Olympic Season

It's Olympic time again. And again, I am just in awe of the number of druggies that are shaming themselves as well as their country as well as the tradition of the Olympics.

If you were a high school jock who was planning to get a sports scholarship to a university, I wouldn't say much. But if you are an athlete of Olympics caliber -- you should be beyond that. There is more expected from you, and I don't mean gold medals. When you are a steller athlete, you are expected to perform in an honorable manner. Have sportsmanship!

Go, try your best, and if you should lose, congratulate the opponent. How can you even attempt to cheat? Just from your attempt to cheat, you should be disqualified. The Olympics isn't about winning. It's an attempt, through sports, to unify the world, solidify our friendships, and to honor great athletes.

Sure, you'll get that endorsement from Nike and Adidas and Gatorade if you won the gold, but think about your honor! Your name! Can you sign your autographs to kids who want to be "just like you" when they grow up? Athletes of such weak mentalities should not be allowed to enter the hallowed grounds where so many athletes kept their dignity whether they won or lost.

If you're a loser at home snorting coke, you hurt yourself. If you do steroids or like drugs when you're the captain of the football team, you just disappointed yourself, your team, your school, and possibly your town. If you are an athlete, representing your country, and you take illegal drugs, you are first and foremost a disgrace to yourself and your talents, and you have brought immense shame to your country, your fellow teammates, and you have undermined the tradition of the Olympics. You should be ashamed.

There is no shame being second or third or fourth or whatever. What matters is that you gave it your best, your all. Accepting defeat doesn't mean that you are without dignity. Shoot for the gold; but if you end up with the silver, shake the gold medalist's hand and congratulate him. Be proud of what you have completed. Ask the gold medalist for some pointers. If you have truly gave it your best shot, there are no regrets, no shame, no disappointments.

Olympics may seem to get lost in the athletics -- but remember that it is the discipline, the mentality, and strength (not just physical strength, but also inner strength) that the Greeks originally sought to uphold.

I'm Skinny

I read this on the web, at CNN.com -- I just can't believe they titled the URL location as "halfton.man.ap"! It makes me thankful for my body and truly worship my body -- I'm glad I don't do things to hurt my body intentionally (don't smoke and don't binge drink and don't consume bucket after bucket of KFC -- Kitchen Fresh Crap), but I have just gotten a renewed sense of urgency to be good to my body. So I'm having just ONE SERVING (NOTE: One serving of ice cream is not one banana split! It's half a cup, half a measuring cup!) of chocolate ice cream.

Wannabe-Photog

Eugene Atget

I was talking about myself as an artist a few posts ago (too lazy to hoist up link -- scroll down and find it yourself!), and was getting to the point that I am more into the digital art form. Of course it would be nice to have a set of dextrous hands that becomes a master of the paintbruch, but for now, that's not my thing. I happen to like expressing myself with a computer. I love my computer, I love my blog, I love html and learning more html, I love doctoring up images and photos (I am trying to start using photoshop - the possibilities are endless!).

I have a digital camera. It's a beautiful piece of machinery, 4.0 mega pixels with optical zoom (I forget whether it's 3x or not, but something to that extent) and it shoots beautiful pictures. However, they're not very good photos. I'm not a very good photog. I used to take photos (just a little bit) when I was on the school yearbook staff years ago (high school days) and I recall that I wasn't very good. But I have always loved to take pictures -- something about catching a glimpse of life was exciting.

I used to have an extremely cheap camera, not the digital kind, and I would have it with me always. I have so much photos I took during those years, snapshots mostly of my classmates. Mostly of my classmates shaking their fists in the air. But for someone with such a dull sense of memory (I hardly recall anything from my early childhood!) photography seems naturally a must.

So how can I take good, or at least better photos? Should I take a class? Read intensely on-line? Is there a "Photography for Dummies" book? I want to create an album of good photographs. All great photographers can make a breath-taking photo from a not-so-breath-taking subject -- they just know how to draw out the charisma of their subjects. If you click on the link to make a comment, you will see photo of a frog on a leaf. That's a very lovely photograph, one of my fav's, because it says so many more words. It embodies the saying, that a picture is worth a thousand words. I guess, for now, I'll just have to write a thousand words, until I can build up enough skills for a better photograph.

Friday the 13th

Friday the 13th is actually one of my favorite movies. How I love Jason for chopping up people! It's such a classic. (Horror movie buff here!) Which reminds me to get a chain of horror movies lined up for NetFlix. I love, absolutely adore (if that is possible) horror movies, so much, that in fact, sometimes I wonder if watching them so frequently as I do, will tweak my mind psychologically just a bit. By watching so much violence and gory images, will I become slightly sinister (than I already am)? If so, let the fun begin! Muhahahaha!

The truth is, you may think that I am not at all frightened by these films and that is why I enjoy them, but you are wrong! I love them because they scare me to death and I can't sleep at night because I know some guy is standing behind my bathroom door with a giant machete, or worse, standing by my window (my bed is right by my window) just looking at me, and that god-forsaken theme song plays through my mind over and over and over and over and over... But that is what makes these movies so good!

They have the power of suggestion, and how mightily powerful that is! Hours after the movie, you still have fear left over. You know, that while there is 99.99999% chance that there isn't a psycho murder ready to jump at you from your closet, you also know that there is a 0.00001% chance that it can happen.

What I love most, is that the fear gets started from the film, but the rest runs rampant, runs amok, by your own imagination.

Poetry: Whoso list to hunt

I guess I am in poetic moods these days. Surprisingly enough, I used to despise poetry. I denounced it as rubbish, even the Shakespeare ones! In every English course, I used to dread, absolutely dread, and cry out in horror, during the poetry units. It turns out, that one just needs a good teacher to guide through the terrains of poetry. Now, you may not like all poetry, and I'm sure no one can honestly love every verse of every line ever written; however, you can at least learn to understand poems and appreciate them as an art form. Here is one of my favorite poems, one which I had learned of last spring. It is written by Sir Thomas Wyatt, the Elder. Now, you may think that all these poets were a bunch of sissy Romeos toying with words, but it turns out, some were more like Don Juans toying with words.

Whoso list to hunt

Whoso list to hunt, I know where is an hind, But as for me, alas, I may no more. The vain travail hath wearied me so sore, I am of them that farthest cometh behind. Yet may I, by no means, my wearied mind Draw from the deer, but as she fleeth afore, Fainting I follow. I leave off, therefore, Since in a net I seek to hold the wind. Who list her hunt, I put him out of doubt, As well as I, may spend his time in vain. And graven with diamonds in letters plain There is written, her fair neck round about, "Noli me tangere, for Caesar's I am, And wild for to hold, though I seem tame."

The last two lines of the poem is what caught my interest, actually. For those who are infamiliar with poetry, or face poetrophobia, allow me to be blunt in this rendition of "Whoso list to hunt" for dummies.

The first four lines, indicate that the narrator, along with a few others, are on a hunt. Whether this be literal or figurative, you decide on your own. But it seems that the speaker, is not too enthusiastic about the hunt -- he knows well the joy of hunting and he seems to be quite knowledgeable; however, he is kind of faking his attitude.

Then, in the next four lines, the speaker shows that he is still interested in the hunt, but for some reason, he's not excited about it -- there is something going on with the deer that makes it a forbidden fruit.

"Since in a net I seek to hold the wind" is so delicately worded! What happens when you try to trap the wind with a net? That is how he describes his hunt for the deer. It is the last four lines that finally gives away the speaker's soul -- the deer belongs to a "Caesar" and cannot be hunted.

If you take into account that Wyatt was accused of having an affair with Anne Boleyn, and had to witness her execution and the other alleged lovers (he was spared), the poem sort of makes sense. Although, it may or may not at all be about his relationship with Anne Boleyn. That is up for you to interpret.

That was our poetry lesson of tonight.

Match

Chocolate Ice Cream: 1 Haemi: 0 You won this round, Chocolate Ice Cream. But I'm telling you right now that this ain't over. Tomorrow, we will have a rematch, and I vow to emerge victorious and not eat the remaining half a quart of you that is left. I will resist your temptation, dammit!

Movie Review: Riding in Cars with Boys

As stated in IMDb.com, this is an insightful, well presented drama. I thought it would suck, and the only reason I decided to pick it up was to keep me occupied during the two hours I'd be home alone (Wed & Thurs are home alone evenings for moi) and I absolutely abhor being home alone. I went to the Los Angeles public library, which is only a block away from work, and checked out two DVD's. I was pleasantly surprised.

I thought this would be a chick flick -- Drew Barrymore is a chick flick kind of a girl (50 First Dates, Charlie's Angels, Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle) -- there's nothing more that I despise than a chick flick. You know, it was sort of a chick flick, but not so... chicky. It's a drama. It's a story. There's no action. There's no special effects. But it's well written, well presented -- the actors involved were good, and there were some teary moments.

I identified with the main character, not because I had a baby when I was 15 (of course I didn't, but imagine if I did -- I'd have a 9 year old running around!), but because the character suffered frustration from being stuck in one place, always hoping to get out but always finding obstacles and failure -- sounds a lot like me. After the movie, I felt all warm and fuzzy and connected, like I'm not the only one in hell. Sometimes I feel like I was on a tour guide through hell with Dante, guided by Virgil, and I wasn't quite paying attention, and the tour left without me, and I'm stuck in somewhere like the fourth circle of hell. But I have high hopes, thankfully, and that alone can make me thrive. Thank goodness.

Technical Difficulties

Today is Technical Difficulties Thursday. I'm having a fit with making picture messaging work on one of my customer's phones. Normally it works, but this customer is using a Cingular phone with T-Mobile service (which are compatible, except for the pre-loaded features like their respective internet services and etc.) and it is causing a bit of a problem. I still haven't solved it -- at some point, either I will have to solve it, or tell the customer that I am an impotent technician, probably because I am NOT a technician!

I was shopping for scanners. I don't think I need a heavy duty scanner -- I don't think I'll be scanning too many things anyways. I plan to use this scanner for web-page designing purposes -- I plan to enhance my knowledge in that field, and hoping to show off my advancing skills on my blog.

HTML-ing and blog-template-building is hard. It is time consuming. And it would be nice to have time on my side. I thought that if I had taken some courses on making web pages, I'd be able to do much more than I am doing now -- I don't even have the basic foundations of html and yet I seem to get by alright.

It would also make a great part time job, provided there is a market for blog creators, but I'm also seeing if I can make actual functioning web pages and not just blogs, although they are similar concepts, I presume. It would be nice to exercise my creativity -- creativity is like machinery. You have to keep it running and keep utilizing it, or it will get rusty and dusty and non-functional!

I have found, in the last year or two, that I am not the traditional artist, in the sense that I don't do well with a paintbrush or pastels or charcoal or etc. But I do well with the computer, and while the concept of working on a computer may not sound too artistic, it surprisingly is. Considering the fact that I have absolutely no access to fancy shmancy tools and softwares -- no scanner, no photoshop, no adobe illustrator, etc. -- I barely use Microsoft Frontpage for my blog -- I do very well. For art, I just use window's Paintbrush program, which is one of the most basic programs out there. I hate that it only gives, like, 16 colors to work with, although you can pick out more color choices, they give you limited space for your palette. But it's free and it works. Irfanview is another one that I use, for working with jpg files and reducing bmp/jpg file sizes. It is also a simple program, a freeware or shareware or something to that extent, but I like to think that my full utilization of it makes it do wonders.

So while spending a day with technical difficulties, I felt the need to let my creativity start working again. I feel like a bird trapped in a cage. Gasp! Look at that! I can't even find original metaphors to describe what I'm feeling -- I have been reduced to cliches. For shame. I'm going to have to get creative -- my upcoming semester is loaded with not so creative courses like statistics.

Sonnet

Brought to me and onto you by: Shakespeare Sonnet-a-Day

LXXI.

No longer mourn for me when I am dead
Then you shall hear the surly sullen bell
Give warning to the world that I am fled
From this vile world, with vilest worms to dwell:
Nay, if you read this line, remember not
The hand that writ it; for I love you so
That I in your sweet thoughts would be forgot
If thinking on me then should make you woe.
O, if, I say, you look upon this verse
When I perhaps compounded am with clay,
Do not so much as my poor name rehearse.
But let your love even with my life decay,
Lest the wise world should look into your moan
And mock you with me after I am gone.

It used to be that when I read something like this, namely, a poem, I wouldn't understand what it was about, as it it were written in a different language. But after my intense series of English classes last semester, I have realized that it is indeed written in a different language, and I have gained the ability to comprehend. There are still some that are beyond my comprehension, but this one I understand. It was so lovely, and it was one Shakespearean sonnet I haven't read (one of many, I should add). Hope you enjoyed.

Consider Yourself Lucky

This is a photo of a fetus in Shanghai -- in extremely rare cases (only 14 cases reported in the world) conception happens in the liver! I can't believe it either. I thought it was a bogus photo, until I dug around Google a bit and found proof -- Click Here and Here.

What's Love Got To Do, Got To Do With It?

What's love, but a second-hand emotion?
What's love got to do, got to do with it?
Who needs a heart when a heart can be broken?

Cheezy, I know.

I was talking to a friend about how breaking up is hard to do (full of cliche-like sayings today). I understand how difficult it is, although I will say upfront that I don't quite know what that is like. I'll say it again -- I'm a love virgin. I've never loved (romantically speaking). Perhaps I've been loved, I don't know, but what I've experienced, probably is safe to say that it's not love. I've felt frequently, that I'm incapable of loving another human being. When I was dumped by a boyfriend, I have some chocolate ice cream and that will be that. When my mom gave away my beloved chihuahua, Jjang, I shut myself in my room for two weeks, barely eating a morsel, and cried my eyes out for days. Perhaps no man will be worth as much as a pet to me. I revere Nabee like my own offspring (I don't know how, why, and when it started, but I started referring myself as her mom!), and it's going to be tough to love a man as much as I do my cat.

So obviously, this love is one concept I don't get. Most people tell me that love is something you have no control over, and yet, I have never been bitten by this bug, so the chances of coming down with it must be pretty low. And still, yet, most people I know have experienced love.

Why do people love, and why does it have to be so painful? Tom Cruise says that he's not down with love; he believes in it. Nicole Kidman can't wait to get married again. The ultimate love story ever, Romeo and Juliet, both died for love. Cyrano de Bergerac spent his entire life, loving one woman, all for naught (for his panache, he says). Love is destructive. It's like a drug. You feel the euphoria when you're high on it; you feel the immense discomfort (i.e. pain, unhappiness, hell, etc.) when you go off of it. Is this like a cocaine addiction? If so, I want no part of it, ever, even if there's guarantee that I'll come out of the ordeal alive.

So you may ask, why bother even dating, if I'm so convinced that love is part of the curse from God as the primordial humans were banished from Eden? I mean, I understand the need for companionship -- no matter how seemingly anti-social I can get (believe me people, I'm ultra friendly on-line, while mildly anti-social in real life), I accept the fact that all people are social creatures, craving acceptance from fellow human beings. Living a hermit's life is a life-style not for the faint of heart. But beyond just company, love is a whole new blog entry!

Oh, why do we love and crash and burn? If you remember, a while back, I was close to a relationship. 'A' was a seeming sweetheart who, in reality, was the exact opposite. When I finally realized that whatever we had was completely over (he didn't have the common decency to alert me on the status of our expired acquaintance), I felt used. Betrayed. Bitter. Sour. Definitely not sweet. Perhaps it was too good to be true, I don't know. But I'll be darned if I expose myself that way to another man, leaving myself vulnerable and open!

I've seen way too many broken hearts that take forever to mend. I know myself well, and I know that I am an intense control freak -- I hate being in situations where I don't have the upper hand, like the push and pull of relationships. For me to fall in love, I'll have to abdicate half of that control to the prospective suitor, and I don't know if I can allow myself to relinquish so much. I'm the person who likes to drive because it is one of the rare situations where I can control everything from A to Z. In something like love, I can't do the same -- but I'll be darned if I allow myself to be open to be trampled over and crushed. I don't get tread on. I don't get crushed. Not my scene to play the soap opera victim.

Then again, from what I hear, love is the ultimate experience, one to be had in one's lifetime. I guess I can't make an adequate judgment on what love exactly is, until I've been through it. I just can't believe that people go through this multiple times in their lives! Bunch of masochistic fools, I think. Yet, I pity the fools, because I see so much of their pain and tears and depression and wallowing in self-pity and whatnot. But honestly, I think they pity me for never knowing the joys that the euphoria of love had given them. We'll see who should be pitying and who should be pitied. Love. It's one dangerous game. I won't hold you back if you're going to venture into love; but brace yourself, because you just might get burned. I'll tell you horror stories, if I need to -- but be very aware.

Don't Provoke the Grammar Nazi™

As Christopher reminded me: Click Here to see this pretty gem.

Who doesn't remember this bit? It's the craziest, most annoying thing I had ever seen, and the blatant repetition of "All your base are belong to us" is almost painful to bear. It is almost as bad as Beyonce singing, "if you was my boyfriend." Blech.