Pages Of Life

So, I’ve graduated with a B.A. in English from Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. I’m done with that phase of my life. I’m officially a university graduate. Now starts my “Year of Me” phase.

This phase of my life is mainly about regrouping. I’m back home (Kuwait) after being away for four years. I’m with my family. I’m feeling the love, the comfort and the home-cooked meals (yum!). But it’s also about taking a breather on the academics and taking some “Me Time”. I have a few goals set for this year:

• I’m going to start taking care of my body. Start exercising and losing all the weight I gained while at college. I’m aiming to be healthy because God knows the “College Diet” didn’t do any favors to my mid-section and hips/thighs. I seriously believe that all my anger issues, my “blue” days and all the other crappy feelings I get is due to my inactivity. I think exercise will be the perfect stress reliever for me. I know it’s not something new: DUH! Exercise is known to release stress. But this might sound stupid, but I HATE sweating. I loathe it and avoid it as much as possible, and so I LOVE swimming. The problem is, I don’t feel comfortable being half naked in front of guys, so now that I’m home, I’m signing up for an all girls gym that has one of the most kick-ass swimming pools I have ever seen in my life. So, yeah: Losing Weight and becoming an all round happier person. I’ve always hated my body and this is my time to change that. I want my confidence back. I’m only 22 for God’s sake. I wanna look hot!
• Aside from losing weight, I also want to take better care of my appearance. This means: new haircut; add a little colour to my dark black hair; new clothes. And just making myself feel better about myself. I need to get that long lost confidence back and that includes all this stuff (I’m actually going in tomorrow to get my hair permanently straightened since my hair naturally is a mess of curls that I cannot control at all).
• Eating healthy is also a big thing I’ll be focusing on. When at college, I barely ate one meal a day and that one meal ended up being a sandwich from the deli or a burger or some other crap that’s horrible for the body. I’m going back to eating three meals a day with little snacks in between to start my metabolism working properly again. All my food will be homemade and healthy. And I gotta say, my mum’s cooking is amazing and it’s one of the things I miss the most when in US. So this point isn’t really a hardship. It’s amazing. And yummy.
• I’m applying for 2 jobs: Working as a TA at AUK (American University of Kuwait); and Bazaar Magazine (which is one of the English student magazine in Kuwait, and I want to right the Book Review section of the Magazine). Of course, I haven’t applied yet since I’ve only been home for about 6 days. Still settling down and getting into the groove of things (I still don’t have a cellphone). But that’s my goal. Work is important for me. When I was staying in the US, I earned my own money and I liked having not to be dependent on my parents, not because they wouldn’t buy me anything I want, but because I loved feeling like less of a burden. I liked being my own person. Earning your own money is awesome and I can’t see myself going back to being dependent on my parents giving me an allowance every month. I love working for my things.
• I’m going to read more. Well, more than usual. As an English Major, I’ve read my share of books this past four years and i’ve been introduced to a lot of new authors and types of writing that I couldn’t really explore on my own because I have to focus so much of my time of school readings and assignments. But this year is my year of exploring on my own. No pressure. No essays. No deadlines. It’s going to be a breath of fresh air after four years of analyzing everything I read (I still do it - I can’t help it. It’s like Rutgers programmed my brain to think like that!). 
• I’m definitely going to write more. I love writing - I might not be very good at it, but I love it. It’s something I do for fun. With the amount of  reading I do, it’s no surprise that my own mind forms its own characters and plots and demands to be written (or typed) out. I really haven’t stopped writing since starting college because sometimes I go insane with characters and scenes in my head that nags be until I DO write it down, so I’ve done SOME writing, but it was mostly to shut the voices up. But now that I have the time, I’m going to try to finish off some of the stories I started but never got the time to finish.
• I’m also going to start drawing again. It’s something that I haven’t done at all this semester because I had an insane class load (work wise) and I miss holding a pencil and colours and making something beautiful on a blank white sheet. My parents certainly miss my drawing. So, there’s that.

So, yeah. As of now, these are the things I promised myself I would be doing on my year off. Having focused on nothing but school and my grades for four years, I neglected myself a LOT! And this is my time to get back on track. And of course the final thing I will be doing is applying to Grad School because after this year is over, I’m going to get my Masters and PhD in English Literature (not sure in what focus though at the moment. I need to do some research).

I’m seriously looking forward to this year back home. And I can’t believe I’ve graduated!! Class of 2013!!

Anonymous asked: The book and the movie are very different, you'd do well to give it a shot. Also, the reason you felt more "sorry" for Humbert is because the story is told from his viewpoint and obviously it has his own spin (as a lot of pedophiles/ephebophiles would also try to). It is such a master piece exactly because of how the story is told, but in the end he's just a sad molester taking advantage of a kid.

I know. I realize that POV changes the entire story. I know that the author can make the reader sympathetic to any character he/she wants just by writing them that way. The author has sway on how the readers feel/think about the characters in their books. I’ve been studying this for the past four years (finally graduating in a week). So yeah, I totally get it. 

I’m not saying that I like Humbert, because I don’t. He’s a pedophile and molester, so no way could I ever “like” Humbert, but we are made to think of this relationship with Lolita as logical and natural (because we get it from his POV), but still doesn’t make it right. The only reason I felt sorry for Humbert is because that’s the reaction the author wants from the reader (otherwise I would not have felt it) and I also really didn’t like Lolita.

But as I pointed out, I haven’t read the book, so what do I know.

I’ve been working on my thesis paper for the past three days and I needed a break - badly. So what better way to take a break then to watch a movie. At first I wanted to watch something light and funny. Something that will numb my brain for 1hr 30mins but then I stumbled on Lolita and saw that one of my favourite actors was in that movie (Jeremy Irons) and so thought “What the hell, it’s a 2hr movie but I can handle that”.

Can I just say that after just having watched the movie, I think Lolita or Dolores (whatever you want to call her) is annoying as hell. I tried to like her and understand her as a character and also as a young girl going through all that. But seriously! She’s the most manipulative creature I have ever seen!

I haven’t read the book so I don’t know how true to the novel the movie was, but damn. I felt more sorry for Humbert (who is basically a pedophile) than I did for Lolita/Dolores. 

I don’t necessarily think I waisted 2hrs of my life, since Irons was fantastic in the movie, but this story was so disorienting and weird that I don’t really know what I think about the ending. I did however enjoy the part at the end with Quilty rushing to his bed and bleeding all over the place.

Anyway, at least I know now that I am NOT reading that book.

I used to think I had time for everything. That 24 hours in a day was enough. 30 days in a month gave me plenty of time. 12 months in a year, I can accomplish anything and everything. But recently I’ve realized time is never enough.

I’m graduating soon. Like in a few weeks “soon” and I look back at the four years of college I’ve been in the US and I notice I haven’t really done much aside from studying. I had so many plans coming into all this. So many things I wanted to accomplish and do. I wanted to accumulate stories that I can tell my kids one day about their crazy mother in college. But no…. there’s no crazy here.

That never bothered me until now. Time, I mean. But this semester I’ve met so many amazing people that I wish I had known a life time ago. And now I’m leaving. Moving to my country. 

I thought the fear and anxiety I felt four years ago about leaving my home and moving abroad for four years would be the worst kind of feeling ever. But I was so wrong. This. Right now. What I’m feeling right now is so much worse. 

I’m getting the sinking feeling of loneliness. I was never a social person back home (yes I had a few good friends that I’m grateful for and can’t wait to see again, but the friends I made became more like my sisters) and so just thinking about leaving everyone I know here, a weight presses down on my gut making me want to throw up or something.

Time just got away with me. I thought I would have time to hang out more. Travel more with them. Explore. Get closer. Have fun. But I’m leaving on May 13th at 8AM.

I’m leaving.

I’m actually leaving and it’s frightening. 

I never understood why people would ever decide to get tattoos, aside from it being really hot on guys, I never could get around the idea of someone permanently marking their bodies for the rest of time. What if the meaning of significance behind a tattoo fades through time, and at some point in life, the black bird, red heart, or flower just ends up being a bad memory? I never understood. That is until I got my own tattoo on my 22^nd birthday.

I wanted to mark my body with something that reflected my thoughts and my beliefs and what I live for. I wanted to remember how much in love I was with what I’m doing in college for the rest of my life. I wanted to be able to look back at something and remember that “Ah yes! This is why I do what I do!” I never want to forget this feeling.

Some people say that this feeling of being able to do anything and being invincible will fade with time. This feeling I get whenever I think about the future I envision for myself of being a Professor and changing lives through literature, will sooner or later seem impossible and unrealistic. They say that once I’m “older” I’ll learn to plan with my brain and not my heart. And that’s what I always want to remember. I want to be constantly reminded of how I feel right now. Like I can change the world with Literature; that words can bring about world peace, put a stop to world hunger, save the animals and heal the people of this world.

I want to always remember why I chose to be an English major and why I plan on going on to grad school. I want to conquer the world of Literature. I want to understand it, analyze it, marry it, have little literature babies with it (well, not really) and make everyone fall in love with it.

I also want to always be reminded who I am. I never want to change.

My heart is just flesh and blood.

It pumps and b-b-beats and                     skips.

It’s the size of my fist.

It’s red muscle.

Yet I feel you there.

My lungs help me breath.

They FILL with oxygen

and [release] the unwanted,

filling my body with much needed

                                                             air.

I (wrap myself) with your scent there.

My skin is just my cover.

My mask. My shell.

Tiny cells touching, shouldertoshoulder

to keep me together

making it impossible

                                 to

                                      fall

                                            apart….

                                                         ….

                                                              ..

                                                                 .

I miss you there.

“Our life is a series of moments. Let them go. Moments, all gathering towards this one”

I just watched a movie titled “Now is Good” staring Dakota Fanning and Jeremy Irvine. It was such a wonderful movie. It’s movies like this that remind us that we are human, that we have hearts that beat, lungs that feed out bodies oxygen and blood pumping inside of us. Movies like this remind us that our life is as fragile as a snow flake, just drifting and floating and then…melting away. Nothing is permanent, even the tallest and strongest mountain will fall at some point just like the leaves fall in Autumn.

But that doesn’t mean that life isn’t beautiful in it’s fragility. It makes us feel it more. We appreciate the beauty of snow flakes, the power of mountains and the colours of Autumn because we know that this might be it. This might be the last thing we see. We stop. We stare. We breathe it all in. We fall in love. We say “I love you” to people everyday. We laugh, and shout, and cry, and scream because we don’t want to hold anything in because this might be our last moment. We might not say it out loud, but every once in a while we are overcome by how our lives are….temporary. 

Now is Good made me cry for all those who have gone through what Tessa went through and for all the family and friends who had to watch a loved one go through all that. I cried because I know I’m not living my life to the fullest of its potential when there are millions of people who would do anything to find the time I have.

It’s easy to say that from now on I will live to the fullest because saying something is easier than actually doing it, so I’m not going to say that. What I can promise is to appreciate life more, to appreciate the people in my life more. I want to take those moments of just breathing in the day and being thankful for being alive to experience it.

Here’s to the moments in our lives. And here’s to appreciating to being part of that moment. And here’s to being alive. In this moment and space in time.

I’ve recently been hit with the realization that I only have one more semester of college then I’m done with my four years of undergrad. And I honestly don’t know how I feel about that. 

I know that it’s not like it’s my last semester of schooling because I’m definitely going on to grad school to get my Masters and PhD but I’ve decided to take a semester or year off and experience life a little before heading back to school. The sad thing about graduation coming closer and closer is that I love my life here. I love my friends, some of them I only met this past semester and knowing that I’ll be leaving the country in about 5 months is depressing.

I’m going to miss being on my own. I’ve been in America for the past four years, taking care of myself, living on my own, not having to answer to anyone. My life consisted of doing things I wanted. No obligations besides school work which I love.

Don’t get me wrong, I miss my family and I would love to see more of them and be able to see some of my friends who’ve moved back home after being abroad for their own college education. So that would be cool, but it’s going to be different being in a country where there isn’t any English book stores, where there’s nothing to do besides going shopping, eating and sleeping. This monotonous life is why I left in the first place. I didn’t leave home because of my family, it’s because of how boring life was back home.

I don’t know what I’m saying. Just blabbering. But it’s been the only thing I can think about lately. I’m going to have to pack up my life here and move back to a different culture, surrounded by different people, people who are superficial and so annoying and completely the opposite from me. I prefer jeans and hoodies where normal 22 year old girls back home already have clothes from every designer label who can think of and who wear makeup like a second skin, strutting around in heels, big ass designer purses. 

URGGHH!! I’m just so lost right now. I still haven’t applied to grad schools because I don’t want to deal with it and it would mean that I’m actually going to graduate and leave all my friends here.

I just hope I actually find something to do with my gap break that will keep me busy from ripping all my hair out.

I miss being a sophomore!! Life was so much easier when I knew I had more than one year left before I had to deal with all that.