Chivalry is not Dead

Well I have made it almost all the way through my first week back at LU. Yes I know it's Thursday, but with everything I have been doing this week trying to get back in the swing of things, it feels like a success so far. It's amazing really the way you feel differently between home and school. Maybe it's just the fact that you're living in a place where the majority of the other people around you are roughly in your age group, and you all have at least one thing in common: You're a student. It's pretty much the only time in your life tat you'll have a place like that as far as I know, there's just this ease of talking to people. Maybe you won't get along with all of them, maybe you'll have a fight get your heartbroken, but overall you'll meet so many amazing people, so many nice people that I'm sad that I'm already more than halfway through my college experience.
-Lia

Melancholy

I suppose sometimes there's just no helping just underlying crappy feelings. I suppose that's what you're suppose to feel like after a break up, even if you're the one who did the breaking up. I mean I can ignore it for a while, do things with friends, but I really just feel like shit. I assume that it gets better, it's not the first time in the history of the world that a couple has broken up. I know it was the right thing to do, but I still just sort of want to lay in bed and cry. It just feels so bad. It's just one of those lose-lose situations I suppose. You feel crappy in the relationship, and you feel even crappier out of it. There's just no controlling emotions I suppose. As Michael said when we were cementing the end of our relationship last night, We just weren't built for logic. I suppose some of us are more logical than others, but there's still that crappy emotional side of us. I can understand not liking emotions. They do such awful things to us, but then again, life keeps us together. Gives us the good and the bad, and I'm just going to have to live with the bad right now. To quote Spring Awakening, "There's a moment you know, you're fucked"
-Lia

4am

Well it's been a while since I wrote and I really should be sleeping now, but I needed at least to get this out. Breaking up sucks. Even when you are the one to do it, it sucks sucks sucks sucks sucks. Why the world doesn't just match us up with our perfect mate at the beginning of time, I don't know, maybe some crappy learning experience, but when you don't feel the same way as someone else, just everybody gets hurt. Part of me feels like you just have to wade through all the crap life throws at you to get to anything remotely good, but then part of me feels like the human race is some cosmic joke to some higher beings. Like we're the soap opera of the species, fun to watch and to thank the powers that be that you are involved. Life isn't fun, and just to get some happiness in your life you have to hit so many lows. It's amazing that we can stand it. Maybe that's why the world is so messed up. We all hit these completely shitty parts of our lives and we can't stand not to make the rest of the world feel the same way. And with 4.whatever billion people in the world there's just always someone feeling shitty. Nothing else can be done about it so we just keep pulling the world deeper and deeper into our misery. I'll be fine I know, just not being able to be what people want hits me so hard, and I can't do anything about that. I feel his misery, and despair, and I can't do anything about it while still taking care of myself. Life is just sort of crappy. There's good parts, but we have to live through the bad parts to, and that's just no fun. It hurts. It really does.
-Lia

It's the End of the World as We Know it

I've been thinking a lot lately about mortality. Not because I think I'm going to die soon or anything like that, but more because I've never felt like there's been enough time to get everything I want to do in life done. It seems to be a very uniquely human attribute, that we focus so much of our lives on the singular knowledge that one day we won't be there anymore. It makes me wonder what we would spend our time thinking about if we were immortal or even just weren't cognizant of the fact that we were mortal.

Really, in my opinion that overreaching sense of mortality is the reason so many people fixate on the idea that the world is going to end within their life time, the most recent dating being given, December 21st, 2012, or in a little more than 4 years from now. If that is the case, maybe everything I've thought is wrong, but if you look back through history, I don't think there has been an generation go by that wasn't certain that the world was going to end in their lifetime. In my opinion, that's just simple narcissism. We know that we are going to come to an end, as they say the only thing certain in life is death and taxes. The moment we are conceived we start moving towards an inevitable endpoint, and thus we can't fathom how the world isn't moving towards its own end. I mean, I assume one day, the world will end. Time kills everything apparently, but I sincerely doubt it will be anytime soon, let alone while I am still on the planet. Projecting your own mortality onto the planet doesn't make it end anytime sooner. We just know we have about 70 year god-willing. Knowing that I can predict that I'm going die somewhere around 2060 give or take a couple decades baring no advances major advances in medical technology. We have plenty of statistics to tell us about our own mortality, the world's mortality is a shot in the dark. We've only had one, and there's no statistics for us to study, so rather than focus on our mortality we seem to love to focus on something irrational and indeterminable because that's what we seem to love to do.

Humans are a strange race of beings.
-Lia

David Tennant, Marry Me. Please?

When it comes to being starstruck, I'm very rarely affected. Even when it comes to going to concerts or speeches or whatever, unless I'm talking to a famous person I really find little difference watching them in a venue or at home on my television. I mean, they're closer to be in proximity but I've always been overly cognizant of the fact that just because they're in the room with me doesn't mean they're at all aware of my existence. Unless I'm talking to them I don't see any reason to fore go the relative comfort of my room and go wait in a line for hours to filter into packed auditorium and sit with too many excited fans in a room I can't get up and go to the restroom or get a snack if I'm bored. I mean I suppose it's cool to say that I've seen Barack Obama and Hilary Clinton and Bill Clinton and whoever else I've been dragged to see, I can't even really remember at this point. Even on TV there are very few people I will tune in just to see. The first movie star I got a crush on was when I 12, and Orlando Bloom came out of nowhere for lord of the rings. I've since calmed down a bit from that crush (though he is still an attractive man). Since there I've Moved on to still decidedly foreign men. My biggest crush Jesse Spencer, and more recently Jim Sturgess (I'll admit part of that came from hearing him sing in Across the Universe. I'm a sucker for men who can sing). The latest in my list of Actors I would really love to meet is David Tennant. Just his portrayal as the Doctor in Dr. Who has made me fall half in love with him. Those are the people I would love to meet. Along with Natalie Portman. I've always been a fan of hers. Other then that, I have a tendency to walk right by famous people and not even notice
-Lia

The Body

Well it's time for the olympics again. As for not liking sporting events, I'm a big fan of the olympics. I suppose because they aren't as boring as things like american football (if you can't tell not a huge fan) I suppoes part of it is I tend to think that the US started to go downhill when it stopped trying to copy Europe. Sure some things are better, but I prefer European tradition to a lot of Americana.But definitly I prefer the olympics and the world cup to baseball and the superbowl. Maybe just because there is more action in those sports, I get bored in american football and baseball.

But really just watching the olympics, it is amazing the things the body can do. They're amazing machines. I don't know how god, or allah, or buddha, made us like this. It's a very strange thing to think about how much our bodies can do and in how many ways we could all be so screwed up, and yet somehow we've managed to be these perfect machines. I suppose I've had sort of a weird sense of elation these past couple days, it's not normal for me, but I am a fan. I have just been so...joyous and grateful and I suppose there aren't much better ways to be.
-Lia

Et en Arcadia ergo

I think I have finished finding things for my room finally. I really need to stop buying things before I go broke anyway. This morning I went out with one of my friends (Madison) for breakfast. Tomorrow is her sisters wedding, and she wanted to warn me that her sister is four months along with a little girl so I wasn't wondering when I saw her. I'm babysitting for the wedding. I don't know what it is about this month, but it seems like everyone's either getting together or breaking up. That seems to happen sometimes, and I really wish I understood it, but like if you watch on facebook, it always happens all at once that people break up or get together. I mean not always, but a lot of the time. It makes me wonder if there's something in the air. I mean enough religions that I have been looking at believe that everything and everyone are connected either by energy or by spirit, and there's enough evidence out there that there is some sort of collective unconscious that we haven't been able to fully tap into. We're all such social creatures, I don't think we're completely able to separate ourselves even when we try to. I know I've been able to tell things about people I shouldn't have, and maybe that doesn't mean anything, but I choose to believe it does.

I feel like I should say something about my title. "And in Arcadia I am" It's the title of a painting, and people have taken it to mean that even in the most perfect of places there is still death. A rather morbid topic I know, but last night my friends and I were talking about death last night, and I've never been afraid of death. I don't understand why people spend so much of their lives fearing the unavoidable. I suppose because people feel like they need to be in control, but if there's something you don't even have the slightest chance of effecting, I see no reason to worry about it. There's something very calming about the idea of death. Not saying I would like to be dead anytime soon, but there is at least one constant. And without mortality, I don't think life would be nearly as important to us.
-Lia

Packing

It is ten days before I fly back for my fall semester at LU. I can't believe how fast time has gone. I'm so torn about it. I love my friends in DC, and I can't wait to see them, but I love my family too, and I'm going to have to leave them to go back to school. I suppose it means I won't have to put up with my father's moods anymore, which have been so insane all summer (My mom says it's male menopause) but I still will miss my family. My mom always looks so sad when I go, it's hard on me. It's nice to be independent, but it's also hard. Adolescence isn't fun at all.

I'm now I'm trying to pack everything I have here into one suitcase. That isn't going so well. I seem to be a bit of a clothes horse. Not even that, I just love to shop. Retail therapy is the most awesome thing, but expensive as hell. For my room I now have a bunch of items. Hopefully I can donate enough at school to keep my room neat. And for those who know me, neatness is not one of my strong points.
-Lia

The Train

Picked up Nessa and her mom at the train station earilier today. I really wish that it would be possible for me to go back to LU by train. I'm not a bad flier, just airports are such a hassle. There's just something classic about train travel, maybe because the heyday of the train was the turn of the last century. It's still sort of slow paced, you just feel like you're in an old movie sitting in a train station. Maybe if I can't afford to tour Europe after graduation, I'll just hop on a train and see The US and Canada. I just have always liked being alone with my thoughts, watching the world go by outside the window. Meet people all traveling somewhere, see where I end up. I've always had a bit of wanderlust. I suppose sometime I'll have the urge to put down roots, but I've always sort of liked the idea of taking off by myself and just seeing the world and seeing where ever I end up. There's just so much of the world to see, and so much to know...I just want so much to see everything the world has got to offer, and there's only one me, one life to see it all.

After we picked up Nessa we went down to the harbor and I've got a bit more for my pan spiritual room. I got a wall hanging made by a native tribe in the Baja peninsula, a pair of earrings made from Baltic Amber. A necklace made of this Asian wood hand carved into a frog (the Japanese symbol for good luck and safe travels) and another made from bull horn from New Zealand carved into the symbol for balance between this world and the next. What can I say, I've been in a spend thrift mood lately, and I suppose, what good is money if you don't use it to buy things that make you happy? My parents still pay for food and housing so I don't have to worry about going hungry or anything. If I want to spend a hundred dollars on jewelry then who's to tell me I can't?

Overall I've been in a pretty good mood lately. I still feel sort of bad about upsetting Michael, but he hit the anger stage of the stages of grief, and was a real ass a couple nights ago, so I don't feel as bad. It stopped me from thinking that I should maybe take him back. I still want us to be friends, but he's disappeared from online, and I've lost my phone, so I haven't talked to him lately. I am grateful that he was a good boyfriend to me, and I loved the time we spent together. And I am happy that we are now apart, hopefully to be friends if he can stand just being friends with me. I love my life, I really do. I love my friends, and my family, and where I live. I love that we're all healthy, I love that I finally took a chance on a relationship. I am content, and that's just a good feeling. I was going to call this post gratefulness originally, because I am, I am happy and I am grateful for my life. I just want to thank the Universe, God, Allah, Buddha, whoever has given me this good feeling, and this life.
-Lia

Summer

I can't believe it's almost time for school to begin again. You'd think that three months would take longer to pass than this, but then again, I suppose I packed a whole lot into those three months. Las Vegas with the family, Oxnard to see the now-ex, Hawai'i, River coming out, and now some friends coming down from the old neighborhood, Nessa and her mom. Nessa was in my girl scout troop when I still lived up in Westlake. Really more our mothers have kept in touch more than Nessa and I have, but it's still nice to keep in touch with old friends. Remember childhood when things at least seemed simpler, remember fabricated memories, all that fun stuff.

I have some sort of stomach bug, not surprising I suppose since I've been having stomach problems for over a year now. It isn't fun. Not at all. But I've been trying to keep my mind off it. I got my first syllabus for the fall semester, for my religion in public policy class and I have started my reading. The topic is actually really interesting so that's definitely a plus since I have like 300 pages of reading or something that I have printed out from blackboard.

Religion really is an interesting topic. There are so many different religious beliefs in the world, and they're all so different but in some ways the same, I don't know how so many possible thoughts could come to be. And everyone one is always absolutely certain their beliefs are the right ones. I'm tempted to read as many religious texts as I can get my hands on and see what I can find out.
-Lia

Retail Therapy

1) Retail Therapy is an amazing thing it should be patented as a cure for feeling bad after a break up
2) It's even better when your mother is paying for everything and you can just throw things in a basket with out worrying about price.
That being said. When using retail therapy after a break up, don't shop in the underwear section. That's just depressing.
-Lia