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| CatharsisRemember how I wrote that crazy vampire bats song? Well, now I recorded it. It involves me on guitar and singing, neither of which I'm particularly talented at, so listen at your own risk!
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| I'm really unsettled by the fact that I've had this four-year plan made up for how long now? Too long. I feel like I've lost a part of my soul. My inner intellectual nomad feels nauseous. I don't know how I'll eventually bring myself to do it - definitively choose a major and the like - , but for now I really feel like erasing all evidence that such a spreadsheet ever even existed. I won't, of course - it was too many hours of work (both mine and Nathan's - thanks for that, by the way), too big, too detailed, too perfect. I love intricate planning, usually. It gives me a whole lot of satisfaction, usually. And this plan had done that up until tonight. It was a fancy, a frivolity, something that could go either way, happen or not. But after so many weeks ... I've actually talked so much to so many people about it. Friends. Advisors. Parents. And it's become something more than a possible-plan-for-the-next-four-years. It's a burden, a weight I had never anticipated. I realize now: There will be weight associated with choosing a major. I had never thought of it like that before. A major was something I'd eventually happen upon after having made lots of plans, discarded lots of plans, made lots more plans, and eventually struck one that worked. But as I look at this excel sheet - so tidy, god! - I feel far less secure than if I would if I didn't have a plan at all. It's a very, very different sense of worry. And as I approach the point of no return - because there will be one, eventually - I get queasier and queasier, and everything feels weightier and weightier, and I become increasingly uncomfortable. One of these plans will eventually be final. And for some reason, I'm hoping (desperately!) that this one won't be it.
Is what I'm taking next semester what I really want to take?
Is it a bizarre sum (or average?) of the wishes of me, my parents, my friends, my mentors?
Is it a step towards a definite goal that I may or may not change?
Or is it all these and more, if that's even possible?
What all of what I'm deciding now will prove irrevocable in the future? The cement is drying drying drying faster and faster and pretty soon I won't be able to move.
It's too soon to give up on things.
It's too soon for my freshman year to be over.
It's too soon for a lot of things.
Yet summer can't come quick enough.
Things that are really freaking me out:
Impending class registration
Impending study abroad in Argentina
Impending informatics classes
Impending cockroach-related-incidents (or the possibility thereof)
Impending research-mentor-finding
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On a different note, reading The Kite Runner is making me realize that I have never, never ever, felt sadness or faced adversity, both of which seem like pretty essential aspects of life. I would assume that it's impossible to understand the good (see my Facebook note on "happiness") without having lows with which to build comparisons. For the past few days, the realization of this has made me feel a little dead inside. I want to have a cause, damn it. I want to have a purpose. I want to fight something, fight with something, fight for something, fight against something. I don't want to fight someone else's battles. I want battles of my own. I should be thankful for this apparently blessed existence - I don't get sick, I don't get bad grades, I don't face traumatic or unfair experiences, but instead - AS ALWAYS - I'm whining, griping, being a complete ingrate.
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I've been listening obsessively to the Leonard Cohen song "Hallelujah" since yesterday. I'm not sure what's so alluring about it, but even when I'm not actually listening to it, it's playing in my head:
Now I've heard there was a secret chord / that David played and it pleased the Lord, / but you don't really care for music, do ya?
It goes like this: a fourth, a fifth, / the minor fall, the major lift, / the baffled king composing, hallelujah.
Hallelujah, hallelujah. Hallelujah, hallelujah.
Your faith was strong, but you needed proof; / you saw her bathing on the roof; / her beauty and the moonlight overthrew ya.
She tied you to her kitchen chair, / she broke your throne and she cut your hair, / and from your lips she drew the hallelujah.
Hallelujah, hallelujah. Hallelujah, hallelujah.
You say I took the name in vain; / I don't even know the name, / but if I did, well, really, what's it to ya?
There's a blaze of light in every word; / it doesn't matter which you heard, / the holy or the broken hallelujah.
Hallelujah, hallelujah. Hallelujah, hallelujah.
I did my best; it wasn't much. / I couldn't feel, so I tried to touch. / I've told the truth, and I didn't come to fool ya.
And even though it all went wrong, / I'll stand before the Lord of Song, / with nothing on my tongue but hallelujah.
Hallelujah, hallelujah. Hallelujah, hallelujah.
Hallelujah, hallelujah. Hallelujah, hallelujah.
Hallelujah, hallelujah. Hallelujah, hallelujah.
The phrase "the baffled king composing" is probably still a reference to David or something, but to me it definitely brings to mind Frederick the Great, sitting lonely, composing, studying under Quantz, corresponding with Voltaire, mourning his maybe-(gay)-lover's execution, you know?
And then, gosh, "She tied you to her kitchen chair, / she broke your throne and she cut your hair, / and from your lips she drew the hallelujah" - that's such an unimaginably powerful image. And, I mean, the second lines of all of the verses (the way I typed them up) are so incomprehensibly good, and "great and terrible," so to speak, and well-crafted.
Anyway. I should go to bed.
Night, all. | | |
| I'm just typing this out here so I don't lose it; it's from a Colbert Report segment a while back when the Wørd was "absinth-tenence."
"I, Shruti, do hereby pledge to practice absinth-tinence by remaining absinth-tinent from Absinthe since Absinthe incidents in many instances induce incipient synesthetic inspiration and sinister synthetic insistence on sin, I sincerely insist I will be absent from instances of Absinthe ingestion, this instant."
That said, absinthe sounds incredibly exciting and glamorous and I actually really want to try it at some point. | | |
| Ferraro defends controversial comments on Barack Obama
So I agreed more or less with her initial comments. But then she had to come back with "I really think they're attacking me because I'm white," which clearly cheapened anything of value she might ever have said - bad move. But THEN "Obama campaign manager David Axelrod called Ferraro's comments part of an "insidious pattern" of remarks from Clinton supporters that have drawn attention to Obama's race," which was, um, clearly untrue and pretty offensive. Because, well, what's wrong with drawing attention to his race? Ignoring the fact that he's black seems like an incredibly stupid strategy - I mean, while his race likely won't affect his ability to govern, it sure as hell does affect who the people who are supporting him are, and to be told that pointing that out is bad or - god forbid - racist seems stupid.
And then to Ferraro's last comment, "Sexism is a bigger problem. It's OK to be sexist in some people's minds. It's not OK to be racist," probably true, but I'm sure the Obama campaign'll have none of it. Seriously, though - count the number of people you know who don't think a woman - any woman - would make a capable president. Now the number of people who don't think a black person would make a capable president. For me at least, there's a handful in the former group, and zero in the latter.
Sure, Ferraro's could've phrased what she was trying to say a whole lot better, but I think ultimately she had a few fair points. And so I don't understand why the Obama campaign needs to attack her, and attack Clinton through her, yes? | | |
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