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| So, I decided to take a 3 day weekend to go to New York last weekend, mostly to see my friend Mila and play bridge with her at a tournament on Long Island. We spent 2 days playing bridge and one day I wandered around the city somewhat aimlessly and met up with a couple of friends in Greenwich Village and Forest Hills. Overall, a very exciting trip. I actually do like NYC. It feels so much like a foreign city. Kind of Parisian with a much stronger Asian influence. It was only my 2nd actual trip to NYC - the first was just over a year ago, when I was on a business trip on long island and didn't get to see Manhattan very much. Mila is always fun to hang out with. And it was great seeing my old roommate from college - hating the job after 3 years there, but he hasn't changed a bit. Anywho, maybe more details later. Tentatively I'll be back in NYC December 25-28. | | |
| For those of you who actually know me and have ever planned or attempted to plan anything with me, you know that I am not very tolerant of people who always wait until the last minute and/or are unresponsive. In middle school or high school, I tended to be one of these people who didn't respond to people in a timely manner. But I didn't become a real functioning human being until I was in college. But once I decided I wanted to actually interact with people on a regular basis and had to arrange things on my own (in high school, social things were all built-in to my life due to baseball and tennis and school-related stuff), I became very responsive to others and considerate when responding to others. And I'm mainly talking about responding when asked to do something or when trying to plan some social event in the next few days/weeks. Be considerate. Don't leave me hanging for several days. Don't ignore me. Don't say you might want to do said activity when the chances you'll actually be bored enough to spend time with me is about .0001%. Don't be afraid to tell me no. I used to get upset with others for double-booking themselves and then having to cancel on me, but I found that I started doing that, too, because no one was really dependable. No one would stick to a plan. And that's how it was through most of college. But I actually had a lot of friends in college so I rarely couldn't find a friend that was being responsive when I wanted to be social. But it was so frustrating, and this sort of irritation has been really bothering me a lot in the last few months. I guess I should cut such people out of my life or just learn to not rely on them as a friend but just someone who I may occasionally see, but that wouldn't really be like a friend because when we hang out would depend totally on them. And that isn't how it should be either. If you're my friend, sometimes call me or email me just to say hi.
When I moved to Warner Robins over 2 years ago, I found a friend, Hillery, who was like the ultimate friend to me. She was (and still is) fun to be around, made plans, let me know right away her status so I had adequate time to make other plans, and is more dependable than any other friend I have had. And I just expect to be treated that way from all of my friends. While I did become closer to her than any previous friend, this consideration and dependability started even when we barely knew each other. I guess it's a college person's way of thinking - still enjoying the large amounts of freedom from being away from the parents - that leads people to be fickle social butterflies who only make last minute plans. I suppose people change when they get older and have to be more responsible. Mila and Bryan and even Marie have recently become friends of mine who don't add stress to my life by not following through with what they had agreed to. And I like that a lot.
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| During my large amounts of alone time the last couple of weeks, I have been watching lots of reruns on Veronica Mars, one of my favorite tv shows ever, which I was very sad they canceled after only 3 seasons. Anyway, the subject of this note is a line from Veronica Mars and is one of the many quotes that has stuck out in my mind lately.
We all have things we long for and voids in our heart we seek to fill. And sometimes we get so caught up in finding these things that we take the first thing that comes our way and lose focus of what it is we really are longing for. We may say to ourselves that we will spend time with this not-so-great thing until something better comes along. But we may soon find ourselves so caught up in this intermediate thing that when something better comes along we don’t realize it, or if we find something better, we realize that pursuing it, thus leaving behind and being unfair to the thing we used to just pass the time. Some people don’t even recognize the difference between what is good and not good. Is it better to be oblivious to that and probably be more content with life or to know what is good for you but don’t/can’t have?
Then there’s this other quote to live “like you were dying”, which to me means not to hold back anything. You only get one life so you better make the most of it. Maybe it’s just my interpretation but making the most of life means doing what seems fun right away – not waiting around for anything or anyone.
So is it better to have something not good than to have nothing? Does having something not good instead of nothing diminish the chances of finding something good later on? Does one or the other cause one to lower his/her standards and possibly lead to settling for something not good? | | |
| I know entirely too many people approximately my age getting married this year. It’s depressing. I go on a 2 ½ week vacation and when I get back 2 of my co-workers are just married and another is getting married next month. I want to get married. But there’s no one I can reasonably see myself getting married to any time soon. Or maybe I just want someone to live with and eat dinner with and just have someone I can always count on being able to hang out with and have fun together. I have a housemate now, but it’s still like I am living alone, just with an extra $450/month. I suppose a dog could fit those needs. But I don’t want that kind of responsibility yet. I have fish now, so if I can manage another couple of months without neglecting them, maybe I’ll be ready for a dog again, and then later on a human.
My trips to the Philippines and Berlin were very interesting and emotional to me. It was nice to see where my mom came from and to see all my family that is in San Nicolas and Laoag – way too many 2nd cousins for me to remember all the names after just a week or two! Just seeing the living conditions and general way of life in the Philippines was fascinating to me as well. I have been there 3 times before, but not as an adult able to get a good perspective on things. Back to the marriage thing – everyone kept asking me if I am married or if I have a girlfriend. At the end I said I would return to the Philippines on my honeymoon or in 3 years to find a wife, which ever is sooner. I don’t know how serious I was about that. Right now I am inclined to learn Ilocano and go back in November when Kitty and Auntiecelle go back because, while communication was a bit strained, I felt more relaxed, loved, and appreciated than I have in a long time.
I miss having a family nearby. I mean, I’ve always had my parents living fairly close to me, but never have I ever had any extended family that I could see enough to really get to know. Seriously, my aunt and uncle in Germany are the relatives I see most, and that’s for maybe 1 week in 2 years. I guess I would actually like to see my parents more frequently (but for shorter periods of time) than I do, but that would require us to be in the same city and I’m not about to move back to Valdosta. In 2008, I spent significant time with someone else’s extended family and it was great to sort of feel like I had a family here. That sort of dissipated and I reverted back to old habits, and then these 2 weeks with my extended family reminded me again how I’m missing out. Friends are fun and great but family are really the only people you can count on to be there for you any time. | | |
| Hopefully after I return from my 17 day vacation, life will settle down again. It has been hectic and overwhelming and drama-filled since the end of last summer. I guess I brought it all upon myself but it was mostly just a reaction to the difficult circumstances to try to keep myself happy. It’s unreasonable to expect this summer to be as much fun as last summer, but I hope it comes close. I really miss just being able to chill out at home with a really good friend or two and just enjoy the simple things in life. Most people think I am very introverted, and in many ways I am – I don’t talk a whole lot and I don’t make friends easily. But really, I like social activity more than just about anyone. I just want a few very close friends who I can depend on day in and day out, who are happy to just be there with me without having to do something or talk all the time.
I am afraid that I will be bored after just a couple of days in the Philippines. But maybe it will just be a good opportunity to catch up on some reading and TV shows from this spring that I haven’t gotten to watch but have saved on my computer. It will be good. It will help me get back into a mode of not being so restless and not being so attached to the internet, and I really do need to take this trip. That reminds me that I need to copy pictures and videos over to the laptop I am going to take with me so that my family can see all the cool things and cool people who have helped me become this wonderful man they have been hearing about. | | |
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