On Friendship

Friendship is a fickle matter. It's so difficult to make and maintain. The relationship between two people is sustained in a delicate equilibrium. But constant changes in the environment are always threatening to tear a friendship apart, whether it's a mutual misunderstanding or personality changes in one friend that the other person cannot accept.

I think in order to maintain a longer, healthier friendship, it's important to continuously give the other person the benefit of the doubt. It's exceedingly difficult, especially if his/her actions seem like a personal offense, but from my experience, often it's the environment that has temporarily changed the dynamics between the two people. Perhaps one side is trying to build a relationship and needs time to do so. Perhaps one side just needs time to focus on work. The level of love in that friendship hasn't changed, but if the other party is offended by the the change in amount of time the two get together and hang out, then the deterioration of the friendship becomes a self-prophesy originating from a simple nonacceptance of the others' time management skills. And that just sounds silly, no?

But perhaps this way of thinking is just a product of my own difficulty in making and maintaining friends. Because of that, I value the friends I do have to a much greater extent. And while I may not always show it, or I may be so absentminded that I don't even think about asking you the things that are important in your life, my love for you does not change. And I know that if you fail to do the same, I probably won't see it as a purposeful attack on our friendship; I'll attribute it to another, more benign and probable, reason.

Can you please spare some change?

I'm not fond of change. And before you start thinking this is a post about Obama, it's not. It's entirely, selfishly about me.

It's not that I don't like all change, because that's definitely not true. I like it when people change their outfits every day because wearing the same one can get repetitive/smelly. I like it when I find change on the ground. I don't pick up pennies so much anymore because they're all over the place in the city, but I still get excited about quarters. I like changes in my life that have been fully thought out and prepared for. Getting a job in advertising was pretty much expected because I've been working towards that since sophomore year.

Unexpected change is what's difficult to deal with. I like to think I'm pretty adaptable, but it still usually takes me by surprise. When I get thrown off a routine, I'll tolerate it, but I will still be completely aware of the change. I don't even like changing stalls in the bathroom at work (fourth one from the right).

This newest change is good for me, though. I know it's good. I just haven't been able to get into the habit of doing it yet. I try to get up at 5:40 every morning to go running. I only get half an hour to run, though, because I need to be on the bus by 7:30, but at least I'm exercising. I need something to counter the fact that I sit in a cubicle all day. But I know I still have a long way to go before I change my mentality into thinking that waking up at 5:40 is even better than sleeping in.

How I know I've had too much finance

To preface the story: my best friend is a neuroscience major.

So she and I were out to a concert tonight, and we ended up sitting with some Goldman Sachs guys. She was talking about neuroscience at one point, and then one of the guys says, "Yes, brains are awesome. They're totally the in thing right now."

That's all well and good until I decided to join in on the brain praise by saying, "It's indeed time to long brains." And yet I can't even claim that it was one of the nerdiest things I've ever said because I actually got a laugh out of the Goldman people.

What's wrong with me? I didn't even study finance.

Who am I?

I saw this on the internets and thought it'd be fun. I hate feeling vulnerable, but I'm not keeping these a secret anymore.

Sigh...

An amusing tale for an otherwise grim situation - the NYT is reporting that gas stations are running out of '4s' because the spike in gas prices is so unprecedented. And the only thing the president (I won't even dignify that with a capital 'p') is willing to do is lift executive orders for offshore drilling, but I won't go on a tirade about his stupid, biased move again.

Things that make me happy

me (10:57:28 AM) - )

me (10:57:30 AM) - :)

me (10:57:33 AM) - my eyes didn't show up

AM (10:57:50 AM) - ahhhaha

AM (10:57:54 AM) - because you're asian

Still giggling to myself about this.

A new wave, perhaps?

I keep trying to find new ways to motivate myself to update my various blogs. I don't post that often, but I would really like to. Now, the normal solution usually wouldn't be to start a completely new blog, but I'm thinking this could work. I'm going to try posting to Blogger where more people can read my posts, and syndicating them to my LJ. Perhaps that'll motivate me more to just write.

We'll see how well this works.