Final Dillo Lineup

1:30-2:30 Walk the Moon
3:00-4:00 Danny Brown
4:30-5:30 SmashMouth
7:00-8:00 Lunice
8:30-10:00 Wiz Khalifa

LETS DO THIS

Kings of Summer

SO. GOOD.

My school was lucky enough to score an advanced screening of Kings of Summer to which students could go for free. I had seen a few random trailers and heard good things leading up to when I took my seat in that theater. In fact, people were so nonchalant about it that I only got one friend to come.

BEST.

DECISION.

EVER.

I don't remember the last time I laughed that hard at a movie. It was beautiful, made me giddily full of glorious summer memories and excited for the upcoming summer. The characters were so real and lovable with distinct possibilities. The subject was simple enough but reminded everyone of their own lives. I'm not going to say anything else to give it away but when the movie is officially released at the end of the week, GO SEE IT.

You will leave with a bigger smile on your face than you could have imagined.

new mantra

"Go make something happen." --Seth Godin

Weird Nap

I took a nap today and kept on having different dreams about what it would be like to wake up. That was... definitely one of my stranger experience of sleep. I each time, I wasn't sure if I was finally in reality or simply beginning a new dream.

But then it got me thinking.

In each of my new dreams, I had the opportunity to do something new when I got out of bed. This time, the differences weren't that big: I went running, took a shower, went to dinner, went to the lounge to talk to friends, did my Econ homework, took a long walk until I got lost, started packing for home... nothing out of the ordinary. Still, I had options. Too often we wake up knowing what we have to do. We stick to a list of things we want to get done. But even slight modifications of our plans can leave us with new stories and memories to share.

What if, all those years ago, I hadn't spent that day in the library? What if I hadn't asked for that kid's name who, today, is one of my best friends? What if I had kept walking and didn't stop to find that creek, that tree, or that secret world that I now think of as home? It's the minor decisions that count. Each day is a compilation of those minor decisions. I wonder what my life would be like today if any of my decisions, big or small, had been different.

Think about that, then try to tell me that "nothing interesting" happened today.

Home

7.14.13
The day I'm finally home for good. Kind of.
Is it weird that after 8 months of school, I'm only starting to feel homesick now? 


Home.

I'm sitting here
Sipping hot chocolate
Scrolling through Facebook reunions
Covered in textbooks
Listening to songs about home.


I miss you
So much. Too much.
I'm counting the moments
Till I can finally hold you in person
All of you
Without any intent of letting go

3 weeks is nothing yet an eternity
That comes too quickly and leaves too soon.
Will anything change between now and then?
Has it already?
Will it really be all I'm dreaming of?

Home.

For Science

Our new term for "Challenge Accepted."

This is kinda random and not as inspired as my usual posts. But here goes.

Soooo basically my friends and i have started using this to justify some of the dumb stuff we do for fun. Today during dinner, after eating ice cream, I went to grab an orange and mi amiga Michelle told me that citrus& dairy was a bad idea. I didn't believe her so we, of course, enlisted the help of Google.

The consensus? Yeah, citrus and dairy are definitely not friends.

Still, as I had already peeled my orange, I was determined to see whether or not I could defy science. We had a pretty decent population: 1 half-Irish/ half-Japanese male, 1 Chinese female, and 1 Nigerian female. As we finished our ice cream, we help up our individual orange slices and cheered, "for science!" Dairy, do what you will.

So far we're all doing alright but I guess we'll see if anyone becomes sick later...

Home

3. more. weeks.

I love this place so much  but I can't wait to see my home friends again.

My best friend from high school, Rachael, sent me an invitation to go river tubing the morning after I fly home. THIS is the kind of stuff I missed so much! Seeing all of those beautiful faces, hugging the people who made sure that high school DIDN'T completely suck.... just thinking about it is making me smile.

I'm only going to be home for 10 days before embarking on my summer journey but I'm so happy that we're starting it out this way. Home's always home :)

Some of my favorite Jason Mraz Songs for Inspiration

Make It Mine
93 Million Miles
Everything is Sound
The Remedy
Sunshine Song

Another Day For The Books

"Let's run."

The feeling of running is unparalleled. Arms swinging, legs pushing, heart pumping, air rushing through your hair...

Some days you feel like you can just keep going. As though you are running towards something and you won't know what until you get there. Today was one of those days.

About a week ago, my friend Michelle and I decided that we wanted out lives back. Until that point, we had increasingly lost ourselves in hours of pointless scrolling on Tumblr, battling strangers on Tetris Friends and staring at the pointless commentaries of Twitter. Where had the richness of our lives gone? Where was the imagination? The time to read for fun? Hours to just think or pass time with friends without worrying about tomorrow's assignments? Our consensus was that social media was slowly but surely eating our lives. We may have felt connected to others through their pictures on facebook or laughed with millions of others at a meme shared on Tumblr but we refused to trade off reality for virtual happiness.

So we gave it up.

All of it.

(Well not Facebook but that was more for club and homework reasons than anything else)

Suddenly, we were faced with the freedom of extra time on our hands. Without social media's distractions, we finished our homework quickly and efficiently and had 3-4 hour left in the day to do anything we wanted with.

Today we went running.

Michelle was the one who suggested we run to the Ba'hai Temple about 2 miles north of our dorm. Throughout the year, we had heard whispers of its beauty and we wanted to go see it for ourselves.

It.
was.
glorious.

It was beautiful, mystifying, transcending, peaceful, wondrous, and so many other words. I have never seen such detailed craftsman ship maintained in such a way. It is truly a place of peace.

Awestruck, we stayed for about half an hour exploring the gardens, reading the words on the walls, and entering the temple for a sip of momentary grace. Upon leaving, we had a new-found energy. The world is a beautiful place and humans are truly amazing.

We wanted to explore and see what else our little town offered that we had neglected all year. And wow did we find it! We followed dead-end roads to lake front houses and created plans for future adventures. We took a random turn left, found a playground and channeled our childhoods while playing with the swings.

And we found Narnia.
I kid you not.

Behind the playground, I noticed a secluded path through some trees (TREES! I haven't seen many of these since back home!) and followed it. Down a hill and over some rocks, I laid eyes on a quiet, open, and gorgeous semi-private beach. Needing to share my discovery, I sprinted back to the playground, grabbed Michelle and made her come.

Our run as only supposed to last about 45 minutes but we stayed on that beach for over an hour watching the sunset and wondering why we hadn't done this earlier. "Where are our classmates?" we wondered. "How can people know about somewhere this beautiful and not want to be here all of the time?"

As the sun disappeared behind the waves, we decided it was time to go.  A mile more and we were back at our dorm ready to return to reality. Only 2.5 hours had passed and yet my day feels richer than many I've had in school so far. Even if I end up staying up until 4 in the morning doing my work, I feel absolutely no regrets. Today, we lived life as it should be lived and led ourselves down paths we didn't know to places we had never been. And I wouldn't change a thing.

Dear You

Dear You,

You were always there and yet you seemed to come all at once. How is it that something so constant can suddenly change, and change everything with it? 

You were a hurricane. You were thunder and lightning and everything from whence I wanted to run. Yet you held a strange fascination. You were sunshine and rain and the breath between two stars. Even a thousand miles away, I still can’t seem to escape you. Yet, I’m not sure if I want to. I hate you for that. But I could never hate you. You know that, don’t you?

Still nothing haunts me like the words I might have said. Where would we be today if I had only won the battle for 7 seconds of pure courage? Would you be there? Would I be here? 

Would it matter? 

Will I ever know?

We used to talk. I mean talk. Arm wide and heart abandoned. I could tell you what was clawing at my sanity and the dreams that I didn’t know I had until you were there. I knew you and you knew me. No questions, no hurry, no judgement. And that was enough. 

And we used to laugh. I mean the from the core, rolling on the floor, eyes tearing, forget what you’re laughing about than laugh even harder laughter. Have I even smiled like that since? It was as though, in those moments, we weren’t here. Gravity no longer applied to us. We were millions of miles from this solar system and yet right where we had always been.

We were best friends. Are we still? Were we more? Time and distance have created a test that I am not sure I want to face. You can’t repeat the past. But will the past remain the way we left it?

It’s hard to believe that 26 letters contain all I ever have said or want to say to you. Still, I can’t find the words. 

Love always,
Me

Only Human

“Only human?”

Ha!

What a sorry excuse

People are amazing

With their strength and their voice

With their determination to learn

And their ability to make love grow

People are inspirational

And literally strived for the moon

Only to accomplish the goal

And shoot further

People are dreamers

With the sky in their thoughts

Who made themselves birds

And decided to fly

So only human?
Nope try again!

For only a human will always say:

Challenge accepted

Symphonies of Ifs

Symphonies of ifs

Define each day

Our choices create us

And minutes pass till today

But even if time

Were to slip away

Moments, just moments

Would leave us with stories we must say

Stories of wind

In which you asked yourself why

And realized that: why not?

Rather, is the best option to try

Stories of sun

In which tomorrow could wait

For today, your friends

Would grow to soul mates

And there are stories of rain

In which regret consumes

Heartbreak and mistakes

Flooding one’s heart with their monsoons

Yet from these lives you form

Through the choices to learn

Just who you are my friend

And now it’s time to turn

Away from who you were

And start facing who you’ll be

For the answer is in questions

Of which the end we’ll never see

Our lives are made

By possibility in constellations and cliffs

Formed by memories and small wonders

And symphonies of ifs

Internal Explosions

Internal Explosions

Trying to decide

Which road, which road

Should I travel by?

The route of wonder?

Wherein the dragons I slay

Be of my own inspiration

And my pen paves the way?

The road of responsibility?
Following my duties to the tee?

Choosing medicine and science

Over the right just be?

The boulevard of bliss?

Where the now is incessant

Taking each moment in stride

Never for the ‘morrow but the present?

The mountains, the mountains

I cannot yet climb

Still each day I return

Just aching to find

 That land, that land

That promised place

Of balance and stability

That only grace

Could carry me to

When all I believed

Was that my life would be forged

By a dream I conceived

Oh Lord, my Lord
My God, My God

Help me, please help me

For my views are flawed

The roads I see are narrow

Yet what I yet to see

Is the small path, that path

You have created for me

5/19/13

What do you want people to say about you when you go?

For me, I want to people to describe me as alive. I want to be remembered as the girl who was always hungry for more out of life. As one of the few people who were still excited to wake up every morning to see what the world had to offer. I want to be remembered as a doer-- as someone who constantly searched for how to improve the world and went out there and did it. I want people to see me as a symbol of the human spirit as it might have been, should have been. As the firecracker whom kept you guessing, watching, and hanging on her word but who was at the same time someone who you could trust unconditionally and respected for her wisdom. 

 I will be that girl.

2/7/13

I remember wind. Wind everywhere. I remember the wind’s howls overtaking my own, pushing and pulling with its unimaginable power. I remember a field of frozen white, somehow left sacred. I remember running. I remember air rushing through my lungs. The blood pumping through my veins. I remember feeling like never coming back. I remember screaming and laughing. Spinning. Seeing the waves crashing upon the shore and knowing at that very moment:

I am here.  I am alive.

~

My greatest fear is that I’ll lose the present. I’m terrified by the idea of working too hard or thinking to much that I forget to be where I am. I live for those days when I know exactly what I did and, even if I entirely neglected my work, had no regrets.  When I just felt alive. For the days when I don’t hear stories but I live them. For the days when I can simultaneously experience and appreciate. For the days when I AM unstoppable. When I embrace my youth. Just for one day.

I need that day to be everyday. Writing it all down helps.

I don’t know if I’ll have days when I’m lost. It’s happened before. I’ve had days when I think myself into a corner with thought of the past. Worries of the future. But if I really want to live the way I want to, such ideas cannot inhibit me. I refuse to let them.  

I WILL steal time.