Surprisingly the past month has left me with an unmistakable feeling of joy. I am beginning to wonder if I have simply reached that level of stress where one just stops caring. It is quite possible, given my current workload, but it seems like such a trivial matter at this point.

I have been thinking about the future a lot lately. A lot. Perhaps too much actually, but then again, turning off my brain has never been one of my strong points. Despite this though, I can't help but feel invigorated by all of this. The struggle, the refinement, everything seems to be falling into its place. Granted, I imagine this puzzle is no where near completion, but the sole act of knowing that maybe, just maybe, I have finally found all those edge pieces manages to quell any doubts thrown at me.

So in celebration, I felt the need to do pull a classic Dulcy. A list of random thoughts I have been mulling over.

1. I want to move out. That being said, I am also very realistic in the sense that I understand my sacrifice in freedom is a gift to the wallet. Given I am already in the process of paying off my car, this may not the smartest move. Yes, I have a lot of money saved up. No, it's not quite enough. I want to be able to ensure that if I lose my job I would still be able to pay for all my bills no problem. Perhaps that is over planning in many ways, but money has managed to be the root of almost all my life's circumstances. I refuse to grant it any more unnecessary power, even if that means putting my desires on hold for just one more year. All in all, I will be less generous with my budget this year. I want to see how far I can go and how close I can come to potentially getting the best of both worlds.

2. I don't know what I want to do. I don't think I am a bad programmer. In fact, algorithms and design is essentially something I pride myself in being able to do extremely well. But I lack the confidence in my skills and that underlying mental barrier makes me doubt myself too much. I hate it when people ask me what I want to do when I graduate because honestly, I have no idea. I am a greedy person. I want to do everything, I want to try everything. But the real world doesn't work that way. Eventually, we have to choose a specialization, else it is difficult to progress up in the corporate hierarchy. After all, that just means I can't be really good at anything. I will only ever be average or mediocre at a variety of things. Funnily, I am still rather content with feeling this way. For once in my life, it's okay not to know.

3. I am going to start a personal project. I want to accomplish something. I want to look back on my college career and not regret that I didn't take advantage of the little time I had. What I mean is I want to achieve something related to my future career choice or at least a hobby closer to the technology world. That being said, I want to have a personal project of sorts. This brings me back to my IB days. To develop something you are interested in and learn in the process. I miss that. So, it's decided. I am going to conduct my project after my term as an officer in ACS is over. And my senior year will focus around this project. And now comes the hardest part--deciding on a topic.

4. I will not be afraid of love. Relationships have always been the bane of my existence. The more I want something, the faster I run away. Every single time. And the fault lies on no one but myself. I spend a lot of time reflecting on my past relationships, reflecting again, and realizing how naive I really was. Always convincing myself of reasons not to go for what I want, never pursuing anything that meant giving into the risk of love. My walls are too big for me to expect anyone to break them down. Hell, even I have trouble scaling these walls sometimes I begin to wonder why I had that expectation in the first place. I guess oftentimes we tell ourselves that we've moved on, yet in reality we always fail to realize how difficult that can truly be. But you know what? Ef that. I'm done being weak. So what if I get scared? So what if I get hurt? I have two legs and I can get back up just fine. Isn't that precisely what I have been doing for the past twenty two (to be twenty three) years of my life? I am doing to take that leap of faith from now on and grab hold of the things I want to fight for, the things I should fight for. It is too late to rectify the mistakes of the past. We are all different people now at different points in our lives, but I want to ensure that I don't have any more things to regret. So Dulcy, it's time to fight fire with fire. No doubts, no hesitations. After all, what do you have to lose?

5. I love who I have become. So I'm trying this new thing called confidence, it's quite a foreign concept to me though I must admit I am enjoying it so far. All my energy spent trying to please others, to conform to those standards are now used to fuel the whole process of, you know, enjoying life. It's an intoxicating experience I must say, you should try it sometime. Of course, real change isn't quite so easy. I still worry about things I do, things I say. I wonder if people find me irritating, if they are judging me with as much malice as I see in their eyes. I think about how people will leave me when they start to see how ugly I feel inside sometimes. But then I also realize how foolish all those thoughts are. About how much of an insult it is to think that way when you have so many people who love and care about you the way you are, good and bad. You know, those friends and family who see my bad points and are patient enough to tell me when I am wrong. So I am taking a step back and re-evaluating myself. No, I am not perfect, far from it. I think I've done a lot of stupid things in the past, and hurt a lot of people. Do I regret some? I do. Can I change it? No. All I can do is try my best not to repeat the same mistakes I have made and, if possible, rectify for the things I've done with my future interactions. Will I stop having things about myself I am unsatisfied with? Probably not. Will I still make mistakes in the future? Most likely. But you know what? I beginning to realize that it isn't necessarily a bad thing.

And with that, I am done. Random, all over the place, and poor use of punctuation. Just the way I like it.