Seven Week Dream

I had this weird dream. I was at this large university campus in this posh coastal town and everyone was Asian and the library was an upside down pyramid and everyone said "hella," whatever that means, and I got in this strange state where I wasn't myself a couple times and my roommate was this Indian dude with a palindrome for a name and none of you were there except Kenny for some reason. And then I woke up and I was in my old bed in my old bedroom.

"Going off to College" Playlist

1. Pallet Town - Pokemon Red/Blue/Yellow

2. The Suburbs - Arcade Fire

3. The One Moment - Gattaca Soundtrack

4. White Canvas - a-ha

5. This Must be the Place - Talking Heads

6. Campus - Vampire Weekend

San Diego

The first of these following anecdotes is sad, and the second one is not sad. Choose the your order of reading depending on whether you prefer ending on sad-ish or funny-ish notes.
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Recently, I paid my temporarily-hospitalized grandmother a visit. With some difficulty due to her impaired hearing ability, I managed to communicate to her that I would soon be going to college in San Diego. Upon hearing that city name she suddenly seemed to be mentally transported to another era. She went on to repeatedly ask me if, in San Diego, I liked to watch the boats come in. At first I tried to explain that I'd never done that so I wouldn't know but eventually I gave up and simply nodded my head. She was completely discombobulated and looked so frail and miserable. I guess life is like watching boats come in, until one day it's your boat that's coming in.
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My old friend Martin recently left to attend the University of San Diego. I will very soon be reunited with him when I leave to attend the University of California, San Diego. In the meantime I've been e-communicating with him. He tells me that there are attractive females abound at his school, which is good because the internet tells me that there are not so many attractive females at my school. We agreed to serve as wing men for each other. However, if his rather narcissistic new facebook profile picture is any indication of his idea of seduction then we may just run into some turbulence.

This story is mostly shit

Sir Lancelot, atop his brown, proud steed, swiftly traversed the endless, white glaciers of Greenland. The knight's silver armor shimmered in the sun, mimicking the reflective landscape. His rectangular, blue diagonally-striped shield and sheathed sword, mounted on his back and waist respectively, swayed to the rhythm of the horse's gallop.

Every sight Lancelot saw was shining white. Every noise Lancelot heard was either gear clanging against chain mail or horseshoe stomping against icy ground.

Monotony gave way to a wandering mind.

"Which continent does Greenland belong to anyway?" he wondered.

"North America, despite being a a Danish territory," a voice responded.

Surprised, Lancelot sharply tugged on the reins. His horse whinnied and skidded across the ice before coming to a stop.

Lancelot dismounted and searched for the voice's owner.

"Koalas are not part of the bear family," the voice stated, answering another one of the knight's longtime questions.

Lancelot turned to his right. With his hand shielding his squinting eyes he was just able to make out some form emerging from a pile of snow amidst the blinding light.

It was a penguin with a ribbon bow-tied around its neck. The bird approached awkwardly through a combination of hopping and a fluttering of flippers that shook off fluffs of snow. It lacked a right foot.

Once within conversational range of the stunned knight, the penguin gathered its breath and spoke once more.

"And...you are here looking for something you lost long ago."

TO PROBABLY NOT BE CONTINUED...

I Write Like

Now, this website is total bullshit, but I couldn't help but be pleased with this result.

I write like
Kurt Vonnegut

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

Four

Late last night in my bathroom, I had a conversation with three reflections of myself. One in the main mirror, one in the medicine cabinet mirror, and one a reflection of the medicine cabinet mirror in the main mirror.

Main mirror Michael rambled on about all the bad things in life: deaths of loved ones, severely lacking social life for much of childhood, and the plight of others less fortunate around the world.

I heard my mother, down the hall, softly screaming in her sleep from a nightmare.

Serving as the Main Mirror's foil, twice-reflected Michael summarized all the good things in life: relatively high standard of living, educational opportunities, friends, family, youth and the like.

I thought of good times had recently and couldn't help but smile.

Medicine cabinet Michael presented me with a look toward the future: well, there's college, a career that ideally aligns with my interests and contributes to society, new people to meet, and, maybe, love.

All that would come with time.
I noticed that my forehead creases suddenly looked very noticeable.

Medicine cabinet Michael cut the conversation short with a vague and cliché conclusion; what happens will happen.

I rubbed my eyes and went back to sleep.

Rather Garish.

Here is something I scribbled out in MS Paint approximately a week or two ago.

I'm not sure what it means, exactly. This is just to fill in space until I write a real post.

My thoughts on the end of high school are still swirling around in my head, yet to condense into a coherent idea. Right now, all I know is that a lot of high school was a pain in the ass, some of it was memorable times with friends, and that I'm going to miss all those who were going through the good and the bad alongside me.

Elders.

My grandmother and I were sitting on her porch yesterday (my mother had momentarily excused herself) when she said something that stuck with me.

She said "Time sure flies."

She said this in relation to how I will soon graduate high school, but as she afterward lifted her withered face up toward the sky I sensed that the saying had a deeper meaning for her.

There's another thing someone said that has stuck with me. In Current America, Mr. Reich was talking about graduation and everyone moving on with their lives.

He said "You probably won't see most of your friends again until the 10 year reunion. And even then, some might move away and some might die."

The class had a generally shocked reaction.

In his typical bloviating manner Mr. Reich responded "What are you all 'awwwwwwwww'ing about? The fact of the matter is that there's a distinct possibility of one of your peers dying before the reunion. I've seen it happen."

The moral of these two anecdotes, I guess, is that, yes, we've got youth, but time flies, and on top of that, we don't really know what could happen to any of us unexpectedly.

Elementary Poetry.

I was pacing around and, later on, sitting in my backyard and the bright sun and blue sky reminded me of something.
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One day in 5th grade, my teacher Mrs. Krauss decided to take the class outside to write poems out in the yard. She said that it was such a pretty California spring day, especially in comparison to the gloomy weather the week before, that we should all write poems about the beautiful surroundings.

The only line I remember from mine was as follows: "On this day nobody should be crying." The previous line was probably something about birds flying.

Mrs. Krauss loved the poem and said it was perhaps the best poem she had received from a student. She said that she even read it to the principal and other faculty during a meeting.

I didn't think all the praise was particularly merited. Maybe in comparison to other 5th grade level poems, but still I did not expect it to get that much praise. Even back then, the line "nobody should be crying" did not sit well with me. After all, just because the weather is nice doesn't mean tragedies can't occur.

"Sorry about your family exploding in a blimp collision, Mr. Johanson, but hey, look outside--the sun is shining in the sky!"
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I thought about this for a while and then went back inside. The cleaning woman who I was supposed to drive to the bus stop had already left, presumably on foot. I would have driven her.

Oh, hey there.

I've decided that it's about time I made a blog of my own. I've had some hesitation about further contributing to the abandonment of GlobaLOLization, but there are certain kinds of posts that are better suited for personal blogs. Though I don't post there too much currently, I don't plan to abandon Global despite having a blog of my own now.

As you can tell by the title, this site will be an outlet for some of my deeper personal thoughts. It's not a place where I will simply complain all the time and channel hatred. The underlying goal in some of my posts here will be to reasonably analyze any situation in which I may find myself, without being blinded by hatred or anger. The world might be a saner place if once in a while people would take a step back and just think matters through objectively.

Of course, emotions-anger, love, fear, hope-are all natural and vital components of the human experience. By no means do I advocate complete objectivity all the time. In fact, I can't promise that my posts here will always be without any shred of contempt. I can't promise that my posts will always be contemplative either; I may be in the mood for writing a simple story or a joke here and there. Hell, I can't even promise that there will always be a steady stream of posts. I can say that I hope this blog will serve as an enjoyable way to express and improve myself. I want this to be something of which I can be proud.

"Contemplation sans contempt" is merely a philosophy that I'd like to keep in the back of my head. Also, at least half the reason I chose it as a title was that I thought it sounded cool.