Once I had a dream.

(And this it it.)

Great song, by the way.

Regardless.

I had a revelation on Thursday. We were discussing Frankenstein in AP Euro, and I found myself writing down everything. Usually, I count on my memory and don't do this. But I was so enamored with learning about this book that I had at first greatly disliked (mainly due to the five-page descriptions of rivers) that something innate compelled me to write, write, write.

I realized that you have to do what you love. And in order to do that, you have to know what you love.

And what I love is history. I adore history. I swim in it. I find parallels, make connections, and reflect on the how history made the present what it is.

I want to study history. I want to use my knowledge of history to reshape the world today. I want to see how the events of the past contribute to the future. And I want to be right in the thick of it.

I think--I know--I want to major in international relations and political theory with a specialty in Russia. (I adore Russia, and I couldn't completely explain this fascination if you asked. It's the most enamoring country in the world--the only one that tried to skip capitalism, the one that unleashed communism on the world, the one most responsible for making international policy what it is today. And don't get me started on the Russian composers...) And I know I'd absolutely love doing so. Maybe it's dangerous working with a country whose relationships with the rest of the world are so strained. But I love it.

(Putin, Putin, Vladimir Putin, lalala...)

Lately I find myself drowning in history. Yesterday I spent my AP Stats period studying why Russia pulled through the Great Depression unscathed. I wrote a five-page paper on how Frankenstein is a portrait of the Romantic Era. I find myself absentmindedly doodling diagrams of Napoleon's battle tactics. After learning about Voltaire in class, I picked up Candide and am reading it out of the pure desire to do so. And I love it.

I don't use the word "love" lightly.

And I love history, but even more than that, I love what history does to the present.

And that is what I want to devote my life to.