3-2-14
It certainly seems like most people I know are dating, getting engaged or married, or having children. Me, I've still never really been on a date, despite the desire to have done so. Is it because I lack self-confidence that I get overlooked? Or is it because I'm heavier than I'd like to be? (Because certainly I got paid more attention to when I weighed less, so don't tell me that's not a thing.) And how will I ever meet someone?
My specialization here at graduate school has mostly women in it (and the guys are either dating, engaged, or otherwise disinclined). Maybe I missed the boat in undergraduate. I don't know. I was still figuring out friendships, to be honest, since I didn't really have a group of people who wanted to be around me and vice versa until I came back from Ebeye. And the student group at church is mostly undergraduates and mostly female, at least the parts of it I've seen.
And I recently finished reading The Fault In Our Stars, and one of the things I pondered was What if I never fall in love? Ever? And I don't have a satisfying answer to that because I do have that desire. It might be easier if I felt called to singleness, you know?
Some of my friends (one that I'm thinking of in particular) would say that falling in love is easy. I semi-disagree. It might be easy for that particular friend, but so far it hasn't for me. I don't think I've ever "fallen in love." Are my standards too high? Am I too picky? How would I just 'know'? I'm not sure I necessarily believe in love-at-first-sight, either. I think it would have to happen to me for me to believe in it.
So here I am, surrounded by my books and homework. I hope this doesn't sound too bitter; it's not meant to be. I'm just frustrated when it feels like I'm falling behind whether or not that's actually the case, that I'm once again behind the times like in middle school when I could jump on the new trend only after it became the old trend.
Showing posts with label frustration. Show all posts
Showing posts with label frustration. Show all posts
Sunday, March 2, 2014
Wednesday, September 5, 2012
*sigh*
9-5-12
I was told last week that I'm not ambitious.
I guess it's true. Maybe.
Or maybe I don't know how to look for a job, even though I took Preparing to Meet the Firms. I'm not all face and chat and push to get the answers and network, network, network. I'm not an extrovert. (Coincidentally, why is it that villains are usually introverts?) I'm not good at just one thing. Why did it take me so long to figure out that what I was doing wasn't what I wanted (and possibly needed) to be doing?
I guess I'm struggling, and I don't like that. I never have. So is it really a lack of ambition, or is it actually fear? After all, cowards supposedly die many times before their deaths, as Shakespeare had Julius Caesar say. Nash says to aim high for our profiles in Magazine and Feature Article Writing class, and the best I can brainstorm at the moment is the fact that my housemate's boyfriend now works at Google. I want to aim higher, but I just don't seem to know how. I don't think I'm a coward, but I don't see myself out on many spindly limbs, either.
Or did the ambition get driven out of me (and the fear driven in) by being the smart kid in a public school, the kid who got the answer right in class and got mocked for it?
Did I shut down because I heard too many teachers say, "Be quiet; let someone else answer" too many times? (Even now, the only teacher I allow to say something to that effect is Haluska, and that's because I respect him and because we've had conversations about it.)
I also got told that I'm self-effacing. The person probably thought they were saying that I was modest or humble or something virtuous like that, but I didn't hear it that way. A synonym for effacing is erasing, and, frankly, the idea that I've erased myself, erased my personality is a little disheartening and scary. The only person who should erase me is the one who can replace me with Himself and return me to myself; I'd only do a clumsy job of it. The statement just brought back the old fear that I'm boring and not worth noticing, and I didn't realize that until tonight.
I know that God is the only Rock in my life; I just wish He weren't intent in letting most everything else be semi-shaky right now.
I'm sure this is TL;DR, but yeah, here it is. I wanted to cloak it in fiction-y status, but I just had no way to do it.
I was told last week that I'm not ambitious.
I guess it's true. Maybe.
Or maybe I don't know how to look for a job, even though I took Preparing to Meet the Firms. I'm not all face and chat and push to get the answers and network, network, network. I'm not an extrovert. (Coincidentally, why is it that villains are usually introverts?) I'm not good at just one thing. Why did it take me so long to figure out that what I was doing wasn't what I wanted (and possibly needed) to be doing?
I guess I'm struggling, and I don't like that. I never have. So is it really a lack of ambition, or is it actually fear? After all, cowards supposedly die many times before their deaths, as Shakespeare had Julius Caesar say. Nash says to aim high for our profiles in Magazine and Feature Article Writing class, and the best I can brainstorm at the moment is the fact that my housemate's boyfriend now works at Google. I want to aim higher, but I just don't seem to know how. I don't think I'm a coward, but I don't see myself out on many spindly limbs, either.
Or did the ambition get driven out of me (and the fear driven in) by being the smart kid in a public school, the kid who got the answer right in class and got mocked for it?
Did I shut down because I heard too many teachers say, "Be quiet; let someone else answer" too many times? (Even now, the only teacher I allow to say something to that effect is Haluska, and that's because I respect him and because we've had conversations about it.)
I also got told that I'm self-effacing. The person probably thought they were saying that I was modest or humble or something virtuous like that, but I didn't hear it that way. A synonym for effacing is erasing, and, frankly, the idea that I've erased myself, erased my personality is a little disheartening and scary. The only person who should erase me is the one who can replace me with Himself and return me to myself; I'd only do a clumsy job of it. The statement just brought back the old fear that I'm boring and not worth noticing, and I didn't realize that until tonight.
I know that God is the only Rock in my life; I just wish He weren't intent in letting most everything else be semi-shaky right now.
I'm sure this is TL;DR, but yeah, here it is. I wanted to cloak it in fiction-y status, but I just had no way to do it.
Sunday, January 29, 2012
Realizations(?)
1-29-12 (though I haven't gone to bed from the 28th yet, so technically it's still Saturday night for me, rather than Sunday morning)
I've discovered that it takes me time to settle into a group, to really feel like a part of it. It takes me a while to truly trust and feel comfortable with people. Some of that's due to my personality, I think (I consider myself an introvert, though the business office manager doesn't think that's the case), but that's not the whole story. It never is.
I've never fit in well. In public school it was because I was the smart girl who didn't do things on weekends (read: Sabbath) and who didn't eat pork (read: Adventist Christian). Sure, I had friends on my middle school academic team, but that was at school. My church was/is small enough that the only kids were me and my three younger siblings, and I got enough of them at home. It's just not the same. The only time I got close enough to people was in eighth grade, and then only really for a semester. Sure, we went and saw Attack of the Clones together and I stayed at Meaghan's house once or twice, but that was it.
Even in groups like Girl Scouts, 4-H, and Pathfinders I didn't fit in. I was always too responsible, too punctual, too excited about what we were doing. I didn't fit with the kids my age, the older kids saw me as a tagalong, and the adults didn't want me around. And when I did try to act like the kids my age, I was always told, "Why are you acting like that? Act like you normally do." Like that's not a bunch of mixed messages.
In high school I no longer had to worry about the Sabbath issue or the food issue. If anything, everyone ate better than I did, seeing as they were vegetarians and I wasn't. But I was still a smart girl, and still operating unconsciously under the Ender principle (see last post). I started making friends, but part of that went downhill in sophomore year because I had friends decide to drop me for no explained reason and had a crush tell me that he only liked me as a friend (and we're friends now, but it was sort of devastating to a 15-year-old). I wrapped myself tightly in a shell that didn't get truly broken into until I was a student missionary. Some of the people I served with are some of my closest friends because they saw me at the highs and the lows, the triumphs and the defeats.
And now, now I have a group that I feel that I fit into. But I'm still pursued by an annoying fear that someday they will drop me too, for no explained reason, or because they found someone else better to spend their time with, like new friends or girlfriends or boyfriends or what have you. I am afraid that one day I will be cast out as unworthy for some reason that I'm not even allowed to know. And let's not even get into romance--I mean, seriously, this post is long enough already and I don't want to make me feel worse.
God and I are working on fixing all this (well, He's working on me, but that's semantics), and I know that my friends aren't like that, that my fears are baseless, but the knowledge and the fear don't meet in my mind. More's the pity.
Anyway, this was TL;DR, so if you suffered through my venting, I'm sorry.
PS: I don't know what set this off, or why I chose to post it. I am actually okay, just angsty. Anyway, I need to get to bed so I can do homework, work and go to the symphony orchestra concert later today.
I've discovered that it takes me time to settle into a group, to really feel like a part of it. It takes me a while to truly trust and feel comfortable with people. Some of that's due to my personality, I think (I consider myself an introvert, though the business office manager doesn't think that's the case), but that's not the whole story. It never is.
I've never fit in well. In public school it was because I was the smart girl who didn't do things on weekends (read: Sabbath) and who didn't eat pork (read: Adventist Christian). Sure, I had friends on my middle school academic team, but that was at school. My church was/is small enough that the only kids were me and my three younger siblings, and I got enough of them at home. It's just not the same. The only time I got close enough to people was in eighth grade, and then only really for a semester. Sure, we went and saw Attack of the Clones together and I stayed at Meaghan's house once or twice, but that was it.
Even in groups like Girl Scouts, 4-H, and Pathfinders I didn't fit in. I was always too responsible, too punctual, too excited about what we were doing. I didn't fit with the kids my age, the older kids saw me as a tagalong, and the adults didn't want me around. And when I did try to act like the kids my age, I was always told, "Why are you acting like that? Act like you normally do." Like that's not a bunch of mixed messages.
In high school I no longer had to worry about the Sabbath issue or the food issue. If anything, everyone ate better than I did, seeing as they were vegetarians and I wasn't. But I was still a smart girl, and still operating unconsciously under the Ender principle (see last post). I started making friends, but part of that went downhill in sophomore year because I had friends decide to drop me for no explained reason and had a crush tell me that he only liked me as a friend (and we're friends now, but it was sort of devastating to a 15-year-old). I wrapped myself tightly in a shell that didn't get truly broken into until I was a student missionary. Some of the people I served with are some of my closest friends because they saw me at the highs and the lows, the triumphs and the defeats.
And now, now I have a group that I feel that I fit into. But I'm still pursued by an annoying fear that someday they will drop me too, for no explained reason, or because they found someone else better to spend their time with, like new friends or girlfriends or boyfriends or what have you. I am afraid that one day I will be cast out as unworthy for some reason that I'm not even allowed to know. And let's not even get into romance--I mean, seriously, this post is long enough already and I don't want to make me feel worse.
God and I are working on fixing all this (well, He's working on me, but that's semantics), and I know that my friends aren't like that, that my fears are baseless, but the knowledge and the fear don't meet in my mind. More's the pity.
Anyway, this was TL;DR, so if you suffered through my venting, I'm sorry.
PS: I don't know what set this off, or why I chose to post it. I am actually okay, just angsty. Anyway, I need to get to bed so I can do homework, work and go to the symphony orchestra concert later today.
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
A Screw Loose
2-8-11
I've got a screw loose.
No, literally. Not metaphorically, all you people out there who automatically thought, "Well, finally she's admitting it."
I have a screw loose on my bass clarinet. It must have come undone due to the massive amounts of practicing I've been doing because we have an upcoming concert. (And by "upcoming," I mean a week from Saturday night.)
I practiced my scales and the first couple places--everything was working fine. Then I went to practice a tricky part that isn't a solo but yet I want to play well--and no high C. Well, for me it's a high C. If it was a regular clarinet, I think it would be the equivalent of middle C. Anyway, the C that's on the treble staff. Wouldn't play. At all. And neither would the C-sharp or the B-natural.
So I immediately think, "Hey, Mr. Penner could help me with this!" And so I go upstairs and--no Mr. Penner. I check the music office; no Mr. Penner, and they don't have a screwdriver either. Both Mrs. Minner and Mr. Parsons are involved with lessons, and so I wait outside Mr. Penner's door for fifteen minutes, attempting to screw it back in with a fingernail, but it's in an awkward place so my fingers don't fit. No one comes in that fifteen minutes, either.
I go back out into the hall; Mrs. Minner's door is open. So I asked her if she had a screwdriver. Nope, but she let me into Mr. Penner's office, where he does have a screwdriver sitting with pens in a coffee cup. Rejoicing! Mrs. Minner leaves and I sit down to tighten my loose screw.
The screwdriver's the wrong type.
I spend fifteen minutes trying to use a tiny pair of scissors to screw the blasted thing back in, but nothing doing. Still no Mr. Penner, either. So I go back out and realize that I have to go to recitation.
Basically, I'm taking a tiny screwdriver to school tomorrow so I can fix my own bass clarinet. *sigh* And I missed out on a good forty minutes of practice which are sort of necessary since there's a concert a week from Saturday night and I have SOLOS that I need to keep practicing. (Since Parsons said that familiarity bred comfort; I always thought it bred contempt, but this is band, after all.)
I'm sure I'll fix it and I'm sure it'll sound fine, but I sure was frustrated that I didn't get to practice today because I couldn't find the proper screwdriver. *sigh*
More later.
I've got a screw loose.
No, literally. Not metaphorically, all you people out there who automatically thought, "Well, finally she's admitting it."
I have a screw loose on my bass clarinet. It must have come undone due to the massive amounts of practicing I've been doing because we have an upcoming concert. (And by "upcoming," I mean a week from Saturday night.)
I practiced my scales and the first couple places--everything was working fine. Then I went to practice a tricky part that isn't a solo but yet I want to play well--and no high C. Well, for me it's a high C. If it was a regular clarinet, I think it would be the equivalent of middle C. Anyway, the C that's on the treble staff. Wouldn't play. At all. And neither would the C-sharp or the B-natural.
So I immediately think, "Hey, Mr. Penner could help me with this!" And so I go upstairs and--no Mr. Penner. I check the music office; no Mr. Penner, and they don't have a screwdriver either. Both Mrs. Minner and Mr. Parsons are involved with lessons, and so I wait outside Mr. Penner's door for fifteen minutes, attempting to screw it back in with a fingernail, but it's in an awkward place so my fingers don't fit. No one comes in that fifteen minutes, either.
I go back out into the hall; Mrs. Minner's door is open. So I asked her if she had a screwdriver. Nope, but she let me into Mr. Penner's office, where he does have a screwdriver sitting with pens in a coffee cup. Rejoicing! Mrs. Minner leaves and I sit down to tighten my loose screw.
The screwdriver's the wrong type.
I spend fifteen minutes trying to use a tiny pair of scissors to screw the blasted thing back in, but nothing doing. Still no Mr. Penner, either. So I go back out and realize that I have to go to recitation.
Basically, I'm taking a tiny screwdriver to school tomorrow so I can fix my own bass clarinet. *sigh* And I missed out on a good forty minutes of practice which are sort of necessary since there's a concert a week from Saturday night and I have SOLOS that I need to keep practicing. (Since Parsons said that familiarity bred comfort; I always thought it bred contempt, but this is band, after all.)
I'm sure I'll fix it and I'm sure it'll sound fine, but I sure was frustrated that I didn't get to practice today because I couldn't find the proper screwdriver. *sigh*
More later.
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