I stole this from alata_elentari, and the LJ icon is just 'cause.

1. Your Middle Name: Regina
2. Age: 20. Less than a week to 21!
3. Single or Taken: (This is news!) Taken.
4. Favorite Movie: At the moment, I'd say "Pan's Labyrinth," although this is liable to change.
5. Favorite Song or Album: Ughh... Talking Heads' "This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody)."
6. Favorite Band/Artist: I really don't have an answer. If pushed I may say Stars, but it's been a long time since I've actually listened to their stuff.
7. Dirty or Clean: What in the world is this supposed to apply to? Of course I'll say clean.
8. Tattoos and/or Piercings: No piercings or tattoos. Nope, not even ears.
9. Do we know each other outside of LJ? YES :D
10. What's your philosophy on life? This is gonna sound trite, but: Work hard, read a lot, feel it all, and serve God.
11. Is the bottle half-full or half-empty? I dunno. Half-full?
12. Would you keep a secret from me if you thought it was in my best interest? I guess? I wouldn't mention it, but when asked a direct question I rarely lie.
13. What is your favorite memory of us? Foam party. Definitely the foam.
14. What is your favorite guilty pleasure? Top 40 music.
15. Tell me one odd/interesting fact about you: I had ~65 mosquito bites on my body at once. It was pretty awful.
16. You can have three wishes (for yourself, so forget all the 'world peace etc' malarky) - what are they? Ughh. Um. (1) To be with my one true love forever, (2) to stop procrastinating on anything ever again, and (3) to never struggle with acne again.
17. Can we get together and make a cake? Of course!!
18. Which country is your spiritual home? Cheesy, but America. If I had to choose a foreign country, probably England. :)
19. What is your big weakness? Weak-willed--no confidence to start things or to say things that matter.
20. Do you think I'm a good person? Yes. :)
21. What was your best/favorite subject at school? Either English or Biology?
22. Describe your accent. Unabashedly Southern Californian.
23. If you could change anything about me, would you? I would make you slightly shorter than me. ;D
24. What do you wear to sleep? Usually a random T-shirt and comfy shorts.
25. Trousers or skirts? Depends. After wearing jeans non-stop for all of winter I'm going a little crazy with skirts.
26. Cigarettes or alcohol? Alcohol. Definitely. I think smoking is pretty much the biggest instant turn-off I have.
27. If I only had one day to live, what would we do together? We would go to London and help the Doctor survive and expel a horrible alien invasion. And then we would dance at a club until you died. <3

is the best term.

I had signed up for two biology courses originally: human parasitology and neuroendocrinology. Unfortunately, neuroendocrinology, while on a fascinating subject, was crammed with tons of info I had previously never learned and I was quickly overwhelmed and on the verge of tears by the second day of class. The professor was unapologetic, although he offered to help me a lot, and maintained that the amount of work would not really decrease as the term went on--the focus would be more on reviewing scientific articles, writing our own reviews (including one long term paper), discussing the numerous articles assigned each day, and giving hour-long presentations. "We're doing graduate level work!"

So I dropped neuroendocrinology. Don't get me wrong, human parasitology is also a challenging course, but at a much more manageable level (especially as the only course I'm taking this term). I maintain that neuroendocrinology would've been fun, had I been more familiar with the material (as everyone else in the class was), but when the first time you're introduced to the endocrine system is with a 116-slide Powerpoint in one period and you're told to memorize 90% of the information given....

I'm also in a Horsemanship class. It's pretty chill--about once a week we're to ride out to the barn and get lessons. We've only had one class so far, which was focused mostly on getting comfortable around the horses (and mules) before learning how to bridle and saddle them. I somehow got matched with a very tall mule called July. He's very calm, both in how he obeys me and (more often) disobeys me. If I do end up using him for the rest of the term it'll be interesting, since I will definitely need a step ladder to mount him.

My life is pretty much determined by the fear of the four letters MCAT. Test is this Saturday. NOOOO.

I threw a reverse surprise party for my roommate's birthday on Tuesday. :) Basically I invited everyone to my apartment at a certain time for a party--which WE all knew was going to occur, but Sarah didn't. I admit I was a bit lazy about the preparations--didn't really start planning until two days before and cut corners where I could (ex: basically used last year's guest list, deleting the people not on campus and adding the freshmen--you have no idea how stressful balancing friend-groups and making a guest list is). Turned out to be lots of fun :) although it meant I didn't get much work done those first few nights. Oops...

HOUSING PLANS FOR NEXT YEAR = SETTLED. Freakin' finally. After so much angsting and drama, we have determined who is living with us and where we're living. One would imagine that who lives with who wouldn't be THAT big of a deal, but yet again I am proven wrong by self-absorbed people. anyway, the only thing about the new place that I dislike is that it doesn't have a porch, which I wanted, but I have some friends living about two blocks away who have a porch on their house and have already made porch-arrangements with them. Things are looking good.

The weather quickly went from "cool and rainy" to "warm and spring-like" to "hot and muggy." Looks like we jumped straight into summer. I am once again delighted to have an air-conditioned apartment. :)

Okay, so I admit that one thing that I do on the internet when I'm bored is lurk on fashion blogs.

For some reason I find this more shameful than perhaps admitting that I lurk on D&D boards--which I don't do, and the fact that I lurk on fashion blogs oddly enough feels nerdier/lamer than D&D forums ever would.

But anyway!

A meme which has been running around on fashion blogs lately is where one person lists a few things (at least 5) which they love about their physical appearance. Given that Love Your Body Week was a few weeks ago and I am a closet narcissist, I thought I'd ( chip in... )

My grades suck. I will have to study A TON to get them back up again. :(

I'm tired even though I haven't had any papers due. I don't know why this is...

When I'm feeling better I will write a bigger post. A lot has happened lately.

Mostly because I completely burned myself out to finish my research paper for English. There had been a lot of social drama leading up to then, basically leaving me feeling used and drained, and so staying up all night for several nights in a row to furiously work on that one Sylvia Plath paper just wiped me out.

My Organic grade hasn't been faring too well since then, and I think the only thing that's saving me in Genetics so far is that we haven't had anything substantial due in a while. I really, really should be studying for exams in both classes (as well as for my MCAT, argh argh argh), but just haven't... felt like it.

Went to a foam party on Saturday. :) It was kind of sketchy, but (a) when are foam parties not sketchy?, and (b) when are W&L parties not sketchy? Favorite moment of the night was DEFINITELY being covered in a mountain of foam. I had to take a shower as soon as I got home because of all the soap that had become entrenched in my hair. So much love to alata_elentari for coming out with me, btw. :D

Ben went to brunch today. Given that I usually don't go to D-hall on the weekends, I have no idea if this is a normal occurence on Sundays or not--I knew that before he always went to D-hall after his church service let out, around 12:30, but I honestly didn't expect him to keep on coming to D-hall after church... but then, I guess I expected everything about him to change after we stopped dating.

Brunch was surprisingly unawkward, actually. Is it strange that I'm apparently can more readily look him in the eye and hold a civil conversation with him when he isn't dating someone else (especially someone else he hooked up with in shady circumstances)? In any case, I'm hopeful that maybe one day we can hang out and be friends again.

The semester's winding down. Exams are next week. I had really strange feelings when I realized that I'll never have an Organic lab OR an Organic quiz again. We had our Wind Ensemble concert last Tuesday as well--it went amazing and now I'm kind of sad I didn't push more people into coming, especially since *I* played a lot better than I thought I would. We're to have a pizza party and evaluation tomorrow evening. Everything's moving on...

Last week was also "Love Your Body Week" as presented by SPEAK (women's organization against sexual assault) and KEWL ("Knowledge Empowering Women Leaders," about the closest thing we have to a women's rights organization). I helped make some posters with statistics about our campus, which pretty much exceeds the national average in everything (like attempted rape and unwanted sexual touching). I got really into it--to quote Lucy Hundley, "Look at Sharon so lovingly intent on painting the word 'penetration.'" I also went to Take Back the Night, which is a rally-type thing about "taking back the night" from sexual assault... and it made me sad for the rest of the day.

Probably the part which affected me the most was the miniature Postsecret thing which was run for the week. The idea was for people to write secrets on the backs of provided postcards and put them in dropboxes scattered throughout campus, and then they were posted on the walls of one of the main stairwells in campus, leading to the dining hall and the parking garage. I have a total of three secrets posted up on that wall, and I always wonder what people think when they read them. I guess it is liberating, in a way, to see my secrets up there in public, although I always think that they're not shocking or poetic enough for people to take notice. (I'll never tell you which ones are mine, though. :))

I'm so tired.

I registered for the MCAT today.

May 2, 12 PM, Lynchburg, Virginia.

I spent almost all the money in my checking account on registration. That seems to just cement the blow--the finality of the decision that, hey, I'm gonna take a test that will decide the rest of my future.

Crazy.

Also I have a research paper that I've barely started. Crap. Sylvia Plath, please stop hating me.

I walked home at about 1 AM last night and it was SNOWING. I was torn between feeling happy (because of the snow) and distraught (because we had SEVENTY-DEGREE WEATHER last weekend and I was just getting excited about spring!!). It's still kind of wet and chilly this morning. Stupid snow.

Yesterday I was determined to dig up and apply to at least ONE medical internship for the summer over the weekend. However, all the internships I dug up... had deadlines which had already past. I even found a few with deadlines in March!--March 11, I mean. Just missed it. ... I was deeply unhappy. Looks like I might be going to Honduras after all.

Research papers also make me deeply unhappy.

I'm better at doing updates in list format:

1. I declared a Biology major a few weeks ago. Now I am officially a double-major! Or, at least, I think I am--the registrar still hasn't processed my paperwork and my double-major status hasn't been showing up online. :/ I'm a bit worried, but I can get all that figured out later.

2. America's Best Dance Crew has made me want to dance. auralowis is thinking of choreographing a hip-hop routine this spring. I'm inordinately excited, and have downloaded a lot of dance songs to perhaps help with this upcoming hip-hop dance. :D

3. I have officially decided that boys are dumb and not worth my time. Kyeong started complaining a lot about how I have no time to talk to him (which is... kind of true) and that I'm too busy and a "work-a-holic." Pfft. Welcome to the top-tier liberal arts school student, kid. At least be happy you didn't meet someone from Swarthmore.

4. On another note, I am seriously considering going to my school's Fancy Dress Ball (aka our "$100,000 prom"). Yes, the probability of seeing Ben and his new girl is almost 1, but I'm sick of feeling constrained by my own fears and insecurities. I'm going to go to a dance and have fun!! (although I would like to have a date, but that is turning out to be problematic on its own, since most of my male friends are either in relationships or already going with someone else... darn!)

5. Speaking of said drama, I saw Allison (Ben's new girlfriend) today when I was walking to class. In a school this size, it's pretty difficult to not see people around, and I've actually unintentionally figured out a fair amount of Ben and Allison's class schedules just because they're people that I notice. Generally seeing one or the other (or, especially, together) tends to send me into a spiraling breakdown for the next day or so, but today is notable in that I didn't feel anything when I saw Allison going to the Journalism school.
This may be because I was freaking out about the chemistry exam today instead of freaking out about seeing her. But it's an improvement, and I'll take anything as it comes.

6. We've been having spring-like weather here lately, and I love it. It became freezing early on this year, in October--I'm talking highs of 30's for about three months! In February, we alternated between snow days (which had been sorely lacking for those freezing winter months) and sunny 60-degree weather days--often with only one or two days of intermediary weather in between. But the past few days have promised good weather! I'm so excited for spring this year, and sun dresses, and swimsuits, and tubing down the Maury River.

7. Last week on Wednesday I interviewed some Honors Scholars. For those of you who don't remember, I myself was an Honors Scholar at W&L way back in the day. It's a stringent application process, but a ton of scholarship money can be won--full rides were given out even back in my day, before a huge $100 million donation was made specifically towards the Honors Scholar Competition program (which has since been renamed the Johnson Scholar Competition program in this guy's honor). I suppose it would've been easy to write it off, but instead I devoted a ton of time to reading my interviewees' application essays and even threw away five hours on a Wednesday night for the sole purpose of trying to wheedle out a person's character and intellect through probing questions. I was pretty intimidated by some of the students I interviewed; they were much more well-spoken, credentialed, and intelligent than I remember being at that age, going through interviews. It's cool to know that we're competing with the likes of Harvard and Yale for these kids, and that even if the lowest scoring of them decide to attend our school we're better off for it.
The future looks bright! I just hope that they don't lose all of their optimistic prospective-student shine once they get here (and they almost inevitably will... sigh).

8. You know you're an upperclassman when...
... you stay up late cleaning your apartment.
... you consider 12:30 AM late.

More to come.

Fancy Dress Ball is coming up.

Group picture composition will ensue! (I've already got a few ideas for shots. Like, pictures, not alcohol.)

The main problem is that I need to get someone to take the pictures... sigh. Maybe I just won't be in that many this year?

( some 'inspiration' pictures, posted here for future reference )

The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lostthat their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.

--Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck

Suppose you're in love and someone's mistreating (mal aimé) you, you don't say, "Hey, you can't hurt me this way, I care!" you just let all the different bodies fall where they may, and they always do may after a few months. But that's not why you fell in love in the first place, just to hang onto life, so you have to take your chances and try to avoid being logical. Pain always produces logic, which is very bad for you.

- Frank O'Hara, "Personism: A Manifesto."

I need to start doing things besides memes on this Livejournal.

I also need to get some different icons.

Anyway, this is a meme which I've done in the past, but did again just to see what I got differently this time:

Your dating personality profile: Liberal - Politics matters to you, and you aren't afraid to share your left-leaning views. You would never be caught voting for a conservative candidate. Stylish - You do not lack for fashion sense. Style matters. You wouldn't want to be seen with someone who doesn't care about his appearance. Adventurous - Just sitting around the house is not something that appeals to you. You love to be out trying new things and really experiencing life.

Your date match profile: Liberal - You need a person who has liberal opinions and beliefs. You are engaged by political discussions and would find a liberal viewpoint refreshing in a date. Adventurous - You are looking for someone who is willing to try new things and experience life to its fullest. You need a companion who encourages you to take risks and do exciting things. Religious - You seek someone who is grounded in faith and who possesses religious values. You believe that a religious person can enhance your life.

Your Top Ten Traits 1. Liberal 2. Stylish 3. Adventurous 4. Romantic 5. Religious 6. Practical 7. Sensual 8. Big-Hearted 9. Traditional 10. Intellectual

Your Top Ten Match Traits 1. Liberal 2. Adventurous 3. Religious 4. Romantic 5. Practical 6. Shy 7. Intellectual 8. Stylish 9. Traditional 10. Sensual

Take the Online Dating Profile Quiz at Dating Diversions

At least now I want to date people who are like me? (Before I kept scoring as "Liberal" and having "Conservatives" be a top requirement for a perfect match.)

I am so blessed.

I didn't get much work done. But still. I don't deserve to be this rich in friends.

1. Chardonnay 2. red grapes 3. rosé 4. chocolates 5. friendship 6. laughter ( it's lovely )

so seeing my ex-boyfriend around with other people is more stressful than not seeing him at all. Or even talking to him one-on-one.

I have conjectures for as to why this is:

(1) There were periods in our relationship where I would not see him for weeks at a time (usually during breaks). Even during school I always tried to put a priority on doing schoolwork instead of hanging out with him all the time, and so it's easy for my mind to go into automatic "putting relationship on temporary hold for academics" mode.

(2) When we talk to each other one-on-one (which is how we hang out these days), we are both very careful and shy and avoid awkward topics. One could even assume (if not for the awkwardness and shyness) that we were still having normal conversations, like we did while we were dating. Strangely enough these tend to even lift my spirits a little, because seeing him always made me feel better before and still does, and apparently I still prefer talking to him about little things to almost anyone else.

(3) When I see him with a group of people that we hung out with before, I have such an urge to assume the position I normally did before... that is, holding his hand, or casually draping an arm on his, or just standing next to him. The impulse was so strong this weekend that I had to force myself to stay far away from him and not talk to him at all... and to be across the room from him feels so unnatural that I couldn't ignore it. The constant nagging of my subconscious to be close to him just wouldn't shut up.

(4) All the reasons I started to like him are still there. All the personality quirks and imagination and... everything. He is, ultimately, the man that I cared about and respected so much when he was my boyfriend. It's just that now... he's.. not my boyfriend. And there is nothing I can do about it.

(5) I have to admit: I am terminally afraid of when he starts dating someone else, so whenever he mentions hanging out with "a friend" or even just talking to another girl, I seize up inside. It's childish and immature, but the thought of him liking another girl tears me apart, and him dating someone else just...




So in conclusion:

All my safeguards which I put up to keep myself from getting too deeply emotionally involved were all worth nothing.
I'm not over him.
I am immature.

I'm back in Lexington!!

Man does this feel good. It's like I'm in my element again. (I will probably post up pictures of my apartment later.)

On the other hand, after eating out so much and then paying back my roommate for the bills, I am down to $20 until I can pick up my work-study check at the end of the month. Those $20 will probably go towards careful grocery shopping.

Apparently my roommate's boyfriend is going to stay here for the next week? I say "apparently" and append a question mark because I found out approximately an hour ago. I totally hear kissing sounds from over there. (Is this worth complaining about?)

Meh.

MY room is still awesome though. :D

Annual family meeting was tonight. Although we tend to spend most of our time there arguing (and by "we" I mean "arctangent and Dad), I guess it is helpful in setting up goals for the year.

( new year resolutions )

Those were all the resolutions made tonight at the dinner table. However, someone pointed out to me this mission101_2009 community and suggested that I try something similar. At the end of 1001 days, it will be September 29, 2011. I haven't yet been able to come up with another 95 resolutions, but here we go:

( additional '101 in 1001 days' resolutions )

... and the remaining 65 have yet to be thought of. I will probably do them on the plane tomorrow, as I have yet to finish packing. =_=