My International Relations class is intimidating me. I've heard that the teacher isn't exactly an easy grader. Heck, she's one tough of a grader. She doesn't give out A's. I think I'm on my way to missing out on the Dean's List again but it's okay. After four weeks of international relations, my friend is trying to assure me that we already know more than President Bush.

I was flipping through my old written journal that I sometimes scribbled in during high school. It scares me. Basically, the idea of "I want to die" was written in every entry, probably every other line. It's like I couldn't see anything good in my life. Or maybe it's because I only wrote in it when I was mad or upset.

When I wrote in the journal I lived with my mom and my brother (obviously) and occassionally my dad whenever he returned from being a military man. There was just so much tension in the household. Sure we all loved each other but seemed that we shouldn't belong under the same roof. Everything made for a clash between me and my brother or my brother and my mom. As you can see my brother was a huge problem child. I hated how he yelled and screamed at my mom and how he talked to me with ignorant defiance. I hate how he knew that we know what's best for him but he just couldn't admit he was wrong and step off his throne of terror. I have a bunch of old bad memories living with my younger brother.

Once I grew so sick of the depressing living situation, I couldn't bear the screaming and the heartache anymore that I tried slashing my wrist. Of course that only works with sharp object, like a knife or a scissor but there didn't seem to be any in my room so I improvised and used a pen cap or something. Really hard to draw blood if you try hard enough... Anyway, that went on for a couple nights. I figured that physical pain would drown out the emotional pain I was feeling and that it wouldn't hurt so much. Of course that just made it worse. My brother was still an ass. Everyone was fighting and no one cared if I ran to my room crying. Everyone would tell me to stay the hell out when I tried to intervene or reason with my brother when they were having a fight.

During one of those intense moments, I told my brother that I was so sick of the crap he was putting everyone through that I couldn't stand being in the house, that I'd rather be dead. I showed him the collection of scars on my wrist. He called me stupid for doing that, and although he's an ass he's right. Then he started crying. I would expect that was a traumatic moment for him. No one likes to hear that their sister wants to die. I realized the stupid mistake I made all too late. I begged him to not tell my mom. It's bad enough she has a delinquent son, she would be way better off not knowing she had a somewhat suicidal daughter. Of course, my brother told my mom anyway. When she came home that day, she noticed a strange atmosphere even though my brother and I tried to play it off. He kept taunting and teasing me while my mom was in the room. "Mom, you know what she said...?" I think it was more of a power struggle. I didn't want him blackmailing me the rest of the night or even the rest my life so I just came out with it. "I tried to kill myself." Of course I was exagerrating. You can't kill yourself with a pen cap. You could only break the flesh and draw small amounts of blood. But who knows.

It was the only time, other than the time my mom first dropped me off for college that I made her cry. Or ever seen her cry. With the tears and everything. Everytime my mom broke into tears she'd never show me. She's always leave or something. My brother had an oops look on his face so he tried to tell her that I was lying but she saw the scars and she knows when my brother is trying to cover something up.

A week later they started fighting again. It was like they complete forgot that I was sensitive to what went out in the house, or maybe they stopped believing me. Or maybe it was just more important for them to continue fighting. I pretty much gave up at that point. I would have gone on killing myself but I realized it would have been a waste. A month after my funeral they'd probably start fighting again. I just tried to stick it out until I left for college, occasionally intervening but most of the time forcing myself to go to my room and not listen to their arguments.

Maybe it's why I'm happier. I don't see their fighting. My mom tries to tell me about but I try not to listen. I know abandoned them but if I was there and I couldn't work anything out I can't do anything being nearly a hundred miles away. Sometimes she tells me that he tries to be nice to her now and they're suppose to be going into family counseling some day. Maybe things will work out one day.

In an interesting twist of fate, my ex roommate is not yet out of my life. It's very odd. She might end up living with a couple of my friends. They're really desperate for a roommate and I guess my ex-roommate can't find her own people to live with. They asked me what I thought about the idea and wanted me to share with them anything else that bugs about her. Well all that can be found in every other entry in the archives so I won't reiterate what I said to them.

Anyway, yesterday I was basking in the vast amount of space I have in my new room. I can actually walk around in my room instead of staying cramped up in my half of the room. I really like it. And I really like the fact that all four walls belong to me. And all the electrical outlets belong to me! I was allowed one outlet because someone kept hogging them all. I think I'm over my paranoia. In my old room, I was always constantly listening for those foreboding footsteps and the turning of the door handle... or always dreading walking down the hall to my room, unsure if I still had my peaceful solitude. I would glance at the bottom of the door for a crack of light and if there was I would instantly be gloomy because someone was in there. When I moved into my new room I still carried the same paranoia. I would open the door and peak in as if expecting someone would be there or I would look at the doorknob to see if it would turn. Everyone was telling me that it's all over now and I shouldn't be so paranoid but for a few days I was. I think it's gone now. I admit I still complain about the crap she put me through. Not so much though. A tad bitter about having to leave my friends but I'm much happier and more relaxed about being in my own, spacious room.

I've decided...

that since nothing ever goes as planned, and I'm usually rash in making decisions, and I can't stand constancy...

I'm going to be one of those people that will certainly never have the same job for a number of years of months.

I just thought of it. Could I really stand doing the same thing for the next forty years? I've been busy trying to get away from 18 years of sameness and now I have to jump into a few decades of doing the same thing? Just thinking about it makes me bored. I think I'll probably spend sometime being a counselor or something with that seemingly useless psychology degree I'm after and then maybe go into teaching, and then after that work in a foreign embassy with that uncertain political science degree I'm contemplating. And then maybe after that, I'll be an oyster diver. I think I like thinking of my future that way. I'll make sure it's uncertain since it's probably going to be that way anyway. I don't think I'd like being trapped doing the same thing... unless I absolutely love it and will do it without even pay, then maybe not. But who knows. I certainly am only beginning to fill my brain and my knowledge is like a drop in a bucket. I'm random. Tomorrow, I might even write about how I changed my major to something that usually doesn't fit well with me- mathematics, chemistry, etc.

4/15/2002 09:45:28 AM

This morning I woke up thinking about my grandmother. Actually, this grandmother isn't actually my grandmother. (In the Filipino culture, everyone is your grandma or grandpa, or auntie or uncle... even if they probably aren't related). She's my maternal grandmother's half-sister. I don't know why I woke up thinking about her. I was just thinking about how she now lives on a feeding tube and she doesn't remember anyone's names because she's aging. I find that so strange because ten years ago, she was up and about, washing the dishes and chasing my two boy cousins around when they became rowdy. Five years ago she was clapping her hands, trying to make my brother, who just came out of surgery, a little bit happy. It seems so quickly that her mental and physical health detoriorated.

My mom came online a couple hours later, about twenty minutes ago, actually, to tell me that she passed away at five o clock this morning. She was 89 years old. I don't know what the atmosphere is like back home. I'm not that really shock. I guess that's insincere but maybe it's because I was thinking about her that I'm not so surprised. I don't know. I feel a little sad even though I really wasn't that close with her during the past couple of years. She did take part in some of my childhood. Everyday after school, I would go to my cousin's house and she would babysit us until our parents came. She was strong then, always threatening to take my cousins home if they didn't behave.

I'm sure she's a great loss to this family. She was one of the matriarch figures of the family. I worry, though, about my auntie. This grandmother lived with her two daughters back in my hometown. One of her daughters is married and has a son, so I'm guessing that a huge part of her life is devoted to her own family. Her other daughter is unmarried with no children and most her time was spent taking care of her mother. It seems like the prime meaning in her life, making sure her mom was comfortable. She even slept in the same room as her mother probably for most of her life. It's strange. I don't know what she's going to do now. It's like watching a widow, who a few months ago you've always seen next to their spouse. Now, that other person is not there.

I just finished reading a chapter from one of my political science books. I'm behind in that book, and my other poli sci books and heck every book for every course I have. I have major catching up and getting ahead reading to do this week so maybe no social life and not much journaling this week.

Anyway, as I was reading about the interests of nations and this hypothetical situation called the Prisoner's Dilemma, I've pondered if the world is just a big human, dysfunctional brain. The Prisoner's Dilemma is a topic that was covered in one of my psychology classes. Maybe we're all just a bunch of neurons and we neurons make ganglion, or countries, and we're very dysfunctional. We communicate to the wrong neurons and ganglion, we send the wrong messages, we interpret received messages the wrong way, we respond the wrong way. The world is just a huge epileptic brain.

Then, with my irrational, overactive imagination and perhaps too many viewings of the movie, The Matrix, I began to wonder if we really are just neurons, accidently born conscious so we've been given this fake world to toy with while we make up the matter of one unlucky person's brain. Of course, I've been rather bored lately and my attention has been switched between only psychology and political science. It's fun but hopefully I won't mentally collapse from the lack of variety.