World at Large

I'm writing this from an empty apartment listening to Lana Del Rey's "Born to Die" on my Xx's Pandora radio station. I still have not formed a solid opinion of her and her music. It is all hauntingly beautiful and yet still morbidly depressing. Not the best thing to be listening to when you are alone in your apartment. I think I'll stick to The Lumineers and Florence and the Machine...

I am now roughly half-way through the first semester of my Sophomore year. If I could boil everything up till this point down to one phrase it would be "severe lack of sleep." This time last year I was told by a very wise senior to hold on to the spare time that comes with being a freshman as long as possible. I didn't believe him until now. I have gotten to a point where I literally need to make myself relax because I get stressed and start panicking when I'm not doing homework. Welcome to the rest of my college career.

Watching the freshman this year has been proof of just how much I have changed in one year. I doubt my extended family will recognize me when I come to visit this Thanksgiving. The city has been a major factor in this change. I no longer see it through rose colored glasses. Don't get me wrong, I still love New York and I will probably never leave. There is just something about this city that makes me love life, feel alive, and gives me hope for humanity. I just no longer feel the pressure to do and see everything at every spare minute.

Sophomore year has literally made me feel old. All I do these days when I have a spare minute is sleep and eat. Last night, I went to bed at 9:30 and it was glorious. I (and anyone with sense) avoid Times Square as it is an accurate representation of everything that is wrong with the world. In fact, I rarely even leave my neighborhood (the Financial District... I moved, for anyone who doesn't know) for weeks at a time, which is ok, since I can see the ocean from my apartment window (something I've always wanted to be able to say). All this to say, I still love my life here, I've just developed a different perspective.

The view from my new apartment... better than last year, right?

Today was the first day of fall break for my school. This is a long-needed break for myself and the rest of my class. For some reason, everybody (upperclassman) agrees that Sophomore year is the crappiest of the four years. Basically, I've decided it is because:

1. We are all getting into the higher-level core classes that we don't want to take, and are not at all part of our major
2. We have all the responsibility of upperclassmen without any of the benefits
3. We all get irrationally annoyed with the stupid, idealistic freshman, regardless of the fact that we were in that situation just a year prior (God forbid we looked that idiotic)

The view of the Freedom tower from my neighborhood

Midterms loom before me in the next few weeks. And then, late November will see me enjoying stifling humidity with my entire family for the first time in two years.

This post has been hard, partially because I hate myself for waiting so long to post again... I planned to write a big, long post about how moving back to the city was (it was just like seeing the love of my life for the first time in years) but honestly, I was too caught up in it to care about writing. Mostly though, it was hard admitting to myself that I am a Sophomore, I have changed, and I only have two more years of this before I have to decide what direction my life is going to take. Do I stay in the city? Do I move away to another part of the country (or world)? I don't know, it is up to God. I just hope He gives me a little bit of a head's up before He does anything drastic.

Until next time...

-MB

This is a picture I took of my neighborhood from the Stanton Island Ferry.... I love my city.