oh vandy

I’ve decided to be Nietzsche-ian. The meaning of life is the act of affirming life. I’ve also decided (being a converted Nietzsche-ian) that the most important part of life is the present; it’s the celebration of life that gives it meaning. I don’t want to look back and think, how did it all pass me by? Like Zhou (and Nietzsche) says, I’m the one in control of my happiness and I’m the only one who can give meaning to my life. Now the only difficult part of a religion (and Nietzsche can seriously be seen as a preacher if anything) is acting upon your beliefs.

On a completely separate note because I think too much philosophy can be pretty boring / useless, the Patriots lost pretty badly to the Colts tonight. I was quite disappointed as I took the entire evening to watch the game, thereby neglecting my biochemistry exam on Wednesday (the neglect mainly from being too scared of it to study for it. You know that fear that grips you before an insanely difficult task that you don’t think you’ll ever accomplish? Yeah, that’s me right now)

I seriously need a hobby. I’m in pretty bad shape without something interesting, entertaining, and satisfying to keep me busy when I can’t study anymore. I never realized how much the fact of never being at college without a boyfriend (well obviously minus the 1.5 months that I lived without one as a freshman) affected me. It’s like this emptiness that I didn’t even realize existed until I figured out that I was trying to use coping methods to deal with it. The more I reflect back, the more I realized how much of a routine I had and how much that routine defined a great deal of my life at Vanderbilt. Suddenly thrown out of that routine is quite the shocker and I think I’m still recovering. I think I need to go home. I like to think that I’m a pretty independent woman, but there are just times when nothing hits the spot like talking with your parents over the dinner table, sleeping in your own bed, and being enveloped in this sense of belonging that inherently comes along with being at home. I miss it like nothing else.

Thanksgiving break in 2 weeks, thank god.

p.s.: Infinite brownie points to those who knows what Bejahung means.

Teloh said in class today that all our society wants for the “good life” now is money, sex, and celebrity. If the media is a reflection of us back upon ourselves, I’d say he’s pretty much hit the nail on its atomic-sized head. I was watching Making the Band 3 and oh my goodness, all these girls really want is money, sex, and fame. Why do those rag mags like People and In Touch have such a large (and swelling) number of subscribers? Why do so many people want to become instantly famous even if the chances of achieve that kind of lifestyle is harder than just passing your classes and getting a regular job? It’s all about the money, sex, and celebrity. And if you think you’re excluded, think again please. It’s not always money sex and celebrity has the real celebrities have it, but don’t we all crave attention? Don’t we all want to have a comfortable lifestyle? And don’t we all want to be physically satisfied? It’s something to think about anyway.

Winamp just played my 2 current favorites right in a row. It’s a miracle! One of them is this Chinese song that I’m not even sure why I like so much. Actually I do. I was in my hotel room at Wuxie this summer waiting for my roommate (who happened to be one of my teachers) to finish in the shower and I was watching MTV-China and there was this one song that I could actually understand. And by the end of it, I was singing along by reading the subtitles that they have at the bottom of every music video. It was the first time I had heard it and I thought it was sooo good. I wanted to go home and download it and I tried to memorize the title, but I totally forgot about it by the time I got back to Hangzhou. And then…the last day…the most random thing. I pick up the dude’s CD from our residential director!!! I didn’t even know it was him until I heard the song on the CD. And now I have ~18 of his songs including that one I saw on MTV. It’s great. Now, every time I hear it, I think about China and my fabulous time there.

Speaking of celebrities, actually, Paris Hilton’s a complete idiot / joke. Can you believe she’s still shooting simple life for a fourth season although Fox has cancelled it because it “won’t fit” into its season lineup? Look at what the producers of the show have to say: “We believe this series … is still a dynamic and valuable franchise,” [20th Century Fox Television] said. “We hope to be able to announce a new network partner in the coming days.” um, what? That’s just about the worst description of the Simple Life I’ve ever herad in my life, “dynamic and valuable?” Valuable for what? For helping us lose more brain cells so that we can promote and support whatever new useless capitalist franchise is hot next season?

This is stupid.

I’m going to study physics.

I realize that I have a particularly biased view of my phil105 ta (seeing that I hate him and all), but there’s really no getting around the fact that he’s just a bad teacher. I don’t know why he even wants to be a teacher. Oh no, wait, I do, it’s because this way, he can always be right and all the students can “learn from him,” him being the all-knowledgable one, of course.

This is a discussion section, emphasis on “discussion” please. He spent 75% of class today lecturing to us about completely irrelevant ideas that really don’t lead him or us anywhere at all. He began the class with a question he couldn’t even recall himself after 5 minutes and then after there was no discussion whatsoever, he asked us how we were supposed to make the discussion better. I’m really sorry, but I do believe that’s what he’s being paid to do, it’s his freaking job to come up with a topic and lead us in a discussion.

And then he proceeds to spend the next 10 minutes trying to think up a scientific / Freudian term for the word, “quirks” (which some student resolved 10 minutes before class let out to be: neurotic). What’s the relevance again?

I look forward to the hours of 12:10 - 1:00pm every M/W/F. It’s the wonderful hour Prof. Teloh where he will inevitably insult me once, and praise me twice. Today, he used me in an example…again! This time, it was purely because I was 1. Chinese and 2. going to be a doctor. We were discussing the topic of tradition and how in our liberal society in America when our backgrounds have fallen away, we become consumers. I wasn’t terribly insulted by his use of me in his example because after all, he pointed out that I was probably sitting there slightly amused but mostly disagreeing because my background has influenced me in so many ways. Actually, I was sitting there agreeing with the direction of the class discussion because I believe I’m too out of touch with my own culture to the point where I can’t even read the newspaper. I suppose I take this point of view because I see so much for myself to work on in order to kind of achieve the “Chineseness” that I want…whatever that level may be. However, Teloh’s right in that my Chinese heritage has influenced basically every major life decision I have made and will continue to be the deciding factor for the rest of my life, probably.

“…to be religious is to make yourself God…”

I love Teloh also because he makes these statements about religion and politics that I could never for the life of me defend, but for some Godforsaken reason I find so true.

For example, he goes on and on in class (seriously, he’s brought this point up at least once a week since class started) about women and cirls and men and authoritarianism. I’ve found this amusing but not necessarily important and/or true, but then I noticed at Raas practice how whenever Meeta wanted to talk to us, she’s always orient us in a circle. At this last practice, there were more guys than girls and when we sat down to talk, we directed ourselves to all look at her instead of sitting in a circle and she said something to the effect of, “Okay guys, can we sit in a circle? I can’t take it when you all are staring at me like that.” Isn’t that wonderful? Teloh’s theories at work!

This week is going to be pretty rough. Biocehm test of Friday, phil105 paper on Wednesday (which is probably the more frustrating of the two - if that’s possible - simply because I have to talk to my fucking idiotic TA), and physics homework due (hopefully not on Wednesday). Next week doesn’t look so much brighter, but then there’s fall break and Zhou’s birthday! And the weather has gotten cooler, exactly the temps I love.

Isn’t fall wonderful?

my new favorite song: One year, six months ~ Yellowcard. although they should have definately have named it memories of you or something that they actually sayin the song…