Depression

I've got to stop denying it. There's a reason why stories of wrecked lives are so appealing.

Most nights I feel like I'm an alcoholic or drug addict who hasn't had any for a while. Except I've never had either. Increased noise sensitivity brings intermittent headache and I keep trying to drown out one noise with another. But I don't want to start popping Advil, so all I can do is wait for midnight, when the house is quiet.

I don't want meds and I can't afford therapy, but I can admit this.

Listening Gifts

This Christmas has been a success.

Although mass was stuffy and cramped as it always has been, dinner was a two-hour event that encompasses three new dishes and an ever-comforting wong tong soup. Spicy Singapore crab left an impression, but none unbearable, and which I preferred over the beef.

Now, the presents were glorious, and everybody outdid themselves. Father got Mother a tree-branch cutter that looks suspiciously like a machete; he confided in me his plan to test Mother's love and the strength of their long marriage against her occasional bouts of anger. Mother got Father and me a gift card to Starbucks ($20!) since we went there so often. All I had to do was mention the $100 for quarterly piano lessons, and a check arrives in a small envelope underneath the tree from her, too. A request for blanket turned into a full bed set from Sister, and in accompanied with a twin comforter set from Mother and Auntie, I'm well set for dorm room re-decoration and comfort. Winter will not be cold. Candies from Iris, Windows 7 from Father, and a bath set from Sister's boyfriend rounded out the presents, all perfectly suited to my needs and dreams.

Hearts were so generous this year. Small whispers of little needs are not to be heard by any but the most attentive hearts, and I must admit I had never expected so many attentive hearts so close to home. My own heart had not been so attentive, though I made a firm effort. Lately, it's been difficult to push aside the troubles of my own heart and listen to the needs of others. Tonight was a pleasant reminder.

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.

Home?

I don't understand what makes a place a home. I mean, I understand the sense of happiness, of tranquility and goodness, since those are the states I value most. So I try to imbue my living quarters with those senses, but once my roommate enters, most of those senses disappear. Now, she's not a terrible girl, but I can't seem to have a living space with another individual. At least not with her. I can't work in my room, either, when she's there, I think (see, I don't really know what it would be like to have the room all to myself; I'd imagine the problems would be solve, but then again I could be completely wrong). So I trek to the Chemistry building, where I can best work. But now the journey becomes dredging. Other people seem so at home in their rooms, yet I can't stand to be in mine when I have work to do. What makes a place comfortable enough that you can do everything in it?

Life is like an ocean, and we are creatures of the sea

We can choose to stay on the surface, where life is sufficiently complicated. It's filled with good things, like sunlight, sprays, waves. It has other creatures to interact with. It has dangers (sharks) and harmless things (birds). It has struggles to endure against, like cold skies, rain, and pounding waves. But it should be our goal in life to dive, because beneath the water's surface there is an even bigger world whose depths are unfathomable. Once we've passed beneath the surface, the first few miles are a struggle as we are buoyant. This is equivalent to the first few years of university learning, where we are striving to understand life and our world.

But if we keep on swimming, there's a point of depth where we lose our buoyancy and start to sink, because the depths of the sea has caught us and it becomes easier and easier to go farther if we let it. In such depths, we will find fantastical things: glowing planktons, gigantic whales, beautiful anemones, and mysterious, sometimes dangerous things like the giant squid and certain sharks. Most normal, mortal dangers are found on the surface (most sharks are not depth creatures), and the dangers we encounter in the depths are different than them. This dive is representative of our personal intellectual pursuit into a subject that fascinates us, so that we might dive well into the depths and chart new course in that darkness.

We might also get caught up in undersea currents, which pull us along miles and miles of oceans but not necessarily any deeper into the sea, and is representative of an academic career, where things are maintained and expanded rather than delved into. I think it's arguable that amongst intellectuals, there is a sort of life where you slow the progress of depth and expand the progress of plurality, of sampling as many different things as you can without specializing in it, for knowledge's sake.

But getting past that first few miles near the surface is one of the most difficult challenges we all face. Probably up until now we have not gone very far from our family, who dwell majorily on the surface. This dive is an individual task, though we ask help of those around us, because it is the declaration of independence and striking out on our own. It's very intimidating to dive into the dark depths, but it's something we should look forward with curiosity and eagerness, for there are amazing things to be found in the depths that will never rise to the surface without our help.

Nicole's Wisdoms

• Intellectual pursuit in literature may be a play activity, but it should have weight; treat it with seriousness, but let yourself delight in it
• Sometime, say something strange and out-of-sorts just to see how people react to it.

Julia's Wisdom

• Talk with someone new for 10 minutes every day.
• When talking with someone you don't know every well, stick to basic questions: How are you doing? How's your day going? Are you ready for finals? How was break? Ready for break?
• Listen to their responses to start building a foundation of your understanding of who they are. Try to see how open they are to talking. If you find someone with an outlook that you like, consider being their friend. But use this method with everyone. The questions will start getting deeper and more meaningful as you get to know the person better.
• You should be an individual who knows herself well enough that she's not interesting in talking about herself and her philosophy; you're far more interesting in learning about the other person, who you don't know about, so let them talk and nudge them to show themselves to you.

Pride

I've been learning a lesson this week that I thought I've learned a long time ago, and it's a lesson on pride. Before now, I've always considered myself a humble person, and who can deny it? I'm an immigrant to the States at seven years old, I grew up close to poverty, attended mediocre public schools, and learned to live with little. Then all of a sudden, I'm one of the few kids from my high school attending an Ivy League. This newfound pride is greater than anything I've ever had before, such that lessons previously learned of humility faded away. Praises and admiration from those around me only bolstered this confidence, giving me the sense that I could do anything and stealing away my grasp of limitations.

Perhaps I should have listened harder when my senses tingled and warned me that I was letting the situation push my confidence beyond reasonable limits. But never before had I something to be proud of with this magnitude, and so I paid little attention to my instincts.

For the last couple of months, I've been more insecure and angry and frustrated than I've ever been in my life. Most of it comes from taking an accelerated calculus 1 course without a calculus background. The new sense of having gotten into such a great college left me with the impression that I could do anything, if only I worked hard enough, and this falsely translated into the idea that I could do absolutely anything at any time, with as much ease as anybody else. Wrong. I could eventually do anything I set my heart on, but only through a long stretch of time. I could get into a really good college, better than my sister's track, but only after four years of hard work in high school. I cannot succeed in Math 41 without prior calculus studies, and I will not be happy if I tried. I have not been happy.

Not that wise people haven't been telling me otherwise. My academic advisor stated from the start that, with my mathematical background, Math 19 was by far the better, saner choice. But I did not listen. And if it hadn't been for a good friend who yesterday sat me down and implored me to switch to Math 20 next quarter, I might have kept on my unhappy, stubborn ways. Thank God for the dear friends who spend so much time begging you to be happy; I have a note to listen to them more seriously in the future.

The thing is, ambition is permissable, but never pride. Never, never, never pride. Understanding your limits is, in fact, not a recognition of weakness, but a planned attack of strength. The turtle's slow path triumph overs the speedy hare. And true friends are found among those who wish to never see you unhappy. So many lessons I've learned since childhood that has served me well has lately been forgotten, blinded by pride. I must deafen myself to the meaningless accomplishments of others, quell the prideful monster that rears its head eager for an unreasonable challenge, and understand that I am, in fact, not a wonderful, gifted person, and should not strive to be so.

Strive, then, to simply be better than you are now, and make this your goal for the rest of your life. Make your goals small and humble, and create new ones as you accomplish them. And don't forget to stop, breathe, and turn your face to the sky.