Sunday, July 31, 2005

Imagine...peace

so I'm back from the cruise. it was fun: Jamaica has the coolest laid back people,Grand Cayman has the most beautiful water ever, and Cozumel is always interesting. The boat had way too much food and now I am fat which is both good and bad.

I'm currently listening to John Lennon's "Imagine." It's a really moving and thought provoking song. I'm also reading this book by Albert Camus called Resistance, Rebellion, and Death and it's all these philosophical essays/newspaper articles he wrote for Combat, and underground newspaper during WWII France. I can't really put my philosophical thoughts into words at the moment...I think they're more emotions and feelings than thoughts, but they'll get there at some point.

I most definately failed miserably at my attempts to make London look boring and NM prude: for me, both are impossible...which I think in this case is a really really good thing.

Imagine there's no heaven,
It's easy if you try,
No hell below us,
Above us only sky,
Imagine all the peopleliving for today...

Imagine there's no countries,
It isn’t hard to do,
Nothing to kill or die for,
No religion too,
Imagine all the peopleliving life in peace...

You may say I’m a dreamer,
but I’m not the only one ,
I hope some day you'll join us,
And the world will live as one

Imagine no possessions,
I wonder if you can,
No need for greed or hunger,
A brotherhood of man,
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world...

You may say I’m a dreamer,
but I’m not the only one,
I hope some day you'll join us,
And the world will live as one

Definately struggling with writing down my thoughts at the moment. Hopefully I will be able to later. Until then...

Thursday, July 21, 2005

je bored

pam and i hung out and watched Garden State today. I love that movie. So good. Ran some errands. Overall a fairly lazy day. This week has been fairly boring but fun.

Tonigh I have to pack. I am so excited to have a vacation from this break because I really need one right now. Everyone is out of town this week (Jill, Mal, Kate, Thomas) and everyone else is either busy (Heath, Pam, David) or working (Matt, Pam). So I'm like ahhh. boring. Hopefully I shall return from the trip with stories of grandeur and craziness that make London look boring and New Mexico prude. Hehe. I don't know if that's possible, but hey, it could happen.

Ummm...nothing to say. Off to start packing, doing chores, and then a much needed multi mile run with lots of hills to remove last night's Sonic Blast and pink cookies from my stomach and waist. And maybe a hundred crunches or so. That would be good, yes. yes. ok the end.

Monday, July 18, 2005

How am I not myself?

so my existential crisis is somewhat solved. I watched I Heart Huckabees today, the movie that pretty much puts into words everything I feel and believe and it really helped me to put my life back into perspective and see the big picture, the whole point of life, or at least mine. It's weird. Reality and human drama and stupid little things seem to get in the way all of the time. Like just now, 30 seconds ago, the phone rang and interupted my train of thought. This sort of thing...that;s what I'm talking about. Things get in the way of being and life. I've realized that I can't let that affect me too much. I mean, obviously its going to affect me and drive me nuts but so long as I can meditate or whatever and come back to this place where I am, this place of realization and being and life and whatnot, then I think I'll be ok. I just have to be able to sit down once in awhile and watch I Heart Huckabees or read my writings about it (the first time I ever saw it I wrote down what I thought and believed etc.) and then the world will make sense again. I know it sounds kind of stupid, but I Heart Huckabees is my realization catalyst. It helps me to focus my energy and realize what I know and think and want. It's pretty cool.

I've been thinking lately about this question:

How am I not myself?

How am I not myself?

How am I not myself?

If you ask yourself over and over again and you really truly think about its pretty weird. and cool. all at the same time.

If I do not accept life as mine to control and shape then I am lost and therefore not my true self, my true being. There are signs that guide and people who can give advice but all decisions are ultimately mine. Until they realize the truth of interconnectedness between all things everyone is lost. Not themselves. Everything is the same yet different and the meaning comes from our actions. When this is realized we are in our true state of being and therefore when we don't accept this we are not ourselves.

Hmmm...now that I think about it, I think I am most definately myself. But now this poses a bigger problem. Who am I? Myself yes, but who is that? I've realized this week that my life isn't what I thought it was or should be. I don't know what I'm doing here. I think I'm going crazy here, I really do. It's like hours and hours of confusion and chaos and then for a few brief moments, as witenessed by the earlier part of this post, things will make sense. But then that sense goes away. And I can't seem to make it come back. I am so scared and lost and confused right now. My life is...nothing. Meaningless. It's a problem and I have no solution. I can't fix it. I normally approach problems logically and think through them and I figure out an answer but I can't solve this. I can't do this. I don't know who I am or why I'm here. When it comes to religion and mankind I'm perfectly fine with not knowing because its not something I was meant to understand. But if I am to give meaning to my life, I need to understand me. And I don't. So forget the existential crisis solved part. Its so far from solved its not even funny.

I really think I'm going insane. I'm this neurotic basket case and things keep getting more and more chaotic and confusing and meaningless. God help me.

Sunday, July 17, 2005

I am waiting for Godot

So I finished the new Harry Potter book today. It was quite good. I think I prefer the 5th one actually, but I think this was was very good as well.

LD and I went shopping today and I most definately found a cocktail dress and 2 new bathing suits for the cruise next week which is good because I was short a dress and had no decent suits. I also found a fun belt. yay.

Uuummm...Kind of tired right now. Not really thinking deeply. Or at all now that I think about it. The novel is on pause at the moment. It's due to the comined affects of acute writer's block and uncertainty about how I want to approach certain subjects, so I haven't written anything for the past few days.

Got The Shins CD. I reallly like it. They're for sure a cool band.

Tomorrow I'm planning on watching Garden State or Pulp Fiction (or both!), laying out, working out, and that's about it. maybe some reading while laying out. And maybe cleaning my room or doing something productive with my life. Or not. we'll have to wait and see.

I've decided that summer is my least favorite season and even though I hate John Keats' stlyle and messages in general, I thouroughly agree with his poem "To Autumn". Autumn is most definately the best season ever, though winter usually provides some fierce competition.

I've been in kind of a weird funk lately. I've been drifting through these past few weeks since we returned from Tring like I'm not really there. There are occasional good moments when I'm hanging out with friends or something, but in general I've just been drifting. It's hard to describe. It's like...it reminds me of that thing that used to sometimes happen during French class and occasionally during Government, where I'd all of a sudden just feel nothing, be nothing, start drifting on cruise control. It feels like I'm just watching everything happen from the sidelines and there's nothing I can do about it. My parents are driving me crazy and I'm locked up inside this house in a town with nothing to do 95 percent of the time. I guess the thing that really bugs me is that the things I'm doing are nothing; they don't mean anything (though some of the movies really are quite deep and thought provoking). They're just a way to pass the time.
Southlake In the Summer: A Real Life Waiting for Godot. That's what these past two weeks have been like. Like I'm living out my favorite play. Not something I ever really wanted to do considering it's about the meaninglessness of life.

I know that college will have meaning and that I'll be doing something useful with my time, but right now I just can't help feeling like I'm having a real life existential calamity. I know it sounds stupid, but Langford alums should be able to empathize. I need to do something or see something that renews my hope in life and meaning because right now I can sit here and think about meaning but everything real in life, everything I say and do and everything everybody else says and does just seems to be completely devoid of reality and meaning. Reality is currently proving menaingless which undermines my months of work at figuring out what I believe and how to live my life. And now that I am actually living in the world (sort of, you know what I mean), I am finding that this reality contradicts everything I once thought. The meaning I thought I had found has now disappeared and everything is...different. Not right. Menaingless. Fake, but real. Reality is fake. That's what I've discovered in these past two weeks. That Southlake, that society, that what I and other have always perceived as reality, is fake.

This is of course, a fact I have known for years. But this is the first time that I've ever really looked around and said "I am living in Prufrock's world" or "my world is fake". I guess it's the first time I've ever applied my meaningless society theories/beliefs directly to my own life. I've applied it to America and Southlake before. But into my mundane, everyday activities...this is new. Sort of. New as in I've never applied it for this long before. During school, you have distractions and homwork and tests and band concerts and marching practice and whatnot so it was only few hours a week that I would think about this. But now its the other way around. I only don't think about it for a few hours a week. It's wierd, suddenly realizing that everything in YOUR life is fake and meaningless and there's really not much you can do about it. Realizing it about society is part of life and high school and AP English. But realizing it about your own life...it's wierd man. I don't really now how to deal with this. I think I'll start by viewing the greatest epic of good versus evil of all time: Star Wars. Maybe the idea of good triumphing will help catalyze some positivity and meaning...or not. eh.

Wednesday, July 13, 2005

deep entry (finally!)

So Jill's party tonight...was most definately sweet action despite the fact that I didn't really know anyone there except for Jill and kind of Kristen. But still a lot of fun and orgasmic guacamole and brownies. Jill I hope you have as much fun in France as I had in England. It's going to kick so much ass, I know it.

Watched several movies today: Resevoir Dogs (uuuhmazing), Rounders (pretty decent), and Dazed and Confused (missed the end but that movie is fucking hilarious. i la la la love Jason London. His genius work in Out Cold never fails to amaze me).

I've been very unproductive lately. It's kind of nice.

On the way home from the party tonight I was thinking about morality and right and wrong and all that deep stuff. I mean, I hear all these people saying things like, "she's immoral" or "that's wrong" or "I wouldn't do that because I'm a good person" when refering to things like alcohol and drugs and sometimes sex. I mean, who has the right to judge anyone else's actions? Who is it that gets to decide what is moral for other people? I can sit there and say these are my morals and this is what I would do and this is what I would not do, but how can any one person decide that about someone else? What gives that person the right to criticize and judge someone else's morals? And, for that matter, what gives society the right to put up "moral standards" for every single person? How are we to know what's right for others when most people have trouble defining morality for themselves? I just don't see how anyone can be moral and then try to apply their morals to other people because morality is an individual thing. It differs from person to person and only the individual who creates that moral code can be held to it because it is their personal belief and their own individual ideas.

FYI this was not sparked by anything at the party tonight, but rather by some things people said in England and have said throughout the years. We can't go around trying to force people to conform to our moral standards. Rather we should accept that theirs may be/are different from ours and just try and live by our own individual moral standards. Judging each other and separating ourselves because of our different beliefs is not going to help this country. It's that very thing that got us into this whole mess (when discussing the messes that areAmerican Society, Morals, Government, Politics, and Foriegn Policy). We need to be more humanitarian and thoughtful and accepting of each others differences. People are going to have different ideas and beliefs just as they are going to have different fingerprints and skin color. Judging based on race is wrong, as is judging based on moral standards. We should stop trying to change others morals. We just need to accept each other.

sorry if thats not up to my usual depth but summer has left my brain mushy and I'm just begining to get back into this deep thinking thing.

oh. got my TCU room assignment today. Montcrief Hall, the ultimate co-ed Honors and athlete dorm on campus! I am so excited. I currently have no roomate listed but I have one. I just don't know who yet, which is wierd since I know what room number I'm in. Strange indeed. But oh well.

to end, a quote:

"Humanity does not ask us to be happy. It merey asks us to be brilliant on its behalf."

as inspiring as it is depressing. thanks nia.

Sunday, July 10, 2005

Top 20 List

These my friends, are the top 20 stories/memories/whatever from the school trips taken to Europe this year (Italy and England) involving crazy kids.

1. Sarah gets kind of drunk, goes to the bathroom/toilet in the pub, and falls asleep for like 10 minutes while on the toilet.

2. Fran gets drunk off her ass after only 1 glass of Pimm's Lemonade Drink, goes to the party, and almost throws up in the bush. Later, she has trouble getting out of the car and tells me that she loves me before we go to sleep.

3. Meg gets drunk our last night in Tring and jumps into a bush which collapses beneath her.

4. Dave stares at my ass the entire way up the tower at Warwick Castle.

5. Sarah gets so drunk in Italy that she wakes up drunk the next day and has to go touring while still drunk. At the Sistine Chapel, she begins to feel ill and almost throws up on the Sistine Chapel floor.

6. While wandering around downtown London on our day off, my tampon begins to fall out and the mad search for the toilets begins.

7. Fat Maggi concert complete with moshing and special Coke and Jill's dancing.

8. Avery passes out at the Discoteque in Italy and no one really notices.

9. Erin still can't remember what she did on Saturday night.

10. Kate's orange juice.

11. Sarah's giant cannon balls.

12. Kate posing with the fake Harry Potter wand at Warwick and not realizing we took pictures.

13. Matt proposing to David in the Warwick Castle gardens.

14. Sarah and I talking to ourselves behind our backs.

15. Jill's dancing at the Fat Maggi concert (previously mentioned but deserves a category of its own for its sweet awesomeness).

16. The guy sitting next to Kate on the plane on the way back from London. Enough said.

17. Me and Sarah taking pictures of our sandwiches and thinking it was cool.

18. two words: Camden Town.

19. "Springtime for Hitler and Germany!"

20. Insane games of 10 Fingers/truth or truth that are still going on 2 weeks later.

yes. Expatriate for sure.

Saturday, July 09, 2005

OMFG

ok. was wandering around the brilliant invention known as the internet when i stumbled across this most hilarious thing:

(dum dum dum!)









THE MATT NATIONS FAN CLUB!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

http://www.livejournal.com/userinfo.bml?user=matt_nations

thomas, nia, and anyone else who was in our section or ever talked to the kid, this site is for you. the very fact that it exists...well it just seems to make my life complete. and meghan g, i know you will thouroughly enjoy this.

Friday, July 08, 2005

i heart fat maggi

So there's this Austrian girl who will be living down the street from me for the next 5 weeks or so. She's pretty cool. Yay for making friends with people who live in Europe so I can have an excuse to go there and visit them when I'm older. Not that I'm using them to get to Europe, but it is an added bonus of the friendship.

Wow, the comments on my last post got a little bit away from the subject (me kicking ass on the AP tests) but yay for online political discussion via blog comments. it makes for some interesting reading since we all kind of get off topic in the middle and our thoughts become incoherent. Well, mine do anyway.

So novel update: my rough draft of it is currently 12 pages long. I have chapters 1, 2, 3 or 5, 8 or 12, 15, 16, and the last chapter. It's progressing fairly well so far. I'm excited.

I want to dye my hair blue. I think I shall sometime next week. Yay.

I also want a tatoo. I know what and where, but I think I will wait until i've moved out for college so that my parental units don't freak.

People I need to hang out with this/next week:
Mal, Sarah, Dave, Thomas, and Pam. and LD probably too. oh and Taylor. Heath is gone. (sad). I should have a party and kill several birds with one stone.

Wow. Oh and Ianis (spelling?) My new Austrian friend. If we can, we're going to the Rise Against/Alkaline Trio concert sometime in the near future. Anyone want to come?

just out of curiousty, is anyone else having issues with summer crushes?

oh. i downloaded some fat maggi music from www.fatmaggi.com. it is SO tight. I love that band I hope they make a record because I want it. and I want to see them again. I would fly all the way to england just to see them play. they are so good. thomas, you can come with me and we can mosh like we did in england and we can drag jill and jen along because they know and understand the amazingness that is Fat Maggi. Yes.

Thursday, July 07, 2005

AP Grades

boo fucking ya, i got a 5 on the BC calc exam. Oh yes. I so knew it. 5 on english too. 4 on the rest. Not what I wanted over all but still good. and a 5 on Calc. with a 4 subscore kind of weird but I'm not complaining. a 5 on calc. my life is complete. wheeee.

and sad about London. My favorite city attacked. I'm upset. I hope all of our Tring friends are OK. :(

5 on calc. I am the shit.

Tuesday, July 05, 2005

Ultimate Threesome

While in London we stumbled over this one during a game of 10 fingers/Truth or Truth on the bus to/from Bournemouth (tee hee)

The ultimate threesome (for me) is as follows:

me
Brad Pitt
Angelina Jolie

oh yes. that would be orgasmic.

Monday, July 04, 2005

London Calling

listening to that song/CD by The Clash, a CD I got while we were in London (I figured if I was going to get old school British Punk then I should get it in London). It's a pretty good CD.

Oh my freaking goodness, England was amazing. Fran is supercool along with her 2 sisters Lizzie and Kate. I had so much fun with all of them. We saw...let's see, Buckingham Palace, Big Ben, Trafalger Square, The London Eye, The tower of London, Bournemouth Beach, the Producers, Parliament, Government Houses, Shakespeare's house and Stratford, Warwick Castle, Camden Town, Oxford Street, Oxford University, and a few other places around London. It was so cool. Our concerts went really well and staying with a host family and learning about a completely different way of life was so cool. Tring (or Aldbury where I was) is so completely different from the bubble. Firstly, they walk everywhere in town, they have rolling hills and lots of trees and everything, and i mean EVERYTHING is green, and they have gardens and grow their own fresh vegetables. It was really cool because they eat so much healthier over there; most of their food is fresh and fairly organic (they eat modern day "manufactured" stuff like we do too but not to the same extent). Granted every family is different, but the majority of them eat healthy while in America that's generally reserved for the minority.

But yeah. Cool place. Cool people too. The parties were so much fun, not boring but not really crazy or anything and I got to know some people a lot better (Sarah, Dave, Kate, Matt, and to some extent Heath although we didn't get to hang out too much Heath, tear). Yeah, lasting friendships from this trip. Some people began to get on my nerves with their righteousness and them thinking they were better than us and whatnot but we got past it and just dealt.

Our Ensemble went pretty well and our concert at Waddeson Manor was definately the musical high point of the trip. Wow I really like this Clash record. Anyway, England was so amazing. I really kind of want to do my semester abroad there, though France and Italy are still contenders. Hard decision, I'm not gonna lie. Luckily I have some time.

You know, the plane ride home was actually pretty fun. 10 hourse long, but good friends make it go by pretty fast. Anyway....that's all about England for now. I would go on gushing but most of you who read this were either there or will be told in person, so yay.

Orange Juice!

oh yeah while we were gone Sanra Day O'Connor resigned. Argh. Makes me mad because we just lost the swing vote and unless Bush is an idiot like his dad (i think it was him) and appoints a liberal maquerading as a conservative, than the Court will be swayed and I will be rageous.

Also, this country next to the Ukraine called Moldova lost, sometime in the last year, about 70 ground to air (i think that's what they're called) missiles. The government says they were destroyed when they got wet but no one knows where they are. it is a serious problem that makes me laugh because it is so dangerous and pathetic.

Springtime for Hitler and Germany! Hee hee yay for Mel Brooks (titter titter!!)

OK, dinner time and then maybe work some on the novel or read either my new Noam Chomsky book or Fast Food Nation and then sleep for many many many many hours because I am le tired.

yay for america and england having the same colors on thier flags so i can be patriotic and symbolic at the same time. two birds with one stone!