"If he'd asked the question she would have told

him everything, but he didn't know what question

to ask."  

MARK HADDON, THE RED HOUSE (I don't like it as much as The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time but he is still a very talented author, and in any case this is what I get for playing the Pick Random Books off the Shelves Game at the library.) 

One night when I was, oh, nineteen or so, someone told me something. THE END. Just kidding. You know how some things people say to you stick with you forever and ever? This was one of those things, and in this case it was a wise thing and not a thing like when this girl I knew in eighth grade told me my face looked fat in a ponytail and so I didn't wear my hair up for two years. What? Oh. So anyway I was in Biloxi for the weekend staying at some sort of awkward volunteer campsite where everybody was literally piled on top of each other and the closest non-dirt-tasting-like coffee was a mile away at McDonald's. (Which tasted like garbage water as opposed to dirt.) It wasn't any more stressful or uncomfortable a living situation than any other I'd experienced that year except that the "fun adventure" part of it paled a little that weekend in comparison to the combination of hormones and frustration I was feeling at the time. I can't remember specifics (re: yes I can, but there were 100000904 of them) but a lot of it boiled down to: I was feeling disconnected from some of the people around me and sad as a result of that. So on the second night we were there, one of my friends hijacked a van and informed me that we were going to get away from the camp because he was bored of seeing me sulking in a proverbial corner, licking imaginary wounds. And I was surprised when another of my friends wanted to come with us, because she was one of the people I had been feeling so rejected by.

So we ended up getting food and driving around and looking at the casino lights and the questionably clean beaches. (There's not too much to do there, or if there is I didn't discover it then.) And talking. And I finally expressed how I'd been feeling, and I remember how good it felt to voice everything. And my dear, sweet no-bullshit girlfriend looked at me and said: "You have to ask for what you want."

That's it. I mean I'm sure they both said other things because I ended up realizing that I was isolating myself and confusing everybody, etc etc. But basically, that's it. You have to ask for what you want. What a beautiful, simple concept. And yet something that is so hard for so many people, myself included. You absolutely have to advocate for yourself, whether you are maneuvering some sort of bureaucracy or a relationship. Whatever this means for you, whatever it may look like, you need to tell people what you want. How else do you get it? For me, often the reason I don't ask for help is because I don't want to risk a "no". Or rather, I don't want to risk feeling rejected. (Mostlyalsotoo I need to be able to do almost everything for myself by myself.) And how silly is that? Hitting a wall doesn't always mean the end. It just means it's time to shift your direction. And that's hard sometimes, but it's also exciting.

I'm sorry (not really though) if this doesn't make a lot of sense - it's just that lately, so many things in my life are reminding me of the importance of speaking up for myself. (You get so used to advocating for others and if you're not careful you start to forget about yourself a little.) All different situations, all different feelings associated with them. (None of them are terrible, CALM DOWN.) And all of them come down to that one straightforward, lovely tenet: I have to ask for what I want.

  

If you never say your name out loud to anyone,

they can never ever call you by it.  

REGINA SPEKTOR

Some random thoughts pertaining to academia:

Reason #19837401 why I'm pissed I read Twilight: I accidentally nerd-flirted with this gentleman at school last week and then yesterday he wasn't in class. But then I ran into him a little later. And the first thing I thought was not "Why'd you miss class, idiot?" (that was my second thought) but "Oh, he's probably a vampire and is so attracted to me that he HAD to skip class because he wants to eat me." That was a real thing my brain thought. I have read probably over a hundred books of actual intellectual value since that swine masquerading as vamp lit and STILL it lingers. Damn you, Stephanie Meyer.

and

I cried a little in history this morning while the professor was saying something off-topic as usual about populism and socialism and things. Nobody noticed but don't worry, I told myself to get a grip. It is nice to be reminded, though, that I mostly do have great faith in the human spirit. EVEN IF SOME HUMAN SPIRITS STILL HAVEN'T WRITTEN ME A CHECK, three hundred months later.