You're like Elizabeth and I'm Mr. Darcy
"i check my answering machine nine times every day and i can't sleep at night because i feel that there is so much to do and fix and change in the world and i wonder every day if i am making a difference and if i will ever express the greatness within me or if i will remain forever paralyzed by muddled madness inside my head. i've wept on every birthday i've ever had because life is huge and fleeting and i hate certain people and certain shoes and i feel that life is terribly unfair and sometimes beautiful and wonderful and extraordinary but also numbing and horrifying and insurmountable and i hate myself a lot of the time. the rest of the time i adore myself and i adore my life in this city and in this world we live in. this huge and wondrous, bewildering, brilliant, horrible world." --jennifer westfeldt
Apparently I use other people's words now to describe myself. Which perhaps means that I live generically. Although mostly it means that whenever I sit down to write in a journal there are so many thoughts and fragmented sentences that I feel like I can't express anything clearly anymore.
That isn't meant to be pained or emotional. Life is so fantastic right now. Everyone here talks about being burned out and wanting to go home, but I can't imagine leaving this perfect little oasis of sunshine and talent. I mean, I want to go home, to see my family and eat real food and sleep in my bed. But I think about some of the things I've learned just in the past month: how to sneak into Canada and back sans passport, that the spiny anteater is the only land mammal on earth without REM sleep, how to hold someone's hair back when they're sick, how to strike a break dancing pose, how to do crossovers on rollerskates (and how to come crashing down impressively while doing so), the rules of rugby, why glucocorticoids ruin your life, and how I rarely release them.
I've played several heated games of bridge until sunrise, danced on a boat in the San Fransisco bay, bowled my first turkey ever, played mafia during a power outage, barbecued on the beach, won and lost to everyone I know at various word games, downed my second shot ever because it was "to math." I'm proud to write e-mails to my sister that she recognizes as "true." Actually, I love the subtle connectedness of home and here. Yesterday, I taught several people to play the game that Rick and I used to play at his country club. You jump off the diving board and while in the air, someone calls out an animal for you to impersonate. Rick and I used to do it with Donkey Kong characters because we were video game-obsessed nine year olds and that's what we knew. Animals are better, though, especially when a slightly tipsy rugby champion is asked to be a lion or a "wummpph" noise transforms Alex into a perfect crocodile or Kershena becomes a cute yet threatening T Rex.
It's lovely, too, that Jenna can come and (I hope) enjoy her time with my Stanford friends. I reveled in her realization that "feeling like Catherine reminded her of someone" actually just meant that she instantly felt comfortable with her. It was equally cool to watch Jenna explain her complicated protein research to Kershena who actually understood a lot of what she was talking about, unlike me and basically anyone else you could think of. (It's lovely, though, that I can understand Andrew's planaria research in biochemical terms that I've come to understand during human behavioral biology). And on an unrelated note, Natasha is basically amazing. I thought I should throw that in there because playing Boggle in her room and trying to pretend like I'm actually visiting Foluke consistently makes my day. She has a special place in my heart as my first college livejournal friend, since I can mention Stanford people by name for her and Kershena now.
I realize, finally, that one of the things I like best is that in the same breath, I could tell you about chaos theory or walrus penises.
("Did you know that walruses have giant pensises with big bones in the middle? My dad has one, too."
-Your dad has a BONE in his penis?
"No, I mean he has a walrus bone. On display. In our house.")
To conclude a confused and unwieldy journal entry, two weeks ago, Elie Wiesel came to Stanford. The coolest part was when he spoke his most famous words to us, "The opposite of love is not hate; it's indifference," and conviction radiated from him. I have no convictions about anything, and naturally, then, I can't stand people who do. Or maybe I envy them. To be certain about how the world works; to know that people are free, that God exists, that we perceive things as they are, that love is pure and true, that there is absolute truth and a strict code of morality that transcends human arbitraryness, is to know that your way of living is the best. Despite all of the ridiculous pleasure I derive from being in college, I doubt I will ever have that calm and secure confidence regarding how anything should be.
Apparently I use other people's words now to describe myself. Which perhaps means that I live generically. Although mostly it means that whenever I sit down to write in a journal there are so many thoughts and fragmented sentences that I feel like I can't express anything clearly anymore.
That isn't meant to be pained or emotional. Life is so fantastic right now. Everyone here talks about being burned out and wanting to go home, but I can't imagine leaving this perfect little oasis of sunshine and talent. I mean, I want to go home, to see my family and eat real food and sleep in my bed. But I think about some of the things I've learned just in the past month: how to sneak into Canada and back sans passport, that the spiny anteater is the only land mammal on earth without REM sleep, how to hold someone's hair back when they're sick, how to strike a break dancing pose, how to do crossovers on rollerskates (and how to come crashing down impressively while doing so), the rules of rugby, why glucocorticoids ruin your life, and how I rarely release them.
I've played several heated games of bridge until sunrise, danced on a boat in the San Fransisco bay, bowled my first turkey ever, played mafia during a power outage, barbecued on the beach, won and lost to everyone I know at various word games, downed my second shot ever because it was "to math." I'm proud to write e-mails to my sister that she recognizes as "true." Actually, I love the subtle connectedness of home and here. Yesterday, I taught several people to play the game that Rick and I used to play at his country club. You jump off the diving board and while in the air, someone calls out an animal for you to impersonate. Rick and I used to do it with Donkey Kong characters because we were video game-obsessed nine year olds and that's what we knew. Animals are better, though, especially when a slightly tipsy rugby champion is asked to be a lion or a "wummpph" noise transforms Alex into a perfect crocodile or Kershena becomes a cute yet threatening T Rex.
It's lovely, too, that Jenna can come and (I hope) enjoy her time with my Stanford friends. I reveled in her realization that "feeling like Catherine reminded her of someone" actually just meant that she instantly felt comfortable with her. It was equally cool to watch Jenna explain her complicated protein research to Kershena who actually understood a lot of what she was talking about, unlike me and basically anyone else you could think of. (It's lovely, though, that I can understand Andrew's planaria research in biochemical terms that I've come to understand during human behavioral biology). And on an unrelated note, Natasha is basically amazing. I thought I should throw that in there because playing Boggle in her room and trying to pretend like I'm actually visiting Foluke consistently makes my day. She has a special place in my heart as my first college livejournal friend, since I can mention Stanford people by name for her and Kershena now.
I realize, finally, that one of the things I like best is that in the same breath, I could tell you about chaos theory or walrus penises.
("Did you know that walruses have giant pensises with big bones in the middle? My dad has one, too."
-Your dad has a BONE in his penis?
"No, I mean he has a walrus bone. On display. In our house.")
To conclude a confused and unwieldy journal entry, two weeks ago, Elie Wiesel came to Stanford. The coolest part was when he spoke his most famous words to us, "The opposite of love is not hate; it's indifference," and conviction radiated from him. I have no convictions about anything, and naturally, then, I can't stand people who do. Or maybe I envy them. To be certain about how the world works; to know that people are free, that God exists, that we perceive things as they are, that love is pure and true, that there is absolute truth and a strict code of morality that transcends human arbitraryness, is to know that your way of living is the best. Despite all of the ridiculous pleasure I derive from being in college, I doubt I will ever have that calm and secure confidence regarding how anything should be.