The rain came down again.
There are all sorts of phobias out there -- people are afraid of everything from snakes to heights to the number 13.
I am afraid of death. But not quite in the same way.
I don't remember how old I was when the thought first occurred to me, but I was very young at the time -- probably eight or nine years old. I would lie awake in bed at night, unable to fall asleep because I would remember one troubling thing that bothered me deeply.
I am not a religious person. My grandparents are Buddhist, but I have never had a religious upbringing. Therefore, I do not seriously believe in afterlife or reincarnation. I have not ruled out the possibility, but I take no comfort in that gray area of is-it-or-isn't-it-there.
So it occurred to this little girl one night that after she died, there would be nothing left. She would no longer exist; her conscience would cease to be. Perhaps the life would continue its course, or it would all come to a halt. She would never know anyway, because she would be dead. And that sort of thought is even more disturbing when you are alone under the covers of your bed at night, when the only thing speaking to you is your conscience. The thought of being completely extinguished is simply horrifying.
I used to think about this "doomed reality" very often when I was a child. Immediately, I would want to forget. I would hit myself on the head and eventually my thoughts would wander elsewhere -- ignorance is bliss in its finest form. And interestingly enough, I began thinking less and less about this as I grew older; being "busy" meant less time to let my mind wander. In fact, I've been so exhausted with senior year that I conk out regularly by 11 pm and 1 pm during AP Stats without any time to let my mind wander.
The only reason I suddenly remembered this now is because I happened to look up into the starry sky last Wednesday night. I have always stayed away from astronomy, simply because the reality of how insignificant I am depresses me. Egocentric, I know, but it is the truth. And so, when I looked up at the stars that night, I was reminded of how meaningless this all is.
The truth has become even more painfully acute as I prepare my college applications. I list down my grades, my test scores, my extracurricular activities, my awards -- but when I read them over, they all seem so superficial. I've spent the last seventeen years of my life doing what? What in the world am I exhausting myself over? Question after question, and my answers don't get me anywhere. I apply to college because it's expected of me; I will get a job because it's the only way to survive in this world of money. Yes, I do want to learn, and yes, I do want to have a career I enjoy. But is it only because I've been conditioned to want these things?
It is C's birthday today, and once again I did not go to her birthday dinner. Last year, I declined at the last minute because my mother had yelled at me for playing a terrible match earlier that day. This year, my mother had yelled at me for not putting enough effort into piano, but she did not explicitly tell me not to go. She gave me the car keys and told me the choice was my own. In the end, I left the keys on the counter and sat on the stairs for a long time. My mother came by and gave me the same talk she always gives whenever I end up not going to a social event because of other obligations. "If you want something different from everyone else, you have to sacrifice to get it." Yes, Gov. J has clearly sacrificed a lot in order to be where she is now. But she seems to be very content with it. Why am I not?
What in the world am I sacrificing for?
September 27, 2008
September 21, 2008
what he said
he once said he liked girls
with big eyes and dark curls
so she cut her eyelids and found
the hair chemist downtown
he once said he liked chicks
with bodies thin as sticks
so she whittled down to the bone
through the skin 'til it shone
now he says he likes a girl --
une belle au naturelle
so she cut the rest of her skin
to display the dead heart within
--------------------------
Inspired by "Pretty Girl" by zzocco (aka Museician)
September 17, 2008
Écrire
Albert Einstein once said, "Creativity is knowing how to hide your sources."
I'm starting to wonder about this blog. Despite the fact that I have a sitemeter account with this blog, I have no idea who reads my posts. In the past, it worried me because I didn't want certain people to read about my personal thoughts. Now, I'm beginning to wonder if people take the ideas I write on here and mold them into their own works.
I don't own the idea of "Malice in Wonderland," and I never wrote the phrase specifically on this site. I did write a post titled "M.alice in Dreamland" in 2006, building off of that play on words. But when I first came up with the play on words, I felt clever about myself and admittedly felt I possessed ownership over those three words strung in the same phrase. So when I discovered "Malice in Wonderland" had been used as a title for a fictionpress story, my gut reaction was not a pleasant one. But after reflecting on it for a few minutes, I suppose I am not all that special -- anyone could have come up with "Malice in Wonderland." If you look it up on a search engine, you'll find plenty of hits, which clearly shows I am not all that wonderful (thus dealing the fatal blow to my wounded ego).
As far as I know, nobody has plagiarized my work... yet. I do confess, however, that I bordered onto being a plagiarist when I was younger. I would take works I thought were beautiful or clever and "revise" it to suit my tastes. I wonder what Rose Mortmain really thought of me, for with many of our letters, I borrowed key phrases and sentences from Francesca Lia Block.
I suppose all that has happened now is that I have gotten smarter at "borrowing." I take the parts I like out of many different stories and hash them together to create an unrecognizable, seemingly "creative" story. I am a plagiarist, or do I just draw inspiration? Then again, am I creative for being able to draw a story out of patchwork?
Rogue and I often mock how many fictionpress stories operate with the same formula -- smart under-the-radar girl falls for brother's hot best friend but gets into trouble with head cheerleader. Clearly those are not creative, but where does that bring me? Actually, when it all comes down to it, my stories are superficial fluff. They just happen to be filled with lurid plot devices and fancy imagery.
On another note, I am at a complete loss over what I should write for my college appication essay. I wish I could write like David Sedaris.
I'm starting to wonder about this blog. Despite the fact that I have a sitemeter account with this blog, I have no idea who reads my posts. In the past, it worried me because I didn't want certain people to read about my personal thoughts. Now, I'm beginning to wonder if people take the ideas I write on here and mold them into their own works.
I don't own the idea of "Malice in Wonderland," and I never wrote the phrase specifically on this site. I did write a post titled "M.alice in Dreamland" in 2006, building off of that play on words. But when I first came up with the play on words, I felt clever about myself and admittedly felt I possessed ownership over those three words strung in the same phrase. So when I discovered "Malice in Wonderland" had been used as a title for a fictionpress story, my gut reaction was not a pleasant one. But after reflecting on it for a few minutes, I suppose I am not all that special -- anyone could have come up with "Malice in Wonderland." If you look it up on a search engine, you'll find plenty of hits, which clearly shows I am not all that wonderful (thus dealing the fatal blow to my wounded ego).
As far as I know, nobody has plagiarized my work... yet. I do confess, however, that I bordered onto being a plagiarist when I was younger. I would take works I thought were beautiful or clever and "revise" it to suit my tastes. I wonder what Rose Mortmain really thought of me, for with many of our letters, I borrowed key phrases and sentences from Francesca Lia Block.
I suppose all that has happened now is that I have gotten smarter at "borrowing." I take the parts I like out of many different stories and hash them together to create an unrecognizable, seemingly "creative" story. I am a plagiarist, or do I just draw inspiration? Then again, am I creative for being able to draw a story out of patchwork?
Rogue and I often mock how many fictionpress stories operate with the same formula -- smart under-the-radar girl falls for brother's hot best friend but gets into trouble with head cheerleader. Clearly those are not creative, but where does that bring me? Actually, when it all comes down to it, my stories are superficial fluff. They just happen to be filled with lurid plot devices and fancy imagery.
On another note, I am at a complete loss over what I should write for my college appication essay. I wish I could write like David Sedaris.
September 14, 2008
Wawona
I hadn't been looking forward to going to Fresno for the state tournament for our tennis team, but in retrospect, I definitely needed the break. In a way, I have been working non-stop without a break for a while. I was able to sleep much more than my usual five hours per night, and playing at Fresno brought back a part of my old self I think I lost when I gave up tennis during my junior year.
I thought I had rediscovered tennis when I went to Stanford, but upon returning home, I began to wonder if it was a fluke. I injured my left wrist at Stanford, and when I returned, I was still playing rather shakily. I had been playing great over the summer, but now I began to wonder if I had been simply playing better because of the whole Jake situation -- and if I hadn't been playing for myself.
Fresno answered my questions. My first match was against a girl I had played twice before her tragic family affair (which everyone in the tennis world had whispered about back then) and she stopped playing for a while. By the time she had returned to competing, I had already stopped playing tournaments. I played abysmally horrible in that match, but I vowed I would not let the same thing happen again.
I played a total of four matches the past two days, two matches per day. To my old tournament-playing self, that would have been nothing. But I have gotten incredibly out of shape this past year, and when I played my second match, my lack of endurance and rusty ability to focus took its toll. Energized, I quickly took the first set 6-3 and was up the second 4-3. That was when I began to lose focus and feel fatigued -- she brought the second set to 6-4. I wasn't sure if I could handle a three-setter match at that point, but our team needed one more win to advance to the next round, and it looked like our No. 4 singles would have a difficult chance of winning her match. Fortunately, my teammates were by my side next to the fence. A gave me some advice -- it really was simple advice that I should have figured out on my own, and when the bastard assistant coach of the other team barked at her to stop giving advice to teammates, I got up and proceeded to cream the girl 6-1 in the third, thus guaranteeing our team's win.
The third match I played was against an old friend who was once ranked No. 1 in Northern California back when we played in the 12's division. She has lost some of her agility, but she is still one of the most precise and focused players I have ever played against. The score was very ugly, but in all honesty, I was pretty happy with how I played. The match against her school was very close -- it could have easily gone either way, but in the end, we lost 3-4, and so our fourth match would be to see who would place 11th place out of the 96 schools at the tournament.
The fourth match was full of its ironies -- the situation was almost identical to last year. Same two schools, once again both playing to see who would win 11th place. Last year, we were tied at 3-3, and it all came down to my match versus this year's No. 1 singles. We split sets before I won the ten-point tiebreaker in place of the third set, 10-0, thus bringing our team to a win of 4-3.
This year, A dealt with that girl. As for me, I lost my first set 6-1, playing terribly and scattering errors everywhere. But something clicked in the second set. I managed to turn the set around and captured the second set 7-6. At that point, I thought we had already clinched 11th place, but then my coach informed me during the five-minute break that the score was currently 3-2, but it looked like our No. 4 Singles might lose her match and bring the score to 3-3. So once again, I became the deciding match.
I had forgotten that feeling completely. Your entire team is cheering behind you, but you barely notice the noise outside the fence. It all comes down to you and the opponent across the net. My opponent pissed me off -- she made several questionable calls. There was one game in the third set when we argued over the score. I had been calling out the score, and she still insisted she had already won the game while I argued that we had just reached deus. Thank goodness I was pissed off at her enough that I refused to budge before finally the ref came on court and we had to replay the game starting from 30-30.
(Afterwards, my coach informed that I had been right about the score the whole time. Stupid baka.)
In the end, I won the third set 7-5, capturing 11th place for the team. When we had a team meeting in the shade afterwards, my coach asked me to announce my score to the team. "1-6, 7-6, 7-5." "Do you know what that shows?" my coach asked the team. "It shows someone who never gave up and kept fighting until the end."
At Fresno, I became very close to my teammates. I met many of my tennis friends who I had not seen for a year, and I was able to avoid thinking of academics and college completely.
But most importantly, I found myself again, without even thinking of Jake at all.
I thought I had rediscovered tennis when I went to Stanford, but upon returning home, I began to wonder if it was a fluke. I injured my left wrist at Stanford, and when I returned, I was still playing rather shakily. I had been playing great over the summer, but now I began to wonder if I had been simply playing better because of the whole Jake situation -- and if I hadn't been playing for myself.
Fresno answered my questions. My first match was against a girl I had played twice before her tragic family affair (which everyone in the tennis world had whispered about back then) and she stopped playing for a while. By the time she had returned to competing, I had already stopped playing tournaments. I played abysmally horrible in that match, but I vowed I would not let the same thing happen again.
I played a total of four matches the past two days, two matches per day. To my old tournament-playing self, that would have been nothing. But I have gotten incredibly out of shape this past year, and when I played my second match, my lack of endurance and rusty ability to focus took its toll. Energized, I quickly took the first set 6-3 and was up the second 4-3. That was when I began to lose focus and feel fatigued -- she brought the second set to 6-4. I wasn't sure if I could handle a three-setter match at that point, but our team needed one more win to advance to the next round, and it looked like our No. 4 singles would have a difficult chance of winning her match. Fortunately, my teammates were by my side next to the fence. A gave me some advice -- it really was simple advice that I should have figured out on my own, and when the bastard assistant coach of the other team barked at her to stop giving advice to teammates, I got up and proceeded to cream the girl 6-1 in the third, thus guaranteeing our team's win.
The third match I played was against an old friend who was once ranked No. 1 in Northern California back when we played in the 12's division. She has lost some of her agility, but she is still one of the most precise and focused players I have ever played against. The score was very ugly, but in all honesty, I was pretty happy with how I played. The match against her school was very close -- it could have easily gone either way, but in the end, we lost 3-4, and so our fourth match would be to see who would place 11th place out of the 96 schools at the tournament.
The fourth match was full of its ironies -- the situation was almost identical to last year. Same two schools, once again both playing to see who would win 11th place. Last year, we were tied at 3-3, and it all came down to my match versus this year's No. 1 singles. We split sets before I won the ten-point tiebreaker in place of the third set, 10-0, thus bringing our team to a win of 4-3.
This year, A dealt with that girl. As for me, I lost my first set 6-1, playing terribly and scattering errors everywhere. But something clicked in the second set. I managed to turn the set around and captured the second set 7-6. At that point, I thought we had already clinched 11th place, but then my coach informed me during the five-minute break that the score was currently 3-2, but it looked like our No. 4 Singles might lose her match and bring the score to 3-3. So once again, I became the deciding match.
I had forgotten that feeling completely. Your entire team is cheering behind you, but you barely notice the noise outside the fence. It all comes down to you and the opponent across the net. My opponent pissed me off -- she made several questionable calls. There was one game in the third set when we argued over the score. I had been calling out the score, and she still insisted she had already won the game while I argued that we had just reached deus. Thank goodness I was pissed off at her enough that I refused to budge before finally the ref came on court and we had to replay the game starting from 30-30.
(Afterwards, my coach informed that I had been right about the score the whole time. Stupid baka.)
In the end, I won the third set 7-5, capturing 11th place for the team. When we had a team meeting in the shade afterwards, my coach asked me to announce my score to the team. "1-6, 7-6, 7-5." "Do you know what that shows?" my coach asked the team. "It shows someone who never gave up and kept fighting until the end."
At Fresno, I became very close to my teammates. I met many of my tennis friends who I had not seen for a year, and I was able to avoid thinking of academics and college completely.
But most importantly, I found myself again, without even thinking of Jake at all.
September 7, 2008
Salt on a Wound
OLIVIA - Rain; Trinka Trinka
-----------------------
Hey You
Don't flatter yourself
Saying we're done would be nice. Clean and cute. Romantic, no?
But nothing can be "done" if it had never began, after all.
-----------------------
September 2, 2008
Shhhhhhhhhh It!
How can I even be whining about wanting to write???
I SHOULD BE WRITING MY COLLEGE ESSAYS!
It just occurred to me that I have barely over a month before the application is due.
AGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
I don't even know why I'm applying early. I am an academic masochist.
I SHOULD BE WRITING MY COLLEGE ESSAYS!
It just occurred to me that I have barely over a month before the application is due.
AGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
I don't even know why I'm applying early. I am an academic masochist.
September 1, 2008
Three Seed
Remove a bullet from my head
Extracting over confidence
Hidden so easy to pretend
Too bad the rush was found again
I can see the pictures on the floor
Sketches of what was there before
Three came from one little seed
The last one is all i need
I can hear the bottle on the ground
We turned the corner safe and sound
No thought of him as it was done
A clean execution
A clean execution
Cool like the ocean
Burned like a summer home
Fooled by the notion
That the sums don't add up at all
There's the line that is leading clearly feeding all
The things I don't believe in but I'll step in once
Again
Cut in line to get closer to the source of all the
Things I'll never belong to
Step it up and sign right in again
Cool like the ocean
Burned like a summer home
Fooled by the notion
That the sums don't add up at all
Cool like the ocean
Burned like a summer home
Fooled by the notion
That the sums don't add up at all
That the sums never add up at all
That the sums don't add up at all...
-- "Three Seed" by Silversun Pickups
(Current addiction. This song has been playing non-stop the entire day. Love the guitar and bass in this.)
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