an-yeong-ha-se-yo

hey, guess what? I AM GOING TO KOREA! now that it's finally finally official, i am surprising myself with my over-enthusiasm! so far i have celebrated by eating at the new korean restaurant on university avenue and taking my first tae kwan do class. people, this is exciting. the simple (let's hope) preparations are even exciting, such as: RENEW PASSPORT or SIGN UP FOR ASIAN CERAMIC ART CLASS! i am especially excited, probably because i had lost all hope of getting into the program exactly 5 minutes before receiving the news that i had been accepted! oh, wiscmail i love you.

it will feel so good to go lose myself in a major foreign city for a while. i say that now knowing that i will probably become terrified once actually losing myself in a major foreign city, but still, i am looking forward to it like no other. i am probably a bit overeager, but i won't deny that i am getting a bit antsy due to my lack of travel this year compared to past years. i don't think i'll ever be able to get over the fact that you can jump on a speedy little 14-hour flight and have your world turned upside down. most on my mind is how this time will be different from the last time i was in Seoul. i will be without parents, the several other midwestern families, the heavy emotion of having two different sets of family in the same room, and the support of friends going through similar emotions.

really, i just wanted to tell you how excited i am, like jumping up and down excited, seriously.

so, there's no really classy way to say this. i am so irrationally heavy-hearted and ridiculously pensive lately. i feel as if i am shrouded in many ugly, dirty layers of arrogance and distress and aggravation that i cannot seem to shed. at the moment, i absolutely hate hate hate looking at pictures of myself because all i see are piles and piles of these layers. what scares me the most is that these terrible layers will eventually not be layers anymore, but transform into my insides and takeover... what then.

okay, time for something fun! this weekend i will devote my life to the wisconsin film festival. i feel like the luckiest person ever when the film festival rolls around because it is HERE, at half a dozen theaters mere blocks away. if i have time and i'm not movied out, i will let you know how all of them are and how much you should go see them!

do you know what? i have not stayed up this late on a school night for like a month.

the sound of a shark bite

i just have to say, i am absolutely appalled. my neighborhood (and other) friends' little sisters have the dirtiest little mouths ever! is this a product of the internet? their little high school facebooks? whatever the cause, it freaked me out enough to make me GASP and fear for the future.

movies i saw this weekend:
transamerica (A+)
my best friend's wedding (A+)
about a boy (A+)

and speaking of "about a boy" and paul weitz, i really want to see "american dreamz" in april!!!

so, true story. i waited an entire hour on the computer the other day, putzing around for AN HOUR, just to download the september 8th 2005 ellen degeneres show. finally, after waiting for AN HOUR, the download finished but it ended up being a stupid clip that was not even what i wanted. this is how sad life is right now. anyways. lately i have become somewhat of a wanna-be recluse. (hence, the many other adventurous stories of me and my computer) luckily, my friends force me out of the room, even though i would be quite happy sitting alone with my melancholy music, a book, and my down blanket.

i've just begun to discover that some friends and i have entirely different priorities, and it makes me feel as inept as ever when trying to connect with them. while reading through really old things this afternoon, i came across an e-mail from ema written during our senior year of high school. i read the following sentence many times: "i feel like i'm living like a nomad- except with people and friends, rather than location." this feels more true to me now than ever before in a very homesick feeling way.

p.s. 1 hour of HALO 2 + 1 5K run is THE BEST way to start a morning.

na na na na

this afternoon i had an urge to watch "remember the titans" and it was much needed cheesy goodness. something about watching denzel washington do what he does best, kicking ass as a militant drill sergeant and enforcing justice, just makes my day.

i'm beginning to think that the only way i ever know anything that is going on in the world is through my mum. she sends me tidbits about various family/rochester gossip, but also, actual news news! everyday, she sends me all the nytimes articles that she finds interesting, which is a lot. she not only keeps me updated on when south korea nominates their first female prime minister, but also, just plain old GOSSIP. honestly, i wouldn't know anything if it weren't for her.

ah! i have to go get ready and change into something nice now.

"if you don't like the weather in the midwest, wait 5 minutes."

just to let you know how crazy this weather really is, this morning i ran outside in SHORTS and a T-SHIRT and in less than two hours, it SNOWED VERY HEAVILY.

national dance day

the last two days have been those 12+ hour school days where i hardly have time to go pee. surprisingly, though, this hasn't gotten me down. it's like, even when heading back from the library in the middle of the night, i still want to dance all the way home. there are many specific things that could qualify as the source of this contentment, but for now, i like that i don't know which one it is exactly.

when i got back to the dorms on sunday night, it was depressing. my stomach was unsettled and i felt incredibly lonely. it was one of those moments where you need a distraction because your mind is dangerous left alone. luckily, kate was here to save me. we ended up accidentally talking for hours until late late when we began to "caveman grunt" instead of speak for real. in the end, both of us basically just got more depressed. i realized just how little i know. i know nothing. i really want to know if people could be categorized on a "deepness-of-thought potential" spectrum of 1-10, what would be the average of everyone in the world? also, i would like to know precisely where the point is in which too much thinking becomes unhealthy and ignorance loses its blissfulness. is it possible to be as aware and thoughtful as possible while retaining complete happiness? i would say, no. i absolutely love to analyze subjects to death in a gritty, realistic, most pessimistic way with kate any time of the day. but even while we were discussing these things in a fairly simplistic, elementary way, it made my heart and head ache. we feebly attempted to answer the abstract question: what is love? in reality, what if this beautiful, breathtaking experience is simply two people using each other? i know in my innermost insides that love is more than a relationship based on superficial manipulation, but logically, it seems to be just that. even if love is a selfish act, it is considered "good" in our culture because it doesn't necessarily harm others. yeah. this makes me think that everything EVERYTHING we do is backed by selfish motives. and that is not very happy or comforting.

this stuff is kind of shaping how i view the world for at least this week. i am pessimistic but happy? um, this is why i have been answering "i don't know" after the "how are you?" question. well anyways, i wish i could talk in more seriousness right now, but honestly, i have a mystery dinner party to dress up for in an hour and all i can think about is my uber-cool costume.

manda and i were actually complaining about how hot it was today. and how "hot" outside is it exactly? BARELY ABOVE FREEZING. oh, i love being from the midwest. okay, time to transform my identity!

school smells

what i accomplished over spring break, by leah nichols:

1. started and finished season 3 of 24
2. finally made a myspace, BE MY FRIEND!
3. bought too much food at target
4. furthered my (already huge) sleep debt
5. caught up with some very important people

and that's about it. i loved my break and i hope you did too. now off to... gross.

happiness isn't happiness without a violin-playing goat

sometimes, there are little facts like "mischa barton is in the movie notting hill" or "you get wetter when you run through rain rather than walk" that i want to share with everyone, because they make me feel like the smartest person in the entire world. pretty much.

uh, last night's midterm cramming session gave me huge amounts of time (probably too much) to just listen to thunder outside with "better days" + "feel like rain" playing in the background. i had an urge to toss my books aside and write very long letters to various friends, acquaintances, and family members. i'd want to write them in 100% honesty (in as-if-i-were-dying-tomorrow style) and apologize to them, praise them, thank them. i doubt i'm in a particularly special place in my life right now, but i feel that writing those letters would just be an amazing feeling.

ahhhhh! it will be so nice to see my mum and start the break off with an infamous nichols/clark mini-road trip. i love it. the thing i like most about calling home is the multiple updates. it's surprisingly enjoyable to hear my mum and dad talk about kate forever and to hear how invested they are in her happiness, and mine too. i just miss quite a few people right now, but knowing that i will get to see all of them eventually within this week makes me estatic.

in other words, HAPPY BREAK!

and now, late-evening

i've hit a definite low point.

i need to hear a really corny joke right about now.

mid-evening procrastination

unexpected things have been going on, like wal-mart ads in VOGUE, the sunday night mini-snowstorm, meeting friends' parents for the first time and forgetting that they probably act differently than people who live in the suburbs, and of course, hating the news more than usual.

i want to tell myself to calm down a bit and to NOT TAKE THINGS SO SERIOUSLY but not now, i can't help it! leah, please please just focus on school for at least 40 more hours. then you can lose your head!

anyone else feel like running around outside right now and belting out some all-american rejects?

the extinction of tagalongs and camp snoopy

sad sad sad.

"it is not time or opportunity that is to determine intimacy; it is disposition alone. seven years would be insufficient to make some people acquainted with each other, and seven days are more than enough for others." -jane austen

at what point would you say you know someone well? katie and i were pondering this question for hours one night in an effort to avoid studying. i would venture to say that most people tend to associate closeness with the ability to predict the other person's next moves. this sounds okay, but it fails to explain too many situations. maybe, rather than simply predicting actions, "knowing someone well" is in fact knowing their intention behind their actions and not necessarily being able to anticipate every move. i feel like this must be true at this stage in life with new and old friendships beginning and fizzling out all over the place. with everyone progressing and growing, it's pretty amazing (in an optimistic way) that we are able to maintain truly close relationships.

this sounds odd... but do you ever propel awkward small talk in order to maintain distance? why do we do this again? fear of exposure, preservation, reputation, wha? sometimes i seriously wish everyone and myself had the ability to be themselves, and therefore, license others to be themselves too.

so. the oscars were AMAZING to me, as usual. honestly, part of the fun is to see (yes, the dresses! but also) all of the expectation, hype and glamour attempting to be upheld. rachel weisz has been my favorite ever since "about a boy". she is even more stunning pregnant than heidi klum. speaking of, i am extremely happy because this morning i received an e-mail informing me that my cousin and his wife are pregnant! she's due in october, what an excellent month. i envy their future child because s/he will be completely surrounded by pottery and excellent vegetarian cooking. anyways. i am so terribly behind on my movie-watching that i am ashamed. school gets all the blame. i really need to devote all of my energies this summer into befriending someone in the movie business so that next year i can attend the academy awards.

there are moments, and if i'm lucky, days, where i feel like all of my actions have purpose behind them. i only wish i was so lucky this week, but i CAN! scrape by until FRIDAY!

i'm proud to say that i think i am finally adjusted to college. 1 year and 7 months, not too shabby.

bluebird

selfishness is a trap that i tended to fall for and confuse with independence for a while. i was feeling like the past week was cluttered with too many bad days and not enough good ones. things were not in my favor. when i comforted a friend this weekend who was having a really hard time, i finally snapped out of "it". i wish for her to be happy. there are many quotes by many people speaking of how people are not entitled to happiness, but i disagree. i believe that many people deserve happiness. what i would like to ask to myself everyday is: how can i help them be happy? how can i help them to have the same joys and freedoms that i do?

right now, i seriously miss long talks with erin and the old new york times website layout.

here's to a week of not-so-random acts of kindness.

"God loves you just the way you are. but He loves you too much to let you stay that way." -ashley, junebug

is ash wednesday always on a wednesday?

i asked this question once and have gotten crap for it ever since. just so you know, that was way long ago. back then i did not have certain things, things like the sex & the city season 4 DVD or a high school diploma.

speaking of which, i must go watch sex & the city. i am exhausted but i'll fight amy for the television if i have to. tonight was one of our workaholic design nights, so therefore, exhaustion. ah, i love the feeling of carelessly kicking your shoes off at the end of a day and cracking your toes, so good. studio room 330, you now qualify as my second home. starting with lab at 1pm, we drag ourselves out 6-9 hours later. all of us order chinese, down diet cokes, blast the oldies radio station, and get excited over things like different shades of brown paint. good times.

do you ever find it irritatingly difficult to simply be yourself?

so, march.