Pity Party

Oh man, oh man, oh man. Hello friends. I'm sitting here in the library, looking out at another dreary Scottish day and feeling depressed about grad school. I'm writing my personal statement and researching schools and descending into that sad state of melancholy uselessness that can only come from being someone as overly dramatic as Tut. Just when Issy was posting about sunnier subjects.

GAH! No matter where I go, no matter where I turn, it seems like something, someone, or some random circumstance is telling me that I'm inadequate. From the Edinburgh prof saying that I couldn't possibly have anything to say about Richardson to the grape vine information from Bree that some guy in the postgrad Christian group is surprised that I even have any friends because all I do is study. From my own qualms that I have nothing interesting to say in class or that there's nothing I could say in grad school. From Erica and Ben (my two English major friends from Penn) talking about what a ball they're having in grad school and how great everything is. From the stats charts on the grad school sites saying that my GRE scores are too low, my gpa is too low, that I know no foreign languages (uhhh, besides really terrible Chinese and Japanese that can't even be claimed). Tut is feeling the weight of mediocrity.

You know, I'm really nothing special and that's sort of disappointing for someone who likes to distinguish themselves. Okay, no one wants to feel plumb useless, but I have these frequent bouts of it. Which is utterly ridiculous, because God has been so faithful to Tut, sending her to Penn, giving her nice Engleesh profs at Penn, giving me Clarissa, letting me come to Edinburgh. Really, I have nothing to complain about. I'm not starving or dying or working a minimum wage job at Ann Taylor, so what am I talking about? Well, maybe it's because it's so easy to get swallowed up by the world here and trick yourself into believing this is an ultimate vs. just a good thing (thankee Tim Keller). I have to remember that going to grad school is not the end all of life. Most of my time I spend contemplating whether I even like scholarship. I know it shouldn't really really really matter (Mom said yesterday that I can't get depressed if I get rejected from all the schools...), but poops, in our sinful state of trying to make identities outside of God, it does matter.

There is another world out there. A world of family, a world of f-f-frie...I mean, more family, and life outside of the university. I just need to stop being so self-absorbed. Maybe I really am Betsy--afterall, she didn't even finish undergrad, she dropped out. But she also married Joe and became a housewife, so all of that was less of an issue. I guess we can't all be acupuncturists. It's good to learn these lessons now, that we can't boast in anything but Christ because we are zeroes and raisins (zeroes are nothing and raisins taste like dirt).

I can't wait for Issy to come. When I use to feel sick and tired of making miniscule profits, I would just go shopping with Issy at Penn. No pain could be deeper, no life could be cheaper, eh Wug? By all accounts it doesn't make sense. I wish I could make a deal with a peasant.

Fall Fun

Just so you know that Issy's life is not all thunderclouds and rainstorms (though she may occasionally make it seem that way), here is one of the fun trips that Issy took recently. Scott and his friends take a trip every year, and this year I tagged along. We went to go see fall foliage near Albany, NY in mid-October.

Here are a couple of pictures. It was beeyewtifal!


Scott and me pretending to be small animals.


The view from the top:

reflections

Wow, I'm sorry everyone. I did not know that the blog was still in existence and thus have not checked for about a year now...Thousand apologies oh patient one.

I was just being nostalgic and looking back at some of our old posts. Life sure seemed a lot happier three years ago when we started the blog. Tut and Issy smiling in front of the theater, Tut with her (used to be) crowds of RCF friends, Issy's students writing lovely "odes to Kristen". Man, life seemed good. Compare to now: Issy's job stinks. Tut is living in a toilet-paperless land of icky meat. And Wug is having some serious job/internship crises here in Princeton. Sigh.

Why do you think our blog posts went from happy latkes to morose brooding about life? I guess it means we're more comfortable with one another, but I think that life in general gets more complicated as you get older (minus retirement when you can finally build that summer home with Wug's thirty-seven digit retirement fund...hey, inflation is real. Thirty-seven digits will be nothing by then.) First we learn how to be content as kids, then as college students, then as workers in the real world, then as wives/mothers (!#$*#).

I have no idea where I'm going with this. Actually, I should go and do something useful (like read Slug's Ichiro blog), but I wanted to show that I still was aware of the blog's existence. I think I just wanted to say that life really ain't so bad. In light of Thanksgiving, here are some things Wug is thankful for:
-family, especially sisters...Wug is really really thankful for Tut and Issy. Tut, because she periodically puts grandiose engleesh thoughts in Wug's lil pea-sized brain to mull over and because she spices up Wug's life with spiciness. Issy, because she is Wug's role model/supah-hero (ouch my toe! okay, who remembers da supah-dupah from Homer Price??? simply mah-velous). I mean, come on, who doesn't want to be like Issy when they grow up? Issy takes care of us, Issy is an altruistic human being who saves orphans in Honduras, Issy actually has f-f-f-friends (sorry, not part of Tut and Wug's vocabulary. eh wug, speak for yourself. okay, not part of Wug's vocabulary). And Issy has a mighty fine Christmas present coming her way in a few months (stop hyping it up, Wug...okay really Issy, it isn't that cool, so this will be my last mention of it).
-student-dom....Being a college student is stressful sometimes, but man oh man, when I look at post-college life, I never want to leave. All I have to do here is eat, sleep, and study (in that order, of course).
-basic health and safety...I think about this more after I went to Ghana and saw all those kids drinking muddy water. Can you imagine being born in another country?

Hey, didn't we do this in a previous year? Say all the things we're thankful for? Erm, as you know from my excellent HP retention, I have no memory so someone should please inform me. I'll write more later. TTFN. Terrible tomatoes fight nefariously. Oooo, GRE vocab word.

You were SUPPOSED to poison him with THIS!

Issy is getting mighty frustrated these days. Issy hates her job. Issy wants a new job. Whenever Issy is at work, she has a fake, grinding-her-teeth smile. Issy cannot wait for summer.

But at the same time, Issy knows that she must at least TRY to be civil to people. Issy does not want to burn her bridges in case she decides to return to this school at a later point. Issy must learn how to give constructive, non-angry feedback to her boss about the things that frustrate her while still maintaining a good relationship.

How do you tell someone that you think that the school is poorly run and half the employees should be fired without offending? Or maybe that's impossible and Issy just cares too much about not offending. Issy gets angry when people don't do what they are supposed to do and everyone just assumes that Issy will pick up the slack but then don't cut her any breaks when she can't do it all. Issy wants to have love in her heart, but she just has black scowliness. You should pray for Issy.

My New Friends

Toot in Scotland!

Wow, I almost just posted this blog post on my old Close Reading blog...That would have been awkward. Any who, here are some pictures to give you a taste of where I am. Just some old buildings, the tea house (JK Rowlings wrote part of HP there so you KNOW Tut had to see it) and a spiffing hot air balloon. I'll keep you posted.

No pain could be deeper, no life could be cheaper

I have way too much to do for me to be frittering my time bemoaning life on our blog. I'm sure this is just a passing phase, but I still feel like life is moving faster than I can live it. IV is wearing me down, but really it's not the assigned duties that make me tired...it's the people who I'm supposed to be "shepherding." I try to care genuinely, but I always end up with these unequal relationships. The thing is, I realize that I do not really receive life from anything in college besides my English classes. I can actually feel when I'm getting replenished. It's good for me to not have many true friends, because then I don't complain to everyone in sight. It's at these moments when I'm really glad that Issy is close by. For the past three years, Issy has taken in all my angst. But now I feel bad about being angsty, because then I'm just sucking life from the people who I like most. Dratteth. I need to find joy in serving. I also need to learn to manage my time better. Low capacity pathetic Tut in a heap. Sometimes when I'm at my many meetings, I just want to get up and say "I'm just a baby Tut! I was never meant for this kind of responsibility." Of course, that would defy all principles of growing up. And then, I hide away in my studies, safe from people. This is ironic. I used to be the one who ran to the door and greeted everyone and always asked who was coming to dinner even if it was Auntie Gloria. Perhaps over time I have grown to like solitude. It probably works with me being a selfish poo who always likes to be understood.

I am scared that I will not be good enough for the PhD. The more I learn about the rigor of the degree, the more insecure I become about my own abilities. Currently I am worried that I am not insightful enough. You can just tell the people who read and comprehend at a deeper level than the rest. I am not one of those two, unlike Kronk. I can read, but I cannot detach my personal experience and life story from the fictitious narrative. I can't make astute observations unless I have experienced some form of its truth in my own life. Basically my only claim to fame is that I really like literature, even though I don't have the capacity to think these earth shattering thoughts about it. I wish I did. I don't want to die in graduate school. It's a good thing I'm taking a year off. I need the time to sit down and sink down in good soft mud.

Actually that would be a splendid solution to this depressing monologue. Some good soft mud. You know, I sure feel like eating duck friend rice right now. That's very odd. Somehow even though I'm a senior, I still am as immature as I was when I was a freshman. I need to quit my Peter Pan act and grow up to be stellar like Wug and Issy.

Oh the plights of the Wong women...

Okay guys, so I don't have much time to post because I've officially been on Sabbath since yesterday and now I have mucho work to do, but I wanted to make a couple quick comments before I dive back into econ. First of all, Issy has correctly articulated what Wug feels 99.999% of the time (leave some room for uncertainty as all good Physicists do...) This is why Manon often asks me what I do for "fun". I don't have fun...I don't know how to have fun or to enjoy myself without other people. I can semi-enjoy reading a book or a cooking magazine or going to a concert, but only because I can remember times when I read these books with other people, or times in the future when I will make big tasties with other people. Most of the time, though, I probably just don't think about it too much. Thoughtless Wug. Fills up her days with activities so she doesn't have time to ponder and pontificate about life.

I think this is why Wug is so bad at making decisions. You know, the only real reason I'm doing engineering (and financial engineering for that matter) is because I've started it and I really don't know what else I would do. Can't bear to waste all these science credits and lab hours by switching to be a Bachelor of Arts degree. And I think it makes Mum happy, and she's the only one who has really expressed an opinion about my future career. I'm not opposed to anything, but I'm just not a very passionate person. Blah Wug with squiggly Charlie Brown wishy-washy mouth.

I don't think it's necessarily so bad, though. What would the world be like if everyone bowled everyone over with their "strong" personalities? Everyone would talk and no one would listen. Everyone would lead and no one would follow. And I think the leaders and the talkers appreciate the followers and listeners just as much as we appreciate them.

Alright, uninsightful Warg has nothing too profound to say. But I'm sure glad we've got sisters, yozes. Wong women woes don't seem so bad when they are shared.

Love,
Wargles

A General Lament on the Mess that is Tut

Sometimes I think I only have a strong personality for the sake of having one, which is pretty lame, because often I think I scare/annoy people and then relish how “different” I am. I’ve always had a flair for the dramatic, but I misuse it sometimes just to feel that classic Anne Shirley “depths of despair” because Penn people don’t understand me. Most of the time it’s my fault, and then I try to think if I can help being that way.

I realize that I’m actually a very awkward person. You know how some people can just chatter away and do the small talk thing really well? I can’t. I try to fake it, but again, lame failure. I’m used to filling in silence, but when I’m with other people, the only way I know how to fill silence is to be utterly random, which just weirds people out or they laugh confusedly/politely. Not like Saars, who has this patented cool randomness. I guess I’ve been so sheltered by the family that you all let me think I was interesting and funny (but not as funny as Bro) when actually I’m not. I used to wish I could be the star personality in college, but I got here and realized that I’m not as much of a star as most people and maybe that’s not the most desirable of things to be. Now I have this pegged “good Christian girl, goes to bed at 11pm, and loves Mr. Darcy” persona, that I guess I don’t mind too much except that I don’t go to bed at 11pm and I don’t particularly like Mr. Darcy. But of course they do not know Char, Perry, Gilbert, Percy, and Curly, so why bother?

This year, I embraced my difference by being a full blown English major. Of course, in many ways, it just made me more of what I am. I think I am very concerned with being able to like things with intensity uncharacteristic of other English majors. It’s probably because deep down I feel like I’m a really bad writer and an untalented pooface, so I try to cover it up with enthusiasm. And then naturally I get all sad when I don’t do well on papers and such, but really now, that’s unrealistic because if I didn’t do a good job conveying my thoughts, I don’t deserve an A. I get jealous of other English majors good grades, because I am an evil Tut. One thing I found out is that I’m more competitive than I thought. But another thing I began to understand is that more than the grade, I want certain profs to like me. I do so want to be liked by the profs who I like. In that sense, I end up conforming to what they want because I am so eager to please people who I want to like me.

Every time I talk to Mum, I tell her how I have no idea what I’m going to do with my life. I never know. I am in a perpetual state of lostness. I think for Wug and to some extent Issy, you like to read a map for your life, or at least have some knowledge of the future. I feel like I just have this blank piece of paper and I’m in a crowd of people with maps and so instead of trying to get a map, I start playing tic tac toe like Perry during the Royal meetings. I am not stubborn, because I do not have good reasons to back up why I do things as a very irrational and emotional person.

One thing that I am very bad at but admire in Krissy is her ability to give with no strings attached and then fade into the background. But I never read that fading into the background as lack of personality or preference, but more of unselfish honor and all around meekness (which as Mom says is strength under control). Issy has a lot of strength but she has a lot of self control, just like Emma who may lose her heart but not her self control. Issy takes care of her friends and doesn’t make them feel guilty or helpless. Issy maintains the intensity and stays friends with people over time, but I just am like a frog who jumps from pad to pad with no real intention. That and Issy is infinitely capable. Actually I was telling Connie the other day, that the testimony to how manhood has disintegrated (I’m writing a paper about this in the context of the Depression and Gone with the Wind) is the fact that Issy does not have a boyfriend. Issy is honorable and good, capable and talented, intelligent, and funny. AND she dresses well, which of course is of paramount importance…or not. At least not as much of importance as her ability to read Harry Potter better than Jim Dale. So yeah, pretty much I figure there’s no hope for me, and I should like Ophelia in Hamlet, get me to a nunnery because if boys are so idiotic that they cannot see Issy’s shining merits, well I just give up on the whole sex in general (besides the ones who are related to us, not including the Suks or Kenneth). In general, my life has always been easy, but Issy has always had it raf. That is why I write college essays about why Issy is my hero.

Lostness

Lately, I've been feeling a bit lost. I've felt this way at different points in my life, but not for the past couple years. It's a bit hard to describe, but it's sort of this "who am I and who am I becoming" type feeling. I don't like it when people obsess about not knowing who they are. I think Mom sort of instilled that in us - that we don't wait around "discovering ourselves." We go out and do whatever work we see at the present moment and in time, we'll figure the rest out. But sometimes "the rest" doesn't seem so clear.

I think part of it has to do with the fact that I feel like I don't really have strong preferences for a lot of things. Wug, I think you'll probably understand this better than Tut. There are definitely things that I like, but if I'm with other people who have strong preferences, I'll usually defer to them. I think part of it has to do with my people pleasing tendencies. I want everyone to like what we're doing or eating or reading...and I know that even if I like it, if the other person(s) don't like it, then that will erode my enjoyment. So instead, I do what they want to do even though that might not be my natural first tendency if I were alone. And most of the time, it doesn't bother me. Like when I'm with Eun and Steve and Scott watching movies, usually Eun will pick out the movie. And sometimes I don't like it - I get scared a lot more easily than they do - but I'll watch it and I'll enjoy just being with them. And if I'm lucky, sometimes I'll find a new favorite thing in the process. But sometimes, it bothers me that I'm always letting other people run the show. And when it does, that's when I want to be alone or be with people who like all the same things that I do.

I used to tell Michelle that I felt like I didn't have a very strong personality, but I was always attracted to friends who did. People like Michelle or Elisa or Juliet... But I never wanted to be just the "nice" person. Michelle always said that she thought I did have a personality - a personality that adapted to other people a lot, but a personality nonetheless - and she said that she knew that I was super stubborn underneath. But I don't think my stubbornness comes out a lot with my friends. Or maybe I'm no longer as stubborn as I used to be. When I was younger, I used to dig in my heels a lot and I felt like it created friction in the family and in the end, I wasn't happy about making everyone miserable. Even if I pretended to be happy that I had gotten my own way. So maybe I'm overcompensating for that with my friends?