I'm annoyed at myself because I haven't been studying very hard at all (most of study period was spent on my Stats project, and then most of the rest of the time between finishing my project and my first exam was spent inefficiently studying the all-too-distracting presence of Adrian), and so I decided to reinvigorate my living-in-the-library-but-for-meals regime. Well, things got off to a slow start - didn't get to the library until 3, and then promptly fell asleep for a little under an hour. I'm working on my final exam study guide for German right now and I just realized that I'm missing one of the study guides that I would really like to synthesize into the one on which I'm working (I hate to do work I've already done). I spent a long time not really getting much done, too. I feel like I wasted the whole afternoon because I'm not going to accomplish anything significant (except, it seems, a D-land entry). I'm very disappointed in myself.

Sidenote: What is the difference between regimen and regime? I don't believe there is one. It appears that regime is directly derived from regimen.

A trend that has plagued me since I started going into puberty has been that the more self-aware I became, the less confident in myself I was. As I grew out of the fog that is childhood ignorance, I found myself comparing myself - and paling in comparison - to my best friends, who were always better than me in all things, and I never better than they in anything. Early on, I subscribed to the notion that everybody was special (sound familiar?) and everybody was especially good at something, and that is what they liked, and that is what they should do; that was the path of least resistance and maximal happiness (of course, I would never dream of couching the philosophy in those terms at the tender age of 10). But when I sought within myself for this one such something, I couldn't find it. There was nothing that I could do well that somebody else I personally knew could not do better. This inferiority complex was only exacerbated by attending (and I say this with pride, not bitterness) arguably the best public high school in the nation.

I remember myself as always being a rather serious and earnest child. My father says that as a toddler, I was one of those adorable bundles of sunshine, who always had a smile and a dance. I was happy, outgoing, and confident, he tells me, with an excellent sense of direction. I think he thinks my mother extinguished all those qualities within me with her bad parenting. I reserve judgement, being entirely too ignorant to support one side or the other.

...I wonder how much he regrets sacrificing those years away from me? ... I hope I will never have to be in such a situation, to make that kind of choice. Now that I'm starting to think about being a parent myself, I can see that being able to parent in ways he could not (i.e., spend as much money on the child as one wants, not live apart from her for several years, etc.) is probably one of his highest hopes.

(I don't know why that digression happened. Perhaps I just wanted to set the tone for who I was, where I'm from.)

I don't know when the trend started to reverse - whether it was prior to my attending Cornell or afterwards, but my suspicion is that it was afterwards. There were so many occasions at Cornell, that with new pressures facing me in new environments, I just took a deep breath and did it. I tried not to agonize, I tried to be real but not too honest (by that I mean: nobody wants to be overwhelmed by everything that is you; just as your nerve endings can be traumatized by sensory overload, so can someone with whom you have not established sufficient intimacy). Guided by a developing sense of appropriateness, I gained confidence with every such occasion.

Oh, not everything changed, and not so quickly either, but I was learning and growing and changing. The thing was, I was changing in a way I hadn't been before.

Alongside this journey out of the stifling tunnel of painful self-consciousness, I was also travelling at an accelerated pace on the path on self-discovery. I was getting to know myself better and better, with the aid of such good friends as HQ and JG and other influences at Cornell. When I received an assignment last spring to list 10 traits I possessed which would recommend me to an employer, I remember dreading completing it, because I was always so, so terrible at those things. But one day I had some dead time and I sat down and did it and I was amazed at the result. Here I was looking at an endorsement of myself that stunk neither of triteness nor of generality. Here was I, unique and real and recommendable.

My strengths, like most strengths, are double-edged blades. In the wrong situation and in the wrong intensity, they can act as weaknesses too. But even so, they are still positive attributes - more than that - they are some kind of personal advantage.

I think I've fallen back down the well lately, though. This semester started off poorly, and just as it was getting better, I met Adrian, to whom I feel inferior. Next semester the co-op interview cycle starts and my feelings about my resume have pretty much remained constant, despite all the deep breaths and the newfound self-knowledge. Part of my anxiety and insecurity is due to inexperience of that particular sphere. Inundate me until I have the basics like instinct and I'll have a healthy dose of cynicism to take me through the whole thing. Another part is due to actual lack of experience, and we won't go into that; just thinking about it makes me vaguely nauseous.

I don't really know how to finish off this entry - after all, there is no real ending to a brief history of me, because I'm still around, still changing, still making it by the very act of living.

Which calls to mind the difference between living and being alive: I hope that I live as long as I'm alive.

Which raises the question: If I chose "the easy way", would I still be living? Or would that choice be tantamount to a decision to being content with just being alive?

you just didn't know when it was coming - 2005-03-23

one free trip to washington, dc - 2005-03-22

sharing myself - 2005-03-20

dreaming down highways - 2005-03-20

when the day was bright and new - 2005-03-18