You ever seen a home grown, good old southern boy? You know, the kind of guys who have lived in the same place all their life, can’t afford to move anywhere else and have them ripe, fun accents that Hollywood likes to make fun of? Very often these guys are a little unkeptly in appearance and need some physical and dental work. Well, as of last night, I’m back to my east Texas roots.
Writing has never been a passion of mine. I lack the creativity and interesting story telling that are needed to be successful and entertaining. I can usually carry on an intelligent conversation through writing, but I tend to make countless grammatical mistakes, spelling mistakes here and there, and what I do say is sometimes just mindless jibber jabber. I now realize that I am missing a lot by not knowing how to write more effectively.
My high school reunion is only a couple of years away. This reminds me that I started high school 12 years ago. And I started junior high 14 years ago. And elementary… an eternity ago.
I don’t remember much about my first day of elementary school. I do, however, remember going to class with my mother. We all had to stand in a very long line with other classmates and their mothers and I guess we were giving some papers to the teacher as well as meeting her. I’m sure I was probably scared a little since it was all new to me, but I quickly adapted.
Junior high was different, however, because I had only moved to Houston a year before. In fact, it wasn’t junior high, it was called intermediate school and it started in 7th grade and ended after 8th. Still, I do not remember actually starting intermediate school on the very first day. Probably because there was so much to take in. I had to learn how to get from one class to another whereas elementary was mostly sitting in just one or two classes all day long with the same people. What I should recall pretty easily is my first day of sixth grade, because we had just moved to town that previous summer. Sitting here thinking about it continues to draw me a blank.
High school was once again more complicated. I had been on a scout jamboree to Washington DC and Virginia for a couple of weeks and I was pretty much the only one late to summer band camp for marching practice that August. But it was another big change from intermediate to high school. Bigger building, more kids, everyone’s older than me.
Sometimes these memories seem only months or years back. But, I realize that time is fading a lot of these memories away. New experiences, new first days on the job, new interactions with people, they all continue to fill my mind leaving many other memories out in the dust.
It’s this thought that makes me realize that I need to try and make the most of every day. To actively make memories.
When I was at a band competition my freshman year, we were competing to go to state at the semi-regional finals. We did really well, everyone was pumped, and we were all just sitting in the stands waiting for the results. I was not really hanging out with too many people, so I went down to the bottom of the stands and looked around. Curious, I walked up the stairs towards the announcer’s box to see what was going on. Just a few people chatting with each other. I then remember looking back at my classmates all just playing around, chatting with each other and enjoying themselves as well all nervously waited the results.
Minutes later, the voice of the announcer began. One by one, the top bands were named, cheers, and then repeated each time. I had a feeling about our chance, and I actively stood there watching all of my classmates as they announced our name in first place. What a feeling to know that we were going to state; but what made me feel even better was everyone else cheering and hugging each other. Watching the celebration from the outside brought me so much pleasure. Sorta like I had a hand in the decision and could see how everyone else felt. I’ve always been different like that, stepping in the background to see the reactions. But it’s these memories that stick with me many years after they happen.
Take time out of your day, think about something that makes you happy, and remember that you’re alive. Our experiences and memories are all we have in the end.
It’s April, and I hardly even know it was April’s fool day on Friday until it was almost over.
It’s already April! I can’t believe how fast these past few months have passed.
It’s only April. The rest of this year has so much in store for me, yet I do not know what to expect!
Already this year I’ve flown back from a wonderful Christmas season, I’ve been to Germany, I’ve gotten a great new job, and I’ve been to Las Vegas! The next few months are looking to be really exciting and great too, with hopefully another adventure to Colorado at the end of the month. I’m also planning on flying back to Texas soon to attend a mission camp as well as visiting a lot of friends and family. And there’s a big chance that really soon I’ll be losing my wisdom teeth. I’ll find out in just over a week. I think my most exciting event to look forward to is that I finally did decide to buy tickets to see the actors who voice Family Guy characters live!! There’s also a band I hope to see at the House of Blues in May. So there’s a lot in store for me really soon!
I finally got some of my groove back with web design. I spent most of the day working on my personal site, and I realize I’m so far away from putting the new design up, but I’m a few important steps closer to finishing it. That’s still far off unfortunately! It seems that once you feel you’ve got something down, in my case my design, you realize how far you are from actually being done. I am excited to be in the middle of it, but so ready to be completely finished. It’s time to move past this!
I realize my website has been pretty sparsly updated recently and really it’s for no good reason. I have lots going on, friends made, some reconciled, and plenty of work to be done at my job. It seems, however, that I need a huge lesson in creative writing. I know my blog isn’t very entertaining to most people unless you know who I am. I’ve been told that it’s rather bland, that you wouldn’t visit it everyday unless you really knew me, and that’s mostly my fault. I still have yet to get to my Vegas photos that I’d really like to put up because some of them are really cool! But hopefully this process will not take much longer, it’s just that I’m backed up with things like my taxes (finally done!) and working odd hours sometimes. So hopefully I’ll slowly but surely get better at this. It’s just been a crazy 2005 so far for me, many different things which have been pleasantly and unpleasantly unexpected and many more which shall be pleasantly expected!
I try to usually steer clear of topics of really personal matters especially concerning other people, but I find that sometimes they might be important to talk about openly. I am always pretty conscientious and careful of everything that I type on this website because I know I continually have a growing audience every month, thus I don’t ever want to give out too much personal feeling and thoughts. However, now is a rare occasion and I really think this is important to discuss openly.
I have news for rejoice for most people who have seen me since Thanksgiving. I have officially cut my hair. Yes, it’s past due (I don’t wanna hear it, CLFP WOMEN!) but I decided to take the plunge and chop it off, back to the normal do that everyone normally views when they see me.
I believe out of every haircut I’ve ever received, this style fits me best. Most of my photos include this shorter, more efficient hair style. But, I have enjoyed once before a longer hairstyle.
During my two year stay in Denver for school, I grew my hair out for the first whole semester that I was there. I had no real purpose except to save money, but the hair style was much smoother because of the lack of humidity, something I’ve been plagued with here in LA and back home in Houston.
And as you might be able to see from some of my recent photos (though I really couldn’t find a good one to show), the hair above is so much better. If I didn’t live in such humid areas, I would probably try to grow it out again, but because of my wavy hair, it’s just not reasonable anymore. So, that’s now history and my short hair is back!
In the end, all you have is your experiences. Your life moments and life stories. Your memories. They help define you, help you define your existence, and are the reason for life itself. They don’t wait for you to prepare for them, they just happen. And, as often like I have experienced it, they usually pass before you realize their existence.
Two nights ago, I watched a movie called The Rules of Attraction. It’s about the experience of college life, experiences that many people can identify with. There’s the drugs, the sex, the chase of a crush, the depressions, the obsessions. And you realize afterward how real it all was at the time. However, my initial reaction to that movie was that of confusion. I totally didn’t get it. No point, no plot, just a bunch of random experiences. And the end of the movie was basically just sharp stop. No real closure. I watched it with my brother and he got it. I asked him what the point was, and in many words said I just didn’t get it.
Tonight, I just watched Garden State for the second time. It’s even better the second time around. Garden State is also about life experience. It pretty much reminds you that things are gonna happen no matter what. Your experiences are defined by your choices. They might be good or bad, but it’s yours and no one else’s. I think that is the best message of the movie for me. To realize that I’m the only one who can control what happens to me, how I deal with it, and what I do to move on. I can totally identify with so much of the movie.
And thus, this is the problem I had with the first movie. I could hardly relate to many of the situations that occurred and thus felt rather disconnected from the flow and stories. Most of it was random, meaningless story to me. But Garden State was totally identifiable. I realize that even though I didn’t enjoy it as much as someone else would, it has just as much chance of being a good movie to another person.
*spoilers below*
Near the end of Garden State, they main characters are sitting in a bathtub when he starts talking about a random memory of his mother. It’s weird, because at that time I thought about my grandmother. The scene started out with him playing with a necklace that belonged to his mom, probably recalling what his memories.
I remember many years ago before my grandmother moved out of her house, I knew that someday soon she was going to leave her house. In fact, I think I remembered hearing from my mom that it would probably be my last time to really visit that house. Every summer from when I was really young to when I was in high school, I would visit her for a week. One night during my last week long visit with her in high school, after we were both in bed, I got back out of bed for about 30 minutes to walk around the dark rooms. I went to just about all of the rooms, realizing that I was creating a memory for myself. I knew that I needed to go to every room and look around for a picture that I could keep with me. Yes, I’d been in all of those rooms for most of my life anyway, but something drew me to actively make this memory. I was “in it” as Sam elegantly put it, knowing exactly what I was doing.
Right after my grandmother died, I remember how weird it was to see all of these personal belongings of hers. I remember feeling so strange because she was missing and all of her stuff was right there. One of the more difficult tasks was trying to decide what to keep and what to give away. Part of you wants to hold on to everything, sulking over what happened in some denial. But you realize that at some point it would be time to let go so what would be the point of keeping so much random stuff. It’s such a weird feeling, and something that I will have to continue to deal with for the rest of my life as I get older.
It seems like I often feel like holding onto my past. It’s never fun to move on so quickly because the change is always such a pain to go through. But eventually I realize it’s time to move on. It’s time to make new experiences. It’s time to keep going and move onto another important time of my life.
Since my generation now has a defining moment in time, I’ll list my experience two years ago.
During the entire time that the planes were hitting their targets, I was sound asleep. My classes didn’t start until about 1pm that day. So I would usually stay up the night before Tuesdays and Thursdays until I got tired and then would go to bed around 1am or later which would partly explain why I was still asleep. Well, that morning I got a knock on my door around 8 or 9:15ish (remind you that it was already 10 or 11:15ish on the East Coast by that time) by Todd (Great Aunt’s grandson). He said, “Two things. The World Trade Center towers are gone and your mom is on the phone”. I anxiously answered the phone and she told me what was going on, so I immediately turned the television on. Just like almost everyone else in the US/world, I laid there in bed soaking everything in the best that I could. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. It was just a year and a half ago when I went to New York with Jonathan and saw the WTC towers soaring over the city skyline majestically claiming their space. I even took a few photos with the buildings in the background.
I decided a few hours later to try and go to school anyway just to see if classes would be on or not. The reason is because we were learning something beneficial for Biology and the professor said she hadn’t been sick in a very long time so class probably wouldn’t be cancelled. As fate has it, it was obviously cancelled.
The really strange part was driving and riding to school. I usually took I-25 to the light rail and took a train to the campus where I walked (or sometimes ran) to class. That day, there were people on bridges above the interstate waving flags. The roads were so less congested than usual. Most people I saw were very solemn. It was very much a strange day.
I had been in Denver for just about two or three weeks before this happened, having moved up there for the last two years of my undergraduate education, and that adds to the strangeness. I wasn’t around any close family or friends and my dad’s aunt was out on a roadtrip the whole time. So it was just Todd and me dwelling in the house.
Little did I know that 1000 miles away Aunt Trisha was giving birth to my cousin Emily. Yes, she was born that day, September 11, 2001. I would assume that day meant so many other things to those who were there for the birth, many mixed emotions about everything. I’m the kind of person who likes to keep the TV on all the time to watch what is going on. Trisha is the person to keep the TV off and continue to live her life. Guess this is one reason I am who I am!
I may write something else about the people in the towers but would most likely include a link because it’s very difficult to think about. So check back if I decide to write more.
I was watching Saturday Night Live tonight when I started thinking about a thought I had about 3 weeks ago. It was the night of November 16th and I saw that a new episode of SNL wasn’t appearing again until December 7th. I remember thinking how it was 3 weeks… such a long time but it’d be here before I knew. And now it’s gone. I thought about that thought tonight and realized how quickly it passed. I couldn’t believe it.
In fact, I remember on one specific occasion in 1989 thinking that the year 1995 would be here in no time. Over the next 6 years, I remembered thinking that thought knowing it was gonna be sooner and sooner. I couldn’t believe that 1995 came so fast but it wasn’t as fast as 2002 has arrived in the past few years.
Now it’s been 7 years since 1995 and I can’t believe it’s been 23 years that I’ve been alive. I can vividly remember thinking little childish thoughts like the one I just described because I did a lot of that kind of thing. I could sit here right now and think to myself “Gosh, 2007 is over 4 years away” but it isn’t as significant as my thought that 1995 was a few years away from 1989.
Does this make sense? It does to me.
So I download a few songs from Kazaa tonight from Nichole Nordeman. I hadn’t really listened to her before but she’s amazing. I can’t believe how good she is in her compositions. I might ask a friend of mine at UCF to perform the song “Every Season” next semester because it’s an awesome song musically. Who knows, maybe before then.
