The Blog of Elaine Wang

31 August 2016

I told my self a while back that I wanted to change myself because I became afraid of caring too much. I was afraid because I know it hurts so much when you feel like you're the only one that cares.

I decided that I should change because I know that all relationships have a high potential to end, so I might as well make the most of it and just care as deeply as I can in the moment. Because of course it will end up hurting, but that just means it mattered.

Yet now I feel like maybe I shouldn't have tried to change myself. Maybe I shouldn't have tried to actively reach out more to the people I care for. I feel like I was right and maybe I was left to be the only one who cares. The only one who's stressing out.

I wondered if when people ask you for your honest opinion, do they really mean it. My friend Olivia said, no, they never do. I thought that if I were close enough friends with someone, maybe we could overcome that barrier. And maybe I was wrong because I suppose it should be obvious that nobody likes to hear negative things.

There's a point in time where I realized that nobody actually cares about you as much as you think they do. I tried hard to change my mindset because that was a very pessimistic way to think. I decided that people do care, and I should make the most of it. But now I'm thinking that I should have stayed like how I was before because it's happening again where I'm hurting because I let myself care too much.

Aditi says that she doesn't like to be friends with people who are friends with everyone because she gets jealous easily and it makes her feel like she never knows what's actually going on.

I felt like that, but at the same time I didn't.

I feel like that now.

Love is turning into hate and I hate myself for it.

Nobody ever cares about you as much as you think they do.

Do I care about people as much as I think I do?

I wish I didn't.

19 August 2016

I find it often that in Asian culture, children don’t talk about their problems to their parents. I can’t speak for everyone, but this is true in my family. I always find it funny when teachers or counselors at school tell us to explain to our parents our stress, issues, etc. because it just isn’t something my family does. In the end they always tell you that they are doing what they do for your own good. My parents aren’t even that strict compared to some of my friends’ parents, but I still wish I could feel comfortable talking to them when I’m having problems.

In Chinese, the character 忍 means to endure. I noticed that when breaking up the top and bottom characters into 刃 and 心 which mean blade and heart respectively, to endure is effectively symbolized as placing a blade over your heart; in other words, suppressing one’s emotions even though it feels like stabbing yourself with a blade. That is something I found to represent the familial relationships in my culture.

12 August 2016

Okay so this has been bothering me for a while but I don't really know what to do about it. Well I do know; I just don't want to do it.

Basically it makes me really sad and uncomfortable when people don't credit me when they use my photos. Granted, my photos aren't anything incredible and I'm sure they think they could take photos that are just as good, but when they don't credit me, it makes me feel like they don't appreciate the time and work I put into taking those photos for them. I doubt that they are doing it on purpose and they probably just forget, but even though I'm their friend, it still makes me happy to see them use my photos and acknowledge the effort I put into them. It's not that they forget every time, some forget more than others. I don't really know anymore. I guess I'm just sad because they never forget for anyone else even when they are kind of friends and it leaves the impression that they prefer their photography. Actually, I'm pretty sure they do prefer her photography because she is honestly more skilled and edits her photos, and that's fine, but that's not really the point.

I suppose the only way to fix this would be to let them know how I feel, but I don't like making people feel uncomfortable. I love it when they end up using even one of the hundreds of photos I take for them, and I don't want to jeopardize that.

I would say that it bothers me more when my closer friends don't credit me, but it's kind of a different form of bother. When people I don't know well don't credit me, I feel angry and salty. Not extreme anger or anything, just annoyed that I took time to take their photos and they don't even acknowledge it.

This happened just today where a girl I took photos for yesterday posted a photo I took on Instagram; what miffed me was that she remembered to tag the two people she was cosplaying with, yet she couldn't even tag the person who took the photo for her? It's not even like I didn't know her at all; I talked to her the whole day and even cooked with her. I'm just really salty.

When close friends don't credit me, it doesn't make me feel angry or anything, it just makes me feel sad. Sad because I know they aren't throwing shade and they probably just forgot. I understand because maybe they are used to having me take photos for them and so they forget, but, sue me, I like having validation. I say that I know they aren't throwing shade because they are my friends, but I'm also pretty sure the other girl wasn't trying to throw shade either. She was a nice person. It probably just didn't even cross her mind because I obviously wasn't in the photo, I was behind it.

I was thinking of making a post about my salt, but it would be really obvious and passive aggressive and it would be a lot smarter to just let them know directly how I felt. But like I said before, I can't bring myself to do either.

It's interesting because one of the friends I take photos for always remembers to leave photo credits, maybe because she's an artist and understands.

People on the internet always get up in arms about giving credit when you use someone else's art. I'd like to think that if I were to use her edits, she would be bothered if I didn't credit her. I get that edits and drawing etc. take more effort and skill than my amateur photography, but I feel like it still qualifies as art and that the time I dedicated for them means something.

I just don't want to sound entitled and all "ohhh I'm so talented and amazing at photography how dare you forget about me", but I'm sad.

I guess I'm wondering if my feelings are unreasonable and dumb.

I shouldn't even be this bothered. It's not like it happens super often. This whole thing was stupid.

[I wrote this essay as my final assignment of Honors American Literature, which was a personal narrative. Mr. Carpenter wanted us to learn that absolute occurrence is irrelevant as displayed in The Things They Carried. This was the essay I turned in and read to the class. I was unsure of what to write about (as I'm sure we all were), especially because we were all expected to read it out to the class. In the end, I started with a snippet of an idea and words just flowed from there.]

8 August 2016

It's college admissions season and with it comes the arduous process of writing a bunch of mind numbing essays that are supposed to showcase myself without them actually knowing myself. I get mixed answers when I search for what the admissions offices want. Sometimes it makes sense, but a lot of the times it doesn't.

People say they don't want super depressing stories about mental disabilities or cancer that don't end on a happy note. Other people say they don't want essays that droll on and on about our achievements. I can understand both of these; they have to read thousands and thousands of essays, and many of them end up being nearly the same. But also I can't because, sometimes, what it sounds like to me is that they want a story that shows growth and a sense of final accomplishment by the end, regardless of the truth.

"Just be yourself."

I find that life isn't perfect with happy endings ready for each challenge we face. Some challenges are still in progress and others end in failure. I suppose they want to know about the challenges we overcame and how that changed us as a person (or something stupid and cliche like that), but challenges we overcame aren't always the most interesting or revealing.

I was challenged by my Calculus class. I ended up not failing. And how did that change me as a person? It didn't. It's just like every other challenging class I've ever had. It sucked.

I suppose my life isn't interesting enough or shitty enough or crazy enough to have significant challenges that could change me. I suppose my personality is a result from many different experiences as well as the biological maturation of my brain, as is most people's. I suppose I have to show all of these things in an essay because maybe I'm expected to exaggerate or paint a picture that isn't the full truth. And I get that.

My mom is crazy. My sister is depressed. How did that change me? I'm not sure. It makes me angry and bitter but also understanding. But isn't that like thousands of other people?

On the other hand, I can understand that it all depends on how you frame your story. Two people can write about eating an apple in vastly different ways. The fact is, apples aren't very interesting, but what about flying apples? That's an exaggeration, but I'm sure my point has been made.

I mentioned before that a friend of mine told me that I should change part of my summer program application essay because it didn't paint me in a good light. In a way that makes sense because first impressions matter. Why would anyone want to paint themselves in a bad light. But it makes me sad because for all they say they want to "get to know us", how well are they really getting to know us if all they see is the side of us that's perfect and positive.

I guess what I'm wondering is what constitutes as too far. When is being real not optimal. I'm sure the answer most people would tell me is that I need to strike a balance between making them like me and not being too f a k e.

If there's one thing I learned from high school, it would probably be from Mr. Carpenter: "Absolute occurrence is irrelevant".