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Four digits of entries!
Nov. 20th, 2008 07:34 pmEntry 1,000!!
Man, I haven't been able to update all week because the pressure of the 1,000th entry was hanging over me. I was looking at the new profile page and I was all "Oooh, it just tells you how many entries you have right at the top there! I'll check what mine - 999?!? Oh crap!" So I didn't want to let it slip by without doing something special.
This is good, though, that I waited. I created this journal August 20, 2001. So now it's been exactly 7 years and 3 months that I've had it. I got it before I started 10th grade. Now I've graduated from college (university). I posted more or less regularly throughout high school (more at first), but in college I would basically only post over the summer until last year when I got involved in the JE fandom and had new friends and was motivated to post. I'm glad I did because I like the idea that things are documented. My memory isn't awesome.
But it's obvious that I'm not just writing this for myself, out of a desire to record what's going on at different points in my life. I like writing on livejournal because people read it. I've said this here before and when this is made a textbook for anthropology students in the future (let's face it, the real reason anyone writes about their life) they will have already seen it, but i have been perpetually unable to keep a physical journal. There are certainly people that I don't want reading everything I write - most people that I know in person, in fact - but apart from that I kind of want as many people as possible to be reading. XD I've been friends-locking things lately cos now I work and there are issues involved, but I prefer not to lock things, and if I have to lock it, I prefer not to filter it. I basically never keep things private. If there's a private post, it's probably a list of websites that I want to go back to. Almost never an entry.
Livejournal for me these days is definitely more of a. . . fandom tool. Even though I don't watch that many communities, a lot of my friends' posts are about fandom. I write about fandom more, and sometimes feel awkward and boring when I just write about what I've been up to. It's kind of disappointing but, oh well. I'll see what happens. I definitely get nostalgic for the old days. Back when I was young and cute and could say anything and sound precocious! And I had a lot to think about as I was figuring out who I was and what I should become.
I was more introspective then, or I hope I was because I certainly try to be self-aware but I really should have laid a solid foundation of identity by now. But it's not just that that's affected the style of entries I write. I also feel a lot less need to bounce ideas and philosophies off other people. I can just think about the stuff, maybe discuss it in person with some friends (high school. . . kids aren't always ready for this. I've convinced myself I was smarter than everyone. >.>) (I did have the best grades, to be fair!). I don't need to put things on the internet to get validation. In fact, I'm afraid I'm more likely to get annoyed. DX
Also, I think if I'm worried about things now, I don't want to dwell on it long enough to write about it. The big, internal things. Apart from that I'm probably worried about work stuff and there's usually not much point to writing an entry because there's nothing to work through. I guess. . . I also just don't fee close enough or comfortable enough to confide in all of you. Or, like, not on the same page enough? There's things i can see myself writing about, like various areas of self-improvement that I'd like to work on - being less selfish, my temper, stuff like that - but I would feel excessively earnest and nerdy in the context of JE fandom as a whole (even though, yes, it's my private journal - but many of you are in JE fandom so I'm part of that community here) where everyone tries to be cool and ironic and witty so they aren't associated with the screaming akame fangirls or whatever. Or I guess giggly and goofy and cuddly is the other main option? Actually probably most people on livejournal are like this now.
I'm a picky friender. So, you know, feel special. Before JE I would rarely friend people just based on a mutual fandom. I still don't think it's a great idea and have certainly regretted it. But those of you that are on there, I have at least some reason to believe i would like to read your entries, and I'm hoping you feel the same way.
I have 57 friends, of which 3 have deleted their journals. 51 have friended me back. One of the others is an abandoned journal of one of my oldest friends, one is a girl with puppet Angel mood icons that I can't bear to remove from my flist, one of them is someone that I'm having a weird thing with. . . and that doesn't add up right. Oh, wait, no. I just can't subtract. We're cool.
7 of the 51 are journals that don't represent real people, or are duplicate journals or fics or something.
14 are people I knew in real life before I friended them. ::sigh:: This whole livejournal craze went through my high school during junior year or something. It was a pain.
16 are people I met through johnny's
I'm gonna just assume the remaining 14 are people I met through livejournal in other ways. 1 person I can't remember friending at all or who she is or anything. >.> Oh, and 1 person I met through talking to a girl from the Starlight Express yahoo group. Awww, good times. :D
Sadly, my relationships with a lot of people have deteriorated during my years of not posting (also divergent interests). And there's a bunch of people that I used to be good friends with that I no longer have on my list, presumably because I thought it would be cool to unfriend them at some point. XD I'm. . . sure I had my reasons?
I'm afraid I'm too nostalgic about livejournal. But there are reasons why the way I use it has changed, as i discussed. It's not just that my friends list is different now - I'm different. I have different things to say, and different things that I think about and want to share. I guess I want to be able to write entries that will be interesting to my audience now - that being you, my friends list - and will be interesting to me if I come back to read this later.
So, now I will move on to life stuff. This past weekend I went to Smith! And stayed with friend!Courtney! It was eeeeeerie being back there. At one point i was walking back across campus to Courtney's place by myself, and I was on the phone with Katie and I actually got quite emotional. I teared up and everything. I was sad to be on the beautiful campus but not actually be a member of the community. Not to be able to take classes in Seelye or go to the listening rooms in Sage to use the record players while I do my reading or cut through Hillyer or lie on the science quad while I do my homework. Graduating sucks! Except I am happy not to have homework and stress. I wouldn't have enjoyed a fifth year. When I'm not there it seems great, and it is great, and amazing. It's an incredible environment where you're surrounded by incredible (and occasionally annoying) people and everything is interesting and beautiful and you're taken care of (especially me, whose parents paid for a lot of things while I was at Smith).
Except it is good to leave it behind. I see my friends more now than I did then, because we all had so much homework. And Smithies are not a breed that I can handle indefinitely - they start to really piss me off. XD A lot of pretension. And the schoolwork is exhausting. I think I miss the classes the most, though. Without homework or assignments. I just like learning stuff! But I don't like doing the leg-work. I don't regret any of my classes at Smith and I know I made good choices, but I wish I could have taken more. I probably should have audited some classes or something. Except I did feel like my time was well-balanced compared to a lot of the school, and i never was really stressed to the point of insanity or anything. So I guess I did right by myself there. XD
Anyway. It was kind of like going back to Manchester - it felt like no time had passed. Except less jarring, because a lot less time had passed, so it was very smooth. I was like "yeah, here I am."
So, a run-down of the weekend! Arrived late Friday night. Chatted with roommate!Corey and pick-us-up-at-train!Mike at Courtney's adorable apartment with Courtney and her girlfriend Katie (everyone is named Katie) who is loads of fun. There was also a cute dog, sort of collie-esque? She was very friendly and I'm not a dog person but she was within my limit. :D When Corey and Mike left, the three of us played Munchkin! Which is an awesome geeky card game. It's supposed to be like a spoof of D&D or something. . . There's a Duck of Doom.
Saturday we woke up early for some reason and did some things. I have no memories between 9:30 and 11. I may have gotten up at 10:30 which would explain a lot. I think I did. Anyway, at 11 we listened to Tom & Tom's Football Chat, which lasts til 1. We did run out and get groceries in the middle but we came back in time to hear Tom's dad on the phone as the roving reporter! We also had french toast at that point - Katie is an excellent cook. And there was maple bacon which smelled amazing and tasted delicious but not particularly mapley.
Then, I went to meet little!Becca and Corey to hang out and get shown around the Clark School for the Deaf, where Becca works and is getting her masters in Education of the Deaf. It was a beautiful swanky private school and it was neat to learn a bit about deaf education. Thanks to technology, the kids pretty much all have some level of hearing ability so they don't use sign language, so the kids can live and work in hearing society.
When I got back to Courtney's (after the emotional trip across campus) we had a quick meal of grilled cheese because we were going to see a gay movie soon. It turns out the movie was half an hour earlier than expected so we hastened out. XD We missed some of the character development but we all loved the movie so when it's available, someone will buy it and we will watch it. It was called "Breakfast with Scot" and it took place in Canada! So it was about a gay couple but both of them are afraid of people thinking they're gay so at work they act really straight and then they end up having to take care of a kid whose mother has died and he's really flamboyant and wears make-up and jewelery and sings show-tunes. So they want him to be normal to protect him. . . so they make him play hockey! :D It was gratifying cos we'd skipped a hockey game to go to the movie. Anyway, I highly recommend it. It was very cute and well acted.
After the movie we went to an acapella concert that one of their friends was performing in! It was fun - acapella concerts are such a collegey thing to do, i was happy that I got to go to one. And they gave us jelly beans! Jelly Belly ones, so before the show started we spent a lot of time conferring about what was safe to eat. I just rejected anything yellow.
Then, back to the apartment where we made omelettes and used Internet to look at pictures of everyone's family. Then Courtney and I watched The Girl Next Door which we REGRET. UGH. It was horrible. It was made by horrible little misogynistic geeks (there is NOTHING charming about a misogynistic geek. I hate them!) to fulfill their stupid fantasies that attractive women are available and they're superheroes with huge dicks. Courtney and I were quite angry at it.
Sunday, got up early for. . . why did we get up early? I need to write this stuff up sooner. We made pancakes and did something and then went to Tyler for coffee and then Courtney and I went into town and I got loads of Christmas shopping done! I got stuff for Katie, Mom, Dad, Mike, and several of my friends! I still wanna get a few more things but I am in really good shape. :D
Apparently Katie has been trying to call me to tell me to go to the store. But my phone is in my bag because I am at her apartment and her boyfriend is here and I assumed if she wanted to reach me and couldn't, she would try calling him! Blast.
Then I met up with the J-Man! Goooood times. It was much less awkward than I thought it would be. He's my adivser and I thought I would just end up trying to decide what classes to take or something. XD But no, we talked about personal stuff! What my commute is like, what my sister is up to, his roommate experiences, stuff like that. It was amazing. XD
Then, back to Courtney's where we talked about life and love until I had to go.
It was a really successful and satisfying weekend. I had an amazing time. :D I plan to go back sometime during the hockey season!
Courtney and Katie seem to have a really high opinion of me and spent the weekend showering me with compliments which always makes a visit really awesome. It makes me want to live up to expectations, too. Although I have a friend right now where I feel really pressured to be entertaining and sweet all the time and it's pretty pressuring and is not great for me wanting to hang out with him more. XD But this is not the case with Courtney and Katie, so that's awesome. They just make me want to be nice.
Other news: Nick, my subway operator guy that I chat with cos I get on at the first stop? I sat at his end of the train and he kept popping out when we had a long stop (not the most confidence-inspiring of behaviors) to chat. And then when I got off at Rector Street he stuck his head out of the window and waved and said "Bye bye Laura! Have a good day!" XD Both heartwarming and creepy.
Man, I haven't been able to update all week because the pressure of the 1,000th entry was hanging over me. I was looking at the new profile page and I was all "Oooh, it just tells you how many entries you have right at the top there! I'll check what mine - 999?!? Oh crap!" So I didn't want to let it slip by without doing something special.
This is good, though, that I waited. I created this journal August 20, 2001. So now it's been exactly 7 years and 3 months that I've had it. I got it before I started 10th grade. Now I've graduated from college (university). I posted more or less regularly throughout high school (more at first), but in college I would basically only post over the summer until last year when I got involved in the JE fandom and had new friends and was motivated to post. I'm glad I did because I like the idea that things are documented. My memory isn't awesome.
But it's obvious that I'm not just writing this for myself, out of a desire to record what's going on at different points in my life. I like writing on livejournal because people read it. I've said this here before and when this is made a textbook for anthropology students in the future (let's face it, the real reason anyone writes about their life) they will have already seen it, but i have been perpetually unable to keep a physical journal. There are certainly people that I don't want reading everything I write - most people that I know in person, in fact - but apart from that I kind of want as many people as possible to be reading. XD I've been friends-locking things lately cos now I work and there are issues involved, but I prefer not to lock things, and if I have to lock it, I prefer not to filter it. I basically never keep things private. If there's a private post, it's probably a list of websites that I want to go back to. Almost never an entry.
Livejournal for me these days is definitely more of a. . . fandom tool. Even though I don't watch that many communities, a lot of my friends' posts are about fandom. I write about fandom more, and sometimes feel awkward and boring when I just write about what I've been up to. It's kind of disappointing but, oh well. I'll see what happens. I definitely get nostalgic for the old days. Back when I was young and cute and could say anything and sound precocious! And I had a lot to think about as I was figuring out who I was and what I should become.
I was more introspective then, or I hope I was because I certainly try to be self-aware but I really should have laid a solid foundation of identity by now. But it's not just that that's affected the style of entries I write. I also feel a lot less need to bounce ideas and philosophies off other people. I can just think about the stuff, maybe discuss it in person with some friends (high school. . . kids aren't always ready for this. I've convinced myself I was smarter than everyone. >.>) (I did have the best grades, to be fair!). I don't need to put things on the internet to get validation. In fact, I'm afraid I'm more likely to get annoyed. DX
Also, I think if I'm worried about things now, I don't want to dwell on it long enough to write about it. The big, internal things. Apart from that I'm probably worried about work stuff and there's usually not much point to writing an entry because there's nothing to work through. I guess. . . I also just don't fee close enough or comfortable enough to confide in all of you. Or, like, not on the same page enough? There's things i can see myself writing about, like various areas of self-improvement that I'd like to work on - being less selfish, my temper, stuff like that - but I would feel excessively earnest and nerdy in the context of JE fandom as a whole (even though, yes, it's my private journal - but many of you are in JE fandom so I'm part of that community here) where everyone tries to be cool and ironic and witty so they aren't associated with the screaming akame fangirls or whatever. Or I guess giggly and goofy and cuddly is the other main option? Actually probably most people on livejournal are like this now.
I'm a picky friender. So, you know, feel special. Before JE I would rarely friend people just based on a mutual fandom. I still don't think it's a great idea and have certainly regretted it. But those of you that are on there, I have at least some reason to believe i would like to read your entries, and I'm hoping you feel the same way.
I have 57 friends, of which 3 have deleted their journals. 51 have friended me back. One of the others is an abandoned journal of one of my oldest friends, one is a girl with puppet Angel mood icons that I can't bear to remove from my flist, one of them is someone that I'm having a weird thing with. . . and that doesn't add up right. Oh, wait, no. I just can't subtract. We're cool.
7 of the 51 are journals that don't represent real people, or are duplicate journals or fics or something.
14 are people I knew in real life before I friended them. ::sigh:: This whole livejournal craze went through my high school during junior year or something. It was a pain.
16 are people I met through johnny's
I'm gonna just assume the remaining 14 are people I met through livejournal in other ways. 1 person I can't remember friending at all or who she is or anything. >.> Oh, and 1 person I met through talking to a girl from the Starlight Express yahoo group. Awww, good times. :D
Sadly, my relationships with a lot of people have deteriorated during my years of not posting (also divergent interests). And there's a bunch of people that I used to be good friends with that I no longer have on my list, presumably because I thought it would be cool to unfriend them at some point. XD I'm. . . sure I had my reasons?
I'm afraid I'm too nostalgic about livejournal. But there are reasons why the way I use it has changed, as i discussed. It's not just that my friends list is different now - I'm different. I have different things to say, and different things that I think about and want to share. I guess I want to be able to write entries that will be interesting to my audience now - that being you, my friends list - and will be interesting to me if I come back to read this later.
So, now I will move on to life stuff. This past weekend I went to Smith! And stayed with friend!Courtney! It was eeeeeerie being back there. At one point i was walking back across campus to Courtney's place by myself, and I was on the phone with Katie and I actually got quite emotional. I teared up and everything. I was sad to be on the beautiful campus but not actually be a member of the community. Not to be able to take classes in Seelye or go to the listening rooms in Sage to use the record players while I do my reading or cut through Hillyer or lie on the science quad while I do my homework. Graduating sucks! Except I am happy not to have homework and stress. I wouldn't have enjoyed a fifth year. When I'm not there it seems great, and it is great, and amazing. It's an incredible environment where you're surrounded by incredible (and occasionally annoying) people and everything is interesting and beautiful and you're taken care of (especially me, whose parents paid for a lot of things while I was at Smith).
Except it is good to leave it behind. I see my friends more now than I did then, because we all had so much homework. And Smithies are not a breed that I can handle indefinitely - they start to really piss me off. XD A lot of pretension. And the schoolwork is exhausting. I think I miss the classes the most, though. Without homework or assignments. I just like learning stuff! But I don't like doing the leg-work. I don't regret any of my classes at Smith and I know I made good choices, but I wish I could have taken more. I probably should have audited some classes or something. Except I did feel like my time was well-balanced compared to a lot of the school, and i never was really stressed to the point of insanity or anything. So I guess I did right by myself there. XD
Anyway. It was kind of like going back to Manchester - it felt like no time had passed. Except less jarring, because a lot less time had passed, so it was very smooth. I was like "yeah, here I am."
So, a run-down of the weekend! Arrived late Friday night. Chatted with roommate!Corey and pick-us-up-at-train!Mike at Courtney's adorable apartment with Courtney and her girlfriend Katie (everyone is named Katie) who is loads of fun. There was also a cute dog, sort of collie-esque? She was very friendly and I'm not a dog person but she was within my limit. :D When Corey and Mike left, the three of us played Munchkin! Which is an awesome geeky card game. It's supposed to be like a spoof of D&D or something. . . There's a Duck of Doom.
Saturday we woke up early for some reason and did some things. I have no memories between 9:30 and 11. I may have gotten up at 10:30 which would explain a lot. I think I did. Anyway, at 11 we listened to Tom & Tom's Football Chat, which lasts til 1. We did run out and get groceries in the middle but we came back in time to hear Tom's dad on the phone as the roving reporter! We also had french toast at that point - Katie is an excellent cook. And there was maple bacon which smelled amazing and tasted delicious but not particularly mapley.
Then, I went to meet little!Becca and Corey to hang out and get shown around the Clark School for the Deaf, where Becca works and is getting her masters in Education of the Deaf. It was a beautiful swanky private school and it was neat to learn a bit about deaf education. Thanks to technology, the kids pretty much all have some level of hearing ability so they don't use sign language, so the kids can live and work in hearing society.
When I got back to Courtney's (after the emotional trip across campus) we had a quick meal of grilled cheese because we were going to see a gay movie soon. It turns out the movie was half an hour earlier than expected so we hastened out. XD We missed some of the character development but we all loved the movie so when it's available, someone will buy it and we will watch it. It was called "Breakfast with Scot" and it took place in Canada! So it was about a gay couple but both of them are afraid of people thinking they're gay so at work they act really straight and then they end up having to take care of a kid whose mother has died and he's really flamboyant and wears make-up and jewelery and sings show-tunes. So they want him to be normal to protect him. . . so they make him play hockey! :D It was gratifying cos we'd skipped a hockey game to go to the movie. Anyway, I highly recommend it. It was very cute and well acted.
After the movie we went to an acapella concert that one of their friends was performing in! It was fun - acapella concerts are such a collegey thing to do, i was happy that I got to go to one. And they gave us jelly beans! Jelly Belly ones, so before the show started we spent a lot of time conferring about what was safe to eat. I just rejected anything yellow.
Then, back to the apartment where we made omelettes and used Internet to look at pictures of everyone's family. Then Courtney and I watched The Girl Next Door which we REGRET. UGH. It was horrible. It was made by horrible little misogynistic geeks (there is NOTHING charming about a misogynistic geek. I hate them!) to fulfill their stupid fantasies that attractive women are available and they're superheroes with huge dicks. Courtney and I were quite angry at it.
Sunday, got up early for. . . why did we get up early? I need to write this stuff up sooner. We made pancakes and did something and then went to Tyler for coffee and then Courtney and I went into town and I got loads of Christmas shopping done! I got stuff for Katie, Mom, Dad, Mike, and several of my friends! I still wanna get a few more things but I am in really good shape. :D
Apparently Katie has been trying to call me to tell me to go to the store. But my phone is in my bag because I am at her apartment and her boyfriend is here and I assumed if she wanted to reach me and couldn't, she would try calling him! Blast.
Then I met up with the J-Man! Goooood times. It was much less awkward than I thought it would be. He's my adivser and I thought I would just end up trying to decide what classes to take or something. XD But no, we talked about personal stuff! What my commute is like, what my sister is up to, his roommate experiences, stuff like that. It was amazing. XD
Then, back to Courtney's where we talked about life and love until I had to go.
It was a really successful and satisfying weekend. I had an amazing time. :D I plan to go back sometime during the hockey season!
Courtney and Katie seem to have a really high opinion of me and spent the weekend showering me with compliments which always makes a visit really awesome. It makes me want to live up to expectations, too. Although I have a friend right now where I feel really pressured to be entertaining and sweet all the time and it's pretty pressuring and is not great for me wanting to hang out with him more. XD But this is not the case with Courtney and Katie, so that's awesome. They just make me want to be nice.
Other news: Nick, my subway operator guy that I chat with cos I get on at the first stop? I sat at his end of the train and he kept popping out when we had a long stop (not the most confidence-inspiring of behaviors) to chat. And then when I got off at Rector Street he stuck his head out of the window and waved and said "Bye bye Laura! Have a good day!" XD Both heartwarming and creepy.
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no subject
Date: 2008-11-21 02:46 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-11-21 07:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-11-21 02:54 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-11-21 07:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-11-21 02:56 am (UTC)Super fun times at Smith! I couldn't imagine doing that for DCAD. Or Pratt. Maybe if the people here weren't so.. obnoxious. I feel like once you graduate they want you off the campus forever. ..that's kind of depressing. I would visit my old advisor though! And maybe hide behind some bushes.
no subject
Date: 2008-11-21 07:23 pm (UTC)Awwwwww. :( Artsy students, eh? Also Smith's campus is just shiny and pretty. More reason to return. The longer I stay at Smith the more Smithies annoy me though. When I was in Manchester I was like "Wooow! Smithies are really special! They care about their education and they're invested and intelligent" and then I got back and I was like "argh you pretentious pains in the butt."
Hiding from adivsers in bushes is an excellent pasttime.