Merry Christmas (Eve), oppressors.

1. Should I work at Hollywood Video over the break? It would suck, but PA’s minimum wage just got raised to six-something and that might earn me a bit more moolah.
2. After telling my parents (incredibly awkwardly) that I have a boyfriend, it’s been very downhill — mom was pleased as punch that he’s Jewish (although when I gleefully told her he shares my views on kids she nearly had a heart attack), and the overall reaction has been, contrary to what I was expecting, quite approving.
3. I still haven’t begun looking online for summer jobs. Fuck!
4. I’ve been wearing Janet’s friendship bracelet 24/7. I miss Wesleyan. I feel like sometime between Thanksgiving and now, a button popped up over my head saying “Life Transfer Complete” and I must not have noticed.
5. Plane tickets brought my bank account perilously close to the brink, but with Hannukkah cashmoneys and such it’s back up to between $500 and $600, before my earnings from math workshop (yeah math workshop!). I could always use more, but… working at HV would suck. That’s important too.
6. My cats are so fucking cute. My brother’s pretty cool, too, and I’m even getting along with my parents so far (unexpected), although if I continue to not-work they may get hostile. We’ll see. Right now, the holiday season is merry. Plus, my parents’ house has so much food. I mean goddamn.
7. Should I go for The Meaning of Life and Death along with Hormones, Brain and Behavior? Or should I attempt to combine Human Memory with Poetry Workshop? It’s looking more like the latter, although the former would definitely have its charms. I hope I enjoy classes more next semester—this semester, although I did pretty well (got most of my grades back except for neuro and physics and I feel good about neuro after the final.. physics, well, we’ll see—anyway that’s three A-minuses so far which is better than my current GPA) the feeling of not really enjoying most of my classes was making me question my majors, wonder what career could possibly hold my interest let alone be enjoyable and meaningful, etc. Over Thanksgiving break Alana mentioned international development, and that sounded pretty cool to me—it’s very social-justice-y and you can find projects to work on that involve science, too. That’s what I hope to do: to somehow combine my (presumed, although this past semester made me feel like it had been quashed out of me) enjoyment of science with my dreams of effecting social change.

Is there a choice before us between having our names remembered and leading happy lives while we’re alive? Janet and I had this discussion somewhat, and I’m glad we did because it really crystallizes my dilemma. What does one have to sacrifice in life in order to not be forgotten? Is it worth it? And since everyone is eventually forgotten, maybe the inevitable conclusion is to simply come to grips with that fact. Wait—let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

But there are still unexplored places in the human mind, even if we’ve nearly run out of them on this planet. I still have faith that science and math can arouse that passion for learning that I’ve missed this semester (except in my philosophy class).

Going back to the parallel in the previous paragraph, I don’t know why I’ve always had this urge to explore new places and go adventuring in jungles. It’s just something that has always appealed to me, like how it’s exciting to interact with things physically—you know, like when you were a kid and you always wanted to climb on the statues, instead of just look at them. I still have that, and in the back of my mind I think everyone does. It’s a shame there aren’t more places where one can crawl through tunnels, scramble up slopes, or perch on peaks. I don’t know why I’m thinking about this now. Either way, I always hoped as a child that while my peers would be in their houses in the US suburbs paying income tax, I would be off climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro and learning to survive the way the first men did, outdoors in the trees.

Damn. I guess that poetry workshop would be a good idea, considering how lyrical I’m waxing just on our blog.