I'm Baaaaaaaaaack!!! (again)

After a prolonged sabbatical for something called “actually doing your homework in a timely fashion and getting involved in extracurricular activities”, I’ve learned two things: what stress feels like and that I now need some outlet to keep my sanity.

Voilà, the revival of my blog.

Don’t worry, I understand the pain that you have had to go through over these past few months. You somehow had to find pointless ramblings elsewhere. My opinion on random human interest stories was absent from your weekly mindless Internet surfing done solely out of procrastination. And how in the world did you further education yourself on micronations?! It’ll be okay, “The Best of What’s Around” is here for the long haul.

Keeping with this blog’s age-old tradition, I’ve provided you with the usual Wednesday video. I’ve chosen Vanessa Carlton’s performance of her song “White Houses” on Saturday Night Live way back in 2006 and I’ll explain why.

With such a grueling and challenging semester only halfway done, I was a little dismayed to not have an opportunity to go back to NoVa for my spring break. Although going to Disney World is not a bad alternative to say the least, sometimes even the self-proclaimed Happiest Place on Earth is no match for home. There’s a certain comfort and warmth that comes with being in your own house with your family as well as friends that are pretty much just an extended version of that in all but name.

So why choose this song? No, it’s not because I associate home with my first sexual encounter with a guy like Vanessa does. While the dominating narrative of the song deals with that blurring and distressing episode in her life, it’s the underlying sentiment that speaks to me the most as she knew that she could always rely on her closest friends back at home after the heartbreaking consequences. It’s that support system that helped lift her spirits as she fled the scary situation she had just endured to somewhere all too familiar.

Home is that place where no matter how complicated, hectic, or confusing life gets, it’ll all be okay when you get there. When one thinks of home, it isn’t so much the physical site itself but rather the happiness and joy that come with it. It’s something unmatched and beyond compare no matter where you are; in a sense, it’s something we try to recreate when we’re not there.

That is not to say that everywhere else sucks and that we should just run home and hide from the big bad world for the rest of your life. Continue striving for that goal of recreating a home away from our original home because it’s clearly achievable – isn’t that what our parents have successfully done for us? Just appreciate what it means to you so that you can help bring it to someone else later down the road. I know I will over this following week when I think on what and, more importantly, who I’ll be missing out on.

Enjoy.