Between Two Lungs


"Gone are all the days of begging
The days of theft
No more gasping for a breath
The air filled me head to toe
And I can see the ground far below
I have this breathe and I hold it tight
And I keep it in my chest with all my might
I pray to god this breath will last
As it pushes past my lips as I... 
Gasp"

-Florence and the Machine




It's bittersweet really.
The end of another swim season, and still unsure of whether or not it may be my last., but I know that I love the people on the team too much to give it up completely. I was walking across campus alone late at night earlier this week and was contemplating friendships. How they start, how they end. How they grow, progress, dwindle, and how groups begin to form. Sometimes, well, a lot of the time I feel like I'm caught between all of these groups that have formed in my life. The worst part is that I legitimately want to be a close part in most of them (that's the worst part? What a hard life I lead.)

It's a social circus and I can't be the tightrope walker and the guy who swallows swords and a contortionist, can I?
Perhaps I dabble.
But then I never really fully commit myself to one thing. Then do any of the groups accept me? I just have a hard time choosing is what it really comes down to. I want to be able to spend my time where I want to spend it without the possible repercussions of not spending my time elsewhere.
Last spring I went to every home baseball game because the guy I considered to be my closest friend was a pitcher on the team. This spring I'm not going to go to many, if any at all.

Over the year, social interactions, or lack thereof change relationships. It's a fascinating world we live in, where an individual can alter your life, simply through interaction - no matter how small or large it may be. How something so little can make such a big difference, like color, for example. The inner workings of another persons mind is relatively unpredictable, and how they chose to explore their thoughts say so much about how their gears turn. And sometimes your gears mesh, sometimes they don't work at all, and sometimes there's a lot of invisible grinding that occurs before you realize that they don't fit together.

I think I've found places where I'm happy. I just need to balance them so that I can maintain the best  the two most important things at school; my architecture friends and my swim team.






-ings




Wishing: For this little cold I just stumbled upon to leave as quickly as it came. For the wind to go away, some nicer weather. You know it's too cold when your hair freezes after practice walking to the dining hall. Wishing that my hair was brown again. That my grades turn out okay this semester.

Listening: to The Temper Trap.

Lusting: After some ginseng green tea with honey in it. For these shorts (even though I can't recall the last time it was over 30 degrees).

Waiting: For my studio professor to email me back. I don't want to continue working until she gives me the O.K. on my projects concept. To be done with swimming for the rest of the year. For Spring Break to come.

Thinking: About time. The way in which time allows certain things in out lives to happen, or not happen is all very vexing. The fact that the time spent with people is valuable, to you and to them, and we should perhaps reevaluate who we are spending time with, and why we are doing so. About how these numbers that organize a day dictate the amount of things we can physically do in a period of time. Deadlines. Dates. The importance that a little number can have to someone doing a sport. And how it labels beginnings and ends.

Working: On some mix CD's. On staying healthy and hydrated. On mentally preparing myself for the final meet of the season. On my design studio work by writing about social stratification in colleges and how spatial conditions can relate to, or contrast with the stratification through examinations of several case studies.

Reminiscing: About the one time I didn't feel overwhelmed, and instead was able to enjoy the moment. Trying to relearn how to do that.

Hoping: That everyone had a nice Valentines Day and enjoys the rest of February. (It isn't a very long month.)


Experimenting.


With my hair color? 

This is one of those things that I knew was not going turn out like I expected it to, but decided to do it anyways. 

Oops.



Gossamer.

I stole this picture from my friend Ryan. He should be fine with that. 

I got a text last night from my mom that said "You better be at a concert right now".

You better believe I was at a concert last night. But let me start off by going back a few days, because a lot has happened since then.

Monday (yesterday) we had a mid-term presentation for my design studio of the work we've done up until this point on a case study of a building given to us. Last Friday I should have been working on it, but my friend Ben visited and distracted me for far too long, so that very little work got done. Saturday we had a swim practice in the morning in which we had "give-away day" which goes like this: you swim in a team and if your team wins a relay you get to chose a single closed bag (you can't see the item at all) and that is your prize. Some of the prizes are pretty bad, like our coaches junk mail, and other stuff is really good, like a 200 dollar race suit. I happened to get a huge banner from 1996 when RPI won the league championships, which I thought was pretty cool.  Immediately following that I joined some upperclassmen friends to "double-d breakfast hut", or more commonly referred to as Dunkin Donuts which was immediately followed by me going to their apartment so that I could get a gift from Dan. Now here's the thing. Dan is one of those people that if you saw him walking down the street you wouldn't say to yourself "now that's a guy who looks like he enjoys sewing", but he does, and he made me a pillow and it's a pretty awesome thing to have someone make for you. But I digress.

Afterwards the day continued by me bleaching my hair (yes, it's a gross blonde color for the meantime) and me trying to film a mens swim team video. After that I think I was able to do some work. Sunday came along and I hunkered down so that I could finish up my studio work by dinnertime. Well, that didn't exactly happen, but nine didn't seem too late to me. Monday's presentation came, and originally it was supposed to be a walk-around-and-look-at-each-others-work kind of deal, but then the professors decided to pick two students from each of the 5 sections to present their work. And guess who got chosen? I'll give you a hint: Their hair looks ridiculous right now.
Post presentation my architecture friends and I look at the time and realize, "oh, we're going to see Matt & Kim and Passion Pit perform in two hours."

AND WE DID AND IT WAS FANTASTIC.

And then we realized Tuesday we had two tests. I'll tell you up front that they did not go so well, but not because of not studying. I regret nothing.

Coffee is necessary for analyzing a building


This is the aforementioned banner. It's huge. It's completely covering my bed.

Context



It's very clear to me that this year is unlike the previous, although I'm not sure why. Sometimes things change and you're not really sure why they do, so you try and find out. And sometimes while trying to answer "why" you end up losing the mindset you previously had. And once that mindset is gone, it's really hard to get it back. But it can come back. You just need to stop asking "why," and instead ask "what now?"

So that's what I'm doing right now. I'm changing my question away from "why" because sometimes that just can't be answered through self speculation. "Why?" is a funny question regardless of the context that it's asked in. There can be a single answer to the question. But there can also be a multitude of answers that all seem right, and just as many that seem wrong. So I've resorted back to a child like state when the answer to "why?" became "because."

One of those things that I've become aware of is how stir crazy I seem to be going here. I miss Seattle, not only for the random blue painted trees, but for the ability to transport myself around an area that I knew well enough to know where I'm headed, but not well enough to stop exploring it. Here, it's not easy to get around, and nothing is really that close. Sometimes I wish I had a car, and other times I wish I had gone to school in a big city so that I could explore with ease. (I really hate it when my friend who goes to school in San Diego sends me messages of "It's 75 so I went to the beach today to do my reading" and I respond with "the low is under 0 and I can't remember the last time there wasn't snow on the ground.") Part of me thinks that I would never use the car, and the other part of me thinks I wouldn't stop going places.

I really like the idea of travelling, but the idea of doing it alone scares me a little. Like there's no one to share the experience with, and that's a huge part of the experience for me - is sharing it with others. I was startled realizing that it was February already because that means next month is spring break. Last year, I had an awesome break shared with some people that are now my closest friends. I saw a huge portion of the East coast and it was unforgettable really. This year... I'm not really sure what will happen. I don't just want to go home with someone else, it's kind of sad just doing that. It just reminds me that I can't go home myself.

I'm hoping for an adventure to spring up. If not, I may have to make one for myself.


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