The Year in Pictures

Recap of the year, in pictures only:

Midnight thoughts on my iPod

Stream of consciousness, laying on my back in my bed, with an iPod touch, 12:30AM on Christmas day

I'm lying in bed currently, trying to type on an iPod and seriously fucking struggling to get a comfortable position to type and try to lull asleep for Christmas festivities tomorrow. I'm listening to Maybe by Kaskade, a song I picked up on YouTube that has somehow been playing nonstop in my ears sine I found it up. By the time I finish this sentence though, the music has changed to PNAU's Embrace (Remix). Every night before I fall for serious asleep, there's a good hour before I actually fall physically asleep. In this time, my mind wanders, and I'm hoping to capture some of the stupid shit that goes through my head in writing, for kicks and mostly because a have a real hard time calming my buzzing mind for sleep.

The music changes to So Far Away by Kaskade (I'm in a Kaskade heavy playlist and recently found I really like his stuff. Sue me). I pause, trying to gather my thoughts as the singer's voice starts. The lyric " everything I run from staring right back at me" sticks in my mind for some reason.

I shift to my side, the goddamn screen rotates so I get all sorts of messed up.

I stop and wonder WTF I'm doing this for. Reading this would bore the shit out of me, let alone my one lone reader Double D.

I'm just....so tired of feeling like I'm not moving forward with ANYTHING. All aspects of my life: school, health, future plans, friends, this thing we call love. It's all stagnant, just sitting still like a bowl of water that was left outside for far too long, just begging to be hit, knocked over, shot onto space, SOMETHING to break this monotony of school, rejection, application, rejection, test I don't care about, homework that teaches me nothing relevant, living like I'm waiting for someone to tell me that it's finally OK to take that step forward and start your fucking life.

Song changes to 4AM. I pause and contemplate actually posting this for the world to see. What if someone randomly finds my blog? Why do I care? This is really how I feel. Trapped in a cage, and an acceptance to medical school holds the key.

The music stops. End of the playlist. Now I feel empty without the comfort of familiar music distracting a large part of my mind.

1AM now. These 30 minutes have seemed like minute while a raged on my touchscreen about the angst I feel. Close my eyes, deep breath, clear my mind, think of what's happening today.

I start the music again with Wet Sand. Slowing down touchscreen rage. Surprised you would read this far. Even more surprised that I actually posted this.

Wide awake, hoping the night will reveal my future.

I hope I can sleep tonight....

Song ends, post ends, catharsis complete. I feel much better, ready for another day!

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Merry Christmas! Cheers to the future, which cannot come soon enough!!!!!

When X met Y, who both met Z

Interesting conversation today. For the sake of privacy, let's say two people, X and Y, are BFF's. X and Y both like the same person, Z, who is a mutual friend. Z's a one-of-a-kind babe, so both are considering pursuing her.

Lame love triangle right? But what if X is aware that Y is interested in Z, but Y is not aware? Here's a diagram to illustrate with Jessica Alba playing the part of Z:
The person I was talking to was X, and I had no idea what to tell him. That's an uber sticky situation, if you know what I'm saying. If X made a move on Z, KNOWING that Y is interested, isn't he knowingly hurting his BFF? What if X and Z go out? Doesn't X feel guilty? How does Y react if that happens?

The alternative would be for X to do nothing, and then watch if Y makes a move on Z. How shitty is that? How does X act when he has to hang out with Y and Z? Does he suck it up for the sake of his friend's happiness?

I couldn't help him. I would have no idea what to do in that situation. Have a board meeting with everyone involved and spell it out?

I think the Wizard of Oz said it best when he said: "As for you, my galvanized friend, you want a heart. You don't know how lucky you are not to have one. Hearts will never be practical until they can be made unbreakable."

Hope it works out for you X...

Sweet Vid

I love it, both as music and how it is made

Never-Ending Blunder by Koh

Never-Ending Blunder

You look at me with eyes of longing,

For me to speak my mind.

You want to know what I'm thinking,

So all my thoughts unwind.

You desire the thoughts I keep,

But mostly what I think of you.

I wish I could tell you what you seek,

So maybe someday you'll tell me too.

A continuous cycle of silence,

We endlessly pursue.

We are always under the pretense,

Of saying, "How are you?"

It seems I'll always wonder,

If holding on to my true thoughts,

Might be my never-ending blunder.

-Koh

http://xkcd.com/817/

This Addiction

While I was listening to the song This Addiction by Alkaline Trio, I realized that there was actually a lot of truth behind what they are saying; love and relationships are an addiction, a drug that people desire.

The end of the world as we know it

The people I know who are in relationships always seem to be in one, or if not in one, are actively and fully looking to be in another one even though they say they don't want to date for awhile. Withdrawal perhaps? Then you have my type where we date very few and very far between. It's been so long since my first girlfriend that I don't even remember what it was like having one. I just remember it being a good feeling, knowing that someone out there is probably thinking about you.

So is either option "better?" Jumping from relationship to relationship, experience the extremes of both sadness and happiness. Do people who do this seriously consider the next person they date, or just rush into it to get their addiction satisfied?

Or is it better to cruise, feeling sad-ish that you're not in a relationship and feeling those moments of happiness, but avoiding the sadness and difficulty of them? Is it better to seriously consider any relationship and likely not pursue it out of fear of rejection or getting hurt?

I guess in the end, we all just want to be wanted...

Pocket Knife of Life

There's a bathroom right outside of the design lab that I frequently use since I'm always in lab and it's convenient. Today was no exception since I had a biochem test to study for, and massive amounts of coffee to keep me awake from last night's shenanigans.

So in this bathroom, there's a huge-ass lock that you twist to engage. I went in to the bathroom and the fucking handle to the lock falls off. I thought it was no big deal since I could just go to another bathroom, but then I realized that it locked, THEN the handle fell off. Two things went through my head: whoever put the lock handle back on when it was broken was a giant dick, and how the hell am I going to get out of this bathroom.

Now, normal people would call for help when someone passed by or use their cell phone to call someone. I didn't have my cell phone on me and I didn't want to wait for a long time for someone to get help and bust down the giant metal door. In fact, I'm pretty sure it would have involved some big torches or axes, and it just would have sucked all around. Furthermore, it would have taken forever and I had stuff to do. Incredibly stupidly in hindsight, I thought, "I wonder if I can get out of here without any help?"

I tried putting the handle back in and trying to turn it back, but it wasn't turning at all. Then I tried to grab the little metal sliver with my hands and turning it, but that wasn't working either. I then realized that I had my pocket knife, so I whipped that out and tried to leverage the metal strip thingie to unlock the door, to no avail. I then saw 4 screw on the lock, so I used my pocket knife to unscrew these. I expected the lock to open up so I could see inside, but the thing didn't move at all. SO THEN, I tried to use my pocket knife to separate the lock box from the door, and it loosened a little. I pushed and pulled the lox box up and down as hard as I could and the thing finally came off. I opened the door and went back to work.

Two lessons learned: I'm too independent for my own good, and pocket knifes save lives. Or study time anyways.

Procrastination

Came across this while not doing my neuro homework. Love it! :
-------------------------------------------------

"The Square Root of Three"

I’m sure that I will always be
A lonely number like root three

The three is all that’s good and right,
Why must my three keep out of sight
...Beneath the vicious square root sign,
I wish instead I were a nine

For nine could thwart this evil trick,
with just some quick arithmetic

I know I’ll never see the sun,
as 1.7321
Such is my reality,
a sad irrationality

When hark! What is this I see,
Another square root of a three

As quietly co-waltzing by,
Together now we multiply
To form a number we prefer,
Rejoicing as an integer

We break free from our mortal bonds
With the wave of magic wands

Our square root signs become unglued
Your love for me has been renewed

- Dave Feinberg

Partial Catharsis

There is a part of my chest, slightly below and to the right of my heart (from my perspective) that I think these things called "emotions" are located. Whenever something emotionally stimulating happens, it always seems to be this area that reacts the most, then the rest of my body can decide to act if it wishes.

Somewhere in my upbringing, my personality decided that showing excessive emotion was something I didn't want to do, so whenever this "emotion" center acts up, I tend to do nothing about it. Hence, most of the time I have a neutral face on, not showing emotion one way or the other. Annoying people think that I'm sad all the time for some reason because I don't have a giant grin on my face every fucking second of the day. People who know me better know that I'm not really feeling a strong emotion one way or the other (or just lost in my own thoughts (or tired)).

Also somewhere in my upbringing, I really really hate showing sadness on any level. If something really sad happens, I'll tend to bury it and keep my neutral face on. Why? I dunno, call me machismo or whatever, but I'm not the type of person to break down and cry if I hear a sad story. I probably feel it in the "emotion" center, but I won't express much facially or physically.

If something small happens that makes me happy or laugh, I'll definitely drop the neutral face and smile; ain't nothing wrong with that!

Why do I bring this up?

1) People seem to have mislabeled me as some continual sad/angry person, and I'm not. My neutral expression is just that: neutral. Not sad or angry, I'm just not feeling anything one way or the other. I have a hard time expressing "emotion" every time the slightest thing happens. Sue me.

2) Still one of the greatest emotions I have a hard time not expressing is rejection. As rejection letters keep coming in from medical schools, I see my chances keep fading that I can get in for this year, meaning I have to start studying for the MCAT again and go through the entire process of committee, secondaries, AMCAS, application fees, and my own disappointment. I have never failed to accomplish something major, and I don't feel like starting now.

This is continually in the back of my mind. ALWAYS! Whatever I'm doing, it's back there, whispering and taunting that I'm not good enough to be a doctor yet somehow adding 3 points to my MCAT score will make me more qualified. It's incredibly frustrating to me that this is how the system works, but there is nothing I can do about it except play the game.

This is the current source of my anger and frustration. It's not some personality trait, so quit telling me what emotions you think I'm feeling; believe it or not, I KNOW WHAT I'M FEELING!!!!!!

5th item in Google image search for catharsis.

Reply: Little Experiment

Question posed by the only person who read this: What sort of non-essential material things do YOU guys want, and what do they say about you?

-----
New bike wheels, one yellow and one blue:


Mario and Nintendo stickers to put on my bike:

Tools:


Big Azz HD TV:


A new desktop computer:

A frolf set:


Dog:


A teleportation device (probably far in the future):
--------------------
What do they say about me? The first few reflect my new hobby, my bike, and making it look nice as well as thinking about riding it around Ft. Collins with my friends this summer. I really want some ballin' tires, stickers for added sweetness, and then tools to actually be able to get work done. The next few items, TV and computer, reflect me wanting to have more ways to hang out with my roommates. We used to all console game and watch the football games in the living room. We gave the TV to someone and now my roommates are computer gamers, leaving me to consoles. I definitely want to pick up Star Craft 2, but I don't have the computer, money or time to do so. The frolf (frisbee golf) set is so that I can pick up another, more outdoorsy hobby and play that with my friends. Next, the dog. I love dogs and really want one, but there is no way that I could have another living thing dependent on me right now, hell, probably not for the next 4-8 years until I'm fully done with schooling and settled down. The last item is so I can transport between here, Colorado, and Japan. That way, I would never have to be missing someone continually, friends or family.

But all I REALLY want, which to me is not a 'non-essential material thing', is a medical school interview...

Third image in Google search of 'medical school interview,' and exactly how I feel when waiting

Poetry I Wish I Could Write: Ogden Nash

My favorite poet is along with Frost is Ogden Nash. He writes "light verse," light hearted and witty/pun filled poetry. It reminds me of Dr. Seuss, and I just can't get enough of it. In his own words, "my field -- the minor idiocies of humanity." Once again, if you're lazy, just read the last 2 poems:

----

A Lady who Thinks She Is Thirty

Unwillingly Miranda wakes,

Feels the sun with terror,

One unwilling step she takes,

Shuddering to the mirror.

Miranda in Miranda's sight

Is old and gray and dirty;

Twenty-nine she was last night;

This morning she is thirty.

Shining like the morning star,

Like the twilight shining,

Haunted by a calendar,

Miranda is a-pining.

Silly girl, silver girl,

Draw the mirror toward you;

Time who makes the years to whirl

Adorned as he adored you.

Time is timelessness for you;

Calendars for the human;

What's a year, or thirty, to

Loveliness made woman?

Oh, Night will not see thirty again,

Yet soft her wing, Miranda;

Pick up your glass and tell me, then--

How old is Spring, Miranda?

----

The Tale of Custard the Dragon

Belinda lived in a little white house,

With a little black kitten and a little gray mouse,

And a little yellow dog and a little red wagon,

And a realio, trulio, little pet dragon.

Now the name of the little black kitten was Ink,

And the little gray mouse, she called hum Blink,

And the little yellow dog was sharp as Mustard,

But the dragon was a coward, and she called him Custard.

Custard the dragon had big sharp teeth,

And spikes on top of him and scales underneath,

Mouth like a fireplace, chimney for a nose,

And realio, trulio daggers on his toes.

Belinda was as brave as a barrel full of bears,

And Ink and Blink chased lions down the stairs,

Mustard was as brave as a tiger in a rage,

But Custard cried for a nice safe cage.

Belinda tickled him, she tickled him unmerciful,

Ink, Blink and Mustard, they rudely called him Percival,

They all sat laughing in the little red wagon

At the realio, trulio, cowardly dragon.

Belinda giggled till she shook the house,

and Blink said Weeck! which is giggling for a mouse,

Ink and Mustard rudely asked his age,

When Custard cried for a nice safe cage.

Suddenly, suddenly they heard a nasty sound,

And Mustard growled, and they all looked around.

Meowch! cried Ink, and Ooh! cried Belinda,

For there was a pirate, climbing in the winda.

Pistol in his left hand, pistol in his right,

And he held in his teeth a cutlass bright,

His beard was black, one leg was wood;

It was clear that the pirate meant no good.

Belinda paled, and she cried Help! Help!

But Mustard fled with a terrified yelp,

Ink trickled down to the bottom of the household,

And little mouse Blink strategically mouseholed.

But up jumped Custard snorting like an engine,

Clashed his tail like irons in a dungeon,

With a clatter and a clank and a jangling squirm,

He went at the pirate like a robin at a worm.

The pirate gaped at Belinda's dragon,

And gulped some grog from his pocket flagon,

He fired two bullets, but they didn't hit,

And Custard gobbled him, every bit.

Belinda embraced him, Mustard licked him,

No one mourned for his pirate victim.

Ink and Blink in glee did gyrate

Around the dragon that ate the pirate.

But presently up spoke little dog Mustard,

I'd been twice as brave if I hadn't been flustered.

And up spoke Ink and up spoke Blink,

We'd have been three times as brave, we think,

And Custard said, I quite agree

That everybody is braver than me.

Belinda still lives in her little white house,

With her little black kitten and her little gray mouse,

And her little yellow dog and her little red wagon,

And her realio, trulio little pet dragon.

Belinda is as brave as a barrel full of bears,

And Ink and Blink chase lions down the stairs,

Mustard is as brave as a tiger in a rage,

But Custard keeps crying for a nice safe cage.

----

The Purist

I give you now Professor Twist,

A conscientious scientist,

Trustees exclaimed, "He never bungles!"

And sent him off to distant jungles.

Camped on a tropic riverside,

One day he missed his loving bride.

She had, the guide informed him later,

Been eaten by an alligator.

Professor Twist could not but smile.

"You mean," he said, "a crocodile.

----

To My Valentine

More than a catbird hates a cat,

Or a criminal hates a clue,

Or the Axis hates the United States,

That's how much I love you.

I love you more than a duck can swim,

And more than a grapefruit squirts,

I love you more than a gin rummy is a bore,

And more than a toothache hurts.

As a shipwrecked sailor hates the sea,

Or a juggler hates a shove,

As a hostess detests unexpected guests,

That's how much you I love.

I love you more than a wasp can sting,

And more than the subway jerks,

I love you as much as a beggar needs a crutch,

And more than a hangnail irks.

I swear to you by the stars above,

And below, if such there be,

As the High Court loathes perjurious oathes,

That's how you're loved by me.

----

My Dream

This is my dream,

It is my own dream,

I dreamt it.

I dreamt that my hair was kempt.

Then I dreamt that my true love unkempt it.

-----

On a side note, I found my notebook with some of my poems that I thought I left in Colorado. I almost feel like burning it to forget my high school self...

Poetry I Wish I Could Write: Robert Frost

Robert Frost is one of my all-time favorites. Not only does he use nature a lot in his poems, his rhythm and pace just really appeal to me, with a mix of serious and lighthearted poems. His classics of course are The Road Not Taken, Mending Wall, and Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening (one of my favorite of Frost's). Here are some other that you may not be familiar with. The very last line of this post may be my favorite line of poetry ever in the history of ever-ness:

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Acquainted with the Night

I have been one acquainted with the night.

I have walked out in rain -- and back in rain.

I have outwalked the furthest city light.

I have looked down the saddest city lane.

I have passed by the watchman on his beat

And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.

I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet

When far away an interrupted cry

Came over houses from another street,

But not to call me back or say good-bye;

And further still at an unearthly height,

A luminary clock against the sky

Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right.

I have been one acquainted with the night.

----

Fire and Ice

Some say the world will end in fire,

Some say in ice.

From what I've tasted of desire

I hold with those who favour fire.

But if it had to perish twice,

I think I know enough of hate

To say that for destruction ice

Is also great

And would suffice.

----

A Minor Bird

I have wished a bird would fly away,

And not sing by my house all day;

Have clapped my hands at him from the door

When it seemed as if I could bear no more.

The fault must partly have been in me.

The bird was not to blame for his key.

And of course there must be something wrong

In wanting to silence any song.

----

Frost wrote his own epitaph:

And were an epitaph be my story

I'd have a short one ready for my own

I would have written of me on my stone

I had a lover's quarrel with the world.

Poetry I Wish I Could Write: Def Jam Mix

Most of these are the ones I remember from my slam poetry phase:

Gemineye- A Penny for Your Thoughts

George Watsky - V for Virgin (skip to 1:10)

Rafael Casal - Barbie & Ken 101

Lemon - Love Poem

Beau Sia- Love

Poetry I Wish I Could Write: Oscar Brown Jr.

Tired of reading? How about just listening then? I went through a phase where I was only listening to slam poetry from Def Jam Poetry. The next few post will be about those.

Here is Oscar Brown Jr. Not only his is poetry awesome, his delivery is even better. If these don't stir anything in you, I think you should go to the doctor because you have no soul:

Children of Children

I Apologize

This Beach

Poetry I Wish I Could Write: Mix Bag

Now for a mixed bag of poets I like, but these are pretty much the only poems of theirs that I enjoy. Especially the middle one:

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A Contemplation upon Flowers

BRAVE flowers--that I could gallant it like you,

And be as little vain!

You come abroad, and make a harmless show,

And to your beds of earth again.

You are not proud: you know your birth:

For your embroider'd garments are from earth.

You do obey your months and times, but I

Would have it ever Spring:

My fate would know no Winter, never die,

Nor think of such a thing.

O that I could my bed of earth but view

And smile, and look as cheerfully as you!

O teach me to see Death and not to fear,

But rather to take truce!

How often have I seen you at a bier,

And there look fresh and spruce!

You fragrant flowers! then teach me, that my breath

Like yours may sweeten and perfume my death.

-Henry King

----

The Heavy Bear Who Goes With Me

"the withness of the body" --Whitehead

The heavy bear who goes with me,

A manifold honey to smear his face,

Clumsy and lumbering here and there,

The central ton of every place,

The hungry beating brutish one

In love with candy, anger, and sleep,

Crazy factotum, dishevelling all,

Climbs the building, kicks the football,

Boxes his brother in the hate-ridden city.

Breathing at my side, that heavy animal,

That heavy bear who sleeps with me,

Howls in his sleep for a world of sugar,

A sweetness intimate as the water's clasp,

Howls in his sleep because the tight-rope

Trembles and shows the darkness beneath.

--The strutting show-off is terrified,

Dressed in his dress-suit, bulging his pants,

Trembles to think that his quivering meat

Must finally wince to nothing at all.

That inescapable animal walks with me,

Has followed me since the black womb held,

Moves where I move, distorting my gesture,

A caricature, a swollen shadow,

A stupid clown of the spirit's motive,

Perplexes and affronts with his own darkness,

The secret life of belly and bone,

Opaque, too near, my private, yet unknown,

Stretches to embrace the very dear

With whom I would walk without him near,

Touches her grossly, although a word

Would bare my heart and make me clear,

Stumbles, flounders, and strives to be fed

Dragging me with him in his mouthing care,

Amid the hundred million of his kind,

the scrimmage of appetite everywhere.

-Delmore Schwartz

----

The Man with Night Sweats

I wake up cold, I who
Prospered through dreams of heat
Wake to their residue,
Sweat, and a clinging sheet.

My flesh was its own shield:
Where it was gashed, it healed.

I grew as I explored
The body I could trust
Even while I adored
The risk that made robust,

A world of wonders in
Each challenge to the skin.

I cannot but be sorry
The given shield was cracked,
My mind reduced to hurry,
My flesh reduced and wrecked.

I have to change the bed,
But catch myself instead

Stopped upright where I am
Hugging my body to me
As if to shield it from
The pains that will go through me,

As if hands were enough
To hold an avalanche off.

-Thom Gunn

Poetry I Wish I Could Write: Wallace Stevens

Wallace Stevens writes in a strange, choppy style with pretty vivid imagery. He also tends to number stanzas, and have a series of poems about the same subject. I definitely prefer some stanzas to others, but the poems require all of the stanzas to see which ones stand out from the rest. This is a longer post, so if you're lazy, just read stanza III of Six Significant Landscapes and the last poem, my favorite of Wallace Stevens.

========

Anecdote of the Jar

I placed a jar in Tennessee,

And round it was, upon a hill.

It made the slovenly wilderness

Surround that hill.

The wilderness rose up to it,

And sprawled around, no longer wild.

The jar was round upon the ground

And tall and of a port in air.

It took dominion everywhere.

The jar was gray and bare.

It did not give of bird or bush,

Like nothing else in Tennessee.

----

Six Significant Landscapes

I

An old man sits

In the shadow of a pine tree

In China.

He sees larkspur,

Blue and white,

At the edge of the shadow,

Move in the wind.

His beard moves in the wind.

The pine tree moves in the wind.

Thus water flows

Over weeds.

II

The night is of the colour

Of a woman's arm:

Night, the female,

Obscure,

Fragrant and supple,

Conceals herself.

A pool shines,

Like a bracelet

Shaken in a dance.

III

I measure myself

Against a tall tree.

I find that I am much taller,

For I reach right up to the sun,

With my eye;

And I reach to the shore of the sea

With my ear.

Nevertheless, I dislike

The way ants crawl

In and out of my shadow.

IV

When my dream was near the moon,

The white folds of its gown

Filled with yellow light.

The soles of its feet

Grew red.

Its hair filled

With certain blue crystallizations

From stars,

Not far off.

V

Not all the knives of the lamp-posts,

Nor the chisels of the long streets,

Nor the mallets of the domes

And high towers,

Can carve

What one star can carve,

Shining through the grape-leaves.

VI

Rationalists, wearing square hats,

Think, in square rooms,

Looking at the floor,

Looking at the ceiling.

They confine themselves

To right-angled triangles.

If they tried rhomboids,

Cones, waving lines, ellipses --

As, for example, the ellipse of the half-moon --

Rationalists would wear sombreros.

----

The Poem That Took The Place Of A Mountain

There it was, word for word,

The poem that took the place of a mountain.

He breathed its oxygen,

Even when the book lay turned in the dust of his table.

It reminded him how he had needed

A place to go to in his own direction,

How he had recomposed the pines,

Shifted the rocks and picked his way among clouds,

For the outlook that would be right,

Where he would be complete in an unexplained completion:

The exact rock where his inexactness

Would discover, at last, the view toward which they had edged,

Where he could lie and, gazing down at the sea,

Recognize his unique and solitary home.

----

Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird

I

Among twenty snowy mountains,

The only moving thing

Was the eye of the blackbird.

II

I was of three minds,

Like a tree

In which there are three blackbirds.

III

The blackbird whirled in the autumn winds.

It was a small part of the pantomime.

IV

A man and a woman

Are one.

A man and a woman and a blackbird

Are one.

V

I do not know which to prefer,

The beauty of inflections

Or the beauty of innuendoes,

The blackbird whistling

Or just after.

VI

Icicles filled the long window

With barbaric glass.

The shadow of the blackbird

Crossed it, to and fro.

The mood

Traced in the shadow

An indecipherable cause.

VII

O thin men of Haddam,

Why do you imagine golden birds?

Do you not see how the blackbird

Walks around the feet

Of the women about you?

VIII

I know noble accents

And lucid, inescapable rhythms;

But I know, too,

That the blackbird is involved

In what I know.

IX

When the blackbird flew out of sight,

It marked the edge

Of one of many circles.

X

At the sight of blackbirds

Flying in a green light,

Even the bawds of euphony

Would cry out sharply.

XI

He rode over Connecticut

In a glass coach.

Once, a fear pierced him,

In that he mistook

The shadow of his equipage

For blackbirds.

XII

The river is moving.

The blackbird must be flying.

XIII

It was evening all afternoon.

It was snowing

And it was going to snow.

The blackbird sat

In the cedar-limbs.

Poetry I Wish I Could Write: Tite Kubo

I used to write poetry, way way way back in high school. I'm pretty sure I won't post them here because 1)I left my notebook in CO, 2) I'm not a big fan of my own stuff, and 3) It's personal shit.

The next series of posts are poems I wish I could write. First up, Tite Kubo, manga artist and writer for Bleach:

=============

If I don't wield the sword,

I can't protect you.

If I keep wielding the sword,

I can't embrace you.

----

We should not shed tears

That is a surrender of the body to the heart.

It is only proof

that we are beings that do not know

what to do with our hearts.

----

I am merely practicing

saying goodbye to you.

----

One who paints the beauty in love

is one who pretends to not know love's form.

One who paints the ugliness in love

is one who understood it well.

----

We look upon you

as one would a peacock.

A look that borders on

anticipation, adoration, and something

akin to neverending terror

----

We think the flower on the precipice is beautiful

because we stop our feet at the cliff's edge

instead of stepping towards the sky

like that flower.

Source

Muzak

At request from a previous post, here's some music I'm currently listening to or continually go back to. Feel free to kinda listen to the links and then move on with your lives. Don't lie, you know you will. Music is pretty personal. I put the link with the song name, and then my favorite lyric from the song.

I've been listening to A.F.I.'s new album, Crash Love, non-stop since I got it in Korea. I don't know really why, I just love it. I think my favorite track from it is Veronica Sawyer Smokes, about a straight edge kids who falls in love with a non-straight edge girl: "I could recite you well, I'd written every line, but you strayed far from my flawless script on which I spent a lifetime."

Another song that I really like from the album is Okay, I Feel Better Now. It's actually a really dark song if you read the lyrics: "Show your wounds, I'm bored with mine."

Here's a song that I found from an article on the interblag, Virtual Insanity by Jamiroquia. I like his voice and the overall feel of the song. "Now there is no sounds, because we all live underground."

Another new album I got over summer is This Addiction by Alkaline Trio. I like this album too, and my favorite song off this album is Dead on the Floor, a song about a breakup. The entire song's lyrics are awesome, so here's a few I like: "The fact of the matter is that both of our shattered way too goddamn easily" "Now my heart is a mess, murder scene in my chest / not a clue how you got through the door. / But I'm glad that you came, no regret and no shame, / As I'm lying here dead on the floor."

I've also really like the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and have been listening to Hard to Concentrate. It has a pretty unique sound. "Finally you have found something perfect / And finally you have found, yourself, with me."

Also by the RHCP, I Could Die for You, is just a chill azz song. "Come along and go / Along with me / Wander with my yo / It's all for free."

I also really like Blue Scholars in general, Sagaba being one of my favs ("We hardly know ourselves if we know nobody else / And only in our loneliness can home become a hell") and Common Market, Love One ("If you got one, love one...You're lucky just to have just one")

Jazz has always been a music I enjoy, especially Oscar Peterson and Charlie Parker. Like most jazz, I don't have a particular song for either of them that I love since it's all great.

I tend to enjoy techno/electronica if I'm in the mood, usually Deadmau5 and Kaskade.

There are more bands and whatnot that I listen to, but this is the main gist of it.

In your hands, if you know what I mean

I don’t really care to continue this blog. Laziness is the biggest factor, but I’m also out of ideas/motivation. Do you want to hear about my life and daily activities (super lame), or random thoughts on shit (hard and time consuming)? Comment (gasp!) after this if you want me to talk about something. Just give me a topic or question, and I’ll answer it if I like it. Otherwise, this thing will become pretty much stagnant.

Have fun!

My Dual Life

I admit it: I live two lives. 9 months out of the year, I’m a hardworking, half-Japanese, studious, BMES officer, hospital volunteer, nice guy, foul-mouthed Colorado native who you can often find in B62 or playing video games at home. The other 4 months, I’m the nice, calm, friendly, drinking and occasionally smoking high school friend who’s away at Pitt for 9 months out of the year and pops in during vacation time. In one place, I am a country boy; the other, a city slicker.

Well, which am I? I don’t think you can truly understand this unless you go out of state for college. I literally have 2 sets of awesome friends; my high school friends who I’m still tight with and are all in Colorado, and my Pitt friends, who I have become close with over the past 2 years. I can honestly say I can’t really see them mingling together should these lives come together in some sort of freak, tectonic plate shift that brought Pitt right next to Fo’ Co’. They would talk, sure, but become friends with each other? I find that a hard one to swallow. They are two sets of friends who reflect my two lives; vacation in Colorado, work at Pitt. One group is studious, dedicated, and fun to do things with usually outside of my usual interests. The other, always fun, always chill, all have the same interests that I do, from gaming to camping to everything.

Someone once said that your friends define you as a person. Am I two people, or the same person in two completely different circumstance, and have made (and retained) friends from said circumstances? Why are each respective groups overall personalities different?

I don’t care for an answer to my question, ‘cause it doesn’t matter. Friends are friends, who the fuck cares what defines you as a person?

Random thoughts of Korean-ness

Afterthoughts from my rant above, that I wanted to talk about but it didn’t fit in my stream of consciousness above.

-When I wrote “see next post” about ‘IN LAB,’ that’s cause people outside of lab, aka Korean strangers, are generally pricks in Korea. Get the fuck out of their way, they are far more important than you, especially if you are a foreigner. I saw this often when trying to cross the side walk. If there were enough people waiting to cross, then the cars would GENERALLY stop at the red light. If it was only you, then you might have to play Frogger trying to get across the road when THEIR LIGHT IS RED, while having them honking at you because you are using your right of way. Koreans honk, a lot, in their car, regardless of what is happening around them or if the person they are honking at has a choice. I also saw this when riding the subway in Korea. In Japan, people politely stand to the side and let everyone out before they try to get in. In Korea, people stand right in front of the door and try to push their way in while people are getting out, because, you know, they are so much more important than you and it’s apparently easier this way.

-Korean anniversaries for relationships are every 100 days, instead of the 1 month, 3 month, 6 month, then yearly as I think it is in the USA, or whatever. I dunno. If you’re one of the 4 people I know who read this, you probably have a MUCH better idea than I do about what the intervals are.

-All utensils are steel in Korea. Their chopsticks are thinner and flatter than “normal” chopsticks. The slick metal surface makes it hard to eat noodles, especially ramen. Weak

-Public transportation is the shit; cheap-ish, quick, and reliable.

-Ice cream in Korea is fuckin awesome, also cheap.

-Koreans have a problem with eating rabbits in the same way that we have a problem with eating dogs. Rabbits are usually a large part of their myths/cute shit, thus not readily as eatable.

-Gardens are everywhere in Korea. If there is a little green area available, chances are someone is going to put in a garden, regardless of where it is.

-PC Bangs (pronounced bohng in real life, but bang for humor by us ignorant and crass Americans) are places where you can pay an hourly fee to play computer games on a really high end computer with a ridiculous monitor. It’s cheap and the computers are fast, so me and some other guys (get over it grammer nazi) from the trip would go there to play some games and blow of some steam. We once saw a teenage-looking kid watching hardcore porn while at one of these, and recording it on his cellphone. It was HI-larious. It’d be like watching hardcore porn at an internet café or David Lawerence.

-I feel like in Asia, mostly in business or formal settings, most language is veiled to hide their true intentions, or make them seem not selfish when they are actually being selfish. I find this really really annoying.

-Korean’s think they are the center of the world, much like most Americans, but the difference being American pop culture is usually globally known and Korea is not, but growing. They kept asking me what my favorite Korean athlete in America was or Korean music artist was, and I was like, “No one listens to Korean music outside of Korea except for a select few.” And they couldn’t believe it.

-Korean men are required to go to the army for 2 years and go back once a year for training afterwards. During their stay in the army, they get paid about $80 a month. This is what really was foreign to me. In the USA, we always have a choice. Freedom of choice and speech is what makes America awesome (and often stupid), but they don’t have a choice whether or not to join the army! Fuck that. I think this cripples them and contributes to their lack of personality/free-thinking/general drone-i-ness by accepting orders for 2 years when they have no desire to be there in the first place. North Koreans have to serve 10 years, 5 years for women.

-I like Japan a lot better (yes, I’m bias), but it is a lot more crowded in Japan.

-Asians in general have closed minds. It’s their way/culture or just not acceptable, with no alternative even when presented with evidence contrary.

-In Asia, there is no room to spread out like in the US, so instead they build up and down, leading to high rise apartment building EVERYWHERE and underground malls at every subway station or major shopping area. We would often call the underground areas in Korea “The Hive” where the Koreans prosper underground.

-I still have no idea how the Koreans in my lab meet other people or date, yet they all have girlfriends. They are in lab 6 days a week from 9AM to 10PM, and 9AM to 4PM on Saturday. Apparently it’s “hard,” but I don’t know if most girls I know who would be able to handle that.

Ranting on Korea

Been done for ten days in Korea, but been vacationing in Japan during. Here’s some wrap up thoughts on the experience, and it’s me ranting (so don’t expect much flow, just puking thoughts onto the page. It’s how I write, stream of consciousness, get over it.) in Incheon Airport in Seoul because it stirred up some memories.

Let me preface this post with the fact that it was an awesome experience and the people IN LAB (see next post) were incredibly nice. Having known what I know now, I would still choose do to this experience given the choice at the beginning of the year. However, if I had to do the experience now, again, for 2 additional months, I would have to politely refuse staying longer in Korea.

See, this experience has taught me that I seriously don’t belong in Asian culture. Sure, I got privileges of being an ignorant guest, but towards the end of it, I was expected to follow custom, such as bowing to professors, even if they weren’t mine, shit like that. And I like the IDEA of society first, individual later. I try to put other’s needs before mine in ‘Merica, but when an entire society does it, it suppresses the individualism that I so cherish in American culture. I feel like Korea, and maybe East Asia in general, are a society rather than a collection of individuals like it is in ‘Merica. You are more than likely to find the same values, thoughts, and reactions from individual Korean to another Korean. Why? Because the culture is so homogenous and if you stick out, you are hammered to conform to everyone else. One of the members of the IRES remarked once: “I remember someone once told me that if everyone was the same, life would be pretty boring.” I experienced it to some degree in Korea. The men and women were like carbon copies of each other. The ones whose names I remembered and became friends with had more personality than others and showed it regularly, until occasions called for their silent obedience to the elders. Like two sides of a coin; one a vibrant person who jokes and jostles, the next moment a lackey getting the professors shoes after the soccer game.

Age rules all here. Without fail, I would first be asked my name and then my age, so I could be properly placed into their age hierarchy. At this rule supersedes everything. If your senior is a lazy asshole who does no work, and takes credit for yours, you still have to pay respect just because he is older than you. This is what really sucked about Korean culture. Fuck that. You earn respect through your own personal actions, not by some happenstance that both parties had no control over.

And everyone was fine with this!!! It was normal!!! I wanted to ask them, “Aren’t you frustrated?!? Don’t you want to speak your mind, tell your seniors sometimes to shove it and that you can make your own decisions?!?” But I didn’t since I didn’t want to be disrespectful to their culture. I’m a filthy American, what the hell do I know about society order and following social bullshit?

Korean/Asian women born here seem to lack a whole lot of personality. Most were giggling masses of hands over mouths since they are way too shy to talk, or seemingly mindless girls who could only make small talk. And their interactions with boys/men were so….childish. Like they were stuck in highschool or grade school! I couldn’t believe that some of the women in lab were older than I was based on how they acted! I dunno what happens, but I can only venture a guess; both Korean and Japanese highschools are brutal academically, described to me like bioengineering at the Junior level with the amount of work. Every Asian student goes through highschool, studying all the time with what seems to be little interactions with others, specially the opposite sex. All the kids I see running around are so full of energy and fun and PERSONALITY! What the hell happened between these kids and the adults? Most students I talked to were only interested in going through school as quick as possible, getting their masters degree, getting a job and getting married. All of them. Nothing else seemed possible. No travel, no revelation in science, no real interest in the research they were doing. Just a means to an end.

The society seemed to be stuck in a loop of being just like everyone else, and I couldn’t stand another week of it.

But what do I know? I’m just a filthy foreigner.

Food for Serious

The last post was to annoy the person I promised a food post about. I thought it was funny, but apparently I’m going to get slapped when I return to Pitt. Totally worth it.

*******WARNING********: This is a long fucking post. Lots o’ pics though

So food here. Let me start off by saying it’s really cheap here, usually $4 or less will get you a substantial meal anywhere that is delicious and $8 will get you a meal that is high end and really delicious. You can also any food imaginable and have it delivered to your front door.

Food is a very large part of the culture and where I get most of my intimate interactions with my lab members or other Koreans on the weekends. Almost all meals consist of a main dish and a shit ton of small side dishes. I think that they are supposed to be an odd number of total plates, but I don’t care to ever count while I am eating. Every utensil is steel, from the chopsticks (which are super thin, I brought some back if you want to check them out), spoons, and bowls. They say that it is easier to clean and less waste then having so many wooden chopsticks, which I agree with I guess. There is ALWAYS kimchi. For those who don’t know, kimchi is an absolute requirement for every meal. There is nothing comparable in the USA that I can think of. It just HAS to be served as a side dish. It’s a mixture of vegetables that are pickled and has a lot red-pepper-like spice (gochu) on it. I actually don’t like it, but eat it so not to offend anyone. It’s a texture and taste thing. Just imagine eating a cabbage that’s pickled and sprinkled with red peppers, and that’s what I think it tastes like.

There are SO many different foods here, it’s going to be hard to talk about them. In general though, you can expect to have a lot of gochu and vegetables in most of your food. A lot of meals have a stove in the center of the table, and the vegetables and meat are put into a cauldron on top of the stove, usually with a soup base. The food is then cooked in front of you, and everyone enjoys it by ladling some out of the middle:

This is in the middle of the table (Source)

There are many forms of this style of meal, but in general, they are all spicy and they are all boiling hot. I had 3 different styles in 3 days, and was seriously done with that shit for awhile. It’s good, just not that often.

Outside of the spicy big-cauldron stew is one of my favorites, sam gep tang, or three-layer pork. They bring out the pork raw and then you cook it with a grill in the center of the table:

Also in the middle of the table(Source)

After the pork is cooked, you take a piece, dip it in sauce, and then place it into a lettuce leaf. You can then add anything you want from the side dishes, such as garlic, pickled radish, kimchi, onions, etc. Once you have everything you have, you stuff that shit in one bite. The lettuce wrap process is called “sam,” and this also comes in a variety of forms, such as chicken with rice cake, veggies, and a spicy sauce, also another dish I liked a lot whose name eludes me right now:

Sam gep tang from my B-Day. Lettuce, some side dishes and things to put in the wrap, grill on the right.

Individual dishes include a lot of soups, noodles and rice dishes. Soup dishes are roughly the same as above, except in individual sized portions and already cooked so you can eat right away. Most soups come out in a steel or iron bowl, and are still boiling when they serve it to you. Not sure why it served this hot, but I tended to avoid the soups while I have been here since you have to wait about 5 minutes before you can even attempt to eat. Out of the soup category, I think my favorite is sam gye tang, literally ginseng chicken soup. It has a whole young chicken in the soup, and the inner cavity is filled with rice, dates, and a few ginseng roots. It is a little of a hassle to eat, but I really like this dish:

Usually doesn't look this picture perfect (Source)

There are also a whole lot of noodle dishes, which is awesome since I’m a noodle man, if you know what I mean. I love me some ramen, which is pronounced rah-mee-yen here, and it is available everywhere for purchase at restaurants or in Cup-of-Noodle style containers at any convenient store. All convenient stores have hot water dispensers, so late at night, we would often head to a convenient store, buy ramen, add hot water (as well as spam if we were feeling ritzy), and eat at the store. This is something I will dearly miss when I leave. The ramen here is also pretty spicy, but I like it like that. The other noodle dish I like is naengmyeon, a buckwheat noodle in a spicy seasame seed oil sauce that is served with ice cubes in the bowl to keep it frosty. It’s refreshing to eat:

There is a ring of ice cubes that might be a little hard to see. (Source)

As far as rice (bap in Korean) dishes go, there is the world famous bibimbap, a dish with rice, veggies, and sometimes meat all severed in a metal bowl. I infinitely prefer the hot bowl to a cold bowl, since the hot bowl is served with a raw egg and just tastes so much better in every way. When the hot style bibimbap is served, you mix everything up, the egg gets cooked kinda and everything sizzles together into a wonderful orgy of food. Add some chili sauce and it’s even better. A less well-know dish is bokumbap, a kinda like fried rice, but instead of soy sauce, they use a chili paste (of course) and serve it with a fried egg on top:

(Source)

Another dish I enjoy was kongnamul, a bean sprout soup with rice. Whenever it is served at restaurants that have an English description, it always says “hangover soup,” since apparently it’s good for that. Served spicy and not spicy, it’s filling and different than the usual really spicy soups served here:

(Source)

For dessert, ice cream is that way to go since all convenient stores sell some bomb-ass ice cream. It’s hard describe, but the ice cream here is just so much better in every way that the USA. Most of the ice cream served is not ice pops but actual ice cream and usually cost less than ₩800, or about 60 cents. The other dessert I love here is pat bing soo. It’s crushed ice topped with fruit, gummy candy, sweet red bean and ice cream, though there are variations to the toppings. You can mix it all together and eat it or kinda work your way through each ingredient, trying out different combos. I’m definitely of the mixing party. This is delicious and I wish we had something like this back home:

Missing the ice cream, but the best looking one I could find (Source)

NOW, FOR THE BEST EATING EXPERIENCE!!!!!! The second weekend I was here, everyone came down to Jeonju to visit me and they brought a Korean guy from lab who grew up here. He gave us a tour, but more importantly showed us this sweet little place where they had a shit load of food and the most epic thing I have eaten in my life; live fucking octopus. I shit you not, that’s what we had. They brought out the octopus, still alive, to our table and began to cut its tentacles off with scissors onto a plate in the middle of the table. If you didn’t know, tentacles have their own neural network and don’t stop moving when they leave the body. What was left was a writhing plate of goddamn tentacles for us to eat. I was looking for a video of this, when I came across this other blog entry that was written in a way that I felt, so I’ll let him describe how it was (From Deep End Dining):

A couple of soju shooters later, the waiter returned and unceremoniously set a plate in the center of the table catching me and Diane off guard. Some time was needed to register what we were viewing. The sight was uncanny. It was ridiculous and sublime. Both comic and tragic like Greek theatre masks. "What fresh hell is this?" Extremely fresh hell, evidently.

The raging plate of squirming, writhing and willful baby octopus tentacles awed us. If I was the Greek hero Perseus, then this plate before me was the severed head of Medusa the Gorgon with her locks of seething, slithering serpents. Hyperbole? How about understatement. Much like Medusa’s disembodied head, these tentacles still believed they were alive — the limbs attached to a phantom body. Diane’s head spun in a figurative way but bordered on literal. Her brain signals and emotions were cross firing so dramatically that she was laughing, gagging, hyperventilating and sobbing all in the same breath. I offered her the first taste but she replied, “When hell freezes over.” This I interpreted as a “no”.

You have to understand Diane had the wrong perspective on this whole thing. She saw the tentacles as half-dead and I saw them as half-alive. It's all how you see things.

So with a firm grip on my chopsticks I grabbed the first…hmmph, okay…let me start again. So with a firm grip on my chopsticks I grabbed the…alright, just a second…I grabbed my chopsticks and nabbed the first tenta…damnit!!

I was experiencing some technical tentacle difficulties.

You see, one doesn’t grab live tentacles. They grab you. And they grab the plate and the sauce dish and the slices of garlic. In fact, the suckers suction on to anything they contact. If you are able to dip the tentacle into any of the three escorting sauces (a chili paste with raw thinly sliced garlic and jalapeno peppers or the pink, sweet and spicy sauce or a salt and pepper vinegar), then, congratulations, you cleared the first hurdle. Now try getting the thing to come off your chopsticks and into your mouth. This is not a passive piece of toro sashimi we’re talking about. This is an entity that does not want to be eaten alive, dead or otherwise. This is, perhaps, even a thing that would happily take you down with it if it were big enough.

This food hates you and what you did to it!

In every scenario I played out in my imagination as far as eating this dish was concerned, I predicted nothing more than a brief slimy struggle then stillness — the last words of an insignificant creature low on the food chain. Silly me. I could not have underestimated my dinner more because once in my mouth, the tentacle went into attack mode and suctioned on to my teeth, tongue and bottom lip making it nearly impossible for me to manipulate my mouth in order to eat it. My dinner was instinctively trying to preserve its own life while attempting to take mine by asphyxiating me.

(More description of his battle, but I’m skipping to the last paragraph)

The dust finally settled. After all that, how does live octopus tentacle taste? A little like fury fused with fear. …. There is no aftertaste but there are aftereffects. (Just don’t think about what the tentacle might be doing in your stomach.) Almost devoid of any flavor, it doesn’t taste a thing like cooked squid and nowhere near fried calamari. The tentacles are highly viscous, more resembling mucous. As far as attitude, it’s the meanest and rudest piece of food I have ever brawled with. And this was only the first piece.

And now a video, since you just have to see it to know exactly what it’s like. Just watch the first 20 seconds!!!!

Fantastic