Wednesday, May 21, 2008

It was just one glance

It was nearing finals when everyone was frantic. We were all fighting for the same films to watch before our dreaded final just to make up for our lackluster attempts at conquering the class beforehand. It all boiled down to this, the final scramble. I saw you there. Immediately I took notice of you. I would not describe you as particularly gorgeous. I could not say you took my breath away, but there was something. An air of confidence perhaps, or maybe the way you presented yourself, but from then on, I knew. One thing is for sure, I would not describe your looks as revolting, but rather, cute and attractive in a very different kind of way. You introduced yourself, and I did the same. Jeff was your name. I wish I knew your last name. We were trying to watch the same film. You were chivalrous and said that I could watch it first. You gave me as smile. I was nervous. I gave a awkward smile back. Somehow I felt that there was a connection to be created. That was all it took.

I began to search for you in all of my classes. I always sat in the front and I scanned around the room just to get one glance at you. I realized that you were in two of them. Whenever I saw you walk up to the front of the lecture hall, I could not keep my eyes off of you. My heart stopped maybe for the briefest of moments. Then came the dreaded moment when I realized that the two classes were over. Maybe I would not see you any longer, that made my heart yearn. I thought that maybe fate would bring us to meet again on happenstance. Perhaps I would find you again.

Then came a new start, a new quarter, a new beginning. I used the same tactic. I scanned my classrooms just for one sign of your presence. I found it in two of them. I saw you, and again I held my breath. I knew I would always look for you, maybe this time I will be able to sit next to you. Every single lecture, I would turn around awkwardly just to get a simple glance at you. Then one day, I sat relatively close to you on the benches right outside of class. You were reading the newspaper, while I was cramming for our midterm. I looked at you and I put my head down. You looked at me and returned to your newspaper. I wanted to say something without feeling like an idiot, but what could I have done? I felt like an idiot and got up. I walked into the classroom full of shame. Fate seemed to be playing tricks on me again, for I could not summon up the bravery to even say one single word. A simple "hello" could have sufficed.

I missed my chance, but I was not going to allow it to happen again. In our class you actually sat close to me. One row behind me and very near my vicinity. You were talking to your friend. I heard your voice and it made me nervous. I did not know how to act. Fate brought us close to each other again. What was I supposed to do? Do I interject? Do I wait for the perfect moment to say something? Was there even going to be this magical moment? I tried to act as normal as possible. I tried to make myself appear cool and collected. I talked to my friend who sat next to me. Maybe he would notice this time and say something. Nothing ever did happen. I lost my chance again. My courage seems to go down the drain every single time that I know you are around.

What is an attraction anyway? Should I act upon it? I'll let fate decide one more time, only if it is kind enough to give me one more chance.

Sunday, May 18, 2008

My Lack of Empathy and Absorption

I am a selfish person. Everyone to some degree is, but sometimes I feel as if I am more than others. I tend to think of everything for myself rather than focusing on what other people want. I do want to help out my friends as much as I can, but I find it rather hard to do so when I have my own projects to get done. Why don't I think about other people? They have just as much as me if not more, and yet I cannot give up my own time for them while they do it for me?

The real reason is that I do not understand the meaning of one important word: sacrifice. I know what the word means and the construction of the word in a practical manner, but do I really? I can sacrifice myself for others, but not at my own costs. It seems that most of the time when I do, it is because I start feeling guilty or that it becomes a necessity for me to save my own face. I guess it all really boils down to pride. I definitely have much of that, and I can't seem to shake off the excess of it.

It becomes rather difficult to change a person who has been brought up with the same old habits for the past two decades, and yet I might find the will in me to change. If I criticize myself for my bad habits, would it really make a difference?

Wednesday, May 14, 2008

A Paradigm of Jubilation

What a quandary it is to continue on with not an inkling of a motive or a hope for a future.

It is hard for me to keep myself up, to keep myself wanting something out of nothing. I tell myself to keep on wishing and perhaps one day it shall come true. But really, is this all life really has to offer? I have been granted many gifts in my lifetime, that I am willing to admit, but I feel that now of all times, I am in a desperate state of affairs. Whatever deity that exists out there, I feel like I am pleading. I am on my knees asking for a prayer, and yet none seems to ever be given to me. Is it my own fault? I consistently think it is. What am I doing wrong? I constantly analyze my motions, my expressions, my actions, my motives, and I try to change them but find it difficult to do so. My stubborn ways always win, and I am back to nothing.

Change. Change is the only thing that can ever make a difference. I tell myself to change, but it never really works. If my mind does not believe in it, how can my body act upon it? This higher deity loves to play tricks on me. The person who runs about one thousand thoughts per minute. That would be me. I am exhausted by my thoughts and I wish that it would stop, but yet I never give myself even a minutes worth of rest. What do I really want out of all of this? Something that I've been craving for so long and yet I have never had the opportunity to enjoy. A happiness. A pleasure. A spark. Something, anything. Something to make me care, something to make me happy. I want happiness is what I want in the end. Don't we all? Can't I get something as simple as that? Are my wants to large? I don't really think they are. In the end, I am more simple in my wants than I appear to be, and yet so complicated in many other ways.

I find myself wanting escape. An escape into the world out there and in more than one way, a journey to find myself. It sounds sort of cliche to say it, but I am an adventurer in the end, and I want to see the world. My spirit is awakening and calling out to the world, and yet I am inable to act upon it. I am trapped in my own little world, and frankly, it is getting quite claustrophobic. I crave the ability to just see everything that I want to see. I want to explore the vast cultures that are out there and to understand my own. I want a worldliness that not many people have. I do not want to be ignorant but remain as open and understanding as possible. I want to be able to live in the most remote location in the most primitive of settings. I want something that is bare to the bone, simple, to make me understand what it is really about. Gaining understanding may help me understand my own precarious situation. Maybe one day, I'll do it....I hope to do it and plan to do it. My soul craves something more out of this world, and yet I am unable to attain it.

Oh sweet rapture, when will you ever reach me?