You can't have it all.

Where to begin. So much has happened in the last 5 months. I love New Zealand. My career is really taking off here. Of course I have had my moments when I was scared about money, friends, drinking too much, the American stereotype, missing home, missing family and friends, finding a place to live, and pretty much everything you can worry about. This is the biggest step I have ever taken in my life, so of course there is a lot of hurting, scariness and of course growing.

I have committed at least 3 years to living here. This will be a good step for my maturity, depth of meaning in my life, understanding of the value of money, understanding of the value of friends and family, etc.

This country is a beautiful place. People are friendly and I think since the country is so small, there is more of a sense of brotherhood. However, I am finding that even though people are friendly, it doesn't mean that they want to be my friend. I suppose you could say the same for a lot of cultures, so this is not the fault of NZ.

I have made 3 really good friends since I have been here. I have made several other friends, but none of which I call on when I am having a bad day. The hard part is that all 3 of my friends are transplants. Holland, France and Canada. This month I will be losing 2/3 of those people. One of which is my boyfriend.

Oh yeah, I finally want to tell someone significant that I've fallen in love with them and they're leaving in 4 weeks. Awesome timing. I never thought that I would meet someone who gets me, respects me, is intelligent and makes me laugh and who I find so attractive inside and out. I am so pissed that our relationship doesn't have more time to grow here. Of course, there is the possibility of a long distance relationship (which I swore I would never have). But I don't want to put stress on him and myself to keep in touch while we are both leading our busy lives thousands of miles apart. I have enough pen pals at the moment. I just feel like part of it will be, out of sight, out of mind" and we will slowly forget how incredible we are for each other.

I love him. I haven't said it yet. I am kinda waiting for him to say it, since I am afraid it will hurt too much if he doesn't say it back. That, and I want it to be said at the right moment because this is the first time I think I will truly mean it in the way they talk about it in the movies. Right now, at this moment, I can see sharing my life with him. I want to do so many things with him, simply cause my life is better lived with him than without him. He likes me for qualities that I want to be liked for and when I am having a bad day, just being near him lifts my mood exponentially. It's just so effortless being with him, and yet I think he makes me a better person without even trying. Fuck.

Hopefully my busy career/education will keep me busy enough so that I won't have time for loneliness. Get this, I just got a job teaching criminology to over 150 people starting the end of February. I have never taken a criminology course before, but I taught Soc of crime and deviance. I haven't read any of the course work yet, but I think it will be fine. I love getting up and performing in front of people, so I am sure I will make it work and they will love me. It will be nice to finally have somewhat of an income. Along with that, I am working on a research assistantship in the pharmacy department about the awareness and opinions of direct to consumer genetic testing in NZ. It is a pretty rad project which will get me published, so that's pretty neat. Oh, and of course, I am applying for my PhD here. Hopefully by next week I will have my application submitted. I am pretty sure the Soc department is pretty gung-ho to have me here, so that will be cool. I want to do it on consumer controlled medication due to Direct to consumer advertisement of pharmaceuticals and the vast amounts of medical information on the web. I wanna look at the discourse of diagnosis and ultimately the shift of doctor-patient relations. I hope they like my idea, if not, I hope they accept me anyway, cause PhD ideas are always changing anyway.

Woah this is becoming longer than anticipated. But, I feel a little better. Perhaps I should get on with writing in here more regularly.

Cheers!

New Chapter

I leave today for New Zealand. I have a year visa which terminates next July. I am SUPER excited. I will miss my friends and family a lot, but being there and exploring a new life is something I must do now. Life is a journey, not a destination.

I'll update again when I'm down under! :)

A Lot Can Happen in Two Months.

Okay, so I realized sometimes its good to get things out on here. I just don't want to feel obligated to do it.

So, I have a girlfriend. All my close friends keep telling me I am jumping into a relationship too fast. I agree. I have only known her a month and a half. I feel like there is so much more I want to know about her before I am committed. Especially since the summer is coming and I am going to Europe for a month. Ugh. What am I doing? I really really like her. But part of me is a little unsettled.

I got a new car. I love it. But I shouldn't have put so much money down. I keep trying to get a second part time job, but its so hard right now. No one is hiring. I apply for jobs every day and still no one will hire me. I am worried that I will be in Europe and run out of cash.

I have an interview to be a tutor on Wednesday in the city. I hope it goes well.I haven't been to the city in a while. Maybe that's been dampening my mood too.

I think I need to go back on antidepressants. I feel that I am constantly worrying about things that are somewhat out of my control. I should be enjoying my freedom, not condemning it.

I didn't get into any doctoral programs. I feel that I had this path laid out, and now I am lost without a yellow brick road. I don't know what I am doing and its time for me to be an adult.

I think I am going to go live and work in New Zealand for a semester next year. The more traveling I do, the more valuable I am as a sociologist because I will have racked up more information about different cultures.

Anyway, I know this post was directionless. I just didn't know how to begin.

What Happened?

Don't get me wrong. I love my life and all. But what happened to all the passion? I miss the feeling of falling for someone. Even though I feel somewhat impassioned by my life course, I feel like I need someone to complete the trend. I miss looking forward to seeing that 'someone' all day. I miss feeling giddy and childish, giggling for no reason and being able to touch and be touched. I hate feeling like a sterile alien, feeling guilty for attracting and being attracted. I hate that I am sandwitched between satisfied beings, rubbing in my face that they have this element that I am so apparently missing.

"Someday my prince will come". Yeah right. Someday ill have a litter of cats to soothe the pain of loneliness. FML.

New Beginnings!

Things have been much better lately. I actually LOVE teaching and have found it to be really rewarding. I just posted grades last night. I got my schedule for next semester and it kind of sucks because I will have to work during my Paper Tiger meetings and I have to wake up at 6:30 twice a week.

I have been getting a bit of seasonal depression, but I leave for St. Martin in 2 days and then I am going to Miami with some friends in January.

Winters are too long in NY. I keep telling myself that I am going to move to California for school. I applied to 4 schools there, but I have a feeling I will wind up going to Steinhardt at NYU instead. It is the perfect program for me, I just wish it were located on the west coast.

OH! I am so excited. I made prospective travel plans for the summer. I will be visiting my friend Elsa in France for a couple of weeks and then I am going to meet up with my friend Melissa and probably go to Berlin and maybe Amsterdam. Then in August, I am going to go back to Taiwan, and hopefully Thailand/Bangkok or Hong Kong.

I hope that 2010 will be better than 2009. As for my reflecting on the good times of 2009. I have a few positive notes to make.
-Graduating Columbia
-Going to Taiwan
-Starting Teaching
-Applying to schools
-Writing Music

Freaking Out.

OK. So i have been having a really stressful few weeks. I feel like conflicts have been coming up more than enough and I miss the carefree, funny me. I feel like I am all work and no play. I really enjoy teaching sometimes, but a lot of the times I just feel inadequate. I have never questioned that this is what I want to do. I realize that I need to put a lot more time into it in order to make it perfect. It's just that I am such a perfectionist, and it hurts me when things don't happen as planned. I try and i try. The other day, I got made a fool of in front of my peers and superiors and it was video taped. I don't even know what to say. I have a lot of classroom management to learn and I know I have to change who I am to become who I want to be. But honestly, I don't know if I am ready to give up being fun and having a good time. I miss being a student. I know that I am still a student, because I keep learning new things from people and places in my life, I just miss knowing that I am good at something.
I am so lonely that it hurts. I mean, I have amazing friends and family, but I feel like something is missing and I know I don't have time for it right now, so its like I am forced to deny it.
I had the most terrible dream last night. A huge metallic ball that looked like Grimace (from McDonalds) came down from the sky and landed in Manhattan/Brooklyn area. It opened up and out crawled military men and tanks, and there was a Huge (cherry-picker-like) giraffe (like the guy from Toys R' Us) machine gun thing, that made a horrible sound. There were all these other types of demolition type machine/motor vehicles. Everyone was shooting and forcing people to eat McDonalds. My friends and I didn't want to eat McDonalds, so we had to run. They even blew up the Statue of Liberty! There was this one point where they were making a speech and the statue of liberty's hand kept going up and down, almost like it was playing a joke on us. Then it fell and the roaring war continued. Me and my bff in the dream went to visit the demolished statue of liberty and it felt dangerous. For most of the dream, I was just trying to escape all the gun shots/explosions.
It all felt so real. I felt SO angry and disgusted and I went back to long island in my dream, I actually went to Syosset to see if my family was still there, and everyone had died. So I came back to the city, to find it to be a fighting zone.
My friends and I kept returning to this diner/bar to find refuge. It was still dangerous, because the military men kept doing raids every so often. I remember going into the diner/bar in my dream and talking to Elton from clueless in a photobooth. I thought he was on our side, but at one point, in the photo booth in my dream, he turned on me and started shooting. I ran up the stairs and up more and more stairs and finally found myself cowering in the corner of the attic. In my dream, I remember feeling like Ann Frank and relating all this to the Holocaust.
Yeah. I probably sound psycho, but this really freaked me out. I awoke in a panic and spent the day questioning everything.
Also, some random person, I don't know who it is keeps iming me and threatening and harassing me. That has been adding to my stress, amongst a slough of other things.

The 9 of Pentacles.

Tomorrow is my first day of teaching, so I decided to do my tarot. It was weird. My deck was very well shuffled and I managed to get the pope, popess, emperor and empress all in one shot. That is really, really, really rare. Especially since they are right next to each other in a deck that is in order (which mine werent). Anyway, the strangest and most meaningful part of my reading was the 5th card that I laid out, which was the 9 of disks or pentacles. That symbolized something that I will sill be confronted with. This is what one of my books read...

Your presence in the world makes a difference. You have brought something into the world that enriches it. Therefore, don't hide your light and your beauty! Be generous and show the people around you the kind of treasures you have to give and remember that you yourself are a treasure.
If you want people to notice your inner treasures you must express them in both the large and small things in life. First, however, you will discover that some habits exist without any thought on your part, and some of these are not to your liking. You must, therefore, take charge of your own life and give it form and your personal stamp. This work is similar to the hard work that has to be accomplished in the vineyards. But the result of your troubles is like a superior wine In wine there is truth, and you must make your own truth fruitful.

The Haunted Pod Village of San-Zhi

This is really cool. I wanna go here next time I am in Taiwan.
http://www.jpgmag.com/stories/4622

Halloween

I have been protesting Halloween a lot this year. This is partly due to the fact that I dressed up as something 3 times in the past month ( a pirate, minnie mouse, and a hippie). I feel like I have been pretending not to be myself too much and am losing myself in the process. I know its a lame excuse. I am going to a Halloween party tonight and was originally going to go as a Marilyn Monroe Vampire, then just a Vampire. I will be neither of these things. Yesterday, I went to Brooklyn to paint over the rainbow doorways (san, I know) and I inherited an afro wig and an electric guitar. I was going to be Jimi Hendrix, but then I started getting dressed and realized I don't have any facial hair (silly, i know). So it kind of looks like I am going as my old roomate Kristen. It's cool. I feel good. I just really, really want to stay home tomorrow. I am such a crotchety old woman when it comes to Halloween. Everyone I know (and their mothers) are going t othe city/bk tomorrrow. I just want to stay home and sleep or something. Ugh sometimes I drive myself crazy. I am pretty sure I will wind up going out, but it will be a last minute thing. I wish I could just make up my mind before hand so i wouldn't have to deal with this unnerving bullshit!!! Anyway, here is what I look like with an afro.

The Dear Hunter

I went to see The Dear Hunter with Jodette and Sara on Wednesday night. I must say that I haven't been to such a great show in a while. They were awesome. They are one of my favorite bands at the moment. I mean, the song/story writing is just brilliant. I talked to Casey (the musical genius behind it all) after the show. I felt like I was 16 all over again. I even bought a hoodie! (I know what a lame-o, but I had fun).