Now that we are a few days into the new year, I can't help but notice how hard it is to let go of 2015. When I sign my name, my hand automatically scribbles down "1/5/2015" on the date line. When I look at my milk's expiration date, I happily smile to see "2015." But then, I luckily realize -- nope, that's expired. It's like I'm caught in the middle. Not completely past 2015 but not completely into 2016. Although difficulty adjusting into the new year happens, indeed, every year for me, I began to think a lot more about why this is so...

Graduation Countdown || #2 || My Spring Bucket List Update

As I mentioned earlier here, I kicked off my senior spring wanting to try a variety of activities that I have yet to explore on campus before graduating. Ideally, I wanted to do 99 things in the 99 days remaining until graduation. Now, that number has dropped to just 60 days! Gasp! Well, I still have a lot of work to do but I was pleasantly surprised with everything I was able to do over just the past couple months especially. Here is the visual proof below, and my brief notes about each one afterwards!

1. Go on a spring break trip - went to Florida with my girls!

2. Dance in Ghungroo Performance (South East Asian dance show on campus)  - danced in the senior segment!

3. Sled down Harvard yard steps - thanks to Hurricane Nemo, I went down Memorial Hall steps on a dining hall tray!

4. Attend Celebration of Black Women (campus event organized by the Black Men's Forum at Harvard) - went for the first time, got a rose and a special note! 

5. Go to the Holi Festival (cultural Indian/Hindi festival including dancing and the throwing of colored powder) - got purple, pink, and yellow in my eyes, mouth, and hair...and I loved it!

6. Deliver letters on Housing Day (a Harvard tradition where freshman are randomly selected into one of 12 upperclass houses) - chanted until my throat was sore and ran like never before in the yard!

7. Go out dancing in Boston! - went two times already with my girls to a dance club in Boston!

8. Attend an IOP Forum (generally high-profile individuals who come to speak at the Harvard Kennedy School of Govt.) - went to go hear actor Sean Penn and former prime-minister of Haiti, Michelle Pierre-Louis, discuss Haiti 3 years after the earthquake

9. Try a new food place in the Square - a few days ago I finally tried Clover, an entirely vegan restaurant just across the street from my old freshman dorm. The rosemary fries are perhaps the best fries I've ever tasted!

Thoughtful Delight || Living [is] easy

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Living is easy. So easy. It's so easy to mess up, to get lazy, to be tired and bored. It's so easy to be disinterested, unmotivated, unforgiving. It's so easy to forget, to never respond, to never choose, to linger endlessly and endlessly and endlessly. Living is easy and not how we like to think. We like to define living as one entrenched with passion, with moments strung together like constellations, with everything meaning something, with midnights filled with moonlit conversations contemplating what could be next. We like to think living is exciting. To think it is defined by risks that changed who we are, who we know, and what we do for the better; to think it is defined by the amount of smiles we give and receive, the hours spent wiping tears from laughter, the numbers of friends willingly standing by our sides. This may very well be part of living. But it's not all of it. It's not hard yet. It's hard to embrace the fact that living is not defined by sparks but by dullness. It is not defined by the single momentous day but by the meshing of hundreds and hundreds of uneventful days. It is not the sole red balloon drifting upwards in the sky but rather the vast, blue air that encompasses it -- the air that has been there all along.   

Update || On Vacation!

I know some of you must be wondering when the new posts are coming. I'm currently soaking up sunshine on my spring break vacation and, hence, have been taking a brief hiatus from the blogging world. However, I promise there's lots of wonderful stuff coming soon! All will resume back to normal this weekend :)

GRADUATION COUNTDOWN BUCKET LIST || NEW FEATURE

Just yesterday I saw an email posted by a fellow classmate. The subject title: "99 days until graduation." Immediately after seeing it I began to seriously consider how I've spent my time at Harvard -- what I've learned, what I've forgotten, what I missed out on, what I truly loved, and how in the world I actually ended up where I am today (alive and sane). As if right on schedule, once the countdown has begun and the days are seemingly waring thin, the desires to savor and relish and love and appreciate all start to kick in and knock out any remaining practical sense we've been hanging onto. To be honest -- I've waited until the last moments to truly explore the place where I have been living, studying, and procrastinating over the past four years. And I don't mind. Or at least, I've accepted that fact and moved on. I'm not trying to 'make up for lost time and opportunities.' I'll never be a freshman again, never go to that concert that took place two years ago, never run naked in the Yard before winter finals (okay...that still might happen in another context). For now, I'm preparing to begin. To begin looking for new chances, to be more aware of what's around, to experience, and acknowledge. And with that swoosh of philosophical hipster jargon nonsense, I've decided to start listing 99 things that I want to try during the course of the remaining 99 days I have left. I won't do one item every day. I may not reach 'em all. Yet, somehow making this public pushes me to accomplish at least one major thing this semester (#senioritisproblems). I don't really know what this will look like, but I'm ready to document and detail stories for you and for myself. Check in every week to see how I'm surviving the countdown!

In the meantime, anybody have ideas/places/activities I should explore? Send a note in the comment box :)

THOUGHTFUL DELIGHT || #1 || DEAR SUN

The sun is beyond just a beautiful thing. It's also a hated thing. Something, sometimes, so unwanted. We close the shades tighter, we bar our eyes with dark shaded rims, we moan its wake after the nights we never slept. We found out that it can even kill us. It burns our skin until it sheds, it melts our favorite ice creams and takes the water from things. It pushes us around -- back inside buildings, behind curtains, under cooling air vents and ceiling fans. It ruins snow days, it starts bush fires; everyday, it leaves half the world in darkness. Maybe this isn't about how us humans need the sun...just maybe, though, the sun needs us. Every morning it yearns to be impressive. It labors tirelessly at landscape painting. It leans in too close -- tries to peer into our world, how we work, what we do. It probably feels as though we pay it too little attention. 

Dear attention-seeking, massive globe:

I see you.