Food for the Soul

July 7, 2010

I grabbed these three books at B&N a few days ago, and got them for less than $15!  (I can't remember the exact price).  They had their "Buy 2 BN Classics, Get 1 Free" deal going on, and I have BN membership so I was able to get the brand new copies for relatively cheap.  I am going to start Bleak House very soon and hopefully get around to the other two books, too.  It's been absolutely exhausting nowadays - the job at the learning center is getting more hectic than ever, and my internships are starting to pick up speed as well!

My trip to Westside Pavilion that resulted in my buying of these three novels resulted in a few revelations: 1) the parking in Westside Pavilion, although free, SUCKS.  That parking lot is SO confusing.  I got lost trying to look for my car even though I made sure I remembered the way I entered the mall and the parking level & number...and then while trying to get out of the parking lot, I went the wrong way in a turn (there were NO signs whatsoever) and then I had to back all the way back with all these cars waiting and...it just sucked.  2) Friends are like wine, even the ones you weren't that close to back then.  3) I need to be around people that like reading.

I met up with an old high school friend that is leaving to join the U.S. military tomorrow - we had tried to meet up, like, five times in the past three weeks but something always prevented it from happening (mostly due to my really bad memory and my recent sickness).  Although we didn't really do much during our short meeting, it was meaningful.  It's so nice to just meet up, not do anything and just catch-up with life.  Childhood friends - the people that knew me before college - have a way of touching a completely different side of me.  They know me in such a different level.  I just can't explain it.  There's less pretense, more realness.

In my little trip to BN with him, we enjoyed short conversations and shared book recommendations.  We discovered that we both adored Les Miserables and enjoyed Dickens.  We talked about Orwell, Voltaire, books that made us think, book that we thought were lacking.  I think these types of conversations feed my soul.  I need more of that in my life.

A Trip to Memory Lane

<- Corsage from my Senior Prom (2008)

Something about Prom still makes me feel all giddy inside. Although I went to two proms (one in 2007, when I was a Junior because I had a boyfriend who was a Senior and my own in 2008), the latter one remains much more special to me. Although due to my terrible memory, I cannot remember much from either night (I was intending to use the word unforgettable but realized it does not quite apply), they each had a charm to them. The first prom in 2007 was fun in that the boyfriend at the time and I were cutesy and all, but my own prom in 2008 was quite a "high school senior" moment, where we suddenly realized that graduation was soon approaching.

Tonight, in the midst of writing my personal statement for study abroad, I began to look through my high school photo albums and ended up dwelling quite a bit on my senior prom pictures. Having taken a very good friend of mine since middle school as my date, I had a good time with him and my best guy friend - the three of us got on surprisingly well, I remember, and we were dancing with a group of friends that only high school could have created.

Looking through the pictures, I realized how gorgeous everyone had looked and how for some reason we had all obsessed ourselves with taking pictures with everybody (therefore, I have a collection of pictures with people that never would have been brought up in my memory tonight otherwise). I smile now at the various moments on the dance floor that remain special to me: the slightly awkward slow dance, the collaboration of P&B with me, the fun moments with P to the widely popular-then song "Low". There's something about the innocence that prevailed throughout the moments that captures me still now, even though I know now that it was foolish for us to think we were so grown up back then.

Although high school in general has such a big, fond part of my heart, senior year was, by far, one of the most amazing experiences of my life. I remember treasuring many, many moments, aside from prom. And these memories are the ones that help me get through when I feel like too much pressure is on my shoulders, when my motivation to continue needs a little boost. Cheers to you, 2008 - because you not only made so many things happen, but continue to make things happen today.