I Refuse

I refuse to let it break me down. What's the point? I refuse to waste emotions on something that is not worth my time. I'm learning...

Salvaging the Wreck

Today was a bit of a struggle for me. I was irritable, moody, and in pain for part of the day at work, and it was a little stressful in the morning. Regardless, I made it through and now I am back at home. The more and more I stay at my job, the more and more I realize that I'm not just satisfied with a bachelor's degree. I need to go back to school. I really do. And part of me has this funny feeling that once I go back, I will stay in academia for a long, long time. I yearn to be challenged again in a way that pushes my brain to its limits. I yearn to be victorious when I work my ass off. I miss the feeling of just "getting it," when "getting it" means grasping a multitude of concepts and applying them to achieve an even higher understanding of something. It's almost like a religion, this education is. For me, academia is very spiritual in that you struggle through something very difficult, such as a text or a concept, and once you are able to grasp it, you reach this nadir where you suddenly see things as they are. I recall as an English major, grasping concepts from obscure deceased philosophers as I pored over the texts and realizing that this was truly a spiritual and knowledge-based awakening in the truest sense. I miss that.

This picture is of the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles. I thought it was a fitting picture for this post. This is a marvelous place to go if you want to educate yourself (or re-educate yourself) about the solar system, how seasons work, how tides ebb and flow. Although the details are very scientific, I found it to be very poetic in a way. The galaxy as well as the universe is too large for the human mind to fathom. Time is calculated in light-years. We went on a beautiful Sunday morning and I found it to be very peaceful up on top of the hills.

Chronicling My Life

Inspired by a blogger I know, I've realized that I haven't really taken many pictures of the last few years of my life. I've done so much, yet haven't documented much of it and I do want to remember all of the best years of my life. While I realize this period of my life is quite painful at times, I know that ten, twenty years down the line, I'm going to look back and remember this as the best time of my life. It's a gut feeling I have. So I've made it a priority now to document the beautiful, ugly, unique, stark elements of my life that make it truly my own. Instead of using this blog to mull over the unpleasantries of my my life, I am going to try to turn it into something beautiful. A way to remember that even through the darkest rain, there is at least one element that makes my life beautiful.

I've always had a thing for candles. There's something about the incandescent glow, the way I can stare into the tiny, flickering flame forever. There's something eternally beautiful about a flame. It moves as though it is alive, and even when the flame is still, it still breathes a fiery life of its own. Candles have a soothing affect on my nerves and I remember fondly in high school I would light one up and read for hours on my bed.

In a world where everything is in transit, there is a lovely permanence associated with candles.

Jonesing for Something Else

Today, my three favorite coworkers and I stepped out for lunch like we do everyday in order to get out of the office and get some fresh air. We went to the Thai place we frequent, right down the street on Wilshire Blvd. and sat down in the tiny, familiar quarter where we already knew what each of us was going to order. The chatter consisted of each of us taking our turn, bitching about the insignificant and meaningless battles we fight every day. Then it became silent. I gazed into my coworkers' faces, all of them, defeated. I realized that was what I looked like every day to them during lunch. I believe that we have all reached the point that even lunch isn't enough solace in order to muster our strength to get through the rest of the day. The pregnant pause between the morning and the afternoon no longer provides us with that skip in our step it once did, when we would saunter up to our building and ride all 25 floors up, jubilant and energized, ready to face the afternoon and the rest of the week.

There was a blank, slack-jawed expression in all of my intelligent and charismatic coworkers and it pulled my spirits down immensely. They don't deserve to feel like this, day in and day out. I can't help but wonder when it will all change for us.

Black Mood

I like black hair. I like black clothing. I like black shoes. But I do not like black moods, which is unfortunately what I'm in right now. There has to be more to life than just going through the motions. How many times have I read that sentence in every post-adolescent novel/coming-of-age story? It sounds so ridiculously cliche, and nowadays, everything I think seems to be so unfortunately cliche but I find myself wondering what the meaning of my life is every single day. It has be to something more than what I'm doing right now. I feel as though I'm capable of more, but I'm not sure of what. I then ponder if I've just overestimated my abilities for the past 23 years of my life and that maybe this is it. It can't be. If this was it, I would not be this dissatisfied. I can't seem to find a permanent solace from my mental turmoil in anything. It's almost like dealing with the aftermath of a failed relationship. It's always on your mind, following you wherever you go. You can try to drown out the pain and the depression with copious amounts of alcohol, your friends, family, etc. but when you are alone in the silence of your thoughts, sometimes the stark truth of your own shortcomings and failures are just too much to handle.

Life As It Stands

I'm so tired. My job is turning me into a bitter, ugly, bitch. I hate life as it is right now. There is nothing to look forward to except the fleeting weekends. And where the fuck is the picture uploader cord for my damn digital camera? Everything is so frustrating. I'm lacking in every way imaginable right now.

Saturday Mornings and the Internet

I revel in the idyllic quiet of Saturday mornings.

That being said, I am now going to focus my attention on the Internet. The Internet, yes, the Internet with a capital "I," has become a central part of my life. To me, the Internet is an-encompassing entity with an infinite amount of knowledge that I use everyday. My relationship with the internet began in 6th grade. My dad, being the tech-savvy individual he is, decided that it was time for us to embark on a journey. The AOL journey. A journey that most of us have been on. My first screen name was Dream927. Or it was something else equally nauseating. I'm pretty sure it was that one, however. I used "Dream" because at that time, in Westlake, Ohio, the GAP scents were very popular. Dream was my favorite one because the icon was a cloud and it just smelled heavenly. So there you go. Dream927. At this point in time, my relationship with the internet was very lighthearted, very unlike the abusive relationship it has now become. But more on that later. I used my cute little pre-adolescent SN to chat with my family friends in other states and that was about it.

Then, I entered that stage in every Asian-American adolescent's life that they are all embarrassed of, that is, if they've actually left it. If you're still in it, you won't feel any shame and that's okay, you shall realize it eventually and weep tears of sorrow. I entered, what is commonly known as, the AZN/KRN phase. Even now, when I look at my pictures, I cringe. What an embarrassing period in my younger teenage years. At this point in time, my relationship with the internet turned into a way to show my AZN/KRN "pride" and to find others who had the same ideological beliefs as me. My SN changed into something mortifying: KiMcHeExbAbE. If you are going to pass judgment on me because of this, then so be it. I didn't want you as a friend anyways. Anyways, at this point in time, I spent a lot more time on the internet, so much, to the point that my dad eventually uninstalled AOL from my computer (but I just reinstalled it while he was at work), he took away the phone cable (I just got one from the garage), he then REMOVED the cable jack from the wall (I just found another one), and then he gave up. As you can see, my relationship with the internet had progressed from "Just Friends" to "In a Serious Relationship." I was in the thick of love with the internet.

Fast-forward a few years to now, I don't feel like delving into my relationship with the Internet during my stint as an undergraduate at UCI. Just know that it consisted of Myspace, Facebook (about 50 times per day), and Lexis-Nexis (very rarely). Oh, and towards, the end, Monster, CareerBuilder, UCI Career Center, and others of that ilk. Nowadays, I am trying to free myself from the destructive binds of the Internet. I'm being melodramatic here, it's not exactly destructive, but it's easy to rely on the Internet for everything when you know there is a wealth of knowledge to be found there. I recently realized how closely of a death grip the Internet had on me when my year-old Toshiba Satellite died. First of all, what a piece of shit, it dies right after the warranty expires. Secondly, what am I to do with all this time after work? I used to come home from work, cook dinner, go online, and go online some more until it was time for bed. And do it all over again. Now, I had this expanse of time from 5:30PM to about 9:30PM where it wasn't filled with webpage after webpage of interesting articles, job searches, etc. At first, I was grieving. Then, I realized my grieving was quite empty. Then came LIBERATION! I had freed myself from the confines of the internet, the shackles had been broken! I began reading again. I actually painted with the paints that I had bought in Santa Monica months ago. I really truly realized what it means to discover yourself. It doesn't mean you sit on your ass and you pore over job board after job board, waiting for that ONE job to call out to you and say "THIS IS YOUR CALLING, CLICK APPLY AND A MYSTICAL FUTURE OF MONEY AND PRESTIGE AWAITS YOU." You do the things you love, and you will slowly (very slowly for me, apparently) come to terms with who you are and what you are meant to be. I'm still in that phase, trying to figure everything out.

I am now going to get off the internet (now with a small "i"), clean my apartment, and enjoy the wonderful weekend that awaits me.

Last Night

Last night I had a very vivid dream, albeit not very exciting or prophetic in any way, but a dream that reflects my current state of mind. I had a dream that I had to join my friends for a leisurely dinner at a restaurant. I left the table for a few minutes and came back, but to my surprise, the table moved to another section of the restaurant. Their section was on top of a very very tall hill, covered in very tall pine trees. I looked down at my feet and realized I was barefoot and would have to trek up this hill, stepping on branches, pebbles, and what not. I was at the bottom of the hill, looking up at the journey I would have to endure in order to reach the top to join my friends again. I stood next to a large and mighty pine tree and leaned against it, its scratchy bark leaving imprints on my arm. I looked upwards at the hill. It was pretty much vertical, almost like the tree. I began my slow journey up the hill, sliding down about two feet for every three steps I took. It was not easy. But I looked to my left, and realized there was a metal chain link that I could grab that would help me up the hill, much like something mountain-climbers use when scrambling up a mountain-top. I grabbed this chain-link rope and steadied myself against the hill and took one step, two steps, until I scurried up this hill up to the top. There, I found myself alone, with one solitary picnic table on the top. By this point, I had forgotten about the dinner that I was supposed to make it back to and I sat at the picnic table, reflecting on the climb that I just completed and wondered what was next.

I feel as though this dream reflects my current state of mind because everything that I want to accomplish at this point in my life will require arduous sacrifice and I am completely aware of that. I also know that I have a tendency to compare my accomplishments with the accomplishments of others (this tendency, I'm sure, can be attributed to my competitive nature that has pretty much dissipated since my childhood) and become irate/depressed when I do not feel as though I have merited any accomplishments when others have. This, I feel, explains why I was so eager to join my friends again but to me, it is interesting that at the end, I completely forget about the dinner.

This morning, I woke up and I was exhausted, which was rather strange considering the fact that I went to bed at 10:45PM. I really felt as though I had physically climbed that hill last night. I could almost feel the dirt between my toes and the tension in the palms of my hands as I had gripped that metal link rope fiercely as I dug my heels into the hill.

Confused...

I always mull over the same shit every single damn day of my life. And I'm tired of it. I'm tired of being confused, I'm tired of being unhappy and I'm tired of feeling like a lost, forlorn failure. I have no exit, however. There is no escape. I can have brief, fleeting moments of happiness that transcend me from my futile, pathetic existence through frequent stops to Pinkberry or 3rd Street or the Beverly Center, but ultimately, those moments don't change anything. I'm such a fucking mediocre person. Mediocre in every sense of the word. Mediocre personality, mediocre grades throughout my academic life, mediocre everything. Mediocre makes me feel like shit.

Balenciaga

Now this is my idea of a beautiful bag. I'm drooling.

Sharon Stone Needs to Shut the Hell Up

From "Variety":
"All these earthquakes and stuff happened and I thought, "Is that karma?" When you are not nice, bad things happen to you. I'm not happy about how the Chinese are treating the Tibetans, I don't think anyone should be unkind to anyone else. They're not being very nice to the Dali Lama, who's a good friend of mine," she said.

SHUT THE HELL UP. SHUT UP, JUST SHUT UP SHUT UP. You are an actress. You ACT for a living. You pretend to be someone you are not. You "immerse" yourself in a role. Which means, although you may be living in this alter-reality where you believe that you are intelligent and that what comes out of your mouth is valid and logical, sadly, it is not.

Your opinions are as important as my own in the grand scheme of things. Which means they don't matter. Just because your life has been led in the public sphere for decades doesn't mean you are allowed to voice your opinion. In fact, it will only benefit your public image to keep them to yourself.

Everyone else in the world already sees us as obese idiots who have a penchant for ill-placed nationalism and SUVs. This only adds fuel to the fire.

Introspective Reflections

I feel as though I've been deceived somehow. Cheated of something, but I cannot quite place my finger on what it is. I feel as though I've been lead through an academic path my entire life, from the moment I could read until I graduated last spring. And I feel as though I have come to an abrupt, painful halt. A halt that makes me so miserable at times that I don't even know what to do. I can't comprehend it, yet at the same time I know exactly what it is that is causing me misery and grief. And there's nothing I can really do about it. It's just growing pains, the passage from young adolescence into young adulthood. I've looked forward to this point my entire life, and now I hate the very existence of it. I've lost all sense of optimism and hope for a bright future and all I have now is my mundane existence that I am simply trudging through, day in and day out. I wasn't like this before, I swear I wasn't.

I feel as though everyone has been force-fed this notion that you can do anything you want with a little elbow-grease and a little determination. It's really not that easy and I am quickly realizing that now. I don't even think it's that true to be honest. I feel as though you can do anything you want if you are willing to sacrifice a tiny portion of your integrity and soul.

It's liberating in a way to realize that my life is truly mine, that I no longer have these obligations to study hard to make the cost of tuition worthwhile, to go to class because it's money lost/knowledge never learned. But it's so frightening at the same time. I feel as though change is now the enemy. Before, I yearned for change, for life-altering decisions to be made, leaps and bounds in personal growth. Now, I cringe at the possibility of change.

I try to find happiness in the simple things in life but the happiness is fleeting. It comes and goes in a sea of depression and sometimes I don't even feel as though those moments of fleeting happiness are worth it.

I envy the high school girls I see walking to class every day, arms linked together, sharing a muffin or energy drink with each other while gossiping about the latest relationship gone wrong, or a pending test. I envy the small children I see, who are elated at the sight of a balloon tied on their wrist as they bounce around their mothers. I long for a time where everything was simple and moments of sadness were fleeting, not moments of happiness. But this is life. I guess I just have to suck it up and deal with it. I'm sure I won't be this unhappy. Pretty soon the dust will settle and this will simply become the norm for me. A part of me hopes and prays that this isn't the case. I don't want to fucking settle.