candy rose and one sweet regret

In my uneven scrawl, I write out "Will you go out with me?" I quickly fold the paper in half after reviewing my sloppy penmanship for any mistakes. I stuff the slip deep into the box lest someone tries to read what I had written. With my deed committed, I walk away with a nervous bounce. My balms are sweaty from the bold move.

I spend the majority of the first part of the day wondering what she'll say when she receives the note. Will she say yes? What the hell did I just do? My mind wanders and needless to say I don't pay much attention to my studies that day. We didn't share any of the same classes, so I wouldn't know her reaction until later during the day.

The bell rang, signaling the end of fifth period. I scamper off to meet her as she rushes off to her sixth period while I did the same. We meet outside near the amphitheater steps. My heart beats rapidly while I stand before her. She keeps her gaze towards the ground. In her arms, she clutches her class books close to her chest. Her hair falls across her eyes, hiding her eyes from me. Did you happen to get my note? Yeah, I did. Uhm...so...what do ya think? She lifts her head up and looks at me with shifty eyes and giggles nervously. Sure.

A few days later, she asks me out to Sadie Hawkins. A few weeks after that, we ended things. Lesson to be learned here: Don't ask a girl out with a candy gram, especially if you cannot connect with her on a conversational level. Even if she is pretty.

Happy Valentine's Day

as if it couldn't get any worse

I don't quite understand dentists. I completely dread the two days a year when I find myself reclined in a chair with a stranger's hand shoved down my throat. Perhaps the negativity stems from the invasion of privacy (it's my mouth...gross), the lingering odor of disinfectants and what I can only assume is the rotting stench from the pile of collected teeth, or quite simply the pain and torture that is afflicted on my poor teeth. I'm positively convinced the dental hygienist are only one step below serial killers. With some professional training, they could make a career out of their skills with the CIA torturing war criminals. The idea of trusting my dental hygiene to a person with a high school diploma is mind boggling. Guess it shouldn't surprise me that I often walk away from the cleaning with various holes in my gum line from "oops" and "uh-ohs." Lousy sadists.

confessions of a sleep junkie

I enjoy the crisp weather that we've been having lately. Although it tends to be a bit chilly than my jacket can handle, I still prefer the Autumn weather. I love the changing of the leaves and the splash of color that occurs. I think Hobbes put it best by saying,

"Gee, I like this season best of all! the trees are like nature's own fireworks display."

So eloquent and true. I heard another great quote today from Kiwi. We were talking about the gorgeous weather and she mentioned this to me.

"It's amazing how the leaves are actually dying, but there is beauty in it. I hope that's how it is when we die."

Another thing that comes with the colder weather is the lure of the warm and toasty bed in the early morning. I got to admit, I've fallen prey to the coziness of my blanket shielding me from the cool air and skipped plenty of classes because of that. You'd think I'd learn by now, but apparently it still isn't registering. I love it and hate it. It's like scolding your cute, pouting puppy after it did its business where it shouldn't have. Who are you kidding? You can't scold the puppy, you love the puppy. Who doesn't love puppies? Heartless fiends.

I really need to go out and take some pictures of the scenery before it fades and I have to wait another year.

-Author's Edit-

I think it's hilarious how the day after I write this post, I end up missing all my classes and waking up at 4:30 PM.

messy solutions

The other day while leaving work. I had the unfortunate decision to make: walk like a fool or keep my feet dry. Let me explain. It was raining rather lightly when it came time for me to leave work; however, I didn't have the foresight to bring my umbrella with me. The one day I don't scan through the hourly updates on Weather.com comes back to bite me in the ass. What's the big deal? It's just rain. Well, that day of all days, I decided to wear my favorite pair of dress shoes. I couldn't bear to have them ruined by the rainwater. I told my friend about my dilemma and she had this to offer, "Wrap your feet with trash bags." Wow. Trash bags. I'll admit the idea seemed plausible at first. Plastic is water proof and it'll prevent my precious shoes and pant legs from getting wet. I looked around the office and finally found some clean plastic bags to stuff my feet into. Minutes pass and I still couldn't get the hang of tying the bags properly. They had a tendency to slip off and make a mess of things. After a while, I decided my best efforts will have to do and I boldly left the lobby. That's when everything started to go downhill. The knots started to unravel and the bags started to bunch up under the soles. This caused a lot of unnecessary sliding. Not to mention, I completely looked like an idiot walking down the capitol avenue with trash bags on my feet. My face burned with embarrassment with every step that took me closer to another pedestrian. I quickly duck under an awning and phone my friend. After a few minutes of bickering and "thanking" her for the brilliant idea, I decided enough was enough. I grabbed a fistful of plastic and ripped the ridiculous shell into pieces. The rest of the story is rather straightforward. My shoes ended up getting wet, but not to the point where the leather was ruined. Thank God for that.

Moral: Never follow through with ideas that involve using plastic bags as shoes.

don't tell me to study, you study!

My amazing plan of locking myself at the library and concentrating on my papers completely failed. I ended up watching the football game online and playing useless flash games during the commercials. I FAIL at life. I seriously have no work ethic to speak of. I was reading Cakalusa's Xanga and I thought he had somehow found out about the lack of work that I do at the office. I had a mini panic attack until I realized that was no way that he could find out, unless my life is a television show. Turns out I was right, the post wasn't about me. My vanity loses again! Good thing though, I still haven't decided whether or not to quit the job. I think I might just stick it out and suck it up for the references.

I decided to be bold today and try something that I've never done before. I enabled the shuffle mode on my iTunes. Gasp, I know. It must be the daredevil in me screaming for release. I am both mildly pleased by the automatic song selection and slightly embarrassed by the poor music tastes. Many songs that I used to listen to in high school finally got the chance to dust off and get airplay again. Some songs were as throughly pleasant as enduring a visit to the dentist. The songs that I didn't like, I deleted almost immediately. Good thing too, because for the first time since I got my iPod I am finally coming close to filling it up. I would rather have it contain songs that I enjoy instead of crap that threatens to shatter my ear drums.

In other pleasant news, my friend Kiwi recorded a voicemail with music from the Jason Mraz concert that she attended tonight. That was pretty sweet of her. I miss her and can't wait for her return to Michigan.

Also, I am throughly ecstatic that Michigan State beat Northwestern today. Good job Green. As for Purple, tough break. Glad you kept yourself pure for us.

i'm not a bad guy, i swear

Disclaimer: Before you begin, I want you to know that I'm going to offend a lot of people and create a bad impression. My words are in jest and I don't really mean it to the exact degree that I'm describing. I'm just exaggerating for comical effect. Plus, I was coming off of no sleep when I made these observations. Tread carefully... over my face after you're done.

The other day in my language and culture class, the professor separated us into groups for reading discussions. The prior night, I stayed awake, burning coal throughout the night, to finish the midterm paper for this class. I was completely deranged by that point in the day. Since I spent the whole night writing the paper, I didn't get a chance to do the reading for the class. Instead of participating in the discussion, I just sat off to the side and observed the members in the group.

In my exhausted and sleep-deprived state, I came to a stunning revelation. Why are all the women in my class unattractive? There is not a single girl that I would consider good looking in any way.

Anthropology is one of those fields where you can either find women who have the girl-next-door complex with sexy librarian appeal or think you've stumbled upon the greatest anthropological discovery of the 21st century: Bigfoot wearing women's clothing... after a horrific disfiguring traffic accident involving 56 consecutive blows to face with an ugly stick. [This is the part where I am completely exaggerating. Press Ctrl+W to submit angry replies]

To better illustrate this point, the "girl" that was sitting directly in front of me was the prime example of the graphic description. I say "girl" because a) she totally looked a man with the masculine haircut and facial structure and b) she had more leg hair than I did. Granted, my leg hair is possibly the worst example of a hairy leg possible, but trust me this girl had me considering writing my Nobel Prize acceptance letter for Best Discovery.

OK OK. I'll give them the benefit of the doubt. Maybe the deprivation played tricks with my mind and their "beauty" was lost on me. I'll take another cursory glance during the next session. I'm not holding out for much hope though.

and i thought my jokes were bad

I was humming a tune while walking to class the other day when something completely out of the blue occurred. I think I was singing the falsetto part to some song quietly when the guy in front of me turns away and gives me a funny look. You know the kind of look you have when you observe something that boggles your mind, like a guy making his own sandwich or something.

I felt really self-conscious and had a shifty eye moment for a while. Sometimes I forget that people can hear me when I hum. This one time back in third grade, I was humming while waiting in line to go out to recess. All of a sudden, the teacher whips around and asked loudly, "Who is humming?" OH SCHNAP!?! Up to that point in my life, I never knew people could hear me while I hummed. I wasn't familiar with the whole sound waves and physics of the thing. Who knew?

They need to come up with some sort of invisibility cloak for this sort of situation. Crushing blow to my self-esteem. Plus, I need to stop humming embarrassing songs.

change we can believe in

You know those people who speak with their mouths but not by their actions? I feel like my boss is one of those people. I don't quite understand what she is being paid to do because she doesn't do much of anything. She passes all of the work onto the interns and sits in her office making personal calls. Some snippets of what I've heard include the tale of her dog running away, the boyfriend troubles of her girlfriend and the facade that the office must maintain. She's always away on "meetings." I wonder if a visit to the hair salon counts as a business expense... Ok enough about my gripes with my boss. What I really want to focus on is my thoughts on working in an office that has an environmental initiative.

The irony here is that even though the main focus of my office is to "green" other businesses, we still maintain an unsustainable office space. Plastic ware, Styrofoam cups, mass consumption of paper, and lack of energy efficient appliances. I can't help but feel like a hypocrite when I speak on the phone to business owners who are legitimately working to make the community more sustainable.

That's the issue though. Are businesses doing this to improve the community and promote environmental sustainability? Or are they just looking to improve their bottom line? I've thought about it many times in the office while I spin around in my chair. I think this relates to Noel's sermon about shrewdness. By cutting costs in areas that can be improved, businesses are indirectly offsetting their impact on the environment. That's what I want, or that's the goal of my job. I remember talking to my friend Ray about how "green" is marketing term to promote "eco-friendly" methods of production, consumption and business ethics. Although the true intent may not be to promote environmental sustainability as much as to promote increased revenue shares; the concept still serves a purpose.

I used to be so gung-ho about the environment, but I feel like my views are beginning to shift. Even if there isn't a catastrophic global climate change waiting to wipe out humanity, I feel there are many benefits to living a non-volatile, sustainable lifestyle. There is real beauty in mimicking nature.

Go Green!

settled and completely restless

After a grueling three hour ordeal of lifting, sweating and organizing, I am moved in. I still have a few more things to tweak here and there to improve things, but for the most part I am done. The room mate hasn't moved in yet, and I wonder how he'll like the room so far. I tried to follow the rough sketch as much as possible, but I ended up shoving the futon under the bed and moving the shelves on the opposite side of the room. The room is a lot bigger than I thought it was going to be and leaves with plenty of wiggle room if I want to make adjustments.

Hung out with some friends and then headed off to a house warming party that a bunch of friends were throwing. I dropped by and just hung out with them, semi-catching up with them and feeling awkward the rest of the time. I don't usually do well in party scenes. Not sure what it is, but I never feel comfortable. I can't relax and thus never seem to get in the swing of socializing in that setting.

I didn't a lot of sleep last night. This is evident seeing that I'm completely awake at this hour. I'm not sure what it was, the futon or the fact that it's the first night at a new place. Maybe a bit of both. My back feels a bit stiff. The futon is not as sleep friendly as I thought it would be. I'm considering investing in some sort of mattress pad to help lull me to sleep.

Despite all my grumblings and complaints about moving in, I'm completely willing to help my friends move in. Weird huh? Not sure how that works, but it does. And my services might be needed today while everybody else begins to move in. Guess this is what I get for moving in early. Bad night's rest and a full day.

caution: volatile contents

After the disappointment of last night, I couldn't gather up the will to start packing for school. Yes, I haven't packed for school yet. Despite the fact that I am planning to move in tomorrow, I don't feel a real sense of urgency. I guess it hasn't really sunk it or a more realistic answer is I'm trying to prevent the inevitable. Hopefully when I wake up tomorrow, all my gear will be packed and stowed in the trunk of my car. Not likely.

I drew up a rough sketch of how I'd like to set up the room when I get there. Keep in mind, it's a rough sketch. There's no need to bash on my MS Paint skills, or lack thereof.



I'm sure the setup will change a bit depending on the availability of space and room mate's input. I hate moving in. So much work to be done.

Yet, I'd gladly suffer the labour of moving in just to leave home. Nothing against my home or my family, but it's definitely reached that boiling point where tensions are high. Everything turns into a debate and our indoor voices become booming projectiles of stings and barbs. Distance helps neutralize the hostile situation and lets us cool our heads. Losing my wallet did not go well in my favor. I'm sure to hear about this latest mishap for quite a long time to come. I'm so thankful I have parents who are blessed with impeccable memory.

from better to worst in 5 minutes flat

I intended to talk about something light hearted and cheerful. Probably use 'Tropic Thunder' as a springboard into more hilarity, but the situation took a turn for the worst after coming out of the movie theatre. First off, the movie is ridiculous. In the sense that it's filled with laughs and extremely crude humour. If that's your cup o' tea, head to your nearest theatre and check it out. Now onto the tragedy. I came out the movie all cheerful and light-hearted. We discussed a few topics on the way to the car. After we got to the car, I realized that I didn't have my wallet on me. That instantly plunges me into alert/panic mode. The only thing on my mind is, Crap I gotta find that wallet! in not so eloquent terms. I crawled around on all fours poking every nook and cranny near our seating location for where it could be. I even rooted around in a trash can for the off chance that I or someone else had thrown it in there. No luck. It really sucks to lose something that important. I guess you don't realize it until it actually happens. The rest of the night, I was sick to my stomach. Filing a useless police report did not put me at ease. By the way, I think that was a completely pointless usage of time. Trying to find a lost wallet is next to impossible. I think the officer who typed up the report was trying to convey that notion to me through his uninterested eyes.

I suck at life sometimes. New lesson learned: don't put anything important in gym shorts.

now i know how lobsters feel

I hit the pool today for 2 or 3 hours. Soaked up the sun and took a nice dip in the cool waters. Unfortunately, I came back with a souvenir to remember the trip by. I hate getting sun burns. They're like a mix between itchy, dry skin and throbbing pulses of heat. My skin is incredibly dry after this affair. I should probably go moisturize before I dry up into a prune. I managed to turn a shade or two darker but no luck on the legs. The legs never seem to respond to any sort of solar stimulation. I've just about given up hope on them because I don't feel like slathering tanning lotion or gradual tan on my legs.

late nights

I miss having late night chat sessions with people. Usually the selection of people to talk to is limited based on bed times, but when I do find someone the conversation is usually worth it. Haven't had a chance to have any recently because my parents usually yell at me when I stay up too late. Plus, it's hard to convince people to stay up and just talk. Luckily that's why I make friends with losers like JGK. Kidding, she's not my friend.

Went to Logan's Roadhouse or Steakhouse or whatever the hell it's called. I can't believe that I've never noticed that it was there the whole time I've lived in Troy. I guess somewhere in my unconscious, I've noticed it but it didn't really register to me. It was a pretty cool place to eat, more of a casual get together. The floor is littered with thousands of cracked peanut shells. I would hate to have to sweep all that up. Although I'm sure the wannabe OCD personality in me would have a field day with it. I thought the steak was decent, good enough for the price.

Afterwards we went to the movies to catch a late show. Ended up watching Pineapple Express. I thought the movie was knee-slapping hilarious. There were a lot of random scenes where the plot didn't really flow and it was completely unrealistic, but I loved it. This movie fulfilled my retarded funny movie quota for the Summer. Good times.

this is an emergency

I remember this one time when I accidentally called 911. It happened a long time ago when I was too young and naive to know any better. My brother and I were sitting around at home alone, my parents used to leave us home alone a lot, and I started playing around with the phone. I randomly dialed in numbers and giggled when strangers would pick up the phone. Somehow I managed to dial in 911 during my sporadic number selection, because the voice on the other line said, "You've reached 911, what is your emergency?" Snap! I hung up quickly, but I wasn't slick enough because the operator called me right back and yelled at me for calling 911.

I bring this up because of what happened recently in Jacksonville. Basically the guy was mad because he didn't get what he ordered and called 911. The cops ended up arresting him for making false 911 calls.

I just wanted to say that I can see where this guy was coming from. There have been many times when I've encountered incompetent customer service and wish I could have "Bruce Wayne'd" it. By that I mean purchasing the establishment in front of the employee and then firing him or her on the spot. What a thrill that would be. Completely a jerk move, but I think certain allowances can be made.

I think I'm introverted too.

work on the laugh

I recently sat down to watch the critically acclaimed Internet musical "Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog" starring Neil Patrick Harris, Felicia Day and others. At first I was hesitant to watch it but curiosity and a fondness for Felicia Day overwhelmed me. First off, it should be noted that the musical would probably not be what someone would expect; it's not Broadway caliber performances we're talking here. Keeping that in mind, I throughly enjoyed the musical. It was witty, silly and heart-breaking. If you haven't seen it yet, go give Dr. Horrible a try. Plus, Felicia Day is just so adorable in it. Yeah, I would just throw that in there.

In other news, I have to go help out at a local church this Friday. I'm suppose to play a part during their games, I play the role of the Joker who tells riddles. We'll see how that plays out. There's a softball game coming up and I still need to hit the batting cages to work on my swing. Walter keeps hyping me up, forcing me to play good or face rejection. That bastard.

Random side note: I don't tan very easily it seems.

the day

The plan to go for a refreshing morning swim turned out to be an epic fail. Standing there in front of the pool with my swimming gear, I decided that it was in the best interest to back out. The swimmer to lifeguard ratio was not in my favor. In other words, I deemed it would be too awkward to swim. There simply was not enough people in the pool area. This may just be me, but I feel really self-conscious when people watch me swim. It feels creepy. Oh well, I'll make up for it by going for a dip elsewhere, preferably with the sun blazing down on me. Lord knows I am in desperate need for a tan. Almost makes me want to consider paying a visit to the tanning salon, almost.

Afterwards, I headed to a friend's house for a jam session. One of my guitars needed to be restrung because it was missing its G string. The process was quite tedious and completely not worth the time and effort. I think I'm going to cop out and pay to have my guitar restrung by professionals. It's not worth the hassle in my eyes.

Went to Somerset with a grocery list of sorts. I had to get all the items for my professional wardrobe. I hit up store after store, taking my sweet time deciding which color brown dress shoe I preferred and picking out delicious ties. I love ties and I was like a little kid in a candy shoppe when I stood in front of a table of ties that were marked down 60%. Why are dress socks so big? If I were to put one one, it'll look like it's swallowing my leg. What's the verdict on pocket squares? I wasn't sure if I should buy one or not. I've heard both sides, that it's needed and that it's purely optional. I'm not sure where I should stand on that issue yet. Afterwards I left to go pick up my suits that I had ordered the week before.

Came home from the exhausting spree and took a phone call from the State Champ. It's not really her name, just something I tease her about all the time. We got to talking, updating each other on our lives and what we've been missing out. The usual protocol for conversing with an estranged friend.

Took off with the 'rents for a late night dim sum in celebration of the occasion. A much needed break from the busy day that I had. I gorged myself on tasty food and only wished that I had my camera with me to document the event. Sadly though I still cannot find my battery charger for my D40. I've pretty much given up hope that it is still hidden somewhere in the house. Probably should go purchase a new one before a dire need for the camera should arise.

That's pretty much how I spent the "day." A rather productive one, I might add. I have a softball game coming up sometime next week. Should probably starting conditioning for that soon. I would rather avoid making a fool of myself in front of my peers. Anyway, there is only a few more weeks until school starts and my social life goes down the drain. I should make the most of it while I can.