krysti_ryou

I know it'll probably be nothing, most things aren't, and that they'll likely just give her some medicine or something and she'll be fine, but...

So, I’ve recently started reading The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy for my South Asian literature class. It’s about a set of twins in India who do their best to have a normal childhood, despite the inevitable degradation of the family that they live in. At least, that’s what the back of the book tells me. I haven’t had the opportunity to read very far into it yet, so the plot lines are still fairly blurry. A girl in my class told me that I wouldn’t like it, but I’m thinking that maybe she might be wrong. After all, being a twin myself, reading about someone who I can already empathize with on a certain level might be really interesting. You don’t meet twins every day, after all. I’ll have to get back to you later when I’ve finished more of the book.

What I wanted to journal about today was a specific passage in the book. Just before this passage, we were introduced to the two twins, Estha and Rahel, and were given a brief packet of information about how their relationship was extremely close-knit in their early childhood. Roy follows up with this passage that compares their relationship now to what it used to be from Rahel’s third person point of view:

Anyway, now she thinks of Estha and Rahel as Them, because, separately, the two of them are no longer what They were or ever thought They’d be.

Ever.

Their lives have a size and a shape now. Estha has his and Rahel hers.

Edges, Borders, Boundaries, Brinks and Limits have appeared like a team of trolls on their separate horizons. Short creatures with long shadows, patrolling the Blurry End. Gentle half-moons have gathered under their eyes and they are as old as Ammu was when she died. Thirty-one.

Not old.

Not young.

But a viable die-able age.

 ( Beneath are my thoughts about the meaning of being a sibling and Roy's writing. )
 

It's really weird going to a woman's college affiliated with a larger coed university.  It feels almost like being in a woman's dorm on a normal college campus.  Coming from a family with my sister as the only other young person in our household, I don't find myself missing the presence of a brother or another male in my dorm space.  I do miss all of my guy friends, though.  My closest guy friend is probably the person I miss most.  I haven't called him that often, but I think that's because I'm scared to remind myself what's happening to him.  He's in the National Guard, and his signal core training is almost over.  After he graduates, he'll have a few months to get his things together before he's shipped off to Afghanistan with the rest of his unit.  I want to talk to him, but I know talking to him will just remind me that he's leaving.

I've met a few nice guys here on campus.  It's hard to bond with guys considering how only three of my five classes has any in them.  That might sound like a good number, but in Calculus no one really has any time to talk because we're all straining to understand what's being filtered through the professor's Ukrainian accent.  It's my Earth Science course which allows me to actually interact with guys on a normal basis.  It's a lecture class, but we also have to work together for labs.  Cristina can give her stamp of approval on the Earth Science guy- although he's a bit weather-crazy (which I can definately be at times too), he's nice and just so happens to be insanely smart, which is a plus during our lab sessions.

So, in general, I need to make an effort to go out and meet some guys.  Not because I'm looking for a relationship, but because girl friends aren't the same as guy friends (although some can come pretty close to the line at times).  Since I won't contact my good guy friend from home, I'll need to find someone on the Columbia campus.  You can't meet people without any effort.

It shouldn't be too hard...right?

It's been a rather eventful week for me so far.  And it's only Tuesday!  Yesterday, I nearly passed out during Fencing class.  I guess it was from dehydration and not eating breakfast that morning.  The dehydration is completely my fault, and it's for the silliest reason, too.  My roommate had her boyfriend staying over and I didn't want to bother them by getting my water bottle from our dorm room.  I know, I should have taken care of myself first, but I didn't realize how much it would affect me until after the fact.  The physical exertion from fencing must have been too much for my body to handle without proper amounts of liquid and no real sustenance to run on.  I was taken to the college's graduate hospital and looked over.  I was fine, but the brackets on my braces were knocked out of place.  This afternoon, I was able to arrange (with my parent's help--this big city's too confusing for me to understand business in it yet) for a local orthodontist to fix up the damage it did to my teeth.  Just in time, too--my front right tooth was sliding behind the left one, and it was getting painful to eat except with my molars.

In other news, I have a big Earth Science midterm coming up on Thursday.  I'm planning on spending most of tomorrow studying for it.  If I can fit it in between Farscape episodes, that is.  Cristina showed me a source to watch them online and I've been devouring them ravenously.  Who knew aliens from other planets could be so interesting?  Without Stargates, that is.  Stargates make everything interesting.

I'm sure I have more to say on everything that's been going on, but I'll have to post again when I'm less tired.  Until then, have a great day y'all!  Let’s see if I can actually get to bed when I’ve planned it…

I'm really looking forward to the rest of my year here at college!  My roommates are awesome, and I've managed to make a few good friends in only a week or so.  I miss my cats like crazy, though.  I can't wait to see them again.

So, interesting experience today: a guy from Columbia (our coed affiliate across the street) started flirting with two of the girls I was with tonight.  He seemed pretty cool until he out of the blue said that guys from Columbia like to eat at our dining hall because we're all desperate.  Needless to say we left him alone after that.  I know most people at Columbia probably don't think like that, but it was a little disconcerting anyway because I'm going to take at least two, maybe three out of my four classes at Columbia (because of the strength of their science program) and I don't want to deal with that sort of prejudice 24/7.  My roommate brought a friend from high school who goes to Columbia over to our dorm and he seemed the exact opposite of that guy, so I'm slightly comforted by that.

I'm hoping to eat lunch with Cristina tomorrow.  We haven't had much time to hang out lately and it's a bit of a downer.

In other news, we have ants in my dorm room!  I went down to facilities and they sent the exterminator up earlier today, but we just found another alive one a few minutes ago.  It might be because my roommates don't change their trash cans very often...I've tried mentioning it before, but they don't think it's a big deal.  I hope I don't have to start taking it out for them because, really, I don't think that I should have to.  I just hate having to wear shoes all over the dorm room so I don't have them crawling all over my feet.

I wonder what team I'm going to be on for h_e...

My app finally dropped for sorting_elite!  My sister's been attacking me trying to get me to finish it.  What can I say, I procrastinate.  I think she's pleasantly surprised I'm going to be in Hufflepuff.  At least we won't have the entire sibling rivalry going on at Hogsmeade...I think.  You never know.  We're both pretty competitive.

Off to college in four days.  Four days.  I'm going to miss my kittens like crazy.  I won't see them for at least two months, probably longer once I leave on Thursday afternoon.  Will they think we've abandoned them?  Will they forget us altogether?  I'm hoping to send some sort of video to them or something so they know they're loved--crazy, I know, but Cristina's little girl, Alice, frequently watches and attacks my computer screen.  Hopefully she won't need scent to identify us...  Operation find-a-blanket-and-give-it-my-scent has begun.

As for sorting_elite, I was pleasantly surprised to be sorted into Hufflepuff.  It was hilarious to see Cristina's reaction when she figured out what the majority of my votes were.  Am I not Hufflie enough for you, sis?  I guess I deserve it, really.  I always teased her about "Huffling" all day long once she joined h_e.

Based on my sorting votes, it looks like I'm a Huffledor.  Huffindor.  Huffledownyourdoorstepdor.  Whatever you call it.  (I like the last one best).  I can't say I'm disappointed.  Like I said in my app, what better place to find friends than Hufflepuff?

An entry for the wombats and to help be get accustomed to livejournal's format.