"Do You Believe in Miracles?!?...... YESSSS!"
Although I wasn't around in 1980 to hear the above annoucement live, I've seen many a tape of it, and must admit it was a pretty incredible moment for sports in the US. Last night's opening ceremonies was quite entertaining, culminating with the usual awesome moment of lighting the Olympic cauldron. This has always been my favorite part of the event, watching a ski jumper fly down the hill with it at one Olympics (Lilehammer '94), an archer fire it into the air at another (Barcelona '92), and various other impressive ways of getting it to its final resting point. I've managed to see all the torch runs I've been alive for, starting with Los Angeles in 1984, followed by Atlanta in 1996, and now Salt Lake City in 2002, as they passed through my local neighborhood. Talk about an amzing honor, being able to carry it seems like just an amazing experience. Looking forward to some great TV watchin over the next few weeks as our athletes make a run for the Gold. Thanks to a couple of my friends for invitin me over to watch the ceremonies on their big screen, and servin me some yummy yummy chicken broccolli rice something or other. :)
Friday, February 08, 2002
WHA-BAM!
You heard it here first, congratulations to my alma mater West High for trouncing all other schools and becoming CHAMPIONS winning the gold in the LA County Academic Decathlon. Some amazing individual performances all around, including the highest two scores in the county. I'm just astounded at their achievements, glad to see another year will be added to the banner next to 1998, the year the team I was on brought home the Gold. Hooray for West! The State Finals are going to be in Modesto the weekend of the 25th, anyone want to room me up in that area and form their personal cheering section? ;)
You heard it here first, congratulations to my alma mater West High for trouncing all other schools and becoming CHAMPIONS winning the gold in the LA County Academic Decathlon. Some amazing individual performances all around, including the highest two scores in the county. I'm just astounded at their achievements, glad to see another year will be added to the banner next to 1998, the year the team I was on brought home the Gold. Hooray for West! The State Finals are going to be in Modesto the weekend of the 25th, anyone want to room me up in that area and form their personal cheering section? ;)
Thursday, February 07, 2002
Finally Fixed...
Decided to go through and back up this whole thing into Word now that I finally installed Office XP, and while doing so realized that the apparent archive problem that had deleted post fixed itself, and thus edited a few posts that ended up repetitive. So those who were planning to read the whole thing from the beginning (banish the thought) it should be a lot easier now. :)
Decided to go through and back up this whole thing into Word now that I finally installed Office XP, and while doing so realized that the apparent archive problem that had deleted post fixed itself, and thus edited a few posts that ended up repetitive. So those who were planning to read the whole thing from the beginning (banish the thought) it should be a lot easier now. :)
Guestbook Glory...
Finally decided to put something up to allow people to respond to what I say if they feel the need, or if nothing else, just say hi. Be aware though I'm quite malicious when it comes to deleting posts from complete morons. :) So yeah, close to a thousand people have been here at one time or another, might as well see what they have to say. Feel free to post under alias if the need be, if that makes you more comfortable.
Finally decided to put something up to allow people to respond to what I say if they feel the need, or if nothing else, just say hi. Be aware though I'm quite malicious when it comes to deleting posts from complete morons. :) So yeah, close to a thousand people have been here at one time or another, might as well see what they have to say. Feel free to post under alias if the need be, if that makes you more comfortable.
A Friend in Need is a Friend Indeed
Wow. I really don't know what to say. Just got off the phone after about a two hour conversation with someone. They were crying at first, they had reached a point where they were sad about a lot of things, and didn't really know what to think anymore. For some reason or another, they turned to me as an unlikely source of help. Somehow, I helped things change. That gives me a good feeling.
You know, now that I think about it, I don't think the purpose of this journal is to talk about things like this. Not everyone is comfortable with their lives being out there. But basically, a rift was formed some time ago, and I feel like over time a bridge has been built, and tonight there was first contact. Here's hoping that road gets paved, reinforced, and opens a carpool lane. :)
Its past 4, really need to hit the sack, but in other news, I was the only perfect score of 100% in my section on the Statistics midterm. Booyah.
Wow. I really don't know what to say. Just got off the phone after about a two hour conversation with someone. They were crying at first, they had reached a point where they were sad about a lot of things, and didn't really know what to think anymore. For some reason or another, they turned to me as an unlikely source of help. Somehow, I helped things change. That gives me a good feeling.
You know, now that I think about it, I don't think the purpose of this journal is to talk about things like this. Not everyone is comfortable with their lives being out there. But basically, a rift was formed some time ago, and I feel like over time a bridge has been built, and tonight there was first contact. Here's hoping that road gets paved, reinforced, and opens a carpool lane. :)
Its past 4, really need to hit the sack, but in other news, I was the only perfect score of 100% in my section on the Statistics midterm. Booyah.
Wednesday, February 06, 2002
A Penny For My Thoughts...
So last night I'm in the mood for talking, and luckily there's someone willing to be talked at, so we go and chow on some Carl's. Western Bacon nummyyummy. Although they got rid of my Crispy Chicken meal which was quite irksome. Then they forgot her ranch so we had to sit there for a while til they opened the window again and tried to hand us the food for the person behind us. So anyway, eventually we get to talking. Amazing the amount of stuff that we covered in a few short hours. I came out of it for some reason feeling much better about things, as if the world had become more clear for some reason.
Strangely, that's the first time in a long time that I've felt that I was talking with someone, instead of talking to someone. I mentioned a lot of things that had been bugging me, and as she said, we "covered it, fixed it, and moved on." She mentioned some things that had caused her to be "snippy" in the past, and what I could start trying to do to alleviate those concerns. Very strange to have such a rational and helpful discussion with someone. These types of things in the past always exploded into arguments that never got me anywhere with various other people. The whole who can be more stubborn type of conversation. The unique thing about this situation is we strongly disagree on an issue very important to me, which generally causes me to immediately think negatively about a person. However, I wasn't made aware of her position on it until much later, which caused me to rethink the idea of making a drastic assumption based on this one issue. My friend is helping me to try to "bridge the gap" so to speak, although so far its been really slow going. Still now, whenever it comes up I manage to turn what I'm saying into a negative connotation, and cause problems. I think its going to be a while before I can look at those kinds of people in a "whatever makes them feel good" instead of a "why are they trying to hurt themselves and especially others" kind of light. I think the whole "forgive, but don't forget" saying applies here, I'll never be able to forget the things that have happened to me or people around me in my life due to abuse of alcohol, but I'm not going to be able to stop the whole world from having fun. Maintaining my distance has always been the plan, but at times that isn't possible, and I need to learn how to handle that when it comes.
Its strange, with my best guy friend moving off campus this year, and us only talking once a week or so if that for various excursions, I've had to look elsewhere for your daily guess what happened to me this is why I'm happy this is why I'm sad type stuff. This friend has really made me think there are other people out there who care, and are interested in my life, and want me to be interested in theirs. These are the best kind of friends.
In other news all the thinking yesterday managed to spawn a dream of the best kind last night, where I managed to meet this just perfect girl. Had an absolute blast getting to know her and going places with her, til I woke up. Strangely I only remember snippets of what she looked like, although I remember everything about what we did, and what it felt like. Maybe there's hope yet, if my brain is capable of conjuring up exactly what I'm looking for, I must not be as confused as I thought.
Isn't it natural that one would desire to be desired?
So last night I'm in the mood for talking, and luckily there's someone willing to be talked at, so we go and chow on some Carl's. Western Bacon nummyyummy. Although they got rid of my Crispy Chicken meal which was quite irksome. Then they forgot her ranch so we had to sit there for a while til they opened the window again and tried to hand us the food for the person behind us. So anyway, eventually we get to talking. Amazing the amount of stuff that we covered in a few short hours. I came out of it for some reason feeling much better about things, as if the world had become more clear for some reason.
Strangely, that's the first time in a long time that I've felt that I was talking with someone, instead of talking to someone. I mentioned a lot of things that had been bugging me, and as she said, we "covered it, fixed it, and moved on." She mentioned some things that had caused her to be "snippy" in the past, and what I could start trying to do to alleviate those concerns. Very strange to have such a rational and helpful discussion with someone. These types of things in the past always exploded into arguments that never got me anywhere with various other people. The whole who can be more stubborn type of conversation. The unique thing about this situation is we strongly disagree on an issue very important to me, which generally causes me to immediately think negatively about a person. However, I wasn't made aware of her position on it until much later, which caused me to rethink the idea of making a drastic assumption based on this one issue. My friend is helping me to try to "bridge the gap" so to speak, although so far its been really slow going. Still now, whenever it comes up I manage to turn what I'm saying into a negative connotation, and cause problems. I think its going to be a while before I can look at those kinds of people in a "whatever makes them feel good" instead of a "why are they trying to hurt themselves and especially others" kind of light. I think the whole "forgive, but don't forget" saying applies here, I'll never be able to forget the things that have happened to me or people around me in my life due to abuse of alcohol, but I'm not going to be able to stop the whole world from having fun. Maintaining my distance has always been the plan, but at times that isn't possible, and I need to learn how to handle that when it comes.
Its strange, with my best guy friend moving off campus this year, and us only talking once a week or so if that for various excursions, I've had to look elsewhere for your daily guess what happened to me this is why I'm happy this is why I'm sad type stuff. This friend has really made me think there are other people out there who care, and are interested in my life, and want me to be interested in theirs. These are the best kind of friends.
In other news all the thinking yesterday managed to spawn a dream of the best kind last night, where I managed to meet this just perfect girl. Had an absolute blast getting to know her and going places with her, til I woke up. Strangely I only remember snippets of what she looked like, although I remember everything about what we did, and what it felt like. Maybe there's hope yet, if my brain is capable of conjuring up exactly what I'm looking for, I must not be as confused as I thought.
Isn't it natural that one would desire to be desired?
Tuesday, February 05, 2002
I See Orion, I Win!
Managed to spank the excellent racquetball player I faced off against tonight, but apparently he'd already had a previous loss against this supposed "incredible" player that I haven't faced yet... [pops his his head with a pin as is often needed]
Rewarded myself last night by heading out after basically outright acing (or so I think) a Statistics midterm earlier that day, gotta love multiple choice exams. In my friends SUV she was busting out all these 80's cds reminding me of the good ol days, stuff I hadn't heard in a while, and am in the process of downloading. :)
Tonight marks the first new episode of 24, a series I'm qutie addicted to, and apparently the next 12 weeks will all be new episodes. Lookin forward to them.
So like, I feel like I'm basically beginning to level off on the whole meeting people plane. I have the usual several people I talk to regularly, and plenty of people outside of that I know pretty well, but I'm not exactly getting out there and meeting new people left and right. I guess first quarter its easier because no one knows anyone and everyone's out to make friends. After Christmas though the circles are set, and the only people looking to meet people are the people looking for the wrong things. I guess people always say you find the one you're looking for when you stop looking altogether. Well...
[pretends to stare at the wall]
Managed to spank the excellent racquetball player I faced off against tonight, but apparently he'd already had a previous loss against this supposed "incredible" player that I haven't faced yet... [pops his his head with a pin as is often needed]
Rewarded myself last night by heading out after basically outright acing (or so I think) a Statistics midterm earlier that day, gotta love multiple choice exams. In my friends SUV she was busting out all these 80's cds reminding me of the good ol days, stuff I hadn't heard in a while, and am in the process of downloading. :)
Tonight marks the first new episode of 24, a series I'm qutie addicted to, and apparently the next 12 weeks will all be new episodes. Lookin forward to them.
So like, I feel like I'm basically beginning to level off on the whole meeting people plane. I have the usual several people I talk to regularly, and plenty of people outside of that I know pretty well, but I'm not exactly getting out there and meeting new people left and right. I guess first quarter its easier because no one knows anyone and everyone's out to make friends. After Christmas though the circles are set, and the only people looking to meet people are the people looking for the wrong things. I guess people always say you find the one you're looking for when you stop looking altogether. Well...
[pretends to stare at the wall]
Monday, February 04, 2002
Everybody Cut Everybody Cut Everyone CUT FOOTLOOSE
Was rockin out to the Footloose soundtrack driving back up here to UCSB, one of the handful of tapes I grabbed from my room on the way out due to my car not being blessed with a CD player... Lots of bouncy songs on there, gonna have to dl a bunch.
The Big Game was today, and was strangely more exciting than usual, given the usual two touchdown point spread. Turned out the underdogs were the victors, always a good thing to see. The Rams won one recently anyway, someone else's turn. :)
Exciting part of the transit to and from LA this weekend was noticing they FINALLY completed the road work in the Sepulveda pass and there is now a carpool lane southbound all the way through. Quite the welcome sight for the traffic hater.
Alas, this has become the mini paragraph post, mainly because I have a Stat midterm tomorrow that I need to get studyin for. :/
Was rockin out to the Footloose soundtrack driving back up here to UCSB, one of the handful of tapes I grabbed from my room on the way out due to my car not being blessed with a CD player... Lots of bouncy songs on there, gonna have to dl a bunch.
The Big Game was today, and was strangely more exciting than usual, given the usual two touchdown point spread. Turned out the underdogs were the victors, always a good thing to see. The Rams won one recently anyway, someone else's turn. :)
Exciting part of the transit to and from LA this weekend was noticing they FINALLY completed the road work in the Sepulveda pass and there is now a carpool lane southbound all the way through. Quite the welcome sight for the traffic hater.
Alas, this has become the mini paragraph post, mainly because I have a Stat midterm tomorrow that I need to get studyin for. :/
