I had a much better topic for this blog post in mind. But after six or seven times of unreasonable switch between offline and online, I have to protest: Please somebody just fix this … supposedly should be better than before wifi …

What I intended to write about in this blog post is a universal rule: the conservation of luck. In other words, I recently figured out that if I spent luck on ridiculous things, like on making time slow down in order to arrive on time for midterms, then I wouldn’t have any luck left for important things, like, arriving exactly at 3:15 to get garlic naan (my class ends at 3 MWF, so I think 3:15 is a responsible ETA) before they close for lunch (3:15). I have successfully gotten garlic naan every Friday for the past month, until the beginning of this month, when my luck seemed to just drain into the sewer. The moment I saw that “closed” sign, I felt blood just draining down to my feet. That was supposed to be the light of my week. I did all my readings, go to discussion sections, go to lectures, go to office hours, in order to get to Friday and bit into that fluffy, golden, mouth-watering garlic naan. Yet for some reasons since the beginning of April I just couldn’t arrive at garlic naan on time! I was told by a rather carless friend to just come another day. No! Garlic naan symbols the end of the week for me! I constantly walk in front of an invisible countdown detailed to seconds for this garlic naan. How can I just “come another day” ??!

We had Cal Day today, but I felt exhausted. I didn’t get what they hype was all about. Maybe it’s designed for new students. I envy their naive smile, they looked like angels covered with hope and possibilities. Recently I felt like I was walking under my shadow of the past, as if with a little bit of negligence I would fall into the same cliff. I talked to my friends and they said that I just didn’t have enough homework to do, and then I got mad at them because I couldn’t even finish my readings, then they would be like, “hey, just go for a jog! Isn’t that what you’ve always loved!”

Speaking of jogging, I seemed to be losing interest in jogging. I think I understand what’s going on inside me. I felt like with a little bit of joy came great grief afterwards. Like the conservation of luck, happiness is also a zero-sum game. Last Friday, I had an awesome time: I had a great office hour with my gsi, then I got lunch with my friends, then I got a haircut (which is adorable! I thought I would look hideous in short hair but I think I like this one!), then I went to the library and got some work done, then I visited the music department for an open mic (the students there were so talented! I saw one student playing with his computer! It’s like he’s programing but no he’s playing music!) On my way home, I thought to myself, “Tomorrow is going to be miserable due to the fact that I spent too much happiness today.”

I wouldn’t argue that the following Saturday was awful as I expected, I just did some work and nothing bad happened to me. But just because of the fact that nothing bad happened to me I felt more scared: what if the coming evilness is worse!

The foundation of my conservation of happiness rule is that unhappiness is doomed. And I think it’s quite true, given that not everyone can be happy all the life. I guess my attitude with unhappiness is a little bit off. Of course there would be unhappiness, but I shouldn’t scare myself every single day about it, rather I should just be as I am and if unhappy things do happen, have the energy and guts to change them.

I thank this blog again for helping me to clear things out. In the meantime, this wifi is acting funny again!! Is it because today’s Cal day so nobody’s supposed to do work?