I’m alive!

Wow… four months! But it’s the new year, so I get to live again. So is my baby.

I have a lot of stuff to talk about. I guess one could say that me not posting anything in a looong while is a good indicator of how I’m doing in many aspects.

It’s kinda weird how today is the first day of my last quarter here. I honestly don’t know what lies ahead of me when I’m done. It’s easy to say that it was all 5 years of preparing for nothing but at the same time I’m kinda hyped on what’s gonna happen next. Who knows. I often think about the graduation jingles and how I am going to pose for the picture in front of the stadium. Hmmm… delicious.

So my only resolution for this year is to stick to it. Little mind of mine needs focus. I confess that I often drift and wander around. Whenever I do, bad things happen. I think it is the bane of procastination, unanswered/late replies whatnot. I figured I need an immediate fix since I’m nearing to enter the “real world” wooo.. That’s one thing.

Super Five

So my fifth year had officially started (gawd soo old!) as of last week, and I am awfully busy more than ever! Aside studying fulltime with 19 credit hours, I work on the side and sprinkle that with a generous shot of internship, plus a cherry of other school related activities to top it all off. However, this quarter seems to the best one I’ve had so far since I’ve been spending a lot of time with the big J amidst all my hecticness. It’s awesome. I see big changes coming to campus this year!

Ambivalence

A guy wanted to believe in God, he said all he needed was proof.

Listen, you don’t have proof for anything 100%. You don’t have proof that the material world exists or that your consciousness is really your own. You have faith these things are true because the evidence seems overwhelming in their favor. You don’t have proof other continents exists, that history is accurate, that physics is an accurate description of natural phenomena in our universe. The evidence makes sense, and you have faith it is true. Maybe God doesn’t exist, maybe he does and just doesn’t care about Earth. Who knows? No one does. But we have to believe something, whatever it is. If you don’t feel the Christian God is real, fine. The most you can do is be receptive to it and test it out. If that doesn’t work for you, move on to something and see if it does. You don’t have to become a priest or join Scientology, but you ought to at least feel them out for yourself and see if they touch you in some way. No one will ever prove to you God exists or doesn’t exist or what he’s like. Proof is impossible. Believe and be saved, believe and be damned, believe and rot in the ground. But belief is all you have. No, seriously.

-Insomniac by Force

Wake Me Up When the World Sleeps

It’s 3:46 pm right now and I’m still up. I really want this perpetual insomnia to go away ASAP! Perhaps these were just the aftermath from my insane summer class schedule, which are now over by the way. It kinda makes me look forward 2 quarters ahead in my graduation!

Aside from watching from this “Octopussy” James Bond movie that’s on TV right now, I have to admit that I somewhat got hooked on the show series Nip/Tuck. This show really try to deviate across from its limits and I’m lovin’ it. I’m not really an idiot box junkie but tonight’s episode particularly touched on something on what I thought was very profound.

Simply stated, it was merely a situation of one of the doctors self questioning the fundamentals of his medical profession in a triage. It’s where he noticed the difference that emergency surgeons deal with life and death and cosmetic surgeons like him try to attain human perfection through fixing and/or modifying existing physical flaws.

I think we ought to think the same for ourselves. Do we really live as if we are (or not) aware of the long term consequences of every decision we make? Maybe we are or aren’t really aware of what the future would bring which is why we try to fix the broken road along the path to betterment.

What I think is that most of us are not bent for all out being “serious” in life, and neither that we are too care free to ignore the matters that matter. After all, humanity is complicated and what I have in mind is just a way to look at it.

I feel like I’m just cruising by the gist of what I’m really trying to say. Hehe… It’s 4:34 and my eyes feel droopy. I’ll probably just continue this later one (that’s a first, I guess this beats insomnia!).

Milo

I’ve been finding myself sleeping on the couch for the past few days because of this tiny creature:

The dang thing cries when being left alone to sleep in the basement. I actually have to keep him company while he sleeps by the floor right next to the couch I’m in. It’s alright, ’cause he now knows the spot where he’s supposed to “get busy.” But still, what an attention whore!

Looking Through the Glass

I’m a little off sided on the CBS interview by Mike Wallace with the Iranian president. Theorically, this interview would’ve been a very good opportunity to spark an understanding between American and the Iranian conflict. It may be proper to seek true and unsolicited straight up answers from the dictator but the way the correspondent used rude and condescending stance among the dialogue makes it sound like he just selectively chooses what he wanted to hear while completely obliterating the other perspective of the story. I dunno, but this confrontational approach kinda disturbs me in terms of journalistical point of view. I was expecting a real professional transaction of understood communication between the two. But on the good side, kudos to CBS for this interview production. I can see this move eventually paving a way to a better enlightenment of both side about the other.

“Look Ma, No Hands!”

I’m amazed how God protected our mission team in Lynn, MA throughout last week:

1. We endured approximately 30 excruitiatingly long hours of driving. It’s like watching the entire trilogy of the Lord of the Rings three times! Only having the difference of me hibernating for the most part of the “movie marathon.”
2. Had we left Columbus a just a tad few moments later, either we would’ve been crushed by an 12 ton ceiling fragment inside a tunnel , or we would’ve ended up caught in a nightmare chaotic jam in midnight Boston.
3. I must mention that we received no reports of stabbings, gunshots, abductions, kidnappings, or any sort of disastrous criminal activity while in the inner urban city.
4. Although feral rats the size of a grandma’s fat cat ran rampant along the neighborhood, especially just outside a storage room where the guys slept in, we gathered sufficient courage enough to battle the terror a pair of red eyes bring that lurks along the garbage corner whenever any of us guys takes a leak during nightfall.
5. We experienced heavy torrential rains and hail one day and scorching heat the day after. Yet, no heat strokes or bumpy pelted heads! Just a rancid smelling van which resembles a tightly spaced 90 degree sauna cramped with a lot of wet dogs and the aura they emit.
6. The ample supply of “Fluff” and our overindulgence of Boston Hotdogs. Hehe, you had to be there to understand…
7. I think construction workers who work for a ministry center need not to have accidental insurance. Evidence? Highschool and college kids showing no signs of hammered pinkies, drilled holes in the feet or hands, or broken bones from not falling off 20 feet ladders.
8. Most important of all, although we were physically, emotionally, and spiritually fueled out, I never mind those much given by His guidance. Now only if we continually let the hands and feet of God to work on us, then we can truly rely on Him to do the things that we cannot accomplish alone. Then a lot of us won’t feel burdened out that much by the world at all. It’s real good to know that a how a pair of bloody pierced hands lead us to ways we cannot imagine.

Five dolla?!

So sitting here at work, – I have doubts calling this kind of activity, “work” since my job responsibilities in this work-study are absolutely asinine that compares to barely lifting a pinkie.- I encounter a lot of people here. This place is a computer lab where sociology students come and do their work. Aside from a good, hefty pay, in relative to what I’m actually doing, one of the reasons why I love this job is because of random encounters with strangeness.

One of my main duties is “to assist students with software and technical difficulties,” more or less helping people out with Microsoft Ofiice. Now, sometimes I get these real dumb, why-even-bother-to-ask questions such as how to turn on the computer, or if they are allowed to save something off their storage devices… my personal favorite was when this girl asked if she can sit in the chair while trying to print something off… ? Maybe I’ve been here for so long, but such questions often leave be bewildered. Talk about the “Doh!” factor.

I find it hard to justify the pay rate my university is paying me for this kind of job. I mean, is it really worth my effort to sit in my butt surfing the net and feeding printers papers when get it gets paper hungry. But hey I’m not complaining 🙂

Another perk in this job is that I basically have this whole working time for myself to do anything other than working and such doesn’t interfere with working, if that makes sense. Sayin’ it so, I get paid eating, I get paid sleeping (yes, one time I opened the lab early in the morning, sat down, slouched over and slept for 5 hours, woke up, clocked out, made my checking account some $$$ fatter 2 weeks later), and best of all, getting paid while typing down an entry like this, which means by the time you finish reading this post, I am around $47.58 richer than you. 

Damn it feels good to be a gangsta’!

It sure does, but it feels better to be a human.

Doesn't it feel good to be "human" once again when you can just talk about mundane stuff (and eventually turning into something profound), with a good friend? This is why I love my coffee buddies (but not their coffee breath, :)). It's real enjoyable engaging in great conversations with such peeps in coffeehouses with topics ranging from latest cheesiest buzz to the theory of relativity.

I dunno, but its great having someone to share your life, dreams, frustrations, memories, and anything else in life, universe and everything — without it turning into a long, tiring debate — just a plain exchange of ideas with an occasional insight as to what the other person is saying …

Times like those are timeless, and moments like those are motionless. They just make you forget and be aware of time. You could lose yourself in the moment, and at the same time "find" yourself throughout the mutual exchange.

Grapes are Sour

Two more weeks and the quarter's over. The usual end of the quarter rush is starting to set in. I really want to get this quarter over and done with, not because of academic reasons but I'm looking forward to summer. Speaking of which, summertime is nice on campus. It's quiet. I get to wear sandals and thongs all day long. Did I mention quiet? As in like this quiet:

…

Yup.

And I can also capture the complete market share for the duck feeding at the lake.

Unfortunate news. Car's beaten up, badly by some drunken monkeys off the parking space outside. I can't wait to find a subletter to take my place, next thing I know I'll find out my front tires would be slashed. Back to ducks, one of the baby ones died 😦 poor thing.

Typing this is rather difficult cause I keep blinking every .24 seconds. Either a stray lint or I think i've accumulated some solidified eye goo somewhere inside my left eye. Meh, I need to change my contact… It kinda makes me appreciate the gift of sight. Can you imagine the people without it? I admire those who have eyesight problems but can still see and appreciate beauty with more than a 20/20 perspective precision.

That's what I'm trying to perpetually change in me. I tend to notice my shortcomings instead of counting and sharing my blessings. So much for our mainstream culture where materialism saturation is apparent. It's too bad that most of us don't realize how fortunate we are in comparison to the other parts of the world. Hopefully, and I know that overtime, we would be able to capture more than "small living" for ourselves, because there's something bigger and more beautiful out there than ourselves.