When I should be writing Grad essays

The process of learning is a constantly shifting sea. Some days are calm, information coming in smooth with each pull of the oar. But some days are a tempest of waves. The information coming on so fast that the boat feels as if it will sink. It shakes, beliefs and values being pummeled by the wind of new facts, the old crew drowning in countless waves of contradicting information.
And sometimes, knowledge wrecks the boat, sends it crashing on the reefs of some lonely island. Then the crew must start to rebuild, trying to find the pieces that can be salvaged. They pull out some of the planks, ropes, maybe even the mast, and then begin the hunt for wood to rebuild the boat. Choosing stronger wood, praying that when they are done it will not wreck again. Searching through the jungle for the best parts they can find.
Even though the boat has wrecked, they gladly work, side by side. The work and work until a new boat has been finished and ready to sail. Then they get back on board and prepare to continue the voyage ahead. They do this because they know that the lands they have yet to reach are worth sailing for, are worth wrecking for, are worth changing for. They sail on to a new day, a new adventure, maybe even a new storm.

The Dream

I dreamed that you had ceased to love me—
not that you had come from other beds
back to mine, or gone from mine to others,
just that something in your heart had stopped.

I willed myself awake to find you still
beside me. It was just a dream, I thought,
yet when I turned to kiss you, in your eyes
I saw that you had ceased to love me.

I willed myself awake a second time
to find myself alone, as I have been
these many months, but did not know if it
was terror or relief I felt, and whether

dreams unfold the past or make the future
plain. I dreamed that you had ceased to love me,
and know when I see nothing in your eyes
I can't dream myself awake a third time.

-David Solway

Mi Familia

Most days I wake up and miss my family, but today it was different. A deep, dark ache in my heart. A feeling that no one knows quite how I feel except them, and they are so very far away. I think about how my back aches and my eyes are tired, how I'm trying too hard to look cute in my own way, how those three finals are piling up on me and I have to well: too big of dreams not to do well. I think about how my couch back home is the perfect length and comfort and how the couch here is half size to fit in my half sized apartment. How if I was home I could fall asleep on the couch and wake up to music playing on the stereo, the smell of my mother's wonderful cooking, and the darkened Taiwan sky. If I was home we would eat and talk and play a game or watch a show all together. I would come into their room while they were reading before bed and lay down and talk until they kicked me out so they could sleep.

But I am not home, I am not with my family, I am here, alone. 

I don't do well being alone, I'm bad at it. It doesn't suit my nature. Yet here I am, doing what I need to do, being alone. Looking at the heeled boots I bought online with fur around the top. Me, in fur, trying to be something I could be, but right now, I don't want to be.

I don't want to be responsible, I don't want to be sophisticated, I don't want to be trying so hard; I want to be home and young and loved and surrounded by warmth.

Mi corazón pertenece a mi familia