So, I've arrived at college.
Yes, it is kind of freaky, I must admit. I'm completely moved in, and everything looks pretty good, I must say. The only negative part of the environment is that my parents (and I) bought two large pieces of carpeting from this vendor who was selling rugs for dorms, and we lugged them into the room and set everything up.
I personally thought it was really nice (a wonderful change from Brown's sticky, cold, disgusting gray floors, in my opinion) but my roommate seems to be really displeased, saying "It'll be hell to clean," "I thought you were just getting an area rug..." and "Why don't we remove the rug when it starts to get warm again in Spring?"
So that kind of ruined my mood (and generosity, since my family was the one who payed for it!) But oh well. I like it. She can deal with it. The room looks pretty good, anyway.
I'm in two minds about the whole moving away from home thing. At first I was extremely excited to be studying away from home, living in the US again, and being independent. But now I feel extremely... odd. A feeling of loneliness is surreptitiously creeping up on me. I kind of miss my parents being around, hanging out with them, listening to poppy make dinner and listen to the news, talking with him about some random political issue I'm not interested in but that I talk with him about anyway because he likes it. I miss being able to cook food for myself, to wander around the house freely, and sit outside reading while having lunch.
I have a feeling I'll soon be annoyed with constantly being with other people. I am a very solitary person, really, so this should be a change. Random teens walking around the hallways, walking into our room, talking to my roommate J, etc etc. I'm used to living only with adults. The only teens I spent time with where my friends at school or at horse riding.
I also miss the luxuries of home - my own room and bathroom. The latter being clean, luxurious with nice soap, towels, perfumes; a space that was my own and which I could leave my stuff in - now I have to learn to live in a place that is not mine, that I do not own.
Anyway. I have to go to some mandatory meeting for my unit about alcohol and whatnot. So I leave you there.
I just hope the loneliness recedes and the joy of learning and being with new friends comes forth to replace it.
Showing posts with label college. Show all posts
Showing posts with label college. Show all posts
Sunday, August 29, 2010
Friday, July 30, 2010
Summer reading list
Okay, this post is going to be slightly different from the rest in the fact that it won't be eating-disorder related. Buuut, this summer I'm basically spending jogging, reading, and preparing for college, so I thought I'd let you know my literature of choice.
1. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
Read. An amazing, amazing book. People are generally dissuaded by its length, but in fact it is written in 8 parts, and each part is made up of about 30 very short chapters (I'm talking 2 or 3 pages.) So it is completely feasible. I thought I would begin it for pleasure and never finish it, but I did, and in less than two months!
2. A room of one's own - Virginia Woolf
I'm actually nearly done with this, and quite liking it. She makes some interesting points about the nature of sexual discrimination, and made me consider female rights and feminism in a new light. Kudos for Woolf!
3. Macbeth - Shakespeare
A classic, what can I say? I loved studying Hamlet this year, so hopefully I'll rediscover that with Macbeth.
4. The Waves - Virginia Woolf
I actually started reading this during the school year. It's in the stream of consciousness style, and I quite liked it. However, her prose doesn't seem to be very well glued together - it rather lacks structure, and even seems rather nebulous at times. It's certainly innovative in terms of style and structure. But I liked what I read, so I'd like t finish it this summer.
5. Carpe Diem Put a little Latin in your life - Harry Mount
My uncle gave this to me, long ago. It seems like a humorous, light read, but interesting in terms of etymologies of our current vocabulary. I absolutely adore words, so this should be interesting.
6. Le Père Goriot - Balzac
Okay, I admit it, I probably won't get to this, but it's on my bookshelf, and I know I should read it, as it is a classic.
7. The Brothers Karamazov - Dostoevsky
I'm actually taking a course on this next fall at Brown. I thought it would be good to have already read it, but when I saw on amazon that it was over 1000 pages, I must admit, I winced.
8. The Dew Breaker - Edwidge Danticat
I actually had to read this for Brown, and write a letter to my advisor about it. It was good, I suppose. Not a favorite, though.
So, that's my "schedule" for the summer!
Oh, and I know this post is not eating-disorder related, but I thought I'd share a quote with you I forgot to put in my last post.
"One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well." Virginia Woolf, A Room of One's Own.
1. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
Read. An amazing, amazing book. People are generally dissuaded by its length, but in fact it is written in 8 parts, and each part is made up of about 30 very short chapters (I'm talking 2 or 3 pages.) So it is completely feasible. I thought I would begin it for pleasure and never finish it, but I did, and in less than two months!
2. A room of one's own - Virginia Woolf
I'm actually nearly done with this, and quite liking it. She makes some interesting points about the nature of sexual discrimination, and made me consider female rights and feminism in a new light. Kudos for Woolf!
3. Macbeth - Shakespeare
A classic, what can I say? I loved studying Hamlet this year, so hopefully I'll rediscover that with Macbeth.
4. The Waves - Virginia Woolf
I actually started reading this during the school year. It's in the stream of consciousness style, and I quite liked it. However, her prose doesn't seem to be very well glued together - it rather lacks structure, and even seems rather nebulous at times. It's certainly innovative in terms of style and structure. But I liked what I read, so I'd like t finish it this summer.
5. Carpe Diem Put a little Latin in your life - Harry Mount
My uncle gave this to me, long ago. It seems like a humorous, light read, but interesting in terms of etymologies of our current vocabulary. I absolutely adore words, so this should be interesting.
6. Le Père Goriot - Balzac
Okay, I admit it, I probably won't get to this, but it's on my bookshelf, and I know I should read it, as it is a classic.
7. The Brothers Karamazov - Dostoevsky
I'm actually taking a course on this next fall at Brown. I thought it would be good to have already read it, but when I saw on amazon that it was over 1000 pages, I must admit, I winced.
8. The Dew Breaker - Edwidge Danticat
I actually had to read this for Brown, and write a letter to my advisor about it. It was good, I suppose. Not a favorite, though.
So, that's my "schedule" for the summer!
Oh, and I know this post is not eating-disorder related, but I thought I'd share a quote with you I forgot to put in my last post.
"One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well." Virginia Woolf, A Room of One's Own.
Saturday, July 24, 2010
Letter to my adviser, lack of motivation, guilt, loneliness
Hmm... It's been a while since I last wrote an entry here, but I've finally gotten around to it. Sound noble, magnanimous, and selfless? Unfortunately, no. The reason I'm writing is because I'm actually feeling rather low - as in the hollow, mid-afternoon low, not severe depression.
I've come back to the States, and so my life in France is officially over. No hard feelings about that, though. Maybe it just hasn't quite sunk in yet.
The reason for my blues is that I'm supposed to be writing a letter to my to-be adviser at college, based on "The Dew Breaker," a book we were meant to read this summer, which was to serve as a starting point to introducing ourselves, our interests, our academic goals, etc. Well, obviously I've read the book, and I've actually written out a fair amount of notes about it, but my perfectionist nature is interfering with me actually furthering my work on it. I've started composing, but I'm getting all obsessional, reading and rereading the different instructions they've published in various locations on the university website, in their e-mails, their letters, blah blah blah. And the frustrating thing is that each set of "instructions" for the letter is different. So, I feel rather uncertain about whether the letter should be a reaction to the book, an analysis to give us conceptual and philosophical material to discuss upon our meeting, or more of a quick critical analysis of an interesting aspect of the book before making a quick link to myself and expounding on who I am, and what I want to do.
Ugghhh, this is frustrating!
Oh well. The other annoying thing is that I view this as an important task at hand which I really HAVE to do, and it's causing me stress and guilt for not having yet accomplished it. I'm experiencing similar feelings to those I had in June, when I was meant to be revising for the BAC, but was feeling exhaustion and extreme lack of motivation, and thus ensuing guilt.
Part b of this is that, though this is summer, I feel I must accomplish this task, and cannot do anything else (read: anything pleasurable) until I've accomplished it. Sooooo, I'm sitting here, at the desk in my dim little attic room, suffering self-inflicted isolation and penitence, combined with temptation and deprivation. I just... feel lonely. Whenever I'm at work on my homework, my parents feel like I need to be left alone - or at least my mother does. I've told her, many times, that no, I do not need to be abandoned in a corner to slog away at the unpleasant task at hand. But she just doesn't seem to get it. In any case, it's times like this, when I have a lot of work, that I feel the most alone. My parents "leave me be," with a feeling of self-righteousness, as though they are accomplishing a difficult, heroic task, and I, in my solitary confine, find myself in an dark void, unsupported and unloved, with nothing to occupy my time with but unending toil.
To alleviate the solitude, I try to garner some sense of closeness to other human beings, and stretch out my soul on youtube, watching various people's vlogs, as they talk about themselves, their day, yada yada. It helps fill the emptiness. I also do research, on EDs, on college courses, etc, etc.
However, the downfall of the emptiness and this subsequent coping device is that I lose my time in what others would deem "procrastination." But it's not even procrastination! It's a feeble attempt to make myself feel less alone. Nevertheless, I spend much less time working on what I should be doing, and my feeling of lack of motivation and depression escalate until they reach dangerous levels.
But all the while, my parents blithely go through their day, lost in their own little world, as though I don't exist and they really don't care about me.
It's a horrific cycle, really, and I don't know what to do about it.
I think I'll try to go back to my letter to my adviser, now. I'm not even going to reread this, because I always cringe when I reread my writing, or the expression of my emotions. Sooo, sorry if there are any terrible typos or wonky sentences.
Ta ta for now!
I've come back to the States, and so my life in France is officially over. No hard feelings about that, though. Maybe it just hasn't quite sunk in yet.
The reason for my blues is that I'm supposed to be writing a letter to my to-be adviser at college, based on "The Dew Breaker," a book we were meant to read this summer, which was to serve as a starting point to introducing ourselves, our interests, our academic goals, etc. Well, obviously I've read the book, and I've actually written out a fair amount of notes about it, but my perfectionist nature is interfering with me actually furthering my work on it. I've started composing, but I'm getting all obsessional, reading and rereading the different instructions they've published in various locations on the university website, in their e-mails, their letters, blah blah blah. And the frustrating thing is that each set of "instructions" for the letter is different. So, I feel rather uncertain about whether the letter should be a reaction to the book, an analysis to give us conceptual and philosophical material to discuss upon our meeting, or more of a quick critical analysis of an interesting aspect of the book before making a quick link to myself and expounding on who I am, and what I want to do.
Ugghhh, this is frustrating!
Oh well. The other annoying thing is that I view this as an important task at hand which I really HAVE to do, and it's causing me stress and guilt for not having yet accomplished it. I'm experiencing similar feelings to those I had in June, when I was meant to be revising for the BAC, but was feeling exhaustion and extreme lack of motivation, and thus ensuing guilt.
Part b of this is that, though this is summer, I feel I must accomplish this task, and cannot do anything else (read: anything pleasurable) until I've accomplished it. Sooooo, I'm sitting here, at the desk in my dim little attic room, suffering self-inflicted isolation and penitence, combined with temptation and deprivation. I just... feel lonely. Whenever I'm at work on my homework, my parents feel like I need to be left alone - or at least my mother does. I've told her, many times, that no, I do not need to be abandoned in a corner to slog away at the unpleasant task at hand. But she just doesn't seem to get it. In any case, it's times like this, when I have a lot of work, that I feel the most alone. My parents "leave me be," with a feeling of self-righteousness, as though they are accomplishing a difficult, heroic task, and I, in my solitary confine, find myself in an dark void, unsupported and unloved, with nothing to occupy my time with but unending toil.
To alleviate the solitude, I try to garner some sense of closeness to other human beings, and stretch out my soul on youtube, watching various people's vlogs, as they talk about themselves, their day, yada yada. It helps fill the emptiness. I also do research, on EDs, on college courses, etc, etc.
However, the downfall of the emptiness and this subsequent coping device is that I lose my time in what others would deem "procrastination." But it's not even procrastination! It's a feeble attempt to make myself feel less alone. Nevertheless, I spend much less time working on what I should be doing, and my feeling of lack of motivation and depression escalate until they reach dangerous levels.
But all the while, my parents blithely go through their day, lost in their own little world, as though I don't exist and they really don't care about me.
It's a horrific cycle, really, and I don't know what to do about it.
I think I'll try to go back to my letter to my adviser, now. I'm not even going to reread this, because I always cringe when I reread my writing, or the expression of my emotions. Sooo, sorry if there are any terrible typos or wonky sentences.
Ta ta for now!
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Introduction
How to begin?
I started this blog for a few reasons. First of all, it's summer vacation, and I finally have time to actually write and do things for myself. Secondly, I'm trying to recover from anorexia, and figured that a blog would be a cathartic and therapeutic way for me to express my emotions, to process what I'm going through, and hopefully to reach out to others and help them either through support in their eating disorder, or to help prevent potential anorexics from developing this terrible disease.
Other than my eating disorders, I'll probably be writing about college - which I'm starting in Fall! - my various passions for art, writing, literature, and Asian culture.
So... Yeah. I just wanted to make it clear what this blog will be about, and encourage people to comment or send me a message if they so desire!
I started this blog for a few reasons. First of all, it's summer vacation, and I finally have time to actually write and do things for myself. Secondly, I'm trying to recover from anorexia, and figured that a blog would be a cathartic and therapeutic way for me to express my emotions, to process what I'm going through, and hopefully to reach out to others and help them either through support in their eating disorder, or to help prevent potential anorexics from developing this terrible disease.
Other than my eating disorders, I'll probably be writing about college - which I'm starting in Fall! - my various passions for art, writing, literature, and Asian culture.
So... Yeah. I just wanted to make it clear what this blog will be about, and encourage people to comment or send me a message if they so desire!
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