About two weeks ago, my grandpa passed away. I've fond memories of watching teletubbies with him, but we don't have many memories after he moved to a city 45 minutes away when I was in first grade. After I hit puberty, he stopped being able to recognize me—always thought I was my aunt—and with me becoming unconfident in my Chinese and him being hard of hearing, we never really bonded again. We weren't close enough that I truly miss his presence, but I hate that my family permanently lost such a big part of their lives... that my cute, nonchalant grandpa is really just gone forever. They loved him a lot and always took time to visit him despite the somewhat inconvenient distance. We weren't close and yet, I was so depressed and so emotional—but because of these other things that were related. I don't really want to talk about all of them, but I'll kind of talk about one.
My mom was being optimistic, I believe at least, when she said that grandpa seemed to have been bored for a while. Apparently, he'd been saying in his cute, nonchalant way, "Can't die yet, can't die yet..." (literal translation from Chinese), which actually carries the meaning of "Why can I not die yet, why can I not die yet..." Probably nobody thought too much of it since the tone of what he said is not so serious-sounding. I feel so terrible that he felt that way.
The day after, work colleagues started talking about their grandparents too. One had a grandfather whom everyone expected to leave not long after his wife did—they spent so much of their lives together—but to everyone's surprise, he went on to live another 16 years beyond her. He rebuilt his life without her; he took on new hobbies and activities. And he just found the purpose and love of life to keep living on each and every day. That's incredible.
Most people are afraid of death, and afraid of old age because it means looming death. I've always been really afraid of old age; I just hate knowing that one day, my body and mind are surely to fail me even more and that I'll have to rely on people just for basic everyday functions. I don't ever want to feel obsolete—that makes me insecure all the time.
But now I've realized that I'm also afraid of old age not because I'm afraid of no longer living—I'm afraid of living without purpose. Already at this age, I have days when I don't see a point in getting out of bed because I don't feel motivated...to exist. When I'm not sure that things are worth the effort, and I don't know that I have any real purpose, and I don't look forward to anything, and I don't feel like I'm having fun, and most things feel meaningless. That's frightening, because I can only imagine that this feeling will only grow more and more as I age, until one day it can consume me everyday. Then I'll say, "Why can I not die yet, why can I not die yet..." Anyway, that's that. I'm better now but that week, thinking about these things and my ineptness at living was depressing 8'D
So my business trip was to Washington DC to do on-site video editing for finalist week of a prestigious science competition for high schoolers. Similar to the middle school version I did in October. It was...pretty cray cray... We shot 42 interviews (22 of them I helped do audio recording on since there was nothing to edit yet) which I had to cut into a cohesive 5 minute video that tells the kids' story of this competition and what it means to them and how their projects will change the world. And then our crew would shoot all their activities throughout the days and once I got the footage each night, I had to sort through all of it and drop shots into the video... All of this was done in just a few days and the video had to be ready to be shown at the gala on the last day. I would send a draft to the client by 10 PM to review and then had to implement the changes by 10 AM.
These kids are incredibly amazing in every way. So much so that the grand prize winner took home $250,000. It was stressful and a huge mental struggle (editing is very much like putting together a puzzle), I was working up til 5-6 AM each night, got several bouts of both bloody noses and minor food poisoning; but ultimately I think being able to make these videos is one of my favorite parts of my job.
I love love love that I have the privilege of making something to honor these amazing, genius, righteous, hardworking kids that I hope will make them feel good about themselves and that will preserve their memories of the fun week that they had with the other finalists. I want them to treasure this video for the rest of their lives. I love that I get to try to tell their story—and I really do try with all my heart, which is why it's so hard deciding on the one thing that each student gets to say in the video. I want the world to realize how wonderful they are. Hopefully, other kids will watch these videos, learn about these opportunities, and be inspired to pursue science too. When I do these kinds of projects, I do feel that I've some purpose in the world, even though I end up feeling a bit like a ghost that vicariously experiences the kids' fun and bonding sadly without actually getting to spend any time with them, boooo. It was difficult, but in the end, I feel good about this trip.
Initially, I had planned to stay an extra day in DC afterwards to check out the city and fly back on the 16th.... When my grandpa's funeral was decided to be on the 16th (I was so scared it'd happen during my trip), I changed my flight to come back on the 15th (today) instead.
Last night, I was up until 3 AM because of picking up the gala footage and transferring it... I was supposed to wake up at 5:30 AM. I overslept and missed my flight... I don't know if it's my phone's fault, or if I really slept through 4 rounds of alarms even though I woke up to my coworker's call... but I was so so so upset, stressed out, and angry.......... This is a huge mistake I'm deeply embarrassed about. So I made a call to the airline and LUCKILY was able to reschedule for another flight on the same day although it's costly. ;; I cried through the entire call because I was so afraid that I would miss my grandpa's funeral.
My grandpa was apparently just fine, then suddenly hospitalized, and he passed away 3 days later. Unfortunately, since it happened so quickly and unpredictably, I didn't have a chance to visit him. Can you imagine...if even after I changed my flight once already, I still missed the chance to see him and say goodbye one last time? I wouldn't be able to live with myself; I'd regret it and be haunted by it forever... >< That was fucking stressful. I'm still upset that this happened and that I may have almost missed the funeral. I cried a lot at the airport. Honestly, this I'm not entirely recovered from yet and I'm sure tomorrow's funeral is going to break me even further. I'm thankful that I will make it there, but I don't look forward to it.
So my business trip was to Washington DC to do on-site video editing for finalist week of a prestigious science competition for high schoolers. Similar to the middle school version I did in October. It was...pretty cray cray... We shot 42 interviews (22 of them I helped do audio recording on since there was nothing to edit yet) which I had to cut into a cohesive 5 minute video that tells the kids' story of this competition and what it means to them and how their projects will change the world. And then our crew would shoot all their activities throughout the days and once I got the footage each night, I had to sort through all of it and drop shots into the video... All of this was done in just a few days and the video had to be ready to be shown at the gala on the last day. I would send a draft to the client by 10 PM to review and then had to implement the changes by 10 AM.
These kids are incredibly amazing in every way. So much so that the grand prize winner took home $250,000. It was stressful and a huge mental struggle (editing is very much like putting together a puzzle), I was working up til 5-6 AM each night, got several bouts of both bloody noses and minor food poisoning; but ultimately I think being able to make these videos is one of my favorite parts of my job.
I love love love that I have the privilege of making something to honor these amazing, genius, righteous, hardworking kids that I hope will make them feel good about themselves and that will preserve their memories of the fun week that they had with the other finalists. I want them to treasure this video for the rest of their lives. I love that I get to try to tell their story—and I really do try with all my heart, which is why it's so hard deciding on the one thing that each student gets to say in the video. I want the world to realize how wonderful they are. Hopefully, other kids will watch these videos, learn about these opportunities, and be inspired to pursue science too. When I do these kinds of projects, I do feel that I've some purpose in the world, even though I end up feeling a bit like a ghost that vicariously experiences the kids' fun and bonding sadly without actually getting to spend any time with them, boooo. It was difficult, but in the end, I feel good about this trip.
Initially, I had planned to stay an extra day in DC afterwards to check out the city and fly back on the 16th.... When my grandpa's funeral was decided to be on the 16th (I was so scared it'd happen during my trip), I changed my flight to come back on the 15th (today) instead.
Last night, I was up until 3 AM because of picking up the gala footage and transferring it... I was supposed to wake up at 5:30 AM. I overslept and missed my flight... I don't know if it's my phone's fault, or if I really slept through 4 rounds of alarms even though I woke up to my coworker's call... but I was so so so upset, stressed out, and angry.......... This is a huge mistake I'm deeply embarrassed about. So I made a call to the airline and LUCKILY was able to reschedule for another flight on the same day although it's costly. ;; I cried through the entire call because I was so afraid that I would miss my grandpa's funeral.
My grandpa was apparently just fine, then suddenly hospitalized, and he passed away 3 days later. Unfortunately, since it happened so quickly and unpredictably, I didn't have a chance to visit him. Can you imagine...if even after I changed my flight once already, I still missed the chance to see him and say goodbye one last time? I wouldn't be able to live with myself; I'd regret it and be haunted by it forever... >< That was fucking stressful. I'm still upset that this happened and that I may have almost missed the funeral. I cried a lot at the airport. Honestly, this I'm not entirely recovered from yet and I'm sure tomorrow's funeral is going to break me even further. I'm thankful that I will make it there, but I don't look forward to it.
