last nite it stormed; two feet of snow fell from the sky in confused hysteria. in attempt to see his friends, he braved the weather and for one and a half hours was on the foad. during that time his mother and i talked about many things, especially what caused his parents’ divorce and what she could have done to prevent it… the conversation was great insight to Jon and his family. i firmly believe that a child is a replication of her parents with some personal adjustments based on her view of her family. without realizing it, one mimics her environment.

after he returned, the nite continued on with fun until we crawled into bed. we started discussing what i had learned from his mother. unfortunately, i scared him. like me, his father defines evil to him. what scared both of us was that his mother’s description of his father could have described him. all of the traits jon has- quietness, unexpressiveness, emotional confinement- all of these were the attitude of his father (although he appears to be better than his father at expression…), the attitude that resulted in divorce. the more we talked about it, the more it killed him. he knew what i was saying but did not want to be anything like his father.

modern american society is such an odd thing. no longer do women need men for monetary survival. i have a philosophy about divorce. pre-children, every iota of a couple’s attention is devoted to his/her partner and there is a constant feeling of ecstasy. when a women gets pregnant, her attention is diverted and her large belly becomes her obsession. since the husband is not nearly as attached (biology), he has two options.

1. accept this new attention and work to appreciate it at the highest level by being a pillar of support for the wife.
2. run away. seek attention outside of the home and look for other people to give him full attention.

if the husband chooses the latter, the marriage is over. not only do children unintentionally force their parents into a degree of repulsion, more often then not, if a faterh is jealous from pregnancy, he will never be an intricate part of the children’s life. a parent doesn’t just go thru the fun (playing ball, teaching how to ride a bike), a parent must also deal with the not-so-fun stuff (diapers, refusal to eat, fighting and temper tantrums). when parents do not work out a way to satisfiably share the responsibilities and joys of children, the child/parent relationship will always be uneven. both his and my father chose to seek attention elsewhere and neither of us knows our father.

peeking in a marital relationship’s decisions is thinking zen thought. the attachment to complete attention from another human being only destroys that bond as natural changes occur. wrong mind creates jealousy of children; wrong attitude destroys marriages. accept changes with a clear mind and resolve any wrong thought before it wreaks havoc.

i realized something about the CS department. i figured out what scares me about it. the department produces damn good CS students who know their shit but it does so at the expense of the students. in order to get a CS degree, you have to go thru hell. see, the classes are very time demanding and each professor expects your soul to be devoted to their class. students who want to get a degree have to give up much of their personal lives and well-roundedness. the basic requirements for the core classes do not allow flexibility for the students. the product is either CS burnout or CS obsession.

i’ve come to a realization that i am not the best at computer science nor do i want to be. i enjoy teaching and learning but i don’t want to give up my life and my well-roundedness to be the best of the best at one thing. i often feel that i have given up so much to do computer science and that is frustrating. i still need to figure out how to successfully do this.

competition is not for me. i love playing games (even “competitive” board or card games and sports) but i don’t play with a competitive edge. if i win, i win. if i lose, damn… oh well no big deal. i think this is why games are fun… i don’t put the world into them and i enjoy them for the general game. often when i play with others, the result of the game is that person’s mood for the day this is rather frustrating and disappointing… when i was walking to a class last week, hyon gak sunim reminded me that the result of the exam would not matter in three years. the same goes with a game. when i am fort, i won’t care that i lost one round of magic today in fifteen minutes. so why should i worry about it now? put the thought down; it just does not matter…

what a refreshing experience. hyon gak and i ate lunch together today. after 2.5 weeks of email/phone/physical tag (the longest in his history). regardless, the experience was worth it. we talked about a variety of topics from teh formal robe that was stolen from his car to the idea of him being a lecturer at brown. no matter what the topic, the conversation was sincere and open and i felt like we were conversing 100% openly. i realized that quite often when talking with someone, we resort to talking about what that person wants to hear but this conversation was nothing like that. the conversation gave me happiness and i went back to programming in a good mindset.

my efforts are noticeable. so, he and i had a fight this weekend. well, fight is an odd way of saying it.. lets say disagreement. so, he has been concerned that the fact that i am the only person that he has been with is bothering him and that we are too serious. although i do not feel that way, i understood his concerns and offered that i would not be disturbed if he wanted to see other people. he said that he was not certain but was worried about us being so serious, almost married and that it would mess us up in the future. i told him that i was not going to cage him but i could not guarentee that i would always be around when he came back.

i left and spent the nite at a friends and realized something there. although i love him dearly and do not want to lose him, i don’t think my world will tumble if he disappears. i am not nearly as attached to him as i once was. he is part of my heart and soul and current happiness but losing him will not ruin me.

that was an interesting realization…

sometimes an individual’s karms plays such a role with another’s attitude.

not as excited as i should have been, i awoke this morning grumpy about my exam. i never did feel that it tested my skills or knowledge.. so i started sulking to my exam. part of the way down waterman street, i heard my name screamed from someone’s car. i looked around, confused and saw that it was hyon gak sunim. he looked at me, smiled and asked where i was headed. i explained that i was off to an exam and that we should meet later in the week. he agreed, smiled and said “don’t worry about the exam. it won’t matter in 4 years.” he is totally right and when the professor asked how i did at the end, i said “it is over; there is nothing more i can do or say,” smiled and walked out of the exam. jon looked at me, asked how i did. “it is over.” every time someone asked me, i responded the same. i will know how i did in a few weeks but for now, it is over and i am happy. besides, i gained knowledge from the class.. does it matter what my “score” on the exam is? nah…

why can’t i just deal? why am i so attached to jon? i want so hard to let him go, to not control his life but when he does things that do not mesh with my morals, i don’t know how to cope. i want him to run free and experience things but i cannot deal with the result. i don’t like the idea of him with another woman without me there. i want him to understand what it is like to experience someone else but my emotions flip. it is such a battle between my mind and my emotions.

i am too attached to him. i know that. i cannot imagine being unattached. maybe this entire situation will help. i will learn what it means to not have him and then accept the unattachment. i am going to meditate on that thought.

sometimes i shock myself. the last week has been brutal. too much has been on my mind. suicidal people approach me as a stable standing (since when am i stable??). my mental energy focused this week on helping people and i did so well. now, everyone is at least dealing with there current situation in one way or another. but i am not dealing so well.

to make matters worse, i have been having the most uncomfortable discussions with my boyfriend. i just want everything to work out. i just keep thinking that i cannot cage birds. i must let them fly, no matter how hard it stings. my mind knows that but my emotional state is rebelling hardcore and i don’t know what to do. it is a no-win situation. grumble…

so, tonite, i got this bright idea that relaxing with a bunch of friends, willingly loosing a little bit of sobriety would be a good idea. WRONG! shortly into the nite, i was sitting in the bathroom singing two little girls by ani. let me tell you, that did NOT help. so, i walk out of the bathroom with my friend and the first thing we hear is a panik signal. i go off running, go knows what i am running from, running and afraid, afraid of me more than anything. i have never before felt out of control in myself. i learned that anti-sobriety elements really can be bad for you. i hid under someone’s bed, trying to escape from myself. finally, i made it to my friend’s dorm room where i proceeded to curl myself against the wall, convinced i was dying.

this whole dying thing was weird. my mind was 100% convinced that i was dying. i lay there, confused to all shit, feeling sorry for myself and trying to grasp any sense of reality or the mortal world. in my mind, i kept saying to myself, release the attachments. disengage yourself from reality. let go. it is ok to die. accept the dying. accept yourself. release attachments. clear your mind. slowly, i accepted my state, accepted the fact that i was dying and slowly cleared my mind. at one point, i knew that i was meditating. it was a strange thing because i was not thinking about it but my body was relaxed and accepting. suddenly, i felt whipplash. my entire body and mind whipped back through my entire history, backwards. trying hard to maintain a clear mind, i flashed in and out of prior experiences: the nite before’s discussion wtih my boyfriend, the cheating incidents, this summer’s rumor stuff… backwards backwards… clark’s death, nicole’s expulsion, governor’s school, fracturing my neck, audrey’s rape, her brother’s death, camp.. backwards backwards… hideous birthmark experiences / chopping off birthmarks, breaking my arm, my parent’s divorce, the adultry discovery, even back to ryan’s hospitalization. i flashed in and out of my whole history, things i had forgotten about, good and bad, insane.

when i stopped, my mind was clear and i opened my eyes. convinced i was in another state (ie: heaven or hell), i openened my eyes and asked for the bathroom. it was entirely white. i wondered how i deserved heaven when i did not believe in it in the first place. slowly, i realized that i was just alive and back to normal. it was the oddest feeling. but i could accept it.

one of the things that it totally made me realize is how important clear mind is to me; i needed that in order to get by. i appreciated and loved the feeling of clear mind and it helped me thru the nite. my mind was racing and it was the only solution.

the nite is over, i hope never to go thru it again but i learned a lot about me from it. a lot.

i despise dishonesty. it hurts far too many people. i have been hurt by dishonesty so many times. why do people lie and cheat? what advantage does that serve? do they feel like they get something out of it? what purpose does it serve? why do people do it?
i have been experiencing the results of people’s dishonesty and i don’t know how to react. i want to be mad at them while i want to feel pity for them. resolving these feelings is soooo difficult. above all else, i want to understand. what in me makes me want to understand everything? i do…

although i would like to remark more about this, i cannot unfortunately. the problems with unsecure technologies…