I hope that when/if I am proposed to, it is a beautiful, amazing, romantic, special moment.

Spent about one hour looking at Banana Republic runway photos. Their designs are beautiful.

Looks like I can't sleep tonight. Already 3:14 AM and my thoughts are just in a jumbled up bunch, exploding and bouncing about in my head. As always, I am thinking about the future and an artistic career. I'm only 18 and I've barely tasted life. I cannot possibly fathom how people can easily decide where and what they want to do with their lives. In about 17 years, an enormous decision must be made: choose a college as well as major, and use that as a setting point to guide you for the rest of your lives. I can't do that.

Hopefully I do not give off an arrogant impression–I know I carry an artistic capacity. While I am not the most talented, I do have some talent in art. I chose not to pursue an art career directly by attending an art school. In fact, I am in community college, partly because I am nervous and insecure, partly because I want to avoid making a concrete decision, partly because I am afraid of the hardships of pursuing my impossible, yet reachable dreams, and partly because I don't want to see myself fail if I do fail. (I plan to transfer to an art school later on though.)

An insurance agent visited my household the other day to discuss finance with my parents and implement added structure to our past insurance plan. He asked about my older brother and his future. Then, the topic changed to me and my aspirations.

Insurance Agent: So what does Stephanie want to do? Does she have a job yet?
Mom: She is going to have a job. (My first day of work was after this day.) And she says she wants to go into fine arts. We are letting them (my brothers & I) make their own decisions and they're adults.
Insurance Agent: (laughs) Don't like only 10% only make it? It sounds interesting, but I don't think that's financially stable.
Mom: Well, she will have to learn for herself.

Yesterday, I met an employee from Amgen Inc. What he told me was also disheartening. He suggested that my endeavors with art should be switched over to science. I don't doubt that a career associated with the study of science would be extremely rewarding, but I simply cannot see myself in that field. As I continued my conversation with him, he suggested doing art "on the side" with science as my main focus. From childhood to even now, I have remained passionate about art and to hear those mincing words yet again, I feel bitter.

As of now, my feelings would be best described as "shaken." I don't feel like I have a strong support system and the constant spewing of the difficulties of an art based career doesn't soothe my lack of confidence. I remember my friend's father, a successful commercial artist, telling me the difficulties of the pursuit for an artistic future. It was not a "you cannot survive being an artist," but "it is difficult to become an artist because you need a great deal of training and heart." He has reworded that to me several times and me, being the weak person that I am, let those words trouble me. When I am unable to affirm my worth and value my skills, I convince myself that I cannot become what I want to become, because I do not take it seriously. In reality, it seems that I take it so seriously that I discourage myself. Not surprisingly, I am my worst critic.

Funny how revelations come late at night. I suddenly had a rush of memories and remembered how he told me that art was his greatest passion, that he took whatever art class caught his interest, that he honed his skill as an artist, and with that knowledge blended together, he was able to decipher a specific art job to dedicate himself to for the rest of his life. That being said, I will try to stop complicating my situation and when I am in an art school, I will take part in as many art classes possible that appeal to me and dictate my life. Call me a selfish American girl, but if not many people believe in me, I suppose I will have to pave my own path. The decision has not come easy for me, and skirting around instead of directing myself under a specific art path seems stressful. I have wasted so much time. I will let my interests guide and I will decide from there.

Also, according to The Huffington Post, graphic design, multimedia artists/animators, architecture, and interior design are fields with bright futures. Perhaps I will look into that and find light where I have always found a dark, uncertain unknown. I've been be intensely focused on fashion; maybe I should learn to design patterns and prints! I really don't know. I'm scared and this stressful mindset isn't helping me. I just need to be hopeful and let the pieces fall where they fall.

"He awoke each morning with the desire to do right, to be a good and meaningful person, to be, as simple as it sounded and as impossible as it actually was, happy. And during the course of each day his heart would descend from his chest into his stomach. By early afternoon he was overcome by the feeling that nothing was right, or nothing was right for him, and by the desire to be alone. By evening he was fulfilled: alone in the magnitude of his grief, alone in his aimless guilt, alone even in his loneliness. I am not sad, he would repeat to himself over and over, I am not sad. As if he might one day convince himself. Or fool himself. Or convince others–the only thing worse than being sad is for others to know that you are sad. I am not sad. I am not sad. Because his life had unlimited potential for happiness, insofar as it was an empty white room. He would fall asleep with his heart at the foot of his bed, like some domesticated animal that was no part of him at all. And each morning he would wake with it again in the cupboard of his rib cage, having become a little heavier, a little weaker, but still pumping. And by the midafternoon he was again overcome with the desire to be somewhere else, someone else, someone else somewhere else. I am not sad." ~Jonathan Safran Foer

You were the one who told me the season will end peacefully

The differently colored memories gather
Goodbye to the person who loved me

Wavering in these eyes

Like a feeling I've been cut off from

I couldn't trust it from the start
As I was left behind by this ever changing street

Those people, who were always coming and going
Can be felt now in the distance
Even the noise grows dim
And fades away in a single breath

I look at your vacant seat
On this boring holiday
You are in my heart forever

Though I pretend to not notice and act in pretense
I was drowned in it, always
Thinking about someone
Because even a side view of his face was heavenly

You were the one who told me the season will end peacefully

The differently colored memories gather
Goodbye to the person who loved me

Wavering in these eyes

Now, how many more times will he be near me?
So, I will keep time for how long this feeling lasts

It is like a wave; it's calm and then retreats
This heart was carried off

Even today the city fills me with thoughts as ever
I draw them each individually...
Goodbye, to that person who loved me
Yearning for the distant sky
Wavering in these eyes

This ever changing street, overflowed with a sigh

Life Update

Already, it is 6:19 AM and yet again, I have failed to sleep at a regular time. I am sure that as the year progresses, the workload from school and other activities will act as an outlet for my excess energy.

What have I accomplished so far? Finish one semester of school and begin a second one. Check. Get a job. (Got one within two weeks.) Check. Get an invitation from a honor society for "superior academic performance"? Wasn't expecting that.

I have yet to confirm my membership in the honor society. While I do recognize the benefits of joining one, I am worried about how much time I would be able to reserve for the honor society. I plan to attend the orientation and with that, I wish to tailor my schedule around school, work, and the honor society. I truly do not want to give up any academic opportunities.

So far, I have only taking courses that are required in my community college. Of course, I want to transfer into a school that focuses on/associated with my career interest, art. Now that I have job, I will have money. I want to increase the probability of being successful/skillful in art. Perhaps I will save money for an art program/classes. I believe I need to figure out which art school I want to be in enrolled in first though. Then, I could adjust my schedule and take units transferable to that school.

So many paths to take and ways it could branch out!