i was thinking...the mendelssohn violin concerto starts off kinda like a sad lover telling her sad love story..you know, the introductory melody that starts out so quietly and so melancholy - all these lovely drawn-out quarter notes and half notes...and then all of a sudden the melancholy tune morphs into this frenzied, angry buzz of triplet 8ths, which turns into chromatic octaves, and culminates into a high shriek that leads into the immediately takeover by the rest of the orchestra. GOSH IT'S FREAKING BEAUTIFUL. i wish i could describe it in better words.


on a lesser note, school ended last week, and i got back in houston last saturday..i'm not sure how i feel about this semester ending..like i'm really glad it ended, but i'm really sad that some classes are over, at the same time.

and on a greater side note....i LOVE organic chemistry. TAKE THAT! ;)

there's just something about MITSO now that just really grabs at me...i remember all of last year, and even most of last semester, i'd always fall asleep during MITSO. in fact, it was a miracle if i didn't fall asleep.

but now, it's different. i don't know if it's the pieces that are better (which i think is at least partially the case), or what, but i remember that i was just listening to the Mahler 6th (that we played last year), and that's when it hit me that man, i really love MITSO. i really love music. do you know what i mean? it's something that you really have a passion for...something that you're willing to give up time for. something that you wouldn't ever give up even if you were given the world in exchange.

it was weird, but it just really hit me all of a sudden, how much listening to a recording of a piece that we played in the past really kinda knocks your breath out. and it's rather unexplainable, but it's amazing how even though you don't really get to know anyone in MITSO outside of your section, there's still that..that bond..between all the players in MITSO, even though most of us have never even said a sentence to each other.




and to think, my life could have turned out so differently

this weekend was pretty fun and relaxing after the last round of tests before exams ugh...friday was cinco de mayo! went to harvard square and browsed around with Holly for stuff to get for Sandy and Nuran (our GRTs) since they're leaving at the end of this year. =( Holly left to go back to Tim's place and i stayed on at harvard for a while just walking around. i often wonder what life would have been like if i had managed to go to harvard instead. they say that classes there are easier, but i really wonder how much easier they are. i mean, it IS harvard, isn't it? and they also say that people are snobbier, but the people i've met from harvard seem pretty nice. not to mention that the general harvard population is a lot more eye-appealing than the general MIT population. no offense to anyone, though.

since it was cinco de mayo, Simon and i went around to celebrate with los mexicanos at spanish house, but it was pretty quiet there surprisingly, so eventually we somehow ended up at some party at simmons, where i proceded to fall asleep on some random person's beanbag while Simon drank like a fish and got buttons ripped off of his shirt by a random drunk girl. it was actually pretty funny, because he didn't remember any of it when i told him about it the next day. i finally managed to drag him back to burton-conner at like 3 am, and then he was upset because Ling wasn't in his room, and we couldn't find her either. But then she finally showed up from the other side of the floor and all was good.

saturday was eating at Sunny's Diner with Mavis, lab, getting ridiculously lost on the train tracks while trying to find the shortcut to Star, and then bumming around.

today we had the farewell picnic for Sandy and Nuran, and it turned out pretty well, since it was gorgeous outside, and Sandy made this really touching speech. i don't even want to think about what the floor will be like without them next year..i mean, Kenfield seems cool, but he's nowhere close to being Sandy and Nuran.

and then it makes me think...i really love the people i live with, and i'm going to miss them so much when we all move away. i guess i'm just more contemplative now because honestly, i don't think i'll miss many people from my year...i'm gonna miss class of 06 and 07 a lot, but i'm realizing more and more that..i'm just not as close to the 08s and 09s.



sometimes i just sit here and wonder and feel alone, because i don't know what exactly it is that i want to live for. what is my passion? for me, it's music, but let's face it...i gave it up too early and there's no way i was THAT good to have made it big in the music world. unfortunately, making it big in the music world is the only way to even make it into music. i love biology, but i don't LOVE it. it's interesting, it's fun to learn and study, but i don't know. i just don't get the same feeling with it like when i'm in MITSO playing the Mahler 7, and halfway through it, at a certain cadence, i just KNOW that i absolutely love that piece, and that i absolutely love music in general. i don't even know what to do with my life eventually. it's so annoying how grad schools and med schools and law schools all look at your extracurricular activities and leadership positions. so a lot of pre-meds that i know will join 09832094 clubs and run for 209348903 offices, and well, yea, i guess it pays off for them. i don't know how they do it though. what i really want to do is play music, but let's face it, i can't do that forever.

i want to help people somehow, but i don't even know how to begin. i want to have a career eventually, a career in which i could feel like i'm really using my knowledge to do something that will help other people, but i don't want to center my entire life around my career. i'd rather center it around my family, when and if i get a family.

i also sit here and wonder sometimes about where i'll end up in the future. like now, i'm so busy that i rarely even have time for myself. how the hell will i ever have time for other people, other than at work? it doesn't even make sense sometimes...i'm always working, and i literally don't meet anyone new anymore, except in classes. sometimes i just really hope that i don't have to spend the rest of my life by myself. sometimes i think that i can do it...sometimes i think that i can live my life by myself and be perfectly content and happy, but then i think some more, and i realize that i could never be satisfied that way.

and then i think back even further, and i realize that every experience for me has ended up pretty negatively. i don't even talk to any of them anymore - some were due to my fault and some of them were his fault. and now whenever i meet someone, all i can even do is back off and put up a shield, because i'm tired of hurting people and being used and then being hurt by others.

i feel like i've grown up too quickly and i'm seeing everything too soon. i remember that when i came in as a freshman, i was carefree and happy and had fun and i was just so excited about everything. but now, i don't know. i've learned too many lessons in too many aspects of life, and sometimes i just feel like i'm gradually being transformed into a block of stone.

and even sometimes, when i hear certain songs, i have to reach over to the controls and switch it quickly to the next song, because the memories that i associate with those certain songs come back too quickly and too strong, and i know that i just can't hear those songs, because it wouldn't make sense to. but yet at the same time, i can't delete those songs off my playlist either, because i know that in some way, those songs define a part of my life, and deleting them would be like deleting out a part of me. and that i could never do.

anyways, this is a really long post.

what's interesting is that i've also realized how steeped in tradition the catholic church is. it's one of those things that you always kinda know in the back of your head, but when you really REALIZE it, you're like wow, that's pretty cool. i think that recently, the traditional aspects of mass is what has attracted me back to it...all the specific parts that go in their specific orders...it kinda just brings a comforting sort of feeling, knowing that even though things may go wrong and everything changes day by day, mass will always be there, the same way it always was and is and will be.

the funny thing is that before, one of the reasons i was annoyed at the catholic church was actually BECAUSE of the tradition, but now, i really really like it.



this is when you know you're getting old.