I'm still here.
So I'm going to do a rewind. There's been so much going on this past week or so that I almost don't want to attempt to write about it because I'm going to miss some things I wanted to write about, but here goes anyway.
Christmas was great. How I spent Christmas day was another story. I got home late Christmas Eve, expecting to go to midnight mass, but the traffic was killer. I took the long way ome so I could listen to a cd I burned, but as I turned out, I would have been stuck in traffic for half an hour regardless. My mom's excuse for not going to midnight mass: it was too wet. Funny that by the time we got out of the car at church in the morning, it was pouring. People weren't very social after mass (ahem Emely), but then again I wasn't expecting ot see anyone familiar anyway. And so we stayed home all day. Besides the obligatory pictures, opening presents, and eating lunch and dinner, we just kept to ourselves all day.
My parents had to bright idea to grill my siblings and I about our futures. On Christmas. Thankfully my sister defended all of us. I think my dad believes that if I'm not on the fast track to medical school, all is lost, for me at least. I didn't have the heart to tell them I was planning on doing 2 years of post-bac work to work on my GPA. I know it's out of their hands, but I didn't want to hear it from them anyway. I'll be ready when my time comes. Right now, it's not quite my time.
The day after. I had a feeling that since I didn't do any shopping before Christmas, I'd catch up the day after, when the sales hit. I gave up on that pretty quick though. There's something about shopping that sickens me. Why was Christmas mixed up with this consumer economic free-for-all? Even if I had the money, I don't think I want to buy a gift just because I feel obligated. I don't know. Why do something nice for someone only once a year? Why not spread it around more? I think that's my goal for the year. There are a lot of us who could be a lot better off with less. Myself included. Gift giving is a tricky thing for me, and always has been. Can something you can fit in a box be really that great of a gift?
On Christmas I kept thinking about the people over at the Catholic Worker. I wanted to head over there, but instead I just sat at the computer playing games. I mean, if you're not actually spending time with your family, why not spend it with people who would love to have someone to spend a few hours with? I remember going 2 days before Christmas and giving the kids a ride in an abandoned shopping cart. They were being restless, so I said, "You kids better behave, or I'll turn this car around," and Jillian the monkey kid turns around any says, "This isn't a car, it's a cart!" How cute. The homily for the Christmas mass mentioned how Jesus was born a child of the poor. Just like the song... "Who is this, who live with the lowly, sharing their sorrows, knowing their hunger? This is Christ revealed to the world in the eyes of a child, a child of the poor". There's so little space in our lives for the Lord at times. It's about time we made some more room.
The 27th. More of the same as the last two days. I left that night, not before frying my brain with way too much Need For Speed Underground. My dad's birthday was the next day, but I thought I had to work. The thing is, I knew we would just be sitting at home like every other day I spend at home. My parents aren't the ones to celebrate things. Celebrate birthdays. Celebrate holidays. Celebrate life. So my dad turned 60. It's kind of weird. I don't think he looks 60. I think of all the times he goes home and washes my car in the driveway while I'm still sleeping and writes me a check every time I come back to Irvine (which I used to refuse, but now I can't afford to). I wish I knew how to talk to him. I wish he knew how to talk to me. I hope I could make him proud one day, even if I'm not a doctor, or even make it medical school, or even graduate from UCI... but I can't make excuses for my mistakes. So I'm just playing by ear.
I didn't work on Sunday, but it felt nice to be away from the negative air. After mass Mel, Joyce, Kayleen, Charlie, and I ate at Tenkos. Then Geeps picked up Meechy and Rica and we watched Blood In Blood Out. Crazy. I was waiting for DMX to appear the whole time. Oh man, that ending. Chale. Watch the ending, carnal. We all crashed before 2am.
Monday was fun. It was LOG snow day. We were supposed to meet at Interfaith around 9:30, but we got there at 10:30. Jei and Dutchess were there already, waiting. Oops. Over to Chino Hills to pick up Em. I hid from her dad so he wouldn't accidentally mention he saw me to my parents. That might not have went over well with the rents. We finally made it to Mountain High around 12:30. Unfortunately for us there wasn't much of anything... besides ice. Lots of ice. So we put on our jackets and beanies and slid around on the icy lot. Jei had to leave pretty quick. We slipped and slid and wobbled across the lot and then turned around. No snow to be seen. Little did we know it would snow like crazy that night around Tahoe. I knew we should have went to Tahoe. We ate at KFC near Ontario Mills, then dropped everyone off--Rica, then Meechy, then Michelle in Irvine. That night Geeps, Joyce, Mel, and I kidnapped Nimz (not really) and watched Bad Santa. That was great. A tad on the vulgar side, but pretty damn funny.
Tuesday the roomies and I went out to South Coast to shop a little. I didn't feel like buying anything, but I found some nice bball shorts. I couldn't resist. Damn. Then we went to Al and Ed's Autosound on Wednesday so Geeps could spend his giftcard. Another guy was there and he wasn't going to use his card, so I came away with some $100 speakers for $50. Now I have to figure out how to put them in my car. Damn. We had no idea what to do for New Year's, so we made a pit stop at the apartment, checked if Pechanga was open, then headed to Kathy's house in Rowland Heights. Gerard was there, along with some SOL peeps. Their beagle Perry was cool. He kept chewing on our hands. It made me want a dog. We played guys vs. girls in Cranium and the guys ran the table... two easy wins. Of course, it helped that we only got 3 or 4 questions wrong out of 20+ and rolled purple 5 times in a row and then 3 times in a row... and then 3 times in a row again, but just for the hell of it, not to advance. That saved us maybe 8 turns. We should have been at a casino. The odds are somewhere in the area of 1 in 10,000 chance of rolling 5 purples and then 3 purples in a row. That would have been great at a craps table. Then we watched the countdown, chilled, and watched the after-party stuff on TV.
Now it's 2004. I think I'll be writing 2003 for another week until I get used to things.
So I'm going to do a rewind. There's been so much going on this past week or so that I almost don't want to attempt to write about it because I'm going to miss some things I wanted to write about, but here goes anyway.
Christmas was great. How I spent Christmas day was another story. I got home late Christmas Eve, expecting to go to midnight mass, but the traffic was killer. I took the long way ome so I could listen to a cd I burned, but as I turned out, I would have been stuck in traffic for half an hour regardless. My mom's excuse for not going to midnight mass: it was too wet. Funny that by the time we got out of the car at church in the morning, it was pouring. People weren't very social after mass (ahem Emely), but then again I wasn't expecting ot see anyone familiar anyway. And so we stayed home all day. Besides the obligatory pictures, opening presents, and eating lunch and dinner, we just kept to ourselves all day.
My parents had to bright idea to grill my siblings and I about our futures. On Christmas. Thankfully my sister defended all of us. I think my dad believes that if I'm not on the fast track to medical school, all is lost, for me at least. I didn't have the heart to tell them I was planning on doing 2 years of post-bac work to work on my GPA. I know it's out of their hands, but I didn't want to hear it from them anyway. I'll be ready when my time comes. Right now, it's not quite my time.
The day after. I had a feeling that since I didn't do any shopping before Christmas, I'd catch up the day after, when the sales hit. I gave up on that pretty quick though. There's something about shopping that sickens me. Why was Christmas mixed up with this consumer economic free-for-all? Even if I had the money, I don't think I want to buy a gift just because I feel obligated. I don't know. Why do something nice for someone only once a year? Why not spread it around more? I think that's my goal for the year. There are a lot of us who could be a lot better off with less. Myself included. Gift giving is a tricky thing for me, and always has been. Can something you can fit in a box be really that great of a gift?
On Christmas I kept thinking about the people over at the Catholic Worker. I wanted to head over there, but instead I just sat at the computer playing games. I mean, if you're not actually spending time with your family, why not spend it with people who would love to have someone to spend a few hours with? I remember going 2 days before Christmas and giving the kids a ride in an abandoned shopping cart. They were being restless, so I said, "You kids better behave, or I'll turn this car around," and Jillian the monkey kid turns around any says, "This isn't a car, it's a cart!" How cute. The homily for the Christmas mass mentioned how Jesus was born a child of the poor. Just like the song... "Who is this, who live with the lowly, sharing their sorrows, knowing their hunger? This is Christ revealed to the world in the eyes of a child, a child of the poor". There's so little space in our lives for the Lord at times. It's about time we made some more room.
The 27th. More of the same as the last two days. I left that night, not before frying my brain with way too much Need For Speed Underground. My dad's birthday was the next day, but I thought I had to work. The thing is, I knew we would just be sitting at home like every other day I spend at home. My parents aren't the ones to celebrate things. Celebrate birthdays. Celebrate holidays. Celebrate life. So my dad turned 60. It's kind of weird. I don't think he looks 60. I think of all the times he goes home and washes my car in the driveway while I'm still sleeping and writes me a check every time I come back to Irvine (which I used to refuse, but now I can't afford to). I wish I knew how to talk to him. I wish he knew how to talk to me. I hope I could make him proud one day, even if I'm not a doctor, or even make it medical school, or even graduate from UCI... but I can't make excuses for my mistakes. So I'm just playing by ear.
I didn't work on Sunday, but it felt nice to be away from the negative air. After mass Mel, Joyce, Kayleen, Charlie, and I ate at Tenkos. Then Geeps picked up Meechy and Rica and we watched Blood In Blood Out. Crazy. I was waiting for DMX to appear the whole time. Oh man, that ending. Chale. Watch the ending, carnal. We all crashed before 2am.
Monday was fun. It was LOG snow day. We were supposed to meet at Interfaith around 9:30, but we got there at 10:30. Jei and Dutchess were there already, waiting. Oops. Over to Chino Hills to pick up Em. I hid from her dad so he wouldn't accidentally mention he saw me to my parents. That might not have went over well with the rents. We finally made it to Mountain High around 12:30. Unfortunately for us there wasn't much of anything... besides ice. Lots of ice. So we put on our jackets and beanies and slid around on the icy lot. Jei had to leave pretty quick. We slipped and slid and wobbled across the lot and then turned around. No snow to be seen. Little did we know it would snow like crazy that night around Tahoe. I knew we should have went to Tahoe. We ate at KFC near Ontario Mills, then dropped everyone off--Rica, then Meechy, then Michelle in Irvine. That night Geeps, Joyce, Mel, and I kidnapped Nimz (not really) and watched Bad Santa. That was great. A tad on the vulgar side, but pretty damn funny.
Tuesday the roomies and I went out to South Coast to shop a little. I didn't feel like buying anything, but I found some nice bball shorts. I couldn't resist. Damn. Then we went to Al and Ed's Autosound on Wednesday so Geeps could spend his giftcard. Another guy was there and he wasn't going to use his card, so I came away with some $100 speakers for $50. Now I have to figure out how to put them in my car. Damn. We had no idea what to do for New Year's, so we made a pit stop at the apartment, checked if Pechanga was open, then headed to Kathy's house in Rowland Heights. Gerard was there, along with some SOL peeps. Their beagle Perry was cool. He kept chewing on our hands. It made me want a dog. We played guys vs. girls in Cranium and the guys ran the table... two easy wins. Of course, it helped that we only got 3 or 4 questions wrong out of 20+ and rolled purple 5 times in a row and then 3 times in a row... and then 3 times in a row again, but just for the hell of it, not to advance. That saved us maybe 8 turns. We should have been at a casino. The odds are somewhere in the area of 1 in 10,000 chance of rolling 5 purples and then 3 purples in a row. That would have been great at a craps table. Then we watched the countdown, chilled, and watched the after-party stuff on TV.
Now it's 2004. I think I'll be writing 2003 for another week until I get used to things.
