ever felt paralyzed by fear?
i am right now =.=
H.E.L.P!
Monday, April 23, 2007
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
disappointments, expectations, life
Looking at my upcoming schedule for the next few weeks, I feel about ready to bury my head under my covers and never get up again. Exams in all my classes, papers in two of them, and then finals after that! Whee =_=
I came to the realization today part of the reason I'm so disappointed with myself this semester while I was talking with my neuroanatomy professor. Somehow or other, I got myself into this vicious loop of not keeping up with the work in classes, and even though I somehow or other manage to scrape through the exams alright whenever they come up, I don't feel as though I am learning as much as I should be, and want to.
Four more weeks left in the semester, and a ton of work to be done before it's all done. At this point, I feel like I have failed myself utterly in every way possible. I'm thankful that my professors and friends here are so understanding, and have cut me so much slack, but at the same time, I wish that they didn't have to...
I came to the realization today part of the reason I'm so disappointed with myself this semester while I was talking with my neuroanatomy professor. Somehow or other, I got myself into this vicious loop of not keeping up with the work in classes, and even though I somehow or other manage to scrape through the exams alright whenever they come up, I don't feel as though I am learning as much as I should be, and want to.
Four more weeks left in the semester, and a ton of work to be done before it's all done. At this point, I feel like I have failed myself utterly in every way possible. I'm thankful that my professors and friends here are so understanding, and have cut me so much slack, but at the same time, I wish that they didn't have to...
Friday, April 13, 2007
musings...
It just occured to me that every single time I go to a performance, be it music, theater, dance or whatever in Oberlin, I get very contemplative.
Just watching people on stage performing makes me think about the days that I would do 'stuff' like that. I also just came to the realization that since primary school, I have performed in some way or another at every institution I've attended, except Oberlin. (Well...I guess I DID sing with College Singers last year...)
When did I change, I wonder? I used to feel strongly about a lot of things.. yeah -_- People who know me nowadays wouldn't really use the word 'passionate' to describe me for sure. In fact, it was Leekie who first coined the word 'semangatless' to describe me.. was it then when that started?
I thought I'd found the old me again last semester, when I came back to Oberlin in the fall. I was busy, but felt such strong satisfaction in everything I did. Then.. somewhere in midst of all that, it just started getting downhill, work didn't seem so fun anymore, and everything just lost its flavor. Even Christmas ... was tiring.
There's 5 more weeks left in this semester. I look back at these two months and wonder, where did it all go? It just seems like one whole stretch of grey mush in my mind. Looking at my calendar ahead of me, there's nothing really exciting. I quit tumbling, and won't be in the circus this year after all. It just wasn't fun anymore... for some reason or another. [read: anhedonia]
Just watching people on stage performing makes me think about the days that I would do 'stuff' like that. I also just came to the realization that since primary school, I have performed in some way or another at every institution I've attended, except Oberlin. (Well...I guess I DID sing with College Singers last year...)
When did I change, I wonder? I used to feel strongly about a lot of things.. yeah -_- People who know me nowadays wouldn't really use the word 'passionate' to describe me for sure. In fact, it was Leekie who first coined the word 'semangatless' to describe me.. was it then when that started?
I thought I'd found the old me again last semester, when I came back to Oberlin in the fall. I was busy, but felt such strong satisfaction in everything I did. Then.. somewhere in midst of all that, it just started getting downhill, work didn't seem so fun anymore, and everything just lost its flavor. Even Christmas ... was tiring.
There's 5 more weeks left in this semester. I look back at these two months and wonder, where did it all go? It just seems like one whole stretch of grey mush in my mind. Looking at my calendar ahead of me, there's nothing really exciting. I quit tumbling, and won't be in the circus this year after all. It just wasn't fun anymore... for some reason or another. [read: anhedonia]
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
one dysfunctional sem
Alright. This is it. I'm giving myself one semester, this one semester to go haywire.
I mean, in the grand scheme of things, surely this 5 months won't matter right?
So there it is.. I'll be a better person after this sem. I promise.
I mean, in the grand scheme of things, surely this 5 months won't matter right?
So there it is.. I'll be a better person after this sem. I promise.
Monday, April 9, 2007
Friends
Yesterday, a friend of mine left school.
He wasn't a very close friend, although nowadays I don't really know how to define that word anymore. I first met him second semester freshmen year. We were never really formally introduced, but he was at Wilder a lot, and since I worked at the front desk, we somehow became friends in that funny way that things happen sometimes.
This year, I was in Third World Co-op with him. At the beginning of fall semester, when we were still having game night regularly, he would come by sometimes too. He was one of those people that I wanted to get to know better, hang out with more, but never got around to it because school, work, life and so many other things seemed to be more pressing at hand.
Spring semester, I cooked Friday lunches with him. The way he cooked amused me - he was always very precise, very careful in his preparation of food, whereas I lived up to my mom's philosophy of cooking - 'agak-agak', 'cincai' and 'luan luan lai' :P
A little digression: Americans love to ask you how you're doing. It's always at the beginning of every conversation - what's up, how you doing, how are you. Yet it's not always a real question - it's sometimes so much easier to say 'good', 'ok' and leave it at that. Anyway, back to the topic: one Friday we were cooking lunch, and of course we had the usual 'how are you doing' conversation. For the millionth time that semester, I said 'not so great', because that was my very honest answer.
Somehow that led to a conversation about how crappy I was feeling this semester, how unmotivated I have been, my lack of focus in everything, my inability to concentrate, the feelings of hopelessness, my increasing anti-social attitude towards the world. He also shared how he was doing, which was amazingly similar to what I was going through. And I also learnt some things about him that I never learnt about before.
And then just this Friday night, he told me he was leaving.
I didn't know exactly how I felt. I was sad to see him leave, but sad wasn't the right word for what I felt when I found out. It was more like.. a sort of resigned feeling. A feeling of lost opportunities. Even a slight feeling of panic.. will I end up like him?
I went to his room and talked for nearly 2 hours on Friday night. It was the first time we really talked. It was also the first time I'd talked to somebody and realized that I could very well be the person I'm talking to, the first time I really truly could say I knew, on some level, what he was going through.
He also showed me some of his photos from college etc. I was struck by how different he looked each year, and how different other people that I knew looked too. Isn't it strange how people change?
And so.. he's gone now.
********
Sometimes I wonder why this is happening to me, why am I withdrawing from everything, why am I seeking solace in eating uncontrollably, which then makes me fat, which then only makes me more miserable?
Why is it that I seem to have lost who I was?
He wasn't a very close friend, although nowadays I don't really know how to define that word anymore. I first met him second semester freshmen year. We were never really formally introduced, but he was at Wilder a lot, and since I worked at the front desk, we somehow became friends in that funny way that things happen sometimes.
This year, I was in Third World Co-op with him. At the beginning of fall semester, when we were still having game night regularly, he would come by sometimes too. He was one of those people that I wanted to get to know better, hang out with more, but never got around to it because school, work, life and so many other things seemed to be more pressing at hand.
Spring semester, I cooked Friday lunches with him. The way he cooked amused me - he was always very precise, very careful in his preparation of food, whereas I lived up to my mom's philosophy of cooking - 'agak-agak', 'cincai' and 'luan luan lai' :P
A little digression: Americans love to ask you how you're doing. It's always at the beginning of every conversation - what's up, how you doing, how are you. Yet it's not always a real question - it's sometimes so much easier to say 'good', 'ok' and leave it at that. Anyway, back to the topic: one Friday we were cooking lunch, and of course we had the usual 'how are you doing' conversation. For the millionth time that semester, I said 'not so great', because that was my very honest answer.
Somehow that led to a conversation about how crappy I was feeling this semester, how unmotivated I have been, my lack of focus in everything, my inability to concentrate, the feelings of hopelessness, my increasing anti-social attitude towards the world. He also shared how he was doing, which was amazingly similar to what I was going through. And I also learnt some things about him that I never learnt about before.
And then just this Friday night, he told me he was leaving.
I didn't know exactly how I felt. I was sad to see him leave, but sad wasn't the right word for what I felt when I found out. It was more like.. a sort of resigned feeling. A feeling of lost opportunities. Even a slight feeling of panic.. will I end up like him?
I went to his room and talked for nearly 2 hours on Friday night. It was the first time we really talked. It was also the first time I'd talked to somebody and realized that I could very well be the person I'm talking to, the first time I really truly could say I knew, on some level, what he was going through.
He also showed me some of his photos from college etc. I was struck by how different he looked each year, and how different other people that I knew looked too. Isn't it strange how people change?
And so.. he's gone now.
********
Sometimes I wonder why this is happening to me, why am I withdrawing from everything, why am I seeking solace in eating uncontrollably, which then makes me fat, which then only makes me more miserable?
Why is it that I seem to have lost who I was?
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