HELLO, my name is nesqu!k

Cold

2011-03-14T04:38:00.000-07:00

4:39am. What's going on? I'll tell you whats going on.

Never mind, no I wont. This isn't really the sort of thing you just write about and post on the internet.

I'm thinking of an emotion. It's characterized by sharp, imagined pains in the chest and head, feelings of coldness, and uncontrollable collective contractions of the facial muscles. It overwhelms the body and drains the mind's energy. It engulfs your entire state of being like a stone sinking into the depths of the cold, cold ocean. It's unpleasant. It hurts. It becomes the only thing you can think about. It dictates your mental state, your posture, even your line of sight.

That's all that I've taken the time to notice so far.

I've felt this way before, but this time it just feels particularly overwhelming. And it doesn't really help knowing that I've still got a Monday's worth of classes to look forward to later today. And it really doesn't help that it's finals week. This is all really just a massive inconvenience.

Well on the bright side, the sun now comes up an hour later, so maybe even if I end up staying up tonight I'll be able to pass out before the sunlight sends its first beam through my window. Then again, that never really happens; my window is at an angle that never allows sunlight to directly enter the room, so all I really get is whatever light that bounces off a bright surface outside in our little courtyard of sorts.

Well I've been writing for a good 15 or so minutes now, and its therapeutic value is really starting to show again. I remember I used to only write when I was feeling somewhat off, and most of the time it helped to make me feel a little better. Reflection really is a powerful tool.

But sometimes just the thought of it creates a situation even more dire than the one with which we started.

And that is why I'm awake at 5am.

The Wandering Mind

2011-02-21T22:16:00.000-08:00

Wow, it sure has been a long time. My dad and I were just talking about this the other night. He made up this story about how one of his co workers said to him, "Hey Nestor, you son hasn't posted anything new on his blog in a while." Or at least I assume he's making up the story. He told me his co workers know about my blog because I used it to photo-document our trip to the Philippines in 2008. My dad's mentioned his coworkers to me before concerning my blog, but I never really knew if it was true or not. I dunno if its my dad trying to subliminally encourage me to write again or if his co workers really read my blog. I suppose I'll find out soon enough.

Anyway, back to the reason for my momentary, and hopefully more regular, reappearance. A few minutes ago I was studying for my Macroeconomics midterm on Wednesday, sort of cruising through the study guide for the first chapter for this unit with one of Nujabes' albums playing in the background. As I perused through the powerpoint slides, moving from one info bubble to the next and trying to make sense of the occasional lengthy, rather wandering paragraphs, I found that my mind was consistently wandering away.

"Some excess reserves are created in the banking system. These excess reserves..." suddenly leads to some other completely unrelated thought. My eyes would slowly claw their way across the width of the screen, seeing the words and reading the words, but in reality, not really. Suddenly I find myself at the bottom of the page, thinking about something completely unrelated to the material, and completely clueless as to what I had just read, or rather, what had I "seen".

So if I'm not taking in and thinking about the material, what is really on my mind? Well I couldn't tell you now, really; but I can tell you that just between the pause of the current part of this sentence that you are reading now and the earlier half of the sentence, I was planning out how I would approach the actual writing of the sentence. And I decided to tell you what I just told you. And there were a bunch of other things that went through my mind as well.

It's almost overwhelming, really; this continuous sudden appearance of new thoughts and ideas. Just as I was driving back to Davis this evening, thinking of what to do with our constantly YLOD-ing PS3, I realized that if I did decide to trade it in to Gamestop for a new Slim with Killzone 3, I probably should have considered taking the original hard drive back with me as well. And I came to this realization when I was already halfway through Fairfield. To drive all the way back home for something as ridiculous as that would have been impatient and inconvenient. "It's cool, I can just wait til this weekend since I'll be home for my dad and my brother's birthday party." "No, I can't wait that long! Man this is so inconvenient, look at that, all your prospective plans for the week just got ruined." And on and on went the thoughts.

Alright well, I dont feel like writing anymore. I guess I'll leave it at that.

More to come soon, hopefully.

-nesqu!k

Good Mood

2010-03-08T00:56:00.000-08:00

I know I have a tendency to only do one of these pictureless little life essays when I have reason to question things or just feel really off. But I figure for a change, I'll write about how I feel when I'm in a good mood. I'll tell you all the things that have been going on, and all the thoughts that have been going through my head as a result. Good plan, yeah?

This weekend was just seemingly endless fun. After going through an incredibly off Thursday and Friday, two days that had me in a slump for reasons beyond my understanding, Saturday turned everything around once I went to rehearsals with TIZ. There's something particularly cool about our crew this time around. You couldn't help but feel relaxed or to get sucked in to everyone else's good spirited mannerisms. It was some combination of the poppers, Nicki, Claire, Jobu, and Benson. Something about everyone was like getting constant injections of spirit booster. Everyone just felt particularly chill. We would all always have something to say to each other. There weren't any weird invisible barriers, we were all just perfectly in synch, all juiced up for our upcoming performance.

One thing that really had me going was everyone's compliments on my beatboxing. This is actually the first time that I've done raw beatboxing for a TIZ show. Up until now, I was always beatboxing over a music track, an MC, or another instrument; this time I had a chance to really show off what I could do rather than be constrained by external mediums. I had a chance to really play around with beats and throw around different sounds and mix them back in to make something new, and clearly my excitement showed in my performance, because everyone really liked it. It really felt good. It was really cool to get a lot of ups from the popping crew, because I can tell you I secretly look up to poppers because they are amazing dancers, and I've always wanted to learn but I'm just not very good at dancing, heh. But I'd definitely be down to do a collabo with those guys; they really are a group of super chill people. Especially Lawrence, that dude's hella funny haha.

And who can forget Nicki and Claire? I've known Nicki for a pretty long time now, and while Claire was with us in our last fashion show at Center Court, I never really talked to her until now. It was definitely cool getting to know the two of them a little more, even if we weren't even talking about ourselves to each other; most of the time it was just continuous, flowing conversation that didn't need direction or purpose, we were all talking together simply because we liked talking to each other, and it all felt natural and confortable. Most certainly two of the coolest girls I know.

Lastly, there's Jobu. Now Jobu is just in his own category, without a doubt. There's cool people, there's hella cool people, and then there's Jobu. Jobu always seems to be engulfed by a boundless energy that effortlessly attracts people to it. Jobu is just a complete character and an incredible entertainer. He's the type of person that know exactly what he needs to do to get a crowd fired up in an instant, or to get a smile on the faces of the people around him. His continuous stream of surprising and provocative, yet predictable, behavior is his most memorable quality. Yet behind all of that he's just as chill and down to earth as everyone else.

And then there was the show. Law, Nicki, Jobu, Claire and I are all standing on the stairs leading up to the catwalk, all getting fired up; an observer would easily notice a strong energy coming from our group. We were easily the most obnoxious, easy-going group of models in the whole show. We're minutes from going onstage and we're singing weird songs, doing weird dances, we're all taking pictures together, talking really loudly, and Jobu is doing some inappropriate dance, In situations where most models are feeling strained and uptight, TIZers are always energetic, free-flowing, enthusiastic people. We're always excited to show off our talents, especially when they go well appreciated, and we put that level of soul into all of our performances and fashion shows. We definitely gave it our all this past show, and the we know the crowd was definitely feeling it.

I think the thing about this weekend is that I met a group of people, all of us united under a common goal, and as a result we all got along very well. It really is a very humbling experience to have, and sometimes that all you really need: a nice, humbling experience that makes you realize that everything about your life is completely fine, and that there's no reason for you to feel otherwise.

To me, that's what The Imaginary Zebra is about.

TIZFTMFW

-nesqu!k

Success

2010-02-06T02:50:00.001-08:00

*Caution: stream of consciousness

Success is relative. Whether or not you reach it all depends on the goals you set, and whether or not they are even possible to begin with. You tell yourself, "I'm going to go talk to that person", and for you this might be a really big thing. To accomplish such a goal would make you feel like you've taken 10 steps forward. But for others, they feel a relatively lower sense of accomplishment. Pay attention to the way I use the word, "relative". For some people, talking to someone new is easy. It's automatic. It's another day-to-day routine. For others, it's a challenge. A really big barrier to overcome.

So given that, who is giving more, the rich man who gave 10% of his $100 thousand income, or the poor man who gave 100% of his $10 thousand income?

The poor man.

But the poor man's efforts go unnoticed. The world is blind to his sacrifice. No one sees the relative amount of truly passionate effort that they put in. One man casts away $1, while the other wishes he even had a dollar to begin with so he could buy food.

I guess I'm writing this because I feel like a contribute to a lot of things and I end up going off relatively unappreciated. While some of my efforts may seem small to you, they are massive strides for me. They may be small, pyrrhic victories, but they are victories nonetheless, and they are my victories. And while many others' victories are met with celebration, mine never are. They are whisked away by the wind, overshadowed by the success of others.

Or perhaps whatever contribution I think I'm making to anything, maybe it really doesn't matter. I mean, if it really was a big deal, people would make it a big deal, wouldn't they? Why should I ask for it? If I really deserved it, I wouldn't even have to ask for it to begin with, right?

Or maybe I'm just not open enough to it. Maybe there is a lot of appreciation, and I just don't see it. Or maybe I downplay it on purpose, so I can keep me from getting too ahead of myself. Keep myself from creating all these expectations for what's going to happen next so that I don't have to eventually watch my own idealizations collapse and decay in front of my own eyes.

I'm saying all of this because I'm tired of watching all of my buildings collapse. I'm tired of feeling like the work I do isn't taking me anywhere. Studying for hours and barely pulling a C. Why does that always happen?

I guess all it is is that I haven't yet found yet what it is I truly love to do. And if I have found it, then I just don't have to resources to really do it they way I want to do it. So many big goals, yet such limited resources. Why have big goals in the first place when you don't even have the resources you need to accomplish them? Why does it always feel like there's so much cost involved? Why does it cost me more to get the same things as you?

Tell me, why is that?

-nesqu!k

Loss

2010-02-06T02:46:00.000-08:00

Is it my loss for thinking I didn't try hard enough to get to you, or is it your loss because you didn't know I was trying my hardest?
-nesqu!k

Thoughts

2010-01-23T04:03:00.000-08:00

Alright, so here's what I'm thinking:

I. The More Power You Get, The Less Privacy You Should Have
The best kind of system, to me, is a transparent one. That way you can see exactly how the system works. There's no dyed plastic casing hiding away the inner workings of it, like one of your childhood toys, because there is no secret to be kept. No, with a truly transparent system, there are no secrets, and if it doesn't provide you with the results you want, all you have to do is take a look inside at all the parts, locate the problem, replace it or remove it entirely, and allow the system to return to it's optimal level of productivity.

If the system isn't transparent, well, it's like trying to photoshop a picture while the monitor off, or the brightness turned all the way down. It's really difficult to touch up the problem areas if you can't see them in the first place.

But going back to my original point, the more power someone gets, the less privacy they should have. It's good to know that the people who we elect to push for our interests and beliefs in our government are actually working for us, and not for someone who is offering them a pretty penny, someone else other than ourselves. It's better to keep our eye on them to make sure they're doing the will of the people, and not the will of the money holders. If my politician is a sell-out, I deserve to know, and I deserve to remove him from his office for putting his fake, friendly little facade on as he received "donations" behind our backs, outside of our knowledge. This is where your own gain begins to exceed the gain of the people you represent, to the point that you willingly put down the very people who asked you to bring them up; and this is where the problem lies.

Give me my fucking transparency. Show me for once that you really have nothing to hide. And if it turns out that you do have something to hide, I imagine it would be the fact that while all the commoners dwindle into the oblivion of poverty, you are making a profit off of our deterioration. And at that discovery, we will retaliate with such terrible vengeance, so horrific that it will be beyond your comprehension.

But of course, you've got nothing to hide, so we won't have that problem, now will we?

II. Probability Is A Pointless Endeavor
This one's a lot more simple than the first one. Probability is pretty much pointless, because no matter how many possible outcomes there are, we're only going to actually get to see one. And once that's happened, that's it. It certainly didn't "not happen". So really at the end of the day, either one of the possible outcomes occurs, or it doesn't, in which case another possible outcome would have occurred in the designated space. It doesn't matter if the chances of the Millennium Falcon's chances of survival in a field of star destroyers is six-thousand seven-hundred-whatever to one, if it can hit that "one" more than just once out of the six-thousand-whatever times, then the fact of the matter is, it occurred more than just once out of six-thousand seven hundred-etc. So probability is meaningless if out of an infinite number of possible next steps, only one can be chosen.

I don't know, maybe?

III. Our Imagination Is Our Own "Matrix"
Our minds spend more time living inside of our imaginations than anywhere else. Imagination is the very basis of thought itself, a space within our minds in which to create a virtual representation of the world around us. In our imagination, we make the rules, we determine the boundaries, assuming we choose to allow boundaries to exist at all. We play out scenarios in which impossible things happen, scenarios in which we fly like the birds, swim like the fishes, roar like the lions, things that our physical bodies will never experience, things they can only dream of ;)

Imagination creates an idealized world where everything is predictable because it is our own little universe, for which we play the role of God. Everything within it occurs exactly the way in which we like it to carry itself. It is your canvas, and you are the designer. The architect. Do what you wish with it. Fill it with happy things, fill it with sad things. Fill it with anger, hate, fear, whatever you like.

After a while you'll begin to notice that the world around you begins to change. The visualizations you create of the world begin to have an effect on your perception of the real world. You fill your imagination with hate, and when you look at the world around out, hate becomes the only thing you notice. You fill your imagination with fear, and the world suddenly becomes a scary, unfamiliar wilderness. Likewise, if you fill your imagination with love and happiness, well... the world suddenly begins to feel like it's filled with love and happiness.

nesqu!k

Nightmares

2010-01-01T06:44:00.000-08:00

First, let me start off by saying to everyone, "Happy 2010", I wish for the best for everyone in this new decade; may it be a continuation of great things in your lives, or a fresh start for those of you who feel that you need one.

I'm not quite sure what I should think about the new year; as I watched the footage of the ball finally reaching its position at the bottom of the New Year's pole in New York, watching the massive crows swaying in unison in Times Square as music blared over loud speakers, couples kissing under the light of giant illuminated billboards, I just wasn't sure what to make of it. Sure, I was there, watching it with my mom, my dad, and my two younger brothers, the four closest people to me, but after we hugged and celebrated, holding hands to pray for strength, courage, and good fortune in the new year, I looked back at the TV, and just couldn't help but feel unfulfilled. It was like being the writer and director of a movie, and just before you had the chance to get your final scene put together, the producers took all your material from you, and released it unfinished, incomplete.

I thought back to 2009 and looked at all the things I had tried my luck at, only to come out disappointed, worn down, and without any gains. It was like a bad year in the stock market. I put in all kinds of work, all kinds of effort, only to be met with a less-than-equal return. It almost feels like wasted effort. Now surely, one would assume that I did learn some things in the process, and yes, I guess you could say I learned plenty of new things about myself, about other people, but at what cost? Well to me, it seems that I have paid way too much to only receive such a small gain. As much as I may feel I have learned, I had to pay up with time and effort, something you and I can never gain back. I'm one year older, which means one year has passed, which means I just have that much time left. Yes, I have my whole life ahead of me, but one chapter, one of the most crucial ones, is already a little more than halfway through. In less then two years, I will have graduated and will be looking for a job at who knows where. These are my final opportunities to meet more great people in the relatively relaxed environment of college, in contrast to the stress and uneasiness that comes from becoming a part of the workforce, becoming another small gear in the much larger machine, a machine which, by the way, downplays the significance of each of its individual parts. But enough, about that, I was supposed to talk about nightmares.

I've been having a lot of really odd dreams lately; I struggle even to refer to them as such, in fact, looking back, they were all actually nightmares. Most of them, I can't remember anymore, but I do remember waking up sharply on a number of occasions to the unbearable discomfort that would often haunt me in my sleep. The past two I recall carrying the themes of powerlessness. Just the other night I dreamed that three burglars entered the house after one of my brothers naively opened the door for them and let them in. As they rummaged through the drawers of the house that, as time went on, gradually began to resemble my own less and less, I plotted to take out all three of them, with a butcher knife I had found in the kitchen. I approached the first one from behind, but as my mind commanded my arm to swing out in one of the most violent acts I could possibly ever conceive, I could feel my muscles resisting my commands. You know when you first wake up in the morning and you try to make a fist with your hand, but it just feels really weird, almost like your hand is trying to resist this action? Well that's what my entire right arm felt like in the dream; in fact, to an extent, my entire body felt that way. As I commanded the swing into the assailant's skull, the action, if any, would come with an involuntary reluctance, for which I could only imagine why it existed. Despite this peculiar, underlying protest, the blow would eventually land, right in the man's skull, leaving a large, clean incision in the top of his head. But despite this, he continued to rummage through a drawer of old phone books and different types of tape. No scream, no physical reaction, nothing. "Nevermind," I thought to myself, "he's already got a huge gash in his head, I need to go take out the other two." So I moved across the first floor to the other side of a rather malformed, distorted, expanded version of our kitchen to find the other two bandits looking through two adjacent drawers. I approached the first one from behind on his right, and quickly landed two blows into the man's head, feeling the same bizarre sense of muscular reluctance before the act was actually completed. I recall looking at the two lacerations in the clean-cut skull, seeing the lines drawn through the man's hair which resembled the neat cuts into a tray of brownies, the whole thing a nearly bloodless ordeal, and before I could attack the third thief, I found myself telling the story of what had just happened to a friend as we sat at a table in my garage, glasses of water in hand, as the sun went down outside. It wasn't until much later that I would wake up to realize I had just had a dream within a dream.

But now comes the most significant tale of this entry, the one from which I woke up from a little over an hour ago. I recall a number of things from this one, some of them actually quite nice, at first, anyway. It was the start of a new quarter. New classes, new people; I found myself in a different part of the UC Davis campus, assuming it even was the campus which I have become so familiar with over the past 2 years and 1/4. Everything seemed tremendously distorted, as they always do in dreams. Nevertheless I made acquaintance with a number of new people, every single one of them were girls. While talking to a particular one about the classes she was taking, I remember complimenting her, and as I watched a smile appear on her face, I heard one of those weird theme sound effects that always plays in TV shows and movies and videogames when the character has a defining moment with another person. That ascending, high-pitched sound of running your finger through the metal rods of a wind chime from left to right. Everything suddenly becomes soft-focus and you see the smile appear on her face, and you just feel rewarded, like you put in just a little bit of effort, or what to you seems like very little effort, and the rewards, the return, the feeling of gratification stretches farther than the eye can see, greater than your heart has ever felt. I felt a euphoria rush through my entire body. Clearly there was something different about this girl; she was incredibly receptive and even more responsive, something you don't come across often. In the eyes of a person who studies cognition, my bloodstream was a dopamine gold mine and my rewards system was through the roof. Everything felt great. For once I felt like I had made some visible progress. As we sat and continued to converse, I saw someone walk by, looking at us talking. I wasn't sure who this was, but she seemed familiar enough, wearing an upset look on her face for reasons that were completely beyond me. I would eventually find her later, and she would appear as cracked-out, lost, and confused; I'm not even sure if it was the same person, but I remember seeing her, the same person that glanced at me earlier, in the first instance, looking away for a moment, and returning my eyes to a reformed, deformed version of the same person.

Before I knew it, I was in another sequence. I was in a house, I'm not sure who's house, but it was very close to the street side with a large window facing the road outside. A car pulls up, a Lexus ES300, judging from the familiar-to-me two-tone paint. The doors open. A girl steps out. Reflexively I turn to my right to my brother who is standing by the stairs, and say to him, "Dude, isn't that your girlfriend?" "Huh?" he replies, looking out the window. I recall going into their garage, which looked more like an attached greenhouse, with its intensive glass window walls, plants scattered here and there with pillars to support the roof and a car parked in the middle. I felt the need to switch from the athletic shorts I was wearing into my jeans, so as to appear more formal. The began to pour in through the front door.

And then a new sequence. I was on top of an oddly-constructed structure between what seemed like Wellman Hall and Kerr Hall, I recognized the brick edifices. I climbed on top of it, and for some reason I reasoned with myself that I had been sent there to create a scene by committing some civil disobedience. I was told that some riot police were going to arrive, and surely enough, a group of aptly-dressed riot police arrived. I was to create a diversion of some sort. I was the lone civilian in the area, in fact it seemed like the only people in the whole world were myself and these riot police. As one pulled up, stopping in the middle of several randomly-dispersed police-spec, all black Dodge Chargers, he got out of his car and began to remove a over-sized shotgun from a gun case on top of his vehicle, it almost actually seemed like his entire car just turned into a gun case after he got out?, I turned to the opposite side of the building and looked down to find several other, unmanned security vehicles parked around the courtyard. In what suddenly began to feel like something out of some Grand Theft Auto-Assassin's Creed mash-up, I jumped from the top of the building, escaping the cop's line of sight, with the intention of stealing one of these cars and driving away. However I decided I didn't have the capacity or the time to smash out one of the windows and attempt to start the car because I didn't have any keys and I had no idea how to hot wire a car. So after landing I just began to run. I ran out past Wellman to find myself in what looked like someone's backyard, eventually reaching a dead end where I was surrounded by high wooden fence and the stucco-covered wall of a house. I then decided to climb over the fence and began running along the other side of the house. My phone starts ringing. It's my brother. He tells me something about my grandparents and their expensive new Vizio flatscreen HDTV. "That's great." I say. "I'll talk to you later, yeah?" I quickly hung up and continued to run. I eventually went into a door on the side of the house, which led me into a room which resembled a tool shed and a crude bedroom, at which point I assumed that I had escaped from my pursuers. Suddenly I felt a rush of danger, and as I sprung for the door to leave, it opens inward, and a man with a gun enters the room. I quickly turned around and put my head against the bed, putting my hands against the back of my head in surrender. And before I knew it he was tasering me, yelling at me to stop moving. I remember feeling my entire body seize up. And then, in what seemed like one of those incidents of police brutality that you only read about in the news, he tased me again and again, right in the center of my back. I eventually found myself on the ground, body facing down, but my head looking up at a reflection of the scene in a floor to ceiling mirror. I remember looking at the face of what was supposed to be me in the mirror, but it wasn't; it looked like someone else, some scruffy dirtied-up guy who was being tased like no tomorrow by some asshole sadist cop who thought it was funny to see a guy squirm around powerlessly on the ground. The victim, he didn't look anything like me, but I felt everything he felt. I felt the sharp shock on the muscles surrounding my vertebra om its sides, feeling all my muscles contract in tandem, not being able to get up. Feeling completely helpless. Completely powerless.

And that's when I woke up, with an eerie sensation in the back of my neck, the invisible shadows of my imagination poking at the skin on my back. What a completely fucked-up situation that was. I suppose I'm lucky that it was just a dream. If I had to tell you what I thought it all meant, I'd tell you that to some extent, it seems to reflect many of the themes I come across in day-to-day life. I suppose it's a reflection of all the things I thought about before I went to sleep, like a brief and brutal summary of the past year, told with different but parallel experiences, filled with all the same real-life ideas and themes. Feelings of time, energy, wasted, reluctance to take action, attempting to take action only to be delayed by some mysterious internal force, taking action late and despite the struggle or the effort, seeing little reaction and receiving little to no gratification, being worked into the ground and being disabled at your own peril at the hands of some external force, debilitation... But I guess somewhere in there, there's that one moment where you finally feel like you're getting what you want. But then something from the outside comes in an breaks it all up for you. No pleasure. No gain.

-nesqu!k

Cheap Cold Air Intake!

2009-12-02T14:58:00.000-08:00

So I notice that I have a tendency to only write about sad, morbid crap that goes on in life. It's common for people only to act when there is a problem, but oftentimes we get so caught up in the whole "solve-the-problem-so-everything-can-be-perfect" thing that we forget to remember all the good things in life. So how about an update on my car?

OCT2009: Conversion to Cold Air Intake

Finally made the jump to a full-on Cold Air Intake. Sure it's just PVC piping, but it's not like anyone makes CARB-tested aftermarket cold air intakes for the Camry. It was either this, or chop up a cold air intake from a Civic, so I went with this. Big ups to JCamry94 of ToyotaNation.com for providing the piping!

From the front bumper:

In the engine bay:

Past the battery, under the fuseboxes, and through the car's chassi:

And out into the front-left wheel well, which closed up quite nicely:

I made it a point to add screws to sections of the piping that tended to disconnect easily (the two connectors on the opposite ends of the straight pipe), and to make sure the air intake temperature sensor was secure:

A re-bent paper clip to give the duct tape more surface area to help hold the sensor in.

PVC Cold Air Intake Sound Test: VIDEO

Call it ricer, call it whatever you want; this setup is perfectly functional, reliable, and cheap!

-nesqu!k

Take back your true voices, and use them to do the right thing.

2009-11-25T01:27:00.000-08:00

This just happens to be another one of those bad states. The fall that follows the climb. The jump. The drop.

It's difficult to say exactly what's going on right now. Everything has suddenly slowed down. You kind of just become overwhelmed with all of these things that happen to control so many important aspects of your life, and as much as we hope to influence those controlling forces, it's something that we may never achieve. The wrong people are in power. They're useless. They can't even take responsibility for the actions of the people they are in charge of. They pay attention to all the wrong things, or they simply ignore the fact that there is a problem. And as a result, we get nowhere. We make no progress. We scream and scream at the top of our lungs, but our screams fall on deaf ears. Our cries are desperate. While they may be heard they are never followed. We are inconsolable because they have rendered us so; they refuse to take action on our part, despite the fact that it is their responsibility to do so.

Our leaders, they're all useless. They refuse to be held accountable. They're all too scared. They know that what we fight for is right, yet they refuse to fight with us. We want so dearly to believe that they are on our side, but they aren't. I can only hope that somewhere, underneath their bureaucratic shells, that they truly want only the best for us, but apparently they answer to a higher power than the common people. They're afraid of us tearing them apart from the bottom, and at the same time afraid of those at the top who will chop their heads off in an instant if they find it necessary.

It's so easy to feel powerless in this type of situation, and for this very reason, I feel powerless against them. It even feels as though, even as a group, we are powerless. The power elite theory is our sad reality. The powerful few hold all the keys to our future well being and it seems they have made it their life mission to never open the door for us. And now they're locking another door right in front of us.

Unless we figure out a way to get the right people in the right places, we will never achieve change. We've got the wrong people doing jobs that should benefit the public good, yet they choose to perpetuate this oppressive state, where the common person's voice is either ignored, or robbed from them altogether.

Apparently, what we're doing right now clearly isn't enough. It simply isn't radical enough. As much as those before us have advocated for peaceful protest, peaceful protest certainly has its limits. It takes patience, and oftentimes the patience never pays off. This country belongs to it's people, yet when one man cries war, he sends them to die by the score. And oftentimes all we engage in is peaceful protest as they engage in violent regulation. We stand peacefully in line as the firing squad unloads. What's the point of having an idea, a philosophy, a belief if there's no one left to speak it?

There comes a point when we need to fight back. We need to show them that we aren't fucking around when it comes to our lives, our future. The United States didn't gain it's independence through peaceful protest. France didn't oust its oppressive rulers through peaceful protest. The people regained their rights as the common people with war, violence, and massive bloodshed. I can only pray that it doesn't eventually come to this, but if it comes down to it, we need to throw down everything we've got. We have to show them how much this really means to us, how important it is to us, and show them that we are willing to fight for it with our hearts, our minds, and our lives.

As animalistic as it all is, this is how the world works. This is how it's been for billions of years. It may change shape, or put on a new mask as the times change, but this is how it's always been. Natural selection. Survival of the fittest. We all have the capacity to fight back, to oppress the oppressors. Clearly we are the stronger ones, but somehow they have managed to contain us. They hold the strings, and we are the puppets.

I am close to simply losing all faith for the common people. We are being contained, and we need to break out. Once these bureaucrats realize how powerless they really are, they'll be running scared. They will re-realize the basic ideas of democracy, the idea that it is the people who are in charge, not them and their money-mongering, anti-social governance.

I imagine those who attempt to read this will not understand it, because I know these radical beliefs are probably far too disorganized to make sense. But if there's anyone out there that gets any of this, please, please, please tell me I'm not alone and that we have a chance to take back what's ours and make things right.

such a dramaturgical fool.

-nesqu!k

Solving Life's Problems

2009-09-24T00:23:00.000-07:00

They say that the first step one should take to start solving your problems is that one must first admit that a problem exists. This first step is the single-most important step of them all.

But there is a problem.

Living in today's world, being a part of this highly-socialized civilization which demands such a high standard of each of its individual participants, it's citizens, an often unreasonably high and distant standard which is fed to us by the media, admitting that one has a problem is the last thing one would want to do. In a society that demands perfection from each and every single person, while knowing that no person may ever be able to achieve it, for one to admit that they have grown host to imperfection would be nothing short of, as some have referred to it in the past instances, "social suicide".

People's problems often stem from their inability to cope with society, especially in their self-defined inability to meet the expectations of others, which eventually grow to become their own standards for themselves. It's interesting that humans should want to take on other people's standards for them as their own, and while socialization is, to an extent, the basis of human progress, each of us asking the other to do more, creating a somewhat unconscious, interdependent need to do better, there are times when our societies around us ask for more than what we may be capable of. While dreams and imagination have taunted us with such high, over-idealized, near-perfect standards of living, at what point will we ever be able to say we've achieved those standards, if they are nothing more than completely un-concrete, ambiguous, ominous illusions of an ideal life?

It is almost safe to conclude that the things which we've fought so hard to resist as great societies, things like imperfection, disappointment, fear, insecurity, dissatisfaction, distress, etc... These are the things that make life what it is. Life isn't about being perfect, it's about being imperfect. And if life is about being perfect, then it's up to the individual to create their own definition for perfection. For all we know, the imperfections in our lives are in themselves the things that make life "perfect", but only on the imperfect conditions that allow live to exist.

But really, if anything, just be honest with yourself, and be honest with others, and you'll be alright.

-nesqu!k

Dreams: Journeys To a Parallel Universe?

2009-07-18T03:03:00.000-07:00

Dreams are very interesting experiences.

Of course, the term "experience" is highly subjective, if not the most subjective thing in consciousness, and it all really comes down to the way you choose to look at what is presented to you.

But there I go again on another tangent, heh.

Like all my usual blog posts, I am going to propose a theory. Just a disclaimer, I am in no way attempting to state my explanations as if they are facts, but rather as proposals (that's usually, if not always, my intention when I write these sorts of things). Like all my other proposals, I try to make use of scientific empirical evidence as often as possible (not always successfully, though), and build on already existing ideas, while adding my own input and insight.

Anyway, here's the real brain buster: Are our dreams, and our experiences within them, actual occurences, not necessarily of this particular universe?

The primary universe we live in is the one we call consciousness, where we are cognitively aware of our actions, thought processes, and our effect on the universe around us. However, when we experience dreams in our sleep, many report a sense of discontinuity and disconnection between events and experiences in dreams. Additionally, in the event which we are lucky and we begin to realize the tricks that our dreams are playing on us, we start to realize that there are certain things that just don't make sense or add up properly. You dream you're going to class, and right when you think you're about to burst through the lecture hall door, you suddenly find yourself in a completely unrelated spot. If you go along with it, then the dream has control over you. But if you are able to take a step back and realize for yourself that things aren't making complete sense, then you are a conscious dreamer (and as I wrote in a past post, that's when you really get to make things happen in your favor, if you know what I mean).

There I go again, going off in another direction. Back to the topic at hand: when we dream, and we see ourselves in situations where we act in a certain way that seems uncharacteristic of ourselves, that is our (I swear, I cannot think of another word to describe this) soul, or spirit, dare I say, going on a little vacation to another version of ourselves that exists in a parallel universe. If you want to think of it in a quantum physics/mechanics sort of way, lets say one's life structure is like a tree. We start out in one linear path up the main trunk, but after a few years, we begin to branch out in many different directions. The directions in which these branches go are like the different paths we can choose to walk based on the choices we make at any given time. Let's figuratively say that I am 19 years up the tree, going up a branch that is on the northern face of the tree. This particular branch on the northern face of the tree is the world around me that I have grown to accept as reality. However, when I dream, my spirit decides to go on a vacation on a different part of the tree, say 19 years up the tree, but on the southern face of the tree. On this branch on the southern face of the tree, my life went in a completely different direction. Maybe I'm still with someone that I broke up with a long time ago in reality, in this parallel existence. Maybe I have a different car, different friends, live in a different apartment complex, well, you get the picture. When we take a visit in this alternate reality, of course nothing makes sense to us; we're so accustomed to our sense of "reality" that when we visit this alternate reality where everything is completely different, our basic sense of the world is shown to be partially, or completely wrong. Of course, in such a situation, it's easy to get confused, but even though its a completely unfamiliar environment, things still seem to abide to certain basic laws of existence, so we decide to just go along with, not necessarily trying to make sense of anything, but just going on for the sake of living and experiencing something, even if it doesn't make any sense to us.

We all know of one time in our dreams when we jumped off of a cliff and landed unscathed. Perhaps a different path in human evolution led our bodies to have greater structural integrity to withstand that kind of impact? Bah, I can already feel my attempts at reasoning starting to fall apart, heh. That's one of the most interesting things about science: the scientific method basically implies that there will never be "absolute certainty", because all empirical evidence and conclusions have to be refutable. While a system like this promotes the development and advancement of new ideas, at the same time, it seems to ensure that we will never find truth. Or maybe not so much that we will never find truth, but that truth is such a subjective thing that it is whatever we as individuals choose to make it. Even fields like quantum mechanics carry the belief that 99.9% of the universe can be fully understood and predicted, but they still take into account that there is a 0.1% that takes an "unknown factor" into account. Why am I talking about quantum mechanics all of a sudden? I do not know, lol.

Alright quick summary: basically, I'm proposing that when we dream, we are experiencing an alternate true physical existence that is not of this particular universe, the one we refer to as our sense of cognitively conscious existence and experience. In our dreams, our spirits, or souls, make a jump into a life which consists of what we in our realities refer to as the unknown, the "what-could-have-been", a true, nonsensical experience of reality in a world where we decided to walk down the other road in that wood (to make a reference to the poetry of Robert Frost, sort of).

...And I feel that I have just now lost all my power to explain something as complicated and open as this. Feel free to analyze this however you want, for it is your right as one of my readers. After all, that's what life is all about: taking what the universe gives you, and making it your own. Sort of.

One love, me breda, seen?

-nesqu!k

Interpreting Dreams

2009-06-11T00:34:00.001-07:00

Now I'm sure this has been talked about by plenty of other people before (Sigmund Freud, and plenty of philosophers), but there's no better feeling than when you come to a realization or learn something extremely profound and complicated on your own.

Let's start with a story.

Last night I had a dream in which I basically missed my 10:30am final. Despite me knowing for a fact that it was a morning final, in my dream, I found myself rushing to the bus stop surrounded by nighttime lighting conditions; it looked a lot more like 10:30pm to me.

The P-Line was just pulling out when I managed to get the driver to stop, and I found myself boarding through the only door on the bus, which was on the left towards the midsection, which is nothing like the actual design of the typical Unitrans bus, or any American-made bus, for that matter. As I got on, I was greeted by the driver, who was an old lady, who asked to see my ID. The driver's seat was mounted in the very center of the front of the bus, and as we began to set off, she got out of her seat and asked me for my UCD student ID card. I reached into the strap pocket on my backpack like I always did, and pulled it out. Upon close examination, she said, "This isn't fake, now is it? Ah, no its not...", and right when she finished her sentence, my ID suddenly split into two layers, as if it was two sides of a UCD ID printed on two card-sized sheets of paper, with a few index cards in between to provide stiffness, and the whole thing was sloppily "laminated" together by clear Scotch Tape (and I'm not gonna lie, I made one of these in the past when my other UCD ID got lost).

As the old-lady driver looked at me in surprise and disgust, I reached into my strap pocket once again, noticing another ID-shaped card in it, and pulled it out, only to realize that it was a card that read, "UCD Alumni Association", to which I recall replying, "What the fuck is this... Dammit." Now mind you, this was all happening with the bus in motion with no one at the wheel; the old lady was too busy looking at my fabricated student ID. "Uhh... maybe you should pay more attention to the road, heh" I said to her. But before I knew it, we were pulling up to the MU bus terminal. I remember seeing a building that looked like a mix between the right-side entrance of Springstowne/Solano Middle School (both schools have the exact same design), and Hunt Hall, which is adjacent to the bus terminal. After that I remember running towards Young Hall, which for some reason was placed where the MU usually is, rushing into the north entrance (the Social Sciences Structure side), and going left into Young 184, where my Psychology 131 class is held, and where my final was supposed to be. When I burst through the door of the classroom, guess where I found myself: in the piano room of my house in Vallejo.

Confused, I ran out of the room, went up some stairs in what I thought was still Young Hall, and went into what I thought would be the right classroom, only to once again find myself in the downstairs guestroom/piano room of my Vallejo home. Confused and panicky, I exited the room and found myself in the family room in my house, next to the door that leads to the garage. There I saw my mom. My mom was talking about some wierd-ass shit (sorry if you're reading this, mom, I have no other way to descirbe it, lol). She asked me what was wrong, and I told her that I was about to miss my Psych131 final, and that if I didn't take it, I'd fail the class. To that, she reponded, "It's ok, your dad is also failing his Master's right now." In my head, I'm thinking, "What are you talking about, dad already has his Master's degree" but I didn't say it out loud. My mom then went on to tell me that she had lost her job, and asked me if Benson maybe had any job openings for working for TIZ (wtf?), and went on to explain that she would rather start job hunting with small-scale companies, because she didn't feel like submitting big fancy résumés to larger-scale organizations.

And that's all I remember.

Anyway, the point is, for most of us, when we have dreams, we don't think about how plausible or realistic our experiences within our dreams are; we just go along with the flow of events, even if, in reality, they would make no sense to us whatsoever, and that was the case for me this past evening. In our dreams, we find it so simple to just vicariously follow wherever our dreams choose to take us, and we do so without question. While there have been a few cases where I was able to come to realize that I was dreaming within my own dream, and as a result just fool around, knowing there would be no real-world consequences (those are the best dream situations, by the way), the majority of the time, we just follow the course that our dreams set out for us, without question.

This led me to wonder, to bring back the whole concept of the Matrix trilogy, if what we consider conscious, real-time awareness of reality, could be just another mindless, vicarious following of wherever the environment might lead us. What's to tell me that I'm not dreaming right now? There are some times when conscious reality feels just as disconnected, fragmented, and unrelated to everything else, as if the world around us is just a bunch of completely random images and actions collaged together to form everything which falls under our senses of perception.

But the biggest difference between dreams and reality is that in reality, we are able to make conscious decisions and actively evaluate our current situations, evaluations which help us to make more decisions, and so on and so forth. In dreams, on the other hand, we just follow along, not thinking about connections, logic, reason, or anything like that; we just hop on a train that already has a set destination, rather than be the ones to drive our own vehicles in the direction that we see fit. On top of that, reality is a lot easier to remember that dreams; probably because we are more able to create connections between past and present events, whereas in dreams, we choose not to do so.

Blah blah blah, I don't know what else to say.

-nesqu!k

The Chase

2009-05-23T11:01:00.000-07:00

So this is what it's like.

Those of you who are close to me know what's going on, and know all the names attached to this story, but the rest of you, well, you're out of luck.

A year and a half ago, I found myself on one side of a situation just like this one, and now I'm on the opposite end. But I refuse to let myself do what he did. A year and a half ago I lost the one person who I was closest to to some ambiguous, unknown figure for reasons that I could not accept but later learned to understand. While I can look back now and say that I'm perfectly happy that it happened, I remember how much it sucked when it did. I remember how lost and confused I felt. I was angry beyond explanation, I was sad beyond counsel. And because I know what it's like to lose the one person closest to you to someone else, I decided that I would never be the one to take a girl from another guy. Yet here I am, on the very edge of doing it.

Ever since I came to Davis, I've met a lot of people, and I've made a lot of great friends. I've met a lot of cute girls too, and while it was easy for me to like them, I've always found it difficult to find a girl who feels the same way about me as I do about her. One thing that I've learned since my last major relationship was how crucial the connection is in a healthy relationship. A girl can be as hot as she wants, but if there isn't a good emotional connection between a guy and a girl, then it'd be a pretty shallow, empty relationship. It wasn't until much later that I realized that those kinds of deep, emotional connections can't be forced; they have to be there from the start. That's how it was for me, a little more than four years ago, when I embarked on my first serious relationship. Clearly we were very much into each other, and as a result, things went pretty smoothly for the two and a half years that it lasted. It wasn't hard for me to feel comfortable around her; I could be exactly who I was, and she loved me for it, and I loved her for it.

Well I feel I can safely say that for the first time in a long time, I've met a girl that I can really connect with and feel comfortable around. At the same time, I feel that perfect amount of discomfort, the level that keeps you on the chase, keeps your heart racing, your adrenaline rushing through your veins. There's just something about this girl; for every other girl that I was into that I asked to hang out and spend time with, most of the time I've been met with a no. But her... she answers yes. Every. Single. Time. "Mind if I catch the bus with you?" I ask. "Sure, I'll see you outside" she replies. "What are you doing the rest of the day? Wanna come sit though some my my classes with me?" I ask her. "Yeah, sure!" Every time I've asked a girl if she wanted to hang out, I've almost always been met with a "no", or "sorry, I'm busy". But this girl, despite getting no more than an hour of sleep the night before from working on an eight-page research paper, came with me to my Psych 131: Perception class, and my NPB68: Biology of Addiction class right after. And even though she could have taken the opportunity to take a nap, she sat awake and attentive, the whole time. Probably just because I was checking up on her ever 3o second, heh. I went with her to her NBP101 class too, and her Psych142 class for a bit. As interesting as the classes were, I could feel my attentiveness driven as much by wanting to be there with her as it was by the material. Inspiration + Expiration = Respiration. See? I was paying attention.

The two of us can sit and talk for hours and hours on end. None of that silly AIM stuff that I used to rely on so much. I spend real, face-to-face time with her, something I've haven't been able to do with a girl in a long time. It doesn't matter what we talk about, how weird, silly, or personal it may be; as far as it goes, we just really enjoy each other's company, and in the past three weeks since I've met her, we've been spending a lot of time together. Anything from random food runs at 1am to Wendy's with friends followed by an impromptu drive down the secluded farmlands of South Davis to look at the bright moon in the sky and the stars glimmering in the distance, the distant trees nothing more than dark ominous silhouettes, to random essay/study breaks consisting of hanging out at the dock by Aspen Village at 2 in the morning, to going to each other's classes just 'cause, to going to the Arboretum in our spare time, to spending time with her and helping her care-giving/assistance work, to going to Starbucks or Subway for an essay break... All of that fun, random hangout stuff. Just any excuse I could come up with to hang out with her, we've spent a lot of time together. And I've enjoyed every minute I've spent with her.

I've enjoyed getting to know her, talking with her, walking to class with her, just being around her in general... I love it.

But... she already has a boyfriend. Whom she's been with for about two and a half years. And while they're going through a bit of a rough patch right now, I know exactly what that was like, because the exact same thing happened to me. I was with someone for two and a half years, and because of the distance, I lost her to someone else. He made the first move, and she let herself fall into it. Well because of that, I refuse to do the same thing. Under no circumstances will I allow myself to take someone from someone else. There is no way to justify it. I can't just assume that I'm the better guy like he did to me; I've never even met the guy, and I only have a very faint idea of what he's like. Who am I to say I'm better than someone I don't know?

She tells me they find difficulty communicating, that they're at different stages in their lives, that they want different things from one another, and it's extremely difficult for them to find a compromise. The two of us, on the other hand, we're about the same age, about the same level of maturity in our lives, we enjoy talking with one another, and we enjoy each other's company. She's understanding and patient, like me. We both know how we feel about each other, and the both of us know that we are asking for trouble, and because of that, I can't let myself be anything more than friends with her at this point in time. For all the time we've shared, and for all the times that I'd just wanted to lean in and kiss her, I've held myself back every single time. I've watched my every move, and I can say to this day that I have done nothing that could be considered inappropriate. All I've been trying to do for her is be an exceptional, understanding, caring friend, a friend that will be there for her every step of the way. And for that, I can look back and say that as much as I've been tempted to do so, I have never broken my moral code. And as much as I'll be tempted to do so in the future, I will never do it, because it would just make me a hypocrite.

Some of my friends have told me that this is it: the universe fucked you over in the past, and this is just karma coming back in your favor, just with different people. Well as much as the universe would like to tell me that I "deserve" to take this girl for myself, I won't do it. You might even say that I'm even more understanding of her boyfriend than I am of her. It sucked being in that situation, seeing someone else walk off with your girl and being left behind with nothing. I would never want to induce that feeling in someone else. I can imagine he must be a really great guy, because she likes him alot. Even though, because they're at different stages in their lives, he feels that he has to hold back a lot of her feelings for her, she's willing to be patient with him. And it's qualities like that in a relationship that tell you how strong it is. The amount of effort they put into putting up with their differences, and each other in general. It surpasses any logic, and can only be explained by love, the mose illogical force known to man. Love, compassion... it's things like that that drive people to make irrational decisions. Our minds tell us no, but our hearts tell us yes. As much as my heart tells me that I really like her a lot, my mind knows that it would be incredibly selfish of me to take her for myself and force her to leave her current relationship behind. This may just be a blind assumption (I usually try to avoid making these), but even though she can see her relationship is full of some inconsolable differences, she's going to work as hard as she can to make it work. Even though she's got a guy like me buzzing all over her, she's going to stick with him until she knows it just won't work. And for that, I have the highest level of respect for her. She's such a fighter, and she's not going to give up until she knows it's all over.

It's funny... even though I know I'll probably lose this battle, to myself if anything, I keep fighting, for reasons that I can barely begin to fathom. It's pretty clear that she's going to tough her way though this rough patch in her relationship, that she's going to fight for it until the end, yet here I am, taking every opportunity to spend time with her, even though she and I know that I'll probably just be left behind in the end. There have been many times that I've done this before: chased an unreachable glimmer of hope in the impossible distance, leading myself into my own emotional self destruction, thinking in ways detrimental to my self esteem. But I feel like this time things are different. For some reason that unreachable goal in the distance seems closer than ever before, yet at the same time, it's just as out-of-reach as all the others were. But this time, the only thing that's holding me back is me and my morality. And as long as I have my morality, I will never win this. To be honest, I almost don't want her to break up with him, because I'll know it could probably be because of me. Because I'm "better" for some reason. It's like whichever way this goes, I'll lose in the end, in some way. If she stays with him, then obviously I wont be able to be with her. If she breaks up with him, then I dunno why, but I'll just feel weird. But if that decision is made based on a real heart-to-heart talk between the two of them, if they come to a mutual decision, then only then will I feel totally comfortable being with her. I almost feel selfish for asking for such circumstances.

So it's at this point that I need to make a decision. To do the illogical thing and keep chasing something that I'll probably never get and remain patient while risking losing thousands of other possible opportunities with other girls who are single, or do the logical thing and just give up and move on with my life?

Well... I've got nothing else to do, I'm not aware of any prospective girls out there, and it's not like we can't just be good friends... So I guess I'll wait. Crazy, crazy you.

-nesqu!k

If I Ever Became A College Professor...

2009-05-13T04:05:00.000-07:00

Show me you are learning – the continuous paper.

It's certainly a career path that has crossed my mind on several occasions, mostly because I know I like to talk a lot, and I like people who are good listeners and are understanding and receptive towards other people. So long as I was teaching the right topic, I think I would absolutely love being a professor.

On the first day of class, for whatever class I might be teaching, this is what I would tell the students:

“Here’s what I want you to do. This is a class about [insert class topic here]. Over the course of this quarter you will be continuously picking up new bits of information, with each of your acquisitions building on past acquisitions. There will be no midterms, but there will be a final, and depending on the way you look at it, you may find it will seem difficult and daunting, or extremely easy, and more importantly, enjoyable and fun.

From this day to the very last day of lecture, I want you to write a continuous paper, a journal, if you will, of how your thoughts reorganize themselves after you pick up new information from each lecture. On the first day, you will start with something along the lines of, “I know little to nothing about this topic”, while on the second day, you’ll be saying something like, “I came across a very compelling piece of information today”. Whether it be from listening to lecture, interaction with your fellow classmates, interaction with other sources of social contact, like the internet for example. It doesn’t matter, its information of some sort, so write it down. There is no minimum or maximum page limit, and you will turn in this journal/essay of your metacognitive (get used to hearing and using that word a lot) processes on the day of the final. Really, all I ask is that you show me that you are making some sort of advancement of your own, whether it be through developing a better understanding for yourself, a better understanding for others, or even a better understanding of the world around you and the many miniscule variables that affect it’s current state of being. The purpose of you keeping this journal is to show me that you are making an effort to make some kind of intellectual or cognitive thought process, whether it me internal or external. The best part is when you go back to the first page on the last day of lecture and realize just how much information you have picked up, it's truly an amazing feeling to really see the progress you make. While this may seem like pressure to perform a certain way or at a certain level, I promis you it isn't. We may all move at different paces, but so long as we are all always moving forward, then I will be happy.

When it comes to lecture, students, please, please do not hesitate to ask questions, as I’m almost 100% sure that someone in this room, whether it be me, one of your very knowledgeable TAs, or one of your probably equally knowledgeable classmates, will have an answer for you. Don't ever feel intimidated just because you feel that you may not have as good a grasp on certain concepts as others. Believe me, I know what it's like to feel like the only lost guy that's lost in the entire lecture hall, and it's certainly not the best feeling in the world. Concordantly, if you feel that you have an appropriate answer to a question, feel free to offer your answer. As a professor my only role is to stimulate thought, while it is your job to really engage in your own profound thinking, which in turn will help you to better understand why things are they way they are.”

I suppose this is really just an idealization of what I wish school was really like. No pressure, and limited inter-peer comparison, which from my experience can have detrimental effects on the learning experience, and maintaing good self-esteem.

What do you guys think, would you take my class?

-nesqu!k

Interesting Socio-Psychological Theory Concerning Confirmation Bias

2009-05-13T03:22:00.000-07:00

I figured I should maybe add some pictures for the sake of using visual stimuli to attract attention.

I suppose it all started earlier this evening when Wilson, Kevin and I were going over our horoscopes, Capricorn, Cancer, and Scorpio, respectively. Wilson looked each of us up and went down the list of typical qualities of people born during these specific periods during the year. For the majority of the list, we found that many of the qualities were some of our own, albeit not all of them. At this point I explained the whole idea of “confirmation bias” which basically refers to the human tendency to gravitate towards things that they themselves agree with. Later this evening I was thinking about how my favorite color is red, and how my preference for the color red may have been a significant driving force behind the formation of many of my other interests as well. Can we maybe infer that confirmation bias is a major driving force behind personality development as people's individual behavior is met with positive reinforcement in social situations, or as we'll discuss, with other things in the environment? It certainly seems to play a large role in personality development and social interaction, but what about the ability to actively (or maybe even choose not to) interact with the environment, which itself can influence personality development?

The one tie in that I found most compelling came to me as I was showering. I thought about how my favorite color is red, and as a result, as a child, I tended to gravitate towards things that were red or related to the color red in some way. For example, cinnamon is my favorite spice. Why cinnamon? Well while it may not actually be red (it’s actually brownish), it’s commonly presented in parallel to the color red because cinnamon, being a spice, tends to taste hot, and the color which we most commonly associate with heat is red. Since I liked red so much, I in turn learned (strong emphasis on the use of the word “learned” here) to enjoy cinnamon, and anything even remotely related to it. Cinnabon is one of my favorite foods ever. You know that sweet dark cinnamon-sugar resin that gets left behind at the bottom of the Cinnabon container? When I was young, I loved that taste so much that I attempted to replicate it by putting some water into a small glass and adding a bunch of cinnamon (obviously it didn’t quite turn out as well as I had hoped). Additionally, I thoroughly enjoy Hot Tamales, my favorite candy. I was also quite fond of Cinnamon Tic-Tac when I was a kid, not to mention Big Red cinnamon gum (until I began to realize that it tended to kill my taste buds and cause significant xerostomia (the scientific term for dry mouth).

More generally, I can further imagine that my love for the color red influenced my attraction to apples (the fruit, but I’ve got an cute little pun for you guys later in this paragraph), which in turn led me to enjoy anything even remotely associated with apples. Candy apples, caramel apples, apple juice, apple sauce (mmm), apple cider, and here’s a nice one: apple pie, which contains apples AND cinnamon. Double win for me. And alright, here comes the joke I was thinking about (now that I think about it it just seems even more silly), Apple computers. lol. Some other fruits that I like are cherries, strawberries, and a couple of other ones that I can’t come up with at the moment. On another note, my phone is also red. My TIZ artist series shirt is a black Zeeb on a red shirt.

In short, since I liked the color red so much as a kid, I unknowingly began to associate my attraction to red with red objects, and objects associated with red. Is it possible that if I decided to pick some other color, like blue or orange, as my favorite color, I wouldn’t be nearly as interested in red things, like cinnamon, apples, and Apple computers? Then again, the fact that I’ve realized all of these micro-connections between my web on interests could be itself interpreted as a divulgence of my own natural tendency for confirmation bias…

You know one of my favorite things about writing is kind of forces me to really take a step back and really evaluate the ideas I’m trying to communicate, and in turn I learn a little bit more about myself, and get to streamline my thought processes as well as I rule out implausible ideas and theories. It's almost like AutoCross: you may not necessarily get the times you want, but you'll still learn a little something about how your car behaves in certain situations. Beautiful metaphor. Alright, I'm starting to digress a bit... Well for my readers, you may get a little entertainment out of reading some of my deep thought proposals as well, so it's a pretty good win-win situation when you think about it.

Feel free to add any comments or additional ideas. It's always nice to know that people read the things I write. Hopefully most of you aren't too intimidated by large blocks of text; I know I for one tend to be, that much I'll admit.

-nesqu!k

My Biggest Fear

2009-05-09T23:16:00.000-07:00

I find it kind of silly that all of this is coming out just because I'm stressed out about my Psych141 research paper that's due in a week and a half.

My biggest fear would have to be accidentally or purposefully wasting my parent's money, epspecially if it's due to my own personal little academic endeavors, curiosity, or lack of focus.

Just like most other parents are with their kids, my parents had always told me that after I finished high school, I was going to college. A college education was the key to a good job/career, and a steady income that would allow me to start and raise my own family. Unfortunately, that's all they told me.

My parents never told me about any of the other possible options out there. They never said that there were plenty of other paths that could lead to the same happy outcome. They just said, "This is the path, walk it." Well, as much I feel like I may be walking down the wrong path, it's the only one I ever really knew, so I'm just sticking with it.

One thing I've come to realize in the past couple of years is that I have a lot of hobbies, but I'm not particularly good at any one thing. I lack a good sense of focus. I feel as if I'm a Jack of many trades, but a master at nothing. I dabble. I try something out until I get bored of it, find my limit, or just get too frustrated to keep going. Sure, I've got a pretty good handle on a good number of different forms music, but not enough on any one of them to the point that it could really take me anywhere. I just wish I could find the one thing that I'm really good at.

While Psychology has been my declared major since I applied to UC Davis, I'm really beginning to wonder if it's what I'm good at, or if I even like it. Every Psych class I've taken here, I've never been able to manage anything higher than a C+, and I'm starting to think that I might not even pass one of my Psych classes this quarter. The worst part is that the only reason I'm thinking like this is because I've come to realize just how lazy I am when it comes to school, which in itself is causing me to be too lazy to do anything about it. I don't want to ask for help because I'm too scared to really show that side of me.

So what am I supposed to do? Do I switch majors? Waste of my parents money: I'll be in school for longer than expected. Drop out of school? Even more of a waste of my parent's money: if I drop out now, that's $50,000 of their hard-earned money, gone. Switch schools? I can't think of any other school that I'd like as much as UC Davis.

Now that I think about it, the thing that I really lack is motivation. It seems to be a quality that pretty much everyone I know has. My two roommates spend countless hours studying for Managerial Economics, or Evolution and Ecology, respectively, and seeing them do that just makes me realize how little I do for Psychology. But the main difference that I see is that they are so driven to study that it's just second nature to them. They have found the thing that they are really good at, the one thing that they really enjoy, and every action that is related to it in any way just seems automatic for them, in my perspective. Kevin even reads his biology book for pleasure. I don't do that with any of my Psych books. I can't think of anything that I do that for.

Then again, no. Hold on. What it really is is that I take in all kinds of information. Really random information from whatever sparks my interest at the moment. Two of my favorite websites? Wikipedia.org and HowStuffWorks.com. I absolutely love going to those two sites, and typing in whatever I'm curious to learn about into the search box just to see what will pop up. On top of that, I enjoy finding practical solutions for everyday problems or tasks, whether it involves making certain things easier to do, or just doing certain things because they are neat and interesting. I love picking up just really, really general knowledge over a wide range of fields, because to be honest, I tend to get bored really easily. Unfortunately for me, there's no major for "General and Practical Knowledge". Because if there was, I'd be on that in a heartbeat. That's my bread and butter. Being a Jack of many trades.

Oddly enough I feel a lot better about my current situation, even though the only thing that's changed is that I've realized exactly what it is I like. But I still have no idea what to do at this point. And I still have no idea what I'm going to write about for my Cognitive Development paper.

The Camry

2009-04-09T00:16:00.000-07:00

Most of you that know me know how I am about my car, but I can imagine most of you don't know the story behind it. Since my car plays a pretty strong role in my life, I figured I'd write about it to give you guys some insight on her backstory. Yes, she has a backstory.

Humble Beginnings
JUL2007

Car Background:

My parents bought the car brand-new when the Camry's new Third-Generation body style was first introduced back in 1991; it was the first new car they had ever bought. Like many others, their purchase was inspired by the car's Lexus-inspired styling, and long-term reliability, something that I wouldn't grow to realize (or appreciate, for that matter) until August of 2007.

In 2002, however, my parents found themselves in need of a newer car, my parents sold the Camry to my grandparents. But in 2005, the car found its way back into our garage, after my aunt bought my grandparents a new Honda Civic coupe; the car essentially went straight to me, for free from my grandfather. At the time, I was in the middle of an I-want-an-AE86-Corolla stage, and, to be honest, I thought the Camry was the ugliest thing in the world, so she unfortunately found herself unappreciated for a while.

All of that, however, would change in the August of 2007, with my aunt's constant description of the Camry as benchmark of a car, with it's luxury-inspired styling, and very classy appearance, not to mention its reliability. After a much-needed automatic transmission replacement earlier that summer, I spotted a YouTube video of someone who had switched out the Camry's stock airbox with a cone filter, a simple upgrade that brought out the sound of the engine. In the coming weeks, I would eventually stumble upon ToyotaNation.com, which housed a community of Camry owners and tuners, all of whose collective efforts with their Camry's would seal my obsession with my own Camry. The rest is history.

Since August of 2007, I've worked to turn my Camry into something more than every other Camry on the street. While the Camry name has consistently found itself at the top of the list for Best-Selling Car in America since 1992, those of you who have seen my car know it's nothing like all the others out there. Her styling is beautiful, her mods are subtle, and her look and sound are unmistakable.

The Mods
In summer of 2007, it all started with the intake.

First it was just the filter, then I switched out the entire OEM intake piping altogether. Nowadays it's a semi-Cold Air Intake (CAI), which basically means its a Short Ram Intake (SRI), with piping that relays to the outside, allowing more opportunity to bring cool air into the engine, which translates to a little more horsepower (HP).

Intake Setup Total Cost: ~$90

Towards the end of summer I got a hold of some 17" KMC Redline rims, with a HotWheels theme. At $250 for the set, I couldn't pass this one up.

But as always, tires are expensive. We went to Costco and had them mount BF Goodrich G-Force Sport tires, advertised as the highest-rated dry-season tires.
Wheels Total Cost: ~$670

Shortly after, I got a hold of a TRD Rear Sway Bar (RSB), and a Freedom Design Strut Tower Bar (STB). The TRD sway bay is actually made for the first-generation Toyota Solara, but it fits perfectly on Gen3 and Gen4 Camry's. I'll get into that later.
The sway bar wrapped in plastic. This part goes under the car in the rear. Its purpose is to keep the car from leaning excessively whole cornering heavily.

And the front strut tower bar installed. Strut tower bars are made to minimize chassis flex under heavy cornering by promoting greater chassis rigidity, as well as to keep the car more stable under extreme conditions.

Basic Suspension Parts Total Cost: $210

After the RSB and STB, I had to take a break from modding the car, since I had started my first year in college at UC Davis. It wasn't until July of 2008 that I finally went ahead and got a hold of all the parts I needed to upgrade my car's primary suspension components: the struts (also known as "shocks") and springs. After spending lots of time on ToyotaNation trying to figure out what would be the best spring/strut condition, I decided to go for Tokico HP struts for their great handling and close-but-not-too-close-to-stock ride quality, and Intrax performance lowering springs.

With help from my dad, my brother Xavier, and my friend Jon, we completed the entire upgrade in 7 hours, using only basic hand tools. That's right, guys, no power tools whatsoever. As you can see from the clock, we didn't finish until well after 2am.
So now the car lookedl like this:

Obviously lower than stock, but still sitting pretty high. While Intrax springs are advertised to drop a Camry 1.6" all around, the Intrax's I bought were actually made for the 4th Generation Camry (the one after mine) with a V6 engine. Since my car is a Gen3, and only has an I4, it's lighter than a Gen4, resulting in rather disappointing ride height, but exceptional performance nonetheless.
Struts and Springs Total Cost: $360 (thank God for eBay discount coupons)

As another summer began to wind down, I decided to work on some more visual mods to help promote the uniquity of my Camry (more unique than the word "uniquity", which I made up, and is not actually a word. Synonym for "uniqueness").
Lucky me, a guy from ToyotaNation whi lives in Sacramento was selling his DEPO Black headlights, and his Black DX/SE rear center panel. Lucky me :)
The stock headlights for my generation of Camrys had a bad tendency to fade and fog up over time, and switching in new headlights would help with night-time visibility.
Before and after:

I got a hold of some DEPO clear signal lights as well

I decided to add my own little touch to help them better match the look of the headlights.

Let's not forget the Black DX/SE Rear Center Panel (RCP), and TheImaginaryZebra sticker.

Subtle Visual Mods Total Cost: $200

Before I knew it, another summer was gone and school was back on. Luckily, I'd be able to take my car with me this time, since apartments allow you to park your car at the complex. In September of 2008, even though I told myself I'd never put on a muffler because I didn't want to attract too much attention from police, I eventually cracked, and went down to Golden Auto in Daly City for a sweet deal on a Magnaflow dual tip muffler and an exhaust piping upgrade. 2" stock to 2.25" diameter piping from after the catalytic converter all the way to the new muffler.

For a while I was really annoyed by the sound, especially the cabin resonance, but I eventually got used to it. I may switch it out for something a bit quieter in the future, we'll see.
Exhaust System Upgrade Total Cost: $140

It wasn't until February 2009 that I got to put all of my mods to the test in a controlled environment ;). That controlled environment came in the form of my first AutoCross event with Davis Motorsports Club. Nothing like getting better times than guys driving real sports cars in a 4-door family sedan xD

Might I add that it's even more fun to do in the heavy rain:

Cost of AutoCross Event: $50 for the first three times, and $35 there after for one year

As time went on and I found myself becoming increasingly annoyed with the overbearing presence of the large fender gap in my front wheel wells. Relatively invisible from a distance,

but once you get closer, well...

...yeah... DMC President Alex's common joke for me was: "So... when are we going off-roading in your car?"

So I decided to take matters into my own hands and asked around for some help from my fellow members of DMC. Three weeks after posting for help, I found myself at Tim's house. He has an air compressor for power tools, and a circle grinder/cutter, exactly what we needed to get the job done. A suspension assembly extraction and disassembly that took my dad and I at least an hour and a half to do with hand tools took Tim a matter of minutes. We took out the assembly, compressed the spring, dismounted it from the strut, and proceeded to the cutting process. We took one full ring off.

and now she's even sexier than before.

Spring Cutting Cost: $40

Here's my current build:

Total Modifications Cost: $1710 (My dad payed for the tires though)

So now, maybe you have a better idea of why I like my car so much :)

-nesqu!k

Another TIZ Fashion Show Coming Up!

2009-04-07T19:52:00.000-07:00

Yep, that's right guys... We've got another one coming up, and all I can really tell you is that you are in for a surprise. Imagine the shows we've done in the past. Now imagine them bigger and more intricate. Now wait until the show to see if you were right :P

This one's for the Asian Pacific Culture Week event, on April 24, 2009. Hey, Benson was even the one who designed the flyers for the event:

Yesterday I met with Benson and DKwan to begin the planning process. We had about a week to one-up ourselves once again.

After discussing the basic template for some two-and-a-half hours at the ARC Starbucks, I figured we were done today, only to get a call later that evening from Benson so we could meet to add some input to the refinements he'd made through the afternoon while consulting outside parties. At 10pm that evening.

While we did quite a bit to streamline transitions and add other little bits and pieces to further perfect our template, we eventually broke into several little creativity activities, thanks to our combined short attention spans...

Benson: "Alright, three index cards each. Draw 9 circles on each of the cards. Now fill in each circle with an image that would fit it well. 5 minutes, GO!"

Needless to say we came up with some interesting stuff. For me, it was:

Clock, happy face, tongue face, apple/bomb, tennisball, iPod, zeeb head, Cinnabon, 6-spoke rims..
.
A complicated crosshair, crude Honda logo, a crude drawing of my 5-spoke rims, simple crosshair, a rolling pin, and Toyota logo... and that was all I could come up with in the alotted time.

Benson, on the other hand:

Happy face person (reminds me of his roommate, Kevin), sun, [don't remember], a porthole view of mountains, an eyeball, a sleeping person, an apple, a revolver, a skateboard...

bicycle, zeeb head, Oreo, piglet, open mouth, earth, Billy (note the iconic sideburns), and a penny.

That exercise was supposed to get our creative juices floating, since we had hit super creator's block.

After seeing my drawing of an apple that also looked like a bomb, Benson glanced at his own laptop, and decided it was time to cover up this sticker:

And we further descended into arts-and-crafts activities.

We decided to take a standard giant Zeeb head,

Cut it out, and add a shatter effect to some of the edges.

We used the edges to create a background for the zebra to contrast off of, and it pretty much came out like this:

fashooo.

Yeah, we enjoyed ourselves quite a bit.

We decided we were finished "working" as the clock struck 12:15am xD

-nesqu!k

Fun Little Activity

2009-04-07T13:32:00.000-07:00

It was Sunday afternoon and I was taking some action towards some vehicle weight reduction. As much as my car is a but of a sports car, it still use it frequently for it's intended purpose: carrying people. As a result, my trunk is usually filled with basic survival materials, ranging from gallons of water for drinking or for temporary radiator fluid, extra jackets, and a blanket, to random drinks, basic snacks, and an electric air pump for tires. Needless to say, there were a few things that I really didn't need to be carrying around all the time, for example, my spring compressing tools, which weighs quite a bit. So I took that out.

Anyways, back to the point: I looked in my coinbox and noticed I had a lot of pennies, so I decided I'd try and figure out a way to organize them into more easily countable clusters.

Originally I was just gonna do it with some scotch tape, but then as I passed the kitchen table I noticed these:

Post-it index cards. Perfect.

I collected several stacks of 25 pennies each

You need to start small first, otherwise you'll run into trouble.

Once youve got 5 stacks of 5, you can combine them to make a single 25 stack.

Once you've got that done, you can grab an index post-it,

Fold it in half

Rip it in half, and label the sticky edge

Grab one of the halves, and proceed to roll up the pennies in it.

For the first few tries, this will probably happen to you:

Put too much pressure on the pennies and the wrong angles, and they'll explode into a neat spread, hopefully not making too much of a mess.

You need to be able to hold the edges and wrap the paper around it at the same time, like so:

Once you've got that done, you can fold the edges in to keep the coins secure. You should have 3 folds total, each one engulfing and sealing the cracks left by the previous one.

Before you know it, you'll have a neat little bundle, equal in value to a quarter, but fatter.

I eventually ended up doing this with my other coins as well; turns out I've collected a little over $5 worth of quarters!

A few dollars worth of nickels as well

After I decided I had done enough organization, I dumped my little wraps back into my change can...

And put the remaining change back into my car's coinbox (visible in the background).

fashooo.

On a side note, I'm sitting here blogging in Bainer, and realize that Dean (my RA from last year) has been sitting next to me having a meeting for Civil Engineering this whole time.

xD

-nesqu!k

Crazy TR Schedule

2009-03-31T11:43:00.000-07:00

I have no idea what the hell I had in mind when I decided to fill my Tuesdays and Thursdays with a 6-hour block of classes, with the longest break being a minuscule 40 minutes.

Here's basically how my week works: MWF, the only class I have is Spanish 2, from 2:10-3pm. On the other hand, TR, I have Psych141 (Cognitive Development) from 9-10:20am; followed by Psych131 (Perception) from 10:30-11:50am; right after that I have NPB68 (Biology of Addiction) from 12:10-1:30pm, and finally, Spanish 2 from 2:10-3pm.

This will be my first time in college having a relatively uninterrupted block sequence of class, after class, after class... after class.

On top of that, I found out today that I'll have two lengthy Psych papers due on the Tuesday and Thursday of the same week, and in the same week, on the due date of the second Psych paper, I'll have a midterm in the Psych class of the first paper.

I haven't even been in my first NPB68 lecture yet... But given the circumstances that I am presently aware of, I feel that I do know one thing for sure: this quarter is going to really, really, really, really suck.

I suppose that If I didn't sleep so relatively late last night, Id be in a better mood, but as of now, I'm ridiculously sleepy, I've got some minor allergy symptoms, and... I dunno, I am definitely just not feeling it today; this definitely isn't one of my best days. This is probably the worst quarter start-up I've ever experienced.

Alright, well it's almost class time, so I'll check back in later today. I know one thing for sure: after Spanish 2 this afternoon, I'm going straight home, and straight to sleep.

-nesqu!k

Hawaii 2009 - Day 5

2009-03-27T21:16:00.000-07:00

Day 5: March 26, 2009

I'm hesitant to really call this a "day" in our Hawaii trip, as we spent most of it finalizing packing and flying back home. Oh wells.

All our bags were packed, we're ready to go...

I'm leavin, on a jetplane...
Don't know when I'll be back again.

We packed all our stuff into the rental car, and drove to the airport to return it.

Oh yeah, the car we rented was a Chrysler Sebring sedan, not too bad really.

You can definitely see the similarities in styling to the current-generation Toyota Camry, though ;)
From there, we took the provided shuttle to the United Airlines check-in

Our flight was scheduled to leave at 1:15pm that day.

We grabbed some Burger King for lunch

Nom nom nom

I was seated right next to my family, despite having a completely different seating group and check-in sequence.
I slept comfortably for most of the flight, listening to the Opihi Pickers CD, and five hours later, we were back in San Francisco International Airport

Dad picked us up in the van van shortly after we picked up our single check-in luggage, and we grabbed dinner at Pinole's IN-N-OUT before I drove the rest of the way back home.

Can't wait for our next trip to Hawaii :)
=end=

-nesqu!k

Hawaii 2009 - Day 4

2009-03-27T20:42:00.000-07:00

Day 4: March 25, 2009

Wednesday, our last full day on the islands :( Lucky for us, today, was our chill-with-no-plans day, so we made good use of it.

One thing I forgot to mention about the previous day: Tuesday night, I finally cracked and bought the 24hr internet package for $13 (internet should be free in the first place, dammit). After three days without internet access, I logged into my Gmail to find this:

47 unread emails. Those of you who know what I'm like, you know I like to keep my inbox nice and tidy, with zero unread emails (because i read them as soon as I see them pop up), so a number this high is pretty unusual. It was at that time that I uploaded the bulk of my pictures from the trip, and wrote the blog on the day 1 of the trip. Alright, moving on...
Wednesday we were up at 10am, and we went to our hotel's pool area, where we swam, sat around, sunbathed a little, and hung out in the super-hot spa. After a little while, we decided to head back out to the beach.

Plenty of people out today.
Most people build sand castles when they go to the beach, but Xavi decided he wanted to switch it up a bit, so...

He decided to build a sand pyramid. Unfortunately he only had one slave (Riz, haha), and he would soon find the tide working against him.

Xavi, I told you you should have scooted it back more.

Not to mention this pyramid only had three sides.

"Alright, I get it. Kuya..."

Using the remains of the three-sided pyramid, which had just been overcome by the water, we decided to build another one, scooted a little further back, and with four sides this time.

But this one unfortunately succumbed to the tide as well

Womp, womp, womp...

We skim boarded with the boogie board a bit more that day as well, and at one point we decided to head past the main barrier and out to the open sea to try some actual boogie boarding.

Out past that wall of rocks. We weren't aware, however, that it was pretty rocky out there, save for a 6-foot wide path of sand. Xavi and I managed to get some pretty deep cuts on our feet, unfortunately. It was a bit of a pain to walk for a while, but the wounds are all healed up now, so it's all good. Needless to say, our day at the beach was cut relatively short.
After we got a few hours in at the beach, we headed back to the hotel to wash up and go back to the mall that we went to the first day I arrived.

We mainly just got lunch: Japanese BBQ, Jamba Juice, and some Cinnabon for tomorrow morning. Did plenty of walking around, and spotted a familiar outfit

Beyonce's out fit for "Single Ladies", anyone? haha

Before we left at around 7pm, I headed to the nearby Barnes and Noble to pick up the Opihi Picker's Greatest Hits CD. If you don't know who the Opihi Pickers are, you should definitely check them out: they're my favorite Hawaii-based band. My favorite song from them:"Our Love Is Divine"

Fashooo. They've got plenty of other great songs as well, which is why I bought that CD :)
After that we headed back to the hotel, and walked back out to the International Marketplace, where I bought that ukulele a few nights ago.

We bought a whole bunch of t-shirts for cheap; plenty of shops had a 4-shirts-for-$19.99 deal going on.
Xavi lived his dream and got an airbrush temp-tattoo

Hella dope.
After we got all out shopping done, it was back to the hotel to start packing, as we'd be flying back home the next day.

I was missing Hawaii already :(

-nesqu!k

Hawaii 2009 - Day 3

2009-03-27T00:13:00.000-07:00

Day 3: March 24, 2009

Tuesday was but another day of sightseeing for us. I'm starting to get it now: for the first time we visit a new place, we do a bunch of sightseeing. For every other time we visit that place, we have a much more chill, unplanned vacation.

This was definitely a good place to visit, though: Pearl Harbor.

Exit 15A

Definitely a place everyone should check out when you visit Hawaii. It was here that the Japanese's surprise attack that thrust the US into World War II was carried out.

"Tora Tora Tora" was the command given to begin the attack, which indicated that we were caught by complete surprise. And indeed we were. Over 1,000 soldiers died that day, many of them on the USS Arizona, after a torpedo hit the ship's main ammo dump and exploded. That day we went to visit the USS Arizona Memorial.

While we got there at 10:30am, the tickets we got for the shuttle boat to the memorial were for 1:30pm, so we hung around for a while, checked out the other parts of the museum, read up on some stuff, and took plenty of pictures.

There was a torpedo body recovered from the wreckage

We spotted a typo on one of the info boards...

Xavi was lifting up whole ships

I took a bunch of pictures of that ship in particular, but to be honest, I have no idea what it's name is. Anyone?

At around 12:30pm, we grabbed a bite to eat

$3 for a hot dog and a bag of chips, not bad for such a tourist hotspot. The lady in charge of the food stand was Filipino, and when my mom ordered in Tagalog, we got a free bag of chips xD
Before we knew it, it was almost 1:30, so we fell in line for the short 23min documentary about the attack on Pearl Harbor, and afterwards, we boarded the shuttle boat to head out to the memorial.

The memorial itself actually sits right above the sunken remains of the USS Arizona.

Took a few shots of the ship's remains just below the waterline from inside the memorial.

Shot of a section of the ship that sticks out of the water

We were all just taking it in. The tour guide mentioned to us that the ship is the final resting place of many of the sailors who died that day. The majority of the bodies weren't recovered.

At the very back of the memorial is a list of all the soldiers who perished that day

A WWII veteran took a moment to honor his fallen comrades

The memorial itself is a really nice, of course.

After about 30 minutes, it was time to head back to land.

Shot of the museum from the water

After that we went back to the car, and headed over to the local PX, or in this case, the NEX.

At Travis Airforce Base, its the PX for "Postal Exchange", but since this was a Navy base, this was the NEX: Naval Exchange.
Spotted a pretty nice E30, reminded me of all by buddies in DMC

Went inside, tried on some sunglasses

like I always do.
And after that we went back to the hotel, and out to the beach for the first time since our arrival (I know, it's sad, right? Especially since our hotel is literally right across the street from the beach).

Wheny my family arrived, they got a hold of a free boogie board from a family that was on their way out

So we decided to put it to good use. Darren kinda taught us how to skimboard a while back, and while this wasn't a skimboard, it was still quite skimmable. I turned out to be the best one at it :P

I was pretty good at it by the end of the day; I only had a few of these incidents:

Xavi wasn't too bad at it either.

But not as good as me xD

It's all good bro, you've got all the muscle

Probably the best picture I've ever taken of Xavi :)
Riz was having a go it at as well, but he just couldn't seem to get his balance or speed right

You gotta run faster, bro!

At the end of the day, he just preferred having us pull him around

Driiiiift

Beautiful day to be out on the beach.

I've actually put on ome weight since the last time I was running around with no shirt on :P
Philippines 2008:

Hawaii 2009:

I actually weigh 151 lbs now, which puts me in the body mass index "normal" category for once in my life xD
As the sun began to set, we took a few last-minute pictures

Walked a little ways down the beach to check out the show that was going on

And then it was back to the hotel to wash up, grab dinner, and take dad to the airport.

My dad's the senior budget analyst for Solany County Mental Health, and in these tough economic times, it's hard for him to get enough time to a decent vacation given his role, unfortunately. My mom jokes that she must be dispensible, since she's been allowed more vacation time than by dad these past two times.

We got all dressed up for dinner

We decided we'd have taste of where the whole Hawaiian BBQ thing started: L&L Hawaiian BBQ

Super OG.
They've got the usual menu, which we're more used to seeing in the mainland

But out here, they serve a lot of other stuff as well

It's Chinese-owned and operated on the Islands, so there's a touch of Chinese restaurant in L&L in Hawaii, or at least this one in particular.
I had my usual favorite: BBQ chicken

Got myself a hella dope shirt as well

And after that it was off to Honolulu airport to drop off dad

My dad's flight would leave at 9:50pm, and land in Los Angeles, where he would switch to another plane and fly to San Francisco Airport. Shortly after his arrival, he drove back home, showered up, dressed up, and went straight to work. Craziness. Well, that's my dad for you, always the hard worker :)
Afterwards we stopped by a local grocery store to pick up some cereal, because we had just ran out of Coco Puffs with Vanilla puffs. As we walked down the cereal aisle, I spotted this:

Peanut Butter Crunch. I haven't seen a box of these in ages. Every time I go to a Safeway in the mainland they never have it. We would have gotten it if it wasn't freakin $7. We eventually settled for some Reese's Puffs cereal, also one of my favorites.

And that concluded Day 3 for us.

-nesqu!k

Hawaii 2009 - Day 2

2009-03-25T11:40:00.000-07:00

Day 2: March 23, 2009

Riz was up early as usual

and so was mom

Palladia was airing a Kanye West Concert

Xavi and I got up soon after

We've got a pretty nice hotel room. You walk out on the balcony, look to the right, and...

...you can see the beach :)
Plenty of other nice views from our balcony as well

Put another TIZ sticker to good use...

After getting all washed up and dressed, we were off to the Polynesian Cultural Center, about an hour-and-a-half away near the north-eastern shore.
Lots of nice views along the way...

Xavi had a nice nap along the way

Just outside the window was the ocean

And before we knew it we arrived at the Polynesian Cultural Center

What exactly is Polynesia? Well, it's a triangular section of the Pacific Ocean that consists of 6 island nations

including Samoa, Aotearoa (New Zealand), Fiji (didn't know that), Hawaii, Tonga, and Tahiti

The center reminded me of Marine World back in the "Africa, USA" days, only instead of animals, the theme was Polynesian culture. Pretty dope.
Here's an interesting tree I found

We decided to go on a short canoe tour around part of the center

This guy pushed the full boat around

After that we watched a show about various Polynesian instruments and dances

even got a picture with the dancers

After that we walked around a bit more and came across a spear-throwing contest...

You hold the midsection with your left hand to aim, and push it up with your right hand

fun stuff.
And after that, my camera died :( Two bars suddenly became a blinking single red bar, and before I knew it, that was it.
That aside, we continued around the park checking out all the neat stuff they had to show, from a boat parade that included dance showcases of each individual Polynesian culture; to an IMAX movie about the decay of coral reefs around the world, and what we can do to help slow or prevent it; and later that evening we enjoyed "Horizons", a Las Vegas-scale set of performances of Polynesian music, culture, and ritual. Pictures are on my mom's camera, I'll work that out later.
By the time the show was over, it was 9pm, and we got back to the hotel at 10:50pm. Wash up, sleep sleep, because the next day we'd go to visit Pearl Harbor.

-nesqu!k

Hawaii 2009 - Day 1

2009-03-25T02:49:00.000-07:00

Day 1: March 22, 2009

My family had already left for Hawaii the previous morning. The original plan was for us to all go at the same time, but I had a final Saturday afternoon, so my flight out was put off to the following morning. Kept it nice and simple with my backpack and one carry-on with all my clothes in it. Bags packed...

...ready to go.

I was up at 4:45am Sunday morning. Auntie Sue picked me up to take me to Vallejo Marriot by Marine World so I could take the shuttle to San Francisco Airport. We got there at 6:10, and since the shuttle wasn't going to leave until 6:30, I got a complimentary massage from the best massage therapist I know, Auntie Sue :)

Her only condition was that I buy her a Obama-themed t-shirt from Hawaii :P
The shuttle left promptly at 6:30, took about 50 minutes to get to SFO. Beautiful morning too.

When I arrived at the United Airlines check-in area, I was greeted by some electronic check-in machines which almost convinced me to buy a $500 upgrade to first class. Good thing I gave my mom a call to make sure I wasn't supposed to be giving anyone/thing any money since my ticket was already fully payed for :P Security check went pretty smoothly, aside from the fact that I lost a whole bottle of green tea :( I'll admit that was my fault though :P

After that I was on my way to the gate

Gate 86, or gate "hachi-roku", I jokingly said to myself as I looked at my ticket.

When I stopped to go to the bathroom and finished washing my hands, I came across a very odd-looking hand dryer...

wtf???

Ohhhh, I get it... Very clever. My hands were indeed dry in 12 seconds or less.
After that it was back to the gate for me, 7:50am. My flight was scheduled to leave at 9am, so I got real comfy in my seat. Had a nice red theme going on...

As I sat there I spotted something interesting on the update screen...

If you haven't found it by now, take a look at #29 xD
The idea is they list the first three letters of your last name, followed by a slash and your first initial, which just didn't work out too well for Mr... well, yeah, you get it.
My section boarded at 8:30am, and the plane left right on schedule. It was a pretty full flight...

I was pretty comfy in row 43, seat D

...quite comfy.

Left that there for whoever might want to find it ;)
The flight was 5hrs long, went pretty smoothly. I slept through the first half, and spent the second half watching Ocean's 13 on my laptop, and conversing with the people sitting next to me. To my right was Greg from Colorado, a 3rd year college student, and to my left was a very cute Korean girl who I talked to quite a bit but did not get her name xD
Dammit, Nestor, what the hell, what the hell.
It's all good though.
Hawaii is 3 hours behind us, so I arrived at ~11am local time, and was picked up by my family

...and we made our way back to our hotel along Interstate H1. Why does Hawaii have interstate highways again? Doesn't "interstate" mean "between states"? I suppose we'll never know.
Mom was at the wheel of our rental Chrysler Sebring.

We stopped at a local food court/shopping center to grab some lunch; I hadn't eaten since breakfast. First thing I did when I got out of the car...

Let everyone know that TIZ has touched down in Hawaii :D
Dad and I grabbed ourselves some Subway sandwiches.

Mom snagged herself some Korean BBQ.

Oh, hey, look...
Panda Express, haha. Oh, and...

Cinnabon! Fashooo. That was when I remembered that Hawaii is still America (you kind of forget sometimes, because there's so many Asian/Pacific Islanders, and its a 5hr flight to a remote island, after all).
On our way out, I spotted a silly Mustang with several GT-R badges on it
... (Nissan makes the Skyline GT-R, and the Mustang is made by Ford. Sorry, I'm a car guy :P)
Before jumping back in the car, I posted a sticker by the shopping center

I requested a pack of stickers from Benson specifically for this trip. TIZ's never been to Hawaii before :P
As we parked in our hotel's extremely tight parking garage (there is barely enough room for a car to get around the corners as you ascend or descend between levels), I spotted a pretty sick Nissan 350Z

Upon closer inspection we found that the entire body kit is actuall carbon fiber. Nice.
After I washed up a bit and changed into some shorts, we went for a little drive around nearby sightseeing areas. First stop: Diamondhead State Monument

Family photo

Bro photo

As we continued around, I noticed somthing about their buses. In Davis, we've got a fancy name: Unitrans. But Hawaii is known for being a super chill, simple place, so for them, the bus system is called:

TheBus. Nice.
We continued to several other places with nice views

Riz was having fun watching the surfers do their thing

Xavi was enjoying his time in the backseat

We cruised around and stopped at another beach

Took some time to chill for a bit.

And once again we were on our way. We stopped by a local food center to grab some food and snacks. I was pretty thirsty, so I got a hold of some Gatorade for myself

Pretty effin huge, heh. It was a but warm, though, since it was sitting on a shelf and not in the refrigerated areas, so I took matters into my own hands...

Didn't help that much, but it was a little cooler than it was at first.

After that it was off to another scenic location. Crazy-cool trees.

And here's something interesting: a self-sustaining streetlight.

There's a small solar panel on top to generate energy when the sun is out, and on the bottom there's a little propeller that uses wind power to charge the light's internal battery. A+ for innovation.

You walk up the hill a little bit, and there's a beautiful view of a bay

Got pretty trigger-happy with my camera after a while

Took some pics for TheImaginaryZebra's CNGNOT collection

After that we drove to another scenic location, and took more pictures

And after that, we started making our way back to the hotel

My dad's the only person I know who snacks on Mild Sauce packets from Taco Bell

I know for a fact that my wierdness and idiosyncratic tendencies come from him :P

Soon enough, Honolulu and Waikiki were in sight.

We got back to the hotel, I took a nap for a bit, and before I knew it, it was nightfall. We headed out to have a walk up and down the main strip to check out all the Sunday night activity.

Awww.... Xavi brought his deck too :(

Saw plenty of street performers

Stopped in some stores to try on some sunglasses

Went to the International Marketplace to check out all the cool shops and boutiques they had. Reminded me of Greenhills mall in the Philippines a bit

BOOGABOOGABOOGA! :P

I got myself a cheap little $25 ukulele after I realized how easy it was to play certain parts of Jake Shimabukuro's rendition of While My Guitar Gently Weeps. Can't seem to find the picture...

Anyways after that, we went back to the place, showered up, and rested up for the next day.

I'll write about Day 2 tomorrow, I'm hella tired xD

-nesqu!k

Spring Break 2009: HAWAII

2009-03-25T02:32:00.000-07:00

Yep, that's right guys... I'm in Hawaii, on the beautiful island of Oahu, in the beautiful town of Waikiki.

Sorry for the blog posts coming so late; unlike my trip to the Philippines, I'm staying in a hotel, Waikiki Marriot, to be exact, and it costs some $13 for 24hrs of internet, which I obviously haven't broken down and bought until now :P

Since my arrival Sunday morning, up to today (Tuesday) I've already taken over 1,000 pictures, but I'm sure you expected no less of me, right? I suppose my plan is to give each individual day it's own individual post, excluding this one, which I reserved to tell you my plan.

So just give me a few minutes, and I'll be dispensing entries like juice out of a juicer :D

side note: I'll write about how last week's TIZ fashion show went laterrrrr

Found This Video on Digg: Graffiti Art Animation

2009-03-18T11:58:00.000-07:00

Crazy dopeness.

MUTO a wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.

Our Bodies Are Autonomous Vehicles; Our Consciousness Is Just Along For The Ride

2009-03-16T16:41:00.000-07:00

Research in cognitive psychology has shown that even before a human is consciously aware of making a decision, their body has already arrived at a decision, in the form of certain patterns of neuron firing.

This idea brought me back to the old philosophical theory concerning the Evil Demon argument, which basically goes like this: While we cannot prove that that there isn't some "evil demon" figure manipulating our every thought and action, we cannot disprove the idea either. Even when given the principle, "I think, therefore I am", we can still consider the possibility that some evil demon figure is tricking us into believing that we are indeed in control of ou own actions and consciousness, even if these things are actually being controlled by some outside, intangible force.

Basically, here is my idea, as it was stated in the title: Our bodies are autonomous vehicles, and our consciousness is just along for the ride. If you don't get it, here's a clever metaphor that will be easier for you to understand: Pretend that our bodies are like a train, or a bus, and our consciousness is just a passenger riding in that train or bus. We jump on this train thinking that it's working for us by taking us to a place we need to go, but in reality, the train's trajectory and direction are already pre-determined, and we are just along for the ride. We have no way to influence the direction of the train, hence, we are just along for the ride.

If the patterns of neuron fire have already made a decision for decisive action before we are even consciously aware of it, then what is choice? What is control, if the decision has already been made? Could our bodies be manipulating our thoughts by convincing our consciousness that the decisions it makes are those of our consciousness, thereby providing us with the illusion of free will and the ability to make our own decisions?

If this is the case, then our true self lies in our consciousness, and our bodies are the evil demon figures guiding our consciousness in the direction that it sees fit.

Just something for you to think about :)

-nesqu!k

Imagination Is Greater Than Knowledge

2009-03-16T16:13:00.000-07:00

When Einstein first came up with this idea, he wasn't just saying stuff; he really knew what he was talking about.

Think about it this way: in the most general sense and on the individual level, what we as autonomous people know as knowledge is nothing more than our own individual interpretation of the world. There are things that we may know and understand about the world that no one else will ever be able to comprehend, given their differing perspective on the world. But what is it that drives the individual's interpretation of the universe?

That, my friends, is their imagination.

Think about it. Many, if not all, of your interpretations of the world are simply just variations and spin-offs of ideas that have stemmed from your own imagination, your own distinct creative juices cruising through the avenues of your mind. Your conscious mind takes a normal, every-day stimulus or experiences, and creates its own idealistic, yet realistic interpretation of it. This is all thanks to our brain's own dynamic ability to interpret and reinterpret old and new information, its ability to imagine the many different variables that could have led you to where you are now, and how affecting certain variables in the present can allow you to manipulate the future in your own ideal image.

Once we have developed all these theories about how the universe is working around us, we pick the one that we think is best, and declare this as our own knowledge.

Knowledge may be power, but imagination is the energy that fuels our ability to obtain knowledge.

-nesqu!k

Doin' My Own Preppin' for the Show

2009-03-14T00:16:00.000-07:00

Fresh haircut, courtesy of [Little Bro] Xavi aka Fresh-X.

Lola Gely was getting quite a show, haha
Started off with this:

and ended with... wait, what?

Jk. Ended with this

Fashoooo

Dammit. I really need to stop standing next to Xavi. It's ok, I'm still taller :P

-nesqu!k

A Day In the Life of [TIZ] Benson Chou

2009-03-13T23:12:00.000-07:00

So my only class on Fridays in Spanish at 9am, and after that, it's a free day for me. Didn't have any other plans, so I figured I'd follow my buddy Benson around for the day, help him out with anything he might need help with, and document it with a crack-load of pictures (276, to be exact).

Today was going to be an extra-busy day for Benson. Today's schedule: 5 photoshoots, mail at package at UPS, and rehearsal for Saturday's fashion show at 4:30pm.

It all started at around 11:30, when I met with Benson and Kevin.

Stopped by the Freeborn Hall ticket office to snag a few more tickets for some friends

And after that it was photoshoot time for [Chinese Yoyoist] Kevin.

Homie's got some serious Chinese Yo-Yo skills...

...and a mean look to match it, haha.

Afterward it was [Dancer] Sarah's turn

She's got some serious dance skills...

wooosh

Benson was sure to get the angles

After an hour-and-a-half of photoshoots, we took a break and went to the local UPS to ship a box of 50 shirts to a very interested vendor/friend in Washington D.C.

Benson's friend helped us through all the paperwork

After that it was back to SocSci for more photoshoots

Met up with homeboy/[Pro Model] Eric

Afterward we had to email Amy, one of the fashion show's event organizers, a high-res TIZ logo to use for the projector screen for the show.

Little did I know that some parts of SocSci actually get wireless.

A little bit later, [Breaker] Chris showed up for his shoot

Chris has got some moves as well

And...

Boom.

"How 'bout some jumping shots?"

Before we knew it we were doing crazy stuff with the wall

which way is down?
IONO.

After a little while [Breaker] Jobu stopped by

Had some recommendations on poses for Chris
But Chris went on with his own thing.

After a good 30 min of shooting, we kinda stood around for a bit

Took some weird pictures.

Oh yeah, Kevin was having some serious back pain after spending several hours bent over picking up little staples off the ground for the staple gun to make a canvas, so we recommended he lay down for a bit...

And as we waited for our second-to-last model, Julia, we went to grab some lunch.

Nom-nom-nom salad?
Aaaandd... [Hot Model] Julia showed up.

She hella cute. There's no denying that.

Took a quick break for a change of pants, so we figured we'd mess with Kevin a bit...
Nothing like a little fun between roommates :P

Aaannddd, back to Julia :)

Shirt change

hella pro

And before we knew it we were done, and waiting for DKwan, so we had some fun with my camera

The first picture of me for the whole day, haha

Benson was relieved that we were almost done with photoshoots... but the day was barely half over for any of us.

Oh, my...

Ohhh, my...
*Nods head in disgust*

Unfortunately I didn't get any shots of DKwan's photoshoot, since Kevin and I needed to go pick up Billy and his gear for our rehearsal that afternoon. After picking up Billy and dropping him and Kevin off at the ARC, I headed back to the MU to pick up Benson and Julia, and it was off to the ARC for us.

When we got there, however, the Pavilion, where we usually practice, was being used for a badminton tournament, so we were forced outside into the courtyard...

Jobu was definitely feeling it
So was Sarah

And just as Gabi was all warmed up...
...we were kicked out after 20 mintues. Apparently you have to pay to use the courtyard. Wtf, we already pay $15,000/year in tuition... >:( So we were forced to find another place yet again

We eventually found ourselves at the top of the SciLec parking structure

Lucky it was nice out

Still lookin' good, Julia.

Billy was all set to shred

We were all set up to walk

Our makeshift runway was represented by several backpacks, a laptop charger cord, and some bikes xD

And after an hour and a half of run-throughs and rehearsals, it was finally time to call it a day

It was 6:30pm when we packed it all up. First we dropped off Billy, and then me. While my day was over, Benson still had hella stuff to get done in preparation for tomorrow. Blog entries, website updates, shirt packing and organization, you name it.

Good luck, buddy!

See you tomorrow mayne.

The fashion show is Saturday, March 14 at Freeborn Hall at UC Davis, and starts at 7:30pm sharp. Tickets are $5. Freeborn's capacity is 1,000 people, and they've already sold around 600 tickets; the rest will probably go at the door tomorrow night, so you better jump in it quick! TIZ will be on at around 8:30pm-ish, the first group right after the intermission. Hope to see some of you there!

-nesqu!k

Fashooo

2009-03-11T22:11:00.000-07:00

Sooo... been pretty busy lately; school stuff, TIZ stuff, DMC stuff, hella stuff. Here's what I've been up to in the past week and a half...

Feb24: Rehearsal, rehearsal

Business as usual with TIZ. Fashion show coming up this weekend, featuring...

BENSON BEATBOXING!?!? You'll have to come watch to find out ;)

Hard at work trying to come up with good songs for the show

Kevin practicing his Chinese Yoyo skills...

= - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - =

Feb25: Christine M.'s birthday
Stopped by her place to say whatupp, chill, and wish her a happy birthday

T.Chan and Sarah stopped by as well

Carolyn enjoyed her self-prepared full meal

= - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - =

That weekend it was back home for Riz's 11th birthday party on Saturday Feb28...

Lots of little kids over

Plenty of food

Even got a jumper

Talented little guy can play Guitar Hero guitar AND sing at the same time

Only if he already knows the lyrics though, haha

Happy birthday, Chibisuke!

Well he's not so much of a "shorty" anymore, already standing at 5'0" at 11 years old. This one just might be taller than me (!?!?!)

= - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - =

Next think I knew, it was already March. It had been raining on and off most of the week.

The pond next to Aspen Village had filled up quite a bit

Played around with my camera a bit

Who ever thought you could make you hand look like this?

Phone on my leg.

= - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - =

Wednesday (Mar4) was pretty sunny as well. Chilled on the back path with Wilson

Peter, out upstairs neighbor, had just gotten back form class, and decided to join us for a bit. Headed out to the observation deck

OH YEAH, and I got new wheels for my skateboard

Big beefy 59s for the rough roads of the UCD campus. Nice smooth ride, great for cruising :)

That night I met with Benson, Billy, and DKwan to work out our arrangement for the show.

Billy's hella dope at guitar

Billy's caption for Benson: I'm telling you, I'm this long.
Billy: Ah huh...

Before we knew it we were witnessing an outbreak of brutal conflict

Little did I know I wouldn't be safe for long either...

= - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - =

That Friday, Mar6, it was Davis Motorsports Club's first meet at our new location/sponsor, Mountain Mike's Pizza in southwest Davis. Jim, the manager at Mountain Mikes, was more than happy to provide us with a fundraising opportunity. If you go to Mountain Mikes and mention DMC, we'll get a peice of the profit :)

Plenty of people showed up

Had some interesting shirts on hand...
Someone isn't a very big fan of... Tangerines, Apples, Pears, and Strawberries.

;)

Lots of new faces and membership registrations
Sean, the club's Activities Director, and myself

One and a half Filipinos :P

Everyone was having a good time

The food was hella good too

Our next meet is on Friday March 20 at the same place, so if you like cars, or just wanna hang out, feel free to come on down!

= - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - =

Almost done...
Tuesday Mar10, I had a oral exam for my Spanish1 class. Teamed up with my buddy, Chris, for this one.

Extremely interesting guy. Straight up political activist. Ask him about 9/11, the secret FEMA camps, or why you should hate Obama, and he'll give you a straight answer with plenty of facts to back it all up. If you want the truth, this is the guy to ask.

Basically we had to sit in front of our Spanish professor, Roberto, and have a 3-5 minute conversation on a topic which he would pick for us. It actually went quite smooth :) That, and Roberto's a cool guy

Later that day I was chillin in the CoHo, facing the sun with my laptop out, and little did I know...

That light could shine through the Apple logo on the back and show up on the screen O_O

Shortly after I headed over to the other side of the MU to watch my buddy Matt Sevrens and his buddy Patrick perform

They did an awesome fully-improvized song with chords F, A, D randomly shouted out by an audience member (me, haha), and an equally-random topic (pizza).

Good stuff, Matt and Patrick :)

That evening it was more rehearsal with TIZ

Kevin + TIZ Model/New friend Jackie :)

Me with Rasikh, who will be serving as our dedicated sound guy this time around

Gabi, who will be playing some violin for the show, and DKwan being cool as usual

Trust me, it'll be like nothing you've ever seen/heard before

= - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - =

And finally today, Mar11, was Spanish as usual in the morning.

The class contributed to a free-verse Spanish poem about... Ligers.

When you have a lion,
and a beautiful tiger,
they need some sexy-time
The moon and the stars (wtf, hella random)
The lion goes crazy
The tiger goes to the left
And they both go down
Until 2 am
And make a Liger named Robertitito (not pictured)

After class I headed back home to grab some stuff, and headed right back to campus to the SocSci building aka the Death Star for my photoshoot with TIZ

Only a few people know about the shirt I wore, most of them in concept, but here's a hint: theres only one of them, and it matches my shoes:

Benson's buddy, Tony, and Benson himself, after the shoot

So what's the shirt look like? You'll just have to wait and se--woops...

xD

nesqu!k

When You Update Your Status, It's The Voice In Your Head Talking

2009-02-27T23:33:00.000-08:00

No, seriously, think about it.

I'm not even going to give any crazy complicated explanation about it, I'll leave this one up to you.

But if you really want to know, here it is:

xD

-nesqu!k

It's 4am, and I Can't Sleep...

2009-02-24T03:52:00.001-08:00

...so I'll do what I always like to do: write. Maybe I want to be a writer, like in a newspaper or something? I dunno, we'll see. I know most people wouldn't care about the things I think about, but for the special few that do, as always, this one is for you.

My whole life, I've been taught to plan ahead, to think of how my actions today will affect where I end up tomorrow.

Through high school, I was told to do well so that I could go to a good college. Now that I'm at a good college, I've got to do well here, so that I can get a good job once I graduate. Always planning, always trying to map out what kind of future the present will allow me to achieve. Everything was just plans, plans, plans, for the sake of predictability. Sometimes, it's a good thing. Other times, it's definitely not the best thing to do.

I notice now that I have a very strong tendency to think ahead way too much. It's almost to the point that I spend so much time in some idealized vision of the future that I forget I still have to do stuff in the present if I want to get anywhere close to achieving it. When my friends get into certain situations, even if it's just as simple as trying to get someone's new phone number to contact them about something important, I'm very quick to run through every possible scenario I can think of, every little pathway, every available course of action. If you do this, then this, this, this, and this can happen. Once that happens, it can lead to this, or this, but at the end of the day it'll lead to... whatever. That's just how it kind of plays out for me.

And really, it's one of my most favorite things to do. In the most general sense, I love to pick things apart. I like to see how the big picture is affected by all the smaller entities that make it up. I like to analyze--or in this case, over-analyze--situations and things.

When I over-analyze, I grant myself the illusion of knowledge of the future; I essentially trick myself into thinking that I know what's going to happen. The biggest problem with doing this is that when things don't go as well as you expect them to go, or some random variable pops up and completely alters, if not ruins, every element of your analysis, it hits you harder than usual. A lot harder.

One thing I've known for some time now is that the more you expect from a situation, the more likely you are to be disappointed in the end. Kind of like how it's a longer fall from the top of the ladder, and even though you don't expect to fall off, you do. It just happens sometimes.

How will I overcome this?

Well, the best piece of advice I've gotten is this: stop trying to live in the future, because you're not there yet. All we've really got is the present. This is where you get to leave your mark. So stop thinking so much about what you would rather be doing; just focus on what you're doing right now, and eventually, you'll find time, and everything will fall into place.

My own little take on it: Life flows like water. Water has no structure. There are no lines to follow, nothing to predict. We are but leaves floating on a river. No matter how much control we think you may have, the water is what runs the show. Don't try to control the water, because you can't; it's force is more overwhelming than anything you could possibly imagine. There is an infinite number of variables which we can hardly understand to begin with. Things will happen for reasons that we will barely ever be able to understand. Instead, just go along with it. Let it take you exactly where you belong.

As much as you would like to put structure on it, you shouldn't, because even though you would like to think you know exactly how it works, there's going to be some small thing that just pops up and blows you away. Life can be described with one word, my most favorite word: dynamic. It's always changing, and rarely can you truly know what to expect. As much as we love that little piece of security that "predictability" offers us, when you think about it, it's really just an illusion. Things that we don't expect to happen will happen. At the end of the day, all you can really do is just go with it. In the present, all we can do is make our decisions, so that we can move on to the next set of decisions. Life will put you in a place, and you can either do nothing, or or do something. Either way, the water will take you somewhere. I realize now that my water metaphor is starting to fall apart. Oh well.

Let the chips fall where they may. If life give you lemons, make lemonade.

I don't know about you guys, but I want to make some good-ass lemonade.

I have no idea what I'm talking about.

-nesqu!k

Psychotherapeutic Tip of the Day

2009-02-18T23:02:00.001-08:00

As some of you may know, I've had my share of abrupt ups and downs, and needless to say, I've been able to overcome most of the downs. Hell, right now, I feel better that I have in years :) Since helping people is one of the main reasons that I got into the field of Psychology, I figured I'd start creating a log of things that work for me, personally, when I get into some rough emotional situations. While it's not necessarily guaranteed to help you, my hope is to at least offer you one more option to try out :)

So without further ado, here we go.

Psychotherapeutic Tip of the Day
#1: If you're feeling sad, down, emotionally distressed, hopeless, whatever you want to call it, here's something for you to try: go to a public place where there is a lot of activity. For a lot of people, when they feel down, they try to stay secluded, usually locking themselves in their rooms, listening to sad music, closing the blinds, and stuff like that. Don't let yourself do that. Go somewhere. The UCD Silo is my personal favorite. Sit down in a place where you can constantly see people walking by, the more people, the better. Don't face a corner or a wall. If you've got some homework, work on it. If you've got your laptop with you, do some work on it. While you work, look up every now and then, just to see if you spot anyone you might know. Even if you don't see anyone you know, believe me, just being in a public place will make you feel better. But in the event that you do see someone you know, and you make eye contact, smile and wave. I can almost guarantee you you'll feel better when that happens. If they come over and sit down to talk, that's even better.

Basically, If you're feeling down, don't lock yourself away. Go to a public place. It's a basic human need to be in a social environment. Think about it, we were born with other people around, we grew up around other people, so why would you try and take that away from yourself? Go out and do something :)

-nesqu!k

Arrite, Arrite, Arrite...

2009-02-15T23:59:00.000-08:00

Pretty fun weekend... and it's not even over yet :D

So I just kinda hung out on Friday, slept through most of the day after going to Spanish in the morning. Spent the evening hanging out with friends and whatnot, engaging in our usual pass-time activities.

I was supposed to go to Lake Tahoe with the family this weekend, but given the predicted weather conditions (heavy storms) we decided against it for fear of getting stuck in the mountains. Good thing we didn't though; my aunt got a call from the hotel not to try going up, as the roads have been deemed "impassable" xD

I woke up at around 11am Saturday to find that I had a missed call from home... hmm, I wonder what they wanted? So I called back home to ask what was up, at which point my dad asked if I was coming home for the weekend. I thought about it for a bit, and figured, yeah, sure, why not, I wont really be doing anything here in Davis anyways. So I showered up, packed up my gear, and was home in Vallejo by 1pm.

Xavi was gonna go to his friend's surprise birthday party, and he wanted me to drop him off, so we took the van. Did I mention my parents finally went ahead and bought an new van (after years of my dad putting it off)?

Toyota Sienna LE in Light Green. It rides as smooth as it looks, that's for sure. It seats 8, has the same 3.5L V6 as the one in the current Gen6 Camry, and feels a lot more solid than our now 8-year-old Plymouth Voyager. Of course, it also cost 2x as much as the super-base model Voyager, but in my opinion it was well worth the ~$28,000 we payed for it. My parents, being very thoughtful with their spending, decided to buy it at Toyota Vallejo, so as to help stimulate Vallejo out of her bankruptcy, heh. Xavi jokingly refers to the Sienna as "the Van van", while the Voyager is just "the van", haha.

ANYWAY. First we went to the Springstowne Library to drop off some books and pick up a few new ones. After that, I dropped off Xavi, and headed over to the 99cent store to snag some 9v batteries for my garage door opener, as its current battery was on its way out. I slapped the Bob Marley CD I made last weekend for the van on the way there, as well as during my short test drive down Colombus parkway. It's almost sad to say that the van's 3.5L V6 actually feels faster than any of our other cars xP. That ok though, because my Camry still handles better :D

I brought my Canon Film SLR back home with me, along with the 7 rolls worth of pictures I had taken over the past month, so we went over to Costco to have the film digitized. Basically, you give them your film, they develop it, and run it through a special scanner that converts them into high-res digital pictures, and the put the files on a cd for you. Fun stuff.

In the meantime, I'd been meaning to get a new camera since my Casio Exilim gave out on me in the Philippines, and after many weeks of indecisiveness, I finally decided to get the Canon SD790IS that they had on display, at the advertised price of $164.99 (2 and a half years ago, I bought the Casio Exilim for $299.99), and hot damn, in comparison to how much we spent on the Casio, the Canon was definitely the best value. It can shoot up to 10mp, compared to the Exilim's 6mp, and it came with a 2gb SD card.
Hella clean...

...and a hella big screen.

Where am I gonna put my label on this one, haha

It takes some damn good pictures in low-light environments, thanks to the "Hi-ISO" setting

Not hella dark, blurry, or anything like that...

Just a little grainy, but I'm not complaining :)

Pretty good sense of depth of feild...

Riz didn't mind posing for a few test shots

Some neat little color effects as well, which I have yet to really test

Here's a cute shot of Riz's background on his PS3 account

So that was pretty much my Saturday :)

====================
Sunday, Sunday, Sunday

The plan was to go to the San Francisco Science museum to make up for our canceled Tahoe trip, so off we went, in the van...
...not to be confused with the Van van, as Xavi likes to call it. My mom didn't want to take the Sienna because we wanted it to stay clean, and it was raining like hell outside. That's always a mental block when you get a new car: you try to avoid driving it as much as possible for the first three months or so, haha.

Xavi and Riz we ready for an adventure

It was a pretty uneventful drive to San Francisco, but unfortunately we arrived at the museum to find that the parking lot was full, and even worse: admission for the day was all sold out :(

No worries though. There was no way we were gonna drive this far and get nothing done, so we visited the Golden Gate Bridge for the first time in a while...
From the SF side

Exited on Vista point...

And from the Marin side

Amazing color clarity, even on a cloudy day

The city in the distance...

And another shot of the bridge

Xavi and Riz were enjoying the view

Riz was having fun with Mr. Binoculars, haha
Hella cute.

Mom and I

And myself

fresh haircut courtesy of Fresh X's Fresh Cuts (Xavi)

Mom and Dad

Xavi and his Fail Umbrella, haha

We were on our way back to the van when we decided...

...we wanted to take more pictures, haha

Afterward, we were back on the road, and hungry, so we found the nearby IN-N-OUT of Mill Valley

Hella crowded

...and the same internal setup as every other IN-N-OUT...

I'd want to be inside too, especially with weather like this

Luckily, we found some seats, and as we waited for the food, I took a few more pictures
Riz and Mom

Xavi and Me

After that it was back in the van, and back to Vallejo

Oh yeah, we stopped by Costco to pick up my pictures, and get some stuff for my apartment.

The digitized film pics didn't turn out so bad

Favorite shot of Wilson

Favorite shot of Kevin

Not bad at all. I can definitely feel the touch of old-school in the pictures.

After transferring all the photos from the 7 CDS for the 7 rolls of film (they really should start putting multiple rolls from the same client on one CD), it was dinner time

Man, my mom really does look younger

Played videogames for a little while, only to fall asleep on the couch from the food coma resulting from the IN-N-OUT earlier and the dinner that evening

Yes, Riz wears glasses now

Cute little chibisuke.

So yeap, there you go.

Go-karting with DMC tomorrow at noon in Sacramento at RPM Racing :)

-nesqu!k

Solution

2009-02-11T00:26:00.000-08:00

ONLY FOR PEOPLE WHO ARE VERY MUCH IN TUNE WITH THEIR CARS

Get in your car.

Put on your favorite music.

Go to an open, secluded, straight road, where the only person you could possibly hurt in your therapeutic endeavor is yourself.

Drive as fast as you can until you feel the thrill of this extremely dangerous situation.

It's only when you are on the edge of death that you realize just how alive you are.

-nesqu!k

This Certainly Feels Like A Chemical Imbalance To Me

2009-02-10T22:20:00.001-08:00

This is very interesting.

Earlier today I was fine, everything was cool. Everything was great, actually. I was in an amazing mood for reasons that I could not explain or understand. But now, it's weird, for once I feel as though my mood is just beyond my control.

Sometime earlier this evening, my mood literally just sunk. It was like things were normal, and all of a sudden, bam, down feeling.

I don't want to rush in and call it depression or anything, but I honestly have no idea why I'm feeling more down than usual. I'm sure there are plenty of underlying reasons for this sudden mood swing, but it almost seems like my consciousness is actively burying it right in front of me, and is not letting me dig it back up to see what it is.

Girls? Vehicle ride height? Boredom? Disconnectedness? Over-analyzation? Can you please just let me dig it back up?

"No", he says. "No you cannot."

On another note, my involvement in the field of Psychology has motivated me towards a single goal: revolutionize the field. Be the next guy that comes up with the theory that completely changes people's perspectives. If this is indeed depression as a result of chemical imbalances or some other more easily-controlled variable, and I find my way out of it, then I can help people with their depression as well.

One thing I've kind of adopted as my approach to Psychology: you can't help someone get out of a particular situation unless you yourself get into the exact same situation and find a consistent, reliable way to get out of it.

To help a drug addict with their addiction, you must know exactly what it is like to be a drug addict.
To help a depressed person, you must become depressed yourself.
To help an antisocial person, you must become antisocial.

For any of these situations, you must record and monitor every single idea, thought, feeling, or idea that you experience, analyze each part of it, and find a way to overcome the problem from the inside out.

Isn't that why people ask other people for advice? They ask them because they've been there before, they know the feeling, they know what it's like, and hopefully, they know how to overcome it.

If this is depression, then I am going to keep a log of it, and try to find my way out of it, because it really really sucks.

-nesqu!k

Your Other Half

2009-02-10T16:07:00.001-08:00

Everyone has two sides to them.
Being a human being is all about the constant conflict between your natural, animalistic impulses, and the structure and organization demanded by culture and society, aka social norms.

I came up with an interesting analogy that mixes ideas from Psychology (Sigmund Freud) and Political Science (Robert Dahl).

When it comes to the two different sides of a person, they are just about equal in strength, but in terms of influence, not so much. The way you act in the eyes of others is a result of the outcome of the battle between your animalistic side, and your humanistic side. In some cases, the animal has its way, while in other cases, the human has its way.

Though they are an equal 50/50 distribution in terms of impulse and thinking, when one has its way, it demonstrates a 50% +1 majority, kind of like in presidential elections decided by the traditional electoral college. There are two sides battling it out, but in order for something to get done, whether it be electing a president, or manning up and talking to a cute girl, you need a majority, even if it is only by a slim margin.

The majority decision is that which everyone else around you sees, given your choice to display it. Given your decision-making process, those things which you decide to do are the victors in these little internal arguments, in the same way that Barack Obama is the fresh new embodiment of values and people that America represents.

On the other hand, even though one side may have won the battle this time around, the other side's rights to hold its own opinion about a certain situation are still maintained; the rights of the minority are respected and protected. One day they will have their way.

Yes, I know it probably doesn't make any sense, and it's a pretty ridiculous idea. But you can't go wrong with a new perspective, can you?

-nesqu!k

It's Been A While...

2009-02-09T12:29:00.000-08:00

Well, not really, I guess... 1 week? Yeah, not that long.

Well let's see... about a week and a half ago, I shot what I guess would be considered a commercial for TheImaginaryZebra at Walker Hall...

...under Benson's direction and Billy's filming and editing skills...

Had a bit of a photoshoot as well...

I don't remember my arms being so huge, haha
And here's the final product:

fashooo.
For more info, check out THEIMAGINARYZEBRA.com

Let's see, what else...

Oh yeah, this past Friday, I performed at Dominican University in San Rafael. One of my friends from high school goes there, and was hosting an event, Sneek Peek. I beatboxed, of course :)

I went to a rehearsal a week earlier, and overall, the show went pretty well. It's weird, I come up with some really interesting, intricate beats when it doesn't really matter, but when I do a show, I just seem to forget everything, haha. That aside, the audience enjoyed it, so I'm happy :)

Right after my performance that evening, I drove back up to West Sacramento for DMC's first ever GT Night, one of my first major event ideas that came into fruition. The party started at 8pm, but I didn't get there till about 11:40pm xD
Made good use of my PS3 and steering wheel...

Had a few XBOX360s as well...
We're definitely having another one in the near future. Probably sometime in March? :)
Big ups to Andre for letting us use his place and his huge-ass TVs.

-----------==========----------

The next day, my roommates, Kevin, Wilson, and I, took a little day trip up to Lake Berryessa. Neither of them had even been up there, and we all figured it'd be a fun little adventure into the wild.
Made several stops along the way

Beautiful day for a trip. Definitely had a lot of fun...

Kevin: Hey guys look... It's like my Pepsi is mah cahk. (Pineapple Express reference)

I figure'd I'd balance out the number of pictures I have of my car with pictures of my car + me
nice shot, Kevin

Put my film SLR to some good use as well... shot maybe 3 rolls of film (75 pictures) for the whole trip

Just a few were of my car, most were of Kevin and Wilson doing stuff, haha

Left the lake at 5:00, and got back at around 6:30, and had dinner at the DC.

Hella fun day.

-nesqu!k

I Have a New Addiction. And It Has an "X" In It.

2009-02-03T11:10:00.000-08:00

People who are addicted to cigarettes want to smoke more.
People who are alcoholics like to drink a lot.
People who are addicted to AutoCross can't stop thinking about getting faster.

Yes, that's right. I'm now addicted to AutoCross, aka AutoX. For those of you who thought I was talking about ecstasy, aka "X", WHAT KIND OF PERSON DO YOU THINK I AM? jk xD

Anyway, getting back on topic: yes everyone, that's right. Three months after my first attempt to AutoX in November '08 and my ignition coil burning out on me, rendering my car immobile, I got my shot at redemption, and in the words of the Davis Motorsports Club president, Alex Kang: "Wow. Wow. That was REALLY good. I am at a loss of words right now." Just goes to show that it's not the car, its the driver :)

It was a beautiful day for AutoCross. DMC was meeting at Oakland Coliseum at 0800, so I was up nice and early.

Honestly, I didn't sleep straight that night at all; I was way too excited, haha

After washing up and getting dressed, I hopped in my car, set up the GPS, stopped by the local donut shop to grab some food for the team...

And after that I was on my way to Oakland.

Greeted on arrival by Alex himself

Everyone was just hanging around for a little while, emptying their trunks and getting ready for the course walk

Soheil was snackin' away

DMC was rollin' pretty deep that day...

Map of the course (it's a lot easier than it looks)

Had some fun trying on everyone's helmets

The DMC stickers came in, we we were all enjoying ourselves putting them on

Reppin' it

+10 hp? hahaha

After the line had died down, we all lined up to sign up for our run groups; Alex was working the table at the time

I signed up for Run Group 4 with Soheil and the other half of the team. Alex put me in as H-Stock #2, when really I should have been in STS since I have sport suspension. Indicated on the side of the car with masking tape (which I still haven't taken off xD)

DMC created a contingency system that involved us estimating the times that we would be beaten by. Today it would be me and the Camry vs. Nick and his BMW E30.

A real sports car vs. a family sedan? Nick decided he'd be faster than me by 7 seconds or more, but I figured I might be able to get within 7 seconds of him ;)

Boxing picture?

Nestor vs. Nick

Later that afternoon it was out to the grid.

I had to come within 7 seconds of Nick's ~51 sec third run.

Apparently my car was be most comfortable/easiest to sit down in

That's pretty much what it was made for, heh

All lined up...

And ready to go...

VIDEO:

Pretty self-explanatory.

The best thing about not driving a real sports car is that everyone expects nothing from you, and as a result, you can surprise a lot of people. I actually beat out a few S2000 guys with my first run time, despite it being my first time ever doing AutoCross, and having two passengers (which adds an extra 300lbs at least, haha) Looks like I get the contingency points this time around :)

Car and Driver

Davis Motorsports Club team picture

This may not be what Toyota had in mind when they were making ads for the Camry, with the caption, "Oh, what a feeling!", but it was definitely a great feeling to finally get to AutoCross.

The next AutoCross event is on February 22, 2009 @ Oakland Coliseum, so if any of you would like to join us, come on out. And remember, it's not about what you drive, it's about how you drive it ;)

-nesqu!k

The First Memory

2009-01-28T00:22:00.000-08:00

So today in Cognitive Psych, we were talking about memory, and Dr. Gibbs asked the class to share their earliest memory, and about how old they were when it happened. After a minute or so of trying to recover my first memory, it came back to me once again, and I shared it with the class. So I figured I might as well share it with you.

The one memory from my early years that has stayed imprinted in my mind would have to be the one from when I was two years old, about my grandpa on my dad's side, Grandpa Alfonso Aliga, and when he was still around. Grandpa Aliga was an accomplished, well-known, much-loved doctor, and a die-hard tennis player. I remember it almost vividly. All of my dad's brothers were at Grandpa and Grandma's house on Indiana St. in Vallejo. I didn't quite understand it at the time, after all I was only two years old, but Grandpa didn't have much time left, and as much as everyone didn't want it to happen, he was on the verge of being overcome.

I remember my dad was holding my hand as he led me into Grandpa's bedroom. I remember Grandpa was laying there on the bed. I didn't know if he was in pain or anything, I just knew that he needed to get lots of rest. All of my dad's brothers, my uncles, were in there, to let their father know that they were there to take care of him. I don't remember seeing any tears, but I could feel the sadness in the room, the sense of dispair, for we all knew Grandpa was in pain, yet there was little we could really do to alleviate it. Grandpa had cancer, and we already knew how this would end.

But to put him at greater ease in his final days, we all took turns rubbing Vicks vapor rub on his back. I remember seeing him laying there, his eyes closed, and he seemed to be at peace with himself, and everything that was happening. Grandpa knew he didn't have much time left, but I could see that he had no regrets in his life, and he was happy about that. He had raised 9 beautiful children, who all now lead great lives and have children of their own. He had accomlished much in his life, and left behind a great legacy.

I don't remember grandpa saying anything when I was rubbing Vicks on his back, but I had to make something up, I would imagine it was something like this:
"Don't worry, Nes-J, Grandpa's going to be alright. I'm sorry you won't get the chance to get to know me better as you grow up, but even after I'm gone from here, I will always be with you to give you guidance when you need it the most. You're going to do amazing things when you grow up, I can already see it. When you get older, don't worry too much about things, promise? I love you, Nes-J"

I love you too grandpa.

And that's my earliest memory. Grandpa died of cancer in Novemrber of 1991, a little while after my second birthday. My parents would tell me later that I insisted in helping everyone else to carry Grandpa's casket before he was buried, but that one I don't remember at all.

So yeah, there's a little personal piece of my life.

What's your first memory?

-nesqu!k

This Week In Review

2009-01-24T23:39:00.000-08:00

Yooo, what up, everyone. Haven't really gotten a chance to write anything this week since I've been pretty busy, but better late than never, right?

For starters, this past Monday, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, my family came up to Davis to have lunch with me :) The Saturday prior, I picked up my cousin Ryan from his house in Sac and took him to Vacaville so he could go back to Vallejo with my dad, Xavi, and Riz to spend the weekend at the house. On Monday they were taking him back to Sac, but we met up at Applebees for lunch, and I took Ryan back to his place while my family headed back to Vallejo afterwards.

Took a shot of Riz with his OG zeeb head YxB and matching Jordans before we left

A few days earlier I asked my mom if I could get my hands on our old-school Canon Film SLR, and she said yes, since it's just been sitting in it's back for the past few years now, haha. The camera may be old, but the tech is still state-of-the-art, and now it's miiine. It's a Canon EOS Rebel S II

No screen, duh xD

"Nestor, how will you ever know how good your pictures are turning out?" My answer: when you use a film camera, you take more time to really compose the shot; you can't be as snap-happy as you would be with a DSLR. That aside, it'll probably be a while before you start seeing any of the pictures I take with it. My plan is to have pictures digitized and developed in 100-photo batches. I only had 3 rolls of film, so I'll have to get some more soon; already burned through two rolls :P

That aside, this week of classes was pretty standard. Had a midterm for PSC100 (Cognitive Psychology) on Thursday, and for SPA1 (Spanish 1) on Friday, and both went pretty well :)

On Wednesday, I met with DMC President Alex Kang, and we discussed some of the event ideas I had that would help to stimulate member participation and interest in the club, as well as giving the club plenty of things to get involved with. Just doin my job as DMC's event coordinator :)

Wei was coincidentally in the area as well and sat down with us as he ate lunch

...and I tried on Alex's motorcycle helmet

We've got plenty of things coming up for DMC, from the usual bi-weekly meets, to our usual AutoX outings, to our first ever GT Night.

Friday afternoon, it was our bi-weekly DMC meet as usual at RoundTable.

Gotta love a good turnout :) Plus I got to test out the SLR for the first time on people's cars.

Later that evening, it was DMC's Initial D night, which I had announced the prior Wednesday on the DMC forums. A few of us enjoyed ourselves at the MUGA

Alex is a savage at this game

Kai was trying to make use of every advantage he could get

The game's lack of realism really helps to boost your reaction time, given the required extreme cornering techniques

We played some Maximum Tune as well

Kai and Alex battled it out in the motorcycle racing game

After being there for over 3 hours, we decided to call it a night, but Dexter and I headed back to my place for some GranTurismo5 Prologue with the Logitech Driving Force Pro steering wheel.

Took him a while to get used to the throttle sensitivity and steering work, but he'll definitely be ready by the time GT Night swings around. Dexter headed out at around 3am, and Ryan stopped by to hang out a little, and I ended up going to sleep at around 4am.

Saturday, I woke up at 10am, as today was the day for DMC's trip to the Towe Auto Museum in West Sacramento. Had to meet with the rest of the group at RoundTablePizza at 10:45, and we headed out to the museum at around 11:10.

Plenty of historic autos, mostly old Fords and other American cars.
Old-school Bentley

Old-school superchargers, haha

Huge engines with little horsepower and less-than optimal efficiency xD

60hp V8? :(

Here's a neat quote I spotted in one of the glass cases...

That really hit me for some reason when I read it, heh

Ford himself

And cars, cars, cars

I took more pics with the SLR that day too, you'll see those some other time :)

After the museum, we headed back to IN-N-OUT in Davis to have lunch before going back to RoundTable so everyone could get back to their cars.

So yep, there you go.

-nesqu!k

Lake Berryessa Adventure

2009-01-18T19:22:00.000-08:00

Today, my car and I became one.

As some of my friends know, I've been a little mopey the past few days, so I decided I'd go do something other than just sit around all day. I've heard so many good things about the roads around Lake Berryessa from the Davis Motorsport Club (DMC) guys, and since I have a GPS now, I figured I'd go explore the roads out there a little, and I did just that.

I woke up pretty early, despite not sleeping until 0400 this morning. It was 1000 when I was convinced that I couldn't go back to sleep out of hunger, so I had brunch at the Segundo DC, just like old times. Had some eggs, bacon, hash browns, and a waffle. Mmmm :)

From 1100-1300, it was pretty much prep time. On my way back from the DC, I filled up with an extra 5 gallons of gas, because I wasn't about to head up there with a 1/4 tank left. Got back to the apartment, packed some snacks, drinks, and three bottles of water (all of which I finished). Once I had everything together, I snapped a few shots of my car, and I was on my way.

I know what question you're all gonna ask, and the answer is:
Yes, I went by myself.

I still haven't gotten a new camera yet, btw, so this is all off of my phone :)

Sexy.

Once I had gotten to the point where you first get a glimpse of the lake, I had to stop and snap a few shots.

Panoramic mode ftw.

I did a hell of a lot of driving, and I enjoyed every second of it. I followed the directions provided by my GPS, and ended up on Knoxville Rd on the western side of the lake. A little bit further down the road after I passed the marked destination, I stopped at a nice pulloff with a beatiful view of the lake. So what did I do?

Took hella pictures of the Camry, of course. You guys know how I am when it comes to my car :)

Mr. Lonely Driver, haha

Hella nice views out there...

Brought lots of water, a Mtn Dew,

Hot Tamales, Quaker bars, more water, haha

Kinda messed up on this panorama a little...

After debating between going back home or continuing down Knoxville, I decided I'd continue further down Knoxville Rd., and I ended up finding another really nice spot...

No lie, man, and it was freakin great. The drive to and from was insane fun. I swear, I like re-fell in love with my car, the way she pushes me into the back of my seat, the way she traverses the corners with ease. I didn't experience any understeer at all, in fact, I felt a few moments of slight oversteer, but no major traction loss like on Mt. Hamilton Rd., haha.

Anyone bring TIZ to Lake Berryessa yet?

After that stop, I continued further down, until the double-yellows eventually disappeared, leaving me relatively able to use the entire road...

I was able to hold 50-60mph throughout, while using the appropriate braking for each corner, of course. My Tokico HP struts, Intrax springs, TRD rear sway bar, and Freedom Design strut tower bar were all very helpful in every situation. For what my car lacks in power, she made up for it with some amazing handling :D

After going an extra ~15 miles down Knoxville from my original destination, I decided it was time to turn around and head back to Davis; it was already about 1530, so I'd been gone for 2 hours.

Back through the land of the double-yellows.

Just a few miles before the left turn back into Highway 128/'Super' West Covell, there's a nice little stopover spot next to a bridge, so I stopped, and took some pictures.

Wait for it... and... panoramic.

:)

As you get back on 128 and get around the southern end of the lake, there's a dam. I'd stopped in the area earlier, but not at the actual pull-over.

This is a really great spot to take pictures, by the way.

So yep, there you go. That was my day trip to Lake Berryessa. I'm sure by now you're all sick of seeing my car, haha. Can't wait till next time, when I go with DMC, maybe even invite some of the guys from ToyotaNation :) This is definitely an awesome collection of roads to drive, the difficulty is perfect, with a good balance of tight and loose corners, and there is very little traffic at all. There were times when I could swear I was the only one out there.

Driving is my favorite stress reliever, and it was definitely working this time around. I could feel all the tension seeping out of my body, through the car, and into the road. I swear, when I was up there just driving my car, pretty much aimlessly, I forgot about everything that had been bothering me for the past few days.

Driving my car brings peace to my mind, body, and soul.

-nesqu!k

Life Has Become A Perpetual Activity

2009-01-15T19:56:00.000-08:00

I've been noticing this more and more lately: it's starting to seem like everything I do has become completely perpetual, everything just seems to just run itself, it all feels like I'm on autopilot all the time.

What do I do? Well it's a routine, first sign of perpetuality. I wake up, wash up, dress up, eat breakfast, ride the bus to campus, go to class, come back, go back to campus, then come back. I just noticed that that is basically all I do. Everything is just automatic, I don't even think about any of the individual activities. It's gotten to the point where I have no idea why I do things; it's almost like I do things either out of fear of inactivity, or just because I've completely bought into the role of a student.

Like, for example, I get on the bus, and as I'm sitting there, riding along the stretch of Arlington/Russel Blvd., every now and then I just ask myself, "why the fuck am I on this bus, and how the fuck did I get here?" My body, my brain, my existence as a whole just seems to be on autopilot these days. Thing's seem to go by faster than they used to. I mean, come on, it's freakin Thursday already... where the hell did the week go? Maybe its just because I cram so many random activities into each day, that since I'm always doing stuff, time just seems to go by so quickly.

My life is passing by, seemingly literally right in front of my own eyes.

woooooooooooooshhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh gone

-nesqu!k

An Existence of Good and Bad

2009-01-15T11:20:00.000-08:00

The ideas of good and bad are meaningless out of context. Neither can exist without the other to compare it to. There can't be a good unless there is a bad to compare it to, and vice versa.

It is human nature to view oneself in the most positive way possible. This, however, involves finding things that are bad in relation to yourself. This is why things like hate, intolerance, and supremacy exist. People who feel things like hate and intolerance and rely on a sense of supremacy to feel better about themselves need to generate ideas of subordination of people who would naturally be considered equal. For Nazis and white supremacists, the bad that they use to compare to their own sense of good happens to be everything that doesn't have to do with Christianity, and being white-skinned.

No one likes being considered "wrong", so supremacists decide to dictate that only they are right and that everyone else is wrong. So long as there is an active practice of the opposing views of "good" and "bad", there will always be extremities attached to them. So long as human nature continues to breed ideas of hierarchy, difference in power, and difference itself, there will always be people like racists, sexists, antisemitists, and anti-homosexuals.

Such is life, and as much as it sucks, it's all we've got. I have no idea why I just wrote all this.

-nesqu!k

Crazy Theory - Proportional Universes

2009-01-11T21:56:00.000-08:00

It all started when I showed my roommate, Kevin, that one video for Nokia's Morph concept phone. At the mention of the term, "nanotechnology", we got into this big discussion about how implausible the idea was, which we later decided would somehow become likely in the near future. We were talking about molecules, atoms, quarks, etc, and Kevin mentioned that it's impossible for there to be anything smaller than a quark, and knowing of nothing smaller than a quark, I just figured, "yeah, alright".

Later that night we were watching the Nostradamus 2012 show, part of The History Channel's Armageddon Week series. Crazy stuff. The show was talking about how massive change on Earth would ensue on Dec 21, 2012, as that would be the day that the Earth, our solar system's Sun, and the Center of the Milky Way Galaxy would become perfectly aligned. That would mean that the sun would be eclipsing the Earth's reception of energy from the center of the galaxy, which, for all we know, plays a vital role in the presence of life on earth. This cycle happens every 26,000 years, and the last time it happened, Earth plummeted into an ice age, that didn't hit rock bottom until about 18,000 years ago, when temperatures began rising again.

With all this talk of, Earth, our solar system, and the Milky Way galaxy, and how there are plenty of other galaxies out there, i was hit with this crazy idea.

You all remember what I said earlier about "nothing smaller than a quark", right? Well here's something for you to consider: what if we are the tiny little piece of matter in a much larger universe than we are aware of? What if Earth is a sub-quark, our solar system is an atom, and our galaxy is a molecule, and our universe is the material that makes up the chemical compounds that compose a whole other universe? What if Earth is nothing more than a result of the creation of a bunch of scientists in a much bigger, proportionally larger universe? Those scientists are probably thinking the same thing. "Are you kidding me? There's nothing that could possibly be smaller than a quark (which, in their case, would be Earth)! But we all know they're wrong, because we as human beings, and everything else that makes up the earth, are the ridiculously minuscule pieces of matter that help make the Earth what it is. Little do those scientists know that there really is something smaller than a quark, and its just as manipulable as everything else.

Given this theory, you could even go so far as to say that these scientists in this proportionally bigger universe are what we have defined for so long as "God". After all, just like our own scientists in our universe level's world, those scientists are chemists and physicists trying to figure out what the hell makes up everything? What are the qualities of each of these individual atoms, elements in the periodic table? What are they made of? Is there anything that could possibly be smaller than what we know about today? For us, it could be that what we now know as "quarks", those pieces of matter that are smaller than atoms, are really made of of something smaller. We look at quarks, and given our most powerful electron telescopes, it still looks as if we're looking at planet earth with a telescope from the surface of Pluto (hella far away, and it just looks like a little dot). And that's as good as it gets, it just looks like a little dot. But little do we know that there are little organisms living on it, who, just like us, are trying to figure out what the hell could be smaller than that little quark?

Proportional Universes Theory - Summary
Our planet Earth, which we live on, could be the quark-sized piece of matter undergoing the scrutiny of a scientist in a proportionally larger universe (who could also be a tiny organism living on a planet that is the quark-sized entity undergoing the scrutiny of a scientist in a still proportionally larger universe). Have I boggled your mind yet? Good.

-nesqu!k

The First Week of Winter Quarter (so far)

2009-01-08T15:34:00.000-08:00

Whats up everybody

I'm sure if I didn't have a cold this whole time, I'd be using a lot more of my free time for updating my blog :P I caught some allergies about two weeks ago when I was still in the Philippines, and it was already dying down when I got back home, but before I knew it, I was segueing into a cold :( I've pretty much been sick since this past Sunday, and I gotta tell you, this is the first time I really remember hating being sick. I think its mostly because it's the first week of school and I can't afford to only be half-conscious during the first week of classes for obvious reasons. Being sick really isn't so much of a hinderance to my going to class (I have yet to miss class due to me being too lazy due to being sick); it's much more of an inconvenience. I go to class, and I spend too much time thinking about how I can't freakin breathe out of my nose, which is obviously something I'd rather not have to worry about it. That aside, let's talk about my classes

Spanish 1 with Prof. Roberto Lopez
Yes, I took Spanish in high school. I made it up to the maximum, Spanish 4 honors in my junior year. That being said, I'm sure I have a pretty valid reason for taking Spanish 1, even though people keep telling me I should have taken Spanish 2 at the least. I chose to start form the beginning again with the basics because I haven't taken a Spanish class in over 2 years, and I feel I pretty much might have forgotten most of everything I learned. Additionally, I would rather take Spanish 1 and feel comfortable out of knowing that I have a pretty good grasp of the Spanish language, rather than take Spanish 2 and regret not taking Spanish 1 instead after feeling totally unprepared. Even though I made it all the way up to Spanish 4 Honors in high school, its definitely not the same as Spanish in College; the biggest difference I noticed is the level of immersion: Professor Lopez speaks lecture in Spanish about 90% of the time, much higher than is usually is in high school. This class is also very small and intimate, which I really like. There are about 23 people in our class.

Political Science 1 with Dr. Stephen R. Routh
Political science was definitely one of the classes I was looking forward to taking at some point, especially because I feel I'm becoming more socially and politically aware. PoliSci was definitely something I wanted to explore. Though the class is in SciLec123, the huge lecture hall, the class only fills up maybe 20-30% of the hall, if not less. That aside, the professor seems pretty good so far, and I'm definitely looking forward to picking up a lot in this class in terms of better understanding the ins and out of government and politics.

Asian American Studies 3 with Dr. Nolan Zane
I didn't realize that ASA3 was Asian American Psychology until I signed up for it. After taking ASA2 with Professor Hamamoto in Fall Quater 2007, I figured the most logical step would be to take ASA3 if I wanted to continue on with what we learned in that class. Little did I know that it would really tie into my major quite a bit. ASA3 focuses much more on Asian Americans than ASA2 did, where we concentrated a lot on American imperialism and colonialism. On top of that, Dr. Zane is a clinical psychologist himself, so I'm sure I'll find this class very interesting, given the subject's people of interest, and the tie in of psychology, of course :)

Psychology 100 with Dr. Katie Gibbs
Especially after today's lecture, I can already tell you that this will be my favorite psych class so far. Psych1 was pretty standard, Psych41 I wasn't as much of a fan of, but oh man, Psych100, which is cognitive psychology... I find it utterly fascinating. It was interesting hearing Dr. Gibbs talk about how Psychology, which is such an open-ended, ambiguous study, tries to make a name for itself among the sciences, when the idea of science almost always refers to structure and consistency. It just goes to show how young the field of psychology is. Other subjects like math, physics, and chemistry, those are all things that have been developed over the years, and they were relatively easy to develop since we were able to find the structure that holds up their concepts. But what about psychology? Today we talked about how we have tried to find consistent relationships between human behavior, experience, and brain activity, all of which are very open-ended, dynamic, ambiguous entities. I think the thing about psychology that interests me the most is the fact that there is still so much about everything related to the field as a whole that we still dont understand, leaving a seemingly infinite amount of space for innovation, ideation, and theorization, all of which are things that I love to do.

My take on the week at this point? So far so good :) I like the way my schedule plays out during the day and in the week as a whole, and I find a strong interest in each of my classes. I hope I dont jinx it or anything by saying this, but I have a feeling that I'm gonna do pretty damn well this quarter :D

The 16 Facts Thing

2009-01-03T19:53:00.000-08:00

Benson tagged me, and I've been putting it off since I've been on vacation, but now I've got nothing else to do, so here we go...

1. If you were tagged, write 16 facts, which hopefully no one knows, about yourself.
2. Tag 16 other people, including the one(s) that tagged you.
3. To make things more interesting, make up a rule for the people you tag.

Benson's new rule: Must include some kind of animal sound in one of your facts. (See #2)
My new rule: As you write your entries, IM someone that you really really like, but they don't know it.
--------------------------

-------------------------------------------------------

1. I'm pretty big on videogames, but I definitely don't play as much as I used to, mostly because of school and whatnot. I'm just glad I know how to set my priorities.

My old desk arrangement. I've rearranged it since then, but the MacBook is still strategically placed in front of the monitor for the PS3 :P

2. I'm in love with my car, my 1992 Toyota Camry, which I often refer to as "babe", "baby", and "sexy"
She started out like this in August of 2007

And now she looks like this.

To be honest I used to think it was the ugliest car I'd ever seen at first; I was in an AE86 phase at the time. It eventually grew on me, and from then on the modding ensued. Planning on maybe going turbo someday ;) The intake already makes her roar like a lion. RRROOOOAAAAARRRRR.

3. I went though an emo phase in high school. Didn't well all? My haircut in May '06:
Would I do it again? Maybe...

4. I used to spike up my hair every day through freshman and most of sophomore year in high school. Back when I used to wake up early enough to have time to spike up my hair, which doesn't happen anymore, heh

When it got too long, I would cut it really short, and start spiking it up again when it got longer.

5. I'm really really really really shy, and it keeps me from doing certain things that I want to do, more often than I'd like. Sure, I've always been a performer with singing and beatboxing and whatnot, but when it comes to meeting new people, especially certain girls, I can get really hung up. My biggest fear is the awkard silence.

6. I tend to over-idealize people, especially girls. When I see a cute girl, I try to think of her in the best way possible, despite knowing absolutely nothing about her. Even though most of the really "hot" girls are really just bitchy, spoiled, and cocky, I even try to look past that and find the sweet, caring inner core, even though it probably doesn't exist. Don't get me wrong, though, I know plenty of really cute girls that are actually very nice people. The one girl who gets to find out how romantic I can be is a very lucky girl.

7. I try to avoid taking uncalculated risks. I inherited this trait from my dad. I over-think and over-analyze just about every situation I get into. I try to image every possible direction that a situation can go given any specific involvement I might have. This definitely contributes to my whole shyness thing; a lot of the time I just conclude that conversations will end in awkward silence. On the other hand, I do have my bouts of straight-up recklessness, usually only in the things that I'm already confident in, for example, driving really really fast ;)

8. I spent most of Fall Quarter 2008 trying to build up the courage to talk to this girl that I had two classes with. I don't know if it was just me, but I would catch her glancing at me every now and then during class, and everytime I saw her elsewhere and she saw me, she'd try to hide her smile and look away. My imagination? I did, however, get around to introducing myself, eventually, and we're pretty much just acquaintances now, which is just fine with me, despite my ridiculously-high expectations for what might happen between us. It will happen when it happens.

9. Talk to me, and I'll talk back. That's how conversations work. I really don't like people who are hard to talk to. I know other people are shy and whatnot, and we all hate to have awkward silences in face-to-face conversations, but what really annoys me is when I talk to people on AIM, and I really want to talk to them. I even make it easy for them to talk back: I ask questions to give them something to respond back, but when I don't get a response, all I can say is, WTF, can't you fucking talk back or what?

10. [removed for your protection. if you read it already, then good for you]

11. I'm a complete sucker for things that get my mind going, especially anything to do with psychology, sociology, and politics. I prefer movies, music, and picture-intensive text the most; I'm not much of a reader, heh.

12. I love to write. It's fun to try and express something as dynamic and infinite as human thought using something as constricting as language. Finding the right words, the right combinations... and when words can't describe it efficiently enough, I use pictures.

13. I love taking pictures of stuff. I guess this is why image-based information appeals to me the most. As many words as I can use to try to express something to you, that's still only my perspective. What better way to show someone something than to just show it to them, right? No words would do this picture of my brother justice, in my opinion:

14. I do my best to keep an open mind, and I'm very much aware of the times when I'm very closed minded. My attempts at keeping an open mind often cause me to lose focus on certain things, and thats not necessarily always a good or bad thing. But I'm always very critical of what I hear, always skeptical of new information. I try to look at the big picture before I start coming to any conclusions.

15. I was in a professional childrens choir, VOENA, from 5th to 12th grade. I started out in melody, and eventually became the leader of the bass and tenor section, as well as the choir's main beatboxer. We specialized in world music, and I've sing in over 21 different languages. This choir took me to China, Mexico, Italy, Greece, Japan, and the White House on several occasions during the Christmas season (I've met President Clinton AND President Bush).

16. Last quarter I was invited by TheImaginayZebra creator/designer Benson Chou to become an officer in the soon-to-be-established Club TIZ (Name still pending). According to him, I just seem to have that drive and passion for the company, his words, not mine, I swear :) I've been told I'll be on somewhat of a board that will approve new designs and whatnot. Here's a neat little concept I came up with. Probably not gonna happen, but we'll see

On top of that, Alex Kang, president of the Davis Motorsports Club, just named me the new Event Coordinator for the club. I've already got plenty of ideas: cruise events, photoshoot events, that kind of stuff. Aside from that, I'm very much open to suggestions, so hit me up.

Tapos na (done).

I tag: Benson C., Xavi A., Ryan H., Travis J., Stacey G., Wilson Z., Ron H., Raiskh J., Nicole C., Genn I., Xander W., Janet A., Olivia H., Alex K., Sean G., Edward Norton (haha)

-nesqu!k

The Philippines - Days 17-18

2009-01-01T20:35:00.000-08:00

What uppp everybody. First blog now that I'm back home, just got in the door no more than 30 minutes ago, greeted by the inside of my 50 degree house xD So let's start with New Years Eve, shall we?

Dec31 - Day 17
It all started with lunch in the form of a typical family gathering at Uncle Tito's house. Took plenty of pictures, of course

I was Ate Aileen's ring bearer at her wedding with Kuya Ivo when I was 5 years old, and now she's got triplets! Ethan, Jessica, and Maggie.

Ate Aileen, Ethan, and Kuya Ivo

Kuya Paul, Ate Elaine, and Ate Gina

Sat at a table with Kuya Vernon's girlfriend, Michelle, Kuya Vernon, and Xavi.

After eating hella bbq chicken and rice, i had some bananas and grapes dipped in chocolate

Mmmm

Group picture of all the adults + seniors

Picture with Uncle Tito and Family

And who can forget the group picture?

Afterwards I went to one of the malls for one last time: Tri Noma, to pick up those dope Chucks I spotted the last time I was there

finally, a new pair of orange and brown shoes to replace my 4 year old orange and brown Vans :P

as well as shirts from a store that sells Filipino designed and printed shirts (hella nice). Here's something they had on their wall, I thought it was pretty cool

Grabbed some authentic filipino souvenirs for friends as well :)

Goodbye, SM, and other gigantic Philippine malls...

And later that evening, the fun began...

Can you see the joy in my face?

We pretty much just had fun with fire crackers and launched rockets

300 of them to be exact

All

night

long

And my favorite:

Lucky us, our neighbor across the street is in the fireworks business, so we got big quantities with big discounts :D

And of course, the group family photo...

Took plenty of pictures, and some video too, but that'll come later. For the rest of the pictures you can check out the albums on facebook:
http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=71465&l=f92ee&id=590746458
http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=71463&l=86b8e&id=590746458

Jan1 - Day 18
Last day in the Philippines... *sigh* I can't believe the trip's already over. Woke up at about 11 and had brunch (basically leftovers from yesterday, meaning more bbq chicken for me, haha). After that, I kinda just sat around, finalized packing, and played some Gran Turismo 5 Prologue. I started to feel kinda sick after a while, so I went and took a little nap. Woke up again at around 2, took some Advil to make sure I didn't get a fever or anything.

Uncle Tito was kind enough to let me slap a TIZ sticker on the back of the Toyota Revo, our primary transport during our time in the Philippines. My last sticker :P

Finalized packing some more, and before we started loading up the luggage, I had a little bit of balut, first time ever, haha. I swear, once you get over the whole "aborted duck embryo" thing, it tastes just like cold scrambled eggs with more salt, haha. Xavi tried a little bit to, but a hell of a lot less than me; he freaked out and started to get nauseous, haha. Pictures are back with Xavi on my mom's camera, and he'll email them to me when he gets the chance. After that, we loaded the bags and boxes up, and it was off to the airport with Uncle Tito driving, and my mom, Xavi, and Riz to tag along to say bye to my dad and I.

Chugging along in the airport with carts full of luggage

Security was pretty tight, we went through a total of 2 metal detectors, and sent our handcarry through a total of 3 x-ray machines

One at the terminal enterance, one after check-in, and one right before the gate.

On another note, there was a lady from Philippine Airlines that was looking for volunteers to fly the next day, as we might have an overflow of passengers. Aside from a guaranteed flight the next day at the same time, we would be given either $100 compensation, free hotel accomodations, or a free round trip from SFO to Manila. My dad, eager to save/make some cash or get a free trip to the Philippines in the next year, in exchange for a day, was more than willing to take up the offer. I, on the other hand, already had plans to hang out with friends on Friday, and was a little steamed that he was gonna change it all up on me; after all, we were already here, and it'd just be a hassle going back and forth again and again. At the end of the day, I knew it was out of my hands, and I was ready to go with whatever happened. Fortunately, we were a little too far off the waitlist, and they had already filled their quota, so we proceeded with our regular schedule. Phew.

So then we proceeded to the gate.

Our plane...

...and the line to get inside

Once everyone's boarded, we all get a little blue sack with socks (no idea why they give you socks), one of those blind fold things to help you sleep, and a neat little toothbrush and toothpaste in a capsule

The flight was pretty straight forward, though we boarded like an hour later than the scheduled 2145hrs (we boarded at 2245hrs), we were off the ground by 2330hrs, and we arrived a little early as usual at SFO @ 1800. We had gathered our luggage and gone through customs pretty quickly, and by 1900, we were out and ready to be picked up.

Here's a neat box label I spotted...

Translation: THIS IS NOT YOUR BOX

hahaha

Slapped a sticker on the cart as we were waiting for our luggage to come out

"Cart" is not spelled with an "e" at the end, silly SFO. "Smart" isn't supposed to have an "e" at the end either... Last time I checked this was America and not French Canada or France, for that matter (no offense to any people associated with those nations :])

So yeah, now I'm back home. Took a little longer to put this together because I was playing Resistance 2 at the same time, haha.

-nesqu!k

The Philippines - Days 14-16

2008-12-31T04:05:00.000-08:00

Dec28 - Day 14
Early Sunday morning, it was off to Baguio for us. After finalizing our packing, we met up with Jon's family, the Gancayco's at their house, as we would be convoying our way up. The original plan was for my family to go to Baguio on our own, and staying in a hotel from Dec26-Dec28. Plans soon changed, however, when we found out that Tita Dot and Tito Paul Gancayco and family would be heading to Baguio on Dec28 for a wedding.

Tito Paul's dad, Jon's grandpa, actually used to be a judge in the Philippine Supreme Court, and though he is now retired, he has access to the Supreme Court Justice compound cottages. Since they had an extra suite open, Tita Dot offered to accomodate us. Us with the former Justice.

Ballerrr

It was a pretty long trip up, and our family rode in the Revo as usual, with Kuya Gerry as our driver as usual

We hit lighting fast speeds of up to 140kmph on the speed limit-free SCTexpressway

We saw Mt. Pinatubo on the way up in the distance

This sleeping volcano literaly blew up in 1992, and as a result, the average global temperature went up by 1 degree. Local indigenous tribes thought it was the end of the world because the sky was nothing more than a blanket of black clouds and ash for several months.

As the open freeway slowly faded into the typical two way, single lane road, had a few encounters with the usual overloaded tricycles

I don't even know what those are, hahaha

We all met up at a Chow King at about the halfway point, had a big lunch

Once we got back on the road and made our way up the mountain (Baguio is located on the side of a mountain), we were quickly surrounded by dense collections of trees

And caught a glipse of some nice views

There's the ocean in the distance :)

After a total of five hours driving, we finally made it to the cottages

We just kinda hanged out for a while, layed down for a bit, before heading out to the local church for mass that evening.

The church was only about 1.6 mi away from our cottage, but it ended up taking us 30 minutes to get there because of the ridiculous traffic through the town's narrow, densely-populated roads. We stayed for maybe 25 minutes, and right after communion we decided we'd better get out of there before the real rush began.

Once we got back to the cottages, my parents and my brothers went out to dinner with Tito Benny, the head of tourism for the city of Baguio. Baguio is the sister city of Vallejo, and this past September, we hosted Tito Benny in our house. As a result, he told us he would arrange for a scenic tour of Baguio when we visited. More on that later.

I, on the other hand, was feeling the worse effects of my allergies, and decided to hang back and relax a little bit. So I spent the following 3 hours finishing Get Smart, which I had started the other day, as well as watching Fight Club for the first time. I gotta say, that movie is going my list of life-changing movies. Like forreal.

After I finished the movie, I decided I'd meet up with my mom and Xavi at the local SM City, Baguio. In case you don't know, SM is the massive chain of huge malls throughout the Philippines, and they've got one in Baguio: the only one with a view from a deck, and the only one that doesn't need natural air conditioning, since the weather is always Bay Area-esque

Xavi and I walked around SM for a while looking at shoes and other random stuff, and we eventually made our way back to the cottage to have a late dinner with the Gancayco's, who were staying in the suite above ours. Pizza from Pizza Hut with the cheese in the crust, and Xavi and I learned to play some poker :)

Dec29 - Day 15
This whole day was dedicated to sight-seeing, compliments of Tito Benny, who sent a team of three guides to take us around town. The first thing I noticed was how entire mountainsides were covered with houses, shops, and other buildings

Craaaazyyy

Out first stop was the Bell Church, a very ornately-decorated Buddhist temple.

You'll start to see that I'm becoming more and more obsessed with my phone's panoramic feature

Xavi was having plenty of fun with the video camera

Family photo as usual

Next stop: the local strawberry fields

Panoramic

Then we stopped by the Philippine Military Academy, the Philippine equivalent of the US Military Academy. Took some photos in key places:

The main entrance,

The vintage US tanks

whatuppp

And their version of the Vietnam War Memorial, only collective for the alumni of the Academy

Afterwards we headed to Pizza Hut for lunch

Had more pizza with the cheese in the crust

And out last stop of the day, Mine's View Park

Beautiful views of the mountain range. We picked up some souvenirs as well. Xavi got a set of keychains, and I got a set of giant wooden spoon and fork for my apartment in Davis.

Once all the touring was done, we headed back into downtown to meet with Tito Benny and Baguio City Councilwoman Lulu Tabandan, who gave us the key to the city, since we were honorary guests from its sister city, Vallejo.

Nice.

Here's the picture with Tito Benny, and our three tour guides.

In the meantime, Xavi, Riz, and I headed to the nearby central park

before heading back to the cottage

That evening we made good use of the fireplace in our cottage

and spent more time with the Gancayco family, and ate more Pizza Hut pizza with the cheese in the crust xD

Dec30 - Day 16
Time to head back to Manila. But before that, we checked out some of the festivities for Rizal Day.

On that very day in 1896, Jose Rizal, the Philippine National Hero, and equivalent of Ghandi and Martin Luther King Jr., was executed by firing squad by the Spanish. That was the beginning of the end for Spain's presence of the Philippines, as my dad puts it.

We had Riz post the same way as Jose Rizal in the posters they put up

We also took some pictures by the lagoon near the park

After that we made our way down the mountain to meet with Uncle Tito at my Dad's cousin's house in San Fernando. Rize played some basketball

hella tall, haha

Had lunch, and took some group pictures

From San Fernando, we headed home. Longest effin road trip ever, with a total driving time of 9 hours from San Fernando to Manila, approximately 262km xD

We got back at midnight last night

-nesqu!k

The Philippines - Days 10-13

2008-12-30T09:55:00.000-08:00

Okokokok, so as promised, here's the story of what's been going on in the past 6 days accompanied by a few visual aids :) Actually, tell you what, I'll just do Days 10-13, and I'll handle the remainder tomorrow morning... We had a long drive back from Baguio today and it's already 0230hrs Dec31 Wed and I'm pretty effin tired already :P

Dec24 - Day 10
So usually at home, we save most of the Christmas festivities for actual Christmas Day, but in the Philippines, Christmas Eve is just another excuse to get the whole family together to eat hella food, take hella pictures, and just have fun. Christmas Eve consisted of the 3 pretty standard F's of get-togethers: Family, Friends, and Food, of course :)

Everyone was having fun getting the update on the family over some great home-cooked meals

A bunch of the younger kids got together and played some Little Big Planet on our PS3.

...and I helped my little 5 year-old nephew, Ethan, traverse each level, bit by bit

Aside from videogames, there was plenty of in-house entertainment...

...consisting of the younger great-grandkids putting up any kind of performance for the family, with the intention of being rewarded with a crisp dollar bill from Grandma, or a P50 bill from my mom. My brothers and I did some beatboxing and rapping as well, of course.

And after that we posed for a few family pictures

Snapped a pic of the three tallest Aliga cousins, with me now being the tallest over Kuya NJ and Kuya Raldy :D

Snapped a pic of all the Aliga boy cousins present at the event

Followed by a picture of all the male Aligas present, along with Grandma Aliga, of course

And who can forget the usual Christmas Family Picture?

Mann, Riz is getting tall... watch out, Xavi, haha

Dec25 - Day 11
We spent Christmas Day at Ate Grace's place a little ways out of Quezon City. My parents rode with Uncle Tito and Auntie Nita, while Xavi, Riz, and I rode with Kuya Vernon. The plan was for them to go ahead, while we went and picked up Vernon's girlfriend, Michelle, whoe lived kind of on the way there, heh. No pictures of this part unfortunately :(

But once we got there, it was the usual fun: Family, Friends, and Food :)

To be honest, I spent most of our time there sleeping xD We were up pretty early for some activities in the grass, and I was starting to feel the initial symptoms of allergies, so after stuffing myself with spaghetti, pasta, and chicken, I took a nap on the couch :P When I woke up it was time to go, so I grabbed all my stuff, went outside, and we snapped one last family photo

And after that we went with Ate Elaine and her Fiancee, Kuya Paul, to one of the local, more small-scale malls.

"Tiendista", or something like that. I followed Xavi around to go look at some cheap shoes and t-shirts.

And before I knew it, I have no idea how, but I ended up buying a pair of retro Jordan 1's

Sure, they may be fake by some people's standards, but as far as I'm concerned, they look really nice, and most people aren't going to interrogate me about their authenticity because most people have better things to do than worry about if people's Nike's are fake or not xP

Dec26 - Day 12
We started the day off at 1000hrs, and just like the previous day, we headed out to the Sunken Garden at the University of the Philippines Diliman campus, for another game of Ultimate Frisbee with Kuya Vernon, Ate Elaine, and Kuya Paul. We had actually gone the morning of Christmas Eve as well for the first time, but this time, we brought our camera along.

Kuya Vernon taught us everything he knew in terms of technique, stances, and tactics

I helped set up the cones that would dictate the field and the endzone

And Riz practiced catching some throws.

Pancake catch, Riz, catch it like a pancake!

As Riz was practicing, we chilled in the shade; it was already getting pretty warm

Here's a picture of the dream team, consisting of Kuya Paul, Xavi, and I, vs. Kuya Vernon, Ate Elaine, and Riz.

The day before, we won 7-6, where I caught the winning point after slipping and falling flat on my back, aww yeeaaahhh. That day, we won 6-0 xD

After that, we followed Kuya Paul to his friend's apartment so he could drop off his bike and ride with us to get lunch.

Once we had regrouped, we all had lunch at a local burger joint, Bite Club (its menu consisted of a bunch of Fight Club-themed burgers, haha)

After that we went to Kuya Vernon's condo near GreenHills shopping center to shower up and get some rest before meeting our parents at GreenHills to do a little more shopping.

We spent most of our time walking around the chaotic collection of boutiques selling anything from handbags to shoes to t-shirts, and other random stuff

This picture pretty much explains how disorienting of an experience it was, haha

Afterwards, we met with the rest of the family once again to have dinner at a high-end Chinese restaurant in Eastwood Business Center/Shopping Center

And how could we resist another family photo?

Day 13 - Dec27
Saturday was another free day for us, so I asked Kuya Vernon if he could let me learn/practice driving stick shift, so we took Xavi along in the Toyota Revo, and went to the local church, which has a relatively empty, and easy to navigate parking lot. All the pictures and videos I took are on Xavi's phone, so I'll have to upload those some other time.

To summarize, I finally got the whole even out thing down. Just needed to rest my heel on the floor and use muscle memory to manipualate the clutch more accurately; I can even get the car rolling without having to give it gas, and I can even get it started from a complete stop facing up a slope now :D I even got to drive aroudn the village a little, nothing too difficult or dangerous, haha. After I had had my fun, we even let Xavi have a go, and believe it or not, this being only his second time ever driving a car, he got it down pretty damn fast.

Our afternoon was pretty much free, and earlier in the week, Kuya Jon invited me to come along with him to visit his Ninong Frankie, who collects and restores vintage cars of all makes and models. Owner of 20+ vintage cars. Very nice. Jon's dad and mom were friends with Ninong Frankie back during their days studying Law at UP, all of them went on to become attourneys. Ninong Frankie, however, has since moved into the car collection and restoration business, where he collects and restores cars for himself, as well as for others as a private business.

His collection comes from every corner of the world. For American muscle, he has a Chevy Camaro,

With some equally beastly internals...

Pontiac Firebird,

Ford Mustang...

Chevy Corvette,

The shell of an ultra-rare Ford Escort, specifically built for WRC

(This car was built to compete with Subaru's Impreza STI and Mitsubishi's Lancer Evo)

A '57 Chevy "Tank", similar to the one my Lolo Ben used to have

just to name a few :)

For Japan, he's got some old-school Corollas,

And a Nissan (then Datsun) 240Z

His all-time favorite, however, is none other than this old-school Mercedes Benz

On top of that, Ninong Frankie is also an avid collector of scale models as well. The AE86s caught my attention, of course :P

And that wasn't it either...

After showing off his collection, we took us out for a spin in his Camaro; fun stuff :)

And Ninong Frankie himself:

Anything you wanna know about vintage cars, he's got the answer, I guarantee you that. He knows all the history behind pretty much any historic car you can think of. He may be in his 50s, but believe me, he is very much young at heart :)

Afterwards we headed out for some dinner at a near-by McDonalds; my first time eating McDonalds in the Philippines since my last visit in 2003.

Decided I'd have my usual favorite, the BigMac meal. Little did I know I had supersized on accident, but it turned out to be a good thing. This is what super-sized fries and drink is to them:

Kuya Jon commented on how portions are so much bigger in the states, and it definitely became very clear at this point. This is the regular size back in the US, if not smaller, if I remember correctly :P

After that, it was back home for me, and time to start packing up; we would be leaving for Baguio the next morning.

More to come tomorrow...

-nesqu!k

Don't worry, I'm still alive xD

2008-12-29T21:42:00.000-08:00

Yooo everybody

Sorry I haven't really been updating lately, I've been a little bit under the weather in the past few days, caught some allergies from playing ultimate frisbee with cousins Kuya Vernon, Ate Elaine, and Kuya Paul. There are times when the grass is my enemy :P

Aside from that, Christmas eve and Christmas day were a lot of fun, been spending a lot of time with the family, of course.

To summarize the past few days, on Friday we hit up a few malls, and my brothers and I got ourselves some retro Jordan 1's, hahaha. Saturday, I went with Kuya Jon to his Ninong Frankie's place: he collects and restores old cars, pretty dope :) Sunday morning we convoyed up to Baguio along with Jon's family, the Gancayco's, and we stayed in a supreme court justice cottages (hella dope). Monday, we went sightseeing around Baguio, not to mention hit up SM City Baguio, and hung out with the Gancayco family. Finally this morning, we left Baguio for San Fernando to meet up with Uncle Tito and Auntie Nita at my Dad's cousin's house for lunch. We're actually still here at the moment, and we'll be heading back to Manila later this afternoon. I'll upload all the pictures and do a full write up when we get back to Uncle Tito's.

-nesqu!k