"What a view."

You ever had those moments when you feel yourself getting too tied up in things and you begin to feel a little shaken, and maybe even uncertain, of your behavior? Or maybe it's just the way you've been living or the things you've been doing that make you feel a bit out of character? Perhaps you've been living a life of distraction that your focus has become skewed?

I need to remind myself that this very life I am living right now is beautiful.




I remember there was a moment just one year ago when my best friend and I were left at school in the late afternoon, waiting for our rides to pick us up. This was typical of us, as we both couldn't drive (and still can't) and we'd spend after-school hours talking, hanging out, and having those 'deep moment' sort of things. We parked our buses on the planter boxes that day, right behind the school (above is a picture of my high school from the front, street view). It was particularly warm, I remember that--like a warm summer breeze. She'd feed me her snacks (I'm such a mooch!) and I'd be there to listen. We were both tired from the 7 or so hours of back-to-back classes drilled down our necks. I remember laying atop the planter box, looking up at the blue sky shining through the green leaves overcast from the planter. Man, what a view. I remember posing the question to her, "Why is it that it's so easy for us to look down?" When I mentioned this, I could feel a philosophical metaphor coming on. "It's so easy for us to look up, but rather we choose to look down to the ground... That could go for a lot of things."

We've had a lot of moments like that in our four years back at Carondelet, and I can't help but still feel that moment so applicable right now.

I hate to make the term grow trite, but Kairos has been the antidote for much of the love, honesty, happiness, and appreciation I've felt and shared throughout my life; and I still strive to make it ring true in all aspects of my life today, as hard as it may get. When you begin to lose yourself with distractions, obligations, activities, and uncertainties, you need a guiding principle to bring you back again--something that serves as a token, key, or testament to that particular clarity. For me, it serves to bring back that faith, that belief, that honesty, and that love.

When you become so wrapped up in your own ideas, it becomes too easy to build upon things. You want to expect more from already good things. You want to see and interpret things in your own subjective way. You wish to have things happen in one way and not another. You begin to want other, different things. You grow tired of what you have. You lose faith in people. You begin to reason against what you have. And you create this sort of illness that breeds hatred towards an internal sense of self.

Bring it all back in. Why can't you just love yourself again? You are so blessed. Rather than worry about what hasn't happened, or strive to be something you're not, or even wish to be somewhere else than here, "Our goal is to discover that we have always been where we ought to be. Unhappily, we make the task exceedingly difficult for ourselves." (Although Aldous Huxley was quite the eccentric man, he's an eccentric man for a reason! That quote is from his hallucinogenic account, found in The Doors of Perception.)

It's not too hard to look up once in a while. Dust the dirt off your feet and get living again. "There's a hell of a good universe next door. Let's go." (That, my friends, is from the dear Mr. E.E. Cummings!)
Life isn't all that bad when you come to accept and fully appreciate everything you have right now. An awareness of that appreciation and being grateful for what I have has allowed me to wholeheartedly love a best friend. With that appreciation, I find that you are able to utilize and make the most of all these moments, opportunities, and people who walk in and out of our lives... Its inevitable life will throw its hard-balls at you to test you, but that's only because we thrive on the drama of existence. "Pain is inevitable; suffering is optional." (TY Alexis Luna.) Life is a blessing. Don't clutter yourself. Live a simple living; live for you; live for me; live for others. What good is life--and love--if it isn't shared. Just take a step back right now, and Let's go. Someday, we'll know.
I vow to bring myself back Home. After all, you are a representation of your Home, and your Home is to be shared and brought to other places and different people. Remember what it is that makes me me, and what it is that makes me human. Open your heart again.

Here's a song I would like to end this post with:

4am-mind laziness trying to sort through 'priorities'

You could say that I've been keeping myself busy lately. Four weeks sounds about right.

Is it bad to think back and not even remember the last time I really found myself completely indulged in my own personal free time since the quarter has started? Some may say I've been having a little "too much fun" (or that might just be me), and I haven't been giving enough attention to my studies. Why is it do I find myself too much 'on the move' and 'out-and-about' rather than my normal recluse self would be doing? The last time I really wrote about my personal state on here was when I was really conflicted with my presence in school and plans for the next few years, and you can bet that was the scariest and most emotional state I have been in this entire year. I can pose only one question: What have I been doing since then?

It’s about halfway through my last quarter here as a 1st-year at UCI, and I have to say that I’ve learned a lot about myself this past year. I came to college knowing I would learn a lot about myself, and I’ve never been so emotional about such real issues I've never felt before--so foreign to me and something I couldn't feel back home. I've found that it’s times like these when your life flashes before your eyes and decisions—decisions that even hit home and special places in your heart—have to be made. Even if I thought I had a good hold on what I want to do and who I am, I’m still finding my place.

Have you ever felt as if you were the only one like you in a large community? As if you're a 'lone soldier' in a sea of men, with no one to relate to? I may not have described that as accurately as I could, but, just the sense that as much as you try to integrate yourself into something, the more you find yourself just not relating? Much of my time here has been just like that. As much as I've involved myself in so many things, especially with integrating myself in Kababayan and strengthening my bonds with my hall to the best of my abilities, I still find, at the end of the day, that everything is sort of 'empty'. It gives me a dead feeling.

But, at the same time, I've had my fair share of purely joyous moments within the past month. I've bonded with my K'sises in such heart-warming ways, and I've solidified friendships in my hall that I can look back at and be grateful for. But, as I've always found myself as one who was always a bit detached, I find that with all of these seemingly precious memories to others, they are just events to get me through the day to me. And, don't get me wrong, I hate to belittle these precious moments as 'just events', but that is what they seem to be for me. When I look back at my experience here on a grand-scale, I cannot exactly recall fond moments. Rather, they all mush together as things that just 'got me through the day'. Why is it that it is like that for me? For now, I can't really say. I've been happy. I've been extremely sad. I've gone through the whole wavelength and spectrum of emotions to its extremes here--perhaps all because I may be purely alone down here. Living a life in which you wish you were doing something else, or were elsewhere, or were back home with family makes things feel smaller. I've found that when special figures come into the picture, it makes everything that more special. When they aren't in the picture, it makes a joyous experience not all that memorable. Perhaps I don't feel as if I can fully appreciate and live as my fullest self down here, which has made me feel like a 'lone soldier' so to say. Whatever the case, I've learned a lot about my personal self and livelihood here; but with cramming my schedule with empty obligations, I may make myself feel proud a moment, but in the end I know I've a craving to be more productive to make something else of myself.

I love writing. I love music. I love dance. and I love my culture,
Music is what I’m most passionate about, but Culture is what I know best.
What am I to do, to make something of myself, and to be stable, yet happy?

It’s sad to say, because I’ve met some genuinely nice and amazing people here, but, as a restless soul and dreamer always is, I always wish to be elsewhere, and to have and feel something more--to be “bigger than my body” as John Mayer would say. My life needs to serve a higher purpose. And the people I find myself associated with are just here to enjoy college, while I’m the type that wants to make something of herself in college, during this time. Maybe that’s why everything I’ve been doing has been dull to me. They “lack their luster", so to speak... Since when do the obligations and involvements I involve myself in have to be things I feel more obliged to be in, and to do? Why has Kaba taken up such a majority of my college life? Is it because I am searching for something in particular in these activities that I just haven't seemed to find yet?

It's time I set my priorities straight. Perhaps in the past 5 weeks, since the early start of this quarter, I've been trying to find the cure for my elsewhere-ness. Obligations have been taking up a majority of my time--to the point where I don't even remember the last time I really did work, read for class, or full-out studied. It is very uncharacteristic of me to get lost in my sense of work ethic and lean towards a life full of a craving for socializing... But, "Too much fun leaves an unhappy Rachel." All of this 'hanging out', I find, I could do without. It's not in my element, and it's not really me. I'm a loner and a homebody! What does this do for me? For some reason, it's as if a part of me needs it. Wants it. But what am I looking for in it?

I've been finding reasons for my enjoying this place. And there are a lot. UCI has offered me so much and has given me a real sense of community--something I bet would be a million times harder to find in other places. But, still, my restless and wandering soul can't seem to be at peace here. I want it to offer me more. I want to associate myself with different people--like people. As much as I integrate myself with people, clubs, and organizations, I still find myself wanting to live with a higher purpose, as I've had no real 'click' with these people to really make me want to stay. (I've gotta make do with what I do, ay?)

It's time I stop distracting myself with 'things'--although all the hanging out, socializing, going out to eat, watching shows, and playing around have been fun, it's all a part of, as I will coin, the "dorm effect". I want to be able to live like myself again--alone, recording secret cover songs in my room (as I still do), playing guitar as loudly I want, practicing guitar more often, watching movies, keeping up with TV shows, and feeling comfortable with my workload. I've seemed to grow into the biggest procrastinator, with my sleeping schedule all out of whack, and bodily insecurities getting the best of me. It's time I refocus my energy on my real obligations, values, beliefs, and faith. I've been a little restless lately, and as much as I am happy I fulfilled my last post's (~) wish of wanting to "just be happy" and "smile" for now, now's time to live on my own personal standards. No more junk or wasted time--I need punctuality. But, let me too enjoy these last few weeks with friends I've gotten to know just a bit better as of late, and of living in my beloved Otero. No more spending every single day and wee-hour of the night going out and hanging out with people--its time to set my Rachel chakras in line! (Hah, I can't believe I just said that.)