Me.

I like your hugs:

1. I like how my friends describe our hugs as hug-sex because of how much I hug you

2. I like how my arm fits perfectly around your waist and around your back

3. I like how we rape everyone in school with our PDA hugs. I try not to do it, but they always end up happening.

4. I like how you perfectly fit into my chest, especially when I put my arms around you.

5. I like how I always choose to forget to bring my sweatshirt so you have to hug me in the parking lot to keep me warm

6. I like surprising you from behind with a hug.

7. I like how I accidentally hurt you sometimes because I’m hugging too hard (usually because one of my friends is poking me in the ribs and making me spaz). But you don’t say anything about it and you actually like it.

8. I like it when I put my hands around your waist and you lean back so I’m the only thing keeping you up.

9. I like putting my forehead against yours in our hugs; it’s really nice.

10. I like how our legs are somewhat the same length even though I’m much taller than you; but then everything works out when we walk together and I don’t have to break my hug with you when we walk together

11. I like all the looks my teachers give me when they see me hugging you like I a little kid clinging onto a teddy bear.

12. I like randomly picking you up when we hug – then I carry you places :D

13. I like hugging you from behind, and then dragging you off in the opposite direction of where you’re supposed to go. AND YOU CAN’T DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT.

14. I like how you have to go on your tippy toes when you hug me and I have to hold you up, but I don’t mind doing that in the slightest bit.

15. I like how I used to deny you hugs in the beginning of the year, saying that giving them out too much will increase their supply and dilute their value. But now, I hug you whenever I can and their value hasn’t gone down because the demand for them has increased 

16. I like how our hugs always cheer us up, no matter how stressed and unhappy we are

17. I like it when we swish back and forth in our hugs. It’s lots of fun and I keep doing it unconsciously.

18. I like teasing you by pretending to accidentally drop you. It’s kinda mean, but that look on your face and how much you hug me afterwards is worth it ^_^

19. I like how we whisper things to each other’s ears and sometimes randomly lick each other and try to stop the other from rubbing it all back on.

20. I like how all my friends think we’re still just hugging each other like crazy because that’s what they all think I can do ;]

Smiles

1.    I like how genuine your smile is

2.    I like how goofy you look when you smile sometimes; it’s absolutely adorable

3.    I like how I can imagine how much you’re smiling right now

4.    I like how my favorite picture on my phone is of you smiling ^_^

5.    I like how we end every text message with a smiley face

6.    I like how we agree that we rape each other with smiley faces, but then conclude that it’s not rape because it’s consensual

7.    I like how you sometimes look Asian when you smile 

8.    I like how we tried to make our own smiley face because ^_^ and :P wasn’t enough to express how happy we felt

9.    I like how you can always find at least one of :D :) :P xD :P :3 :))))))) ^_^ in our IM conversations

10. I like how my parents can always tell who I’m texting by seeing how much I smile when I type

11. I like how your parents must think you’re crazy because of how hard you smile when you read some of my texts

12. I like how we sometimes ^_^ instead of words because we can’t find the right ones

13. I like how I can’t be angry at you when you smile at you

14. I like how you know how true (12) is and know how to advantage of it

15. I like how I can tell when you’re smiling from far away, even though I can’t see your face

16. I like how it takes only 17 muscles to smile, but you put more than 17 into yours to make every one of them count

17. I like how your smile makes me happy, and my smile makes you happy and from there, it’s just a continuous stream of happiness inducing more happiness

18. I like it when you give me that smile sometimes, the one that says “I want you more”

19. I REALLY like how your face turns red when you smile too hard. It makes it my personal mission to do that to you as much as possible

20. I like how much I’m smiling when I’m writing all of this

21.  And most of all, I like how it only took me 15 minutes to type all of this up

Remember that time when I posted about how hope was dangerous? Well, it is. But that doesn’t mean that we should try to avoid it. It hurts a lot to try to build that dream, and watch it get torn down, but that doesn’t mean we should all stop dreaming and hoping. You might say that it’s stupid to keep hinging on useless things. You might say that it’s the same as if you’re jumping off a cliff with your eyes closed and hoping that you’ll land somewhere safe.

But who knows? Take that leap of faith and hope as hard as you can. After all, you’ll get nothing done with both your feet planted on the ground. On the slight chance that you’ll land in someone’s arms, you might as well enjoy the giant leap into nothingness and feel the air whooshing through your hair as your soar through the sky.

One of my favorite books I grew up with was called No More Dead Dogs by Gorden Korman. Inspiring me to be a better person, the book is about a high school student who’s incredibly honest, to the point of stupidity. He’s always told the truth, and he even gets himself into a trouble because he refuses to lie. However, what I admired most about this kid’s honesty was that he was always able to find his way out of the stickiest situations because he always had good intentions and never lied to anyone, ever.

From that point on, I told myself that I’d always tell the truth, which always worked some of the time. But in the other instances where the truth would have made everything worse, I found that living a lie is much better than telling the truth. In fact, I feel like I would have been much better off I telling a couple of lies here and there. I could have lied and made up stuff about myself to colleges, I could have not taken all responsibility for the mistakes I’ve made, and I could have easily faked being some impressive macho man to impress the girl who I really liked. I could have done all of these things, be in a better position, and gotten away with half of them.

But in the end, I realize that telling lies do nothing. If I pretended to be a badass and got a girl to like me, that girl would be in love with the badass, and not who I am, Quan. If I lied on my college resume and pretended I found the cure for cancer, the “smart” Quan deserves to go to college, and not the Quan who’s typing this blog.

In the end, the truth always triumphs over whatever lie one fabricates. I can say that I’m a bit random when I make comments about things, but what I say will always be true. Eventually, I know that the friends I make are true, and the people who I love are the ones who I should be with. Deep in my heart, I know that if I stay true to myself, then the world I live in will reflect who I am on the inside and not who I pretended to be.

It hurts. It consumes. It destroys. 

I doubt that any other emotion can scar one’s heart as deeply as what loneliness can do at first. It comes out of the blue and when you’re off guard. You suddenly realize that you’re just one of 6.8 billion people who population the earth, that your longing to fill that emptiness is destroying you, and that you’re easily effaced off the face of the earth. 

But, perhaps it’s better to embrace that feeling and simply take on the world by yourself. Emerson spent years by himself in a journey of self discovery. Andrew Wiles solved Fermat’s Last theorem by locking himself in his own room for months on end. And Jesus spent 40 days and 40 nights resisting the temptation of Satan in the desert. Perhaps, embracing that “hurtful” feeling isn’t as bad as it seems. 

There’s no need to hope and rely on others. You don’t have to worry about letting anybody else down. You can focus on the task at hand. You can be who you want to be. Decisions become much easier to make once you realize that you don’t have to appease 10 people at once. Your thoughts become crystal clear, and are no longer colluded by unnecessary thoughts. You’re filled with a stable feeling of contentment, no longer bounded by unsteady hope and unreliable futures. 

Maybe being alone can ironically bring you true happiness - one that isn’t rooted in cars, money, hedonistic pleasures. 

It lets you finally become the one thing that few can afford to be: Free. 

Never have I ever had an experience as profound as I had today. Part of our music program went to see the New York Philharmonic group’s open rehearsal, and by the end of the show, parts of my brain were left splattered all over the auditorium floor. 

It was such an intense experience that I almost died. Twice. 

The first time was during Beethovan’s Piano Concerto No. 3. During the Largo movement. I swear I was being seduced by the flow of the music in the room. My ears were assailed by awe-inspiring waves of pure music. Closing my eyes, I felt the soft melody perfectly complemented by the supportive harmony wrap around my body. In that moment, I felt as though I’ve left my mortal body and transcended into heaven, carried by the momentum of the music and anchored to Earth only by the delicate yet powerful piano solo. 

The second time was during the second movement of Shostakovitch’s Fifth Symphony, which is coincidentally his most famous. Completely opposite of Beethovan’s Piano Concerto’s Largo movement, this section of music gave me goosebumps for a straight 10 minutes. The blaring of the brass over the soft yet insidious string background put a drop of fear in my heart. I can feel the terror with which Shostakovitch wrote this piece (he fell out of favor several times with Stalin) and how oppressive that emotion became as it consumed all other positive ones. Although the playbill stated that the Fifth Symphony was constructed to parallel the sufferings of the human mind and was made to draw attention to the optimism and brighter future of communism, I felt as though it was more of a satire - insinuating the oppression and corruption of Russia, its audience, rather than the lauding the “bright future” predicted by communism. Nevertheless, the NYPH played it with such passion that just thinking about the experience still gives me the goosebumps. 

It’s a pity that I can’t simply sit in the auditorium everyday to die a couple of more times, but I’m definitely coming back to hear more of this awesome performance group. 

Good news: I’m a second semester senior! :P

Bad news: I’ve still got ALOT to do this month :(

What I should be doing: More fun, less work. 

What I AM doing: Less fun, more work. Those poster boards for LISEF don’t just do themselves. I can’t simply sleep with a textbook under my bed to let all that stuff I have to do for science olympiads diffuse into my brain. And best of all, I can’t shave off that 0.4 seconds off my 50 free for state qualifiers cut by bumming off at home. 

What this post should be: Something interesting to read, celebrating my newfound freedom from an arduous 11.5 compulsory sentence in school. 

What it ends up being: a revelation that school still owns me even after it lets everyone else go. 

It comes in, flittering in and out of your heart like a scintillating star unbounded by the laws of nature. When you’re full of Hope, your heart bubbles forth and you feel yourself floating towards the sky. Nothing can stop you. No obstacle is too great. 

But when harsh reality punctures that bubble of happiness, you can almost hear the *whoosh* as Hope drains from your heart. Every pocket of happiness and every collection of optimism collapses, leaving you wallowing in despair like a deflated tent.  You’re left with nothing but an empty bag of hot air. 

You never want to feel Hope again, unwilling to watch it abscond from your heart and leave you in darkness. You never want to allow that fickle emotion inside of you again. You never want to face the disappointed of nurturing a dream and watch it implode just before it comes to fruition. You never want to face the frustration of being so close, yet so far from achieving your goal. You never want see yourself be just centimeters and entire worlds away from your fingertips.  Filled with bitter anger and sour disappointment, you want to bar it permanently from the innermost chambers of your heart. 

But no matter what happens and how hard you resolve it keep it at bay, Hope finds its way into your heart. It’s as if we humans are inherently creatures of hope, made up of nothing but unsubstantiated dreams, ideas, and optimism. It’s as if we’re God’s ineffable joke, filled with something that doesn’t exist. We’re blessed and cursed by Hope, and no matter what, we can’t stay away from looking up at the stars and ponder if the slim chance of happiness outweighs the overbearing probability of failure. Everyday, we’re hoping for the best, hoping for today to be the day, and hoping - desperately hoping - that we don’t hear the sickening *pop* as our most cherished dreams are punctured by reality’s harsh needles. 

…

But in the midst of the wild frenzy of the unknown, we ironically hold onto this fickle emotion, which - as strange as it may seem - gives us the most support and comfort. Without it, we’re simply beasts that have fallen prey to the eat-or-be-eaten laws of the jungle. Without it, we’re nothing. 

…

To Hope is to be Alive

…

To Hope is to be Human

Does being human mean to feel hatred?

If it is, it sucks to be human.

Hatred is a strong word, and we’ve all been taught to avoid this six-letter combination. If anything, we’ve learned that Hatred has and always been part of our history. As one of the seven deadly sins, Hatred is possible one of the most powerful and destructive force, causing everything from petty rivalries to mass genocides.

Everyone feels some of this from time to time. Although I’m a pretty amiable guy, there are a couple of times where I just fall into a fit of rage and depression. I just sit silently in my seat, fuming about the little things in life and dithering in my nihilism. With this cynical attitude, I see all the negative side to everyone I meet; this person is a selfish douchebag, that person is a lazy bum, this person’s egotistical charlatan, and that person is an attention-seeking clown. From this dark perspective, I feel even more alienated from the world around me.

Everyone has some sort of flaw flowing through them. Mine is that I care too much about everything, and that I’m naive enough to believe that most of the people in world are filled with good. Worse, the flaws that I could see most clearly was those in my closest friends - something that bothered me to no end. For the first time, I see my friends for who they truly are. Person X wasn’t the same amiable fellow I met in 9^th grade, and person Y didn’t have this inflated ego when I made friends with Y a while ago. I saw that these people hadn’t changed from their original selves. They had become who they truly are. I felt I’ve was lied to in our entire friendship, that I was somehow duped by my own naiveté.

But now that I look back on how I felt at these moments, I realize I’m completely wrong. My friends are my friends are because somehow and on some level, we all have something in common – whether it be simple as a card game that we play together or something as innate as the qualities and characteristics we share. If there’s only one thing I’ve learned, it’s that hatred obscure your view of the whole picture, even if you believe yourself to be completely correct. You may have seen the “truth”, but you’ll miss the entire context of the story and the other qualities that truly make up your friends for who they are.

Everyone is flawed in some way, but friendships involve seeing past those flaws and willing to accept them.

Last week I had no friends. This week, I’m happy to say that I remade a few.