conquering the world one oxymoron at a time
Archive for life thoughts
November 17, 2005 at 10:41 pm · Filed under life thoughts
Ireland made me feel lucky: the luck of the Irish, some would say. I think this trip finally woke me up to the fact that I do have it pretty good, and that maybe someone up there really is watching out for me. My (our) luck never seemed to run dry during the trip, even when we seemingly tried hard to throw everything in the face of luck to foil it. I have never been so acutely aware of how things all sort of just work out for me in the end. Consequently I was never aware of, nor really thought about, just how hard it could be.
I’m not sure how this realization has changed my life or will change my life. I know that I could instantaneously feel its effects on my life perspective. For a while now, one of my favorite things to do is to go to French class. I love the class, but more than anything I love the walk that takes me to class. I try to walk through Killian Court to get there, and the experience takes my breath away every single time without fail. Mostly, I get an overwhelming sensation of great calm and serenity as I have mentioned before. I feel like the world is at my feet, and that I am capable of being a part of the greatness that surrounds me. Today, while walking through Killian, more than anything, I felt a sense of gratefulness. As I kept walking, I kept nodding to myself and thinking how lucky it is that I can be here today. I do have it pretty good.
How did I even get here? I believe in fate; I believe that we are all destined for the paths that we end up taking. I happened to be sorting through pictures later today when I found some baby pictures from before I can remember. In these pictures, I see myself, my parents, my family, and I am absolutely taken aback by how different our lives are now from our lives in those pictures. Ask the parents holding me in those shots where they think they would be in 20 years, and they would not be able to guess in a million years how far away we would all go in life.
How did we take these paths? And how did we make the turns that eventually led us here today? Retracing my steps, I can’t even recount most of those turns that I took, yet here I am still, at the end of all of those turns. These paths over the last 20 years are so complex and so precisely coincidental that they land me exactly where I am today. I can’t help but wonder if these turns were planned all along. They are so intricately connected and dependent on each other to deliver me to the “now”, how can they possibly all be by chance?
November 16, 2005 at 10:37 pm · Filed under tv/movies, life thoughts
Despite many years of tomboy-foolishness, I’m just a girl (was that gwen stefani who sang that song?). I remember once back during college somebody told me that while I appear strong and determined on the outside, when it comes down to certain things (ie: boys), I’m still such a girl like every other girl. I’m not sure if that was meant to be a compliment or insult. Anyway, girlish roller-coaster emotions of giddyness (he loves me) and despair (he loves me not) are running on turbo power these days.
On an un-related note, here’s my current list of to-see/must-see movies:
Chicken Little
Harry Potter & the Goblet of Fire
Pride & Prejudice
Derailed (to see my friend as an extra!)
Kung Fu Hustle
Hitch
Fever Pitch
Love Actually
Pictures from Ireland are … coming soon … or so they say
November 9, 2005 at 1:32 am · Filed under life thoughts, random, grad life/MIT
I felt especially worthless these past 24-30 hours, so worthless (and now obviously so bored) that I decided to chronicle it so that i can later look back and say … golly, my life was really pretty lame back in 2005.
Monday:
9pm - buy milk and see that laundry room is pretty empty
9:30pm - bought some ice cream too, forgot that i wanted to do laundry
10pm - remember that i wanted to do laundry, but all machines are now taken
10:05pm - start french homework while eating ice cream
10:30pm - finally some washing machines free up
10:35pm - finish french homework, decide that i have nothing really to do, so let me read a book while i wait for laundry … memoirs of a geisha seems like it could be good
11:00pm - put laundry in dryer, continue to read book, eat more ice cream
Tuesday:
12:05am - fold laundry
12:40am - finished folding laundry, decide to keep reading memoirs of a geisha in bed
3:05am - still reading
7:00am - finished chapter 27, not done with the book, but i’m finally feeling really exhausted and decide to go to sleep
10:50am - wake up just in time to make french class (11am-12pm)
12:15pm - come back home, eat some cereal for lunch
12:30pm - try to go get my skates sharpened at zcenter, guy essentially tells me no
12:40pm - decide that i’d rather finish reading memoirs of a geisha than go to lab
2:50pm - finish memoirs just in time for class (3pm-5pm)
5:15pm - at Star buying groceries for study break tomorrow, for making myself a brownie, and for getting some veggies so i can eat balanced meals, and to stock up on bacon
6:30pm - cook dinner
7:15pm - eat dinner while watching cooking shows
7:35pm - Jacque Pepin is an episode that i’ve already seen, decide to make brownies instead of watching tv
8:30pm - brownies taste good, but don’t look so good, but they’re moist and goo-ey!
9:40pm - leave for IM hockey game
10:26pm - fall (again) on the ice
11:05 - pretend not to be sad when saying goodbye to fellow hockey people
11:15pm - back in lab to do some work, since i chose to read memoirs earlier instead of going to work
Wednesday:
12:09am - too tired to work anymore, can’t keep my eyes open, decide to go home and go sleep
12:30am - toast some bread so that i can have liver pate for breakfast in the morning
12:41am - play my daily online sudoku
1am - take random pictures for blog
1:30am - write blog about my worthless day
November 2, 2005 at 9:44 am · Filed under life thoughts
… things just really aren’t meant to be
… there’s nothing else we can do
… the anger and bitterness will pass
… it’s trying to remember
… it’s about the tears that come at the most inopportune times
… things will find a way
October 24, 2005 at 12:17 am · Filed under life thoughts
I feel like I am at a major cross roads in my life. I want too many things, and it is impossible to have all of it, but it is also impossible for me to make a decision. Phil’s right … I do have it pretty good … but I’m still not quite satisfied. I don’t think that makes me a bad person. Sure, I am selfish and sometimes inconsiderate maybe, but I don’t think I am alone in being selfish, and I still don’t think that I am a bad person.
Maybe I try to make myself older than I actually am sometimes. Maybe it’s because I never lived the “typical” college life that I somehow want to start now. Or maybe I just don’t quite know what to do with myself and how to rein in with some self-control. I think it is bad when I have to think about how to justify my decisions to others: friends, family, and then of course myself. I don’t want to hurt other people, but in the end I don’t want myself to get hurt. But maybe that’s just it … my selfishness has gotten to a level where I am seriously considering letting all else go and just make myself as happy as possible right now and then deal with consequences, say 3 months later.
September 7, 2005 at 2:34 am · Filed under life thoughts, current events
Mandatory evacuations are being called for New Orleans. I can’t imagine being forced to evacuate. Where would I go? Do I need a disaster like this in my life to wake me up from whatever trance that I am in now? That though is rather insensitive to the many people who have suffered and died from this hurricane. I am sure that I can never imagine going through what these people are going through, and to wish it upon myself is just insult to them. It’s a case of the “I am invinsible” immaturity syndrome.
The Bush administration is being blamed again. The federal government is accused of doing “too little, too late.” Why does it always seem to come down to this? Is this a case of hindsight being 20/20? Or are there really things that the government could have done earlier?
What about me? Will it be a “too little, too late” situation? I feel like I am taking a lot of things in my life right now for granted. I think somewhere deep down, I realize that these things are very fragile, that they can disappear in a day. But somehow, I don’t really seem to care all that much. My actions don’t reflect my fear of losing these things. Where’s my wake-up call? Will it come too late?
September 6, 2005 at 1:42 am · Filed under life thoughts
I feel like I am drowning again, this time not just with the external stresses of my involvements. In a way, these external stresses gave me reason to ignore some internal issues these past few weeks. The external stresses kept me busy, kept me tired, kept me focused on other things so that I didn’t really think about the internal issues.
Just a couple of weeks ago, I remember thinking that everything in my life is pretty good. My mentality was that I liked where I was, and my issues were mainly academic in that the only source of stress and unhappiness in my life was my research. In the past week or so however, a lot more has come crashing down than my research. My relationships with others have been deteriorating; I’ve been incredibly edgy. I’m not so sure that research is my only source of headaches now.
I sometimes wonder how I can be happier. I don’t think that I am depressed, but there are times like these when things just seem incredibly tough. I think whether I would have been happier at UVA, or UCSD, or perhaps Goldman/APT/Bain/Lehman/Bear even. I wonder if I would have been happier in another lab, or another department altogether. I wonder if I would be happier if I were engaged, married, and also if I would be happier if I were with someone else.
I wonder what my purpose in life is. I don’t really know what I want to do right now. I feel like I am just floating through space, letting time take its course. That seems like a waste of time to me. I don’t stay 22 (soon 23) forever, and will I regret the worthlessness that my life was at this age when I look back 10 years from now? How can I change things when I don’t even know what I want to do? How can I be happier when I don’t even know what would make me happy?
August 26, 2005 at 9:43 pm · Filed under life thoughts, people
One of the most important life philosophies is to forgive and to forget. I often do not abide by this philosophy and instead choose to hold grudges. This is stressful for me because I constantly want to tell people why I hold such and such a grudge. Sometimes, the grudges are because of my own biases, and I find ways to skew stories so that my audience would be more likely to agree with me and why I am holding a grudge.
I think what happens mainly is that I lose track of the big picture and start digging deeper and deeper into the little things. I need to better learn to be able to step back, take a deep breath, and tell myself that every thing is going to be a-okay. And then to believe it.
August 24, 2005 at 10:57 am · Filed under life thoughts, grad life/MIT, daily grind
I’m in one of those situations again. Too much to do, too little time. I am never quite sure how I get into these situations until they are all around me. I guess I don’t think ahead very much, and I tend to bite off more than I can chew when it comes to extracurriculars or just life in general. I think I can do a bunch of stuff, but I just end up stressing/burning myself out. I need to learn to say no to opportunities …
Having finished GRT training, I feel like I need to start doing things at this point … maybe make some brownies for the kids? Having orientation start next Monday, I feel like I need to take care of everything, all the last minute details. Having been away from lab for 3 days for GRT training, I feel like I need to get some serious work done. Having done nothing productive all summer, I feel like I need to get some serious work done. Having the triathlon be less than two weeks away, I feel like I need to improve my swim time. Having the school year start, I feel like I need to have our lab webpage up and running. Having Ryan’s extended family come visit, I feel like I need to clean my place up. Having Kaplan training start (again) in two weeks, I feel like I need to do a lot of the prepratory work. Having school start, I feel like I need to pick classes to take.
And the list goes on and on and on and on … I think I’m drowning …
August 10, 2005 at 9:51 am · Filed under life thoughts, music
Remember 1995? I do. The song of the year (for me) was Alanis Morissette’s Ironic. I memorized her songs, bought her CD (my first!), and all in all worshipped her. Because of this, Alanis has always had a special place in my heart. Who can forget one’s first CD, right?
So there have been a couple of flashbacks to 1995 these past two weeks. While in Chicago the weekend before last, I saw one member of my middle school posse (I’m lazy, so I haven’t posted pictures yet … but they’re coming). Not having seen each other since the end of 8th grade wasn’t even an issue. We filled in the gaps and went on yapping like any good friends would. It truly amazes me how some friendships last forever seemingly naturally, while others wither regardless of how much I work to maintain them.
Flashback #2 is more how my recent life deserves a song from the past to describe it, and none other than Ironic. Those closest to me know that I have been struggling for some time now with this idea of grad school, and my lack of excitement for my current project does not help my struggles. I left computer engineering because I disliked programming day in, day out. I switched fields to pursue bioengineering because I thought that I would be more interested in it. However, what ended up happening was that my computer engineering background made me a shoe-in for projects that involve computational modeling. So the irony comes from the fact that I left computer engineering because I didn’t enjoy it, but in the end, in bioengineering, I still got pidgeon-holed into programming doing exactly what I tried to avoid by leaving computer engineering.
Isn’t it ironic? Don’t you think?
A little too ironic, and yeah, I really do think
It’s like rain on your wedding day
It’s a free ride when you’ve already paid
It’s good advice, that you just didn’t take
And who would have thought it figures?
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