COLUMN COMIC: YOU SUCK

COLUMN COMIC: THE INNER JERK

Don't Bother Curing Death

ok so i really should be studying for my finals and watever but because this subject has cropped up independently from two different people twice in during this week, I've got to talk about it here.

Providing medical treatment for really old people. 

I'm talking about people in their 70s, 80s, 90s, etc. 

I can't remember how the topic came up for the first time but I remember how it came up during the second time. Basically my friend mentioned to me that Nelson Mandela died only a few days ago at age 95. And i just said, well yea, he's old. I heard the doctors were trying to fix him up cuz he had a heart attack or something serious happen a few days previously. Pointless really. 

Then my friend said that that was a heartless thing to say. 

I expected that...but come on heartless? 

I think people are overly sensitive today. oh we can't say that or we can't say this. might as well just not say anything really if you're scared of being politically incorrect. 

but anyway that wasn't my point

my point is that we really shouldn't be trying to cure people who are already really really old. I mean if your in your 60s, alright we'll try some stuff out. And if your in your 70s and you got a cold, then fine we'll get you some Tylenol. But if you're in your 70s and you've got cancer or something, really don't bother. Don't think that you've just got some condition that wasn't suppose to be there. No, watever you've got at age 70 is suppose to be there because you're gonna die soon. Whatever you die of when you're old is of natural causes. 

I mean what is the point of keep on trying to cure old people? What are you trying to reach for? Immortality? no you're gonna die so just let it happen. 

It's like some guy who got fired from his job but is still hanging around in the lobby waiting for something to happen. It's getting to be fucking embarrassing and to be honest, quite selfish. 

When your time is up your time is up. Trying to prolong life artificially is just pointless. 

And I'm not just talking either. I think if I reach to be around 70s or 80s and my doctor tells me that I've got cancer or watever I'll be like we'll it's about damn time. I grew up, got a job, retired, went on a cruise a few times, seen my grandchildren or watever. I'm done. I've hanged around long enough. Now it's time to ask for the check and get the hell out. 

And if my family is like Oh no! How did this happen?? We'll have to get you surgery and don't worry we'll pay for it, we'll take care of you. If they say that, I'll tell them thanks but no thanks. First of all, why are you surprised? How did it happen?? I'm old that's why that's what happened. And second, pay for the surgery? No, don't waste that money on my old ass, ok? Use that money to pay for your kid's college tuition or do something useful with it at least. Pay some bills. I've already got one foot out the door, so don't bother, I'll see myself out. The most you can do right now is find me a good bed, give me a TV, a Chuck boxset, and visit me some time. And bring me some orange juice every now and again. 

You can try to cure a kid or someone who's relatively young because they are here and they are staying for a while. They've at least still got a significant part of their life ahead of them whereas the old guys are already done.

Also, if your reason to prolong your dying parents' life is because you want to spend more time with them, then obviously you didn't spend enough time with them when they were living. So it's your fault then. Now the people who did spend enough time with their parents might have the same wish but at least they'll learn to accept it as a natural occurrence. 

Don't think that I'm not scared of death though. I am. But you gotta realize that when it happens at a time when it's suppose to happen, don't try to postpone it. Nobody is above death. Not even Nelson Mandela. 

2nd Comic

posted it a bit late
i'm not gonna post the 3rd one because the people who designed that page did is soooo poorly that I want to stab them in the neck. People can't even take simple orders.
Anyway, this one is alright so yea.. 

Karl Pilkington Introduces his Diary

He's a real human being. This isn't an actor. He is exactly what he is. 

Karl Pilkington's Opinion on Jellyfish

This is so awesome. I posted this I felt kinda bad for the last shitty post. this is no better but at least it's entertaining. Also, i feel a weird obligation to expose the awesomeness of Karl Pilkington even more - especially in America. 

Yet Another Update

Well I'm sick 

you know what's weird? sometimes when i'm not sick i'm thinking "mmm how awesome if i was sick and just lying in bed and not doing anything..." 

and then you get sick and it's like everything is working at half speed

*sigh....wow even sighing is more difficult to do 

breathing becomes a chore man 

nothing worse than waking up in the morning with a scorching sore throat and nasal congestion

and it comes at the worse time too

i've got a ton of shit to do next week and now i'm sick and i feel sooo tired all the time

even typing is tiring

thinking is tiring

well thinking is pretty much tiring regardless of being sick anyway so...

ok i'll stop now

was gonna write more but i'm getting tired 

sorry for wasting your time 

ok adios 

First Comic: Playing with the Monkeys

My first Column Comic
Yes, that's me.
http://www.elestoque.org/2013/09/27/opinion/playing-with-the-monkeys/
Already working on the next one for the next print issue.. 

A short update

Senior year is slowing me down a bit and a free first period is making me even more lazy
what's super ridiculous is that i think i'm getting less sleep than last year because i have a bit more time
cuz before i was like "OMGOMGOMGTONSOFHOMEWORKGOTTAFINISHNOWNOWNOW"
and now i'm like "free first...more time..eh homework can wait a bit.."

last year i was fighting to sleep at 10 pm at the earliest. now....i'm sleeping at 3 am just because i'm too lazy
then it gets into a cycle of destruction with only a few turns before the gears of the wheels break down and crashes
like i sleep at 4 am, wake up at 8 am, school blah blah blah, 3 pm school's out, 4 pm no energy take a 5 minute nap, wake up 2 hours later, holy shit i've got hw, an hour later start hw...sleep at 4 am..

nooooo please i don't want senioritis!!! not nowww!!!!! i've got college apps and important shit to do don't suck me in the me into the vortex... 

The Weak One

"You're the weak one...and you'll never know love or friendship. And I feel sorry for you. "
- Harry Potter on Voldemort (5th movie)
Tom Riddle Jr. (Voldemort) as a child in an orphanage with his stolen trinkets

Homecoming

a soldier and his dog

The Theory of "Solutions to Journalism"

perhaps this is not the right time for a resolution-type thing but here it goes..

after much thinking, a long shower (i do a lot of thinking in showers lol), and getting over a sudden craving for fried onion rings and watching a youtube video on how to convert an infinity scarf into a dress (even though i have no such scarf and have no intentions to buy one), i thought that i should, well, try a lot harder next school year - especially in journalism. 

i'm not just saying to say, i actually do mean it. 

journalism was a tough class to be in last year and i hated it more than i loved it. in fact, at the end of the year, i don't think i really learned anything from the class except that it was HARD.  i suppose that it was a good class but my brain must have been so occupied with how miserable it was to acknowledge the good stuff.

it's harsh i know. i know there must have been some good stuff because El Estoque is supposedly one of the best high school news magazines in the country. so something is going alright. 

it's just that i cant remember it. 

in fact, at the end of the school year, instead of reflecting on all the good ol' times, i just felt like buffeted my way through a extremely busy and crowded mall and finally stumbled my way out the exit...or the fire escape. 

there were several reasons why i didn't like journalism. 

1. I was insecure about my writing. 

This was a big deal. I hadn't written anything for a year prior to journalism and i felt like i somehow bypassed the system and slipped in on the acceptance list. Therefore I struggled with writing and was afraid of writing anything. This was also a new feeling because I had no problem with writing before, especially in the Writing for Publication class, and now lack of experience made me lose my touch. I postponed writing because I was afraid of failure and when I did write it it sounded very structured and robotic. Making a plan and following through was the only way i knew how to make up for my lack of spontaneity.  

2. Lack of interest

Most of the time, i didn't find anything interesting in the stuff that i was assigned to write. So not only did i think how bad i was at writing, i didn't really bother to make my writing and story better. When i did bother it was out of obligation, guilt, or saving grades. I wasn't interested in the pitches that were coming in and I didn't bother to make any pitches because i had none. I didn't think i would be good in any leadership positions so i didn't sign up for any while people i considered to be incompetent were actively signing up. While everybody else was participating in meetings or discussions, all i could think of was "wow...i don't care." Well to some small degree i did care but for the most part i didn't. Why? well that leads into number 3: 

3. Nobody reads El Estoque. 

Not even El Estoque. I thought i was wasting my time because I know that it would be all for nothing since nobody bothers. One time a girl, who didn't realize that i was in journalism, told me that "i never read it, i mean nobody really reads it."  BOOM. Well it didn't have that big of an impact as the all caps implies since i knew that nobody really reads it. Nobody really bothers with the columns and especially not with center spread. So why would i bother? 

I lost my writing voice and my ambition in the journalism department. 

Course i wasn't the only one who felt this way and many times I've heard "For El Estoque" from others as a way to cope with pressure. People have cracked - yep, i've seen it. 

before i just went along with it because at the time it was the thing to do. I tried to mesh with the system - however wack the system was to me. 

But now, i think all that pent up frustration with myself has gotten my "voice" back. For some reason, I now have opinions on stuff, something that I lacked severely especially when i was in the Opinion section ironically. More importantly, I've got reasons and solutions to my problems. 

First off, I've always hated the phrase "for El Estoque." Bullshit. That motivator doesn't have enough fuel to fill up a go-cart. 

The reason why people don't like/bother reading El Estoque is because to them, the news magazine is this big authoritative government building with flags outside commemorating it's many awards and achievements. It's one of those places where you need to go through security, identification screening, and clearance to access it's files. You don't know anybody who works there but you know of people who do. 

As a journo class, we're constantly told to have a conversation with the student body and the community. Well how are you suppose to have a conversation with a damn building?? People here try to emulate pros, or what they think pros are in the journo world. They want to be the Crimson or the New York Times. They want to be "The Man" on issues and what not. 

You have a conversation with the guy on the street. You have a conversation with your friend. You have them with your parents or a classmate. You have a conversation with a person. 

El Estoque is not a person. It's not people. It's that big concrete building. And nobody wants to have a conversation with a building and nobody even thinks about doing it because it's absurd and pointless. 

And so when people get the magazine, everybody AUTOMATICALLY doesn't want to read it. It's a no brainer. Why talk to a building? Why read El Estoque? 

Every time somebody does, it's always so you can feel smarter.

"Well since i want to appear like an educated and informed person I suppose i should read this article on gun control..." 

I dunno if that's how adults operates, but for kids, especially ones who live in a safe environment untouched by the recession, gay parades, racial conflicts, and politics, they don't give a shit about supposed "issues" that are going on else where in the world. 

But sometimes in class, when teachers do want us to discuss these current events, kids do appear to have genuine opinions about it. They argue about and have conversations about it with other classmates. 

This all means that the writers of El Estoque has got to stop writing "For El Estoque." They've got to start writing for themselves. Don't be the NYTimes or Crimson or El Estoque. Just be a person.

Just be a person. That's all it is. The readers will respond to a person, not to some dumb wall. 

From the beginning, I got loped in with the other newbies to try to be "El Estoque" and tried to emulate past writers. We read old articles and tried to be the new style. Forget about everything you learned in writing for publications about finding "your own voice," you are in EL ESTOQUE now. Now start writing like us before we all unanimously look down upon you. 

A cycle of destruction, that is. 

Now i don't have any statistics or evidence for this theory, but i feel like it's worth trying. 

otherwise, El Estoque will just continue to be just pages to be ripped out so people can put chicken bones on during dinner. 

I will try this out myself. I will try to stop being something that I'm not. I've lost my "writing voice" but i hope this theory will help my dig it from beneath the layers of peer pressure crap on top of it. 

I mean if i don't do it, i don't think anybody else will. Surprisingly that was sort of the mentality that i had when i shaved my head. 

Another thing: I will be more enthusiastic about the things I write. And the only way to do that is to find stuff that i'm interested in and write about it. You can never make anything good if you're not enthusiastic about it. 

I used to just wait for the pitches to come in, dismiss them all as dumb, and pick the least rotten one. 

The journo advisor always tells us that we are to observe life and find the gold nuggets. 

I skimmed this "life"like I do sometimes to assigned reading. 99.99% of the time, i didn't find anything sparkling and i deducted from my non-findings that that's just what "life" is: one big boring book. 

But that's not true. Every time I perk up at something I heard in the news and every time I laugh, it's because i found something interesting. Every time i'm happy or sad it's because i found something interesting enough to bother with my emotions about it. There are quite a few big nuggets but those are all picked out and gone. But there are plenty of gold dust around that you would've never seen had you not skimmed around. 

And when there are no fat nuggets around, the dust can be worth a lot. 

if i find myself writing something that i'm not interested in, it's because i didn't bother to look harder. 

Make your own pitches and then write it yourself. 

in any case, with the old age of journalism itself, ALL the major topics are done and worn out. So start looking for the dust. And who knows, sometimes the dust can be a lot more interesting that the nuggets. 

The dust itself is always overlooked and is unexplored territory, like some parts of Papua New Guinea so that map is blank. Experts know that there are tribes that live there that are completely untouched by civilization and may be cannibals. Not that the dust is a cannibal....

Anyway, on to the point. 

All of this: enthusiasm and "being a person" will help to find the voice back. And it will be amplified many times over when you start having a conversation to the reader instead of just throwing them a bunch of fact cards. 

Well, like i said, just a theory. I've always wanted to try something new (as cheesy as that sounds) but i've always been afraid that it wouldn't work.  

But seeing that the alternative didn't yield any positive results last year, it's definitely worth a try.

The Workforce

brushing up on my graphics
make an example for journalism class to teach newer people
still took ages.. 

Color is Love

playing around on photoshop
not very perfect but....eh 

First Concept Art EVERRR

what the title says lol
posted this up to compare with the second one
this one...well i didn't really know what i was doing haha
pros take 15 mins to get to this stage
i took 2 hrs...so sad..

Paradise

Second Concept Art EVER
this....i hate it almost as much as i love it
at 11:00 pm i was loving it
by 3:40 am i was hating it
it would've been done an hour earlier something went wrong with the file
and an entire layer got deleted!!! @#$#@@!$#@#@DSQWREWQ@#DRFDASFSFEFSEFFDGHTRFDFDBYSDASDAAEWD
so i had to redraw.. a lot...again..

anyway, CLICK on it to see the better, bigger image

Cubee Karl Pilkington

yea this was how i spent most of my afternoon
but anyway, it's Karl Pilkington, the hero of The Ricky Gervais Show podcasts
he walks the line between moron and genius
mostly genius
and "he's got a head like a fucking orange" as Ricky would say
no but seriously, he's got an IQ of 85 but don't let that fool you
he really does see the world differently than the average guy does
and i'm not just saying that to be nice (mostly because i have a hard time being nice when it's unwarranted)
As said by his friend and fellow contributor of the podcasts, comedian Stephen Merchant, he speaks in one-liners that comedians would die for and yet he doesn't say them to be funny, that's just how he thinks and talks.
oh btw, karl, ricky, and stephen are all british
plus ricky and stephen both created the show "The Office"
so yea they're legit lol

anyway, i'm still proud of my work here LOL
shame i don't have color printer though
not that it would have made much of a difference - his pants are suppose to be blue and his flesh peachy
ah well it's ok, he's got a nice british pale pasty color in the pic
it's also smaller than a soda can btw

here is the whole gang in cartoon
HBO "The Ricky Gervais Show"
that's Steve, Ricky and Karl in order from left to right

Here's them in real life
Steven, Karl, Ricky 

British actor Iain Glen as Ser Jorah

Ser Jorah Mormont from the show Game of Thrones
A sketch that I did (and sent to the actor, hopefully he responds lol...feel like such a fan girl, i used to look down on those easily overexcited people..now i'm one of them) 

I SHAVED MY HEAD

When I showed up to school, I had a lot of explaining to do - to both my classmates and my teachers. 

I told them that I would be donating my hair to Locks of Love, which is an organization that makes wigs for kids who have a hair loss disorder  of some sort or they have a disease that prevents them from having hair like cancer. And not much else. Not much else in an articulate manner anyway. 

Therefore, here is my chance to set the record a little bit straighter. 

So why did I do it? 

Well, for two reasons. 

The first reason is because I wanted to prove to myself that I was not all talk and no action. That was one of the reasons among a dozen others. It just really annoyed me how people care too much about how they look in the eyes of others. It's fine if you want to look good, there is nothing wrong with that. However, on a deeper subconscious level, people do care a LOT about what they look like - and it is often a waste of time and energy. 

I'm not a vain person. I don't bother to dress nicely as long as I don't look completely ridiculous. In fact I usually just wear jeans and a t-shirt to school. But I'm not completely one-sided either, which is to say that I'm just like everyone else. Even I, from time to time, think about how my hair looks and how my nose looks and how my ears protrude out. My eyes, eyebrows, teeth, everything. I too worried over that kind of stuff. 

For girls especially, one of the key things that girls value is their hair. A lot of us likes to curl it, make it shiny, and hope that it looks as good as someone else's. Again, there is nothing wrong with wanting to look good, but I know that people do care more about their appearance than they let on. And that is very true about hair. Long, straight, shiny, curly, wavy. All that and more. 

And it can get ridiculous. 

Yet again, even I, who usually just tie my hair into a sloppy bun and have it sag against the back of my neck, care more about my appearance than I let on. 

Which makes me a hypocrite.

I suddenly wanted a change - and not only because I wanted to get a different look from the one that I had since the 6th grade. I wanted to prove to myself that I truly am what I believed in. How can I disdain others for dolling up when I too cared about my appearance, even if on a lesser degree? Was it jealousy that I was actually feeling? 

No, I told myself. I was getting confused with my thoughts. If you think about something too much, you'll get confused and I was thinking too much. So how did I want to really prove to myself that I really didn't care about my appearance? That the only appearance that I cared about is Shuyi, the person? 

I would have to cut my hair short then to get rid of one of my biggest distractions. At first, I wanted to get a chin length haircut and then a pixie cut. I wanted it shorter and shorter and eventually realized that I might as well just chop it all off. Start anew. 

My father was on board with it but my mother, the traditionalist, wasn't. She wanted me to "behave like a girl" and not be "silly." She also wouldn't let me learn kung fu last summer, saying that it was a boys sport. 

And while I tried to ignore these, I was nonetheless, swayed. What would be under that hair? A gnome shaped head? What would my classmates say? I knew I was strong but even I didn't know my limits. 

But then, that was the point anyway wasn't it? To not give a shit about it all? I was going in circles. Thinking too much and running backwards on a treadmill. I would do it, with or without my mother or any other voices out there and in here. 

So as my father sheared off my hair, I thought that I might cry like I've heard some girls do when they get their hair shaved off. But I didn't feel the least bit sad. In fact it was probably one of the most liberating feelings ever. I was no longer weighed down or distracted by my hair. I had nothing to hide behind and nothing to hide from.

The second reason is of course, for charity - which is a wonderful byproduct, an added bonus, branching off from the original cause. 

But it also got a little confusing because the original purpose and the new purpose conflicted. Here I am, proving to myself that I didn't care about what others thought about me, and the children will wear the wig with my hair to make themselves prettier and such. 

I did discover a distinct difference though. Many of these children who will receive wigs are not only much younger than I, but they are, of course, afflicted with life threatening diseases. I honestly cannot imagine what they feel when they walk out into the world with a veiny bald head, a clear harbinger of their frail condition that sets them apart from the others in society. 

While normally we make ourselves look better because we all on some degree want to be "best in show" and express our individuality, anonymity is a luxury that these children do not feel like they have. To look normal, is something they want to have back almost as much as living normally. To give them a way that hides their condition, to give them that piece of mind, is something that means a lot more to the receiver than the giver. 

Anyways, adults are a lot stronger than kids when it comes to "being yourself." Although less so now, I can still be swayed sometimes by the opinions of others. So if I can't even control the fluctuation of my self esteem level, how can these children have the slimmest bit of that ability?

As a final note, I just want to say that other than these two reasons, I did not do this to send a message to everyone else. That was not the original intention. I shaved my head for me. Nevertheless, many told me how inspiring it is of me to do this and for that I am grateful. But it is not enough to be inspired. Anybody can just sit there and be inspired. But to do something, to really get up and do something, to prove to yourself that the belief is no longer just a concept, but a real thing that exist and moves as you move, is something on a completely different level. 

-------
Thanks for reading and I hope you can take something away from this post. Sorry if there are any spelling or grammar errors and what not. I'm the farthest thing away from a grammar Nazi.
But I did try to make it better than my other posts, which shamelessly don't give a shit about grammar. 

Christian Bale - Final Oil Painting

Christian Bale Oil Painting
done a while a ago but i forgot that i didn't upload it yet
well here it is
20in  by 16in
kinda bad photo of an otherwise awesome painting
i'm actually really proud of this 

Good Books

good books.
what is a good book?
i mean i've read plenty but the way i judge a good book, or the way i know it's a good book is when i get this sort of depression or ache in my chest, somewhere near my heart. It's physical. Then i start getting kind of sad no matter what. i'll even get damn depressed when it ends with a good ending; i'll get sad cuz the happiness is over.

the feeling that the book evokes is just too damn much.
sometimes i feel like i wish i never read it just because i feel too damn depressed afterwards.

speaking of depressed, why are depressing stories with angst and shit considered "good"
i've noticed that this happens quite often.
whatever the genre, whether it be comedy or something else, if it makes you cry at the end or at least at some point, you think "damn that was good"

making you cry is good?
getting you all depressed is good?
so basically a "good read" is something that makes you sad or watever

don't get me wrong
i like good books and getting to know about human nature and all that stuff
it's damn enlightening and will open doors that you didn't even know were there for you
yea sad books can get your mind going sometimes
when reading sad books is a rarity, you'll get a real kick out of the stuff you can learn from people dying, good vs evil, the devil and all that kind of stuff

on the other hand it bothers me a little to have to finish a supposed "good read" with sadness
i'll think too much afterwards
and i'll never get anything else done because of that

that's why we need some comedy
all this heavy stuff weighs down too much
i can feel it in my brain and my chest
honestly i feel like my brain just gained an extra pound
not necessarily in smartness or knowledge
just uncomfortably weighing down

no i don't have a medical condition
i'm sure i can be the only one with these sort of post-read mental...hindrances

anyway
that's why i love making people laugh,
i'm actually glad to make people laugh their asses off and all that trite stuff like "laughter is the best medicine" or watever.
Trite Truth though.

there are some people out there who wants to make you think
and then there are those who can make you laugh
but there are also those who can make you do both

i think that's the best way to absorb knowledge; laughing your way through it
enjoying the ride

now that i think about it, if there was a good book  - a supposed good story
and it was the best story in the world, winning all the awards and all that but it was also the best of all time
like it beat out all the great fiction writers of human history
a super book,
but if it made you depressed in the end, made you cry harder than any other book
i mean if that's what it takes to read this book, to absorb the best of the best knowledge from it,
then i wouldn't do it.
i'll just buy myself a chris rock show ticket.

once in a while is alright
but when so called "good books" get to only be depressing sob stories, then it's not worth reading
if that's what the critics like and if that's what people are following then forget it

do what you like
but for me, i like a good laugh every once in a while.
i'll get depressed easily just from not laughing enough

revamping the blog

yea just a little quick post about the new design
it's been a long time so i thought i decided it was time for a change

i thought it would take a short amount of time to find a suitable background
but i forgot that there were so many choices!
so yea after several minutes i settled on this mountain picture.
i'll stick with it and see how i'll feel about it later.

right,
cheers. 

thoughts on advise

just had a thought today
before i do homework and other stuff
and i decided to share it

anyway
so about advise.
i think that generally, listening to other people give you advise doesn't really help you
let me explain a bit

usually when you listen to other people give advise to you, you just sort of zone out or let it leak out the other ear. basically you just forget about it and you move on. course maybe a few dregs might stay in your mind, you know, just to file it away like in the "history" section of your gathered information.

besides just mindlessly forgetting about it, there are other ways of ignoring advise.
like if you can't take criticism, whether it's constructive or not because of pride or watever.
i know that happens to me a lot.

other times i try to remember advise on life that some elderly person gives me but i always manage to forget it.

Sometimes forgetting the advise is on purpose and sometimes it's not. Either way, it's useless just listening to someone tell you what to do or what not to do.

Because you don't really learn from it. Watever the subject matter, however important that advise is, you won't really learn it if you don't have some sort of concrete experiences that gives to a concept of an advise that would otherwise just float around in the air.

people only REALLY get what people mean if they've experienced it.
whenever you say "OH i know what you mean..." you really do know because at some in time you've had an experience that provides the whole works of it like a wikipedia page.

for example, if you, let's say, went swimming once.
you have an entirely and thoroughly researched file on that subject now.
you know what the water feels like
what the pool smells like
what the bubbles in the hot tub felt like
how shallow is the shallow side
how deep is the deep side
the common places where people leave their change
people secretly urinating in the pool
i mean the whole works
and especially if you liked swimming or watever

you learn a shit load more than just reading a book on swimming and seeing "swimming is fun. The water is nice." it's just a concept if you've never practiced and tested it out.
it's kinda scientific in that way with the whole scientific method business

you i think that when it comes to advise, the only way heart and brain goes "DAMN i get it now!" is when you are out and about finding your own advise.

the people who gives advise (in a genuine manner that is) are the people who've experienced it and are trying to pass down their knowledge and shit. Which is all good, cuz they want to prevent others from making that same mistake and stuff. You can follow it, but it's not really learning.

if you came to a fork in the road and you've got two paths, and one guy tells you to take the left one cuz the right one tests your bravery and shit with dragons and other mythic folklorish stuff, it would be natural to disregard or not disregard that advice and choose watever.

and if you do just believe the guy and take the left one, great you just avoided some potentially problematic situations. but then it's like...you haven't really learned anything. you just sort of followed watever the guy said without any input on your own thoughts and intuition. not that that's bad necessarily i mean your still all in one piece.

but if you took the right path based on your own opinion and gut watever, and you do face difficulties, you have the great opportunity to learn and live by facing life without that old guy in the middle.

sometimes the choices are hard the risks are higher. But eh that's just the way it is. you just got to learn the hard way - even if that means years. after that its just a waiting game to see if you can climb out of your own crap hole.

srry if that doesn't make sense but i'm trying here lol

being foolish is the best way to get smarter i guess
cuz you cant get any dumber
make mistakes to learn. got to remember the learn part though. That shit's important.
but it's ok because learning is automatic - unless there's something wrong with your brain or watever
i mean you cant go around just making mistakes without thinking you should change something
learning is preprogramed.

anyway, it's all within reason of course
i don't want to end up having kids playing around with knives to "learn" about its dangers

A little relfection

so i looked back at some of the stuff in my blog
and yea i pretty much just post "what bothers me"

and i can justify that because i suddenly feel defensive and all lol

i only talk about what bothers me because it gives me a way to form an argument. The more i'm bothered, the more i can talk about it

because if i think something is good, then there is no real bother in talking about. I mean all i can say it that yea, it's good, keep it that way.

on the other hand, now that i think about there might be some "good" topics that i can talk about. But i think it'll end up in an "bother" type argument anyway.

for example, I recently became obsessed with the british comedian Ricky Gervais.
He's a good comedian, makes me laugh until i piss myself, and yea. Just overall a really funny guy.
Also his shows are all good, like The Office, Extras, Life's too Short, and especially An Idiot Abroad, with pretty much anything he does with Stephen Merchant and Karl Pilkington.

so how can this turn into a "bother" type thing?
well first of all, after Ricky's hosting performances at the Golden Globes, the media has panned it as bad and stuff.

Which "pisses me off" cuz it "bothers me that" he's only making fun of millionaires giving each other golden statues. I mean come on people.

Yea so before i go on any further, cuz this was meant to be a short thing, I'll just end it pretty much here.

See? i've proven my point. If something's wrong, fix it. If it's all good, then leave it as is. That's the general rule of thumb. Something i've been unconsciously following. Also because i find myself i just sound better as a cynic. It's sort of my thing really. Sad thing, but nevertheless mine.

I was told I sound better as a cynic that's why. I was told that it was my thing. So i've just sort of unconsciously stuck to it. well, now that i'm acknowledging it, i don't think it's still unconscious.
anyway, i dunno if it should stick to this shtick though.
Like i say in pretty much all of my blogs, I end up thinking that either i just written a bunch of drivel
or i sound like i have issues. or both
anyway.

we'll see.

cheers.

a little 11:26 pm thing

time to spew a bunch of random stuff now.
i do these things on whims now, before i had to plan. back in the golden days
but like a tv show, it's got to go downhill at some point

anyway
one of the things that annoy me....is my damn elbow
i have a funny elbow
i was told that
it has an extra bit of bone jutting out a little
so that instead of just a simple smooth angle when it's bending, it looks like a double chin

my elbow has a double chin

what's annoying about that is
i cant set my elbow down on any kind of hard surface, cuz it's damn uncomfortable to have that extra chin jutting on a table, setting my whole elbow at an awkward angle

but besides that, its a decent elbow. in any other situation, it gets the job done

but now that i think back a little, i think because of that extra chin, my funny bone in my elbow/arm is extra sensitive.

i remember once back in middle school while we were playing flag football, some kid and i were reaching like hell for this ball flying in the air but his arm hit mine at exactly at the funny bone part or something like that cuz next thing i knew my whole arm lost feeling and was just flopping in air
yea he got the ball

o well makes no difference i wasn't gonna get it
i just had to look the part to get some participation points

i used to be a good runner and honestly if i kept it up i would still be but i've been lazy
anyway the thing that kinda bothered me about that was that because i was good at running, people just thought i was good at sports...at every damn sport

it made me hella self conscious, plus i had low self asteem
i daren't got near a ball during a game and when i did i freaked out and lost control of the ball before i even touch - which makes more sense if you've experienced what i experienced


anyway that was my little thing i felt like i had to get out
time to get back to homework. it's gonna kill me i know it.
this weather is gonna be the end of me too. Warm weather always makes me hella lazy. On the other hand, I make myself hella lazy too.

Dunno what that means, it made more sense in my head

sometimes i feel like i should keep any half decent thought in my head so i don't end up sounding like an idiot when it comes out wrong.

Family

Goddamn
parents are confusing as hell
sometimes i know what they want from me but mostly i don't know what the hell they want
i mean give me a go damn break please

you know what, whenever adults say that "even though they are old, we still know what it's like to be a kid," they keep on proving themselves wrong. And it drives me insane

of course you don't know what it's like to be a kid again
you have vague memories of birthdays, laughing and knee scabs
that's it
that's all you can recall
and i don't mean that in a general manner
i mean literally, that's typically all adults remember
how much happier they were when they were a kid. End of story.
you forgot the other 99%
because you can't be happy every goddamn day
you're pissed most of the time and as you get older you just get more pissed

that's gonna happen to me i know it
because i don't know a single adult who still retains childhood memories that well
human history has already lasted this long and if somebody hasn't done it then nobody will

ugh i dunno, i'm not an expert
maybe there was some guy who did manage at some point but he was went unrecorded so nobody knew
actually he was probably put into the nut house cuz that's what happens when you look "too happy"
besides i'm talking about someone from ancient history - where it was pretty much 100 times worse than today cuz everything was huts, tribes and sewage

fully aware that i'm pissed right now
i'm probably gonna come back and read this one day say "damn, i had issues.."

but i do
i do have goddamn issues

it's gonna sound ridiculous and painful to say cuz it's killing me right now:
I wish my family is...awesome.

family is important man, it takes the pain to realize
for those who are reading and have perfect families, i can't convince you enough how much of a good thing you have - i'll just be wasting my time. No matter how much of a goddamn angel you are, you will never appreciate family unless something goes wrong. And suddenly it's not so perfect anymore. Then you realize that something was there inside you all the time and you never noticed it before.

family is like this core machine that is just humming and ticking away inside you.
if there is any glitch, you can repair it with a few screws and some super glue.
But super glue can crack and the screws will always come lose again. Nothing will ever replace the perfection that the original structure it had. Like i said, you don't know that it's there until you feel like something is missing, the regular ticking is gone or has gone haywire.

The glitches are permanent
you can never truly repair them.
and once you have them you feel like some internal beam has just crumbled slightly, like the pillars in old pantheon, still there, just broken.

You can be all tough and say that eh i'll just put it in the past and forget. To forget is to throw the content out of your brain so that you have completely deleted the file - forever.

and that's impossible. all you can do is just put it in the back of your head hope you don't look at something that'll make you suddenly remember. It's not that hard for that shit to come back to you. Your head is only so big, stuff is not gonna get lost so easily - if at all.

So those glitches, they are going to affect you for the rest of your life. Sometimes they'll lay dormant and you won't feel a thing. The wound is cleaned and stitched real nice and all. And it might be like that for so long that you think you have truly "left it in the past" and moved on. But it's only just fooling around. It'll fool you for so long that you'll be so convinced that you really did move on. You'll congratulate yourself.

But like the time when i saw this runner slip up and trip right before the finish line in the chicago marathon years ago, you'll find out that you congratulated much too early. It was all fake. After all that time, it was all a fake.

So you try to reason out what went wrong. Then it'll all fall into pieces and you'll react with horror as if your heart has just dropped and landed slapt on your diaphragm and sliding around there, weighing down like when you're on a hammock.  Now you see the big picture. The big goddamn picture. You were too stupid, too goddamn stupid to see it before. Like a translucent curtain had just been lifted and you realized for the first time that you were seeing everything half blurred. Censored.

And i fucking hate it. I really really really do. It pains me so much now that I can't even do anything write now but just vent it all out. i have to otherwise i'll implode - which i already feel like is starting to happen. My body is literally drooping with exhaustion and my eyes are only half open. Pain is tiring.

And there's nothing i can do about cuz that's just the way everything is. And it's been that way since. Plus i'm not a goddamn genius to solve a problem like this. Then again, i'm not an expert and i have no evidence that someone, somewhere, at some time  probably found a solution in their tribal hut full of sewage but it went unrecorded. You can never be sure of something unless you have proof.

Then you try to find the root of the problem. It's like one of those tough math problems that you think you solved but then find out that you did it wrong or something so you have to erase all the work you did. Go back to the beginning. Finally you realize with a jolt what the answer might be. You don't know for sure, cuz sometimes there is no answer key. Nevertheless, it blows your goddamn mind. Like a revelation or something. Then you downplay it cuz then again it might be wrong. The root is just of dubious origin and well...it just cold and doesn't give a damn about your effort.

well, i've got to do homework now. I can't procrastinate by moping. Yesterday I was laughing my ass off at some joke and today i'm just a wreck. That's what happens when you're too happy i guess.
It's something you got to pay for. Like when the doctor saves your life or something, they charge you for their help. You have to pay for help. Actually pay, whether it's from your heart or from your heart and through your wallet. You have got to pay.

That's why i like cops better. they don't say "glad you didn't get robbed, now pay up."
doctors are just scammers that way. One moment you're on the 5 o' clock news publicly thanking your doctor for helping your kid and then the next moment you're off camera and complaining about health bills.

ok enough, i need to get back to that homework. Can't tell my teachers that i didn't do it cuz i was fucking depressed.

But talking about this helps. A little, but it does.

i'll just say this for all the good that it'll do: i wish that everything in my family is alright.
in any case, in a rare case of optimism from me, some people have got it worse than i do, so i shouldn't be complaining too much.
when i think about it, it's not that bad i guess
but when i really think about it, it is that bad...


I'll try to find something cheerful the next time.

Chemistry is better than "chem :)" now

Jesus you know what's bothering me?
i mean
jesus, you know what's bothering me?
i think i just made it worse.

to clarify i'm not actually talking to jesus, although if he's out there he'll be more than welcome to listen in.
lost in translation - the digital age edition, that's something i will also be addressing a little

ok back to what's pissing me off at this moment
There are people out there on their email/facebook/etc. statuses saying stuff like:

"ice cream :)"
"watching a movie :)"

those make me sufficiently annoyed.
the :) is added not because out of habit, but rather to make it SEEM like it's out of habit
those people who put that are aware that they are sounding ditzy and pretentious by documenting their friggen boring, menial, daily activities so they try to mellow it out with a smiley face.
the smiley face implies several things, the most prominent of which are:

1. they have are having a blast all day everyday
2. their life is awesome 24/7
3. they are nice, cute, and bubbly people  - WHEN I KNOW THEY ARE NOT

godamn...i mean i know these people. i KNOW these people.
now of course i don't know know them like i know their deep dark secrets
but let's clarify again - i know enough - to KNOW.

but the stuff that makes me absolutely, positively, annoyed is stuff like this:

"chem :)"

before i go on a rant i need to give a little background story.

In the place where i live, it is not only good to be a nerd, but GREAT. i mean jocks (if there are truly any) have to compete with nerds. Of course it's not always black and white and the old archaic and typical high school hierarchy which has been ingrained by mainly midwestern high schools and 80s teen movies sometime seep in anyway. Nevertheless, it's basically a very academically competitive bubble of a place - which is mostly a good thing. One word to sum it up: asians. nuff said.

anyway so there it is.
so studying is good.
chem or "chemistry" is good.
:) "good"

now you've got that entire history of the place all jammed pack in to a word an emoticon.
it's a lot to take in.
and i friggen hate it.
Still not following? No problem, I was gonna continue anyway.

I'm not against studying or academics. It's a good thing. We're helping build the future of America and all that stuff...
but some people take it too much to heart and they like to show it off
they like to make out that they are smarter and ultimately better than you
the reason i hate "chem :)" is basically the same reason why i hate "ice cream :)"

because of these things that it implies:

1. they can do it all: study their ass of till the morning and show up to school with a smile on their face
2. (continuation of 1) their life is awesome because they are just natural jugglers
3. they love chemistry and is having a blast (or watever academic subject)
4. they are good at chemistry (you can't like something you're not good at)
5. they are diligent and model students
6. they are bound to good colleges
7. they are gonna be successful engineers and watever phony shit that they actually hate
8. they are participating in national science fairs in New York

But wait! there's more:

9. you don't like chemistry (even if you do - you'll feel suddenly defensive or aggressive)
10. you suck at chemistry and hate its guts(again, even if you don't)
11. you aren't diligent, you're a procrastinator (that's uncalled for because everyone procrastinates)
12. you aren't bound to good colleges
13. you aren't gonna be a successful engineer and wat not
14. you are not fattening up your resume with science fairs

oh yea:

15. your life is not awesome
16. and you can't handle it all

ok i'm biased and all but there is some truth in this
people, especially at this age perceive others through two mediums: real life interactions and the digital interface.

Most of the time you see them at school, and it's usually at lunch when everyone is just chillin'
that's 25% i'd say of your perception of others
the other 75% is when you go home and open gmail and facebook and people has already updated their stats.
and in this 75%, you get shit like "chem :)" or "physics :)" all the damn time
i know the logic and instead of devoting a paragraph into explaining this, i'll just give you a before and after thing:

"chem"     vs.      "chem :)"

see my point now?
the latter makes it seem like the person is actually and i mean ACTUALLY enjoying it
when you just HEARD the person complain about it during lunch that very day with plenty of inappropriate vocabulary.

*sigh
everything on the internet is....so masked
and i understand why people do that
i mean i don't wanna hear your deep dark secrets unless i'm close to you or you are in desperate need of help or i'm getting paid to do it.

on the other hand, it opposite gets a little overboard sometimes
everything sounds so happy - and that's not natural

anyway
here's my rant
hope you are...amused, to say the least.

Feeling bad for myself and Chocolate Bark - it's all relevant

ah it's been a while

thank you to all the fans who have stuck around all this time....hello?

just kidding, i know you guys are all there

and if not, well....i can be very imaginative..

anyway 

today i've discovered that i'm can a very selfish person

and it's not specifically by anything i've done exactly..it's more like i've just noticed these little things that i do all the time and it's piled up quite noticeably

no particular epiphany, just sat around on my chair with my snow jacket wrapped around my waist comfortably because wearing it makes me feel sleepy

that's what happens when you wear something or feel something that's too comfortable - you can get knocked out really fast

ok off topic as usual

so i was just sitting around looking at my desk, forgetting what i was suppose to do next, and think that my desk is really messy. 

then just for something to do or to see something that'll jog my memory (which i had just lost in the last 3 secs) i opened a drawer and found a Trader Joe's chocolate bark metal box with christmas themed and everything. 

i got it as a secret santa present a few years ago from some random kid who actually made an effort

Actually made an effort. ACTUALLY made an EFFORT. 

which consequently made me feel like a bratty arrogant too cool for school punkass kid

i mean i felt so bad cuz i barely tried. My only excuse - which now seems completely lame - at the time was "I have other shit to do"

the thing is, initially i felt bad, but then i realized that this kid, when i found out who my secret santa was, was actually someone i was annoyed of. 

i mean he will pile on the horse manure to sound nice and next he'll be bad mouthing - or so i have gathered from my minimal observations

but now I feel like a first class A-hole

Worst of all, for a great deal of time after the whole secret santa thing was over (which i have to admit cause me more stress than it should've once i discovered that people took it seriously) I still didn't feel any remorse or gratitude towards my chocolate bark gift. 

it might have something to do with the fact that i don't like chocolate bark with peppermint chunks all over it. it was dark chocolate too. i don't like dark chocolate. i mean they really try to make it..like bark.

still though, i guess feeling bad is something now. I mean i didn't even feel that bad before. 

...and that just made it sound even worse for me. I'll never be able to reason my way out of this one. 

all in all, i just discovered that no matter how good i try to be, i find myself full of shit anyway.  

goodness sometimes when i look back at what i had just written, i think "what is this drivel...." 

and then i publish it. 

cheers. 

Some Art Projects

Christian Bale, who plays Batman in the Dark Knight series
oil painting. Still in progress

A quick sketch I did after watching "zero dark thirty"
computer sketch, not traditional art
completed :)

Abraham Lincoln on oil painting
think i made his lip a little too red
completed :)