any kind of weakness in front of them. This morning I was tired and lay down on the floor for a minute to close my eyes...when I woke up 30 seconds later, those lovely children were going through my pockets. (I bet you think I'm kidding about this too.) I also have bruises all over myself, and NO idea how I got most of them.

In summary, the zoo is definitely THE place to be, and I've been having a wonderful time. Hope your summer has been as lovely as mine!

Current Mood: good

New email address! dstorzba@haverford.edu

(not that any of you actually, you know, email me. I really just was excited about the collegeness of it)

I was going to completely ignore end of the year/graduation, but it's like the proverbial elephant in the kitchen. I did this last year too...what was good and bad about the year. I want to get it down SOMEWHERE.

Starting with the good...obviously the outside stuff. I'm going to the place I want to go for college, and succeeded in the goals I set for myself when I was a freshman. I managed to hold a relationship for more than three months. I developed a sense of self - now it's ok if I'm not surrounded by people all the time. I've been more anti-social, but I like having that degree of independence. I figured out who matters to me the most. I didn't have many all-nighters because I figured out how to NOT procrastinate. My workload was for the most part doable. I stuck to my values a good 80% of the time, which is a significant improvement. I'm really inspired for college and have so many plans. I 99% stopped caring about how I look. I started exercising and eating more healthfully, and I'm getting enough sleep and not schlepping my backpack around everywhere.

The bad...I'm still disappointed in myself. Like Ezra, I guess, I just didn't find my place in high school. For most of this year, I've just felt so alone, and I know it's my own fault. I used to blame other people for not being friends with me, making me feel welcome, etc. I would always tell myself that I didn't fit in because high school kids are not nice to each other, and that once I left I'd be so much better off. Except now...I like to think of myself as not being judgmental, but I judged so many people. (Including many of you guys.) I see now that so many of the people I thought were typical high school assholes were, in fact, good people. I clung to my impressions from middle school and really just stayed bitter about it, while other kids matured and moved on. If I now feel isolated from the rest of my class, it's because of how I behaved.

My big problem is that I don't know how to change it. I think I'm pretty lucky to have friends at all, considering my complete lack of social skills. I'm hoping and praying that if I'm just friendly and nice and change my attitude when I go to Haverford, I'll be fine. I have learned a lot, and I really just hope I'll be able to apply it. That's why I really wanted to go to college with no Lincoln kids. It would be a completely fresh start, no expectations, no prejudice. I knew this year it was too late to undo a lot of the damage that I had done with my actions...because it's so hard to overcome old reputations. I guess what I have to do next year is get rid of old habits that could lead to the same dissatisfaction I had in high school.

I'm still not looking forward to senior breakfast and the all night party and all of that, though. It's just not something I feel like I'm a part of.

Current Mood: indescribable

Two minutes ago, I almost died. I am definitely not kidding. I thought I deleted my entire video project for English. That thing has been in the works for almost two weeks, I have spent every afternoon working on it, and there is absolutely no way I could reproduce it ever again, let alone before the end of the school year. I would have had a heart attack and died - I kid you not. My heart still feels like it's going to explode.

(p.s. it's not that the grade is that big of a deal, or the time (just two weeks of my life that I can never get back, no big deal). But I've put so much research and so much effort and so much investment into this, and I've already promised at least four people I've worked with a video. It's become really important to me...)

I am NEVER EVER EVER leaving a project on a computer without backing it up to tape first again, even if it is only a work in progress.

Other than that, life is great!

(p.s. piece of crap project + piece of crap computer + piece of crap camera = no sleep tonight, dammit dammit dammit)

Current Mood: distressed