and now I have to go to bed, so I can actually work for once in the morning. Not thrilled, but tomorrow holds good things. :) 

P.S. 

I need to stop dropping the ball on life. School is over. You think I could handle simple things like getting a VISA. NOPE. Grr.

There are a few things I haven’t written about, but I should have. I should have because it has changed my life and will change my life. I guess there is something looming about that though. Because maybe I will read this blog ten years from now and realize that it didn’t really change my life. I was just hyped up on the dramatics of my senior year of college and although I was doing things far beyond I thought I could, what I thought would change me didn’t and still ten years from now I am the very same person I am now. Or I may very much be just a pessimist under this very optimistic exterior.

Here is what happened. As I wrote back in January of this year, I ran the L.A. 13.1 Marathon with Team World Vision for clean water in Africa.. The route took us along the famous board walk of Venice Beach and down through the classy docks of Marina Del Rey and about the 10 mile point, I turned to my running partner, Kiri, and said, “I am going to run the full marathon.” Maybe you remember. Maybe you don’t, but that’s what I said and that’s what I did.

I began to train, but I was began my last semester of college, so my training was mostly on the weekends and on the off chance one of my classes were cancelled. I would run twelve to twenty miles on Saturdays, but during the week the most I got in was 3 miles for the WHOLE week. That is about 17 miles under the suggested amount. I was determined. I was going to run. I wanted to make a difference. I wanted lives of people I didn’t even know because I decided to do something crazy.

Then race day came. I was pumped. I woke up around 4:30 in the morning. I followed my usual routine. I had a small cup of coffee, a banana, showered and put on my gear. I we drove down the 10 East and it was still dark outside. Traffic was good till our exit. Then things were nuts. There was cars everywhere, “what had I gotten myself into?” I had no idea how many actually come to run this thing-thousands. 

I met up with everyone at the Team World Vision tent. I introduced myself to a those around me and just waited in the cold, and I waited. It seemed surreal. Our group gathered around to pray and to rally clap before we headed down to the starting. Time was ticking by. I was getting anxious and nervous, but within the following hour, I followed our group to the starting line. As we lined up, the sun was coming up and the clouds began to lighten a dim grey and the energy of excitement began to pulse through the crowd. 

Here is where it gets a bit anti-climatic. So we are all ready and pumped. We are shouting, hollering and giving each other high-fives, but as soon as that gun goes off, unless you are in the very front of the line, there is still another ten minutes or longer before you cross the starting point. The gun goes off and we walk to the start line. At the starting line we start running. Honestly, the rest becomes a blur.

I am not trying to cut corners either. I remember stopping for awhile just outside the starting line waiting for our team leader, I remember singing a mash-up of MJ and T-Pain with my buddy Manda (read her crazy account of the race here), I remember stopping at a port-a-potty because the group of us had to pee (those lines aren’t short!), I remember walking out of the said port-a-potty with my right knee completely messed up (just don’t kneel when you’re in the middle of a horribly insane long run), I remember keeping up with the group till mile five, I remember running miles five through ten alone with my knee killing me (but I did realize I should probably head to Silver Lake some time soon. It looks like some good eats there), I remember meeting up with other Team World Vision people along the way, I remember trying to encourage them even though I was in pain, I remember finally meeting up with David (someone who ran the 13.1 with me and a long time family friend!), I remember feeling relieved to finally a familiar face to run next to, I remember eating lots of Gu and drinking lots of water, I remember Hollywood and Highland, I remember giving up looking for my sister and her family, I remember finally seeing them on Santa Monica BLVD and it kept me going, I remember switching my socks right in front of GUCCI or PRADA or one of those damn stores on Beverly Drive, I remember finally making it to mile twenty right where the 405 meets Santa Monica BLVD, and I remember giving up. 

Not entirely, but by mile twenty I stopped running. My knee was killing me. It was red, swollen and looked like it was ready to burst. This is where I lost time, this is where I wanted to sit down and this is where I started to walk the next five miles. I never knew that five miles could look so long, but they did and they were. Each mile got colder because the wind picked up and each mile seemed to stretch three or four miles longer than it actually was. I was two miles in after the twenty check point and all I wanted to do was cry. Even now as I am writing this, I get choked up thinking about how things could have been better, I could have done better and those people that gave for me to run would be proud of the way I finished. However, there I was - limping, hobbling and wanting to crawl to the end. 

Then five miles came and went and I only had 1.2 to go. It was time. I picked my legs back up and I decided to run the last mile in. I wasn’t going to walk over that finish line, I was going to run. I was going to run like I had trained to do, what people had expected me to do and what I knew I had to do all along - run 26.2 miles for clean water in Africa. I crossed that finish line and I couldn’t be more relieved that it was over.  I walked to our team tent and was greeted by some of the best people. The tears I was holding back, came out and I was hugged and congratulated. It was finally over.

My auntie C came over to me and asked, “are you crying because it hurts or because its emotional?” 

“Honestly? both,” I said.

I look back on that now, and I have no idea how I did that or how I am going to do that again (I plan on running again in 2013), but what I really have no idea about is that this journey with Team World Vision isn’t over yet. That’s what blows my mind. On June 23, 2012, I will be on a plane with a group of ten or so fantastic people who are a part of Team World Vision to Tanzania, Africa to climb it’s tallest mountain - Kilimanjaro. 

you think I am kidding? check it.

So my plan. People keep asking, “So, now that college is over, what is your plan?” Part of me is a bit ashamed to say that my plan is to stay put. I don’t have big ideas (yet) to get an awesome internship, go to grad school or to fly to New York with a few dollars in my pocket, pound on the door of the New Yorker and say, “Please, please give me a job. I know how to make coffee, cook good food and write witty stories about fat girls who can’t seem to get the hang of life.” No, that is definitely not on this year’s calendar. 

Not now at least, and who knows, maybe not ever. I am staying put because I want to “hone my craft.” I don’t think people realize that college doesn’t really teach much, except give you a title that will give you a raise at your job or at the very least give you a job. College is where you learn a multitude of random subjects, and maybe about a years worth of what you actually want to learn, and ultimately, gives you a plaque that says, “you have completed what the world thought you should know by the time you are twenty-two”… or twenty-three in my case. That’s it.

What college rarely teaches you is how to find out what you love about a certain subject,  how you should learn what you love, how to find a voice in what you love, how to take what you have learned about what you love and apply it differently, productively and creatively to the world around you. College doesn’t teach you those things, some teachers hint at it if they are good, but no college teaches you exactly how to provide juicy dripping sweet fruit from what you love. You get a report card, you get a diploma and you get a career center. 

So what am I doing this next year? I am going to teach myself what college didn’t teach me. I am going to write. I am going to write a lot. Most of it, you won’t see on here. It will be on pieces of paper, it will be on word, but it won’t be here… mostly. I am going to find my voice, I am going to edit my voice. I am going to make it juicy dripping sweet fruit. I am going to share that with people around me. So they can say, this can be juicier, this can be sweeter, and finally, it can just be better. When it’s ready, when it’s right, (hopefully there will be four of them) I am going to share them. I am going to share with the outer circles, the know-it-alls, the people that scare me because they are the judges of the field I adore. And hopefully, someone will notice. 

When I finally have burnt myself out of all my own ideas. Then maybe I will go to grad school, or go back to school for art, or find an awesome internship or fly to New York and say to the New Yorker, “I make great coffee, I can cook a fantastic meal, and I have published a witty story about a fat girl who just can’t seem get the hang of life. That’s why you should hire me.” 

I felt like I was going to die yesterday. I still feel pensive. I hate that school isn’t over yet.  My life is like one giant piece of stress and I have been trying not to have a pity party, but do you know how hard that is? Not to just sit and be like, “MY LIFE SUCKS!” Especially, when you know there are other people out there who have it worse, who would kill to be in your place, and who look at you, shake their head and say, “Poor girl, doesn’t know what it’s like.” 

Last night was hard, but it’s not the end. Still waiting and whatever happens I am gonna get it done. On the brighter side, I found out that I have more of chance than I thought. This is good. 

This is all vague, but I would rather not go into detail till I have the end of the story. I will write it later. I am going to try to enjoy today, and the rest of this weekend. It’s been a long year so far, its time to enjoy this.

“Somewhere inside of you, there is a hopeless romantic dying to sail around the world, writing prose after prose only to discard your self-thought ‘garbage’ into the sea, while all the while behind you your stary-eyed lover helms the ship and catches the ripped up remains he holds so dear to himself.”