Christmas Blowout 2005

I'm not referring to some kind of sale. We're talking about fighting with family. At least we got the drama out of the way early this year...

So I came home this past Sunday to San Antonio to make my yearly appearance and suffer the great celebration called Christmas. I hate Christmas. It's the one time of the year that I seem to voluntarily subject myself to a situation that I KNOW will prove to be stressful, problematic in almost every possible way, emotionally scarring, and full of anger and fighting... not to mention rampant with awkward situations.

Well this year there was no different, minus the fact that we wasted no time getting right to it. In fact, my dad and I got in an argument over the phone the night before I came home. And since he was the one picking me up at the airport, the ride home was obviously an awkward one. I sat silently, unknowing what to say to the person I had exchanged words with the night before, while he bitched about the new airport construction.

We got home, I put my stuff upstairs, yadda yadda yadda, we went to run a few errands. Then I brought up the unmentionable subject and the shit hit the fan. We fought, we yelled... to an extent that I don't think we have before because we actually touched on issues instead of just aimless fighting and yelling. Hours later, we hugged with tears in our eyes... we had reached an understanding.

Things weren't perfect, nor were they going to be. But we made a step in the right direction, especially for us. So that's good. Then I went over to my mom's house the next evening. We had our chat that lasted a couple hours... and also reached an understanding between us. So... this has actually been the most successful Christmas in terms of family drama. I got it all out of the way within the first two days of being home, and it was productive.

Maybe this Christmas will be different. Maybe 2006 will be different. Things will certainly never be simple and perfect with my family, but that's nothing new. What is new, is that I'm finally beginning to connect and form an understanding with my parents that I haven't had for a very, very long time. Well... it's about damn time.

Current Status:
Mood: Hopeful
Food: Nothing! It's like 3AM...
Song: "Paradise" -Hitomi

Videos Galore

In the spirit of being awful students, Stefanie and I didn't study and instead took videos of ourselves doing stupid things.

I don't have a lot to say about these videos, except it was probably a lot funnier to us than it will be for you. Oh and also near the end of our rambunctiousness (actually at THE end of it... because this event made it end) a girl who lives below us came upstairs and asked us to be quiet because her father had an appointment early in the morning for his cancer and really needed rest that night. Not only did we feel like horrible students... we felt like horrible people. Hooray.

Video #1 - From a while ago... I made Stefanie redo a dance she had just done so I could record it

Video #2 - I don't know what the hell this is.

Video #3 - Me bouncing off a "cliff"

Video #4 - Stefanie, being shot, falls off the bed

Video #5 - This time I'm shot, and I fall off the bed

Current Status:
Mood: Stressed - two finals tomorrow
Food: Nothing
Song: "Clark Gable" -The Postal Service

Laundry Room Wars

In addition to the list of reasons why Sunday is the worst day of the week... it's the day EVERYONE else in our apartment complex decides to do their laundry as well.

I think one of the most annoying things about living here (there aren't that many) is the fact that we're surrounded by Korean people. Now, this is not to suggest I'm racist in any way, or have some underlying hatred for Koreans. No, it's annoying because most of the older ones don't speak English well if at all, and can't fucking understand what my roommate or I say.

This comes in particularly handy when we're battling in the laundry room for machines, and Stefanie is clearly standing at a washing machine waiting for a girl to move her clean clothes from it so she can use the machine, and a Korean woman comes up to us once it's empty and asks us if we're using that machine. To this question we clearly respond YES, at which point the Korean woman puts laundry detergent into the machine before Stefanie and I have a chance to react to her heinous act.

Needless to say, we were not pleased. We did get one load (out of the twenty million we need to do) into a machine... so hooray. But we've decided to Hell with the Korean war for washing machines... we're going to a laundromat. Don't you love laundry day? I really wish we had a washer and dryer in our apartment... even if it was one of those smaller, stacked ones. Because then we could do laundry any time and at our convenience, and more frequently, so our loads would be smaller anyway.

I can't remember what I was going to say. So I guess that's the end of THIS entry.

Current Status:
#internal service error. status not avaiable (%&3875) Please check Justin's pulse, and try again later. Error #52.

Kill Sharon

I think this is a story everyone can appreciate! Maybe I'll make a movie about it.

So Stefanie and I have this white eraser board up on our refrigerator in the kitchen... most of you know what these are - little message boards, you know. Anyway, we've drifted slightly from its original purpose: to write down the things we need such as groceries or reminders like PAY RENT, etc. Well, after changing the title from "Things we need" to "Things we desire", we began listing things like "$1,000,000.42" and "power" and "IV". Yes that's right, roman numeral five - we desire it, apparently.

Well there's one item I thought I'd share with you all because it amuses me to no end. NO END. To give you a little background... we pay our rent to the company that manages our building, and the accountant who handles the rent is named Leon. So, after we mailed our rent in the first time I asked the secretary who we should call to make sure it was received so we're not penalized. She naturally pointed us to Leon.

So we wrote down on the board: "Call Leon". Quite simple. Fairly basic and clear. And apparently effective because we later.... called Leon! And our rent check was received. Then I was compelled to make two lines through the word "Call" and write "Kill" out to the side... thus creating the phrase "Kill Call Leon". And it made us laugh every time we walked into our kitchen because it looked like we had been trying to get a hold of Leon for so long and couldn't that we just decided to kill him instead. Or maybe we did call him and he said something that really pissed us off, so we decided to take him out.

So, "Kill Call Leon" has been on the board for the past three months until yesterday, when Stefanie finally erased it. The board was getting cluttered with silly messages which I won't bore you with here... but needless to say they were all quite amusing. So when Stefanie refreshed the board and wrote things that were relevant on there, she also wrote "Kill Call Bill". I laughed when I saw it, enjoying the fact that she was keeping the dream alive.

Later, a horrifying thought occurred to me: someone already killed Bill. What the hell!? So I promptly went into the kitchen and changed it to what it says RIGHT NOW: "Kill Call Bill Sharon". I'm not really sure who Sharon is... or even why she deserves to die. But Sharon, we're coming. That is all.

Current Status:
Mood: Invigorated!
Food: Peanut Butter Granola Bar... mmm yum
Song: "Rapture" -Iio... an oldie but a goodie

Hooray for Being Sick!

So I had one of those infamous 24 hour bugs... but it was really more like 36 hours.

I woke up in the middle of the night two nights ago with a fever, major headache, and nausea. Not fun. Especially when it turned into a restless night of tossing and turning, despite being doped up on Tylenol. What makes the whole situation even better is I had a 12-page paper due today! Woohoo!! Oh God was I excited. I ended up emailing my TA last night and asking him if I could have even a 24 hour extension since I knew I wouldn't be able to concentrate on anything while I was feeling the way I was.

Well, I never heard back from him, so I finally was able to go to sleep around midnight last night and woke up with a headache at 5:30 to find no email response from my TA. So, I began the daunting task of finishing my 12-page paper before class at noon. Needless to say my morning was fantastic. Luckily I was feeling better today, so it wasn't the absolute misery it would've been had the paper been due the previous day.

Anywho, I arrived in class and talked to my TA who said it was fine if I turn the paper in tomorrow. THANK GOD. And while I'm mildly annoyed that I was up all morning with a headache working on this paper... now I have it out of the way and can use my extension to polish it. All's well that ends well, I suppose. Does that even apply here? I don't know.

On a completely unrelated note, I think it would be really funny if you did something really small and/or insignificant around a stranger, then vehemently claimed to have saved their life. You know like, you open a door that someone was walking toward and scream "I JUST SAVED YOUR LIFE!" to them as the walk through.

So this is my homework for you, children. I want you to randomly claim that you've saved someone's life. Just do something small then announce that you've saved their life, and move on. Don't harp on it or you'll ruin the whole thing. Make your announcement, then get the Hell out of there. Then send me an email and tell me what happened because I want to know. That is all.

Current Status:
Mood: Pleased.
Food: HA! Don't make me laugh! The thought of food is nauseating to me right now.
Song: "Telepathy" -Katase Nana