ei·do·lon (-dln)
     n. pl.   Image of an ideal.
 
 

 
Plato believed that we lived in a world of images, three-dimensional shadows of the true one.  What we see with  our eyes is nothing more than a cheap imitation of its true state.  For  example, the chair we see before our eyes is nothing more than a shabby image of the true chair that exists.  We carry on everyday with flawed perceptions of the true ideal form. 

 
 

Life After College: Year 3 -  In Transit    



[Tuesday, June 29, 2004]


Close Brush.

I almost met my Maker this morning.

I was clipped by a car today as I was stepping off the curb. Thrown off balance, I put a hand down to steady myself, though putting a hand down onto the trunk of a speeding car probably wasn't the best idea. The antenna on the trunk sliced into my wrist, knocking my lunch out of my hand into the street, where the car proceeded to run it over. Squashed salami with treadmarks for lunch =(.

The nice Brit boy on the curb kept apologizing for not calling out a warning, but admitted that he was about to step off the curb himself because he could've sworn there was a gap in the traffic. Funny, I could've sworn so too. Not that the car even slowed down after knocking into me. It was a black car. Black - the color of death (haha). If I'd stepped off the curb a second sooner, I would've been the salami.

I had to retrieve my bag lunch out of the street, and for some reason, I was embarassed by the whole thing - though obviously, it wasn't my fault. I have a nice bruise on my wrist, courtesy of the antenna, as a memento of the occasion. The only thing missing was a gallant guy sweeping me out of the path of imminent danger so I could faint in his arms and have him nurse me back to health. A la Florence Nightingale. But backwards, since he'd be doing the nursing. Part of me is shocked at the fact that I could come so close to death, and a few hours later be yawning because I don't want to be at work. Obviously, I don't appreciate life quite to the extent that I should. You'd think a brush with death, or at the very least paralysis, would stun me into appreciation of my functioning limbs. But no - I remain complacent in the fact that my body is a fine tuned machine of sockets and joints that continues to work with minimal maintenance.


Posted by ink |  11:37 AM

[Wednesday, June 23, 2004]


... I've had priests knocking on my door all morning. After the first one who caught me in a towel, another one knocked on my door - asking for my roommate to see if he could borrow Scotch tape. I lent it to him instead. Then he knocked on my door again, wanting to know if he could keep it overnight and return it tomorrow. "....Sure." As I left the apartment, half an hour later than I was supposed to due to all the interruptions, there were a few more of them hovering on the landing.

I suppose I should be flattered. But being able to attract young celibate priests doesn't really say much for a girl. They're like men in the desert who'll salivate at even the sight of a glass of dirty water.


Posted by ink |  1:10 PM

Priests in Training.

I always forget that I now live at a divinity school. So when I go running and decide to blast my music at 10 am while I shower, there are people still around in neighboring apartments. I had just finished my shower and was lotioning my legs in the bathroom with my music on high (it needs to be so I can hear it through the shower and sing along), when I heard a pounding. It suddenly struck me that these people don't work 9 to 5, so I grabbed a towel, flipped my music, and opened the front door, only to find no one there. The pounding went on, so I thought 'Oh man, they're pounding on the floor.' Then I hear a muffled "Back door!" (we have a back door with a back stairwell to our apartment). I fling open the back door to find a young man standing there looking embarassed. He claims he's looking for my roommate and said he would come back later. I apologize for my music anyways, and thanked my lucky stars that due to my laziness in doing laundry, I was wearing my huge beach towel as opposed to the normal small bath towels. Then I realized... I'm talking to a priest-to-be! He made this "go and get 'em" arm motion - the sort your parents make, and said "Back to Bon Jovi!" (I was listening to Living On A Prayer).

I'm kinda excited. I've only met full-blown priests before, but I've never met a developing priest. I think they're the most fascinating things. He seemed a bit socially awkward, as his shorts were worn higher than most boys of our generation wear them, but I suppose socially slick boys don't become priests. I want to ask him a ton of questions. What made you want to become a priest? Is this your calling? Have you known since you were a child? What prompts you to become celibate in an age of rampant pre-marital sex and Britney Spears? Do you watch MTV? Do you prefer Jessica Simpson over Britney? What do your parents think of this? Having clergy in the family doesn't carry the same sense of honor it used to be in the past. What kind of music do you listen to? Do you listen to hiphop, rock, or pop? What do you do when you listen to confession and someone has raunchy sinful thoughts to confess? I imagine being a priest doesn't mean you're physiologically different from any other normal 20-some year old male (and based on my Endocrinology, testosterone levels peak in the 20's). Do you and your priest brothers fight over who goes into the confession booth? ("Sister Magda's coming today!").

I hope he comes back.


Posted by ink |  10:32 AM

[Wednesday, June 09, 2004]


Love lost.

I tore out of my building today, stuffing papers still into my backpack while trying to run in flipflops to catch the bus. Down the street, I could see a guy walking two dogs. I paused long enough to note that he was very short and walked like a duck, thus eliminating any need to check him out. As we pass each other by, I suddenly stop and say "...B?"

Yes, it was him. My old high school crush. I crushed on B. for all four years of high school and never spoke to him. Nor did I really do much more than glance at him covetously out of the side of my eye. In fact, the highlight of my high school career was being assigned as his lab partner in chemistry. I spent all year with sweaty palms and knocking beakers over, wow'ing him with my lack of finesse. He was class president. I was... the nerdy yearbook editor.

After a brief exchange, during which I determined that he lives a block from me, and babbled on and on about whether I was going to be in Boston for long (short answer: I don't know), he gave me his email, said we should get together sometime, and gave me a hug goodbye.

As I flip-flopped my way to the bus stop, I marveled at how I could've possibly liked him that much. Ah, foolish youth. When I re-read my teenage journals a few months ago, instead of being full of juicy gossip and dark teen angst, it was full of page after page of B. this and B. that and how I was convinced that I was truly the perfect girl for him - he just had to discover it. That, and dark teen angst. I'm always disappointed when I re-read my journals. They seem so creative and witty when I'm writing them, but in retrospect, they're so... trivial and inconsequential. When I grew out of my teenage years, my journals were instead filled with entries about work and corporate america and how I went to work without underwear all the time so if my boss picked on me (which he inevitably always did), I could sit there and smile, knowing that I had no underwear on (nya nya!). Couldn't I have planned a revolt? Perhaps sparked some journalistic ideas on how management should really be handled? No, instead I had to start my own personal Pantygate.

This morning though, as I watched B. walk away from me, short and duck-like, I realized that life too, in retrospect, seems so much more trivial. Why did I like the little waddler so much at 15? I must've been shorter back then. Or blinded by love. His dogs weren't even that cute. Actually, they looked like they could've used an appointment at the groomers. I toyed with the idea of emailing him and wondered whether he gave it to me out of courtesy. And then it hit me. I don't know if he realized who I was. I didn't even mention our high school, or even my name. In fact, the very fact that he hugged me probably means he had no idea who I was. He didn't even say hi to me in high school. You don't go from that to sudden hugs in the street. Part of me wants to email him and call him on it. "You had no idea who I was yesterday morning did you." But another part of me wants to see how long I can let this go on. Would he agree to brunch with me if he still couldn't place me in his past?


Posted by ink |  11:26 PM

[Saturday, June 05, 2004]


I spent the entire day alternating between fits of studying and doing terribly fun things - like seeing the Einstein exhibit at the Museum of Science, catching Harry Potter at the theatre, going for Cold Stone ice cream (yum...).

As we walked down Boylston St. on our way to the bus stop, Meels and I wove in and out of the lines forming outside of bars. Ah. So this is what normal people do on Saturday nights. With our backpacks, we may as well have been wearing blinking signs above our heads that said "nerds". We glanced in some of the windows in passing to watch the revelry. The odd thing is... Even as I glance in enviously now, I didn't used to have that much fun when I was one of those girls standing in the window with a margarita in my hand. Sure, I had an okay time, but not really anything worth the money I'd spend in one night. Being the girl with the margarita came along with drunken men with bad breath, painful shoes, and a sense of being slightly bored. Being the girl with the backpack means I probably drank at least 3 cups of hazelnut soy latte at Starbucks, had ice cream, and learned all about leprosy and their pus-filled lesions.

It's a close race between the two. Pus or painful shoes. Hrm.


Posted by ink |  11:57 PM

[Wednesday, June 02, 2004]


Chronicle of Roommates Unforetold.

The life of Ink and her dwellings since graduation 2001.

2001 - Philadelphia. Ten-bedroom, rundown mansion. Weed-dealer boy lived down the hall. Drosophila grew in our bathroom trashcan. Police broke down the 2nd floor girl's door because her father was convinced she had overdosed in there. Room was found empty.

2002 - New York. Lived with two rich Pakistani girls. One is now at Harvard Business School. Other is shoe designer in Pakistan.

2003 - Boston. From living with a lesbian, to living in a divinity school, all within the span of a year. My old roommate joked about getting merit badges for every girl she turned towards homosexuality. My new roommate told me she was "in conversation" with a convent when she was in college. I look around my new room which is huge, and extraordinarily cheap, and all I can think of is how all hopes of a summer fling can die here. I am tainting the school with my presence.

Yes girls and boys, I moved to Cambridge over Memorial Day Weekend, in the midst of my summer classes and all. I now live with men who are priests-to-be, and women who want to be priests but can't because the Catholic church won't ordain women. Hurrah for yet another Craig's List victory! What drives men these days to become priests in the era of Britney Spears and MTV? I must firmly squash the urge to prance out of the building everyday in teensy skirts.

p.s. I hate the new idiot-proof blogger format. Must you dumb it down so obviously? Huge bubbly icons and super simple formats? I'm an old-fashioned kind of gal. I liked it when they assumed we had brains and could read fonts smaller than 16 point. I liked the clean sparing no frills professional look of the old Blogger. Bring back the original. Please!


Posted by ink |  1:03 AM


 

 

 about a 25  year old girl, ex-consultant, ex New York City inhabitant, newly minted med student, (still) largely single.

  about big change, the choices we make in life, gut instincts, on-the-whim hairpin turns, the search for truth, the desire to be happy, the journey to finding out what makes us happy.  

  about being young and clueless, hoping that we're not blindly leading ourselves to our own demise with every tentative step we take, the pitfalls of dating, the trials and travails of being a young woman in the post-feminist era.


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