My parents are a state away and the drama as already begun.

Mugh.

Another paper. That won't finish. And I have a cough. Hack.

IT WILL BE DONE!!!!!

Dear the Saints of Academia,

Please allow this to be my last all-nighter ever. Until next Thursday. Or a doctoral program (HAH! would rather SHOOT myself in the face).

Love,
Flagging Sanity a'la Kat

I'm excited to pack up my life and organize all my shit into boxes.

Doing so would make life seem like it made more sense.

I haven't slept properly since last Friday. This paper won't finish itself. Because I can't finish it!

FAILURE.

I'm so goddamn tired yo.

A sense of curiosity is nature's original school of education - Smiley Blanton

Saw this quote while browsing SFUSD's site for jobs. Become depressed. Stopped.

Back to work.......

Got a perm.
On Thursday.

Can't. Wait. To. Wash. My. Hair. Today.

Today I was talking to some friends in the NYC subway tunnels when my hearing went hallow and my voice began to echo against the walls.

I felt as if carefully constructed reality was cracking and I was experiencing what a lie life all is.

I hate people.

Everyone is expendable, but no one is replaceable.

The former is a state of mind, the latter, a fact of life.

"To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one. Not even an animal. Wrap it carefully with hobbies and luxuries, avoid all entanglements and keep it safe in the casket of your selfishness. But in the casket - safe, dark, motionless, airless - it will change. It will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable".

C.S Lewis

So.
Incredibly.
Tired.
Hate.
Life.
School.
Papers.
Microsoft..... word.
IN.
COHER.
ENT.

And the truly special thing is that this situation is that the paper I'm working on is only 10% of my grade [HEY DUMBASS STOP TRYING AND GO TO BED] and I've already gone way past the page limit.

Ph.D. studies, not on the horizon for a long long looooong time.

Also. Why? Really now. Why?

I've been listening to a lot of John Mayer and actually thinking he knows what he's talking about. NOW it's a problem when you begin sympathizing with John Mayer and going, "yeah man, he knows his shit. he's real. he knows what's up. That's what he's talking about."

omg make it stop.

"Wrong how?" I murmured.

"Don't you see? It's just not possible for one person to watch over another person for ever and ever. I mean, say we got married. You'd have to go to work during the day. Who's going to watch over me while you're away? Or say you have to go on a business trip, who's going to watch over me then? Can I be glued to you every minute of our lives? What kind of equality would there be in that? What kind of relationship would that be? Sooner or later you'd get sick of me. You'd wonder what you were doing with you life, why you were spending all your time babysitting this woman. I couldn't stand that. It wouldn't solve any of my problems."

"But your problems are not going to continue for the rest of your life," I said, touching her back. "They'd end eventually. And when they do, we'll stop and think about how to go on from there. Maybe you will have to help me. We're not running our lives according to some account book. If you need me, use me. Don't you see? Why do you have to be so rigid? Relax, let your guard down. You're all tensed up so you always expect the worst. Relax your body, and the rest of you will lighten up."

"How can you say that?" she asked in a voice drained of feeling.

Naoko's voice altered me to the possibility that I had said something I shouldn't have.

"Tell me how you could say such as thing," she said, staring down at the ground beneath her feet. "You're not telling me anything I don't know already. 'Relax your body, and the rest of you will lighten up.' What's the point of saying that to me? If I relaxed my body now, I'd fall apart. I've always lived like this, and it's the only way I know how to go on living. If I relaxed for a second, I'd never find my way back. I'd go to pieces, and the pieces would be blown away. Why can't you see that? How can you talk about watching over me if you can't see that?"

I said nothing in return.

"I'm confused. Really confused. And it's a lot deeper than you think. Deeper... darker... colder. But tell me something. How could you have slept with me that time? How could you have done such a thing? Why didn't you just leave me alone?"

Goofiest looking dog I've ever seen. HAHA.

The story is a tad goofy as well

A first sign of the beginning of understanding is the wish to die.
- Franz Kafka

Hello 2009. Goodbye 2008.

I'm not sure what the new year will bring (besides what looks to be a heavy load of credit card debt to compensate for my ever dwindling grad school funds), but just as 2008 was a year of change, 2009 will be a year of growth.

2008 I moved on from my old life in San Francisco to a new one in Cambridge, but never did I have a feeling of maturing or growing beyond my limits. True, I had graduated from undergrad with much fanfare and hurrah, but I was essentially staying in the same place as before: student, broke, under the mercy of my parents.

2009 is the year when I will graduate from formal schooling for good. While I do expect to go back to grad school, either for another masters, doctorate or an administrator's credential, I really feel like my life is moving forward, not simply staying static as it has been. I'm going to break the mold of what I've been doing for so long, and I'm eager for that development. Eager to have my life begin.

New year, new challenges, new beginnings. I'm moving, physically and emotionally, and it's a good place to be in. The world can come crashing down around me, but after June there's very little I fear. Even then, I'm in a far better place than I have been for the last 22 years of my life and simply for that, I'm regarding 2009 with a fair yet cautious bit of promise.

It's snowing.

Friday: Started this afternoon, went to Boston Commons with Vivian. Got all wet, realize snow melts once you're indoors.

Saturday: Wore vans to walk to the square, which was a bad idea all around. Almost fell on my ass multiple times and finally came to understand the concept of "dirty snow", i.e. snow trampled over so many times it turns black and slushy and looks like ice vomit on the sidewalk. Came back and tried unsuccessfully to make a snowman, but ended up making snow angels and laying on the ground watching the snowflakes come down through the branches of a tree.

Sunday: Walked to Porter in the middle of a "blizzard" (psht, they exaggerate). Foot shot through 2 feet of snow pile, not cool. According to my RA, today is snowman snow but I'm too lazy to go out and try again.

I can never get anything done at home, but it's pretty nice to spend a night somewhere besides the freaking library. I bought a new floor lamp so my dreary room is well-lit and somewhat more welcoming. But I still can't neglect the fact that I didn't get anything done :\

Fridays. You want to take the day off, but in the spirit of finals, it's difficult to neglect the work awaiting you. Deadline of doom. Still I took a fat ass cat nap after my qual presentation, and dawdled about Harvard Square after dinner. Purchased xmas gifts, felt smug. Declined plastic bags left and right, brb trying to save the planet (but succeeding terribly with my new floor lamp).

Overall, simply looking forward for everything to be over. I'm eager to shift and sort through my presents, as this will be my last Christmas on a student budget. Xmas '09, people are going to get fucking diamonds from me.

Seriously I might just do it.
Small diamonds
But still.
Diamonds.
Only for the people I like though.
So like, 2.

Ironically, I thought Boston/East Coast would be in full swing with the holiday spirit but I honestly think that Christmas back in LA was a lot more festive. Maybe it's just the rampant materialism running amok the heartland, perhaps it's your local Westfield festooned with signs of the holiday buying season, but overall I don't really get a sense that it's any different here than in September, except it's just colder. The only physical difference I've noted in the Square is the erection of a Christmas tree and some banner lights.

The Boston Common's Christmas tree is laughably small. If I was hideously deformed with an overactive pituitary gland, I would be taller than that tree.

I myself am made entirely of flaws, stitched together with good intentions.

- Augusten Burroughs

And this made me think of my brother

If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph:
THE ONLY PROOF HE NEEDED
FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD
WAS MUSIC

- Kurt Vonnegut