You know what would be super comfortable? Lying on your stomach on a giant peach, so big that it's basically flat all around you. Maybe you could trim down the peach fur around your face. And maybe submerge it most of the way underground so it would be stable. But yeah, that would be awesome.

This post brought to you by a misheard instruction in the best yoga class I've ever been to.

When I was younger I played a lot of imaginary games with animals. I had a whole set of imaginary pets, about 30 of them (at the most); I knew what type of animal each was, its name, and what it looked like. Many had distinctive personalities. I would play with my imaginary pets occasionally on my own, but more often with my brother (who also had a set) or a couple of friends from school (who also had sets). I also like making lego dogs and playing with them, or pretending to be a cat (any random one, or Mischief or Midnight--my two long-term cat identities--in particular) with my brother or friends. I played with my stuffed animals a lot, making them a Thanksgiving dinner or teaching them school lessons or whatever. In short, I did a lot of playing that involved animals with distinct personalities, almost like humans, either as my imaginary playmates or my imaginary self. I never forgot about this, per se, but I hadn't thought of it in years until something a friend said today reminded me of it.

What I find weird is that I feel very disconnected with the part of myself that did all this animal-centric playing once upon a time. I don't think I could play with imaginary pets again or pretend to be a cat--okay, ignoring that I would feel self-conscious doing that as a 22-year-old, I just would find it difficult to get back into the necessary mindset to make it work, even just inside my own head, and to make it be fun. I suppose this is to be expected, since I've grown up and grown-ups (or even college kids) just don't play like that, but I would also expect to be able to think back to the way I felt playing those games and the fun I had. When I try, though, I can't bring back those feelings.

Katie suggested it could be because I used to view animals as very similar to humans, and now that I've learned of the fundamental differences (e.g. pets are in general not capable of rational thought, though I suppose this is all debatable) I've mentally disconnected myself from them. This was part of a larger discussion, and often argument, over animal rights. I thought she was wrong because I don't think I've internalized fundamental differences between myself and humans to a significant degree, but maybe that is part of it. Or maybe I haven't thought about animals as being on my level anytime recently just because I haven't bothered. Maybe I really was more similar in thought to a cat or dog when I was nine or ten. Maybe I am less willing to suspend disbelief, or maybe I simply have more disbelief because I've learned so much more about the world. Maybe this is maturity, as Katie also suggested, or maybe it is a loss (though, and again I find this weird, not one I mourn at all). Maybe this is what growing up feels like.

I think my only serious complaint about Ithaca right now (granted, I am not there, I'm home in VA) is the complete lack of frozen yogurt. There are no frozen yogurt places to my knowledge, and I'm not sure if froyo is served in any places whose main purpose is something else.

But I did go to Fruity Yogurt yesterday at the mall to satisfy my (perpetual) craving.

Last night around 3:45 a raccoon crossed my path as I was driving home from the grocery store. I felt a kind of kinship to the plump scavenging creature as I took another bite of cookie dough from the tub on my lap.

Apparently I haven't updated this journal since graduating...oops! So here's a brief life update:

As you may or may not know I am now a first-year in Cornell's physics PhD program, so I am spending my time taking physics-y classes and TAing. I absolutely love it here. Ithaca is beautiful, the people are great, and I'm having fun even while pulling near-all-nighters for problems sets on a very regular basis.

I live in a professor's house (he's on sabbatical for the year) with 3 other physics first-years, all of whom are awesome. We're taking care of the professor's pets, too: 2 cats, a bunny, and a hamster. I love living around animals, particularly the cats, which means after we move out (in August) I may have to adopt a cat, or at least go back to fostering...we'll see what happens.

I'm getting more and more used to TAing--sometimes I still do things badly but it's getting much more smooth, and I really enjoy teaching. Watching a student try (and succeed!) at understanding something new is worth quite a lot of work, in my opinion. Grading papers is less fun, but it doesn't take too terribly long and there are always good parts (the homework or quiz that's neat & perfect & easy to grade, or the hilariously incorrect answers that show up sometimes).

I'm also playing frisbee for the Cornell team now! It's my last year of college eligibility, so I figured I should use it. The Roses (our team) are awesome. I love playing with them and I love the people on the team. This team is also quite good--better than the Princeton team (sorry Lady Clockwork--though you know I love you to death <3). This means I'm not quite as important a part of this team, but it also means I'm definitely getting better at playing ultimate. I just got back from a tournament today, actually--Roses were the champions! And I am sore with a purple toenail (read: bruised, not painted) but it's worth it :)

In other news, I'm planning to start a blog on a different site (probably wordpress). There are multiple reasons for keeping a blog (I don't count this LJ, as it clearly suffers from a lack of updates:

1) Allowing my college friends, from whom I now live far, to have regular updates from me if they wish.
2) Having a space to write down and possibly develop ideas that I happen to have on arbitrary topics, which at present frequently occur to me and are then just lost to my forgetfulness.
3) The guy behind The Illustrated Guide to a Ph.D. recommends it to improve cogency.

Moving off of LiveJournal will have the effect of giving me a fresh start and hopefully inspire me to post more, and post more maturely without so much whining. Then perhaps I'll get better at & more comfortable with writing, which will be useful in the long run. I'll be crossposting here when I get that started (hopefully soon), so if you like reading posts from me here no need to change a thing :)

Graduated from Princeton today! These past several days have been great; I'm so full of love for the world. Nothing is perfect, but everything is just so right.

Next: finish up odds & ends + packing, then home to VA tomorrow, Berkeley on Saturday.

p.s. icon chosen for happiness and because yesterday involved delicious strawberries.

Wildcats fantasy arch tonight = LOVE. Had the most fun ever singing, and my wildkitties are WONDERFUL. so happy now. <3 <3 <3

once again I am afraid of myself, afraid of the huge disconnect between my intentions and my actions.

now what.


p.s. I promise that between the last post and this one there was a period of great happiness! mostly based on ignoring schoolwork entirely and beautiful sunny days :)

4 pm Thursday.

25 hours to submit a thesis draft--doesn't have to be complete--to the COS department. Realistically I can spend 17 of these max working.

14 more hours until I have to get up and get ready for regionals. 3 of those are Houseparties, 5 sleep, 6 work?

Suppose I play only 2 games of regionals, then come back and shower and eat and go somewhere to work. 4 hours to work until Houseparties again. In a perfect world I can stay out until midnight; I have to be around 11-11:45 for archsing anyway. Want to go to the wind ensemble concert too; maybe I can stick an hour of work in the middle there somewhere.

Suppose I sleep for 5 hours Saturday night and don't play at regionals on Sunday. And don't go to lawnparties, just brunch. That gives me 29 hours from leaving my room in the morning to when I have to stop working on my thesis. But 2.5 hours are wind ensemble rehearsal. 2 hours cumulative eating. 4.5 hours sleeping/otherwise unfocused (at minimum)? That leaves 20 hours to work.

Total thesis hours remaining = 47 hours. at my current productivity level, that is not so good. This information chapter might get scrapped. It'll probably take 10 hours all by itself.

Oh, and immediately following turning in, 24 hours to do my entire COS final project. then I have to present it. Then crash? at some point there will be Wildcats rehearsal maybe? I don't know. Then I'll have 5-6 days to make my thesis presentation and do my entire Russian paper. I haven't even finished rereading the Brothers Karamazov in English, and then I have to pick a passage and a topic and read the passage in Russian and make sure the topic is good and write the paper and get it edited and revise it and turn it in. And there's a wind ensemble concert, and the fantasy arch, and I'll need to do more biophysics homework problems too and those take a long time.

But I have full days to do these things. But I work so slow! And don't focus! And haven't been able to fix this despite much trying.

How do I get myself into these situations?

You've got no one to blame for your unhappiness
You got yourself into your own mess

You've got to get yourself together
You got stuck in a moment and you can't get out of it

I'm going to Cornell next year!

If I finish Finnegan, who is my thesis, in the next 2-2.5 weeks. Я должна сегодня (или завтра) написать что-то конкретное (можно так сказать?), который мне можно показать моему профессору, чтобы он не больше мне ненавидеть...и чтобы он ответил мой е-мейл. ughhhhh а я должна учить русский язык, потому что сейчас я не могу писать правильно по-русски. Блеххх.