From the pages of Blogspot comes the tale of a budding young adult, thrust into the ocean of modern society with nothing but his faith, his mind, his family, his music, and the Walrus that resides in his shirt....
So, I'm procrastinating on my lab report. While procrastinating on my lab report, I decided to look back on old posts.
I literally want to cry and hug my 17-18-year-old self and give him chocolate. Because he, like me, loves chocolate.
The posts are so depressing, though. I mean, I am only twenty, but it frightens me to realize exactly where I was only two years ago.
And then I think of where I am now. I'm a pretty happy person. I'm motivated, I'm upbeat, and I'm starting to really enjoy life. I mean, yeah, there are sucky elements to it, but y'know, it's part of the human experience, right?
Live 'n learn, dontcha know.
But seeing my old posts really motivated me to say something:
I know that people who are in dark times -- people who are where I was -- often believe that things don't get better. And I want you to know that they do. How do I know? Because I've been there. I've been there, I've gotten up, and I've kept fighting.
I'm not gonna say getting better is easy, 'cause it's not. I know that. It took me three years to get to where I am today. Three years to recover from ONE thing that dragged me down.
But I'm doing astronomically better now. I wanna tell y'all that it is possible. There is always a better life out there. There is always love.
So get up, keep fighting, keep believing. You're not alone. You have the strength to do this, I promise.
"I've finally found my way, say goodbye to yesterday, hit the gas, there ain't no brakes on this lost highway. Yeah, I'm bustin' loose, I'm lettin' go, out on this open road. It's Independence Day on this lost highway." -- Bon Jovi
Hello again.
So, I'm home for a weekend, which is nice.
College has been pretty good. I've been having a pretty good time. Classes have been tough, but so far, it's been nothing a few hours of hardcore studying haven't been able to fix. So far, it hasn't been any harder than my community college. It's great to see that those three years actually prepared me for full college study.
So how has living away from home been?
Great!
I've gotten to know my suite mates a lot better over the first few weeks, and I have to say, I get along pretty well with all of them.
Well, actually, remember the one who hadn't shown up the last time I posted? Yeah. I've only seen him twice. But he seems nice. If he was there more often, I'd probably get along with him pretty well.
It's pretty funny, I'm not a morning person, but I still get up earlier than all of them. It's so amusing because one of them has two alarms and sleeps through both, so I get up in the morning and leave my room and consistently hear an obnoxious EEEEK EEEEK EEEEK EEEEK coming from the room adgecent to mine. Further, my roommate has two alarms (which both sound very pretty and calming, yet are obnoxious enough to warrant a stagger out of bed) that will go off simultaniously at precisely seven AM. As I brush my teeth, brush my hair, and shave, I get to hear a lovely medley of soft harp strings, birds chirping, light piano, and EEEEK EEEEK EEEEK EEEEK. It's quite amusing.
By the by, has anyone ever played Cards Against Humanity? If not, picture Apples to Apples, but the cards are written by twelve-year-old antireligious asylum patients with serious parent issues. Got a good picture? Great. Now picture something three times worse than that, and you have Cards Against Humanity.
For those of you who have read my blog for a while, you see that I'm pretty polite.
And that's what my suite mates thought about me.
And then we played Cards. .....
To make a long story short, one of them told me that, out of all of the people who he expected to have a sick a sense of humor as I did the way I played, he would have put me on the bottom of that list.
I will not include some of the cards that I put down, but, if you've played, think of the worst combinations possible (excepting the religious ones -- too offensive for my tastes). Chances are, I played one of them.
But I come by the sense of humor honestly.
My mothers' side is infamous for their affinity towards the darker, sicker side. My Uncle Andrew showed me "Raging Rudolph" when I was eight (basically, a gangster version of the beloved Christmas special) and I was scarred for life.
If any of you are interested in learning about my sense of humour, I'd advise you watch this video. It should give you a good understanding.
If you like it, watch all six. Five was the only one I didn't particularly care for. But they're a minute and a half each, so it's not too bad.
So, after years of community college, a graduation, and a long summer of work, move-in day finally arrived. I am typing this from my iPod in my new dorm room. And I have to say, so far, it's been pretty suite.
Har har har.
But seriously though. It's a suite.
And it's pretty cool.
Today was pretty crazy, I have to say.
Move-ins began early, so early was when I had to arise, and due to the unexpectedly long time it took to pack and the fact that I visited a friend at his graduation party, I did not get to bed until late.
Anyway, after finishing up packing, Mom, Banana, Patar, and I all left for my university.
The drive was pretty uneventful, and soon we got to what was going to be my home for the next nine months.
After unloading my stuff, and after literally running across town to get my student ID (a necessity which my orientation leaders failed to supply) we were moving in.
Now, since I had to pack that morning, we had left a little earlier than planned. I expected all of my roommates to be there already, but surprisingly, none had showed up yet (the first one showed up probably three or four hours later).
Thus, I had first pick when it came to my bedding area, which was nice. Setting stuff up in a neat and orderly fashion was relatively easy.
My roommates are all pretty chill, which is a cool thing.
Unfortunately, I'm a transfer student living in an upperclass dorm, so most people there know each other already.
But I've met some cool people anyway.
To be honest, it is a little scary going into a completely new situation. But hey, life isn't interesting if you don't throw yourself out into the water every once in a while, no?
Besides, they have a Catholic student union, and I know one of the members already, so that's cool.
It'll be good to meet people who share my faith.
Anyway, right now I'm chilling in my room. There's a baseball game going on nearby and I can hear the announcer loud and clear through my open window. It's kind of annoying, but whatever. I can live with it.
My roommates are gone, except one who's watching YouTube videos in the next room.
One of my roommates has yet to show. It's pretty funny actually.
Ah, life is interesting.
Don't know what awaits me tomorrow, but I have to say, I am certainly looking forward to it.
It's cool to be living away from home anyway. I'm really looking forward to the club fair. Hopefully I'll join some vocal ensembles and some good clubs, maybe a frat... I dunno.
Anyway, I just installed a blogger app on my iPod, so I'll probably be posting more often.
Hasta luego!
T-WAC
P.S. this is my room. Pretty not bad, and it makes me feel pretty cool to know that I'm a heck of a lot more organized than my roommate, LOL.
When we look back at our early childhood, I'm sure we all have things we remember.
Perhaps we would wake up at the crack of dawn and play with our siblings (if we had any) and toys until 7:00 AM, when we would watch "Clifford The Big Red Dog" or "Dragon Tails" or "Arthur" on the PBS station, until Mom and Dad got up, at which point we would eat breakfast and maybe play outside afterwards.
Yeah, I bet that sounds pretty typical, pretty run-of-the-mill for the most of you. And I can't say my early childhood was very different. However, there were some things. A few things that most of us... well, most of us didn't have. I have compiled a list of my "Childhood Gems" here, the reasons I have a sick sense of humour and some rather... odd... tastes.
Ahem.
Gem No. 1: Combo Number Five
Now let me tell you something about my family. We've never been particularly apt in the social appropriateness department, least of all in the subdepartment of social appropriateness known as political correctness.
My grandmother on my mother's side is the prime example of this, as she could be in many ways what would now be termed as racist (she would do things such as squinting her eyes in an exaggerated fashion and immitating the man who took our order at the Chinese food place. "Oh, ya, you get awon large gen'el tso chicken? And two eggroll?").
Not that my grandmother ever saw the Chinese as anything less than anyone else. In her defense, she simply found the Chinese accent funny. Not that I believe that making fun of those of any race is in any way beneficial to society. But anyway.
My father had a video on his computer, a Chinese food parody of "Mambo Number Five" by some artist whose name I do not remember. My siblings and I would watch it and laugh hysterically.
Here it is:
Gem No. 2: WASSUPPP?!
Anyone remember the old Budweiser commercials? Yeah, those frequented my childhood. Dad has a number of strange interests, one of which is commercials. Here are a few of them.
...And naturally, people took this and made their own videos. I remember seeing this one as a kid all the time.
Funny thing is, I'm still laughing just as hard, if not harder, than I did when I was a kid.
Gem No. 3: Tank Girl
So, what music did ya'll listen to as kids? "Mary Had A Little Lamb"?
I have to say, I had my share of nursery rhymes. However, there were some other things there as well. My parents both loved a really campy and absurdly ridiculous movie from the '90s called "Tank Girl."
And, until Banana and I started singing the lyrics, the songs from the soundtrack frequented our ears.
I've posted a few of these before, but here are some of the examples:
Please note, Banana could not WOULDN'T go to sleep unless my mother blasted "Shove" and literally ran across the room with her back and forth.
And finally, the one that caused my parents to stop playing the soundtrack altogether when we started repeating lyrics.
Gem No. 4: Elfbowling
My parents have a very odd sense of humour, to say the least. Occasionally, as a child, I would walk in on one of my parents playing a game called "Elfbowling." In this game, you played as Santa, bowling down elves on strike at the end of a lane.
Pretty harmless. At least, until the elves started moving and/or taunting you.
"Fewer Toys! Higher Wages!"
"Gutterball..."
"Is that all the balls you got, Santa?"
My personal favorite was an elf saying "Hey, Santa," followed by all of them turning around in unison and pulling down their pants.
I think I got to play it once or twice.
As for the sequel, which was a shuffleboard match between Santa and his South Pole brother, and involved elves in thongs, on the other hand....
I said the Gems were messed up, not traumatizing.
These are the major ones, as these are the ones that I experienced at the earliest age.
This will probably be followed by a sequel, with other, later gems. I look forward to that.
As of now, I can barely keep my eyes open, much less look back at my childhood.
