2011: Another Year in Review

This year... Oh boy. Rang it in with my family, as tradition dictates, though this year might mark a modification of that tradition. Then, there was all of the tumultuous adjusting for me.

January - February: Hailstorm of confusion.

March: Double that. Plus, a really fun spring break, thanks to some great college friends who, even though I haven't been as close to recently, are still pretty awesome. (I.e. Bill's Cape house, the ziggarut, Choi's featuring Dakota v. A and yummy Italian sandwiches also)

April: Like I even remember. Marathon Monday weekend was wild. Staying up until 7 a.m., Wild. April Fool's day was epic, and not without a fair amount of seran wrap.

May: Started with a bang, ended with me watching all of West Wing, never to be the same again.

June: Internship. Misery. Lamenting my unpaidness, having first world problems, being a brat, yadayada, not really seeing anyone except Choi in the city and for an hour after work.

July: The Boston Goth Club trip--never made it to the Goth club. The three musketeers, Intercontinental Boston, Parrot Bay, 7-Eleven bought mixers and snacks, 2 40's Bud Light. Oh, and going off of 2 hours of sleep, thank you HP7PII MIDNIGHT PREMIERE. Caroline's visit, epic meal times, all in all pretty awesome. Also, possibly the month I was accosted by a 'psychic,' thus prodding me to visit a Wiccan store in E Vill.

August: Ahh, sweet freedom--barely worked because the schedule was too airtight, traveled across the East Coast (to ME and CT, anyway) partied hardied--saw Friends With Benefits 3x, hot-tubbed and had a shore time in OOB, saw the palm reader whose predictions didn't come true, went to CT and ran around a beautiful house while wine-drunk and stepping on glass--the fab 4 was that one.

September: The month of horrifying weekends, during which I was much too intoxicated to be awake, but remained awake, unfortunately, and therefore humiliated myself just about beyond repair, thank god for forgiveness and hazy memories, and probably just the general willingness to let things go. My goodness. The things I would change about this month... Where to even begin...

October: Calmer, but still stormy seas.

November: Starting to reach some kind of normalcy, routine, etcetera. Thanksgiving break was much needed this year...also chock full of work. Stopped sleeping at night. Slept in, skipped too much class (it was just the one! and it turned out fine...) Lots of drama, though. 11/11/11!!! Awesomeeee... kind of.

December: Decided to train for the marathon. Still training, but extremely bored with running. Have decided to begin alternate, more exciting workout plans...

Overall, I think I've gone through some pretty significant emotional changes, though not really. I guess it's more like I've become more aware of the way I handle situations, for better or worse. I've learned more about myself, certainly, and come to the conclusion that I'm not sure what's wrong with me. I don't think there is, in so many words. I have, however, acknowledged that I can make rash decisions when it comes to the pursuit of men, and that the fact it is a 'pursuit' is perhaps a fundamental flaw. On the other hand, I believe I deserve a great love, a challenging, but greatly rewarding love that will inspire a novel, the bestselling instant classic I will someday write, though it will be the type that is passed around the literati, read over champagne and pretentious murmurs, because that is the audience I want to impress.

I stopped making official resolutions a while ago, and I've come to realize that over the years, I've become less sentimental about objects, and more about events and moments and things that I'll always try to relive in my mind, like that one time... Wall. Oh, nostalgia. Sweet, sweet monster.

I suppose, if I were to make any resolutions, it would be to take better care of my body, my mental health, and my self-worth, to love my family more and better, to be less paranoid and slower to jump to conclusions, to continue training for the marathon (this one's not really an option. At this point, I have to run it), and to, of course, continue striving to become a better person.

With the highest (but not too high) hopes and greatest belief for the upcoming year,


Happy New Year to all.

On their wonted haunt exiled...

I have been alive for nearly a quarter of a century. Okay, "nearly" might still be somewhat of an exaggeration, but I'm nearly, nearly a quarter there. I have not learned a single thing. Well, that's also a big of a hyperbole, but to be honest, I don't think I've learned the right lessons in terms of romantic interests.




Earlier this year, as in sometime during the summer as I was lamenting my unpaid existence and my lack of a social life thanks to my daily 6 FREAKING AM wake-up call, I went through some of my old blog posts. You know, on el-jay and stuff. And lo and behold, I was struck by a frightening realization. I could have been talking about anyone. Those pathetic, angst-ridden posts about the Boy of the Year/Season/Week were devastating, and so, so apropos, even now. Of course, I like to think that as I go on, I do make progress. Which I do. It's just that, along with the progress comes an increased level of insanity. I guess I wouldn't actually consider myself to be mentally unstable, or anything like that, but I would like to admit that it is unhealthy, to follow patterns this way and have no intention of really changing things because I have a hard time truly convincing myself it's bad for me. So I just spend the time conjuring up horrifying scenarios and glaring at people with preemptive suspicion and indignation. Completely uncalled for...Most of the time. But you never know.




I guess I should just openly come out and say that I apparently do have jealousy issues. I always fancied myself one of those girls who would be above it all, who would have the greatest of faith in all her friends, to the point where I can sit back and relax, and honestly believe that none of my girls would go for the Guy. Then I hit puberty, met some bitches who changed my views for the worst, and decided that I actually trust no one. Also, it's been done before. Yeah, girl who is the BFFFFFF, not going to halt something she thinks might be real for your benefit. Lo siento, mamacita, pero novios estan mas importante que sus amigas. No matter what your coffee mug says. Hos over bros? Yeah. Right. Enter Bro. Sure, I'm a little biased by my bitterness, but I don't think it's too far from the truth.




The truth is, girls will, for the most part, do anything for a guy. She won't admit it, but it's completely true. Of course, she'll still be there for her drunk and crying best friend, but right after she finishes holding her hair as she pukes up the last of her vodka shots and puts her to bed, she will go find the guy. She will stay up for him, no questions asked, until whenever. If she really can't keep her eyes open and it hasn't reached that level of sleeping on the shoulder, possibly sleeping over/under, then she'll reluctantly say a prolonged goodbye. But that's only if shereally, really can't stay awake. She will not stay up for her friend, who she knows will be there in the morning, probably, and who also cannot give her the action she so desperately wants, except under extreme circumstances... i.e. a drunk crisis. This is awful. This is the fulfillment of a stereotype that makes feminists cringe. This is basically built into girl DNA. As for the exceptions, it's just because they haven't given into their nature. That's my firm belief. I stand by it. Guilty until proven innocent.




As hypocritical as it will make me sound, I'm sick of talking about boys. Mostly because I don't want to, (read: can't comfortably) think about boys. Thinking about boys means thinking about negative things and thinking about negative things means staring blankly at a wall/ceiling/computer screen waiting for the melancholic nostalgia to wear off. It means not being able to concentrate on the anatomy of the brain and the functions of each part, something I very much need to know for my upcoming class, which I did not take the prerequisites for. Which I will probably certainly regret, but I'm willing to give it a shot so that I might possibly gain some insight as to why people do the things they do. Why I do the things I do. I'm very good at psychoanalyzing myself, or so I like to think. I think I'm very aware of what I'm doing wrong, which Aristotle would say makes me closer to morality than the fool who doesn't know.




I'm ranting a bit at this point. I haven't done it freely in so long, and honestly, I'm still holding back. If I let everything just free fall from my fingertips into the ether of the internet, well, I don't know what I'd do. I'm trying to figure out what I want.




I want reciprocity. I want ease. I want passion. I want something that far transcends mediocrity.

Revelations

I finished my first week of work. It was harder and more exhausting than I thought. I mean, I knew that I'd probably resent the whole getting up at 6 am thing, but I had no idea it would be this deep. In any case, I've noticed a few things about New York City--it's an hour away but universes apart from my small hometown.

1.) People are always in a crazy rush to get somewhere--anywhere, it seems, whether it's Central Park or work, when given the option, people always choose to run up the escalator. The escalator, which is already designed to make things faster. In the meantime, the stairs are avoided like the plague.

2.) Everyone, for the most part, is really tall and thin and dresses extremely well. Could be because it's Midtown by 5th Avenue where I am.

3.) When it comes to catching the subway at rush hour, it's no mercy, lawyer-eat-CEO world.

every morning there's a halo on the corner of

I cleaned out my piggy bank today. I don't know how much was in it, but I was definitely an interesting child. I found Deutsche Marks, Francs, and 5-cent Chinese renminbi coins that are apparently very valuable these days. I'll have to look that up.

The greatest inventions, the most awe-inspiring, gasp-inducing, finger-snapping ones, are the ones that we wish we could have thought of. The beauty of them is that they're usually so simple that we wish we had. The household objects that are so easy to mimic that you find yourself wondering.. if only I had thought to twist a metal wire around a couple of times, or add some adhesive substance to pieces of yellow square paper...

The greatest words, the most powerful novels, I think, are the complete opposite. Some of the most beautiful prose I have ever read--in fact, I daresay all of the most beautiful prose I have ever read--strikes me with this deep pang of envy and awe. The first thought I find myself thinking is, "Holy shit. I wish I could write like that."

Mathematicians and scientists, doctors and surgeons, I admire them all. They are impressive, and their genius is undeniable. On the other hand, their genius is approachable--they are following established rules. Formulas. Facts. Laws and theorems that have been around for far longer than the children to aspire to be one of the elite. Of course, they enjoy their own brand of innovation and their minds are certainly above those of us mere mortals, but personally, I believe that the genius of creative writing transcends the genius of the core sciences. It is brilliant in a completely different way, but without some kind of natural gift, some instinct and natural intuition, it is near impossible to fathom.

The path of a doctor is set in stone, for the most part. Students of medicine must take A, B, and C in order to reach X, in order to get the resulting Y, and then live a life of Z. Their path requires little actual planning. It's been mapped out, all they need to do is follow directions. It's different for writers and readers and the dreamers who spend all their time doing one or both.

English is often looked down upon as a impractical major. Plenty of people, the fathers and mothers and uncles and aunts and students of medicine, scoff at the thought of spending 55K a year to read novels. After all, is it really necessary to go to school for Shakespeare? Can anyone be serious? And besides, you English majors don't even do anything. Well, this English major strongly disagrees.

What can you do with an English degree? The honest truth is, anything you want. You can even go to med school if you decide to backtrack a little and follow the path. It's not too late. But the hard part is those people who decide they want to be English majors.

You move towards this path, and then realize... wait a second. There is no path. There is no set line to follow, only this great sheet of possibility that you are left to navigate alone.

I am not a great fiction writer. I often find myself reading the words of others and feeling my insides twist with admiration and envy. A word choice here, a full sentence further down, the simple use of punctuation--leaves me enthralled. IF ONLY... If only I could write like that.

By George, IT'S A LIST!

Post in which I list things I think about that I think are interesting:

"Don't you think it's interesting/weird/cool how..."

1. People both hope and depend on tiny chances--college applicants HOPE that Yale or Harvard's tiny little acceptance rates will include them; promiscuous teens depend on the tiny chances of actually getting pregnant so that they can happily continue to be promiscuous.

2. Looking at someone's facebook, or blog, or any digital or physical piece of them can tell you so, so much, and yet nothing at all. Even this surface level stuff, as Twain would consider it, offers a teasing glimpse into the very depths of an individual. The thought behind their comment, or lack thereof, their initial reaction IRL to something, etcetera, etcetera etcetera.

3. Boobs grow. Or don't.

4. I can't finish books as quickly as I used to.

5. The anticipation for an event is always better than the event itself.

i don't have the strength to resist

2011 is already one day deep. I've broken one out of three of my "Resolutions."

Eat less, drink more, study.

Eat less lasted for about an hour.. the same one during which I first came up with it as I studied my figure in the mirror and decided that something has to be done about my sedentary habits. Then, my dad made an amazing breakfast that I couldn't bring myself to turn down. So I didn't. And then I gorged myself on delicious sushi, a mini Snickers, and chased it with Chrysanthemum tea in a juice box.

We'll see how the other two hold up.

In any case, another year has floated by with (in)credible ease, and I can't seem to grasp the concept that it is no longer 2010. Somehow, I think I never actually accepted 2010, and maybe not even 2009. This New Year's Eve felt extra blurry, and not even because of the grossly foul substances that I consumed an hour into the year. No, it was the general sense of indifference that it seemed to be met with. Although most were already long gone by the time the ball dropped, I feel like something about these times has numbed us to everything, even the shifting of years. It's just become a quick change on a computer or cell phone screen. That's it.

For the first few weeks, there might be those strange little moments of a sudden realization that you're writing the wrong number down on your check, or your homework, or even just a thought in your head when you catch yourself forgetting the date.

My 2010 was interesting. It was full of questions, especially looking back. My senior year had always been this big deal. I built it up in my mind to be that special time of my life when I would finally, finally, get exactly what I wanted out of high school--slacking off even more so than before, parties on the weekends (maybe some weeknights), and a bright, shiny future that I had promised myself and my parents since I was a little girl reading novels meant for high school kids.

Sadly, these scenarios hardly ever play out the way I imagine. Instead of slacking off, my 5 APs kicked my ass, not that it motivated me to work any harder. Then, following the near-breakdowns during which I spent a lot of time in bed or whining on the phone, or just completely avoiding doing anything at all useful, I finally emerged from the college application process with not much to show for it. A dozen schools. More than half of them, looking back, picked because I was so paranoid that I wouldn't get in anywhere and then I wouldn't know what to do or where to go. To be honest, if I could go back in time and do it over, I would probably apply to almost completely different schools. My proudest feat was my UChich essay--the prompts were the sole reason I applied there in the first place. Wait-listed. I never did answer that wait-list. I wonder what would have happened, or if I would have even gone?

So here I am, months and life experiences after that dreadful April 1st afternoon, where I read rejection, rejection, and wait-list from my dreams. I took it surprisingly well.

I've been thinking.

I do that a lot. Just never about the things I should be thinking of--Virgil, or business law, or my future. Instead, I slowly whiddle time, wondering about where I'll be in a few year's time, or a few days, or weeks, questioning things and second-guessing myself, and then being happy and sad and so many different things at the same time.

One year, I got a Barbie camera as a present for my birthday. I was absasolutely, utterly obsessed with it. The way it worked was, you took pictures, as many as you wanted it seemed like, and then you’d plug it into the computer and it would upload all of them and you could see all of your work presented before you, set against a pretty Barbie-pink background. Back then, my cousin and I were really close. We were best friends and we were too young to worry about where we would go to college or whose high school education was going to be more worthwhile or SAT scores that would put gaps between us forever, the competitiveness of Asian backgrounds holding us on opposites of a divide—he lived in Forest Hills, and I lived on Long Island. Different worlds. In any case, I was about 9 or 10, and I was discovering my body. i had started to realize that down there was for more than going to the bathroom. My uncle’s an artist, so my cousin was no stranger to anatomy. In fact, in their basement there used to be a giant portrait of my cousin as a naked cherub, wings spread, little wee-wee caught between pudgy thighs. Nudity was our friend. I was never shy about my body. With a perpetual roll that bubbled over my jeans, and arms that were slightly thicker than my classmates, I was never rail thin like other Asian little girls. Still, I loved being naked and didn’t care who saw. I was naked all the time. I loved jumping up and down on my bed, pulling my pants down and dancing with my little kid butt hanging out. My best friends were my cousin and a family friend’s son, who was also a boy. We watched porn and cursed and giggled about being so bad. So one day, with this camera, we started taking pictures of each other. At first they were normal, just making faces, smiling as big as we could, stretching our cheeks out, and lolling our tongues about. Then, we started getting ideas, and we would take pictures of our butt cracks, taking turns with the camera. My cousin pulled his pants and underwear down, and spread his ass cheeks real wide, so that his asshole puckered, and I took a picture of it. Then another. CLICK. Another. Sometimes, the flash would stall and he would be standing there awkwardly, a handful of butt cupped in each palm while he waited for the light. Then I’d have him do the same thing. There was nothing sexual about it. We just thought it was hilarious. We uploaded it onto the computer and laughed our heads off, rolling on the floor, staring and pointing at the images of that mysterious part of us on the screen. Our assholes gaped at us, youthful and surprisingly clean looking. Butts, hineys, asses, assholes, buttholes, rumps, whatever you called them, they were just so mysterious and wonderful and absolutely, stinking hilarious. Ah, the days before puberty. When I could run around in my underwear, shirtless, and not feel shy or strange or dirty doing it. when nudity was just a way of life, not some taboo state of being that “respectable” people would pretend didn’t exist. - a piece of my.