📖 shopping

"Be prepared, be prepared,
This lesson must be shared,
This lesson must be shared,
Be prepared!"
- Be Prepared, Hoodwinked!

with a new year, new textbooks are needed.

with the help of Google Maps, I navigate my way from my sister's apartment to the bookstore. before I reach my destination, I find that a construction site is blocking the optimal route.

no biggie, I tell myself. a quick detour will get me where I needed to be. 

and so I stroll into the bookstore, down to the lower floor, ready to buy my textbooks.

except for one little thing - I've forgotten to note which books I need.

no biggie, I tell myself. I can pop up to the bookstore's cafe and use their Wi-Fi to figure it out.

when I get to the cafe, I run into one of my classmates from high school, so we chat for a bit while I try to surreptitiously get my freaking page to load.

after a few minutes we part ways, but the cafe Wi-Fi is acting up and I still haven't figured out which books I need.

no biggie, I tell myself. I'll just move deeper into the bookstore and hope their Wi-Fi is better on the second floor.

it isn't.

at this point, it really is becoming a biggie. the long-ish line is probably going to get longer if I let too much time pass, and I want to get my book-buying out of the way AQAP. if I try going back to the cafe, I might run into my classmate again and it would be kinda awkward. but if I want to find which books I needed, I have to walk somewhere with Wi-Fi, then walk back to the bookstore, then walk back down again.

sighing to myself internally, I exit the bookstore and make my way down the avenue to the nearby Starbucks.

after a few minutes of trying to connect, I finally manage to link up with the Starbucks Wi-Fi and lo and behold, the website loads!

... to reveal that an error has prevented the page from loading.

frick this, I tell myself. just as I'm about to throw in the hotel and head back to my dorm, I remember that there's a secondary page where I can find my textbooks, albeit in less detail.

it's good enough for me, though. I pull up the page, screenshot it to be safe, and make my way back up to the bookstore.

thankfully, all of my books are in stock and the line has gotten slightly shorter since I left. it's still a bit of a wait, but nothing compared to, say, Disneyland at peak hours.

I'm also quite thankful that there was enough money on my debit card to purchase my books. last year I'd forgotten to reload my card, so I had to leave my books with the cashier, use the cafe Wi-Fi to get mo money, and come back to buy my books. that's why I expected the cafe Wi-Fi to work this time, but obviously you can't always get what you want.

so, you know. at least I learned one lesson last year.

with my purchases in hand, I make my way back to my dorm, grateful that things worked out okay.

moral of the story: write stuff down.

😟 returning

"Now we're back in the fight
We're back on the train
Oh, back on the chain gang"
- Back on the Chain Gang, The Pretenders

anxiety. discomfort. depression.

these are the emotions I feel as I return to my university, a sacred site of learning. when people ask me if I enjoy college life, I respond with a smile and an enthusiastic "yeah!"

truth be told, I hate it here. every second spent on this soil makes me feel like my soul is ebbing out, bit by bit. the sight of each building sends waves of distraught through me. if everyone else can enjoy themselves here, why can't I?

I don't share these thoughts with most people though. heck, I've only really been honest about it with a couple of my friends. I don't want them to think I'm super upset or that I'm unappreciative of my opportunities.

I didn't want to come here. it was my last choice, yet it ended up being the one chosen for me. I hate not being in control of my life. I hate seeing my dreams crushed before my eyes. I hate seeing all my time, effort, and hope go to waste.

don't get me wrong, I made a decent effort to make the most of my life last year. I tried to socialize, to explore, to find something that'd make me happy.

and I didn't.

so as I come back, I have to wonder - which classes will be the ones to stress and disappoint me? what opportunities will arise and then come crashing to the ground? what dreams will splinter under the pressure of life itself?

guess I'll have to wait and see. year two. here goes.

😟 breathing

"Is this my life? Am I breathing underwater?" - Breathing Underwater, Metric

⚠️

when I was in 6th grade, I suddenly remembered a random fact from a National Geographic Kids magazine -  "you can't breathe and swallow at the same time". for whatever reason, that really got to me, and for a few months afterward, I had problems eating. trying to time my swallowing right, to make my eating look normal, to avoid choking and possibly dying. eventually I "re-learned" how to eat normally, and all was well. for some time.

during the summer of 2015, my family went to Utah for the 4th of July weekend. we had packed breakfast sandwiches to eat in the airport, since we had to leave the house super early. as I started eating my sandwich, that stupid fact snuck into my head again. I started choking on my sandwich, but luckily was able to swallow it with some water. I was ticked off that this problem was occurring again, but I figured it would go away in a few months again.

spoiler alert: it's still here.

during concert season of my senior year in high school, I picked up the baritone saxophone again. the last time I'd played it had been in sophomore year, but I figured if I could do it back then, it would be a cinch for senior me. it wasn't. to this day I don't know if it was my embouchure, my breath control, or the saxophone itself, but more often than not, all I could produce was awful-sounding squeaking. it sucked. notes that had once been so easy to play were now riddled with terror-inducing possibilities, as I risked embarrassing myself in front of all my classmates. repeatedly. during one concert in February, I was supposed to play with a handful of other instruments for the intro of Ammerland. not wanting to ruin the program with my squeaking, I did something I had never done before - I faked playing my instrument. I felt awful. not only was I throwing off the balance of the parts, but my fear and incompetence was degrading my self-confidence. thankfully, by the time we got to band assessments in March, I had come up with a slew of tricks that would allow me to (barely) make decent-sounding notes with my sax and play the entire intro of Ammerland with the other sections (without squeaking!!). even now, when I pick up my good old alto sax for some practice, my insides still clench up instinctively, remembering the pseudo-trauma from that lovely, banged up bari sax.

are these problems connected somehow? no idea. but they're pretty annoying nonetheless. sometimes I try to practice gulping down some food without a gulp of water, but end up panicking when I become aware of my own breathing. sometimes I try to practice some low notes on my alto sax, but end up with the same sort of squeaking that plagued my bari playing. maybe someday this'll pass and I'll be able to eat carne asada without a single glass of water. maybe someday I'll pick up a bari sax and bust out tunes like nobody's business. maybe I'll learn how to breathe again.

or maybe not.