So Much For Not Being Fazed

It is amazing how a combination of three words can have such effects.
For example:
"I love you"
"I hate you"
"I am sorry"
"You are nothing" or...

"In a relationship"

It is even more amazing how much it matters when that last one is posted on myspace.

This is what I get for aimlessly surfing the web.
Gotta stop that.

Dear Greater Power

There are many times in life when I stress out over situations which I have no control. So unnecessary...

This is one of those times. However, instead of freaking out, I'm going to really leave it up to you. I'm trusting you to guide me and hopefully my reward will be serenity, sleep, and comfort. I want to ask for success, perfection, but I feel like those are so relative. So I'll just say...please make this a smooth one.

I'm young, I have no roots, and I could technically do anything and go anywhere. But you know best so I'll stay patient.

So many options, or is that just an illusion?

Anyway, I'm going to get some rest and write an awesome and convincing letter. That is pretty much all I can do. The rest...is up to you.

Signed,
"anxious" but "faithful"

Michelle

Fire and Ice

Some say the world will end in fire;
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To know that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

~ R. Frost

Goodbye is Not in My Vocabulary

Especially...when it comes to my trusted sanctuary: the gym.

There are so many things I like about the Pottruck Gym. Besides the obvious. I mean it's easy for an exercise fanatic to fall in love with a 5 tiered building dedicated to quenching their passion for calorie expenditure and tone perfection. Even on the most crowded days during the semester, one can trust to get a machine without enduring a horrendous 20 minute wait.

I first discovered the wonders of Pottruck second semester of my freshman year. I had been going on and off with my roomate first semester, but the loyalty never came until later. For whatever reason, I decided that I wanted to start a strict exercise regime. My determination started with 30 minutes a day on the treadmill, five days a week. Although I saw other machines, quite frankly they confused and intimidated me. I didn't know how to use a lot of them, and the ellipticals seemed downright dangerous. Still, gradually, I began to familiarize myself with the other instruments of weight loss gratification. Like any good trader or financial advisor, I knew the importance of diversifying my portfolio. I would switch it up, going from treadmill to elliptical and sometimes if I felt daring enough, even the rowing machine. Nowadays I am no stranger to weights, balance balls (or whatever they're called), and any other machines that might have been strange and exotic in my novice days.

As for the atmosphere of pottruck, well let's just say that there isn't much to be coveted when it comes to the surroundings of a gym. The combination of smelling sweat and listening to grunts from men who clearly are giving themselves a hernia from lifting too heavy was not a pleasant accompaniment. Still to me, Pottruck was home. It was something I never failed. I sucked at studying, I sucked at maintaining relationships with people, attending class, punctuality, etc etc but I never sucked at Pottruck. Even when I was dating someone, I never neglected my hourly trips to the gym. Mock my entry, my ode to Pottruck gym if you will, but for one moment consider my sincerity. College was a never ending series of experiences for me, some pleasant, some just downright nasty. There wasn't one semester where I wasn't changing my major, my ideals, my friends, my roomates, my habits, or most importantly myself. Whether these changes were for the better, that's not important right now. But there comes a point in everyone's (and I mean EVERYONE) life when we crave for some degree of stability. I'm not sure if stability is actually the most appropriate in this sense but maybe consistency? Even for those personalities that crave change...but unknowest to everyone, there is consistency in CONSTANTLY craving change. Anyway, my point was that life is about growth, new experiences, and new lessons. These have a way of sneaking up on us in the most unexpected and sometimes even most unpleasant manner. People counterbalance this effect by searching for sanctuary, some kind of a security blanket they know they can trust and rely on to always be there. For me, pottruck was my sanity against a tulmultuous and capricious college life. It was where I sought shelter when the growing pains kicked in. And like a true friend that's being paid for its services, it never failed me.


For some reason, and call me mad, but my college diploma has been sitting on my desk for weeks and it just hit me on Tuesday, August 15th, when they informed me that my penn ID would no longer swipe for the gym, that I realized my days as a carefree and obnoxious undergraduate are over.

To Be Free...Like the Wind

" - You and I are just pawns on a chessboard.

  Nobody cares if we live or die.

  Let's go away together and roam the world, as free as the wind.

  We'll wander around alone.

  Come and go without a trace,

 - Like a playful wind?

  - No, a carefree wind.

  Just you and me."


A rare beauty in the North. 

She's the finest lady on earth. 

A glance from her,
the whole city goes down. 

A second glance leaves
the nation in ruins. 

There exists no city or nation
that has been more cherished
than a beauty like this.

See Saw

It is a common fact that when one area of your life starts looking up, surely another will come tumbling down. I feel like I am being forced to regulate one of those see-saws at the playground, against my will. Unlike the simplicity of the seesaw however, there are more than two ends, there are like 2540239423098230823034982304. On each of those ends sits an important area of my life, love life, career, family, finances...to name a few of the heavy weights.

And just when you think you have begun to regulate some of these heavy weights...out of nowhere "personal finances" starts to plummet. And to illustrate my point, here is something bitterly amusing that probably won't stay up for long because anyone could be reading this right now (curse you modern technology):

"You are welcome Michelle - glad that it was an easy flow for you!
Regarding the receipts you mention below... I'm sorry but we will not reimburse you for your trip expenses - it's not a part of our procedure.

Thanks,
Diana "

This letter from a big evil corporation that will remain anonymous until I get angry enough to disclose them (ahem you probably hold one of their cards in your wallet, it's NOT accepted everywhere like visa but it IS pretty), was enough to destroy the cheeriness that I had been building up for myself all weekend. Clearly you get the gist from my entries that it's been a rough summer. I decided that at least I would not let the summer end this way, I don't want to remember the summer after my college graduation as the summer that blew. So I decided to plan a trip, I like planning (the mere thought of planning something like this gets me excited) and I like trips (even if it has to be by myself, fine, it's time for a solo trip anyway). So, I don't know what I would do but it involves driving and seeing new sights. As you can see, there is a lot of planning that needs to be done. But now, thanks to EVIL and Diana, I can put the pen down, I can stare at an empty piece of white paper and I can watch my trip plans escape down the drain. I worked a double today, 12 hours, I can't even feel my legs anymore. I probably made at best 60 dollars...not enough to pay for my interview trip. Money is hard to come by, but not for BIG EVIL CORPORATION. If they had told me that was their policy before the interview...then I would have booked the Chinatown bus, not Amtrak. I would have perhaps not even bothered going. Not to mention the opportunity cost of missing work that day for this interview...another 60 dollars. Now I'm down 120 dollars, and just down period.

There will be no trip. In fact right at this moment, I can think of maybe one person I can call up and get consolation from but it's too late at night. I am short in money, I am short in company, I am short in optimism. What else could possibly go wrong, because I fucking would like it to happen now...all at once...get it over with. So that I can start having a change of luck. My summer is really going to end with me realizing that I am better off living with cats and clinging onto my parents because nobody else seems to really give a shit. The worst thing of all is that I'm gonna wake up tomorrow, and somehow cheer myself up. And when I become stupidly optimistic again, this anger and depression will be completely forgotten, because that's the way I am. To everyone that knows me, I am happy, in fact I have been known to be able to cheer others up. That's why everyone's going to abandon me for someone "REALLY DEPRESSED," someone that REALLY deserves the attention. My greatest gift has also become my greatest curse.

So to recap, aka READ HERE FOR THE CLIFFSNOTES VERSION of my whine and ramble:
I am angry because 1) Big evil corporations like this one can clearly afford to reimburse me for my travel expenses 2) I could have looked at cheapertravel alternatives had I known of such a heinous possibility 3) for the first time this summer, I was really looking forward to something (a future event that involves me flying solo), that something being this nonexistent trip. 4) I cannot picure anyone I can call right now, that anyone being someone who would listen to my pathetic sobfest and still feel sympathy, and lend me a shoulder or at least a concerned sigh.

At least when I recover and become ignorantly blissful again, I will have this entry to remind me that I need to start looking into some talkng cats or something.

Nothing

I'm done with this.

Edit: I wasn't referring to you blogger.