I really do long for friendships built on an unspoken, unconditional understanding and love. Lately, I feel that many of my "close" friendships with people here exist as a matter of convenience. They have resorted to the frequent shared meal in the dining hall and shallow "catching up," that is, simply recalling the week's events. The people I normally eat with are not the people I feel I can relate to or rely on most, nor are they the people I feel care about or understand me best. I'd say I have few friends at Swarthmore, if any, who'd actually think of me and care about how I am doing. Or really listen to me when I'm trying to tell them something. It is hard. And I can't scream out, "I feel inadequate and lonely." I hate that I'd have to say it aloud if something is wrong, otherwise it goes unnoticed. And even then, does anyone really care? I was just talking to Dave and he points out that maybe my definition of a friend is different than others'. Perhaps he is right.

My first Christmas at Swarthmore, I stuffed all of my friends' mailboxes with goody bags filled with chocolate and candy canes. I had so much to carry, I had to make two separate trips from my dorm to the mail room. I used to do that all the time in high school. I don't know why, I guess I just like making small gestures to show people I love that I care. It makes me sad that I don't like to do it anymore. Other things I miss: willingly spending an entire day making someone a valentine, spending weeks accumulating little trinkets that make me think of a person to formulate a birthday gift, filling up cards to the very back corner. I miss showing people that I care and having the effort reciprocated. I used to receive so many birthday cards. This year, I had zero. I guess here, at least in my experience, it is rare that people would go out of their way for you....and it makes me feel so sad sometimes.

I really believe that much of getting to know someone is expressed outside of verbal communication. When I took Acting I last semester, I felt like I connected with every single person I partnered up with. We didn't speak, so much as we did awkward exercises together, did "dances" with one another in which we responded to each other's impulses or stared straight at each other as we made observations about each other. This is, of course, not a common thing to do with a friend, but I certainly feel like spending time doing simple things, simply being in the physical presence of one another and learning mannerisms, can do so much. But people here are so busy all the time, myself included, and it becomes hard to break out of the routine. Between classes, working, studying, and practice, there is little time to freely spend on, say, watching a movie with a friend. It also becomes so easy to keep to yourself. Being here for an extended period of time has this way of making me feel so lonely.

I don't even know where to begin to explain how I feel... On the surface, everything is really just fine. But when I dig a little deeper, I know that there are few people here, that I feel I really connect with. Is it a matter of different identities and growing up in different environments?

In high school, I always felt out of place because I thought that many of the things people cared about were so trivial. I longed to surround myself with smart, passionate people who were motivated to do something for the world. That is exactly the kind of people Swarthmore attracts, and that is exactly what I'm surrounded by now. But now, I'm more keen of our very apparent differences. I am no longer surrounded by people who grew up with the traditional values of their immigrant parents, or who are the only person in their family born in the U.S., or the first to go to college. These are all such important factors to what I've become, and I took these aspects of my identity for granted when I was home and shared these things with my peers.

I'm only now beginning to reflect on my own identity and how it defines who I am. It's really hard though, trying to understand all this, when none of my friends share this in common with me. I sometimes find myself at a loss for words because I don't know where to begin. I am also just a pansy. Much of my happiness rests on my social interactions, and Swarthmore doesn't foster a particularly social environment.

Anyway, more on my identity crisis another time. I attended the ECAASU (East Coast Asian American Student Union) conference at Cornell this weekend and it's given me some perspective on things. Going home last weekend for Chinese New Year was also a bit enlightening...and then there is my new Holga camera and my obsession with using it at home. Seeing the world through a lens, especially that of a plastic Holga, allows you to see so much beauty in things you normally don't. More things I miss: having time to reflect and blogging into the night, spending an entire weekend making a new blog layout, Chris Winikor, riding the subway home with Christine, telling my friends I love them and hearing them say the same.

*heidi [ 2 comments ] 2:01 AM

____________________________________________________

you are always trying to keep it real
I'm in love with how you feel

*heidi [ 2 comments ] 2:08 PM

____________________________________________________

The past two days have done so much for me. I've been carrying some baggage with me for the past year, have accumulated and internalized so much sadness and lost sense of myself many times along the way, and within the past 48 hours, I've been slowly relieving it. Something makes sense now. I'm just so happy you're back in my life. Because of the effect your actions had on me, I began to constantly victimize myself in all social situations. I became so attracted to all things bittersweet and tragic--something that was not in my nature before. I can't say I didn't learn a lot along the way. I also don't know what to expect. But I really hope you don't let me down this time.

*heidi [ 0 comments ] 2:56 AM

____________________________________________________

"And now you feel that you have the moral authority to pass judgment on these people, that because of your recent experiences, you can expound on anything, you can play the conquering victim, a role that gives you power drawn from sympathy and disadvantage--you can now play the dual role of product of privilege and disenfranchised Job. Because we get Social Security and live in a messy house you like to think of us as lower class, that now you know the struggles of the poor--how dare you!--but you like that stance, that underdog stance, because it increases your leverage with other people. You can shoot from behind bulletproof glass." (pp 105)

"So instead of lamenting the end of unmediated experience, I will celebrate it, revel in the simultaneous living of an experience and its dozen or so echoes in art and media, the echoes making the experience not cheaper but richer, aha! being that much more layered, the depth luxurious, not soul-sucking or numbing but edifying, ramifying. So there is first the experience, the friend and the threatened suicide, then there are the echoes from these things having been done before, then the awareness of echoes, the anger at the presence of echoes, then the acceptance, embracing of the presence of echoes--as enrichment--and above all the recognition of the value of the friend threatening suicide and having stomach pumped, as both life experience and also as fodder for experimental short story or passage in novel, not to mention more reason to feel experientially superior to others one's age, especially those who have not seen what I have seen, all the things I have seen. Another experience that can be checked off, like skydiving, backpacking through Europe, a manage a trois." (pp 236)

Dave Eggers, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius

*heidi [ 2 comments ] 11:27 PM

____________________________________________________

"In the whole entire world, you are the only person, the only person I love or have ever loved. And I love you terribly. Terribly. That's what's so awfully, irreducibly real. I can make up anything but I can't dream that away."

"Imagination can't create anything new, can it? It only recycles bits and pieces from the world and reassembles them into visions. So when we think we've escaped the unbearable ordinariness and, well, untruthfulness of our lives, it's really only the same old ordinariness and falseness rearranged into the appearance of novelty and truth. Nothing unknown is knowable."

"Threshold of revelation..."

Tony Kushner, Harper in Angels in America

*heidi [ 0 comments ] 2:07 PM

____________________________________________________

I can get very defensive. definite flaw of mine.

and I realize that oftentimes, it is abrasive and unnecessary.

People who grew up in New York City take a lot of pride in it. It was only when I came to Swarthmore when I took immediate pride in growing up in Brooklyn. Its a part of going away to college. I think that anyone immersed in a population of very different people would feel the same need to identify themselves with their differences. But something about native New Yorkers almost borders on arrogance, that I don't think anyone, but they, can really understand.

Its not that I think that any part about growing up in NYC makes one superior to anyone else. Its not that I think someone who's grown up there has seen more of the world than one living elsewhere. Its not like that. Noone has any control over where they're born, so it's really very silly to be overly proud of it. My annoyance with others only arises when people overly hype up the grandeur of the city, when they talk about how great it is when they don't really, fully, know it. I mean, that really goes with anything--I hate when people talk, almost brag, about something as they knew everything about it, when they obviously don't. I guess I just feel that it's being loved for the wrong reasons.

If I tried to capture what makes growing up here unique, my attempts would be inadequate. People certainly have every right to get excited about and love it. But I think its like. spending your life with someone and learning every intricate idiosyncracy in them, seeing all this beauty in them that isn't immediately expressed, and then being confronted with someone who also believes they love the same person. There may very well be a lot of overlap in the reasons why you both love this person. but its certainly a different kind of love.

*heidi [ 0 comments ] 1:24 PM

____________________________________________________

I had a wonderful day today. Its always so nice to spend time with an old friend. As I'm sure everyone's aware, Coney Island (or Astroland, rather) is in its final days. I wanted to make sure I got to spend one last day embracing the eccentricity and realness that is Coney Island, so Joss and I spent an entire afternoon there, investing our money in really ghetto rides + vendors.



I hadn't spent an actual day there (excluding Siren Fests) since I was pretty little, so I don't think I ever fully experienced Coney Island for what it really is. As real and full of character as it is, it's also kind of creepy. Well, Joss added a fair bit to this...he kept having bouts of deja-vu all day and sharing them with me. after a while, it started to freak me out a little. I think if I stayed there for a long period of time, I'd go a little crazy. There really was one point where we were just standing there looking around at everyone and feeling like we were in a Goosebumps book.

So I can sort of understand why they'd want to change things up now. Its almost, well, dead. and as much history as there is in the place, and as sad as I am to see an emblem of Brooklyn being destroyed, I think what really made Coney Island so wonderful is sort of in its past now. I don't know. I'd really like for Coney Island to remain the way it is, but its almost kind of painful--it's as if it were dying a really slow sad death... I feel like if done right (and if its true they're keeping it as an amusement park) it can't be too bad...

Joss: thanks for finally convincing me to go on the Cyclone!

More photos:













*heidi [ 0 comments ] 1:52 AM

____________________________________________________

my dear god. Tonight, I saw RENT a third time because Anthony Rapp and Adam Pascal (the original Mark and Roger) returned for a brief 10-week stint. It was, I guess, exactly as I'd imagined. For as long as I've been listening to RENT, I've been moved by and obsessed with the angry exchanges between these two characters. Not only are their characters incredibly well-developed and real, and not only are Adam Pascal and Anthony Rapp so naturally talented and impossible not to love, but Adam and Anthony truly have an amazing chemistry when they are on stage together. I know that the fact that they were the original cast members makes it hard for me to actually think there to be a "better" Mark or Roger in anyone else, because to me, "how good someone is" is largely how close they come to the original. In fact, the more creative someone gets with their character, the more frustrated I usually get. (side note--you really have to think about what you mean when you say these roles were "made" for them because by taking on the original roles, they'd pretty much made the characters who they are.)My gosh, I'm straying off entirely. My point is. I noticed early on that I'm very much in love with everything about the both of them together and this love for them goes past them setting the standard. They make everything click together so perfectly. Their voices, the music, the timing and harmony in the music, and the raw passion in their voices--everything is just so perfect when they sing together. I am still in awe.

I don't know what I'm feeling. I'm still overwhelmed and soaking it all in. It's 5:30AM but I don't care because I need to capture how I feel before it passes. I guess my reaction to the show was a result of a combination of many things for me--a very emotional and strong attachment to RENT, my defensive nature of musicals done loyal to the original, my frequent listening to RENT to the point where every note and word and second is ingrained in my head, and of course my already developed love for both Anthony and Adam. As much as I loved RENT the first time I saw it (to the point where I devoted my entire college essay to it), I felt more of a connection to the music off the soundtrack than I did live in the play. I overlooked that matter, though, because I'd never expected to ever witness the original cast, who very visibly (or audibly, rather) had amazing chemistry. So I'm not lying when I admit that Adam Pascal and Anthony Rapp returning to RENT is a dream come true for me--it's the one thing I would've wanted to see most on Broadway and I'm so grateful I was able to experience it. Not only were they both incredible tonight, they completely blew my mind away even though I'd thought I couldn't find anything new and fresh to love in RENT. We'd become complacent, old lovers. And yet they made me fall in love with their characters all over again (and trust me--I fell hard the first time already), and together, they really brought the entire cast (and show) together. I could feel so much energy and passion (and love!) during the entire show, something I've found to be very rare in the shows that I've seen. Because of them, everything just clicked into place and everything--I really mean everything--made this to be the most beautiful performance I've ever witnessed.



Anthony Rapp and Adam Pascal, I love and thank you immensely.

forever and truly yours.

*heidi [ 0 comments ] 4:51 AM

____________________________________________________

I am finally resurrecting this blog, something I've been meaning to do for, I don't know, 3 years? Alas, it is summer and I am no longer burdened with that nonsense they call academia. It feels so good to just sit here and do nothing and know that I don't have to do anything. This, combined with the fact that I don't have to deal with my parents' bickering at home, and the freedom that comes with living on my own. As awful as living alone in ML basement (off campus housing known to house the stranger Swarthmore kids) and doing math all summer may sound, it has far exceeded my expectations. Maybe because I didn't have any. But having all this free time and gorgeous weather has been absolutely amazing.

Work, too, has gone surprisingly well. The work isn't especially hard, is actually fun and, at times, rewarding. I can even sleep in and work in my room all day. I've already received my 10-weeks stipend and we can craft our hours any way we wish so long as we're contributing our part.

And PADA? Lisa and I baggaged each other because we were sharing rides. Tyler, Ross and Seth baggaged each other. And somehow, we all ended up being on the same team for the summer. We had our first preseason game last Wednesday and it was probably the funnest game of pick-up I've ever played. I didn't realize playing co-ed was this much fun.

Excited about an amazing summer...

*heidi [ 0 comments ] 1:27 AM

____________________________________________________

So my phone likes to shut itself off sometimes, which shouldn't come as a surprise considering how often I drop it. I took it to get it fixed today in hopes that maybe a part of my plan will allow me get a new phone within the two years I'm stuck with it. Instead the lady there just took it apart and reset it without warning.

I had a full inbox of text messages saved on that thing, dating from April of last year, texts I like to read through when I'm sitting somewhere with nothing to do (I have a problem with being completely idle). They have this way of replaying insignificant moments within the past year in bits and pieces. I saved something so simple as "Are you in school today?" from Chris because that was the day he surprised me in the hallway with a graduation present.

Each of these text messages had its own little story to tell, and the fact that they represented something so minute and inconsequential was consequently the reason I couldn't bring myself to delete them- because if I did, I'd easily forget about them.

And more relevantly, a good hundred of them were from Dave in the time that we were together. It's probably true that a lot of them were repetitive, but they'd meant a lot to me at the time. And it's almost as if they're tangible proof that he once did care and that we were once together. Not that I'd really forget that fact, but our perceptions of the past become so blurred with time, and oftentimes skewed, sometimes even to the point where we question whether or not something had actually happened. Although I insist that my heart no longer feels anything for him, I could never bring myself to put such a definitive end to something as simple as his...text messages.

So I'm glad his texts have erased themselves from my phone. It probably wasn't very healthy to read through them months after we've broken up, if for nothing but to reminisce a little because I really was very happy with him. It did make me miss him though. I'm convinced now it was the idea of being so into someone, without guard and without any hesitation, that I miss, and not so much him specifically. Of course I say that now, but it really isn't something you can explain and define boundaries into anyway. I'm just sad about the way things ended, not so much that they did.

Anyhow, it's all in the past and it's gradually fading away. I get really sad thinking about how that's how people recover, by forgetting, because they're essentially choosing to forget some of the happiest, most memorable moments in their life. And I guess it really is the only way you can truly get over someone you once deeply cared for, by forgetting about them and ridding of anything that reminds you of how things once were. Right?

Funny timing too...I think my feelings for someone are entering a new stage.

*heidi [ 0 comments ] 11:44 PM

____________________________________________________