graduation

im pretty tired from going to bed so late yesterday night and waking up so early this morning so this post will most likely be incoherent.

so college graduation is a lot different from high school graduation. i think the biggest difference is that i dont know most of the people graduating with me. most of my [very limited set of] friends either are in different schools (college, comm school) or just not graduating this year. so while high school graduation was all about hugging friends who youve hung out with during lunch time, classes, and after school activities throughout 4 years of high school, college graduation was just you being thrown together with random group members that you awkwardly smile at as you pass each other on grounds.

regardless, stepping onto the lawn with 1294028305 people cheering [not] you on was pretty surreal. while walking down, dan asked this lady in the front row of the audience what time she got there and she answered 5:20..am that blew my mind. why would you wait 6 hours to get a glimpse of your son/daugther/whatever for 10, 15 seconds max?? and what about the people that fly all over the world just to watch for 6 seconds as their kid's name is called. i just find the whole thing inefficient. i think the whole idea of watching graduation is weird. i feel like i would almost prefer it if they just gave me the diploma in a back room on the last day of classes (this is probably the hermit side of me speaking). i also feel really bad for making people sit through an hour of names and random awards before im called. i mean, if i find it incredibly boring, i cant imagine what its like for others.

also, they messed up my diploma so i have a piece of poster paper with a 8x11 IOU taped on it from eschool. yeah, haha.

cool. got a couple weeks to chill before work. gonna be in cville this week by myself so it should be some good quiet personal time before i start work. i plan to get fat now.

peace.

my day just made your day look like cspan2

i woke up today around 9am, crushed some special k fruit n yogurt, finished laundry and went to asian fusion (always satisfying). got home and drank 934582435 glasses of water. shortly after, i went to the gym to work out, then shot around after i could no longer lift my arms. this was a bad idea. i got challenged by this white guy to one-on-one, and for having really sore arm muscles, i was doing okay at first.. until that kid realized he could dunk. yeah so stupid.

so right after that i left afc (sans dignity), i picked up a "mango something something blast" smoothie from smoothie king with my roommate (buy one get one free coupon). sometimes i wonder why smoothie flavors are so much more in your face than regular beverages. theyre all like "strawberry kiwi explosion" or "banana berry blast". its like, whoa, whoa, calm down. i just want a drink, not fourth of july fireworks.

anyways, after that, we went rock climbing at this joint downtown. it was tighttt (esp. the butt harness, haha). so it was my first time and im mildly terrified of heights but it was awesome. its sort of like snowboarding in how once you get used to it, you get desensitized to the danger and become more and more reckless. for instance, towards the end, id just jump off to see if my roommate was still paying attention while holding the safety cable. we climbed until we could no longer feel our hands.

then we went to chipotle. i downed a steak burrito bowl and immediately after, we went to the afc pool (yeah, good ideas all around). i suck at swimming. like really really suck. i tried to swim a lap but came to a critical life decision that if i were to ever get stuck in a swim or die situation, id choose die in a heartbeat. after this realization, i went to the hot tub to get mad wrinkly. once raisined, i went to the sauna cause i wanted to feel sophisticated, but honestly, i have no idea what the purpose of a sauna is. i decided to leave once i started questioning whether the water dripping down my back was water or sweat.

my muscles are obliterated right now. tennis in 15. if i die, ill die like i was born.. awesome and beautiful, ahahah.

summertime and the livin's easy

haha. summer is awesome. my summer routine is pretty much guitar, eat, gym, nap, guitar, eat, gym, sleep, [repeat].

this kind of reminds me of that verse in Matthews thats like: "do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. "i love how during the summer, youre free of worries. theres no small thorn in your side or weight on your back due to some upcoming midterm or looming project. i also like how i have no idea what day of the week it is (apparently it's wednesday but i could be convinced otherwise). additionally, i like how when i pick up a pen to try to jot something down, my handwriting sucks because i havent written anything down weeks. this may sound horrible, but i can actually feel myself fading into worthlessness, and it's glorious, haha. summer is so necessary and unnecessary all at once.

2 months til work

life is good. God is great. craisins are delicious.

pomp and circumstance sucks

bam. just like that, college is done.

people keep asking me how i feel. i think i feel anxious.. anxious to start doing something bigger. problem sets are cool and all but i really want to just get out into the world and do something for more than just self-validation in the form of letter grades and report cards. this anxiousness is sort of like those "first day of school butterflies" but with much more momentum behind it, if that makes any sense.

while i think the biggest individual lesson ive learned is to stay humble or be humbled (thanks to my second year roommate, raghu rajkumar, who would beat me by 1 point on every single test no matter how hard i studied (raghu, if you are reading this, i hate you, haha), i think its the small things that each of my friends have taught me that have really changed me.

its sort of like, imagine your life as an asteroid hurtling through space, and each relationship/experience as a collision which shapes and refines you as a person. these collisions wear off your outer facade, reveal your inner self, and change your ultimate (earthly) destination.

or something like that.

whatever. thanks college, its been fun.


-x-

bonus feature: i went to my livejournal and found my post on my high school graduation thoughts. its pretty funny:

"damn. its crazy how fast life moves. its like one minute youre this insignificant freshmen looking up at all the seniors thinkin they are so old and then all of a sudden BAM youre one of them. and sometimes while walkin down the halls id wonder if the freshmen look at me like the same way i looked at the seniors back then. Ok, so this kinda ties into the last entry but its basically like, we can only take life one second at a time, but before we know it, a month, a year, or a freakin decade has passed (i mean youre probably lookin really foward to summer right now but cherish every second of it cuz before you know it its gonna be august, youre gonna get dropped off at college all alone and ur gonna get in the fetal position and cry). and i think time seems like its moving so fast because we are always looking foward to something. but then, that moment passes and you have a new thing youre lookin foward to. we're never really cherish what we have going for us during the present, which is something we should do instead of constantly lookin forward. man, i wish i were better at articulating stuff."

haha, high school me is so stupid.