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tomiyeee · 4 years

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finished the story quests for bl3 (but barely any of the side missions yet) and i got...Opinions(tm)

(sorry if this doesn’t cut on mobile! also if you want to hide spoilers i’m tagging all my bl3 posts as “bl3 spoilers” so ny’all can blacklist it)

in no particular order:

i honestly wanted to give gearbox some slack and try my best to like this game bc i know people had probably unfairly high expectations for this game given all the build up, but they really just kept letting me down in everything but the graphics

said this before but overall, the characters are all Quite lackluster

^^ tyreen and troy included. adding the word "bitch" to every sentence does not automatically make it funnier

that being said, i super love their backstory + relationship with typhon/nekofeyo-whatever

the character designs are equally boring. moxxi was the only one who got a real improvement imo. lilith and maya are okay. rhys...i dont think i have to explain. lia...i dislike her hair; the black felt like it balanced out her design better and the white streak was interesting and cool but full white just looks bad tbh. zer0 feels less sleek and more bulky which doesnt fit him much. tina lost her pretty color palette and cute outfit. where are all the bright pretty color palettes in general???? there are other colors besides brown and black???? use them?????

ending of pre-sequel: “you will need all the vault hunters you can get” me: “ooh does that mean all the vh’s from previous games are back? i can’t wait to see everyone meet each other! :D” bl3: only nine of them come back, 3 of them die, the rest are involved in maybe one mission at most

boss fights. super. boring. and tedious. i mean this could be partly because i was playing on ps4 which made it extra not fun but if the only reason the fight is difficult is because they have a lot of health...it's not fun or challenging. i want fights like handsome jack with interesting mechanics. i want fights like angel with emotional impact. i want fights like the pre-sequel final boss that i forgot the name of with variation that isnt just "now they have an attack that shines bright lights in ur eyes, covers the whole arena, and can knock you down in one hit im looking at you traunt and killavolt". tyreens fight was the only one that i somewhat enjoyed because of this. all the others were just like "ughhhh again?"

im really enjoying melee amara playstyle. taking out badass enemies in four hits is my jam. this is just my fallout 4 playthrough all over again babey heck yea

typhon just wanted to be a good dad!!! he called tyreen starlight which is adorable!!! he did the best he could and tyreen hated him for it!!! i don’t blame either of them for that tbh, it makes sense from both their perspectives. tyreen definitely should have been more understanding, but she’s a dick so :/ (not saying this is a writing flaw, just a character flaw)

hammerlock needs higher standards in men but i really appreciate the undeniably in-your-face "fuck you" to all gamer dudes

i really. hate. how little the player character seems to matter in the story. in pre-sequel the vh's all had unique dialogue AND npcs would respond, sometimes even with character-specific lines. even when it was the same across vh's, it still felt like the npcs were interacting and speaking directly to them. the player character felt like a character of their own, rather than just a vessel for the player to do quests and kill enemies with or an errand runner for the important characters. i thought that was the direction they were going in with bl3 too but this just feels like bl2 only worse. there’s a separation again between you and the story and it feels like you’re just watching things happen. now ur not just a silent protagonist, but instead your a speaking protagonist who gets completely ignored. whats the point of including unique dialogue if it's not even acknowledged beyond an "uh-huh, moving on"?

sometimes the logic just feels kinda dumb. the twins killed/disabled maya and lilith in a heartbeat, they can literally disintegrate the most powerful beings in the universe, but the vault hunters? absolutely not. they must fight them for 40 minutes and then die.

after the fight with troy, no one even touched tyreen. there's no way they could have thought "yup she's definitely dead, no need to shoot her in the head or anything just to make sure. we didn't do anything to even hurt her, we just assumed." turns out she's 100% alive and gets up to start the apocalypse. who'da thunk! i know they wanted the end to seem more dramatic but it just seems stupid that they could have stopped tyreen like 5 missions earlier had they even the slightest bit of common sense.

lilith was one of the biggest threats to tyreen and troy's whole plan. of course they should leave her alive and simply steal her powers. let's kill the monk siren instead.

i know they didn't include this to give all players a fair experience instead of favoring sirens, but it kinda sucks playing a siren character and it's just completely ignored outside of ur action skill. tyreen and troy are sapping siren powers left and right, but they choose to leave you with yours. when you enter the eridian place with typhon tannis starts glowing because it has "something to do with sirens". what about the one standing right next to her? this applies to bl2 as well...jack i would willingly charge ur vault key for u pls why do u take lilith instead :'(

oh yeah speaking of tannis! i LOVE that she got angels powers. for some reason it just makes me really happy. maybe it's bc i think it's sweet that part of angel survived. maybe it's because it makes for cool fanart. maybe it's just cool. idk. also like that we got a solid explanation of what angel's powers were (influence over technology). i always thought her having control over it in bl2 might've been cuz it was hyperion tech and she had access to it same as she had access to the satellite from bl1. it wasn't super clear since it seemed like she could also materialize things like the ammo during her fight.

that also reminds me: all the dramatic reveals in this game felt kinda badly done.

the very first one with zer0/katagawa. like the whole time i was walking around looking for him i was trying to think why he might've turned/something must have happened to him or rhys. everyone was saying it was undeniably zer0. i finally meet him and take one look at his bright ass maliwan armor and its like. really. you couldnt have made it anymore obvious that thats not zer0. and then his helmet gets knocked off and surprise! it's not him. i totally didnt already figure that out with one glance 10 seconds ago. (maybe even earlier when you got glimpses of him around the building but i always missed it cuz i was looking at the fish tanks n shit)

also the tannis reveal. she was speaking to me in the same way that only known siren characters could. weird unexplained things were happening and seemed to be related to tannis. i wonder if she's a siren? surprise! she's a siren.

tyreen and troy knew about the great vault through some unknown means. typhon was talking about having a son and a daughter who he told stories about the great vault. typhon calls tyreen his daughter a while later and lilith acts surprised like honey ur a little slow, i figured that out several lines ago.

basically i'm not saying they were so obvious that i knew from the beginning of the game; i only figured them out a little before they were outright stated. but it was enough that it kinda ruined the effect and the characters acting surprised only when it was blatantly spelled out for them just made it annoying.

i feel like most of this is pretty negative, but i don’t mean that i hate the game and was miserable playing it. it was honestly okay...like i said i wanted to like it, but gearbox hates me specifically and killed/ruined all my faves just to spite me sooo...*waves hand back and forth in a sort of “ehhh” gesture*. i think my opinion on bl games from most to least fav would be: tftbl, bltps, bl2, bl3, and bl1. so it’s not the worst, but deeefinitely not one of my faves. i mean jack’s not in it (or if he is he doesn’t have a big role) so it’s already at a huge disadvantage. the ending was ok, it was all dramatic n stuff and it kinda makes sense i guess, but it was just about as okay as the rest of the game really. i don’t hate it but it’s not great either yknow?

#equishit #bl3 spoilers

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glumnet-blog · 6 years

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correct me if im wrong but i dont think u ever had to experience the mandatory joys of hebrew school. maybe u did i forget i dont want to make you too jealous here but i went to hebrew school on thursdays and sundays from 7-14 years old. hebrew school lasted for just a couple of hours but it felt excruciatingly longer than that. hebrew school was just like going to school, on top of goin to regular, grade school during the week. that is a ratio of 2 schools to every 1 week! only a generous masochist would send their child to 2 different schools right? i think it was worse than regular school though, bc i simply didn't have friends there. the only vivid encounter i remember with a peer before 5th grade was with Lucas in the second grade, whom my mom delicately tried to pair us together in order to have our conversational sparks ignite, over a luigi video game, like she was trying to start a fire in the wilderness out of uninterested rock and twig. lucas had a 7 year old mullet and had a lot of confidence. i didn't like either of those things. especially the mullet shit bc i was a rat tail or die kind of 7 year old. after my mom literally accompanied me to hebrew school for awhile and the other kids thought i had special needs, she tried the opposite approach. she hired the UC berkeley student hebrew school teacher to come tutor me once a week for an hour. this was pretty fucking weird. my hebrew school was pretty lax and progressive. in retrospect i realize the institution of the temple sinai hebrew school is much more about socializing with other jewish kids and pretending to memorize the va'haf'tah (or actually memorizing it if you're hannah sternberg and like to impress the rabbi) then to actually embed the jewish youth into intense and arduous jewish centered academia. so having hairy 21 year old Noam awkwardly sit next to me at my kitchen table and timidly correct my mispronunciations of hebrew words was all a wash if you will. but my mom was a stubborn mom who wanted her son to carry on the 'teachings of our ancestors' a forcefully sentimental phrase that makes you feel like a melodramatic bible scholar whenever u say it out loud. thankfully these at home sessions didn't last long because of Noam's scheduling problems. so for the rest of the fourth grade i was free of hebrew school. but sooner or later fifth grade rolled around and my parents threatened me with no screen time for a month if i didn't go in. no screen time was a punishment way worse than death so i relented.

i think it was at this first day of fifth grade hebrew school that shit changed. 2 things changed specifically. 1) i made nate laugh and 2) i made julia laugh. when i wrote earlier i didn't have any friends in hebrew school i mean like i didn't even have acquaintances. like i lethargically walked into class, pretended to be invisible for 2 hours, hid the bathroom during break times and waited impatiently after class on the sidewalk scouring the downtown oakland avenues for the plain yet angelic white of my moms 1995 honda oddesey. i had made people laugh before at regular school i guess . but there was something different about making hebrew school people laugh... i had somehow broken the social engima of this institution i had distain for, for so long. not only that... it was a different kind of laugh ... at least coming from nate. i didnt just make nate laugh i made that motherfucker crack up. watching him laugh was like watching a firecracker go off. like i got him in trouble from the teacher he was laughing so hard and uncontrollably. making julia laugh was different. she didnt crack up like nate. but her laughter was genuine nonetheless and just as euphoric. it felt like whatever i imagine heroin to be everytime i saw her begin to open her mouth and smile and vibrate her whole head because of something i had said. within the space of 2 hours i had acquired my first hebrew school friend and first hebrew school crush. i was a fucking social millionaire....i would call this period of time, 5th grade, the golden age. i could make nate laugh consistently and julia was a similarly consistent vessel to validate my 5th grade ego. i was closer with nate bc we were both boys , and julia already had a very insular and exclusive trio which was not accepting new members. herself, hannah, and arielle (who demanded to be called ari which i always was irritated by she was a fake ari. her real name was arielle! she was a fraud, imposter! my full name is ari. i am the real ari. stupid aside)....time pushed forward and 6th grade began. several important dynamics changed in 6th grade. the friends of nate who went to his real, 5 day a week school (st pauls) had been assigned to our 6th grade class. additionally, puberty was pretty vivaciously in affect and thus social hierarchies were further matured as well as a recognition of elementary sexual thoughts and feelings. i continued to make nate laugh but i felt like my secret companion was bein taken away by his St paul friends. in order to combat this i tried to befriend all his friends. something i learned then and throughout my life almost never works.... attempting to pass as an insider in a group where u are and always be an outsider. i could make nates friend laugh a little bit but they were much more fond of making each other laugh. also because they went to school with each other nathaniel (different than my friend nate) and jackson had an air of superiority and seniorirty over me. even in the 6th grade i think i could detect this kind of unspoken social heirachy at play. and with julia other guys were starting to make her laugh at hebrew school. if you want to talk about social heirarchy she was definetly the queen of our class. as puberty progressed the less cool i became. bc my only claim to fame socially was humor , but i didnt understand all the other shit. like dressing cool, talking cool, walking cool., etc. that otther shit became important in middle school if not the rest of my life... because of this, and the fact im just a fucking shmuck at the end of the day , made julia talk to me less. and with less talking came less laughing. nate and julia's laugh was to special to me during this time just less frequent... and therefore more rare. so when i did get it from them it felt all that much better.

thhere was a point there end of 5th grade start of 6th grade i looked forward to hebrew school. i looked forward to sitting down in the creaky, plastic black chairs in room 04 and whispering to nate about how ugly our teacher was. i looked forward to playing tic tac toe with julia in the art room instead of drawing menorahs, and arguing with her about who had the ineferior tic tac toe skills (she did i got XXX like almost everytime ok) . i even started to like the fucking moldy, bookish smell of the temple because i associated it with having good times with julia and nate.

in the 7th grade my connections with nate and julia fell apart uninterestingly and sharply . my friendships were fading with nate and julia before the year even started ....but of course with 7th grade we entered mid'rasha. mid'rasha is just hebrew school for teenagers, explained my mom on teh car ride over to my first mid rasha class. that may be true for my mom but for me mid rasha was a new world. a world i did not want to reside in. midrasha was different in many ways, it was at night, it lumped in loud, sparkly 17 year olds with unsure, gangly 13 year olds in the same room, it was a different bigger campus, it was off. clqiues were formed immiedatly and it was obvious i was not in the st pauls group. the group nate was in. i didnt even see julia at all i think she was being ultra extroverted befriending the royalty that was 17 year olds who wore sean john and listened to MGMT before it was cool ( this was 2007) . i went to naybe 5 or 6 mid rashas but i understood the jig was up. i was no longer a funny person in the room nevermind the funniest in the room. the teachers were young attractive college students who you couldnt fun of at all for being ugly. i wasnt even in the same elective as nate anymore so i couldnt whisper ' ruby is ugly' even if i wanted to. 1 time i did have an art class with Julia. but now as an ambitious and earnest 13 year old she tackled the assignment sincerely. i saw her drawing these detailed portraits i thought were gross because they reeked of being a try-hard. i just wanted to play tic tac toe.

i stopped going to mid rasha and i didnt see nate or julia again for a while. i didnt see nate until i was a junior in HS and i took the SATs at the high school nate attended. when we were all getting checked in i saw him at a circular lunch table with his st paul friends. i walked by him to say hello. we gave each other a stoic and cold ' whats up dude ' .

the next time i saw julia was at my high school school sponsored dance. at the time i was nervous as shit bc i did not know how much i would have to dance with my then girlfirend, what kind of dance i would have to do, if i should get mad at other guys dancing with her etc. a bunch of high school dance inspired neuroses were blossoming in my head. i was suprised as a motherfucker when i walked into the high school lobby and saw julia sitting a dinky plastic table checking students in. i remember my brain being blank with confusion. i walked up to her to get checked in. she said hi ari with a smile. the kind of trained smile a social butterfly has deployed many a time. it was an impersonal smile. it was warm and cold at the same time. i said hello took my ticket and left without any small talk or acknowledgement of our hebrew school connection. i went on to dance with my girlfriend a little but to mostly stand around and pep talk boris into making a move on yael.

i have not seen either of them since. i had a dream last night i was in hebrew school in the 6th grade. julia was sitting across the class room. she was mad i was looking at her and mouthed for me to stop. nate was sitting next to me like he normally did in the 5th and 6th grade. but he wasnt trying to exchange goofy remarks with me about all the flaws of the teacher. instead he was listening attentively. i leaned into to whisper somthing but he waved his hand faintly. he was not to be disturbed

in sophmore year of high school my 'mentor' relayed to me that she was getting reports from teachers that i was exhibiting disturbing and unproductive behavior. disturbing and unproduvtive behavior? i thought. i was just tryna get motherfuckers to laugh. i was trying to chase the high of the first time i made nate cry. i was trying to recreate the time julia was so approving of whatever joke i had made she rubbed my leg as an appreciating gesture and said youre soooo funny. i never was able to recreate those highs in high school. that kind of blind temporary euphoria stayed untapped, stored in my memories of hebrew school. my mentor said it was problematic that i was so loud and disruptive in class. she understood i liked to horse around but she argued ' thats not the real you ari. we both know you are better than that. the real you is working hard , studying hard, respectful of teachers and avoiding distrations in class. this class clown act you put on isnt the real you'

that kind of pep talk , even at the time , felt weird to me. who are you , some distant authoratative figure i meet with twice a month , to tell me who i am and who i am not. and much more importantly beyond that, you tell me my true identity is attached to some golden scholar who wouldnt dare partake in the low life humor of classroom banter. everything about academia makes me ripe with disgust and disinterest. the only reason why school has been bareable at all is the social aspect. making people laugh

during junior year of high school i went through my first break up , i cut friends off , friends cut me off, i went to my first funeral, i had an anxiety attack in jerasulem (symbolic of my relationship with judaism....in my opinoin) i felt increasingly alienated from my wealthy and narrow minded private school brethren, started smoking weed every night before bed and so on . my mood was bad all the time, i was tired, and the last last last thign i wanted to do was to go to school. this i now realize is my first bouts of Depression (dun dun duuunnnn).

it is senior year of highh school now. the students check in for the first time with their mentors. my mentor relays to me personal behavioral report - teachers now view me as quiet and respectful. teachers are somewhat cognizant of my general apathy towards what is in front of me, but complimentary of my willingness to put my head down and do the school work given to me. my mentor is smiling and exclaiming ' see ari you did it! this is the real you. this is the hard working and respectful guy i know you have always been. you dont have time for distractions you have higher priorities now' . i just wanted the meeting to be over so i nodded my head rapidly in agreement. however in my mind i thought the current version of myself teachers are describing could not be further from the real me. the real me is still at temple sinai room 04 sitting in those cheap, creaky black chairs. the real me is shaking nate's arm bc i just thought of a joke about the how ugly the spoken version of hebrew sounds to a non native speaker. the real me is singing stronger by kanye in an obnxious robotic way , parodying the chorus in order to get julia to chuckle. the real me has not been seen for or heard from for a while. the new me is content with surviving the day without any interaction with peers. the new me doesnt want to be seen. the real me is still poking julia's shoulder, waiting for her to turn her head

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jess-oh · 6 years

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Reflection

there’s not much to say

but i sprained my ankle while longboarding earlier so that was pretty disappointing but i did get some practice in at least. i figured out my bank overdraft fee, kinda the check, gas, electricity, and rent overall, im in a pretty good place. my birthday is on saturday and im excited for it to be over and done with so that i dont feel like i have this secret anymore and i can just let it go and move on with my life. but admittedly, i am kinda sad about it. i do want someone to take me out to eat bc they care about celebrating my existence but i also dont want to make it a big deal. but i also havent told anyone about it and my birthday isnt on my facebook either. honestly, i dont think anyone knows my birthday is on saturday. i really highly doubt that there will be a cake on sunday for me or at the bbq. no one knows about it and i havent talked about it all either. but it’s fine. i am admittedly a little hurt and jealous of my friends that do get that celebration but i need to just learn to move on and be okay with this. i actually thought it might be cute to cute my mom something for my bday as a way of thanking her for bringing me into the world. but i am very excited to finally be 20. i am very nervous about entering this new decade but 19 has been such a long year for me and i am ready to accept, let go, and move on from it. im looking forward to what this next year will bring. a little bit afraid too, tbh. but overall, i am excited.

when i initially sprained my ankle, i hobbled up the stairs into my apartment and almost passed out. i think it was a combination of the heat outside, exercise from the board, pain from my ankle, and overall shock. my vision was really hazy and i couldnt stand or sit. i just laid on the floor and breathed in through my nose and out through my mouth. the pain wasnt even that much to handle, tbh, but i was on the verge of tears. and i dont know why. i think it was partly frustration and disappointment since i had so much planned and life was going pretty well. oh yeah, i got the internship on wednesday! woo! today jeremy messaged me about details like pay, my schedule, what’s expected of me, etc. I’m excited! I do think my design skills are lacking so I’m looking forward to what I can learn, do, and grow from this internship! Honestly, there is a part of me that is worried my skills aren’t actually good enough for the job but they saw my website and print portfolio and clearly liked it so I must be at least decent? I think my style is very cookie cutter and never goes out of the box. I do want to challenge myself to think of new and innovative designs. I feel like a fraud since so many of my designs started from something I basically stole online and I just brushed it off and adapted it into whatever project I had to work on at hand. I’m a fake. :/ But I don’t want to be like this! I do want to be more creative and come up with my own designs! I just need to figure out what method works best for me and I am really hoping to find that through this internship! Also, me spraining my ankle today was almost like a sign for me to skip out on the internship and just go home and rest but then my fear of returning to Sa-Rang hit me again and I immediately snapped back into reality. I just. I can’t do it right now. I can’t. I can’t go back there. Not just yet.

And God, I am sorry that I never prayed to you over this process and maybe I’m gonna get eaten alive at the internship and just be really miserable and hate it because I didn’t listen to you and went against your Word. And it does make a lot more sense to stay here this summer bc of rent, money, the internship, work experience, jobs, etc. I’m prepared to stay. That’s fine. I am a little sad that I won’t be able to spend that much time with my family so I’m going to make the most of my time there while I am with them and hopefully be that much more prepared for the fall semester. And maybe I can go home for longer over the winter and spend time with them then? I think I’m growing up too fast bc I was raised to be independent and as a result of the circumstances I’ve endured this past year. And it makes me sad that I only have so many winter and summer breaks left before they’re gone entirely and I enter the real world. And I want to make the most of the time I have with them now but I worry that it’s not the logical solution and won’t end up ultimately benefiting me in the future. And I know that this is me relying a lot more on my own strength than you, God, and I am sorry but I’m just so worried and there are so many things to do that I just wanted to do it now instead of waiting for a response from you. And I am sorry. Sorry. Sigh. This whole process has just been really overwhelming and I am sorry. Really. But even if I prayed right now and you told me to go back home, I don’t know that I would listen. Maybe this is one of the biggest mistakes of my life. Maybe it isn’t. I’ll just have to wait and see to find out. But thank you for helping me thus far, God. Really. And I am sorry again.

#reflection?

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jess-oh · 6 years

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Reflection

hey,

i feel mixed things. i went to the good friday service and a part of me is happy that it wasnt awkward and i wasnt the only one that decided to go but another part of me is sad that i didnt get to spend that one-on-one time with jason. but i am glad that eunice and angela were there too. during the service, i took notes diligently and after the practical time, i did my best to distance myself from everyone else so as to not feel judged or pressured. and it did go well for a while and i was good at not speaking until we got into the small chapel and started writing our new commitments. my heart did break when i saw the whip and crown of thorns and touched it and i cant even imagine the physical, mental, and emotional torment that Jesus went through leading up to His death. And I kind of wish I had spent more time there instead of moving faster so that other people wouldn’t have to wait. But after writing my commitments, I decided to pray on my knees and I was aware when people started leaving and I knew that the room was either totally or nearly empty by the time that I was done but I just felt like I really needed that time to be with God and confess what was on my heart. I know that I’ve been struggling with what it means to rest in Christ and that’s something that I’ve never been very good at and really trying to understand my value in God’s eyes. I think I am still struggling with my identity in God but I did carry out my commitment. I am a lot more proud and bold in my faith. I’ve been able to more openly talk about my faith in my dorm, on the first floor, at work, at the train station, anywhere. And I am really proud of myself and how far I’ve grown since last year. And initially, I wasn’t really in the mood to have fun and games and laugh and fellowship but i pushed myself to learn to receive and relax so i laughed alongside them. and i did actually have a good time. i got a lot closer with chelsea and angela, jason, chelsea, and i decided to eat kbbq together afterwards and it was really fun! joyce and jiham later joined us and we all talked in between conversations. and i accidentally slipped and said, “i dont drink anymore” when jason jokingly offered me some and everyone immediately exclaimed, “WHAT?” to me in disbelief. And to my surprise, Jason asked if I had a problem with it before but stopped and I confirmed his suspicions. But looking back on it, I’m kinda surprised he got that from what I said? It could just be that I drank a bit but decided not to anymore? But anyway, I was half expecting them to press further into it but they didn’t and I’m partly sad that I couldn’t share and relieved that I didn’t have to share. I think I could have but it did make me feel kind of bad when they reacted so strongly. But throughout the day, honestly, I was forcing myself to put on a smile and pretend that I was okay. And it didn’t seem like the mood or the moment to share my struggles and I really do thin I define myself by how much I serve and give bc it is such a huge part of my identity. And I think my intentions are usually pure but there is always a part me that needs to give in order to feel like I’m worth something. And that’s definitely something that I need to seriously pray about. I think a lot of the times, I wait until I’m at church to pray instead of just doing it when I need to and because of that, it feels fake sometimes at church. It feels like I don’t really mean what I’m saying. And I definitely do think I need to spend more time with God to get over it. I do want an honest and pure relationship with Him and I know a lot of the times, my feeling like I need to be a leader gets in the way of that. And I pretended like I was fine and kept saying that I was okay but I also couldn’t stop thinking about how I literally didn’t want to live anymore on Saturday. That was less than a week ago and I just felt like I was in so much pain and suffering and misery that I couldn’t take it anymore and I just wanted to die and kill myself so that I could be happy and with God and just be in pure joy and bliss. But I’m afraid if I say anything, P. Josh will think I’m not yet ready to serve and take MAST away from me and I would honestly be so upset because of that. It would feel like EIC and yearbook all over again. But, not becoming EIC gave me the opportunity to build a much more intimate relationship with God and come back to Him and maybe this is a sign that I shouldn’t be serving in MAST bc it’ll just stand in the way of me being able to rest and receive and learn who God is through that.

Oh, I also saw Chaeweon earlier and we sat together and it was gr9. BUT, she left early and I didn’t have time to say bye! :( But we are still going to hangout tomorrow so I’m excited for that!

And my suspicions were confirmed, Jason and Angela are going out! And I want to ask more about it but I think I am a little more understanding of their relationship now. On the one hand, I’m a bit upset just bc I don’t want it to be like my freshman year where everyone in leadership was dating each other and that just made a lot of people feel left out and uncomfortable. But I am happy for them and I hope they grow strong in their faith together. I think they both have their own issues and I think Angela could easily take advantage of Jason on accident just bc she’s so strong and he’s so kind. But they’re both my friends and I do really hope things work out.

My day today—

it was pretty good. honestly. i started my day by getting my dishes done and out of the way, chatted with Emily for a bit in the morning, and headed to school. I revised the pamphlet for A^2 with the updated fonts and printed my leaflet for graphic design. There, I ran into Andrew Shike and helped him out with cutting and checked items out for the both of us. And then I hurriedly tried to take pictures on the 10th floor but it was a STRUGGLE. And my pictures came out okay but I didn’t have enough time to take better pictures and upload them before work and the media lab closed when I got off my shift, soooo. I just decided to take my time to get good pictures for class and my portfolio tomorrow. i think i’ll try to do it after hanging out with chaeweon for lunch! hopefully we dont take too long. well, idk. i would love to chat for hours with her and it not be awkward but i also do have some work to do. i guess she can accompany me and then we can just spend the day together from there? but, we’ll just have to see how things turn out tomorrow.

and honestly, im in a constant state of being on the verge of tears. true joy is something that i have not felt in a while and i can feel myself getting numb and afraid and anxiety-ridden and im just upset bc i worked so hard to get away from that but i feel like im just reverting back into my old habits.

i drank at the beginning of the school year bc i wasn’t in a mentally good stable. im still not in a mentally good place, lol. but i am better. kind of. i just felt very alone and like i couldnt trust anyone last semester and i was the most concerned with my grandma’s health at the time bc it didnt look like she would be making it by the time i returned for winter break. and i sought refuge and mulan and dana. and bc they were there for me, i was desperate to be accepted and so, i started casually drinking with them. marlena too. she respected my choice to not drink before but the temptation was there and i went for it. and granted, i didnt drink a ton but i was definitely on my way to becoming an alcoholic. i drank nearly daily for two weeks and since then, there have been moments when i was tempted to just drink to avoid my problems and ease the pain. and thank goodness im not 21 yet or else i would’ve bought so many bottles already. it’s bc i dont have easy access that im still sober and not an alcoholic but looking at everything that im going through, sometimes i just want to give up and solve my problems by not thinking at all.

i dont know if i feel alone bc i know that i have people around me that care about me. but i do feel like theres this wall thats dividing us and keeping me from really being raw and vulnerable and just facing my fears and anxieties and worries head on. and im wondering if the only way to get over this is to confess it to God. And while I think that will help in part, I do think I also just need to be okay with trusting others with my life and weaknesses and vulnerabilities and thriving in where I fail. Because none of us are perfect. I feel like before, people were jealous of me bc of how perfect I seemed. But now that I’ve let people see my weaknesses, I feel like they judge me and deem me unfit to lead and serve. But if this is how I can better develop my relationship with God, then why not do it, yknow? Idk. I’m just. conflicted. struggling. theres a lot on my plate and i just want to throw myself at my work so that i dont have to think about it.

#reflection

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