Leeds

So, once in awhile people pose silly questions like "What's your dream show?" Well, I just had my dream show figured out for me. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the 2009 Leeds Festival. I'll probably be buying my ticket this weekend, and I have every intention of going, so if anyone would like to go, let me know. And no, this isn't a "omg lets go to englandddd" type of thing. This is like, yes, I'm really going, and let me know if you'd like to join me. I think I'm going to hole up with some friends of mine who are spending the summer bumming around Europe, and this weekend is going to be an incredible incredible time. Amazing bands, amazing country, hopefully good weather, and a whopping 1-8 drinking age. So, so excited for this summer.

This isn't really relevant to today but all, but just to let you all know: every Monday and Wednesday I have to go to my internship which is deep in the heart of Boston. For this, I have to wake up at 6:45 or so, usually after staying up until 2 or 3 the previous night getting work done, and when I hear the annoying alarm on my computer, like most days, I don't want to get up at all. The only thing keeping me from staying in bed all day is the view from the subway when it passes over the Charles river, between the Kendall and Charles/MGH stations. I used to look out across the water at the buildings full of people starting long days or ending long nights, and think about how amazing it was, full of wonder. Now I look out and see the tall buildings cast reflections in the water, kissed by the red light of the rising sun, and I think this is a new day. This is home.

Published

So, today was a pretty exciting day. I'm finally getting my job and housing situation fixed up for my summer in Boston, and I learned that the issue of the Ivy Journal of Ethics that my manuscript is being published in was finally released (click on the picture below and skip ahead to page 29). I'm not totally sure how deserving I am of this, but I'm nonetheless really happy and honored to get published, considering how young I am.



On another note, I have had an awesome first week back; luckily it's been a pretty easy week because my mind is still mostly on spring break. I went and saw The Cake Eaters, which was really good, and I've just overall been catching up on some sleep, catching up on pleasure reading, and enjoying myself. I won't give any names to protect the innocent, but I was totally exploding with empathetic joy the other day because a close friend of mine finally went out with this adorable girl that he's liked for some time. It put me in such a wonderful mood, I really enjoy seeing other people happy, and it put me in a much better mindset about pretty much everything. I had a really great break surrounded with great people and great friends, and I genuinely couldn't be happier now. Awesome week.

Oh, and tell me what you think about my article. The whole issue is replete with incredible work, so check it all out.

Skeletons of Skeletons

I've been concocting this plan,
equal parts illogical and elaborate.
It involves me traveling 1000 miles,
going to one of the places I hate the most,

And completing a series of impossible tasks

all for a chance to say hi to you

and to see what would happen.

Hunger hurts, but starving works, when it costs too much to love.

Crash Love

So, it's that time again: AFI is hard at work on their eighth full-length, and as usual are involving their fans pretty extensively in the process. They recently had this contest called Begin Transmission, where they allowed fans to record short videos and the winners were lucky enough to come do backup vocals on the new record. Also as usual, the buzz and buildup surrounding the new album has given rise to a familiar tingling and excitement in me and I'm sure in others. Waiting for a new album by a band that has been in your life for so long is an experience that is hard to describe, an almost unquantifiable sense of longing and just plain jittery excitement.



Similar to other areas of life, true lovers of music all have "that" band: the band they heard when they were young, the first band to open their eyes and hearts, to enter their minds and lives in a way that art never has before. Initially this first love is sloppy and exciting and ridiculous, inciting decisions to go vegan or dye your hair pink or change your religion, and at first it seems impossible to imagine parting with this feeling, to ever not be irrevocably in love with this band. As time goes on, things change, although not completely. Maturity kicks in, the idea of never parting with a love may start to seem short-thought and immature, you may even not listen to them for long periods at a time. Even during these periods, at times when you may not like a band as much on the outside, or when they might be making decisions that make you shake your head and wonder, one quick look at an old concert ticket or a picture or even a quick thought to how their art changed your life will offer that sharp nostalgia, a drop in your stomach and a smile that won't easily fade. Even at these moments when you feel so far from that part of your life, when you may claim to feel the same way about another band or when your thoughts and habits have completely changed, the unshakeable fact that they changed your life at one point can never be taken away from you. Cynics may look back at these youthful moments with disdain, only being able to see the mistakes and blunders pervading this portion of one's life, but remembering this kind of love will more than often always be able to open one's eyes and reignite the fire in their heart, triggering a longing that can either be shrugged off as unrealistic nostalgia, or accepted and cherised as that small part of everyone that refuses to grow up, in the best possible way.

Once in awhile, "this" band will re-enter your life, if you let it. More often than not, the ability to let this kind of love back in will come multiple times in someones life, if you're lucky. And if you let it back in, despite the changes and disappointments that may have occurred along the way, you'll realize that it never really left.

And never will.

So, I'm currently buzzing with excitement; I just got off the phone with the lab manager at Harvard's Moral Cognition Lab, where I'm pretty certain I've nailed a spot for this summer. I really can't fully convey how excited I am about this using 78 keys on a keyboard, without doing something really ridiculous. Like this: eofuqhw4[othergheiarughleiaurgh9ai5hiuk!

Anyways, aside from that one upper, I have a big chem test standing in the way of me and my spring break. This past weekend was amazing though; I had what may or may not have been the craziest Monday night of my life, and I blew off a sufficient amount of steam to focus for this last week before break. I get home really late on Friday night, and I basically plan on going to sleep and waking up on Sunday or Monday.

So, after falling asleep with the windows open and a cool breeze filling the room with fresh air after a balmy day, I awoke this morning to a snow-covered campus. Schizophrenic Boston weather, I'll tell ya what.


Soon the snow that's falling now
at midnight this first day of spring
will melt eventually and go.
The snow, the leaves-well, everything-
brings disappearance with it.

I suppose one day I'll go to bed
and not think of how your hips
and arms
and eyes are set.
They say it will happen soon.
I wait.
It hasn't happened yet.
- Susan Minot

Man, this afternoon and night was exactly what I needed. Cambridge never looked more beautiful, reopening old wounds, drinking coffee and looking at everything with open eyes and a peaceful mind. Despite the nagging in the back of my mind telling me that I was lying to myself, I've proven myself right. I AM happy now, in the most important way. Excellent weekend.

Untying ribbons on every tree I see

So, one of the most stressful and hectic weeks of my life has finally come to a close, and mostly I'm just glad that I survived. Friday night I celebrated by taking the comic book nerd side of myself out of it's little jar and let it take over, by fully geeking out about Watchmen. I was slightly bummed about the changed ending, but aside from that, it was incredible. It completely enfolded me for nearly three hours and made me forget about the world outside of the theater, and I was more than happy to spend some time letting my mind enter another world. Awesome awesome movie.
Yesterday was a really slow day, I did 12 dollars worth of laundry that I'm still folding and putting away, and got some work done. Adam busted into the room at 1am with a bottle of champagne in hand, ordering me to come with him to the cast party for the show they just finished putting on. I did as I was told, and ended up having a great night, although I didn't end up sleeping last night, since I had to be ready at 8am to have breakfast with my Aunt and Uncle. Overall, this was a good weekend. Bryce comes over later today, so I'm going to try to get the rest of my work done before chaos ensues. Looking forward to a less stressful week and then coming home.

I'll finish updating this later, but for now: I'm so, so tired of one-way friendships. Blaghhh

So, yesterday I was very pleased to have my extreme nerdy side explode with joy because of the date, 3/3/09! Bulgaria's Liberation Day? No silly, square root day! There hasn't been one of these since 2/2/04, and there won't be another one until 2016, so it's clear why these are a supreme cause for celebration. Before the turn of the millennium, there wasn't a square root day since 1981! Also, this particular day just compounds what is already a super-mathematical month (March is, of course, also home to pi day, 3/14). This pi day I'll be at home, so hopefully I'll find something exciting to do. During high school, pi day was always marked by a "pi-eating" contest, and a "recite as many digits of pi as you can" contest. I attempted to memorize as many as I could every year, but there was always that guy who could rocket off 300 digits at abnormally quick speeds. Oh well.
It's been a couple weeks since the last gratuitously geeky gala, which is more for the computer science nerds, a group which I definitely don't purport to be a valid member of. February 13th was 1234567890 day, which marked 1234567890 seconds in Unix time since the Coordinated Universal Clock started in 1970. Nice, right?
Anyways, because of my midterm schedule I wasn't able to partake in any of the traditional methods of celebration for square root day, but if you decided to make a boozeday tuesday out of your square root day (as I'm pretty sure a few kids were doing in the library last night), hopefully you took a shot or two in the honor of Euclid and Pythagoras.

In other news, you can sleep safely tonight knowing that you narrowly escaped death a few days ago. Doesn't that just make you feel warm and fuzzy? Not to mention the fact that NASA didn't notice it for two days. Interesting...

Anyways, today has it's own significance as well, but I'll spare you. I had a killer migraine last night that resulted in me going to sleep probably earlier than I have in two months (12:30), and I should be studying right now, but of course I'm not. So, I'm going to go do that. In the meantime, relish your nerdiness, cherish it, water it and keep it in the sun, and it'll pay off eventually.

Last night was the first night in a long time that I had a dream that I know that I'll always remember, and whether or not it comes true, it put me in the perfect mindset to face today and the next crazy week and a half before I get home.

Man, so I'm sorry about the gratuitous posting in the last 24 hours, but it's just hard not to be in a good mood on a snow day...in March!





Now, finally off to hopefully make some productive use of the day :)

Here's to snow days, no responsibilities today, and just being able to relax and drink tea and read in bed and not care. There are always ups and downs to any day though, and more than anything right now I'm just tired of being lied to. So many people have just been kind of telling me what they think I want to hear lately, and I'm just ready for some honesty.

All that being said, today is the perfect start to what's sure to be a stressful rest of the week.

Do I push it down?

I just have to keep reminding myself that there are ups and downs to everything, and even though right now is certainly a "down" time, things will get better. This next week is going to be ridiculous, but I have a good weekend ahead of me and then I'm essentially home free until spring break. I'm holding my breath, but I think I've already seen that a lot can happen in a little bit of time, so for the moment I'm just choosing to avert my gaze, remain fixed on one thing and finish out this last stretch of time before I go home.
This weekend has been pretty alright, but I really don't feel very much desire to just recapitulate everything here. I'm just tired in a very general sense.
But anyways, today I received two news stories that had really conflicting effects on my faith in society. The first, news that the Jonas Brothers 3-D Concert Experienced had tanked at the box office, instilled some much needed hope. Then of course, I saw this:



Aren't we supposed to be done hearing about police brutality? Sure, I saw this when I was already in a bad mood, but it was completely disgusting to me. I don't really know what to say, about anything. Just kind of speechless.