I'm ignoring the top left circle in this diagram for a little while

and I'm not even gonna front; it's really nice. 

Reblogged from freedom fighter.

Now don't worry. I'm not saying I've sworn off love forever and will never look again. I'm not saying I'm done with relationships or [once I enter the real world in a concerningly short period of time] dating either. I'm just saying that right now I've found a happy balance with the rest of my life by putting more time into focusing on the bottom circle, and ignoring the top left without neglecting the top right. I'm learning a lot about myself and redefining what I think is or isn't okay, which hey, is what this whole development in college thing is all about. I want to spend time making sure that the people who matter to me won't disappear from my life after graduation this time around. I'm also having fun exploring my sexuality and my nature as a sexual being. And school is generally going well and I feel way less stressed than I'd previously have expected this year would feel. So...I've changed a lot over the course of this semester. But don't be alarmed or concerned. Don't think I'm secretly depressed and just passively letting things happen to me. I'm actually doing hella good.

Routine and the Never-Ending Quest for Balance

I had lunch with a good friend of mine yesterday, and I realized that I hadn't had a legitimate conversation with him since before classes started, despite the fact that we live within a 5 minute walk of one another and have a large mutual friend group. Talking to him felt almost nostalgic, and took me back to times freshman year when I was so welcome in his room I might as well have been one of the roommates. And then I realized there are other friends I actually haven't talked to except in passing since last semester. I have only seen/hung out with one of my 6 ex-roommates in the last three weeks. There are some very good friends of mine on this campus with whom I only interact via Facebook. What kind of friend am I? When did this happen to me? And how?

And then I realized that I basically do the same thing every day. I wake up, I go to Quad, I go to class (if it's one of the three days I have class), I go back to Quad, repeat the previous two steps as often as necessary until dinnertime, eat dinner, chill at Quad, and then if it's a work day, go to work. If not, be at Quad until it's time to go to bed, lest I have a meeting or something that requires I be elsewhere. 

That means I see Quad people. And people who are in my classes. And occasionally people who are in the same non-Quad clubs as me. And...basically no one else. 

How did I used to see people? Ah, we used to eat together in dining halls, and who you were eating with was a big deal. There would be texts and agreements and waiting. It was kind of a big to-do. But those days are over. And most of the friends I never ever see aren't in eating clubs, so eating with them would require using one of my two guest meals a month (which go SO FAST) or...going to a dining hall. That's only really cute for breakfast/brunch, haha. 

But...I guess I'm going to have to start going to dining halls. Or find out what my friends from my life before Quad do with their free time and start doing that with them. Once upon a time I just sat in people's living rooms and chatted. I...miss my friends. I don't want to lose people BEFORE graduation (or after either, but that seems less feasible...).

This makes me wonder what else I'm missing out on due to my routine. Not only seeing my friends, and all the laughs and thought-provoking conversations we might have had, but perhaps developing other friendships further, perhaps certain events or outings, perhaps...I'm not sure, but I think it's interesting that that which makes us happy may also be working directly against other routes to happiness. There are no takebacks for time passed, and thus doing something you love works directly against opportunities to do other things you might love. Conversations you have and time you spend with one person can bring you great joy, but are simultaneously preventing you from spending time with someone else. Can there be room for spontaneity within a daily routine? 

I suppose what I'm struggling with here is balance. It seems like that will be the keyword of my senior year. Balance. 

It's fall break and I've done work every single day, but even now I can't find the right balance between work for class and work for thesis and work related to seeking future employment. I wanted to get so much more done than I've gotten done, but I can only keep thesis-ing through tonight, or I won't finish my reading for next week's classes. I want to implement thesis Fridays Friday mornings/early afternoons to help keep me working on long-term goals as I meet short-term requirements, but I don't know if that plus breaks is enough for this semester. And I'm good about getting applications with established deadlines in a few days before they're due, but what about positions that are "open until filled" or have rolling deadlines? I wish I could take like, a 24-hour period off to just tweak cover letters and send my cover letter and resume to all the jobs that just require that, but there always seem to be more pressing concerns. Balance.


I'm taking four classes right now, because I thought it would be better to front-load my senior year so that in the Spring I'd have a very light classwork-load and could devote two or even three days a week to Thesis. That was a great plan, until the Course Offerings list came out and there are WAY TOO MANY AWESOME-SOUNDING CLASSES for me to pick just two. I've whittled my list down from 12-ish to three classes that I feel like I absolutely have to be in, but...I only need two. Now, I could drop this class I'm in now that I never go to and am not at all invested in, but am currently getting an A- in. The class has two more papers and an exam, though, so that current A- doesn't mean much. And if I dropped it, I could devote the time I've been devoting to doing those readings/Blackboard posts/papers/studying to thesis this semester...but I'll have dropped a class I'm getting an A in. And is three semi-intense but REALLY REALLY INTERESTING classes senior spring a good idea anyway? Didn't I want to finish my thesis and then get drunk every day? Balance.


My friendships with people I've known my whole life are taking the backseat to my friendships with Princetonians as we all get pulled in different directions. It's so easy for each of us to just lose ourselves in school and work and those networks of people--when we hang out, like I did with two of my pre-Princeton besties last night, everything is great, but we can lose each other in the meantime. I realized last night that I haven't even told T or S about my mom being sick, whereas K and E hear about how scared I am all the time. (K even looked up some info about it on the internet, since he's doing cancer research for his thesis and knows way more than I do. He's a sweetheart.) Balance.


When I used to play Tony Hawk Playstation games in high school (I want none of your judgment), I used to try to rack up these sick combos by doing a bunch of flips in the air and then landing into a grind on a railing or a fence or the top of a ramp or something. And I remember there was like, this little meter that would appear on top of your character when you were grinding, to represent how you were balanced, and there was a green zone of safety and red zones of death (well, falling and losing your combo score) when you leaned too far to either side. I need to find a way to lean to that I'm in the green on all of my meters. Because right now it's Fall Break and I took exactly one night off to chill and have fun. Right now my shoulders are always tense and I can't quite seem to loosen up. I need Balance.

Living for tomorrow

Rarely do I make my dad say "Wowwwww" without having made reference to some Princeton-related or -inspired incident, such as running into Forest Whittaker or the array of mouth-watering options my eating club had for dinner, but I elicited such a response from him on Saturday when I was talking about the jobs I've been applying to. He was shocked that it's job-application season already, and asked whether I was just getting a head start--I had to tell him that no, I actually came into the game pretty late, and there were some deadlines that had passed before I even started looking. Then I started getting into the specifics of three places I've applied so far, and when I told him about how these were "real-people jobs" with salaries and benefits and vacation packages, he couldn't handle it. Seeing my senior portraits was one thing, but considering things like health insurance and paid time off made my impending graduation seem concrete for him, finally. 

I spend sooooo much time right now thinking about the future. I suppose that, on the surface, doing these job and fellowship applications isn't incredibly different from the internship and research program applications I filled out sophomore and junior years, but symbolically, these have so much more weight. Those applications were to find something to do with my summer; these are to find something to do with my LIFE next year or (most likely) two before going to grad school. Shit's important. And I'm putting a lot more thought into it; paying close attention to descriptions and seeing not only whether I can visualize myself in a certain environment performing certain tasks, but also whether I can visualize myself enjoying such a life. I'm cutting the bullshit and not applying to positions that don't meet my standards. I'm searching more comprehensively and casting my net more broadly than ever before. Basically, something's wrong if I go a day without doing something that's ostensibly for 7 months from now, at the earliest, and I'm finding it easier to put effort into these things than into, say, my reading on ethnic antagonism in Yugoslavia for my Race and Ethnicity class.

One of my favorite blogs, The Write Curl Diary, posted the following quote today: 

"As you seek new opportunity, keep in mind that the sun does not usually reappear on the horizon where last seen." 

~Robert Brault

I must remember to be creative in my search. I must be proactive. I must keep myself open to the possibility of possibilities in unexpected places. I'm playing a grown-up version of hide and seek, and I'm not going to find anything if I keep looking only in the most obvious and/or traditional of hiding places.

This has been my desktop background for the past week or so. Now is the latter time.

And I'm not the only person who feels this way, it seems. I was chatting with a friend on Facebook earlier, and when I asked him what was new in his life, he said it was all about the hustle, trying to go out and get "it". It's another friend's birthday, and instead of posting a status about how he's tearing up Hong Kong, he just posted this:

"Now is the time to capture the future."

Kudos to him, I thought. What a great thought-scape upon which to construct the next year of one's life. 

But then I remembered high school. Particularly my junior and senior years of high school, which arguably revolved almost solely around capturing the future. I remembered the clubs I participated in/ran without actually enjoying, the parties I didn't go to, the relationships I didn't have, all because (I'm over-simplifying here, but go with me) I was too stuck on tomorrow to remember to give a shit about today.

So while I'm chasing opportunity and sowing all these unpredictable little seeds of possibility, I must remember to concern myself with the present with as much vigor as I concern myself with the future. I can be neither fulfilled nor prepared until I find an appropriate balance.