8 months later...

i have a bit on my mind so i am restarting my blog after 8 months in hiding. and yes, lately i really have been in hiding. I am getting ready to take my massive exam next friday in order to get my masters degree and i'm kinda freaking out just a little. but that's oddly the least of it all. life's pretty good all things considered. i am student teaching at an elementary school in van nuys and i love that! my master teacher is great and i enjoy going to work the three days a week that i have it (aside from the waking up at 6:30 am bit which i don't think i will ever get used to). i am an aunt and my nephew is amazing and precious and the current love of my life. i have nothing to complain about aside from the massive exam next week and even that's not too bad. what i have on my mind is something entirely different...

four of my close friends got engaged over the summer. i found out recently that i will only be going to three of the weddings... that's because one of them won't be happening. this is my third friend and the fourth person who is a general acquaintance (ok, the fourth is a friend of a friend who i have never met) who has been in a situation where the guy has broken off the engagement. it tends to be early before dresses are necessarily purchased or showers have happened, but it makes you think. so maybe none of these people should have gotten married to each other to begin with, but maybe not. either way it's better now then after they got married and realized that they couldn't spend the rest of their lives together which would result in a divorce. but i can't imagine picking up my life after something like that. to get engaged and feel secure knowing that you have found someone and then have the rug pulled out from under your feet must be heartbreaking, terrifying and world-shattering. and what do you say to someone this has happened to? and what happens next for them? what happens when you build a life with someone and then you are told that the life you have been building together is worthless. and oddly enough it seems like it was unexpected every time it's happened to someone i know. suddenly they get the call or it's the fight that is the last straw. i know finding someone who you can spend the rest of your life with is hard and i know that making a life with that person can be difficult. as my master teacher said to our newlywed ot the other day: marriage is like taking 2 rocks and putting them in a bag and shaking them until all their rough edges go together. and some people aren't meant to be married to each other, in fact some people might not be meant to be married at all, but it still makes you wonder. sometimes i forget what a delicate balance each of our lives is. the world that we live in is not an easy place right now, but i don't think it ever was or that it ever will be. it scares me to think about the journey to finding someone to spend the rest of my life with. who will i meet along the way? how will i know that this person is the right person? how flexible can i be? how much can i bend before i break and how hard am i willing to work? i guess the best i can do is be open and learn from my friends who have already been there. good luck my friends! and ciao...

so much love to give, but where am i hiding?

i just found out a day ago that a friend of mine passed about 2 weeks ago. his death has come as a complete shock to me. he was incredibly healthy with a zeal and a love for life that is unforgettable. he died in a tragic accident doing something he loved, but he is gone. we each deal with grief in different ways, even though sometimes waking up tomorrow morning and knowing that the world will go on even though everything you know has changed can be the hardest thing to do. one of the most difficult things about my friend's death is that we were supposed to hang out again. we both kept putting it off because we were busy, "oh we'll get together next month when things calm down a bit and i have a free weekend" "eventually we will sit down and watch that movie or this tv show." but next month never happened. i was so absorbed in living day to day i stopped paying attention to the things that weren't right in front of me. and now one of those things has been taken away, a friend, a person, and one of those truly amazing people at that. i never talked to my friend without laughing. we had stupid inside jokes and we always had fun when we hung out, no matter where we were or what the occasion was. it never occurred to me that i would wake up one morning and find out that he wasn't here anymore. it never occurred to me that i would have become so out of touch with those around me, that when i found out about his death i couldn't think of a single person who i talked to within the last 2 months that was friends with him or even that i wouldn't get a chance to talk to him again. we take advantage of those around us and assume that they will simply always be there because we are young and it's not our turn yet.

but the truth is you never known. death happens every day for different reasons, whether it is cancer or car accidents or sporting accidents. there are so many ways that our lives can be taken away, and then what? so what do we have here before we go? what can we do to make things here worth while? the answer is love. all i can do is let someone know how much they are loved and appreciated and how special they are to me. there are so many people out there who i respect and admire and who i care for deeply, even those who i haven't talked to in days, months or even years. life is too short to not love people and care about people, and really that is one of the few gifts you can receive or give that will last longer than "earthly bonds."

dz, i'm sorry i haven't been the best about keeping in touch and i'm sorry i never got to say goodbye. thank you for always being you and for being such a great person and a wonderful friend. you always had so much love to give and i will always remember how much you loved your friends and use that as my own inspiration.

some food for thought

i am shocked, surprised and sad that so many people have forgotten that change starts with themselves and not with what a presidential candidate (now president elect) says they will do. how can someone be so hypocritical to think that voting for someone who they feel will make the world and their country a better place makes it suddenly ok to put down those who don't agree? i have seen this more than once since the election process has started. i was recently told that i have been brainwashed and that i need to have my brain altered through a reeducation. i also read a blog recently where someone said that in this election process they have looked at other's stupidity and it's made them realize they are brilliant. i am consistently shocked by how callous and insensitive people can be. all i can say now is that i sincerely hope that people will realize that the society that they feel needs to be changed can't be changed from the top down, but rather the change needs to start from within themselves. the truth is we could all use some introspection and an attitude adjustment and then and only then will we be able to change the world.

blurred reality?

where do the lines between reality and imagination stand, how set are they and how often do we slip past them? i've sort of been considering this lately...
i don't know if anyone else ever does this, but i find myself slipping into stories... books i'm reading, movies i'm watching... suddenly these cross over into my language, my attitude and even my dreams. somewhere halfway between being asleep and awake those characters' stories become part of my reality. i am in jane austen's england or on a spaceship or at an ashram in india. their drama has become my drama, their plot a part of my subconscious. my thoughts become distracted as the worlds mesh together and then, an instant later, back to reality. my eyes reopen, my thoughts come back to the present and they rip themselves out of the other world.
there is something oddly thrilling and completely distracting about finding myself so involved in the story, and yet my grasp on what is really reality remains firm when i am awake. those people are not real, they are not a part of my life, they are not my friends, they are not remotely connected to my own situation in life. is this what draws me to stories? the ability to perceive another world that doesn't exist and yet somehow draws parallels to my life while at the same time taking me away from the little trifling day to day troubles that have a tendency to follow each of us around?
i recognize that this is a form of escape and a utilization of an over-active imagination, and yet i have no desire to change either my grasp on reality or my ability to disappear into another world. so on that note, i guess i will go bury myself back in (at this moment) indonesia and wake up tomorrow to go back to my normal reality... ciao

woman?

i always thought that i would easily transition from girl to woman. someday i would wake up and feel like a woman and not think twice about it. i am coming to realize that that's not going to happen. at 24 i realized the other day that i am a woman.... no more excuses. it just kind of randomly hit me. i don't feel like i am much older than 18, it's like the rest of me has continued to grow and mature, but my mindframe never really changed my age at all. so i look at myself and see girl, when at this point i should be looking at myself and saying woman, after all, i look at other people my age and say that they are women, and i am no different, i am mature. so the mentally transition is occuring, and not as smoothly as i would have dreamed of, and yet here i am, somewhere between woman and girl, but making a path for myself regardless and for the most part having a good time doing it!
in other news, july should be an exciting month full of fireworks and friends and my csun summer courses are almost over, now i just have to buy that stupid stats book, blech! ciao my friends :)

i'm a toys-r-us kid

tonight i am going to see my friend's high school musical pippin, as in my friend is the choir director and she directed the show...
when did we grow up?
weird!

potential

look how good i am, 2 posts in one week, holy toledo batman!
people are really interesting when you get to know them. today i was thinking about people and potential. i was talking to a friend who i adore. we have amazing conversations, we are (or at least were at some point, but can't necessarily say that it is a constant from week to week) very close and know each other fairly well. there is so much potential. they have the potential to be such an amazing person, kind, warm, friendly, sensitive, caring, and i am sure a zillion other attributes that i missed. and yet, they haven't reached their potential yet. i know what they have within them, i've seen it over and over and over again. i've seen people they've touched and i've seen hints of what they have inside of them (no matter how well they keep it hidden). but i've also seen them do things without thinking, things that might be considered cruel or rude or insensitive. this makes me wonder... i see the potential for so much good that they have, but i also see it going to waste sometimes. not always, they still do great stuff, but little things they do here and there make me wonder why when they have so much good inside, they choose to ignore it and do things that might have a negative impact on people. and so it makes me wonder what happens to all that untapped potential... will my friend ever reach in and find it and become the person that they could become? or do i watch them interact with others (and occasionally myself) in a way that might be considered negatively until it affects me in such a way that i can no longer ignore the fact that though the potential is there, it is unused?
i guess what i am trying to say is that there is so much good in this world, and i don't understand why people either don't see, or choose not to use, it. why be mean or hurtful when instead you can bolster someone's esteem and happiness? anyways, just food for thought... happy weekend! ciao...