Still have work to do on empathy

Disclaimer: I took a couple shots so I'm a little past tipsy. Didn't really help me not feel terrible.

Last night there was a huge wasp flying around the house, and after a while, my housemates and I got fed up with it and they told me I should go handle it. I took a paper cup and caught it against the floor, and intended to bring it outside without killing it (the usual procedure for spiders, other pests, etcetc). However, I was exhausted and ended up going to bed and forgetting to bring it outside, and so it stayed there under the cup.

When I got up this morning, I saw the cup a couple of times passing by, but had various other things on my mind (how desperately I needed to use the restroom, going out for a run, laundry) and I didn't get around to taking care of the bug situation and bringing it outside. As I was getting ready for bed (now 22 or so hours after I first caught it in the cup) I realized it was still there and went to go bring it outside. By this time, it was already dead.

I feel like shit. Of all of the ways I could handle the bug, mine was the most cruel. I subjected it to the bug equivalent of death by starvation or something. Just killing it flat out, which I try not to do on moral grounds, would've been more humane. How can I claim to excel at empathy when my brain lets by acts of cruelty like this without thinking twice (albeit for a bug)? It makes me wonder to what extent what I've considered a high level of empathy is actually true empathy, or just a better, cognitive and conscious understanding of which emotions are evoked given certain stimuli. I hope it's true empathy. I feel like shit.

Dad's Postcard and Care Package

My dad insisted on driving me to the airport, just like he insisted on dropping me off at Stanford before the school year started. He's back from his business trip to China (perhaps "business trip" to "China") now. He gave me a postcard with a penguin on a polar bear that, in a nutshell, said:

It made me sad to see you and your sister fight.

The divorce will be legally processed by the end of the month, and afterwards I will be going overseas and who knows what your mom will be doing. Both of us are in poor physical health. For all you know, the two of you might be the closest family either of you have shortly. You guys should get along.

I have one New Years' wish. I wish you guys would add me on Facebook. You guys are 18 now, I'm not trying to control your life. Please add me so I can know how you guys are doing.

Know that your mom and I will always love you very very much. You can always talk to us about anything.

Love, Dad 1/5/12

And my thoughts about it? Fuck you dad. It makes you SAD to see us fight? Boo frickin hoo. How do you think it makes us feel when you and mom fight, hmm? Both of you are in poor physical health? Maybe if you and mom stayed together, lived together, and looked out for each other like you had for the 16 years before my junior year, like my mom did for you when she saved your life in Michigan. And don't you use Facebook friendship as a starting point for repairing the damaged father-child relationship. If you want to get on better terms with us, you better talk to us, face to face, and tell us honestly everything you've done for the past two years, like we've beckoned you to do on numerous occasions. Maybe then we'll start to open up to you and trust you again. It's hard to give you the benefit of the doubt on anything when you've cheated on mom. It sounds resentful, but it will take much more effort than social networking to set you on the right path again. I don't like holding grudges, but I feel justified, for myself and for mom, in holding this grudge.

~~~~~~~~~~

Today was my second day back to Stanford after winter break and first day of winter quarter. I spent the majority of my day upstairs in K-, K-, and L-'s room, and some time in those hours they had sneaked together, put all of their stuff in a box, packaged it, wrote a meaningful note on origami paper and folded it into a flower, and delivered it to the doorstep of my room. And at midnight, they misled me into thinking they wanted to watch How I Met Your Mother so I'd go downstairs to get my hard drive, and I found it at my doorstep.

At first I had no idea what it was, and I asked my roommate about it, and he didn't say a word about it. He just shrugged even though he knew who was behind it. Very thorough planning on the part of K-, the deliverer. It was addressed to "Larry Lewis Liu" so I was able to narrow it down to a few people who knew about the middle name that K-'s friends gave to me.

I took it upstairs to try to find L-, who I thought was behind it because he said he had a present for me, but to my surprise, there were like 8 people in my RA S-'s room. At that point, I knew whatever was up was a bit bigger scale than I expected. I opened it, and the cardboard flap that opened up from the top the box said "CARE PACKAGE :)"

Turns out, over break, eleven of my dormmates had collaborated and decided they'd each bring me something that represented where they were from. From snacks, to soap, to homemade desserts, to magnets, to a hat (that is arriving in the actual mail soon!), to a book by an author I enjoy. There was a card written in an origami flower that L- folded, in which they each wrote an adjective or descriptive phrase they liked about me. I was speechless. I managed to choke back tears long enough to give everyone a hug and then excuse myself and leave under the guise of bringing the box back downstairs.

I have never felt so warm and loved before. It's an incredible feeling. And they couldn't have given it to me at a time when I needed it more. I was at an emotional low after cleaning out my room in preparation for selling our house, going over divorce paperwork with my mom, and my dad's postcard in the last few days of break. My last class of the day was a lecture for a class titled Love as a Force for Social Change, and as interested as I am in the class material for the sake of acquiring knowledge and education, all the anecdotes that the professor and students shared about how love has manifested itself in their lives only made me miserable because I did not have anything to share that was remotely as cherished as my colleagues cherished theirs.

I could not have asked for a better cohort of dormmates. No matter what happens, I will treasure for forever the past five months I've spent with them and the six to come.

Cheers! Oh oops nope just kidding.

So today eating Christmas Eve dinner with my mom and sister (dad once again somewhere in Asia on a business trip, suspiciously over the holidays again), my mom had proposed a toast. I had first clinked glasses with my mom, and then I kept it raised towards my sister. She looked at me and just drank.

I was going to write a card and wrap the Christmas present I had bought for her towards the end of this past summer, but you know I'm honestly not feeling the holiday cheer. We don't even have a tree set up (it's in our garage too) and we're using this potted plant as a stand-in.

Good grief I despise coming here. Can't wait to go back home. Note to self: look into that summer psychology program.

Dinner with dad

Well, first off you know something's wrong with your family when eating a non-holiday meal together needs to be scheduled a week beforehand.

Next, nothing dramatic changed between my dad and I since I started college. Collectively, my immediate family is remarkably terrible at holding a conversation. The dialogue between my dad and I was very matter-of-fact and short-lived.

On the other hand, my sister threw a fucking tantrum in the public restaurant. She was crying by the time we paid and left. And why? She didn't want me to get a new phone carrier. First, why is that any of her business? Second, why not? Because then my parents will actually be able to contact me? I'm personally convinced she doesn't want me to switch to a family plan because it'll save me money to pay for my proportion of a family plan because we pay for our phone bills by ourselves, yet she refuses to be on a family plan with my dad because she hates him.

At any rate, she kept spouting bullshit and making false claims until my mom, dad, and I all told her she was lying through her teeth about what all of us had said, at which point she just cried. So then we left the restaurant. When we got to the car, she just stood demandingly next to the shotgun door and my mom asked her why she was sitting in the front, to which she replied, yelling, that she didn't want to sit next to me in the back seats.

In fact, last night, I was grading the FPS packets for PPII because I have to get them to my boss by next weekish, and she took the power cord to the household internet modem because she thought I was going to be too loud and she wouldn't be able to sleep. Who the hell does she think she is? In what universe does she get to dictate what I can do at what hour? And she can't sleep when there's a closet and two walls between the room I was in and hers? She is like an actual manifestation of the first-world problem girl. She thinks she is entitled to everything. I know I told my mom there's no way I'd abandon her if she comes to me in need of financial assistance a couple decades down the line because she wasted her time in high school and college, but she is really testing me right now.

If my mom and sister arguing and my fairly indifferent dad is all I come home to, I think I'd be willing to consider just straight up staying in California whether or not I get a summer job, internship, or research position. I can't stand it here.

Thank goodness finals are a damn great excuse that masks all the frustration, confusion, and the general internal wilting and disappointment I am experiencing.

My mom is pissing me off.

My mom holds literally everything against me. She is so full of contradictions and so devoid of sense. Let's see what accusations I've received recently.

• My sister goes out and parties too much with her friends, therefore it becomes my sole responsibility to care for her because nobody else will. Way to address the root of the problem!
• My mom tells me that she doesn't want me attending her breast cancer examinations because, after all, it's breast cancer and that gets awkward. Then, she says I'm heartless and impatient because I never go with her to examinations and help her translate what the doctors say.
• My mom tells me that she doesn't want to get involved with college stuff (applications, housing, meal plans, move-in stuff, basically all the orientation things) because there's too much English, and that she trusts I can handle it. Then, she says she feels hurt that I keep shutting her out of college information, and she feels unwelcome and not knowledgeable when she talks to other parents at any admit receptions/sendoff parties.
• I've finally turned 18, and therefore it is my responsibility to become more independent (with planning my own activities, chores, work, etc.). Oh wait! How dare I not inform her of every little detail in my life?? She didn't raise me 18 full years just so I can sever family ties. I'm still her baby, and she has every right to know who I talk to, what I read and do.
• When I do tell my mom something, she then proceeds to forget within the next five minutes. Then she'll ask me again, and forget again. If she asks some three or four times, I'll tell her, I've told you before. Then she'll condescendingly question--is this how you're treating me when I'm in my mid-40s? I can't imagine how bad you'll be when my memory's even worse later on. How hard is it to just repeat it once more? Believe it or not, just because you've forgotten something I've told you, doesn't make me in the wrong for not telling you. Sure you can't really be blamed for forgetting, I understand it's a biological thing that comes with aging, but I sure as hell am not intentionally disrespecting you, nor in the wrong for being annoyed at repeating something as many as eight or nine times.

Whenever my mom talks to me, she is always card stacking. Always. I do almost all the chores because my sister doesn't, act as a liaison or translator between my mom and school administrators and teachers, cashiers at the grocery store, handymen for car maintenance, and pretty much fucking everything. I've must've moved tens of thousands of pounds of groceries, and helped her lug the 40ish-lb vacuum cleaner up an down the stairs hundreds of times.

And the worst part is, I don't even try to point out how wrong she is when she berates me for all this shit. She'd just say I have no right to point out her mistakes because she's my mom. I just sit and listen to her hurl these accusations. Today, she got mad at me for looking angry when she's talking to me. Am I not allowed to look angry?

When I was like 7, my 2nd grade teacher was trying to explain the difference between house and home. She said that house is just a physical object, but home implies an associated feeling of comfort. Seeing those "Welcome home" signs in pictures of past Stanford NSOs makes me think: I'm so damn glad I'm leaving for college soon, because that's where home is. It's kind of silly how teachers try to teach little kids that with the word "family" carries implied feelings of affection and love. The last two years of my life have really proven otherwise.

It's Been a While

It's been a while since I posted here. A lot has happened, some fortuitous, some not quite so.

This past Friday, we went to the Hunt the Wumpus competition that Microsoft holds every year. After getting about 14 hours of sleep in five days, it all paid off, and our team won first place! :D Despite one member of the team, though a brilliant programmer, being less than fun to work with (goes to bed at 9pm and expects everyone to finish what he doesn't, and gets angry extremely easily), it was overall a pretty enjoyable experience and I'd be lying if I said it didn't prompt me to consider computer science more heavily as a choice of major.

One of the keynote speakers at the event talked about the "alpha jerk" in a team. It's pretty intuitive after you hear it, but I never really thought about it before, and I'm glad that I've managed to steer away from becoming that kind of person in team situations. Basically in business, the alpha jerk is the guy who knows what he's doing (often more than he needs to), but as a result becomes extremely domineering. Ironically, the 9pm bedtime guy fits that description entirely. Quite conveniently, I was sitting right behind him during the keynote, and he got extremely squirmy in his chair while that section of the presentation was going on.

It's been a while since I talked to K-, but luckily tonight I actually had a nice, hour-long conversation with her. Every time we talk it seems like it's the best thing that could happen to my evenings, whereas the saying of "good night" bodes the opposite. There just seem to be a few people with whom I can have endless hours of conversation with. I'm going to hate myself if I let me and these people have a falling out once I go off to college.

Sometimes I wonder, if you're extremely frustrated, and not necessarily justified in being so, is it better to have a friend to tell you straight up that you're not being sensible, or comfort you and solidify the frustration by assuring you you're not in the wrong? I think this little dilemma came up for both of us in our conversation, as we were kind of just venting to each other.

Talking to some people give me a lot of hope. I had a rather solemn conversation with B- about a week ago, and I want to be sure I don't forget it. He was telling me about how there were a lot of people that left a great first impression on him as a friend, but over the years he's begun to notice very distasteful qualities about them. One in particular he had lost all respect for because he wove quite an intricate web of lies because he was too prideful to admit he didn't get into the state school that almost everyone in our accelerated program gets into.

Shortly after that conversation, I burned a lot of bridges that I felt I should've burned way long ago. I basically grew a pair (it definitely helped that, for the most part, I wouldn't be seeing them for the rest of my life in two more weeks) and told them a lot of things I take issue with as far as their personal qualities go. I didn't do it in a rude way; I just did it in a matter-of-fact, I hope you take this to heart because I'm not simply trying to offend you kind of way. I don't have fond memories of them, but all the same I hope they actually take what I say into consideration. If not, their loss, I guess.

It's been a while since I felt that liberating feeling. Not having to keep up facades of friendships that aren't there is a very relaxing feeling. My senior year has had quite a few disappointments, particularly as far as robotics go, but I feel like it's also been one of the most valuable. I feel like my emotional intelligence has developed so so much, and I will be able to handle a lot of situations better.

Now that I only have 4 days of school left, I'm feeling ambivalent about leaving high school. It's bittersweet. I think the more the yearbooks I sign, the sadder I'm going to get. There are a lot of people that I have a lot of things to say to, and a few of them give me weird looks when I tell them I have a lot to say to them and would like to take their yearbooks home overnight, which makes me rethink whether it's really worth having a lot to say to them. Do they have a lot to say to me too? I hope so.

Definitely, though, I'm looking forward to meeting some new people. I've been with roughly the same peers for seven years, and I'm getting pretty tired of the same faces, save for a few that never cease to entertain or amuse me. I can only imagine how difficult it might be putting up with someone you're not entirely fond of since first grade or something. Though I guess my sister might feel that way about me, because apparently she thinks my goal in life is to make her miserable.

It's been a while since I touched a saw to use as a musical saw, but last week I picked one up again for fun. I ended up using it to help K- ask someone to prom and then entered our school talent show. It's quite relaxing for me, and it helps me destress and unwind. Some time when I get a nice amount of free time, I want to go somewhere in a crowded place and just play, wordlessly. I feel like it has an enchanting effect--it did on me when I first heard a musical saw--that kind of puts things in perspective, and makes you think a little. I don't know.

Both Sides of the Story

I can understand completely, but I can't say I'm in the wrong

So to express my pent up anger, I'll rewrite the words to this song

Everyone thinks I am brilliant, social cohesion must take effect

But that will never happen, when my help she does reject

Ohh! We always need to hear both sides of the story.

Both sides of the story!

"Why can't you help her with math, you're already in calculus

If she asks questions about homework, your duty's not to make a fuss"

But what no one seems to get, the pressure isn't just one way

Friends, family, and teachers, bother me nearly every day

Ohh! We always need to hear both sides of the story,

We need to hear both sides of the story.

And the lights are all on, the world is watching now

People looking for truth, I've got to show them now

Be sure before you close your eyes

Don't walk away from here till you see both sides,

No no no no!

To me she has thrice spoken, for me not to perform so well

Often I do outshine her, and my success is her death knell

She's got to live up to standards, some of which she cannot reach

Discouragement and defeat, will in any ego breach

Ohh! We always need to hear both sides of the story

And the lights are all on, the world is watching now

People looking for truth, I've got to show them how

Be sure before you close your eyes

Don't walk away from here till you see both sides,

No no no no no no.

But I can't just stop trying, I've got my future to think about

I cannot just fail my classes, self-motivation can't be put out

She says "Would you think of me! Never to get a brand new start

Forever in your shadow," O' these words do pierce my heart

We always need to hear both sides of the story,

Both sides of the story.

Oh both sides of the story,

Yes both sides of the story.

Oh both sides of the story

Both sides of the story

Both sides of the story

Both sides, both sides of the story

Both sides of the story

Both sides of the story

Both sides, both sides of the story

Both sides of the story

Both sides of the story

Both sides of the story

Must hear both sides of the story