Nights in White Satin

Unintended hiatus from blogging for the last few days, but honestly, not much has happened of note.

I did go hiking with my friend and her mom, which was awesome. It was on this private farm property up in Woodside, and for the art history geek in me, it was pretty sweet. The people who owned the many acres of farmage had statutes and other works of sculpture lining all of the hiking trails. It was super cool, and I learned yet another important life lesson: don't miss opportunities to experience life, to "work." My friend and I then went to see the new Johnny Depp movie, Dark Shadows. It was alright; it had all the ingredients to be a good movie (intriguing premise, source material, good actors, comedy potential, good production value), but suffered from a weak script. It seemed like the writers were suffering from trying to cram four years of the original show's plots and sub-plots into 90 minutes. This lead to a lack of character development outside of Johnny Depp's character, and none of the interpersonal relationships really went anywhere. Would have been better if they simplified it down to one or two central plots. The first half of the movie was the best, because it had all of the gags, riffing on some guy from the 1790s suddenly being plopped into the 1970s... Incidentally, ever since I watched that movie, I can't stop listening to 60s and 70s era music. Like, Nights in White Satin by the Moody Blues in particular. Which I never really liked before. I don't know; movies with flawed/tortured yet somehow endearing male leads have weird effects on me.

In other news, my parents got home on Sunday. Everything on that front has been fine; no inherent awkwardness over the whole boyfriend-living-with-me thing. Incidentally, albeit with some parental coaxing, a bit of my old self (read: competitive) came out, and for some insane reason I decided to try to finish the writing competition, even without the damn book that I needed. Initially I had given up, because I knew that to try to do the write-on without all the needed material would be insane. If I am honest with myself, I think I did it because if Hell freezes over and I actually get on one of the journals, I will have hardcore bragging rights of, "I did this in 1.5 days, while y'all did it in 6." Needless to say, it was a cluster. I went down to my dad's office to work on it (because we don't have functional scanners at my parents' house, a clutch element of the competition). We didn't leave there until almost 3AM, and I was working right up until 6:55AM on Tuesday, 5 minutes before it was due. During the day, there was some hardcore scrambling to find this stupid Texas Law Review Manual of Style. By scrambling, I mean there was some Kristin-running-around-her-parents'-old-law-school to try to find this book, photocopying 2/3 of the 19th edition of the Bluebook because I couldn't check it out of the law library (that was the other good news-- I figured out that I had also forgotten my Bluebook in Chicago. Whomp.), working out of an 18th edition Bluebook (one edition older than the current one) borrowed from one of the associates at my dad's firm. Never did find it, said Screw It, and went on without it. I am pretty sure the editing portion of my submission is crap. But, I do think I managed to eek out a decent case note portion, so we shall see. I think my doing this was a latent variation on something I had always wanted to do: namely, in high school I considered trying to apply to Harvard. I had no real emotional investment in it; at the time, an Ivy League school was not what I wanted out of undergrad. But I was always curious about whether or not I could get in. Didn't ever apply to find out. This, I think, was kind of like that. But, if I do get a journal membership offer, apparently it will generally carry over if I leave school and then decide to come back. So, that's something.

Other than that, nothing new to report. Still no job offers, still no new interviews. I am starting to lose hope. I would really like the job I interviewed for last week, but it is starting to look like that won't happen. Oy. I just would really like some time to not be a student, and to start making my own money, and live like a real young adult, not one that is still dependent on her parents and the government. I would also like to start paying down my student loans because, let's face it, debt sucks. I can't tell you how much I want to start being my own person, and shaping my own life, and I cannot do that while I am a student-- at least, while I am a student who has never been anything else. But, it looks as if fate has other plans. I don't know what else to do. The kicker is, I really do think I am actually qualified for the jobs to which I have applied; I don't know what the problem is.

So, that was this week. Nothing exciting, really. My parents were out again this evening, so I took the opportunity to go to dinner on my own and have some "me" time. And by "me" time, I mean drive around for a while. Every time I need to think-- or to remember-- if I have the chance, I get in my car and turn up the tunage and drive for a while. I have a special route that I go on-- that will remain secret to me-- always the same route. So anyway, I was on this route tonight, and was just thinking. I wish I were more like I was in high school. I realize that back then, I was just generally a more chill and, I think, nicer person. Since college, I just get a lot more pissed off at things, at people, just in general. Perhaps it is because college exposes you to more of the world, and much of what I see... just disappoints me, more than anything. I remember when I was 16, 17, 18, I would move heaven and earth to do right by people, to be there. Now, I just don't have a lot of that feeling left. And I feel it, I feel what is lacking by not having that in me anymore. But, I just can't muster it. Who knows what happened; perhaps what Alyson Sheedy said in The Breakfast Club is right: "When you grow up, your heart dies." But then, the rest of that exchange is equally true for me: "Who cares?" "I care."

Of course, all of this (pensive, brooding thinking; endless Nights in White Satin listening) could be the result of the fact that, for a variety of reasons, being back home in California can mess with my head.