the truth of life.

At the end of the day we look back at our actions and convince ourselves that we are good people. And that’s what keeps us going.

risen from the grave.

So, after n months of not posting a single thing (for whatever reason I do not recall), I’m finally back. I plan to post something once in a while, just to get stuff off my head. After not putting pen to paper (or in this case, fingers to keyboard), I’m itching to starting writing again. And besides, it’s therapeutic. And not as noisy as banging around on my guitar. Besides, I’m not taking English this year in uni so I don’t want to lose my touch.

Ha ha, “lose my touch”. I am an egomaniac, I really am.

I was running this morning and it was really cold (and still is) despite how sunny it seemed. And I thought of something from sociology class a week again or so.

Gibbens coined the term “Reflexive Projection of Self”. In the society of today, people feel obligated to put themselves under the microscope in an attempt to develop a sense of who they are. People are no longer restrained by culture, by tradition, by family history. We have access to all cultures, unrestrained by our geography or time period. In essence, we can be who we want to be. We are free.

We are like a blank slate onto which we and only we can choose to write whatever we wish. We are an empty vessel waiting to be filled. We are free. Or are we really?

In an attempt to find ourselves, to project ourselves, we seek material culture, garnish ourselves with brand-name clothing, furiously browse the internet for music that can allow us to scream to the world at the top of our lung and let everyone know exactly WHO we are. And yet at night we lie in bed with this soreness in our chest. This emptiness.

The truth is, we don’t know who we are.

Human beings are lacking creatures. That is why we need people to tell us what to wear, what is cool, who to be. We tell ourselves to look for our own unique identity, but in reality we are driven anxious by it. We don’t know who we are. What we’re here to do. And in that, we’re not so unique after all.

Did I mention how cold it is outside today?

Empty.

Haven’t written in a while, I know. I guess English class just kinda dampened my writing spirit. But somehow I still managed Nanowrimo (which didn’t go that badly this year). Hmm.

Anyway. Empty, that’s how I feel right now. I feel like I’ve been trying to fill this big gaping hole in my chest ever since… I don’t know. The second semester of last year I was trying to fill it with God and food, the summer – blogging and the writing forum, and since the beginning of this semester I turned to books again and then there was Nanowrimo and there was the pre-summative rush and scholarship applications and even more books and now that all that is being torn away from me I just feel like I have absolutely nothing to do. I sat in front of the computer for 15 minutes trying to find something to do and just nothing came to mind. I realized that I’m completely at loss for a hobby; there wasn’t anything I want to do anymore. Not even eating.

I feel like I have so much time on my hands and it’s just so horrible. I want it all to end. I want Monday January 5 to be here so bad.

She laughs.

She does. She really laughs. And it’s not “in-my-head” or “in-her-head” either. She really laughs.

When I tell her about something that troubles me, she laughs and says “well, what can we do about that?”

I know she’s nervous and that’s how she copes with it, by reassuring herself in this twisted way that it’s either not happening or just a sick joke. Or she’s trying to show me that it’s not a big deal. But it doesn’t work. And it hurts.

I guess she is, in a way, distancing herself from the source of stress. It’s her way of escaping, just like how she just constantly dives out of the real world by going on the Internet or immersing herself in her Korean dramas.

It makes me really uncomfortable. I mean, am I that bad? Am I that bad that she wants to escape from me and all the problems I have? It’s like, as soon as she gets home and goes through the hassle of cooking dinner and eating dinner she can’t wait to speed upstairs and go on the Internet. She wants to get as far away from us all as soon as possible.

And I can’t believe I’m thinking like this. Can’t a person have their own hobby? Can’t I just let them do what they want and love without turning into a personal thing? What kind of monster am I?

I hate myself.

I really do.

I’m such a failure.

Why can’t I just let them enjoy their drama? Their daily fill of Chinese news and gossip? Why do I have to guilt them into paying attention to me and my need?

I’m supposed to be a teenager. I’m supposed to be out there with friends all day. I’m supposed to go to the mall or karaoke or downtown to deal drugs and never come home at night. They’re supposed to be begging me to stop growing up so quickly.

But why is it the other way around? Why am I so damn pathetic?

I have no friends, none at all. And I’m never going to make any friends. The only people I have are my parents and that’s only because they’re my parents. If they were anyone else they’d freak and back away.

I wish I could just kill myself and end this nightmare.

I want to die.

The most cliched entry title ever. But it’s true. I want to die. I want to disappear. I just want to stop existing like I had never existed.

And don’t call it teenage hormones. Hormones, what hormones? I obviously don’t have any. I don’t have my period, I don’t have boobs, I don’t have a butt, I don’t have any hormones.

And God do I wish that it was just hormones. Then it’ll all be over once I reach the magical age of 18 or 19 or something and I can get on with my happy life.

Before I always could reassure myself with something like “oh, it’ll get better when I grow up”, “it’s just an age thing”.

But how is it going to get better? Sure, it might be better, but I’d probably be 30 pounds heavier, sitting on the couch munching on chocolate chip cookies, trying to desperately convince myself that I’m happy while I eat my way to obesity. Is that better?

So either I’m skinny and miserable or fat and… well, still miserable but living in the illusion that I’m not. Which is worse?

I don’t want to grow up. Time, I’m so afraid of it.

When I grow up I’ll have to stop leaning on my parents, stop expecting them to bend over backwards for me. But can I do that? What if I move away from home for university? Am I going to lock myself in my dorm all day, a nervous wreck, starving myself into an eating disorder? It’s not going to get better, it’s not. I’m never going to be able to start making friends, I’m never going to be able to stand up all by myself. I’ll just skydive or be my parents’ kid forever.

Or I’m going to be fat.

I hate my damn life. I wish that my parents never thought of giving birth to me. I wish that they’d never met, that my dad decided to be a surgeon instead of a computer programmer and didn’t meet the friend that introduced him to my mom in university. Then they’d be living different, separate lives with different children who aren’t a wreck like me. And they wouldn’t have to worry about me ’cause I wouldn’t exist. And I wouldn’t have to worry either. I wouldn’t have to spend every waking minute of my life being miserable and making their lives hell.

I just want to mysteriously disappear, completely erased so that no one will think of me or worry about me or remember anything about me. If God could grant this one miracle I will believe him.

My best friend is gaining weight.

You know, the one with the unhealthy BMI, the one who was able to eat whatever and still be a size 0. Well, she’s losing her magical ability.

You’d think that I’d be jumping up and down screaming for joy – I’d think so too – but I’ve been depressed all week. It’s kind of weird – complicated, really. I’m happy in this really evil, twisted way that I have a chance to be skinnier than her, which had been my secret goal (even to myself) throughout my entire dieting journey. But I’m also scared. Scared to death.

Of what? You ask.

I’m scared that she’ll become one of the other female friends I have, one of those kinda-skinny girls that I always have to check up on, spend minutes each day looking at their legs just to see if they’ve gotten skinnier or fatter and how they compare to me and how they will compare to me in the future. And most importantly, I’m scared that she’ll think of me that way too.

And our friendship will just disintegrate into this web of lies and on-the-surface assurances of each other’s skinniness (a la Georgia).

You know, this friend of mine, I’ve always thought of her as the permanent friend, you know, the one who’ll always be there no matter how you try to shake her off. But now I realize that I’ve been taking her for granted, and that she’ll slip away from me if I don’t do anything. She might be fine with that – she has plenty of IB friends to go to sleepovers with and whatever. But I can’t.

And being with her always inspired some sort of faith in me. She reminds me of the goodness that the human race is capable of. She has always been skinny, so skinny that I never thought that I’d compare, so out-of-reach. And because of that there never really was this feminine-jealousy thing between us. It’s always been me with my good fashion sense and her with her skinniness. We were on par with each other. We were equal. There had never been any inferiority; sure, there had been way back when I was in junior high and she was rotating between boyfriends-in-waiting, but this past year there hadn’t.

I felt like I was able to trust her because I thought that weight was something that didn’t matter to her. Of course it wouldn’t matter; she’d been skinny all her life, she never had to worry about her weight, and because of that, she’d been less critical of other’s weight and appearances. She was easy to talk to, and I know that, if she told me that something looked nice on me, that I didn’t really need to lose more weight, I could trust her.

But if everything changes, if she does gain significant weight, then this whole weight issue is going to raise a wall between us. And I’ll collapse because I really have no one else to depend on.

(There you go, I just pretty much reached the word-limit of an English literary essay I have to write this weekend. Funny how much easier it is to just ramble on about what comes to mind.)

And moreover, she’s going to be bitter that all throughout the whole thing, I just shook my head and said “you look fine.”

She’d be miserable if she keeps on going like this. And I’d be miserable.

And so, I need to help her. And NO, I am not going off my diet.

Yes, I realize that I kinda alternated between tenses every other sentence. It’s because I’m unsure of which to use. She’s gaining weight, but she’s not that fat yet and who knows what’s going to happen? But if she keeps on eating and sleeping the way she does it IS going to happen. AND she’s still skinnier than me, but by a small margin. So yeah, it’s one of those borderline times when you just don’t know.

Erm.

Well… yeah. I’m totally and completely bored.

I guess I can edit French.

Ugh.

Anyway, I finished the first season of 24 today. The ending was okay, I guess – unexpected. But it felt a bit anticlimactic; I was expecting more of it, especially after how the action and suspense built up especially around the middle. The few hours before the end moved quite slowly and wasn’t as exciting as it could’ve been. But overall it was a good story, good plotline. I still gotta say that I can’t quite sympathize with Jack. I know we’re all supposed to be touched by his motivation to save his family and all, but for some reason it just doesn’t work, maybe because not much has been done to flesh out the connection between them in the beginning. It seemed a bit artificial that he would go through such lengths to save Teri and Kim, especially since he spends most of his time at his office and at work. It’s hard to believe that he was willing to put the life of the president in danger to save his family; I know it makes sense that he would, but somehow it’s just not believable for me.

But anyhow, like I said, the plot was great. Every turn was unexpected; I was kept at the edge of my seat (or in this case, the edge of the couch) most of the time, and each episode left me wanting more. They also planted a nice premise for the second season. There are a lot of questions left unanswered: Exactly who is this “higher power” Nina speaks of? Will Palmer win the election? What about his wife (whom he has just ditched)?

Overall, it was good and worth the viewing. The characters seem a bit incomplete, but it’s difficult to satisfy that in any suspense/thriller-type series. Can’t wait to see the second season.

I suppose I better get to practising guitar. I’m going to commit myself to at least half an hour of practise everyday. I realize that if I do it more often, I’ll probably dread it less. I know it makes no sense, but hey, it worked for the running, which – by the way – I have to do at 12-12:30 today.

And then the peach.

Of course, my parents are not always right, and I feel like I’ve always resented them for not understanding my pain. Since I was in grade seven, I’ve been overworking myself, staying up late every night to make sure my projects were completed to the utmost perfection. I was obsessive about it and I couldn’t stop myself, so what did I do? I blamed it on my need to please them; sure, at first it was that. At first I wanted them to be proud of me, but it soon became something more – I needed to not only please them, but the teachers and the other students. But anyhow, I placed all that on their heads, and I resented them for not understanding my pain, as if they were forcing me to do something that I didn’t want to do (ie. study, practise piano). All that was because I didn’t realize that I was supposed to be doing it for myself, not them, not my teachers, not anyone else. And sure, maybe they were placing too much pressure on me, but it wasn’t for themselves, it was so I could have a good life.

Of course they’re not absolutely right, and that assumption is what caused most of these “light-bulb moments” to backfire. They’re probably been mistaken on many fronts – emphasizing that studies are what’s most important, forbidding me to have boyfriends, denying me an interest in fashion, and trying to protect me from the world in general. But I have to forgive them for that. They believe that that is what’s right for me, because that sort of protection and closure was what they’ve lacked during their childhood.

So they’re not right and I don’t have to listen to them all the time, but I have to be patient and understand and forgive.

Mmm, nothing like chocolate

And, as I suspected, caramel and nuts at its centre.

My dad brought these truffles from work the other day. I had one yesterday morning, am having one right now (as a reward for completing my French writing assignment on a Saturday morning), and gave the last to my dad so I wouldn’t be tempted to eat it myself.

I realized something today – after four bags of green tea and three back-to-back episodes of 24: I should be grateful for what my parents are doing for me. I should be grateful for the thousands of dollars they’ve spent on my piano lessons (I don’t even want to calculate precisely how much) and now my guitar lessons, and how much they’re willing to fork over for my university education. They’re been so good to me and all I’ve been doing all these years of my life was complaining and bitching about how they’ve always bugged me about practising and studying. I need to make a decision about those guitar lessons – fast. Either I start practising or I stop going. ‘Cause I’ve been taking the fact that my parents are paying for them for granted. Every week is $25 dollars; every week is a potential pair of jeans or skirt. I should not be letting the money go to waste.

Now I understand why they’d been so hurt whenever I tell them that I’m not eating dinner and bitch and complain about needing to lose weight. I’m so focused, so absorbed in something so small and letting other opportunities – like guitar, piano, or my studies – slide by.

And the anxiety, too. They’re giving me all I need to pursue a good career – money, a good family environment, ample support. And I give them the excuse that I can’t because I’m anxious or depressed.

I need to get my act together. I need to stop focusing on small things and really see the big picture. I don’t have it yet but I pray that I’ll see it soon.

I need to remember some things that I often lose sight of. School is not that hard. It’s not that easy and I shouldn’t expect it to be, but it’s nothing that I can’t handle. I need to prioritize, to put all the big projects and tests into smaller, doable steps. I need to tackle them one by one each day and tell myself that I can do it.

I mean, look at this weekend. I finished my lab and my French writing assignment and it’s only Saturday noon! Not to mention that I watched 2 episodes of the Korean drama (which is, like all Korean dramas, sappy and sucky) and 3 of 24. And why was I so worried?

I just need to remember that I can, that it’s all possible.