Ending it All

http://savetherobot.files.wordpress.com/2009/01/the-end.jpg

The year is winding down to a close and things are either coming to a closure or falling apart in my life. This blog is ending as of today because I really see no reason to blog and I'm really too lazy to keep updating it because it' really something that I'm not interested in. I feel like I haven't fully been involved in this activity. Some of my posts are AMAZING and some pretty much less than mediocre. I just don't think that I'm cut out for writing.

Over the past year things have been so amazing! I've had so much fun and I went from this nerdy high school kid that stayed inside all the time to study to this person who actually found friends and figured out something called "fun". I've tried so many new things that I never thought possible and I think the last two weeks of this year will be sort of my "last hurrah" before I resign myself to a VERY boring summer and hellish sophomore year.

But other than that, I'm cool to wait out this summer till the next school year. A week after exams I'm going to Jamaica! I'm staying at this newly built resort (all-inclusive!) and it's gonna be so much fun. And then I'll probably need to find a job or something and then I'll be taking summer classes at IPFW. I just want to stay busy and not think about the people I'm going to be missing.

I guess it's just that I've made so many friends in college and I've never really had any in high school so parting is so much harder because I won't be able to hang out with them in the summer. Back at home I have one person I could probably hang out with and she works all the time so I'll be lonely. I wish college lasted forever because I've never been happier in my life than being here.

Vietnam Part Deux

Day One (Continued):

Later in the evening I went to dinner with yet another newly discovered cousin (I won't even try to spell her name,) her very handsome husband, Adrian, and their daughter Estelle. They both spoke English and French very well, and I was excited to try out my pathetic French speaking skills. I felt like a fool talking to a native French speaker, but oh well.\\

Day Two:

It's Christmas day!!!!!! 

Damn! Crossing the streets here is like playing frogger on level 999. I suck at that game too. There's a million motorcyclists who won't give a second thought about running somebody over just for the sake of expediency.

I went to Christmas mass too, and of course it was in Vietnamese, so I couldn't understand a thing. the funniest thing i saw were tourists (haha! white people!) at mass. of course, they couldn't understand anything as well, so at random intervals during mass, little by little groups would just abandon the building. There was absolutely no air conditioning in that building so I was burning up by the end of that hour-long mass.

Day Three:

So, this morning I went on a walk through a park. The first thing I saw upon entering the park was a woman and her child sleeping on a piece of soggy cardboard. Wow. I started crying because it was so sad. my dad hit me on the head to stop it. ugh.

I went dress shopping upon learning that my cousin Lan's wedding was FIVE days long and that it would be rude to wear the same formal wear everyday. Since we planned for only one day of the wedding and we were able to attend only two, i had to buy another dress. lol. it was fun.

Then, in the afternoon, we went to the airport and flew north to Hanoi. From the airport we rode an hour on bus to hanoi. Once we were there, we walked around before we looked for a hotel. It's dirty in Hanoi, even more so in Saigon, and so we had a hard time finding a clean hotel. The one we found was right next to the street with a power line within easy reach (which equals death by electrocution.) It was so noisy and I couldn't sleep. Drivers up here honk their horns all the time and probably just for the hell of it. The streets are narrow and gross and lined with dog pee. yuck. 

However, the markets were very interesting. They're all very pell-mell and have sort of a distinctive feel to them. They don't have the feel of stores you would see in America. It's very...rustic? I can't describe it but I just love this atmosphere...besides the coldness here. 

Vietnam Part One

Traveling There: I lay suspended in the dreaming sky. Endlessly floating among a field of blooming clouds, a lone star and the bright moon are my sole companions in this ethereal dark. Their light wreathes my skin in their holiness as I traverse the angels' footpath. On my right, the sky relinquishes a faint rust influencing the sky above it to metamorph from steely blue to a soft sapphire. Above me, the light of the rising sun and the setting moon collide in a never ending catclysmic battle with each combatant saited only when the other is devoured. The cloud-path ends and under me rolls the soft snowy peaks of the cold Siberan land. Death is made so soft by the forgiving snow. The stiff rivers of the tundras carve their icy path through the crevasses; the with billowing powder rolls along side them, carressed and urged gently by the invisible breaths of the air. The land gives way to the ice floes, their cliffs violently meeting the frozen sea.

Day One:

Today I went out on a walk with my parents and shopped at many stores! There were really really cute stuffed animals and jewelry. I didn't buy any stuffed animals because there's cuter ones in Japan that I wanna buy. JAPAN! yes, i'll be going there next week on my way back to the USA. I'll buy lots of Hello Kitty! stuff and distribute them to all my buddies back home. lol. wait, everybody must be thinking "She has buddies?! No way!" yes. I have buddies no matter how odd I am.

Anyways, I went out wearing my four inch wedges, which was a mistake because the sidewalks are in complete disrepair and it was so hard to navigate them safely. Traffic is crazy too. I believe that everyone is breaking all the known laws of traffic here. Even the moped drivers, who are supposed to be confined to the street, drive on the sidewalks. I've seen a couple of small cars too barreling through the sidewalks! no wonder the sidewalks are so abused! anyways, back to my shoes. They made me look like a giant among the natives! I felt tall, which is something I've never felt before. It's a nice feeling and gives me a sense of superiority. but, like in Japan everyone is so skinny. I'm envious. lol. but walking on the abused sidewalks made my feet hurt, so right now I'm walking with a pronounced limp and my feet smell of blister ointment. gross. 

another thing that I like about Vietnam is that everything is Asian sized! I was estatic when the eye hole on my hotel room door was a low height and that I was able to easily look through it! ASIAN SIZED! YES! It's also nice to be part of the majority. I like making fun of the white tourists because their paleness just sticks out like white on black and they always have a confused look on their face. I feel a sense of belonging here and I am no longer conscious of stereotyping and of what others expect from me. I really love this place and being here just changed my mind where I would want to live in the future. I want to live somewhere in Asia! Majority rules! Asian power!

Yet, another thing I like about vietnam is the cheapness of everything. I can get really pretty items for less than a dollar and delicious food costs about 2-3 dollars a dish. I really do mean that the food is D-E-L-I-C-I-O-U-S! And, I can get my hair washed and styled for $2.50. I got my hair washed today and they shampooed my hair twice,massaged it, conditioned it, massaged and exfoliated my face, and blow dried and straightened my hair. I think I'll get my hair washed everyday!

Okay, this is all that I can think of writing. It's about 3:15pm here and everyone here is having their afternoon siesta. lol. I think I'll go to sleep now. tonight, I'll be meeting family and going out for a buffet dinner! i hope i don't gain too much weight here!

The only thing that I hated seeing was the poverty on the streets. There are many well-to-do people here who have three meals a day, a steady income, and a roof over their heads. However, there are many needy souls who sleep on the streets and beg for money, rattling their empty hats at tourists. I see amputees and blind victims who sell lottery tickets to make a living. I see a hungry man rummaging through trash and upon finding a crushed, half-full plastic cup of who knows what, proceeds to drink the contents thirstily. I can't stand seeing this, but I can't help them all. How can I?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam

Freewriting--My Stream of Consciousness

INTRODUCTION: Okay, this is a little writing technique that I use to help boost my creative writing skills every once in a while. I just close my eyes and start typing down whatever comes to my mind, not paying attention to proper punctuation, spelling, or grammar. Sometimes, the end result is quite interesting. I call this "stream of consciousness" because I'm basically writing in the style my thoughts go through my head. So here it goes!


This frail grip that i have on the meaningings of daily lives of people. destruction of everything is eminent. A black

hole that slowly crushes everything to a cingularity is slowly pulling everything. there's life and there's death.

sometimes death comes to things earlier. Everything has life and death. lifeforms, inanimate objects, words, and

relationships. Death till marriage, sporadic divorces on a whim. I wanna break that cycle. Isn't something that is born

has a string connected to what gave it life. Make that indestructable. making a connection, iit stronger till it's

impossible to break. That is my goal. Seein the death of two...no one obeject bornof two or more individual unts...that

death or destruction of the bonds that hold them together is terrible to behold...emotionally a. idealism isn't the best

policy, but. but...we can always dream. and if we want it hard enough we can work to make it happen. the right resources

are needed and then everything will fall into place. Just a little sweat is need.

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muscles rippling as they move...glide underneath taut skin, reflecting light from the flourescent above misted with

excretions of salty sweat, beading up and inching downwards pulled by gravity, finally getting so heavy that the

hydrogen bonds cannot hold it to the skin and dripping down to the black matted floor and evaporating minutes...hours

later.
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Hazy smoke steadily floating upwards diverging in their path into nonexistence--the ceiling turning slowly blacker with each passing moment. The flames burning matter with a distinct odor flicker with a warm orange, red, and yellow colour. Beautiful, but dangerous. Bodies, laying lazily on the couch watch, thoughtless...unmoved.




http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stream_of_consciousness

Late Night....In a lonely world

It's four thirty in the morning and I haven't slept since I woke up on Tuesday morning. I guess I'm gonna go for forty-eight and counting  hours without any sleep. To think of it, I've had a total of about five hours of sleep for the week? I didn't sleep Sunday night because I was up all night cramming for my calculus test on Tuesday. I definitely needed sleep in order to function for the test. After that...I've had the worst case of insomnia. I don't even feel tired in the day--which is really weird.  In addition to that I've been living on a very meager amount of food. I've had no appetite for the past four days. I had a couple of chicken wings, a sandwich, skittles,  and a hamburger to keep my stomach some company. It's not very much and I've lost a couple of pounds during the past four days. It's not healthy for me, I know, but I just can't stand the smell of certain foods right now. It's a little odd. 

WHY CAN I NOT SLEEP! This is absolutely disgusting.

ANGER.

Are there not times when you just feel so frustrated that you feel like yelling and screaming? Well, I've been having a lot of frustrations recently. I mean usually I try not to let anything faze me but as of now I'm not feeling so confident in myself.

I lost my temper the other day. That never happens. I just started screaming at the person who offended me and started throwing things around. I never felt so angry in my entire life. I know that seems really immature to have done at the moment, but it was the only way I could vent that anger and contempt I've been feeling towards certain things.  And even if I could just complain about how I feel towards life right now, that would just probably make me angrier. It would just build and build--I need to forget this anger and let everything go. I need to deconstruct this. Destroy it. 

I feel really bad about losing my temper because I know that anger is such a useless emotion. It doesn't do anything but make other people frustrated and stressed as well. I try as much as to forgive and forget because I know very well what it's like to be the vent of a lot of frustration. That was my father--I would say he had a lot of anger management issues, and that's probably why I'm very distanced from him. After college I felt so free because he was always in such a tempramental  mood that I never realized how oppressive living under the same roof with him was.

And now that I've discovered how angry I can be, I'm a little scared. I don't want to become like my father. I mean and it's just these little things that happen to me that are starting to annoy me. Sometimes, whatever happens is my own fault and other times it's trivial things that other people do. Some things are now just starting to stick to my heart and mind that just eat away and make me so uncomfortable I just feel the need to vent. I've always wanted to be the "chill one", like my uncle. Going with the flow. Never losing my temper. Never hesitating to help out people. 

I know what it's like to be on the recieving end of a very volatile temprament and I really don't want to subject others to the same thing. Why? I believe in karma, and I know the bad things I will do will go around and kick me twice as hard. I really can attest to that.  It's just always been my philosophy to never hold a grudge against somebody or retaliate. I've always been the type to just turn the other cheek if someone slaps the side of my face (is that how it goes? I haven't read the Bible in years). I guess that I can be a pushover sometimes but no one has really ever taken advantage of that. 

Well, I just hope my newfound temper isn't here to stay.

http://www.apa.org/topics/controlanger.html

Finding the Center--- Should I Go See a Doctor?

Finding the perfect balance between recreation and studying has been a continuous problem for me. I have a tendency to lose focus and get distracted by my own thoughts. So instead of focusing on my homework, I zone out for about an hour thinking about random stuff and daydreaming, so when I come back to reality, I'm always suprised by how much time passed while I was away. It's a little disconcerting considering I have a lighter schedule than most which means I should be able to devote more time to my studies. That fails and I end up having as much stress as other people because I procrastinate so much. 

Sometimes I regret taking thirteen credit hours this semester. Usually if I have a busy schedule I get more focused on getting what I need done because I'm pressed to manage my time better. However because I have a light schedule, I'm sometimes under the impression that I have more time than I really do. 

I'm not even sure why and how I waste so much time. I find myself bored a lot with nothing to do. I should be using that time to study--except I just fall asleep or stumble over random websites on my computer. Either that or I hang out with my friends. I guess it's all a matter of being lazy. Right now I'm freaking out about my MA162 test coming up on Tuesday because I just realized I have about three days to study for it and usually I like having a whole week to study.  Unfortunately I'm going have to hunker down for the next three days and never see the light of day and learn the material--or attempt to. I really don't know how to study well at all. 

I've kind of noticed a lot of things about myself for the past few years, and I really wonder if I have ADD or something. It doesn't take much for me to get distracted and sometimes I can get hyperfocused especially if I'm playing videogames or am on the computer.  When I talk, my thoughts like to jump around instead of focusing on the topic at hands, so I'm always saying wrong words completely unrelated to the topic or mixing them together. Also when reading for a class or doing a simple calculus assignment, it takes me about four or five hours when in reality it could be done in one hour. 

I mean, there are times when I can get stuff done quickly, but that's not often and only when my head is feeling completely clear. I can't explain it but sometimes  my head kind of fuzzy since there's so much going on up there and it's really distracting. I don't know...is it normal? 

http://www.add.org/

 

For EXAMS:::Adderall and Ritalin--Performance Enhancing?

I know people who take Adderall or Ritalin for ADD or ADHD, and I know people who take these medications for other things. These drugs are supposed to enhance concentration, treat depression, obesity, and narcolepsy among other things.
Has anyone heard stories about friends using Ritalin/Adderall to enhance academic performance? Solely academic performance, I'm not interested in people taking ampetamines in large quantaties to get high. There's been quite a bit of articles posted about this in the papers and different magazines.

However, I have noticed students crushing, chewing, swallowing, and snorting these prescriptions just for the energizing and concentrating effects. Why? It helps people study. All nighters? No problem, just get your hands on some Ritalin and you're good! Got a test to study for! Go ahead, take some! And ladies, looking to

Doesn't that sound like a great thing to have for college, especially when grades are so important? But then again you do need to realize, Ritalin is called "kiddie coke" because it has similar effects (though much milder) to cocaine and is quite addictive--more so when snorted.

I admit, I've tried Ritalin before. I was curious to see how it would affect me after hearing accounts of my other friends trying it and having the drug work wonders for studying. So, I bought five 10 mg pills and one 30 mg pill from a friend who had a prescription for it and ingested a dose.

As a side note: Possessing Ritalin without a prescription is illegal, as many of you may know. I haven't done this since because (1) I'm scared of getting addicted to it, and (2) I have no money. I don't care so much for the illegal-ness of it. The drug war is failing. Worry about the hard drugs such as heroin, cocaine, meth, crack etc.

Anyways, after a bit I started feeling a rush of energy and then just a calmness. And hell. I could really focus on the task at hand. It really worked. I felt like I could read my text book all day to be honest and classes were so interesting and I loved math lecture for once! I didn't eat at all that day because I had no desire to eat--I could if I wanted, but I didn't feel hungry. However, afterward I was left feeling agitated and very distracted because how I am normally and how I am on Ritalin is so different that the change was a little aggravating. I liked being able to really do things without getting distracted. I actually felt like taking more to keep the other persona going. That's when I realized, "whoa, this could become a problem" so that was an end to the Ritalin. At the moment. Now that I've been introduced to ADD medication and it's helpfulness with schoolwork, the possibility of trying more is always in the back of my head. However, I really don't want to develop a dependence to any drug so for now I stay away.

Adderall: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adderall
Amphetamines: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amphetamine
Ritalin: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ritalin