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.