I guess it's that time again

I have started not believing in New Year's Resolutions because I believe you can change whenever you want to change. This just happens to be a time in my life where I want to change (which may be slightly socially induced).

A couple of goals:
Health/Physical:
-Maintain a habit of running
-lose some vanity weight
-work on flexibility
- eat less flour and sugar
-eat more vegetables

Dance:
-Make a semifinal
-be able to do a clean triple spin
-utilize my practice hours better

Academic:
-Get a 4.0 to close the year
-Get involved with a research project
-Get into grad school
-Speak in Spanish more often

Financial:
-Get a job
-Keep track of the money I spend
-Stick to a budget

Personal
-Put myself together more often
-More diligent prayer and scripture study
-Love myself
-Be myself

Social:
-Get out of my comfort zone
-Make a new friend


I should stop before I get carried away.

Basically my motto for this year (with the help of Lauren) is something to the effect of "Buck up!"--meaning take some responsibilty for my life. I get tired of seeing people throw their lives away or listening to people complain or blame every misfortune on some outer working force. Take responsibility for your life! Only YOU can make yourself happy. Only YOU can give yourself validation. I realized it's easy to sink into this state of apathy and fatalism, but it's passe' and pathetic. I'm going to be happy and motivated this year by my own efforts. I believe that God can most ready help us and make us something more when we have this attitude. We are also more able to help others when we get outside of ourselves. Choice-induced depression* and self-pity and self-loathing all create a dangerous vortex leading to egocentrism. We become blinded to everything beautiful around us, and our lives become meaningless and directionless.

And I am personally fed up with it. It's time for change. Happy 2011!

*(I believe there are multiple causes of depression. I thoroughly believe that there are uncontrollable, brain chemical causes, and there is no shame in getting help for that. I also believe that we can cause these same symptoms through poor choices. I will eleaborate on this later, but I didn't want you all to think that I don't believe in the seriousness of mental illness.)

Trust No One

When I was little, my parents would watch the X-Files religiously. Sometimes I would walk in and practically pee my pants with fright. (I was an easily scared child.)

It's weird how I still have random images from various episodes that I remember distinctly. Other images I seemed to have fabricated or altered.

My tolerance for terror has increased somewhat, but this show still freaks me out. (i.e. Home, 2Shy, The Calusari, etc.)

At least David Duchovny is hot.

15 characters

Don't take too long to think about it. Fifteen fictional characters (television, films, plays, books) who've influenced you and that will always stick with you.

1. Mr. Keatings--Dead Poets Society
2. Tyler Durden--Fight Club
3. Tom Hansen or Summer Finn--500 Days of Summer
4. Charlie--The Perks of Being a Wallflower
5. Sam--Garden State
6. Ellie Arroway--Contact
7. Jane Eyre--Jane Eyre
8. Holly Golightley--Breakfast At Tiffany's
9. Grendel--Grendel
10. Katherina--Taming of the Shrew
11. The Narrator--El cuarto de atrás
12. Holden Caulfield--The Catcher in the Rye
13. The Monster--Frankenstein
14. Ella--Ella Enchanted
15. Bad Blake--"Crazy Heart"

Homeward Bound

Actually, I am already home. I just like that Simon and Garfunkel song.

What I love about this time:
--I get to be with my family, including my grandpa who is here visiting.
--I get to buy expensive vegetarian food. And by "I," I mean my mom. And by my mom, I probably really mean my dad. (This doesn't mean you can't be vegetarian on a budget, but prepared vegetarian foods are normally too expensive for a college student like me.)
--I get to sleep into the double digits.
--I have time to read books!!
--I get to see friends that I haven't seen in a long time.
--There is moisture in the air. READ: My skin doesn't freaking fall off for going outside.
--There is scenery worth looking at.
--I have a functional pillow.

three point five

There is something about taking a 3.5 hr developmental biology test that makes me feel really good about myself--no matter how it turns out. (It was free response, so I don't know...)

Yay for hox genes, wnt signaling, gastrulation, enhancers, insufficiency, Spemann's organizer, potency, commitment, splanchnic mesoderm, and EVERYthing in between.

Queen Frostine

Weird thing about me #56382

I like frosting more than the cake. In fact, I don't even really like the cake at all, but if it must be there I like it to be chocolate or red velvet. I find most people have the opposite preference than I do. The frosting must be vanilla. Even more so, I love when the frosting is heavily dyed--so dyed that it has a hint of a bitter chemical taste and turns my mouth a different color. My stomach will eventually start to feel nauseous as my blood sugar spikes, but I push the limits anyway.

This becomes a problem when I inadvertantly ruin a cake by scraping off the frosting and only eating a little bit of the cake. Then I realize that it's not my cake and that I just destroyed everything aesthetically pleasing about someone's dessert. Then I try to play dumb, but everyone knows it was me because I'm the only frosting lover. Foiled again.

This is why my birthday is one of the best times of the year because it is the one time I can scrape all of the frosting off my cake how I please, and no one can say anything about it.

I knew there was a reason that Queen Frostine was always my favorite Candy Land character. Drawing her elusive card was the highlight of my board game experience.

seems like I'm always...

Sometimes I'm just too easy.

Parasite

It's a little passe', but I finally got on the Inception train. I went to the theaters (by myself) because I was tired of hearing all the references to it and not being able to appreciate the pop culture allusion.

My mind is only semi-blown. And I will tell you why.

This is what my physics class in high school was all about. We would get on tangents far away from Newtonian physics and start discussing things like quantum mechanics, time travel, alternate realities. This is where I was first introduced to the idea that my reality might not be real--that everything I'm seeing is a projection of my mind. This is how our brains work after all. Every bit of sensory information is translated into a series of electrical signals, and the brain chooses how to interpret those signals. How do I know if the interpretation is really what is there?

We also discussed lucid dreaming and being able to control what happens in your dreams through diligent practice. Next time you dream, try to tell yourself to do something like tie your shoe. Eventually you can say where you go and what you do. I'm still working on this though.

So Inception was an extension of the brilliant ideas and theories to which I had already been introduced. Thanks Dr. Bellamy.

fork in the conversation

This happened to me more than once today.

I'm walking across campus. I see a medium-known acquaintance. This means that I'm not entirely dreading the fact that we happen to be walking the same direction, and I'm not going to have to submit to mindless small talk the whole time. (more on my qualms with small talk later...)

So you're walking and talking. Then all of the sudden the acquaintance sees someone he/she knows and the conversation pauses so a greeting can be given. But wait! The other person stops. Maybe the acquaintance knows this other person better than he knows you. You were cut off mid-sentence so you can't just keep walking because what if the acquaintance is only stopping for 5 seconds and will be right behind you in no time? Do you wait or stay?! You panic. You decide to wait it out. Maybe it won't be that long. But then you realize you are awkwardly listening to a conversation for like 5 minutes with one person who really doesn't know you that well, and come on, who even cares about the acquaintance of the acquaintance? Even more awkward, when this other conversation ends and you resume your original conversation (is it too creepy to remember exactly where you left off?), you realize you two are only walking together for about 10 more seconds. Baffled at your complete lack of social foresight, you walk away bearing the proverbial scarlet A (for Awkward) on your shirt. And then you get caught in this situation again.

And by you, I mean me.

energy+hydration

I just found a new favorite engery drink flavor.

Ladies and Gentlemen, behold--The Rockstar Recovery

[Except imagine the somewhat cardio-hazardous 24 oz. version due to my developed resistance to caffeine these days.]

The Rockstar Juiced flavors are also appealing, but they have a lot of sugar in them (not that I've been the healthiest eater lately, but I'm not a big fan of liquid calories). I always opt for the sugar-free versions, which taste okay, but this one is like lemon-zingy goodness. Consider me a fan. (possible pun...)

This is going to make trasnochar-ing a lot more enjoyable.

Lo fantastico

Hardest Spanish paper of my life in T-17 hrs.