Tell me what to do

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 Just tell me. I’ll do it. I’ll make it work. But tell me, what do I do? 

You don’t get a lot of orientation in college. You get a lot of reading. And you get a lot of freedom. But no guidance. In High school I felt like I was one of those baby turtles just hatched desperately trying to make it to the sea. Yet I rarely pondered on what kind of logic sees the beach as safer than the vast ocean; I was just so intent on getting to college. Now, already in it, I feel like I’m a baby turtle again, but there is no clear path anymore, no “just make it to the sea”.

      Before it was so easy, just make it to the sea and you’ll be fine. But now, the matter gets trickier. It seems like the premise has changed. Now it is, “just (blank) (blakblankblank), oh and (blank) and you’ll make it”. Like one of those  free response questions where you have so many choices that you just panic. Can you just give me the topic please? Can you just tell me what to do?

      And yet, despite the many mistakes I made this semester in account to my freedom, I’m happy. It is hard to live in ambiguity, with the vast ocean in front of you and all its sublime essence just making you tremble to your bones. But it’s worth it…oh it’s so worth it.I still need people to tell me what to do ( at times) but mostly I do stuff for myself. I see the blank page and start drawing, I see the ocean and just swim.

As long as we have Snow

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I used to believe things happened for a reason. I used to believe that in every action, there was a divine, magical, ethereal purpose within. I used to believe that there were little people living in the radio and I used to believe I had magical powers because if I squinted, the top of my nose would turn invisible. I believed in Santa. And in the Atlantis. And in snow. Yes, snow. I had to believe in it cause I’d never seen it for myself. To clarify: No, I’m not from Canada. And yes, I had never seen snow. Well, actually that’s kind of inaccurate, I had seen snow, I was just too small to remember and so, it didn’t really count.

      Anyways

So, I wake up on Friday at like 7:30 am ( I know I’m a creep but I go for a swim every morning so that’s kind of necessary) and I peek through my window and I see white. And I freak out. White/Window? I don’t see the correlation ( this is me at 7:30 am after sleeping at like 2 am…don’t ask me why) and then it strikes me ( all of this within a like 2 second time period…I’m not that slow) …It’s SNOW. Snow? Snow! With a capital S. I felt like someone just come out of a Charles Dickens novel I swear. I got ready as quickly as I could, woke up my whole floor ( yes …the WHOLE floor…but I live on basement so we’re kind of like what …8 people?) and we all went outside to play with the snow. It was EPIC. I felt transported back to my childhood. It all came back to me. Maybe things do happen for a reason, maybe there is a divine sense to anything and everything we touch. Maybe…well I think believing I have magical powers is kind of a stretch, but definitely now, I can say, I do believe in snow. So,  you know, who needs Paris? it will all be good as long as we have snow.

Feelin' fly with snow

Slow but Steady- Day of the Longboat

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I know it’s been years since we had longboat but I came across my team’s picture and I remembered that I needed to post something regarding the event since the lovely blogsquad management team sponsored my participation. Easy enough. I can sum the whole experience up in a compelling statement: We didn’t come last. We didn’t, I swear. Now, just to give you a clear idea as to why it is that this factual, accurate and foremost TRUE statement (I have proof) is so relevant to my experience in longboat I will just tell you that I have never rowed in my life, nor have I ever been know for having great upper arm strength. Not to say that my team wasn’t athletic, or that we weren’t physically fit, it is just that, next to the people who actually do this for a sport, we looked pretty feeble and our focus shifted from winning to not being last.

Yet, when we were finally on the water, with the adrenaline of competition running through our lungs, inexperienced as we were, we pulled through. Nine girls and the water. And we did it. It was sublime. It lasted 20 minutes, maybe less, but I felt like I was just coming out of an odyssey, victorious and grand. I’m not going to say we were the fastest, nor the strongest, nor the best prepared, but we pulled through. Slow but steady. And we didn’t come last. We didn’t win, but we didn’t come last.

Getting ready for the water

This might not strike you as a story worth telling, since I cannot provide with the crowd pleaser ending of a victorious first place. But still, to me, when finally reaching land, together with my team, and looking back to the ocean behind me, I felt like I had conquered something greater than the ocean, something more transcendental than victory, I had conquered myself.

I think this picture is pretty self explanatory ( yes, it's me and my team)

  P.S. we did get to the second round