the gis of ‘eunice exists!!’
i genuinely feel pretty happy about this first articlussy ƪ(˘⌣˘)ʃ♡☆༄
the trailer :<
“i feel like im reading a tumblr post not a newspaper article”
“i’m not gonna lie I understood 10% of it”
“overall very nice and i think it gives a realistic perspective into a small quokkie’s life in college”
introduction >:
i had to do an elevator pitch recently as part of a workshop thingy — and it made me realize, talking about yourself is extremely hard. like, what if “i’m MALIGNING you by not being my full, genuine, authentic self? then i’m lying and that’s HORRIBLE — it’s time to burn at the stake in hell, even god can’t save me now” vibes.
you know, it’s actually really funny because i’ve spent a LOT of time worrying about this article, but the trailer + first paragraph basically tells you everything you need to know about what to expect from ‘eunice exists!!’
tl;dr: i am unhinged, i am constantly hrrgy, and i see the world as a series of long, winded, run-on sentences that somehow go everywhere and nowhere at all.
my sister emeri says that there are only two constants in life — change and yourself, and she’s right (older sisters are always right!!) i experience constant emotional turmoil (change) & i am indeed eunice (myself).
welcome to ‘eunice exists!!’ it’s me!! i’m eunice!!! i exist!!!! onwards, babygirls, as we venture into the great, beautiful, unknown cosmos that is life.
side note: what’s a hrrg? :C
well, i’m so glad you asked! also, it’s probably good for me to explain this given that i’ll be saying this A LOT in my articles (this article alone has 34 counts of the word hrrg) — plus, it always comforts me to realize that i’m not the only once experiencing these feelings, so i hope it can do the same for you.
hrrg is more of a vibe than anything else, but if i had to define it: a feeling of stress/shame that may not be rational, yet you can’t help but feel it anyways. hrrg can be used as a adjective, noun, verb, anything you want, really! ex: “i’m feeling so hrrgy today :(” “oh my god i hrrged all over the place” “do you want to talk about your hrrgs uwu?”
side side note — ultimately, the most important thing to remember is that you never hrrg alone ♡ it may sound cheesy, but i’m being so for real.
especially at a place like mit, where extreme hosage and hrrg can often feel like the default state of existence, it can be easy to drown yourself in a hrrgalicious frenzy — but i hope you can remember there are so many people who love you and want to support you!
whether that’s a friend, a family member, gra, professors/ta’s, s^3, there are plenty of people who want you to succeed and do well! plus, if this helps — there’s a 99% chance that i’m experiencing massive hrrgs right now too, because to be honest i always am. so at least that’s one other person hrrging with you!!~ and i’m rooting for you, always ٩(ˊᗜˋ*)و ♡
a proper introduction! :O
hello!! it’s very nice to meet you. my name is eunice. you can also refer to me as euni, moonicorn iphone7, don moonicorleone, or the love of your mother’s life ;)
i am a queer, chinese-american girl (?? woman ??? feminine-presenting person ???? idk, gender is weird and scary ;-;). i really enjoy eating bread + nyommy foods, and appending -ussy to every single word possible. i grew up in a number of beautiful places, which you’ll learn more about if you stick around for this column :D
speaking of places… you know what’s a pretty cool place?
mit!! let me tell you more about that! i’m an urban planning & computer science (11-6) major, because i really like trains. (side note: one of the best decisions i ever made was declaring 11-6 instead of 6-3. “you’re not going to find a job anyways, so you might as well do something you like,” as my lovely & brutally honest friend jess so kindly put it.)
my primary spheres of existence here are beast (2e on east campus; nertz, haikus, and waffle night!), mit esp (educational studies program; we run splash!), and of course, the tech (you should join us!! email tt-join@mit.edu — we have good food and even better people ♡).
this introduction is getting long, but it’d be remiss to truly introduce myself without talking about the most important people in my life — my sisters: zizi, emeri, and emmanuelle.
they are the best things that have ever happened to me and probably the best thing that ever will; there will never be enough words or ways to explain the depth of how much love i have for them.
it is very rare for words to not capture the intensity of my feelings, and this is one of those times. how can i possibly put into the words the feeling of knowing there are three gorgeous, beautiful, amazing, pussy-popping slay QUEENS(!!) who have supported me unconditionally through my lowest lows and highest highs?
words couldn’t possibly give justice to this feeling — it’s love, and true love is something you feel in your heart rather than intellectualize in your brain.
while i may say “my story,” it’s really “our story” — my life is inextricably also the life of my sisters — every time we cried together and smiled together; every time we laughed over degenerate memes on instagram, called the quokka signal in times of great distress, had blowout arguments over that one (1) pair of abercrombie shorts.
my life is a story of knowing — knowing always, that there are maybe only two, but really three constants in my life — change, myself, and the eternal love of my sisters. i love them for all the words, memories, and stories we’ve shared together — i love them with all of this, and then a thousand times more.
what’s a GIS? O:
over the summer, i started a practice of writing ‘general intent statements’ (GIS!) for my new projects — basically, a GIS is a document explaining what i’m doing, why i’m doing it, and then any other thoughts or vibes i was in the mood to share at the time of writing.
first, the meta-GIS of the GIS — why GIS?
i get stressed and depressed very often, and when this happens it’s extremely easy to rapidly descend into a hrrg spiral. reasons for having a hrrg spiral can range from anything from “oh my god this person HATES me” even though i have zero (0) evidence of this being true or “oh my god i have no friends i’ll be a lonely potato forever :((((”
but ultimately, all forms of hrrg spiral end in one place and one place only: “life sucks, everything sucks, i suck.” in a way, it’s oddly comforting because (1) there’s a sense of familiarity — i’ve been here, experienced the bottom of the spiral before, and i’ve gotten through it before. (2) i’m not alone, hrrg spirals are universal!
and while rational eunice knows that these hrrgs are Objectively Not True™, stressed and depressed eunice does not. so having a GIS is nice to ground myself, to know that while current eunice is operating under a “oh no this is horrible and embarrassing and scary and weird and i just want to go back into my cozy cave room and hibernate like a turtle” mindset, rational eunice has Reasons and Rationale™ for writing this campus life article!
GIS: what is this column? :}
this is a column where i exist & share my thoughts about existing. period, on god, QED!
i have many, many, many ideas for this column — including but by absolutely no means limited to:
an extended remix of my soliloquy about “the joys and terrors of public transportation” (the joys are unbelievably wonderful and the terrors are unbelievably horrifying)
how alpha-beta-omega fanfiction unironically provides invaluable insight into societal gendered dynamics
the best romance songs to listen to as part of your self-actualization journey
most importantly, why the best thing you can do for yourself is to always be kind!
someone asked me recently what exactly my column is going to be like – to be honest, i have no clue. you can think about it as a biweekly blog/random rant/philosophy hrrg crisis space, i guess?
i say biweekly, but honestly — this is mit, the firehose drowns everyone in hrrgs. so if i disappear for an issue, it’s probably because i’m dying in psets or being generally stressed. while i can’t promise any sense of consistency or normality, i can say with confidence there will be more to come of ‘eunice exists’, just you wait!! >:)
GIS: why this column? :{
> I GOT REJECTED FROM THE MIT ADMISSIONS BLOG!!
i applied to be an mit admissions blogger and was rejected. at this point, you can probably see what’s coming next, LOL — i hrrged and brrged all over the place “oh no, this means my writing is MEANINGLESS and TERRIBLE.” the admissions blog is like, the golden standard of epicness for being an mit student writer, in many peoples’ minds.
so i hrrged for a couple days, and then i was like, hold the fuck up.
with all love & respect eunice, you deserve better than moping and crying all day over this. you are cool and nice and squishy and very badass!! rejection is a natural part of life. at the end of the day, i’m proud of myself for at least trying — i’d never have known what could have been if i didn’t at least try.
still, it’s always easy to focus on people’s Cool Things and Accomplishments™ and forget the many strewn side paths that it takes someone to get there. so i hope that this makes this column feel a little less scary and a little more approachable!
> I LOVE WRITING!!!
as the iconic line from mr. brightside by the killers goes, “it started out with a kiss, how did it end up like this?” from a purely aesthetic purpose, this is just perfect. but also, i feel like it pretty much encapsulates my writing journey.
in 6th grade, my best friends and i were absolutely obsessed with the warrior’s cats series by erin hunter. if you’ve read it before, you are probably nodding in mutual commiseration. if you haven’t, it’s beyond unhinged — tl;dr: a bunch of wild cats form clans, fall in love, argue, meow, and are extremely feral.
what better way to honor art than imitation?
hence, the collaborative self-insert roleplay warrior’s fanfiction (“her belly SLICED OPEN and four kits LEAPED out of her stomach” for a very accurate rendition of the cat birthing process). from there, “the rest is rust and stardust” (obligatory i-do-not-endorse-lolita disclaimer, i just really like this line :C) — writing and i were meant to be together from then on, and ever since.
in middle & high school, i was really depressed. when you get depressed, it’s easy to forget all the good things in life. sometimes that’s all i can feel about that time; a sense of embarrassment & shame that existing was so painful. and yet, i remember the writing.
illicit pusheen drawings & commentary post-it note exchanges that got me put in time-out for disrupting class in 6th grade, conducting a full-fledged assessment of my attraction level to every boy in my middle school science bowl team in my very first journal, reading the same egyptian historical fiction romance novel a hundred times in one summer.
if you want to find my childhood, all you need to do is look into the lines of prose and paragraphs that i read & wrote. it started out with unhinged feral cat fanfiction, and i don’t know how it’s going to end up — maybe, like this?
the point being — writing got me through the hardest times in life; it’s how i tell people i love them; it’s my way of making peace with the past and beginning to look forward to the future; and it’s how i #livelaughlove (YAS_slay!)
to me, writing is everything — a steadfast anchor in vast turbulence of a world full of hrrgs and unexpected outcomes. it’s the fiber of my being and root of my soul — the first true love of my life.
> I LOVE NEWSPAPERS!!!
i have a huge soft spot for newspapers — i’ve been doing this stuff ever since elementary school; all through middle school, high school, and now in college.
nothing can compare to the tender feeling of a freshly printed edition of the tech in my hands (haikussies!!); highlighting an event or person that reminds you that life is beautiful; and of course the frustration of “HOW do i get rid of this goddamn accursed orphan line >:(” have kept me company through the many ups & downs in the rollercoaster of life.
to me, newspapers are most special in the way that they create community — the writers & photographers; interviewees & readers; designers & editors — while we all have different lived experiences, in the end we’re all working towards the same goal: make something beautiful.
in a time when it’s so easy to feel like one among (us ඞ [of]) billions, i found friends and family through newspapers of all different shapes and forms. they breath color into life – lighting up the threads of our connections with others which
if you want rage and hurt, love and laughter — if you want life, it’s all in these pages, really.
> IT’S BETTER TO BE IMPERFECT THAN NONEXISTENT!!!!!
it’s always easier to take the leap of faith when someone has done it before you. over the summer, a friend made the jump of a LIFETIME! (he posted a blog article on substack).
i read it many times because it was really good, particularly: “it is okay if things do not go perfectly, or even “well”, whatever that means. sometimes, they just need to happen.”
and i was like. wow. that resonated with me a lot.
i’ve wanted to write a reflective piece like this — stories about myself, not just stories of and for others (though i love those too!!) — for years now. but i had so many hrrgs that prevented me from writing — oh, my silly strings of words are nothing special, they’re Windy & Long & Convoluted & Weird & Strange! or, what meaningful could i possibly have to share with the world? D:
yet the way he said it made it sound simple — just try, you know? get over the fear and take the jump, because sometimes you just need to do it. the hrrgs of i “could have done this better,” “should have done this earlier,” ”would have [liked to spend more time with your father last night ;)]” will never go away, hrrgs are an unavoidable part of experiencing life in all it’s beauty and chaos.
over the course of writing this article, my mentality has switched from “wow i’m like the next joan didion of the literary world. y’all should be on your KNEES singing praises for me >:C” to “wow i’m like. such a horrible untalented writer i should go hide in a shed and never ever leave D:” probably a million times.
but like life, the answer is often in the in between — cliché as is, nothing is black or white. my writing is neither perfect nor worthless — it’s real, it’s here, and it’s finally happening!! in some ways i’ve truly been waiting my whole life for this moment, and i’m so glad to share this with you!!
conclusion :3
i read this really great fanfiction in high school about being queer (real), desperately simping for a coworker/friend/person (too real), and the “mortifying ideal of being known” (TOO REAL).
the fanfic was banger [and the two main characters indeed ended up banging, thank god], but the author’s note had me astral projecting into heaven at how amazing it was. the first time i read it, i sat there for a solid 30 minutes, truly at a loss for words.
the author’s note went something like — i see you; you in the closet, you simping desperately for someone who doesn’t know, you living this sort of story. i see you; and i’m glad you’ve seen me, too (eunice’s paraphrased remix edition).
sometimes, i have this belief that my thoughts and ideas only have meaning if someone else tells me they do. i crave validation (so valid tbh), of someone else saying that they appreciate what i have to say.
but this weekend, i went to “stupid fucking bird,” a phenomenal, vibrant, funny production by mit lost, and it made me realize that maybe this doesn’t matter as much as i make it matter in my head. the main character of the play conrad, a struggling playwright, is the definitional prototype of a man ROLLING in the hrrgs.
i never thought i would meet someone more hrrgy than myself, but then i saw him soliloquy about how horrible his life was. being hrrgy is never a competition, but if it was, this man takes the first place on the podium anyday.
conrad has a really hrrgy relationship with his mother, a famous actor with a famous writer girlfriend (!! i just love women !!) he’s really mad at his mom, hates his mom’s girlfriend, and his girlfriend abandons him to make out with his mom’s girlfriend — like i said, ultimate hrrg.
beyond conrad’s poor hrrg struggles, the play features a lot of interesting discourse about why we create art — is it to make something real, or just to be remembered forever? is it to transform the world with new ideas, or just to receive external validation?
often, i wonder — am i just writing this for validation? for someone else to tell me “good job!” or “i really enjoyed hearing what you said!” honestly, yes.
because people telling me they appreciate me feels good, that’s natural! and at the same, i genuinely feel pretty happy about this first artiCLussy ƪ(˘⌣˘)ʃ♡☆༄ these two perspectives aren’t mutually exclusive, & they can both coexist inside my cute little brain!
yes, this article is Windy & Long & Convoluted & Weird & Strange. yes, it’s probably completely incomprehensible to 99% of the population because i fully understand that “artiCLussy” and “hrrg” are completely made up words. yes, i’m definitively partly doing this for external validation and compliments.
nevertheless, i tried my best! at the end of the day, that’s all we can do, and so i am very proud of myself! and to you reading this — even if we never speak face-to-face, i’d like to tell you one last thing.
just like that author’s note — through my writing, in my own way, i’ve seen you and you’ve seen me. i’m so grateful for that — thank you, truly, for reading to the end. i appreciate you deeply.
love myself,
and you-all-ways,
eunice ♡