I keep my days occupied doing laundry among other things

Haven't forgotten about me yet?
I certainly have not, and will admit that despite my guilty feelings regarding the absence of writing in my blog for quite some time the guilt was lingering but until this moment not acted upon. My fall quarter has thus come to an end and I feel quite accomplished. Aside from finals being over and overcoming a horrible 103 fever during finals week I also completed and submitted all my graduate school applications.
(HOLLAAAAAAAAA)

And let me tell you that I felt like a million bucks after sending them all in. Truly.
I am even more pleased to announce that University of Michigan has already sent out its invitation for me to audition live on their campus; of which was a nice early holiday gift.
Ironically, in now way do I celebrate Christmas i but will use these positive reinforcements as so.

I'm getting better at the whole life thing.
Would you like me to get more specific?
One can equate their lives with the amount of setbacks that are presented to them or equate with how they overcome those setbacks. A phone call with one of my best friends a few weeks back was a good reminder. She, who in now way has a big life issue/crisis/family dilemma was telling me how it is a lot easier for one to be sad than happy. Even for her it was difficult and we both agreed that to be happy despite whatever circumstance it takes an effort that sadness does not.
That got me thinking....
maybe all those people who are always happy, laughing, nonchalant, use real energy within themselves to be that way.
It is not because they own an i-phone or wear jimmy choos; but because they choose to be happy.
To nutshell this ideology I choose to try: (potential hallmark patent) life is like a lab room where you experiment without the goggles or gloves on, and despite the injuries we learn, we grow.

Today I had to purchase a foundation since I'm out. Now to set up this story I will begin from last night where I was surrounded by a lovely company of girlfriends of whom I love and cherish. Yet, at the end of the night I only could feel sorry for myself.
At one point the conversation veered to the latest pants, perfumes (multiple), blackberries, shmackberries, label this, label that ...oh lord I wanted to pull my hair.
Anyway, so today after choosing my foundation I was perusing through the perfumes of which I have wanted desperately since my one and only perfume ran out. I honestly wanted to purchase a 65 dollar perfume bottle out of pity, but realized that leaving the store with that bottle of DIOR would leave me more depressed than without.
Ok, so what, I don't have perfume. Guess what?
Some children in l.a. don't have parents, don't have food every night, don't have books to simply read.
I really shouldn't complain.
So I was happily satisfied with myself when I left the store, with foundation (dude that stuffs just necessary) not allowing my emotions to get the best of me.
So for the time being I will be perfume-less until I feel like my bank account won't hate me if I do purchase something.

Long story short, there are a lot of things in life we want: but at this point in my life I'm going to have to limit that list. To be quite honest, it's OK.
As long as I have health, music and my family and friends I will have to be tolerant.
I will have setbacks, I can get upset, but in the end I am my investment. Me, not the 'things' I own.
My goal?
No self pity. Nada. I will nod my head and smile and not be influenced by the fortune of others. I will be happy for them.
And I will be even happier that my heart won't sulk in its sorrow.

whoooooooooo.
so much for a 'blog'.

Now I'm going to go fold laundry.
and for right now, that's A-ok.

I don't want to wear shorts in November

Halloween. A night of debauchery, mayhem, dress up, slut up.....

Well for most college students that's the agenda.

What did I do?

Well,

I went to an orchestra concert. Then went home, watched gossip girl and went to bed.

Now in my DEFENSE, I did the whole Halloween thing the night before, my friend threw a huge party and I did my whole debauchery rant then.

But seriously, who wants to be hungover, dreary on the first day of November of the year. So ensues the holiday season and my favorite holiday (and folks, its not Christmas).

What am I going to complain about in this blog?

The absence of fall in Southern California. I just checked the weather on my i-google account thingy and for the remainder of this week til Friday temperatures will be hitting 80 degress.

I don't want to wear shorts in November!

Im currently procrastinating going on my run and finishing my french homework to update my blog. I promise that the more stressed I am the more inclined I will be to update (for the one person who reads this; and yes they are a family member).

Also, I have a vocal competition and I am a good nervous, I think (perhaps I should not have made coffee this morning?)

So here for the sake of entertainment is Cecilia Bartoli's rendition of the aria I will be performing today...her facial expressions are CLASSIC, you will not regret viewing this I promise.

Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_4mv-aE2cvQ

It's mornings like these..

That make me want to

sip hot tea with my parents and eat "shirini"

go to starbucks on Arboles with Sheva and discuss our plans for the future until age 80, (among other things).

listen to Simon and Garfunkel and overthink my future so many times my head hurts

have a french baguette with some butter and jam

Get nostalgic about rainy days during elementary school, where recess would be inside and my fifth grade best friends and I would bond over hot chocolate and chocolate mints....

Watch Love Actually because rain reminds me of Christmas.

Want to be a kid again

Fall in love

Weekends, "meat water" and my mother.

Weekends, "meat water" and Iranian mothers.

It sounds kind of disgusting right? Meat water or Water meat; better known in farsi as: "ab goosht". A most delicious Persian stew with beef or lamb simmered with garbanzo beans and eaten with either bread or in today's case, "cheveed polo": green rice?

White basmati rice with some green stuff...sounds strange.

TASTES exquisite.

Coming home is always a very wholesome experience and I mean that in the most Mr. Roger's Neighborhood kind of way.

Ironically no matter what, I usually don't get enough school work done at home but I do feel (in most cases) refreshed, well fed and caught up with my sleep.

There's something cathartic about the stillness and the quiet of my parent's house that lets me put my mind on pause.

The older I am getting the more I realize and appreciate what home is and what it means. CLICHES are true and I'm telling you that distance makes the heart grow fonder....this is applicable to situations (gasp) OTHER than one's romantic relationships

For example, today at dinner my parents were cute enough to set a "sofreh" (in Farsi). That means they laid out dinner on the floor and WITHOUT a doubt my mother and I easily found a topic of discussion to bicker about...

If this situation were to have happened two years ago I probably would have been so hot tempered I would have put down my fork and refused to complete dinner (threats to disregard one's food in a Persian household is very insulting).

But instead I got pissed off for two seconds (cheers! Applause!) and realized that in fact my mom will do anything and I mean ANYTHING, to create some sort of dialogue at the dinner table/breakfast table/chai table/car rides.....

And no matter how lame or frustrating the discussion is my mom enjoys to converse, to speak and to argue, not because she likes to "argue" but because of the former former: "conversing."

This is a genuine effort on my mom's part. Perhaps she's worried that she will lose me to the english speaking world forever. Even though she is as much a part of society as myself I sense the worry some look in her eyes once in awhile. That maybe, just maybe I would just would rather "converse" about something else WITH someone else.

BUT DO NOT FEAR!

As long as my mom has really hilarious topics to discuss about and Meat water simmering on the stove, my heart will always belong to my mama's. I take that back. My heart will always belong to my mama's, with or without her RIDIK conversations (or sometimes monologues) and meat water...."ab goosht"

The better moments are the fleeting ones

Maybe it's rare, but I am happy to be a college senior.

I honestly feel as if this is the first year I'm going to get college right. In retrospect, I feel as if the first three years were a series of trial and error experiments and now this final year the fog that used to always cloud it seems to have thinned out in the atmosphere (cliche metaphor I know, get over it, Im not trying to win a Nobel prize for literature here)

at least for me.

If there is one word I can choose to describe my character in my last few years at school, I'd choose: WORRISOME.

I spent hours and sleepless nights tossing and turning, taking too seriously what I should have taken more lightly and vice versa.

I hated making decisions; I didn't realize the whole lot of gray in between black and white.

I wish now that the person I am now could have knocked at the door of my freshman dorm of my freshman self and calm her down a bit. Let her know that I didn't have to try so hard to do everything I thought I should have been doing at the time. That my only investment worth worrying about was my sanity and well being.

Fast forward 3 years:

I have a better attitude now, I'm no where near the avenue of perfect but I can say that I am more at ease with the things and situations that make me stress out, perspire, etc...

School, my family's situation, my sensitivity being as thick as a tangerine peel (there's a phrase like that in farsi).

My point being: you realize you are a little wiser when being patient no longer is a practice but an acquired habit.

I appreciate the miniscule moments that give me a reason to sigh a breath of relief and forget whatever it is that's bothering me.

For ex:

My roommates reactions to my unconscious singing in the apartment at all hours of the day.

Blasting Mozart in my car with the windows down,

being ruthlessly inappropriate with Belinda or Courtni,

or listening to my brother talk about the human liver...

These are the moments I cherish, the ones that semi distract me from the heavier things that can weigh me down. My goal for today, for tomorrow? To allow these moments although fleeting to motivate in pushing through whatever it is that worries me.

Thats all for now.

Ariza, split pea soup, among other things

So yesterday, I blessed/endowed (either or both) my brother with a lovely visit in l.a.
Speaking of "l.a.", if someone says, let's meet in l.a., that's like telling someone let's meet in Nebraska. My point (which you hopefully) have understood by now, is that Los Angeles engulfs too much land, too many people and too much traffic to be an easy town where there is one central metropolitan area of the city.
Furthermore, I think that's the quality about L.A. that people either love or hate about this town. There are a lot of nooks and corners to it, and normally you need a vehicle to get from one interesting location to the next. And as consequential result, are stuck in 2 hours of mind numbing traffic.

So when I say, I met up with my brother in l.a. I "could" be referring to sunset boulevard or the ghetto of south east Compton (that is such an ignorant assumption, is that even a place?) I am specifically referring to the western part of the city of angels and sometimes during the course of the summer when I feel a sense of intoxication by my small childhood town (a completely normal feeling from my fellow peers I assure you) I hop into my Honda mobile and travel down to where it's "happening".

New trend watch: coffee shops not stamped with the typical mermaid green black set up are the new hot spots!

No, actually they're not, but my brother and I found ourselves doing our own respective reading/studies respectively on none other than a saturday night. Sadly, even the coffee barista was trying to ask why i was spending my Saturday night at such a location.
I can be so lame....I mean, er, productive with my time.

In all sincerity though I needed to get out of Thousand Oaks for a little while. After several hours of page flipping, reading, and spelling out french diction my brother and I manuevred down the street to jerry's deli to grab some late dinner.
The funniest part of going out with my brother is the fact that most people assume we are unrelated and therefore....well, you get the point. It's not my fault that I got most of the attractive genes... (muahahah).
Anyway, while downing my pea sized serving (no pun intended) of split pea soup a true Laker offender and traitor but attractive nonetheless Trevor Ariza walks in. Yes folks, so ensues the climax of my story.

To hopefully find a unifying theme with this blog is that sometimes the most random, useless events can put a smile on your face. I had a pretty crap of a day, but a change a scenery, some lukewarm soup and a basketball player's visit made it better.
So next time you are feeling rather intoxicated by your own nook of a hometown, let's meet somewhere in L.A.?

Dvorak and I

To say that "music is my passion" is probably the ickiest, most cliche, and redundant expression to describe how I feel toward this audible art, per say.
But suffice to say, it works well in expressing how I feel. Music. Singing, was always a part of my life, since I can remember.

i recall learning ode to joy on the piano by ear when I was probably 4, feeling quite the accomplisher as my brother didn't understand that if I hadn't "learned" the notes, how was I able to play it.

I am definitely not a musical prodigy, but dare I say it, I have pretty damn good ear. As most musicians should. I Shamefully remember belting out Whitney Houston Ballads (I will always love you, duh.) on the small slope of a hill in my backyard to my mom when she was cooking dinner when I came home from school.
At one stage of my pree teen growth into my adolesence I was so obsessed, with celtic, enya-ish music, I don't even know how to generalize it as a particular genre, that for four years I played that music in my bedroom every night when I went to sleep.

In retropsect, as a music major in college, with one year left to complete my Bachelor's do I finally understand the pieces of the puzzle that came together from my adolesence, that made me the music "fiend" I am now. I almost feel that my love for what I do as a classical vocalist has placed a pause button on my appreciation for a lot more music. I find myself listening to Dvorak or Ravelle or Mozart for hours, and then listening to it over again. Without being overwhelmed.

Is this normal?
Perhaps the fact that I always thought I was a bit weird is expanding into wider ground than expected.

One thing I do wish for (warning: slight tangent ahead) is that whom ever I choose to love, can understandand appreciate my neurotic attachment to this particular art. For what it truly is.

listen to Dvorak if you want to daydream off into your brain...that's my current recommendation, particularly 'strings serenade' moderato.

Why is it that, upon the brink of one's re energized attitude towards life (a bit of an exaggeration) that one is once again brought down not only to earth, but below earth, you know, so below the earth that you feel the earth plates moving.

Today, MSN.com decided that it wanted to inform me of my bleak and financially burdened future. What did it do to accomplish such a feat?

Not much.
one of the headlines on the websites main page was: the five lowest paying college majors. Can you guess what was at the very very bottom?

My major.
My beloved choice of education.
Perhaps, all the strange raised eyebrows from my Persian counterparts (particularly the parenal unit) is justified after all.

Music, according to msn.com will bring little to no income. YAY. this proves now more than ever that I' should either give up or bury the realistic attitude and strive for what I deem best for myself career wise; no matter what obstacles face ahead.

or, perhaps marry rich. You know, just to keep things above sea level?
unprogressive?

*sigh*...ok, fine. i will marry the man I love....(who just happens to be rich?).

If I have some sort of consistent behavior for five days straight.
That, (and Im speaking to you, world wide web) is an accomplishment.

let me delve into this in more detail. I am by default a cynic. It takes energy and effort on my behalf, to stay positive. Perhaps I sound like an old crippled woman who has witnessed only the most horriffic experience but truth be told I am only recently of legal alchoholic age, yet find myself pondering life's most dense questions, and only find myself freaked the hell out.

Have I had a difficult childhood stained with traumatic events?
Um. to say the least, no. In fact, I consider myself lucky (blessed, whatever) that I have two parents who unequoivically unconditionally love me more than themselves. No joke.

But here is where my story gets a tad more exciting. Story, or life glimpse, I suppose this blog is a means to an end in a way of expressing myself apart from the journal on the side of my bedstand.
A little over three years ago, my life changed.

I went to college. But guess what (surprise!). That's not exactly how my life changed.

Another tangent (which I swear) correlates with what I am about to endow on this entry makes sense, bear with me just a little longer. I watched Becoming Jane about a year ago, (a movie, folks) and one line struck a chord and kind of killed a part of me.
Ironically, this film is one of my favorites (yes I am one of those Austen loving females) get over it. But really, the father advises his daughter (yes, Jane Austen) to accept a marriage proposal to a less than exciting man that she has no , er, sexual or intellectual attraction to whatsoever. this man offers a comfortable and financially safe lifestyle: no ifs, ands, or buts.
Why does he advise this? Because, and I quote, "nothing kills the soul like poverty. "

Whoah. that's intense. And scary. okay this ties in with my big life changing blah blah. When I graduated high school, my dad decided to leave his position as a software engineer....something of that sort.
Now folks, I grew up with lessons (piano, voice), extracurricular classes, and vacations...essentially a standard of the upper middle class lifestyle, I grew up comfortably and was shallowly aware of money's value.

Long story short. My father has been unemployed since I graduated high school. I am about to begin my final year at college.

Things, to say the least are different.
They are unfamiliar, scary, frustrating, emotional and that particular quote from "becoming Jane" continues to haunt me....

I am only but wide eyed and confused. You are only but more welcome to join me in this realm of confusion.