There's a puddle on my floor.

I walked into that mint colored room wreaking of bleach and wax- turned to my mom and said, "I'm home." And now, leaving it is like closing a chapter of a book i enjoyed way too much for my own good. This past year has been nothing short of amazing. A year ago, if you asked me what my freshman year was going to be like- i wouldn't have been able to even imagine half the things i did this year.  So here are my shout outs to my girls, my bestfriends, my sisters...i love you all.


Swift- When I first met you I was sure we weren't going to get along. I thought you were too cool for me- ehm which does still hold true if i do say so myself =P. Thank you so much for teaching me to let go. I went from this uptight, stick up her butt overly ambitious girl to someone who actually takes time to smell the flowers and enjoy life. So what if I wasted an entire afternoon talking lazing around on a bed talking about life and counting tiles? So what if I pulled an all nighter to watch 3 movies in a row? These are the things I'm going to remember about my freshman year. Not how many times I successfully finished a homework assignment, but how many times I sat back and thought- dang..did I really just do that? I love you <3


Heat- thanks for teaching me about passion. thank you for teaching me to stand up for myself. Up until I met you, I didn't think it was important to assert my ideas and stand up for what I believed in. If someone argued with me -I'd let them win. I just never found it important to let my opinions be known. Thank you for giving me the confidence I needed in order to establish myself. you make me giggle, make the worst days better. I love your smile, your stupid noises and most of all your heart. You're a good person when it comes down to it- and I couldn't think of anyone else I'd want to share these next three years with.


Dirt- Hi Twin! Dirt, I think we were meant to be together. I think God put us together. We're so alike, and I can relate to you on so many different levels. Thanks for listening to me and giving me advice. Thanks for being my bandaid when things hurt. We've had some pretty crazy times- things I will never forget. Um, remember the time we took a blue bus to the library only to cancel the meeting? We should start a "I hate (insert EAS professors name here)" club.  I love you so much and I can't wait for all the fun adventures we're going to have. one day we're going to be rich together and it's going to be awesome. <3


there's a huge puddle on my floor now, where the fridge used to be. There's dirt where I had a shelf full of food. There's a chipped wall where I had a white board full of messages and to do lists. You know what, who cares. The material stuff may be gone but all the memories we had in that room will never cease to exist. I hope some lucky girl gets that room next year and has as much fun as we did. girls, I love you so much and I'm so pumped for our AWESOME APARTMENT next year. get ready. it's going to be a roller coaster..i promise :)


~Liquid~

Can I just be a college kid forever?

Seriously?  I feel like I'm in a middle age crisis.  My first year of college will be over in a week.  I will be a second year in a few months.  And this summer's going to fly by.

I just had an epiphany, while studying for bio.  I wish there was some kind of cryogenic technology for time, so we could just stop the clock at this very moment.  On this perfect day, the last day of classes of my freshman year at a drinking school with an engineering problem.  The sun is shining, there's a warm breeze wafting through my window, and, even though I'm reading about specialized respiratory surfaces and listening to Let's Get Fucked Up, I wouldn't want to be anywhere else right now.  I love this lifestyle.  I sleep all day (okay, maybe not all day, but you know, during the day) and stay up all night (okay, not all night, but at least half).  We get worked to the bone, but we party hard as well.  And as depressing as my 165 square-foot room can be sometimes, with its linoleum tiles, pale green walls, and cheap horror movie fluorescent lights not unlike those in a mental asylum, it's still a home away from home. 

Asher Roth has it about half right.  I'm not a fan of Miller Lite or Thirsty Thursdays, and I have no idea where the hell he managed to find pizza for a dollar a slice, but still, I love college.

And I know it's three years down the road (hopefully, knock on wood), but what he says at the end of "I Love College" is perfect.

"Do I have to graduate?  Or can I just stay here for the rest of my life?"

~*Heat*~

Where do you see yourself in five years?

It's getting hotter :) With summer around the corner, I've been interviewing left and right, trying to achieve the coveted status of "employed". Sigh. Why can't they just realize that I'm awesome and just hire me? :p These interviews have pushed me to really evaluate myself as an individual. I've been pondering what my weaknesses and strengths are, figuring out a legitimate reason as to why I'm studying to enter the field of law and/or marketing, and understanding who I am as a person. For God's sakes people I'm 18. I don't know who I am yet- I highly doubt you yourself understand your deep inner psyche. And besides, why should my understanding of myself affect how well I perform at a job? If it weren't for the interviews- I probably wouldn't ponder these questions at all. My philosophy is to just live life as it comes- not sit there and analyze every action and nuance of it.


and now for the stupidest interview question ever....where do you see yourself in 5 years?


wtf dude do I look like some sort of genie fortune teller to you?


5 years is a long time, especially for people our age. We're growing so quickly, and the world is growing even faster. How in the world am I supposed to be able to paint a picture of myself in 5 years to you, the interviewer, when I don't even know what I'm gonna eat for dinner in the next 5 hours?


Today, I found out that one of my friends is getting married. I was shocked. She's 22 years old. That's me in about 3 years. I started thinking- well holy crap what if I'm married in 3 years? What if im not in a relationship in three years? what if i don't get into grad school. Where AM I going to be in 5 years? Should I be thinking about this? as all these thoughts ran through my head- a part of me started pulling me back towards sanity. I heard a little voice coaching me in my head throughout my spaz attack.
I decided that I don't care to think about where I'm going to be in five years. I care about figuring out where I'm going now. I care about loving the people around me- not the people I think i'll meet later. That's the only way I can shape my future the most effectively. :)


~Liquid~

FINALS GAHHHHH BBQSAUCEEE.

I just finished all my work that's due tomorrow.  I deserve a break.  I'm losing my mind.

This is how you know you're losing your mind to the wondrous world of academia.

1) When you can't seem to walk without tripping over your own feet.

2) When you mean to tell someone to put their speakers on mute and get rid of the sound so you can hear, and you say, "Close all the sounds."

3) When your friend wants to take a break, and by taking a break, he means to crawl on the floor between the rows of seats in the lecture hall and play Hide and Seek.

4) When entertainment consists of fighting your friend, standing on a table and baring your pincers like a crayfish.  And having the entire thing taped.

5) When you see a bag of Cheetos and that angelic operatic music plays in your head because you haven't had time to eat.

6) On that note, when you've decided that eating's not particularly important because you just don't have time.

7) When you can't think of anything besides supply and demand curves, oviviparous animals or optical isomerism.

8) When your most pressing worry before a final is not the actual material, but the fact that you're not tall enough to read a buret when it's filled all the way to the top.

9) When the most visited webpage on your browser for the last week and a half is not Facebook, Gmail or Google, but T-Square.

10) When you talk, realize you  have no idea what you said, and figure you just made up a language and spoke.  And you're not surprised.

11) When you calculate the odds of being dropped on your head when you were a child.

12) When, instead of studying, you waste 20 minutes chasing your boyfriend around the lecture hall because he's stolen your laptop and is hacking your Facebook.

13) When you start chasing him in circles around a table (at which your friend is sitting, working diligently taping your idiotic exploits) just for the fun of it.

14) When you waste a good 45 minutes talking to your boyfriend on Skype.  And by talking, we mean typing whatever comes to your head.  And these thoughts can range between anywhere from wanting to go to Antarctica and play with the penguins to telling your boyfriend exactly what a jackass you are.

15) When you decide to start whistling the music you've been listening to.  Loudly.  And hitting the person next to you repeatedly and tickling them till they agree to crawl around on the floor with you.

16) When you want nothing more than your mother, sitting in front of you, feeding you mango pickle by hand.

17) When the second thing you're most looking forward to is going outside at midnight and screaming, along with every other Georgia Tech student on campus.

18) when you hear the word "wire" as "Iyer"- "If you put two iyers on the ends of a pickle it'll glow".

19) when you've hit repeat order at least ten times for midnight snacks.

20) when you sleep more between 12 and 5pm than you do between 12 and 5am.

21) when you find yourself having to think really hard about whether or not you showered yet.

22) when people are willing to fight each other for a seat in the library

23) when you're ecstatic about finding an awesome spot in the library

24) When you hear girls meowing and making retarded noises on your hallway IN FRONT OF YOUR FUCKING DOOR at 1:30 in the morning.

Lord help us.

~*Heat*~

She Who Dances

I want to apologize to my future daughter for already putting expectations on her head when she's not even born yet but arghhhh she has to be a dancer.


Last night, I saw THE cutest, most impressive video of a little 9-year old girl doing this form of classical dance that blew me away. I want my girl to be able to dance like that. I feel like nothing would make me more proud in the world! Not only that, but seeing as I am a dancer myself, I would love to share that connection with her. To be bound together by this common thread that is dance would be like a dream.


I could already imagine us doing performances together at parties and dancing just for fun when we're at home. And who knows? Maybe I could even send her to the same dance studio that I went to? Ahhh the possibilities.


##Dirt##

The heebie-jeebies.

Tonight's a creepy night. One of those nights that makes you want to throw yourself under the covers, head and all, and hide from everything.

I'm lying in bed right now. It's 2:01 in the morning. Everyone's asleep. The house is completely silent. Every creak of the stairs, every shadow that glides over the walls is amplified. And all I can hear is the tapping of my keys, and the wind howling into the night, whipping the tree branches and making my windows rattle.

It was actually a little bit better two hours ago. The blinds were open. I gazed out of my rain-streaked windows and lightning rent the clouds. There was no sign of a moon in the sky, at least from where my window was, but at least there was noise.

Now, not so much.

Shadows loom nebulously on the walls along the hallway leading to my room, flaring, fading. Every now and then, my house groans as the wind blusters around it. It's literally like a scene from a horror movie. Here I am, with no company except the garish light of my computer monitor. My imagination starts running a little wild. Are the shadows behind my door moving? Is my closet door slowly edging open? Feels very Edgar Allen Poe-esque. I can feel my heart drumming a desperate, wild tattoo against my chest, a telltale heart beating so loudly and erratically that anything lurking in the shadows will know I'm here, no matter how much I try to hide. Goosebumps spring up along my arms. My eyes are wide open, and I'm lying here, an easy target, just waiting for whatever is shrouded in the darkness to come get me.

And then it moves. The light outside my door changes. Grows darker. Fingers slowly grip the edge of my doorway. An unmistakable silhouette looms on the wall. It grows larger. Larger. Until it's no longer a silhouette and something, someONE, is standing directly in front of my bed, framed by the doorway. And now it's coming closer, advancing towards me slowly, determinedly, purposefully. I count the seconds till it's on me, knowing that there's nowhere I can run or hide, pinned to my bed by abject terror.

I feel a jolt. My hands instinctively fly to my face, my neck. I am 100% intact, alive and well. Bathed in sweat and wild with terror, but all in one piece. I sink back against my pillows, my breathing slowly returning to normal.

It was just a dream.

Only a dream. Nothing more.

I pull the blanket up to my chin again and try to think about pleasant things. Now all there is to do is wait for the sandman to come for me and give me dreams about unicorns and chocolate factories and puppy dogs. My eyes start to drift closed.

That's when I hear the creak on the stairs.

Is it the sandman?

Probably not.

~*Heat*~

We're still alive.

We've just been super busy, as any student at Tech can attest to. So suck it, doubters.

Anyway.

My topic for the night is emotions that simply should not or cannot be outgrown. There are certain emotions that you should never be too old to feel, and passion is one of them. It's one of the fundamental emotions every human being should experience. Because if you don't, I'm sorry, but you are a dry, shell-like, sad, SAD excuse for a human being. And I don't just mean passion in relationships. I mean passion for your activities, passion for your friends, passion for your family. I don't believe in half-assing things, because if you do, it's not worth doing them in the first place. If you truly love something or somebody, that person or thing should do nothing less than hatch butterflies in your stomach and send your heart soaring. It should do nothing less than make your breath catch in your throat and make you want to sing. It should do nothing less than bring tears of joy to your eyes when you think of how lucky you are to have it. There are people who infuse passion into every aspect of their lives, and there are people who just don't feel strongly about a lot of things. I feel like as long as there's one thing-just ONE thing- that you don't feel like you could live without, whether it's food, music, sex, knowledge, whatever- you're experiencing a smidgenny modicum of joie de vivre. And that's important.

The second emotion that I, for one, never want to outgrow, is curiosity. Whether you're eight years old or eighty eight years old, life should never lose its thrill. And consequently, you should never lose your sense of wonder for life. This isn't the same thing as naivete- obviously people should become wiser as they age. But at the same time, the older a person gets, he or she should have a keener sense of the fragility of life and should therefore be able to appreciate it more. An eight year-old is fascinated by the emergence of a butterfly from its cocoon because he's not exactly sure how it happens and wants to find out. An eighty year-old should be fascinated by the butterfly because he knows how it happens, understands what a miraculous process it is, and appreciates the beauty of it.

The last emotion that is IMPOSSIBLE to outgrow is fear. One of my favorite quotes is from Home Alone (great movie, by the way, everyone should watch it), when old man Marley turns to Kevin and says, "You can be too old for a lot of things. You're never too old to be afraid." Everyone's got boogeymen in their closet that they're too afraid to face. The only difference is that the kids may actually know how to deal with their fears better than adults do. It is, first of all, common knowledge that the boogeyman will not pose any danger if one sleeps with the closet door closed (apparently the boogeyman is too dumb to know that you have to TURN the doorknob). And this is when kids start thinking that maybe if you hide your problems long enough, you'll be able to escape from them forever. However, the little people also know that just in case the boogeyman is able to escape from that Lego- and moth-infested hellhole of a closet, a beam of light will vaporize him immediately. And maybe this is the juvenile equivalent of facing your fears head-on, rather than hiding from them or pretending they don't exist. But bottom line, your age really doesn't matter. Everyone is afraid of the possibility of monsters under their bed. Everyone is afraid of the unknown. Fear stalks humans throughout their lives like a relentless beast, teeth and claws bared, waiting for the slightest slip in vigilance. And irrational fears are always the most persistent kind. But as one ages, he or she should be able to deal with their fear rather than allow it to paralyze them, the way kids do, and they should be able to move on with their lives or realize they have to live with their fears.

Unless the fears in question involve cortisone shots, conga lines in old age homes or erectile dysfunction, in which case, paralysis and sheer abject terror are completely understandable.

~*Heat*~