My body keeps telling me to slow down. I have a headache right now and I should really lie in my bed and go to sleep, but there is far to much to do for something as leisurely as a nap. How am I going to complete everything? How can I maintain the momentum when my Brian has already shut down. I am checked out academically. All I want to do is spend time with my friends, watch good movies, and dance. That's it. But Capstone is standing in front of me and I can't go around it, I can't go through it, so I'll just have to complete it and turn it in for it to truly go away. Oh where oh where did all my passion for my project go??

In response to Cassie's most recent blog: Gail told me the same thing and I spent 15 hours trying to make it better. Capstone is not who we are, it doesn't define us...you just tell Dr. W to screw him and his mamma and everyone 100 years down the family tree...you get my drift...

In response to Andy's most recent blog: Man you got it bad. You sound like me a couple of months back when I wrote the little ditty:

Why do his eyes have to be blue, flashing across the room like an invitation that was mailed on accident.

I know a girl
She puts the color inside of my world
But she's just like a maze
Where all of the walls all continually change
And I've done all I can
To Stand on her step with my heart in my hands
Now I'm starting to see
Maybe it's got nothing to do with me

Fathers be good to your daughters...

I apologize to every boy I've abused, made fun of, injured, and damaged due to my insecurities. I apologize to myself for not letting myself experience new things because of my fear. I apologize to myself for failing to love and in doing so failing to live.

Today I have felt nothing but hope. I think I'm going be ok. I think I'm beginning to heal.

She deserves a crown, but where is it now...


I can feel a panic attack coming...I've never had one before, I wonder what it's like. I may soon know, if I don't figure out how to get my shit together and work a little harder on everything I need to do before the semester ends.

Oh boy...yep I can feel the panic. It's building up there in the dark place in my stomach where I harbor all my fears and disappointments...

And that's it...

Happy 22nd B-day Uyen!!!!!!!!

I wish I could make it go across the page like you do, but I don't have the same mad skills. You're just going to have to pretend it's going across the page. Oh, look at it go...oh, there it goes again!!

I want to sleep and have dreams of love reciprocated.
I want to sleep and wake up feeling like I did at ten, refreshed, ready for anything that might come my way, and eager to explore.
I want to sleep and converse with the mist outside my window frame. Is there more to life than academics? and what's that feeling I get when the sun glints off of the leaves and everything smells fresh like birth.
I want to sleep and rediscover the passion I used to have for living before everything got too hard, relationships became more complicated, and love turned it's head from me, shunning me, denying me...

My dad is changing his life. In the last three weeks, I've heard him (on the telephone) go from defeated old man, to a man excited about living, appreciating his family, saving money, paying old debts, and becoming really confident and happy for the first time since I've known him. That's the best birthday present I could have ever asked for. Second to that, is ann's mixed CD, which made me cry (again) and is one I will listen to until and beyond the age of 45...Life is lovely.

Twenty Something

I’m twenty something
Waiting for the stains of adolescence to fade
Turning out ambiguous tarot card readings
Impermanent
Divine
Asking questions to clear away the sticky cobwebs of immaturity
When will my search for truth end?
How can you help me change my sad situation?
What is love?
I’m a virgin with impure thoughts
An intellectual child
A goddess
An enigma
An opaque phantom, silencing my screams

As he stood in line and shared his heart with the very boy who won't share his with me I looked at the pickles and held in my tears. Many meaningful moments don't lead up to a meaningful whole. He's the only boy I've wanted to change, even though I know that it never works. I can't help wanting to save him from himself and his facade of care. I'm arrogant and I know it. But with him it's coming from a genuine place. I want him to need me, because nobody ever has. But, you thought I was over him. I am, it's just when I'm about to have my moon that I get overly sensitive and he gets to me again.

I knew life wasn't going to be perfect, but I didn't think it would be this hard...

I can't eat. I can't sleep anymore; waiting for love to walk through the door.

My greatest fears:

I'll die a virgin
I'm not cut out to do an independent project like capstone
I'm not no nice girl
I'll live with my parents until I'm 30
I won't get a job after SUA
I'll let my friendships dissolve after SUA
I'll make it to 50, look back on my life, and feel disappointment...

It's funny how you can look in the face of a person you've known for three and a half years and wonder who they are, and how come you don't know anything about them anymore, and doubt whether your bond was ever real.

I'm emotional. I am trying to hold on to you.

My Goals for this semester:

Chill out to avoid developing the twitch in my eye again

Enjoy doing my capstone. It's about elementary school students. It's not a scary topic and I love learning about teaching and kids

Take care of myself when I'm sad or sick

Take care of my friends when they're sad or sick

Be more responsible with my money

"Give some to get some" wink, wink

The semesters almost over. I feel sad. Only five more months at SUA and at the end a big question mark awaits. What will I do post SUA? What will I do with the rest of my life?

So maybe now I'm free...but it hurts when I remember there's no one left to dream about.

So maybe now I'm angry...but I'd rather have had a fairy tale ending.

So maybe now my heart is healing...but the healing is almost as painful as was the wound.

So maybe I finally got my answer...but it wasn't the one I wanted to hear.

Closure...hurts.

Advice from W: Read the Gosho every day. Study with the young women's division. Know that you are worthwhile. Have confidence in yourself. Stop, I can feel the Pisces emotion, I can feel that you are frustrated. "Love me" is very pure, very gentle. Get support, take action...

Love is blinding. When I chant about it, it's like a big black karmic hole.

Damn him for not loving you. You are beautiful. You are too wonderful to be chasing after someone who can't see that.

Thank you W for being the one to say what I needed to hear.

He's hurt me and he doesn't even know how many times. I'm keeping tabs, even though I'm aware I shouldn't.

My friendships feel so blurry and confused. Thinking about the future has turned us all into a bunch of narcissists.

I'm trying to hold on to the innocence I see in our freshman year pictures.

Please know that what I say in these lines, is only my attempt to make sense of my confusion.

Eminem called bush a weapon of mass destruction. I couldn't agree more, and right now he and his cronies are destroying my hope. Or maybe I'm letting them, because I'm struggling to find a good reason to fight back.

'cause I know some so poor that's when they shower

If Fabiana hadn't come knocking on my door and given me the hug I so desperately needed, I might have laid on my bed and cried all night for the many more people who will most likely be disenfranchised, ignored, and even killed by the Bush administration.

What makes me the most sad, is that people chose, ignorance, intolerance, hatred, bigotry, religious doctrine, and war over, everything that could be the opposite of that.

There is this growing blackness in my bones, my skin, my heart, that I'm trying to fight desperately. If I let the victory of the republican's defeat me...I might just slip into a four year depression, because it's easier than watching my country be further destroyed and compromised by one idiot and all his friends in the white house who happens to be allowed to do whatever he pleases, so, I can't fall into a slump, I can't give up, because then they can say: "see you peaceful people are losers"...and by the way if I'm not making any sense, it's because I'm so livid I can't think straight.

In four years I'll be 25 and at the polls hoping my vote means something (anything) once again.

The moment I saw Orlando Bloom, was the moment in which I realized he's only a human. Ok, so that seems like a "duh!" kind of statement, but it's true. As much as I admired his skin and his beauty in the five minutes I spent gazing at him, I, at the same time, felt a little twinge of guilt in the pit of my stomach. We pay him to pretend to be something he's not, and then we stand around in groups of giggley tens and suck all of his "famous" energy into ourselves, in order to what? Bask in his glory, touch his blessed hand, imagine what it might be like to be famous? I don't get it...and I don't think he does either. He seemed sort of uncomfortable and wouldn't you be too if there were fifty girls on the 2nd floor of founders hall staring at you like they just might cook you up and eat you for dinner? He just signs what's put in front of him, probably choking back the feeling that he's being used for his body.

Life is whatever you decide it is in the moment. Lately I've been deciding to live a relatively positive life...It's really amazing how someone who's feeling really terrible, can just suck the life right out of you...I don't want to suck the life out of people...I used to do it all the time...Maybe I still do...if I do, let me apologize. I'm not going to be happy all of the time, but I'd like to be positive rather than angry and sad the majority of the time.

Ciara is getting me through my mornings with a smile on my face...My dad is actively changing his Karma, I'm managing to stay on task and still have a life, my friends are beautiful and I've been chanting, for all those ladies who are single, that fabulous boys will come along and recognize their beauty and sweep them up in sultry love affairs. Life will never be like a Nora Roberts book, but we can pretend, can't we?

It's such a nice thing to go into an elementary school classroom and know, without a doubt, that I want to be a teacher.

I think maybe he needs me but doesn't know it yet. When we talked on the phone yesterday, it was him reluctant to hang up. That's a change...

Maybe this will be my hardest day yet. But perhaps the most rewarding.

Truth hurts...


I like Usher...I can't help myself. Need Vitamin C. We get 22 days for Christmas break this year. I have a feeling those 22 days are going to feel like a little slice of heaven...
Busy, rushing, addicted to motion, when will I be able to stop, breathe in and appreciate the last year here at my home?

Lack of a romantic relationship is my stressor, discomfort and depression are the outcomes of that stress, mental and physical harm are what I have to look forward to.

Goodie, I'm an anxious/ambivalent psycho. All signs are pointing to my self destruction. Help me.

The biggest problem is I love him so much I can't think logically...It's not even logical to say that because what is there to love but a dream and a fantasy I've created in my head.

If I could say one thing to you, I would tell you "I love you and want to be with you more than anything I've wanted in a long time." That's it. Short and sweet. True.

Vegas was like being on a sugar high. Pumped, ready to go, lost in the lights, but as the sugar high dissolved into a crash it felt like the slot machines were sucking the life right out of me, and if I had stayed, I would have given in, become a lush, and given my money uncontrollably over to the mouths of the money eaters that can't possibly still be hungry.

I wish I could take the blue and shove it into my heart and hold it there and remember the way it makes me feel forever, like cosmic oceans, like infinity, like searching for ladybugs in a field of grass. It's like at that moment I forget who I am. I become a whisper, and I have to avert my eyes just to remember me. It's like being stoned from laughing so hard or momentary disorientation...He's dangerous...He's my only fix.

If I don't ignore him, I'll have to love him. Why does he repulse and draw me in at the same instant, at all times except for when I'm spending time with him, laughing with him and then, all I can do is whish we were together.

Caisy seems to think that there is some reason why I'm drawn to him that I have to discover in order to get over it...Or move on, or come to some kind of conclusion...But how do you find out the source of a desire, except that one morning you woke up and it was there, and there it's stayed in the black pit of your stomach for the last two years. This is illogical, this unrelenting need to make him like me back...and it's destructive, and it's an addiction, and I can't stop.

Why do his eyes have to be blue, flashing across the room like an invitation that was mailed on accident. Ok, so, I'm not invited to your party. I know that with my brain, but my heart is still reaching out, still trying to grab yours and make you see me.

Maybe in his madness he's reaching for the divine. Maybe I'm failing in the intimacy vs. Isolation step of Erikson's theory...maybe I'll never "find myself yet lose myself" in another person...maybe this is all a dream and when I wake up I'll be lying in bed next to my soul mate and I'll wake him up and force him to listen to my crazy dream of unrequited love, insecurity and profound distrust of men.

Saturday the 11th: Michael deserves some sort of award in the "bringing our class together" department. We sat in proud circles, crying, laughing and talking about cookies in equal measure and it was the first time in two years I felt good about being at SUA.

How come every event turns into an SGI meeting.

Sunday the 12th: We went to the beach and watched the sun slowly move across the sky toward the dip below the canyon that would end our last day of "freedom." I like how the sun makes me dazed and childlike and how the ocean always holds out it's arms to me.

Monday the 13th: Who schedules an SBS course that is highly recommended at the same time as another SBS course? You can stop screwing me now. I've had enough.

The spirit Rally was blood pounding in ears, screams raising and falling, sweat, and love for my class which is really my family.

Tuesday the 14th: An hour and a half of Lit and I was moved.

Information swirling, everyone telling you their way is right, and how do you raise up your arms, scream "son of a bitch" and break free, when everyone's opinion feels like a constraint.

Wednesday the 15th: Tourists are sweet. They see the beauty in things we can't and the value in things we've forgotten.

No more eating before nap time. I always wind up dreaming about the strangest, mixed up things.

Blehh, blehh...If I wrote how I feel, It'd be a bunch of angry words outlining my inability to change, and grow as human being. I don't want to bore you with the usual.

My uncle seems to think I need a therapist. Get my head straight, get my head right. I tend to agree. I need a life makeover. I need to check my arrogance. Dead. Tracks. At the door. It's interesting how I think that everything and everyone is against me, but really I'm against everything. I don't know how to let myself trust and that's the end all be all to all my problems. I can't trust boys, I can't trust my dad, I can't trust the SGI, and the real problem is that I can't trust myself. So how do you let go? How do you stop comparing yourself to others? It's so much easier to feel sorry for yourself, to stroke your own ego, to put others down. When I look deep into my life, I don't see a pure green like life, like the trees, like grass, like the leaves of flowers. Instead, I see grey, like stone, like death, like the cracked sidewalk near my house. I need to start excepting responsibility for the changes I want to make. No one is going to change to make me feel better. I have to do that for myself. I have to paint my own life green like the leaves of flowers, blue like the oceans ebbing and flowing.

I'm a professional daydreamer. If I had to do it for a living I'd make a lot of money. In my head, I swim in perfect oceans. Hold hands with boys who normally ignore me. Dance salsa. Beat the crap out of those who piss me off. Smoke cigars in Cuba. Listen to the waves as the sun sets. Write books. Own a cabin in Main. Swim with dolphins. Spend thousands on a new wardrobe...But then a friend, or a loud noise, brings me back to reality and there is always a short period of mourning for that I don't have. Shame on me.

Expect your life to be magic.

Good times at medieval times.

It's true, everything can change in three weeks or a day even.

I remember when I was small, and I used to wake up in the morning refreshed, smiling, ready to uncover all the day had to offer me. I t was so real. It felt like everything was more colorful and more important.

I've been very confused for the last ten years. Everything has been a bit gray around the edges. I look forward to sleep instead of just appreciating it. I should look forward to waking, I should remember hope...I'm gonna start living like that.

Watch me shine.

I don't know who or what I'm hating right now. Probably myself. I feel sick with worry. I'm mourning the death of my relationships. Can I really revive them? Can I really work this out? It's about time I cried. The tears are there just on the outside of reality. Soon. I feel more lonely then I have in years. No one to connect with every night. I haven't talked seriously about my feelings for this year to anyone, and who is there, are you out there? It's not about "I" it's about what we can do together. But doesn't it seem easier to go into yourself and hide, hide, hide...

There are so many things in this world I don't understand. There will never be an end to my education. Life, I'm sure, will continue to supply lessons, whether I want them or not.

I don't know much about math, or what it means to live life to the fullest. I still have so much to learn about appreciation and doing things for others happiness. Most of the time I don't know when to keep my mouth shut, and the Spanish I once knew is slowly slipping into oblivion.

I can't understand the stage of life many of my friends have entered into, one where they know who they want to marry and have someone so important in there lives they never want to let go. I don't know about my own heart, I don't know how to love someone deeply, I don't know how to let go of my fears, and I don't know how to stop making the same mistakes over and over.

I do know, however, that if my life continues in the direction of depression, I will be lost. I do know that if I can't wade through the crap in my life to clear water, Things inside of me will shrivel and die and my soul will become malnourished. I do know I want to change and the more years it takes to change, the longer I wait to change, the harder and more impossible it's going to be.

Walk this journey with me and don't hold me back.

It's quiet. I miss my sister. I want to make my capstone excellent. He haunts me. My insecurity level has gone down to a 5. Many days, many hours to make my last year worth it. I'm not going to cower. I'm the most passionate about people who've been forgotten. I'll remember you.

So I'm awake and suffering. My dad and Alonzo were the ones who checked my bags in at the train station, but they had to take some stuff out of my big black bag (too heavy) and place it in my sisters bag. Now I have no toiletries, no deodorant for the second day in a row, no toothpaste, and no comb. I decided to wait for my family to come before I leave my room, so here I am all cooped up, smelling like horse poo. I hate the first week of school.

It was surreal driving up to campus last night, the buildings swaying before me like I never got off the train. Everything was moving in slow motion because I was so tired and I felt like I should get up and run back home. I don't know how I feel right now. It's a mix of excitement at seeing my friends, fear of losing my way, and anxiety that I won't accomplish all I need to accomplish before I graduate.

If you're reading out there and you feel the same way say, amen!

Today's my last day of work...Don't know if i'll ever go back , except to visit, and the thought hurts my heart.

Need to finish last minute shopping, going to have fun at my dad's BBQ, need to tame my nappy hair, and then I need to get on the train and return to SoCal.

I can't wait to laugh with you, to talk about life with you, to give you a hug and remind you how important you are to me.

I'm counting the days...

I know this year will be hard...

I'm ready.

I feel like all i'm doing is waiting.

i need to stop.

reflect.

I feel like i forgot.

i need to study.

remember.

I want to stop thinking about material things and start thinking more about the people who are important to me.

Costa Rica

She tells me as we sit in the sushi restaurant that she's terrified to go back to cali. 'Changing lives" she chants randomly. I repeat, "changing lives." But I don't really mean it, becuase i've never wanted to be in cali more then I do right now.

Flash to July:

Now I'm terrified to go back to cali. And it's just this feeling that has set up shop in the pit of my stomache. What will it be like to see the people who I love but who have had experiences without me that have changed them for life. Will we sit at the lunch table together in uncomfortable conversation trying to make it work.? Can I stay sane with his continual presence? Will I actually break through all my shit this year? What the hell will i do after soka?

My whole summer has been focused on saving money...check with me and if I don't have $1400 in August you can all use me for a while as your personal punching bag. No more washing my underwear in the sink.

Andy, I'm really proud of you...for letting go.

I even made a list of the pros and cons for going to or not going to SF, and the cons won. So I'll see you all in a few weeks and please enjoy your trip!

I'm really confused. I'm more confused right now than i've been in years. Soon I have to be this adult, and I keep thinking about all of the realities of that. I will have to somehow pay for grad school. i'll need a place to live. i'll need a job that pays more then 7.10 and hour. I'll need friends and love and acceptance in a city that's never really given me those things, and I'm staring to freak out.

I feel really nervous. I look around at the adults in my life and can't help but shudder. My dad is still struggling to make a living with no possible means of retiering. My mom is 56 and happy on the good days. My stepdad struggles daily to fight years of built up bad habbits. My co-worker Patty is in her 50's and hated her three week vacation because she had nothing to do, no friends to visit and her days were empty and boring. I'm so scared that my life won't go as planned. That, before I know it, I'll be 57, not have accomplished my goals, and have only a yellow tabby cat to comfort me...

My mom can tear my sister and i down in just one sentance. And she's careless with her power.

He didn't forget me! He didn't forget me!

I went and saw this crazy movie at the Bagdad theater today about quantum physics and it was amazing. The whole thing was filmed in portland and i was like, wow, that's hawthorne, that's the max, that's my skyline!

Lessons learned: We all have addictions to emotions, because emotions are really just chemical reactions, and eventually if we have a certian emotion enough times, even if it's hate, we can become addicted to the chemicals that are simultaneouly released when we feel it.

There are objects that can be seen by the human eye that are in two places at the same time.

We never really touch anything.

We have the power to rewire our brains.

Physics is all about how nothing is impossible.

My friend Christina and I talk about babies a lot, because we work with them every day and they are such a part of our reality, and we always talk about how when we have our own kids, this.... or when we get married, that... and i can't help but notice all of the people around me getting engaged. To be honest it makes me feel really, really behind. Like i'm in the slow readers group in first grade or something.

I'm twenty one going on fifty and I can feel it in my gut.

I'm twelve slipping back to ten and I have no control.

I finally got around to going to the Pura Vida yahoo group for all the people who went to Costa Rica, and it was so nice to see posts from everyone. I miss them a lot, but the yahoo group makes me feel like we are still connected. I think when we all graduate we need to make a soka yahoo group, a huge one!

How come the parents at the daycare always ask these really random questions to the air and expect us to answer them when there are five kids crying, one getting a diaper change, and the others eating at the table making a mess.

I already feel burnt out. But i got paid today.

My life feels kind of slow right now. Like everything is going at half time. I get up. Go to work. Pray for my lunch break to come quickly. Watch kids stick thier toes in there mouths. Hold crying children, feed them, change thier diapers, clean thier messes. Laugh a lot 'cause kids are funny. Go home. watch MTV. Laugh at my sister, 'cuase she's funny. Go to sleep. Do it again.

I think Andy's idea about San Fran is great. I'm going to start saving right now. If it happens and we can all get together, lets shake our butts and get really groovy.

I miss speaking spanish. There are quite a few parents at the daycare who speak spanish to thier children and it's so tempting to join in but something stops me and I think it's fear or the feeling that spanish is not a part of my Portland life and forbidden in some way.

The time is ticking by and I'm alive but not really living.

How come life isn't like the love boat. I feel jipped.

I feel like I love you and your killing me.

I started work last week, and it's nice to be back. I missed the kids. I missed checks every other Friday.

My dad made me waffles today and they tasted like childhood. Im getting so old.

When I walk into the malls or the stores I can't concentrate. It's weird. Everything in the US is too bright and all of the stores have so much, I can barley keep my eyes on one thing.

Im here but im not in rythem.

We should have a reunion in Japan. Ok, so everyone save up.

No more MTV!

I feel a bit confused. How come they put me here with all of these great people only to rip me away. Ahhh. And its going to be the same with SOKA. if I can barley leave Costa Rica and not be devastated you all really don't want to see me when we leave SUA. I will be on the floor having a fit, I can assure you that right now. I saw a picture of Cassie, Rumiko, Pilipino and Nathan today on shutter bug and I was literally screaming in the internet cafe. Im sure I looked crazy but hey, I haven't seen these people in ages.

I cried on Friday, I cried on Saturday, I cried on Sunday...what am I going to do without my Costa Rican family.

7 days and counting.

He has the power to call me sweetie and break my heart at the same time.

I have two presentations in my tico classes tommorow and then I can breath easy.

I have two weeks and 4 days to soak it all in.

Im already begining to feel the culture shock.

This Morning I heard the song The Way We Were from one of my favorite corny movies and I thought, How sad that we always look back and think, that was great, but while we were actually living it we were thinking, Im going to die. My determination for the next four weeks is to think right now, this is great and not begrudge all of the things I have to do. Because whether I like it or not, all of the struggles are what make my life rich, and trust me in Costa Rica Ive had lots of time where im just riding the waves, and frankly, I dont like it.

Costa Rica. I wrote a list of all of the things I would miss about Costa Rica on Monday and it came to three solid pages. And still I cant help but smile when I think that in a month and two weeks, I will be home.

You know that feeling where you want to scream just so that people will notice you are suffering. Its that whole misery loves company thing.

I need to get over the fact that I don´t know what the heck is going on.

I think this spring break Im gonna go to the family finca and the rest of the peolple in my program can just shove it right up there party every day playa every weekend butts.

I just have to say that Im so happy to be here in Costa Rica with Keiko. I love our struggles. And we are going to make it.

Ok so that depression only lasted half a day. I think I´m getting stronger.

I am so sick of myself right now I want to sit in this internet chair and scream bloody murder. Who decided that my heart should be pumping in this totally inadequate body, with this totally inadequate mind. My heart hurts right now and I want to cry and run terror through the streets.

I cant believe how much love I have inside. theres no one to recieve it and its like a cow that hasent been milked, its going to kill me.

I know the perfect word to describe me, which is akward. Im a stumbling, bumbling mess...I want to live in my dreams where he loves me. I want to sleep all the time instead of being in this reality. Im alone. Every night of my whole entire life I have gotten into a bed alone, I have dreamt alone, I have loved no one and nothing and everything all at the same time.

And its taking everything I have right now not to break down and say no more please, no more...

Im going to change my boy karma, and im going to do it before I turn 22. Ive been chanting an hour every Monday and Thursday... Im going to be happy, right now, at this very moment...Im going to help my friends in Costa Rica get through all this, cause they have been helping me. Im going to stop wishing I was somewhere else. and the next two months are going to be amazing because I make them that way.

Yesterday my grandma passed away. She was my stepdads mom. And I just remember how precious she was, while she tryied to stay strong for the familly at the reunion this winter. And I remember that she loved me and my sister. And I understand that she was tired and it was her time to go.

Random thoughts in Costa Rica

Time is passing by here so quickly because there is nothing to hold me down. After next week, which starts tommorow, as far as Im concerned, there will only be two more months in Costa Rica and thats including Spring break.

Could I be any more pumped? Could I be any less appreciative of the opportunity I have here?

But I want to learn Spanish and I want to get out and theres nothing more than that.

Yuck! Public displays of affection. They are gross and now I know why poeple dont like them. Ive been witness to far to many in this dirty country that will surely give me lung cancer.

How easily time makes me weep inside, how easily the minutes tick by. How often it seems they tick in months and days.

The chairs here are beyond uncomfortable. Three hours in a classroom with uncomfortable chairs means painful ass every thursday. I dread Thursdays. They bring out my fundamental darkness and every second is a struggle to overpower it
with light.

Please remind me what Im doing here with no sponge and a mild appreciation for language.

Please remind me what Im doing here, away from every single thing important to me...no love, no regrets, no feelings of anger...Just a fear, that seems unrelenting, of the next day and the next challenge.

Just the fear of constant failure and embaressment and not knowing what the hell to do.

Im going to go home and roll in the happiness of clean streets, green leafy salads, diversity, english, baggy pants and love.

Thats what I miss the most. Your love.

Its reallly hard trying to be freinds with peole through the internet. Especially when they are hurting, suffering, unhappy. I want to gather you all in a large room for a group hug. I want to tell you its all gonna be OK...I want to lie to you and make you feel better. I want to tell you the truth and remind you that all things pass and all things are important.

Human life is much like plant life, except for the working with the rest of nature thing. We are all interconnected and everything we do effects another human being.

Please be true to your heart. Please make difficulty decisions if they will help you and the people around you. Please dont ever let go. Because i need you and so many others do too.

Please eat good food and enjoy the sun, or the rain, or the snow...

Top Ten things I will remember about/Realized in Monte Verde Orientation

1. I fell in Love with another boy who will never love me back

2. I love sheets. I didn´t have them for two weeks and sleeping in a bed without sheets and dirty covers is less then comfortable

3. Costa Rica is not paradise

4. Every family is messed up and all men cheat

5. The bus almost drove of of a cliff and I thought -well, at least, when I die, I´ll be looking at a rainbow and the perfect picture of green

6. I am such a prude

7. In the US we don´t even understand the concept of bugs. Try little bugs on the floor and in the cracks. Big ones crawling in your shoes, gross ones waiting in your shower. Find thousands in your hotel bathroom drawn to the solatery light above your sink...

8. I´m a stickler for guys who are soft around the edges

9. The hot Tico guys ¨accidently¨ touching my ass

10. I know enough Spanish to get by...I know enough Spanish to want more...I know enough Spanish to feel it in my veins and crave it and hope that it will come.

Im in Cosat Rica. Its crazy.

i have so much to say, but only five minutes to say it.

Its been, scary, exciting, horrible, fun, boring, all of that all in one.

but most notably Costa Rica is beyond beautiful. i never realized places like costa rica exist, but im so happy they do.

Ok, so after reading everyone’s Blogs, I have come to the realization that I am a complete slacker. Haven’t written anything in like 3 weeks or something crazy like that...but seriously, it's been very hectic around here. Christmas, snow, trying to see all of my friends, been to the mall like fifty times trying to buy everything for study abroad, and packing, I haven't gone to bed until 2am every morning.

The scary day is tomorrow. The day I get on a plane and fly to Costa Rica and give up my very regular, no thrills, life here in the US. Am I ready? No of course not, and you know me, I’m totally doing the ellie freak out thing too. So this last two weeks has been stressful, but fun and I've come to appreciate my little sister even more, if that's possible. She really is my best friend in Portland.

Cassie, I got the scarf. Thank you so much, it was a wonderful surprise.

Andy, Weird dream...so did you write that letter to sensei?

Uyen, good job writing Spanish!

I miss everyone sooooooooooooo much. I keep thinking that I’m gonna get of the plane in Costa Rica, and all of the people from Soka are gonna be standing there waiting for me. But no. It will be strangers and I’m gonna have to make friends again, which I might add has been incredibly difficult for me to do in the past, so wish me luck.

I'll try and keep writing on this thing and I’ll try not to write in code, but I’m not promising much.

He's really sick. And I always knew. He has that sick man lateness and that sick man humor. But he's stronger than his illness and he will be with us for many years...i am so happy to know him. If I could, I would reach inside of his body and rip out the virus that has already killed him. When the word Terminal is attached to anything you know, it could be any day. It makes me shaky to think about how strong he is and how much he has given me, and how he was the one who finally made me feel again.

I think you might be jaded.

I wish everyone knew how much I suffered for him...Pined for him...gave my love for the first time to him. How much we went through, me crying on his floor. "Let it all out," he said. How come he is so good. Then they might stop asking where and how and when...then they would know how deep his love for someone else cuts me. You have no idea. And suddenly he's beautiful. And suddenly you are competition. And suddenly I remember how good it felt to know he was far away...unable to touch me.

I think you might be tainted.

Hmmm. I'm in a sort of in between stage right now, which is always good because it means I'm niether happy nor sad just tryin' to stay alive. Just tryin' to wait for the time when I get on the plane to meet mi familia y comemos mucha comida.

She was so empty. He was desperate to fill her, but he didn't know how...

If my mouth even opens right now, the words: Why am I so sad, why am I so sad, why am I so sad will come pouring out. Anyone...anything, anything, anything.

The girl looks at her hands, the sun pouring orange and painful. She whispers, "end it."

The empty is in a specific place in my body. right above where my food settles. and it radiates to my finger and toenails and it shows in my puffy creased eyes.

I'm trying to keep all of the parts together. Crazy is threatening me. Anything, anything, anything...anyone.

The monotony is torture. I hate it when I realize how sad I actually am. The emotions suddenly rising to the top because of a song or a book...a memory. And then I am faced with the reality of my seemingly endless dance with pain. We rock slowly back and forth together, while I reminisce about the things I thought about when I was ten. Pain sweeps around my body and holds me. and hides me. Pain comes and rescues me from my obscene hope that I could ever accomplish my dreams. "silly girl," pain whispers in my ear, "haven't we already been through this. You can run, but eventually you'll run out of breath."

Is it ok to have thoughts of beating one of your teachers down? I hope so...

I feel like I might just buy a plane ticket out of this crazy place. This place with all of its arrogant academics and people who think they are intellectually superior in comparison with..."the blue collars."

I'm so sick of defining myself by the papers I turn in. I'm tired of constantly trying to defend my intelligence. Trying to get up to par with the superiors who think that becoming like them is the right thing to do.

I'm so over it. I'm over APA and MLA and cover pages. Running heads haunt my dreams and the smug looks other students get when they are doing better than their friends. This is not a healthy environment. I am feeling just about as good as the dirt on my shoe and I'm tired.

Fuzzy, hazy, confusion. I want to understand everything...but nothing is true. Sleep deprived fog feels like ghostly howls. In and out of normal...hair spinning out of control. Feisty buzz of endless words. Lit review...Pointless...Point shoes.

I think it's time for a positive blog...I got the high score in psychology on the midterm...Happiness...I'm not as bad as I think. Seems like it's time to own my good qualities, and let them be important to me. More important than that silent scuffling in the back of my brain that wears me down.

I love my friends. I love my not friends. I love the possibilities.

I am invisible. If you need a definition, read invisible man by Ralph Ellison and you to will be invisible. Outside of time.

My friend Christina's father was murdered and then her brother and sister's dad raped her. She knows suffering.

She's hilarious.
She understands my mom.
She's much older then her years.

I love her light. I love her cheeks and the way they crease in the middle when she smiles. I miss her way down deep like dreams.

I dreamt about Wuyuki last night. And I missed him from my stomach.

His dad was also murdered and he is invisible like in my book. Or at least he's tried his hardest to be. But he's much to beautiful for that, and people are drawn to him like they're drawn to fatty foods or good books. He's complicated. There's this network of lies inside his head that he's been constantly telling himself to make him appear to others the way he feels. And I've tried and tried to wade through the lies and see the real inside, but It's been a losing battle. But I miss him way down deep, like thirst.

My dad's father beat his mother and my dad feels the pain deeper then thirst. He feels the pain throughout time and universal truth. And I miss him way down deep like love.

Missing the real.
Missing the truth.
Way down deep I'm missing messed up human beings.
Way down deep I'm missing how it was OK to be messed up
How it was worn on the sleeve like a badge and the people wearing the pain didn't even notice it waving there like death in the breeze...

She circles the tray with her finger and waits for the exact right moment to stand. If she stands now she's sure her knees will buckle beneath her and the hip that has been waiting to crack in three places finally will. When she does get up the air becomes dense and she inhales sharply wishing the light she sees would make it's way in. She picks up the tray, which seems to weigh 100 pounds. She steadies her hand and hopes the people in the Cafeteria can't see it shaking. 'I'm to old for this. Much to old.' But then the voice in her head cries out, 'don't be stupid! You're only as old as you feel.

She makes her way to the tray caddy and sighs with relief when she can finally slip the tray off her fingers, the unbearable weight of it all. Her friend makes her way over with her own tray. 'Are we really that wrinkly,' she thinks looking into her friends face. Shrugging in her head, she backs away from the caddy and hikes her purse higher on her shoulder. "Let's go." Her friend starts walking and she follows...and she follows and has no idea where she's going except down, way down.

Should write something, 'cause I feel like I'm going to implode. All of the outside sucked in to the dark middle that's waiting for the beak down.

Empty
Empty

Waiting for something to fill me up.

Empty
Empty

White

He smelled like pez, when he should have smelled like sweat and tears.

The driver has a red haired boy and knows all about fishing.

I really am a character in a play. And I'm playing my part too well. And I'm ready to jump off the page into a new script, the one I write for myself.

the wind

streams

through

the speakers

illuminated the sun

shines

i'm brighter

then most

of

my thoughts

you translate

and i'll lay

here

i'm confused

by

myself

all alone

with

your hand in

her pocket

speaking

words

of poetry

infused with

I love him

because

isn't it

always

about

my

closet

i'm in it

but not like

i

want a

woman

wants

a man

hidden behind the clothes

i'm in it

sobbing about

mis amigos

mi espanol

sucks

so

it

will never

end

this dream

translated

into

tongues

touching

across oceans

our fingertips

won't meet

but we

are so close

the electricity

sparks

hot yellow

blue

green

endless fields

trees

of eternity

and

I

remember

someone once

said

it'll be

OK.

I clicked the light on ten times...

Walked outside...

and I was lost.

Oh he swept down on me and he took me away... to places I had always dreamed.

And I cried just a little and laughed just a little...

And I'm OK.

Andy can speak French. Sorry I underestimated his ability. I think I'm just jealous.

It's days like these that leave me feeling a little empty, like what's it all about, and why do I keep on trying.

The howls are lonesome and isn't that the way it used to be. Out there, all alone, with just a few friends and the seemingly endless black dotted night falling on your skin.

I want to write beautiful prose the words coming together to explain the human condition...it's complexities. Why don't we just do what we feel? What is it that's stopping us?

I'm going to have to dance for my heart and forget that the steps are all about memory. Big chunks, concepts, not small pieces of somebody else's soul.

He was beautiful in that hat, sweating down his back, feeling love through his body and wanting so badly to transmit it to us.

I'm wondering when I'm going to wake up from this crazy, loveless life. One, two, three I'm squinting through the sun. Is it almost time. Is it almost time to wake up. I can't live in fear of never being loved anymore. So maybe that means me making mistakes. A good lot of them. Maybe that means giving up my ideal and settling for ok if not only for the exprience. I have got to stop judging through my virginess. Yes that exsists, virginess. It's white and clean and smells a little like rotting lilacs. It knows nothing of how to let go. It knows nothing of loving the imperfect. It knows nothing of my body and the ache there. It is oblivious and cold and careful.

Knives slicing through chilly winter air. Water choking the air out of lungs because of its cold. Unfortunate happenstance.

I don't know why his smile has been getting under my skin...he keeps looking at me like he would if he didn't have the memoies to remind him of what used to be. I'm sure she haunts his dreams and the rim of his beer bottles. But I just want someone familiar and someone I love even if it's not in "that way." And he's it. He's all that's left. And he's right here on this side of the Pacific. So it's tempting to let go with him. I could just walk to his room and ask him if he wants to talk. and then things could happen and I could get what I so desprately need. Just to be held, just to be wanted if only for a short time. But I don't know if I want it to go down like that.

And then there's him, does he really look at me like he's interested to know what it would be like to slip me out of my clothes or am I just completely streching.

This campus is dark depite the daylight and there are monsters lurking behind every corner. Oh wait, that's just me being crazy (or is it)

Yeah I know that eaten up, shredded, hallow heart feeling you're talking about. I've felt like that only a few times. When my grandma died, the two times my best friends hated me for being different and not wanting to hurt others anymore, and everytime I could smell the drug smell wafting up from my dads bedroom door. It hurts and feels like it will never go away, but it does. I have every confidence that your life will bloom into the brightest flower and your parents will see you for who you are: the cutest boy in the world. But rummble the tummy changes take time.

Hurry up. That's what my brain keeps screaming in my ear and I'm falling apart at the seams like a well used stuffed toy. I can't break again, I don't want to do this. At the Ramen place I left and went to the bathroom. I sat on the toilet and cried...she embarressed me so bad and I was light headed and it really got to me. I don't know how many more times I can do that.

I've really got to go wash my hair...

I'm sick of being part of the group. I want to know and love each person in the group, but I don't want to be bound to them anymore and I don't want to do things because they told me to.

I will get some work done. I will think for myself. I have to start thinking for myself. I have to forge "the Elizabeth Way." 'Cause I'm done being laughed at because I'm different. I want to be proud of that. And I want to be cheesy and sappy and that's OK. I had gotten so good at being myself the two years before I came to SUA. But that person is slowly being erased. And I'm dull and lifeless and I'm sick of sitting in a big circle and wallowing in the pain because that's easier. It seems all we do is build these impenatratable walls with our self doubt and our circles of inside jokes. I'm going to start doing things the hard way.

Ya know what I hate the most? I hate the fear of seperating from them and the fear of being alone and the judgements I know they would make on me and they would feel betrayed. And I hate that they would all sit in a big circle and talk about me and why I'm changing and anylize it to death, and I hate even more that I would do the same thing...That's the poison of a group.

They broke up. And he's waiting for her to mature. And it just made me pause for a second and think how it should have been me, instead of his ideal. I wouldn't have let go, and he's wrong, the distance didn't make them stronger and it never does..not unless there is love. More then your everyday average. no more cold sheets. I dream of different demensions and am happy.

I'm going to miss your selfless love...but have a good time: and don't just survive, have fun ;)

My goodness how did I get back to SOKA? On the plane silly. But it's weird to be back...it's weird to put an emphasis on the number three, and he looked the same but more like a little boy in the message. I'm kinda scared. I want to do Like 2000 hours of diamoku. I need it. Not very practical. Just getting started...how come it feels like the middle?

It's funny how things don't matter very much until they're almost gone. It's that tip of the finger feeling...that... it's almost over stress. I'm going to miss SUA. I'll only be gone for three months but alot of us will be seperated for the seemingly endless length of a year. I want to get everyone together for a group hug. For a group "I love you." I want to remeber the way these last days feel so I don't forget why I love SOKA so much. Boundless hope.

He has a relationship now. And it's tearing me apart. I don't know why I sat there and let him tell me that thier distance would only make thier bond stronger. Why do I keep talking to him about my life. It will never be entangled with his, engulfed in his eyes. He cares about someone else and I am screming ten thousand screams inside minute after second. And it seems like the screams will reach to the end of eternity, because that's how deep the oceans are. The past has known us before and I've known this pain before. It's called disapointment. It's called endless love unreturned. I always thought I would be a piece of his puzzle, but I'm not even a crack in the finished product. And I'm dying minute after second. And I'm sorry I Iost something that was never mine.

Goodbye my friends whom I've shared my changes with. I will miss you.

I've really got nothing to say. My life is on one of those smooth sections of the road. Can't really feel anything, I'm going through the motions. Can't really see anything 'cause it hurts to much. And what's more, don't really want to get out a bed 'cause I know the day will mean nothing. Endless thoughts of things I can't have and things I can't acomplish and this dull buzz in my ears. I'm a walking, laughing nightmare of a girl who can't see past the thunder and can't hear past the clouds, and isn't even trying...to get a love, or a number, or a drink...not even trying to get a let go or a let loose or a lose control. If I dressed my vagina it would wear kakai colered shorts. No silk or velvet. No lace or lilac, only dull tan shorts. Haven't owned up to anything, excepting my wrong actions at the wrong time. Haven't apologized enough for tearing the people around me apart...I sit and mope and they think maybe it's them...it's not. It's more about the long endless highways and the streches of green that touch to heaven. It's more about how ninty and twenty equal 110...who cares. Wow! And it's really about how I want to be a poet and a dancer but I don't have the guts, the talent, or the brains to do what I really want to do. And it's always about how I don't love myself and it rubs off on others. And it seems that it will never cease to be about lonliness and pent up sexuality and my anger at everyone else for having what I want.

I am going to evolve. I am going to change. This is going to end. And the world will sigh because it knew me.

There is only a thin thread that separates us from pain, from death, from love.

It's about time I fell into someone elses space. Into thier personal, into a claim of devotion.

I fall asleep with frantic images of love. With empty. Without knees and knobs that belong to someone else. I have never been held. I have never been kissed.

Concept unreal, try to hide it from myself really. Because she hit the nail on the head while we were on the boardwalk.

My spirit will die. Never knowing the tug and pull of someone elses for sheer want of my attention.

And I just keep waiting here for the universe to renig on this cruel joke it's playing on me.

I'm sure without a doubt the gods are watching from thier hiding spaces.

Laughing at and loving the girl they've denied life.

Fingers brushing away the lonely that has seeped into my bones, I'm about to give it all up.

It's so nice when I slip into that cacoon of pain. It becomes my lover..."no one but me could ever want you", it says. "No one but me." And it is black and destructive, just like an abusive relationship. I cradle it in my arms because it's all I have. The only flaw: pain doesn't wipe away the tears. I have to do that myself.

And eventually it becomes to hot and to explosive and I have to abandon it for a bit. But pain always comes back, tugging lonely behind, and because my bed has never known the heat of another I let it in, my first love.

I made another realization today. Some of my friends are really abusive to me. I'm sensing a pattern in my life. I'm sensing falling apart in my life. I'm sensing that I've been ripped.

I came to a realization the other day, while the perspective students danced on the green and I sat from a distance wishing...I came to the conclusion that I am deathly afriad of myself. Of everything I could become, of my sexuality, of my personality, I'm even afriad of my life and the desicions I would make if only I let go. This has always been my issue. What if...I danced and I couldn't control the outcome. What if... I loved and not everything went according to plan.

So my head is swelling up and I know what that means. It means it's about to burst. My desire is about to turn to this cold hard ache and it could get ugly folks.

I laid close to the earth yesterday, and looked at the sky and willed the bugs to bite just so I could feel a twinge of life. It's not really there where it should be fluttering around in my stomach. I even wish for pain sometimes so that I know I am still here on this earth, still functioning not just mechanical.

I understand who I attract and why they are attracted. Because I'm safe, and so are they. Where is the danger, so protected, overprotected, wishing someone would just come abuse me because then I would have a story to tell. I'm always telling other peoples stories, this wisdom put here by someone other then myself. I'm always looking in the mirror wishing I was free and I wasn't afraind to shake my hips and strangers didn't make my cry.

I'm wishing for swirls and unconcious desicions and stop asking twenty questions because it's just procrastination to get at what you already know. I already know that if I just make the desicion to change it will be instant. I already know that the game is on me. I know, I know, I've seen so many times what I have to do that it's begining to get fuzzy and blur around the edges and look kind of like the leaves lit up by the sun.

It's just taking that step...it's just taking over that moment and saying..."you know what? It's on."

Should put up what I wrote in Scotland...not yet.

Put on a pedestal you fell so far. I like your faults, they make me seem human.

Smile at me, sleep with someone else and I'll just keep remembering what I should have had.

Dragon on his hand

Back pressed to mine

a small boy

waved good bye with a smile on his face

When I was younger I took my mom for granted. She cooked, she cleaned, she loved, she slaved and all I could think was how she wasn't doing enough. Who was I? How could I? Where did this appreciation come from?...when did this mind shift happen? My mom is a god.

I sat around this table and looked out at love and I realized I am rich.

And now, even the air I breathe reminds me of deliverance.

And now, even the bad things seem like wishes come true.

I'm twenty years old, and my life can feel it.

How does a man lose his way.

Find the little boy in the obese body.

That's who he remembers

That's what never ends

Childhood.

Life makes me afresh daily.

Sweet middle C's ring out.

Endless.

It's Valentines Day, which tends to fill me with hate and anger but this one is different. I woke up this morning and I was like, I'm gonna make this a good day, and so far I have. If you love and give, people will love and give back...lesson number one. Lesson number two, acceptance can go a long way.

How come I feel like something really bad is about to happen or has happened? I've got that down in my gut feeling, and it's scary.

Love is like film, it needs darkness to develop. How great is that line.