Reading: Searching for God Knows What by Donald Miller

Semester results:

Political Science Y200 – A (of course, it’s me, ♥ me some politics )

This semester’s GPA was a 3.540. Best semester since my freshmen year. So. freaking. proud. Totally worked really hard, especially in that organic chemistry class. It was definitely one of the hardest classes, besides physics, that I’ve ever taken. Even harder than calculus for me, and calculus was unbelievably hard lmao! I normally get Cs in practically every chemistry class but I had a group of friends in that class and we pulled through. Such an amazing experience with them. This totally has me all like: fuck Cs from now on! B- is the lowest I should get from now on lol. Got one more year, and this summer semester that starts in 3 weeks… plus my biochemistry lab internship which starts Monday (yayayayayaYAY!)… yes I’m crazy. Taking a chemistry class that I plan to do pretty well in. It’s biochemistry and “real life applications” so it sounds really interesting to me

In other news: President Obama regrew his spine and said what most of his liberal/Democratic base has been screaming for 103298238932782 years (ok, maybe more like 10 or 15 years): Gay people should be allowed to marry. I was like goodness, it wasn’t painful was it; endorsing equal rights to people who pay taxes and lead normal lives. There is absolutely nothing but religious reasons on why gay people shouldn’t be allowed to marry yet the US Constitution proclaims that Congress shall not honor any religion… which means gay marriage opponents need more than Jesus or Muhammed doesn’t like it. They need like [insert dopey voice] Uh… like there’s been scientific studies that children raised in homosexually-led households mutate into huge green monsters with five heads and prefer to suck people’s blood besides being relatively normal and productive members of society [/insert dopey voice].

You see, I think eating yogurt is absolutely disgusting. For God sake you’re eating curdled milk! Gaaaah. Gross. But it doesn’t affect me when other people eat it. Yeah, I may cringe when I see others eat it but that’s MY problem that I get to get over. Not theirs. A loving relationship between two consenting adults is fine by me. For gays to be able to see each other in hospitals, to adopt children more readily, get governmental benefits, be able to be relocated to the same military bases, this is what allowing gays to marry would do. If you don’t like something that doesn’t hurt you/society (which it wouldn’t – it could probably help this 50%+ divorce rate we’ve got!), then don’t do it.

Reading: a semester’s worth of shit!

Six days til May. Seven days til my Organic Chemistry final. Eight days til my Biology & Philosophy finals. Nine days til my (easy!) Political Science final. When did this happen?! Feeling really hopeful about this semester. My Organic Chemistry grade is on the brink of a B- which would be the best grade I’ve gotten in a chemistry class since my fresh(wo)man year lol. And what a class to do it in… second semester organic chemistry… smh.

So here’s to this coming week. I hope the long nights, the stress, the peptalks to and from friends and the anticipation is worth it.

Reading: Plain Truth by Jodi Picoult

For the past several months, I’ve been stuck inside the grip of this paralyzing frustration about the world. I feel as if education & the encouragement of critical thinking gives me such a high. But then it’s completely sobered when I start to read the news and see all of the shit that goes on: Bahrain & Syria’s protests, Saudi Arabia & Afghanistan’s stupid ass, barbaric policies on women, incredibly hypocritical US foreign policies. Just seeing how the Occupy Wallstreet movement was condemned when their message was “We don’t know what exactly to do but we know that when 1% of this country holds wealth, therefore power, something is dangerously & horribly wrong.” It just infuriates me while paralyzing me with this overwhelming emotion of hopelessness. I am only one person, what can I even do? What can I even change? Why should I even try if I don’t have any faith that anything will come of it?

So while I was studying hard for my organic chemistry quiz (which I think I did pretty good on) with a group of 3 other friends when one of my close friends called me. And normally I hate talking on the phone because it completely bores me. I love to see facial expressions, gestures, all that humany stuff But she is one of the few people I can spend hours on the phone with so I decided an organic break was greatly in order!

She brought up the beginning of Lent. And she asked what she should sacrifice this year. So we talked and joked about giving up breathing, talking to white people (this was totally not serious & is kind of impossible living in the midwest United States! ) & giving up her favorite show Once Upon a Time. Then we went through her not drinking water for an hour once a week for this would cause us to empathize and remember the people who couldn’t drink clean water. Or not using electricity after 6pm since that’s the norm in some parts of the world. Or not eating lunch to remember and empathize with those who struggle to find their next meal. And she asked me then if I would consider doing it with her.

At first, I was excited. I would actually be doing something! But it was almost immediate when that intellectual paralyzing grip of just absolute hopelessness took its hold of me:

“But what would be the point? Nothing would happen.” And she said a Mother Teresa quote along the lines of my actions could inspire someone else. And so I said I’d consider doing something, not necessarily for Lent because I’m not Christian (I don’t know what I am right now), but just for whatever I guess.

It didn’t take me long to then go online & look for other things Mother Teresa said. The quote that has just stayed on my heart the most was this: “If you can’t feed a hundred people, then feed just one.” I’m gonna try my fucking hardest to start with this.

Reading: Plain Truth by Jodi Picoult

This year was so incredibly powerful and beautiful. This year was so brutal and breath-taking. This year saw dictators fall and people rise. This year saw mother nature’s wrath and human kind’s limitations. This year saw how cruel people could be. This year saw the birth of the 7th billionth person.

This year my eyes were opened to my own bigotry I have toward Muslims of how I try to simplify their beliefs when I can’t even wrap my head around the religion I’m surrounded by: Christianity. This year my eyes were opened to beginning to see Islam as another viable worldview and not just a misogynistic archaic and hateful religion.

This year my eyes were opened to how much I’ve learned about microbiology & philosophy. This year my eyes were opened to how much I’ve learned about microbiology graduate school culture. This year my eyes were opened to how good I truly have it being in college in the midwest of America. This year, my eyes were opened to how things are more complicated than black and white guidelines. This year my eyes were opened to how much I don’t know.

And so below, here are four excerps of various forms of art that I’ve found powerful or that have spoken to me in some way.

“… And, in fact, we find that the more a cultivated reason applies itself with deliberate purpose to the enjoyment of life and happiness, so much the more does the man fail of true satisfaction. And from this circumstance there arises in many, if they are candid enough to confess it, a certain degree of misology, that is, hatred of reason, especially in the case of those who are most experienced in the use of it, because after calculating all the advantages they derive, I do not say from the invention of all the arts of common luxury, but even from the sciences (which seem to them to be after all only a luxury of the understanding), they find that they have, in fact, only brought more trouble on their shoulders, rather than gained in happiness; and they end by envying, rather than despising, the more common stamp of men who keep closer to the guidance of mere instinct and do not allow their reason much influence on their conduct. ”
→ Immanuel Kant, Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals (1785)

I got out of bed today. Swear to God I couldn’t see my face. I got out of bed today staring at a ghost, who forgot to float away, didn’t have all that much to say…wouldn’t even tell me his own name. Where’d my body go?

Have you seen my ghost? Staring at the ground? Have you seen my ghost? Sick of those goddamn clouds.
→ ♪♫ Wintersong – “Weighty”

“Who what am I? My answer: I am the sum total of everything that went before me, of all I have been seen done, of everything done-to-me. I am everyone everything whose being-in-the-world affected was affected by mine. I am anything that happens after I’ve gone which would not have happened if I had not come. Nor am I particularly exceptional in this matter; each “I,” every one of the now-six-hundred-million-plus of us, contains a similar multitude. I repeat for the last time: to understand me, you’ll have to swallow a world.”
→ Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie

“No people whose word for “yesterday” is the same as their word for “tomorrow” can be said to have a firm grip on the time.” → Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie

4 days until a new year, just some thoughts and questions I’m taking into the new year with me. What is something(s) you learned this year? What is something you’re glad to leave in this year? What’s inspired you this year? Enlighten me

Reading: Plain Truth by Jodi Picoult

This semester… is finally over. And… I failed physics so that will mean that I will be taking that 5-credit hour piece of shit over. Already had my crying and screaming session since when I calculated my grade, I was below the C- cutoff of 58% by .2%. I failed by .2%. It’s so painful because that means if I had gotten one more fucking question right on one fucking exam I wouldn’t have. So, here’s to more nights of endless frustration and feeling endlessly hopeless and stupid because I could not understand this stuff. Physics is basically a bunch of story problems… and guess who’s not naturally inclined toward math, therefore story problems involving math. YAYAYAYAYAY! I get to do it again in the summer Seriously, who finds that stuff fun? [insert dopey voice] “Oh yeah, I just live and breathe everyday to do a (because every physics problem on average that I eventually got right took me a day to do lol) hard-ass math problem and spend hours upon hours trying to figure it out!” [/insert dopey voice]. Well crap, I just described microbiology research minus the hard math,’cause that’s what staticians are paid for . Microbiology research is definitely a lot of thinking… just about cool stuff unlike .

I got an A in philosophy… and freshmen biology lab but that was expected because I’m a senior haha. Very upper level biology lecture sucked completely… and I’m estimating that’s going to be a high B+ but I got an A-!!!!!! Okay, random fact here, it is thunderstorming here… in winter.. on December 17th. We totally had snow here 2 weeks ago.:/. Weirdness. Anyway, to celebrate the semester end (at least pour moi), mon ami and I made scallops & angelhair pasta in a garlic, butter and lemon sauce with some orange peppers and a little white wine. Accompanying the deliciousness, we also made bruschetta complete with a citrus vodka, blue raspberry cocktail mix and Sprite drink. So, of course being me, I had to take pictures lol. (Do the pictures load slowly for anyone else?)

Reading: Plain Truth by Jodi Picoult

I hate this semester. I hate my classes. I hate how my philosophy teacher bores me, how my biology professor this semester doesn’t inspire me, how I have to claw & drag myself through organic chemistry and physics classes only to NEVER use that information again. I hate how I can’t do a senior thesis in my love, microbiology, because my GPA isn’t high enough because of those organic chemistry and physics classes. I hate how I feel like I don’t belong in my internship lab because I feel I’m not smart enough. I hate how I emotionally shut down in social situations.

But those things seem so insignificant to some of the problems people have in other parts of the world. Just going around the internet on my normal news-reading adventure, I stumbled upon the plight of the Congolese people and the Lord’s Resistance Army and I think that when I’m too mortified to keep reading, I just move on to the next link… but this is a constant reality to the young boys that are made child soldiers, and the young girls they use as child brides, and to the people who realize that their last second on this earth is because some man thinks he is so important that he can decide who lives and who dies for no good reason at all.

Just being aware of these things make it easier to focus on things that I don’t hate as much. So, in lieu of that thought – I don’t hate my friends, or the PourHouse (a charity coffee house in Bloomington), or my analytical mind, or microbiology genetic research, or my new church.

I don’t hate my grades currently…
Physics: B-
Philosophy: I don’t know since our first paper was due a couple days ago but I’m sure it’s fine.
Biology lab: A-
Biology lecture: A-

…or my photography (which the page will be updated soon lol)

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Reading: Plain Truth by Jodi Picoult

Il a être un long temps, n’est pas . Beginning of the fall semester was yesterday. Thought I’d drop by this blog a bit

Breakfast was oatmeal with butter, brown sugar, honey and cinnamon in it. Coffee was cinnamon Foger’s with tons of whipped cream Don’t be alarmed now. I know you’re scared and worried because I don’t eat breakfast normally. It isn’t the rapture (no, that’s later this year in October, don’t forget!) or the end of the world. I just have an afternoon class lol.

It’s sooooooooooo wonderful that my first class today is at 12:20p. However, it’s alllllll the way on the other side of campus that I don’t live on. So I’d say it’s about a 15 minute bike ride if I want to arrive on time at least. And since it is a physics class, I’ll probably leave 20 minutes early to ensure a good seat… in the back of course because I have no idea what the hell goes on in physics courses. Something about electricity and gravity and shit.

I’ve been soooo busy decorating my room. I moved out of a crappy apartment I subleased for the summer from someone for the summer after living in the dorms for 2 years (gross lol ). Now I’m in this awesome house with two other friends. My room is a bit small but I like it, très comfortable

I know it’s hard to visualize a room but I have to show it off lol.

Still recovering from getting my wisdom teeth (all four) extracted last Thursday. I’ve passed the dry socket possibility phase so I’m not as freaked out anymore. I’ve already eaten like Pringles and snacked on some semi-hard bread from Panera (so delicious!). I think I won’t try apples or kettle-cooked potato chips til Wednesday or Thursday.

Until next time… (which might be quite far in the future, probably sometime pass the October rapture )

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Reading: Second Glance by Jodi Picoult

Lately, I just haven’t felt like blogging because too be honest, I’ve just been a little overwhelmed with the world now. Not really with my social life but with the events of the world. With the state of women’s right everywhere, blatant destruction of species like blue fin tuna or overwhelmingly beautiful and vital ecosystems like rainforests, President Barack Obama’s broken promises, the US debt ceiling crisis, this recession, my struggle with Christianity. I just feel so strongly, so passionately with a fire that what you see in my emotions are either anger or happiness because I don’t know how to achieve an inner peace when I look around the world and see such utter destruction. It’s overwhelming: the social inequalites between women and men, the atrocities in Africa, the senseless hate that leads to crime, the ridiculous government feuds, the foolish ideologies that cause most of this shit. I mean, sometimes I just want to burst. I don’t know what to do with all the anger, the pain, the emotions I don’t like to admit I have.

But… then my friend Madeleine came to stay the night. Kaleem came to chill at my house while Madeleine and I had white wine and delicious homemade chicken pot pie. These are the moments that make life in this desperately broken, brutal, violently fascinating world worth it.

I have to keep reminding myself
I’m not like anyone else
That’s my face on my ID
That makes me V.I.P.
No one exactly like this
No one with my fingerprints
No one can touch you like me
No, I can’t fake what you see

The sky is the limit
And I just wanna float
Free as a spirit on a journey of hope
Cut the strings and let me go
I’m weightless, I’m weightless
Millions of balloons tethered to the ground
Weight of the world tries to hold us down
Cut the strings and let me go
I’m weightless, I’m weightless…

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Reading: Second Glance by Jodi Picoult

Just took the 2nd plane ride in my life to Baltimore, Maryland for a microbiology field study. I’m so excited It officially starts tomorrow since today was for travel. I also get to see mon amie Sarah who transferred back to Delaware from this school since out-of-state tuition just kicks your ass if your parents aren’t loaded.

One of my bosses (lab head) also was a part of another internship program in collaboration with this Baltimore school (IMET) I’m going to and well… I experienced that perk haha. They’re paying for food, lodging, the flight, errythang

My dinner tonight was AMAZING. It consisted of a crab cake with a piece of shrimp in the middle (so freaking good) and a crab cake on a salmon fillet on roasted potatoes. Three layers of amazingly deliciousness. I wonder what tomorrow’s dinner will be And these crab cakes/salmon dish pictures are pretty blurry since I was so eager to keep eating lol.

Other than that, my past week has been a blur of more delicious and awesome food including Thai food, pancakes, and cheddar biscuits with some garlic and butter sauce poured over them. My mouth has just been so happy recently

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