25th December, 2008
This Is Christmas
We briefly had all five of us together in order to go through the motions of opening presents. My sister got me a nice makeup kit which I plan on using. I think the windup music part is broken though and I can’t seem to find a way to open the box and figure out what’s wrong. I see screws, but I fear that if I try to remove then, it will do me no good if I can’t get to the musical thingy myself. (I’ve forgotten the word for it at the moment).
… Nevermind. Unscrewing it did help. Currently fixing it as we speak.
…Oh my god. There was a piece of styrofoam stuck… barely stuck, but stuck enough to prevent the gears from turning.
Other than that, my day today was relatively uneventful. On Tuesday night, I thought that I could have dinner with JYL, CZ, and NZ, but JYL couldn’t make it down, so I changed my dinner plans and ate at Gordon Biersch with MP and NN. The food was alright, but it was more the company that I wanted since I hadn’t seen both of them at the same time since they came up for the Axio party in August. I had seen MP and NN since then, but all three of us hadn’t been together in a while.
After dinner, we wanted dessert since our selection at Gordon Biersch was quite mediocre. We walked around downtown San Jose for a bit until we landed next to the Christmas in the Park and the Fairmont Hotel. Since it was a classy hotel, we figured it might serve desserts. Luckily for us it did. We ordered a few drinks and chocolate fondue. The drinks were bad and the chocolate alright. Again, the company was more important than the food itself.
Just as we were heading back to the cars, we ran into a friend, D. I hadn’t seen D since two years ago, right before I moved back up to Berkeley. D and NN had a good friendship and had many countless intoxicated nights together. Anyway, we ran into him outside Fahrenheight, the ultralounge. He had us come inside for a bit while we tried to chat. Nhi ordered us a round of Patron (I know, bad move on my part since I drove). We drank and then left D since we had to leave (my mother wanted me to come back with the car since it was late – I’m not on their insurance policy). It was a random encounter, but a good one.
Since that night, I’ve been just spending time at the house. That night, when I returned, I couldn’t sleep at all. I went to bed around 2:30 or so and woke around 4 and after that, could not sleep. I kept tossing and turning, drifting in and out of consciousness. I finally gave up trying to sleep around 8. I ended up crashing later though after I had walked around the neighborhood a bit. It was completely odd since I never had any issues falling asleep unless I’m sick. I didn’t feel sick except for the headache I felt when I decided to get up.
Anyway, tomorrow I’m meeting up with ALL, a friend from high school. We’re planning to get our nails done and whatever else awaits for us.
Night!
Tags: Christmas, family, Gordon Biersch, MP, NN
Posted at 10:11 pm | Comment (1)
26th December, 2007
This Was A Bad Christmas
When I say that I’ve had better Christmas days, boy, do I really mean it.
Well, I woke up this morning a little earlier than planned, so I took my time getting ready. Showering, primping, etc. When I finally come out of my room, my mother is yelling at me because I didn’t help prepare for the lunch. I figured if she needed it, she would have sent for me. Anyway, so my relatives come over and eat lunch with us and all is merry. Good, right?
They leave and I retreat back to my room, listening to music and doing my normal web browsing. My mother comes in and tells me that they want to talk to me, so we go outside to the dining room. Well, their talk, and yes, it was mostly them talking, was basically saying that they still found no reason for me to stay up in Berkeley. It all came down to the ultimatum they gave me: One, if I went home, I would get use of my mother’s car, I would attend the community college taking whatever classes I wanted even if they were for fun, and I would be allowed to see FL once a week and they would drive me to the station. Two, if I didn’t go home, I would lose my insurance coverage and therefore, would not be able to afford seeing FL. At some point, it later became the “if you go to Berkeley, I’m going to stay up all night worrying about you. Do you want that?” “No, I don’t. But…” “Well, if you don’t want that, then the only other way is for me to treat you like a stranger so I’m not worrying anymore.”
What the hell is that? I thought that this whole thing had been settled last week! I thought that they really had given me the “okay” to stay in Berkeley! And now they turn around and pull this shit on me? I understand that as parents, they want to protect me and keep me from harm. They want to do what they can to help me and to them, going home is the best option they see fit. As nice as it is to have them comfort me and take care of me again, I know that if I try and do this myself, I will come out not only a stronger person but a more confident person as well. This whole thing is for me to get better and I feel that if I stay in Berkeley, that is the best method of doing so.
They tell me that they won’t be watching me and the only reason why they do is because they love me. I understand that and it may sound weird, but a reason why I don’t want to be at home is because they love me so much. Because they love me so much, they’ve become really protective and now it’s getting to the point where I really need to do this myself and that’s how I see myself being a much better person. I don’t know how else to explain it to them, but that’s why. I know they love me and I’m very glad that they love me this much, but at the same time, it’s just quite a bit for me to deal with right now. I’m not saying that I wish they would love me any less or anything, that’s not it at all. I’m just saying that because they love me this much, it’s very difficult for me to try and think for myself when they’re always around.
Anyway, I didn’t really make a decision after the talk and I had retreated to my room. At that point, I needed to leave. I felt that I could not make a well-informed decision inside the house and was going on a frantic search to find someone who would pick me up and drive me to the station. I was packing my things because I needed to be anywhere else but here in this house. However, my mother caught me before I had a chance to flee, she told my father, and the next thing I know, he’s coming in here a very upset and angry man. He’s yelling at me, not making anything else better and is pretty much threatening that I stay at home.
We were supposed to attend another family dinner and since they had already seen me for lunch, they knew I was in town and was able to attend dinner. My father forced me to go and, well, I went. I didn’t do much though. I came in, greeted my relatives, and sat in a room for two hours. My uncle came in at one point and said that although he didn’t know the whole story, he wanted to tell me that no matter what it is that’s going on, “It’s not the end of the world.” He didn’t say it in a condescending manner, so I really understood that. I also knew that since he didn’t know the whole story, he couldn’t really have said it in a condescending manner, so that made it better.
Anyway, so throughout the two hours I was there, I did nothing. I wrote in my little journal and sat in that room. No, I did not eat. Frankly, I had lost my appetite.
We went home after that and since then, I have not spoken to my father. My mother came in twice; the first time, I believe she wanted to talk, but I told her that I needed to be alone. The second time, she wanted my doctors’ phone numbers. Other than that, I have not really spoken to them. It’s been about seven and a half hours now since we left for the dinner and I still want to leave. I had the chance to leave with my friends to go snowboarding and although that seemed interesting, I declined. One, I didn’t feel right just leaving without really telling them anything and right now, I’m still on my high horse and don’t want to speak to them. Two, I know that it will be expensive since I have to rent a lot of stuff and since my finances are a little tight right now, I don’t think that would be a wise decision to make.
Anyway, now I am sitting here in my parents’ home. I still want to go back home because this is not a happy place. I mean, how do they expect me to stay here? It’s only been three days since I’ve been back and already I want to leave. Maybe I’m running away from this all, maybe I’m not, but this is just not helping at all, not one bit.
Tags: Christmas, family, life
Posted at 1:26 am | Comments (4)