blade runner 2049 got me feeling some type of way

bed

metaphorically speaking, i want to be a bed for someone.

it's where you go to completely relax and be yourself. a physical relief -- from the long day, from tiredness, from cold, from the rest of the world. an emotional relief -- from people, from small talk, from conflicts, from social situations. no need to look presentable, no need to exert energy, no need to be guarded. relaxed. comfortable. no pretenses. safe.

true relationship.

beauty

"She sees how her stomach looks when she’s standing in her bra. She sees how her face looks without any make up on. She sees how her chin looks when she looks down at her reflection. She sees how her arms sag when she has them up. She sees how her thighs jiggle when she walks or runs. She sees how her boobs look when she’s wearing a top. She sees how her acne looks when she washes her face. She sees how her legs look when she looks at all of her scars. She sees how her hair looks when she wakes up in the morning. She sees how her wrinkles show when she smiles. She sees how her stretch marks are visable when she sits down. See, the thing about girls, they can see every little detail about themselves, details that other people can’t see and they see every little flaw that other people don’t even notice. So when a girl doesn’t accept your compliments about her being beautiful, it’s honestly because she feels like she isn’t and she’d be lying if she said she was."

- Nash Grier

---

wow.

i find that quote infuriating.

who are you to be critical of your body?  who are you to say "i am not beautiful" when you did not create yourself?  what kind of twisted society and culture do we live in where people support a quote like this, which essentially says "my body as i really am is not beautiful, and you don't see me at those times, so i can't accept your compliments because you don't really know."?

stop looking at your body and treating it as though it has to be a certain way for it to be beautiful.

will your body always look the same?  for the rest of your life?  no, it won't.  does that, later on, you won't be beautiful anymore?  no, it doesn't.  seriously, if you've thought this through, how does this make sense in your head?

it's not about your weight.  it's not about your shape.  it's not about your attire.  it's not about stupid crap that people place so much emphasis on like jiggling thighs or stretch marks or messy hair or wrinkles or who gives a crap.  seriously, screw that whole idea of "this makes a girl beautiful and this doesn't".  it's dehumanizing and robs women of their God-given worth, and we are actively supporting that idea if we view women like that and let this idea run rampant without speaking up about it.

by even thinking about "what physical attributes of mine are attractive and what aren't?", you've already lost to the enemy.

who are you to hold yourself to a standard that God doesn't hold you to?

you can't make your own standard.

listen to this.  you're either going to end up prideful by accomplishing it, or you'll end up feeling ashamed/inadequate by not achieving it.  both take you away from the right standard of scripture as God's standard for you.  reading scripture is what gives you the proper perception of yourself, and reading scripture is what guides how you live and how you view yourself.  the biblical standard is not just one standard you can choose in lieu of other ones, it's the only right one.

but what about feeling like you can't shake the thoughts of wanting to look good and be attractive and "measure up"?  scripture, again, transforms and renews our minds (romans 12:2), taking you away from the false standards of the world and bringing you to a place where you can filter out and discard the lies that people (and you) want you to believe, and instead look at yourself only by God's true standard.

it's difficult because influences are all around, it's difficult because living according to God's standard is not cool/flashy/attractive in the world's eyes, and it's difficult because the instant you stop grounding yourself in the Word is the instant you'll start backsliding into thoughts of comparing and achieving and striving.  it's difficult.  God knows, but He provides a constant reorienting for those who ask.

beauty is important.  everything that is beautiful reflects God's image, and your body indeed reflects God's image, as well.

don't take it lightly, and don't think you can abstain from worldly influences by saying "i don't care about it", because the only way to overcome wrongful thinking in a world that only promotes wrong values is to be grounded in truth.  and you have to fight for that truth to be constantly learned and applied.

fight or give up, there's no in between.

---

this whole concept of beauty in today's world is an injustice that imprisons women and deprives their beautiful souls of feeling and understanding the worth they have.  my heart hurts for them.

what are you doing in the fight for truth?

(a good read: http://keeleychorn.com/bible-study/identity/identity-body-image/)

painting a picture of integrity

integrity is difficult.  i realized that recently.  and i mean REAL integrity, when no one would know a wrong i did.  it's not often i come upon situations where it's really just between me and God, but in those situations, my heart's struggle for righteousness really shows.

starting a few days ago, i have the opportunity to paint the basement of the house of one of our church elders.  him and his wife are two of the nicest people i know, and are incredibly hospitable and loving.  when his wife was going to pay me and asked how many hours i had worked in the past two days, i was prepared for the question and responded with the number of hours i had already calculated.

i gave the honest answer, so it's all good and swell, right?  well, not quite.

on my drive back home, i couldn't stop thinking about, what if i said 8 hours instead of 7?  or 9?  or 10?  those would all fly, since while i'm painting, they're doing other stuff around the house, and sometimes they aren't even home, so they're definitely not keeping tabs.

i thought about how trusting she was, and also how much control i had in maximizing the situation for my gain.  i was thinking to myself, if i could re-do that question, and i was given time to consider my answer, would i still give the honest answer?  my actions did the right thing, but was/is my heart in the right place?

it was then that i was reminded that integrity isn't just about lying about hours worked to make more money, but also about the state of my heart.

it brought me back to being in that basement by myself, and the thoughts that occasionally run through my head while painting the walls hour after hour.

i realized..  you know, if i don't work that hard at painting, if i slack off and dilly-dally and waste time, i would get away with it.  first of all, they haven't painted before, so they don't really know how long it would take to paint all those walls.  second, no one can really estimate how many hours it would take to paint that huuuuge basement that's literally the size of the entire first floor of my house.

i even had a bunch of different factors i could blame on things taking more time.  such as my hands getting sore (which was true) and needing to rest (not that true), or needing to move stuff away from the walls first to make room (which was true), or setting up the dropcloth and ladder and mixing the paint and all that stuff takes time (which was true, but could be greatly exaggerated).

basically, i could work at pretty much any pace and it would be satisfactory.

so, if i were working with my focus on making money, it'd be as lazy and slow as i could in order to spend as much time there as possible to rack up hours and $$$.

okay, with those sinful thoughts out of the way (of which there were a lot more than i initially thought..), now onto the good stuff!

the only way to keep myself working hard and honestly is i keep preaching to myself Colossians 3:23-24

"Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward.  It is the Lord Christ you are serving."

i don't remember when it was, but the day i stored that verse in my heart was the day my view on work was changed forever.

God's challenge for me today: preston, does me being pleased with you give you enough motivation for righteous living?

rightly wronged

i think i'm a pretty forgiving person. with how i was raised, what i discovered to be common social sensibility, and God's grace in relentlessly refining my heart, i think i've gotten pretty good at giving the benefit of the doubt, approaching to resolve the situation before allowing myself to create personal feelings, and not approaching with antagonizing/accusing questions.

however, what if after forgiving someone, where after forgiving someone multiple times, there's no visible change. the question comes up, what if (it seems) this person wouldn't be able to understand the depth of the hurt they've inflicted without experiencing it themselves? or that they won't change without experiencing that hurt?

in turn, this raises the question: is there ever a time when we should withhold love from people who have wronged us? if even for just a temporary period of time?

now, my verbal response (what i want to say) to this question is pretty straightforward, something along the lines of "no, love them and forgive them and trust God to change them", but my internal response (what i want to do) is a bit more conflicted, because the main question that's been on my heart is this:

how in the world does loving someone change them if they don't know the extent of their offense?

to clarify, i'm not talking about if someone did something blatantly offensive, because in that case, responding in love is quite a strong statement, indeed. you hurt me, but i choose to love you anyway? powerful statement.

but [situation a] what if the person didn't know they hurt me, but i keep loving them? my expression of love simply becomes translated to "everything is fine", and no one is the wiser.

[situation b] what if the person knows they hurt me, but doesn't know how severe, but i keep loving them? my expression of love becomes "there was some pain, but i chose love anyway", but the expression of love is limited to however severe the perpetrator thinks the offense was.

let's say someone close to me wronged me, and my response was "hey, that upset me, but i choose to forgive you". is that always going to be sufficient in optimally reconciling the situation? and (in a separate question) is that doing the best for helping that person to be more loving and understanding in the future?

i suppose this is the one of the motivators for revenge. a typical motive for revenge is "i want to see that person hurt because they hurt me and it will make me feel better if they are hurt, too." i'm not talking about that motive. i'm saying, what if my motive for revenge is "i want to see that person hurt in the same way because then they will understand the extent of the hurt they caused"?

there's a part of me that resonates with that idea, but at the same time, another part of me that feels like that's not what the Gospel says.

so, while i may not know the ins and outs of how God uses our loving actions to change hearts, i'm going to love and trust.

bad decisions

one thing that's been bothering me a lot is the whole "bad decisions" trend going around. why do we celebrate making bad decisions together?

often i hear things like "heyyyy let's make go bad decisions together!" as a way to segue into hanging out or going out to eat or staying up late, and i'm like.. really? why? i absolutely do not understand why it has to be phrased in this way.

yeah, i get the appeal behind it. yeah, i get the convenience factor of giving the time/activity a concrete name. but are those necessary, especially at the potential damage it could do?

the appeal - why is making bad decisions appealing? well, quite frankly, it's because we're all geared to want to make bad decisions, to rebel and break the rules. it's exciting, it can make us feel like we're living "life on the edge", and it's just fun to break rules.

the convenience - in my experience, "let's make bad decisions!" is most often equivalent to "let's stay up and talk!" or "let's go out to get food!". the last time i checked, "let's stay up and talk" and "let's go out to get food" were perfectly acceptable phrases for initiating those activities.

i agree that it helps to get people together in places where bonding can happen, and that's something i fully support.

still, why do we have to call it "bad decisions"?

my beef with the expression is this:

the appeal comes from our internal (and perhaps hidden) desire for rebellion. whether it's that we want to stay up later than we think we should, or we want to eat late at night when we know we shouldn't, or we want to reassure ourselves of our power to choose and control our own lives -- those all stem from a rebellious attitude. my question is, why do we not rebuke this rebellious attitude, but instead, we advocate and pursue and celebrate it, in groups, and with other believers, no less?

here's a question for you: do you believe that the "bad decisions" you're choosing to make are actually bad? if so, why do you still choose it? if not, why do you call it that?

we're called to set an example for others and live out our beliefs, because we know there are people watching and observing and looking up to us. i don't want our community to set an example of supporting rebellious mindsets and lifestyles, simply because of a name we have for an activity.

notice i've been writing this whole post using 1st person plural pronouns - us, we. the reason being that, even though i don't advocate and have never used the phrase "bad decisions" in this way, i know that i support the community's actions and words, whether actively through reinforcement or passively through acceptance. so, this is me being active and encouraging us to think about our choice of words a little bit more carefully.

this "bad decisions" phrase is, at best, an oddly-named activity that facilitates community bonding, and, at worst, a bad witness and a comfort for complacency.

sleeping

for me, sleep is an interesting thing.

i wouldn't say it's one of my loves, though i do enjoy it a lot. how much i sleep is pretty much dependent on everything else in my life, though i generally am sleeping between the hours of 12 and 3. waking up at 12 is a good time for me.

i'm someone who's always had a difficult time waking up, being easily tempted back to the dream world and the pleasure of "just a few more minutes" when i know i should be waking up. this has resulted in many missed classes, overslept lunch appointments, and frantic bike rides to wherever i have to be.

note: before we proceed, i would like to say that i am not a sleep expert, and have not studied anything about sleep. these are just my personal opinions and gatherings.

what i'm going to talk about next is how i fall asleep and what i need to sleep. i realized this is something i should have written much earlier, and would have helped to have before college started. nonetheless, here it is.

when it comes to falling asleep, people talk mainly of light and sound. and of course, the definitions of light and sound can be subjective. however, i honestly think that the main proponent to being able to fall asleep in your circumstances is simply believing that you can.

(these upcoming "requirements" are for when i feel normally tired, not extremely tired. also, these are for going to sleep at night, but also translate to napping.)

lights

i can sleep with the lights on, meaning the room light, so that automatically includes everything not as bright as the room light, such as a desk lamp, computer monitor glow, you name it. as for strobing lights.. maybe, i haven't tried that yet, but i can imagine it'd be a bit harder.

in any case, i don't get why this is hard. if there are lights on,

1) close your eyes.

2) don't open them.

3) fall asleep.

sound

sound is where it gets interesting and more complex. for me, the criteria for sound for which i can fall asleep to depends on how attentive the sound is to me. i believe the better able you are in making a sound "background noise", the less hindering it will be towards your sleep.

in my mind, sound can be categorized with two factors: consistency and harshness.

consistency is described as intermittent vs. constant. scattered vs. predictable.

the less you have to guess, and the less randomness inherent in the sound, the easier it is to sleep to it. i believe this is because it's easier for your mind to not think about the sound when the sound is predictable.

harshness is described as piercing vs. gentle, and to a lesser degree, loud vs. soft. piercing sounds are hard to put in the background, but that's not necessarily the same with loud sounds.

these two factors combine to determine whether or not a sound is attentive (instrusive) to your efforts to sleep. i believe consistency plays a bigger part in the acceptability of the sound than harshness does, in that it's easier to sleep to a constant harsh sound than to an intermittent gentle sound.

(note: intermittent means irregular intervals.)

examples:

computers humming - most people don't hear this anyway, but if you do, it's really constant and gentle, and can easily be backgrounded [easy]

portable heater - very constant, a bit louder, but still a gentle sound. [easy]

tv - constant, gentle, predictable. this seems to be the standard test for people's acceptance of noise levels as they trying to sleep. [easy]

concerts - perhaps you've seen people (parents?) fall asleep when they went with you to concerts. how? even though it's monstrously loud, they're able to effectively put the noise in the background and not have it bother their sleep. the noise, while loud, is predictable and constant. boredom also probably helps a good bunch. [haven't done it myself, but if i had to, moderately easy]

group chatter - group chatter tends to have a high level of consistency (save for the outbursts), which makes up for the high volume it can have.

few people chatter - a few people talking tends to have a lower consistency with a lower volume.

so, they're about the same. [pretty easy]

radio - a moderately gentle sound, but radio stations aren't constant enough- different songs, talking, commercials. [difficult]

typing - THE WORST! intermittent, piercing sounds (partly depends on the keyboard, but most keystrokes sound like bullets when you're trying to sleep). [difficult]

snoring - while the sound can be described as predictable since it's regular breathing, the gaps between breaths makes it not "busy" enough, and the sound quality is also not gentle enough. [difficult]

beyond the nature of these sounds, flexibility is important, and a lot of what flexibility entails is first, how hard you try to sleep despite surrounding conditions, and second, how much you believe you can fall asleep in those conditions. both of those play a big role in sleeping. for example, i've fallen asleep to all of the "difficult" conditions above, because as hard as it may have been, it wasn't impossible.

with that said, think about the conditions which you think you need to sleep

on a somewhat-related side note: when i sleep, i like to occupy my mind with active thoughts about something- usually badminton, hockey, blog entry ideas, tetris, or something like that. this is because it helps me to block out anything else around me, and thus help me fall asleep better.

i like to sleep on my tummy. :}

no scratching necessary

a question i get asked a lot is: "why do you smell everything?"

i've finally thought of an answer: "why not?"

consider a book, a piece of paper, a mousepad, a racquet overgrip, a playing card, and any other item whose intrinsic purpose is for something other than its fragrance. though not necessarily created with its smell in mind, who would deny that each item has its unique scent?

and i believe that each item deserves to have its unique scent experienced. :]

poomf goes the pigeon

some time ago, i was driving on i-287, going a cruising 75mph.

as i was driving along, i saw a pigeon standing on the ground right ahead of me in my lane, with my car fast approaching it. keep in mind that i saw it for all of one second before i .. well, hit it with my right tire. poomf.

a wave of guilt and sadness hit me immediately, as abrupt as the pigeon's death.

yes, i felt sad. and guilty. and that feeling stayed with me for a little bit.

but, it got me thinking. i feel bad about accidentally killing this pigeon. why? because this pigeon was alive. and now its life is no longer in existence. but how many other animals have i killed and not even given a thought to?

is all animal life created equal?

puppies. penguins. jellyfish. spiders. giraffes. ants. hamsters. goldfish.

i'm sure that as you read over that list, you and i both naturally see the lives of certain animals as more valuable than others. is this right?

is it okay to treat spiders as the spawn of the devil while we love on bunnies because they're so adorable?

do people (who care at all about animal life) eat chicken instead of beef because cow lives are more valuable than chicken lives?

does the animal being bigger mean its life is worth more than the smaller animal?

also, i believe that while animals are alive and feel pain and have emotions, only humans have souls.

what do you guys think?

summer is nice

this is the definition of relaxation.

a few things learned so far..

hardly anyone replies to emails, but offering cookies to people who reply generates more responses! really!

water polo is probably the worst sport in the world for me to play.

volleyball by day, laser tag by night = fun overload

(my music player all of a sudden started working! yay!)

indie

q: why did i always find it hard to give fall out boy a try?
q: why did i always refuse to watch naruto?
a: because everyone was into it!

at the time, i didn't know why exactly i was particularly disinterested and resistive to these things. i just felt like i didn't wanna.

that was a few years ago. in hindsight, it's so obvious!

i have an indie complex! :OOOOO

now, i've actually only very recently heard about this definition of indie, and the "indie complex" itself, specifically, at memorial day retreat.

to me, indie was simply a description of bands and their music, based off of how well-known it was. i didn't know about the indie groups and magazines and their beliefs etc etc, and i still don't.

story: i started listening to owl city and developing a real taste and affection for their music around last spring. i went to see owl city in september of last year, just around the time "fireflies" started populating the radio stations, before they got big. it was AWESOME. i totally dug(?) their ocean eyes album, as well, which i got shortly after that.

but once they started getting more popular, i starting finding it "weird" (personally) to mention owl city as one of my favorite artists. moreover, it even felt weird to listen to owl city on my own time.

money question: why?

random thoughts:
it doesn't seem special anymore, that i like it.
if i say i like it, i'm just another one of the mainstream population.
does that mean i don't want other people to like the music i like? certainly not! quite the contrary, actually, i love sharing music i like with other people!

and here is where.. i don't know anymore. (this is far from a conclusive entry.)

i'm really interested in the psychology behind this whole indie thing.

i'm also interested in if this is a common thing for people to feel.

do any of you share similar feelings? is this something that people easily recognize about themselves?

-why don't some people use question marks when they talk online? is it a personal decision? is it out of laziness?
-i always wear boxers under swim trunks.
-swim trunks = board shorts?
-i think my music player is broken. oh well. fix it some other time.
-mcd's fries > bk fries. 7-4. win. take that, dan! :P

pw plz

my computer is freeeee to use.

my computer used to have a password on the log-in screen, but i gave it to everyone who asked anyway. that, and i only ever had to enter it whenever i had to restart my computer for whatever reason (which was rare because i never turn my computer off or lock it or have it set to ever go into standby or sleep or whatever). that made me realize that there was no point to have it. so i removed it.

when i moved into the suite at the beginning of this year, i made an interesting realization: everyone locked their computers when not in use and required a password to unlock them. and also had a need to incessantly lock it when not in use (to varying degrees).

i didn't think much of it at first, until i realized that no one (save for matthew) would actually tell me the passwords to unlock their computers if i wanted to quickly use it for something. he might unlock it for me, but nope, wouldn't give me the password no matter what. most of them also made it a point to lock it whenever they weren't going to use it, some the instant he left the computer, others only when leaving for an extended period of time.

i didn't, and still don't, quite get the point of these passwords and incessantly locking.

to a small extent, it makes me feel like there's no trust here! that, or we have some weird stuff we wanna hide. most everyone leaves their computer in his own room (as opposed to using it often outside of the suite), so that rules out the reasoning of strangers using their computers.

and yeah, i guess i wouldn't want anyone reading my emails or chats or something, but i trust everyone enough to know they wouldn't read through all my archives of conversations and go out and tell the world or anything. and in the case someone does glance upon a snippet of a conversation, so what? i know they wouldn't make a big deal out of it.

on the other hand, just because my computer is an open book to everyone else doesn't mean i'm going to treat their computers the same way if they kept them unlocked. at most i use it to look something up, and only when necessary.

the bottom line is, i just don't get the big deal about passwords and locking computers. i'm sure you all have your own reasons and such.

i'm really curious as to what your take is on this subject. do you constantly keep your computer locked?

about [we shot the moon - tunnel vision] -- i really like this group. why? 'cause it's the new group that jonathan jones (the lead singer of waking ashland) started after waking ashland split up. i was pretty sad that waking ashland split up because i loved their composure album, and even some songs of their final (and not as good) album, the well. and i only found out a few days ago that he started this group! AWESOME! i am so happy.

[r]
-when i was younger, my handwriting was pretty bad and for important things, like putting my name with sharpie on something i owned, i asked my sister to write it for me. and i would always marvel at how neat her handwriting was. i think my handwriting can now hold its own against katie's. >:]
-i have this thing where i like to fart in little bits at a time. some of you know this. heeheehe.
-i have this other thing where when i burp, i keep it in my mouth to suppress the sound, and then i blow it away so it doesn't get on anyone. ehheehee.

a wave tossed in the ocean

what's playing: playradioplay! is a band i discovered recently. their music is trance-y.. and very interesting. not quite like anything i've heard before.

what defines each of us as a person?

is it what we do? what we say? what we think?

for every person that i know, i can think of something for which i would think, "that's so ________!" (like robert with his "something iffy is going on here..." face of skepticism, or eric with his spontaneous "HAHA GOT ME!" expression)

people have their own personality traits, characteristics, and mannerisms, that's for sure. but are those what define a person?

which brings me to the question.. can people change?

here. think about your younger 5-year old self. and then your 12-year old self. and now your present self.

are you the same person?

have you changed?

have you grown?

does growth imply change?

are you still the same you back then?

i wonder if i've changed.. i often hear people say that i've grown, but what does that actually mean?

compared to, say, five years ago, i can think of a few differences. i've gotten more comfortable with social situations, more outgoing. i've gotten more "mature" by learning from different experiences that i've been through. i've gotten more knowledgeable through the regular intake of information around me, and school and stuff.

but am i different? i'm still the same old me, right? really, i'm asking you that. for however long you've known me, have i changed at all? after all, you would be the one to notice, not myself.

let's say for example you have a car. and say you replace each part of the car piece by piece, until every piece of the car has been swapped with a new one. you still end up with a car, "your" car, but now it has entirely different pieces. is it still your same original car? at which point (which piece?) did it change?

this analogy kind of misses out on the whole aspect of the human mind, which is kind of a big deal, but you get what i'm saying. when it comes to a human being, is there an "essence" or "soul" of a person that doesn't change, even if their external surface (words, actions) changes?

over time, we mature and adjust the way that we think about things. the way that we make decisions. the way that we prioritize. the way that we live, quite frankly.

but sometimes, i hear the line, "you're a good person. don't ever change."

what does that second part mean exactly?

do we have the choice to change ourselves into bad people?

is that supposed to be encouragement to not do bad stuff, going off of the assumption that what we do defines us?

does that mean we should only make good changes to ourselves?

what makes a good change "good"?

what do you think?

can someone change?

what makes someone who they are?

is there a concrete and permanent identity for each person?

.. have you changed recently?

[wouldn't you like to know]

-when i was younger, i often went with my parents to chinese restaurants. i would see other people have cans of soda, and i would ask my parents if i could get one too. they always told me that other people brought it themselves, because then i would know i couldn't get one since the restaurant didn't have any, and that i would never have thought ahead enough to ask to bring a soda before we left for the restaurant. tricky. very tricky.

-i always cherish gifts i receive. and so, when i receive gifts that are use-able or edible, i always hold onto it and put it on my shelf or something so i don't use it up. that's why i tend to not like "perishable" gifts, because then i feel bad not using/eating the gift, but then i would personally feel bad if i did because the gift is gone! but eventually, it'll go bad and go to waste, so then i'd feel bad again! because of internal conflicts like these, i end up with uneaten chocolate penguins in their original packaging that i got for christmas maybe two years ago .. and i JUST might get around to eating them. but probs not.

-you know the kneepits of jeans, where the creases are? and when you sit down and you stretch out your legs and you can feel them? i love feeling them.

gift-giving

[songs for christmas! 3 of 4]
so here's the deal, i've picked four songs in anticipation of christmas, and i'm going to have a new one up in each blog entry that i post, the four weeks before christmas. ideally one post a weekend. 3 of the 4 songs are by artists that you know or have at least heard of, but i'm almost certain that you won't have heard any of the songs before. so they'll be foreign but in a familiar kind of way.
this week's song is: baby please come home, by anberlin & various artists. push play!



oh you know it's getting to the good stuff, 'cause anberlin is AWESOME. the first time i listened to this song, i was totally thrown off 'cause i wasn't expecting a Christmas song. LEGIT.

i was never really big on getting people gifts for Christmas.

i didn't think it was silly or not meaningful or anything, but rather, i preferred to simply get people their individual gifts on their birthdays. it made it more sense to me because for me, i feel like it's more special when i remember that people's birthdays are coming up and i get to plan ahead in thinking about what they like and what to get for them and stuff. and also, that way, it's easier to make sure the quality and time spent on their gift/card isn't compromised because of needing to get gifts/cards for other people, as it tends to be for Christmas.

well, how about writing or making cards?

at one point in high school, as people got me cards and gifts and stuff for Christmas, i felt bad that i didn't get them stuff. i think, the year after that, i made cards for my friends, but i remember it just felt odd to me.. probably because i wasn't used to the whole getting-people-gifts-for-Christmas thing, and some of it felt obligatory to me because i knew i didn't put as much thought into it as i would have if it were the present for their birthday.

i feel like, with Christmas comes a certain expectancy from your friends. the difficult part is, i'm afraid of letting people down (even just slightly) if we've only recently become friends and they expect stuff from me because everyone else(?) does stuff for Christmas.

so what now?

i still don't know what i'm going to do in the way of making cards or giving gifts. AND this is made all the more difficult with finals being the week before Christmas, prime gift-shopping time. garrr.

haha, what i actually ORIGINALLy meant to write about is..

when i go looking for gifts to get people, for their birthdays or Christmas or any occasion, i often run into a dilemma.

i find something that's so cool that would be a great gift for the person, but i end up really wanting it myself. a few choices pop up in my head.

1) i'll get it for them and only them.
2) i'll get it for myself, and find them another gift.
3) i'll get it for myself and for them!

on one or two instances, i remember getting the gift for both of us because i really wanted it as well. it felt.. wrong for some reason.

that's when i realized something about myself.

good gifts for other people are the ones i would want myself to have.

and it means more to me if i don't buy it for myself, too.

hmm, something like that. lols.

on another note, i hope the "stuff i like" posts aren't boring you guys. they actually take me a mad long time to write because even though the descriptions and reasons of why i like stuff should come naturally, there are like a million thoughts in my head at once and it's TOO hard to organize them.

well, have fun in this lovely Christmas season, even amidst finals and all that stuff.

i leave you with this video of AWESOME. i get chills each time i watch it 'cause it's so awesome, no joke. enjoy!



[ru you know that]
-i need both of my shoes to have the same tightness when i wear them. sometimes i end up having to tie and re-tie my shoes for a few minutes to get them just right, especially with my skechers, which aren't as squishy and mold-fitting as my sneaks.
-i hate it when i eat chicken wings or something at a restaurant, and then i have to go pee, because when i go into the bathroom, i wash my hands with soap first, that way my hands aren't dirty and i can actually pee, and then have the dilemma of wondering if i should wash my hands again because they still feel squeaky clean. i usually do wash my hands again though.
-the best way for me to fall asleep is to think about something visual that occupies my mind. most frequently contemplated: snowboarding, badminton, hockey, video games. i'm speculating it works in that when i get lost in the thought of whatever i'm thinking about, it removes other sounds and distractions from around me to help me fall asleep. it's also fun to just think about fun stuff. so there's that.

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.

ivory

Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things.

that, above, is written on the wrapping of a bar of ivory soap. how cool! that line really makes me think about my life in perspective. lately, i've started to feel myself actually growing up and getting older, and man, it is a scary thing.

i specifically remember one moment at the beginning of my sophomore year of high school. i said to myself, "preston, high school is going to go by really quickly, but it's a good thing you're not at the halfway point, and you're only going to be a sophomore. you could throw away this year and still have enough time to redeem your high school years, but make the best of it now."

i'm not gonna say any of that "it felt like i was young just yesterday!" stuff, because when i think about middle school, all that feels REALLy far back in the past. i like school, because the education provides something to do, something to achieve.

is it bad if that is the "main" purpose of my life now, with everything else such as friends, games, life experiences, as "side" enjoyments? to think that in a few years there won't be anymore school!? scary.

i was talking with chris chu a while ago, and the way he described things to me put things in a scary kind of perspective for me.

a few things i remember:
after college, there won't be time to hang out with friends anymore, and if there is, it'll be limited. because "4/5" people will move to another area to work, and/or they'll get married.
church won't be nearly the same because the english young adults is nothing like college group which is already much different from regular youth group.
without a purpose or "thing to go after" once college is over, what'll i seek out and fill my life with, besides work?

which brings me back to the quote above.

"Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things."

i hope i've made the best of enjoying little things in the past. i think, if you take time to look around, you'll see your life filled with lots of little things that you may take for granted. but hey, youth is what it is, and it doesn't last forever.

every sunday school, every sermon, every "routine" worship team set, every applebee's get-together, every sleepover, every settlers game. make the best of it.

preston, college is going to go by really quickly. make the best of it now.

what are your little things that you enjoy now?

[randumz]
-when i was younger, i would go apple picking every year around october. one time, i brought a steak knife with me, and slashed up apples as they hung on the trees as if i were a samurai or something. i had a BLAST.
-DCLA. in DC. in 2006. at the beginning of one of the concerts, i was heading to the bathroom. and before i even got close to the door, guess who i SAW! DAVID CROWDER! a ton of other people were there and crowding him at the entrance to the bathroom, the poor guy. the point is, I GOT TO SHAKE HIS HAND HEHEH.
-one time in middle school, i got a nosebleed. i went to the nurse's office and it kept going for a long while. eventually, the nurse called my dad and he came to get me since my nose wouldn't stop bleeding. i went to see a doctor/private-physician-dood on the spot, and he stuck this solder-like thing up my nostril, and the bleeding stopped. he said my nose would never bleed again. that wasn't true.

are you holding back like the way i do?

sometimes, i wonder how my life would be different if i were in a different grade.

the most immediate alternative i think of would be the grade above me, since i'm really old for my grade and on the borderline to a grade older.

i know every once in a while i thought about it in terms of school friends, but usually it was with my church friends, because they're the ones that have been the most consistent throughout the years since i was waaaay young.

i think about the people i would be friends with, and wonder how that would change me as a person.

would i have different hobbies?

would i be a better student?

would i be more disciplined?

would my spiritual life be better?

would i still be good friends with these people who are in my grade right now?

would i be going to the same college?

ultimately, that's not to say, though, that i don't really like where i am now with the awesome people in my grade. :]

if you have some time [which you do because i have a short entry today], think about it for yourself. it's kind of interesting!

lemme know what you think up. :]

---

i'm watching my sister's dog (daisy) and one of her three cats (MCA). daisy is fun. and this is my first time taking care of MCA, and man, this cat is kind of whacky in the head. it likes climbing on everything, going through every nook and cranny it can find, knocking stuff over, and randomly sprawling out on the ground. but dood, it is so cool and whacky, hahah. i'm having fun. :]

[YOUR FAVORITE RANDOM FACTS ABOUT ME TIME YAY]
-when i was younger, i would always watch my parents move the gear-shifter stick thing in the middle and get really curious about it myself. so, one day, while my mom was driving, i was riding shotgun. when i noticed she wasn't looking, in one quick motion, i pressed the button on the gear-shifter and gave it a pull downwards. looking back, i think i put it directly into park. lols. my mom quickly pulled the car over to the side of the road and scolded me etc etc. yay for curiosity!
-when i was younger, my parents had this blue car. one day, we were waiting at a stoplight, maybe like 5-6 cars back from the light. my mom was driving, and i was sitting in the backseat right behind her. a truck+trailer was on our left, the one that carries like eight cars on it. it was making a left turn, and the rear right end of the trailer slowly and seemingly painstakingly scraped up the left side of our car. my mom was honking furiously but i think the truck driver was too far away to immediately hear. what an experience. heehee.
-once, i cooked ramen on the stove. i boiled clean water that i scooped up from the toilet bowl. it tasted normal. :]

i'll keep throwing rocks at your window

in the past few years or so, i've come to realize that i have difficulty with moral/ethical (i'm just going to use these as synonymous, so read with that in mind but correct me if need be) everyday decisions.

the difficulty lies not only in the picking of what i believe to be right, but, equally important, in the discernment of what is right and what is not.

and so, through the comments of some of my peers, i've come to think that my standards for and acceptance of various things are kinda different from the typical person's, but that's really subjective and not so important.

i hope that my questions will make you rethink why you feel the way you do about your standards of morals and ethics, and blur the lines between what you stick to and what you might want to consider. i like thinking.

is it okay to..

borrow a music cd from a friend?

rip the tracks off of a music cd from a friend and keep them?

send mp3s to a friend that i ripped off of a music cd that i own?

how much can i sell someone a pristine condition textbook for?

does it matter if i've owned it for a day, or a month, or a year?

what if it's brand new and still sealed in the shrink wrap?

how about a used textbook?

is there a limit to how much i can sell it for?

what if it's brand new and still sealed in the shrink wrap?

would it still be worth the same as a newly purchased textbook, since they are both in the pristine condition of "literally plucked off the bookstore shelf"?

is it okay to..

borrow cd's?

borrow dvd's?

borrow eric's psp, play through his games, and return it all to him later?

borrow a textbook for a semester?

(does the "fairness" play any role in all of this? the borrower is clearly having the advantage with being able to experience all of the material, but with no price to pay.)

ebay:

is it okay to rip tracks off a cd, and sell the cd as like new (the only thing causing it not to be brand new is the lack of a shrink wrap)?

is it okay to play through a video game, and sell the game?

how about..

spending time in bookstores reading books, but not buying them?

what if i bought the book, read it, kept it in super condition, and returned it?

is it okay to listen to recordings of sermons? (if the speaker is paid to speak somewhere, wouldn't the recordings of what he says be worth something as well?)

if a cashier accidentally gave me a coupon back that was supposed to be relinquished at time of use, is it alright to use it again?

is it okay to walk on a crosswalk with the intention of getting hit by a car, and getting mad moneys in the following lawsuit or whatever?

what if i don't have the "intention" to get hit by a car, but instead don't look both ways as i walk across the crosswalk?

what if i close my eyes walking across the crosswalk?

is it okay to hit the brakes if a car is tailgating me in such a way so that they cause an accident that is entirely their fault, thus getting me some money?

how about buying clothes, wearing them with the tags still on, and returning them?

what if i go into gamestop, buy a used game, play some of it, and return it for a full refund?

what if i play through the whole game?

does it matter whether my original intent was to purchase the game forever, or just to try it out, knowing there was a risk-free full refund?

recently, i got a free trial issue of playstation magazine. inside that playstation magazine, there was another offer for "free issue of playstation magazine"! i sent that in, and two months later, i got another playstation magazine! going with this..

since i can keep sending in the "free issue" request, is it okay to?

is it okay to use different mailboxes to prevent them finding out (if they even check)?

what if i get various friends of mine to be the ones that literally physically send in the "free issue" offers, and then have them give the magazines to me?

(note that theoretically, this would actually result in a free bi-monthly (though PSmagazine is monthly) "subscription". and if i staggered the "free issue" offers, and had two going at the same time, i could have a free annual subscription that wouldn't end as long as they kept including the "free issue" offers! yeah, i thought it out already.)

is it alright for me to eat leftover food off restaurant tables of people who already left?

what if the food was in the garbage?

what if the food was in the garbage outside the restaurant?

what if nobody was looking?

surely, you've split the price of some bottomless nachos at a restaurant with some friends.

that's okay, right?

what about sharing and splitting the price of refill-able soft drinks?

does the same apply to sharing and splitting the price of a refill-able jumbo tub of popcorn?

what if everyone brought their own container to pour the popcorn in, which would enable each person to have their own container from which to eat popcorn, all the while being constantly refilled by the official tub of popcorn, so that each person would pay just a fraction of the cost of the official tub of popcorn?

i would really like to know what you guys think about some of these things, so i can get a better idea of the kinds of standards that other people have. i know you guys have thoughts in your mind as you considered these questions, so please do share, as little to and much as you want. i'm really interested in hearing about it. :D

comments would be very helpful to me, and much appreciated.

[rRr]

-i went to chinese school for seven years, but i don't know how to read or write chinese. i can understand and speak mandarin. i can only understand taiwanese, i can't speak it. i also took italian for five years from middle school through high school, but i don't know how to speak any of it. oh well.

-i've never broken any bone in my body, or even fractured anything. no stitches either. the worst that's happened to me was a snowboarding fall in which i popped some blood vessels in my right eye and i had to get an MRI. other than that, a few rolled ankles and jammed fingers. luls.

-i had a knack for taking stuff from chemistry class in school. while i despise chemistry (and love physics!), i will admit that chemistry has probably the coolest stuff, like erlenmeyer flasks (i have a cute 125 mL one), the wooden ball-and-stick molecule structures (i have NH4), and thermometers (i have two .. broken ones)!

--MINI RANDOM FACT!-- the tap water in my house gets as hot as 160 F and as cold as 36 F. nifty, huh.

we write to apologize

i REALLY ENJOY blogging!

thinking about what to write about.. putting thoughts into sentences.. cracking myself up witht he sentences i formulate..

but HELP! if i do WANT to blog, and i do think about it A LOT, then why don't i blog more often?

it's because i feel too CONSTRAINED. hopefully my explanation will serve as an adequate apology to katie (my grant-writer sister who is semi-dependent on my blog to get her through her boredom at work), as well as everyone else who looks(/ed) forward to my blog entries, but is(/was) constantly disappointed by the lack of them.

i'm not sure how you would describe me (like in terms of OCD or perfectionist or whatever). you can diagnose me afterwards in the comments. my thought process typically goes like this:

hey, i wanna blog about this idea!

oh, wait, does it "fit" in my blog?

is my blog one of those blogs about everyday events?

is it about my thoughts in the present?

is it about reflections on the past?

do i want my blog to be about completely random stuff?

oh nose! I HAVE TO BE CONSISTENT!

wait, i haven't even blogged in such a long time!

this has to be a good post!

are people expecting a better post cause i haven't blogged in a while?

should i blog more often?

i want to!

wait, but i can't, because i still don't know what my blog is for!

but if i blog too often, won't people automatically assume each post is less thought-out?

but if i blog too rarely, people may forget my blog exists.

how often do people visit blogs anyway?

bah, i'll just save my ideas and post next time.

i am WAY too constrained. i think i get hung up on the littlest details, because i have this need to make things optimal. why am i like this? :| how can i fix this? (that's a legit question.)

good thing, though, that it's not a cycle that goes on forever, since there is a breaking point where i chug out a ginormous post full of ideas that i wanted to blog about multiple instances before but didn't. and that's what you're reading right now.

if you take anything from all i talked about above, just remember that whenever i actually DO get around to writing a post, every post i write is scanned, proofread, revised, arranged, and edited with care before posting.

---

i just moved all my stuff home today. i didn't think all the stuff in my dorm room would take up THAT much space in my car. i wish i took a picture of it, since my trunk and backseats were competely stuffed. i have yet to unpack it all, though. i found out that the only badminton thing available at the PAL is on saturday evenings, because some asian guy rents out one a gym of badminton courts and then people go there and pay him to play. i'm gonna go on saturday to see what it's like and ask him about pricing. but man.. ONLY saturdays... :[

---

being in my bloggy mood, i feel like i need to write something about my reflections on my freshman year of college. lots of things come to mind. (but i actually i don't want to start writing about any of them because i know i won't say EVERY detail about each of them that i want to say, and thus, if it's not complete, it's no good and there's no point to even begin writing. yes, this is actually how my mind works. GAH.) so maybe here's a summarized version:

[college reflections]

-i've definitely grown, and am still growing a lot in a variety of different ways. and it's good.

-friends are great. board games build community like no other.

-schoolwork is harder in college. the act of getting yourself to do schoolwork is harder in college. the combination of those two is killer.

-college really is mostly what you make of it. the friends, the academics, the events. i'm not gonna say stuff never "happens" to you to get things start, or that some circumstances aren't worse than others, but largely, initiative is a huge thing to have in mind day to day.

-having a car on campus is GREAT.

-despite it sounding gross, having had my roommate pee in our room is a funny memory to have, and an even funnier story to share.

---

please comment if you can, because i know you have thoughts. it could be the littlest thing. comments go far in encouraging me to write future posts (and more often) as well as in inspiring me on different topics to write about.

---

also, i thought of an interesting idea for my blog. i really don't know how it occurred to me, but i like random things, and i like telling people about myself, so putting those two together, i came up with this: at the end of every one of my blog posts, i'll simply have three facts about myself. no money-back guarantees here, it's really just a grab-bag from my life. look forward to them! i hope they're worth your time. :]

[3 randoms]

- i love pineapples. i don't like eating them. i like how they look. i like how they smell. i like the design of it and how it's so unique and different from other fruit. i would like it more if it were blue. i have a collection full of random pineapple stuff (candle, cologne, gold-plated fruit cutter..), that's always open for more new additions! :]

- sometime in middle school, for a year or so, i didn't brush my teeth at all. i just didn't feel like it, and i didn't think it was really necessary. i didn't get any cavities either. yuck. going into high school, i changed my ways. i brushed my teeth whenever i showered, which pretty much only meant every morning, since i showered in the morning. a tad better. but going in COLLEGE, oh man, things completely changed. danyo, my discipler, challenged me to brush my teeth twice a day, morning and evening, as a test of discipline. now i brush my teeth twice a day. yum. :]

- i have dandruff. (and of course i use the almighty head & shoulders which conquers all.) except, it seems like times when my hair is too long, i still get mad dandruff. coincidence? i think not, because i think the way it works is that since my hair is so thick, once my hair gets longer, it's harder for the h&s to clean out / weed out / eliminate the dandruff, despite my conscious efforts to shampoo a couple jillion times. however, it's not completely bad, because when i realize i have this dandruff, i like to try to pick/brush all of it out of my hair. it delivers a certain satisfaction akin to picking my nose. (which i definitely don't do anymore. especially not in private. psh.)

now that i think about it, i think this 3randoms-per-post idea could create some potentially interesting situations in the future with anonymous readers of my blog.

ALL THE BETTER!

how would YOU react?

sometimes, people seem unfazed and simply continue on their way.
typically, people yield a little bit, but still stay on their own path.

occasionally, people freeze in their tracks, unsure of what to do, and wait for it to pass.

and rarely (but amusingly), people instantly dart onto the grass as though a truck was passing through.
personally, i'd probably go with the second approach listed above.
as my totally sane math teacher would say, "CLEARLY", i'm talking about me biking around campus.
now lemme tell you, i have always enjoyed biking, and anyone who has known me in middle school or high school can tell you that the bicycle was my preferred (and only) method of transportation to just about anywhere i wanted to go. that is the beauty of parsippany, in that it is such a bik-able town. things are spread out and spacy enough for comfort, but at the same time not too far for anyone to sanely traverse on a bike. middle school, high school, tennis courts, friends' houses, church, strip malls, restaurants, all within biking distance.
oh, and one random journey all the way to not-so-nearby livingston with my good friend johnny, on which he almost got run over at an intersection by burger king. oops.
since i am such an avid advocate for bicycling, i'd like to name just a few of the benefits: no need for gas money, little to no maintenance, great exercise (sick calves and thighs), and great for enjoying nice days. plus, as i mentioned two blog entries ago, biking in the snow is a unique and awe-inspiring experience that you simply must experience at least once in your life.
now even though i'm all into biking and whatnot, what's funny is that my bike is super ghetto. my parents got it for me a long time ago from a family friend, and it belonged to her son (who is now a retired Marine and whose biceps alone would probably break the handlebars of the bike if he tried to ride it again).- the handlebar grips slip off if you pull on them, and moreso when it's raining.- the rear brake is pretty bad, and the front brake is only decent, which averages the quality of the brakes to be on the poor-mediocre end.- there is no suspension whatsoever.
- adding insult to injury, the old bike seat broke so we had to replace it with one that is rock hard. it hurts.- the spokes thingies are really rusty (and have only gotten rustier from bringing it to college, where there's virtually nowhere to put it where it won't get rained on), and thus i can only use two or three different gear combinations of the possible 21.- the gear shifter is actually not ghetto! it's an expensive top-of-the-line shimano gear shifter thing that we had to buy to replace the original one when it broke.- the kickstand is a wobbly twig.
however, the bike itself was free, and it's functional enough for me (ooh, it's tricky to rock a rhyme to rock a rhyme that's right on time it's tricky, it's tricky tricky tr-r-r-r-r-r-ricky).
there was a period when i didn't bike, though. (that is, when i got a car. duh.) instead, driving was the cool thing. driving to tennis, church, people's houses, giving rides, etc. (and also infinitely cooler when i would leave the car in the driveway and the gas would "accidentally" be low, only to have it magically filled up within a few days. parents are so nice.)

but alas, upon coming to college, and spending the first week or two without my trusty set of wheels, i realized my life just isn't meant to be like this. we were meant to be together. i brought my bike from home as soon as possible, and it's simply been like a dream ever since.
seriously, i can get from metzger to arc in four minutes. FOUR minutes. do the math. (i was considering doing the math of how much time i save weekly and yearly by biking instead of walking, but i'll do it some other time. i have enough math to do today.)
that was a brief (!) desription to bring all of you up to par regarding my bicycle affairs. NOW, back to my original topic.

i was inspired to blog today (even though i have to study for calc and chem exams on monday and tuesday respectively) because just a while ago, i was biking back from the dining hall, and i was cruising along and listening to music on my dandy bike ride, and just as i enter the crosswalk, i nearly get hit by a car coming from my left. my fault? in a word, no. i always wonder what would happen if i got hit by a car. sure, maybe i can avoid getting hit by looking both ways every time when i cross the street (which i do 90% of the time), but the point is that cars must yield to pedestrians, including pedestrians on bikes! (just kidding, that would make me like, a cyclestrian. or cyclist?) yes, wow, amazingly, that is actually what they are supposed to do! it's as if since i'm on something with wheels, drivers automatically no longer have to yield to me even as i'm crossing on the crosswalk. here, let me draw a picture of the inverse hierarchy that is what i deem the pyramid of yieldality*:

*not pictured: wheelchairs, rollerblades, skateboards, my car

now, if you recall the statements from the beginning of my post (yes, way back there), people react in a variety of ways when they see me on their sidewalk approaching ahead of them or alongside them. first of all, i believe i am a good cyclist, because, where applicable, i treat biking the same way i do driving. i always have complete control over where my bike is going and how close it is to others. granted, of course other people may not know that i'm so careful and considerate when i bike, so i don't blame them for how they react. however, there ARE signs directed towards cyclists that say "yield to pedestrians" posted every now and then, and i follow them dutifully regardless of where they are or aren't posted. i'm willing to take alternate paths, weave between people, bike on the [dry] grass, bike on the street, bike along with a crowd at a walking pace, and pretty much any other method that i can think to employ in order to make those traveling on foot around me as unhindered, uninconvenienced, and unscared as possible.
so please, if you read this and you see me biking, know that i'm not going to run you over if you don't dive out of the way or something ridiculous like that. i've only once accidentally nudged someone with my handlebar because someone else in front of me cut me off. i said sorry and i felt dumb.

now you may be wondering, if two people on bikes are approaching, how do you know who has priority? well, you know what chicken is right?
and thus, that concludes the history so-far of my biking adventures to the present day, though the journey is far from over.
don't you wish you had a bike now?