Author: Liljumper

I feel like the more ways that the internet finds ways for people to communicate, the more, generally speaking, impersonal communication becomes.

Catching up used to be something on the phone or in person, something that took a while. But now people are in surveillance of each other’s lives through facebook updates, instagram pictures, and tweets. They aren’t as personal as showing pictures from a trip in person, or calling a friend to let them know of their updates, or sending their friends post cards.

The ‘updates’ we get are less personal, they’re over for all the friends, but it’s not like getting a call from a friend with their news, to share and have a personal interaction. I know that as people move further away it becomes harder, and I know it’s hard because for me and my friends I am usually awake when they aren’t and visa versa. But I miss that.

I miss calling up someone, having an actual phone conversation, not a text conversation, or a facebook message. I miss that genuine personal communication.

While technology makes it easier to get in touch, I don’t know if it makes it more personal. I guess even these blogs are impersonal. They aren’t tailored to anyone, they aren’t like a phone call, they’re more or less monologues.

But they aren’t like insta-updates. These are my real, honest, in depth thoughts. The type of conversations that occur when the small talk is out of the way and when the deep connections begin to occur, when our inner thoughts are on display, for share, for interaction. Some of these blogs are like small talk, and some bypass the simple update, and try to communicate what my thoughts are made up of under the surface. In that sense, they make me feel like I’m not just updating people, they don’t even contain that much personal data about my life here now.

But, what happened to a good old phone conversation? Now for me, these are just a good old skype conversation, one that lasts for hours and makes me feel like no time has passed, the rekindling of an old fire that never ages, but gets stronger as the light and heat passes.

When I graduated high school, I already felt like an older soul. I never went out to party a lot. I felt like people who were younger than me, or some people around me didn’t understand the privileges they had. Or how much their lives shouldn’t revolve around their phones.

But when I graduated from college I felt like I most definitely had an old soul. I missed all the things from my childhood, like encyclopedias, and cds. It made me sad that a lot of things were digital now. It makes me sad to think of a future in which my children may never answer a land line phone, or hold a book in person. They might never value the library like I did. They would be interested in instant gratification, liking something and downloading it, living lives on a virtual platform, forgetting the value of interaction without a medium in between.

These thoughts are still in my head and they do make me sad. I loved hanging out before smart phones, before instagram. Don’t get me wrong, I love a lot of things about modern society, such as skype and this blog and emails.

But I do sort of feel sad for my future children that they won’t get to experience the things I did that made my life and childhood so great.

I’m sure each new generation feels like this, as if the next generation doesn’t appreciate what they had to go through, and the things that the next generation have more freely. So it’s probably nothing new.

And that’s the nature of change, advancement, and progress. It means that we have to leave something behind, move on, and see some things are events of the past. To grow, we have to shed our old notions. It’s a process that requires some pain, some sadness, but growth. It’s a process that remains hopeful that what comes next will be something better. And it’s okay to mourn what gets left behind. It will all still be alive in our memories.

I loved High School. I had unbelievably great friends. I had some phenomenal teachers. I lived at home. Life was so good.

I wish I had seen that more when I was there. It seemed like every little bump was horrible and my relationship problems seemed to take center stage, but even they don’t dull how much I loved it.

I loved it because I was so close to so many people I loved in the world. And now I’m pretty far. Things were so spontaneous, so relaxing, so fun. I could just chill or hang out with my friends after school. We could walk around, thinking we were so cool, totally absorbed in our own world.

There was drama, heartbreak, fights, but we made it through them. I loved it and I miss it. Risks didn’t mean that much, the future seemed far away, and everyday mattered. Everyday was the most important thing, fight, breakup, or no. I loved, and still love, just hanging out with those friends, sitting on the couch, walking around the park, anything and everything was better with my friends around me. I miss having those people, who were so close to me, who I still care about deeply around me.

College was great too, I met some wonderful friends and what not which made it fantastic. But high school was something special. And they are friends which I have kept even now. High school taught me how to have friendships, what I wanted, what I didn’t, and I used that information in college to make some great friends.

My high school friends were with my from the beginning, and I am proud to say that many are still with me now.

If I could go back and give any advice to my high school self?

• You can’t change anyone if they don’t want to change, and if they don’t want to, you can never make them
• Don’t fret the relationship problems that much (knowing now that the relationship wouldn’t last, and, let’s be real, I must have thought that life could have gotten better than that)
• Don’t forget that feeling of taking everyday as the next

I don’t really miss high school at all, just my friends, seeing them everyday and hanging out with them all the time.

I have wondered a lot about what people would see if they looked at my Facebook photos. I know so many people say, be careful what you put on the internet. And I do. I don’t even put that many things on the internet now, except this blog, which has a certain level of anonymity. It’s clear to those who I have given this link, but I consciously don’t give out a lot of personal details.

But the other buzz issue is about how potential employers surf Facebook profiles to get a look at their future employees. I had been thinking about taking down Facebook photos, knowing that in general, the less I have on the internet probably the better. For instance, in the first half page of my google results, I only see 10 pictures of me. And I can’t really, or didn’t really, do that much about it. It’s just pictures that public places like my university or newspapers have published. I guess that’s just fame…ha.

But in general I want to be careful. But as I was thinking about this, I wondered what pictures I have mostly on Facebook and a lot of them are pictures of myself that I took, the ‘selfie’. Except I was taking tons of selfies way before they even had a word for it. I was obsessed with taking photos of my face. And I loved it. I got to take tons of photos of my face that I loved and I posted them for my friends to see, and they liked them and commented. It was a day when taking tons of self pictures, wasn’t seen as something so mundane. They were special days which I thought, I look really great and I want to remember this.

And so, so what if they see that? I was younger, but I was in love with myself, and still am today. If they see that, fine. I’m okay with that.

When I was younger, I don’t remember ever seeing a lot of Asian Role models. I really liked Lucy Liu, but that was it. I didn’t see any others really that I could even try to identify with. I don’t know if I realized, until now, how difficult that was for me, but it effected my subconscious, almost telling me the limits of my own potential.

The biggest way it effected me was to tell me that the beauty I had, wasn’t what people thought was beautiful. I  had this idea that I would never be beautiful enough. I couldn’t be. There were just some things that were impossible for me to do.

I didn’t realize how much I felt like this until recently when I was thinking about beauty. But I very much felt that others around me were just naturally prettier for many reasons. And it seemed to be confirmed to me by society. People found them prettier, asked them out more, had more friends. I guess, the friends part, is directly linked to my personality. But when I was younger, that didn’t really seem to matter to me. It seemed like everything in life was confirming what I feared in my heart to be true. I knew I was nice looking and beautiful, but it never seemed to be confirmed by society, only my friends and family. Which, as we know, means much more than confirmed by the faceless masses, but when I was younger, it didn’t.

I know it should have, because beauty isn’t just physical. But to me, society confirming this fact for me was all I needed to know. And sadly, this didn’t really change until recently.

Even now, it’s not like I am ‘cured’, because it’s a mentality for years you have to undo. It’s a slow process, and it can only happen if I tell myself everyday and work on going against what I observe, and still observe sadly to this day.

Happy Mothers Day mothers 🙂

My mother deserves all the praise in the world, for being the best mother I could have (realistically) imagined.

She is one of the reasons I am who I am today and I could never say thank you enough.

 

When I was in High School, I wanted red hair so badly. Not bright red, but a beautiful dark burgundy. Although I did want bright red for some time too. I tried my best to dye it, without bleach. It never quite worked out that well. It worked to do a strip or even the ends, but when I tried to do my whole head, it just gave it a red tinge.

I have never lost that desire, funnily enough. I always come back to it, and think that it looks gorgeous and always wishing I could find a way to do that to my hair. I know red dye is super high maintenance and washes out quite easily, so it needs to be done semi-frequently. And I have never got it done professionally (maybe my dream later on). I want to have it done professionally, but all the different techniques and shades I have done have all been practice, for knowing exactly what I want.

And I have been needing a change with my hair. I felt so stagnant, sort of just drifting and never changing. So I wanted to do something with it. I wanted to dye it, but it felt so…high school to me. It almost felt like it would undermine the image I have today and the style I have. It put me off dying my hair for a while and it made me sad each day to know I wanted to do something, but I had no idea what.

I don’t want to cut my hair, because I love the length. Maybe I could shape it, get some layers, but nothing dramatic. I used to keep cutting my hair long and short to give myself some changes, but I have grown it so long now, I don’t want to get rid of that.

So I finally decided to dye my hair. I don’t want my ideas of how people will perceive me to effect my own choices. I want to dye my hair, and I need to let that desire motivate my decisions, not about an image.

I think, perhaps, the reason why I associate dying hair with high school and youth is that in high school, when I was younger, I didn’t think that much about the risks. It was easier for me to jump full into the idea of hair. It didn’t seem as permanent. My image wasn’t something I used to be concerned that much with. I didn’t care if it made me look like something I wasn’t, I knew I would grow into it and it would become me. The decision didn’t seem like the big idea it is now. It didn’t seem permanent and it didn’t seem immature. It seemed like an experiment to see how I liked my hair, to change the outside, and the inside. When I dyed my hair it was because I was going through a change and I wanted my appearance to reflect that.

Nothing about that has changed. And I wish I had more of that mentality now. I’ve gotten fossilized about my appearance, thinking that a perception, an image, is very important to how I am perceived.

But I am going to dye my hair, in an attempt to gain back that attitude I used to have. The carefreeness, the ability to take risks, the necessity of change, and the lack of emotional interest in the weight of other’s perceptions.

I like to bake a lot for others, but it takes a lot of my time, my energy, my resources and you just can’t get around that.

For these reasons, and more, I feel very emotional when I give people things I have made. I want them to like it and to eat them. I get really hurt when people do not and just let it go to waste.

First of all, if it was going to go to waste, then I shouldn’t have made it. Second, it feels disrespectful to the time and effort I put into it.

I know that some would say that once you relinquish control over something then it shouldn’t affect you, that their waste doesn’t diminish the value of the gift, but that’s not how I feel.

I do feel it is disrespectful and it does hurt me. I definitely am not one of those people who works all the time and doesn’t have the time, nor am I just basking in free time. But it is an instant in which I have taken the time out of my day to make someone something with them specifically in mind.

And I think that should count for something. Share it, give it to some people, just don’t let the hard work of mine to go to waste.

Normally the distance doesn’t feel too far between me and my old world. Wait, that’s a blatant lie, it always feels like the longest distance in the world. And when I get really upset, about anything really ranging from mild to just inconsolable, I get reminded of how alone I am here.

How till now, there just aren’t any relationships here that compare. It feels like a dry oasis, and maybe during the day the dehydration hallucinations are enough, but as soon as there’s a moment of clarity, they all just disappear and then I’m the fool standing on a deserted island without food or a way to stay afloat slowly sinking.

I know theoretically that people are only a call away, but I feel the distance. I feel the fact that it isn’t as instant as before, that I can’t just see them when I go home, or that I can’t just chat with them on the way home from the bus, or while going grocery shopping.

My whole world has changed, and it does feel like a long distance back there. And when the bricks of the new world crumble, I’m thrown back into reality, in the middle of a hurricane alone.

But I’ve brought myself here, to stand here. And I guess you could argue that this feeling is my own fault, that I should have made more friends and worked on those relationships, that I should have explored more, that I never really embraced the change and the new world I find myself in.

But I still walk around and have moments where it feels like I’m on this alien colony and just feel this deep feeling that maybe I’ll never fit in.

I know it seems like I’m feeling sad and melodramatic, and I’ll give you sad, not melodramatic because, honestly, to varying degrees all of these feelings do reside within me. Sometimes it’s easier to deal and to stay positive and keep going. Because if there’s something I am good at, it is moving forwards and shutting myself down.

I had contemplated a lot before exposing this much of myself to this blog, but I thought, why not? It is mine still and while the words cease to belong to me when others read them, these feelings still exist within me.

In the past, I have been really great at shutting down emotional parts of myself, breathing, being occupied, and moving. It’s  probably easier than it should be. But for some reason, it’s one of my first reactions to cope with.

I know this post isn’t happy and it doesn’t make me happy to write it, maybe relieved. But this isn’t how I feel a hundred percent of the time, it’s mini waves and this is just a moment where I am in the undertow.

It’s also written for the future, so even when you’re reading this, things may have turned up. But the undertow seems to always be the danger and ever present, in danger of being sucked in. And it seems like this is true for me too.

I have an obsessive personality. (Why do I feel like all these blogs do sometimes is just confess things that are wrong with me? Maybe a note for the future to look at).

Anyway, when I can’t find things, I go crazy. I actually do. I look everywhere, almost crying. And the feeling that invades my body is a lack of control and failure. Because I feel like in general, I have succeeded if I know where things are. And when I don’t, then I have failed.

I guess my life would be a lot less stressed and optimistic if I could redefine what success and failure means. But that’s a task that is larger than a blue whale. But I suppose a lot of things do boil down to that….a topic for another time.

But another feeling that I get is of failure. Both of these feelings I really hate obviously. I honestly don’t know where I was going with this post.

For my blogs I just throughout the day and week write down in a note on my phone brief tags that are supposed to help me remember some rant or thing I wanted to share and 99% they do exactly that.

But then there’s today when they don’t, which must just be related to my mindset, because when I wrote the tag, I remember thinking that this would be so easy to write.

So I guess I’ll just recount the incident which prompted this tag.

The other day, I was trying to leave for school and couldn’t find my favorite ring. It didn’t help that it was from the US and that my mom got it for me, which makes me even more crazy about finding it because these things from my mom mean a thousand times more to me than just normal things, and things from the US obviously more since I can’t really get more of them and they are a limited commodity. So I couldn’t find them, and the reason is that I have been moving bags a lot just to fit the situation, and in the move I just couldn’t remember where I placed them, and even more so the bag I had put them in, was used for school and wasn’t at the apartment with me. Which eliminated any chance of me finding it, even though I looked in every bag and even in the box of bags in case they fell out. I was so upset, I was late to a lunch date and didn’t even want to go because it made me so sad and crazy. It’s like when you want to use a word that’s on the tip of your tongue but it eludes you, like all words do when you need them. Even more so, it had been only two days ago, and I felt like I should have remembered, but it was like a black hole in my memory, which was even more upsetting. Sometimes I feel like I move too fast or am too preoccupied with the thousands of lists in my head to remember things, like small memories, and it frustrates the heck out of me.

So if I do ever remember what I was thinking, I will either post another, or just edit this one!

You just gotta bear with me.