so i really haven't been posting on this blog for the whole summer, mostly because i don't really have much to say. or whatever i do have to say i've been saying to real people (haha, sorry the internet) and so the ideas don't have time to bounce around in my brain and stew until i can craft an entire blog for it. part of that is probably due to me joining facebook and buying a smartphone so i can instantly post my various random (yet insightful and intelligent) thoughts so easily. the other part is maybe because i've got different groups of people to tell things to that i think i get tired of saying the same idea more than once.
in any case, the blog is slowly dying... that's not such a bad thing, it's actually about 4 and a half years old so perhaps it's time to start off on a new project. although i do hate e-waste... like all those old email accounts that you abandoni, or that geocities webpage you made when you were in high school just because you could. still, this blog has a lot of great pictures that i've taken so i'd like to keep those around. here are some of my favorites... but before that, since this may be my last post, thanks to all three of you who read this, it was nice to know that my (brilliant) thoughts weren't going entirely unheard. i'm sure there will be other avenues with which to keep up with my life, i think i've just out-grown this one. so, time to move on, and with that i'll leave you with some of my favorite self-taken pictures from this blog (well, really, they're mostly just for me, haha).
this is my 24 hour puppy. here's how it happened....
a couple of weeks ago we had a baby shower for one of my co-workers at work. so everyone was crowded in my office eating and talking, and my other co-worker brings in this cute little puppy! before i even had a chance to say anything, my co-worker puts him in my lap and says "look puppy, you found a new home!" she was looking to give him away, he was the last of a litter and they were trying to find a good home for him. i had been talking to my co-workers about wanting to find a puppy for about half a year, but i hadn't gotten one until this point because i didn't think that i could take very good care of a puppy right now. i had these points...
1) i'm not home enough, and i'd feel bad leaving the puppy home alone for long periods throughout the day, whether he was inside or outside the house
2) my yard's not really big enough for a dog, maybe a small dog, but i wouldn't want a small dog, i'd want a medium size dog i think
3) my house is really not dog-proof, so if i kept the puppy indoors he would totally wreck up the place, and i would want to keep puppy indoors some of the time, cause he'd be lonely outside by himself
4) when i do get a puppy, i'd think about getting two so they'd have company when i'm not around but all those reasons fell by the wayside when i saw the cuteness of this puppy! so i made a really stupid, rash, impulsive decision to take him home!
here he is exploring my yard. poor thing, he liked it out there, but as soon as i got home i knew that i had made a mistake... what was i thinking?! i can't take care of a puppy! i felt so intensely guilty but i wanted to keep the puppy... but i knew that i couldn't give him a very good home. i'd have to leave him alone for long periods throughout the day... he cried just when i left the room so that would've been so mean to the puppy. so i made the VERY hard decision to take him back the next day.... BOOOOOO!!! i was so sad!!!!
but i had to keep telling myself it was the right decision because i'd want puppy to have a good home with a family that could take care of him well. my other co-worker's brother took him home the next day, he has a big house with a big yard and a family to take care of him so he'll be much happier there than trapped in my little townhouse. so sad though... it would have been okay if i never took him home at all, but just those 24 hours with puppy made giving him up so heartbreaking! but that's the way it goes, and it was the right decision to make in the end.
and if something good has come from this, at least i know now not to make anymore super impulsive, irresponsible decisions like that. and also, if anything this experience has given me a renewed appreciation for my parent's dog, look how cute she was when she was a puppy too! of course, she's still cute and fun to play with so now you can bet i'll be going over to my parents' house to spend a lot more quality time with her!
remember last april 1st when i blogged about the tauntaun sleeping bag from thinkgeek.com and how awesome that website was only to find out later that the product was an april fool's joke only to find out later that so many people actually tried to order the sleeping bag that thinkgeek.com decided to try and actually make it only to find out later that they succeeded and now you can buy yourself your very own tauntaun sleeping bag for $100?
well, i got fooled again this year... i was so ready to splurge on these awesome products... i didn't want to get an ipad (ever... and still don't), but theiCade - ipad arcade cabinet made the ipad look SO much more tempting... playing donkey kong and all those original arcade games is very possible now on the computer or whatever, but check out this cool little contraption? how sweet would that be on my kitchen counter? this product has been on my wishlist for years now, temporary tattoos! well, my original idea was for tattoos with disappearing ink (which actually exists already, they created some kind of nano-type ink that is trapped in little bubbles, but when you pass some kind of laser over the bubbles they pop and the ink is reabsorbed safely into the skin and the ink disappears), but with themoodINQ programmable tattoo system it would've been painless (after implantation surgery of course)! aww... i'm really sad about this one, i would have bought this in a heartbeat. of course, they also had some ridiculous ideas, like this SPAM wannabe, canned unicorn meat, imported from ireland, i actually thought about it until i saw the glitter in the meat hahaha but this one is the winner for sure... combine extreme geekiness with a little bit of evil and you've got the "tell me your secrets bear" hahaha, spying on your own child? genius.
so if they could get that tauntaun sleeping bag made, let's get rolling on that evil teddy ruxbin too, i mean, the evil-ER teddy ruxbin, cause let's face it, the original was pretty damn creepy...
on the heels of my last post "broken" this february has just turned out to be a disatrous month. first my poor car, then my health, and now my longboard......sigh... so here's what happened. there i was, surfing at haleiwa (my favorite spot because of water, the way the waves break, the short paddle out, and the great views), it was kind of a bigger day, at the very upper edge of what i'm comfortable with (which, in reality, is really not that big, but scary for me anyway since i'm a wuss) and so i was content to paddle far out and sit and wait in safety rather than fight the crowds and the whitewater closer to shore. i'd wait for some of the smaller (but still super clean) waves to roll in between the big sets and try and catch the leftovers that the better surfers didn't bother catching. so i caught a good one and was paddling back out, making sure to stay on the outside so i wouldn't get in anyone's way (i'm very conscious about that, until this day i hadn't gotten into any collisions). i saw some old guy on a huge board catch a wave way out in front of me and i was paddling more to the side so he'd have room to ride it past me. guess what, the guy wasn't looking, i know this because i was looking right at his face and he was NOT looking at me. so, of course, he plows into me with his big fat board. great. so i roll off my board so that i don't die and his board slides on top of mine, i didn't see exactly what happened because i was in "duck and cover" mode, and when i came back up to the surface i was just glad to be conscious. i saw the guy and said "sorry" (even though it was really his fault, HE was the one who was in control on the wave, i was just paddling back out to safety), he looked at me and asked me if i was okay once, at least he did that. i said i was and he got back on his board and paddled out again. i slowly got back up on my board and that's when i saw... THIS... SO SAD! i mean, it's not like my board is brand new or anything, in fact, it's pretty awesomely old. on the brink of vintage, but far too beat up to be worth any real value. so it's got dings and dents, but man this is a whole chunk taken out of it. i guess when his board slid over mine his fin got jammed up the nose of my board and left this nice slash in it. i couldn't believe how big it was (that's what she said, haha), i mean, i've bumped and dented the glass on my board before, but i didn't know it could get damaged like this so easily. i was so sad look how many pictures i took of it! haha, so anyway, luckily i'm very smart and pretty handy so i went to the surf shop and bought a ding repair kit and i think i got it patched up pretty well with my homemade chemistry. so now it looks like this... not TOO bad right? i still gotta sand it down, but i dunno i kinda like it like that haha, or maybe i'm just lazy but at least i guess i've kinda got a battle scar? i mean, the only real physical trauma that i've had in my life has been from surfing (i got cracked in the face with the tailblock of my own board and fractured some sinuses or something like that) so i guess this gives my board character? i dunno... something like that, if anything at least i've got a little story to tell now, right?
this is be my last idol post... why? because idol sucks. geez. i mean, i guess i was kinda crazy for my weekly (or even bi-weekly) idols postings the past few years, so it's time to stop doing that at least, hahaha. this year's idol just sucks ass. on the plus side, it has really reminded me why i listen to REAL singers and buy music from ACTUAL artists right?
i was gonna just try and do a "stand ups and melt downs" of the best/worst idol performances in my opinion, but even that ain't worth it. nope, it's better just to say nothing and let the show slowly fade into oblivion.
so yeah, no more idol posts... it's time to get on with real life, haha.
as much as i'm NOT into american idol this year (mostly because i feel that the show has already run it's course and is on the downslope), i surprised myself how much i was disappointed with tonight's results. out of the entire top 24, 3 of the people ousted tonight were in my picks for the top 12 at least.
the two girls that were booted picked crappy songs and sang them pretty bad actually, but they were really pretty... and their past performances (the ones they showed at least) were pretty good so i thought that they had some promise. and since they were pretty and that blonde one seemed like she had a fun personality (a natural one at least) so i'm really sad that they're gone and i gotta still listen to the boring crappy singers.
i think i'm most disappointed with joe munoz, i thought he was good, and i love the song he picked. i can't believe those two black guys are still there instead of the mexican. but at least we got rid of that annoying 70's guy, so 1 out of 2 at least.
blah, idol sucks this year. good thing i've got dvr so i don't have to keep my attention for the whole 2 hours and i can fast forward through the boring performances... boo idol.
okay, after a night of crappiness from the girls, let's hope the guys can do better. going into it i've got hopes for andrew garcia... but who knows? here we go:
1. todrick hall - can you be any more full of yourself? barf. wow, i actually that song by kelly clarkson... his "version" = epic fail! total crap, dude. pass.
haha, i like what randy said (for one), he "totally obliterated" that song.
2. aaron kelly - barf already. i can't stand these wimpy, weak-willed wannabe singers. okay, fine, he's young, which explains why he's like that, but doesn't make him sing better. i thought the time of the boy-band was over? pass.
wow, they all liked him, even seacrest got in on the ass-kissing. geez, who do you think paid them off, his mom or his dad?
3. jermaine sellers - another stuck up guy with a weak ass voice. something about this season... it seems like everyone already feels so entitled, like they all think that they absolutely SHOULD be stars and can't imagine why they aren't yet. what every happened to humility? well, i realize that i'm talking about humility on a REALITY tv show, but still. pass.
4. tim urban - hmm... the reject. on one hand i'd kinda like to root for the underdog, but on the other there was a reason why he didn't make it in the first place. i think idol was just trying to cash in on the zac efron factor for one week at least, but i think he looks more like he belongs in the brady bunch... and sings like it too, i mean, if you can't hit the high notes, don't sing a song with the high notes! for goodness sake, you can choose whatever song you want, why highlight your weaknesses? pass.
5. joe munoz - i don't remember this guy at all. oh but i really like the song he picked. and hey, i actually really liked this guy's performance... he gets my first vote of the night! ...and not just because he might be mexican archuleta, haha.
6. tyler grady - this guy bugs me. completely. from the greasy face and hair to the hippie girlie look, i can't stand it. he looks like he just got up on the bar after 3 rounds of drinks and some one dared him to sing some crappy song. pass.
7. lee dewyze - good song. bad voice. haha, oh wait, what is he doing? this is not even the song. y'know, i think the judges this year have brainwashed all the contestants into "changing things up" so that they're all just making their own damn songs now. and they ain't good songs. pass. haha, he goin' cry.
8. john park - okay, as much as that hippie guy bugs me, i think korean drama guy bugs me even more... barf. well, great song though... oh, but crappy singing. geez, fit enough runs in there? c'mon, pick a note and sing it. pass.
9. michael lynche - he's a personal trainer? he's enormous! who'd trust him? haha, also... here's anothe weird theme for this season... contestants going on idol to "provide better lives" for their children, mothers, fathers, old sickly grandmothers... what happened to just "i wannabe be the american idol?" not everything's gotta be so noble. that's why this show is on it's last legs... it's been on too long already. oh, back to this guy... boring, pass.
10. alex lambert - what an unfortunate last name... and an even more unfortunate mullet. wow, he sucks. pass.
ellen doesn't want to eat a ripe banana... hahahaha!
11. casey james - barf. i'm gonna anti-vote for this guy just because of all this crap that they're dumping on this guy. barf. i wasn't even listening to his singing because they're just being idiotic. pass.
12. andrew garcia - this guy i had hope for from the beginning. he's the one contestant that i've heard that actually sounds like i might like to hear him sing a real song on the radio in the present day. but... he picked the crappiest song of the night. i see what he's trying to do, but you can't polish a turd. i mean, when the last lyrics of the night are "cock it and pull it." c'mon. still, i really like this guy and i would vote for him for sure.
so, all in all, here are my picks for the guys:
1. andrew garcia 2. joe munoz 3....
and guess what? i don't care about anyone else! yikes, i really hope things turn around this season, for both the guys and girls... otherwise this is gonna be a painful season....
hmm, so i'm trying this new thing called "having a social life." it's difficult. so much easier to sit home in quiet and blog all night, but i think the "having a life" is probably the better path to take right? anyway, that's why there haven't been a lot of blog posts lately, but american idol is on again, and even though i've been getting more and more anti-idol show by show since the end of season 7, criticizing the contestants is still a fun thing to do after watching the show. so here we go:
first week, top 12 girls, they keep saying things like "this is the best group of girls we've ever had," which just means that they're trying to hype up something that really isn't there. so i'm not expecting much. this year i really haven't gotten to invested into anything idol yet this season. the auditions were all pretty crappy i thought (perhaps just 2 or 3 that i really remembered) and i don't care about any of the contestants yet so i figured i'd just wait until the actual voting to dive into "caring about it." so here are my thoughts on the contestants:
1. paige miles - i don't remember her at all from the auditions. so she has a big voice but she's a mess with it, trying to do too many things, i don't like that. this is very NOT my preference so... pass. but at least she's kinda funny, i guess she can stick around for that "pee" comment.
2. ashley rodriguez - ooh, okay, she's hot. i don't really care what she sounds like, i'd put her through just for hotness. sounds like she has a stylistic voice... meaning, maybe there's something there, but it's gonna take a studio full of techs to get it sounding good. pass... but i'd like to see her one more week.
3. janell wheeler - ooh, another really pretty one. her "american boy" is one of the 2 or 3 auditions that i actually remembered, so i really like her, but i don't know what she sang tonight... that was WAY not good. but i really want her to go through to next week based on that "american boy" performance that they showed in her clip.
4. lilly scott - weirdo. she looks like a street performer. oh, she sounds like a street performer. like someone standing on the corner with a hat... and that's not a good thing. what does "fixing a hole" even mean? pass.
5. katelyn epperly - oh, okay, SHE looks like a street performer... i mean a street "performer." haha, okay yeah she can sing pretty well, but i hated it. okay, maybe not "hated," but i don't care to listen to anything like that again... therefore pass.
6. haeley vaughn - this is the second girl that i remembered from auditions, i really liked her first carrie underwood country audition, but after that i just thought her voice was screechy and annoying... and that's the version i heard tonight. she gotta pull it back a little bit. also, what the heck was she doing to the melody in that song? i actually thought it might be a cool choice of song, if she just sang the melody straight (playing with the tempo and style were great choices though). still, she interests me, so i'd like to see her go through.
7. lacey brown - holy crap i so wished they had picked this girl instead of that hideous megan joy last season. that being said, i thought she sucked. but beyond that i really liked this performance because everytime i hear this song i think of this:
xena rocks.
but as for this girl and her performance.... pass.
8. michelle delamor - wow, no one should sing alicia keys. i'm sure she's got an okay voice, but no one cares because she doesn't sing as good as alicia keys. an easy pass.
9. didi benami - she seems kinda different, and i like the sweet looking, singer-songwriter types (like brooke white, who wasn't all that great a singer, but she just interested me). i kinda didn't like her song choice, but it definately fit her voice. i'd like her to go through... with caution, because i can hear just a little bit of megan joy in her voice (like all her vowel distortions and glottal stops in the middle of words, haha).
10. siobahn magnus - what an awesome name! not an awesome singer. i think she's probably got some more potential than the other girls for sure, and i almost like her choice of song (it was just at the brink of working... but never got there, kinda dreary). still, she interests me too, so i'd like to see her go on.
11. crystal bowersox - this girl i think i like... i really don't like the harmonica, but i like her voice and i think i'd really like to listen to her sing more songs, therefore, i would actually vote for her! amazing, that's the first vote i would actually cast so far, and it's on the penultimate contestant. but... she looks dirty...
12. katie stevens - from the auditions it seemed like she had a voice kinda like katherine mcphee (who i really liked), but as it turns out, she's just a poor man's version... i'm sure she'll probably do pretty well just because she's got vocal chops, but i really didn't like this performance. pass.
wow, so take a look at that, i'm real critical this year. i only gave one vote out and passed on almost all of them. so, for the very first week here's my rank:
after that i really don't care, haha. but if these six make it to the [real] top 12 i'd be okay.
so that was kinda disappointing... let's hope the guys can do much better tomorrow night. i've got high hopes for andrew garcia... not much anyone else, but we'll see...
february sucks. this time last year i was just starting an awful three week painfest with shingles. this year february started with an infected cyst, moved on to a broken car door, then a broken computer, and we're not even to that damn valentine's day yet, sheesh!
well, at least that gross thing on my back is finally healed (i haven't been able to go to the beach in like a month, which is kinda okay because it's been too cold, but i feel like a sloth now), but here's what happened to my computer, it's not that interesting, but it seems to be kind of a common problem so i'm here to inform and (hopefully) protect. i really liked my computer when i got it, way back in nov. 2006, it was a pretty sweet machine back then, but i should've known from the beginning i was gonna have problems with it... the day i got it, i unpacked it, set it up, and there was no sound. i couldn't figure it out for awhile but i finally returned it and luckily got completely new one. then i had more trouble with it when vista came out and they sent me that update (it was running on XP, which, in retrospect, i should've kept). then last year the whole thing with that broken hinge happened and i had to take it in again, they sent it somewhere to the mainland and it took over a month to get back, grr. and so last weekend it was doing a windows update and all of a sudden it went to blue screen... grr, saying something about an error updating the display driver. fine, whatever, i restarted and tried again. after a few cycles of that happening i tried to turn it on again and then i got nothing but a black screen. grr... i ended up connecting it to my parent's monitor to be able to see what was going on and luckily for a span of a few hours i was able to boot into safe mode so i could at least retrieve my pictures and music (thankfully!), but after that it totally crashed and now it doesn't boot up at all. GRR!
the worst part of all that? like an idiot i bought the 4 year warranty that expires in nov. of this year. but i bought the warranty from circuit city. guess who went out of business last year? circuit city.
so now i've got no computer, all my files and photos (by the grace of God) saved across four flash drives and 3 dvds, and no idea what kind of computer to buy next. i'm thinking i want to stay away from hp definately, and i completely don't want to switch over to mac, so i'm considering dell, toshiba, or that new asus brand (it's so much cheaper... and i'm thinking i don't want to LOVE my new computer, because then when it inevitably breaks down i can just dump it).
but... that's only one major money-eater this money, the second is my poor, old car. i still love it, but damn it's costing me tons in new repairs every month. this month the door handle broke and i spent $628 so that i could actually open it again (along with new brake pads/shoes, CV joint, a bunch of little things here and there). grr.
but to top it all off, today when i went to best buy i was driving out of the parking lot and the FRICKIN' MUFFLER DROPPED OUT! geez! and this is the second time it happened. well, the first time (which was also almost 4 years ago, right about the time i bought my laptop) only the exhaust pipe fell off in the parking lot at work, this time the entire muffler just plopped down on to the road and i drove off. GRR!
so there's another repair i've got to pay for tomorrow and i will have no money left for the laptop. grr.
dammit fox, wtf? did you enjoy messing with dollhouse just for kicks and giggles? how much more royal-ly could you have screwed that series? at least it was a fitting end to a great show, a series finale that obviously left way more story to tell than was possible in an abbreviated season (nevermind an abbreviated series). but, i think joss whedon did a great job providing enough material to bring things to a close, while opening up a multitude of back-story to let the viewers extrapolate a story as a back-handed ribbing to the network that there was so much more quality left in this show.
so for those of you who watched the series finale, wasn't it awesome!? and those of you who watched it and had no clue what was going on, well, sorry, but this one wasn't for you. this series finale was for people who not only followed the series on tv but also followed it beyond the [idiotic] fox network because this episode was "epitath two," and made absolutely NO sense at all unless you saw "epitath one," which was not aired by fox (it was on the season 1 dvd). which is really too bad because it was a GREAT epilogue for the events of the season and the penultimate episode of season 2... which just goes to show (even more so) how great of a storyteller joss whedon and the other writers of this show are/were. i'm really disappointed that the rest of this story will never get told, and i'm even more disappointed that it'll never get told with magnificently beautiful shots of eliza dushku and the other pretty pretty people on this show. what a waste.
but, all in all, it was a fitting end to this show, and now i don't have to worry about fox's treatment of it and can just look forward to the dvd. one more awesome joss whedon show goes down for the count... at least one thing i can look forward to, those awesome joss whedon actors coming back for his next project! i love how he uses a lot of the same actors (because they're awesome) for bits and parts on his other shows. i mean, just from dollhouse we got eliza dushku (buffy), amy acker (angel), alexis denisoff (buffy), alan tudyk (firefly), summer glau (firefly), even felicia day (buffy). i really want to see more of dichen lachman (she played sierra), i hope she's on another one of his shows in the future. sigh... until then i'll just have to wait for season 2 on dvd!
** UPDATE** how disgusting is this? and this is AFTER the cyst was removed... this is what's left, it's like a bullet-hole. hope it heals... eventually... anyone squeamish?
not that my writing could do justice to the disgusting-ness of the procedure, but if you are, best not read any further.
so after a weekend of slouching (because it was too painful to stand up straight), constantly rotating from one side to the other of my couch (because each shift in bodily position had to be carefully selected for minimal pain and cyst-squishiness), not being able to lean back in a chair, and getting neck pain from lying on my stomach forever (good thing it's aussie open time, i would've been so bored otherwise), i was finally able to get a doctor's appointment yesterday to take care of this nasty thing on my back. turns out i was right with the diagnosis at least, it was an infected sebaceous cyst. the cure? excision!
after reading up on it on the internet and seeing youtube after youtube of guts and pus spewing out of people's backs, i was a bit nervous, but my sister had a cyst removed and she said it was painless after the lidocaine. and after spending the weekend with a ticking-time bomb on my back i would've done just about anything to get rid of it. so here's how it happened:
1. the needle - not so bad, easier than an injection for like dental procedures, and after the numbness took over i was feeling pretty good
2. the incision - hardly even felt it. there was a slight sharp slice through the numbness (like a fingernail running down your back), but that might have been more my imagination than an actual sensation
3. the guts - well, since it was on my back, i couldn't see what actually spewed out... but i felt stuff trickling down my back and they were sure wiping up a lot
4. the pain - so after the initial and primarily painfree slice, he started to squeeze. and then it was all over. the pain. holy crap the pain. that could possibly have been the most painful medical procedure of my life (at least, that i can remember... probably getting the wisdom teeth out was more painful, but my memory of that is kinda fuzzy). it wasn't that each squeeze was excrutiatingly painful, it was the constant, unrelenting squeezing. i tried to block out the pain by imagining all that crap being finally purged out of my skin, but after what seemed like minutes of squeezing i was getting the pain trembles and everything.
5. the searing - after he finally (FINALLY!) stopped squeezing, the doctor cauderized the inside lining to kill all of the infection, then slapped a bandage on the thing and told me to give it a good squeeze after showering and not let the wound close before the next appointment next friday (otherwise he might have to reopen it... and hell no, i do not want that).
so it's gone. hopefully. what's left is a putrid crater of seared, blackened skin in the center of a red, irritated mess of bruised skin. it's great. not. so i'm squeezing whatever's left outta there and hoping that when i see the doctor on friday it'll be all cleaned out and he can patch me back up and i can get on my way... until then, i'm having a great time taking it easy and watching aussie open all day... too bad for andy, but go roger!
i'm sick of this. i guess i've been lucky to have been pretty healthy so far in life, and have avoided major accidents or whatever, so when these weird medical things happen to me i have a hard time taking them in stride. just 11 months ago i got shingles, which was the worst medical thing to happen to me since i had chicken pox as a kid (or maybe when i got slammed in the face by a surfboard, i had bleeding sinuses, but that one was kinda cool). shingles sucked. a lot. and now, almost one year later i've got this gross infected cyst in the exact same spot as the shingles. it's probably my fault. after the shingles was over i noticed that weird lump, but it didn't hurt or anything, it was just there. so i figured it was just some scar tissue or whatever. i suppose i could have gone to the doctor right then and have him take a look at it (or take it out), but i thought it was kind of lame going to a doctor and saying, "here's a weird bump, what should i do?" although, in retrospect, i think that's probably exactly the type of thing you SHOULD see the doctor for huh?
anyway, fast-forward to last wednesday, that bump started to hurt, which was annoying, and i started to think about finally asking the doctor about it. well, i hardly had time to think that over because within the next two days that fricken' thing swelled up, turned red (that's what she said), and started to hurt like a bastard. yesterday i couldn't even stand up straight. it was like someone had sewn a marble under my skin and every twist of my torso made the skin stretch and hurt. gross. now all i can think of is all that bacteria and gross stuff swirling there under my skin and it completely grosses me out.
so i've quarantined myself indoors this weekend (as to not upset it, the cyst) because when i called the doctor's office on friday morning they told me i'd have to wait until monday to come in. which i figured was probably just procedure on friday morning, but now (on sunday morning) i think it's a load of crap. couldn't they have just squeezed me in for a quick lancing? i mean, don't doctors keep some time open for emergencies. well, i guess this isn't really an "emergency," but shouldn't you NOT wait to take care of medical procedures? but i may be over-reacting. perhaps you need to wait for a lance-able time to take care of an infected cyst... except how would the doctor's office know when they set up my appointment without seeing it? i wonder, if it had gone to the hospital or something would they have done it? hmm... i guess i don't know much about how the medical business works, but hell, as long as my doctor just gets rid of that thing by tomorrow i'll be happy.
anyway, this post was gross, but educational. i had no idea how common infected cysts were, and had i known i might have decided to go to the doctor much sooner, rather than stick to positive thinking and telling myself it'll get better on it's own. so if you or anyone you know has some weird bump, just go get it checked out and save yourself the trouble. i really should've gone to the doctor when i first noticed the non-infected cyst after the shingles was over. but it's too late for that, it's made its' presence known... and now i just want to get the damn thing outta me!
what does that phrase mean? i mean, of course i know what it means, but the words make no sense unless you understand the context, which is the case with most of english obviously, but i still don't like to use it. the only reason i use it to name this post is to make this point... that i don't like it and don't like to use it. ha.
anyway, being back to work for one week after a vacation-filled december has made me a bit nostalgic. not for too long ago, just a few years back, in my third year of undergrad. at that time i had finally chosen a major, but had taken all my intro-to-that-major classes a year earlier (to see if i really liked it) and so for the first sememster of my third year i was taking all the back-up pre-requisite courses that i was missing and so i had just a few classes (i took one online) and a lot of extra time (because those classes were retarded and i didn't need to study for any of them... and quite frankly, i really didn't care what grade i got in them because 1) i personally did not see how they were related to my major anyway, 2) i thought it was a waste for me to be taking them, seeing as how i already started taking my major classes and were acing them anyway, and 3) i considered them nothing but an exercise in brainless busy-work... which is why i got my first and only B-... in stats, which was surprising because i did crossword puzzles in class every day that i went to class and didn't know wtf i was doing on the final so i thought i'd get a C at least).
holy crap i just realized that my idea of "just a few years ago" is actually 8 years ago! dammit.
anyway, during those last two years of undergrad i had a lot of extra time. there weren't a whole lot of classes to take in my major area so i was taking a lot of language classes (japanese, hawaiian, spanish) and PE classes. those are both things i wish i had started doing earlier in life. i only started learning japanese in high school and i only started working out (seriously) in my first year of college. well, i guess i really had no reason to learn a foreign language (and if you don't use it, you'll forget everything so i guess it's okay that i really didn't take that up), but i wish that i had taken a earlier interest in fitness. i mean, as a kid my parents shoved me into every sport they could think of, i didn't really like any of them, but more for social reasons. i didn't like the mean-ness of competition. i didn't mind the physicality of it (although i hated being out in the sun in full baseball gear for sure), and i actually liked running and conditioning exercises, but socially i wasn't gonna be best buddies with my teammates (who were jerks, i assure you) and i thought all the coaches were grumpy old men. but, if it had started thinking about fitness earlier, like in high school, maybe i would've been a more confident and/or out-going person y'know? then again, it was high school and can you really consider ANY high schooler a socially appropriate person? probably not.
so it took me all the way until high school to figure out that i really liked tennis, and it took me until college to find weight training and surfing. one of the best decisions of my life was to take food science and human nutrition in my very first semester of college. it turned me on to proper nutrition and creating a lifestyle of eating right and exercising, and i embraced it fully. which, really when you think about it, is probably the way most things are right? in college you're finally out living on your own and you can choose what kind of life you want to lead. well, for two great years i lived that life. of course, i didn't have to worry about a mortgage or actually working for my money (thank you, bank of mom and dad), and thanks to my glorious brain (haha) i was able to spend pretty much all of my time outside of classes doing whatever the heck i wanted to. so for those last two years of college i had a great life plan:
alongside my regular classes (those which were required, which was really only 2-3 per sememster) i took language classes (i love learning languages) and PE classes. my language classes fit on MWFs and i put the PE classes in the morning on tuesdays and thursdays. forcing myself to wake up for a 7:30 or 8:30 tennis or volleyball class gave me the entire rest of the day free until my next class at 1:30, so after tennis i'd grab breakfast (chex used to make little breakfast mix packets, which is what started me thinking about all this because i just had chex mix for breakfast this morning), walk down kalakaua ave. to rainbow drive-inn, pick up a loco moco (it was only $2.00, then later $2.75) and eat it at waikiki beach, then take a mid-day nap on the sand and then go for a swim, a jog, or rent a board and go surfing if the waves were decent and the crowd was thin. then i'd walk back up to campus, grab a jamba juice along the way and brush the sand off my heels before my 1:30 class. how could it get any better than that? those were the healthiest years of my life, for sure.
so that's what i'm working towards. the weekends, vacations, retirement. all the elements for my ideal day off. sweet right? but today i am at work, and will have to wait until this weekend to do it again. still, i think those two years are just about the only two in my life that (if i could) i would live over again. sure, there are a lot of years that i wish i could DO OVER again (like all of high school), but only those two years i would like to live over again. but for now i'll have to settle for finding the little moments in between the rest of my life to fit the good stuff in.
anyway, eating my chex mix for breakfast this morning got me thinking about that. chex mix, loco moco, sun, sand, ocean, jamba juice, walking. all those things have just kinda grouped together in my brain making me remember that time in my life. sign, well, at least i have something to look forward to in retirement... or summertime at least!
so if you've been watching "attack of the show," it should be no news to you that this is now the year 2010, and it is very exciting. so what do i have to get excited about in 2010? not much i thought. but let's try and be a little more positive huh? here's something that can ring in 2010 on a high-note:
UH men's vball - of course vball is always fun, but 2010 brings a new season, a new coach, and a new system for the UH men. last night they started out with a win against #10 Ohio State and looked great doing it. i am already impressed with charlie wade as the new coach (i always thought wilton had a lot of short-comings in the coaching department... of course he had some great talent in the past, but lately his inability to recruit locally, his "cauldron-system" that used points earned during practices to determine that week's starters, his lack of creativity and intelligence in running offensive/defensive systems and such left UH with 3 consecutive losing seasons). i liked wade as the wahine's assistant coach and i think he brings the same kinds of good points to the men's game as well. such as:
- quick-tempo offense: it's about time hawai'i got with the national and international scene in running a quick-tempo offense, getting the ball out of the setter's hands and to the hitter much quicker and running fast and multiple hitter plays much more often. it's efficient and effective. much like the wahine team this year. - the middle attack: there IS one this year! amazing. of course the passing has to be on target in order to run the middle, but i think a good ratio of kills for outside hitters to the middles is 2:1 and that's pretty much what they got last night. last year the middle attack was pretty much non-existent. - blocking: last year's block was pretty much the ONLY good thing about the team (that and ric cervantes) and it looks as if that will continue this year. they didn't get as many block in the stats, but it was an effective block, changing the other team's shots and putting ball back (if not down). - serving: last year's serving was like "flash in the pan" serving, one great serve sandwiched around multiple service errors. they still had a lot of errors last night, but now those are sandwiched in between pretty great serving. with zemljak in all the time and tuaniga really improving his already pretty good serve from last year, they put a lot of pressure on other teams. (still, no one can match eyal zimet, remember him? he used to yo-yo other teams, ace them twice deep and then pull the string and send a roller short over the net for another ace). - jonas umlauft: i love when freshmen start. because then you know they're good (if they're starting as freshmen) and you know they'll get better for 4 years. he doesn't jump very high (he probably touches just as high as joshua walker) but he's got smart arm swing and uses the block very well. he reminds me a lot of costas theocharidis (he even kinda looks like him) the way he gets most of his kills off the block. but what he is to the team is the outlet, something they haven't had in a few years. someone who can take a good swing out-of-system. the middles and walker are great in-system players (walker's vertical looked pretty spectacular actually), but this new guy can keep hawai'i in a lot of plays that they couldn't last year.
overall i think it'll be a big year for hawai'i volleyball, i'm not sure what the other teams in the country look like right now, but i say no way will hawai'i end up #12 in the country (like they are now) when this season is over. i think the possibility for a top 5 is there, and a run at the post-season wouldn't be out of the question either... but then again it's a long tough season in men's vball. there aren't a lot of schools even fielding teams and even less scholarships to go around so every single team out there is quality. it's going to be an exciting year though, and it continues tonight vs. #5 Penn State and saturday vs. #1 USC. good stuff.
if you're reading this you'll learn a little more about... not who i am, but about who i think i would like to be. it's about what i want to fill my life with, and what i want to live by. hopefully it'll give me a chance to do some creative expression and maybe make you laugh every once in awhile.
also, i was bored.
