Simply Complicated

My rants and daily life on a blog.

[simplycomplicatedeverywhere]

[simplycomplicatedeverywhere]

I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality... I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word.

Martin Luther King, Jr. 

[simplycomplicatedeverywhere]

Trump

Being a Canadian at an American university, I knew that election day was going to be interesting. It wasn’t my country so I couldn’t vote, nor would it impact my country as profoundly as it would the United States if Donald Trump won. 

On November 8 as soon as election results started coming in my roommate and I had our eyes glued to the electoral map. Very quickly many states went red, my roommate saw this and then started panicking. She took her calculator out and then started calculating the probabilities of Clinton winning. 

She had looked at me and told me, “At this rate, Trump is going to win.” 

I had shrugged it off though, thinking about how it was impossible. Trump was a joke...wasn’t he? 

Obviously not. The later we stayed up, the more states turned red and Trump’s numbers got higher. I had looked at this and shaken my head. I knew that America was filled with people with different ideologies, but were they really letting Trump win? 

That night, I stayed up till 2:30AM just staring at this map. My roommate was feeling too anxious so she had went to sleep.

Even though I had stayed up that late, election results had not been concrete. Except it was pretty clear that Trump had won and I sighed and had went to sleep wondering what America was going to become. Would I have to go back to Canada? Should I go back to Canada to continue my education? Those were what ran through my head until I fell asleep.

When I had woken up the next morning, it was confirmed. Trump was going to be president. I had just laid there in shock as my roommate did too as we got ready for classes. 

I did not expect what I saw when I went into class. People had obviously been crying, eyes red, tissues by their noses. Half of our class had been missing as well. Even the professor came in late, obviously grief-stricken. 

We then talked about how it would impact our society. What would happen when Trump was president and how it would affect individuals. Listening to all this had gotten me really panicked, as well as sad. I was sad for America and I was scared of what was going to happen in this country that so many people strived to be in. I was also worried about Canada-US relations. Would we go through another depression of some sorts? 

People started crying as they talked about why they were affected. LGBTQ+ members talked about how they were scared for their lives while people of all races talked about how racism and xenophobia was going to erupt. How latinos were in danger and so were other people of color. It wasn’t only sadness and anger in the room - it was also fear. 

Listening to some of these stories had also made me tear up. It started settling in how bad it was. This also brought me back to my AP Literature class a year prior. My teacher had been astounded that Trump had become republican nominee. She had then proceeded to say how similar, but different Canada and the United States were. How the United States had more extremes than us. 

Obviously, there are many racists in Canada and other people with different thoughts. Which also made me wonder, if we had a party running a campaign on hate, would they win too? Would all the secret racists/sexists/xenophobes come out? 

After a couple of hours, I had gone to my history class where my professor had talked about history. How this might be history repeating itself and how terrifying this was. She compared it to 1920s Japan and how cosmopolitan and “modern” it was, but then how it had gone extremely corrupt all the sudden in the 30s. Was this going to be the future of America? 

Overall, that day had been a moody day. All these thoughts had drained me out and I had breathed in and out, thankful that I was Canadian. 

Today though, I started seeing the effects of the Trump nomination. All of secret racists had come out, starting racist movements thinking that it was alright now that Trump was president. I read articles, tweets, and facebook posts about racist occurrences that had happened today. All I could find though, were posts about racism towards Blacks and Hispanics. 

I digged more though and then found articles about Asian-American racism. Now, I’ve noticed that when we talk about minorities in my classes Asians seem to be always left out. We never talk about how Asians go through racism as well. Except we do. I personally notice that when I am with my white friends, I am treated better by many services and salon clerks. I notice that when I am alone until I prove that I am assimilated I am looked down upon. I notice that if I am with an Asian friend who is speaking to me in another language other than english, that store clerks do not approach us. I also saw the small stints of racism that occurred within my school when some boys figured out that there were new students, who were asian, that could not speak English. They used the language barrier as an advantage, sexually harassing her without her knowing and being blatantly rude. I also notice that even though many of us are born in english speaking countries and have been raised in these countries, people often forget this. They assume that we don’t know english and whenever they ask us where we are from they keep pressing it until we tell them our ethnicity. 

This is all ignored though and Asians also try to ignore this. I know myself and my other Asian friends try our best to assimilate. We try to segregate ourselves from the “FOBs” and we try to fit in with others as much as possible. When we are able to achieve this, people stop viewing us as “one of those immigrant Asians”. I know that this was the case in my friend group and there were many stereotypical asian jokes and insults that flew around. Except did I do anything about it? No. I just poked fun at it too and made jokes about other Asian people as well. I know now that I should have pointed it out and made them learn. Nevertheless, they’re still my best friends and I know they all have great, open hearts. 

Anyways, I started reading these tweets and articles about the harassment towards these Asian-Americans and it broke me. I couldn’t believe that so many people were being told to go back to China when they weren’t even from China. They were American. I read the story about the girl at the University of Minnesota who had been harassed, first being told to go back to China and then being told that she only got into the University because of her race. (Seriously? It’s harder to get into universities if we’re asian since there are so many of us!) How policemen handcuffed her and listened to the boys who provoked her into using her self-defense skills. 

And even in Canada. A swastika was spraypainted on a road in my city, in my neighborhood. 

We need to be able to fight all of this. We cannot allow America (and Canada) to become racist once again. We need to make sure that the future of North America isn’t white supremacy and that it is open to all. 

I really hope Trump isn’t as bad as he was during his campaign and I really hope that American doesn’t go corrupt. I also really hope that Canadians don’t try to follow America's footsteps and realize that America just took a huge step backwards. 

[fuckingflorida]

Rest in peace.

[simplycomplicatedeverywhere]

[simplycomplicatedeverywhere]

Friendship marks a life even more deeply than love. Love risks degenerating into obsession, friendship is never anything but sharing.

Elie Wiesel 

[simplycomplicatedeverywhere]

Just Stuff.

A couple of days ago, for the first time ever, I had started to feel extremely pissed off around my best friend - a friend who I had never felt any negative feelings towards. Whether it may have been because I was hormonal or I was just having a shit day, I somehow felt angry around her. This was new to me and although I tried to suppress it, it didn’t work. These feelings persisted all day through our weekly lunches outside of the school. That week, many things had happened. She, also being quite hormonal the week before, had on and off feelings about another very close friend of mine, A. Obviously, since nothing exciting around me (romance related) ever happens around me, I go excited. I had learned that she had some kind of “crush” feelings for A and that A also had feelings for her. And, even though I knew that I probably shouldn’t get involved, I did meaning that I heard all the feelings they both had for eachother, took note and would report A’s feelings to my friend. And, as I learned about my friend’s feeling for A, I would encourage A to ask her out and do something spectacular. 

Obviously, what I did was terrible. Especially, since it turned out that my friend actually didn’t like A and that it had been a quick infatuation that one week. After this occurred and my friend decided that she really did not want to be romantically involved with A in any way, she texted him about how they should just stay friends. I hadn’t been upset about this at all, and really admired her strength and ability to say no so easily since I’m not that kind of person. Since it had been AP week, A had not come to school at all and my friend and I had acted as if everything was fine. On the Thursday though, in order to keep things “normal” we asked A if we were going to go on our weekly lunches. He had acted cryptic, not the nicest, and kept repeating the same word over and over again. Now, this method of saying one work over and over again is a method I used when I am mad at somebody in order to cope and in order to make sure that I don’t say anything that I will regret in the future. For this reason, I started feeling guilty and started thinking about how A must’ve felt. I had been encouraging him to as my best friend out and it had turned out that she didn’t like him. Even though I had my reasons for encouraging him, and I genuinely thought it would’ve worked out, he didn’t know anything from that side and might have thought that I been doing it as a joke to have some fun. I started feeling terrible and the next day when his one word conversations kept persisting my guilt started turning into anger, and since for some reason I had already felt pissy towards my friend, that anger just grew. That lunch, I had just exploded. I couldn’t stand her (even though she did absolutely NOTHING) and had blown up at the end of our lunch. I started crying (which I definitely wouldn’t have done if I was on my period), gotten pissy, ignored her, but all she did was to hug me and then tell me that she would stop being friends with A if he was being a bitch. 

Now, when she said that I started feeling even worse. She was such an amazing friend who never got mad, I kid you not, who probably had one of the best most peaceful minds on this planet and she hadn’t even gotten mad at me for meddling or being so rude to her that day and the day before. I felt absolutely terrible for what I had done to both of them. One, for being such a shit to one of my best friends and then second, for encouraging A even though I knew that it might not have worked out. 

They had gone out to dinner that day and it seemed like it all went well between those two, which I was really happy about for them, except the feeling of guilt still lingered. I apologized to A and my friend, in which kind of cleared my conscience, but I still feel really bad about what I did to my friend.

She’s such a great friend and I don’t know what I would do without her. She listens to all of my rants (which is a lot), puts up with all my bad days (we share most of our classes), and is just overall one of the best friends I’ve ever had. I appreciate her so much and even though I am never the kind of person to ever express this out loud since I am not into mush and all of the sentimental stuff (at least out loud) so I just thought I would write this down.

They’ll both (hopefully) never see this post so this is just a good document for me. Hopefully we stay great friends next year and the other years coming. 

:)x

[simplycomplicatedeverywhere]

Despite everything, I believe that people are really good at heart.

Anne Frank

[simplycomplicatedeverywhere]

[simplycomplicatedeverywhere]

Vegans

I live on the west coast and over here everyone is very lets say - health conscious. It’s all about eating organic foods and shopping at whole foods. Now, before I moved, I knew about vegans and vegetarians, but I found it absurd. 

Now I understand that what vegans are doing are a good thing. They don’t like animal cruelty (and/or they have digestion problems, etc). I like the concept of it all and I’m completely open to trying out all of the vegan products out there - especially after one of my close friends became vegan. 

I just tried a vegan pudding and burger and it was delicious. My friends super cool with it too and whenever my other friends (who aren’t vegan (there’s one pescetarian)) eat non-plant based products she doesn’t care. She has a mindset of “Each to their own”, which I like. 

As I’ve researched though- the people who really push it on everybody and insult everyone who aren’t vegan really annoy me. 

Like honestly! Everyone has their own food preferences and if someone doesn’t want to be vegan you really can’t push it on to them. I understand that you don’t want to hurt animals, but seriously I am almost 100% sure that this world will never become 100% vegan. Each region/country have their own palettes of food and that’s the kind of food that they like eating and will continue to eat for the rest of their lives.  

For example - don’t all Europeans love to eat cheese? (At least my european friends did. They would eat blocks of it at a time.) Milk was also a staple in their diets. I think dairy is just something really hard to cut out. 

As for Asia - almost every dish has meat in it whether it be fish or actual meat. 

Every place has their own cuisine meaning that being vegan really isn’t possible. Some foods just can’t be made vegan either. 

Now, there are probably going to be people who say. Yeah- they can change it. They can become vegan now and change the world for the better. Sure some people may be able to, but some may not be able to. Whether they may be too stubborn or need protein in their life. (I know you can get protein not from meat, but meat carries the most of it. Plus, athletes need meat to build more muscle.) Plus, observing my friend it seems as if though being vegan is really expensive.  

I like the idea of it, but I don’t think I’ll ever become vegan. Maybe pesc or vegetarian, but I love my dairy too much. I’ve tried vegan cheese and all of the nut milks. I found it really not great. (almond milk is O.K. but it doesn’t taste like cow milk at ALL) I love eggs too. (Are there any egg alternatives?)  

Anyways - my message here is. Do your thing. Maybe you can mention it ONCE about how maybe someone should become vegan, but don’t keep mentioning and then bash the other person for eating some animal products. Like “OMG YOU’RE RUINING THE COWS LIFE or YOU ANIMAL KILLER) These animals were farmed and its not like all the rest of us are running around the city picking up wild animals and eating it. These animals were farmed for us to eat. It’s been in our diet for so long that I highly doubt that it’ll ever disappear. 

So yeah - each to their own. Do it if you want, don’t if you don’t. No need to freak out.

[simplycomplicatedeverywhere]

I wanted to post a Taylor song, but she doesn’t allow her music on spotify so. and i love this song. BABY IM PERFECT FOR YOU :) 

[simplycomplicatedeverywhere]

Grammy Album of the Year: 1989

Okay, so I’ve been scrolling through twitter and tumblr and all that and I’m seeing a lot of people talk about they don’t think Taylor’s album should win AOTY. This is especially occurrent amongst the One Direction fans, which is understandable since she did date Harry Styles (and half of the album is probably about Harry too. “Styles”? ;) They say she’s marketing off a two month relationship and that he deserves half of the grammy.

Well here’s my opinion whether you want it or not. 

I’m a huge One Direction fan, but have also been a Taylor fan since I was in the sixth grade. (I’m in 12th grade now)  I honestly think that we don’t know shit about their relationship and it must’ve been pretty intense for her to write so many songs about it. (If it even is about him, we all actually don’t even know) Maybe it was actually longer than what was shown in the public’s eye. We only know what we read since we’re actually not friends with either Harry or Taylor. 

I also truly think that what she said about female artists being more judged for writing about their lovers than their male counterparts is completely true. There are so many male artists out there who mock their exes, write about them, and does the media ever call them “serial daters”? Do the fans attack the f*ck out of them about profiting off of dating? Do people complain that the person is dating JUST for writing songs? C’mon, we all know that they don’t and even if they do, it’s at a lot smaller scale. Sure, Taylor may have dated a lot of people (not even that many I know people NOT in the public eye who are ACTUAL serial daters, both male and female) but I’m sure she’s not dating them for songs. I mean to write a song you probably have to have some kind of feelings for them. 

I also have to say that 1989 is my all time f*cking favorite album. This is the first album in my LIFE that I can keep listening to and not get sick of. (Seriously - ask my friends they are going crazy) Since it came out, up till now, if ANY of the songs pop up in shuffle I don’t have to skip over it since I’m not sick of it. When any of her singles play in the car, I jam to it instead of changing radio stations. I even still put some of the 1989 songs into my individual monthly playlists and recently have been listening to the CD over and over. This is actually saying a lot since I’m the kind of person who binge listens to CD’s for the first month after it comes out, gets super sick of it, and then doesn’t listen to it for the next five years. (This is what happened when I listened to Midnight Memories by One Direction a tad too much) I absolutely love it and I don’t see myself ever getting sick of it. 

Anyways - I’m so happy that she won album of the year and can’t wait till her next pop album whenever that may be!! <3 

Also this wasn’t an attack on One Direction fans. I LOVE One Direction - trust me lol. 

[simplycomplicatedeverywhere]

Sorry, but this album is pretty good. :) 

[simplycomplicatedeverywhere]

Looking Back and Forward

2015 is now officially over and it is now 2016, which I decided that this would be the perfect time to write a post on what happened last year and what my goals are for this year. 

2015 was a very good one in my opinion. I accomplished all of my goals, was able to immerse myself more into extracurriculars, became more open than I was before, and just had a great time. 

I don’t remember anything bad that happened to be completely honest, besides the fact that I may have screwed up my grades a bit at the end of grade 11 with my final exams. If I could go back in time, I would tell myself to study more for those STEM subjects. 

Besides all this though, I seriously had one of my best years. I was able to go to two concerts by one of my favorite bands, One Direction, as well as a couple other concerts which I had really wanted to go to such as Taylor Swift’s 1989 tour. Her concert was by far one of the best I had ever been to. I also went to her Speak Now tour and I have to say that the way she presents herself, the way she talks, and her set is amazing. The aura is completely different from One Direction’s, but they both have great qualities. The thing I like about One Direction’s concerts were that they were casual. They jump around, sing, and do things that haven’t been done yet at other concerts. Niall rapped at the end of the concert which I have to say was fabulous. 

I also went to Disney World which I had been dying to go to since I was in the third grade. Although I am not the biggest disney cartoon fan nor have I watched any of the recents ones (wreck-it ralph, etc), I still found it extremely enjoyable. I took pictures with many of the cartoon characters and could ride almost all of the rides that I wanted to. One thing I really like about Disney is that all the rides are not terrifying. When I went to the Chicago Six Flags that one year and was forced by my parents to go on the Goliath, I seriously thought that I was going to have a heart attack and die. Not only did we go to Disney World, but I also went to Universal Studios and was able to go to Harry Potter land which was very fun. 

Maui was also a highlight of my traveling this year as it had been a couple of years since I had been to a beach-y place. Although it was quite different from Thailand, Fiji, and Tahiti as there were a lot more people, I still found it quite nice. People were quite friendly (besides these drunk people on the beach), the seafood was great (was kinda disappointed that there wasn’t any Mahi Mahi), and the snorkeling was amazing. We went on a day trip and I was able to swim around and see all these different types of fish. Not only that, but I saw many sea turtles with my own eyes which was very cool. I also tried snuba diving, but I now know that my ears are not good under pressure. (Yes, I tried breathing out of my ears and it still hurt quite a bit) It was fun though and maybe I’ll try it again in a couple of years. Hopefully we’ll go back soon. One thing that did tick me off during this was that many people even after being strictly told not to touch the sea turtles or go too near, people did and chased this one younger turtle around. I’m also sure that the turtle could’ve died or something since it was obvious that it was trying to go to the surface to breathe. (Which was proven when after all the people harassing it left and the turtle went up to breathe). I would’ve said something, but everyone was underwater (in their snorkel gear) and the supervisor wasn’t around so I sadly couldn’t do much about it. 

Also on the travel itinerary was Japan, Taiwan, Boston, Pennsylvania, and Seattle. Japan and Taiwan were places I had been before so it had not been anything too exciting although I did explore new places with my family. In Taiwan, we went not only to Taipei this time, but also to the north of Taipei to the countryside. In Japan, we didn’t only stay at my grandpa’s, but we went to all the tourist destinations that I had never been to before. As for Boston and Pennsylvania, it was a trip that we planned very last minute as I wanted to check out colleges before deciding on my early decision school. I did have one college in my mind that I really did want to go to, especially since one of my relatives had talked it up quite a bit, once I arrived at campus though, I did not like it one bit. It was nice and had all the qualities that I wished for, but somehow I did not click with it. Not only that, but the interviewer wasn’t the most polite. I liked all the other schools though and the one I did end up choosing as my early decision school was one that I hadn’t even thought about too much till I arrived at campus, met the students, and had absolutely fallen in love with. I think the people at a college are the most important aspect for me and the fact that some of their students toured me around on a Sunday, when there weren’t any tours, was the best thing. I did also meet the admissions twice who I really enjoyed speaking to as well unlike this one college who were extremely rude even though their booth was completely empty. We did also go to Seattle multiple times, which was fun per usual. 

I also turned 18 this year which was very fun. A girl I don’t particularly like did end up staying over during my party though (when she never does) bummed me up quite a bit, but it was alright.

I also got into my college of choice! (Which I won’t speak about further since I think I have written and talked about it more than necessary)

Other than all of this, things obviously happened, but those were little things which I remember, but I don’t think I need to write about. 

Now, let’s talk about 2016. 

It’s only two days in, but I have to say I haven’t done anything yet this year. I’ve been reading a ton, rolling around in my room, and eating. 

I have been thinking about goals I want to set and here there are: 

1. Don’t get senioritis! 

I know it’s a very common thing for seniors getting senioritis after getting into college and this is something I hope won’t happen to me. I’ll make sure that I continue studying and I am aiming to get all A’s, at least in my humanities courses. I have already half given up on AP Chemistry. 

2. Stop investing so much time on social media. 

The past two years, I have been scrolling through twitter whenever I got bored and let’s just say that it is very time consuming without me knowing it. Facebook and facebook are also two places I always look as well when my twitter feed ends. I really think that I should cut back on this, especially when schools starts. I think that if I do this, it’d really help out with life in general. 

3. Stop holding grudges towards people.

I’ve really been struggling with not holding grudges against people for long periods of time. Whenever I think about some of these people, I get really mad and I kind of have to sit at a corner for a second to calm myself down. I’m guessing that this isn’t the best thing and that I should really stop this whole thing and maybe look at everyone at a more positive light instead of only concentrating on their bad sides. So I will seriously try this year. 

4. Stop worrying about every little thing. 

I’m someone who thinks about everything for long periods of time once it happens. If I slip up while talking in class, say something that could’ve potentially hurt someone, or anything like this I think about it for days and days even though I really can’t do anything to fix it. (Unless I build a time machine of course (which won’t happen because I hate thinking scientifically)) 

5. Be more organized about everything.

My room this year has been extremely messy (or messy to my parents standards). When I finally cleaned it a month ago, despite what I told my parents, I felt more fresh. I love chilling on the floor of my clean room and rolling around on the carpet. Not only is this one about my room though, but also about plans and life in general. Maybe no more last minute plans? Haha. 

Well, these were the only goals I have for myself now, but maybe more will come up as the year goes on. 

I hope you all had a fantastic new year and I wish you all a great day x 

(Also, sorry if there are any grammatical mistakes in any of my posts. I’m not one who likes looking back and correcting everything. I’ll probably do that though in a couple of days just in case.) 

[simplycomplicatedeverywhere]

Just cuz :) 

[simplycomplicatedeverywhere]

Friendships?

So, for awhile now I have been hanging out with one girl who I have never been the biggest fan of. 

From the moment I had seen her, she had a bad vibe. I had looked at her for a bit, but obviously I couldn’t only judge a person off of their vibe and we soon became friendly. Everything was okay until we ended up having almost every class together except for 1 or 2. My school has 5 classes a day meaning that I am stuck with her for about 4 hours a day, sometimes 5. In the beginning it was okay. I was happy that a close friend of mine was near me and that I had somebody to talk to. As the days dragged on though, she became very different. Sides of her that I had never seen started coming out. First of all, she would complain about almost everything, be super competitive about grades, brag about her grades, and just be mean for no reason at random times. She also acts as if though she is the queen of the universe and looks down on everybody except on of my friends who is known to be the “extremely nice, pretty one”. 

One thing that I vividly remember was when I was chilling with my other friends before maths when she had sauntered in. It was fine until she literally pulled my hair for no reason (maybe it was because I didn’t go to the bathroom with her - who knows?). After she did that, I got extremely pissed. I was already extremely hormonal because of my period so someone I disliked pulling my hair did not sit well with me. It wasn’t even a playful tug, it was a full on pull. For that reason, I pulled a bit of her hair as well and luckily the bell rang and she had to leave. 

There was also a time when I had gotten a test back. It was in a subject that I was not that strong at and she was extremely strong at. For that reason, I didn’t show her my mark since I didn’t want her pushing it in my face. Obviously though, when I was not looking and talking to another friend of mine, she had taken my test and saw it. She then told me, “Wow, this grade sucks. I got a 98.” I would be fine with her just telling me her mark, but that fact that she told me to my face that my mark sucked really did anger me, especially since I still did get a B+ on it. I mean it was worse than hers, but really? 

Now this year, I luckily only have 2 classes with her and am extremely thankful for that. So is my other friend who had to go through something very similar. 

I am taking it this year and still ignoring her jabs, but this year I have started saying no whenever she wants to hang out just so I don’t blow up. 

Let’s just pray she doesn’t end up a university near me .. or that she stops being mean. 

Do any of you have experiences like this? Because I would love to read. 

TCx 

[simplycomplicatedeverywhere]

Just because one direction is in it.