Always a good thing to consider when you are frantically writing a 12 page essay that is due the next day..

1. Spend a few months living as a migrant worker in China
2. Join a competitive ballroom dance team.
3. Learn how to dance like Chris Brown.
4. Live on an ashram in India
5. Live with an ethnic minority tribe and learn their folk traditions
6. Write a book.
7. Live on a panda conservation center in Sichuan, China and research
8. Learn to cook
9. Join a competitive sports team
10. Find out what I want to do for a real job.

I once heard one of those groaner jokes that went like this:

What did the priest say to the student who lost his 10 page paper after a power outage?

Jesus Saves!

We’ve all heard this before, but I am here to urge you to listen to this advice before you lose everything you have.

If you’re like me, you love your media collection. You might spend hours making playlists, organizing your photo library, and uploading funny pictures to facebook. Over the years, the music and photos I’ve accumulated have taken up the vast majority of my computer’s memory space, making it inconveniently slow. But when I started to store video files, my computer, (named Darling), just crashed.  I recently decided that enough was enough.  I decided to get tech-saavy and bought a 500GB portable external harddrive (named Kiki – after Kiki’s Delivery Service), and moved all of my multi-media. I also used Kiki to back up everything on Darling.

The only thing is I never backed up all the media that I had moved onto the harddrive (dumb mistake number one). The technical ogre that I am, and too stressed out by the 12 page paper that I had only just started and needed to finish that night, I forgot to safely eject the harddrive before taking my laptop away (number two). The next time I started iphoto, all of my pictures were completely gone! Years worth of thousands of pictures, of which some older ones were uploaded online but the newest ones had not yet been stored anywhere else.

I know that I probably shouldn’t tether my life experiences to those pictures, but I still feel like my entire past has been lifted from underneath my feet, that all twenty years have suddenly been robbed from my memory.

Please learn from my misfortune:

• always take the extra ten seconds to eject your disks safely
• back up your harddrive, and your external harddrives
• periodically upload all pictures online just in case (plus it gives you an excuse to procrastinate on facebook)
• don’t be too dependent on technology (I usually tend to distrust it). develop pictures that you really care about.

I stayed up all night last night writing a 12 page paper, and now I have another paper that I’m supposed to write due at 9:15 tomorrow. I haven’t started, but feel too upset and preoccupied to start. What’s one night and one essay compared to an entire life, gone?

2/2/3

Update: OMG I just randomly tried something and I found my photos! I love myself!  I can’t believe I figured it out all by myself! I feel like a little three year old who just learned some easy task, and now thinks she is the smartest person in the world (In fact lots of three year olds are probably better at using technology than I am). All you computer people out there are probably rolling your eyes and thinking that it was such a easy problem. (Heh <== most technologically inept person in the world right here). I am going to run around my house telling everyone about how proud they should be of me! Now I have the energy boost to finish that paper!

7/2/3 Biggest mood swing ever

Update: Finished the paper at 3am. Finally, some SLEEP!

In case this has happens to you, I will post below a detailed description of how to solve it. Don’t read ahead unless really interested —-

The problem: What happened was that iphoto was still running while I removed the hard drive, so the next time iphoto opened and pointed to the library file, it just opened a blank library. Even though my library file was unharmed and still contained all my pictures, the iphoto program was accessing it inaccurately. The problem was compounded by the fact that I use time machine, so I had multiple copies of the iphoto library stored on the external hard drive and in the end couldn’t decipher which was the correct one. Also, I moved various iphotos to and from the trash so often that everything was mixed up.

The solution: I used a program called Grand Perspective to scan my computer and show graphically what files were taking up how much space. I saw large squares representing several different iphoto libraries, but one of them was much larger than the rest. (In case you don’t know, iphoto library is a file that brings all your photos together, it is not a folder with separate jpeg files for each photo). When I opened them, however, all of them came up blank. How can a blank iphoto library have two different sizes? I was convinced that the large one was the culprit. It was storing all my photos but redirecting to a more recent library upon opening. What did the trick was to copy the library to my comuter, eject the hard drive (so that whatever library iphoto was referencing was not accessible), open up iphoto, and manually select the desired library. It worked!

Wow. I feel like Sherlock Holmes.

Fmylife.com is a must in any procrastination toolkit. Usually I just laugh at how stupid most people are and click on You Deserved It (because they usually do). Unless it really does fuck up their life for real, in which case… its kinda funny that the first thing they think to do is to post it on fmylife.

But today when I was browsing (and trying to make productive use of my insomnia), I stumbled across this post:

Today, while at the Golden Gate Bridge, I spotted a large group of asians trying to take a picture. Trying to be a diplomat, I slowly say “You… want me… take picture?” while using hand motions. The man looks at me and says “No thanks asshole. I got it.” in plain english. FML

Of course, everyone knows the obvious initial response. The fact that it is 69k to 3k YDI to Yeah that sucks! is evidence enough of the outrage this has caused, not to mention reading the biting comments.

I’m here today to write a defense of Daftly Racist. Yes, we all know that what Daftly did was pure prejudice, rudeness, and idiocy. It’s the kind of thing that we don’t tolerate among our self-respecting, morally superior, unprejudiced folk. Thank god we never have to be judged by millions of internet procrastinators. We can guilt-free click the “You Deserved It” button and smirk at our purer moral composition. Because amongst our class, prejudice doesn’t exist and we operate in a judgment free world.

Isn’t it funny how we are taught to not judge, but those same teachers repeat the maxim that “first impressions are everything”? We can never free ourselves from our judgments (see this post for a fuller explanation). Isn’t it better to acknowledge those prejudices and do our best to mitigate them, rather than brush them aside and claim to have conquered them? How can we combat the enemy within ourselves and others if we don’t force it to the border of our inner psyches?

Daftly’s courage in posting is aptly refreshing. In a society where to exhibit the slightest bit of prejudice is cause to raise noses (and ironically, form judgments), to have the balls to admit fallacy in prejudice should be applauded, not condemned.

4/2/3 Insomnia mostly, but still proud that I can voice a semi-cogent argument at 6 in the morning.

Special Olympics Ad

This Special Olympics ad highlights the emotional charge that the “r-word” carries (www.r-word.org). The campaign to eliminate the use of the word retarded rides on the coattails of Obama’s highly publicized derogatory comment about the Special Olympics.

I’m not trying to be morally superior. Today I was at Castro Street getting dinner with a friend, when I made a comment about how “retarded” I was. I quickly realized my mistake, apologized, and replaced it with how “stupid” I was. Everyone is prone to it, it’s been so much a taken for granted part of our casual lexicon, but the point is that once we become aware of our choice of words, we can eliminate and replace harmful words in our vocabulary.

I didn’t realize that language could be so powerful. Like many, I thought that words were just meaningless, and that there could not possibly exist the hyperbolic attitude so vilified by disability advocates. However, while reading the forum I stumbled upon a very insensitive comment on the r-word website that exemplifies the exact kind of attitude that they want to combat. I would like to excerpt a bit here:

..those who fight so hard to have people stop saying [retard] is, well, … retarded..Don’t you think we could use our time and resoucres to attack a larger issue in this country. I mean what about the economy? you talk about intolerance, we just voted in a black president for christ’s sake, what planet are you from to say we need more tolerance for people who are “mentally challenged, or metally reatarded”, use your time and resources to counquer something more productive instead of fighting something that doesn’t exist, you freakin retards… (read the whole thing here)

I’m sorry cptwinks, but your comment exactly brings sympathy for the cause you berate so much for its “vacuity” and “insignificance”. I wasn’t fully a supporter of the r-word campaign until I read your comment, because now I realize what kind of bigotry and insensitivity pervades our society. The first thing I did was to look up the denotation of “retard”:

retard verb |riˈtärd| [ trans. ]
delay or hold back in terms of progress, development, or accomplishment : his progress was retarded by his limp.
noun |ˈrēˌtärd| |ˈritɑrd| |rəˈtɑrd| |riˈtɑrd| |ˈriːtɑːd| offensive
a mentally handicapped person (often used as a general term of abuse).

Even my apple dictionary is more sensitive than cptwinks. For a moment, let’s grant the dictionary definition and examine what we usually mean when we say “retarded”.

He’s so retarded: We don’t actually mean that he is mentally handicapped; when’s the last time you heard someone comment about a student with learning disabilities, “This is my student Peter, he’s so retarded”.  What we mean is that he is as stupid as someone who is mentally handicapped, and we mean that in the most derogatory sense. The implication is that the only characteristic of mentally handicapped individuals is their stupidity, and we mean that in the most derogatory sense.

I had a neighbor who was born with Down syndrome. He was one of the sweetest guys I ever met. When the phrase, “He’s so retarded” will come to mean “He’s so sweet” is when I will agree with cptwinks in affirming that the word “retarded” is inconsequential.

We do not accept the use of the phrase, “that’s so gay”, so why do we tolerate “retarded”? We respect the feelings of gay people, but not the feelings of the mentally handicapped. What’s even worse is that, our use of the word “gay” is usually deliberate; we are aware of our offensiveness and deploy our labels strategically. When we say “retarded”, we don’t even realize the impact we have. That the mentally handicapped are not even a group of people whom we consider to be worth insulting speaks volumes towards showing how much we actually do care about their feelings. To not even be a recognized group that we include in our sphere of decency; that’s the biggest blow of all.

Finally, although this might be a bit of a tangent, I want to address another false assumption in cptwinks’ comment. To claim that because we elected a black president means that we’ve somehow managed to rid the entire country of prejudice (not even just racial prejudice) is just ridiculous. I’m sure that if Obama knew that him winning the election meant forfeiting the fight against prejudice and declaring it won, he would have given up the presidency. To rubber stamp all battles against intolerance and insensitivity as useless because of one victory is completely counter to the entire progressive ideal. Instead of facilitating progress, victories insert a huge road block. To me, this is just an excuse for laziness and a justification for tolerance of our intolerance.

If you care about this issue, there are a few ways you can help:

1. Start catching yourself whenever you say “retarded”, and do it out loud so your friends hear you too.
2. Start correcting your friends whenever you hear them say it. They might find you annoying at first, but they will soon start to catch themselves.
3. check out www.r-word.org and sign up for their community if you’re interested!

4/2/3 After writing my opinions, I’m a little less upset about the contents of my last post. I am however, still deadly tired.

Have you ever had those moments when you know that you did something wrong, you feel like a terrible person, and there is nothing you can do to make up for what you did?

Over spring break, all the students who are studying abroad next quarter had to move out by the beginning of break. I am staying in my friend’s room while she and her roommate are away on break. Another friend needed a place to stay for a night, and since there was a vacant bed next to mine, I let her stay there.

Now, I know this is where red flags should be going off and my brain (or my conscience) should be telling me: Crystal…

1)   You don’t know her roommate very well

2)   Her roommate doesn’t know your friend at all

3)   Why didn’t you just ask beforehand, you obviously have no respect for other people’s personal space. Just because you don’t have a sense of personal boundaries doesn’t mean everyone else has the same standards as you.

To make matters worse, I am an extremely messy and disorganized person. Thinking that I was the only person to occupy that room until school starts, I just lived there as if it were my own room, planning to clean up before anyone came back. I know that I wasn’t very organized about keeping my clothes properly stored in my suitcase, and I probably just threw my towels on the ground (mostly on my friend’s side of the room but its possible that some of my mess spilled over onto the other half of the floor).

I stayed off campus for two nights, and when I returned at 7:30 this morning, I was surprised to see that all my stuff had been randomly thrown onto my friend’s half of the room, including my other friend’s comforter that she had left on the bed and I had no idea who it belonged to.  Although the roommate was not there, I could tell that she was pissed by the way she returned my belongings to me. I wrote her an apologetic email acknowledging that what I did was stupid and disrespectful; she writes me back a passive aggressive email listing grievances including dirty towels on her stuff, food on her desk, and someone having slept in her newly washed sheets. She ends with asking when I am moving out.

Ok so maybe I am a coward. So maybe the only reason I care about this is the dread of having to go back to that room. I’m already chickening out; I decided to move out tonight, at least I won’t have to spend an awkward night with the roommate. If I never had to see her again, I know I would tell myself, “Crystal, you did all that you could have done. It’s ok if she doesn’t forgive you. Just remember next time so you don’t piss someone else off.” But I know that I need to go back and apologize in person. Even if she is really pissed off at me. Even if she doesn’t forgive me.

In the end, I’m a bit thankful that this happened. I need to learn to grow up, to be less self-absorbed. I made my mistake because I was not considerate of other people’s feelings. Can you believe that I am already 20 years old, and this is the first time that I’ve had to seriously apologize to someone that I don’t know very well? Realizing that you’ve still got a lot of growing up to do is not easy.

Here’s the plan: I’m going to buy her a plant (her room is full of plants that I had been watering while she was away). If she doesn’t want it, I’ll tell her to just give it to her roommate. I’ll buy a card too explaining how terrible I feel, and if she’s not there when I go back tonight to move out I’ll just leave it on her desk. If she is there I’ll talk to her about it. I hope that’s not too cowardly…

3/5/4

When I started this academic quarter, I wanted a fresh beginning. I broke up with my boyfriend who I had been dating for the first quarter, and was determined to handle the break-up better than I had handled my previous one. In most aspects, I really am proud of myself for my emotional maturity. I reached out to my friends and made new friends; I started exercising and eating healthy; I joined the chorus; I took the hardest and most classes and excelled at them; I started to feel better and better about myself each day.

But there is one part of me where I still haven’t grown up, and that is when it comes to guys. I let my mood and my self-esteem depend too much on the guys that I like. To start, if I don’t have a guy in mind, then I feel very empty, like I don’t have anything to govern my behavior. Thus, if I don’t like a guy anymore immediately I have to find a new target. I can’t be satisfied just being my own single self. If my crush doesn’t like me back, it makes me feel unattractive and worthless.

When I confessed my feelings to my current crush, I thought that nothing would change. I thought we could still be friends, but as the weeks went on, everything became more and more awkward. Every time I talk to him, I feel as if he might think that I’m just trying to get him to like me. I definitely spent much more time together with him before. Once my roommate told him that he should come to hang out in our room more often, and he agreed; he never once came to hang out in our room, but I always saw him in the room across the hall from me. Over spring break, I am living in the room next to his because I had to move out of mine. I always go say hi to him and his roommate, but he will never come talk to me. It’s not so hard is it? I even made it easier by moving to a room closer to his. Sometimes he is super nice to me, and others he just ignores me. It  pisses me off when people are rude to others, regardless of the feelings between them. One time I confessed to one of my best friends from home that I liked him, and he decided to ignore me for two months. Why should you treat a friend differently just because they happen to like you? I think I learned my lesson; despite everyone applauding brave girls who just are straightforward about their feelings, I don’t advise it if you still want to remain friends with the person.

The first day of class I had Chinese lit and Chinese rituals back to back through lunch on Tuesday. I noticed this cute guy in both of those classes, and we introduced ourselves after class. Since both of us hadn’t had lunch, I asked him if he wanted to eat together, and we had a great conversation over lunch. We found out that we have very similar interests; he is a Chinese major and wants to go into Chinese medicine, while I want to practice Western medicine in China. Thinking that we could make getting lunch a weekly tradition, I was looking forward to the next Tuesday, but he just left class quickly without saying anything to me. I decided to give him up. One time after class we happened to be chatting next to our bikes, and remembering how much I enjoyed our conversations, I asked if he wanted to grab lunch. He said he had to go, but that we would get lunch next week. Next Tuesday, I excitedly made myself look nicer in anticipation of our lunch; he didn’t come to class. Thinking he was sick, I forgave him. Next class, he never mentioned it. Not one “sorry I was sick”, “I forgot”, or “can we re-schedule?” I decided he was a douchebag. Last day of class, he runs up to me to give me my wallet which I had forgotten in class, and we start chatting again. Stupidly, I asked if he wanted to get lunch and he said yes, but this week was bad can we try for next week after finals? When I called him, he said he had too much work, and already had dinner plans for all the meals until he left for break. He was surprised to hear from me and didn’t even seem to remember what he said last week. He said, “we’ll definitely get together when I come back from break”. Yeah right. I’m not going to call him again.

There was another person that I liked this quarter. For a month, whenever I went out the dorm I would walk down the hall past his room (even if it was out of my way), or I would go visit my friends in that side of the dorm, to increase the chance of bumping into him. If I heard his voice in the lounge I would go and pretend to be going to the dining hall. Sometimes he was really nice to me and others, he would be very unfriendly. I quickly got over him because I knew that he just didn’t care about me, but then every time he was nice I forgot and the cycle would start all over again. He would lean against me, tickle and poke me, and give me all these signs to make me think that he liked me. But I quickly found out that he is just a very touchy-feely person. He also only ever hung out with me when my friend from high school was visiting.  I lost interest in him and started to like the other guy who also doesn’t like me back.

I know that I should have self-confidence, and that is what guys find attractive. I know that I should love myself before I can expect others to love me. But when you go from being interested in guy to guy to guy, and none of them find you attractive, how can you tell yourself that you are attractive? It’s so easy to think, “nobody likes me”. It’s so easy to feel lonely. I just wish I could be independent and feel good about myself again.

Sorry if this blog post is a little less coherent and a bit more rambling than usual. I tried to not impede the flow of my thoughts and just wrote down whatever I was thinking.

I just gave My Crush a gift I bought from China. He didn’t even say thank you.

I think I’m slipping back into temporary depression. All my friends have left, I won’t see them again for 6 months because I’m studying abroad in Oxford next quarter. This quarter I got to know My Crush really well and we became friends, but I think I undid all of that by telling him I like him and now things are super awkward. I think its impossible for two people to maintain a purely friendship relationship if one of the parties has feelings for the other. I guess I just feel like I don’t really matter to anyone. That I can just leave, and no one really cares that they won’t see me for a long time.

Is there even anyone at school that really cares about me? I feel like I don’t have any really genuine friends here. I can’t think of anyone at school who I would call if I ran into an emergency. Everyone is too tied up in their work and can hardly spare time to pencil me in to their busy schedules. Whenever I eat with anyone, I can sense them itching to leave and return to their work. Being a college student is such a lonely experience. You are surrounded by a higher concentration of similar aged peers than you will ever enjoy in your lifetime, but yet you cannot make a deep connection with a single one of them.

That’s why on a Friday night I am alone with my computer listening to the Sleepless in Seattle soundtrack.

Maybe going abroad will be good for me. I will finally get out of this Stanford bubble; maybe the British  aren’t as self-absorbed as American college students.

2/2/2 bad day at work + little sleep + nobody likes me

addicted |əˈdiktid|
adjective
physically and mentally dependent on a particular substance, and unable to stop taking it without incurring adverse effects

Yup, that definitely describes my relationship with my email. I probably waste at least 4 hours a day checking my email, two hours writing longer, more thoughtful responses, and two hours from all the times I keep my gmail open and compulsively check every five minutes. Receiving new mai gives me a giddy feeling, even if it is just spam.Usually as soon as I go back to my room, use my computer for class or meetings, or get anywhere near a computer and have nothing else to do, I’ll check my email first thing. During class my email will stay open and provide a thoroughly satisfying distraction. I think it would be much more efficient to just designate a one hour period daily to clear through email. However, I would miss out on all those “Cookies in the lounge now!” opportunities…

I’m also really bad about staying on top of my email. If I see an interesting subject that I don’t feel like reading at the moment, I will star it and leave it for later. Of course, by the time I actually get around to going back, the email is already out dated. I can’t tell you how many events I’ve missed because of that. Usually emails that require a really long response also get shifted to the starred and deal with later pile. Too bad for those expectant senders…

My friend changed his email password to something obscure and long, and saved it to his computer desktop. If he wants to check his email, he has to go back to his room to look up the password. Intended to dissuade him from compulsive email checking, instead he just spends more effort going back to find the password whenever he needs a quick email fix.

Anyone have any good tips for weaning yourself off of your email addiction?

My bike is not a trashcan

I woke up this morning to find that some kind person had wished me good morning by discarding their half-full cup of coffee into my bike basket. Less than ten feet away was a trashcan.

I took my laundry to the basement and reached for my bottle of detergent that I had left there a week ago to find it surprisingly empty. It had been half full when I last used it.

It’s amazing the kind of things people will do when no one is observing. Hey, I’m guilty too. I used to shoplift all kinds of things as a kid. I would wear a huge coat into the toystore and slip small figurines into my pocket. Sometimes I will throw my trash away into the bathroom trashcan if the bathroom is empty, even though we’re supposed to walk outside to the large dumpster.

To combat the declining socio-ethical fabric I’ve been observing in myself and around me, my friend and I began a Karma competition. Each day we have to fulfill a challenge. Two days ago we had to catch up with an old friend. Actually I ended up catching up with lots of old friends who have graduated and from high school about careers, post-graduate plans, girlfriends, Bolivia… Yesterday we had to compliment a stranger – I told someone I really liked the colorful buttons on her coat – she had replaced the boring grey ones that fell off with funky patterns. Today I have to do something nice for someone without them knowing it. I am quite stuck on this…

mood: 4 fell asleep during the critical moment in physics class when they take attendance with the clickers, slept through most of my classes, didn’t do well on physics exam

physical tiredness: stupidly stayed up until 4am during work unproductively with a classmate because I thought he was cute. Then woke up at 8 to go to class. Now I’m on my way to the library to reread everything that I read last night.

Spiritual tiredness: 3

This weekend I have been very mean. I told someone I barely met that he seems self-absorbed, stuck-up, and artificial.

People tell me to not judge until I really know a person. Everyone makes judgments. Who is to say that after I hang out with someone a few times I can claim to know him or her anyway. At some point, we need to make a judgment about each person that we interact with, and that judgment determines the degree and nature of future interactions. What they really mean is to not voice your judgments, and even then, it only applies if it is a negative judgment. Five minutes after I meet someone, I am allowed say she is very nice; but if I say she seems like a bitch, immediately I will be attacked with snide remarks about not judging others.

Can we ever say that we can really know anything absolutely? Everything we perceive can be reduced to nerve signals in our brain, and our interpretation of those signals. Every interpretation is a judgment, for example, when I judge a collection of thin rectangular signals to be a rectangular prism. Look at it from a different angle, I process more signals and realize it is a cylinder. Watch it over time, and you realize its a melting cylindrical ice cube.

In social relationships, every experience is a signal, and our judgments are formed from a series of experiences, which can change from two dimensional to three and four.

Why do we all keep silent about our criticisms and negative judgments? Why is it better for us to verbally repress ourselves while preserving mental judgments? Verbally expressing those judgments is the only entry point for one to change his or her thoughts; it gives people opportunities to either corroborate or dispute your claims. Thus, without saying negative things about people, we would continue to harbor these negative thoughts in our minds while pretending to be a cheerful nonjudgmental person. Expressing negative thoughts is the only way for any progress to ever be made. Repressing them and only reiterating the positive results in stagnation and solidification of the status quo.

The caveat is that after voicing your opinion, you must be open to changing your opinion if presented with counter-evidence. Expect your assumptions to be challenged, since that is the entire basis for the merit of voicing them. Don’t let the first, second, third, or infinith impression be engraved in stone; rather, know that your impressions of people are only transient incomplete portraits filled in by a collection of experiences. People are like physical systems: they are impossible to study because in studying your subject, you perturb the system. People are constantly changing; as soon as your portrait is finished, she has already grown into different person.

Someone told me today to “be the bigger person”. I say: Wipe off your moral superiority and realize that we are all on the same playing field.

Mood: 4 obviously in a mood to rant + lonely after my friend left + possibly PMS

Physical Tiredness: 3 AM and have class at 9

Spiritual Tiredness: 4 Physical tiredness leaking over into spiritual + nervous about future + talked about MCAT