Year in Review 2008
“Memoirs of a David, 2008”
David Kai-Ming Chang
I do understand that this Year-in-Review is almost two entire months overdue. I am both disappointed in my inability to truly polish this composition and tired of having to revise it. I am the type of person who writes a five page paper two hours before it is due. No rough drafts, not revisions. That’s just how I write. Initially writing the first three-fourths of this was very easy, but coming back to it at a later date in order to finish it has been my biggest challenge. Unfortunately, I no longer have a drive to continuously work on this piece, considering that so much time has passed, so I am publishing it prematurely, as it is, the third draft. Without further ado, enjoy.
A side note: This document is LONG. It takes more than 10 pages in Word. Also, Facebook’s note formatting makes this hard to read. Oh well.
My real name is David Chang. The names of persons involved in this makeshift 1 year autobiography have been changed to protect their privacy. All the events following are true. I have no reason to lie about them. Seriously, I don’t.
January 1st of 2008 I spent at an old friend’s house. I rang in the new year with feelings of resent, sadness, and bitterness. Just a little bit of background about this situation would be nice, wouldn’t it? Very well, in mid-late December of 2007, I had told a girl that I liked her. This girl, Leaf, told me she was not in the state to be in a relationship with me, but would refrain from a solid “yes” or “no.” This is a bad idea. Girls, seriously, don’t do this. Ever. Don’t give a guy a glimmer of hope like that, because once you crush it, he will want to kill you in the face. Needless to say, I had this glimmer of hope I chased after, hoping that I could “change” her or persuade her to like me. A week later, she slept with my good friend, The Scientist.
School was going to start again soon, and my friends Cash and Cake invite me to go Karaoke with them. I think this idea is totally homosexual, but considering how depressed I am, I decide to join them. It is pouring. HARD. I am driving my dad’s car up to Rowland Heights in pouring rain. Do you guys remember that rain in early January, because I do. Singing badly and eating some Korean hot pot really lifted up my spirits for the night. The three of us stepped outside of the restaurant and we stood there, watching the heavy rain batter our cars. Cash takes out a cigarette and we loiter a bit to chat. I tell them I can’t wait for school to start. Cake wants to punch me in the face. I tell them what happened in my last weeks of December. Everyone is depressed. We say our goodbyes, and look forward to the Winter Quarter of 2008. Now this is the funny part, I am supposed to attend an Anime convention, called Anime Los Angeles, with Leaf and The Scientist that weekend. On an impulse, I decide I am going to visit my friend who lives in Walnut, not too far from Rowland Heights.
This friend of mine, Vivio, is a funny guy. He and I have quite a bit in common. The most noticeable one being the fact that we both like under-aged two dimensional girls. I call up Vivio and tell him I’m coming over. He’s half asleep. I do not care. I am going to see him, and cry into his lap. We chill at his house for a while and I recall the story to him. He tells me that the bright side is that Leaf wasn’t actually with me and then cheated on me. I agree to this, however my seething hatred for her still burns strong. Vivio’s brother wakes up. It’s 3 in the morning. What the hell. We decide to go to Denny’s and a 24/7 Walmart. I enjoyed this very much. There really isn’t anything like Country-Fried Steak and Eggs in the middle of the night and then a trip to Walmart. It’s about 6am and we all come to a consensus that it would be best for me to stay the night. I stay in the guest room and sleep quite comfortably. I wake up in the afternoon of the next day to discover that Leaf and The Scientist have been trying to contact me. I go back to sleep. After saying my goodbyes to Vivio and his brother, I drive back home, ready to begin classes the very next day.
The next few weeks are completely awkward and miserable. I tried my best to tire myself out at school by staying there for 12 or more hours a day. I would only come back home to shower, sleep, and then wake up to go to school the next morning. I had trouble sleeping at nights, thinking about Leaf and The Scientist. I started missing classes much more frequently. Some days I wouldn’t even want to leave my bed. I even skipped an entire week’s worth of class, just because I didn’t feel like it. Imagine having a test at the end of a week, then not showing up to this class for an entire week, and when you return, there’s another test. Yes, that was a bad idea.
Earlier in January, my old friend, Busy Cowboy, had a birthday party. I took Leaf to this birthday party of his and I got to meet some of Busy Cowboy’s new friends from a club called Chinese Association. After a while, I devised that Busy Cowboy was now an alcoholic and I was ashamed of him. The Scientist came to the party too and got drunk. I found out later that he and Leaf left the party early. Oh well, I didn’t need to give her a ride back then.
There had to be some way I could recover from how miserable I felt. I really did feel terrible. For quite a while, I totally hated women. At the time, I didn’t know what could really help me move on. Luckily, I met some new people in my Japanese class and some foreign exchange students through the Japanese Conversation Partner meetings. Staying on campus to do homework and study, and then going out to dinner every night, and then returning to campus to either study some more or just dick around did take a toll on me. Returning home so late every night did damage my already broken sleep schedule, so missing classes was not going to be remedied any time soon. However some good did come from such a thing. I met Jewel, a really cool foreign exchange student from Japan. She seemed like one of the only ones who actually wanted to hang out with us American kids, so we took her out to dinner frequently. Cash, Cake, Package, and I would hang out with Jewel every Thursday night. She was really cool and open to practicing her English and helping us with our Japanese. We even taught her some of our stupid jokes like, “I’M A SHARK, SUCK MY DICK,” which turned into “I’M A TREE, SUCK MY NUTS.” Yes Jewel, I am a tree.
Unfortunately, all good things come to an end, because Jewel had to go back to Japan. After that, we no longer attended Japanese Conversation Partners meetings. It just wasn’t the same. At least I did get to connect much better with some new friends though. These two roommates I met, Rotisserie and Bantam, opened up their place to our group of friends for a good while. Previously, we had all been congregating on campus in the classrooms that had not been locked yet. However, having a homely-feeling apartment to hang out in was much better. Our Gurren Brigade, as Cake first coined it, was expanding. It was now, me, Cake, Cash, Package, Rotisserie, Bantam, Jenner, Pringles, and Egg Baby. We would spend many nights coming over to this apartment of their’s, cooking food, buying food from Albertson’s to share, playing Super Smash Bros. Brawl, and just idling. Never did I expect this newfound paradise of ours to explode the way it did.
Spring quarter was quite amazing because it was a huge roller coaster ride. Our Gurren Brigade was doing our stuff frequently, a bit too frequently. Rotisserie told us that we should probably not come to the apartment as much. Rotisserie is the type of guy who needs his space. Having people over is cool and all, but when there’s a ton of them, and some of them you don’t even know, it can get pretty lame. For Rotisserie, this effect is magnified. He kind of had a mental breakdown. Besides, he was already dealing with some terrible girl troubles of his own. This surprised me because now we didn’t really have a place to go to. We did try to cut down on frequenting the apartment, but we really didn’t cut down enough. Rotisserie got depressed and he and his roommate, Bantam, drifted far apart. Their former close relationship pretty much just fell apart in front of us. Cake, having much similarities in his own past as Rotisserie, tried to counsel him and would frequently take him away to spend time with one-on-one. Cash, on the other hand, would want Rotisserie to forget about his worries by joining us in our outings. Cash also tried his best to counsel Rotisserie, but let’s face it, when two people are giving you highly contrasting advice, what the hell are you going to do?
At the same time, Egg Baby and Bantam and I picked up smoking, just for fun. God damn, Djarum Blacks taste good. Egg Baby wanted us to “smoke smart,” which is not inhaling the smoke into our lungs. Cash thought this was completely retarded, but would occasionally ask us to join him when he smoked. Egg Baby also wanted to regulate us to 1 cigarette a week and to never smoke anything of lower quality than the Djarums. Soon, 1 cigarette a week became 1 cigarette a day. Eventually I started buying my own packs and Bantam and I would smoke through packs pretty quickly. Bantam and I got much closer because he doesn’t have a car and I would drive him around everywhere. Not only that, but I would occasionally stay the night at Bantam and Rotisserie’s apartment, and Bantam and I would chill outside, smoking and chatting. Bantam would inhale. I thought he was stupid, but as long as he wasn’t addicted, I would be fine with it.
So Cake and Rotisserie were spending tons of time together and Bantam, Egg Baby, and I would be spending equal amounts of time together. Our good old Gurren Brigade was split apart in a way, with Package trying to be the peace keeper amongst all of us, Jenner holding his neutrality, and Cash really just chillin’. Pringles wasn’t around often enough to really take any sides or anything. This felt terrible, considering that this was almost all happening under the same roof at times. I started losing a lot of sleep again. I was missing classes and work for this huge drama bomb filled with suck. My boss and supervisor voiced their concerns to me, wondering why my track record at work was so terrible. I told them I was completely retarded and I would be taking the Spring Quarter off from my part-time job.
How does one get over a girl he likes and the terrible rift in his circle of friends you might ask? Easy, one finds another girl to like. This girl, Sunshine, was absolutely adorable. She looks like she has the face of a baby, and she’s got nice, long, thick, black hair. Her ponytails were to die for. Pringles, Egg Baby, and I met her in class. Suddenly, class became fun again. What’s funny is both Pringles and I totally had a thing for her, and it seemed like we were going to have a showdown over her. However, Pringles, being the cool-headed super-rational but super-cool dude he is, was very gentleman-like to me and took me aside to discuss our situation. We both agreed that our friendship was of higher importance and whatever happens is whatever happens. I like to say I was winning the battle. However, in the end, nothing happened anyway. A source of my girl advice was a girl I cherish as a sister. Her name is Mang. I had known her for quite a while by now and she and I were quite close. Many people mistook us as a couple, but she already had a long-term relationship with some dude I wasn’t a fan of. Through talking with Mang about Sunshine, I started to realize that the girl I liked wasn’t Sunshine. It was Mang. This was completely conflicting since first of all, she saw me as her brother, and secondly, she was unavailable. I tried to get her to start thinking the way I did, telling her that her dude was totally not cool and not worth the trouble. I definitely could have done worse, but I definitely do admit some fault here. However, I did try my best to support her as a friend, rather than rage on her dude-friend. It just totally sucked trying to play this whole double-agent role of helping her out, but helping myself out and all this complicated bullshit. I really thought I was in love. I was thinking of marriage and crazy things like that. Boy, was I foolish.
What made matters worse was that Package was going out with this one chick who would prove to be much trouble later on. This chick, Dirty, was pretty cool because she was quite the tomboy and was everything Package was looking for in a girl. When my circle of friends at school was being civil, it seemed like we had some sort of base of operations in helping Package get together with this girl. They finally do start going out and we celebrate and rejoice and all that good stuff. Memorial Day weekend passes and my family holds a BBQ. Dirty meets my friend from high school, Cooch. Suddenly, Dirty has this huge interest in Cooch and starts distancing herself from Package. Within a week or two, the Dirty-Package relationship turns into the Dirty-Cooch relationship. This devastates Package, considering the fact that he worked so hard to date her in the first place, whereas Cooch totally just walked in and made a steal. What pissed me off was that Cooch’s timing was completely horrible, since this was basically a slap to Package’s face. Not only that, but Mang was Cooch’s love-life advisor for quite some time, comforting him after his 3-rejections-in-a-row streak. However, after snagging Dirty, Cooch was cold to Mang, telling her not to say anything bad about Dirty because he wanted it to work out. Mang cried. I got pissed even more. Since Bantam is an easy guy to talk to, Cooch talked to Bantam a lot after meeting him, especially about matters concerning Dirty. When Mang started ignoring Cooch because she couldn’t stand how he was acting towards her, Cooch wanted Bantam to tell him about what Mang was up to. The funny thing is Bantam was on my side, so he would feed us what Cooch was telling him. I now see the complete fault in participating in such an activity, but at the time, it seemed to be the right choice. Apparently Cooch had been telling Dirty that his relationship with me and Mang was not very close at all. Mang and I were infuriated. I was appalled to think that Cooch was choosing this girl over his friends. I felt like completely severing all ties. This was not a friendship that could last if we could be cast aside so easily. Mang didn’t feel the same way, but she was very much willing to support my decision. I felt that, for her sake, I would try to keep things civil. So I asked my ex-girlfriend to spy on him for me. Spring Quarter ended with a bunch of mistrust, grief, and anger.
The transition into Summer wasn’t too hard at all, considering that many of us had summer school. The irony in the summer was that Bantam, in order to hopefully relieve tension between him and Rotisserie, lived with me temporarily. Bantam and I would spend hours smoking outside on my balcony, really just getting to know each other or griping about our lives. Bantam and I would commute to school, meet up with Egg Baby and Pringles, and sit through the long sessions of summer classes. Rotisserie was in our class too, but he sat away from us. Things were still a bit tense.
One night, Package gave me a call, and he sounded like complete shit. I could only hear him cry, rather than him attempting to utter words out of his mouth. He had awoken me from a nap I was having that night. I could be an asshole and say I was angry, but I really wasn’t, well not at Package anyway. Apparently Package had received knowledge that Dirty and Cooch were having a good relationship, something he didn’t have with her. It tore him apart to know that he was losing to this guy that we all despised. Package had to hang up on me because he got another call. It was Cake. Cake wanted to diffuse the situation like crazy, so he went into military strategist mode. Cake called me back, told me to not talk to Package, because Package wanted information and we shouldn’t give that to him. However, I had already promised Package that I would visit him, so I wasn’t going to go against my word. Cake then called Bantam and chewed him out for being the middleman between Package and Dirty. Apparently Bantam was still talking to Dirty and Package and wanted to find out what was going on. Bantam called me later to tell me how offended he was. I was thinking to myself, “what the hell is going on.” I went to visit Package. We stood in his driveway, leaned on my car, and talked. We looked into the stars. We even saw a shooting star. I wished upon this shooting star that I would get together with a girl I really liked at this time. Funny to know that Package did the same thing I did, not too long ago. Connecting with Package was a really great experience for me because he’s much different from the rest of my friends. He claims to want to be as normal and conformist as possible, but in doing so, he is so unique. I truly admire him and respect him as an older brother figure. Seeing him in the pain he was in broke my heart, so I wanted him to know that we were all there for him, on his side.
The next day, Cake and I meet up in order to discuss complicated matters. Cake asks me about why Bantam, Mang, and Cooch keep getting mentioned by Package. I fill him in on the situation. He then realizes the mistake he made of threatening Bantam, but he also gets some time to clear his mind. We come to a middle ground about how this situation should be handled. The thing about Cake is that he’s a very commanding person. Apparently he used to be a school counselor and he’s handled drama-bomb situations before. However, his most bitter memory was of trying to be the middleman of a couple that had a terrible break-up. I believe he vowed to never do such a thing ever again. Probably a reason why he disliked Bantam’s handling of the situation. I told him that I trusted Bantam 100%. Cake told me that I had better be god damn sure of my decision. In the end, we also got to iron out some wrinkles of our own. I felt bad that Cake and I were no longer hanging out because he and I were pretty close, or at least in my opinion we were. We survived Japanese class together for years now. It is true that Cake rarely shows his more sentimental side, but when I did see this side of him, I realized two things. He really does care about his friends and their well-being and that I might not have been as close to him as I had thought I was. Regardless, I was glad things were cool between us.
During this time, never was there a day that passed when I didn’t think about Mang. I really was up in the clouds about her. I get an e-mail from Mang, telling me that Cooch made her cry again. That bitch, I thought. I found out that Cooch was making an attempt to apologize to Mang, but his wording was so far from apologetic that his e-mail came off as strongly confrontational, scaring Mang away rather than attracting her to make amends with him. Cooch called her immature for ignoring him and that if this continued, it probably would be better to stop being friends. Yes, it was that bad. Cooch also wrote an e-mail to me too, albeit about 10 times shorter than the one he wrote to Mang. All it really said was, “do you have any gripes with me?” I really didn’t want to talk to this guy, and I was reading this e-mail in class, so I gave a short response of, “I’m not cool with how you treated Mang. What do you think you’re going to do now?” He told me that Mang was just uncomfortable with him in her life at the moment, and she just needed to get comfortable again. Cooch was under the impression that our triangular friendship would mend itself and things would “go back to the way they were, [he was] sure of it.” I called bullshit so hard, but I decided that life would move on. The first session of summer school was not really anything to rave about. I was eager to move out of my current apartment and I spent tons of time daydreaming about Mang. Bantam and I looked like we were pretty much best buddies. I had high hopes of Mang ditching her boyfriend and getting with me. My close circle of friends was there for me and really brightened up my days. I was doing well. Well, as well as I could be doing for such a situation.
The second session of Summer rolled around. Classes were somewhat more boring, the summer was getting hotter, I started working again. My boss voiced her concerns to me again, about how my previous track record was total shit. I told her that I would commit this time. I also remember her recommending I take a trip to the Student Counseling Center. Would I really need therapy? No way, I could totally get through all of this on my own. I’m really glad that she is one of the people who recommended such a place to me because it would prove to be very useful in the future.
I finally got to move into my new apartment, with my very cool friends. Everything was going to be totally awesome. I met up with one of my old friends, The Artist, who I had spent a year despising. This was because I was supposed to live with him in my old apartment, but he bailed on us last minute. However, throughout the year, I ended up feeling bad for ignoring him so much. He even talked to Mang about how happy he was when I responded to an instant message he sent me. Pretty soon we were on talking terms again. I saw him face to face finally and we got to sit down and talk. Apparently both of us had gone through changing phases in our lives and I can honestly say that I forgive him for what he’s done. He inquired about the Mang and Cooch situation because he still kept in contact with Cooch. I filled him in on how Cooch made Mang cry and how the entire situation played out. Mang told me about how the third girl Cooch asked out was The Ex, but she rejected him. He did not handle his defeat very well. Mang told me that he hated The Ex and didn’t want to see her anymore. I inquired about this with The Ex, and she did tell me that after he asked her out and she said no, she did notice that he was being quite rude to her, at the restaurant she was working at. I had the urge to say, “who’s immature now?” The Artist then told me about how he sees all the puzzle pieces falling into place. The story that’s coming from my and Mang’s point of view and from Cooch’s point of view were converging. The Artist could see how there were huge amounts of miscommunication and that such a tense situation ended up becoming true because none of us were careful. I thought about it for a while and I realized, something like this should be addressed, but not at the current time. I was still not ready to see his face. I doubt he was ready either. It seemed like a strange dynamic. I was shunning an old friend, Cooch, and embracing the return of another friend, The Artist.
As the summer winded down and our classes were coming to a close, Bantam took a trip for a little more than a week. The rest of us still attended classes and did our thing. I continued to lament about my love life. Bantam returned from his trip and Mang, her boyfriend, Bantam, and I went to the Orange County Fair. I both enjoyed that day and hated it. Of course, seeing Mang with her boyfriend infuriated me, but I was also getting to spend time with Mang. Such irony! We also ended up watching The Dark Knight in IMAX that night. Looking back at those photos from that night with Mang’s dude’s face in them would really stab and rip at my heart. Why am I making this sound so dramatic and emo you might ask… because unfortunately, that’s how I felt. What I found funny was that my professor in Psychology class kept repeating, “I recommend therapy to everyone.” Everyone has problems, so why not right? In a way, it felt like something was trying to get me to go. For a while, I shelfed it in the, “things to do later… also known as, things I probably won’t do category.” I did think though, that I would seek therapy, “just for fun,” you know, just to see how it works. However, I had to do something to stop killing myself over my feelings. I told Bantam that I needed to isolate myself from many things for a while. The one thing I definitely needed to do was stop my contact with Mang. For about two weeks, I tried my best to stop logging into Facebook, I stayed off of AIM, I tried my best to just keep occupied. After taking such actions and upholding them for only those two or three weeks, I came to my breaking point. I had just finished taking a final when I decided to head straight for the counseling center. I signed up for an appointment and my chest felt so much lighter.
The battle was only half won, for I had not even had any counseling yet. Bantam started feeling like this was a bad course of action, especially since I didn’t want to hear from him about Mang or anyone at all. He took this as a sign of me not wanting to talk to him. He felt genuinely hurt by my isolationist point of view. The truth was, I needed my space, but Bantam is the kind of guy who hates being alone. He needs people in his space. He’s a social guy, but he’s also quite sensitive. I started growing out a mustache and beard. I felt like this was some sort of “change” in my life. To be honest, it was, and I now realize that my life is always changing. Through my depression, Bantam became depressed. Wow did that suck.
Mang got in touch with me one day because she was wondering if I was mad at her. She said she felt bad because she hadn’t talked to me in so long. Could I have taken this as a, “she might like me” sign? Of course, now that I look back, no… she just missed me because I’m her friend. At the time though, there was hope. Always with that shitty glimmer of hope… I finally got to go out to dinner with her and I had tried my best to prepare my “confession” to her. After dinner we got some Starbucks and sat in the car for a very long time. Sometimes the conversation would jump from one thing to another. Eventually I had to summon the courage to say it. I couldn’t leave without saying it. I held her by the hands and told her the reasons as to why I was seeking Psychoanalytical Counseling, why I had been distant and “ignoring her” and that I had developed romantic feelings for her way back in late June. What I found awkward was that she didn’t seem affected by the fact that I had feelings for her, but more for the fact that I needed space away from her. She felt like this was a “breakup” but, how can it be one when we aren’t even together? Girls really are strange, aren’t they?
I continued with my quest of distancing myself and attempting to recover. My counseling sessions left me feeling better about myself every time, however I did feel bad whenever I ran into Bantam. Bantam and I were not on good terms at all. Some times I wonder how such a thing even happened. Eventually though, Bantam confronted me about tons of issues that were bothering him. Me, being retarded at the time, decided to talk to him differently than I usually do. Our conversation really got nowhere. We went over what was bothering the two of us. Him feeling like he was losing one of his best friends, me feeling pain because I couldn’t see one of my best friends because I had feelings for her and she would not be coming to me any time soon. We both agreed that we were still like brothers to each other, but something still wasn’t right.
In all this chaos, I talked to Egg Baby much more than before. Mostly because I felt much more comfortable confiding with him than with Bantam. I told him all about my therapy sessions and the two of us could relate because Egg Baby had been to therapy before. We both basked in the joy of my progress through life. Egg Baby also told me that I was sexy.
Some time during all this chaos, I met up with Busy Cowboy again. We had a nice chat outside in the cold. We came to terms with the fact that pretty much during our entire 3rd year of college, we hadn’t seen each other much at all. Our friendship had been weak during that time. Busy Cowboy told me that he did have this phase of partying every week, but it did take its toll on him. He told me though, that he definitely preferred hanging out in small groups to actually talk about something more meaningful. I could see that he had matured from the image I had of him. I too felt that it would be such a waste to let our friendship wane like that again. The two of us started going to the gym semi-regularly. This helped a lot as well since I could keep my mind off of many things while working out and I started feeling much better about myself when I looked at myself in the mirror. A key to personal growth, in my opinion, is self-realization. I began to see my own self-worth, which allowed me to continue through any pain that I might have experienced, but also gave me something else to look forward to, besides trying to chase girls.
These events get a little blurry since I don’t like to remember unpleasant times… quite the kicker. I do know that such events pretty much melted into each other from Summer to the Fall Quarter. Cash, the rest of the roommates, and I decided to have a birthday party for his girlfriend at the time. I’m not the party type at all so I was mostly just sticking around with my close friends. Pringles announced that he had to leave so I decided to walk him out. We got to his car and then I felt like it was time for some man-to-man, face-to-face, butt-to-butt talk. I asked him if he still liked Mang. We both came to terms with how we felt about her. I revealed to him that I was seeking counseling and that it was helping me very much. I think we both agreed to leave the things the way they were and let life move on. I also commented that Pringles had good taste in women. We were able to have a really good talk, finally getting to the bottom of issues that were probably on our minds for quite some time. I originally never felt very close to Pringles, granted he did seem like the type of guy who would ride a shark and punch a bear in the face, but this exercise of ours really did help us strengthen our friendship.
I began to feel much better about myself. I then shaved my facial hair and had a birthday party. In the middle of the Fall Quarter, I was participating in Chinese Association (CA) events. I was trying my best to keep my mind off of my emotions and instead I was being constructive by meeting new people. I felt like I could finally be a class clown, just not in class. I met some very cool people through it, and I really have to thank Busy Cowboy for dragging me along for the ride. Bantam went with me, which did have the potential to make things awkward, but we were civil and being in the group setting helped. Package also followed suit, which made me happy since it would give him a chance to go check out a different chick pool. Pretty soon Pringles was joining in on the fun as well. I met two attractive ladies that caught my attention. The thing about CA is that since it’s such a huge club, it’s split into smaller families. Our family has maybe 20 dudes and 3 chicks. This can be a serious problem at times. Reminds me of when Dirty joined our group of friends temporarily so 3 or 4 dudes were “competing” over one girl. Well that’s a thing of the past now.
I still felt bad that Mang would refuse to see me in person. I didn’t get to see her on my birthday, and it looked like I wouldn’t be able to see her at all any time soon. What made matters worse was it seemed like even though I was getting better, Bantam was getting worse. Egg Baby was there, attempting to counsel him, basically do what he was best at. It didn’t seem to help Bantam as much as it had helped me though. Everyone started smoking much more since they were all stressed. I caught bronchitis and abstained from cigarettes from then on. People always assume that I haven’t quit smoking, when in reality, I did, and I was never addicted. God, I am so awesome. I remained focused on bettering myself and I told myself that I would worry about other peoples’ problems later.
Eventually, Bantam started talking to Cash about all his problems so Cash took it upon himself to help us out. He sat me and Bantam down and told us to iron out our wrinkles. We made a good amount of progress in my opinion because we figured out some things that we didn’t know previously. Everything didn’t return to being all perfect and whatnot, but we at least got something done. There would still be quite a few issues that Bantam and I would get quite worked up about, but I am going to go ahead and say that Bantam is a sissy little girl. HA. HA.
Oh yeah, here’s a sweet example. November rolls by and Bantam’s birthday is coming up. One weekend, I am the last one to come home and some friends are over working on schoolwork. Apparently, before I had arrived, Bantam had told everyone in the apartment to not mention the fact that the coming Wednesday was Bantam’s birthday because he wanted me to remember it on my own. He even made a point to explain that he took his birthday off of his Facebook profile in order to ensure that I wouldn’t be able to find out if I didn’t know already. Where do I even start? First of all Bantam is not a girl. Contrary to popular belief, he is a guy. Second of all, I am not going out with nor was I ever going out with this “guy.” Therefore… why the hell would I absolutely need to remember his birthday? As a friend, of course I did remember his birthday, but I thought that this was a very ridiculous idea. What was going to get accomplished by this? Anyway, Pringles took me aside that night and explained to me that Bantam was acting like an obsessive girlfriend. He then told me about how he and Egg Baby had devised a plan to have our CA family come over on Wednesday and then pretend the entire day that we did not know it was his birthday. He would have a completely shitty day and go into the night feeling like shit, since no one would say happy birthday to him. Then, at the end of the night, we would all surprise him and give him presents and cake and whatnot. This was one of the most awesome plans I had ever heard of. Cash greatly objected to such a plan because he knew that Bantam would be butthurt by it. I considered Cash’s argument for a few moments, then decided to go through with the plan anyway. So it’s Bantam’s birthday, and we are having people come over. I had sent a message to everyone, stating that they were absolutely forbidden from from mentioning Bantam’s birthday at all. Unfortunately, Bantam can’t keep his mouth shut so he was running on and on about how that day was his birthday. It didn’t help that Cash kept asking me, “what special day is it today?” So Bantam gets piss drunk way too fast and he throws up all over the place. He even managed to throw up on the top of a trash can, splashing vomit over himself and everywhere else besides the inside of the trash can. How did this happen, you might ask? Well, Cash was out on the balcony smoking when Bantam came out to vomit. Cash gets startled and decides to move the trash can closer to Bantam. He slides it over towards Bantam, but in doing so, the trash can’s lid falls down and Bantam hurls all over the top of it. Fantastic. In the end, I didn’t get to give Bantam his birthday present until the next day and he didn’t remember very much at all. For a while, I felt like an asshole for pulling such a stunt and Cash had that smug look of “I told you so,” but after a while, I accepted what happened and now I laugh about it… so hard.
It’s mid-late November and I discover that Mang will be in the Irvine area one fateful Friday night. I ask if I can finally see her in person and she tells me we should go grab dinner after she’s done. I think it sounds like a plan and I can finally say everything that I wanted to say to her. One thing you might need to know before I go on with this story. Something that has always bothered me about Mang is how she is so terrible at managing her appointments. She will tell you that she would love to have lunch with you one day, then you won’t be able to contact her until the day of the lunch, and then she will call you or merely text you last minute to tell you that she cannot make it. Honestly, I don’t know what it is. She is just terrible at managing her time, or her priorities, or whatnot. Also, I was very proud of her for breaking up with her boyfriend because I felt like she was finally taking a step forward and taking control of her life. I wanted to talk to her about that as well. Anyway, the fateful Friday arrives and she gives me a call around 5 in the evening to ask for directions. I give her directions and she says she’ll call me after she’s done. I realize that this event she is attending in the Irvine area doesn’t end until TEN AT NIGHT and I HAD NOT EATEN ANYTHING yet. Though, in order to honor this fair maiden’s request, I wait until she is done before going out to dinner. Around 9:30, I text her asking her for an ETA and where we should go to eat. I get a text maybe 20 minutes later that tells me she can’t go to dinner with me anymore. And for what reason might this be? There was a surprise birthday party being thrown for her friend from Riverside. So I am pissed. I had waited all day for this girl, assumed that we had solid plans for the night, and she tells me she can’t make it? I text back with a mere, “…” She replies confused, saying she feels out of place because she’s not dressed for the occasion. NOT DRESSED FOR THE OCCASION. Best. Logic. Ever. This message did not make me feel better at all. In fact, it made me feel TEN TIMES WORSE. Why would you tell me you’re coming to see me, remind me that you’ll call me up later, then tell me you can’t go because of something that came up on a whim and THAT YOU FEEL BAD FOR GOING TO THIS EVENT BECAUSE YOU WON’T FIT IN!? Easy solution, in my opinion, obviously would’ve been to just leave and come to dinner with me. Christ, it wasn’t like I was dressed for a formal event or anything either. So I realized that I was hungry and angry. I call up my former co-worker and I go out to dinner with her.
We go to Guppy House and we eat mediocre food. I tell her about what just happened, but I feel as if some of it is my fault because we never had a concrete plan. I start to cool down, but I’m still quite bitter. She tells me that it’s still a pretty jacked up thing to do to a friend. I realize that this is true, but I mention that I shouldn’t be so mad because at the very least, I am not dating here. OH. MY. GOD. A light bulb explodes in my head. I finally got it. I DO NOT WANT TO DATE HER. If there was one defining moment that I had to choose to mention as the moment I stopped liking Mang, it was this moment. After talking to other people about this as well, such as family members and close friends, I agreed that none of this was my fault and that I had been wronged.
It seemed like things settled down as 2008 winded down because I don’t remember anything dramatic happening then, except for mostly positive things. We were all stressed out about finals and our classes and whatnot, so being high strung could be attributed to such factors, rather than tensions between people. My last memory that I feel fit to be mentioned is when I actually grew some balls and asked a girl out.
So there’s this girl, Midori, that I met and thought was pretty cool. Funny thing is, Bantam also liked her. It was time for some tension. After much talk with Cash and Egg Baby, I had decided to ask this girl out before our Winter Break started, because she was leaving the country for the break and 3 weeks worth of anxiety would probably kill me. It’s her last day in the area for the year. It is my last final. I finish my final and walk out of the classroom. I pull out my phone. I call her. She is extremely groggy. I ask her if she wants to go out to lunch. She says she is extremely tired and that she requires an hour. I tell her I will call her in an hour. I go back to my apartment and Bantam asks me if I want to go out to lunch with two of our friends. I have a hunch that he might want to invite Midori as well, seeing as how he likes her and everything. However, I don’t hear her name being mentioned, so I say to Bantam, “….mmmmaaaaaayybe.” He accepts this as a yes and proceeds to take a shower. I call Midori again and she’s good to go. She asks if I want to meet up with her somewhere. I tell her I’ll pick her up. She asks if I am sure. I am sure. I head over to her apartment complex and I am slightly lost. I finally stop at the place where I should be picking her up. Then I see a car pull up next to me. I hear, “David?” I look to my left. It is Bantam in the backseat, and our two friends in the front. I am confused. They are confused. I tell them I’m here to pick up Midori. They tell me they’re here to pick up Midori. There is an obvious miscommunication here. Midori comes and and she’s surprised. Apparently Bantam had called her earlier, like I had predicted, and asker her to go to lunch. She had assumed that both Bantam and I were inviting her to the same thing. I obviously wanted to go have lunch with her alone. The other car asks me if we want to go to Brodard’s with them. They also tell me that it’s a different one than the one I have been to. I ask Midori if she wants to go with them, and to my dismay, she says it’s fine if we go with them. The more the merrier, right? I predict tension coming up ahead.
We drive up the 405, to the 55, to the 22, and then exit Brookhurst there. Not only do we take 3 times as long to reach the location than normal, we also go to the EXACT SAME PLACE I HAD BEEN TO BEFORE. I am not happy. We walk into the restaurant and since our two friends are a couple, they sit down together. Then Midori sits down. I move in towards her and then Bantam sits down next to her. Damn it, Bantam! I sit down. I had lost my appetite by now, seeing my plans fall apart in front of me. After an awkward lunch, we head back to the cars and Bantam invites everyone over to the apartment to hang out. Midori has errands to run so I take this as a chance to take her with me. I can figure out how to accomplish my mission later, right? After helping her out a bit, she tells me to just drop her off because she forgot something and she’ll walk back. I insist on driving her and accompanying her. Now that I think about it, yes it was a bit strange. Eventually I take her back to her place and I ask if I can use her bathroom. I am beginning to panic. I am running low on time. “Today is the day! I can’t leave here without telling her!” I tell myself. I really did have to use the bathroom by the way. Now you might be thinking, use her bathroom to plan your course of action. No. I did not do that. I used the bathroom. Stood there for an extra second, and then charged ahead. Yes, straight through her bathroom door. No. I walk towards her room and she’s standing there, saying, “so…” ready to scoot me out the door. I walk inside and I start trying to chat with her. I apologize for my rudeness and explain that I am tired. I sit down on her floor. She apologizes for not having a chair for me to sit on. I do not mind. I begin asking her about her vacation and things like club activities. After an extended period of time, I panic even more, realizing that I am getting nowhere. I stand up and tell her, “I have something super secret to talk to you about.” I close her door, which is a very creepy thing to do. I am surprised she was not scared for her life. I then make up some bullshit to talk about again. Then I inquire about her vacation again. God, I am so bad at this. I finally muster the strength to go with what I needed to say. I tell her, “Midori, this past quarter has been really cool. This is my first quarter in CA and all and we’ve been hanging out a lot more lately. These past few weeks have been pretty cool actually because we’ve been hanging out so much.” She agrees. “You know, I realized that I’m really going to miss you, because you’re going to be gone for 3 weeks and we won’t be able to do this at all.” She agrees to this as well, but she does mention that 3 weeks will pass by very quickly. I agree to this as well, but then I say, “Yeah, well, I just wanted to say, again, I will miss you, and that during this time I realized that I like you.” I wait a while for this sentence to settle in. She gives me a look of surprise and says, “Wow, was that easy to say?” “NO!” I exclaim, with a laugh. I feel the tension start to fade away. She tells me it was cute. I thank her. I then ask her, “I was wondering if, after you come back next year, you would like to go out… to dinner sometime… maybe?” God, I am so bad at this. She smiles and tells me, “Yes.” I am a winner. Great way to end my year.
Well, of course, other stuff did happen such as cleaning out my refrigerator of ROTTING FOOD, serving on a Jury (which was quite enriching to me), Christmas dinner, opening up to my family members, seeing old friends, etc etc.
Now it’s time to reflect on 2008. Overall, 2008 turned out to be a shitty year. However, because it sucked so bad, I learned so much from it. I have learned quite a few recurring themes in life. One very important one being, “life goes on.” No matter how bad it is, no matter how hopeless you feel, no matter how frustrated you are, you must realize that life goes on. You can’t stop time to dwell on your shitty situation. You really have to just move on and take care of yourself. I learned this those numerous times I felt like life would never be good again. Rejection from a girl, depression, conflicted thoughts, all of which encouraged the very human emotions of frustration, anger, and sadness, may have hindered me greatly, but I eventually realized that I had to get over it. Okay, so this girl doesn’t like me like how I like her. Okay, well, it probably won’t work out then. Should I sit here and mope over it? No, I’m going to go out and have fun, get her off my mind, make new friends, etc.
I have also noticed that a root of people’s problems tends to be self consciousness. When people are insecure, they really do blow things out of proportion. “Why does stuff like this happen to me? It’s probably because everyone hates me.” “Why did he/she act that way to me? They probably hate me!” “I’m no good at this, so no one would notice if I even tried.” I used to think of myself that way. I used to take my own self-worth for granted. After “growing up,” I did feel like I had progressed somewhere, but I was still far away from where I am now. Many people don’t think I’ve changed at all, but I really do feel like I am a different person than from what I was before. I received a very good piece of advice from my uncle that went a little like this, “don’t ever let one person dictate or control how you live your life.” You are your own boss, you are the commander of your life. It’s your choice to make your life better or to send it to the depths of sorrow. I’ve noticed that when I am able to cast away my insecurities, I feel better about myself, I feel like I can do much more than usual, and I just feel better in general.
Another thing that people lack is a clear goal and a clear picture of what they desire. I have been asked the question, “what is it that you really want” and many times I haven’t had an answer. Once you realize what you truly want, what your heart says, not what your mind wants you to believe, you will know where you must stand. For a while, I knew that what I wanted was for the person closest to me to be happy. I knew that although I had a desire to fulfill my own needs and be selfish, I recognized such a desire. Denying it would only hinder my progress. However, it was how I acted upon my desires that determined what was “right or wrong” in my eyes.
In the end, I am pissed off at everyone and everything. Life is over. The end.
