Thoughts while wrapped in a fuzzy blanket like a very grouchy, sick burrito

1. AHH IT'S MY BLOG'S BIRTHDAY! Or it was, a couple of days ago. I can't believe I've been writing for a little over a year now (and I can't believe it took me 20 years to start in the first place). Thank you so much to everyone who actually reads all of my scattered thoughts; it makes me so happy ^_^ thanks for keeping my blog alive by reading, liking, sharing, and subscribing, and for taking the five minutes out of your day to listen to what I have to say. I really am very grateful and I love you all.

2. I just had my last real Halloween. I was devastated enough by the realization freshman year of high school that I was too old to trick-or-treat, and now, I may not even get to dress up anymore. But my costumes kicked ass this year (I was Rosie the Riveter and Wednesday Addams) so it was worth it. Most kids go out and drink or something on actual Halloween, but all I did was stay in bed with my giraffe pillow pet and watch How To Get Away With Murder.

3. And speaking of, OH MY GOD, HOW GOOD IS HOW TO GET AWAY WITH MURDER?! I've been so busy with school and work and AKPsi and life that I haven't really had time to follow any TV shows, but in the past week I've watched almost the entire first season. It's insanely addicting. I can't stop watching it. Someone send help.

4. There's this very delicate tension in knowing you should move on and not being able to let go of the past. And I'm a sentimental fool, so it's especially difficult for me. I like keeping things—text messages, emails, Post-it notes. Reading them takes me back to a particular place and a particular emotion. It's a very deliberate and particularly bittersweet form of torture.

5. I am currently sick and it is not the business. I hate being sick, and as I get older, I realize I actually don't have time for it anymore. I just want to be cozy in bed with my abundance of fluffy blankets and drink hot tea. But then I remember that I have responsibilities. Damn.

6. Halloween is over, so you know what that means...ugly Christmas sweaters, check. Meticulously-curated Christmas music playlist, check. November is pretty irrelevant, in my opinion, and only good for two things: Thanksgiving food and half-priced candy. I always harbor an irrational excitement for Christmas...I think I'm equally as excited as I am at 22 years old as I was at five years old. It's because my family always makes a big deal of it, down to every last tinsel-covered detail, but honestly, I wouldn't have it any other way.

7. I talked to my academic adviser yesterday and I may potentially graduate a quarter early, which is very exciting! It'll give me more time to accommodate my heart-stopping anxiety about entering the real world. Just kidding.

8. I really like this. This girl, who is supposedly Instagram-famous, recently created a stir in the media when she went back and edited her post captions to reflect the honest effort that went into each photo. And it really resonated with me, because one of the things I dislike most about Instagram is that it was created as this very pure, simple medium to supposedly connect people through photographic representations of everyday life. But it's turned into a means of showing off in a very subtly disingenuous way; of composing an aesthetically perfect life that you wish were yours. I feel like it takes time away from real life. Are you enjoying yourself, or is it more important that people think you're enjoying yourself? Instagram is now very much about seeking validation from other people. Another blogger, of Girl Meets Life, pretty much echoed my exact sentiments on the matter in blog post titled "Life: Unfiltered" a while back. It’s a reminder that Instagram is not reality—it's a compilation of carefully-constructed, heavily-filtered photos of what we want our lives to be.

9. My mom and my sister are flying to New York this weekend for a squash tournament, and I am filled with an overwhelming nostalgia for the city I left not two months ago. There's something very magical and heavily romanticized about New York in the wintertime. The lights, the crispness of the air, people rushing everywhere huddled in heavy coats. I love all of it. I would love to live in a Christmas special, I think, because they always make the city look so lovely. I already want to go back.

10. My wifi signal in my apartment plays this perverse game of hide-and-seek with me, and as a result, I only get internet in one corner of my room. It's pretty irritating. I have to strategically click on things in order to save them at the exact moment that the wifi is on. I may as well be living in the Dark Ages.

HAPPENING MEOW