I arrived yesterday at around 4 pm, and met, coincidentally, just outside of the car, the President of my Dorm (I think he is a sophomore). He immediately called the House Team, consisting of the student fellows, which are the guys and gals that are in charge of a floor and the freshmen in it, and they helped me take all my stuff up. I think I took too much, but I’ll decide later on what to send back with my dad when he returns in late September. In five minutes, all my bags and boxes where in my floor, in teh common room, as I still didn’t have my key. Then, my student fellow gave me a quick tour of the facilities (pool table area, laundry room, kitchen, etc), before having to hurry off, as the Student Fellows and all sundry are having training. I feel like I’m looking at College’s equivalent of PGC, however, so I totally understand. (EEeh, I’m a freshgal again!) The Prez was a bit irritated that the International Services Group hadn’t told him that the Int’nl students where arriving yesterday and today, as it was scheduled exactly in their training period, so they can’t help us move in. It was very short at them, and he seems like a pretty awesome person, cool, calm, etc.

We then went to the main entrance to get my key, and they gave a bag with a few snacks that became my breakfast today: an apple and a granola bar with apple taste (it was really sweet, though). I went up to my dorm again, entered my room, and started taking photos of all the details of damage that they might charge me for at the end of the year (a tip an International gal gave me). Made my bed, set up my stereo, etc, etc, took a break to check my dad in, had dinner, settled in. It was really hard to go to sleep, it is so hot here. I have a fan, but even that isn’t enough, aaaaaaargh. Heat. Heat. Sweat. Sweltering. I even took a shower to go to sleep, but it didn’t help me so much.

Unfortunately, I discovered that one of my suitcases was desintegrating on the inside, so it’s lining was falling apart on my clothes ,so now they have this weird gunk on them. I’m going to do laundry today, get them clean, and while they wash, finish setting my room up. Fuuun. I am angry with the bag, which goes out to the trash, but now that I’ve had breakfast I should probably go shower and get dressed, it’s 10:30 am and I took a long time getting up. (Hard to sleep in the heat, hard to get up once you get to sleep.) I kicked off my sheet, too.

All in all, pretty good. I hopefully get to meet Austin later on, and other Int’nl students. Ciao!

[Edit] I can’t pay for the laundry yet with my card, but now my room is pretty clean, excluding a bit of am ess with my clothes (I put the ones that need to be washed in the hamper, though). I don’t know what to do of myself, now!

Amor, amor, tierra de paisajes escarpados, de un cielo que hala tu alma a la eternidad, de aire puro, de espacio cristalino, de formaciones de rocas que han sobrevivido siglos y se alargan y retorcen ante la mirada que le ofrecemos… es musica para mis ojos, arte para mis oidos, es…

es tierra y alma, es alma de tierra, y esta tierra es mi alma.

Perhaps those few lines were overtly corny, but nothing ever really captures how I feel about visiting Home and Family. Visiting La Paz is like entering a fantastic dream, and little details or a spare sound or smell can bring tears to my eyes. It is finally resting; it is putting my heavy bags down and realizing that I am home, that the people here love me, and that I belong. It makes my heart beat stronger, not just from the altitude, but from the pure joy. Why else am I always near tears when I first see the city spread out before me? It is all the more powerful because my home is beautiful.

What else can you say about the Illimani when the clouds part and let you gaze on the spirit that guards the city? Illimani is the mountain God, the Apu that looks after La Paz. It is at his faldas that we make our home. Can you deny the beauty of that bright sky? It is wide, wide and open, a wheeling expanse that is brighter, clearer, more pure than in any other city I have visited. The red earth, red earth, tierra patria, the colour and the shapes of the sierra behind the city are just… it’s magical to me. Nourishing.

Bolivia es mi corazon, oh no?

I dissapeared for a while. Sorry about that. At least, sorry for leaving you hanging.

I’m happy.

My dad keeps repeating to me that I’ve been paid the highest compliment I could have received. My mom tells me it is better than getting an award at school. And I am feeling so intensely lucky.

Thank you world.

Of the colleges that I applied to the following accepted me:

• Bard
• Bennington
• Bowdoin
• Middlebury
• Mt Holyoke
• Smith
• Vassar
• Williams

I was waitlisted at

• Swarthmore

My top three choices were

• Bard
• Vassar
• Mt Holyoke

And I visited

• Bard
• Vassar
• Mt Holyoke
• Williams
• Bowdoin

I took off Bowdoin because… it was so USAmerican. So typical. I could already feel myself constrained in it. Lovely college, good academic level, but… I want a more international, global place, where I can STRETCH. I took of Williams because it felt too… not conservative, but structured? I liked the free feeling of others. Mt Holyoke was lovely, but a bit WASPy to me, women’s only (and at times that is good, at times that is bad, but I decided that I wanted to flourish in a place with a fuller spectrum of gender), and didn’t give as much financial aid. The final choice between Vassar and Bard… was really hard. I still look at it and feel a bit unsettled at how hard it was.

I chose Vassar because I felt I could thrive there more. I loved Bard’s eccentricities, the “fringe” quality of it… but I also realized I would have a harder time fitting in, settling in. And I’m tired of having to work to do that, considering how my life has all been “survive and adapt” with each move. I will still do that, of course, but Vassar will let me be myself… without an expectation of going farther into the fringe, to be more wacky. While visiting Bard, I felt a bit like… there would be judgement on how mainstream you are. And that you would find people trying their best to reject everything that is accepted in “main”. Posing. In a sense. That is easily outweighed by the incredible people, the creative, the wacky, the crazy, the unique, the truly-honest-really-themselves-and-no-one-else-people, but…  I’m not so crazy. I love people who are crazy creative, crazy original. But I know, that in comparison, Vassar will help me more. I will spend less energy adapting, more energy in thriving. In creating. In learning.

Vassar is space. Vassar is opportunity. It’s top level education, it’s got amazing classmates, it has the beautiful campus, amazing facilities. It has the atmosphere of enjoyment, of freedom, of learning. It has the sense of a community. It feels… it feels like it could be home. It feels like I can live and be happy, learn and enjoy, study and grow. I feel that it will give me space to explore who I am, what I want to do, but be there next to me in case I start teteering at an edge. I feel it will let me choose my path, but will give me maps and guidelines, and give me the stones and help to build my own trace.

There is a reason why my favorite quote is “caminante, no ha camino, se hace camino al andar”… or “traveller, there is no path; you make your path as you walk.”

I’m happy with my choice. I’ve been talking to amazing people, to creative people, to the people that are going to be my friends and classmates and who will define the next four years of my life.

Estoy feliz. Orgullosa. Decidida.

Y puedo tocar el cielo

Gmail Chat with Anon, on Sunday Mar 22

me:

1:51 PM I’m disgustingly cheerful

1:52 PM So

jajajaja

JAJAHAHAJA

1:53 PM -sings “We Are The Champions” by Queen-

1:58 PM anonxeidrii: >D

WHY?

me: CU>

BECAUSE

I GOT INTO MT HOLYOKE

AND LIKE

I HAVE A SCHOLARSHIP

AND LIKE

I CAN TOUCH THE SKYYYYYYYYYYYYYY

anonxeidrii: >DDDDDDDDDDD YEEEAAAAAHHHHH

1:59 PM omg

THATS SO GREAT O__O

me: YAHAJAJAAAAAAAAAAA

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH

anonxeidrii: STJYTRTERTYETYRTKY

DRJ

IOH

HIOG

me: IT FEELS SO FUNKY

anonxeidrii: G’GUYTYSEYH

me: IT REALLY DOES

DID YOU KNOW TOUCHING THE SKY MAKES YOU HIGH?

anonxeidrii: xD all the crap pays off?!

HAHA

me: JAJA IT DOES

anonxeidrii: THE SKY IS MADE OF CRACK

me: THE SKY IS THE CRACK

2:00 PM OF ALL CRACKS

1. *shrieks* AAAAAAAAH I GOT INTO BARD COLLEGE! AAHH!! *screams* AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH =D
2. Universe, are you TRYING to make me extremely happy? Because it’s working.
3. I love you! I promise I’ll work my arse off to take advantage of all these opportunities! I’ll get started on my homework right now! = D <3
4. Ok, so I danced first, which half the time consisted of jumping up and down in time with the beat. But still!! JAJA

Ajajajaja I’m so happy = ´D      ;w;     TwT

Today, I was informed online that I had been accepted into Smith College. I learned that my friend -S- also got in.

I’m so happy. I’m so happy!! My dad was very proud! When I ran down to tell him, he made a funny motion with his fist and said “YES! I KNEW IT!” in Spanish.  He then just HAD to check all my other colleges, even if they won’t post the decision yet. <3 I’m really happy! My mom was happy but I had to tell her through chat. I think I’m making them proud = D

My dad says we might travel together during Semana Santa to visit my top 3 choices when I find out about all of my colleges. I’m both looking forwards to and terrified by it.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH! Like -S- says, “2 down, 7 to go”.

My dad came back from his business trip to Boston, which makes me a very, very happy kid. Additionally, he talked to a trustee of Mount Holyoke, who reassured him and through him me, that I’m probably going to have a good time getting into colleges. I certainly hope so.

My dad is baaaack *sings* I really missed him, especially since soon I’m going to have to go away to college, and well, I’m going to miss my family. He also got me some two shirts even though I didn’t ask him for any – I specified books, and maybe a pashmina, jajaja! He’s been amazing so far, no fights etc, and I’m just… overjoyed his back.

THE CRUX of this post, however, is the list of books my dad got on his trip! Here they are! I can’t wait to read them!

My Requests

He wasn’t able to get all of my requests, obviously, but he did amazingly well. I gave him two authors, a few specific recommendations from Mr. Pruzinksy, my English Teacher, and requested some books about Third Culture Kids. My dad was really impressed with Mr. P’s recommendations, as well as my request for Earth Democrac. He plans on reading them as well, so I guess these are going to become family books.

• Earth Democracy – Vandana Shiva
• What is the What – Dave Eggers
• Drown – Junot Diaz
• Terrier – Tamora Pierce
• Unrooted Childhoods; Memoirs of Growing Up Global – Anthology
• Third Culture Kids: The Experience of Growing Up Among Worlds – David C. Pollock and Ruth E. Van Reken
• A Gift of Dragons – Anne McCaffrey

Family

• Dreams from My Father – Barrack Obama [Everybody is going to be reading this...]
• The River of Doubt – Candice Millard [He got this for my brother but really recommends it to me as well]
• 2009 State of the World: into a warming world – the Worldwatch Institute [We are getting a lot of books and reading regarding this subject in my family. My dad says this was an amazing book.]

Of course, he brought magazines and a few candies as well, but it’s the books that I like the most. Besides, I’m glad I can hug my dad again, and I’m all the more aware how I’m going to miss my family.

Gods above and below, I am grateful for my family and life.

Maybe I should make a little category for “anecdotes”, since I’m going through them so much. Ok, remember from one of my previous post the “P.M.” guy I kicked after his idiotic comment? I swear the guy likes making me uncomfortable (well, a lot of people do XD) but still… I think this guy makes a hobby of making everybody as confused and off-balance as he can.

So, during Study Hall, I went to my art classroom to get some work done. During that period, P.M. is in said classroom giving my teacher a hard time with his half-assed concepts and jokes. I started getting some feedback from a friend of his, E. about an artwork I had, and we started talking about the stigma and exclusion of homosexuals in society and similar, very lightly. P.M. comes in saying that there wouldn’t be a problem if everybody went into the closet! (Or something similar). I don’t know how he comes up with lines like that.

Then he grabs my arm and pulls me closer, asking me if I want to go into the closet with him.

Yeaaaaaaah… I pulled away as gracefully as I could and continued the conversation with E. But mier, that was weird.

I mean, honestly, what other reaction did you think I would have?! (Nevermind that you don’t read this blog and I probably won’t link you to it.)

What am I talking about? Basicamente, a classmate of mine, P.M. so as to give him some sort of privacy, was being ridiculous. I was working on art during my Study Hall period, during which he has art… so we were in the same classroom. As I’m washing clean the pallete and brushes, he comes around and pulls slightly at my apron’s strings (I wanted to protect my clothes from the paint, duh), and he starts talking about how he liked pulling the bikini straps on girls, and how he had once pulled a 14-year old girl’s straps… and she wasn’t able to catch the top in time. Now, unfortunately, I was still grinning like an idiot because this dude is so ridiculous, I feel like laughing all the time.

But as he goes away, I step forwards and kick him, decently hard too (I hope I don’t leave a bruise…). And he’s all “You kicked me!” several times and by now I was REALLY honestly grinning happily. Well, no shit Sherlock. You just told me about how you apparently liked contributing in sexual harassment (why yes, exposing the breasts of bikini-wearing teenager girls against their will is sexual harassment!), and implied something when you pulled the back of my apron strings! Of course I hit you! You’ve probably seen me punch my friends (well… the guy friends) for saying something stupid, and that is soft!

I mean, geeze. At least it wasn’t like when my friend nicknamed me “Boobs”.

… I mean… seriously…

Ok, end rant.

I decided to start reviewing what books I read… and this time I start with the comics I just picked up my school’s library! New shiny books… hmm… beware for spoilers, but it’s the first volume, so it isn’t much of a problem.

I had heard about Runaways before, and it was mostly good. I did like the beginning, although the pacing threw me off, the art threw me off, and the comic in general threw me off because I have gotten so used to manga. Manga tends to have a different pacing, and the art is very different – in this case, the lack of exagerated expressions shocked me a bit. I’m looking forwards togetting over this and start reading comics more regularly (when I was a kid in Boston I would read some X-men completely out of continuity or order, but I didn’t care.)

The story seems promising: we have a group of teens whose life is turned upside down overnight, and trying to do the right thing, even if it goes against their parents. The kids seem to have good personalities overall, and the way the groups (both The Pride and their kids) interact is interesting.

Things that irked me:

1. The scene where Nico is inside her room going frantic for her black nail polish. I mean, can we stop with the “girl takes forever to get ready” scene?!
2. Molly acts so childish. I swear I wasn’t so childish and innocent at that age! Or my friends!
3. The dumb jock stereotype with Chase… I get the feel he won’t create much problems anyways and wil lalways be the annoying guy in hte group, but create really minor problems. Big problems are saved for the female characters…
4. “Lucy”’s crying scene when she discovers she’s well… not of this world. It bugged the heck out of me.
5. Parental race stereotype: Alex’s dad is like a a Gang boss (Anybody else headdesk at the idea of the africanamerican guy being the suit-dressed gang boss? It might just be me, I haven’t seen him yet.)
6. Parental race stereotype 2 : Nicos’  parents (asian) are apparently dark cultists.
7. The whitey alien parents are hollywood celebrities! XD

Things I found interesting:

1. Two characters out of five are not caucasian. And one of them is their leader.
2. Well, the story is interesting <3
3. I have no idea what to write anymore

I’m off to do homework now! T-ciao!

Things are looking up a lot since my last post – and for a while now. I just couldn’t bring myself to write about it, since I needed to  let the wave of happiness take its course without redirecting it by writing the blog post.

I probably just confused everybody there.

But a number of good things have been going on since, and quite a few are college related. Life is becoming happier and I feel much better, not as much stress. I feel I can actually tackle my school work and come out winning now that the family issue is not so threatening.

First off, I had two college interviews by phone. Well, one wasn’t so much an interview, but rather sounded more like they were trying to convince me to go to Mt Holyoke. That was rather nice and flattering actually, especially when the trustee said that the office of admissions had called me “Hot Property”.  While I think that “property” is a very wonky term (I’m person! Not an object! I am not owned!) I’m just going to go ahead and take that as a compliment and a good sign for the future.

The second interview was Bennington, and I really enjoyed talking to the woman, even if we kept getting some Skype glitches. I learned some very interesting things about Bennington, especially its Environmentally friendly policies (YAY!) and other details. Suffice to say, I was really happy, I think the woman was happy, and I think that it gave a good impression.

Oh… additionally, talking about Bennington… yesterday I received an email notification that I HAVE BEEN ACCEPTED! MY FIRST ACCEPTANCE TO A COLLEGE! =’ ) I feel very, very happy, and it’s like I reached my first milestone. The two college interviews themselves were enough to get me into a “music high” when I had them (I think I scared a few friends over MSN because I was typing really fast, in capslock at times, and very, very hyper as I blasted music and ocassionally dissapeared to dance to my music.)

I think there was more I wanted to say, but I am extremely happy right now, and I’ll just go do my homework. (My family situation, btw, is better, but still has its problems. I’m hoping it won’t explode again and we’ll be able to fix this.)

PS: To those who were here for the Avatar Casting Fracas, I’ll start updating again – I’m sorry I zoned out of it, but I had a lot to deal with : ( But I shall! *determination*