migblog: 07.03

7.31.2003

my midterm is in about fifteen hours. i have a calculus class immediately before that that i have feeling i will skip (and no, it's not good for me, since i haven't been to calculus for the past week and a half). there's a quiz tomorrow concerning integration and the substitution principle. i have laundry that needs to be done and will be done tomorrow night. i have financial aid worries, especially as a student of the university of california. my current schedule is forcing me to become a single major, instead of the double major i am planning on becoming. i am having financial issues, personal issues, academic issues, and god forbid, social issues, and they're lined up, waiting for me to tackle them.

my smoking has doubled this week. i shouldn't smoke anymore. but i do. and how can i not, with these extenuating circumstances?

tomorrow, after my midterm, i'm expecting to see in my unchecked mail the subject line i've been dreading to see all week, as well as the desire for me to get immediately inebriated. at least i'll be seeing jacob, and i have a weekend to look forward to, but after that, i have two weeks left of summer sessions and then the madness starts.

i am seriously reconsidering dropping one of my majors and getting out of this place one year early. i don't want to do it, but i would just feel unfulfilled if i did. i know i have potential that i can realize, but not if i let life get in the way. it just feels ridiculously counterintuitive to pursue then not follow-through; for me, it will have felt like an empty promise to myself. and i hate those.

funny how everything can pile up and fall apart all at the same time. of course, it's a lot less funny when you're the one having to deal with it all.

i haven't had a heart episode in a while. i'm calling for one tomorrow. if i'm wrong, it'll be over the weekend. i can feel the palpitations in the back of my chest.

i think i can get through this, but it'll be the most trying thing i've ever had to deal with in my entire life. i've never felt so overwhelmed and overworked, and there's really nothing that will make the workload lessen or the stress decrease or life to get better. not yet, at least; i haven't found any means of escape just yet. that's why i'm desperate for the fall to already come around, because once the fall starts, i can kick so much ass, and then there's football season to keep me busy. there's my friends, there's my family, but in the end, i'll have no one to fall back on except for myself. (yeah, i know what' you're thinking, but it's ok, i'm a pessimist. we've established this earlier before.)

right now, there is no lighter side of things. just a bunch of crap piled in my head waiting to be shoveled by the magical poopsmith that is time.

god, how i want to kiss somebody right now and forget everything.

(scroll down for more of today. it's sickening.)

tuesday night was a disaster.

after giving up on calculus homework because i was too distracted to think straight about the second fundamental theorem of calculus for the nth time, i decided to just try and relax by going on random websites i check up on or talk to people via instant messenger or email. and then i get this phone call from michael saying that he's in the hospital.

what? i thought, isn't the craziness over yet?

apparently, as he was on the way to the hospital for a routine check-up (he took a cab), an suv wasn't paying attention (or was being ridiculously impaired in his traffic-related value judgments) and ran the red light, sideswiping the cab michael was in and shaking him up. needless to say, he needed more than a physical after that happened.

luckily, he survived the whole ordeal and came out of it all with a sprained wrist, which will be in a cast for about two weeks or so.

that feeling of everything piling up on top of the other is starting to happen. my midterm is in two days, and my finals are in two weeks. in between that are all of these things that need to get done, and it's the dirty work no one else wants to do. whatever, though, i'm just glad that summer school is finally ending, and that the fall semester is actually starting.

a few more days, and everything should seem like normal, until of course, the note comes. and i know i will break as soon as i see those first few words from that page.

over the next few days then, boys and girls, wish me luck, and the will to persist through the weathering storm.

7.29.2003

three days have passed, and the frenzy of phone calls and emails don't seem to have any sign of stopping anytime soon. details are being pored over, and news spreads so fast. emails have been written and sent and forgotten about and deleted and saved, and there seems to be no break for any of us until this whole thing is finally over.

everyday, there seems to be the moment where everything is cool and calm, until the silence forces us to go back into rethinking why and what lse could have happened. joseph, for instance, i finally got a hold of yesterday. you would think that the crying would have ended, but there is much to grieve for since the eight of us are constantly reminded of what happened.

this past sunday, joseph was still out of anyone's reach. apparently he had gone on vacation to tour eastern europe, and would come back soon. i decided that i still needed to take my mind off of things, so i went and had dimsum with more than a few friends out in the city. laughs were shared, good times made. and then there was a funeral procession in the middle of chinatown that eerily made me think that this was some sick foreshadowing. i felt uncomfortable, of course, but how else was i supposed to express my discomfort? i tried to laugh it off, but in the back of my head, i knew that i would be thinking about what just happened for the next few hours.

yesterday, as i was flipping through channels to look at the programs that i could bear to watch, i happened upon the tail end of seinfeld. and the topic? elaine's coworker had apparently committed suicide to spite jerry. and no, i wasn't laughing, since just a little before then i got a hold of joseph, who couldn't control himself as well as i thought he would be able to. later on, at around ten, mallory called asking about more details or if i had found out anything new. i referred her to michael, since there is craziness going on.

i feel a little left out, and gladly so, since i am the only one out of the eight of us that reside outside of new york state. three of them live in the city proper, two in jersey, and the other two on the mainland. california seems so far away, but it's amazing how that doesn't seem to change much of what's happened, if anything.

michael's having the toughest time, i'm sure, considering how he's living with his parents for the moment. he took a week off from his job, and is the one to go to if we have any questions about anything. he's been a rock; michael, we admire you so much. and thank you. none of us deserve this, but especially you.

the suicide note is forthcoming. in a few days, we will read what will probably be the most heart-wrenching, soul-wringing, tear-inducing letter addressed to the eight of us, and we won't have the chance to respond. i might be angry, in denial, maybe even apathetic after i read it, but whatever i feel, i know it won't be happy. i will probably even be relieved to find out a partial answer to the why we have been asking constantly for three days now -- maybe it will help provide us with some semblance of closure, or hopefully enough, get us one step closer towards that goal.

a huge outpouring of condolences and support has made these past three days very much easier to deal with. from friends just letting me know that they're sorry for our loss, or friends that tell me that they're there for me no matter what, to friends that tell me that i don't even need to thank them for anything -- all of you have made these three days much more breathable and tolerable, even though i myself haven't been accessible. what you need to know is that you are all appreciated, and thank you.

i still can't stop thinking about what happened, though. i'm not even going to try to begin to see where the blame falls (or in this case, ought to fall). there were so many things we don't know, we still don't know and probably never will know. i have heard from the eight of us alone eight different viewpoints about liam's passing: it was extremely selfish; it was an unanswered cry for help; there was nothing we could do; how could we have known. the answers seem so simple and in our grasp, but the fact of the matter is, it's too late, whether or not we want to acknowledge that fact.

today i thought i was hallucinating when, as i was waiting for the bus, a guy who looked almost exactly like liam passed me on the sidewalk. i did a double take, blinked, and looked again to make certain that my mind was only playing tricks on me. i'm beginning to see things i don't want to see, and my head is currently reminding me of things that i don't want to deal with. i've been busying myself so much that i haven't had time to fully sit down and evaluate what has happened, just the fact that something indeed has happened and that i play a big part in it. i've worried myself too much about talking to people, keeping up appearances, learning mathematical processes and the ever-present band work. but to think, in the past three days, i haven't sorted out what it is i feel, nor have i really paid close attention to what is happening around me. i've become less aware of my surroundings and more aware of my situations, which i guess can never be good since i orient myself with people all the time.

speaking of which, now i can't even answer my phone for fear of what will greet me on the other end. i can't check my email without seeing those horrible subject lines. and i can't, for the life of me, find the guts to write in my journal. i haven't written in my journal for the past three days, and there is definitely something i am trying to avoid, but i can't quite put my finger on the what.

i'm not trying to forget what happened. i'm trying to accept it, but accepting something you don't want to receive is pretty hard to do, especially in a situation like this.

there is still much to say, there is still more to happen. for the meantime, i won't think about anything unless it needs to be done. i'm letting myself pent up this much emotion because i know i'll purge it soon. i can't avoid it, i'm reminded everyday when i see another email or hear another message. how can i forget? i won't. ever.

i'm still trying to figure things out.

7.27.2003

approximately seventeen hours ago, i received word from my dear friend michael that his roommate, our ever-so-affable liam, had died.

michael had just gotten back from work, when he found a note tacked to the bills board. upon reading the first sentence, he rushed to liam's room, which was locked, pried the door open with a crowbar, and found liam's lifeless body sprawled on his bed. michael immediately called the paramedics -- but he, unfortunately, was way too late. liam was found dead on arrival at the hospital, and michael had to go with the police for a few questions regarding the incident.

after filing a report, and having to tell liam's parents in ireland, michael faced the daunting task of hearing about the cause of death immediately following the autopsy report. it was an intended overdose on methamphetamines, they said, and liam had pushed too much into his bloodstream. nobody knew that liam was taking methamphetamines, let alone drugs in the first place. he was never the type of person to do that. nor did we know that he was having any serious issues, which would have made things a little easier to swallow.

soon afterwards, michael's only contact was myself, and i received the phone call in utter shock and disbelief. i kept telling myself that this was just one more joke that everyone was playing on me, one more cruel joke that needed to end, and fast. it was a cruel twist of fate, however, that michael had lost all of the new york contacts -- in other words, i had to tell many of my friends about liam's passing, which included everyone on our floor, basically -- mallory and cassandra, jason, adam, miho, lynette, and joseph. they were scattered all over the united states, and i was afraid of what would happen every time someone on the other end would pick up the phone and react.

i had never heard so many of my friends cry in one day, and i never want to experience that ever again.

i thought my week was going from good to mildly bad, until i hit rock bottom and cried for about an hour straight. immediately after michael's phone call, i was paralyzed, unable to do anything, shaking from fear and shock. the worst part about it, as i'm sure most of us feel, is that none of us were able to do anything about it, and now it's too late. and as i called them, one by one, my pack of cigarettes diminished from having eight left to none.

i didn't know what else to do afterwards, so i called my mom, then jacob and sam, and finally jon, whom i hadn't seen in a while. he especially helped me out through most of yesterday, helping me sort things out. soon after, i knew that i just needed to take my mind off of things, so we went for a walk, took in a movie, and hung out for the night. and i've thanked him so much, and he's been extremely supportive of me.

i remember feeling a bit angry when michael told me the news. i was scared. i didn't know what else to think. there was nothing we could do; we were all so helpless. but along with the anger came a sense of betrayal and disappointment, both of which we have all been experiencing ever since we heard about what happened. the frenzy of phone calls and emails from friends was overwhelming and extremely saddening, and a gray cloud would be hanging over all of our heads for the next few days, if not weeks. this was a total shock to all of us, a punch in the gut, knocking us all out of breath and composure the moment the information was digested by our minds. for a moment, there seemed as if there was nothing to live for, until we all realized that we all had to live for each other in order for us to cope with this melancholy event.

liam was my age, slightly taller, with dark brown hair and deep green eyes. he always spoke with a mild attitude and a strong accent, and was never one to not say what was on his mind right then and there. he would always wear my black-and-red beanie, and act stupidly drunk around the eight of us whenever we'd go to lunch together. he hated math, especially integrals, and would usually burn his math homework as soon as he got it back. he tried desperately (as did we all) to get on mtv's total request live show, but the production assistants and producers would never let us in. and then, mtv moved trl summer to a beachhouse, and we were left to wander the streets of new york, liam in tow, to just take in the scenery and enjoy whatever it was that we had.

he would never talk about his father, until one drunken late evening he started to spout off about his dad's stupidity and infidelity, about how his dad never took care of his siblings, or about how his dad made him feel disappointed at every acheivement he had ever made. and we all suddenly realized and saw the side of liam we would rarely ever see, the side that would manifest itself as the sadness that liam never dared manifest in front of his friends. he wanted everything to be fine on the outside, whether or not it was ripping him apart on the inside. and to think, everyone had been taking that for granted, and now, there is no more to be said about liam's silence except that it will now be eternal.

it's hard to talk about this without almost breaking down every other keystroke.

i don't consider liam's death to be a disaster, but rather a slap in the face from life that i have yet to accept. we had already lost robin (who, coincidentally, was the one person liam was closest to), and now liam, but we have all promised each other that the premise of life is much more important than the pride of death, and that living for each other is a goal we can all definitely strive for. the insight i'm having over the past seventeen hours has made me grown up immensely -- it has made me think twice about everything i've ever believed, and everything i will ever hope to believe.

the sky outside looks unusually clear and beautiful, with strokes of white slowly coasting themselves into shapes and abstract forms. and then there are the bits of gray scattered along the great blue expanse -- a reminder, to each and every one of us, that life is happiness without complacency, learning through mistakes, and living with disappointments. i am still reeling from the shock and the what-if, but in due time, i have a feeling things will get better.

that there is so much to live for is what keeps me going today.

the rest of the details will come slowly but surely: liam's parents phoning in from ireland, yet another phone call from michael, the final call from joseph since neither michael nor me reached him directly, details about the interment, the funeral, and most importantly, the relay of the suicide note so that the eight of us could at least start to piece together exactly what happened and why. there are many questions left lingering and unanswered, and they shall remain so for the next few weeks. we are all in pain, in grief, in deep sorrow. but there is hope, and the hope that we all see and look to is what is helping us through today.

to liam, and robin, wherever you both may be: we love you, we miss you terribly, and we pray that no matter what happens, you will look over us with the same fervor and compassion as you did when you were amongst us.

yes. there is hope.

7.24.2003

you taught me this, whether you know it or not: well done is better than well said.

i hope to see you soon.

7.22.2003

can you feel it? can you feel the beauty?

the past few days have been marked by a horrendous midterm, coding for the new look of the ocf website (so that it's not so eye-hurty), having a good time with good old friends, and a haircut. the whole really-long-hair-in-the-middle-of-the-summer thing wasn't quite working as well as i thought.

i've been spending much time on the website, so i have pretty much my hands full, dividing my time amongst studying my four romance languages, doing my math homework on time and correctly, and having a social life. the third one's been lacking a little lately, and i plan on doing something about that this week now that i know for sure that my parents aren't coming up.

we had planned for them to come up to berkeley two weeks ago, but that didn't happen, so we bumped it one week ahead. last week, same deal; this week, same deal. next week? i dunno. they said they'll call, but i doubt it'll happen. who knows, maybe they'll just end up coming here when my brother decides to come back up when school starts.

crepes-a-go-go is now a very good option for snack munchies. not quite filling, but it'll get you there.

someone tell me again how i only had eight sprites out of a flat of twenty-four... i'm pretty sure sixteen of them are floating around somewhere. that, or it's a cruel, cruel joke. CRUEL!

once the website's all done, i'll emerge from my hole. but right now, expect me being indoors for at least a few more hours than expected the next few days. i'm really excited; i can't wait to hear from people how the website looks.

coding time!

7.16.2003

you know what i hate? setting myself up for a disappointment that's gonna come and slap me straight in the face. even though i know it's coming, i let it happen, and it gets to my nerves and gnaws on the core of my being.

i hate it.

7.15.2003

ever miss a chance, then regret to take that chance afterwards?

i, in this case, would usually fall back on the one maxim i said that i would agree to forever: that no matter what happens, i'll take anything as is with no regrets. i do know, however, that i can always wonder about the what if -- just as long as i don't live in the what if, and as long as i am still happy with myself as i am right now.

a friend and i had a long talk about how, in the span of a short eighteen years, we've molded beliefs so readily. the cynic in me laughs at the very fact that it has only been eighteen years, and that's nothing in life experience. about seven-eighths of that was spent lounging in school, and the person you are decided to believe certain things they ("they" in this case being people in your life who seem to matter) told you.

it's your choice, then, to like strawberries, to enjoy punk music, to believe in god, to smoke, to shop for clothes in the mall,... it's also your choice to choose the friends you have, and to know the difference between accepting someone and receiving someone. to receive someone is to fully take them in as another person; to accept someone is to let them happen. there's a difference in the fact that most of my friends are very well-received people, and the ones who i just accept are there can't really tell the difference because, apparently, i can lie so well.

but again, do i regret that? and there's a level on which things should be marked for regret. a missed phone call? a rescheduled dinner? saying hi to my mom? that junk food i just ate? letting myself go in this mad, mad place? going to berkeley instead of downtown manhattan?

the last one, especially, is a touchy subject. a conversation last night sparked the infamous "so why did you choose berkeley?" question whilst walking down shattuck avenue at night. i told the plain and simple truth: it cost me less than had i gone to new york university, despite the fact that i got accepted to both. and not a week goes by that i don't stop and think about that, about the what if, and i'm starting to feel as if i'm starting to regret what i had done. and i really hope this isn't happening, because it scares me to death that it's right there staring me in the face.

if none of you know, i spent a nice portion of my summer before my senior year of high school living, basically, in downtown manhattan. i was extremely excited to go to new york university, study in the tisch school of the arts, and play oboe. oboe, an instrument that i had just learned a year and a half before then.

the mornings were always interesting. i would usually hang out near greenwich village and the east village, visiting the new museum of contemporary art and the guggenheim at soho every so often, or head down to battery park and the financial district through the e line and go to the tippy-top of the world trade center. it was between july and august, and only a month afterward, i would see one of my favorite vantage points level before my very eyes.

lunchtime was always interesting. there were always five options for me. the first one was this place on irving and east fourteenth that everyone called union square. from the r or the 6 i'd hit the stop for union square; or if i felt like walking i would walk the few blocks and enjoy my lunch walking around the square, staring at the tourists, and especially the kids who were my age who wanted to do things on their own. they would see me and get just a bit jealous because i had no parents around me, just my bag and some food, sometimes a sketchpad or a journal, wandering the city.

the second haunt was south street seaport, right below the brooklyn bridge. that wasn't as crowded as most of the tourist spots -- times square, battery park city, the theater district -- and it was nice, seeing a big body of water sprawled right in front of you, and brooklyn off into the distance. cityscapes still amuse me, and the brooklyn scape is one i won't forget for a long time.

the next obvious choice was central park. somewhere in there, i'd always manage to find a spot for myself. one of the benches there, i remember, one woman would always sit and people-watch, not aware that behind her people would do the same thing to her. this one tree on the east side of the park (next to museum mile, where i would hang out a lot) had so many names carved on it. and while i would eat, there were still so many things to do: visit the central park zoo, go to the nymoma, head to the shakespeare garden, sprawl out on the great lawn, look out past the kennedy-onassis reservoir, or sit next to the harlem meer, on the northeast corner.

sometimes i would opt to walk the "fifty" avenues -- midtown -- and go visit some of the attractions there (not bloomingdale's, mind you, but fao schwarz and st. patrick's cathedral). trump tower was there on fifty-seventh, and i'd take in the view from there sometimes, after grabbing food from little italy or chinatown.

finally, my favorite place, where i spent a lot of my lunchtimes, was washington square park. it was always so crowded; there were always so many tourists looking at the arch (an arc de triomphe look-alike-replica-dealiemabob), and there were always a lot of prospecive students hanging out near the fountain. i met a lot of people at washington square park: liam, the bastard from ireland i've grown to love and hate; michael, one of the most well-grounded people i know; robin, once the smartest girl i had ever known and the most brave (she was in the world trade center the day of); james, the sporadic hotdog vendor; and erwin, a quirky filipino who looked surprisingly like my cousin, to name a few.

i would never talk about new york after my visit. two months, everyone wondered where i was; all i could reply when asked was "oh. it was nice."

especially now, i only talk about my old prospects there. no dreams, no daily routing -- if any, never this much in-depth, no. but it gives you a glimpse of why i'm so scared of admitting that i might actually be regretting that i didn't go there. no offense to my berkeleyan cohorts; i love you all immensely and my life would never be the same without you all, but new york holds a weird place in the back of my mind. the what if tends to linger and toy with me.

then, i remember the choice i made sending in my statement of intent to register as a berkeley student. i held my breath as i closed the mailbox, wondering what would happen now that a year had passed and new york was no longer in the picture. it looked like another vacation spot, a tourist attraction, and not as the place where my dreams of being a symphony musician would be fulfilled.

a year happened here in berkeley, and life has changed so much, so quickly. i came in and the campanile was closed to visitors; now, it's stuck at six-thirty as they try to figure out how the clock mechanism works. my grades went from extremely mediocre to averagely above average. my social horizons have broadened dramatically. i lived with three unknowns who ended up being my good friends, and now i live with a friend who's turning out to be crazier than i thought. i was in love when i got here, fell out when i got back, and now i'm in a state of like that i can't even explain myself. what the hell kind of relationship it is, i don't know; all i know is that i let myself experience it for the sake of experiencing it. call it selfish; i have nothing to lose anyway.

you're still reading this? you're amazing, have i told you that?

with a collegiate year under my belt and eighteen years to look back upon, i can only think what if -- new york was so inaccessibly accessible, so near and once again so far, to use the old cliche -- what if i had taken that chance to educate myself in new york? what if i had seized life at the nuts at that very moment? what if, what if, what if.

the difference now is that i'm trying to not regret anymore. i just wonder about the facts, about the possibilities, and not dwell on them. (at the very least i'm not trying to dwell on them. it's hard, though, but that's when i have to take a step back and slap myself upside the head to get me back on my feet.) i have to accept the fact that i'm here in california for the long run, surrounded by all these people that somewhat care for me (if not at all). it's a small step in trying to find closure after september eleventh ripped everything apart and tore it to pieces, adding to the already incredible amount of stress that i had been experiencing. everyday, there's the memory i relive of new york, and then i remember that i am studying in berkeley, california, that i am in a relationship with someone from bellevue, washington, that my professor in language was born in recife, brazil, that my friends are still my friends no matter what down in anaheim, california, and that the city i had an affair with is still the same old new york city, hardened by the times and jaded to society.

it's one of my favorite places in the entire world, and that, i don't regret saying.

edit: once you're done reading this all the way through, if you could so kindly click on the comments page and say something. thanks; it's greatly appreciated.

7.13.2003

there's this sinking gut feeling i get every time i get a phone call. from anybody. it's weird; every time i answer the phone, my hands clam up, my throat tightens up, i can feel my ears redden as blood rushes to them. my heart starts to beat a bit faster. my feet then need to start moving (or at least doing something!) and my free hand goes crazy. i guess you can say that i get a nice physical breakdown every time i pick up the phone. or something like social anxiety disorder, but instead of face-to-face, i hate dealing with it over the phone. and i'm being totally serious.

take today, for example. i got a few phone calls from a few people about a few things: alex needed the math book; kristina and stephanie canceled on our movie; rachel wanted to know if the movie date was still on, and was a heartbreak when i had to tell her that it was not; liam told me that he was gonna be back from ireland in a month and a half; and my brother told me that we still don't know what the deal is about them coming up to berkeley to visit. a bunch of phone calls, all of them different, but on the other end, i was sweating bullets and fending off something ridiculously close to a panic attack.

and the one phone call i wanted to get today, i get to wait one more week for. seriously.

it's funny to think that i can't ever talk on the phone right, that i'll be a complete moron when you just hear my voice. but then, i wonder why it's so easy for me to interact with someone else in front of me. maybe it's the whole human nature bit, that language encompasses much more than what you hear -- gestures, facial expressions, contextuality -- i can play off of something that you tell me in person much better than just the tone of your voice over that blasted machine.

on a side note, i'm very glad to be getting to know the rest of my newman class.

on another side note, there are some very beautiful and handsome recruits for the next year.

where's that phone call? i do tend to forget sometimes. such is life.

and now for something completely unrelated to anything i've been talking about, my best friend andrea from home informed me of some dirty dirty whoredom occurring at the old high school campus. glad to know that i'm not a part of it, and that people who genuinely deserve it are. and by the way, if you're reading this, oral sex is highly overrated. you can really only do so much with a penis.

here's to the hectic schedule coming in a month or so, and as an adjunct, here's to me not meeting any of my goals because of it. go bears, beat miguel.

7.12.2003

tower of power, ladies and gentlemen, "is a blissful penetration of music," to quote becca.

of so many things i could have been doing with a nice, beautiful friday dusk, i opted to go to the solano county fair out in vallejo (read: you're supposed to pronounce it as "va-yeh-ho" and not "va-ley-o," thank you very much) and experience the awesomeness that is tower of power. so many songs, so many good songs, lots of fun had by all. i believe becca was "sopping after the first song" and that she would have the lead singer's children any day.

we also saw the wonders that were the femullet, ie the existence of the mullet on the female of the homo sapiens sapiens species, and the rat tail two rows in front of us, along with the old white couple freaking in the front as well as (get this) "tube-top lady," aptly named since her cleavage was way past her bellybutton and the only notice of her breastaculous wonders was a line. it was like seeing an assless person, only the ass was plastered on a woman's chest.

and so, tonight, i got soul with a capital S, i found out what hip was, that there's not enough oil in the ground, and most importantly, that i am still diggin' on james brown.

hellz yes, everyone, miguel was in the oakland zone.

7.11.2003

thanks to a preview screening of the league of extraordinary gentlemen and three hours of sleep, i was near delirium in my calculus class and hopped up on sugar in my discrete mathematics midterm. sugar and lack of sleep? sounds like a botched recipe for a girl, where you substituted lack of sleep for spice and math for everything nice. not so good.

the league, despite my low expectations for such a ridiculous movie premise, was actually a very enjoyable movie. it was very smart -- and the fictional character references from all those books i've read added on to the plot and the story as a whole. the whole movie can really be described as an english major's wet dream, because it had so many literary allusions, but the movie still felt as if it were straight out of the grpahic novel (ie, comic book) that it came from. and of course, you can't beat the fact that three of my favorite literary characters appeared in the league itself!

math midterm was a different story: this time, i was hoping that a league would take the test for me. insanity ensued when disjunction and conjunction and nonconstructive proofs and big-O notation happened; even more craziness presented itself when the cardinality of power sets and the complexity of algorithms started to jumble themselves up. blah blah blah, i finished the midterm, blah blah blah, the lecture finished twenty minutes early, blah blah blah, we got midterm answers afterwards, and i felt horrible about myself.

i feel horribly tired and weird. i don't know what i'm doing, nor what to think... this week has been surreal, what with my finishing one of the hardcopy journals i have and apocopating my calculus class this week. five weeks to go, and i'm already hurting. the weekend is going to be hilariously busy, and i'm afraid i won't have time for a break. sounds as if everyone could use that around here, though.

yeah, confirm that. we're all due for a break, but that's not going to come ssoon enough.

7.09.2003

multiple personality disorder

hello.
passive.
smiles happily.

hey.
sociable.
grins sneakily.

how do you do.
shy.
shakes hands firmly.

what?
aggressive.
glares madly.

shut up.
apathetic.
fumes silently.

how are you.
vulnerable.
melts in your eyes dreamily.

what's up.
theatrical.
puts up fronts so well.

(nod)
(blink)
(bites lip)

miguel.
is.
so.

7.08.2003

i've been on a classical music binge, so to speak, in which case i've been busy downloading as many of these symphonic treasures off of the glory that is kazaa lite. i've downloaded anything from copland, stravinsky, and shostakovich to j.s. bach, mozart, and beethoven, even some respighi, a bit of tchaikovsky, and a hinot of mussourgsky. i'll be adding some more holst and dello joio, maybe some schubert and dvorak while i'm at it.

yeah, i'm a nerd.

in other news, school still sucks.

i had the weirdest dream last night involving cattle prods, saturday morning cartoons, steve lee, and flying puppies. not just puppies, extra-special flying ones, and they flew without wings. the world was being taken over by saturday morning cartoons, and the only way to kill them was by using these cattle prods that steve lee was hand-drawing. and then, once the evil baddie saturday morning cartoons were struck with the cattle prods (you had to be a little more than forceful for it to work), they turned into little puppies. and to escape the brawl, they flew away. but man, steve lee should have drawn those cattle prods faster. we were losing when i woke up.

anyone want to review my romance languages with me? i know you want to practice your french/spanish/italian/portuguese this summer! i know you do!

and now, news about a poor kid in india, only this time around, it's really really sad. there are flies involved. and genitals.

two weeks of class down, six to go. a quarter of the way there!

7.06.2003

the more interesting search strings which lead people to my website, in no particular order:

glow food with picture like avocado
demi moore loves lumpia
lost virginity hurt blogspot bleed
something special for dad's fiftieth birthday
ateneo cheer dancers
free chipmunk cutouts
megan's law corvallis
fred willard a mighty wind happened don't think so
ben and blog and liz and air is thick
tres biotches lauren
bukkake in san francisco
cal/bukkake

yes, you're not the only one both highly amused and completely disturbed. and i didn't even know that demi moore liked lumpia. i mean, it's good and everything, i just didn't expect demi moore to like lumpia as much as this person obviously knew about.

sundays are weird, but sundays are oh-so-good.

i hope y'all celebrated independence with no restraints. it's just like giving up morals for lent.

did you all know that tonic water glows greenish in black light? yeah, neither did i until last night.

7.04.2003

the very things we were fighting against to gain independence, we are imposing on other people as we speak, with our barbecues and our flags and our imperialism. "iraq isn't getting worse because of us, because now they're free." if by free you mean bombed and helpless, and was doing fine until we shocked the shit out of them.

life. a bajillion bombs, and the one we were looking for, we couldn't find. and then, there was the loss of life, on the names of innocents and people who had nothing to do with the war in the first place.

liberty. independence from the saddam regime? please. if the economy was doing better, we wouldn't have this war. but now, see, they'll be building starbucks and mcdonalds and wal-marts all over the deserts of iraq so people can feel better about their uncultured, unsophisticated, unadvanced culture, because they'll be giving in to capitalism.

the pursuit of happiness. dreams crushed after the bomb and the air raid sirens went off. one soldier dead, while a bunch of other unnameds die because of another car bomb. happy? the world is cynical at best, and at the rate we're going, we'll all kill each other until the mormons take over the world, and i'm not saying that there's anything horribly wrong with that.

so in all, boys and girls and ladies and gentlemen, happy fourth of july, and happy birthday, america. you're two hundred twenty seven years old, and you still have a lot of growing up to do.

and now, food and fireworks. go bears. and yay capitalism, to quote austin powers.

7.01.2003

and now, there is internet at the new place, and this is glorious.

i love the power of a dsl line.

you really don't appreciate what you had until it's gone. thanks, internet. i learned my lesson. and that was to be entireley dependent on you for almost every aspect of my being.

thank you oh-so-much.

back to downloading songs...

happy canadia day!

to all my canadian readers (and i know you're out there, so hi!), thank you for visiting. it's kinda cool to know that i have a readership out there in our friendly neighbor to the north. so, in light of all the sars attacks, let's celebrate the duality of quebec, god bless the queen, bears and gold and mounties, and half of the niagara falls. go canada. (i don't blame you like south park does.)

i just got a "job" as a note-taker in my discrete mathematics lecture, for one of the kids in the class who has a learning disability. it's a win-win situation -- i'm helping someone out and feeling good (and getting paid, somewhat!), while the other guy gets top-notch notes and, possibly, ahead in the class. i'm very happy, i'm doing something i like (ie taking copious notes for material i'm probably gonna have to review sooner or later) and doing something that can maybe get me to heaven, if it comes down to things.

i want a puppy like oscar. he usually hangs out outside of yogurt park on sather lane on the weekends, and he's there in his adorable little cage playing with his miniature pinscher-dachshund tail. he's got disproportionate paws, and it's just the best thing ever if we do happen to cross sufficient grounds or fu lin. i want a puppy like oscar cos he's cool. or like the one from the dog park on ohlone, cos some of those dogs are just amazing.

fourth of july's coming soon. and eddie's birthday is tonight, or thereabouts. makes an interesting week when we're all up here to celebrate a lot of things. and now i think it's time to finish homework and more school-related stuff.

my focus is still croakus.

migblog