I Would Pack Up and Quit

if I had the guts and if I knew what else I could do if I came home.

I’m pretty serious. I do not want to be here right now.

One of those days where I have to trust my head and not my heart. Funny, that this would come days after what I just wrote.

Grad School is Like Prison

Let me clarify.

Grad school has become so much of my life, that I feel like my life is school. I’m not trying to excel in some balancing act of life and school, because life more or less doesn’t exist, and what little does exists only inside of school. Eating is for school, sleeping is for school, even reading news is for school.

On paper, I’m supposed to have about 35 hours of class a week. Every day except Tuesday, I start at 9:00 a.m. I end at 4:00 or 5:00pm, with a lunch break in the middle whose length is at my professor’s discretion. Sometimes I need to attend a seminar during lunch, so I have no lunch. It’s like a 9-5 job.

Except there’s also homework. Readings, short assignments, full blown projects. I’ve stayed up till at least 1am the past three nights. Normally that’s not a big deal. But since I have to wake up by 8 in the morning, well sleeping at 1 doesn’t cut it anymore. I usually use a good chunk of my weekends playing catch up.

So it’s a good thing, that at least on some level I’m enjoying what I’m doing. There’s a lot of hoop jumping, a lot of work that I feel is unnecessary or even detrimental, but there’s also stuff that I genuinely find interesting. City council meetings are bad, staged radio shows are good.

But still, my life that I had, all the stuff that’s made me, me, feels like it’s been tossed aside and put on pause. So, an understatement is to say it’s a breath of fresh air when a friend shoots an e-mail, when I talk on the phone with somebody from back home, when I even watch an episode of a TV show. It’s hard to explain why it makes me smile, except to say it reminds me that I still have a life to live outside of school.

I haven’t yet figured out how to fit into my schedule some other things I wish I could do. I have little energy to run, no time to really exercise, and no will to really do any of my hobbies like write. I don’t even have my guitar or a piano. I still haven’t figured out how to do the whole God thing.

The whole process is a mental challenge, usually a forte of mine. This however, is a completely different beast.

Today, Nobody is Actually Racist

Well, I take that back. There are a few people that genuinely hate people based on the tone of their skin.

But I would argue, that for the most part, most people don’t care what skin color you have. In that respect, they’re not racist. However, I would say that most people something else: cultural-ist.

In other words, they hate people not for their outward appearance; they hate them for what that outward appearance implies. While years ago, people saw Africans and immediately knew they were of a lower class, nowadays the stereotypical mid-western white man sees a black man and hates that he brings a poisonous culture to his children by means of rap music, sagging jeans and the thugs and gangsters.

It is the slightest of semantics, a remote shade in the gradient of social discourse, but I think it’s one of the most important distinctions we can make. Because once we recognize the problem isn’t with our refusal to accept people who look different, we realize just how insecure we are with others who act differently than we do.

And correctly diagnosing the problem, puts us on a better path to finding a long lasting solution.

Money, I Want Money!!!

I wrote in some blog a while ago, that I had changed my mind; contrary to my dreams as a kid, I currently do in fact–want to be rich and have a lot of money.

This is why: http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-12-20-santa-secret_x.htm

Call me weird, call me crazy, and say what you will about sharing and building relationships vs. giving. There are only a few things that would make me happier than doing what this guy does.

Crisis

I don’t have much to say about this crisis. At least, not right now.  I’ve seen it, understood first hand that it has affected people all across the world.

And even though it did affect me, I must say I’m blessed that it does not affect me so adversely that I have to change anything substantial about my life.

Though, in reality, I still should. I always should.

I think this is going to be the post that starts me really getting to write again. I hope. I need the practice.

Learning to Say ‘Thank You’

I’ve only really been jobless for a month, well not even, but actually being on the hunt for a job makes you understand just how discouraging it can be. It’s not an easy time to find a job now either, what with an already slumbering world economy hit with a crazy couple weeks on Wall Street. Interesting, how so much of the world revolves around what goes on in just a couple blocks of New York City.

I don’t know what they’re called, but you know those sleeping eye patch thingamajigs? Those double pirate like black patches that you wear to block out the light when you want to go to bed? Not having a job is like wearing one of those. You wander around, hands outstretched like a zombie on Easter, aimlessly hoping to satisfy the one thing on your mind–grasp a job of some kind. 

And because of this reason, and that you can’t see, you forget what things you still have. Sure, the money in the bank isn’t increasing, but there still is money there. In fact you still have a bank account, which is more than a couple people can say these days. At least for me, I still have my health, which in a territory neighboring melamine-rich China is not exactly something to take lightly. I’ve got a nice laptop (though in dire need of a format), a free wireless account that’s not mine, a home with a solid relationship with my relatives, and a great network of local friends. And a good network of friends back home who keep in touch. 

Of course finding a job and figuring out my next couple steps in terms of career would be the wise thing to do. But in the mean time, I think it’s good for me to look around and see what I do have.

Revival, Rollercoasters, and Goodbye

Seven years and a dozen blogs later, I think I’ve finally decided to actually take this one seriously. WordPress seems to be the cool place to be for “serious, grown up” people, and since I’ve never been the cool guy to follow when it comes to things like this, I might as well join on the fun.

Life’s kind of like a rollercoaster that had loop-de-loops when you were a kid, and you couldn’t figure out why you didn’t fall off when upside down Forget the metaphor about having ups and downs, life has lefts, rights, corkscrews, tunnels, enemies you can shoot at if you desire, and yeah, loop-de-loops. Laws of physics be damned, I really do wonder how I manage to not fall off sometimes.

There was a farewell party for someone this past Sunday. I didn’t know the guy particularly well, actually I only met him once. But being myself and having no business bidding someone “farewell”, I went anyway in hopes of at least adding more friends to Facebook.

What I got instead was one of the most actually exhilarating nights I’ve had. A fun ferry ride, a great relaxing hour on the beach, a surprisingly fun grocery shopping experience, an amazing time barbequing, an on your toes ‘name that tune’, and an exciting bus ride I haven’t had since my last HK exchange experience. And yes, I got the Facebook friends.

If life were like a rollercoaster, then that night would have been a steep descent down, with a corkscrew and twenty loop-de-loops, and I wouldn’t wait a heartbeat to do it again. The joy of pure fun and adventure unearthed some realizations for why I believe the things I do. I crossed that invisible line that separates pseudo acquaintances from friends. And the guy I barely knew became someone I had a huge respect for. Sure, I didn’t have to wipe away the tears that everyone else had for his goodbye, but I did have to wish

On the ferry ride over to the party, I wrote on the guy’s card a joke in a painful attempt to be funny and unique. That and I really had nothing to say. Too bad then, because if I had written the card at the end of the night, I could have written the short story that’s been brewing on my computer. But on second thought, the short and lame joke may have been better.

The Hong Kong Blog

I just remembered, when I was last here in HK, I wrote here often. Maybe I’ll do it again. See if anyone notices.

Ha.

It’s been a couple weeks without work now. I’m a bit tired of trying here. I guess that would be a sensible signal to anyone that it’s time to come home and try to figure other options. I’m not sure I’m the sensible type. I’ve made lots of dumb decisions. But doesn’t everyone?

On the other hand, if I was to leave now, it’d be a bit of a pity. I’ve been making some new really strong friendships. Older strong friends are great too. But it never hurts to have more friends. Who knows.

I’m finally learning what qualities I admire the most, and I’m really trying to do my best to absorb those qualities.

I really wonder what’s in store for me. I just saw an ad for World Vision. The super poor of the poor.

Winding Down

It’s been forever since I’ve posted here.

I think I’m really beginning to understand what it means to be a friend. I’m constantly learning how to understand people better and how to serve them.

Sometimes that means doing nothing.

Graduation’s coming. I have one last real final tomorrow, and then it’s done. I don’t have a lot of time to dwell on graduating. I’m going straight to Hawaii for my brother’s wedding, and then back to Hong Kong. After that, it’s job hunting. So by the time I realize that I’m done, it’ll be far too late.

I know I’ll consciously make an effort to keep in touch with people. I’m just wondering who actually wants to keep in touch with me

Friendship

I think this is going to be another one of those posts where I talk about something I talked about before, but bring it up again in full force. I hate being sentimental. I think I like to be sentimental in big gushy gushes so that I can get it out of my system and not deal with it.

As I mentioned before, sometimes, I feel like life is cruel. Not unfair, not unjust or anything of the sort, just cruel.

I remember, as a kid, that being separated from people meant not seeing relatives for a ocuple months, or for a select couple, a year. I still dreaded those times when I had to leave, not seeing my cousins, or I’ll admit not being able to see cool Hong Kong cartoons. My heart always sunk whenever I got on the plane and saw the land depart from my eyesight. I remember thinking, “plane, go down, go down!!!” Of course, the plane never did listen to me.

I’ve had relatively few experiences with friends leaving. I remember when one friend left in 7th grade. That was about it. And then came senior year of high school. I anticipated college, beceause I knew I should. But, for the first time, I knew my friends and I were going different ways. But I found comfort in the fact that we could always come back and catch up with each other. I find solace in the fact that we do actually keep in tocuh. Maybe not as often as I would like, but we do. And I know we will.

But shocks don’t end there I guess. Near the end of freshman year, I found myself missing the fact I wouldn’t live in a dorm in San Diego anymore without the fun that came with my suite. But I knew that I’d see them again.

And then I met international students. And suddenly I realized, these friends were friends that although I knew I wanted to see again, I wasn’t sure if I could. They lived thousands of miles away. It would cost a lot of money to see them. To some degree, I can put my worries to rest. I have seen them again, in their home countries, and they’re coming to visit me again sometime. But, after this next meeting, what about next time? I can’t just hop on an airplane when I feel like it. I’m becoming independent, I need to fend for my own costs.

And then, there’s my friends here. Not the ones from America here in Hong Kong. We’ll be in the US, we can see each other, even if it takes a while. But like my high school friends, I know we will meet again.

But what about my friends here who are from Korea, Japan? And importantly, what about my Hong Kong friends? It’s strange, exciting, and sad that I’ve gotten to know them so much better these past few weeks. It’s so much, but so late. In 10 days I’m going to be thousands of miles away from them too. We can send e-mail, chat online, all that good stuff. But I won’t be able to hear them scream down the hall, we can’t go out and eat and order the same things, we can’t share about our languages and different lifestyles. I know they’re sad I’m leaving. They want to know when I’ll be back. All I can say is, “I don’t know.” And if I can even come back, it won’t be the same. Sometimes I tell them to come visit me in the US, and I’ll show them what a traditional family Christmas is like. I don’t know, maybe 10 years from now… It seems like a long time, but is it really?

Graduation’s coming up. It’s time to brace for the inevitable again. And then if I go graduate school, same thing.

And, then there’s the end to end all ends. I’ve dealt with funerals, those were okay for me when I was little. I know that there’s nothing you can do about seeing them. You let them go, because you have to. “Time heals all wounds.” I don’t know how I’ll deal with them now if it’s someone I hold close. Time will tell, time will tell.

I guess, I am human, after all.