On March Madness

It's March.  If you don't live under a rock, you know what that means.  It means that every college sports fan you know, and even some people who aren't, will be glued in front of the television for the next few weekends.

It also means brackets.  Now, brackets are just an interesting statistical experiment, because a) despite the painstaking efforts that go into determining seeds for the tournament, they never really seem to hold in practice and b) no matter how much effort you put in, it seems like there's always that one person who lucks their way into a better bracket than yours.

Don't get me wrong, I get why some people make three and four brackets, each differentiated by a few key decisions.  But I also kind of...don't.  Sure, it's exciting, but unless you're an intense gambler with a lot of time on your hands, I really don't get the hype.

Maybe someone can explain it to me.  Meanwhile, time to return to stressing over mine.

Madly,
Rachel Leigh

On Major Life Decisions

"Everyone I know is getting married or pregnant. I'm just getting more awesome."

~Barney Stinson, How I Met Your Mother

Okay, hold the phone.  Who told everyone around me that it was okay to start getting engaged and married or popping out babies?  When did I miss the memo on this whole life-changing-decisions thing?

I feel like I've got my life in order when both my socks match and I wake up before noon.  How is it possible that people my age are making these huge decisions about spending the rest of their lives with someone?  Or multiple someones, apparently.

I guess I'm torn, because I've read a number of things about how this generation is wasting our 20s, because we think we have our whole lives ahead of us to make these huge decisions, so it doesn't matter if we don't settle down or figure our lives out.  And I rationally know that that really just isn't the case.  But I don't feel like I'm emotionally or personally ready to start making those kinds of choices.

And I think a lot of this comes down to another big difference between Denmark and the States -- because in Denmark, most people don't get married until their 30s, at least, and most people older than I am are still in college and figuring out their lives.  And I feel like that shouldn't be a crime.  But unfortunately, in our system, it seems like not having everything figured out already puts you behind the 8-ball.

So now I'm suddenly having these visions of browsing the Help Wanted ads and spending my nights searching cheap dating sites (since my broke, unemployed, imaginary butt clearly couldn't afford the good ones), taking care of cats that somehow came into my possession, hoping to figure out my life.  And it seems like it's way too soon for those kinds of thoughts.

I guess I'm just not sure if everyone else is moving too fast or if I'm just going too slow to keep up, but either way, my head is spinning and something seems off.  I really just want to watch some cartoons and play with Legos.

Peter Pan-ing with the best of 'em,
Rachel Leigh

On 150!

Today is a very special day.  Not only is it special because it's Spring Break, and I've been moderately productive.  It is special because this is my 150th post!

150!
Woohoo 150! 

I figured that since this is my 150th post and more than three years after I started this blog, I'd do a little bit of looking back.  Sometimes retrospective is good.  I founded this blog on January 22, 2010, in the aftermath of approximately four similar projects which went under at various times for various reasons.  I was, at the time, a senior in high school who was dead-set on attending Columbia University and thought she pretty much had the world figured out.

I've always liked to write, so it made sense that eventually I would end up blogging.  I originally tried to keep my blog politically-neutral, but I realized pretty quickly that that was doing a service to neither me nor my (often sparse) readership.  So I dropped the attempts at professionalism and started writing what I know -- snarky, sarcastic, politically-charged looks at the world around me.

There was a brief attempt to monetize the blog, but that fell through when one of my friends decided to artificially inflate my view numbers.  Oh well, worse things have happened.

These days, I'm a second-semester junior (they've referred to me as a "Rising Senior" a few times already, and that is really disconcerting) readjusting to life in the States and trying to sort my life out one day at a time.  I'm proud of the work I've done so far, and I hope to see it continue to grow.

Here's to three more years,
Rachel Leigh

Greetings my darling readers!

I'm sorry that I've been such an awful blogger since I've been back.  By which I mean since always.  I guess it's just a combination of writer's block and being busy.  Hopefully I'll be able to put some interesting content out soon.

In the meantime, I guess I can tell you what I've been up to recently.  Since I've been back, I've been working on - album art for a friend's mashup album, a grant application, Ethics Bowl, Vagina Monologues, honors society applications, classes, work, classes, and other such shenanigans.

I've also been dragging myself out to basketball games and such related things.  It's been a great time to be a Spider.

Back to procrastinating on Midterm prep.