Couples Syndrome

Tags

dating, relationships

If you’re like me, you’re a single person trying to heal from failed relationships and avoid  men until they ripen enough to date. Having fun with close friends, and enjoying life was one of my New Year’s resolution and so far, I’m living according to and enjoying every minute of it.

There is a time however, when one of your close friends becomes involved with someone and suddenly everything revolves around them, an obsessive behavior I like to call, “couples syndrome.”

My friend, whom I will from now on refer to as Macy, met her boyfriend long before she met me. They were friends for about a year along with a set of other friends (who are now my friends as well) and began dating just a few months ago. At first, things were fine and we all got along great and we were all happy for them (finally) getting together. After about a month or so however, it seemed as though she had blinders placed on her and she began to spend all of her time with her beau.

I am usually a very understanding person when it comes to relationships. I have been in both, long-term and short-term relationships and I’ve been through that “luvy duvy” phase enough times to know how fake it is. Macy is different from me, she has not been in as many relationships and does not share the amount of experience which means, she does not know how annoying this phase can get to others.

I have lost very good friends to very exclusive (obsessive) relationships before so I know the signs by now. My Facebook feed tends is usually filled with Wall Posts about how much the couple “loves” each other so much and about how they can’t wait to be with one another, after being together just five seconds ago. In Macy’s case (in addition to the previous symptoms), she is never home and sleeps over at her boyfriend’s apartment all the time, she does not answer calls or reply to messages as often, and ditches her friends all the time. Macy once changed plans we had together in front of me without my opinion and just seconds before leaving (literally).

I try to tell myself that this is all a phase and they will both realize just how they can exclude so many people when blinded by this thing they call “love,” but it is irritating me. I would not have much of a problem with this if it were not for her complaints about how my friends and I exclude her and if she did not take every single (small) fight they have had, so seriously.

1: My friends and I have not changed and we cannot exclude someone who is never around and who does not reply to our messages or answer our calls.

2: If she takes every small fight so heavily, she will be a mess when (yes, I said, “when”) they break up.

Unfortunately, there is no cure for this syndrome that does not result in a break up or a really long-term relationship. It seems that the couples affected are deluded to believe that they will die if they spend a night apart or if they do not pollute our Facebook news feeds with their annoying posts.

In case couples have not realized this already, this behavior is a huge slap in the face to those who are single. Being single takes a lot of effort to be at peace with as it is, without having couples rub their “successful” (and annoyingly affectionate) relationships in our face. We have feelings too and we could become involved if we’d like, but some of us choose to RSVP without a “plus one.”

Top 5 Reasons Why You Don’t Have A Gmail

Tags

e-mail, Gmail, top 5 reasons

1. You are dead.
2. You don’t know what an e-mail account is.
3. You just discovered the internet.
4. You like a challenge (a.k.a. you like to complicate your life)
5. The letter “g” on your keyboard is stuck

Why wouldn’t you get a Gmail account? Gmail is the account to have and to use.

Broken Hearts.

Tags

broken hearts, cry, depressed, emotional pain, emotions, friends, future, heartbreak, hopeless, hurt, normal, pain, physical pain, relationship, sad, The Cure

When a romantic relationship between two people is about to begin, the feeling is amazing. You get “butterflies in your stomach” and you feel as if you are on top of the world. Once you are actually in the relationship, things can become even better. Now that the flirting and the shy looks at one another are over, you begin to do things together. You eat together, walk together, talk on the phone for hours, etc. Essentially, you are more than willing to do just about anything as long as that special someone is with you. This is by far one of the greatest feelings anyone can ever experience.

With the previous things said, the worst feeling in the world is feeling unloved. When a relationship that began so innocently turns sour, one cannot help but feel their life falling apart. Suddenly the world and life itself lose their meaning and al that is left is a void. That is when one realizes just how meaningful a relationship really was and how lost one is without the other.

Unfortunately for some people like myself, the other person has lost any romantic feelings they once had and are therefore unwilling to try again. That is when one is at their worst but with not many breaks. It is always great to have friends trying to pick up the broken pieces with one but there are only so much they can do.

The pain that was once was emotional becomes into literal physical pain of the heart that nothing but time can heal. The feeling of a “sinking heart” is not merely an expression used by writers and artists. I have experienced the feeling first-hand for the first time in my entire life and I must say, it is real. It is similar to the feeling one gets in their stomach during a roller coaster ride—only unbelievably worse.

Suddenly staying in bed and listening to old (The) Cure records all day is all one feels like doing. Breaking up, even if it is mutual, is extremely difficult on the human soul, it crushes a lot of hopes and dreams and fogs the mind of a positive future ahead.

Having my heart be broken for the very first time has taught me a lot about myself and though it is still painful (and will be for a while), I am trying to continue my life as “normal” as possible. Sure, there are plenty of times when I feel hopeless and depressed, plenty of “what-if’”‘s have crossed my mind, a lot of memories play on a loop and a lot of tears shed, but I am trying to hold on to what I can.

I know I need to move on and that only I can help myself at this point. If you do not have a relationship with God, you might not understand the importance of Him in my life. I depend on Him every day and I speak to Him through prayer as much as I can. Although I doubt my faith and my trust in Him sometimes, I know He has something stored for me.

For those who do not understand this relationship, it is like the relationship between a parent and a child, only better. It is like having someone to talk to, to comfort you and to give you guidance all the time, without judgement. He holds his arms wide open for all of His children.

If you still refuse to accept anything along those lines, you can still think about the future. Someone is probably out there waiting or looking for you. Don’t lose hope!

Half Empty or Half Full?

Tags

competitive, condemn, economy, half empty, half full, Karl Marx, labor, Max Weber, Puritan, UC San Diego

I am in Price Center, a place to eat, study, or hang out with friends, at the UC San Diego campus. As I force myself to finish reading an excerpt from Max Weber’s, “The Spirit of Capitalism,” I cannot help but think about all the people in this institution.

The article is essentially about how the Puritan doctrine is the basis of our economy. He goes on about how Puritanism, a religion that emphasizes hard labor in people’s “calling” (in terms of occupation), created the foundation for division of class and labor. According to Weber’s interpretations of the Puritan religion, Puritans believe in doing labor for the will of God, and they believe that having leisure time or contemplating will condemn one to damnation.

Leisure time? The reason why I am bringing this up is because I am struggling to fully concentrate on writing a paper that is due on Wednesday. I have to read through heavy excerpts from Weber’s “The Spirit of Capitalism,” “Class, Status, Party” & Karl Marx’  ”The Communist Manifesto,” and write about both of their explanations on the rise of the Western world’s economic system and explain which I find most convincing and why.

The assignment itself is not very difficult but for some reason I cannot give my complete attention to this assignment. The worst part is I am beginning to feel guilty because I am wasting time and though I am not Puritan, I still feel that wasting time is terrible.

After my short self-condemnation, I began to think about all the other students here on campus. Last year, I wasted a lot of time on friends (especially acquaintances), the internet and even in nothing. This made me wonder about how other students spend their own time outside of lectures and sections.

We are all here for a reason: we want to get an education; ultimately, so we can have a career and not a job, right? Well, I am feeling a bit intimidated because from what I see, they dedicate their free time in study groups and studying. I study a lot more this year but one thing I lack is having people around me with whom I can study with. I am not even sure if I work well with others (past experiences say no) but I almost feel pressured to dedicate my entire time to school and studying to have a competitive edge among this pool of thousands.

So is this glass half empty or half full? I am more motivated to work, but will this claim my sanity?

“Facebook Depression”

Tags

depression, down, Facebook, Facebook Depression, friends, fun, lonely, low self-esteem, sad

I was reading an article on MSNBC about something called “Facebook Depression”. Essentially what this is, depression caused by not being able to “measure up” to Facebook friends’ statuses of having fun and being with friends.

I found this incredibly interesting because as a person struggling with depression, I have noticed Facebook does help decrease my mood and/or self-esteem. I see my Facebook friends having the time of their lives, uploading positive statuses, happy pictures and sharing fun memories, on a daily basis and although now I can see them and be genuinely happy for them, this was very different before.

When I saw my friends posting things of themselves and their friends or of their fun adventures, I could not help but feel a little part of me die inside. I am always willing to hang out with friends and have fun, but most of them are usually out-of-town or very busy so I spend a lot of my time writing and listening to music. So you can imagine how pathetic I feel every time I read, “Had a great time with so-and-so at a random place.”

Like the article says, it does not affect everyone, but for those that it does, the experience is painful. Some, myself included, deactivate their Facebook account every now and then because sometimes we need to protect ourselves from falling into a depressed mood again, especially during college.

I have mixed feelings about Facebook, I’m sure a lot of people do. Another huge problem which could in fact impact someone’s mood is the amount of friends and the “true colors” of each relationship.

Facebook is a huge popularity contest (again, as the article points out) over who has the most friends, the most “likes”, comments, etc. This makes it easy for people to simply use acquaintances or even strangers to increase their subscriber numbers.

It is such a horrible thing to have someone as a Facebook friend who in reality, has no interest in getting to know you; friends of mine have commonly ignored me outside the Facebook black hole. I am very glad I do not take social networking as seriously and personally. However, I cannot help but think that there might be a person whose self-esteem may be crushed by these false relationships.

If you are one of them just remember that it is just like high school. There is still a lot to look forward to

Tolerance.

Tags

acceptance, Christianity, college, judgement, right, tolerance, understand, wrong

When I moved out from home to live in college last year, things were pretty tough and they seemed to only be getting worse by the day. Eventually I met a good friend who introduced me to a Christian fellowship; they took me under their wing until I eventually found God all over again.

When I returned home from college a lot of people reacted differently towards my decision but ultimately, their thoughts seemed to be the same. My family was trying to be understanding but there was still obvious conflict about my conversion. All of this brought me to thinking about countless of misunderstood people out there.

I’m sure there are people who really do try to understand others but there are always those who could not only care less about understanding, but it is as if they make it a goal to judge as well. I know we may sometimes feel as if it is our obligation to convince someone else that what they are doing is “wrong” and to preach about what is “right.”

The thing is, there are so many things we are already doing wrong anyway so that is why I do not like to judge or tell someone their flaws (though I know I am guilty of this sometimes). We all make mistakes and we all feel embarrassed and ashamed when someone points out our weakest moments. I know this may seem like such an obvious thing to say but it is not quite obvious to do when you are in the position of judgement.

iGot everything?

Tags

got, got milk?, i, Apple, copying, trademark, registered, annoying, frustrating

If you have not noticed the countless of items and services that have ripped off Apple’s “i” and “Got Milk?”‘s question and replacing it with whatever they want you to check if you “got.”

The “i”-prefix I can somewhat understand why someone would like to use it for their products. Apple could not possibly register a letter of the alphabet, leaving this up for grabs or perhaps I am underestimating Apple and they eventually will do so. Actually, Apple has tried registering their trademarked “i” but were denied because the trademark officer did not believe consumers would confuse a non-Apple product with another simply because of the same prefix.

To be completely honest, I think that trademark rights should have been given to Apple. Apple clearly made a clever decision by choosing “i” to keep people aware of their product “family”. If you looked at it in a more logical sense, the “i” in “iTunes,” “iPod,” and “iHome,”is different and  the eye of the consumer goes to the “i” (no pun intended). If you see it in this perspective and not in the, “Steve Jobs has a lot of money now, he should just enjoy his wealth,” because even if he is rich, he still came up with this marketing idea (or at least his team did).

I am very unforgiving when it comes to copying other people’s essence and I believe the prefix is highly associated with the Apple company. I find it very annoying to see the “i” used elsewhere because no one ever did until Apple’s success began to grow. The same has occurred with the “Got Milk?” question. Who would have thought that advertisement for drinking cow milk would be so famous— so famous that others had to copy it as well.

Every time I see things that “got” to ask me a question or those i’s before nothing except after Apple, I get really annoyed and frustrated. This is why I keep everything I would like to have it registered to me private until I can afford to trademark, register or copyright it.

Job Interview? No problem.

Tags

breathe, experience, interview, job, mock interview, relax, research, resources, tips

I was recently (20 minutes ago) in an interview for a job as administrative assistant in a psychology lab at UC San Diego (Go Tritons!). Right before the interview, I was completely freaked out and nervous however, things turned around once I was face-to-face with the interviewer.

About an hour before I left to go to my interview, I “crammed” everything I could get my hands on related to job interviews. I did a mock interview with myself, it was funny, you had to be there. The resources I used were very helpful, you can find them here and here.

There are so many things one can do to prepare themselves to be interviews, or verbally tortured, that are either underestimated or not even considered. One of the key things to do is research the company you are applying to. Unfortunately for me, the job I was applying for did not have a website so I had to wing it during the interview.

Another big thing to do right before the interview is read your résumé cover letter and your actual résumé so you can familiarize yourself with what you told your potential employer—you don’t want to be that person who crashes and burns when asked about their previous employers, responsibilities, etc..

Lastly but definitely not last, is to simply relax. I was fortunate enough to have a few minutes by myself right before the interview. I know it seems very plain and sounds a little silly but I just took deep breaths to calm down and get my thoughts together; that, and I also prayed a little

I really felt confident after the interview which is rare. The woman I spoke to was really impressed with my previous experience, my references (an awesome science teacher/ScienceBridge Tech Site Instructor at SDHS, the CEO of Urban Corps of San Diego and the Director of OASIS, SSSP at UCSD), and my ability to use UCSD library resources with speed and accuracy.

Hope no one experiences an embarrassing job interview.

—

The Album Experience is Dead

Tags

album, Amazon, Bicycle Race, CD, David Bowie, eMusic, Fat Bottom Girls, iTunes, Let's Dance, Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, music, online music stores, Queen, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, The Beatles

I know I am probably not the first or last person who has stopped and thought about what music was like before and after the internet invasion.

With the rise of online music stores such as iTunes, Amazon and eMusic, listeners are no longer concerned with buying an entire album. Though the ability to only buy a few songs from albums may sometimes be amazing, it can always be a shame as well. Buying only a fraction of an album may deprive listeners from the tunes beyond the singles.

Imagine (no pun intended) if no one bothered to listen to the entire Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and only decided to buy “Lucy In The Sky with Diamonds” and completely miss the album’s experience. I remember taking a class at UCSD that dedicated to studying this particular Beatles record and being in complete awe by the undertones in the songs, the instruments and the transitions. Transitions! I know many people can relate when I say that the transition between the songs was one of the key experiences while listening to the album in its entirety, something you could not tell if you simply bought a few tracks.

SPLHCB is probably an easy example but I am merely trying to make a point. I am advocating for the artists who work a lot to come up with songs to complete their desired compilation of feelings, memories and meaning. Don’t you ever wonder what happens between “Fat Bottom Girls” & “Bicycle Race” (Queen’s Jazz, 1978) or what comes after “Let’s Dance” (David Bowie’s Let’s Dance, 1983)?

I will admit I am guilty of buying singles and random songs but almost everything is good in moderation—I don’t believe society does anything in moderation however.

Hello world!

Tags

court, depression, introduction, law, lawyer, loneliness, Midnight in Paris, psychology, quote, rejection, self-harm, suicide, trial, Tumblr, UCSD, University of California San Diego, writing

I am new to WordPress! Actually I’m not really new, I used to have an account but I wanted to start all over

Anyway, I have just about a gazillion blogs, or “Tumblelogs,” on Tumblr.com but they are all just fun and dandy. I wanted to begin doing more serious writing that involved more thinking and analyzing. I know, I’m a bit of a nerd when it comes to writing and literature but what can you do? I’m a writer, at least an amateur writer.

Another reason why  I want to begin this new blog is because often times I am asked to submit a writing sample of mine but I can never decide which of the boring essay topics I have done for classes I could use. I think it would be much more interesting for someone to read about my very own thoughts on my very own topics, rather than a forced response or persuasion on a topic I could care (or recall) less about—unless they actually want to force me to write things of their choosing which is highly likely.

So feel free to read what goes on in my head as much as you can handle (or stand). If you are an editing freak like me, I would really like to hear your feedback since I am merely an amateur writer in college. I do have to admit that I am not really doing much with writing in terms of a career however. I am currently a second-year psychology major at the University of California San Diego trying to decide whether to go to graduate school and become a psychologist or go to law school and becoming a lawyer.

The reason why I would love to be a psychologist is because I want to focus on helping young adults like me who are suffering and dealing with anxiety, depression and even thoughts of suicide (or addiction to self-harm). I have been dealing with all of the conditions I just mentioned for about 7 years now. I have had the most difficult time dealing with all of this and the feelings of awkwardness and rejection because it is a tabooed topic. The great thing about all of these years of confusion and loneliness however, is that they have made me into a much stronger person. I am no longer afraid to admit of my conditions because I like to think someone might be inspired by my story and my willingness to stay alive. If you have any queries about suicide, depression, anxiety, loneliness, self-harm, rejection or low self-esteem, send me a message or leave a comment (feedback). I will not disclose very personal information but I will try my best to answer your questions.

Why a lawyer you may ask? I actually began to think I would become a lawyer someday since I was 8. But of course I did not take it as seriously back then since I also wanted to be an actress and a singer. I did not take this career path seriously until I began to realize how useful lawyers can be. I would like to be a prosecuting lawyer in order to seek justice for rape victims and/or to prosecute murderers. I did not (really) discover this career path until just recently when I was assigned to a 1-month murder trial for jury duty (People v. Russel Upton). I felt as if I was responsible for finding justice for Upton’s wife, the woman he killed 15 years ago. I felt terrible when we had a mistrial due to the inability of the jury to come up with a unanimous verdict. After I had heard everyone (myself included) in the jury say, “deadlocked,” in open court when asked one-by-one by the judge if we perhaps needed more time or if nothing could be done, I felt this guilt take over me. I was able to talk to the prosecutor after the trial was over, Mark V. Pettine, and tell him how much I admired him for all the investigation he had conducted with is partner, Detective Ahrens. I felt so inspired after I told Mr. Pettine that his work had made me consider law school and his, “Good luck on your law career,” response before leaving to his office, never to be seen again (by me).

Don’t you just love how I go off on tangents? I am only doing this because this is an introduction. Once I get a concrete topic established, I will do my best to stay on track.

Enjoy!

Quote (conversation) from film, Midnight In Paris (recommend 100%):

• Gil: I would like you to read my novel and get your opinion.
• Ernest Hemingway: I hate it.
• Gil: You haven’t even read it yet.
• Ernest Hemingway: If it’s bad, I’ll hate it. If it’s good, the I’ll be envious and hate it even more. You don’t want the opinion of another writer.