The Queen's Quarters

Fri, 27 Nov 2009 05:32:43 GMT

Devastation is easy.

Fri, 15 May 2009 21:39:55 GMT

Point blank: I just don't have room, time, or space inside me for the heartbreak.

There's just too much other shit- real shit, shit that's gone to pieces, shit that's all messed up and so fucking WRONG- to deal with right now.

Sun, 05 Apr 2009 18:06:17 GMT

I haven't made beautiful words come together in so long.

And I feel all over the place as a result.

Wed, 04 Mar 2009 07:11:06 GMT

I hate that I'm always the one looking for meaning where there is none.

And I can never tell if it's good thing to be right.

Wed, 18 Feb 2009 00:42:41 GMT

WHATTTT

HE IS TEACHING WHERE?!!!!

And I thought I had my summer plans all figured out.

in case this wasn't already clear:

Sat, 10 Jan 2009 05:46:46 GMT

I have an overwhelming, undying, severe love for my brother, which will never ever be contested, and his wounds are my wounds, and his hurts are my hurts, and so on and so forth.

Only the volume is so much deeper, because it is the easiest thing in the world to be hurt on your own. But to be on the outside is like a curse, a blurry vision that shows no truth and spares no feelings.

We have hearts to save around here.

the secretest club.

Sat, 10 Jan 2009 05:13:38 GMT

I am troubled by space and time.

Where do words go when our tongues are tied and our bodies down? When do they slip and slide, between teeth and tongue and out into the world where they can never be heard or spoken or felt? And without them, without all that is unsaid inside of us, are we ever really whole?

Complete is an empty word. Whole is full, full of hs and round os. Complete lies flat and unfulfilled.

But the unsaid is always released, somehow or another, through anger or paper or music or sometimes just hurt. And if it slips us by, if we lose it somehow in the mush and crescendo of feelings so bound we are to encounter, then it is our loss. Because we grieve but we are not bereft. We are sad but we are not anguished. We are complete but not whole. And that, in my opinion is the biggest loss of all.

Imagine your alarm going off. Imagine the morning, big and wild, with sunlight and a cardboard box taped to your window. Imagine waking up, and imagine not being woken up. Imagine stumbling. Imagine running for your pants.

Imagine the immeasurable hurt. Imagine the bruise that bends and purples and squishes you. Imagine that an eighteen year old girl is no more (no more, no more, i am the parental euphemisms clicking against my tongue).

Imagine college savings spent on funeral funds, imagine a school that goes on with classes. Imagine that life is a momentous, tremendous occasion. And imagine a lovesick boy, trapped and grieving and lighting candles in his mess of a bedroom for the girl he held in his heart.

And if that's not a hard enough view on the world, hear the words VIRAL MENINGITIS.

Here I hold the mess in my hands, the crap in my fingers, the breast and the belly of truth and ligament and resolve. The inscrutably small elements of my soul stand sideways between life and somethingelse, the half-wise element that fires hope and flatters cries. It goes either way, I had the breath sucked out of me. God sucked the breath out of me. But blood flowing, air breathing, beautifully whole ME is just the stopper in the bottle of continuity.

As quickly as it came, nothing is constant.

I find myself praying in the backseat of a car, praying to a God who- just a short while ago- I wasn't even sure existed. I sweep and dust and throw out the garbage. I light the lamp and wave the incense and bow my head and PRAY TO THE LORD for forgiveness, for truth, for strength, humility, and courage. I clean frantically because my hands are frenzied to the bone, they move in rhythm with my shouts and my mother's tears. They stack cans and crumple papers and hide the burnt music sheets in the bathtub from prying eyes. They shuffle papers. These hands see too much, they feel the corners of sadness, touch the edge of a numb boy's heart and am I whole yet? am I whole yet? am I whole?

Here we speak the words of silence. He shuffles between the piano and the computer, printing pictures I pretend not to see, and there is a riff that comes from his keyboard and his bones. It speaks to me, I sing it in my head and not my heart, and as I read his gravestone message I pull the strength to cry.

Mon, 08 Dec 2008 16:44:13 GMT

So my last entry was intensely depressing and weird. Sorry about that.

I went to bed around 5AM and woke up at 945, showered to get the blood pumping, and walked all the way down to the library in the bitter, below-32 cold to my 1030 class... only to find it was cancelled. Moments like this have a glorious irony to them. Here I am, disciplining myself to destruction so that I won't lose participation points, only to find that

a) my professor has taken a sick day, and
b) the only logical thing to do when you have an hour before your next class and you're already in the library is study some more.

So here I am, computer out and notebooks at the ready, looking up study guides for Richard II because my Shakespeare final is on friday. Somehow I can't bring myself to actually study though- it sounds so intense, waking up in the morning and coming to the library first thing to do work, but the truth is that I'm not really doing much of anything here, except changing my class schedule and looking up internships.

Which is what I do to procrastinate these days. At least I feel marginally productive... even if I know the truth about that.

I've actually changed everything around, including my life plan. I just had this moment of revelation where I realized that everything was actually up in the air- that nothing of the next 2.5 years or the years after that is certain, that it's all dependent on something else, and that this is my life and the choices I make now shape it. Entirely.

That's a huge thing to grip and grasp.

I know I'm an English major, and I've decided to do it full throttle and concentrate in Creative Writing. Some people say that's the easy way out, but it's the only way I want to do the major. What's weird is that with everything else, I question. Is IR right for me, do I really like Econ. Whereas English is the only academic that I don't question at all. Even when I get a bad grade, it's never crossed my mind to stop. I love this, not just because I'm good at it but because it makes me me. Words are kind of engraved on my heart, they've left a strong impression. Shakespeare is absolutely the most difficult English class I've ever taken, but it's worth it because the way I've learned to look at the text is so beautiful. And at the end of the day, all I want to do is make sense of things on paper.

And that's that.

I've had these romantic notions of wanting to go and get an MFA at some point, and I want that to happen- I do. But I've also realized that an MFA is not going to pay my bills, as scary as that sounds, and with my friends relentlessly chasing things like med school and finance I can't help but feel the pressure. Law is something that I enjoy- really truly enjoy- and part of me wants to go to law school for the purely selfish reason of having three years during which I have no obligations but to read tons and tons of supreme court cases. Which is something I do now when I'm bored, or listen to the orals on Oyez.

And just like that, I'm pre-law.

I don't know what it means to be pre-law. There are no classes that I have to take, really, and sure I'll take my LSAT. But I don't know when I'm going to go to law school, or if I'm going to practice law, or how any of this fits into my life goal of WRITE. I just know that I'm headed there sometime, and the fact that I don't know where or when scares me more than anything, because in high school I could see the future laid out very clearly in front of me.

Which brings me back to my point about decisions. I can't help but feel as if every decision I make now somehow affects the future. I'm taking an internship this summer, but do I apply to the ACLU and do the law stuff, or keep going with publishing and apply to Penguin? In the end I've decided to let God make the decision: apply to everything and take the best opportunity for me. The classes I take- do I major in IR or not? Does it matter, if I'm ultimately going to write? Is my creative writing professor right when he says that a second major is only going to distract me from my own goals?

And most importantly: is having two majors yet another subconscious means of prolonging the decision between risk and safety?

Which has truly been the balance of my life. At PPAS, they were so proud because they told us to make both work, academics and arts. What they didn't realize was that eventually each one of their students chose one or the other. Academics, or arts? I chose academics, because I liked it better- and because it was safer. But many people chose arts, and I'm wondering if they picked it because they were just praised more than me or if it was really because they were more passionate.

I can't help but ask myself if I'll always be stuck making safe choices, protecting myself in some way or another- whether it be through indecisiveness or a real decision to go the treaded path- while everyone around me finds what they want and grabs it. I also wonder if I'm always going to put my passions behind what other people think, and what kind of person am I, really, if I can't just drop everything and run after the one thing I love?

Or another question- what kind of person am I, really, if I can't maintain the fruits of my parents' sacrifice of coming to this country, of turning the seven dollars in their pockets into enough for me and my brother? What kind of person is that?

Recently I came into contact with a girl from my hometown. She was one of the most amazing Bharatanatyam dancers I ever knew, and I never really forgot her arangetram. It stands out in my mind as one of the best dancer debuts I've ever seen. She continued to perform through her years at Columbia, even garnering enough finances and support to create her own show before graduation. And back then it was all fine, when it was just her hobby, and sure people thought she was a bit intense about it, but she was a role model for all the girls who thought dancing was something you gave up when you got to college.

But then she decided to start a dance company instead of using her engineering degree at Goldman Sachs, and that's when the shit really hit the fan in our hometown.

It's caused a bit of a stir in our hometown, nothing particularly noteworthy but something for aunties and uncles to cluck their tongues at, an example for them to point to and tell us: "See? Don't be like that." I'm personally all about "that," whatever that is, and I sent her an email telling her how much I loved her cahones, and that I want to audition for her right away. I told her I'd help her find theatres when she came to Boston, and she sent me an email back saying:

"You know those moments of self doubt that can cripple? Your email washed that away. It's why I do what I do- for people like you, and to show the world what they're missing."

Sun, 07 Sep 2008 10:37:38 GMT

Riddle me this, who starts writing journal entries at 530AM?

People who can't (don't) sleep. Also people who, if anything, ought to be doing creative writing assignments but who also seem to be missing even the most ordinarily creative bones. And especially people who love to make noise, but who in fact have very little to say.

Well, maybe I'm being a bit harsh with myself. But it is, after all, five thirty in the morning.

I find the idea of going back to sleep rather useless. I'm going to have to wake up in two hours anyway, and at that point I'll have to get ready and go for a jog. Maybe I'll take this opportunity to do my laundry. Then again, the idea of climbing down four flights of creepy Carmichael stairs at this hour is a bit chilling. I'd rather stay here in the warm solitude of my room, awake but totally inefficient, enjoying this temporary luxury of being awake at the oddest hour.

I feel thick and blocked and exhausted. I feel tingly and energized and spectacular. Is it possible to feel six different ends of a spectrum at once? Sometimes I wonder if I have enough pieces to feel two things at once, let alone six. But here I am. And in fairness to the reader (even if the reader is just me!) I ought to end the ambiguity of this entry and write something reasonably concrete.

This summer I drove myself into the ground. I was head-over-heels in love, not with any person but with the ideas running around in my head, and I felt like a mother or an impatient nanny chasing after them with sticks and trying to pin them all down together. Each time I sat down to put my fingers to the paper I had a bubbling, an overload, an incredible surge/leap/bound of destiny. I have never felt more faith in myself. I have never experienced more joy, more love, more incredulousness. The words are empty and accurate, the only unfortunate tools I have to summarize the brilliance of creation. The experience has very little to do with what you create, or even its quality. It is simply the effort of removing pieces of yourself and rearranging them to form an entirely different picture (or, in my case, a story) that can make you shed tears in sadness and joy.

I thought it made up for everything else in the world.

And in a sense, it does. There is nothing like it. There never can be. And if I know myself well enough, I know that I will never be able to make anyone understand. I can write about it all I want, but there are sides to me- the side that is sitting here typing as the bluish pink of the sunrise overtakes my window- that just cannot be revealed. Even if I could, I'm not sure I would want to share them. The best I can do is smile enthusiastically when I come across someone else who seems lost in this vast and bristled jungle of a path I have begun. When we meet it's wonderful. But I know that they too are alone in this, and the most we can do for each other is be alone together, and perhaps provide some comfort in silent solidarity.

It will always be this realm, this private and cozy den I have created for myself, that takes priority.

Some time around last year I became vividly aware of my own courage. I have decided to call it that, for lack of a better word, because I do believe that being unselfconscious takes a certain amount of courage, even if (like me) you were just born that way or raised that way or not really aware of what you were doing to begin with. I determined that being the loud girl that I was blinded me from seeing myself properly. And my self image was shattered.

I lost my confidence. I no longer felt beautiful. My personality was a source of shame rather than pride. I buried my heart to protect it with whatever was left of my dignity, to keep myself from becoming the ugly loud third daughter that no one could pity enough to love or even like very much. I shut down emotionally. I pushed my friends out and boys further. But after this summer- after writing and healing and learning and asking and yelling and crying and everything else in between- I feel somehow put together again. And I've come to some conclusions.

The first is that it's impossible for anyone to see themselves clearly, and especially impossible for anyone to see themselves the way others see them. So between who we are, who we think we are, and who everyone else thinks we are, how on earth are we to judge which is right or best? It seems a foolish and gigantic waste of time to spend so much energy considering this. The best- and safest- philosophy to follow, in my opinion, is to simply be open to all of the options. This way there are no surprises or shocks. For instance, I don't consider myself a kleptomaniac in any way, but if a friend were to approach me tomorrow and tell me in all earnesty, "Kristen, I think you are a kleptomaniac," then I might consider the possibility for a moment or two (before, of course, questioning that friend's own sanity).

The second is that safety nets are impossible to pull forever, and that no one's heart is ever safe, and so trying to protect it is quite useless. I have tried every trick in the book to guard my heart from clumsy paws and ugly claws. I have tried distance, boxes, shields, spears, gears, wheels, sand, cushions, and more. But at the end of the day, everyone falls. And if heartbreak is inevitable, then it is inevitable. I am done trying to stop it. Too much has slipped past me- it is an awful feeling, a truly awful feeling, to wonder whether or not you are capable of feeling anything at all. I truly believe emotion is the clay of existence, and without it I feel limp and uninspired.

Although I have to say, I do enjoy the bits of control I have come across. That is not something of which I plan to let go anytime soon.

When I was growing up, my dance teacher's parents (who were like extra grandparents, especially since I never knew my own grandfathers, and so I was especially sad when he passed on) used to talk to my mother about me. I was always the girl making noise and making trouble in class, but they adored it about me. "She's not like other girls," they said. "She's so full of life."

Years later, I'm starting to remember why that's a good thing.

Sat, 16 Aug 2008 04:38:46 GMT

Here I am, too much time having passed since my last public entry, with something to say at last. While I sincerely doubt that anyone reads this journal besides those with whom I am already friends, it is nice to update every now and then publicly. After all, I cannot help but recall the times when every entry I wrote was public and everyone (often my subjects) was a curious browser.

I have yet to private-ize the entire journal. It must look incredibly odd to someone who isn't friends with me- most of last year appears to be unwritten, and I'd imagine the first half of 2007 is completely blocked as well. I haven't really locked anything before the second semester of senior year, though I know I'll have to get around to it eventually. Life has been busy, though, as it often is, and I haven't yet made time in my schedule for the grueling requirements of livejournal privacy. Recently I've been paying more attention to my paper journal, and I've even had the pleasure of grouping all of my old journals together. Now they sit on a tiny bookshelf above my head, all 24 of them, from fat spiral notebooks to narrow slivers of hardcover.

I adore paper journals. There is an inherently spiritual feeling to lifting the pen to paper, to knowing that no line of ink can be undone. Some might say that this allows for plenty of mistakes, but I think it makes the headwork better. The parts of me that I love- the thinking parts, the whirling cogs and zany tangents- are forced to filter just to keep speed with my hand. And perhaps I don't get everything down that I'd like to- more often than not I'll close the book before cursing myself for forgetting a larger theme or minute detail I'll have forgotten to jot down- but that's the price we pay for a certain degree of immortality. This journal can vanish at the push of a button. It would take a great fire to burn the fat books above my head at the moment, and even then I doubt it would all be destroyed. And that is why it is so important to choose our written words carefully, to think before we write, because- as I have certainly learned in high school- no words are easily lost or forgotten.

Still, no matter how much weight I give before lifting my hand to the page, I am unduly critical of journals past. It amazes me how I can cringe with shock at something no one but me will ever read: an elementary school journal with notes about pancakes and playground games. I'm not entirely sure what I expect from my first-grade self when I look through these marble notebooks. A literary masterpiece? A journalistic vision? Hmm, not at all. But some sign of eloquence, some indication that yes, words will be my gymnasium and yes, I will use them willingly. That is all I can possibly hope for.

And yet I am always disappointed! From my latest journal, I even thought far enough in advance to carve: "It doesn't matter what I say or when I start; I will always look back on this page with a judgment of my own maturity." These words, written a mere six months previous and now seeming so chock-full of wisdom, may appear grotesque and frightfully immature come my graduation. Maybe then, at that point, I will be so far away from self-judgment that the idea will seem ridiculous!

Then again, self-judgment is perhaps the only continuous motion in my life, so I don't have high hopes for that one.

However self consciously I may look through these journals, I'm beginning to wonder if there is any point to the art. Not just my criticism, but the actual books themselves. Consider it- I have spent bulks of pages and yards of time wriggling and fussing over words that were unimportant and, most often, unintelligible to anyone but myself. Is there any purpose to an art that has little public reward? I doubt I will be able to stop writing in journals any time soon. A great deal of effort has been directed toward an art that will do little for me in the job market.

"Hi, I'm Kristen. I can write things down on paper! Mostly about myself, but hey. We could toss in a couple of fictional characters for kicks."

I'd like to consider the whole endeavor a glance inside the human mind, but I think I lack the perspective to truly utilize it as a tool in my writing. And that's the other point- stories and journals and poems grow into better stories and journals and poems and often the journals become stories or the stories become journals and everything's a poem these days anyway so why bother to differentiate? And then you have to tell people, "I'd like to be a writer someday."

And then you get this: A blink or two. "A writer? But what are you going to do?"

I wonder if writing is a legitimate profession these days or something people just stumble on. If my journal writing is any indication, writing feels to me like an extra arm. A tool sometimes, frustrating often, and one more way to separate myself from groups of adolescents who would much rather feign their emotions than embrace them.

Wed, 13 Aug 2008 04:12:30 GMT

Lesson learned this summer:

In the pathways between art and heart, there is very little room for coercion.

Fri, 02 May 2008 06:52:50 GMT

So apparently livejournal is no longer Tufts-free.

Hi, Shreena.

Thu, 27 Dec 2007 04:10:56 GMT

Consumption complete.

Sat, 22 Sep 2007 18:38:04 GMT

Kristen --

I'm teaching beginning Sanskrit this semester (for upper-level classics majors who know
some linguistics). If I teach it again, it will be a regular language class with no
pre-requisites, so you'd be quite welcome. I've been working with Sanskrit in the
context of the Indo-European family pretty much throughout my career in classics. It's
rather fun to realize just how closely related Sanskrit is to Greek, Latin, and English
-- in vocabulary and grammar, but also in poetry (there are formulae that appear in the
Iliad and the RV in the exact samem words) and in religion. For example, there are gods
who appear in all the various traditions -- Greek Zeus is Sanskrit dyaus pitr, "shining
sky father," and Latin Jupiter, though he's pretty minor in Sanskrit. Not only that,
there are important rituals that have parallels. There's a recent book comparing the
Vedic sacrificial fires with certain Roman rituals, and the Roman "October Horse" ritual
is related to the royal ashvamedha. If you're curious, there's a nifty article comparing
an incident you know from the Iliad with a scene in the Maharabharata -- "Draupadi on the
Walls of Troy: Iliad 3 from an Indic Perspective," by Stephanie Jamison, in the journal
Classical Antiquity, volume 13 (1994), pages 5-16. It's certainly in the library and may
be on line in JSTOR.

Oh yes, and like every other sensible human being, I love Indian food -- particularly the
Moghul-influenced dishes from the north, like korma. And I'm probably the only
non-Indian I know who doesn't think Indian candy is too sweet!

--Prof. M.

I love this place.

Mon, 10 Sep 2007 03:10:57 GMT

Last night was almost our troll in the dungeon.

Sat, 04 Aug 2007 16:16:36 GMT

Three weeks.

Thu, 17 May 2007 20:56:48 GMT

I did promise I would never write again, but today I found this in my inbox and I only thought it was fair to share it with the people who've been waiting for me.

A LETTER FROM COLUMBIA

Dear Kristen,

In my prior correspondence, I promised you more news concerning your candidacy for Columbia University.

Our incoming class remains full, which leaves us with the regrettable task of releasing the vast majority of students from our waiting list so that you may go forward with your plans for the coming year. We are confident that the college where you will matriculate this fall will be made richer by your academic and personal contributions.

This has been an extraordinary year at Columbia in that both the quality of the applicant pool and the responses to our offers of admission have exceeded our expectations. We recognize and applaud your record of academic and personal achievement and regret that Columbia will not have the benefit of the contributions you could make here.

I am confident that you will be successful in college and wish you the best in all your endeavors.

Thank you again for your longstanding interest in Columbia.

Sincerely,

Jessica Marinaccio
Executive Director
Undergraduate Admissions

P.S. Please note that a hardcopy of the above will be mailed to you.

:-) Things are the way they're supposed to be.

Sat, 09 Dec 2006 20:18:16 GMT

Despite my complete nondesire to be part of the production, I have somehow wound up with sheet music and a practice tape for the GYPSY audition.

Whether or not I use these things, I am sure, will be up to me.

I don't even know why I'm doing it anymore.

Sat, 09 Dec 2006 16:15:01 GMT

Yesterday when I told Thomas Sharon I didn't really want to be his friend right now, I also told him that he needed to give me some time and space. Because he was driving me nuts.

And then he said: "Well, there's not a terrible amount of time, but..."

He's right. My senior year is halfway through.

Which means that other things need to start happening. FAST.

Thu, 07 Dec 2006 12:46:04 GMT

So I'll tell you the truth. I was a little bit disappointed.

Lies. A lot disappointed.

And then I remembered that I have so much going for me that it is stupid to get disappointed over one little thing that doesn't go well. I have these college applications and this writing contest and a whole bunch of other stuff I'm HAPPY to work on.

Why let anything slow me down?

I think I'm hopping over Boston tomorrow or Saturday.

Wed, 06 Dec 2006 22:38:28 GMT

Up down up down up down up down up down up down up down up down up down up down up down up down up down up down up down up down up down up down up down up down up down up down up down up down up down up down up down up down up down up down up down up down up down up down up down up down up down up down up down up down up down up down up down up down up down up down up down up down up down up down up down up down up down up down up down up down up down up down up down up down up down up down up down up down up down up down up down up down up down up down up down up down up down up down up down up down up down up down up down up down...

UP...

Down?

I'm done playing games.

Wed, 06 Dec 2006 01:04:21 GMT

Today I stood up in front of my drama class and sang.

I didn't feel shy. I didn't feel awkward.

I love them so much. I'm grateful for everything God has given me.

Sun, 03 Dec 2006 03:31:27 GMT

I really need to end this facebook obsession. Here's why.

A LIST OF REASONS WHY I NEED TO END THE FACEBOOK MADNESS

1) It seriously prevents me from doing homework. BAD.

2) I am starting to become what my cousin likes to call a "facebook whore". I must always be doing something facebook related, ie writing on walls or joining a group or editing my profile or changing his picture to a picture of me.

3) Another one of these said activities is going through photographs. Photographs belonging to other people. Which reminds me of the other world some people live in. People are totally not the same in school. What they do outside of school is different. I mean there are photos people take just to show off (ie photos where the alcohol is blatantly placed in front of the camera... or when they're all "New York" with their cigarettes...) and then there are the real candids, where you are caught completely unawares. Most people fake it and then fb it. I've seen a decent few photos where nobody was faking, and it definitely scared the shit out of me.

4) It scaring the shit out of me means I have no friends.

5) The above two reasons indicate that I am taking facebook as a whole way too seriously which means it's time to quit.

!!!!!!!!

I'm just a lucky girl in general.

Really, I am.

Sat, 02 Dec 2006 22:23:01 GMT

To take my mind off of certain things and help me compartmentalize my life a little bit (What's Important vs. What I Shouldn't Care So Much About) I've decided to enter a contest.

Me. Voluntary competition. Whoddathunkit.

I'm entering the creative writing contest for New York City students, the one Ms. Sacks passed out. It's not because I think I'm this great writer, I just feel like I've never challenged myself in that kind of way before. Where it DOESN'T matter if I win but it would be nice if I did. That's healthy competition... and I never bothered. So now I'm bothering.

Because I'm starting to take more risks.

My life is looking a lot like the movie title RISKY BUSINESS.

Only it's not a movie. It's my life. And I'm risking things all over the place. Like this short story I'm about to write, for instance. Which directly relates to my pride. I am also risking my pride by applying to certain colleges.

It seems that my pride is all over the place lately.

... That pride is going to have to deal. After all, I have a lot of pride. Maybe too much.

Absence makes the heart grow fonder.

Thu, 30 Nov 2006 14:33:04 GMT

I now remember why I don't have too many friends: I pretty much get sick of everyone after a while.

I have also discovered that my favorite college application questions (coincidentally NOT the college application questions I should be filling out as we speak) are the following:

PENN (optional extra essay): You have just completed your three hundred page autobiography. Submit page 287.

TUFTS: We would like you to write a short story with one of the following titles: THE MYSTERIOUS LAB, THE DEATH OF MTV, CONFESSIONS OF A MIDDLE SCHOOL BULLY.

There are actually two other titles but I can't remember them. I am doing CONFESSIONS. I have a good idea for it. I also think I'm good with character stuff so that's good.

After I submit these two applications, that's it. The only non Common App left is Columbia. Thank goodness.

Columbia also has a nice "write about whatever you want" essay topic, so I don't have to worry about writing a WHOLE NEW essay for them.

Why am I writing about this.

Oh yeah. Because other things aren't working out.

They will work out. I've made a new decision. I've decided not to get emotionally involved, but I am going to fight for what I want. All the way. There is no way a small minor incident is going to let me give up.

That is one thing people don't understand about overachievers. We are horribly spoiled because we always get exactly what we want. And obstacles are really only minor inconveniences for us.