Last semester, my schedule could have driven anyone insane. Sometimes, you do just have to learn the hard way. This post will be more personal than what I normally put on my blog, because I typically hide behind the bigger ideas (of what I think and what I learn about society and science and the … Continue reading First Semester College: An Honest Assessment
All successful companies and people have mission statements. They have something that drives them onward to accomplish what they do. An internal motivation and integrity which stays constant no matter the mood or situation. Here's mine. During "Family Group" this week, we did an activity for about twenty minutes where we reflected upon the question … Continue reading Realignment: What’s My Why? a Mission Statement
Welcome to the last week of the first month of 2017! If you have kept your resolution till now, chances are you will keep it, as 3 weeks is long enough for new habits to form. If so, congratulations! My deepest sympathies for you. If you didn't keep your resolution, that's okay. All you need … Continue reading Why I’m Ditching the Resolutions This Year
Has it really been a month? A whole month? How insane. (Excuse me, while I kiss the sky.) We arrived safely in Boston on August 23rd. After renting a car from Logan International Airport, we got to our hotel without further incident. The next day International Orientation began for new students: we attended welcome breakfast … Continue reading Counting My Blessings: One Month into Wellesley College
Today is special because it is a celebration of growing up. It’s a day of thankfulness and gratitude, to my parents, to life, and to knowledge. Today I am publishing this because I have spent eighteen years in the universe that we call existence. Sometimes I look around and wonder, what sort of world is this that my parents … Continue reading Thoughts on Turning 18
I'm sorry that I'm crying, it's just that I'm so happy to be here right now. Tomorrow is orientation at Wellesley College. I think it's important to pause once in a while to look back, as cliche as the premise of this post is. Roughly a year ago, I picked up The Lord of the … Continue reading One Day More: A Brief Reflection on the Past Year
For many former and current high-schoolers, this week has been a highly anticipated revealing, a moment of truth. There have been disappointments, there have been surprises, and there have been satisfied and gloomy ejaculations of these words: "I knew it!" But at this point, the numbers don't really matter anymore. It's all behind us - … Continue reading Repeat after me: “I am more than a number.”
Hooray! If you’re reading this, then it means that my efforts of beginning a blog have begun to take fruit. I have procrastinated creating my website and writing my first posts because frankly, I was scared. Staying where you always have been is so easy. I was scared of what others might think of me spilling a corner of my brain into text on a daily basis. At the same time, I was scared of what would happen if absolutely nobody read it (still a fear of mine) and I was scared that it would be a waste of my time. So. At this stage in my life, I can take advantage of obscurity. I can use my ignorance and naïveté to my benefit. I still think that anything is possible (but not everything - there's a difference) for me. The uncharted waters of knowledge are infinite for me. I can take risks and fail again and again with no reputation to lose. I have no insecurity but my ever-present ego, which is really nothing but self-dictated baggage. Well, five weeks and 46 posts in, I'm thinking, I'm glad I took the first step. Sure, I was stressed during exam week, but the few hours I could find to spare became super valuable for me. It was amazing how productive I could be when I knew that my time was limited. I loved exacting the transfer of a cloudy notion in my head into clear, specific words. I sure didn't know everything about blogging when I created my WordPress account a month ago. Heck, I still don't. But if anything, what I've learned about life is that you can, and sometimes you have to, continue, even if you don't think you have everything figured out at the stage you're at. Your seeker comes to find you whether you're ready or not. Exam weeks come whether you're ready or not. You graduate whether or not you think you're ready for the real world. Accept that you'll have to learn things as you go, otherwise you'll never start. Once that happens there's a certain feeling of peace.
Saul went blind for three days. When he opened his eyes again, nothing looked the same to him, literally and spiritually. With today's technology, when a previously visually handicapped person is given the ability to see for the first time, for the first few moments, they are absolutely amazed. They find it difficult to stop looking at the spectacle that we take for granted. Sometimes when I realize this, I wonder what it was really like for Saul when "something like scales fell from [his] eyes, and he could see again." I think that to him the colors would have seemed so vivid that he wouldn't have believed he never noticed them before. Saul undergoes a dramatic change in this chapter of the Acts, going from a persecutor of the disciples to being filled with the Holy Spirit. Like in Shakespeare's "King Lear", literal blindness leads to spiritual insight.
“I was within and without, simultaneously enchanted and repelled by the inexhaustible variety of life.” ― F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby As an INFJ, I have a difficult time staying in the present. My inferior function is Se, or extroverted Sensing, so sometimes I find myself detached from the moment and the finer details of my surroundings elude me. In instances like today, where four years' worth of students gather in a large room, that tends to happen. As humans, we tend to separate ourselves from the masses. (Teens enjoy saying: Nobody understands me! Adults admit to feeling lonely even among other people.) But we're actually more similar than we'd like to care to admit. At the same time, when we realize we're not so different, our distinctions tend to emerge. When this happens, every life, every face, seems, to me at least, to become much more precious. When I zone out, like Nick Carraway, I appreciate humanity more. Wait a minute - is that like saying, you enjoy the concert more when you shove earplugs into your ears? Not exactly. I think it's more like putting on a pair of glasses and seeing the world in a new tint. Sounds absurd to you? Never mind, that's just my thought of the day. ~Gloria
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People, places, guitar, songwriting, music production and a new found passion for writing about them.
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"Don’t worry about the bits you can’t understand. Sit back and allow the words to wash around you, like music.”- Roald Dahl, Matilda
