You are currently browsing the monthly archive for October 2008.
i actually didn’t know what that meant until i wikipediaed it. something about a change of belief once a scientific theory has been proven otherwise…or something. so i’ve spent the whole week by myself pretty much, sitting in my room and doing crossword puzzles and reading the paper. not really getting much schoolwork done, but just being by myself plenty. i spent less than an hour in the quad total this week…something that hasn’t occured since the year began. Oh, actually i went to watch heroes, but that was with annie who was dealing w/ nic. I went in twice during the day, and spent a little time talking to jon, but he and i are virtually disconnected now as far as i see it. i’ll ask him how he’s doing and respond to common stimuli (lol wtf) but no more attempts to track him down and make him listen to me. much less make him talk to me. i don’t even care anymore, to be honest. as for nicole i haven’t talked to her in two or three weeks about anything substantial. i’m bitter, i guess. i know i’m bitter, but i really don’t feel like trying to mend anything at this point. i’d rather just overcome my bitterness by changing focus.
speaking of which, i’ve been trying (painfully) to figure out what i want to do after psychology, both in the sense of a second major and as a career. my head hurts from having stared at a computer for the last 3 hours straight. being by myself is killing my brain cells. anyways, after a few days of complaining to everyone that would listen (minus the aforementioned couple), i got the notion to look more into political science as a prereq for law school. and i know virtually nothing about law school, so i figured i would set myself on finding out more about it. i went on the uiuc pre-law advising site and read all about the curriculum, but i still don’t know what the life would be like both in law school and beyond. and unlike the structured guidelines that pre-med students follow, there’s nothing required of pre-law students. this freaks me out, but at the same time intrigues me, since i happen to be on a ‘try-things-you-normally-wouldn’t’ binge. so after talking this over with some other people and looking at the sorts of skills required of law students, i thought i’d go visit the pre-law advisor (with whom i made an appt.), visit the pre-law club (where i asked a student what i might do to find out more about law), and track down renee chacko (which i still need to do). then i planned out the rest of my 8 semesters w/ both a psych and a polisci curriculum, and i can graduate in 7 semesters if i want to, but i don’t know how i want to fit in a semester abroad, since i feel compelled to do that. I just really want to get away right now, and i explained to nathan lord that i’m tired of only serving the christian community (and predominantly IV at that), and not serving the non-christian community enough (or at all). I’ve gotten comfortable and disgruntled at myself for that, and I wanna do something out of the norm. i feel like at this point i’ve forgotten how to appreciate God because I don’t see him in my community much anymore. and i miss Him so much. but I don’t know how to connect with him on my own. and i want Him back more than anything, b/c my life is empty and meaningless and stupid without Him. i feel unworthy all the time now b/c I can’t focus on Jesus. and i have to say, i’m tired of my community. the only thing holding me to it is the fate of the freshmen…especially nathan and jeff…but i don’t know how i can help them when i can’t help myself at this point. i pray so much that they keep growing in Christ if i step down and leadership dwindles. b/c a big part of me just doesn’t wanna be so invested in IV anymore. I’m gonna be lonely, and I’m still going to need the fellowship and people to count on for my faith, but I need something new. Eric told me once that i’m never going to be content with any group i turn to unless i turn to God first, but I really need Him to make the first move for me right now. At the same time, I find myself becoming more like Rachel Mowery. I really look up to her, and i’m not sure how my next semester’s gonna look like without her. not to mention next year when sarah and rachel keung leave me too. tyler and jack and even jamaal will be gone too, and i think that’ll just make me shy away from IV even more. i’ll still have nathan to talk to, but there’s awkwardness there that i don’t think will ever go away. he’s great to talk to from afar, and i think that’s the only way i’ll ever be comfortable talking to him. unfortunately. i’m worried about next year for sure, but i feel that God’s gonna provide for me, in ways that i can’t fathom right now, and i can take some comfort in that. i need to learn to live with uncertainty although it’s the greatest thing that plagues me. Oh so, Rachel Mowery. Last night she and Christie (she’ll be leaving me too…and i just met her. sigh.) talked in my room for a few hours about boys and faith and i kept thinking ‘wow i love talking to people that share my values but aren’t caught up in the blandness and troubles of IV’. and Rachel is involved in stuff (maybe not as much as i’d like to be) and sees IV’s faults and turns from those, but still stays strong in her faith through other ways. And she’s so headstrong in her values and commitment, and I want to have that. I don’t want the goings-on of my life to dictate my every emotion. i need things to shake up my life, b/c every in it right now is so routine and therefore half-hearted and unfruitful, and i want dynamicism so i can see more movement. I felt it in Taiwan, and I want to feel it again. Here isn’t enough for me anymore. I keep looking to the far future, and what i’m going to end up doing and how i might change it now, and i’m getting restless and anxious. and that’s all i feel up to saying right now; i think i’m gonna go to bed. sarah’s gone this weekend and i’ve had even more time to myself. for a little bit of my pms-y week she bothered me with some of her mannerisms, but ultimately there were good times when i can’t think of anyone i’d rather room with right now.
i have no idea where i’m at in my life right now. i feel like i’ve been sitting in a waiting room for something to happen for so long while everyone around me is getting their number called. Only I don’t know what number i have in my hand, so that complicates things. it’s like i’ve almost developed learned helplessness but it can’t be good if i just give up. everything i do now feels like obligation. i’m obligated to be an IV leader and member and do IV things, i’m obligated to act happy and social and sometimes i am, but the feeling’s always fleeting. i just came back from the quad and although i laughed so hard my throat dried out, sitting there i still felt empty. like a giant part of me is missing and it’s because i have a hole in me where i try to fill it with joy but it just leaks out after i stop filling it. and all the while i’m filling it i know it’s not going to stay. i keep speaking in metaphor. at curtis i just checked out and blamed it on being sick, and sat down on a bale of hay and waited. cause that’s all i can do now, to wait. greg and emily noticed and came back over to accompany me which i appreciated, but then i put on my front again and pretend to be alright, just sick and tired. i don’t really have to try to pretend to be happy, it just happens, so i wonder sometimes if i’m actually capable of naturally being happy, it’s just that this phantom of knowing it won’t last ruins that everything for me. so people don’t really notice that i’m depressed, because something in me keeps up the ruse of normality regardless of how i actually feel inside and away from other people. then we went to wendy’s in a car and i stared out the window and wondered silly suicidal thoughts like i sometimes trivially do, and it surprised me whenever someone would ask if i was alright. not sure what they were noticing, but they did…and it caught me off guard. i’m not sure what to make of their concern, or how to respond to it really when they do express concern. my first instinct is to just shrug it off and act like i have no idea what they’re talking about, but i wonder what would happen if i were to just tell them that, yes, i’m depressed and overall dissatisfied with my life and my friends, and that sometimes i wonder how the world would fare without me. And wonder what it would look like to make that a reality. But no one will ever know; not that i think they could do anything to help. It’d probably just alienate them from me and i’m sure it’s not as big a deal as i sometimes make it seem in my own mind. I’ll admit that I tend to self-pity, and there are far worse things to worry about. Like those lower on Maslow’s hiearchy of needs, blah blah, i still hold to my theory that dissatisfaction is proportionally equal in intensity though comes from different causes as you move up the pyramid. So there are those that are depressed because they have no food or shelter, and then there are those that are depressed because they’re like me and see no enjoyment in their lives (societally/spiritually, etc). So for the former the pain is more like a sharp, stinging pain, while mine is like the dull, throbbing pain that people experience. I’m becoming more numb as the days wear on, and just tolerating the responsibilities that i have to bear. Not ‘have to’ per se, but know I ought to. Like I said before, i feel like i’m temping for someone else’s life and trying not to screw it up until that person comes back. Actually it’s more like I’m temping at a job knowing that eventually i’m going to move on, but not knowing what catalyst or action i have to take to do so, meanwhile trying not to screw up my job now in case moving on takes longer than i’d expect. But i’m fed up with my life, and i don’t understand what about it makes me so unhappy.
random thought:
buying and drinking bottled water is as impractical as buying and using batteries to power your TV or your computer. Why drink/use anything but tap water when you wouldn’t use batteries instead of your building’s power supply?
So…time for some more random reflection. It seems like every time I do reflect, good revelations and epiphanies come out of it. And plus, it doesn’t hurt to exercise my vocabulary. Alright, so I’m still stuck at this point in my life where I don’t know what to do with myself and I need to figure out fast what it is that I’m good at and will enjoy doing for the majority of the rest of my life. And one thing that’s holding me back is the fact that I have so much else going on right now with school and people and leadership and sigh. So many papers are coming up for me. At least this week is supposed to be pretty stress-free, so I can lay low and work on those this week. Maybe I need an alone-time sabbatical somewhere that I can steal off to on campus. Hmm, what would be a good place? Allen library with the study-booths is an option…and ACES is always comfortable. The Union gets kind of loud and isn’t as nice of an option at night. I’ve never really studied at the main library before and I need to go do some research there anyways. Krannert’s an option still but that gets iffy at night too. Espresso Royale might be a good option for alone-time w/o getting totally alone. I think I’ll retreat there this week. Oh, and I do need to visit ISR sometime this week b/c I virtually promised Nathan I’d go visit them. Hmm…I wish I wasn’t so lonely. I wish I could get a lot more done by myself and still be happy while doing it. But usually I just feel like crap after spending a lot of time by myself and getting nothing done. And I can’t imagine relying too heavily on anyone that I’m around now, not even Sarah. Mostly because she’s got certain nuances that I can’t ignore and that bother me sometimes when I’m at my low. And I’m sure it’s the same way vice versa. I once thought that I was full of patience and kindness, but it’s been chipping away since the year began. I no longer have the ability to explain calmly and carefully what I think is wrong, and now it’s just a lot of provocation and confrontation or intolerance and annoyance. And it kind of scares me what I’m becoming, but I’m not sure what to do. I know I ought to look to God for that sense of grace and mercy but it’s getting harder and harder now because I can’t seem to find satisfaction in anything. And when I’m not rewarded like I want to be, I find it hard to be thankful. And I am a selfish, stupid human being and I deserve my comeuppance…but I don’t know when I’m going to change and my comeuppance is going to end. It’s hard to be hopeful where I am right now.
It’s been awhile since I last posted. I guess I just don’t feel like thinking sometimes, and to keep things simple as much as I can, otherwise I get too emotionally invested and then it’s just detrimental. But this last week was schoolish hell, what with 3 exams and a whole lot of sadness going on. There’s so much sadness now. People are so discontent with what we’ve got to deal with. Jon and Nicole are official now, and just being around them is awkward. I…can’t associate the two of them together w/o feeling weird. They were never…in the same social groupings that I put people in last year, and having the two of them together now is just odd. it doesn’t help that jon’s shutting off from other people a little more now, and nicole seems to not trust me. I mean, jon’s still good to me, probably because i’ve made myself be around him so much in the past that he’s receptive to changes in my behvaior. As for everyone else, he’s seemed to stop talking to and started being overly formal. sarah’s pretty scorned by the whole deal, and justly so. yinting’s being a little more neurotic and stubborn this year, and i honestly don’t know how to deal with her sometimes. or even how to defend her when other people complain. And i’m the kind of person that usually strives to promote good-feelings towards others in the group, but lately i just feel defeated and pooped. And i feel weaker and just overall disappointed. Oh, and nicole still never tells me anything about jon, which might be a lack of my own effort to make her talk to me. But what cut me pretty deep is that she never even mentioned rooming with me or considering me or anything, but went ahead and told me that she’s rooming with laura next year. I think that’s fine that they are, and I know i can find someone else…but just the fact that i got hit with that and that i was evidently never even factored into the equation hurts a lot. And there’s no way to bring that up…so I have no option but to suck it up and pretend it doesn’t matter. But I have to work with her for another year after this…so if things don’t get better then I’m not sure how this is going to work out. So now i’m not sure if we’re ever going to be close friends. I remember a time last year when nicole and i were tight and that we’d tell each other things about our lives and communicate like we were equals. But the difference now, i feel like could be because she considers herself older than me/the other girls…because she often states that she’s a junior technically, and the fact that she’s dating Jon seems to put her above the rest of us. This is all speculation about her behavior/distrust of the rest of us, but it makes some sense to me. Thus, I have no idea how I’m supposed to behave towards her…like just accept that she’s ‘older’ and that i ought to turn to her for guidance but not vice versa…or if i should state my position that we’re actually equals (even academically). For now i can’t seem to shake the former, and i can only reciprocate based on how she’s treating me. Which is silly, and it bothers me, but there doesn’t seem to be much that I can do. And two of my confidantes are now basically one unit of which I can’t share some things with one or the other and it’s throwing me out of whack. And Sarah and Yinting and Annie and Rachel M all feel the weirdness and it’s kind of hard to ignore cuz theyre both very…touchy people. I honestly feel like it’s an unhealthy relationship in regard to the people around them, but it’s nothing that can be brought up or solved. So…there’s just a lot in my life right now going on that I don’t understand and I don’t know how to understand/solve. There’s my social group and my social outlets, my position in IV next semester/year, the church i should be grounded in and how i should express my faith outside of IV, my career choices and what i should do with the rest of college, and how i ought to deal with my loneliness/singleness. I just feel like there’s a lot of WEIGHT on me right now. My life feels heavy, and I feel heavy, and the future looks heavy. If I knew where things were going, life would be much much easier for me right now. So now is probably just a really difficult time of trials…and it’s hard to see beyond it but i guess this whole thing is just a trial. And … if i turn to God, I’ll make it through. But I need to learn how to look to God. When I’m weak, it’s harder for me to know how God’s gonna work in my life. because things look/feel hopeless, and my own inadequacies reflect upon how powerful i think God is. it’s hard to stop looking at myself and to look at God as God. So I need the Lord to pull my gaze away from myself and towards Him. I see God as a God who fixes things like I would…and that I fix things like God would. This is totally inaccurate, but my mindset is so. So I need to learn that God does things in His own way, and though I may be completely inadequate and incompetent, God is omnipotent in every way possible. And He will turn things around and change my heart and my mind and bring me rest and peace if I surrender myself and my abilities to him. They’re not mine, but His. If I only knew what surrender looked like, and how I ought to get there. Lord, please pull me out of the mire.
