stranger than you dreamt it

Hi again! I'm back, though it has been eons since I have last posted. I will attribute that in part to China, peer pressure, and other stuff. So I was in China for most of June, which was also a terrible time to post anyway, considering all the work I had due. July I have spent lazing about. Also, no one else in the blogosphere of friends I have has recently posted, so I felt like I was entitled to a break.

Anyhow, last night/this morning I had a nice dream. It was FOTC related. I dreamed that I saw Bret and some other dude in concert. They were supposedly FOTC, but I didn't recognize that the other man wasn't who he should have been until later. After the concert, I was in the subway waiting for the train to go home, and the other dude, who was blonde-ish/brownish with straight hair bangs falling his face, came up to me and asked me if I liked the performance. I smiled this weird smug/coy smile (trust me I remember that weird smile!) and said I did. He asked me what I was planning to do. And I said, "I'm a songwriter" and he was interested in that off-hand way that people who tend to not believe what you're saying are. And I said, "no really". And then I sang a little ditty about songwriting, which unfortunately I can't remember. It rhymed, though. He was excited about the song, and he gave me his card. I can vaguely remember that his last name was de ________. So was Bret's in this dream. It was around this time that I realized that this dude was not Jemaine. And I must have been half awake, because I started seeing flashbacks of the FOTC show where Jemaine is being a little smarmy/awkward/creepy.

I woke up.

why none of my friends have updated their blogs

We are dying of a disease called "Two Week Pile-Up Syndrome"

Such where teachers assign us WAY too many assignments, and then laugh as we try to do the work while dying instead. It's really quite fantastic. Congratulations to all of you who are hanging in there..

Momentous

I celebrate the momentous rediscovery of the Filipino (or Flip as Christine calls it) prince, Paolo Montalban. His voice is like the voice of a thousand male angels; it is wondrous. He sings in church and is really pretty as well. I love him. HEARTS <3>

I can't find his fan page yet; it looks like he doesn't have a big fan club in America. Christine and I will start one! JUST WATCH. 

SO EXCITED

Searching For the Stars

When it is darkest, men see the stars- Emerson

I will love the light for it shows me the way, yet I will endure the darkness for it shows me the stars- Og Mandino

Well, this week has certainly been strange.

The most I can truly comment about is the fact that life has a knack for attempting to suckerpunch a girl just when everything possible could be going wrong. The good news is the arrival of the weekend has also meant the arrival of better spirits.

When I say this week was bad, I cannot lie, it was truly one of the worst that I can remember having. Just thinking about it makes me want to cry again; seriously dudes, I'm not going into it again. No rehashment occuring (yes I know the word is rehashing). 

Thankfully, while walking the dog, I remembered how much I love life. Everything about it. Good bad, ugly, they all belong there. Some days are just going to make me want to cry, but it gets so much better on the weekend. Sometimes I live for the weekend. That and Spring Break Disneyworld visits.

 

going other ways- epiphany en route

So today, the bus I was riding and have ridden since I was a very small child did the absolutely bizarre for the first time: it turned another direction. Yes, it eventually got back on track and continued down Jamaica Ave like it usually does, but at first I wasn't sure whether I had gotten on a completely different bus. I desperately desired to shout at the bus driver "Stop! Where are you going? Go the normal way, friend!", but I did not because I "wisely" guessed that since the route number was what it was on the front, I had best keep quiet and let the driver do his job to get us where we needed to go at a faster pace. By trusting him, we did end up getting there much faster than if we had stayed in traffic like most drivers would have. I realized that this driver amongst all drivers realized that above all things, a bus is a vehicle. It can go wherever you want, and invariably, it can also get back on track. 

Epiphany moment: if everyone in the world realized that there were other ways to get to the same point, then everyone would get where they wanted to go much faster. 

This is really relevant to my life right now, particularly in finding a successful career, which indubitably leads to a successful life, as the world knows. Many people assume that the first, best, and only way to be successful is to go to Ivies and get big-shot jobs. Now, I'm not knocking the success of the Ivies, but I am saying that not everyone is going to get into Stanford or Harvard or Yale. It's mathematically impossible. Sometimes, we have to get creative. Sometimes, we have to think about other places that can help enrich our lives and help us achieve our goals. If your goal is to go to an Ivy simply because you like Ivies, hey, have fun. But don't apply with it as your only choices; don't think that if you don't get in, the world will stop, because it won't, and you will be left picking up the pieces with no other game plan.

It's like the SAT problem I was doing today. It asked how many different ways could one get to point C without touching A or B. I only saw the two obvious wide-berth answers, but a friend pointed out to me that there were also two more that brought you closer to the point you weren't supposed to be, but then veered away.

Mini-epiphany: If everyone realized that approaching the not-goal is not failure, but another way to get to the goal,
A. A lot more people would be a lot better at math

B. People would not spending their lives getting the wrong answer.

Wrong answer, how so? As in, when one plugs in the right numbers into the equation, and you're still getting ø. Why does that happen? Did you consider the limit? Or did you continuously try to get to infinity without approaching zero? Sometimes, life is like that, man. You have to take the chance sometimes. You can't always approach your goals the clean way. Besides, you have better stories for your grandkids when you can tell them how crazy your life was when you were working hard to get where you wanted to go.

Well, the epiphany was nice. I guess it's time for me to use this epiphany in conjunction with the leaves and get on with my life.

say a prayer

To my cousin. Keep your head up.

i could have been dead
sleeping in my grave
but God blessed me
to see another day

even when i did wrong he was still there
I'm so glad that God still hear a sinners prayer
I'm so glad that God still hear a sinners prayer
now let me pray let me pray
- A Sinner's Prayer, Deitrick Haddon

My grandmother, the blessed saint that she is, just received a letter from a cousin of mine. She gave me the letter to read, and I, being my sanctimonious sarcastic self, wondered what would be the purpose of a letter that told me what I already knew. That is, my cousin is in jail. But upon reading it, I felt humbled by my cousin's stoicism and strength in the face of 5-10 years of jail, of which I did not realize he had been convicted. He said that he has renewed his faith in God and that sometimes God puts obstacles in our way to test whether we will overcome adversity or let it overcome us.

I wept.

How could I, who had been so fortunate in life, be so immune to God's calls? If anything, God has helped me more than anyone in my life, for it was He who put those who helped me into my life. He ordained those things, He gave me the talents that I have been blessed with it, and the intelligence to use them. I have been so lucky: I could have been born deformed, I could have been killed in the violence that occurred around my neighborhood. I could have ended up not going into Prep, and not getting into as great a school as I attend. And I, like so many, assume that I'm entitled to these things. But I'm not. I could have been like so many girls I see: unhappy, unhealthy, possibly on my way to pregnancy or reckless behavior that could have killed me or my spirit.

But here I am. Here I am, despite the many things that could have happened to me. I've been so blessed to have family that supports me however they can. I've been so blessed to have friends that for the most part, are some of the best friends a girl could ask for.

So here I am, giving thanks for this day and all the days before it. I will try to do my best to continue living with the joy that I have within me. I will do my best to excel, because I realize that I am a part of the hope for America. That sounds self-centered, but it really isn't, because it means that it's up to me to continue paving the way, to prove to kids that you can go from living in the ghetto to going to a conservatory or whatever it is that you want.

Here I am, rededicating my life to God, even on the Internet.

Here I am, saying a prayer for you.

Trenchcoats

Why do they seem to invite sketchy people to stop on bicycles and vans?