after being really moody and irritable yesterday, today has been a better day. i don't know if it's because i'm under the influence of caffeine, or pms hormones, or even a fire and christmas lights. but i feel more optimistic and more full of gratitude today.

i woke up at 10:30 and have done not much besides stoke the fire and sit on the couch with spike, eating toast and sipping juice and coffee and reading. and it is so nice to do nothing else. not that i did a whole lot up north, but just because there is nothing more pressing on my mind than slicing bananas for the dehydrator and getting more firewood. the house is quiet except for my sniffly nose and the loud computer. and i am thankful that there are no loud honks from the freeway bridge and no constant roar of car motors.

besides the endless comparison between south and north, i came over to sit down at my computer and got caught up watching my screensaver, which is a slideshow of all the photos on here. and being in my slightly-holiday, slightly-warm, slightly-half-full mood, i saw so many good times i had forgotten about or simply put out of my head. they are full of people i've loved in my (short) lifetime, and places too, like the high school and band trips. even though i don't talk to most of them much anymore, foreign kids and old friends mostly, i'm still happy for the chance that i had to get to know them and i know the ties will always be there if i find them again.
lately it has become very apparent to me that i have not regained the sense of consistency and mindfulness i had reached over the summer. while being home i've noticed--since there is nothing like coming back to a place unchanged to find the ways in which you yourself have altered, thanks to ghandi or somebody--that i have trouble focusing on one thing, and one thing only. there is always something going on in the background, and my attention is divided. i have gotten worse at breathing and concentrating on something in particular, giving my whole energy to noticing things. also i've realized that my dreams again seem far away and distant, mostly those of traveling and living far away. sometimes i like to think i'd love to pick up and disappear somewhere, cut off everything here, and if it weren't for melissa i think i'd be able to do that. she's the only one i'm deep enough tied to that i couldn't bear losing, since everyone else and i go for days or weeks without talking; me and liss can hardly last a full twenty-four hours. anyway, although the ghosts of these dreams still wander around faintly in my head, i've lost the hunger and the need i felt for them, and for writing, and for reading and the arts. there are echoes but shadows are nothing like the real thing. and today while reading and staring at my christmas tree and the warm yellow light of my house, so unlike the flourescent energy-saving lights of university, i felt the pull of the wanderlust again. and it was amazing! in my book they talked of riding horses on a journey, and it would take days and weeks.. and i thought of just taking up and walking off in one direction until i reach something, somewhere. even though it feels like we know the whole world, vicariously, there is so much to uncover. and i wanted to hop on a flight to some foreign country and taste foreign spices and see foreign faces, but i want to go somewhere that is unAmerican, unconsumered, or at least remembers the values of hard work and the human heart and not profit. like a giant farm. and i can spend my days milking cows and tending a garden. because life is simple.

even though i've never really wanted to do those things, farm things, ever, being home and in seattle has made me appreciate the country more than ever. at least, if not the country, the notcity. and i would gladly take working on a farm over working in a corporate office.
so even though the superficialities of financial success wind their way sneakily into my head sometimes, all i need is a few days out of the world to refresh my mind and bring me back home. not to tenino, but home to the place inside myself that feels right, that i know is what i am for. that i fear slips between my fingers as i am stacked with homework and roommates and social life and dying to make myself a place. if only i could bring this inner peace with me back up there more easily, without having to fight for it daily.

however, amid all the fights, i am eternally grateful to even get the chance to go to college. if i didn't i would probably starve from lack of information. and the fact that i get to choose, between two, is crazy. so now i am off to enjoy the fruits of my labor--dried bananas and chocolate chip cookies and a warm fire. thank goodness for the holidays.

life-altering decisions!

Soooo...

My visit to PLU yesterday was very eye-opening.

As soon as I got there it felt natural. I think it was the trees. But everything was scaled down a hundreth of a percent, and it was good.

It was quiet, and a little bit secluded. Which is such a change from up here. And all the people.. all the people were so friendly and relaxed, and normal. open and happy. Up here everyone is so uptight and on guard, and everyone walks around with these walls up that it takes so much to break through. I felt good down there, better than I have since I've been at UW.

What's important to me is not the prestige, the name of the place.. I can't put my finger on what it's not. But what it is, is the people and the environment. I would rather go to a small school, less famous, with less "cool" people, and be happy than be somewhere with so many opportunities, etc. I don't know, I can't explain it. But my world depends on the people in it, and this just doesn't suffice for me.

Since I am eternally optimistic, I don't usually say I don't like something unless I REALLY don't like it, i.e, needles or public speaking. but if I were to put down that bar for a moment and let myself admit it, I don't really like it here. If Maggie can say she hates it, I can say it. I was just never allowed, by me or mom, to say things like that, so I'm not used to it.. but it feels better to say that! I hate it here too. In all honesty.It's just probably my least favorite of anything I'd imagined.. It's cold--both the environment and the people, there's too much cement and too many tall buildings.. it gives me a headache and a stomachache.

I like Kelsey and I like Jon and Alena.. but they just don't do it for me really
What occured to me today and kind of hammered it in a little more is, how I always told myself I would never be the type of person stuck in the rut. Look at cities.. they're full of people with their eyes to the sidewalk, forgetting everything peripheral, focused only on the task at hand-work or school. And I always always always promised myself I would never ever get caught in something I was only doing because it was what was expected, by society, whomever; I refused to be stuck somewhere I was unhappy and just going through the motions. But here I am, doing things because it's what I'm "supposed" to do...

Well I am unhappy and I am going through the motions. I'm not super unhappy.. i'm not depressed (yet) but I am definitely not happy and definitely not flourishing.

I want somewhere where I can go and feel at home and grow and flourish. That's very important to me. And it's not happening here! And I guess I'm just not a big city-type person; if small and intimate is what it takes for me then that's what I want.

Also because, it made me sad to look back at the fork in the road and wonder what I would be like if I had gone to PLU. Because I really really wanted to, it was just Alaska that made me not apply, because I had my heart set on that. And I wonder how things would have gone. Because I can tell who I am slowly becoming, the subtle differences taking place, because I know I would have reacted differently to some things yesterday had I not been becoming conditioned to the ways of Seattle life. I just don't like who I am shaping into right now, I don't like the automatic habits I can't help because it's what everyone else does--like judging people, treating them the way they treat me. It's the little things--smiling on the sidewalk, eye contact. I don't do it, I'm not as comfortable doing those things anymore because every time I do up here I get a wierd reaction. It sucks.

When I told Tunny about it, he says, "College is what you make it, it's only good if you make it good." I have been trying, I've been giving it my all, and I'm fading into gray bit by bit and I don't want to be gray! I want to be bursting with color. My point is, he has a point, it is what you make it, but you can only make it so good.

At the same time I wouldn't have changed this, I don't think, unless I was able to go back in time and I had known it would end up like this. Because if I went off to PLU right off the bat, and had gotten in to UW but never tried, I know I would have wondered for years what would have happened if I'd come to UW. So I came, I did, I attempted, and I discovered it's not for me. It's only been a little over a month but my guts tell me not much will change. One of those things you just kind of know. I'm sad.

But I have a year to decide. Things may change. I can apply, and wait, and see how much finaid they offer me, and see if things get better.

But then again, thinking of four more years.. I don't know if I can handle it. I feel so lost in a sea of faces here, not just in the academic system but in life in general. And I don't like it. I feel sad, and like I am letting someone down (me? my mom? tony? i don't know) but if I could go somewhere else and be happy, shouldn't I be allowed that basic right? I mean, shouldn't I allow myself that? Seeing as this is something very important to me, being happy and being at college.

Who knows. I can be patient and not make decisions now, just see how things go. Maybe I should talk to Mrs. Benek.