Feels The Same...

This is the antique store just down the street from my apartment. Don't know why I decided to take a picture of it; maybe it's because I walk by the place every morning/night when I go to the hospital/come back from it.

Feels like we never left for the summer. My course shows no sign of slowing down; if anything, it seems to be showing signs of "about-to-go-into-breakneck-speed"

My next door flatmate is a Canadian girl who sounds American; loud and pushy. When I say loud, I mean I can hear her on skype with her family through her door, my door, and our walls...even though our walls are buffered by her bathroom.....so theoretically I shouldn't hear anything. My flatmate last year never heard my music (and my parents know I listen to my music on the 'loud side'), I NEVER EVER heard her voice EVER.

And now I hear this girl...at 11.45 at night and I wanna sleeep. Oh well whatever, Ill get used to it. Hopefully I can zone her out like I zone out the outside traffic. I shall think ZEN, think good happy thoughts. All I can say is that my bed is so comfy, there is no reason for me NOT to fall asleep.

Anyway, the reason why I am online today is to say this:

Does my stay in Dublin make me someone who "runs from her issues/problems?"

Take this situation: I had a problem with a girl I know in my class. I increasingly found her selfish, patronizing, inconsiderate, and sometimes very rude last semester. I kept on finding excuses for her cuz she and I had a semi-solid friendship for the past year and a half, and I didnt want to ruin it.

Her one tragic flaw was this: She could not take constructive criticism. At all. Nada. Zilch.

Even when I quietly voiced concerns...or jokingly did it...or even put myself down on her behalf to tell her about the things she did to me that I didnt appreciate, she put me down, didn't talk to me, had a tantrum, or would scold me.

Simply put, I tried everything and nothing worked.

I guess I consider myself to be fairly flexible...as in I give ppl a lot of leeway when it comes to pushing my limits...but once the line is crossed, I zone out. Totally.

Well, she pushed my limits, and SOME MORE. To the point where I kept thinking that maybe I was being the impatient one, maybe I was being the terribly judgemental one (when she was the one who tried to make me live my life, just the way SHE LIVED HER LIFE...)....

She was one of my closest friends in Dublin, and so I thought
1) Maybe she's stressed cuz of exams?
2) Maybe I'm stressed! Maybe I am being too selfish!
3) This is a test...a test to see how well I can deal with ppl who are hard to deal with.

But it got a point until a lot of my friends around me, and my then-boyfriend voiced THEIR concerns and said "this is bad for you, because you are always upset because of her...you are not enjoying your last few weeks in Dublin, and you need to BRANCH AWAY from her"

So I said to myself "Oh well, I guess instead of approaching her again, I'll just give it some time...wait till the SUMMER ENDS...and see how it goes..." and just left it at that.

See, so many of us do this: "I'll give the summer to cool it off." or "I'll wait until I get back from vacation to figure this out." or "Well, I'm leaving Dublin so I guess I can forget about this already..." or "I'm leaving Japan so who cares, I dont really have to care about this..."

Does this make me/us/ppl who come and go from different places WEAKER?

It seems like we're RUNNING/FLYING/TRAVELLING away from our problems....

Cuz I came back from summer break...and this girl is STILL THE SAME...and I'm still trying to figure out what to do...cuz she still has NO CLUE and interacts with me like I'm the same Rie....when actually, I'm slowly but surely tuning out more than half of the things she say..and practising zen everytime she comes near me.

Oh dear....

That's why I say...."Feels The Same....." cuz sometimes, things really don't change.