COLLEGE

Currently thinking about how strange it is that I’m graduating this fall and subsequently dreaming of master’s programs in New York. School has always been like art to me. I love being a student. I love sitting in class and listening to my professors rant about their passion for an hour. They are like gods to me. I feel like Harry Potter at Hogwarts. But then I look around and see kids passed out over their laptops, their grip slowly loosening around their iced coffees as they slip further away from consciousness. Others are scrolling through their phones or staring at the clock, as if it were still high school and they were being forced to be there. And that’s what I don’t get. I was told that once I got to college, everyone would actually want to be there. You’re paying them to let you be there after all. But it seems like most kids treat admission into college as admission into frat parties, football games, and dorm life. It’s exhausting to be surrounded by people who don’t care about anything outside of these things. They are giving the youth a bad rap while making my professors question their career choices at nine in the morning. It’ also just super isolating. I’m the odd one for actually enjoying going to class? For actually reading the books and maybe even liking them? It’s crazy.

OFF DAYS

I’ve never loved extensive time off. I loathe lack of structure. I’m probably the only college student who was happy for spring break to end today. Don’t get me wrong, I love a good break. I need a break. But there is something soul sucking about too many days in a row of complete freedom. It seems that the more choices I have, the less I am able to make. I I am so much more likely to sneak off downtown to the art museum for a few hours in between classes than I am if I have a whole week off. It’s nonsensical. I crave the feeling of fulfillment I get from getting something done and driving home to relax for the evening. Coming home, showering, and cooking dinner is my favorite daily ritual. It’s this carved out time to unwind and relax. It’s sacred. But its potency is lessened on days where you have all day to relax. I blame this largely on American society and our obsession with productivity, but I also just think it’s healthy to have somewhere to be everyday. Keeps the mind out of feverous existentialism and what not.

BODY IMAGE & CONFIDENCE

I, perhaps like every other girl who grew up in the early 2000s, have had to do extensive work to undo the damage that society did to my psyche as I came of age. Something I have noticed from this is that we judge ourselves far more severely than we judge anyone else. We see beauty in strangers that we refuse to see within ourselves. We hold ourselves to a higher standard, one that is impossible to ever actually achieve. I will see a person in the grocery store or walking down the street or hear someone speak in one of my classes and find them so wonderful. I will catch myself admiring little things about something they said or the way that they styled their outfit or how perfectly imperfect they are. And that’s the part that gets me. I am always seeing the beauty in other people’s flaws, falling in love with the gap in their teeth or the way their body is gorgeous despite appearing in total opposition to what we are told to desire. Why can’t we love ourselves this easily? A little trick is to imagine yourself from someone else’s eyes. Think about the way that you move through the world, the things that you say, the way that you treat people, they way your hair looks in a messy bun. Now think about these things as if you were someone else, looking in. Perspective in everything. Sometime you just have to trick your brain.

ETERNAL SUNSHINE

I’m cooking soup and milking the last of the cool weather before the heat enters our lives and refuses to relent until November. Yeah, November. I seriously don’t think it’s healthy to not experience seasons. San Diego has, yes, some of the best weather in the world. But it’s also kind of nauseating how monotonous is it. As humans we are constantly changing. Things are supposed to die and be reborn. Seeing our human experiences mirrored in the natural world is comforting. We feel one with the earth. But when you’re in an environment where very little changes, where you can hardly differentiate the days from each other, it can be disorienting. You feel like you are stuck in time, floating through a still, plastic world of palm trees and flip flops where nothing ever changes. I love California. But you can’t stay here forever. Not when it is all that you have ever known.

BEANS IN COOKIES

Also, for fun: I made chocolate chip cookies out of chickpeas and peanut butter—stay with me—and they are some of the best I have ever had. (Recipe from this video at 10:18) Oats, peanut butter, chickpeas, maple syrup, vanilla, cinnamon, baking powder & soda, and salt in a food processor. Fold in chocolate. Bake. Oh my GOD.

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