Keeping Updated

So I was chatting with Anna--from the Europe trip--a few days ago and had an interesting thought: I should keep a journal. Now hear me out, not one of those girly journals or anything, just something to document what I've done and thought in a day so that I can look back on it and remember the good (and bad I guess >.>) memories from each entry. While I've tried to do this before (hell, couldn't we call a blog a sort of journal?), it's never really worked out since 1. I just don't keep up with it and 2. I have such crappy--and I mean horrendous--handwriting.

Even so, I wouldn't mind giving it another go, especially as to how my memory's been working--or should I say not working?--lately. I've been having such a bad short-term memory that it's beginning to affect my long-term memory, which was never something to brag about in the first place. Being able to read over what I have done will hopefully keep some memories intact, right?

Thus it comes down to one thing: execution. There are many ways to keep a journal, but how will I keep mine? Well, I already mentioned that I have piss-poor handwriting, so a written journal (unless if I work on improving it... hmm) seems to be out of the question. Typing is quick and easy, so perchance I should do that? ... not a bad idea. But, I'm thinking that until I can figure out a truly good method, I'll just use this blog here as an attempt at a journal of some sort. In other words, I'mma try to update it a bit more often with things that will be a little more trivial, but that will hopefully keep a better record of the things that I've done. Fun, neh?


So what did I do today? Well, woke up around five in the morning to call Alina and then couldn't fall asleep afterwards. Then--probably six thirty by then--sneaked (hehe, sounds funnier that way) downstairs to just watch a movie. Saw Little Miss Sunshine, which was entertaining to say the least. And to top my morning off, I fell asleep on my couch for three hours, finally waking up at eleven thirty-ish.

Laziness ensued, but eventually I decided that I wanted a new video game. Final Fantasy XII, while ridiculously fun, has to be played in long spurts, so I wanted something I could just pop in and entertain with. Ended up telling Kish to take me to Best Buy *shudders inwardly* and finally, after much debate, grabbed the fifth anniversary collection of Devil May Cry. What swayed me? Mmmm, it could be that there was nothing else to get or the fact that it was only thirty dollars for all three of the games in one!

That night I went to Berserk's (this is my friend Alex from Tech) house to play some Halo 2 with him and a bunch of his AZN friends. Quite fun, specially since he hooked up three XBoxes together for crazy LANed Halo action. That and his friends, who were hilarious. For one, his friend, who they called Fraino--his actual name was Mike--was high, and it was noticeable. Best part, however, was when we were playing capture the flag. With four players on each team it got a little hard to remember who was on what team. So through all the mayhem, Fraino ends up scoring for me and Alex's team, although neither of us even knew that he was playing on our team. Go figure. But, all in all, very fun night spent and an overall "successful" day.

... whee!

The Semester Ends

Hmm... if your wife bought some lingerie for herself, would it be a present for you? No wait, I guess if she was cheating on you then it wouldn't...

Okles, been a while, long while. But the semester's over and I have time to sit on my butt and do nothing all day once more. The good 'ol summer routine begins anew, though this time it's about fifty degrees cooler and I spend my days trying to get a third OS on my computer instead of playing video games. Hey, don't give me that look! If you were as bored as me, you'd do the same.

Actually, Linux is quite cool to mess around with. As we speak--er, as I type--I'm on Linux listening to music, chatting on Gaim and surfing the web on Firefox. These days you can do pretty much anything without being forced into the command prompt once! Well, that's somewhat of a lie, but it's significantly easier in comparison to even just a year ago. Using Ubuntu--the distribution (um, the "flavor" or kind of Linux if you will)--everything on my tablet here's been set up really easily. I've messed around with it a ton--even got Beryl working--and installed a bunch of new programs, but had I just wanted to surf the net and such, it would've already been perfectly configured to do that. Really, when it comes to ease of use and all that jazz, Ubuntu takes one hell of a cake.

On the other hand, just today I began dabbling with Arch Linux. Now that is a completely different tale. I spent over five hours today attempting to get at least some GUI (usually Gnome) and my wireless working. Of course that includes installation and rebooting, partitioning, and banging my head against the desk a few dozen times, but still. I finally gave up around 5 in the afternoon, having almost gotten my X-server working--if you don't know what it is, just google or something--and winding up near clueless on what exactly was wrong with my wireless... *sigh*
Yeah, so that's why I'm on Ubuntu now, to make myself feel better after a morning/afternoon of failure ^^;

You know, I titled this "The Semester Ends," but I've yet to actually talk about how awesome the semester ending is. I mean, I'm not working--on either school or actual work stuff--and I have all this free time. Not to mention the fact that I did pretty well in my first semester of school and am looking forward to going onto my next. (Though I'm not gonna rush it ^^)

So yeah, magically pulled off a 3.83 GPA last semester, quite spiffy. I was very (not to mention pleasantly) surprised as I had expected to get a significantly lower grade in my philosophy class, but apparently they felt like curving it a few letter slots. Got an A- in my Engineering which, while I'm pleased with the grade, pisses me off a bit. That class was too much crap to put up with... but what'll you do, it was purely a weed-out class. Did it's job damn well too. I'd say at least one hundred would-be engineers dropped as a result of the first test alone. Quite ridiculous if you ask me so really I'm just happy to have gotten the class out of the way and prep to take some real courses. *thinks back to the class* Pffft.

Every other class I pulled an A in. Really the rest were way too easy. CS was pure review, the two math courses were multiple levels below what I'd already taken, and Chem, while fun, was more or less high school chemistry once more. I mean, you really can't do too bad with that kind of course-load... ^^;

Hmm, Sbarro was fun while it lasted. I mean, in comparison to Best Buy at least. Got to stand around chilling with funny people while either making or selling pizza. Not too bad of a deal really! I got somewhat good at making pizza since I opened each Sunday morning (both a good and bad thing). But I'm actually happy that I'm done there. Working only weekends, while good since I didn't have to work during my busy and unpredictable weeks, meant that I lost ten hours of my already short weekend. Well, that wasn't too harsh to put up with. The worst part was not being able to leave on weekends without some sort of substitute, otherwise I'd be written up (always wondered where that saying came from... hmmm). However, since I'm not working next semester, I can leave every weekend and go visit people at W&M, or RM, or even--dare I say it?!--UVA. Gasp indeed.

So things be sorta looking up. Next Sunday, the 24th, Christmas Eve, me and my family will be leaving to Los Angeles. That'll be fun.. somewhat. Who knows, perhaps I'll pick up another long-distance friend ^^

So...

Yeah... it's been a while. Feeling kinda guilty here, not having updated in so long. I mean, I've just been so busy. I meant to update quite a while back, but just didn't find the time to finish up that blog. Then hours turned to days turned to weeks turned to however long it's been...

And now we're here. With the latest rantings straight from my mouth, er, fingers. I wanted to talk about that programming competition (quite possibly the geekiest day in history), however, that's all in the past. Plus, other than the abnormal amount of programming, math, and geek jokes in general, nothing noteworthy occurred--although all those jokes were hi-larious in my oh-so-humble opinion.

What else? (if you can't tell, this is sorta a "catch up" post) Lesee, well, for one... uh... oh! Last week there was this party. Not just any 'ol party, mind you, but one of them "reunion!" parties. I got to see over thirty people from my old high school there. Quite awesome. Only drawback was that there weren't a lot of my actual friends there, mostly just acquaintances. Slightly disappointing. Still, when during the party there's a crowd of total strangers screaming your name, you can't help but feel that things turned out a success. Eh, well, sorta. But I refuse to ever do a keg-stand. But then again... "Gabe, I would be honored to hold your legs as you do a keg-stand." Tempting ^^;

*Edit: Click Here (Facebook required)

So the UVA crowd--really just Cathryn and Sandeep--had come to visit Tech and, for the first time, I was actually there to see them. Very cool, as I had not seen either of them in a long time. But, apparently, many other Broad Run alumni were going to be visiting Tech also, so... put two and two together. It all came out to party.

The people who came, for the most part, were the "partiers" from high school. They were the ones who would go to somebody's house and just get drunk off their asses one weekend. In addition (yay for uh, those things which you use to add ideas to your paragraphs), they were the ones at Beach Week, doing pretty much the exact same thing they'd be doing in one of those weekend parties. I've heard the stories--from Jeev for the most part--and have to say that, while it sounds like "fun," I would much rather have traveled somewhere with a group of friends (oh, go figure, that's what I did). *cough* Europe *cough* Er, but Beach Week sounds kinda fun. Waking up somewhere where you don't really remember even seeing the night before around three in the afternoon and deciding to finish that beer you find in the corner... yup! (there's sarcasm, somewhere in there)

*Double Edit!!
I realize it's been forever since I posted so I started making another post only to realize that I had left this one almost complete. Kinda sad, but feh. We'll just say that it was posted when I started although I'm now posting it on the 20th of December :P

Blurry Days And Long Nights

Mmm, more introspective thinking for me as of late. I know the cause, I know why I'm doing it, and I know that it's based off of the same train of thought that I am perpetually on inside of my mind. But, let's actually write it down for once.

So, in chronological order I go: it all began last Thursday (the latest strain of my "thought" that is). I had been chatting with my friend in PR and wasn't feeling particularly happy--also known as depressed--and brought it up. She's a great friend of mine but lives really far away, and I brought up the fact that I felt as if we would only drift apart. This led to a long-ish conversation which left me only even more depressed than I had started (that seems to be how it always gets us).

It's really only been going downhill from there. Once I get started on a train of thought like this, it may take a long while to get me out of it. Whenever there is time to think--and believe me, with me, there is always time--I do so. I drift through the what if's, the what will's, so many scenarios, attempting to explain why I am so miserable. What happened in my life, where did I go wrong? What can I do to fix it? Will I be happy in the end? Am I being selfish asking for happiness? How do others do it so easily? Is it easy? Why could I never have had that group to be with and enjoy the "normal" school experience? And... well, I think you get the point.

The biggest problem, I would say, is that my mind has no answers. For years I have had similar thoughts and thought about them every free chance I got. Am I any better for it? Most likely not. Obviously then, I should go seek advice or something. Well, I'm not too keen on the idea--plus there really isn't anybody I could go to with this anymore. I lost a friend before because of it, I don't want to again. But at this rate, there really isn't anybody that I could lose...

Oh, back on topic. Well, my friend in PR is one of the few people I truly care for. But after that conversation, I only realized how attached I had been getting... and the only previous experiences which I've had only ended in pain for me. Again, I'm not too keen on getting attached, as much as it hurts to not, because of how much it could hurt. Am I a coward for doing so?

Another reason: is it worth having a friend so far away? Hell... do I deserve such a good friend? I've been thinking that I should focus on the here (literal in both time and space) and now, not the future. Over the summer I made a lot of new friends, and I had the time of my life. If I could somehow do this again then maybe I can get that little bit of Elysium I've always wanted. My own place to belong. People that really do care about me, and who I can care for. I, don't think I've really ever had this. I've experienced here and there, but it never lasted more than a few weeks. God how much I'd love that again.

There was another thought I had, though. Perhaps, it's not that I haven't been trying hard enough. Maybe I've been trying too hard. For months now (I can't actually remember when it started) I've been trying to find people to hang with and just be with someone all of the time. Obviously I've failed miserably so many times. But this "goal" is always on my mind, and it has sometimes paid off. Yet, one thing that I haven't done in forever is just sat down and read a book. Or just played a video game. Or spent a day resting. Don't get me wrong, I've done all of these things, but never willingly and just because I wanted to. Before I always thought I hadn't done this because I was in college, I was supposed to be busy. But now... maybe I'm just desperate, but I'm gonna give it a try.

*phew* Ok, I think that'll be it for now. A change of topic then!

So, interesting conversation a few days ago. I have a friend--my chemistry partner actually--whom I got into a great talk with. The topic? Well, sort of religion. Sort of...

It began with me asking him what he thought about "what if"s (I was depressed, ok?). This took us on a long chat where we ended up talking about free will, the origin of the universe, and such. Quite interesting, but I would say the strangest/best part was when we actually got to talking about religion. He was asking me, if I didn't believe in God, why I attempted to be nice to people. For what reason, if in the end none of it would matter. Well, oddly enough, I had never been on that end of the conversation (only been on the other). So while it was new for me, I still backed myself up. In the end, we said we'd exchange books to read: he lent me the book Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis. And I lent him... Fight Club ^_^;

I have just read the preface to the book so far, but it sounds interesting from what he told me. Can't wait to get started! (May either do that or play FFXII... we'll see)

Catching Up

Wow, it feels like forever since I've written here. *checks* Eh, it's only been a few days, but still, these few days can add up to a week, and that week slowly become a month. Next thing I realize is that it really has been forever since I wrote! Now that would just lack any sort of couthness. *just found the real meaning of that word and is ready to abuse it to no ends*

Hmm, so why haven't I been able to write much? Well, that's a simple question to answer, as I just so happen to have so many good reasons that nobody will be able to continue without feeling shame. Um, yeah, because... I've been busy? Hey, I'm a college student who works, does homework, works some more, and watches Scrubs. You're lucky that I can find time away from my busy schedule to write in here. So be grateful :P

In all seriousness, though, I have been doing a lot of things. Weekends are extremely exhausting since I have programming team practice, work, and schoolwork. In essence, my Saturdays consist of waking up and going to practice, then work. I return exhausted and ready to do anything that involves me not doing anything... if that makes any sense to you. Sundays come around, another early morning. Go to work and return in the afternoon (just barely missing West End breakfast, damn!) to do homework or just lay around 'til the day comes to a close. Obviously that's no fun, but after such a tiring weekend the last thing I want to do is work some more. While I do know that blogs are usually about letting it all out, I really don't have much to let out afterwards. If I were a bit older, I'd come home to sit down with a nice glass of wine and my favorite TV show ("I'm looking at you Scrubs").

Even so, there was that first weekend where I went out Saturday night, just to have work the next day at ten. So what if I was up until five in the morning? And what if I wasn't one bit tired the next day? Well, then I'd say I should do that more often (even if I more or less passed out when I hit my pillow that night)! I plan to, but maybe not this weekend... philosophy paper that I have to score well on is due the next Monday >.<;;

Ooh, good news though! We've been doing all of these programming practices for a while now--two months mebbe?--so you'd think the contest would be coming up somewhat soon, right? And you'd be right! Why, in fact, this Saturday we'll be having the competition at Radford and we'll get our chance to kick major ass (I hear our team's pretty good). While that's fun and all--'cept for the getting up at seven part--one of the best parts is that I'll get a whole day off of work. In addition to that, after the contest ends, I will have no more early Saturday morning things to do! Now if that's not exciting, I don't know what is. I mean, not only will I get to sleep in, but I won't have to go to work until two in the afternoon. Which basically entails my regaining of Friday nights.

Man, how sweet will that be. After this weekend--I guess next week too--I'll get to have mostly full weekends again. Go out Friday nights, sleep in Saturdays, work a bit, and have free time to enjoy myself. Not too shabby. Maybe throw in the occasional party or something, who knows? Oh, but just remember one thing: it will be fun.

Dream On

You know what I haven't talked about yet? Something that I love so much that I'm quite surprised I've never brought it up before in any previous post. Obviously--for those of you who know me--I'm talking about dreams.

What brought this topic to the front of my mind was one which I recently ('bout a few weeks now, but that can be recent-ish) had. Oh, and how odd it was. I'm not too keen on the details anymore--actually surprised that I remember even having it--but near the end of the dream I killed myself. Thing is, this happened after killing somebody else. ... and to make things even weirder: I didn't wake up after dying.

Ok, so I can't remember too well as to what exactly happened, it was just strange. I had been chasing somebody, while at the same time being chased. I had a knife in my hand, a big knife. And, I eventually caught up to the person I was chasing, readied my knife, and stabbed right in the chest. But just then I turned around to see the person chasing me right there. Before he could do anything I took the knife, slit my throat, and stabbed myself right in the chest. ... and I died. Yet, it was strange. I had one of those out-of-body experiences where I saw my body slump to the ground and looked around at the scene. My body laying there with my chaser standing above it with a weapon of some sort. It didn't matter what it was. A few seconds later I began descending down with fire all around. Hell, huh?

Luckily I woke up then. Um, but not really. I was still dreaming when I woke up, just somewhere else--perhaps in a totally different dream? Frankly I have no idea (it's a dream, they're not supposed to make sense). Still, it got me thinking...

The first thing that came to my mind was fear. It wasn't the thought of death per se, just, hmmm. I mean, sure I'd be hellishly disappointed and regretful for not having done so many things, yet that wasn't what got me in the end. More of... Inexistence. Not existing. Unh, I'm not even sure as to how to describe what happened. There was something else. Actually, I think I may need to recall the dream a bit more.

At one point--still not too sure of when this happened in the dream--I was literally non-existant. Was it when I died.. hmm. It may have been, but only for a split second. Still, that was enough to make me afraid--afraid to lose everything and everone. For that moment, as short as it was, I sat there confined to myself, the things in my mind. There was no sight, smell, feel, taste, or sound; no senses whatsoever in that place. I was alone, with not a person there. Never had I felt so abandoned or just flat out lonely before. But thankfully this was for just a mere fraction of a second. Perhaps a flash. I can tell you, though, I would never want to go through that once more. That would be ultimate torture.

Was it inexistence? From the sound of it (heh, there I go talking like I'm analyzing myself), it seems as if it was not exactly. I existed to myself in thought and such. You know, if Descartes was at all right with "Cogito, ergo sum," then I most definitely existed. Hmmm, really, true inexistence is more or less an unimaginable thought--at least for me. Heh, then again--according to Hume--it's quite a pointless question to ponder over.

So yeah, I'm actually quite disappointed in myself. I have many other dreams that I want to talk about but I definitely got side-tracked here. Mebbe I need to have a part 2 to this? Yeah, that's what I'll do... so 'til then. I'm off to sleep, oyasumi!

Workin' Me Arse Off

So I definitely spent over ten hours of my life working at Sbarro last weekend. Yeah.

There are a few things that are happening since I begun there:
1. My efficiency factor is at an all-time high!
2. I don't actually entirely fully hate my job with the burning passion of a thousand suns.
3. Lack of sleep is getting to me once more.
4. Now this is a big one... I cannot stand the sight of pizza.

Starting from the top--er, actually, let's go from the bottom. Just for the hell of it. I mean, breaking standards and cultural traditions is what I'm all about, right? Good, glad you agree. From the bottom!

Standing behind a counter full of pizza for hours on end is one of the last things I've ever wanted to do (you know, up there with working at a fast food joint). So far that is all that I have gotten to do--serve pizza to all the friendly customers. After my first shift--five hours long--we had a lot of pizza left over. If memory serves me, more than five entire pizzas, freshly baked too. We threw away those and took only what had been sitting out. Even so, that added up to almost four whole pizzas. Unfortunately, as much as I detested the sight and smell of pizza at that moment, I was starving (treacherous stomach!). *deep sigh* thus I gave in.

Right onto sleep deprivation--still one of me fav activities. It's summed up pretty simply I'd say:
sleeping at five in the morning after being out most of the night and then getting up to work at nine. I'd say it was the dumbest thing that I've done as of late, but the dumber decision happened during the night, not as a result of the night.

Third. I really don't. My job, while it is fast food, has some satisfying things to it. It's one of those jobs where you can space out for hours on end and realize that you just made a few good bucks. That and you can also talk to everyone there and not get yelled at every single second. Pretty cool actually. I've met a few people who are just down-right nifty and make me want to meet them outside of the workplace. I may, and most likely, will at some point in the future. But for now I'mma just stick with learning how to make pizza (disgusting >.<).

And last, but most importantly first, when you are pressed for time, you tend to do things in a much more efficient manner. Hell, the first night off of work, I went and worked out, did my chemistry lab, and had time to go out and stay out 'til five. And after all of that, I was still not tired when I went to work the next day--so what if I was falling asleep by seven Sunday evening? Efficiency++!!!

But you know what'll be really spiffy? The fact that I'm making money again. Here I come Final Fantasy XII! And eventually my very own Wii... can't wait. Of course when that actually does happen I'll need the money to supposrt myself. You know, after dropping out ^^;

It Was Bound to Happen

Sooner or later, I would assume that every teenage(-ish) boy talks about this topic. I'd say that, although I do think about this quite often, it's not my fault that I'm bringing it up. Ideally we wouldn't even stray anywhere near this, but, of course, life throws us curve balls all of the time. What is it this time? Well, it all comes down to this: a 13-year-old girl recently admitted that she loved me.

Love. What a fickle word (is that even the right term? *checks* Mmmm, close enough). It has a million meanings in a world where our feelings are vague and where we can be vague in attempting to explain them. And all of this ambiguity is worsened by the fact that many words, love included, are context-specific. As such they can be easily misinterpreted anytime you're not talking to someone in person--thus you are capable of seeing their facial expressions and hearing the intonation in their voice and so on. Obviously the worst case scenario would be speaking to someone about the topic over the internet. ... which is exactly how this happened. But more on that later!

First, I'mma start with my track record. It is probably one of the shortest and worst--statistically that is--you will ever see. It's actually summed up in about one sentence. And no, it's not a run-on:

I have only asked out one girl before, and she said no.

Now that I think about it, I really could've put that more eloquently >.>;; oh well.

Yup, it is literally that bad. But I'm not gonna blame it on bad luck or on me being a total wuss (even if both of those do play some part in this whole thing). Instead, I work to improve my condition--not to mention that record there. To do that I'll summarize what's been going on. Hmm, while I'm not one to get too personal on something like this, I feel like I can't get to my point (er, what was my point?) without doing so in this case. So just buckle in. And if you really want to, you can stop reading. But if you don't, just to inform you, this is about as emo as I'll get.

Let's start with all those "crushes." My first one (and dare I say last?) was in 8th grade. But I was still a kid and she moved by the end of the year, so nothing happened. Then there were a few girls in high school, but none of them were at all serious. Eventually, in 11th grade, my first cursh moved back to Ashburn and so did my crush on her. That didn't really work as in the end of the year I asked her to prom and got a prompt-ish no. So much for that. Thus high school closed and last summer came. Fun huh?

On that trip to Europe I got a crush on one of the girls on the trip. I didn't know her too well before and, considering that she would still be in high school the upcoming year, I decided not to act on it. But, she began growing on me and eventually I changed my mind... a little too late. Actually, what I wanted didn't matter in this situation. In the end she liked someone else and that someone liked her back. Oops.

I spiraled into emo faster than you could say "Damnit! I'm out of emoflakes!" Thankfully that only lasted a week because one week later I found myself in the Caribbean thousands of miles away from my own internal drama.

In Puerto Rico that week was where I found my closest thing to love ever (or better put... my first good friend who happens to be a girl?). Literally the fastest friend I've ever made from the first call to those precious few hours we spent together in person both for the first and, as of now, last time. After I left we've kept in contact, but obviously it will never happen. And, although I never had a crush on her per se, those what if's never stop from crossing the mind.

Here at Tech I am constantly trying to meet new people. This includes, but is not limited to, friends. Yup, friends. In my time I've made many guy friends and no girl friends whatsoever. Bummer, no? Maybe one day, but it took me four years of high school to learn how to make any friends, let's just hope that it doesn't take me that long again. Now onto more important matters!

And we shall end where I started this. I met her (the 13-year-old) a few days before I graduated from high school. She and her sister (15) had just recently moved from Columbia to Puerto Rico and was living on the first floor of my grandma's house. Being new in town, the two of them had no friends yet and would not start school for a few months, thus my dad decided to invite them to my graduation since my grandma was already coming. To save money he also went ahead and had them stay over at our house for the duration--two whole weeks. I didn't really mind, though; in a few days I would be graduating then heading out to Europe to have the time of my life (well, that was before PR, but it was great when it happened).

But things weren't that simple. The two girls (out of loneliness? Boredom?) wanted to chat with me and often asked me what I was up to while I read--it's about all I did at home during that time. So I talked to them and we chatted in my room and such, but it was always kinda awkward since I didn't know them and since I still don't know Spanish too well. Yet, things went along fine, I graduated, went to Europe, end of story. ... but not really.

Sure, I did chat with the two online from time to time but never really got to know them (same distance problem again). Still, you can imagine my surprise--actually, half-surprise--when the younger one said she "loved" me. Of course it was over the internet, and it was me trying to figure out if she meant she liked me or (stealing from Hey Arnold here) liked me liked me. Yeah, turned out to be the latter and I was extremely... flattered? Iono, quite an awkward situation to be in. Thing is that I was half-expecting it; I sorta forced it out of her. The few times that I was around her, she seemed shy and, well, acted nervous. I had a feeling, but was never sure--it's never happened to me before. Oh well, go figure. Just my luck, neh?

That's about it. So when I look back on this, I can't help but feel frustrated and extremely out of luck when it comes to these types of situations. Yeah sure, I don't have ridiculous drama in my life, but I sure do have some of the most messed up stories to tell. Ugh, I just wonder why I can't find anybody who lives close to me and is around my age. ... -_- and I know what you're thinking. Even if I look 13 I'm not!

Please excuse me for the following statement:
God damn that was long.

I've Been Thinking...

Introspectively as usual. Actually, I have no idea where I'll go with this, but maybe it'll start with my view on "personality."

So I was having a nice chat with Brandon, a friend of mine over at William and Mary, and brought up the topic. I asked him one simple question. "Can personality be quantified?" His answer was one which I didn't expect at all. But then again, I always believe that interpretation of the question is half the answer ^_^

He went on about how people had different talents and areas of interest. One person may like soccer a lot, math somewhat, writing not at all, drawing a tiny bit, and playing frisbee a good amount. Another may like messing with computers a bunch, reading about everything, and running long distances. However, his main point centered around one fact: all of these add up to one personality. No matter what kinds aptitudes someone may have or what things he or she finds appealing, it all adds up to "1." So, in essence, all people are quantifiable in their personality, since all of their likes and talents, along with the degrees of the two, sum up to one. Wow, not at all what I was looking for, yet definitely something worth pondering about--and I have, many times before.

Now that I think about it, this was actually one of my ways for saying that "all men are created equal." (Thanks to Jeffy for that quote.) Back in the day when I sat there depressed because everybody was so much better than me at everything, I'd use this knowledge to attempt to cheer me up. I said to myself (keep in mind I was still religious back then), "God wouldn't create some people better than others. We're all the same, just add up every talent you have and it adds up to the same as someone else's. You're just not looking at it the right way." It didn't always cheer me up, but I still believe it holds some truth.

Hmmm, so speaking of depression, another thing that's popped into my mind has been my reliance on people. The best example of this would be last summer, when our little Europe group would hang out very often. That and the regular group, which was always fun. But yeah, it comes down to me hanging with people almost everyday all day long. I loved it to no ends. Really, that was the best summer I had ever had... but I digress.

I need people. Well, I would say that most of us need people, but my dependence on them has gotten pretty strong lately. I could blame summer, but that'd be kinda mean. Instead, I'll just say that I can get very attached to people, since I'm a caring person. I'm one of those who will remember the most random things people did or said and analyze all the little details. Not smart if you want to be happy, I'll say that much. But because of this, just being with people makes my life extremely enjoyable. And, you know, we tend to be with people pretty damn often. Somewhere around 90% of the time? I dunno, ask a statician or something.

Back on track: yes, I need people. My biggest fear is that all of the people I knew would just leave me alone for the rest of my life. It's a scary thing and, while it is somewhat of an unfounded fear, I really hope that it will never truly happen.

Right, now that I got that out I can give you all what I think on the quantification of personality. Brandon's idea was ridiculously interesting, but I had a more physical approach to it. I meant, could you take someone's brain--their "personality" that is--and take a sort of snapshot of it and then reconstruct a perfect replica. A replica which was, in essence, the same person. Just the right number of chemicals here and there and the right shape and the cells in the right spot. Would it be the exact same person? I believe so, but obviously there's no solid proof. And if you have no idea what I'm talking about, then you should read this.

All in all, my little personality theory stemmed from a curious thought: "Did everything have to happen the way it did?" Since everything seems to be caused by something else--cause and effect--then doesn't it seem like there really is no alternative? I dunno. I'm guessing most people would look at me and think me a freak for thinking this, still I think it's an interesting path to take. If you followed it, you may be able to disprove "free will." Hmmm, maybe more on this later.

Not a sermon, just a thought.

Trip Down in the Caribbean (Part 4)

And this should be the last one... I think.

I noticed that in my previous post I had forgotten one very important thing. Thursday, the day in which more or less absolutely nothing happened, night there was the big fight. And I mean big.

Ever seen that show? Yeah, that's right, Family Feud. Well, it was nothing like that--in more or less every single way possible--but it was an intra-family feud. I'm not too keen on the details, but I think it goes like this:

My grandma (mom's side) wanted to get a sort of ID card or something from Puerto Rico so that she could show it when necessary (she lived in Miami but before in PR). So she asked my other grandma (... obviously dad's side), who works for the government there, when she came to visit. Now this part is a little technical, but it breaks down to it being illegal for one reason or another. It really should've ended there, yet, unfortunately, it didn't. Instead, my parents and aunt were brought into the mix.

My aunt, who has been trying to take care of her mother for a while now, heard about this and asked my mom to talk to my dad to talk to his mom so that she would do it. Now if you didn't follow that (if you did congrats) the last sentence just means that my aunt tried to convince my grandma to do it anyways, even if it was illegal. That's where things went bad. My dad didn't want do get involved in this and my mom agreed, 'twas not a good idea. However, my aunt kept pushing and pushing. Eventually, Thursday night, she got so angry that she threw a lamp... close to me I hear. Immediately my parents became fed up. We decided to leave and stay with my grandma that night then the next night find a hotel. Thus, very late that night, we left Casa Picaflores (finally...) for the last time.

Friday: This was a good day. A very good day.

Why was it so good? Because I got to hang with my friend more or less the entire day. And then I got to hang with my other friend, the one that was supposedly out of town the whole week. So I got the best of both worlds: I wouldn't have met the first friend without the other being out of town, yet I got to hang with the second. Works for me.

Ok, I admit it, I forgot to mention something. During the whole fight, which lasted about an hour including the awkward silence afterwards, I got a call from my friend. ... so I instantly fled the dining room--AKA the battleground--and went outside to chat (let's take a moment to thank God for cordless phones). Once outside we talked for a while and I told her what was going on. In return, she told me that tomorrow, Friday, she and a group of her friends were gonna go out to eat at Fuddrucker's (sp? oh well). Of course I agreed, even if I'm not a fan of burgers and the such; just had to find a way to get my parents to take me to her house again.

Luckily, my parents are understanding. All I had to do was tell them about the plan and they agreed to find a hotel near the area--the area being her house and, more importantly, the site of the family reunion. However, I didn't care; I just wanted to enjoy myself once more. So we left my grandma's house in San Juan and headed west. A bit later (can't remember too well, but it couldn't have been that long) I was once again outside of my friend's house.

Again, no awkward silence or time needed to adjust, we just got along. And it was awesome ^^ Thus we proceeded to watch one of our favorite shows... Scrubs!!! *heavenly chorus singing* Five episodes later, many jokes and ridiculous times shared, I think some dancing, music, more laughter and such, it was time to head out. Good thing too, I was getting hungry. Maybe I would actually eat something at Fuddrucker's after all--burger or something. If it was anything like Red Robin, then I would be satisfied.

Food happened. Oh, and just so you know, those milkshakes are delicious. I know I wouldn't mind one right now... Me and my friend arrived early (again... not that I'm complaining) and ended up waiting an hour before anybody else got there. Still, it was fun just hanging. Eventually people actually showed up so we all go to order some food and then sit in those really nifty old-timey booths. God so many hilarious jokes were told. Very funny. Also, we fit about 11 people in one of the aforementioned booths, creating what was deemed a "foot orgy." And, while I can't speak for anybody else, I know it was the best foot orgy I've ever had.

Good times don't last forever, and so we all had to go back home. However, there was one problem for me: I couldn't get in contact with my parents. They were supposed to pick me up around 9--I'd been with my friend for more than 6 hours by then--but were not answering either of their cell phones. Soooo I had to go back to my friend's house, *blatant sarcasm* what a bummer.

This time, for a period of almost two hours, we just sat around her house and chatted. Eventually I did talk to my dad, but by then plans had changed dramatically. No longer would I be returning to the hotel, instead I was going to go stay at my godfather's house, like the old times. See, at Fuddrucker's I found out that my godfather's son, a good friend of mine, had actually returned back home from some fencing camp. I got his number from my friend, his ex-girlfriend, and rang him up. A few minutes later, it was decided that I would spend the night, and I couldn't be more excited at all (well, I could have, but to do as such would have been impossible).

Again, good times don't last forever. While I did have a fantastic, it was just too short for me. It would have been fine (man I lie so much) had I spent the entire week hanging with friends instead of doing things that I really did not want to do. But I can't complain. This week, this blindingly short week had changed my life like no other week before. Hell, the happiness alone that I got was more than enough.

Saturday + Sunday: Well, the family reunion took place but other than eating traditional PuertoRican food (God yes!), I'd say that there's no much to talk about. After that ended, Sunday came, along with a 4 hour plane ride back home. And so, unfortunately (though every other time I visited PR with my family I would have said finally), our vacation came to a close. My family returned home, tired, but satisfied. I know I was. (And as any of my friends will tell you, I had never seemed more content any time before or after that week.)

Fractals: A Mathematician's Artistic Playground

I (because blogger is gay and won't let me use horizontal carroty brackets) *heart* this program. Now, I know that I'm not one to advertise things--lest there be money for me!--but I just have to. There's a short story as to how I came across it (yes, I'll get to what it is in a second). I was surfing deviantART and saw that they had a category called Fractal Art. Of course, this piqued my curiousity and I dug around searching for what other things. Eventually, I stumbled upon great beauties such as this and immediately wanted to find out how people created these masterpieces. Thankfully, Google is always there to help you search far and wide across the web. I'd say that around fifteen minutes later, I had already downloaded and installed Ultra Fractal.

This thing is so cool!! So it's been about a week since I've had it and I've gone through the tutorials that come with the program. They're good cause they teach how to do things, but the best part is that now I can just sit down and play with fractals for hours (er... not like I will. I'm a busy college student here... *cough*).

Seriously though, Ultra Fractal makes having fun with Photoshop seem like watching paint dry. While PS is fun and all, with UF you can instantly see changes occur by just typing in some new numbers or screwing around with the gradients. Most definitely cool. The problem now is that I'll have to learn how to use all the seven kazillion settings and tools in it to make nifty little things. It actually rivals PS's many features and functions so I doubt that I'll be able to pick it up quickly. Hmm, but we'll see, right?

*deep breath* Ok /rant: off. *powering-down sound* Enough bragging about how awesome it is (even if it is quite awesome!), onto fractals themselves. Actually, I never really gave a thought to fractal art before I saw them over at dA. It makes sense that I should like the style; it combines two of my favorite things. By now I assume you all know I'm a math person (comes with the tutoring people so often... or is it the other way around? Whatever), and if you had no idea, well now you know. Also, art. Not just any art, mind you, but the elegant chaos--like the kind seen in nature and a million other places--that comes through fractals. It's some of the coolest and at times the most beautiful things that can be made by man--and computer in this case. I just can't wait to find some time and play around with it.

Well that's 'bout all I've got to say about that. Been sorta busy but hopefully I'll post some longer/more meaningful things up... eventually ^^; Laters.

The Philosopher Inside

"A lot of computer science majors seem to like that class..." Hell, I barely even let her finish the sentence before I decided that I was gonna enroll. Besides, had she--my advisor--not told me, chances are I still would've found it. What the heck am I talking about? Probably one of my favorite classes that is not complete bulls*beep*. And ironically enough, it just so happens to be one of the less certain branches of "science": philosophy!

To be exact, the class is called Philosophy 1204, Knowledge and Reality. Again, you may be sitting there wondering what exactly I just accomplished; what is the class about? I'd respond by simply stating, "Philosophy." Haha, man I love being vague. No, but in all seriousness, when I first walked into the large lecture room (comfortably sits 200) I really had no clue of how the class would be. It's been about five weeks or so--technically we're on the sixth, but who's keeping track?--and I'd say that I have a decent idea... even if I don't know how to get a good grade in it ^^;

The basic schedule for class breaks down like this:
1. Read a piece (as of now it's been either a story from our Science Fiction Hall of Fame book or one of Descartes Meditations)
2. Go to class and have a big discussion (I mean big, remember how the room holds 200?)
3. Take notes on anything important the teacher says (oh, there are so many interesting things!)
4. Once a week go to recitation to have a more intimate discussion (...unfortunately mine sucks. A lot.)
5. Once every month or so, write a position paper (more on those later)

It's actually quite a simple class, as you may be able to tell, that involves a very small amount of work. However, that doesn't mean that it's boring! Oh no, unlike the majority of my other classes, I am actually learning extremely interesting things in class. Not only am I a huge philosophy lover (remind me to tell you some of the thought-provoking discussions I've been pondering about) but the class teaches you how to formulate a good argument about more or less anything! No, it really does. Since it's philosophy and we're trying to convince others why we're right on a topic that is more or less incapable of being proven, you have to learn how to write and speak well. Oh, I guess your ideas have to be somewhat good also, but we all remember the old saying, "A good argument can convince a penguin to buy sun tan lotion." ... or something like that.

But yeah, you all get the point. While arguing logically is a good skill to acquire, the real fun comes from the different topics we end up talking about in class. The existence of God, what is intelligence, what is knowledge, the existence of God, plain regular existence, what defines a human, the existence of God, and--not necessarily most important, but it's up there--the existence of God.

Actually I'm just kidding, the existence of God isn't the only topic we cover. It just so happens that Descartes, in his fun meditations, likes to give proofs as to why God exists. So we discuss those pretty often, usually pointing out flaws in his theory or things that he flat-out skips over and assumes. Really, the most interesting topics and theories are brought up on the days in which we read those short stories in the "Hall of Fame." Hell, there have been times when people have brought up some of the most random things--one example being the anime Ghost in the Shell. Fun fun!

Mmmm, now, there is one thing that makes this class hard. That is the papers and how they are graded. If you give it a quick thought, how many freshmen college students have ever written a philosophy paper before? I'd say maybe a handful (a handful being equivalent to a baker's dozenth of a Brittish bushel... sad part is that the engineering class has taught me how to calculate that there).

So it comes down to one simple thing: the C+ I just got on my paper. Sure, a C+ ain't that bad, but I really would've liked a B. But, thankfully, the professor is giving us another chance at writing the papers. This is especially good since we can fully utilize the comments we recieved from the TA's in order to score slightly to significantly higher. And reading through the comments I got, I think I could pull the latter. The only down side is that I'll have to rewrite it from scratch in order to fit it all on the two page limit. Bummer.

But yeah, very fun class, just a bit difficult when it comes to the papers. Hopefully, though, by the end of the semester I will have gotten a lot better at it. We'll see, neh? I do believe that's the majority of what I wanted to say. If ever you wanna strike up a conversation just e-mail me or AIM me or something. I think one of those is on here >.>;

Lone Excitement

(Quick Notice: All these times are relative to the 21st of September when I began writing the blog.)

Hahaha, ok ok, get this: today I had two tests. Yesterday I thought that I would be failing one of the two and pulling a not-too-good grade on the other. Today I have been proven wrong to a great degree. Really, after having taken the two, I'm tempted to ask... is college supposed to be hard?

About a week ago my chemistry teacher announced that our first test would be held today. So, at first, I thought that I'd have to study a lot and prepare for a very had test. Buuut then I thought it over and realize that, no, I probably would not have to do much work to get a decent grade on the test. While I had not learned the material that well when I had the course back in high school, I at least got to see it. Then, when we took the test in class, I relied mostly on my knowledge from 11th grade chemistry and I believe that I did quite well. Of the twenty-five questions--all multiple choice too--there were only a couple that I had any sort of doubt. Piece of cake. *EDIT: I found out that I got a 92, so not bad... though I should've done better*

The engineering test, on the other hand, had a huge buildup. There was all this negative hype (mostly from my sophomore friends) where people said how hard it would be and that we'd all fail it in the end. Well, while I didn't do as well as I hoped, I am quite certain that I did not fail. In fact, I would venture to say that most people did not fail. Even further, I'd go as far as to say that I did relatively well--the hubris! Sitting in the room right before the test was handed out, I expected some ridiculously hard questions, but they were so easy that I ended up finishing in half the time given. *EDIT: Ok, so I know now that I made a lot stupid mistakes. Let's just hope that it doesn't hurt my grade too badly.*

Right, so that's enough about school for now. Another--I guess good?--thing happened today: finally got a job interview set up. I mean, it's cool that I'll finally have an income once more and be able to afford the things I really want (like that trip to PR during winter break), but I as I sit here I can only wonder... is it worth the price I'm paying? See, I've done the one thing that I always said I would not. I entered the food industry. Oh the shame!

Yeah, that is correct. Soon enough I will be employed by Sbarro (or whatever company owns them). I mean, it seems like an ok job, right? Free pizza every shift? Well, I can't stand eating pizza that often, so most likely a lot of the free food will go to my friends. *deep sigh* there goes one perk. Haha, nah, the real perk will be the freedom to get whatever games I want (oh, and eventually all of Scrubs on DVD). That and not worry too much about using text messages and such. I just hope that selling my soul for the chance of some money won't come back to haunt me. What am I saying? Of course it will, it's fast food! ... double shame.

*returns after 4 hours of bathing* Now that I am slightly cleaned up, we can continue.

Well, now this'll seem kinda random, but I need to rant somewhere. Where else better than the blog? It's not necessarily a hard thing to talk about, just hard to put in to words let alone even figure out where to begin (insert there like five people telling me "from the beginning").

I dunno, as of late I'm getting slightly homesick and feeling extremely detached--for having so many people I know here that is. Really, homesick enough to just want to go back home and sleep in my bed all day. Hell, I'm even wanting to just be with my parents or something. Sadly enough, these feelings come in waves to the point that I seem bipolar to myself. It's not like I'm constantly sad and down and "emo," but when contrasted to how quickly I switch from sheer ecstasy to this, my previous statement does seem slightly valid.

Mmm, well there are multiple reasons why I'm feeling homesick and detached. Actually, it all adds up to a feeling of loneliness; being stuck here at Tech with no one to be with or no group to hang with. Over the summer I had a lot of friends and was constantly--for the most part--doing something with someone. Guess it all comes with adjusting to college life *deep sigh* ohs wells.

I'm off for the day then. Oh, check me dA sometime soon cause I'll be posting new things soon. Maybe written, maybe photographed, maybe Photoshopped?

Geekin' It Up

As of late, I feel a lot more like a nerd than ever before. (Quick clarification: I've been much more nerdier in the past, just I never actually thought myself as such in those scenarios. Now I do think that the things I am doing deserve to rank me in the "nerd" category.)

First of all, I've gotten back into my webcomic reading, IGN surfing, anime watching self once more (only took me a month to get back into it). Of course, ever since summer--after Europe mostly--I got off this trend and instead did many other things. However, as I have stated before, things have yet to go as I wanted them to so far here at Tech. That means that I've had a good amount of free time to sit around and do said activities. Buuuut, that should all change soon-ish (at least I hope). Wait, I need to keep things organized, more on the change later.

Another thing that has me feeling really, really geeky is the fact that I participated in a programming contest a few weeks ago. Even worse is that afterwards I was invited to join the programming team here... and accepted. Yup, let the laughs begin >.< *readies self*

Actually, I don't really care what anyone thinks about that. I have fun with it, plus the problems are so hard--not to mention the other team members so experienced--that I learn a bunch of new things. Compared to the problems we tackle at the programming team my computer science class is a breeze. Near no work for me. So, while it is the ultimate nerd-fest (ok, get this. When I said that Microsoft coded God once, everyone laughed... So creepy), in the end being on the team will dramatically help me, both knowledge-wise and resume-wise.

Hmmm, well that sorta covers the title of the post. What to talk about... oh, right! The "changes." Well, like always, I'm working on meeting new people here. That's the on-going change that, if successful, will lead to quite a happy time here at Tech. Other than that, today I finally got around to applying to yet another job. My first attempt was at the library right as school began, but they never called back. So this time I applied to the dining services who will, with some luck, call me and eventually hire me. As much as I've always dreaded the fact of working in the food industry, there are more important things at stake (and the fact that they pay $7.50 starting ain't too bad either)! It'd definitely be nifty if they hired me since 1. I'd be making money again (Wii here I come!) and 2. I would have less free time and thus would make good use of it--in the procrastinator's way.

What else? Well, unfortunately, I've yet to get around to posting anything else on dA. I have been ridiculously inspired at times (now being one of those times) and I have a few plans of things to do. I just have to find some free time and be efficient about it. But tomorrow I've got two tests so I'm off to study. Wish me luck!

Trip Down in the Caribbean (Part 3)

Picking up from where we last left our heroes... stranded on a tropical paradise, what will happen?!

Mmmm, crap. This ain't good. After such a long time, I have a poor memory of the things that happened in Puerto Rico. Plus my sister's blog has little to offer for these next few days >.<; Ack, well I'll at least attempt to speak in length about Wednesday, as that was one of the two memorable days of the trip for me.

Tuesday: Really, I think my sister spoke well in her blog for this day (and Thursday, but that's coming up): nothing did happen on Tuesday. For the most part, we were hearing a lot of that Chris storm that could supposedly keep us stuck in the house for a while, but my parents weren't too worried. Instead we just went to the store, got some food and water and such, and just stayed in the house for the rest of the day. Bo-oring.

Oh, almost forgot. Yes, since Wednesday was the planned bowling day, I had to ask and convince my parents to let me go (even though there was a tropical storm *ooooh*). Actually, that wasn't too hard. I told them I had a friend who invited me to go bowling, told them the place where it was at, and they said they'd drive me over as they visited a family friend around the same area (aren't I vague?). Yup, it was that simple. I had something to look forward to and a whole day of sitting around and reading to do so.

Wednesday(!): So this was the big-ish day. Man, and how.

As excited as I was, I had to wait a bit since the bowling thing was not 'til 4:30. So I just woke up at my usual time--10 or 11 ^^--and hung around the house doing nothing, as per usual. There wasn't much to do there other than read and listen to music. Yeah, that was it. Pretty boring. Luckily for me, while time did slow down as it tends to, it did not stop altogether. We ended up leaving the house around 1 since A: it was far (by Puerto Rico standards) and B: my friend wanted me to go a little early.

About an hour or so later my parents, my sister and I arrived in front of me friend's house. Formalities were exchanged and a few minutes later I was inside already laughing for one reason or another. That's right, though I had never met this person in my life, there was absolutely no awkwardness at all. I have to say that she's the quickest friend I've ever made.

Needless to say, things went great. We hung out for a few hours at her house (bad memory means I can't remember specifically what we did 'sides talk and laugh) and eventually headed over to the bowling alley. Although we were supposed to meet up with everyone there at 4:30, that just didn't happen. See, there's this little thing about Puerto Rican culture--a lot of hispanic cultures actually--is that you never show up on time anywhere. Well, as long as it's something informal that is. But yeah, you always show up casually late. ... no, later than that. Around an hour later.

Luckily for us there was an arcade in the bowling alley, a nice one at that. It had just about every game I'd want to play; which really just means it had DDR and air hockey. No, but as cool as it was to be in a good arcade for once, I preferred to just hang with all the people that slowly arrived. Man, so much hilarity took place there. And for once I felt quite at home, even though there was that language barrier and even though I had never met these people before. I dunno, must be something about starting anew. Who knows?

The night really did end too fast. We began bowling around 5:30 and played two games. However, these games took a while since we had about fifteen people spread over two lanes. But it was still fun, even if I do suck at bowling and got my ass kicked ^^; Plus, we got to go to Wendys afterwards! If that's not incentive for a fun night, I don't know what is.

Unfortunately, I had to say goodbye to everybody--especially my friend--and had to go back to the house in the middle of nowhere with no cell phone reception. Quite a bummer. But, what I didn't know was that I was in for a surprise. Mmmm, now that I think about it, that's a lie. I had an idea, but just had no clue if it would come true or not. Before I left, my friend had told me that she wanted to invite me to a friend's birthday party or at least something else before I left a few days later. So I had that to look forward to ^_^ And look forward I did because the next day was more or less a repeat of Tuesday.

Thursday: (See Tuesday, but change around the vague specifics and add a lot more rain.)

More to come with the family fight, another outing with friends, family reunion, and the final dramatic conclusion to our tale!

This One Time, At Band Camp

So we went camping a while back (real camping, no instruments involved whatsoever), 'bout a week before I left for Tech I want to say. Yes, it was fun and yes I want to do it again. But... I think it'll be a tad too cold during my winter break ^^;

As I mentioned earlier--or at least I think I did--the whole idea started while I was over in Puerto Rico. Kish, James, Cathryn, Vince, and Ted all decided to go camping at Bull Run (a nice place around 30 minutes from my house that I have both camped at and ran a cross country race at) one day. So they went. I heard about this when I returned and immediately said, "We need to go again!" Of course, Kish reminded me that I had not gone the first time, but he agreed, we would go camping before we left for college. And this time we'd try to invite more people to the crazy party.

In the end the three of us, throw John in the mix, decided upon a day to go and began calling people. Who'd we invite? Same people we always do... proceed to the Europe Contact List!!! Like I said in a previous post--and I know that I did this time--this was the list I created from the many numbers and e-mails and sn's, etc, etc, that I received on the plane trip back from Germany. Every time that we had those little "reunions" we relied on this list to call everybody and inform them of the day, time, and place of said reunion. It worked throughout the summer, quite well in fact. This time people were somewhat busy and weren't really able to go. We got a few maybes--from Vince and Martin--but in the end we had a totally different group from the last time: me, Kish, James (the only two returning members), John, Janet, and Anna.

The day of the trip we all met up at the Giant parking lot in Ashburn so that we could buy the necessary materials for our little campout. Really I just sat there with Anna while John, Kish, and James went in and got everything. Anna, apparently an avid camper, already had her car stuffed full of more or less anything you could ever need for camping--somewhat convenient. So finally "the guys" come back armed with chips, marshmallows, graham crackers, chocolate, and sticks to use for the makin' of smores. Then, after a few more minutes of waiting, Janet arrives and we're prepped to set off. ... and set off we did.

When we arrived we checked in and headed to our nice little plots of soil and trees. We got two of them, since we had six people, each with a fire pit and a couple of tent spots. It was actually quite nice except for the fact that we could hear every gunshot from the firing range. Yeah... luckily that died out as the night progressed, not that we were going to sleep at any decent hour.

Really, everything was fine and dandy--setting up the tents and just chilling--until about the time it began to darken. See, we needed a fire. While we did have James, our boyscout, to tend the fire and Kish actually brought some nice wood, we had nothing to start the fire with. Actually, we did have Anna's starter log thing, but that just didn't want to work well for us. But eventually, after an hour of worrying over the fire, it began burning on its own and we could finally rest. That means it was time to sit down and sing some campfire songs! John pulled out his guitbox and serenaded the rest of us as we made smores and hot dogs that Anna just so happened to have in her car (what'd I say?). Quite an enjoyable time to say the least. Especially the part where Kish's stick burned and both our hot dogs fell in the fire. I have to say, though: hot dogs covered in ash are delicious.

So fun times passed and... ohhhh, right, how could I almost forget one of the best parts of the night? Mentos and diet coke. James and I both had the same idea a few nights earlier and watched the Mythbusters episode on this awesome chemical reaction. Obviously, we had to try it out for ourselves. What I forgot to mention was the other thing that James got at Giant... a pack of mentos, and six 2 liter bottles of diet coke. (Oh, if you're confused as to what I'm referring to, just google it.) Now that was quite awesome. Funny thing that happened: after playing hand and foot, we left all six decks we were using out on the table we had. Later that night, we had our last bottle of diet coke and our last mentos, all a little too close to the table. Needless to say, everything, especially the cards, got soaked. Poor Kish.

Slowly things wound down--mostly after that last little spout on the table--and we cleaned up. Then we all got in Anna's huge--and I mean big--tent. No really, it's big. The six of us fit comfortably inside. Know what we did? ... no, no orgies. Instead we all sat around and pulled out glow sticks and raved. Obviously to the best of our raving abilities. Yeah, we do suck at raving, but it was still fun. Music blaring from my tiny headphones whilst we shook our heads in ecstasy... err, yeah. But after a bit, since Janet had to get up early for work the next morning, John and Janet headed off to their tent on the other side of our plot. We, on the other hand, still had a few more hours left before sleep came.

Another funny story from that night. Raccoons. We all know that if you leave food out that raccoons will most likely find it and eat. Well, this holds true especially when you leave food out on purpose. While we were in the tent we heard some noises coming from outside. Kish took a quick look and--surprise surprise--spotted the little guys. Oh, but the story gets better. James, who the last time had slept outside on the bench, decided to once more sleep on the bench. So he leaves and things quiet down for about twenty minutes, but only twenty minutes. That's when we hear James scream, "Oh shit!" What happened, you may ask? After he ran over to tell us, we found out that he had been trying to sleep, only to open his eyes and find a raccoon on his leg. Yes, this is our boyscout. Hahaha, oh man what fun.

That just about wrapped up the night. We slept around 4 in the morning and woke around 9 (once more to the gunshots). The trip was most definitely worth taking, both for the laughs and interesting conversations held in Anna's tent. Like I said--again... ^^;--I wouldn't mind going camping once more. S'long as James watches out for the raccoons I think it'd all be cool.

Zomg!

Yeah, I really have no idea why I did it, but lately I've been feeling way too inspired to not have some outlet (besides this that is). That's right, you guessed it (don't worry, I know you didn't, just go along with me): I started a deviantART account.

If you want, you can find that here. Oh, by the way, in one of my journal entries on dA is the explanation of why I chose to start one in the first place. It's not that long if you want to pore over it.

That's actually more or less all I wanted to say here. If you have the time, (ok, I know that if there's anyone reading this that they have free time) then just check it out every once in a while. I'm gonna make a good attempt at actually posting real writing on it. Mebbe even the spare picture--artistic picture--here and there. We'll see won't we?

Random Thoughts

Yup, so I've just been writing about the past mostly as of late. So I thought that it was about time to get some catch up here. You know, about the recent times.

(Oh, and if you're curious, yes, I do have a paper to type. This is called procrastination, and I am pulling it to the best of my ability right now.)

College life has been chilling down to a reasonable level--a bit too slow for my tastes, but that's a whole 'nother story. Things are becoming slightly routine, which is why I want to do something to get rid of that feeling. Routine usually means boredom and nothing new, so I need to get off my butt to change that! I want a continuation of my crazy summer where I met a bunch of new people and made a bunch of new friends. Considering that Virginia Tech has around twenty-five thousand people, I'd say that it's quite feasible.

So my plan of action consists of this:

1. Meet someone new and befriend.
2. Get cell phone number.
3. When bored call said person and set up "hang time."
4. During hang time, get to know them better and meet their friends.
5. Rinse (thoroughly) and repeat.

This way it's like one of those exponential things. And, considering the fact that I have already gotten a good amount of numbers, it seems like I'm off to a good start already! ...isn't it sad that I numerize these things and then compliment myself? Man, my whole methodology is probably way off, but you know what, I'mma make it work.

So enough about my Friend-making Techniques™. Really, another reason that I'm bored is the lack of interesting work to do. I mean, ideally we wouldn't get any work and I'd just be free to do whatever I wanted all of the time, but that's just one of those dreams that's not gonna happen in the real world. Instead, I am stuck taking math courses three levels below what I've already done, engineering courses that are true bs in the full sense of the word, and... well that's about it. My other classes have so much potential to be fun and educational (yes, educational), still, they must be taking their time or something because I have yet to spot either.

Yeah, that's about all that's been going on. Not much for the most part. Oooh, one more thing before I call it a night: I was hanging with Bhanu, a friend of mine who's a year older, yesterday and heard that he was gonna be starting muy thai with a few of his friends. Now, I don't know about you, but I think that's downright awesome. I'd do TKD or something, but it always seems to conflict with my schedule (what am I saying... engineering's schedule -_-). But, for now I think I'll be satisfied with some mutai and learning random aikido from Sahil.

Party A'hoy!

(Just so you know, I had this post halfway written for a week and a half before I sat down and finished it. So in reality, the party took place over two weeks ago.)

Yup, you read that right, moi first partay. It may have been a week into school already, but you know what they say, better late than never.

So, 'twas a lazy Friday evening when I got an invitation to walk on over to Vince and Ted's room... from Sanjeev of course. I've never spoken of any of these people--go me!--so I'll give a quick description of each.

Vince is Ted's roommate. He's also one of the coolest people in the world. Well, actually, I don't know him that well, I just say that cause he's a cool guy to hang with. It's only recently, now that we live down the hall from each other, that I've begun to hang with him. Oh, and he's the most finely-dressed straight man I know.

Ted is Vince's roommate. Again, one of the coolest people in the world. And again, don't really know him. He seems like a conundrum wrapped in an enigma of a shell. Um... that made no sense (after having used dictionary.com to help me figure out what I just said), but give me another chance here to explain. Basically, he's one of the most outgoing guys I know, yet who plays video games avidly and knows computers. But not many people know this, because he's not a nerd at all. It's... weird, but cool. I wouldn't mind getting to know him better.

Sanjeev is Sandeep's twin. However, he really can't take advantage of this anymore since his brother's over at the grape (yes... UVA). However, this doesn't mean that he's not cool. He's actually very cool. Yup. Lot's of funny stories--most of which I just heard a few hours ago--to tell about him, so mebbe they'll slip out here and there in my posts. We'll see.

Ok, back to the topic at hand. So, I arrive at Vince's room to find him, Jeev, and John sitting and just hanging. Within about half an hour, the room had filled with at least twice as many girls (I know a few of them, but it's not worth going into detail since I've only seem them once since coming to Tech). That's how good Vince can be at times. As he says, they were our key to entering any party we wanted. Easily.

Well, eventually we headed out after hanging in their room for another half hour or so. Out we went to a party which we supposedly had directions to--of course they were horrible directions and we actually ended up going to a totally different one. Go figure. However, in the process of getting to our final destination, we turned around at least twice and took around an hour to even find the place. When we first saw the frat house we were headed to everything looked empty so we just sat around thinking of what went wrong. Soon enough, though, we learned that the party was in the back (I was wondering why there were so many cars parked at a place with no party in sight). And, like Vince had mentioned, the girls got our whole group in just a few minutes before they closed off the entrance.

Ok, one thing I have to make clear. At first, I was intimidated by the sheer number of people at the party. I'd guess that around one to two hundred people were in the backyard of the small frat house. But I really did not want to spend a few hours cramped together with like seven people at once. Luckily for me, we immediately walked into the cellar of the house where we spent the rest of our time there. Now this place sucked... bad. You could literally smell the moisture that accumulated in the basement, along with the sweat and heat from the many people packed inside (it was still better than outside). Just a tad--no reference to that kid from Europe intended--disgusting. In a few minutes, though, the horrendous conditions didn't matter anymore. I'm pretty sure you all know why. No real reason to say it. Just know that around fifteen minutes later, Vince was inebriated.

So yeah, the party was nothing like I expected it to be. Well, that's a lie. A blatant one at that. If you have no expectations, then how can it turn out different from them? In all reality I didn't know what to think. I've seen those movies with crazy frat parties in them, but I knew that they just exaggerate the truth a wee bit. Actually, our huge group just hung out in the basement of the place for a few hours. It was so much fun, for the most part watching Vince and Sanjeev. When drunk the two of them do some funny things (ooh! I gotta remember to talk about Jeev's pointless vandalism, but mebbe in another post). Now that I think about it, Jeev is the funniest drunk guy. He's been known to fix things, do calculus, and urinate on objects of all kinds. Yeah, I'll have to expand more on that. Hell, his drunk doings deserve a post of their own, haha.

After a couple of hours, a random guy--his name escapes me--approached us (again, becasue of our group of girls) and told us about his house that was really close. Most everyone too drunk to care that he is just that, a random guy, so me and John, the soberest ones, had to walk everyone over there. Man, that was lame. Once we got there, a thought immediately popped into my head. "Houses can be dirtier than dorms?" It was bad.

We spent around fifteen minutes in that house, if even. The girls were getting tired, so--again--me and John had to walk everyone, back to campus this time. It wasn't so bad, mostly funny, but we had a bit of trouble keeping everyone's voices down (mostly Jeev... go figure, hehe). We made it back safely, though, and the night came to an abrupt end. While the party was fun, I'd say that deciding to go to that guy's house just ruined things. Oh well, this is me hoping that there are many other fun nights in store sometime in the near to very near future. 'Sides, I gotta make up for lost time.

Ultrazone!

Yeah... it's been a while since I promised this, but here it is:

Beating small children is a great power trip for all ages! Erm... I mean beat as in beating at a video game or in a game of basketball (sadly enough, it's actually much closer to basketball than video games in this case).

Around the time that high school was drawing to a close, me, James, Kish, DeMartino, and John were all sitting in James's living room bored out of our minds. Of course, this was a Saturday, so there must've been something for all of us to do. Sadly enough (again...), we didn't get anywhere on finding exactly what to do. We were actually pretty desperate for anything.

I'm not one hundred percent sure who the hell suggested it, but about an hour after our original boredom was found, we ended up at Ultrazone. I think it's a chain, but then again I may be wrong. So, I'll just assume nobody knows what Ultrazone actually is. Simply, it's laser tag. Or lazer tag... blazer tag. Erm, yeah. Oddly enough none of us had been there in four or five years. Yet, we were there. At Ultrazone. Ready to have the time of our lives! Um, sorta.

Once I got over the fact that we were at one of the kiddiest places around, I actually started remembering all the fun times I had had there back in the day. At least two of my friends had birthday parties there, inviting like twenty kids, and there was so much to do. Actually, not really, but an arcade is good enough to entertain us during the time between games. Too bad that now they got rid of one of the best arcade games ever: House of the Dead 2. That was the game to play when we were young. You'd go to Ultrazone and immediately get in line--yup, it was that popular--to play it while your mom or dad or friend's parental unit went and got wristbands for the actual laser tag game. Then you'd play the game and get back in line afterwards. Rinse and repeat. Unfortunately, there being a line and all, some kids were forced to play other arcade games. Don't get me wrong, games like Ms. Pacman can be fun... but not like House of the Dead was.

*clears throat* right, enough reminiscing. Today, attempting to fill the void in all our hearts from missing HotD2, we like to play Time Crisis 3. It's the same sort of gig, just not as fun cause there aren't any zombies and crazy killer undead things jumping out at you. However, John's pretty good at the game, un-Johnly good. Just kinda weird since I always believed him to hate all video games, arcade games included. Guess there are some people who just hide those kinds of things.

Okay, back to the actual playing of laser tag. On that first Saturday, it wasn't too great actually. It was crowded and the little kids were too easy to beat. Plus, we only got to play two games before we called it a day (at 7 bucks a game, it gets quite pricey). But, we did remember one thing when we went there. Friday and Saturday nights, from 8 PM to 1 AM, all you have to do is pay 11 dollars and you get unlimited play. That's right, you crazy trigger-happy people can get your laser tag fix at a cheap rate for a period of five mind-numbing hours. Oh, and I say mind-numbing not in the bad "boring" way, but in the "this is so freaking awesome that I can't think of anything but laser tag for the next few hours" way. Just thought I'd be clear about it.

Mmm, but yeah, really, it was the next two weeks that we went that made Ultrazone a memorable experience. Oh! Especially... "The Apple Pie Incident." Hahahahaha, YES! That was great. But first, let's chat about the actual game.

Well, as you could probably guess by now, the next few times we went to Ultrazone, we decided to go during the 8-1 pay once period. Thing is that not just little elementary school children go during that time. Nope, there are even adults who sometimes come in big groups (a bit like the birthday party groups, but just for no reason). In other words, it means that we had some competition. I swear, some of them must have done paintball or something along those lines; they had ridiculous scores! At one point, there were these two groups that were having a war against each other. Basically, one was the Green Team, one the Red, and me, my friends, and anybody else in that round, were left to fend for ourselves on the Yellow team. That was quite challenging, but fun. (Yeah, that means we lost every round -_-)

I learned one lesson from all of this. Two really. 1. The strangest people go to Ultrazone during the all-you-can-play time. And 2. Never let DeMartino have some vending machine apple pie and then play laser tag. Never.

Number one is explained quite simply--okay, this one time there was a group of like thirty people. ... that's obviously not the strange part. This is a group of adults, probably 25+, who were all dressed like... I really don't know how to explain it. Something like... goth? Avril Lavignes? Basically, they were all in black, had punk-ish get ups, and some had ties and top hats. So weird, but cool at the same time. But, there's more! They were also ridiculously loud--they made the day crowd, which consisted of hyped-up kids, sound quiet--and told some of the worst jokes. "So there were three tomatoes..."

Onto number two. I leave this last because it was so freaking crazy and seemingly out of nowhere. I'd say that in between the second and third game (on a good night we'd get through six or seven games) DeMartino told us he was hungry and proceeded to the nearest vending machine. He bought, as I have mentioned, a pre-packaged apple pie and a Pepsi. He devoured the two ravenously and we continued on our merry way to making kids there cry and watching peeps suck at arcade games. Things were as normal as ever until we ended up leaving. By that point (1 AM mind you), me and Kish were hungry so we planned on getting something from the Taco Bell right outside. On our walk over to the car, DeMar suddenly began burping... violently. This was followed by his complaint of, "I don't feel too good guys." Geez, we had no clue (sarcasm intended).

I can't vouch for John or Kish, but I've never met anyone else who goes in a frenzy like that when sick to their stomach. DeMar was jumping in the back of Kish's pickup and off while we were moving and screaming and just being obnoxious overall. At one point he even opens the passenger door while we're driving down a road at 50 miles an hour. Of course we all yelled at him instantly to shut the door, especially since we thought we'd just seen a cop drive by. However, about two minutes after this incident, he was fast asleep. Just like that, sleeping like a baby. He went from bouncing off the walls and almost throwing up in Kish's car to resting quietly. Now, though multiple analogies were given, I think John had one of the best: "He was like a candle just before going out." Sorta makes you think.

So yes, that will forever be known as "The Apple Pie Incident" and forever be stuck in all of our memories. Just remember kids, never eat vending machine apple pie; I mean, it could've been there for years by the time you get it!

Trip Down in the Caribbean (Part 2)

It's like Pirates of the Caribbean, but not!

Picking up from where I left off, so let's describe the house a bit. It was called Casa Picaflores (for my non-Spanish-speaking friends, picaflores means hummingbird. If you don't know what casa means, I pity you), and was actually quite nice. The fact that it was literally in the middle of a rainforest--middle of nowhere sounded mean, though it works just as well--with no cell phone reception was somewhat abated by the hominess of the place. Three bedrooms, one with air conditioning, a kitchen, sitting area, and *gasps* a TV with DirecTV! Oh wait, I really don't like watching television anyways.. oh well. Maybe one of the best parts was the bookshelf on which it sat. There were definitely over one hundred books filling the shelf, which filled the entire wall on its own. Now, I never actually read any of the books, but nevertheless it's niftiness was not dampened one bit. (If you're actually interested in the "drama" that occurred at the house, read my sister's version).

Sunday: Since we had just arrived a day earlier, we were all pretty wiped from travel and such. Actually, my parents were the most tired since the night before they went to a high school reunion that went late into the morning (ahhh, what a nice oxymoron that is. Late into the morning...). But yeah, anyways, we spent the majority of the day doing nothing. I took advantage of this and sat around reading for a long time. Course I was reading a book titled The Elegant Universe which, while really awesome, was ridiculously complicated and confusing at times. In other words, I didn't get very far.

Other than lazing around the house, I had a chance to explore around the area, which was basically a tropical rainforest (quick geography lesson. Puerto Rico is a tropical island with a large chunk of it being a rainforest. One such area is called El Yunque, which is the mountainous region of the forest. That is where we were staying). Me and my dad went out behind the owner's house--it was just up the street from the guest house we stayed in--and hiked on a small path that had been carved out by feet and maybe a machete. It was pretty nice, but like I said (or at least I think I said), as much as I enjoy being in nature, there are things which I can't stand. Being trapped in a random guest house in a place very far from civilization with my family and no friends whatsoever to talk to makes me a bit... not.. happy. Yeah... Plus, the path didn't lead anywhere exciting or breathtaking or anything (don't get me wrong, there are tons of other parts of the rainforest I absolutely adore).

Yup, that just about sums up the day, 'cept for one more thing... As I mentioned in an earlier post, I had been in touch with a friend who lives in PR for a day or two since before we arrived. Throughout the trip, the day and a half I'd been there, I had tried to keep in touch with her. This day I got to talk to her and recieved an invitation to go bowling on Wednesday. I was ecstatic (I don't sound it, but I really was): not only would I get to meet her, but I'd get to meet a good amount of her friends as well. Really, there was just one problem in this whole situation. Would my parents let me go?

*Edit: after reading through the post, I have no idea where this came from, but just go with it.*
In reality, the reason I say I dislike vacations and traveling sometimes is because I am always forced to go with my parents (obviously, since they pay for everything >.>). When one is forced, even the most breath-taking and relaxing places can become a boring eyesore. Usually this happens since you can't see things at your own pace or do the things you'd prefer to do. As a kid it was much worse--I wasn't allowed to do anything without them--though I can say I am happy that I got to travel period. As much as I can't stand "family" vacations, I love to travel, see new places, meet new people. Trust me, I can gaurantee that it will be one of the things I spend the most money on. Screw nice cars or items for the house or whatever rich people buy. I want to travel. Experience is worth more than anything man has made. *coughs* Erm.. yeah ^^; Sorry, tangent there.

Continuing now! Well actually, that just about sums up Sunday. That night I went back to my small cot (it was just the couch in the living area with sheets and crap thrown on top) excited for Wednesday, but with little idea of how to convince my parents. 'Course, sitting in bed is one of the best ways to think, and think I did.

Monday: *reads sister's post* Ahhh, ok. So we went to Vieques on Monday. Yup, that's where we were at. We got up all early since the drive was far--about half an hour (ok, another thing about PR. Its dimensions are 100xx25 miles. Half an hour is far)--and we had to get tickets to take the ferry over to the place. Oh, right, gotta explain that. Simply put, Vieques is a small(-er) island off the coast of Puerto Rico that's almost uninhabited, meaning that it's very nice--beaches and such.

The actual ferry ride was quite nice. Almost every time I'm on some sort of short boat ride I am overcome with sleep, so I rested my eyes and attempted to do so. However, I can't really pull off the whole "sleep wherever I feel like" thing, so it was more of just resting.

Once we arrived, we took a taxi over to one of the most beautiful beaches I have ever seen. Not only that, but it was more or less one of those secluded (now I'm just bragging) beaches. Before heading out to frollick through the sand and water, we found ourselves a nice restaurant to eat lunch at. Unfortunately for us, this was a Monday. I'm not entirely sure why, but for the most part every local shop was closed. Also unfortunate for me was the fact that this was my first time to Vieques, since I can't tell if it is something that happens every Monday or what. Oh well, what're we supposed to do?

All in all, the day was quite fun: got to enjoy the sun, the sand, and most importantly, the water. The day ended with me sleeping on that uncomfortable excuse for a bed, dilly dallying into my dreams... Heh, I like that phrase. I have no idea if it makes any sense whatsoever, but it sounded cool. Oh, right, but yeah. I didn't bother to ask my parents about bowling yet; instead I decided to wait on it at least another day. You know, you can never go wrong with procrastination.

(To be continued...)