You know...

What's funny here is that I am writing every once in a while. It's just not finding its way from my moleskinne into my blog. Hmm...perhaps Wednesday will breed some time for writing, cleaning, and getting healthy. WOAH! CONCEPTS!!

South India

Lately, I've been watching a Discovery Channel series on the Mysteries of Asia, specifically The Lost Temples of India. The specials show the enormous temples that King Rajaraja built in an attempt to stave off being reincarnated as a worm "or worse". They show men whose lives are devoted to the adorning of the many gods they worship here. Their silence a mask of the ancient world, their devotion to piety and tranquility is inspiring though. We're shown a 58-year old man walking the streets, shirtless, in a white skirt-like loin cloth and white and red painted on his forehead with a basket full of flowers to used to adorn statues.
It's a pretty fascinating cultural study, not to mention the section talking about the training of elephants to move 40-ton slabs of granite to create Kind Rajaraja's temples. The trainers, riders seem to be connected to the animals, symbiotic in a way as they apply apply pressure on the stomachs to guide them while riding and different oscillations with their voice as they bathe them in the river. Scrubbing with hand-sized brushes. I'd like that to be me one day. Well...at least for a little while.

Happy Ridvan!!

"The Japanese are the most hardcore society in the world"

Those are Ray's words, and they're probably true based on what will be occurring tonight. So, the Boston Red Sox and the Seattle Mariners are playing at 6:05 CST. Daisuke Matsuzaka will be pitching for the Red Sox and I don't really care who will be up for the Mariners. Only thing that matters: Daisuke Matsuzaka vs. Ichiro Suzuki. Yeah. This is HUGE! It's been six or seven years, I can't remember which, since these two played against each other, but it didn't end great for Ichiro. In a recent interview about the match up, Ichiro said that he hopes the game will "ignite the fire in the very recesses of my soul." Umm, I love you, Ichiro. Please crush the Red Sox with your "awesome".

P.S. - Ichiro was 0-3 with a strikeout, and Daisuke Matsuzaka got the loss.

Drool, drool

I've been trying to think of something to write about all day long but have been hitting the giant wall that is "sleep depravation" and laziness. Sleep depravation stemming from how little I'm sleeping and how that's slowing down my ability to function, and laziness in that I haven't gone to the gym for over a week, am feeling weak, and my blood sugars are going nuts as a result. Not to mention the weirdnesss that's going on in my left knee and my ability to nearly pop my left shoulder out on a uppercut swing on Sunday. Lastly...I'm tired.

Take that copyright laws!!!

Will it blend?

I mean, wow!

Long Time Coming

Being afraid of change is natural.

My application to DePaul's BA/MA program is being processed. Now it's time to start looking at a class to take at Oakton Community College this summer to help lighten the load of my first semester. It's one of those "finally, I stopped procrastinating and just did it" moments. Things feel lighter in my head. Easier.

If only I could do the same and take care of my parking ticket; the selling of my computer, car, and drum kit; the starting of my first issue of Above and Beyond, a comic book put out for Junior Youth by the Treasurer's Office at the Baha'i National Center; and getting over the fact that my best friend is moving to LA in little over a month...by getting over, I mean accepting positively and not fostering the annoying "normal" feelings I get in these situations...like resent getting so attached that I get angry. Wow! I am a work in progress.

Application Question

Q: Think of a recent failure and achievement. What were they and what did you learn from them? Will these experiences change how you act in the future, and why?

A: Turning a negative into a positive isn’t an easy thing, especially when talking about failing out of school. For me, it was essential.

My biggest achievement will be getting back into school. Loving it as I did in my first year. Truth be told, I probably should have left Millikin long before I failed out. The environment wasn’t conducive to any kind of productivity or stability either emotionally or spiritually. Then again, finding an institution that fits, one that fulfills all or most of your requirements isn’t easy. Some float from institution to institution. Others, myself included, decided to be stubborn and wait to see if things got better. They didn’t, and that ostrich-in-the-sand mentality will forever be one of the biggest failures of my life; not listening to that voice that keeps telling you that someone isn’t good, it’s working, is doing you harm. I just wish I had left before my grades, emotional and spiritual state had been so effected. Then again, if it weren’t for that very obvious test, I might not be the man I am today. So, I’ll thank God for the good and the bad.

Holy Smart Mirror, Batman!

Here's to Frustration!

The score was 7-3 at the top of the 8th, and then 7-6 by the bottom. The sad part is that I expected them to win. After all, they one last night and tonight should be no different, right? They had a chance to flip that three-game sweep; to demolish the Yankees and get that boost of excitement and determination for the rest of the season. Many of us on the O's fan blog Camden Chat set up post after post about their elation at how well Steve Trachsel pitched, and how the bullpen was a sure thing. In fact, earlier I had been telling Carmel that if the O's had a good lead, it was going to be hard to beat them because of how good their bullpen was.

And then it was 10-7 on an Alex Rodriguez grand slam. And then...there was our uniform reaction of shock, disbelief, and swearing loudly, standing up on a chair in the middle of a busy TFI Fridays as a cloud of 10-year olds' eyes and ears couldn't be blocked soon enough.

I really don't like the Yankees.

Ooze

A month ago or so Mike Castelaz and I spent about an hour reminiscing about Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and our feelings on the upcoming movie. In the process one of us did a google image search and found a website dedicated to cataloging all the toys they ever produced from 1988 to the present.

It was strange looking at a plastic screen at an object I remember, vividly, holding in my hands; feeling each ridge, groove, and smoothed green, plastic surface. It was even weirder exchanging stories about Mike's vast collection to my limited but my neighbors complete collection of Ghostbusters toys and accessories. Of course, each memory runs thick like an old film in a older theatre, with oil burning lamps lining the walls and a curtain to accent the drama instead of bright like a film projector running choppy in your living room on a hot summer day, butts on the carpeted ground. Regardless, my face is always illuminated again, washed over anytime I remember baseball cards and gloves, hours in the pool, Transformers at six in the morning, and hurky jerky periods in my room, reading and hiccuped arguments around the dinner table.

"Gotta take the bitter with the sweet."

It's like you're not my car anymore

The time has come for my car to face the facts: it's not doing so well. Poor car, possibly.

Futility

Anytime I say to someone that I'll be "really busy this weekend" or planning on "spending the weekend sleeping" just take it with a grain of salt...or a pound. There was a plan. A plan to take care of a slew of things that I had post-ited to my laptop, here. Only one of the four are completed; of course, there are several that exist as ideas or needs in my head that will forever float in the ether of gray matter.

I didn't get more sleep or even close to the amount of sleep, didn't get any of the reading and writing, or complete most of the errands that I had planned on getting. And I blame the ants. Forget recognizing that I have become sloth. Forget that I have bedsores from sitting here; which is not true. Even forgetting that my "brain hasn't been working quite right". These are real, but not as real as those ants. Those ants that even after spending three hours cleaning the kitchen, disinfecting everything, even thinking about utilizing the tactical, nuclear missile we keep in the basement appear to be unfazed.

This is a nonsensical post that is going nowhere and only proves how much sleep I need to get. BLAH!

"They look like dorks!"

We are at war

Today we planned and executed several tactical and disinfecting attacks on the invaders. They didn't know what hit them. This was, until we realized that they had grown in numbers. They have turned to guerrilla attacks on our HQ and spat upon our initial recommendation of peace accords. They are ruthless: executing attack patterns when our backs our turned, waiting for us to drop our guard. We've seen their capabilities: stealth, speed, strength, and the ability to climb on any surface, including walls. There may be a spy in our midst. Reporting all our movements utilizing a simple yet unrecognizable code language. Discussions on how to deal with an infiltrator have not been fruitful as two of our generals have suggested that they know our troops, they would know if one of them were here. They say its in the thorax. I say that's ridiculous. Even at night we can hear their handiwork. They're skilled and much smarter than the size of their heads would suggest. Our latest, large scale attack on their primary barracks has yielded many victories, yet even more anger as more continue to emerge after our acid bombings and heavy sweeping. Until we know more we should keep conversations to a minimum. At any moment they could be upon us. Swarming, clouding, consuming.


Soon we will claim our independence. Independence from the ants!