Some Random Unrelated Thoughts

Sometimes the mind has to figure things out on its own.

Celebrating the Holidays with loved ones is doing it right.

The TiVo's excessive appetite to record multiple shows perpetuates the laziness that haunts humanity and contributes to our intellectually declining society and unproductive habits.

Explore who you are by doing things that are different from the people around you.

Write down things you've always wanted to experience and go through the list throughout the year.

Life is Just a Game

Some people are better at it than others. I wonder if that's true. It's just a thought that entered my mind. On one end, I don't think it's true. Life is more than some game. It involves our lives, dreams, goals, aspirations, and pain. To deduce my life into a game is insulting. Then again, here's a definition: a competitive activity involving skill, chance, or endurance on the part of two or more persons who play according to a set of rules, usually for their own amusement or for that of spectators. I guess it depends on how you live, but I live life competitively, mostly with myself to achieve more than I have in the past. It certainly involves skill and endurance, and from time to time, chance plays a role. There are most definitely more than two people involved in your life, no matter how alone you feel that contribute some fundamental role. We all live to achieve some sort of goals, whether it's to please ourselves or others. If that's true, then how come some people are better at the game of life than others?

Accumulating Thoughts

There are a lot of things I want to express, so I thought I put them into a list to keep track of them.

1. The "Right" Way to Clean a Rice Cooker
2. How to Launder Your Bras
3. Online Fitness
4. Unsnapping Bras
5. Being Typecast That Kind of Girlfriend
6. Retarded Drivers
7. Meanness isn't Passive Behavior to Me
8. Ignoring my House Rules
9. Betrayal is Betrayal
10. 2 lbs. Does Not Equate 5 lbs. No Matter the Repetition
11. Dating Guidelines
12. Stupidly Perpetuating My Anger
13. No Permanent Guests!
14. Being Misdiagnosed as Impatient
15. Choosing Between Being a Good Friend or Being a Concerned Citizen
16. Washing the Dishes by Not Washing the Dishes?
17. Attracting Racists
18. Her Bullshit Filtration System
19. Being Deduced to a Liar
20. My "Mom" Friend
21. Experience Does Not Always Equal Knowledge (weddings)
22. Sheltered Friends Making Unqualified Criticisms
23. Lunch is Not the Most Important Meal of the Day
24. I Am Working on a Book
25. Gluten Isn't a Common Knowledge
26. Driver's Idiocacy Being Projected onto Me
27. Inability to Acknowledge Stupidity or Ignorance
28. Being Objective and Logical Does Not Make Me Narrow-minded
29. Not All Frames are Equal
30. Lasagna with Dry Noodles?!?!?

A Failed Understanding of Failures

This is the first time I’ve really had opportunities to make mistakes and live with the consequences. In the past, I was forced to deal with my consequences. But so much was at stake that I didn’t make as many risks, which resulted in fewer failures. As much as I advocate for the necessity of failures because of the life lessons we’re left with, I found myself taking this belief to a logical extreme. Budgeting oversights has eaten away at my money. If I created a list of items I had to get and I underestimated, I was left with less money, sometimes a few days worth of food. My boyfriend would be more than willing to provide me with some money, but I didn’t ask for his help. I saw that as rewarding me for my mistakes. It wasn’t until he realized how undernourished I was that this all became clear to me. I could sustain some skipped meals, and it’s the consequence I would have to pay for lost money is and was my perspective, a disturbing one at that. Failures can be helpful, if and when you reflect on them productively, not when you use your failures as a way to perpetuate the problem or create new ones.

Every So Often People Surprise You

My "birthday" wasn't very anything. My boyfriend got sick. At the risk of sounding insensitive and unromantic, I didn't want to risk getting contaminated. I get feverish easily, to the point that I risk hospitalization. It's not an experience I want to have again, nor is it something I can afford. Not to mention, I have indoor allergies. So I couldn't stay home for very long anyways. I don't have high expectations of my birthdays. I don't have very good memories of them. If anything, it's an opportunity my parents use to remind me that I was unplanned inconvenience, as though their irresponsibility is my fault. I don't like the frosting on birthday cakes, and I find the Happy Birthdays signs to be tacky. What's the point of buying a cake that no one finishes? It's such an unnecessary waste of food and money when there are other ways to appreciate my birth. If you really want to wish me a happy birthday, you can do that with an absence of a birthday cake. Don't get me wrong. I'm not vehemently opposed to celebrating my birthday, but I'm neutral about it. So if it goes unnoticed, that's okay. I think it's a little desperate and demeaning to advertise your birthday as a way to coerce your friends on spending money they don't have, so they can secretly resent you for a birthday they didn't ask for. I find it distasteful when people brag about their upcoming birthday to satisfy their greed. My friends know my birthday, so if they want to acknowledge it, then great. If not, that's fine, too. Everyone has lives, and I understand that. I usually accept that my birthday won't be a big deal or accept that it will be. But I don't like it when the decision is determined for me, which is what I thought would happen if I moved beforehand. I looked forward to the opportunity to have a choice. I actually thought this year a real birthday would be a possibility, and the idea appealed to me. The first time I ever looked forward to it. Not only did my expectations fall short for a birthday, but it wasn't even an enjoyable time at all. I wasn't even able to stay in my own home without allergic reactions. I couldn't be around my boyfriend or be there for him when he was sick. I felt like a bitch. Not that it mattered. He was so delirious from his cold medication that he couldn't even string a coherent sentence together. I also didn't have anything else better to do than intentionally avoid my boyfriend and my own home. So, birthday, aside, it was a crappy situation. My friends and I have lost touch. With school either ending or beginning, they've been really busy. So I didn't want to push myself on them. They usually call when they have time and want to hang. When they don't, it's because they're swamped. Now, I'm sure if I called, blabbing about my birthday, they would've compromised their priorities. But that's so unfair to them. Although my friend's didn't make an elaborate gesture about my birthday, I was grateful when I realized that they hadn't forgotten and were thinking of me. I'm still enormously dissatisfied with the outcome, but it feels good when people show and express that they care about you, no matter how much of a reality it already is and should go without saying.

How Lucky I Am to be So Unlucky

I mostly resent my unlucky nature and with good reason. When I’m asleep, when I should be breathing involuntarily, I wake up in a panic with blue skin because there wasn’t enough oxygen circulating in my body, accompanied by a violent headache. I don’t have any other symptoms of sleep apnea, specialists have also ruled that out, and I’m not overweight. I’m doing everything I can and should be doing. In cold weather, I have poor circulation and develop knots so severe that my friends describe as mutating, which results in excruciatingly painful legs and shoulders. In the heat, I develop heat rashes and sun poison so severe that I’ve almost been hospitalized in a mere 100 degrees F. When I get cold sores, the majority of my lips are occupied with yellow pus. And every time I talk, it oozes. I have to drink through a straw because drinking out of a cup reopens my wounds and I start to bleed, again. When my apartment had no running water for a week, I got an eye infection within three days. I can’t stay out as long as I’d like because bras make my skin break out into a rash. It isn’t the laundry detergent, material being used, or the size. My back is overarched, so the natural alignment of my spinal structure is always stressed. My misaligned back throws my neck alignment off, throwing my shoulders off, my hips are off because of my spine, so my weight is shifted unevenly on my knees and ankles. I have imbalanced hormones, so I have symptoms similar to senior citizens and problems that women with menopause face. I do a complete background check on my physician. Everything seems to clear, and she mistakes my prescription three times! I seem to be the only one experiencing account errors at my bank, misplacement of my transcripts, etc. It makes life a bitch. I should be grateful for what I have, and I try to be. For the most part, I’m good about it. But on some days, the last thing I care about is that some people have it worse than me. I’m not those other people. I never seem to take a break. It’s hard to be grateful comparatively to something I don’t understand. It’s much easier for me to be grateful with something I’m exposed to. To some extent I know that I’m a strong person. But I feel like if I were really strong, I would’ve developed into a more resilient, self-disciplined, and tolerant person. I’ve had an extremely difficult childhood growing up, and I defy all of the statistics. Yet, I feel like I have the characteristics of a weak person, complaining and being unhappy with my problems. Then again, I am a strong person because I’ve seen someone I care about complain over some menial things. You’re scared walking two blocks in a safe neighborhood because you’re too lazy to drive? After two months working at a job with basic tasks that most minors can teach themselves, and you don’t know what to do because your manager won’t train you. After a certain point, that’s a reflection on your learning potential. If you’re not satisfied with where you are, you can find another job…you can ask co-workers for help…you can try relying on your own knowledge…you can stop complaining about other people’s shortcomings and improve upon your own…you can try exerting some self-reliance. Blinding yourself to the choices ahead of you or occupying your time complaining about something you can’t change perpetuates weak-willed tendencies. I can’t understand how some people become so overwhelmed with the smallest things that I barely acknowledge. I know everyone’s different, but I’m a highly stressed person. There’s a difference between not being able to cope and finding things to not cope about. I guess not everyone can tell the difference. It came as a surprise for me because I thought she was stronger than that. I thought we were alike. If that were true, that mirrors poorly on me. As my boyfriend put it, “If you don’t have to be strong, you’re usually not.” I never felt that I was strong because I endured the crap that happens in my life. It enters my life without my say. What else am I supposed to do? I guess it never occurred to me that I could just give up. My endless misfortunate has never made me consider giving up. It’s only given me daily opportunities to try and change things for the better, not give me an opening to complain, so I can harvest an environment for a self-defeatist outlook. If I didn’t want to live in it, I wouldn’t be around. I’m not one to accept things, and I always thought that made me weak. As it turns out, that makes me strong. I have the willingness to oppose authority for a better future. My unluckiness has exposed me to a world of unfairness that I battle. If I were lucky, I would never have to endure the crap I deal with, but I’d also be weak. I don’t have time, and I’m too strong of a person to complain over ignorable matters. The things I complain about interfere with my daily life, and I find ways to make it worth. I never realized this before, but my unluckiness has made me the resilient and strong person I am today.

Trying New Foods

I want to refine my New Year's resolution of trying new foods by listing my interests. I plan to try at least one new food a month. As a way to prevent an overcrowded, distracting list, I’ll only list off foods I think I can realistically eat. I know that sounds potentially closed-minded, but I prefer to be goal-oriented. Besides, I’d rather complete my list than be overburdened by it. I have a separate list elsewhere with foods I want to eat that aren’t available locally.

Unfortunately, my local WILD OATS has closed down. I wish I took advantage of it more because I would have liked to buy one new thing a month, outside of my list, something completely new and foreign to experiment with. If the opportunity permits, I'll take advantage of it.

Condiments

1. Sherry Vinegar
2. White Balsamic Vinegar
3. Champagne Vinegar
4. Black Salt
5. Red Salt

Dairy

1. Goat Cheese
2. Goat Milk
3. Farm Fresh Milk
4. Greek Yogurt

Vegetables

1. Frisée
2. Watermelon Radish
3. Fingerling Potatoes
4. Purple Potatoes
5. Fennel
6. Cucumber Lemon

Fruits

1. Fresh Tamarind
2. Preserved Meyer Lemons
3. Fresh Guava

Grains

1. Quinoa
2. Flaxseed
3. Red Rice

Seafood

1. Blowfish

Meat & Poultry

1. Goat