conquering the world one oxymoron at a time
Archive for friends
December 12, 2005 at 12:14 am · Filed under friends
The older I get, the more I realize how much I need my girlfriends. Sadly, the older I get, the fewer girlfriends I have. Ever since this summer, I’ve been obsessed with the Sex & the City lifestyle. I want the parties, the clothes, the shoes, the men, and most of all, I want the girlfriends who are there no matter what, the girlfriends whom I can cry to, the girlfriends who will back me up and tell me that He’s bad for me.
I got brunch with a friend today, and it was one of those things that can only be described as “I’m so glad that I did this,” and lord only knows how much I have needed these things lately. It was so refreshing to have someone actually listen to me talk, someone who didn’t try to sum up all of my problems in one sentence and offer me unhelpful, overly-simplified solutions. It was a relief to be able to gripe for 10 minutes about how I FEEL without any interruptions, and to be told at the end of those 10 minutes the most understanding, the most heartfelt, the most thoughtful things. Most of all, I loved that she knew exactly where I was coming from, why I saw things the way that I did. She could relate to me.
So why is it that I have such a hard time finding girlfriends like this? Junior high, it was unacceptable to hang out with boys, so off I went with my girlfriends whom I still consider some of my best friends today. Magnet high was filled with friends whose bridal showers and weddings I attended. Governor’s School was the first time things got a bit different; I hung out with the math team and chess team and then played frisbee and pulled fire alarms (wait, did I do that?) when I wasn’t doing my physics homework. But through it all, there was always Ali. And sometimes I feel like I miss her more than anything else from high school.
But college … I am so thankful for the wonderful friends that I made for life at UVA, but they are also all male. Sure, being in the engineering school made it just a tad different from high school and junior high, but UVA was 55% female overall. Sometimes I wish that I had rushed a sorority, or been more active in SWE. Ugh. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.
November 30, 2005 at 12:54 am · Filed under friends, random, grad life/MIT, daily grind
My friend Clement left for Beijing today for 1-5 years. He will be leading the entire Microsoft XBox 360 team in China, aiming for a Dec 2006 (or at least that’s what they tell the media) console release in the land of Mao. This comes after only working for Bill Gates for about a year. Makes me feel like an idiot … I mean, I’ve been going at this grad school thing for the same amount of time, and it’s taken me nowhere; I may have even gone backwards.
This one here is for Ali, courtesy of one Italian dude in an Ireland pub near the cliffs by the sea across the atlantic. May we both still get a kick out of this when we’re old and gray, and still admiring Latin men. Latin, Italian … men … same thing.
Govies rejoice! Annual reunion in Hartsville Tuesday, 12/27 at 4pm, with get-together chez LSR beforehand in Bennettsville. Non-2000’s are welcome too, I’m sure. here’s the evite.
I got 4 facebook invites in one day. I must be getting popular, or something.
It’s not been a good autumn for relationships. Three 2+ year relationships ended in the past couple of months. Love’s just not in the air. For once, I can honestly say “I know how you feel.”
Tim Tams are Australian versions of heaven, even if they call them biscuits over there. I’m saving my last Tim Tam (courtesy of Liang) to try the “right” way of eating one: sucking coffee through it like a straw. Those silly aussies.
The National Zoo in DC has a PandaCam, where you can observe the giant panda exhibit, to which a baby panda was added this summer. Don’t forget to check out Panda Cub Photo Gallery. my personal favorite is image #10.
I have to remember to ground myself before I touch the metal door handle in my office every single time that I go to open the door. I’ve never been shocked so much and so consistently.
A post-doc who shares my office told me that she once knew a guy whose PhD thesis was on how to detect pregnancy in pandas through analyzing panda poop. Her words of wisdom: if you ever think you’ve got it bad … think about how much worse it could be. You could be analyzing panda poop for your thesis.
According to my friend Jason (and I’m paraphrasing) … just live life! have a fling with somebody. no biggie.
November 20, 2005 at 12:43 am · Filed under friends
now that I have things to do and read to keep me busy, here are the eateries that i can enjoy while I have fun … and all of this thanks to Paul Otto. Paul and I have been friends since the beginning of college. The funny thing is that we have no idea when or how we actually met, or when or how we became friends. We both feel like we were friends on the very first day; it was so fast and so natural. We just seemed to automatically understand each other, as if we knew each other already before we even met.
UVA would have never have been the same without you Paul! Thanks so much. You’ll always be one of my best friends.
November 8, 2005 at 10:20 pm · Filed under friends
all the far side cartoons i could ever want!!! paul rocks! (and by that, I mean rocks in the shape of paul… )
November 8, 2005 at 10:17 pm · Filed under friends
bubble bath confetti!! I didn’t even know they made such a thing:
yay paul!
November 7, 2005 at 12:14 am · Filed under friends
my own personal copy of Bridget Jones’s Diary by Helen Fielding. courtesy of Paul “i-can’t-remember-when-we-first-met” Otto :)
November 2, 2005 at 2:09 am · Filed under friends
… friendships. I miss friends with whom I can talk to about anything, and never want to stop. I miss friends who tell me exactly how it is without hurting my feelings. I miss friends with whom conversation never really stops, and even if it does, you just bask in the presence of having each other as friends. I miss playing in the rain, doing laundry at 2am, dressing up for halloween, making ourselves “pretty” for prom, making up nicknames for boys that revolve around candy, playing frisbee in the dark, getting yelled at by RAs, talking on a picnic table until the sun comes up … I miss all of those things.
I really firmly believe that our relationships with each other as human beings really serve as the foundation for our survival. When those relationships last through the tests of time, that’s when we find our soul mates whom we can connect with whenever, even if we haven’t connected for many many years.
I feel that most of my friendships now are rather superficial, surface relationships. My true friendships are with people as far back as middle school, but certainly high school and college as well. Maybe life gets progressively more complicated as we age, making true meaningful friendships progressively harder. I can’t explain it. I just know that I miss those friends.
September 19, 2005 at 10:20 pm · Filed under the internet, friends
I would like to introduce everyone to the birth of two specific new blogs this past week: Not Genetically Viable and Team Uno.
Not Genetically Viable comes from a guy named Phil. Part of the blog’s first monster of a post just about sums up my triathlon summer. The post also includes some tidbits of phil’s eventful run-ins this summer (no pun intended). Phil is the runner, ie anchor, of the super triathlon team called Team Uno … which leads me to …
Team Uno is a triumvirate of friends who found a passion in triathlon training the summer that they got bored of grad school, ie the summer of 2005. The team members are not quite sure why they have a blog just yet, but primarily as the first post mentions, the blog may serve as a documentation device of sorts … for the future accomplishments of this team destined for gold.
Keep yourselves posted :)
June 21, 2005 at 11:50 pm · Filed under friends
I read through my emails on my yahoo account today (which I really need to check more often) and found one from one of my best friends from high school. It wasn’t a mean email, but it just somehow didn’t really feel right. It made me feel like I’m losing her as a friend, that we’ve maybe grown too far apart in the 5 years since high school to remember/save our friendship. I know emails are weird in that the reader often reads too much into the words, or interprets meanings that aren’t there, so maybe I’m over-reacting. But at the same time, I do have to question where our friendship has gone?
There was a point when I felt like I could see her any day, any time, and no matter how long we had been apart, we’d click in no time. The first time I noticed this not really happening was over last Christmas break, when she came through Charleston. I think I was particularly awkward that day, and particularly picky about things, that everything was exacerbated and I really realized that the two of us are in completely different places now. We’re not only separated many many miles away geographically, we’re also in completely different mindsets politically, socially, and maybe even emotionally. I know these differences don’t necessarily break a friendship, but maybe the distance and the fact that I hardly see her (or even talk to her) but once a year has really taken its toll. Add that to the fact that I was having a weird day when we met up last, I don’t even know if she likes me for the person I am now.
It’s amazing what 5 years will do to someone. I know that UVA has changed me a lot, and I’m sure college has changed her as well. I really want to believe that we’re the kind of friends that we’d still see each other and would still be best friends when we’re 40, but maybe my naivete is kicking in strong again. Of course, she’s made new friends since high school, both in college and in what she’s doing now. In a way, I’m jealous of all of them. I feel like they’re diverting her attention away from me, an old friend she doesn’t see regularly, or talk to regularly, and an old friend who’s easy to say goodbye to. I can’t even say that I know what’s going on in her life right now, and she sure as well doesn’t know what’s happening to mine.
Today was a relatively happy day until I checked my email, and now today has a sad ending. I am pretty upset at the thought of having potentially lost a friend, and I don’t quite know what to do about it. I can only hope that I am over-reacting, and that she wants to maintain our friendship as much as I do.
June 9, 2005 at 10:11 pm · Filed under friends
I remember telling a friend not long after I got here that the difference between business school people and graduate school people is that the friends you make in grad school are friends you count on having for life, whereas b-school is just a place for superficial networking. That may have been too harsh on b-schools, but now I’ve also realized that I was way too naive about graduate schools.
What it comes down to are still the people, and there are all kinds of people everywhere. Grad students, as a whole, may be more grounded, but that doesn’t mean that our lives are devoid of backstabbing, nor that our friends forever remain good friends. Our acquaintances don’t even remain acquaintances, for good or bad. Those whom you don’t really care about drift into oblivion, and those whom you do care about eventually become friends.
After a year at this place, I see a lot of strong rifts even in my department’s small 20-person first year class. You have to wonder, how can merely 20 people manage to develop such complex webs of relationships and deceit? I don’t for one second think that I am innocent within this network; I am in just as deep as everyone else, but this isn’t what I’m used to. I began UVA with a similarly small group of engineers, the so-called illustrious Rodmans. Those 30 some odd people became some of my best friends, and still remain so. Can I then generalize this to be a difference between MIT vs UVA? Grad school vs undergrad? Or has overly strong nostalgia simply masked any bad memories or dealings I had with the Rodmans?
Outside of the department, there is even more drama. At least within BE, people are careful to not overly step on toes and put their animosities on full display for fear of having to work and see these same people regularly. It is a whole different playing game outside. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised; parting on bad terms is a whole lot easier with people you don’t expect to ever really see again except maybe when scurrying past them in dim hallways. The people I met my first couple of weeks here, those whom I chose to be friends with–and those who chose to be friends with each other–are displaying some of the strangest and most unfriendly drama that I have ever seen. I sometimes feel like some of them live in movies.
I guess most of all I am just sad and disappointed. We can put on facades for our professional lives, saving face in the context of the department, but we can’t put personal differences behind us for people who really do matter, friends with whom we chose to associate. Maybe this is the biggest lesson of growing up: we really aren’t innocent creatures (anymore) who develop pure relationships with each other. Somehow, somewhere, there is always something that pollutes the water and ruins it for everyone. I guess I just really wanted to believe that those things were left for ritzy swanks in 3-button suits, but I guess human nature crops up even in the simplest of places.
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