[justalilhopee]

[justalilhopee]

Seriously I’d like to have a job where I’m not crying. This job is already better than my last two but I’ve cried like 5x already and it’s all because of my COO. My head hurts.

[justalilhopee]

Wow it’s wild to return to tumblr after being gone for so long. I think what brought me back here is this sudden feeling that I don’t really have someone or someplace where I feel comfortable sharing my most random thoughts and little details in a day, like how I’m proud I made progress on that library book and I exercised twice this weekend.

[justalilhopee]

I don’t know when I started to develop this habit of putting end dates to relationships. In my case, I am mainly talking about friendships. I think it came out of the agony and pain I felt when I “broke up” with my best friend in 2016. It wasn’t dramatic at all, which perhaps made it more painful because it was so ordinary. We were friends since the 6th grade and she was the closest person I felt to in my life, closer than my actual sister. 

Since then, and perhaps this is just the nature of post-grad friendships, but I also noticed how I quickly became friends with certain people at work, but then once a project ended or they left the firm, our relationship died out. Looking back and seeing how a change in circumstances has made me grow apart with people has pushed me to develop the mechanism of protecting myself first. I am afraid of growing attached and not being able to let go. Thus, I start to expect when we would grow apart so that I can manage my own expectations. 

Although I may seem open, I am more comfortable building up layers, creating an impression that I want others to have of me. Sometimes, on nights when I come home, I feel empty. Like the brief happiness and laughter that came out of me wasn’t real. I laughed and smiled, but it wasn’t from the heart. They were expressions that I made so that I fit into the scenario. I spent more energy hiding my insecurities. 

In the sixth grade, the first manga I read was Sana’s Stage. I remember it fondly because it was about a popular teenage actress who grew up under the care of her eccentric mother (who is actually a famous author) and Sana had to hide the secret that she was actually adopted. Towards the end, Sana faces a challenging condition: she is unable to show any emotion on her face, even if she felt happy. I don’t know why that struck me so much at the time, but even now, a decade later, the emptiness I feel reminds me of her struggle. I make facial expressions that fit the scenario, but on the inside, I’m not sure if I was truly happy.

[afadthatlastsforever]

Come over. I don’t mind whether we talk all night, get blind drunk, or simply sit together in silence and look up at the stars.  Sometimes, the world down here just gets a bit much, and I need to lose myself in someone’s company for a little while.

Beau Taplin • C o m e  O v e r   (via afadthatlastsforever)

[justalilhopee]

So Far Away (Part II)

So Far Away (a song written by Suga ‘Agust D’ from BTS, featuring Suran)

Even my friends and family are drifting away, I feel anxious as time passes by It feels like I’m all by myself, I hope everything disappears when I’m alone I hope things disappear like mirage, I hope things disappear, I hope my damn self disappears I’m abandoned like this in the world, in this moment I’m drifting away from the sky I’m falling 

You had two or three cars before I turned 10. Mom always noted that you drove more miles away from home using those wheels, than taking us anywhere for fun. We didn’t like your driving style, anyways--our chests always jerked forward at every stop you made. 

I remember sometime in elementary school, I was sleeping in the back of your black Nissan. I didn’t know where we were going, but that we stopped at a diner. You chose the classic burger and fries, and I got a toasted bagel with cream cheese. After you settled the bill at the counter, a white lady, probably in her 50′s, with large blonde curls, offered me a lollipop. I rejected it even though I wanted it. I thought it was the right move, expecting her to egg the lollipop into my hands. As I dragged my steps behind you, I heard disappointment in your voice as you told me that I should have taken it. I was confused; I thought modesty could be practiced anywhere and with anyone. (But, probably works best with Chinese aunts and uncles.) I was still trying to figure out how to express my true desires and thoughts, between Chinese and American standards. 

Away in Boston, I knew that you and mom had no idea what I was doing on campus, what I studied or my own struggles. You guys would ask once every few months if I knew what I was doing, which I responded with a firm “yes.” Nothing further. Nothing more. I wasn’t pretending either, but I did not want to show you my struggles. I understood then why mom sent photos of her sitting on new furniture at Macy’s back to relatives in China. 

I was counting down the days until graduation. 

I thought in college I went through what was the loneliest periods of my life. Who knew that coming back home, working in the busiest area of the city made me feel even lonelier? 2016-2017 was the longest, most painful period of my life. I ate myself up and the confidence that I built up over the years slowly crumbled before me. I absorbed the problems and challenges that I faced and blamed myself. But who was I go to for help? No one understood. Even when I shared a piece with one or two close friends, I was afraid of being judged. It only felt worse when they asked out of good intentions. Having nothing to say, no good news to share, I withdrew even more. I felt like I was not good enough to meet up with them while they moved on with their lives.

Everyone’s running but why am I still here Everyone’s running but why am I still here

[justalilhopee]

So Far Away [Part I]

So Far Away (a song written by Suga ‘Agust D’ from BTS, featuring Suran) 

It’s really a bitch to not have something you want to do I know that it seems pathetic to not have a dream like every one “Everything’s going to be alright if you go to university and do as we tell you” I believed in those words but I’m living because I can’t die

From early on, you have always instilled in me the discipline of working hard for my education. When I came to the United States at the age of 4, I remember it was us, and your English-Chinese electronic dictionary. A portable mini-computer that could fit into the deep pockets of your suit pants. You assigned me new words, enough to keep me busy until you came back to New York City every two weeks. I remember the time you proudly exclaimed to mom that I could spell “identification” as we walked down Madison street and promptly requested me to spell it out. On many occasions when it was just the two of us, we frequently visited Pathmark, which was more of a playground for me than the real playground that we passed by along the East River. A refuge with air conditioning on hot summer days and an abundance of English labels in every row, Pathmark became another opportunity for you to teach me something new. Perhaps this is how my love and appreciation for food started. 

In between your sporadic absences, which lasted months at a time, I slowly relied on you less and less. Before I knew it, I was in middle school and our places had switched. You nagged me to go to the public library and internet cafes in Chinatown so that we can find restaurants for sale. At the inconspicuous library on East Broadway, which I routinely visited on my own, I booked two one-hour sessions using our library cards. We both sat on the wooden oak chair, with me driving the mouse. Your impatience at the restaurant listings was met with my desperate plea for you to jot something down in your spiral notebook. By this time, I was old enough to realize that your American Dream of owning a restaurant was an insecurity and illness that constantly loomed in the haze of your thoughts. You believed that achieving this goal would give you “face” and an added value to your name between the busy lips of Chinese relatives and acquaintances. 

Meanwhile, your American Dream for me was a great education. Funny enough, you yelled at me when I rushed home to tell you that I got into the second-ranked high school in the city. Then when I got into a good college, you yelled at me that it was a community college because it shared the same name as the town it was in. 

I don’t blame you though. Like many other immigrant parents, you had blind persistence and determination; or else, how would you have made it here? America was sold to you romantically, and it wasn’t difficult for you to buy into it. Four days after you and mom were married, you left for the other side of the world and she joined you 7 years later. 

7 years after graduating from high school, 3 years following my college graduation, I realized that a good education shouldn’t have been the end all be all. It dawned on me that I didn’t have a dream of my own. Your American Dream for me was one that I inherited and narrowed my ability to define one for myself. To chase another’s dream, one born out of time and circumstances, are you the pathetic one or am I? 

[justalilhopee]

The Sam Willows - Robot

[justalilhopee]

Kakehashi Project - Japan Trip (Tokyo, Wazuka, Osaka)

[justalilhopee]

Album Playlist in 2018

January

BTS-You Never Walk Alone

BTS-Love Yourself

Camila Cabello-Camila 

[justalilhope]

[justalilhopee]

James Arthur - Say You Won't Let Go

James Arthur 'Say you won't let go' Get the song here: https://smg.lnk.to/sayyouwontletgo Stream it on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/track/5uCax9HTNlzGyb...

[wellesleyunderground]

Countering the Culture of Success at Wellesley and #LeanIn in Society at Large: Anon ‘09

At Wellesley, we are told that we are #WomenWhoWill and in the real world, we are told to take “a seat at the table” blah blah blah. What do you think about this culture? It’s a lot. How do you respond to the demands to “succeed” and pressures to climb the corporate, political, managerial ladder? What do you do to center yourself and embrace where you are at?

In my opinion, the culture of #WomenWhoWill can result in a many negative psychological effects and a propensity toward self-criticism and status seeking behaviors that is not always healthy. Specifically, in my case, as a low-income student who later became financially responsible for family members, Wellesley culture carried over into ‘real life’ was detrimental to my well-being. There were hard choices that had to be made that did not translate into jobs with fancy titles or the ability to drop out of the workforce in order to attend graduate school. Despite this I have successfully, for the most part, navigated post-undergraduate life while contributing to my local community in variety of ways, yet there is still a major part of me that thinks what I have achieved thus far is not good enough and never will be. Couple that with this constant need to look back and critique all of my previous choices from classes to jobs (even when they made sense in context) in an effort to pinpoint where I could have made a different choice that would result in a ‘better’ outcome and you have a person who is out of balance, always holding herself up to a Wellesley standard that in all honesty does not jive with who I am as a person or what gives my life overall meaning. 

What gives my life meaning is being a good friend/family member and a good citizen standing up for things I believe in, not work if I am being honest. I think encouraging Wellesley students to achieve their goals and providing them the means and support to do so is admirable, particularly for marginalized groups, but I wish we could move away from conceptualizing success in very specific, narrow terms that do not honor the diversity of life choices that may be deemed meaningful for the individual, if not by society at large.

[justalilhopee]

[justalilhopee]

[justalilhopee]

[justalilhopee]

BTS Rap Monster – Always [Han|Rom|Eng lyrics]

NO COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT INTENDED ==================================== MY TWITTER: https://twitter.com/hobisensei TUMBLR: http://lynn-eksonyeondan.tumblr.co...

I live to understand the world

But the world has never understood me, why