Detrimental To Others

Since graduating, I have become more and more introspective and self reflective about my life and how it affect others.  Even though I've been desperately trying to alter my personality to become more sociable and outgoing, I still feel like an outsider, like an alien who crash landed on Earth.  Even worst is that I'm slowly regressing back to what I was when I first entered UCSD.  One glitch here, one glitch there, my psychological reprogramming is slowly falling apart. It feels hopeless.

Due to my inability to be "normal", I have inadvertently ended up hurting up many people over the years.  People like Raquel, people who I could have been friends with when I was at UCSD, so many others who I inadvertently hurt keeps coming back into my mind.  How I ended up hurting them keeps replaying over and over again, never allowing me to forget.  It's gotten so bad, I've begun to glitch up around my family.  There have been two times were my dad either made a joke or was laughing at something and I simply blankly stared at him.  It wasn't only until several seconds later that I remembered to smile.  My dad probably thinks I'm annoyed by him.  I hate myself, I really do.

When I was growing up, I used to imagine what I would do in different scenarios.  In one scenario, I imagined I was infected with a very contagious disease and that I would isolate myself from others to prevent myself from harming them.  I realize now that I am the disease, I am the harm to others.  I always drag others down with me, always a detriment to others.  Perhaps it's best to isolate myself.

I wish I was a normal person.

Note to self:  Improve relations with family, especially with dad.  Don't blank out around dad.  Don't look at people out of the corner of your eye.

Accounting vs. Computer Science

I still don't know what to do with my life.  Currently I'm deciding whether to go to computer science graduate school or accounting graduate school.  If I go into accounting, I can finish within a year and immediately look for work.  If I go into computer science, I will have to attend school, again, for the next 3 to 4 years.

I managed to find a career survey of San Jose graduates for the 2010/2011 year and it indicates that recent accounting graduates with a bachelor's has an average salary of $52,000 while ones with a masters have $58,000 per year.  Computer science, on the other hand, those who had a masters degree earned more than $87,000 per year.  nearly thirty grand more than accounting graduates.  Though it sounds nice, I still have my reservations.  I'm not sure if I can do a masters in computer science, and even if I do, I'm giving up three years of income to do it.  Not only that, the amount of computer science graduates is sure to increase in the coming years, possibly making me worthless when I graduate.  If I do accounting, I will graduate in one year, but if I can't get an internship then I'll be dead in the water.  I don't know what path to take.

Poisonous

One of my friends who I met when I was in UCSD contacted me several days ago.  He emailed me to chat and catch up.  It was good to hear from him again.

He is the only long lasting friend I made during my time at UCSD.  Even though I had other friends and could have had other friends when I was at UCSD, I watched as relation after relation crash and burn.  At the time I blamed it on crappy people who tried to use me or on my social awkwardness that created misunderstandings, resulting in deteriorating relations.  But is it really?  Are these the real reasons or are they merely excuses?  What if I am poisonous to the people around me?  I always manage to screw it up resulting in me inadvertently hurting the people around me.  Every time someone gets close to me, I always end up pushing them away.  If I am poisonous, should I even try to get close to others or should I just isolate myself?  I don't know what to do.

Julie Tu, I Left My Heart In San Diego

The weather here in San Francisco has been surprisingly warm lately.  It's been sunshine and blue skies for the last two weeks.  It's a nice change of pace from the gloomy and dreary overcast that pretty much dominates the rest of the year.  Living by the ocean, I can often hear the sound of the waves if I stick my head out the window.  Looking out my window and feeling the warm ocean breeze while listening to the rumble of the ocean waves in the distance reminds me of my time at UCSD.  Ever since graduating, I keep on feeling like I lost a part of myself at UCSD.  It's like I belong in San Diego, not San Francisco.  I want to go back.  Great, now I feel like a character on LOST.

On another note, as I stated in a previous post, for some reason Julie Tu was reading through my blog for the last two weeks. Julie was a girl who I met during my first year, first quarter at UCSD.  She and I were attracted to each other and I fucked it up in the end.  It's a long retarded story.  In the end, both of us bumped into each other again on campus just a month away from graduation and after realizing she still had feelings for me, I showed her my blog to show her that I was trying to change myself into an outgoing person and that I didn't walk away from her a long time ago.  It had the exact opposite effect.  She ended up choosing some retard with a communications degree over me.  I was pretty broken up about it.

Two weeks ago, she looks a bit through my old blog then waits a week and access this blog.  After realizing that I knew she was looking, she proceeds to spam my old blog with internet explorer and iphone views, most likely to cover up her tracks, and then reads this blog.  Now, why would she do this?  Curiosity?  Nostalgia?  Or maybe she finally realized her boyfriend is nothing more than a fucking moron and that she made the wrong choice?  Whatever it is, it doesn't matter.

Accepted, Emotionally Shallow

I found out I got accepted into San Jose State University's masters of computer science program.  I didn't realize I would be accepted so easily into both SF and SJ State's CS program.  Still, I'm going to apply to various accounting masters program just in case.

I've been thinking back about the time I spent at UCSD, and how I tried to become more "normal", more "human".  Even though I was successful in becoming more outgoing and being able to abide by acceptable social etiquette, I still lack the emotional component.  When I was younger, I taught myself how to suppress my own emotions because of the constant sadness and pain I felt.  Over time, my emotions became so suppressed, I lost touch with it.  Sympathy, empathy, compassion, all became foreign to me.  I tried so hard to "reactivate" my emotions, but I just couldn't do it.  Even now, I'm still at a lost at what to feel sometimes.  I can emulate emotions for most situations, but sometimes people can sense that it's fake.  I can fool others, but I can't fool myself.  It's that emotional component that I'm striving for because without that emotional connection, there can't be any relationship.

Decisions, Old Face, Eye Contact

I saw another person who I knew in the past again.  His name is Lester, a Hispanic guy who was with me in high school.  He was a class clown and absolutely hilarious, but was a major trouble maker.  I bumped into him when I was walking down a stairway and said nothing.  Seeing all these people again is simply depressing.  It's like the last three years I spent at UCSD simply folded in on itself and disappeared from history, it's like I'm reliving my past.

I'm still deciding whether to go to SF state or not.  Since I'm a conditional applicant, they expect me to take all the prerequisite classes and pass all of them with at least a B.  Seriously now, that's just insane.  I'm having second thoughts, and I'm starting to think accounting may be better.  Fuck my life.

On another note, I've been reading the intjforum.com and came across a thread about eye contact.  It seems like it's split even between maintaining eye contact and avoiding it.  Some said it was too intense, some said it was too intimate.  After what I've gone through at UCSD, I agree that it is sometimes too intense.  However, some of them said they only make eye contact with people they respect.  Seriously?  That's a douchey thing to do.  I shouldn't be like them, I don't want to be like them.

Note to self:  Make eye contact with everyone.

Congratulations, You Have Been Admitted...

I found out last night that I got accepted into SFSU's masters of computer science program.  Awesome, I guess.  However, I'm not sure if I want to go there.  Yes, it's great that I got accepted, but I feel that if I go to SF state and spend the next 2 to 3 years living at home, my social skills will deteriorate.  At the same time,  I could save a lot of money by living at home and be able to do internships within San Francisco.  They gave me a month to decide whether to accept admission or not so I'll still have time to decide.  I hope to hear from San Jose State soon.

Aside from this bright spot in my life, I've been losing more and more interest in doing things.  I used to keep playing Civilization V a lot, hell I got 1600 hours logged in, but I've been losing more and more interest.  I build a couple of cities then just quit from the game.  I've been losing interest in absolutely everything.  I think it's one of the first symptoms of depression, but I don't know how to stop it.

Echoes From The Past, Mentally Overwhelmed

I've been checking who's been reading my blogs lately and it seems like several people from the past popped up.  One is Julia Popova, the blonde who she and I shared a mutual attraction.  Another is Julie Tu, another girl who I could have been with but I fucked it up in the end, as usual.  Nothing more than distant memories from a bygone time of my life.

On another note, I think I'm slowly losing my mind. When I was at UCSD, I was seeing a psychologist to deal with my social anxiety and I asked him to test me for any signs of mental illness.  My mind was so overwhelmed with thoughts, variables, probabilities and scenarios, that it became extremely difficult to think. I thought I was suffering from schizophrenia, bipolar disorder or some sort of mental illness.  After a long questionnaire and an interpretation, my psychologist said I didn't have any mental disorders.  I even became a research subject at the UCSD hospital to see if there's a physiological explanation.  I subjected myself to EEGs and MRIs, but they also found nothing.  I was normal.  But still, even now, my mind is slowly being overwhelmed.  It's like I can see every variation of an event at once.  It's like a million thoughts trying to come out simultaneously.  It's tiresome, I can't deal with this anymore.

Life and The Economy

More economic news have been popping up in the last few weeks.  Crappy as usual.  From what I gathered, it seems like more and more news of how people my age are getting screwed over.  There is no good news in sight.  People my age will the first to be less wealthy than the previous generation.  People my age will be fighting for scraps as full time jobs with benefits become rarer and rarer.  And of course, the very concept of retirement is nothing but a fading memory.  Great stuff.

I've become more and more depressed about my future.  It's not just the economic outlook that worries but it's also my interpersonal relationships that I'm depressed about.  When I was at UCSD, I was trying to change myself to become more outgoing, but since graduating it has grind to a halt.  I've isolated myself more and more and I honestly don't see a change in my future in regards to my social situation.  I'm just so tired of it all, of everything.