During Blogger's Downtime

During Blogger's Downtime

Blogger was down in the afternoon. My day was absolute hell. I felt like pulling out my hair. But since the day is over, I will not blog about that. Instead, let's talk about chocolate. I was writing earlier about needing alcohol to rev up my circulatory system in the morning. But since that law makes it clear that I shouldn't drink and drive, and also it would be bad to show up at work reeking of alcohol, I couldn't. But I had chocolate that I had bought the day before (just a coincidence, but thank goodness I did!).

It wasn't anything fancy. It was M&M's, but a new kind: black and white milk chocolate M&M's. How chic is that? All the pieces were black or white, and each was sensationally yummy. It was good. Worth every one of the 65 pennies it set me back. And it felt a bit sinful having junkfood in the morning (some unwritten law I think, prohibiting the comsumption of junkfood before breakfast) which made it more of a guilty pleasure. It was gooooood. It was comforting.

I am actually getting pretty tired of showing up for work 6 days, 52 hours a week! I can't wait until school starts so that I can start working part time again. I can't even tell what day of the week it is, because my life's been so repetetive and boring! Get up, work, have lunch, work some more, go home, have dinner, sleep, and repeat. On Sunday I feel dumbfounded and utterly lost. Like a wind-up toy that just ran out of stamina, my week comes to an abrupt halt, only to be would-up again for another week.

I had dinner with a friend tonight. The previously mentioned TranceLegend. I don't hang out with him too often, but we talk quite a bit. He's really easy to talk to, and is pretty blunt. I asked him today whether he thought I was "about average" or "overweight" and he almost answered, but stopped himself. Then he said "I'm not going to answer that." You know what, TranceLegend, that already answered the question! But normally, he is a pretty straight forward guy, and we coach each other on relationships and things like that. Tonight, I realized that I really need people to talk to.

Recently I've lost contact with Crystal, my best friend. I don't know whether she's just busy, or because she's got some sort of problem she's trying to work through, but I haven't spoken to her in what seems like ages. I don't really have anything specific to say, but just the act of physically mouthing the words and communicating to another human being is something that I'm lacking.

I know I can always talk to Shane, who is practically my older brother, but he's working two jobs and sleeping about 4-5 hours a night, and he's tired and cranky. Likewise for me, working full time at one job alone makes me cranky, and we haven't talked. We haven't conversed at all. I miss talking. I miss gabbing with the people I'm close to, about what I did today and hearing what they had for dinner and if they have relationship problems or if they purchased a new couch. I miss telling them about wanting to have a beer or that I bought some new clothes, or that my cat thinks my leg is a scratching post.

I guess I feel a bit isolated from the world. All I do is work, and it's stressing me out, and I'm lacking a support group to comfort me. This is one of the biggest reason I didn't date for about two years -- I hated that I depended so much on another human being for my happiness. I think it is obvious that I still haven't reached my goal state where my true happiness comes from within, because I am not merely desiring human companionship. I am dependent. I am helpless. Perhaps all I got out of the last two years is that I got used to being lonely and not adequately supporting my own self.

I know Christopher from Californian Sojourner (see left for link... too lazy to type out the link) has frequently mentioned "being the person" he wants to be... I totally understand that concept, because that's what I'm currently doing. Before, I had been focusing on being the person I want to be outwardly, which wasn't right. I have to be the person I want to be, independent of the outside world. A car doesn't define me. A pair of shoes or a college degree doesn't make or break me. It's just me. As cliche as it sounds, change comes from within. I may need to re-read An Open Heart by the Dalai Lama.

I have also been giving myself excuses. I'm an international student who really isn't an international student -- while I am probably more so an American than the majority of the people living in SoCal, I am still a foreigner. I registered for the fall semester yesterday, and my fee came out to be over $2800 US Dollars. That's for a 2 year college. A resident would have paid a maximum of $400. I'm paying more thatn 7 times that much. So I have to keep working these crazy hours to earn just enough money to pay for school and the lawyer's fees and the car payments and the insurance. If I were a resident, obviously things would be different. I would have gone to Berkeley. I would have had a different life. Instead of learning all the loopholes in immigration to jump through, I would have networked. I would have made friends who'd be integral in my life. Instead of doing dishes until 3 AM, I would have gone to concerts or perhaps played an instrument in one. Instead of burning my left hand on a hot grill and watching it get infected, maybe I would have done volunteer work and put a band-aid on an inner city kid who skinned his knee. So many "if only..." A few years back, I ordered myself to keep that mentality out, because it wasn't doing me any good. It only made me more resentful of my situation and curse fate. But on rough days like this, they creep back into my mind. I have to repeat to myself that this is just the way my life is, and I start from here. I can't daydream of my life as a US citizen and wondering what if. It will not happen that way anyways. It's a hard fact to accept, and I've been battling it for years -- if I don't concentrate about keeping my priorities straight and keeping my feet planted firmly on reality, all hell will break loose, and I may just collapse. I honestly would like to believe that life only gives you what you can handle.

So tomorrow, will be another day, much like today and yesterday and the day before. Will any progress be made? Will I be in slightly better shape tomorrow than I was today? There is a certain amount of fear that surrounds me about these things. I try to remain optimistic about tomorrows, because somewhere down the line, there's got to be change; there's got to be victories. This ties in with the mid-twenties crisis frustration I wrote of a few days ago. There's so much fear, because I can't guarantee that I will become a better human being with the passing of each day; I do not know if tomorrow will be better than today. Well, my mind is getting cloudy and I'm probably not making any sense.

If anything is keeping me going, in a minute way, it would be ice cream. And chocolate. Especially chocolate ice cream. Tomorrow, I will go buy that bucket of chocolate ice cream and have some. I need it.