It's Never Too Early to Freak Out About College

While I was in physics the other day, I noticed that my neighbor had a list of colleges that were visiting the school, and a long list of college application results and enrollment stats of our school. Next to the application results list, he highlighted the colleges of interest, and he figured out the percentage of acceptance rate in our school from all the colleges.

When I commented on it, he smiled at me: "I'm a little bit freaked out about colleges now."

We are not seniors, but we're only a year away from being the oldest students in the school. But I always reckon that the environment of our school made people nervous about college. The school made it clear that it is a college-preparatory school, and they constantly remind us that everything we do from 9th to 12th grade is for the sake of applying to a college. Sure, I didn't think about colleges much in 9th grade, but after the PSAT in 10th grade, and receiving brochures from various colleges (a lot of them were from colleges I never heard before), the thought of college slowly began to sink in.

Now, as a junior, as I told my neighbor in physics, I'm totally freaking about about colleges.

So now I starts to gather information about my desired choices of colleges, I printed out the national rankings of the colleges and highlight the ones of interests. I looked at the common application forms and checked out the admission sites. While I do have an idea of what colleges I wish to apply to, it's still a hazy plan. So much can happen in the course of the year that can change your mind. Then there's my childish fear of "what if I completely screw up this year?", "what if I flunk the SAT?", and "what if _______ University rejected me?", all of which added to my fragile anxiety. While it's good to get an early start on thinking about college, sometimes I think my actions and researches could be a bit over the top.

And sometimes I look back, and it just dawn on me again and again that everything I worked for in high school is just basically in preparation for college. Then everything I work for in college will be about getting a good job, and everything I work for in a job will be about getting the bills paid. Everything is just a cycle, man, just a cycle.

Facebook Voyeurism

I'm not a big fan of social networks---especially MySpace. Perhaps my dislike of social networking sites is stemmed from my hatred of MySpace, because MySpace have always seem idiotic and ugly to me since I first saw it. And no, I don't have a MySpace, and I would probably never have one, unless it's for business usage.

But, I was more tolerant of Facebook, who is now on par with, if not exceeded, MySpace in popularity. And I would say that Facebook is better stylistically and it's more "safe" than MySpace. At least you don't have to see inane usernames splatter across your screen.

I'm sort of a late comer in Facebook, I signed up several months ago to see what the fuzz is all about, and didn't even edit my profile. I felt like a dummy seeing all the applications and whatnot, and I didn't even try to find friends. It wasn't until a friend asked me to be a friend that I actually did some work on my Facebook profile.

As I "friended" more people, one thing struck me: I was able to see my friends' every move on the news feed.

"__________ wrote something on _________'s wall:
'lol, _____, i haven't c u in a long time!'"

"_____ and ________are now friends."

"____ took the IQ test!"

Okay. That's a little voyeuristic to me, seeing my friends' every move on Facebook being reported to me. While it wasn't anything explicit, but I got the feeling that I was peeping too much at their lives. When I update my profile, the same thought pop into my mind: they're going to see what I did with my Facebook too.


Facebook implemented this feature so we can keep in touch with friends, and surely we want to know their every move, and that we can immediately write witty comments on their recently uploaded photos. But, I found myself hesitating now to post anything dramatic or private,* seeing that everyone will know.And that's the reason that my profile still only includes my birthdate, my school, and almost nothing more.

Perhaps I'm getting old and getting paranoid.

*Of course, you should never post anything too private (like your mating habits) on any social networking sties.

Reality Doesn't Always End in Happiness

That's it, the most anticipated race will not happen. Liu Xiang pulled out of the 110 hurdles because of his injury.

We missed the live footage of his preliminary race, but when we switched back to NBC to see what's up, they were already showing Liu Xiang walking out of the stadium. Confusion soon turned into disappointment, then disappointment soon turned into sadness as we realized what happened: Liu Xiang's leg hurt so much that he didn't even finish the race.

My father and I were shocked, even though I had my irrational worries that something was going to happen in the preliminary, I didn't expect it to actually come true. A press conference quickly started about Liu Xiang, but no explanation was needed to feel the pain of Liu Xiang, his coaches, and us, the Chinese who waited four years to see this athlete soar. But fate's a bitch.

Disappointment aside, I respect and understand Liu Xiang's decision. It is my sincere wish, and I hope this is the wish of the majority of the Chinese---that Liu Xiang will heal completely, and that he will soar again.

I Haven't Updated in a Long Time, So I'm Just Going to Share a Story

Frankly, I didn't have anything interesting things to write about. But, I haven't write in my blog for almost two months now, so I guess I should write something so it doesn't feel like I abandoned this place.

I'm currently working in a community center in a housing development (yes, you can say that it's the projects) for the summer.The main job for me and the other co-workers are mainly to watch over the kids and do various small tasks. We all live in this housing development, so we know the people and the rules.

One day, a co-worker of mine saw a kid turning his computer monitor away from her whenever she approaches him, and there are other kids surrounding him. She suspects that the kid is watching porn. Maybe the kid was not cautious enough, he didn't delete his internet history. When we checked the computer, we immediately know that they were playing "sex games" on these computers.

Keep in mind that these computers are for public usage, and the people that uses these computers are mainly kids from 6-14.

Of course, we told our superior what happened. And guess what action was taken? Absolutely nothing was done.

There is a "board of directors" in this housing project, they were supposedly the representatives of all the residents living in the community. These board members were voted in by the residents, and they decide plans, improvements and such for the community. They are basically the aristocrats of the community, the management office and our superiors basically couldn't lift a finger on them.

It turns out that the kid that was watching porn was the son of a board member. Our superior didn't dare to do anything, even though the evidence is there and we all know that it's wrong what he did.

One of my co-worker was frustrated that the wrongdoer didn't get a consequence. The secretary was frustrated also. but he told her that this is the real world, and there's always a double standard.

Double standard indeed.

Democrates, Unite!

Finally, after a long grueling battle between Obama and Clinton, there's a nominee.

Even better, Clinton is throwing her full support to Obama, a good move on her part, and a move that will hopefully patch up the cracks between her supporters and Obama's supporters.

Now the question is: Who will be Obama's running partner?

The first thing that I heard is that Clinton would be the ideal choice. From the beginning, I thought that Obama and Clinton '08 would be groovy, but then their rivalry became so tense that it was almost impossible to imagine the scenario. But the short period before Obama's win , this tension has somehow seemed to eased a bit. And now with Clinton's endorsement, it suddenly seems like these two can patch things up.

Of course, that will be Obama's decision. If he does run with Clinton, the supporters of Clinton will probably turn their heads and support him, the angry women that were so disappointed after Clinton's loss will once again vote for the Democrats.To make up his lack of votes from White women, older people, working class, and Hispanics, it seems like the best strategy will be asking Clinton to run with him. But on the other hand, the Clinton-haters that despited Bill Clinton, and sequentially hated Hilary Clinton, will probably be ticked off by this. Obama's message of change might even be overshadowed if he brought on Clinton, since Clinton doesn't exactly fit the "new politic" stance that Obama stood behind.

It's now five months till the November election, Obama needs to make a good choice.

On the other hand, who does McCain wants to go with?

Indecision '08

Now that the showdown between Hilary Clinton and Barack Obama is over, you would think that things would be more clear. But actually, the answer to the "who is going to get the Democratic nomination" question has only gotten more muddy.


Clinton
Even though Hilary Clinton won the Pennsylvania primary on Tuesday, I don't think it's a "big win". With 55% of the vote, Clinton certainly gained the momentum she needs to continue this race, but it's not a win so impressive that put her in first either. Her total delegate counts are still behind Obama, even though Clinton has more superdelegates under her belts now. She and Obama are basically going head to head, and this win in Pennsylvania only adds to her potential in the race. Hilary now has the reason to run, and the competition between her and Obama will probably have to be settled by the super delegates.

Obama
Perhaps the whole "Reverend Wright" thing has struck Obama deep, since now not only the public associates Obama with an extremist, but now Obama is more vulnerable to the attack from his opponents. In fact, there's already a a pretty negative ad in North Carolina. Then his "bitter" remark got his opponents going again. Even though polls indicated that his remark did not hurt him, he lost nevertheless.

So now the Democrats are stuck with no clear winner, and it is unclear about who is "best" for the party.

Electability
Both Clinton and Obama will be subjected to negative campaigns by the Republicans no matter who is the nominee. Clinton has the Lewinsky thing, her past voting records, and her image to worry about. While Obama has Reverend Wright, inexperience, Muslim conspiracies to worry about. Clinton has won the bigger and more populated states while Obama has won the smaller states. Some argue that Clinton will have a bigger chance to get the bigger states in November, and that will lead the Democrats into victory. Some argue that Obama will be more appealing than Clinton to both the young and the undecided votes. I honestly do not have a preference right now of who should be the nominee.

The fact of the matter is that the super delegates will probably get their hands on deciding who the nominee should be. From the beginning, I thought the super delegates are not the best idea to get the nominee, since it basically ignored the popular votes and lets public "democracy" goes out the door. It's quite unappealing that a few hundreds of powerful members gets to make the big decision (kind of like oligarchy, isn't it?) while the previous delegates goes to waste.

Well, while this is all going on, McCain is just sitting back and laughing.

Oh, My Media

Of course most of the people in the West had heard about the Tibetan and human rights activists protesting in London, Paris and San Francisco during the Beijing Olympics Torch Relay. But while the camera of the West turned mostly to Pro-Tibet protesters, how many actually give the same coverage to the Chinese supporters who were waving the red flag on the sideline?

Right after the riots in Lhasa, the media immediately jumped and talked about the cruelty and the bloodshed that the Chinese police brought upon the Tibetan protesters, some even calling it "peaceful protests" on the Tibetan's part. Right, tearing down buildings, burning shops, and attacking the Hans are really peaceful. While reading the newspapers and sites of the West, I realized that they mostly focused on the Tibetans, and many did not mention the Hans that were attacked, injured, and those Hans that were killed by the rioters. Well, maybe I'm not paying close enough attention.

Then,media of the West began using various misinformation when reporting the Lhasa riots. Cropping our the violent part from the picture so it seems like the Chinese police are cracking down on the Tibetans (CNN), identifying the Nepal police as Chinese police (Germany), and saying an ambulance is a police car (BBC). I'm quite baffled by their "professionalism", and to see more of these "honest mistakes", you should see this video that was complied by the Chinese students in the West:


Then it comes the torch relays, protesters dominated the Western press, I didn't really know that there were Chinese supporters in London and Paris until I read the Chinese newspaper.Well, maybe I didn't pay enough attention again. Soon because of this, Chinese nationalism is rising, to the point of extreme. Boycotting CNN and French goods, and in one case, Chinese students are actually threatening another Chinese student of being a "traitor" in a gathering of both sides. Most of it went on unnoticed by the Western media, and it only makes the Chinese even more angry.

Well, now they actually does report the rallies by the Chinese supporters, but the catch is in its title: "Anti-French rallies across China", such a good title to depict Chinese supporters, isn't it?

Some Quick Words on the Tibetan Uprising and the Olympics

Everyone had heard about it by now, Minorities in Tibet are protesting and violently rioting on the streets of Lhasa. And it seems like it's not stopping.

I've been exposed to both the Chinese media and the Western media about the news. Both have their own distinct tone and view, and I don't trust both. The Western media will always have a negative light on China, and China's media is government-controlled. With this say, I honestly don't know what side I'm on.

With this wave of violent protest, I wonder if the Olympics will be as smooth as the government promised. And there's this sort of sadness in me to see this, since as a Chinese myself, I'm proud that China had actually have the opportunity to host the Olympics. To see people considering boycotting the Olympics and seeing people using this opportunity to act violently seems a bit...disheartening.

Some people did not get why the Chinese government cared about the Olympics so much. Well, the Chinese cared about it so much is because of national pride. China was a country that was oppressed by the West and was invaded by Japan, its people have suffered humility and oppression for a long time. Well, now it's the time for China to shine, for China to show off its wealth. To prove to the world that it's no longer a country of regression but a country of progression. It's not just about the Chinese in China, it's also about people like me, immigrants that are far away from their homeland to feel (somewhat vicariously)like they're part of a strong nation.

It will certainly be interesting to see how China will handle the Olympics. I'll be watching closely, whether people boycott it or not. Then again, my opinion is not objective either.

Change vs. Experience ’08 (Stephen Colbert Should Run for President for Real)

It’s a topic that I have not yet write about: The presidential race.

Well, that’s kind of a lie, I just didn’t have the guts to express my opinions on the Internet yet, the arguments are so passionate and tense that I was afraid to throw my hat in. Since no one reads this blog, I can say whatever and not get call an idiot.

Okay, enough chattering:

If I were to vote today, at this moment, I would vote for Hilary Clinton. Even though this statement is practically useless, because Massachusetts already had its primary, and I can’t vote anyways. But that is not going to stop me from having an opinion, it’s impossible to not have an opinion about this race.

Arguably, the 2008 presidential race is one of the most important race so far. It certainly has the most diverse candidates, and its stakes are high: Americans are choosing the next victim to clean up the Iraqi mess (or if you’re McCain, stay in the Iraqi mess), spur up the economy, fight the terrorists, and millions of other things.

The democrats have tow candidates that, if elected, will be making American history in being the first female/ black president. Both are promising to me, both have values that fits my view (Kucinich’s views matched with mine the most, it’s a shame that he was under the radar). But I will vote for Hilary if given the chance because I trust “experience” over “hope”.


Obama

I seem like the oddball in my age group, since most of the young people like Obama. They want change, they need change, they have the optimism for change. Obama embodies hope, his campaign is based on the promise of change. People are sick of the direction that America was headed (and still is), there was a sort of desperation to change things. Obama, with no old political ties, only in the Senate for three years, there seem to be this “hipness” associated with him too. People are afraid that the White House is going to fall to another politician with the same old ties like Bush, afraid that the new president will promote the same agenda, the same policies, and the same relations. Well, Obama is the new fresh light, and he is going to bring change, buddy!

Or, if you’re cynical like me, you might think that change is not gonna come easy. You might pick Clinton’s experience.

Clinton

I admit, being a female myself can be subjective in choosing who to support.
Clinton seemed like a confident, strong and firm woman. This can be seen as her strongest and weakest quality. It may bring admiration or the “hey, she ain’t womanly enough, biiittch” thing. I talked with an adult friend of mine who supports Clinton, and she mentioned that people didn’t like Clinton because she’s a woman. A friend of mine who supports Obama mentioned that Clinton is a “bitch".

Is this reality? Politic is a man’s game, you have to be perceived as strong. But in being strong, you get call a bitch. Then there’s Bill Clinton, maybe people are afraid that the First Husband will run things instead, I don’t know.

Clinton’s slogan is “experience”, yes, she has it. But with having the experience, she has the ties also. Perhaps this is why the Obama supporters chose Obama: they don’t want ties. They don’t want ties to corporations, they don’t want ties to old politicians.

But without ties, how much change can one brings?

Now, I’m no politician, but I don’t think change is that easy. Politics is a dirty and intricate game, with no ties and no experience, just how much can actually change? Clinton and Obama seemed to agree on the important points, and it seemed like a “safer” choice to have someone who have experience and ties to bring these changes.


Republicans

McCain and Huckabee (I have to admit, President Huckabee will be one hell of a hilarious title) are left. I’m pretty sure McCain is going to get the nomination. I just pray that he doesn’t choose Huckabee as running mate.

I’ll give props to McCain in being firm on his position on the War in Iraq. But dude, you can go to Iraq and fight the war yourself if you want to continue.

Conclusion

Currently Obama is leading in the delegates, and he had a long string of victories. It’s a tight race, at one point or another it seemed like all the candidates have the upper hand. Who will ultimately win the nominations and elected as the new president of this beautiful land? I don’t know. Right now, Obama seems to be getting somewhere, if he wins the nomination, I will support him.

Once the nominations are given, that’s when the mud-slinging begins.I hope they don't use something like this.

Who knows, if we’re lucky, we will get another Republican Caucasian man in the White House, and stay in Iraq for a hundred years.

Last but not least, I want to post this heart-warming picture that has nothing to do with anything:

These People are Unbelievable

Just another example of how fucking crazy, hateful, intolerant, and arrogant these religious nuts are: that infamous God Hates Fags site is once again ranting about their hatred and trying to justify the shooter at Northern Illinois University in this "News Release":

Thank God for the Shooter at Northern Illinois Univ.
God sent the Shooter. In His Wrath & Vengeance Against an Ungrateful Nation that has Forsaken Him &Embraced Filthy Fags.
WBC will picket their hypocritical funerals & memorials & “vigils.”
Yes. In religious protest & warning; to wit: “Be not deceived; God is not mocked.” Gal. 6:7.
God Hates Fags! & Fag-Enablers. Ergo, God hates fag-dominated Northern Illinois Univ.,fag-saturated Illinois, and fag-run America. What part of this 12-word sentence don’t you idiots understand? “Thou shalt not lie withmankind, as with womankind; it is abomination.”
Lev. 18:22.

People are unbelievable. How dare you try to justify your own hatred using this national tragedy? Are you so arrogant and and feels so self-important to think that God is trying to avenge your little homophobic and intolerant club? I can't even understand them.

If there is a God, I seriously doubt that he will hate homosexuals, and he would certainly be against your kind of intolerance and utter hatred. But if God is anything like you described or believed to be, a God that hates homosexuals, hates non-believers, and damns anyone that has a sense of their own mind, and sends a shooter to punish them, then fine, I'm happy I'm an atheist.

Seriously, fuck off.

The Cloverfield Monster is a Giant Squirrel

No, it's not. I'm just kidding.

I saw "Cloverfield" yesterday afternoon, more out of curiosity than actual fandom from following the ARG. I wasn't expecting a lot from the movie, since "monster movie" doesn't translate into "great" for me. But fuck it, with all the hype, I'm going to see this thing.

And it exceeded my expectation.

The first 20 minutes or so was some mild background story-telling, setting up the story line. Then,it got violent fast. Fires, buildings falling, screaming, running, it all turned into destruction and panic. The movie was filled with intensity and adrenaline, a total thrill ride. There was a few surprises in the movie also, like the fact that the Cloverfield monster is not alone.

The only thing that I could come up with as complains were that the whole "told from the perspective of the hand-held camera" thing was a bit too much. After a while, I felt a bit dizzy, and my stomach felt a bit weird afterwards, because there was so much scrambling and shaking. But I do think that the perspective was refreshing and made the film looked more realistic. Also, the ending was a bit irresolute to me, it didn't really explain anything about the monster.

But that's not the point, is it? The movie was more about destruction, not explanation. With destruction, the movie did a good job.

Also, after poking around, I found that I missed at least two pretty interesting thing from the movie: the whisper at the end of the credits, which when you listen to it in reverse, it said "it's still alive". And at the end of the movie with the old footage from the camera, there was something falling from the sky into the water near Coney Island. So, maybe that gives some clues to how the monster came to be?

"Cloverfield" was a thrill ride for me, I will definitely get this on DVD.

Merry X-Mas to Me

I don't celebrate Christmas.

I don't get bummed out either, I kind of see it as kind of like a burden being lifted.

Christmas is so commercialized right now, at some points it seemed to me that it wasn't so much about the birth of Christ, but just about getting presents. It seems like it is inevitable that you must buy a ton of presents for everyone in order to celebrate this Holy Birth. What does Santa Clause have to do with baby Jesus anyway?

I see students in school dragging bags of presents for their friends and whatnot,even though a part of me was thinking: "It's kind of awesome that they get all kinds of presents," but ultimately I wasn't jealous. I didn't have to go Christmas shopping, spent time thinking who should get what, contemplating how big a budget I have and how much I have left.

Several years back I brought ton of cards to give to friends, but right now, I gave one physical card to a friend, and just gave e-cards to the rest.The closest thing I had as Christmas shopping was buying three books for free-time reading over the holiday break .To match the holiday spirit, I brought The Road by Cormac McCarthy, a tale about a father and a son making a post-apocalyptic journey South. 1984 and Animal Farm by George Orwell, both cannot be categorized as Christmasy.

So because I'm an atheist, I have no Christmas obligations. I guess (a little) money in my pocket is a Christmas gift for me.

What I Learned While Having A Summer Job

The planets aligned, the stars lined up, and I finally got a job this summer at the beginning of July. Yes, it’s over now, and I got my money, I got my experience, I got realism.

I got a job at my Housing Projects’ office (that’s right, I live in the ghetto, the ‘hood), and my boss was a social worker. People often come to her, and she knew who was on heroin and who was in jail. There’s more messed-up people in my area than I thought I knew.

From her, I knew a lot more tragedies and screw up kids on the block, she even pointed out the drug dealers to me, just across the street.

I met a bunch of kids that was pretty wild. You know, even if they’re loud-mouthed and belligerent, there was intelligence and care in them.

One of the little girl had a BIG attitude, and she was like ten. She had a MySpace and pretended she was fourteen (seems like all of them have a fascination with MySpace), and she had a big family and her siblings aren’t that close, I’d guess. Another little girl’s mother was a heroin addict who was pregnant, and considering giving the baby once he was born. A boy’s father was in jail, and he was screwing his girlfriend while humping another. Jeez.

I wonder if some of these kids are going to repeat the fate of their parents, and become heroin addicts and whatnots. Does family and childhood life make them want to turn away to an alternate path, or does it twist them into an inevitable fate like their parents?

I hope it’s not the latter. But I guess there’s more of the latter than not.

Retrospective: The One Year Anniversary of Cryptic Experiment

Okay, stop patting yourself on the back.

See, it’s not really the One Year Anniversary now, since I believe this thing started on August thirteenth, two thousand and six, so I guess I’m a bit late.

Time seemed to pass by fast, it seemed not so long ago that I went nuts and thought having a blog was a good idea. And this little blog does provides me a place to rant on this vast space we call the Internet. Even if no one reads it, I know I can look back one day and read Cryptic Experiment’s archive and think: “What the fuck was I thinking?”

Yep, it’s gonna be one of those things.

Something That Can Make Me Cringe

In a desperate attempt to find something to read, I stumbled upon real-person fiction. Actually, I was reading the Nine Inch Nails' Encyclopedia Dramatica entry, and I followed the link to a fanfiction. And hola.

Actually, what really made me cringe about that fiction was that it was a slash fiction. You know, with two guys doing it (or something, I didn't really read the Wikipedia entry on that). Without going into details, that fiction was about Trent Reznor and Christian Bale.

While I admit that the writership was rather good, the plot itself was...I don't know, I was cringing while reading it.

I have no problem with homosexuality, but what I don't quite get was why some people fancy about gay sex so much. Is it more exciting? Is it because it's more stimulating? And especially with real person fiction, it gets a bit invasive. I wonder what the celebrities think about it when they read a story about them fucking so-and-so.

Anyway, I went on an extented research on these real person fiction area just to see what's there, I found that there is a lot of them on Livejournal, there's a few sites that specializes in My Chemical Romance slash , (which I thought sadistically was a good thing). There's a few sites that's for band fictions (type that in Google), all of which I believe is mostly slash.

There's a lot of people that enjoy slash, I guess. But to me, it gets creepy afterwards.

Quote of the Day

"Diplomacy is the ability to tell a person to go to hell in sucha way that he actually looks forward to the trip."

---From watching "Secret of the Kremlin" on Discovery Times

Harry Potter is Going to Die!

No, I'm not sure if Harry Potter is going to die or not, but I think so.

To be honest, I don't really care if Potter is going to die or not, the most important thing that I wanted to find out is whether Snape is on Voldemort's side or Dumbledore's side.

I was an avid fan of the series, but as I get older, I got a bit apathetic. I can't really remember what happened in the fifth and sixth book, except a general blurred outline of the big things that happened and who died.I did remember just flipping through the pages of the last two books and read the death scenes, and upon reminder, I also remembered that there was A LOT of teenage angst in the fifth book, and it was kind of annoying.


Anyway, I have never loved Harry Potter the character. He was always a bit too nosy, too rash, too hotheaded. Not my type of guy. In fact, my favorite character is Severus Snape, the sarcastic and complex potion master. I always have a thing for anti-heroes, characters that are dark and quiet, yet there's more to them than just being the typically "bad". Byronic heroes, that's the type of character that I like.

When I heard that two important characters is going to die in the Deathly Hollows, my first instinct was that it's going to be Harry Potter and Snape. You know, Harry suffers an injury fighting Voldemort, and the last minute Snape comes in and tries to help Harry and he dies saving Harry. Then Harry kills Voldemort and dies a heroic death killing Voldemort.

But, I don't think it's going to be this simple and easy. I was constantly surprised when I was reading the books, so I believe that I will be surprised in this one too. There's already a few "endings" that leaked online (which I never bothered to search for),and I'm sure that people are going to go nuts and wait in front of the bookstore and dress in Gryffindor attire and scream for the new book. Hey, this book mesmerized millions.

Oh well, I'll buy the book on the first day that it comes out, but I'm sure as hell not going to wait in line and dress in costumes. If it's all sold out, I'm just going to get one off Amazon.com.

RANDOM RAMBLINGS TO FILL THE SPACE

So we tried to get Verizon DSL for our home again, for the third time, and it still doesn’t work! So now for the third time, I have to wait for them to mail me the returning label and have the mail the modem back. I don’t think I’ll ever get the luxury of fast internet.

Applied for a summer job and supposedly to start on July 9th, but have not got the call about where I’m going to work. I don’t expect things to go smoothly anyway.

If I have a dog, I would name him Cerberus.

DW from Arthur is a bitch. By the way, what is Arthur? A mouse?

My mind is completely blank these days. Apathy has washed upon me and I found I lost the past passion on a number of things. I guess I have one of these “apathetic phrase” every once in a while. With that said, even in my “interested phrase”, I sometimes cannot fathom why some people are so dedicated and passionate about certain things, and why they cared so much.

But perhaps these passions fill a void. Now that I’m in the “apathetic phrase” and have no commitments (as of today), I do fill a certain empty spot. At times. And now that I think about it, I didn’t really ponder on life like I use to anymore, I didn’t think about the “meaning of life”, religion, purpose of life or whatnot like I used to . Did I found answers to these, or am I just being apathetic?

The above bulletin is rather pretentious.

Things I Learned From Reading Fanfictions

I found myself reading fanfictions. Again.

From time to time, through my endless "stumbling into stuff", I would find that my interest peaks at some particular subject, be it books, movies, whatever. Sometimes that interest will lead me to read fanfictions (no, I DO NOT write them, as a personal rule, becuase I'm weird about it).

Perhaps it was me just me wanting to know the characters in interest to a greater extend, perhaps it was me trying to envision the characters in a different setting with the help of the stories, perhaps it was pure entertainment, perhaps I'm just weird.

Anywhoo, I do gathered some stuff from reading those wonderful fanfictions:

1. Like all things, there's some very good, some are very bad. (Duh)

2.Some authors have no idea a what a "paragraph" is.

3.People often times pick shitty songs for songfics...Like the ones using Avril Lavigne's "Girlfriend"...oh well, what do I know?

4.Lots of people cannot correctly use :"to", "too", "then", "than"

5.People really do like their characters to be gay, do they?

6.Rated M fictions makes me twitch at times, now I just gave up on them.

7.Usually those with a lot of reviews is a good indication that that story is good.

8.Almost all stories of the same genre have the same plot, just with different characters and different settings.

9.I like ambiguous characters, the bad guys that are actually good.

10. I found that I have no desire to write a fanfiction. I would rather just read them.

On a side note, my email inbox is now full of spam. Damn it.

Finals, Music Chart, and Summer Reading!

It’s been busy as hell in school, with all the final testing coming at you at once. But you got to take it as it is. We just got through the biology final, which was okay, and I'm pretty sure I fucked up on at least serveral questions. Then next week is the English, then next next week is algebra, Latin, and whatever else, woot!

Anyway, with all of this whirlwind, I still managed to find some time to keep an eye on the music chart. I’m always baffled at what’s on top of the charts, I don’t even know why I care anymore. I don’t know if people really want to be force-fed Daughtry and Nickelback, or that they really believe that the album deserves their buying. Ahhhhhh, who am I to judge?

Commercial success is not about quality, it’s about status and promotion.

As the summer approaches, so is all sorts of exciting summer activities. And because the school hates its students, we have summer reading to do. And seriously, most of the students are just going to read it the two weeks before school starts, and write some half-assed report on it. At least this year’s format is more interesting, and breaks away from the “summary-character-comments” format. “original writing” of the students, as they put it.

God, I hope it’s going to rain.