Perspective changes everything. When there's nothing happening in our lives, nothing truly significant, we get hopelessly lost in our own little worlds. When trivial problems that do occur, they appear as giants, blocking the sun and any hope of survival. For the past few months, my world has been college, its homework, exams, essays, or other similar things. Honestly, I can't even count the number of times I've literally cried over being too busy, having a paper due, or not being prepared for a test.
But these things are nothing. They're drops in an ocean of the real world, and I embarrass myself admitting that they scare me sometimes.
When I was in high school, during my sophomore year I took Algebra II. Algebra II is the first hard math that you take in high school, and I found it to be impossible to succeed. One day my teacher took away my test after I had run out of time and I was dumbfounded. How could anyone be so mean? On the way home on the bus I cried on the bus because I had faced something that I wasn't good at. Like a toddler who had lost a game.
Later that week, my biology lab partner Michael died in a car accident on the icy roads of Michigan not a mile from my home. He was 16. His family would never see him again, and here I had been, crying about a math grade that nobody would ever see or care about. Michael wasn't exactly a friend of mine, but after attending his visitation, seeing the face of youth in a coffin, it changed me. Now I knew what loss really looked like.
Recently, I've come to realize this again, how unimportant my "problems" with school really are. There are much more important things, and it's my wish to be continuously mindful of those.
Thursday, March 18, 2010
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Decisions Decisions
This morning I was filling out forms and writing checks for my study abroad program. Pretty big checks, and the mother check of 16,950 USD hadn't even been written yet. And as I was checking the boxes on the appropriate forms and scratch blue ink to match the blue font on the checks, a thought came to me: Could I study abroad for just the fall semester, coming back to do the Winter term here.
Logically, are various, pretty significant advantages to the idea:
PROS:
Save around 10,000 dollars. (That's a lot of money)
Security of graduating on time
More relaxed, enjoyable Senior year.
But even as I weighed the advantages in my mind, my heart sank. While I know that going home would be the smart thing to do, something in me was disappointed. Cherry trees in Japan would be blooming in the spring. And I wouldn't see them.
What's the prince of an experience, what the monetary value can be attached to a memory?
CONS:
Miss potential memories, experiences, i.e. good times. (Winter is depressing)
Miss an opportunity to improve my Japanese...etc.
Be unable to visit Takeshi for months.
(Other various emotional reasons)
Through this debate, I know who the sides are: the Romantic and the Realist. The Romantic knows that when she gets to Japan that she'll probably have some difficulties, or course, but truly enjoy her experience, and not want it to end. Even with the summer program seven months wouldn't be enough.
The Realist knows that the smarter thing would be to go home early, for all of the various reasons above; money, time, etc. "You can't always get what you want"
After I get there and experience life for awhile, the answer will become clear to me, at least I think. But I can feel the two, the Romantic and the Realist, fighting within myself already.
Who should I follow?
Logically, are various, pretty significant advantages to the idea:
PROS:
Save around 10,000 dollars. (That's a lot of money)
Security of graduating on time
More relaxed, enjoyable Senior year.
But even as I weighed the advantages in my mind, my heart sank. While I know that going home would be the smart thing to do, something in me was disappointed. Cherry trees in Japan would be blooming in the spring. And I wouldn't see them.
What's the prince of an experience, what the monetary value can be attached to a memory?
CONS:
Miss potential memories, experiences, i.e. good times. (Winter is depressing)
Miss an opportunity to improve my Japanese...etc.
Be unable to visit Takeshi for months.
(Other various emotional reasons)
Through this debate, I know who the sides are: the Romantic and the Realist. The Romantic knows that when she gets to Japan that she'll probably have some difficulties, or course, but truly enjoy her experience, and not want it to end. Even with the summer program seven months wouldn't be enough.
The Realist knows that the smarter thing would be to go home early, for all of the various reasons above; money, time, etc. "You can't always get what you want"
After I get there and experience life for awhile, the answer will become clear to me, at least I think. But I can feel the two, the Romantic and the Realist, fighting within myself already.
Who should I follow?
Sunday, March 14, 2010
3 AM
Right now I feel so far from the person that i feel I should be. Feel so far from me.
Recently my feelings get crushed as spiderwebs do. They're transparent, not even seen by the observer until it's too late; just one touch and the whole thing is ripped down, have to be built up all over again. Truthfully, I hate myself like this. Hate it that an acquaintance, a friend, a boyfriend can say just one thing, not even say, just look, and the whole infrastructure falls to pieces. And when it starts to fall, there's no stopping it.
Through my fair complexion my face, cheeks and nose especially, flush bright red, and I can feel my eyes sting with heat. As if in an effort to stifle any coherent words, the throat tightens and mouth seals completely. Now I am a time bomb, there's going to be a messy explosion, it's just a matter of where. At this time if I'm in private I can let loose and cry myself into a blubbery stupor, but if it's not appropriate, if i have nowhere to hide, all I can do is try to save face until my chance comes. Sometimes I make it all the way until I get past the card-key lock of my dorm. And sometimes I don't, taking refuge behind a bathroom door, inside of a car.
The thing is, I know how I could do the same to others. You pick out a point they're sensitive about to begin with; something they don't have confidence in, and tap it, just enough to hurt. They'd be done.
When I cry I think it's because I'm angry. Angry that I have so much so say and not the voice to carry it; the energy has to go somewhere, and it's filtered into useless tears. Sometimes I wish I was the kind of person that, when challenged took up a stance to fight. But instead I turn my sword on myself.
And relish in the pain.
Recently my feelings get crushed as spiderwebs do. They're transparent, not even seen by the observer until it's too late; just one touch and the whole thing is ripped down, have to be built up all over again. Truthfully, I hate myself like this. Hate it that an acquaintance, a friend, a boyfriend can say just one thing, not even say, just look, and the whole infrastructure falls to pieces. And when it starts to fall, there's no stopping it.
Through my fair complexion my face, cheeks and nose especially, flush bright red, and I can feel my eyes sting with heat. As if in an effort to stifle any coherent words, the throat tightens and mouth seals completely. Now I am a time bomb, there's going to be a messy explosion, it's just a matter of where. At this time if I'm in private I can let loose and cry myself into a blubbery stupor, but if it's not appropriate, if i have nowhere to hide, all I can do is try to save face until my chance comes. Sometimes I make it all the way until I get past the card-key lock of my dorm. And sometimes I don't, taking refuge behind a bathroom door, inside of a car.
The thing is, I know how I could do the same to others. You pick out a point they're sensitive about to begin with; something they don't have confidence in, and tap it, just enough to hurt. They'd be done.
When I cry I think it's because I'm angry. Angry that I have so much so say and not the voice to carry it; the energy has to go somewhere, and it's filtered into useless tears. Sometimes I wish I was the kind of person that, when challenged took up a stance to fight. But instead I turn my sword on myself.
And relish in the pain.
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