Let Me Tell You A Story...

I may be like 20 of those plays.

My mother is making ramen for me right now, while I hack out my emotions since it’s been awhile, and I’ve been in a whirlwind of things that have kept me away. 

I think the past two hours I have been over come by so many different emotions. Just two hours thirty minutes ago, my chest was heavy and it hurt. The semester was about to close with ten minutes left. And one of my group projects had just put things together and turned it in to the drive folder. We were getting there...

And we submitted it at 11:58pm, with two minutes to spare. final checks. yes. we were done. At then the clock turned midnight. Hello May 25th.

And the feeling, I can’t quite describe but its the feeling of everything from this semester, or this year just coming to a close. 

So as I continue to type and to reflect, I only ask that if you keep reading you 

(1) Give me the chance to explain myself. These are many of my raw emotions. And I don’t type them out to brag, or to gloat over -- I’m more surprised over anything.

(2) Don’t get too concerned. And again, I’m not trying to pre-suppose your feelings or thoughts. I type this out because I’m okay now. I’m at a good place, and sometimes it takes looking back to see how far I’ve actually come and it’s been a really long time since I’ve sat down and thought about the past. 

Thank you friends. 

Back to that feeling. It still lingers even as it turns 2:35am. Maybe it’s like closure to a bad break up, but all that pain and all that stress and burden and unhealthy habits and everything. It’s come to an end. And somehow I made it.

I really quite amazed I’m alive right now. Because so many nights I’ve been scared of myself or the thoughts in my head. I just wanted to quit. Whatever that meant, I never entertained the idea. I didn’t want to. But over the course of this semester I have lost so much motivation to live. There’s a tint of depression somewhere there, but now and then I retract from saying so. I don’t wan’t to be depressed. I don’t want to be another anxious college student. But the reality was I’d sleep for 14+ hours, and wake up, lie in my bed wishing the day would be over, yet feeling crushed by everything. I had meetings, classes, work, projects to attend and responsibilities. But I could barely think ahead as to what I would do even if I managed to sit up. It’d be easier to just let everything fall. Reminds me of the story of Samson -- I felt like I was holding those two pillars up, and at any time, or any trigger I would just die with all of my problems. And for some strange reason, that sounded so peaceful and so easy. And it’s been so long since I’ve had peace or I’ve had easy. 

So this is where I want to thank those who have been around. Thank you to those who would stay up weird hours with me, or would eat dinner with me around 9pm, because those were some of my moments where I tried to live where I was searching for something, and I guess it was those moments that kept me alive.

Thank you for being forgiving when I would flake. Thank you for not giving me a hard time when I’d miss board game nights. Thanks for letting me sleep over some times when I didn’t want to be alone. Or staying up with me because I didn’t want to be alone. Thank you for feeding me, for driving me places. Thank you for helping me with projects, or with home works, for solving simple matters for me. Thank you doing things so willingly when I’d ask for help. Thank you for understanding my tiredness, and my messes. Thank you for picking up the phone when I’d be paralyzed by anxiety in the car, or in my apartment. Thank you for praying for me. Thank you for keeping me alive. 

Because just in this moment, I actually feel like a person. And I can feel some life in me. Yes, I still have to go to work in a few hours, and there are several emails to send and errands to run and people to meet, but at this moment. God is so good to give me this moment. To remind me of what love He’s shown by the people around me and those who care for me. 

This has been the roughest school year. I had worked summer 2016, and then started the semester with a hurting heart accumulated from several different instances. For this semester I had to adapt to new things -- working a job, being a TA, running a hackathon, cooking for myself. This meant 10hrs working, 10hrs TA-ing, 10hrs of meetings for hackathon/scholars program. and several hours trying to sleep, be a student and take care of myself. My grades dropped, I’d lose weight, work off of 1 meal a day and I’d average maybe around 5 hours of sleep per night. All on top of that I’d be interviewing or phone screening or sending emails with some company every week looking for an internship. That’s not right. Come winter break, I have a week for the holidays and then I flew out on December 26th to HK to start working at HKU. Helped out in their Teaching and e-Learning tools Dept. unit and I really enjoyed the work I was doing there, and being close to family. It was difficult being far from home and far from people, but it was a nice half break. I came to second semester missing the first week, and who knew that you’d already be behind after one week. There was so much work to catch up on. I made a horrible, terrible mistake of taking four computer science. I don’t care who you are, or how many times you’ve done it. but taking four is not wise. it is foolish. it is a mistake. and if you come to me thinking to take four. I’d think you are foolish to waste a semester so. and having chosen this schedule for myself, I had no reason to complain when it got tough. Or that was my mentality. I’m not too sure what to say when people tell me their workload, I don’t want to compare myself with what they have, and I had so little energy even to get through my own needs like cooking or showering, that I really couldn’t comfort myself or others much. So I told myself I wouldn’t tell people of the work I had to do. And yea I probably have said it a couple times, but I tried to not get into details. I’d find ways to figure it out, or would just manage. But it got rough maybe the second or third week into the semester having lost a family member. It was the first time I’d have to deal with loss, and being alone in Maryland when it happened made it difficult. And from there everything assignment was a clutch, or a desperate grab to keep hanging on. Each morning or meeting was tiring. I could tell my memory was fading, my performance was lacking and in so many ways I lost out on this semester. 4 out of my 5 classes were group projects. Each of which had a different dynamic. And having to spread myself across for my five classes, the hackathon, and work I could not play a dutiful part in these groups which made me feel guilty, and incapable which came back only to bring me down. 

So when midnight came. All of that ^ came to an end, and I felt it come off my shoulders and my chest. and the feeling was bliss. I cried so hard. I was shaking from this strange feeling of relief. My mom held me as I bawled because this semester could’ve killed me and now it’s gone. And when I got home, I cried some more. When I saw my dad I cried again. and as I’m typing this tears are rolling down. because I can actually breathe. Even though I have work in about 10 hours. I can breathe, cos I’ve done my best and it’s passed.

I think I can say I honestly have learned more about myself. I know better now. I know to take it light. If anything, I need to find more time to enjoy life in the present. Why rush? I’ve missed so much at the speed I was going, and it killed me. You realize things keep moving on, and you have the ultimate deciding factor of what you get yourself into. If you get caught up in doing things to maybe graduate early, or to look impressive, or to be so well accomplished, you miss out on things that you want to do, or things that are more meaningful.