Just a Little Late

I can't believe how unbelieveably cold, wet, and rainy it was yesterday. My bedroom window, the one that half faces a brick wall, was stuck ever since I tried to open it to let the smoke out that set off the smoke alarm the one time I cooked dinner. The fraction of space between the window and frame was seriously letting in some freaking cold air while I was trying to study yesterday afternoon, as if I wasn't already distracted enough with everything else.
By the time I got Tsai to help me shut my window, it was like 10:30, after all the rain and cold. A little bit late, but I guess it'll be good for the next time the cold weather comes.

I think I've got bad luck with weather. This is the second time I've been drenched, although nothing beats the first time this summer, when I looked like I took a shower in my clothes, complete with sneakers full of cold water. This time I was fully prepared, and decked out in boots and a jacket, but I still got soaked running to the bus. And in a way it was kinda amusing, since right after I got on the bus, it was still raining, but not hailing and not as hard as it was when I was running for it. What a way to welcome autumn :)

Lei finally brought an umbrella, after it stopped raining, naturally. And now that she's gotten it, I wonder if it's going to continue pouring like it has been this year. It's always one of those things, you know, where once you get something u need to brave the weather, that weather just stops and you're too late.

I've been a little late with a lot of things like that, lately. Like thinking up good things to say to defend myself, saying just the right thing to a friend to make herself feel better, finding the right answer to a physics clicker question. Too bad debate didn't make me think faster on my feet, lol.

"My nerves are bad to-night. Yes, bad. Stay with
me.
Speak to me. Why do you never speak? Speak.
What are you thinking of? What thinking?
What?
I never know what you are thinking. Think."
~T.S. Eliot, the Wasteland

Great Expectations

I feel like everytime I look forward to something, a Friday night, looking good for something, or, more likely, someone, it always backfires somehow. Or when I hope that I get out of class or work early, it always feels like time is DRAGGING, or I'm at work twice as long as I expected to be.
Like today. I thought I'd be out of work in an hour and a half at the latest. Wrong. I was there three freaking hours, isolating DNA out of 18 freaking e.coli. Why did I take this job again? Why am I not getting paid? Grr.
I was expecting this year to be different for sure, but definitely not in the way that it is now. I haven't seen half the friends I made last year, and I feel like I've already ran into my first big hill to climb. And I feel like although it's not that big, it's pretty f-ing slippery and I'm kinda falling down it a lot. Or stumbling over rocks that have just spontaneously popped up. And the worse thing about it? It's only been two weeks. I'm not supposed to feel this way until the first midterms hit.
No more cakewalk classes for me anymore :( Even physics I'm kinda struggling through. Even band, I'm having to push really hard to practice even fifteen minutes every other day.
Sometimes I feel kinda like Pip. Except he sorta became an ass for a while there. Wonder if I'm the same way.

Sacrifices

Yesterday as my dad was driving me home for labor day weekend, we had a nice long conversation about life, as always. But this time it wasn't so much of a lecture but an actual conversation. It started out with me complaining, actually. About how some people can get things so easy, things that I've had to bust my ass for. Like jobs. And money. I know so many people who have connections through their parents and other friends. They get higher paying jobs than me from their parents and connections. They don't have to search for a job, it's all lined up for them. Or they get these research jobs through their connections. It took me months to find my position. Same thing with some classes. Though, granted, sometimes I'm lucky with those too. But I mean, classes have always been a bit unfair, what with 20 sections of the same class, all taught by different teachers with different teaching methods. Someone's always gonna have a much easier class than you, and you have an easier class than someone else. I was talking about all this to my dad because I guess I was jealous, of all the people who've had lots of things just handed to them, of all the people who just don't see how great and easier parts of their lives are, and my dad told me why it'd all be worth it in the end. He said that I had to make this sacrifice and work hard for my children, so that I could make the connections that would set my children up in the way that I knew lots of people were set up.
It made me stop feeling jealous and self-centered, and think about all the sacrifices my parents and grandparents made, like my grandfather. I'm sort of ashamed, because until Friday, I actually didn't know much about my grandfather. He died when I was three, and I barely remember him at all, just little flashes, like freeze frames of a movie. When my dad was still in Hong Kong, my grandfather didn't actually have to work, because they got enough money renting out a house. According to my dad, he just went to dim sum a lot, and was happy doing so. But he made the sacrifice of moving to Canada for his family, even though he would've rather not worked and stuff. Apparently, me, my sister, and my dad are all just like my grandfather, since none of us really like having to build connections and beg for jobs.
It also made me think of my mom, because she didn't use to work either. And after her operation, she really didn't want to start working again. But I know that she did to get me and Tiff into college. And it's why we're here, in the States. Even though we moved here because my dad's job moved down here, I'm pretty sure my parents would've been just happy with staying in Calgary, but they always dreamed of me and my sister going to a big college in America. And so we moved.
Our talk made me realize that I just need to suck it up and study hard to make that big sacrifice my dad was reminding me about. I hope it's worth it. I think it will be.