Don't Go Away

Right now, I am entering this entry from the lobby of a Days Inn in the town (if you can call it - I guess a smattering of casinos, hotels, gas stations along I-80 is a "town) of Wendover, Utah. I am on my way to Michigan again for the start my second year. I am taking four days on the road trip instead of five like I have in the past. Today has been the first. There has been nothing to report on the trip so far other than

1. I again passed by Battle Mountain, NV which, by its own admission and pride, was voted the "Armpit of America." (Tag line, "We didn't even know they were looking!")
2. I actually saw tumbleweed urrr..tumble like it does in countless westerns.
3. And I saw a real grody grass fire along the highway, along with a dead bear who was apparently hit by a car, which is sad but it would be much more said if the bear had been on fire and then hit a car.

I would have liked to added an entry earlier but the past week or so has been exceedingly hectic (as I will explain shortly) so I did not get around to it until now. So what did I do to round out my summer? Well, a shitload of stuff. I did the customary tour of food-that-kicks-ass-in-CA-but-sucks-ass-in-Michigan by hitting up really good Korean, Thai, Chinese, and Japanese restaurants in the bay area. I also caught a concert by Vienna Teng (for anyone who knows her she is a Sarah McLachlan/Norah Jones-ish type piano singer). The concert I attended was a bit a-typical seeing that sbhe tried rocking out Tori Amos style or at least I think she did but there are definitely other people who can judge for sure.

But I mostly spent my time hanging out with my friends seeing that I will not get to see them again for some amount of time (well actually, 2 weeks since i am heading back to San Jose for Jinah's wedding). But you know what I mean (at least I hope you do). Been going to parties, happy hours (including one in which Vishnu shotgunned an entire bottle of hot sauce), poker nights, and dinners. Too many to recount and too much fun to describe in just one blog entry. I will mention that I yet again embarked on a party bus to the city before I left. I did do better this time as in I did not get blistering drunk beforehand and on the bus there as to be unconcious by the time I get to the clubs. I am embarassed to say I got a wee bit drunk that night but at least remained concious. Such minor milestones keep me going in my life. At least I did not fall victim to an orchrastrated hook-up attempt like some people who will remain nameless.

I promised to do a bit of reflection of summer in my last entry (like anyone remembers that). I had more fun this summer than I have in years. I didn't go anywhere or didn't do any really exciting activities like skydiving but I mostly had fun hanging and having fun with people. I had such a great time (especially with certain people) that I didn't want summer to end like I mentioned in my previous entry. As cliche and as unoriginal as I am, all things must come to an end. My summer is over and so have the fun and great times that came with it. And I think it is for the best. In theory, I could have stuck around even longer and try and milk every last bit of enjoyment out of my time before school starts, but I realize it is time to move on and get back to the business of living and growing. My internship is over and there was not much else (productive work wise) for me to do in the bay area. Plus people need to get along with their lives and the fun times will eventually return. Which brings me to the major point of this entry (yes my entries have points as half-assed, ranting, and self-concious as they area), which is when to hold on versus when to let go (and this point concidentally relates to the Oasis song title I choose for this entry, along with my whole ummm going away to Michigan and how I didn't want to...you know...that jazz).

Before I left the bay area, I had dinner in Palo Alto with Walter, Camille, Amanda, Ida, and Andrew (the Dude)Cipto. Somebody later pointed out that it was quite impressive that I still hung out with them seeing that they are all college friends and we have all been out of college for several years (for the record, of all those people I know Ida the longest (7 years) but I have known everyone else for at least four years. I always felt it is important to hold onto friends because well ummmm.... for anyone who knows me, it is a rare person that can actually stand me, let alone be friendly with me :-P Seriously, good friends are hard to find (well if you have lots and lots of money then no) so extra effort is needed to keep friendships going so you don't end up one day looking at old pictures saying, "Oh I wish I kept in touch with him/her." So I try to keep in touch with my old friends because I value them as good people, not just commodities that I can utilize to get what I want and then toss aside (of course it always nice when friends provide the occassion hook-up with free or discounted stuff).

But like everything (and being the pessimist that I am) there comes a time to let go of people. Of course, you should always let go of assholes and jerks but I am talking about people who are your friends or in some cases more than your friends. This has happened to me and has happened recently to people close to me so I am going to harp on it with my half-intelligent opinion. When we get close to people, we tend to assign them roles (or at least I do and people I know do). Certain people are your close friends while others are not-so close friends versus your college friends versus your work friends etc etc. Once we get comfortable with a person in a certain role we tend not to want to change that. I have lamented on this fact before. Because we get so used to having a person be a certain way with us and we are happy with that, why change it? Unfortunately this lassiez-faire attitude does not take into account that people change and may no longer fit or want to be the role that we assign them to. For instance, it look a couple of years for my ex and I to be friendly again. We were friends before we decided to get together and then failed spectacularly as a couple. It took me a long while to realize and adjust to the fact that I wasn't in the BF role with her anymore and that we couldn't do things like we did before because of what transpired. But after a few years (including me growing wiser, more mature - if you think I am immature now, imagine how bad I was earlier), we (or at least I) got more accustomed to the different roles we now inhabit as friends. In fact, we had dinner before I left (for the record, she is now married and her husband helped get me my job at Cisco a few years ago - yes strange how this world works).

Fast forward to today and again I am faced with situation where my "role" has changed and I am going to have to deal with that. Just like some people close to me are and no doubt, some of you who are reading this are (or else are laughing their asses off about how pathetically superficial and lame my attempts at arm-chair psychology is). But that is all for now. Time for me to shuffle off to dream land. Destination for later this week is Ann Arbor, Michigan. Until then, peace.