It occurred to me that this blog maybe only captures a tenth of what I actually think about regularly. The last post wasn't even really something that I had thought about for more than maybe a half hour at best. At least, compared to the stuff that primarily occupied my mind this week...

I realize that although I like listening to people a lot (I tend to listen more than I talk... although when I talk I like to talk a lot), I tend to feel a little... critical? of people in some manners. Or at least, there are certain things that will stick out that I don't particularly like, but I won't mention it. I'm sure I'm not the only one who experiences this, but lately it has been bugging me to a certain extent. I don't like it when I catch myself starting to judge other people while I'm talking to them... although it doesn't generally detract from what I already think of the person; for most people I know, their best qualities tremendously outweigh the things I'm being petty about. I guess I'll elaborate a little about what does bug me though:

- talking about how it seems as if no one else cares.
This bugs me because this is a trap that I've fallen into before. It's annoying because honestly, there always is going to be someone who cares somewhere. And there will be even more people who would care if they knew what was going on. In person, that is. I find it hard to communicate feelings online such as through facebook, because writing (or words in general) doesn't effectively convey things that would otherwise be picked up from visual cues in person.

- talking about how specific people don't care
This will primarily bug me if I actually know the specific people... but a lot of the time, even if I don't know the person that well or in the context relevant to the given situation, I don't like being pushed to seeing people in a negative light... although maybe less so if I see the negative qualities in person. Sometimes I wonder what these people would say if they really knew what was going on... but granted, it's difficult for anyone to develop the level of empathy that would be needed to compare to what the individual experiences. But you know, that's how life is... I just don't really like it when you wind up setting certain expectations for people to fulfill because you consider them in a particular light (like, if this person really was my friend, they would do this...) - and then they don't meet those expectations. and then you start considering them not your friend for that.

A couple years back when I started going through this sort of depression... I came to the conclusion that it would be impossible for people - my friends even - to meet the kind of expectations that I would have for them as friends. Because for one, I don't think I would be able to fulfill my own expectations. And for another, people are fundamentally flawed in that area. I don't think I could ever entirely predict what exactly someone else expected of me as a friend - and I'm sorry to say that. But I decided to let things go for what they were. I decided that I would never (or strive to, anyway) feel offended because someone else didn't fulfill my expectations of them as a friend, or what I would like them to do - that I would accept that as just a part of being human. But I really appreciate it when people do take out of their time to do something for me- because it really means a lot.

I realize that there is this notion of people who you are really close to and people that you... aren't so much. It's inevitable. But I don't want to start thinking of people in that light. I really wish I could just talk to someone who I haven't talked to in years as if I had never stopped talking to them - that we could just both share mutually the deep things that had been going on. That I could open up to people who I don't know that well and not feel bothered by it. But I'll get back to this later. The point being, I just wish people would... talking about other people as if they never cared much. Unless they said it straight to your face... But that's another story.

- talking about how no one understands or can understand
This is a moot point... I realize it's inevitable that ultimately no one can really understand what you yourself is feeling... but you know, part our lives are spent trying to understand what other people are feeling. I'll try to understand, even though I know it's probably never going to be exact. But just know that you aren't alone... And (something I've been wanting to say for a while), that someone loves you for who you are.

I don't mean this as something directed at a particular someone or a particular incident- this was just something that has bothered me from a number of people over the years - including myself. It's something I've hated myself for in the past, so I hate it when I start seeing it in other people. It just brings back... a bit of stuff.

This was something I just need to write down for myself... I don't want to be come across as if I'm venting about people, because I'm not. The people I know are awesome. They may have problems, yes, but who the heck doesn't have problems? It's normal. It's good. People are good.

I wish people were less fickle. In a general sense. It would make the world so much nicer to live in. It would make it so that you'd always have someone to talk to whenever you felt lonely... even though people feel lonely all the time.

Heck, I think I'm fickle.

I like to perceive things in terms of the lasting visual impressions they leave in my head. Like for instance, my favorite books tend to have at least one scene that has left some lasting impact on my imagination. Or at least, I like to think of them in terms of scenes from some great Epic known as the Human Experience:

- Gatsby on a pier chasing after the unreachable green light across the bay - The Great Gatsby

- Holden Caulfield in the rain, lamenting the loss of his childhood - Catcher in the Rye
- Holden catching the kids falling off the cliff - above
- Huck Finn tearing up the letter and "damning himself to hell" - Huckleberry Finn

- Ivan Karamazov's encounter with the Devil - The Brothers Karamazov
- The Grand Inquisitor - The Brothers Karamazov
- Raskolnikov kneeling at the crossroads - Crime and Punishment

- Yossarian holding Snowden's dying body during the accident - Catch-22

- Mr. Ramsey reaching out to catch Mrs. Ramsey in his arms, only to grasp at thin air - To the Lighthouse
- The Ramseys' trip to the lighthouse in the future - above
- Lily Briscoe's vision - above

- All of The Sound and the Fury

Beowulf: Sing of walls!
Grendel: I'm singing of walls!

Grendel: So may you all.
- Grendel

- The final circle of hell - Dante's Inferno

- The bombardment of the rebel camp in the mountains of Spain
- Robert Jordan lying in wait of the approaching soldier - For Whom the Bell Tolls

- Meursault's murder of the Arab in the heat of the sun
- Meursault awaiting his death amid the "cries of hate" - The Stranger

- Rastignac's challenge to society in the cemetery - Pere Goriot

- Havisham's repentance and final moments - Great Expectations

- Paul Baumer in the midst of the battlefield, his return home, and his death - All Quiet on the Western Front

- Antigone's death - Antigone
- Oedipus gouging his eyes out in front of Jocasta's corpse (UGH) - Oedipus Rex
- Arthur's final moments - The Once and Future King

- I find it hard to pinpoint a scene in this book, but I know there was one - A Portrait of the Artist as Young Man

- Biff's struggle with Judas on the cliff after Jesus' death - LAMB

- The last scene of The Grapes of Wrath
- George killing Lennie - Of Mice and Men

- The creation's discovery of beauty - Frankenstein

- Piggy's death
- Simon's meeting with the Lord of the Flies
- Ralph and the boys meeting the rescuers - Lord of the Flies

- Esther imagining herself catching the falling petals from the tree - The Bell Jar

- the last fifty pages of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
- the electroshock therapy sessions from above novel

- The Pilgrim's Progress - Faithful's execution, arriving at the Celestial city

- The Scarlet Letter - Dimmsdale, Hester, and Pearl standing on the scaffold at night

- pretty much every major scene in the Bible

This can be extrapolated to music and games as well, but I won't go there this time.

And of course, when I don't feel so rushed, I don't feel like doing the things I wanted to do earlier... Bleh.

I've been feeling a mix of dissatisfied emotions today. I lied down in front of Doe Library to look up at the clouds at the sky... and it was a good feeling, but I was partly frustrated by all the floating little specs I kept seeing because of whatever the heck's up with my eyes. The thing that bugs me is that I don't really know what's bugging me right now. I just haven't been feeling.. clearheaded? for a while? maybe at all? Maybe it's just the combination of everything in general.

Maybe I should run down a list of things that have been bugging me.

1. I've been having trouble communicating with some people... people I don't talk to regularly, and people who I used to talk to regularly but not recently. I keep wondering if I'm just socially inept in that area and just have this tendency of making it awkward for the other person. It just bugs me because I want to talk about a lot of things, but I just get this impression that the other person doesn't want to... or doesn't care... so I stop. Then I get this feeling that even if I talked, I'd just be talking about myself a lot and my petty little issues. I like listening to people though!... kinda. I guess I have to be in a certain mood. but then I wonder how sincere I am when I do listen. I DON'T KNOW ANYMORE.

Well so that first point encompassed 3 things...

2. School. Too lazy to type this one up.

3. Sincerity.

...That's it for now.

I feel like I'm in such a rush to do work that I never get to doing normal things anymore. Like today I wanted to talk to one of my friends for a bit but I wound up cutting off the conversation cause I felt the need to work on my problem sets taking over my mood. How depressing.

Am I seriously going to keep this up for the next two years? I dunno anymore.

I wonder why I feel so fickle sometimes.

I like talking to people, even if it's about nothing. I sometimes find that my conversations about nothing are more meaningful than my conversations that actually try to have a purpose. Partly because when you get to the point where you can talk to a person about nothing for more than a couple of minutes, you get to know that person a lot better.

Good music speaks to me in some way. Words are meaningless unless arranged in a manner that makes them meaningful, or if the manner in which they are spoken, with or without the music, evokes a certain mood that an ordinary conversation wouldn't be able to do.

I tend to be critical of the things that I write within a few minutes of writing them. This is one example.

I want to be able to talk to the people I know more. But that's up to the other person.

To-do list for the weekend:

CS 61CL: HW 4 and 5
TRANSFER APPLICATION and PERSONAL STATEMENT
CS 70: HW 4
Chem 3B: ALL PROBLEM SETS and review notes, get the part of lecture I missed from Ryan
Chem 3BL: Lab Writeup and Prelab
Slavic 133: read at least 50 pages Pere Goriot

Internship fair on Wed and Thurs - think about resume
Research
Summer?