#remembering 2023 bc it was a year i’ll never forget

[nothingleftforme]

11/23/2023

i’m 23 years old and laying on my friend Vanessa’s couch the night before thanksgiving. she went to sleep early because she has work in the morning so i’m chilling in her living room as i wait for sleep to greet me. i couldn’t go home this year for budget reasons so i’m still in my college town for the holiday. we had a great day today as i spent time with her watching movies and getting food, nowhere to be and just enjoying each other’s company. it’s been a long time since we’ve been able to do this.

i’m laying on the couch feeling good and can’t help but think about the time that will come one day when nights like these are just distant memories. lovely memories that i’ll never forget and will always be grateful for, but memories of a time past nonetheless. it’s better to have lived and have those moments in your back pocket than to not have them at all, and yet at my young age i am paralyzed by nostalgia for moments that are still in my grasp.

one day i will be older with stiffer joints and lines on my face, memories of my youth etched into my being and making me the fully realized person i’ve always wanted to be. i’ll remember spending nights at my best friend’s house, spontaneous trips we’ve taken and relationships each of us have had in our lives. she will probably be married to the love of her life and living a peaceful existence while i continue to chase the answers to life i’ve always wanted.

we’ll catch up and laugh about our time after college when we had worries about the future and passions to pursue. wonder where all the time has gone and beg each other to visit more often. i’ll think to where i am right now and want to give her reassurance that it will be ok. and right now, as the person who i become after accumulated years of time on earth looks back on me through her memories i can only think to ask her how she bears it. how anyone bares it. how nostalgia for exciting and new times in our life doesn’t paralyze you, how meeting and losing people and your home changing and your parents getting older ever becomes bearable. how the threshold you step over after your time on earth has ended gets closer with every passing day becomes bearable. i can live with memories and change, that’s part of being human. but the memories that i hold so dear being so fragile and as hard to hold onto as fine desert sand feels like betrayal. proof that i existed, that every being who has etched their name into my soul throughout my life being so fragile hurts so much.

and yet, as i lay here, letting sleep pull me away for a short time, i think to the times my friends and my mom and sisters have put a blanket over me as i slept. as i was half awake and conscious enough to see them plug my phone in for me in the morning when i forgot to. as i hear the door to my room open while i am half asleep and my dad sees that i’m not awake yet, gently closing the door to let me rest a bit more. little insignificant things, all pointing to love. despite mistakes i make or shortcomings i have as a person, the stars placed me in the exact time and place where i could find love and keep it. despite everything, how fragile and temporary it all feels, the fact that i’ve been able to experience this love and continue to find it makes me feel like it will be worth it. like one day when i’m on my way to meet the stars again i will look back one last time and be so happy to have felt at all.

[wallpaper-inside-my-heart]

💛Smoshblr December Asks Final Day💙

IMPORTANT NOTES (that I forgot to include in todays ask):

If you aren't done with answering all your questions yet, but want to; then don't feel any pressure to do this today 🤗 Just bc it says december on the tin, doesn't mean I will appreciate getting your answer any less, if it's in late january or smth 🫶

also: I promise I will get around to looking at & interacting with everyone's responses! I promise I did not forget about you, I have just been/still am incredibly busy irl 🙈

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Alright, buckle in folks, this is a long one 😅✨

(Split into three parts like the other asks; No pressure to any of you to do the same tho, I just really like this format and it suited my thoughts/organizing needs)

My favourite smosh related memories of 2023 (chronologically):

Tldr:

1.) Joining the smoshblr community 💚

2.) Spommy nation 💜

3.) Smoshblr December Asks 💛💙

now for anyone who is interested in me rambling way too much:

Joining the Smoshblr community 💚

I got into smosh at the start of this year bc of the Reddit stories videos (I watched a couple smosh vids over the years before, but never consistently followed their releases). They became smth I looked forward to every week and lead me to check out more smosh videos in general! I also remember checking the tumblr tag for smosh back then and being a little disappointed, that the fandom was fairly inactive, barring a few exceptions <3

And then the reunion happened and it took me like 3 whole days or so to actually realizewhat went down 🙈. Bc I saw the thumbnails for the interview and the 2t1l vids and was just like “Aww, it’s so nice that they are friends again and doing a collab! 😊 (I’ll watch these later tho…)” Little did I know that finally watching them would turn my year around in a way that I could have never seen coming!

Suddenly the Smoshblr community exploded with activity and so so many lovely ppl joined and started sharing their thoughts and feelings about the reunion. And while I wasn’t an OG fan by any stretch, it really felt like there was magic in the air/ on this platform! 😹💕

I’ve been into fandom for more than half of my life by now. But I’ve never really gotten “personally” involved in any active communities. Just someone hovering on the sidelines and simply liking & reblogging stuff from time to time.

But with this community smth just started to click for me and made me to get “more out of my shell” or whatever idioms might apply here. And this allowed me to meet so many awesome people!! 💖 Special shoutout to @wiggog-y-hecox 💜, who was literally my first friend in this community! I still so fondly remember our talks about your cool smosh AU concepts! 🤗💙 And also to @swiftllama 🩵 for discussing so many taylor swift lyrics and ianthony with me (+occasionally good omens too 😹💕) And also @japhan2023! 💚 I know we’ve been chatting on and off since the beginning, but I am also so so happy that this month in particular allowed us to grow even closer!

2. Spommy nation 💜

So we’re moving into the middle/end of summer now on the timeline for this one. I was in the middle of writing my bachelor thesis and really going through it mentally bc of that. Getting deeper and deeper into the Smoshblr community also lead me to check out more smosh fanfics in general. Which is how I discovered the fic the right side of my neck (still smells like you) - jovenshires (imdeansgirl) - Smosh [Archive of Our Own] by our beloved @jovenshires 🩷.

Now I’ve told Katie <3 this story before so I’ll keep it brief here; but basically smth about this fic was incredibly comforting to my overworked brain. And I’ve reread it more times that I’ve ever read a fanfic in my life before that. And I truly think it has forever changed my brain chemistry, and also made me very attached to this ship (aside from the fact, that spommy is genuinely such an amazingly adorable ship with incredible amounts of potential, like!! I don’t wanna downplay that bc of the chemical reactions in my brain around that time 🙈) Some more stuff happened which eventually lead me to become friends with Katie, who is truly one of the ppl I treasure the most in the world at this point 💖

But I also wanted to mention Spommy nation as a whole, bc this subsection of the fandom is filled with so many kind, creative and just generally amazing people!And I also just love all of us freaking out whenever we get new crumbs for this ship lmao 😹💕

Special shoutouts to @soupy-girl 💛, Kit! @hoohoobeanie 🖤, Mer!!! @tommybowefuneralattendee 💜, @ancientvamp 🤍 & Snel @blondeforyou 💙 for being some of spommy’s nations strongest soldiers 🫡 and also absolutely lovely and incredible people in general, who I adore so so much🫶🥰

3. Smoshblr December asks 💛💙

I doubt anyone didn’t see this coming 🙈😹

So, I had been meaning to do smth inspired by the “Shayne guesses” series for a while now (also the fact that the official smosh compilation of those vids dropped this week, near the end of this challenge, is so funny to me for some reason). But I never quite figured out how to do it, since I knew guessing for eachother would be difficult. And if I just started randomly messaging all the blogs I’ve followed with an onslaught of these questions, it might get a bit weird or overwhelming 😅…

⚠️slight too personal ramblings ahead, that I don’t wanna force on anyone without warning⚠️

And then, towards the end of November, I gotta be honest, I was really not doing well, especially mentally. (First masters semester and I was still sorta dealing with the damage I caused to my brain while writing the thesis and barely getting two weeks between defending it and starting the new semester to truly recover from it all) And I knew december would get worse, bc I still hadn’t finished all the Christmas presents for my family, assignments were piling up & I kept on catching way too little sleep.

So all of these stressful thoughts made me think “You know, a lot of other ppl are probably struggling with similar stuff rn, especially during these dark & cold times of the year. So why not try to do smth that might bring some joy or fun into other ppl’s lives?” And that’s how I literally typed up that initial post, two days before December started without having planned it for more than a literal day or so 🙈😹 (I did already have a long list of questions, bc I started doing the top 3 stuff in my friendgroup, but rearranging everything to fit the sorta 3-day cycle I wanted to do, still happened up until last week lmao; tho I always knew that this would be the last question <3)

(end of rambling ⚠️)

And I was genuinely, positively overwhelmed by how many people wanted to join in for this silly little game!🥹 I love and appreciate all of you, whether you stuck around for the whole month, might still be catching up on some of the questions (which, no worries, I know there were a lot 🤗) or just answered a few of them! 🤗💖 And as I am currently fighting the urge to tag every single person who participated in this activity, I cannot help myself but atthe very least tag the ppl that I feel like I have grown closest to/gotten to know a hell of a lot better, over the course of this month (some of which I may have known/followed for a while now, but some I also got to know mainly bc of them joining in on this journey with me in the first place: @ceilidhasworld ❤️, @fantasticduckchaos 🩶, @notthatalex 🖤, @natashasbitxh 🧡, @shaynetopps 💜,  @only-frann 💛, @smoshmonker 💚, @smoshidiot 🩷, @craintheodora 🩵, and so so many more of you guys! I just don’t want this entire post to become a taglist or send this to too many ppls notifications 🙈🫶

Note:

I know that I am super behind on interacting with everyone's responses! 🙈 And I promise that I will get to each of them eventually! 🤗 I am just super busy with assignments and exam prep atm. And also get very easily overwhelmed by talking a lot to people, even if it's just online 😅 (I love and appreciate ppl reaching out, asking questions or otherwise trying to have a conversation with me tho! It might just take me a good while to respond in some cases, which I promise has nothing to do with how much I value any of you 🥹🫶💞)

PS: The month might be over, but I do have something special planned in honor of this event and everyone participating in it 👀🫶

💚 Smoshblr December Wrapped 💚

[vonkarma2]

1, 4, 9, 24, 25 on the end of year asks?

 1. Song of the year?

Very difficult choice but if I had to pick just 1 I’d say world is mine by hatsune miku but actually by (ryo)supercell truly got me through it all <3

 4. Movie of the year?

Already answered this one, usually I’d say some runner ups but I actually can’t think of that many movies I’ve seen this year I’m sorry. My favorite movie overall is the emperor’s new groove you already knew that you’ve seen my letterboxd. My most anticipated movie of 2023 is Barbie it’s going to either be amazing or absolutely terrible either way I will love it 

 9. Best month of the year? 

This is pretty difficult to answer because it’s hard to remember ofc. An entire month. December has been pretty solid so far but I hate my job (<I don’t it’s moderately annoying) so that brings it down a little. I think I’d say October because although a lot of stuff I hated happened that month it was also highly emotional which I think is very fun. I was losing it for like 2 weeks straight feeling every emotion it was great

 24. Did you keep any New Year’s Resolutions?

No, and I never make them because I know I’ll forget or get discouraged. I feel like it’s better to learn as you go along then try to stick to a plan like arbitrarily. Bc if you feel bad for messing up that’s just discouraging when really fluctuations in resolve and motivation are normal ykwim? Oh wait actually I liked I wanted to read at least 1 book a month this year and I have <3 sometimes multiple even. It’s not that impressive lol but it was nice to make progress since I read like even less last year.

25. Did you make any characters this year? 

Let me think of someone I haven’t talked abt before…. No I think I’ve talked about everyone so far. Gabriel I haven’t talked about him. He existed prior to now but I only just gave him like an actual personality and motivation. It’s not that deep he’s basically a foil to Rocio, very similar motivation but warmer and way more social when he was alive. Quest for knowledge due to a mix of entitlement and childish innocence. Kind of old fashioned. Fantasy German <I have yet to come up with a last name for him what’s a German last name. I haven’t developed him all that much bc he’s not too important (sorry king 😞) but I like the idea of him and Rocio meeting briefly and finding kinda kindred spirits, before he fucking dies. Originally he was going to be fantasy British but then I decided it would be funnier if British people didn’t exist so I changed my mind.

[realtalk-princeton]

To Maybach -- Anon 2023 again. Honestly, my other major option is Brown (and Penn, but that's out by now) and I'm concerned that I'd be sacrificing happiness if I choose Pton. "Happy" is a part of the Brown brand, whereas "ahhhhh" seems to be a part of Pton's. I want the name and the opportunities Pton would afford me. I suppose that's not a question, but how would you respond? Do you understand what I mean? Is it so awful to pick Pton 4 name/opportunity (in addition to the other stuff)

Sorry for the delay everyone, I just got caught up in a lot of obligations. Due to multiple popular demands from both pre-frosh and current students, I decided to structure my Brown and Princeton story in the following manner. In the first section, I’ll give my background context prior to starting college and my feelings throughout the years on the subject. In the second section, I’ll specifically address the above question in more detail with my many thoughts on key distinctions between the two schools. I think the combination will serve the purposes of everyone quite nicely. Lastly, if any pre-frosh ever want to talk to me, feel free to reach out and ask for my contact information. Or even better yet lol, I just remembered that PREVIEW started, so I guess it might be easier to just talk in person to me. I actually don’t even have class tomorrow haha. I just think that talking is sometimes easier than writing and also in these responses sometimes I have to speculate. For example, I can pretty safely state that if a pre-frosh is almost certain of being a pre-med, Brown is probably going to be a much less stressful experience, but I have no idea if this applies to you beforehand.

So anyway, even though it was four years ago, I still remember it like it was yesterday. Boy time flies. I was not the most studios or stand-out HS student. I wasn’t the valedictorian or salutatorian of a rather small school far away from major cities. While some Princetonian HS students spent summer doing lab research at universities, I spent mine goofing off with friends and traveling. We used to actually have a bonfire at the end of the school year and burned stacks of our HW up to 4 feet high lol. When it came to applying to college, I did not actually even again acceptance to NYU or BC lol even though my stats were more than up to par. I guess maybe they were concerned that I wouldn’t be a very hard-working student. Luckily, I am very fortunate that despite coming from an extremely educated family (grandfather and mom went to Columbia, Dad went to Berkeley, etc.), my parents never put that much pressure on me. So as you can imagine, I was super excited when I heard that I got into Princeton, Brown, Cornell, and some other schools. For a period of time, I was actually getting ready to go to Brown. My SO at the time had committed to URI and I was psyched by the super expressive culture of Brown. Students prided themselves on being true to themselves and also took full advantage of freedom with responsibility. The location was close enough to NYC and some kids from my HS were already there. I always hated excessive structure and authority growing up and the prospect of 70%’s A’s granted, no +/I’s, and pass/failing anything was totally alluring! On a side note, I always laugh when they say that people don’t abuse pass/fail and use it only like 10-15% of the time. Well, maybe that’s because they’re already handing out A’s like it’s water and all A-’s become A’s haha. But anyway, I was psyched. Who wouldn’t want to live at camp Brown and take it easier than HS, but still be guaranteed a legit degree on your resume? However, after I visited Princeton, connected with a large number of alumni, and actually started putting real thought into my education, my perspectives slowly, but surely started to change. I think what I really underestimated was the power of the Princeton degree and how impressive our alumni network truly is. The people I met and still meet to this day are absolutely brilliant in several respects (e.g. they aren’t just nerds in one subject) and many are focused on maximizing their impact and allocation of influence in this world. The alumni donation rate is nothing short of incredible and the chance to be part of this network was alluring. I remember meeting a guy actually who got waitlisted and was already attending Duke when he got the chance to go to Princeton. He lived every moment to the fullest with his academic pursuits, the social network of brilliant, but diverse persons, and solid career plans. Anyway, it just became more clear to me over time that while Princeton was rigorous, it’s academic qualities could be much more intimate and engaged than Brown and the intellectual horsepower of its students (mostly) created truly incredible and impactful people. Jeez lol I forget sometimes how many alumni we have on the SC, in politics, business, arts, etc. At Brown, all they do is gush over Emma Watson in an almost cult-like way (sarcasm). But anyway, I was getting pushed as you can imagine, but I was still worried as I wasn’t the best HS student and grade deflation had literally only ended the year before. But eventually, the offer was just too good to pass up. Once you become a Princeton student, your life truly does change and people will treat you give you credit solely based on this fact (whether it’s right or wrong is another story). I remember before I even committed, I was hanging out at the Princeton Club in New York and a few days later some of the guys (who literally knew me for like a few days), invited me out and basically paid of lunch at Smith and Wollensky and lauded me on my “accomplishments” lol and how they could always be resources to bolster a Princetonian. Pretty soon after I committed.

As for answering your specific question, I’m already seeing red flags. Whenever you choose a school for the name, that’s setting yourself up for a bad time. Yes, our opportunities are better. Look at the difference in endowments lol. It’s like that for a reason even though they have way more students and more grad schools. It’s also reflected as well in our post-graduation salary averages. Brown is more creative with RISD and it’s curriculum, but that doesn’t always equal more opportunities. Princeton has the most power and resources of any university on a per-student basis and gives us an incredibly powerful brand and network. That said, you should probably explore why you want to go to Princeton other than the name and brand. One of the miserable people I know picked Princeton over another school because it was the “Best” school she got into and that’s just not fun when you didn’t research enough beforehand. By contrast, I know someone who turned down Harvard for a small liberal arts school in the middle of nowhere and she had an amazing time. If you feel like and click with Brown’s social scene, that’s another reason for not going to Princeton. Academically, Princeton is better for people who want rigor and want to truly maximize their learning in a short period of time and be around amazing minds. Our depth is much better than Brown’s and it shows with how strong our students are in critical thinking skills both inside and outside of their majors. However, there is a downside to this. For example, if you want to major in physics at Princeton, you better adapt fast or be damn good at it. You can’t just “love” physics and be relatively bad at it (compared to your peers) to succeed here because we teach you to be the best students possible from professors who literally wrote your book. At Brown, sure you don’t learn as much or go as deep, but you can major in almost anything because you just aren’t held to the same standards. So there’s a tradeoff. If I majored in Brown’s business program, let me just say that I would not NEARLY be perceived by others to be so intelligent (even though I’m not lol). I know the kids in the degree, it’s not like they are dumb, but jeez lol is it a joke a bunch of the time. Relating sociology to business for example on the surface can seem like a good idea that teaches people until you actually see what they’re writing and working on. I would probably have a 4.0 without working as hard too. And I don’t mean this to mean I’m like super smart or anything. It’s just not comparable to Princeton. However, I am super blessed and thankful that I did take Economics here seriously. The kinds of critical thinking skills and the ability to analytically dissect complex multi-faceted problems that I have developed serve me very well and I feel so rewarded. I literally got a position at a hedge fund with no experience at all because the interviewer liked how I wrote a research paper on guns an applied rigorous statistical analysis in many novel ways to answer new questions. This is no different in many ways than using public information using novel techniques to find value where nobody else sees it. But overall, I think that I’m feeling Brown for you unless you are willing to work harder here for greater depth of learning. I just want to say too though that despite me working hard, I still don’t pull-allnighters almost ever and I still have achieved very high grades. You don’t have to be a genius to do well here. Take it from me. I had piss-poor test scores (by Princeton standards) and was not a valedictorian, but if you are strategic and work reasonably hard and are disciplined, the work is more than doable. I don’t want to brag because I think it promotes bad culture, but you ought to know that a student like me can succeed academically and perform at the top of their class without working in the library all the time. So you should really evaluate what kind of learning experience you want and where you will be most likely to be happy and healthy. Some people just want a break after HS and don’t care about going super deep into their learning development. That’s totally fine, but then Brown is probably better (assuming you also like the culture). Some people would really abuse Brown’s system, not really learn, develop unhealthy and bad habits, and be kind of bored. In that case, Princeton is better. It really depends on you, but if all you see here for you is a name, you’re probably shooting yourself in the foot coming here.

Anyway hope that all helps. I can answer specifics if you have them too.

Edit. also I realized how long this all is and noticed that maybe some of you should just call me or I can connect you with people I know who love Brown lol. It’s sometimes harder to write these things and express everything properly compared to like a 30-minute dinner conservasation. Just putting it out there. I’m also exhausted lol from staying up until 4am the past few nights for this huge deal coming up. I did this tonight so that I wouldn’t mess up my sleep schedule any further and avoid taking a nap lol.