Life has been impossibly hard these past 3 weeks, but it's getting better.

I'll see everyone in 3 weeks, Dee in 2.5(:

I'm over it. Fuck you guys really.

This poem is for me.

Le Pont Mirabeau

Sous le pont Mirabeau coule la Seine
Et nos amours
Faut-il qu'il m'en souvienne
La joie venait toujours après la peine

Vienne la nuit sonne l'heure
Les jours s'en vont je demeure

Les mains dans les mains restons face à face
Tandis que sous
Le pont de nos bras passe
Des éternels regards l'onde si lasse

Vienne la nuit sonne l'heure
Les jours s'en vont je demeure

L'amour s'en va comme cette eau courante
L'amour s'en va
Comme la vie est lente
Et comme l'Espérance est violente

Vienne la nuit sonne l'heure
Les jours s'en vont je demeure

Passent les jours et passent les semaines
Ni temps passé
Ni les amours reviennent
Sous le pont Mirabeau coule la Seine

Vienne la nuit sonne l'heure
Les jours s'en vont je demeure

If you're a friend. Kthxbai. 

I DON'T KNOW HOW PEOPLE CAN BE SO FUCKING STUPID.

EVEN ON THIS CAMPUS THE LEVEL OF STUPIDITY IS SO HIGH THAT INCOMPETENCE AND DISORGANISATION ABOUND AND SUFFOCATE ME LIKE A MILLION FLIES DIVING DOWN MY THROAT.

HOW CAN PEOPLE BE SO FUCKING STUPID. IRRESPONSIBLE. RIDICULOUS. PATHETIC.

When I procrastinate, I blog. This is true. Anyhow, I thought that if people still read this, they'd like an update on my life.

Classes are a mess because I barely have time to do work again. It's great. Juggling 2 shows at the moment, with another one starting pre-build on Sunday just as I strike one of the former 2. Drama, politics, stress etc. In the midst of all this, trying to choose my major, figuring out summer plans, trying to stay afloat.

It's midway through term. I'm not exhausted, but I am sick of it all. Not the shows, never the shows. It's a great sign that finally after 2 terms of experimentation I think I got the balance right such that I'm only with shows that I really want to do. I can safely say that I'm not one of those people who can only talk about theatre, because I'm interested in so many other things. But it's what fills my life right now, and I'm extremely pleased with this state of affairs.

And still I find occasional moments to just hang out with friends, or be alone and quiet, though not as much as I would like. Usually the latter occurs past midnight, as I walk through some of the most dangerous parts of the city alone. But it's all good, and I try not to daydream. There is so much pressure, and I miss home, but I'm still managing to take all the failure in stride and move on.

After all, it's not the papers I turn in late, or the problem sets that don't get done, or the fact that I'm really a terrible irresponsible person when it comes to things I hate to do. It's about the friends, and the life goals, and self-understanding and growth. Being true to yourself, finding yourself, making the most of life. At least, I think so.

I try.

Good news is, I'm home Dec 23 1am. In time for Christmas. Which is less than 2 months away. Hallelujah. 

Le Coucher du Soleil Silencieux

Que le soleil est beau quand il couche de la noire,
Ce que tous poursuivent, les rayons des ors fous,
- Le meilleur est l'un qui peut les épousent, et sous
La nuit tombante, avec l'empressement, peut la voir.

Le soleil, ça fait muet! ...Où vont les rêves hier?
Les puissances des ténèbres étendent sur la terre.
Des autres craignent. L'avenir, qui le noir enterre,
Semble perdu. Mais c'est-là, nos rêves vivifient.

Le silence, c'est noir et froid. Mais quoi qu'il en soit,
Nous sommes très béni par le ciel sans étoiles.
Comme un manteau, il sauve et nous laisse à vivre.

La vie, comme la nuit, est inconnue. Je ne sais quoi
Sera notre vie. Mais rêves se réveillent dans la noire,
Et alors enfin je peux avec toi vivre.

*This poem is juxtaposed with Baudelaire's poem titled Le Coucher du Soleil Romantique (The Setting of the Romantic Sun).

So I wrote a sonnet for class, and I'll edit the grammar stuff once I get feedback. Meanwhile, a rough translation, though nothing properly English because if possible I'm even stricter with my English poetry than French. The prompt was to write a sonnet to your lover.

The Setting of the Silent Sun

How beautiful is the sun when it sets in the night
What all chase, are the golden rays of fools,
- Better is he who can embrace them, and with
The descending night, can see it with eagerness.

The sun, it is silent! Where are all the dreams of yesterday?
The powers of darkness stretch over the land.
Others fear. The future, which the black buries,
Seems lost. But it is now, our dreams live.

The silence, it is dark and cold. But somehow
We are blessed by the starless skies.
Like a coat, it saves us and lets us live.

Life, like the night, is unknown. I don't know what
Our life will be. But dreams awaken in darkness,
And at last with you I can live.

Oh that was a terrible translation. A sign I'm getting better at expressing thoughts I clearly cannot express in English? Oh well. Enjoy.

Is there one person with a blog/lj that I know who isn't feeling particularly down?

I'm exhausted as hell, and have a midterm review in 5min for a midterm that I have barely started revising for. 2 midterms next week for French, which I have been terrible at upkeeping this term (mostly because we have been doing la litterature fantastique, which is equivalent to what we did for Lit in JC...crazy Frenchmen? not so fun), as well as a paper. Don't forget the show I have on this weekend. Still have to build that 10 foot stairs by myself. 

Vaguely ill, physically exhausted, breaking down for some strange reason. 

Though it's home in 70 days. I've been here for 2 months already, and barely believing it. So much has happened, and yet not happened at all. I wish college didn't have to happen. Life seems so much more convoluted and congested here, that people forget to breathe. Tired of all the drama and the work, even if the latter is sometimes rewarding.

Miss everyone. Pull through...it'll be over soon enough.

I realised how perky I was in the last post.

God I hate perky people 

 It's Week 3 here over at the big H, and so far, things have been going insanely well. In terms of classes, jobs, extracurriculars etc. Everyone is like "you're crazy you're doing waaaaay too much", and even though I am feeling pressurised by the heavy class load this term, it's all fun stuff. It's just so rewarding to finally know people on campus properly, and even on the level where they'd write you a rec letter just because they want to do that for you. And the summer was the best time ever, because now there's peace and a little more understanding in myself, and there's confidence too. That haunting fear that le futur, c'est inconnu, has almost disappeared, though I will always plan, plan, plan, and overplan. C'est moi, n'est-ce pas, but it's no longer to the point where I drive myself to the brink of depression just because the solar system is but a grain of sand to the galaxy's USA (or whatevs). 

I love everyone back home, and miss you all. Schwa if you see this, I'm glad you're home. Sorry if I don't have time once again to reply emails rapidly (or whatever counts as rapid in my book) - I'm only sitting down to type this because I got 1 hour free I didn't think I would have - but as a general low-down to what is happening in my life this semester (is it sad I like the rigidity of the semester system, me, who hates practically all forms of other-imposed authority?):

5 classes: American Theatre, Photography, Choreography, Computer Science (I know), French
5 shows (only!!)
2 jobs (one of which I started today and will probably predict my future job plsGodyouknowhowmuchitmeanstome)

It's a ton of creative arts classes, even the computing, but it's so so much happiness. I won't say this when winter hits, but it's here for a reminder. Thanks to everyone who believed in me, and yes you, you can say you told me so.

By the way, it's 99 days till I'm home. How. Awesome. Is. That.(:

 I've been feeling appropriately melancholy and thus this post. Even as I pack my bags and start saying goodbyes to all and sundry, I wonder what the past 3 months have brought to me. Going back and facing multitudes of "How was your summer?" and "Wow awesome, that sounds great! Oh what I did? Well I did x and y and z but your summer sounds so much more wonderful!" doesn't make me one very happy person, but there it is. Back to 5 classes and 2 (3?) jobs and 3 extracurriculars makes me feel like cringing though I will have SO much fun, but I dread the people. I know who I'm talking about.

And so the months of sicknesses and hot sun and the best feeling of having friends and family present have trickled back to their summeriness and to the places where people never have to think, only to live. And I've begun to miss present friends and friends not present and friends presently absent and absent friends. The world is so big and our lives are so busily about filling that bigness, that for the moment, it feels okay to be small and not to be doing big things. 

I do regret not doing an internship. I do regret not getting a proper job. Regret at not having been able to take roadtrips and not having seen the world with you by my side. Here's to next summer. (May there always be another summer.) But I don't regret the changes in my family. I don't regret coming home. I don't regret finding home, understanding home, being home.

If anyone still follows this non-LJ, you'll see this. Call me if you want to see me!!

And count the days again.

Unfarewells indeed.

P.S. Funkae grammar and unwords are fun.

He's brilliant, once again. Sense how I am reaching the end of a long tunnel. YES, 1970s!

When I see a couple of kids
And guess he's fucking her and she's 
Taking pills or wearing a diaphragm,
I know this is paradise

Everyone old has dreamed of all their lives
Bonds and gestures pushed to one side
Like an outdated combine harvester,
And everyone young going down the long slide

To happiness, endlessly. I wonder if 
Anyone looked at me, forty years back,
And thought, That'll be the life;
No God any more, or sweating in the dark

About hell and that, or having to hide
What you think of the priest. He
And his lot will all go down the long slide
Like free bloody birds. And immediately

Rather than words comes the thought of high windows:
The sun-comprehending glass,
And beyond it, the deep blue air, that shows
Nothing, and is nowhere, and is endless.
 

He makes me happy. Especially when all you traitors (kidding) are asleep on the other side of the planet and I've got a neurotic person and his partner on the other side of the table yelling "Fuck!" at his computer every few seconds (kidding, I love him, but he IS neurotic). SO MUCH WORK.

Keat's When I have fears that I may cease to be 

When I have fears that I may cease to be
Before my pen has glean'd my teeming brain,
Before high piled books, in charactry,
Hold like rich garners the full ripen'd grain;
When I behold, upon the night's starr'd face,
Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,
And think that I may never live to trace
Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance;
And when I feel, fair creature of an hour,
That I shall never look upon thee more,
Never have relish in the fairy power
Of unreflecting love; - then on the shore
Of the wide world I stand alone, and think
Till love and fame to nothingness do sink.

I can live. I will live. 10 days. At least this depressed dude achieved posterity. That makes one of us.

Later - 

Die. Tennyson. Die. I don't need your melancholia on top of mine.

Prettiness:
"How dull it is to pause, to make an end, 
To rust unburnished, not to shine in use!" <<< Ironic how I feel that my brain is currently rusting in its use.

Someone needs to write a poem about that.

From In Memoriam:

Thou wilt not leave us in the dust:
    Thou madest man, he knows not why,
    He thinks he was not made to die;
And thou hast made him: thou art just.
...
We have but faith: we cannot know,
    For knowledge is of things we see;
    And yet we trust it comes from thee,
A beam in darkness: let it grow.
...
To Sleep I give my powers away;
    My will is bondsman to the dark;
    I sit within a helmless bark,
And with my heart I muse and say:

O heart, how fares it with thee now,
    That thou should fail from thy desire,
    Who scarcely darest to inquire,
"What is it makes me beat so low?"

And all that death.

And even later -

Yay Rossetti. By the way, you guys need to reply to this. Demands attention.

When I am dead, my dearest,
    Sing no sad songs for me;
Plant thou no roses at my head,
    Nor shady cypress tree:
Be the green grass above me
    With showers and dewdrops wet;
And if thou wilt, remember,
    And if thou wilt, forget.

I shall not see the shadows,
    I shall not feel the rain;
I shall not hear the nightingale
    Sing on, as if in pain:
And dreaming through the twilight
    That doth not rise nor set,
Haply I may remember,
    And haply may forget.

And, another:

Does the road wind up-hill all the way?
    Yes, to the very end.
Will the day's journey take the whole long day?
    From morn to night, my friend.

But is there for the night a resting-place?
    A roof for when the slow dark hours begin.
May not the darkness hide it from my face?
    You cannot miss that inn.

Shall I meet other wayfarers at night?
    Those who have gone before.
Then must I knock, or call when just in sight?
    They will not keep you standing at that door.

Shall I find comfort, travel-sore and weak?
    Of labour you shall find the sum.
Will there be beds for me and all who seek?
    Yea, beds for all who come.

Ha! Okay so this entire thing has been stream of consciousness throughout today, unlike me as you all know. But whatever. Now specifically, this is very appropriate, because of today's weather. Before I stop editing this post:

Something this foggy day, a something which
    Is neither of this fog nor of today,
    Has set me dreaming of the winds that play
Past certain cliffs, along one certain beach,
    And turn the topmost edge of waves to spray:
    Ah pleasant pebbly strand so far away,
So out of reach while quite within my reach,
    As out of reach as India or Cathay!
I am sick of where I am and where I am not,
    I am sick of foresight and of memory,
    I am sick of all I have and all I see,
        I am sick of self, and there is nothing new;
Oh weary impatient patience of my lot! -
    Thus with myself: how fares it, Friends, with you?

 Don't remember if I've posted this before. It's hilarious and highly appropriate.

Were I (who to my cost already am
One of those strange prodigious creatures, man)
A spirit free to choose, for my own share,
What case of flesh and blood I plesed to wear,
I'd be a dog, a monkey, or a bear;
Or anything but that vain animal
Who is so proud of being rational.
The senses are too gross, and he'll contrive
A sixth to contradict the other five:
And before certain instinct will prefer 
Reason, which fifty times for one does err.
Reason, an ignis fatuus of the mind,
Which leaving light of nature, sense, behind,
Pathless and dangerous wandering ways it takes,
Through Error's fenny bogs and thorny brakes:
Whilst the misguided follower climbs with pain
Mountains of whimsies heaped in his own brain;
Stumbling from thought to thought, falls headlong down
Into doubt's boundless sea, where like to drown,
Books bear him up awhile, and make him try
To swim with bladders of philosophy;
In hopes still to o'ertake th'escaping light,
The vapour dances in his dazzled sight,
Till spent, it leaves him to eternal night.
Then old age and experience, hand in hand,
Lead him to death, and make him understand,
After a search so painful and so long,
That all his life he has been in the wrong.
Huddled in dirt the reasoning engine lies,
Who was so proud, so witty and so wise.
Pride drew him in (as cheats their bubbles catch)
And made him venture to be made a wretch.
His wisdom did his happiness destroy,
Aiming to know that world he should enjoy;
And wit was his vain frivolous pretence
Of pleasing others at his own expense:
For wits are treated just like common whores,
First they're enjoyed and then kicked out of doors.

Expect more poetry to come as I study for my poetry final(: Assuming people still follow this blog. 12 days!

 "You're so talented, we don't know what to do with you."

She was just being nice, but it was high praise. My week has been made slightly happier.

edit 10/5:

And today I think I might have just gotten one of the most meaningful presents in my life. Praying hard that it's a sign. 

In other parts of my life, yes I deserved to be able to let loose tonight. But it didn't happen, and probably for the better, but it doesn't mean I wasn't disappointed. "This is the way the world ends, not with a bang but a whimper." 

It's quiet. Time to go home.

 I find myself fighting so hard to get what I want.
Tired of assholes, blasé mindfuckers, irresponsible dickheads, temperamental weather, politics, school work, loneliness, discipline.
Other people have things dropped in their laps.

I need sleep. And excitement.

Groping back to bed after a piss
I part thick curtains, and am startled by
The rapid clouds, the moon's cleanliness.

Four o'clock: wedge-shadowed gardens lie
Under a cavernous, a wind-picked sky.
There's something laughable about this,

The way the moon dashes through clouds that blow
Loosely as cannon-smoke to stand apart
(Stone-coloured light sharpening the roofs below)

High and preposterous and separate -
Lozenge of love! Medallion of art!
O wolves of memory! Immensements! No,

One shivers slightly, looking up there.
The hardness and the brightness and the plain
Far-reaching singleness of that wide stare

Is a reminder of the strength and pain
Of being young; that it can't come again,
But is for others undiminished somewhere.

The fascination of what's difficult
Has dried the sap out of my veins, and rent
Spontaneous joy and natural content
Out of my heart. There's something ails our colt 
That must, as if it has not holy blood
Nor on Olympus leaped from cloud to cloud,
Shiver under the lash, strain, sweat and jolt
As though it dragged road metal. My curse on plays
That have to be set up in fifty ways,
On the day's war with every knave and dolt,
Theatre business, management of men.
I swear before the dawn comes round again
I'll find the stable and pull out the bolt.

 Dear XXX,
I don't really know how to tell you this, but our romance is over. I think I realized it when I finally changed my underwear in your car and I saw you pour syrup on my boyfriend. I'm sure you're frostbitten enough to understand that the middle-east is planning their revenge on you. I'm returning your Hannah Montana underwear to you, but I'll keep your neighbour's dog as a memory. You should also know that I will tell the authorities that you did not steal that whale in the backyard and your cucumber fetishism is weird.
Go drown yourself,
Me

( I find it disturbing that mine actually makes sense )

As the weeks go by, I find myself wishing for home more and more. And I miss all of you - Dish, Mags, Sarah, Rox, Tush, Joh... and all the other people that have access to this. Dee - I'll see you in SF, Kushner's Paradise. 

And I'm wondering as I watch the world pass by when this is going to stop feeling like a dream, like an alternate reality that doesn't have any actual consequence on the life that I left behind and the people that I love. It's real, and the decision last night made me realise that it's not a waking dream any longer, but one that lives and breathes and hurts. I find that with each piece of wood I lay into place, I'm realising more and more the need to form relationships here, to learn to live just as I did back home. I'm sorry about what I said to you last night, and, God willing, it will never come to pass. But I can't live in the shadows anymore, and if I can't feel for the people here, then I'm going to live the next 3 years clinging on to the past, and as we know, he who binds himself to a joy, does the wingèd life destroy, but he who kisses joy as it flies, lives in eternity's sunrise.

I needed to tell you guys, because I'm at a stage that I'm figuring out what I need and who I want to become, and while I do, I will always love all of you. But I'm going to try to start living a full life here, shining in the sun's rays like I know you've all always believed I could. I thank you all from the depths of my heart, and when I come home, we'll all be together again. 53 days till I'm home. I'm waiting. But I'm watching and living while I am.