[Part I] On brothers: Raymond.

For those who don't know, I have two younger brothers. The older of the two, Raymond, is two years younger, while Stephen, is ten years younger. At the time of this blog, Raymond and Stephen are 16 and 8 respectively.

I've always been a family person. Growing up as the oldest (within my siblings and cousins) I've kind of just gotten used to being the around kids. As a child, I was always the one who held the most responsibilities, the one who was safest choice to leave alone or leave with younger kids. And I'm glad I had this experience. Granted, most of my ideas of being responsible as a kid wasn't that responsible (i.e. going to the library by myself) but I've always felt that trust that the adults bestowed on me. And now, as I'm approaching 19, I'm really glad that I was able to have a taste of what it's like to be an adult.

But in any case, this is about my brothers. First of all, let me say, I love both of my brothers equally, even if it may seem like I baby Stephen and argue with Raymond all the time. They're my brothers; I love them to death. It's not like love is some finite feeling that I need to be careful about handing out. But I guess from other people's perspectives, it'll seem like I like Stephen more cause he's younger and cuter than Raymond. That really isn't the case.

My past with Raymond
For a good eight years of my life, I had lived with just Raymond. And in that time, we've done a lot of things together. Gosh, I haven't even thought about it much until I started typing this entry, but eight years is a long time to be just the two of us. Of course, if you count all the time we spent together, it has been 16 years. That's pretty amazing. I think for at least half of that, I was getting along with Raymond. We would do a lot of things together.

Diverging, but I remember how much I used to hate him as a kid. It was around the time he was starting to get the hang of walking and he got into this phase where he would like to pull on my hair. And I mean pull on it. He has ripped his fair share of my hair. I remember this one instance that he was running towards me and I decided to him in this little cupboard (except it was on the floor). I was kind of screaming for my mom to take him away from me because I didn't want to get my hair pulled anymore. I don't know why, but that seems to be my most vivid memory of us as kids.

As a kid, I was kind of a tomboy so I had built up my muscles. Haha, I remember that I used to hold contests with the boys in my class on the monkey bars: how long we can hold onto the bar for, how many times we can go around the bars, how big our calluses are. Fun stuff. Back then, I also had a love for arm wrestling. It was fun to challenge everyone. Anyways, until Raymond hit puberty, I was the one who won all the fist fights and arm wrestling contests that we were in.

I think I stopped hanging out with Raymond pretty early. I had made a best friend out of a girl named Shasta when I transfered over to Hillcrest elementary and spent most of my time with her. However, I think we didn't get to the point where it was hard to communicate till he reached puberty.

Raymond in his teens
Raymond was kind of awkward growing up and he still is. Partly, I feel bad because I think it's because I was "smart" and he was "dumb" that my parents were always trying to compare the two of us. Being the Asian parents they were, perhaps they were trying to motivate him to be as successful in school as I was (though, I didn't really become too much of an overachiever) and pushing him to do better. Of course, I liked the fact that I was more intelligent and would taunt him as well. In hindsight, I feel bad for doing that. It wasn't as if I did it constantly, but when we argue, I would just throw it in because I knew it would hurt him. However, because of this, I think he might have gotten an inferiority complex.

As much as I like being more successful than my brother, it pains me when I see him just want to give up. I hear him say "Oh, I'm not going to college. I'm just gonna go to City or something." or "I know I'm dumb! Stop telling me." and it makes me just want to comfort him and tell him that he doesn't have to try so hard, to the point of thinking that he's just a dumbass that's wasting space. I think that's partly why he is on the computer so much. People online aren't as judgmental as real life. Plus, he's good at video games.

I know it's kind of a stupid thing to be proud of, but I think for my brother, being good at something makes him feel better even if it's something as useless as video games. And I feel bad when my dad is always telling him that being good a video games is useless since you can't really make a career out of it. But I think for Raymond, it's his haven.

Oh, as an interjection. Raymond used to be bullied as a kid. This kind of bullying made me really pissed off (since I felt like I was the only one who had the right to mess with him) so I wanted to beat up all the fuckers that messed with my brothers. Like, I had so much anger towards those little wanks who wanted him to like eat garbage and shit like that that I was willing to get beat up trying to beat some snot nosed kids up. If I met them now, I'd still be willing to fuck them up even though I've lost all my strength due to laziness. But seriously, I got really pissed back then.

In any case, I feel like it's partly my fault, partly my parents faults, and just society as a whole. I feel bad for not telling him that he doesn't have to follow in the same footsteps as me. I feel bad for not sticking up for him when my parents thought he was just useless. I feel like I failed as a sister.

Despite this though, I'm just kind of confused as to what to do. I kind of don't want to interfere with his life since he's gotten to the point where he's so frustrated with everything that he just lashes out in anger. I'm scared that in trying to help in, I'll get frustrated trying to make him understand and in turn making him worse than he is now. I think for now, I'm just gonna let him find his own path. I can't always be there to hold his hand, or slap him in the face. I just hope that he'll turn out okay. Oh god, I really hope he does.

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This has gotten kind of long so I'll continue with Stephen's story later, maybe tonight or tomorrow.

清明 on Easter Sunday.

I was going to write this earlier, but I've been busy enjoying my spring break and haven't had a spare moment till now. Anyways, yesterday was 清明 (I don't really know much about the traditions, but if you're curious, you can read the wiki on it. Anyways, we went to visit my grandparents grave. It was the same... holiday, I suppose, that I visited my grandma's grave. It was the same holiday. This time, we decided to go a little later than usual to avoid the heavy crowds. The weather was the complete opposite of the day that I visited my grandmother's grave. It was sunny and clear. In fact, I had to wear my sunglasses to be able to see without squinting. So we pulled into the cemetery to find a place to park, since apparently Chinese cemeteries just let you park inside. I dunno, Chinese people are pretty resourceful.

In any case, by we, I mean my immediate family and my aunt and uncle. It was a much smaller party this time since my other aunt's family went down to Las Vegas for spring break and they didn't have time to come to the graves since they were busy packing or something. The whole thing was much much simpler than the time we visited grandma. All we did was clean the grave, burn some currency for my grandparents to spend in the afterlife. Overall, it was a really peaceful ceremony. It was somewhat reminiscent of grandpa himself. Forget the fancy stuff, just get what you need done.

I saw Daniel and Wendy at the cemetery too. Caught up with them for a little bit about school and stuff, but it wasn't exactly an ideal place to have a conversation. They had their own tasks to attend to.

I shouldn't be saying this, but there were a lot of cute guys again. All the Asian guys come out and do their stuff during this time, haha. But yeah, felt guilty again, but it was kind of hard not to look around. It wasn't like I was gonna go up to them and ask them out or anything.

After cleaning up my grandparents' grave, we packed our things and headed over to my great-grandparents' cemetery. I had only been there once before and that was a while ago. I don't know anything about my great-grandfather since he died in the 70s but I can vaguely remember my great-grandmother. I can remember her in her wheelchair and she would always have a blanket on her... but than that, my 3 year old memory isn't that good. I can't remember her face very well, or how she smelled, or what she did. I do remember her funeral though. I didn't know what was happening, but I could see grandma sobbing extremely loudly... and that's about it. I don't know how accurate that is, but I have that image in my mind without anyone telling me anything about her. Anyways, we cleaned her grave too, paid our respects and burned some money for them too.

Overall, it was a pretty simple day. There were only a few people around both cemeteries, and my whole family wasn't there to start screaming talking to each other. It was a little hard though since my grandpa only died last month and we had to go to his grave so quickly again. But I'm alright now. I still have fond memories of him that I will take with me forever.

On Dreams.

Normally I don't do this because my dreams are usually pretty weird and I don't remember much after waking up, but this one stuck out for some reason. Before you continue reading, you should realize that this dream is about guys (nothing sexual, actually), and is going to be written by a GIRL so, you might want to stop reading now. :)

Anyways, if you guys have read my "On Boyfriends" post, then you guys should know that I've never had a boyfriend and never really desired one. *shrug* I have a sense of independence and commitment doesn't really excite me.

But in any case, the dream. It was pretty normal actually. Usually when I dream about things, I have these crazy surreal events like I'm in outer space or Naruto and crew are running up the empire state building because they were chased by Godzilla (yeah, I know. I wonder what that TOWER means, hahaha). Anyways, this one surprisingly was pretty normal, you know, excluding some things.

Probably the only things that clued me in that this was a dream was the fact that he was living in the same room as me, i.e. my dorm. Which would be impossible because last time I checked Michelle wasn't a guy. But yeah. negligible. It was still pretty real.

I can't really remember his face, but he had a distinct face. You know how when you dream, the faces that you don't really know are distorted or shadowed, but I remember seeing his face. It wasn't anyone that I've met before, or someone who probably even exists. I recall him being really humble looking. No one super hot or fantasy like... I mean, he had like a weird buzz cut thing, definitely not my type. But still, dreams make everything seem perfect.

What was weird was the fact of how complete the relationship went through its cycle. Other than getting together (he magically appeared and we were together), I can remember having fun with him (funny guys are the best♥), I can remember going through some trouble that resulted in breaking up, and then reconciling because we were being stupid.

I don't know, this whole thing seems weird. I normally don't even remember my dreams, but his face (even if I don't remember it well) kept appearing in my mind. Haha, maybe I'll meet him one day.

I dunno, that's all I really wanted to say. There's a lot more detail that I can get into, but I don't really feel like it. For the most part, I still don't want a boyfriend, but maybe my subconscious is trying to tell me something. Hm, well, I'm not gonna actively look for this certain guy. If he finds me, so be it. :)