Wednesday, December 3, 2008

Not so random randomness

It feels good to take control of my life.
It makes me feel alive to feel.
A life without love is not worth living.

Monday, November 17, 2008

On writing... sorta (or, the text message I sent by accident)

The writing is the point
The point in an action
The message unsent
Like words unspoken
Only through the pen
A release in the voice
So much to say
So little time
So many second guesses
Delete.

Monday, November 10, 2008

The existential crisis

We are brought up to believe we are capable of accomplishing anything. But when? How soon is the right time to make the jump?

I really don't know anymore.

I just need time to sit and think.

Sunday, August 3, 2008

It begins.

Work starts tomorrow...

Monday, July 28, 2008

Fly Little Wing

So I've been in Chicago for a week now, but things have been odd for the last three weeks or so. I had my wisdom teeth out and then fell terribly ill with some derivation of strep throat/tonsillitis. It should say something that I spent two weeks on the couch without even thinking about updating. But now I am back to the real world and moving in to my new apartment. It's crazy to think about all the things that must be done in the course of moving! I just keep buying things, and I don't even know if they're the right things. I also want to make sure this place feels like home, and I want to find the random things that are somewhere in the chaos. But as out of control as it can sometimes feel, this place is beginning to feel homey. As I continue to meet nice people and be productive, I realize how out of it I have been and how nice it is to be in the world again.

Sunday, July 27, 2008

Hello

Hello from Chicagoland. I've been out in my new apartment for nearly a week. And it's beginning to come together.

Monday, June 30, 2008

Parting Shot

I meant to post this awhile ago and know it's been in various venues, but I've thought of it a lot over the summer and it seems to make sense for it to go here as well as I launch off on the next chapter of my life:

Learning to Fail

In the admissions office, the same message has been repeated to prospective students for years. It is a message that I wrote in my college essay four years ago, but I never fully understood until I came through the Harvard experience: Don’t be afraid to experience failure.

It is hard for me to analyze my Harvard experience without analyzing the failures I experienced. I could put a rosy glow on everything, but if I did not allow myself to look at those moments where I made mistakes, I would lack the perspective I have today.

During my freshman year, I took an upper-level philosophy class on existentialism. Since then, I have tried to live my life in accordance with Nietzsche’s principle of eternal recurrence: Live life such that you would want to live each moment over again, every detail the same. But I have come to discover that this philosophy is incomplete. Life is about more than simply living with no regrets. It is about learning from the regrets that you do have and realizing which moments are the ones you should cherish.

Harvard hasn’t been easy, and it is not supposed to be. It is that first freshman seminar that you applied to but were rejected from. The a capella group that the vast majority of people who tried out for didn’t get in to. The production you weren’t cast in, and the team you didn’t make. There are the professors who wouldn’t advise your thesis, the funding that didn’t come through, the fellowship or job that you weren’t offered. Here, we have learned to experience failure, because it is impossible to succeed at everything at once. Whether those failures were in the classroom, in tryouts, or even in a fight with a friend, we would be remiss if we said that we had made it through the Harvard experience without learning that we cannot always succeed.

But often, these failures result in the greatest rewards, and we end up learning from the risks that gave rise to them. When I wrote my application to Harvard, I tried to communicate that I was a happy and confident person. I believed myself happy and confident back then, but the extent to which I know myself is much deeper today. In choosing to come here, I made the decision to take myself out of the environment I was familiar with and go somewhere where I would not know everything. I lived with a diverse group of people I love, and I learned new things every day. I didn’t do everything right, but I don’t think that anyone did, even if that is the image they hope to project.

And four years later, my happiness is genuine, but the confidence that I possess is more than a simple optimism fed by success; it is the confidence to try, to risk failure, and to get back up again.

I credit Harvard for teaching me this, above all other things. In an institution that glorifies conventional notions of success, I believe the most important thing I learned here was how to fail. Failures are not the prettiest moments, and on graduation day, one is reluctant to remember crying over a poor Expository Writing grade or the emotional crisis of the first month of freshman year. Yet, without these moments, I would not be so proud of where I am today. I would not have felt as much joy in my grade on the next paper. I would not be so proud of the many things that I have accomplished here. They may not be a laundry list of awards, but these successes are things that I have worked for—achievements with efforts and stories behind them.

Harvard is a place that rewards success, and during senior spring in particular, these awards proliferate. Suddenly it seems that everything can be divided into Summas, Phi Beta Kappas, Hoopes prizes, and prestigious fellowships. But this is not the entire Harvard experience. The Harvard experience entails understanding and experiencing failure. It is comprised of students rising from that failure, overcoming that fear, and excelling in spite of it. That environment—made up of students who experienced few failures before college and have been humbled by Harvard—makes this school the amazing place that it is. I only hope that, in a place where excellence abounds, Harvard College never loses sight of the importance of failing.

Monday, June 23, 2008

Publishing a piece?

Why is it that I keep getting the urge to write op-eds? I don't know where to publish them, but I keep coming up with ideas.

Sunday, June 22, 2008

I am not a sell out.

It seems that everywhere I look, people are harping on new graduates for entering the real world/anything other than public service after college.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/23/education/23careers.html?hp

I'm so tired of it. I wish people had this discussion before I mapped out my career path and accepted an offer, but now I instead feel like I was forced to march blindly, make a decision, and apparently, I am somehow a sheep. It's taken the good I've felt about all that I've been doing and made it feel somehow like it's not enough, and I should've done something different. I even almost feel bad for having thought about money when choosing a job. Was it bad that my parents were threatening to kick me out and I wanted to be financially secure when I graduated? Is it bad if I did not want to live on $1 a day by choice? Is it bad that I want to start saving money for grad school/my own production company/a house/travel/a future?

I don't think that choosing to work is inevitably the wrong choice. Three speeches and an article later, I'm tired of the propaganda that it is. And I'm tired of contemplating whether I made the wrong decision.

Friday, June 13, 2008

Strange ramblings in the night

The things I miss most are things in the night:
- I miss driving to a certain place at 2am and driving home on a deserted highway at 4. I like when the roads are all mine, and when traffic lights seem like suggestions since there is no one else there but you and the quiet night illuminated by your soundtrack.
- I miss the sounds of college- both the absolute quiet (even when I complain about it) and the noise of an active party night. The people, the music, the shuttles.
- I miss the emptiness and the busyness- seeing people places where you didn't expect to run into anyone and being the last person awake.
- I miss going out too. Knowing that you can walk into a bar or a room and there will be people there that you know who are really glad to see you. Always having a place to go.

Consequently, I did find it surprising when my mom came downstairs randomly tonight to hug me, hold me, and tell me how proud she was of me. I felt like I was the parent comforting her, and it was very weird and awkward and eerily painful. It was a night when I wanted to be the child, and instead I felt I was taking care of myself, waiting up for them to get home and then comforting her. The role reversals are disquieting and make me not be as secure with who I'm supposed to be anymore.

At least I get a vacation tomorrow. I think getting away from all this will do me a lot of good.

Thursday, June 12, 2008

Beginings

I have now been a Harvard graduate for a week, and I hardly know what to do with myself. Despite my degree and the fact that I have a job lined up, it still seems that I am more lost than found. Consequently, I've created this blog to keep up with my wanderings--both mentally and physically--as I put together a life for myself beyond the gates of Harvard Yard.

My life has always been defined within an academic setting, despite attempts to do or be otherwise. Some people may say they were undefined before high school or college, but I always existed within the framework of the classroom. I always loved school, was curious, and lived a life that revolved around a large slate of extracurricular activities. That was the life I lived for as long as I can remember. Although I changed within that world and my ideas, personality, and mannerisms are different now than they used to be, I have always had that construct to be in. Now, a world without a classroom seems like a strange thought. When I'm moving, I become motivated again, but otherwise, it becomes increasingly easy to just sit, relax, think, and be... lazy. I am still that girl who wants to take over the world, and am still many f the things I was within the confines of the classroom-- I just have to figure out how to translate that into the real world. Which is why I'm wandering.