So Mr. Betker, you're back. How does it feel?
Excellent; I always love writing things in here. It gives me a sense of fullfillment that every day I can come up with something new to talk about.
And how is life?
Melodramatic. And I wouldnt change it for anything.
Speaking of dramatics, did you hear?
Oh, yeah, I heard about that drama. I got an outside opinion about it yesterday (Tiffany) and she thought it was all absolutely ridiculous. On reviewing the incident I have to concur. Only at Troy would a couple found sleeping together after Prom in some bed be the talk of the week. Just because they were cuddling doesnt mean they had rough animal sex. Then, that's just my opinion.
Animal sex. Awesome. So what happened to you today?
Not much, really. My dad was pissed at me last night so I did a couple of chores while he was away to impress him, dug into the innards of my motorcycle because it's valves are going out of alignment, and went to work. Oh, I saw a coyote on the way home. It looked like a deer and I considered chasing it around in my car. But I didnt want to get another ticket.
Your job going well?
Yeah, awesome. I'm taking over for the old closer. I love closing the shop so much. In my opinion, it's the best job in the store. I'm really worried about being able to get the week and a half I need off following graduation for my vacation.
Vacation?
Yeah, the White Republicans are going up to lake paris to party it up.
Interesting enough. Any plans for further publications?
Well, I noticed that I stopped doing recollections a couple of weeks ago and I dont know why. I really liked that section of my journal so during summer I might reinstate it. Other than that, look for another entry in the coming days thanking all of my close friends for the various things they've done over the year. I also plan on making a "memories" entry putting together a collage of pictures and words summarizing all that was good this year that I will remember always and forever. Oh, and the last day of school (or maybe the day after) I'm planning on "the confession", which isnt really as extreme as it sounds, but is no doubt revealing. Tune in.
Sounds like this coming week is going to be a party. Good luck and good night.
It will be. Good night to you too.

It's only 3rd place, but I'm somewhat honored because I was racing against people who have been going all year while this was my second race this year.

It was so incredibly hot today. I couldnt drive because my steering wheel was so hot and I couldnt see because I felt like my eyeballs were melting. Not the optimum conditions to drive, fortunately I didnt do much of that. More fortunately, there is a walk-in freezer at Albertsons. Score!

This heat wave better not persist into next week. Tuxedo's are uncomfortable enough in 75 degree weather, I dont even want to imagine the sweat and heat stroke that is certain to follow a 90 degree heatwave. Heatstroke is not a fun disease, especially on a night that is supposed to be as memorable as Prom.

So I've settled in pretty well at Albertsons and I've begun watching people. One of the unique things about a grocery store is that it's a very family-oriented atmosphere. The music is very PG and everything is kid friendly. It should be, because there are always alot of children, and I find this to be very interesting for two reasons:

First, the interviews. I love it when kids ask questions, because they are always dumb or funny or unknowingly insulting. You know, the stuff that we all used to watch on "Kids say the darndest thing" before Bill Cosby became senile. One of my favorite ones was a kid today asking how the holes got in the Swiss cheese. I started talking about bacteria and CO2 but then I realized I was confusing the hell out of the kid and just said "bacteria fart in the cheese and make big bubbles". Yeah, I wonder what his mom is going to think when he never eats the stuff again.

But even more interesting than talking to kids is watching them and their parents. Now, I realize that there does exist something called "adoption", but I also realize that it's not very popular. I know when a white lady comes in with a little black boy hanging on her shoulder that she's either adopted or runs a daycare. A little more shady is when you see a 60+ year-old white guy walking in with a 18-23 year old asian (daughter/wife?). That really sparked my curiosity because for all I know it was relatively taboo for white guys to marry asian women in 1950 so this girl didnt have much probability of being his daughter. I dont often see asians as adopted, either, so there goes that probability. Actually, about 30 seconds after I saw this guy and his female companion, I thought "mail-order bride" and chuckled to myself.

Man, I'm soo racist. I'm sorry.

So today's Saturday the 21st. Three months after my birthday, one month after the big birthday bash for Tyler. Good times have passed in this relatively short period of three months, including but not limited to at least 5 surprise birthday parties, a trip to San Francisco, a cruise to Mexico, and the slow resolution of Prama: every seniors nightmare.

That's all great, but it seems like my future just might be as bright as the past three months (minus the cold, of course). Highlights will include a half-week wakeboarding trip with the White Republicans, a trip to Morongo with the same group, a camping trip to Yosemite (sleeping in tents and all that extreme stuff) with some random friends, finally getting a credit card (which I promised myself I would do when I got a job) and a paid cell phone plan (doing it myself), and let's not forget the prospect of romance.

In other news, my ass hurts from standing all day.

In other news, I've only been on the job four days and there are allready things that piss me off, like managers trying to work in my section of the store.

In other news, Prom just might be the highlight of this year.

Or maybe not. Goodbye.

God it's nice to have a job again. Even better to have a job like mine at Albertsons. See, I work in the Deli, and it's like separate from the entire store. Although I have managers, they are store level and they dont have enough time to even pay attention to my department and the actual department head will never be around when I'm working. Therefore, me and another kid from Esperanza pretty much run the deli by ourselves, and it goes without saying that the best kind of working is that which is done without a boss.

Anyhow, I promised to write a little thing on Prom and my thoughts and explanations for my actions.

Put quite simply: I think that Prom is something that is supposed to be both romantic and memorable (although those two things are very connected). I could not see myself going with a person that I merely considered a friend to what is probably the culmination of my senior year. This is my primary reason for going with Tiffany: I like her, and I can at least pretend like we're more than friends for one night.

I had a couple of people trying to get me to stop thinking about girls out of our school and trying to "hook me up" with friends of theirs that didnt have dates. In my opinion, this is Prama at its finest: expecting another person to go with someone you have paired them with in your head without any real knowledge or care for what either people want. I hate to say this, because I have real friends that told me to go with so and so, but I truly despise people who think they have the right to tell me or any other guy who I "should" go to Prom with.

That said, I forgive those people because none of them are truly close to me and therefore dont hold alot of respect to lose. (remember: I dont hold grudges, I lose respect)

That's really all I have to say about Prom, other than the fact that I'm looking forward to it, and it's going to cost a whole lot. Luckily, I have a job, and I can work it off in a week and a half. It's worth it.

Well, friday the 13th treated me well. Let me count the ways:

Woke up this morning to my brother yelling at me that another one of my tires on my car had a hole in it.
Thus it followed that I took my dads SUV to school.
Thus it followed that he was paranoid that I would go fast and crash it because I'm such a dangerous driver with all of my 0 tickets and 0 accidents.
Thus it followed that I had to go straight home.
Thus it followed that I could not go hang out with a group of friends that I'm starting to feel really separated from.
Thus it followed that I felt kind of sad as I came home.
Thus it followed that the lady from Albertsons called me back to inform me that I had finally gotten a job.
Thus it followed that tommorow became as packed as a creme brulee.
Thus it followed that I could no longer do many of the things I had planned to do, and I had to call alot of my friends to cancel things.

Yet, getting a job, finally, makes up for it all. I'm happy, and that's all that matters.

I went to an old friend's 89th birthday party today. I cant imagine being 89. I'm allready scared of death as it is, being so close to it would be absolutely horrible. For a couple of seconds I came to the realization that I should be living my life to the fullest, then I realized that I allready do.

So life works out. As it always does. Good.

Today was such a down day. Went to school early and took a single AP test and then left. If it wasnt for a drug test that took way too long, I would have been home by 11:30.

Life is fine, 'nuff said.

I came home earlier today than I normally do, around 4:30. See, normally Friday's I try to do something at least somewhat social to hold me over for the weekends, but today I just feel kinda tired of people. Normally the solitude kills me, but in this case I'm feeling just a little happy - happy to be alive and some bullshit like that.

See, friends of late have been concerned about one thing - Prom. Even I cant resist asking the question, "Who are you going with?", which always leads to a big period filled with silence and coaxing but never really gets me anywhere. This meaningless banter has really gotten to me, and it seems as if there's no escape from endlessly telling people that I wish there was a girl I wanted to ask, so maybe that's why I feel better just getting away from everybody for awhile.

Unfortunately, I was supposed to pitch in throwing a surprise party for a close friend today. I honestly tried to be there, but somehow last night when I was told of the time and place, I misheard the place and ended up about 30 miles from where I was supposed to be. At the point where I figured out my error, I just gave up on the whole social thing for the weekend. I'll try again next week.

Yeah, sorry about that Jon.

Recollections today will be integrated into the entry, rather than being a section in itself. You see, there's this annoying habit I have with any music that has anything that resembles a beat: I tap my shoe to it. I do this everywhere: in my car I tap my foot on my dead pedal, in the crowded troy high cafeteria I step all over other people's shoes in desperate attempts to tap my feet, I even did it during homecoming and winter formal while I was dancing, which undoubtedly made me look somewhat foolish.

Sometimes I notice I'm doing it and I have alot of fun with it. For example, I'll be in my car listening to a rocking song and notice my foot beating on the dead petal and change feet, so I'm tapping the accellerator. I can only imagine what that looks like to people driving around me, then again I can only imagine what it looks like when you see me singing along to a song you cant even hear.

Now the question at mind here is: Where did this habit develop? After some consideration, I came across a part of my past I havnt thought about recently, my band years at Travis Ranch Middle School.

Simply put, the person who taught me to tap my foot to everything was my band teacher, Mr Topping. Mr Topping was a character. He was one of those guys you could see living at home with his mother. He would come to school some days and spend a half hour raving over his new gadgets. Specifically I can remember him spending our time talking about his new PA system which he had installed in his room, as if he wasnt loud enough allready; he also talked alot about his fancy bike. See, he didnt make enough money to buy a car, apparently, so he rode to and from school on a fancy electric bike. Now I dont know about you guys, but I think electric bikes are on the same level as Segways and those crappy Mopeds: too lazy to actually ride/walk/run, but not classy enough to hide oneself in a decent used car. Not only did this man tell us he rode this bike, though, he raved about it day after day and how he saved so much money riding it and all this bullshit and I cannot believe I put up with it.

Then there was his court. He actually named it Topping-court, and had the class been a class of law or government or something of that nature, this court would have been totally appropriate. But this was band class, and at least once a week our insane teacher would waste an hour of our time trying a random student for hitting a tympany or yelling in the bus or some other menial crime that never came out with any punishment higher than a lunch detention. Here is genuine proof that openly punishing students does not work: nobody, and I mean nobody in our band class respected Mr Topping. He couldnt even control a bunch of Middle School Bandos properly, he had to attempt to publicly humiliate them by setting up "court days" in order to subject them to anything resembling a "punishment", and he failed more times than he succeeded.

I can still remember those days when he would say "would the person who planted the stink bomb in the bus yesterday please raise their hand" and when nobody (shock) did, he would say "I'll give anybody who tells me who did it a dollar". Guess what? His bribery never worked. I swear the man got more pleasure out of attempting to control kids than teaching. I can only imagine him in a bar or something. Probably a laughable situation.



ANYHOW. I need to do some english and whatnot now. But first I'll get a healthy dose of Simpsons. Long weekend ahead, hopefully I'll have fun, because I'm guessing the coming week will be pretty stressful on me.

If you havnt allready learned of Googles outstanding new map features, I recommend you go to local.google.com and type in something random like "Pizza" under what and your zip under where. This thing is really cool for finding roads and freeways, but my parents introduced me to an even better feature:

Find a point on the map that you want to look at in detail, and then go to the upper-right hand corner of the map and click on the link that says "Sattelite" to get a sattelite image of that point. Obviously, military bases like El Toro are blurred out, but almost all the other areas in the US are covered with very good quality images.

Of course, for most people this is a toy. I could play with it for a long time and make that it's sole use, but I just realized when I was looking through The two mountain ranges surrounding my house that there are thousands (literally) of trails stretching all the way from my house directly to faraway places like The Country, Chino Hills, and even Irvine and Mission Viejo. Me and Tyler are going to go riding up one of the trails a couple of miles on Saturday or Sunday, but I'm allready getting busy mapping out entire treks that we can take to various places in the county. Sweet.

In other news, Prom might go good, might not. We'll find out tuesday, perhaps later. Maybe I really dont care.

Man, this cold is killing me. To think it all started with a measly Tic Tac. All I wanted was fresher breath, guess I cant trust dirty candies from the bottom of my backpack anymore, heh. I imagine that after I recover I wont be in a much better mood, Prom coming and all. I figure I should either get hooked up with someone or just decide to go with a friend. The benefit of the former is that I can pretend that I actually like my date for the night whereas the latter gives me a little bit of security.

Of course, those of you who saw me today probably either thought I was a downer or were told that I was sick. I've realized is that sickness is intoxicating for me. I acted more like myself today than I have just about every day this school year, meaning I didnt have a nice little thing called "inhibition" by my side. I think I said a little too much to some people, probably hurting their feelings or some other bullshit.

Recollections:
Before Christmas break 2003, I hadnt had a disease in eight years. Unfortunately the flu hit me hard last year, for those of you that have a sub-brilliant memory. I was puking out my guts in sixth period the day before we left for break and was confined to my bedroom for an entire week after I somehow drove myself home.

Before this year (I've technically been sick twice since that flu), I was relatively immune to everything. In all my life up to this point I think I've only really had four or five epidemics of disease, and all of them were violent. Probably cuz I'm a whiteboy.

Bitch: (adj) A woman having two or more of the following characteristics:
(1) Know-it-all-ism. Thinking you're better than everyone and literally holding your nose high relative to everyone else.
(2) Believing everyone is your friend. Inviting yourself to do things with people you dont even know, for example "I'll see you at your birthday party tommorow, okay?" (said to a person you only said 'hi' to twice).
(3) Helpless feminism. Parading around complaining about having to give birth and how guys are such sexist pigs.
(4) Dramatism. Puts yourself at the center of the spotlight by messing with your friendships.
(5) Gossipism. An offshoot of (1) in which you fill in the gaps of your knowledge with assumptions about other people. This is unique from (1) in that you actually make your lack of knowledge known, subsequently destroying the reputations of others.

I dont even need any girls. Just me and my shirt.


Thanks alot to Jon for taking these pictures. I swear, when he takes pics, he DOES it. There were about a hundred to sort through (and no way I was going to use the bandwidth to display all of them) and some of them are pretty radical, especially with the accidental blurs. Enjoy.







I couldnt get the damn meat out of the crab.


Best Picture. Ever.




I really like this picture for some reason. Captures the personality of this group of people.






Jon got a shot of my crotch. Sexy.



Hungry, and.....

Full.


The emo shot.


Moon was lovely that night.


Derek's shack.



I like the blurs in the last two pics.




Me with the party hat.




I got cut out of this picture..dammit.


Recollections:
I used to lip sync to songs on my CD Player when people were around me and they couldnt even hear the songs. Embarrassing.

Wow. wow. Derek's (birthday) party was awesome. I'm so completely glad I went.

One thing (1): I've come to love going to asian food restaraunts with my Asian friends. They force me to eat things I would otherwise never eat. My head is swimming from all the different sashimi and sushi I ate today, not to mention other less-tasty but necessary (to counteract the horrible stomach pains of a solo-sushi diet) foods like lamb and egg rolls and fruit and ice cream.

Second thing (2): I love having all-guy parties. It's cool because there's no level of nervousness or anything. You're free do say whatever you want to a certain extent. But after tonight I have to admit that I like bisexual parties more. Games like Twister and Kareoke would never be fun if you couldnt add in the "My sex is better than your sex" element.

After all this (last night and tonight), I feel like I aught to go to school tommorow. I cannot believe I have another free day. It's almost depressing, but I guess I'll just use it as a cool-down day. Maybe make some money or something.

Aside from that and the dilemna which is finding a person that I would actually like to go with to Prom, life is swell. Next weekend is the weekend I've been waiting for since Winter Break ended: the FBLA conference in San Fran. Hell, maybe I'll find a date to Prom there, but most likely not. 'Tis allright, much dancing fun and staying-up-till-3am craziness will make it a weekend worthy of graduation week (even though it isnt).


(1) Tell her boyfriend (who is also your friend) that she has it.
(2) Complain to him everyday.
(3) Run up to her and mention it and then make some kind of joke like "I just cant keep my shirt on around you so I took it off and put it in your car!"
(4) Say "Hi! Where's my shirt" everytime you see her in the school hallways.
(5) Have her boyfriend arbitrarily call her after school to ask her for the shirt.
(6) Fit it into every joke possible involving her or her boyfriend.

...the only thing is.. I havnt gotten my shirt back yet. =(


I dont really have any pictures because the dolt that is my head was rushed out the door and I forgot my camera. Fortunately, I forced a friend to take all the pictures I would have otherwise taken, so I'll post them here (along with that group pic from last night).

Recollections:
I got hooked on music in the oddest circumstances. In eighth grade I used to get really bored on the weekends. My parents were never cooperative with driving, meaning they didnt like taking me anywhere, like friends houses or anything, so I was often left to find things to do by myself.

Christmas that year my uncle gave me a MP3 CD Player and CD-RW drive, both of which for that year was on the cutting edge of technology. Unfortunately, I had no MP3's, but my to-be-cousin fortunately knew how to get them free. She introduced me to Morpheus (the first P2P network) and I started downloading tons of classical songs via dial-up. I would start 10 downloads at night and come over the next morning and they would be finished. I still have my first three CDs, it was quite amazing that I managed to accumulate roughly 600 songs over a dial-up connection, but my obsession with classical music fueled my downloading frenzy. I really liked listening to music and then playing it on my Clarinet (I was in band back then).

I soon realized that I could not just like Classical music, however, lest I be called a nerd or something. I actually needed to at least know some artists in Rock or Rap so that I could tell my friends what my favorite group was. It just so happened that just before my search for a rock band a friend showed me a music video consisting of scenes from Final Fantasy 9 (I love(d) final fantasy) set to the song "In The End" by "Lincoln Park". I searched on Morpheus for "Lincoln Park" and actually got a couple of hits. It wasnt till about a week later that I realized I was listening to "Linkin Park".

Unfortunately, The only song I initially liked was "In The End", because of the piano. Then I started riding my bike to Borders during the weekends. The trip took a good half-hour each way, and I needed something to do. So I brought my MP3 player with Linkin Park loaded up. And I listened to their songs. Even though I hated them I listened to them. And gradually they grew on me. At the end of my 8th grade year I liked even the oddchild song "High Voltage".

And for the next few years, up until the end of last summer, Linkin Park remained my favorite band of all time. It was my first, the band that latched me into rock, and will always have a place in my heart because of that.

Did Tyler's surprise birthday party today, and it was phenomenal. I must say that it's probably more of a pleasure to pull off a surprise party the way I did than it is a pleasure for the person to see all of his friends gathered for his birthday. I mean, nobody quite saw Tyler's face, but for the five minutes it took me to find a parking spot, his mouth was literally agape with surprise because he had absolutely no idea that this was going to happen.

One of the great things about Tyler and I is that we have virtually the same friends, so I found tonight extremely enjoyable. The number of shenanigans pulled and laughs had are too numerous to count so I really wont even try to divulge on all the stuff we did. All I got are a couple of measly pictures.

Oh, and I'm missing the group pic. I love group pics. I'll post it in a few days.



Frank and my gift to Tyler. You like it's wrapping job?

Tyler with his on-the-moment crafted foil-crown.


These were just random small-group pics we took. Like I said, the big one with the 18 people is yet to be had.

Jon had an "accident"

Sajil and Thanos dancing.

After dinner most of us went to get boba. We were hanging out in a parking lot at like 12:00 at night. Security gaurds were staring.


Too lazy for recollections tonight. Brain isnt working well. Tired. Bye.

First day of school on this side of the spectrum.

I was kind of looking forward to it, despite the boring veil that school has bedecked itself in. I have a new teacher, a new classroom, and in all my classes, a laid-back atmosphere. I guess I found the drive to and from school much better than school itself. I really missed driving during the cruise; so much so that the first thing I did when I got home was hop in my car and take a trip around the neighborhood. Something about engines and speed that gives me that giddiness I cant get anywhere else. I was coming home today literally laughing out loud for no reason other than my engine was hitting 4500 rpm. I probably look like such a weirdo to whoever looks into my window while I drive but hey, at least I can have fun.

Research project in English is coming up. I hate research projects. I hate them so much because they are so utterly useless. If we were assigned a yearlong research project on anything we wanted to do, it might be fun. I'd probably do nanotechnology or relativity or some subject that I'm fascinated with but I never got a chance to study, but we dont have a year to do the project (more like a month) and we really dont get to pick our topic. We're writing basically biographies on the boring lives of authors.

Forgive me if I'm wrong, but as far as I know there are very few people in existence who lead lives that interest me:
- Myself
- Churchill
- Napoleon
- Alexander
- maybe Atilla

That's just me, though. I like people who I respect so much that it's not even funny. People with honor and whatnot who were able to keep their integrity while doing great things. (Obviously I am not one of these people, I am on the list because I naturally have to be interested in my own life)

I was going through my 1500+ song playlist trying to pick out songs that I truly liked from ones I didnt really care for. What I was intending to do was make a playlist of about 100 songs that I really like and I would upload that list to my iRiver and put it on shuffle for a couple of days and just sift through those great songs, with many loud sing-alongs commencing.

However, I thought it'd be interesting to sift through the songs further than that 100-song limit and see if I could bring it down to 10 of my favorite songs. I got the list down to 18 and was utterly stopped for a good ten minutes. I couldnt cut any of them off because they were all so good, so what I opted to do was to pick the songs that were most influential in my life. Ironically, 10 out of those 16 had a serious personal connection with me so those are the ones I chose:
--in order--
1) Matchbox 20 - If You're Gone (Too may memories with this song. Just one of the best.)
2) SOTY - Until the Day I Die (This is the first screamo band I ever really liked. It really started me into the whole emo-scene and still is my second favorite song of all time)
3) Sting - Brand New Day (This song helped me through the period just before I changed my name. Confused, every morning I would wake up to this song and it would give me a glimmer of hope and happiness, which was what I really needed.)
4) The Ataris - The Hero Dies in This One (You guys might remember this one. I raved about it's message in my LJ for a good week. That one phrase "Stay..who..you..are", the only time the guy actually screams in the entire album, still haunts me.)
5) Matchbox 20 - 3 AM (There are so many different mixes to this song and it just reminds me of different girls I've liked and that everyone has faults.)
6) Sting - Field of Gold (Everytime I feel myself lose grip with who I am I listen to this. This song reminds me of Terry French, a great friend who has died, and that crushes are shallow.)
7) Lifehouse - Everything (Various people I have met because of my love for this song always give me fond memories of it. It also reminds me of a time when I hated it, which gives me a link to my naive past.)
8) Goo Goo Dolls - Broadway (This song reminds me of Yosemite, the Tetons, and Mount Rushmore. It's just a great song, the lyrics are freaking awesome.)
9) The Calling - Wherever You Will Go (I remember my dad introduced this to me three years ago and I remember sitting outside a classroom at lunch in a gloom listening to it during my transition phase. It helped me along greatly and gives me faith in the continuity of love.)
10) Something Corporate - Break Myself (This reminds me of my trip to Vegas a year ago (3rd favorite vacation ever), My Uncles wedding, the first (semi)concert I ever went to and it makes me smile and relate every time I listen to it.)

I've been driving all day. Literally. I got up at 5:30 this morning, feeling like complete shit, and drove to the gas station, filled up my tank, picked up Tyler, and drove to Santa Barbara for the Spring Orientation Seminar. Of course... I guess you cant say I've been driving all day, but I've only been on my legs for a total of four hours since I woke up at five this morning. My right (throttle/brake) foot hurts so much right now I think it's going to fall off, but that's mostly from the damn traffic coming through the basin at 5:00.

I must say, I love Santa Barbara, it's like the epitome of beauty and relaxation until you get on campus, where everything becomes extremely social. Not only did me and Tyler see more hot white girls than we could glance over our shoulders at, we saw sexual invitations on almost every door in every dormitory on campus (we took tours of all the dorms). There was the "take a condom leave a condom" basket, which I was sadly not quick enough to take a snapshot of, and the "OMG I'm cumming" sign that was on three or four dorm doors or the generic "I'm horny" that was on almost all the rest. This place screams "party school", so yeah, cool.

I guess when you get down to it, I didnt go up to SB today to tour the campus so much as to have a good time. And have a good time I did, whether it was walking on bike lanes specifically marked "dont walk here", creating tornados of dust with my car by gassing it in a dirt parking lot, or fighting with swords of bamboo on the Goleta State Beach.














Tommorow I'm off to go on my first Cruise ever. I'm expecting it to be somewhat like Hawaii, that is "warm and memorable". So I'll talk to y'all later.

Lunch today was excellent, tennis tonight looks promising, friday is starting to sond fun, Saturday going back to SB with Tyler, Sunday going to Mexico for a week. Not to mention that my weight is going back down to it's old medium finally and that most of my friendships feel really good.

When I went on my trip I talked about many great things with my mother: women, friends, my future, and the present, but I'll focus on one thing in particular.

I got my digital camera for a birthday present. Being proud of it as I am, I showed it to a friend, not immediately realizing my mistake. All of a sudden I was bathed in a field of compliments: "This is the best camera I've ever seen! It's so great! Where did you get it? I'm so jealous of you!" etc. etc. - all from a single friend. Now I know he means well, he's complimenting An accessory of mine that I value and for the most part I agree with what he's saying, but when people do that* to me I cant help but feel like I'm being flattered. I hate being flattered.

That's just one example. It happens to me all the time, though. The worst part of it is it's like some kind of bad form of intercourse: the person gives you a pat on the back and later on looks to you to give him/her a pat on the back later. As much as I hate being flattered, I hate it even more when I'm expected to flatter someone. It's a form of hipocrisy - eww.

I really dont like when friends tell you what they think about something and then stare at you as if you're supposed to back up. I'm one of those passive people who will agree with you if I think you're right, but I wont say anything should I think you're wrong. And trust me, I think my friends are wrong alot, so it my friends are in essence making it really hard for me when they try to dig an opinion out of me.

"Cheesy-Poofs are much better than Cheese-Its, they're so much more fluffy and cruncy and I dont think anyone likes Cheese-Its better... dont you agree James?"
Hell, I like Cheese-It's better but I really dont feel like arguing about this shitty topic
"Yeah, sure."
Shit, I'm a hippicrite.

One thing I particularly dislike is when people do the "second personality" thing (like I do), but they dont fully develop the second personality. I have this friend, for example, who has the dual-character thing going on but whenever I talk to him (and I talk to his invented character) I cant go anywhere. It's like talking to a brick wall.. well, maybe a brick wall that has a face. But seriously, it's like he doesnt have a life before the moment I talk to him

He never shares his past, his experiences. He never brags, he never gloats, he's never depressed, he hardly ever jokes around. He just smiles. Like I said, a stone.

Driving to school today I was confronted by what is possibly the most inspiring thing I've ever seen: an elderly couple that actually went over the speed limit. This guy was crazy, and his wife didnt seem to mind. At every stoplight I'd pull up next to him in his Oldsmobile 500 (or something like that) and we'd gun it off the line. I've never had so much fun with any driver, and I would have never thought it would have been an old person. That alone started my day off well, an optimistic thought that "hey, maybe old people arent so bad."

I really like asking questions. Have you guys noticed? It's not only on this journal, though, it's with adults and respected people in general. Going out to the desert I swear I drive my parents crazy asking "where does that road go? does that road end up there? how do I get here?", or sometimes I'll discuss engineering concepts with my father. But neither of my parents seem to like answering questions. It's like I've grown out of the phase where I was expected to ask questions and now I'm supposed to have intelligent conversations with them or something. Pretty stupid.

Sometimes I feel really bad, especially with my mom, because I'll ask questions, assuming the other person knows the answer, when they really dont know. Then I'm forced to speculate on my own and leave the other person wondering why I asked the question in the first place. For example, I'd ask "Where does the wine country begin", and my mom would respond that she doesnt know directions very well so I just say "I guess somewhere up in Simi Valley" and she'll give me a weird look.

But one thing that doesnt seem to get across to people is that alot of my questions are rhetorical. I'll go around pondering (as I oh so often do) "Where are we from? What is death? What is life? Why are we here?" and blah blah blah, all the stuff that everybody likes talking about but nobody will admit to caring about. When I ask things like that, I dont expect to be answered, but sometimes people embarrass me and themselves by replying.

Good examples of this appear all the time in this journal. I'll raise questions and base entire entries around them and people will respond to the questions with answers, not realizing that I actually like hearing my mind think and what I'm typing is just large, unfathomable rhetoric that contains little or no meaning but looks damn good.

I really like writing, did you guys notice? I like making the stuff I write become intricate to the point where it has to be virtually desired. I like expressing things in my own personal way, and I have never seen a person that writes quite like me (believe me, I'm still searching). I mostly like going around and around in circles to make a single point bigger and bigger like I'm doing here (and in almost every one of my entries).


I wondered if I could find something people do that's incredibly corny (read: lame) in their online journals that I havnt done yet:

- Use unbearable spelling of words like "i, lol, cuz, luv, teh, nahz, etc". --done it--
- Put a text-smiley at the end of every sentence. --done it--
- Philosophize to people who really dont care. --done it--
- Try to send a person a message without downright saying it. --done it--
- Not EVER CAPITALIZING.
- Breaking up with someone through an entry.
- Mourning over lost love. --done it--
- Profess ones love to another. --done it--
- Dedicate a song to someone. --done it--
- Post lyrics. --done it--
- Write three pages of every step I've taken during a day. --done it--

Wow. I'm pretty lame. Luckily I've dropped most of these habits. But honestly, being lame/immature on this journal is one of those things I dont forsee giving up anyday soon.

As always, my thoughts were wandering in the pure oblivion of the clouds and blue sky while I rolled through the now golden green hills of the desert on my trusty (but aging) steed. I've always found peace in riding, so you might have noticed, but peace of mind usually brings up reflections of the past.

It didnt help that the particular area I was in was a particularly sensitive one, having many memories of times past that I'd rather not remember. Well, what I just said is a lie. It's not that I'd rather not remember the past, only that it's so much damn easier not remembering it.

Wouldnt you know it? There I was standing on the top of the tallest mountain with the cool wind rushing all over my body and beauty in it's purest, most natural form surrounding me on all sides, and all I could think of was her. It's so embarrassing. I wish I could stop it. If she knew I thought about her as much as I do, if she could see the unconditional love (literally, unconditional) and respect I bestow for absolutely no reason she'd be absolutely disgusted. (As would I, if someone were as glued to me emotionally and I did not reciprocate)

Then, this is one of those things that everyone who has experienced it seems to agree on. We all know that first love is never really gone so I suppose I shouldnt be so embarrassed. Forgive me, oh love, forgive me for ever falling in love.

I made a grave mistake this weekend. I rented two romances and downloaded a third one onto my iriver and watched all of them in two days. What was I thinking?

Looking at screenshots from the latest Unreal Tournament game I realized the only thing that game developers cannot get right in their endless efforts to try to render realistic humans: the face. No matter what they do, they cannot make a face appear truly human, so one can always tell the difference between say, a live actor, and one who isnt live.

Of course, there are exceptions. In this case, there are special 3d rendering zones that convert a real persons dimensions to computer dimensions and project this as a character in, say, a movie. But you have to remember that when they make movies using this (the Matrix is an example) that they are not "creating" a 3d person so much as taking a picture of a real person in 3-dimensional space.

So why is the face so hard to render? God only knows. Personally, I believe there is something more to the human face than meets the eye. We know this "thing" is there, but we cant put our fingers on it. It's one of those undefined qualities that makes us indefinitely human, and it's probably one of the reasons faces intrigue me so.

Things to see before I die:
- A hummer with the front end caved in.
- A pheonix
- A dog chasing a cat
- A liger or a jackalope
- A beautiful girl alone in a movie theatre
- The light
- A dream come true
- A president that is neither white nor male
- A person who is not a hippocrite
- Quality
- A window to the soul that isnt an eye
- A flower turn into a dove



Unfortunately I compiled this list of "actorisms" from personal experience: friends and people I know that are hippocrites in the worst ways. Well, not just hippocrites, actors really. Actors that put on masks for the world to see even though they are much different if you just look hard enough. Why everybody insists on trying to appear something but be something completely different used to boggle me, but now I've just gotten used to it. I guess I'm hoping one day we'll all grow up.

I know it all, but I'm not going to get into any colleges.

I insult everyone, but am never aggressive.

I am christian, but I never forgive.

I am independant, but I ask my parents for everything.

I am depressed, yet I smile at all my friends.

I let things get to me, but never speak up for myself.

I have a taste in music but I dont know any bands.

I am quiet but I gossip openly.

I am innocent but I hang around people constantly discussing sex.

I am popular but I have no true friends.

I have a girlfriend, but we're just friends.

I am friendly but I never talk to anyone.

I am sociable but I like being alone.

I am mysterious yet everyone can predict my next move.

I am a listener but I never hear a word you say.

Although I've indirectly referred to it over and over again the past few weeks, I feel like restating the melodramatic turn life has taken. I was thinking about grades today walking to class when I realized how little I cared. I was boring myself for god's sake. Then I thought about girls and prom, and I yawned. Everything is beginning to lose it's edge, unfortunately I seem to be the only one feeling this way.

I talked to a close friend about how I feel about school nowadays and he told me that he was saving his slacking for the last quarter. Of course at the beginning of the year he said the last semester he would be slacking. So I've pretty much given up hope on him and most of the other seniors.

Then there are some that truly dont care. I respect them. I relate to them. If I could really find something to do if I ditched every period almost every day, I would do it, only I think I'd end up at home playing ROSE (a game) or something, and schools at least a little more valuable than that, even if grades no longer matter.

To be completely honest, it is my dearest ambition to just go tell off a couple of teachers. I have it in my mind that they are the absolute worst teachers on this planet. I learn nothing from them nor do they make me do anything productive. Mix that with my lack of care for grades and you get quite a volatile mixture. I wonder if these teachers know that they dwell below mediocrity, or if they truly think they are doing a good job. I have a feeling I'll never know, but I really wish I could just go scream at them without worrying about flunking and ruining my chances for college.

I compiled and ran the first reasonably advanced Java program I've done in a couple of years and I was pleasantly surprised. While when I last programmed I normally could expect at least 2, but more likely 4 or 5 hours of debugging, it took me 1 hour to get the thing up and operational today. I dont know how my skills could possibly increase over such a period of dormancy, but it's possible that I'm a little less ambitious nowadays, and I dont get ahead of myself. I like little tell-tale signs like these. Tell's me I'm growing up, because that's something nobody ever tells you, you have to just figure it out for yourself.

I've been realizing of late that political parties have a profound impact on my friendships... and I dont even mean for it to happen! Recently out of curiosity I've been asking the friends who I tend to get along with (IE I can talk to without much argument) what their political preference is and I havnt found a close friend yet that isnt a republican.

The funny thing is that alot of these people were friends of mine and I didnt even consider their political beliefs. I just became friends with them because we were able to talk to each other and relate to each other. I think it is even more enlightening to consider that all my failed relationships, and all the friends that I tend to have small struggles/fights with are Democrats.

This leads me to two conclusions:
I will add on a requirement for best-frienditude: "You must be a republican"
I will add on a requirement for being considered attractive: "You must be a republican"

Luckily, all the students at Santa Barbara are spoiled rich white kids, so I'll have lots of friends among my republican brothers.

My last college acceptance letter arrives and I'm finally free. I'm free from choices and decisions and weighing out my academic future because the road has been laid in front of me.

And I cant help but feel waste. All this time, these 12 years of my life spent getting these 5 acceptance letters and now what? All those years, gone. Nobody cares anymore about the grades I got in high school so long as I can check the "High School Diploma" box on an employment application. I cant even fathom all of the stressing over grades and test scores I've done all my life and now all I have for the high blood pressure, the blood, sweat, and tears poured into my schoolwork is more school.

I suppose I'm not really depressed, because I realize the obvious answer to my dilemna: "But James, you can go to a college you've always wanted to go to now, you can get a good job and all that time wasnt wasted, it was spent as a stepping stone in the path of life". I dont know why, I just see this all as somewhat insignificant. Maybe it's the fact that I didnt get rejected that leads me to feel that I overachieved and I could've still gotten into a college I wanted to with significantly less work.

I'm just left contemplating life. How I'm so confined to this strict, set path. Gotta get variety. More and more.

You ever get that feeling reading what other people have to say that they are trying to convince themselves (out loud to the world) that they are happy and everything is allright? It kind of annoys me. I want to yell in their comment box or whatever that "obviously the world isnt perfect because if it was you wouldnt be noticing it!", but I'm a flatterer and normally I dont feel like hurting someone elses feelings unless it's entirely necessary. Do me a favor though guys, if I sound like I'm convincing myself in here, tell me to stop it. I shouldnt advertise to you what I want to believe when I dont entirely believe it.

Heh. Nobody believed me when I said I was gaining weight about a month ago, but I wasnt lying. I was steadily going up about 2 pounds a week, and though you might shake your head and say "why is a skinny guy like you weighing yourself", I wasnt until I got on the scale and it read 160, 10 up from my average during the summer. Then I got really conscious of my weight. That probably means my metabolism is slowing down, or that I just need to get some exercise.

It feels so good to get out everyday now, though. Riding my bike, aside from wearing me out, tends to take away the emotional extremes that used to drive me crazy, and I feel really in shape after just a month of working out daily. Of course the biggest benefit is seeing a friend who I'm very interested in including in some of my more business-oriented ambitions for the future.

Speaking of that, I'm getting back into Programming. It's amazing how little I've forgotten after one and a half years, but I guess it's one of those things that keeps with you.

Ouch. My back hurts. All because of a measly 30-mile trip yesterday where I let my bike ride me rather than the other way around.

You see, there is really two different ways to ride a bike. To understand them both, you have to account for the fact that the only real job of a human on motorcycle is to act as a balancer, keeping the bike on two wheels despite changing terrain. Having said that, there are two ways to accomplish this balancing task. The first is what I would call "aggressive", in which you keep a tight hold on the bike and force it to do exactly what you want it to by forcing the handlebars in one direction or another, thus balancing the motorcycle by using it's own weight. The other way is to loosen your grip on the bike and letting it flow over the terrain while you use the position of your body to counteract the varying forces on the bike.

Normally I'm an "aggressive" rider, by my own standards. Riding like this has it's own advantages and disadvantages:
Advantages
- You feel safer and more in control.
- You are more capable of reacting quickly.
- You are more capable of doing wheelies and other tricks.
Disadvantages
- After about half an hour of riding like this your hands feel like they're going to fall off from holding on so hard.
- It takes a helluva alot of concentration.

Whereas when I drove "passive"ly this one ride I found out the one big consequence of doing so: it works the hell out of your body, especially your back. In riding around the high desert like this I was practically throwing my body back and forth across the bike to counteract all the crap that the desert threw at me (rocks, whoops, jumps, sand, etc). So yeah, that's why my back hurts.

I was sitting around listening to my parents country music this weekend and I considered the fact that it isnt as gay as I might have used to think. In fact, I understand now why they like it so much because I started listening to the lyrics. I can completely understand how all the music that I listen to would have no redeming value for them because they have both allready found love and dont do drugs and dont worry about conformity and therefore none of my emopunk rock has any pertinence to their real life. Some bands that we both like, such as Matchbox 20, dont sing about youthful love, but love in general, and that's why my parents dont mind these bands.

And country music is something much more mature. I know all of you think that it's redneck music or whatever, but it's really just a mature version of rock blended with a fiddle and an older singer. The lyrics are alot more pertinent for my parents life, as well, talking about time passing fast, about having kids, and all that stuff. So yeah, I wouldnt be surprised if I start liking country music in about 20 years.

Life in general isnt too bad now. I find life about ten times easier when I drop all of my ambitions and just do whatever comes up, because being ambitious drives me crazy. I guess there's a hundred ways that life could be alot better, like having a job or a girlfriend, but I think I'm comfortable not complaining. The one thing I noticed was when I was out at the desert thinking about coming home and I consciously thought "great.. now I have to go deal with everything again". Gotta work on making life not a "thing" to work on but a "thing" to be enjoyed.


Introspection, the cutting blade of psychology is like a pair of binoculars: you can look through it's all-seeing lens into the souls and minds of others, but when you try to turn it on yourself you just see useless details.

I'm constantly haunted by Oedipus' legacy, that knowing thyself is supreme over all other forms of knowledge, because for me, there's so much to comprehend at every corner of my own existence that I have no chance of ever even breaking the surface of my own psyche.

Yet it's confusing and frustrating that a person can look at me and talk to me for a couple of minutes and know everything about me. It's like a maze where there is two different paths to the exit, one short and one long, but the short one is hidden behind a bush and only a helicopter view of the maze gives you knowledge of it's existence, only in this case the "bush", so to speak, is a cloud named emergent form.

(which, in itself, is a perplexing reality in the universe that causes small and simple things to have extraordinarily complicated traits in larger contexts that could never be understood at the smaller levels of existence. This is the same thing as an atom being part of the makeup of a human. An atom is just a cluster of protons, neutrons, and electrons, but as emergent form begins to take effect we see it becomes compounds and polymers and proteins and cells and tissues and organs and organ systems and then organisms, such as us. Such a large concept as an organism could never be explained in terms of it's more basic units, like atoms, which gives emergent form it's definition.)

I've noticed lately that a new aura has taken over the premise of Troy, and it's very fitting of Spring. The root of the entire movement probably lies in the fact that college acceptances have for the most part been recieved by our population. The odd anti-arrogance that exists at Troy has slowly disappated as the students realize their 4.0 GPA's and 1400 SAT's will get them into better schools then UC Merced.

And so the weight begins to lift off the shoulders of my class. I noticed from the beginning of the year that our girls were much more promiscuous, that they didnt hit the books like they used too, and I found it quite pleasant. But you can multiply that a couple times more nowadays. For the most part everyone is laid back, and for once in their life seem to be enjoying existence.

I guess the other things that really helps us is how bright the near future is. FBLA state conference is coming up in a month and most of my close friends are going and excited to be (as am I), Spring Break is steadily approaching and with the worries of Prom comes the realization that Grad Night isnt too far off.

Some people are scared. They're scared of going off without their parents and all and I respect that entirely because they realize now (as opposed to later) that they are not ready for independence, as are most teenagers. Personally, as you all know, I'm looking forward to the next year of my life. As I've said, the biggest thing nowadays is getting a date for Prom, but that's a problem for another couple of months, so screw it.

I'm going riding. I'll see you all Sunday night.

There's this girl that I knew back in freshman year. She was really small and underdeveloped and she wore glasses so I saw her as smart. I thought of her as one of those immature girls who study nonstop and dont even give a thought to anything else. To say I wasnt attracted to her is an understatement.

For too many reasons I've seen this girl develop through the years, though I havnt seen much of her this year. Today however, I caught a glimpse of her and I was reminded of why I found her so intriguing last year and the year before. Now dont take me for a pervert or whatever for the things I have to say because I'm not. When I look at good-looking girls I dont consciously tink about what I'd want to squeeze on their body or what it'd be like to have them in bed, I tend to do focus more on the glory of their beauty. It's kind of hard to put the feeling into exact words, but I guess I can parallel the way I feel looking at girls I'm attracted to to the same feeling I felt yesterday staring at the setting sun on San Clemente beach: it's a sense of peaceful complacency which is brought forth by a diamond-in-the-rough occurence, something out of the ordinary that gives my mind something besides itself to focus on.

Anyhow, this girls body really perplexes me in the way it absolutely drives my mind to a stand-stop state. Mind you, she has changed so much since I first saw her freshman year, when she was literally a skinny pole with nothing going for her at all. Her figure is now slender much like my own, with modest curves around the waist, only her shoulders arent extremely broad. A long time ago she had the most beautiful hair ever (you know, the kind I always talk about), but that's changed, but I suppose what awes me most are her legs. They're so odd, but not in a bad way. Everytime I see them in the sun when she's walking or whatever, it seems like they're all one color, there's no shadows or anything. I dont understand how that works, but it gives them this weird appearance and I always think of "bulbous" when I see them, only for me that's not necessarily an insult. Argh. It's impossible to describe. I guess my whole point to all of this is my amazement at her change, though. I mean, sure, my dad has always told me that it's the ugly ducklings that become the most beautiful at all, but it isnt often I see examples of ducklings spawning into swans before my very eyes.

Of course, there could be many reasons why the whole attraction thing exists in my mind. It could be my affinity for the not-so-normal, which causes me to like things, even if they are not physically attractive, just because they are different. Or it could be my fool-itself mind, but I wont get into that. It would reveal who it is, and I swore to myself I wouldnt tell.

To all the beautiful girls in this world: thanks for making it liveable.

What a day.

Headed out to San Clemente right after school for a job interview. San Clemente is on the far border of South Orange County, and I worship South Orange County. I love how there are mountain roads with cool air one place and a beach with salty air ten miles away, I love how there are no slums, none, period, I love how for the most part roads are never crowded and the freeways are big and scenic. I love everything about it down there, and when/if I become a multi-millionaire, that's the first place I'll think to move to.

Since I was down there and within half a mile of the beach allready, I stopped by. I dont think I've ever been to the beach by myself before. I guess you could think I'm weird or whatever, but I guess I would find it the same even if I had a friend/girlfriend there with me or not. It's always going to be romantic, whether you're there with yourself or a significant other, and it's always going to be an escape from the sublimity of most of our cities.

Anyhow,
I tried and tried to document everything I saw with pictures, but the more I tried the more I failed. I guess some things in life are just meant to be experienced for what they are, not through a bunch of ones and zeroes. As for you guys, ask me to take you down Santiago sometime, it's marvelous.

Santiago Canyon Rd:




San Clemente Beach:






As for the jobs, I'm feeling really good right now. If everything goes to plan on Wednesday, I might just have two well-paying jobs at once to fill up my checking account so I'm not poor when I begin college.