…dinner and more…

A couple of nights ago, I went to visit Kim, one of my close friends from high school, who’s now at Stanford for grad school. We had dinner and then went back to her place to catch up on what’s been going on in our lives since we last talked, and she had some pretty profound and insightful things to say about love and life in general…

No matter how much we try to deny it, each and every one of us is superficial on some level. There has to be that physical attraction that is necessary to spark any real potential of a relationship. This may not be the case with everyone, but it certainly rings true for me. Anyhow, in continuing with this idea of superficiality though, it was brought to my attention that I can be quite superficial in order to gain acceptance. It seems as though I try harder to be accepted by those who mean and matter less to me than those who are truly my friends. The reason being that my true friends will accept me no matter what and so I don’t necessarily try with them anymore, whereas with strangers, I feel as though I have to impress them so as to gain their validation of my existence. The irony of this situation is completely logical, and yet ludicrous at the same time…

I am who I am. I try to tell myself that every day, but it gets difficult sometimes when I reflect on my life and where I’m at now. Kim says I need to feel rejection in order to know what it is that I want, but I’m such a wuss, I’m too afraid of being rejected, and thus am not really aggressive when it comes to guys. I really should try to get over this, but it seems a bit daunting. Either way, I know I’ll have to deal with it sooner or later, and I just have to remember that whatever happens, I am who I am, and that’s all that matters. If someone doesn’t like me, then that’s not my fault and I can’t blame myself for it. It’s hard trying to reconcile the idea that a guy/person doesn’t like you because of some character flaw of your’s, but rather it’s his own problem that he needs to deal with. The first place most people look when something like that happens is at themselves, but we’re not the root of the problem. Each person has the right to like whatever person they like, and if you don’t happen to be one of them, then that’s ok, move on…

I think it’s always easy to give advice to your friends, but when it comes to taking your own advice, most of us are hypocrites. It’s always so much more difficult to internalize the words we say, and it oftentimes takes a good friend to sit you down and tell you that you’re wrong. Life’s a learning process, and I’m glad I’m not the only one having difficulty with its lessons…

For the next year or so, my life will be pretty unstable. I can’t think long-term with anything that I do because within a 6 month period of time, I’ll be in a whole other country, and then when I get back, I’ve no clue as to what or even where I’ll be. I’m trying to live in the present, in the here and the now, but it gets a bit tiresome knowing that I don’t really have any control over my life for the next year or so. I hope I don’t get too lost…

A lot of things are floating through my head right now, but I need more time to sort them all out…

I’m looking forward to the end of the month. I’m taking my final vacation before school starts. I’m going to visit a friend in Seattle, it should be fun to be a tourist again. Hopefully the weather holds up and won’t ruin my short time there. I’m trying to be good and not really do any shopping prior to the trip, but I’ve failed miserably already. I just couldn’t resist the sales and so I spent over $500 already on clothes, shoes, and what not. Damn, there goes half of this next paycheck. Oh well, I’ll try to be good while I’m there, but then again, it is a vacation, so we’ll see…

I was counting all my shoes that I have up here yesterday because I had just bought 5 new pairs and I wanted to see how many more shoe racks I needed to get, and I didn’t realize just exactly how many shoes I had amassed over the years. I have some 50 pairs of shoes up here, I can’t believe it! Ugh, shoes are sooooo my weakness, but whatever, it’s cheaper than having a fetish for cars. Speaking of my new shoes, I finally got the Golas that I wanted, along with a couple of Penguins, Converse, and a pair of Ben Shermans. I’m looking forward to putting them to use. I love accessorizing!

This summer’s been a wild ride. I’ve had my ups and downs, but it has truly been one of the more enlightening breaks I’ve had in a while, despite not taking any classes…

…all that I am…

I just finished reading a goodbye email from Justin, one of my managers/friend from CalPerfs, and I must say that it has hollowed me. He’s been such a long-standing part of my experience there, from the very first day that I was interviewed until now, I will sincerely miss him. To Justin, CalPerfs will never be the same without you; you will be sorely missed…

Justin’s departure is putting things a little in perspective for me. My time here in Berkeley is quickly coming to a close. I’ve only a semester left here, but my friends are all already getting on with their lives and moving on to bigger and better things. Many are headed for Europe, others have entered the working world, and I’m not quite sure where I’m headed yet. I’m still very much a lost little boy looking for his way and his place in this world. I can only hope that the direction the winds will carry me will be a happy and peaceful one…

There are a lot of emotions floating around inside of me right now, but I just don’t feel like putting them into words. Sometimes, feelings are better left to the safe confines of the heart…

…booze, bois, and shopping…

Yes, what a wonderful combination! I’m at the halfway point of my NYC vacation and I’m totally having a blast! I decided that this year’s trip would be more touristy and, thusfar, I’ve followed through with my plans…

I flew out on Tuesday and had a 1 hour layover in Chicago, so it wasn’t too bad. The flights went relatively smooth, minus the annoying little kid who wouldn’t shut his yap on the way from Chicago over to Long Island. Once I got into Long Island though, we had to wait a long time because there was something wrong with the train tracks. Anyhow, it basically took me 6 hours to fly across the country, and then 3 hours to get from Long Island to NYC–yeah, fun. I was pleasantly surprised by my hotel though. I was totally expecting it to be this horribly cramped place with no air conditioning or something, but it turned out to be incredible! Not only was there ample space for both of us, but there was also a little pseudo-kitchen, so it was totally cool. We’re also on the 12th floor, so there’s a great view of other buildings that we see, so it’s really nice.

On Wednesday, we decided to start on our tourist plans. We visited the sea, air, and space museum aboard the USS Intrepid. It was rather fascinating seeing all de-commissioned aircrafts there, until I realized what some of them had done that is (i.e. killing people in wars, etc.). I also got to do some wall climbing. I tried the easy side first, and yes, it was easy. Then I tried the hard side, and not surprisingly, it was hard. I swear, they designed that thing for tall people because there was absolutely no way to reach some of those pegs unless you were at least 6′ tall, argh! It was fun though, but totally tiring. Anyhow, we had planned on catching an evening harbor lights cruise of the city, but a thunderstorm ruined that plan and sent us on our way to H&M instead. As if I minded!

H&M was, and is, the bombdiggity! Yeah, so I dropped like $200 in just that one shopping trip alone, and I’m soooo not done. I got some really cute things and can’t wait to go back!

We went to XL that night and it wasn’t all that. We both got buzzed out of our minds and then took a cab back to the hotel. We made it just in time because as we reached the hotel, the alcohol finally kicked in and we were both totally fucked up, lol. I was talking to a friend of mine while trying to take out my contacts, all the while I was drunk as all heck, which didn’t help. Anyhow, I wound up almost poking my eye out and dropping my left contact somewhere. I started to laugh (I don’t know why) and then I used my one good eye and pressed it to the floor to start looking for the other side. Sadly, I didn’t find it, but I had a spare pair, so I wasn’t too worried. While I was losing my contacts, Eric had done the same thing as well in the bathroom, but we were both too tired to bother really looking for it. Ah well, this is what happens when you’re drunk.

So yesterday, we decided to explore Chinatown and Century 21. Century 21 wasn’t all that this time, they really didn’t have my size available, but I was still able to get some nice things. Perhaps I’ll go back this weekend, but there wasn’t much there in the first place. Chinatown was cute though, busy as all heck as usual. On my flight from Oakland to Chicago, the only people I saw on my flight were black people, and then on my transfer from Chicago to NYC, all I saw were white people–where’d the Asians go?! Up until Chinatown, I hadn’t really seen any Asian people either, argh, where are my yellow people at?!

So after the shopping, we decided to go see a Broadway show: Bombay Dreams. We originally wanted to see Mama Mia, but those tickets are so absolutely expensive! I think they’re in SF right now though, so I’ll just wait until I get back into the bay area and get comps to go see them instead. Anyhow, we went to Splash last night and I heard my fill of gay dance music that’ll last me for the rest of this month. I swear, if I hear another dance remix again, it’ll be too soon. Josh would have loved it though, but yeah, it didn’t float my boat–nor did any of the bois…

The bois that I’ve seen here, in the clubs at least, haven’t really been all that. As a matter of fact, they’re not even that. Hopefully that’ll change tonight when we check out another club, but we’ll see. Some of my friends are supposed to join us tonight, so hopefully I’ll be somewhat entertained. As long as I have hip-hop though, that should be fine, but I swear, I’m soooooo totally irritated by the fact that most gay bois just don’t do hip-hop. I just don’t get it, it’s probably the only type of music that you can really bump-n-grind to, so why don’t more gay bois like it?! It’s not like you can really dance to house music; it seems as though they’re just willow trees swaying in the breeze because it certainly isn’t dancing. Maybe they need a point of clarification: just moving your arms is NOT dancing. Okay, enough of my complaining.

So before we went out clubbing, we went to the Empire State building to see the city skyline at night. It was absolutely breathtaking, which is more than I can ever say for any of the customer service here in NYC. The employees at the Empire State Building were totally rude and I honestly had never seen anyone be so blatantly asshole-ish in nature before in my life! Well, ok, not ever in NYC that is, until now. So I totally sympathize with people who have to deal with tourists all day, but there are just some things you don’t do in front of guests. One of the photo staffers, upon hearing that there was no one else in line and that they could pack up, began to shout, scream, and jump in jubilation about them being done for the day–all in that order. Not only could we all hear her, but she was also starting to pack up and then shut off the fan knowing full well that we were dying in there from the humidity and lack of an operable air conditioner. Was it too much trouble to keep the damn fan on?! UGH! Ok, so as if that wasn’t enough, then she shut off the lights and the back half of the line stood there waiting in almost darkness–not cool! Now I know you’ve had a long day girl, and I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and attribute your imbecilic actions to the heat and annoying customers you had previously run into earlier that day, but come on now, you can only use that excuse so often! Either learn some damn customer service or I’ll have your job! Oh wait, I do… 

Anyhow, today, Eric and I finally went on our harbor cruise. It was 3 HOURS LONG!!! Um, can you say, “WTF am I gonna do on a boat for 3 hours?!” Yeah, that’s what I was asking myself the whole time. The cruise took far too long, the narrator seemed as if he was spending more time worrying about people standing up and blocking the view of others than he was about narrating the cruise to us. He narrated perhaps a total of 1 hour and the rest of the time, we sat in utter silence–thank god for my iPod. Anyhow, I got to take a power nap though and Eric was totally getting hit on by this little boi from Oregon, hehe. The boi started up a conversation by checking out Eric’s camera, I’m sure that’s not all he was checking out, hehe, work it girl!

I was famished after the cruise though, so we decided to have lunch at Chevy’s. OMG, I ate sooooo much, and we both decided to get margaritas to wash our meals down with. Ok, so how come mine was like 3 times the size of Eric’s though?! Eric took a picture of it, and I’ll post it up later, but yeah, it was, by far, the largest margarita I’ve EVER had, but it was good. I’ve been eating a lot here, but we’ve also been walking a lot, so I doubt I’ll gain any weight from this vacation; ah well, a boi can dream…

A word of advice: for those of you who are into eating healthy and what not, try Wendy’s choice of salads! It’s totally great and at such a bargain price! The salads are awesome, but I still have reservations about eating their burgers though–square patties just weird me out…

Ok, enough typing, time for shopping!

…karma again…

After taking some time off to vent about my speeding ticket, I finally began to look at things from a more positive perspective. The officer could have been a total dick and cited me for doing 80, but he only cited me at 60 instead. Also, I guess this is my payment for being able to do 110 from LA all the way up to Berkeley and not getting caught at all, although there were some close calls. I’d much rather be caught and cited for only doing 60 than 110, at least this way I can still go to traffic school and get it off my record and keep my insurance down. So I guess in the end, things had a way of working themselves out. I just have to be extra careful from now on. I really don’t want to fuck anything up before I go to NYC…

So I’m going to NYC with Ericson next week for my annual shopping trip/vacation. I can’t wait! I’m totally jazzed because I really need another vacation. I think I’ve worked hard enough this year that I deserve a nice little break, and NY is just what the shopping doctor ordered. I’m also going to be there to do some sightseeing and college browsing as well. I’m really set on going to Columbia for grad school now, so now it’s just a matter of getting in, hopefully that won’t be too hard. Especially after this whole speeding ticket business, I really want to move to a place that has a mass transit system like NYC because these tickets are just too expensive, not to mention the added costs for parking and gas. Ugh, I’m so ready for New York now. I’m going to try to be good with my spending though, mainly because I know that Hong Kong is just around the corner, so I really should be saving my money for that since I’ll be doing a lot of traveling once I get there as well, but I’m sure I’ll be fine in NYC…

So I went to go see a special premiere of “Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle” with my roommate Justin the other night, and it was so totally awesome! The movie was hilarious and had a definite message that they were trying to send to America–API’s are here, and we’re not invisible anymore! After the movie, John Cho and Calpen Modie came out and gave a short little Q&A session. It was so awesome to be able to be a couple of feet from them–they’re both totally hott! Unfortunately, I didn’t know to bring my camera with me, so I didn’t get to get a picture with either of them, but I at least got to shake John Cho’s hand, and my arm was sooooooo wrapped around his waist! My heart was beating so hard I swear it was going to burst out of my chest! Anyhow, I had asked this short little Asian girl if she would take a picture of me and John Cho together and email it to me, and she had the audacity to say “no”. I was like, WTF, I can’t believe she said no! How difficult is it to do me a small favor like that, it’s not as if she can’t erase the damn picture off her memory card afterwards, but no, she had to ruin my chance to capture a memory. Argh! Screw her, may her children not be photogenic!

Tonight was a good evening. Ritchie, Josh, Herb, and I all spent the evening watching “Stuck on You” and pigging out to some ice cream. It was a nice and relaxing evening. I wanted to go work out tonight, but I just wasn’t in the mood given what had happened earlier today, so we decided on this instead. I think I need to take more time out to spend with my friends doing more simple things in life. I even cooked dinner for myself tonight. It was nice. I really must do all of this more often. I think I’ll go to the gym tomorrow…

…stupid speed limits…

Just when I thought everything was finally going my way, something stupid like this happens…

I got a speeding ticket today. Ugh, I’m sooooo irritated. I had just got off the bay bridge and was starting to accelerate onto the freeway when I got pulled over by a CHP. I was apparently doing 60 on the bridge, which he had let me slide on, but I had sped up to 80 when I got to the freeway portion–not good. I’m usually more conscious of my surroundings and all, but I guess I was just feeling really ditzy today. Anyhow, the officer was nice lenient about it all though and only wrote me up for doing 60 in a 50 zone, so hopefully the ticket won’t be too expensive. I’m thinking it’ll be about $200+, maybe I’ll prepare myself for $250, that way if it winds up being less, I’ll be a bit more relieved. Guess I’ll be going to traffic school again, maybe this time they’ll let me take it online, but I won’t get my hopes up, ugh. As if I didn’t have anything better to do with 2 days worth of pay and a day off, this is really irritating; it makes me not want to drive anymore, grrrr…

…a little more certainty…

I decided last week that I really need to start thinking about my plans after I get back from studying abroad in Hong Kong in the spring. I think I’ll use the free time I have this summer to study for my GRE’s and take them in the Fall, and perhaps even apply in the Spring. I’ve pretty much decided that I need to get away from California. I’m going to apply to Columbia, amongst many other schools, but it will definitely be my top choice–mainly because I want to be in NY for grad school, but we’ll see what happens. I really hope I get in, but I guess it’ll all depend on how well I do on my GRE’s and my GPA, etc., ugh, I hate the uncertainty of it all…

So I finally got the official confirmation a couple of days ago; I’ve been officially accepted to the Hong Kong program for Spring ’05! I’m so totally jazzed! I can’t wait! I’ll be getting another pile of paperwork to fill out in another week or so, but hopefully they give me lots and lots of money so that I can use it to do more traveling while I’m there, but if not, it’s all good, it’ll still be cheaper than being here. I will need to start looking for someone to sublet my room though. I hope I’ll be able to find someone…

I’ve seen a lot of movies as of late. I saw Spiderman 2 a couple of nights ago. It was really good. Tobey Maguire is really hott! He’s got an incredible body, and just this really cute dorky look to him, I think it’s totally sexy! I’ve also seen Shrek 2, The Terminal, Harry Potter, etc., so quite a few movies. I think I should limit myself some more on how many movies I watch considering how expensive they are, but I guess I just got caught up in the mood and all. Oh well, chalk it up to rewarding myself I suppose…

I’ve resumed my workout regiment again and I’m going pretty much every other day. My goal is to have ripped abs by the end of summer, and hopefully a toned chest and arms to go with it, but goodness there are lots of different body parts one has to work on, and yet so little time. I spend about 2 solid hours working out each time I go, and it still seems like there just isn’t enough time. Ah well, I think as long as I stick to my plan, things will work out in the end…

nap time.

…the city of angels, or is it…

My brief vacation here in SoCal is quickly coming to a close and I figure I should recap what’s happened down here thus far before I forget…

The drive down here wasn’t too bad. I left work early so that I could beat the traffic out of the bay area, and for the most part, I was able to do that. It took all of about an hour to get out of the bay area, and from then on, it was smooth sailing. There were some really tricky CHP’s that were hiding just after you passed an overpass, but thankfully, there were some slow trucks ahead of me that forced me to slow down. I basically blazed at about 90 or so mph and got down to Long Beach in about 7 hour’s time, so it wasn’t too bad. My family stayed up to wait for me and we had a late night dinner together. It was nice. I brought back all the gifts I had bought them since the last time I saw them; I felt like Santa, hehe, it was fun and they liked all of their gifts. I basically got Dad and Sis a new wardrobe, while Mom got lots of stuff from my trip to Hong Kong. It was cool…

I spent all of Tuesday and Wednesday kickin’ it with the familia. It was nice, but I totally realized why I hadn’t seen them in so long. As much as I love them, I can only really handle being with them for so many days at a time. All they want me to do is hang around the house with them, and frankly, I have better things to do than that. Spending time with them doing things is cool, but just lounging about at home is not what I came down here for. I want to see my friends and my family, neither party will ever monopolize my time. Anyhow, I went to watch The Terminal with a friend of mine on Tuesday evening. It was such a GREAT movie! It totally ranks up there with Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind as one of the greatest movies I’ve ever seen. Tom Hanks really did a fabulous job in it, and I would be totally shocked if he didn’t get nominated for Best Actor in that movie. So the movie was good, but all other circumstances, not so much…

I went over to Eric’s on Wednesday evening and we had a mini laundry party. It was cool, I got to finally meet Piyapong and Tony. They’re both really cool and we all had a good time just chatting the night away. Eric and I were both beat though and turned in early. It was a totally cool evening though, and we passed it away drinking sangrias and beer, ah the good life, hehe…

On Thursday, I picked up Jose at his mom’s place in Hawthorne and let me just tell you, his aunt scared the shit out of me. She came up at me and started speaking Spanish to me tell me that I should be careful and all. I thought it best to pretend like I didn’t know any Spanish to avoid her lecturing me. I was thinking to myself the whole time that this woman was nutz, Jose confirmed it later, hehe. We went to 3rd Street Promenade in Santa Monica and had lunch at Hooters for the first time. It was really cool, but totally NOT a family restaurant as they advertise…

Ok, time for GAMeBoi, I’ll finish this entry later…

…saturated in concerts…

I saw Jason Mraz in concert at Zellerbach last night. He’s so totally cute! I love his voice, it’s absolutely amazing! His opening acts were Makana from Hawaii, an incredible guitarist, but needs to hone his song selection a little more, and this phenomenal guy named Raul Midon. So Raul is not only blind, but he’s got this totally WHOA voice that he can alter to sound like a trumpet at any given moment. Both acts were pretty good, but we were all impatiently waiting for Jason Mraz to come out. After more than an hour of waiting, he finally came out and didn’t necessarily blow me away like he did when I saw him at Slim’s last year. He spent most of the time doing scat and talking. He definitely performed less songs than he did at Slim’s, and Toca wasn’t even there! Ugh! I was frustrated because he didn’t perform that many songs, but it still took 3 hours for the whole concert. By the time the end of the night finally came, I was soooooo ready to bounce, partly because my bladder was about the size of a watermelon. It was ok overall though. I got to at least check out who was in the crowd and I must say that that was enjoyable. There was one guy in particular who totally caught my eye. I remember him from the API Issues Conference, and is a friend of a friend, but yeah, he was totally hott! I was sooooo melting! LOL.

While I’m on the issue of concerts, I don’t think I ever described how my Madonna concerts went. Ok, so I was taking advantage of my connections with Ticketmaster to get tickets before they went on sale, but the Ticketmaster guy fucked up and bought my 2 $300 tickets for the Sunday night performance, then gave me my 4 $90 tickets on Tuesday. What a total fucktard! I didn’t think anything of it though and figured that it was ok and would make due. A couple of weeks before the concert though, one of my stupid jobs decides to have a mandatory meeting on the same day as my Madonna concert so that we can get prepped and ready for how to handle heated summer tourist season. Right, as if I haven’t gone through enough customer training to not know what to do. Anyhow, I was soooooo mad because I wasn’t going to get to go and I totally had great seats. Well, I guess someone up there likes me because something happened and the next thing I know, a friend of Josh’s can’t make it to her Sunday performance, so she decides to sell her $90 ticket to a friend of mine. After I get word of this, I ask him to switch dates and the next thing I know I’m going to Madonna on Sunday. I was totally jazzed that I was going to get to go, and I asked if I could leave work early that day so we could all leave early to beat any potential traffic down to San Jose. Things work out and they let me off early, but as I’m walking to the Pier 39 garage, I feel a big pelt on my shoulder. It felt like someone had thrown a bean bag at me so I turn around to see who it was. Then people around me begin to squeal and scream, “Ewwww, it got all over me too!” I was like, “WTF?!” I looked over my shoulder and there it was, in all it’s nasty green, yellow, and white glory was BIRD SHIT! SOOOOOO GROSS!!!! I had never been shat on before, and this one dropping apparently made up for the years that I had missed these deadly missiles of poo because that shit was BIG! Argh! Anyhow, I ran to our group services office and took my uniform off and just wore my undershirt, then headed home to wash it all out. On my way home, this stupid skater decides that he’s going to skate down a hill, which is fine, but it was MY green light. As I’m passing through the intersection, I see this skateboarder coming down from my right, and I’m like, OMG! Fortunately, he jumps off just in time and the skateboard goes underneath my car and this stupid asshole of a skater is rolling in the intersection. I was sooooo freaked out, but I was trying to maintain my composure and positive energy. I was not going to let anything ruin my date with Madonna and her hott dancers! Ok, so that was the main drama until we get to the venue. When we get there, Josh and Vicky go through just fine, but then when I had the lady my ticket to be scanned, it beeps back at me. I was like, OMG, WTF. Were these tickets fake?! So we ask what happened and they said that we were being relocated. The next thing I know, our $90 nose bleed seats turned into $300 seats on the FLOOR! To top it all off, the show was incredible, and yes, the dancers were HOTT as hell, especially the skinny spikey-haired white boi. He was moving his body in ways that I had no idea a white boi could move, lol. Either way, I had a BLAST, and it totally helped that I was in good company. Josh prepped me well for Madonna, and there were hott guys all around me, it was good times…

So next on my list is…drum roll please…SARAH MCLACHLAN!!!!!!! I sooooo can’t believe she’s coming to the Greek! She hasn’t been on tour since Lilith Fair and I’ve been waiting soooooo long to see her. I can’t possibly begin to describe what this woman’s music has done for me. She’s an incredible musician and artist. Every one of her songs is so emotionally charged and resonates so well with me. She is my diva and I soooooo can’t wait until July 10th to see her!

Other notable concerts I’ll be seeing this summer: 311 and the Roots, Norah Jones, Jack Johnson, Gipsy Kings, REM, etc. Yes, this will be a fun-filled summer–concerts, traveling, and best of all, NO SCHOOL!

..and suddenly, all was calm, quiet, and whole…alas, I’m at peace…

I had a pleasant day at work today. The customers were cool, and I didn’t really have any beef with any of them. Despite having a closing shift, it actually went by pretty quickly and wasn’t too taxing on me at all. I wish more days could be like this, but the summer crowd will be coming soon, so I’d better enjoy the last of this freedom while I still can…

I got trained for Tessitura yesterday. Talk about incredible program! I can see why it sets the standard for the ticketing industry. The features and capabilities of this program are totally kick ass and I can’t wait to start selling tickets on it. Having this program under my belt will also make me more valuable if I decide to pursue my ticketing work any further, I’ll definitely be more marketable with this totally expensive program in my repertoire. If you had asked me 4 years ago if I’d ever be working in a box office, I’d have said you were crazy, but I actually like it and I’ve developed a rather comprehensive repository for customer service and ticketing knowledge, so we’ll see what happens in the future…

I had a late shift today at work and I figured I’d run some errands beforehand just so I could be productive. I had no idea that it was a national day of mourning for stupid Reagan’s death. I tried to go to the post office and it was closed. I was sooooooo irritated because I had to mail my package out today, and I also wanted to pick up my books that I had ordered from Barnes and Noble, but I couldn’t because of this supposed day of mourning. To be quite honest, I could hardly care about the man’s death, if anything, I’m actually relishing in it because he was such an asshole of a president. He totally fucked everything up with his Reaganomics and his totally subtle way of hiding and masking things, ugh! I’ll digress though since talking about him gets my blood pressure boiling…

I’ve decided to stay in tonight. I need a break from everything, and this is actually pretty nice. Not doing anything for once is rather relaxing and definitely something I’ll have to try again some time…

…workin’ it…
So it’s been a while since I last wrote an entry here, so I’ll try to recap what’s been going on in my life…

This was a pretty challenging semester, not so much on the academic side than the time-consuming aspect of it. I don’t think I quite internalized just what 27 units actually meant, but I survived. I wound up getting A’s in all of my classes, so that was a good GPA booster, and I even got more involved with extracurriculars as well. This really was a phenomenal semester for me in regards to being productive. I guess I just didn’t want to wind up sitting on my ass moping and wallowing in my own self-pity, so I decided to be proactive and make something of my time and my life. I like the direction it’s going in, and I like the direction my grades are going in as well. Hopefully, they’ll all stay that way…

Since the break-up, I’ve been trying new things out. My hair is one example. I’ve grown it out and it’s actually pretty fun to have hair to work with. I think I’ll try a new hair style every couple of weeks or so, we’ll see. I’m also starting to dress a little more gay too. I’m wearing tighter fitting jeans and what not, and I’ve totally gone berzerk with my shoe fetish, but it’s ok, I’m rewarding myself for all my hard work…

Speaking of hard work, LYRIC’s Champions was tonight. It’s an evening in which we celebrate all the youth that LYRIC serves, as well as an incredible assessor in Mabel Teng. She’s such an awesome ally, and I even got a picture with her! I wish there were more people like her, but I guess we have to deal with what we have. When I signed on to be a Board member, I wasn’t really sure what I was getting myself into. Although I’ve worked with non-profits for quite some time now, it wasn’t really at the level in which I’m involved with LYRIC. I’ve definitely learned from this experience and and very proud and pleased to be part of such an incredible organization. LYRIC is really what love for your work is all about!

In regards to work, I’m working a lot of hours and feeling rather fatigued by it all, physically that is. I’m working some 60+ hours a week between my jobs and I’m really feeling the effects of it all now. Yes, I’m making a lot of money, but I need some time to myself, as well as some time to spend with my friends and family before I head out to Hong Kong in the Spring, which isn’t too far away. I’m going to take some time off work this summer and actually go visit my family and do some traveling as well. I’ll be heading down to SoCal for the first time in a very long time in late June just before SF Pride, then I’m going to NYC for my yearly shopping trip in mid-July. I sooooooo can’t wait! One of the main reasons I’m taking this time off is because I didn’t get to take a vacation prior to the summer starting; as soon as finals finished, and even before it started, I was already starting to work close to full-time at Blue and Gold, so it has been rather taxing for me on a physical level. I need a break, and I’m at that point in my life now where I just don’t want to put it off anymore, mainly because my sanity won’t allow me to do so. Part of the reason why I’m working so hard this summer is because I know I won’t be working for a whole semester in the Spring, and I know my shopping habits, but thanks to some fellowships and scholarships that I’ve recently acquired, I’m just a little bit more comfortable than I was before school ended. I love free money, hehe…

I’ve more to say, but I’ll save it for another time. Things are good, and I’m happy.