| Last night |
[16 Jun 2008|10:58am] |
Last night I was feeling scared and I had a huge pain on my shoulder. I was thinking about moving out and starting on my own. Right now, it doesn’t seem that bad. But I kept feeling like it was going to take a lot of getting used to. I thought, “Am I really doing this?” Everything that I have at home, I would have to do myself. I was picturing myself making dinner and doing laundry. I’ve done that stuff on my own before and I can handle it. I even liked cooking for myself in Barcelona.
It all comes back to the money. I know I won’t be able to have as many things as I do now. Sometimes I think it’s crazy that I’m moving out so soon and when the economy is so bad. But I guess this is the time to waste money. I can’t continue to live at home forever because then I’ll always be too scared to leave.
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| Costa Rica |
[13 Jun 2008|02:06pm] |
Got back from Costa Rica last week. I was so scared about the trip before we went, that I didn't even think to get excited. But when we first got there, I could feel that there was so much stuff to take in.
The public bus was hard at first, but then I felt sorry for the people standing there. When my mom asked why no one would give up their seat to an old person, I couldn't think of a good reason, except that maybe they didn't want to stand for so long. But my overall impression is that people are generally happy to help. Monteverde basically lives on tourism and the hostel owner gave us good advice. Seeing his kids play on the concrete made me feel bad and happy to see them playing at the same time.
I wish we could have interacted with more actual people, but I guess we just went to all the touristy places. I want to get a good feeling for what people think about there: what they go to work for and what their goals are. I should have asked the guides about that.
Seeing the American living in CR shows that they are more relaxed and there is a large ex-patriot population.
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[06 May 2007|04:17pm] |
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I was visiting Jeremy in the hotel bar and there was a dance convention for little girls. The kind where they wear lots of makeup and costumes with sequins. There was a brother and sister doing homework in the lobby. The girl was reading Catcher in the Rye. I remember when I went on trips with my family and we brought our homework to do. I would sit in the lobby and read my book. I want to be in 8th grade again so I can be excited to do homework. I want to sit at a table in a hotel with my notebook, waiting for my parents.
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| one word |
[22 Mar 2007|10:43pm] |
One Word
YOU CAN ONLY TYPE ONE WORD!!! NO EXPLANATIONS.
Yourself: ready
Your Lover: gives me orgasms
Your Hair: boring
Your Mother: curious
Your Father: accepting
Your Favorite Item: soup
Your Dream Last Night: Passover
Your Favorite Drink: amaretto
Your Dream Home: busy
The Room You Are In: spruce
Your Pets: non existent
What You Are Now: ready
Who You Want to be in Ten Years: Angelina Jolie
What You Want to be in Ten Years: fulfilling
What You're Not: relaxed
Your Best Friend: four
One of Your Wishlist Items: pearls
Your Gender: feminine
The Last Thing You Did: saw Urinetown
What You Are Wearing: jeans-and-shirt
Your Favorite Weather: today
Your Favorite Book: not now
The Last Thing You Ate: Godiva chocolate
Your Life: starting to make sense
Your Mood: desire
Favorite article of clothing: magic shirt
Favorite color: don't know
School: f&m
Song: william turner overture
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| v day |
[15 Feb 2007|06:01pm] |
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I got a valentine's day present for the first time yesterday. Trying not to make the past few dates into a big deal is getting hard. Especially when I've always though valentine's day was stupid but now that I kind of celebrated it, maybe I kind of like it.
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| question |
[04 Feb 2007|03:56pm] |
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Is age socially constructed?
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| thing i've done |
[24 Jan 2007|02:33am] |
I realize that almost all of the things I put on my list in the beginning of the semester I have either done or someone else has been hired to do them instead of me. It's great that I can actually reach my goals. Something I should have been able to do for a while.
I can't wait to see how things change this semester. There are things I want and ways I can get them to happen. I need to stop relying on others to change things and just change them myself. Everyone just talks but doesn't act.
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| Feelings I'm familiar with |
[19 Dec 2006|11:00pm] |
Needing something/anything/everything.
Your mind is racing and you're full yet empty of coherent thought and you can't feel but want to feel so much and you dance and you kiss and you move your hands up and down, down and up and you cry.
The person whose arms are around you erasing and unearthing those coherent thoughts.
Knowing enough to say goodbye first.
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| hunger banquet |
[17 Nov 2006|03:56am] |
I can't sleep and I'm thinking about what I observed at the hunger banquet. It made things look so simple, exemplifying everything that's wrong with the economy for everyone to see. It's sad but expected how we all followed our stereotypical role.
The higher-income people just ate all their food, giving the lower-income people their left overs. Over the high-income's three course meal, no one gave out salad, a few gave out chicken, and almost everyone gave out dessert. This charity really did no good, only making the higher-income people feel better about themselves. It all became so clear to me. They only gave out their left overs when the lower-income came over to ask for food or when the one intelligent person started the trend of giving out food.
What about the lower-income? We got a lot of rice, enough to feed all of us two portions and even have some left over. But we didn't offer any to the higher or middle income people. We just ate and complained about how the rich had all the food.
There was enough food in the room to feed everyone more than they needed to feel full. Why didn't we start out sharing? Why didn't the higher-income come down right away with their salads? Why didn't the middle class do anything, suggest something? What good did accepting their left overs do? We certainly didn't feel good about eating scraps of chicken and pumpkin pie.
Then there were the lower-income people who just didn't get it. When someone came over with a slice of pie, they just ate the whole thing, not sharing with their friends or the people around them. When I passed down a slice of pie or a plate of chicken, some said "No thanks," not thinking maybe someone else right next to them might want some. That I wasn't only offering it to them because I was kind and thought it tasted good, but that I wanted to continue the cycle of sharing. And when I told them to pass it along, the person right next to them took a small bite and put the plate down, also oblivious to the point of it all.
It just makes total sense. We don't see anything beyond our little world, our little personal bubble of space. And when we hear second hand stories of the poor people out there, we feel bad. But we also feel like it is somehow "our duty" to help, as the rich and wise ones, and give the poor what we don't want. We give them our left overs to feel better about ourselves, to give us power and self-righteousness for making someone else's life better. But that person's life isn't better. Either the food/money/battered clothing doesn't get distributed correctly; or when it does, it just makes the poor person feel ever worse about his situation.
I wonder why I never thought about it this way. What is the point of charity? Why do we think it's "our duty" to write that check every year? What does anyone get out of it except for a tax deduction and a sense of righteousness?
I feel like something just clicked. This was the perfect way to demonstrate the way the economy works and the way people work.
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| friends |
[02 Nov 2006|08:33pm] |
There are people I'd like to be better friends with, spend more time with. Kids that seem to enjoy hanging out with me but I can't seem to engrain myself into their group because it's already so tightly knit. It's strange and wonderful at the same time to see groups of friends do the same thing I did two years ago. The places I hung out in, the places I wanted to hang out in, and the places I live are reversed now. I always want to hang out with the people who don't live near me.
So many defining characteristics of my life are those small moments. The moments when I met someone new or discovered a unique way of thinking. How many of those moments were plain luck? How much can I control what happens to me? (even that sentence is passive)
I want to take all those lucky moments and record them so I can watch them over and over. I want to go back to the beginning of new relationships. I want to change this course.
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| boys |
[12 Oct 2006|08:53pm] |
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When they work, it's the best thing in the world. Unfortunately, sometimes they break. Then you're broken as well.
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| end of summer |
[16 Aug 2006|09:33pm] |
I wish I could be like my baby cousin. He's curious about everything. His eyes light up looking at flowers and airplanes and balls. I want to have that desire for life, for learning. I want to soak up ideas, facts, analyses, points of view about everything.
I want to accomplish before the end of fall semester:
1. Study abroad mentor program
2. Career panel for Hillel
3. Study abroad panel
4. Apply to the publishing courses
5. Apply to JCSC
6. Look at the GREs
7. Raise my GPA by a lot
8. Turn 21 with a bang
9. Hablar español con quien que hablaría conmigo
10. Become closer to an English professor
That's possible in four months.
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| summer revisited |
[26 Jun 2006|12:19am] |
| [ |
mood |
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 happy |
] |
The Shabbaton was incredible. I would have stayed for the whole summer if I could. If this is was summer camp is like, I can understand why Keren wants to go so badly. The summer (and my life) is finally coming together. I'm even feeling it this time.
Saturday was the longest day of the year. It left the most moments for enjoyment.
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| back home |
[06 May 2006|11:33pm] |
I figured out what's irritating and stifling about F&M. Nothing changes. I was gone for 5 months and I just came back and everything is exactly the same. Some food that I left in the house is even still there. Friends groups, personalities, landscape, there's no progress. This can be good and bad. It's comforting knowing that I can leave and come back feeling the same; that I still have my place. But it's disheartening knowing that nothing has been achieved while I was gone; and that nothing was achieved while I was there either, probably.
My goal for senior year has become to create progress at school so that when I come back for alumni weekend I will see something different.
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| summer |
[28 Mar 2006|08:25pm] |
It's 8:30pm and still light outside. I remember when classes first started that it was dark by 6:15, when we got out. I just wanted to go home, cook dinner, and sleep. Now I want to sit and lay down on the grass.
Only a week and a half left of classes; then it will be the end of my junior year. I already feel dazed and lazy, like the semester has been over for a while. There's no more busy little work, only big end-of-year stuff. Nothing is connecting. I'm in Barcelona when I walk around the city but then I'm in class and I want to be outside laying down with my eyes closed.
I wish there was a Quad outside or something.
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[20 Mar 2006|11:27pm] |
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mood |
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 frustrated |
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Em pointed out that I don't enjoy myself anywhere. It's because I always think about where I'll be next and how I'll get home and who I'll be with tomorrow. But these are important concerns. I need to be in the metro by 1:30 if I don't want to take a cab and I don't want to end up in an expensive club where I need to pay 9 euros for a drink.
I'm already tired of the bar scene here. I'm never in the mood to dance, drinks are expensive, I don't know anyone and it's hard to meet people, and nothing new ever happens. Even the bars that are "different" are the same. I'm aching to go back to Lancaster where I can walk into Brendee's or the Brickyard and know half the people there.
New York is the only place I haven't been tense about something all the time. Maybe that's because I've only gone out a couple of times at home. I can't even remember what I was tense about at school. I guess there's always something that makes things less relaxed there. But thinking back, I can't figure out what it was. It seems like every city I'm in there's always something that holds me back from having fun, whether it's the places, the people, or the situation.
I need to let myself be happy before I can expect other people to make me happy.
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| spring cleaning |
[04 Mar 2006|12:55am] |
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Instead of socializing this evening, I decided to shut down my old xanga and copy all my entries into here. They're all backdated before May 2004. I left everything the same except for taking out the entries where I obsessed about jacob kerner.
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[15 Feb 2006|12:34am] |
I walk through Plaza Catalunya and I usually don't feel anything, but sometimes I can't believe I actually did this. I have one of those out-of-body experiences when I look at myself from an outside perspective. And I'm this girl who is studying in a foreign country for a whole semester. Who is doing something she thought and dreamed about doing. I can't even tell when it happened that I was used to being here. Like before I arrived at college I couldn't imagine what it would be like. It was something people did in the movies and on television. By the time orientation was over and I didn't miss my friends and family anymore, I was used to being in college.
I went straight from being excited and not knowing what to expect to being upset and scared to feeling at home here in a span of two weeks. I can't tell when the transitions happened. I can't see when I went from being an American college student preparing for her study abroad experience to actually living in Barcelona.
But I'm here now and I can already tell what I'll miss when I'm gone.
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| what I have learned so far |
[08 Feb 2006|10:21pm] |
1. The F&M Spanish Department is great. Better than most big public universities and comparable to elite small liberal arts colleges such as Berkley and Amherst.
2. A lot of other things a F&M are great. Such as the abundance of food everywhere, professors that have offices, smart kids, the proximity of everything, amazing library resources, staff that is helpful, and being open on Fridays.
3. It's okay, even preferable, to have more than one of the same thing so that you can do something so crazy as changing the bag you carry your books in or the shoes you attend classes in.
4. Mullets are not that hideous. Maybe they're even good looking. Maybe.
5. Food should not be consumed while walking. If you're running late and haven't eaten, be an extra 10 minutes late so you can sit down and eat your lunch.
6. Espresso is the only real coffee and whole milk is the only real milk.
7. Big boots should not be worn with knee length skirts and tights, no matter how many people in Barcelona wear them that way.
8. Kanye West's Golddiger is the best song ever.
9. Olive oil is the meaning of life. So are coffee and cigarettes. And donuts with beer.
10. If you ask for hot chocolate and don't get a gigantic cup of diluted brown liquid, but instead a small cup of dark rich chocolate, drink it. And wipe off the cup with churros.
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| regarding travels |
[18 Jan 2006|11:59pm] |
Don't worry about going somewhere because you aren't sure how you'll get back. It's usually warmer when you return than when you arrived. But your hair will be messier, which is okay because you've just had your experience.
So I left my comfort zone because I wanted more, but I didn't know what. My brain was actively moving and keeping me from relaxing. I got a little lost on the way and I couldn't reach my friend. But then I got in touch and it went uphill from there.
My hope is that this time will be the same.
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shachar's journal