Speak to me

Songs have a way of speaking to you in ways that spoken words just can't sometimes. I've been freaking out lately about my life, and after a really inspiring message on Sunday, I've (mostly) relaxed. My pastor was texting me and encouraging me, and right after I read his texts, Kirk Franklin's song 'My Life is in Your Hands' came on Pandora. I'd asked God for a word this morning, some type of encouragement just to let me know he was there with me and he had my back, and some direction on what I'm supposed to be doing. He answered my prayers! It's great when you can count on somebody to be true to their word. He said he's a present help in trouble, and he proved himself again. It seems small, but it's these small moments that help move me in the right direction.

Reaally long post coming on overdosing on church.

Mhm..

I’m back at school. Freshmen are mad hype. Seniors are even worse. Is it May yet?

I straightened my hair. Everybody’s saying it’s cute. Is that a hint that I should leave the fro alone? But I wanna go back to my “naturally curly hair.” L

It’s not a good look to play “never have I ever” with people who you don’t really care to know their business, and neither do you want them to know yours.

I want school to start so I can get to work. But in two weeks, I will be begging for a break.

To my friend and former burgeoning cuddle buddy, Diesel: I miss you, why did you have to get a girlfriend?

It's a little cloudy

So I just finished watching the movie Juno. I’d refused to watch it before out of silent protest. If a black girl gets pregnant, it’s the same old story of an irresponsible slutty hoodrat having kids to stay on welfare or WIC. But a white girl does it and she gets an Oscar nomination. However, after watching it, I see why it won an Oscar. It was very well-written and acted. The subtleties and themes could probably make a nice little paper, if I actually wrote papers. There’s a reason I’m an accounting major. Watching movies like that makes me wish I could verbalize my thoughts in an eloquent manner. Or should I say, verbalize them quickly in an eloquent manner. I can come up with great arguments, but I need a lot of time to get them together. I have passed classes with flying colors after failing tests because of my superb papers (exhibit A of grade inflation). I feel like I could have a lot to say, but I need to practice getting my thoughts out of my head. There’s a line in that same song I talked about in the last post (Elevator Music by Othello) that says “responsibilities rest on the tongues of the educated mind, now accountable to verbalize truth.” Those words may not be completely right, but the gist of what he’s saying is that if you have knowledge, you should share that with someone who doesn’t have it and try to help them out. I get these vibes from people and I see inconsistencies and flaws in explanations, but many times, I can’t quite put my finger on it. But when I finally do get it, it’s even better than that proverbial light bulb. It’s that feeling you get when the sun finally breaks through the clouds after you’ve been secretly pleading with it all day to come out because you knew that the day would be absolutely perfect if it would just shine as brightly as you knew it could. So until I get that feeling, I keep tweaking my thoughts, keeping in mind that the hard work will be worth it when the cloud is finally lifted from my mind.

I'm over it

*Btw, after that whole rant I had about my best friend, she called me two days later talking about how we need to stop these long breaks in between talking to each other (I'm pretty sure she doesn’t read this blog). After that it was like we hadn’t skipped a beat. I may have overreacted...

I was looking forward to this vacation from work, but now that it's here, I'm bored. Well, today I was bored. I’ve been going through so many emotions lately that it’s hard to trust my feelings. I’ve had so many conflicting feelings about school. It’s my senior year, the exciting and scary year that juniors dread and alumni constantly reminisce about. One part of me is just over it. I’m over the whole staying up all night studying (well, studying period), worrying about the event you’re planning, catering to the freshmen so they’ll keep your group going after you’re gone. I’m sick of it. I liked the work world and feeling like what I was doing was significant in some way, even if that way was that I could feed my ridiculous obsession with having money, even though I don’t like spending it. Since I must go to school, I just want to study to shore up my GPA, get a job, and have a good time. The only negotiable part is how I’m going to have a good time. I get satisfaction from my extra-curricular activities when I’m on top of things, and they turn out to be a success. The problem is the stress that comes with trying to make events successful. But I think my attitude for the next semester – not the year, I can’t think that far ahead – is to just get it done, and plan so that I have the least stress possible. The frustrating thing about this is that I feel like I should’ve had this attitude already in like, sophomore year. And in some ways, I’ve had it, but it hasn’t been entirely consistent. So now I feel like an idiot, even though I’ve mastered the art of looking like I have everything together. I hate that I constantly feel like I’m struggling to keep afloat. Maybe that’s why I liked working so much. I had a fresh slate, and I worked to take that opportunity and make a name for myself in the company. The actions I took had a direct effect on the results, unlike school, where I could work my butt off but still had no guarantee that I would succeed.
But I still feel like I’m missing the point. There’s a big empty space that supposed to be filled, but I feel like there’s a big hump I have to get over to get to the thing that’s supposed to fill me up. Really, I think my fluctuating emotions are a result of my fluctuating relationship with God. (Sidenote: I used to hate reading things where they would randomly start talking about God with no lead in, or have an obvious plot of ‘These were/are my problems, but I turned to/need to turn to God, and He fixed/will fix them.’ So I’m sorry if this seems like that, but really, I’ve been thinking about the reasoning behind these thoughts for quite some time now and I started noticing some patterns, so bear with me.) Whenever I’m talking to God regularly, I’m at peace with life. The craziest stuff will come up, but I freak out and then stay relatively calm because I know from experience, and not just from somebody’s grandma saying it, that God has an uncanny way of working things out. There’s this song by Othello (good rapper, you should check him out) called Elevator Music, and in the first line he says, “I guess that my stress is a direct effect of lack of elevation…” That’s exactly my problem. I hate that I feel like I write this every six months or so, but for some reason I keep doing this. I put myself on a rollercoaster that’s about to make me puke.

Miscellaneous things

It's been a while...

My cousin’s wedding was last weekend, and an uncle’s funeral was yesterday. One life begins, and another ends.

I’ve gotten pretty good at excel this summer. But when it decides that it doesn’t want to work and crash every half hour, a 2-hour job ends up taking all day.

Speaking of work, my last day is Friday (woohoo!). The official last day for the interns was this past Friday, but since I go back to school so late, I figured I’d make a little more money…the bills cometh…

I’m talking to a dude again that I met freshman year, when I told him that I would probably never see him again and didn’t want to talk to him. And three years, 2 more encounters, and hours of conversation later, I’m about to cut it off again. He can be the most annoying person sometimes, but he gets me. Like, really gets me. And it’s not like I’m blameless here at all. I start things up again when I’m feeling flirty and all, but when I get tired of him, I stop. He serves a specific purpose, and if that purpose isn’t fulfilled, I have no use for him. Cold, I know. But I expressly warned him that this is the way I am, and he knows from experience how I can be. Yet he still talks to me when I call him. “Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.” I thought about just giving in and dating him, because we have great conversations and great chemistry. But we disagree on all the important things in life, so we really need to stop. Or maybe I need to stop.

I feel like there’s a gulf growing between me and my best friend. The person she’s been in love with for like 5 years is finally paying attention to her – as a FRIEND – so I haven’t heard from her in a while. I expect this when she gets a new boo; we all do that. Somebody new comes in, we spend time with that person exclusively forever, and then look up one day and realize that we haven’t talked to our friends in about 2 months. I’m used to that, but I wasn’t prepared for someone that was supposed to just be a friend. We used to hang out when I got off work, or at least on the weekends. Now she doesn’t call me back, and if she does, she’s hanging out with dude. I got really pissed when I found out she’s been off work since Aug 4th, and hasn’t tried to hang out with me at all. And she’s finally going away to school – which I’m happy for her, cause she really wanted to go – but I know the gulf will get bigger over the next year. It’s sad facing this, but this is probably what she felt when I went away to school. But I did try to hang out with her when I was home. Yes, I am bitter. We’ve been friends for a looong time. We know each other inside out. But all things must change, I guess.

Someday, but not today

I am a sucker for a good romantic comedy. The puppy dog eyes, the cheesy lines, the sprints through the rain to get that one last (or first) kiss – I love all of it. But if anybody ever tried to say those things to me in real life…I might laugh in their face. Unless I actually liked them. For instance, I have a friend that I love to death now, but I liked him for the longest time before we became good friends. One day we were on the subway with some other friends coming back from church, and he pulled me to the side and out of the blue was like, “You are the reason I still believe there’s good in the world.” And then later on that same day we were talking and he said, “I don’t want you to change, I love you just the way you are.” I just about melted into the floor. But then I’ve had other guys say things like that to me, and I’m like, umm ok thanks. Now I’m in the boat that most people are in, where they want the love and affection of another person. Unfortunately, I don’t feel like that’s where I’m headed in the near future; I’m pretty sure I’m supposed to be single right now. I want someone here, but I want someone that I really like and respect. I’ve kept a few guys around just to have somebody to flirt with when I felt like it. But the drama got old, and the effort to keep up with them was tiring. Lately, though, even the desire to flirt is fading. I just feel like I’m preparing for someone who isn’t too far away in the future. And even if he is a ways off, I’m strangely ok with that. As for the yearning for love and affection, it’s still there, but it’s waning. Thirstiness isn’t cute anyway. Besides, I’m a senior, so best believe my time will be spent looking for a job. I got loans to pay off.

Things I hate

I have many pet peeves, but one thing that grates on my nerves, is when it is clear that I am engrossed in a project, or doing something else, and somebody decides to ask an in-depth question that is completely out of the blue and expect a well-thought out and eloquent answer. Along the same lines, I don’t like when someone has been talking for an hour or more, and then asks me minutes after to summarize. I need time to digest what happened, look at my notes, or go through whatever handouts I have and remember the specific thoughts I had with each line. If I look like I'm concentrating, I probably am, so take a hint and don't bother me. Thanks.