It's all apart of the growth process...I promise

Sometimes I wonder if college is really a waste of time. Or rather...if it is a waste of really good energy that can be used to serve better things. I haven't figured that out what those "better things are" yet, but a while ago I was talking to an OC grad and we both kinda verbalized that college has in fact made you dumber in a lot of ways. Like how to confront your peers and challenges sans passive aggressiveness. Or how to feel empowered...truly empowered and not the manufactured, doctored kind Liberal Arts intitutions and degrees think we get. Or how to just be efficent with the tools you have.

I say this cause I've started misspelling the most obvious words...and have started to forget how to articulate a point concisely. Random I know...but hey...this is me who's talking.

Anyways...I really do wonder what my degrees are going to do for me. Especially cause I have a life plan that is completely different from what I planned in mind. But I guess the whole...life falling apart business is apart of the growth process.

I'm been really tired as of late- cause I've just been busy. I will finally admit to myself and everyone else that I am in fact...a workaholic. - Insert shrug -. It can't be helped. With parents and a sister like mine...one must be on their toes all the time. - Insert crouching fight stance-.But with this sense of tiredness, I've been registering this sense of change. It's almost like a ringing in your ears but gentler. I feel like something really big and possibly life changing is about to ensue. I can't tell if it will be a good thing or not. Maybe it's the fact that fall has come. Or maybe it's something else entirely....

Compromises...debauchery...and the like.

WARNING: Content contains personal information. please be advised.

I went out last night and realized that there were in fact many people who have what brown folks call 'played me'....i.e. just make you feel like a game piece. Not even like chess...think checkers. Anyways, during my outing, I noticed that I was being ignored. In the way that makes you feel like you don't amount to anything...like your time isn't worth jack. And I have never been so angry and ready to show it in my whole life. I mean..I know Jersey girls are crazy, and I respect the fact that I have a what one may call a 'crazy bitch' factor. But honestly- enough is enough. Somehow I keep getting it in my head to associate with crazy folks who don't have their life together...and in turn make me out to look like I'm out of it.

Lesson of the day: I am worth it. The universe works in mysterious ways. Crazies stay crazy. For life.

Smarasaurs, work, and bagels galore.

Advice of the Day: One must always be on the watch for Smarasaurs.

Birthdays....a day of cultivating rapid growth.

I must say....my residents are awesome. And I will tell you why. They baked me a cake (Funfetti is DELICIOUS!!!!) and then gave me a mild cardiac arrest by singing Happy Birthday to me. While I was holding my laundry. Yes...I was in fact doing laundry when the clock struck midnight (a girl needs clean clothes non??)

But when I woke up at 7.20 cause my mom called and sang 'Happy Birthday' to me, the followed seven minutes later with my dad calling me. For the split second I was awake, I realized that I am no longer a teenage. Physically. However, I finally started feeling like my body and time was catching up to how I feel emotionally. Like I was always two years ahead of the game. Now- this is not to say that I feel completely 'the right age yet'. And I don't necessarily think that will ever happen (okay...maybe when I'm like...70 or something.). But as of now I can personally stop feeling like I'm in limbo so to speak.

Speaking of speech, I am now using a program in which I can learn Portuguese. And it is AWESOME!!!! (full nerdy moment....now.)But that is CLEARLY besides the point.

I find that birthdays most of the time for me have a love-hate relationship. I don't really like 'celebrating' or 'flaunting' that it's my birthday. It's not my style. If you know it, you know if, if not, I don't hate on you for it- cause there are bigger things to focus on and remember then the moment you were born. Not to say I don't think I'm special...but politically, there are so many moments of birth that get ignored it's hard to gauge them together. There is so much growth to do as an individual, like into a better being, scholar, activist, friend, lover, etc. that it's hard to think a birthday trumps all of that. But no matter the case, I still had a nice one. Later Monday night, one of my friends took me out to dinner, but I noticed that she was not acting like herself. She has been going through some serious stuff and didn't want to "bring me down on your birthday". I told her that no matter what day it was, I would've wanted her to feel good on my birthday like I did.

PLEASE NOTE: The best gift you can ever give me in life...is to let me share my moment with you. Always.

But as always, with time comes a little bit more knowledge, a little bit more clarity, and we ask for a little bit more sanity but....baby steps.

I guess they didn't hand out Rose-colored glasses this year hunh?....

Finally!!! A moment to write. It's week two of classes, and I surprise myself by exactly how much I've grown up since I've been in Oberlin. With the potentially of being overrun with work, school, job(s) and recreating a more positive social life, I fondly remember how back in the day...I've would've pissed my pants and cried myself to sleep because I was so stressed. Now I just break out in a big old eczema patch lol. (gross I know...but you'll live.) I guess the rose colored glasses are off at this point. I now know that Oberlin at many...MANY times...is not what it is cracked up to be and that the institution will pull some shady sh*t on your ass faster than a dog on a bone, that I can't fix or change everything (or will even be good at everything), that some folks are really unwilling to cooperate and/or participate. I now know that there are some folks who in fact- don't care about real feelings, real politics, or real identities, but instead, are very much content with the idea of who they think others think they are, rather than who they truly are meant to be. (Sorry...I know that was a serious ass compound sentence- but it had to be done. It's how I think.)

I was talking to someone the other day about my time in Oberlin so far. That I chose to use this time and this space to get to know myself...as in the person who I am satisfied to be, and question it everyday. That while no single person is every clear about anything and everything, it is okay to have some sort of understanding of the kind of person you are, who you associate (and disassociate) with, the things you love, hate or rub you wrong. Why is it that there are some people who are really okay with pulling out the Rosy glasses? You know...the ones laced with privilege?!! It is amazing to me that everyone talks about college being this experience where you get to try all sorts of things. What about trying to be a better person- a better thinker, believer, listener?

As of late, I have been thinking so much more about politics. About how it seeps into everyday things. Like exactly who is given the brunt work of any kind, or who exactly gets to play pretend socially and emotionally? Not to sound jaded or what have you, but Oberlin for me had begun breeding this type of individual who is not really individual at all- but is rather the shell of someone who believes in the systems still set up that force you to contain, confuse and compound your identity, and everything that makes you. (I.e...being an R.A. who is very much into brown politics who lives with a lot of white folks is harder than anticipated...not that I shouldn'tve know.)

I started going back to church (as for those who know me this is a very big step...), which to my bewilderment, has actually been so soothing. I think it helps that it is non-denominational, and that I firmly believe body mind and soul that the Universe is a big brown woman, or a collective of brown women at a table. Cause the craziest of shit that has happened in my life so far could only be full of the irony and the bittersweetness brown women know. It is here that someone told me I should have my own t.v. show- if only for the really great inner monologues...

I got a comment on one of my last posts that Gaia hasn't made an appearance lately. I am proud to say that zhe is doing well...and that I spent about an hour and a half getting re-aquainted with zer...who was very unhappy about being so out of tune. I haven't written a song that quite works yet in a while...so I'm just gonna let my Auntie Universe drop a present for me when she thinks I'm ready for it. So in the meantime...I'll do my best to keep practicing.

Biggest fear so far: I don't want this year to end up like last- where I felt really bitter and withdrawn from and about everything. There is a fine line between bitterness, apathy, and contentment that I feel like I'm trying to walk. Let's hope the rope doesn't break this time and that my balance is better.