This post is brought to you by an unnerving lack of jetlag.
Some recent events have brought to light something that I've known for a long time but never openly owned up to: I am an unbelievably naïve person. More often than not, I find myself trusting others with little to no question, always giving the benefit of the doubt. This is, in fact, part of the reason why I am a very open person, as I generally assume people are not out to get me. Naturally, this can sometimes get me into trouble.
I can get screwed over. I can be lied to. I can be deceived. I can be misled. I can be made to look like an absolute fool. I can be ridiculed. If I wanted to be melodramatic, it could also one day put me in a dangerous position. There’s a lot of bad things that could potentially maybe sort of one day possibly happen. I know it. Some nasty things have happened as a result of it. But I also know that this is true of basically any other kind of personality trait one can possess, and it comes down with how I as an individual choose to handle it.
I don’t have a problem admitting that I am very naïve, that I am too trusting. More to the point, I don’t have an issue with staying that way. But why, if I am well aware of the risks involved, or if I’ve already gone through the downsides thus associated?
My answer is simple: I know that if proverbial shit should hit the equally fictitious fan, I can take care of myself. It's easy to give the benefit of the doubt until the person actually gives you a real reason not to trust them. It's better than taking the chance that I may insult, hurt, or vilify someone else's intentions just because I was being paranoid.
Sure, there may be tears or shouts or pouts or even punches thrown for a little bit if things come up tails when I called heads, but I am a strong enough person that I know that once tensions have cooled, I’ll be fine. I bounce back quickly, efficiently, and with as little impact on those around me as possible. It’s in fact why it’s so important for me to have someone around who knows to let me vent and not try to stop me in the middle of a tirade of emotional release. I need someone who knows that once it’s out of my system, the next step is for me to recover on my own and get over it and move on. I am lucky, then, to have so many of those people in my life.
I often find myself feeling sorry for those who are always suspicious of others or are always afraid to trust and thereby potentially get hurt. I know it sounds elitist of me, but that is truly how I feel and usually I respond to such personalities by being someone they know they can trust.
The fact of the matter is that you’re going to get hurt. It’s part of life. It will happen regardless of what kinds of measures you take to prevent it, if any at all. It can be intentional. It may be unintentional. Sure you can have your guard up, as past experiences should always be learned from, but at the same time, you can’t always assume people are out to get you, either, otherwise you just end up inadvertently hurting those who meant no harm. What you can do is let those shitty experiences make you a stronger and better person.
Is your definition of strength being self-reliant and not needing anyone else, and that’s how you justify your mistrust? If yes, then we shall agree to disagree. Strength, to me, is to know how the people around you are able to support and help you while you yourself find your own way to solve the problem or resolve the conflict and learn from what happened so that it doesn’t happen again. It’s a mix of self-sufficiency and humility (i.e., knowing that there are some things you just don’t have to do alone, nor should you).
So for every nasty thing that happens to be as a result of my naïveté, I at least know how to read the signs a little better than before. That said, I know I may still be naïve and fall into easy traps, but I’m all right with that. I don’t learn from my mistakes as easily or as efficiently as I probably should, but I deal with it by knowing that no matter what, I’ll be just fine and I will likely come out of it a stronger person.
Friday, September 12, 2008
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Why I'm Awesome (Part 24 of 7,412): SEVEN
Oh man I hope you guys are ready for a cuteness overload.
This post is brought to you by the little girl who lives on the 24th floor in my building.
Well, okay, how adorable this actually ends up depends on how well you know me and my capacity for being adorable, your ability to imagine me saying certain parts of this post in that 4-year-old Cantonese girl’s voice, and if you have ever seen a picture of me when I was 4 or 5 years old.
When it comes to things that I deem my "favorites," it is perfectly normal for me (i.e., an insane person) to load that favorite thing with all kinds of personal meaning and history. I'm not necessarily unique in this respect, but when I saw my favorite color is that particular shade of blue-green you see right in between the shallow coastal waters and the deep blue sea as you fly over a particularly clean patch of ocean, that color is my favorite color for a multitude of reasons well beyond "I like it."
For instance, that color is my favorite not just because it looks good on me and not just because "I like it," but because it is exactly the shade of blue-green that you can only see in the situation I just described above. I saw this once while flying overhead in Hawaii and I have never seen yet another perfect duplicate of its color. It is barely describable, and no it is not that cheesy bright turquoise you see near the coast. Anyway, my love of all things the ocean is well-documented, so this should really require much more explanation.
Another example is, well, go back to the post where I tell you why I like backs. Oh god. One moment please while I let some images flash through my brain.
Aaaaaaaand back to your regularly scheduled programming.
Perhaps the most in-depth "favorite thing" that I have in my laundry list of "favorite things" is the number 7. Seven, sept, qi, pito, siete. Funnily enough (and contrary to what might have been mentioned way back when I explained the number 7,412), the fact that it is regarded as a "lucky number" by Westerners doesn't particularly matter to me.
First and most obvious is that it is the month in which I was born. July. Best month. Next.
Second is that if you rotate the number, it becomes the letter V. Also obvious. And I swear I came up with that idea long before I ever saw the movie Se7en.
Third, and closely related to that, are the seven deadly sins. It's not so much the fact that they are sins so much as I view them to be seven things that need to be balanced. I've always thought everything in moderation is a healthy thing, and this is no different for the 7DS. A little wrath is nice to release those pent-up emotions. A little sloth is nice to relax and slow yourself down. A little gluttony is nice because goddammit eating is one the best things about being alive. Too much of any and that's how they become "sins." I use the 7DS to often remind myself that there is no absolute right or wrong, that everything is relative, and that it ultimately comes down to what you are able to deem the best balance that suits you.
There are other reasons, too, but the one I wanted to share with you today is one that I don't think I've ever mentioned aloud or on paper to anyone other than myself.
Back when we lived in Hong Kong for the second time (i.e., from the ages of 4 to 7 for me), my family and I lived in this apartment building on Kotewall Road. Number 9, I think it was. Anyway, we lived in apartment 7B.
Now, I cannot for the life of me remember how tall I was back when I was 4 or 5, but I sure as hell remember being TINY and constantly wishing I was taller. I was so short that I, in all my pig-tailed glory, could not reach the 7 button in the building's elevator.
I would stand right by the elevator's button panel and gaze longingly at the 7 button, declaring in my mind that TODAY WOULD BE THE DAY I OWN YOU. Then I would reach up and barely make it to the 3 button. I would bounce up and down and make little whiny noises until my nanny or my daddy or my mommy would either hit the button to shut me up or, were they in better moods, pick me up and then I would press it.
Every time I failed to reach that button, I vowed with all my non-English-speaking mind that I would eventually get tall enough to press that stupid button without any help. I would even jump up and try to slam at the button but I'd never quite reach it or hit it hard enough for it to light up.
Of course, there were days where I just didn't care about that button because my face was buried in a zhi bao dan gao (or tsee bao dan gou in Cantonese I guess), which, back then, was a sponge cake with a chocolate topping that was wrapped in paper and was as big as my head. My nanny got me one every other day right before I got on the bus back from school because I was the best little kid EVER until of course I got home and my parents yelled at me for spoiling my dinner. (Plus I recently went back to that cake shop and got one and man it's about as big as my hand now. What the hell.) The cake served as such a magnificent distraction from all my shortcomings as a midget, however, I didn't particularly care.
Slight tangent aside, I remember the glorious day in question. I was 7 years old and, as my parents had noticed, in the middle of a growth spurt (that would eventually leave me at 5'8" at the age of 14). I stepped into the elevator, face covered in the crumbs of what was once a sponge cake, and looked menacingly at the button panel.
Then, like it was nothing at all, I reached up, hit the number 7 button, and it lit. My nanny gave me a pat on the head and said I was getting tall.
Me, well, in my head I had reached some divine level of strength and power, like I was unstoppable. No longer would people tower over me and press buttons I couldn't reach! No longer would I rely on the strength of others to reach the number 7!
Of course, little did I know (or care) that 7 was not the highest number in the elevator. But that day, I was GOD.
Last night as I returned home from my haircut, the adorablest little anklebiter and her mother (I presume) stepped into the elevator with me and pretty much did exactly what I described, only her sights were set significantly higher: the 24th floor. Eventually I smiled at her and helped her use my ridiculously huge umbrella (courtesy of Michelle and Parkway Health) to press the button. Her mother was highly amused. The little girl gave me the hugest grin and for one of the few times in my life, I didn't feel like loading a little spoiled Chinese kid into a cannon and blasting him/her out to sea.
Being that it made me super happy, that 7 is my birth month and that 24 is my birthday, I took it as inspiration to write this post.
GOOD LUCK TO YOU, ANKLEBITER OF THE 24TH FLOOR. Jia you!
This post is brought to you by the little girl who lives on the 24th floor in my building.
Well, okay, how adorable this actually ends up depends on how well you know me and my capacity for being adorable, your ability to imagine me saying certain parts of this post in that 4-year-old Cantonese girl’s voice, and if you have ever seen a picture of me when I was 4 or 5 years old.
When it comes to things that I deem my "favorites," it is perfectly normal for me (i.e., an insane person) to load that favorite thing with all kinds of personal meaning and history. I'm not necessarily unique in this respect, but when I saw my favorite color is that particular shade of blue-green you see right in between the shallow coastal waters and the deep blue sea as you fly over a particularly clean patch of ocean, that color is my favorite color for a multitude of reasons well beyond "I like it."
For instance, that color is my favorite not just because it looks good on me and not just because "I like it," but because it is exactly the shade of blue-green that you can only see in the situation I just described above. I saw this once while flying overhead in Hawaii and I have never seen yet another perfect duplicate of its color. It is barely describable, and no it is not that cheesy bright turquoise you see near the coast. Anyway, my love of all things the ocean is well-documented, so this should really require much more explanation.
Another example is, well, go back to the post where I tell you why I like backs. Oh god. One moment please while I let some images flash through my brain.
Aaaaaaaand back to your regularly scheduled programming.
Perhaps the most in-depth "favorite thing" that I have in my laundry list of "favorite things" is the number 7. Seven, sept, qi, pito, siete. Funnily enough (and contrary to what might have been mentioned way back when I explained the number 7,412), the fact that it is regarded as a "lucky number" by Westerners doesn't particularly matter to me.
First and most obvious is that it is the month in which I was born. July. Best month. Next.
Second is that if you rotate the number, it becomes the letter V. Also obvious. And I swear I came up with that idea long before I ever saw the movie Se7en.
Third, and closely related to that, are the seven deadly sins. It's not so much the fact that they are sins so much as I view them to be seven things that need to be balanced. I've always thought everything in moderation is a healthy thing, and this is no different for the 7DS. A little wrath is nice to release those pent-up emotions. A little sloth is nice to relax and slow yourself down. A little gluttony is nice because goddammit eating is one the best things about being alive. Too much of any and that's how they become "sins." I use the 7DS to often remind myself that there is no absolute right or wrong, that everything is relative, and that it ultimately comes down to what you are able to deem the best balance that suits you.
There are other reasons, too, but the one I wanted to share with you today is one that I don't think I've ever mentioned aloud or on paper to anyone other than myself.
Back when we lived in Hong Kong for the second time (i.e., from the ages of 4 to 7 for me), my family and I lived in this apartment building on Kotewall Road. Number 9, I think it was. Anyway, we lived in apartment 7B.
Now, I cannot for the life of me remember how tall I was back when I was 4 or 5, but I sure as hell remember being TINY and constantly wishing I was taller. I was so short that I, in all my pig-tailed glory, could not reach the 7 button in the building's elevator.
I would stand right by the elevator's button panel and gaze longingly at the 7 button, declaring in my mind that TODAY WOULD BE THE DAY I OWN YOU. Then I would reach up and barely make it to the 3 button. I would bounce up and down and make little whiny noises until my nanny or my daddy or my mommy would either hit the button to shut me up or, were they in better moods, pick me up and then I would press it.
Every time I failed to reach that button, I vowed with all my non-English-speaking mind that I would eventually get tall enough to press that stupid button without any help. I would even jump up and try to slam at the button but I'd never quite reach it or hit it hard enough for it to light up.
Of course, there were days where I just didn't care about that button because my face was buried in a zhi bao dan gao (or tsee bao dan gou in Cantonese I guess), which, back then, was a sponge cake with a chocolate topping that was wrapped in paper and was as big as my head. My nanny got me one every other day right before I got on the bus back from school because I was the best little kid EVER until of course I got home and my parents yelled at me for spoiling my dinner. (Plus I recently went back to that cake shop and got one and man it's about as big as my hand now. What the hell.) The cake served as such a magnificent distraction from all my shortcomings as a midget, however, I didn't particularly care.
Slight tangent aside, I remember the glorious day in question. I was 7 years old and, as my parents had noticed, in the middle of a growth spurt (that would eventually leave me at 5'8" at the age of 14). I stepped into the elevator, face covered in the crumbs of what was once a sponge cake, and looked menacingly at the button panel.
Then, like it was nothing at all, I reached up, hit the number 7 button, and it lit. My nanny gave me a pat on the head and said I was getting tall.
Me, well, in my head I had reached some divine level of strength and power, like I was unstoppable. No longer would people tower over me and press buttons I couldn't reach! No longer would I rely on the strength of others to reach the number 7!
Of course, little did I know (or care) that 7 was not the highest number in the elevator. But that day, I was GOD.
Last night as I returned home from my haircut, the adorablest little anklebiter and her mother (I presume) stepped into the elevator with me and pretty much did exactly what I described, only her sights were set significantly higher: the 24th floor. Eventually I smiled at her and helped her use my ridiculously huge umbrella (courtesy of Michelle and Parkway Health) to press the button. Her mother was highly amused. The little girl gave me the hugest grin and for one of the few times in my life, I didn't feel like loading a little spoiled Chinese kid into a cannon and blasting him/her out to sea.
Being that it made me super happy, that 7 is my birth month and that 24 is my birthday, I took it as inspiration to write this post.
GOOD LUCK TO YOU, ANKLEBITER OF THE 24TH FLOOR. Jia you!
Thursday, June 12, 2008
Why I'm Awesome (Part 23 of 7,412): ANIMALS
This post brought to you by Shorty who inadvertently led to me asking this question to a bunch of queers on SE++.
Originally, this was going to a satirical compilation of questions that I would actually think about asking, as Shorty puts it, "potential mates." Realizing that advertising these questions would in advertently kill my game ("OH NO VIV ASKED ME IF I LIKED PICKLED EGGS SHE IS WANTING ME OH NO"), I instead focused on one particular question that I did end up asking a bunch of queers on SE++ and am genuinely curious about.
Simply put, I took a joke and overthought it to the point of irrelevancy, as only we with those two X chromosomes can do.
List your five favorite animals (be as specific as you like).
The provision in parentheses is of course to make allowances for those who are almost obsessive in their attention-to-detail, but I suppose what I should have added was “and explain why.”
Let us explore my own answer to this telling question and what that might imply about my personality, based nothing on my own inflated sense of self-importance and dire need to inform certain individuals what my preferences in the animal kingdom happen to be.
5) Blue shark. I remember when the family and I were at El Nido resort in Palawan, Philippines, and suddenly everyone by beach suddenly freaked out and ran out of the water. (The resort, for references sake, has a small little private cove of a beach formed by a breakwater.) My sister and I go to look and there, gliding around in the shallow waters of the little beach, a small blue shark had made its way past the breakwater and into the cove. I was mesmerized, mostly by the shape of its tale and the way it glided through the water with seamless grace. It was too small to be terrifying (being that blue sharks are a kind of groundshark and therefore supposed to be huge, I was baffled, but upon asking the guys at the resort they confirmed that I was right in guessing that it was a blue shark), but to be fair I have always loved sharks, this is just the one I prefer above them all, simply for the shape of its tail. Tiger sharks are perhaps my second-favorite kind of shark.
4) Siberian white tiger. Of the five, this is the one animal I find the most beautiful. I cannot explain it, I have just loved the way they look. I spent half an hour staring at one the first time I saw one alive.
3) Gray wolf. I love wolves. Every Jack London book I have ever read has made me love them. Their pack mentality, their resilience in the wilderness, and their innate sense of teamwork have always been appealing to me. Plus they are pretty-looking. I honestly sometimes wish I could own one as a pet, one with two different colored eyes (a motif that appears in many places in my writing project, by the way).
2) Black panther. More specifically, the black Melanistic jaguar. It’s a deadly predator that moves with the grace of a cat and all the sinister visual connotations of a shadow. It’s graceful and beautiful and honestly I would give anything to be able to pet one, even if it might snap my hand off.
1) Dusky dolphin. Really, any kind of dolphin will do it for me. This should be of little surprise to anyone who has actually been to my apartment (either in the States or in Shanghai), what with the old dolphin shower curtain and the dolphin statuettes and Lilienne’s drawing of a girl and a dolphin hanging on the wall. My favorite thing about our trip to Hawaii all those years ago was that I got to swim with and pet the dolphins. It was beyond amazing and, even better, later on during the same vacation, while we were fishing with our grandfather on this super-nice boat (called the “Marlin Magic,” I recall), we happen to sail right by some dolphins! Wistful reminiscence aside, however, my love of dolphins stems purely from the fact that I love the ocean, plain and simple. They are cute and soft and warm-blooded and they are also vicious when provoked by the right kind of predator. Much love.
So, really, except for the dolphins, I just noticed that my favorite animals are all, well, predators. Angry ones. Though technically the wolves can be considered scavengers as well. It also appears to be the reason I like them. Deadly yet gorgeous animals, some capable (or even preferring) to hunt alone while others move in skulks and packs to take down a target together.
I wouldn’t call myself an animal lover, but more of a deeply respectful admirer. Man I could only hope to be so beautifully badass. I COULD ONLY HOPE. But nooooooo I only get so far in presentation but when push comes to shove I am the softest kind of softy. Sigh.
Got any favorites you’d like to share? I will admit that this is something I am always curious to know about pretty much everyone I meet.
PS. I just realized that this is the second "list a bunch of things" post I have made in a row. I promise next time I will post something more interesting.
Originally, this was going to a satirical compilation of questions that I would actually think about asking, as Shorty puts it, "potential mates." Realizing that advertising these questions would in advertently kill my game ("OH NO VIV ASKED ME IF I LIKED PICKLED EGGS SHE IS WANTING ME OH NO"), I instead focused on one particular question that I did end up asking a bunch of queers on SE++ and am genuinely curious about.
Simply put, I took a joke and overthought it to the point of irrelevancy, as only we with those two X chromosomes can do.
List your five favorite animals (be as specific as you like).
The provision in parentheses is of course to make allowances for those who are almost obsessive in their attention-to-detail, but I suppose what I should have added was “and explain why.”
Let us explore my own answer to this telling question and what that might imply about my personality, based nothing on my own inflated sense of self-importance and dire need to inform certain individuals what my preferences in the animal kingdom happen to be.
5) Blue shark. I remember when the family and I were at El Nido resort in Palawan, Philippines, and suddenly everyone by beach suddenly freaked out and ran out of the water. (The resort, for references sake, has a small little private cove of a beach formed by a breakwater.) My sister and I go to look and there, gliding around in the shallow waters of the little beach, a small blue shark had made its way past the breakwater and into the cove. I was mesmerized, mostly by the shape of its tale and the way it glided through the water with seamless grace. It was too small to be terrifying (being that blue sharks are a kind of groundshark and therefore supposed to be huge, I was baffled, but upon asking the guys at the resort they confirmed that I was right in guessing that it was a blue shark), but to be fair I have always loved sharks, this is just the one I prefer above them all, simply for the shape of its tail. Tiger sharks are perhaps my second-favorite kind of shark.
4) Siberian white tiger. Of the five, this is the one animal I find the most beautiful. I cannot explain it, I have just loved the way they look. I spent half an hour staring at one the first time I saw one alive.
3) Gray wolf. I love wolves. Every Jack London book I have ever read has made me love them. Their pack mentality, their resilience in the wilderness, and their innate sense of teamwork have always been appealing to me. Plus they are pretty-looking. I honestly sometimes wish I could own one as a pet, one with two different colored eyes (a motif that appears in many places in my writing project, by the way).
2) Black panther. More specifically, the black Melanistic jaguar. It’s a deadly predator that moves with the grace of a cat and all the sinister visual connotations of a shadow. It’s graceful and beautiful and honestly I would give anything to be able to pet one, even if it might snap my hand off.
1) Dusky dolphin. Really, any kind of dolphin will do it for me. This should be of little surprise to anyone who has actually been to my apartment (either in the States or in Shanghai), what with the old dolphin shower curtain and the dolphin statuettes and Lilienne’s drawing of a girl and a dolphin hanging on the wall. My favorite thing about our trip to Hawaii all those years ago was that I got to swim with and pet the dolphins. It was beyond amazing and, even better, later on during the same vacation, while we were fishing with our grandfather on this super-nice boat (called the “Marlin Magic,” I recall), we happen to sail right by some dolphins! Wistful reminiscence aside, however, my love of dolphins stems purely from the fact that I love the ocean, plain and simple. They are cute and soft and warm-blooded and they are also vicious when provoked by the right kind of predator. Much love.
So, really, except for the dolphins, I just noticed that my favorite animals are all, well, predators. Angry ones. Though technically the wolves can be considered scavengers as well. It also appears to be the reason I like them. Deadly yet gorgeous animals, some capable (or even preferring) to hunt alone while others move in skulks and packs to take down a target together.
I wouldn’t call myself an animal lover, but more of a deeply respectful admirer. Man I could only hope to be so beautifully badass. I COULD ONLY HOPE. But nooooooo I only get so far in presentation but when push comes to shove I am the softest kind of softy. Sigh.
Got any favorites you’d like to share? I will admit that this is something I am always curious to know about pretty much everyone I meet.
PS. I just realized that this is the second "list a bunch of things" post I have made in a row. I promise next time I will post something more interesting.
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Why I'm Awesome (Part 22 of 7,412): SUPERPOWERS
This post is brought to you by a comic book overdose.
Everyone, comic book/graphic novel fan or not, has pretty much been asked what kind of superpower they'd want if they could have any one they can possibly imagine.
After having read a ton of graphic novels/comic books over the last couple of weeks (from the very excellent, non-superpower-related-unless-you-count-a-penis Y, The Last Man to Ultimate Fantastic Four to Runaways to Cable & Deadpool), catching up on existing series, seeing the Iron Man movie, and mounting excitement over the upcoming The Dark Knight and Watchmen movies, I naturally find myself idly pondering this question every time I get up from my seat and go get a glass of water.
Being that I am poor and cannot afford much to else to drink and since water neutralizes hunger pangs, this actually takes place pretty often.
I fondly recall that, in such discussions in the past, my sister would almost always choose the powers of Lifeguard (c/o Marvel), who can borrow/assimilate the powers of pretty much anyone else. THIS IS CHEATING, DAMMIT.
Before I go into ultra-geek mode, however, let me just add that anyone who thinks graphic novels/comic books are for "kids" or are for "nerds/geeks/dorks" or are "immature forms of literature" or really anything along those lines should really pick up Y, The Last Man or the Watchmen. Either one of these will change your mind in an instant and they currently rank among my top two favorite stories in the medium. (SE++, feel free to add your recommendations, as I know you will.)
Okay. Justification over with, I think I should also mention that I like powers that are simple but have a wide range of practical and creative applications. None of that reality-shifting nonsense.
Without further ado, I present to you now my top nine favorite superpowers. (Why not ten? Because "10" has two digits and throws off the alignment of the list and man that kicks my OCD-like insanity into overdrive.)
9) X-ray vision, a la Superman (Justice League). Though not technically X-rays, but more like being able to see through layers of solid objects. Like clothes. I constantly fantastize about being able to see through someone and see them punch in their PIN at the ATM.
8) Durability, a la Luke Cage (Avengers). Not really invulnerability, but I can take a ton of hits before going down. I've always thought this was badass, though I'd be hard-pressed to explain why.
7) Healing Factor, a la Wolverine (X-Men) or Deadpool (Marvel). Finally, my fear of fire defeated if I know I could just heal back from it. Plus, staying young forever? Yes, please, absolutely. It'd take care of this stupid skin nonsense of mind, too.
6) Teleportation, a la Nightcrawler (X-Men) or Blink (Exiles). This way I can cross the damn street without standing around waiting for a car to slow down or a light to change. Yes I am constantly in a hurry. No I do not like waiting. Yes I would love to be able to teleport across oceans.
5) Underwater breathing, a la Namor (Marvel) or Aquaman (Justice League). My love of the ocean should leave this as no surprise.
4) Forcefields, a la Invisible Woman (Fantastic Four) or Violet (The Incredibles movie). Not invisibility so much, but definitely the forcefields. At least the spherical ones that can slice through anything if you toss them into a solid object. That be bitchin'.
3) Animal morphing, a la Beast Boy (Teen Titans) or technically Wolfsbane (X-Men). People who are familiar with the UNIFIED game we were prepping for on SE++ will know what I'm talking about, as I created a character who could transform into any animal (with the limitation of only one species per genus). If you want to see what kind of uncanny supernerdery I'm talking about here, check this out. And no, smartasses, furriness has nothing to do with this.
2) Intangibility, a la Shadowcat (X-Men). I dream constantly of walking into Shanghai traffic with this superpower. That, and sweeping an arm into an ATM and yanking out a stack of the red stuff. Ooh, ooh, or walking off the subway without having to shove people out of the way. Imagine what that would do for my anger problems!
1) Photographic reflexes, a la Monica Dawson (Heroes TV show). Aka muscle memory, where you just look at someone do something and you know how to do it, too, though not including superpowers. Stuff like playing a piano, busting out a wrestling move, craaaaaaazy Guitar Hero skills, firing a gun, piloting a helicopter, etc. All awesome. Basically went straight to my number one spot after I saw it on Heroes, haha. Bumped shadow manipulation (a la this character I also did for UNIFIED) right off the Top 9 list.
A lot of my thinking is done at an ATM, honestly.
So sure, while it may seem childish to fantasize about being super-human or whatever, I think it's sometimes therapeutic. And you can't tell me you never wondered about this stuff, either.
Everyone, comic book/graphic novel fan or not, has pretty much been asked what kind of superpower they'd want if they could have any one they can possibly imagine.
After having read a ton of graphic novels/comic books over the last couple of weeks (from the very excellent, non-superpower-related-unless-you-count-a-penis Y, The Last Man to Ultimate Fantastic Four to Runaways to Cable & Deadpool), catching up on existing series, seeing the Iron Man movie, and mounting excitement over the upcoming The Dark Knight and Watchmen movies, I naturally find myself idly pondering this question every time I get up from my seat and go get a glass of water.
Being that I am poor and cannot afford much to else to drink and since water neutralizes hunger pangs, this actually takes place pretty often.
I fondly recall that, in such discussions in the past, my sister would almost always choose the powers of Lifeguard (c/o Marvel), who can borrow/assimilate the powers of pretty much anyone else. THIS IS CHEATING, DAMMIT.
Before I go into ultra-geek mode, however, let me just add that anyone who thinks graphic novels/comic books are for "kids" or are for "nerds/geeks/dorks" or are "immature forms of literature" or really anything along those lines should really pick up Y, The Last Man or the Watchmen. Either one of these will change your mind in an instant and they currently rank among my top two favorite stories in the medium. (SE++, feel free to add your recommendations, as I know you will.)
Okay. Justification over with, I think I should also mention that I like powers that are simple but have a wide range of practical and creative applications. None of that reality-shifting nonsense.
Without further ado, I present to you now my top nine favorite superpowers. (Why not ten? Because "10" has two digits and throws off the alignment of the list and man that kicks my OCD-like insanity into overdrive.)
9) X-ray vision, a la Superman (Justice League). Though not technically X-rays, but more like being able to see through layers of solid objects. Like clothes. I constantly fantastize about being able to see through someone and see them punch in their PIN at the ATM.
8) Durability, a la Luke Cage (Avengers). Not really invulnerability, but I can take a ton of hits before going down. I've always thought this was badass, though I'd be hard-pressed to explain why.
7) Healing Factor, a la Wolverine (X-Men) or Deadpool (Marvel). Finally, my fear of fire defeated if I know I could just heal back from it. Plus, staying young forever? Yes, please, absolutely. It'd take care of this stupid skin nonsense of mind, too.
6) Teleportation, a la Nightcrawler (X-Men) or Blink (Exiles). This way I can cross the damn street without standing around waiting for a car to slow down or a light to change. Yes I am constantly in a hurry. No I do not like waiting. Yes I would love to be able to teleport across oceans.
5) Underwater breathing, a la Namor (Marvel) or Aquaman (Justice League). My love of the ocean should leave this as no surprise.
4) Forcefields, a la Invisible Woman (Fantastic Four) or Violet (The Incredibles movie). Not invisibility so much, but definitely the forcefields. At least the spherical ones that can slice through anything if you toss them into a solid object. That be bitchin'.
3) Animal morphing, a la Beast Boy (Teen Titans) or technically Wolfsbane (X-Men). People who are familiar with the UNIFIED game we were prepping for on SE++ will know what I'm talking about, as I created a character who could transform into any animal (with the limitation of only one species per genus). If you want to see what kind of uncanny supernerdery I'm talking about here, check this out. And no, smartasses, furriness has nothing to do with this.
2) Intangibility, a la Shadowcat (X-Men). I dream constantly of walking into Shanghai traffic with this superpower. That, and sweeping an arm into an ATM and yanking out a stack of the red stuff. Ooh, ooh, or walking off the subway without having to shove people out of the way. Imagine what that would do for my anger problems!
1) Photographic reflexes, a la Monica Dawson (Heroes TV show). Aka muscle memory, where you just look at someone do something and you know how to do it, too, though not including superpowers. Stuff like playing a piano, busting out a wrestling move, craaaaaaazy Guitar Hero skills, firing a gun, piloting a helicopter, etc. All awesome. Basically went straight to my number one spot after I saw it on Heroes, haha. Bumped shadow manipulation (a la this character I also did for UNIFIED) right off the Top 9 list.
A lot of my thinking is done at an ATM, honestly.
So sure, while it may seem childish to fantasize about being super-human or whatever, I think it's sometimes therapeutic. And you can't tell me you never wondered about this stuff, either.
Monday, May 12, 2008
Why I'm Awesome (Part 21 of 7,412): SHANGHAI
I have been here since November 2005 and I have to say, in that time, there is one thing I have come to appreciate about Shanghai that is far more precious to me than its vast selection of food.
[ This post is brought to you by my posse and fellow volleyballers. ]
Putting aside things like low-cost housecleaners (we call them "ayis" or "ayi" in singular), cheap food (street food oh my GOD), incredible nightlife, mass amounts of bicycles, stupendously unpredictable weather, fake EVERYTHING, polluted air, horrendous traffic, ridiculous phone manners, and, of course, the insanity that permeates the entire population, perhaps the one thing I like about Shanghai is also present in other such cities.
I am talking about how easy it is to make friends and build a social circle from scratch in this city and others wherein foreign diasporas are prevalent. Most common in developing cities, these are situations where expatriates and other foreign residents flock together and form their own communities within a host city.
What this means is that in cities like this, it's simply easier to get yourself settled in socially. You show up, go to any number of "expat" activities, and you are almost always welcome to hang out with them as friends. It is easy to meet people who speak your language and build lasting friendships based on the fact that you are all going through the same sorts of headaches that come with living in a foreign host city.
I compare this to, say, a city which is relatively well-established, where the host city's language is prevalent enough that all foreigners are able to speak it, and where expatriates are much more easily camouflaged into the local flock.
Going into such a city knowing few or no people beforehand becomes a daunting social task. Friendships have long since been established, and groups of friends tend to be settled in their ways so breaking into an existing circle is difficult. Often, if a friend or relative brings you into their circle, you are classified as "so-and-so's friend/sister/brother" rather than as their own friend.
I'm not saying this is a bad thing. Having done the expat thing my whole life, I (and I'm sure Romain will back me up here) would kill to have stable groups of friends who don't leave after a few years or get kicked out of the country because of stupid visa rules.
I am simply making an observation. My first year in Shanghai was incredibly antisocial for a wealth of reasons, but a lack of social contact was not one of them. I simply didn't ever go out. But once I accepted a few invitations to go hang out, I found myself with a group of friends that are now some my very closest.
Were I to move back to a more stable city, where international schools do not exist, I would have a hard time adjusting not to the fact that people do not spit at my feet or smoke in elevators, but to the fact that starting over and making new friends is a tedious role regardless of how socially adept you are.
It's not impossible, it's just harder. I know some of you will disagree with me, but I'm also willing to bet that you have likely never lived in a city like Shanghai. When you see how easy it is to get settled in a city wherein you don't speak the local language, it really does blow your mind.
This, more than anything, is one of the reasons that I think I will always be at home in a city like Shanghai. I grew up in these cities, where we are thrown into an expat bubble, where expats are always willing to help one another out, even if they have never met before or know each other names, because we can all sympathize with being away from home, with the culture gap, or even just the language barrier. It's not an easy thing, it is always a comfort to know that the people sharing your boat are at least willing to help you out.
You could, in a way, compare it to college, where there is something fundamentally similar about everyone there that makes it easier to make new friends when you first get there. You're all freshmen, you're probably all living away from home for the first time, and it's the little things that come with those two facts that make it easy to build a foundation for a friendship or at least a social connection.
I probably have this sort of lifestyle to thank for the fact that I do not believe anyone should ever walk alone. I've said it before I know and I'm probably not all that unique in thinking this, but I guess that's why I love it when I am basically doing my Dr. Phviv thing for five hours out of an otherwise uneventful day.
Quite frankly, I am staying in Shanghai because of the friends I have made here. Prior to this city, I always had my family as a home base to return to when friends came and went or when we moved on to a new place. Here, this is the first time I have had to build a social network relying solely on my family's own business contacts, and I have to say that all you guys made it so easy for me to come to love this city.
This does include the volleyballers, by the way. I only see you guys twice a week now but SO MUCH LOVE to you guys.
That first year? Hated the city. Hated it. Now I don't want to leave.
[ This post is brought to you by my posse and fellow volleyballers. ]
Putting aside things like low-cost housecleaners (we call them "ayis" or "ayi" in singular), cheap food (street food oh my GOD), incredible nightlife, mass amounts of bicycles, stupendously unpredictable weather, fake EVERYTHING, polluted air, horrendous traffic, ridiculous phone manners, and, of course, the insanity that permeates the entire population, perhaps the one thing I like about Shanghai is also present in other such cities.
I am talking about how easy it is to make friends and build a social circle from scratch in this city and others wherein foreign diasporas are prevalent. Most common in developing cities, these are situations where expatriates and other foreign residents flock together and form their own communities within a host city.
What this means is that in cities like this, it's simply easier to get yourself settled in socially. You show up, go to any number of "expat" activities, and you are almost always welcome to hang out with them as friends. It is easy to meet people who speak your language and build lasting friendships based on the fact that you are all going through the same sorts of headaches that come with living in a foreign host city.
I compare this to, say, a city which is relatively well-established, where the host city's language is prevalent enough that all foreigners are able to speak it, and where expatriates are much more easily camouflaged into the local flock.
Going into such a city knowing few or no people beforehand becomes a daunting social task. Friendships have long since been established, and groups of friends tend to be settled in their ways so breaking into an existing circle is difficult. Often, if a friend or relative brings you into their circle, you are classified as "so-and-so's friend/sister/brother" rather than as their own friend.
I'm not saying this is a bad thing. Having done the expat thing my whole life, I (and I'm sure Romain will back me up here) would kill to have stable groups of friends who don't leave after a few years or get kicked out of the country because of stupid visa rules.
I am simply making an observation. My first year in Shanghai was incredibly antisocial for a wealth of reasons, but a lack of social contact was not one of them. I simply didn't ever go out. But once I accepted a few invitations to go hang out, I found myself with a group of friends that are now some my very closest.
Were I to move back to a more stable city, where international schools do not exist, I would have a hard time adjusting not to the fact that people do not spit at my feet or smoke in elevators, but to the fact that starting over and making new friends is a tedious role regardless of how socially adept you are.
It's not impossible, it's just harder. I know some of you will disagree with me, but I'm also willing to bet that you have likely never lived in a city like Shanghai. When you see how easy it is to get settled in a city wherein you don't speak the local language, it really does blow your mind.
This, more than anything, is one of the reasons that I think I will always be at home in a city like Shanghai. I grew up in these cities, where we are thrown into an expat bubble, where expats are always willing to help one another out, even if they have never met before or know each other names, because we can all sympathize with being away from home, with the culture gap, or even just the language barrier. It's not an easy thing, it is always a comfort to know that the people sharing your boat are at least willing to help you out.
You could, in a way, compare it to college, where there is something fundamentally similar about everyone there that makes it easier to make new friends when you first get there. You're all freshmen, you're probably all living away from home for the first time, and it's the little things that come with those two facts that make it easy to build a foundation for a friendship or at least a social connection.
I probably have this sort of lifestyle to thank for the fact that I do not believe anyone should ever walk alone. I've said it before I know and I'm probably not all that unique in thinking this, but I guess that's why I love it when I am basically doing my Dr. Phviv thing for five hours out of an otherwise uneventful day.
Quite frankly, I am staying in Shanghai because of the friends I have made here. Prior to this city, I always had my family as a home base to return to when friends came and went or when we moved on to a new place. Here, this is the first time I have had to build a social network relying solely on my family's own business contacts, and I have to say that all you guys made it so easy for me to come to love this city.
This does include the volleyballers, by the way. I only see you guys twice a week now but SO MUCH LOVE to you guys.
That first year? Hated the city. Hated it. Now I don't want to leave.
Thursday, May 8, 2008
Why I'm Awesome (Part 20 of 7,412): GIRLIFICATION
So absorbed I have been in my story as well as a HOST of games (such as GTA4, a renewed addiction to Guitar Hero AND Viva Pinata, and various others on the DS Lite) that I've neglected to write about, you know, ME!
Fear not. If there is one thing I am good at, it's talking about that topic in particular.
[ This post is brought to you by Michelle, Jaya, and the pearl market lady. ]
Just over a month ago, right around the point at which I wound up in this abundance of free time that resulted from an untimely departure from my old company, I decided that much shopping was needed to alleviate the stress.
Yes, spending money when I am no longer making it. IT'S CALLED SAVINGS.
I am not and have never really been an avid shopper, certainly not when I am in Asia. And before you deplore me for what I'm about say next, SENIORS NAVIN AND KINDER, I will have you know that I am speaking purely from fact and not some deep-seated level of self-deprecation. It sucks to shop in Asia when you just aren't built like an Asian.
I really don't have to go into detail here, but basically, I am of a noticeably different shape from my dwarven, elvish countrymen. It really is the same story whether it's Hong Kong, Singapore, Shanghai, etc. It is simply frustrating to walk into a store, try something on, only to get depressed because the XXXXXXXXXXXL size doesn't fit.
On top of this, I am also, well, tomboyish. I was never "into" the more effeminate pursuits of make-up selection or constant haircare (my hair is flawless on its own without my trying, believe me). I never get my nails done, either. I did not own much jewelry, nor do I wear any beyond a pair of earrings and a watch. These just weren't things that I was interested in.
Then along comes my darling Michelle. Michelle, as many of you know, is one of my favorites and, loathe though she may be to admit it, a SHANGHAI STAPLE. She is now located in Washington, DC, which, some of you may be savvy enough to note, IS NOWHERE NEAR SHANGHAI. Disappointing as this fact may be, rest assured, Michelle, that you are missed, I love you bunches, I hope you are enjoying yourself.
(Which honestly, can't be very much because I am not there.)
BUT TO THE POINT. In Michelle's final weeks in Shanghai, we journeyed to the Hongqiao Pearl Market, a typical Chinese market were fake purses and genuine pearls abound. You really have to see it to believe. She introduces me to her trusty pearl lady, who sells jewelry of all sorts, not just pearls, and, in the span of four or five heartbeats, VIVIENNE BECOMES A GIRL.
Almost like my body just up and went "oh hey that there is a vagina, huh."
I went nuts. I bought so much stuff (for very cheap, I will have you know) and effectively increased my accessory selection eightfold.
I also bought three pairs of sunglasses.
Mere days later, to H&M, where I picked up more necklaces and bangles and bracelets.
Michelle departs. Depression sets in. What do I do?
I go to the fabric market to get a suit made. In getting those suits made, I bring my friend Kelly along, and what do we find while wandering around there? A silk tailor who makes clothes from some really gorgeous silk. And what do I get made? MY FIRST DRESS PURCHASE IN OVER FOUR YEARS.
Truth! The last dress I bought was in my junior year of college! (This also reminds me that in exactly one week from today, I would have been graduated for three years. Wow.)
Moving on. Two more silken creations follow.
In between these trips to the fabric market? Salon hair washes! Head massages! Manicures!
Then, on April 27, 2008, the unthinkable happened. I put aside my razor for the last time and walked into a little beauty shop and got my very, very first waxing session.
Yeah um if giving birth is more painful than THAT, then no thanks. Adoption ok.
I also got my eyebrows shaped. Not as painful, but man she was plucking hairs out that I couldn't even see with my naked eye.
I walk out there honestly feeling incredibly good. Tingly, but good. It is an odd sensation.
The second driver for all this is, of course, my dear Princess Jaya. It is no surprise to those of us who know here that she is, in our little group of hoodies and jeans, the slinky black halter dress. Always chic, she is.
And I felt I could learn a thing or two about dressing myself up from her. I even pester her for make-up tips! "What's that you're putting on your face? What's that stuff? And that stuff? What colors would look good on me? How much eyeliner should I wear? What kind of mascara do you use? Do you have a brand you'd recommend?"
To be fair, I still do not often wear make-up. That stuff costs. But I guess now when I do use it, I feel like I know what I'm doing. It's odd. I need more practice. I think I've used more make-up remover to get rid of smudges or mistakes than I have actually used in make-up itself.
All in all, it feels good. And I would imagine it is pretty odd when I walk into a barbecue wearing a silk top and jeans and stuff and geek the fuck out when I see that they are playing Rock Band RIGHT THERE IN THE LIVING ROOM AND OH MY GOD CAN I PLAY CAN I PLAY CAN I PLAAAAAAAY and of course whip everyone's ASSES at it.
Shit I ain't gonna lie. I love that feeling. I also love the fact that I haven't had to shave my legs in TWO WEEKS.
Fear not. If there is one thing I am good at, it's talking about that topic in particular.
[ This post is brought to you by Michelle, Jaya, and the pearl market lady. ]
Just over a month ago, right around the point at which I wound up in this abundance of free time that resulted from an untimely departure from my old company, I decided that much shopping was needed to alleviate the stress.
Yes, spending money when I am no longer making it. IT'S CALLED SAVINGS.
I am not and have never really been an avid shopper, certainly not when I am in Asia. And before you deplore me for what I'm about say next, SENIORS NAVIN AND KINDER, I will have you know that I am speaking purely from fact and not some deep-seated level of self-deprecation. It sucks to shop in Asia when you just aren't built like an Asian.
I really don't have to go into detail here, but basically, I am of a noticeably different shape from my dwarven, elvish countrymen. It really is the same story whether it's Hong Kong, Singapore, Shanghai, etc. It is simply frustrating to walk into a store, try something on, only to get depressed because the XXXXXXXXXXXL size doesn't fit.
On top of this, I am also, well, tomboyish. I was never "into" the more effeminate pursuits of make-up selection or constant haircare (my hair is flawless on its own without my trying, believe me). I never get my nails done, either. I did not own much jewelry, nor do I wear any beyond a pair of earrings and a watch. These just weren't things that I was interested in.
Then along comes my darling Michelle. Michelle, as many of you know, is one of my favorites and, loathe though she may be to admit it, a SHANGHAI STAPLE. She is now located in Washington, DC, which, some of you may be savvy enough to note, IS NOWHERE NEAR SHANGHAI. Disappointing as this fact may be, rest assured, Michelle, that you are missed, I love you bunches, I hope you are enjoying yourself.
(Which honestly, can't be very much because I am not there.)
BUT TO THE POINT. In Michelle's final weeks in Shanghai, we journeyed to the Hongqiao Pearl Market, a typical Chinese market were fake purses and genuine pearls abound. You really have to see it to believe. She introduces me to her trusty pearl lady, who sells jewelry of all sorts, not just pearls, and, in the span of four or five heartbeats, VIVIENNE BECOMES A GIRL.
Almost like my body just up and went "oh hey that there is a vagina, huh."
I went nuts. I bought so much stuff (for very cheap, I will have you know) and effectively increased my accessory selection eightfold.
I also bought three pairs of sunglasses.
Mere days later, to H&M, where I picked up more necklaces and bangles and bracelets.
Michelle departs. Depression sets in. What do I do?
I go to the fabric market to get a suit made. In getting those suits made, I bring my friend Kelly along, and what do we find while wandering around there? A silk tailor who makes clothes from some really gorgeous silk. And what do I get made? MY FIRST DRESS PURCHASE IN OVER FOUR YEARS.
Truth! The last dress I bought was in my junior year of college! (This also reminds me that in exactly one week from today, I would have been graduated for three years. Wow.)
Moving on. Two more silken creations follow.
In between these trips to the fabric market? Salon hair washes! Head massages! Manicures!
Then, on April 27, 2008, the unthinkable happened. I put aside my razor for the last time and walked into a little beauty shop and got my very, very first waxing session.
Yeah um if giving birth is more painful than THAT, then no thanks. Adoption ok.
I also got my eyebrows shaped. Not as painful, but man she was plucking hairs out that I couldn't even see with my naked eye.
I walk out there honestly feeling incredibly good. Tingly, but good. It is an odd sensation.
The second driver for all this is, of course, my dear Princess Jaya. It is no surprise to those of us who know here that she is, in our little group of hoodies and jeans, the slinky black halter dress. Always chic, she is.
And I felt I could learn a thing or two about dressing myself up from her. I even pester her for make-up tips! "What's that you're putting on your face? What's that stuff? And that stuff? What colors would look good on me? How much eyeliner should I wear? What kind of mascara do you use? Do you have a brand you'd recommend?"
To be fair, I still do not often wear make-up. That stuff costs. But I guess now when I do use it, I feel like I know what I'm doing. It's odd. I need more practice. I think I've used more make-up remover to get rid of smudges or mistakes than I have actually used in make-up itself.
All in all, it feels good. And I would imagine it is pretty odd when I walk into a barbecue wearing a silk top and jeans and stuff and geek the fuck out when I see that they are playing Rock Band RIGHT THERE IN THE LIVING ROOM AND OH MY GOD CAN I PLAY CAN I PLAY CAN I PLAAAAAAAY and of course whip everyone's ASSES at it.
Shit I ain't gonna lie. I love that feeling. I also love the fact that I haven't had to shave my legs in TWO WEEKS.
Sunday, March 30, 2008
Why I'm Awesome (Part 19 of 7,412): SPORT
I'm not an athlete, at least not in the super-impressive, super-awesome, super-sexy sort of way. Ask anyone who plays volleyball with me, and they will validate that I am one of the slowest-moving people on the court and if I didn't have a pretty decent spike and serve, I'm not much use, really.
Ask anyone who has ever swum with me or against me, they'll confirm that my butterfly stroke is abysmal in that my shoulders barely make it out of the water, my backstroke is hindered by a chronic fear of smashing my forehead into the wall in the event of a turn, and that I cannot seem to plunge/dive with goggles on as they constantly get pulled off by the force of impact with the water.
[ This post is brought to you by dinner at Zoco (Spanish food) with my Daddy and Vicky. ]
I will say, however, that while I am far from ace in any sport that I have ever attempted to play, the fact that I participated on some intermediate to advanced level in certain kinds of sports certainly had a positive impacts on me, and I don't mean physically.
I got into a discussion recently with my father and his secretary, with whom we had dinner at Zoco (attn Shangers, it's the Spanish place on Julu Road near the Velvet Lounge, pretty good food but I think Azul on Hengshan is better), about the importance of team sports and individual sports.
Less recently than that discussion, I was talking with a variety of friends regarding what kinds of sports are most beneficial to you in terms of mental agility, and, more importantly, personality development. I basically asked: which kind of sport is better: a team sport or an individual sport?
Stepping away from athleticism or skill level and focusing solely on your brainfood, let's clarify exactly what I mean here. A individual sport is what I'd classify as a sport wherein the focus is on you as an individual. This includes swimming, even though there are relay events in swimming... ideally speaking, the faster you yourself as an individual are, the better off your team will be. Any sport (or event within a sport, for argument's sake) that involves just you and your blood, sweat, and brains, is classified as an individual sport.
A team sport is any sport wherein you cannot win on your own. It doesn't matter how good you as an individual are, it matters how well your team plays as a whole. In this particular case you hear things like "the team is only as good as its worst player." Sure you can be better than your teammates in certain or all aspects of a sport, but you cannot win without them, you cannot win without trusting them, you cannot win it by playing over them or pretending they aren't there. They are necessary not just owing to the rules of the game, but to playing a good game.
To further clarify, the value of a sport is not just in winning. Winning is nice and all, but what it always boils down to is playing a good game. You played hard, the other team played hard, and you are satisfied with your performance (whether as a team or an individual). I say this just in case any of you thought I was being all "LOLZ WINNING IS AWSUM."
Now, the majority of the time, people told me that team sports are, by and large, more valuable than individual sports. Why? Because of what they teach you. Teamwork, trust, the value of the whole over the individual, sacrifice, putting pieces together to make something better, etc. Very cliche, I get it, but stick with me here.
You learn not to blame one individual for a mistake because, well, anyone could've made that mistake. You learn that it's not about having the best players, but the best players that play together. A team that is more likely to bank on its strengths as a whole will almost always win over a team that has one or two stars that never communicate with one another. (1982 Miracle Team! or, better yet, the 2000 Lady Dragons Volleyball Team!)
While these are valuable skills, I do feel that individual sports are just as important, but on a completely different level.
In an individual sport, you rely on little more than your own drive. Sure you have your coach, teammates (i.e., they are the people you train with), family, friends, fans, etc cheering you on, but the effort is mostly your own. You push yourself not to beat the people around you, but to beat yourself. To constantly and always better yourself against the clock or your old scorecards. Golf, swimming, track and field, singles badminton, etc, are all good examples of what I'm talking about.
The skills you learn, then, are how to push yourself harder in anything that you set out to do. Good enough is never good enough. If you don't beat your old time, then you have not trained hard enough, did not perform well enough. You are driven by a sense of self-improvement, and you do what you do to see yourself do better. You don't perform as a component on your team, but you do it for yourself. All your training, all your time, all your blood and sweat... it was all spent for you.
If you are doing it JUST because a coach or a parent is pushing you, you might need an attitude adjustment... or possibly a long talk.
Skills from both kinds of sports are necessary and absolutely positive to your development as a person. They are not mutually exclusive, though they certainly may seem so at some point.
An individual sport teaches you how to play hard for yourself. A team sport teaches you how to play hard with your team... and how to trust the team to play hard for themselves. Put the two together and you basically develop a can-do, self-starting, self-motivated, and team-oriented way or thinking.
Focusing too much on one set of skills can naturally have some drawbacks. Get too self-involved and you may find it hard to work with other people. Relying too much on your team may lead you to be complacent and let your team do all the work. Worse, it may even lead you to be pressured by your team to do better, which builds resentment and likely causes you to be less willing to work well with them.
Now, to be absolutely fair, I am not saying that you should play one individual sport and one team sport to get the best of both worlds, nor am I saying that if you just played one kind of sport YOU ARE SCREWED AND ARE A TERRIBLE PERSON. These are skills that come naturally to anyone who pays a lick of attention to what's going on around them and within them.
What this is, then, is an admittedly convoluted way to explain that working with other people and working with yourself are two things that are equally important. You cannot rank one over the other. Put them together in a way that suits you best means that you will never cheat yourself, but you are willing and able to play on a team.
Whether it's sports, work, friendship or even a relationship, this sort of thing goes more overlooked than I like to think.
You are there for your teammates, coworkers, friends, or significant other just as much as they are there for you. Don't sell yourself short, don't sell them short. Please please please never forget that.
I part you now with an amusing story my father relayed to me about how an individual sport can become a team sport if you're willing to thinking tactically.
My dad used to run the 400m sprint for the track team back in college. His tactic would be to sprint out super fast at the beginning and go all out, scaring the opponents to speed up as well to keep up. Other runners in the event that were also with his school, however, only kept pace. What happens at the 200m mark? My dad is burned out and he drops back... and so are the people he had encouraged to stay with him... but the other runners from his track team would then break into their respective sprints and win the points for the school!
Naturally, he admits that this defeats the whole purpose of training to get the best time for oneself (as that is ultimately what would win the overall meet), but hey he owned the 200m sprint, apparently.
Ah, Chans. Always thinking outside the box. I wuv my Daddy. :)
Ask anyone who has ever swum with me or against me, they'll confirm that my butterfly stroke is abysmal in that my shoulders barely make it out of the water, my backstroke is hindered by a chronic fear of smashing my forehead into the wall in the event of a turn, and that I cannot seem to plunge/dive with goggles on as they constantly get pulled off by the force of impact with the water.
[ This post is brought to you by dinner at Zoco (Spanish food) with my Daddy and Vicky. ]
I will say, however, that while I am far from ace in any sport that I have ever attempted to play, the fact that I participated on some intermediate to advanced level in certain kinds of sports certainly had a positive impacts on me, and I don't mean physically.
I got into a discussion recently with my father and his secretary, with whom we had dinner at Zoco (attn Shangers, it's the Spanish place on Julu Road near the Velvet Lounge, pretty good food but I think Azul on Hengshan is better), about the importance of team sports and individual sports.
Less recently than that discussion, I was talking with a variety of friends regarding what kinds of sports are most beneficial to you in terms of mental agility, and, more importantly, personality development. I basically asked: which kind of sport is better: a team sport or an individual sport?
Stepping away from athleticism or skill level and focusing solely on your brainfood, let's clarify exactly what I mean here. A individual sport is what I'd classify as a sport wherein the focus is on you as an individual. This includes swimming, even though there are relay events in swimming... ideally speaking, the faster you yourself as an individual are, the better off your team will be. Any sport (or event within a sport, for argument's sake) that involves just you and your blood, sweat, and brains, is classified as an individual sport.
A team sport is any sport wherein you cannot win on your own. It doesn't matter how good you as an individual are, it matters how well your team plays as a whole. In this particular case you hear things like "the team is only as good as its worst player." Sure you can be better than your teammates in certain or all aspects of a sport, but you cannot win without them, you cannot win without trusting them, you cannot win it by playing over them or pretending they aren't there. They are necessary not just owing to the rules of the game, but to playing a good game.
To further clarify, the value of a sport is not just in winning. Winning is nice and all, but what it always boils down to is playing a good game. You played hard, the other team played hard, and you are satisfied with your performance (whether as a team or an individual). I say this just in case any of you thought I was being all "LOLZ WINNING IS AWSUM."
Now, the majority of the time, people told me that team sports are, by and large, more valuable than individual sports. Why? Because of what they teach you. Teamwork, trust, the value of the whole over the individual, sacrifice, putting pieces together to make something better, etc. Very cliche, I get it, but stick with me here.
You learn not to blame one individual for a mistake because, well, anyone could've made that mistake. You learn that it's not about having the best players, but the best players that play together. A team that is more likely to bank on its strengths as a whole will almost always win over a team that has one or two stars that never communicate with one another. (1982 Miracle Team! or, better yet, the 2000 Lady Dragons Volleyball Team!)
While these are valuable skills, I do feel that individual sports are just as important, but on a completely different level.
In an individual sport, you rely on little more than your own drive. Sure you have your coach, teammates (i.e., they are the people you train with), family, friends, fans, etc cheering you on, but the effort is mostly your own. You push yourself not to beat the people around you, but to beat yourself. To constantly and always better yourself against the clock or your old scorecards. Golf, swimming, track and field, singles badminton, etc, are all good examples of what I'm talking about.
The skills you learn, then, are how to push yourself harder in anything that you set out to do. Good enough is never good enough. If you don't beat your old time, then you have not trained hard enough, did not perform well enough. You are driven by a sense of self-improvement, and you do what you do to see yourself do better. You don't perform as a component on your team, but you do it for yourself. All your training, all your time, all your blood and sweat... it was all spent for you.
If you are doing it JUST because a coach or a parent is pushing you, you might need an attitude adjustment... or possibly a long talk.
Skills from both kinds of sports are necessary and absolutely positive to your development as a person. They are not mutually exclusive, though they certainly may seem so at some point.
An individual sport teaches you how to play hard for yourself. A team sport teaches you how to play hard with your team... and how to trust the team to play hard for themselves. Put the two together and you basically develop a can-do, self-starting, self-motivated, and team-oriented way or thinking.
Focusing too much on one set of skills can naturally have some drawbacks. Get too self-involved and you may find it hard to work with other people. Relying too much on your team may lead you to be complacent and let your team do all the work. Worse, it may even lead you to be pressured by your team to do better, which builds resentment and likely causes you to be less willing to work well with them.
Now, to be absolutely fair, I am not saying that you should play one individual sport and one team sport to get the best of both worlds, nor am I saying that if you just played one kind of sport YOU ARE SCREWED AND ARE A TERRIBLE PERSON. These are skills that come naturally to anyone who pays a lick of attention to what's going on around them and within them.
What this is, then, is an admittedly convoluted way to explain that working with other people and working with yourself are two things that are equally important. You cannot rank one over the other. Put them together in a way that suits you best means that you will never cheat yourself, but you are willing and able to play on a team.
Whether it's sports, work, friendship or even a relationship, this sort of thing goes more overlooked than I like to think.
You are there for your teammates, coworkers, friends, or significant other just as much as they are there for you. Don't sell yourself short, don't sell them short. Please please please never forget that.
I part you now with an amusing story my father relayed to me about how an individual sport can become a team sport if you're willing to thinking tactically.
My dad used to run the 400m sprint for the track team back in college. His tactic would be to sprint out super fast at the beginning and go all out, scaring the opponents to speed up as well to keep up. Other runners in the event that were also with his school, however, only kept pace. What happens at the 200m mark? My dad is burned out and he drops back... and so are the people he had encouraged to stay with him... but the other runners from his track team would then break into their respective sprints and win the points for the school!
Naturally, he admits that this defeats the whole purpose of training to get the best time for oneself (as that is ultimately what would win the overall meet), but hey he owned the 200m sprint, apparently.
Ah, Chans. Always thinking outside the box. I wuv my Daddy. :)
Monday, March 24, 2008
Why I'm Awesome (Part 18 of 7,412): REAL
People, people, we need to talk.
[ This post brought to you by dumb people. ]
Anyone who actually thinks I'm a bitch deserves to keep thinking I'm a bitch. What I am, is a very loud, outspoken person with a strong personality and a stronger attitude who actually doesn't give much of a fuck about what people she doesn't care for or respect think.
You know how you lie or embellish a story when there is no need for embellishment or lies? Whether it's to make you look better or not as dumb or whatever, you edit the story somewhat?
Stop that. It's stupid.
Real life is interesting enough without you idiots sassing it all up with dumb stories that are designed only to make you look more badass or make you look more like the victim or what-have-you. False modesty is also pretty fucking stupid... if you did something great, IT'S OKAY TO FEEL GREAT ABOUT IT AND IT IS CERTAINLY OKAY TO TELL THE STORY EXACTLY HOW IT HAPPENED.
If you were dumb, own up to that shit. If you were awesome, own up to that shit.
Seriously. Sooner or later you'll do something that is ACTUALLY badass or you'll do something that is ACTUALLY stupid. Bank on those moments to share your stories in all their realistic glory, because guess what.
What actually happens in life, the real shit... there's nothing in your imagination that can rival it when it decides to get in your face.
Enough bullshit. Whether it's to get validation or to make people like you more, enough bullshit. If they like you, they'll like you! If they don't, they don't, and why the fuck should you care?
So knock it off.
[ This post brought to you by dumb people. ]
Anyone who actually thinks I'm a bitch deserves to keep thinking I'm a bitch. What I am, is a very loud, outspoken person with a strong personality and a stronger attitude who actually doesn't give much of a fuck about what people she doesn't care for or respect think.
You know how you lie or embellish a story when there is no need for embellishment or lies? Whether it's to make you look better or not as dumb or whatever, you edit the story somewhat?
Stop that. It's stupid.
Real life is interesting enough without you idiots sassing it all up with dumb stories that are designed only to make you look more badass or make you look more like the victim or what-have-you. False modesty is also pretty fucking stupid... if you did something great, IT'S OKAY TO FEEL GREAT ABOUT IT AND IT IS CERTAINLY OKAY TO TELL THE STORY EXACTLY HOW IT HAPPENED.
If you were dumb, own up to that shit. If you were awesome, own up to that shit.
Seriously. Sooner or later you'll do something that is ACTUALLY badass or you'll do something that is ACTUALLY stupid. Bank on those moments to share your stories in all their realistic glory, because guess what.
What actually happens in life, the real shit... there's nothing in your imagination that can rival it when it decides to get in your face.
Enough bullshit. Whether it's to get validation or to make people like you more, enough bullshit. If they like you, they'll like you! If they don't, they don't, and why the fuck should you care?
So knock it off.
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
Why I'm Awesome (Part 17 of 7,412): RECHARGED
Our office moved way out to Pudong from Hongqiao. For those who don't know, we basically moved from the most western area of the city to the most eastern area of the city. For those who DO know, we are now located in Chuansha, which is fifteen minutes northwest from the Pudong Airport.
[ This post is brought to you by Element Fresh's wireless connection. ]
It takes an hour by car to get out there every morning and an hour and a half every evening to get back (traffic, yay). We get picked up and dropped off and lunch is on the company, but it is an undeniable bore. Today was our first taste of this...and we had no furniture or internet access set up at the new office. Splendid!
I have, however, been trying to make a concerted effort to focus on as many of the positive aspects of this change as I can.
By far, the best part is the simple fact that we really only need to have one meeting a day, and that cuts our work day in half.
For instance, a meeting in the morning means we don't go into work until after the meeting is over, but since we would miss our morning ride out there, it's best to schedule a meeting in the afternoon. A meeting in the afternoon generally means it takes an hour for us to get there and an hour to get back and then another hour to go home afterwards, which makes little logistical sense, so that means we just get to go home after the meeting is over and work from home.
Well, not exactly.
I am currently sitting in Element Fresh finishing up a day's work and let me tell you, a refreshing atmosphere (free of my boss and graced with an awesome glass of fresh carrot-apple juice and with lots of eye candy) makes all the difference in the world.
No, this is not an ad for Element Fresh (which, for those non-Shangers, is a new age sort of western restaurant with locations all over the city), but I'm just saying how easy it is to get work done when you don't have a boss like mine literally haunting your every single move.
It's easy to recharge when I am getting work done (and, better yet, WANTING to get work done) at a faster pace than I would if I were in the office, even with distractions like carrot-apple juice and ridiculously hot men sitting at the next table.
Tomorrow the plan is to sit on the balcony of the office (where the only table in the whole damn place is located) and enjoy the sun while working. The farther away I am from my boss, the more productive I am, and the ultimately, the happier I am.
I just wanted to say that I wouldn't have been able to make this attitude change if I didn't have all of your support and many e-hugs and donations of e-love. Thanks for everything, even if it was just letting me know you were there for me. I really appreciate it, and I am so lucky to know you.
I am a firm believer in the fact that you're never meant to handle anything alone. I always thought that in my case it meant that I would never let anyone else walk alone, but I guess it took something like this and people like you to help me realize that it's a two-way street. Thank you, sincerely.
TL;DR - how is that long? My god you are lazy. Go the fuck back up there and read the whole damn thing you BUM.
[ This post is brought to you by Element Fresh's wireless connection. ]
It takes an hour by car to get out there every morning and an hour and a half every evening to get back (traffic, yay). We get picked up and dropped off and lunch is on the company, but it is an undeniable bore. Today was our first taste of this...and we had no furniture or internet access set up at the new office. Splendid!
I have, however, been trying to make a concerted effort to focus on as many of the positive aspects of this change as I can.
By far, the best part is the simple fact that we really only need to have one meeting a day, and that cuts our work day in half.
For instance, a meeting in the morning means we don't go into work until after the meeting is over, but since we would miss our morning ride out there, it's best to schedule a meeting in the afternoon. A meeting in the afternoon generally means it takes an hour for us to get there and an hour to get back and then another hour to go home afterwards, which makes little logistical sense, so that means we just get to go home after the meeting is over and work from home.
Well, not exactly.
I am currently sitting in Element Fresh finishing up a day's work and let me tell you, a refreshing atmosphere (free of my boss and graced with an awesome glass of fresh carrot-apple juice and with lots of eye candy) makes all the difference in the world.
No, this is not an ad for Element Fresh (which, for those non-Shangers, is a new age sort of western restaurant with locations all over the city), but I'm just saying how easy it is to get work done when you don't have a boss like mine literally haunting your every single move.
It's easy to recharge when I am getting work done (and, better yet, WANTING to get work done) at a faster pace than I would if I were in the office, even with distractions like carrot-apple juice and ridiculously hot men sitting at the next table.
Tomorrow the plan is to sit on the balcony of the office (where the only table in the whole damn place is located) and enjoy the sun while working. The farther away I am from my boss, the more productive I am, and the ultimately, the happier I am.
I just wanted to say that I wouldn't have been able to make this attitude change if I didn't have all of your support and many e-hugs and donations of e-love. Thanks for everything, even if it was just letting me know you were there for me. I really appreciate it, and I am so lucky to know you.
I am a firm believer in the fact that you're never meant to handle anything alone. I always thought that in my case it meant that I would never let anyone else walk alone, but I guess it took something like this and people like you to help me realize that it's a two-way street. Thank you, sincerely.
TL;DR - how is that long? My god you are lazy. Go the fuck back up there and read the whole damn thing you BUM.
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Why I'm Awesome (Part 16 of 7,412): LIMITS
Everyone's got them. I hit mine.
[ This post is brought to you by my boss. ]
I am a strong individual, particularly in the emotional department. Sure it looks like things get to me easily and whatnot but the truth of the matter is that these things seldom bother me once they're done flitting in and out of my vicinity. I find this to be healthy, because if I don't express my feelings about something immediately, I tend to hold onto it and not let go until I've had the satisfaction of letting the world know how I feel about it... and this is ultimately more destructive.
Anyone who's hung out with or been around me over the last couple of weeks knows full well that I have had a song stuck in my head pretty much every day. I hum it, I dance to it, I try to sing it in my undoubtedly brutal, songbird-butchering voice. That song is The Sweet Escape by Gwen Stefani.
If you don't know the lyrics, here they are:
If I could escape/and recreate a place as my world/and I could be your favorite girl forever/perfectly together/now tell me boy wouldn't that be sweet?/If I could be sweet/I know I've been a real bad girl/I never meant for you to get hurt forever/we can make it better/now tell me boy wouldn't that be sweet?
While I know how unawesome it can be to use a song's chorus as a springboard for the breaking of a dam of verbalized emotion, you are all pretty aware by now that I never do it, so there's a damn good reason I'm doing it now.
Honestly, most of the song's appeal exists only in the very first few lines of the chorus.
I would dearly love to escape and recreate a place as my own world. I don't really to be anyone's favorite girl (forever, perfectly together), but it would be pretty sweet all the same. The rest of chorus I guess is less self-explanatory, so you're going to have to plow through what promises to be a lengthy divulging of my burdens on the written word.
Over the last three weeks, I have been thrown under the bus of life's fagatronics. I know I used that word in last time's post, but here it is again, if only to establish an allusion to that post.
Those same things listed in that previous post (the breakup, the tragedy involving a friend, the effects of that tragedy on a larger circle of friends, work, multiple emotional upheavals involving friends both close and distant) have been trying to beat me down over and over again, trying to crush and bury me under an enormous, steaming pile of life's best work.
Now, I'm not trying to imply that my pain is anymore extreme than anyone else's; everyone has their own little defeats that they take harder than other people would. Your pain is individual, and the degree you feel it given an incident is solely up to you, and no one can judge you for how bad or how well you are taking it. No one knows just how hard that fist hit you, no one knows just how much you loved that dog, no one knows how much of your own pain and sadness you internalize for the sake of the people around you.
I recognize, however, that I am a strong person. After everything happened, one after another, I was still standing. More than standing, I was doing pretty damn great. Hardly anyone remembered what happened unless I told them flat out that it was on my mind. Many people would've been down and out after the breakup. Most certainly would've hit the ground out cold after the passing of a friend on top of it.
And yet there I was, going strong, recovering quickly, with a positive attitude. I took all the positive things about my relationship and learned something from them while recognizing why he broke up with me. I didn't blame myself for it, I didn't blame him for it, I simply understood the reason bounced right back.
As for what transpired after the breakup, well, there isn't much you can do with news that arrives in your Inbox telling you something you just can't believe you're reading. You certainly could not have prevented it, and even if you were not as close to that person as you wanted to be, you still recognize the true impact of what has happened. So what do you do instead? You offer to help the ones who were close to him recover. You are there for them when they need you, and that is all you can do given the circumstances. It is perhaps a small gesture and maybe it doesn't make a difference, but it makes things easier to deal with when you know that you are doing what you can to help others lighten the load.
Honestly, that was the only good thing. I love helping people, I love being there for them, knowing that I am helping them through something they can't get through by themselves.
Please understand when I say what I'm about to say next that I love that people come to me and I would never blame them. It's just that I've been dealing with so much emotion coming from all sides that it's been overwhelming. The irony is, I called it! I knew February was going to be a crazy month and I was fully geared, waiting for it, bracing myself so that I can be everyone's shoulder. But I guess that with all my own shit going on, it takes a lot more to stay sane and stable. Do not apologize for this; if I didn't want to help, I would never have offered. In fact, helping people is what literally kept my head above the water for so long. It's draining in the process, sure, but it is also refreshing and recharging when it's over. I love doing it, please don't deny me that pleasure.
Then there's work. I don't need to tell you guys anything more about just how much bullshit work generates on a daily basis. If it weren't for my coworkers, I don't know how I'd make it through the day.
And, ironically, even though these are the people who help me through each individual day just by being there, even though these are the people I see the most, they are somehow the ones on whom I shit on the most. I resolved to correct this, and tried to approach work with an increasingly positive attitude.
For the past weeks, through the Frogger-like dodging of boss-generated obstacles, my coworkers made it bearable simply by being around. There wasn't anything special they needed to say, they were just there, probably thinking the same things I was, and that made it so much easier to survive yet another day in the office.
Still, one can only take so much bullshit. There's only so much a (unwitting) shield can handle before it buckles, splits, and breaks. I think my shield lost its effects yesterday, and I was pushed into and past my limit into the realm of what I like to call "Armageddon." I tore up a draft of a Powerpoint printout right there at my desk, tearing it to shreds, while I was sure my boss had a clear view of my desk. I snapped at a coworker when, really, all he probably wanted was to get that breath of fresh air I myself was craving. I yelled and screamed when I got home, breaking down in front of my sister and her boyfriend.
It feels easy, even to me, for me to get over things like those mentioned in my previous post. To an outsider and that third eye inside my brain that tries to process everything I do, it is generally surprising how little effort it seems to take for me to recover and come back with a vengeance.
It's not actually easy.
So when you've been doing it a while with no sign of respite to let everything bleed out of you, you just get too tired. Too tired to fight another round, too tired to defend against yet another onslaught of bullshit, too tired maintain the thickness of your shell. It's easier to give in and explode.
To be fair, my limit is very high. Very. I am able to plow through and contain an incredible amount of bullshit. It's just that it's been so much crap happening in such a short span of time and I have had absolutely no time to recharge my batteries. I have kept angry outbursts to a minimum at work for the sake of maintaining good morale, trying to stay positive, and at home I distract myself because I don't have the energy to think about anything more serious beyond "will my little red tanks do enough damage to the big blue tanks to kill it when I have 7 little red tanks and they have 2 big blue tanks?" (The answer is yes, but only if my little red tanks were attacking from the woods.)
On another level, I guess in my efforts to stay positive, it further drained my energy, nor did I afford myself the time to deal with what was requiring me to stay positive in the first place. It's ironic that I know how to take good emotional care of myself, but because I didn't want to step on anymore toes, I internalized everything, which is basically the polar opposite of what I need to be doing, as it does nothing to help me recover from the draining process of getting over everything. I was trying so hard to stay strong that I ended up so unbelievably weak that I am disgusted with my failure.
The breakup does not bother me. Nothing really bothers me, per se, as everything that has happened has been dealt with, recovered from. I just haven't had to time to restore my arsenal back to maximum, and my boss's idiocy has basically quintupled over the last week, leaving me so uncertain about my career, about what I do in my day-to-day life. You can only take so many hits in a row before you finally crumple; even if your injuries are healed, if you haven't eaten or rested, you're going down in the 7,412th round whether you like it or not. I took as many as I could, and I guess my only comfort is that it's a hell of a lot more hits than most could've taken.
I am just so, so, so tired.
TL;DR - oh here you are again hey go fuck yourself
[ This post is brought to you by my boss. ]
I am a strong individual, particularly in the emotional department. Sure it looks like things get to me easily and whatnot but the truth of the matter is that these things seldom bother me once they're done flitting in and out of my vicinity. I find this to be healthy, because if I don't express my feelings about something immediately, I tend to hold onto it and not let go until I've had the satisfaction of letting the world know how I feel about it... and this is ultimately more destructive.
Anyone who's hung out with or been around me over the last couple of weeks knows full well that I have had a song stuck in my head pretty much every day. I hum it, I dance to it, I try to sing it in my undoubtedly brutal, songbird-butchering voice. That song is The Sweet Escape by Gwen Stefani.
If you don't know the lyrics, here they are:
If I could escape/and recreate a place as my world/and I could be your favorite girl forever/perfectly together/now tell me boy wouldn't that be sweet?/If I could be sweet/I know I've been a real bad girl/I never meant for you to get hurt forever/we can make it better/now tell me boy wouldn't that be sweet?
While I know how unawesome it can be to use a song's chorus as a springboard for the breaking of a dam of verbalized emotion, you are all pretty aware by now that I never do it, so there's a damn good reason I'm doing it now.
Honestly, most of the song's appeal exists only in the very first few lines of the chorus.
I would dearly love to escape and recreate a place as my own world. I don't really to be anyone's favorite girl (forever, perfectly together), but it would be pretty sweet all the same. The rest of chorus I guess is less self-explanatory, so you're going to have to plow through what promises to be a lengthy divulging of my burdens on the written word.
Over the last three weeks, I have been thrown under the bus of life's fagatronics. I know I used that word in last time's post, but here it is again, if only to establish an allusion to that post.
Those same things listed in that previous post (the breakup, the tragedy involving a friend, the effects of that tragedy on a larger circle of friends, work, multiple emotional upheavals involving friends both close and distant) have been trying to beat me down over and over again, trying to crush and bury me under an enormous, steaming pile of life's best work.
Now, I'm not trying to imply that my pain is anymore extreme than anyone else's; everyone has their own little defeats that they take harder than other people would. Your pain is individual, and the degree you feel it given an incident is solely up to you, and no one can judge you for how bad or how well you are taking it. No one knows just how hard that fist hit you, no one knows just how much you loved that dog, no one knows how much of your own pain and sadness you internalize for the sake of the people around you.
I recognize, however, that I am a strong person. After everything happened, one after another, I was still standing. More than standing, I was doing pretty damn great. Hardly anyone remembered what happened unless I told them flat out that it was on my mind. Many people would've been down and out after the breakup. Most certainly would've hit the ground out cold after the passing of a friend on top of it.
And yet there I was, going strong, recovering quickly, with a positive attitude. I took all the positive things about my relationship and learned something from them while recognizing why he broke up with me. I didn't blame myself for it, I didn't blame him for it, I simply understood the reason bounced right back.
As for what transpired after the breakup, well, there isn't much you can do with news that arrives in your Inbox telling you something you just can't believe you're reading. You certainly could not have prevented it, and even if you were not as close to that person as you wanted to be, you still recognize the true impact of what has happened. So what do you do instead? You offer to help the ones who were close to him recover. You are there for them when they need you, and that is all you can do given the circumstances. It is perhaps a small gesture and maybe it doesn't make a difference, but it makes things easier to deal with when you know that you are doing what you can to help others lighten the load.
Honestly, that was the only good thing. I love helping people, I love being there for them, knowing that I am helping them through something they can't get through by themselves.
Please understand when I say what I'm about to say next that I love that people come to me and I would never blame them. It's just that I've been dealing with so much emotion coming from all sides that it's been overwhelming. The irony is, I called it! I knew February was going to be a crazy month and I was fully geared, waiting for it, bracing myself so that I can be everyone's shoulder. But I guess that with all my own shit going on, it takes a lot more to stay sane and stable. Do not apologize for this; if I didn't want to help, I would never have offered. In fact, helping people is what literally kept my head above the water for so long. It's draining in the process, sure, but it is also refreshing and recharging when it's over. I love doing it, please don't deny me that pleasure.
Then there's work. I don't need to tell you guys anything more about just how much bullshit work generates on a daily basis. If it weren't for my coworkers, I don't know how I'd make it through the day.
And, ironically, even though these are the people who help me through each individual day just by being there, even though these are the people I see the most, they are somehow the ones on whom I shit on the most. I resolved to correct this, and tried to approach work with an increasingly positive attitude.
For the past weeks, through the Frogger-like dodging of boss-generated obstacles, my coworkers made it bearable simply by being around. There wasn't anything special they needed to say, they were just there, probably thinking the same things I was, and that made it so much easier to survive yet another day in the office.
Still, one can only take so much bullshit. There's only so much a (unwitting) shield can handle before it buckles, splits, and breaks. I think my shield lost its effects yesterday, and I was pushed into and past my limit into the realm of what I like to call "Armageddon." I tore up a draft of a Powerpoint printout right there at my desk, tearing it to shreds, while I was sure my boss had a clear view of my desk. I snapped at a coworker when, really, all he probably wanted was to get that breath of fresh air I myself was craving. I yelled and screamed when I got home, breaking down in front of my sister and her boyfriend.
It feels easy, even to me, for me to get over things like those mentioned in my previous post. To an outsider and that third eye inside my brain that tries to process everything I do, it is generally surprising how little effort it seems to take for me to recover and come back with a vengeance.
It's not actually easy.
So when you've been doing it a while with no sign of respite to let everything bleed out of you, you just get too tired. Too tired to fight another round, too tired to defend against yet another onslaught of bullshit, too tired maintain the thickness of your shell. It's easier to give in and explode.
To be fair, my limit is very high. Very. I am able to plow through and contain an incredible amount of bullshit. It's just that it's been so much crap happening in such a short span of time and I have had absolutely no time to recharge my batteries. I have kept angry outbursts to a minimum at work for the sake of maintaining good morale, trying to stay positive, and at home I distract myself because I don't have the energy to think about anything more serious beyond "will my little red tanks do enough damage to the big blue tanks to kill it when I have 7 little red tanks and they have 2 big blue tanks?" (The answer is yes, but only if my little red tanks were attacking from the woods.)
On another level, I guess in my efforts to stay positive, it further drained my energy, nor did I afford myself the time to deal with what was requiring me to stay positive in the first place. It's ironic that I know how to take good emotional care of myself, but because I didn't want to step on anymore toes, I internalized everything, which is basically the polar opposite of what I need to be doing, as it does nothing to help me recover from the draining process of getting over everything. I was trying so hard to stay strong that I ended up so unbelievably weak that I am disgusted with my failure.
The breakup does not bother me. Nothing really bothers me, per se, as everything that has happened has been dealt with, recovered from. I just haven't had to time to restore my arsenal back to maximum, and my boss's idiocy has basically quintupled over the last week, leaving me so uncertain about my career, about what I do in my day-to-day life. You can only take so many hits in a row before you finally crumple; even if your injuries are healed, if you haven't eaten or rested, you're going down in the 7,412th round whether you like it or not. I took as many as I could, and I guess my only comfort is that it's a hell of a lot more hits than most could've taken.
I am just so, so, so tired.
TL;DR - oh here you are again hey go fuck yourself
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