Goodbye, 2009

What a year 2009 was! In reflection, this probably was one of the better years so far in my life but it wasn't without its ups and downs. I've met many new people and made many new friends, entered my final year of high school (bittersweet, really), started this blog and came out to many friends and probably more importantly my mom. So how will I remember 2009? It'll probably be remembered as the year when I finally opened up to myself and others, and I like that.

Now, as 2010 is coming in a matter of hours, I should, as I do every year, make a list of resolutions. My top five for 2010 are...

1. Come out to all my friends before I leave High School
2. Organize all my books, binders and papers
3. Stop procrastinating until the last second on assignments
4. Become involved in some volunteering activity
5. Stay in contact with all my friends once we all go our separate ways

-and- (6. get an MSN and finally talk to Dzyan and everyone else)

I hope everyone will have a safe and Happy New Year and may 2010 be your best year yet!

JP

Finally!

After months of pain, late nights, and many cups of hot chocolate, I've finally finished all my college applications. 6/7 have been submitted online and the last will be put in the hands of the USPS tomorrow afternoon. This honestly feels great, like a mountain was taken off my shoulders, not even a boulder, a mountain.

My final list ended up being: (from south to north)

1. The College of William and Mary (Williamsburg)

2. University of Virginia (Charlottesville)

3. George Mason University (Fairfax)

4. Georgetown University (Washington, DC)

5. University of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia)

6. Columbia University (New York)

7. Harvard University (Cambridge)

Now my only challenges will be to keep myself from looking at my application essays in hindsight and to make sure I don't let Senioritis get too much of a hold on me and end up becoming lazy. The first challenge is going to be more difficult I expect, especially in the short term.

Well, I'm going to go celebrate with a bowl of cereal (I'm hungry lol)

Have a good one,

JP

一百.Cent.Ett Hundra.Ciento.εκατό

It's been a wild ride but a milestone has been reached - my hundredth post! From what started as a simple online account of the goings on of my life and my opinions on world events, this blog has grown into something way more. This blog and the people I have met and become friends with have been such a great help when things in my life got tough or just out of control. I even got to share some pretty noteworthy moments of my life with you guys like my coming out to my mom despite there being some initial difficulties with understanding why and how her one and only son was gay. But all in all, starting this blog was a great decision and one that is paying dividends at levels I never could have imagined.

The only nagging issue is a short hiccup about two months ago when I changed the location and url of my blog. Because of unforeseen issues beyond my control popping up, I had to move myself to a new location in the blogosphere; but with that move, I lost the majority of followers I had at that time. Despite still being listed, they still don't receive updates even two months on (Isn't the only remedy is to unsub and then resub?). While more of a nuisance than "red alert" problem, I still feel bad for suddenly "disappearing" without notice - especially people like southern, and Pierre who were some of my very first followers. (side note, Pierre recently celebrated a similar centennial, you should go pay him a visit)

In spite of all of this, 100 posts is something special for me. So here's to another hundred posts and hopefully more. You guys really are amazing! *cling cling*

All the best,

JP

P.S. - a special thanks to Dzyan, as he was my first true subscriber (and a sexy Mexican one at that)

Priceless

Wool Pea Coat - $50

"Clearance" Abercrombie and Fitch Button Down Shirt - $55

AE Jeans - $25

Seeing an elderly woman go up to and complement a gay couple about how cute they are together - Priceless

Maybe there is hope for society in this lifetime after all.

I hope you had a safe and memory filled Christmas!

JP

Merry Christmas!

The lights are dimmed, the fire, casting it's dancing light on the floor, is crackling away, and the tree, bedecked with glittering ornaments, is shinging bright. For sure, it's Christmastime.

I hope you're spending this Christmas with your family or with someone you deeply care about this year, and that you will have a lot of fun and memorable moments in the process.

For me, it's never truly Christmas until Darlene Love sings "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)" on the Late Show; it may just be my favorite holiday song of all time along with "All I Want for Christmas is You" by Mariah Carey. I'd like to share it with you-



Merry Christmas

JP

Avatar

Great day. Let's start off with that. Today was a great day because I got to spend an entire day with some of my close friends that I rarely get to hang out with. Since we never really have time to hang out outside of school collectively, a group of friends and I decided to just clear an entire day and just have fun, and you know what, it worked. In the end it worked out to be a great day of ice skating (or ice shuffling in my case), lunch, dessert and then seeing Avatar.

At 11:30 we all met up at Reston town Center which is a large outdoor restaurant/semi high end shopping complex to go ice skating at the outdoor ice pavilion before it got too crowded. In total about 8 of us made it (out of 11 originally) and we set off to go rent some skates. To my dismay, they only had hockey skates for my shoe size which annoyed me since I can't skate with hockey skates at all because they have no spikes along the front of each skate, also combined with the fact that the skates were rather dull and slightly misaligned they made skating that much more difficult. When I got on the ice, I had a fun time trying to figure out how to move forward without falling flat onto my face but eventually ended up just shuffling along and eventually shakily gliding, luckily I wasn't the only one who had trouble, one of my other friends had trouble too. We ended up making chains of people as "insurance" which helped sorta and we got a few laughs when some of us "fell" but got saved mid-fall via the chain. To make things even better, there were some pretty cute guys there, and maybe I was hallucinating but there was only guy that I encountered a few times too many for it be be just coincidence if you get what I'm saying. By 1PM we left to go get lunch at Big Bowl which is a sorta Pan-Asian restaurant who had some pretty awesome chicken Pad Thai. We also exchanged secret santa gifts, my santa got me a pretty cool therapeutic cookbook which features recipes which feature heavily on supposedly curative herbs and the background histories on each which is perfect for the history-cooking nerd I am. Afterwards we still had about 45 minutes to kill so we decided to go to Cosi and order smores for all of us. So the way it works at Cosi is that they bring you a giant platter with a small gel-fueled burner in the middle surrounded by graham cracker, hersheys bars and giant marshmallows and skewers. Essentially uou roast your marshmallows yourself and build your smores on your own (pretty awesome). I ordered some hot chocolate to go along with that which was deliciously rich and choclolately. We left around 3:40 to go to the theater.

So, how good was Avatar, James Cameron's $237M sci-fi CG-breakthrough super film? Well, initially I was kinda suspicious as to how good it was actually going to be. Usually there is so much hype surrounding the film that it ends up being a disappointment when you actually see it and I was worried this is how it would turn out. Well, I am happy to report it wasn't in fact, it was very good, superb in fact in terms of visual amazingness. (Spoiler Alert!) Taking place in 2154 on a Earth-like planet (actually moon) where humans are trying to mine a mineral which supposedly would solve Earth's energy woes, it follows the tried and true story of human falls in love with alien being (aka forbidden love, cliché #1) and then helps save a "savage" race and planet from human capitalistic greed and destruction. Isn't this a not so subtle hint to the native american relocation/plight during westward expansion? Cameron did an amazing job with the setting of the movie, it was absolutely stunning and scarily realistic, I can only imagine how amazing it would have looked if we saw it in 3-D. The creatures and inhabitants of the planet were beautiful in an alien-way and the landscape was so realistic that I would have been fooled if it weren't for the floating mountains which reminded me of the islands of Halong Bay in Vietnam. The plot itself wasn't the best in the world, too many clichés in my opinion (I'll list later) but the visuals more than made up for it. The final battle scene was especially stunning. If you haven't seen the movie yet, i really suggest you do, in 3-D preferable, I can only imagine how good that would be for this movie.

Avatar is debatably one of the best movies of the year but there were a few too many clichés -

1. Human protagonist encounters a native for the first time, and it happens to be the chiefs daughter
2. Human outsider ends up as "the chosen one"
3. Human protagonist gets drawn into native cause, becomes leader of the natives in quest for liberation and/or to drive out invaders
4. Humans are destructive, greedy and view all alien civilizations as "savages"
5. The tribal chief dies
6. Nature holds the answer/cure to EVERYTHING
7. Main antagonist has some battle scar, usually cuts across the face as is here
8. Human protagonist loses trust of natives, but later regains it in some extreme fashion (such as magically wrangling a mystic bird like creature only 5 people in recorded native history have done)

Granted these might not all be clichés and just recurring themes in movies but there were some of these and some plot holes that didn't really detract from the movie.

Before I go I would like to respond to Ethan's comment on my last post where he noted that I haven't been getting many comments on my posts. The whole purpose of me starting this blog was to serve as a way for me to share my thoughts, feelings, daily events and opinions - sort of an online journal. Whether people read or comment on my blog is not something I am terribly concerned about or anything I'm going to lose sleep over. Since the beginning I never had any expectation for my blog to be a hub of attention and commenting so whether people choose to comment or not is totally up to them and not something I concern myself with. Not to say I don't enjoy reading comments; I love them to be perfectly honest, it shows people are actually reading about what I've been recently thinking about, but that's not the focus of my blog. I admit I have neglected my blog as of late; my posts have been fewer and farther between and admittedly less interesting, especially with school and crew eating up all my time, but the purpose of my blog remains - it's a release for me. This blog somewhere I can share my thoughts anonymously and whether people read or choose to comment or not does not detract from this.

Tomorrow is Christmas Eve! Have a Merry Christmas everyone.
(And yes, Merry CHRISTMAS, to hell with political correctness.)

All the best,

JP

An Epic Winter Tale

Do you remember going driving for the first time? Was it just a shopping trip to the supermarket with your parents, the time your older sibling snuck you out for a quick run without letting your parents know or for you adventurous few a full out joyride? (hopefully not). Well, while I'll save my first driving experience story for a later time and post, I did do something I felt was milestone-ish yesterday, and that would be legitimate winter driving.

Granted, it wasn't for anything that exciting, (heck, it's something that ranks near bottom on the exciting list), it still proved to be a day of excitement and in the end learning. I had to go pick up a friend to go to the library and work on a Government project and given the recent storm we had, anything that wasn't a main artery through the town is still covered in 3 inches of compacted snow and ice. Me and my Passat made it out of my neighborhood alright and the main road was okay apart form lanes being much narrower due to massive snow plow drifts along the side, the fun started when I pulled into her neighborhood. I was greeted by piles and piles of nasty grey-brown slush that I easily powered through but then I entered roads seemingly untouched by a plow or sand truck, heck, I could barely see the road. The neighborhood is really close by to my old elementary school and the roads are very hilly and by this point rutted by all the people who had tried to get out. I got down the main hill and entered the small road which leads to her house, the bumps made my car bump and slide a little form side to side and STC had to kick in a few times but I finally reached the final turn.

Now, if all the other roads ranked at about a 6 or so in terms of impassibility, this ranked as a 9. There was only one set of tire tracks leading down to her house at the end of the cul-de-sac. Obviously people were being smart enough to not venture out when the roads are doing their best to halt any progress. I made it down the hill okay but I realized the tizzy I was in by the time I reached the bottom (did I really just use the word "tizzy"!?). The hill was steep, or at least somewhat steep, I just drove down in a forward direction on a set of tire tracks with no where to even begin to turn without getting pitifully stuck, and my car was front wheel drive. After my friend got in, I tried the only thing I could possibly do, and that is reverse up a rather long slippery snow covered hill. I tried to follow the tire track and got about 1/3 of the way up when all progress stopped and a little yellow light on my dash started blinking. It was the traction control light and that meant I was stuck. First thought in my head - "Fuck, now what do I do" followed then by "well this is embarrassing" and finally by "okay, let's try his again". I repeated this process about 4 more times before I decided to start all the way over. further down the road my friends neighbor cleared off their driveway and a cable repair man told us to drive in, make a u turn and try going up the hill frontwards, so we did. This time around, we got a scare half way up but eventually, we got out of the hill of death.

So me and my friend went to the library and got our work done all fine and dandy and we were going to go to lunch afterwards but her parents were a little cranky so that plan was axed. When i wen to go drop her off again, i decided to not go down that final hill again and my friend agreed and said she would just walk the final leg to her house. After that, I went to Baja Fresh to get some lunch and headed home, completing my first winter driving experience.

So, what did we learn?
1. We need more snow plows to clear off the roads
2. AWD really is necessary sometimes
3. Drive slowly
4. New Englanders and Mid-Westerners must be part eskimo to be able to endure this weather four times over every winter.

Happy Holidays!

JP

Fuck Yeah!!!

Because of the recent snow storm school's closed all week, meaning Winter Break is now officially two weeks long :D

wooo! and to all my readers, have a very happy and safe Christmas Holiday and a prosperous New Year! (don't get too carried away y'hear)

JP

Let it Snow, Let is Snow, Let it Snow

Mother nature has really outdone herself this winter as the region is expected to get quite a hefty amount of snow! With snow reaching an unprecedented 12-24 inches by the time this storm is all done, this could turn out to be one of the greatest snowfalls ever received this early in December! See as i will likely be stuck at home all day tomorrow I'll take the time to work on finishing up college essays and applications (boo!) but also take time to appreciate the beauty of the falling snow.

My ideal winter snow day would involve me, a cute guy, a crackling fireplace and lots of snuggling, but then again this is still during the school year so unfortunately this will have to be postponed to a later date.

I'm contemplating going out on Sunday and see if people will be willing to pay me to shovel their walkways. I don't know what to charge, but my coach recommended this to us as a way to get some good exercise and also make some cash in the mean time.

Overall this week has been a good, albeit exhausting one. I haven't gone to bed before 2:30AM this week which means I've been getting 4 or less hours of sleep each night (I know, shame on me) but teachers are really piling on the last minute tests and grades before winter break begins next week. Today for example i had a physics lab due, a physics test, Calc test and a 2k test. Last night i didn't end up going to sleep until about 3 (homework, studying, procrastination skills) and I was worried about both my tests today because I didn't feel like I understood anything, especially in calc where we essentially got notes and terribly vague instruction. Surprisingly, I found the physics test pretty easy and I was able to answer all the questions on the calc test. Hopefully I did everything correctly in the end. So after all the school tests were all said in done, all that was left was the 2k.

Now today was "Carnivore Day" in journalism which made my prospects of a successful 2k seem limited at best. Carnivore Day is pretty much a day where everyone brings in some food for a meat-based extravaganza - chili, hot dogs, chips, soda and baked goods galore. Not a vegetable in sight. It is usually recommended that you eat well before a 2k so you don't get bogged down because your body is trying to digest heavy and unhealthy food, but I find it terribly hard to resist a good, delicious artery clogging lunch when it is set up buffet style before me. So I enjoyed and immediately felt in trouble when I was sleepy soon after. Since it has been about two weeks since our last 2k, I hoped to cut ten seconds off my time, whether that was possible was questionable in my mind but I went in with high hopes and Lady Gaga blasting from my headphones. So, the result of all my worrying, poor food choices and fantastic music? 15 seconds chopped off from my last 2k time bitches! I'm only 10 seconds off my PR time so I really hope I can keep this track of progress for the rest of conditioning.

Have a nice weekend!

JP

Georgetown Interview: Postgame Analysis

So I think the interview went pretty well. It took place at a Starbucks in the area so it was pretty casual. My interviewer asked stuff about my family, my course load, extracurriculars and the like and I didn't freeze up on any of the questions! I did notice she had a notepad where she wrote my name down but never actually took any notes in the end, lol. She was a really nice person and just recently graduated from Georgetown so it was nice talking to someone who was only so much older than I was. So overall it was a really comfortable and fun experience, hopefully this will bode well for me in the end :)

Just one more step towards college land

All the best,

JP

Georgetown Interview

Ahhhhhhh!!!!! Tomorrow is my Georgetown Univeristy admissions interview and I'm so nervous! All undergraduate applicants have to go through an interview with an alumnus of the University so I really hope I'll make a good first impression. I'm meeting my interviewer at a local Starbucks at 5 tomorrow and the interview itself should about 30 to 45 minutes. They're supposed ot be generally casual in atmosphere but like most people have, i'm dressing up a little (khakis, button down and the like) to make myself a little more professional and appear more dedicated and interested. One of my friends has already done her interview and gave me a few tips and said the interviewers are really nice and you should just be comfortable and yourself around them.

Recently, a lot of my friends have been getting their first college acceptance letters. I know one of my friends got accepted to UPenn, another person I know got into Cornell and one is getting recruited to Stanford for crew. It's so annoying realizing that I will have ot wait until April to hear back from any of my colleges >.<. I really hope I haven't overreached in the schools I'm applying to but I'm really nervous about this whole process and the stress it's adding to the already busy senior year.

Well, I'm going to try and get another one of my application essays done before I go to bed. I'm also trying to calm myself for tomorrow, hopefully I won't be too nervous and everything will go well.

je peux le faire.

-JP

Houston's First Openly Gay Mayor

***Annise Parker, Houston's First openly gay mayor***

This just recently came out on the news wires but Houston, Texas elected its first openly gay mayor! Annise Parker won with about 54% of the votes, defeating her opponent, Gene Locke.

After Locke conceded defeat, Parker told reporters -

"This election has changed the world for the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered community. Just as it is about transforming the lives of all Houstonians for the better, and that's what my administration will be about,"

During her campaign, her opponent received support from anti-gay groups who sent out pamphlets to voters which condemned Parker for being a lesbian. Fortunately, her opponent distanced himself from these groups though I have a feeling the link unfortunately remained in the eyes of many.

Parker is now the mayor of the United States's fourth largest city. I'm really happy for Parker's win in this election. While Houston is predominately democratic, it will be interesting to see what kind of impact this will ultimately have on a larger scale. Hopefully this foreshadows steps forward for the gay community, especially in lieu of recent national and international events like Uganda's "Kill the Gays" bill.

Read more! **or else ;)**

Houstons First Gay Mayor

Uganda's "Kill the Gays" Bill

In speaking about politicians, does anyone else think Representative Aaron Schock of Illinois is smokin? We just began a Congress project in government and he was my group's choice for "freshman member"

All the best,

JP

New Car!

2010 Lexus ES350, but in white

As you probably figured from my lack of posts since Monday, I've been really busy lately with school, crew, college applications and other stuff. This has been such a stressful month so far and it will only get worse until I finally submit all my applications and get this massive boulder off my back ;_; I really can't wait until winter break.

This past week has been dull for the most part, I had a few test and quizzes as always but my Macbeth Acts I and II test today was a surprise partner test which was really helpful. In Journalism, we're planning to print our December issue very soon and for this issue we have made so far about $1,300 worth of ads which is a great improvement over the $900 or so we made in out first issue, the only issue is that in the past week or so we got another page worth of ads and when the amount of space was originally allotted, it did not take into account the number of ads we would have and now we are short about one and a half pages. oops.

Exciting news, after talking about it for over a year and a half and dozens of visits to car dealers and going on dozens of test drives, we finally have our new car in our garage! My dad picked up our white 2010 Lexus ES350 from the dealer today. We got it fully loaded and in the end got some stuff we didn't really need. The car does have stuff we wanted like Navigation, backup camera and rear sunshade but also some frivolous things. Since we didn't want to wait 5 weeks for a custom order from Japan, we compromised and had one already in the US and made do with the random add-ons. The car has a rear deck lid lip spoiler which is subtle but kinda weird for this kind of car and it also has a rear bumper applique which was a $310 option the dealer just tossed in for free in the end. We had it shipped over from North Carolina and it got it for over $4,000 under MSRP so that was good.

So things are admittedly kind of a boring right now but I just wanted to check in. I'll probably do a legitimate post tomorrow so until then take it easy.

Christmas Countdown - 13 days!

-JP

E-Relationships DON'T Work

Question: Will a relationship with someone you meet online and know only exclusively through the Internet ever work out?

Answer: 99.99999% of the time, no.

Once upon a time there was a girl named Julia. Now Julia had gotten involved in some RP (role play, nothing kinky, just like fantasy world stuff) online and here she met a man who went by the name of Seth. While she never had met Seth in real life, or even knew where he was in this world of ours, she fell madly in love with him. For weeks, she was obsessed with this mysterious individual who talked with the smoothness of velvet which was then massaged with baby oil. For weeks her friends tried their hardest to convince her that this was unhealthy for her, physically and mentally but this persisted. One day however, the floor collapsed and Julia came back to her friends for help. For weeks, one of her friends talked to her for hours about why she must end this drug-like addiction to a man for which she doesn't know the whereabouts of or even his real name or face for that matter. Only after complete disconnection from this indivudal did Julia eventually become free of this scumbag which plagued her thoughts and robbed her of emotional life for much too long.

This was about a year and a half ago and a thoroughly true story. Julia did really meet a person named Seth online and for the longest time had her mind stolen from her as a result, enamored by his words. We, her friends, all hoped she would not make the same mistake again but today I found out she has once again fallen into this trap.

While less mysterious in comparison to Seth, a new boy, by the name of Matt from Nova Scotia has electronically captured the heart of Julia. The conversation between me and Julia started out innocently enough. "If a boy never starts the conversation does it mean he's not interested?" she asked, "No" i replied, "it could just mean he's shy." As the conversation progressed I began to become increasingly suspicious of what's going on. When I finally ask her why, she responds with she met another guy online who she had fallen badly in love with, claiming he's "soooo much better than Seth". It turns out they met over the summer also through RP via Twitter. Fortunately she had realized where she was heading and tried to limit conversation with him herself, but once again she cannot rid her mind of Matt. I dosed my advice once again that she has to realize that the fact that he's far away, a college senior and someone you only know virtually equates to something that will only harm her in the long run, a fact not taken willingly and with much protest. While the conversation sorta just fizzled out soon after, I hope she got the point of my message.

personally, I think E-Relationships, and especially long distance E-relationships, will only lead to trouble. Sure there are stories of people finding each other through the Internet, eventually meeting each other and end up having quintuplets with each other but just how realistic is that?

Given that I haven't ever actually been in a relationship, maybe my friends shouldn't all be coming to me for relationship advice, (funny, really) but sometimes friends really do need to guide friends back into line when things get out of hand.


Bad Relationship? I've got the remedy! (or at least a really good bowl of soup to take your mind off it)


All the best,

JP

Thanks, Mother Nature

A quick snapshot of my backyard this morning, read on to clarify

Once again I'm posting at 1AM, this seems to be becoming a habit of mine, posting late in the night. Well, last night was my friend's surprise 16th birthday party which actually turned out to be quite fun. My friend Nat thought she was going to go help out at a senior living community's annual Holiday Party at the local golf clubhouse but in reality, it was 40 of her friends plus her family ambushing her.

I left practice an hour early so I could send two people home and pick up some dry cleaning (it was semi-formal) before the party, but because of traffic, I didn't get to take a shower like I wanted to. I ended up just wiping myself down with a hot moist towel which worked in a pinch. I didn't have time for dinner either so when I got there, me and the other 6 crew kids were all starving half to death. Finally, when she arrived, everything got into full swing and food was brought out (cue angel chorus). There was dancing and the like but most of the people there were juniors and the only seniors there were me and some other people from the crew team, but we had fun. As always, the DJ though could have been better, he sucked at transitioning songs and he didn't listen to 3/4 of the requests which was annoying. Nat had a great time though, she got a tiara and a really nice *pink* cake. It was a pretty good cake but the frosting was sickeningly sweet and rich. The final song turned out to be "I'm Yours" by Jason Mraz which was kinda odd mood-wise but we all got a nice good-bye hug circle going.

_________________________

In a rather funny bit of friend gossip, my friend Kevin has developed some sort of man crush on Taylor Lautner of Twilight/New Moon fame. On Friday he asked me "Is it gay for me to like New Moon and the Twilight series?" to which I responded "No, I've read all the books and seen the movies." This then developed into a three person coversation between him, me and another girl in our journalism class and into how hot Taylor is and how he had made so many people "change teams" in the whole Vampire-Werewolf debate. Later during crew practice I asked him what the whole thing was about in journalism and he just said he had been really obsessed with Taylor Lautner since seeing New Moon, to which I responded "Well, he is really hot and has the body of a god" and he said back "He is really hot, and I'm secure enough with myself to say that." Anyways, I find this whole episode kinda funny, I never really expected this from him, and combined with the fact that he likes Lady Gaga, Kesha, Taylor Lautner and to an extent Twilight (though he claims to never have read the books, something I question a little) and that he's not afraid to get touchy with people makes him quite an interesting person...

________________________

Today, here in the DC area, we got our first legit snowfall. I measured about 3 inches outside our front door but some nearby areas got over 5 inches! It might not sound like much to some people, especially those who live further north, but that's a lot of snow for this area and surprisingly early in the season at that. Maybe this will finally be a good snow year. I ended up just working on an English project, French and college essays all day, boo, no fun. Tomorrow is going to be sunny though which means most of the snow and ice will likely melt away, but maybe, ever so slight the chance that some ice will remain that we might just get a delayed start on Monday. *fingers crossed*

I hope everyone has enjoyed their weekend so far.

Take care, and all the best,

JP

Surprise!

Just got back from a surprise sweet sixteen birthday party for one of my friends. Exhausted, but I had a great time. The DJ though, as always, could have been better. I'll post more details tomorrow.

Also, my 2K went relatively well. I didn't reach my absolute goal, but I kept it under 8 minutes which was my secondary goal. I felt that I could have pushed harder at the end so I'll do that next round. At least now I know what my limits are and can now push myself to, and even beyond them in the future.

Bye :)

JP

2000 Meters

I'm so nervous right now! God, I've been dreading December 2nd for two weeks now and now, the dreaded day is mere hours away.

So why am I so anxious? It's because tomorrow I have my very first 2000 meter test of the season for crew. If you're involved in crew or know someone who is, you've probably have heard people talking about 2Ks and their 2K times and maybe you don't know too much as to what it actually is. A 2K test is the standard test for rowers in order to measure performance, strength and endurance. As the name implies, it's a 2000m piece that is done on an erg. Your goal is to find a 500m split that you can hold for about 1750 meters and then you sprint at the very end to get your overall time as low as possible. A 2k usually lasts under 8 minutes for guys and 9 minutes for girls but those are probably the most draining and painful 8 minutes any rower will experience short of being in an actual race.

Because the 2k measures performance, it can ultimately decide your seat in a boat and which boat you are placed in (1st or 2nd etc), so your goal is to get your time to be lower than everyone else's. Of course there are those who are absolute beasts, but you're competing against everyone else on the team to fight for the best spots. It's so competitive it makes my mind and body hurt just thinking about it. >.<. Just tough it out. just. tough. it. out. *sigh*

College Application update:
-Teacher recommendation stuff finally all handed out :D
-There are still supplemental essays to write (probably will finish this weekend, hopefully)
-SAT scores sent out
-Dues for two schools paid, five more to go

With everything being so busy and hectic, the only thing that's keeping me going is Christmas break which is rolling 'round pretty soon. We haven't decorated the outside of the house yet but hopefully we will soon. I put some lights up in my room though and the tree is up and decorated (well, to be honest, it's kinda up all year since we're too lazy to take it down lol). Well, hopefully things will ease up a little and everything smooth out soon. Also, I just downloaded "Alejandro" and "Dance in the Dark" from Lady Gaga's new album The Fame Monster and my god they're good, especially along with "Bad Romance" and "Telephone" Lady Gaga is my total obsession music wise right now if you couldn't tell lol.

Go listen! - Dance in the Dark

I hope you have a great week!

wish me luck :)

JP

Standing Firm

So I decided to stand my ground in the end about my essay. Based on the support I got from you guys plus my friends and other people I asked, I decided that I thoroughly supported my claims that what I chose was a civic value and that my teacher would have to accept it the way it was and whether it's chosen to be submitted or not is his choice. I wrote a message in the email I sent back with the grammatically corrected essay explaining this and I felt good about it. I was being American through quiet protest lol.

This past weekend went by way to quickly in my opinion. Thanksgiving was a blur, as was Friday. Saturday was just a confusing mess of a day that finished with me working on college applications and today was a homework catch-up day and I partially succeeded but mostly failed. Luckily, most of the work still isn't due for a few days. I also sent out all my SAT score reports, finally finished my Senior Profile for my guidance counselor and teachers, and got about half way done with my Columbia application. If college is like the application process, I think I'd rather just live in a hut in the woods, it'll probably be less mind numbing and draining >.>

Well, calculus homework is still not done (I'm pulling a complete blank on how to do it) and I still have another act in Macbeth to read but I think I'm almost done for the day. I'm not too excited for sleep though since Matt has been working his way into my dreams again as of late. While I love these dreams, I'm also kinda upset that my mind would play such cruel tricks on me considering just how far they are from reality. *sigh* Whatever.

Have a nice week

All the best,

JP

Being An American

The glorious conflict solving duel

There is currently an essay competition which is being held across the nation called the "Being An American" essay contest. It's open to all students across the nation and in all 50 states. Last year there were over 31,000 entries into the contest. The prompt is "What civic value do you believe is most essential to being an American?". In my combined English/Government class, we all had to write an essay for the contest for a grade and then after a narrowing-down process, the teachers would choose the top 10 to send in to the contest. There was sorta a semi-finals round where the top essays were chosen and the field narrowed down to the top 20 or so I think. I got into this group and we all got to meet with the teachers one-on-one in order to discuss any possible last changes, they'll then decide which ten they will send in once the 20 revised essays are emailed back to them.

I was really excited when I got chosen to be in the top group, but when I met with my government teacher, he told me that he really liked my essay and that it was really powerful, but, (the dreaded "but") he didn't think the value I chose was a civic value. This baffled me because I asked three people about what they thought of my value and made sure people thought it worked and all of them said yes and they liked it. The civic value I chose was "diplomacy". I chose this because I felt that ever since the nation's founding, America has valued diplomacy and has always used it as a way to prevent confrontation whenever possible. This has had many examples in history, but also in the modern day where diplomacy is used in resolving national and international conflict but also in personal day to day use. Whenever we get into an argument with someone, we try to resolve the issue and be diplomatic towards others rather than head immediately to physical confrontation. The glorious argument solving duel went out of favour well in the past. I go into much greater detail in the essay itself providing the required founding document, historical figure and personal practice examples to back up my claim of diplomacy as a civic value.

Somethign else which bothered me was that looking back at past winners, some of the values they chose didn't seem like values at all to me. While there were the essays about "courage", "perseverence" and "acceptance", some past winners and honourable mentions were about "military service" and "voting". Those there were other civic duties, not values in my opinion and in the opinions of my friends.

I've asked a few of my friends and they seem to agree that my choice works but I want to get the views of others as well. Do you think diplomacy works? if not, what would you substitute?

It's Snowing!!

Thanksgiving came and past as usual and no real surpsises occured during the time. In the end both of the iffy-cousins were able to come in the end and we got to hear some funny stories about his time over in England (he's heading back in a few days). Overall it was fun, but also rather dull if that makes any sense. Today though was much more active, mostly because it was my friend's 18th birthday and her and two of my other friends had a day on the town.

The breakdown-

8:45AM - woke up
9:15 - breakfast
10:30 - leave for my friend's house so we can catch the metro over to DC
11:15 - after arriving late, we begin walking over, singing Lady Gaga songs all the way
11:30 waiting at the metro - still singing Lady Gaga, but also discussing the difference between snuggies and a backwards robe (snuggies won)
12:15PM - finally arrived at the Rosslyn metro station and then catching a connector bus to Georgetown
12:30 - Dead hungry, we have lunch at an Indian Restaurant (Chicken Vindaloo ftw!) we also got to see a little toddler who growled and roared at his food, laughter ensues.
12:50 - Holy Shit! It's Snowing!!!! (most random thing considering it usually does not snow until late December)
1:30 - My birthday friend gets her cartilage pierced! she wanted to get her nose pierced but decided against it for a variety of reasons
1:45 - Begin browsing the various shops in Georgetown - Lucky Brand, American Apparel etc.
1:50 - We ran into a guy we all haven't seen since middle school. He had moved to California but was here visiting a friend. After initial awkwardness, we chatted and had a few laughs.
2:00 - decide to get our palms read, but apart form the place being really sketchy, the psychic apparently was not in.
2:15 - We visit a place called "Lush" where you can buy hand made soap for about $7 a 1/4 lb. (wtf!?) I will never understand this.
2:40 - Ben and Jerry's run - I got a small Half-Baked frozen yogurt, great even though it was cold and windy out
3:00 - Make a mad dash to catch the connector bus back to the metro station.
3:30 - Arrive back at home, unfortunately, my friend had to go to work on her birthday (boo!)
-skip-
10:45 - Finished my UVA Supplement Essays :D

We all wished we could had stayed out longer but as I said, my birthday friend had to go to work.
I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. I finally got to talk to Ethan on his Pingbox. It seemed his thanksgiving was a good deal bigger than mine with many more relatives. He seems like a very genuine guy and I hope I will be talking to him again in the near future.

Also, congratulations to Jason who came out to his twin! That was quite a big step and he seems to be getting ready to take it to the final step soon and come out to his school. Wishing you the best of luck, mate!

My life has been relatively boring lately so sorry if posts have sorta followed suit. Hopefully things will pick up again once college apps are over and the holidays roll around.

Before I finish, I want your opinion on a question a friend sent me - "If you could completely eat yourself, would be end up twice as big or no longer exist?"

Ponder that for a little bit. (Bonus Points if you know where this came from)

All the best,

JP

Happy Thanksgiving

For all my American Readers, I would like to wish you a Happy Thanksgiving. While it's rather grey, damp and cloudy here in the DC area, hopefully the weather is pleasant and the skies clear wherever you live. We're having a family get together this evening for dinner, it looks to be around a dozen or so people will be coming over. We're having the regular dinner fare, turkey, ham, sweet potatoes, cranberry-sausage dressing, asparagus and lobster for an appetizer. Many people can't make it this year because they're stuck at work (who works on thanksgiving!?) so a few of my cousins will be MIA. Two of my remaining cousins are a mystery whether they will be showing up, one just got back for a four day break from a job over in England and one said he was considering working at a soup kitchen. While noble, this is really unlike him from what I know so I have no idea where this came up from. Also, yesterday we finally got a new chandelier installed in the foyer! The old one sorta fell 14ft onto solid marble when a chain link broke which kinda left it many pieces (just sorta). A few weeks back we went shopping for a new one and we ended up getting another crystal one though it's even bigger this time around. While it was being installed, we cleaned and vacuumed every room and decorated for tonight's party and by the time we both finished the house looked better and the chandelier looked great.

Just a quick question, have any of you every tried Tofurky? For those of you who don't know what it is, it's a vegetarian substitute for the thanksgiving turkey, it's made of tofu and vegetables. I've never tried it myself but many of my vegetarian friends have and seem to like it. So to my omnivorous friends, if you have tried it, what do you think about it?

I'm so glad a long weekend has started. Tomorrow is one of my friend's 18th birthdays so we're heading out to Georgetown (neighborhood, not university) for lunch and maybe some Black-Friday shopping. She said she wants to get something pierced so we'll see if pans out. After that though, I plan to use this weekend to work on supplemental essays for the colleges I'm applying to. The deadline is fats approaching so I really need to get a move on. I finally handed out my first round of teacher recommendation forms but I still have another batch I need to send out. On Saturday I probably will need to go and get the brake pads on my car replaced. We recently went to get the car inspected and they said the pads were getting to thin and needed to be replaced so that's the plan for this weekend.

Even if you're not celebrating Thanksgiving today, I still hope you will have a great day and weekend and keep your family and those you care about in mind.

All the best,

JP

The Casualization of the World

Few things in the world really irk me. One of these things is an object not being centered when it is supposed to be (if you do have a tabletop which is off center, I will be coming for you soon), but another is what I call the "Casualization of the world". I'm not a stickler for fashion, as long as I look relatively put together and polished I am perfectly happy, but it seems that some people have taken "casual" to new lows. This past weekend I did a little bit of personal investigation when I went out to a movie with some friends. I made a check for every person who I saw wearing something I deemed overly casual or simply sloppy.

Some things I looked for-
-Over sized sweatshirts and sweatpants
-Slogan T-shirts
-Poor fitting jeans
-Pajama wear

By the end of the day, I had complied 27 check marks, and that was only in the span of 4 hours.

I know that nowadays comfort has taken over as the number one priority for many people when they shop for clothes, but I don't believe that people should simply forget or ignore some basic rules when it comes to dressing oneself. Wearing clothes that are over sized, wrinkled, poor fitting, overly worn or just setting-inappropriate makes you seem just plain sloppy and lazy. Even if you don't realize it, first appearances and how you look do have a great impact on how people judge you as a person. I can almost guarantee that on the inside, you will look more favorably on someone who is wearing well-fitting clothing which seems to have gotten some attention when it comes to matching in comparison to someone who seemed to have had just dived into a clothing drawer and wore whatever stuck to their body.

Probably one of the worst settings to put little attention into what you wear would be when traveling, especially internationally. Once you buy that ticket, you are no longer just a traveler or tourist, but you are now an ambassador for your nation. Wherever you travel, the people who meet and see you will make a judgement about you within the first 10 seconds of seeing you. What kind of impression do you think you're making for yourself and your fellow citizens if you show up in a tracksuit or gaudy sweatshirt and ripped jeans? Not a good one to say the least. As I said, you are now an ambassador, the impression is one of "wow, how put together and classy" not "wow, nice Confederate flag T-shirt" (flag of the former confederate southern states for you non-Americans. rather looked down upon in many places).

There only a few simple guidelines I follow when I dress myself half-awake in the morning.

1. Fit - no baggy jeans or shirts please, things should fit close to the body, but not tight if that makes sense

2. Match - Avoid clashing colors, patterns, textures etc.

3. Make it Simple - I like solids or simple patterns like stripes, if I do wear something with a bold design or print, I make sure nothing else is bold. You're a person, not a kaleidoscope.

It seems like being well put together nowadays is a respected thing to do. People like it when you appear to have put some thought and effort into what you wear, it shows you pay attention to detail. As the world continues to fall deeper into the pajama-pants-in-public world, dressing well is becoming an endangered activity, it does not have to entail buying expensive clothes or hours coordinating outfits, but just spending 15 seconds to make sure what you wear looks, well, good.

Just my two cents.

All the best,

JP

Survey

1. Name? (screen name is fine)

JP


2. Are you a boy or girl?

Give me a sec, yup, still a boy

3. How old are you?

17


4. Are you straight, gay, bi or unsure

gay


5. Whats your favorite color?

Blue


6. Whats your favorite food?

The one question I dread....anything delicious


7. If you could choose only one type of food for the rest of you life, what type would it be? (ex. Italian, chinese, french, etc.)

Chinese


8. How tall are you?

5'9" ish


9. Hair colour?

Black


10. Whats your favorite movie?

Pan's Labyrinth


11. Favorite book?

Angels and Demons or Marley and Me


12. Favorite tv show?

Good Eats or Top Gear


13. What are your hobbies?

Cooking/Baking, anything car related, blogging


14. What is the #1 thing that grosses you out?

dunno, I've never reacted too strongly to anything


15. Are you a virgin?

Yes


16. If no, how far have you gone? (list both with boys and girls)

Not very.


17. Are you athletic? What sports?

Limited, but I do crew


18. For guys: How big are you? (you know what I mean... lol) Are you cut or uncut?

I know friends who read this so I'll protect their innocence....lol


19. For girls: Whats your bra size?

n/a


20. Are you happy with your size?

Sure ;)


21. Do you like, tolerate or get disgusted when you see an attractive person of the opposite sex?

Um, pretty much apathetic/tolerate


22. What do you want to do with your life?

I want to be successful but also have a lasting, beneficial impact on the world in some form.


23. Do you masturbate? how many times a day?

Yes, and it depends, averages out to 5-6 times a week


24. Do you have a "special" toy? (again you all know what I mean... lol)

lol, no.


25. Have you ever broken a bone or had another serious injury or sickness? Explain.

I broke my wrist when I was 10 or something and it was because of a scooter accident.


26. What do you think is your most attractive feature?

dunno, people seem to like my teeth and smile though


27. What do you think is your least attractive feature?

I inherited the early grey-hair gene from my dad so I have a few white strands mixed into my hair. Nothing too bad, but really annoying.


28. If there is one thing in your life you could change, what would that be?

Better work ethic and longer attention span


29. Are you in a relationship? explain a little (boy, girl, short term, long term, etc)

no, but I want to be :/


30. When was the last time you got some sexual action? (of any type)

I had a nice wank this morning if that counts?


31. Mac or PC?

PC all the way


32. Iphone, Blackberry, other PDA, or regular cell phone?

LG Chocolate Touch


33. Do you have any pets? Which ones?

Adopted Jack Russell Terrier, Parakeet, Dozen or so fish, four turtles (not all in one house)


34. For gay and bi guys: Are you a top or bottom?

hmmmmmm, dunno, but I think I would be a versatile bottom.


35. Whats the one thing in your life you are most proud of?

I'll decide that when I'm old


36. Where is the weirdest place you masturbated or had sex?

um, airplane bathroom lol


37. Most number of times you came in a day?

I think 4 or so


38. What are you most afraid of?

Currently?-Not finishing my college applications in time/not getting into the colleges I want to
Overall?- Not accomplishing my dreams and not leaving a lasting impact on the world.


39. Favorite porn star?

Brent Corrigan, god he's cute


40. Do you have a blog? What is it?

Yes, it even has a French title.

We Want Alfredo Sauce!

Jeez, I haven't posted since Wednesday! Well, the week has come and past and I guess it's time for some updates. First, Jake's back in school, he seems okay and in good spirits and I'm glad he's back, I was really worried for a little while. Also, my uncle is better, he went to the doctor and he got checked out, he was told to take it easy for a while and he may need to go back in a little while. But all in all, everything which preoccupied my mind last week seem to have been remedied in some form.

With the first week of crew winter conditioning finished, Friday saw the first pasta party of the season. Pretty much, a family donates their house to about 40-50 teenagers, parents and coaches we all go and gorge ourselves on pasta and mess around for two or so hours. We attempted to play a few rounds of ice breakers which turned out to be a giant game of Telephone. Many of the novices this year are really loud and obnoxious which is kinda annoying, but they're freshman for the most part so what can you do? Probably the biggest event of the night though was the little battle over the menu changes. Because one of the captains wanted to make the menu healthier, many things, including Alfredo sauce for the pasta, were done away with. Well, some of the veteran members weren't too happy about this so there was a good-spirited battle between the pro and anti Alfredo clans. Of course, there were us apathetic folk stuck in the middle but it was amazing to hear some of the arguments made ("Alfredo sauce is made of happiness, are you going to deny me the only reason I live!?"). Overall, a fun night.

Today I went to go see New Moon with eight of my friends and it was pretty good. Yes, Taylor Lautner was as gorgeous as ever, and compared to the previous movie, Twilight, it wasn't nearly as much of a train wreck. The bigger budget probably helped as did casting some surprising people including Dakota Fanning as Jane. Robert Pattinson looked better in this movie (more well groomed) but I am steadfast in saying that Lautner and his buff-ness stole the show. Something that surprised me though wa sthe fact that it broke world records for the biggest opening day gross ever. Apparently it made over $72M which easily beat the previous record which was in the low 60s. I guess the fan base was larger than I previously had guessed.

This upcoming week is only three days long because of the Thanksgiving holiday so I'm actually looking forward to it. Thanksgiving is probably one of my favorite holidays because I get to see so many members of my family and hang out with my cousins which I rarely get to do.

Also, I want to share a website, in case you haven't seen this yet, go visit mysterygoogle.com. What it does is give you the previous searches results for whatever you put in. Essentially, whatever you search, the next person who searches will get your results. I've gotten some pretty funny results so far like "is it possible to reverse-juice an orange?" and "can fish sneeze?". I suggest you go check it out yourself, hopefully you'll get a nice laugh out of it.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend,

All the best,

JP

Sore

O crew, how much I did miss you!

So far my entire body is sore and my energy level by the end of the day is running very low but I'm actually really excited to be back. One of my coaches from my novice year is the men's varsity coach this year which makes me really happy. I've also been driving to school for the past two days and so far no accidents (knock on wood), and it feels nice not having to be bound by others for the first time. Friday is looking to be a super busy day with three tests and practice but we do have our first pasta party that day (pretty much during race season you gorge yourself on carbs the night before and play Rock Band lol). I've become pretty good friends with a new guy at our school but whose been rowing for quite some time, he's a junior and he's pretty cute....we'll see how the cards play out.

Sorry this was a rather quick post but before I go to bed, here's a general workout for us through the winter conditioning period.

2 hours total, Mon-Fri

In any order-

~40 minutes erging - 2000m warm-up, typically 3500-4000m worth of drills, step-interval, or steady state pieces and then 5 minutes back stretching

~40 minutes calisthenics - running, hill sprints, hill lunges, some form of ab workout

~40 minutes - Weight room - just keep the metal movin'

The most evil torture device ever devised by man - the erg

We better have the best beach bodies ever by summer lol

Question - Do you play/used to play any sports? If so, which and why that sport?

Have a nice week everyone,

All the best,

JP

Drama Makes My Head Hurt

Ahhhh, why does the weekend have to come to an end. This has turned out to be one of the best weekends I've had in quite some time. I finally got my car today, I was supposed to get one at the beginning of the school year but that got delayed for so many reasons. It's a 2006 Shadow Blue VW Passat 2.0T which i love to bits. It was my moms car but we did a intra-family car shift so now my mom got my dads CR-V and my dad gets a new car. On Saturday I got a new phone to replace the one I got on my 14th birthday, it's a LG Chocolate Touch and it's pretty cool. It has a good quality camera, full touch screen and pretty good sound quality and because our plan allows us to get $50 credit on a new phone every two years, I finally got mine upgraded. It's like Christmas a month and a half early ^_^ , and relating to Christmas, I saw the first Santa Claus of the season in front of a bank today, I actually did a doubletake as I drove by, lol.

Okay, now for some more serious business, this weekend also saw some serious tings happen. Last Friday, a close friend (let's call her M) informed me that one of her friends and loosely one of mine, (let's call him Jake) had seemingly vanished. He had deleted his facebook account, he was unexplainedly missing from school and his cell phone line had been cut completely. Now this had my friend really worried and me as well, Jake was the guy who had told M that he thought I was cute a while back. We weren't really sure as to what was going on until I got another call on Saturday, M had received some details as to what was going on, and it wasn't pretty. According to another one of my friends, it appears that Jake had to gotten into some fight back at home and his father had badly beat him and he had run away as a result. Jake might had run over to one of his friends houses but we were all worried for his safety now. When M drove past Jake's house yesterday, all the house lights were off and it appeared like nobody was home. If Jake doe snot turn up at school tomorrow we are seriously considering trying to find him and help him to the great extent as we can. I know technically this is a personal, family issue but if what I've been told is true and Jake really was beaten by his father, this actually calls for some form of intervention, legal or otherwise. I really hope he's okay and somewhere safe.

Other drama, this morning I my mom, dad and I had to make an urgent trip back from Maryland because of a medical emergency. This morning my uncle had called one of my aunts that he woke up and couldn't get up. When she arrived at his house he tried to get up but immediately fell straight backwards. My aunt couldn't convince him to go to the emergency room so we had to hurry back home. It turns out he didn't want to go to the hospital because he was afraid that his insurance would not cover whatever had to be done. After my aunt and mo arrived at his house he had improved and could walk again but they were still really concerned as to what had happened. They still don't know whether it was a heart attack or something but tomorrow they are going to take him to the doctor and get him checked out. I hope he's okay :/

So what a weekend of contrasts eh? Great happiness coupled with great concern on both family and friend fields. Well, this upcoming week looks pretty eventful as well- tomorrow is the first day of Crew winter conditioning which should be fun (not). I haven't really worked out since the season ended in Spring so I'm really out of shape, if not back at square one, at least square two. I can't wait for the perpetually sore legs and buildup of lactic acid everywhere in my body *eyeroll*. Tuesday is a government test day but it's only on two chapters so hopefully it won't be too bad.

Well, I hope everyone will have a fantastic and productive week.

All the best,

JP

Hello Beautiful!

Finally, it's Friday. Tests are done, essays have been turned in, projects reviews and ready to be revised one last time. This past week has been pretty busy, but I made it through first quarter in one piece and well solid in the grades department. On Thursday, my school held "academic achievement" awards which pretty much means if you managed a 3.8 or higher in the previous school year, you get recognition. Last year, we had a grading scale change which made getting a better grade easier, by a lot. This meant while last year the awards recognized the top 12% or so, this year it meant the top 25%, not cool. The award lost a good bit of it's value since the 3.8GPA guideline did not change to meet the new grading scale, people who previously never would have qualified now do, and that annoys me and my friends since some people who are complete slackers are being recognized.

Anyways, now that I've vented, I would like to make a confession. It isn't something I am too terribly proud of nor something I am overtly ashamed of, but nevertheless, it's something I try to not draw too much attention to. I am a Twilight fan. For those of you who don't know what Twilight is, it's a series of novels revolving around a girl Bella, who falls in love with a vampire, Edward, and what goes on as she gains too much insight into the vampire world. And also there's some werewolves, a secret super-vampire led international vampire governing body, sick cars and glittery skin just for laughs (okay, maybe this last bit was kinda a synopsis mess but you get the idea). A couple of my friends begged be a few years ago to buy the first novel by Stephanie Meyer and read it because it was so good. I ended up buying it at an airport book shop and read it while I was on holiday in Puerto Rico, and you know what, it was pretty awesome. The story, while hardly what I would call prize worthy, was engaging, full of fun twists and turns and made me want to keep reading, something that is difficult for me to do. Afterwards, I ended up buying the rest of the books in the series, but they were less than satisfactory to say the least, especially compared to the first book. I really wish that Meyer actually just ended the story in that first book but I guess it needed to be drawn out.

Taylor Lautner

So fast forward to today, or more correctly, the past few months. In case you don't know, the Twilight movie came out last year and this November, its sequel, New Moon, is being released. The first movie was kinda a cinematic mess but this one promises to be better due to a bigger budget but also because it will see the increased role of a certain Mr. Taylor Lautner. He will be playing werewolf Jacob Black in the movie and can I say, may we have a round of applause for washboard abs?

My god is he cute/hot whatever! Now, technically, the reader/viewer is supposed to almost hate Jacob Black in some way for trying to steal Bella from her boyfriend Edward when he leaves for Italy because of special reasons, but comon, what do you think is going to happen once people get an eyeful of him? No offence to Robert Pattinson who plays supposedly hyper dreamy vamp Edward, but there is no competition here. I don't understand why girls even find him attractive, to me, he's too pasty, his hair is an absolute mess at all times, he has pine cones for eyebrows and to me at least, he isn't particularly good looking. So, even if New Moon turns out to be even more of a mess than Twilight movie-wise, I won't mind this winter as long as Taylor gets plenty of screen time (preferably shirtless) and the cars are good. About the cars, apparently Edward who drove a hatchback Volvo C30 in Twilight, has switched to a a Volvo XC60, which is an SUV. This is despite the fact he didn't change cars one bit in all the novels. Bleh, petty details in the end.
Robert Pattinson

This is becoming a long post so I will stop here. I hope everyone enjoys their weekend. Also, I do recommend reading the first book, Twilight, by Stephanie Meyer if you haven't yet. I promise you won't think it's boring or too girly, it's a book for Pete's sake and gender-labels should be avoided in all situations anyway. Head off to your local library or ask your friends to borrow their copy, it's worth it.

All the best,

JP

I Want Your Revenge

I'm going to apologize ahead of time for not posting much this week, school work is in great abundance. Luckily, I've found a break so I'll share some of my recent music finds/obsessions. :D


Cobra Starship - Good Girls Go Bad


3oh!3 ft Katy Perry - Starstrukk


Lady Gaga - Bad Romance (brand new video and my god, it is the most intense/strange thing ever!)

While all of them aren't particularly obscure or new for that matter, they are all addicting, for me at least, lol.


All the best,

JP

20!

Wow, I reached 20 followers! this deserves some sort of celebration lol. Well, all I can say is that I never could have believed that I would actually reach this point and that all of you guys are absolutely amazing (Love Y'all!!!). I would like to make a shout out to my newest follower Cooper and his blog "Cooper's Corner". He seems like a really nice guy and you all should go check out his blog.

Did I mention how productive today was? I waxed three cars, finished a good chunk of my English homework, started my Georgetown application and I am going to try and finish most of my history reading in about 20 minutes. And all of this isn't even due until Wednesday! Something must be wrong with me lol.

Okay, well, I'm off to go celebrate with a slice of pumpkin roll cake, y'all really are amazing :D

All the best,

JP

A Reintroduction

I've realized that since I first created a blog back in May, I've gained 19 followers, come out to so many more people and have evolved as person. One of my first posts was an introduction to me as a person of sorts and I feel that it's worth it to do one again.

Let me begin,

Hi everyone, my name (well nickname) is JP and I am 17 years old, I was born in Washington DC back in 1992 and lived there for the first 4 or so years of my life. I am an only child. When I was almost 5, my family moved out of Washington DC and into the suburbs surrounding the area. I am currently a senior in high school trying to simply do my best and work my hardest in order to pave the best road towards the future that I possibly can. At school, my favorite subject has traditionally been math but recently it has also delved deeper into history. I plan to go onto college and study business management or something in the business field but nothing is set in stone at the moment. My dream school would be UPenn's Wharton School but that would be a lifetime achievement if I ever get in.

I am not the most athletic individual in the world but I am a rower on my school's crew team. I started during my junior year after much prodding by my friends and have loved it ever since, I will be rowing for the second year in a row this year. Some of my other passions and hobbies include cooking and cars. Cooking has long had it's roots in how it provided me an escape from the busy world. The precision, preparation and feeling of fulfillment when you see a pile of ingredients end up as a finished dish has always been something I enjoyed. Cars have been a key part of my life for quite some time as well.

As a person, I believe that I am a generally quiet individual, especially to people I don't know, but this can rapidly change if I'm with a bunch of close friends. In order for someone to become one of my close friends, they must first gain my trust which is easier said than done. It's not that I'm suspicious but I will only trust people with things such as my deepest secrets only if they have earned it. I do have a sharp sense of humour and love to laugh and have a good time with friends. So, what about relationships? Well, I've never had a boyfriend despite wanting on for quite some time (did I never mention that I was gay? whoops, silly me). This is mostly my fault as I'm not exactly all the way out at my school. For the longest time I tried to fight my homosexuality but a few years I ago, I realized that it was never something that could, or would change and that I needed to love myself for the person I was. Since then, I have come out to over a dozen people and my mom.

I look for many things in a guy but some key things he must possess include a friendly demeanor, a sense of humour, a sharp mind and a willingness to nerd-out from time to time. I also tend to like guys who are slightly taller than me (Though that's hardly a requirement, I'm 5'9.5") and I've had a trend for falling for runners. I currently do like someone but I have a strong feeling that it is mostly one sided *sigh*.

Once again, my name is JP and welcome to my blog. I hope to get to know you that much better and hope you will enjoy reading my scribblings and thoughts about this very complex world around us.

All the best,

JP


P.S. - my favorite colours are blue and silver, just in case you were wondering lol

So That's How You Do It....

Okay, I admit that some people will get the wrong idea from the title but whatever. Thanks to the amazing discovery by Ethan (thanks mate) I finally figured out why while people are subscribed to this blog, they haven't been receiving updates. I seems that while they are still on the subscribers list, updates do not follow. So, I guess in order to receive updates, you have to re-subscribe to my blog. I know if this can be rather annoying and if you don't care too much about my bablings you don't have to go through with it, but if you would like to receive updates, I guess that is what you will have to do. Sorry for the inconvenience :/

All the best,

JP

Election Day

Tomorrow is election day for the Virginia Gubernatorial election, and for Government extra credit, I will be volunteering as an election page from 5AM to 1PM. Now, the one thing I don't really like about state-elections is how little people actually care about it compared to national elections. Sure, electing the president is a major thing, but people seem to forget that the gubernatorial, local delegate, attorney general, etc. elections in everyone's own state often will have a much greater impact on their lives than the president ever will. The president doesn't decide whether road X or motorway Y will get repaved, or schools in region X, Y, and Z will be refurbished, no, this falls into the hands of local legislature. So while presidential elections receive much more press attention, it is the forgotten election which really matters. It's a shame then that so few people end up voting in their local elections, this is really where it counts and since turnout is lower, your voice and vote matter that much more as a result.

I encourage everyone of voting age wherever you live to vote whenever you can, whether it be for a national executive office or local elections, your vote and voice really do matter and should be heard.

Well, there's my two cents on election day and voting, I really should be heading off to bed so I won't be too zombie-ish when I get up at 3:45 tomorrow morning. lol

All the best,

JP

This is Halloween, Everybody Make a Scene...

Four day weekends really make my life :D. Anyways, I hope everyone had a terrifyingly fun Halloween, probably one of my favorite holidays. On Friday I dressed up as a pirate complete with eye patch to school, being one of the few non-theater kids to dress up, I felt exceptionally nerdy that day :P. Friday turned out to be quite an excellent day for me, I pulled off an A in AP Government and Comparative and got my English grade up form a B- to an A just as the quarter ended (yay extra credit). Our finance class reached a new low for unproductiveness, what was supposed to be a letter of application/resumé review day with the teacher ended up being a scavenger hunt online for discontinued flavours of ice cream in the Ben and Jerry's Online Flavour Graveyard lol. That evening I carved out my first two pumpkins in over 5 years, I think they turned out pretty well, one regular Jack and one of a tomb stone, I'll post pictures later.

Saturday - Happy Halloween! Most of the day was spent anxiously waiting for darkness to roll in so I could set up outside. Most people would be indifferent or even loathe having to hand out candy but I honestly think it's quite fun. The setup this year included a ginat cauldron of candy, glowsticks, seven candle lit decorations and various other things, o, and screaming floor mat and my trusty ipod playing "This is Halloween" from the Nightmare Before Christmas. For what started out as a drizzly night, turnout was impressive. Some costumes included a kid dressed up as a fork, a John Deere Tractor, a drag queen, bacon and a clan of pirates. There was also this pretty cute guy who was about my age who simply wore a cape but I gave him an extra few pieces of candy lol. My general rule was everyone gets at least two pieces, but bonus pieces were given for costume creativity or how elaborate it was.

Sunday - Shopping! Yeah, I love to shop, clothes in particular and I ended up buying two pairs of jeans. While at the mall, Madonna's "Hung Up" started playing and I sang along the whole time, by the end, I felt really gay. Afterwards, we (my parents and I) went car shopping. Since Crew practice is starting very soon, my dad needs to go buy another car so we have have a massive intra-family car shift. My mom will get the SUV while I get my mom's current car, which is a 2006 VW Passat, my dad gets the new car plus the secondary hatchback we use mostly to transport out dog and stuff from the hardware store. We were considering the Lexus LS460 but with things the way they are economically now, we think we will end up getting an ES350 which was our 2nd choice to begin with. We went to look at the new Ford Taurus (big on the outside, small feeling and too chunky on the inside) and new Buick LaCrosse (nice, but the rear seat is too low and the Buick label just screams "Retiree"). I really want my own car, namely a Volvo C30, but I'm perfectly happy with the Passat. The final car in the ring is the new Mercedes E-Class but it's also expensive and Mercedes has been kinda weird lately with their interiors and suspension setups and recent reviews haven't been the most favorable either. Hopefully I will finally be abel to have my own car that I can drive to school, something that I have been waiting for for over 3 years.

Tomorrow will be dedicated to some homework but we're having lunch with one my mom's friends who recently renovated their home and invited us over for lunch. On Tuesday I'll have to get up at 3:45 AM (>.<) because I'm volunteering with the county on election day. Virginia is electing it's new governor and I'll be helping out at one of the polling stations from 5AM-1PM, it's should be a fun, yet tiring experience.

I hope everyone had a great weekend and Halloween and I hope everyone will have a pleasant week.

All the best,

JP

O, P.S. to all my Mexican friends and readers - Happy Dias de los Muertos

An Explanation

Okay, well, I don't know how many people will find this as I abruptly changed the name and URL of my blog but nevertheless I should explain what's going on.

Well, yesterday someone who I did not want to find my blog stumbled upon it. When I discovered this , I decided that I must "vanish" in some way, thus I moved my blog to a new location of sorts. Now, because of how Blogger is set up, former links to my previous blog have been cut off and the old URL is now dead. Technically it says all my old subscribers have followed over but things are harder to figure out and believe than they appear so I have a feeling many old subscribers are not actually receiving updates. (maybe I'm wrong)

Apart form yesterday's little debacle, life has been pretty good. I got my Math Level 2 SAT II subject test score today. For those who don't know how the SAT system works, multiple choice tests are based on a 800 point scale with the highest being 800 and the lowest possible score being 200. I took the Math Level 2 test back at the beginning of October and I thought it was somewhat difficult and my hope was to score at least a 720 or 730, something at least close to my initial SAT Math score. SO, lo and behold I literally danced around my house when I found out I got a 750. I was happy not only because I beat my goal score, but also this means I am done with standardized exams!

Again, I apologize for the sudden disappearance form my old blog and the sudden move to this location but it was needed in order to protect my own thoughts from those who I would rather not read my ramblings. But to end on a lighter note, Halloween is coming up and tomorrow I'm going to school dressed as a Pirate so I need to go prep my costume now.

Have a Terrifyingly Fantastic Halloween

All the best,

JP

F*ck!!!!!

problem, major problem. initial plans to study for two tests tomorrow have just been completely killed and blown out of the water. fuck fuck fuck!

Okay, someone who will not be identified has found my blog, so I changed the URL and title but things have gotten really messy right now. I'm considering deleting this blog but I'm hesitant to at the same time. I have no idea what to do now.

Homecoming Part Deux and BFs

I promised I would go into greater detail as to what went on during homecoming so here I go- As I said dinner was good, ableit service being rather on the lethargic side and we arrived at the school around 9:30. For the majority of the dance I was with my crew group and for the most part the music wasn't that good (what's new?) but occasionally a few danceable songs were thrown in. It seemed this year turnout was smaller than in previous years but one thing that was the same was the heat and humidity. Our homecoming is held in the school gym and needless to say an over 40 year old air conditioning and ventilation system is not going to cope well with the amount of heat and sweat of a gym full of moving teenagers. Also, let me just say, what the hell happened to actual dancing at a dance? The majority of the people were in grind trains or were packed so close together you could count how many eyelashes someone has (wtf was that analogy?)Later on in the night people started to leave so things quieted down a bit, the final two songs were Mr. Brightside by The Killers (totally my 8th grade jam) and Don't Stop Belivin' by Journey, a rather strange ending slow dance in my opinion. But overall, this was a pretty cool homecoming, the only thing which could have made it better would have been if I had a date but I'll discuss that later.

Now that I've come out to someone in my family, I'm making an attempt to come out all the way at school. Apart from the dozen or so who already know, I don't think if it has gotten out yet eventhough I've told everyone that I don't really care if people know anymore. While finally almost coming out at school feels great, one thing that I really want/is bothering me is my lack of a boyfriend. As most of you know of my love for someone named Matt, I'm trying to get across to myself that I'm 92% sure he's straight and that this will get nowhere and that I'm wasting my time. Needless to say this is proving to be rather difficult (I've liked him for almost two years now >.<) so maybe I should take things one step at a time and get over him before I make any new moves no matter how long it will take.

The problem is that at my school it's particularly difficult to find any other gay or bi guys mostly because the ones that are out are not who I'm looking for and all the others are either in the closet or I just don't know they exist. My bit of applied statistics in a previous post worked out about 7 or 8 gay/bi guys in my senior class, I forgot whether if I included myself in that or not. Even so, I only know of three gay/bi guys in my class which leaves over half either a mystery to me or are in the closet, all statistically of course. So I'm stuck, really, none of the guys that are out appeal to me and all the others can't be found. I know that maybe I should open up my mind and look at those who I know are out, but even with that things still don't' work.

So, have any advice? Things aren't really in my control but I really want to be in some relationship before high school ends, don't want to sound needy or anything, it's just the truth.

All the best,

JP