ah, the life update
I live in a house in Goleta, a twenty minute bike ride from UCSB, where I learn math and teach math (the poor undergraduates! Their education is so unfair!) and think about math all day. Then I come home and cook/eat dinner with my three housemates who are all also grad students. I have a Texas boyfriend (in Austin) and we are Serious. He doesn't wear a cowboy hat. He's actually super nerdy, about Kirby-tall, and from Charlotte.
I've spent most of the last year and a half trying to take care of my mental health. It got a little raggedy-fraying when a bunch of people died and I started grad school. I'm still in it but things are getting better, I think. Also I tried to run a half-marathon but ended up in crutches for two months instead.
I'm trying to leave this place, submitted a bunch of applications to transfer. We'll see how it goes, how it goes.
Yen @ 6:48 AM 
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Came back and saw nostalgia at its finest
So I randomly came back here after having not visited for over 2 years. Holy cow, within the last few posts alone, the nostalgia kills me. Back in 2009, all of our lives seemed to painted with uncertainty. Now I look at my life now, and the things I said about my life in 2009 are hilarious. What the hell was with that comment in my #2, anyway? At that point in my life, I felt that that would never pass. Now it is so bygone, it's laughable.
Oh the things I have learned in the past 2.5 years.
I guess I will provide an update, so that when I or any of the other daisies come back here in 2014, we will be able to laugh again.
I am still living in Minneapolis, the greatest city in the world, in my opinion. I got my master's in Speech Pathology in about 2 years and a few months. I am licensed to practice in Minnesota. (what am I? Like some kind of doctor?) I work at a Charter School where all the students are Hmong. I am picking up some words in Hmong and work comfortably with Hmong in the therapy room with my students (despite my complete ignorance of the language) and with interpreters. I can read Hmong at the level at which my students only laugh at me occasionally. Work used to give me an anxiety that I wasn't sure I could control without the help of pharmaceuticals, but at this moment, I feel I have it under control. I get cranky when I don't sleep before 11. Most nights I'm in bed by 9:30.
I have a cat, who I adopted 2.5 years ago. Her name is Zooey. I also have a Minnesotan sweetheart. He's sort of like Paul Bunyan, but less burly, less lumberjacky, and plays more video games. He teaches Chinese. We talk about moving to China, but only temporarily. I don't plan on moving back to California any time soon. It feels weird to type that out loud.
Miss Irene @ 8:33 PM
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Engaged? To be married?
We all went to high school together, saw each other through college (and post-college woes)--now both Amber and Annabelle are engaged to be married.
Congratulations to you both. I am SO EXCITED for these weddings to come!
Bila @ 11:31 AM
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It's Been Awhile
Understandable. Facebook owns our lives.
But for some reason, I randomly thought about the blog today. It just popped into my mind rather unexpectedly.
Not much to say, really, but a revisit now and then is nice. This blog is a part of our friendship, our memories. So, if once in awhile, you find yourself bored or nostalgic, come back here. This place needs a little love too.
Hope all are well.
Anonymous @ 5:24 PM
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haven't seen any of you in a long time
I like reading these chapters of your lives, hope I get to make an appearance in the book eventually.
1. After spending a year traveling to those 14 countries, I believe I am officially tired of travel. Ready for a ticket to a domestic boring life, please. [Lived in Paris, Vietnam, and Budapest for a year]. Now doing higher level pure mathematics research in Potsdam, NY, a town of four main streets arranged in a [musical] natural sign, and having a blast. Applying for graduate school in mathematics and a Fulbright program to teach English in Vietnam, maybe. Like I said, tired of travel. Still dorking it up as much as possible, baking as much as possible, cooking vegetarian food (I'm not a vegetarian yet, but my roommate is so I am learning the wonders of eggplant). I miss writing a lot, but don't have enough heart to do math and writing, both of which are so emotionally draining. One year from now, I will have just graduated from school, four years of VSA, three years of fixing computers for the IT department, one year of traveling, and who knows how many relationships during those four years of college. I'll also have taken the GREs and hopefully gotten into both a grad school and some kind of one year do something somewhere program.
In the shorter term, went to Canada yesterday, going to Montreal for five days on July 25 when research program is over, then Seattle for one week, then Portland for five day math conferences and maybe I'll see Steven, then home for 14 days in August and maybe see some of you? and/or Santa Barbara, San Diego, Phoenix before going back to school.
2. What is the currency of value? A life? Money? Faith? Love? More importantly, what is my currency of value?
Yen @ 6:15 PM
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I Guess I'll Go Too
1. This one probably requires subcategories:
-I am working a lot. Right now I have a full-time internship with the Pasadena Symphony, which consists of me designing educational guides for the music programs that the symphony provides to 3rd graders in the Pasadena School District. If I am not working at the Symphony, I am working my part-time job at the USC Bookstore. In the past three weeks, I have only had one real free weekend, and that was the weekend I went to see Meghan's graduation (I'm glad it worked out that way).
I am tired. But I am also getting into a routine. I feel like I have a better handle on things now.
- The one thing I am looking forward to is going to Las Vegas come mid-August. It's to celebrate Ben's 21st, along with a few of my other friends'. It's strange how in this particular group, I am one of the oldest, when usually I'm one of the young 'uns. I'm going to see Beatles LOVE and I'm super excited!
- My room is a mess. Plus, I need to get a haircut to fulfill my end of the celebration reason for Meghan's Birthday/4th of July/Graduation/Going Away/Andy Gets A Haircut/Irene Bakes Cookies party.
- I had quesadillas today for lunch.
2. Maybe it's because I'm lonesome, or maybe it's because deep down I know that there's a part of me that will always harbor that love, or what I think is love. But maybe the real question isn't why. I know why. The question is "how long?" How long will it stay still? Or will it trickle? Or will it, instead, come bursting out at the most unpredictable moment, that damned dam of desires? And even more so, if I do let it all come pouring out, would I feel relief or regret?
Would I feel both?
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Irene's TURN! Es mi toca!
1. I am moving to Minneapolis, MN to attend grad school. I have found a studio apartment there and intend on sharing it with my cat, which i will be adopting in MN. As of now, i am staying at home, trying to spend as little money as possible. In about 2 years, maybe more. I will have my master's in SLP and will most likely move back home in order to practice and save money to pay off my exorbitant student loans. (Damn you private college!) After that, i intend on marrying my sweetheart, moving to Minnesota and popping out a few kids. (Read: Meghan and Irene get an apartment somewhere and adopt as many cats as the law will allow for a rental. In Minnesota, that means 2.)
2. What in the hell is going on the mind of Joseph P. Styers? He is driving me crazy....literally and i wish to know exactly what he is thinking and if he understands what he is doing to me! Alack, impossibilities!
THE END
Miss Irene @ 2:08 PM
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Play with me!!
People... my darling, my dearest Daisies.
This silence has been for too long! I don't care that we all facebook/twitter/flickr/skype or whatever. I want a real, old fashioned, Daisy Gang blog post.
I propose two games:
1. Required: A full update on what you have been up to, as well as what you see yourself doing for the next 12 months, please.
2. Optional: Answer the following: what is the one question you have always wanted answered, but for whatever reason, have never received an answer to? Be as vague, ambiguous, or specific as your little hearts desire.
okay then...
1. I'm graduating FROM COLLEGE in 6 weeks, and I can't decide how I really feel about that because the time is going way too fast for me to latch on to one feeling or another about it. I'm trying to remember if I felt anything remotely the same at the end of high school, and I can't quite say a definite yes or no. Either way I have to say I'm definitely relieved to be close to being done with all the classes and extracurriculars which I have come to rely upon to fill my days and give me a sense of purpose. I'm trying to keep a healthy dose of senioritis about me, not worrying myself too much with schoolwork, because the good conversations I've been having with friends, among other things, and the realization that the routines of seeing certain people at certain times are actually kind of going to be gone quite soon, are making me want to cry!
Last Friday I found out that I was accepted into a program to teach English to middle school/high school kids in Chile. It's a six-month program, so I'd be leaving in July and back in time for various December holidays. I'm excited, because this is something I've been thinking and imagining steadily, if in the background, for nearly a year now. I have to admit at this point, though, that there are only a couple of things that scare me (or have scared me) more. I know I just have to get used to the idea being a reality and not worry too much about it all, but I do have some thinking to be doing in the next few days (they're only giving me a week to decide! egads!) Big girl decisions! Bahhh!
After that, I'll... do something else as yet undefined, all the while applying for grad school in either education or English (darn you poetry professor and your encouragement towards higher levels of education which I previously thought excessive and useless to me!) So in essence, I'm taking this year off... or as I've also heard it put, "taking this year ON!"
2. What on earth was supposed to be in that letter she said she was going to send later, but never did? The thought of what could have been still haunts me.
****
YOUR TURN!
Meghan Zero @ 2:03 PM
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