Many Happy Returns

First up this post we have a little bit of business to take care of: I now have a tumblr blog because I was literally so bored on the internet that I needed yet another black hole of procrastination to be spagettified by, and also, I do quite enjoy funny pictures and gifs and so it was tumblr or pinterest, and I just couldn't bring myself to tacitly approve of a pin board themed social networking site by using it, so that left tumblr.  If you are interested, Imaginary Readers, in a pictorial depiction of my psyche, or are just so inclined, you can view/follow it at blackholesyposium.tumblr.com. And yes, it does have the same name as this blog, because I am nothing if not creative, and I am attempting to cultivate a vast online empire in ten to fifteen years, so I need to sow the seeds now by keeping things consistant.

Anyways, it was my twentieth birthday this past week, which means that my age is no longer a prime number, but rather a nice and round one. I generally enjoy birthdays, except for the way that everybody tries to force me to decide what I want to do, and this one was pleasant, but I find the whole getting older thing kind of weird. It's probably that whole gradual change thing, but I never feel any older, just the same as always, yet whenever I picture myself at a given age that is greater than my current age, I always assume that I'll be different somehow than I am now, but, inevitably when I reach said age I end up feeling the same. That's not to say that I haven't changed at all, because a lot happened in the last year, and I know that I have changed quite a bit just in the last twelve months and even more in the last two years since I started college, but I feel somewhat static. It can probably just be chalked up to the fact that my base personality that makes up who I am hasn't really changed, as I don't think most people's do substantially over the course of their lifetime, but it is something that has always struck me.

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I've started to really feel the rhythm of the summer the past week or so, and despite the fact that I've established a decent routine for myself of going to campus into one of the two labs I work in each week day, I have started to feel the listlessness of the summer sneaking up on me already. I know that a decent part of it right now has to do with the sheer boredom that comes with these dead couple of weeks before summer classes bring people back to campus and the cities. This week in particular has let the lonely boredom turn into lonely sadness as it is wont to do when I'm at home, because [Totally a Cat] is in DC for the week, [Keeper of All Knowledge] has yet to return to the cities from her time at home for her brother's graduation, and [Львица] just left for Russia for the summer, leaving me with minimal options for people to use as a distraction. [Totally a Cat] and [Keeper of All Knowledge] will both be back by the end of this week and we will hopefully start actually checking things off our list of things to do this summer, and then I will have somewhere to go when I need to get away from my family for a while, but I'm really going to miss [Львица] this summer. Especially since she's also going to be in Russia all of next year, leaving only August for me to see her at all for the next year. One of the best parts of last summer for me, Berlin notwithstanding, was hanging out with her, and I'm going to miss that. She's probably tied with [Keeper of All Knowledge] for my closest friend, and I'm going to miss her.

It doesn't help that because I am insecure about my ability to make and maintain friends, particularly close friends, I am paranoid that when people leave for decently long periods of time I'm not going to be able to stay in touch with them and will ultimately lose them. I know that I can stay in touch with people when they go abroad, particularly because of the wonders of the internet, but because I already feel weird about simple things like texting people for no other reason than I want to talk to them, doing things like sending someone an email makes me more uncomfortable than I care to admit. It's something I am aware of, and need to get over, but that doesn't make it any easier. I guess I've been thinking about this a lot lately, because all of my close friends are going abroad next year, which makes me anxious because in my head my relationships are a lot more fragile than they probably actually are. As previously mentioned, [Львица] is going to be in Russia for the better part of the next year, and I am going to miss her a ton, and [Keeper of All Knowledge] is going to be in Argentine in the Spring, which is going to be difficult because I've gotten really close to her over the past year and she is one of the few people I feel totally comfortable with and with whom there has never been any weirdness, and finally [Totally a Cat] is going to be in Copenhagen in the fall which means I won't have anyone to stay up pointlessly late and snuggle with.

Everybody's talk of going abroad also makes me wish that I hadn't wasted a year and a half on engineering so that I would have time to go abroad for a semester, but because I didn't make plans soon enough, because I didn't think I would have time, I missed that boat. Maybe I'll look at grad programs abroad or something. I just need to spend some time away from Minnesota eventually. I can't go to grad school here, because I'll be in grad school for the better part of five years, and wherever I go is going to impact where I end up living and working after school, and I can't stay here forever, always within ten miles of where I grew up and where my parents live. I need to get out of the midwest for a decent amount of time, even if, like all of my cousins who move away, I end up coming back eventually. The world is too big to stay in Minneapolis for my entire life.