02 October 2006 1329 EDT
The drive to Belvoir this morning was very interesting. I was having flashbacks of my morning commute to Mount Vernon every morning, and it felt really neat. A few roads and intersections have changed over the last few years, but a lot of it was still the same. The photo session itself was pretty harmless, with the whole thing taking about ten minutes. The guy said that I would be able to pull it up online from my file in a day or two, so I'll try to post it up when I get it. I look sooo good, even though they don't let us wear our blue cord for the picture. My rack is even starting to fill out so that I look like a war hero or something.
Anyway, since I was already on post, I stopped by the commissary before I headed home. And wow...I'd forgotten how much fun I used to have stopping by the commissary on my way home from school. I bought so much stuff there and it only cost me about a hundred bucks total. I will list everything I bought below because I know you want to know. Here goes:
2x gallons milk, skim
1x gallon Ocean Spray 100% grapefruit juice
1x gallon Mott's apple juice, unsweetened
48oz x orange mango V8
6x apples, red delicious
6x apples, fuji
3lbs smoked sausage
48x toaster pastries
2x boxes Fruity Cheerios
8x cans baked beans
4x cans Campbell's Chunky soup
2x cans Campbell's Chunky chili
2x cans corned beef hash
36x oatmeal creme pies, reduced fat (so they're good for you!)
16x packages sweet and creamy peanut butter crackers (like Nutter Butters...but better!)
2x Snyders pieces, honey mustard
4x packages lasagna
8x bottles pasta sauce, cheesy garlic parmesian
2x bottles pasta sauce, Newman's Italian sausage and peppers
250g Vitamin C
6x dishwashing sponges, Chore Boy (this was my favorite part! Giant had stopped carrying these for some reason.)
8x rolls, toilet paper
1x can, Axe body spray (for the ladies...)
I think that's it. I may have left one or two things out. But yeah, that was my morning and now I'm home. I have two and a half hours before tutoring. I wonder what I can do in that time...hmmm...
02 October 2006 0109 EDT
On Saturday, I actually didn't end up going to the National Book Festival in DC. Well, check that. I did go in to DC with Anna, and we drove right by the Book Festival. After about half an hour of driving around looking for a parking spot, though, I realized that she didn't really care so much about the book fest. She just kinda said yes because I asked...and I kinda asked because she liked books so much. So yeah, we ended up just grabbing lunch and then went over to her sister's to play kokology and scrabble. That was fun. We watched heroes from last week too. It seemed like a fun show.
I spent this afternoon working out and watching the early games on tv before hanging out with Anna and her sisters for dinner over in Warrenton tonight. We watched football for the most part...and just chatted a little, playing with a baby, too. They're fun. Anyway, gas down there was down to $1.94 in one area. Crazy, huh?
But yeah...it's October now. I didn't realize that until today. I'm behind on a lot of things that I thought I'd be done with by now. There are so many things I need to work on that I'm afraid to list them right now. It'd just be depressing. I should probably boycott fantasy football. That'd save me at least 10-20 hours a week. I'm sure there are a couple of other things I could cut down on as well. Honestly, though...I'm kinda enjoying indulging myself.
Boston trip is this weekend. I should probably start packing in a few days and wrap up my homework for next week because I don't see much getting done while that is going on. *sigh*
30 September 2006 0215 EDT
Anyway, it's been pretty busy for me these last few weeks, as you can tell from my lack of daily updates. Yesterday, I actually spent most of my time at the armory and then I jumped on a conference call later in the evening before heading over to the parents' to swap cars back with Yenny. From there, I met up with Anna to hang out a little with some of her friends from high school. That was kinda fun. Then I had another lunch date with Anna this afternoon before heading off to tutoring.
Tomorrow, I'm actually heading in to DC with Anna to hang out at the National Book Festival sponsored by the Library of Congress before meeting up with her sister and her respective boyfriend for a double date/Scrabble competition...basically, we're gonna mop the floor with them. But yeah, sound exciting? Other than that, my Sunday will probably be dedicated to homework and hmm...maybe I can squeeze in a little bit of fantasy football. We'll see.
27 September 2006 0120 EDT
Interestingly enough, Ben commented on the fact that I tend not to blog as much when I'm in a relationship. That was an interesting observation. I don't know how true it is, but he believed it. I actually forgot to blog about a few things this weekend, First was flag football in DC. We practiced for a little bit before scrimmaging on Sunday, but that's not really the interesting part. You see, we play our games in DC, right around the Ellipse there. Last year, we played on the Ellipse, but this year, we're on the other side of the street, a little closer to the monument. Anyway, around noon, we noticed police starting to post right there on Constitution, shutting down traffic for about ten minutes. Then a white helicopter starts hovering over us. There wasn't a lot of commotion, but it was enough for us to stop playing for a little bit to look around and see what was going on. Anyway, a few minutes later, a train of nearly two dozen vehicles pass along the street right by where we were playing. There were a few SUVs, various black-colored vehicles with tinted windows, followed by what looked like a SWAT vehicle, an ambulance, and a little shuttle bus. So yeah...I guess the President was in town. That was kinda cool. In all of my time here in the DC area, I'd never seen the Presidential motorcade before. That was pretty neat. I can only imagine being the President's driver. That's gotta be like the best job in the world. You never have to worry about traffic, you know? On the other hand, I felt bad for the hundreds of cars stuck there on Constitution while all of this was going on. Sucks for them.
Oh, and speaking of cars. I was such a good brother today. Yenny's alternator went bad yesterday, so we swapped cars last night in order for me to bring it in to the dealer for her today. I got up relatively early to finish typing up a paper for class before heading over to the dealership. I brought along a book I had to read for another class (along with two fuji apples to snack on) to read while I waited. Anyway, about five hours later, the car was ready and I made it to class only about twenty minutes late. I don't think I missed much. Plus I called the professor around noon to give her the heads up on the situation.
Oh well...I don't know. I guess it's kind of a boring post today. Class was great though. I have a whole bunch of philosophy/psychology stuff from class I want to share tomorrow. It's just late right now and I'm so tired.
25 September 2006 1258 EDT
Anyway, I got a little bit of a scare yesterday when I stepped on my scale after my workout during the Seahawks/Giants game. I had dropped to 162...which is interesting since I'd polished off two packages of golden oreos in about a week...on top of the other stuff I've been eating. Anna made me a really awesome dinner of steak and asparagus and couscous the other night...and I feel like I've actually been getting in about 2K Calories per day. I don't get it. But yeah, after weighing myself, I made sure I overate a little last night. I cooked up some beef broccoli, had an apple with peanut butter, and even finished a big bowl of cereal, too, before going to bed. I weighed in around 165 this morning, so I'm feeling a little better. I've been keeping track of my weight, diet, exercise on an excel spreadsheet for the last few months, but I don't exactly know why. Excel is fun.
Oh...the last thing I wanted to mention today. While I was cooking up food last night, Brandon showed up with his girlfriend. They're such a cute couple...but she lives in Florida. This was the second time she's visited in about two weeks and she always sends these cute letters to him in the mail. I just assume they're cute. I just throw them in his pile when I check the mail, but he gets a lot of them. It kinda reminded me of my LDR(s). Anyway, I was chatting with Brandon because he was taking today off and needed to drop off his plans at school early today. We just talked about how hard it is to take a day off as a teacher. Most of the time, it's easier just to go to school for the day. But I guess he's got a good reason to take a day off. If my last few weeks haven't been as awesome as they have been, I'd almost be jealous.
22 September 2006 1046 EDT
Oh well...I ended up making some lasagna yesterday. Anna's been cooking me dinner a lot these last few weeks, so I figured it was time I made something for her. Of course, I threw in the requisite tofu and spinach...I think she liked it. She said she did, at least. I can never tell if I undercook the noodles, though, because we have such a bad habit in our family of super-overcooking noodles. I left one tray at home with the roommates for them to snack on too. It was about halfway gone when I got home...which is cool. I like that.
Yeah, there isn't much going on other than that. I stopped by the old house to do a little work this morning and I'm considering taking care of some homework early in order to open up my weekend-Tuesday schedule. We'll see how that goes. TGIF, right? hehe...my weekend started on Wednesday, suckers.
20 September 2006 0125 EDT
Anyway, class was pretty interesting today. The topic of racism and Japanese internment camps came up more than once in both of my classes and discussion spilled over to include the 14th Amendment and the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. When my professor in my doctoral seminar finally asked me about my ancestry, though, he followed it up with my most embarrassing moment of the night. He asked me, "when did you first learn about the Chinese Exclusion Act?" to which I replied, "umm...tonight?" I'd actually written down a note earlier during class to remind myself to google it tonight, hoping that I could get through the class without having to admit my ignorance. No such luck. But at the same time, it went to illustrate one of the main points of our social justice in education seminar, which is that certain oppressive patterns will continue as long as we leave important items like this out of our curriculum.
I used to be under the mindset that suggesting that our country/government is anything but infallable would be unpatriotic. But seriously, that is what really makes this a democracy...understanding that things aren't perfect and haven't always been perfect and continuing to change things for the better. Anyway, I'm really enjoying the course because it opens my eyes to a lot of the oppressive practices of our education system...of which I've been a part of. That's really the hardest part to swallow...knowing that I've knowingly or unknowingly participated in perpetuating these attitudes and practices. But my eyes are open now. I've taken the red pill and there's no going back. Nerd!
19 September 2006 0621 EDT
By the time I woke up, I realized that it'd only been about ten minutes since I'd gone to bed. Yeah, another weird dream. It makes sense now why I wasn't able to read what was going on with my computer screen. The topic makes sense now, too, considering that I woke up around 0330h this morning to do some fantasy stuff and stayed awake for an hour or so doing some homework reading. The reading was on anti-oppressive education and how we can teach about 9-11 to make students aware of their own stereotypes towards muslims or anyone else...howow grouping all "bad" people as "terrorists" helps us to dehumanize other groups and allows us to play the victims instead of analyzing our roles and the perspectives of the other parties involved. So I went back to sleep around 0600h, woke up at 0610h. I slept for ten minutes, blogged for ten minutes, and I'm ready to go back to bed again. MTF
18 September 2006 0556 EDT
Yeah, I know that was pretty tough to keep up with, but I wanted to make sure I got most of the dream down before I forgot anything. Yesterday morning, as I was driving, I actually remembered my dream from the day before. I was driving in my dream when I reached lucidity. Again, it's been so long that I forget what my trigger was, but what was awesome was that I started to test out what would happen when I drove into other cars. It was strange though. They would just disappear. For those of you who remember mario kart on N64, it was like when you got the star and became invincible. You just phased right through the other vehicles and they didn't affect you. Cool, huh? Hmm...I hope the auto insurance guys don't read this blog.
Anyway, I'm kinda excited now. I'm heading back to bed again. MTF
17 September 2006 2324 EDT
But yeah, good times. From there, I jumped home for a quick shower before picking up the parents to head over to Yenny's Linner party. It was pretty awesome...just good ole' wholesome fun, food, and family. We talked a lot of fantasy while we ate some awesome food provided by all of the females in our family. From there, I drove my parents back to their house before joining Ben and Thuy over at Hooters for the first half of the skins game. I was already stuffed, but I still managed to squeeze in about a dozen+ wings and a tall glass of iced tea before the halftime show.
The day prior was pretty much spent in Arlington. One of Anna's friends had a birthday, so we played a couple of games of laser tag before heading back to Anna's place for a barbecue in the backyard. Food was great, and I polished off a near one pound hamburger patty filled with bleu cheese. I even got to participate in a drinking game, which was cool. They were playing this game called flip cup and they let me substitute the beer with water so that I wouldn't feel left out. Pretty cool, huh? Yeah, I know it's dumb, but I usually don't get to play drinking games. I think I played beer pong once, but that was only because my partner didn't mind drinking up all the beer when we lost. I don't know. As competitive as I am, I never really got into drinking games and the like.
Anyway, the night prior to that (Friday for those of you still keeping track on your fingers), I spent with Anna as well. I know, that's a lot of time together. Whatever. I've been having fun. We went over to her older sister's place and watched the first season of the Tick on DVD. How cool is that? Then an hour or two before that, I was tutoring when my student's water broke. Yeah, imagine that. It's been a crazy weekend, indeed.
15 September 2006 0038 EDT
Considering that it's just after midnight and I'm back home about to pass out, I'll give you one guess as to what I chose. Oh wait...that was a hypothetical question.
14 September 2006 0811 EDT
Geez...install just finished and I couldn't even load because the library file isn't backward compatible. Simple copy and paste of old version worked alright, though, and iTunes started up playing 3 A.M. by Matchbox. Oh well. That'll teach me to click yes when they ask me to upgrade. I usually wait a few weeks until it becomes annoying. I wonder why I clicked yes this last time. I think it's time for a nap.
14 September 2006 0110 EDT
13 September 2006 1327 EDT
I'm doing better this time though. I've already had to write up a couple of memos for various issues, and I'm wrapping up my laundry right now. There's a drill bit I need to hurry up and grab from my other house, too, so I can put up my tie rack. That's been a bit of an eyesore in the corner of my bedroom. And to be honest, there is a lot of clutter in my bedroom right now. I think I'll work on that tonight and tomorrow.
Anyway, I have a few more things to take care of before class today, so I'm gonna get going. MTF
12 September 2006 0855 EDT
So yeah, drill weekend was typical. These days, it's just lots of meetings and paperwork for me. It was fun though. I always have a good time. I would share more about it, but the only reason I'm up this early is so that I can get my homework done for class today...which I'm gonna do really soon. Oh, but the good news is that I'll probably have my packet in for my Captain and there's a good chance I'll pick up my slot by the end of the year. Cool, huh?
But seriously, I've actually been really busy these days. I have been neglecting my workouts quite a bit, and the same can be said about this blog. I've barely had time for fantasy too. I lost three out of four games this weekend. What's wrong with me? Hehe...actually, classes have really taken over, and I have a good 10+ hours of homework every week. Then I'm still tutoring three times a week. And then there was drill this past weekend.
And hmm...I haven't really talked about Anna much, but we started talking and hanging out a lot more ever since that happy hour a few weeks back. Anyway, she digs me. She even made me dinner the other day. Oh...hehe, I watched football with her and her roommates yesterday. Watching a football game with girls is pretty funny. I forget all of the conversations that came up during the night, but the one about tampons stands out. It wasn't a quick sidenote either. It was like a full-on ten minute conversation. But yeah, girls are funny. MTF
08 September 2006 1534 EDT
06 September 2006 0004 EDT
It hasn't been all work though. I actually spent a lot of yesterday afternoon watching movies with Anna. We started with Shriek If You Know What I Did Last Friday the Thirteenth starring Tom Arnold and Tiffani Amber-Thiessen. For some reason, despite its 3.5 star rating on IMDB, no one else has wanted to watch that movie with me. But yeah, we had a little mini movie marathon and followed that up with some movie that I can't remember now and finished with the Lost Boys after dinner. It kills me because I've been sitting here for the last ten minutes trying to remember that second movie that we watched. I still can't remember it right now. Maybe we only watched two. Oh well...no big deal. I still had a good time. We'll probably get together one more time this week before drill this weekend.
[Edit (06SEP06 0017h): I just remembered. It was the remake of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. We were going with the scary movie theme. You'd be proud, too. I didn't even scream like a little girl. Umm...I screamed like a little boy.]
I wish I could think of other things I've done these last few days, but I think that's pretty much it. Just homework and the usual stuff. I guess school started up today in Fairfax County too. All of you other "employed" people probably noticed because of the traffic. But for me, with my first class being at 4:00 in the afternoon, everything is pretty much the same. Do I miss the kids? Yeah, of course I do. But I'll be honest, too...I'm really enjoying my time off and being able to wear student clothes again. I wore my transformers shirt to class today. It was funny because everyone else was wearing their teacher clothes, and I'm just kinda bumming around. Oh well. I don't mind being cooler than everyone else.
03 September 2006 1138 EDT
So yeah, the wedding festivities pretty much took all day yesterday. It was a small wedding, but it included a nice mini-TJ reunion. I don't think I've seen Lissa in three or four years, and Brendan, Ambi, and Anna K were there too...along with drunk Ben, of course. Me, I think I made a pretty good plus one. I probably could've talked more, but it took me a little while to open up. I threw in a few good lines though...and I was pretty. I think that's important.
Before the wedding, though, I actually got a little bit of work done. Miguel finally showed up to do the drywall repairs for my house. And then I also went over to the campus bookstore to get about $300 worth of books on the National Guard. That was nice. I'd actually gone to the bookstore Friday afternoon in the middle of Ernesto, but they closed the bookstore pretty early and I couldn't get in. I was a little worried because I wasn't sure if I'd get my books in time to do my homework for Tuesday. But it looks like things are looking up for me now.
I've got a nice long weekend because of Labor Day, so that's nice. I know a lot of you are probably thinking that I shouldn't talk about long weekends because I'm such a slacker, but I'll talk about whatever I want. It's my page and you'll keep reading it because I'm such an awesome writer. Anyway, this morning, I woke up with a little scratch on the back of my throat. I don't know if it was because of allergies from smoke or from cats or if I may be catching something. Either way, I've already started my VC regimen, and I've taken about 14000mg so far this morning...just to be safe.
01 September 2006 2113 EDT
Okay, from there, I went home to clean up and then had lunch with Anna...quite enjoyable...no details.
Then I stopped by the house for a few minutes before heading out to tutoring and then met up with Thuy at INOVA Woodburn to give blood. They were out of fig newtons (one of my favorite parts about giving blood), but I spied a new box hidden in the back. So I yelled out to the people, asking if it'd be cool for me to rip it open. They said okay, I pulled out my leatherman micra, and all was good. From there, Thuy and I FAPWADed through the city to get to FEDEX before kick-off. We almost made it, but there were a few minor hurdles near the stadium. Then, while we were there, Thuy made fun of me because I kept on text-messaging during the game. Yeah, I guess I was kinda bad. But seriously, after TJ Duckett came out of the game, it was like all 3rd stringers on both sides.
So we left a little early from the game to grab dinner at Checker's. But due to some traffic and our hunger for Taco Bell, we found ourselves in Merrifield before long. Yeah, good times.
Then there's today. Lots of stuff to complain about, but I'm in a pretty good mood now, so I won't. Wow, what restraint, I know.
31 August 2006 1528 EDT
Today was my punishment for waiting until the end of the month for my vehicle inspection. The first place was crazy...wanted me to leave my car for about eight hours. That wasn't going to happen, so I went down the street where I waited in line for about an hour an a half before getting up. Then the guy is about to fail me for my brakes and my tires. Anyway, around 11:30 and a few hundred dollars later, I have a shiny new yellow sticker on my windshield. Go me. It's a good thing I got my credit limit increased this weekend.
The good thing, though, is that all will be better once I iron out a few things with my tuition assistance. I need to go buy my books soon, too - the Army has me on a list for a $350 grant, so that's nice. Plus I'll be getting all of my tuition paid for this semester. Regrettably, this is the first time I've actually worked through all of the paperwork for the process. Maybe I should've done this all along?
Other than that, there isn't too much other news. Well, I'm probably going to end up skipping flag football practice this weekend to attend a wedding I was invited to. I get to be a "plus one." So yeah, that's kinda exciting.
Anyway, off to tutoring, then bleeding with Thuy at INOVA before going to watch the Skins stomp the Ravens at FedEx.
29 August 2006 0010 EDT
So when I was over tutoring today, I found myself falling asleep. Kinda funny, right? Yeah, that was a little embarrassing, but it was cool. I went over to the castle after that to lie down for a half-hour nap before class. No one was home, so I slipped in and out without leaving a trace...except I took a bottle of dasani to help keep me up during class. The class itself is about writing webpages and web accessibility. As far as the technical stuff, there probably isn't too much for me to learn except maybe some more CSS. But as far as style, I could probably still get a bit out of it, especially when it comes to cleaning up my code. Either way, it should be a pretty solid A for me this semester. Plus, it's an online course and I don't have to buy any books. I just need to make sure that it counts towards my degree and I'll be set. The professor was interesting too. He was a lot younger than I expected...and quite a nerd. He is like me in that he doesn't like to use blackboard. Instead, he has a section on his regular homepage where he posts all of his class stuff. So of course, I start reading about him while class is going on. He's a pretty cool guy. Interesting notes include him saying "gmail" instead of "gmu mail" at the beginning of class and loading up Firefox as his browser to show us stuff on the internet. Hmm...I hope he doesn't follow his stats back to this page.
Anyway, the sisters are probably out watching the Wilson Bridge blow up tonight. I'd be there if I wasn't so tired already. Watching stuff blow up is pretty cool. I just hope no one gets hurt.
27 August 2006 2309 EDT
Notable events follow:
- Helping friend move to Arlington on Friday
- Friday night pre-karaoke jam mini jam
- Saturday morning flag football practice
- Getting lost on my way to the going-away brunch for cousin after practice
- Karaoke jam, which eventually turned into a karaoke jam/taboo marathon. (We went through the entire box of cards!)
- Girl/Boy ratio actually breaking one at some point during the karaoke jam
- Waking up for Sunday morning soccer only to find the field taken over by 22 little people
- Getting credit limit increased in order to charge tuition to it
- Will-writing party with the sibs
- Buying gas for $2.77/gal at the Shell on Woodbridge, only to find it for $2.67 three-point-eight miles later
- Finding someone to play kokology with me
Yeah, that's a pretty good rundown of the weekend's highlights. Some other situations came up this weekend, though, that I wanted to talk about. When one of your good friends gets into an LTR or gets married and you start becoming friends with both him and his sig other, it can get a little awkward when things start not doing well, you know? Like he's your friend, but she's kinda your friend now, too. And you just want things to work out and you don't want to pick sides, and you also feel this loyalty to your friend to not get in the middle of things. But at the same time, you might feel like getting into things might be for the best. It's confusing. Why can't things just be black and white? I mean, I know I can't fix everything, but it hurts to see friends go through stuff like that.
Oh well, that was a little more depressing than I wanted. I guess I have a few more things to write about, but this is already getting too long. Let's see...two things. 1) maybe girls aren't so bad after all, and 2) would you believe that I've only spent about 10 minutes on Fantasy Football over the last 48 hours?
25 August 2006 0152 EDT
23 August 2006 2238 EDT
Anyway, to add to that, I'm heading to bed early. I have so much to take care of tomorrow before the weekend starts up. You can even look at my schedule. It's packed. But I'm really bad at saying no to people, so it is what it is. Oh, last thing. I almost forgot. I added another link to my eReads for a site a friend showed me today called SingleAsianMale.com. I guess I needed something new because no one else updates anymore. You're all off "working" at your "jobs" and don't have time for stuff like this.
Hehe...okay, I'm done. MTF
23 August 2006 0552 EDT
With all of that going on, I spent another few hours learning some more Perl to improve my spam filter for my comments section. That's been pretty annoying, but I hope I have a decent fix in place. I finished that up around two or three this morning...which would have been a normal bedtime. But honestly, I felt really guilty because I hadn't lifted weights since Thursday of last week. So I turned on my tape of the Shatner roast and did a few sets before I decided to come here to blog about it all and go to sleep.
I have less than a week before school starts and my weekend is already looking to be super packed. What ever will I do?
21 August 2006 1000 EDT
Honestly, I'll tell you what my problem is. I don't have anything else to do. The hard part about being a teacher on summer vacation is that everyone else has real jobs during the day, and they tend to sleep during normal hours as well because they have to wake up to go to their jobs. So basically, I have no one else to play with me and I end up on the internet. Pity me. Hmm...I think I'm going to take a nap now.