Danny ChaiSo some Harvard people came to visit this weekend. It was one of the most interesting times of my life. I guess the strangest thing to me was how small the Asian Christian community really is. It’s bizarre. But you have 3 people from Harvard who know each other and 3 people from Stanford who know each other who are all somehow connected. It’s just kind of weird. And the strangest thing to me is how they were all friends, because it’s just kind of strange that they’re all different.
Maybe I should clarify. But it amazes me that David Park, Chris Min, and Scott Kim are all friends. I guess I should preface that with I am surprised that someone like Scott Kim exists. It’s just a strange thing. The first thing is that he has these personality traits a lot like James Kung, and I never thought I’d meet someone like James Kung in the world. It just kind of amazed me. Does where you grow up really have that much effect on your personality? Maybe. It makes me reconsider Charlie Chang a lot. I think I will spend the next few days contemplating Charlie in this light. Also, Scott has a lot of strange personality traits. Like his vocabulary is just interesting. I wouldn’t say he has a stronger or larger vocabulary than you or I, it’s just that his choice of words is often interesting. Also when he sings, which he does randomly sometimes, he sings the echo part. Like, “What is love? love? love?” with steadily decreasing volume. Pretty funny.
Anyway, I’m ashamed to admit it, but I am in love with Scott Kim. My claim is that had he gone to Stanford or I to Harvard, we would have been best friends.
At any rate, it amazed me that he and David were friends. In fact, they both said they were really close friends, which astounded me. Because I don’t know Dave super well, but I know him, and he and Scott are definitely different. And it’s just odd that they turned out to be friends. Same kind of with Chris. Here’s the weird thing. I guess it just kind of amazes me that Dave Hong had friends in high school. It’s just, well everyone knows I love Dave deeply, in a possibly homoerotic way, but to me he’s an acquired taste. So any time me and Dave are with people who don’t know well, I feel like a little bit embarrassed at his weirdness. (The man in the corner points out my hypocrisy. Noted. You can sit down now.) So when we’re with people he doesn’t know well, I kind of feel embarrassed. This happened a lot when we were in Houston. It’s just it takes time to love Dave, but everyone does in time.
At any rate, we’re all at Lyons and Dave is being a dork and I feel all embarrassed. Oh another thing, I feel most embarrassed for girls because they understand him least of all. Anyway, I felt embarrassed but there’s this cognitive dissonance with the understanding that Chris Min knows this about him and they are friends. That she knows him better than I do. Just kind of really strange. I still felt embarrassed for Dave and Scott, and especially Tina, though.
Anyway, it was just a weird thing, and when we were together and I thought about it, I would just look around and smile. So strange.
So I think now that really, you never choose your friends, but friendship just kind of happens to you. I think one of the Harvard people said this. And I think it’s true of them. I don’t think they would have chosen to be friends with each other, it just kind of happened. It’s pretty true in my life too. Which is an interesting thing to think about. But I would say I never really chose my friendships, it just kind of happened to me. And people I thought I would be friends with I aren’t, and vice versa. Or the converse is also true. Whatever.
So I know I’ve hyped Dave up as being a really really good basketball player, and I thought maybe I overdid it, but we played 2 nights ago and I was right. He’s really really good. I won’t go into details, but I was really impressed.
Another thing I realized was I could’t help but think the whole time that they were somehow different, maybe superior, because they went to Harvard. Hard to get that out of my mind. I also realized that I will never be part of that upper echelon of society. I don’t know exactly what I mean by this. I think partly what it was was that as I met Chris Min and saw her and Dave Hong and heard them talk I realized they are part of this prep school society that I will never understand. But that’s their background, that’s where all their friends are from and that’s who they are. And I understand that but can never be a part of that. I don’t know if this is making sense. But I always got the feeling like some prep school people when they interact with other non prep-sters and almost like playing a game, like they interact but they’re not really themselves nor is there the expectation that they can really understand each other. Maybe that is a bit unfair. But anyway. So it’s like prep-sters can really understand each other and that’s where they go to for people who really understand. Like I said, maybe this is unfair, and kind of an overgeneralization but it’s a feeling I sometimes get.
I’ve also been trying recently to understand my Snood addiction. If you don’t know, I play this stupid game hours a day. It’s lame. But I’ve recently gotten much better at it. At any rate, it’s addicting. I think the fundamental thing is that it’s on one hand mindless but on the other hand, takes your concentration. So it’s mindless but involves thought, so it can engross you. I think a lot of times in my life I need that. I can’t just do a mindless activity because I need to get away from my thoughts, which are the things bothering me. The best is a mindless activity that takes some thought, which allows me to not really think about other things. It’s not totally successful, but it helps. The competition thing is of course, another big factor. At any rate, I think this is why I’m also addicted at different times to Tetris, Super Tetris, Tetrix, Minesweeper, and the various Solitaire games I have on my computer. I just don’t like thinking about reality. It’s pretty bad, I guess.
I hate girls. They suck. Without exception.