Betrayal & Redemption
If you haven’t yet noticed, I’m a big ball of a mess. Much like a rolling snowball. It only goes downhill.
These few days, with my classes ending, my classmates (who are just as disappointed in the course as I am) decided to take action and put pressure on the people who matter. Today, they asked if I would be willing to sign a formal letter of complaint that basically says, “We will take legal action.”
Now… as much as I hate the time I wasted in the course, it wasn’t useless. I used my time wisely. I came up with pretty good results. I might have a future in this.
And my future might depend on my instructor, who has been recommending me to everyone he knows.
So, I guess this is where greed comes in. I really care that we were all cheated of a good course. Some people were blacklisted to the instructor because the instructor (who is a guy) acted like a girl. However, I don’t want to risk a career to get back the money I spent on the course. I just want to take what I’ve got, and leave.
Yet, I feel like I betrayed my friends.
Some are close friends, who know me well enough to understand that I like to avoid conflict. Others, however, are prone to openly insulting anyone who opposes them. In fact, I had 2 guys tell me that I need to ditch my family, forget the way I was raised to behave, and go live life.
I know some of you out there agree with them. But it’s my life. I get to choose to stick to my culture (which is very conservative and strict) and stay with my parents. I may not fit in the mold of the
Independent Woman, but that doesn’t give people the right to openly judge me. In a blog, I welcome feedback, because I
am writing openly about it. But from people in class, I find it rude.
So instead of only betraying some friends, I feel like I’ve also been betrayed.
… And then there are friends who stick with me no matter what happens. No matter how many times I screw up. With them, I just feel like utter failure.
How do I redeem myself…?
At the brink of nothing
This Friday will be the last day of class for me. I’ll have my work all done for presentation. And I’ll have… nothing… to look forward to.
I was told that film companies won’t need 3D effects artists until late fall. So this gives me 3-4 months to float in my limbo and stress myself out. With the constant taunting from my parents (“We told you this class was useless!”) and the competition of a classmate who got offered a huge contract already (because he’s a genius), I should have a blast.
It doesn’t help that everything went wrong in this class. The teacher turned out to be quite clueless. I became smarter than him by week 3. The school promised contracts and opportunities (verbally, of course, those cunning pricks) but delivered nothing.
So here I am. Jobless, loveless, and losing my confidence.
If I could only get my foot in the door, I know I can work my way up.
Now I just need people to get off my back! I can’t work with half the people expecting overnight success and the other half preparing for my failure.
It also doesn’t help that I’m 23 years old. In this big mess of culture clashes I live in, I should be independent, but I should live with my family until I get married, but I should support myself, but I should support my parents, but I should be married in the next 2 years, but I personally hate marriage deadlines, and people are setting me up, and people are worried I’ll never find someone, and people I don’t like are in love with me, and I have no idea what love is anymore…. GRRR!!!
And I’m rambling.
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Okay. Baby steps.
First I get my stuff done. Then I worry.
Denial. What a good way to handle things.
Bull in china shop
Today’s one of those days where I’m making a joke, but end up insulting my friends; I try to defend friends, but end up betraying them; I’m relaxing while driving, and everyone’s e-braking on me; I park properly, and people hit me with their car doors…
One of those. Something’s trying to tell me to hide in my room and avoid all people. I need protection from myself.
People in passing
A friend of mine had surgery a while ago, so I’ve been taking him to the hospital for check-ups and physio the last two months. During these two months, we got to know his therapist quite well. So, last week when we were told that he was going to be OK forever, and that we didn’t need to go back anymore, it was surprisingly sad. On one hand, it’s wonderful that my friend’s totally OK. But on the other hand, it feels icky knowing that there are some people we just will never see again.
Who knows? Maybe when we get jobs in different cities, I may never see this friend ever again. Such is the way of life. But isn’t it all so miraculous and sad at the same time?
In a way, my life really does only revolve around me. Not in the center-of-the-world egomaniac way, but in the sense that I will only ever truly know my own life.
When I was little, I’d sit in a car in traffic and imagine what the people walking by were like. Where they live, where they’re going, who they’re meeting, etc. It was at moments like these that I’d feel so overwhelmingly insignificant and small. Of the nearly 7 billion people out there, I only know the people around me. We meet new people everyday, we make new friends, we build memories, but in the end, all we have is very few special people. So what happens to the rest? Did I leave a mark in their lives? Did they leave a mark in mine? That person I saw crossing the street… how is her life?
I will never know.
And in realizing that I will never know, I am forced to wonder… does it matter? If it comes down to my life as it pertains to me, that person crossing the street really doesn’t mean anything. Yet, I still wonder.
And this has become another post that’s way too deep for my capacity. So I won’t try to philosophize it. Perhaps when I’m old and wiser, I will understand things better.
In the mean time, I can only appreciate people while they’re in my life, since not many stay for a long time.
How sad.
I’m in a melancholy state.
