| 23 mar 2001 so this morning my mom e-mailed me and told me that she glanced at my website.� she had some comments about the "smoker" tag i gave myself, as well as the "wallflower" one, too.� i don't know if she read any of these entries, though. so now that i know my parents are going to be watching what i write, how do i feel?� a bit strange.� i was never a real communicator when it came to the parent-child thing.� even though i have a brother, we both kind of grew up as the only child, since we were 10 years apart.� so i spent a lot of time by myself, reading, drawing, playing piano, etc. it was only after i started working that i really opened up a bit more to my parents.� that's kind of sad, but hey, at least it happened some time. but my parents still don't know much about lots of aspects of my life.� especially when i was at stanford.� i fed them little tidbits of information when they asked, but then again, they never asked too much about my personal life anyway.� i guess the lack of communication reinforced itself in a circular way especially when it came to girlfriends.� but i'm glad about that, because i feel like relationships are the main part of life where i have to explore on my own how to work them out.� parental advice may have been helpful some times, but i'm glad that i got to deal with my girlfriends on my own.� i don't think i messed up _too_ much.� well, then again... i thought a little about the fact that my mom might be reading this stuff.� what if i say "shit?"� (hi, mom!)� but in the end, i decided that this journal is for me, and i'm not going to censor what i'm going to write. ----- i bought a DVD last weekend of eminem's videos.� so i'm sort of torn as to whether or not i should support him.� he's a bigot.� he's hateful.� yet i think he's really brilliant.� is it possible for us to separate an person's art and his underlying beliefs? what if mozart was an extreme racist?� what if picasso was a wife-beater?� should we discount their contributions to society?� i seems that most people are ok with the fact that thomas jefferson owned slaves.� well, maybe most.� i don't know. i find this a very difficult issue to reconcile.� i am strongly against hate crimes, and i've always detested people who commit horrendous acts based on strongly prejudiced beliefs.� yet, i think that artistic selves can blossom even in the most warped and distorted minds, and they should be appreciated.� in eminem's case, his hatred is his art.� so i just get really confused. but his videos are really good.� he's amazing with words. ----- stanford beat cincinnati last night.� it was a good, tense game until the final 4 minutes or so. we're into the elite eight. i'm sporting my stanford men's basketball shooter's shirt today.� i think it's what the players wore over their uniforms a few years ago.� so i have this great big "S" emblazoned over my lower chest.� and i have no problems flaunting my collegiate loyalties. i'm proud of going to stanford.� i'm not snobbish about it, though.� it's a fine line between putting other institutions down and praising my own, but i do think i'm doing the latter.� stanford is RAD.� i want my kids to come here. whoops, i mean go there. wow. did i really say "come here?" my friend karen is just the opposite.� she hates people knowing that she's from stanford.� apparently she's had some bad experiences about asian moms gushing over her collegiate status symbol.� but, i've never really gone though that with my parents or their friends.� they never told me, "XXX is the BEST school.� you must go there or else you're worthless."� i've heard stories about koreans in particular that really pressure their kids to get into harvard. i thank my parents for giving me the freedom when it came time to choose a college.� i was actually against stanford when i applied to colleges.� since i grew up in cambridge, massachusetts (ages 3-6), i grew to love boston.� and i always thought that i would go to MIT.� and growing up on conservative dallas, i used to ridicule californians as hippies and liberals.� not that i really know what the hell that meant.� but my gun-loving war-monger friends just drilled it into my head that california was the dwelling place for fruitcakes. but then... i visited MIT.� how depressing.� man.� people wouldn't even chat with me and my friend kevin because they had problem sets to do.� it was then i realized that what i really loved was my childhood in boston, not the college. and then came the stanford visit.� holy shit.� i loved it out there.� the weather really makes a different on maintaining a cheerful disposition.� i really believe that.� i used to say that i was a plant, and i needed the sunlight to photosynthesize. in the end, it came down to three schools: harvard, MIT, and stanford.� i visited all three schools with kevin, and the night i had to decide, i pulled out all the pictures i took of the schools.� i pored over them, and pontificated.� MIT was depressing.� harvard didn't have a good engineering school.� and i loved my visit to stanford.� it was a pretty easy decision. i think back on a lot of things and wonder "what if."� but my college choice never even came close to the realm of wonderment. my heart now belongs to the stanford community.� the further away i live from campus, the weaker i feel.� i feel my strength replenish itself whenever i go back to campus.� yeah, it's kind of messed up, because my college days are long over, and yet i'm deluding myself into thinking i still belong.� i don't.� i know that.� but i'm just not willing to let go just yet. dwelling on the past, as usual. |