Lately, I don't think of you at all

December 2 - Writing.
What do you do each day that doesn’t contribute to your writing — and can you eliminate it?

I worry. I worry about little things and perfectionism, and I keep them all bottled inside my head until they are so mixed up and so deeply ingrained into my consciousness that I can't possibly put them into words. Or, I don't have the energy to put them into words. Worrying is exhausting.

Mostly, though, I think my mind just operates this way. My mind is always going, and I don't always have the patience to slow it down enough to sort it out. I'm not sure I can eliminate that. Although, what I can do is keep answering questions and prompts like this. These things force me to make some sense. I can also learn to be at peace.

When the story ends, the one that's in my head

So, it's over halfway through December, but I'm going to do these because I want to and I have time. I'll just do them quickly.

December 1 - One Word.
Encapsulate the year 2010 in one word. Explain why you’re choosing that word. Now, imagine it’s one year from today, what would you like the word to be that captures 2011 for you?

I know the feeling I'd like to encapsulate (heh), but I'm not quite sure what the best word is. Let me think. I think I'm going to say LIGHT. This has a couple different meanings. It refers to the rays of light that finally penetrated the dark fog in front of my eyes. It refers the lightened feeling that comes from being conscious and alive, no longer being someone whose every step and action is heavy, sticky, slow. It refers to the removal of pressure, pressure that kept me tightly compressed and cold like a stone.

And what do I want one year from today? So many things, but the word I will go with is WHOLE.

You know what Christine does? She fucking goes to movies alone.

well, there's something I never told you about that night

I talked with ML tonight about our old house. I really, really loved that house.

Once again, I am feeling like being somewhere other than where I am. I want to go back to Korea, go back to Israel, go somewhere with people I love.

I am thinking about how excited I am to go to Nicaragua. But then, I am thinking way ahead into the future, how I want to go to Israel next summer, and how the choir is going to Korea in 2012 and how much I wish I could go too. And when I think about that, I suddenly realize that's in over a year--who knows what I will be doing then? How can I possibly make plans that far ahead? Why restrict my future by deciding that what I want now is what I will want later?

That's something that I still struggle with, and I really want to be able to be led to my future rather than structuring it all out. It's kind of scary, but I can't imagine what God has in store for my life. In fact, it's really difficult for me. I'm a person who tries to do everything at once, and if I want something enough, then I want to make a plan right away so I can get it. That's dangerous when I want a lot of things, though, because then I get overloaded. I also lose the joy of making daily, intuitive decisions--decisions that really have nothing to do with me, but everything to do with what God is showing me.

I haven't been the best lately. Old habits and thought patterns have crept back into my routine, and I feel a little helpless, especially since I know now how much I need other people. I don't have that many people, though. My relationships with others are becoming driven by fear, once again. I fear people drawing away from me, and I believe this to be true.

I think that what I need is to be a part of a group of friends. I haven't had that...well, I suppose I had that at LSM. I need people with whom I can belong. I need to be a part of a group where I would naturally be invited to do things, because I am just one of the essential people in the group.

I suppose I'm saying that I need a community.

I wanna hurry home to you

Sometimes, I really feel like doing these things, and I feel I need to apologize for it, but whatever.

TEN things I wish I could say to ten different people (but don't say their names)

1. I wish I could have known you.

2. I've always cared so much about you, even if it didn't seem like it.

3. I wish you had the same opportunities I have.

4. If you liked me, why didn't you ever do anything about it?

5. We are soul mates.

6. I wish you had been around earlier.

7. I was not well.

8. I want to spend some time alone with you.

9. I wish I had someone who believes in me like you did.

10. I wish I could have known you.

NINE things about myself

1. I still have a tough time telling left from right.

2. I love to dance, though I haven't gotten to do much of it.

3. Sometimes I feel like I'm at a really low reading level--I daydream far too much when I read.

4. My hair has almost always been short.

5. When I am living on my own, I want a whole room devoted entirely to arts and crafts.

6. I want to go into outer space.

7. I would mourn severely if one of my Lamb Chops was lost or ruined. (I was going to say hurt, but...?)

8. I am fascinated with my family history on my mom's side. Something about hearing about people living out on the prairie in the 1800's...it's so interesting.

9. It's really important for me to have a creative and/or experimental outlet.

EIGHT ways to win my heart

1. Desire to live a life centered on Christ--really, fully, consciously live what you believe.

2. Don't think you have to do anything to get my attention. Just pay me attention, and I will reciprocate. (That is, what gets my attention is talking to me. That happens so rarely that when it does, I recognize it as a special quality.)

3. Share my sense of humor.

4. Be kind, positive, not speaking badly about people. Don't use the words retarded and gay as insults--in fact, I think I would swoon if you called someone else out when they did that.

5. Help me when I need it, and accept help from me if you need it.

6. Value creativity and be passionate enough to create things yourself.

7. Have a sense of adventure.

8. Introduce me to new things and let me introduce you to new things.

SEVEN things that cross my mind a lot

1. "I should finish that letter."

2. My relationships with others

3. Plans for this upcoming year

4. "How will I go into outer space one day?"

5. Israel

6. "Why am I always late?"

7. "How will I do all this?"

SIX random things I wanted to mention

1. I like to hula hoop in my living room, and it's sometime happened with no pants.

2. The early morning is so beautiful to me.

3. Drawing chair conformations in organic chemistry isn't all that hard once you get the trick.

4. The best desserts are made with alcohol, but I don't like alcohol on its own.

5. I have this fear of mixing up the search bar and the status bar on facebook, which would result in me posting a status as a person's name, who would then know that I was searching for their profile.

6. Growing up is a fascinating thing.

FIVE people/persons who mean so much to me (in no particular order)

1. My parents.

2. My sisters.

3. My Lamb Chop family.

4. My Grandma, aunts, uncles, cousins

5. Dan, AJ, Kyle, Eric, Brennan, Rachel (i.e., friends)

FOUR things I'm wearing right now

1. Jacket, because I was still cold

2. Silver ring

3. Green hoodie

4. Socks

THREE songs that I listen to often (at the moment)

1. I Walked-Sufjan Stevens

2. Slow Show-The National (wonderful!!!)

3. Carry the Zero-Built to Spill

TWO things I want to do before I die

1. Go into outer space.

2. CENSORED.

ONE : CONFESSION

1. If Sufjan Stevens came to my door right now and asked me to marry him, I would without hesitation say yes.

I was filling out a course evaluation for my Pilates class, and I got to the question, "What did you enjoy most about this class?"

I really, really wanted to put, "Strengthening my core." I didn't.

"Don't be a nerd, Chop!"

So, the other day, I was hanging out with the Lamb Chops, and I was like, hey! I should really learn how to do ventriloquism so I can sit around and talk to the Lamb Chops like Shari Lewis did!

And then I realized that this future ambition was the very picture of insanity. Me, sitting alone at home, having conversations with Lamb Chop.

,,,That said, I still want to learn ventriloquism. Shari Lewis is my idol.

So, I've been a lot more social lately, more so than I ever have been. And do you know what? I think a lot of people were tricked into thinking I was pretty normal, based on the fact that I kept to myself. Now, they are having a rude awakening. :) I am too, actually.

I kind of feel like I'm in middle school--like I need to really figure out a balance in the way I interact with people. It's funny how underdeveloped my sense of interaction with others is, funny to feel so juvenile in this way.

Alternative Identities

Today, I was not Christine. I was Janae, the cash register girl at the Sausage Haus.

I think I'll just leave it at that :)

When the earth was split in fives

It's common for my mind to make connections between things I hear in the classroom and eternity, divinity, the universe, etc. And these aren't even theology classes--they're math and science. Well, for a while, it was mostly just the science classes that got me thinking about the divine nature of the universe, about God. But now? I'm in Real Analysis, and oh my goodness, there's some deep stuff in there!

Really, it's fascinating. It's all about numbers so big you can't even imagine, numbers so big that they don't even exist in a definable form. It's about numbers that can get smaller and smaller and smaller but never be nothing. My mind has just been bouncing back and forth between infinite and minuscule, even combining the two concepts at once.

Take this for example: If p and e are both greater than zero, then ne>p for some integer n. In this property, e is considered a very very tiny number, and p is considered a very very large number. So, this is saying that you can always have a number n large enough so that when you multiply it by a tiny tiny number, you will still get a very very large number. There is always something bigger, and there will never stop being anything bigger.

How about this one: Let f(x)={1 if x is rational; 0 if x is irrational}. The rationals and irrationals are both dense in the reals, meaning that in any interval, no matter how small, you can find one of them. So, you get infinitely smaller intervals, all of which have irrationals and rationals in them. In other words, this graph is an infinite number of points at 1 and at 0 with an infinite number of gaps.

I think that's so crazy to think about! This function exists at every point, but it is also discontinuous everywhere. If it were represented physically, it would be both solid and air--present, but made up of holes.

I think numbers are very mystical in nature, and by that, I mean that it's incredible that the structure of the universe is mathematical. I don't mean magical--I ain't no pagan. I mean powerful, full of secrets.

So, this is what my mind does at 10 AM in class.

Today would not be a good day to forget my medicine.

Although, I'm not sure how I feel. I think it's time to move on.

My uncle says that his son Jack, who is seven, is incredibly concerned with details and logistics. He needs to know all of the steps of what is going to happen and know that nothing in the plan will fail (sounds a bit like me...) This happened yesterday:

Susanna: "Yeah, Christine doesn't eat any meat."

Jack (7-year-old cousin): "No hot dogs?"

Me: "Nope!"

Jack: "Do you eat chicken?"

Me: "Nope!"

Jack: (pause) "Can you still come to my birthday party?"

Turns out that with the mere mention of me not eating meat, he was already concerned whether or not they would have food that I could eat at his birthday party...which is in a couple weeks. He spent the next minute talking to himself, being like, "We could have corn...I would eat corn. Yeah, we'll have corn."

I thought it was one of the sweetest, weirdest things I could imagine a child doing. Man, kids are the best. My family is the best, too.

Bleh. I started describing my recurring dream, but it got too bogged down with details. Let's just say that last night's version of the recurring dream did nothing to alleviate my fears about starting school again.

But I am feeling a little better today. It would just be helpful if I stopped having that dream.

I think I'll go for a walk and try to get some sun. Vitamin D.

Ooh, and "Robin and Marian" by Nickel Creek just came up on my iTunes, and it's making me feel like fall! Oh, fall! October 16 can't come soon enough :)

A few hours later

For a second there, I thought I had posted my last entry to the Lamb Chop blog. That would have been awkward.

But perhaps I jinxed things by writing on this blog again. By that, I mean I am discouraged. You know, I was feeling really great while I was in Israel. I figured it was just due to time--that I was feeling better because I was consistently feeling better every day for an extended time, and that that feeling had just built up and gotten strong. I thought I was feeling better because I'd had time to really think over the ideas of what I wanted to do with my life. I thought I was feeling better because I had lived with hope for some time.

Now that I'm home, though...I realize that a lot of my feeling better was due to being away from home. I'm afraid of being in the same place in the same situations, because how can I prevent myself from being brought down again? Because really, nothing has changed except how I feel. And now I'm starting to feel like I did before once again, since everything is so much the same. It's scary, and of course being afraid does nothing to help bring me up.

I thought that being in Israel had gotten me back on track with who I am. Now I'm discouraged that I seem to be getting off track so easily. It's only been two weeks!

I'm actually really scared.

Alright. I will go to bed. Tomorrow is a new day.

I'm not 18. And I like it!

It's been a little while since I posted on here. I suppose that in many ways, I feel like a different person than whoever I was when I wrote most of this blog. I started it when I was what, 18? And now I'm 21. I know I have changed a lot.

I think I feel a little less compelled to write on here because I don't feel so voiceless and ignored anymore.

I'm really excited to start school again. I mean, when am I not excited to start school? But it tends to happen that I'm excited to start and then get worn out very quickly. I think this year might be different, though. I know a lot more about myself and what I need and what is important to me, and those things are all strong defenses against burnout and depression.

At the same time, it's a little frightening to enter again into the routine that caused me so much trouble to begin with. I don't know how well I'll withstand the stress.

I guess I shouldn't add additional stress by stressing about how stressed I might be. Geez.

But I do have hope. My life is moving on now. It's always been moving on, but it left me behind for a while, and it got out of control. I couldn't find my way back to it through the haze. Now that I can see much clearer, I have caught up again. Well, nearly caught up again. My real life is within arm's reach, I'm sure.

Last night I had heartburn when I went to bed, which never happens to me, so I wasn't quite sure what to do. At first, I thought maybe it wasn't heartburn--maybe I got infected from working with staphylococcus aureus at work that day! Then I looked up a staph infection and decided that wouldn't be even close.

I recalled something about baking soda in water, so I went to the kitchen and tried it, but it didn't seem to work. So, I looked up other remedies. Several people mentioned apple cider vinegar, and of course, I have organic unfiltered apple cider vinegar because I'm a crazy like that, so I went to the kitchen and took a swallow of it.

Baking soda and vinegar. Baking soda and vinegar. As soon as I had drunk the vinegar, I recalled the ever-so-popular elementary school science fair project: the baking soda and vinegar volcano, the volcano that bubbled up in a violent eruption to the jaded delight of children. Oh no. What have I done. I was sure that in a few moments, acidic lava would start to bubble up from the magma chamber of my stomach, travel up the conduit of my esophagus, and produce a rabid, foaming volcanic eruption at the summit of my mouth. I imagined MaryLynn shrieking as she witnessed the eruption, the same kind of shriek that would come if an alien were to pop out of my stomach. I imagined my impending death, death by burning biological lava in my esophagus...if only I had remembered those volcanoes!

Of course, nothing happened. The terror passed. I remembered the second remedy I read about, sucking on a piece of ice, so I did that, felt better, and went to bed. Huzzah!

I was never the type to do a baking soda and vinegar volcano. In fourth grade, I remember that on the day when we had to pick our science fair projects, I decided I wanted to do a project about MAGIC! It was going to be so awesome! But at the last moment, I chickened out. When I was called on, I said that my project would be, "...Do plants grow better in warm soil or cold soil?" At that moment, my "friend" Annie announced to the class, "Duh, everyone knows warm soil." But I persevered in spite of that embarrassment. I'd show them. And I concluded, very scientifically, that plants do in fact grow better in warm soil.

Oh, how my life would be different if I were more courageous! I think that practicality helps people grow up, but courage helps keep people young.

It's more like a starter's pistol

So, at work, there's an autoclave in the lab where I take ATP readings (an autoclave is like a super-hot pressurized sterilization dishwasher, and an ATP reading is where I make dilutions of yeast or E. Coli and filter them through 14 mm wetlaids and then add 50 microliters of CHG and 100 microliters of enzyme to the eluate and the filter and...read ATP...on the com-pu-ter).

The important thing is, the autoclave in this lab frequently makes sounds just like Lucille Bluth's rape horn. And every time I hear it, I smile to myself and I think, "Like anyone would want to R her."

And I have a moment of thinking, who could I tell this to? Like when I had orientation at work, and Phyllis the orientation lady told us that we would be learning so much that day that our heads were, "literally, going to be exploding." And I looked around and was like, really? No one else thinks that's funny? The same thing happened when we watched an introduction video, and before they listed off the key values of the company, there was footage of a guy releasing a bald eagle into flight. I nearly lost it, then felt immature, then felt like I was the only one with a good sense of humor in that room...and by a good sense of humor I mean my sense of humor. So...well. I'll stop there and go to bed.

To sleep, perchance...TO DREAM???

Whoever gets the reference in this entry's title gets...I dunno, gets to make me laugh when I forget about this entry and go off to live my life and then get a message that someone has commented saying they know the reference, upon which I'll remember the reference and laugh, because that's exactly what will happen. And no, I'm not talking about plain old Hamlet here. That ain't funny.

I have been having vivid dreams lately. Last night, I dreamed that I heard the most wonderful song in the world. I wish I remember how it went...all I remember that it had a layered, beautiful melody, the kind of painfully beautiful melody that I love. Also, it turned out it was by Weezer. Random. But I think that part came from me listening to this song on a loop yesterday:



This song is a bit of a deviation from what I usually like, but I love the little wandering melody in there, during the ooohs...what is that, a vibraphone? I dunno. Anyway, but then in the SAME DREAM, I saw the most wonderful movie in the world. This time, it was more subjective to my own tastes--I thought it was my favorite movie ever. But from what I recall from this movie, it was really bizarre and disturbing. I have no idea why my dream self would have loved it so much. My only guess is this: the bizarreness of the movie was so similar to the bizarre nature of dreams, so it was like watching a movie set in my dream world. And I love my dream world, I love to dream.

It's strange to think about me dreaming that I'm watching a movie set in my dream world.

On a side note, that's why Spirited Away is my favorite movie--it feels like a dream I might have. I think that's the kind of creative spirit I like best. I should pursue that...somehow. Lucid dreaming is probably the best way I can think of starting.

Second side note: the projects "Lamb Chops host a foreign exchange student" and "Lamb Chops conga line" are complete. Pictures to come later, plus more Lamb Chop adventures.

And it goes on and on, my friend

Yesterday, I cleaned my room and finally got the desk moved in and took down a bunch of old stuff from the walls. Everything feels so full of possibility now!

But what I really want to do is this. So, a few years ago, I had some pictures left on a disposable camera, so I set up my Lamb Chop puppets in various poses and took pictures. I had "Lamb Chops tea party," "Lamb Chops play marbles," and "Lamb Chops enjoy cards and brandy." I nearly die every time I find those pictures.

I'm inspired to do more. Here are my ideas so far:
-Lamb Chops host a foreign exchange student (guest appearance by that monkey stuffed animal that's in my room, though I don't know where he came from)
-Lamb Chops at the beach
-Lamb Chops climb trees (I was desperate to think of ones where I could get them outside)
-Lamb Chops conga line
-Lamb Chops in the kitchen
-Lamb Chops play hide and seek (Imagine them peeking out from hiding places!)
-Lamb Chops story time
-Lamb Chops play football (Football Lamb Chop running with the rest of the Lamb Chops strewn in her wake)

I suppose these sound a lot funnier to me because I know what my Lamb Chop puppets look like, and they look like someone dragged them around everywhere for years. Don't look at me.

Plus, now I'm remembering the story I wrote in second grade called "Football Lamb Chop." Lamb Chop was a member of the Minnesota Vikings, and I was their coach. They were going to the Superbowl. The story started with me practicing with Lamb Chop, demonstrating that I could use the terminology "touchdown," making me legit. Then, come the day of the Superbowl, I, their coach, had to stay home, home from Superbowl, because it was Lamb Chop's birthday and I needed to make a cake for the party. Feminism. So I sent Lamb Chop off in the toy car and gave her a dollar so she could get a can of pop at the vending machine after the game. A few hours later, when I saw Lamb Chop coming back down the hill in her toy car, tossing the last few drops of her pop heroically in the air, I knew they had won the Superbowl.

For serious.

Oh, and as I recall, there was a little side story about us playing Monopoly, and another about Lamb Chop watching TV and dragging a bag of potatoes onto the couch so I would think she turned into a couch potato. It made for gripping fiction. And can you imagine my illustrations?

And when it lives, it gives it all it gots

I keep listening to this song, over and over:



I've been reading all kinds of books, finally. I went to the library on Como Avenue for the first time. That building has enchanted me for some time now, and it was just as marvelous on the inside as it is on the outside. It was in no way fancy, but it reminded me of a palace nonetheless. I really think libraries are the most wonderful places in the world.

Today I helped out in the garden some, and mom said we would re-pot my cactus. Finally. This is a cactus I got as a confirmation gift, and it has grown steadily over the past...six years? However long ago that was. But it's still in the same tiny pot as always, despite being about three feet tall now. It turned out that we didn't have enough cactus soil to re-pot it today. Soon, though!

Like that cactus, I have grown over the past years, but I have been confined in various ways. Also like that cactus, I am beginning a state of my life where I have been given the opportunity to broaden my horizons, change, thrive.

Perhaps a better symbol for the way I feel right now would be a phoenix. I'm not quite able to fly yet. But I am rising from ashes.

Oh, I just remembered this. Outside a house on my regular walking route, there was some free stuff on the lawn with "PLEASE TAKE US" written on the sidewalk. The next time I walked there, the stuff was gone, but the sidewalk note remained. I liked to imagine that it was intended as a sign to aliens.

Oh! And in just over a month, I'll be in ISRAEL!!!

What's with all the changin' since the time I was aware?

I feel lost. I know, nothing new. But for a while there, things were starting to look up. Now I feel like things are settling back into the same lowness, and this worries me.

I feel like things will be better once the stresses of school are over, but then what? I can't escape from the weight of my future.

Why can't I just get better?

I think Israel will be therapeutic for me. I hope so, at least. Israel is at least one beautiful part of my future. This is what I want to do in Israel: study for the GRE, read a ton of books, read the Bible, swim in Galilee, write, have passionfruit popsicles, lie under the palm trees in the evening. Sigh. You would not believe how much my heart is straining right now.

There's too much love

Things have developed recently.

I suppose this is how I might put how I feel: I feel like my personality was on vacation, like it was just too much to be where it was so it needed to go away for some time. Except it wasn't a vacation, because it got lost. Now, the search party is bringing it back. It's slowly settling back into normal life, picking up the pieces where it left off.

I don't know who I was for that whole time. Bugt now, everything I do, from scratching my eye right now to sitting in class to imagining my future is done deliberately and consciously. Everything is done as ME. I'm a person again.

It's strange but warm. It's very, very strange.

I'll show you the sky

Ok. I'm fairly certain I have a plan (no, a dream) for after I graduate:

1. If I don't go to Israel this summer, I will go to Israel over the summer of 2011
2. If I can, I will continue to work at 3M as much as possible to save up money
3. I will take the GRE or whatever test I need for grad school. I'm so uninformed about these things. I'll probably have taken it already my senior year. Anyway.
4. I will go to Holden Village, probably something like September-February. Maybe longer. Who knows.
5. I don't know what I'll do then. Apply to grad school?
6. Do the Santiago de Compostela May-July

Basically what I'm saying is that I want to do something new, and that I have no real plan. And that I'm dying to go to Holden Village. That's really the main thing I want to do after I graduate. Maybe I'd even stay for a year. Maybe I'd even stay for the rest of my life.

I can't quote anything from the New World Symphony

PLEASE TELL ME IF I HAVE AN INTERNSHIP THIS SUMMER.

I want to plan my escape.

I don't think I mentioned what my 7-year-old cousin Jack said at this year's Super Bowl party. "I'll be right back. I've gotta go do something awesome."

I think the cure for burnout will be making things new again. I've already started with a different kind of shampoo. Well! Halfway done!

Here is a list of things I will do over break (some may look familiar from my Christmas break list)

1. Clean and rearrange my room
2. Put finishing touches on my collage so I can hang it up
3. Make Ukrainian eggs
4. Make clay millefiori beads for decorating things
5. Water my cactus, dang it! (I see it every night before I fall asleep and only remember then, but then I never want to get up to get some water)
6. Walk to Minnehaha (if it doesn't rain one day this week. Geez. Whatevs, I walked today in the rain for a good 2.5 hours)
7. Memorize my lines (that might be ambitious)
8. Get really ahead on biochem
9. Practice guitar
10. Have a bath day

Oh, and I started at 3M today. They're ordering me a lab coat. HOLY COW!

Hurry boy, It's waiting there for you

I know what my problem is now. It's called "burnout," and it's real.

I'm going to try to deal with that now.

First edit: Also, it astonishes me every time I read an INTJ description how accurate that is to me.

Second edit: Also, I think I'm going to listen to "Africa" by Toto about a million times over break.

Birds flying high

Well. Scratch that.

When I met you, I was just a kid

Hmm. In all honesty, I'm kind of grossed out by what I wrote two posts ago. Which, you know, is probably the main barrier I have in regards to relationships. Hah. Yes, I realize that kind of makes me 12 years old. It's also possible that I'm a part of the next stage of human evolution. Seriously. I read a book that said that the X chromosome is constantly attacking the Y chromosome and building up resistance to it. I thought that was kind of cool.

So, speaking of science, I have just been offered a tech aide position at 3M. I will repeat what I said some posts ago, holy cow! This is really, really exciting. 3M. 3M.

Also, we had this assignment due where we had to plan a budget for our first year of having a full-time job and...it was really fun. I'm already an obsessive planner, so this was just the right assignment for me. I imagined having the things I want, namely, a craft room and a piano. It was a nice future.

Good Lord, I have a lot to be thankful for. I have a lot of blessings. I'm glad that I'm in a position to acknowledge that now and am not so weighed down by troubles any more. Because really, I should be able to be joyful. What do I have to worry about?

Well, maybe I won't ask that question, because then I'll think about it and it will cease to be rhetorical.

Oh no. Too late! Stop thinking, Christine!

Let's stay awake another hour!

Here's something that made me laugh harder than I have in a long time:

So, when I was taking geology last semester, Dr. Trapp came to class one day and dumped out a bucket of bones and said, "This is our cat that we buried in our backyard, and I dug up the bones later."

Well, I guess I just went with it. But a couple days ago, I was talking to a girl who is taking physics with Dr. Trapp, and she said that in the back of the lab there's this fur that they use as a conductor in experiments. She said that one time, she and her friend laid out the fur...

...and it was in the shape of a cat.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Look for me another day

Now that I'm healthier again, I'm finding myself with all kinds of spare energy and desire to...do stuff. Yeah. That's why I'm sitting here on the floor in the living room at 5:30, still in my pajamas. Well, you know what? I have no response to that. Except that it's Saturday, and I've been baking things all day.

I'm not going to talk about my future right now in a "What should I do?" sense because I've exhausted that topic, even though it's still what I'm typically thinking about.

I have a lot of half-finished entries. I just realized that I didn't end up writing about: things I don't like about the modern world, profanity, how I tend to make things up, the day I went on a walk and discovered poems in the sidewalk, and questioning the reason for me to be writing on a blog. These are all things that I've been thinking about. But since I haven't reached the stage of completely abandoning this blog because of my opinions about the internet, I'll just keep on keeping on. Thumbs up!

Maybe I will talk about the future. When I was barely 17, I went to a palm reader (at the Renaissance Festival, no less). It had nothing to do with believing in palm reading, but it was more a combination of curiosity about what the palm reader would say and a deep desire to be reassured about my future in any way possible. I was feeling about like I am right now--impatient to let the future come to me and wanting to know the story of my life so that I could make the right decisions.

Actually, when I think about it now, what I wanted to know most was whether the whole not wanting a relationship thing was real, or if I would end up finding someone who fit with me. Sure, family/friends might say things about how there was someone out there who was a good match for me, but that's not what I was thinking about. I wanted to know whether I was being true to myself in not desiring relationships, or whether that would be a temporary attitude.

Anyway, not knowing how to express this without coming across as completely abnormal, I blurted out something about being afraid of being alone. The palm reader just laughed and said of course I wouldn't be alone. She looked at my hands and said she saw children in my future, 3 or 4. Then she said that she was more worried that I would get very serious and involved with someone at a very young age, without much experience.

And I thought, "..."

That kind of dampened my desire to know anything more about my future, for the time. I couldn't imagine me getting really involved with anyone period, let alone at a young age. I didn't think I was so foolish. But when I think about it now, this prediction makes perfect sense for me. If I were to get involved with anyone, it would obviously be both serious and without experience, simply because I would only be interested in someone if I were serious about them, and I am not serious about anyone, so I won't have any experience until that happens. You know?

But the question remains as to whether that will actually happen (And at a young age. How old is young?). I am not particularly biased one way or the other, just because I can't think about wanting someone I don't know yet. However, I think I am lucky because from what I know about myself, I will know as soon as I meet this person. It will not be love at first sight. It will be "I can see that I will love you in the future" at first sight.

Why will I know? It will be like looking in a mirror. Our lives will run so parallel that the similarity will become pronounced in our bodies, and I won't be able to tell which of us is which. We will be complimentary colors. We will sound as a chord. We will diffuse into each others' lives so that we were together all along, just not face to face until that moment, since we will both be timeless and ageless.

(aside: I think that really says a lot about narcissism, ego, and androgyny, right there.)

At least, I imagine that's the only way I would find someone. And that's why I haven't been interested in a relationship with anyone I'm around. Plus, I have a sneaking suspicion that I'm way too naive and can't think realistically about something like this yet...

Yes, this is all incredibly naive. But at least I'm not naive enough to assume that it will happen.

I don't remember why I wanted to write about this. I've been getting in the habit of writing really long entries, which is maybe a indication that I'm starting to think of this less as something for others to read.

Oh. P.S. The microraptor presentation went really well.

Whatever words I say, I will always love you

I'm getting the itching feeling again to travel somewhere, especially on a road trip. I was thinking about how fun it would be to take a road trip to St. Louis, just to go to the City Museum. I just remember being totally on board with the whole thing when we went there last spring. We got into the museum, and I saw a hole in the wall, and I thought, "I'm gonna crawl into this hole in the wall. What's stopping me?" And that attitude prefaced nearly everything I did that day at the City Museum.

But a road trip...staying in motels, seeing the landscape, stopping at gas stations...is it really weird that I love gas stations? Probably because I've never had to actually fill up a gas tank, so I still associate gas stations with a novel experience during a road trip (with the potential for buying a special treat).

Also, it's far too early in the semester for me to want the week to be over already. Maybe it's just this week, though. I've got some exciting things coming up. I'm interviewing for a lab position at 3M (holy cow!), but I'm a little worried about how that might fit with my schedule. Research has been fun so far. I'm slowly getting better at the guitar. I'm very excited for Carnival.

I got my script today and looked at the music. It's a sweet show--I love Lili's interaction with the puppets. Also, I love the end--here is Lili's line:

"...I've been living in a little girl's dream, not seeing anything except what I wanted to see. Not that dreams are bad to have...it's just that there's a time for them to end. Like there's a time for going to school, a time for losing our parents, a time for falling in love with a beautiful magician, and a time for waking up. And we just have to learn each time to say...'This is over. Now go on to the next thing'...I guess it's something nobody can teach you, Marco. You just get older...and you know."

On a side note, I've always disliked when people automatically say things like age doesn't matter, because I think it really does. I think this because a person's "true age" depends on not only their experiences, but their level of comprehension of those experiences. Thus, the older a person is, the more experiences they have had, but a younger person might be at an "older" level if they have a high level of comprehension of the fewer experiences they have had, or can think reasonably about possible experiences. Anyway. I just don't like when people say that, since age is a component in a person's "true age."

But right now, I think I'm in the unfortunate circumstance of being in between times, as Lili describes. I feel like I'm already saying, "This is over," but I can't go on to the next thing because it's not actually over. And by it I mean school, or maybe just the position my life is in right now. That's probably playing into wanting to travel.

I know I talk about this all the time, but the thing is, I can't tell whether it's related to being unsure about the path I have chosen or whether it has more to do with my age and position in school. In any case, it's probably annoying.

Anyway, I have to prepare a presentation about microraptors.Bet you weren't expecting that!

And some hearts are ghosts settling down in dark waters

Often when I'm riding in a car, especially on a long trip, I start feeling like I just want to keep riding and don't want to arrive anywhere. I must like feeling like I'm in limbo or something. Or maybe I start feeling like the car is more home than any other place, so I just want to stay there. Who knows. It's funny that suddenly I think of that, as I was going to write about my ambitions and possible goals in life.

But really, when I think of what I want to do, I feel like I have hardly any specific ambitions. I can't commit to anything in particular. I've been praying for guidance and for a path to be revealed in some way, hinted at. However, I know that I have to be open and willing to listen, which I am not very good at doing. I am very set in my ways and my own schedule. Sometimes I think about all the paths I could have taken--what if I had stopped to say hello to those people, what if I hadn't stayed in the library that extra hour, what if I had gone to that show--did I miss something important? But I do everything so according to my own plans that there is little room for outside interference. I don't let things happen to me.

But I've got to let go of some of that control because I'm sure there are things out there that are beyond my plans, beyond my imagination.

There is one thing I know I want in my future: a big craft room, where I don't have to put away any of my stuff--a table for Ukrainian eggs, a sewing corner, clay, wax, paper for collages and origami, stained glass if I can learn to make it. Oh, and I also want to go into outer space. That's pretty ambitious, I suppose.

I know I've written about stuff like this before--last time it was around my birthday, as I recall. And now it's...well, technically the day after my half-birthday. Which reminds me, I have library books to return.

Let's have two spotlights shining, with all our work shown

Susanna, I hope I don't make you too homesick in reading this. But I was just thinking about all the times you and ML and I have had to sing for things and haven't been able to stop laughing, either while practicing or on the unfortunate occasion, in performance. Remember the awful Gaudete incident? And the lyrics to In the Bleak Midwinter? And a long time ago, at LSM, when we had to sing The Song of Hannah, with "Shmuel?"

I don't know what it was about singing with you guys that made everything a billion times funnier. I mean, when I played Popeye, there were any number of occasions to laugh, and others did, but I can't remember ever breaking character.* Maybe I've grown more serious, or maybe it was just my general lack of humor as of recent, but I think it has more to do with the company. We were probably also really easily distracted whenever dad was trying to go through music with us. Plus, I think the fact that we were always a little on edge in those rehearsals didn't help anything. Haha.

Whenever we are all three together again, we should record some stuff.

*Oh man, remember Grif? Was that with two f's? Griff? I don't remember. What I do remember is "red, red, blue" and him saying that he would come and drag us off stage if we broke character. And now I'm just thinking of all the times I have broken character during rehearsal and narrowly prevented breaking character on stage. Oh...so many memories! That's really one of the best parts of performance, isn't it? The relationships and memories you form with people along the way, just out of the process of creating something.

Hmm. I'm trying to imagine the same thing coming out of a career in science. It's hard for me to imagine because I don't think I've ever experienced it. And maybe that's what I'm afraid of losing. Well, if I get an internship this summer, hopefully I will find an answer. If not, I will go to Israel and find other answers :)

When your thoughts slip from their chains, you can come to me

This is how it's going to end, isn't it? This thing that has had a hold of me for the past year, now that its relentless grip on my mind is weakening, is throwing its last punches in the form of physical affliction, namely a nasty cold. Which I can easily handle with a bottle of Nyquil and a day spent catatonic on the couch, stifling sobs through Anne of Green Gables.

It makes we want to laugh. So I will! Why not! Ha ha! Ha! Ha!

That said, I'm still not fully back to normal. But I've taken the first steps in that direction, and that's the all it takes, really.

And already in these first steps, I've gained some perspective, for once in my life. At the least, I'm out of my head.

I feel fine and I feel good, I'm feeling like I never should

I've been writing a lot lately. But I used to write about things that were at least vaguely not stupid. I know I've been out of sorts this semester...but I think I'm slowly coming back to consciousness.

I've been thinking about fate and the nature of coincidence. We were at a museum in Gyeonggi, and there was a little room with no English explanations on the displays, so I grew more interested in the floor. Hah. Well, the floor was really cool. It was transparent and had little specks of colored light scattered randomly so that it looked like stars in the universe. As I looked, I saw that it was actually made of several layers of glass, each containing specks of light, which created the illusion of depth. And as I looked more, I realized that every layer had the exact same pattern of lights, but the distribution appeared random unless you looked directly down on the layers. Then you could see a straight line of lights in the layers. Hmm, I feel like I'm describing this really badly and that some floundering hand gestures would help my representation.

Basically, I saw that there appeared to be a random distribution of stars in this universe, but if you looked at the right angle, there was order. Things fell into place. The stars were aligned. And it was like that all along, but you had to be in the right place to see it.

Perhaps fate, coincidences, and the like work the same way. An order is laid out, but it is a rare occasion when we see the mechanism or purpose behind that order. We are merely in a seemingly random, coincidental universe, but our view is limited.

At the same time, I've never quite known what to think of fate, since I believe that God gave us free will because otherwise we would just be puppets. We wouldn't have a real kind of life that God would delight in. It always seemed to me that fate would diminish free will to some degree, but maybe I'm thinking about it wrong. Maybe fate and free will are not mutually exclusive.

Furthermore, I have a tough time thinking too much about free will because it seems too centered on what we can do, and that sounds like a dangerous idea according to my Lutheran upbringing. I don't know, I haven't thought much about fate and free will before, perhaps for this exact reason--I haven't known how to think about them. So all of these ideas are in the development process. In thinking about fate and coincidence, I also have to think about the nature of time, which brings in a whole other unexplored realm.

What do I think right now? Well. I'm thinking that if a person is true to her calling, to who she is, then she will find a path where there are no coincidences, only what is meant to be because it could be no other way. But it can't be so selfishly centered--I think a person needs to be in tune to her place in a greater context than her own life. I think that may be the area where fate and free will collide. I suppose that fate may be just another way of looking at a person's purpose in life.

I might look at this later and think it's way off track. I'll keep thinking about it. I've got 16 hours on the plane to do that. Hooray! Hopefully I can get something else done besides just thinking, though. I'm often too easily distracted by my own thoughts.

I dove into that freezing sea, with a parasite attached to me

I love going for walks in the winter when it is cold and snowy. The coldness and whiteness everywhere makes me feel as if every flaw of mine is taken away, purified. I feel some veneer of perfection.

Then I go inside and look in the mirror and see that all it's really done is make my nose pink and freeze my face so I can't smile for a couple minutes. But it's nice to have that chance to pretend.

I forgot to say--I really like taking walks here in the mountains and woods behind the university. It's crazy though, because there are these exercise machines just set up along the path. It's so surreal to come to the top of a mountain and find a setup of weights and elliptical machines. We got to one place where there were a bunch of giant (really heavy!) hula hoops hanging from the trees. IT WAS AWESOME.

And I don't know where the sunbeams end and the star lights begin

Do I have something to say? Not really. Except the following:

Why have I never listened to Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots until now?

Why have I not been eating vegetarian any more?

When I was little, I used to think that 'puke" was spelled 'peuk.' That's still how I see that word in my head.

I kind of want to read "The Politics of Stupid" by Susan Powter. What a crazy.

And finally:

"He said they would go after someone stupid in our family, that could be Buster."

"...Could be Gob."

It's been troubling me that I compared myself to Zooey Deschanel's character in (500) Days of Summer, since I hated her character so much. Really, there were only a couple aspects of her character that reminded me of me. So when I was watching it, I felt like I was watching a movie about myself, but if someone misguidedly attempted to make a character out of myself.

In conclusion: me=not Summer. No. Not at all.

But I keep thinking of that movie! It sucks! Every time it pops into my head, I just try to think of Stardust instead. Hah.

I'm sure I had something better to say. Susanna and I have agreed that we like the way Korean guys dress. Their pants are like skinny jeans for guys, but in a classy way, not a 'you're wearing girl pants' way. I don't think I've ever seen any guys dress like that in the U.S. Maybe some do, and I just don't get out enough, or I don't pay attention to guys enough. Either way, at least 2/3 of that statement is true.

Gee. I'm sick of myself. I need to not write anything here unless I have something to say.

Oh yeah. We walked by this art museum the other day, and there was a sculpture of a giant orange traffic cone, and my dad slipped and fell on it.

Be just who you're made to be

I was trying to look back on 2009. My journal wasn't very helpful--it contained a few sparse entries from January and February and then skipped to September. Terrific. I'm sure I must have written things in those months, but they're in other notebooks other than the ones I have with me here in Korea. Really, I'm not sure 2009 was anything I want to look back on. But without further ado, I will attempt some of the survey questions I answered last year on this blog. It's good to kind of synthesize things, however arbitrary it may be at this time. And these are not necessarily things from 2009, but things that I experienced for the first time in 2009. So, you know, it's all about me.

Favorite Books: The World According to Garp, The Screwtape Letters, The Good Earth, East of Eden

Favorite Movies: What did I even watch this year? Oh, Star Trek. The Orphanage still haunts me...geez that movie is creepy. Oh, and speaking of creepy, I saw Jacob's Ladder as well. Oh, and Hair! NOT (500) Days of Summer, which I saw on the plane and HATED. I think I just don't like Zooey Deschanel. But I was annoyed because her character in some ways reminded me of me, but her character seemed so manufactured. I don't find anything charming about a manufactured version of myself. Or the real version of myself, for that matter...

Favorite Music: Clap Your Hands Say Yeah (self-titled album), The Helio Sequence (both albums), Wolf Parade (especially the song Modern World), Carry the Zero by Built to Spill, any Sufjan Stevens that I hadn't heard before (Enjoy Your Rabbit, A Sun Came, The BQE, and all the new stuff from the live shows...especially the new stuff), Pneumonia's Deathbed by my own friend, Kyle (aka Uncle Jemima)

Favorite Memories: finding out that I was going to Puerto Rico, sitting on the roof listening to Kyle play guitar, tap dancing in Dames at Sea, being in The Tempest, the day we hiked to the waterfall in Puerto Rico, going to the highest point in West Virginia, prank night at the Jansky Lab, the Sufjan shows, coming to Korea, watching The Swan Princess with ML after she'd had too much wine, the City Museum (oh man, how could I forget!), driving out to West Virginia and staying at the cabin in Chattanooga

I guess there was more goodness in 2009 that I remembered. Or actually, more accurately, these are the few rays of light in an otherwise gray and heavy year.

Looking at the few entries in my journal from January and February, I was really surprised at something: I ended the year with almost the exact same issues as in the beginning. Feeling worthless, hating the TV, growing more convicted of asexuality.

It came full circle. But I don't want to repeat 2009. I kind of think things may be looking better, though. For one, I'm really trying to break my pride and need for control. Mom says that the fact that I've come to this point may mean that God is trying to open my heart. I believe her. God knows what I need, and it's different from how I'm trying to live.

I was trying to remember if I'd written about my bike accident. That didn't happen in 2009, but it's still relevant. You know what I remember most about it? I didn't cry until they said they were going to call my parents. At that moment, I broke down, since I was so upset that I had been in an accident because I felt like an inconvenience.

I suppose that's the issue--that if I can't rely on myself, or if something interrupts my independence, then I feel like an inconvenience or get really anxious. I don't think I can live with this mindset any more. And I need God's help. So maybe the issues of 2009 will be a thing of 2009 and not 2010. Well, I think I'll always hate TV in general. I don't have a problem with that, though.

I believe things will change.