| 25 mar 2001 my congratulations go out to arizona for making the final four in a year filled with adversity. it wasn't the prettiest win over illinois today, but they pulled it off. i'm watching the oscar red carpet stuff right now. jennifer lopez's boobs are showing through her translucent dress. she's got balls, but i guess she has the body to flaunt. i did my taxes today. it only took about a CD and a half, on turbotax online. i thought it would take a couple of hours. it was quite a pain entering my 59 stock transactions, but i came out with a $2500 refund. yeah, it's nice, but it's also a reminder that most of my life savings were wiped out by the stock market. depressing. ugh. juliette binoche is usually really beautiful, but her hair is just jacked tonight. friday night i pulled out a box of old letters and photographs. it was a rare, deep trip down memory lane, from my high school acdec (academic decathlon) years to four years at stanford. there were some poignant memories like seeing happy pictures of my late taiko friend luis, who passed away the summer of 1997. like my acdec buddy ron and his everpresent middle finger extended for all the world to see. like seeing that grand night sophomore year when my buddies and i tackled the century club (100 shots of beer in 100 minutes). then there were the letters that karine and i wrote each other over winter break, after we had just gotten together the night before we both left for vacation. back then, the budding relationship was still tinted by innocence, not laden with the high expectations that later caused so many problems for us. karine's a good writer with impeccable penmanship, and even though our breakup left a bad taste in my mouth for a while, it was refreshing to see our happier times. what affected me most, though, was seeing pictures of kristie again. my heart fluttered heavily every time i flipped to a snapshot of her. she is still the most beautiful person i have ever known. the couple of pictures of us together revealed a dardy chang that was at his happiest. i think of kristie as the greatest coup of my life. during freshman orientation, jack, alex, and i went to round table pizza in palo alto one night, and we glossed over girls we liked in our brand-new existence at stanford. i brought up kristie's name, and they just guffawed at the fact that she was untouchable. i remember my heart sinking because i never thought that i would be able to capture the heart of someone so unapproachable. that night, when i slept, i let myself do a rare thing: have regrets about the past. i dwelled on the fact that i was just a horrible boyfriend. kristie was my first relationship, and i was 17 years old at the time. i was pretty clueless. near the end of our reign as a couple made in heaven and hell, kristie once told me that she wished i had more experience as a boyfriend. i rue the fact that i didn't have the focus or strength to keep her by my side; sophomore year was when i joined stanford taiko, and that really occupied a lot of my time and attention. i kind of bitterly joke that i attribute my scatterbrained focus to my ADD. i was a pretty immature and intense person back then. i have read some of my e-mails from that era, and i don't recognize myself any more. i think i took life a little too seriously, to the point where i became pretty pretentious. i hate the fact that when i got upset so easily back then, and when i did, i just shut myself off from the world, even those closest to me. i regret neglecting kristie sophomore year. i regret not giving her the support and affection that she needed. i regret not noticing that we were growing apart. because if i could, i would do it all over again. and do everything in my power to stay with her. even today. i know it sounds like i'm still hung up over her. it's not that. like i said, it was a rare time that i let myself feel regret, which is something i conscientiously try not to do. because it's terribly unhealthy. but the more time passes and the older i get, the more i realize that kristie was the greatest love of my life, and in the rare instance that life hands me the opportunity to be not just happy but transcendentally happy, i wish to make the most out of it. those chances are really rare... and i just wish i get another crack at it, because i swear i will do better this time. |