A little spon1080 today. After my outreach meeting, I gave Gerald a ride to El Monte to pick up his car. We bypassed the 55 by taking Jamboree to the 5. The exit was supposedly 9.5 miles north of the 405, and since I figured the 605 hits the 5 at least 10 miles north of the 405, I took the 605 south. We didn't realize for sure that we were going the wrong way until 10 minutes later, when we saw the signs for the 405 coming up. So we turned it around. By the time we got back to where the 605 meets the 5, it was about a 30 minute mistake. About 30 more minutes and we travel the 10 miles to the exit, then manage to miss the driveway, which was a 5 minute mistake. Thankfully it wasn't too hot and I had someone to talk to. I don't like driving automatic either, but I guess it's great in bumper to bumper traffic. It took almost 2 hours to get there, but only an hour to get back, despite wicked traffic. I could never hack it as a commuter.

I got home, make myself a shake, then headed to the ARC. Still sore, I headed straight from the ARC to CDM for Emily's birthday "pre-party" BBQ/bonfire. It was already past sunset, so that meant no more volleyball (though I neglected to bring one anyway). I ate, mingled a little, and then everything was packed up and we headed over to Emily and Wendy's apartment for the after-party (or the post-pre-party... or the after-pre-party... or the intermediate party). I didn't know where their apartment was, so I tried to follow them, but the streetlights were definitely against me. I ended up passing them when they pulled to the slow lane in traffic, so I drove about 40 mph on MacArthur while people were passing me at 60 mph, but I didn't see their car pass me. Some guy actually stayed right behnd me for a while until I turned right. That's too slow for me. I would have been pulling my hair out.

They finally pulled up next to me 10 minutes later, just a quarter mile from their place, not more than 5 minutes after I called up Gerald to figure out what their apartment number was. What would we do without cellphones? I probably would have gone straight home. But then again, I probably wouldn't have found out about the beach thing in the first place. I chilled for a while, we played bullsh*t, and Rod gave Emily a lapdance. Technically, it was a floordance. I noticed that their friends from back home were really good at making sure they introduced themselves to us Irvine people and made sure they remembered our names too. I thought that was cool. I'm usually good with names (a lot better with faces though), but when I get bombarded with hordes of new people, I don't hear names. Straight through the other ear they go. Hopefully I can work on that.

I got back home and everyone was back in their rooms, and it wasn't even midnight on a Friday night. Sad, sad, sad. At least I had my chicken lasagna to comfort me.

Back to the beach tomorrow. Huntington Beach. And CDM. Crazy. Time to get dark again.

I had another strange dream today. It made me late to a meeting I had scheduled. Here it is:

There was a formal dance at one of the ICS buildings at UCI. I went by myself, and when I walked in, I saw a guy give 100 bucks to this girl who was holding an empty Aquafina bottle. (Right now on the radio they're advertising this promotion where if you are spotted anywhere in America with an Aquafina bottle, you could get anywhere from 2 to 1000 dollars. I hear the commercial maybe 3 times a day). I walked up to the girl, who came with a guy I knew (but I don't remember his name). I asked her for the Aquafina bottle and she gave it to me. A couple of minutes later, the Aquafina guy came up to me and gave me 110 bucks. I was so happy that I gave the girl 10 bucks for lending me the bottle, but she didn't even acknowledge the gesture and walked away.

I was thirsty (how ironic) so I went to get some water, but there was nothing in the room. I walked out and found a vending machine with water, but I didn't feel like paying for water (despite the fact I earned 110 bucks just by holding a water bottle). I kept walking down the hallway until I got to the center of the floor, and there was an info desk. My friend Michael Boswell was working there, so I asked him where I could find a water fountain. He told me there was a fountain on the floor below. I was thinking I might get lost because there were stairs everywhere, but I got my water and went back to the dance.

When I walked in, there was a tall guy fighting with a shorter guy. They weren't really throwing punches but they were covered in mustard. It was all over both of their heads. I saw Bryant breaking the fight up. The girl who lent me the Aquafina bottle was a little upset that people were fighting so close to her. The short guy shoved the tall guy and he bumped into the girl, getting mustard on her. We all left at that point, and for some reason I walked with the girl and her date to his car (a Celica) and helped her in. That's all I remember.

Possible motivations for this dream:
- the Aquafina promotion I keep hearing on the radio
- I cooked a burger "animal style" (in mustard) the previous day and burned the mustard
- Cristina was talking about Celicas the previous day

I was freaking shocked (to say the least) that's it's already 0208 hours on Friday. Frack. That puts me an additional fours days behind schedule. I wanted to cook something nice on Saturday... but ended up cooking it today. I wanted to work out on Tuesday, but didn't till Wednesday night. I didn't get my insurance thing (for the stupid dent in the door) sorted out until today, two whole weeks since I dropped my car off at the body shop. On a side note, I talked to the same insurance adjustor who I actually enjoyed speaking to. I don't know if it's because of the whole summer phenomenon or because I've been single forever, but I kept thinking that I had no reason not to have a little conversation with her. So I did. She doesn't sound much older than maybe 25 from the way she talks, but who knows? She could be damn well over 40. Not that I was trying to get my hopes up that I could spark something, but when you're single and lonely, a phone conversation with a stranger is a nice diversion.

Besides the monotony of jobless, school-less summer life, this is how my week has been:
- went to the back and paid both the electric and phone bills
- wrote new blog page from scratch (over 3 days)
- table crossing, mcdonalds, one-hit wonders, movies, cartoons, mafia, and murderers on Tuesday
- helped Cristina move her couches
- watched While You Were Out at 25A Parkwatts
- had Rubios twice

Quite the "killer" week, but I hope everything's back in the mix now. I just cooked (even though I didn't get to eat until 1:30), the other outreach coord's and I are going to have our first planning meeting, and I'm still hitting the ARC consistently (I actually got Leo to go). Add MCAT studying and stir, and an optional job to ease the dry financial situation, and I'll have something good brewing up shortly. Very shortly. The oven's on broil...

Stepping over a table.
99 cent chicken mcnuggets.
One-hit wonders.
Worst Movies.
Best Movies from the 80s and 90s.
Cartoons.
Two rounds of mafia.
Three rounds of murderers in Interfaith.

And I'm exhausted. I hope there's more waiting tomorrow.

I had two strange dreams this morning. I'm surprised I woke up, but usually I just sleep through everything when I'm dreaming.

Dream 1
It started in a car. My brother was driving me down the 71, the major freeway by our house in Chino Hills. He was telling me about some exit he'd take to get on another freeway. I found it kind of funny, because there were 3 different ways to get to the same exit that I knew, only because I always missed the right one. I forgot some details after that. The next thing I remember is that my whole family is in the car and I'm in the back, with my dad driving (which is weird because I usually sit up front when the whole fam in is the car). We drove for a whole, and I think the road was more or less staight the whole way, but I couldn't see where we were going for some reason. All I could tell was that it was overcast outside and a little dark.

For some reason my dad pulled to the side, maybe to rest. We just parked for a while. My dad turned on the windshield wipers so I got a peek of the windshield. The jets sprayed it pretty well, so I couldn't see anything really except the wipers. We started moving again, but this time my brother was driving. I didn't see him switch places with my dad though. By that time it was dark, and my brother was speeding. I had a weird view of the car, as if I was in a car behind watching him drive, but I wasn't, because the whole time I was talking to him. He started swerving around cars so he wouldn't have to slow down. When both lanes were blocked, he tried flooring it around the left shoulder, but the car in front pulled to the left. I started yelling at him not to weave like that. I said that he just missed that other car by barely a foot.

It started raining, but my brother still kept speeding and swerving. We finally got out of the car and started walking. I didn't know to where at the time though. My brother walked ahead of all of us, so I caught up with him and tried to talk to him. He had an umbrella open and he half-closed it and threw it down, but didn't say why. It turns out we were headed to church (though the way my brother drove wasn't the way to our church). My sister shouted to my brother to hold open the doors. When we got it, I realized it was Christmastime from the decorations. There were people waiting there already, so we just chilled in the foyer of the church for a while.

I was sitting on a bench near the restrooms when some girl peeked out of the women's restroom and said she wanted to sing some Christmas song from Star Wars. I didn't know the song, so I pretended to ignore her, but one of the guys standing around said he'd sing with her. When the girl started singing, I noticed she had a really impressive voice. The guy sang his part too, and he had a decent voice also. There was a duet part at the end, but the girl's voice seemed to get worse and worse the more she sang. When they finished singing, somehow they ended up sitting on the bench I was on. They were holding something with the lyrics to the song. They showed it to me. It said the song was by two people named [the girl's name, which I forgot] and Jason. They said I should have been singing with her. (It's strange, because I didn't know them and I never told them my name).

Dream 2
This was the second dream. I don't remember all of it.
I was part of some group it a small room. It was a little dark and from what I remember, the room had a rusty color. There were a lot of orange and green hues, like a scene from a movie. We were led into a room with a table. It was almost exactly like my kitchen at home, except the island in the middle of the kitchen was now the table, and I didn't see any kitchen appliances. The doorway was in the same place, except there was no door. The other side of the room was open into another room, just like my kitchen. The colors were the same as the first room we were in.

The guy who led us into the room gave us all the same form to fill out. It looked like an application, but every other line had a single bold word printed in the middle of every other line on the page. I told someone it reminded me of a form I filled out before where we had to write down everything we could about the word on the line below it. I looked over the form; it was a essay type of form. We were supposed to write as clearly as possible about what we wanted to do for our careers. We all sat down around the table and started writing. I saw about halfway done when the guy came back into the room and sat at the table. He explained what we supposed to be doing (after we started). He then told the rest of the group that when he spoke to me earlier, I was very "defensive" about what I wanted to do (whatever that means--I assume he meant it as a compliment). At that point in the dream, I had a flashback (still part of the dream). I was telling the same guy that I planned on getting into either medicine or music (studio work). I said medicine was my first choice, but I didn't want to end up working my life away. If I decided on music, then I'd have more time to do other things.

I don't remember anything else. When I woke up I realized that I'd seen the form somewhere before, like I dreamt of it a while ago. I think I had the second dream because I've been thinking a lot about going to medical school and if it's the right thing for me. My roommate told me a few weeks ago that he knew the medical field was right for me because he would suggest that I think about engineering or some physics related field and I told him I'd love to do something with physics or engineering, but I couldn't see myself doing anything else besides something medical related. I can't really say if it's more of my dream or my calling. I'm still not comfortable with the seemingly never-ending time investment, but I know if I'm doing what I want to be doing, at least I won't be putting 40+ hours a week into a job I have just for the money. If being a doctor was a 40 hour a week job, I'd be more sure of my decision. I understand that there's more to life than your career. On the other hand, there's a difference between going to work, and doing your life's work for a living.

I can hear right now is the clicking of my keyboard, the hum of my computer fan and the breeze coming in the window. For me, it's the dead of the night. For most people, it's early in the morning. I've always wondered why I'm so inclined to doing things at night. Even when I'm not inclined, sometimes I just can't help it. Often times I eat my last meal around midnight or later. As most of the world begins to wind down, I'm still going.

So by the time I wake up, take a shower, find something to eat, and check my email, it's almost time for most people to come home from work. If it's not the heat that making me sleepy, it's dreaming that keeps me from waking up. It's too bad I don't have the satisfaction of remembering what's keeping my brain occupied while the minutes tick away. All I know is I can't be doing this when things have to get taken care of. And right now, things need to be taken care of.

I've noticed that sometimes I develop a one-track mind. That can be a good thing in some ways, but most of the time you can't think about anything else until you finally get over it. It'd be great if I could control it, so I could shut just about everything out of my mind for a while and then switch it off so I could function normally. When I get like that, my mind wanders and I end up trying to figure out some pointless problem. Maybe it's ADHD. I think you need more symptoms for that though. I'm not really hyperactive. Anymore. I think of it like having a rocket strapped to your back. Once you light it, you better not have to stop anytime soon, but you can sure get somewhere fast.

Friday night my roommates tried to get me to go to a club with them. It was free. I didn't feel like going though. I wanted to work out and I felt like cooking something nice up. They kept trying to convince me. Adam said he never ever sees me party. And that I'm 22. Single. It's Friday. And It's Free. Shane said he needed someone to chill with because Lauren and Adam would have each other. I think that's one of the ways I'm different than most people. I'm not up for the party thing unless I feel like I have some reason to party. They even told me they wouldn't try to get me to drink. I think that's a first. Still, most of the time I'd rather chill with someone than go out to a club or a bar or something. I don't have a constant need to meet new people, even though sometimes I'll want to. I guess it depends on the situation. My other roommate invited me to go to the fair with her and some other people, but I wasn't feeling that either, but I did watch a movie with them later. So now it's about 3:45 and I'm still up. These warm summer nights...