midnight snack

its the middle of the night.. im absolutely exhausted. but i had to wake up turn on the labbie and write this down.
i am going to start a do somethin amazing blog. TOMORROW.
i will blog errday and eachhh day i will try to do somethin absolutely spectacular.
watch out now..
ill tell you bout what i do each day.
aite?
aite!
g.night

If only this made sense: late night thinking and its repercussions

i just had a conversation with a truly amazing individual (Big ups to Briana!)
and basically i wasted 2 hours of her life talking about how i don't know how to feel...about how i feel.
yes... when i told her that she was equally confused- so the 2 hours were needed to clarify.

but we talked about religion.....

i've been reading alot about Buddhism lately and the philosopher on my shoulder compels me to learn much more. from the minimal amounts of reading i've done, i've gotten this:
1st: those practicing Buddhism are told to abstain from worldy pleasures because those pleasures ultimately lead to pain and evil etc.
2nd: there is this idea of "eudaimonia" or fufillment.. i understand it to be the closest answer we have to the "purpose of life" question.

so 1 plus 2 equals this: i see Buddhism as a method of living rather than as a religion. this spurs from the absense of a corporal or metaphorical diety and an ability to have buddhism coexist with other modes of thought such as the CHRISTIAN mode of thinking..
(theres a point in all this i promise)

after spending my entire day indulging in thoughts, insightful conversations, philisophical readings and diet coke, i've realized my life-as is- is quite incomplete and that my "eudaimonia" or fulfillment is virtually unattainable if i remain on the path i find myself on.

after a bit of spring cleaning, i sat down in my room and interviewed myself(sounds fuckin weird as hell, but ignorance doesn't always exist as a result of not knowing what is around you... ignorance is just as harmful if one does not take time to realize what is truly within himself).

So i skipped the name and age questions and went straight for the tough questions. like of course the infamous, " what are my passions?"

if you know anything about me, you know that i have been trying to answer that question for myself for about...forever.

today i made substantial progress in answering! woot-woot!

my answer to that questions was " i dont know."

whack!right?? but that made me feel so much better. i was so used to spitting out "science" or even "neuroscience" that i'd slowly been weaning myself off curiosity and doubt. fear and pleasure. you know.. that good good ish.

i feel as if my "passions" were cultivated and almost a coping mechanism spurred by fear or even unconcious obedience.

when i say cultivated passion, i am NOT referring to a process of slowly learning and growing to love science... WRONG! unfortunately, i am talking about the nigerian man on my shoulder that whispered "umbah, a doctor" every time i attempted to think outside my little Igbo box.
my "passion" for science was created and explored because i saw medicine as the only option, and being the optimist that i am, decided to make myself think that i LOVED it and it was FOR me.
thats HOBBER-HASH! i think. (idk how i feel remember jeez!)

so if the latter statement is true, the 3 hour chem labs i find myself in every thursday from 1:15 to 4:15 are a waste. the philosophy of the mind class that i couldn't take because of a confliction with Bio 49s is a lost opportunity. worst thing is, i can talk about the lost opportunity and wastes of time forever. the last four plus years of my life have been centered around this desire to do medicine and to be a doctor. though the pseudo-rebel child in me pretended as if she was unsure of her career paths (had to keep Viv and Fran on their toes), i rarely took the time to explore other paths and options.

so how does that relate to Buddhism? well this idea of "Eudaimonia" is grounded on "self" fulfillment- reached not through monetary gains or sexual desires or status or the usual things that belong in this list, but is found through what i took to be a complacency with self with your own position. im taking it wayy outta context kinda . but shit... my blog right!

so maybe i do love Science and medicine... POSSIBLBY?! or maybe i find philophy and ethics the more seductive pairing.. NOTT SUREE!
all i know is that... i do not know.that's it. i'm no longer bound to a certain answer, and am NOOO longer bound to the tunnel vision and tunnel actions (parallel syntax.. not a real phrase but you can figure it out!) that characterized my last four years of existence.

so Briana being the cool ass chica she is... did not let our convo stop there!
course not.. a series of "sorry's" and "idk's" (lol i love you bri!) lead us perfectly into another topic.

labels...
so we all know what stereotyping is. and have seen, read about, or felt its more extreme manifestations, but idk. my desire to not fit in/to fit in to certain labels and categories ( intelligent, cultured, attractive, ghetto, unique, etc) has had a hugeee impact on what i have and have not done in my life. may i expound? yes?.. why thank you!
---> basically ole girl did hella shit to stand out. yet... ole girl aint know that in standing out from one category, her ass fit RIGHHT into another category. so she kinda jus wasted hella energy.

moving on... lol

after meeting with Dr. Owen Flanagan (i will blog about our encounter in the near future... im still suffering from the residual effects of excitement!!), i gained a new awareness revealing how BIG OF A DEAL my religion is to the science world.
--->so its kinda not that big of a deal at all..haha SURPRISE!!
he assured me that my religious beleifs do not have to be tweaked in order to satisfy any requirement or seem more doctory or anything.

during our amazing meeting ( "amazing" being an unavoidable understatement due to English's lack of a word that truly captures and defines our encounter) i found myself defining "christianity"
Now close your ears Jesus, but i FELT (keep in mind the ambiguousness of this term) that it was a 99% faith thing. so i suck at percentages, but thats how i saw it. my faith exists and grows due to my relationship with God, and that relationship is strengthened and/or weakened through nothing more than the day to day thing i call LIZZ-IFE (simply "life" for the less hip). so Church to me is a crucial part in aggrandizing my faith and relationship with Jesus, but it isn't absolutely essential.
i'm sure there are Christians reading this ( well since i have a following of one-my sister- maybe not...) that are appalled at my ignorance, but i mean hey! being ignorant of something is essential to the learning process.so educate me!

so my definition of Christianity and my constant interaction with so many very different ideas and people, left me questioning various aspects of the story of Chrisitianity as a whole.
p.s: Mom don't freak out.. when a scientist- like myself lol- questions something.. that very often means he or she is looking to verify his or her original thought. aite? so breath. thats PRECISELY what i am doing! phew..

like i told Brianna- whose name i spell differently every time- whoops--
there is ONE ASPECT of Christianity that i will not be questioning.. and that is the existence of da Big J-C. and i'm not leaving that aspect out because i'm afraid of the answer i'll get or because i dont want to upset the parentals or because - enter skeptical question here- ITS BECAUSE i already have that question answered.. LOCK AND LOAD BITCHES!
^no relevance.. but there are FARRR too many things in my life that have constantly reinforced God's existence.. so yuh.. i can keep that experiment going but i'm 100% SURE that i will get the same answer (this percentage is 100% right by the way :]).

i read my oldest sister's blog in which she talks about how she finds a sense of comfort in His presence. and hello.. "DITTO!"

Jesus Christ is the one thing i'm sure of when it comes to life...

you know how when ur a kid, your padres ( inserted for my spanish-speaking followers) buy you those 1000 piece jig-saw puzzles of like a cat or a mountain. and [unless your my cousin,] you start it and den put it away over and over..
well.. prediciting metaphor for life numero dos (para Carlos)!

so let say you have one of those puzzles, so you take out all the pieces, and you have to work to find where each fits. and its an active process, and it takes time and effort. and at times your like FUCK IT i dont give a damn about what the finished cat/mountain looks like anyways. so you stop. and you have your little section of your puzzle and your satisfied with that. i mean shit... you did alot more than that guy.

well lets say you do more than jus the eye and right whiskers. so you keep working towards this picture. and you think you know what its going to look like.. i mean you've seen the picture on the front of the box. so u spend hella time and den KA-BLAM! your almost done. you have one piece left and then the puzzle will be completed. so you reach into the carboard box and look for thelast piece.. and SURPRISE its not there u LOST it during your pursuit to finish the entire puzzle. or maybe you left it behind as you took the puzzle from place to place. maybe its just hidden beneath some mess thats accumulated in your room since the start of your puzzle. shit IDK WHERE THE FUCK YOUR PUZZLE PIECE IS.. but i do know that:
a.) you can see the picture quite clearly. i mean a single piece did NOT prevent you from seeing the cat/mountain.
b.) you are pissed off because somewhere along your journey to finish the damn puzzle, you lost the ONE thing that can make this goal possible.

so yuh first my life was an empty frame and now its a cut up board of garfield.. but hey! watevs.

the uncertainty of the future is my "biggest fear" by far, but what i don't fear is that my desire to attain all this fame and wealth and to explore my passions and interests and question myself to death, i'll be old and nasty and still not feel like my life's endeavors are incomplete. i mean i will work my ass off to get to where i want to be and that is da TRIZZ-UTH, but the one thing, Jesus, if He's missing.... i will not feel fulfilled and "Eudaimonia" will still be nothing more than some enticing 'concept' and some difficult word to spell.

and folks, i just won't let that happen.


DISCLAIMER: its late as shit and this is definately stream of conciousness so PLEASE fight through my grammer/spelling/etc.

it seems that my train of thought collided with some THANGS during this bad boy..
so if you made it through.. KUDOS!

A work in progress

so i decided to start this blog for a number of reasons.

1st: my life is fuckin amazing.. and it isn't fair that i don't share whats poppin off

2nd: my oldest brother told me to.

thats only two reasons but watever they're strong and valid so that should count for something.

i titled this bad boy "a work in progress" and my blog "life pending" because i've recently come to appreciate the fact that whilst we are still breathing and existing we have an opportunity to do anything we want. crazy right? i can rob a bank tomora, or take out a loan and travel to japan, i can hit a stranger in the neck, or jus sit in my dorm room and search through people's facebook pictures. it's completly up to me.

of course some tasks (traveling to japan) will be harder to achieve than others but ultimately they're all available.

so that's not insight or anything.. like we all know that.. im just super late ( "hey, you there!" phenomenon) but knowledge is COMPLETLY different from wisdom/application/action.

this blog will hopefully detail the active process of me taking advantage of such opportunities.

(if i ever figure out how to...) i'm going to post a picture of my newest creation. what it is is a frame (old target mirror that broke) on my wall.. held up by dollar-tree tape. above it is a sign that says...... SURPRISE! "work in progress." fancy that.

it represents the art of creation rather than the creation (a pretty picture) itself.

the empty frame has obvious limitations- it is only so big and so long- but what i put inside is COMPLETLY up to me. i can leave that shit empty or put in pictures of celebrity crushes or jobs that i think i might be interested in. i can dollar-tree-tape up some list of goals or plans to read my Bible everyday and master espanol. honestly, i dont know what im going to put in it and watever...its ok. in not knowing, i realize that thats another day that the frame remains empty and open, and that another day that Joy ( the roomie) will walk in and say "wtf," but hey... its my fuckin frame and ima do wat i want! haha.

for all of you haters that read the second paragraph and thought ole girl dint have no insight comin at yuh. BLAAAOUWW! can u say metaphor for LIfee?!?!?

ill post the pictures of the """frame of life""" up everytime i make a change.

p.s: all my posts ARE NOT going to be like this lol. im wayy too immature to sit down and only right about metaphorical frames lol shuttt upp! bored myself damn it. and imm surre not gonna spell check my junk so use those context clues.

first blog ever= completed.

success!