My Day

Today was arguably the worst day I've had all semester, yet for some reason, I felt a (probably false) sense of contentedness and joy. I spent most of today, as I latterly do, alone.

I went to sleep at a late hour, greeting the sun at its early yawn before I tucked myself into the comforts of my static electricity-infested Asian mink blanket.

I then woke up for my 8AM class.

Normally, my friend, Naman Desai, wakes up around 7:30. He doesn't look at the clock in the early hours of the morn, but rather, simply times himself. By the time he finishes his morning routine, he has a few minutes before he has to leave for class. Thus, if he finishes his routine and doesn't see his friends up, he calls them to make sure they go to class. Good friend, good intentions.

But Craig Jeong (or Jeongward as we call him these days), who is Naman's roommate, decides to set his alarm for 7AM this morning instead of the customary 7:30AM. Thus, Naman does his morning routine and wakes me up when he finishes...at 7:20AM.

My alarm goes off at 7:35AM, so when Naman called, it was 15 minutes early. For some reason, in my groggy stupor, I just said, "Alright. I'm getting up." I looked at my clock, but it didn't register to me as being too early. When Naman calls me, I'm usually late, so I think I just took it all in stride and got ready.

And I finished at 7:30AM, 5 minutes before my alarm would even go off.

Needless to say, when I had realized what happened, I was pissed that I lost sleep. However, that anger was quickly replaced by my plan to sleep straight through my Anatomy lecture unnoticed. The class is fairly large, so I knew from prior experience that I could sleep as long as I blended in with the other students.

Unfortunately, all my plans went askew as class began.

Dr. Anderson had a bone to pick with us. It wasn't quite the same bone Shenzi picked with Scar, but it was similar. He was mad that many people were whining about one question on the last quiz. This question was worth 2 points. In a course with 1400 points, this was fairly negligible. However, not only was he angry about the very vocal minority who whined to him, his anger was increased tenfold when he heard complaints of the question being "unfair."

Now, Dr. Anderson has his ups and downs (ask Eric Woo), but he has also given us 2 free points on every quiz. A quiz that has 15 questions usually contains a bogus question, so as to ease our anxieties about our grade, or simply because he's nice. I don't know his reason, but I don't question it.

Dr. Anderson argued that if he took that question out of the last quiz, then he should take all the "free" questions out of the other quizzes in order to be "fair." This was obviously met with criticism, and thus, Dr. Anderson asked for our input, challenging us to find a compelling reason for him not to take away the points.

One person said that the syllabus already established the point total, so it would be inconvenient at best to change it this late in the semester. Dr. Anderson countered by pointing out that the first thing in the syllabus says, "I reserve the right to change anything." He calls it his "God clause."

Dr. Anderson thus says that he's allowed to give and take points as he pleases.

The good Doctor giveth, and the good Doctor taketh away. That's God, Ph. D., for you, folks.

I voiced my opinion, convincing him that the students do realize that he is the God of the lecture hall, and that's why sometimes we complain, because we know he has that power. That's why we go to class, our biweekly church, to show him our attendance rate, because we know he controls the fate of our grade. That's why we go to his office hours, our Holy Days of obligation, to show that we care about the class, and we love Anatomy, our academic religion. But in the end, the good Doctor giveth, and He can certainly taketh away.

However, my anger did not stem from the arbitrary nature of his points. I could care less. Just work hard and make him laugh, and you'll be fine, I say. My anger stems from the fact that right after I spoke, voicing my opinions, offering my prayers to the good Doctor Himself, he took mental note of me. That means he noticed me. That means that I couldn't go unnoticed. That means that I couldn't sleep.

I was frustrated, but this quickly subsided because I had hours before my next class to sleep. So I got back to my room after Anatomy with the intention of sleeping until my next class. As I set my alarm, I hear the loud rumble, similar to a leaf blower. I look outside and on the building adjacent to mine, they were fixing the roof with a random machine. A loud machine. I told Stephanie this already, but it sounded like the gargling of a lion with lung cancer. Or a dragon. Why do you need a dragon to fix the roof?!

Again, for the third time, now, I was vexed nearing my limit. So I closed my roommate's window, and texted him to inform him. That's when I found out my phone had been disconnected because I forgot to pay yesterday.

My anger was calm, even though it was the fourth transgression upon me in a very early day. It was easy to pay. I just needed to do it online, like I do every month, and in an hour or so, probably when I wake up, I'll have service again. So I go online. It normally goes smoothly, but this time the card number was rejected.

Five times this morning was I subject to ill-will. Five small, but still irksome, annoyances greeted me.

Any other day, I would have been angry beyond measurement. But I felt okay for some reason. I wasn't pissed, but just felt like sleep would make it okay. I didn't have time to be angry because I had to study for my Lab Practical. I calmed myself, and took a quick nap. Realizing that I lost sleep in the morning, during lecture, and before noon because of the loudness, realizing that my phone was dead, my (dad's) card number rejected, thus freezing my telephone capabilities for the rest of the day, realizing that I was having a horrid day, I was still okay.

Then I got a text message from Sean, and I realized that while my phone was dead, I could still receive but not send text messages.


And I was fucking livid.

It's Business Time

This is an interesting setting, in more ways than one.

I feel a sense of digital deja vu, typing along in the wee hours of the night. Those who know me understand that "wee" in this context doesn't mean the early hours of the morning. This time, it means "little" or "very small." 2:30AM is not late, it is a small hour, a time ungrown into the day. It's still early for me. My deja vu comes not from my physical setting, the school of business is very new to me. It comes from the familiarity of late-night procrastination.

These hours have inadvertently become familiar to me, like a child who never grows up, trapped in an innocence that we cannot help but come to love.

But maybe we don't love children like we think we do. Maybe we simply have grown used to their presumed innocence, their assumed naivete. We are used to their smallness, their youth that we sometimes envy. And maybe it is not the Love of emotions, but rather the Love of habit that we feel for them.

For we are often broken-hearted more over habit than for love itself. It is the habit of care that becomes for us a part of our day, a part of our lives and a part of ourselves. And when this habit breaks, against our will, against our choice, we become desolate, like we lost a part of ourselves, a sandal in the ocean that the tides take and never return.

I hate these hours. I used to revel in them. I used to dominate the nightly/morningly rants and adventures that were a part of me like the air I breathe. They were the branches to my tree and my leaves were golden, shimmering just as the sun hinted its suffocating arrival.

But like a tree, my leaves have fallen, and I grew accustomed to my emptiness. I didn't mind losing my leaves, my glistening foliage. My branches were barren, but I still had myself and I was okay. But autumn's end inevitably brings winter, and now I am laden with snow. I embraced my fate with optimism at first, admiring the twinkle of each snowflake, the beauty of powder glistening around me.

Then the snowflakes built up. My boughs were burdened with blankets of blizzard-induced snow, and their weight pushed me down.

Now these hours are lived without adventure, without enjoyment. They are a burden on me. My choices have left me heavy with duty. Each new dark realization becomes an icicle below my branches, stabbing into the air like a falcon's talon, searching for weakness.

I don't want to be a tree anymore. That's lame.

We were all young once, wishing, yearning to be free. I was too. So I chose to reach as high as I could go. I never realized that no matter how high I want to go, that no matter how beautiful the journey and growth may be, I will always be firmly rooted in the Earth. Terra Madre holds me down.

I know why the caged bird sings.

Cuz it's fuckin' boring in a cage.

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.

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

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