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What does "I hate calculus with a passion" even mean?
If by passion, you mean intense hatred - abhorrence so strong you want to crucify it (as in the Passion of Jesus Christ) - then you're just really weird, because as we all know, you cannot kill calculus by nailing it to a cross. What - you're going to hammer a couple of integration questions to a crucifix and stand it up atop a hill?
I don't think so.
You can't simply just say "I hate maths", full-stop? What's wrong with just saying "I hate maths"?
You're pretty much undermining the word hate... You're saying that the word hate is not good enough for you, it does not fully articulate the vehemence you experience. I personally think that the word hate works fine on its own. There's no need for the addition of such nonsense to emphasize. I hate the phrase "with a passion", with a passion!
In most cases, we stop focusing on what others have "done to us" after we begin to see how our displeased behavior is affecting other people. Anger is a release, it's a way of stating the hurt we feel inside, and it's uncomfortable to be around, it's unsettling, uncontrolled and simply relentless. However, releasing bottled up emotions can be a critical step in achieving harmony with other people and one's own conscience. Anger aids in making the hurt person more self-aware of his own needs and wants, and spurs him on to take action to fight for what he wants, rather than letting the hurtful experience continue or come back.
Getting mad over superficial, petty things, I'm sure, is something that everybody gets irritated by. It's childish, and there's no need for blowing things out of proportion. If your problems were handled more calmly and less emotionally, then maybe other people could assist you more efficiently, and life could move on a lot quicker.
But the more I think about it, the more I feel that all anger is unnecessary - whether it is socially acceptable to be angry or not - even if a country were to bomb one's own nation, even if a serial killer were to choose a member of my family as their next victim, even if someone were to walk up to me while I'm having a drink at a bar and punch me in the face.
Because anger does nobody any good. Sure, people are jerks, and life is unfair, but let's just cut the big reactions and just get to the open discussion and forgiveness already. Anger distracts you, from the multitudinous things you have to do everyday, and from the actual problem at hand. Anger causes you to be irrational and do things you don't mean to. Getting mad doesn't help anyone. There are better ways to carry yourself.
So dial down the temper and let's just learn to calm down, 'cause I'm so tired of the shouting, stomping and the slamming of doors. Take a chill pill. Make peace, not war. Just relax.
Do you ever feel like you're in a situation that you cannot get out of?
Have you ever felt that helpless and inadequate - have you ever felt so unhappy with the cold, hard fact that you will never be able to achieve this, or that you will forever be unable to accomplish that? Have you ever felt the suffocating feeling of walls coming in on you as you try to push them apart? Have you ever felt like the last man standing, fighting against an entire army a hundred times stronger and well-equipped than you and the 5-inch-long dagger you'd much rather use to end your life with instead?
Today, I ask you the following, my readers. Have you ever in your life felt so vulnerable, so incompetent, so powerless, so feeble and forlorn, like you're up a creek without a paddle, so substandard, so sorry, so sad, so remarkably, strikingly stuck?
I hate this feeling I so depressingly describe right now, especially this depressingly so as it is New Year's Eve today. The only way I can face this is to step aside from the source of my distress, and attempt to retrieve the ratiocination that I have so dopily and dreamily displaced. Only by thinking logically, I can engage in active problem-solving - the conundrum is never a conundrum for very long once you get into the right mindset.
What do you think? How do you pull yourself out of the hardening cement? 'Cause I'd like to know.
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Happy New Year, folks. If you're interested, I've written about my New Year resolution here.
And now, please tell me, do you hate feeling stuck too?
In the past week or so, a lot of people have been coming to me with their problems. These people are close friends, as well as people whom I've only known for about two months. I like how they trust me enough to tell me such things, it makes me feel really good inside, very mature, very responsible, and very helpful, to take some of that burden off their tired shoulders.
Somewhere along the way, though, I feel like I'm losing my voice in a lot of contexts. I can talk openly in front of my best friends, but with the people I've just come to meet here in university, I feel like they don't care about me. All they seem to want is my feedback, and when talking to them, it's not like I can interject and steer the focus on to one of my own problems. That is bad social etiquette.
I've had a few personal things come up in the past week or so. I've discovered a new hobby. I got really homesick during the weekend. I decided to have a Star Wars marathon, because I've never seen any of the films before. (I'm about to finish watching Revenge of the Sith. Exciting stuff.) And as most of you probably know already, I managed to bring my blogging career one step further last week. And I also went to the university medical center yesterday. (Mom, don't worry too much. I'll tell you about it when you come online.)
But nobody knows about any of that. Nobody cares about that. Nobody wants to hear about that.
I find it so funny how I've dealt with a lot of things by myself while being at university, with nobody's aid whatsoever. I find it interesting how people have only come to me with their problems, expecting me to always lend a helping hand or to advise them. Even the superficial, everyday things that I listed above, aren't of any interest to anyone here. How am I supposed to build new relationships with people, how am I supposed to trust them in our work, outside our work, or in our living situation, when they don't know anything about me?
(If you're one of those people in my real-life that feels that I'm talking to you, please don't assume it is just yet. The truth is, after I publish this entry, I'm going to feel much better, and a lot more forgiving of whoever it is I'm directing this at. I'm always there to listen to you, to want to listen to you, and I know how easy it can be to get too caught up in your own matters. We've all been there and I'm just frustrated. Trust me when I say my mood will improve the next time I speak to you. This is just one of my down moments that I'm trying to get over.)
This is why I am so amazed by people's kindness. To be supportive of me and to listen to me is truly touching. I had a friend send me a box of cookies and well-thought-out letters all the way from America. I was so surprised at the length she went to to send me those things. I am blessed to have a handful of friends who will always listen to me when I'm feeling down. I am so blessed to have them care about my well-being, about my troubles, and about my opinion. I hope this post makes you readers reflect on what you've done for other people in the past few days. I hope all of you can be proud of what you do today, this week, out of the goodness of your heart.
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There's a lot of emotion brewing inside of me as I enter this final week in Hong Kong. There are many things of which I still haven't done, but had originally planned to do, and a lot of people who I will not see before I fly off to England, but wish I could. I can honestly say, though, that I have tried my best to fit in the most important people and the most important things-to-do into my schedule. I don't know how I'm ever going to stop missing this place after I leave, how I will miss the thousands of streets on which I've walked a thousand times, the unique wonderful taste of the food here I love so much, and the beaches, the carparks, the piers, the malls, the parks, the schools, the bowling alleys, the bookstores, the supermarkets and the countless other locations of which I know like the back of my hand, and altogether, integrate, interweave and incorporate with one another in this giant lattice to constitute this familiar city I describe as my place of birth, my living environment, my home.
When other people hear about why I will miss this place so much, they attempt to reassure me by patting me on the back, brushing my shoulder, and telling me that I can always come back home during my holidays, and that I can keep in touch with people online at any time, but what they fail to realize is that those aren't really valid points.
Truth be told, I never want to come back, and I don't want to talk to anyone online.
About 95% of my life consists of my mother, my father and my best friend. I have dinner with my mom, drinks with my dad, and talk on the phone about everything else with my best buddy. I cannot just fly back whenever I want to, and I cannot just make a call to Hong Kong whenever I want to. There are huge costs for such homebound travel, I don't have the money for me to come back anytime.
Additionally, we each have our respective lives to lead. I've tried communicating with all three of them online, and it's just not the way our relationships work. We are all people who move on quickly (for our own reasons) if the circumstances for communication are inconvenient. I believe our correspondence will gradually be reduced to a minimum, and we all will find a way to accept the geographical and emotional separation between us, and the consequences of said distance.
With all my heart, I don't want to ever come back at this point. Ultimately, I believe I've spent too much of my life in one place, and it would be a waste of my life, and a wastage of this Earth, to spend another day here after I finish my course. I know that may sound bizarre, but that's genuinely what I feel.
People ask me, "why do you say you'll miss it then if you hate it so much?"
Have these people not been paying attention?
I don't hate Hong Kong. When did I say that?
And of course, I'll miss it, why wouldn't I miss it?
It's as simple as this: I am very excited and so glad to leave, but I will miss my childhood home nonetheless. I want to go and explore the whole wide world, starting with England, but it's just going to be emotionally difficult to move on, because Hong Kong has been my entire life. Is that so difficult to comprehend, or are my thoughts really that convoluted?
They say that a real man admits his mistakes, and that confession is the first step in improving oneself.
I've been in a lot of denial lately - a lot, a lot, a lot of denial. And keeping my embarrassing stories and guilt to myself has been very emotionally and psychologically taxing, to the point where I've been extremely depressed. Withholding my emotions is really not in me, I cannot force myself to be a closed-off person, to be a secretive person... For a long time prior to a few weeks ago, I always wore my emotions on my sleeve, I let people see that I was happy or vulnerable or agitated because keeping a stereotypically Asian-style stoic demeanor is just too much damn hard work for me.
Last month, I sort of felt like I didn't need to tell anyone anything. I was sort of sick of myself, and I think people were getting sick of me, too. So I kept things to myself, and told myself and others that I was okay when, in fact, I was in denial.
It does take balls to admit you're failing. I'm currently thinking of the people in my class and in my family and a lot of them are pretty proud of a vast variety of things, as well. It seems like everyone hates to admit they're wrong, that they're lazy, that they're guilty of something.
I understand the feeling all too well... but ultimately, denial is a heavy weight for oneself, and a heavy injustice to others. The school I went to previously had a motto: Honestas ante honores. It means honesty before glory/honor, and it speaks a great truth.
If everything is concluded to be going alright, but some part of the premise is actually a lie conceived in denial, then everything can be concluded to be going wrong.
Tonight, I've finally asked for some help with my problems, after keeping them to myself for so long. It's the most appropriate sort of help, coming from the most reliable source, and I have faith in the fact that I will get the help I need. But my ego is hurting big time. I feel so small for having to depend upon another person... I need to be an individual, but it turns out I'm just not grown up enough yet.
I just have to suck it up. That's the whole trick when coming out of denial, isn't it? ...A lot of sucking it up.
Today is just one of those days where everything wasn't exactly rosy, but they were good, good enough, and you weren't upset whatsoever. Then comes along the bearer of bad news, the pesky imbecile in class, the old and grumpy grandparents, the idiot that elbowed you hard on the street, or the girl you like who said she can't be with you after you were so sure you were meant for each other, or the mother that said you can't go to study abroad because she can't afford it after you've been so excited for so long, or the best friend who said he doesn't agree with the way you live your life when your dreams are finally being fulfilled.
Why do things ever look like they're gradually looking up, like you've avoided a fall to the ground, or dodged a bullet, only to have the hill steep downwards soon after, to have yourself collapse epically on to the floor, to have the bullet pierce you right through the heart?
I feel this way today, and it feels awful. I've felt this way for about a month now, because I've lost so many things, from a gaming device, through my patience and my best friend, to my appetite and my sleep.
I have lost, and I am lost, but that doesn't mean I wasn't trying hard to keep a smile on my face. He knew I was putting on a brave face, but he didn't care, he thought he'd just ruin my day anyway. I hate it.
(I don't know if I'm going to make sense. I'm pissed.) Today, I got really upset by one friend and tried to find consolation in four others. I still ended up arriving home utterly pissed off. I didn't want to be. I wanted to write about something happier today, but no. No, because I just had to get it out of my system. It's taken my six hours of playing online poker and watching television to finally wrap my head around why I hated what I hated today. This post's title is pretty self-explanatory. I hate it when people know you're (getting) upset but they don't seem to care.
At our school, we take a class called Theory of Knowledge (TOK), also known as epistemology, the study of knowledge. Much like in any other subject, but especially in TOK, we are required to define what we actually mean by the different words included in the essay question/topic. In other words, I need to tell you what I mean by the words in my title step-by-step, so that you can grasp onto the general idea considerably better.
That's exactly what I'll do with this post because I feel that there are many reasons behind today's problem depending on which part of the title you or I focus on. Here they are:
Let's start with the word 'people'. Usually, you feel like people are being insensitive to your feelings when you feel that those people are close to you. You trust them and care about them. Therefore, you expect them to be sensitive because you're sensitive toward them.
But that's just the problem. Expectations.
Expectations of receiving in return all that you've given them. But in reality, perhaps they don't care about you and/or they mightn't trust you. They may not feel like they're close to you. These people may not actually be sensitive toward you even if you expect them to be, even though you want them to be, even though you need them to be. The first part of this problem may be due to the fact that these 'people' whom you expect to care about you just aren't the 'people' you thought they were. They're not your friend or your close family. You've given them a big title like favorite aunt, most trustworthy, or best friend but they fail to live up to that title. Are these people really as good as you made them out to be?
Going back to the actual title, this is about getting upset. In my experience of knowing people, it's quite easy to spot when somebody is upset. They pout, they cry, they don't want to talk, they limit their social communication, they shake their head, they sigh, they stop smiling, they stop joking, their humor gets dry, et cetera...
The second part of today's annoyance is the fact that maybe these people in question are too unaware of other people's feelings. They don't hear the disappointment in your voice or they don't sense that your sarcasm is being used as a defense mechanism rather than as a comical tool. I always thought that I was pretty open with my emotions but when people continue to joke around, smile and laugh around me when I'm upset, I wonder to myself: "Am I obviously angry right now? Am I actually coming across as sad?" What do you do when the people around you can't tell how you're feeling even when you're displaying your emotions ever-so-openly? Doesn't it worry you that people can't tell by your facial expressions and your bodily mannerisms that you're upset whenever you are? Or is it just the fact that they're stupid?
Now, the final bit is what angered me the most. It builds upon Part 1 and Part 2, in that it sort of reinforces the fact that they're insensitive. Part 1 was that these people were insensitive because they didn't know they were meant to be sensitive since they didn't believe the relationship was tight. Part 2 was that they were insensitive because they were unaware that you were upset. Part 3 is a lot more annoying.
Part 3 shows that even when they are the right people, your best friends and your close family, and even though they can see you're upset, these intuitive people whom are close to you just don't show you that they know how you feel, that they care about how you feel, that they want to make you feel better or even acknowledge the fact that you're upset, even though they know.
If it's because they purposefully ignore your distress because they just can't be bothered to deal with that right now, then it's pointless in remaining close with them for any longer. You go to a person for consolation and just because that person is feeling happy, he/she feels that he/she can ignore your feelings lest he/she might become upset too.
There's also the possibility that people 'don't know how to deal with' you being upset. I can understand that. There are some people that I will never know what to say in front of but the thing that sets apart real friends and less loyal friends explicitly is whether or not they try to make you feel better. As long as I feel people are acknowledging that I'm upset, showing that they respect my feelings and care about them, I will always, always reciprocate and show that I can be sensitive for them too in their times of need.
I hate it when people never try to deal with problems, whether they're battles within oneself, conflicts with other people or disagreements between him/her and me. Sometimes, it's obvious to me that people care about me. They just choose not to. They choose to say they 'don't know what to say' because it's just easier. How lazy and uncommitted is that?
The general problem with people being insensitive when you're upset is the fact that it raises so many questions in your mind. Do they really not know that you're angry right now? Is it not obvious that you're upset? Do you appear stoic? Why don't they show some compassion? Do they actually feel empathy? Do they not want to because it's just difficult? Does this actually seem fair to them?
Do they expect you to do all the work in this relationship while they sit on your coattail? Why even bother with him/her, even when you're happy, or even when they're the ones that are upset? Are these the right people you should be expecting to care about you? Do you really need anybody to care about you?
I hope I've demonstrated that coming across as being insensitive is a dangerous thing to do. It confuses people, makes them worry, scares them even.
When people know you're upset but come across as if they don't care, do you hate it too?
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