insertThought

Moved.

2010-08-22T23:54:00.000-07:00

http://thanksfish.wordpress.com

Kodak.

2010-08-22T12:15:00.000-07:00

T-minus 8.

Dante.

2010-08-21T13:46:00.000-07:00

T-minus 9.

The Final Countdown.

2010-08-20T20:50:00.000-07:00

T-minus 10.

They see me rollin'...

2010-08-09T11:40:00.000-07:00

At the base of Everest.

2010-06-12T02:44:00.001-07:00

How do I start?

Imagine four years of preparation; of gruelling work, stress and sacrifice. Imagine sleepness nights and tedious prolonged mornings. Imagine procrastination and panic. Imagine self-doubt and nervous breakdowns.

Imagine a roller coaster of elation and depression; of eagerness and desperation; of adrenaline and exhaustion.

Imagine 'Imagine Day' as yesterday; as a memory, four years in the making, elapsed overnight. Imagine CSP. Imagine biochemistry. Imagine microbiology. Imagine BIOL 140 and organic chemistry. Imagine MICB 324.

Imagine UBC orientations. Imagine SUS. Imagine BOOt camp; BOO buddies. Imagine Science Week and Science Grad. Imagine Block Party. Imagine SUS Social. Imagine Frosh. Imagine convocation.

Imagine the best of times. Imagine the worst of times. Imagine weddings and funerals. Imagine comedy and tragedy.

Imagine disappointment. Imagine suffering. Imagine sickness; death; suicide. Imagine hopelessness and helplessness. Imagine frustration.

Imagine resilience. Imagine persistence and stubbornness. Imagine refusal. Imagine confidence.

Imagine support; friends; anchors. Imagine bests.

Imagine birthdays and holidays. Imagine burning software. Imagine Anton's. Imagine the Grind. Imagine 'GLLLLL'. Imagine DIP.

Imagine four years. Four unkept resolutions. Four missed birthdays. Forty eight caffiene/sugar overdoses. Forty-eight nervous breakdowns. Two hundred and eight 5AM weekend study sessions. Two hundred and eight Friday nights spent in rather than out. One thousand four hundred and sixty panic attacks. Thirty five thousand and forty greying hair follicles. Two million, one hundred and two thousand, four hundred waking moments asleep, spent adrift. Twelve million, six hundred and fourteen thousand drops of ink, tears, sweat and blood.

Imagine four years of preparing. Imagine four years of journeying. Imagine four years of toiling. Imagine four years of waiting.

Imagine this, all this, just to get to the starting point. Imagine the base of Everest. Imagine VFMP.

And imagine that after all this, there's still a mountain to climb.

Race ya' to the top.

5/18/2010 3:31:21 PM

2010-05-18T17:02:00.000-07:00

VFMP.

Happy fucking birthday to me.

68749068

2010-04-16T17:53:00.000-07:00

What's a day when it all ends up the same, and lasts forever?

So yesterday I woke up nervously early. I couldn't really sleep at all, so I was dead tired and pretty cranky. Like I always say, I'm like a toddler - I need my 10 hours of sleep. Anyways, so I dragged myself out of bed, put on a blue shirt, made sure I had everything in my bag, and went to catch the bus.

The transit system sucks in this city. A bus passed by my stop without stopping, filled to the brim with tired bodies mashed together to form a weird mosaic of my intellectual peers. A second bus passed, and then a third and a fourth, all filled to uncomfortable and unhealthy limits.

I was totally going to be late. I hate being late. I called up a parent, and got driven to school, laughing inwardly at those poor suckers still stuck at the bus stop.

So on arrival at UBC, I walked to Koerner, looking for Ohm amidst a huge crowd of blue. I got lost when I realized that Ohm was nowhere near Koerner. While all the other students got to enjoy that nice open area in front of Koerner, I was stuck meeting at that gross, dusty gravel trail in front of Hennings, developing the black lung as I breathed in the nice scent of ongoing construction at the Chemistry building nearby. Karma for getting a ride to school, I guess.

The next few hours were pretty dull. I nearly fell asleep (what's new?) at the Chan Centre, listening to those people drone on and on. The juggling dude was pretty cool though. Then came a lot of walking, with everything really going in a bit of a blur. My obsessive-compulsive side started to get into a bit of a panic about finding my way around - as all my friends will attest, I am incredibly awful at finding directions.
Then came more talks at Klinck. Unsurprisingly, almost fell asleep again.

The rest of the day went pretty fast. The crowd at War Memorial gym was pretty crazy, but I kind of got lost in the noise, and really couldn't absorb much of what went on. A bunch of people had speeches prepared. Some guy in a flamboyantly pink shirt went and made a speech. Nice.

By the time I had gotten out of there, I was dead. I needed to get home and sleep. But I also wanted to nab some free stuff before I left campus, so I walked back to Koerner and spent the next hour loading up on free giveaways. After that, I wanted to get home SO badly, but one of my best friends called and asked for me to wait for her. Being the awesomely good friend that I am, I waited another hour until she found me at the SUB, half-delirious from exhaustion. Aaaaaaannnd then we waited an hour in line for the 480 home. We really do need a new transit system.

Finally, at 5pm, I got home and passed out. Woke up this morning at 8AM.

Yesterday was my very first day at UBC.

It's weird how you can go to sleep one night, and wake up four years older. Yesterday doesn't even seem that long ago.

Funny how that happens.

Rambling rhapsody musing

2010-03-16T00:00:00.000-07:00

Winter city dreams next week. Unsure if I should be feeling excitement. Hurm.

It's a surprisingly tough decision picking between sleep or studying. Fairly certain I chose poorly this past week.

I've got the mic, you've got the mosh pit. OLP>MT. Stupid LGs.

I are the winnarz.

Even Manitobans call it Winterpeg. They should call it boringpeg. And no, that's not a typo. It's so boring, it doesn't warrant a capital letter.

Watched New Moon on the flight back from boringpeg. It made me feel dirty. Sullied and unusual.

The Circle of Life is complete. Lion King is coming to Vancouver. Friend! suggested to find and bring "a hot girl with big boobs".

Gold. Suck it.

Cloudbursting keeps me sharp.

2010-01-06T21:48:00.000-08:00

Fun tool to play with.

This is my brain at 3:50AM PDT.

2009-12-31T03:52:00.000-08:00

A holiday's greetings to a dear friend.

"Hope you had a blast where ever you went - I'm gonna pretend you went somewhere cool, like the International Space Station so then I can pester you for stories about massive space wars that you incited in a galaxy far, far away where you saved the galaxy from intergalactic bears with lasers shooting from their eyes, and hot green alien chicks that you seduced in order to get them to betray enemy secrets that you ultimately used to kill the braintrust that turned out to be a collective of evil purple unicorns. Nice.

Happy 2010, and you better have plenty of pictures of hot alien chicks in compromising zero-gravity positions. Nice =)."

24/01/10 13:00

2009-11-27T11:13:00.000-08:00

Sigh.

Thank you.

Neurotic Apathetic

2009-11-21T21:17:00.000-08:00

Less than 24 hours ago, walking home from the library, I was caught in nature's sudden blustery wrath. Walking against the monsoon felt like getting pummeled by a giant tidal wave. Lightning struck literally steps from where I stood (I'm still a little deaf from the thunderclap). It was probably the wettest, most epic experience I've ever been a part of (that's what she said).

Kinda reconsidering my aversion of umbrella-usage.

***

How can such a large amount of blood/heart/sweat amount to simply nothing? Forget subtlety. Forget politics. Those carefully constructed words of excuse were lathered in nothing more than cryptic hypocrisy and fearful accountability.

You might as well have curb-stomped me.

***

6 more days of neuroticism. 6 more sleepless nights. One week minus one, spent obsessively in states of high anxiety. 144 more Tic-Tacs consumed. 144 more hours of distracted pacing. 8640 more greying hair follicles. 518,400 more seconds of nightmarish eternity.

And on the seventh, judgement.

***

Dear friend's hair is longer now. Long enough so that she actually can pass for a girl now. Brava. Encore. Standing ovation and whatnot.

***

Life throws funny curveballs.

Three

2009-11-08T19:11:00.000-08:00

So I completely missed it.
I missed it like I miss you.
It's three years past midnight.
And I'm forgetting to remember.

So forgive this apology.
Saved from life.

Fun parts.

2009-11-01T02:23:00.001-08:00

Obfuscate

2009-09-26T03:12:00.000-07:00

Dear friend is apparently sapphire-tinted. For reasons unknown. This troubles me, but dear friend is well enough to realize one vertex of an intersection of scrambled prose. Worthy of a standing ovation, that is.

Drab. Drabness. Drabby drabbed drab. Dirnt.

Grad student found in wall. Lab technician suspected. Will continuously be on high alert during employment. In related news, I always knew that doing a graduate degree was bad for your health.

Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.

5-2-2. Damn.

Rumours of my demise have been greatly exaggerated. When I die, will they remember not what I did, but what I haven't done? It's not the end that I fear with each breath. It's life that scares me to death.

I like to verb words. Verbing weirds language.

Jessie holds this megaphone, bloodstains on her shirt.
As her words come out of bullet holes, spilling to the dirt.

If a speech confuses the confused and exceeds the allotted time, does it make a sound?

When did democracy become overrated?

Murphy

2009-09-18T21:51:00.000-07:00

Two weeks into school, life's already staked out its sniper perch and painted me with its laser targetting system, about to graciously bestow some extensive cosmetic surgery and confer upon my visage a distinct resemblance to Kennedy - post-knoll Kennedy.

It's said that in the moments before death, memories of the vital events leading to the tragic happening flash before one's eyes. Let's recap:

-Worked my ass off for over 8 months to prepare the best Imagine Day ever. Was beyond excited - could not sleep the night before. Got up on Tuesday morning with a 100ºF fever and a sore throat.

-Been looking forward to Frosh ever since I missed out last year. Sunday morning, still sick. Voice was lost before noon had even rolled by. Also, made a fool of myself on the dance floor. Someone restrain me if I ever get the stupid idea to walk into the middle of a huge dance circle. And dance. Like wtf.

-CLST 301, aka. the easiest course you ever have to take. Course curriculum was changed this year. Instead of 6 quizzes for the entirety of the course, we now have a midterm and a final...in addition to those six quizzes. Also, now lectures are all but mandatory, as they actually TEACH stuff every Monday and Wednesdays, from FIVE TO SIX FUCKING PM.

-Volunteered to be the Director of the Montessori-based Learning for Dementia patients at Pinegrove Place Senior home. Worked endlessly to prepare information packages, orientations and practice sessions for the new volunteers coming in. One problem: what new volunteers?

-MICB 407 is the most interesting course I've ever taken. In related news, I stayed on campus until Woodwards closed this past Monday. Working on my MICB 407 case study. For those not in the know, Woodwards closes at 10PM. And I'm a commuter.

-Got everyone around me sick. List currently includes, but is not limited to: Jessica, Tim, Krystal, Elisa, Lise, James, Krista, Katie, Jenny and Shannon. This was some epic contagion. Apparently I'm now a bad person (thanks Jess).

-6 Caffiene Pills this morning. 1L of slurpee, and its sugar content. Vitamin water (thanks Sumo). I'm on Cloud nine, about to crash and burn.

And yet, despite all of this...I am still SO incredibly stoked for this year.

"The world ain't all sunshine and rainbows. It's a very mean and nasty place and I don't care how tough you are, it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain't about how hard you hit. It's about how hard you can get it and keep moving forward. How much you can take and keep moving forward. That's how winning is done."

So go out, grab life by the balls...and squeeze.

I realized today that my two favorite comics, Calvin & Hobbes and Cyanide & Happiness, have the same initials (C&H). Awesome.

2009-08-21T21:32:00.000-07:00

Just dance

2009-08-09T03:27:00.000-07:00

I've got the mic
And you've got the mosh pit.

Writer's Block

2009-08-09T03:14:00.001-07:00

Excruciatingly mundane. Innane, inordinate witticisms muddle. Cringes populate and reproduce exponentially. Overfed with atrociously hollow rhapsodies.

Puzzling insights make illogical fallacies. Logical falsities repress unimpressed impressions.

Biggleman's safe of inspiration.

I absolutely hate this application. Ugh.

Rainman

2009-07-13T23:26:00.000-07:00

Random thought here. Bear with me. It's consensus that women mature and reach maturity faster than men do. That's a fact. Indisputable. It's mother nature (who is an inordinately unapologetic feminist). As such, a female who is, let's say, 20 years of age, would in fact be far older, both physically and metaphysically than a male of the same age (yes, sure I could've used 'mentally/emotionally' instead, but they don't sound as academic and smug, so where's the fun in that?). How much older?

Well, let's do some math.

Since 30 is the new 20, as many socialites and cougars will attest, by the logical inference ("if A=B, then B=A"), it follows that 20yr olds are actually 30 in terms of the accelerated gynic maturity.

By the same principle, 30 can be aged up to 50 (as 50 is the new 30, or so I hear).

Now these 20-but-actually-50-year olds can be aged further, as we like rounding to nice wholesome numbers. Well, 50 rounds up (can't round down due to the accelerated gynic maturity) to a nice 100.

Now for guys and our lackadaisical progression of maturity, it's fairly safe to say that 20 year old guys are basically 18 years old, both in maturity and attitude.

Now I'm fairly certain it's beyond argument that 18 year old guys are as mature as 15 year olds (I was a shining example, myself). Thus by logical inference again ("if A=B and B=C, then A=C"), 20 year old males are, for all effective purposes, 15 years old.

Again, we like our nice, wholesome numbers, so we round down (like you need to ask why?) from 15 to 10.

That's an age difference of 90. Wowzers.

So, to summarize...

"What you've just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul."

I guess the moral of the story is that I just did a whole blog, half asleep, and didn't say anything relevant to anything of relevance. And you read it.

And no, you can't have those 5 minutes of your life back. They are mine.

Back off, get your own sandwich.

Diiirrrnnt.

Simplicity sucks

2009-07-08T10:34:00.001-07:00

Noodle

2009-07-02T15:49:00.000-07:00

Discombobulate

2009-06-27T20:51:00.000-07:00

A dear friend returned home today from a two month excursion into the future. When asked how it was, she replied: "Hot". Proceeding to stock up on ice and slurpees.

Ecstatic surprise is 5'8" in stature. Mild disappointment measures in at 6'9".

Day previous, had a long discussion concerning the evolution of Skynet, and the inevitable machine takeover, with none other than the leader of the human resistance himself. Bemusedly, said leader questioned the veritability of this blog's URL title, clearly looking far too deeply into this matter.

Shameless plug here for high stamina bloggers about to undertake a solar cycle of massive bandwidth usage. Visit silva rerum for details on the event, and how to support their dedication and charitable intentions. And no, this 5th dimension imp will not be partaking in the festivities. I value sleep too much.

Bored, once again browsing paracliques. Wet work anticipation grows in the tedious atmosphere of the dry analysis. Soon, soon, off with their heads!

Monday looks to be more than meets the eye. MI-BA-BLA-BA-SPLOSIONS!!!

Arrests were made to several thousand follicular criminals today. Eventually brought in on charges of refusing to cooperate with the law of gravity.

Saturday night TV shows suck. Really. Meantime, MSN is fucking up. All the while, Big Brother and his 7342MB of storage-space-per-user is watching. Frustration incites ideas of a Geldofian venture. In a world where superficiality is a lie that mirrors a lie, ignition can be a string of fancy lettering on a page somewhere. Go find it. Go ride the lightning.

Your turn.

Memento mori part 2.

2009-06-25T15:48:00.000-07:00

"In a world filled with hate, we must still dare to hope. In a world filled with anger, we must still dare to comfort. In a world filled with despair, we must still dare to dream. And in a world filled with distrust, we must still dare to believe.”

RIP

Memento mori

2009-06-25T10:20:00.000-07:00

Inspiration comes in the form of sand in a wetsuit. When in doubt, defer to the irritation running rampant along wet asscracks. Such a vivid memory pervades the consciousness here, sitting at work, browsing over paracliques, procrastinating with Elliot Minor in my ear, and blogspot under my fingertips.

Unsettling though it may be, the sensory remnants of that unpleasant experience shoot potent action potentials through to my cerebral cortex, managing to break through a wall of uninspired ideas, tearing it down, block by writer's block.

Previously trite ideas become fresh and appealing, previously cumbersome words come to type naturally. Realization sets in that nothing written here needs to make as much sense as it does in the mind from which it originates. This prose can be, and oftentimes will be (trust me), as irritatingly offensive and frustrating to readers as sand in a wetsuit (inspiration at its best).

For all the questionable vocabulary and atonal wit that will populate this page in the coming futures, there are no expectations that hordes and hordes of literary critics will be falling over themselves to fellate these musings. These are not the thoughts of a person intelligent in the ways of life, society or nature. This is the bored musing of an individual from whom you may illicit a strange and weird vibe. I contend the opposite: it is not the thoughts here that are weird and strange. Rather, these musings are perfectly normal, but it is the world around that is weird and creepy and unicorns.

So here, after years of deliberation and postponements, this blog is finally born. Born of sand in a wetsuit.

Insert thought here.