monty says...

john cleese said in on becoming a leader, "the essence of creativity is not the possession of some special talent, it is much more the ability to play."

i remember one time in fourth grade, during arts period, the teacher gave us a piece of paper and told us to draw. "draw anything," she said.

so i started drawing, with nothing in mind. just draw. i ended up with this weird ass red cross on a space ship floating in black space.

i think at that time i was pretty ashamed of it because it didn't look like anything. not a flower, not an apple, not a pretty little two-storey house with a garden.

so when the teacher came by, i hesitantly showed her my drawing. "it's not very good. i'm not sure what it is exactly."

her reply? i can't remember exactly, but it was basically something along the lines of, "it's really creative. good job."

i don't know to what degree that affected me and turned me into the person i am today. but reflecting back, i'm pretty grateful that she didn't tell me how horrible my drawing was.

somehow, the past two decades has turned me into someone who is not really creative. academia in the united states doesn't allow one to be creative. well, rarely.

it's hard to do so when you're a history major in college. everything i learned and was tested on was based on facts. though i have to admit that i did take some creative liberties during my southeast asian history finals when i said that pol pot was captured and executed during the 1970's. a few days after my final, i learned that he was captured by the khmer rouge.

in my contemporary japanese culture class, one of the options for the final was to draw a manga on the significance of manga in japanese culture. i jumped at the chance and did a 8 page manga on the topic. it was great. i was able to name drop the smiths and morrissey on the t-shirts my main characters were wearing.

more recently... well more like three years ago, deidra got me to participate in a easter egg tree project for joshua, one of our friends' son. i have to say it was very fun, and deidra was surprised that i was so creative.

anyway, it's really a shame that we are not allowed to show and use our creativity when we were in school and when we are at work. we are not allowed to make mistakes at our jobs. we are so afraid of failure that we become stagnant and stuck doing the same things at our jobs just to get by. follow the status quo.

but life isn't stagnant. you can't succeed without change. change is good. change is necessary. and if you've read who moved my cheese, you would understand.

on becoming a leader

i'm currently reading on becoming a leader by warren bennis for my masters seminar class. it's a pretty interesting read, especially since it's not dry. anyway, here are four points on self-knowledge (learning about yourself):

1. you are your own best teacher.
2. accept responsibility. blame no one.
3. you can learn anything you want to learn.
4. true understanding comes from reflecting on your experience.

you know how some people are mean drunks? and how other people are sloppy drunks?

well, i finally discovered what i am. i'm an annoying, lecture drunk. i've discovered that the last few times that i've been drinking, i ended up lecturing on people to go back to school. at one party, after about 8 shots of liquor, i spent about 2 hours yelling at this one friend of a friend's to go back to school.

i didn't realize that i was out there for that long. to the intoxicated me, it seemed only like 30 minutes. but by the time i went back inside the house, almost everyone had left. incredibly surreal.

anyway, last friday, i was outside with another friend of a friend's and he was telling me how he didn't like what he was doing professionally. so i ended up telling him to follow his goal. it was horrible. i mean, i guess you can say that i'm really a passionate drunk. *sigh*

so i think i finally found a student affairs job. if everything goes according to plan, i'll be working in the financial aid office of la trade technical college (lattc). that's actually where one of my professor is working as the dean of enrollment. so i think i might see him from time to time.

my schedule has now become incredibly hellish. i put my schedule on an spreadsheet, and it's not good. not at all. but i guess everyone has to go through hell sometime or another. in the old days, i think i would have enjoyed the challenge. not that i'm not right now. but i can't honestly say that i'm going to enjoy it. maybe in several years, when i look back at this, i'll be able to say what an amazing person i am.

so we finally got the softball team up and running. we have about 13 people so far so that's a pretty good number of players. tomorrow, we're planning to practice at the junior high. i'm definitely looking forward to doing something athletic and taking my mind off of work and school.

that's about it. it's been a shitty week except the new episode of the gilmore girls was pretty good.

eating pussy

well, it looks like women in their late teens and 20's like to eat pussy. sweeeet!

excerpt:

The trend among college women has prompted some sexual behavior experts to light-heartedly refer to the term "LUG," or "lesbian until graduation," said Craig Kinsley, a neuroscientist at the University of Richmond who studies the biology of sexual orientation and gender.

take that, fucking christian coalition.

shrinkage

trying to find a therapist is a pain in the ass. not that i have much of a problem talking, but it's hard to get the person up to speed to what's going on with my life and since they (the therapist) aren't sure you're coming back, they don't really put too much effort into the first session.

so yes, i've finally decided to go see a therapist. inasmuch as i don't give a shit who knows, i'm blogging about it. most people know that i'm really open about things in my life. i don't feel the need to hide things to people. okay, that's not true. i certainly wouldn't be that opened to people at work or at school. they don't know me well enough not to judge.

i've been, as the song by st. etienne goes, in a bad way the last couple of weeks. nothing major (i hope), but there's definitely something that is bothering me. so much so that yesterday i decided to contact my health insurance to find out about seeking some mental health.

i think in a way i'm lucky. having worked with mental health researchers and being exposed to the notion that seeking mental health is not only okay but something people should do (even if you're fine), certainly make this step easier. i think it's best not to let shit fester, don't you think?

after going through all the bureaucratic crap, i went to the providers website and printed out a list of potential therapist. this morning, i rang a couple of them up and luckily got a woman who had an open slot at 3pm. i went.

i had in my mind, previous, that i wouldn't want to deal with a woman therapist. i would be too embarrassed to say anything that could be construed as negative. afterall, the point of going to therapy is to be truthful of what you want to talk about. there's certainly no point in going when you're trying to hide shit. you'll just be wasting your money.

but since she's available and i wanted to see how therapy actually is, i decided to fuck my preconception of who i wanted and went. on the phone, i thought she was some fat, old white woman. i couldn't be more wrong.

she turned out to be a thin, middle-aged, black woman. it would be a mistake to say that i wasn't taken aback with who came walking out to the reception area to meet me. but since i'm not really that big of a racist (haw, haw), it was fine. actually, it was pretty good. i felt pretty much at ease with her and after getting to her little office, i started talking about my life and why i think i was there.

i'm not going to go into what i told her or what she told me. as open a person as i am, there are somethings that are confidential. i wouldn't ask you to tell me about your darkest secret, would i? though, i didn't really talk about my darkest secrets with her since... shit, i don't know her from adam.

i'm not sure if i was surprised by the whole experience or not. it was pretty standard. what you see in movies and tv. the one thing i didn't like, and it's not really her fault, is that at the end of the session, she wasn't trying to motivate me to stick with her. i guess she didn't want to pressure me with continuing with her.

now, that being said, i do feel a bit rejected. but it's clear why she didn't do that. since i was testing her out and vice versa, she can't really tell me to continue seeing her. she just said, well if i wanted to see her again, i should give her a call.

i haven't yet decided if i want to do that. it's always good to talk to a professional about issues that arise during your life. it's nice.

oh, and then i went and finally got my new glasses today. they fit really nicely.

below are the lyrics to the st. etienne song (for those interested).

you're in a bad way (st. etienne)

toast is burnt
and your coffee's cold
and you leave all the post
cause it's nothing but bills again

home from work
put the TV on
get your kicks watching
bruce on the old generation game

chorus:
just dial my number
i've got some plans for you
you're in a bad way
and I can help you through

you're in a bad way
every day seems just the same
just dial my number
and call my name

jeans are old
and your hair's all wrong
don't you know that crew cuts and trainers are out again

going out
you're feeling low
running for cover
it looks like it's going to rain (what a shame)

chorus twice

starbucks

i must be hanging out at starbucks too much.

this morning, one of the regulars (i'm talking about one of the five or six guys who are always there... and i thought i go there a lot), took this picture of me while he was playing with his camera.

when i went back to starbucks after dinner, he showed me some of the pictures he took. i thought this one turned out pretty well, so i asked him to email it to me.

jenny was also there, so i told her (as a joke), now i have a picture to jack off to.

in typical jenny fashion, she emailed me this little tidbit.

you think you have a picture to jack off to...so does that guy and his friends! hahahahahha

nice, something to think about on those cold, lonely nights.

wasting my precious life

okay, this is something new.

it's my first video... i hope it works. shotty camera work by yours truly.

if you have the time, and if you would like... click here.

the music is the la's, there she goes. enjoy.

oh, btw, i would like to thank tony and chris for helping me out with windows movie maker 2 and cuteftp (and a whole bunch of crap today), respectively.

mm2 will definitely help me make a video later on for a class. i'm so excited.

it's a small world, afterall

well, the disney themepark opened in hk yesterday. this picture is, of course, before any of the major construction took place.

after bitching from animal-rights activists, they will not be serving shark-fin soup for those holding weddings at the park. shark-fin soup is a delicacy in china.

unfortunately, what they do to get shark fins is to catch the sharks, cut off the fins, and then put them back into the water. the sharks are unable to survive after getting their fins cut off, thus they die.

there were also disturbing news about how the higher-ups at the park wanted all the stray dogs to be caught so they don't run around the place (the park is built on an outlay island in hk, near the international airport). and many of these dogs are killed off. nice.

they should just send them to korea...

anyway, the happiest place on earth, right?

the new four seasons hotel opened up in hk. my parents went looking around and told me that it's incredibly beautiful. obviously, with great beauty comes great prices. there's a restaurant there that had two set lunches, a & b. set a will run you about HK$600 (or US$75) and set b will cost you double that at HK$1200 (or US$150). nice, eh?

rates for the hotel are as follows (all per night)... b&b is HK$3200 (US$400), standard rates is HK$3800 (US$475), and excecutive club assess is HK$3800 (US$475). nice bathrooms.

so if anyone is interested in visiting and staying at the four seasons... let me know, i'd like to stay with you. hahaha.

dre day

quick shoutout to my buddy andrea, who's celebrating her birthday today (yeah, of all days). hope you're doing well in the NYC.

chinese proficiency

i've been doing some basic research on working in hk, both at the secondary school level and postsecondary institutions level.

in the postsecondary level, they require you to be able to read and write chinese and english. remember this is just basic research. i wonder if it'll behoove me to learn some puatonghua. god, my pinyin (i'm not even sure if that's how your spell puatonghua) is horrific and my prounciation is even worse.

i need a good amount of time to do some thorough research on this.

this could be my best bet though.

rest in peace

RIP to those who perished during the terrorist attacks in nyc and washington d.c.

you will not be forgotten.

also, to those who died serving this country... let's hope your deaths will not be in vain (even though gwbush is doing a damn good job at making it so).

how many more young men and women must die for this unjustified war?

hong kong dreaming

dream... dream, dream, dream... dream, dream, dream... when i feel blue...

so deidra was telling me how several weeks ago, while we were sleeping, i woke her up in the middle of the night because i was thrashing about in bed. when she asked me if everything was alright, i started speaking to her in cantonese.

it would have been interesting to find out what i said, but unfortunately, her recorder was in the computer room.

for all i know, i could have been telling her the answer to life's greatest mystery...

if i dream in cantonese, does that mean i think predominantly in the sino? i wonder how one can do research on that stuff. anyone?

intinerary change

there is a slight change in our plan for europe.

we've decided to make things less painful, we'll just be going to ireland, england, and france. sorry germany and the netherlands, you won't be having the pleasure of having us in your country.

why is this, you ask?

well, as much as we would like to go to five european countries, it didn't really sit well with me.

1. time limitations. though the plan is for us to go away for two weeks, i feel like we will be pressing for time to do all the things we wanted to do. 5 countries in 12 days (two flying days) averages out to 2.4 days in one country. that's just too much of a rush. after finding out that we can't really do much after flying into shannon, ireland, we'll have to spend at least three days there to do what we want to do. that'll give us 9 days for four other countries. blah!

2. money saving. since the new itinerary will have us leave from france, we won't be spending $312/person on the europass. that's $624 we can spend on better accommodations. four days in ireland, four days in england, four days in france. perfection. we can actually stay at med-price hotels and b&b's instead of hostels. even though there are some good hostels in ireland, i think it's better to stay at hotels.

3. insanity. planning for three countries will make it so much easier than planning for five. i've been concentrating so much on getting from ireland to england and from england to paris that i haven't even start planning the france to germany and germany to the netherlands part. if i'm having so much trouble doing just the three countries, doing five would drive me clinically insane. (good thing i work at the VA, eh.)

4. desired destinations. with this new itinerary, deidra will be able to go to the three places she's been wanting to go. in case you haven't been paying attention, they are ireland (cliffs of moher, blarney castle), england (stonehenge), and france (the louvre and versailles). the one place i really wanted to visit (and yes, i know it's surprising since i'm such a big anglophile) is ireland. england is great and all, but fuck if ireland isn't maddenly beautiful.

5. future considerations. with only three countries, this will give us the desire to go back to europe sometime in the future. i'm sure deidra will like that idea. i certainly would love to go to germany sometime in the future. and all the scandinavian countries (including finland). and deidra has expressed an interest in eastern europe.

so there it is. this itinerary will ameliorate the whole planning process. and with more time in each country, we can take our time and not have to rush everything. yay! hooray for the new itinerary.

higher education

is it weird that when i see little kids running around starbucks or anywhere for that matter, i think about how difficult it'll be for them to get a decent college education. hmm... maybe a decent postsecondary education isn't too difficult to obtain. it's the cost of that decent education that i'm worried about.

with uc's and even cal states uping their admission standards, and with california community colleges underfunded, it'll be really difficult for parents to afford a college education for their children.

the more i read about it and the more we discuss the issues with higher education, it seems like the whole system is going to the shits. sure there are loans, but with the government's decrease in educational spending, the next generation of kids wanting to obtain a bachelor's degree will find it really difficult to do so.

so, good luck everyone.

smack in the face of reality

in my previous post, i wrote that i hated spammers. well, after a couple of weeks commuting on the I10, i'm certain that the interstate is right up there with the spammers. seriously, what the hell are people during at 11am that they need to be on that fucking freeway? i have to admit though, that i really like the electric traffic signs (usually for amber alerts) that inform commuters how long it'll take to get to the 405 and the 110.

anyhoot, it's been a crazy week. it just flew by pretty quickly (except when i'm on the I10). work's been okay. yesterday, my boss took us to lunch. we weren't expecting him to pay, but he did. we went to bj's in westwood, a place i don't normally like to go to, but their clam chowder is actually pretty good. and they give you a pretty big bowl of it when you order the 1/2 sandwich and 1/2 soup meal. however, the roast beef sandwich i got left much to be desired. it was a bit dry and there's nothing worse than eating a dry sandwich (well, maybe driving on the I10). *snicker*

i can say for certain that my boss is a crazy man and a car enthusiast. when he heard that one of the student workers was driving his mother's jaguar, he got pretty excited (like creaming his pants excited). oh, speaking of cars... so the bmw dealership fixed his car and he got it back on thursday. luckily, it was still under warranty because it ended up costing about $8k to fix (according to my boss). insane.

so this is the crazy part. he was telling us about how he was forced out of ucla because he spoke his mind. normally, that isn't such a bad thing, but he's the type of guy who would cuss you out regardless of who you are. fuck this and shit that. in a way, being able to stand up for what you think is right is a good attribute. but, burning bridges is pretty bad, regardless of what vocation you're in. he said while he was a post-doc, he told his boss to shove his letter of recommendation up his ass. "fuck you!" all this because his boss wanted him to come in on sunday to work in his lab.

and i thought i was bad.

but as a boss, he's pretty good. he has a hands-off approach, which i really like. granted, i'm not good at being a self-starter, but it's worse if he was micro-managing me. i would be really resentful.

after work wednesday, i decided to drop by majany's (mark, jay, tony's) since the I10 was bad (yes, this is a re-accuring theme). i wasn't planning to have dinner, but after gordon came, we headed out to this japanese place in culver city. it wasn't too bad food-wise and it was nice hanging out with some friends. before and after dinner, we played some poker, tournament style. i busted tony (self-proclaim poker genius) out twice, and won the after-dinner tournament. poker is fun, but i can never put in more than $5 for a game.

it's strange not seeing rob at mjr's anymore. he's on a soul-searching trip to south america and southeast asia. i really have a lot of admiration for him for being able to get out of his comfort zone and travel to foreign countries without any qualms. deidra would be the first person to tell you that getting me to travel is like moving mountains. it's not so much i don't like to travel, but i always have these issues with going to foreign countries. if it's not my GI problems, then i feel like i'm going to get rob and killed in these places.

don't worry, i'm not talking myself out of going on our european honeymoon. i'm looking forward to doing a bit of traveling with deidra. unfortunately, the planning process is a bitch and i'm not enjoying it very much.

so yeah, with rob on his trip, julia (the girlfriend) is feeling a bit out of sorts. all of us definitely miss rob very much, but i think it's more difficult for her since she LOVES the guy! if you're reading this julia, feel free to call me up for a chat. i hope you'll be alright. and just think, in a couple of months, you'll see rob again and you can have some doking back in your life.

school is going okay. i still need to find a student affairs job so i can actually start working on my fieldwork hours. i need to work on a couple of cover letters for a part-time job at the school of social work. pain in the ass, but a necessary evil.

i miss hanging out at starbucks. i can only do so on my off days now. i'm suppose to work on last week's journal entry but it's going a bit slow (especially with blogging and checking out the college football and mlb scores). then i have to start reading for this week's classes, which isn't too bad since most of the articles and book chapters are pretty interesting.

my parents called me yesterday. i haven't spoken to them in about three days (yeah, yeah three days, big whoop). anyway, my mum was telling me how she met some woman at starbucks (alexandra house) who's from seattle and works at one of hk's international schools. that got them a bit excited about how after i get my masters degree, i can also work at one of these schools.

deidra and i talked about it, and if it makes sense financially for me to go back to hk to work while she stays here to finish up her psych.d degree, we would do it. if i haven't said so, i think it's really admirable for her to work with me on this. i know it'll be really difficult for the both of us but i really think this will work. after a couple of years, we can both be working in hk and once we make enough money, we can go back to the states. granted, there's a lot of research left to do, but since i won't get the degree until next fall, there's still time. and, anyway, i was planning to work a year here after graduating so i get say i have some experience in the field.

a selling point for this plan is that during holidays, we can go travelling in asia, which i'm sure, is something she'd love to do.

at certain points this week, i got a bit depressed when thinking about our future. i shouldn't say, "our future" since that implies some sort of marital issue. but more like my career and such. even though i know what i have to do and what i (think) want to do, it just seems like it's so far out of reach. i feel like i'm at a point where i should already have a career and already be starting a family. time is moving so slowly (and yet it isn't). school is taking forever it seems like. i'm in such a rush to make a living. it's laughable how several years ago, that thought would have never crossed my mind.

the stress of growing older.

don't worry, i'll be back to normal in a couple of days. it's just the way i am. the child inside of me vs. facing reality. i wonder if this is why binge drinking seems so good to me right now. hahaha.

fucking spammers

i'm so sick of fucking spammers that i've changed the comments option to only those people who are registered with blogger are allowed to comment. of course, i know eventually, they'll be able to bypass this, but for now, i hope it'll be okay.

sorry for y'all who want to comment but aren't members with blogger. but it's not like anyone other than mark, julia, and deidra comment anyway.

so happy day to everyone.

predicament

okay, i called the 'sc travel agency. now we have ourselves a predicament... well, not really, but maybe a better word would be dilemma.

we have a couple of options, which means i'll have to do a little online research to see which one is more financially feasible.

first option (open-jaw ticket): we'll fly into shannon, ireland and head east. ireland, england, france, germany, and the netherlands. flying out of amsterdam back to the states. the ticket will run us about $672 (taxes included). this will be on continental airlines.

second option (direct flight): we'll fly into shannon, ireland and head east then back west to shannon. depending if we want to stay in chicago for five plus hours on the way back, the ticket will run us either $583 or $606 (the higher priced tickets means we don't have a long layover in chicago). this will be on american airlines and air lingus (don't get me started on air lingus... or as i would like to call it, air cunnilingus *snicker*)

the problem is will getting back to shannon, ireland (direct flight) be more or less expensive than the difference between the two tickets ($672-$583=$85).

the europass will be $316 per person, which is the 3 bordering countries, 5 travel days within 2 months (this is the two or more people traveling special saver, normally it would be $370). this if we do option one (open-jawed flight) will do nicely. however, if we do option two (direct flight) it might not work out so wonderfully.

actually, on second thought (sorry, bear with me here, i'm using this blog as a sounding board), let's look at this again. given that we won't be using the europass until we leave france to go to germany... that's one day. germany to amsterdam, that's two days. (shit, i'm getting pretty excited thinking about this.)

europass traveling day 1: france to germany
europass traveling day 2: germany to the netherlands
europass traveling day 3: the netherlands to france

hmm... wait a minute, this doesn't really work well. since britrail isn't part of the eurorail system, having to go back through the chunnel and then having to go between england and ireland will probably cost more than $85.

so it would make more sense to have the open-jaw flight.

this is so painful. *sigh*

okay, i think our best option is the open-jaw flight.

having establish that as the course of action, now there are several other things to consider.

1. find a way to get from cork to dublin (if need be). the only reason why we need to do that is to get to england. we might be able to get a cheap commercial flight from cork into london, which would really save us having to go up to dublin and then take the ferry to holyhead in england.

2. with our europass, it would be a waste to use only three traveling days (since it's for five). so i wonder if we can go up to check out oslo, norway, stockholm, sweden, or copenhagen, denmark. i'll have to look into that. it would be interesting to check out these places.

3. need to set up accomodations. deidra and i decided that in ireland, germany, and the netherlands, we'll be staying in hostels. we checked out some of them and they look to be pretty nice. in london (if we stay the night) and in paris, we'll be staying at hotels. the problems we've encountered with london and paris is that since they are such big tourist cities that there are no good (read: up to our standards) hostels. there are some decently priced hotels in london and paris anyway for less than $150 a night. yeah, yeah, i know, for someone like me, spending $150 a night at a hotel isn't really worth it. but that's just me. fuck, what do you do at a hotel anyway except the three S's: sleeping, shitting, and having sex.

anyway, let's take a look at this shall we?

1. the travel agent, kim, from 'sc travel agency said that there are cheap commerical flights from dublin to london (around $30). so there should be ones that fly from cork to london. let's search.

hold up... crap. the europass is only for three countries, meaning norway, sweden, and denmark is outta the question. damn shame.

okay, back to 1. whoa... this is really fucking weird. so i checked out these two airlines, easyjet and ryanair, and they have ridiculously low prices to fly from cork to london (gatwick and stansted, respectively).

oh, hahaha, so on the ryanair website, it says that the webfare from cork to stansted is 0.01 euro. what the fuck, right? i mean, christ, 0.01 euros? but then when i selected it, they added taxes, fees, and charges which total 19.96 euros. still, that's not bad at all. oh, yeah, that's for two... TWO people. i'm a bit skeptical with it's low fares.

for easyjet, the cost is 4.49 euros per person. with taxes and charges, the total comes out to be 29.98 euros for two. a simple calculation makes it out to be... carry the one, minus four, times two... about $36.

wow, there's so much to search for. instead of taking the chunnel, we can fly from london to paris. i wonder if that's better. however, the problem is that we'll be in salisbury. let's see... the chunnel will cost $52 and it looks like flights are a bit more expensive. okay, so scrap that plan. actually, that's not true.

crap, i'm flying (no pun intended) all over the place. i've never heard of stansted airport in london, but according to this website, it's not too bad with direct coach service to victoria for 8.50 pounds. for gatwick, there's an express and a bus that's 8.90 pounds and 7.50 pounds, respectively. so as far as getting into london from these two airports is concern, it shouldn't be a problem.

god, it's so hard to keep things straight.

okay, let's give it a shot.

1. la to shannon, via newark on continental 12/12 -12/13, landing in shannon at 7:35am.
2. shannon to galway. i'll have to find a way to get there.
3. galway to cork. once again, i'll have to find a way there.
4. cork to london. flying with either easyjet or ryanair.
5. london to salisbury. another must find a way to get there.
6. salisbury to ashford (where the chunnel is, according to kim, the travel agent).
7. ashford to paris via the chunnel.
8. paris to berlin via the eurorail.
9. berlin to frankfurt via the eurorail (to get to aachen).
10. acchen to some city in benelex other than amsterdam.
11. whatever city in benelex to amsterdam.
12. amsterdam back to the la via houston on continental 12/26, arriving back in la at 10:40pm.

note: plan 9-11 is very, very tentative. i'll have to do some more research and see if it's feasible.

crap, if i don't leave now, i won't be going into work today. i have a feeling that's probably not going to happen. *sigh*

the master plan (tentative)

after much anguish and sobbing (and wanting to destroy things on my part), deidra and i have a tentative plan for our honeymoon.

where are we going to go?

well, i'm glad you asked.

we will fly into shannon, ireland. from there, we'll go to galway for the burren & atlantic coast tour to see the cliffs of moher (pictured).

next, we'll be heading to cork, where the blarney castle lies so we can kiss the blarney stone and get the gift of the gab. now, most of you will probably say, "you don't need the gift of the gab, you need the gift of shut the fuck up." you're probably right, but hey, when in rome...

from cork, we need to find a quick and reasonable way to london, either flying from the cork airport, or going up to dublin and taking the ferry across to holyhead. not sure what to do there.

after getting into london, we'll be heading down to salisbury to see stone-henge. i don't think we'll be staying in london for long because of the cost and it's not really that interesting. from stonehenge, we'll have to go back to london to take the chunnel across the english channel to paris.

in paris, we'll be checking out the louvre, the eiffel tower, and versailles.

after spending a couple of days there, we'll be using the europass to get to berlin, munich, or frankfurt. i'm not sure what's there, but i want to go check germany out. and the beers aren't too bad there either. oh, we just found out about this place called, carolus thermen, which looks to be really good. it's in the city of aachen, which is close to the netherlands.

then we'll head over to amsterdam to schmoke a little schweed. that's about it. the cool thing about the eurorail is that belgium, the netherlands, and luxembourg is considered as one country (benelex) so you don't have to waste your two extra countries on your europass.

i think after that, we'll be heading home. much poorer in funds, but culturally wealthy. that's the tentative plan. it'll be a painful planning process, but i think we'll definitely enjoy our trip. if anyone has any suggestions (like i said before), please feel free to tell me.

the european process

deidra and i are in the process of planning our long awaited honeymoon. it's a tedious process. at first, we were thinking of going to europe. to make it easier on us, we thought about just getting those 9-day packages that will take you to three different countries/cities (london, paris, and amsterdam).

after mulling over it, we decided that it's too expensive for what we're getting. so then we thought about going to asia. there are these 15-day packages that will take you to places like thailand, laos, and cambodia. it sounds great and all, but then i thought about how my GI system would kill me in these places. however, what piqued my interest with these packages is the one day cooking stop that will teach you how to cook ethic thai food. here's a picture of amy learning the ways of thai food (fuck, you get a chef's hat and everything).

however, the problems that i'll have will probably make this sort of trip unenjoyable, so we decided against it.

now we're back with planning our own trip to europe. no tours, no packages since apparently we can do it cheaper if we plan our own itinerary. though i'm not looking forward to the planning process, i think it'll be cool to go to europe for a week (at least) or maybe two weeks if we can hack it. europe in the winter time. snow and rain. i'm getting excited. i can actually find a use for the rain coat that i got a while back. seriously, what use is a rain coat in southern california?

to help us with this endeavor, we've purchased two books: lonely planet's guide to western europe and rick steve's, europe through the backdoor 2005. (haw, haw... he said backdoor). the plan so far is to go to ireland (cuz it's suppose to be fucking beautiful), england (my homeland, *snicker*), france (deidra's people), and the netherlands (or more specifically, amsterdam).

to save money, we'll probably stay at cheap hotels. the only criteria i have is that we have our own lavatory and shower. i don't need to be sharing a toilet with other travelers. and what's the point of spending money on a hotel room when all we'll be doing is sleeping and fucking (oops... sorry, i meant making sweet inter-racial love).

so, that's what we're planning to do this morning. afterwards, we'll be doing laundry and cleaning out mr. wellington's cage. if we have time, i was thinking of going to the chinese market cuz i want some homemade dumplings.

oh, i forgot, if anyone knows of anything good deals on hotels or places to go in europe, please let me know. granted, we can't do EVERYTHING there is to offer, but we can certainly try. and just in case you're wondering why we're going to europe during the rainy season... well cuz that's when we have time off from school.

doggy at the starbucks

since i had my camera with me, i decided to take a picture of this dog. he/she is so damn cute. he/she is just sitting there staring at its master after licking a plate of what i think to be cream cheese.

while i was looking at this dog, a thought flew into my head. here he/she is, lying on the ground... a somewhat nasty, dirty ground. and then he/she will be lying inside the house. is that's a bit disgusting? dragging in nastiness of the streets back into the house.

then there's the whole dog licking thing. some people love having their dogs lick them on the face. i don't even want to start on how nasty that is. arms, legs... okay, i can take that. but on the face? no thanks. i love you, but i don't think i'll be letting you kiss me on the face.

i think when deidra and i are more financially stable, we'll get a basset hound, cuz they are cool looking, and another one similar to the one you see here. something big and furry. sure, that'll just kill the couch and carpet, but i don't want some hairless little piece of shit. i can't stand little dogs.

introducing shaq and kobe

here are shaq and kobe playing in the big wheel. rarely do they do this together, but luckily, i had the camera in hand for this. shaq is the one on the right in the back. kobe is the one on the left in front. i tried getting a picture of them separately, but they move so fast that all i end up taking are fuzzy pictures of them.

see what i mean? this one is of kobe. kobe is cool. she lets you hold her. she does knibble on your hand to see if there's any food, but it doesn't hurt too badly. she is completely gray and is just a big ball of fur.

this is shaq and she's doing something that bugs the shit out of me. she likes to knibble on the bars of her cage. everytime she does this, i either flick her little nose or i squeeze her little paws that are situated on one of the bars. when i do that, she would squeal with displeasure. but she never learns. deidra said that i should rub the bars with tobasco as a way to condition her not to bite the bars. that's just too much trouble.

introducing mr. wellington

here are some pictures of our furry friend, mr. wellington. even thought it's a female guinea pig, we decided to make cause her some sexual confusion. check out the mohawkish hair on her. it's petty cool. the brick that you see on the right is for her to chisle her sharp claws (though, it's not really working that well since she's not really sure what it's for).

mr. wellington in my arms. appar-ently, guinea pigs are afraid of being lift up. but once they are safely in your arms, next to your body, they are okay. they also like to be given treats, such as carrots and other veggies and hay. oh how they love the tommy hay.

wedding bells are a chimin'

okay, mad props to mark's sister, cassie and her very-soon-to-be husband, john. they are getting married tomorrow (sunday) and i wish them all the best.

while the whole zappaterreno and morning clans are in vegas, taking part in this festive occasion, i'm left with feeding their dogs, ozzy and zorro.

last time this happened, they growlled at me. twice.

but luckily this time, they're much more friendlier. i think the last minute tip john told me, which was that i should call them by their names, really helped. no growling, but more jumping, slobbering, and overall happiness that someone is here to feed them.

so here's my routine. i give them two biscuits each. then give them each one pig's ear (ozzy does the turning trick, but zorro just stares at me and have the "i'm not doing that shit, bitch" look on his face). after that, i go fill up their food bowls with the food from the garage. place them in the backyard deck and watch them start eating their food.

pretty simple.

on an entirely different note:

on friday, as i was leaving work (early), i saw the professor i was working for standing outside on the street, talking on his cell phone. i wasn't sure if i should sneak back into the building or if i should just hide since i was leaving early.

but before i could decide, the door to the building slammed behind me and he turned and waved at me. so i walked a bit closer and asked him if everything was alright.

turns out, everything wasn't quite alright. earlier in the day, he took his beamer to the beverly hills dealership to get something fixed. the dealership guy calls him at 5pm to tell him that he won't get his car until tuesday. unfortunately, he left his house keys in the car, so without getting to his car, he won't be able to get back into this house.

the dealership sent a guy from a rental car place to pick him up. but he was concerned that by the time he finishes up with all the paperwork from the rental place, the dealership will be closed (at 6:30pm). not to mentioned that it was about 5:55pm already and the rental guy wasn't even here.

a couple of minutes later, the rental place pick-up car arrived and the guy picking him up refused to drive him to the dealership first. their policy was for him to pick-up the client and drive him to their office first.

to make a long story short, i ended up driving the professor to the dealership. that wasn't too bad since i was heading in that direction to go home anyway. but on the way there, the prof made a comment (spoken with a spain-spanish accent), "did you see that piece of shit that they were going to lend me for the weekend? i mean, can't you believe that piece of shit." *chuckles unbelieveably)

all the while, i was thinking to myself... uh, you do know you're riding in a '97 civic honda, right? god, if you think that the car they were going to lend you was a piece of shit (and it was like a lincoln or cadillac), then what the fuck does that make my car?

i think he read my mind cuz then he said, "but i don't really care what i drive. i like my old volvo cuz it's reliable."

uh-huh. it's okay. just take your time getting that arrogant foot out of your profanity-ladened mouth. there you go... nice and slowly, now.

i wasn't really angry. actually, i wasn't angry at all. i was more amused than anything and felt sorry for him, having to ride in my car. bmv vs. honda civic... yeah, not much difference there, right?

but like they say... beggars without their house keys, can't be choosers. such is life.

another thing: maki yaki next to bristol farms is fucked up. everytime i go pick up food there, they always leave something out. today, they forgot to give me my rice for the teriyaki chicken dish i got. forgot to give me the dipping sauce for the tempura. last time, they totally forgotten an order of california rolls that i got.

what kinda crappy-ass operation are they running at that place? even though i said it the last time they screwed over my order, i'm never going back to that place again.

never.

(i have a feeling i'll be back at that place again. *sigh*)

a new member of the axis of evil

In an article found today on cnn.com, the president was quoted having said,

"It's as if the entire Gulf Coast were obliterated by the worst kind of weapon you can imagine."

hours later, US troops were mobilized, as an all out assault on mother nature to find her weapons of mass destruction begins. bush condemns mother nature as part of the axis of evil and an enemy of freedom. he continues to say that he will do everything he can to ensure that those living under the tyranny of mother nature will be free of her destructive ways.

okay, the last part was made up. but with gwbush, anything is possible.

get your stamps o'er here

from yesterday's cnn showbuzz news:

HONG KONG (AP) -- China has honored Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan and Chow Yun-Fat in a commemorative stamp collection marking 100 years of Chinese film.

Among the other 128 honored stars were Andy Lau, Tony Leung, Maggie Cheung, Brigitte Lin, Cecilia Cheung, Anita Mui and Leslie Cheung.

The stamps bear production shots of the stars and come with brief biographies. The Chinese postal service launched the collection at a ceremony in Beijing Monday.

Chow said he was pleased by his selection. "It's been a long time since I had a Chinese-language movie shown in the mainland, but everyone still remembers me," the 50-year-old actor said.

His screen credits include "The Replacement Killers" and "Bulletproof Monk." He's slated to appear in Ann Hui's upcoming Chinese film "The Aunt's Postmodern Life."

The stamps also salute famous Chinese films including "Fists of Fury," "Hero," "Farewell My Concubine" and "Infernal Affairs."

anarchy in the NO

jesus, can you believe the shit that is happening in new orleans?

a cnn headline read: SCENE OF ANARCHY. sure, the media sensationalizes everything, but when you see pictures of dead people lying out in the streets, in a wheelchair, in the hallways of the superdome... christ.

why would people start shooting at a hospital? why would people start randomly shooting guns and wanting to hurt other people when everyone is in the same dire situation? it boggles the mind, really it does.

so the question of the day is, would you rather live in an area with hurricanes or would your rather live in an area with earthquakes?

now, i'm probably bias, but i much rather live in an area with earthquakes. thank you very much. look at the one that hit san francisco in 1989. i don't recall people firing guns and looting like mad when it happened. rather, people tried to help other people. it's insane.

community colleges

my eye is much better now after a couple of days of placing warm tea bags and boiled eggs on it. (thanks to cecil.)

i'm not sure if i'm liking the working a full day and then having to go to class afterward schedule that i experienced earlier in the week. my community college class is great. however, i'm not too excited about my seminar class, though there's not really that much work involved. granted, no insane amount of papers. just a great deal of reading, but i think the readings are going to be interesting. they are mostly on leadership, which, if i want to strive to be a supervisor, it will come in handy.

after a hectic beginning of the week, i have today off. it's nice. incredibly nice. i can relax, read, get some errands completed, and breathe.

there is much to be said about community colleges. but then i'm too weary to get into it here. i guess the main thing is that community colleges exist to give those who want to a second, third, etc. chance in life. one can argue that four-year institutions are also established for that same purpose. but where can you go to get an education that costs $26/unit in the state of california.

certainly not 'sc. no chance in hell.

it's all about access.

btw, happy september everyone.