A True Underdog Story

Baghdad, IRAQ - Earlier this week during a surprise visit to tour Iraq, soon-to-be unemployed President George Bush was met with a double dose Iraqi love. In a surprise of all surprises, the American President, whose party has recently lost to the the incumbent Senator Barack Obama, D-Ill. for the upcoming term, was fielding questions through a translator during a run-of-the-mill press conference, when he was suddenly involved in what the Iraqi people have recently called "Shoe Loveball."

Unfortunately for the President, he was once again ill-informed about the Iraqi people. The translator was just about to warn the President about the game but was not nearly quick enough. Before anyone could realize what was about to transpire, two shoes from an Iraqi journalist were flung at the Presidential podium.

According to the official rules of Iraqi Shoe Loveball, any person hit twice with a single person's shoe is legally betrothed to the owner of the shoe and bound by Allah into a subservient marriage. If the first shoe hits, but the second shoe misses, then the thrower of the shoe is allowed one suicide bombing in any territory within the victim's ownership. If the second shoe hits after missing the first shoe, it is considered ultimate shame, and the thrower gets to make fun of the victim's mother for all eternity.

However, as stated, only if both shoes hit will the owner of the shoe be rewarded. The thrower in this case, is not rewarded with forced betrothal, but rather, rewarded with 72 virgins in heaven, on top of any accumulated virgins already earned. Only the owner of the shoe gains a new spouse if both shoes hit. The accurate thrower is rewarded in the afterlife and is usually recruited to the Afghan Hills, a friendly hunting team based somewhere in the caves around Mt. Noshaq, the highest point in Afghanistan. Their training is renowned for the thoroughness of its trainees and their fierce diplomatic prowess.

Luckily for President Bush, both shoes missed. According to the Official Handbook of Shoe Loveball, a supplementary pamphlet to the Qur'an with colored illustrations, anytime two shoes are thrown and both are missed, the recipient of the shoe-flinging is allowed to remained occupied in both the owner's and the thrower's countries. If the owner and the thrower of the shoes are from different countries, then the winner of the round is allowed to occupy both countries and gets to roll again.

Occupation of countries with the same color, like Boardwalk and Park Place, are of special value, since rent can be increased astronomically with the addition of hotels. For example, dodging two shoes from a thrower born in Syria, with the owner of the shoes born in Afghanistan (both Peach Territories) would be ideal in securing oil lines and surrounding larger markets like ever-friendly state of Iran. Such manipulation of international real estate is a valuable and viable alternative to the spiraling housing market of America. Bush thus has made progress.

This game is similar in principle to the American board game of Monopoly, which had a name change from the slightly less-popular "Worlddominationpoly." Actually, Shoe Loveball and Monopoly have nothing in common except for the fact that one party must own everything to win.

George Bush's dodging ability had never been questioned prior to his impromptu round of Shoe Loveball. He has been dodging legitimate reasons to go to Iraq for eight years, and this trip was no different.

Understandably, the game of Iraqi Shoe Loveball is a complicated and convoluted one, filled with ancient traditions and rules. However, one thing is certain: Bush's dodging of the shoes is an adequate metaphor for his regime's foot out the door of American politics. The Bush administration, however, has not completely failed. If anything, this week's shoe flinging finally brought to light the heinous weapons of mass destruction the Iraqi government was hiding all this time.

"I knew it," Bush replied, smiling as if he actually did.

A smile the majority of the country now equates accurately to trisomy 21.

Reporting nude and alone in Baghdad, Andrew Nguyen, AP.

Albert Lamorisse, Charles Darrow and Allah contributed to this story.

Rosebud...

The following is a list of things I want to accomplish before I die. The beauty of this list is that I don't have anything vague in here, such as "fall desperately in love" or "find eternal happiness." Those kinds of wishes point to the weaknesses of indecision and lack of creative happiness. If your are reading this, I want you to make a list and post it to me as a comment. And be serious (that's for you, Jag).

EDIT: It has been brought to my attention that a simple IM is better than a comment, so do whichever gives you most comfort! =)

25 THINGS TO ACCOMPLISH BEFORE DEATH:

1. Graduate from dental school.
2. Watch 5000 movies.
3. Garner a massive, wall-breaching DVD collection, only consisting of movies I love.
4. Take a cross-country road trip.
5. Have my honeymoon in Tahiti.
6. Visit the following places: Vietnam; Amritsar, India; Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong, China; the fjords of Norway; Ireland, Wales, UK; the Mediterranean coast; Jerusalem; Dubai.
7. Spend a whole day with the woman I love watching and singing along with Disney movies.
8. Have one of my good friends preside as a priest to my wedding (and baptizing my children too!).
9. Have my brother be my best man at my wedding, since it would be impossible to decide which one of my many good friends would be best man. I'll probably have 5 other groomsmen, haha.
10. Get (good) season tickets to see the Warriors.
11. Be able to bench press 250 pounds (and no more!).
12. Live to see marriage rights for same-sex couples, so all my friends have a right to get married.
13. Not say a word for an entire week.
14. Be involved in the making of a studio film, be it writing, acting or directing.
15. Win an Oscar (or at least get nominated).
16. Visit Disneyland everyday for a week with a group of friends with whom I know I'll never get tired.
17. Spend a whole day at the movies (that's the first showing of a movie until after a midnight showing).
18. I'd like to grow my hair out until I get a ponytail.
19. Then I'd like to shave my head.
20. Make a YouTube video that would get 1 million views and a 5 star rating.
21. Sing a duet with the woman I love in front of a large crowd.
22. Take a cruise across an ocean.
23. Finish my education in Spanish and Vietnamese. Learn Korean and French.
24. Own a sport bike.
25. Write a best-selling memoir.


As you can see, I will delay studying for finals for as long as necessary.

More School

I know it's not quite as late as I normally post, but I thought I'd be better off dedicating the rest of my night/morning to the age-old habit of studying. As old as time itself, pulling all-nighters has been a tradition of college students globally. Who am I to break and challenge tradition?

Tonight I feel obligated to relate a story. In lieu of my friend Travis leaving next semester, I thought I'd mention him before year's end. He came in my room today, accompanied by the ever-hilarious Craig Jeong (strangely not of Korean descent, but that's another story for another late night).

We swapped stories about fights and what-not. Charles relayed some hilarious ones about how he cried in the fifth grade. It has been awhile since I have personally been involved in a fight. Surprisingly, I haven't gone fist-to-fist with anyone here yet.

The closest I've been to a fight, as I told it to my four friends, was when I was at a house party a few months ago.

It was a rather large party, probably a bit over a hundred people there. Some people were intoxicated, and I'll refrain from revealing my own physical condition simply because I don't want to get too personal on such a public forum.

Anyways, people were intoxicated. As such, people got boisterous. As a matter of fact, there were multiple very loud people, many of which were Lakers' fans. Being from the Bay Area, I am naturally a Golden State Warriors fan. Inevitably, our love for our respective basketball teams clashed. It was an interestingly heated exchange, my one to their multitude.

So I was exchanging insults with a crowd of Lakers' fans, among them my roommate, Danny. One of these Lakers' fans had a friend named Steve, who was not a fan himself, but rather, was friends with the general crowd of raucous malcontents. While this exchange was happening, and it was happening rather chaotically, Danny was yelling at me, defending the honor of the beloved Los Angeles Lakers.

"Andrew!" he joked out loud. "Wanna take this outside? HUH? HUH?!"

I obviously had no desire to leave the premises of the party in order to engage in violent combat with a person from whom I slept six feet away every night. I'm pretty sure he didn't want to fight either.

However, neither of our opinions were shared by Steve, who quickly grabbed my collar and brought me close to his face. Now, Steve is not a very tall man, but nor was he lacking in strength. As a matter of fact, with that grab, I fully began to appreciate the bulk of his muscles. His biceps were roughly equivalent in size to a newborn rhinocerous, or a rhino calf (though I like Yahoo! user Nemo's answer best).

So he brought me close to him and said to me, "Hey. You better cool it. Your friend says he wants to take this outside. We can go outside if you want."

So yes, Danny almost got my ass kicked. I repeat, Danny almost got my ass kicked.

I'll let the reader decide whether Danny was drunk or not.

Bioinformatics, FTW!

bi·o·in·for·mat·ics n. (used with a sing. verb)
The use of computer science, mathematics, and information theory to model and analyze biological systems, especially systems involving genetic material.


So my bioinformatics report is due in less than 12 hours. I think I've made great strides in finishing it, though. After my peer review, which was done by the great Doo Lim, I got the paper to be more focused. I must admit, though, Mr. Lim is a very interestingly concise and good peer editor. His comments on each section of my paper were astonishingly in-depth, as exemplified with my favorite comment below:

"Abstract: Nonexistant"

Needless to say, his other critiques more than made up for it.




Yes, I'm screwed for this.

Anyways, this week AXE, my fraternity, is selling holiday grams near the Univeristy Center. Since our banner is too large for the table, we had to duct tape it to a light pole on one end and to the end of the table on the other end. People can see us better that way.

Yours truly did the taping of the duct, but such rigorous manual labor forced me furhter into insane thought: Why is Gorilla tape so awesome?

It's "incredibly strong" but I don't think it's quite comparable to a REAL gorilla's grip. Plus, why would you sell a product that has a hairy arm holding it? Gorillas are just scary. Their arms are unnaturally hairy. I mean, how does hair like that even begin to develop?

That kind of hair reminds me of my friend Jagmeet. He's hairy. He's also a covert terrorist. He told me he reads this blog, so I thought I'd return the favor and indulge his hairy ego by mentioning him.

I'm scared though. He might praise Allah all over my residence hall.

I hate racist jokes like that. I hope it was funny enough to compormise my morality though. Jag would compromise his life for his religious morality. F-ing AYrab.

Yeah, I really dislike racism.

But seriously, I taped that banner well, almost too well.

It was gorilla-tape-nice-and-tight.

Birthday Blog

I guess now is as good a time to blog as any other. I've been watching movies again lately. For some reason, I've been gravitating toward animated films. I recently saw the Hayao Miyazaki classics, Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind (1984) and Castle in the Sky(1986). I also watched The Girl Who Leapt Through Time (2006) and Bolt (2008). They were all good. I particularly enjoyed Nausicaa and The Girl Who Leapt Through Time for some reason. I didn't think the others were as good, but were still enjoyable. I might do reviews later. Anyways,

I'll start with last week. My father came to visit me in Stockton last Thursday. I had just woken up to his abrupt phone call.

"Andrew, I'm here."
Groggily, I replied, "K. Dad. Lemme get ready." Click.

I gathered my books and whatnot and joined him in the passenger seat of his pedophile/kidnapper white Nissan Quest van. My brother and I had merrily placed a "Mystery Spot" bumper sticker years ago on the back bumper so as to avoid the inevitable stares of passers-by who might find the van shady. Needless to say, the yellow sticker only made the van creepier.

But the creepiness wasn't new to me, as I walked down the stairs of my residence hall into the passenger seat of my dad's van. At this point, I was so tired that I delayed putting on the seatbelt. I just sat there lazily, body as exhausted as I usually feel when woken prematurely.

We got onto the street without any trouble, my seatbelt still unbuckled, and, talking sparsely as only father and son could, we continued driving. We came up to a stop sign and saw a police car parked, seemingly looking for stop sign-violators. My dad commented uneventfully, "Doesn't it seem like the police are everywhere?"

Before I could come up with a cynical I'm-tired-dad retort, I heard the saddening siren of a police car. I put on my seatbelt. I knew what was coming. We pulled over.

"I pulled you over," the police said callously, "because he wasn't wearing a seatbelt." He pointed to me.

"It's National Click-it-orTicket Week, so we are told to look out especially for seatbelt violations. How old are you, son?" the law enforcer asked.
"Eighteen," was my weak, and notably only possible, reply.
"I'll be right back."

I swear the whole time my dad was smiling as if he wanted to seduce the policeman out of a ticket. I myself am guilty of trying to laugh off the ticket. He came back.

"Sorry, officer," I said. "I'm still in college. You know how irresponsible I can be."
He laughed. "That is true. Let me see your license." I gave it to him.

I thought it was money in the bank at this point. Surely, he saw I was charming and couldn't possibly give me a ticket now. Still, a few more jokes wouldn't hurt.

"What's your address, Andrew?"
"My home address or my school address? Well, I can't really call it home since my parents kicked me out a long time ago. You can see why," I said, pointing to the seat belt.
He laughed really hard this time.
"Yep, those things are mighty inconvenient. I'll just use the address on your license."


And then I got a ticket.

The Secret Life of Daydreams

Overall, I had a horrible week.

My crappy bioinformatics report was due, and of course, I had to watch as much Avatar: The Last Airbender as I could before I started it. Needless to say, I stayed up late and missed all my classes. I actually think its the first time this semester I've missed all my classes.

I did make it to research, but everything was crappy cuz I asked someone else to do my assay for me the day before. So, frustrating.

Also, Sean was hospitalized. He busted his lip and chipped his tooth.

Eric Woo, his lovely roommate, called me that morning to make sure I told the TA's and teachers that neither of them would be able to make it to class. I obliged.

So Eric insisted I give Dr. Wrischnik his number to she could call him back to confirm his excuse. I went over to her research lab and found her talking to a student. Eventually, however, I was able to nab her attention.

"What can I do for you, Andrew?" she asked.

"Well, you know Eric Woo and Sean? They're roommates?" I asked back. She nodded. "Well, they're at the hospital right now."

She curled her lip so much I swear I thought she was on the verge of laughter. You know what I mean?

"What happened?" she asked, barely containing her laughter.

"Well, Sean slipped and fell this morning in the bathroom." No more smile. "And Eric accompanied him to the hospital. They should be back sometime today, but Eric insisted I leave his number so you could call him and tell him it's okay."

She got the number and I got a strange experience. Maybe I shouldn't say things so sardonically anymore. It was a serious situation...


Whatever.

Then I had the most ridiculous 3-text conversation with Paul. I called him and he texted me.

Paul: Hey, I'm in class. What do you want? I don't have a text plan so say it in one text.
Me: Oh, sorry dude. I was just wondering when you were going to get Sean cuz I wanted to go with you.
Paul: They're keeping him overnight. Don't reply to this text.


Easily, THE funniest text conversation I've ever had.

But no matter how crappy my week was, and still is, I was able to finish Avatar: The Last Airbender. FREAKIN' AMAZING. There are no words to describe the awesomeness that is that show....






Yes, I need a life.

Whisper

I've noticed that often that whenever my friends make racial references, they lower their voices, sometimes to a whisper.

I think it's hilarious.

Today I woke up in Eric Woo's bed. How weird. Don't tell him. He went down to SoCal for a weekend. Then I went to lunch, for which I rarely if ever wake up in time.

They had waffles.

Then I took a 10 minute nap waiting for my father to pick me up and take me home. Of course, I was so tired that I stayed asleep in the car. In fact, I slept happily for so long that the next person to use the car didn't bother to wake me up. So, I found myself in the parking lot of Jack in the Box while my brother dashed in for a burrito from La Victoria's.

At this point, I would like to note something interesting. I told my brother that I didn't want a burrito because I was tired. In essence, I chose sleep over food, while most people choose food over sleep. I passed up a chance for La Vic's to sleep for 10 more minutes. How ridiculous.

Not only that, but my lame-ass brother asked me to drive so he could munch on his burrito. So I made him give me a massive bite.

I love burritos.

Church

I really enjoy days like today. (Skip down for the summary of this post, so you don't have to read all of it, haha.)

Even though I woke up later than I should have (~2PM), I was able to tackle my studying (somewhat) and eat healthily (not really).

For my only meal of the day I had 2 Tiger Burgers (with cheese), 2 orders of onion rings (xxxtra grease) and an order of chicken tenders flanked by 3 cases of BBQ sauce. For a good 20 minutes, I thought I was going to die from eating too much. Then I got over it because eating too much is the absolute worst thing about which to bitch and moan. African kids starving and stuff.

But I think the most clarifying part of my day was going to church. Now, I rarely leave church with any sense of epiphanical (yes, it's a fake word) understanding. At best, I walk out of my pew and depart God's not-so-humble house with a sense of satisfaction, but this time was different somehow.

The priest, who I generally dislike, said a few things that rang a bit more powerfully than I expected. In between waking up Kim, I listened.

Fear of God, of disappointing God, will save you from hell. Avoiding sin, living a devout, moral and faithful life will definitely keep you out of the fiery pits, but any such life lived out of fear is incomplete, lacking full sincerity in our pursuit of true happiness. To feel remorse, or guilty, as Catholics so often do, is to be incomplete. Full contrition requires more than just guilt, more than faith, more than morality.

Morals and faith will keep you out of hell, but it will not necessarily thrust you beyond the gates of heaven. Jesus said that the greatest commandment is to love God with all your heart, soul, strength and mind; to love your neighbor as yourself. Like Descartes's infamously misquoted "I think; I am," this commandment is not separated in two parts.

It is often interpreted as loving God and then loving your neighbor. However, in truth, Jesus is saying that loving God fully is the same thing as loving your neighbor, and vice versa. If you love others wholeheartedly, then it means that you love God. Thus, it is not the fear of sin that saves, but rather, the love you have for humanity, and as a part of that, God. Only with love can the doors of heaven be opened to you.

God doesn't need your love. He isn't some egotistical yet emotionally insecure boyfriend who needs attention. Jesus tells us to love not for God's sake. We need to love for our own sakes. We need to love because in doing so, we make ourselves whole. We are one with each other and ourselves. Such wholeness, such perfection, IS heaven.

And if you don't believe in a "God" whom you can love, nor a "heaven" to which you can go after death, I tell you now: I agree. "Heaven" isn't a place to which we journey, nor is "God" a person to whom your love should be directed. Jesus himself said that the Kingdom of Heaven is on Earth, within you. It is a state of being when all is in perfection. Thus do we find God. Not a person, but a state of being.

Jesus didn't die thinking, "I'm going to save humanity because they're all sinners." Jesus died to show that he loved humanity as he loved himself, to show that it may even take death to love, but once dead, that love permeates and reverberates within himself and should be matched within all humanity. Yes, Jesus saved us, because he showed us that complete love is the only salvation.

So get rid of your conventional views of God and Jesus. We are all inherently equal in holiness because we are all born with the ability to love. The only thing that determines our salvation and our experience of heaven is our ability to continue that love. It's not about being moral, or about believing in "God." These things are human goals and only fulfill part of our spiritual entirety. They only get you out of hell, meaning the most you can be is content. Full happiness, or heaven, comes from selfless love.


Then, after church, I studied at the library, where I enjoyed storytime with Joe Park. Needless to say, not enough studying was done. That's why I'm up now, with Josh Espejo drooling on my pillow.

<3 genetics.






Summary:
God doesn't need our love. WE need our love. Faith and morals keep us from hell, but don't put us in heaven. Love puts us in heaven. God isn't a person, and Jesus isn't someone we worship. God is a state of being, and Jesus is the guy who gets it right. He isn't the Almighty in terms of universal power. He is the Almighty in terms of endless love. We don't worship Him. We just wanna be like him. We are saved not from our lack of sin, but from our ability to love wholeheartedly.

I sound like a douche, but I'm freakin' right about this. I know it.

So I continued my streak of late-night antics last night/this morning. Instead of playing endless hours of Word Challenge, I played endless hours of mafia. Not only that, but I treated this year's freshmen with a dose of snaps and Robin's 9 card game.

Robin's game is really good, actually. It had me for a while, but the second he did it yesterday, I figured it out. It was made much more enjoyable when the freshmen could NOT figure ANYTHING out. Especially snaps. Ohhhh man, were they stubborn.

We played mafia until a quarter before 6AM. You'd think that it would be time for me to sleep, right?

Well, yeah. Right. I went back to my room and headed straight to bed. However, upon laying in my bed, I realized something was amiss: I had no fu----' sheets. My laundry was still down in the basement.

Needless to say, I was too lazy to get it. So I went down, dried the load with my bedsheets and left the rest of my clothes in the dryer.

Then I rested my poor, heavy soul.

And woke up at 6:30PM today.

If it weren't for my two upcoming tests, this would have been one of the best weekends ever.

Instead, this has become one of those weekends that I ask myself many weeks later: What the fuck was I thinking?

A Weekend's Rest

Yesterday, Saturday, I told my parents I studied a significant amount.

In fact, I only studied a maximum of 30mins, effectively. Not only that, I studied material that was not going to be on my upcoming test.

But I did get to hang out with Nicole and Tiffanie.

I don't know which part of my weekend was more depressing: My brother getting his license to drive, which is ironically synonymous with his license to kill, or the fact that before I spent a wonderful hour at Romeo's house, I stopped by a high school party.

In both cases, I realized how strange it felt to be in my second year removed from high school. The party was a post-homecoming party for Milpitas High School children, and featured a strobe-light (or stroboscopic lamp, see def. 2a), a day care room, and too many college students.

Needless to say, I was more than happy to leave the strange setting, where I once would have thrived (probably not, actually. I still would have stood there awkwardly in high school as I did last night.) I felt like a creeper, standing there with my creeper buddy, Nicole, watching high school kids danced. Hell, I creeped myself out to the point where I turned over to Nicole and said, "We gotta leave. This party has too many creepy guys staring at the kids dancing. I'm getting too comfortable with similar company."

Then it was karaoke. By karaoke, I mean Tiffanie and Romeo singing while a group of azn thugz 4 lyfe played Tien Len. And yes, I include myself in that category.

But probably the most disturbingly hilarious part of my weekend was learning that my brother had recently been given permission from the government to drive around, granted his passengers are over a certain age and carry a license as well. He is of course not legally to drive anyone younger than 25 with or without a license.

Knowing this, he drove legally to a birthday bash alone, only to drive 4-5 of his cronies home illegally. He just wanted to be nice, which is something I would have done.

We're rebel with causes.

Eye Arr knee!

What I have is not insomnia.

What I have is much simpler, and probably much more indicative of my personality than a chronic disorder would say about me.

I don't sleep at night because my habits are, quite frankly, erratic. I sometimes sleep during the day, thus screwing myself come bedtime. I pull the occasional all-nighter because of my procrastinating nature, and my inability to establish a healthy lifestyle has more than once put me at odds with others around me.

But I couldn't sleep, and I was told that if you lay in bed for more than 15 minutes without meeting the sandman then you are wasting your time. The advice given me was to get up and do something for a bit and then proceed to search for death's cousin anew. So, here I am blogging about my sad inabilty to find rest.

I hate sleeping. I don't hate it in the sense that it is not enjoyable, but rather, I hate the fact that our bodies need rest. If I were constantly awake, not needing rest, my life would be much more focused, and my habits would be healthier. It's like money. If money didn't corrupt, people wouldn't hate it. The problem with money is that people need it, and when there is a need for something, it usually becomes the root of some evil.

Sleep is the root of my evil. Today, I was talking to my Genetics lab TA and research leader, Raquie, and found that I was not the only insane person around. I was finishing up a drug assay today when I heard her characteristic laugh. It's kind of a fake-sounding laugh, but at the same time a genuinely jolly one. Regardless, I hear her distinct laughter and head into the main part of the lab (I was in the hood room). Surprisingly, she was holding a Red Bull energy drank.

Now, Red Bull, as most of you are well aware, is a drank for energy. Raquie was holding the Sugar-free kind, which is okay, except it was in the 16 fl. oz. variety. This was intriguing to me in particular because I had always thought Raquie as a hard working leader, and to a very significant extent, she is. I kinda look up to her, since she is my research leader, even though she's like five-foot-nothing.

Anyways, we get to talking about her most recent all-nighter (last night), and she was explaining to another member of the research team about how she pulls all-nighters, then gets really tired the next day. So how does she compensate for her tiredness?

Yep, she pulls another all nighter.

This got me thinking. But not for too long because I was hungry and had to get some lunch with Ronak.

Lunch was as uneventful as always, with the typical chicken pesto pasta with garlic and some sushi on the side. Actually, excitingly enough, today's pasta was rather plain and lacking flavor. I was seriously about to complain about the state of Pacific's food, with a piece of sushi filling my mouth, when President DeRosa walked into the dining hall, dressed as formally as any president of a school should.

I kind of looked at him and, unintentionally, we made eye contact. I cannot state how awkward it is when you're walking or standing somewhere with someone walking pass, and you make eye contact but do not greet them. Sometimes it's because you don't know them, and sometimes it's because you've met them but do not know them well enough to greet them. Or sometimes you do greet them even though you don't usually greet them, therefore setting up for countless more awkward moments when you see them and don't greet them or do greet them or make eye contact or don't make eye contact.

It's awkward.

But anyways, president DeRosa and I (pun unintended) make eye contact. Being the big man on campus, and undoubtedly wanting to hold up the veneer of a nice, down-to-earth guy in front of his posse, he came over to me and patted me on the back. Naturally, with sushi in my mouth, I wouldn't have been able to respond, so it befell on Ronak to respond for me.

"How's the pasta?" he asked, patting me on the shoulders as he walked by.

"It's good," replied Ronak.

And that was that.

Except Ronak didn't have pasta on his plate. He had a burrito.

I can only imagine DeRosa's reaction to the Indian boy eating a burrito commenting/lying about the quality of the pasta when the question wasn't even directed at him.

I almost spit out my sushi laughing.

Homage

The stairs creaked as the little boy sneaked down, waiting for a glimpse, a mere hint of the bowl full of jelly that would signify Christmas, and, more importantly, presents. Daintily, he snuck, more cautious than a fly in a crowded kitchen. For the last two years, Santa had evaded his requests to meet in person, to come face-to-face with the boy who was most certainly his biggest fan. His parents would smile naively, in his mind, trying to convince him that Santa was busy, and that all the children in the world needed their presents before Santa could rest.

But the boy knew that Santa was the best at his job. He could spare a few insignificant minutes to make significance in one boy's life. The boy was thus adamant about Santa's presence on Christmas, and it was on this eventful night that the boy was determined to glimpse at his hero.

And so he crept, ever so slightly, at least in his mind, down the wooden stairs. It was strange, really. All the stairs of his friends' houses weren't wooden. They were carpeted or tiled or surfaced with some form of slick linoleum. He didn't think his stairs should be the only ones that creaked and moaned with the light footsteps of a child, but they did.

But this was no time for petty thought. This was a time of urgency and focus. The boy would meet Santa, if only for a few sparse moments. Thus was the unyielding mindset of a toddler.

The boy, however, was shocked to his panjama-covered toes when he reached the family room. To his utter dismay, the couch was occupied not by his jolly idol, but rather, by his parents. They had all been in the living room earlier that night, his parents and his older sister and himself, to listen to his father read Christmas tales. They were wonderful, of course, stimulating the imagination and whisking away the boy to Yuletide adventures, but they had their time. This was not the time for his parents to be in the family room, keeping warm by the fireplace.

This was everyone's bedtime, and his time to meet Santa. What right did his parents have to tell him to sleep while they stayed up to do whatever it is grown-ups do in front of a fireplace? What right did they have to put him to bed, telling him that Santa would be coming to deliver him a present in the morning when they themselves were not sleeping? What right did his father have to smile at him when he asked these question?

Then, it struck the boy like a lightning bolt strikes a vane: They were up to see Santa too!

"Go back to your room, son. Santa isn't here yet," his father tried to convince him. The boy would not move.

"How come you get to stay up to see Santa?" he asked, undeterred by his father's insistence.

But father was not in the mood to convince him. Mother, always patient, spoke before father made his always-unflattering demands. She smiled as if the boy had said something funny.

"You can stay, sweetie. As long as you keep quiet. You can sleep here with mommy."

The boy thought about it for a moment, but quickly realized that the compromise was a much better alternative to sleeping in his room, where he would surely miss Santa.

And so, his father got off the couch where he was snuggling with his wife to make room for the boy. The toddler laid in his mother's warm arms while his father sat on the armchair, unmoving but smiling quietly.

And of course it did not take long for the child to fall asleep.

But he did not regret it, for the snowy sunrise brought the boy a new present waiting in the stocking. Santa had come and delivered as promised. Before he checked the stocking, however, he paused.

He hadn't seen Santa because he was sleeping. His mother was still in the same position she was when he had fallen asleep, except now draped with a blanket his father surely had provided. She remained in slumber. His father was already up and about, making coffee and checking his email. His older sister came running down the stairs, nearly tripping as she did so. She opened her present before the boy did, and she was delighted. So was he, and he forgot about his goal for the night before.

His mother woke up from the delighted giggles of his sister, and his father joined the family around the fireplace. Upon the boy's inquiries about Santa's visit, his father just smiled and handed him another present to unwrap, easily averting any thought of Santa.

His mother and father shared another knowing smile.

To the boy, Santa didn't matter anymore. He was only a part of Christmas, now. The presents had to be unwrapped. Breakfast had to be served. His family had to be together. The snow had to fall, and Christmas traditions still had yet to be carried out.

Plus, he could always try again next Christmas. At least, if Santa still existed then.

Per Diem

My final is approximately five and a half hours on top of a day in front of me.

I am not ready.

I'm tired of organic chemistry and the endless amounts of sadness the subject brings to me.

I guess the only thing to do now, other than the necessary studying, is to blog about the Olympics.

I find it disgusting that NBC, its affiliates and the mainstream media in general all love to milk or create Olympic stories of triumph. It's not that I, born and raised under the red, white and blue, don't enjoy a good underdog story as much as the next American. Hell, we were founded by underdogs, and my ancestral roots find themselves in the most generic of American underdog refugee stories. My family and my history bleeds underdog. So no, I'm not quite anti-American. It's not that I don't enjoy these stories. It's just that we are shifting our attention too much on the sweet triumphs of our athletes when the Olympic games should be about the unity of all countries.

Is it really necessary to have a Medal Count on the front page of Yahoo!? Why are we so preoccupied with the numbers, counting our way to superiority? We may have more medals than any other country right now, but what does it matter? A bit of national pride, yes, but I get the feeling that all this medal counting and Americans-as-the-underdog storytelling is just setting us apart from the rest of the world. We are in no way the underdogs. Americans are brimming with athleticism and dominance. Our economy allows us to be.

Most other countries don't have enough food to feed their people. How can they be expected to dominate as wholly as we have? Plus, China has WAY more gold medals than we do. So no, we are no longer the best, nor, I suspect, shall we be the best any time soon in the Summer Olympics.

Americans make everything about winning. These awards are supposed to show how diverse the athletic world can be, with many countries winning various medals. We aren't SUPPOSED to win gold in everything. We aren't SUPPOSED to be competing ONLY with the Chinese communist bastards. We need to back down from this idea that we are the big dogs, especially since we're competing in THEIR homeland.

That being said, Shawn Johnson is the cutest being to grace the earth since Togepi hatched.

On another, equally important note. The South Ossetians want OUT of Georgia, but do they want IN to Russia? Russia's just as bad as we are in terms of asserting dominance. In fact, they are exactly as bad as we are.

1. America went over to Iraq to "spread and establish democracy" as we do periodically, to our economic favor. Under democracy's guise, we went over and toppled a probably bad regime. Russia claims it is doing something along those lines. They claim they want justice for the South Ossetian people. However, what Russia really wants is to reclaim its international dominance, its pride in being a world power. They are saying that they won't take shit from Georgia, the lowliest of former provinces, who, by the way, tried to assert ITS dominance onto a de facto state.

Actually South Ossetia, which is technically a province of Georgia on the Russian border along the Caucasus, governs itself, along with huge monetary aid from its Russian sugar daddy. It isn't internationally recognized as an independent nation, but it sure as hell acts as one, hence "de facto." Georgia recently tried to take it back, and Russia said, "No-no. Bad girl. Don't pick on little South Ossetia. We have to roll in with our tanks now to do some "peacekeeping."" To which America said, "No-no. Bad boy. Don't pick on little Georgia. We're gonna nuke you if you come near that oil line."

Ah, war. <3

2. What Russia did had equal severity as America's War on Terror in Iraq. We have more power, so we can wage war across continents. Russia could too, but they did the equivalent of a war abroad. They went across the border to assert their power. This is the same as California rolling tanks into Baja California and saying, "It has the name "California" in it, so it's ours!"

Yeah, California is the shit, but we're just happy to be part of America. Likewise, Russia should just be happy to be part of a world where peace is still possible. The world's gotta stay united, as these Olympic games remind us, as we face the problems of the future. Namely, I'm scared of the return of the dinosaurs. If we aren't united when they arrive, how will we stave them off? They have hella T-Rexes! And we only have Christian Bale to save us!

Lordy, I'm tired.

Best comment gets a prize.

Blog?

My avid fans, my loyal readers and/or my sympathetic friends have yet to see a normal blog entry on my site. "Normal" in this sense means that my blog must consist of my daily activities, usually with some sort of revelation or epiphany.

Or sometimes, a normal blog entry simply means an update on my supposedly eventful life. But as with all bloggers typing away in the lonely hours of the night, I am torn between how much I want to reveal and how much I actually reveal.

Right now Joe, my roommate for the summer down here in Riverside is playing some Korean pop music. It sounds like a parody of Korean music, sung by other Koreans. Them Koreans have a strange way in the form of entertainment, they do. Regardless, Joe has been more or less a fun roommate. However, like the 6 (now 5) other people with whom I have opted to reside these candid 9 weeks, he has a problem with keeping a clean environment.

Now, I am not saying I myself am Prince OxiClean, which is a sodium percarbonate (C₂H₆Na₄O₁₂) detergent, according to Wikipedia, but there has to be some hint of cleanliness in these people. I have called them my good friends for the past school year, but they have little regard on the single resident who actually lives in the oft A/C-less apartment. I can't, by nature of distance, leave on weekends, unless I stay at a friends'.

I feel like a mother looking after five extremely intelligent children. They study hard enough, but leave their napkins and whatnot all over the place. They rarely take responsibility for their messes unless called upon and half of them complain about the other half. "So and so never does this" and "Such and such always leaves this hanging around."

It's mildly frustrating, to say the least, but hey, your friends are your loved ones. Do I complain about the mess? Yes, but only to people who don't live in the apartment. For now, I am content with living each weekend and cleaning the weekly mess that these children leave behind.

For those of you who have kept up, there were seven people who lived in this apartment until this morning. Christine's parents drove from Arizona and promptly took her back this morning, before the last three weeks of our purported nine-week hell was to begin. She and Lily were the first to greet me here, cheerfully saying to me the first night, "This is just like The Real World!"

I guess, like MTV's disgusting show, it was much more real than she imagined...

Wow, I'm dramatic. I guess it's weird since I spent the last two days with only Christine. We walked to the Village for our dinners and watched a few movies together. We talked a lot, too, and she is just a cool person.

But I guess I'll see her back at Pacific in three weeks so it's not that bad. =)

To update further, organic chemistry is far from riveting as a subject. In fact, I would go so far as to call it mundane and difficult, of all things. I mean, some classes are boring because there is no way on God's green earth they could be interesting. But organic chemistry is boring in a way that there's a hint of interesting stuff to come, but it never really does come. Instead, we are bombarded with pointless laboratory experiments and write-ups and weekly midterms.

I guess that's the nature of the beast. I miss Northern California. I never should have left, haha.

School starts soon. =D

For those of you who haven't seen this yet, it is required viewing. Lily Park: International Pop Star


I actually started this particular entry before posting my last one. I had the first paragraph written, but really had no idea how to finish. As usual, I found words to fill in the blank space.

I talk a lot, but I don't say much, do I?

Per usual, leave a comment here. If not, no hard feelings. >=/

We're not a married couple,
But we've duct taped these boxes
To put away firmly
In the back of our minds.

We don't have the heart
To throw out this stuff,
The miscellaneous mischief,
Missing all kinds.

The winds have been blowing,
Flailing the trees.
They were once so tense,
But now they unwind.

The redwoods, sequoias,
Reaching so high,
Wanting and grasping,
Just how I pine.

And like a broken valentine,
It's a symbol, a sign
Of how some things never shine
Once I've made it all mine.

I've lost the touch
Of Midas, my king.
I loosen my clutch,
Lose everything.

Because because because

The many differences that set each of us apart inevitably and inexorably force us back into the realms of conformity. We are all different, which makes us all the same. Thus, the many facets of blogging all force us into one, common hobby. We have all our own pages, our own words, yet we all must be thrust into the same capacity as a means of expression.

Well, I guess these capacities and media can vary, but in general, we as a modern society rely on cinema, music, blogging/writing, reading, gardening, running/exercising, playing video games, watching TV, sleeping, eating and any number forms of excess, superfluous action in order to assert what we hope and think is our individuality and what we hope gives meaning to our lives.

Yet we carry on, often without the thought of life in the absence of meaning. Does life have to have a purpose? Is there necessarily a crux or cruces that make our lives worthwhile?


I think not. Our lives should be worthwhile already without any added flavor.

But I guess it does help to have something for which we focus and into which we delve our noblest efforts and thoughts. The meditative among us wish to extend an invitation. Enjoy.



Let the Rivers and Rivulets, Pt. 1
A Short Story About One Man's Place in the World (or Lack Thereof)

The rocks that lined the Colorado River had seen their fair share of rough times. Millions of years had colored, shaped and thus defined them to their identities and their place along the banks of the often turbulent, always uncaring waters. There seemed to be an unnecessary anger to the motion of the Colorado's waves, and indeed to many waters familiar or unchartered. Nature minds her own, with little regard for the frivolities that are human desire.

Gary was minding his own as well, as he watched the water fall smoothly and succinctly into Feldman's Creek that flowed violently into Feldman's Lake. A lake, in Gary's mind, was a beautiful thing. So too, was the concept of an angry river. Feldman's Creek was no Colorado, but nor was it the gentle, passive and submissive rivulet that so often appeared along the sidewalks after a hard rain, disappearing with an hour of sunlight as the water rode quietly below the asphalt into their temporary homes, the sewers. Those lonely tunnels were foster homes to the orphaned rainwater, collected into a network of tubes and channels, finally placing them in a new home, once again without regard for their own desires. Too much is out of our control, but somehow, there is an order to things.

Feldman's Creek was simply a place to watch the water release its frustration. Feldman's water had no control over its fate. The water was comfortable somewhere, undisturbed and certainly not complaining, until it was forced to fall, as if nature deigned to drop all things, push all things off a cliff to her own liking. The water had no choice to go where it had to, but nor did it give up easily. No, Feldman's water was determined to fight until it was forced into submission by the clutching claws of the lake. The lake, it seemed, was a likely sedative to tame the wild nature of Feldman, but the creek had no such calm, no such submission. The creek made manifest all the contained anger, the bound rage the waters must have felt once subjugated to the inevitability of fate. And of course, this anger is again quelled by fate's forceful hand.

But Gary loved watching the creek scream and thrash. It calmed him to watch the waters fight against the inevitable. In the end, they must lose, as all things must, but their fight, their unending battle to escape their destiny brought hope in Gary's eyes. The taciturn life he led was made righteous because there would always be someone or something else fighting when he could not. Gary could settle for that. In a sense, he had to settle for that. The waters that settled in the lake had to settle, but maybe they felt better knowing that others still fought against nature and her uncaring plans.

Gary was the lake. He had no fight in him, and only remembered the fights that once were, the battles that raged and shaped him into his calm, uneventful life as it was now. He had drive once, Gary did, and it was a drive that thrashed every bit as much, if not more than these waters in front of him now did. Gary was old and had given up. His fights were battles lost and won, tiresome in their majesty and grandiosity. He was 18.

"When to the sessions of sweet silent thought
I summon up remembrance of things past,
I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,
And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste:
Then can I drown an eye, unus'd to flow,
For precious friends hid in death's dateless night,
And weep afresh love's long since cancell'd woe,
And moan th' expense of many a vanish'd sight:
Then can I grieve at grievances foregone,
And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er
The sad account of fore-bemoane`d moan,
Which I new pay as if not paid before.
But if the while I think on thee, dear friend,
All losses are restor'd and sorrows end."
--Sonnet XXX by William Shakespeare


"Oh, how the waves of memory define
All love and labor lost in losing lines,
Parallel and pointing as I pine
To feed my failing fear that I can't find.
But still I search as silent as a cloud,
Drifting as dreaded grays impend.
Bring I rain and storm and fear so loud,
Or must I mesh and have my days depend
On what my life can offer to my soul?
Words were weakened all in weary woe
Trying and dying in finding now I need a goal
To which my failure's all I know.

Yet your eyes of beauty drown me still
The waves unmatche`d twixt your gentle will.
And a couplet more shall I add to show
How I'm lucky having beauty so bestow'd."
--me, 3 years ago.

The trees that sway so strongly in the wind
Have yet to feel the raw emotions flail.
The birds that in their somber sadness sing
Have yet to find the lack of comfort fail.
Tis nature's call to let the heart feel pain.
The agony allow'd when heads have rolled,
Heavy from the tears that their eyes drain,
Is but an agony my daily eyes behold.
Pure pain, despondent in its lonely form,
Has met the starless night so bleak and stark.
The meeting lasts from midnight til the morn
Maybe in time to let the Maker mold his mark.
But though the Lord has left us all to die,
He graced me with your death-defying eyes.

Ships of Relation

Beginning time: 3:50AM

I don't think I fully understand where to begin. I probably will blather on incessantly, losing all .5 of my readers. I guess I need to start out with an introduction, followed by my thesis. After that, I will pursue some body paragraphs and conclude in a quasi-corny fashion. I'll probably try to write a poem or sonnet of some sort. I don't know how long it'll take, and I'll probably get distracted along the way. But I guess this is where I begin.

Relationships are difficult, fickle things. They have a dual nature: They can bring you up to the highest of levels, or take you down as the weakest of beings. Having a lover will destroy you or will make you the best person that you have ever been in your life. The best relationships are the ones that last forever. Till death do they part. Yet, for lovers anew and oftentimes lovers old, many aspects of a relationship are overlooked. A relationship is monumentally difficult to maintain, and sometimes the ease of getting in a relationship overshadows the difficulty of keeping it.

But isn't it worth it? Doesn't having someone you can hold, someone upon which you can dote, some person you can call your own worth all the flak that accompanies the struggle? Aren't they wonderful the memories you can share, the times at which you can laugh?

Surely, over time you will forget a few memories here and there. You can't always recall the specific details, and even if you could, you can never really recapture the same feelings of the same moment. You will never have the same experience twice, and ultimately, you don't want to. Each moment you share with your significant other is unique, regardless of the emotion attached to it. Your angry moments and your blissful moments together create an amalgamation of your experience. The relationship happens for a reason, always. No matter how bitter the end is, or how eternal the feeling is, the relationship existed for the sole purpose of happiness. At one point, there was happiness.

This spark is the lifeblood that fuels the world. It is premature to love, a weaker form if a form at all. This spark of happiness is the definition of hope. Hope is the possibility of happiness. Where there is a memory of happiness, there is hope for humanity. We don't even need love. We just need each other.

So when heartbreak strikes, know that there is always hope.

I was searching around the vast majestic realms of the Internet for a prayer catered to the broken hearted. Alas, I came upon none, so I decided to write one myself. If God exists, then He wants solace for all walks of life, doesn't He? Heartbreak is a part of life and an unhappy part at that. I guess this is more of a reason for us to remember that God exists in all aspects of life, especially the difficult parts. He's always there for us to find him.



A Prayer for Heartbreak

Lord, I am helpless.
Vulnerable and shaken.
My faith slumbers and needs you
Once again to waken.

Lord, I am troubled.
Your loving arms have told me
To accept my flaws and my pain
To keep them since they mold me.

Lord, the demons of my nature
Have bid me into pain.
I'm suffering so silently.
I've nothing else to gain.

Lord, my sadness swells within me.
My tears have grooved my cheeks.
Though I sit tacitly and sadly,
My agony still speaks.

Lord, I am dying.
I am crying, not denying.
I am fighting for a happy end
I am fighting, I am vying.












Amen.

I gotta start letting it go.

End time: 5:47AM

Edit.
Thanks, ft =)

Time on Red Bull

It's 4:15AM, and I'm still awake. This post will probably the one An Vy reads first, since she will have probably caught her eye on her name at the top. So I guess I should make this one good? ;)

So it's 4:15AM, and I find myself idly refreshing Facebook. I'm adding new friends from the right module on the Newsfeed page. You know, the one under the "People You May Know" headline.

That's how lame I am. I want to sleep so badly, but my schedule's all messed up now. I watched a movie yesterday night (morning) and it kept me awake until half past 5 in the morning. It was well worth it though, considering how much I had wanted to see it in theaters last year, but never got around to it.

It was Dan in Real Life with Steve Carrell and Juliet Binoche (and Dane Cook too, but I'll comment on that in a second.) I loved the movie. It seemed like it could have been made 30 years ago and been considered a classic, but alas, it was made in this day and age. So, to a lot of people, it'll seem cliche and contrived. It will also seem fake and unrealistic, like a typical Hollywood film. But this movie was very down-to-earth, very low-key.

There were lots of flaws though, like the lack of depth of the family members (probably due to the short running time of the film). Also, the music was a bit unnecessary, though extremely well-written on their own. Sondre Lerche is an amazing musician. Moreover, the film was very contrived in its plot elements, the way the story unraveled. The writing must have been edited by a producer looking to make money, since the script obviously tried diligently to appeal to a large audience. This sacrifice was overall detracting in the direction of the film's story, but it was not as noticeable as some critics made it seem. Plus, the acting was wonderful, the chemistry between Carrel and Binoche surprisingly smooth, like chocolat (sorry, I had to...). As for the supporting cast, Dane Cook is a surprisingly not bad actor and is funnier when he's not cursing or making vulgar jokes like his stand-up. He's not a very good stand-up comedian, his jokes being stale at best, but his presence was welcoming, sharing the screen well with Carrell. The rest of his family could probably be considered one character for all the use they have in the plot's progression. They did, however, work well to show the amount of love in the family. The large size of the immediate family really was impressive in its goal to emphasize the ensemble nature of family love. Simply seeing them do things as a whole unit was heart-warming, if a bit unrealistic.


Overall though, the film's general tone was so warm that it easily balanced out all the obvious flaws. Had those flaws not existed, the film would rank among my all-time favorites. Yet, even as it is, Dan in Real Life makes my list for 2007.

Speaking of which, my Top 10 List of 2007 has been deleted from Yahoo. I mean, it's another one of those things that no one reads (not unlike the words you're reading right now), but the fact that I spent time on it just to have it deleted really annoys me. I have to do it all over again...

Now, on to the petty details of my day: I woke up this afternoon and did nothing worth noting...

Then, after a blissful conversation, I proceeded to go on Facebook. Much to my chagrin, I found that my dear friend Christian DeGuzman had bought two-thirds of my friends on the Friends for Sale application. I then engaged in a short FFS skirmish, buying back all my friends multiple times. Christian was a formidable opponent, and like any other formidable opponent, he agreed to a truce with me. We decided to split the "pets," as they are so dubbed. He kept a few, while I kept others. Then we agreed never to buy from each other again, so as to maintain a certain level of civility between two obviously upstanding members of the FFS community.

However, less than 5 minutes after the truce, I refresh my main page on FFS and find that someone else was buy friends from me. I found myself first embroiled in indignation, and then humor at my indignation. This humor quickly receded into determination to buy my friends back. This person was none other than Peterson Rooster Lim, Christian's roommate. How dare he? They were MY property, and he had no right buying them from me.

I quickly checked the cash amounts both of us had, and it looked like he and I were to battle until I ran out of money. And so, the epic war raged on.

After 15 minutes or so of buying back our mutual friends, I complained to Christian, who was happily building up his own collection without me as a hindrance. He first laughed it off, probably thinking I deserved as much for being greedy, but then, he came up with the perfect idea.

He told me to buy Kate Salazar, Peterson's girlfriend whom I was sure he coveted. At first, I was skeptical, worried that Peterson would buy my own girlfriend, but Christian quickly doused the flames of my doubt. Christian, being the good friend he was, had already tried to buy my girlfriend in order to stop me from starting a war with him, but, much to his surprise, he was unable to buy her because she was not his friend on Facebook. So, Christian told me, buying Kate would not bear any financial risk on my part.

So I bought her. Every time you buy a person on FFS, his or her value increases, so that the next time, the cost of buying the person is larger, sometimes significantly so for more expensive pets. The extra money goes as a profit to the owner of the pet. For example, say I buy Peterson for $560. If Christian wants him, he has to pay $580, with the extra $20 going to me as a profit. If I want to buy Peterson back, I have to pay $610, with Christian receiving $580 (the price he bought Peterson) plus a $30 profit.

After a while, Kate was the only one Peterson and I were vying for, since I just wanted her to profit from all his money and buy Christian and Sean back. Since I had bought a few more pets earlier that day, Peterson had the upper hand, eventually buying out Kate for more than I could buy back. I didn't mind that much, since I could now buy Sean. However, I forgot to buy Christian, and Christian was terribly angry with me. "You have to buy me back!" he told me aggressively online. "She's worth more than me!"

So after everyone signed off, I got more money (via a secret method I shall not reveal here, just in case). I then bought Kate, Christian and Sean. By this time, I had accumulated so much money I was able to by Wanda Lam and Tracey Tran, for $21k and $14k, respectively.

I don't want to keep them. I just want some people to buy them so I can make a few thousand dollars profit.

And now I'm blogging about it.

Crash and Burn

The weather in Southern California today ranged from 90-95 degrees. This scorching temperature was also matched in Stockton and, evidently, in Dubai as well. I am sure in many places around the world, desert domain or no, the sun made its presence known.

However, where I reside, "in the sun-kissed Santa Clara Valley" as it was dubbed by Jack London, it was a breezy 77 degrees. The sun shone brightly, smiling warmly on the Bay Area, while elsewhere it vented, fuming in anger, embroiling its victims in the fires of its wrath. The Silicon Valley enjoyed a spring afternoon, unmarred by heat or humidity.

But I denied the call of the wild today. A perfect day to prance and frolic as a child might, and I opted to stay indoors. I failed to leave the confines of the home once, waking up before noon and simply, aimlessly walking around my house until the bed called me a few minutes ago. My father woke me up startlingly around 11pm, much earlier than I had wanted. Those who know me can attest to my penchant for afternoon continuations of my beauty rest. I can easily sleep until 3-4pm on a daily basis. So, you can imagine my disgruntlement when my father insisted I get up to "help him with the cabinets," and being my father, he knew I was not allowed any objection. I got up and brushed my teeth, and I then proceed downstairs to breakfast, which only consisted of a rather large bowl of Frosted Flakes ('twas more than good).

I spent the next hour or so trying to fill the bumps in the back of the cabinets with wood filling. It was not a difficult job, but it was a bit annoying having to reach up the walls of the cabinets and making sure all the indentations were filled.

Anyways, the important thing is that I didn't leave the house today. I made no effort to step outside and enjoy the day with which the Lord blessed me. Normally, during the school year, I would come home on weekends and spend a good 45-52 at home, studying, but today, there was no studying involved. There was just intense Facebook browsing, followed by Facebook application cleansing, occasionally dabbed with Facebook video-making/dedicating.

But I do not, can not and will not blame Facebook for my failures. If I must blame, and if indeed I have failed, then I blame myself.

I was thinking that I made strides with my mentality today, getting some menial tasks done that I have been too long in putting off, but I realize now that maybe I don't try hard enough to stay focused.

I have been wanting for a long time now to write a poem that was bone-chillingly gnawing. I want to write something that will call to the hearts of people and force them to embrace the sadness that is in their lives, even and especially if their lives are happy.

As the Spanish philosopher Miguel de Unamuno claims as his personal creed, "My religion is to seek for truth in life and for life in truth, even knowing that I shall not find them while I live."

So here I am to seek on.



A thousand plans have gone awry
Ever since the shepherd spoke.
And all the world and people's strength
Have weakened or have broke.

In weekly tributes humans kneel,
Community is served,
But we are still ensnared to life
And live by holy word.

Even though we live by day
Our nights do come indeed
We gossip and we have to play
Tempted always by our greed

Our flaws that gnaw us to the bone
Our cardinals, our sins
Are mortal, fatal, undeterred
As Satan counts his wins.

The devil is an angel too
As we must not forget
There's so much wrong that we can do
Our sins we do abet.

But the purpose here is not to scare
Or sound so grossly black
I'm trying just to convey
A feeling that I lack.

There is no word to say it
for lacking brings it forth
the feeling i have lacked
replaced in lacking's worth.

Since I lack this feeling,
I feel another pang,
Tenfold in painful measure
A tune that Lucifer once sang.

Like the scarabs in my bones,
have crawled into my skin
And finding veins so plump
They drank me from within

Like frostbite in my soul
Freezing, but not numb
Ensuring I am feeling
throbbing like a drum

Like fire in my skull
a chamber burning, heated head
I am in eternal pain
but never am i dead.

But all this pain has led me here
to this one small line:
if you ever ask me what is wrong,
I'll just say i'm fine.





no i don't need professional help.

Discourse

I'm pretty sure I have zero readers of my blog, so I guess it doesn't matter what I write. Maybe one day someone will chance upon my writing and hopefully see how insane I am. By that time, I doubt my sanity will matter because what they've found is "in the past," and I probably will find some excuse (as Future Andrew) to say how I'm a "different person" or some B.S. like that. I'm pretty sure Future Andrew will be good at B.S. too. It's a trait I doubt any Andrew Past, Present or Future could live without. The three of us need that.


When the stricken heart is home,
And asking to be free,
It wants the world for it to roam,
To feel its liberty.

I don't get what I just wrote,
Just spewed some random shit.
About the girl that I still dote:
I miss her quite a bit.

The delicate, the young,
They cry their way to sleep.
The carols still unsung,
Bearing weights they weep.

But words and verses do not care
of what has lain beneath.
'Tis the beastly nature of the bear
That tears the gentle wreath.

And this last quatrain is for you,
Who sat there for a while.
Not knowing what to do,
You nod your head and smile.


happy three months.

Finals: The Last Stretch

You probably can't see the above image. Just click it and zoom in.


It is in times of trouble that I resign to blogging. Apparently, only in times of utmost stress do I feel a need to voice my worries. Perhaps blogging is the only technique by which I can relinquish my distress. Perhaps it is a conduit through which I tunnel my angst, my troubled woes, my boring complaints.

Or perhaps procrastination is a disease.

I like that idea! If procrastination is indeed a disease, what, then, would be the symptoms?
I've done much research on the topic (while I was supposed to be studying for finals), and I've come across some interesting things.
In order to be diagnosed medically for clinical procrastination, or I'll Do It Later syndrome (IDIL), the patient must meet 15 of 20 criteria.
For patients showing 0-4 symptoms, there can be no realistic method to treat them, for they cannot possibly have IDIL. Maybe they're just mentally unsound.
For patients exhibiting 5-9 of the following list, they can be diagnosed with Class 1 IDIL, which is the least severe of the IDIL classes.
Patients with 10-14 are considered Class 2 IDIL, and these patients are the most numerous in number.
Patients who meet 15-19 of the following have Class 3 IDIL Critical, or, as it is more commonly known, clinical procrastination (Procrastinalis Medicalis).
Patients exhibiting 20 of the symptoms have issues and should seek psychiatric help immediately...or whenever they get around to it...
Patients diagnosed with Class 1/2 IDIL can be prescribed certain medications, the most effective of which is "self-discipline", but "hard work" and "starting early" have been known to be very effective as well.
Patients diagnosed with Class 3 IDIL must be prescribed a new medication on the market called Focusine SR. Focusine SR should not be used during pregnancy, if heart conditions exist in the family or before sexual intercourse, all of which could lead to very awkward scenarios.

The criteria are as follows:
A. On school nights, patient sleeps later than 3AM regularly.
B. All-nighters are not a rare occurrence: Once a month or more.
C. All-nighters are not a rare occurrence: Once a week or more.
D. Patient logs onto Wikipedia at least once an hour.
E. 80% of tests taken require an all-nighter for which to study.
F. Patient refuses to write in Homework Notebook/Student Planner.
G. After putting off work to study for a test, leading to an all-nighter, patient does not "crash." Instead, patient procrastinates further by putting off sleep until much later.
H. Patient has shirt that says, "Procrastinators: Rulers of Tomorrow," or "Team Procrastination: Assembling Next Season," or something along those lines. Owners of such shirts should also check their funny bone, in case they are missing it.
I. Essays more than 6 pages in length require an all-nighter.
J. Essays more than 4 pages in length require an all-nighter.
K. Essays more than 2 pages in length require an all-nighter.
L. Any assignment that is called anything remotely sounding like "essay" requires an all-nighter. (i.e. Scientific Assays, Daily Short Answer (S.A.) Question, etc.)
M. Patient does not read prompt of assignments handed out months previously until a the night before assignment is due.
N. The first thing patient does before starting work is internet browsing.
O. The first site patient visits is Facebook.
P. Patient can easily browse Facebook for hours without questioning such browsing.
Q. Patient religiously reads buddies' Buddy Info/Away messages before starting work.
R. Patient Instant Messages friends complaining about workload before starting to do the actual workload.
S. At 3:30AM patient can be found blogging about procrastination.
T. Patient runs out of criteria for procrastination and promises to do it later. T.T

Reflections from the Samaritan

Kudos if you can read and understand the whole thing.

A naked lamb once said to me,
"Kind sir, but I am cold."
To which I told him hurriedly,
"Young lamb, but I am old."

So I left him there in winter,
Freezing without heat,
But on my honor I must say
I had a friend to meet.

So I kept on walking down the path,
Along the rocky ground,
When to my busy, sad disdain,
A newborn calf I found.

He told me, "I am cold,
Cold and lost alone."
To which I told him kindly,
"Your problems are your own."

And just like that I left him,
Again in winter's chill.
I had some friends to meet
Just over yonder hill.

But as I climbed the mountain,
A broken sight I saw.
It caught and held my rapture,
Kept my heart in awe.

Three friends of mine ahead,
Whom I had planned to see,
Were working hard together
To rob a man, to beat him and to flee.

I stood there, speechless,
Not knowing what to do.
I hid away in horrid panic,
Off the pathway too.

I sat there waiting, watching, wishing,
Thinking of my choices,
And then I heard some men
Nearing with their voices.

Two priests they were,
Held in high esteem.
They would surely help the man,
So their reputations made it seem.

But they ignored his cries,
His anguish and his bid.
Their callous, selfish arrogance
Recalled what I just did.

But still was I afraid.
While knowing I did wrong
Did not know the means of fixing,
Until some others came along.

Two men this time were rabbis,
Respected and revered.
They were known for charity,
Their kindness went unpeered.

Yet they quickly stepped their foot,
Approaching the poor soul,
Leaving him thus injured
Naked in the cold.

At last I could no longer
Sit aside and watch him die.
Walking toward the beaten man,
I relieved him of his cries.

I picked him up with gentle hands,
And placed him on my back,
And thus began to turn around
With much heavier a pack.

On the pathway back to town,
I saw my friend the calf.
He laid there on the road so still
Even with the prodding of my staff.

Holding tears I moved along,
Again in focused goal,
When I came across the lamb
Who told me he was cold.

But now his chill would last forever,
Laying in a frozen bed.
His eyes so dull and lifeless,
Spoke the nature of the dead.

But still I carried onward,
Hoping to save one life at least.
Internal, complex feelings
Made me run, in hope of all things peace.

I found an inn not far after,
But found it to be proud.
The keeper saw the near-dead man
And said, "No Levites are allowed."

I told him not to worry,
I'd pay for all expenses
And extra for the trouble,
If he gains his senses.

And so I walked out of the inn,
As the road split left and right.
I thought of lessons I had learned,
From the beaten, good Levite.

Random, Late-night Antics

Firstly, the term "antics" implies that I am up to something and in the dark hours of the night, at that. Well, technically, as many have been prone to point out, I would be up to these "antics" in the wee hours of the morn, as opposed to the night.

Regardless, among these antics I have included starting a blog. I recently created an email address on Gmail (not my first, but my first serious email), and I guess it's time to conform once again.

A few noteworthy cautions before you decide to follow my writing antics:

1. My writing is random and sporadic. Do not expect consistency unless you enjoy getting your hopes crushed miserably by my inability to remain constant, immutable.
2. I apologize ahead of time for any inconvenient arrogance you may detect in my rambling. I think I'm good, so humor me.
3. Conformity is a topic about which I enjoy writing. Complaining about it is probably an outlet for me to deal with my own conformity and lack of individuality.
4. I like self-reference, so pardon my recognition that blogging can be pretentious, or that bloggers probably need to spend more time focusing on other pursuits, namely school, or life in general.


So my late-night antics have taken a new low: blogging. Many of us have dealt with the casual Xanga.com blogging, prettying our sites so that our friends could ooh and ah our flashy, creative web designs. Rarely were our teenage blogs filled with substance. They were an outlet for our emotional ranges, sometimes daily.

However, depending on the person, each blog entry had its unique flavor, its own little style that distinguished it from other blog entries. Some of these were more personal entries, while others were simple ramblings that happen to cross our minds throughout the day. There are many types of teenage blog entries that pervade our Xanga memories, some of which I shall list here, while others I shall list and discuss at a more convenient, sane time.

1. The angry-personal entry: These entries are often posted the night of a particular betrayal or unhappy experience. Bloggers of these entries often are angry enough to personalize their attack in the second person but rarely name the person of their anger.
2. The daily-blase entry: These entries have little substance in terms of intellectual pursuit, but certainly are crucial for friends to keep up with each other. They are often void of emotional bias, being neither sad nor happy overall. Instead, they focus on the events of the blogger's day, or occasional few days if said blogger is lazy.
3. The angst-ridden entry: These entries are definitely "thinking-out-loud" entries. Some of these have a certain stream of consciousness appeal to them, but oftentimes they are just quietly edited entries when someone is trying to reach out for help, or maybe just stating their problems in case someone has a response that will make the blogger feel a bit better.

These three types of entries are but a few of the many types of entries that I have encountered in my teenage observation. Some other time I will expound on them and add to the list of other types of entries I happened to come across in my Xanga/LiveJournal experience. However, for now, it has recently reached the handsome hour of 4 AM, and my bedsheets beckon.

Adieu,
Andrew