Take a break.

There are moments in life when we all just need a break. A break from the conventions of the world; a break from the formalities of the world; and a break from who we are and how we are perceived by others.

I would say that I’ve been living pretty much a well-planned life. Just like many Asians (didn’t want to generalize, but it’s true), I do pretty much what everyone else expects me to do, and do them well enough. If my life was a book, it would be a textbook. It’s filled with content, but pretty much everything about it is predictable - just chapters after chapters of ‘knowledge’ (whatever that may mean) written with language formalities -  if you get what I mean. It lacks the moments of inspiration and aspiration in a novel; and does not reflect the spontaneity that occurs in real life.

Spontaneity is something that people may be scared of because of the uncertainty that is attached to it. But what we don’t know is that spontaneity actually helps us reorganize ourselves. It’s an opportunity to redefine ourselves and find better ways to live our lives. As Graham Greene said in his short story “The Destructors” - “destruction after all is a form of creation.” While it’s probably unnecessary to go in that extreme route, to destroy ourselves, it is sometimes not a bad idea to break away from what we usually do, and break away from the confinement of a planned life.

This leads us back to the idea of taking a break. There is actually a lot more to taking a break than say a nap or play games on your computer. Looking at it from a broader scope, taking a break can mean learning something new, doing something outrageous (how ever that’s defined), or just being spontaneous. It’s a process that can sometimes lead us to learn more about some of the undiscovered facets of ourselves. Ultimately, what’s most important about taking a break is that taking a break allows us to move forward.

Moving forward in life is probably the least you can do as a human being. When you are not moving forward, it actually translates to moving backwards in life. So next time when you feel like you’re not making any progress in life, or even just with school work, try taking a break: do something you’ve never done before, learn something new, have fun for a bit, be spontaneous and open to uncertainty!

Vulnerability.

Life can be intimidating, especially when uncertainty is constantly overshadowing like the gloomy weather of Pittsburgh.

In these moments of uncertainty, fear, and inconceivable fate, it can take great effort to regain confidence and competence in life. But it is in these moments of solitude that we realize we’re not alone. 

Some say that life is a train ride, you meet new people at different points of your journey. At different points in time, these people may leave you, or continue the journey with you until they absolutely have to leave. 

I’m glad that at least the seats next to me on my train are filled. These seats are not filled with random people who  gets off almost as soon as they get on, but with people that are willing to accompany me on my journey and willing to share their journey with me.

Sometimes when my life feels out of control, I like to talk to my friends.

“u can talk to me anytimes, day or night, 2am or 2 pm ahha”

A simple dialogue like that may seem trivial to many people, but it means the world to me. As much as I don’t want to be seen as vulnerable or weak, I can only say that I am probably weaker than I think I am. However, I think that realizing our own vulnerability will allow us to regain strength to conquer our lives, and regain the conscience to continue our journey. 

This semester was not off to a particularly good start, family, friends, work, all seem to be slightly falling apart, but I know that those who continue to be seated by me will continue to do so, and that I am never alone. At least for today I wasn’t ;) 

I look forward to tomorrow as much as I do for the day after, and the day after that. It’s going to get better, I just know.

Writing About Writing

So here’s the deal, English is not my first language, which makes me an ESL apparently. (*note the redundancy) Um okay… What does that have to do with anything, you ask? Well, since I haven’t written anything in such a long time, I thought I’d first use that as an excuse for this piece of poorly written writing that I’m about to write. And what’s the subject for today? Writing.

That’s right: I’m going to write a poorly written piece of writing about writing, in English I should add, which is my second language.

I’ve always had a fear for writing, especially in English. The truth is, nobody around me ever seemed to have noticed, because I never had troubles in high-school English courses, so it appeared. I even enrolled in English Honors in Grade 12 recommended by my teacher. In reality, however, I’ve always struggled with English. I have never really written anything that I am truly proud of. Sure, the romantic murder mystery that I wrote in Grade 10 received one of the highest grades in the class, and the essay on ethics I wrote in Grade 12 received a perfect score. Despite the reassurances from grades of one assignment after another, I am still very fearful. Why? It didn’t take much for me to figure out that I simply did not want people to catch on my ‘ESLness’. Just like many foreign students, I was afraid that people would laugh at me for saying/writing something ‘stupid’ or in proper terms ‘grammatically incorrect.’ Fortunately, I barely have an accent when I speak, so that took off some of the stress I had on trying to be ‘not stupid.’

To give you an example of being stupid, here’s an anecdote from elementary school:

I was on the soccer field one day, and all of a sudden the girls around me decided to do splits. Right, splits. Seeing that they were going to do splits in jeans, I thought I’d make a comment and so I said, “If you do splits in jeans your jeans might…”

Exercise (1) Complete the above sentence with the most appropriate word: a) break b) rip

Okay, okay, I chose a). I knew it wasn’t the right word at the time, but the word ‘rip’ was on its coffee break. What happened next? The girls began to laugh. LAUGH. Not giggle or chuckle - LAUGH. I was embarrassed. Embarrassed to a point where I basically sealed my mouth for a very long time, and spoke only when I had to.

Maybe the anecdote was stretching it too far, but it demonstrated how trivial events to one can have a significant impact in the life of another. Beyond that, where I’m really getting at is the fact that just like me, many people will have the same fear, and what many people seem to resort to and succumb to eventually is finding friends who speak their language so that they never have to embarrass themselves in front of people. Similar things apply to writing. To write well in one’s first language is already a difficult task, needless to say, writing well in a second language, causing many people to avoid it as much as possible.

But I like writing, because so much of writing to me is no longer about getting the grammar right and using the most appropriate analogies. (YEA! find those mistakes all you want… okay maybe not.) It’s about the communication between you and the world. It’s about throwing an idea out into the world and getting the unexpected back. It’s about sharing an idea with the world and then realize that there is someone out there who shares the same vision. It’s about finding your place in the world that many are lost in. And in the process of all of this, maybe you will begin to appreciate your own writing, and even yourself as an individual.

Maybe that wasn’t such a poorly written piece of writing about writing after all. It definitely wasn’t great, but it was written in my own words and in my own way that defines me, an ESL student who still struggles with English.

Waiting for Superman

We live too good of a life that we sometimes take for it granted. We complain about it and even at times we say we hate it. But think about it this way: there are many people out there without the chance to even complain about their lives. They live a life where the only thing they can and should do, is think about how to survive this next minute. It’s true.

We take so many things in life for granted that even what most of us claim to be a basic right in a democratic and developed society, education, becomes something we take for granted for without realizing how privileged we are. 

Recently, I had a chance to watch the documentary “Waiting for Superman,” which addresses some of the detrimental problems in the education system of US (I won’t go into details about the film, watch it for yourself). I think more so than being shocked by the statistics behind the failing education system, I was even more moved by the innocent faces of these children. Their faces, radiating that innocence that we have lost complaining about life, that innocence that we have lost, hating our imperfect lives. It is knowing that they will never become the doctor or nurse they want to be, the dream they want to live up to that really struck me. And it is that moment that forced me to question myself, that forced me to think about how privileged I am. 

The world is imperfect, and it is all about finding perfection in the imperfect world that one will realize how fortunate he/she is. 

Social Crisis

So it’s at this point of the year when the littlest things can become significant sources of rage. It’s also at this point of the year when I feel like I’m going through some sort of social crisis. Memories of the past are still unforgiving in trying to congest and delude my mind, and as I am writing this, I am hoping that maybe I’ll just be able to gain the motivation to move forward rather than to linger in the past. 

I have always known that I am socially incompetent, but clearly, I am unaware of just howincompetent I am. Perhaps it’s because I’ve never really experienced the social life of high-school, or perhaps it’s because I’m just a strange and unfitting individual. But I hope that my friends will understand that despite my many failures, I still really care about them, and is very very thankful for what they’ve done for me. 

That’s another thing.

Talking about friends is difficult for me. I love talking to friends, but sitting down and trying to write a blog post about friends just doesn’t seem to be something that I can do naturally. I think part of it is the fact that I am really insecure and unconfident socially. I’m constantly scared about losing myself in a group of friends. I’m scared that my presence will go unnoticed and I’m scared that others won’t be able to accept me as who I am. Most importantly, I’m scared to be alone. 

This is when I find confidence elsewhere, or attempt to at least.

Clearly, I am having a hard time finding enough confidence and security elsewhere. That’s why I feel like I am losing slices of control of myself everyday. That’s the problem when you don’t really know what defines yourself as an significant individual in this cruel space called reality. What is my value to the society, to the space around me, and to my friends. 

Maybe I’m just thinking too much. Or maybe I’m going insane. Whatever it is, I hope that people will understand that I’m trying really hard to make myself a better friend and better person. 

Again, thanks to all those people who still believe in me. 

You know your prof is stalking you when...

So this really did happen to me today...
Prof: Are you ok?
Me: Yeah?
Prof: You're from Canada right?
Me: Yeah? Wait... how do you know?
Prof: I can tell by looking at your back.
Me: What? (started taking my jacket off to see if there's a post it or something...but to no avail). Wait what... how do you know??
Prof: Vancouver?
Me: Yeah?? Seriously, how do you know?
Prof: I can just tell by looking at your back.
Me: ...

“Life Is Unfair And Then You Die”

It was in 8th grade French when I first heard it. 

I couldn’t tell if my French teacher was just being a pessimist or if he was trying to be intimidating in front of the rebellious youngsters.

Of course, having been such an optimistic 8th grader, I took the statement as a joke. Little did I know that reality, which I had total faith in at the time, would gradually succumb to this statement. 

This semester in particular made me realize how unfair life is. Not just my life, but from observations of other people’s lives too, I realized the truth about this reckless world. It was apparent to me that giving you the time to fight the unfairness is as fair as life gets. This is certainly true to a great extent although sometimes it is hard to realize. 

However, this is not to say that our lives are all that depressing. In fact, there are many ways in which we can approach this unfairness, and rather than escape from it, cope with it.

I think an important aspect in coping with unfairness that we may feel about life is to change our mentality. I don’t mean to bring up the cliche of “half full” and “half empty,” but it really allows us to stray away from the pessimism. Nonetheless, I think that in order to cope with unfairness, we ought to begin cherishing the things we take granted for. We ought to stop demanding/complaining and begin reflecting; reflecting on who we are as human beings and who we are as individuals in this society. Lastly, by acknowledging the norm in life being unfair, we relieve ourselves from the burden of unfairness, and begin to realize the smallest things in the world that bring us joy. Such seemingly trivial details though, make life better all together.

Of course, once in a while, we all want to complain about life and that is perfectly normal. In fact, it goes to show that you are living a “normal” life (with the premise that life is unfair). 

This semester was emotionally challenging for me especially, but I think by establishing a new mentality, I am learning how to deal with these challenges.

Ultimately, life goes on, and no matter how dissatisfied you are about it, it is a one shot deal. 

So please, don’t do anything stupid.

And no, I still can’t figure out after 12th grade if my teacher was just a pessimist or being intimidating/sarcastic. I am leaning more towards the former though. 

The Incompletion of Today is for the Completion of Tomorrow

It was 4:00 am. 

Sitting in the library all by myself, in front of an unfamiliar computer, I was writing my contribution paper for Interpretation and Argument. 

So it seems like a fairly normal thing to do at CMU, staying up late, writing a paper, stuck in the library. However, it took a lot of decision making in the previous sentence as you will find out below:

1) To write my paper in the library. While there is nothing wrong with writing papers in the library, the real intention in writing in library is really to keep me away from my enticing Tigger bedsheets… Yes, I know… as it has become increasingly difficult for me to stay awake in my room. 

I tell people now that I don’t go to bed, I fall asleep; the difference there being you go to bed when you are done with work, and you fall asleep when you are still doing work. 

2) To write my paper with an unfamiliar computer (computer from the library). While you might think that the decision is trivial, I can assure you, a night without my computer has boosted my productivity. It is so very very hard for me… a CMU tech geek (and so I call myself a designer), to not browse through the news on the launch of Samsung Galaxy Tab, delay of iOS 4.2 from Apple, and the newest build of the Android system. (By the way, you are not required to know any thing that I just said)

Ok, I know, it’s a long post. I’ll stop here.

Oh, you might wonder what the title of the post mean… or where it came from…

It’s supposed to be something deep that I came up with at 4:00am that night/morning. Figure it out for yourself, but I think what it is supposed to mean (coming from the person who said it), is GO TO BED, FINISH THE WORK TOMORROW.

Yes. 

Update: F*@# YOU AMERICA

Um… so, it turns out that before insurance coverage, I actually owed the hospital $1786.89. Now, I am really grateful that I am insured. Below are the specifics that accumulated to this unbelievable amount:

Emergency Services IV Therapy-General $63.25

Emergency Services Emergency Room $887.75

Pharmacy IV Solutions $71.00

Lab-Chemistry $615.25

Pharmacy-Detailed Coding $149.64

This leads me to question the ethics of being a doctor or any of these top echelon professions. In part due to capitalism, this drive for profit seems to be the motivation for everything, to become the doctor, the lawyer, or the politician. But do people in these professions really have passion for what they do? I doubt many would say they do with thinking about it first. There is a Chinese saying, which roughly translates to, “money isn’t everything, but everything is about money.” This statement in the context of today’s society is in fact valid. I cannot begin to think about what this entails for our next generation, as this false sense of satisfaction aroused by the presence of monetary possessions is petrifying, and is exactly what we are leaving them with. 

F#*@ YOU AMERICA

So, first I’d like to apologize for the title of this post, but I just had to let that one out. As a Canadian, I should know better what a civilized human being entails, however in the case of what happened, I simply could contain my frustration, and therefore chose to barf it all out on this post. 

As some of you might have known, on my way back to Pittsburgh this summer, I got air sick after my first flight, and while this isn’t the first time I had to deal with this (non-stop vomiting), it might have terrified others. I was just going to get over this by arriving at Pittsburgh and move in to my room as quickly as possible, but NOOOOOO…. A******* Airlines on my second flight insisted that I leave the plane and only until I get better will I be allowed on the plane. (This part I can still understand, and I know their concerns).

Eventually, after lying in the boarding area for hours, they decided to send me to the ER, even though I was sure I didn’t have to from what the paramedics were telling me. (Okay, I think I’ll try to shorten this story). I think I was in the hospital for maybe about 5 or so hours (maybe less)… I was half-conscious at that point, but remembered when they asked me to fill out my name, address, and show them my insurance card… etc. Anyhow, I finally stopped barfing cause they kept giving me dosages of “stuff” (see how professional that sounded?) 

Anyways, I stopped vomiting, and they called a cab for me and sent me back to the airport. Of course, I missed the flight, and the flight after that, although the Airline said they would put me on this “next” flight. Well, after I returned, the “next” flight became the flight tomorrow morning at 8:25am. (I guess I can’t really do anything other than agreeing to be booked for the flight) And so, the airline booked a hotel for me also, which I had to pay for myself, but I mean, it was all good, because at least I was able to find a place to rest.

I did arrive in Pittsburgh safely the next day, and by then, thanks to my great friends (I really could not express how touched I was) had already moved my boxes and luggages in for me. 

The real frustration though, was when I received an email from my mom this evening. So the hospital sent a bill to my house back in Canada, and I was charged $532.12 dollars (or something close). Actually, thanks to the insurance I bought from school, instead of paying $900 something dollars, I now only need to pay $532…. GREAT!!! I’m saving SOOOO MUCH MONEY!!!!!! 

Ironically, this afternoon, I got a call from the hospital asking me about my experience at the hospital… I gave them really good ratings, and in return, I get a big fat bill that wants me to pay 500 something dollars for a hospital bed that almost broke my back, dosages of “stuff” which I probably didn’t really need, and doctors/physicians that would come in at different times asking me the same questions over and over again to waste time. 

Moral of the story: stay on the plane no matter how sick you are. 

Again, I would like to apologize for being such an uncivilized human being for the past 10 minutes or so, and I do not intend to offend anyone personally. I understand that everyone’s just doing their job, and there’s not much we can do about America’s medical situation thanks to capitalism. But I would still like to thank my friends formally, for their generous help in making my move-in a smooth and easy one, and yes, they are all American.