The Blog of Elaine Wang

23 February 2017

I just went on a photoshoot for Olivia today for her Valentine Umi and I just feel so unsatisfied with the majority of the photos I took. They feel so boring. I look at the photos these other photographers take and I'm always so impressed by how interesting they look and the amazing techniques/composition. I've looked at my photos so many times that they all feel the same. The only few that I like are from literally trying to replicate the angle of a photo someone else took. I think I'm going to start looking into editing techniques and learning how to edit my photos to make them more interesting.

Another thing I don't understand is why I can't be more sure about myself. Olivia asked me today if I had any ideas for what we could do, and I literally had none. I guess I'm afraid they'll end up dumb? Honestly they probably will, but if I don't at least try then I'll never know. I have no sense of composition. I don't feel comfortable posing people either. I think I'm afraid of offending them. Like "do this because right now you look unattractive". I mean I could probably do without the unattractive part so I think I'm just afraid of making them look even more unattractive. Or if I tell them to give me a better smile, I'm basically telling them their smile is ugly. I get that you'd like to know that, but people have different opinions on what kind of smile looks pretty. Real smiles are always the prettiest because they reach the eyes, but that's a different story. For example, Olivia (lol always Olivia) once told me that she found Liz's selfie smile to be creepy sometimes, but I think it looks fine, so there's that. Also, people seem to want to stand right up against a wall for photos. Like I need more background subject isolation. All around I'm just unsatisfied and bored.

Valentine Umi

19 February 2017

Even though I made friends this year of Y&G, in some ways I feel worse than last year. Last year I knew nobody cared about me here, so it was normalized. But now I kind of have an expectation for people to care about me. Maybe I'm too needy, but it feels like they only talk to me in order to share all their problems, but they never really listen in the rare event I want to share my problems. It's really frustrating when all I do is listen to people complain, which I'm generally fine with, but when for once I feel bad about something and share it, it's basically swept under the rug. We laugh at dumb jokes, but I feel so fake because a lot times I don't even think anything is funny. My face could be completely straight but I laugh because I don't want them to think I dislike them. I guess I want to be included like most people.

In three years not once has an adviser ever come to watch me speak in the Senate or Assembly. It really feels shitty, especially when they ask you to tell them when you're going to speak, but when you do, they never come. I know they probably think watching the other program areas are more fun because it's more fast paced and argumentative with them having written proposals and delivering a rhetorical speech to try and get it passed, but I'm disappointed because I put in work to write my reports as well. I did research and everything yet it constantly feels like my program area is deemed not as interesting or boring to watch just because it's all fact. It kills me because they've literally gone to watch every other person in my delegation speak except for me (throughout three years!) and I think that's why I was so especially jaded about missing my report yesterday. Not only was it because I was so proud of that report, but also because that was the last chance anyone had of watching me give a report on something I'm proud of, and I missed it. I'm a senior. Three years and it's as if nothing's changed. I feel like my first year was honestly the happiest. I felt like people cared, and I had so much fun. Now that I'm at the end of the conference, I'm just despondent and tired. I don't want to do anything but go home.

It's not that it was completely horrible, it was definitely fun at times, but it's been feeling low ever since the dumb thing that happened yesterday night. I want to forget about it, but for some reason it just keeps weighing on my mind.

Also I had a really bad 18th birthday. Most of this delegation doesn't give a shit about me, yet I have to spend all my time with them on my birthday. It was just a normal generally annoying day. Not like a birthday at all. One could argue what's so special about birthdays anyway, but it just feels special. Especially since I'm 18 now.

8 February 2017

I wonder if it's a parent's job to make you feel like you're nothing. I know I'm not pretty already, I know, do you really think I don't. I'm glad you don't think I'm pretty either.

I'm crying so much right now.

She asks why we all ended up the same, locking our doors at her. She asks why I don't ever learn the good parts of others and only copy the bad parts. I never lock my door. I never do it unless I'm mad, so don't give me that bullshit. Why do you never praise me for doing something right. You wait for me to do something wrong to tell me I only ever copy bad things from people. Maybe we all ended up the same because we were all raised by you. Why wouldn't I try to avoid someone who makes me feel like shit. That'd be crazy, not that you'd know.

Keep it together.

She says she's only saying this because she's my mom and no one else will say it. I don't need someone to tell me something I tell myself everyday. I'm only telling you you're crazy because no one else will say it. You don't take that too well. Blood relation isn't an excuse to be a shitty person.

Stop banging on my door. Stop blaming my friends. Just stop.

I wish I could be a dog; all dogs are cute.

4 February 2017

A few minutes ago I went on Instagram and felt a sudden wave of dread and loneliness. I started wondering if this particular girl, Rachael, actually doesn't like me. I doubt she has any real opinion of me, but I just wondered anyway. I shouldn't feel this way because I literally spent this entire day with friends. First with Shuge and Elizabeth at HeChaa. Then with Aditi and Dhanya at her house. I laughed a lot today. More than usual. Loud laughter that makes my face scrunch up into weird shapes. Instagram is filled with so many friends, but in a way I think I need to be careful. It's easy for me to start wondering who cares and who doesn't. I wonder if I'm a bother.

The downside to making my Instagram public is that I feel obliged to follow people I know back. I kind of want to tell them that I don't want them to follow me because I feel like I'd be a bother to them since I post so much random spam. It's almost (it is) holding me back from just posting what I want and my thoughts. Yet by making my account public, when they follow me, they already know what they're getting into since they can see my posts, so should I really feel bad? Just now I posted two consecutive posts about the new Fire Emblem mobile game, and I silently apologized and cringed as I did it because I imagined how it could be annoying to regular people out there. In reality I know they probably don't care, but it makes me nervous anyway.

I get nervous easily. I usually stay calm around people I know well, but I am nervous with anything involving strangers/people I'm not close with. I mean outwardly I'm calm because I'm afraid of betraying any emotion to unfamiliar people, but my heart is actually pounding like crazy. Whenever someone asks me to do anything that requires interacting with random people, I want to refuse, but I don't because then I'd feel bad. I don't want to seem like I'm afraid of everything but I am. I want to say I'm not like you but I don't. I know I need to become more comfortable with people in order to progress with my life.

I don't often feel these waves of anxiety, especially in comparison to a lot of my friends. I think I'm a generally happy, relatively stress-free person. Maybe it's because I try to put it off and escape it until it's over. Whenever there's a test, I routinely tell Dhanya that I will simply allow fate to guide me to the holy land, which in many cases is true. But for the Physics test today, I actually studied on Thursday because she had motivated me. It's also probably because I actually kind of knew how to do things. I remember last semester I had tried studying as well, but it was just so discouraging because I would stare at a problem for too many minutes not having a clue how to solve it. Not a shred of any idea. So I would give up.

Last week, when Chung Min was at my house after going to get tea, she asked me how I deal with my stress because I never seem stressed out. I paused to think, but I didn't really know the answer. After debating for a bit, I told her the time when I probably felt the most stressed. I told her about the time in middle school when my mom came into my room, slammed herself into the floor, and started crying, asking me why none of us love her. Chung Min told me that maybe nothing after that was stressful in comparison. I don't think that's true. I think I just tend to run away.

I didn't say anything and just called my dad. I remember feeling hot and my heart beating fast, but I wonder now how much I really cared. I remember coming home to weeks of my mom sitting in the dining room with the TV off and smiling a smile that wasn't really a smile. Talking in a uncomfortably high and soft voice. Randomly hugging me. Staring off into space with a strange look on her face. Constantly pacing back and forth, slapping the sides of her body with her arms. Only one light in the entire house was on. Usually the TV is never off; the house is never so silent. I remember seeing a bowl of completely over mushed 番茄炒蛋. It was like soup. I asked her what happened and she smiled and said she's been absent minded. I don't know why I felt so scared. There was nothing but that bowl of mushy egg and tomato, a dim light on, and her. I wonder what she was doing the whole day in silence while I was out. She would routinely talk about things from the past, paranoia. When asked who told her these things, she said the voices inside her head that don't stop. The voice told her to delete a bunch of photos of us from the computer. Months of this culminated to the situation in my room. My dad took her back to Taiwan for a few weeks to see a doctor and relatives. I remember walking home from Lawson. I don't remember what I was thinking at the time. Maybe I wasn't thinking of anything. I remember a conversation I had with my sister, Grace, about how I just wished everything would go back to the way it used to be when she would just yell at us about things. No weird hugs. No weird smile. No voice trying too hard to be loving and caring. Just normal.

She's definitely better now, but she is often still paranoid and stuck in the past. She and my dad fight a lot. A lot of times I feel bad for my dad, but sometimes I feel bad for my mom.

Today is just one of those days.