The Little Things in Life

• I met with my philosophy professor (who I admire because of his intelligence and knowledge in philosophy) about my final paper since I was iffy about certain things. It was really helpful being able to talk things through with him and I figured out how I’m going to approach the agreement/disagreement portion of my final paper. I was so nervous about having to come up with a philosophical hypothesis on why I disagreed with certain aspects of Aristotle’s ideology, but my professor told me that the example I came up with is difficult to determine whether the person would be acting morally or immorally, so I can argue both sides. I’m really happy about this because maybe now, I can possibly get a high A on this paper and maintain an A for the course…I can only lose 2 points on this or else I’ll get an A-. Anyways, regardless of my grade, my professor’s still pretty amazing. I like the way he lectures us, he’s never condescending, and always open to help his students. If I needed another philosophy core, I would definitely take him.
• In the same day, while I was going home, my phone didn’t have any signal while I was at the train station because my brother and mom got me a new phone while I was at school. It turns out that my phone was no longer working. Earlier, I told my dad to pick me up at 3:30, but I figured that he was waiting for my phone call since I always call him 10 minutes before I get to the train station. I waited until 3:35, but he still wasn’t there, so I figured that he was still waiting for my call. I asked the lady who works for CTA whether she had a phone I could use or not and she told me that their phone can only be used for CTA train purposes, it didn’t work otherwise. I thanked her anyways and waiting for the next person to walk by. A few minutes later, an older lady walked by and I asked her if she had a phone I can use and she didn’t. I guess the CTA worker saw that I was having trouble so she ended up offering up her phone even though it was a prepaid phone that goes by minutes. I was thankful because I would have been screwed otherwise. While I was waiting to be picked up, there was a middle-aged man who was having trouble putting money on his CTA card and so the CTA worker tried to help him out, but he was ignoring her on purpose and being rude. He even yelled at her about her willingness to help him. He ran to put in his ticket to go to the train platform and she was calling him, to which he was ignoring her. She was calling him because he had left his money. Even after his ignorance and rudeness, she still continued to call his name so that the money would get to him. I seriously look up to her and people who are kind like that. I don’t really know much about her, but just through her actions, I could tell that she was a genuinely kind person. I ended up waving goodbye to her.
• Today, I checked my email and received an email from SSWD which is the program at Loyola for students with learning disabilities. I get paid to turn in notes every day to them and they send it to the student that is in my class because I’m not supposed to know who the student is; it protects their privacy. I remember last semester when I went to a study group for my sociology and religion class, the girl who I took notes for thanked me personally for taking good notes for her. She thanked me and complimented me on it and I was really appreciative that it affected her ability to learn so much. Today, I received an email from the coordinator of the program telling me that the student thanked me for the notes and also wished me good luck on my finals.

It’s the little things that happen in life like these things that make me so thankful for everything. It may be finals week next week and I may be stressing out over this final paper for philosophy, but I’m honestly so grateful for things like these. I feel so blessed to have these encounters.

I’m planning on starting Insanity tomorrow. Hopefully I stick with it ‘cause I’m getting fat as fuck.

I think I’m happy about where my life is headed towards. At least I hope this is true.

Random Thoughts

I’ve really been appreciating my friends more recently. I am thankful for all of the friends who are always there for me and dealing with my shit because I know that I’m not always pleasant to be around.

• One of my friends gave me a pep talk during Unofficial about how I shouldn’t be down because of a boy.
• I realized that although you annoy me, you’re probably one of the most loyal and nicest friend that I have. You’re always there for me even when I don’t want you to be. I’m so thankful that you are…really.
• I’m thankful for all of the friends that are always there for me when I need to just rant and talk to them about everything.
• I appreciate the gesture of always trying to include me in on things, especially since I’m the only girl in the group (for now), it seriously makes me feel like I’m part of the group.
• Thankful too all the people who deal with my boy crush shit. Seriously, I’ve been like bipolar about this crap just because I’m such an indecisive and worrisome person. I’m thankful for everyone trying to help me out with it, no matter what comes out of it.
• I have an amazing group of friends. Each and every one of them; I’m thankful for all of them. They are all important and essential parts of my life.

I’ve realized that life passes by so quickly—we’re practically halfway done with our undergraduate career. Tim flies by so quickly, it’s unbelievable.

Sometimes I wonder if all of this work will be worth it in the end. So much stress, lack of sleep, and time spent on school. What if I’m not smart enough to achieve this career goal? 

I’m scared of the future. Always have been, always will be. I’ll always fear what will come of my actions. 

• Whether I’ll become a doctor or not.
• Whether I’ll end up being happy…
• Who I’ll be friends with 5 years from now, and later on.
• Never finding someone to share my life with.
• Not succeeding.
• Not reaching my goals.
• Everything.

I really want the summer to come, just because. I love the feeling of freedom and what seems to be eternal bliss and happiness, besides the point that I’ll have to do something productive and medical related this summer.

I was kind of upset about one particular thing…but whatever, I know I’ll get over it. I’m honestly confused about myself. I think I like you, I feel like I actually do…but who knows, I always try to force myself not to, just because I wouldn’t want to give myself the chance of getting hurt. Honestly, at this point, I won’t be too upset if nothing happens, I’m actually fine with that. After all  I do need to focus on school and school is a great distraction from anything that you don’t want to think about. I don’t mind whatever may manifest from this crush.

And…I really hope that you like me too, because I think I’d be a little upset if  you didn’t, but then again, that’s life…and life goes on.

A part of me wants to cry about how broken and fucked up our family is…but the other part of me is so thankful for the special family members in my life. I’m not sure if we should even be calling ourselves a family…we couldn’t even pull together for a day to celebrate Chinese New Year together. I’ve always had a special place in my heart that knew how special our family was. Growing up, I knew very few other people who hung out with their families as much as we did. We took pride in it; we would always hang out with each other every weekend. But as I grew older, I realized how demeaning and condescending our family really is. I guess I always knew in in the back of my mind, but as I grew more knowledgeable and paid more attention to all of the little details, I realized how our family push us backwards instead of forwards. I never really understood it…You always hear quotes like, “Blood is thicker than water” and how, “Family are the best friends you don’t get to choose”…so you’d expect family to always be there for you…for them to always have your back and support you.

Aristotle stated that there are 3 types of friendships…the first type is through utilization…you become friends with someone because you can use them for something. The second type is pleasure/pleasant…you are friends with them because they bring something pleasant to you such as being good company or making you happy. The only true/real friendship to Aristotle was “good friendship,” which is the type of friendship where you want your friends to be good/virtuous and you also want that for yourself. In return, your friend also wants you to be good/virtuous. In this friendship, you guys both want each other to be good. I always used to think that family was like this; that we automatically wanted the best for our family members…that we wanted only good things for them, that we wouldn’t do anything that would make them feel bad or do bad things. This idea was always disproved by other families. I always heard about family members killing each other for life insurance money…or people stabbing each other behind their backs, but I never knew that it would come out of our family. I always thought that I was 100% grateful for our family & that we always had each other’s backs…maybe I was naive…maybe I was stupid, but this is certainly not the case. 

 We always fight, we bicker, and we can’t even let go of little things just so that we get along. Nowadays, it always seems as if we fight or argue each time we have a get-together. I’m so tired of this. I’m tired of arguing and fighting over stupid things. I’m tired of the majority of our family pretending like we’re this one big fucking happy ass family. We’re not…none of us are. We have too many damn problems. No one wants to swallow their pride just so we can enjoy time together. Everyone’s always trying to bring each other down. People are always trying to one-up each other in our family. It’s always about being better than each other. Who has the best children, which child is going to be the most successful, who’s the tallest, who’s smart, who’s dumb. I’m so fucking tired of this. Why is it that every time we get together, we always have to compare the children? Why do we focus on the negative characteristics of each other? Why do we do this? It’s slowly deteriorating our family. It’s gotten to the point where I don’t even care about the older generation. I’m so tired of someone saying something each time I see them. It doesn’t even phase me anymore, I’m so used to it. It’s like i’m numb from the pain, and I don’t expect anything more from our family. I always assume that someone’s going to say something about each of us. And you wonder why we don’t stick around. You wonder why we’re leaving states for college. This is why. Because sometimes, the majority of our family sucks. Everyone’s trying to be better than the person next to them. They’re trying to find reasons to brag about their own families. Why can’t we just appreciate each other’s company like normal, civilized human beings and compliment each other on things that are good? 

And it’s really sad. It takes a toll on all of us kids. We’re technically not kids anymore…but it’ll always affect us. I think every one of us has been scarred for the rest of our lives because of what the older generation has said. We’ve been told that we’re ugly, dumb, fat…you name it, we’ve been called it. And you guys think that we don’t understand Chinese or Vietnamese. Truth is…we understand every. single. word. that you guys say. And you know what? It fucking hurts. As a family, we should all support each other…but instead I get things like, “You know…school is hard” or “Wow it’s surprising that you guys ended up being pre-med or going into science.” I know I’m never going to be the smartest, the prettiest, or the best person, but is it so much to ask for for you guys to just support our decisions? I may never reach my goal and become a doctor, I may not go into a field that is successful, but all I want is support. I’m tired of this bullshit. I’ve thought about the future…about when all of us cousins grow older, get real jobs, and have our own families. Can I honestly say that they’ll get to meet their great-grandparents? Or even their great aunts and uncles? I honestly don’t even know. If you guys are just going to sit there and criticize them about how fat they are and how stupid they are when they’re 10 years old, you can bet that you will not be seeing them. 

Sometimes, I’m just mad at the world. This is one of those days. I’m mad that you guys are pushing Jammie away. The one time that she actually gets excited to visit and actually comes back to visit us, you guys ruin it for her. She was in tears. Fucking tears. She was bawling. And you guys don’t even know how much of an impact you guys had on it. We can’t even be happy together even if it killed us. And she took the first bus back to Madison this morning. She probably doesn’t want to ever visit ever again. The next time she visits, it’ll probably be the summer. But to be honest, I don’t even think she wants to visit then. And it sucks because who am I going to hang out with? The family is falling apart. I don’t even know if everything will ever be the same after this weekend. 

There’s a lot of negativity in our family. And while this is probably not the brightest moment of our family…I am honestly so grateful for the family members who are sincere, genuine, and caring. I love you guys. I don’t know what I’d do without you guys. I don’t think I would be able to deal with this family if it weren’t for you guys. You guys make everything worthwhile. When I think of family, it is only the select few that are there for me…the ones that always have my back. Jammie & Caitlyn…you guys have had my back since day 1 (and of course, the boys). You guys always listen to my shit. You guys are always there for me when I need to just rant or to just sit and not talk at all. We can always sit around doing nothing and have the most fun doing so. You guys are always there for me when I’m feeling down…you’re there for me when the other family members put me down. I really appreciate all of the little things that you guys do for me. All of those times you guys defend me when others talk shit to me. Life wouldn’t be the same without you guys. You make everything worthwhile & bearable. I love you guys. 

I wish I could say that I know that we’ll always stay close, but the realist inside of me knows that life throws the randomest curve balls and sometimes that’s enough to separate the closest of families. I really hope we stay close forever. I hope you guys know that I’ll always have your backs. 50 years from now…even if we aren’t on speaking terms, I’ll always only be a phone call (and hopefully car ride) away. 

Jumbled Thoughts

I have a tendency to be harsh on myself. I feel like I secretly hate myself or something. It’s not really that I’m pessimistic, I just find myself hard to like or even love. I always feel like people are going to leave me. Or that people will realize how bad of a person I am and think badly of me. I’m a walking contradiction; I really don’t care about what people think of me, but at the same time, I care about what the people closest to me think of me. I always doubt things and I feel like I’m always paranoid. Sometimes I feel like all of my friends secretly hate me; like I’m that one person in the group that people dislike but won’t say anything. And I feel like no one will ever like me, just because I’m such an odd person. I don’t really understand anything; I don’t really understand how I feel. It’s like a battle against myself every day, I always have these little wars inside my head of whether I’m a worthy person or not. And it’s not like I’m depressed, or that I have real issues, I should be happy with my life; I have things that people dream of having…a loving family, caring friends, and an education. But I just can’t help it, I always beat myself up for every thing that I dislike about myself. I think I dislike myself and every part of me, which kind of sucks because I just want to be happy. I think this has been going on since forever, I just never really had the guts to admit it to myself. And I’ve always been distracted by other thoughts. I don’t ever know what to think anymore, I’m just a confused person.

I feel like this is so hopeless. Why do I even like you? Hopefully you never find out and maybe I’ll just end up repressing these feelings by being so consumed by school.

Winter Break

I wish I wasn’t so emotional. I wish I didn’t care as much so then maybe, it would not be so hard for me to say goodbye. It’s nearing that time again; Winter Break will be officially over in 2 days. I’m not really afraid of beginning school again, I’m just feeling emotional about all of my friends going back to college.

I’ve never been one that’s good at saying goodbyes. I’ve never been one that’s good at expressing my feelings. I always keep them hidden as a defense mechanism that allows me to protect myself. And that’s where tumblr comes in…it acts as my gateway and outlet for the feelings and things left unsaid that I’ve secretly always wanted to say to the people that are important to me.

This post is dedicated to the people that I’ve spent the chunk of my Winter Break with. I’m so very thankful for each and every day that I have spent with you guys. Sometimes I do not act like it, but I really do appreciate every single day that we have hung out together. Sometimes, people ask us what we spend our days doing, and to be honest, it really isn’t anything special. We do things that ordinary people do…we sit around, sometimes we talk, sometimes we watch movies and play games. I do not believe that the importance is in the things that we do…the importance is in the people whom we spend our time with. It’s in all of our friendships, all of the stupid, silly things we do in front of each other, it’s in the little things that we do for each other. 

I’ll miss all of this. I’ll miss all of the times we stayed up late playing Slender Man, all of the times we played board games, watched scary movies, and stayed at each other’s houses until 4 in the morning. Most of all, I’ll miss all of the conversations we had about life; I’ll miss all of the times we just sat around, talked, and enjoyed each other’s presence. 

I hope that it’ll all be the same when we all come back together again. I hope that we will all be this comfortable around each other come Summer Break. I hope that this is only the beginning of our friendships and that it’ll only blossom from here.

Random Thoughts

And I wish I had the balls to do something bold. Like make a move. Or do something that will make a difference. But I don’t. So I’ll just blog my feelings away.

But then again…this may all just subside. School resumes again in 2 days. Maybe I’ll just forget about everything while I focus all of my attention on school. But I know that I’ll hold on to that little bit of faith and hope. Because that is who I am, a girl who grabs on to that itty bitty piece of hope.

And in my head I’m screaming shit shit shit. Why do I do this to myself? I should seriously not think about this.