I made it a point to sit at the computer and write today — it’s been ages since I wrote a proper blog (if you count my other blogs as ‘proper’ that is) and honestly I miss it.
For some reason writing holds this connotation that makes me both love and hate it — I love the outcome, but “hate” the process.
That’s exactly how the irrational human operates, but contrary to how the optimal human should operate (if there even is a proper way).
L.I.E. #1: writing is draining for Ariv
This is, as my friend Nikhil would say it, simply untrue.
The last piece I wrote (my favorite thus far) on forensics took me an hour to write.
The piece before that? Less (and by less, I mean it took me ten minutes).
But I did say writing is “draining” for me, not that it is time-intensive.
So there’s more to this than ‘so long 9AM to 10AM.’
Writing takes heart. It takes emotion. It takes feeling. It takes actively being.
It takes all of my concentration, all of my purpose, all of my everything.
But I quite enjoy it — in fact if you watched me write anything, be it point or paragraph, you’d notice an omnipresent smirk on my face.
I feel like a wizard when I’m pulling words out of my head that I haven’t used for years — using inside jokes that even I don’t understand — overusing punctuation marks (my guilty pleasure being em-dashes) — I LOVE IT ALL.
As I write this I’m reminded by a quote I coined many moons ago…
"Can you/I reproduce what you/I have {already} produced?" (Can I basically do what I have done. If I did something amazing, do I have the capability to do it again? Was it a fluke?)
My love for GigaVerboseness will never leave me.
As well as my love for made up vocabulary.
What is my point here.
I want to prove to myself that writing is, not easy, but seamless — an extension of @arivgups.
And I miss it a lot.
So here goes something…
m y . l i f e
s a t u r d a y
I MOVED INTO COLLEGE
AND THEN I WENT TO A HOTEL IN LA WITH MY PARENTS
s u n d a y
I WENT BACK TO COLLEGE
MY PARENTS LEFT ME
I TOOK A PICTURE WITH DADDY BLOCK
m o n d a y
I MET CLUB TRIATHLON
I MET A SINGER, SONGWRITER, AND PRODUCER
THEY WERE ALL THE SAME PERSON
I DECIDE NOT TO GO TO BRUINBASH
I SNEAK INTO BRUINBASH
BRYINBASH BORING
t u e s d a y
CLUB FAIR DRAINED ME
IF WRITING WAS DRAINING, CLUB FAIR KILLED ME
I SKIPPED TO MY LOU
THREW UP FORS WITH THE CS GANG
MET AN INCREDIBLE SON, FATHER, AND UBER DRIVER
MET A UCLA ALUMNI WHO STUDIED ECON AND PARTYING
SAW JACK HARLOW AND FERGIE
w e d n e s d a y
ENGINEERING GROUP 7 FAMILY WAS CREATED
I PR-ED MY TWO MILE AT THIRTEEN FORTY FOUR
IF CLUB FAIR KILLED ME, THIS KILLED ME, AND THEN REVIVED ME
FOUND MY CLASSES
HAD DINNER WITH MY NEW FRIEND
JAMMED OUT, SANG, PLAYED PIANO, AND VIBED WITH MY TRIPLE NEW FRIENDS
t h u r s d a y
WOKE UP AT SEVEN THIRTY
HAD AN INCREDIBLE MORNING WITH GYM AND RUN
CLEANED MY ROOM AND WAS AN ACTUAL HOUSEKEEPING MACHINE
BIKED TO THE LIBRARY
I WRITED
DANCE PERFORMANCED
f r i d a y
LECTURE
CORBIN
MUSIC
SINGING
STURDY-ING
s a t u r d a y
REST & RECOVERY
SNIFFLY
i feel
stability
stamina
strong
fun
funky
funkalicious
possible
potential
powerful
i feel it separately
i feel it at once
i feel it consciously
and that’s what makes this time special
i don’t just feel alive
i know i am too
prompts
things i’ve been thinking about
“just because you’re starting a new chapter doesn’t mean you should end another one”
on moving out
quote credits: Ariv Gupta
“i don’t care about the impact i leave the world, i care about the impact i leave on my world”
on my uber driver’s
quote credits: Aaryan Shah
“you can’t be excellent about everything, because then you’d be average at it all”
on college grades
quote credits: Ariv Gupta
my week in a nutshell
i’ve planned on making a series of videos logging my college experience — ie. vlogs from an inexperienced vlogger — ask me for this week’s one if you’d like a visual / audio representation of the week :)
alas
I would have written more, but on the eve of publishing this weekly letter, I find myself sniffling, sneezing, and coughing.
What I thought I already conquered came back to bite me — sickness is uncontrollable and far from fun, but I’ve learned to better respect my body through recovering from it.
I await a clearer, less exhausted, and better functional brain — it should be here in no time.
Hope you all have been well — I wish happiness on every single one of you :)
Ariv’s newsletters are so refreshing