Right. Tell the truth, I'm going to be spending my day doing laundry,
sorting impossibly large amounts of clothing (seriously, you'd be amazed),
and packing for my mid-summer vacation.

However, I will try my best to take the opportunity,
as I have so many times in the past,
to eat something unhealthy and blow something up,
because darnit, that's the American way!

Hopefully I'll also write a more substantial
Fourth of July post, but for now:
What're your plans?

So why can't I?

More times than not this month I've been sleeping somewhere around 3 - 5 a.m. fairly regularly. Of course, I have also been staying out late with friends and drinking highly caffeinated Brazilian coffee at a ridiculous hour, such as 11:30 p.m. I know this is horribly unhealthy, as are the majority of my current habits. At my job with the UT Learning center, we teach incoming freshmen that sleep is their #1 priority (actually, I don't actually follow most of what I teach at my job...I really ought to start).

I have, however, made more new friends than in the entirety of my college career to date (actually, that's not that many, but...shut up), actually started a painting (yeah! I have! and I really, really like it!), designed a business card for myself that I also really love, read tons of fascinating articles on such varied topics as David Byrne (always), the music industry, scientific publishing and newspaper obsolescence, Twitter (sadly, it's currently my fascination), and the struggles in Iran. I've cleaned my entire apartment, started to actually organize my hurricane-disaster-mess of a room, started actually doing the dishes regularly, began cooking more and learned how to make rice pudding! I've designed a poster for a local theatre's production of As You Like It (I'm also going to do several other things for them and some of their friends) and I've gone to work and contributed to the discussion regularly. My boss likes me! I've also started finally watching 30 Rock and the latest season of House and spent more time in coffeeshops than I have in a long, long time. It's been really good for me to get out of the house. Also, I learned how to make coffee.

So, who needs sleep, right?

On the other hand, I'm in pretty bad shape, looks-wise. A bumpy forehead and bags under your eyes don't exactly recommend you to the modeling agents. I'm pretty much exhausted all day until about 9 p.m. or until I start drinking coffee. In fact, yesterday I didn't actually eat anything until I had three desperate Taco Bell tacos at 1:30 a.m. Instead, I drank coffee all day. There's something wrong with that.

Speaking of, I'm going to go make myself some.

...Okay, back. Yeah, I really did. I've got a problem, I think. But dangit, it's delicious and Brazilian and it MAKES ME FEEL ALIVE.

Right. The point of all this, at any rate, is to try and keep the good and throw out the bad. I want to begin living healthier. I have an incredibly busy semester coming up and I want to keep my sanity, something I wasn't exactly the greatest at last semester. I'm also painfully vain and if I don't start looking as damn fine as I usually have been, I'm going to go mad.

A very good thing is that on Tuesday, I leave for Portugal for three weeks. Not only am I really excited about visiting as they speak my language, we're meeting family I haven't seen in a long time there, and I've never actually been there before—but I'm also excited to kick my cycle. Kicking your cycle is a much-needed shot in the arm. Summer and friends and coffee were another cycle-kick, and they've done me well. I want to use Portugal and the excercise, good eating, and regular sleeping habits that spending three weeks in a foreign country with my parents will give me to propel me into a good semester. Classes start August 26 and I want to be ready for them.

So, in a manner of speaking, it will be a new year, and I'm making my "new year's resolutions". I'll post them in my next post; for now, what are some of your upcoming resolutions?

This is one of those really boring "this is my life right now" blogs, so feel free to ignore it fantastically. It's just for those few, few, imaginary friends of mine who actually care about what's going on in my life and don't mind it when I get ridiculously dense, wordy, and run-on-sentence-y.

I had a really great day today. Slept in late, chilled around, and then in the evening I went to the Austin pride festival with Valerie and my friend Rachel. I got to meet Rachel's new girlfriend, who is really sweet and totally cute. They're really good together, much better than Rachel and her ex, and I'm really happy for her. The festival was incredibly fun, everyone was outgoing, dancing and cheering and lovin' on the parade. I got all kinds of cool swag: candy and mardi-gras beads and equality stickers and beer coozies and condoms, ha. It was fun to see the roller derby girls and the Dykes on Bikes (they. are so. badass), neat to recognize and honor the gay members of the city electorate and the cops and the firemen, and when the churches came by with their "we choose love" signs and such I cried a little. There was lots of glitter and wings and pink and rainbows and painfully sexy men in skimpy outfits who are gay, tragedy of tragedies for us poor women. There were so many good looking men it was depressing. There was one truck with one of the cutest, sexiest girls I've ever seen on it, rocking tight red leather pants and a punk hairdo, who was singing Ziggy Stardust, and I wanted to marry her. Seriously, she was so hot. Any fan of David Bowie is a friend of mine. ;)  I'm really satisfied with my "heteroflexible" label (thanks, Eli!), and though I don't consider myself a member of the LGBT community, I do like to think I'm an ally, and I definitely think it's of the utmost importance to recognize your own sexuality, respect others', and show support for your friends. Plus, it's a good time.

I couldn't find a picture of the Bowie chick, but check this out!


I'm trying to grow my hair back out to its glory days of long, wavy, gorgeousness...but right now it's in really awkward, lumpy, medium frumpiness and it's pissing me off. I don't like it when I don't look pretty. I'm such a girl, but it's really bothering me. It looks better when I straighten it but I'm a lazy, lazy child.

I have been getting happier and happier with my life lately. I'm a moody little snit, yeah, and I had a lot of struggles last semester, but things are looking up. I'm not all the way there, oh, no, but I've been able to let go (or at least begin the process of letting go) of a lot of things that were bogging me down and hurting me and my relationship for some time now. I realized some of the things in me that were turning ugly, decisions I made and hate I was holding onto and just...an obsession with a wound that I needed to stop picking at. I made some personal decisions to stop these thoughts and prejudices, and I feel a lot lighter for it. It's a long road, and I've just started on it, but like I said. I'm feeling good about it, and I feel this is the right thing...and I'm beginning to be able to hope about the future again. Of course, this could hurt me all over again, but hell, ain't that just life? I'll give it one more swing of the bat.

Also, school ended, and the lack of stress is wonderful. You can't imagine. There's such a freedom in being allowed to stay up until 5 a.m. and sleeping in until 3 p.m., as opposed to doing it anyway and skipping.

I got an A in my racism and stigma class, of course, considering I adored it and I adored the professor and it was probably one of the best classes I've ever taken and I think it should be a required course for every child in America. I got a C in my intro to American Studies class, which I don't deserve on merit but which I do deserve on discipline, because I did not even try in that class. The C also means I reaaaaally bombed the final because I had previously gotten an A on my papers and a B on my midterm. Though I loved the readings, and the professor was excited about the material, I just...couldn't listen to her, something was off, it was awful and way too long and boring—and this is my major—and I skipped way more of that class than I should have. I also got an A on my illustration class at ACC, of course, I rocked that class so hard I did an extra assignment (a portrait of David Byrne) just because I felt like it. The professor asked me to take the next installment of that class, where I get to choose my own project for the semester, but I don't think I'll be able to do that, I have a pretty intense schedule next semester...it's too bad, I'd really love to. But I also don't have any ideas for any "grand project" right now.

I'm a bit nervous about next semester. I've got some cool classes, but they're going to require discipline and being scholastic, and I just don't know if I'm up to it. I'm also not sure when or how I'm going to find out if  I got into the Art Department. If I didn't I'm going to be so depressed...and I suspect didn't. I don't know, maybe it's insecure hindsight, but I'm just not confident in my portfolio. I know I'm good enough artist and a natural designer, but I don't actually have all that much to show for it. It's so nerve-wracking. Even if I do get into Art, I then have to take a semester of art courses and apply into the Design program. Yaaaay, flaming hoops!

Provided I don't get into Art (sigh), I'm taking the next installment of the short story writing class I took a couple semesters back and I'm pretty nervous about it; though I'm a good writer, it's actually a really, really difficult process for me and I usually balk out of it. I did get into a ballroom dancing class, which is awesome, and something I've actually really, really been looking forward to. I need to get into exercising regularly, so I can be A. healthy and B. devastatingly sexy (right now I'm still at calamitous), and it's something I've always wanted to learn how to do. It's straight from the chick flick porn, but what girl doesn't dream of sweeping around a ballroom like some awesome flying flower? Unfortunately, they might be cutting it because of budget cuts, which will piss. me. off. Why don't they cut the friggin' football program, we already won one rose bowl it's good enough. Ha.

Anyway, I'm also taking an art history course that's required for the art major (yawn, though it's good because I'm woefully uneducated about that sort of thing), an architecture and society course that my friend Valerie (who got into architecture at UT, a prodigious and difficult task! Yay! I'm SO proud of her it's ridiculous. Go over and tell her congrats if you get a chance) took and told me I'd really like, and the second installment of my oceanography course, which is going to rock because I'm obsessed with plankton.

I have a new job with the UT Learning Center that, though I'm a bit nervous about it, I'm pretty excited about. During the summer I'm going to be paid $11/hr to go to 2-hour meetings and discuss our presentations, then go and give said presentations (about the transition from high school to college) to students going to orientation. My boss really likes me, my supervisor is an adorable, young woman from Guatemala (I think) who is really sweet, and my co-workers are either incredible forceful, know-it-all bitches or douchebags...but what the hell. I got this job because I'm intelligent and a good artist, and that's what I'm bringing to the table...they aren't expecting me to be the brilliant presenter, that's the other people's jobs. Heh. At any rate, that's good.

I'm excited about being the events and publicity chair for the Campus Environmental Center next semester; I think it's going to be really good. I like the guy who's going to be the Assistant Director for my area, and the girl who was my assistant director last year is going to be my co-director this year, so that rocks. I haven't heard from ESI much, but eh. Whatever.

I met last Friday with Gwen, an adorable actress/director here in Austin who wants me to do a poster for the Scottish Rite Theatre's production of As You Like It. She really loved my art, which is awesome, and I'm also going to do a pamphlet of all the Scottish Rite Children's Theatre productions for next season (so I can do cute little illustrations of Alice in Wonderland and Aladdin, yaaay!) and a poster for the Austin Shakespeare Aloud group, where people go to read Shakespeare aloud to each other and discuss it. I'm excited. I'm doing it all pro-bono, but the publicity it'll get me is going to rock.

On that note, it's about time I actually created my identity. My graphic design freelancing is going up, and I reaaally need to get myself a look, a logo, and a location. Or at least some business cards. But I would really love to set up a site with my portfolio and start really becoming legitimate. One of the girls in my illustration class, Janet, makes some of the most beautiful digital illustrations I've ever seen, even from professionals. She has a site I'd really like to model mine after (Okay, so I wish I was her): http://janet-reeves.com. Definitely check out her stuff, it's lovely. I love that messy-geometric aesthetic, and I'm wanting something like that for myself. I don't really know what to name myself, though. I'm thinking just Quell Designs, but I don't know, that's so...boring. Quell design+illustration? Raquel Breternitz, graphic designer and illustrator? Q.g+i? ...That's kind of cool. Eh. I dooon't knoow. But I need to figure something out soon, and neat (and easy to make, gulp, I'm no web developer) design for my site. I think I may just whip up a really boring yet classy website, you know, white backgrounds, black sans serif type...and publish it off my mom's domain, just so I have somewhere to direct people. It's just such a deep thing, you know? This is my identity, how I will present myself to the world, and it has to be classy, professional, but also beautiful, and artistic, and quirky, and...you know, me.

In July I'm going to Portugal with my family for about three weeks, and I am really looking forward to it. Since we're from Brazil, Portugal is our grandmother land (hee). Plus, I've always wanted to go. I did a project on it for class in elementary school, and it seems like a gorgeous, romantic place infused with history. I know it far less familiarly than I know France and Spain, and the French and Spanish cultures, which is interesting. I'm curious to compare it. Plus, I'll actually know the language, and that's always a rocking plus. I love traveling, and due to school I haven't gotten a chance to do it in some time. I've missed it dearly, and while I'll miss my friends and lovers back home, I think it'll be good for me, shake me out of my own world a little, if you know what I mean.

Aaaand...that's my life right now. If you read all that, you must be in love with me. Of course, I mean, who could blame you? I'm awesome. But seriously. Get a hobby or something.

Just kidding, you should all totally hang on my every word.

I was an energetic child, both physically and mentally; enthralled for hours with jumping and flipping on the bed or building elaborate Lego houses (and the stories to go with them), or developing the complex interpersonal relationships of my brother's Hot Wheels cars, or singing for five hours straight (this is true) into a miniature tape player. I certainly read and drew for hours, and the copious amount of time on the computer in my childhood years was spent typing up my complicated (and princess-infused) novel about the future implications of advanced human adaptation (I had no idea this was called evolution) and a race of people who grew small enough to live underwater unaffected by the pressure (the dearth of light attentuation and the actual seabed conditions were not concerns of mine, no). I was intense and focused: when finally forced to clean my room, I would spend days doing so—down to scouring the carpets and rearranging every shelf and every box of toys, even to arranging books by height.

As children we have apparently infinite sources of energy.

In my latter teenage to early adult years (if you can count this as "early adult;" I won't quibble on terminology), I have spent the majority of my time passed out at home online, either on a blog or a social networking site, indulging my mind and its need to communicate, produce and engage at the most shallow possible level. I download mindless shows like The Office and How I Met Your Mother that don't necessarily cause me social or personal embarrassment (see: Gossip Girl, America's Next Top Model) or personal self-loathing (The Hills, which (thank God) I've never seen)...but which certainly aren't encouraging me to think any deeper than required to catch a pop-cultural reference or giggle at mild wit. I've gobbled relational porn in the form of "cute" sitcom couples and the two-day "true love" flings  hawked in chick flicks like the junk food I always somehow find more handy than real food. I moved into my new apartment, but the farthest I came to decorating was painting the kitchen and putting up a Kandinsky poster. My room and closets are still full of boxes. My entire college career, in fact, has been characterized by existential lethargy, inexplicable stress and the inability to raise a finger to do any work, or even pry myself from the computer in order to procrastinate creatively. I haven't sung but a handful of times since high school choir, and for my own sake even less. Somehow, the active, happy, creative child became so burdened she's gotten to the point where writing in her blog—the most inane and least productive catalyst for expression she retained—has become too large an endeavor. The fact that I've engulfed myself in Twitter says more, I fear, than I even want to face right now, at my most self-deprecatingly self-searching. Even here I hope to end optimistically, after all.

The question here is one of expulsion of energy. Somehow, I have become inefficient in energy production and usage; somewhere, there is a leak. It used to be I thought too much, burdening myself with over-empathy for the victims of the horrific side of this world, overwhelming myself with the extent of evil, ugliness, and bigotry in existence. This is still partly true, but recently it has changed again: a slightly paradoxical over-obsession with both myself and others. I became entrenched in the mires of pretension, more concerned with avoiding that which might possibly be deemed classless or bad than with actively seeking out what I may find to be good.

It's a constant struggle for me, the dual question of standards and relativity. On the one hand, there is most certainly a qualitative stratum: Stradivarius is absolutely and necessarily better than a plastic Toys R' Us violin; Radiohead is quantitatively more technically masterful than Coldplay, and the Pixies will always have more pure innovation and musical balls than Green Day. These are facts that are irrefutable, irrespective of one's personal opinions. However, there are those who prefer Coldplay to Radiohead, Green Day to the Pixies, and plastic violins to Stradivarius (see: ironic hipsters). Here is where I balk. I absolutely am personally repulsed at the idea someone could possibly prefer Green Day to the Pixies (and I realize the problem existing in using actual bands, as inevitably the vast ocean of the internet will wash me up someone—even many someones—who truly due prefer the one to the other; lets move past personal preferences to the core point)...as will be many of my readers. I've built up something of a reputation, not only here but in my day to day circles for being an aesthetic snob. I absolutely believe in the recognition of caliber, in being educated and informed; but we do reach a point where one thing over the other becomes a gray area, becomes subjective. Musical taste, of course, is one of the most subjective and yet impassioned topics one can encounter.

Because—this is the point I have had the most trouble swallowing, and of course also the most trouble spitting up—there is absolutely something to be said for the unadulterated enjoyment of something. We are extraordinary creatures in which we can recognize beauty in such varied forms: just look at the vast spectrum of musical genres and the rabid fans of each. And though I would say my musical tastes today are better than they were in the 8th grade, in the 8th grade music meant something to me, struck chords deep in my responsive heart—even if that music was Coldplay and Matchbox 20. Where do we draw the line between adoring and dancing to Tainted Love and Whip It (admittedly awesome songs) and appreciating the brilliant somberness of Johnny Greenwood's score to There Will Be Blood? If the critic finds a mild intellectual amusement in the technical brilliance of a composition while a teenager swirls euphorically to a well-chorded pop song, who is the better? Are they equal? I have deep problems with the relativity inherent here, and yet, I don't want to hold on so tight to the rein on my high horse—that's not where I want to be. I want to lose the pretension without losing artistic discernment; or should I give up on both, and concern myself with epicurean appreciations?

Perhaps it's time to let go my judgment and snobbery, live and let live. So much energy is spent gauging others, setting myself up favorably or unfavorably and adjusting my opinions of the other accordingly. Acute self-awareness is both a blessing and a curse; perhaps it truly is time for a return to a simple, child-like unconcern for standards in favor of a virgin appreciation of the world I live in, to simply exist in the pulse of what fulfills and excites me and to throw away any needless concern with the opinions of those around me, to lose even the awareness of the aforementioned qualitative stratum, both in art and in humanity. So what if I'm enthralled with eclectic music and you're enthralled with Nascar? Why is it any of my business—or my place—to judge you? I imagine it would be good for me, but while I want to regain child-like qualities, I don't want to return to being a child. After all, isn't it important to know the difference between good and bad? Or should I just recognize that (while my distaste for a prick because he hates Blacks and Jews is perhaps justified because of the ugliness of bigotry,) the hatred in my heart—and bestowed on him—do neither of us any good? The question becomes fuzzier and fuzzier when it leaves the realm of relatively unimportant things (music) to heavier considerations (ethics, racism).

Could this possibly be a question of stasis? There are two considerations: "Is it excellent?" and, on another plane entirely, "Is it enjoyable?" Perhaps it's a Venn diagram, and can sometimes—but not always—interact.

How do you pursue guys you're really interested in as friends, but not romantically, without hurting their feelings or cutting off your chances for connection? When is exchange of wit friendly and when is it flirty? Interpersonal relationships are so awkward. Maybe I should stick to stoplight parties.