The Orient's Dairy Provider

I saw a friend just start this and it got me thinking about how I still don’t really know for sure what the hell I stand for, what I want out of life, and where I’m going.  Hopefully doing this challenge will help me figure all of that out (and maybe get me to post semi-regularly again)

It’s been a crazy year: one full of new friends, challenges, and habits.  I love the contrast that I managed to make between my fall and spring semesters.  I was looking to change it all up: I had sunk into a lull of contentment: too comfortable to venture out and live life.  

The list of things that has changed in my life has been huge.  I’m no longer a slovenly roommate: almost tolerable in fact (at least I hope my new summer roommate thinks so).  I’ve found out how to love life once again, something I’d lost in recent years past.  I’m not afraid to put myself out there anymore.  

Maybe most importantly, the mavericks are relevant once again.  Dirk Nowitzki has shown this season that it’s never too late to turn up engine and take it all the way.  

I’m grateful for what I have.  I have friends that’ll stick by me even after I put them through bullshit.  I have found the dignity to become somewhat hygienic.  I’ve finally got what I want: my own room in my own apartment.  I work in a lab full of very intelligent graduate students, who are willing to let me invade their space while teaching me what they know.

At the same time, I’m not done yet.  I still have a ways to go and I hope that my new friends will be there to help me get there (and vice versa).

My new friends (Something I love about them):

Stax: A constant reminder that there are other sides to every dispute

Adriana: Queen of pokes and snuggie fun.  

B-Wang: Always knows how to have a good time, and make everyone feel welcome

Jenna: Always smiling and always making everyone laugh.  So earnest and true, love it

Quentin: Quad Star and as far as I’m concerned, the number one “Body” 

Carlos: You stay classy Carlos! (Good luck at A&M)

Baby Dre: Spunky, sassy, and sincere.  I hope you find what you’re looking for.

Nicole: Treat everyone the same for the most part.  Full of energy and fun.

Johann: New Toilet Paper Editor, I hope you fill it with your wit (and that of others too if needed)

Czarina: If I come over, will I get more strawberries and a charmander birthday cake?

Gel and Joey: : Mika’s older sisters.  I love that you look after her and look at me as a friend, even though you’re Mika’s friends.

John: Thanks for not beating the shit out of me and instead welcoming me despite my mistakes.

Xuemiao:  Speak up!  People will want to hear what you have to say.

Maran and Evan:  I had a lot of fun at the party you hosted and beign forced to do my terrible terrible dance.  (great cranium partner too!)

Akillasaur: your sarcastic wit covers up your love for knowledge and i love both of those things

Phillip: your spiked hair and good physique covers up your extremely goofy and nerdy interior

Tina: Very sweet and nice, never a bad thing to say about others (I need help with that)

Body: Keep those crunches!

Susan: Thanks for your advice and listening.

I hope we can stay friends next year!  I’ll do my best to make sure it happens.

I have always disappointed you.  I’m not as smart as you Dad.  I’m not as kind as you Mom.  I don’t work as hard as either of you.  I never found the strength to be as sincere and real as both of you.  I hid myself behind a wall,  a group of friends who were content to dwell in their pit of negativity disguised as humorous cynicism.  I fooled myself to believe that this made me better or happier than others.  This came at a large price: I became consumed by the need to be better: be it in school, in cello, in rubik’s cube, and in trollishness, but never in happiness.

I haven’t been happy with my relationship with my family for a long time, because I got angry with expectations (mostly created by myself).  I didn’t go to Caltech, or even MIT.  I’m not an ambassador to Jamaica.  I ran away to go to UT, selfishly throwing away a full ride with a stipend close to home.

I became a Dean Scholar.  I replaced my family with friends.  I surrounded myself with people.  I tried to become something I wasn’t: a person with a crowd, a group.  I felt a part of something for the first time in a long time.  But was I happy?  I was falling into the same routines, except this time I was a ring leader.  I was bringing negativity to others and instead of finding my own happy, I was sucking out others’.

I had convinced myself that I had changed, but in reality all I was doing was hiding my deception with more deception.  I realized this.  I’m changing now.  I try not to rule my life by seeing the flaws in all my friends and people I associate with.  I enjoy their strengths.  I have become capable of seeing the beauty in others.  Sometimes, all it takes is a little love in your life to open up a heart to love.  I needed to be loved to realize my own self worth. 

Outside of my own parents, I’ve never been loved by another.  Mika opened me up to love.  My best friend in the world, and I miss her terribly.  Some people make fun of her willingness to talk for long hours about every little detail in her day.  I love it.  I’ve always secretly wanted someone to share their life with me and Mika was the first to share it with me: almost unconditionally.  I love her, for giving me that chance, the chance to share my soul with.  Something I could never do with parents that I felt burdened to please by my own perverse view of the world.

I’m not a much better a person than I was back then: I still troll more than I should, as a way of hiding my true feelings.  I still can’t pierce the heart of a problem as quickly as you Dad.  There is one key difference though.  I have found my own self-confidence, my own belief in myself.  I can love myself and this has taught me how to love others.  I’ve come to appreciate what all my parents have done for me.  Especially whenever I talk to them, they never stop telling me how much they believe in me, even when I never have shown them anything less than what I promise them.  Their love for me is unconditional and that’s something you shouldn’t take for granted.  I’ve been blessed with parents who love me, even when I couldn’t love myself.

 Last night, when I called my Mom and Dad, I ended with something that I never felt comfortable saying before.  ”I love you”

Staying Cheesy,

Panda Cheese

They say, you never forget your firsts.  It turns out I did, until I looked at my old diary, a relic from my past.  The beginning of the numbered grades in Mitchell Elementary had brought the alphabet to the Panda.   My first writing assignment, the diary, was the beginning and end of Chanel: a tiny confused chapter in my life.

I had seen her from afar and quickly appraised her.  A troublesome kid with a loud voice and messy hair should have no trouble expressing himself to others, right?  Not me; I became introverted so awed was I by her beauty.

Chanel was the product of an Italian father and a mother who treated her like a Barbie Doll.   Her slender body was wrapped with creamy, smooth skin, enthralling me to stare, often awkwardly.  I loved the way the wind tousled her long dark brown hair and the way she re-straightened it.  It sounds weird to say this about a first grader, but to our grade, she was the symbol of a mature woman: more than our teachers.  I kept all of this internal, until my journal gave me the outlet I needed.

Of course being but an elementary school kid, I managed to fill the first page with a single “I LOVE CHANEL”.  I was convinced that I had discovered at the tender age of 6 and a half what love was.  Day after day I began to write more on the subject.  I was her first grade paparazzi.  No cracker munched on; No seductive smile was left unnoted (promptly followed by an I Love Chanel).  Slowly I was changing more and more from the troublesome and adventurous kid who lived elementary school as wildly as any suburban elementary school kid could to a quiet biography writer.

My creepy following of first grade perfection, was brought to an end by the catalyst that got me on the subject.  My diary was an assignment after all.  Mrs. Boikess found the contents of my dairy to be interesting.  Dana Zozo, the class gossip, found it even more so, quickly hurrying over to tell Chanel this latest morsel as I stared in quiet shock and stunned silence.  Good Game Well Played.

The spell was broken.  I wasn’t merely an observer recording my findings on the beautiful Chanel specimen.  I lived in the real world.  I would like to say that I quickly found human side of her lacking, but it still took me a long time to really get over my first encounter with a crush.

Not much has changed since then.  My heart still pounds upon the sight of a pretty girl, and I’ll capture her image in my mind.  I also still don’t have a really good idea of what love is, but I feel like I have found a little bit of true love.  Thanks for being with me Mika: you’re more than just words on a page or a story in my life.  You are my life.

Staying Cheesy,

Resident Quad Panda

I’ve changed a lot since I was in third grade.  Classical music has been replaced with anything catchy.  Playing piano became playing the cello (and then eventually nothing).  My dream job is no longer becoming a crime fighter (with a haunted past and wry smile).  One thing has remained consistent: those capsule monsters, Pokemon.

When I heard that Pokemon was being reinvented with completely new Pokemon (no returning Pokemon), I marked the day Black and White were coming out on my calendar, 4 months in advance.  I managed to control myself and wait until after my tests on the hellish week before Spring Break and then decided on the White Version: The Gundam was so much more majestic than that Squatting Dragon.

The mechanics were much improved (designed to make everything faster and smoother).  The new starters were interesting.  I’ll even admit that my initial impression was that they were all ugly, but then my plump Tepig grew on me.  However, something was frustrating me.  Every single time my pokemon evolved, I felt increasingly frustrated with how much uglier they got.  It first happened with my Lillipup, which evolved into a Herdier, a weirdly colored and haggard old looking thing.  This was a very consistent change with all of the Pokemon that I was leveling up!  

I blamed the makers.  Satoshi had lost his touch.  They had used up all the good ideas already.  I felt the need to look back at the good old days. I rummaged through my old toy chest, sifting through teenage ninja turtles, plastic knights, and stuffed animals, until I found my old gameboy pocket and matching red cartridge.

I was smiling pounding away at the buttons, but on looking at my powerfully assembled team of maxed out Pokemon, I felt it.  The allure of the fully evolved’s fierceness and coolness had faded.  Pokemon had retained its quality.  I just wasn’t playing it anymore for the same reasons.  When I was a kid, I needed some confidence, being that awkward giraffee looking creature.  The comfort of a trusty team snarling back at me sounds childish and I guess it was, but I needed it back then.   As an adult I enjoy the cuteness of the pokemon more than anything.  I don’t need an austere dragon looking back at me with confidence.  I found that in myself.  

So I’ll take Pokemon White with that grain of salt.  It’s not going to be everything I remembered Red to be.  But i’ll do my best to love my Pokemon as much as I did then.  

Staying Cheesy,

PandaCheese