Today has been a wild day. I've gone through a whirlwind of thoughts and emotions, and I haven't actually physically done much at all. I guess I'll start from the beginning...
I woke up kind of late because my grandma had company over and I couldn't sleep. We talked for a bit and after they left at 11pm, I kept my grandma company while she cleaned the kitchen. It was almost midnight by the time we finally got to crawl into bed.
But I slept amazingly, the first time I didn't have any dreams in a long time. And aside from the occasional kick in the face from Liam, I wasn't disturbed. So I woke up at 9am. It would have been later but my grandma was making pancakes and I didn't want to miss them... and that's just me waking up.
After breakfast I wrote for a bit, watched some inspiring videos to put me in a good mood (the kind that I don't have time to watch in Chicago that give me all the feels), and also had my sister take the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator test. She was something along the lines of an ENTJ, which described her pretty accurately.
And I decided to look more at my Type just to know more about myself. I'm an INFP and I identify pretty strongly with most of the traits that are typical of one. Now I've always known that people like me, sensitive and creative, like to go into careers such as writers or social workers, but I've kind of avoided the thought.
Because I want to be an engineer. I mean, I joined robotics sophomore year and decided that I wanted to build things that make people's lives better. People would ask me what I wanted to study, what I wanted to be, and I could answer confidently "an engineer of some type, I don't know exactly what kind just yet." And I was happy. And people were happy.
And taking bio this past year, I started leaning more towards biomedical or biomechanical engineering. Thinking, "This is it: the best of both worlds. Bio and engineering, creating and people..." If only I could convince myself to stop right at that.
The problem with having a lot of time alone is that you think. And you start to doubt. And the thing is, I've had a lot of that lately. I've gone through these phases before, where I doubt all that I have come to know about my future self. Ask my best friend. She's heard every "epiphany" I've had this past school year regarding what I want to do. From epigenetics to pharmaceuticals, neurology to even writing, I'm no stranger to this type of freak out.
But rarely were they much of a problem. Like I said, I'd settle down and after maybe half a day I'd always come back to some type of engineering, happy to return to normalcy. But sometimes it would blow up. Physics was all kinds of stressful and when I got particularly caught up in it, doubt on my ability to become a decent engineer would resurface.
This past February I had a huge meltdown. The kind of meltdown that you remember for your entire life because it changes who you are. Physics wasn't working. I knew the concepts and felt I had a good grasp on them, it just took me a long time and sometimes approaches to problems and applications of concepts that were intuitive to others weren't so obvious to me. So I started dropping the engineering act or facade or whatever I had, and really looked into what I wanted.
I started thinking about why I wanted to be an engineer. And I got to the point where I realized, with help from friends, that what I really wanted to do was help people. And engineering was an easy answer just because it combined two things I loved: technology and people. But I understood that I wouldn't be helping people if I wasn't a good engineer. They say you don't need to be good at physics or even like it to become an engineer, but you do need to at least be able to tolerate it and accept that you'll be using it.
And so I walked away that day thinking bio was probably my best bet. I didn't want to leave science and all the innovation that surrounds it, but engineering wasn't exactly meeting enough of my personal need to help people. And while I knew I had the potential to go into something more "fit" for my type, I didn't want to. As my friend said, "There needs to be more people going into science for the right reasons." And I think I have the right reasons. I mean, I want to solve problems and help people. I don't know how or what, Alzheimer's is always in the back of my mind, but I felt better about that.
But I couldn't keep my mind from wandering back to engineering. It was the inevitable ending I just kept coming back to.
Last night when my grandmother's friends came over, one of them told us a dicho, a saying, that her husband told their kids. Translated, it's "Never go to sleep without having accomplished something that day, and never get out of bed without a plan for what to do next."
That's the style of living over here. Living day-to-day, sometimes on a ranch, or maybe in a small shop, but it's... simpler. And while it may seem hard to relate that to the hustle-and-bustle life that I know back in the States, the idea's the same. Do stuff, and have a plan to do more stuff. But the truth is, I still find myself getting lost in this struggle of what my "stuff" is.
And reading those MBTI career paths, I came upon one INFP who was an engineer and decided to become a lawyer because their previous occupation didn't satisfy their need to help people as much as they thought it would. And I took it as a sign, that I need to start another mental breakdown, and try finding what I really wanted to do in life. So I had it. A long thought. And I just sat there after my pancakes, thinking. Until 2:20pm. I took a shower some time in that time, but I still don't know.
At 2:20pm I went on an adventure with my grandma's friend and my family. We spent time by the lake and ate cucumbers with lime and salt and chile pepper. There were vultures circling, a lot of them. After the lake we went back into town for a coffee and cake. It was a good escape, but I'm still kind of lost.
Trying to describe this feeling is hard. I mean, I identified as being an aspiring engineer for so long, it's just hard to let go of it. And maybe that's the problem I have. Letting go of that image of myself that I anchored my life around is... hard. Trying to find out what I want to and should do for the rest of my life is... hard. Life is... hard.
And maybe I just need to suck it up. Maybe I can never have the "best of both worlds." But one thing is for sure: I'm either too immature or naive or too something to stop trying to find it. I know more mental breakdowns are in my future, but I just need to kind of roll with life for now and let it play out. There are worse things in life than not knowing what to do in college. The vultures can keep circling.
Tuesday, July 1, 2014
Saturday, June 28, 2014
Mascota is timeless
I don't know what it is about this place. I'm here with my grandma, sister, nephew and uncle after three years of not visiting, and somehow the place is remarkable unchanged. There are newer cars on the road, some restaurants have closed, replaced by a trade shop or even another restaurant, it seems to be raining a bit more, but the people still smile and laugh like nothing is different.
And in a weird way, nothing is. In other parts of Mexico, people are very affectionate, with PDA being expected, especially from young couples. This mainly speaks to the urban cities of the country: Puerto Vallarta and Mexico City, specifically. But Mascota, a "big" town of 8,000 residents, is still stuck in past. The planned construction of a movie theater was halted because older folks didn't want kids going there to make out. The half-built concrete skeleton still stands, without any current plans or demolition or construction.
I guess that adds to the feeling of the incomplete-ness of the town. The Preciosa Sangre, a 19th Century church that was never completed, stands about 4 blocks away from the Centro. It's clearly unfinished, but still beautiful, filled with bright fuschia buganvilias. It has come to serve as a local attraction, despite its crumbling walls and unintentionally exposed bricks. It serves as a symbol of how these people live: outdated and maybe a little broken, but still functional and beautiful.
Mascota, surprisingly, is a central hub to 5 satellite towns, the start of a chain of pueblitos with quirky names including Yerbabuena (Spearmint) and Navidad (Christmas). These towns are even smaller than Mascota, and much more desolate. Some would blame this perpetually-nostalgic phenomenon on the fact that, decades ago, many men would seek work in big cities, leaving their wives and children as the sole occupants of the towns. But I think it's more than that.
Despite being on the main route between two major cities (Puerto Vallarta and Guadalajara), Mascota is relatively isolated, located in the middle of a valley and surrounded by mountains. You see a sky full of stars on clear nights, unlike any city I've been to in the States or elsewhere in Mexico, and all movies on TV are at least 5 years old. I can't tell if the isolation of the Mascotenses is a product of the town's size and overall antiquated character, or if these "factors" are products of the people themselves.
There is some unspoken conversation between the people and the land here that sometimes makes me wonder if I can never truly belong. But when I take a look out the window at the gorgeous landscape while simultaneously receiving smiles from the kids across the street, I know that there's no way to separate them, and no use trying. I guess I'll just sit back and enjoy the reruns and Coke made with real cane sugar while they last.
And in a weird way, nothing is. In other parts of Mexico, people are very affectionate, with PDA being expected, especially from young couples. This mainly speaks to the urban cities of the country: Puerto Vallarta and Mexico City, specifically. But Mascota, a "big" town of 8,000 residents, is still stuck in past. The planned construction of a movie theater was halted because older folks didn't want kids going there to make out. The half-built concrete skeleton still stands, without any current plans or demolition or construction.
I guess that adds to the feeling of the incomplete-ness of the town. The Preciosa Sangre, a 19th Century church that was never completed, stands about 4 blocks away from the Centro. It's clearly unfinished, but still beautiful, filled with bright fuschia buganvilias. It has come to serve as a local attraction, despite its crumbling walls and unintentionally exposed bricks. It serves as a symbol of how these people live: outdated and maybe a little broken, but still functional and beautiful.
Mascota, surprisingly, is a central hub to 5 satellite towns, the start of a chain of pueblitos with quirky names including Yerbabuena (Spearmint) and Navidad (Christmas). These towns are even smaller than Mascota, and much more desolate. Some would blame this perpetually-nostalgic phenomenon on the fact that, decades ago, many men would seek work in big cities, leaving their wives and children as the sole occupants of the towns. But I think it's more than that.
Despite being on the main route between two major cities (Puerto Vallarta and Guadalajara), Mascota is relatively isolated, located in the middle of a valley and surrounded by mountains. You see a sky full of stars on clear nights, unlike any city I've been to in the States or elsewhere in Mexico, and all movies on TV are at least 5 years old. I can't tell if the isolation of the Mascotenses is a product of the town's size and overall antiquated character, or if these "factors" are products of the people themselves.
There is some unspoken conversation between the people and the land here that sometimes makes me wonder if I can never truly belong. But when I take a look out the window at the gorgeous landscape while simultaneously receiving smiles from the kids across the street, I know that there's no way to separate them, and no use trying. I guess I'll just sit back and enjoy the reruns and Coke made with real cane sugar while they last.
Wednesday, June 25, 2014
I still love Puerto Vallarta
A few months ago, my parents visited after not having been in years. While they had a good time, they were disappointed with all the development that had been made since they had last visited, it just wasn’t the same PV they had known.
After arriving yesterday, however, I do not feel the same way.
I wasn’t expecting much just because I didn’t want to get my hopes up only to have them crushed when I found a completely different Vallarta. I, too, grew up with an image of the city all of my own. After all, we had been flying in to PV since my first trip to Mexico. It was one of the cities I knew best.
But I was utterly delighted by what I saw yesterday.
We stayed at a hotel in a newer part Vallarta, one that’s made of shopping malls and highways and resorts. It’s about a 20 minute drive from there to the Centro, the oldest part of the city, the downtown part. After debating whether to stay close or go down there for dinner, we finally settled on going to the old Centro.
I’ll admit, it’s different. There’s more traffic and it’s getting kind of smoggy, the beaches are a little dirty and there are a lot of people who only cater to tourists. But old Vallarta’s still in there.
Despite all the traffic, people still roll down their windows and ask other drivers for directions, and they can always expect an honest response. The Plaza, although flanked by a Starbucks and a bank on either side, is still as beautiful as ever, and the church still stands proudly behind it. The streets are still cobblestoned in the old Centro. And the Malecon is still as beautiful as ever, filled with artists and young couples and just happy people. It's the little things that I can hold onto that make losing some of the bigger parts just a little bit easier.
Although Puerto Vallarta isn't the same as it used to be, it's certainly still my México lindo y querido.
Monday, June 16, 2014
Art in its various forms
Today in the car I was thinking about all the things I wanted to do this summer and how I wanted to document it. The best way I know how is to write about it, it's just my natural tendency, the way I document everything, the way my mind works best. And then I thought about how I would also love to take photos, because as much as you would like to believe you can describe something, you always leave your own mark, your own impression of it... and then I started just thinking about art in general.
Writing is a type of art that not many people give much credit. Art is essentially communication, and writing is one of the most well-recognized and appreciated forms of communication, and therefore art, even in what is considered its blandest states, such as essays or research papers. But writing is unique in that it is something appreciated over time. You can never look at a written work and see all of it at one time, it must be appreciated piece by piece, and the way you interpret it has some kind of correlation to how you feel that day, what you are wearing, and if you have eaten lunch already. Writing is unique in this way, it can be reread completely differently under different circumstances as when you had first encountered it.
Visual art, 2D and 3D, is a different type of art all together. For the most part, you see a photo or painting or sketch in its entirety and have an immediate reaction to it, only looking closer after gaining some overall perspective on the subject at hand, abstract cubism or still life. But there's still that image in your mind of that first glimpse, and when you step back from taking that closer look, you see how it fits in to that broader image, like a piece of a puzzle, the complete composition. It differs from writing because you can physically see it all at one time, there's no page-flipping to get through, no words to search for. And while the experience you have is also related to how you feel that day, what you are wearing, and if you have eaten lunch already, you can more easily take a step back and remember that initial gut sensation telling you how you felt.
Performed arts, live comedy and musicals, also have their own bubble. In some ways they resemble written work, because you can't view an entire play at one time, it's separated into acts and acts into scenes, and scenes into moments that all together, in the right order, create an impact and have their own place in the meaning of the whole piece. And no matter how hard the actors and actresses, speakers of word and comics try, they can never put on the same performance twice. Out of the three outlined "categories" of art, performance is the one most indelibly tied to the present. Not only the space changes, but the sound, the effect, and no matter how hard you try and remember a specific moment of a particular act of a certain play, after it's over, you can never relive it or experience it the same way, even if you watch it again the same week, even the same day. There's no way to replicate it, no photocopies or reprinted editions to refer to. Performance is the most transient form of art for sure, but also one of the most impactful.
There are more anomalies, film being that odd bridge between live and static art, poetry, which can also depend on the placement of words on a page and not only the words themselves, and every other form of communication: phone calls, letters, music (a beast all its own that captured my heart from so early on I couldn't possibly include it in this post without spending five hours I don't have sitting on my couch, hands glued to my laptop). But no matter the type of art, the harder you try, the more you feel.
Writing is a type of art that not many people give much credit. Art is essentially communication, and writing is one of the most well-recognized and appreciated forms of communication, and therefore art, even in what is considered its blandest states, such as essays or research papers. But writing is unique in that it is something appreciated over time. You can never look at a written work and see all of it at one time, it must be appreciated piece by piece, and the way you interpret it has some kind of correlation to how you feel that day, what you are wearing, and if you have eaten lunch already. Writing is unique in this way, it can be reread completely differently under different circumstances as when you had first encountered it.
Visual art, 2D and 3D, is a different type of art all together. For the most part, you see a photo or painting or sketch in its entirety and have an immediate reaction to it, only looking closer after gaining some overall perspective on the subject at hand, abstract cubism or still life. But there's still that image in your mind of that first glimpse, and when you step back from taking that closer look, you see how it fits in to that broader image, like a piece of a puzzle, the complete composition. It differs from writing because you can physically see it all at one time, there's no page-flipping to get through, no words to search for. And while the experience you have is also related to how you feel that day, what you are wearing, and if you have eaten lunch already, you can more easily take a step back and remember that initial gut sensation telling you how you felt.
Performed arts, live comedy and musicals, also have their own bubble. In some ways they resemble written work, because you can't view an entire play at one time, it's separated into acts and acts into scenes, and scenes into moments that all together, in the right order, create an impact and have their own place in the meaning of the whole piece. And no matter how hard the actors and actresses, speakers of word and comics try, they can never put on the same performance twice. Out of the three outlined "categories" of art, performance is the one most indelibly tied to the present. Not only the space changes, but the sound, the effect, and no matter how hard you try and remember a specific moment of a particular act of a certain play, after it's over, you can never relive it or experience it the same way, even if you watch it again the same week, even the same day. There's no way to replicate it, no photocopies or reprinted editions to refer to. Performance is the most transient form of art for sure, but also one of the most impactful.
There are more anomalies, film being that odd bridge between live and static art, poetry, which can also depend on the placement of words on a page and not only the words themselves, and every other form of communication: phone calls, letters, music (a beast all its own that captured my heart from so early on I couldn't possibly include it in this post without spending five hours I don't have sitting on my couch, hands glued to my laptop). But no matter the type of art, the harder you try, the more you feel.
Sunday, June 15, 2014
Summer (Bucket?) List
Alright, this one's gonna be a long one.
Summer just started, the weekend is about to be over and I'm already kind of ready for school to start again. Even though I had an amazing time at Summer Bash last night and there are lots of things I really want to do this summer, I feel like school is part of me. I'm going to miss seeing my friends, the little schedules we had nonverbally agreed upon, the teachers and their smiles and their kindness. Instead of looking forward to summer, I find myself looking forward to senior year and college.
So to keep myself in the present, and save my summer, I'm creating a kind of list of things that I want to accomplish or at least strive for between now and school starts. It's kind of a weird list, some things are events I want to go to, others are tasks that have to be completed daily (you know, the everyday grind for DFW folks out there), or things I'm looking forward to, but they're all me. Hope you enjoy!
THE LIST:
Summer just started, the weekend is about to be over and I'm already kind of ready for school to start again. Even though I had an amazing time at Summer Bash last night and there are lots of things I really want to do this summer, I feel like school is part of me. I'm going to miss seeing my friends, the little schedules we had nonverbally agreed upon, the teachers and their smiles and their kindness. Instead of looking forward to summer, I find myself looking forward to senior year and college.
So to keep myself in the present, and save my summer, I'm creating a kind of list of things that I want to accomplish or at least strive for between now and school starts. It's kind of a weird list, some things are events I want to go to, others are tasks that have to be completed daily (you know, the everyday grind for DFW folks out there), or things I'm looking forward to, but they're all me. Hope you enjoy!
THE LIST:
- go to outdoor music concerts (Wicker Park fest, maybe?)
- maintain my summer garden (and post photos to Twitter to document the progression)
- enjoy my two weeks in Mexico (and blog about them!)
- eat healthier (keep up with myfitnesspal.com to get a general idea of calories and sugar)
- swim club (6am every weekday when I'm in town, get in shape for swim season-potentially)
- get stronger (go to the club for strength training, the Ceja special?)
- work on my novel ("Things I've Been Told" drafts currently in Simplenote)
- make a music video to an oldish song (I don't know why, but I feel the need to)
- keep composting (may be we'll be able to use it by the end of the summer)
- visit at least one school (probably UMich, but maybe Johns Hopkins and Penn)
- go to the middle of nowhere and forget everything (nothing more to add here)
- read (start by finishing I Am Malala and The Things They Carried and Death in Slow Motion)
- bike to the Botanic Gardens (and along the lake and just a lot of places... the CTA is expensive)
- work (robotics needs funding and yearbook needs designing)
- sleeping (going for those 10 hours a night in hopes of getting taller... maybe?)
- write about all of it (as in... actually use this blog because May was a disgrace after April)
So, that's me and my summer in a bulleted list!
Tuesday, June 10, 2014
I can smell summer
It's in the air here at school.
It's the smell of excitement and sweat,
of fruits finally in season and deodorant over-applied.
It gets closer with every tick of the clock,
with finals almost done and field days awaited.
It's been such a long year,
summer is inches away.
It's the smell of excitement and sweat,
of fruits finally in season and deodorant over-applied.
It gets closer with every tick of the clock,
with finals almost done and field days awaited.
It's been such a long year,
summer is inches away.
Sunday, May 11, 2014
Coffee and a hardware store (all dolled up with nowhere to go)
Of the over ten-point list, the top three are studying for my physics AP (it's tomorrow), reading a book I'm supposed to have two thirds of done (which I just today downloaded... without a tablet to actually read it on), and studying for my micro AP (it's thursday). But instead, I'm thinking about how it's Mother's Day and how my dad and I went to see The Grand Budapest Hotel last night and it was the first time I'd seen him laugh, truly laugh out loud, in a really long time.
It's Mother's Day. And this morning, my sister, mom and I were going to take my nephew to church. But we were so late that we decided to get a coffee and go to get flowers instead. We felt kind of bad but as mothers (I consider myself my nephew's second mom), we decided it was okay. So we each got iced mochas, and a hot chocolate for Liam, and set off to The Home Depot, all in our Sunday bests. It was a good time.
Recently, with APs and all, I've had not a lot of homework and a lot of time to "study," which really means a lot of time to myself to just think. And I've been trying to figure some stuff out. I think it's working.
Somehow somewhere sometime I must have once decided that life is all about letting go. I can't remember it happening, if it was an immediate conscious choice or a slow realization. But no matter how or where or when it happened, I've, rather abruptly in my house very recently, been realizing how wrong I am.
The more I think about it, the more wrong I feel it is.
A lot of life is, undoubtedly, about letting go. Letting go of people and places and things. But it's also about clinging on, to memories of old and new faces and homes and stuff. After all, how could anyone survive this world if it were only about losing what matters? Because if that's how life works, everyone would be running on empty.
I think everyone has to run on empty at least once in their life.
It's the people that stop looking for ways out, who stop reaching for what matters, that end up losing faith, who end up not being able to deal with the world.
Some of the best people are so wonderful because somehow somewhere sometime they lost everything. Because they've learned to grab on even tighter to the people and places and stuff that matter.
So the next time I have to let something go, I'll keep my eyes open for the next thing to grab onto.
It's Mother's Day. And this morning, my sister, mom and I were going to take my nephew to church. But we were so late that we decided to get a coffee and go to get flowers instead. We felt kind of bad but as mothers (I consider myself my nephew's second mom), we decided it was okay. So we each got iced mochas, and a hot chocolate for Liam, and set off to The Home Depot, all in our Sunday bests. It was a good time.
Recently, with APs and all, I've had not a lot of homework and a lot of time to "study," which really means a lot of time to myself to just think. And I've been trying to figure some stuff out. I think it's working.
Somehow somewhere sometime I must have once decided that life is all about letting go. I can't remember it happening, if it was an immediate conscious choice or a slow realization. But no matter how or where or when it happened, I've, rather abruptly in my house very recently, been realizing how wrong I am.
The more I think about it, the more wrong I feel it is.
A lot of life is, undoubtedly, about letting go. Letting go of people and places and things. But it's also about clinging on, to memories of old and new faces and homes and stuff. After all, how could anyone survive this world if it were only about losing what matters? Because if that's how life works, everyone would be running on empty.
I think everyone has to run on empty at least once in their life.
It's the people that stop looking for ways out, who stop reaching for what matters, that end up losing faith, who end up not being able to deal with the world.
Some of the best people are so wonderful because somehow somewhere sometime they lost everything. Because they've learned to grab on even tighter to the people and places and stuff that matter.
So the next time I have to let something go, I'll keep my eyes open for the next thing to grab onto.
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