sample first day conversation

me: hey, it's great to see you again.
person: yeah, same here. did you know your eyes are all red? are you on drugs? dani, i've told you those things aren't good for you...
me: yes, i'm aware. allergic conjunctivitis. caused by pollen, ragweed, etc. not drugs.
person: ewwww, get away! (while jumping a step backwards)
me: not contagious. hence the allergic.
person: well you look really bad.
me: thanks.
person: you should wear your sunglasses indoors today.
me: yeah. (putting sunglasses on)
person: you look funny.
me: thanks.

and, repeat.

new semester, new personality

in reconvening with my school friends yesterday--which was oh-so-glorious (more on the CRP love fest later), unsurprisingly, the conversation stumbled into how the next semester would be treating us. we've been through the emotional rollercoasters, breakdowns and neurotic fits of rage and bouts of hilarious laughter for no explainable reason, and we bonded through it all. but what is to come of the next 3 1/2 months of our lives?

my first semester, i was happy social girl. onto one party and then off to the next. i loved school and thrived.

into the second, i stressed myself into a pit of despair. five tough classes, ta'ing for an extremely demanding prof, design competition, and writing a proposal for my internship which still has yet to end. oh and maintaining a relationship with scotty? yeah. you could say i cried.

summer i was overwhelmed. struck by everything nyc had to offer and confused about where i ended up in life. not sure i had ever experienced a feeling people call 'loneliness' and not sure how to handle it once said 'emotion' was identified. got a slight obsession with soft serve and gilmore girls.

and fall? it's my favorite season, hands down. i'm predicting OCD mode. i've got a thesis to write, which means many many hours on my own schedule. i've got a few more activities to juggle, and i'm striving for a more balanced life. iCal is already my best friend. i've got six different calendars with six different to-do lists....and counting. it's a brilliant application. i'm going to have almost every hour of the day accounted for...that includes eating, sleeping, and chill time. it's like what i used to do as a child. no really, at age 9, this is what my daily schedule looked like:

6:00am Wake Up
6:05am Take Bath (we didn't have a shower)
6:25am Brush Hair
6:30am Blow-dry Hair
6:45am Curl Hair
6:55am Eat Breakfast
7:10am Pack Backpack
7:20am Make Bed
7:30am Get Bus To School

and then somewhere between then and now i became a person who hasn't made her bed in like three years. the word rebellious my mom might deem too much of an understatement.

so here's to hoping i won't rebel against my attempt to become my 9-year-old self again.

food for thought

"A 'change in heart' is in fact the alibi of people who do not wish to endanger the status quo."

George Orwell, in reference to Charles Dickens' ability to provide harsh social commentary on the Victorian era without renouncing the entire system of tyranny

(to understand the context more, read this article about To Kill A Mockingbird)

chew away.

bookshelves

okay, really. you know that whenever you go to someone's house often times you find yourself wandering over to their bookshelf to judge explore their book collection. i know i certainly do. but it's just so much fun, because the books people own can say a whole lot about who they are--their personality, their interests, their guilty pleasures (in my case...john grisham. eek. i said it.)

scotty and i have an extremely eclectic book collection. it's not like we have everything from proust to homer (which neither of us own). but. we both come from fairly religious households and cultural backgrounds that are at times starkly different than the world in which we now live. which is pretty academic and full of smarties. i think that our bookshelf is a good analogy for our the current state of our relationship. full of contradictions and often uneasy with the other.

noticing that friends often make a beeline for my bookshelf when they came over, i decided to make it entertainment. i strategically placed the communist manifesto next to the bible and darwin's writings next to 'the case for faith' (author who devoutly argues for Creationism). i'm not sure if anyone even noticed it or got a laugh but it was hilarious to me just to know it was there.

scotty has been reading a ton of theology books this last year, and those are heavily represented on our bookshelf. we are in different places as far as our theology goes right now, and he gallantly offered to put his books on the bottom shelf, or in a totally different place to spare some potentially awkward conversations with my friends about my faith. at first i was relieved--i mean come on, i'm not exactly a john piper fan or a calvinist.

but really? i decided not to care. we are who we are. in that spirit, i rearranged yet again, in my favorite organizing system: color coding. looks nice doesn't it?



i like how it turned out. yes, now people can see our copy of investing for dummies out in the open, but damn, that bookshelf looks cute. i may have left a few funny juxtapositions for laughs when i get desparate for comedic relief--oh freud, how did you make it next to love and respect? hehehe.

Merchar aka Mom

My mom is awesome. I just got off the phone with her. We talked for almost 4 hours. At home it is standard to sit on the "north courtyard" at my parents' house with either a cup of coffee or a glass of wine and discuss life with her for hours.

She likes to analyze you and herself. She is full of contradictions and I let her know that all of the time. She is the reason I am me in so many ways. She encourages me to be a feminist even though she is not one. She is inwardly feisty yet extremely, annoyingly, self-deprecatingly meek and humble. She encourages me to question things that she cannot or will not herself. She knows the importance of coming to your own conclusions and not accepting things at face value. She questions many things about herself--although irritating at times, it has shown me the importance of openness and honesty about yourself, maybe to a fault. She is infamous for her probing questions.

Sometimes her naivete about the world is a little shocking for someone of her age and intelligence. But then she will text you and sign off with 'lol' and you wonder if she really is that naive about the world and pop culture or if she just feigns innocence for the fun of it. She doesn't like to be called a closet liberal despite her views on foreign policy and the war because she voted for Bush twice and really likes Sarah Palin (I don't believe it, but I'll respect her wishes begrudgingly.)

Most people really like my mom. In high school my sisters and I had some friends that would come over just to hang out with her instead of us. Maybe because they really needed a good therapy session and she will analyze you without you even realizing it. People who don't like my mom are just shallow and don't get her and it's really too bad because I think she is often misunderstood. Possibly because she's so full of contradictions that you have to get to know her to take it all in and appreciate the confusion for what it is and not try to fit her into some silly box that you've contrived.

We call her Merchar and I have no clue why. But that's just our family. The original Merchar was actually a siamese cat we had for like 15 years, Milo. Most pets of ours usually start with one name and end with a completely different one. That's mostly Monique's doing. Just ask her what her latest name is for her husband. Or don't ask, if you don't like hearing peoples' pet names for each other. Yvette doesn't really. Nevertheless, we call my mom Merchar respectfully and lovingly and her license plate is even 'MERCHAR'. So if you ever drive by my mom just honk and wave and she will probably freak out that a stranger just did that (even if she knows you, her vision is horrible and she won't recognize you) and she'll then try to analyze later why some random person on the freeway would do such a thing.

I love my mom.