Being positive

is what gets you moving. Once you let the pesimistic thoughts conquer your mind, you are in trouble.

The more we focus on the negative, the more we will miss the beautiful moments around us. I notice that lately I get carried away by some of the comments some of the girls who just came in this country are making and it’s not helping us cope better at all. The more we focus on the bad things, the more bad things will occur around us. Sometimes you just need to pick your battles as my host mom says. If something is super unbearable, well ignore it. And everything else, just take it for granted and live with it. I don’t say to be passive about everything, but sometimes trying to change a whole nation’s attitutes is pretty much mission impossible. After all we are here for studying and if we can’t fit at all, we could always leave after we gradute. The world is big enough for all of us to fit somewhere

No title, just thoughts

You wake up one day and go out and walk at this new strange place which feels both so familiar and so distant. People passing by you, some smiling, some caught up in their own world. You see familiar faces and say quickly the overused “Hi, how are you? I am good how are you?” and keep going. You meet people in your classes, in the dinning hall, in your house. And they are all different and also so familiar. Part of them are so caught up in studying that they don’t have time to pay attention to you, others are too caught up in partying that you don’t have the patience for them. Where do you fit? Anywhere? Supposedly here you can meet grown up people and fit in, but the opposite gets more and more obvious.

Who are you? Does anyone care? People passing by and spedning much more energy on pretending to be something they are not instead of being who they really are. Why? No idea. Life would be much easier and happier if everyone was their own self. Why creating an image that people would like? What about an image you like? Some people achieve that. Others do not. Still others are overwhelmed by expectations, they can’t afford to show their true feelings.

You wake up every day and you need to keep showing the world how strong you are. You do not have a right to complain after everything you have been through. Not many people could be where you are, so you have to be happy. They don’t see you the way you want. They see you always smiling, always going through difficulties, always achieving. But no one sees your tears at night. No one sees the pain inside.

You have the music, the books, the piano. But they can’t answer your countless questions about yourself and the world around.

It’s fall. The trees are changing their colors. The sky is changing. The air is changing. You are changing.

Poem of the day #2

PARTING

THERE’S no use in weeping,
Though we are condemned to part:
There’s such a thing as keeping
A remembrance in one’s heart:

There’s such a thing as dwelling
On the thought ourselves have nurs’d,
And with scorn and courage telling
The world to do its worst.

We’ll not let its follies grieve us,
We’ll just take them as they come;
And then every day will leave us
A merry laugh for home.

When we’ve left each friend and brother,
When we’re parted wide and far,
We will think of one another,
As even better than we are.

Every glorious sight above us,
Every pleasant sight beneath,
We’ll connect with those that love us,
Whom we truly love till death !

In the evening, when we’re sitting
By the fire perchance alone,
Then shall heart with warm heart meeting,
Give responsive tone for tone.

We can burst the bonds which chain us,
Which cold human hands have wrought,
And where none shall dare restrain us
We can meet again, in thought.

So there’s no use in weeping,
Bear a cheerful spirit still;
Never doubt that Fate is keeping
Future good for present ill !

You can find this and more poems here.

Poem of the day

Evening Solace 

The human heart has hidden treasures,
In secret kept, in silence sealed;­
The thoughts, the hopes, the dreams, the pleasures,
Whose charms were broken if revealed.
And days may pass in gay confusion,
And nights in rosy riot fly,
While, lost in Fame’s or Wealth’s illusion,
The memory of the Past may die.

But, there are hours of lonely musing,
Such as in evening silence come,
When, soft as birds their pinions closing,
The heart’s best feelings gather home.
Then in our souls there seems to languish
A tender grief that is not woe;
And thoughts that once wrung groans of anguish,
Now cause but some mild tears to flow.

And feelings, once as strong as passions,
Float softly back­a faded dream;
Our own sharp griefs and wild sensations,
The tale of others’ sufferings seem.
Oh ! when the heart is freshly bleeding,
How longs it for that time to be,
When, through the mist of years receding,
Its woes but live in reverie !

And it can dwell on moonlight glimmer,
On evening shade and loneliness;
And, while the sky grows dim and dimmer,
Feel no untold and strange distress­
Only a deeper impulse given
By lonely hour and darkened room,
To solemn thoughts that soar to heaven,
Seeking a life and world to come.

 The poem is from here.

Charlotte Bronte says what needs to be said.

One of my favorite pieces

Vanessa Mae – Toccata and Fugue

 

On a classical music wave these days…

What are you doing here?

Why do you go to college? What do you want to take away on graduation day? What is college all about? Just studying? Just partying? I don’t think so. As I have said million types in all the types of motivational essays I have wirtten in the last year and even before that college is about experience, learning about the world around you and learning about yourself. Who are you? Who do you want to be? I have been trying to answer all these questions since I could remember and in my junior year I still don’t have the full answer. But one thing I know for sure is you need BALANCE! No matter what are you doing, you need balance. If you let panick and fear to get to you, you are done. Once you start freaking out how much work you need to do, you get caught up in the vicous circle of sleepless nights, little social life, and mainly loneliness and despair. I have been there, I know how it is. And though I have learned a lot for the 2 years at CC, I still let people’s panick to get me. Why? Well, maybe because I have invested so much in all this that I want to take the most out of it. Why do I need high grades? Well, my scholarships depend on them, but also being on a full scholarship I feel this obligation of “paying off” by doing as much as possible. Yes, but crying to sleep because you feel overwhelmed or desperate is not a good pay off. A good pay off is to leave this college with a smile on my face and desire for even more studying and eventually changing the world. Because unfortunatelly from CC I left with this bitter feeling of exhaustion and memories of running around all day and feeling like dead most of the time. And for what? Yes, I got into a great college and I got all these scholarships, but could I have done it with a little less stress? Well, we will never know

And here comes the controvercy. If we don’t push our selves to our limits, how will we develop? If we don’t constantly challenge ourselves how will we discover new skills and ideas? I guess we need the skill of challenging ourselves within limits

What promted this post are just ideas from the last several days. It’s been just 2 weeks of school and I have already read tons of stuff, which I greatly enjoy. I am just worried how much of that material is going to stay. Plus, though I promised myself to wait, thoughts about graduate school, GRE (which for my dread is like SAT, it was a good slap in the face when I realized that last night), OPT, year off (maybe), etc. I guess because everything is so great here I need to find something to worry about as always. It’s high time to start listening myself to the advices I give other people and start enjoying my time because time flies like crazy and it depends on me with what feelings I will leave from here  in 2 years.

I worked hard for this and I am on a mission to get the most out of it with as much positive emotions as possible. I hope everyone else who is in college thinks that way, too

Poem #20

PABLO NERUDA

Poem # 20

Twenty Love Poems: And a Song of Despair

Tonight I Can Write Tonight I can write the saddest lines. Write, for example, “The night is starry and the stars are blue and shiver in the distance.” The night wind revolves in the sky and sings. Tonight I can write the saddest lines. I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too. Through nights like this one I held her in my arms. I kissed her again and again under the endless sky. She loved me, sometimes I loved her too. How could one not have loved her great still eyes. Tonight I can write the saddest lines. To think that I do not have her. To feel that I have lost her. To hear the immense night, still more immense without her. And the verse falls to the soul like dew to the pasture. What does it matter that my love could not keep her. The night is starry and she is not with me. This is all. In the distance someone is singing. In the distance. My soul is not satisfied that it has lost her. My sight tries to find her as though to bring her closer. My heart looks for her, and she is not with me. The same night whitening the same trees. We, of that time, are no longer the same. I no longer love her, that’s certain, but how I loved her. My voice tried to find the wind to touch her hearing. Another’s. She will be another’s. As she was before my kisses. Her voice, her bright body. Her infinite eyes. I no longer love her, that’s certain, but maybe I love her. Love is so short, forgetting is so long. Because through nights like this one I held her in my arms my soul is not satisfied that it has lost her. Though this be the last pain that she makes me suffer and these the last verses that I write for her. Pablo Neruda

A poem from my Spanish class. Here is the version in Spanish.

It’s time for the real thing

Since yesterday I am officially all set with classes. Tuesday was the first day of classes but I had one wait listed and then “shopped” for another one. I am taking 18 credits which are 4 classes this semester: Intro to Research Methods, Abnormal Psychology, Queer Theories and Low Intermediate Spanish(intesive). I love all the classes and all professors are amazing. It’s a good mixture of small and big classes as well as Tuesdays and Thusdays are my busy days, but then I have only Spanish on Friday so I practically will have 3-day weekend every week The first three classes are pretty much reading intensive, but I am so excited for all the things I will learn that it does not bother me. Also I am not working on campus and I am taking it slower with extracurricualr activities, so it should be alright. I can’t believe how calm I am lol.

It’s great how all classes seem different but they are all connected in some way and I am working on several skills at once which was the whole idea of coming to study in the USA

D. and M. are here and it’s great to practice my Bulgarian as well to have someone I know that well so close

It’s two weeks today since I came here and I haven’t cried once nor freaked out which I consider for quite an achievement

Life is good so far