January 26, 2010

  • Program

    Kelsey and her bf were at EB yesterday afternoon. They were leisurely laughing and browsing, and picking things off shelves. Kelsey told me they were going to an A.F.I. concert that night.

    I see the two of them at the mall a lot, just hanging and doing nothing. I smiled and made small talk, but in my head I wanted to ask, "Don't you have homework? How can you spend all this money on just yourself?"

    They are, after all, students. Just like me. Why are their lifestyles so different?

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    I don't work all that hard, but I understand what it means to have an Asian work ethic. My every waking moment as a child was spent either in school or in after school lessons. There was a class for drawing, for English, skating, swimming, math, Tae Kwon Do, dance, music theory and piano. Especially with piano, since you can never practice too much. You can't teach someone to be hardworking, but you can accustom their brain to being busy with something at all times. Eventually they will understand: free time is wasted time.

    But the most effective teaching tool my parents used was guilt and shame. Mom would always point to other kids and say, "See how smart/talented your friend X is," and it would be implied that I had not been enough. She doesn't use this technique on me anymore - but then she doesn't have to. Whenever she praises another person's son or daughter, I remember and formulate by myself the words in my head.

    And even if we're just at home, she'll say pointedly to me, as if I was unruly and had refused to notice: "See how hard your father works? His hair is turning grey." Like it was my fault. Technically it was, since he was working to support us. But I remember feeling unworthy of my own father, especially since he never spent any time with me.

    I am motivated not by love of an accomplishment, but in the hopes that I will be redeemed by it. It doesn't mean that I'm always productive, because I'm not. But whether or not I'm doing something, my mind is always paralyzed by the fear that I'll never find redemption, that I am wrong to have existed.

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    Digi asked the other day if I would like to go out for cheesecake.

    An innocent question, a normal couple activty. But in my head I was freaking out. Who's paying, where will the money come from? Students shouldn't spend so much money. We should stay home and finish our homework. I'm not so glamorous, I tell myself, that I need movies and fancy food. All I ever want to do is to sit in our rooms and study together and maybe watch a movie on the couch.

    It doesn't make me a very fun girlfriend. But that doesn't mean I don't still need the same escapism that you get from going out and spending money. The days are starting to blend together, and I might go crazy from this lack of mental release.


    I think I'm just in a weird rut in my life right now. I know that the things I'm trying to accomplish aren't going to make me happy, but I carry on because I think I'm doing what's right, or because I don't want to disappoint the people that care. I get so frusturated that in the end I lose motivation to do anything at all.

    I haven't been blogging because I tell myself I should be doing other things with my time, but I lose grip on my life when I'm not writing to keep track of it. I feel like I've forgotten how. I can feel my brain has gotten slower from lack of use, so if I'm less uplifting of entertaining, that would be why. I'll keep at it until I get better.

    I think it's also cause I miss my friends. I'll probably feel differently once the weather turns nice. My window is blue with sky as I write. I'll ditch these wretchedly stiff jeans and go out for bike rides along the dyke.