relief!

For a while, I was feeling so lost. My life seemed completely out of my control…classes were sucking, life was overwhelming, and the end of this semester was nowhere in sight.

Recently, though, things have really been looking up! Although I’m still way to busy to be writing this right now, I just can’t hold it in!

First and foremost…I worked my ASS off studying for an orgo test that I had last Friday, and I just found out this morning that I made an 88! As in, a B+! As in, 2 points away from an A! As in, 16 points above the average! My professor has this thing where he awards the two highest grades and the one most improved grade with cookies, and with my 29-point improvement I made the most improved award. I know it’s silly, but those cookies tasted damn good. I am just really, really proud of myself and I feel like I can definitely take on these last few weeks.

On another note, I think I’ve decided to go to graduate school for neuroscience instead of medical school. It’s been on my mind since I’ve been working in this neuro lab for the past two semesters, but now that my research in that lab is really coming together, the idea of doing research full-time is actually sounding like a really cool idea. I’ll probably post more about this later since it’s a pretty big decision…but basically, I’m not sure that medical school, and then the life of being a doctor, is something that I really want for myself. I think that I like the idea of being a doctor, and that in an ideal world I would be a really good doctor; I might be able to better achieve those ideals through research, though. Just a thought. I still have time to decide!

Well, that’s all for now. I have to go study bio/write an abstract for my research paper/read some neuro papers/prepare a presentation…It’s going to be another busy week, but at least it got off to a good start!

study.

Ugh. I am in the middle of studying for my second orgo exam of the semester. I hate it so, so, so much. I know that I could do well in the class if I could actually find enough motivation to actually care, but I just honestly can’t spend my time staring at flashcards of such worthless information. I am at a particularly low point at the moment. I just feel like I am writing stupid reaction after stupid reaction, forming page after page of lines and dots and arrows that will never really mean anything at all.

I think that this is definitely a time for one of Kateryn’s “Good Shit” lists…

1. Today was Beatles day in my History of Rock class! Lots of fun!

2. Harriet (the monkey that I work with in the Neuro lab) wasn’t a devil monkey today! Lately she’s been really feisty and has even come close to scratching me, which has been turning my weekly visits to the lab into a very stressful experience. Today, though, I put her in a smaller chair that gives her no space for reaching me and everything went smoothly! That was a relief.

3. In Women’s Group we’re singing “Hit Me With Your Best Shot,” and I really like it. I especially like that I get to sing the contralto part, so I’m belting out my best man-voice. Yesss.

4. I think I did well on the Mental Disorders test that I had this morning! I really like this class. I think I really enjoy classes like this that focus on the clinical aspects of neuroscience. I like seeing how things on a molecular level are relevant to human experiences like learning, memory, emotions, etc. When there aren’t any people involved, I get bored…(*cough* orgo *cough*).

5. This isn’t from today, but I had a really nice weekend! Casey and I went shopping on Friday. Valentine’s Day with Sam was absolutely perfect. Before too long, it’ll be time for spring break, which means Tour with the choir, which means a ton of fun. When I think about the big picture of my life like this, I guess orgo is pretty much the only thing  isn’t wonderful…so I suppose I can quit whining about these stupid flashcards and get back to studying…wish me luck!

sunshine!

Yesterday was beautiful. It was that first day of warm weather that has some kind of strange, magical effect on all of campus, causing everyone to behave like an eight-year-old at recess. I love it! Alumni Lawn was packed with frisbee players and sunbathers, and one group of people had even constructed a makeshift hammock in some nearby trees! I don’t think anything can go wrong on a day like that. Casey and I commented on how it kind of felt like we were living on a hippie commune or something.

Speaking of hippies, yesterday I made friends with a woman named Sheila who works at Nectar, the organic food store on campus. She has dreadlocks and always wears really cool bandanas over her hair. I’d seen her before, but yesterday, after she politely warned me that the almond butter that I was about to purchase would set me back a ridiculous $20, we ended up having a really nice talk and I introduced myself. She told me that when she was young, she used to have an imaginary friend named Angie! Weird. We also talked about  how she has a theory that we are overpopulating the earth, and that the horrible diseases that plague humankind are the result of nature fighting back. Anyway, it was the kind of random conversations in life that I really enjoy. It makes me happy to know that you just might meet a really cool person anywhere you go, and when you least suspect it.

great day!

It’s only 3:30 pm and this day has already been more perfect than I could have ever imagined!

• The weather is absolutely perfect: 60 degrees and sunny. I wore flip flops!
• Bruegger’s was serving their delicious butternut squash soup that I have been craving for a year!
• On a whim, I decided to check out Ticketmaster…I found out that Flight of the Conchords is coming to Nashville in April!!!!!!! Tickets go on sale this week! (Also, looking ahead, the concert is on April 10th and I have absolutely nothing on my calendar for the following week…and the next weekend is Rites of Spring!)
• Casey bought Mario Kart for her Wii!
• I don’t have any tests this week, so once I finish my bio lab I can just relax and enjoy the rest of this wonderful day!

today

THINGS WORTH SMILING ABOUT: History of Rock is a great class. Had lunch with an awkward freshman who is in choir, and it turned out to be a pretty good time. I’m getting the hang of things in the Auditory Lab.  Finally got my butt to the rec, and I had a great workout. THIS.

stuff.

Funerals sure have a really funny way of accentuating the best and worst things about life. I flew home this past weekend for my grandfather’s service and when I arrived at my grandma’s apartment that night, I was greeted by all but one member of my paternal extended family. This is no small feat. My dad is one of six children, all of whom are married and have at least one kid. In all, it was a total of 25 people in the tiny living room, lounging in chairs salvaged from my grandparents old house (bits and pieces leftover from the late 60s that have still, to the chagrin of most of the family, managed to survive) or perched upon temporary folding chairs. It was a pretty overwhelming sight, especially after having travelled for most of the afternoon, but I couldn’t help but smile to see all of these people together for once.

The hardest part about the weekend was seeing my dad so upset. My dad is the kind of person who can fix everything. He cracks my back if it hurts. He knows exactly how to fix my computer when it freezes. But this time he needed the fixing, and there was nothing that I could say or do to make anything any better.

These past few days have been strange for me. I guess this has been my first real experience with death, as a mature person, and it’s been pretty hard to accept that one day someone can be functioning absolutely normally and then the next day they’re just gone. It makes me nervous and thankful and sad and confused all at once. I don’t believe in any kind of afterlife. I don’t believe that there is anything more to life than the blood running through my veins, the synapses firing in my brain, the accurate transcription of the genes inside my cells, etc. It’s terrifying to think that the balance of life and death lies in these microscopic mechanisms, that one wrong turn can ruin it all, and that there’s no second chance. I guess that this weekend really just made this concept into a reality. You can talk all you want about life, but I guess it’s really best defined by what it’s not.

I guess I’m just rambling here, but I needed a place to sort out my thoughts. I’ve been thinking a lot about life and how, as cliche as it may be, it’s so important to live every day to the fullest, though maybe not like it’s your last. When I got back to campus on Sunday, I had to hole up in my room and do some power-studying for an orgo test that I had on Monday. In an utterly depressing moment, I realized that if I died the next day I would have spent the last day of my life waiting in an airport, talking to a cab driver named Daryl, eating a microwavable dinner, and memorizing the structures of various ethers. I don’t want to live with that kind of mindset, though. You can’t really measure a whole life in a single day, anyway, can you? So between the great days, the bad days, and the so-so days, I guess just want to be sure that after I’m finished with the next 80 or so years of my life, there’s still, somewhere, something good to show for it all.

EDIT: In the spirit of celebrating life, I think I’ll steal an idea from Kateryn. I’m going to try to start a daily post of good things. Starting now!

THINGS WORTH SMILING ABOUT: Snow this morning. Bio test went well. Talked to my Grandma on the phone. Dinner with my friends Jimmy and Chan. Successfully painted my nails with a French manicure.

loss

My grandfather died this morning. I called him “Grandad.” He was 81 years old, and he died in his sleep. Something to do with his heart. My dad had texted me to give him a call some time this afternoon, and I wasn’t free to call him until I was on my way from the lab to choir rehearsal, so it was in the bitter cold that my dad took a deep breath and told me. He was right…there was no easy way to say it; it didn’t matter if I was crying alone in my room or in the middle of campus.

Grandad was tall, but had a soft voice that I had heard him raise on only a few occasions. He liked to wear button down shirts with a crumpled tissue in the breast pocket and very loud pants. The red ones were for the holidays. In the past few years he had become increasingly immobile, relegating himself to the armchair and television in his bedroom. The room was dim, the television always showed the most relevant football or basketball game, and more recently, his oxygen machine hummed from the corner. I never quite knew how to make conversation with him. While my grandmother could pin me to my seat with her talk for hours, Grandad was her silent counterpart.

When I last visited him over Christmas break, though, we talked for longer than usual. It must have been sometime after New Year’s, because my brother and I were taking the Christmas ornaments off of the tree, and I know I mentioned Vanderbilt’s victory. We talked about the New Year’s Day rose parade. He had been there, some 70 years ago, he reminded me. That’s when he met Shirley Temple. I had heard the story from my dad, but I don’t think Grandad had ever told me about it himself. His father was a football coach whose team was competing in the Rose Bowl, so my grandfather was able to attend the parade. Shirley Temple was there, and since she was right near his age, they posed for a photo op while playing Chinese checkers.

That day, I told him that I would call more often, and I didn’t. People always say things like that, I guess. He told me that he was proud of me. As he always did when we came over to help fix a meal, take out the trash, or even just visit, Grandad sighed that day and said, “Well, I sure don’t know what I’d do without you all.” Well, I sure don’t know what I’ll do without him. Goodbye, Grandad.

soundtrack to my resolution

Like most people, I have vowed to make some improvements in 2009, and like most most people, those improvements include exercising more often. I really don’t mind working out once I finally get my butt to the gym, especially if I have a really awesome playlist on my iPod to get me through my 45 minutes on the elliptical. So…in the spirit of the new year, I’ve decided make an ultimate work-out mix! Woo!

1. “Warm It Up” -Girl Talk. The title says it all!

2. “Touch Down Turnaround” – Hellogoodbye. It’s such a great song with an awesome beat! It actually reminds me of the time(s?) that Kateryn and I went running at Riverside a few summers ago, so it must have been on my list back then, too!

3.”Glow” -Alien Ant Farm. Is it just me, or is this song really hot?!

4. “See You Again” -Miley Cyrus. My favorite guilty pleasure…love her or hate her, you have to admit that it’s a catchy song!

5. “88 Lines About 44 Women” -The Nails. I’m not really sure why this one always ends up on my running mixes, despite the fact that it’s got a really nice beat. Other than that, I’m just in love with this song!

6. “I’m Shipping Up to Boston” -Dropkick Murphys. Um, so I have no idea what they’re saying half the time…something about losing a leg? Nevertheless, crazy Irish rock definitely pumps me up.

7. “Music Is My Hot, Hot Sex” -CSS. I love these crazy Brazilians, and I love that the lead singer’s name is Lovefoxxx!

8. “Two Girls” -Paranoid Social Club. For some reason this song reminds me of high school. Was one of our friends obsessed with it or something?

9. ”Typical” -Mute Math. This is a really good song! If you haven’t seen the music video, go check it out…they learned to play the entire song backwards so that it would look right when they reversed the film…!

10. “Through the Fire and Flames” -DragonForce.  YES.

 Any other suggestions?

in fond memory of my faithful planner

Today I ran out of pages in my 2007-2008 Moleskine Weekly Notebook. It was a strange realization: flipping through the past couple of weeks that haven’t required any scheduling at all, finding Sunday, January 4th at the bottom of the page, turning to write down the time of my flight tomorrow, and then finding that the neat little rectangle for Monday, January 5th didn’t exist. Suddenly, the planner that had carried me through so many hectic weeks was obsolete. I honestly felt a little helpless. This planner had faithfully kept all of my calculus assigned problems and suffered through repeated notes and reminders (“Call about getting the DVD out of the AC vent!!!!” and “Declare Major!!!!” can be found for multiple consecutive weeks). It held to-do lists (buy present for Nicole, write Merchant of Venice essay), shopping lists (coat, rain boots, cereal, mug, safety pins), and even a list of things that I hope to do before I die (1. Fall hopelessly, helplessly in love. 2. Write my novel. 3. Travel to Italy. 4. Discover something. 5. Live in a city. 6. Be a mother.). I couldn’t deny that the lovely leather cover was well-worn and the edges were smudged with pencil lead and multiple colors of ink. It was clearly time for me to move on, but the more I flipped through the pages, the more I realized that this once-elegant little notebook represented my past in a very real way; tossing it aside to ring in a new year and a new semester would be more meaningful than I could have expected.

Even so, I am looking forward to purchasing a new, though identical, Moleskine Weekly Notebook for 2009-2010. I’ll open it up and write my name where it says ”In case of loss, please return to: _____ ” on the first page. On the next line, the Moleskine reads “As a reward: $ _____,” and I had filled in “good karma ” in my old planner. I probably still won’t be able to offer much more than that in the year ahead…some things don’t change. However, some things do, and I can say with certainty that my new Moleskine Weekly Notebook will be right there with me for every step of 2009 to see those changes and record them in a sophisticated and organized fashion, week by week.

So much to do, so little time!

ending ’08 in style…

With only a few more hours remaining in this calendar year, I thought it would be appropriate to recap some of my favorite discoveries and surprises of 2008 in the world of music and style:

5. Vanderbilt football ends on a high note! Okay, so I must admit that I’m not the biggest football fan, and this is totally unrelated to fashion or anything, but with our first bowl win since 1955, a victory over BC was a pretty big deal. And it just happened, so I’m still pretty pumped.

4. Cross-body bags. They succeed in being so wonderfully practical and so effortlessly chic at the same time!

3. High waisted skirt + wide belt + t-shirt = rocking outfit. Inspired by an Urban Outfitters catalog, this look became one of my favorites of ’08.

2. The Sartorialist. Such an awesome site. I secretly aspire to be featured in one of these inspiring and elegant photographs one day… 

1. Fleet Foxes. Their debut album has been raved about on almost every single “best of 2008″ list. The vocals are stunning. The harmonies give me goosebumps. The lyrics are simple and poignant. I can’t wait to hear what they do in 2009!

(Attempt to upload an mp3 of their music was unsuccessful…will try again later!)

That’s all I have for now. Time for some New Year’s Eve celebrations!