20 Years

Hooray, I made it through my teens without being cast on to a reality program showing up messed up I am! :D

 

Yup, I'm finally 20. It's not a particularly exciting birthday but what makes this day special is that this will be the first birthday that I've ever spent away from home. I do have my host family though and they are taking me out to dinner later and then we are going to Tivoli which is an amusement park in the middle of Copenhagen. I brought my camera since I've been told it looks amazing at night so expect some cool photos of that and from the football game I went to this weekend. The Danish national team ended up in a tie with the Czech team 0-0 in what was a pretty slow. defence oriented game. One of their best players, Nicklas Bendtner, was suspended for a game because of a stunt during the EuroCup when he flashed his non-authorized underwear.

I don't mind

The crowd was awesome though and I think I finally at least sorta understand why people enjoy watching football games; it can actually get pretty exciting at times.

Anyways, 20, it's pretty cool if I may say so myself. I'm definitely looking forward to many birthdays to come :)

All the best,

JP

I'm Legal!

I'm officially 18! Another year older, don't feel much wiser, don't feel too different in general, but I can now legally buy a lottery ticket amoung other things :D

I have dinner with my parents and then a night on the town with friends. A great way to end a nice week of hard work.

Have a nice weekend :)

JP

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

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

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

Judeo-Vietnamese Birthday-Wedding?

Just got home and completely exhausted form what was probably one of the best nights ever despite having to take the Math Level 2 SAT Subject Test this morning. So how this worked out was that one of my friends, who I almost never get to see, had her 18th birthday today, but, as it turned out today was also the day of her sister's wedding. So, what happened was my friend's sister asked if she would share her special day by having her birthday on her wedding day, she accepted of course so the overall excitment and energy doubled.

First I went to the ceremony which was at a local Hilton, that lasted about 45 minutes and then we headed off to a Chinese restaurant for the reception. It all started out pretty normal, I met some of my friends cousins and her childhood friends and they were all very nice. After, though, things got a little more interesting. After a glass or two of champagne the dancing part began, and yes, it involved the hora. Let me just say, some of the Vietnamese songs they placed seemed pretty normal, some older couples dancing happily, until at least I began to actually listen to the lyrics. One of the songs went pretty much something like "kiss me baby, just kiss me, hold me baby just hold me, even if I pop my top keep lovin me baby" all in a condom-commercial voice; now, maybe that's just my sexually charged teenage brain acting up but that made me go wide eyed for some time. Anyways, the evening was tons of fun, plenty of classic rock and 70s-90s songs were played and I danced more than I normally ever would. Afterwards my friend began to open some of the gifts, she got a necklace, books and such from others. From me, she got a mish mosh surpise gift containing a Borders gift card, a colouring book, crayons, monogrammed post-its, a 3-D dinosaur puzzle, a 15 pack of glow sticks, some Rolos and a package of Swedish fish. We ended up breaking out the glow sticks at the party and we gave a few to the little kids as well, they seemed to enjoy them which means they served their purpose well.

So what's almost nicer than a wedding/birthday? Knowing that there are still two more days off. Thank You Mr. Columbus for giving me a three day weekend!

All the best,

JP

*blushes*

Hello everyone. First, let me address the semi new template Fer kindly commented on in the last post, it isn't a "new" template per say but just a revision of the existing one. I've been trying to install a new template from the Internet for the past few weeks, all of which Blogger seems to reject like the plague :/ So, as a result I decided to just fiddle with the colour setting so it's a simple classic black on white with a header picture of a lakefront at night, soothing, no? So yeah, this will likely be the look of this blog for the unforseen future. I think it reflects who I am, simple and clean yet classy, well, that's how I hope other people see me lol.

So this past weekend was pretty eventful compared to the norm. Friday I went to my friend's 17th birthday and a movie (We saw District 9, very cool movie) and it was great to spend time with them. As a gift, one of my friends got the birthday girl a Snuggie (if you don't know what that is, look it up) which in my circle of friends is the equivalent of getting someone a pound of gold, plenty of laughs were involved. But it was something that happened at the dinner that was not birthday related which really made that day stand out. In my school, there aren't many openly out gay guys (I only know two off the top of my head), so, my friend "M" is friends with one of them, let's call him "X", I'm also friends with X on a sorta acquaintance basis, but we never really see or talk much outside of get togethers with friends and because he's a junior and I'm a senior. Well, Friday morning, apparently X pulled M aside and told her "Phil's been looking pretty good lately" which is odd because he has never once spoken of me to M or any of his friends to my knowledge. Now, X did make M swear to not tell me this, but because I have known M longer than X has, she told me what he told her. My first reaction was sorta shock and surprise but it immediately turned into an "I'm flattered" moment which is exactly what I told M. I am flattered, but anything between him and me I feel would most likley not work out. X is not my type at all, I like taller, lean runner types that have a good sense of humour and are just a touch nerdy- because intelligence is hot ;). He's a really nice guy, likes theater and is quite sociable, but not someone I would got out with or anything of that nature. Another pressing issue is whether if, and more importantly how he knows if I'm gay or not since I haven't publicly come out to everyone in school yet. Now, I know some of my friends who've I've come out to are closer friends with X so I don't know if maybe he overheard from them...hmmm. So yeah, the reason I'm making such a big deal about this is because I've never actually known about another guy expressing an interest in me. I've had a few girls do that, (once last year a girl randomly blurted out "O my god, you're so cute" when I was taking a survey of students for a club) but never a guy. So yeah, this is a new bit of unexplored territory I'm wandering into without a map to find my way, o where is the tall, hot, muscular guide to lead the way? ;D

Saturday was less eventful, it rained pretty much all day which some people hate, but I enjoy because the sound of rain relaxes me. I got up earlier than normal and I spent all morning surfing the web and being unproductive (my favorite activity) pretty much until the evening. My family is hosting/helping out a girl from China who has come here to attend dance school in Washington DC, she arrived a few weeks ago and my cousins and I decided to take her out for dinner and window shopping at a local mall. She doesn't speak much English apart from greetings and some very basic conversational phrases so I got an entire evening of speaking in my horrid preschool level Chinese, I can only imagine what kind of impression I made haha. I ended up buying a review book for the AP Calculus test which I will be taking in May and we settled at an Italian restaurant for dinner. I got Chicken Limone which is pretty much chicken piccata which was really good (lemon, white wine and capers, mmmmm) and we sat and talked as we ate. After dinner we went on home but not before having the GPS get us lost (wtf?) which did not make any sense. My cousin recently bought a BMW 3 series coupe and the GPS in the car got us lost on the way to the mall and again on the way back! If you work at BMW and are reading this, talk to whoever is in charge and get this sort of things sorted out, we ended up getting home because me and one of my other cousins knew how to get to the mall and back by memory. So yeah, that was a nice surprise ending to the evening.

This is becoming a very long post so i think I'll cut it off here. Today has been pretty uneventful, homework and studying for the most part, how riveting!

I hope y'all will have a nice week.

btw, this is Aaron Loftin, seriously, I could look at him all day.

All the best,

Phil

District 9? MLIA

Friday can't come soon enough! This was a semi rough week, getting on average 5 hours of sleep, quizzes upon quizzes and assignments so vague and confusing a graduate school student would have trouble understanding it is no fun by any standard. Hopefully tomorrow and the weekend will remedy the situation. tomorrow my friend is having a birthday party at a really nice restaurant and then we're off to go see District 9 (anyone seen this movie? any thoughts/reviews/critiques?). This weekend seems like it will be busy, I need to work on college applications, write a new essay, attend another crew car wash for service hours and possibly then go around with "S" and personally visit local businesses and try and get them to advertise with us for Newspaper. All of this on top of having the first major test in AP Government the following Tuesday (totally not ready at all). So I'm starting to love/hate senior year all at once, o well.

This week though did have some bright spots. things between me and Matt seem to be getting better, things were never bad but we never were the closest of friends. So this week we ended up spending lunch with each other pretty much every day which is odd considering he ditched his traditional group to sit at my table today. He's also become a lot more talkative in general. Also, I learned today that his apparent top choice for colleges is Georgetown University where he's applying early action (meaning it's binding if he gets in). he's also applying to UVA, William and Mary, Duke, and American U. On the subject of Georgetown, apparently it has a 6.2% LGBTQ population based on a student survey, interesting statistic in my opinion. So anyways, I'm enjoying this more social and friendly Matt, I hope this continues to develop so we can become better friends.

So I better get back to work, but I felt like I should share a little bit of fun before I go back to reading. If you haven't heard of the website MyLifeisAverage.com, you really should go check it out.; it's the funnier, more feel-good cousin to FMyLife.com and has provided me with plenty of good laughs.

"Today, I had a chemistry test I didn't study for, so I stayed home from school. When the school called to ask why I wasn't at school, I panicked and told them I was having menstrual cramps. They accepted my story without question. I'm a guy. MLIA."

Hope that made you chuckle


All the best,

Phil

Thanks Everyone

Thanks everyone for all the birthday greetings and wishes and Thank You, Ethan, for the pics, I really appreciate them!

Anyways, I need to get to bed, and tomorrow is Friday, September 11th.

Bless all the families who were impacted by such a terrible event, and may everyone take a minute out of their day and pay their respects to all those innocent people who were killed, and pray for all the families who lost a dear loved one that day 8 years ago.

Wishing you all the very the best,

-Birthday Boy

Joyeux Anniversaire

I'm finally 17!! Well, actually in more like 20 minutes or so but you get the idea. Unfortunately, today will be spent working on an essay and other assignments for my AP Government class but oh well, c'est la vie.
.

Another Year Older, Only So Much Wiser...

If you would like to send a birthday gift, a hot guy is always appreciated ;D


All the Best,

Work Printed, Bag Packed and Ready to Go

It seems like only yesterday that summer started, the saying of good-byes to the seniors, emptying out my locker, finding out my final marks for each class, yet this in reality was about two months ago, ouch. But yeah, one day left until senior year which is exciting and rather daunting at the same time, but hopefully seeing people I haven't talked to since June will cheer me up. Today was pretty boring, pretty much putting the final touches on my AP summer work, printing it all out and digging out my binders from last year, dumping out the 20 lbs. of paper that have accumulated over time, and getting all my new supplies organized and ready to go, exciting, I know.

So how would I rank this summer to other years? Well, pretty high actually, apart from the occasional drama (creepy guy asking me for money in Vegas and not being able to actually say goodbye to Ben), I had plenty of fun. I found plenty to do in Vegas from shopping and exploring the various attractions in Vegas and I got to meet some very nice people on the cruise and I even got to bond a little with my cousin who I never actually see more than twice a year. So, buying stuff I don't actually need and making new friends, sounds like a plenty productive summer for me. But probably the most memorable aspect of this summer would be how much this blog has grown - from my first subscriber Fer way back when to the current 11 (do my eyes deceive me!? Love Y'all), I really believe I have found a permanent outlet for myself to express my true personality and self which I would otherwise have to keep bottled up from 98% of people. So I guess the main thing I can say is a giant "Thank You" to everyone for making my summer truly the most memorable I've had.

I'll probably end up spending my evening reading over my summer work one more time and make last minute corrections as my OCD self kicks in, but tomorrow I plan to spend Labour Day doing what I do best - relaxing and spending way too much time on the computer. oh the joys of technology.

In anticipation of the new school year, I'm bracing myself for some high school drama once schools gets going Tuesday, it's about as inevitable as the rising sun and taxes.

Also, my 17th birthday is in 4 days and I'm so excited!! :D