Our heroine finds herself alone, eats sammich

I've settled it--this is my spot. It is just a blip of a walk, a microsecond away from my apartment, but its nearness has not tricked me into thinking a better spot could be found elsewhere. I sit on this bench, Italian sub half consumed, relishing the Keanu Reeves flair of my solitary, introspective meal.

Rutgers is a sometimes an unappealing mishmash of architecture, the most unfortunate buildings, I think, from the sixties (Loree and Hickman Hall on Douglass being the most offensive to look at or be in). But the oldest buildings, clustered behind me, which hold the offices of the university's most important people and who knows what else (Van Nest? Winants? What is in there?), are undoubtedly the most beautiful, though not related to the average Rutgers student's experience in the least. Indoctrination to the Rutgers classroom experience is more like having a class in the freezing basement of one of the river dorms--I had roughly a billion of those. The very fact that these old beautiful buildings of Rutgers' past have nothing to do with us meager students may be part of the reason this lovely grassy area nearby goes ignored and all these benches lining the path remain empty.

Across the path I can watch that huge building next to my apartment being constructed (that stupid effing building--I look out the bedroom window and see nothing but its parking deck head-on), the church undergoing some construction, and the platform of the train station. I feel like 500 Days of Summer's Tom sitting on his bench at Angel's Knoll, thinking this is my little under-appreciated piece of the city.

I look over at the trains and think how easy it would be to get on and be home in twenty minutes, or get on and be in New York in an hour. How simple, accessible. I could even hop on and find myself at the Newark airport, and I could fly to Berlin, or anywhere else I wanted to. Who says it's so hard to pack your bags and leave home for other corners of the globe? The way out is right there... I'm not trapped... but for now, I'm still trapped.

An old woman jogs across the street, a city bus screeches annoyingly until it halts at the train station stop, a tall, slender man in a brown corduroy blazer and exaggerated clothes hanger shoulders moseys along the bench lined path with his briefcase. The sun is setting, it's cold, everything is a 5:30 pm blue.

I'm not sure why I came here to begin with, but now I guess it's time to go home.

thoughts on the train, sunday 1:37 pm

There is something beautiful about this day, this moment teetering between noon and afternoon, between a laugh and a cry, between the cold rush of air on my cheeks, in my hair, and sleepy sun warming up my back and legs as I stand waiting on the train platform.

The train comes and I board it. I think about how I don't want it to get dark so soon, but even in a half hour's time the mood will have changed, time will have passed, and I won't be the same either. The lighting and the shadows cast from the trees and edifices that pass me by as I ride, backwards, to New Brunswick, won't look the same, nor will the lights and shadows of the objects in my autumn-edition heart.

Whether I should or shouldn't, whether reciprocated or not, I miss him. In this moment I miss him. I want to pull him into this world of mine, this world of diners and abandoned shopping plazas and reflective walks through the cemetery, and see how he'd fit in that space. There, that right there is my high school, this is the way I walked home for four years, even more uncertain of myself back then as I am now--if you can imagine that--my world then still so small and unaware of things an ocean away.

And here's my mother, one of the sweetest women on the planet, spoiling, self-sacrificing like your own mother. But mine wears too much jewelry, which sometimes makes me wince, though that's just a minor quibble about the woman who supports me in all that I do, even in pining for someone an ocean away, whether she should or shouldn't. My mother will ask you impertinent questions, and you'll like that. The funny thing about her is, she'll ask all these questions about people to make out their character, but already she quietly approves; if a person has already somehow earned my approval, that is enough.

But I think the mood has changed, the light has changed, and I shouldn't play with these thoughts anymore. I will save them for another flickering moment of passing light, of possibilities and impossibilities. I will try to leave the idea of you on the platform of the train, as much as I'd rather you sit here by my side, and soon enough it will be dark out, anyway.

brb.....k im back

So that idea about blogging as I traveled all over Europe totally did not pan out, as it turns out. I'm not cut out for travel writing, at least not during the traveling itself. I get too distracted to write a thing down. But let's be serious, I was off watching flamenco in Spain and drinking port wine in Portugal, and hating everybody in Paris, so can you blame me? Well, you can, and I would, but pish posh... at least one thing I have proved is that I am exceedingly good at blogging when I'm stuck in New Jersey.

And, well, that's where I'm at in life at this particular, and perhaps unfortunate moment (I say unfortunate but that's more to do with the stresses of school, both the current and future plans thereof, than the simple fact that I'm physically in New Jersey). So, it's about time I got back to writing, no? Right back into it, I say! (also: that's what she said).

Quick update then, as I slowly but surely fall asleep. I have a new laptop (not... by choice) so I've been killing the past several hours not by reading House of Mirth or Frankenstein for my classes, but by going over what music I actually listen to on my iPod. That's always the most tedious task in the universe, but it's also rewarding, like cleaning out the fridge (similar also in that both potentially yield horrifying results). Determining where your musical taste is at any given time is something like reassessing who you are and where you are in life (douchey thing you should not say on a first date #348277). Don't you think?

Right now much of what I'm listening to are bands in the vein of Bloc Party, Arcade Fire, and Radiohead (gratuitous amounts of Radiohead)... tempered with female singer-songwriters like Adele, Sara Bareilles and Ingrid Michaelson. The bands I'm diggin, primarily British and captivating but kind of depressing, to me also have "Berlin" written all over them. -Is it too literal to listen to the song Kreuzberg in Kreuzberg?- So I have to keep ladies like Sara B. in there otherwise Jackie will shoot herself in temple when I put on my iTunes.

At any rate, I have never claimed to have good taste in music. Mostly because I don't have good taste in music. But damn it if this isn't one of the best songs in the universe. I could be wrong about this... and yet if this song does nothing for you I will conclude you're just not a real person with a human heart or real feelings.



Good night my sweet New Jersey and all the rest of the earth, universe, everything, between the click of the light and the start of the dream....

The past four months: a recap

"So Shan, what's it been like having a semester off?" people ask me. And I say "Weird as SHIAT, dawg."

No, I don't say that. But you know what, it has been a weirdo mixed bag indeed, and given that I leave for BERLIN in a mere TWO WEEKS I feel I should verbosely explain it all. Well, all in all, I've coped fairly well. I don't remember what it's like to do work AT ALL, but that's just training for the real world anyway, right? Haaaaaaa. But really, I don't feel the least bit like a student, which is kind of odd, and  in various ways I miss it. |:

I missed a lot of dope funtimes with my friends, although visiting 'em was nice. I miss weird things like the feeling of taking notes in class with a blue pen on smooth lined paper. Aw man, everything Rutgers feels far-away like a dream. Going to "work" at the tutor center. Fighting the urge to sleep in the tutor center. Caffeine highs from choco-caramel frappe concoctions from Gerlanda's.

At home, with no papers and exams, there's no stress. But where's the sense of achievement?

And when I visit Rutgers it feels like I'm an outsider again. I feel sort of the way I did when I was a senior in high school scoping everything out for the first time.

I don't know if it bums me out per se... I will say that a week or two after it was decided I wouldn't go to Japan, I was in a pretty pitiful mental state. Of course, I still don't know if not going was the right decision. And I suppose I never will. I do think that the decision had/will continue to have a profound impact on my life and my future. I don't know if I'll continue to learn Japanese again... and honestly, I don't know if I want to.

Did I give up Japan because I was frightened of nuclear fallout and cancerous sushi, or because I was frightened of changing my life? I was taking the easy way out because frankly, I'd already lost a lot of motivation to keep learning the language. And, since it was already March, I'd simply forgotten a ton of Japanese.


I love Asian Studies, and I'm good at it. Chinese Cinema to Japanese Women Writers, Asian economy, history, philosophy, whatever. But I never felt any more than "better than the average student" at Japanese language. I got good grades but I didn't really feel like I was learning... Maybe all I needed was to just go there, go to Japan. Even though I was caring much less, and was perhaps discouraged with my progress ('cause it's just a disgustingly hard language. All the characters to memorize, and the homophones drove me crazy)--especially compared to German (which with I have a much longer history, and one of much success). Damn it, if I had gone, how in love with the Japanese language and people and atmosphere would I be right now?

But I didn't go. And God only knows if I chickened out or if I made a good, rational decision about my safety.

But life marches right along! And so far in 2011 I've experienced a really interesting array of things.

Like, in January I had my week long externship in the international students dept. at the community college. I learned that I would be totally awesome at a menial desk job, which is not really something to be proud of, but whatever. I make kickass flyers.

I learned that I am capable of sticking to a pescetarian diet for as long as 2-3 weeks, and that doing so will make me feel kind of self-righteous and healthier, but I won't lose any weight, and eventually I'll realize that I'm only doing it to prove that I can, and because I'm friggin bored, on account of not having any classes. **So yes, I did go back to eating meat, and especially after I realized I was going back to Germany, I accepted this as necessary and Only The Proper Thing To Do. But I gave pescetarianism an honest try and I get points for that!

I learned that I can navigate New York City after all and that gives me hope that someday I can be an awesome NYCity-slickin' laday.

I watched MAD AMOUNTS of The Big Bang Theory and Parks and Recreation and other shows. And tons of movies. Wait, should this be on the list of achievements?

I got to go to Los Angeles, North Carolina and, um, Ireland. So that's pretty cool.

I want to go to there (again)

Except, instead of wine (per the picture), I will have a mojito. And then I will have the very best nap of my life.