More to Life

It's been over a month since I was home and sat on this high chair facing the kitchen. My mom was perched over the counter with a sharp knife in her hand. Her eyes were red, and her hair fell to the sides of her face as she tilted her head down. I heard the knife cut through something. I looked up at her and gasped.

"Mom, you're crying!" I said emphatically, half questioning what's wrong.

Her make up was smudged all around her eyes, and black tears of dissolved eyeliner ran down her cheeks. My mom sniffled, and whipped a tear off her cheek with the backside of her hand. "Yeah," she said in a melancholy tone.

"Oh Mom," I pouted, getting ready to get off my chair and head towards her. "Is everything OK?" Seeing my mom cry isn't something that happened often and when it did, it made my body go all mushy inside.

"I'm making your favorite dish," she laughed in a mellow tone between the nose-sniffles and the dark streaks of make-up tears running down her face. "The rice, onion casserole."

Sometimes you learn who your true friends are only after you learn who your friends aren't. Lately, I've been thinking a lot about my friends, and who they are. I've noticed that many of them do things that I never would, many of them do things which I really don't approve of. But this semester I've decided to hold my breath. Instead of being picky about my friends as I have been in the past, I decided to suspend my judgments and get to know people with whom I might not otherwise probably associate.

It worked pretty well. Once I got out of my jail cell of a dorm with my depressing roommate, I found myself surrounded by supportive friends. Dinners weren't lonely anymore. The nights were filled with chatter and laughter. The number of strangers passing by me on the way to classes was a few less, and the number of people smiling to me and saying "hey" was a few more.

Ignorning the bad in these people wasn't such a hard thing. As long as I didn't have to deal with it, it wasn't so bad. But you can only run, hide, and brush aside for so long until whatever it is you're avoiding finally catches up with you. That's what finally happened. After having been ditched by some friends for pot this weekend, I began to think all the other shit some of my friends do. Finally, it was getting personal.

On Saturday morning I was going to go to the main dining hall to eat breakfast, but as I set foot out of my dorm I was suddenly struck by this urge to go to the new dining hall. But once I got there, I understood that this was more than just an urge, maybe someone up above had it all planned out. Darren, one of the pot-smokers was there with some people from our floor and a bunch of other common friends. Crap, I thought. I wanted to sit and eat with all of my friends, but he was definitely not someone I wanted to be around quite yet.

I played sleepy, drowsy, and played pretend as if I didn't see them walking around the dining hall and brushing past me. Once I got all my food I bussed my tray to the far opposite end of the dining hall, hoping to go undetected. I enjoyed avoiding the confrontation and the quiet of eating alone. As I was crunching on my last spoonfuls of cereal, I noticed a body standing beside my table.

With a spoon full of cereal in my mouth I looked up, it was Darren standing beside me. Shit. "Amir, I'm sorry about last night," he began, with that cocky smile on his face.

"Yeah, whatever." I said, and looked down on my cereal bowl.

"No really, we just forgot."

"Oh yeah? You forgot, huh? You think I couldn't tell?!"

"Amir, I'm sorry."

"Tell me though, why did you forget, huh? What was it?" I'm not exactly gentle and politically correct when someone decides to take me on. If we're gonna talk about it, we're gonna lay it all out, and lay it out thick.

"You know," he whispered and looked nervously around the dining hall, "we just got so---"

"High?!" I blurted. "You just got so damn high and wasted you forgot about me?!"

"Yeah man, that's exactly it, I'm really so sorry, please."

"Whatever, I told you guys not to smoke that shit. Look what it made you do."

"Amir, you're sitting alone, come eat with us."

I hesitated... I didn't really want to eat alone, but I felt like it was time for tough love. "No... Thanks, but no.. Maybe another time."

"Oh come on, don't sit all alone, come eat with us!"

"No! Maybe another time, I just need to chill alone for a bit, okay?"

And he left. Part of me felt like a stubborn prick for being so distant and blunt. The other part told me that this drug smoking business was serious--that I couldn't act like everything was cool, because smoking up isn't. If I act all normal he might think that this wasn't such a big deal, that my friendship could be taken for granted, that I could be ditched for drugs, and worst that he could just do it again and again and just think a sorry would take care of it all.

No.

Later Darren's roommate and partner in crime stopped by my room to say he was sorry, too. He really wanted to buy me something to make it all better. No, no, no. I told him, don't buy me anything. He begged and pleaded and it felt kind of gushy and patronizing. "If there's anything I can do," he said, "let me know. I really want to make this better."

After a moment I paused and said, "well you know, if you really want to do something to make this better, you could stop smoking that stuff."

A tense smile drew across his face, "I knew you would say that."

"Well?"

"Well, maybe one more time this semester," he said looking around my room for an ounce of reinforcement not to be found.

"That's too bad." I said and looked back at my German homework. He squirmed and pleaded but I wasn't about to tell him it was okay. By the end of the conversation he said, "I'll try not to do it anymore this semester..." All right... I hope that's a start...

And now everything's awkward and I don't really know what to do. I thought how much I'd miss spending time chilling out with them and going to dinner together. But I wondered if I were more lax how much more would I have to put up with their bad habit, and how much more would they try to get me to join them? Do I need friends like that?

I was dangling in between for the entire weekend till I read Yolanda's comment on my last post. Finally I saw things a bit differently. Maybe giving up on this friendship wouldn't just be my loss; it'd be theirs too. Maybe they need a good friend they can relate to who will be like, "I like you guys a lot, but what you're doing is twisted." But then again, people will do what they want, and I don't have the energy to invest in a lost cause. But maybe a cause isn't lost till you give up.

Excuse me if this post is incoherent and ranty (aren't they all?), but it's Friday night and I'm living this now.

I've made some great friends since I moved to my new place. Great friends. The kind of friends I can have dinner with, chill in their room and talk for hours... I mean really good stuff. And I think they care for me. It's great, I haven't had much of that from "friends" in the past.

But somehow when the clock strikes 11 p.m. we enter into a different universe where our commonalities and bonds are abolished and our differences keep us apart. All of my good new friends seem to have some VICE that they nurture so strongly that we just can't see eye to eye on it.

I have this one great friend who drinks, smokes and goes all the way on the second night. It makes me cringe what she does to herself. I can't stand the smoke, I don't drink alcohol. I definitely don't sleep around. I tried to look the other way and take her as she was, but it's just no fun when we have to make room of those three things in our friendship.

On her birthday, I insisted on hanging out with her and going out with her. It was her birthday, and being friends I wanted to spend that day with her. But she smoked up so much and drank sooo much. She almost passed out. So when we all finally found a good party and everyone went to dance, she got so sick she had to go home, and I went with her.

And these other two guys on my floor. They're great, we hang out a lot together. We have lots of things in common except they smoke pot and I don't. THAT really bothers me. They know it. I tell them I think it's messed up, but they go on and do it. And everytime they talk about marijuana a spark lights up their eyes and an intense passion gives strength to their discourse. Tonight I went out to grab something to eat with them. Then we were in their room chatting, chilling. We were having a great time. All of a sudden it was pot time. The big thang you stuff the dried weed it became the center of attention, as they loaded it up with the shriveled dry plant.

"Oh guys, please don't!" I pleaded with them.

"Come on man, have some with us. It'll be fun."

"No! You know I don't do that kind of stuff. Come on, it's messed up, don't do it!"

"But it's so much fun. Come on, just one whiff."

"No! Guys, you come on! Can't you find something else to do for fun?!?"

But their offers to join them became more vehement and forceful. I thought this was the right time to make my escape before they light up. "I can't believe you're doing this. I'm leaving. Come get me when you go to eat." I slammed the door and left in a fury.

They said they'd come by at 11, but they never did. I sat and waited, and waited, and waited. Till I decided to do something and marched over to their room.

It was dark. It smelled like smoke and the air was a bit murky. No one was there. All I could hear was scary heavy metal playing in the background.

My eyes half-rolled in their sockets. My lips tightened a bit. My hands formed into loose fists.

Ditched.

I was ditched tonight by four friends for pot, cigarettes, and alcohol.

Goodnight.

When I first moved into this "new" dorm (new for me) and met my two neighbors to the left, I thought, meh neighbors. They were nice in a distant, lukewarm, polite kind of way. I could live with them. It wasn't going to be bad, but it sure wasn't going to be too exciting.

I'm happy to announce, however, that time has proved me way wrong. We've been doing some major neighbor bonding time and it's been fun, fun, funny. One girl is a nutrition major. Sometimes I think her head is in outer space. She floats and then blurts out a choked laughter from time to time. But she's easy going. Her roommate is a hardcore engineer. According to this girl, she epitomizes the stereotypical engineering student, and in a way, it's so true. She's got the pale white skin, flimsy, flat hair, and dull eyes that make you think she really never left the lab. She wired up her room like nobody's business. And well, yeah she's a chemical engineer. And me? I'm the weird new guy who has no clue what to do with his life. Doesn't this sound like quite the harmonious threesome?

I've had two brunches with them on Sunday mornings. The first was polite, and um, nice in a polite kind of way. The second was funny, as we found ourselves laughing at my rants about East-Coast Jews. Like the time, this Jewish girl from NYC started talking to me, and when she found out where I was from, she blurted in her distinct New-York accent, "WHAT?! I was taught in Hebrew school that there are no Jews in Minnesota! We were taught that there are only Jews in like New York, Boston, Jersey and Philly." Uhhhmm...

Then this past weekend, they invited me into their room to watch Amelie. Man, that movie was wicked weird, in such a weirdly cool way. It was kind of like the three of us when we're together. There was great popcorn, some chocolate, and some abs-hurt bursts of laughter. And when the movie was over, and I left, the engineer said, "do you need one of us to walk you to your room? HAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHA!" Lol... "No, I think I'll be just fine."

And tonight, we went to one of the dining halls for dinner. Next thing we knew, we were sitting in the first row of tables in front of the President of the University who made a sort of impromptu visit to the dining hall. He started yacking about what he did for the past nine days, and how our University is a trans-national university, blah blah blah. And the engineer froze and wanted to leave, ASAP. But I wasn't done eating and the space cadet seemed more than interested. When it was over I blurted, "You know what I want?!"

"What do you want?!" They shouted in the kind of enthusiasm you'd see a pre-school teacher talking to her student.

"I wanna see that guy in sweat pants and a doo-rag or something someday. He needs to loose that suit and tie."

Walking into the freezing cold night found me with a mild case of hiccups. I was trailing slightly behind the two girls, when suddenly the engineer stopped, turned around, made a scary face, threw her hands in the air and shouted a combination of "Ahhhhh!!!" and "Boooo!!!!"

"AHHH!!!!!!" I shouted back and must have jumped 15 feet back. She freaked the hell out of me. "It's supposed to make your hiccups go away," she smiled. But of course, they only got worse, and we just could not stop laughing. Could not stop laughing....

Hi everyone! How are you doing? I'm really enjoying my time off smack in the middle of what's supposed to be a crazy-busy semester like any other. You know that e-mail I sent out to my professors doesn't seem like something so novel and daring, but while I was writing it, it sure did. It took me so much guts to just admit to myself, "OK, kid, you need to chill out for a bit," and the actually DO SOMETHING about it.

My professors were all understanding and I don't have to hand in ANYTHING this week, which would be a lot. Today I didn't touch school books. It felt amazing. I finally got the chance to invest some time in myself. I had an appointment at the career advising offices where I learned that I was an INFP -- the rarest Myer's Brigg's personality type, which only 3-4% of people in our society are. It's cool, too, because I would NEVER let a test determine who I am. I usually scoff at those kind of tests, but they offered me to take it. I did, and they interpreted my results and we talked about it. And I was like, "wow, this is me, and this, for once feels so right." And they were like, "wow, this is really nice, we almost never get students who feel right about their test results."

Then I went to work a little bit. Yeah, it's tough being a broke college student. But since I'm on "vacation" I left an hour early. Then an early dinner, a 2 hour nap (that was a mistake, I was really going for 30 minutes). Then pie and an hour chat with my neighbors. Then taking care of my tickets to fly home for winter break. Then putting some thought into my schedule for next semester. Then writing thank you notes to my professors for letting me chill a little. Hmmm, looking at this paragraph maybe I did accomplish a lot. But none of that would have happened if I were working on nasty problem sets or other assignments.

So this is it. The good stuff. This is what it feels like to take some control in my life. FINALLY, I'm not letting course syllabi and homework assignments dictate my life. For once, I'm running purely on my own schedule. Y'all, I'm looking and feeling fine from the sidelines, LOL. All I need now is a banana milkshake, lots of sun, and a nice beach.

It's scary though to step out and to watch all the other people running and racing as fast as they can into something unknown. I'm just glad I had the chance and the strength to stop, reflect, and remember what my priorities are... and yeah, maybe I come first.

As I sat here with the mother of all headaches well past 3 a.m., I mustered up the last bits of my energy to send out a letter to a couple of my professors....

"I don't really know where to begin, so I'll start with the end and then explain. Don't take this the wrong way!

I really need a break.

As I was sitting here at 3am trying to chip away at the mounds of work I have to catch up on and/or do, I felt my brain finally shut down and refuse to cooperate. Part of the reason is that I just got done with a week of 3 exams, on top of my regular load of problem sets, and working two jobs. Also, my parents flew in to visit last weekend, so you know how that can reduce studying time.

I'm extremely exhausted and burnt out and to keep pushing myself would mean just to make matters worse. What I think I really need is a few days to catch my breath and then to play catch up on the gobs of material in this class and others that I let slip.

For the sake of my sanity, I'd like to request a temporary exemption on all homework due for the rest of this week. If this can be arranged without any sort of grade penalty, I would be extremely grateful. If not, I will make the effort to do the homework, but at this point I don't think it would do me any good (as homework usually should) in absorbing the material.

Thanks for reading through this, I just wanted to keep you informed...

Amir"

Note to self: stop typing up really long and meaningful posts in blogger. I've been experiencing an extremely frustrating trend of loosing the most important posts before I get a chance to submit them.