To laugh or to cry

In my 22 years of living, of lazy summers and pent-up winters and procrastinating springs, never have I felt as useless as I do at the moment as an unemployed college graduate. Yes, we're in a recession, yes more qualified professionals are also recently unemployed, but the thought of others sharing my misery brings little comfort. It only darkens the shade of gloom that so ominously hangs above each of our heads, I'm sure.

Over the last few weeks of telling people that I'm on a job search and trying to keep them updated, there has definitely been a drop in my dignity. I was able to snag an interview with Lakeshore, where my cousin works, and I thought the interview was only okay. They put me in for consideration as a Research Assistant, but that was a no go, of which I was notified via snail mail. I was prepared after a couple of days of no response. I was hopeful even though I had the experience of being hired right away because a company wanted me that much, so I know when the prospect does not look good.

As I told Alan, a rejection is a rejection, but it's at least a reply. It's strange how you are grateful that a company responded at all, even if it is just to say that you did not get the job. You feel like a recognized human being rather than just another lemming trying to get into that wee spot and just falling down into the abyss.

I'm not terribly worried about whether I'll find a job, honestly. I know things will work out for me sooner or later. What makes me itch nowadays is boredom and the feeling that I am contributing absolutely nothing to society. I am a nomad in my own house with family coming here and there and all over, so that I cannot even stay in the same room for very long. It's very unsettling and has made me so lazy and unkempt beyond caring. I'll go do my exercise, but at home, it's on the ground doing a 1000-piece puzzle that's missing a piece or sitting in front of the computer. Cleaning the house and watching my diet (as a pescetarian, it's important) are not the priorities they used to be.

For a while I was motivated. I read and read and read. Books, magazines, newspapers, I consumed all that before and enjoyed the free time tremendously. But as the days turned into weeks, and the weeks turned into months (excuse the cliche), life became a bit...dull. You can only read so much without having to discuss your own opinions with someone, who would preferably not have to speak with you through a computer screen. You can also only job search so much until your searches begin yielding positions to which you've already applied.

I'm pretty done with wallowing, though. As you get older, chocolate only does so much to make you feel better; it actually makes your teeth hurt. And it probably makes you fat, though I still refuse to believe that to this day. So I've been determined to make myself useful in even the smallest way.

If you can rise to the challenge, though, that's the good thing about being unemployed. It really teaches you to be more inventive and contribute in a less conventional way. It also teaches self-motivation and discipline. I am on no one else's deadlines, but if I am to succeed I must be strict with myself and my time. There's something uniquely satisfying in creating your own project and wanting to see it through to the end. Shamefully, I don't think I've ever done that in college or in high school.

So that's me in a nutshell. I'm unemployed with determination and a very low sense of dignity. I laugh at the ridiculous sight of me sitting on the floor sweating over a jigsaw puzzle or getting passionately angry at another player for beating me in tetris; I cry at the thought of being so agonizingly useless in my pajamas every day. I laugh that I'm grateful for a rejection letter; I cry that I have to keep searching. I laugh at the situation and how ridiculous it is; I cry at the situation and how degrading it is.

Either way, it helps me cope through these times.

Well, if you give me a good book I can dive into I might just forget all these silly troubles.

America's a melting pot, what can I say??

I am beginning to do jigsaw puzzles. I am officially very, very bored. I almost looked up "Things to do out of Boredom," but decided that my life has not come to that point. Yet.

Being home with my grandma has gotten me thinking about the difficulty of keeping one's heritage when born as an American. It's a bit shameful to think that I cannot hold much of a conversation in Taiwanese anymore, despite its being my first and native language. Spending time with grandma is often strenuous and, frankly, a bit irritating - though this is to my chagrin. I feel the frustration that many non-English speakers much feel around my presence. Even explaining something as simple as why I chose a certain jigsaw puzzle over another makes me never want to speak in Taiwanese ever again. Having to stumble and struggle over the simplest of sentences forces you to just skim over the surfaces of topics and stay content that way:


"Did you eat yet?"
"What are you having for lunch? Is it good?"
"Did you sleep okay?"


It's nice to ask after her well-being, but I'm afraid that's where the topics end. 

Dating a Northern Irish guy poses its problems as well. The major issue that my mom and grandma's generations have with mine is that we bring home people who cannot speak Taiwanese. So not only are they incommunicable, they also have a radically reduced chance of understanding each other's values and cultures.

Apparently it's also very shocking that my parents are not giving me a hard time about dating someone who is not Taiwanese or Chinese, or even Asian, for that matter. I was not aware of this until my mother enlightened me yesterday night about the surprise going on in both of our generations.


I don't understand that type of mindset. I mean, we're in America, we have been raised up as Americans, speaking English and going to American public schools and colleges. What else did they expect? If they had wanted to keep us Taiwanese, then we should have stayed in Taiwan or in Brasil so we could have been better at speaking Taiwanese and snag those Taiwanese men. But see, even the Brasilian Taiwanese people we met spoke mostly Portuguese. 


I DO understand that sometimes situations just made the decision to move to America inevitable. I just think that parents should be more understanding that given the environment in which we were brought up, it should not be so surprising that we connect with someone not of the Taiwanese ethnicity.


Of course, I also have a problem with California and, to a greater extent, America. I feel anxious, stressed and competitive ALL THE TIME. It's a very odd sensation to feel perpetually. It's natural yet disconcerting. 


So what I'm saying is, please just take me away to Europe. 

Expressions of the Stifled

Verse 1
Do words mean anything at all
Do mere sticks and stones make you fall
If there's one thing that I've found
It's that unpleasant things should make no sound

Goodbye words that sting
Farewell inner suffering
Again I store you away

Chorus
Roll away, roll away
There's nothing left to say
Roll away, shameful stains
You've left me just with pain
Let me stay, let me stay
Don't leave me without face
Don't let me vanish without a trace

Verse 2
Hear my soul's desperate pleas
It's crying out and searching for release
If I shut out my desires
Would that make my status higher?

Goodbye words that sting
Farewell inner suffering
Again I store you away

---------------------------------------------------

I'm debating whether I should add a bridge to that. What do you think?

Lately incomplete songs have been forming in my head and on paper as the only way I can express my frustrations. I can never actually finish these songs, but what I create satisfies me for the time being. I'm considering actually completing the songs and trying to get my theory and skills improved so I can be more creative in the melodies I compose. It certainly has been helpful to me. I have three or four more on the way, and in the course of the next few days, I hope to make some progress on them.

Lolita

I start this entry off by saying that it was a fantastic read (I read it cover to cover, author's bio and afterword and all), though not at all the easiest to digest content-wise. If you would rather not be horribly surprised, please read a book review that provides a more descriptive synopsis than the following:

'Lolita,' Vladimir Nabokov's most famous and controversial novel, which tells the story of the aging Humbert Humbert's obsessive, devouring, and doomed passion for the nymphet Dolores Haze. Most of all, it is a meditation on love--love as outrage and hallucinations, madness and transformation.

As you may agree, this synopsis is very vague and therefore deceiving. It doesn't exactly tell you that Humbert Humbert is a pedophile with specific lust for 9- to 13-year-old "nymphets"; and it doesn't warn you of cringes, winces and disgusted grunts that might result of getting to know this disturbingly lecherous man. Well, to be fair to the copywriter, "nymphet" is a small clue, but without reading anything else about the book, it's not much of one.

It's difficult to find the right words to comment about the book. Nabokov's prose is beautiful - I would go as far as to say stunning - and if nothing else, his writing alone makes the book worth it. However, he does craft the book very well, incorporating many elements that make the novel more than just controversial. It is great for those interested in clinical therapy or psychology, as it delves into the complications of sexually abusive relationships between an adult and a child. Humbert deceives Dolores into keeping their relationship secret by toying with her fear of abandonment and the law, which many real-life perpetrators do; Dolores's instructors notice the common symptoms of a sexually abused child in Dolores without being able to identify the real problem, a situation that happens all the time today. And it's stunning the way that Nabokov weaves this all into a memoir-style novel.

I hated Humbert throughout the story, and I think Nabokov intended it that way. Who would not be absolutely sickened with the creature for his lusts and his actions, for his horrifying hold over a child's life? He knew it himself that he broke her life the moment he raped her.

There is a moment I'd like to point out. It's long, but please read the entire thing:

On those frosty mornings in rime-laced Quebec, the good priest worked on me with the finest tenderness and understanding. I am infinitely obliged to him and the great Institution he represented. Alas, I was unable to transcend the simple human fact that whatever spiritual solace I might find, whatever lithophanic eternities might be provided for me, nothing could make my Lolita forget the foul lust I had inflicted upon her. Unless it can be proven to me - to me as I am now, today, with my heart and my beard, and my putrefaction - that in the infinite run it does not matter a jot that a North American girl-child named Dolores Haze had been deprived of her childhood by a maniac, unless this can be proven (and if it can, then life is a joke), I see nothing for the treatment of my misery but the melancholy and very local palliative of articulate art. To quote an old poet:


The moral sense in mortals is the duty
We have to pay on mortal sense of beauty.


We often fail to forgive ourselves for the small and big stupid things we've done in our lives. We seek God for forgiveness while failing to see that the biggest obstacle we need to overcome is transcending the world's sense of justice. When it comes to Humbert, I'd be torn myself, since the wrongs he committed were so grievous upon another. But who am I to judge when I am just another sinner? We've seen God transform Saul into Paul, after all. Maybe, if the story did happen, he could have transformed ol' Humbert Humbert. Of course, Humbert could not allow that out of his own understanding of justice. He could not get over the "simple human fact" that "an eye for an eye" just makes more sense.

The most encouraging thing I hear nowadays is when someone says he/she cannot understand grace. Disagree with me if you will, but I think those people are the closest to understanding what grace really is, what the love of Christ is. I myself cannot understand how grace is given from a Just God. It doesn't make any sense! They completely contradict each other! The formula of Christ as the Second Adam and the entire crucifixion story fits, but it still doesn't make a whole lot of sense that someone who has lived a perfect life can save the entire human race. A life for a life, an eye for an eye, now that I can understand. An ultimate sacrifice? That's out of this world.

My friend told me about the Lockerbie convict who was freed to go home and spend his dying days with his family. America is angry about it because it doesn't seem fair that a man who planted a bomb on a plane that killed 270 people should be released, even if he were dying of prostate cancer. Here is the story: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/22/world/europe/22lockerbie.html?_r=1&ref=global-home

It's hard thing to decide, isn't it? From someone who was unaffected by the event, it's easy to admire Scotland's decision, but if my family were killed? Can my compassion come out stronger than my hurt and anger?

It looks like I've been carried away. My ending thoughts: if you think you can handle it, read 'Lolita' (with a dictionary at hand). You might even find yourself yearning for more of these Russian crazies. If it comes to that, definitely check out Fyodor Dostoevsky.

On 'The Man Who Was Thursday'

This was my first dive into G.K. Chesterton's fiction, with previous glimpses from quotes and a Vanity Fair profile, and I must say that it was thoroughly enjoyable.

It was delightful to have another genre of fiction to read; for although I loved The Age of Innocence, I knew I needed a break from that type of literature. The Man Who Was Thursday is only 155 pages, so I thought it would be a relatively easy read.

Well, that was a misconception! Chesterton writes a dense 155 pages, and for all the surprises and twists in the story, the book did not move very fast at all. You had to hike through paragraphs of philosophy and word play (which I loved, by the way) to understand everything in the story. Then Chesterton spews out more philosophical musings and rants in overwhelming paragraphs at the ending that trap you in a dilemma of curiosity about the ending versus curiosity of the depth of each symbol. It's quite a journey, I tell you, as I had been warned myself in its introduction.

I can't tell you much about the story for fear of giving away pleasant surprises that are much better as surprises, but I will tell you that should the book interest you any, look for the countless religious inferences and allusions. I hope that doesn't turn away as much as it does shed some light on aspects of Christianity that may elude many people today. The ending bordered platitudinous cheese, but for some reason, in those moments of reading and concluding the story, it worked.

So hats off to you, Chesterton. I have put your Father Brown stories and The Ball and Cross on my reading list.

But up next is...Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov! Reasons for choosing this one will be coming soon in another post.

My take on The Age of Innocence

I finished The Age of Innocence yesterday night amidst the flurry of haircuts, errands and exercising. It was inevitable, though, when I reached page 250 in the early afternoon. There's no way I'd wait another day to complete the last 50 pages of a book - well, unless the book were less than 150 pages.

Anyway, many thoughts, many questions, many reflections to take to heart, and I shall share them here for now!

What I admire most about Wharton's construction of this novel is her way of illuminating the weaknesses on both ends of the story. We'd be so quick to judge the people of high society New York of being close-minded, old-fashined prudes who care only for preserving their supposedly impeccable social traditions and standards. And that's completely understandable considering the type of world we live in today, a world that wants instant gratification (forgive the platitude), independence and and to be unique. Having to follow the stifling cultural standards of Newland Archer's society just seems silly, and you might even be grateful to Wharton for Archer, who IS stifled by the inexorable superficialities of his environment.

HOWEVER.

People nowadays were too busy - busy with reforms and "movements," with fads and fetishes and frivolities - to bother much about their neighbors. - p. 293

One sentence compared to all the others of the book is not enough to balance out the arguments, per se, but I think this sentence alone resonates so powerfully, especially in its context. Even though she wrote this in the early 1900s, I look around and I do see the progress of humanity towards change, which I think can be a very good thing, especially since nothing in this world is perfect. Humans really are insatiable, and whenever we satisfy the current hunger, another settles in and puts us in another frenzy. We keep moving, being able to pay less and less attention to one thing or person because we have ao many other things to cross off on our "To Do" lists. I am guilty of this myself - I mean, look at all my reading lists, my movie lists, my own "To Do" list. To catch up to the pace of this world, there is just not enough time.

What I do admire about Archer and his story is his ability to hold fast to something greater than his personal desires. Oh, he came close, to be sure, to having an affair with his beloved, but both were too loyal to their families to gratify themselves. It's admirable. You don't see that kind of restraint nowadays, even among Christians, who are the forerunners against premarital sex.

Of course, there is also a type of cruelty involved within a society that clings to their morals and distinctions of class. I find it sad that this type of environment nurtures robots and porcelain dolls adorned with smiles and prettily-sewn bonnets. I haven't known anything like that in my lifetime, though I see echoes of it in the Christian sphere now. We try to distinguish ourselves from the rest of the world, which seems to mostly come in the rules we uphold and lifestyles we lead. Everyone, after all, has started coming around to the fact that there are those less fortunate than we are and need aid. So we need something else other than just ministering to the poor and needy: moral law, the Ten Commandments. Again, this is not a bad thing, but I've noticed that in our unwisely executed arguments to the world that our way of living is THE way, we have not only pushed away the skeptics, we alienate some of our own. Too much judgment, too little grace, too little mercy.

I guess it's hard to follow my train of thought, but it's hard to compose something so coherent when I'm confused myself.

But...I'm a strong believer in not having to agree with everything. If I like a book, it doesn't mean I agree with everything in it, but rather certain elements. In Wharton's novel, I think there's a lot she brings up about society in general in focusing on one class, as farfetched as that may sound. We are always in conflict with something when we live in this life on earth, and we'll go out and try fervently to answer the unanswerable, never knowing that what we need is divine hope in a paradise that we'll fail to reach.

So...let's see how Chesterton will challenge my spiritualism and outlook on life.

Book List

Here is a short-term book list:

1. The Age of Innocence

2. The Man Who Was Thursday

3. House of Mirth

4. David Copperfield

5. The Ball and Cross

6. Short stories of Anton Chekov

I need a list that is more realistic, so here goes to completing this!