Conversation

It's almost scary how there are certain people I can just talk, and talk, and talk, and talk to, and it never gets dull and I never run out of laughter and we shift from one topic to the next with ease, and it's just relaxing and comfortable even if the topics of our conversation are less than pleasant.

Went to the park in the morning and read a humorous though often confusing book for a while. Then I was joined in the afternoon by K- and we talked about a lot of the people we've met recently and how amazing they are over some light picnicking food, which I think made me look bad because the spaghetti I cooked had cooled and I was gloating about my amazing spaghetti cooking before I realized that heh. I wish we could've chatted more because she's going to China and then I'll have college and that'll suck because talking to her is so damn enjoyable. Then I walked four miles because I forgot to bring money on me and the school bus passes don't work anymore. I was kind of singing as I walked, but after around 200 minutes of conversation I was losing my voice. So maybe not about the chatting more, but maybe like lie in the grass and look at clouds or something.

Tomorrow, I start work, and I'll feel very much like an adult; 9 hour workdays for five days straight, then overnight days for six days straight. I kind of have this voice in the back of my head telling me today was the last day of my childhood. As far as legal definitions are concerned, I'm an adult in less than a month. I'm definitely not complaining about today, and of course as D- told me (in a rough paraphrase) last time I brought up how we're going to be adults soon, youthfulness isn't defined by age unless you let it be. I was surprised by such wise words from his mouth, of course, but I liked that sentiment.

Long story short, I'm pretty sure this was hands down my day best spent all summer.

(except with more overcast skies, cause like, it's Seattle.)

Alegrias

"Everyone wants to be the sun that lights up your life. But I'd rather be your moon, so I can shine on you during your darkest hour when your sun isn't around."

I like this quote, I don't know who it's by.

Source: www.alegrias.me

I also like this image:

Not invincible

I think I sorted through my feelings a bit more.

Today, I went to downtown Seattle (Westlake Center) to meet up with a few other rising freshmen who will be my classmates next year at Stanford. Luckily for me, I live only 20 minutes away; S- drove an hour and 45 minutes or something to get there.

It was great. We walked around proudly wearing our red and white, sang to Under the Sea with some of the buskers, visited the first Starbucks in the world, got fondly licked by police horses, taste tested varieties of olive oil (blackberry, orange and dark chocolate, pear and cranberry, among others), got lost and asked for directions pretending we were Californians, got soaked touching "the butt" (the International Fountain), took a ton of silly pictures, sunbathed in a triangle formation on each other's stomachs (until more people joined, when it just turned into a pile of red and white and grey), and ate good mall fake Asian food.

In a nutshell, I was feeling pretty invincible. I've been told a number of times that I had my future in my hands now that I'm going to Stanford, and it felt true in those six or seven hours.

At around 8:15 my mom picked me up and we headed home. My mom missed the express lane and when I pointed it out she said she had a lot on her mind and wasn't paying attention. I asked what it was, and she told me that the mammogram she had done earlier that day revealed she had cancer. We don't know yet if it's benign or malignant; she has 6 hours' worth of examinations and tests to undergo in the next two business days.

I was pretty determined to be strong for her. I've been watching Avatar the past few weeks (both The Last Airbender and Legend of Korra), and those kids go through way tougher shit than I do. Yes it's a cartoon, but the notions are the same. Be strong in the face of adversity, blahblah.

In addition to that news, something's also happened to my mom's youngest brother (who is 3 years older than her). He had lent us money when we were buying our house like 6 years back, but now he's in financial trouble. For some reason, he had closed the shop he owned and sold his cars. Obviously, my mom wanted to return the favor. However, with a pending divorce, her cancer is a huge financial burden once the divorce goes through and she no longer has access to the insurance policy family plan through my dad's employer.

Last Thursday, I had turned in my application for the Stanford Summer Engineering Academy (SSEA), and I heard today that people were getting their results back by email. I went home and checked my email. Nothing.

It's all crashing down on me now. My dad's a dick and everything that happens with his side of my family inevitably get to him, and if  I could somehow pay my way through college myself, I'd be more than happy to cut off all communication with him. I didn't even want him at my high school graduation. My mom's side of the family actually has people with some level of decency, but look what good it's done them. My mom's sister had an abusive, alcoholic husband, and, now divorced, she's single at the age of 50 and some change. My older maternal uncle divorced when their son was in college (sounds familiar?), remarried, and now I have a cousin who's 2. My younger maternal uncle is still happy in marriage, but something's happening with his financial security apparently. And of course my parents are separating, and my mom has cancer. I got into Stanford? So what? The world is by no means at my doorstep. In fact, if anything, it's only been slipping further and further away in the last few months. And of course, there's nothing I can do about it, because plenty of Ivy League graduates don't have jobs, and I'm not even like top of my class kind of thing, SSEA kind of proves it.

I'm pretty much Harry Potter. And when everyone goes home on vacations, my mom will be in Taiwan and only in the best case scenario. The worst case scenario I don't even want to type out.

And when I thought of that analogy, it made me realize, I'm pretty much utterly alone. As far as loved ones go, I have it worse than Harry. Having your parents die before you were conscious is terrible, I'm not denying that. But I'd take pleasure knowing my parents died to save me. And also, Harry had the Weasleys to stay with. I might be great with people (all the new people I met today + the strangers on the street seem to suggest that that's true), but how many people do I feel close enough to just crash at their house for a while? None, really. College is hitting me full force right now, it's sunk in that I'm done with high school. It's only a month and 3 days before I'm legally an adult; it's about time I mentally readied myself for it. And I'm fucking scared as hell.

I wonder which takes longer to sink in, realizing you're done with high school and going off to college, or news that your mom has cancer.

Overactive Imagination?

Very often, I have this introspective dilemma where something someone says or writes haunts me for hours or days. A lot of times, it's accompanied by the self-doubt where I think that I'm reading too much into things, but I always end up concluding that it's better too assume that all the subtexts are actually there because it's better safe than sorry, in a weird way.

I feel like it's a perpetuation of an arguably traumatic elementary school (I think?) lesson on subliminal messaging. It was about how the media portrays things or something, and how advertising tries to infiltrate your subconscious. I also remember that Sprite commercial from years ago that was titled or nicknamed or something "Subliminal Messaging" and had a lot of people partying and holding Sprite bottles while they danced and it ended without ever actually having the word "Sprite" in plain font and it freaked me out.

Basically, when I hear or read things, mostly from people I know, that might have something to do with me, I frequently assume it is for me. It's like those teachers that tell the entire class something and then follow it up with "you know who you are" and everyone in the class assumes its them even though it's actually nobody. Unless I'm just making that up from some article I might've read from a psychology blog, or about Nazis.

I think it boils down to me not being able to tell when something is relevant to me, or merely relatable for me. There are times when it's remarkably clear that something is relevant; usually that's the easy one. It's easy to tell when something definitely is meant for my eyes or ears. But when things aren't meant for me, it becomes hazy in my mind. I think this also makes me self-centered, which carries a pretty negative connotation. Maybe paranoia or self-conscious is better, but I feel like this isn't necessarily an inhibition or like some mental handicap; instead, it helps me become a better person because I assume criticisms are about me. I am totally not sure at all.

And guilt, that's a whole different thing. I'm almost sure I can guilt trip myself. If I don't live up to my own expectations, I then feel guilty about doing all the things which I attribute to my failure. It is so easy to guilt trip me, and I can recognize it's a guilt trip, and I'll still fall for it. I guess this makes it so that it's pretty easy to use me, and I think I'm getting better at barricading my brain from unfounded accusations or negativity, but it's still a struggle right now.

I guess it's not really a whole different thing. So often I feel the need to assume responsibility for things that aren't necessarily my fault, and of course the guilt is doubly or more worse when I know that it's about me. And it's a horrible feeling. I distinctly remember back in 8th grade a friend of mine wrote on her blog that guilt is a magnifying glass of pain, and I loved that analogy.

You'd think knowing this problem would make it easier to deal with it. I thought so too, and after coming to this realization a couple of months ago, and then talking to a few likeminded people about it--fortunately, I might add, it appears I'm not the only one who sucks at dealing with guilt--today, in a casual conversation I totally fell into this sort of mental trap and didn't realize it until she told me "it's okay, I [just] love making people feel unnecessarily guilty." Wow, great going, self.

All in all though, I'm not sure I would trade how I approach emotions and people for a different way. Even though I always assume the worst, I feel like in the long run it'll be better than always assuming the best. Because there certainly are times when I just hit a low point and am ashamed of myself whether others are or not, and I firmly believe that that shame will be a better catalyst for personal change or growth than people telling me outright that I need to change, because I can be really stubborn.

Wow my last two weeks with regards to someone totally makes sense now. You will never get me to do anything about my stubbornness telling it to my face, but after a little reflection you've caused me to kind of embrace it as a flaw I need to change I think? Whatever happened, thanks. I hope we never not talk again.

Some recent meaningful episodes of communication

In the past 24 hours, three people have really taken the time to just communicate to me.

One of the conversations wasn't pleasant at all--far from it, actually, and it left me in a terrible and irritable mood--but it was meaningful and deep nevertheless. It was about friendship and grudges, and the conversation was had face-to-face, and I liked that. It ended on a horrible note though, with the two of us stubbornly insisting that we'd never talk to each other again, and I'm not sure if I meant that. On the one hand, I felt that she was being extremely immature and not respecting my opinion, and also not understanding everything I've been through when it comes to family and robotics. On the other hand, I feel like she had good intentions, but simply conveyed it terribly and immaturely.

The other two came in the form of handwritten letters. Both of them were thought-provoking and a little on the flattering side, though both authors made sure to clarify that no flattery was intended, and they were simply speaking the truth. In any case, they were really heartfelt, and I kind of got goosebumps as I read them. I have a need to be needed or appreciated, and satisfying that need isn't an everyday occurrence.

Perhaps the saddest thing is that in all three of these cases, the people involved I've known for two years or fewer. I have way more to say writing in the yearbooks of people I haven't been in classes with for upwards of four or five years. I'd like to believe that it's not because we've grown apart with time, but that it's simply a personality kind of thing, that even if I had been with the same people for only a year, I'd have just as little to say to them. Ultimately, I think that it'll become apparent soon with the inevitable distance as we go off to college which of my friends I miss and which I don't.

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.