in-between

Today was marked by the moments in between, sun in my eyes and the grass so green. Sandwiched between the last lost hour of class and a little crushed dream, I watched the cloudless sky and a dark bug zip by and I wondered about life, about love, the hows and whys. When do we just know, how do we know, what do we know? And what do we deserve? And how can we see, from the outside looking in, what is a facade and what's genuine? There's nothing like experience and we can only have our own, so here's to you and yours. I just know, some are meant to love and some are not, it's not a basic human right. It's another acceptance process and we can be sad or happy about it but it all boils down to the only changing factor, which is you. The only thing to change is you. Change your mind, your expectations, and change the world around you. Fast forward past rejection and some errands and I'm in my favorite sandwich shop, gazing at the people passing by and wondering, again, why. I'm alone here, me, but there's no where and no one else I'd rather be. So I'll live slowly and recognize that things just happen, or they don't. But that bug in the sun and this sandwich on my my tongue made my day what it happened to be -- perfect for me, just what I need.

---

Oh, today. So I faced rejection today, but to be honest I'm not too disappointed. Congratulations SPOP 2010!

To be honest I didn't really expect to get it; I guess in my heart of hearts I knew I wouldn't because I felt that I had taken my share from what I applied for. I got Alternative Spring Break, discussion leader, and Campus Rep. And I'm thrilled about all three, and so excited to be a part of all three. I guess I wanted SPOP to be the cherry on top of my sundae but I can't have it all. Plus I don't really like cherries, anyway.

Like T said, it gives other people an opportunity to grow. My growth is gonna happen in Campus Rep and everything else and I'm so thrilled to be granted those opportunities, so I shan't be greedy. There's always next year and if it wasn't meant to happen this year then it just wasn't.

Not to say I wasn't disappointed, because I was, of course. But at the same time I feel selfish being disappointed because I'm so lucky to have what I have.

Anyway, this was not meant to be a post about how I feel about not getting SPOP.

Today was overall a good day. I think I'm lost in this cloud of apathy just because I've been so sleep-deprived and stressed lately. But from this cloud I managed to pull out a few strands of good moments. I sat in the park for a while and contemplated life and love with M, wandered about campus finding good company, had a spring break meeting, then went grocery shopping (such a luxury) and ate a sandwich at Le Dip by myself. I really liked eating alone, it was just what I needed after a mess of a week.


And. I'm in the works to switch schools in the spring. Pretty sure I'm going to be majoring in Anthropology, HOLLER! I'm happy with this. I'm not enough of a go-getter to succeed at journalism, and though I love writing, I don't think I'm the right personality type to major in it. I could see myself hating it as time wore on with forced assignments and everything. I like the relationship I have with writing now, and I think it's something I can cultivate without the stress of majoring in it. Also I get to let go of French which is a GREAT relief.

I feel in-between in everything. Waiting for the winter to end and on the brink of the spring. Newly initiated, not fully active. Leaving Humanities and entering Social Sciences. Just caught in-between. The awkward lull of anticipation and wondering what it'll be like when I experience it. All I can do is wait. Wait and respect the process and appreciate that everything happens and everything is perfect just the way it is.

it's fight club

I pretty much had the best emo playlist of songs running alllll day today, LAME! It sucks though cause I love singing along, cause I know all the words, and I can pretend like I understand what they're saying. Time together isn't ever quite enoughhhh blah blah blah. It's bogus though, I'm tellin ya.

Anyway. You know how sometimes you keep punching a wall, and then steadily your body builds defenses and calluses itself against the certain pain you'd feel? Until some time you just stop noticing that pain should be present and then you realize, job well done, defenses up, no more bleeding. Then you wonder where it is and stop yourself and say hey -- it's so much more fun NOT feeling like shit!

Like when I ice skated breaking in new skates was always a bitch and a half. Bleeding toes and blistered ankles, SO cute, but sooner or later your skin builds up a higher tolerance in all those spots that rub you sore. I know the exact spots where the backs of my ankles are callused in a spot the size of a pencil eraser, because last summer when I put my skates back on, those old calluses had disappeared and sure enough when I took off my skates they were bleeding on my tights. Getting yourself into your old rhythm and doing something that was once so easy is really tough, you don't really notice all the little sore spots until all of a sudden you do.

Ok I'm gonna stop talking about feet. What I'm saying is, sometimes, you train yourself emotionally like this, too. Sometimes you know what to expect and save yourself future insecurity; then when it all goes according to plan you can congratulate yourself and just keep on moving. There's not enough time to decipher how you feel, moving is living and it's a one-way street. Basically you just hold your breath and let everything fly out the window, dive in and smile. There is no time for 'what if'!! We are flying high speed, pedal to the metal, towards our own death and REALLY there is not enough time for all the what ifs in the world!

This morning I woke up feeling like P.Diddy. No, I kid. HAHA. But really I didn't really feel anything. I'm so apathetic. At first I was worried and was like, hey, maybe I should force myself into overdrive and over think and like feel like a sad little girl and nitpick and mope about all my flaws and shortcomings etcetera...which I am TOTALLY capable of, but NO! TODAY was day of Dim Sum and girl bonding and SHOPPING and writing my essay, bleh. But today was so good. (:

I don't have the capacity for emotion right now, I don't think. Robot life? I don't know, one of these days, sooner or later, somethings gonna whip me into shape and remind me I'm a normal person and normal people deal with feelings... till then I guess it's the same old, see, the constellations in the sky will always leave me high and dry.

OH but today I was almost close to tears (I think) when I talked to my parents on the phone. My internet situation is soo not happening right now, and they told me they'd get me a wifi router and send it, but it's been three weeks and still no wifi. So I talked to them and they said "oh we thought since you didn't call you didn't need it anymore." UH, HELLOOO? They had said since week ONE that they'd look for one and send one ASAP. And they ALWAYS lag like this. Like not buying me a bed either. GRRR. But yeah that was pretty much the emotional climax of my day, what was yours?

locked inside that house

So for such a short week of school, it dragged on for what felt like an eternity! Maybe it was the crazy weather, I'm pretty sure I've done enough bitching about wet socks to last...another eternity.

Irvine got exciting for a while, what with all these strong winds and downpours and thunder and lightning shows! Then yesterday some guy was strolling around the Student Center buck naked and got arrested apparently. WILD TIMES.

Anyway, I kind of hope the rain continues this weekend, just so I can feel justified when I sit on the couch for hours on end watching movies and Sex & the City and ICE SKATING!!! Plus it'll be nice to just sit indoors and KNOW you won't have to go out and brave the wilderness to go to class. So my 2010 goal was to not ditch class and this week I ditched 2 because I was not devoted enough to get drenched for my classes. I know, I knowww... education>weather. Also I fell asleep in my anthro class with my cute/funny professor and I am SO, SO sad, so I have resolved to get more sleep, and thus fall asleep in his class never ever again.

Another nice thing, I think, will be to be relatively alone this weekend. I tumblr-ed about this earlier this week I think but I do really enjoy my ME TIME! And I think I over-socialized myself without getting some stuff done that I really need to do, ie clean my room, because I seriously have about four square feet of open floor space at the moment. Grand, I know. So yeah, time to dig away into my little hidey-hole.

PLUS, I bought this Thai sauce from Trader Joe's that I am dying to try out. OOH. I should probably go defrost some chicken breasts right nowww. MMMM 6:

I feel like an elitist sometimes...or just supremely detached. Someone said TFC? I hope to GOD I don't come off as that but, as someone else said, usually I'm just caught up in my own world with relatively little regard for the rest of the goings-on of the world. Isn't everyone like that though? I don't know how to further explain this. This blog was unsubstantial BUT I shall leave with this one realization: it's always what you make of it, and nobody will ever understand your full truth. But what gives? Don't worry your pretty little head.

GOAL: get over 24 hours of sleep this weekend. Hahahah...pretty do-able, I'd say. Also get everything else done. Yeah. Ta-ta!

more looking back

2007 was a great year.

I feel like I used to be funny, but am not anymore. I don't feel interesting or weird anymore. DID I LOSE IT?

edit/
I didn't mean this post to sound like I was fishing for compliments or reassurance. Now when I read it that's what I see...haha that's my bad. I guess it was a temporary fall into nostalgia/insecurity.

A skype session with T/M in Davis and A/C at my house reminded me to not look sadly upon the past. The conversation with A and C also reassured me how much I've grown since 2007 or whenever, really...and the time that has passed and the lessons that came with it should be something that I value rather than look upon nostalgically. I still miss things, though.

Anyway. Best of luck to A...and to all of us I guess. (:

looking back

If you could re-do the past year, would you?

---

A's departure for college made me think of myself at this time last year. On the brink of a whole other life, unsure of what would come of the transition. I definitely was not myself when I got to Irvine.

When I think back on it all, I suppose I was thrust into something so uncertain that of course, I felt desperate and sought a quick escape from the confusion. Maybe I landed too fast. Maybe a good amount of floundering is necessary. I guess I floundered for a bit but then tightly grasped the first thing that came my way. Which was a mistake on my part.

Since then I know I've grown a lot. I think I'm becoming more secure with who I am, but I think part of this security comes from who I surround myself with. I have a stronger sense of self when I'm in NorCal, maybe because my friends have known me longer and already know who I am and how I behave. So because they know me better, I'm less conscious of my actions and less interested in how I appear to others. Maybe it's an insecurity thing, fail. Maybe it's because I care too much about what people think. Fail times two.

There shouldn't have to be this difference between home 1 and home 2. College is a weird place I guess. I wish I had more people like my home-friends, people who I can just kick it and be silly with. It's coming with time but patience was never a strong trait.

I think when fall quarter starts I will be thinking about this less. When I am here, I miss Irvine, when I am in Irvine, I miss Norcal. Can't I just have everything I want whenever I want it?

I don't know what spurred this train of thought. I feel like summer is ending! I am leaving for Hong Kong/Singapore/Indonesia in 24 hours. I have not packed. This should not be a surprise to any of you. Hahaha.

be still

Today was a weird day for me. I think I woke up on the wrong side of the bed. Lucky for me there are things in my life that can easily change that. For instance, this amazing view with these amazing people...I wanted to freeze time and sit there for eternity, not saying a word. Like I said before, sometimes things just feel right.

And sometimes it feels like the world is whizzing by. People are going to college soon and I'm embarking on this rather epic Asia-journey in a little over a week. The summer is passing by faster than I expected -- but each moment is rich and valued so I don't really feel at a loss. Some things are falling into place, which I'm enjoying. And the things that aren't...I don't really miss. I feel a definite change in myself and others. Change is good.

And something I learned: sometimes I need to just be quiet and appreciate. It's usually my instinct to have something to say...but sometimes silence speaks for itself. Right?

potential

I used to have it once.

---

Today, I went back to the ice rink to watch a competition, a pretty big competition that I used to skate in all the time. It was surreal, just being in the same atmosphere that I had once been so comfortable in. The excessive rhinestones, the two-faced attitudes of competitive skaters and their bitchy moms...but also the beauty of it all. I felt like a fish out of water and I wanted to cry out, "I belong here! I was once that girl out there on the ice!!!"

But of course, that would just make me even more irrelevant. And I was already feeling irrelevant enough as it is. The tiny little kids I used to skate with had grown up. At 11 or 12, they were getting closer to my height and quickly surpassing any skill I ever had on the ice. These tiny, talented girls. Practically bouncing with potential and actually utilizing it, honing their talent because it was something they loved, and it could probably take them somewhere. I wanted to tell them how LUCKY they were. I wanted to tell them to hold on to it and love it as long as they could.

They spoke of such big dreams. I forgot how competitive and BIG everything was in the ice skating world...big competitions, big names, and that translates into big schools when talk of college got around. It made me feel smaller...it's a different world in there.

It was quite the fish tank. I was extremely left out. It's the worst feeling: when you're no longer relevant in a world that you were once an integral part of. When something that was once your whole life moves on without you.

I was filled with envy and regret. Watching everyone skate made me realize how much I had lost and how much I had wasted. I guess now I really know what it feels like to take something for granted, and realize too late how much it meant.

Running into my old coach only cemented this fact further. "Are you ever going to come back?" he asked, with the same tone of voice that I once feared. I knew I missed the sport, dearly. But a lot had changed; my body and lifestyle wouldn't allow for an easy transition back into this world. I wish I had at least skated for the rest of high school (do I really? This is tough). Or I wish that I had at least valued it while I had it, because by the end of it, I was ready to forget about skating. I was tired, jaded...and I needed a break. But it was laziness that changed that break into an altogether halt. Even when I knew I missed it, I didn't return.

"You were amazing." We relived some memories and talked about the old days, which made me miss it even more. Competitions, routines, music, strengths and weaknesses...it all came rushing back and I realize how much fun it really was. And now I beat myself down -- why did I throw that away? Why didn't I appreciate it at it's full value?

There's nothing I can really do now. I'm planning on lacing up my skates again, hopefully in the near future, but it'll just be a hobby. There won't be that chance for improvement, that rush for competition, that thirst for learning something new, and that satisfaction of a weary body and a lesson that pushed me hard. It'll be different but this is one of those times I feel like I'll be lucky to settle.

---

And lately I've been surrounded with so much potential like this. Running into my old tennis superstar family friend, just talking to friends, watching dancers, watching skaters. Where's my potential? Did I really waste it all, when I was younger and unaware of my own luck? Where could I be now, WHO would I be now, if I had realized so much earlier?

I guess there's a different kind of potential now. When my coach asked me what I wanted to do for a living, I told him I wanted to write, with no hesitation. But there was a quiet voice inside my head telling me it wouldn't be enough. Because I want some stronger, more expressive form of expression to be part of my life again. Maybe that's why I'm trying to run back to ice skating, or half-heartedly trying to run towards dancing. We'll see where that takes me, I guess.

If anything, this whole experience has taught me to do whatever I can to do what I love. That part of growing up -- recognize your desire, then chase it. Simple.