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