Music lends me its peace, Pavlin lends me security, and writing lends me reassurance. I have it made in this world, it's just a matter of realizing it. So what if this type of reality rests on a fairy wing? As long as I can conjure up strings to suspend it there, life can't be all that bad. Gatsby, you had it going on, misled romantic that you were. Your green light was a go, had you taken a moment to interpret it.

Uncertainty isn't optional but the worry that accompanies it is usually subject to your discretion. Filter the types of frustration you allow into your system and your sanity will thank you for it. This public service message brought to you by your friendly neighborhood neurotic, who by the way has been spending the past few weeks tirelessly worrying about equally neurotic parents, a scarcely funded college education, and megasporocytes. All this on top of Life, the Universe, and Everything.

At the risk of losing my boyfriend (who constantly reminds me of my upcoming death by cookies), I am declaring a fervent love of caffeine, the taste of which is perpetually present at the back of my tongue. Baby, it's not addiction if Starbucks is still one espresso shot away from erecting a statue of you in front their Maple street store. 'Til then, it's a mocha macchiato party like you don't even know.

I'd throw  a peace out to you folks but I never really understood that colloquialism in a grammatical sense. So instead I'll stop being a nerd and wish you peace anyway because them hippies were actually on to something and maybe one of these days we just might be able to catch up. 

For months now I've been trying to work on a scholarship essay; a nice little bit of work that's supposed to prove to a bunch of people that I'm worth (or worthy of, either one) a couple of hundred bucks. After going through a number of scholarships and reading a few of the winning essays I've deduced that all the prize-winning contestants have one thing in common: they all have a sob story. A lot weren't well-written, some were readable at best, but they all appealed to the soft spot in the judges' heart that told them that awarding a scholarship to this poor soul will make their institution seem a lot more humane and compassionate than it really is. My mind was doing happy cartwheels at first as it screamed "I have a sob story, I have a sob story!". I don't even have to make shit up about how my tragic life in the ghetto led me down the self-destructive path of drugs, whorishness and insanity but through some life-altering event I am now fully-reformed and back in the race. No, I do not have to resort to that.

I have a 100% genuine pity tale that will melt the judges heart depending on how pitiful the other essays are: Poor little Filipino girl who's been left in the Philippines by her parents when she was two so that they can earn a living here in America. After battling with feelings of loneliness and abandonment she was reunited with them in the US twelve painstaking years later where she had to once again endure the hardships of adjusting to an entirely new life. She has risen through it all, however, to become a fully-functional member of society and is now treading the road to success and it's up to you, dear judges, to make sure that she gets there.

Fucking awesome, right? I'm the pretty little pity package wrapped neatly with the determination/motivation bow. What would make it even more awesome if I could actually get myself to write my fucking essay.

Three paragraphs into the stupid little thing and I suddenly find myself faced with the most pathetic, self-pitying piece of bullshit that I've ever seen. A part of me is saying this is good, this is what sells but/and the other part of me that's supposed to contradict it is too busy wretching in self-disgust to come up with a semi-decent response.

I am nowhere near this tortured pussy-ass I'm making myself out to be. No, I wasn't what you'd call a fortified pillar of titanium but I was more or less indifferent to what was going on in my life because it was my circumstance right from the start. I've grown accustomed to it, led my life and made the most out of what some would consider a crappy and sad start. Hell, I don't even consider making the most out of it because it was great, period. I missed my parents and my sisters, yes, but I wasn't so emotionally traumatized that I have scars to show for it.

The move to the US, on the other hand, might have touched base a little, but Scholarship Whore Ruth still blew it way out of proportion. Adjusting to the culture/lifestyle/basically everything here was not a field of poppies but I'm more or less intact. I've gotten over the feelings inadequacy that made my initial stay here reek of fish guts and although I'm still somewhat socially inept and somewhat reclusive, no Gilette Ultra Schicks will be touching my wrists anytime soon.

That settles it, I have too much pride to go to college. I will just resurrect my career in internet journaling and collect big bang bucks from Google Ads. Which is, by the way, the only dignified way to roll.