a mediocre dreamer

like i mentioned in my previous entry, it's the week before my period, so bear with me if i get to pensive, self-absorbed, and sappy. there are a few things i just felt compelled to say, so here goes:

i just want to apologize for the entirety of my existence. i know that sounds retarded, but read on and i'll do my best to explain in as few words as possible. i've known this for a long time, but i'm worse at ignoring when i get into these depressed moods. anyhow, wut i mean is, i'm really sorry if i come off as a cold and harsh person. i don't know how it developed and i don't know how i'll fix it, but for as long as i can remember i've always maintained this very 'rough and tough' sort of exterior personality which, ironically, completely contrasts what is buried inside. from what i've heard or even seen the times i step outside of myself, i know i give off this hard and 'strong' persona, but i don't really know if i'm like that at all. i've done it for so long i can hardly tell what is genuine and what isn't. there are times when, i admit, i feel protected under all that coarseness because i'm able to brush off things as if i don't care... but you know, maybe it doesn't work all that well cuz i do still think about things that i appear to ignore. i think about them so much that i warp them into things that beat on my self-esteem even more.

and yet, i feel kind of cheesy, for lack of a better word, if i were to express the kindness i have inside (or at least i hope i have inside). not that kindness is bad, NOT AT ALL.. but it's just that i feel like it wouldn't be me. Maybe i've just allowed myself to live by my 'label' for so long, that i feel like it would be fake of me to say wut i really think or act the way i really want to. (and more than thinking other ppl will see me as fake, i feel like i would even feel fake if were to display what's really inside me). honestly, i really don't know which one is the real me. i know i can't entirely be the cold person i am on the outside, because if i were, then i wouldn't hate myself so much for being inconsiderate or rude or selfish. and the truth is, i do... i really do. I'm not even declaring that i'm all holy or anything, because yes, there are times when sometimes i'm just mean because i am sinning... but then again, i hate being mean! i wish so badly at times that i were anyone else besides me... that i were one of those people that everyone thinks of as 'nice' and 'sweet'. but the harsh reality is that i'm so blatantly not. i don't think i've ever been characterized that way in my entire life.. and that makes me really sad. not sad because i care what ppl think in that superficial sort of way... but sad because i genuinely wish to be more kind to people. i don't want to be nice on the outside just so ppl would think of me that way... i just want to display the genuine love and kindness that God calls all of us to have. THAT'S what makes me sad... that i'm not fulfilling His will the way i should.

i've always thought of myself as a giant question mark or a living, breathing oxymoron... and it has carried over till now, college, and i'm so angry at myself for that. i guess i was fooling myself back in high school thinking i'd be able to change the way i treat people, cuz obviously it hasn't worked. as i keep living this facade each day, it only becomes more and more real to me that i am incapable of doing anything myself. i've tried endlessly to change on my own, only to be disappointed again and again. How pretentious for me to think that i actually could do it alone when i can't even explain or understand myself fully. I'm almost 20 and i still don't know who i am.... there are times when my heart is so callous it worries me, and then there are times when i'm so emotional i can't understand myself.. and i haven't even touched on the subject of my being too much of a dreamer. only God knows my joys and my pains and what really is behind all the walls i put up around myself. i can't even put it into words in prayer... i just sit there too confused to say a thing.... He just reads my heart and reassures me that He knows. when it gets through my thick head that that's all that matters, i'm at peace, and that's what i want to filter out to others. I guess this entry was more to just clarify my thoughts than for ppl to read and be entertained. I only hope that whoever reads this will keep me accountable and remind me what it means to love and live the way He does.

you know that saying about being in a room full of people but still feeling so alone? well, that was me tonight.

dang, i feel all melancholic... must be that time of the month again.

thought of the day: when you can smell yourself, that's when you need a shower.

i'm sitting at the library passing enough time before i mosey my way to capri to surprise a freshly showered jahndee. everytime she showers you can call it fresh cut grass... only she wouldn't have cut her hair but the analogy is nifty. so last night (or this morning rather) jahndee, kristy, and i went to koko house to eat and boy did we grub. i'm so grossly full even 12 hours after the fact. and then after that they + roy came over my house to bum for yet another night/morning. i've seen too many sunrises this semester alone to last a lifetime lemme tell ya. we ended up watching moulin rouge (my umpteenth time) and jahndee was mesmerized at certain parts which was funny to me. roy fell asleep and it was so funny cuz jahndee and kristy were trying to pluck out his leg hairs and i guess he knew cuz he screamed to scare them and i swear my neighbors must've woken up cuz jahndee freakin busted a crazy on roy. ahahah she was pounding on him with a hello kitty head pillow...quite the scene. and then we were all awake so we watched atlantis but i fell asleep and that's why i missed class today. sigh, i woke up and got ready all hastily and ran to class only to find the classroom empty. i hate when that happens! and i went an hour before the scheduled end time! rowr~! anyhow, now i'm stuck without a midterm study guide so i'm praying my instructor with have mercy on me.

so i just thought i'd share my highlighted moments of these past few days:

1. i'm a vegetarian, which most of you would understand as not eating meat right? give it to jahndee to confuse herself.

scenario: after shopping at berkeley bowl, kristy and jahndee were going to go grub on jahng-jo-leem (a meat dish) and i said i'd pass and just eat at home.
jahndee: "you can just eat the goong-mool (broth), it has no meat in it!!" --she was honestly very excited to say this
me: *blank stare like the one chandler gives joey when he says something stupid as he waits for joey to realize what he's just said*
jahndee: "oooooh!" busting out in laughter
me: thinking *there it is!* like chandler again.... "please tell me you were joking"

and yet another monumental moment of intelligence on jahndee's part:

scenario: at koko house deciding what to eat (keep the famous chicken in mind)
jahndee: "can't you just eat the skin... that's not meat"
kristy and I: *both offering the same chandler stare, as mentioned above, hoping she'd get it with some time*
jahndee: "what! the skin's not meat, is it??"
me: "the whole animal is meat"
jahndee: "but the skin... that's not meat though, right?"
kristy and I: *amazed and in silence*
jahndee: "is it?????"

2. come to think of it... i can't remember the rest cuz i am still in awe of jahndee. ahhahaha.. *wink* you know i'm just messin girl! i
just wanna share your coolness. ahhahahah

if anyone can convince jamba juice to make smaller portions, please do so. i'm so fat i drank the whole cup and now i'm stinkin full. *squirm* i'm at the unit 3 cc supporting jahndee who is feverishly at work playing spider solitaire instead of helping ppl. haha. so i'm gonna do just about everything i can online cuz my comp at home keeps freezing. dang hp's. so mind you, this blog may be a bit long cuz i feel like blabbin my fat mouth off.

let's see... so yesterday and today i was an experimental guinea pig for the berkeley psych department. the first hour i just filled out a fat questionnaire packet about myself. i hate those things cuz i can never answer straight; everything is always conditional and never definite. anyhow, they were those questions where your fill in bubbles numbered 1 to 7 (1 being 'not at all like me' and 7 being 'very much like me')... blahblah. sometimes i don't like those things cuz i actually have to evaluate myself and then i end up not being pleased with what i discover. that was yesterday's hour, and then today i had to look at like almost a hundred pictures that would come up on a computer screen, each with another little picture in one of the four corners that contained two different items... after watching forever, i had to write down all the little items i could remember and then separately write down all the big pictures i remembered. and THEN they had to me do long math problems WITHOUT a calculator! lemme just say, i AM no genius. hahahah i think i came outta that one feeling really dumb. then for my final experiment, i had to do some more questionnaire stuff and there was this one that i had the hardest time doing. there was a question at the top of the page "Who am i?" and i was supposed to jot down 20 statements and then indicate if they were positive or negative ones. you would think with how much i can ramble on and on about stuff, i'd be able to easily find 20 things about me... but nope. eh, i dunno.

my left bottom wisdom tooth is coming out. it already broke the gum so there's like a hole in my mouth in which wutever i eat gets stuck. it hurts too. and i think another one may be growing cuz i've been getting mad headaches everyday. ibuprofen and tylenol are my friends.

i realized a lot of my pet peeves have something to do with the bathroom (i.e. single-ply toilet paper, toilets that only flush when you hold down the handle, empty soap dispensers, someone else's mis-aimed pee, etc.). just a little tidbit i thought i might share with my fans.

let's see... wut else... i like being alone in my apt. i crank up the music when i take a shower and then i be groovin all by myself. ahha. i'm really a loser, but that's ok cuz i forgive myself.

laker game yesterday wasn't all that exciting.. i actually fell asleep for 2 mins in the fourth quarter until all the guys yelped at kobe's supposed slick dunk. too bad i missed it. they are so gonna sweep, but then i feel sorta sad for new jersey so maybe the lakers will give them one. as i was watching the game, i was just observing kidd and the rest of the team and oh, it's so cute how much they try. they are so excited to have made it this far, so i kinda for a split second wanted them to win, but then lakers are my boys so i gotta be faithful. i didn't know that byron scott was new jersey's coach... dang! i used to watch the lakers back when it was him, magic, a.c. green, worthy and all those classic players. i have a ghetto old t-shirt with byron scott on it... ahhaha.. i can't believe i'm watching him coach now. i feel so old! anyhow here's my tidbit on a few players: horry is so cute! i think he's my fav laker; shaq is freakin unstoppable and so oaf-like.. keep on the lookout for that flapping bottom lip of his as he runs back to the other side of the court after making a shot.. it's so adorable; and i've grown to appreciate kobe and anyhow my adorable nephew is named after him so i have to like him.

btw-- kobe's little bro is due next month and with a name like that, it has to keep going and match with the next child, wouldn't you agree? i think my cousin should name the next boy Jordan. it's a cute name in itself for a guy i think. they're planning on naming him Tyler, which is also an excellent name in my opinion but really they gotta keep with the theme. it's my cousin's fault for starting it with kobe.

sigh... i think i'm done blabbing now. i actually feel tired as if i worked out or something. hahaha, i'm so fat.

it's only been a week since i last blogged, but it feels like forever. do ppl really check this daily?

i was just reading some other ppl's blogs and i found it so intriguing... the way they express things and describe different experiences in their lives just makes me see how unique they really are. and then i wonder why it is that i'm so surprised by it... i feel like there's still so much to learn about ppl and that maybe i don't really know them at all. i've been thinking a lot lately about my relationships with ppl - past and present - and my conversation with lila just made me wonder even more where they'll end up once college is over. Dan Kim said something in the senior banquet cd that i can't seem to shake; he said come your last semester senior year you're gonna look back and see ppl who you wish you could have known better. "he/she seemed like a cool person, i wish i had spoken to him/her".. or other such thoughts. i can't help but believe that i'll be thinking those exact thoughts when my time comes. the sad part is, i know it now and yet i do nothing to change it. you would think i'd try harder but i find it more and more discouraging and difficult to approach ppl.. even those in my own class. it breaks me inside to see how relationships slip away so easily and maybe it's God's way of telling me to do something.. and yet i want to give up. how much can my wishing change anything? I can't seem to be able to put a boundary on letting go and accepting things the way they are versus making an effort no matter what. to tell you the truth, i guess i haven't made much effort at all... maybe it's my insecurity or just laziness, but my heart hasn't been enough to push me into action. and yet, sometimes i feel like i'm a stupid dog or something pining away for a friendship that maybe the other person just doesn't want. somehow that reality is somethign that i don't think i can bear to accept. sometimes i just want it to be on account of my own laziness, just so i don't have to accept the reality that maybe some friendships aren't meant to be.

i've completed my sophomore year and it shocks me to feel that i've actually backtracked from freshman year. i miss some relationships i had back then, but i'm still so unbelieveably grateful for the ones that have grown so much more in depth this year. Still, i wonder if frienships change so rapidly from year to year, or even semester to semester... is it stupid for me to invest so much in what i have now? seeing as how my freshman year friendships faded and slipped through my fingers, how can i suppress any fear that the same outcome is waiting for the friendships i've made this year? this is the fear i'm leaving with when i go to france. i'm terrified of what i'll come home to next spring. and while i know my experience in europe cannot be matched, i can't help but worry that distance will put too great a stress on my relationships with ppl now. Maybe it's my lack of faith. I have not doubt in my mind that God will provide for me and i hate that i seek love in all the wrong places. it's just difficult to let things go sometimes i suppose. my faith is so wavering and yet my hope in Him is all that pushes me to live....

God has opened all the doors for me to go to France, so i go with full confidence that it is His will for me to spend my fall semester there. i'll miss my family more than words can explain. and i think i'm leaving with mixed feelings about berkeley and everything that comes with it. i know there are times when i just want to get away... and maybe even times when i believed my absence would go unnoticed. still, i'll miss parts of my berkeley life so much as well. my heart is so spread out that i feel just as strongly about one view as i do about its complete opposite. it'll be good for me to go... hopefully i'll come back refreshed and ready to give selflessly. i think i've gone too long wanting everything to go my way that i've lost the true meaning of a friendship. "what can i do for the other person?"... this is what i pray my heart will return to.

Lord I know I don't deserve the grace You give,
So I will give my heart to You that I might live.