| (no subject) |
[Jan. 4th, 2005|11:10 pm] |
Well, I made fun of Chirstmas already. Might as well do the same for New Year's.
Oh, and by the way, school still sucks.
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New Year's
Ah, New Years. Any wacked out, crazy English teacher would tell you that the start of a new year symbolizes the start of a new self, when one can start life anew, with a new perspective, with all of the sins of the past year having been washed away. Of course, these same English teachers have also hallucinated boat imagery where there was clearly no boat, and they have told us that the syntactical structure in Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address parallels a woman’s labor pains. In this light, New Year’s is probably pretty meaningless (just like Kwanza). But for some reason, people still obligate themselves with rituals and what not (probably out of tradition).
New Year’s Resolutions are a good example. Some people actually come up with several resolutions, deluding themselves into thinking that they will actually follow them. But in the end, everyone ends up breaking his or her resolutions. I, on the other hand, will succeed and fulfill mine, and there is a pretty good chance that I will uphold it all the way until next year!!!! How do you ask? With the time-tested, 100% effective stratagem of lowering your standards, because if you lower your standards, you can’t fail.
As my New Year’s Resolution for the year of 2005, I vow to perform the simple, often involuntary function of drawing air into my lungs in order to fuel the burning of glucose in my body. That’s right: my New Year’s Resolution is to breathe (well, except if I’m underwater or something). And I am fairly certain that I will succeed.
However, most Americans are not smart like me and have actually burdened themselves with real resolutions. The following is a list of the top six New Year’s Resolutions as given by about.com (http://pittsburgh.about.com/cs/holidays/tp/resolutions.htm). Without further ado, I will proceed to mock and ridicule every single one, starting with...
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6. Quit Drinking
A lot of people say drinking is bad, and those people fall into one of two categories: jealous people with low alcohol tolerances and Mormons. Sure, there have been rare occasions where excessive alcohol drinking lead to throwing up, passing out, random acts of violence, dancing with a lampshade on one’s head, and the contraction of certain venereal diseases, but this is not an unsolvable problem. Just look at Great Britain, Northern Ireland in particular. There, the Irish Republican Army still manages to commit well-coordinated acts of terrorism and still maintain a daily alcohol consumption that could kill any normal human being. Surely, they are the next step in evolution.
5. Enjoy Life More
This resolution seems to be directly contradictory to the other five resolutions. Seriously, I have no idea how someone can vow to “enjoy life more” and still quit drinking, smoking, pigging out, and pretty much committing every other “immoral” or “irrational” action that I can think of. And I have a pretty good imagination.
4. Quit Smoking
People should really quit smoking tobacco because that is just about the most boring drug out there. The miniscule amount of nicotine in cigarette tobacco is completely outweighed by the side effects, which include bad breath, teeth stains, fifty different types of throat/tongue/lung/gum cancer, emphysema, and chronic bronchitis. Any drug is better than tobacco. Even Nyquil.
3. Exercise More
Ok, I will grant that exercising and trying to get healthy is a very legitimate New Year’s Resolution. The problem is that one segment of American society (the exercising maniacs) are so enthralled with exercising that it completely turns off any outsider who wants to start exercising because from the outside, exercising looks really, really dumb.
My friend’s mom has what is known as a “step,” which is basically a big rectangular piece of plastic that you step on and step off. High quality steps can cost up to $80.
So, are people just too dumb to find some steps in their house or something? Because a lot of us (my friend’s mom included) live in a two-story house, and there are over a dozen stair steps inside of the house.
Furthermore, I don’t like treadmills, and any normal person shouldn’t either. The reason is that, if I am going to be running for about one hour straight, I expect to be somewhere else by the time I am done running. What’s worse is the fact that the weight room where all the treadmills and other equipment are located is surrounded by mirrors, and in the words of Lewis Black, “I believe that the human mind is so intelligent that when it watches you watch yourself watch you watch yourself do something you don’t want to be doing, it goes, ‘You are so stupid, I will kill you.’”
2. Spend More Time With Family and Friends
I have no problem spending time with friends, but I hate most of my extended family. One reason is because I have relatives that actually do pull my cheeks. Another reason is that just about all of my cousins are incompetent. </i>Their</i> New Year’s Resolution should be to breathe, because it will probably be challenging for them.
1. Lose Weight
Losing weight, like exercising, is a very legitimate New Year’s Resolution. Again, the problem is that American society makes fulfilling this resolution all but impossible.
We’ve all been to a fast food place. There, a cheeseburger can cost as little as a dollar. And for sixty more cents you get forty of them. Obviously this is not a good society to try to lose weight in.
It has gotten so bad that experts now say that we are in the middle of an “Obesity Epidemic.” An epidemic. That’s a pretty lofty way to describe a country full of fat bastards. One day, decades from now, we’ll each have our grandchild on our knee and we’ll be telling him or her the story of the Great Obesity Epidemic of 2005:
“Well, how did you get through it, Grandpa?”
“Oh, it was horrible Billy. There were mozzarella sticks and cheese puffs everywhere! And there were more Twinkies than you could shake a stick at!”
Obviously, the only way to lose weight effectively is to become anorexic or bulimic.
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Indeed, I am definitely sticking with my resolution of breathing. |
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| (no subject) |
[Dec. 24th, 2004|01:28 am] |
Wow, I have not posted in a very long time due to these key reasons:
1) school
2) college apps
3) more school
4) getting distracted by shiny things
5) couldn't think of anything to write about
6) school
7) parents yelling at me to finish college apps
So now that school is out and college apps are done, I can start writing again, hopefully every week again. Anyway, here we go:
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Christmas
12/24/04
Ah, Christmas time. It is that magical time of year when gluttons are not fat, but well prepared, when high school seniors are rushing to finish their remaining college applications, when people of all backgrounds use materialism to celebrate faith, when Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, atheists, Scientologists, Mormons, and other non-Christians pretend that they are Christian just long enough to engage in gluttony and materialism. Hurray!
If you have not noticed already, I am not too fond of Christmas. Sure, it is nice to have 2+ weeks off from school, but that can be just as well attributed to Hanukah, or Kwanza even (ok, so I’m kidding). But Christmas seems to bring up so many weird, ritualistic obligations that neither me nor the rest of my family feels like following. So here is a list-in-progress of all the weird quirky things you Christians have sanctioned for Christmas, as given by an unbiased, outside observer:
1. Shopping
I hate shopping for myself a lot (read the 8/28/2004 article about buying clothes), so you can imagine how I feel about shopping for other people. First of all, I have no idea what any of my friends want for Christmas. Well, in a way I do, but it is a whole slew of things I cannot possibly provide. For example, James Kan wants a USP Match (a pistol). Where am I going to find a pistol? Wal-Mart? (Actually they do sell guns at Alabama Wal-Mart’s, but I’m not driving all the way to Alabama to get a damn present). Furthermore, I can’t even steal a USP Match from a cop, since most cops use Glocks.
And a ton of girls that I know, like Ellen and Erika and probably Sindu and Alyssa, want Johnny Depp for Christmas. This is a problem because approximately 99.9999999998457939% of the people in the world (6,484,823,545 out of 6,484,823,546 people) are not Johnny Depp. This means that a) it would be very hard to track down one person among billions and b) it would be very difficult to split one Johnny Depp among five or six people. This could, of course, be solved by human cloning, a practice opposed by Bush and the Republicans. Yet again, Bush and his Republicans have ruined Christmas for millions of hopeful female teenagers across America.
But Johnny Depp could be kidnapped. James is willing to do it, and he could do it... if he had his USP Match. Unfortunately, I cannot get him a USP Match because of stricter and stricter gun control laws, a move favored by Kerry and the Democrats. Yet again, Kerry and his Democrats have ruined Christmas for millions of hopeful female teenagers across America.
David Liang tells me that he wants Hyori Lee for Christmas. Unfortunately, we run into the same exact problems as above (but wow is she hot).
In addition, Christmas shopping in America has become really, really dangerous. You would think that the increased popularity of eBay, Amazon.com, and the like would make malls (and Wal-Mart’s for cheap Asians and poor people) less crowded, but this is apparently not so. These parking lots are magnets for crappy drivers and thus auto accidents because:
a) There are not enough parking spaces, thus forcing shoppers to race around the parking lot Mario Kart style in search of a parking spot. If people could shoot shells at each other in real life, there would be turtle carcasses from here to Foley’s.
b) People are too busy trying to figure out what their boyfriend/girlfriend/spouse/relative/best friend/acquaintance/roommate/pet fish wants most for Christmas and thus don’t pay adequate attention to the road.
c) The people who go shopping the most are... of the female persuasion... and let’s just say that Helen Keller was not a bad driver because she was blind and deaf.
And once you actually get into a mall, the danger has only just begun. I went shopping at First Colony Mall on Monday, and I almost died. Literally. Well, I probably wouldn’t have died, but I probably would have needed medical attention.
I was at a store and I was waiting in line to pay for stuff I wanted to buy, and it was a long-ass line. It took an eternity or two to get to the front of the line, but as I moved up the line I started feeling faint. I figured that I was either dehydrated or had low blood sugar levels, which was weird because I had eaten and drank quite a bit before leaving the house. Nevertheless, I was on the verge of fainting. I had two choices: a) get out of line and find some sweetened beverage or b) stay in line, make my purchase, but risk fainting, which would of course lead to much embarrassment.
Both choices seemed pretty bad, but I decided to hang in there and risk fainting rather than wait in the damn line a second time. With the cold sweat running down my face and weird cramps popping up in my joints, I trudged to the front of the line, threw money at the cashier, collected my change, and promptly exited the store. MISSION ACCOMPLISHED.
Suffice it to say I am not going Christmas shopping for a long time. Probably for about a year.
2. Tradition
Christmas is a holiday steeped in tradition. The Christmas tree is a prime example. Over a thousand years ago, Germanic or Scandinavian pagans would sacrifice animals and slaves to their gods and hang them from conifer trees in the winter. Later on, Christians adopted this custom for some reason, but hung little trinkets and ribbons on the tree because trinkets smell a whole lot better than rotting flesh. And they are shinier. And heretics scream too much when you try to attach them to a tree.
When I was younger, my family used to be really gun-ho about Christmas. We would set up our dinky five-foot-tall fake tree and decorate the house with Christmas lights every year. But as the years progressed we’ve gotten really apathetic. This year, we are just about the only house on our street without Christmas lights. I know we are the only house on our street without a tree, and my family doesn’t even give each other presents anymore! We’ve all decided, “Meh, what’s the point?” Still, as a courtesy, my parents give me about $80 (money that I could get anyway, even if it wasn’t Christmas) and to my parents I promise that I will make good grades in school and help make the Christmas dinner (all of which I do anyway).
Another Christmas tradition is the Christmas dinner. A traditional (Western) Christmas dinner includes turkey, ham, cranberry sauce, twenty different types of pie, pretty much everything you find at a traditional Thanksgiving dinner (which is one reason why Thanksgiving should be given a new name: Christmas, part I). If you have not noticed already, my family is Chinese. We’ve never had a traditional Christmas dinner. But over the years we’ve gotten closer and closer to the point where now I think it is a problem. For Thanksgiving dinner, for example, we had turkey. Turkey. No one in our family likes turkey. Normally we have duck, because duck is a bird that doesn’t taste like cardboard. But for some reason we had turkey. And normally we have such Chinese dishes such as... well, most of them do not have English names and their Chinese names do not translate very well. For example, we often eat gou bu li bao zi, which translates literally into “wrapped thing that dogs ignore.” I am not making this up. But wow are those things tasty.
Anyway, the bottom line is that tradition involves people practicing that particular tradition (those on the inside) and people unfamiliar with that tradition (people on the outside). What ends up happening is that people on the outside think people on the inside are crazy, people on the inside think people on the outside are incompetent, so the people on the outside end up either trying to conform to the ways of the inside and failing miserably, or continuing living on the outside only to be mocked by those living on the inside. What the people on the outside fail to realize is that they are already inside an outside clique to which the people on the inside do not belong; furthermore, it is what is on the inside of both the people on the inside and the people on the outside that really matters, not obscure rituals which are only outside manifestations of outside societal beliefs. And that is why tradition is dumb.
3. Santa
I never really believed in Santa, but then again my parents never tried very hard convincing me that he existed:
Dad: If you are a good boy, Santa will bring you lots of presents.
Me: But won’t I get presents anyway? Because you have to buy me presents? Because of tradition?
Dad: Hmm... You’ve got a point there...
Me: Then what’s my incentive to be good?
Dad: Well... um... Damn American society to hell!!!
Santa Claus is a pretty shady character, and he supposedly has his Claus in everything. He watches your every move, invading your privacy without probable cause. He parks his reindeer in the fire lane. He breaks into a house and leaves lots of unmarked boxes. He could at least join a law enforcement agency so that his unwarranted entries are at least quasi-legal under the Patriot Act.
Plus Santa would have to be packing some crazy shit to actually get to every child in the world (1.2 billion) in 24 hours. Santa can spend only 0.000072 seconds per kid. The Earth has about 150 million square km of land, so that is roughly one kid per 125 sq meters of land. So on average, if every kid were evenly spaced across all of Earth’s landmass, each kid will be about 12 meters apart. So Santa will have to be going 166,667 meters per second to reach every kid in time, and that is over 375,000 mph, which is over half as fast as the speed as light. Now that would be l33t. Well, it would be l33t if you could go that fast and not turn into goo. Or pure energy.
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So we've all heard about why Christmas is great and amazing, but let's hear more about the sucky aspects of Christmas. Hurray for pessimism!
So in the mean time...
HAPPY HANUCHRISTMAKWANZAKA!!!!!! |
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| (no subject) |
[Oct. 28th, 2004|09:21 pm] |
Today was a damn awesome day. Why you ask? Because today was the day that I PROVED MS. HALL (my calculus teacher) WRONG.
During class I was trying to prove that the derivative of e^x is e^x using the derivative definition. I got stuck along the way, so I asked Ms. Hall for some help. She looked at it for a bit, then she told me (and I'm quoting here) that the proof was "algebraically impossible." Undeterred, I worked on the proof through biology, where I finally SOLVED IT ALGEBRAICALLY. I am the man.
I think the above just proves how much of a nerd I really am.
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Why My Dad Wants Me to Become a Doctor
My dad, like a lot of Asian parents, wants his child to become a medical doctor. And like most Asian parents, he isn’t very particular as to what kind of doctor I should be. In his opinion, as long as I have an M.D., I’ll be fine. For the longest time, I didn’t know exactly why Dad wanted me to become a doctor. I thought it was just because he wanted me to have economic security, he wanted me to be rich, he wanted me to have no social life, or it was because all Asian parents want their children to become doctors, and Dad was just going with the flow. But about a week ago, I figured out the exact reason why.
Two weeks ago, I got sort of sick. I had a slight fever, a small cough, and quite a bit of phlegm (mmm phlegm). When mom found out I was sick, she pulled our big box of Chinese medicine that we have in our pantry, and began to cure me. The curing process is something I like to call OPERATION TOTAL DESTRUCTION. OPERATION TOTAL DESTRUCTION has two distinct phases.
In the first phase, Mom pulls out the Chinese herbal medication, which is a brown powder to which you add hot water to create a drink. And this herbal stuff is the absolutely worst tasting concoction I have ever tasted. If sadness ever tasted like anything, it would taste the Chinese herbal medication that I drank last week.
The second problem, besides the taste, is the fact that the herbs have absolutely no effect on any part of the human body (besides possibly making you vomit). Nor any effect on any known pathogen, making these herbal drinks absolutely useless. Every time my mom offers it to me, I try to convince her that it is useless, but she never listens. So two weeks ago, after a few days of that drinking herbal brew, my mom noticed that (surprise, surprise) I was still sick. Thus, she had no choice but to move on to phase two of OPERATION TOTAL DESTRUCTION.
Phase two of OPERATION TOTAL DESTRUCTION consists of taking Chinese antibiotics. It is important to note that Chinese antibiotics are not like American antibiotics. In America, you guys have a little something called liability, which in China really doesn’t exist. This means that Chinese pharmaceutical companies can make pills however the hell they want, and if that happens to kill someone, meh. Thus Chinese are among the strongest pills known to man. One pill is probably enough to kill every bacterium on the face of the Earth. In China, these drugs are over-the-counter, but in America, these drugs are either prescription medication, or banned by the FDA.
And whenever I get sick, even if it’s just a teeny-tiny flu infection, my mom makes me take these antibiotics (after the herbal drinks fail of course). I’ve tried to convince my mom time and time again that if I keep on taking these antibiotics, then bad things might start happening. “Mom,” I say, “you know, my liver could explode,” to which she responds, “Well, that’s a risk I’m willing to take.” I’ve gotten to the point where I now pretend to have taken the pills while really surreptitiously sticking them in my pocket. Then, when I get to my room upstairs, I throw them in my trashcan.
And whenever I have gotten sick, Dad has witnessed Mom initiate OPERATION TOTAL DESTRUCTION, and he is shaking in his boots. He knows that, unless something happens, Mom will be the only person to take of him when he gets up there in his age, and this must be understandably avoided at all costs. So to prevent this from happening, it is absolutely imperative that I get an M.D. and, hopefully, some medical knowledge as well. And that is why Dad wants me to become a doctor. |
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| (no subject) |
[Oct. 25th, 2004|07:24 pm] |
I might actually write something this week if I have time (read: feel like it).
So for now, you guys will have to settle for MORE CAMPAIGN POSTERS:
I made this one for our pro-Kerry magazine government project (James, Melissa, et al don't hurt me)
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| (no subject) |
[Oct. 20th, 2004|10:00 pm] |
Our last presentation for government was a skit plus a 23 slide powerpoint slideshow over an article about campaign finance reform written by Thomas Mann. However, only 10 slides were actually relevent; the other 13 slides consisted of random crap we decided to throw in there. Here are some irrelevent slides:
and here is one of our "relevent" slides:
Support Dan's bid for the presidency by setting your desktop wallpaper to that campaign ad. C'mon - everyone else is doing it. You know you want to. |
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| (no subject) |
[Oct. 19th, 2004|11:40 pm] |
Got bored, didn't feel like doing hw, decided to write a poem instead. I decided to write it in iambic pentameter, which meant that it took a total of 3-4 hours... ya that probably wasn't a good move. Anyway, here it is:
The Epiphany
He was a man of happiness, of joy,
But being not much older than a boy.
He was a man of kindness, of the heart,
His intent to serve, to you I impart.
From darkness I watched him, a wraith, a ghost.
He knew naught of me - of this I can boast.
In his world of light he was a great fool,
Admired by all, yet merely a tool.
Others thought he was happy, content, yet,
He hid his misery, hid his regret.
Along with his emotional debris,
He hid it all where he had hidden me.
Tonight while on a gloomy, wooded path,
He walks, I follow and make known my wrath.
I call to him, he sprints, and I give chase.
He stops, looks back - he is losing the race.
In the cold forest nothing is aglow.
A man of light, and scared, he tries to flee.
He fears the blackness, he fears the shadow.
He fears the darkness because he fears me.
With my hard, frigid stare I draw him near.
He fights, resists, but cannot break my grasp,
He quakes, convulses, overwhelmed by fear,
His breathing in short, shallow, rapid gasps.
I walk until I am right in his face,
He falsely prepares for Death’s cold embrace,
He opens his eyes, implores for God’s grace.
For what he sees is his very own face.
And then he understands.
I am his true self - all else is a joke.
I am reality - all else is feigned.
For when he turns to earth, to dust, to smoke,
to shade, to naught, only I will remain. |
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| (no subject) |
[Oct. 16th, 2004|11:31 pm] |
I've decided to start posting every Sunday, because Wednesday's are not working. I figure, Sunday gives me an entire day to pull something out of my rectal area and make up something decent. So Sunday's it is.
But you're probably confused because today's Saturday. Well, it just so happens that I came up with something good today, and I didn't want to wait until tomorrow to post it because I am an attention whore. But every other post from now on will be on Sunday.
We have to do this government project where we come up with a Bush campaign ad and a Kerry campaign ad. I created an ad on abortion today, mostly because I didn't feel like doing the Spanish project. We're not turning this ad in because we're playing it safe since we guess that this ad flaunts the "line" so flagrantly that it's virtually straddling it... in a completely non-sexual way. Get your minds out of the gutters, people.
Anyway, here it is. Tada!
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| (no subject) |
[Oct. 13th, 2004|10:58 pm] |
Shobriety... *hic* ish Overrated *hic* Part 2
10/13/04
So Friday morning I woke up, took a shower, ate breakfast with John and Heather and friends, observed a few classes, messed with the squirrels some more, nothing really exciting. By early evening, John and I were bored and wandered over to a dorm and started talking to the girls there.
Us: “We’re bored.”
Them: “You guys need to figure out a way to entertain yourselves.”
Us: “Nah.”
Them: “We’re going to some frat parties. Wanna come with?”
Us: “Sure!”
So at last I was going to a frat party, those amazing alcohol-infused, scantily-clad-chick containing, disorderly, nondenominational extravaganzas that receive extensive media coverage from such reliable sources as the internet, Max X, Cops, and Jerry Springer. Those frat parties that have wild, hilariously drunk college students staggering around laughing, challenging each other to drinking games, throwing up, passing out, getting back up, getting into fights, doing
everything with total abandon. So with my expectations about as high as their BAC’s, I ventured to my first frat party.
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Before I go on, since Sara Jones wanted me to include a drunken Ronald story, here it is:
(I got so drunk I can’t remember anything, except for throwing up and talking to a magical lawn gnome named Juan).
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When we arrived at Frat Row, we discovered to our dismay that all of the frat parties were mostly dead. There was, however, talk of a really good, really awesome, really amazing frat party at Zeta Beta Theta, which was quite a walk from where we were. So with resolve in our hearts and Chaser tablets in our pockets, we began our pilgrimage to the ZBT, where amazing fun and drunkenness awaited.
We hadn’t even gotten that far before we came across people going the opposite direction telling us that the police had
broken up the party at ZBT, not because of underage drinking, disorderly behavior, or numerous counts of statutory rape, but because they were tipped off and found weed in pretty much every room, cabinet, drawer, shelf, and closet of the ZBT house. In fact, a room on the second floor was made entirely of weed and weed smoking paraphernalia.
So with that frat shut down, our night of amazing drunken fun was in jeopardy. As a last resort we decided to venture to a sophomore dorm where we met up with some dudes there already taking shots of Bacardi. They took us to some frat parties, which were all dead and disappointing. To help ease our disillusionment, the sophomores told us about the good old days ages ago (read: last year) when the frat parties lived up to their reputations and promised to last forever. The sophomores were but little freshmen, and during that year of bliss, every frat house on Frat Row held parties simultaneously, and the parties of the several houses blended together to form one mega-party. Beer and hard liquor flowed down the streets like rivers of gold and silver, vomit accumulated in the stairwells, everyone was too drunk to have emotions other than “happy” and “comatose,” and life was good. “But alas” they said, “that age has passed and is now gone forever.” And then the rest of us were like, “Screw this, we’re going home.”
So John and I followed those three girls (the only name I remember is Melanie) back to their dorm. Those three and a guy (one of the girl’s boyfriend) started playing a drinking game, and part of the game had a truth-or-dare-esque thing, and this resulted in ouchiness for John’s and my virgin ears. Let’s just say that we heard about too many kinky sexual practices that may or may not involve a hand, an anus, and a goat.
So at about 1AM, I wandered back to Paul’s dorm to find Paul sprawled across his bed in a totally hammered fashion. Since Paul had managed to kick some loser pre-fresh out of his dorm that morning, I was able to sleep there until Saturday morning.
Saturday morning, I woke up and asked Paul whether he had a good time last night, to which he responded, “Dude, I don’t remember. How the hell did I get back to my dorm?” Paul’s the greatest. Even if he might be gay.
Saturday was pretty uneventful. In an effort to keep us from socializing with drunk and hungover college students, the Discovery Weekend coordinators organized a trip to the mall for all of us pre-fresh, which was pretty dumb. John and I hung out with the pair of girls that ditched us Thursday night. Mostly they went to clothing stores and I followed along and periodically wore a funny article of clothing (girly hat, oversized pink hoody, etc.) and got John to take a picture of me for my senior legacy. That’s multitasking right there.
John also went to an Abercrombie & Fitch store and bought a zany political shirt. The store clerks were incompetent so we had to wait forever for John to check out. That stupid pasty, white, half-Mexican cretin.
After our mall excursion, we hung out in the non-substance/dry/pansy dorm building because we had heard that they were
planning to hold a toga/root beer keg party. The rule was that you could not drunk alcohol at this party, but you could come in drunk if you want to. This concept of a nonalcoholic college party was such a novelty that we had to go.
The party was pretty dumb and pretty pointless because there were plenty of belligerent drunk people there. When the girl who organized a nonalcoholic keg party gets drunk off her ass and starts giving strangers hugs, you know there’s a problem.
I then ditched my toga and ventured back to Paul’s dorm, where I hung out with Paul’s crew for the rest of the night,
which was quite enjoyable. Early Sunday morning I hopped on my plane and flew back to Houston, leaving behind Wash U and all of its awesomeness, the nice weather, the varied landscape, the squirrels. I was quite sad.
All in all, it was quite an educational experience. I learned both about Wash U’s prestigious academic side and its wild drunky party side. And for the record, when I was there at Wash U, I did not get drunk at a frat party, put a lampshade on my head, and started singing, “I am the walrus, koo koo kachoo!” I sang, “We all live in our yellow submarine,” instead. |
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| (no subject) |
[Oct. 6th, 2004|08:53 pm] |
Shobriety... *hic* ish Overrated *hic*
10/06/04
In late August, I received a letter from Washington University in St. Louis that they wanted me to attend their Discovery Weekend program from September 30th to October 3rd. In addition to being accepted to their program, they were going to fly me there and feed me all for free. So I thought, “Free ride, free food, no school, alcohol induced stupors, hot college chicks, HOW COULD I LOSE??? Oh, and it’s going to be an educational experience and what not.” So I decided to go.
As a side note, apparently they only gave minorities free rides and free food. Heather, who is a whitie, didn’t get squat, and none of the other white people I talked to got free rides. But John, who is only half Mexican, got his trip paid for. In addition to being only half a minority, he is one of the whitest people I know - he wears Abercrombie shirts, and those things just scream, “LOOK AT ME! I’M A PASTY WHITE SUBERBAN KID!”
So for the first time in history, affirmative action has benefited those most unlikely to get anything out of it: Washington University threw free stuff at one Asian man and half of a white man. Now that is progress.
Four days before I was supposed to leave, I sent an email to my host, Paul, telling him that I was arriving at 4:00 PM on Thursday, September 30th, and that he should meet me in the Mudd House. He emailed me back the next day...
Good Tidings Ronald,
I am eagerly awaiting your presence! I look forward to integrating you into the collegiate strata. Our grandiose university, Washington University in St. Louis, has much to offer such a bright young scholar such as yourself. Ah lad, how the times we will have will stay with you for the duration of your luminous existence. Our companionship will commence on the upcoming Thursday, the thirtieth of September (I find September to be an abysmal month! We shall celebrate its expiration together). Four hours after high noon sounds like an ideal time to make acquaintance at the acclaimed Mudd House Multipurpose Room. I hope you are convulsing with excitement like myself! I hope this electronic mail finds you well, and that you find fun and fancy at our fabulous four-year foundation for fame and fortune.
Your Soon-to-be Schoolfellow,
Paul
When I finished reading this, I thought, “Holy shit, this guy is awesome.” (I also guessed that my host would be a tall, lanky, white boy. I was right, except he was a little shorter than I thought. Haha, I am the man.) So naturally, I was really excited about going and couldn’t wait for the stupid week to get to Thursday.
On Thursday, I arrived at Washington University at about 5:15 PM (I know - I can’t estimate time). The beauty of the campus struck me instantly - there were trees everywhere and hills even! It’s so sad that I am so excited by non-flat terrain. Hills are such a novelty in Houston.
Good weather is also a novelty in Houston, and the weather in St. Louis was awesome, ranging from a low of 45º to a high of 72º. That city actually has real weather! With seasons! Four of them!!!
In the acclaimed Mudd House Multipurpose Room, I was greeted by Paul, who informed me that he had to go study for a physics exam that was scheduled for 6:30 that day, so John and I just decided to wander around the campus by ourselves.
One of the first things we noticed about the campus was the incredibly large abundance of squirrels. Seriously, there were probably more squirrels on that campus than people in the state of Wyoming. And the squirrels didn’t really mind people that much either - you could get fairly close to one before it ran off. Since John and I had over an hour to blow, we spent a lot of time observing, and occasionally messing with, the squirrels. Hey - what do you expect two bored teenage to do?
We thought, since we could get pretty close to a squirrel, that they must be pretty dumb, but we were pleasantly surprised. When John threw a rock at a squirrel, after the rock had hardly left John’s hand, the squirrel ran off to a nearby tree. Wash U squirrels are apparently very perceptive.
We later saw a few squirrels burying their nuts in the ground, and we decided to wait for them to finish, unearth the nut, and give it to another squirrel. Some people would call this “mean” or “cruel”; I, however, call this “socialism”. Unfortunately, none of the squirrels we observed actually buried their nuts (or else John was inept and couldn’t find them), so the nutless proletariat squirrels will have to continue living under the harsh rule of the plentifully nutted ruling class squirrels. Stop laughing you guys.
At 6:30, we went to the amazing kickoff dinner/picnic that they had planned for us. The food was pretty good, and there were a bunch of college dudes around to answer our questions and chat with. This was probably the most educational part of the entire trip.
Later, we went to a presentation where there was a panel of 5 Wash U students - 2 seniors, 2 juniors, and a sophomore I think. They talked, discussed their experiences at the university, etc. All in all, it was pretty boring and uninformative until the questioning and answering period began, where it became boring, uninformative, and dumb. The questioning and answering period reaffirmed the maxim that there are no stupid questions, but there are a lot of inquisitive idiots.
After the presentation, there was a lame, but delicious, ice cream social where John and I met two girls, one from California and one from Michigan, who ditched us in like thirty minutes. (It was all John’s fault). We then met up with Heather’s posse, and John commenced making a fool of himself by telling raping baby jokes - he didn’t even ease the people in with dead baby jokes, which are funny and not quite as horrible, but went directly to raping baby jokes, which many times are just plain disgusting. I correctly guessed that it was because John had not taken his ADD medicine that morning. Yup, I am very perceptive. Like Wash U squirrels.
After the lame ice cream social, there was a lame dance, and John and I soon retired to our separate dorms. I stayed up pretty late chatting with Paul and his friends, who were all hilariously awesome. It was pretty late, and when I returned to Paul’s dorm, I found that there were already a bunch of dudes on the floor sleeping, meaning that there was no place for me to go. After yelling at Paul for a bit, he stuck me in someone else’s dorm, where I spent the night. And thus ended the first day at Wash U.
Right now, I’m really tired, and I still have a shitload of homework to do, so I’m going to stop here and finish the story next week. Haha, I have to keep you all in suspense. So tune in next week to discover...
IS PAUL REALLY GAY?
IS RONALD GOING TO GET HAMMERED AT SOME FRAT PARTY, PUT A LAMP SHADE ON HIS HEAD, AND SING “I AM THE WALRUS, KOO-KOO-KACHOO?"
WILL HE SAVE THE WORLD FROM IMMINENT DESTRUCTION?
FIND OUT... NEXT WEEK!!! |
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[Sep. 29th, 2004|11:47 pm] |
Why Can’t I Drive A Ferrari?
9/29/04
Today, I was trying to figure out what to write on my weekly post while driving to school this morning. This train of thought was interrupted when my van started shaking really badly and started making loud rumbling and screeching noises on the pavement. So naturally I pull over, get out of my car, and immediately start cursing because apparently my tire had blown. “Well,” I thought, “at least this would make a pretty decent article post.”
So anyone who had any contact with me since the start of 2004 has probably heard me complaining about my mode of vehicular transportation - my van. More specifically, it is a beige 1994 Mercury Villager - the tackiest, slowest, most unmanageable car ever constructed. The Hindenburg had a better turning radius than my van, since my van handles like a turtle.
My van is ten years old this year - that’s like 70 in car years. My van is so old that the welds or rivets or whatever holds my car together has deteriorated, meaning that the slightest bump from another car, or even a strong breeze, could cause my car to explode. You think I’m kidding, but at this point in time, the only thing holding my car together is sheer will power. Will power and Elmer’s glue.
Vans inherently handle poorly and have slow acceleration, but 10 years on a van is like 70 years on a person - both become slow, bitchy, and tend to vote Republican. My van, even without a blown tire, cannot go past 80 mph without beginning to shake and vibrate rather noticeably. My theory is that my van really does not have an engine. It may look like an engine on the outside, but it’s really a little man named Pablo moving my car along via bicycle gears and chains, and I push Pablo way too hard. That little man deserves a break once in a while. Or maybe I can just get a real engine.
This morning, I was driving along FM 1464 when the van began to shake wildly. Unfortunately, I was on a part of road that had no shoulder, so I had to drive for a bit until the road had a shoulder where I could park, and I ended up parking about a quarter mile away from the school. When I got out and looked, the tire was completely shredded; in fact, I left a trail of little black rubber pieces for as far as I could see. Thus, anyone, even Hansel and Gretel, could follow the trail of vulcanized breadcrumbs, find my broken down van and me, laugh at my misfortune, and be on his way.
Anyway, after the initial round of cursing, I go around to the back of my van to get the stuff I need to change a flat/disintegrated tire. I had everything I needed except a jack. Dad used my car jack because he was rotating the wheels on my mom’s car, but unfortunately he never put it back in my car. This presented a problem. I needed either a jack or someone with super strength to help me install the spare tire. And it was just my luck that no one with super strength showed up.
So I took my only remaining option: I called dad, told him about the van, and walked to school, smelling like burnt rubber because of the stupid tire. I locked up the van and left it on the shoulder. If there was ever a smidget of a chance that someone would steal my van, it was completely gone now. A perfectly good (i.e., semi-functioning) van was just sitting there, alone on the street, just waiting for my dad to show up and maybe fix the car if he felt like it. It was the perfect opportunity for someone to be slightly ($2) richer and for me to be able to get a newer car.
Unfortunately, no one stole my van and dad got it fixed. He actually took it to Discount Tire Co., where apparently I had a warranty on the tires. Maybe Dad even got a new guy to pedal in the engine compartment.
But I know that I really shouldn’t be complaining. I have a car that works... most of the time. I have the freedom of going wherever I want whenever I want. I even don’t pay for my own gas. Compared to some people, I have it pretty good.
Today was an interesting day for me. I learned what sounds my car makes when I get a flat tire. I learned I need pushing my van as hard as I do. I learned that, to some people, burnt rubber smells like cologne. I learned a lot of things, but at the very least, at least I got an article out of the whole thing. |
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[Sep. 22nd, 2004|07:43 pm] |
Well, the annotated book for English is due tomorrow, and I just started today. Luckily, I am reading Candide, which is easy to read, hilarious, and only 130 pages. And about 15 of those pages are pictures. PICTURES!!!
And my parents and I keep on fighting about college stuff. They think I don't work hard enough or something. Meh, they're probably right.
ARTICLE TIME!
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I Don’t Understand Teenagers
In all my four years of high school, I have never understood teenagers. We are rude, ignorant, apathetic, stupid, and fickle; the average teenage relationship lasts less than a month. This is probably because teenage girls are too busy getting their hair perfect and becoming anorexic to have time for an involved relationship. It also doesn’t help that the average teenage guy has the maturity of a three year old (if you didn’t know this already, the maturity level of your average man peaks at age 72, when he is too senile or too dead to be immature).
And because I have never understood my peers, I have never understood homecoming. Maybe it’s because I’m Asian or not “with it” or not cool enough or something, but what is the big deal? I mean, who is coming home? Where are they coming home from? What have they been doing? Do their parents even know that they’re out?
(In English class on Monday, Ms. Liu explained to me that “homecoming” is when the alumni “come home.” Imagine my embarrassment. But I managed to divert attention away from my ignorance by quickly saying something along the lines of: “Psh, are you kidding? Why would you want to come back to this hellhole?” Now that was a nice save).
It seems to me that homecoming is just another excuse for rich suburban kids to blow money on clothes and other accessories, listen to loud rap music with flashy, trippy, psychedelic lights, hold each other, and sway (my good friend Erika calls this “dry sex.”) C’mon, like you really need a school sanction to have some (dry) sex. Jeez.
In addition to blowing money on clothes, limos, fancy dinners, and wedding receptions (I heard someone proposed during homecoming), high schoolers also waste money on mums. They are huge, shiny, distracting, jingly, gaudy, and, above all, dumb. And they can cost over $30 if you get yours with “accessories,” like bells. Why do people attach bells to the end of those cursed things? By the end of the day, if I heard just one more bell ringing, I was ready to systematically destroy every bell in the world, starting with the Liberty Bell, because that thing is getting ready to break into two pieces anyway. Mums have got to be the tackiest things I have ever seen in my life. And I know tacky. I’m Chinese.
If you weren’t already aware, Asians, especially the Chinese, are among the tackiest beings ever to walk the planet, aside from circus clowns and Carrot Top, and this is probably due to the fact that we’re cheap as hell. Some of my American friends think they’re cheap because they don’t shop at Abercrombie & Fitch, or they might download music because they don’t want to buy the CD. But these amateurs have nothing on us Chinese. Chinese dudes have been known to have the following conversation:
“Hey, I hear there’s a sale at Foley’s.”
“Awesome, let’s go steal a dress.”
So because we’re so cheap, we’ll wear anything as long as we can get it at a reasonable price: plaid, neon green T-shirts, pink polo shirts, deerskin, cardboard boxes are all fair game. If you see some Chinese dude walking around with a Tommy Hilfiger shirt, you can draw one of three conclusions:
* The shirt is a fake Tommy shirt from China. This is especially evident if “Tommy Hilfiger” is spelled wrong, i.e., with a “q.”
* The shirt is a legitimate Tommy shirt, but was shoplifted from somewhere.
* The Chinese dude is just a poser Asian. It is your duty to scorn and shun him.
In my family, “reasonable price” means a shirt that costs less than $5 and pants that cost less than $10. Thus, as a general rule, my family can buy clothes at only one of two places: Wal-Mart or China. That’s right, even Target is too high class for us.
So since I’m Chinese, it completely baffles me as to why people spent over $100 on a stupid dance that was boring anyway. I went to the damn dance, but I didn’t “dress up” because I saw no point in doing so. I wore a polo T-shirt, khakis, and tennis shoes. I was even wearing a tie... on my head. That’s right, I was “getting my groove on.”
But, even then, I was still more mature than your average male. |
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[Sep. 15th, 2004|11:59 pm] |
I'm posting sorta late because I had a ton of work to do today, yesterday, the day before yesterday, and the day before that. But, it's technically still Wednesday. So ha!
Ya, so this week has sucked. I've had to do a Biology Project, a Government Project, study for a Government Quiz and Test, do the Government Article review, write/memorize a Spanish presentation, analyze a poem in Spanish, and do a set of English discussion questions all on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. So right now, I'm running on like 14hrs of sleep between those 3 days, lots of caffiene, lots of sugar, and lots of drugs.
And I'm still my alpha theta beau. And I might even be in the homecoming court thingy, since pretty much everyone I talked to today voted for me. Um... hurray?
Whatever, it's time for an article.
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What’s Wrong With Ultimate Deathmatch in Congress?
For the past twelve years, I have known the first month or so of every school year as the “tentative” phase. This is the time period when I get to know my classmates, the class itself, and the teacher teaching the class. And when I say “get to know the teacher,” I mean that I will try to figure out exactly how far I can push him or her without getting into real trouble. It is fun and entertaining, but also very hazardous. Thus, it is not for the weak or faint of heart. You must have a diverse array of traits at your disposal including smarts, charisma, the ability to think quickly, the ability to crack jokes yet still demonstrate to the teacher that you know what you’re talking about. But most importantly, you must like peril, and I for one am a man who likes to live dangerously. Sometimes I don’t even use my blinkers when I’m changing lanes.
Thus, in every class I’ve been trying to stay in the gray area where the teacher is sort of agitated, but not agitated to the point where bad things start happening. Except with Ms. Liu, of course, since she was my sophomore English teacher. I started giving her crap on day 1. But as for my other teachers, I had to be a little more cautious.
In Mr. Brownson’s government class, we got together in groups of four in order to have a little “Constitutional Convention” gig where we pretended we needed to draft a brand new Constitution for the United States. This, I deemed, was an excellent opportunity to demonstrate to my new teacher my knowledge of political theory, governmental philosophy, and contemporary politics.
We thus created a government with a bicameral legislature, where one house was full of pirates, one house was full of ninjas, and bills would be passed on an Ultimate Deathmatch basis. Why you ask? Because ninjas are pirates kick ass. And no, I am not making any of this up.
And even though we hadn’t even hammered out the responsibilities and powers of the executive or judicial branches, our government was already infinitely cooler and infinitely more efficient than the government we have right now. Pirates and ninjas are both known for their quick results and their efficiency. Very feasibly, this government, where outlaws run the legislature and where bills are passed via Ultimate Deathmatch, could get more legitimate things done than our real government, which may spend days debating the merit of changing “French Fries” to “Freedom Fries.” And when you think about what you just read, you realize how sad our government really is.
At the very least, sessions of Congress would be infinitely more interesting watch. I mean, people might even start tuning into C-SPAN.
And yet, for some reason, Mr. Brownson was not exactly pleased with our group. He even forced us to change our government so that it was at least “half-way serious.” We assumed that this also meant that we could be exactly half as silly as we were before, so we settled on a government that had a tricameral legislature: a House, a Senate, and a third body called the “Patty LaBelle House” composed entirely of 70’s soul-singers. Again, I am not making any of this up.
In the end, Mr. Brownson was still not content with our group even after stifling our creativity the first time. Bah!
This is a problem prevalent not only in our school, but in the entirety of American education. Students’ creativity and students’ ability to express themselves as they choose, be it through art, speech, clothing, or government infrastructure proposal, is being mercilessly trampled upon by the faculty on the flimsy grounds that they are too distracting for a learning environment, that they have no educational or societal merit, that indecent exposure is a crime, etc.
Thus, this would be an excellent way to involve young people in the government; we would try to give high schoolers more rights by going through the political process. The problem is that the typical high school student is not eligible to vote, and this has two implications. First, even if there were a candidate whose platform included more students’ rights, most students would not be able to vote for him. Secondly, since most high school students can’t vote, any kind of representative that is elected really has no obligation to do what we want. And then, when a student finally does reach voting age, it’s time for the student to go to college, where things are more lenient anyway.
And so there does not seem to be an end in sight. Us high schoolers will continue to be forced to conform to a set community standard. We will never be able to fully express ourselves, and worst of all, our dream of a C-SPAN actually worth watching will never be fulfilled. |
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[Sep. 8th, 2004|08:04 pm] |
It's Wednesday! Time for an update! Woo!
Last weekend we went swimming in Tom Dupont's pool, without Tom or any of his family knowing about our intrusion. And all the while, we were saying
"Man, it would be so hilarious if Tom's parents caught us here right now!"
Luckily, we escaped detection, but we told Tom about it because we're such a great bunch of guys. And because one of us probably left our pants there and Tom would have figured it out anyway.
Other than that, nothing is really happening because my life is pretty boring. Thus, it is ARTICLE TIME!
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How I Made a Mess in My Bathroom
Last week, I made a terrible mess in my bathroom. Not because of a urinary problem. Not even because of a gastrointestinal problem. But because I was slitting my wrists, and if you’ve never slit your wrists before, it is very, very messy. I mean, bloodstains take forever to get out of tile and grout.
The reason I was slitting my wrists in a quasi-serious attempt to end my life was because I had just read 200 pages of Wuthering Heights in one day, and then I had to complete the Wuthering Heights dialectical journal the following day. That is way too much pansy prissy British bitching (woo, alliteration!) in a forty-eight hour period. And that is why I slit my wrists in the bathroom.
Today in English, Ms. Liu threw a random journal entry topic at us, which read: “A good story and what makes it a good one.”
For some reason, “good story” automatically made me think of “bad story,” which automatically made me think of “horse shit,” which, of course, automatically made me think of Wuthering Heights. And then all the pain of the past weekend came flooding back to me in a great crimson-colored suicidemobile. Ah, the humanity!
Everyone knows what makes a good story good - pirates and ninjas (duh). With pirates and ninjas come gratuitous sex and violence, and everyone likes gratuitous sex and violence. If you don’t, then you’re wrong.
However, in high school English class, we should focus away from good stories and instead determine what makes a bad story a piece of crap. Take for example, Wuthering Heights.
First of all, the book is way too long. Not that I have a problem with long books (anything written by Dumas is long AND awesome), but the plot of Wuthering Heights (or lack thereof) doesn’t go anywhere. Consider the fact that my copy of the book is 325 pages long and that, on average, there are 390 words per page.
390 x 325 = 126750 words
I can sum up the story of Wuthering Heights in one paragraph (87 words):
Gypsy boy meets crazy girl. Girl pisses off boy. Boy runs away. Girl marries prissy pansy refined guy. Gypsy boy returns. Crazy girl gives birth to other girl. Crazy girl dies. Gypsy boy gets a pansy prissy son and pseudo-adopts a dumb cretin. Prissy pansy refined guy dies. Pansy prissy son marries other girl. Pansy prissy son dies. Gypsy boy loses interest in revenge and dies. Other girl and dumb cretin live happily ever after. Insert figurative language, thematic elements, contrasts, dualities, and boat imagery where appropriate.
See? Told you.
And to make the situation even worse, Emily Brontë, the author of the novel, has seemingly gone to extraordinary lengths to piss her readers off. If the convoluted sentence structure, archaic British expressions, pansy prissy characters, and superfluous descriptive detail weren’t enough, she even throws the following into the maelstrom:
“Thus interrupting herself, the housekeeper rose, arid proceeded to lay aside her sewing; but I felt incapable of moving from the hearth, and I was very far from nodding. `Sit still, Mrs Dean,' I cried, `do sit still, another half-hour! You've done just right to tell the story leisurely. That is the method I like; and you must finish it in the same style. I am interested in every character you have mentioned, more or less,’” (Brontë, 57).
Emily Brontë, that eternal bastage, gets one of her characters to ask for the story to be told in the long, boring, convoluted manner, and then deliberately points out that she could have told the story as I have: short, concise, and in one damn paragraph. That cursed woman even taunts us from the grave!!!! THAT *(#&$()#*$()#$*#$($&*(#)#$()#($#(_$ BASTAGE *#$&@$*#(&$*($&#($&#$*(()$# RAWR *(#&$()#&*$(#&$)#*$() DIE.
Well, no matter how much the book made me want to kill myself, I persevered and am one of the few brave souls who actually read through the entire book. Ya, that’s right, I’m more of a man than you pansies who read halfway through, suckered out, and read Spark Notes instead because you couldn’t take the pain. Wah-pah! I shall now carry my banner on the road of victory!!!
But first I have to finish cleaning my bathroom. |
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[Sep. 1st, 2004|09:12 pm] |
This week has started out pretty sucky. This is how my Monday went...
4:30 PM - Got home. Started playing Day of Defeat in an effort to avoid doing WH dialectical journal
6:00 PM - Decided to stop procrastinating and start the Dialectical Journal.
6:02 PM - Got distracted by something shiny
7:00 PM - Got distracted by Tetris
8:00 PM - Really really started on the Dialectical Journal.
And this week is going so freaking slow. Bah.
But I'm the beau for Mu Alpha Theta. Hurray! It's all Jason Daghly's fault. That bastage.
Well, so its pretty obvious my life is pretty boring, so I'll post something slightly more entertaining. woot.
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Our Journey Through Hell
(Or Why Our Debate Tournament Was Absolutely Awesome)
First and foremost, we made quite a bit of money from our tournament. Hurray! We’re slightly richer!
In case you didn’t know, on Friday, August 20, and Saturday, August 21, we hosted our first ever state qualifying high school speech and debate tournament. We (the AHS speech & debate team) did not compete, but instead made sure the tournament ran smoothly, and by smoothly, I mean not smoothly at all. In fact, if our tournament were a ship, it would have capsized thirty times over, been attacked by pirates a few dozen times, and sailed off the edge of the Earth a few times after that, all in a span of just under thirty-six hours.
In retrospect, our tournament was actually quite impressive.
Before moving on, it is important to understand that the students who attend speech and debate tournaments are not really people. Instead, they are ravenous free-floating packets of teenage angst and rancor that are getting ready to either implode or explode, whichever one will create a bigger mess and cost more money to clean up.
Picture a Linkin Park concert with more teenage angst, more rancor, more yelling (but less of the electronically amplified variety) and multiply that by a factor of ten, and you have us, the AHS speech & debate team, the ones who ran the tournament. The other students, the ones who actually competed in our tournament, were a hundred times worse. They were, like, getting into knife fights. With forks. Plastic forks.
Basically, if you take a BMW or an Audi or any other German manufactured Nazimobile (you know, the kind that runs on hatred instead of gasoline) and fill it up with high school debate anger, you could drive from here (Sugar Land, TX) to Olympus Mons (Mars).
So debaters are bad enough in of themselves, but then to make the situation worse, we didn’t have enough judges. So, teenagers who were already angry because they were debaters are now getting bitchy because some of them had to wait over thirty minutes before they could start yelling at each other. C’mon... like you really need a judge to sanction angry teenage yelling. Sheesh.
So because we were short on judges, a lot of the AHS team got stuck with judging retarded and/or novice events, and that wasn’t cool at all. I got stuck with judging novice debate, and it was a girl vs. girl round.
Girl vs. girl rounds in the debate world are the absolute worse pseudo-passively aggressive confrontations in existence. They can get ugly.
Guy vs. guy rounds are cool because guys always like to fool around and buy each other beers and stuff. Girl vs. guy rounds are all right, because the guy usually ends up flirting with the girl, and things usually work out ok in the end. Either that or the guy ends up in jail.
But girl vs. girl rounds are vicious - girls have been known to start verbally abusing each other, throwing stuff at each other, tripping each other, pretty much everything short of turning the debate round into Super Super Ultra Mortal Kombat Ultimate Deathmatch.
During the round that I judged, Girl A, who will hereafter be known as the “Nazi Girl,” got up and gave her speech, and then Girl B, who will hereafter be known as the “Pansy Girl,” got up and gave her speech. Then, it was the Nazi Girl’s turn to speak again. Instead of facing me, the judge, as is the convention in debate tournaments, she instead turned her entire body to face the Pansy Girl, made eye contact with the Pansy Girl, and started berating her. After four minutes straight of berating, the Nazi Girl seemed pretty content, and the Pansy Girl was getting ready to cry. I felt sorry for the Pansy Girl, as this was the first tournament of the year. The whole event was quite sad, yet at the same time quite funny, much like Bush’s pronunciation of the word “nuclear” (nyoo' - kyoo - lår)
If the Pansy Girl had been another Nazi Girl, the round probably would have escalated to Super Super Ultra Mortal Kombat Ultimate Deathmatch. Man, that would have been cool.
When I wasn’t judging any rounds, I was working in the library, happily sorting ballots and happily insulated from the knife fighting chaos outside. During downtime, I worked feverishly to solve the many problems of our tournament by:
* playing tetris
* making DOS run in funny colors (DOS in bright blue letters and bright green background looks really fruity)
* getting past the school firewall
* making another origami bong
Ok, so I didn’t do that much to help our tournament. But Nick (our president) did even less. So ha!
With the help of everyone on the AHS team, sheer will power, a few kegs, and Elmer’s glue, we managed to keep the tournament from falling apart into lots of pieces. Hurray! Thanks guys! You made our first ever Speech & Debate Tournament a success!
Too bad we squandered all the money we made on beer, hookers, and Chiclets. |
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[Aug. 28th, 2004|11:00 pm] |
Well, Dylan says he's going to unsuckify frozen reality. I'm not sure exactly how he's going to go about doing that, but best of luck to him and his unsuckification (blowing?) of fr.
Well, nothing is happening in my life, and i'm pretty bored. So to keep you guys and myself entertained, here is an older article i wrote a while ago. Some of you have probably read it, so just suck it up and wait till wednesday when i do a real update.
The following is sorta offensive, which means that you guys will love it. Or you'll hate it and start complaining. Either way, I win. Muahaha
And the article is not about sex. Honest.
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Why Women Should Just All Go Nude
(Or At Least Wear only Underwear)
A lot of you guys (and possibly some of you dirtier girls) out there probably think that this article is about sex, given the title. Well, you people should get your mind out of the gutter. .
Now that that is done with, we can begin to talk about the real issue: clothes. More specifically, shopping for clothes.
It is obvious that males and females differ in many ways; us guys have sports, barbeques, and porn, whereas women have ballet, tea parties, and the Lifetime Channel. And the list goes on. Somewhere along the list come our differing views on shopping for clothes. And this particular difference is so big that you can fit it snuggly into the biggest plot holes in the Matrix: Revolutions. Yes, the difference is that big.
In the weekend before school started, my mom took me shopping for clothes. My protests that I was perfectly capable of buying clothes by myself fell on deaf ears, so she dragged me along to Sam’s Club and Wal-Mart. She was adamant about buying clothes that day because supposedly Texas had a state-wide no tax day on clothes. And because her Chinese cheapness compelled her to go that day and save that $2 in taxes, mom took me shopping.
Well, since I was driving, I guess I was dragging her along in the technical sense. But we both knew that mom was in control of this operation. Curses.
Well, we got to Sam’s Club and I proceeded to shop for a few new pairs of pants. I shop in the typical guy style, where you can buy a pair of pants (or any article of clothing for that matter) in just three easy steps:
1. Find pants section in store.
2. Find a pair of pants that has your waist and length sizes. Never mind the color or whether it’s relaxed/regular/penguin fit. Those two little numbers are all you need.
3. Pay for pants (or shoplift if you choose).
MISSION ACCOMPLISHED.
So, in blazing lightning speed, I was done shopping for pants in about one minute and twenty seconds, and I was ready to pay for them and go home. But then mom noticed some kind of sale on dresses or something, and I was like, “Oh, shit.” I decided to wander over to the video game section of the store and come back when she was done picking out a dress i.e., next year.
After I ruined a little kid’s birthday by telling him that the XBox he had just received was a total piece of shit, I grew bored and tried to find my mom again. I tried to persuade her to pick a dress out quickly, preferably before I started going bald like my dad. She said she was working on it, but she was having trouble picking out an item that was the exact color, style, fashion, size, cut, material, length, weight, flexibility, shininess, hardness, ductility, and intelligence that she wanted. So I had no choice but to go back to the video games section and give more little kids false hope while shattering the dreams of other kids. Hey, I was bored.
Eventually, mom remembered some pressing emergency that she had forgotten, and we left right after that. And mom hadn’t even picked out a dress, or anything! Damnit, if you’re going to spend that much time looking at clothes, BUY SOMETHING DAMNIT. It’s just so wasteful. Like if a powerful industrialized country spent billions of dollars invading a small, oil-producing nation, and then, after all of that, gave control of the government back to the people of that small country. Wasteful, wasteful, wasteful. Tsk tsk.
So to prevent such wasteful spending of time, and oftentimes money, the government of the United States should institute a law banning women from wearing clothes, effectively giving them no rationale to go out and buy clothes. This not only solves the problem of wasted money and time, it will make men everywhere extremely happy. And since our government is at this moment dominated by manly bigots, I foresee little to no opposition to its passing.
Indeed, blind male chauvinism is the best thing that ever existed, right next to mp3 piracy and presliced bread. |
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| (no subject) |
[Aug. 25th, 2004|07:51 pm] |
There was once a time when frozen reality was good.
Too bad no one notified me of the site's existance during that time... *shakes fist vigorously*
And now,it sucks cuz none of the good writers write for it anymore. And cuz Sam is running it, and that's doubleplusungood.
So I'm going to hop on the bandwagon and stop writing for FR too, and just post stuff here cuz I am full of teenage angst and rancor and whininess. And plus I like writing stuff instead of doing homework that I'm actually supposed to do. Like that English essay that's due tomorrow.
So here's an essay mocking that English essay that I'm supposed to do... hurray! Irony!
__________________________________________________________
Getting Into College the Ronald Way
Now that I am in the senior year of high school, I’m supposed to stop spending time screwing around and start spending time preparing for college. Even though I took the initiative and started going to keg parties every night, the school thought that this was grossly insufficient and is forcing me to write college admissions essays. I mean, what the hell? Do all of those keg parties count for nothing then? Was all the alcohol I consumed for naught? And why is the room spinning so fast? AND WHO THE HELL TOOK MY PANTS?
So anyway, apparently in addition to good grades and SAT scores and what not, you have to write an essay so that the college can get to know you personally.
Ok, if the college wanted to get to know me so badly, they should just send the dean over to my house, and we can play video games for a while and grab a burger later or something.
And another thing: since when did we have to actually work to get into college? Remember when a bribe could get you anywhere or anything in the good ol’ days (the Gilded Age)? Sometimes I wonder where our nation is headed.
But I digress.
For the past week, Ms. Liu has been guiding us in our quest for the perfect college admissions essay by giving us lots of free writing on various topics, ranging from describing a personal experience that has had a significant impact on our life to elaborating on a personal event that has been very influential to our being. Yes, the amount of diversity in our gamut of topics even rivals the amount of diversity found in an average NRA convention. That’s right, NRA conventions are known for their enormously diverse assortment of firearms.
But these free writing activities haven’t really helped me at all, mostly because I’ve either messed around or made up stuff for each one. And now I don’t know what to write for my essay. So instead of writing my college admissions essay (which is due tomorrow) I am writing this. Got it? Good.
The major problem that I see, besides the fact that I am a horrible procrastinator and that I screwed around during the prewriting activities, is that I can’t really relate to the topic at all. My life, like that of 99% of Americans, is more boring than waiting for Alaska to slam into Kamchatka. Nothing interesting ever happens in my life. For once, just for once, I wish that I were attacked by ninjas. I’ll even settle for Richard Simmons breaking into my house and dancing on my furniture. ANYTHING. Throw me a bone here, people.
Since I can’t really think of anything interesting to write about, I have decided to make stuff up. Well, not “make stuff up” per se, because in my prewriting I have already made stuff up. And if those events were already on my resume, my self-recommendation letter, and my journal, then they have to be true, right? Right.
So in just five short days (the time we have spent on prewriting) I have already accomplished the following:
* Fought off hoards of ninjas.
* Saved the free world from communism. Twice.
* Found my long lost twin/cloned myself/discovered that I have multiple personalities disorder. Any one of the three would be good, as long as it explains how I was able to write myself a recommendation letter in the third person.
* Got a 1600 on the SAT
* Pulled a little six year boy from the well and saved him from pirates. And communism (you know, just for good measure).
Hell ya, I am awesome! (C’mon guys... don’t act like you’re not impressed).
Well, looks like I’m pretty much ready to get into a college. I got my grades, my school credentials, my nearly completed college application, my high alcohol tolerance. I wowed the college admissions officers with my awesomely interesting life, and my ability to put that life into words. I’m going to get my diploma in about nine months. I got personality, smarts, and just plain amazingness. Yup, I am most definitely all set to get into my first choice university.
Right after I locate my pants. |
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| (no subject) |
[Aug. 15th, 2004|02:03 pm] |
My dad is in Canada on business.
Ya, I feel sorry for him too.
When he arrived last week, he got held up in customs. The Canadians were probably thinking, "Ok, if terrorists could get into the US via Canada, then they could get into Canada via the US... OH SHIT PANIC"
Also he was supposed to come home for the weekend, but he missed his plane on friday. and then he was like, bah screw it.
skool is meh. its not even school even more... its skool. whereas in school you learn, in skool you receive a publik edumakashun. like the one we get in ahs.
all my teachers seem nice and all my classes are filled with awesome people, but my classes will probably change a bit because i have to go yell at my counselor on monday while she fixes my schedule. bah.
so right now im finishing up posionwood bible and im going to start wuthering heights soon. hurray!
adah is the coolest literary character ever... cynical AND bitchy! yay! i bet she licks toads when no one else is looking.
also, i found a way to make paper fireproof, but its not working that well. supposedly if you soak paper in a supersaturated alum solution, the paper will be fireproof, but it doesnt work that well. damnit, maybe i'll just throw the bong into a big tub of antifreeze to make it fireproof.
except that will probably make it unusable. my guess is that antifreeze vapors causes cancer in laboratory animals. |
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| (no subject) |
[Aug. 1st, 2004|07:01 pm] |
Today, I got back from Erika's pimpin' lakeside sorta bday party, in which none of us got more than 2 or so hours of sleep saturday night. But while everyone else needed to take a nap (coughcoughPANSIEScoughcough) I have not gone to sleep since I got home. *pelvic thrust*
So anyway, the party was awesome cuz there were boats and kayaks and mosquitoes and everything. We also found out that Tom could not float on his back in the water. I made it very clear to him that if he managed to drown his incompetant ass, I would just laugh. really really hard =)
Apparently, no one was supposed to know that it was Erika's bday party, and I wasn't informed about it until the morning of the day before we left. But I wanted to be l33t and give her an awesome persent. But I was also feeling really cheap and didn't want to spend more than like $2.50 on it. I found the perfect balance between the two.
I would make her an ORIGAMI BONG.
The origami bong idea originated from dave, who half-jokingly half seriously demanded one from me when he found out that I could make an origami crane, box, temple, nuclear reactor, etc. And then Thursday night I made a crappy origami bong for Erika out of Taboo score sheets... but it was crap cuz A) I didn't really know what a bong looked like B) I didn't really know how a bong worked C) I didn't really give a damn.
But when I got home, I was like "omg if I can make an origami bong that would be the perfect gift for my stoner white cracker girl Erika" so I did some research on the trusty internet. I learned many things, including A) what a bong looked like B) how a bong worked C) stoners look really funny when they're smoking weed from a bong
Btw, my mom walked into my room right as I had all of the bong diagrams and info open...
Mom: Ronald, what are you looking at?
Me: Um.... this is a chemistry project.
Mom: Oh, how nice.
(roughly translated from chinese)
So finally, over two hours later, after reading the bong info, studing the bong pics, searching through my brain finding suitible origami figures that would work, assembling the bong, waiting for the glue to dry, scrapping the bong, making adjustments, refolding the bong, and waiting for the glue to dry again, I had in my hand possibly the best origami bong ever made.
Too bad you can't really use it since you need to light the weed on fire and that would screw over the paper bong.
So if any of you know a really good way to fireproof paper, tell me please. |
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| (no subject) |
[Jul. 26th, 2004|01:20 am] |
I wanted to go swimming today, but Houston and its retardedly ambiguous weather patterns decided to get some storm clouds together and start thundering. And the "storm" clouds didn't even cover up all of the sky. The sun was still out... sorta. And the sky was still half blue. Half blue mathematically rounds up to whole blue, which means that I should still be able to go swimming. I should know; I got an 800 on the SAT math section. So there! *pelvic thrust*
And, in the end, it didn't even rain! *$&#($*()#()*%)#$&%*($$#)$(#) rawr die
Bottom line: The Greater Houston area sucks. |
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| (no subject) |
[Jul. 23rd, 2004|02:00 pm] |
On Wednesday I went ice skating with a bunch of friends... weee i sucked. Actually, I skated relatively well considering that it was the first time since sixth grade. But I still managed to fall over backwards and slide across the ice on my back for about a foot.
Now THAT was l33t.
In the end I fell 2.5-3 times. woo
But Ellen was a sweetie and gave me her gloves to warm my ice cold hands of death. <3 Ellen =)
We also figured out that Alex's BMW, in addition to having the crazy nazi seat belt design in the back seat, has secret swastikas stamped all over the engine and, instead of gasoline, burns hatred in order to run.
DONT HATE THE PLAYER.... HATE THE GAME |
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