February 01, 2007

some poems i have been writing

I used to write one-minute poems. I kind of stopped... for four years. Recently I decided to write again. Here are some to share:

2-1-07

a jagged icicle
falls, pierces
the snow.
the fierce wind
blows, more
bullet holes
that lay raw
on the wounded ground.
bam bam!
plops down.
what other?
but snow angels,
on top of the bullet holes.

1-23-07

u talk
to her
i need
to walk
to rid
this bleed.
the past
can not
be hid.
not yours
not mine,
never behind.
it haunts
our lives.
it flaunts
our cries
we cant
elude
the old
preludes.
just let
it all be told.

1-22-07

if i were to bury myself
let it all be felt.
dirt packed under my fingernails
unhesitant,
i crawl,
deeper, where the underworld calls
too far for bail.
my tears dried
by the grime,
bits of os, salted lime.
i cant see
yet i'm not lost.

1-21-07

why are you still polluting my head
swirls of opaque mead
drowning my life line
blinded, i am.

i thought i was refreshed
awakened in a mesh
i was unfettered
freed from het.

yet i dove in again,
how long has it been?
i choke
in pain among the tope.

November 03, 2006

It's all about the Prenup!

Ooh ooh Reese and Ryan broke up! *Gasp gasp* Shocking story, ain't it?

Next question:

Do they have a pre-nup?

*Definition thanks to wiki!*
A prenuptial agreement, commonly abbreviated to prenup or prenupt, is a contract entered into by two people prior to marriage or civil union. The content of a prenuptial agreement can vary widely, but commonly includes provisions for the division of property should the couple divorce and any rights to spousal support during or after the dissolution of marriage.

Do you remember when Jessica Simpson and Nick Lachey broke up? Jessica said Nick was too much of a wussy to have the guts to ask her for money. I don't think they had a prenup.

So..... prenup! Does it do something to the marriage? Is it a logical, rational thing to consider when entering a marriage? Or does it doom marriage right from the start? Logically, I am not sure what I think about it. However, I don't feel that great about it because I think people should spend more time thinking about marriage in the first place. Of course not everyone spends that much time being careful and guarded, and shit happens (like infidelity ten years down the line!). I feel that it would put a damper in the relationship right from the start. I mean, you're just getting married! Why think about divorce already! I also think it depends on the financial situations of the two parties. If they both are financially successful or financially similar in their assets, then a prenupt wouldn't matter as much.

November 01, 2006

Cynical about relationships Part II

Reese and Ryan are intelligently not releasing that much information about their recent breakup to the press (considering that the media is all over this already! So am I, haha) but a news clip today said that the cause of the breakup is the infidelity of Ryan. Ryan had been suspected of having an affair with a costar (from some new movie they are filming, I am vague on the details.) and Reese confirmed her suspicions when she found secret messages to the costar on his Blackberry.

Ryan, being unfaithful after seven years of marriage and beautiful children, is just a tsk tsk. I have been pretty close to this type of drama myself, not involving myself but involving some people I know quite intimately. The whole matter had cause me a great deal of distress and played a significant role in my cynical attitude to long-lasting (and steady) relationships. It seems that the ultimate breaking point of any long-lasting relationship is someone being bored and decides to be unfaithful. The muse can be someone young and hot, a coworker, a friend, or an ex. Mmmmm-hmmm.

I remember once reading a fictional novel (I can't remember the title right now but it was quite good) in which the theme was relationships. Don't get me wrong - it wasn't one of those trashy romance novels. It involved different sorts of relationships with players and victims. The sad thing was the players and the victims seemed like ordinary people: both had stable jobs, kids, normal lives, not too much going on that would cause turmoil. However, the cheating, the naivete, the denials, the pretentions were all just shocking.... and all surprisingly real. A recurring theme was: life goes so fast, you have to be stupid to stay faithful. Hmm. That was the players' rationale. As long as the played doesn't know, its a smart thing.

But in the end, it always ends in an ugly process. Nobody likes when things get ugly.

October 31, 2006

Cynical about relationships

I usually don't pay that much attention to Hollywood drama but one article that shocked me on MSN news yesterday had the headline: Reese and Ryan Split! I gasped. I love Reese and they were one of my favorite Hollywood couples. They just seemed so cute and so stable. They didn't have all this drama attached, or so it seemed. Now they split, after seven years of marriage (one of the longer ones in Hollywood) and a few adorable children. I wonder what caused them to ultimately break the tie? They must have had serious disagreements for a while to consider breaking seven-years. The whole thing had me thinking (and still sort of thinking) about relationships in general. Can couples stay happy forever, or for a very long time? What in a relationship makes someone realize that they don't want to be with a person? Do people get bored? I have always been somewhat cynical about relationships but I still have a pretty protected and hopeful heart. The true happily-ever-after stories are rare, maybe too mushy gushy gross, but seriously, they make me smile.

September 12, 2006

Linda's top beer list !!

Here is Linda's personal top beer list (not in any particular order)! Feel free to give me any yummy recommendations!

1) Ommegang Abbey Ale - a 8.5% burgandy ale that infuses flavors such as plum and cinnamon as well as aromas of caramel, toffee, and licorice. It's super delicious.

2) Rochefort 10 Trappist Ale - a dark brown ale that combines great strength and a variety of flavors and malt. You can taste a mix of port wine, leather, apricot, oak and spices. A very complex taste and a satisfying finish. It won a Gold Medal in the World Beer Championships 2004.

3) Young's Double Chocolate Stout - a full-flavored dark beer that combines pale ale, chocolate malt, Fuggles and Golding hops, a special blend of sugars and real dark chocolate. I love beer and I love chocolate, and this blend is just amazing.

4) Unibroue Trois Pistoles - a 9% ABV dark strong ale that contains yeast for refermentation in the bottle. It has a dusky black color with a smooth taste of wild fruit with an aftertaste of port. It is quite good.

5) Lefthand Milk Stout - an English style of beer known as a Sweet Stout which uses lactose as the sugar. The black beer is made from crystal, munich malts and magnum and golding hops. It has a smooth milky sweet taste and a nice hops kick -- this is something definitely to try!!

6) Dogfish Head 60 Minute IPA - HA, my first non-dark beer of my list! This beer has a golden orange color which combines a bouquet of hoppy flavors: grassy, floral, minty, and citrus! I don't frequenty drink IPAs but this one is on my list.

7) Lindemans Framboise Raspberry Lambic Beer - Okay this 'beer' is for the beer drinker and non-beer drinkers alike! It seriously tastes like a sweet carbonated fruit juice and you can hardly guess that its beer or even alcoholic! It has a sweet and tart raspberry flavor that has sort of a wine character. As long as you're not craving something dark and heavy, you should try this one out.

8) Victory Golden Monkey - another light colored beer that is definitely on my list. This golden Belgian-style ale has a rich German malt but an overall light body. The savoriness of this beer comes from strong herbal and fruity overtones, deeming this beer sensual and satisfying. Not to mention it has a 9.5% ABV kick, yeahh!

September 10, 2006

Old Poems from my ancient past....

I used to write.
Not newspaper articles, short stories, blogs, nor journal entries.

I used to write poems.

I didn't spend time thinking, composing, or making sure my lines rhymed or flowed.

I used to take a deep breath, give myself two minutes, and let my pen flow freely, unbound, aimlessly.

I wrote in unpretentious college-ruled 1-subject notebooks. The one from my senior year of high school was black and labeled Bits N Pieces. The one from my freshman year of college was called Chunks N Pieces. Corny, huh. :)

Since then, I had stopped writing. I am not sure why. I used to whip out up to five poems in the wee twilight hours of the night. Five poems = 10 minutes = up to 10 pages of pure, liberated thought.

And I stopped writing. I shut these notebooks of abounding scribbles, locked them in a case, became busy with college and becoming an adult, and burying all my thoughts away.

I didn't retrieve them from the chest until about a week ago. I am a second year graduate student now. It has been at least four years since I have looked at them. And damn, I don't know how I cranked these things out in less than two minutes.

I'd like to share a few with you. I think I will publish them on the Web one day. I don't mind sharing, and I don't mind rereading them myself.

Continue reading "Old Poems from my ancient past...."

September 05, 2006

5 Dates she'll hate!

I was searching Google and somehow, I wound up on the site, askmen.com. There was an article called 5 Dates She'll Hate.

It was talking about how in the beginning of every relationship, the couple always wants to spend every waking moment of their time together. That is fine for the first few months, until you [the dude] realize that you're afraid of asking the girlfriend to play XBox with your boys. She'll expect you to spend all your time with her, just like how it was in the beginning, and eventually you'll lose your friends and your personal time...yadda yadda yadda.

Well, here is what the article by Tommy Jordan suggested: to ask her on five dates she'll hate!!!

1) Ask her to go paintballing with you.

2) Take her hunting.

3) Suggest a sci-fi marathon.

4) Make her play video games.

5) Spend Saturday watching cartoons.

His logic is to make her bored so she will start rejecting your dates, and you'll have Saturday nights free!!!!

Ha ha ha... I think I'd actually like doing 1 and 4. That is some scheme.... and this is NOT a tip for my boyfriend. :)

September 03, 2006

Old quotes i found in my closet.

I opened a random box in my closet back in my parent's house. I couldn't believe what I had found. I found old scrapbooks, yearbooks, and random notebooks -- I had been missing these for years.

Among all these treasures, there was a compact purple notebook labeled "Dream: Believe in your heart that something wonderful is about to happen." Inside were a small collection of quotes and excerpts from books I had collected when I was a teen.

Here are a couple that inspires and impacts me even until this day:

"The grand essentials of happiness are: something to do, something to love, and something to hope for." - Allan K. Chalmers

"Gravity is not responsible for people falling in love." -Albert Einstein

"Reason transformed into prejudice is the worst form of prejudice because reason is the only instrument for liberation from prejudice." -Allan Bloom

"Courage is not the absence of fear but rather the judgement that something else is more important than fear." -Ambrose Redmoon

"The tragedy of life is not death but in what dies inside a person while he or she lives -- the death of genuine feeling, the death of inspired response, the death of awareness that makes it possible to feel the pain or the glory of other people in oneself." -Norman Couisins

"Don't say you love me unless you really mean it because I might do something crazy like believe it!" - Anonymous

"It wasn't necessarily the things you said that made me walk away. I think it was just too many things you didn't say. It wasn't the things you did that made me question you and ask why. It was all those things you never did that made me cry. I believe that your intentions were never to hurt me. But by what you're lacking, you deserted me. I'll jusgt sit and waste away, until the day that you come back saying you've changed." - have no clue where I got this one from

"What the hell is this?"
"Its a peace symbol, sir."
"What does your helmet say?"
"Born to kill, sir."
"What the hell is going on?"
"I guess I was just trying to point out the duality of mankind, sir." -Full Metal Jacket

"If a woman conceals her affection with the same skill from the object of it she may lose the opportunity of fixing him... There is so much of gratitude and vanity in almost every attachment that it is not safe to leave any to itself. We can all begin freely -- a slight preference is natural enough; but there are very few of us who have heart enough to be really in love without encouragement." -Pride and Prejudice

"This is your life and it's ending one minute at a time." -Fight Club

August 30, 2006

Not a fan of BS anymore and I can't even feign it.

I was so different back then.
I have no idea when the change took place but I am definitely not the person I once was.

I am tired of bullshit.

I am tired of immaturity.

I am tired of the little common phrases that people all tend to us in social situations when people have nothing to say.

I am tired of people not taking serious things seriously.

I am tired feigning enthusiasm, feigning happiness, feigning interest, feigning confidence, feigning feigning feigning -- basically being some thing I don't feel like being at the time. I'm not saying that I am forced to be someone I don't want to be because perhaps, I want to be more confident, happy, enthusiastic, etc, but not at that given time. If I don't like your joke, then I don't feel like laughing. If I find you boring, then I don't want to talk to you. Wow, that was harsh-- but do you know what I mean though?

Sometimes I feel like my life is just being swept away, tossed down a stream along with other people's lives, becoming entangled and ultimately resulting in more complications than necessary.

I want my life to be simple. I have goals and I want to get them accomplished. Don't get me wrong -- I am in love with people -- minus the drama and issues. I just don't want to be dragged down.

Maybe I'm just no fun anymore. Maybe I am getting too serious. I just don't like pretending anymore. I am not that girl who smiles at everything, along with everyone, and agreeing to everything and with everyone. I have developed what they call, an attitude.

Or, maybe I am just developing an attitude

to life.

August 12, 2006

Nostalgic about old times.

I can't believe I've been in Cleveland for exactly a year now. I've completed my first year of graduate studies. I've changed roommates, friends, peers. I feel I am a different person, again. Undergrad just seems blurry to me. I haven't talked with my old friends for months. I haven't talked with some of them since graduation!

I got immensely nostalgic when I was randomly browsing a photo album of one of my old friends. Then I started browsing another photo album of another very good friend of mine. The crazy pictures and funny captions made me laugh. I haven't talked with them for a crazy long while, and they were in such a huge part of my life... only two years ago.

They looked so young in these pictures. I looked young. We were... 19, 20, or 21 back then? We weren't exactly kids, but we had that naivete 'look' when we were posing in these pictures.

I'm only 22 now, turning 23 in a few months, but I feel I aged at least three years, in a year. Perhaps it is because my new set of peers range from 25 year olds to Professors. Although I am still known for my excitement, enthusiasm, and optimism, I have lost a lot of my old naive thoughts, innocence, my old bright-eyed-bushy-tailed demeanor and (oh no!) am starting to become jaded. Serious. More calm.

However, I am beginning to realize what I want now. What I want out of my life. My confusion about what I wanted was bothering me. Now I am slightly less bothered.

Sigh, I do miss old times though.