I’m not cool.
Honesty comes naturally.
Mountain Dew is my water.
I’m a geek for video games and music.
I play both drums and guitar, Prog Metal.
Going to SFSU as a Cinema Major.
My favorite color is grey.
I'm always watching South Park. Always.
I let my cereal soak before eating it.
I enjoy when people use proper punctuation.
I enjoy familiar scents.
I like washing my hands with hot water.
I’ve always thought sideburns were snazzy.
Freshly cleaned socks are awesome.
What else can I say?
I’m Alex
Learned I got a D in my HUM320 class.
32 + 0 + 2 + 0 + 6 = 40%
How the eff did I get a D??
Other class grades: SXS400-B+, CINE301-C+, CSC101-A, DAI227-B
First semester GPA: 2.6
Not complaining :1
Marina Keegan ‘12. Photo by Facebook.
“We don’t have a word for the opposite of loneliness, but if we did, I could say that’s what I want in life. What I’m grateful and thankful to have found at Yale, and what I’m scared of losing when we wake up tomorrow and leave this place.
It’s not quite love and it’s not quite community; it’s just this feeling that there are people, an abundance of people, who are in this together. Who are on your team. When the check is paid and you stay at the table. When it’s four a.m. and no one goes to bed. That night with the guitar. That night we can’t remember. That time we did, we went, we saw, we laughed, we felt. The hats.
Yale is full of tiny circles we pull around ourselves. A cappella groups, sports teams, houses, societies, clubs. These tiny groups that make us feel loved and safe and part of something even on our loneliest nights when we stumble home to our computers — partner-less, tired, awake. We won’t have those next year. We won’t live on the same block as all our friends. We won’t have a bunch of group-texts.
This scares me. More than finding the right job or city or spouse – I’m scared of losing this web we’re in. This elusive, indefinable, opposite of loneliness. This feeling I feel right now.
But let us get one thing straight: the best years of our lives are not behind us. They’re part of us and they are set for repetition as we grow up and move to New York and away from New York and wish we did or didn’t live in New York. I plan on having parties when I’m 30. I plan on having fun when I’m old. Any notion of THE BEST years comes from clichéd “should haves…” “if I’d…” “wish I’d…”
Of course, there are things we wished we did: our readings, that boy across the hall. We’re our own hardest critics and it’s easy to let ourselves down. Sleeping too late. Procrastinating. Cutting corners. More than once I’ve looked back on my High School self and thought: how did I do that? How did I work so hard? Our private insecurities follow us and will always follow us.
But the thing is, we’re all like that. Nobody wakes up when they want to. Nobody did all of their reading (except maybe the crazy people who win the prizes…) We have these impossibly high standards and we’ll probably never live up to our perfect fantasies of our future selves. But I feel like that’s okay.
We’re so young. We’re so young. We’re twenty-two years old. We have so much time. There’s this sentiment I sometimes sense, creeping in our collective conscious as we lay alone after a party, or pack up our books when we give in and go out – that it is somehow too late. That others are somehow ahead. More accomplished, more specialized. More on the path to somehow saving the world, somehow creating or inventing or improving. That it’s too late now to BEGIN a beginning and we must settle for continuance, for commencement.
When we came to Yale, there was this sense of possibility. This immense and indefinable potential energy – and it’s easy to feel like that’s slipped away. We never had to choose and suddenly we’ve had to. Some of us have focused ourselves. Some of us know exactly what we want and are on the path to get it; already going to med school, working at the perfect NGO, doing research. To you I say both congratulations and you suck.
For most of us, however, we’re somewhat lost in this sea of liberal arts. Not quite sure what road we’re on and whether we should have taken it. If only I had majored in biology…if only I’d gotten involved in journalism as a freshman…if only I’d thought to apply for this or for that…
What we have to remember is that we can still do anything. We can change our minds. We can start over. Get a post-bac or try writing for the first time. The notion that it’s too late to do anything is comical. It’s hilarious. We’re graduating college. We’re so young. We can’t, we MUST not lose this sense of possibility because in the end, it’s all we have.
In the heart of a winter Friday night my freshman year, I was dazed and confused when I got a call from my friends to meet them at EST EST EST. Dazedly and confusedly, I began trudging to SSS, probably the point on campus farthest away. Remarkably, it wasn’t until I arrived at the door that I questioned how and why exactly my friends were partying in Yale’s administrative building. Of course, they weren’t. But it was cold and my ID somehow worked so I went inside SSS to pull out my phone. It was quiet, the old wood creaking and the snow barely visible outside the stained glass. And I sat down. And I looked up. At this giant room I was in. At this place where thousands of people had sat before me. And alone, at night, in the middle of a New Haven storm, I felt so remarkably, unbelievably safe.
We don’t have a word for the opposite of loneliness, but if we did, I’d say that’s how I feel at Yale. How I feel right now. Here. With all of you. In love, impressed, humbled, scared. And we don’t have to lose that.
We’re in this together, 2012. Let’s make something happen to this world.”
This piece was written by Marina Keegan ‘12 for a special edition of the News distributed at the class of 2012’s commencement exercises last week. Keegan died in a car accident on Saturday. She was 22.
Mmmmmm yup.
My sexual literacy term paper writing process:
I do not recommend this strategy to anyone aiming to get an A. This is more for someone like me, who only needs 210 points to pass the class with a C out of ~380 possible points remaining and the essay is only worth 100. But then again, if I really apply myself I could end up with a B…
…. Meh :1
I suck at school because of this attitude.
I’m doing my end-of-the-semester ritual of figuring out how many points I need to pass my current semester’s classes X3 So here’s what I figured out:
Class: Worst case - best case (remaining work)
SXS400: F-B (essay 5/9, final 5/14)
HUM320: F-D (presentation 5/11, make-up work)
CINE301: D-B (final 5/9)
CSC101: C-A (presentation 5/9)
DAI227: F-C (make-up work, final 5/17)
Calling it:
SXS400: C
HUM320: F
CINE301: C
CSC101: A
DAI227: C
I suck at school. I’m so lazy. I spend so much time recreationally and when I get to a point where I have to work on an essay because it’s due the next day, I continue to procrastinate and want to do anything else to distract me. Even be productive at things other than schoolwork.
Blegh. Josephine, you’re a beast, and I envy your ability to prioritize and manage everything in your life so productively. You’re becoming my motivation in school. I’m getting into the habit of thinking “what would Josephine do?” You’d study and be on top of things and dominate at school and everythinggggg, haha. So you’re like my school super-hero idol thing, or something :I
As much as I try to avoid being selfish, every time I’m on BART going through the underwater tunnel through the bay, I think about how to get out alive if the tunnel were to flood or something, and my escape plan has nothing to do with saving other people :/ Luckily, I’ve concluded that the tunnel flooding would never happen :3 (without the aid of an earthquake, or something of a similar effect, of course >_____>)
But, when I’m thinking about similar life-threatening situations and have friends with me, I’m always considering what to do to save them as well. Mmm there’s hope.
Also, I always sit at the far end of the car on BART, so I’m able to see everything going on in front of me. I do this at Round Table, too. And it’s partially why I drift to the back of my group of friends when we’re walking around. I just like being able to observe everything and make sure everyone’s safe. I’m paranoid like that.
Note to self: work on vocabulary skills,
and learn to write more creatively and maturely.
“Did you imagine the final sound as a gun?
Or the smashing windscreen of a car?
Did you ever imagine the last thing you’d hear as you’re fading out was a song?”
- Porcupine Tree, “Arriving Somewhere But Not Here” (one of my favorites)
I keep getting psyched out thinking about death, just to think it can happen at any moment. It’s weird how we pretty much all think about our futures, growing up, being old and all, but not all of us make it to that. I think so much about what my future will shape up to be, but it haunts me to think that I may not last that long. I mean, plenty of people die young, so what keeps me safe from that? Nothing, really, aside from my actions, which is unfortunate because it forces me to have to balance between living safely and low-key, and living with risks, conquering fears, and having interesting experiences worth remembering and sharing with others (aka living life to the fullest).
Sometimes death may even come regardless of the person’s actions. I read an article on a recent shooting at Oikos University in Oakland where a guy went to murder a professor (something over dropping out and not being refunded what he felt entitled to), but a school receptionist told him the professor happened to not be there that day, so he took the receptionist hostage, went into a random classroom, and killed her and a few students. That sickens me so much. I feel that the most horrible thing for someone to do is to take someone else’s life, especially a life they have no relation to, and taking it so carelessly. Those people cloud no longer live their lives, share time with their families, work at improving themselves, all because one guy couldn’t cope with his own life. These were people who might’ve been making wise, safe decisions in their life. Going to school should be safe, right? Not that day.
So now I feel like I’m stressing too much over my current decisions, trying to make the most out of what I have while I still have the opportunity to do so. But I feel like I’m too scared and helpless to be able to go out of my way to do something truly meaningful with my life. I so very much want to be a reason for someone’s happiness or well-being. For many people, really. That’s another thing to balance; quality in care vs. quantity in care, keeping your love to the people immediately involved in your life vs. spreading your love to communities who really need it even though you don’t have a personal connection to them. Perhaps there can still be both. I want to be a reason for happiness for both, but so far I’m still focused on the ones in my immediate life, just friends and family. I feel selfish for this, but maybe it’s just me feeling incapable? I just doubt I can make such a difference in other people’s lives, though I can definitely say that a few people I know have made a huge difference in mine, have greatly contributed to my happiness and well-being. I hope they know, because whenever I think to tell them randomly I feel it’d be out of place. Perhaps I should tell them anyway. Perhaps that’s how people should live, just by giving and showing thankfulness for what they’ve been given. Just love. Love love love love love, and keep loving. Hm, this is turning into advice now.. My advice isn’t that complicated: Love people. Show care. Be thankful. Enjoy yourself. Let others do the same. Carpe Diem. Don’t miss opportunities to be happy. Life’s too short to be wasted on dwelling over sad feelings.
“But after a while
You realize time flies
And the best thing that you can do
Is take whatever comes to you
‘Cause time flies”
- Porcupine Tree, “Time Flies”
Don’t sweat the small stuff,
and it’s all small stuff.
- my Dad (though I’m sure he got it from elsewhere)
Hmmmm I wish I’d write more to you. I really miss you, but I suppose I have been keeping busy. Mostly with games. I should be working on schoolwork. Don’t let me forget I have an essay due Wednesday DX
Your mom texted me asking if I was gonna pick you up when you get back, and said she’s available to go herself. I’m sure you’d prefer me to pick you up, but, you know, whatevs. Since you have Monday off from work (right?), I was thinking you could ride with me to SFSU Sunday night and stay with me. Then I can go to my classes Monday morning and we’d go back home together afterwords and I can stay with you Monday night. Kewwww?
I wish you had more internet time so you could write me back over Tumblr :c This feels so awkwardddd writing to you when I don’t know if you’ll either see this first or call me first.
I think I know what to get you for when you get back. It’s kinda lame, though. It’s a book, but I think you’ll like itttt… I hope D;
I started watching Community. It’s entertaining enough to get me to watch seven episodes so far and want to watch more. Perhaps I’ll give the first season to you to watch on your own, then we can watch Season 2 together :3
My roommate’s asleep and he hella just full-body twitched.
Ummmmmmm I love you! I’ve been daydreaming a lot lately about what my future’s gonna be like. I’m so indecisiveeee. I’m second-guessing my Film major and considering like.. computers, or something more profitable yet still interesting to me. Maybe somehow work my way into making video games, or organizing big LAN parties with sponsors and everything, r even owning a LAN cafe with Matte and whoever. I’d also be down for owning a retro video game store. I dunno, so many options, but Idk which is the best way to spend my life DX Just being happy and making others happy, that’s for sure. I’m probably just in this skeptical phase because I haven’t worked on any films in a long while…
I signed up for 3 Film classes this summer. I aim to drop one of them, I’m just not sure which yet. One of them is the class I’m currently taking, just in case I don’t pass this semester (I got a D on the midterm, which was the only thing graded so far :c I can definitely pick it up to a C, but I gotta be careful). Considering I pass it, though, I’ll be taking two classes 10am-5pm MWF, June 12th - July 12th. Blegh, college is stressful when you pay so much money for classes, and you gotta be on top of everything to make sure you make progress DX
I’d like to film something starring you againnnn. Something that’s not supposed to be a horror X3 You’d probably disagree, but I think more people need to see how expressive your eyes are. Today in my cinema class we watched a French film called Vivre sa vie (My Life to Live) which featured a lot of the main gal’s eyes. I thought you could do better :P
I’m tiredddd. I was hoping I could play some emulators before settling in bed tonight, but I think I’m ready to fall asleep now :1
I hope you’re having a wonderful timeeee. Tell me about it as soon as you get the chance.
I love youuuu! Goodnighttttt~
(Source: headswillrollbaby)
It sucks to know that you’re not having quite the time you were expecting to have :/ I wish I knew what to say to make things better. It’s hard getting used to not being able to text you at any point in the day, even harder to get used to not having any way to contact you. I must wait on your paid phone calls to me. So, hopefully at some point you’ll get some internet time and discover this and I can make you feel not so distant for a moment.
Keep your chin up. This may be the only time you’ll be in some of these places, so it’d be unfortunate to remember them as part of a lonely trip. I think if you try your best to be conscious of your attitude, you can work at making this an “okay” trip, at the very least. Remember what I had posted on here before? “The only reason to think about sad stuff is to figure out how to improve them. Constructive criticism.” Just keep swimmingggg~
As for me, I’ve been doing alright, aside from not knowing when the next time I’ll talk to you will be. Perhaps we should plan on every other night or something? Idk, I’ll ask when we speak on the phone again. I hope you’re writing to me everyday in your notebook like you said you would. I’ll be writing here to you. Maybe daily, I’m not sure. As often as I feel inclined to do so. I have a bit of schoolwork coming up this week, so I’m not so sure if I can keep up a promise of anything. Other than missing your conversation and company, things have been alright. Work is keeping my days busy, I hung out with people both nights so far, and I’m still posting about what I do on Facebook. I really miss you, though. I’ll try not to allude to how much so I can keep up the perception of “being strong” for you, in hopes that my display of independence rubs off on you :P
I hope to talk to you again soon. Today (Sunday), I’m having breakfast with my family at 10am (7pm where you are), and then I work 12pm-7:30pm (9pm-4am). Feel free to call anytime, though. Just keep calling over and over like you did this morning and I’ll answer (Btw, I’m sorry I hung up so many times! I was like “Meh, number I don’t know” *dismiss* and it kept calling and I was like “Wtf is with this person..? OH IT’S PROBABLY AUDREY!”).
I love youuuuuu. I’ll talk to you again soon.
Have fun, take in all you can, return home safely <3
I miss Audrey :c It’s weird to think we haven’t been separated for more than like 5 days before. And now she’s on her way to Europe for 10 days, where she won’t be able to use her phone. I’m so pathetically clingy :3
I hope she sees this and knows that I hope she’s having a great timeeee.
