Sam Zhang. Chinese. UCLA.
Swimmer. Artist. Musician.
"And never have I felt so deeply at one and at the same time so detached from myself and so present in the world" --Albert Camus
Changes
Taking a slight break from studying, which I may or may not have the liberty to do given time constraints.
I clicked through random months in my archive and realized that my tumblr has evolved over the years (I’ve had this tumblr for almost two years now…wow). I don’t know if it’s a good thing or a bad thing- I don’t post as many personal posts accounting my day, stopped doing my 5 Facts posts long ago, and now I kind of reblog anything that even mildly sparks my interest. I think I used to be a lot pickier about what I wanted to post, but now not so much.
Not sure if I should accept this change or try to revert back to how I was before? Change is inevitable, but I kind of like the idea of being more selective about my posts…it’s just deciding if I want this to represent who I am, at all random moments of my day, or who I want to be/appear to be to others. I know the latter sounds like I’m trying to conform to some sort of societal ideal, which is what Tumblr is exactly NOT about, but I also feel like at this time in my life, I really need to try channeling myself and molding myself more carefully, instead of just figuratively sitting in the sun and letting myself melt into whatever shape gravity decides to take me. So my mentality is if I’m choosier about what I post, maybe that’ll help me figure out the details of who I choose to be?
Ugh, I don’t know. Hope everyone is studying hard for whatever you have coming up (AP tests, midterms, finals, whatever) and good luck!
The Fault in Our Stars (slight spoiler)
Beautiful. It made me grin from ear to ear, it made my heart plummet to the pit of my stomach, it made my eyes burn with the threat of tears. It brought reality crashing down but at the same time sent me soaring high above the clouds: an “infinity bigger than other infinities”.
Pray for Boston
I first found out about the explosions from a friend’s status on Facebook. While there are a lot of criticisms about the immense dependence we have on social media, in times like this, I think it’s amazing at how fast awareness can be spread and a response put out because of the speed at which our news feeds, tweets, dashboards, etc. runs.
While trying to catch up with the news of what’s going on with the Boston Marathon, I did run across some rather shocking responses. One, the Westboro Baptist Church (WBC) tweets about picketing the funerals of those killed in the explosions. I was extremely confused at first, because WBC claimed that the explosions were punishment for same-sex marriage, so I thought that the purpose of the marathon was for gay pride. It’s not, and it has absolutely nothing to do with anything LGBT related. Why anybody would celebrate the deaths and devastation of any group of people because they’re against gay marriage when these people aren’t gay, aren’t trying to promote gay awareness, and actually consist of a lot of people from around the country in a very wide range of age groups and backgrounds, completely beats me.
Two, the negative responses to the hashtag phrase that is now being used: “Pray for Boston”. The word “pray” is apparently (and expectedly) an issue for some due to its religious connotation. As I have reiterated over and over again, I am not religious at all, and to be honest, saying “Pray” for Boston did make me a bit hesitant because of my current stance on religion. I did attempt to come up with some other vocabulary could possibly replace the word “pray” but still express my feelings for the matter, but in the end, “pray” was the only thing that fit. Praying doesn’t just mean talking to a higher power or getting on your knees anymore. To those that are adamantly not Christian, it’s important to remember that Christianity is deeply ingrained into our culture, from the Pledge of Allegiance to saying “bless you” when a person sneezes. For me, praying for Boston doesn’t mean that I am actually going to ask God to do something; instead, I am hoping that the people in Boston will be able to recover from this, that this isn’t the end of humanity, and that somehow in some way, my empathy for those hurt by this event will magically be sent across the country…essentially praying, in a very nonreligious way. But even this seems to be an issue with people, as others believe that “praying never did anything for anyone” and that we should be acting, not praying. While this does make sense, I think it’s really insensitive to shut down people’s good intentions and heartfelt pain over people that they may have never met before. It’s too often that we are exposed to the horrors of the world, that trying to snuff out the small, good things that people try to do just because “it’s not enough” is just so short-sighted and naive.
Some people are even having issue with “Boston” being a central issue. Yes, Boston may not be an entire country that has been plagued by genocide and war for years, but it’s still a place with people who are trying to live their lives and has now been affected by a tragedy that it didn’t deserve. A bomb is still a bomb, and a lost loved one will still cause the same amount of heart break, no matter who that person is or where he or she is from. If you are a human rights activist or claim that you support human welfare for countries like Iraq or Syria, then your response to Boston should be the same as your response to any similar event anywhere else in the world.
I wish there was more that I could do for the people in Boston, and it’s aggravating that even though I intend to donate blood tomorrow, it won’t be of any help to those in Boston right now. Thank you, however, to the people who provided an immense number blood donations to local hospitals in Boston to help save those in need. And I’m just so impressed with how the people in Boston have responded, with so many people just being caring human beings and helping each other in any way that they can.
To my friends on the East Coast, I hope you are all okay. Stay safe, everyone. Hopefully, the worst is over, so that we may wish for the best.
Congratulations to All My Lovely High School Seniors :)
Most of you guys seem to have settled on which college/university that you’ll be spending the next few years of your lives at, or at least have greatly narrowed down your choices. If I haven’t already told you congratulations personally, then here’s me telling you all that I’m so proud of you and how far you’ve come since we first met.
I hope that wherever you guys are going, that you’ll be able to have the time of your lives and find your place in the world, or at least discover aspects of yourself that you never knew existed. I hope you’ll be able to fall in love and find passion for what you’re studying and pursue something that really makes you happy. I hope that you get to meet people that will change your world and that you’ll change your mind over and over again as you find what you believe in and what ideas you wish to pass on to those that you meet later on.
For some of you, the day that we last saw each other in person may be the last time we ever see each other face to face given how some of you are traveling across the country and the few times I actually go home. Despite this, please know that even if we don’t talk often or haven’t talked in a while, I still deeply care for you and enjoy having sneak peaks into your lives via your text posts and photos (so please continue sharing your adventures when you all head off on your separate paths!). While I love the friends that are my age and older than me, I’ve always enjoyed (and many times preferred) the company of you all; even though you’re only a year younger than me (and a few are actually older than me aha), I’ve always felt that you guys always had this youth and vitality that I never had at your age and that bolstered me in my lowest moments by reminding me of happy times past. I hope that even as you get older, you don’t lose that energy that has powered you through so much.
Good luck with the rest of your senior year, loves, and cheers to the kick ass Class of 2013 :]
Looper
SO INTENSE. Really good action/suspense movie, really wished I could have watched it in the theatres with the big screen and surround sound. The trippiness of the whole thing (time travel always makes things confusing) rivals that of Inception, in my opinion, especially with the ending (the ending made me so confused, IS THERE A CONNECTION BETWEEN JOE AND SARAH AND THE WAY JOE’S MOM USED TO BRUSH HIS HAIR OR WHAT?) I tried looking up an explanation for the ending, but it seems like all the discussion is about the actual concept of time travel and how things would even work as the events in the movie occurred, but let’s not talk about that because it’s just mind-boggling and that’s why time travel should just not be invented. But yeah, really good movie!
**I also would like to commemorate the little boy who played Cid and his brilliant acting. He was one intense, unsettling little boy.**
Detachment
Extremely powerful movie. The story. The emotion. The lives of these people. The reality of it all. Everything was just captured and made so in your face that if you don’t feel something, anything, while watching, then I really don’t know what to say to you. The close up shots, the hand-held camera movements, the animations, the soundtrack, the interview with Henry- all of it combined together to really incite this inexplicable rawness in my heart…it’s like an odd mixture of anger, frustration, astonishment, passion, disbelief, wonder.
The fact that Henry was an English teacher was so perfect and fitting that it’s tragic. That’s the thing about math and science classes- while nowadays, those classes and areas of study are what gets people high paying jobs, it’s English and the written language, poetry and art, all of the areas that allow us to open up and just be that makes us human, that allows us to feel and understand.
So often I find myself wrapped up in myself, thinking only about my tragedies and misgivings, that I forget that I’ve been so lucky to have the parents and teachers and peers that I’ve come to know. What I can’t understand is how we allow those that are wrapped in themselves, that really can’t see beyond their little bubble, to have the occupations that really require someone with that compassion and empathy for others. Teachers, doctors, parents, counselors- so many people say that they want/can do these things but then they fail to realize that there’s so much more to these jobs than just ability.
We have the power to reach out to every person that we meet in our lives. The girl that always sits in the back corner of the classroom. The little boy terrorizing the neighbor’s pet. The drunk woman stumbling down the street. The lonely man crying on the bus.How can we live our lives just not caring? Why is that even allowed, acceptable, even praised by some?
Trapped. We are trapped by our lives, the people around us, society. And to get away from it all, we detach ourselves, make ourselves not care, simply because if we allow ourselves to care too much, we realize all too well how far we’ve fallen, how much we’ve failed.
“And never have I felt so deeply at one and at the same time so detached from myself and so present in the world.” —Albert Camus
Watch the movie.
Blue Valentine
So I watched this movie right after I finished watching Like Crazy, which was probably a bad idea because the two movies are pretty much the same but centering around differently aged couples- Like Crazy had two young, early twenty-ish lovers while Blue Valentine had a middle-aged couple with a kid and jobs.
If you watched Like Crazy and liked it, you’ll probably like Blue Valentine. There were some pretty explicit sex scenes, but that’s the same as Like Crazy, but I think it was a bit more serious and added more to the dysfunctional relationship than the sex in Like Crazy did.
Probably the biggest difference between Like Crazy and Blue Valentine was that Blue Valentine brought in the idea of family and how much parents and children can have an effect on relationships, and how there’s so much more than just you and your partner that you need to think about.
Very sad and personal movie, but recommended.
Django Unchained
Eh. I didn’t love it as much as I thought I would. The trailer made it look like it would be so much fun, but there was just so much unnecessary gore and either racist or dirty jokes. I know that’s Quentin Tarantino’s style and that the movie is taking place during before the Civil War, but ugh, I just didn’t like it.
I thought it was interesting how they filmed the movie like an old Western film, with the subtitles and the large text giving context and such. The music was pretty funny, added some humor, and the scene where Leonardo DiCaprio cut his hand was just like holy crap, you can really tell that it was spontaneous and he just kept on going with it. But when he rubbed his blood all over Broomhilda’s face, like good lord, doesn’t that violate some health code or something? But good job, Leo, very impressive.
But yeah, didn’t like it that much. Sorry.
Like Crazy
It’s kind of hard for me to explain my response to this movie. On the one hand, it tenderly and lovingly ripped my heart out. On the other hand, it was so real and raw, that I can’t wish for a different ending, for the pain to be any less, because that is how the human heart chooses to act, and for the movie to end differently would be just be a slap in the face and a shameful lie.
*I strongly do not recommend reading past the “read more” block until you have watched the movie because you have to watch it without knowing anything. And yes, I recommend watching it.*
The Alchemist
The Alchemist is very simple in terms of plot, but its themes of fate and becoming one with the world was very well-developed. It was a bit too simple for my taste- I could imagine it being a children’s story, and I kind of prefer books that have really complicated undercurrents. However, I did think it was well-written. An easy read, recommended if you believe/want to believe in miracles and have a distaste for the phrase “just a coincidence”.
End of Alice (spoilers)
FTR: I did not know what this book was about when I picked it up.
While one would think that this book would be very similar to Lolita (it actually made me think of 50 Shades of Grey at some parts), it’s not. Lolita had this strange way of making all of the narrator’s actions seem sweet and caring, but in End of Alice there was so much more rank darkness that made me feel really disgusting reading it. I was actually completely aghast when I finally figured out what the book was about, and by the middle of the book, I almost didn’t want to keep reading.
If you DO choose to read this book, FINISH TO THE END. The ending is just…unbelievable, shocking, and will completely change any conclusions or conceptions you may have formed up to that point. I would only recommend reading this if you are extremely open-minded and can handle strong language and disturbing images.
Is Tolerance Intolerant?
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I went to this talk held by a group called The Veritas Forum, which is an organization that seeks to “engage students and faculty in discussions about life’s hardest questions and the relevance of Jesus Christ to all of life”. When I had decided to go, I had no idea that it would be so Christianity-based and thought that it would just be an interesting, objective, but thought-provoking event. The speaker that day was Ravi Zacharias, apparently a very well-known author and presenter that has traveled the world for the past four decades to spread open-mindedness and, I guess, Christianity.
