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How many of you stumble upon complaint/rant blogs about something frivolous? I come across these all the time & I know that I complain about the dumbest things sometimes too. 
This week I had 5 exams that stressed me out. Somewhere between Monday & Wednesday, I realized that I was complaining to people about my exams when there are thousands of people who have bigger problems. Millions of people suffer from starvation & thousands are killed in an act of genocide. Each day for them is a gift as they might not live to see the next. They can never plan anything past 24 hours.
But for most of us, especially me, we have the next 5 years of our lives planned. If we haven’t planned on where we want to be in 5 years, at least we know we’ll still be around & have plans or goals. We’re all so incredibly lucky, despite any of our situations, you know that you’re luckier than a starving child whose parents were shot in front of them. We have access to the internet, the opportunity to get an education, job, & we take everyday for granted because each passing minute is a fact. Those less fortunate don’t know whether or not the next minute will guarantee them life or death.
On a less extreme scale, a lot of us take our parents for granted. I know that not everyone’s parents are wonderful people & it made me realize how much I take my wonderful parents for granted. They’ve given me everything I’ve ever needed to succeed & when I do something that disappoints them, it hurts me. 
That’s why I’ve never done drugs or gotten drunk. I know how disappointed they’d be if they ever found out. I strive really hard to be the daughter that they can be proud of because I’m proud to be their daughter. 
I don’t tell them I love them everyday but I love them more than they know. Whenever I write them a sweet letter, they don’t believe me. It’s hard for me to express how I feel orally without crying so I always write letters…yet they think I’m lying. ^_^
On April 21st, I found out that I got accepted to University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). I couldn’t believe it & I hurt my foot from jumping around with glee. 
My parents gave me hugs. They’re so proud of me! I started to cry tears of joy. For the last two years, I’ve felt like a complete failure to my parents. Whenever their colleagues would ask me where I attended college, I felt ashamed to tell them I went to a community college because most people associate them with losers. Now, my parents can proudly say, “my daughter goes to UCLA,” & I can finally be proud of myself. 
My parents have been so supportive but I’ve been really hard on myself. I can’t thank them enough for giving me shelter, food, clothing, books, a DSLR, a laptop, a 2009 BMW 328i, & most importantly, an education. I’m lucky that we’re pretty wealthy so I don’t have to stress out over balancing a job & paying for tuition. I only hope that when I have kids of my own, the only thing they’ll ever stress about is an exam…& hopefully they won’t get into crazy shenanigans.
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25 Comments on “The Things We Take For Granted”
I’m so fucking happy for you. *hugs* Congratulations on getting into UCLA!! <33 You should be proud of yourself, and so should your parents.
Your blog made me a little teary knowing about my rocky relationship with my parents (mostly my mum). ;( I know they love me but my mum has told me that there isn't much about me to be proud of except for my good looks (yeah, she said that). She doesn't think I went far with ballet or piano, and the getting-into-university thing sort of died.
I remember almost crying before the results came out, and I told my mum I was super worried I would fail and not get in. My parents were a little ashamed to tell everyone what school I went to in high school. Yes, it was gifted/talented, but it wasn't the best school in the state. And for Asians, apparently it's not good. I don't know, I've had so many people gape in shock knowing I went to a gifted/talented school – something has led me to think that I'm not as smart as people think.
My parents were right to get angry at me for the marks I got in high school; they went down terribly and my maths was absolutely terrible. I know, my friends got 20s and 30s (percentages) but at 40s and 50s, I really wasn't doing well, even with a tutor.
Now it kind of makes me upset knowing that I'm so terrible. Sigh. Anyway I'll stop rambling. #_#
I haven't written a letter to my parents; it's not really… something I'd do… and I doubt they would read it either. Sometimes I wish they would snoop around on my blog or something to find the nice things I've said about them… I'm sure there are some.
Okay I'm getting mopey. O-o;
But nevertheless, I look at what's good in my future… there are good things.
yeah, there are a ton. I don’t trust the free ones. we had free ones on the desk top, and they never protected anything, seeing as it always got viruses lol. I’d rather pay and know what I’m getting out of it
yeah, very true, but I love it! it’s much more organized or whatever.. i can’t think of theword lol. I like that it groups things up, and its not full of tabs, and the fact that it just uses the icon to show what you are using
o0o lucky you! yeah, I’m afraid to get it, cause if i plug my ipod in, it’ll write over it and so all my songs will be gone and i don’t want to get a music downloader.. oh well lol. I’ll just charge it in the car
its ok i tried looking on google and they all said the same thing! but it didnt work :/ and my scroll lock isnt turned on lol.
youre so right.. we complain about the little things in life, when there are people who have it much worse. There are people even in our communities who have it bad. you hear kids these days crying because they don’t have an ipod or a cell phone, they don’t realize that there are people out there who struggle to just have something to wear, or clean water to drink!
aww youre so cute! lol, I know what you mean though, I could never express how I feel face to face without crying or tearing up. I’d write a letter as well :p
OMG, congrats on getting into UCLA!! I know you wanted that one so badly!
Sure! :] I’d love that 
Let me make a little section for that :] Thank you!
& Okayy, I need help installing it x] .
Omg, I can’t believe you got into UCLA. I am so jealous. It’s one of my dream colleges…but sadly I’m stuck in the dump known as London. Gah. Tiff, if you don’t pass and work hard at UCLA, I will snap your legs in half if your parents don’t :pirate: So what are you taking there? And of course, congratulations that you got in, and I hope the year is going great so far.
Without a doubt, you are just plain lucky. I’m glad things are going well for some people. 
omg yesss, safe driving theres always those crazy drivers you can take control of though
my parents love me, i know and i love them but i do take them for granted sometimes i realize it and i try to do my part. like my mom does the dishes and do the laundry and everything, even though she has a full time job. i just can’t find the strength to help her out and i’m always bringing more problems for her… i feel horrible sometimes. but when i grow up and make the money money, i hope to give everything back !
congrats on the univeristy acceptance!! your parents should be proud of you thats a big accomplishment!
DAMN your December contest prize link was a 404. NUUUUU. Oh well you can just email it to me instead or whatever. ;D
It’s hard! I really do love my parents – my mum is the one who I have problems with… but it’s just hard to feel so loving when these things happen all so regularly.
I AM EFFING SO HAPPY FOR YOU. I wish I could go on a plane and give you a hug and dance! 8D I don’t know why but this just reminded me of the forum which I visited today after a while not visiting. I was just spilling guts out in the debate forum lulz.
I know I’m having a break and other stuff but I’m such a lazy ass and I keep watching The Big Bang Theory and not doing my assignments. I know I’ll get it done on time and everything… but seriously my mind is like “NOT NOWWWW”.
Asian parents always compare lmao. My parents always compared me with others in high school. Now they don’t really know too much about my many university friends, tehee. They don’t ask me about my marks so much.
Yeah OMG speaking of ballet, I called so she could mail me the certificate or tell me when I could pick it up… she hasn’t fucking called back! Maybe she’s sick or on holiday, which is fine, but it’s been a while and no email reply either. :S :S :S
I don’t think I complained THAT much about wireless though hahahahah. Oh man it’s bad though; I’m lying in my bed in the wee hours of the morning and using the internet. I’m going to get more addicted than I already am… if that is possible. D:
My friend’s middle name was Xiaomin and she said no one could pronounce it hahha. My ex’s was Ming Yang (mun yan?)… LMAOLMAO. I told you about James’s right…? Or not? Tin Kin. hahha.
Aww Tiff!! I have also pondered about this, most of the time whenever I start complaining too. It’s really quite a coincidence that we Tiffs thought of exactly the same thing. I mean what are our problems compared to one teenager in the poorer parts of Africa? We’re probably so preoccupied with omg i need good grades when their problem is actually trying to find food. We are indeed so fortunate! CONGRATS FOR BEING ACCEPTED WOOT! Knew that you could do it! Man I’m soo exciitedd for you!!
PANDA STRIKES BACK *replies*
It’s okay if you don’t watch all the videos, it’d be cool if you do though because I only share the things I think worth watching, or… you know, a fun video after a day of hard work or something XD hahhaa!!
I can’t wait to read your movie reviews! I have yet to write a REAL one. I’m trying to be a film connoisseur if that’s possible XD I do indeed love films!
Sorry about the font I tried making it a size bigger but it looked weird though 
hahaha! and about the ads, CRAP I’VE NO IDEA WHY it’s like that
agree! NO MORE HOMEWORK saves Mother Earth!! XD hahaha
Congrats on getting into UCLA!! That’s really really great for you. Though I don’t see anything wrong with going to a community college, I’ll probably end up in one because we really can’t afford a big college. :/
A lot of people really do take their daily lives for granted. I’ve realized, studying history and recent events, that our fortunate lives are just happy accidents. We could’ve been born in Sudan or South America, where genocide and drug wars take lives every day. But, because of luck of birth, we’re born in America, and we never have to worry about those kinds of things. And it’s ridiculous how lucky we are, but there are events going on in the world that we’re so oblivious to, in our happy bubbles. I find it hard to fathom that in this day and age, such horrible things can be going on.
As far as my parents go… eh. I feel bad, like our misfortune is my fault, but I don’t think I necessarily take them for granted. :/
which spam protection do you use? i use GC so i guess it didnt affect me D:
my grandma usually does the cooking and my mom does the cleaning up and im always the lazy one.. its horrible but i can never find the strength from the day to help out…
ohgosh graduate school does cost a lot! another reason why i needa find a job so i can help out my parents a bit!
First Comment:
I think my blogs are sometimes dumb too (you can read my new blog lol), so yea. Anyway yea everyone takes things for granted. I feel like we live in a different world them though, at the same time, like for them the worst thing is starving while ours might be like not having a car when you get your license, I think it’s society. Our society puts pressure on us for the glamor stuff but kids in third world countries, in their society they just need food. It’s quite sad how lucky we have it at times and they have nothing. On another note, congrats on UCLA. lol are you going there for 2 years? Why did you go to a community college-I forget the reason why.
Yea we got into an argument, I think it’s just of life anyway, we are fine now though. Do you still talk to Evan? I know he just went to Iceland. And for Bamboozle, the road tour has better lineups lol, or I think lol. Warped tour has a better lineup. Kesha can’t really sing haha, but her songs are SO catchy, At first I didn’t really like her but one of my friends does and she got me to like her lol.
Second Comment:
Good luck with your friends on choosing somewhere to go lol. And happy almost birthday I think my MC/DJ made them dance, he looked like Chris Brown and moved pretty well lol he wouldn’t let anyone sit lol.
But like I really like him, he was super nice and he was loyal. Anyway my other friends (the guys), one of them thinks he got dumber. I think he thinks I’m not cool enough for him anyway. haha well you know, I am 100x smarter than him. Fucking Jersey shore look a like… he’s gonna turn into one.
That is so true, I think about that all the time when I read people complaining about stupid things, however, we all do complain and take things for granted, it is very sad.
Btw, RISD stands for Rhode Island School of Design. Its the 3rd top art school in the US! I wanna go for movie special effects, idk if i put that in my post lol. Thanks for the comment!
Hello my first time to visit here,
WOW, Congrats for passing UCLA. That is an achievement for you.
I can relate well to your post.
I really agree on what is written in your post. Sometimes mom doesnt believe me but they really dont know how much I love them
Action speaks louder than words. right?
Congrats again :3 You’re having a good life
Ahahahaha that reminds me of something I did too… I was spamming someone’s tagboard under a fake name but accidentally put mine… far out. LOL. I nearly left a comment on my own site as James because he used my computer once to leave a comment – and WordPress had logged me out.
Aww, I threw away my CD player for a record player. ;D It really does sound better.
THANKS! The award works now ahhaha.
LOL I swear, I told a lot of people. I guess I didn’t tell you haha. That’s mean of him making fun of your belly! Don’t worry, I have one too. All my weight goes to my tummy, blah. Taco would be a hilarious name for a baby though!
I used to love the name Madeline watching that television show. So cute. :’) I used to really like names like Crystal and Gemma and Demetra. Now I think they’re kind of lame. XD
Oh and I emailed you, you should use the squirrel picture! It’ll be a challenge sort of. As if the contest itself isn’t already a challenge hehe.
UGH I got some of my assignment done today but I’m such a lazy ass. It’s fucking cold here today too. ;_;
I’ve done about 50% of my assignment though – I think I’m safe? :B
WOOO~ talk to you soon! <3
Ah, you’re lucky you don’t have gangs in your area. It’s not as bad as it used to be, but it’s still pretty scary. My boyfriend hates walking past them at night when he’s with me. They target “couples” on purpose knowing the girl won’t be able to help the guy. Sucks. Haha, my school was the same! So glad I don’t go anymore. XD
Yeah, you can always tell the genuine ones from the ones who are attention seeking, though. You’re only a 26 in pants? (IDK if the sizes are different here or not..) but I’m a 27 and I’m skinny as it is haha! I hate being skinny.
Lol oh dear. I rant about the most stupidest things sometimes, I know. I can’t help it, a lot of things annoy me haha.
I did actually write a similar blog to this (but I lost it). It’s cause I kept seeing girls saying “OMG MY PHONE BROKE, MY LIFE IS SO SHIT” erm yeah, shut up.
I admit, I used to take my mum for granted. I mean, she does literally everything for me, washes and irons my clothes, cooks my dinner, buys my shower stuff, cloths etc and I’m 21…
Lately, I’ve been appreciating her more. I mean, she has quite a lot of health problems and even had a stroke a couple of years ago and it made me realise how much I do take her for granted. I couldn’t live without my mum, seriously.
WOOO congrats on getting into UCLA!!! That’s awesome, you should be proud of yourself.
Am I commenting on the right blog? lol
It’s always fun to have a bitch/complaint. It’s also fun to read about them.
You might not have the biggest problem in the world, but it’s always okay to complain about the little things. As long as you don’t have a large paragraph of how you broke your nail. That would be a little ridiculous.
That is a pretty scary thought, how people plan the next 5 years. I hardly plan the next five minutes. That’s probably why I don’t have a job. 
Haha your blog is kind of scaring me. I don’t like to think that way. But you do make a wonderful point. We are very lucky, and we shouldn’t take our health for granted.
My mum is one of my best friends. I always call her, every few days. If she doesn’t call me, then I worry. My father passed away, and I don’t regret one second of the time we had. I considered him a great friend. I never wished bad upon him like I do with my mum sometimes. (she can be mean). But I only knew him for thirteen years before he passed. I sometimes wish people would be kinda and appreciate the time they have with their parents. But it can be hard sometimes.
I didn’t go to university. In fact, I dropped out of a really good and expensive school. I only made it to the first few weeks of year eleven.
What are you going to study?
wow. its been so long since I’ve seen a blog which actually appreciates things rather than rant on and on. Wow, thats really good that your grateful for everything you have; its a wonderful quality.
good luck with the university.
really? i dont think ive had a problem with the math spam before !!
ohgoshh… SPAMMERS. what i do, is i check the option in wordpress, where you have to approve commenters. and if you approved once, you dont have to anymore. like i approved your comment once, so everytime you comment again, i wont have to because i know youre not a spammer
aw man lucky ! i have school until end of june.. and school starts again in september…
bath bombs are bombs in your tub hehe! you just put it in and it like sizzlessssssssss. yeahh , kinda makes the tub filled with the goodies so you can relax in it
Damn long blog Tiff xD But congrats on getting into UCLA! That’s really exciting!
I completely get how your parents don’t believe you. I mean, I really appreciate my parents, even if they haven’t been the best parents they could have been. But I don’t have the problem quite as much where they don’t believe me when I tell them I love them, because I think they finally get it. But I have a hard time sharing things, personal things, with them, because they DON’T believe me.
Oh, guess what! I’m going to probably be in California this summer! One of my best friends, who I haven’t seen in FIVE YEARS, lives SoCal, and we finally made plans for me to go visit!
great blog post. sometimes i get so frustrated that there is hardly anything to eat in my house, then i think, wow why am i complaining when there are starving kids all over the world. i can just go out and buy something instead of being all sad about it.
congrats on getting into UCLA btw
Hey Tiff (: Thanks for the wishes, but we unfortunately lost our last round (mock trial) lol we got to the finals and got an award though I hope the midterms went well!
You’ve said numerous wise things before, but what you said above could very well be one of the wisest. I’ve obviously been complaining about having a million tests all week haha but you’re totally right. It’s not something worth complaining about. :/
CONGRATTTTTTTSSS ON UCLAAAAAAA!!!! I’m gonna be there this summer actually lol
Congrats again for getting accepted into UCLA! Make us proud, haha and if you meet a girl named Shirley Chen, tell her I said Hi. Have you decided your major?
I know exactly what you mean about parents. I mean, my mom screams at me for stupid things often, but I was watching Full House (white version) the other day and in Season 6, Stephanie’s friend Charles was getting physically abused by his dad and often has these ‘accidents’. Needless to say, Stephanie had to endure that and not tell anyone his secret, but in the end, she did. Anyhoo, thinking about a situation like that makes me really appreciate the parents I have.
He’s not a TRUE guido, considering we are only 16 haha. But i bet he will start tanning. He has like shorter hair (that he probably will gel soon again) and he wears muscle shirts and looks like he wants to beat someone up. He goes to the gym everyday (and between us, he takes booster pills). And we are from Jersey (if you seen Jersey Shore) we have a lot of imitators here…wow jersey must seem like such a bad place to live…
Wait what are the state colleges you didn’t want to go too? and isn’t UCLA a state college? (i want to collegeboard it haha). Anyway i know my friend wants to go to Community college and transfer. Right now i am all like college hyped haha, i am looking at colleges (so i know what to get on SAT and ACT) lol. WOW UCLA HAS 40% ASIANS… all the schools i want to go to have like 1% haha… that would be me i guess. However good luck on being a dermatologist. I love how people are becoming like dermatologist and dentist instead of just saying they want to go to pre-med (not knowing) i think that is cool. One of my friends said he wanted to be a dentist and i thought that was really cool.
I think society is mixed in with the government and economy. It’s quite sad that people in our own country are living poorly while we are helping others.. i know that might sound selfish, but there are some people in the U.S. highly effected by the economy and we are providing aid to other countrieis? i think we should help us.. but then again what do i know.
This is so true. It’s really sad to think of the people that literally cannot plan the next five years of their lives, because they are that uncertain as to whether they have five years left to live.
I think about how we take parents for granted all the time. Some days I feel so sick of them or fed up, over something really trivial like them telling me to go to bed (okay, usually not that trivial, but…), and then I think about how awful it would be if I woke up and they were gone….
I suppose one way you can think about it is if exams are stressing you, your life is alright
Last time I went to retry returning your comment your site was down for me It’s just my computer I think, and now you’ve written a new blog D: But well here’s what I was going to say…
Five exams? That’s a lot! Well yeah every time I want to complain I always remind myself not to because there are actually tons of people out there who are more miserable than I am… I should consider myself lucky. Starving people, people who don’t get education, who don’t have parents, who don’t have things that we have which are very important for them.
I was so pissed off when people I know in real life were dying to get the newest gadgets by begging their parents and became desperate. They should open their eyes widely. Those people out there don’t even have enough money to eat rice. They share a plate of rice for all the family members, let’s say consisting maybe around 4 or 5…. It’s sad.
I love my parents. They always give me anything that I need (though they don’t always give me anything that I want, but I understand), education, affection, they take me to different places and do different things for my experiences I’m glad to have parents like them, I won’t trade them for anything else. And I also am trying so hard to be a good daughter for them. It feels good when we make them happy, and hurts when we know we just disappoint them.
Congrats on getting into UCLA! Your parents must be very proud of you!
I know you’ve written a new blog, I’ll also go comment on your new blog, but you don’t need to return my comment twice. Just want to let you know what I think about this post… I really wanted to say something haha.
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