Have you ever been alone in a crowded room when I'm here with you?

Have you ever been alone in a crowded room; well I'm here with you...

I had this moment during my English seminar when I thought to myself "Christ, if this is how you all are in real life, no wonder we have problems"

Sounds harsh doesn't it. But permit me to illustrate. We are in the midst of reading/studying Middlemarch and in a nutshell, it's a gigantic, multi-plot novel that basically follows and examines the lives of a bunch of upper-middle class people in this town (Middlemarch) and how they interact among one other. This book is worthy of note because the narrator takes an active role in the book. She (I still insist on the narrator being a she despite feminist insistence of an androgynous narrator) always comes in at various points and the most important thing she does, I think, is try to get us to sympathize with all the characters.

See, a lot of the book is focused on how people perceive each other and how easily people in Middlemarch misunderstand other people's personalities. Personally, I love the narrator but there seems to be this recurring thought in the class where my classmates don't like the narrator because they think she's trying to "control" their thoughts. A classic example is this infamous quotation by one of my classmates: "She keeps trying to make me feel sorry for Mr. Casaubon but I don't like him and god, I wish she'd just stop trying!"

And every time I hear something like this, a part of me dies a little inside because it makes me realize that even when Eliot tries to hammer in the most important theme of her novel, my classmates criticize her for trying to "sway" their opinions of certain characters. Well yeah, she's trying to sway you because she KNOWS that most of you, like a lot of the characters in Middlemarch, judge too harshly! That, in large part, is the POINT of the novel. It's an examination into how we're not sympathetic enough towards others and how we're often too quick to judge people harshly. You hate the narrator because she's trying to get you to be more forgiving of a character you hate. Well maybe if you just stopped hating everyone left, right, and center and were more sympathetic to both the narrator AND Mr. Casaubon, some of that might translate into real life and you wouldn't be such a critically judgmental doink in other respects.

People have such a weird tendency to be unsympathetic in real life. I guess I've been experiencing it all year in class and never really came to realize how bad it was until someone like Eliot called us out on it. It's like all year, when we read all these novels, everyone just keeps passing all these harsh judgments on all the characters, pointing out every flaw in their characters, and being critical of everything they do. Then Eliot comes in and points out how nasty they've all been and their automatic response is to be nasty to her. People just don't like to be spoken to as if they don't know any better. But oftentimes, they don't! And they're too proud to realize this!

And imagine if I went into class and said all this. I would be crucified for sure. As if I knew what I was talking about.

But at least I'm sympathetic.

I just thought of something. And the more I think about it, the odder it is. Sunday to Thursday, quiet hours start at 11 PM. On Friday and Saturday, obviously being the weekend, they don't start until 1 AM. And what I find so odd about it is that I just realized that while MCRC is so anal about enforcing quiet hours during the weekends, no one ever does rounds and/or enforces them on the weekdays. I don't understand. It's like once 1 AM hits on Fridays and Saturdays, they're out patrolling the halls, telling people to shut up and writing them up for noise violations, even though really, I don't think it's that big a deal for me (as a resident) that there's noise past 1 AM. Most first years don't even sleep on weekends.

That's not to say that they shouldn't enforce quiet hours on weekends but I find it grossly backwards that they never enforce them on weekdays. I mean sure, you can call the Don on call and he/she will come to your floor specifically to enforce it but they don't do rounds like they do on weekends. But somehow, I feel pretty convinced that people are more concerned about excessive noise on school nights. Personally, I've only ever cared about my floor making noise on days when I have to get up early for class.

So I very ardently insist on opening my writing piece with an example of how my life is one big ironic statement. And 2 obvious examples have been canned by this point. The Asperger's Syndrome because it's been generally agreed upon by all that it'd be a far more effective issue to tackle later on in the work; the asian-white cultural divide because people might find it problematic that god forbid, I acknowledge that different cultures are not the same this early on in my work. So I was sitting around thinking "Seriously, considering how convinced I am that my life is one big irony, social retardation and girls can't be the only thing this statement applies to can it?" Then I realized that that's basically ALL my life is! I don't really do anything else worth mentioning with my life that isn't related to women or social interaction in some way or another.

This has turned into a major stumbling block thus far.

"Yo Jon, you didn't number your pages man" - First year looking at my philosophy paper
"Do I need to?" - Jon Wong
"It says right here on the assignment sheet: 'Please number your pages'" - First year
"Ugh, seriously? It's a 2 page assignment! The page with the title is page 1; the OTHER page is page 2!" - Jon Wong
"I'm just saying man..." - First year

I know, I know. Why not just number my pages. I did. I was just annoyed that I couldn't be sure that my T.A. wouldn't bust my balls for not including page numbers. Why did he feel it necessary to include the clause about numbering your pages after specifying that it's 2 pages max?

I get annoyed at things SO easily it's ridiculous.

On a RADICALLY different vein than the post I just wrote, I'd like to respond to Karen's comments on my reactions to sex... particularly the "sex just doesn't have any sort of physiological effect on you" part because it makes me sound freaking asexual...

Let's be very clear on something here. I am not FRIGID. I just find sex to be less taboo than most people. For a lot of people, sex in which they are not actively partaking (i.e. porn and... other people having sex in general) has a an effect partly because they are conscious of it being something you keep "separate" from the rest of your life. It's almost like they divide their lives into sex and everything else. So when they're "experiencing" sex at a time that they would normally demarcate as "everything else" there's a sense of doing something out of the ordinary. And people are always more affected by doing stuff that's out of the ordinary. I don't find sex out of the ordinary so the pure act of it is... ordinary and thus not that big of a deal to me if I'm not actively partaking in it. Yeah yeah, intimacy and stuff... whatever floats their boat.

This probably won't do very much for me but if I might draw a comparison... it's like how I get bored pretty quickly of watching other people play badminton. But that doesn't mean I don't enjoy it when I'm the one playing the game.

I can't believe I'm posting about this. At 3 in the morning.

Jon Wong has interesting thought. Broad topic. Must condense into coherent, interesting, easy-to-read yet intelligent sentences. My brain hurts. My brain's been hurting a lot these days. Must be the combination of work and sickness (and alcohol... which I consume on a moderate basis but probably isn't good for the brain... I should stop consuming alcohol. That seems to be a logical thought process that I will fail horribly to implement if exposed to the slightest temptation).

Do you know what it means when someone talks about "one of those nights"? I refer to it all the time and I was thinking about it the other day because a friend of mine was feeling little down after a relatively decent night out. And I really wanted to tell him what I'm about to say now but didn't have the brain power to put into coherent sentences - I wanted to tell him that I think I understood exactly how he was feeling. I could sense that he was hoping that that night would be "one of those nights" and was thus slightly let down that it wasn't, even though on a whole, the night didn't go badly.

Those of us who are kind, compassionate, and empathetic to others understand that the world doesn't revolve around us. We know that things don't usually play out like they do in movies. We know that life has its inconsistencies and that it's selfish to think that the world owes us anything...

But every so often, we have "one of those nights". A night where we feel empowered. A night where everything seems to move for us, around us, with us - but never against us. A night where we become hypersensitive to all the details of life; a night that feels rich and colored because everyone's social and emotional energies flow through our own and we feel like the world is at our fingertips. And when we have these nights, we feel infinite; we become sociable, charismatic, and intelligent. We rise to every occasion because we can see everything around us with such clarity that we find that we do the right things, say the right words, and draw out the right feelings.

It's a wonderful feeling to experience but it's also very transitory; like a free-flowing energy that comes and goes when it pleases. It's not something you can hold onto and it's also not something that comes along very often. But that doesn't stop us from wishing that we could choose certain times and certain nights where it swoops into our lives and makes us invincible - even though we know that the unpredictability of it all is partly what makes it so powerful and affective. For those of us who know what this kind of night can mean, it is in some way, part of what we hope for as we go through our lives. We continue to be kind; we continue to be compassionate; and we try our very best to be our very best - all the while hoping for "one of those nights" that spins around us like a dream and plays out on a movie screen...

... and she said, "Did you know I miss you?"

Ever since we started using facebook en masse, it has never failed to amaze me at how precariously people try to walk along some hypothetical balance between wanting attention and trying to appear as if they don't really want attention. And obviously, when you're trying to join 2 diametrically opposite ideas because you're secretly in favor of one idea but can't seem to drop the social pretentiousness to openly declare yourself in favor of said idea, certain inconsistencies will come to light that people like me notice while others either don't notice or pretend not to because they do it themselves.

I come across situations all the time when, for example, people will change their status to "so and so is (insert hyperbolic term)" and in doing so, blare out to the world that they are confused/upset/going insane. But then, dare you ask them about it, and they say "oh I don't want to talk about it/it's personal". Right... so that's why you put it in your status for all the world to see; so you can deliberately decline to talk about it when people ask you about it? It's almost as if they do it just to prove to themselves that people care enough to ask.

People always seem to innately believe that they don't deserve attention. And when they venture to disprove this theory by drawing attention to themselves, they're afraid of being judged. In fact, in true circular fashion, they're afraid of being judged for calling attention to themselves because they're afraid it makes them seem self-centered.

*On a side note, organizing my thoughts has become increasingly difficult these days... I've been staring at the screen for a good 20 minutes at this point in the post without typing anything*

In some ways, I guess that might not be the only reason. You might just be a selfish person who wants attention but won't justify to other people why they should give it to you. I run into these types of people all the times (not necessarily via cyperspace). A lot of loud frat-boy-like doinks at parties are like this. They walk into the room with their popped collars and scream out something like "LET'S GET FUCKING ROWDY!" But try talking to them for 2 minutes and you realize they're boring, uncultured, and socially pretentious. That doesn't stop them from trying to draw attention to themselves though.

Maybe that's why other people don't like making it seem like they're intentionally drawing attention to themselves, even though in reality, everyone wants attention. Maybe we're afraid that people will think we're just self-centered, attention-seeking losers with no sense of self-worth. But there is a difference between expecting that people *should* give you attention and giving people a reason to give you attention and being confident enough in your ability to be interesting, funny, and thought-provoking not to be self-depreciating when people give you that attention you want. When you say/do something that draws attention to yourself, don't be all "oh, it's not worth talking about" or "I don't want to discuss it" when people ask you about it. Because if that really is true, then you're an idiot for drawing attention to yourself in the first place since apparently, you need not have done so considering how it's "not worth talking about" or it's something you "don't want to discuss". Christ, when I ask you about things you're deliberately putting out there, while I'm doing it because I care about you, I'm also doing it because I trust that you wouldn't put it out there without a good reason. If you don't show me why you're drawing attention to yourself in the first place, I'm just going to assume that you did it just to get a reaction out of me without any intrinsic value in the statement itself. Contrary to what you think, it doesn't make you seem humble... THAT, more than anything, makes you seem selfish.

It's like keeping a blog. If you're going to post about something, don't do that idiotic thing where you deliberately say "nobody probably reads this so... I'm going to write for myself and not for an audience". The fact that you are writing on a public blog IMPLIES that you're writing for an audience; otherwise, you'd just type it into Microsoft Word or something. Don't be so self-righteous about not blogging for an audience. The fact that you are blogging means you owe it to your audience (hypothetical or not) to give them a reason for reading your blog. You move into the realm of being a pompous ass when you say "everyone *should* read my blog" but the fact that you're writing with the expectation of being read does not make you self-centered. In a way, it's how you draw the line between "confidence" and "arrogance". Confidence is knowing that what you blog about is interesting enough to be worth reading if people do choose to read it.

I hope this post isn't full of holes. It took me forever to write it for some reason.

"So you're applying to be a Teach?" - Jon Wong (Teach = Con-Ed Frosh leader)
"Yup" - Laura
"Good luck with that. If they ask you what kind appliance you would be, don't put down "toaster". Apparently, it does not bode well for applicants who wish to be "toasters". Hopefully, they will have taken out that question by now and will base their choice on something a little less arbitrary" - Jon Wong

It is a theory (a completely made up, arbitrary theory) of mine that all that stuff about your "strong points" and your "bad points" in these interviews don't really matter. Your answer to the "icebreaker" question is what gets you in. I bet you they sit down at the end of the day and are like, "Alright, we're gonna hire the forks, blenders, and garlic presses this year". Toasters never get hired because they're the first electrical appliances to occur to the interviewers and are disregarded as being "too obvious".

Ever notice how they always insist on following up this question with one that requires you to explain your choice?

"What kind of utensil or appliance would you be?"
"Uh... a toaster I guess..."
"Why?"
"... why?"
"... why would you want to be a toaster?"
"I don't know... you asked me an arbitrary question so I gave you an arbitrary answer and now you want me to justify it?"

I swear to God, I have had this exact conversation before for some job applications. This was before I learned that employers don't always want honest answers. Needless to say, I did not get hired.

Moral of the story, NEVER be a toaster.

Ah, vicariously living my life through others. I almost forgot how gratifying it is to me. Say what you will about it being a poor substitute for having a life of my own but I like to see it as an ability to empathize with the joys and sorrows of others.

My neighbor is getting popular these days. Or maybe she's just becoming more popular with one guy. My impeccable muffled-voice-recognition-through-wall ability leads me to believe that it's one guy and not a whole throng of circulating randoms. Either way, they've been talking incessantly late into the night every night since our return. I know this because I can hear them. I am aware of it because it keeps me up at night.

At least I am not kept awake at night due to ferocious banging.

Vulgarity aside, I've only come to realize this year how incredibly... not soundproof residence rooms are. My neighbors in first year must have been incredibly quiet all things considered. It also makes me realize how ridiculously loud Asif and I were in first year... though in all fairness, we were usually not ridiculously loud on weeknights. I don't remember Asif being around on weeknights. Crazy guy was usually out somewhere (getting wasted!).

But then again, the very open-minded and romantic part of my mind acknowledges how eerily similar this is to how I was in first year, if not in practice, then at least in mindset. It's hard to explain but um... it's like (5 minute hiatus while I think about this furiously; time I should be spending on homework or my little writing project)... when you meet someone in first semester, it's all great fun and everything; I mean, you hang out, have fun, basically get to know each other and stuff. But living in residence, it's all in your face you know? All very immediate. I've spoken before (or maybe I haven't... so I'll do it here, now) about how time takes on a whole new form of compression and extension in residence. It's like how if I don't see Suzy (who lives across from me) for say, 2 days, it feels like an extremely long time, as opposed to last year, when I might not see people for weeks or months on end and not give it a second thought (and it has nothing to do with how good of friends Suzy and I are... we're not really). It's all a question of proximity and relative distancing. I usually see Suzy every day so 2 days is a relatively long time to go without at least saying hi.

But I digress. It really is like that when you're living in residence so a lot of the time, you don't have the chance to step back from everything, or to take it all in, or to think things through (at least, when you're in first year). You just... go with it you know? And then you go away for the winter break. At least 2 weeks, usually 3. That's a lengthy period in residence time. And during that time, you DO step back; you DO take it all in; you DO realize things. And it's not just because - if you're a first year, especially - you'll have adults asking you about every detail of your university life. It's also because you usually don't have work and have lots of time for R&R. And you'll almost be forced into a conscious realization of how fast your first semester passed (hopefully... if it didn't you had a sucky first semester). But most importantly, because you're taken away from it all, you'll start to miss certain parts of it (again... if you don't, you probably had a sucky first semester). Certain habits; certain PEOPLE, will pop into your head randomly and you'll realize that hey, maybe someone's more important to you than you thought, or someone might have affected your life more than you knew. Because when you see people constantly, everyday, you don't have that kind of distancing to realize all this... it's all there for you all the time so you're never removed from it...

Never removed from the parties... the drunken nights... the comraderie... the way someone's quirk always amused you... the way someone's smile or laughter brightened your day... certain voices... certain faces...

When you're there, experiencing it everyday, you just don't know how much it's become part of your life. But when you go home, these things come back to you at some point. And even if they don't, they're guarenteed to come back to you the minute you move back into residence. You do gain appreciation for these things, sometimes subconciously, and I can tell that many of the first years have a heightened sense of... being back in residence. And they realize what they want to keep from first semester, what they want to leave behind, and what they want to cultivate. This last always includes friendships and possible relationships. You realize over the break that you miss people. And if you're lucky, someone's face, voice, quirk, or personality will keep recurring to you over the break because you're not getting a daily dose of it and you might realize "oh my god, I think like this girl/guy". At that point, you're sunk. But hey, that's how it goes sometimes.

So no, I can't bring myself to grudge the girl next door for her late night talks. Because she sounds like she's enjoying herself. And more than that, the boy sounds happy too. It's one of the great things about being in first year and living in residence - goodness knows I will never forget the time Rachel Manson and I stayed up until freaking 6 AM talking during the first week of winter term in first year.

This ended up being much longer than I had intended. I was going to post this after typing out the first paragraph and the ensuing smutty one-liner and apologetic redemption paragraph but my brain exploded.

I ordered some computer parts through the mail and they arrived, for some reason, with complimentary earphones... except that on the earphone package there is this warning label:

"Handling this product may expose you to chemicals known to the State of California to cause cancer and birth defects or other reproductive harm. Wash hands after handling"

Are you serious? On a pair of earphones?! What is the world coming to...

Writing this piece of mine is draining all my intellectual prowess. Hence nothing interesting on this blog in the last week.