resolutions

i've been doing some thinking, now that a new year is about to dawn.

i have never usually cared about new year's. to me, time has always been just that -- time. it's just there, whether you like it or not and, in the end, time is god. it marches on, whether we are cognizant of it or not, evermore bringing all of us who have been endowed some way, somehow, with the gift of life all the more closer to death.

not to be morbid. i'm just being realistic -- that's all! i swear!

i'm finally reaching an age where i can appreciate just how precious little time that all of us humans are given to be alive, even those of us who manage to live a long, fruitful lives and reach decrepit ages. as such, i can appreciate the symbolism behind the otherwise seeming arbitarariness that is new year's day more today, at age 27, then i could have even a couple of years ago at the age of 25.

that being said, i've been in the midst of reassessing my life and the occurrences this past year, which made 2007 simultaneously one of the most difficult and emotionally draining and yet one of the most hopeful years i've had in my life thus far.

i won't get all cheesy and re-cap every little detail that i loved and loathed about the year. that kind of stuff is hokey, ain't it?

instead, i'll talk about revelations.

one of the things that i had hoped for, when i started up this abbagirl persona here on blogger, was that i could make an attempt to honestly explore my feelings on certain personal matters that i felt that i could not express to anyone who knows me in real life. and to a great extent, it has helped me so much in that department.

but at the same time, being abbagirl has not been everything i thought it would be, either. in fact, i find that having this persona as well as my other "normal," "real-life" blogging persona on another blog-host site has only caused me to do that which i otherwise do in real life and often find to be a burden: maintain and juggle facades.

it is no one's fault but my own. i let myself get so caught up in trying to be so damned likeable. on a general basis, i consider it to be no big deal to be the one to make my personality malleable to those of others. if i have to be the one to bend a little to get along with others and be likeable, then so be it; i can do it.

i think i've talked about it on this blog before, how easy it is for me to get along well with others because i can put on any kind of social mask to match up with other people's personalities, no matter how diverse they are. and my genuine interest in humanity also helps me find those other commonalities i have with other people.

i had hoped that being abbagirl would help me get rid of all these social masks that i wear and let me show my true self in all its ugliness; having social masks, while a great asset a lot of time, can also be a burden, too. not being very savvy or skillful, i have only managed to make myself feel just as lost as i did before, if not more so.

so what i have found is that this mantle of abbagirl has come with a number of its own burdens. i will always be this abbagirl to a certain extent. at the same time, abbagirl is just not me as much as i had hoped she'd be.

don't worry -- abbagirl will still continue to exist. she will post comments on all her favorite blogs just like she usually does. she abba-solutely loves all the blogs that she's had the good fortune of finding out here on the web and will continue to read their witty, insightful, hilarious, and moving words each and every day.

but abbagirl as blogger will disappear into the night as unobtrusively as she appeared.

it was a hard decision to make, surprisingly. you'd think that since this is just a blog, i'd have no problem just up and deleting it when the time came. but no, this has actually been on my mind quite a bit the past couple of weeks. and there has always been something holding me back all those times when i considered hitting the "delete blog" button.

but this is a new year. and i want to make changes to how i live, how i think, how i act, and how i let the personalities and whims of others dictate the type of person i show myself to be.

that just needs to change. and it starts here and now.

however, i leave open the possibility that abbagirl is not outright dead. maybe she is more "me" than i give her credit for, and i only need to discover this for myself. who knows. i'm still on the journey of self-discovery that i never thought i'd be on when approaching the age of 30. so i may resurrect dear sweet abbagirl if or when the time is right. after all, it has already happened; she did fake her own death earlier this year only to make a sudden reappearance a few weeks later.

so why don't we just say that she is currently in at least a comatose state and leave it at that for now?

by that, i mean this kind of comatose state:

not this:

so no goodbyes!

just a boston song. for now.

Boston- Long Time (1976)

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happy new year, everyone! i love you all!

more peeves

yesterday was my first night of bar review. the class went pretty late last night.

against my better resolve, i let myself get talked into a party last night. i left my house at around 11:30 p.m. and didn't come home until a quarter to 2. i got only five hours of sleep.

i know lots of people can get by on five hours of sleep just fine. but abbagirl cannot! abbagirl needs a good eight to ten in order to have a happy day!

it was a bad idea to go out. but i went 'cause i felt obligated. and i had an okay time -- if getting someone else's puke on your designer jeans is considered "okay." :-P ha! but that's not actually why i had a rather lackluster time. i just didn't really know anyone there.

but i did have this really delicious drink that tasted perfectly awesome. it's what led to my downfall and made me too tired to wanna stay up late and do my homework, which was supposed to involve spending 3 hours doing a practice MPT.

i've learned my lesson -- no more parties during bar review!! or at least no parties where you know you won't have a great time and the only thing you can do to have fun is drink one delicious cocktail after another.

;)

anyway, so yeah, that's why i ended up coming to class completely empty-handed today.

and i was tardy, too. i hate being tardy for anything! but finding parking was a complete pain in the rear and nearly impossible downtown. i gave myself a 40 minute cushion to find parking, too, but ended up using the entire cushion -- and then some. i wasn't the only one late, but class was held up until the other tardy dude and i arrived.

it was embarassing.

anyhow, i have to vent about something.

my older sister's b.f.f. really irritates me. i find her ultra-annoying.

the b.f.f. is chinese-american, married with three kids, and just a few years older than my sister. she and my sister have been b.f.f. for about a year now, having met at work. they hit it off instantaneously and are now inseparable. they spend quite a lot of time together at work, they carpool together, and they spend time together in the evenings, too.

i have hung out with the b.f.f. only a few times. the first time i met her, a number of months ago, it was for lunch at a noodle place. my sister had been keen on having us meet; she had told b.f.f. all about my charming ways, the b.f.f. was intrigued and said she wanted to meet me, and so eventually this lunch was set up.

in my eyes, the lunch was disappointing. for someone who allegedly professed to wanting to meet me, she didn't seem to want to acknowledge my presence. yes, she totally and completely ignored me and barely paid me a second glance. at first, i thought it was because of shyness; after all, i'm just a stranger. so while she and my sister conversed, i'd listen and then contribute to the conversation. but even then, no. nothing. jokes, smiles, witticisms? i did them all and still could not get accepted into their conversation. so lunch couldn't end quick enough for me.

like, whatev. i'm TRYING here, ya know? and the girl, although completely nice, was not being very helpful.

so i was, like, fine. i know the score. it's over before it's begun. buh-bye. have a nice life, and don't let the door smack your ass on the way out.

imagine my surprise when, during the succeeding months, my sister would try to get me to hang out with her crowd and say, "oh, b.f.f. really wants you to hang out and come to such-and-such a party!"

i'd try to hide my disbelief and just be all, "yeah, uh-huh. um, sure. oh! darn it, don't you know, i promised to go to this other thing already! er, maybe next time, all right?"

but still, over the past year or so, i haven't completely managed to avoid the b.f.f. over time, the b.f.f. has thawed, though, and has begun making more eye-contact and is not making as much of a concerted effort to exclude me from conversations or exchanges. but there's this gap that continues to be in place.

which is cool. to each his own, ya know? i can get along with her for my sister's sake.

but what annoys me most is that, when i'm hanging with her, she makes certain statements that convey to me that she thinks she knows my sister better than me.

it's happened a number of times, not just once. so i know i'm not imagining it. and it irks me. like, i'll be just chatting with her and say something teasing about my sister, and she'll just give this pause and say, ". . . i know."

it just flips me OUT, i tell you! i really wanna sock her in the nose. like, who is she to demonstrate to me that she knows my sister better than me?

and yet at the same time, i must acknowledge: there are now things that i really don't know about my sister and that she does know better than me.

i guess this is a major part of why i'm irked -- because it is true that she knows my sis better.i feel, in many ways, that the b.f.f. has taken my place in my sister's life.

so yeah, okay. maybe a little tiny bit of jealousy. :-P

at the same time, my 'tude to the b.f.f. is, "go ahead and take my sister! i don't care!" because my sister has gotten weird.

but then, the crux, again, is that she only has gotten weird because of the b.f.f.

there are a number of reasons why i think the b.f.f. and the b.f.f.'s crowd is weird. they are ghetto. i am not. few of them graduated from college, while i, of course, did. they speak in colloquial ghetto talk. i do not; i talk exactly as i blog -- lots of colloquialisms but definitely not ghetto.

i know. you'd think that, because we're all asian, we'd have an instant asian connection. ;)

but believe it or not, there is nonetheless a huge culture and class clash between me and them. i neither have nor desire a suped-up rice rocket. i listen to hip-hop, r & b, and rap only occasionally, but i don't make a habit of it.

i drive a plain ol' pathfinder, i listen to rock n' roll, i am super nerdy, and i'm totally a whitebread L7.

sorry. sad but true.

and my sister is so different when she's with them. with me, with family, she's quiet, moody, temperamental, aloof. it's hard to tell when it's a good time to even say hi to her. for my part, i've learned, over the years, that there are just some things i can count on her and some things i cannot. and that has been hard for me to accept because i'm the type of person who is all in. if i'm a part of your life, and i like you, then there are no ifs, ands, or buts. there is nothing i would not do for you. i take after my mom in this respect, and that is why we are fiercely loyal to one another; no one else in our lives has this characteristic or even understands it.

with her friends, she's loose, child-like. nothing like what i'm used to seeing her as. so it's kinda weird, ya know?

still, if b.f.f. really wants to be my friend as much as she is my sister's, then she needs to do a little bit more than what she already has. i'm really easy, ya know. i can overcome any obstacles between any person and me and be friends with anybody. but it'd help if i could at least work with an open mind and heart. and you'll see that you don't need to try to one-up me in order to earn my respect.

just be open. and then trust me to do all the rest. you will love me within five seconds flat. or less. guaranteed.

keeping a sunny perspective during an otherwise grey day

i overslept this morning. i woke up at about 7:00 a.m.

and i had to go give someone a ride somewhere, too.

but i still got here at about 8:03 a.m.

:-D

i tend to sleep obliviously after partaking in even only one or two drinks. i just conk out for good.

and yesterday was a pretty long day. the mounds of paperwork never ends, and for some reason, this past week, it all go more out-of-control than i'm otherwise used to.

it didn't help that the commute home yesterday took an abnormal 90 minutes, instead of the usual 30 to 45. there is construction going on on the long stretch of road that i use to go home. we were all stretched out in a single lane. plus, the construction crew had turned off the stoplights at one of the busier intersections, and the people directing the flow of traffic there kinda forgot to let the stream of cars that i was in go.

so it actually took me 45 minutes to traverse 0.1 miles.

i was semi-annoyed.

only semi-annoyed, though. i was too busy being amused by the older hispanic lady in the mini-van behind me. at one point, after traffic had not moved a single inch for about 20 minutes, she started getting visibly agitated in her car. "what the fuck--!" i could see her mouthing. and she started jumping and bouncing in her car.

yeah, lady -- like that's going to be helpful. just chill!

but she amused me. that really helped me not to get too worked up about the otherwise obnoxious and irritating traffic lull.

it's all about maintaining a positive perspective.

and it did help to be able to close the day off with a beer. only a pint, though.

but that is why i get on so well with people. they think i'm a positive, joyful girl. in a way, i am, i guess. . . .

at the same time, i'm really not that positive. i just see things differently and am able to make peace with even the most difficult or negative situations. for some people, that reads positive; for me, i'm just calling things as i see them.

for someone who overslept a bit this morning, i am surprised at how un-lethargic i am. i've got energy and focus. i'm not picking up the phone today at all. i'm not going to run around. i'm just going to put my nose to the grind and get rid of all this damned paperwork i'm surrounded by. there is not a single square of my desk that is not cluttered. i can't stand it. so i'm shutting out the world today and am just gonna get all this shit out of the way.

and it is rather grey and rainy today. and cold. but i still find it to be rather beautiful today. sactown is the tree capital of the world -- so they say; apparently, there are more trees per square mile (or something like that) than any other city in the world. and today, i'm definitely appreciative of this. even though the skies are a dull grey, the trees and other vegetation, with their shiny sheen of moisture, offer such a crisp, colorful relief.

it's a beautiful sight, it really is.

so no, it is not that bad of a day, really. and i will just lay low and get all the stuff i need to do out of the way.

and then before long, i can greet the onset of weekend with a grateful embrace.