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Solitary, excruciatingly boring duty post on work study shift at dining hall.
People-watching at its finest.
K, the girl who I spoke to the first week of school. Always wears a forced smile; no one notices. I do. She and I have talked a few times. She never remembers my name. I wish her the best because there’s no helping someone who doesn’t want to be helped. A and T (ha), the sophomore couple who I first met separately as I made the audition circles of the a cappella groups I didn’t, then, know were so notoriously elitist; she was in the group whose callback I accepted; he in the group whose callback I desired most and did not get. They are notoriously elitist. They are frosty. They are heartwarming to watch. I smile as they walk past, she half a head taller than him, alto and tenor, unlikely and amusing pair. They know each other better than the other does. S, the perpetually frazzled but always smiling one, gorgeous and tall for being who she is, too many responsibilities. My entire hallway, it seems, files past where I stand in a cliquey procession, calling greetings and joking about perpetually standing here.
You know the temperature’s dropped when the once-gooey mud puddle on the side of the pavement crunches under your feet.
“Meow!” comes from the other side of the road, and I stop and turn, staring. “You!” I call back. “You don’t even live in my room anymore. Don’t talk to me.”
My erstwhile roommate grins at me from across the street, racquet slung over her shoulder, on the way to practice. “I was just back at the room,” she says, “and I was sad. I was like, Meow’s always supposed to be there!”
“And you come the one hour I’m not…” I say, trailing off menacingly.
She gives a non-committal shrug. “I’ll see you later,” she says, and we part ways.
Oh, people.
A clamor outside reaches my ears; I stand on my chair to crane my neck at the window and I see the sky in wing-shaped dots. The flocks of Canada geese that have been milling about the field outside my window for the greater part of the last week have taken to the air once more, and there is half a minute of vague V formations cutting sinuously across the overcast slate above before the squadrons suddenly form up and within moments, the sky is empty, even the tiniest pinpricks of wings in the distance are gone, and there is nothing but the near-silence of wind and humming heating units.
Looking down at a sign of movement, a cigarette butt rolling steadfastly uphill, driven by a barely-there breeze. Walking toward, by, past the raucous cloud of noise in a nearby quad, two students lying on the lawn outside the door in spite of the 20-odd degree weather because of the joints(?) in their hands (as not to smoke up the party inside? or maybe their judgment’s a little woozy), head down against the cold but when a gentle sting kisses my face I look up to be greeted by the beginnings of a snowfall framing my building.
Welcome home.
—
…I should be in class now. But it’s snowing hard. And I am really not enthusiastic about this attending class bit when my instructors are so shoddy.
The acceptance/rejection phenomenon has existed as a background file in my little academic psyche for as long as I’ve had a psyche– upsides and downsides to being cognizant and immersed in the driven Asian community. But I fairly much coasted through everything– successful audition for advanced choir in sixth grade, successful win in literary category just for fun after the move to another state, successful blah blah blah summer program after 10th grade– until the summer after junior year.
I can’t take the “enjoy it while it lasts” approach. All or nothing. So ‘giving it time’ means I’m going to be on tiptoe, balancing en pointe at the edge of the stool with a silken noose around my neck and an oblivious executioner.
So much for getting back on track this semester, going into the year with a clear mind of what it was I wanted to do and where I wanted to go.
–says I’m not the only one with a lot to lose but I don’t see him giving much up.
Another example why sleep is good for you all– this is an excerpt from the notes I took yesterday during a seminar after having pulled an all-nighter:
How scientfically useful is this use of the exceptional case?
Fair/relevant? Is “Acquired” colorblindness a fit case for study?
Fair- acquired, Colors litjess are had to find another over Be 14.
perssed– I was also awaiting the transfer change to Raharathigk gkhbe– hard’-res
taking ae birarty asmple o peopoule, we could –
…Notice the steady devolution. Although I can decipher the last line as “taking a binary sample of people, we could”, I have no idea what the fourth line was supposed to be. Or the third. Or the entire thing. Clearly, microsleeps and narcolepsy do not produce coherent text.
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Blog updates: Read the rest of this entry »
Something along the lines of links that fellow blogging female friends have been posting:
The case for settling for Mr. Good Enough
(The entire article is interesting, but page three is of particular interest. Those of you who know me well may fathom why.)
Part of being a realist is also realizing that things don’t need to be perfect in order to work. But the location of distinctions and limiting lines to be drawn does ultimately differ from person to person; the article, I think, is overly cynical and pretty much applies to those who don’t go into life with their eyes open from the start. All I know is that happy solitude is possible for many women these days, but something of an uncomfortable prospect for me. It’s possible to be happy and alone (oh, if I had more teardrop ornaments it would be gorgeous…ooh, wind!…and no one to stare blankly at my tangential rambling.) but for some arbitrary reason, biological (ugh) or psychological (ugh), the be-happy-when-you’re-single is ultimately a short term plateau meant to be perched on for the duration of a time period during which you’ve got other priorities. Once the rest of your life is sorted out, why not start up another incline?
(‘course, at this point in my life, I am far from sorted out. Hence why I agreed with the twin-sister when she suggested that my answer was pending.)
I sense I’m about to make some of the same mistakes this year as I did last year, and I probably oughtn’t to.
Because even though there’s a possibility, there’s also the probability that I’m just content to fiddle with ideas and filling niches again, filling in little emotional gaps in my psyche that have been torn open by inactivity or perceived inadequacy, filling them with other people. I should be able to repair them myself, but I guess I do need outside help. But from someone I don’t actually see any future with in another city and don’t in fact think can hold my attention?
…Is it going to distract me and create more problems, though, if I do pursue this?
Probably.
