Greatest. Year. Ever.

2004, I'll miss you.

1. What did you do in 2004 that you'd never done before? Went to college. Lived on my own. Spent a shitload of money on clothes and electronics.

2. Did you keep your new years' resolutions, and will you make more for next year? I don't think I had any resolutions last year. The only thing I ever wish for is to be happy. But this year my resolution is to attend all my classes. I need to work on that.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth? My aunt.

4. Did anyone close to you die? No thank god.

5. What countries did you visit? Noplace new.

6. What would you like to have in 2005 that you lacked in 2004? Nothing.

7. What date from 2004 will remain etched upon your memory, and why? The day I got to college. My life one-eightied from there.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year? Graduating top of my class. Living (successfully) on my own... haha. Learning who I really am and what I really want.

9. What was your biggest failure? Not staying in contact with some of my school friends.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury? Nothing serious.

11. What was the best thing you bought? Probably this laptop.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration? Michael Moore's. I love that man.

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed? Dan Rather's.

14. Where did most of your money go? In the pockets of corporate America.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about? Leaving. Coming home.

16. What song will always remind you of 2004? The Darkness - I Believe in a Thing Called Love. My neighbors must have played that song at least 50 times a day.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
i. happier or sadder? Happier.
ii. thinner or fatter? Thinner. I think I LOST the Freshman 15.
iii. richer or poorer? Richer.

18. What do you wish you'd done more of? Gone to classes.

19. What do you wish you'd done less of? Been moody.

20. How will you be spending Christmas? n/a

22. Did you fall in love in 2004? Yes. With Michael Moore.

23. How many one-night stands? :)

24. What was your favorite TV program? The Amazing Race.

25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year? Nope.

26. What was the best book you read? I haven't read much.

27. What was your greatest musical discovery? Hilary Duff.

28. What did you want and get? Everything.

29. What did you want and not get? Nothing.

30. What was your favorite film of this year? Fahrenheit 9/11. Alexander. Closer.

31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you? 17. I had a paper and an oral presentation due the next day so I was working my butt off.

32.What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying? Having everyone I love closer.

33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2004? Sugar, spice, everything nice.

34. What kept you sane? Twizzlers.

35. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most? Hilary Duff.

36. What political issue stirred you the most? The elections, but otherwise I'm not incredibly up to par when it concerns politics.

37. Who did you miss? Everyone back home.

38. Who was the best new person you met? All of you! The invisible voices I speak to.

39. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2004. Don't bother yourself with people who don't bother with you.

Goodbye 2004!

Getting used..

to being back home.

There's this system here. It's nice being in that system again. Going out with friends. Hanging out with my sister. Having my baby sister curl up next to me at night. Things that I used to take for granted.

Yesterday I went out for lunch with my family. We had some Baskin Robbins and then we went to Satwa. Cuz every girl's gotta visit Satwa when she's in town. No. My mom had some car problems and she dragged us over with her.

I'm going to dinner and a movie with Aisha in a while. It'll be nice to see her again. I can't wait.

I just learned how to use this photo uploading program. I shall be posting pictures!

ETA: Etisalat fucking blocked the photo thing, so none of that.

Baaack...

Where the heart is...

Home!

It's awesome being back.

I'm going to have lunch with my fam now.. Aaaah!

Halls are quiet...

Last night in the dorm.. Aaah!

I finished my last exam earlier today. It went pretty well.

I'm going to spend two nights at the Nittany Lion Inn.

I'm going to try and get some sleep now. I can't believe I actually got finished packing.

Carpe Diem

So I've been doing a lot of waiting recently.

Waiting for classes to finish. Waiting to get done with my exams. Waiting to go home.

I guess all this waiting has made me realize that I hardly ever truly live "in the moment". I'm always either living in anticipation of something that's going to happen or I'm living in hindsight of things that have already happened. Right now, this waiting means that I'm living in anticipation of going home. And I guess most people are like that. We're either thinking about the future, or thinking about things that have happened in the past. It's true, isn't it? I mean, when was the last time you lived in the moment?

And what is "living in the moment" anyway?

Is it having that feeling that fills your senses and makes you forget about the past and the future and whatever else might be on your mind? Is it those few seconds of pure joy or even, pure anguish?

My roommate and I were discussing this a couple weeks ago. She brought up the fact that you can never truly feel that rush of senses unless you're with the people you love. And she's right, to some extent. When you're really enjoying your time with the family or friends that you love, you tend to forget everything that's on your mind. And who's to forget the feeling you have when you're with that person? Yes, that person. :)

I would say that I could point out exactly those times in my life that I've really lived the moment. I think the fact that they're so sparse makes them all the much more valuable. I wouldn't give them up for anything. In fact, I'm willing to live in the past or the future or whatever other dimension just so that I'd be able to experience those moments and cherish them as they should be cherished. Because I think that's what life is really about.

Those moments.

Owwwie...

My stomach hurts.

I'm waiting for that double strength Tylenol to kick in before going back to bed.

What a pleasant night. :/

AND I fell asleep waiting for 'The Amazing Race' to come on. Dammit!

The dorm...

..is a pig-sty. Notebooks and texts and red Nittany Notes are all over the place.

But I could care less right now.

I am finally finally done with my dreaded Math exam. I still have an exam left, but in my opinion, I am finished with finals.

The test was horrible. I only knew how to answer like 5 of 40 questions. It doesn't matter though. I did the best I could do and I'm confident that I did well in the rest of my courses.

I'm going to get a good's night rest tonight so that I can start packing tomorrow. I'm so excited.

I'm going hoome.

Down comes...

..the soft and silent snow, white petals from the flowers that grow in the cold..

It's snowing outside. :)

First real snow of the season.

Mast Cells and Basophils...

and crap that I cannot, for the life of me, remember right now even though I was sitting in my Biological Sciences exam no less than an hour ago.

Two down, two to go.

I feel like I got run over by an SUV. I stayed up all last night "studying" and right now I can barely keep my eyes open. Great. This is very conducive to the (comprehensive, may I throw in) Math History exam that I have to study my ass off for.

If I could die instead of do this exam, I would. Seriously.

Unfortunately, the world doesn't work that way. I have to do it. *cries*

I'm going to try and get a few hours of sleep. I can't concentrate like this.

Counting Sheep...

to try to get to sleep.

Thinking is great but not when you're about to die of lack of sleep. I've had a cumulative 10 hours of sleep in the past 3 days. How come nobody ever told me that college would equal zero hours of sleep when I signed up for this thing?

Ah well. It's Friday night.

Today was my last day of classes. I can't believe the semester is nearly over. It seems like it was only yesterday I was sitting cluelessly in my very first college session and dragging my out of shape ass around the campus (which, at the time, I thought I'd never find my way around). I'm sort of relieved. My classes weren't that bad, but everything started to get a little tiring.

I had a presentation today (on Wal-mart. Ooh). It didn't go as bad as I expected it would. That's a miracle. Out of 6 billion people on this earth, I am the worst one at presentations. I shake and stutter and make zero eye contact. I have no idea why, either. It's not like I'm *that* shy a person. I just can't seem to stand in front of a group of people and speak. For some reason, I somehow managed today. Maybe because our professor asked us to finish as fast as possible. So I had an excuse to read through my presentation really fast. :)

Now that I'm done, I'm going to completely enjoy this weekend. And to hell with the exam on Monday.

10 days until I get to go home.

One down...

Three to go.

One and a half days of classes.

Ace 'em

Two days of classes left.

My first final is tomorrow morning. WOOT. At exactly 11 AM, I will have one down and three to go. To tell you the truth, I'm not worried at all. Geography isn't that hard. If I really study, I should be able to pull an A. Question is, will I study?

The only exam I am dreading right now is my Math History exam. God curse that subject to hell and back. I am taught incomprehensible 10000-year-old math theories by a 100-year-old teacher in a 1000-year-old classroom. Most useless class I've ever taken.

Pfft.

Anyhow, I've gotten some very important errands done in the past two days. I'm proud of myself. I actually dragged my lazy ass all across campus and down town to finish up everything I needed to get done before leaving for Christmas. I even went down to DUS and had a walk-in advising session to talk to a counselor about my major. :)

Overall, it's been a better (albeit colder) day than yesterday-I even attended all my classes. Wow. This time next week I'll be almost done with finals and shall be packing. Can't wait.

As for now, I've got to concentrate on the exam tomorrow.

Wish me luck.

So much for...

going to bed at eleven. I think it's impossible to go to bed any earlier than one or two here.

It's been a strange day. The weather's cold and gray and wet and it hasn't done much to fix my mood. I've been feeling pretty gray myself recently. Maybe it's the fact that I haven't talked to anybody all day, but everything that's been on my mind has sort of hit me hard today. And trust me, there's been a lot of shit on my mind.

The prospect of having to select a major is looming. Every time I think about it, I just get more stressed out. I am so undecided right now it's pathetic. That and the fact that my classes are starting to get frustrating (I still love my Music 5 though, Professor Hopkins ROCKS MY STOCKINGS). Even still, the end of semester just seems to be dragging on and on. I love Penn State, but I can't wait until I get exams over and done with so I can just go home.

12 days to go. I know I told myself that I could never miss home, but it really seems impossible not to. Everything that I'm familiar with is there. I'm so glad that I'm going. I want to see my family so bad. I really miss my little sisters. I want to sleep in my own bed in the silence of my own peaceful room without the constant presence of someone around. I want to not have to worry about doing the laundry.

It's funny how we work so hard to get to where we want to be without considering what we'll be leaving behind. Don't get me wrong. I'm completely glad that I made the decision to come here. It's just little things that get to me sometimes. I think the hardest part is missing that love and caring that I'm surrounded with at home. At home, my family and friends are constantly there to support me and shower me with their unconditional love (and trust me, I do a great job at basking in it). In college, it's just hard to find someone who really cares.

But hey, this blog wasn't created for the sole purpose of my bitching and moaning (at least not completely). I think I just needed to get everything out on my first post. It's all been cumulating in my mind for a while now and it's been a tough day. I'll try to keep it light and short when I can.

For now, I need sleep.

To bed.

Chapter #1

Okay. I admit to stealing the title, but it just seems so fitting.

I've decided to keep my blog on a pre-formatted website. I just couldn't be bothered to maintain the one on Geocities. The HTML work got frustrating and I had to deal with it every time I posted an entry so I ended up not posting at all. Let's hope this goes better.

I haven't got much else to say for this entry. I'll just leave it as an introduction.

Those reading this will probably be people who know me fairly well. If not, my information is on the right-hand panel and excuse me if I may seem like I'm just sprouting nonsensical spasms of incompletes. Sometimes I can't help it. Isn't that what life is about, anyway? Incompletes, spasms, and nonsense?