A Fire Escape?

Only when the door shut behind me did I realize that a moment repeated itself. I felt like Julius in the final memory of Open City, in which his hands held "metal, my eyes starlight, and it was as though I had come so close to something that it had fallen out of focus, or fallen so far away from it that it had faded away.” The sky had an unpleasant gloom, giving me no feeling of relief from the agonizingly hot weather of the week. I imagined myself alone, in "solitude of a rare purity", stumbling down the steps of the theater in total darkness to accidentally exit out of the fire escape. But this was not the case. I was in no blind spot, there were no stars, and I did not leave through the wrong door. At the end I looked at the sky once more, and suddenly, as if my unnecessary prayers came true, it began to rain. The sky turned into a gorgeous blue as the afternoon shifted to the evening, completely destroying the neutral gray of the entire first half of the day. Since my leg had been injured earlier in the week, I hadn't been able to process my thoughts during the high of a late-night jog. Had I become addicted to the feeling of running? Surely I was going through some sort of withdrawal symptoms. Now I was itching for the hit of endorphins just as I would cross the street into the dimly lit park, and upon which descending the hill at a breakneck speed overwhelms my body with the cold air trapped within the lower region. How demoralizing it was. Once I arrived home I tore off my shoes and reached down to massage my leg, but just as I did so, another wave of the dull ache made me stop and shut my eyes in defeat.

"The face of the world is changed, I think"

Since first I saw what I saw today. Sometime I wonder if I have a heart too soon made glad.

Heading along the road parallel to the elementary school, I saw a mother and her daughters as I approached the intersection. Just as I slowed to a stop, both of the daughters waved diligently to the car that was stopping to my left. My heart...! Upon completing my left turn I realized they were waving at a presumed friend in the backseat of the other car. I was caught off guard at how innocently cute it was, and at how it reminded me of my younger days of elementary school. For this fleeting moment in my day, despite its undeniable mundane-ness, the face of the world is changed, I think.

"Acoustics of time, domed time..."

 “Moji had brought Anna Karenina with her, and she leaned on her elbow and read from the thick volume—it was one of the new translations—only occasionally interrupting herself to participate in the conversation. And a few yards away from us was a young father calling out to his toddler who was wandering away: Anna! Anna!”

— Open City

     Teju Cole

Suddenly glancing at this line sitting inside the restaurant has put me into another state of reverie. Well most will never know, but oh my. It reminds me also of:

"‘Lo! Lola! Lolita!’ I hear myself crying from a doorway into the sun..." 

What is it about calling out for someone in vain? 

At teatime, everybody agrees.

Today my professor entered the room on the day of our math test with what I thought was a coffee from Starbucks. Between hopeless looks around the room while stuck on a problem, I examined his coffee more carefully only to realize that it was tea, not coffee. At first I was disgusted—and I pray that my face did not show that—but then I figured that it might not be a matter of preference, but rather that he simply can't drink coffee. Perhaps it was payback for my immediate judgement, but as I closing the lid to my coffee it splashed a few drops on my paper. I justified my hostility because his exam was unnecessarily difficult at times, and yes, I am absolutely saying that to cope with my incompetency. Baffling still was that he boldly displayed his Venti sized cup with the mystery tea bag handle draped on the outside as if that was perfectly normal. Honestly, no matter how many times I give tea a try, and no matter how strong I make it, a taste of plain hot water still comes through most of the flavor. I get the impression that it's the same feeling that those who hate flavored sparkling water (which ironically I love) get. The worst thing of all, however, is the agonizingly disappointing taste of a weak coffee that’s basically water with a memory of coffee grounds... Just throw it all away.

(This is completely satirical, obviously.)

Fun In Letter Writing

We have got to go back to the 1800s where people used to write letters.

Because I just graduated high school, I've been writing a lot of thank you notes to everyone who graciously sent cards, but because writing is a secret little love of mine, the thank you notes have transformed into a thank you letter, with one exceeding over 1500 words for seemingly no reason. Though it might seem tedious to write a bunch of letters by hand, I've actually found the process quite charming. The delicate process of drafting the letter in my notebook, revising and editing it in a blue pen, and then carefully transferring the final draft into a separate sheet of paper that smells like trees and books with a tint of beige is one that I'm starting to like a lot. My right middle finger has a giant blister, my hand is cramping, and my desk is a smeared mess of ink, but it's great. 

The practical use of letters seems to be dwindling by the second, which I totally understand, but at the same time, the craft of composing a letter start to finish despite our modern technology is one I believe should be preserved. It is infinitely more personal, more intentional, and more fun! It's like writing a personal mini-essay for someone where you can show off your best writing skills and literary elements to sound sophisticated and graceful. Since it's not a face-to-face conversation, you can fine-tune and tweak your message as much as possible to send out your best. Those who do it in an email typically have the advantage of using AI or other technology to aid them, but writing by hand makes it a lot harder (plus, then it takes the personal aspect of it away). And nobody is going to fine-tune a text message, thus letters are a great way to put forth good writing.

This afternoon, for example, I sat in the library with my notebook staring out the window for a bit trying to think of what to write. It took a while, but once the words started, the process felt natural. Just because it's faster and more convenient to type doesn't always mean it's better, right?

Spam Vs. Bacon 2

A trip back to the Hawaiian-themed restaurant put me in another mood to write, particularly because I wrote about this last March. Well, really, it was posted in March of this year, but it had actually been sitting as a draft since March of 2025, when the weather was unusually cold and rainy and perfect for this spot.

The restaurant looked the same as expected; the only difference was the annoyingly warm air outside. I suppose it was too late in the day to enjoy a gloomy morning coffee. Instantly I noticed two women sitting at a table, who looked like they could be mothers, both with blonde hair and a beachy baseball cap. They were dressed in beachside athleisure. There wasn't any doubt in my mind that I found them attractive despite their age. As they spoke I noticed the occasional laugh and heartwarming nod of engagement. Even at this late hour in the morning, in the warm September gloom, I could still benefit from entering a hellishly crowded restaurant.

        Just a few days prior, I was relaxing at a park on the hilltop between classes. At the center of the hill crest, there lies an affluent-looking steakhouse of a considerable size with beautiful outdoor seating. The design, I'd say, is reminiscent of a ritzy golf course restaurant, or something in line with botany and buildings stylistically wrapped in vines (although there are no vines). As I walked around the perimeter of the building, I noticed the several large windows to give the interior plenty of natural light during the early evening. It was house-like, big, and modern. When I checked the reviews on-line, the accompanying pictures displayed meticulously crafted entrées served on white plates and white tablecloths. As expected, the prices were on the higher side, and it's strictly a dinner restaurant. Recalling all of this, I imagined the two women enjoying a meal at sunset overlooking the incredible view of the suburbs and the university. What a nice place for a restaurant, I thought. The day I was there, at noon, I sat at a bench on the grass facing a gazebo wrapped in vines (so this was where that idea came) and surrounded by plants. Despite its midday emptiness, the park was quiet, pretty, and perfect to stow away in my mind for the upcoming fall and winter. 

        

A Short Trip

It was after Calculus, when I was in a daze of utter bewilderment at the new topics. I wondered if it was normal to feel lost after nearly every class. Walking toward the escalator, I tried to brush it off and focus on my next task, which really wasn't a task at all. I was to go just down the corner to the office supply store to buy another notebook, because as it turned out I had filled another notebook from inefficient notes in math, ones that were filled with wasted space and sloppy writing to keep up with the professor. Among these were notes from literature, equally sloppy. The escalator clattered on as my peers and I descended the uncomfortably tight room. There is something so stupidly familiar with the sounds of the middle-spaces that I have learned to enjoy. At the mall, it was the quiet howling of the sink—here, it was the rhythmic, mechanical hum of the rolling chain. In a way it also reminded me of the sounds of my printer dispensing copies of a novel late at night, so that I may write my heart out all over it. After doing research, I affirmed that by significantly reducing the size of the font and cramming as much text onto the page as I could, printing in draft mode was more cost-effective than buying a new book. It did not have the glamour or aesthetics of an actual paperback, but the value of words are not lessened merely because of how they are presented. How I just loved sitting in the leather seats of the car with the paper in my left hand and my coffee in the right. 

        At the bottom, I exited the tiny hallway into the fresh air. Phew. The back of my hand held the door open for a few seconds, and then I was on my way toward the store. And people can't even sit down and read a fuckin' book. It was a short walk. The weather was perfectly September: cloudy and cool even in the late hours of the morning. On the way I saw a couple of students headed in the direction of campus so that when I finally reached the storefront, there seemed to be nobody that were evidently students. In the aisle for paper supplies there were boxes upon boxes of brand new notebooks. Upon closer examination, however, I realized why they were untouched. I truly don't understand why manufacturers still produce wide-ruled paper. Annoyed, I dug around the back of the boxes to search for any others that may have been leftovers from when the store did have normal notebooks, but all I found were wide-ruled. No, I figured I did not walk all this way for nothing, so I picked up two interesting looking college-ruled books that were slightly smaller than a typical notebook—they'd do the job. I continued to wander the aisles, looking for anything that could catch my eye. A snack, of course! As I was grabbing the chocolate-covered pretzels, a man having a conversation on the phone approached the aisle I was in. He went on, loud enough so that I could hear, talking about how somebody was mad at somebody because of some financial issue within their relationship. I tried to eavesdrop as much as I could, but once he strayed a few aisles away his voice became muffled and unintelligible. When I got within range again, under the inner-pretense that I was moving to pay for my stuff, the conversation became impossible to relate to what he was saying before. Whatever fragments I was missing in the time he was away plus the obvious absence of the other person's voice prohibited any further intrusion on his business, which I'll admit was entirely unnecessary anyway. I lost interest and went to buy the notebooks. Four dollars exactly, said the woman. I paid, and left the shop.

        People-watching, or rather people-listening, is one of my favorite things, you know. I'll beat a dead horse and say that in Kauai, that was the second-best part of being present in any place. Even the mundane conversations, like "what would you like on your burger" or "I haven't used snapchat in ages", were always so interesting. The different subtleties in each person's voice, their manner of speaking, their vocabulary, and everything else in between were things I paid pointless attention to when overhearing conversations. This was besides what they were actually saying, which most times made no sense to me. Despite this, I find myself doing this often as I did in the store. At best, it feeds my imagination and gives inspiration. At worst, it doesn't lead anywhere.

        I only decided to write this because, on my way back to the campus, I received an e-mail that my professor had called off class. 

Finally ~ A Full Notebook

At roughly the end of Spring Break of this year (my senior year), I purchased a cheap little notebook with seventy sheets at the Walgreens down the corner. I never kept the original receipt, but it couldn't have been more than a few dollars. Just last week, I finally filled the entire notebook. Typically many pages of my notebooks go unused, and hitherto I don't think I've ever filled every page of even a small notebook like this one. 

I don't like to imagine myself as a person who puts sentimental value on things, but having a completely filled notebook is bound to have several significant snapshots. I did not use this notebook for high school work, thereby putting a limit on how I filled it.

Here are some things that were in it:

- The draft for the original post "A Tropical Refresher" is enclosed in that notebook. See bottom for the attachment.

- Drafts of letters (Many were scrapped)

- A significant, significant amount of creative writing projects. Some were supposed to be on YouTube, but I scrapped it. These writings took up more than a quarter of the notebook.

- Vocabulary from Middlemarch

- Other drafts for blog posts

- Towards the end, some calculus work (not high school work)

- Also towards the end, some notes on William Blake and Mary Wollstonecraft

- Several personal anecdotes (not fiction, haha) from Kauai. These include observations and some interesting overheard conversations at different spots on the island. Inspiration and spontaneous creativity are practically born out of things you hear in public.

I believe I only tore out a few pages here and there for whatever reason, but I promise that most of the pages remain intact. The front cover (black) is pretty worn from being in and out of my backpack, and the original white borders have a slight tan-tinge to them from exposure to dirt and my dirty hands. The spiral, despite being bent this way and that from shoving it in my backpack, has held up fairly well. I can expect this level of wear from taking it everywhere and using it outdoors. Rarely do I say this, but it was totally worth the money.

If you don't care for my description, here are some photos of it along with the draft of the blog post:

As described, it has standard wear. The white marks are sort of like creases. The photo makes it harder to see the tan-ish tint to the edges, but they are there. A bit gross.

The back. This part is in pretty good shape, actually. I expected this to be the first to rip and fall off, but surprisingly it hasn't.

Draft of a recent post, written in pencil. The rest are parts of that draft in order.

Overall, I wish I could keep using it, but obviously that can't happen. The new notebook I bought was only 35 cents. I plan on making another post like this in the future.

A Terrible Rain

Just as I was dealing with the most trivial amount of rain on Sunday, poor old Kauai was about to deal with another rageful hurricane. Today, as I ate my lunch of Spam musubi in silence on the steps of the lecture hall, waiting for my literature class to start, I thought of the island.

In a moment of pure imagination, with no real basis on what violent rainfall and winds would look like on my favorite parts of the island, I pictured the little buildings and elements of nature that make up my mental diorama of Kauai struggling to withstand the storm. Only roughly a month ago, I was running down the windy roads towards Kalapakī Beach, or hiking on the rocks of Shipwreck Beach alongside a luxurious golf course, or, most vividly yet, laying on the shore of Poipu with a novel and pineapple juice embellished in the coconut of my sunscreen. These were, in recent memory, the closest feelings to paradise that I could get. 

Taking small bites, I was reminded of my glorious walk alongside Old Koloa as the residents prepared for the annual parade. As I walked with a musubi in my right hand, I passed the familiar buildings of Koloa, which in turned inspired me to write more about it in this blog. My heart ached when I imagined them with an ominous gloom overhead, flooded in a mess of murky water and trashed objects. When I looked at images taken after the disaster, I was surprised, but also not surprised, that my mental image was basically the same. 

There wasn't anything they could do. The poems we are studying in literature are from the Romantic period, and looking at nature through a lens of sublimity, I find it easy to accept that we are at the mercy of nature. The only thing that can be done is to continue to move forward. My heart went out to my family and all the other residents on Kauai in hopes to speed the restoration of daily life. I know that eventually the island will slowly begin to return back to the way it was. Unfortunately, like with most disasters, the place will never really be the same afterwards. There are still scars left on the islands as reminders of Iniki, and I know that despite the fact that this hurricane was not as devastating, there will be some. 

So I finished the last bites of my musubi, knowing that the only thing I could hope for was that everything would be okay.

A Tepid Rain

 It's early September, but today--and only today--it is raining profusely. There is something about this blog that I associate with rainy days. Among the sound of the drops hitting the roof and the neutral gloom of cumulous clouds, I love the little rainy weather icon on my macOS menu bar in the top right. Looking back through my blog, I posted a lot about rain during March of last year, when according to said blog it was raining frequently. Hitherto, this year has not been the same. 

Regarding literature, rain is one of the best atmospheric symbols/metaphors for a scene. It can be used to convey several interesting emotions, and in conjunction with other literary elements, layers of vastly unique interpretations. One of my favorite scenes in Lolita, both in the novel and the movie, occurs when Humbert and Lo have a heated argument after he finds out she has been skipping her piano lessons to practice the play with Mona. The simple idea of the Beardsley house (Oh my god, the rain is really picking up now) lit only by the lazy light of the windows, the rain suddenly intensifying as Humbert calls Mona and confirms Lo's admission of guilt is an excellent tool not only to immerse readers into the setting but also as a symbol for the tension between the two and the deterioration of their relationship (which already started in the beginning of Part 2). You can imagine rain intensifying as Humbert's anger rises when ending the call, exclusive from his narration saying "How mad I was!". 

There's so many other examples (mirroring other emotions) in literature and film that where rain functions as a major symbolic device that's pretty hard to overlook. 

In real life, however, rain is merely a natural pattern of weather. 

The Terminal Radio

Because I've been messing around with Linux for the past few days, I decided the next best thing was to get FM radio in the terminal. Most radio stations now have streaming URLS that you can use to play a specific station inside of your own media player, so after poking around the internet looking for URLS for the stations I wanted, I made the choice of which media player I'd use to get it to work.

I went with mpv. It has a simple terminal interface that I'd already configured with my own keybinds. 

To start the radio, I typed:

mpv "stream_url" 

into the prompt.

Just like that, the radio station begins to play. 

According to my brief googling, streaming the radio via the internet (which allows you to listen to any station no matter where you are, obviously) is slightly different from listening to it with an actual FM radio. For instance, I noticed that during commercial breaks the stream played what I entitled "filler songs" that do not appear on the official station website's song history. They do, however, play when you listen on the official website. 

In order to conduct a proper comparison, I turned to the only real FM radio I knew I had access to: the car! Yes, it's common knowledge that pretty much all cars have a built in FM radio, so I took my Linux laptop to the car to listen to the same station at the same time. Sure enough, during the "filler songs" gaps (which can last quite a while), the car played advertisements instead. Konichiwhaaaa? To say the least, this was the first time I discovered this. Essentially, if you're in the car listening to the over-the-air station, you are missing out on several songs (that internet users hear) while commercials play. Even worse, because I was listening the same station for so long, I was able to listen to several of these filler song breaks, and it seems the songs they choose are vastly more varied and interesting than the ones on the regular program. 

The stream URLS are not immune to commercials, however. After a listening for a while without quitting or reloading mpv, the URL will start to inject commercials into the stream during the filler song breaks. In the terminal, I could see that these commercials were denoted by "adContext=abunchofrandomnumbers"". But, if you quit and reopen mpv during these ad breaks, the filler song returns (just like it would play on the website). 

Usually, when the radio host says the name of the next song, it indicates that the normal, real songs (that would be recorded in the song history) were about to return. I believe the official website omits any audio-commercials because the website is already riddled with visual ads all over the screen. On my particularly slow laptop, these consume an irritating amount of memory. Many times my computer has crashed because I opened the tab and poor little Linux did not have enough memory. Indeed, even on a lightweight distribution and using LXQt, one unassuming tab can overload the memory, just like it used to in ChromeOS. 

That was predictable. I am forever bounded at 4GB of RAM, no matter what OS I use. Thus I have to be careful when using my browser (and severely limit what I have open. YouTube notoriously devours memory, so when that tab is open, all others are at the mercy of it). 

This is where the terminal radio comes in clutch. There's something so charming about seeing the little "icy-title" and "pipewire" pop up in the terminal after running mpv, just like how a car might pull the ID3 tags on its shitty little player. Linux! It's a gorgeous day to be back.

We're back.

 We are SO BACK!

Don't worry, I already have my knee socks on.

I feel like I lost a part of me when, out of nowhere, my Arch Linux OS that was installed on an old POS computer nuked itself overnight and completely erased everything. I think it was because I let the laptop fully die, but to this day I don't know exactly why the OS just disappeared. For the months following this, I didn't use the computer nor any form of Linux--largely because I was distracted by a shining new Mac mini.

But I never forgot. I still remembered how frustrating (yet rewarding) it was to install Arch Linux from scratch, in the middle of the night on a weekday. I remembered how surreal it felt to be finally greeted by Konqi on a bright screen saying "Welcome to KDE Plasma!" after many, many attempts. And, I remembered how much fun I had experimenting with Hyprland and making a YouTube video on it.

All I wanted now was to get this OS back, so yesterday I randomly decided that it was time. After all, it has only made me rage about 3 times (that I can actually remember). I installed it rather unfaithfully with archinstall, but I figured I had nothing to prove. It worked, and now I'm back for good, with (I think) no chance of it nuking itself.

I had to choose a lighter desktop environment, because despite how much I wanted to convince myself that this computer could still realistically handle KDE Plasma, I knew it simply could not. For the few hours I did have KDE, the computer was quite slow and crashed frequently. Luckily, Lxqt is still a pretty solid DE despite not being as flashy and aesthetically pleasing as KDE (and, in my case, the experience I remember the most from last year).

Although it took around two hours today to configure my cursor and more hours annoyingly configuring ALL of the settings and tweaks that I honestly don't remember doing on my first install, I wouldn't trade Linux for anything.

A Tropical Refresher

I am astutely aware that I've neglected this blog for quite some time now. You see, it's quite difficult to brainstorm what to write, and coupled with the fact that this site has no true focus or specificity, I find it takes more energy to merely start than to actually compose. But obviously, I have started again. My soul yearned to put down the narrative pieces of my day, and I fear there is no better place to do so than here, where I essentially have no parameters to what I post—for better or for worse.

A few days ago, I was invited by a relative to join them at a water park a few cities away. At first, I politely yet adamantly declined. Water parks aren't necessarily how I envisioned spending the last part of my summer, and less was I intrigued after coming back from such a dreamy time in Kauai. Although I declined, I was greeted by a text message later that evening saying that they had already bought the ticket. Now practically forced to say yes, I convinced myself that it might be an interesting way to spend the day.

Once we were on the road, my relative informed me that a friend of my younger cousin was to meet us there. It was apparently supposed to be a surprise, but I'm sure both of them knew each other was coming.

I hadn't known. I thought that, upon hearing this, I'd be awkwardly jostled between a "surprise" playdate with two people I hardly knew, but I can say now that this wasn't true. Everything was fine. I'm comfortable being alone anyway. 

They arrived shortly after us. It was she, her mother, and her younger sister. Immediately they wanted to merge into the lazy river, so without even having a say I joined them (my three cousins, plus the friend and her sister). The water was so shallow that I waded through the entire course like I was walking on a track. Maybe it was in my head, but the water—although technically blue—looked slightly murky. There was something so soothing about the repeated swishing of the water each time I dragged my legs. The slow-paced wade moved my mind out of the water park and into the picturesque sands of Polihale, moving closer and closer to the honey-hued sky of approaching dusk. All of a sudden, as if those around me heard my thoughts aloud and responded to my pointless longings of my past vacation, a violent splash of cold water on my back by a stranger child took me out of my trance, right back under the dry sun and into the chlorinated "river". It likely would have been less alarming had I been in the present.

The friend exchanged little words with me, and once we exited the river, the two went off to ride the taller slides. They invited me to come with them, but it was a hard pass; I hate the feeling of roller coasters.

It was then that I was completely on my own, left to wander aimlessly through the park. Strange. I glanced at so many people in a fascinating middle space between attractions or pools, where they walked in anticipation for the next hit of adrenaline, the high from their previous activity still lingering on their faces. They walked in a line, laughing and talking with pink-tinged cheeks as their faces slowly became morphed into one semi-consistent set of people. Don't be mistaken. I did not adapt a "main character" mindset where everyone around me was merely a non-playable character (to put it into my generation's terms). I was actually unconventionally interested in nearly everyone's business. I wanted to know what they spoke about, if they lived near or far, and who they were... Despite my curiosity, however, the image of the countless faces did little to reduce my growing feeling of isolation. So I did what any person would naturally do when they have nothing to occupy the empty parts of their mind—I continued observing. This special astuteness came to me in Kauai when, drifting between the crowds of people, I suddenly realized how interesting they might be (as I did that day). It's a shame that I'd never know. I kept going, hearing a mother tell her child to stay put somewhere on a bench; but where was she headed? Then I passed by the Icee stand where several groups stood in line, and it reminded me of the time when I was in line for a burger shop with a brutal sunburn. No to a big burger? Besides people, there was little to look at in my setting; the sun was high, there were no clouds, and to my dismay there was an off-putting brownish tint to the sky. All the walking—and not really getting on any attractions—was beginning to wear on my legs, so eventually I retreated to our spot to sit and think.

I hardly got a few minutes to sit when, out of nowhere, the entire group came back to the seats. Was this the point where the disc jockey was playing “Shake it Off” by Swift? I can’t remember precisely, but I know for a fact it played. The two girls look liked they were enjoying themselves, but they said they had only been able to ride one slide. The line was that long? My relative asked where I'd been. I told them I was in the lazy river (I took another trip there in the midst of my wandering to float away like a lazy, unthoughtful bum). Great, great, they said.

We all agreed that we were hungry, so we headed toward the only "restaurant" in the park. Boy, was it expensive. As I was collecting condiments and napkins, the friend decided to exchange more dialogue with me.

"So, you're going to college?"

I nodded slowly.

"You drive?"

Nodded slowly.

"What car do you drive?"

"Honda," I muttered.

"Do you have a girlfriend?"

No. 

"Oh" was the only thing she said, and with that, the conversation was over. 

We ate at our spot in the heat, but I was too hungry to even think anymore. The girls complained that they couldn't get their drink because there was too many bees flying around. I went to see for myself, and they weren't lying: the bees swarmed the fountain like madmen, desperate for the smallest drop of soda. That made sense.

Once we finished eating, the girls wanted to go on more slides, so I left the group again to do my own thing. I found myself in a line for a significantly smaller slide. Despite this embarrassing choice, the view from above was incredible. I could see all the tiny figures crawling across the paths of the park, and looking out past the grounds were the freeways and streets that fed into this surprisingly isolated spot.  

Don't look around. Don't look around. Don't look— No sooner had I reached halfway up the stairs then I am stopped in my tracks, forced to wait in a line, forced to look around. Line moves a little. I glimpsed up and to the right of me to see three girls that I think were a couple of years my junior. They reminded me of a larger group of girls I passed on a hike in a relatively close area to this park, near the beach. And those girls' conversation was incredibly intriguing. "Well, my 18th birthday is soon, and something something we were supposed to go indoor skydiving... something something..." In fact, when I reached the bottom of the hike I saw them getting into their expensive white car. I feel elevated just being here. Just as easily I could imagine them saying, "But Da-ad, I wanted a white Volvo, not a BMW!" 

I tried my best to ignore the group on the slide, but it was impossible not to eavesdrop. Their conversation interested me, even though I couldn't make out most of it. Line moves a little. Up three steps. Out of the corner of my eye I see the middle one shoot the quickest and most subtle side-eye ever. But not slick enough, I am observing too astutely. I acted like I didn't see it. Keep looking out across the park. I leaned against the warm, sun-baked railing, admiring the view and the quiet, when finally I was standing just in front of the green slide. It was my turn! My heart fluttered in childish excitement. Of course teenagers can still enjoy water slides. Down I went, settling into the shock of the cold water, down, down. Inside the slide is perhaps the only time you truly get to yourself with almost no noise besides the sound of rushing water. In an unexpected way, the slide—and not the park as a whole—was how I was meant to enjoy my last days of summer.

Upon reaching the bottom, all of the clammer returned, and I was taken out of my short moment of peace. I continued to ride the smaller slides, ironically reveling the lines more than the slide itself. I picked up on a few interesting conversations between stranger families and friends, but unfortunately I cannot remember what was said verbatim to jot them down. 

Towards the end of the day, I went to the wave pool with my cousin and her friend as the last thing to do. The disc jockey was long gone by this point, so the only noises that filled the air were the sounds of everyone's chatter, the sloshing of the water, and the occasional buzzer that signaled the start of the waves. The waves rocked me up and down in an extremely rhythmic and predictable pattern, each with a mechanically equivalent force and height. In other words, it was nothing like the real ocean. A woman next to me sang the words to “Midnight Sun” as she floated about on her back—how odd! I remained stolid in the pool, even as everyone else seemed overwhelming amused by them. I missed the pristine waters of Poipu, gardens of green, symbols of my passion. 

After it was all over, all over, I was instantly and totally longing to go back already. 

The Town

Koloa was—is—a very cute little town. It's obvious that many other people around the States agree, for it is quite crowded during the summertime. I believe I've been there many times when I was young, but even with what hazy memories I have left, I know it didn't used to be so crowded. But nevermind this. No matter how many people are there, Koloa's charm is much the same—if not better. It's laid out in a line, with one margin having virtually nothing but trees and grass space, and the other side having some of the buildings raised on stilts. Along the Poʻipū road side is the famous fish market, and heading North towards Koloa road is where I think it begins to look like that the very cute old town. Unsurprising! A popular little town with so much history, in the southern side of the garden isle that's relatively close to Best Beach, it's no wonder I now think of it as an alternate snapshot of those dreamy towns in Lolita.  Except for the fact that it obviously isn't on the mainland, Koloa is as distortedly reflective to Kasbeam or Elphinstone as my new experiences and readings will allow it to be. That is, a lot.

Summer Saturday and Sunday

Saturday morning runs are the absolute best. Once I turn off the side street, the neighborhood seems to come alive again. Children are playing at the nearby park or riding their bikes, and couples are walking their dogs with a coffee in hand. As I zip by the houses, a sudden, strong smell of pancakes and fried bacon lingers for a few moments. It always catches me off guard (in a good way), and I like that I don't know what house it comes from. That alone makes it worth it, especially since I never get these smells on any other day of the week.

Then Sunday comes around. And it really, really reminds me of this poem by Louis MacNeice.

Sunday Morning

Down the road someone is practising scales, 
The notes like little fishes vanish with a wink of tails, 
Man's heart expands to tinker with his car 
For this is Sunday morning, Fate's great bazaar; 
Regard these means as ends, concentrate on this Now, 

And you may grow to music or drive beyond Hindhead anyhow, 
Take corners on two wheels until you go so fast 
That you can clutch a fringe or two of the windy past, 
That you can abstract this day and make it to the week of time 
A small eternity, a sonnet self-contained in rhyme. 

But listen, up the road, something gulps, the church spire 
Open its eight bells out, skulls' mouths which will not tire 
To tell how there is no music or movement which secures 
Escape from the weekday time. Which deadens and endures.

Seriously, these Saturday and Sunday mornings won't last forever. If the following Monday isn't already dreadful enough, then surely the passage of time to our deaths is! 

I love the line: "Regard these means as ends, concentrate on this Now,". Sure, we can do these great things to achieve something down the road, but what I think is more important is to enjoy the present and live in the moment. I could run intensely to train for a marathon, but I'm gonna continue to enjoy my morning runs.

Then comes the line: "A small eternity, a sonnet self-contained in rhyme." Just like a sonnet, the Sunday morning feels perfect and whole and like it could last forever, away from our life... Cue the song "Perfect Day" from Legally Blonde. Saturday and Sundays really do feel like this song sometimes. I've talked about the freshness of Saturday mornings with coffee in my In-N-Out mug writing in this blog. 

But then..

"how there is no music or movement which secures / Escape from the weekday time."

Oh god. No amount of morning runs, coffee, sleeping in, pancake breakfasts, reading in the sun, sitting in the grass at the park, or ANY other pleasant activity in which we live in the moment can save us from the 

"weekday time". That is, Monday and its depressing routine. Or wait. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and ALL of the shit we do during those days. Work, school, chores, meetings, and other mandatory things that are ultimately aging us and leading us until the day we die.

Then the final line: "Which deadens and endure". 

Time is slowly killing us, but will last forever and do the same to the next generation of lives way after we've died.

While this poem may sound grim, it's not entirely saying bad things. Basically, we can enjoy the Saturday and Sunday mornings. Living in the moment and enjoying life's pleasantries is good for our soul. The "Perfect Day" does exist, but it is not forever.... Cue the poem by Robert Frost: "Nothing Gold Can Stay". Just kidding. 

But really. We should actually live in the moment while we can. 

Grab a coffee, grab a book, and let's escape reality for a bit in the sun. Monday's a whole 24 hours away.

Unable to Sleep

I am writing this because, for whatever reason, I am unable to fall asleep. I blame it on the temperature in my room. It's the best worst time of year again, so that means drowsily sunny afternoons and stuffy nights. Isn't it so irritating when you have the ceiling fan on to the max and the windows wide open, but the room still remains hot because there isn't even the slightest draft outside to pull the cold air in? Believe me, it's cool outside, but sometimes the air just doesn't want to settle inside the room. More annoyingly, some nights it will, and it's one of the greatest feelings in the world as you're lying awake in bed. Then, the very next day, the temperature will be lower during the peak heat hours but hotter at night because there's no breeze. I was thinking idly about running a large tower fan pointed straight at my pillow all night, but it's way too noisy and wastes electricity.

Obviously, I have little to complain about right now. The temperature during the day has actually been quite mild for summer, which only leads me to believe that August will be hellish. I fuckin' hate August. Every year, without fail, it seems to have the absolute worst weather of the year, and for most people it's when the looming return of school begins to creep up. I know people complain about the winter months (especially January), but I love these months for the early darkness, and I never have sleepless nights in the winter. 

Writing this has not made me any more sleepy or ready to crash, so now I'm going to sit here uncomfortably in this chair until I prefer to lay in my bed, and then hopefully that satisfaction of not sitting straight up will put me to sleep. 

Welcome to Monkey Land! - The San Diego Zoo

Last week I visited the brilliant San Diego Zoo, one of the many iconic landmarks of SD and California as a whole, and of course, the place where the first YouTube video ever posted entitled "Me at the zoo" was filmed! The weather in the beautiful city of San Diego was... a gorgeously pleasant high of 70 degrees Fahrenheit. As I walked through the pathways in the Lost Woods approaching Panda Ridge, I couldn't stop thinking about the poem on the AP Literature exam titled "London" by Manmohan Ghose. In all of its glory, I remembered some of the lines by heart from reading it religiously during the test.

Here it is:

London

Farewell, sweetest country; out of my heart, you roses,

Wayside roses, nodding, the slow traveller to keep.

Too long have I drowsed alone in the meadows deep,

Too long alone endured the silence Nature espouses.

Oh, the rush, the rapture of life! throngs, lights, houses,

This is London. I wake as a sentinel from sleep.

Stunned with the fresh thunder, the harsh delightful noises,

I move entranced on the thronging pavement. How sweet,

To eyes sated with green, the dusty brick-walled street!

And the lone spirit, of self so weary, how it rejoices

To be lost in others, bathed in the tones of human voices,

And feel hurried along the happy tread of feet.

And a sense of vast sympathy my heart almost crazes,

The warmth of kindred hearts in thousands beating with mine.

Each fresh face, each figure, my spirit drinks like wine,

Thousands endlessly passing. Violets, daisies,

What is your charm to the passionate charm of faces,

This ravishing reality, this earthliness divine?

O murmur of men more sweet than all the wood's caresses,

How sweet only to be an unknown leaf that sings

In the forest of life! Cease, Nature, thy whisperings.

Can I talk with leaves, or fall in love with breezes?

Beautiful boughs, your shade not a human pang appeases.

This is London. I lie, and twine in the roots of things.

Now I think I know why I couldn't stop thinking about it. 

I left the group I was with almost immediately after we arrived at the zoo, excited by my solitude and readiness to explore. Ghose mentions "Farewell, sweetest country;", similar to how I was escaping the quiet, lonely suburbs to be reinvigorated in the great city. Before you highlight any contradictions, I don't consider a zoo (no matter how great its replication is) to be synonymous with countryside or nature. 

In the first stanza of the poem, Ghose lyrically bashes the countryside with repetition, listing things he's done that he's disliked ("To long have I drowsed alone... / To long alone endured the silence"). Ironically, the stanza disapproves of the peacefulness of countryside—where many retreat to to escape the busy and stressful city-life. For the rural dweller, however, the grass appears greener in the city.

I especially like the line "Oh, the rush, the rapture of life! throngs, lights, houses..." because, like Ghose, I enjoy the feeling of being surrounded by crowds of people and "raptures of life" that I don't know at all. The feeling of being swallowed by individuals and families walking through the paths of the African Rocks is not something you can easily attain. Just like the occasional child atop a father’s shoulders for a better view...how cute: “Get on my shoulder so you can see.” Ghose personifies the pavement: "I move entranced on the thronging pavement" (referring to the pavement of London streets), as if it gains life, a surge of energy from the "happy tread of feet" of those walking upon it! Indeed, every aspect of the zoo seems to come alive at the flood of people moving through. 

Can this poem get any better? Of course it can. I kept walking alone, making my way up to the polar bears, until I remembered the line: "And the lone spirit, of self so weary, how it rejoices / To be lost in others, bathed in the tones of human voices". Right! I was doing exactly that, admiring the animals alone as I listened in and "bathed" in the family conversations and remarks. Oh, and even in silence, for there was nothing quite like leaning against the railing of the enclosure next to everyone as we stood quietly watching the elephants eat. Somehow, it felt good to be lost in the others voices as I wandered silently from animal to animal.

Walking from place to place, I get to see a new set of faces each step I take: "The warmth of kindred hearts in thousands beating with mine. / Each fresh face, each figure, my spirit drinks like wine, / Thousands endlessly passing."  just love the way Ghose describes the feeling of seeing a new face, because it really does reinvigorate your spirit to know that thousands of others are doing the same.

So I encourage you! Go to a new place with crowds and take it in, enjoy the sites, listen to the "murmur of men more sweet than all the wood's caresses", and light the fire in your life again. The place feels better when enjoyed by many.

After all.....

This is San Diego. I lie, and twine in the roots of things.

No Money Spent

    Today didn't go as planned. After parking in the nearly empty parking lot of the library (I guess I should've figured something wasn't right at this point, but it is a Saturday), I walked to the entrance of the library only to find that it was closed. I was more disappointed than I want to admit, but the library did say it was open online. I had no idea why it was closed. Alas, I headed back to the car without even getting a chance to look at the books with a sullen face. There wasn't anything I could do.

    But it was okay, since I had fun driving back home with the windows down. Instead of spending the day at the library, I took my notebook and paperback to the park to read in nature (which I also thoroughly enjoy as well). 

$$$ → ↓↓↓

    Well, anything happening in school is basically coming to a close as I get ready to graduate (thank god), so tomorrow for one of my last weekends in high school ever I wanted to head to the library the minute it opens. Why? There's a built-in discounted book store in the library where I can hopefully waste a couple bucks buying a few physical books. 

    Oh dear, I said a naughty word, quite a smutty word..."You may well shudder". In all seriousness, I recently bought a paperback copy of Lolita because I've been really invested into the book (yeah, yeah, snicker all you want and call me that.), and only now realized the genuine appeal of physical books. Does it still seem like a waste of money to me? Of course—you're literally paying for paper with ink, and from novels that are easily obtainable for free. Obviously that's not the point, though. The physical book is infinitely more efficient to comb through to look through for passages, and there's something charming about having geography to the text so to speak. Plus, it is satisfying to see your progress through a stack of slowly accumulating pages (for I am in fact a slow reader) rather than a mere percentage. For whatever reason, the book also smells absolutely amazing; I think I've developed an addiction to smelling the inside of the page every time I read. 

    But does this mean I'll stop reading on my computer or Kindle? Definitely not. I still like the fact that the Kindle is able to have any book I want instantly and give all the formatting options. For every other aspect of books, though, I think it's hard to disagree that physical books are just better.

    With that said, I say "hopefully waste" because I'm almost certain that the mini store won't have any of the books I'm looking for, but I guess I'll have to wait and see.

    

PaperQuest (pt. 2)

    Out of fear, I looked out the blurry glass of the front door for any signs of a person, but there wasn't anyone. I could not figure out what was causing my fear, but I knew it had to do with her. Later that afternoon I called Jason to meet up at the burger place in his area. He had a kin to seeing the best in people, and unfortunately it seemed like I always saw the worst in everyone. It didn't matter what scenario I was in. Walking through the halls of high school was fundamentally jostling between a room full of two-bit, two-faced things. Worse yet, the deplorable men around me tried to hide their "drive" behind masks and thus behaved outwardly horrendous (as do the women, of course). Or could it be that they may just be plain, bad people trying to reframe their debasement as a result of this "excess of desire"? Regardless, how could I care to be surrounded by people I didn't know, and even if I thought I did, still didn't? 

    Once somebody in my class tried to ask someone else what game they were playing, and in response the other says: "Do I know you?". At first I was offended, but then I questioned why the first kid would even bother. I was about to shrug it off, but something inside me was still annoyed at the second kid's impudence, so I said pretty loudly: "Does anyone even know you?". No, I did not intentionally try to sound like some white knight, nor was I defending the other kid. I simply didn't like his moronic, rude manner, and if I was anyone else I would've retaliated physically. Besides, what was this plump little idiot going to do if anyone punched him? If I was the other kid, I would've never bothered trying to find these people out, because in the end there's simply no point. Thus, my arm stands still.

    It wasn't just one person, either. No, it was in fact several people, so many that I'd go as far as to say that an unassuming person would probably make a rightfully educated guess that I hated everyone. Speaking for myself, I don't believe I have enough evidence to come to that conclusion yet, but at the same time that assumption is entirely inane... Nobody was safe from my silent judgement as I listened in on their ridiculous conversations. On one of my lasts days in hell, I overheard a few girls speaking loudly and with the most irritating intonation about the tritest, most non-comical thing (I can't even remember what it was), hoping in vain that something seriously bad—so bad that I can't even bring myself to write it—would happen to them to shut them up. What is it with girls and their inherent inability to be quiet? Now, reader, I know you may be quick to roll your eyes and think: "What a sociopathic, arrogant narcissist", but let me assure you that I am not the only one who feels this way. The difference is, however, that I don't dislike school for many of the same reasons. I was never made fun of, never bullied, and never had any extraneous issues in my life. Even with my relatively smooth living, I could never enjoy it.

    I believe part of my cynicism was in part due to where I went to school, too. Once I attended a theatre performances early in the eighth semester (about to be freed!) at another high school not far from my own, and instantly I knew their school to be better. The grass was greener, damn it. I was about to enter the enormous performing arts center. My hands held the metal of the door, but my eyes looked straight ahead to the indigo sky without stars. The light pollution cloaked the sky, making it impossible for the stars to shine their way through. Nevertheless, it was a beautiful campus. The paths were illuminated by the intermittent glow of the street light, surrounded by flourishing grass kissed with the sweet, brisk air of early Spring. I imagined myself sitting on the outskirts of campus indulging in a read before class. Better yet, I thought of a lonely walk around the baseball fields with a hand in my pocket, hearing the crunching of the granular dirt in the infield as my mind wandered aimlessly. The students from the school wearing their sunshine faces didn't help make me feel better either. A twinge of jealousy and longing spread throughout my mind that day. How I wished I could've had even a sliver of this environment. Something inside me knew it would have made me less cynical of the entire experience, but I brushed it off when I remembered how little time I had left.

    Indeed, it would be wrong to say that my judgment of people was probably clouded by my, admittedly awful, contentions—not everyone was purely bad, but then again you never knew... When I walked into the restaurant and saw Jason already sitting in the corner, I knew I had to tell him. Holes began to appear in the plush of the "comfort "of senior year, ones that I'd begged for to disrupt the concurrent gloominess of the fast approaching real world. This didn't enter my mind at the moment I met her, as groaning with anticipation and fear of what Jason would say I tottered through the tables towards his booth. Then, reaching him, I boldly sat down without letting on about anything that was bothering me with a heroic decision to tell him about my uncovering, despite my problem sitting in front of me—he seemed especially made of steel right now. 

    "While I was standing there, I got goosebumps just looking at her. All I know is I don't like her." I said.

    Jason looked at me incredulously. "What, you don't even know her. She could be normal for all you know." 

    I took a sip of my water and slammed it down on the table. "Maybe you're right," I said. "But I'm not going to let it go until I know for sure."

    He sat back in his seat and avoided my eyes, taking a bite of his burger. "What the hell do you mean?"

    "Honestly, I don't know yet. Don't worry about it." I gulped down the rest of my water. 

    

   

(This is a work of fiction)

A Funny Moment

Today was one of the few days that I've felt happy. It was a long day; I had a Chemistry test and a Track meet standing in front of a four-day weekend. During the last Track event of the evening, one of my teammates hilariously started the race with an unbelievably quick stride. It was so fast that I heard nearly every runner in the race (about 25 people) burst out into laughter at the absurdity. Mind you, we were running a 3200 meter race, so getting out at that pace is not ideal. Racing is supposed to be serious, and typically people don't talk or laugh in the first 10 seconds of the race, but since it was the end of the meet and since nobody really wanted to run it, our minds were definitely in a place to laugh. That was probably the only time I've witnessed this. I think it made it better that the race had so many runners. 

And yes, I was also laughing until the 200 meter mark, finding it difficult to get myself together and lock in. What a funny way to end the day.

PaperQuest

Yesterday my notebook ran out of paper, so since it's the start of my spring break I decided to head out on a side-quest for another notebook. I guess my notebook didn't have enough to fulfill my constant flow of letters and words, unencumbered, numbered words; more pages and pages; pages for words; more words than I have ever heard. Fake things; real things; math; literature; on and on. 

    So I left this morning around 10 o'clock. The car didn't have much gas left, and because I didn't feel like paying for a refill and because the store was so close, I chose to go on foot. As I made my way down the street, I looked around. The day was bright and the weather cool, but a brown tint wreathed the horizon ahead. If there was one way to ruin a nice day, it was to be reminded of the displeasures of the current climate. 

    After about twelve minutes I walked through the front doors of the store. That heat... It was hotter in the store than outside. Annoyed, I hurried to the office supply aisle and scanned the shelves for the notebook. A pathetic selection of dusty notebooks that were likely second-hand leftovers were all they had, so I snatched three of the best looking ones and tucked them under my arm. 

    I checked out, placed the receipt in the bag, and strolled out into the now stronger sunlight as the automatic door made its wirr sound. On the way back I thought I'd be completely alone. I needed to be alone, for my mind was going crazy in anticipation. To my surprise and to my disappointment, I saw my cousin in the distance standing beside another girl whom I had no familiarity with. What was I going to do? I couldn't just ignore them—they were right in my path to the house.

    My thoughts consumed me while I treaded to where they were standing, acting like I didn't notice them from afar. My cousin perked up when she saw me. She waved with an expression of half confusion and half interest. 

    "What's up?" I began. In my mind I had no idea where this was going, but I figured a simple hello-goodbye couldn't hurt.

    "Not much, just hanging out with my friend," my cousin pivoted to her friend, then back to me. I didn't bother to look yet. "What are you... doing?"

    "Uh, I had to run to the store for some stuff," I said in embarrassment.

    "What stuff? Can I see?"

    She peered inside the bag as I opened it. "See, just boring stuff."

    "Oh," she shrugged. Then she turned toward her friend again. "This is my friend Cecelia. I've told you about her before."

    Now I finally looked at her. So this was the "Cecelia" that she mentioned before. She had wavy, chestnut hair past her shoulders resting behind her ear that was studded with diamonds. I stood close enough to see the constellation of freckles across her nose, and a pair of lightning blue eyes reflecting the sunlight of noon. Worst of all, I swear, her mouth, in an idle state, was turned up at the corners. I shuddered instinctively in terror.

    So what was the deal? I was forced to break the awkward silence that followed, and I was also suddenly aware that in examining her I was staring at her.

    "Nice to meetcha," I said finally. 

    Cecelia looked up at me. "Silly."

    Her voice had sleep. A soft, husky edge to it, and it could be so sweet as to be scary. But there must have been some knife in her throat; her voice cut me at that response. I stepped back in defense.

    "What? What's silly?" I asked nervously.

    Suddenly she formed a cat-like smile and acted as though nothing was said at all. "Oh, forget it. What did you say your name was?"

    I told her my name. A bad feeling came over me, so bad that I knew that I had to get home right now. I gave a curt good-bye and sped-walked the rest of the way, checking with great certainty that the door was locked.

(A fictitious passage)

    

Composition Book

 So much depends upon

My blue composition book 

beaten with age and use

beside my pen.

Oh, it rests, but soon

I'll dig with it.

What's Your Yam?

Put yourself in the shoes of the Invisible Man in the "Yam Vendor" scene you discussed yesterday. If you found yourself away from home, tell me about a food that would evoke a similar experience for you, and why it is significant to you--is it connected to a particular person, place, and/or event? What would it help me understand about you and your story?  

Slicing the tape that binds the box shut to reveal the bento inside is enough to take me “back, back.” Every summer when I was a little kid, my family visited relatives in the gorgeous island of Kauai, Hawaii. Some of my earliest memories are of the entire family getting together by the sparkling waters of Poʻipū Beach, grilling or enjoying Hawaiian bentos after a great day on the water. The bentos have an assortment of rice, half a hot-dog, potato, fried chicken, beef, macaroni salad, fried shrimp, and other things I can’t put a name to. If nostalgia was a food, this would be the one. It brings me a lot of joy, whatever joy is left in the world, to see my younger cousins from California experiencing the island for themselves for the first time, just like me and my previous generations did years ago. Admittedly it isn’t the same anymore (the island is overrun by tourism more and more each year), but I feel Kauai is as impervious to change as it can be. After reading Invisible Man, my “yam” constantly reminds me of how much you really don’t know what you have until it’s gone. 

Unlike the Narrator, eating the bento in Kauai would have strongest effect rather than in a random place. In a way it puts my mind squarely into a temporary visit of a second home—one that I rarely visit anymore. Nevertheless, as soon as I take the first bite lying on the blanket next to the ocean and the humid breeze begins to hit my face, it feels like nothing else in the world matters, and all my worries drift out into a calming wave...away and away.

Picking a Side → What I really didn’t expect

 Well, I’ve got to say, this blog has shifted over the past week. I've started to use a pencil and eraser, which is something I never thought I’d do. I always told myself that I hated pencils–hated the feel, the sound, the smell, the effect on the paper. But, after giving it another shot, my opinion has significantly changed. I bought a pack of U.S.A. Gold #2 Pencils yesteryear and tried it out, and now I’m hooked. The dark, rustic graphite stands out on the page as you glide your pencil across. On top of being a good core, the pencil is extremely smooth. I used to dislike pencils because they couldn't come close to the smoothness of any ballpoint pen, but now I feel as though it’s unfair to compare the two; you’ll obviously never experience the same feeling. Even though I prefer blue ink over greyish color, the earthy smell and scratchy sounds that emanate from your desk makes writing with a pencil worth it.

Back when I was in elementary school–around eight years ago–I used to be obsessed with pencils. Admittedly, more than an eight-year-old should be. My teacher had a system of pencils in which each student would receive their own, brand new, Dixon Ticonderoga Pencil that had their student number written on a piece of tape, wrapped around the top part of the pencil near the ferrule. The good part? You could ask one of the teacher’s aid (that attending the neighboring middle school) for a new, fresh pencil anytime you needed. I loved this system. I would constantly overuse or ruin my pencils just to ask for a new one, simply because I loved the feeling of a fresh pencil that was long and had an untouched eraser. I seemed to be the only kid in my class who cared about pencils that much. I remember stealing fresh pencils from other classes too: one time I sneakily tried to stand in front of it so I could snatch it off the desk from behind my back, but I’m pretty sure one of the kids saw it happen anyway. In other words, I was a fanatic for a long time throughout my early years of school.

Now that I’m back to using pencils, I think I’ve rediscovered why I loved them so much years ago…

Spam Vs. Bacon

 Yesteryear as I was eating at a Hawaiian-themed restaurant, I noticed that the eggs with Spam were more expensive than the bacon. I always thought Spam was the cheaper option, so I did some research to find out that it actually is. The reason it’s slightly more at the restaurant was likely because they provided more pieces of meat. There was a slightly heavier amount of Spam than bacon, which causes it to be more expensive, even if Spam is just mystery meat… Or is it?

I love both meats, so it’s honestly hard to compare the two and figure out what’s better. Spam has a slightly unique flavor that can’t really be described or compared to any other meat. Technically, according to the company, Spam is made out of “pork with ham meat added”. It’s not really mystery meat, but I don’t really get a pork-y taste. Regardless, the salty, juicy flavor is perfect with a side of eggs and rice. The same goes for bacon. The smoky, salty flavor is perfect on a Saturday morning, even if it’s not that healthy for you. Oh, and the crunch is better, too.

If I were to choose one, I’d say that bacon goes better with slightly more things and smells more appetizing than spam. 

Either way, both are delicious. 

Remembering March/April...

We're almost halfway through the month, and already this March has absolutely not lived up to the last.

I felt a weird contentedness and an overall sense of elevated spirits last year, excited by my growing passion of writing in this blog and the track season that was in full swing. I think I feel less happy now because I'm realizing that my childhood is about to come to a complete halt, and the real world is about to hit me like a truck, as cliché as that sounds. Also, the weather has been pretty shitty (annoyingly hot), so I'm not able to post about the rain again. 

Here's a journal entry for my AP Lang class I wrote last year in April (which I know isn't march, but it's relatively close): 

The Google Doc File

Funny but only to me.

Today at another track meet one of my plastic water bottles opened up in my backpack and got everything inside soaked. Thankfully, it was disgustingly hot today (at least for a Californian), so most of my stuffed dried off pretty good after letting it sit in the sun. 

This has happened to me so many times before, it's not even funny. I think the cap unscrews just enough when I shove my track uniform and shoes in my bag with all the half-closed water bottles. As expected, all of my papers in the folders are only wet at the bottom. Seeing this, however, takes me back to the last time I was in Kauai and my aunt carried the iron from her hotel to a relative's house. The water inside the iron spilled all over the bag, making her book and her daughter's book have the same looking water stain as me.  What an odd way to get your stuff wet. At the time I thought it was kind of funny. My aunt didn't even seem too bothered by it. Today when I saw this happened to me again, I shrugged my shoulders with indifference and laughed internally in pleasant memory.

Liberty Paints

 KEEP AMERICA PURE

WITH 

LIBERTY PAINTS

Here's some notes I took in class about Chapter 10. Probably my favorite chapter in the novel (besides Ch. 13), and one of the best I've ever read. I was re-reading it and got sucked into the paint plant all over again—that's how well done it is.

Another panic

Yesterday on my way to school, I started to go without plugging in my iPod into the aux cable. At a stop sign, I fumbled around for it in my pocket and tried to shove the cable in, but for some reason it wouldn't budge (you can probably hear the internal "fuck!" through the screen). I pushed harder, but of course that didn't work either, so I gave up and went the rest of the way in silence. Now parked I shined a handheld flashlight into the hole, revealing a tiny piece of metal lodged in the bottom of the jack (now an audible "fuck!"). 

I spent the next few minutes hitting the iPod against my copy of Invisible Man to get it out until it finally relented and flew out. I have absolutely no idea where that metal was from or how it got in the jack, but for a minute I got scared this iPod would be done for.

This shuffle is probably one of the few things I really don't want to lose. I know people think it's "performative" or "doin' too much" to use an iPod instead of your phone, but this thing is small, doesn't need service, has its own battery, and just works. Apple Music has disappointed me lately with the unfortunate destruction of the radio and the new interface, so now I only use it on my computer and when I want to wear AirPods. 

No, I'm not trying to be different. I simply like this product for what it is.

Review: DJ & Arthur New Hope Episode 2

This a fun part 2 to the series they started a few weeks back. I especially like the perspective changes and the fact that we literally move into DJ's subconsciousness to fight enemies and ultimately level up. It reminds me a lot of the final part of EarthBound where you enter Ness's mind (Magicant). In my eye, the monsters he's fighting and the experience he gains is from his own internal conflicts and "monsters", and the leveling up after he awakens can be interpreted as a symbolic growth of overcoming said internal challenges. If you take it literally and in the context of the story on its surface, he's just fighting a monster in a dream world to get more EXP, like an RPG game would normally entail. However, the fact you can run with both ideas makes the video more enjoyable. Even if this was unintentional, DJ's quote of "I don't like killing, I really don't. I hate hurting things that have feelings and lives," can further illustrate the notion that although overcoming your greatest internal conflicts is altogether great, sometimes it helps to realize the root of the issue and the fact that the process may not leave you feeling glorious. In the case of DJ, his triumph came at the cost of having to hurt another "living" being, which could be diminishing the symbolic representation of his childlike self (plush dolls and video games).

If this isn't the case, then it also works to say that he merely defeated a monster in a fictious game. Indeed, the entire premise of the series more or less diffuses the inner passions for video games and skit-making to YouTube, and I believe seeing it all only in this light is perfectly okay, too.

Thank you DJ and Arthur for making this second part. Meantime I'll sit tight for a part 3.

New! Super Mario Desk 2: Yoshi's Island

I got a hand-me-down desk today that a family member wasn't using, thus I completely removed my old black desk. This one is white and a great deal smaller, but it gives my room more room and somehow finally gives me space to have a paper and keyboard in the same space. I can finally do physical homework with a keyboard in front of me. As I'm writing this I'm procrastinating on my chemistry homework. 

This is pretty much all I have to share today. 

Math Books and "Calculature"

You can infer from my most recent YouTube post (https://www.youtube.com/post/UgkxcWlsbQ-UTqbLsD7ipZcJYUlmtPIhrzZ6) that I'm sort of looking over the next concepts of math. And perhaps the only, only thing that is appealing about opening this book is the gloss of the pages. 

So I scrapped that and left the book siting open on my desk. Later at a track meet, a friend (who's in BC, super smart) helped me understand how to do it a little bit better. Another (BC) teammate told me that learning stuff from a textbook is hard because it often makes easy concepts sound/look much more difficult than it really is. That made sense. When I looked back through the book at the theorems and definitions I already knew, the verbiage and notation were pretty confusing. 

This isn't to say learning via a book is impossible, but maybe it would help to use it in conjunction with the limitless (pun intended) online resources. Or, you know, just register for a college class if you want.

If you're going to be a senior in high school someday, I'd strongly recommend taking AP Calc and AP Lit concurrently if your school offers it. That way you can say you took "Calculature". I know some students get ahead in math and take Calc before their senior year, but at the very least, I think that AP Lit should strictly be a senior course at ALL schools. 

As a bonus, here is the math my friend did during the meet: 

IIRC the question is on the left side, and anything that seems like nonsense is because it's other work from other questions or just explanations.

Don't accidentally

 Don't accidentally spill some 6M hydrochloric acid on your finger. It feels like pineapple on your tongue, on your finger. It should make sense to you why it feels like that. Still, scary!

A thought that rushed in and intertwined with me

Isn't it so characteristically American to gawk over Fridays? I guess I'm feeding into that—and flexing my American muscle—since recently I've thought of how satisfying the past Fridays of this year have been.

After admittedly being thrust into a zero period by a mistake of my own fault (that still angers me to this day), the world nearly crumbled around me. I couldn't bear the thought of being forced to wake up early for something as repulsive as math, let alone calculus. Despite my complaints and childish protesting, I did have to be the one that drives themselves to school to do calculus at seven in the morning. 

Looking at it now, it's really not that bad. I drag myself out of bed at around 5:50 AM to give plenty of time to eat and drink coffee, leaving the house at about 6:55. Every morning, without fail, I squeegee the dewy windows of the car before heaving my backpack into the backseat. Then, I plug in the iPod shuffle into my auxiliary cable, flick the seat heaters to full blast, and clutch the parking brake down as it disengages with a click. Normally I would scoff at a methodical, rigid routine like this, but the fact that it hasn't really changed at all is the only source of comfort I get from this zero period. No, I'm not autistic, I just like stupid shit like this that I can think about later.

Twisting between the windy heights is a rare time to let my mind wander as I stare at the yellow line dividing the empty street. I love the distinct sound of the car's engine only audible in the quiet side streets. Maybe this is the only reason that makes me want to go to zero period to learn about stupid derivatives. 

Fridays, on the other hand, are a nice change of pace. It's the only day of school I can sleep in, since school doesn't start until 9:00 AM. 9:00 AM! In my case, it's a weekday that has the faint taste of a lazy Saturday morning (another defining feature of this blog and my channel). I love seeing the sun almost fully risen when I wake up, and I love being the last person to the leave the house.

The drive to school is energetic and void of that dreary morning sky. An elementary school near our home is about to start, so naturally it nourishes my heart seeing all the families walking to the school with their children tagging along. When I arrive to school, the parking lot has a "high-schoolly" bustle and a good mood that's completely missing on a 7:00 AM Monday morning—obviously... Once I'm done saying my hello's and jumping between the passenger seats of cars, I head inside to the busy quads of the school just as the first bell rings...

I can almost feel the weekend.

I get it: my little pleasures of life are soon to change when I get hit with the reality of the real world. Still, allow me the time to enjoy it one last time like all my other classmates.