Fearless

I don't know if there's a word for that feeling you get when you can't decide if something feels good or bad or right or wrong. You know that you feel something, but can't decide emotionally if it's good or bad. I mean, sure, you can analyze it and look at the pros and the cons and ultimately make a decision for or against, but it's hard to figure out what exactly it is that you simply feel. Sometimes when things become different than they were, it can be good but also feel sad or nostalgic. I experienced this when I visited Jersey to see my friends this summer. My interactions and conversations with some of them felt much different than before, but for a good reason: I had changed as a person, as I'm sure they did as well, by becoming more secure in the person that I am, not questioning my inherent personality because of what others have to say about it. Still, having things be different than they used to is sad because I still had great times and I'm ...

So it's been two days since classes have restarted and a week and three days since I've gotten back to school. Clearly I've been having so much fun that I didn't have time to blog. This year is definitely going to be much busier than last year, I'm already overwhelmed by dates and times and places that I need to remember to go to. I need to find a better system to keep track of all of it. I think it's time to start using Google Calendar.  It's going to start again where after every post I say that I should really be doing homework rather than writing the post. Except this year it won't be orgo, it'll be Chinese or multi. And this is in fact the main reason it will be an even better year than last year. I kid. It will also be better because I know where to find my opportunities and how to keep busy and the good study spots and my friend groups are set and I don't have to take the bus as much and I know much more about time management and I ...

So as I'm sure you've noticed at this point, I recently underwent a website makeover in the span of a night. I found new templates on this site for Blogger and I love the very minimalistic, photoblogging based themes. Photos just make everything better, so I picked something that was very photo friendly, even though I don't really photoblog. The changing background is filled with some of my favorite shots that I've taken/of me and my intent is that you could go click on that Home button, just stare at the screen for about 15 seconds, and feel a handful of different emotions in that span of time. The photos make me feel all these very different emotions because of the colors, the settings, and the memories that I have attached to them. It's pretty cool to just sit back and watch and feel yourself feel, you know? Otherwise, I think it's all still pretty easy to navigate, you just click on the blog link on the side and it's pretty much the same as always. Fun...

T-minus 9 days to Duke. I am so ready. Exactly 4 months ago, an amazing guy asked me out. I'm super excited to see him in 15 days as well(: This week I've spent in New Jersey, the place I've lived in for almost my entire life until it was unwillingly ripped away from me when Dell decided to give my dad a job in redneck Texas. Okay, maybe I'm exaggerating. South Jersey is a beautiful place, though many of you may not agree because you've never actually been here and have been instead misled by pop culture and generalizations. You can go read all those Jersey buzzfeed posts. Being back in Jersey was surreal; I felt like I was returning somewhere familiar in a dream and it all passed by with a blur. I don't know what it is about nostalgia that does that to us.  There were very few people I wanted to see when I visited in the first place. I realized that the friends that were close were few and even they were busy with their ambitions this summer. The few peo...

I just don't even. We clearly have too much time on our hands. So I finally cut my nails all nice and repainted them. I should probably get back in the habit now that I'm not going to be sitting around the house all day anymore. Three short weeks left until I get back to good ol' Duke. Also, only about 5 days until I get to go back to wonderful New Jersey and see my friends and my school and the park and Wawa and Rita's, oh my. So excited. It's actually dark purple and not black. It's so hard having nice nail polish on because then I don't want to do anything to mess them up and so I just stop doing everything. Including typi

It isn't until this year that I fully experienced the phenomenon that they call the mood swing.  Maybe it's not the first time I've fully experienced it, but rather the first time I've been able to recognize my changing emotions about certain things at certain times and how I can feel seven different ways about one topic in the span of a week. An example. In the past week, I have felt the following emotions about my academic future and career path: determined, excited, confused, pessimistic, optimistic, frustrated, upset, confident, motivated, and hopeless. No, I was not on my period. Another example. In the past week, I have felt the following emotions about spending the majority of my summer with my sister: annoyed, disappointed, gratified, content, unsatisfied, and like I just want to give her hugs all the time. With so many feelings, it's hard to tell which ones are the real ones and which ones are just there because it's "that time of night" or ...

Sometimes I'm afraid that my dreams aren't big enough. That I should be wishing and hoping for so much more than I am. I'd like to say that I'm ambitious, but maybe I just don't believe in my own dreams. Like I don't believe that I could make them come true. I feel like my goals are too "mainstream," things that aren't up to the level of what I expect of myself. And then there's the people telling me not to look at my goals relative to other people's goals, which is probably good advice, but it's hard. Most of the time at Duke, I feel like I'm just not shooting high enough or I've fallen behind so how will I get myself back into the race. But here are two things that I just realized: 1) It's never too late to do the best that I can to bring myself back, this is precisely what happened to me in high school. It just took a while for me to get fully adjusted. And 2) Why am I even bothering myself with being in this race? Part ...