What is heavy and fast? The uncertainty that keeps racing in circles in my head.

I’m having trouble sleeping tonight. I am troubled and and my mind chaotic.

This pulse pretty much sums up what prompted me to feel more bitter and restless than usual:

“My mother gave me $100 dollars for graduation. I gave it back. Why? Because she decided to spend the 15 minutes before she handed it to me naming all the times I’ve hurt her feelings in the past. Yes, I’ve said sorry. No, it will never be enough for her. Fair enough.”

Always the watchful opportunist, she always takes advantage of the times that she feels that I have no choice to walk away to make accusations about my character. It really bothers me when she tries so hard to bring up resolved disagreements from the past and un-resolve them to give herself more ammunition to use against me. When she starts making herself cry by bringing up all the past times I’ve hurt her feelings, I feel simultaneous sadness, guilt, and irritation. A paragon of hypocrisy, the juxtaposition of preaching Buddhist axioms of compassion and forgiveness and then provoking herself to tears in what I am pretty sure is an attempt to passively guilt me into submission is just terrible.

While I’m spilling my thoughts and oozing vulnerability, I may as well write about my fears and worries.

One of the things I hate about being in a relationship is the false sense of security that I get lulled into. (As bad as it sounds, I was not raised to feel secure about myself, and it is obvious to me, at least. Over the years, I have learned to stay on my toes and watch out for sudden disastrous changes, especially when things are going well. No matter how I try to suppress my uncertainty, it stays and I am forced to deal with it.) Ironically, it is when I feel like I give out the most trust that I expect the worst. I trust Vicky to so much but I still can’t stop worrying–I can’t seem to find peace in a situation with so many variables.

The lack of time in the summer, distance, her parents, plans for college 4 hours away, my chronic indigence, these are all variables that I take into account when I think about being in a relationship. I have so many questions that I can’t answer… yet. Questions like

Can we find time to see each other enough? How much is enough? Is the arbitrary quantity considered “enough” the same for both of us? What are the boundaries? What happens when she leaves for California? What am I going to do? How long am I going to keep on being afraid of her father because she is? How long are we going to be able to get away with dating without her parents’ knowledge or consent? What the hell is college going to be like for me? Knowing me, will I be able to hold down a relationship from a college four hours away? What am I going to do about my financial hardships while in a relationship? Is it okay if I am not going to be the guy who buys his girl jewelry and expensive gifts all the time? Heck, is it okay if I can’t even pay for her all the time with my measly paychecks that can barely pay for my own bills? Are my fears unfounded? What if there is something to watch out for?

Around others, I’m supposed to be the confident one who has his act together. And I am, depending on what side of my life you look at. I know what I want to do in the future professionally, and I know what I need to do to get there. But when it comes to knowing myself and being in a relationship, I am only confident with the basics: I know how to be true to myself and not to assume and get argumentative in a relationship, but that is where my confidence ends. With so many unanswered questions, I cannot be confident until I find some answers.

It takes time, I suppose. It takes time.

It seems that I am the weird one here. 

Oh, and I decided to start working on Chopin’s Fantasie Impromptu. Let’s see how long it takes me to learn this piece all by myself.

-bgeairghaeilrgherlhasegawdwrgwehwhateverghawersd.

Ohdear. Ohhhhhdear. Prepare to duck and cover.

Time to cover my bases. I rarely do pure “this is my life, yadda yadda” blogs because… frankly, my life is not nearly as interesting as my ideas and opinions (hopefully) are. However, I feel slightly obligated to let some of y’all know what exactly I’m going to be up to now, since everyone’s been so supportive and listened to me complain about just about everything else. Thank you for all of your support, Xanga buddies. (:

Apparently, I haven’t told everyone on Xanga who was wondering about my college decision. Well, here it is: I am going to the University of Oklahoma Honor’s College as a member of its National Scholar Program. I intend to pursue a multidisciplinary studies degree so I can build my own curriculum to make a degree consisting of a) credits I will need for my pre-medical requirements, b) courses that honestly interest me, and c) topics I feel I should learn even if I am not all that interested—just for the sake of being well-rounded. I have a ~$87,000 scholarship from OU (which includes my National Merit stipend, study abroad, and money for a laptop) and a $5,000 Rotary Foundation scholarship to help me pursue my goals right now, and hopefully financial aid will come through and help me go to school for next to nothing. I’d really love that.

I’ve got a feeling that it is going to be slightly strange going to OU with a good 75% of the people I am friends with going to UT next year… but c’est la vie, I suppose. OU offered the better deal, so to OU I go. It’s a beautiful campus from what I’ve seen. There’s food available EVERYWHERE too. Perfect for me. Oh, and I’ll be closer to the awesome Lena too! Her great attitude and positive outlook inspires me so much.

In other unrelated news, I am now dating a girl. Her name is Vicky, and she’s special. The good kind of special, mind you. I am amazed she made it through the long period of vacillation that I put us through before I conceded to admitting that I am indeed dating her exclusively. Heck, I even recorded a song about how I was trying to resist my feelings. I am honestly one of the most commitment-phobic, indecisive, pessimistic people that I (or… anyone around me, for that matter) know(s?). It takes a lot of strength and willpower to not punch me in the face and call me a dumbass while waiting for me to give up on my epic quest to avoid being categorized as “in a relationship” on Facebook. She even agreed to my condition of refraining from using the word “love” (COLLECTIVE GASP, THE L-WORD!) in our relationship for a while to avoid freaking me out and debasing the meaning of the word for me/us. Staying away from the ominous “I love you” and keeping to the more elementary—but just equally cute—”I like you like you” is oddly annoying and empowering for me.

For me, being a relationship means that I should learn from my countless past mistakes and try not to screw anything up here.

When I talk about how our relationship “happened”… it’s kind of funny and vague. Here’s my take: somewhere between meeting Vicky and now, I decided that I would like to have her as more than a friend. Somewhere between that moment and now, I succeeded. The transition went so smoothly that we don’t have an “asking/anniversary date” set because I never asked her to “be my girlfriend” as much we both understood that our relationship took on a new meaning at some point. While it’s not as cute as finding an elaborate way of asking a girl out like in so many of the rom-coms I watch, I suppose it works just fine for the purpose of clearly defining where we are. So here is a question:

Are asking/anniversary dates really necessary for courtship ?
(Yes. I just used the word courtship. Thank you, Wikipedia for that possibly unintentionally humorous article.)
Obviously I do not feel like it is, but I’m curious to know how everyone else feels about it.

Did you know…?

• that the word “schmooze” is actually in the dictionary
• there’s a serious wiki article for Bromance
• a Neanderthal actually has a larger brain than you do.
• that I’m not gay (just another reminder, Mr. MedicMark, in case you forgot)

Because I didn’t. Except bullet #4. I knew that one.

-bbbbbbbwaoefjoihjweogjaweojomgwhatalongposteavoenough.

Don’t get me wrong. I like my job. I really do. Sometimes I even enjoy it. So trust me, I’m not dissing what I do – I’m dissing the hypocrisy that my boss seems to obliviously encourage.

My boss will get on my case if I’m a single minute late to work. I do not mind the fact that he cares about my timeliness. What bothers me is the way he says it is because he is trying to instill values and build good character in his employees. That would not bother me nearly as much as it does if he didn’t ask me to lie to our customers so much.

How am I asked to lie? I work at a massage shop. We sell massages priced moderately in our line of work. Our “gimmick” (as I suppose it can be called) is to sell ourselves as traditional Chinese massage. I try not to dip into that territory with the customers – I’m usually the only employee at work who talks to the customers in English (because I’m the only one who speaks English) – but it still irks me. For example, I am not comfortable with my boss telling me to tell the pregnant woman that a mystical Chinese foot massage will make her fetus smarter. No, a foot massage is not going to positively or negatively impact your child. However, I’m supposed to tell this woman that it is? Nice character building tactics, chief.

Honestly, I don’t think I have ever seen a sales job that emphasized telling the straight truth over the stretched truth (and some complete lies) and still expected to make decent profits.

My point is, either try to mold me into a good person or try to desensitize me to telling blatant lies. Either have me tell the truth or make me into a worse pathological liar. You can’t have both at the same time.

I s’pose it’s time to look into other job opportunities.

-bbbbbaweihggrrrgawefiowe.

PS: Okay, on second thought, maybe I don’t like my job that much… eh.

It’s that time of year again. Prom time. I was not able to go this year, but I have been seeing a plethora of prom pictures popping up all over my Facebook feed. (Yay for unintentional alliteration!)

After seeing all of the pictures, I have some complaints to make.

Gentlemen, before you start making your I’ve-Got-Swag faces, please get your clothing to fit correctly. Ladies usually don’t seem to have as much of an issue with clothing because if a dress is too wide at the top (and strapless, as many prom dresses are), it will fall and cause some awkward situations. And if it’s too long, they trip… or get it disgustingly dirty. And “aye, that is the rub!”: when a guy dresses sloppy, there are no repercussions other than looking like a slob who tried to clean up.

I’m not incredibly knowledgeable when it comes to these things, but here are a few basic guidelines to getting the proper fit for your suit/prom clothing:

1.    Make sure your suit jacket fits you properly, or close enough, at least. Men’s jackets can be found at the store (at the least) by their chest and sleeve sizes.

Okay, so that one could’ve been the subject of its own blog entry. It is THAT important. And I’m not even getting into ugly boutonnieres and canvassed vs. glued suit construction.  Here’s a couple examples of what a proper suit jacket fit SHOULD look like. Click for full size.

2.    Make sure your shirt and tie look right. Try to avoid the tired black shirt and white/silver tie combination unless you can really make it work. If you are built slim, buy fitted shirts or get them fitted for you. Excessive bagginess is unattractive. There is a lot of gentlemanly debate about how to get the shirt sleeves a correct length, but the general consensus is that the correct spot lies past the wristbone before the thumb knuckle.

3.    Do NOT button the bottom button of your suit. The bottom button of a gentleman’s suit is not made to be buttoned for the purposes of providing a favorable drape and silhouette, as well as increasing mobility. When buttoned, the man’s body will take on the shape of a box. Not a man, but a box. Nobody wants to look like a box. Not just that, he will become a box that can’t move very well because his bottom button is in the way.

4.    Do NOT wear pleated pants. Pleated pants add pounds to the male waistline because they are old vestigial structures of male fashion–they used to look decent (and were necessary) when men wore their pants above hip level. The only excuse for wearing pleated pants is obesity because it will actually make use of the room provided by the extra fabric creases. Flat front pants are a cleaner look.

So yep. There are so many more things to say about this, but those would be a couple of the things that should be avoided, especially at an event where everyone is taking pictures and your faux pas will be stuck with you for life. I suppose some guys may not care, but I believe that if you want to clean up nice, you might as well do it well.
Look good, everyone! (: If y’all have anything to contribute or discuss, tell me! I am always learning about these things.

-b.

I was upset that I wasn’t able to make it to the AJ Rafael show in Mckinney last Saturday, but I still got a signed picture courtesy of a very special girl.
Here’s a cover of her favorite AJ Rafael song… and also my semifinalist entry for Xanga Idol. I learned it last week just for her.

Support Xanga Idol when the time comes, y’all? :3

This is a meaningful song. I definitely think so.

You know the drill. Off goes the playlist, then press play. Thanks for listening! :]

-bbbbbbawliefhaweilfhwb.

PS: I despise the way the quality of the mp3s I upload always go down the drain. C’mon, Xanga!

Ah yes, another bandwagon. This is about as sloppy as my handwriting gets… aside from AP exam and SAT essays.

The Handwriting Game!
1) Your name/Xanga name.
2) Right-handed, left-handed, or ambidextrous?
3) Favorite letters to write.
4) Least favorite letters to write.
5) Write “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.”
6) Write the following words in capital letters:
- CRAB
- HUMOR
- KALEIDOSCOPE
- PAJAMAS
- GAZILLION
7) Write your favorite song lyric.
8) Tag people!
9) Any special note or picture.

Everyone else who’s user-tagged and not tagged in the written portion is… ALSO TAGGED. BAM.

-bbbbbb.

Pause playlist and click play! :]

A lot of people around here (it feels slightly strange to refer to an online community as a “here”…) seem to posting things that make it seem like they’re not going through the best of times.

Lost, lonely, sad, down, upset, depressed, angsty, annoyed, terrified people out there, this one’s for y’all.

By the way, I’m terrified too. If you couldn’t tell from my last original song, I’m really REALLY scared of falling for someone when I don’t know what exactly I’m heading toward in my own near future.

-bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbaweosjweiahweilhasds.

PS: Damn. I kind of wish I could’ve submitted this one for Xanga Idol.

I recently wrote a new song called “Not Gonna Fall”…  a couple privileged people have heard it already. Pause playlist and click play on the video to listen. This is a live performance on UStream that I recorded. I had two wonderful people who had the patience to listen to me at 2 something AM. :]

It’s about having issues with the battle that goes on between instincts, infatuation, and common sense. Common sense is smart, but infatuation is powerful. Gotta watch out, y’all.

-b.

I have lost an hour of my life to this daylight saving(s) time.

Somehow this all hit me just now at 5:26 AM. I’m missing something here, and it takes about 60 minutes of my time. It should be 4:26 AM.

Like a piano falling on a cartoon character out of nowhere, I had a sudden epiphany full of… empty, for lack of a better description. I feel enlightened, but the actual idea came and went so fast that I was unable to capture it and add it to my mental to-blog-about list (not that I don’t forget most of the things on that list anyway). All that remains from that short-lived sudden revelation is a small sliver of emotion that remains. It’s something sad… maybe even bitter.

Whatever it was, it feels like my ephemeral epiphany had something to do with an insight into my own character. Too bad I lost it.

For that passing moment of realization, I felt really really smart. Now, I not only feel like I lost, but also like I am lost… in a bit of myself.

Phew. I just realized how empty everything above this line is. I have been inspired to create a graph detailing why my thoughts are so… confusing. As a testament to my intellectual failure, you can see that I forgot to label my x-axis (oh no, there goes five points off of my grade!).

Does anyone reading this at least kind of understand what I mean? Anyone have any fleeting epiphanies to share?

-bbbbbbbbbbbbbaawfkahlawoersleepygawgorjjdfdj.

PS: GOSH IT’S 5:40 AM NOW. KILLMEEEEE.

There is a certain threshold of crap I am willing to take. There is a set amount of frustration that I am willing to absorb and bottle up.

At this moment, I have just about reached the limit. Limit to infinity of crap taken converges to frustration.

You are not entitled to my feelings, and from now on, I refuse to let you make me feel uneasy.

I’m going to go bake now, bitch. White chocolate macadamia nut cookies to soothe the soul.

-bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbawlihagdflsjdlferoisdfs.