Excerpts From My Psych Notebook

I stumbled upon this gem while studying for my Psych quiz. I wrote this when I was working on my Psych paper in the lounge area of Olin (the humanities building, aka my new home), and a cute boy from my English class ended up studying there, too. Since no one else ever studies in Olin, we were completely alone :) Anyways, this is what I wrote:


The question of conditioning offers a thought-provoking insight into

Alright, well this paper is clearly going nowhere. Why is it that my ability to think straight deserts me whenever there's a cute boy around? I always end up saying the stupidest things. I need to learn how to forgive myself for sounding stupid. Seriously.

How hard would it be for me to say "How did you do on the English paper?" I already embarrassed myself in front of Angus. It can't go worse than that, really.

That didn't go too badly. Mildly stilted, but better than anything I said to TM. Or George, when I was in love with him. I'm just taking risks all over the place this year. This is good. It's what I promised myself I'd do last year, but never followed through with.



Not as productive as a Psych paper, but more interesting :)

Soon-To-Be Mrs. Groban

So, as if I weren't already the biggest dork ever, I went and proved myself even dorkier. A few weeks ago I was searching the internet for great tropical vacations and ended up at a website for Turtle Island, which is apparently THE honeymoon spot for celebrities and other wealthy people. Being me, I ended up ordering the free informational dvd under the name Emily Groban and sending it to Aliina and Tobi's house, where it is apparently now waiting for me. Also, the Turtle Island people keep emailing me to let me know that I can call my consultant's private line at any time. They probably think that I'm incredibly wealthy and about to marry Josh Groban, which is, in my opinion, not a bad persona to have :)

Still Sick

Still sick, so not a lot's been going on with me. I really hope I'm better by Halloween, because we have lots of fun plans that include dressing up and dancing a lot. Also, our Crush party (where we get to anonymously invite two crushes) is on Saturday, and I invited Pierre and another guy I met last year. Pierre kept looking at me in French today, so I wonder if he suspects that I invited him. He might have been looking at me because I was hacking up a lung, though.

Misheard

I had a funny conversation with my roommate and a couple other people today.

Mikayla: Do you guys want to go to Reid for dinner?
Me: We're going in about fifteen minutes.
Julia (from the other room): Because we're not wearing anything.
Me: Yes, because we are a naked room.
Julia: What? I said we're not ordering anything
Me: Oh.

An Imagined Conversation

Today, Ellie and I imagined what would happen if George somehow stumbled upon my blog. We thought it would go something like this:

George: So, I found your blog, and you wrote about a conversation you and I had. Only, I was called George. Do you call me George behind my back?
Me: Well, it's not just me, you see. Half of Prentiss calls you George.
George: I'm not sure we can be friends anymore.

On another note, I may or may not have told Ellie that I like a guy in my French class while Pierre was right behind us. So, here's hoping that he wasn't paying attention. Also, let's pray that Pierre never finds this blog.

I talked to a boy!

I talked to Pierre today during brunch! The conversation went something like this:

Me: Have you started your French paper?
Pierre: Haha no. I'm getting a little worried about it, actually.
Me: Me too.


So, I should probably go work on my essay.

A Conversation I Had Today

A conversation I had today:

Me: Explain your gender to me.
George: I can't. You'll never understand men, and I'll never understand women. It's how the world works. Is your freshman not coming around?
Me: Eh.
George: You should seduce him.
Me: ...Already did.
George: How'd that go?
Me: Pretty well, until he turned into a jerk.
George: Yeah, that happens sometimes.

A poem that makes me happy:

i carry your heart with me by e. e. Cummings

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

The Awkward

So, this is me. Blogging. I'm not really sure anyone besides myself (and maybe my sister) will be interested in reading about me and my life, which is simply a series of awkward encounters, but here it is for everyone to see anyway.

I'm Emily, simultaneously a self-proclaimed English nerd and a sorority girl. My life is full of minor incidents which I then proceed to turn into full-blown drama. I enjoy musical theatre too much, I apologize too often, and I write poetry. I probably think about sex more than the average young woman is supposed to. Awkwardness seems to follow me around. For example, in my English class this year, I had an embarrassing experience involving this poem by John Donne:

WHERE, like a pillow on a bed,
A pregnant bank swell'd up, to rest
The violet's reclining head,
Sat we two, one another's best.

Our hands were firmly cemented
By a fast balm, which thence did spring ;
Our eye-beams twisted, and did thread
Our eyes upon one double string.

So to engraft our hands, as yet
Was all the means to make us one ;
And pictures in our eyes to get
Was all our propagation.

As, 'twixt two equal armies, Fate
Suspends uncertain victory,
Our souls—which to advance their state,
Were gone out—hung 'twixt her and me.

And whilst our souls negotiate there,
We like sepulchral statues lay ;
All day, the same our postures were,
And we said nothing, all the day.

If any, so by love refined,
That he soul's language understood,
And by good love were grown all mind,
Within convenient distance stood,

He—though he knew not which soul spake,
Because both meant, both spake the same—
Might thence a new concoction take,
And part far purer than he came.

This ecstasy doth unperplex
(We said) and tell us what we love ;
We see by this, it was not sex ;
We see, we saw not, what did move :

But as all several souls contain
Mixture of things they know not what,
Love these mix'd souls doth mix again,
And makes both one, each this, and that.

A single violet transplant,
The strength, the colour, and the size—
All which before was poor and scant—
Redoubles still, and multiplies.

When love with one another so
Interanimates two souls,
That abler soul, which thence doth flow,
Defects of loneliness controls.

We then, who are this new soul, know,
Of what we are composed, and made,
For th' atomies of which we grow
Are souls, whom no change can invade.

But, O alas ! so long, so far,
Our bodies why do we forbear?
They are ours, though not we ; we are
Th' intelligences, they the spheres.

We owe them thanks, because they thus
Did us, to us, at first convey,
Yielded their senses' force to us,
Nor are dross to us, but allay.

On man heaven's influence works not so,
But that it first imprints the air ;
For soul into the soul may flow,
Though it to body first repair.

As our blood labours to beget
Spirits, as like souls as it can ;
Because such fingers need to knit
That subtle knot, which makes us man ;

So must pure lovers' souls descend
To affections, and to faculties,
Which sense may reach and apprehend,
Else a great prince in prison lies.

To our bodies turn we then, that so
Weak men on love reveal'd may look ;
Love's mysteries in souls do grow,
But yet the body is his book.

And if some lover, such as we,
Have heard this dialogue of one,
Let him still mark us, he shall see
Small change when we're to bodies gone.


This poem in and of itself is not awkward. During class, I offered to share my book with a cute boy who was sitting next to me, not remembering that I had annotated late at night, and ended up with "They're going to have SEX!!" written in my margins at least three times. He has not looked me in the eye since.

That is my life, in a nutshell.