So Little Time

as i lay on my mom’s bed, with demetri martin singing and telling jokes on the tv, i realize that i have so little time left to my summer. where did it go? my eyes well up each time i think about it because i’ve spent the majority of my summer in an office. in an office! it’s wild that i became the person i never thought i would be: the office worker.

i long for the outdoors, and for the warmth of the sun to lay on my skin and give me the nutrients i need to be happy. at the same time, i’m so happy that i am sitting in an office and getting all of the experience i will need for school. there is no other way that could have gotten this opportunity to learn, but i have the next four years to learn. i don’t know. these days, my thoughts are jumbled up into unreadable messes, and i become incoherent very easily.

i’m sorry if i seem all over the place, but i really am. i try to think about school and immediately my mind closes and blocks everything out. don’t even try to talk to me about what goes on at work because i’m overwhelmed with work i want to finish before i leave because i would hate to leave unfinished work for my boss. and just when you think i should be relieved to go home and talk to my family, you are oh so very wrong. things right now are all a mess with my mother’s job getting oddly close to an end, and my father getting his divorce, moving out, and finding a new job: aka dad is getting a new life. and friends? let’s just say we are all getting closer to forgetting each other’s existence.

so i have no where to run to. all i want to do is just disappear to an area where people only want to hang out and have fun, and will never have crap like this going on. i wish there were people i could depend on to just make everything better. someday soon i will be some place new, with amazing people, and an incredible life, but i wish i could just skip the hard crap and just get to it.

aka: this is just another day, and i wish it wasn’t.

I'm BACK!!!

So do you remember my last post about my dead computer? Well, it really was dead, and it was devastating. I made an appointment at the Genius Bar, or as I called it, "the drinkless bar that needs drinks", and the "drinkless bartender" did nothing to really help me but to say that it could be the hard drive that was giving me the trouble or my logic board, and either way, it was going to be a heavy penny to get either repaired. It was ridiculous. And so I use just about every computer I could get into reach of to check my email, and of course keep up on the little things like twitter.

I've never expressed my obsession with twitter here, but it's clearly evident that I have a small issue.

I AM ADDICTED TO THE INTERNET.

it's a really big issue because I have over 20 different web accounts to social websites all over the place, and even more, talk to my friends more often than I should through AIM. Naturally, the break between my world from the internet from myself was pretty harsh, but at the same time I became a tad bit productive in different ways such as going out to see movies and have ice cream with a friend. It may seem like nothing, but it was pretty nice and lucky to go and hang out in the "real world".

So let me explain that twitter is a micro-blogging website that's nice for mini updates of what's going on. I love it because it is so quick, I can carry a short conversation with anyone in the community, and I am able to access it with my phone without charges. I use twitter to text updates, and receive direct messages while I also have a number that I can call to record a message update for twitter through "twitterfone". All of it has been amazing because I still have been able to keep in contact with some people that I really enjoy.

But now on to the real story. My computer is fixed. How? A family friend was amazing enough to offer his time to check out what was wrong with my computer, and then kind enough to replace my hard drive, which was the root of the problem, without any cost towards me. I know I'll find a way to repay him, but until then, we're making plans to repair my optical drive because it doesn't like to read DVD's or CD's, let alone burn one. It's wonderful.

I love personalizing a computer. I'm a little upset my computer's little tweaks in bookmarks and files is gone, but I can live with it. I'm just happy my photos and music were safe from the small explosion of the hard drive (not literally of course).

Well, It's really late right now, and this desk is starting to hurt my shoulders when I type, so I'm off to bed with happy dreams because I have my computer back and better than ever.

:D

Why Now?

So I've had an awesome schedule of getting up, making my coffee, driving to work, and then coming home to hang out on my computer to just relax. I really enjoyed my computer time after work.

Let me build up the story by adding the background information that my Macbook is a doll, but has always given me one issue once in a while. At first, when I first got my laptop, it wouldn't turn on. You cannot imagine the amount of frustration and sorrow that comes over you when you buy your first laptop all to yourself to find that it won't even turn on. It was horrible. I sat on my bed all alone in the house crying as I would turn on my computer over and over again to see a grey screen that wouldn't even start up. Luckily, when my mom came home, she had the magic touch to make it work.

Although, as the weeks went by, my computer continued to scare me with it's stubborn reactions to me trying to turn it on. This resulted in my sending it off after two weeks of having it to only have it gone for another two weeks. When it came back, it was love all over again with a machine just for me. It's hard to understand the bond that I have with my computer, but once you get one for yourself for the very first time, you do.

So time goes by, the and the whiteness of my laptop turns to a brownish grey tint. It's hard to notice how disgusting it is, but once you put some toothpaste on your computer, you'll see what I mean. I also highly recommend Mr. Clean's Magic Eraser. Ya know...for the special moments.

Anyways, I came to the point in time when I needed to replace my battery, okay that's about $120. Might I also mention that my little white plastic lining along my cpmputer started to break off. "oh well. i'll live," as I always repeat to myself. Well, then I wanted to upgrade my RAM because I only had 512 MB of memory and it didn't seem enough to do anything. So what do I do? I spurged on a good 2 GB for myself because I decided that it would be better for my college investment. That was two weeks ago.

Last night, the worst happened. I clicked on a couple links from twitter and Safari freezes. Mind you, it was right after I opened my computer after I had it asleep. So I can understand. I figure, why not force quit it? So I tried to force quit myself out of Safari, but Finder has forzen so it won't do anything. I figure, why not close out of Adium? Yeah, BAD IDEA. So now my entire computer is frozen for some reason so I force a shut down on my computer. Go to restart, and now my computer turns on with a flashing folder with a question mark in it. Translation: my hard drive isn't being found.

I go through numerous key tricks to make it work, but nothing changes. That darn folder with a question mark continues to blink on my plain white screen. So today I called the Apple Support to see if they could help me. And the guy was awesome listening to my horrible cries of "someone is out to spite me because I told myself I shouldn't buy a new computer for my first year of college...I should wait!" I should have said what was on my mind: "The Apple Gods were punishing me."

After a good half hour, or an hour on the phone with this poor guy, I finally got my computer to recognize the Mac OS X CD and actually start the installations, but sadly it wasn't able to even recognize my Hard Drive. So what is the result? I need to make a date with a Genius at the Genius Bar and rut my head to find out what's wrong with my hard drive. I REALLY don't want to have to replace it, but if I do, I'm going for a larger size. It's going to be better.

I really hate to think about what was on my computer, but I am so good about having stuff on my external hard drives that all I lost were a couple of graduation pictures that I didn't upload to Flickr. Thank GOD for Flickr. If I didn't use it, I would have lost my favorite pictures. OMG. I think I actually, wait, no. I put all of my Prom pics on a flash drive for a friend. What a save. At least I think...

So I really am not going to get a new laptop. I'd rather get a new hard drive and buy the new laptop when it's something KICKASS later.

I won't be on a computer for a long time. So if you want to keep in contact, email me and I'll read it when I can.

I miss my love!

I Survived Week One

WOW.

I love being in the adult world. I love freedom, and I love the smell and taste of my morning coffee while I sit in traffic and drive to work. It just astounds me how much my life is currently upside down compared to what it was about two weeks ago. Yes, it was only last week that I graduated high school, but it was also a change for a new life, in a new world.

I have grown so comfortable in the care of my mother and relying on her for my rides and schedules from day to day, and this week was intense in the situation that my mother has been in Maryland for the week at school and I was given the car to take care of myself for the week, including my start at my first job and internship. It was so incredible. It was like a scene from Freaky Friday without the crazy earthquake creating fortune cookie at a tacky chinese restaurant or anything. Instead, it was a simple parting of ways between my mother and I in reverse directions.

I loved the feeling of driving to work in the morning on my own, which is an hour of "me time", even if there was horrible traffic. I loved becoming a part of the office, and gaining my own desk out of the three total working desks. It was amazing to learn how to take site measurements for conceptual projects, learn the math to find topographical grading, and then to learn the ways of the architectural process of creating the design: from sketch, to vectorworks, to photoshop, and then to sketchup. It's just perfect because I know I'm gaining an edge for my entrance to school in the fall. I just cannot wait to enter.

This brings me to another point. 

I cannot believe that I am actually joining into a new world. This is much different from my new job because my boss is my mother's friend, and pottery student, I'm only a 3 minute drive from my mother's work, and I continue to visit her workplace after I'm finished with work so I can talk to familiar people. For me to be going to a school FIVE hours away from home is a rather large deal. I continue to worry about what might happen, but most of all, I'm afraid of what I'll miss back home. I'm not saying that I'll be absolutely homesick, but I know that it will hurt me not to know everything that's going on back home, and seeing people as normally as I do. For example, I feel so awkward talking about where I'm going to school because I'm going to a very high ranking school while the majority of my friends are going to the state school that I turned down for myself. I feel like I'm rude whenever I have to explain to someone new that I am going to a different school from everyone else, and yes, I won't know anyone else from the area other than an old lab partner from a year before, who is a year ahead of me, and who my friend's aren't really fond of. I hate the feeling that I'm being rude, annoying, or obnoxious, and I hate thinking that someone has a negative thought of me just because of my choices. It's not that I am embarrassed by my choice of school, but I have learned that people around me frown upon my difference, and so I try not to become the foreign object of conversation.

I'm not saying that I am conforming, or that I am falling under peer pressure of any sort, but that sometimes I find that certain friends are not the ones to talk about certain things to. I find that some of my friends are jealous because I am going to my number one school while they got turned down. I also find that some of my friends don't understand my motive to experience every bit of the world and to try different likes and tastes. It's hard because I live in a small town where the people frown upon internet communication unless it's with someone you already know. So I find it hard to talk to my friends about my love for diggnation or twitter because they just don't get it. They're not close-minded, but they have different ideas for enjoyment.

So I guess what I'm trying to say is that I am too excited for my new life, but I'm scared of the people I am leaving and the life I am leaving because I'm starting to actually love it and very comfortable with it after a long time of hating it, and I just don't want to lose what I have. I don't want to lose some of my greatest friends because of our differences, and soon our different locations. I truly do feel an honor when someone likes me and enjoys my company as so theirs, so to know that I am going to be far from people who I trust, I know it's going to be hard.

Today I went to two graduation parties and it was there that I started out having a ball and being a party animal, but by the end of the evening, I was seeing how everyone had their differences and how I felt really outcasted at one point because of my dislike of a three hour long game of sexual innuendos that soon were all directed at me. I can take it. It's not bullying. It's only a playful banter between friends, but I realized that huge difference that I had with my friends and I didn't know who they were and was unfamiliar with "this side of them" and it scared me to death. Was this how it was going to be in the future? Are we going to see each other, share a hug, and then only be able to reminisce because we have nothing in common in our likes to share a conversation about with offending someone? It feels so hard to know this parting is occurring, and with some people I don't mind it, but truthfully, it scares me because I know that I am changing and will change even more over the years and fear that in turn I will not be liked anymore, or respected as I am now.

Call me paranoid. I know I am. I am always scared.

adult life?

Okay so it's hit me. HARD.

I am driving to my first day of work tomorrow. I already am planning on stopping at the ATM to activate my first ATM card, stopping at a store for my sister, and stopping at my doctor's to get my immunization history all tomorrow morning. Can I explain to you how amazing this feels?

Even better, I am making plans to visit a friend for coffee after work, having a graduation dinner with my dad, and going to get my hair cut. I'm so excited for this week. I can only wish that it will be amazing and continue to rock.

Good luck to everyone else!

PS. I upgraded my RAM from 512 MB to 2 GB and let me just say the difference is utterly astounding. I love it. I would highly recommend the upgrading of memory if anyone feels their computer is running a tad bit slow. It's a miracle.

And yet, I'm still looking into buying a new macbook. My reasoning being that I would love to have a larger basic hard drive. Hell, anything more than 60 GB standard would make my day. Then again, I am willing to wait because I know that Apple will upgrade their computers to something amazing within a year. No big differences this far = it's coming!

anticlimactic freedom

After thirteen years of schooling in the same system and with the same group of students, I found my end of this chapter of my life, the closing of these doors, rather anticlimactic. 

You imagine yourself falling apart when you walk away from your friends, or at least an unsettling feeling in your stomach for nervousness for your future. But when you experience absolutely no feelings towards it all, you cannot help but feel like a heartless person, or even worse, a robot.

I find myself as a hopeless romantic who has high expectations. I dream of these amazing experiences that may happen, such as someone sweeping me off of my feet, a fairy tale prom, or a dramatic graduation. When none of the above occur, it surely does confuse me. I think of my life as a movie and when I dream at night, I use every little bit of movies to create scenarios that only seem dramatic and amazing, and find myself disappointed very often with the realistic outcomes. For graduation, I expected myself to cry, or at least have a sense of loss, and if that didn't happen, I had hoped for a feeling of happiness or excitement. Although, I walked out of graduation feeling blank and without any thoughts or emotions. I expected more...something to happen!

I hate being disappointed and it's only in these situations that I can blame myself for dreaming too much and too high, but then I realize how important it is. If I didn't dream of myself going to an amazing school and becoming a strong student, I would not have become it. I realize that my fears hold me back from allowing myself to fail, experiencing trials of pain, and even not reaching my goals. I don't set my goals or dreams to high, but rather I don't work hard enough to reach them. I have finally reached one of my greatest and what seemed like my highest goal and it amazes me that I reached it, but it also makes me happy to realize my capabilities. I can do whatever I want and make every dream I have come true as long as I work for it. Having a guy sweep me off of my feet? I would have to do the research to find someone to create a strong bond with. Having a fairy tale prom? I would have had to keep a positive attitude the entire night to create that euphoric feeling. 

And as for a dramatic graduation? I would have had to let myself dwell on the past and only think of the good things that I will miss and nothing about my future. If you think about it, it would be a negative thing to only think about the past and to cry about leaving it. Change is good and when I think more about it, the more I realize the importance of it in my life. Without making changes in my life, and looking into the future with positive eyes, I will never enjoy my life.

And so, I think of everything that has happened to bring me to this end of a portion of my life, and I am happy to know that I get to experience another portion of it in my future. All I have to do is dream big and let myself work hard to make all of it come true.

clarity

I hate to sound cliché and I try as much as I can to avoid it, but I just cannot. 

Do you every have that moment of clarity where finally everything makes sense and you see the light before you? I cannot help but believe that this moment and emotion that I currently carry is one of those unrealistic moments. Why so unrealistic? This is the point in time that I can believe what I want to such as future careers, experiences, loves, and memories. The reality is that I may never know what is to come. I may never know until I am in my old age and able to realize everything in front of me.

I say all of this gibberish because I am graduating in less than a week and I cannot believe all that I am leaving behind. I could cry over how many hours I have spent on worthless projects, but it would mean nothing because all I can think about it is the sense of community I had in school is going away. I have always longed for a place to call "home" where I knew that everything would be whole and perfectly alright and now that I think about it, it was my school system. Yes, many of my moments in school were spent whining over how much I wanted to get out and far away, but of course, realization sets in on my gift of an amazing school with some priceless people. I just wish I could freeze a couple moments of time so that I could savor them over and over again, and sadly I know I cannot do that. 

After all of these years of begging to leave, it's a horrible punishment to know that I'll miss my school. I'll miss the respect from administrators, chats with teachers, walking through empty hallways, and of course, creating happy memory after memory with my friends. It never ceases to amaze me how many people I have been able to get acquainted with and create such strong bonds and lasting friendships. Sadly, I know that the majority of them will not stick without the glue of school community. It's without our common stomping grounds, I fear that I will never see some people again.

What about those new peers? The new friends that change your views on life? I know that it sounds horribly corny, but I just love to think about all of the things that have made my friends laugh. I love the feeling of pride that comes when your friends laugh with you and you know that they are there to support you. I know I'll miss one new friend more than anything because of their kind character. It's because of them that I know that I should never make assumptions to people's lives because I know some of their habits. The truth is, when you are a bright spirit, and are willing to share your love with others, you will always find people at your side who also radiate love outwards along with respect. It's the confidence of life that brings us together, but it's the love of company and difference that keeps us together.

I can only make one wish for my future years in a new school community-that they too are looking for a sense of home within their community and are willing to share their souls and love to everyone to make us all whole. For only then will we be a family, which is definitely more than you could imagine to ask for.

For seniors-congrats on graduating! You are true survivors of life!