good bye, two thousand nine.

As the end of the year approaches, things are coming to a conclusion. Along with conclusions, new beginnings take part as well. I don't really remember much of the beginning of the year, when I was a silly freshman. Haha. But there are some things I remember that I can recap about. There were a lot of firsts for me in '09. I met new people, had some unforgettable experiences, and of course, tragedies.

First of all, my holidays this year were all unforgettable. Like 4th of July, where Adam, Nathan, Andrew, Ricky, Sandy, and I just biked around Alameda and Bayfarm for the whole day and watched the fireworks at Shoreline. Or Halloween, where I went out until around midnight just walking around with friends. It was my first ever time trick or treating too! Haha. And I can't forget the countless adventures I had over the summer too. Getting close with new people, seeing them every day. Being around them changed me for the better. I owe you guys a lot of appreciation, but for now I'm really glad I met and got to know all of you.

But towards the end, things weren't all peachy and smooth like it was the beginning and middle of the year. Things got complicated, shit went down, but hey. With ups come downs. That's just how life works, right? We all have to deal with some bad things in life though. No one leads a perfect one. Now, I'm ready to say goodbye to a life-changing year. Let 2010 come and throw whatever it has in store straight to my face. I'll be waiting. Haha.

I don't know if I'll have any New Years resolutions, I've never done it before. But I guess I should start. I have no idea how though. What could I change? Hmm. Haha. Whatever. I'll see all of you in the new year. Enjoy your breaks.

masks.

"Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth."

-Oscar Wilde

I love this quote. It probably holds true for most of us. What does it say, first of all? My interpretation of this quote is that when someone is exposed as their bare self, they are afraid to speak their own mind and instead display a facade that probably conforms to what everyone else thinks. But when concealed and protected, they feel the freedom and power to express what they truly think and feel.

I know I can strongly relate to this quote. When I'm just bare, in person, my mind does not speak fully. At most, it speaks half. Maybe it's the fear of what others might think, and I know it's a good thing to just be yourself all the time, but being like that to a bunch of people, I find really hard. For me to be completely myself to a person, I'd have to be comfortable being around that person, knowing that they won't judge. Rest assured though, when it's not in person my mind truly speaks.

Take the internet for example. The internet is just a big mask for us to communicate through. Most people aren't afraid to openly express their opinions and get feedback. Why? Because they'll never know which little speck you are in the world. You can say whatever you want to who you want whenever you want[still following laws, of course.]

I think it's pretty safe to say it holds true for most people too. If we were to pick between standing up and presenting in front of a class or presenting over the internet, I think we'd all choose the internet.

To be honest, I don't really get why. Why are we so afraid to show ourselves to people? To the handful of people that don't fall in this category, consider yourself lucky. Really.

ponderponderponder.

What's going on in my head right now? I can't even answer that question myself. A lot of things are going on. For a while, life turned off auto-pilot and I was flying high. But now, it set itself on auto-pilot again and I'm back at cruising altitude. I really miss those weeks. I was on cloud 9, a state where I'm rarely at. But one mistake ruins it all. Life just isn't fair sometimes, huh? Yeah, it sucks.

Come to think of it, I wasn't alone on that cloud. I was flying high with a very close friend of mine and we were both just so happy. But for some reason, everything decided to collapse and things just went haywire. Now we're both back where we started. Seriously. I can't describe how much it sucks.

Whatever. The past is the past. Can't change that. The present and future however, is still ours. Right now life was like how it was before, with a couple of things missing. I try not to let things effect me too much, because my neutral kind of lifestyle fits me well. Sure, shit might happen and I might be totally dead for a few days but eventually my chin'll be back up, back to the old France.

Wow, what the hell am I writing about? I don't even know, haha. I guess it was just some things to get off my chest. I hate bottling things up, but it's something I can't avoid doing. I always seem to keep things to myself. It's weird though, because I know I'm really open too. I don't know how that works out.

Haha, this post was probably boring as hell, but whatever, I'll blog about something more.. interesting[?] later on this week. But for now, this is it.

the one thing i hate about life.

Your ties with people never last as long as you want them to. I don't even know how I realized this now, but I do remember back in middle school when I thought about it. I was afraid and excited of going to high school. Excited because the thought that everything you've seen on TV and things about how awesome it is was probably gonna come true. But at the same time, I was afraid because at one point or another, you'd have to leave the people you came to know and love. I guess leaving elementary school and leaving middle school prepare you for the moment when you leave high school, but it's not the same. You grow up so fast, you become more aware of things. You develop your own thoughts and opinions, and you begin to discover what emotions are.

Life after high school is basically being reborn. Taking everything you've learned and applying it to a world where it's only you. Everyone else has their paths, you have yours. You have to make friends as if you were in elementary school again, but now your limits broaden to the sky. You're going to be living like that for the rest of your life, so why not make the most of it? I kind of hate the idea of growing up too. It sucks knowing your life isn't gonna be as easy as it was back when you were five years old. Hah, but everyone has to go through it at some point. We just all have to deal with it in our own way.

Normally, I hate thinking about the future. Because it scares me to no end. I always try to live in the present, making the most of what I have. To enjoy life with the bare minimum. But the thought of the future can't help but enter my thoughts. I mean, we only go through childhood once. We only go through our teens once. We only go through adulthood once. And then we die. But the beginning of your life lasts the shortest. After age 20, you're already done with 2/3 of your life. Now it's time to live a stage that lasts about 8 times as long. It's pretty scary if you ask me.

Special thanks to Christina and Michele.

the future, doesn't it scare you?

Best friends, son.

The future should be something that scares all of us. The only reason being that we have no knowledge of it. Sure we can plan things ahead, but what are the chances of your plans actually happening? You don't know. All you can do is hope nothing stands in your way. Sometimes, when the present feels so good, you tend to plan too much ahead. So ahead you can't really see it anymore. You become blind to the many possibilities that can get in your way. The only thing in your mind is that plan coming true. And when that plan fails, you really have no backup.

Another reason to be afraid is because you expect things to be some way forever, but then you open your eyes to the many possibilities that could interfere. That makes you afraid. One example I can think of is why some people are scared of having a best friend. COUGHCOUGH. It's just my thought, but I think the reason why some people don't want/can't have best friends is because they're afraid of the future. A best friend is someone you're really close to, someone you can entrust with everything that has to do with you. The thought of that relationship not lasting forever should be scary. Because you think of the thought that they might not be there forever, that prevents you from having a best friend. I think what you're just longing for is a best friend that lasts forever.

Another thing, about the word "forever," what does it really mean? Theres no such thing as forever. It's a word to describe as long as you can. Forever is an undefined time. How can something be forever if it's not aware? Even after you're dead, is it still forever? Ehh, I don't know. What happens after death? Meh.

Right now, it's really cold. I don't even want a jacket or extra thick pajamas. All I want is just someone in my arms.

it feels great.

I've been thinking a lot lately, due to the weather. Clouds frequent more and they're something I like watching. They're interesting, to me they look like peaceful wanderers that come in many shapes. I really want to watch some, but the problem is there aren't really any GOOD places to cloud watch. I've been craving to just lie down on a grassy hill and just look up. Using my imagination to create stories of whats above me or to just make those things we call clouds into funny little shapes or animals. Whatever it is, I'm down for it. But damn, Alameda really doesn't have that many hills where you can cloud watch. It's a shame isn't it? It's beauty left unnoticed.

Another thing I've been wanting to do is stargaze. I don't know why, but yeah. Those tiny little specks you see are just a gigantic connect the dot game. It also amazes me how that when we look up, you're actually looking into the past. I don't really get why but hey, it's something that's pretty damn cool. Though once again, I encounter the same problems. I'd really prefer an elevated space where I can just lie down and watch, like a roof or something. Also noting the fact that my parents probably wouldn't let me out that late to do it either. I wish there would be a day where everyone could just turn their lights off so we can see each star more clearly. But haha, these are goals I'll achieve someday.

The beach. I particularly don't like beaches, or maybe that's just Alameda beach. Holy crap it stinks down there dude. ANYWAY, back to the point. During the day, it's a place to cool off and just sunbathe. But when it reaches say.. 2am, it's a totally different thing. The night sky makes the water look like a really warm blanket that you just want to be under; the sounds of the waves crashing really help set the scene too. Just walking on the beach at that time makes you go into a genuine relaxed mood. Take my word for it. This is something I experienced in the summer, luckily. And I'm glad I had the chance to.

restatement of purpose.

Looking back at my first ever post, which was my statement of purpose, I can see how I'm doing in terms of the goals I set myself. I can happily say that most of my goals are still in the process of being complete. I've been writing more and more, as well as writing about the topic I wish to write about. I'd like to keep this goal intact because looking back on these blog posts would probably impact the way I think about myself more than I thought.

At this moment, I find that trying to read more is a hopeless goal. I feel that I have absolutely no time to read any book, unless mandatory. I don't think that it's because I can't find a good book to read, but rather the time. Time management is something I value, so trying to fit in time to read is quite hard.

One of my more successful goals, to get out more and hang out with friends, is going better than I thought. No longer do I sit on a chair directly after school for the remainder of the day letting my brain rot. I definitely have better things to do. The other goal that accompanied, to take bike trips more often, is also going well. Just recently, my brosef Sandy Duong said that our bikes were pretty much our lives. I agreed with him completely because we always get to our destination by bike. Without our bikes, we'd be lazy unsocial kids.

But in the future, I know I'll definitely try and set myself some new goals. I really need a way to push myself to be better academically, physically, and mentally. I hope I can set these goals for myself soon.

I don't know if I can add any more goals right now, since I like completing things I set my mind to first. But who knows, there might be a re-restatement of purpose.

oh, october.

Oh October, you were good to me this year. I thought you were going to be a horribly cold month but it turns out I was wrong. You were pretty decent. I usually don't like it when the months that end in -ber come around because it gets so cold and we all know I can't stand the cold. October, you turned out to be a pretty good month. While everyone was getting sick, I was rampaging around on my happy feet and basically had a bubble around me. At least thats what it feels like right now.

Despite a few unsettling events early in the month and towards the end, I'm glad to say we're all pretty much fine now. I personally have no worries at all for the rest of '09; it'll feel like I set life on cruise control. I know this isn't gonna last forever, but I love staying carefree as long as I can. It's one of the things that keep me happy in my life. The ability to live life the way you want it, how you want it, and when you want it is what I aim for.

I'd like to end this lovely October on a good note and wish you all a happy Halloween. It'll be my first year going trick or treating as well. Yo soy animadooo.

secretssssss.

Secrets. We all have them and their effect on us can vary. There are those secrets that you just don't want anyone knowing, the ones that kill you inside, and the ones that are just plain personal. Either way, secrets are still there. When someone says that they don't have any secrets, I'd frown at them and strongly disagree. You just have to think for a while and you'll find your secret.

The worst secret of all to me is the one that absolutely kills you inside. I can't really give good examples, but I do have a good one in mind. Suppose you like someone and your relationship with them is at a pretty satisfactory level. You might want to tell that person, but at the same time you might not want to risk that comfortable level you're at with them. You're stuck in your own abyss of thoughts. But you know the longer you keep that in, the more it kills you. Sucks to be in that situation, doesn't it? Yeah.

But then there are those neutral secrets. That when you tell someone, you wouldn't really care. Those are my favorite kinds. It's fun to know things about people that others don't know about.

Secrets suck, secrets are awesome. It all depends on which kind.

think less.

Wow, THREE blogs in one night? I never woulda known I could do something like this. But due to recent events, an idea just comes into mind. Hear me out.

Overthinking. From my experience, it's a horrible thing. It makes you consider every possibility that can happen, though most of those possibilities you think of are mostly negative. In cases like these, less is more. It's nice to keep things nice and simple; the best thing that you probably do in that situation is let it be. You can think about it normally, but just don't overshoot it.

The most common place where I see a good example of someone overthinking is relationships. Believe or not girls, every little thing you do gets a guy thinking. Every gesture, every important thing you said, he'll probably be thinking about it when he goes to sleep that night. This might be the same for girls but hell, what do I know?

One way to rephrase it to a more widely used phrase, is to not make things more complicated than they should be. I mean, a lot of things come from that. When you finally stop overthinking and come to the realization of how it wasn't all that bad just makes you go "d'oh." But hey, I think it's one of those things that are inevitable. We're just human, right?

To wrap it up and to tell that one person: Don't overthink things. Just keep it simple.

superflyyy.

I don't know why I put this off until Friday, because it's something I like doing. Ah well. I think it's just I have absolutely nothing to talk about most of the time. But I think I have something. Something weird..

Don't mistake me, I like sleeping as much as the next guy, but here's the thing. I can't fall asleep easily. It frustrates me a lot because even when I'm tired I'm probably gonna lay there for half an hour trying to sleep. I'm fully conscious when I'm about to actually fall asleep too. One thing I've noticed is that RIGHT before I fall asleep, my whole body twitches. It's as if my body is telling me "HEY, SLEEP BAD. NO SLEEP. AWAKE. NOW." It pisses me off. Another thing is that I always seem to envision myself tripping. I don't know why either but my whole body retaliates to that vision and twitches as well. My heart starts pumping faster too, like I actually fell or stumbled.

I don't know what the hell is going on with me when it comes to sleep, but whenever I do get good sleep, I always love waking up. It feels so good. Especially if my dreams were lucid, haha. lucid dreams are the bomb. Customizing your dreams to whatever you want is pretty beast. I mean holy crap, lucid dreams give a whole new meaning to "fantasy."

PS: I know you're gonna link me Sutherland, so I'm gonna beat you to it. Haha.

Tatum's mind

I annotated this paragraph talking about my own thoughts on the whole topic. I wholeheartedly agree with the whole topic of this paragraph. If people say that they aren't prejudiced, it's a complete lie. Being a person also includes all the negative things, such as stereotyping and being prejudiced. We may not realize it and thats a good thing, since that expressing prejudice freely is looked down upon in society. I recall commenting on a blog post, saying "with good things come bad." Well, the good thing here is being able to live in a society thats culurally diverse. The bad thing being that we still discriminate one another, whether public or not.

This paragraph is an integral part of the whole article because it explains how each person works and makes people realize that if they think they're free of prejudice, they're wrong.

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(12.) Certainly some people are more prejudiced than others, actively embracing and perpetuating negative and hateful images of those who are different from themselves. When we claim to be free of prejudice, perhaps what we are really saying is that we are not hate-mongers.[10] But none of us is completely innocent. Prejudice is an integral part of our socialization,[11] and it is not our fault. Just as the preschoolers my student interviewed are not to blame for the negative messages they internalized, we are not at fault for the stereotypes, distortions, and omissions that shaped our thinking as we grew up.

blogger stalker.

This blogging thing still hasn't hit me. It's something I never expected to do in an English class. The concept of using something online to do weekly writing assignments is a great idea, as well as publicizing it so that everyone else can see. Most of all, there's no topic. You can write about anything. Anything and everything.

With that said, I'd like to admit that I actually use the blog feed. Yeah, I like reading everyone's blogs just to see what they wrote about. It's interesting to see the thoughts people had this week, the previous week and so on. If your blog especially caught my eye, I might even comment on it! Haha. So I guess I'm taking advantage of this whole blogging assignment to get to know people, even if I've never met them and don't know what their face looks like.

Believe it or not, you guys give me inspiration too. Just yesterday and a few minutes ago when I walked into Intro To Computers, I had to idea what to write about. As soon as I logged in the computer I went to the blog feed, read some blogs, commented on some, and now look where I am. Writing my own! I guess this blog thanks all you other bloggers for blogging. Every time I don't have a fucking clue what I'm going to blog about, I'll just hop on over to the blog feed for some inspiration.

I find this blog post pretty weird as well. It's kind of like blogging about blogs. But at the same time it's a thank you to all the people who blog freely. It's going to be quite an experience this year, seeing how blogging is going to evolve. I talked with Sutherland yesterday during lab about blogging and he told me some of his ideas and desires about the future of this assignment and I'll say I'm quite intrigued. I'd love to see his ideas played out.

To finish with this post, I'd just like to say this: Keep blogging and remember that when you publish your new post, someone is bound to come across it, even if you don't know that person. Like me, haha.

the simplest and best game of all time.

You know, when you think about it, what's easier than just placing some oddly shaped blocks to form lines? Some find it boring, doing the same thing over and over again to achieve a repetitious goal and it definitely requires a persistent soul. But there's much more to it than that. Tetris actually makes you think faster, more efficiently, and it improves your ability to think ahead. Today, Tetris can be found on virtually everything including phones, PDAs, computers, game consoles, and even calculators. It's also been played on a large scale using lights on a building to recreate the falling of tetriminoes! Tetris is extremely simple, fun, and it has some benefits too!


The game was made by Russian designer and programmer Alexey Pajitnov on June 6, 1984. Ever since then, it's won awards such as the Greatest Game of All Time by Electronic Gaming Monthly in 2007 and it's placed 2nd in the 100 Greatest Video Games of All Time by IGN.

Some people, such as myself, even suffer from playing too much! The Tetris Effect, as it is called, is when the brain involuntary pictures Tetris combinations when the player is not even playing the game. Shit, this happened to me a lot when I played Tetris religiously. But there ARE some positive effects to playing Tetris as well. I focus more in things I do and according to recent studies, playing Tetris boosts general cognitive functions such as critical thinking, reasoning, language and processing and increase cerebral cortex thickness. It also has been proven that playing Tetris after experiencing a traumatic event reduces the number of flashbacks to that event. Can you believe what an extremely simple game does?


It just goes to show you, the best things in life are the most simple. No doubt.

maybe i'll stick this time.

Throughout my life, surely I've listened to a lot of different music genres. But of course when I was young I never paid attention to music that much. It was only when I was growing up near my preteens that I actually started to listen to music for real. At first, I liked R&B and rap, but I think it was only because it was the only music I ever knew at that time and everyone else was listening to it. I conformed and soon enough my iPod was filled with songs talking about the artist's money, cars, and girls. Soon enough I stopped listening to that genre of music, and hopped on over to Rock, Alternative, and Metal. Not much to say, except that was mostly during my pseudo-emo days. I cheered myself up, held my head up high, and walked through another door. This door led me to Techno/Trance. It was something totally new to me, the sound of hard hitting bass, intricate bass lines, and heavenly sounding synths. I listened for quite a while, getting up and dancing whenever I heard it. That phase passed. Recently discovering artists like Kid Loco, Nujabes, Flying Lotus, Emancipator and etc. I've heard the most beautiful and relaxing side of music. I generally prefer music without lyrics, because I like telling myself a story to the beautiful beat these guys make. I really don't have much to say except that.. I'm probably sticking with this for the rest of my life.

Statement of Purpose

What I want to write about is questionable. I don't like writing only about one topic. Writing the same thing over and over again it gets boring. If possible, I would love to write about a variety of topics and since writing about my personal life is the closest thing to that, I would like writing about my personal life.

I want to write my goals, my feelings, my thoghts on different things, and etc; the things I want to better myself at, striking each little aspect of myself to see what I can change for the better. Being a student allows me to let my curiosity run free and familiarize myself for the future. I want to write things that I could look back to and see how I developed as a person.

Writing better is one of my goals; I'd like tobe able to write at a high level. One of my weakest points is analyzing a book and writing about it. I don't like writing about a book someone else wrote and nitpick at all the details. I want to be able to write freely without getting stuck and pausing to think about what I should write.

Reading has always been an "oh that stuff is boring, I only do it when it's mandatory" thing for me and I want to change that this year. I know lately I've been craving to read, to feel that feeling when the book you're holding is talking to you and telling you the best story you've ever heard. So far that one book that amazed me was "House of the Scorpion." I'd like to read more and experience a sea of stories.

I've always been a lazy person for the first fourteen years of my life I've done nothing but sit on my ass all day and stare at a screen. Along with reading and writing, I'd also like to change this one aspect of me. Getting out more to hang with friends or go on a bike trip once in a while would help me achieve this goal.

In short, I want to make myself a better person by spending more time doing useful things.