Anxiety and Cynicism

Let's skip over the part where I apologize and hate on myself for not blogging in a while.


I came to this realization today.
It's about to get cynical up in here, but hey. You have to put up with it; I'm family.

Fourth quarter of senior year: we're nearing the end.
And that's wonderful. I hate this place.

But I started thinking about why I'm so anxious to go to college, why anyone is.
It's to start fresh, right? To be independent, and start over.

All these people in high school, we've known them for four, seven, maybe twelve years. And they've seen us grow up; they know our past. There are things in our past that we are embarrassed of, that we've grown up from, that we've grown apart from. There's a lot of baggage that comes with all of that.

But college. Almost everyone is new.
Restart, right?

But here's my awful realization:
It's not a fresh start. I'm still me. The people I will meet will have a new "past" of mine to get acquainted with, and it will be just as embarrassing and I will change just as much through the next few years as I have in the past.

Having a fresh start sounds appealing because it's like having your mistakes and regrets erased.
But they aren't erased from you; you will still know of them. And the people you meet will witness the new mistakes that are bound happen.

I guess I'm just being cynical. But I realize that I don't really like who I am, all that much. And it's not like I'll magically become who I want to be when college starts. I'll still be the same old Kira, but to new people.

And that just sounds exhausting.

What I Love About Traveling

• The way you become strangely observant to the littlest things.
• When you start to realize the diversity of people that exist in the world.
• The way a city smells.
• Realizing you take things for granted.
• Appreciating new surroundings and situations.
• Becoming exhausted by 5:00 just from sightseeing and taking everything in.
• Hotels.
• Connecting with strangers based solely on the fact that you are both visitors to the area.
• Getting to see things in person that you see all the time in pictures or movies, but actually experiencing it. And it's different and wonderful, in a way you couldn't have imagined.
• Local food.
• Getting lost and panicking.
• Having the time to read a book.
• Not having an agenda, but doing a lot anyway.
• Being jet lagged.
• Taking pictures of everything.

San Francisco was great. I have a lot of stories, and I had been planning on blogging each day, but I never connected to the internet. 

I kept a journal though. So maybe I'll share the stories later.

Here are some pictures for now. 

Just a statue I like:

City Pics:

Fisherman's Wharf:

Drive to Monterey:

Monterey Bay Aquarium:

Golden Gate Bridge: