Secants and Tangents

Sometimes I wonder why I even have a blog on my site. Most guy sites that have blogs are pretty short, and to the point. “Today I got drunk. (end of entry).” Or something like that. I like to think of myself as a pretty open person, but apparently it is not always true. This has lead people to act really weird around me, because I am acting weird towards them, and they don’t know why. I should just have the balls to say what is on my mind, but I guess I don’t. So maybe this provides a way to let people know what is on my mind, I don’t know. More importantly, this is the best way to get my feelings out. These things swirl in my head practically all day long, along with all of the more relevant things like “I need to study for my midterm.” Instead of letting it all swirl, I find it better to just put it on “paper” and get rid of it, at least for a little while.

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I have definitely hit a minimum this week. The good news is I think I finally have it all figured out, and perhaps the saying “what doesn’t kill us only makes us stronger” really is true. I think it is time to push the pause button on my life and just sit back and watch.

I feel like the real me is returning. I have been a real ass to a lot of people this quarter, and it has cost me a lot of friends, or perhaps what I thought were friends, I don’t know. STOP! Don’t say that, if you think they were friends, they probably were, until they absolutely prove otherwise. This is the typical shit that has been going through my mind all quarter. The way that I have chosen to treat people is killing me.

My Analysis midterm went shitty, as expected. I did not handle the stress that well either. As soon as the midterm ended, I practically threw my test at the TA and in the process knocked over my 20 oz coffee which made a horrible mess. I kind of went apeshit on a few people when they started laughing and pointed out that I had spilled my coffee. My mind was saying, “No shit I just spilled my coffee: I am stupid, not blind.” This may be my first C in college and it kills me. I already know that my career as a Mathematician is over. Maybe I am wrong, but at least with Statistics and Computer Science I still have some hope. Just a little stressed? No, it’s more than just stress.

It took a very strange, awkward, and kind of embarrassing encounter with a friend to realize that something else is wrong. I have been having problems with a lot of friends lately, but this friend stands out in my mind because he is one of the only people that has consistently confronted me about it. It is something that is bigger than just a personality flaw, and something that I need to deal with myself. I wanted to do something nice for his birthday, as any friend would (especially for 21!). I kept trying to come up with days and times that would work and kept getting this empty “ok” response (even though we never really set a day or time) followed by canceling at the last minute. After playing this ridiculous rescheduling game, and talking to some friends about it, my reaction was just “fuck ‘em.” Yet he kept saying hi to me which nobody understands. So I was a bit immature and just ignored him and went on my merry way. Well, that didn’t work and I was of course confronted about it. My reaction should have been “well, ok I am not being avoided,” but instead I was stubborn. As I tried to explain what was going on, I got repeatedly slapped in the face with a bunch of insults. After apparently repeatedly over generalizing and making false assumptions, *gulp* I was told I was acting like a girl. Damn, that pissed me off. I seriously wanted to fucking punch him at that moment. He did not choose the best words, but I get his point. Seriously though, at age 21 people of either sex should be able to talk maturely about problems, not result to yelling and insults, but hey, if that is the way some people still solve their problems, so be it. And like he said, I cannot judge people like that (at least not friends). He pointed that out to me when I retorted that he was dense and immature, that I was being closed minded which I thought was pretty hypocritical. Somewhere along the lines, I said “I don’t associate with stupid people.” And I got slapped with the “close-minded” and “judgmental” label. He made a good point: friends don’t need to “prove” anything to each other. I see what he means, and I completely agree. I don’t expect my friends to prove anything to me, but I seem to have some ridiculous standard that I hold them to. Why? Because I don’t believe enough in them, because I guess I don’t believe enough in myself. Earlier in the week somebody told me that all of a sudden I act like I better than everybody else. I can’t argue with that. I have never been a narcissist, but I see that I have been acting that way for some fucked up reason. The whole incident almost ended on bad terms a few times, but I could not let that happen. Part of me wanted to truly get to the bottom of things with myself, and part of me just wanted to tell him to fuck off (like I have done with too many people). Even after all the names I was called, something gnawed at me to not stomp away.

Something inside me told me to stop and just listen. Now that I think about what happened, and what was said, there are two things I remember: 1) the insults (which I forgive), and 2) the forest through the trees. I cannot (want to) remember a time when I was confronted in such a way. I guess when I say he is a good friend, it is true because he pointed out something to me that others couldn’t (or wouldn’t), and was patient enough to do it. Perhaps that is why I knew I couldn’t just let us storm off mad at each other…I knew he was pretty much right. At the end we shook hands. He told me to mellow out – something I hear all too often. The next day, we were cool with each other, and I greeted him with the same smile I always used to give people and the usual handshake. I asked him about the time we joked around about us both OCDing over stupid things, and that I think I am OCDing over unproductive thoughts that end up pissing me off, as well as other people. Haha, he responded with a joke about how school is making us all lose it. At times I think we are opposites, but I think we are a lot more similar than we think, I dunno. I am tempted to ask myself a bunch of ridiculous questions, but I just yell at myself STOP! Just take it for what it is now. I feel like if we hang out, it puts this whole quarter to rest…but lo que sera sera. The lesson in all of this is that friends sometimes intervene in ways of which I do not approve, but it is nonetheless an intervention, and for that I should be grateful.

After getting my Analysis score, being stressed out over grades, my future, and my friends, and next year, I could not take it anymore, and headed home.

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I’ve come to the realization that while I still think quitting ORL was a good move, the way I handled it was not a good move, and that I was not ready for the fallout of my behavior. Quite frankly, since ORL took up an entire two years of my life at UCLA, the vast majority of my friends were from ORL, and since I am no longer involved with them, I have been left with very few friends which is quite lonely. I realized that it was time to do some apologizing. I know that it doesn’t change the way I acted, and I know that I have probably lost those friends for good, but I feel like I need to do it for “the real me.” ORL was more of a “distraction” to a problem with which I now see myself faced. I could care less what the general person thinks of me, but I obsess over what my friends and superiors think of me. And I obsess over what the future holds for me. I am freaked out over having to move off campus, about roommates, about getting an apartment, about the possibility of getting a studio but being lonely… I am freaked out about how I am going to get through the summer. Stupid things that constantly swirl through my head:

“Why did you frown when I said that?”
“Why don’t we hang out anymore? Did I do something wrong?”
“Why are you so weird around me?”
“Why didn’t you respond to my IM? Are you mad at me?”
“Do you think less of me as a friend now or something?”
“When will we hang out next?”

I need to, and will work this out, but the first step is to tell my brain to shut the fuck up.

So this weekend the pendulum swung in the other direction. It did not take me out of the rut completely, but it help me put things into perspective. Stupid things upset me, and stupid things elate me.

This weekend was the perfect one indeed, starting early Friday. Like I mentioned last time, I got an A on my Physics midterm. Then, my 1pm class was cancelled, so my weekend started at 12 noon on Friday! To make things even better, I had NO homework to grade!!! This was meant to be. I was either supposed to spend the weekend by myself relaxing, or…

Yeah, that’s right. I made my occasional plans with three of my best friends from high school: Tom, Josh and Duncan (a.k.a. Marc). I “warned” them that we were getting trashed this weekend. And, well, that was an understatement! I gotta get the pics up haha. It was cool to reconnect. It is kind of funny, when you are with people that you have known since forever, you completely feel 100% accepted. They don’t hold shit and baby grudges against me like so many of my UCLA “friends.”

I took the worst regiment of all the guys. Eleven shots (lucky number) in 3 hours. Surprisingly I did not puke, but I did pass out…with a BOTTLE in my hand! Now that I think about it, I am lucky I didn’t puke while I was passed out. Probably the dumbest thing I have ever done, but oh well, only live once haha. I was gone some time around 1am. Shortly before I blacked out, one of my buddies’ friends stopped by with his girlfriend. I didn’t really know them, but of course they were welcomed to join us. I did not recognize her at all…but in my inebriated state she looked damn hot. At some point in the night my friends garnered the strength to carry me to my bed where they would then take a picture of me with all kinds of writing on my face. Crazy.

Apparently Josh was the next one to pass out around 3am. Damn I missed a good party LOL. We have all gotten drunk together before, but not to that extreme! Good times. At UCLA, I did get sick once and it cost me a friend because apparently puking (in the toilet only) means you lack social grace, and that is just against UCLA social rule number 102.5b.

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Sunday morning was obviously a very bad one for me. I woke up to see Tom, Josh and Marc still there, fast asleep. Apparently they had stayed up until like 5. I didn’t hear a thing obviously. We had breakfast as sick as we all felt, and then called it a weekend. What an awesome time lol.

Later that day, I “talked’ to my friend Dan from UCSB via IM. Dan is a funny guy – he doesn’t talk very much. But when he does he is very comedic. He writes very long emails and IMs which I find really ironic considering he is so quiet. I met Dan early my Freshman year at UCSB. Since then we have hung out a lot…either having lunch, hanging out at the beach, playing some sport or another, with me doing most of the talking obviously…but he is one hell of a listener. Dan surfs a lot which I always thought was cool. At UCSB he always offered to teach me, but I never accepted. Instead I would just go with him to Campus Point and watch. When he did eventually try to teach me how to surf, boy was that interesting. It was really funny at how impatient he got with me. The funny thing was, no matter how many times he has tried teaching me, he still does it. Sunday was one of those days. He met me in Ventura and we spent the day out in the waves. I managed to stand up this time and I got an applause from him. He joked with me that he will have to bring me out during the winter when the waves get really big. That comment for some reason put me in the best mood, like wow, even though I can’t surf worth shit, I haven’t been judged because of it.

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There are no coincidences in life. I clearly think that this weekend was supposed to be a wakeup call to me. I am concentrating too much on the wrong people. People that do not want me around, people that are not friends. Rather they just use me to help them with math homework, or programming projects. My real friends seemed more excited to hang out with me than I was with them due to my mood (except for Dan, because he never talks or shows any type of emotion good or bad). Perhaps I need to give up on trying to make more friends at UCLA because there are too many “social rules” at this university, and it has such a complex hierarchy, and complicated subsetting scheme. Obviously, most of my friends are right under my nose, and I have been ignoring them all along. But I won’t be anymore. I even have some friends at UCLA, but the rest of them I should just allow to fade away.