So? How was your day?

My day? Well, I liked my day.

My day went smoothly, if you want to know the truth. My new class seems to be a real gut-buster. It's three and a half hours of lecture, tedious note taking, and hearing my professors dull voice.

He seems nice enough. He was, however, fifteen minutes late to class.

I always find the unfamiliar discomfort of first days amusing, especially when everyone in the class is quietly waiting for the professor to arrive or for class to start. I'm not much on talking with people, if I'll be honest. I get by fine, but I'm not one to strike up a conversation with another person.

They say a good rule of thumb for studying is devoting two hours for every one hour of class. I think that's overkill. I would never be able to study like that for six classes in a regular semester. It's not that I wouldn't have enough time; I'm just a lousy student. Haha. I'm not terrible though. I get A's with some effort; but I'm constantly slacking off and such. If you know one of those people--smart but lazy--then you know what I'm talking about; if you are one of those people, then you definitely know what I'm talking about. Sometimes I wish I wasn't like this, and I know wishing does nothing, so sometimes I command myself to become a better student. But then I realize I'd be terribly unhappy if I did that, so I resolve not to. Disappointing, I know: can't sacrifice a few moments of happiness for potentially higher gains of happiness later in life. But I look at it from a different angle: concentrate on the now-happiness so you'll always be happy--or at least you'll try. I'm not one to plan the future up to crossing the t's and dotting the i's; I'm more of a hail mary, long shot type of planner. I'm more of a, "Hey, look how bright and lovely the sun is today" or "I think I'll dance in my living room and then go give my mom a hug" type of planner. A slacker, you could say; or even a waste of potential. But like I said, I'd go crazy if my only thoughts were "study, pee break, read dull textbook, pee break, type, type, type, pee break". I'm a happy person, which I think we know by now doesn't mean I'm happy all the time--impossible!--but that I'm happy most of the time. And potential is such fickle idea. Who's to say one person has more potential than another? We all have different strengths that aren't always shown or appreciated. Because I'm a good writer, does that make me a happier, more fulfilled person than my friend Charlie, who's good at something that can't be applied to academics, like kite flying? Heck no! Charlie should fly his kite as we damn well pleases. Go Charlie, go! My point is that I'm happy with not excelling in school; I'm fine with not going to an Ivy League or top-tier University--transferring next year; I'm fine with living in modest but clean and healthy means so long as I do what I enjoy and am able to live a life I can be proud of. The truth is, I'm just fine with myself! I'm still getting a wonderful education; I'm still focusing on bettering myself through academics; I'm still getting that coveted piece of paper called a degree. I'll be fine in the future. I can't tell you what I'll be doing, how I'll be living, who I'll be hanging around, or how successful I'll be, but I can tell you I'll be trying to make the best out of any situation I'm in.

By the way, slacking-off doesn't mean not worrying or stressing over school, assignments, etc.; it means not stressing so much, and keeping things in context. I won't die if I don't turn in a paper, if I fail a class, if I trip in front of people, etc. I'm much happier appreciating my life!

Starting

I feel good. I've been sick since Monday, but I feel good today; I feel like candy. Or a breath of fresh air.

School starts tomorrow. I'm excited. I'm excited for a new start, a challenging subject--I'm taking math!--and for the future.

It's easy to get down on life, and it's hard to find strength to live happily; but if we want that happiness, we have to work. Eden doesn't exist on Earth. Eden's a place in our minds that pushes us to live as apathetic slobs; but apathy shouldn't be the final answer, I think.

Now I've lost myself. Ha. Anyway, what's up with you?

I'm still probably failing four (unimportant) classes.

I feel better. More importantly, I feel content.

I'm reading again. I only had to make the extra effort of picking up a book and reading a few lines before rediscovering how much I love it. Now I'm back into devouring books whole. I even went to Barnes & Nobles today and bought Will Grayson, Will Grayson, Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl (never read it before), and several Yu-Gi-Oh! mangas (yes, I'm a childish nerd), which I'm particularly excited to read because I've wanted to enter the manga world for a while. Right now, I'm still reading Jane Eyre--which is fantastic! It'll take me a few more days before I start to crack Anne Frank or Will Grayson, Will Grayson (I really like saying that title for some reason).

As for school, I'm happy the semester is closing. I want a fresh semester at hand and all that it entails: excitement, curiosity, and stretches of endless potential.

Tomorrow I'm planning to buy a new golf bag--a lightweight, ten or twelve club Sunday bag (I think that's what they're called; if not, then I think they're also commonly referred to as driving range bags). Since I typically play a few holes once in a while, I think owning one of these bags is a good investment. I'm tired of lugging my old, elephant-sized bag across only three holes. :p

First Day

Yesterday was the first day of May Everyday. (I skipped May 1 because...well, just because I thought up the idea around midnight on the first.) It went well, I have to say. I wrote two pages of some story I haven't planned, plus a few poems--one which I'll probably post in the next day. It's about cars! But not really.

I've been feeling a lot more stress recently. It's mostly the amount of work I have to do for school, but it's also the daunting task of transferring to a university next year. Even though I'm confident in my abilities, I can't help but feel overwhelmed in the face of my future. It's like I'm six and I've been riding a bike with training wheels for the past year, and now that I've got a good handle on riding, I'm expected to learn how to ride a motorcycle by next year. Well, it's not really like that; at least, I hope it's not like that. But it sure does feel that way. This feels like one of those times when taking a deep breath and sitting peacefully for a few minutes would do me some good.

I'm back.

Lately, I've been wrestling in my mind where I want to transfer to next year. I'm very lucky because I have plenty of choices, all of which are respectable schools. Living in southern California sure has it's advantageous--even though there's terrible traffic most of the time.

On one hand, there's UC Riverside, a small institution located in Riverside, surrounded by nothing, filled with little social life. On the other hand, there's UCLA, a HUGE school in Westwood, ten minutes from the beach, crowded with people, surrounded by LA society and LA traffic, with more prestige in their parking lots than a lot of schools have in their entire staff.

I'll be getting a quality education at both, that's for certain. They're roughly the same amount to attend too. (I'll most likely be living on campus.)

However, while UCLA is more distinguished, UCR has the specific major I'm most interested in--Creative Writing. And while UCLA does offer a Bachelors in English with a concentration in Creative Writing, I don't know how much I'd rather spend writing as opposed to studying English/literature.

While the area around UCLA is crowded with people and traffic, it does have more interesting things to do. Oh course, I could always drive from UCR into LA, about an hour to hour and a half drive. Or I could just live there. I'm not much of a social butterfly, though, so what's the point of going there simply for the vibrant city life? But, I don't want to be bored out my mind either. I've heard Riverside is a bit of a bore. I don't need much, though; give me a movie and ice cream once in a while and I'll be content to spend my days inside.

I don't want go to UCLA only to impress people, especially my extended family who has produced two UCLA graduates--my two oldest cousins. At the same time, I might receive a more broad and even a more respected education at UCLA as opposed to UCR.

At this point, I still have months before I have to apply. I've got too much to worry about to spend time destroying my peace arguing with myself over which top-tier education I should have. I'll choose the option that makes me happiest. That's the thing about me: I don't worry about myself too much; I'm happy to be content.

Monday: Today

I feel lonely. I feel frustrated. I feel slow, like I'm not moving, but I only think I'm moving. Like my mind shoots electricity at my muscles to go! but it takes a millisecond longer than it should for my muscles to feel the pinch and go. And in that millisecond, I'm scared I'll never move again.

Today I went to cinema class on time. We discussed American Beauty a bit and leaped into Apocalypse Now. I gotta say, the first forty-five minutes gripped me. Heck, the opening scene with the still camera and the passing choppers set to a lonely guitar riff accompanied by a skinny tambourine and supersonic whiffs of chopper blades really hooked me. When that shot exploded in erupting fire blasts and the music ran like nothing had happened, I was in awe.

I aced my history midterm. Twenty out of twenty. I also explained what nativism and Jim Crow laws were. We left ten minutes early because I answered that last part.

My mom was crying tonight for some reason. I wasn't there while she was doing it, but I saw her choked up before going to bed. I don't think it's serious; it probably has something to do with my defiant sister.

Tomorrow I take my children's literature midterm. I also discover what became of my five poems: did my peers reject or accept them into the book we are publishing? Maybe I'll write another poem tonight.

That's all I feel like writing for today. Sleep tight.

A Hectic Second Week of April: A Sunday Reflection

When did my days become shorter? When did my life crawl between when I'm driving to school and when I'm driving from school? When did relaxing mean reading my history book?

Last week was an out of control frenzy of midterms and assignments. Though there's no need to go into detail, here are some of the highlights:

--History midterm on Monday
--Tom Sawyer due Tuesday
--Number the Stars due, plus studying a lot of literature notes for Tuesday
--Questions answered for American Beauty
--5 poems due for Thursday
--Driving out to Chino Hills for golf

And yesterday, I helped my dad put down new sod at my cousin Frank's house. He lives with his wife and three kids in a upper-middle class neighborhood. We rarely see him because: 1. his job drains a lot of his time; 2. he lives somewhat far away; and 3. he's from my dad's side of the family, the side we rarely see anyways. Combine all three, and you'll know why I haven't seen him in about 8 or 9 years.

Putting down that sod was dirty, flesh-peeling work. First we had to remove about 500 square feet of dry, weed-infested grass. Luckily for me, my dad and my cousin did most of the work by shoveling and pure muscles. Unfortunately for me, I had to shake the excess dirt from the pieces of grass; otherwise, the yard waste bucket would be too heavy to roll. After an few hours of inhaling dirt, we finished and my dad began to level the area. My cousin brought lunch and we spent a half hour in the shade. Afterward, I started to haul the sod from the front yard to the back in a wheel barrow while my dad and cousin began to position it. Only able to comfortably lug four pieces per trip with each piece an easy 20 to 25 pounds, it took me some time to transport all 500 square feet from the pallet to the back yard. Towards the end, we discovered we didn't have enough, so my dad and I went to the Home Depot a freeway exit away while my cousin prepared to go to his son's baseball game.

When we came home, I immediately showered, and within half an hour, I was sleeping like I'd been knocked in the head by bowling ball. My joints and lower back were stiff as uncooked spaghetti when I woke up this morning. But helping my dad out and getting some endurance exercise felt fantastic. Plus, the lawn looked a lot nicer after we laid down the sod.


There's nothing much I'll add except to say I played nine holes with Leo on Thursday. He beat me by four strokes and won our bet of $1. The experience wasn't a total loss; I've gotten much more confidence in my driving. I'll probably be playing a full 18 holes with Leo and his dad (and his dad's friend) next Friday; hopefully I won't make an ass out of myself.

So far so good.

I managed to enter that last entry by midnight. Woo! I've managed to continue the successful streak I began two days ago--barely.

I'm proud of the previous poem, actually. I guess my poetry class isn't so useless after all. (Kidding.) I wrote it last Thursday after I had a few nosebleeds myself. I looked down at my fingers to see blood splattered everywhere, including that crack the narrator talks about. I didn't really know what I really meant when I wrote down the words, but they came to me with unguided focus. After I finished, I put the poem away from my mind, not really expecting to come back to it. So when it was 11: 30 tonight and I had little to say about anything else, I remembered that poem, and thought it made a good point about family ties. Quick as a flea and with flashes of snippet editing, I managed to prune the poem and published it a whole ten minutes before 12. Yes! *Pat on back*

In other unrelated but more bloggy-like news, my day was as good as one could hope for. I woke up four or five times this morning, each time checking the clock in a panic because I had to leave my house at eight-thirty for an appointment at school, and each time drifting back to another half hour snooze.

I don't know why, but I've had difficulty waking up in the mornings the past few weeks. I feel like I'm moving underwater whenever I manage to get off my bed. Usually I wander in my house for a bit to wake up, turning on our kitchen radio for early morning dancing. But I find staying up is one of the hardest parts of getting up. Every bone, muscles, tendon, and nerve in my body is pulled down by an enthusiastic Gravity; it takes every amount of will-power in my poor brain to wrestle against going back to sleep. And usually, I fail--miserably. I've overslept numerous times because of my shoddy self-discipline. I don't know what to do. Going to bed earlier doesn't seem to work; neither does setting my alarm or having my mom wake me up (she forgets sometimes), and I don't drink coffee. This is something I'm gonna have to figure a solution to--fast!

So I went to my appointment with a school counselor, but it turns out it was unnecessary because the information I needed was available at Admissions. *facepalm* Definitely my mistake though. I shouldn't have lazied out of research. It rained on my way back to my car too; I had to walk about ten minutes in soft rainfall. Luckily, I managed to find a short-cut from the counseling offices to my car that was covered by roofs.

Afterward, I came back home after retrieving my wallet from Leo after I left it in his car on Friday night. Instead of studying for my history midterm later in the day, I opted to surf YouTube for AC/DC videos. (In my defense, I had spent the entire weekend studying, ineffective as it may have been: I only answered ten questions from the 55+ question study guide.)

I almost ran late for my Cinema class, but it didn't matter because class was canceled for the day. So I went to the library and cracked down hard on myself. I studied my dry history book for about two hours, poking and picking through pages of fire brush for very specific answers.

After eating my homemade lunch and reading Tom Sawyer for a bit, it was finally time for my history midterm.

I gotta say this: I was unusually nervous. I think it was from all the studying I did over the weekend. Studying only makes you more nervous because you're more likely to worry about things you didn't study. There's nothing else to say except I believe I aced the midterm with marginal clearance; I'm confident in a B at least.

Dude, you would not believe how light I felt leaving that clock-ticking-silent room. I swear, I was walking at a slow jog all the way to my car. I love the elation you feel when a pressuring deadline or assignment is completed or past.

And that was my day.