E tenebras, lux dormiens

Happy New Year 2004!

Warning! This post is very scattered.

Ach, I would say that time passes too quickly, but I will also disagree, because it merely means that I don't remember all the things I've done, watched, and played, this year. Or at the very least, I don't consider them very important. I should, even the littlest have helped molded my character, given me a challenge to make things better.

When playing Kingdom Hearts, I saw how much I enjoy controlling a rather hyperactive 14-year-old boy as he fights the Heartless and open new things.

When playing Lord of the Rings: Return of the King, I enjoy playing Gandalf. He's quite fast for someone 2,000 years old. It's his wizarding power that I enjoy most.

Ledger-Enquirer | 12/26/2003 | OK to stay home

It is New Year's Eve and I stay at home. Naturally, my parents are there because I have no guts to live away from them. That may change in the future as I am trying to see that the benefits of homesickness is greater than the frustration of power struggle. I should be away from home so that we can redefine our relationships.

I went to San Francisco today, through BART to have lunch with my parents. After that, I walked to Sansome and Pine, where you see paper calendars tossed around the intersection.

Then, I visited the bookstore, where I was happy to pace nervously in front of the You-Know-What section of the magazine aisle. Someday, someday . . . Meanwhile, all my years are dripping away with every second. Tick-tock, tick-tock, goes the clock. But two hours away, and I am idling and becoming old.

I have a dichotomous nature toward aging. I see aging as a beneficial result of wisdom gained, of accepting the complexity of life, and being capable of juggling many contradictory truths that many young and immature youth regard as hypocrisy. I can agree with that statement, and I do regard youth very lovingly as the balance against the pompousness. However, this only encourages division, and I will not divide.

However, my main problem with aging is that you grow ugly. I don't care about wrinkles, I think they can look good when you take care of your skin. but some people can degenerate into such hideous face, mind, and body that I cannot but vomit in terror of looking at myself in the mirror and finding an ugly, badly-wrinkled, bald, old, geezer. I don't want to be skinny and shaking and dependent on a cane. I don't want to be fat and grumpy. I want to be like, like Jack Nicholson. That's how good-looking I hope I can still be, minus his annoying sneer.

As this is the last post of the old year. It will end with a whimper. My thumbs are still sore from playing on the Playstation 2, it was button-mashing fun, though! Maybe it sucked my time away from other activities, but I don't care. I have so little time left before school starts again, and it's back to studying every single day without playing anything.

Playing the games Lord of the Rings: Return of the King by EA and Kingdom Hearts--by Squaresoft and Disney has so consumed my time that today has passed. Hours lost to simple pleasure of winning battles and finding things that do not exist in real life.

I planned to do three things today: go to the library to drop of the book, go to Walgreen to purchase something--I can't remember what, converse with the VP-100 personnel about installing the videophone in my house.

I am here to enjoy myself. This is the thirteen days most holy, between the Birth and the Gift-Giving of the Magi.

Words:

Equality, puh! Only poor people believe in equality. The rich sees business opportunities when they arise, and seeks to profit from them.

The businessmen know when to get out of the country, when environments unfavorable to them are beginning to take over, such as communism, fascism, and other forms of tyranny. That's why America is the country of capitalism, because many businessmen have immigrated into the nations of the Pax Americana, thus profiting these countries.

The Pax Americana (Peace American) include countries in North America and Western Europe and their colonies, such as Australia, which still technically belongs to Great Britain.

Declaring a war against terrorism legitimizes the terrorists' belief in their causes, for they believe that they are engaged in a holy war against the American "infidels." Never mind the fact that America is trapped in a debate between evolution and special creationism, illustrating the power of the freedom of speech. --influenced by Krauthammer, Charles, "To Hell With Sympathy" TIME 27 Nov. 2003 and Soros, George "The Bubble of American Supremacy" The Atlantic Online December 2003

Anyway, where I spent on Christmas Day was at my aunt's house. We drove there to have a Christmas Lunch, because her husband, being a nurse, has to work from 3 p.m. to midnight. Then we watched a movie, Seabiscuit, before we finally played MahJong Note: We don't play the game by this rule exactly (in the sense of following the rules to the letter), but it just gives information on the game. You may know better rules (especially with pictures) elsewhere. Finally, we ate dinner at a fancy restaurant. Yes, the Chinese restaurants are still open on Christmas Day.

I got Lord of The Rings: Return of the King and Kingdom Hearts for Christmas, which were of course, what I chose. There's no sense in having surprises for Christmas because I doubt the Magi intended Christmas to be presented in this manner. The manner being that you never know what you're going to get for Christmas, but you've given a lot of hints, and yet, you never did get what you want, so you wound up scrunching your face between three emotions: disappointment, fury, shock, all the while trying to show their evil twins: approval, happiness, surprise.

I have been trying to draft a list of New Year's Resolutions, without much success. They reflect the previous resolutions, but I've decided to change them so the expectations won't be so extreme. Great things are accomplished from the tiniest steps.

So, a primo, the things I would like to do next year are to go to QSA meeting, regardless of whom I might encounter; volunteer at CSDF during the summer; find internships for Biochemistry and/or Environmental Science; create a video diary using ASL, and finally to be supervisors at the Deaf camp.

I'd been meaning to volunteer to the Deaf camp, but I was taking classes during the summer that did not end until late August, and the camp starts in the middle of that month. So I can try to find internships instead, and get some work experience in whichever majors I might be interested in.

I was taking a shower last night, when I felt a pang of guilt. It is a guilt I've felt almost each time I enjoy having myself douched in hot water. I dwelled on the fact that there are people not capable of enjoying the same privileges as I am. I dwelled on the fact that hot water will run out in 2008, or whatever the UN happened the place the date of the reckoning.

People change when they wake up. I don't know whether I've reached that stage yet, but last week, I noticed myself being distinctly different from last year, from years past. It is as if I am regressing to a second childhood, with the adulthood in observance.

Wired Magazine Issue 11.12

The Wired Magazine, whose January Issue has been released today, has certainly power to imbue me with hope for the future. The wits with which the authors write have filled me with optimism. The fact that people might have been able to clone a human embryo, that there are some hard-core nerds living in dorms unwired for wi-fi, that there are 100 things that should be done to bolster the future of the Internet against spam, viruses, evil malicious people is so inspiring to me that I can't help but smile.

Each month, the magazine makes me feel happy for the general state of humankind. In fact, it makes me envious that I am not of those people participating to better the world in some parts. With six billion people on earth and growing, the fact that all the writing elements of the world can document barely one percents of these (statistics guesstimated) makes for a depressing odds (against me).

I do my part, sir and ma'am, I do my part.

---

Oh, I forgot to say that I became qualified for a sign language interpreter today. Of course, it is too late to get an interpreter because everyone has been pretty much assigned. So I will wait until next quarter.

---

Two things I need to do:
It is time. I have decided; it is finally time. I will not delay any longer in wallowing in my sense of self-pity. For too long, I have been crippled, physiologically and psychologically, but I will not be crippled any longer. All my duty's this, from MacBeth: "God's benison goes with you and with those, That would make good of bad and friends of foes."

Secondly, I want to apologize for lying to you, for misleading you, for manipulating you, and for doing all bad and evil things to you. In other words, I want to repent.

Now, an explanation. My mother and I went shopping one day, when I saw a group of Asian-Americans (most likely Chinese), some with their dyed-brown hair and looking so marvelously cool. And what did I do, in my low self-esteem? I looked down, avoid their eyes, and fill all my loathings at them in my brain.

I couldn't help but dwell on these group of well-dressed, or just well-fashion-followed, and feel an envious hatred. I see how other people ignore them, but I could not help but think about how I wish to be like them, how I wish to show that I am "special" too. In other words, I wanted to get their attention.

What a tactic that has not been given-up from third grade! How childish I behaved, my mind so focused on useless things. I doubt I could ever be interested in them or their lifestyle, but the first time I saw them so arrogant in their acts, throwing stupidly a piece of vegetable into their cart, etc. etc. I could not be feel enraged, like I want to tell them, stop acting so high and mighty.

There, I remembered, that moment at Fry's that I posted about.

Finally, I remembered that the only way you can forgive others, is if you forgive yourself and love yourself. I saw true clarity, but naturally, I will not forgive myself, not yet, not now. The pain still sears at my heart; I will work to try to forgive myself, but now I have not yet forgiven. I am working toward the day when I, waking up, have finally said, "This is it. I have forgiven myself. I don't know, but I simply don't feel any pain about this anymore. I've forgiven."

But not now. Not now, my little people. Not now. Now, I still feel hatred, loathing, unforgiveness, pain. Here is pain; this is what I feel.

Lord of the Rings Movies, Return of the King Official New Movie Site: LOTR Wallpaper Two Towers Pictures Trailer Preview Buy Online Movie Tickets

I saw the Lord of the Rings: Return of the King last night. It was great. I won't give anything out, especially since I had little to give out, because--guess what?--I can't hear what the characters are saying. Many people often remark how surprised how much they take the little things for granted.

Of course, I read the books, so I understood the plot and the dialogues, but certainly, they had many new things not mentioned in the book. The visual effects to substitute for prose but I think they've maintained the same spirit as the story. I know how some people say books are better than the movies into which they're made, but I think Peter Jackson, the director, is excellent at showing the misery that all the people have suffered under Sauron. So the soul of the story is not destroyed in the translation.

Particularly, I loved the crying by Frodo, Gandalf, Samwise, and the rest. I was naturally uncomfortable at first, but I realized long ago that I had to accept each character on its own merits and visualize its life from its standpoint, not on or from ours. Doing so, it was moving to see Gandalf's tears at the final destruction of Sauron, as if the veil of terror, of fear of Sauron's return, of death and destruction, was suddenly removed, and people who had lived under such terror for so long could not be but overwhelmed.

Truly, I see how much people would interpret the movie differently in modern time. I also loved the music. It was a beautiful score and appropriate for an epic of this complexity.

PlayStation.com - Games - Final Fantasy X

Since the end of finals' week, I've been utterly absorbed in FFX. And I'm being careful now, and it shows in the fact that I've never lost a game. Unless, I just wanted to play around, I've not been beaten more than twice in the countless battles I've had. And every Boss Battle, where I didn't panic and just played using what instruments I have, I've beaten easily.

Of course, looking through the walkthrough helped. However, the important thing is that I didn't buy the walkthrough. I simply read through it for clues, but I've managed to remember what I can do to keep from being killed by someone like Seymour Natus and all the rest.

At first, the only way I could beat him was through a kind of cheating, by charging up aeons before the battle and just letting the overdrive rip him. Seymour has the power to banish the aeons, so if I don't have any overdrive, and just attack it, it will get rid of the aeons in one shot, meaning that I must fight Seymour without aeons.

The problem with this method is, naturally, that the other characters don't have a chance to receive AP. Just now, because I've played this before, I remember I have another big battle that I hope I can beat without resorting to aeons' overdrives.

I'm not playing it this weekend weekend because I want to avoid having it consume too much of my time. After all, this is a time for me to rest, and prepare for another quarter of post-secondary education, not to play days and nights and never resting and just causing me to break down.

Google Search: "CLOSED EYES" PHOTOGRAPHY FIX

Interesting, I'm 6th on the list for "'Closed Eyes' Photography Fix".

Ah, I really need to get away from home. Having my parents barge in my room for "postage" does not make any sense. I guess if my parents are going to do that, I will need to make sure I can close everything before things get out of control.

What was happening was that my parents wanted to know how much a certain envelop would cost to send to Hong Kong, England, and Canada. I was glad that no new windows were opened, except unfortunately a Real Video, which I made sure to close before it got to the "explicit" stuff. Just a man's face was shown, though his face was unfortunately too close to the RealOne screen, with such a suggestive look that I feel unfortunate for my mother.

Both of them barge in. Mother first, then father second. I just managed to close the taskbar, by dragging it down since I didn't have auto-hide on. Then the screen came on.

Well, how's that for nearly coming out? For nearly having my parents find out more than they bargain for, when they wanted just price of postage? I suspect my mom suspect something, but I will leave her to be tormented. ¿Ay, madre pobre, no me escuchó! Pero, sufres por mí.

Fortunately, it was not yet done. I am too wily for my own good. For my own benefits, it appear the stars of heaven have delayed my own meeting with destiny.

Were it not so that it can facilitate my march toward independence, that side-effect of freedom.

Now that the fall quarter has ended, calling forth the coming of the winter. Winter, being recognized by cold weather that nips at your nose raw and freeze your fingers pale, has made his/her/its mark quite shrewdly. It was noticeable, for example, that in the fall, there alternate two days of sunshine with two days of rain/wind/cloudy gloom and back again. A battle between summer and winter. Winter being the temporary victor of the place, and I doubt I will ever see the temperature rise to 60 again for the next few months. I await spring readily, though with heavy heart. I am troubled, see, that time passes so quickly, and yet, I cannot but hope for summer again, and idle the time awhile in the hoping.

Full many a glorious morning have I seen
Flatter the mountain-tops with sovereign eye,
Kissing with golden face the meadows green,
Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy;
Anon permit the basest clouds to ride
With ugly rack on his celestial face,
And from the forlon world his visage hide,
Stealing unseen to west with this disgrace:
Even so my sun one early morn did shine
With all-triumphant splendour on my brow;
But out, alack! He was but one hour mine;
The region cloud hath mask'd him from me now . . .
[last two lines omitted]
---William Shakespeare

Para mí, es raro que voy a la escuela despues del fin. Oh, wait. I do go to school whether or not there's school pretty often.

CNN.com - Poll: Capture boosts Americans' confidence - Dec. 14, 2003

Signs that our country is moving in the right direction: Saddam Hussein has been caught. Now the fact that he has surrendered willingly without fighting, which is a far cry from the time he would exhort his army to fight to the bitter end, will diminish his iconism in the minds of many Iraqi guerrillas.

Let us rejoice the final anti-climatic defeat of a misguided tyrant.

There was something, I was dreaming about it yesterday, but I forgot to post it. So I don't remember the beginning. This is the argument I've been having in the war between my mind.

It is not that I do not believe in God. I do believe that there is something up there and that when we die, we go up to whatever that is. The problem is that what will we be like when we are up there? When we die, we leave behind all the woes we have in this life, our hormones, our sexual desires, our brains, everything! What is left?

When you think about the things that live and the things that die, I would rather be old than to die early because I can live to fulfill the best of my heart and brain's desire.

I don't mean sex; it is but a part of my existence. What I mean is the power that experiencing life brings. When you think about it, all that which our life is based on is technology. What I want to see is what technology is going to bring to me.

---

You know, I've forgotten to talk about that straight boy that I had a major crush on. He finally knows because I told him through the AIM. As it turns out, he says he doesn't care either way. I hope I'll get to see him again, especially when he's performing on stage. It'd be nice to get a hug from him and know, simply know that he knows.

I watched "Finding Nemo" today on DVD. It made me think about my life, and how I want to take care of children in the future. You know the stuff, adopt some children whose parents terminated their caretaking rights and raise them.

I'm sometimes not sure what my plans are or should be, though I try to be as concrete as possible. I have much help from my college, so it's all good.

Aljazeera.Net English - Home Page

I can finally access the Al-Jazeera news site. I forgot about it, so I don't know when it came back online. Email me if you know. I've always been accepting of other people's views on many different subjects, even if I disagree with them. Not that I necessarily disagree with Al-Jazeera, but I haven't had the chance to look at it because someone had the gall to attack the site through Denial-of-Service during the Iraq Occupation waaayyy back in March, thus preventing anybody from seeing it. Such DOS attacks is counterproductive and stupid.

As Joel Stein said succinctly, the mark of a true liberal is the ability to accept shades of gray. Sometimes the so-called "Left" falls such victim to absolutism just as the "Right" does, each believing themselves to be on the side of good and others on the side of evil. Ambiguity is a fact (of life).

Excerpts of Anti-Gay, by Mark Simpson, reveals a very fascinating critique of the sub-culture, i.e. queer, that offends its fundamentalists, such as the empty life, the drugs, and so forth. Give credits to plasticbag.org for the information.

Is the earth not alive? Today the cloud rained, and the wind blew. The leaves of the tree were moved by this spectacle. I watched, only for 30 seconds because I do not have the patience for it. Yet, in those 30 seconds, I was moved as well.

Is the earth not alive? Unlike Venus or Mars, the Earth is alive because the living organisms are reacting with it. The earth is alive because it is always undergoing such complex interchange and interaction of chemicals by a process we call life. We are alive, but the earth is also just as living as we are because we interact with it.

the earth to be sure is composed of minerals and rocks the plants the protists composed of kingdoms of eukaryotes the animals the fungi and all the vast complexity of animals are all participating taking from the earth what they need returning to the earth what they do not to make the earth a living organism see how the cloud is formed by water evaporation the gas of carbon dioxide and other things allow such heat to stay and warm the earth but the living organisms are somehow able to maintain a relatively stable environment by our minute perception of time

What we are doing to the environment is causing a global warming, but we cannot be sure what the other living organism also inhabiting this earth will do as a result. There might be some bacteria, algae, archea, etc. that will counteract these warmth to bring about a global cooling, when all the world will be overrun by glacier, which will reflect off all the heat from the sun, further preventing any thawing until some more million years, after we are long gone.

That is why we must study, why we must research, why we must learn, why we must attempt to lessen our impact on the environment until we discover precisely the complex interaction that will help us know what we should or should not do to preserve humanity for the longest time possible.

"I supported the war in Afghanistan. I know some of you might not understand because of all this anti-war protesting that has engulfed the liberal members of the Democratic party. I want you to know that I am not as extreme as that. Given the chance, I would support the war in Afghanistan because that was where we thought Osama bin Laden lies, because that was where the Talibans and Al-Qaeda could be found.

However, it is Iraq. Yes, Iraq that is the sticking point. What was the purpose, the reason, for such a war to have taken place? What was the reason that the United States of America would cast aside the United Nations to enter a causeless war?

Weapons of Mass Destruction? Whether they are found in the next few months should not add to the wisdom, or lack thereof, of waging a war?

Decrease of terrorism that we believe Saddam Hussein is funding? What are you talking about? How do you define terrorism when we can now see that the soldiers in the Middle East are being targeted as objects of hatred? Is that not terrorism? Is that not hatred, vilification, resentment?

Now that the die is cast, we can never again return to what it was before. We have invaded and are occupying Iraq, but though the Iraqis resent us, most of them are still grateful for the toppling of the Hussein regime.

Now here is where we must listen to what President Bush has said: "We'll stay until the job is done."

For we must stay and bind up the wounds of that once-great civilization, wounds that Hussein has caused, wounds that we have caused."

---What Dean or someone political should say.

Pending the freezing of hell . . . (printable version)

A hint of what is in the link above, found through WebMink:

• A president lying about an extramarital affair is an impeachable offense. A president lying to enlist support for a war in which thousands die is solid defense policy.
  
• Government should limit itself to the powers named in the Constitution, which include banning gay marriages and censoring the Internet.
  
• Group sex and drug use are degenerate sins unless you someday run for governor of California as a Republican.
  
• Trade with Cuba is wrong because the country is communist, but trade with China and Vietnam is vital to a spirit of international harmony.
  
• If condoms are kept out of schools, adolescents won't have sex.
  

Next week is the finals week. I'm going into it calmly without panicking.

Threat rating: extremely low. You may think you can
subvert the government, but if you should try
you will be smited mightily because God likes
us best.


What threat to the Bush administration are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

Is this really me? I must have taken a wrong turn on the quiz somewhere; I prefer to be agnostic.

--Link to Quizilla from Sparkology

Grist Magazine: Environmental news and humor

I've been working with a group of partners on this project for class about the Californians and Mexican immigrants.

I've never thought of group project as being particularly difficult to do in high school, but this was the worst. Everybody had different schedule and we're always conflicting.

Now, we have a presentation to do on Friday, and there's barely a plan of what exactly we're going to present. We just decided to film it tomorrow at the Century Theater, but I'm really worried about my grades being brought down. Well, I hope the 20-page essays will save us.

Still, despite taking on 21 units this quarter, I will say I've learned something about immigration in general, and I've become extraordinarily more Democrat in value, that is, if the Democrats do share the same value as I do.

I want open border, but along with that, we have to be careful to make sure we are educating the immigrants about adapting to the United States by learning English and other social manners. It would be terrible to have immigrants bring drug use, crime rate, and homelessness with them here, and we need to educate them on how not to do that. We have to ensure that we are immigrating people willing to do the things necessary to achieve the American dream.

To immigrant without regards for educating them is just going to breed racism. Education, though an expensive proposition, is the key to creating an upstanding and truly American citizen, and that applies not just to natural-born Americans, but also naturalized immigrants.

My mother is an immigrant, and I was born here in the US of A. At first, I was a little conservative about whether to allow immigration. I did think that immigration was the source of many problems with Mexicans on the street and murder rate, but I realize that blaming the Mexicans will not stop them from trying to come in here. We have either to teach the Mexicans how they must act, behave, and live their lives if they want to live here or to raise the status of their country so that they will not feel the need for emigration.

After all, the purpose of emigrating a country is to escape persecution, to flee famine, to commit treason, etc. etc. The Mexicans come into the United States not because they want to be in the United States, but because they don't want to be in their native-born country. This is the key to understanding the problem. Mexico, as a country, has been corrupted and its government has continuously left the country impoverished.

It will be necessary for the country to change itself by pioneering social skills that Mexicans have to learn, i.e. not spitting on the floor, not chewing gum, etc. and giving them economic freedom to own and sell lands, to do things with their properties to appeal to their entrepreneurial spirit. Then, and only then, will the Mexicans truly stop trying to emigrate from their country and immigrating into ours.

I can't believe I croaked.

I can't believe I croaked.