saturday, november 17 • • •

→    it's not official yet, quite, but I've made up my mind, and so here it is: I'm changing my major.

don't panic yet; I'm not changing it much. I'm dropping the physics half of my astrophysics major and doing a straight astronomy major. I'm still a cognitive science minor; the only significant change in my schedule will be two fewer seminars next semester with normal non-physics classes in their place. I'll still write an astro thesis, take the physics gre, tear my hair out in the process of applying to grad schools next year, and spend far too much time in the science library. what I won't do, hopefully, is feel like school is taking over my life anymore.

I've been thinking about this for a year, really; I've always liked astronomy a whole lot more than I like physics, and astrophysics majors at swarthmore take a lot more physics than astronomy (or anything else). but they told us: if you want to go to graduate school, you must be an astrophysics major. and there was also the unspoken-but-palpable attitude that astronomy was a major for dabblers, and astrophysics was for real scientists, that anyone serious enough about turning astro into a career and smart enough to pull it off should want to do astrophysics because it was better.

well, screw that. I've taken a whole lot of physics and I know that what I really like is astronomy. I don't want to build black holes in laboratories, I want to look at stars. and I want to do more than that; I want to be a musician and a poet and an activist and a human being, and if I can't do any of those things now, when can I do them? swarthmore redesigned its webpage last week, and while I was browsing it I read over all the flowery, glowing descriptions of our idyllic swattie lives that I hadn't paid any attention to since the agonizing months in high school when I was trying to figure out where I wanted to go to college. they reminded me that I came to a liberal arts school for a reason. I put astrophysics as my intended major on my application, but I never said I wanted to do physics to the exclusion of all else, because I didn't, don't, and never will.

I know some people think I'm giving up, conceding defeat, or just plain being stupid. I know some people will say I told you so and other people will want to know why I'm potentially jeopardizing my future just so I don't have to take two classes. I know some people will decide this is evidence that I'm not really a scientist, I don't really want to be a scientist, and I'm not dedicated or brilliant enough to ever become one. I wish I could say that none of that bothers me, but I can't, because it does bother me a little, mostly because I know I am thinking all those things somewhere in the back of my head.

when it comes right down to it, though, I'd rather be a good human being than a good scientist, and I still think I can be both. (I'm even doing sexy astronomy!) I know that taking one astronomy seminar and three other classes will be easier than taking three seminars and one other class, but it also means I'll be able to have fun playing rugby and practicing the clarinet and working with children, instead of always feeling half-dead and panicked from exhaustion and stress. I know I revel a little bit in this academic masochism; we all do, and we have to or else we'd never make it here. still, I'd like to get eight hours of sleep in a night for once instead of eight hours in a week, and if that means giving up my rights to insanity and an automatically-winning misery poker hand, so be it.

I had a lot of fun in physics yesterday, playing with toys and laughing with my friends, and it made me a little bit sad to think about how different things will be soon. I've had almost all my classes with the other astrophysics majors for the past three semesters, and now they'll be doing quantum mechanics homework while I'm writing english papers, staying up all night solving schroedinger equations while I read psychology articles, getting diplomas with a whole different word on them. at the same time, though, having a fun physics class reminded me of how much I haven't been having fun lately, and how important it is for me to stay on good terms with physics, even if that means walking away for a little while. last weekend I was eating dinner alone with a comic book when one of my freshman year hallmates came up to chat. I told him I was pretty sure I was going to drop physics, and he grinned and said, "that's great!" and for the first time I really felt good about it. my astro professors have been sympathetic and supportive, and my friends have been noncommitally nice (though they mostly seem perplexed), but that was the first time anyone had seemed truly enthusiastic about it.

and now, after two weeks of daily consideration, I feel pretty enthusiastic about it too. I'm in college and I love being here, and I want to love learning here again. something that costs thirty-five thousand dollars a year should be fun, and I'm going to have fun. it was great just to flip through the course catalog, not looking for a specific class that I have to take or something that will fill up one of my distribution requirements, but just looking for things that I want to learn about even though I'll probably never study them again. I'm even thinking about tap dancing for the first time in nine years.

okay, enough of this self-absorbed post. I have physics homework to do. and after that, the rest of my life.
08:44  ...

friday, november 16 • • •

→    my little sister is seventeen years old today.

I'm sure my parents wonder sometimes how they managed to have two daughters who are so completely different; I think we were spawned in opposite ends of the family gene pool. three years ago, when I was a senior in high school and she was a freshman, we used to delight in watching our friends stare at us in incredulous disbelief. (that's your sister? are you sure?)

even oil and water can have fun together, see. happy birthday, z.
10:34  ...

→    I'm not sure whether I fell out of bed in the process of waking up or the other way around, but somehow I landed on my feet. I had to spin around for a few minutes before I could get my bearings, and by the time I found my bed again I wasn't quite tired enough to crawl back under the covers.

at first I couldn't figure out why the water streaming over my shoulders and forearms had suddenly turned red, and I had to stare at the infuriatingly normal showerhead for a few seconds before I realized there was blood pouring from my nose and running between my teeth, and by then there was really no reason to get upset about it.

it's something special to have a slow brain work in your favor. if only I had a gearshift for it I'd be all set.
10:10  ...

thursday, november 15 • • •

→    a little slower please universe. you're making me dizzy.
21:56  ...

wednesday, november 14 • • •

→    I had never actually touched the alexander calder mobile before last night. sometimes I stopped and watched it wobble in the air, this angular tangle of metal geometrids sprouting out of the ground amidst a cluster of lilacs, sticking out and awkward like the ugly duckling surrounded by perfect puffball chicks. once I sat underneath it on a windy day when the arcing black arms swung through collision courses, clanking together and getting nowhere, and I thought it seemed remarkably lifeless for a piece of art.

at four in the morning in the stillness of starlit dark, we spun the arms around and I was astonished by their grace, the same way I am always surprised to see the giganticness of an elephant taper to a single gently curling point at the end of her trunk. the arms twisted around, caught between balance and momentum, big and deliberate enough for me to see beauty and physics at the same time again, finally. and that happiness exists where you let it, sometimes in spite of expectations and circumstances and history and biology, sometimes even in the complete absence of sunlight.
07:45  ...

tuesday, november 13 • • •

→    walking home at almostfive in the morning, under the gaze of green-belted orion, I thought momentarily that I could hear the coldness in the air, a faint high-pitched ringing like the echo of a bellchime, but then I realized it was far inside my head. the frost on the still-green grass sparkled with tantalizing impermanence, impossible to pinpoint, like the stars you see on the outskirts of your vision that disappear when you turn to look.

now, warm inside three layers of flannel, I listen carefully and I think I can hear the sound of my future sleepdreams waiting in the wings, sighing and twittering in anticipation, ephemeral like the frost but constant like the constellations, writing stories into songs into life. soft songs for safe dreams. I am always dreaming, and somewhere, orion is always watching.
05:18  ...

monday, november 12 • • •

→    the wing fell off. I keep looking up to the sky to make sure the airplanes are still stuck together, not disintegrating midflight, but I can't keep them safe after they disappear into the gaping blue of the sky, and I can only hope that their passengers have more confidence than I do in the universe's power to ward off tragedy.

some days being human just hurts a little bit too much, but then I realize that I am alive, I'm warm and fed, I love and I'm loved in return, and so I'm still coming out ahead. still, engine failure should never be the least of any evils.
17:22  ...

→    confusing thing number three: plagiarism.

come on people. don't steal my words. it makes me sad.
01:13  ...

sunday, november 11 • • •

→    confusing thing number two: I'm twenty years old but I feel more like a child than ever.

college is about being independent, right? but it seems that I am learning to let other people take care of me for the first time in my life. not that people haven't tried before, but I was so convinced that I had to be independent, emotionally and otherwise, that I refused to let myself be vulnerable unless I had absolutely no choice in the matter.

and now, suddenly, I'm five years old, or perhaps the five-year-old I would have been if I hadn't been so stubborn about doing everything myself. physics was awful last week, completely intractable and seemingly endless, and I was a mess even before midnight on thursday. the three of us were working downstairs, and I was being even more useless than usual, barely capable of moving my tongue, let alone forming coherent words. go to bed, they told me, and I refused because our homework wasn't done. at least go to sleep then, they said, promising to wake me up if they figured anything out. so I crawled onto the floor and curled up under a jacket that didn't belong to me and slept for an hour, and when they gently shook me awake I just blinked and sat up instead of turning red and crying quietly, which is what I would have done ten years ago.

I used to be utterly terrified of falling asleep in front of people. there was one night when I was six and my mother was reading me a christmas carol and I fell asleep on the couch while the ghost of christmas past was appearing. I woke up some time later to find the lights still blazing and my mother sitting there quietly next to me, and I immediately started sobbing hysterically because I hadn't meant to fall asleep and I didn't want to be asleep and everything was all wrong. my mother said that she thought drifting off in the middle of a story was probably one of the nicest ways to fall asleep, and rationally in the back of my head I thought she was probably right, but I couldn't listen to reason because I was too distraught over the idea that I had just been lying there in plain view, defenseless and vulnerable, without anything to shield the subconscious rise of my most guarded emotions from the rest of the world. you can't hide while you're asleep, because you don't even know what you're hiding from.

so it astonishes me how much I have learned to trust people over the course of just two years, but at the same time I worry that I depend too much on my friends to give me purpose and direction. I am in college but all I want to do is stare at the setting sun, tipping my head back and forth to watch the rainbows between my eyelashes bend and break. I thrill when people smile at me, like a toddler given a lollipop. I live alone in my room full of plants and music, but I sleep only when I'm told it's okay and I willingly forget my responsibilities until someone reminds me that yes, I am in college, I'm an adult, and the world doesn't run on perpetual playtime.

I suppose I worry sometimes that I've lost my own glow and can only reflect the light that others give me, a pallid moon surrounded by burning stars.
00:16  ...