dear imsa

okay, maybe i miss you a little.

don't eat my sister.

there is no cure for cancer

today i freaked out at this poor lady just because she was hopeful.  

i'll let you all in on a little secret: there is no cure for cancer.  cancer is a very, very complex disease that has no one cure.  can a combination of new techniques make cancer an entirely curable disease? Yes.  But there is no cure for cancer.

back to the poor lady:  I went into sunglass hut because they sent me a 25$ gift card.  they are smart--when you buy something, they send you a gift card for 25$ knowing that there is nothing sub 150$ in their store and hoping that you will spend the other 125+ to buy a sweet new pair of shades.  so i compliment susan, the manager, on their strategy because i can admire that.

this was my mistake, because she talked to me for 40 minutes after that about her rare cancer, some jewish doctor in boston, turmeric (the indian spice she eats a lot of) and how i was important and should not get caught up in the system.  she didn't really know what she was talking about, but she asked me to wish her luck in her biopsy on thursday and to keep up my work and find the cure of cancer (in case she is wrong about the jewish doctor in boston who solved it).  i wished her good luck and looked up the stuff she wrote down on the back of her business card for me.  please wish susan good luck.

camping

i was camping the other day in the negev desert, and there was a nice english family next to us. we started to chat it up, and we were getting along just fine. they asked me if any tour group in america would do something like this, when i realized i dont think many of them would. we would go to hotels and such. he told me his theory--that barack obama was going to change it all. that barack obama should run on a platform of americans camping. i like it.

What I hate seeing on websites

"Sorry, yourscreenname is already registered as a Screen Name." Someone else beat you to the original wit you thought you had. Ha!

The most frustrating thing is seeing that message....thirty times.

Sunblock

Apparently it's obvious to people that I buy a lot of sunblock. This guy at Walgreens was asking me about it as if I'm some kind of expert... Which I guess I am.

Also, how much difference is there really between spf 30 and 50? Or 50 and 70 for that matter? Hmm...

customer satisfaction

"Sir, the only difference between the Reduced Fat blueberry muffins and regular blueberry muffins is the lack of sugar on the former", said Assistant Manager J.
As the perplexed but satisfied customer walked away, I approached J. I have baked muffins before, and I know the simple procedure quite well. You go into the freezer, you get the frozen muffins, bring them back, put toppings on them, and stick them all into the oven. The stage of putting the toppings on the muffins is how sugar gets to the ones labelled "Blueberry" but not to the ones that say "Reduced Fat Blueberry" on those little muffin wrapping papers. It's just how we do it.
"J., did you just tell the customer that there is no difference between the two muffins?"
"There isn't", confirmed J. "They're all healthy".
"Right...I realise that", said I, as I thought to myself that they aren't any healthier than the doughnuts we sell. "But...", and the idea consumed me as I was unable to express it - it just seemed too obvious. The muffins came labelled differently, how could they be exactly the same? Surely, Corporate wouldn't be that dumb.
"But, J.", I tried again, "They are labelled individually. They must be made up of different ingredients. Otherwise, it's a lie."
"No, Oleh, the sugar is what makes them fatty. You see, the RF blueberry doesn't have sugar, so they are less fatty." J. was getting irritated.
Amazed at hearing this, I blurted out:
"Sugar and fat don't correlate though. Just 'cos something is sweet, doesn't make it fatty."
"Uhh, yeah, it does, " attacked J. in a quarterback manner.
"Soda has tons of sugar, but no fat in it", said I, feeling slightly idiosyncratic.
"Yeah, it does."
"Soda? No... It has no fat!"
"Why don't you go get a bottle of soda from the freezer and show me, OLEH?", and with those words she walked away."Why do you people always HAVE TO PROVE everyone else wrong?!", I heard her voice muffle through the walls.
I went over to the cooler, calmly got out a Mountain Dew and brought it to J. half satisfied at the upcoming resolution.
Unfortunately, however, J. seemed suddenly busy calculating something very fiercely. So much so that she didn't have the time to care about such pretty things as saturated fats and sugar levels. So i set the bottle on her table and went back.
I decided not to mention the fact that skim milk looks and tastes very much like the 2% milk that we have recently received a huge shipment of, and that the general manager P., who has worked with the company for ages, made me cover the wheat bagels in oats and bake them instead of baking the multigrain bagels, even though we had both kinds available. He could not understand the difference.
And yet, I get in trouble for not grinning to every customer. Customer satisfaction, they say, is key.

Living in harmony

Well, I'll probably be posting a bunch in the future about this summer at camp. My camp takes us to the Canadian wilderness to canoe and I've fallen in love with the beauty of the region. I'd really like to share a few stories that I've thought a lot about and hopefully people reading this can choose to get their own meaning out of it.

One of my best friends at camp spent the previous summer in Thailand, where she spent six weeks traveling village to village, backpacking, and staying with locals to better understand the culture. On a trip with her to the English River, we came across a campsite filled with what we call "no see ems"- little, tiny bugs that make you bleed when they bite you, giving you lots of scabs. Our faces were bloodied from the bugs and we were all ready to retire to our tents and kill each and every single bug that may have crept into our tent. As my friend and I were sitting by the water, she said : "You know, these bugs are just like the bugs we encountered one day as we were meditating with the monks in a Buddhist monastery in Thailand. But we couldn't kill them; we were in the monastery. Although we were struggling to take our minds off of the bugs, the monks looked to be living in harmony with the bugs that harassed them."

Jet lag...

sucks.

The end.

(P.S.: Spain was cool though. :D)

"I hate my life."

Sometimes I sympathize with people who have that sentiment.

But most of the time, I think, "Seriously, middle-class overdramatic emo kid trying to sound deep and pathetic at the same time, while living in America (one of the richest countries in the world), get a grip. Your life isn't half as bad as you might think."

I'm sorry if that sounds insensitive.

i believe in summer plums

you know, the kind that are so juicy you have to eat over the kitchen sink
otherwise the bloodred fruit comes down around your fingers and makes you feel sticky for hours
these are the fruits that have to be enjoyed outside, with your toes and soles and calves in the still-damp grass
when the humidity is the warm washcloth that works its way in until each bone is wrapped in a delightfully soft layer that makes everything seem fuzzier


even though my life has probably never seemed more dull to anyone else
i truly believe

that i am really living

A Gentle Wave

A beaded dragonfly's wayward hovering
Doesn't appear to be as much fun
As taming the moon's continual minions
In broad daylight; the sun snickers

A land where the days and nights are long
Every dish is homemade
Private gazebos are infiltrated and overthrown
Humans sound like unmuzzled mutts; pedigrees disappear

As I write sheltered, enjoying the lofty breeze
In foreign script the NSA couldn't decipher
The insects chirp freely as the blackbird flocks buzz
Gossiping about their anticipated meal

Yes, you may find me here
With a foot on the bench and a foot on the ground
Observing with titillation of the senses
In a gem so neatly tucked away

I'm in a land, where the trees are tall
And some could recall, when they were planted
My writing whimsy soiling a summer day
In Wauconda.

the holy land

so i am in israel right now, and i am loving my few minutes of computer access here and there. i am doing biochemistry research at hebrew university in jerusalem, and also doing lots of jewish studies stuff.

this science meets religion thing is really pressing me, and i don't know what to think about it. i wish i knew all the answers. but for now i will enjoy the ice coffee and hummus instead of thinking about this question.

note: ceecee and i think that all authors should post more. tell us about your summers or something :)

WTF at my dreams, They're ridiculous.

Okay, lately I have been having some crazy dreams, and I know I posted one earlier about Siva and Meena Iyer's imaginary sister. I know RG gave the advice to only tell those who are involved in the dreams, but these are just too crazy. Also lately I've had the uncanny ability to remember them in pretty good detail.

1. (This is me speaking to Jake Maloney, mostly copied and pasted off of his facebook wall with some editing.) So I had this crazy dream where a serial killer is on the lose in a neighborhood and the serial killer's MO is to slice open the victim's throat. So I was on the case I guess, but I was in this public bathroom I guess taking a piss and I was really thinking hard about who was the killer, while another man was in the stall taking a dump I presume, and we got to talking. He was asking me about the recent killings and such. I thought I recognized his voice, but wasn't sure. Well I was still taking a piss when he came up behind me and said something to me just as I finished and turned around. There you were with a very sharp pencil thin blade, and you said something evil to me and lunged at me, I ducked and grabbed your arm and We fought back and forth and finally I sliced your neck a little and then that weakened your grip and I got a full on slice of your neck and split it from side to side (Thus killing you with the same MO that had killed your victims). You were gasping and stuff and you walked outside the public bathroom. I know it is impossible for you to speak now, but yet the police had caught wind of where you were and had surrounded the bathroom and you stumbled out and said something. I do not remember what it was, but it was so evil it sent a chill down my titanium spine.

2. My friends and I are gathered in some sort of room having a nice party. Suddenly the enviroment shifts and the world is taken over by Alien Gorilla type creatures (think Planet of the Apes style mixed with a bit of Klingon). Suffice it to say they take over pretty efficiently. But luckily for my friends and I (and the human race) me and an accomplice (do not remember who, think he was Caucasian) find these two guns that can change states if matter not mention just straight up make matter disappear. So we start using these guns to make the matter that is the gorrila-klingon's heads disappear. We dispatch all of them, but then we accidentally turn the entire planet (or at least the room we're in which is a symbol for the entire planet) into water. So me and my accomplice are like, "What the heck? We'lljust recreate the earth." So we end up using out guns to turn the water into other types of matter such as land and etc. So we begin terraforming our planet.

3. Oh I am sorry my third one is very random and although I do remember parts of it clearly if I wrote it all out it would be just too scattered and confusing. Just to give you a little something, it is split up into mini-dreams. One invlolves their being a very big fire in an auditorium (not the IMSA one) but it was full of IMSA kids, and so we struggle to run out. The second involves me going to a new school and having to try to fit in there (awkward). The third is interconnected with the second but involves me blackmailing Kenneth "Chi" McBride (Google image that one, you know him) into giving me 50 pieces of fried chicken, because he worked at a fried chicken shack. The fourth involves a schoolwide skip day in which I didn't know so in order to escape I use the fried chicken box and get someone to mistake it for a bomb and walk home. The fifth involves a schoolwide assembly and one long speech was being said except it was broken up into parts and teachers and some students got to say parts of it. I read my part and it was the corniest one ever. It was filled with ridiculous puns that fade from my mind. Now the school was very free spirited and did what they want, so as the speaker before me was talking everyone started to leave. Sarah Trevor was sitting on stage with the orchestra (they obviously were trapped and could not leave) and asked me why I wasn't leaving and I showed her that I was a speaker. I remember wondering why they chose me to speak. Any ways I got on stage, and I messed up my first line. Then I woke up and was glad because embarrassments in dreams are not real ones. So now I leave you with one of my favorite XKCD's.

It is titled "Every Damn Morning"

Perspective

(haha, i found this from a long time ago...)

With your eyes, up and down,

Compare me to a scale,

Of yesterday's lunch.

Society breeds.

Learn a lesson in life,

Reciprocate so you don't lose,

So you won't fall,

Alone.

Memories will stay in my head,

Where I anchor them, so they won't fly away.

Like helium balloons,

Tied on white fences,

Be careful, they pop easily.

Splattered colors lie on the grass,

The sky continues to grow.

Mistakes.

Hope lies on the heart,

A silver locket with a long chain.

Hidden behind layers,

And warm to the touch.

If the key is gold, how will it fit?

If it's not perfect, how will it last?

Question, wonder, discover

Life has it's ups and downs.

Choose.

Aldo: i don't know why but some reason i feel this picture represents my life...

Me: haha...what?

Aldo: ah idk...=]

I can't think of a witty title for this one.

I just got back from my trip to Kyiv. I made a lot of good friends, and absolutely love the city, the culture, and the people there. It got to the point where I could barely imagine life before or after Kyiv, and I was only there for eight days. I loved that trip, and the people I met on it...and, the day after coming back to America, I fell back into my usual rut easily, like I'd never been gone. And when I go back next summer, everyone will have changed, and I know for a fact that three or four people won't be there anymore. It'll be like a lifetime has passed, and I missed all of it.

My apologies to Siva and Meena Iyer

So I had this weird dream last night:
Myself and a group of my close friends and a not so close acquaintance (Will Smith, but a vampire version of him) get ripped off in a drug deal. So we decide that we are going to exact revenge and obtain AK-47's (Automatic rifle Kalashnikov model of 1947 year). Right before we lure them into our trap and... shoot them I am hanging out with some fictitious (hopefully) younger sister to Meena and Siva Iyer. The trap springs and all the parties that had wronged us go down, except little imaginary Iyer does as well.
Now my group of close friends decide to pin this all on vampire Will Smith, but Meena comes up to me (this is all at IMSA by the way) and asks if I had seen her little sister, because I was last seen with her. I answer "No," but feel tremendous guilt. I then go back to my room and clean because it is dirty, decline an offer to do drugs, and fix a hole in the window screen which had been letting in flies and other such bugs that I hate.
So I am sorry for killing your imaginary (hopefully you do not have a younger sister) younger sister Meena and Siva.
Jae

P.S. I woke up and said to myself twice "I'm so glad I'm not at IMSA anymore."

one last thing

PS: apparently someone has figured out my passowrd and views everyone else's profile a billion times.

to that person, whoever you are: please stop being a creep.

kloveyouthxbai.

writer's block

i find that i often log into this website in an attempt to record my thoughts. i do so because i feel i still have so much to say, but don't have a clue where to begin.

writing was the only means of expressing my thoughts in the most uncandid and uncensored ways possible. it kept me sane.

and now it has become obsolete.

so here's the million dollar question: what does one do now?
hmm...maybe going insane won't be such a bad thing.

goodnight.

i haven't said "i love you" to my parents in a long time

they haven't noticed.

we sure are one big happy family :]

Wow

WARNING: Slightly rambling late-at-night post.

So it's 12:38 AM on a Wednesday morning and I have to get up at 6:40 AM, but I can't sleep. So what do I do?

Well thankfully this actually isn't the first place I went. However, I did end up here...

So I realized recently that when I got my new laptop back in May, I forgot to add this blog back to my RSS reader and then forgot about it. I think I need to fix that.

Also, I think I'm going to start up my own Blogpost blog (which would be my...fourth blog in as many years, although some lasted more than others). Keep on the lookout for that if you care about my life so much or are a creepy stalker.

Other than that. Happy summer! I'm sure most of you are being bored out of your minds. Me too!

tornado danger

yea, what the hell is with all these tornadoes?  

stranger danger

Today a stranger said hi and asked me how I was doing.

I wish I was a nice stranger like that.

Slightly unexpected

So I never thought I'd say this...

But I really miss frisbee.

Forget.

http://www.graphicpoetry.net/abstraction.html

http://www.graphicpoetry.net/ill-refute.html

http://www.graphicpoetry.net/eclipse.htm

things that stuck out today

I saw this armless woman today. I was too shy to actually talk to her, but I was kind of a creepo, because I watched her for a good seven minutes; I was really curious to see how she did things. One of her friends helped her by carrying her backpack, and then putting it on the floor. I thought that was pretty stupid, because she wouldn't be able to reach it, but then I realized she had no arms. So I stared at the backpack for a little while, and watched as she opened her backpack, got out a notebook and pen, closed her backpack, opened the notebook, and began to take notes. It took me a minute to realize that she was able to do all of these things with her feet.

On a slightly lighter note, I had lunch with my dad and some of his more scholarly acquaintances today, too. They were talking about religion and genetics, or something like that. Once again, I partook in people-watching, instead of actually participating in the conversation. The conversation made me wish that I was a man so that I could stroke my facial hair thoughtfully every time someone made an interesting point.

In other news, pickaxes are not just for gnomes. On the drive home today, I saw a construction worker take one out of his truck, hack at the road a bit, and then put it back.

really, i promise

so i am a teacher's aide at our local elementary's summer school. i work with the junior high students, which means most of these kids are roughly my size and already too cool for me. occasionally they opt to ask me questions about my life instead of learning how to multiply negative numbers, and today, just that happened. i was sitting at the table when one boy asked me what high school i graduated from, so i tried to explain imsa to them. for some reason, these kids didn't understand the concept of boarding school (i mean, they are in summer school for a reason, but helloooooo? harry potter anyone?) so i had to explain to them. after about a minute, i thought i had done a pretty good job of getting the message across that boarding school was vaguely like a big sleepover. i sat back, satisfied with a job well done. but then little jacob nicol looks up and asks me dubiously, "but what do you DO all day LONG?!"

oh, imsa. you have made me lame even in the eyes of redneck 12-year-olds.

This is why I don't like "The Notebook."

So my sister and I got into a bit of a debate yesterday over lunch when we were discussing "true love."
Basically, she believes that there's "a one" for everyone, and once you find that "one," you're done, and that's true love.
I think that love is totally based on circumstance and chance -- what's going on in your life, in other people's lives, the world, where you live, what color your hair is, how old you are, what supermarket you shop at, etc.
I suppose that I would say "true" love is what happens when two people are able to make things work, despite how they and their lives change over time.

Unsurprisingly,
I'm not a terribly romantic person.

When reality hits

I was doing some laundry today, the 2nd day being gone from IMSA, and of course that means I had to use my laundry bag to get the clothes from the dryer -- to the couch. Anyways, I'm sitting there watching some crappy TV show that my Mom has on, and when I'm all done folding my clothes, I decide to put them back in the bag. Half way through packing away my clothes I just froze and became confused. I asked my Mom, what am I doing? She nonchalantly responds, "I was going to ask the same thing." Why the fuck was I packing up my clothes I ask myself. Oh, because it has been 2 days since IMSA and that means the weekend has ended and I'm going back. No... because I graduated. It finally hit me, I'm gone from IMSA and now all my habits have to change. Thank god I won't be in this house most of the summer, or I might actually have to confront that change.

Welcome To Summer

My days are consumed by substantial bouts of nothingness. I like to get "lost in one's thoughts," or, as I like to call it, "daydream" hourly. In the midst of my trivial and meaningless monkey-style data processing and amateurish graffiti drawing (an art in which I have no personal inclination to better myself), I randomly zonk out. You can find me staring at a static computer screen, blank wall or even innocent passerby with an empty gaze on my face, resembling of a coma patient, as I have been told by my brother. I need something to do.

I don't like summer.

an event which shall be forever recorded in the blogosphere for posterity's sake.

Today after the Kiely final we chilled on the senior u-bench.

It's kind of significant.

Good-bye

Free at last!
Free at last!
Thank God Almighty,
We are free at last!

Truer words were never spoken

Summer time

i think that people should post to this more often this summer.  and share it on facebook and whatnot.  it will keep us updated on each others lives...

Parting Is Such Sweet Sorrow

Save tonight
and fight the break of dawn
Come tomorrow
tomorrow they'll be gone

/salute senior class. We'll miss you

Why do friendships fall away as we get older? Perhaps maybe life just becomes too complicated. Or maybe it always was more complicated – and we just didn’t want to admit it.

It was us in the mac lab with the janitor.

Thats right, we did it; we watched Teeth, the movie, in the maclab last night.

The best part is that the creepy weekend janitor guy watched most of it from the doorway with us.  

It's alright though, we redeemed our dignity by giving Ralph the security guard our pepsi codes so he can donate all of his points to Toys for Tots at the end of the year--what a great guy.

New year

As I sit here pretending to work on an English final that is due in two or so hours, I can't help but realize that today is the 15th. The day that sophomore acceptance letters are officially sent out. I can't help but be in awe of how fast this first year at IMSA was and that next year I'll be a junior. Although junior year is hell year, I'm really excited for it. I'm excited to work hard and learn a lot, while having a bit of fun with my friends in the process. I'm excited for tennis and having a shot at state, Synergy, writing center, and most of all StudCo. Next year is gonna be a great year, and I'm going to be a junior. I really can't believe it. Normally at this time of year, all I can think about is going to Canada to go canoing. But this year, I'm actually looking beyond canoing and looking at next year. A new year, with new sophomores. It's going to be really weird. But it's going to be awesome, even if I'll be overwhelmed with work basically 24/7.

I hate myself for this.

So, please don't kill me.
And try not to let the following admission change how you feel about me as a person.

Okay....here goes.

Today, I bought a Ryan Cabrera song on iTunes.
And...I liked it.

*hides*

When I Grow Up

DISCLAIMER: This is probably boring, it's a pretty standard reflection on change and the future.

It's pretty weird to think that the school year is almost over. To me, it doesn't seem like the school year is winding down, it seems like I'm just keeping my head above the water until the next extended. It probably has something to do with the weather. I've kind of digressed.
The school year is almost over, which means we (Class of 09) are almost seniors. This is a particularly petrifying thought to me, because senior year means one year away from college, which means four years or less away from the real world, which means being a grown-up. Being a grown-up is an extremely terrifying concept to me, maybe because I have so many different aspirations, and I'm not sure which ones I want to accomplish first. Potentially losing touch with the people I've met here is a really distressing matter as well.
My parents never talk to their high school friends, and rarely to their college friends. I've said it so many times, but at our ten-year reunion, I don't want to have to catch up with anyone, I want to say, "Hey, has your boss stopped being a jerk yet?" or something to that effect, like all friend-y and we-haven't-talked-in-only-a-couple-days-ish.
I think I'm most scared of change, especially because (minus homework) I pretty much like things as they are.

Oh, and since this is a reflection on the future, I think that, in 2020, there will be flying cars and people living on the moon, and maybe freeze-dried food will run rampant. Also there will be hologram communication technology, like in Star Wars.

enjoy your food.

i was talking to harika (that fatty) about food. and here's what i think:

there is almost always food involved in the happiest moments of our lives. this may not apply to the sudden, firework ish moments (marriage proposal, baby birth, etc), but to the quiet, pleasant times (good report cards = cookies) but then there are the not as happy times. and thats when food means the most (at least to me) my gramma when she was dieing could no longer walk, and i believe that the scent of her favorite food cooking inthe kitchen kept her alive longer. it was the scent of love.and comfort/wollowing food is important when we girls get togehter to chit chat. i dont think we can do it without food (late night ramen).i think good is comforting because of the connections/associations/idk between food and the ppl were with and the emotions that the food makes us have. like the taste/smell of it. in a sense the right comfort food could be equivalent to getting a hug from someone special

Is it still love?

We live in an e-card culture.

We would rather send an animated cartoon telling our mother that we love her, rather than preparing an actual, handwritten card that truly expresses our feelings.

There is an entire business devoted to internet greeting cards - what does this suggest?  Basic interactions from special occasions are slowly losing their touch.

We have become lazy, and we just simply don't care that much.

So, I ask: is it still love?

Freedom

Have anyone ever told you that you need to listen to someone because that's just the way it is?

Well that's bullshit. You should never have to put up with anything
And to realize that-

Feels

So

Good

There's something in the air...

No, it's not love. IT'S SICKNESS.

Everyone seems to be feeling under the weather, including myself. I'm not pointing any fingers (actually, yes, I am), but I'm pretty sure it has to do with spastic weather and a high pollen count.

Gross.

mexican coca-cola

I spent my weekend getting acquainted with people I never saw at IMSA because obviously, they don't go there.

Highly recommended.

My bike got fixed so I've also been riding it whenever possible. I can even ride it into town without fear of legal penalty.

Sometimes I stay up until 1:30 so I don't forget what IMSA felt like.

A Small Rant During Physics

I really hate people who lie/make up drama in their lives to make themselves seem more exciting, or to get attention.

I mean, I should be able to walk into my hall commons without feeling like I've stepped into a poorly written episode of "Days of Our Lives."

Seriously. Just do me a huge favor...if you have a real problem, then cool. We'll talk about it or whatever. Otherwise, shut up.

You know what's bullshit?

Contra III, more to come tomorrow on this bullshit.

Many thanks to my brother for finding this...sort of...

Do you know?

Do you know what the best part of lucid dreaming is?

I could fly

For All the Sheep of the Media

So to start this off, this entry is about global warming, and how it is utter alarmist media bullshit.

Before you start turning away because you believe in global warming, ask yourself this, "Why do you believe in global warming?", "What proof can you cite?"

Here is a link to possibly the best compilation of facts refuting global warming (http://www.martinfrost.ws/htmlfiles/dec2006/gwspin.pdf). In an effort to entice you to read that, I will now list some counter-evidence to global warming alarmist claims.

I'd like to start off with the most ridiculous one I've heard of:

Argument: POLAR BEARS IN THE ARCTIC ARE SAD AND DYING -- PROOF OF GLOBAL WARMING
Wrong: "Let me repeat what biologist Dr. Mitchell Taylor from the Arctic government of Nunavut, a territory of Canada, said recently: “Of the 13 populations of polar bears in Canada, 11 are stable or increasing in number. They are not going extinct, or even appear to be affected at present.”"

Argument: Antarctica is simultaneously warming and losing ice, proof of global warming affecting the Antarctic.
Wrong: "But both the journals Science and Nature have published studies recently finding – on balance – Antarctica is both cooling and gaining ice."

Argument: The use of fuel that creates carbon dioxide (a green house gas) is one of the main driving forces of global warming!
Wrong: Carbon Dioxide has not shown to have any direct correlating effect on global temperature. Remember that thing called the Industrial Revolution? Remember the sudden spike in coal use and subsequent CO2 release? Oh, then you also remember how the world did not become warmer during or after the Industrial Revolution.

There are many more examples in the .pdf I have linked to, however here is the coup de grace of the global warming situation:

"At the turn of the 20th century, the media peddled an upcoming ice age -- and they said the world was coming to an end. Then in the 1930s, the alarm was raised about disaster from global warming -- and they said the world was coming to an end. Then in the 70’s, an alarm for another ice age was raised -- and they said the world was coming to an end. And now, today we are back to fears of catastrophic global warming -- and again they are saying the world is coming to an end. "

Now don't take this to the extreme and assume that I think the efforts to reduce pollution are crap too, because I don't. Infact, I believe reducing pollution is one of the most important things we should do, but at the present, there seems to be conflicting information regarding that as well. I am all about realistically stopping DAMAGING things we do, but please if those happen to fall in the same category as "global warming" then lets stop the bullshit, and just call it cleaning up pollution.

If you want to rally behind something that really does affect us, go look up Global Dimming. Research it for yourself, find the facts, talk to me, do what you can to educate yourselves. Because the real blights of this world are going unaddressed.

Use your reasoning and question people, stop being sheep for no good reason.

crime.

I am a criminal of the crime

I am a victim of.

I cut deep into the souls of them,

just as they do to me.

So does that make me an imposter?

"We've got work to do"

So, I have to say it was a pleasant surprise to find this article. I couldn't agree more with most of what is said, and it upsets me.

Clueless in America

By BOB HERBERT

Published: April 22, 2008

We don’t hear a great deal about education in the presidential campaign. It’s much too serious a topic to compete with such fun stuff as Hillary tossing back a shot of whiskey, or Barack rolling a gutter ball.

The nation’s future may depend on how well we educate the current and future generations, but (like the renovation of the nation’s infrastructure, or a serious search for better sources of energy) that can wait. At the moment, no one seems to have the will to engage any of the most serious challenges facing the U.S.

An American kid drops out of high school every 26 seconds. That’s more than a million every year, a sign of big trouble for these largely clueless youngsters in an era in which a college education is crucial to maintaining a middle-class quality of life — and for the country as a whole in a world that is becoming more hotly competitive every day.

Ignorance in the United States is not just bliss, it’s widespread. A recent survey of teenagers by the education advocacy group Common Core found that a quarter could not identify Adolf Hitler, a third did not know that the Bill of Rights guaranteed freedom of speech and religion, and fewer than half knew that the Civil War took place between 1850 and 1900.

“We have one of the highest dropout rates in the industrialized world,” said Allan Golston, the president of U.S. programs for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. In a discussion over lunch recently he described the situation as “actually pretty scary, alarming.”

Roughly a third of all American high school students drop out. Another third graduate but are not prepared for the next stage of life — either productive work or some form of post-secondary education.

When two-thirds of all teenagers old enough to graduate from high school are incapable of mastering college-level work, the nation is doing something awfully wrong.

Mr. Golston noted that the performance of American students, when compared with their peers in other countries, tends to grow increasingly dismal as they move through the higher grades:

“In math and science, for example, our fourth graders are among the top students globally. By roughly eighth grade, they’re in the middle of the pack. And by the 12th grade, U.S. students are scoring generally near the bottom of all industrialized countries.”

Many students get a first-rate education in the public schools, but they represent too small a fraction of the whole.

Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft, offered a brutal critique of the nation’s high schools a few years ago, describing them as “obsolete” and saying, “When I compare our high schools with what I see when I’m traveling abroad, I am terrified for our work force of tomorrow.”

Said Mr. Gates: “By obsolete, I don’t just mean that they are broken, flawed or underfunded, though a case could be made for every one of those points. By obsolete, I mean our high schools — even when they’re working as designed — cannot teach all our students what they need to know today.”

The Educational Testing Service, in a report titled “America’s Perfect Storm,” cited three powerful forces that are affecting the quality of life for millions of Americans and already shaping the nation’s future. They are:

• The wide disparity in the literacy and math skills of both the school-age and adult populations. These skills, which play such a tremendous role in the lives of individuals and families, vary widely across racial, ethnic and socioeconomic groups.

• The “seismic changes” in the U.S. economy that have resulted from globalization, technological advances, shifts in the relationship of labor and capital, and other developments.

• Sweeping demographic changes. By 2030, the U.S. population is expected to reach 360 million. That population will be older and substantially more diverse, with immigration having a big impact on both the population as a whole and the work force.

These and so many other issues of crucial national importance require an educated populace if they are to be dealt with effectively. At the moment we are not even coming close to equipping the population with the intellectual tools that are needed.

While we’re effectively standing in place, other nations are catching up and passing us when it comes to educational achievement. You have to be pretty dopey not to see the implications of that.

But, then, some of us are pretty dopey. In the Common Core survey, nearly 20 percent of respondents did not know who the U.S. fought in World War II. Eleven percent thought that Dwight Eisenhower was the president forced from office by the Watergate scandal. Another 11 percent thought it was Harry Truman.

We’ve got work to do.

I'm sick of college.

Yes, I said it, and I'll say it again- I am sick of college...and I haven't even applied yet.

Let me explain myself, before the CAC office comes to rip my hands away from the keyboard. :P

I understand that college is important- oh, it's VERY important. Don't get me wrong there.

However, what irks me more than anything is that the conversational topic of "college" and "standardized tests" seems to edge its way into every single conversation I have. It is frustrating to have a set of parents who view me as a prospective college student, and only as that. Do they know me as a person? Probably not.

We've lost our individuality. Thus, do to our culture, everything one does just needs to be filed under one aspect of the college application process.

"Oh, you got StudCo president? Damn, you're set for college!"

No! Don't you see what we've become? How a 36 on an ACT or a 2300 on the SAT can excite the masses more than anything else? How we continuously compare ourselves to each other, when, in reality, we're all going to be just fine in the end?

I want to relax, do what I love and do it well. I want fun. I'm sick of people worrying and I'm sick of people comparing. This institution was built on the idea of getting away from the standards- unfortunately, a love for learning can't be fostered in an environment where pure grades are the number 1 priority, followed by a long list of extracurriculars that one doesn't really care about.

I want to stop talking about SATs and ACTs. Dad, don't address every single one of my friends with the college interrogation. I want to talk about life, interests, and personal, real things. Let's take PrepHQ off as our homepages. Let's realize that there are many more colleges than the top 20 of U.S. News' list. Yes, we need to work hard, yes, we need do well. But we don't need to center our very lives around it.

Take a step outside, lay down on the cement, and let the sun carry you away from this world that we've created for ourselves.

caring is creepy

i will keep this short so as to not sound trite (or to sound as un-trite as possible)
juniors, i know its hard right now. but, look, this is the hardest it will get.
you need to get through the month of may and then you will feel everything easing off.
and if you think this is indeed very dr phil, then just stop reading.
if you dont, then thanks. heh
i just really wished that more people cared last year, and i know i'm not actually doing anything at all by writing some blog but
if you think that everything is lost, hold out for just one more day, and you'll feel better.
that's all.

Sing

here's a collage of songs

props to you if you can guess which ones they are

Do you know what it feels like loving someone that’s in a rush to throw you away? Do you know what it feels like to be the last one to know the lock on the door has changed?

I got a first class ticket to a night all alone and a front row seat up right by the phone. 'Cause you're always on my mind and I'm running out of time.

But in the meantime we've got it hard; second floor living without a yard. It may be years until the day my dreams will match up with my pay.

I have seen the others and I have discovered that this fight is not worth fighting. I have seen their mothers and I will no other to follow me where I'm going.

Money on my mind, is you with it? Tryin' to hold me down cause of that ego now they ain't around, but look at me. Hello.

Jay's favorite line: "Dog, in due time". Now he look at me, like "Damn, dog, you where I am". A hip hop legend; I think I died in an accident, cause this must be heaven.

So just take me home where the mood is mellow, and the roses are grown, M&M's are yellow, and the light bulbs around my mirror don't flicker. Everybody gets a nice autograph picture.

'Cause I could comb across the world, and see everything and never be satisfied, if I couldn't see those eyes.

I'm waking up at the start of the end of the world, but its feeling just like every other morning before, Now I wonder what my life is going to mean if it's gone.

There are moments when, when I know it, and the world revolves around us, and we're keeping it, keep it all going, this delicate balance, vulnerable all knowing.

I've got a problem and I don't know what to do about it. Even if I did, I don't know if I would quit but I doubt it. I'm, taken by the thought of it.

Matzo Men

I think it speaks for itself. I was going to include my synagogue's rendition of the hokie pokie, known as the matzo motzi, but i figured this would be more enjoyable...

College fair worried me quite a bit. I read in a pamphlet for Beloit, I think, or perhaps Lawrence, that (and this is based off of my memory) "1/3 of our classes - from cooking to language to chemistry - have an international focus." Chemistry has an international focus? When did science become about culture?

I also saw in the Cornell U. presentation an interesting little slogan: "Elite. Not elitist." I think it mostly speaks for itself. What ridiculous bullshit. Whatever happened to applauding achievement and not being scared to say that competence is valued over incompetence? Not to mention the inherent contradiction in saying you simultaneously are composed of only the best and don't only take the best.

Also Cornell-related was a weird little section in the pamphlet that said scholarships are awarded based on need alone. Merit scholarships have been eliminated. Dad says this is happening at a lot of big schools. Everyone says Atlas Shrugged is bullshit but tell me that isn't the whole point of it! Need alone? Where do these people's priorities lie?

What the hell is happening to this country?

Some spare thoughts

What if Heaven/Hell is purely mental? What is time or conciousness in the context of sleep or near death? To what extent can the brain extend a moment's time?

Ever heard anyone explain something that was a close call by saying that time 'slowed' down? That would mean the brain speeds up to make each second more productive and hence the feeling of time slowing down.

Most research shows that DMT (Dimethyltryptamine), a drug our own bodies synthesize, is released when we die. DMT and your brain may very well be your 'after life'. Maybe your mind is God.

Perhaps those that believe in Heaven/Hell create their own end. If they feel free of guilt then they are creating their own Heaven. That would explain the role of repentance -- to remove self guilt and responsibility of action. Those that feel they have done some mortal sin and do not repent to clear their concious are creating their own Hell.

The end of Heaven/Hell, because it must end, the brain cannot extend time indefinetly, is not important. The mere entrace into either state would mean total illusion of time, place, and death, which would transfer all thought of being, to making Heaven/Hell real. Along with this would come the illusion of eternity and that is the most important part--especially to Hell. Mental anguish is one of the most powerful tools humans have created. To know you are dying and in pain, and to think you will be forever, is the epitome of Hell, making the specific amount of time spent there, unimportant. This is also true of Heaven. The initial glee of being in a perfect place, where only happiness exists is important. Largely happiness is mental; if your brain now believes that you will be experiencing euphoria forever, the ultimate amount of time is insignificant.

Just a few random thoughts during class.

Not that I'm advertising or anything, but...

So.
You know what you should do tonight?

You should come see "Little Shop of Horrors" at 7:30 tonight, or check out one of the 6 other shows this weekend, Tuesday, and next weekend.

Because it will be amazing.

Oh. And if you want to make me REALLY happy (or just point and laugh at me), you should come on the 20th, the 22nd, or the 26th (that's this Sunday, Tuesday, and next Saturday).

Why, you ask? Well, I'll be singing, talking to a plant, and wearing a curly blond wig. Let's just leave it at that.

Come on. You know you want to check it out (plus, it's only $5).

Disconcerting

It's 6:33 pm. Why hasn't the sun started setting yet? What is this blue sky doing in place of a slowly darkening, potentially gray one? Could it possibly mean that spring is FINALLY here, mid-April? Oh goodness, I really hope so.

Used.

The yellowed plastic refrigerator had visited the world through magnets from famous cities. The insides of the box sheltered nourishment and whirred each hour. A faithful soldier. The outside was used over and over again as a trophy box. A perfect place to hang up A+ grades and awards…

But now it just sits there.
Blank, bare, and unloved.

WARM.

Oh man.
It is definitely supposed to get up to almost 70 degrees on Wednesday.
SPRING!!!!
I have so been looking forward to skirts and capris and no sweatshirts.
And grass and sun and people and just laying outside and enjoying the weather.
Oh lord, I really hope it stays this time.

Unphotographable

There's a guy named Michael David Murphy who started a blog called "Unphotographable: A Text Account of Pictures Missed." As he writes:

Unphotographable is a catalog of exceptional mistakes. Photos never taken that weren't meant to be forgotten. Opportunities missed. Simple failures. Occasions when I wished I'd taken the picture, or not forgotten the camera, or had been brave enough to click the shutter.

So, just now I was compelled to write my own:

This is a picture I did not take of the most summery sky Aurora has seen for a long while, colored by a beautiful gradient of dark blue on top to a light sky blue as it reached the horizon and dotted by light and fluffy clouds placed perfectly all around. Although the sunlight was too bright for this to be seen, it all came into focus just as soon as I put on my sunglasses.

This is one of those occasions I wish there were a non-awkward way to carry around my camera and a tripod all the time. Okay, back to my Nokk paper...

Bored.

Boredom seeps from my pores.
It oozes ought from my thoughts.
It radiates from my actions.
My mind loses itself as it seeks to find itself.

From the ooze that has crept out from my mind
I see a dragon burst forth, blazing across my room.
Scales ripple as it flies around the room.
I duck as a burst of fire flies free from it's mouth.

It crashes headfirst into the wall,
soundlessly melding into the jungle vines.
Apes and chimpanzees swing through the canopies,
and screech wildly as they fall into of my computer.

They pixelate and disappear as the become nothing more than numbers.
Electrons shiver through wires, zipping through the nothingness.
They fire out and gather together, forming an image.
I find myself and look at Kcrews blog.

So I am going to write on here once in awhile. People know who I am, and people say I am a good writer. I am not going to bash people or try to win sympathy, but I will just record how I am feeling. It might be in the form of free form poem, or maybe I will make one rhyme. I might just write a story. I don't know. I am pretty easy going.

An Election Post-diction

Funny story...not quite sure why I am telling it, but here it goes...

For the duration of the election, nathan kafka wouldn't tell me who he thought would win. i, of course, wanted to know and bugged him and bugged him. last week tuesday, the day before election, he called me into the office to tell me who was going to win.

He was convinced it was going to be Mamatha Crews. Either we were getting married or having a child, both of which are not going to happen. but, i found it humorous and decided to find a picture of this mamatha crews, so here heshe is. Its kind of creepy, so please dont be alarmed!


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Dreams of Pipes

I wish Elvis Presley was still alive.
And John Lennon.
And maybe Lucille Ball.

i don't know what to call it

do you ever feel like screaming and whispering at the same time?

screaming about your anger/sadness/frustration yet whispering for someone to help, someone to notice, someone to show that they care?

Pipe Dreams

I wish Tupac was still alive

I don't like Aerosmith as much as I like the Rolling Stones.

I don't know why I'm awake this early on a Sunday morning.
I don't know why I haven't started any of my homework yet.
I don't know why I have a gallon of soy milk (which I hate right now) in my fridge.
I don't know why I haven't mailed that postcard yet.
I don't know why I bother talking to my friends from home, because most of them don't know/don't care who I am anymore.
I don't know why I'm too afraid to let people know I care about them.
I don't know why my left foot hurts right now.
I don't know why the top of my desk is so cluttered.
I don't know why my Beatles poster is crooked.
I don't know why I haven't done my laundry yet.
I don't know why I can't get my math grade up.
I don't know why I'm afraid to use the telephone.
I don't know why it's so hot in my room right now.
I don't know why I saved those receipts.
I don't know why I can't swallow pills.
I don't know why I can't find my camera charger.
I don't know why my cell phone keeps beeping.
I don't know why I still have that box under my bed.
I don't know why I'm so attached to my pillow.
I don't know why she thinks she's better than me.
I don't know why I look forward to crossing the days off my calender.
I don't know why all the clocks (4) in my room are set to different times.

I don't know a lot of things.

"Son of a bitch, is it humid in here?"

I don't know what I look like. Is that common? Do you all know what you look like without a mirror handy? I looked into the mirror today and actually felt awkward staring myself in the eyes. Anticipation took hold. Nervousness. As if the person looking back at me was going to smile while I stared blankly. Oh well, at least I'll never have to describe my own face to a sketch artist working for the police on an investigation that hinges on my recollection. It doesn't even bother me. Just peculiar.

blurry.

please dont snow. let the rain stay for a while. i just think its bad when a boy looks at a girl and thinks that the way he sees the girl is better than the girl actually is. please dont let the memories of the past flood back. just keep on raining. piano or not. are hospitals clean or contaminated. and when it rained, she felt the world fall into place. house. different doesnt feel so different. could you compromise a career for love, for family. waiting just to see.

Friendship?

When "good times" become uncomfortable silences
Full of wondering, "what the other person is thinking?"
When before, nothing mattered at all
What do you do?

When everything falls to polite laughter
But the other person doesn't know that
And is still in full speed mode
What do you do?

When sometimes, you don't want to tell that person anything
Because it's not the right time or
Simply because it's not the right person
What do you do?

When you can't sleep because you're thinking
Too hard? Too much? Too little?
What went wrong? Why was it so right?
What do you do?

When your mood switches with the people you're with
You have laughs with new people
But you get mad around the old
What do you do?

When you slowly forget what life used to be like
Back when there weren't any distractions
And it was just you and me
What do you do?

When you want to cry
But tears to don't form for some reason
Was it because you didn't feel that much emotion?
What do you do?

When you lose someone completely
Things won't be the same
And things can't be the same
What do you do?

When you realize, that that someone was there for you
But you weren't for them
And yet you feel indifferent, still
What do you do?

When others things happen around you
To kill time
More break ups, more break ups
What do you do?

When the climax of everything was the best
But then it trailed off
And without an ending
What do you do?

When you realize that you could call that one person up
But only to realize you don't want to think of them anymore
You've got new things to worry about
What do you do?

When your focuses in life change
And the focus is on new people
Is there room left for the old too?
What do you do?

When you really want to concentrate
And your mind wanders more
Nothing is in focus
What do you do?

When dancing doesn't seem right anymore
When the slightest movements are interpreted wrong
When ignorance is bliss
What do you do?

When you finally feel sorry
But you can't say it
Because things won't be the same
What do you do?

When you have one last contact
Sitting alone with only memories
Empty photographs
What do you do?

When you notice shadows more than the sun
Follow the wrong advice
And mistakenly ruin everything else along the way
What do you do?

When small talk doesn't even come around
And you think that the other person is avoiding you
When really, they're just busy doing other things
What do you do?

When someone confronts you
Confides in you and expects feedback,
That you can't give
What do you do?

When you know more than the other person
But you can't say it because you're obliged not to
And it hurts to see them confused
What do you do?

When you like someone so much
You can't stop thinking about them
And you don't know if they do the same
What do you do?

When you're pushed across your limits
But for once, it feels nice
For once, it's ok
What do you do?

When songs that you play are only mellow
Summer could not come any slower
And you are always cold
What do you do?

When you say that you'll be there until the end
But the ending come sooner than you thought?
Are you relieved? Are you distraught?
What do you do?

When you forget to include someone
On purpose? By mistake?
No, it has to be both
What do you do?

When people ask you "What's up?"
And you really can't answer truthfully
So you lie
What do you do?

When you only fall asleep with: music in your ears
And thoughts of the next day
And slacking off
What do you do?

When all of a sudden, it hits you
That you had a friend all along,
But reciprocation was too hard
What do you do?

When you finally accept that you forgot
That you didn't notice
That you were faking
What do you do?

When jealousy gets the best of you
So you do the opposite
A huge lazy hypocrite
What do you do?

When tests own you, and doing your homework doesn't help
Understanding is a key
That isn't unlocking anything
What do you do?

When your parents call you at 6am
To tell you to do your homework
Because if you don't you're never coming back
What do you do?

When you feel lonelier than ever
More unproductive than before
And feel more regret with each step
What do you do?

When plans fall apart
Things come undone
And you find that they're irreversible
What do you do?

When you lose
You die
You cry
What do you do?

Honestly? You go on with life.

photo credit: Liz Zaretsky

"When I had what alcoholics refer to as--a moment of clarity"

I'm done writing stuff in the windows that post them, I just lost like 4 paragraphs of rambling I was going to "entertain" you with.
Anyways, heres the important parts:

Oh holy shit, a draft got saved on the site, wizard! I guess you get to suffer through it anyways.
________________________


I've been coming home a lot this past year, more than I ever have, yet oddly enough I know the least amount of people home now. I like that.



It's always a pleasure running into people that I used to talk to--you see for me, I have two ways of remembering people and it usually all ends up the same. Either I remember someone as having some negative connotation in my mind (that I will probably give another chance by being friendly) or I will remember that they were pleasant (or tell myself they were) and be myself. This oversimplification is caused by my inability to recall past events on a whim, I usually need a trigger. Hey it makes my life easy enough, I mean shit the only way I hold a grudge is over something huge, and all I remember is that something huge happened.



Anyways, I've been coming home more because I love the feeling of arriving in familiar places. I usually don't remember being bored places, I just remember that I had fun at some point so it's possible again. So for the first day or two, just being in a different place makes me happy. Maybe the way my memory works is a coping mechanism to allow me those awesome blissfully unaware days before I return to being normal and affected by things--maybe it isn't, who knows?




Bro-nus points if you name the movie the title is from.


The most simple satisfaction while driving is being the first one at the train tracks when a train that is super long and slow is there. Sounds pretty shitty doesn't it? You almost made it! Ahhh but look at it this way--you are now not going to be that douche bag that takes an extra 30 seconds to move after the train is gone. You take your responsibility to heart and don't waste any one's time, and subconsciously everyone in the line behind you is going "at least this inconvenient stop wasn't exacerbated by some jerk-off that made a 10 minute stop 30 seconds longer." Think about that the next time you get pissed about little things.

Changes in IMSA

If you could change IMSA, how would you do it? From the biggest things to the smallest, what would you change?

The only things I can think of right now are:

internet shutting off at 1
the sodexo food service
and in-hall + in-room.

I'm writing a paper on this and would like any ideas you might want to throw out there.

And Mamatha, I'm definitely expecting a response from you, Ms. President-Elect :)

alright fine

speaking of old finds sophomore year. here is the rap song that I wrote sophomore year and wanted to record to the tune of Gangsta's Paradise...
i thought i was exceptionally clever.

As I walk through the hallway from my dorm to Old Caf
I take a look at my left and realize there’s a Mac lab
Cause I’ve been chewing and choking so long that
Even Phubaba thinks that my mind has gone.

But I ain’t ever thrown out food that didn’t deserve it
Me be eating tofu pie, you know that’s unheard of.
They better watch where they looking and how they cooking
Or you and the cooks might drink your own chocolate milk.
I really hate complaining but they gotta know
As they serve, I see my milk being overflowed. Dang!
I’m the kind of G other sophomores wanna be like on my knees doing the chore - wiping milk off of the floor.

I been spending most my nights, dreaming of Sodexho Paradise (x2)
Keep spending most their nights, dreaming of Sodexho Paradise (x2)

Look at the ID scanner, they got me facing
I can’t scan my ID in, it takes acrobatic moves
So I gotta be down on the floor tiles
Trying to crawl inside Sodexho like a Vietnamese partisan
I’m an educated fool, with BC on my mind
Got my tray in my hand, and a bloodshot eye
I’ma go and sit at the sticky dirty table, and the salt is never there, so don’t arouse my anger. Dang!
Chem ain’t nothing but a minute away. I’m dining in –
I have to, what can I say.
I ate the rice now, and will I live to see the evening check
The way things is going what the heck…

Tell me why are we so blind to see
That the burger meat is you and me

I been spending most my nights, dreaming of Sodexho Paradise (x2)
Keep spending most their nights, dreaming of Sodexho Paradise (x2)

everyone makes mistakes

An Old Find

I was a weird sophomore:

Ahoy Tony!

I like the things you do

Ahoy Tony!

If I could I would be you

You're the one and only tiger

with the one and only taste

you know how to make a breakfast

and make it

GOOOOOOLD [or arrrrrrrrrrrr!]

Frosted Dubloons are more than good, they're

GOOOOOOLD [or arrrrrrrrrrrr!]

-9/27/06

Life support

I basically just threw this blog on life support because I nearly let this sucker die. Also, I'm going to need life support after this Scrubs pandemic takes a more firm grip on my life, I'm pretty sure it's been less than a week and I'm on Season 3--then again, to my credit, it is only 20 minutes per episode..wait.. thats only like 16 hours of my life. Ahh a little perspective helps everything.
Think about what you do to waste time, then just put it in percentage of your overall time on Earth, and suddenly, you haven't wasted that much time. Thank me later, I know your day just got a lot better. Heres a preliminary chart to help you feel better almost instantly.
______________
Watched all of Scrubs: Wayyyyy less than a percent of your life.
Writing blogs (Alot?): Wayyyyyy less than a percent of your life.
Skate Boarding Alot: Probably a percent of your life.
in School sleeping (50% of the time):probably like 4-5% of your life

Suddenly skate boarding, writing stuff and watching Scrubs is more productive than school. I know, I'm your hero, it's okay.

It's over

It's over, finally over. Finally I will no longer have to see my face as I walk into every res hall, no longer will I have to focus on my image as a candidate, no longer will I have to worry about writing the perfect speech. It's over, at least for another year.

No more campaigning, no more having to run against someone you don't want to have to run against, no more weird Honesty Box messages (at least regarding elections).

It's over, it's gone, what happened happened. Thank god.

Tomorrow, I get to delete my Facebook group.
Tonight, I still have to finish my Synergy application.

So happy...

i am so happy that this horrible election is over.

i am ready to move on, i am ready to sleep, and i am ready for my heart to slow down.

i would ask are you ready, but im sure you are.

Guess what I can do that you can't.

Hint: I'm doing it right now.
Hint: I'm not double-jointed.

Creativity at its finest

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/7334233.stm
-A man in New Zealand has been charged with using a hedgehog as a weapon, the New Zealand Herald has reported.

I love people who think outside of the box.

The [Lost] World of Literary Greatness

I was in Borders recently, and I bought a book (not for myself). However, I did sign up for this Borders Rewards thing (apparently ever $150 I spend at Borders will get me a $5 discount. Wonderful, isn't it?) So I'm sitting here writing my Spanish Essay on my second monitor while staring at the card that I put on my key ring, and my mind begins to wander. I start wondering when the last time I read a book for myself was. For probably the last four months (if not more), the only things that I have read in print have been for Lit, History, SIR, or test prep. I used to be the one who had these lists of books that I wanted to read, lists that seemed to never end as I added new ones all the time. Now, the lists are stagnant as I neglect to add new books and forget what the old ones were. Meanwhile, while I try to stay up-to-date on current events, I'm hardly as informed as I used to be.

I guess this is yet another "man I miss having time for this sort of thing pre-IMSA but I still love IMSA (sometimes)" moment. But I'm wondering...

There are indeed some people at IMSA who find time to read what they want once in a while, and can stay up-to-date on the news. So for those of us who don't have time, is it because we really don't or because we just won't find the time? Personally, I'm also a fairly slow reader (which I really hate), so that kind of has an effect on it for me.

What do you think?

I Can See Clearly Now?

The rain is gone, that's for sure. But today, just now, walking back from classes, my eyes did that thing! That thing, meaning, I didn't even realize how bright out it was until I opened the door to 06 and couldn't even see objects in front of me. My eyes took about three minutes to adjust to the indoors. Going up the stairs was an adventure. This is the first time that this has happened to me, and I think that means good things (good weather) are in our future. This is quite a nice perk to my otherwise ridiculously stressful day. I'm off to do miles of more work (I think using 'miles' as a term expressing a large amount is pretty hip. You can use it if you want).
P.S. I'm really happy this blog exists. I thought about mentioning the presence of the sun in my facebook status, but it wouldn't be in depth enough. Or, I would try to make it in depth enough and people would just de-friend me and think I'm crazy. I guess I thought it'd be more appreciated here.
P.P.S. I wanted to make some pun with 'Thank God' and the word 'blog', because sometimes 'blog' is substituted in for 'God', (Example from the movie, Juno, "Honest to Blog?") but I just didn't feeeel it. I invite anyone who actually read this to take a shot.

Student Apathy

http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=10921273777&ref=nf

In this facebook note, Jon confronts those who think that this year in student council was a failed one. It got me wondering, what would be a successful year in student council? I mean, what do students really want changed? I see ambitious student council president candidates with a drive to change IMSA and how student council is run. They have the will, but without students to put forth things we want changed, there's no way we can change this mindset of student council as a futile attempt to improve student's lives. Instead of complaining that student council has done nothing, voice your ideas on what they should do.

What if...

IMSA had existed in the 60s? My quadmate and I were discussing this on the way to Walgreens the other day. We walked over the hill and were talking about how kids probably would've just hung out there and done LSD and stuff all the time.

But seriously, this is kind of coming from the fact that I just saw Across the Universe over break, and I'm thinking of how crazy that decade was, with all the protests and hippies and fun stuff like that. And IMSA, being pretty predominantly liberal, would've been full of things like that, no doubt.

Thoughts?

Comic Relief:

- The use of humor to lighten the mood of a serious or tragic story, especially in plays. The technique is very common in Elizabethan works, and can be an integral part of the plot or simply a brief event designed to break the tension of the scene.
The Gravediggers' scene in William Shakespeare's Hamlet is a frequently cited example of comic relief. (http://gale.cengage.com/free_resources/glossary/glossary_bc.htm)

- A humorous scene or incident that alleviates tension in an otherwise serious work. Often these moments enhance thematic significance of a story in addition to providing humor. (http://www.personal.psu.edu/faculty/a/c/ach13/Asia/Glossary.htm)

- A bathroom only for comics.

Spring break

Truthfully, I didn't need spring break last week. I need spring break NOW. Yeah, that sounds silly, but I've found life to be so much more stressful/pressing/in need of a break this week rather than last week. Normally breaks come at the right time, but last week I actually didn't want to leave campus. Right now, I'm counting the hours until after my orchestra concert when I go home.

Times like these when I need a break make me so grateful that I live close and have the option of escaping the IMSA campus every so often to regroup myself and eat some actual, non-cardboardy food.



AND, I'd like to close with the greatest quote ever....

"They are trained to fly at you out of the sun just like military pilots."
-Bondi (on the geese at IMSA)

Problem Sets

So Mr. Sea got the shock of his life today when he discovered that (believe it or not) many people copy Problem Sets. Aha.

There was a random problem about a missile launch on our last problem set that was actually quite easy but that everyone was missing. The Math Team calculated statistics, and over 80% of MI4 got it wrong.

The best part? 60% of my specific MI4 class, he tells us, had the EXACT same work (and the work didn't even make sense) and the EXACT same answer. Now he's threatening to go through our problem sets after the graders do, to make sure the work actually makes sense and to make sure we're not just copying.

Moral of the Story: Don't copy something that SIXTY PERCENT of your class is copying with you.

April Fool's Day (again)

Well, Shelly and I wanted to do something to Ankita and Sharada. So we convinced the RC to let us into their room and turn everything upside down. So now they will have to turn everything over (including every single picture, the ENORMOUS lord of the rings poster, and even everything in their bathroom). It was fun. and I will be putting the pictures up on Facebook. :)

April Fools!

my room mate (ryan walach, for those of you who don't know...) woke me up this morning stringing twine through our room, swapping my clothing with our shower curtain, pinning my shoes to the ceiling among other things.

4:30am. I didn't know anyone was that into April fools day. anyways, when he left the room to tie my door to the door across the hall (this is a funny one for those of you looking to 'get' someone...), i decided to take it down and give him a taste of his own medicine.

five minutes later, everything was down and returned to its rightful place. i have never been a big 'prankster', but i figured i would give it a shot.

i took all of his left shoes and hid them within my room. this didn't work out so well. he found them right away, from what i am told.

i bike-locked andrew ericson's right shoes to ryan's laundry basket and to our shower (note: handicapped room showers are perfect for securing things!). this was kind of funny, no real purpose. i guess it prevented him from showering.

but, in preparation for his shower later in the day, i put some crunched up sweet tarts in our shower head. i once read this prank in a book called 'unclogging the truth about bathrooms, and it was supposed to leave the prankee with a nice sugar coating after his/her shower. it didnt work.

so, im 0 for 3 so far, but im not giving up!

fun fact:

Smokey the Bear (the actual bear, not the icon) was so popular in the 1950's that he got his own zip code.
He died in 1978.

YouTube video

If anybody likes Clap Your Hands Say Yeah or indie rock in general, look at this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gtv3fSbuKvc. I found it very amusing at 12:00 last night. It's a video of the band playing The Skin of My Yellow Country Teeth (an AMAZING song), while a fan dances/head bangs/jumps up and down rather enthusiastically.

fun facts

my 7:30 BC2 class seemed like it went on forever this morning.
on average, 121 people visit this blog for 6 min and 56 seconds.
23.7% of views are from MacOSX compared to 70.1% windows.
83% of viewers use firefox.
100% of users have english set as their computer language.

some things are hard to tell your parents

Like that sleeping in until 5 PM wasn't actually because I was tired. It's just that there's no possible way to make me go to church after 5 PM, because all the churches in a 50-mile radius are done by 5 PM. But how do you tell both your very Catholic parents that you don't really think this God fellow is such a nice guy anymore?
It's not a giant hatred of religion or anything. I have nothing against other people being religious, but I'm kind of tired of this entire "our-religion-is-the-only-way-to eternal-salvation" thing. It seems like most religions have no trouble with the fact that everyone who isn't going to their services and drinking the metaphorical Kool-Aid is going to die and immediately be sent to hell. I don't really think that's how the afterlife should work, if there is one.

Krispy Kreme donuts now advertise that they have 0 grams of trans fats. I don't see the point.

Hello World

So I discovered this blog through Kevin's status on Google Talk, read a few posts, and thought "hmm...this is something I might want to get involved with." So I e-mailed Kevin and he added me to the author list. Then I realized that I don't have anythingto talk about.

I could talk about my Spring break in Cali and the colleges I visited there (Caltech, Stanford, and Harvey Mudd), but I don't know how interesting that would be to people.

Let's take a look at my Twitter status:
ilyanep 4 hours until I leave for terra firma. less than 10 seconds ago from im

(Quick aside: I highly encourage you to get a Twitter. It's a service where you can send status updates up to 140 characters, something called "micro-blogging." You can then "follow" other twitterers and set it up so that it sends you a text message or an IM every time someone you follow sends an update. Or you can update over SMS and IM. The place where Twitter shines is that you can put "@username" at the beginning of a post to reply to their current status and it notifies that user. This can be useful for just talking in general, or even making plans. By the way, my updates are protected so you'd need to get an account and ask me or request on the site to follow me to see them. Okay I'm done...I promise...)

After a week in Cali at my dad's cousin's house near LA, I've decided that IMSA is my terra firma.

So hopefully I'll actually have something to talk about in the future. I'm going to try to keep from ranting on here (I have strong opinions on a lot of things), but I apologize in advance if I can't help myself at some point.

Seek the Joy of Beng Alive

A couple weeks ago, I saw the movie "Into the Wild." It reminded me of all the reasons why I like the wilderness so much. For those of you who don't know, I spend most of my summer in Northern Minnesota/Canada canoing and having fun in the middle of the wilderness at a camp. For me, the wilderness is an escape. It's where I can go to be "free" in a really philosophical sense, and that's why I like the film "Into the Wild" so much. The film's protagonist leaves civilization to go into the wild in Alaska, kind of like how I leave civilization for camp every summer (except I don't die).

Camp and the wilderness in general has always been a huge part of my life. For vacations, my parents would take me and my brother to places like Olympic National Park and the Rocky Mountains instead of Disneyland and all the places we actually wanted to go to. Now, I realize how much I love the wilderness. That's why IMSA can be so difficult. Going to school in a wanna-be 70s bomb shelter isn't exactly my idea of being in touch with nature. So, I have to figure out ways to connect my life at school with camp and the wilderness. I'm starting to find a way to do this. At camp, there is a code called the Law of the Woods. I have found that I can incorporate this into my daily life, and in the process can feel more peaceful and connected to the wilderness.

Of the 12 Laws of the Woods, the last one is the one I find the most important for my life at IMSA. It says "Seek the joy of being alive." Now, seeking the joy of being alive is kind of hard to do when I have Victory summatives, MCB tests, and Student Council elections to worry about. But then I have to stop, think, and realize the little things that make me happy and the fact that being at IMSA makes me appreciate the wilderness even more.

I'm sure that some of my future posts will be devoted to camp stories, but if anyone has questions about my camp/ wilderness stuff, I love to talk about those things as many of you know :).

Son of a Bitch...

was the first thing I said as I did a double take at my megabus ticket. Departure Time: 8:30 a.m. -- time displayed on my phone 8:38 a.m. ... great. You've got to be fucking kidding me (apparently repeat this like 10 times according to Matt). At this point, it is obvious that I assumed the bus was leaving at 9:00 a.m.; presuming that this bus would leave at the same time as the one that I took to St. Louis did. As soon as the MetroLink hit the Union Station stop Matt and I legged it. No sleep, soccer game the day before, and asthma made that a fun run, not to mention the nice weighted bag hanging off of my shoulder. As we approached the drop-off/pick-up area we thought we saw the megabus still there, only to be dissapointed to find out it was some other company. The worst part is it was only 8:44 a.m., and the first bus I took over to St. Louis left 15 minutes late. No such luck.

I have no way to cleverly phrase things at the moment. This is really a dead entry.

My ENT must need a new pair of shoes...

So, if you know me, you know that I have really bad nosebleeds. It’s disgusting. I feel really bad for my roommate.

About two weeks ago, my doctor finally had the brilliant idea that something *might* be wrong.
So he sent me to an ENT (ear, nose and throat specialist).
It was not fun.

First of all, the ENT does not have her own office. No, she works at the Springfield Clinic, which is basically a large building that smells like Lysol. And not the pleasant lemony kind of Lysol—the weird antiseptic-smelling kind.

So, on Good Friday, I went to the ENT. What I hate most about going to the doctor is that your appointment is never really on time. If they say 10:30, you might as well not even show up until 11:15. But my freakishly organized mother insisted on getting there at 10:15. So I got to wait a full *hour* in the waiting room with children who had shoved rubber balls up their noses, old men whose ears were leaking crap, etc. It was not a pleasant experience.
Then, when the nurse finally called me back to the office, the ENT came in.

“So, you’re having nosebleeds.” She said.
Duh.
Then, after several minutes of mindless, faux-polite Q & A, she said the one thing I didn’t want to hear. “We’re going to have to cauterize it.”

Um…thanks, but no thanks.

First of all, have you ever been in an ENT’s office? It’s a creepy place. There’s this big chair in the middle of the room that looks like some sort of death chair or something. And there’s a big cord hanging from the ceiling. I didn’t know what that was for. The creepiest thing is that all of the doctor’s tools are just sitting out, on this big cabinet. They are really sharp, and some of them look like blowtorches. There’s this big machine that I don’t even want to *think* about.

Needless to say, I wanted to get out of there. But the ENT had other ideas. She took this big headband thing with a light on it, which she plugged into the cord hanging from the ceiling.

She looked like she was going to go spelunking in my nose.

Luckily, my mom happened to mention that we were getting on a plane for San Antonio the next morning. So the ENT decided it would be best to wait a week, after we got back, to cauterize it.
So a week later, yesterday, I went back to the ENT’s office, absolutely dreading it. Cauterization = not fun, from what I could tell. Basically, the doctor sticks a match up your nose, except it has silver nitrate on it. Yeah.

So we got back in the little room again (which looked even more like a death chamber the second time around) and the ENT came in. She put on her spelunking headdress and looked in my nose. Her breath smelled like lemon Starbursts. I kind of wanted to run away.

“Well,” she said, “it looks a little better today. I think we’ll wait about a month or so and see how you do, and then we’ll cauterize it.”
Um…are you kidding me?!

Seriously, lady, if you’re going to put me through excruciating pain, just get it over with! So now, instead of just paying her for one office visit, we get to pay for three!

I mean, hey, it’s not like I want to get the inside of my nose burned, but this is getting ridiculous.

Long story short, my nose is still bleeding. And I have to go back to the ENT...

How To Tell When You Are In Desperate Need Of Money:

You babysit two kids for four hours and make less than fifteen dollars, and think, "Score!"

Perspective

Quick Fact:
SAT Math score 740 will get you:
at IMSA: 50th Percentile
in the Nation: 97th Percentile

I Can't Wait

So today i met a guy who went to community college.

I was shocked.

Sometimes i hate what IMSA has done to me.

Also my parents were upset i came home at 12:30

Typical Asian parents

I can't wait until i go to college

My Life Flashed Before My Eyes

A bird flew into the side of my face today.

Actually it didn’t, but it would be interesting and humorous (definitely more retrospectively, but I imagine there still would be plenty of humor).

I was walking out of the house taking out the trash, and this huge black bird swoops down only inches in front of me. Had I not stopped and complained to my mother for doing all the chores in the house and been a few seconds faster it would have flown directly into the side of my face. Don’t get me wrong now; I am delighted it didn’t hit me. But looking at it from the onlookers’ perspective, it wouldn’t be too bad if it did.

Immediately from the experience I imagined this huge hole shaped gash on my cheek. People would be all concerned and asking what happened, and I would reply nonchalantly that a bird flew into me. I mean really, how often does that happen?

That or, I could picture myself in the emergency room. Somehow the avian creature managed to wedge its beak so deep into the side of my face that I assumed I shouldn’t take it out myself without the doctors properly giving me a dose of anesthesia. So I would be slouched in one of those overstuffed couches in the waiting room, you know for four hours of course, just tweedling my thumbs with a bird sticking conveniently out of side of my head, while people came in gushing blood and seizure-ing. It would be kind of funny.

Actually, the unfortunate bird would probably be alive through all of this. Provided that birds don’t pass out from shock or anything, the new vision would be of me, tweedling my thumbs in the waiting room, with a bird lodged into the side of my head flapping furiously trying to get away. Would it get tired of struggling say for after 3 hours? Probably. I would probably be lying on one side because I would have a headache from the beak wedged into the side of my head for 3 hours. So I’m lying there. And the bird is lying on the side of my face. The bird is tired because it’s been flapping for hours.

Oh god. What happens if it ends up dislodging itself in the waiting room? I can see that too. The bird somehow gets free, and starts to fly away. I would spring up in enormous pain because the bird just extricated itself and now there is blood spurting out of my head Kill- Bill-style. In the meantime, the bird having used up all its energy trying to dislodge itself from me can’t exactly fly so instead, it falls to the ground and just kind of flaps around the ground like a fish. That might not be as funny.

I am thankful for those two seconds that didn’t bring us together, and I think I am slowly dipping into this isolation induced insanity since those flashes of what would have happen happened in the 20 feet walk between my house and the garbage can. Hooray for spring break.