synchronized sleep

Hi. Don't expect much. Fighting a battle with insecurity one day at a time.

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Dear self,

Stop.

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Our good fortune allowed us to feel a sadness our parents never had time for.

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There are days — more so now than before — where I just feel so alone, sad, frustrated, and terrified. I'm at a point in my life where I want to move forward and move on to better things, but there are too many obstacles in the way. I don't want to give up, but I don't want to be stuck. I'm afraid to leave my youth behind and spend it on the sacrifices I need to make for my future. I don't want to waste it. I want to revel in the time I have while I'm here, in the present.

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What's worse: the lies we tell to console ourselves, or the truths we choose to deny?

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Home feels so distant without you

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(via Signed, Sealed, Delivered: Letters to the Future | STATUS Magazine)

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Med school. Wow. I started this tumblr account when I was in high school, and look where I am now. Still writing for an audience that doesn't exist. But if someone somehow manages to read this, then: Hey, whoever you are! Hello! I hope you aren't having a crappy time like I am. Med school is difficult. Most of your time goes to trying to cram a college sem's worth of information into your brain for one long exam. You end relationships. Sleep happens occasionally. People are smarter than you. They don't try as hard, and they don't panic as much, but they still do better than you. But what do you expect? These people top bar exams in their undergrad field. They graduated with honors. They're on scholarships. What do you have? You have a diploma, average grades, and a decent admission score. You're getting by, one way or another. You can't complain. But you feel anxious. All the time. You're alone now, so you feel more fragile than when you started. You don't think you're good enough, and you feel like you're hanging by a thread. But that's okay. You just have to work a little harder. Life is unfair. Life is tough. You just gotta keep on going. You can't stop. You can't. You go until you die.

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Trouble is like the ocean. It covers two thirds of the world.

Little Bee by Chris Cleave

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Goodbye

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What I want to see from our president is passion. I want to see his passion when he talks, when he argues, when he sings the national anthem. I want to see the passion he had for his country to become its president. I don't want to see some guy who's just trying to do his job. I want to see a man who loves his country and does everything in his power to pick up and rebuild its remains.

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There is no time, there is only eternity and the implacable reality that even life could be ephemeral and nothing more than a season, another summer grown cold. And with the sunlight gone, night is here.

F. Sionil Jose, The Pretenders

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So what do I want out of life? I want to be justified. Whatever I do, in my heart, I want it to be right. I want to say I did it because it had to be done. I may be proved wrong but it does not matter; at least, to my own self, I must be true.

F. Sionil Jose, The Pretenders

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Freelancing in Somalia during their civil war and in Kuwait right after the first Bush War, I had some rather intense experiences that made life in the U.S. seem rather shallow and superfluous. Sitting in my office early one morning, listening to NPR, which is the way I like to start every day, I heard an amazing piece on the marketing of Madonna’s autobiographic book called SEX. The book was a sensation in the U.S. The radio report ended with Madonna singing, ‘I am living in a material world and I am just a material girl,’ or something close. I thought it was spot on. We live in an idiotic capitalist self-indulgent society where the sex life of a pop star is more important than impending starvation, land mines and child soldiers in Africa, or more interesting than the world’s biggest man-made natural disaster in oil fields of the Middle East.

Peter Menzel

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Here is a list of fearful things: The jaws of sharks, a vulture's wings, The rabid bite of the dog's of war, The voice of one who went before. But most of all the mirror's gaze, which counts us out our numbered days.

Clive Barker

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This hits home real hard.

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Haven't been taking a lot of photos lately... So here's a recent photo of some pudding bottles from Chez Karine that I reused to contain my tapes! And a special appearance from Mug Mike Wazowski. :D

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Goodbye, we'll miss you.

My family was going out of the country for a vacation, and while in line to enter the airport we were accompanied by several other families -- but only one member was leaving. It was saddening to see their tears and final farewells as the breadwinner of the family had no choice but to leave them. I noticed this older woman trying to get a last look at her departing loved one, and it broke my heart.