migblog

i feel so old, but at the same token, i don't feel like i grew up any.

it was my birthday this past saturday, and i was teaching people how to march on an intramural field in uc davis.

it was hot, i was sweaty, and all i wanted to do was catch up on sleep, since i had already halfway lost my voice and my entire body was sore from the three days previous. (we were in an orientation program where we learned how to teach people these things.)

it was nice, though, when my friends decided to get up and sing for us in the middle of rehearsal. i felt all warm and fuzzy. and right before i went to sleep, my baby called me up and wished me a good night and a happy birthday.

it's really those simple things that make it worth it.

getting back yesterday i took the longest nap and woke back up in time for another full band meeting. (these things are starting to take up way too much of my time.)

and then, you realize you're telling some of these people that, despite all their efforts over the past few months in trying to be in the band, they're not good enough.

as the guy who was in charge of getting them all here, and now having to turn them away, it's a giant slap in the face, but then again, on the same edge, it's a horrible necessity.

emotionally and mentally drained would be the best ways to describe most of our situations right now.

go figure.

posted by Open Source Food @ 9:59 AM 0 comments

"it's not always rainbows and butterflies
it's compromise that moves us along"

i am so tired. but i've barely even started.

i'm working right now with the mcnair scholars symposium here on campus, a bunch of undergraduates from all over the country doing particular research (almost like theses) on every known subject. and now that i'm working this thing, the way it's looking, it just doesn't stop.

starting this weekend, i'll be working the symposium one more day, and then i'll be in a four-day teaching assistant orientation program until wednesday, then it's straight to davis until sunday, then it's orienteering freshmen into berkeley for a week after, and then it's the first day of classes.

speaking of classes, i'm taking a cool sixteen units next fall: two linguistics classes, one in historics and the other in phonetics, a class on urbanization and city planning, a statistics class for engineers, and a journalism class in comedy writing.

somewhere in there i have my birthday. i forgot where.

in any event, i hope you all saw bill clinton on the daily show this past monday. makes our good ol' president look like a buffoon, because clinton knows how to be intentionally funny. (remember? "fool me once, shame -- shame on you. fool me -- can't be fooled again." that is sheer genius.)

back to reality.

everyone's somewhat going nuts. (me included.) it's not healthy for us.

although i have to say, the olympics better be damn good this year, because i cannot wait to see hot athletes showing off their stuff during primetime television. plus, natalie coughlin (from cal!) might be getting her very own olympic gold medal.

it all went by so fast. damn.

posted by Open Source Food @ 7:38 PM 0 comments

yet another inspiring moment of zen, brought to you by your very own president you never elected.

things are picking up -- i'm working every day for the visitor center, and if i'm not there, i'll be working at the mcnair scholar symposium going on until the fifteenth. it's cool; i get paid good money for both jobs, and i get to work a lot so i can catch up on bills and money i owe people.

my life becomes a joke starting on sunday. in other words, i won't have one.

this thing called the teaching assistant orientation program is going to bring haunting memories. i can't wait until i'm split off into groups, and if ling is in any of them, we won't be able to contain ourselves especially after a notable demo of show high from one of our favorite people. (you know who i'm talking about. fifty first dates!)

in any case, there's already a huge list of recruits joining the band, and i'm glad we're somewhat surpassing our goal, albeit the fact that we've basically been having to accept ridiculous numbers of people no matter their playing capability. (but don't say that to them -- it's really just to make them feel better.)

hmmm. busybusybusy. need to finish more work.

posted by Open Source Food @ 3:15 PM 0 comments

to this, my last week free until chaos ensues, starting now:

i will miss the free time we will have shared. come to think of it, i will miss it a lot considering i have absolutely everything to worry about on top of being just a student here at berkeley; there's the band, there's the job, there's being the good friend and the great friend, there's being clinically depressed, alcoholic, and addicted to illegal substances, there's lack of motivation, there's cable television, there's being hungry, there's writing, there's playing with the computer, there's trying to stay emotionally, mentally, and physically stable.

to my job, which i will be working for spot on until the end of this week, and starting next week will probably not see again until the fall football season ends.

my birthday is the second day of the band's fall training program.

can someone smack me over the head already and tell me to wake up from this dream that ftp is only really two weeks away?

summer went by way too fast.

to this, my last week until chaos ensues, i hope that everything works itself out and i'm not dying before i'm actually scheduled to.

it doesn't stop after one more week. i can't. it won't.

and if you try to do or say so otherwise, you'll pay for it.

dearly.

posted by Open Source Food @ 1:36 PM 0 comments

let's all make sure that i'm standing in a free speech zone before i do this or i might get arrested:

supreme idiocy.

sigh. let's do something about this, shall we, kids? it's a little annoying having our own president compare us to terrorists. (and the best part is, really, no one reacted to the remark when he made it, considering he was addressing a military audience.)

on to more absurd things -- so on top of the french tour i had to give yesterday, i had to give a really absurd tour that started and ended at haas school of business to twelve korean men. they all worked for lg, if i remember correctly, and man, it was a tour i will definitely want to forget.

half of them were on their cellphones, and then there were those who didn't know that tours pause at different places on campus. i almost had to chase four of them back a half-block to our position because they just kept on going and didn't bother to look back where we were.

not only that, but every photo op i gave them was useless because they took pictures of everything else. no campanile pictures, no sather gate pictures, no wheeler hall pictures. lots of pictures, however, of strawberry creek, the jank bridge at faculty glade, and the construction site that is stanley hall.

i was so glad it was over at 2.15.

aaaaaaanywho. harold and kumar was good; mel's, the booze and weed afterward was better.

so tired.

posted by Open Source Food @ 5:31 PM 0 comments

so i expected to be off work today at around 11.30 with time to spare, getting lunch with some folks after heading back to the visitor center and filling out my timesheet.

little did i know i was going to get recruited by pamelaia, the tour coordinator, to give a tour to a family of four.

now that doesn't sound too bad; it's another two hours i get paid for, but it was a hard two hours, considering i had to speak to them in french the whole time. now, mind you, i haven't spoken french in close to two years -- the only time i really speak french here at cal is when i'm drunk with david or whenever there's covert operations going on -- so it was a bit of a "journey" giving the whole tour in french.

ladies and gentlemen, i will be the first to admit, my french really sucked.

they were rather nice about it, though; the dad actually acted as a translator for some words i couldn't pull. but i think i did well considering the circumstances; you just have to frenchify everything in the first place anyway. (anthropologie, biologie, mathematique, blah blah blah.)

lesson learned today: brush up on your foreign languages, because you never know when you'll give a tour for people.

in other more exciting news: the lot is going to see harold and kumar go to white castle today, which should prove to be very hilarious. i can't wait to see shereen, and of course, hang out with the four funnest people ever. we haven't done that in a long, long time.

much busy things to occupy myself within the next few weeks, spearheading into the first day of classes here at cal.

speaking of which, i have to register for the rest of my classes later this afternoon! i almost forgot my telebears is today!

the dilemma really is, should i take fourteen or seventeen units next fall?

sigh. lunch with jon, errands to run, and meeting up with the kiddie-kids. should be a good day.

yowza!

posted by Open Source Food @ 1:47 PM 0 comments

i'm twenty in nineteen days, but i still feel like i just turned eighteen.

this is how young i am.

i've been in a really eccentric mood lately, requiring alone times and times when i desperately needed people. it's been a tough last year, and it has been a real trying time, especially now that i'm living by myself and going through this like a madman.

i feel pretty useless most of the time, but i'm starting to feel a little better, thanks to the efforts of a few well-wishers and picker-uppers.

if you want to know, ask.

seeming unmotivation feels horrible. i need to do something, no matter how menial, just to keep me distracted. for the meantime, though, i'll be all right. i think.

sigh.

posted by Open Source Food @ 10:40 AM 0 comments