For the Mr. Kites

I'm not too sure how I feel being back at school. I came back semi-optimistically, not with the full joy and determination of a brand new school year, but with some enthusiasm at least. I wanted to keep my grades up and not disappoint anybody, but since I've been back it's safe to say that this beginning-of-the-semester rush has all but faded away.

The way I describe it is that I am quite overwhelmed, and in the same vein, incredibly homesick. I'm so busy at school, I rarely have more than a one hour period to myself and the never-ending flow of meetings, schoolwork, class, and obligations is crushing. Now this wouldn't be too bad either, I suppose, if I wasn't feeling utterly disconnected from my social life at school too. It's hard switching back into East Coast mode and I just don't really feel up to sharpening my wits and flexing my vocal chords so that I can keep up mentally and volume-wise with the rest of my friends. Spoiled in California, I guess.

At least the classes I am taking are getting interesting. In my theology class this past week we've been discussing the concepts of loneliness versus solitude. According to our book, when you are lonely you are viewing others through a lens of your own needs, and you objectify them as solutions to your own problems. However, because only you have the solution, when the people around us inevitably disappoint us we become even more unhappy, thereby demanding even more and etc. Solitude, on the other hand, is a state in which you are in touch with the very ground of your being, when you finally stop demanding answers and listen to your questions. Because, as the book puts it, the questions are a product of your true being and "what is going on in your innermost being is worthy of your whole love".



Interesting.


I guess all that it really comes down to is learning to love yourself. For after all, it is this solitude of the heart that enables you to love and connect to others fully, without any of your own reactions or needs blurring the view. When we think about it, our crying needs in loneliness are really pointing us towards the peace of solitude, if only we take the time to stop and listen.

On a similar note, I attended an event yesterday night thrown by SASA (South Asian Students' Organization) called Happiness and the Spirit of Inclusion: Wisdom From the Orient. They had a speaker, Shri Ramanujamji, who basically said the same thing as my book but not framed in a religious context. We see the world not as things are, but as we are. Happiness is a choice, he said, because of our human ability to respond, versus react. Happiness is the state of a quiet mind, neither restless nor mindless. As he pointed out, if you think back to a moment when you were truly happy, you weren't really thinking about anything at all. He was a good speaker, it was a good event, and I left feeling a lot more peaceful and satisfied with an otherwise distressing week. Props, SASA.



So my conclusion from all this is that I need to take some time to find my solitude. I don't want to drink because I'm lonely, or bored, and certainly not as a solution. I'm tired of waking up the next day too hungover to move and stuck with the dumb or out-of-character things I did the night before. I don't remember how to make myself happy anymore and it's really taking a toll on my mental state. So despite the fact that I may have to put my summer plans on hold , and despite the fact that this is going to mean a lot more alone time in my room, this is something I really need to do. I've always said that if you have a problem with something then there's no use in whining about it, just do something about it! And it's high time I took my own advice. So you'll have to excuse me friends, when I decline to grab lunch or dinner with you, or if I simply disappear from social settings. Hopefully when I reemerge I will know what I want to do and I will have a better idea of who I am. I want to love myself and be happy most of the time (if not all), not just some of the time, and this is something I am demanding from myself and that I definitely will not get from others.


Updates to come....A long journey is ahead.

Sitting at my dining room table again, my suitcase packed and the house emptied of my belongings. I'm not entirely sure of how I feel about leaving, as I never quite want to leave where I am. While this might be a good thing, it makes goodbyes a lot harder.

This break was completely unexpected. Not to say I wasn't expecting a month of sleeping in, a glorious month of almost zero obligations and 60 degree weather, but I was more surprised by the fact that coming home has put things into perspective for me. I'm not quite sure why I didn't expect this, as I surely know that being home has a tendency to remind me of certain things. Suddenly, all the things that I thought I had figured out unfigured themselves again, and I was left with a heap of tangled multicolored strings, unsure of which one to follow and completely lacking even the most basic notion of how to begin to untangle them.

At the beginning of the semester, and even at the end, I had been so driven to accomplish a set of goals that I knew I wanted to complete. I have always been a bit of a control freak, and I often daydream by planning out my future, near or far. Majoring in Psychology and minoring in Asian American Studies, I was going to Taiwan over summer for an intensive Chinese program and then hopping on right over to Tokyo to study abroad for the fall semester. When I got back I would somehow sing/dance for 2nd semester, and maybe run for CSA e-board again senior year. After I graduated I would work around Boston, maybe in a hospital, for around 2 years and then go back to school for either a masters or Ph.d. For an even bigger picture, I would work on the east coast for a while, travel, and eventually settle down somewhere in the California Bay Area to grow old.

This is crazy right? I have a vague outline of my life from now until I am 30 something, but the end of this semester as well as my return home brought me more than just a bit of dissatisfaction with this master plan. What about singing? What about dancing? What about my love for all things creative? Growing up, I had assumed that while I loved these things, they were also things that I would leave behind in high school, with perhaps a side project blooming in adulthood to satisfy any residual passions. Do well in high school, go to a good college, get a career that works in an office of some type (gray cubicle not included) and makes a decent amount of money. When I entered college, I halfheartedly searched for opportunities to continue, but not really. But I'm not okay with this. I'm not okay with quashing my love of dance and singing, and passions, as I have learned, are not things that fade away with age, things that can be satisfied by some mere "side project". I want to be in a creative environment and be allowed to let my mind run as far or as fast as it pleases in colorful crazy explosions. I want to dance and sing for a living, but I also want to help people.

Part of the reason I haven't posted this month is because I didn't know how to face uncertainty again. I was so unsure of everything right when I thought I had figured it out, and I felt like I was thrown back into some blurry world with no sense of time or light, aimlessly existing with no direction. I felt like I was floating. I complained feebly to whoever would listen that I feel like I am kind of good at a lot of things, but not amazing at any one thing. (My apologies to those who listened to me whine) However, as my month of no school draws to a close, I have also learned that it is actually possible to combine all of your interests to create a career and lifestyle that I am truly happy with. All that people really fear is the unknown I guess, and I don't want to be afraid.

Sorry for the long post, but as you can see, a lot has been on my mind for quite awhile. I feel better now; more ready to face the challenges before me. I'm excited to get started on the rest of my life.



Something that I've asked a lot of friends (and my mom) in the past week: If you could do one thing in your life, career or accomplishment, and you had unlimited resources/skills, what would it be? Then ask, what's really stopping you?

Still confused, still scatterbrained. Went snowboarding Wednesday, can't move. Should write year reflection post among many others, but don't even feel like writing in complete sentences.

Lots of blog topics lately, some already half-composed in my head but just never get them down before I lose interest. Like I said, scatterbrained.

If nothing else, here is a list of things to amuse you, all highly applicable to kids our age. Don't know where it came from or who wrote it...love you stumble!

Random thoughts from people our age…

1. I wish Google Maps had an “Avoid Ghetto” routing option.
2. More often than not, when someone is telling me a story all I can think about is that I can’t wait for them to finish so that I can tell my own story that’s not only better, but also more directly involves me.
3. Nothing sucks more than that moment during an argument when you realize you’re wrong.
4. I don’t understand the purpose of the line, “I don’t need to drink to have fun.” Great, no one does. But why start a fire with flint and sticks when they’ve invented the lighter?
5. Have you ever been walking down the street and realized that you’re going in the complete opposite direction of where you are supposed to be going? But instead of just turning a 180 and walking back in the direction from which you came, you have to first do something like check your watch or phone or make a grand arm gesture and mutter to yourself to ensure that no one in the surrounding area thinks you’re crazy by randomly switching directions on the sidewalk.
6. That’s enough, Nickelback.
7. I totally take back all those times I didn’t want to nap when I was younger.
8. Is it just me, or are 80% of the people in the “people you may know” feature on Facebook people that I do know, but I deliberately choose not to be friends with?
9. Do you remember when you were a kid, playing Nintendo and it wouldn’t work? You take the cartridge out, blow in it and that would magically fix the problem. Every kid in America did that, but how did we all know how to fix the problem? There was no internet or message boards or FAQ’s. We just figured it out. Today’s kids are soft.
10. There is a great need for sarcasm font.
11. Sometimes, I’ll watch a movie that I watched when I was younger and suddenly realize I had no idea what the f was going on when I first saw it.
12. I think everyone has a movie that they love so much, it actually becomes stressful to watch it with other people. I’ll end up wasting 90 minutes shiftily glancing around to confirm that everyone’s laughing at the right parts, then making sure I laugh just a little bit harder (and a millisecond earlier) to prove that I’m still the only one who really, really gets it.
13. How the hell are you supposed to fold a fitted sheet?
14. I would rather try to carry 10 plastic grocery bags in each hand than take 2 trips to bring my groceries in.
15. I think part of a best friend’s job should be to immediately clear your computer history if you die.
16. The only time I look forward to a red light is when I’m trying to finish a text.
17. A recent study has shown that playing beer pong contributes to the spread of mono and the flu. Yeah, if you suck at it.
18. Was learning cursive really necessary?
19. Lol has gone from meaning, “laugh out loud” to “I have nothing else to say”.
20. I have a hard time deciphering the fine line between boredom and hunger.
21. Answering the same letter three times or more in a row on a Scantron test is absolutely petrifying.
22. My brother’s Municipal League baseball team is named the Stepdads. Seeing as none of the guys on the team are actual stepdads, I inquired about the name. He explained, “Cuz we beat you, and you hate us.” Classy, bro.
23. Whenever someone says “I’m not book smart, but I’m street smart”, all I hear is “I’m not real smart, but I’m imaginary smart”.
24. How many times is it appropriate to say “What?” before you just nod and smile because you still didn’t hear what they said?
25. I love the sense of camaraderie when an entire line of cars teams up to prevent a dick from cutting in at the front. Stay strong, brothers!
26. Every time I have to spell a word over the phone using ‘as in’ examples, I will undoubtedly draw a blank and sound like a complete idiot. Today I had to spell my boss’s last name to an attorney and said “Yes that’s G as in…(10 second lapse)..ummm…Goonies”
27. What would happen if I hired two private investigators to follow each other?
28. While driving yesterday I saw a banana peel in the road and instinctively swerved to avoid it…thanks Mario Kart.
29. MapQuest really needs to start their directions on #5. Pretty sure I know how to get out of my neighborhood.
30. Obituaries would be a lot more interesting if they told you how the person died.
31. I find it hard to believe there are actually people who get in the shower first and THEN turn on the water.
32. Shirts get dirty. Underwear gets dirty. Pants? Pants never get dirty, and you can wear them forever.
33. I would like to officially coin the phrase ‘catching the swine flu’ to be used as a way to make fun of a friend for hooking up with an overweight woman. Example: “Dave caught the swine flu last night.”
34. I can’t remember the last time I wasn’t at least kind of tired.
35. Bad decisions make good stories
36. Whenever I’m Facebook stalking someone and I find out that their profile is public I feel like a kid on Christmas morning who just got the Red Ryder BB gun that I always wanted. 546 pictures? Don’t mind if I do!
37. Is it just me or do high school girls get sluttier & sluttier every year?
38. If Carmen San Diego and Waldo ever got together, their offspring would probably just be completely invisible.
39. Why is it that during an ice-breaker, when the whole room has to go around and say their name and where they are from, I get so incredibly nervous? Like I know my name, I know where I’m from, this shouldn’t be a problem….
40. You never know when it will strike, but there comes a moment at work when you’ve made up your mind that you just aren’t doing anything productive for the rest of the day.
41. Can we all just agree to ignore whatever comes after DVDs? I don’t want to have to restart my collection.
42. There’s no worse feeling than that millisecond you’re sure you are going to die after leaning your chair back a little too far.
43. I’m always slightly terrified when I exit out of Word and it asks me if I want to save any changes to my ten page research paper that I swear I did not make any changes to.
44. “Do not machine wash or tumble dry” means I will never wash this ever.
45. I hate being the one with the remote in a room full of people watching TV.. There’s so much pressure. ‘I love this show, but will they judge me if I keep it on? I bet everyone is wishing we weren’t watching this. It’s only a matter of time before they all get up and leave the room. Will we still be friends after this?’
46. I hate when I just miss a call by the last ring (Hello? Hello? Dammit!), but when I immediately call back, it rings nine times and goes to voicemail. What’d you do after I didn’t answer? Drop the phone and run away?
47. I hate leaving my house confident and looking good and then not seeing anyone of importance the entire day. What a waste.
48. When I meet a new girl, I’m terrified of mentioning something she hasn’t already told me but that I have learned from some light internet stalking.
49. I like all of the music in my iTunes, except when it’s on shuffle, then I like about one in every fifteen songs in my iTunes.
50. Why is a school zone 20 mph? That seems like the optimal cruising speed for pedophiles…
51. As a driver I hate pedestrians, and as a pedestrian I hate drivers, but no matter what the mode of transportation, I always hate cyclists.
52. Sometimes I’ll look down at my watch 3 consecutive times and still not know what time it is.
53. It should probably be called Unplanned Parenthood.
54. I keep some people’s phone numbers in my phone just so I know not to answer when they call.
55. Even if I knew your social security number, I wouldn’t know what do to with it.
56. Even under ideal conditions people have trouble locating their car keys in a pocket, hitting the G-spot, and Pinning the Tail on the Donkey – but I’d bet my ass everyone can find and push the Snooze button from 3 feet away, in about 1.7 seconds, eyes closed, first time every time…
57. My 4-year old son asked me in the car the other day “Dad what would happen if you ran over a ninja?” How the hell do I respond to that?
58. It really pisses me off when I want to read a story on CNN.com and the link takes me to a video instead of text.
59. I wonder if cops ever get pissed off at the fact that everyone they drive behind obeys the speed limit.
60. I think the freezer deserves a light as well.
61. I disagree with Kay Jewelers. I would bet on any given Friday or Saturday night more kisses begin with Miller Lites than Kay.
62. The other night I ordered takeout, and when I looked in the bag, saw they had included four sets of plastic silverware. In other words, someone at the restaurant packed my order, took a second to think about it, and then estimated that there must be at least four people eating to require such a large amount of food. Too bad I was eating by myself. There’s nothing like being made to feel like a fat bastard before dinner