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...)

Have You Heard of a JR?

No, really, have you? I'm not sure about other schools, but a JR here stands for Judicial Referral. What does that mean? Basically, it means that if you get one that in a few weeks you will be in front of a court of your peers trying to defend yourself from some charge pinned on you for once reason or another. There are a lot of ways to get a JR (drinking, fighting, etc.) and, while a lot of them are serious, there are some silly ways to get one.

Present, Exhibit A: One such method of attaining a JR is to not read the handbook thing with all the rules ever invented on the face of Tech history (actually, I have no idea what it has in it, hell, I have no idea where to find it). More specifically, in my case, there is a clause--or statement or whatever--that says that we are not allowed to have pets in the dorms except for fish. If you know me or are psychic, you know that I brought along with me a gerbil. I don't want to get too technical, but simple biology teaches us that a gerbil is not scaled, finned, gilled, or any of the other traits that define it as a species of fish. Whoops, my bad. (Did I mention that I have some of the most whimsical stories to tell?)

So in the end, I walked out of Jay's, my resident advisor, room having signed a nice sheet of paper accusing me of a violation. He's a cool guy so I don't hold anything against him (technically this really is my fault), plus he mentioned that if it were up to him, he wouldn't even file a JR on me. Heh, ohs well, at least my first (I guess hopefully last?) one was for something silly like this. At this rate, the courts won't even be contacting me until a week or two after my little gerbil's been back home. Man, isn't the legal system great?

Well, I'm done with that, just thought I'd throw out another funny part of my life here. It's kinda sad really, since JR's are supposed to be really serious and can get you suspended or expelled at times. Mmm, that's about all I've got to say about this topic. Laters.

The LAST Summer in Review

Well, considering that my last summer has probably been the most event-filled and "life-changing" summer I've ever had, I believe that I should devote some time for the background tale.

* Ideally, you would know a bit more about me before you read this, but instead I'll let you think what you want. Who knows, you may even turn out to be right.

My last year of high school, at Broad Run no less, had just ended, and thus it was obviously summer. Graduation, Project Graduation, a few days off, trip to Europe, more time off, mebbe even a job somewhere. That was basically the summer I was expecting on the last day of school. Boy was I wrong... or mostly misinformed.

Well, for the most part, graduation was just as I expected it to be. We had our little (but not really... it lasted three hours) "graduation practice" the day before actual graduation so we would be ready for it. Not hard at all, but there was one good reason to go. Well, two actually, one being that we couldn't walk without having gone, and two being that we got our yearbooks. Not exactly the best thing ever--the yearbook that is--but it's something to just remember Broad Run with. After the summer, I've moved on so much that it's hard to recall having attended high school at all ^^;

Now Project Graduation was more fun than I thought it'd be. Oooh, that and we got the "comfy chair" for our dorm! Man, it was fun. The night was full of random games, gambling, scary beauty contests, more gambling, and sleep deprivation (ooh, fun)! The random games included big glove boxing (yes... like sock 'em boppers or whatever they were called), mechanical bull riding (which I did awesome at!), and food! Erm, well I know that food isn't really a game, but it was good, and free which is something you can never deny. The gambling was awesome too. It's how we ended up getting the comfy chair in the first place. Basically everyone got a bunch of fake money to go cash in for chips to play with at the fake casino. With enough fake money, you could go to the gym and get awesome prizes like a TV, some CDs, and... *drum roll* a comfy chair!!! That's what we went for and, after a lot of cheating and stealing of people's money, we actually had enough Monopoly money to buy it (ok, it wasn't Monopoly money, but it was fake and colorful, like the rest of the world's currency*. I mean, what else am I supposed to call it).

After they closed down the gambling, which was around the time that everybody was ridiculously tired, they herded those who stayed the night into the gym. This must have been the worst part of the entire night--though it was disturbingly funny. Apparently the people running the entire thing had gotten some of the those there to take part in a contest of sorts... a beauty contest. Thing is, like always, there was a spin to it. No girls. Even worse was that we were forced to watch a bunch of guys dressed up like girls try to win a beauty pageant. Quite a painful moment, but at least it only lasted half an hour or so and then we got to go home and rest our eyes.

Once that crazy night ended, I had a few days until I left for Europe. Now to keep things somewhat short, I'm going to write a separate entry for it, but I will mention that it was awesome and so worth going to. Oh, interesting story I can tell here. In order to go on the trip you had to have been invited by the two teachers who were acting as chaperones. I did not know either and had never had either as a teacher. But, I did have a lot of friends who were going--including Sahil, Kish, John, Martin, etc.--so I wanted to go obviously. To do so I pulled the whole "friend of many good people going whom the teachers liked" card and asked if I could go along. It all ended well and, of course, I found myself on that Lufthansa flight over to Frankfurt. Fun times ^_^

After Europe, and many many new friends later ^^, on the flight back, I was smart enough to get a list of people's contact information. At the time there was one main reason that I was doing this--one person really, but it's all old news--however, things turned out to be very good for me when I did this. To sum it up, I got to plan a good amount of the small "reunions" that we had once we were back home. All, or most of us really, were good friends and so we wanted to meet up again to hang out and have fun times like we did in Europe. Thus we did.

Some weeks passed--mostly uneventful except for those night drives and reunions--and I had orientation down here at Tech. It was fun and I was so excited during that time until I found out that I was being forced to go to Puerto Rico with my family two weeks later. Now that threw me off balance. I had many things in the process of being planned--not to mention the large amount of fun we, the Europe group, had been having. After that, for the tumultuous time that passed, I was in a very pouty mood. However, that was soon to pass and be replaced by the well-known--at least in today's day and age--mood known as "emo." No, I didn't get a new haircut or cut myself or anything characteristically emo. I was just really really down, for reasons my friends know, though even that didn't last long. Actually, instead of being emo about things, I decided to make the best of the situation which I had been thrown into.

How did I pull it off? Well, I'd say a few days before we left, I decided to ask one of my friends in PR for her number. Long story of how I met her (actually, never in person, I just knew her through my godfather's son, who just so happens to be a good friend of mine), but basically I thought it was time that the two of us met (see, we'd been friends online for a while and had wanted to meet in person, but every time I went to PR with my family before that time she was off on vacation). (Wow, that somewhat easily and painlessly just explained the whole situation) So, I may not have been able to stay at home and enjoy the week with my friends, but instead I traded that for meeting and making new friends. And, it worked out as I will recount when I get to it in my telling of my time in PR.

When we finally returned from Puerto Rico I was in a ridiculously blissful mood. Oddly enough, I had pulled a complete 180 in a little over a week. This was good. For the rest of the summer, the precious couple of weeks left, I more or less got to continue what I had been doing before leaving: hanging with friends, reunions, and more night drives (a lot more). Apparently, while I was gone, James and Kish had gone on drives more or less every single night. Also one day, the two of them, Vince, Cathryn (Vince's girlfriend), and Ted had all gone camping--hehe, that always makes me think of You, Me, and Dupree. Well obviously this made me want to go, so before I left for Tech there were three very important things left to do:

1. Go camping.
2. Plan one big "summer's over" Europe reunion.
3. ... uh, pack >.<;

Camping's gonna get it's own post, so not much to say on that right now. Packing and the reunion, while fun--I mean the reunion--were mostly uneventful. Other than the fact that the last Europe get-together was a real success, there truly is little to say about it. The most noteworthy part about it was seeing how so many things had changed in such a short span of time (the few weeks of summer) for me and my friends--both old and new. Soooo, in summary: Kish drives like a maniac after so many night drives, James is a hermit who cries during chick flicks, Sahil's still Indian, John has a girlfriend, and I have more friends than I ever thought I would and had the best time of my life this past summer. Sa-weet.

Ending on that note I shall say goodnight to you all. This post has taken me forever long to type, but I think it was worth it (especially since now I have like three or four other spin-off posts to get to work on). Expect more updates in the near future!

* God damn, the intraweb is full of so many idiots that I am forced to do this. It's not that I have gotten complaints, or because of the chance that I will get any, but just to prove that I am not one of those ignorant bloggers. This is what we call--in the business... which, coincidentally, I do not belong to--humor. Not good humor, but just something that makes me chuckle lightly at 4 AM.

The First Week Draws to a Close

.. and how. It's been an awesome first week of college (as you could have gathered from my few postings throughout the week). So far it's been mostly "studying"--not really, just not crazy partying yet--and calm with a few classes everyday. Overall I like my classes, especially when compared to those which I was forced to take at Broad Run, but there are some that just make me want to take a fork and stab away at my sensitive eye tissue.

For example: both of the math classes that I am enrolled in. This includes Vector Geometry and Elementary Linear Algebra. Now probably to most non-college students these sound like crazy hard classes. Trust me, they're not. If you can do basic Algebra and Geometry--go figure--then you can easily learn and ace each of the classes. Sadly enough, Virginia Tech knows this because both of them are more or less online classes with teachers that just help students out. Every week we're expected to go down to the Math Emporium (a few miles away in the University Mall) and take a quiz on material we basically tought ourselves. Whee (with excitement of course)...

Righto. Well other than those two classes that insult eveyrone's intelligence, the rest of my classes seem to be all right. The lab portion of computer science seems like it's gonna be a real bitch to get anything done in, but that's the one class that I really want to do well in so I'd say things will turn out okay.

Mmm, so I'm quite pleased that Friday has come. Before, in high school that is, weekdays meant a full day of class but it wasn't like they were hard. Also, you got to see your friends everyday at school. Here, class isn't the best of time to chat with people. This means that when weekends come, people have to use every minute to its fullest to have fun. Oh, and study... I guess ^^; But, you know, who's keeping track? Really? Nobody of course. So fun comes on weekends. All I gotta do is keep up with the work I've been assigned (which for the most part I think I can take care of).

There is one thing that I've been looking forward to doing here: joining clubs. There are a crap load of clubs here at Tech. If anyone has ever had the thought, "Hmmm, there should be a club for *insert name of club or activity here*," then there is most likely a club made for that already. If on the rare occassion there isn't, then, like always, anybody can easily start said club. Personally, I'd like to join some sort of martial arts club--remember, I did Tae Kwon Do--and the frisbee club would be awsome (though I suck compared to all the people I've seen). Other than that, any club that has some fun thing to do and fun people in it would be worth joining. Clubs demand very little time and are more for social purposes--a lot like those political groups we learned about in government last year... yeah.

Well, on that note I think I'll be seeing you all later. Yes, all negative two of you. I don't forget, I write this blog just for you! *clears throat* Right, back to serious matters. I'm done here for the day. Take care and enjoy your day. I'mma go find something to do, laters.

I...

Yup, I saw this originally at my friend's Deviant Art page and immediately wanted to do one myself. Here it is:

I Live... one minute at a time.

I Work... even if I don't want to.

I Talk... seldomly, but with meaning.

I Met... a lot of good souls.

I Wish... moments could be relived.

I Enjoy... good company over everything else.

I Look... for the best in every situation.

I Find... beauty in the world around.

I Smell... the moist grass.

I Listen... with my whole being.

I Hide... behind many masks.

I Walk... when I can't run.

I Write... for myself.

I See... little without "correction."

I Sing... when I'm alone.

I Laugh... near endlessly.

I Can... do anything in the right mindset.

I Watch... the sky quite often.

I Learned... that happiness comes from within.

I Dream... and I thank God for it.

I Want... to travel throughout the entire globe.

I Cry... but don't bawl.

I Burn... the evil I see.

I Read... to escape from as well as delve into the world.

I Love... I really do.

I Sometimes... question existence.

I Hurt... although not as often as before.

I Fear... everyone'll leave me.

I Hope... this will never end.

I Break... God's heart.

I Eat... ramen becauase I'm poor.

I Quit... caring a long time ago.

I Drink... water mostly.

I Save... for what I really want.

I Hug... from my heart.

I Meditate... with music and a good book.

I Play... most anything with most anyone.

I Miss... one person, a lot.

I Hold... those in need.

I Forgive... always.

I Drive... though they shouldn't let me.

I Have... so many awesome memories.

I Don't... curse often.

I Made... someone cry once.

I Believe... in people more than anything.

I Feel... perpetual déjà vu.

I Know... too many things, yet not enough.

I Wonder... if all stories have happy endings.

I Think... in that introspective way.

I Am... insignificant, but irreplaceable.

Yay, It's Me Day of Birth!

Another blunt, yet extremely true, title.

Yes, please, send me your well-wishes for it is customary to do as such. No really, if you want, it'd be cool. ... no? Oh, ok, that's cool too.

... bastards :P

So yeah, today was my birthday. Rather uneventful for the most part 'cept for the fact that I got to attend more than one class. Oddly enough, class was actually kinda fun (I know I'll be regretting that in a few days, but humor me for once) and I'm looking forward to attending the rest of them. I've still got Vector Geometry--yeah, and I'm looking forward to it, aren't I weird?--and the chemistry lab left. Well, I guess technically I also have the lecture portion of Engineering Exploration--sounds nifty--but that's just cause of what happened on Monday.

Well, so far the classes have gone rather well: we haven't done anything, which means I really can't complain yet. But then again it means that my homework load is near minimal. In a few weeks it's gonna suck... bad. For now let's just hope that things will continue going at the same laid-back pace of the last few days. Course, chances are that I'm just setting up lofty dreams by saying that. Oh well.

Today, in summary, was somewhat disappointing (can you tell that I did the ghetto-edit there?). For once I was underwhelmed by the food at D2, while at the same time there was nothing to do. Me, John, and Vince spent most of the afternoon waltzing around campus just trying to find something. Eventually, after a few hours, we went to play pool--I just got back--at the game lounge on our floor here in Pritchard. However, the best part of this afternoon was just sitting, actually more like laying down, on the drillfield and watching people walk around to wherever the hell they were headed. Quite a nice day once the sun calmed down, should've taken a picture.

I do believe, though, that I will end this day with a bit of studying and then watch one of my favorite movies... Garden State! Thus, not all will have been lost. Well, that's mostly if I do indeed end up studying, otherwise... best not talk about such bad things. Mmm, I have an 8 o'clock in the morning class tomorrow--though most of the rest of the day off, score!--so I'll be logging for now. Ja to all you crazy folks!

"First Day of Classes!" ... or "Murderer On the Loose At Tech"

Yup, the title of this post just about covers things. I was somewhat excited and looking forward to attending class today--first class at 11 on Mondays, not bad. But, of course, I didn't actually get to attend, and won't be able to go to, any classes today. Bummer... sorta.

Well, the reason as to why classes all over Virginia Tech are cancelled is the second title to today's post. There's a guy who escaped from prison who has, since running off, killed a number of people already. Not cool. Thus the whole campus is closed--except for food, thankfully--and us students are highly encouraged to stay in our dorms. But I'm a bit hungry, so I may get going in a bit to grab some food (yes, the same food that I bragged about in my previous post... still awesome).

While it is a bit annoying that classes were cancelled--I really wanted to know what they'd be about and who was in them...--at least I get to have an extended weekend.

*ghetto edit* (I'll explain what that is in a bit)
So yeah, they caught the guy. Chances are if you watch the news--it was on CNN--or just read the newspaper that you can hear all about it. They had told us to not leave our dorms, but really for a lot of people it wasn't a big deal. For example, my roommate had gone to his first class at Squires Student Center, where moments later there was a reported "spotting" of the guy, but was evacuated out halfway through. Funny enough, again, if you had watched CNN, he actually was on tv for a few seconds in the shots where the whole building was cleared. However, finally getting back to my point, even though he had been "at the scene," John never really freaked out. When we went to get food he was cool with it. Hell, after food we went outside and played some frisbee, eventually getting into this huge--literally an hour and a half of it--game of ultimate frisbee. At the time none of use knew if the guy had been caught yet, but we were all outside enjoying ourselves... blissfully unaware of the danger that didn't appear.

Now, I don't mean to make it sound like everything was happy nilly (wow... that's probably one of the worst expressions that I've ever used), far from it actually. Most people weren't talking about the two cops who had been shot, but obviously it was on everyone's mind. The guy was armed and dangerous, which was why a few of the people I know down here were a bit scared to leave their dorms. Thankfully he's been caught and classes can (hopefully... I think) go on as scheduled.

So, these four days at Tech have been filled with a lot of interesting events. There've been the "normal" moving-in things, adjusting to college life and such, and then things like the escaped prisoner. Hehe, then just two days ago, during the first lightning storm I've been through here, the power went out for a good chunk of the dorms. Fun times, neh?

Well, I'm out, it's been another long day, and I have to get up somewhat early tomorrow, so I'll be seeing you all later. Bai bai!

PS: Oh, right. Ghetto edit. Basically, I am so ADD at times that I just leave posts half-written (this one I left in the middle of a sentence actually). What I'll do is just save the post as a "draft"--nifty little Blogger feature--and just get back to it later. There are times that I have three or four of those half-written posts.. go me! But yeah, when I want to work on them I just click edit and then I can publish the posts afterwards. That's what I did for this one, wrote some then later in the day finished it up.

Ohs ma gawd! College!

So, today, Friday August 18th, 2006, was the day that I, Gabriel E. Martinez, moved into room 3045 of West Pritchard at the fine college known as Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. You know what this means? Par-tee? No, not yet, there's way too much crap left to do, and I'm slightly tired from what I already had to do.

Surprise, surprise, I had an early morning today--had to get up at 5. Of course, because of my nasty little habit, I slept around midnight or so, mostly due to all of the last-minute packing I had to take care of. Unlike my friends who also had to wake up early, however, I had to drive for half the trip on the way down. That's a two and a half hour trip with only five-ish hours of sleep. ... not the best of circumstances, especially since I'm one of the least attentive drivers to ever hit the road. Oh well, we all lived, right?

Eventually we arrived at the big VT (VPI, Hokieland, etc). Thus the gargantuan task of unpacking began... and ended in about fifteen minutes. Really, the fact that I packed maybe a third of what my sister packed her first year (it took so long.. so many good men gave their lives) and that John, my roomy and life partner, and his parents helped me out definitely sped up things. So I got settled in, though it took a few more hours of random unpacking to actually finish, and things were looking pretty nice. You walk into our room, the spacious 12x14 area, and can see the bunk beds--yes!--desks, random school supplies, and the sort strewn throughout the room. All in all, it's not too shabby.

Afterwards, down to Deitrick (spelling?) we went to have a bite to eat. This place is freaking (yes, freaking) awesome! Basically you pay about three bucks and get to eat all you want. All-you-can-eat places rarely attract me, but even for a guy with a small appetite like me D2 is still a great place to eat. Depending on when you go (breakfast, lunch, dinner) there are things like fresh omelettes, burgers, pizza, tacos, all more or less right in front of you. Only three bucks!!!

... ok, enough ranting about the food--there are actually even more places just as awesome around campus--let's move on to the rest of the day.

Oddly enough, the initial shock of being in college really never hit me all at once. Instead it came slowly in short spurts. One such moment occurred at the University Bookstore where, obviously, we bought the books for our classes. How glad I am that I didn't have to pay for those. Not only would I have a large hole burnt in my pocket, I would have had to live with the fact that they were best used as weights. Other than that, there were no truly memorable moments. At times, while me and Sahil and John all sat in one of our rooms, I'd randomly get that strange feeling that I was out of my parents' house for good. Just one of those "things are changing" type of feeling.

Well, it's somewhat late-ish and I feel tired so I'm gonna go sleep. I have a ton of things to do (including that University Honors project...meh) so tomorrow will be a long and busy and, hopefully, productive day. Til next time then!

*Hiccups*

Soooo, I got some funny, weird, quirky thing that sorta makes me laugh which I'm gonna talk about this fine night/morning. Basically, probably around the time that summer started, I got this eye twitch thing. I really have no idea why it started at all--maybe all that time spent in Ultrazone?--but it was kinda annoying and funny at the same time. For the most part it would just randomly kick in once in a while for a couple of seconds, I think on the left eye.

Now, that probably sounds weird enough on its own, but obviously I wouldn't devote a whole post for just something as silly as that (well, I am blatantly lying, but just let me off the hook this one time). The eye twitch turned into something different after a bit. This new "phase" began while we were over in Europe, close to the end of the trip. Eventually, after like two or three weeks, the eye twitch just stopped occurring, so I was mostly happy to have it gone. However, by the last few days of the trip, I developed a sort of nose twitch. So, instead of my eye twitching randomly for a few seconds, my nose would do the twitching--yeah, I have a very strange... I'm weird, ok?

Well, the nose twitching thing wasn't as annoying as when my eye was doing it, so I didn't mind too much. But soon enough that stopped also and turned into something totally different. What exactly? Hiccups.

To explain this part of my story fully, I have to delve into another little side story of sorts. See, I have a friend who has a weird little thing, a bit like what I have now (though one can never be sure). At seemingly random times she'll just hiccup. One thing you have to understand is that these hiccups aren't like the regular kind people get once in a while. Regular hiccups keep on going for a bit of time, few minutes or so at times, but keep happening at regular intervals. This is entirely random, just a spurt out of nowhere.

When I first found out about her hiccup thing, I didn't think it weird, just funny and kinda cool. I now think otherwise. Well, actually, sorta otherwise. Now that the nose twitching stopped and was replaced by strange hiccups, I find them kind of annoying. Buuut, that's only when it happens to me. Watching it happen to anybody else would be, and is, quite funny still ^^;

Wow, reading over this it seems like a truly pointless post. Oh well, it's something weird and funny that I just felt like commenting on. Maybe later I'll post something good, like talk about Ultrazone! Yeah, I think I'll do that, so come on back in a few and read about how me and my friends make small children cry!

Later~

Trip Down in the Caribbean (Part 1)

... Puerto Rico to be specific.

Now for all of you who don't know, I was born in Puerto Rico and lived there 'til I was six years old. Though I've lived here (Ashburn) for over ten years, me and my family like to visit back "home" every so often. So this is a short recounting, a summary even, of the shenanigans that went down in the beautiful paradise of PR.

For the most part I'll be using this (my sister's telling of the trip) to help me in remembering things that happened, so feel free to skim it beforehand or whatever.

Saturday: So, this is the first day of the trip, the one that involves a lot of traveling, and thus we had to get up... early. How early? Well somewhere around 5AM. Thing is that I had arrived back home around midnight, after one of me and my friends' "night drives," and then had to begin the arduous task of packing. If you knew me, you'd know that my awesome procrastination usually tells me to do one thing over work always: sleep. Basically, I tried to pack, but gave up after gathering the required items (it was only a week, so not too bad). In the end I slept round 1:30 and set my alarm for 5... but not. At 5:30 my dad was yelling at me to wake up.

Fun, fun. Rushed packing and then heading over to the airport for an 8AM flight is a great way to start any morning. Mmm, boring details ensued and four hours later we found ourselves in Puerto Rico. However, after sitting by the least entertainig rotating object (otherwise known as the baggage claim) for about an hour, I realized that we had lost something. Namely my suitcase. Now, I don't mean to criticize US Airways, but how do you lose a suitcase in a non-stop, direct flight? I have no clue and, apparently, neither did their representative... great way to start things.

Mmm, so we left and drove through the ridiculous PR traffic over to my grandma's (who, as my sister tells, is an awesome cook) house. I love my grandma to death, but visiting her house is boring to no ends. It's mostly due to the fact that all my friends who used to live around there have already moved away, and that there is literally nothing to do ('cept eat of course). Eventually, we set out to where we were staying: Casa Picaflores. Now this was one hell of a trip. First we drove down the eastern side of PR and began to head into the rainforest. These are, of course, the best streets on the whole island. They're poorly, if even, paved, at times covered in inches of water, about the width of two small European cars, and filled with the worst drivers in the world. Sweet!

Yes, we lived. Unlike my sister I don't get dizzy--I rather enjoy crazy roads--so when we finally got there I was slightly disappointed... Oh, so besides the tarantula, the rest of the day was quite uneventful.

I'll talk about the actual house and such on the next update, so just stick around.. or something!

Night Drives and Insomnia

"Insomnia is just an addiction to sleep deprivation."

As I'm starting to write this (no idea when I'll finish, but we'll see), it's almost midnight here in Ashburn. And this is probably the first night that I have bailed out on my friends early in quite a while. "Why tonight?", you may ask. ... patience, I'm getting to it!

This is summer. Originally, I had planned on getting a job somewhere, but that plan fell through almost immediately. With the trips I was taking, there were too many holes in these few weeks before college, so no job for me. This is both good and bad. Bad: no money. Good: lots of free time... a little too much free time. Free time that was for the most part packed during the daytime. I'm pretty sure there isn't much to say about how much daytime with no car sucks for someone of my age. Let's just say that the days can be quite boring. Ergo I did what any bored teenager does. I became a night person.

Ahhh, the many wonders of the night life. It's like being in Vegas, but not really, cause we're stuck in Cashburn (see, see, aren't I witty?). Nick (from now on and forever to be referred to as Kish) tends to have car access much more than me and we abused that privledge to no ends. This is how our "night drives" began. Basically, neither of us wanted to be home after like 9, so we drove... and drove some more. Kish drove the two of us all around Ashburn and to parts which were previously unknown to the both of us. Now, sometimes we'd be more productive than others--for one, calling people for our Europe reunions that everyone's so fond of--but for the most part we just chilled with music and the endless circles of the routes we took. As most anybody could have guessed, eventually we dragged more friends along who were also in our bored stupor and thus the tradition was set in motion.

After these multiple weeks of long nights--out 'til 1 or 2 in the morning and sleeping around 3 or 4--followed by early-ish mornings--getting up at 9 most days--a sort of artificial insomnia is born (a lot like the kind most of us experienced in Europe, but that's another story). Now, even though I feel kinda mean, I'm going to force you to scroll up and read that quote again. John, my roommate-to-be in college, was the one who originally introduced me to the concept, and I so totally agree--like yeah! Before the last month or so of school, I always slept 8-10 hours a night. That's a ridiculous amount of sleep. My theory in this is that I had nothing to do after 10-11, so I got tired. Well, that's kind of obvious, but like the quote explains, it can become addicting. Never before would I have been up at this time (it's 1 now) blogging. Up for the sake of being up.

But yeah, this leads me back to my original point (with all 'em twists and turns getting here, reminds me of the mighty Mississippi...). I'm home early tonight because we were watching movies--just saw Snatch and that was deliciously good. However, when I'm this tired, dark rooms with comfy carpeting and a pillow tend to make me fall asleep, which I promptly proceeded to do. So, I guess there is a limit to this fake insomnia... oh well, I milked it a whole bunch.

With that, I am off to sleep and get a full night's rest for the first time in a while. Then perchance I can get back on my fun schedule of sleep-deprivation. I'll see ya all later.

Welcome to the New!

Welcome to my new blog about.. well, anything really. I had this whole "blog" gig set up a few years back at http://pbandgerbil.blogspot.com but it sorta died, so I'm here trying it once more!

Feel free to check back whenever. I tried an updating schedule before, but that didn't work (maybe if this one gets off the ground I'll try it once more).

So for now, enjoy what you can and check back soon-ish, I'll start posting delicious stories of my life and commentary on things I find humorous. 'Til then *waves*

PS: If there is anyone out there reading, feel free to posts comments and the sort, I may answer, you never know...