A Burial

A Burial
Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Today I had a burial of my dead.
There was no shroud, no coffin, and no pall,
No prayers were uttered and no tears were shed
I only turned a picture to the wall.

A picture that had hung within my room
For years and years; a relic of my youth.
It kept the rose of love in constant bloom
To see those eyes of earnestness and truth.

At hours wherein no other dared intrude,
I had drawn comfort from its smiling grace.
Silent companion of my solitude,
My soul held sweet communion with that face.

I lived again the dream so bright, so brief,
Though wakened as we all are by some Fate;
This picture gave me infinite relief,
And did not leave me wholly desolate.

To-day I saw an item, quite by chance,
That robbed me of my pitiful poor dole:
A marriage notice fell beneath my glance,
And I became a lonely widowed soul.

With drooping eyes, and cheeks a burning flame,
I turned the picture to the blank wall's gloom.
My very heart had died in me of shame,
If I had left it smiling in my room.

Another woman's husband. So, my friend,
My comfort, my sole relic of the past,
I bury thee, and, lonely, seek the end.
Swift age has swept my youth from me at last.

I first read this poem a couple of years ago, and to this very day, it is probably my favorite poems of all time. No, I'm not going all morbid on you guys, but I really enjoy reading it. It's about heartbreak and realizing that another phase of life has come to an end, and while I cannot fully identify with it, I'm sure many can.

On a different note, yesterday was the joint 18th birthday party for two of my friends, and while I'll go into greater detail later, it involves a hot waiter, Guidoness, extraordinarily amounts of gayness, gravity-defying hair, and possibly making the one straight guy there feel kinda awkward. I'll let your imaginations run wild for now.

O, and it's snowing again, yay! ^_^

Enjoy your weekend,

JP

Recurring Dreams

Hallelujah the semester is over!! I pushed hard until the very end and I think my work paid off. To my knowledge, I think I pulled off straight A's this quarter which bodes well for my midyear report for colleges, and while I can't technically slack off, I can finally shift up a gear. (for those not car-focused, it means I can finally slow down and worry less about school) And to top off this grand event, I get a four day weekend to cool off and tomorrow is a Jersey Shore themed 18th birthday party for two of my friends. Time to show my inner guido >:D

On a more serious note, (not really) I've been noticing some interesting trends in my nightly dreams. For the past handful of years, I've noticed that many of my dreams have taken place in the exact same location. It's some strange shopping complex, mostly indoors but with some portions outdoors with seemingly no doors or walls dividing the two. There are always people and they all seem cheerful and are all talking but never anyone I know. The place is two stories but there are no stairs or escalators and there is plenty of sunlight coming through what seem to be skylights. Like in many of my dreams, I am always running and I feel like I'm searching for something, I don't know what I'm looking for but I have that feeling. I do not feel tired despite seemingly running forever, and despite there not being any means to travel between floors, I somehow still manage to go between the upper and lower levels. Occasionally I will end up outside but never longer than what would seem to be about 30 seconds. It's quite lush outside, almost greenhouse like but without the glass greenhouse part. There is no particular spot when I wake up, but most of the time when everything goes bright my dream ends.

If you have any knowledge about dream interpretation try and enlighten me, or even if you don't what is your interpretation of this recurring dream of mine?

All the best,

JP

not this again...

Why am I feeling so down? I have no good reason to be feeling the way I do. In fact, I should be happy that the semester is almost over, but I'm not.

Instead, I just want to curl up in bed and cry myself to sleep. (wouldn't be the first time either)

I hate it when I get all moody and caught up on trivial things, all it does is make me feel sad and hopeless.

I hate feeling weak

"We're just fooling around"

I'm alive! Hell week #1 is over! This week was busy as hell and I got my first decent nights sleep all week last night. I also set a new record for myself for going to bed on a school night this week...4:50AM. My sleep cycle is so messed up, I know.

Okay, now that it's the weekend, I can finally talk about something which has perplexed me all week. Matt, the guy I've liked for about two years now, is on the school's cross country team, and like any team, the members traditionally become really close and really good friends. So, on the way back from lunch this week, I was walking with him and and one of my other friends (a girl), and we were talking about last night's French homework when Matt sees one of the guys on the XC team 4 steps ahead of us. Me and my other friend were just talking to ourselves when we notice him break away for a sec and he walks up behind this guy and straight up grabs his ass, and from what both me and my friend saw, it was a full out two handed grab, not some light joking thing. So me and my friend just looked at each other wide eyed and confused, and when Matt rejoined our group, the conversation went something like this-

-Me and my friend: What the heck was that?

-Matt: Oh, it's just a guy I know on the team

-Me: Did you just grab that guy's ass?

-Matt: We're just fooling around

-Friend: Just fooling around...

-Me: Is this some tradition between you track guys?

-Matt: It's how we just say "Hi" and stuff

-Me: Okay, Matt, I'm on crew and I know people on many teams, I have yet to know of a team where they say "hi" that way

-Matt: Well, when you spend every afternoon with guys wearing almost nothing apart from short shorts things like this happen

French was slightly awkward afterwards (I sit right next to him) and the next day at journalism he told me he kinda felt bad for "greeting" his friend the way he did because unbeknownst to him, that particular friend was in a rather foul mood that day and had a little blow-up during practice. The reason was unrelated to the incident though.

I'll never understand runners.

All the best,

JP


P.S. - to everyone taking/took the SAT today, good luck, stay calm, and I'm sure you'll do great.

C'est Moi

C'est tres possible que ce poste va etre le dernier pour la plupart de cette semaine. Désolé.

Avez une bonne semaine

JP

Please Hold.

Been exceptionally busy lately, especially considering that we're entering the final week and a half of the semester. Teachers are trying to cram in last minute tests, assignments, midterms and the like. I only have to tough out these last few days.

Ready. Set. Go!

How To: Avoid Speaking to Strangers

You know how it often happens, you're in some public location and someone approaches you with that unmissable glint in the corner of their eye. They're on a mission, and that mission involves you. Their mission can vary widely, maybe they're trying to sell you something, ask you survey questions, force religious beliefs on you, or just for the sake of being creepy. Well, after a lengthy conversation with my Friends today, we've come up with a guide to avoid and ultimately halt a situation where a simple "no" just simply isn't enough.

The Foreigner - This can apply to anyone in reality but this tends to work especially well if you you can pull off being a foreigner or tourist wherever you are. Most effective in cities or touristy areas, if someone approaches you, likely with the intent to sell you another resin model of some famous building, prepare yourself. If you can pull it off, pretend not to speak whatever language they talk to you with, likely English (as all tourists are from America obviously), put on the heaviest accent you can authentically muster and say some gibberish while walking, fast. If accents aren't your thing, just respond in a foreign language. Asian languages tend to have the advantage here as there are relatively few speakers of Japanese, Korean or Chinese outside of those respective countries, but anything that's not the native tongue or English (sorry, it's too widely understood) will work. The best combo tends to be when a non-Asian can speak an Asian language, guaranteed freak out.

Headphones - Ear buds work just fine as well. People assume you're not paying attention when you have anything with wires coming out of your ears. They don't even have to be connected to anything really, just having them in your ears works 90% of the time. This is also very useful when you want to listen in on conversations and have people think you're just listening to the latest Britney song or whatever. I've had many experiences with hearing some very odd conversations by doing this -not intentionally of course, but while I was changing songs :P-

Technology is Your Friend - fake a call, pretend to text, actually text or just look preoccupied. sure it may look staged, but whoever is trying to get you you will at least think twice about wasting their breath on trying to make any contact with you. Just avoid eye contact.

Friendly travel and everyday advice from the demented minds of JP and his friends.


All the best,

JP

Oh, P.S., I can't decide if I love or hate this song. I have a feeling that the more I listen to it the better it gets, but I also keep feeling it has next to no (musical) value :/


Kesha - Blah Blah Blah

A penny for your thoughts?

Dark Times

Needless to say things in the world have taken a downturn in recent times. The recent earthquake in Haiti has claimed thousands of lives and has left thousands more hurt. In a relatively isolated nation such as Haiti, the impact of disasters like the recent earthquake are magnified many times over. Major means of communication are currently not in operation and aid is barely trickling in as ports and airports have been rendered inoperable or have had their service abilities severely restricted. Tonight, I am personally praying for all those affected by the earthquake and I hope that you will too.

Also, and I can't believe I say do this earlier, I'm praying for Tyler who was recently involved in an accident which has left him hospitalized. My prayers go out to him and his family and I wish him a full and speedy recovery.

JP

Blame it on the Budget Cuts

Why does it seem that as each school year passes, the teachers get worse at teaching or just crankier in general? Maybe I've just become more aware of my surroundings and generally have more opinions about my world than before, but I have yet to remember a year as frustrating as this.

My Physics teacher is a cranky, condescending old man who isn't terribly helpful for the most part and constantly thinks none of us appreciate him, both my Government and Calculus teachers are terribly unorganized and always complain about being rushed, while my Finance teacher lacks general teaching ability in general, and as a result, our class is lagging far, far behind all the others. I blame it on the budget cuts.

I can't wait until this semester is over; once grades are submitted, my high school career is essentially finished.

Only three weeks to go. Three long, long weeks.

All the best,

JP

Oh, also, I talked to Dzyan for the the first time on Saturday over MSN, he's such a nice, sweet person to talk to! (even if he was terribly sleepy)

Alright, bye.

How Sweet It Is!

You know a day will be interesting when you wake up waving your arms violently in the air and not knowing why. And thus my Saturday began.

First, thanks to all you guys who wished me well in my previous posts, it really helped me get through that little rough patch, and second, I'm feeling much better.

It was a rough and tumble week for the most part, surprise assignments, snow and ice (which made me almost rear end someone mind you), unreasonable tests and such, but things have smoothed out. One big factor to producing and ultimately exacerbating my pain was a group government project. My government teacher is so obsessed with sticking to a time table he didn't seem to realize he was becoming unreasonable with his schedule and grossly overestimated our abilities. We got assigned this project before winter break with next to none explanation or guidelines and by this week, even some of the class's "top" students were becoming really frustrated with the assignment. I ended up having a serious (albeit funny) 30 minute venting session with one of my friends on Facebook. Even my English teacher was (Secretly)starting to get pissed at the project since she taught a joint class with my gov teacher. Anyways, my group met up at the library at 11 this morning and we worked our asses off all day (apart from a 20 minute lunch run) until finally finishing at 7:30 this evening. Painful? Yes. Rewarding? Probably not in the end. Relieving since we finally got it done and over with? Like you wouldn't imagine. We pity the fools who decided to put this off until tomorrow.

The only other interesting thing that happened today was that I got an email about scheduling my UPenn interview this afternoon...and I thought interviews were done >.> I still need to decide on a day but it has to be in the next two weeks. ugh.

To end on a useful note, I finally got an MSN account. You can find me at...

rangerover512@gmail.com

If you'd like you can email me on that as well, but I must warn you, I don't check it all that often.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend,

JP

Abuelita

Ever tried something and then immediately got hooked on it? Well, this past Christmas my friend got me a box of "Abuelita" ("Grandmother" in Spanish?) Mexican style hot chocolate and oh my god it's good. I've never been a big hot chocolate drinker but this stuff is addicting. It tastes like regular hot chocolate but with spices in it (Cinnamon, vanilla, a little nutmeg?) and it feels like liquid silk in your mouth.

I'm not sure if you can find it at your everyday grocery store (maybe in the international section?) but go try it if you can find it.

Anyways, hope you guys have had a good week thus far, only two days till Friday!

JP

Two Bisexuals!?

So things are still kinda (lie: extremely) stressful here in the Nation's Capital but there is some exciting news. I don't know if you guys have heard of a show called "The Real World", but it's in it's 20 something-ith season and the new series takes place right here in Washington D.C.! The premise of the Real World is that a group of strangers live together in a house (a variety of different people, personality wise, upbringing etc) and cameras are there to catch whatever unfolds, whether it be fun, romance, or straight up battles. So the only reason I actually even knew about this was because my journalism teacher lives in DC really close to the mansion the show was shot at -

Nice! and in a Gay Neighborhood no less

So he stalked the cast of the show (not as creepy as it sounds, trust me) during the summer and filled us in as to what was going on. But the main story is that the show finally premiered this past weekend! There seems to be a very broad mix of people and there are already some scandals heating up (guy wanting get laid on the first night, guy with a girlfriend interested in another cast member) as what comes with a TV drama the show sorta is. But one main thing that piqued by interest is that there isn't that one "token gay guy", but rather there are two bisexuals in the RW cast. One is a girl who "just became Bi" (never understood this, you can't just become Bi out of the blue) and the other is a guy from Colorado who has openly lived as a bisexual though it had caused conflict back at home. His name is Mike and to be honest, he's pretty hot.

According to the producers, during his time in the Real World Home, he comes to unexpectedly become a LGBT rights activist eventhough he orginally came to become an environmentalist.

A quick camera-ed blogger for a local blog called metromix even caught a few pictures when the cast went out to a gay bar called Colbalt this past summer, and guess who was caught getting close with another dude?

I might actually watch this show. Heck I've only barely heard of this show before this summer but there seems to be two reasons I'm going to watch, 1. it takes place in the area, and 2. I wanna see what happens with Mike and the other cast members (previews show a fist fight, :P). The main reason will be because it was in D.C., I promise ;D

All the best,

JP

F*CK. YOU.

I'll apologize ahead of time, times are kinda rough at the moment, relationships are strained and tension is unusually high. Life, like the economic cycle, is taking a quick downturn but hopefully will get better soon enough. *sigh*

Now, I need to get a few things off my chest.

-To all you people who abandoned me in my time of need, even though I've been there for you every time you called - Fuck You

-To everyone who talked badly of me behind my back - Fuck You

-To all you fakes who pretend to be my friend or show sympathy when you are obviously enjoying my suffering - Fuck You

-To everyone who used me so you can cheat in life and get ahead - FUCK YOU

Sometimes you need to vent and this is one of those times. I don't want to get you guys all wound up in my personal affairs (unless you really want to for some reason lol) but things aren't the greatest, surely not the best way to end winter break.

Hopefully things are better wherever you are at the moment and I hope you will have a nice week.

JP

Lost in Translation

Coming to a restaurant near you, it's the ever popular "Cumming Lamb".

Yes, I'm immature, whatever. Anyways, I found this at the buffet I ate dinner at this evening and I just had to take a photo.

For the record, it's supposed to be "Cumin Lamb", as in the spice.

JP