rarely updated

3:07am: download software for your cell phone

5:57pm: On another note, all of my pants are too big on me now. It's a bit annoying.

1:28am: Tonight
I took a mental health day today. After a night of getting to know Eric a bit better I decided that I just really needed a day to chill out. It's hard when home isn't really a home. There's nowhere in my house that I have to myself. Personal time and space is hard for me to come by and I really needed to take some time to pay attention to my own needs. I spent the day hanging around with Dan Soley, Eric, and Al. I went to my therapist's at 4. Then I took a long and lovely walk home. I love walking and just listening to my music. It's my little heaven and the refuge I take from the world. It's really the only time that I have just for myself. Whenever I go for these walks I just have these wonderful thoughts and I am able to come to terms with my situation or at least distance myself from it to some extent.

After doing my German I talked to Dan Soley who reminded me that Eric and Jeff had a show tonight and asked if I was going. Of course. He picked me up. I was at the door looking for him and all these trick or treaters kept coming to the door. Some of them were quite adorable. We saw the show, but it was clear the Jeff and Eric had a lot of work to do. I didn't want to go home so Dan and I went on a long journey to East Boston, where we climbed on seaweed covered rocks in the dark with expensive camera equipment and took pictures of the boston skyline. We got horribly lost on our way home and ended up in Winthrop which is apparently by the Sea if you believe their signs. We crossed this bridge with a bizarre view. So we parked and started taking picture and walked along the beach for quite some time before we decided to head back to Waltham. Somehow we made it back, though it was long and treacherous. It was a good night.

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In other news, I am meeting new people. On monday I spent hours with this guy Evan who is in a class with me. We hung around with Rachael and Al and another Dan. It was a lot of fun. Rachael, it turns out, is also going to Prague next semester which is endlessly exciting. We are already planning trips to see Al in Vienna.

Life is starting to get better.

-Parvaneh

1:17am: for my memory's sake
Friday was beyond surreal. I got a decent night's sleep for the first time in ages without the help of any external substances. It probably helped that I wasn't sleeping on the floor, but on Al's futon/bed. I slept through a class I really couldn't miss and I'll have to talk to the teacher about that. After my other class, I had no way home for a couple of hours and I ran into Sasha, who I barely know through Al, but decided I would hang out with him and this guy Neil anyway. I spent about an hour hanging around with them before they left. I then found Kindness who gave me a ride home. The house was deserted. I took a shower, did my thing and left for a walk (I wanted to leave while it was still light out).

The walk from my house to Al's house is much shorter than I had expected. It only took about 15 to 20 minutes and I was thoroughly enjoying listening to music and zoning out while I walked. After I got to Al's, after talking to Yossi for an hour I decided to go back out and walk again. I walked for about 40 minutes, just listening to music and in that time I had a total epiphany. It might have been the fact that I had only consumed Coffee and Tea throughout the day and was expending so much energy, but I just felt like my whole body was vibrating with... everything that exists. And I felt like the whole world was inside of me and I just had to do everything that I wanted to do and just live my life and relax. There's just so much in the world, it's silly to let things get in my way. I determined that I would be fearless.

After that I can only pinpoint specific moments.

Highlights:

Gregorian chant playing all night in the lounge room/den of sin.

Wearing a tie because Doug's room was business casual.

Copious amounts of instruments to be played. Organ, Crumhorn, Cornetto, Sacbut, guitars, bass, drums, recorder.

Eric and Jeff singing randomly about the Ewok Village and Scientology.

The organ bench breaking.

Ben wandering through the house with a harpoon.

Yossi changing his clothes three times throughout the night.

Wandering through the cemetery in the rain with hand holding and kisses.

5:24pm: Yay!
I'm studying in Prague next semester!!

9:09pm: trucks...
A couple of days ago we were sitting in the living room watching Brandon play Zelda on Wii when we heard a crash and a prolonged honk. We looked out the window. There appeared to be a truck, bigger than a normal semi, attempting to turn from a tiny arterial onto a residential street outside of our house. As the truck moved, it became apparant that it had taken down the big box that holds the walk/don't walk signals from the traffic light. The truck backed up, and tried again, almost taking out a different traffic signal box before giving up and continuing on the arterial.

After the truck had gone, all the traffic that had been backed up because of this attempt started moving... only the traffic lights were no longer working. Most people treated the intersection like a four way stop, but every once in a while some idiot would go barreling through the intersection as if no light meant that he had the right of way. As Hayley and I watched and morbidly hoped for a car accident, a neighbor wandered over and seeing us out on the porch started exclaiming that her power had been taken out. Apparently most of the houses around us had lost power. I ducked my head inside. No, Brandon was still playing Wii. Somehow we had been spared. It was pretty eerie, exciting, and hilarious all at once.



On an unrelated note, I really miss Seattle. Walking home from school would be much nicer if the plants were the same kind of plants. Residential streets look and feel entirely different here. People in Waltham don't have gardens out in front of their houses. Or at least I haven't seen any. I miss being able to walk to an area with water and benches. I miss having transportation. The worst of my homesickness seems to be passing, but that urge to just drop out or take a year off and just live in Seattle forever is still nagging at my head. I really like my classes, our house is pretty fantastic, and I'm starting to get a routine down, but... ugh. I hate my job. I need a new or different job because every time I work, I die a little bit more inside. Children are horrible little creatures. THEN I think I could be happy here...

9:20pm: anxiety
The last many years of my life have been interjected with bouts of extreme nervous energy. A clenching in my chest and
throat and a near inability to stay still for several hour periods. This started happening almost daily in my sophomore
year of high school, though I had had these bouts for years. I didn't seem to make the connection with my stress at
being in math class and my almost daily nervous bouts I had when I was in that class, which almost made it entirely
impossible to pay attention. Often, when I am in a group or on my own, I get this feeling, where my ribs feel like
they might collapse inward and my throat tightens so I have to breathe slower and more heavily and I'm overtaken by
the urge to move or do something that might take the feeling away. Sometimes I do a summersault and feel more
comfortable as I lay on the floor, sometimes I insist on going out somewhere with almost manic urgency. Yeah... why
did I never think that was weird?

I guess you can learn to deal with anything if you think it's normal or it happens frequently enough.

1:52pm: ending the hiatus
I am going to write in here again, I think, after almost a month of silence. Sorry guys. Not only was it hard to find time while Duker was out, but I have been writing in a real journal! My thoughts have gone dry for that thing, too, though. So a change of setting would be helpful, I guess.

No, I really have nothing to say. Darn.

I'm still loving Seattle and I'm hungry as fuck. Screw this, I'ma get somthin to eat!!

1:59am: It's been a good day
It's been a great day for me! Even though this whole Chris situation was pretty obnoxious, I am actually believing that it was his loss. Being told by a bunch of people that I act older than I am and seem very self confidant helps. I pretty much recognize right now that there is a lot that is awesome about me. haha. It sucks that a person who I wanted to see that didn't, but that doesn't mean that I have to think less of myself. To turn a 180 that quickly is pretty messed up regardless, so hey... I don't want him in my life anyway! Plus, now I don't have to worry about whether he gives a shit about me or not. I'm not going to let it be that putting myself out there and getting rejected is going to ruin my self esteem or my willingness to meet new people. I am going to keep putting myself out there. I mean, being rejected hurt, but it wasn't that bad. I mean to really be scared of! Not to mention I have tons of really great friends. The opinion of some random person hardly matters. Especially when the opinions of a bunch of other random strangers condradict that one!

Did I mention that I got asked out by FOUR people this week?

8:01am: 4th of July
I love Seattle.

Yesterday I was driving to Boo's house. It was only about 6:15 and the sun was still ridiculously bright and hot. As I was crossing the bridge I looked out and saw boats swarming around the barge for teh fireworks. Gasworks was already filled with people. A wave of affection for Seattle hit me as if it were a being. I love Seattle.

I walked with Boo from her house to Gasworks. It was a long walk because the shoes I wore on tuesday made my feet bleed. Regardless, walking with a friend is always fun. We were given ID tags and free fleece blankets and free ground coffee besides the fact that we were sitting right in the front, NO ONE in front of us. I love fireworks and there were times where my face hurt from smiling too much or little tearlets welled in my eye crinkles.

One of the songs they used was Just Can't Get Enough by Depeche Mode. Only my favorite song ever!! I almost died. Well, really, I almost started dancing.

The walk back was ridiculous. Everyone piling out of gasworks at once is an amazing thing to see. Both the road and the Gilman Trail were absolutely packed until well after we walked up to the Roosevelt bridge. As we were walking, a car drove by and a guy leaned out the window and yelled, "I LOVE YOU!" My reaction was a bit delayed, but I yelled back in kind. :)

I didn't get home until around Midnight. When I went down into my room I found my cat had been hiding under the dresser in my living room. He came and jumped on my lap and began kneeding me before jumping down again and kneeding the blanket next to me. He put his head on my arm. I felt bad getting up so I wasted time on the computer until he moved and I went to take a shower. I didn't actually get into bed until around 1:30 in the morning. My cat came and slept with me... except I didn't really sleep. It was 2:20 before I even began to get tired and I slept and dreamt, but at 3:50, I woke up again. From that point on I barely slept at all, only a moment or two throughout the rest of the morning. I am pretty exhausted, and my dream was disturbing as hell.

Regardless, I feel decently energetic today. I am sure I'll crash pretty early, but I think I should be able to make it through work, at least.

( my dream for those of you who are interested )

11:22am: Aventail
I spend all day sitting in an office. I'm in that big black building across from Cinerama, often referred to as the "Darth Vader Building." There's a big window in the lobby, but even though it's an unbelievably beautiful day, the tinted windows dim it to the level of brightness you'd get on a heavily overcast day.

They've put me to work doing all the paperwork they've neglected to file for the last 3 months. I don't mind it, considering the phone rings once or twice ever hour, at most. I feel bad because I definitely have kind of fucked up on the UPS stuff. The shipping guy can't be too pleased with me. Then again, nobody tells me nothin!

Yesterday I went down to the market for lunch. I'd like to do the same today. I had to stop by Randstad first so I only got a few minutes to get my food and sit in the park to eat. What a beautiful city! Sitting by the water with all sorts of people... I am, unfortunately, wearing shoes that aren't very... walk friendly? today. They're already cutting into the back of my heels. Ugh.

The elevator shaft makes a sound like a screaming rabid squirrel.

Three guys came in to pick up a bunch of chairs the company had been using. One of them kept asking about my name. He ended up forgetting his paperwork and came back up. Before he left he came up to me and said, "Here's my number if you feel like hanging out before you go back to school." The guy wasn't attractive and I'm certainly not interested, but it was a bit of an ego booster and amusing for sure.

Hooray for rambling!

9:13pm: I did some walking today
I walked after work. I love Seattle. There are many things that contribute to this love.

1. I do repetitive work. It's tedious and can sometimes be exhausting. I look out huge glass windows overlooking the Puget Sound. I watch the ferries come and go, disappearing into the islands which then give way to the looming Olympic mountain range, which is so unbelievably gorgeous. Even when it's cloudy, just watching the clouds roll over the water and the mountains is stunning.

2. I sat at Starbucks, waiting for Virg to get off work today. There was one other customer who was sitting there. All the coffeeshops in the heart of downtown close at around 6, because that's when everyone leaves to go home. The place was pretty much deserted. This guy was wearing a brown shirt and looked to be half asian. When I got on the bus on Capital hill, about an hour later, the same guy was sitting almost right next to me.

3. Virg got coffee at Cafe Ladro on Pine. She was in the bathroom and I was looking at pictures taken by mountain climbers. They reminded me of Ian's photos. I got into a conversation with the Barista about them.

4. I got a coffee at Bauhaus, it was beautiful today, warm but not too warm. There was a huge crowd there. The thing about Bauhaus is it's kind of unpredictable who will be there. There was a couple who looked preppy, a man who looked like a professor, several hipster types, and what appeared to be a wigger. The baristas were friendly, but busy*. We didn't stay.

5. We made a stop in Half-Priced books on Broadway and John. They have a black and white cat who, as Virg so aptly pointed out, appears to be double stuffed, like an oreo cookie. This cat is ginormous. There are several cats at this location and the other patrons are friendly and conversational.

6. I walked along Latona. There was a group of bikers going in the other direction. The first had a mustache that connected to a goatee, though the beard part was shaved off, giving the look of a really long mustache, but he wore fitted clothing and appeared to be very unlike the stereotype associated with that facial hair. Behind him was another man/boy who had thick, shoulder length hair, tucked under a hat. Behind him was a girl with thick dreadlocks.

7. A girl was walking ahead of me, wearing skinny jeans, a hoodie, and sported died black, choppy hair. She met up with a group of preppy looking kids. As they walked up the hill to meet her, I caught part of the conversation.
"If you really listen, the lyrics are pretty deep." A boy, about 17, said.
The girl joining them asked what they were talking about.
Someone responded, though I'm not sure the relation of what he said.
"Seriously, look at my favorites. Garden State, Requiem of a Dream*, and The Truman Show. Those are my favorite three movies of all time. What does that tell you?"
It told me he was a normal teenager.

8. I walk by the playground and seemingly unused school. There are two girls standing in a lawn across the street, laughing loudly and conversing excitedly. One is wearing a flowing tweed looking dress, the other is wearing a tanktop and tweed looking capris.

9. There are a lot of people walking their dogs. Capital Hill saw many small dogs. Also a couple out walking their two ferrets. I can only imagine how much their apartment smells.

10. Two very small girls play in the front lawn with their babysitter. They tell her she is now the horsie. She tells them they are too big and strong to ride on her back. They laugh.

11. I get to my street and stand on the corner. I look the west. I can see the Olympics peaking over the houses and trees. I look to the east, I can see the Cascades spanning across the horizon.

I love this place. I want to just go somewhere with my computer and just write observations. It makes me happy. I like the variety of experience here. I like the laid back nature of this place.

In other, very exciting news, Duker might be coming to Seattle for a couple of weeks. I am almost jumping out of my skin with excitement. I can't wait! :)

*I tend not to like the baristas at Bauhaus. Well, I don't like the lady baristas. They are condescending to a ridiculous degree. On the other hand, I love the baristas at the Pike location of Victrola.

*Yes, this is what he said. I know that's not the actual name of the movie.

12:49am: today
At the end of the day, about 4:45, I got a call from one of the guys at Randstad. I hadn't taken my 15 minute break so I figured I was off for the rest of the day and I answered. He was really shocked and berated me for picking up the phone but I told him I was taking my break (though he still berated me for it). Anyway, he started saying, "We got some feedback from KPMG and..." and then switched to, "I really need to leave a message" and I was pretty much certain that they had found a reason to fire me. Turns out, they had been upset by the clothes people were wearing. A lot of people ended up getting calls about it. They told us it would be ok to wear jeans at the beginning of the week. This company is pretty ridiculous. Would it really be that hard to just tell us that we should be wearing nicer clothes? I mean, then we could at least clarify what, specifically, was and wasn't ok. Oh well.

I met Danni right after work. We wandered around capital hill, going to different coffee shops and just walking for a long while. I went to the new Victrola for the first time and while it doesn't quite live up to my very high Victrola standards, I really liked the barista to the point where I would go there pretty often just because I felt like he was a really cool guy. I'm trying to rebuild my coffee tolerance because it's just a little too pathetic to be a Seattle-ite who can't handle her coffee, so I'll be frequenting coffee shops of all kinds. Today I was on a combination of a sugar rush and a caffeine rush and probably ridiculously overtired on top of it all, so I felt like I was on drugs. I like Victrola coffee better than Bauhaus coffee, so... that's convenient. Also, I wore my heart socks to work. They're knee high socks and I wore them with a skirt and I wore them all around capital hill and I felt very silly. Saw Garth and Sofie and actually bought a bag from Atlas. I needed a new tote so it worked out will. I still intend to get one of them Queen Bee bags, though.

I am also very tired, but I refuse to go to sleep because I don't have to and I like to be up late, dammit!

1:16am: angry
Well, today was a good day at work, in that the people I was working with seemed like people I could easily see myself being friends with. Bad news is that one of them god fired. UNJUSTLY, no less. I am outraged, miffed, put off, nonplussed, etc. about it. It just kinda makes me nervous about doing anything wrong... because they really couldn't afford to fire anyone.

ANYWAY, then I went and got coffee around Capital Hill with Virg, probably a bad move considering I don't have much of a caffeine tolerance these days and I'm a little wired. I have to be at work in the morning and here I am. Then again, I'm really glad I did because talking about things and blasting my music in the car made me feel a little less self-righteous and nervous, which is a bad mix.

Anyway, I felt like I had so much more to say, but since I don't... there are many of you who I need to see. Call me, IM me, leave a comment, just say hey. You're fantastic, all of you.

I bid you adieu.

10:04pm: So I started work this week, but I have had a fever the whole time. This is sad. :(

5:16am: another note
Doctor Who season 3 episode 7 is, i think, the best episode so far. HOLY CRAP. I'm actually kind of shaken from that.

This is what it is:
Season 3, Episode 7: 42
Original Air Date: 19 May 2007
On a spaceship headed straight for the center of the sun, The Doctor only has 42 minutes to save Martha and the rest of the ship's crew from an inevitable doom...


JESUS!

4:48am: I am officially retarded
So, when I actually have to wake up the next day, THAT's when I decide to do an extensive cleaning of my room. I currently have a pile about two feet high of clothes I want to get rid of and like 7 pairs of shoes I don't want. I took everything off my walls except one thing that looks like there's a spiderweb on it (I'll make my daddy take care of that one). I wanted to do a laundry while I cleaned, but there were clothes in the dryer, and they belong to someone who lives in our house (not family) and I didn't feel comfortable moving them. So... my dirty laundry is just sitting in a bag in my living room. I have to wake up in 5 hours, otherwise I'd still be at it. I still have a TON to do.

It's amazing how much crap I always seem to have. Every time I clean my room there's so much stuff that I used to really want to save and now I couldn't care less about it. It's not bad. At least every time I clean I feel like I've really accomplished something. My living room is going to much harder... A lot of Aaron's stuff is in it, so it's not going to feel clean until he clears it out. Also, my hallway is just kind of a junk storage area, it seems.... so I dunno.

IMPORTANT NOTE: While I was cleaning, I walked through my living room and felt this jabbing pain in my foot. Like, really really bad. Like stepping on a tac, but a lot worse. I look and there's a NAIL sticking straight up through the rug and I am bleeding profusely from my foot. THANK GOD I got a tetanus shot like a year ago. I poured a LOT of hydrogen peroxide on it and put gauze and athletic tabe over it becaues there's no way a bandaid was gonna stick to the bottom of my foot. It really really hurts to put pressure on my foot now. This should be fun.

2:42pm: New Layout
Well, to celebrate my NEW obsession, I have a new layout and set of icons. Check it out. Tell me what you think.

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In other news... the summer has been much better than winter break so far, though I am still in the very frustrating process of getting a job. Sweet lord, some people take their damn time figuring things out. I had an internship lined up that seemed like it was a pretty sure thing, but suddenly it's not very certain at all, so I'm applying to a bunch of other things now... which is very annoying.

I'm hopefully joining a gym this summer and am beginning to run with Virg. It's good. I've lost 10 pounds since coming home for the summer. Still would like to lose a bit more weight, but at least I'm happy with myself.

I've been trying to get more reading done this summer. Currently I'm reading, "If on a Winters Night a Traveler" and I love it! Wow, what a great book. I'm only a few chapters in, but I love the narrative style. I also have been helping Aaron with his papers. It's like I never left school at all, except I'm reading books for fun!

Unfortunately, I'm not just scholarly this summer, I've played like 13 hours of Kingdom Hearts and have watched the entire series of The Office (US version). I'm looking for new shows now... I guess I'll see if I can find the third season of Dr.Who, though it's not being aired in the US yet.

Ok. Boring update complete. I'll write something interesting in here one day, I promise.

2:37am: Pirates
Was awesome. Totally redeemed itself from the last movie, which was a great set up for the third. Very happy with how things turned out. YAY! It could have gone SO wrong, but it didn't!

1:59am: oh no
I had an interview for Chums today. It was pretty much about how much they liked you. The entire staff there sat in the coffeehouse and asked me questions (not a single of which was about the job). I was not expecting that when they said, "Sign up for an interview." So of course I was a little surprised and intimidated. I got an email after I got back from one of my many review sessions tonight saying that I didn't get the job. They said I should try again because it was close and I was too timid (yeah, because there were a ton of you!), but they only hire freshmen and sophomores and so I don't really have another opportunity.

This pretty much sent me into a little depression. I guess the stress of finals (3 of which I have no idea how well I'm going to do on) along with this kind of... rejection of personality made me really upset. I just have a hard time dealing with rejection and I guess I'm just feeling like a lot of my friendships are kind of in a sinkhole right now and a lot of my friends are still, as far as I know, not sure if they're even going to be in Seattle this summer. I'm still waiting to find out about my summer internship, too, so I guess I'm just feeling more of the pressure about that, too, now that I've been rejected for one thing.

I just feel like everything is kind of slipping apart into an unsalvageable mess. I kind of want to crawl into a hole and die and right now is when I have all these study groups and have to be working really hard. I want to go home, play some videogames, play with my Shiro, and not have to think about anything for a little while. I want to have time to read my book! I want Duker to come out so I can show him why I love where I live.

I have to pack, too, and I have no idea how I'm going to get everything where it needs to be. I'm just... overwhelmed with work and unstable about everything social.

In other news, the girl in this video looks exactly like I did when I was about 1 1/2 years old.

1:32am: so strange
There's no wind tonight. Not even a breeze. It feels like time stopped.

4:44am: concert!
Oh yeah! We're singing Brahms' Requiem on April 28th at Brandeis and 29th at Wellesley. You should come. It will be epic and pretty.

4:48am: can't stop posting links!
This is also hilarious. Bowie doing an interview without having slept for 29 hours. SO amazing. I want to be his friend.

This is Bowie talking about Love in 75. I think I agree with him.

4:11am: also
I thought this was pretty interesting until the last 10 seconds or so. It's about Fox News attacking Obama.

5:24am: Aaaaagh! Must gush!
Just watched monday's episode of Heroes. God, what a good show. I can't wait for next Monday.


gaaaaah Peter! And woohoo Claire. Yes! And Yay for the end of the episode! Oh man, next week is going to be amazing.