www.lifeisbeautiful-jhomies.blogspot.com/

that's my new summer blog of my european adventures. check it out. i'll be posting on that fairly often of where i'm at, what i'm doing, how i'm feeling.

I feel like i just woke out of a two month stupor. Since when was it June? Last I checked it was Late April. That's the last time I really looked at a calendar, bothered to remember. Since then, it's been nothing but a blur of bright lights bouncing off of beer cans and shot glasses. Of empty beds and beds too full. At least I never ended up in a bed I didn't know. At least most the time, I never even got laid. Most of the time, I was just smiling drunk and free.

I can feel my body starting to drag with the pace of the life I have set, and it makes me break out epically and horribly, like I can fight it. Just A giant, sputtering flash of a fire cracker. I had been ignoring the inner demons for so long. Thinking I had tackled them and owned them when really I had just put them in a flimsy cage. It's hard, to think that you're a better person now, that you've come so far, only to have the worst of you come back for more. Zombies, why the hell do we deal with Zombie misgivings? They don't make a flame thrower for that!

And then you wake up realizing the people who matter you haven't heard from in a week. a month - so long it's abnormal. And you haven't talked to them, either. The Two-Way street is closed, and who knows who put up the road blocks. And you're sitting there wondering if it's worth it to walk down the road anyway. But you feel guilty, you feel a need to explain. Who would really listen though? Your words fall on a humid breeze, palpable, but tolerable.

I can still make sense of my life, and myself - I'm just wondering what's triggered my sudden relapse into stupid high school mentalities. Every party is an "I don't give a damn" fiesta. And I wake up with led-body-syndrome, wondering how my heart made it out of the night alive.

I need to get back from where ever I'm going. I'm tired. I think I'm going crazy - but the sane can tell right before they slip. So maybe not crazy yet. Road Weary. I'm road weary but I have no idea where to go.

thank you. i know it's a silly, fictional ingot of internet love, but i really appreciate it. ♥

I came to college to get a degree, but really I am here to learn about myself. I am studying English/writing and Women's Studies...and both of these things are about me. I see myself so much in the things I am doing. It's like every day, little parts of myself are in the discourse and course work of academia.

At the same time, I've been seeing a counselor. I have dealt with major depression and anxiety my whole life...as well as some other things.

I came to a strange realization this week. I started to think of my mother as an abuser, as an oppressor, as someone who has more consistently made me unhappy than anyone else I know. I never knew why, when we spoke over the phone or in person, I would always get angry. Then after, I would become horribly sad, to the point of wanting to die. I would feel like a little child. There were reasons for my anger and my sadness, but I didn't know what. But now I do.

The more I thought about it, the more it made sense. And I realized that if I ever wanted to find peace, if i wanted even a chance at finding my own happiness, I would have to be me-- just me, not what my mom wants, or what my family wants, or what society wants, or what having money wants. I just have to be me, and that's all.

I wrote a letter with all my grievances and my thoughts and feelings. I sent it. I cried. a lot.

I don't really know how to feel right now. I feel a little freer. Of course I am scared. Terrified even. My girlfriend doesn't like what I did, and well...I am starting to consider that maybe we aren't the best for each other. We are very different. But maybe it's for the best.

There was once a time when I believed that happiness was something you had to get from other people, but as I get older, it has become quite the opposite. I have to find my own happiness.

I've been watching Dexter lately, the Showtime program about the guy who is a bloodwork/forensics specialist in the day, but a serial killer at night (only bad guys). Despite being a male-centered show (especially in terms of Dexter's daddy issues and the entire dynamic of the police department and the supporting characters), a huge part of the show focuses on Dexter's feelings, and how, after witnessing the murder of his mother, the trauma transformed him into something else.

It's funny how much of myself I see in Dexter- the idea of knowing all the social rules and expectations of others (there is a lot of discussion about the "mask" he puts on for others), but not having any idea of how to experience them....or maybe not even experiencing them at all. People who have experienced trauma have to put up walls and shields in order to even function. If Dexter had not repressed the memory of his mother's murder, there is no way he would have been able to function growing up. But the memory came out in other ways - there was an anger in him. The need to kill.

There are times when I feel like I am just sort of...living and breathing, and not really experiencing the world. It's like my emotions are sort of muted or lost somewhere inside of me. I don't know if it's because I have too much emotion or not enough. Sometimes I am afraid that if I let these things out, I would just fall to pieces, or explode and lose myself and not be able to do anything at all. I am afraid that if I did, I would cry, and I wouldn't be able to stop. Maybe not ever.

There are other times when I feel like the world is too much for me- like I experience so much and I am so sensitive to it all that if I did express that feeling, I would burst. I don't know what this is inside of me- this strange paradox of too much and not enough. But I think there is a Dexter inside of me- maybe not a killer, but something that even I don't know completely.

Just a little background- I go to Berea College, a school which is known for giving full scholarships to students who fall under a certain income level. Despite this, however, there are still different levels of wealth and class here- some people have shiny toys and ipods, while others have to really scrape by on their paychecks to pay for books, medication, and their term bill (which is still there, thanks to federal laws which have minimum expected family contributions on the FAFSA).

==

A few days ago, I noticed this posting on the Berea College Classified Ads:

COMPUTER BACKUP FOR UPGRADING JUNIORS

UnBerean: Hey all I have a 750 GB external hard drive (equivalent to 10 senior computers) and I am offering to back up files, including all music, pictures, and photos for only 5 Please contact me to set an appointment.

==

In response to this, I posted my own ad:

DATA BACKUP FOR LAPTOP UPGRADES - FREE

Me: I don't believe in exploiting students at a college where we are all lacking in funds, so I am offering data backups free of charge. I have a 1 terabyte (1000 gb) external harddrive, and I can also burn data on DVDs for you. Just email me and we can arrange a time.

==

Today, got this email:

UnBerean:
In response asking 5$ is not an exploit. No need to be angry about my entrepreneurship!
Have a happy break!

==

My response:

If you truly felt that way, you wouldn't have needed to defend yourself. It IS an exploit in that you are taking advantage of people's lack of knowledge about computers. What you are doing is the same as people who try to make a few bucks by pawning tickets to sold-out convos. People like you, who create tiny little instances of "entrpreneurship", laziness, and skirting of the rules and social respectability that prevent this school from being even greater than it could.

Have a nice break.
Chungyen Chang

==

I couldn't resist sending this little addendum later:

i believe strongly in the idea that nothing happens without a reason. i don't think that there are things that are simply "bad" or "wrong", with huge black and white divisions- if something "bad" happens, you are going to learn something from it- you will mature and grow from that experience.

as a society we like to pretend that there are no problems. we'd rather sweep our issues under the carpet. when someone has a problem- when they are different, or strange, or have experienced some struggle or tragedy or whatever, we don't know how to process it. it's because we have been raised in a society of black and white- there are no grey areas.

i have told people about my life, and a lot of the time, the most i get is "oh. i'm sorry that so and so happened to you", or "i'm sorry you had to go through that". why are you sorry? if i didn't struggle and hurt and experience life, i would be devoid of personality. i'd be boring as hell and i'd sitll be stuck in a little bubble of ignorance, pretending that i was happy while things were actually pretty damn terrible.

and even though these things (depression, divorce, being bisexual, a gender identity crisis, my body trying to destroy itself, two suicide attempts, sexual abuse, changing schools more times than i can count, and more) seem as if they were beyond my control, there was always a choice in how i took it. I could have given up. I could have said, "fuck it" and jumped off a bridge, or gotten myself piss drunk and fucked up my life, but i didn't. i decided that continuing was better than the other choice, and i don't want to hear apologies or shallow statements of empathy because i am the person i am now due to these experiences, and the choices i made.

and...well. i like who i am.

i really dislike 90% of the people on Melo.

it isn't immaturity that bothers me. it's the self-serving, selfish and narcissistic atittude that is so prevalent among people my age.

it's sad. it makes me sad. =(

i feel like there is just everything wrong with me.

it's not necessarily like, i feel that i have a bunch of flaws or that i'm not good at X or bad at Y. it's like i honestly, genuinely feel that there is just something terribly wrong with me, something wrong with who i am and just the very essence of me.

i don't really know how to explain this feeling. it reminds me of this time i got into a fight with my mom over the phone. i told her that i wanted to major in vocal music, and she said i'd end up poor and she wouldnt pay for my college if i did that. i told her that i had to, because when i sing, i stop feeling sad- i am just happy and i feel okay and i know that i want to be. i stop feeling like there is something wrong with me. and she said that there wasn't anything wrong with me.

i don't know if this has to do with things that have happened to me, like some weird repression or reverse emotional backflow that never got out or dealt with and it got all twisted up inside and now i can't feel whole. maybe i am just being a drama queen and exaggerating bullshit. what the fuck- why does "exaggerating" have two g's in it? that's fucking bullshit. fuck you, English language.

i really don't know. i can't really think right now. i think i should sleep instead of typing this. i really want to cry, but i dont know if i should or if i can.

In my autobiography class, we have been reading the journal of Etty Hillesum. She was an incredibly intelligent, philosophical young woman living during the Holocaust. She died at Auschwitz before she was 30, but her letters and journal were collected, translated, and published by relatives.

I think that, amidst all the talk of numbers and statistics, of millions and millions dead, of remembering and never forgetting the Holocaust, we overlook the fact that, of the 11 million lives lost, every single one was a unique and valuable human individual. These people were not defined by the fact that they died in a war. Long before the war even began, they had their own loves, families, lives, and careers. They thought and breathed and broke bread together and they felt.

Etty was not perfect- she was far from it. She had moments when she gave in to hatred, and she cursed the Germans and wanted every German person to die. But she knew that, deep inside, if even one German person was good, then it was wrong to call them all evil. She believed in the power of hope and the goodness in all of us- one of the last things she left for this world was the message that "we should be willing to act as balm for all wounds."

I want to be someone who does this. I want to leave my mark on the world- one that lasts and heals. The question is, how? We were all gifted with certain talents, certain advantages and disadvantages that let us see the world in different ways. Some of us write, or sing, or play sports. Some people haven't discovered their talents yet, but they are there.