Margaret Olivia: Drama Queen Extraordinare

"so em, where are you staying when you come visit?"
"uhh...my bed?"
"umm...thats jonah's bed now."
"oh. well. do you think he'll mind if i sleep in it cause its technically mine?"
"its not technically yours. you dont live here anymore."
"oh. well. can you not say 'visit'. it makes me sad. i'm coming home."
"this is not your home anymore. you have no place here."

i kid you not, this is how my 12 year old sister talks to me. she's out of her mind. directly after this part of the conversation, we go into what she's going to be for halloween. after suggesting the powerpuff girls (which, by the way, a very good friend of mine who is definitely male and definitely in college is also dressing up as. im sure if we're lucky enough we'll see it on facebook.), she howls with laughter for a good five minutes when i mention "professor x". just roars. this leads us, somehow, to the part of the conversation during which she tells me a campfire-type tale that started out "in eastern europe long ago, there was a rabbi who..."

maybe its just cause she's my sister, and maybe this wont translate at all, but oh my god this girl makes me laugh. i forget sometimes that she's only 12. its not even that she's all that mature, its just that she's so much goofier and so much more spirited and confident than i could ever hope to be when i was 12. she's the girl i was jealous of in middle school. the girl who looked like she was 16, had awesome older siblings, was totally self-aware, made all the cute boys laugh.
she has her faults. we get in our share of fights. and within two days of seeing her, i'll probably want to take back all of these nice things i'm saying about her. but. she makes me laugh. and, even though she's my sister and i dont have much of a choice, its the people who make me laugh who make everything worth it.

physics makes my stomach hurt

i hate it. i've never struggled this hard to get a C in my life. ever. and its turning into this philosophical debate with myself on whether or not to give up. to nuclear or not to nuclear. that kind of thing.
my other classes? no problem. the material that im interested in flies by. well not flies, but i'm more willing to put work into things that i like, things that i'm interested in and want to understand.
maybe i should look at this as an expanding my horizons type thing. maybe it actually will help in life to know that this isotope has a half-life of 30.17 years and decays to the stable isotope 137B by beta decay.
the truth is that im too practical to actually believe that whether or not i understand the above will have a true effect on my life. practical in other areas of my life? yeah that's up for debate. but for now, i'm limiting the issues that i deal with to the cold classroom in the science building. anyway, more importantly, im too stubborn to accept that i could just drop the class. in the long run it will probably do more good than bad, and my head will certainly hurt much less.

at an art gallery down the street, hand drawn "DIY surrender kits" sat on a wall with a simple Take Me across the top. i did. the terms of my surrender, however, do not involve going to my professor with the news that i will not be returning. the terms of my surrender involve sucking it up for six more weeks and ploughing through. just go for it.
so here's to you, PHYS140, i'm waving my white flag.

tickle blankets and blue men

im one of those assholes who finds a song she loves, listens to it over and over and over again, and then gets sick of it. sometimes i'll find it again and realize what i loved about it and sometimes ill find it again and laugh because i loved it in the first place. (i guess that can be associated with other parts of my life as well, now that i think about it.)
Relate To Me by The Voyces isn't the best song on the Thicker Than Water soundtrack. it isn't (if you're wondering, it's a tie between Rainbow and Holes to Heaven). but one rainy day sophomore or junior year i listened to it maybe eight thousand times. the distantly familiar voice, the comfort of an acoustic guitar, it just fits. two years later, it popped up on my pandora.com station. i cant help but soak in the nostalgia.
i hadn't watched garden state since the perfect day in israel. i was too scared, had built up the moment too much, too many expectations involved. i had just finished a test in reuven's class, josh's class had another three hours to go. we all yelled and made fun of our friends still struggling with the importance of Masada, why Herod made his stone a certain way. turns out that this time it ended up being great. the movie still makes me cry. the rainy day setting still makes me want to yell into an infinite abyss.
this past thursday, i was inspired. im finding this to be an ongoing trend for my thursdays, and something ive grown to look forward to. this time the inspiration came in the form of the founder of the blue man group who came to talk to us because he was a clark grad. he loves what he does. he adores it. and all i could do was sit there, agree with what he said, and hope that even a tiny part of me loves my career as much as he does. i wanted to be part of this club of innovation. i saw my favorite teacher laugh at their inside jokes and found myself wanting to be in on it too. "i'm in love with a girl whose in love with the world and i cant help but follow."
these songs and movies and moments dont really relate to each other, but over this lazy weekend, my first lazy weekend in a while, i'm starting to see the parts of me that have changed over the course of the last few years, and the parts that haven't changed at all.

harry potter.

sometimes it creeps me out how accurate the "when it rains it pours" theory works for my life. since i'm one of those dancers in the rain, this euphamism works both for good things and bad things. last week? deadly thunderstorm. today? warm summer rain.
today i: talked to my preschool boyfriend, got three A's on the papers i got back from my favorite and most respected teacher, found out i was going to israel for longer than originally planned, finished a huge midterm, worked out, got my charger in the mail, bought a fantastic shirt, sang in the shower, and laughed so hard i almost couldnt breath.
when i get in moods like this, really overflowingly good ones, i sometimes overwhelm myself. though i'm generally optimistic, i get skeptical and worry sometimes how long it'll last. thats when the little voice in my head who knows i dont have control over every little situation or relationship shuts the rest of me up.
the next month or so is a lot less crazy for me than the one that preceded it. i'm excited to see what happens.

my to do list

1. finish my entrepreneurship essay
2. get through my 530-9am shift at work tomorrow
3. drink more water
4. stop texting people i know its a bad idea to text
5. learn to sing like regina spektor
6. decide what im doing with my summer
7. use jonah's phrase "pergreato" ("its a mix of perfecto and great") in every day life
8. feel more pergreato in every day life.

elephants and snakes

i'm sitting on my friend gina's bed, waiting to go to dinner.
last night i read, as i often do when i'm stressed out, the entirety of The Little Prince.
it didnt work.
but what does work is that thursday is my favorite night at clark.
obviously, the office, but something about open mic night and sitting in the bistro with the people who just get it.
its really nice.
part of me wishes i was where i was last week: sitting at the pb, arguing with the waiter, and buying too much snack food at the supermarket...
but we cant have everything, and i'm pretty happy with what i've got.
oh yeah. and evan's coming.

and yet...

despite my previous entry, i've been inspired by the rantings of a certain young woman to remind myself that this weekend was incredible.
although sometimes i get distracted, my glass is often half full. i find joy in small things, seemingly meaningless things. so when i say that everything from a goofy egg and french fried meal to a conference call to a photo session confirmed for me that i made the right decision, i mean it.

arachnophobia

i could dwell all day on the things that i'm scared of. i could stay overwhelmed and feel sick to my stomach and worry that i do or do not make the right decisions. i could regret and overanalyze and feel sorry for.

or.

or i could walk out of my dorm room today knowing that i can only do so much and then its out of my control. i can only say so much or feel so much or hurt so much and then i have to accept that my words are only my words until i say them out loud.

i hope that the pain in the pit of my stomach settles soon.