January gloom with a cut-out paper sun

Hello Berkeley of twenty-ten! It's nice to meet you. I just got in from New York yesterday evening and boy was I teary-eyed to see the lights (and darkness) of the bay during descent. This really is my town. I feel a connection to it that I don't anywhere else. That could be because all my stuff is here and I have a place to be where I am cozy and can ignore things when I want to ignore them or go out and enjoy when I want to enjoy. I do miss having a cat on my lap though.

Though I've spent the last couple of weeks in melancholia, I'm grateful for a time to mellow out. I've been overanalyzing the simplest things and now that I'm writing my personal statement, all the cynicism is coming through. I'm worried my paper sounds like a train wreck where everyone died. That's sure to get me into grad school. I feel inconsistent and rambling, as though I am trying to muster up clear answers, but I don't have them, making the answers I give not really what I mean and not exactly coherent either.

Maybe I really am cynical by nature. Last year I was feeling so positive and jubilant and had so much to talk about. Now I am once again stuck in abstract-land (which by the way doesn't have nearly cool enough roller coasters) just running in circles inside my head.

I want to do more activities this year. Please, if anyone wants to go jogging, hiking, exploring, lunching, and the like, let me know. Sometimes I'm horrible at conversation, but it's still nice to have someone to do these things with.