No me quejo

Just when I'm about fed up with disillusionment and let downs, life throws a good thing at me. This weekend has been exactly what I needed to be refreshed in my "UWC"-ness and life in general. The Israeli ambassador came to school on Friday and led a very nice and controversial debate over the Israeli/Palestine conflict. Then on Saturday, I danced and sang in the African show and we had the absolute best dinner I've had in a long time. It was absolutely gorgeous...I ate for 2 solid hours. It was just so much fun, all the cooking and dancing and music and culture...oh, I want to go to Africa. Then we had a cabin party that was Afrocaribbean themed, so that was just as lovely as well. Then today, we all slept in then woke up and made waffles, which we ate on the dock outside the boathouse because it was about 60 DEGREES today! This is, of course, in Fahrenheit for all my non-US readers. The sun today was just perfect. We did everything outside. I ate all my meals outside and laid around on a rocky beach with Raine for a couple of hours, just sunning ourselves. This was again one of those weekends where I felt very liberal and independent and I must admit I love how it feels.

All this perfection does not, however, mean that I am not thoroughly sick of some people at this place. You can't always enjoy or get along with everyone you meet. But when you wake up, eat all your meals, and interact with those people everyday, it is bound to be extremely annoying. It's just that here in our little bubble, we don't really have a choice. The people here are your family and you just kind of have to accept it. I am just very ready to get away for a bit though, which is why Prague is such perfect timing! We leave on Friday, and I can't wait. It's hard for me to imagine that I've planned this whole trip and I'm going to execute it completely without help. Me, who a year ago could barely get herself out of bed without her mother and who double-checked plans with people all the time, actually planned a bit of a sojourn across Europe. Haha, it will be too great.

Life 101

I think that at different points throughout your life, you're asked to take a good, hard look at who you are and you're forced to learn some difficult things. Here's what I've learned lately:

I can't do everything
I think I'm often disillusioned into thinking that I will always have enough time and energy and resources to do whatever I want and to be involved in whatever I want. If my current state of absolute exhaustion has taught me anything, it's that I can't always do everything if I expect to remain sane.

I can't take care of everyone
I've always just taken for granted that I can always take care of everyone and fix everything. Lately, I've been faced with a couple of things that no one can fix, let alone me. It hurts, and it's hard, but I've had to try and accept that people don't always want to be taken care of and things can't always be made better.

Not everyone is like me
Now, that might sound like a stupid thing to say, but what I mean is that people don't feel the same things as I do and people don't react in the same ways as me. I know I'm fairly emotional, but I guess I just assumed that everyone else felt as much as I do. Maybe not felt as much, but I just feel like I can never deny my emotions or my instincts. I can never be too empirical or pragmatic, and I've noticed lately that others aren't like that. Some people don't want a shoulder to cry on when they're upset, some people don't want to talk out all their issues, some people find it easier to listen to their head rather than their heart.

Dignity is perhaps the most important thing you can possess
Again, situations lately have made me realize that without dignity, one is also without much more. Dignity is related to pride, respect, grace, and at least partially, what I see as intelligence. If one can maintain as much dignity in situations as possible, than one is going to be happier and more successful. This has a lot of connotations. In your personal life, you shouldn't always be apologizing for things and you shouldn't always go crawling back to the people you care about. I'm not saying you should burn bridges by being too prideful, but I am saying that you should choose what you should sacrifice yourself for and right the wrongs that are genuinely caused by you. But it also means having principles and not backing down from them in the face of pressure.

And finally, life is simply just not fair.
This is definitely cliched to say, but it's true. Bad things will happen to good people yet bad things may never happen to bad people. People will always misunderstand and misjudge you. You will always be asked to deal with things that are too much for anyone to deal with. Sometimes, there won't be enough time in a day to do all that you really must do. Most of the time, few people will agree with you. Not everyone will act in a way that you deem sensible. You can't always bridge the gap between yourself and others, meaning that you may not always be able to explain your intentions and your desires to others in a way that changes anything.

So, in summary, I've decided that the best I can do now is realize all of the above things and, in my newfound striving for constant dignity, still try anyway.