I keep forgetting that I have a blog, just because I don't post in it that often anymore. So it's always slightly a surprise whenever someone is like "oh, I read this in your blog" and I'm like "huh?" The best part about having a blog is reading through all the old entries from back in high school. I can't believe I've actually had this thing since 2002. 5 years ago? wow..sometimes I wonder if I'll still be typing in this thing 20 years from now.

Things always change over time though. I don't know if my writing style has changed (well, I'm typing in proper punctuation and capitalization today for a change because I'm finding that my crappy-ass ways of typing are affecting me when I actually do try to type seriously), but the things that I cared about back then are just all so much different than the things I care about today.

I sometimes wish that I had kept up with writing more regularly in this blog though...sometimes, when I read my old entries, I just can't help but think "did I really do this?" For example, I just re-read all my entries from Welch (gosh that was so long ago), and I realized that I had written about so many little things that probably didn't matter....but in the end, it's the little things that are the things that make the memories the best. But at that time it mattered, right?

As time passes, I also realize that it gets harder and harder for me to express my thoughts. I know that in the past, I'd just sit down and write, and it would all flow out, but now it's different. Sometimes I'll write huge long entries and then end up deleting the entire thing, just because it doesn't sound like the way I used to be able to express myself.

Things really do change over time, and I think that nothing shows that better than a blog. You can keep things stuffed up inside your memory, allowing those things to sit there, but it's not always accurate. A blog, though, once you write something down in it, it "immortalizes" everything. You can convince yourself that something never happened, and you can convince yourself that you were never quite one way, but when you read your blog, you realize that you're just trying to hide from yourself.

The problem though, is just that I think way too much for my own good. (unfortunately this doesn't work for classes), but at the same time, there's never any time to think anymore. Especially at this school. When we first moved into our house in Houston back when I was about 7, we literally lived by cornfields, and we'd see cattle and horses standing around in the fields everytime we went onto the highway. Actually, we also lived by prison area, despite New Territory being a really nice neighborhood, and one time this prisoner actually escaped and was found hiding in a tree in our neighborhood, and they had to do a lock-down for the middle school, but that's a totally different story. One of the things I miss most about that time was that living out by cornfields also meant that there were no street lights really, and I'd be able to see all the constellations from our backyard. We were never able to see the Milky Way, but it was good enough. There's just something really calming about standing in one spot in the middle of the night while staring up at the night sky with a constellation chart in one hand and a red-filter flashlight in the other hand. It's hard to explain, but it felt kinda like even though everything else changes around you, you know that the constellations are always there, and you can count on that. You know what I mean? I mean, right, the night sky changes every so often or so, but at least you know you'll always see the constellations there, and you know that once the season changes, you'll see all of them again. Also, stargazing is one of those things where you can kinda just let your mind wander, and you can think about so many different things that don't actually matter - but it's just kinda nice to be able to think. I remember we also did the same thing at Rice a couple summers ago. It would be Jenna, Javadi, and me all lying on the huge trampoline in the Martel courtyard staring up at the sky at 3 am in the morning and thinking and talking about all that we were thinking about. Which, at 3 am in the morning, is a lot of random-ass stuff, because we were just all so dead tired from doing this every single day, despite needing to be up at 8 am the next morning for lab. Yet it was fun, and worth it, and it was one of those things that you just can't afford to have time for anymore. And the people are different anyways.

Why is that anyways? Why are people in Boston so different than people from people down from the South? I mean, I grew up in Texas, where everyone says hi to everyone they meet on the street, regardless of whether you knew them or not (Actually, both Hakeem Olajuwon and Charles Barkley used to live in our neighborhood but I never saw them on the streets booo). But now, in Boston, you really just can't do that anymore. I guess it's cuz everyone's so busy and always constantly running around and stuff in Boston, but really, it's not that much of an effort to just smile and say hi. It also really bugs me that people in Boston tend to look down on Southerners for being...how to say it...more "stupid"? For example. This one professor I know went to Houston a couple days ago to give a talk, and I was all excited about it, because Houston is clearly the best city in the world (well, ok maybe I'm biased cuz I'm from Houston), but he came back and was like "yea, the average intelligence level of the people I talked to there was lower than the people here in Boston." Basically, a nicer way of saying "People from Houston are dumber than people from Boston." Naturally, I was insulted. Ok, first of all, it's one thing to be smart, but it's another thing to be walking around with not one, but 5 sticks up your ass. Seriously. I'd pick friendly and slightly less intelligent over anal and genius-level intelligence any day. Second, no offense to anyone reading this from Boston, but I know SO many people back from Houston who are SO much smarter than people from MIT. Sorry, I'm just ranting now, because proper etiquette requires that I don't rant at MIT professors when they say stuff like that...so I rant here instead.

I think that's way I could never live in "high society" so to say. One of the things I hate the most is when people look down on other people. Which unfortunately happens at this school all too often. Haha, I guess you could say that I hypocritically do the opposite of that in that I look down at the people who look down on others. If I had been born a century ago, I would have wanted to be a farmer or something, living in a village, rather than be someone in high society living in the city. Apparently I actually do have some "royal blood" in me somewhere...my grandma had blood ties to Chinese royalty, so I suppose I fall into that category too. I feel that living in "high society" (I actually don't know how exactly to define this term..."high society" doesn't actually describe what I'm trying to get at, but maybe you know can kinda get the drift of what I'm talking about?) though, is too restricting for me, and I'd never want to be part of that. I'd be one of those kids who run around barefoot, and if I had a choice, I'd be one of the ones who would skip school once in a while to go fishing. Actually, one of my uncles frequently used to do that and the teacher would actually go in search of him and drag him back to class, lol.
They say that technology will change the world, and it really has already changed the world. I just don't know if it's for better or for worse. It's funny, because the more I learn, I realize that the less I actually know, and I wonder if it's sometimes better not to have known in the first place. People argue that today, without computers, we'd all be screwed, because our lives depend SO much on computers these days. Which is true, not gonna lie, but at the same time, we're the ones who made it that way. We're the ones who made our own lives dependent on computers. Sure it makes things easier, but at the same time, it unleashes a whole slew of problems that you have to deal with. Before computers were invented, everyone was happy with the way they were because frankly, they didn't have to deal with all of it. But I guess that's human nature in general...people always want to strive to find more, to discover more, which is perfectly fine, but sometimes I can't say if it's for the better or not. I think this is why I could never major in computer science or something like that, because to me, even though I think computer science and engineering are crucial and really interesting, I could just never picture myself doing something that would go against what I would want to believe.

So this is a very long post and in the end, I'm still not sure if I've come to any conclusions about anything at all, especially also because I have a very jumpy mind and not everything always flows smoothly from one topic to another. I think I'll end this post here just because I feel like I'm going in circles now. Also, the Chelsea vs. Charlton game is on!!! So I must watch that instead. You know, I need to start posting about soccer. Next post will be all about that =)