I've been inundating you with existential topics for the past three posts. Time for a little break: I will temporarily be an 18-year-old second semester senior for the duration of this post.
IT IS THE SECOND WEEK OF THE LAST QUARTER!!! #BOOM
So many things on my mind:
1) Gov test tomorrow (still have yet to read completely the two chapters...)
2) Tomorrow's calc quiz is on what, again?
3) STATES NEXT WEEK!!!
4) I still have to finalize revisions for my oration so that I can start memorizing, like, VERY SOON
5) Is it bad to say that I've already started fantasizing about Nationals? Because that's what I've been doing in Gov all week instead of listening to the lectures (which is exactly why I have #1 on my mind right now).
6) Those freakin' chairs (Aid, Josh and I spent about two consecutive hours sanding them earlier this week. NOT. FUN. AT. ALL. And we're not done yet...)
7) Aalsdfuaosdifasdfnaosidujvsdindikn!?!?
8) I still have to send in all my forms and stuff to UH (must finish by the end of the week...)
(Oh that reminds me, I haven't said it on this blog yet: I'm going to UH. Regents Scholarship man--this is how it's done. #BOOM)
(Ope, sorry, I guess I am gonna talk about something not very 18-year-old-second-semester-senior-ish of me in today's post...here we go...)
Typing up this list of things that have been on my mind lately has shown me that my life is far from perfect. That's not exactly breaking news, but what can be considered a news flash is that fact that I am pretty happy right now, at this very moment--happier than I normally would be in these kinds of situations--despite the extensive "List of Things that I Have to Worry/Think About Constantly."
I mean, come on, it's April, the hardest month of the year for me and I am smiling as I type this blog post. That, to me, is an amazing feat and definitely deserving of a pat in the back (at the risk of sounding self-absorbed)! Especially because I always have the tendency to revert to Grumpy-and-Sassy Jen whenever I'm stressed and burnt out. And no one likes
Grumpy-and-Sassy Jen. (Happy-and-Giggly Jen is so much more popular. And, she also has more game...#justsaying)
I think the reason why I have a smile on my face as I'm typing this and thinking about all of the things that I have to do by the end of the week/month/year/my life (!) is the increased awareness I have of my surroundings--more specifically, the moments and people around me that I now realize I will not have with me as I go on to college next year, no matter how close UH may be to 'Iolani. Accompanying my crazy To-Do List is a much longer and frankly more important List: a list of the moments in which I find myself "gripped by a cherishing so deep / for my own blowing hair, chapped face, and unbuttoned coat that I'm speechless."
The phrase "gripped by a cherishing so deep" from Marie Howe's "What the Living Do" is my absolute favorite phrase ever written in the history of, like, human consciousness (sorry, John Green). This poem technically sums up the feeling I have now. In the same way that the speaker's life isn't perfect, littered with clogged sinks, coffee spills, and a stubborn heater, my life surely isn't what with all the pressure to do well in class, the mountain of homework, the bombardment of quizzes and tests and the imminent reality of AP Test Weeks in the beginning of May. In this sense, I am definitely just "getting by."
But in the same way that the speaker finds a solitary moment in which she fully appreciates her "blowing hair, chapped face, and unbuttoned coat," I laugh at the jokes that my friends and I tell in passing, blush at an unexpected compliment, smile as I sit in a comfortable niche during speech practice, a small part of the school that has cared for me for the past four years. In these moments, all the worrisome things disappear. In this sense, I am definitely "living." Stopping in the middle of the sidewalk and staring at yourself in the glass window of a random video store is exactly the kind of moments that we live for: forgetting What Was and loving What Is not only for what it is but also what it will be.
Risks taken: 17
Hugs: 2
Current food cravings/obsessions: water (again) and pudding (preferably chocolate)
Playlist(s) on Repeat: "Like an N, But Not Really"
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