4.16/2012

Ever have a sermon that speaks to you? I just did. He spoke about a lot o different themes: the Black Community, anger, education, conforming to ignorance, and a lot of other issues and topics.

One of the most interesting, to me at least, was his comments on anger. He said that anger was a secondary emotion. By this he meant that it was usually an effect of another emotion such as sadness. I believe that this is extremely accurate. Many times when something makes me sad or frustrated, the emotion eventually converts into anger. Anger, then could be a sign of something else… a sign of being disappointed, a sign of being frustrated, or a sign of being hurt. This rings true, especially for me. I remember being on the bleachers near the track on the medical school’s campus, talking to Kaye about my misfortunes when it comes to my previous relationships. Sadness overcame me, almost to the point of tears. At this point I could feel anger and frustration building up in me as the sadness began to diminish. Soon, the sadness turned to pure salt. Disappointment and frustration overcame me. I flooded into me.

Another interesting topic was the Black community. He said the famous phrase “It takes a village to raise a child,” but then followed it quickly by “what happened to the village?”. What happened to the village, indeed. Back in my parents’ day, people could let their children roam the neighborhood and run in the streets. They were able to do this, because the people in the neighborhood looked out for other people’s children, and made sure to tell the parents if children were up to no good. Nowadays, this notion is absurd. Let your children run in the streets? Let them roam the neighborhood? Preposterous. There are crazies, killers, rapists, and kidnappers that intend your child harm. I guess I wonder what changed about the black community between my generation and my parents’.

The last topic that I want to discuss is about education. The pastor also mentioned that education is a huge issue in the Black community. It is. Young boys especially have issues with learning. In certain places, its cool to be ignorant. Learning makes your nerdy, or, worse yet, “White.” I know this because I lived it, and continue to live it. I also know this because I was able to teach in a school over spring break and I saw kids trying to prevent other kids from learning the material, or teasing the kids for learning it.

(more later)

“Talking”

What does it mean to be “talking?” Apparently its a term that people use to describe two people that are dating or in a pre-dating phase. People who are talking are getting to know each other are doing research to see whether they want to pursue something deeper. Or, they could actually be dating. The second definition doesn’t seem to make much sense to me as there is already a term for dating… called “dating.” Dating, I feel already encompasses casually dating and officially dating. Why do we need a second term? Not sure. I feel like the term talking could be used for pre-dating talking, or trying to figure out more about the person.

I think this term of “talking” as it currently stands is strange. Why? I think it assumes too much. What if a person is just legitimately curious about another person? I will sometimes ask people dating-esque questions for many reasons: Firstly, to figure out who they are and what they believe. Secondly, sometimes it’s useful for me to know because it can help me modify my own beliefs. Sometimes points come up that I hadn’t really considered or perhaps that I hadn’t previously given enough weight. Lastly, I must admit, I do use conversation to figure out more about people, to figure out if I like them, if we’re compatible, if I would want to date them or not, etc. The reason I bring this all up is that sometimes I’m interested in the person, but sometimes I’m just following my own curiosity.

Apparently there are “rules.” You can only talk to one person at a time. I find this a little annoying in the sense that I might have misled a decent amount of people. I think some people definitely may have seen my questions and “interest” as something more than what they were, and, as a result, may have felt “played.” However, maybe I am overreacting on this. Maybe I didn’t mislead anyone. I didn’t seem to talk to anyone out of context. For Alicia, I never contacted her outside of school. For Smoothie King girl, I never saw her, or talked to her outside of the Smoothie King. Lastly, for the girl I met at Subway, I never saw or spoke to her outside of the Subway restaurant.

I guess the idea that people might presume that I’m interested in them simply by talking to them about dating is a bit annoying. I enjoy talking about dating, because it’s something that I’m interested in. I want to compare ideas and beliefs. I want to learn from other people’s experiences. All of this helps my own growth. To feel as though someone feels like we’re talking when we’re not bothers me… I guess because of the idea that they might get offended if I “talk” to someone else. What if my talking were just to build another friendship?

However, I must again admit that I do use this same tactic when I’m interested in actually getting to know someone for dating purposes. The questions help me gauge their interest, figure out who they are, and determine if I like them or how much I like them.

Talking is weird.

4.10/2012

A lot has changed since I last posted. I’ve gotten into medical school, and I’m currently finishing up my first year. Tramaine and I broke up… seems like it was difficult for her to be faithful given the distance, and it was becoming increasingly difficult (if not impossible) to trust her again. Lastly, my grandmother died on my father’s side.

…

Okay, so I’m in medical school. A lot has changed. I was honestly quite afraid of what might happen if I chose to go to SLU. I ended up going to school with a lot of people that I didn’t know well. I knew Kaye, but didn’t know her. She’d always been in my study group in MEDPREP, but I never really got to know her personally. Larry and I had some conversations, but I still didn’t know him well. I had talked to Mallory, Candace, Tiffany, a few times but did not really know them either. The last person, Kevin, I was never truly very fond of. Anyway, things turned out for the best. I’ve gotten to know Kaye, and she has been a tremendous support.

…

Tramaine and I broke up in February. Okay… actually she broke up with me. This is ironic, given the fact that the real reason we broke up was because of arguments. Why were we arguing? She had issues being faithful. During the first year of our relationship, she went to a basketball game at a school she used to teach at. Outside, she met a guy and they started talking. They moved inside where they continued talking, and, at the end of the game she told him that she had fun and if he planned to go to another in the future to let her know. She gave him her email address as to contact her.

I heard this entire story while playing video games. When I heard it, I dropped the controller, turned off the console and TV, and asked her to repeat what she said. She repeated it without any shame. I think I asked her if she had known what she’d done. She didn’t. She appeared confused. I tried to explain it to her with the analogy of giving my number out to some fictional, hypothetical girl that I met at a game tournament. She said she’d be upset. Now I tried to get her to connect the dots. Still wouldn’t work. So, I told her to contact her married sister and ask her to comment on what had transpired at the basketball game. She did just that and called me back. Her sister agreed with me and didn’t understand what she was doing or why she was doing it. She apologized, but my faith was shattered. It would take a while for me to rebound back to normal. Sadly this was not an isolated event.

The second event occurred during the second year of our relationship. She went to a Ph.D. program and met a guy named Shawn/Sean/Shaun. They began to study together and hangout. At some point, Tramaine came down to visit me in St. Louis and all she seem to talk about was Shawn. “Shawn’s so smart,” “He loves Nikki Minaj,” “Shawn’s so funny”… Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore, something felt fishy, and I had to ask: “Do you like Shawn?” She responded “No, we’re just friends,” and then began to get defensive. “You think you know me better than I do?” She said. I responded that I wasn’t saying that, but it seemed strange that she came to see me, her boyfriend, but couldn’t keep from mentioning his name. It seemed even more strange that I hung around with Maya all the time in MEDPREP, and I never went on and on about her. Anyway, long story short, she went back to South Carolina to her Ph.D. program upset, then came back to St. Louis later. “Remember that conversation we had earlier?” She asked. “You were right.”

That isn’t the end of the second situation, she then promised to avoid Shawn. I told her it wouldn’t work. You can’t just cut people off that easily, especially those you have feelings for. She tried though. It worked for about two weeks before she broke down in Shawn’s office, crying that she had a fight with her boyfriend OVER HIM. I wish someone could explain why someone might do this… and how this is supposed to accomplish anything other than increasing the size of his ego.

The third situation still includes Shawn. Both of us had iPhones by this point and were talking on the Face Time video chat. I was shaving and looking at myself in the mirror. “Admiring yourself, aren’t you Shawn?” This time she caught herself. She began apologizing, but the damage was done. I searched for answers. I asked my parents, I asked my grandparents, I asked Kaye, I asked Kelechi, I asked everyone I trusted to get a truthful answer. Neither one of them could explain it. No one believed that “Jon” and “Shawn” were similar enough phonetically to confuse the two, and my parents swore that Tramaine and Shawn must have been messing around. As a result, this was the first time that Tramaine and I broke up.

We got back together within a week or so. But, after a while, we broke up again… this time for good. But, breaking up didn’t prevent Tramaine from one last ridiculously insensitive act. As she switched her Facebook status from “In a Relationship” to “Single,” people began asking her if she’s alright and trying to console her. She essentially responded that she had been depressed for a while and that the break-up was a formality. She essentially painted herself as a victim and me as a villain. Had not been who I am, I would’ve put every last tidbit of information about her infidelity out on Facebook and let the masses decide who was the real victim. Tramaine left the relationship with an iPad, a ton of clothes, and free plane tickets. I left with a bucket of salt. I ended up contacting Tramaine, which was possibly the last time we spoke on the phone, to ask her why she would do something like this given that we broke up and there was no issues even despite all of the previous drama.

Despite our break-up, Tramaine still contacts me weekly. I guess she realized that breaking-up and having Shawn in South Carolina would not cure her loneliness, and that perhaps she needed to look deeper for a solution. Personally, I think she needed to find ways to make herself happy: Pick up a new hobby, do community service, etc. I believe that if she had, the distance would have been made easier. However, because she had so much free time, it made the loneliness more pronounced and allowed it fester. One of the critical issues Tramaine had concerned looking inside. For example. It was hard for her to connect her vocalized beliefs and her behavior. She talked about cheating and how wrong it is, but, simultaneously, couldn’t realize that she was on the slippery slope to cheating throughout the entire relationship with the basketball situation and the Shawn situation. In reference to the Shawn situation, I wonder if it she actually would have cheated had I not brought it to her attention in the first place. I guess the world may never know.

My relationship with Tramaine taught me a lot of things, and ultimately lead me back to God and the church. The main things I learned about relationships is that I cannot tolerate someone who I have to teach how to be faithful and someone who isn’t cognizant of their feelings for someone else. Another thing I cannot deal with is a person who feels like it is okay to tell the person their dating about all of the people who flirt with them or try to pick them up on a daily basis. I don’t understand what this is supposed to do besides inspire jealousy and distrust (especially given all of the other issues that Tramaine and I had with fidelity). Lastly, I realized I cannot deal with people who don’t do small things… its weird. Tramaine never said “bless you” when I sneezed. Yes, I understand how this might remind someone of the movie Dogma, and how this might seem petty, but I think that sometimes small things like that matter. Sometimes small gestures of people showing that they’re paying attention and they care matter. I guess, I now understand why telling women about noticing their new hair style, clothing choices, and other alterations can be important. It shows you’re paying attention to them, at least in the passive sense.

The things that I realized about myself are that I need to work on being more warm and emotional, and framing things before I speak them. I’ve always had the problems of warmth and outward emotion. At some point I decided I didn’t like hugging people. It felt like a weakness. As I grew older, I hugged some people, but still felt awkward doing it… I guess because I didn’t have practice doing it. I also have the issue of framing. Sometimes the things I saw sound horribly cold. I don’t intend for that, it’s just the first way I think of it, and I figure that most people will ask follow-up questions to get a greater understanding. Well, that assumption is wrong. Most people I’ve encountered don’t ask questions and just get upset. So, I’m working on both. Hugging seems like it might be the first to change though, perhaps because its more of a behavioral change than a mental change. I don’t really have any issue with hugging besides it being awkward, but that will change with time and experience.

One last thing I learned about myself is that I need to find a way to take advantage of red flags when I see them. In relationships, I often hand out forgiveness like nothing. I try to look past the issues and move on. But, I feel as though if you keep doing this, you’re deluding yourself. At some point the reality needs to set in. Something isn’t right. Why are these flags here? For me that moment should have either been the basketball game or the first Shawn moment. Both of them shattered my trust… the second more so than the first. I should have called it quits… any normal person would not have tolerated continuous insults. Instead, I tried to forgive, push it under a rug, and pretend like nothing happened… until the next disloyal event occurred, which would unearth all of the other issues all over again. What I learned was that I had false hope that things would change, false hope that she would change. I feel as though my hope needs a dash of realism and objectivity.

Lastly, there was some good to come out of this ideal: This experience also brought me closer to God. I guess because I was searching for meaning. Larry invited me to go to church, and I went and enjoyed it. However, it wasn’t until Kaye invited me to Bible Study that sealed the deal. I had so many misconceptions about Bible Study. I thought it would be like a book club for the Bible. I assumed that everyone was well-versed, and that having read the Bible at least once was a prerequisite for the class. The class is nothing like this. The two leaders of the class are open and honest about their experiences. They understood my path to get back, and the winding journey in my faith.

…

My grandmother died on March 24th, 2012. This moment was interesting for multiple reasons. For the first time in my life, I saw my own father cry. It’s something I’ll never quite forget. My dad is quite possibly the strongest person I know. Emotionally, I had never quite seen him like that. Sure, I’d seen him smile. I’d seen him angry or upset, but, strangely, I’d never seen him sad. Him crying was the equivalent of visual cognitive dissonance. He believed that everything is apart of the circle of life…that everyone must die… but, at the same time, this was his mother, and it must have been extremely painful for him to deal with psychologically.

…

Another thing that has drastically changed is that I’ve become very highly active in community service and a huge advocate of education and health education. Kelechi, a friend of mine at MEDPREP, pushed me into service through a health education event in Carbondale. The reason I was against it before is because I didn’t feel comfortable with the service, because I felt as though I wouldn’t know what I was talking about, or the fact that I hate oral presentations. However, volunteering at SLU with Kaye has truly awakened me to service. I’ve enjoyed giving sexual health presentations with HIV Task Force. I’ve enjoyed talking to children about child abuse with the Child Abuse Prevention organization. Lastly, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed building houses with Habitat for Humanity. I feel like this awakening is part of who I am to become.

It’s been quite the journey since I’ve posted.

5.17/2011

I got into Loyola’s medical school with a nice scholarship. Not sure what to think of it. I’d planned to go to SLU, but this has thrown everything into a tailspin.

Good news has destabilized things.

2.5/2011

Got into Saint Louis University School of Medicine yesterday! Extremely excited!

Good times, indeed!”

1.30/2011

I got an Xbox Kinect out of curiosity (and a sixty-six percent discount on the price due to previously sold games)… and I’m having a pretty good time with it. The game that’s holding my attention is Dance Central. It’s essentially a Dance version of Rock Band. It’s pretty interesting. Last Friday, I had a few people over to play the game and it was a huge success. People enjoyed the “Dance Battles,” the dance moves, the character personalities, the songs, the motion controls, and the small amount of unlockables.

The only downsides I see thus far is that there is no Rock-Band-esque Career Mode, there are a small amount of songs, there are no customizable characters, there are only two outfit options for the pre-determined characters, and there are only a handful or so of different stages to dance on.

It’s interesting how the Kinect is allowing more people to enjoy games. I assume it’s because traditional controllers seem too complicated to laymen. Yet, I find this strange… mostly because I think the current controllers are very simple. Oh well, either way more people are playing.

Dance Central is cool.

1.3/2011

I know this seems strange to talk about, but I was watching Easy A and I was reminded how little these actors don’t look like high school kids. In the movie, the main character, Olive, has a “high school friend” that literally looks like she’s in her mid-twenties… or thirties. Is that supposed to be believable? I guess it makes sense that they don’t use people who look like (or are) the particular age, because it would make the older part of the audience (which is a mixture of college students and adults) uneasy to watch literal teenagers getting physical. At the same time, why not change the setting of the story to college? Would it make it any less believable? Well, maybe it might, maybe in college the rumors might not spread like wildfire.

My other issue with the movie is that certain things, specifically Amanda Bynes character (and maybe Lisa Kudrow) seemed to overact at every opportunity. I guess they might have thought that a similar performance to both All That and Friends would have sufficed for dramatic, or even mundane parts. Sadly, it came off as slapstick.

Easy A was meh.

What went wrong with Halo: Reach? I’ve been playing it online over break and it just doesn’t feel addictive the way that Halo 3 or Halo 2 did. I know it’s been three months since the game came out, but it’s kind of ridiculous that most people I know have stopped playing it. People were still playing Halo 2 and Halo 3 for years after. Yet, when I log on during a time when everyone should be free (around the holidays), only a few thousand people are playing. Pathetic.

Another thing about Reach is that certain power ups within the game seem broken. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but certain powers just seem to break the game. It’s just not fun. Last thing… why the hell is it that nearly everyone I’ve played with online plays without a microphone? One aspect of becoming good at Halo is improving teamwork. One method of improving teamwork is communication. Sigh. I might just beat this game and sell it.

Halo…what happened to you? You used to be so good.

I was recently reading a post in someone else’s blog about the end of relationships, and gave it some quick thought. I think that a break up is hard to deal with due to the conditioning nature of the relationship. People are conditioned emotionally through talking with someone frequently, confiding in them, asking them for advice, and relying on them for support. Physical conditioning occurs in the form of physical intimacy with another person. It’s completely understandable why people feel empty after a relationship. The void they feel is the place in the life that their ex-girlfriend or ex-boyfriend used to occupy.

The way I deal with a break up is very similar. I condition myself out of it. The time I would spend talking on the phone to my first girlfriend, I spent talking with friends. I filled idle times when I had an opportunity to relapse into thought about her with Halo 3 and working out. Lastly, I deleted her phone number, electronic pictures of her, her screen name, and gathered every physical artifact of her and placed it in a garbage bag in my closet. After a few months, when I was essentially devoid of emotion, I took the bag out of the closet and dumped it in the trash. All of this helped me recondition myself.

I would recommend it.

12.22/2010

Got a 4.0 GPA this semester. So far that’s three out of four semesters that I have been here. I made sure to send the new transcript to Loyola and Morehouse. I still need to send a copy to SLU and Wash U.

Need to get on that.

12.16/2010

So far, I have one acceptance to a medical school that I do not want to go to, and I’ve been waitlisted at two medical schools that I would want to attend. This scares me. I can’t help but think of the worst-case-scenario reality that I would end up at that school. I can’t help but think that these two alternate lists are apart of a greater trend that will occur: That I will end up being waitlisted at more schools, and these waitlists will be the end of the road at all of these schools.

At times I’m being consumed by fear and frustration. The frustration that other people are being admitted to medical school with lower scores, lower GPAs, and without an additional degree. The fear is that I will end up at an institution that I loathe and that I’m miserable at. Controlling these emotions is difficult at times. Occasionally, i get salty, or unhappy, at the thought of not getting in and that people who are seemingly less qualified are getting in.

Recently, however, I am getting better at controlling my saltiness. I feel more withdrawn from the process, I feel a little more free more ambivalent. This break from academics and applications should be good for me. I should be able to escape the anxieties of medical school admissions.

Must control these emotions.

11.25/2010

So far, I have interviewed at four medical schools and gotten into one. Interviewing may seem like a painless process because I love conversation, but its actually extremely painstaking for two main reasons. First, because I enjoy relatively instant gratification. I would like to hear back from schools relatively quickly about what they think of me. However, schools seem to take a while to decide. The second reason that I hate this process is because I begin to think about all of the mistakes that I could have made with all of the lag time between the decision: Did I shake his or her hand firmly? Did I make sure to thank the receptionist for all of his or her help? Did I make sure to maintain good posture? Did I make sure to elaborate on my ideas if they did not make sense at first? All of these questions begin to eat at my ego and drive me insane. The only thing I can do to stop it is to consciously push acceptances into a void. I must not think about it, or it would consume me.

The admissions process is very grating.

Choosing which medical school to attend becomes difficult once in a relationship. How should one do it? Should one choose to be close to the person they’re in a relationship with, or should one choose based on which school is a better fit for them? Suppose a person chose based on proximity to their partner or significant other. What if the person was miserable with the school they chose? Could that have a detrimental effect on the relationship? Also, what if the person chose based on the goodness of fit of the school? Could the long-distance-relationship nature involved with that choice be detrimental to the relationship?

I don’t know what to do, but I assume things will become clearer as more acceptances come.

11.7/2010

Sitting at a Best Western Hotel trying to do a practice run at Loyola, but things are kind of uncoordinated here. I asked for the shuttle to the school of medicine, but the shuttle takes a while to get here. So, instead, I’ve been watching SoCal Regionals, a fighting game tournament. I’m practically bored out of my mind and I’m tempted to call a taxi to pick me up in the morning and take me to Loyola.

Sigh…