For the first time in months, I feel like writing something.

Not much, just a summary of my situation this morning.

It's 9:31 am and I've been up all night, hanging out with awesome friends who are about to leave campus. We sat around in Oscar's room, ate cookies, sat around outside on the lawn for several hours at night listening to music, played volleyball in the middle of the night, and watched Memento - though most people fell asleep during the movie. And now everyone except me is asleep. I'm waiting for another friend to call so I can hang out with her a little and say bye before she leaves; I haven't talked to her in a while. We're sort of rooming together next year, though.

In the interval between the end of the hangout and now, I also sent a Facebook message to one of these friends letting him know I have a crush on him. That was kind of a silly thing to do - I don't expect reciprocation (I sometimes begin to suspect it, but then perform a quick reality check and stop suspecting), and in any case I'm really quite happy with the situation as it is now: we hang out a lot, enjoy talking, are increasingly comfortable with each other... I don't know why I decided to add this extra dynamic into the situation. Oh well. He goes back to the city today anyway, though we'll be visiting each other a bit next weekend. I guess it'll be fine.

I think I'll go either sleep or read til my friend calls, but first, let me just state for the record that Princeton squirrels and bunnies are absolutely adorable. On our way back from the hangout, Erik and I ran into a couple of extremely confused and odd squirrels. One of them repeatedly came closer to us, looked at us quizzically, then went back. (Me: It's such a cute and confused squirrel! Erik: Just like you! Me: ...[!-type noise] I'm not a squirrel!...)

Rehearsal today 3:30-10 with an hour of break, I hope I survive on no (or little) sleep. I also have to stock up on food for the next couple of weeks...

Today I was late to class (I know, what a shocker), and as I walked there from my dorm at an inexcusably relaxed pace, the wind suddenly sped up in my direction, actually pushing me forward, and I thought, "heh, it's trying to get me to hurry up; how motherly of it" - and I had a flashback to a time, very long ago, whose existence I had forgotten, when I had thoughts like this on a regular basis, with less sarcasm and more whimsicalness (would "whimsy" be the appropriate word here? I don't know), consciously imagining a world that cared about me - not a God or even a unified entity of Nature, just a collection of things that cared - wind, creeks, clouds, sand, oceans, all were animate objects, sometimes at odds with me, more often loving, always making life interesting.

I can hardly remember it all now, but when for a moment it comes back, it's a very relaxing and purely happy thought.

I always knew I was imagining it, but somehow it made things beautiful.

--

..This is kind of at odds with my general view that the world does not need embellishment, in the form of unrealistic dreams or supernatural entities or religion, to make it interesting, worthwhile, or meaningful. I feel that life can be plenty interesting, even when full of routine - one just needs to find an enjoyable routine (i.e. take classes one likes, try to find an interesting job, work time with friends into one's routine, read books, watch movies, etc.). This, in turn, makes it worthwhile. The issue of meaning is a bit more thorny, as I don't believe there is a universal meaning of life (I italicize the phrase because it has long bugged me and I find it difficult to use it unsarcastically; I'm not sure how exactly this leads to italics, but whatever), and followers of various religions tend to claim that their religion provides such a meaning. I feel, however, that we can create our own meaning through the way we live our lives, if we so desire. I personally am fine with just living without an overall purpose, but I like doing things, on a smaller scale, that are meaningful to me, and if I wanted I could make them a lifelong mission; I just don't want to.

In sum, the world as it is (which, in my perspective, includes only the physical world plus our emotions) is quite sufficient for a fully wonderful life.

But my childhood imagination made things full of wonder in a way that they can rarely be in reality. So I understand those whose faith makes the world a better place to them. It's tempting, really, to believe that some being out there always knows what I'm going through and cares about me, no matter what the situation; I just don't actually believe it's true, and I don't want to pretend it's true just so I can be happier. I'd rather depend on myself and fellow human beings for my happiness than on something or someone who does not, as far as I know, actually exist.

--

I apologize for this incoherent and rather random ramble/statement of personal philosophy at 2 am. I just wanted to record the episode at the beginning of the entry so as to avoid forgetting it again, and that gave rise to all the rest of these musings. Feel free to present opinions or whatever you'd like.

Summary of the past couple of weeks

Things that suck
- Dean's Date
- Princeton's academic calendar
- giant amounts of work
- all-nighters, especially when followed by accidentally falling asleep
- sleeping until 7:30 at night and missing a deadline and a half
- insufficient sleep
- allergies, especially to the dust in my own room (and lack of time to vacuum)
- simultaneous take-home finals and a paper
- rehearsal schedule changes (or my own obliviousness?)
- missing someone
- doubts about good things
- unnecessary complication and confusion
- death

Things that are awesome
- Panera
- a first real date
- FRS 115, particularly on a trip to the Met
- being almost entirely done with finals
- Mitha visiting
- my room being CLEAN!
- hanging out with several awesome people for a long time (though sleep deprivation made it less awesome)
- Brahms rhapsody no. 1, which I shall be playing :D
- realizing that I can have a free small sample of delicious Bent Spoon ice cream whenever I pass through Frist
- Bent Spoon blackberry cinnamon ice cream. Sounds odd, but it's very good.
- only having to miss someone for two and a half more days
- New York on Wednesday!
- Buenos Aires (at least I hope it's awesome)

I posted my New Year's resolutions recently - not here, but on Facebook. They were based on songs and there were several, but the most important ones were to be kinder, not to procrastinate except when it's truly worth it, and to keep up my energy.

I just want to say that, so far, I am kind of failing at my resolutions. Well, my energy is fine, since I'm getting plenty of sleep and not getting into arguments. Kindness is decent, though I reallyreally need to finally email my grandparents. Procrastination, though, is being quite terrible. I wasted at least two hours today that really should have been spent working - not entirely worthlessly, but not in a way that is worth sacrificing homework time when I have so much homework and so little time. I did find some interesting thoughts floating around Xanga, and I highly enjoyed spending quite a while talking to Nestor, but my time would have been better spent doing homework so I could be more free to actually hang out with Nestor once I get back, and generating thoughts of my own (preferably on the topic of my IR paper).

So this needs to change. Tomorrow, I am NOT procrastinating. I am spending a maximum of 30 minutes on xanga, and a maximum of 30 minutes talking to Nestor. I think that is reasonable. I am also probably spending some time at a Russian party, but not more than an hour and a half. Other than this, rollerblading, playing piano, and watching a movie with my family + Galka in the evening, I will spend my time on homework. I will, of course, take breaks, but only between significant chunks of work. I will finish my paper's rough draft, email my grandparents, and then go look back over my paper, fix the rough edges, put in citations, and turn it in. The rough draft was supposed to be done today, but such is life... or rather, such is my failure at nonprocrastination. I need to stop failing.

A thought

I (1) will soon have a more substantive entry with New Year's resolutions and such, and (2) don't really have the time to be posting much of anything at all, but I just felt like documenting a thought.

Today, after a total lack of House for a few months (except about half an episode that happened to be showing in Frist one day) I rewatched some House/Avenue Q videos (and found another awesome one). Of course, I've known for a while that the aerial view of the "hospital" is really of the relevant part of the Princeton campus, and that the front of the building, with all its windows, is the front of Frist. But it was still so strange to see, on clips from public TV, a spot where I've had so many amusing or emotional moments, from lying there with Mitha and Sekai with heads upside-down while Nestor sorted out issues over the phone, to sharing a hug or a kiss, to sitting out there alone in the beautiful rain-mist with a not-so-yummy latemeal dinner angstily overthinking everything, to resolving things but not being able to stop crying - that place is on House. So weird.