Autumn Daydreams

Well, it's been two long years since I've been here. I graduated high school, finished my first year of college at MIT, and I'm about to receive my first official paycheck from the lab I'm working at this summer (I'm so excited to start paying federal income tax! (not really...)). On a whim I decided to load up this blog, a small snapshot of me nearly two years ago. It's interesting to see what has changed and what hasn't changed...

Partially inspired by life events over the school year, new experiences, new ideas, and my friend over at The Confetti Ideologue, but mostly once again by the summer doldrums, I've decided that I'll try my hand at keeping a blog again. So, to christen this turning of a new leaf (ahahahaha get it?) I've decided to rename my blog from "A Rustle in the Leaves" to "Autumn Daydreams", though the old title now sits in the subtitle.

If I were to describe myself as a season, I would be Autumn. To me, a native of the temperate forests of the northeast coast of America ("New England"), Autumn is a somewhat contradictory mix of self-reflection and new beginnings. Plants that began to grow first thing in Spring begin to bear their last fruit. Trees shed their leaves in a somber yet wondrous swirling display of red and yellow as wind shears leaves off branches. As the temperature begins to drop, one can't help but think of Autumn as the end of something fleeting and precious, even though the trees and plants will simply return with full force next Spring...

At the same time, Autumn marks the beginning of the school year. Old blood, fresh faces, friends both old and new gather for 8 months to gain yet another level in the game of life. Even after graduating I feel like this rhythm, so ingrained into my mind and conscience, will continue beating for quite some time...

I've always been a reflective person, hunkering down as if to prepare for some sort of metaphorical winter. Even when I seem calm on the surface, beneath the surface I am never at peace with myself. Always swirling around my mind are thoughts, withered from the branches of my subconscious, arguing, reaffirming, inspired, random, me. I've always considered my fractured mind, never content with itself, never content with its discontent with itself (so on and so forth), to really be who I am. A mess put together into something resembling, but not quite, a sane and rational human being. You know, this whole trees and leaves and Autumn metaphor might not work out after all.

I would consider myself a dreamer, a realist in action yet an optimist in thought. I am normally a straightforward, pragmatic man but when it comes to things out of my grasp, I've always dreamed, romanticized. Worlds which exist only in my mind - if only I had the power or language to express them, to bring them into reality! If I cannot express them even to myself, did they even exist at all?

Anyways, this post has devolved into some badly written stream-of-consciousness junk that two years from now I'll probably look back to in disgust. Oh well. I hope you'll enjoy Autumn Daydreams, or something like that.