Sometimes I'm too tired to notice the beautiful things in my life, and then it seems like everything is falling apart.

Tonight the Leonids are falling.

And I'm stuck writing a paper! I finished my math homework. My lips are horribly cracked and dry. I don't know why I won't invest in some chapstick. I ran out about 2 or 3 months ago, and ever since I have been licking my lips like a rabid homeless canibal desperatly attempting to keep some moisture in that vicinity. Only problem is - spit evaporates.

Goddamit all to hell. My paper is due at 5pm today - thats less than 24 hours, and I still have not written it!! I am comforted very slightly by the fact that I can rewrite it. I'm going to have to haul some arse quite heavily now if I intend to bring my grades up.

On September 11th, I wrote that I thought that wearing "I love NY" t-shirts was dumb. I don't think I ever said it in here, but I don't think so anymore. There's nothing wrong with saying that you love New York. I get hyper about things sometimes and I don't think about it. Sometimes it is easy to get swept up into a dogma, or a certain way of thinking about things, without thinking.

Alex and I went to the anti-war rally a few weeks ago. There was one really amazing speaker - he made me proud to be there, and he reminded us of what it means to be for peace. But for the most part it was a bunch of people standing around with posters and clapping and cheering for every word the speaker spoke. They made fun of Bush and conservatives, and used sterotypes to rile up the crowd. It made me feel uncomfortable that they were using 3d grade tactics at a rally where the goal was to stop a war from happening. After awhile, I sort of lost concentraion and just clapped when everyone else clapped. Alex smacked me once and said "Wait a minute! Why are we clapping now? .... " I didn't know! And thats what made me feel the most uncomfortable about the whole event.

POSTED AT 7:32 PM EST Monday, November 11

"Jersualem — Israeli soldiers killed a Palestinian toddler and wounded two others in Gaza Monday, hospital officials and witnesses said. The shooting came as Israeli leaders weighed a military response to a Palestinian shooting rampage that killed five people, including a mother and her two young sons.

In the second straight day of violence to take children's lives, the 2-year-old boy was killed while he played ball in Rafah. Israel's army said forces had returned fire and knew of no casualties, while the boy's uncle said there had been no fighting in the area.

Meanwhile, expectation mounted of an Israeli operation in the West Bank city of Nablus, where Israeli officials said Sunday's shooting rampage in Kibbutz Metzer — a community that symbolized Jewish-Arab coexistence — had been planned.

Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, which are allied with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's Fatah group, claimed responsibility for the kibbutz attack. Israel said it showed the insincerity of the Palestinian leader's recent condemnations of attacks on civilians, but Palestinians maintained the shooting was carried out by rogues and Mr. Arafat promised an investigation.

Either way, the violence bodes ill for the mission of U.S. envoy David Satterfield, who arrived Monday to promote a plan for restarting Mideast peace negotiations and establishing a Palestinian state with provisional borders by next year.

Mr. Satterfield was to meet Monday with other representatives of the so-called Quartet backing the plan — the United States, Russia, the European Union and United Nations.

But notions of renewing peace talks seemed a world away from the daily grind of deadly violence, which two years of myriad Israeli military measures have failed to quell — and the killing of the boy in Gaza was sure to further inflame passions.

Officials at Rafah Hospital officials said 2-year-old Nafez Mashal died from a bullet wound to the back. They said two other children, ages 8 and 14, were moderately wounded.

The dead boy's uncle said there was no fighting going on at the time he was killed. "The boy was playing with a small ball — suddenly we came under fire," said Mohammed Mashal, the uncle. "When we looked toward the boy we found him lying on the ground in a pool of his blood."

The army, which maintains an observation post on the nearby border with Egypt, said it shot in response to shooting by Palestinians and was unaware of casualties. In the past, Israeli troops responding to Palestinian gunfire and grenade attacks have hit Palestinian civilians.

Earlier in the day, an angry Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz toured stricken Kibbutz Metzer, including the bedroom of Noam Ohion, 4, and brother Matam, 5, slain with their mother Revital while — neighbors said — reading a bedtime story.

A weeping Avi Ohion, ex-husband of the mother and father of the boys, described how Noam would only go to sleep with one pacifier in his mouth and another in his hand. "How can a man — if you can call him a man — shoot a boy with two pacifiers and kill him? ... Three entire worlds have disappeared. They loved life so much."

Sharon spokesman Raanan Gissin said the Israeli response will be "within the parameters" of other recent actions — seeming to rule out the expulsion of Mr. Arafat, even though the government's top decision-makers, Mr. Sharon, Mr. Mofaz and Foreign Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, have supported the idea.

Mr. Netanyahu — who is challenging Mr. Sharon for the Likud Party leadership primary in hopes of emerging as prime minister after a scheduled January 28 general election — on Monday repeated his long-standing call for "expelling Mr. Arafat's terror regime" but said the timing should be chosen carefully.

The main obstacle to Arafat's expulsion appears at the moment to be continued U.S. opposition, at a time when Washington prepares for possible war with Iraq and wants to avoid antagonizing the Arab world.

A senior Israeli military official said Israel knew the shooter and his accomplices came from the West Bank town of Tulkarem, but were dispatched by militants in Nablus. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said he believed Fatah decided to resume attacks in Israel and not just limit them to soldiers and Jewish settlers in the West Bank and Gaza.

However, Fatah distanced itself from the Metzer attack. The group said it condemns attacks on civilians and will help with the internal investigation.

Palestinian Information Minister Yasser Abed Rabbo said he saw the shooting as "a crime."

The gunman had crawled under Metzer's chain-link perimeter fence just before midnight Sunday — hours after a car exploded nearby, killing its two Palestinian occupants in what police believed was a failed suicide bombing.

He reached the center of the community and shot the three members of the Ohion family in their house. According to kibbutz member Doron Lieber he proceeded to the communal dining room where he met a couple taking a walk, killing the woman as the man fled, and then he killed kibbutz mayor Yitzhak Dori, who had pulled up in his car, before fleeing by again crawling under the fence.

The attack came on the same day that Fatah officials and the militant Hamas group launched talks in Cairo. Fatah officials have said they were going to demand that Hamas halt attacks inside Israel. Hamas says it will continue attacks.

Throughout the West Bank, Israeli troops have been in or near Palestinian cities for nearly five months, having invaded after a wave of suicide bombings in Israel."

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

"Trust me, it's paradise. This is where the hungry come to feed: for mine is a generation that circles the globe for something we haven't tried before. So never refuse an invitiation; never resist the unfamiliar, never fail to be polite; and never outstay the welcome. Just keep your mind open and suck in the experience. And if it hurts, then you know what? It's probably worth it. You hope and you dream, but you never believe that something is going to happen for you, not like it happens in the movies. And when it actually does, you expect it to feel different: more visceral, more real, always waiting for it to hit you.....I still beleive in paradise. But now at least I know it's not some place you can look for. Because it's not where you go; its how you feel for some moment in your life and if you find that moment, it will last forever."

That's Rubin today.

I've been feeling pretty lonely lately. And confused. I spent yesterday trying to figure out what to major in and I finally decided to go with biology.

My grandparents are here for the weekend. It's only 10, but they're probably about to go to sleep, at home. I want to be there. I want to feel warm and loved and comforted. Could I have something beautiful now? Am I too blind to see it and grab it? I came back to my room tonight intending to study. I should have gone with Alison yesterday. I don't know when I'll ever see Lynette's Jeff again. I should have been there for Lynette.

I am a wreck.

Confessions

I kissed 4 girls tonight! Yes I did. And now to sleep. :)