Sleepovers, Scares and Staying at a Hotel

Well, people, it’s been a while…

 

I’m blogging from my study cave. (Yes, you read me right. Studying. In July… but don’t be sad for me, I literally started studying today. I’m okay, and procrastinating healthily while blogging) The time has come to prepare myself for the PCAT… a test that will probably define my whole future, but no big deal! *laughs nervously*

Being an adult is scary. I’m not even kidding, I haven’t been more nervous than the night I applied to take the PCAT. It’s not that bad, though. I don’t exactly have to get up early, which means I can work with my schedule, and I plan on studying with my friends. My vacations haven’t exactly been uneventful. I got really scared for a week or two while I didn’t know if I would have to get surgery… If you follow me on Twitter, you’ll know that it was, thankfully, a false alarm, and I got off with a December appointment and an order to exercise and eat better… (bye bye, pizza weekends!) … Right after I got that order I went to an hotel and basically broke that rule for two whole days, but I was saying goodbye! Don’t judge! 😀

 

(Yes, that’s my hair. Yes, that’s Graceling, AKA my favorite book in the whole world) I posted most of my pictures/videos on Snapchat (fearlesslynat, like the blog, just in case you were wondering :D)

These past days were amazing… And they weren’t the only thing I’ve done this summer! I finally had my first sleepover at María‘s on her birthday, and it was fairly one of the best days ever 🙂

 

 

 

Now that I told you about everything that has happened, more or less, I guess I can also tell you about movies/books/tv shows, right?

A month ago I told you I was watching Les Interpretes, right? It had a kind of disappointing ending, to be honest. It had such a promising beginning, and it had to end like that… *groans*. I wasn’t expecting more of the other one I was watching, which was good, because the ending wasn’t good, either. That’s why I ended up watching Descendants of the Sun… twice. Now I’m watching Beautiful Mind, Doctors and Lucky Romance… which are good… so far. I am up to date with Game of Thrones as well, which means I can read Pat‘s posts without fear of spoilers. Life is good, really.

I’ve also tried to catch up with my reading… but I only read Lady Midnight (I finished it!!) and started Graceling. I’m waiting for my friend to give A Court of Mist and Fury to me… I’m really excited about it because (1) Sarah J. Maas, duh. and (2) IT’S SIGNED! Which is basically a dream come true… although I still want to meet her someday.

Anyway, I think this was a nice update, and hopefully I’ll meet you again soon while I try to distract myself from Biology and *shudders* organic chemistry… *waves*

Humans adapt; so will I.

One of my favorite quotes (even if it’s from one of my not-so favorite books, Allegiant) is:

“Change, like healing, takes time.” 

While hard events are going on in your life, it is hard to imagine if things will ever be okay again, whether things changed for the better.

One of my Biology professors once told me every living thing has something it is good at, something that comes by instinct. He asked us what we thought our superpower -for lack of a better word -was. (Let’s be honest. It’s a good question. Most animals follow patterns, have a function on the environment. What do humans do on Earth? I’m sure I spent like five minutes trying to answer that question) Finally, he gave us the answer: Humans adapt to their environment, and change everything around them. (Not that it’s always a good thing!)

That’s the answer to my previous question. Things will be okay, because nothing is forever, and we can adapt to those changes. Life during this past month hasn’t been exactly easy, but we’ve been slowly adapting to this new way of life; my brother, my mom and I videochat with my dad every night, and we are cooperating way more with each other chore-wise.

Things have been specially hard on my mom. They have been together for 25 years… This has been a learning process for all of us. We’ve all had to learn something. We’re slowly becoming more independent, and life does go on, even if adapting to those changes is definitely not easy. I’ve decided I’ll do my best… (Especially if I want to get into graduate school close to him and my mom, in the future). I most definitely miss life as it was some months ago, but I still believe in what I wrote a year ago: Some things do not happen because of a reason in particular, but you must do your best with what you have and fight for what you want.

Wow, reading this post you might think: Whoa, Nat is going through a rough patch and there’s no positivity in her life! But that’s not exactly true. There have been some nice things in my life lately. Yesterday, for example, was a particularly good day. I had my ACS initiation and had a good time with my friends.

So, that’s how life goes: There are some good days, and some not so great. But it is like that for everyone. I’ll get used to it in time. And I’ll be here, like I always am, to tell my story. 🙂

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TL;DR: I’ve been trying to get used to life after my dad had to move; it hasn’t been easy, but we’re all adapting to everything. Lately life has been nice, thanks to my friends, and hopefully I’ll still be here, blogging all about it. 🙂

PS: Yes, I got a new haircut. I did tell you about it on my last post but I didn’t show you all. 🙂

A Year Ago…

I cannot believe it, people. My blog is officially a year old!

Actual Proof

When I published my first post, I did not expect to stay. You see, I’m not very consistent with what I do. A year ago, I was nervous about my Organic Chemistry class, I did not know if I would pass… yet I did. So many things have happened since then, and some are still the same. This past year I learned so much about me, about my life, and how I’m living it. I still have so much to learn, to do, and to reflect on. Science, Books and Silly Things is here to STAY.

I’ve met so many amazing people; some have been here from the start, others have joined along the way. Thanks to them and their advice, I’ve done and realized things I would never have even considered without them. (You guys know who you are! *hugs*) I’m so glad I surrendered to the pressure and started this blog. (Even if sometimes I spend weeks and even months without updating, I am here and will probably won’t leave in a long time).

If anyone feels they need to organize their thoughts and their life, my immediate advice is to start a diary or a blog. To share your thoughts online might seem like a dangerous feat… I was afraid at first. But the great thing about it is that people can and will share theirs back. That’s one of the best ways to learn and to look at things from other people’s points of view.

I’ve blogged about college, friends, about my family and about books… My blog is a mess, but it’s a mess I’m proud of. I’m really happy about how it has all turned out. I can’t wait to keep sharing these little snippets of my thoughts, life and dreams with you all. This blog (and you, my few but faithful followers) are some of the things I’m most thankful for. As I’m slowly maturing and venturing into *shudders* adulthood, it’s nice to know I’ll have people to share everything with. Thank you for following. It has been a ride, and it is definitely NOT over yet!

love,

Nat x

I wish I was Peter Pan.

Why does growing up and opening my eyes hurt this much? I wish I didn’t find out about certain things.

I guess sometimes it feels better to stay in the dark.

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PS. I’m okay. I just didn’t know certain things were happening (or not happening, whatever)

Spiritual Tales at the Doctor’s Office.

I had a weird experience yesterday. I went to the doctor for my cold. I don’t even know this doctor very well. She had attended me a few times before and she seemed… normal and professional. This time was different.

My mom started telling her about my medical background and the medical conditions most of my family has, bla, blah… -Which is normal, by the way, – until the doctor suddenly changed the topic. She started talking about how someone had told her something she didn’t agree with. I was pretty sure I knew where this came from, but stayed quiet. I mean, I just wanted some medication for my cold.

She then told us about how she had these experiences when she was young, these beliefs, and she mentioned both esotericism and existentialism. (Very different things…) That she believed she knew more than other people, bla blah, blah. (The usual speech about how when you mature and you realize you don’t know everything, you suddenly become a good Christian.)

Needless to say, my mother and I were speechless. What would we say about this? So we basically smiled and nodded while she was telling her story. (Even though I most definitely did not agree with what she was saying.) I interrupted her twice to ask her what I was there for. I needed a medical certificate.

After all her tale about having thrown things like incense sticks and other spiritual paraphernalia to the trash because a friend told her that her home was a “vipers nest” (Basically, according to her, some objects have evil inside them. When I used the word “Energies”, she said that’s what she believed when she was young. Yep.), she arrived to the topic I was expecting.

She specifically said “hell is full of good people” and that “if you leave your door half open, the Enemy can get in”. These are direct quotes. She said that everything’s in the Bible, and that we could respect homosexual people, but not agree with their behavior. (Yep. All this buildup, because probably a person close to her declared him/herself gay.)

When she finished her improvised monologue, she told us she didn’t know why she told us all that (Like I hadn’t heard that before). In the end, we went out, without my medication. Yes, after all that conversation, she forgot about attending her patient.

I am a Christian and I respect her beliefs, but there’s a line between the doctor and their patient. This wasn’t very professional from her. Having different opinions and beliefs does not make you a sinner, having foul intentions does. At least that’s what I believe.

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P.S. Spring Break is here!! I have to use it to study, but I will try to blog as much as I can, to finish Heir of Fire and to catch up with my TV shows. 🙂 #busyschedule! 😀

I hope you have a great weekend!

Guest Blog Post: Grow Up and Read Some YA

Hello, there!! Inertial Confinement agreed to write a guest post for our blog here. It’s about YA, and the impression everyone has about it. How it is not mature enough, blah blah blah. I must say I agree with it wholeheartedly! 🙂

Let’s all welcome our friend here, and please share your opinion!

*Nat

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We’re all adults here, so let’s get serious. We need to have a serious discussion. We need to read some serious literature, then open up some serious dialogue to guide our minds in a more serious direction. Did I mention we’re being adults here? And that we’re serious? Not just serious. Seriously serious. Put your serious faces on. I’m serious. 

I’m convinced this is what it means to be growing up. Becoming an adult.

Seriously, grow up! Stop laughing! Try and be a little more mature!

Having now reached that good old age of you-should-be-embarrassed-to-be-caught-in-the-YA-section-of-a-bookstore-and-for-heaven’s-sake-do-something-about-your-hair-what-is-wrong-with-you, I am now realizing some of the literature I am reading is considered “Young Adult.”

I can’t tell you for sure how much YA I read as a young person because when I was a young person, I read just to read. I read books that blew my mind. I read books I didn’t fully comprehend or relate to. I read books that changed my perspective on my view of life. I read literary fiction. I read science fiction. I read romance. It did not occur to me there were books I was supposed to be reading, and books that I shouldn’t read. I often read books without even checking the genre first because books were wonderful and stories were wonderful and I was a reader of books. Not just books–I was a reader of books, magazines, recipes, poetry, manuals, and backs of cereal boxes.

But then there comes a day when you decide to log onto the internet and your whole blissful ignorance is shattered. Dun, dun, dun. There are books that are considered “trash” and there are books that are considered “serious.”

Do you want to be considered serious? Are you a mature adult? Well, then, you need some serious literature! Hurry! Pick up your copy of Swann’s Way and take a number so you, too, can be on the path to becoming a Serious Adult™!

Sometimes I wonder if the word “serious” will cease to have any serious meaning now-a-days because it’s seriously being thrown all over the place.

What makes a book “serious” anyway? Who sets these standards? And why did I ever let myself think I wanted to meet these serious standards? And seriously, I probably should do something with my hair.

But you know what? I’m about to let you all in on a little secret. My favorite part about becoming an adult was when I stopped becoming an adult. Becoming an adult is a transition that never ends. Becoming. Becoming. Becoming. Wait, when did I get old?

It’s too confined. It’s restricted. And what exactly is the prize when you reach the end? I think Neil Gaiman drove this point home in his novel, The Ocean at the End of the Lane: 

“Adults follow paths. Children explore. Adults are content to walk the same way, hundreds of times, or thousands; perhaps it never occurs to adults to step off the paths, to creep beneath rhododendrons, to find the spaces between fences. I was a child, which meant that I knew a dozen different ways of getting out of our property and into the lane, ways that would not involve walking down our drive.”

I’m done walking down the drive. I’m tired of all these proverbial paths. I’m done becoming an adult. I’m ready to end this transition and just be.

Perhaps nobody who catches me in the YA section of my local bookstore will ever take me seriously. Ruth Graham sure won’t. [See Graham’s article on Slate: AGAINST YA (http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/books/2014/06/against_ya_adults_should_be_embarrassed_to_read_children_s_books.html) ] But why should I care what book snobs think of me anyway? As the Indigo Girls would say, “I spent four years prostrate to the higher mind / Got my paper and I was free.” Yes, I just quoted Indigo Girls. Yes, I still expect you to take me seriously. Or not. I’m really not so sure anymore.

I enjoy reading, and I will continue to read what I enjoy and while reading for my own enjoyment, I will read what suits my mood, whether it be the lectures of Richard Feynman, the newest Murakami novel, or some random book I happened to pick up in the section marketed toward Young Adults.

And if you find yourself braving the YA section of your local bookstore among the more sophisticated folk, you can arm yourself with this relevant C.S Lewis quote I’m about to drop like it’s hot:

“Critics who treat “adult” as a term of approval, instead of as a merely descriptive term, cannot be adult themselves. To be concerned about being grown up, to admire the grown up because it is grown up, to blush at the suspicion of being childish; these things are the marks of childhood and adolescence. And in childhood and adolescence they are, in moderation, healthy symptoms. Young things ought to want to grow. But to carry on into middle life or even into early manhood this concern about being adult is a mark of really arrested development. When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.”

In other words, if you’re avoiding YA because you’re an Adult™, you really need to grow up.

FUN QUESTION TIME: Have you ever been embarrassed about what you read? What do you think of the process of “becoming an adult”? What makes an adult?

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I plan on hosting guest posts on Fridays, If you want to be featured on my blog, just email me at sweetnat13@gmail.com or tweet me at @EvolutionofNoah