真読、どっち？

There are times when, in written language, I am not sure how to read something, what the thoughts behind a sentence, a link, a quote, an inside-joke are supposed to mean. Not being able to ask straight away, feeling way too awkward to ask for an elaboration (the reasons being so far too silly to go into) and as if I should be questioning the intent behind it, I write an equally cryptic reply, or maybe I am seen straight through. How strange!, this text-based world we navigate in.

Life gets hard

Good news today:
Brother's graduation, an awesome friend is coming back here for med school!, tomorrow will be a fun day with another good friend.

But one piece of info I can't help but zoom in on in a message from a person I've been waiting to hear back from, and everything crashes down, my head is filled with the negativity I'm notorious for, I feel like I can't function. I should have taken a chance a long time ago, listened to advice from myself and friends, taken the initiative. But I feel like I'm going crazy, and don't know what to do about it, and feel like I might make a huge mistake any moment now. Hopefully I can talk about it with someone tommorow. Why do I torment myself like this?

Being at home is hard

An encouraging quote I heard on a commercial the other day, that's getting me excited about study abroad. The same is true for college, or at least it used to be:

"Isn't it funny, when we go someplace where nobody knows us, we become most ourselves."

Here's that list of stuff I want to do this summer:

• Find my book from Japanese Lit. I'm getting upset about this.
• Sheldon art galleries -- thesheldon.org
• Clayton Farmers Market (Done and it sucked)
• Art Museum -- general collection and weekly gallery talks -- slam.org
• Jungle Boogie at the Zoo -- stlzoo.org (Still a little too kiddy? Need to find the right band maybe. And that dancing lady goes to it @___@ she ruins everything for me now... Who the heck is she? And why is what she does legal again?)
  
• Missouri Botanical Gardens -- the garden itself, Garden Party Nights, and the Whitaker Music Festival -- mobot.org
• The Muny -- muny.org
• Drive-in Movie Theatre Date
  
• Twilight Teusdays at the Missouri History Museum -- mohistory.org
• Contemporary Art Museum -- contemporarystl.org
  
• Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts -- pulitzerarts.org
• Laumeier Sculpture Park -- Music and film evenings --
  
• Cahokia Mounds
• Citygarden Opening (at Plaza Frontenac??)
• The Hill
• Metro -- Ride from Shrewsbury to the other end (across the river), also see what's around the Maplewood Stop
• File taxes from the past 4 years or so
• Taiwanese Heitage Week at the Science Center
• Gain listening comprehension of Spanish and reading comprehension of German , learn to read/write Hangul
• Skype some important people
• Steady exercise program, which includes biking (biking completely through Forest Park (so pretty)! and possibly Moonlight Ramble), running, weightlifting, push/pull-ups/crunches/sit-ups/supermans/cores
• Keep up with Chinese, possibly buy 2nd year books for study
• Learn 1000 漢字 (= buy the 4th year book from the bookstore -__-;;) and sucessfully keep a written journal in Japanese
• Ted Drewes/Mr. Wizard's
• Cook
• Hang out with other STL people
• Go Hiking
• Build Tent, camp in backyard
• Pack up stuff want to keep in boxes, throw everything else away
• Watch a lot of movies
• Wake up at a consistent time (as of now 8 am) and be moving by within 30 minutes of awakening
• Keep up on music, dramas
• Learn about American culture
• Read all the books in my pile
  

More to come, hopefully? Or maybe, not so hopefully. Hehe.

Failing so far in the "Do Something with Your Summer" plan, but hopefully that will start to change tommorow. Got a bike finally, and am actually getting out and exercising -- I hurt my foot the first day I ran, not from running but from walking in shoes too small and without any arch support, more suited for standing at parties and attempting to look cool than actually getting around anywhere -- so the bike is a blessing, and I'm losing some of the weight I put on this year from so much self-imposed stress and non-exercise.

(30 minutes later)
Anyway, I need to get out of here, an incomplete list of stuff I want to do this summer is soon to come!

Reply and some other stuff

It's really nice to have older friends. Like she says, this 4 month vacation, I can't waste it. The trouble is finding something to do with it, and how to learn about myself and my culture, in a way I will be able to talk about it if neccessary and as training for finding those gems in another, one I am supposed to have been learning about? Going beyond language ability -- what is ability if you have nothing to express? -- I need to figure out how to do that.

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(reply/返事/反应開始）

How do you reply to people's posts on this?
It was broken into paragraphs haha, I just forgot to space them out.

But yeah, don't worry Chang. I haven't seen any (read: much :P) bitch-like behavior in you. Besides I couldn't abandon you if I wanted to, you're an integral part of my HOLY SHIT I NEED MORE GUY FRIENDS initiative ahahaha.

What that was was me venting about struggling with this and talking about a few relationships with only a few groups of people; time, for me, is one of those things you can make (no matter how 'busy' you might be) and when you spend it with someone it's one of those basic ways to show that appreciation you were talking about.

I guess I wasn't really clear, but basically, I have a lot of relationships where if I'm not around, I'm not even thought of, unless someone literally wants something done for them, and I'm more or less the only one that can do it for them (and the people that do the wanting are even fewer in number). To even be noticed I have to come around; I've had conversations where, after a bout of self-induced seclusion, I come around and people say something like: "You hadn't been around in a while. I was worried," which not only includes their assumption that everything is fine now, but they didn't bother to go to me if they actually were "worried". And then you get when people claim they are too busy to do something with me, only to have me find out they spent time doing ridiculous things and putting off work (if they even had any), which happened even with my best friends this year. It took me so long to figure out I was sick of it all and it was making me unhappy. Not to mention I almost screwed up everything this year grade-wise and ruining my chance to go to Japan, which is basically all I'm looking forward to at this point (I should have gone to Shanghai this summer too). It's a lot of hope to put into something, but I realized that as sad as it sounds, I will only miss (想念）a handful of people and 3 absolutely amazing teachers, and most of my "missing out" feelings will be that I won't have the chance to get closer to a few people I find really interesting, and events that will be happening (especially helping out with Heisei. I've been excited for the club to make some changes and here there are coming (hopefully) and I'm not going to be around to see/make sure they happen)...

There was even one girl who, in the midst of all my unhappiness, would approach me at the times she would run into me on campus saying things like she was waiting for me to come to her; I couldn't tell whether she was just trying to get in my pants/looking for a boyfriend (those freaked me out for a while and is a whole 'nother issue and another story), or just wanted to be friends, but I could never tell her I wasn't willing to extend myself into another relationship where I would have to do that first, even once. (Besides, reflecting I feel like the minimal energy she was expending was enough for her to take that next step...)

So yeah, I got into one of my "game" playing moods and well... it's incredibly easy to cut these kinds of people off, but it's a really bitter feeling.

I'll be empty til that day....

Man, it's 12:30 and here I am sitting in the living room at the table in the same position I've been in for a good 4 or 5 hours because this is one of the few "convenient" places to get wireless internet for my laptop... and I wind up staring at this screen largely looking at nothing, chatting away to far-away friends and waiting minutes at a time for responses or to type them. And I wonder why I'm tired of this existence, and crave for it when I'm not here.
I finished watching Speedgrapher today. It was a disappointing ending, though that's certainly how I feel about a lot of things lately. It got me thinking though, about money, greed, power, compulsion, sin, indulgence -- and how sickening a lot of it really is. But also a lot of it turned me on (no pun intended) to this sort of thinking, and with my worst-possible-outcome thinking attitude, those type of things are the first to jump to my mind now. I notice sometimes, just how much the last thing I've read, watched, or been around effects the way I think, and I wonder if it's why I've been turned onto food so much, the people I've been with. Even though I know I've been able to resist and am turning myself away from many of the things that were just leftover impressions on me from other people, breaking away and preparing for my time abroad and trying not to worry about what will happen when - or if (there it goes again, that thinking of mine) - I get back.
Speaking of, I've been really sick of these one-way relationships that seem to plague my life, where I am the only one that makes the time, or effort, to go and visit, care about, and spend time with a person when there is not some sort of direct benefit masked behind false intentions. I tried that once and not only was I unsuccessful (that happens with inexperience and when the opposition is a recluse, I guess), but I was pretty sickened by it. I understand, and basically have made exceptions for a few people who are incredibly important to me, who not only save me from myself but actually worry about me and check up on me when I'm not around and who let me know I'm missed, and for a few people I think I used to know inside and out but may not deserve it, but even those have become painful and I feel betrayed and distanced everytime one of them gets into a new relationship, or I see them interacting with someone in a way much more familiar than they can with me, when I see someone else has taken a place I feel I belong, when I'm not even told about a situation and left to deduce it myself, and not told the whole about a situation one I have deduced it, well I've been getting pretty fed up about it. And so I've been going back to the way I feel like I should sometimes, playing one of those little games with people, seeing what happens when I stop taking the initiative, or rather, stop the entire relationship by halting everything from my side, and seeing if the other reacts, or notices at all. So far the results have been extremely disappointing, as much as I want to say to myself those type of people don't matter and don't really do anything for me. The other day I was wondering why my first semester this past year is an incredible blur (much more than the usual blur everything turns to), aside from a few choice classes and a few choice homework assignments and a few choice events, and I realized it was that while I was trying to get one of those people I thought I knew well to return something to me, to acknowledge me and dedicate some amount of time to me, I was also trying so hard to go out and cultivate a place for myself, a place that really didn't work out or care about me, and which more or less screwed me over and left me with, well, nothing. Or problems to solve.

Got distracted by the hipster grifter -- I'll finish these thoughts another day...