tell me once, tell me twice, tell me all the time

me and laura went to see the icarus account concert, free at tcnj!  it was sad none of the other ten people i asked were able to come along, 'cause it was FREE and they were so GOOOOOOD.  i love their music, and it was incredible getting to talk with them and ask them questions and all that good stuff.  hearing their harmonies in person is incredible, and their guitar-playing is simply inspiring.  so good.  got a poster!  :D

too famous for me

i am on a we the kings high right now, after purchasing and listening to their latest album, smile kid. IT IS SOOOO GOOD AHHHH I WANNA DANCE.

...

i really like meeting band members, especially of bands that i am a fan of.

it's funny, though, because the actual process of meeting them and chatting with them is so so nerve-wracking! i am a shy person, and even moreso when it comes to someone that i am a fan of.

i never really imagined i'd get to meet and talk to some of the band members that i did, from the likes of tim be told, lighthouse, david crowder, and one of my personal favorite favorites, amber pacific. and so when i do end up seeing them in the flesh up close and shaking their hands, it's so .. SURREAL.

i end up feeling really nervous and jittery and trying to talk too much while at the same time having no idea what to say. honestly, in my mind, all i'm thinking about is how i can quickly get away and end it on a good note.

silly.

what "famous people" have you guys met? how did that go?

-i never say "um" online. i think it's awkward.

pour me a heavy dose of atmosphere

i SAW OWL CITY IN CONCERT, the same venue as the one i saw amber pacific at. IT WAS AWESOME. adam sang and played some electric guitar (two different ones!). there was also a celloist, violinist, drummer, and a female vocalist who also played keyboard and synth. it was AWESOME. oh wait i said that already, lols. they didn't stick around afterwards, unfortunately. i didn't get any merch this time, because the wristband was $10, t-shirts were expensive ($20), and the poster wasn't interesting enough on its own (meaning without autographs).

i'm planning to go see ANBERLIN in concert sunday, october 25th. allentown, pa. 1hr20min drive, daaang. BUT IT WILL BE AWESOME. ANBERLIN = AWESOME.

---

what IS integrity?
what does it mean?
what is it comprised of?

some questions..

is it okay to do something illegal if no one sees?
what if everyone else is doing it, too?
are some laws not as important as other ones?

these days, i think it's tremendously hard to have good integrity.

it's hard in the sense that a lot of things push us to cheat or cut corners or bend the rules, perhaps to get ahead, to make things easier, or because it's an easy source of enjoyment.
it's also hard in the sense that even if we put a ton of effort into trying to maintain our integrity, there are so many little subjective things that an outsider could pick at if trying to pinpoint cracks and faults.

some thoughts..

one thing that comes to mind for me is music piracy. yeah, it's illegal, but it's also widely prevalent. you'd be hard-pressed to find someone who adheres strictly to not downloading music.

now this isn't some self-righteous post about how i purchase [almost] all my music and everyone else downloads everything illegally and i'm so right and i hate piracy and blalhbalhhlab, it's just meant to get your mind crankin'.

even though i like to purchase music and support the artists, i'm conflicted a lot of the time, too.

as one (okay, probably more) of my friends said, "BUY music? that's such a waste of money, since it's so easy to get it from anywhere!" and it's true! why buy music?

i think one of the reasons that people don't feel bad, or as bad, about breaking the law, is when it relates to something that isn't monitored. you know, download a few songs, or a few thousand, no one's gonna know or catch you.

or, they feel like it's okay because it's not something physical. "it's not like i'm stealing the CD from the store!"

or, better yet, it's okay because everyone else is doing it, too, or they're more illegal! "i'm only downloading a few songs that i like since the rest of the songs on the CD are crappy, and other people download so much more than me! i'm GOOD compared to them."

or, some people say, if it's a big corporation, or someone wealthy, it's not as bad to steal from them. "it's okay, kanye's mad ballin', he doesn't need my money and it won't affect him at all if i don't buy his music."

or, that the law is unfair and a rip-off. "CDs are way too expensive, they overcharge for them! $10 for a movie ticket? get real!"

here's a thought: who ever even officially said that music should be cheap, let alone free? is it easy or cheap to write and produce and publish amazing music?

owning music that we can listen to whenever we want is not some right that we have, and i think we've grown to feel like it is.

just because a flatscreen plasma HDTV is expensive and is awesome and you want it, is it okay to steal it?

but this makes the situation most real for me.. even though i've never worked on a movie, or wrote any kind of great music, i know i can't even imagine how much work it takes to put it all together.

put yourself in their shoes.
if you wrote an original song.. if you designed a beautiful piece of art..

would you want someone to steal that from you?

[randoms]
-i will never use 0.7mm lead. i don't know why. i just grew up with 0.5mm and stuck with it. but that's only for lead pencils. as for pens, i will practically never use blue ink. i dunno why i just don't like it. my preferred is black, and i don't have any other colors.
-now that i live in a suite with five other doods, i re-discovered one of my shower hobbies. re-directing water from the showerhead to wash away random strands of hair stuck on the wall, the shower curtain, or anywhere on the bathtub. it's so addicting! and fun! maybe that's my slightly-OCD side of me talking.
-ever since i was younger, one of my dreams was to be trapped in shoprite. with a few friends, of course. i would wanna see how long we would be able to survive, only living off of what we could find in the store. we could last for months! more! YEARS?! hooohoo awesome, i'm laughing just thinking about it. if you steal that idea for a reality show after reading the post above, you have no heart.

burning down neverland

one of those spontaneous and weird ideas you think of and you can't believe you end up following through with.

for those of you who don't know, me and matthew chao are taking the same statics class at rutgers on tuesday and thursday, and we have calc class at the same time monday-thursday, so we get a good amount of hanging out and studying done.

this tuesday that just passed, me and mr. matthew went to good ol' SERC to work on statics homework, due that same day. our statics classroom is in 205, except neither me nor matthew like sitting in the desk/chair things that they have in that classroom. they're uncomfortable, have limited desk space, and don't allow interaction with other people. however, the room right next to it, 206, had the glorious long tables with cushy armrest chairs. we were both fans of these comfy chairs and long tables, which encouraged group work. clearly, this was the better option, and we settled down here.

this is matthew chao, electrical engineer OF THE FUTURE! (ha, look at that geeky shirt.)

while working on statics, as seen above, i had an idea. here is the conversation*.

me: hey matthew, i wish we had these tables and chairs in our statics class.
matthew: yeah.
me: the desks we have are so uncomfortable!
matthew: i guess so.
me: you know.. we should move all these tables and chairs over to our statics room!
matthew: yeah.
me: people would be more comfortable, and it encourages group interaction!
matthew: i guess so.
me: wow, do you think we could do it?!
matthew: yeah.
me: haha that'd be crazy, OKAY LET'S DO IT.
matthew: i guess so.

*i don't remember exactly what matthew said, and i don't want to quote him saying something he didn't, so i took the liberty of just making up stuff.

it was one of those things that i said out loud because it popped into my mind, but i didn't think i would actually go through with. never before has someone taken so excitedly to one of these ideas of mine as matthew did that day, which really got me excited for this endeavour. it quickly went from a funny hypothetical situation to seriously considering and planning out how to go about it, and if we would get caught, and such. we began by making time estimates on how long it would take. matthew said ten minutes. i said thirty minutes. oh, we were so wrong.

to start, we stacked the desk-chairs into piles of 4-5, and carried them over together. we decided we would start by moving the desk-chairs in 205 (our statics classroom with the annoying desks) over to 206.

halfway through the moving, we realized that the number of seats in the two classrooms differed quite a bit. 205 had 58 desk-chairs, but 206 only had 39 seats. uh oh. we stood there. we contemplated it. does our statics class have that many people..? we realized it was too late to back out. ONWARDS.

after we moved all 58 chairs over to 206 and left them there in stacks, we began the task of moving the 20ish tables from 206 to 205. one by one. one by one. man, walking backwards is so annoying, especially in sandals, as we both were.

this was around the halfway point, and all this lifting and moving was actually really tiring. we definitely underestimated this whole ordeal. we underestimated the scope of it, the work required, and how unfun it would actually be moving all those darned chairs and desks. regardless, we had to press on.

after all the tables were moved over, we stacked all the chairs from 206 and carried those over to 205 as well.

fast foward a bit. and.. FINALLY. everything was where it was supposed to be, except the desks and chairs were in stacks. it was the final stretch where we unstacked them and put them in rows or behind tables where they belonged.

the whole thing took an hour+, and after it was over, it was such a relief. high fives were exchanged. grins were worn. hug was given. :]

i only took a few pics, because there wasn't much to see. it was just a lot of annoying labor.

but, was it worth it in the end?

mm. yeah.

going to statics class, everyone looked pleasantly surprised and refreshed at the change in seating, although mr. grad student statics teacher dhaval dadia was none too pleased. i think i heard him say "ridiculous!".

i found out we have 37 people in our statics class, and only 39 seats. look how that worked out! definitely the funniest part of that day was when people trickled in late, and each person stood in the middle of the class and had a bewildered look on his/her face when looking around for a seat to sit in. funnnnnny stuff. AND, since one half of the room has seats in rows of 4, we witnessed these two people that arrived early and sat in the MIDDLE two seats, leaving one seat on each side of the pair. WHO DOES THAT?! we called them the awkward sitters. though matthew just likes to use the term "idiots".

i enjoy statics MORE now, and i wish we thought of the idea sooner, but we're only about halfway through the session, so there's still time to enjoy our work. as we were sitting in class, matthew and i both really wanted to tell other people about who moved the desks, but unfortunately, we both didn't know anyone in the class. doh. it's okay. we understand.

and he came over after class.

and we saw transformers 2. :D

[exciting: when i went into clearview cinema 12, they have that little table in the middle of the lobby area that has the popcorn seasoning stuff, and on the table was a full jumbo bucket of popcorn! it must have been a present! i looked around and waited for about a minute to see if it was anyone's or if anyone came to claim it, but no one did, so i took it. i discreetly dumped it all out in a trash can (what do you think i am, gross!?), and got a refill. and we saw transformers.]

what a good day.

[r!r!r]
-when i drive on the highway, my preferred hand positions on the wheel are 3 and 11. i've only formally discovered this recently because of all the driving i had to do for summer classes at rutgers. it just works.
-i went to the hillsong concert in new york in june, and rode the subway for the first time. i think after seeing how gross the standing poles on the subway are, i became more wary of things in public that have been touched by a lot of people and may be really dirty. for example, now whenever i open a door of any kind at school, i try to push/pull on the handle or door only where i think nobody has touched it before.
-when i was younger, i used to hold my nose with my hand and exhale forcefully, to pop my ears if they were ever feeling weird. however, i occasionally did it really forcefully, and at unnecessary times, as well as unnecessarily extended lengths of time. it was probably because i thought it was interesting that the pressure i felt in my head that popped my ears out, i also felt in my tear ducts, as if they were connected somehow (which i now know, are). and thus the story goes.. not too long after, i had a nosebleed. and blood came out of my tear ducts. the end.

you're my summer that fades to these cold autumn days

I JUST SAW AMBER PACIFIC LIVE IN CONCERT LAST NIGHT. SO SICK.

after listening to and loving amber pacific's albums for many years, i finally went with hanna and saw them in concert yesterday at the school of rock in south hackensack. there were about 50ish people or so, so it was a small little gathering. also there were fight fair, farewell, and houston calls, bands which i had never heard of before.

probably said many times before, but seeing a band play in concert is totaaaally different. EPIC, almost describes it well. i wish i had gone to see amber pacific's concerts in years past, when they still had their first lead singer, matt. it was an awesome feeling seeing them perform, but it had just a slight tinge of bittersweetness because i was thinking about what it would have been like if matt was there. sad sad.

i (as well as hanna, since she copied me :P) got a new(!) poster from them and got it signed too (as did hanna, since she copied me :P)!

now i just have to see anberlin in concert, and i'll have seen my two favorite bands!

AW YEAH. (that's dango, the sicknasty drummer.)

amber pacific is awesome. listen to them now. ask me for some songs!

on the other hand, i am like a poster fiend now. i have two amber pacific posters (not including the signed pre-order truth in sincerity one), one anberlin poster, and two other posters. i can't wait until i live in a suite next year when i can finally put these up.

[rrr]

-i love word games. prolific, scrabble, speed scrabble. i don't like vocabulary, because my vocabulary stinks, but i like making words with letters and manipulating words to make other words. fun stuff like that. yahimnerdy.

-water tubing at AYL has been the single most fun/exhilarating thing i've done in my life [and among the top funniest things].

-i am red-green colorblind. surprise! yes, most of you knew this already. to clarify, this means i SEE colors, but i have trouble differentiating colors, and also require large samples to better identify colors. typical mix-ups include.. light blue/purple/pink/gray/white. dark green/dark brown. charcoal/brown. yellow/green. blue/purple. you know, stuff like that.