Ryan's Thoughts

How things change in 6 weeks

2011-02-13T10:51:00.000-08:00

Sandra and I in Death Valley

Well where do I start?? Sandra came and stayed with me from January 21 to the 31. We went to Vegas, Death Valley, Palm Springs, LA, Orange County (twice), saw a drive-in, did some shopping, and dog sat for my boss. We both had a great time and I was definitely sad to see her go. But I will see my girlfriend in a few months in Australia hopefully so its not too far away.

I was hired by Carmax last week as a Sales Consultant which means I will be leaving my current job at Beacon in the next 2 weeks. I am really excited for this opportunity for a new challenge and to make some money to save up for my future.

I have been doing quite a bit of reading and am almost finished with Down and Out in Paris and London which is great, I also finished Uncle Tom's Cabin, Bear Grylls book about climing Mt. Everest, and Kevin Elko's book "The Pep Talk". I started playing tennis with john this week and we played 5 days! I got the best of him the first 3 but the last 2 he beat me, so its nice to see how competitive it is.

My sister and Rob are getting married in about a month a half! crazy! Im really excited for them. And then my Uncle Brendan and Jennie are getting married at the end of May so its a happy spring for the Riley family.

Thats about it for now, hope everyone is good.

Welcome to 2011!

2011-01-02T12:13:00.000-08:00

I hope everyone had a great Christmas and new years! Mine were both low-key with my dad and I got some nice stuff. 100$ gift card to Jcpenney, 25$ itunes gift card, some candy, an ESPN trivia game, and 200$ towards a new digital camera since mine got stolen.

I got some nice things from other family members too: some books, 100$ for graduation, pajama pants, and a st. christophers medal, and my mom sent me 50$ too.

Not too much new to report. I beat Fable 3 and Halo Reach now, still haven't played Fallout 3 though. TCU beat Wisconsin in the Rose Bowl yesterday 21-19, which is awesome I think. I love when small schools bust the BCS.

Still reading Uncle Tom's Cabin, but more than halfway through now. Also, Ive decided I am going to try to get a job as a car salesman after Sandra comes and visits because ill be able to make some good money doing that.

Talk to you soon!

I'm back!!!!

2010-12-19T11:10:00.000-08:00

Me in Rio

Well after a blogging break of over three months, I decided it was time to get back on this thing. As some of you know, I was gone in South America for 10 weeks. I have been home for about a month (returned on November 18) and have just been readjusting to life back in the States.

I decided the old blog could use a little makeover, so I setup a new layout and put up a new profile picture from me in Bolivia.

So what can I say?? A lot has changed in my life in the past 3 months.

1. I officially am done with my masters degree, have received my thesis bound in a book, and have recently been notified that they have mailed out my paper diploma. Pretty exciting stuff eh?

2. I spent 10 of the most amazing weeks of my life traveling around South America and the Caribbean. This included visiting more than 10 countries, meeting many amazing people, and greatly improving my Spanish skills (at least I like to think so). If you are interested in reading about this and seeing pictures, check out the blog listed on the side of this one.

3. I decided that I want to move to Australia for a year (maximum because of the visa thing) and am planning to do that at the end of May after my sister and uncle get married.

Thats the main stuff.. pretty cool right? Since I have been home, I have just been lazy really. I am lucky enough that I had my job at Sonata to return too. I have been hitting the job hunting trail fairly hard, but with little luck. The job market is still really bad and for having sent out probably 100 applications in a month, I have only gotten 2 interview.

Also, my dad purchased and moved into a new house while I was gone, so that was really cool. I saw it once before I left, when it was empty. Its double the size of the old place and the yard is probably 6 to 7 times bigger. Definitely a nice upgrade. Nice to see my dad really happy too. I have been playing a lot of Xbox too, I spent so a lot of time reading while I traveled and writing beforehand, so its nice to just shut my brain off and relax. I finally got back on the fitness trail this past week and have started working out again. I haven't been able to play tennis (besides twice) because my friend John seems to have disappeared.. oh well.

Christmas is in 6 days, which is always exciting. I'm not as much in the Christmas spirit as normal I think because I was gone for so long. I can't believe its here already.

Also, I am really excited because my friend that I traveled with for 6 weeks will be coming to visit and stay for me at the end of January for 10 days on her way to Australia and I know we are going to have a great time!

That is about it for now, hope everyone is doing well.

Last Post for 2 Months

2010-09-05T12:29:00.000-07:00

Please go to my other blog: http://worldswerver.livejournal.com/ as I travel and blog through South America for the next 2 months.

Just gonna cover some highlights from the last week:
1. Paid for my binding fees for my thesis, I am officially graduated and have completed my master's degree.
2. Got my passport back from the Surinamese Embassy with the Visa, arranged to have my car insurance suspended, will suspend my phone on tuesday, printed out my itinerary and flights, booked my first hostel in Cartagena, and arranged for my debit/credit cards to be unblocked for my trip. Basically all pre-trip preparations have been made except for packing.
3. I decided to postpone reading the Jungle and am about halfway through Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond. Its tremendous so far, and I also bought some other books. A few of these will make the journey with me to South America.
4. Had Sushi with a friend thursday night and visited another friend in Anaheim friday night.

That is about it. Just need to finish packing my bag and my room up so my dad can move my stuff for me while I am gone. Take care everyone, I'll see you in a few months!

T-Minus 9 Days...

2010-08-29T11:26:00.000-07:00

until South America!

I had a great week! I finally finished my thesis WOOHOO!!! I got it signed off by both Dr. Chau in Huntington Beach and Pytell at the university. I had really good talks with both about future plans and my upcoming trip, Dr. Chau gave me a little journal to use for notes and stuff which will come in really handy. Anyways, I printed my thesis on the official cotton paper, made 3 extra copies of it, and turned it into the university. As long as it all passes on final review, I should be heading up there next week to pay for the binding fees and I am 100% done with my masters degree!!

What else.. picked up my passport from the Brazil consulate and mailed it to the Surinamese embassy in DC in order to get their visa. I saw my old friend Josh from high school while I was in LA, I hadn't seen him in 2 years or so. Packed up most of my room and prepared most of the documents and stuff for my trip. Got a fleece sleeping bag and toiletries so I have basically everything I need. Also, I got my Colombian and Peruvian currency from my bank so I have some cash when I first get to these countries. I finished Heart of Darkness and The Secret Sharer by Joseph Conrad; both were really good books. I am going to start The Jungle by Upton Sinclair next.

I have been having a really good time with my sister and niece, my niece cried yesterday when I left for work lol shes adorable. I only have two more days with them which is sad, but it has been a good visit. Yesterday we all went to Brendan's in palm desert and hung out which was a lot of fun.

Thats about it on my end. Things are good, starting to get ANXIOUS! Take care

Family from Illinois

2010-08-22T13:22:00.000-07:00

My younger sister and niece are out visiting for about 13 days, I picked them up from the airport on Wednesday night. Madi (my niece) is adorable and as you can see loves playing xbox with her uncle! She is so ridiculously cute, it makes me sad they don't live closer and I know I am going to be sad when they leave.

I had a lot of fun in SD; played some tennis, hung out with my buddy and his girl who just moved to Point Loma, my other friend Mike, and got to have dinner with another friend who I haven't seen in a bit. It was a nice relaxing trip.

I heard back from AEON finally, didn't get offered a position. No big deal there, just glad to finally have heard back from them. I got my Yellow Fever vaccination tuesday, pick up my passport tomorrow with my brazil visa, and will mail it off to the Surinamese embassy for their visa. I finished the last books in the Chronicles of Narnia series, which was a great read, all 7 books. Now I am reading Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad, which is really good and disturbing so far.

I got my waterproof shoes and money belt in the mail, checked both of those out and they should work perfect. My dad had a poncho too so I will be borrowing that. All in all the last purchase I need to make is a sleeping bag and as much as I hate walmart, I think i'll get it there just because they sell them so cheap.

Thesis is finally nearly done. I did a second review with the university and have met all university guidelines and standards for formatting which is nice. Yesterday I went through the pre-pages, chapter 1 and chapter 2 just editing it. I found about 8 sources in my document that weren't in my references, it appears that in all the different drafst, my reference list got out of touch. Just fixing some small spelling and grammer errors too. I am going to do Chapter 3 and 4 after I finish writing this.

Still waiting to hear back from Dr. Pytell, which is making me nervous, its only been a little over 2 weeks. However, I found out that I need to turn the cotton paper copies into the university by this upcoming thursday and I need to coordinate meeting with Dr. Chau in LA to get him to sign off on it. Hopefully he gets back to me by tonight or tomorrow..

Anyways, hope everyone is well; oh ya I wrote a second travel-related post on my other blog so go check it out!

Sunny San Diego

2010-08-15T15:09:00.000-07:00

Hey all,

Hope everyone is doing just grand. Things are good here, just hanging out at work for another hour then heading down to San Diego. I haven't been down in a while, so it should be good fun: see some friends, play some tennis, maybe hit up the beach?

My little sister and niece will be here in 3 days, really stoked for that! I know my niece is going to look huge compared to a year ago (she's 1 and a half). Pretty exciting times this last week. I finally got my copies of the journal in which I got an article on arms control in West Africa published. Been doing more preparations for my trip, which includes buying a money belt, water proof walking/hiking shoes, testing out my backpack (passed with flying colors), finished buying the rest of my flights, and I dropped my visa off to get my Brazil visa. I need to go pick it up on August 23rd, then mail it off to get my Suriname visa. I still need to take care of my Yellow Fever Vaccination too. Talked to my main job and got the time off, still haven't notified my second boss yet I should probably get on that...

What else.. oh I rebooted my old travel blog http://worldswerver.livejournal.com/. Also, I listed it on the right side of this blog. That is the blog that I will be updating as I travel and to start it off, I am doing a series of posts on how to prepare for a trip. I still haven't heard back from AEON and its been 3.5 weeks, not sure if that is good or bad but it is what it is. OH! other good news: my thesis has been approved by Dr. Jones and Dr. Chau, so I am just waiting to hear back from Dr. Pytell and if he gives it the green light I am in the clear wahoo! Also, my dad got approved on his bid for a house, so he is a new homeowner! This means I need to pack all my crap up for him because he will be moving in October while I'm gone. It will be really weird to come home to a new house, but I am excited especially for him, he has waited a long time for this.

Well, thats about it. Don't forget to check the other blog for travel-related posts and information! 23 days and counting!

South America

2010-08-08T20:03:00.000-07:00

Well, I finished my itinerary and travel map!

You can view the travel map here

And you can download my itinerary here.

Hope you enjoy!

Planning my great escape

2010-08-08T11:46:00.000-07:00

Now that this trip has become a reality, I have gone into plan mode. Boy, I sure like to fit as much in as I can. I have a crazy ambitious itinerary and I hope I can fit everything in. Well I guess its my own fault for trying to see the whole continent in just two months. At some point, I would like to take a trip where I just go and meander at my own pace, that was the goal of this trip initially, but the bottom line is South America is just massive and there is no way to meander if I want to fit all I can in.

I have nearly completed an excel spreadsheet with all of my information as well as a travel map showing my journey. I'll post both of those when I finish (probably later today). Also, I am going to post a few blogs about how to plan for a large trip, what you need, what you should bring/do, etc. About time I put this blog to good use no?

At any rate, I emailed my thesis out to my committee and Dr. Jones, here is hoping there is not too much more that needs to be done. Still have not heard back from AEON, no big deal there as they said 2-3 weeks and it will be 3 weeks on this upcoming wednesday. My little sister and niece will be out for 2 weeks on August 18, really excited about that. I saw Inception last week, that movie is brilliant. I highly recommend everyone go see it, there is definitely something for everyone in it.

Oh and also, I am going to revive my old travel blog over at http://worldswerver.livejournal.com/ for this trip. I need to see if there is a way I can post pictures in the text like you can with Google blogger, otherwise I might have to make a new one or something. Anyways, I'll post those things a little later on tonight.

Los Angeles Dreams

2010-08-04T09:30:00.000-07:00

I'm trying to come up with some catchy titles to mix things up, how do you like it? haha. Well, I am currently in Hollywood staying with my friend Matt. Last night we hung out with my friends Kendra and Stephanie for a bit, then hit up a couple bars down here.

Not too much new to report.... finished my last teaching class, got my first draft of my thesis back, oh and I am going to South America for 2 months... haha ok ok so maybe I do have a few new things to talk about. I fly out to Cartagena, Colombia on September 8 and fly home on November 4 from Bogota, Colombia. I'm really excited as I wanted to do this trip in the spring and it will by far be the longest trip I have ever taken. 2 whole months?!? its going to be amazing.

Yesterday, when I drove down to LA I bought Footprints' South America 2010 handbook, this is the 86th year they have done it and by all accounts is the best guide book for S. A. Now typically I just research where I am going and kinda write the things down I want to visit. However, the fact of the matter is I am going to be visiting roughly 10 countries with different languagues,visas, currencies, etc and it just made more sense to have 1 guidebook to have that knowledge. I still have been doing a lot of research and such, but this will be extremely useful to have on the ground.

Today I am just going to work on my thesis. I am finished with both Dr. Chau and Jones corrections for the first 2 chapters, about 2/3 of the way through the chapter 3 corrections, and haven't really started chapter 4. I worked on it the last 2 days as well and feel that if I work hard today and tomorrow I should be able to finish by tomorrow night. I met with Dr. Pytell tuesday and he seemed very relaxed and confident that I would finish, which makes me happy.

Aeon called both of my references, so I could potentially hear back from them between today and next wednesday. Got on a torrent program, so I got Rosetta Stone with 20 languages, about 20 cd's and about 7 movies in the last week lol.

So ya lots of planning to do, I need to get my brazillian and surinamese visas, figure out how much time I want to spend in each country and all that jazz. Hope everyone is good!

The Starbucks Monologues

2010-07-27T12:46:00.000-07:00

So, Starbucks now offers free wi-fi at all of their stores... pretty brilliant right? And that is where I find myself at this moment. I am meeting a friend at 1 to catch up in Roseville, then I am driving back home. I just had brunch with my 2 cousins which was really nice. This will cap off a fun-filled week. Interview with Aeon went really well in LA, both the group and personal ones. Ill find out in 1-2 weeks whether I am offered a position. San Francisco was a lot of fun. I finally got to go to a dueling piano bar, do pub trivia, see some old friends, make some new ones. And to top it off, the weather was PERFECT. It was in the 60s everydays, I mean how can you go wrong with that.

Then on Saturday was the wedding. Shane and Monica both looked amazing. A big group of us shared a hotel room, walked to the wedding, went out after the wedding, and met part of the bridal party later on. Good times. Also, got to see some really old friends from high school (Marcus, Jackson, Scott); reminescing about the good ol days haha. Lunch with Stowers and his family. Then yesterday, played some tennis, swam in the confluence, saw my friend Nicole. Then, I had dinner with Sara and her family which was great and here I am.

Need to get back to work when I get home. I haven't worked in a week and I need to get cracking on my thesis.

Wedding Bells and Travel Plans

2010-07-18T10:55:00.000-07:00

Congratulations to my good friends Shane Trimmer and Monica Escajada who are getting married July 24 in Sacramento. I will have the pleasure of attending the wedding and I am quite excited seeing its really my first wedding to attend as an adult.

Quite the busy week planned. Tonight I am going to Palm Springs, Tues-Wed I am in LA for an interview with a company that runs english schools in Japan. Then either Wed night or Thursday I will leave for San Francisco, stay there until Saturday morning, then go up to the wedding. After that I will probably stay in Auburn until Tuesday and drive home.

Also, I got thesis corrections from my Thesis mentor and from Dr. Jones that I need to get working on; first draft is due July 29. I finished "Last days of Socrates" which was great, and am now working on The Oresteia Trilogy by Aeschylus. Also, got my Xbox back so have been playing that a bit a well.

Christian came up Thursday from Laguna Beach and we went and played tennis on the clay court in Riverside. It was fun but HOT. Its been 105 for the last 3 days and today is no different. Lets see, Spain won the world cup (vamos) and today a South African named Louis Oosthuizen won the British Open out of nowhere by 7 shots.

Im getting really ancy for the end of summer, when my thesis will be (hopefully) finished and I can go travel. Either teaching english abroad or just traveling on my own, either way it will be great, Im really looking forward to it. Just trying to decide where and in which manner I should do it. If I happen to land this gig Im interviewing for this week, I would go to Japan in Feb/March; which would give me several months to go travel on my own. If this is the case, then I would probably do a South America/Europe trip.

Anyways on to other things.. Lets talk music. I have recently really gotten into John Mayer (apparently 5 years late) and man he makes some great music. I bought Battle Studies and Continuum. Great stuff. I also got Enrique Iglesias's new CD, Euphoria. Its not bad, a good mix of spanish and english songs. Not as good as Seven or Insomniac, but definitely has some good songs on it. OH, I finally broke down and bought another Ipod. Shoutout to Jackson for sending me the link to Apple's store, I got an 8 gig vid Ipod in black for 100 bucks including shipping and tax. Pretty sweet since I havent had one for like a year.

I feel like I should post more deep, intellectual posts of like my deep thoughts as this blog is really just like a recap of what I do each week, but I have deep thoughts all week with all my free time and I would literally post 10 times a day if I did this. Oh well haha.

World Cup Final

2010-07-11T11:40:00.000-07:00

We are about 15 minutes to the kick off to the World Cup Final which features Spain vs the Netherlands. Neither team has won the Cup before, and this is Spain's first visit to the final so it plans to be an exciting match. Germany won a wild one over Uruguay yesterday 3-2. I'm sad to see the tournament ending as I have really enjoyed it.

I had a really fun week. Monday I played some tennis. Tuesday, I hung out with my friend Christian who I met in spain. He is visiting his cousins who live in Laguna Niguel. We had some dinner in Laguna Beach and walked around and then went to World Team Tennis in Newport Beach. Michael Chang, former world #2 and French Open champion was there and he was nice enough to take a picture with me. Good times.

Wednesday, I worked out and ran and then my buddy Mike drove up from San Diego that night. On thursday, we went to the cabazon outlets and got some shirts. Then we drove up to Lake Arrowhead and Big Bear lake for the day, where we ate lunch and walked around. It was gorgeous up there, I had not been to Arrowhead in a couple year and had only been to Big Bear once as a kid years ago. Then, we rolled back to my house and just hung out.

On friday we went to my work and hung out. Afterwards we saw "Get Him To The Greek" at the 2$ movie theatre, it was ok, had some pretty funny parts. Saturday I went to work and then drove down to Anaheim to see my buddy Rocky from high school. He recently got a job at ATT there and got an apartment right by his job. We got him settled in then went to 2 cool bars in downtown Fullerton: Bourbon Street and Slidebar. Both had good crowds and themes, you can tell that downtown Fullerton has a pretty good nightlife. Then, we went back to his apartment for some margaritas and headed across the street to the bar/club/lounge that is right by his place. Unfortunately, we got there a little late and they weren't letting people in anymore. However, the place was packed and seemed like a good vibe so we will have to go there again.

Woke up this morning, got a bagel at starbucks and drove home to take a quick shower before work. For today, Im just gonna watch the game and complete the 2 assignments I have for my teaching class that are due by midnight. I finished "A Midsummer Nights Dream" which was great and am now working my way through the "Last Days of Socrates" written by Plato, which is really good so far.

Some thesis news: turns out the first draft isn't due until July 29 so that gives me 6 extra days to work on it. My graduate coordinator emailed me back and was happy with the progress that has been made which is nice. I am just waiting to get my chapters back from Dr. Jones so I can get working on it because there isn't anything I can really do until then. Also, I got an email from the journal in which I had a paper published a few months ago and they are sending my 5 copies of the article so I am stoked for that.

Hopefully will have a good week, get some work and exercize in! Take care!

Happy Fourth of July!

2010-07-04T10:49:00.000-07:00

Happy Fourth of July everyone!

This marks the 234 year anniversary of the declaration of independence. Im very thankful for living in this country and all the freedoms we have and I hope everyone else is too.

World Cup is getting interesting Germany, who has dominated, plays Spain in the semis and Uruguay plays The Netherlands. My money is on the Dutch and Germans advancing with Germany winning it all. The Wimbledon final was today too, which was won by Rafa Nadal in straight sets over Tomas Berdych. Im a Federer fan, as most people know, but I definitely respect Nadal's game and I hate Berdych so it was nice to see.

Read a few books this week: Waiting for Godot, a funny french play about two guys who sit around waiting for some guy named Godot. Also, I read Crimes against Logic a great book my friend Kat let me borrow. Its about logical fallacies and how present they are in today's society. I'm about to start Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream, which I have seen performed, but haven't read.

I had a pretty productive week overall. Ran 4 times, worked out once, and played tennis once. I am also making a conscious effort to eat healthier. My calorie intake is good, but I have been eating shit. So I'm trying to eat better and you can really feel what a difference it makes when your exercise. Also, I emailed Chapter's 3 and 4 to Professor Jones and Chapter's 1 and 2 to Dr. Pytell, so I've had a few days break from the thesis.

I start my last online teaching class on tuesday, I am excited to get it over with. I am hoping to get my chapters back hopefully next weekend, so I can begin making those corrections. The first draft is due July 23, so time is a ticking.

Hope everyone is good.

I can't think of anything clever to write here...

2010-06-27T17:20:00.001-07:00

Not too much exciting news,

The US got knocked out of the World Cup, which sucks. Hmm, work is going good (both jobs); I finished 2 online teaching classes so only one more left woohoo. Read Three cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson, I recently read the sequal Stones into Schools, and the latter book is much better although the story in the first one is still awesome.

I am currently in correspondence with a college in West Turkey for a teaching gig there, I have also applied to a school in Japan and am waiting to hear back. I got my money from school, so I am able to do a few things I have been holding back on such as getting some new tennis shoes, buying rotors and brakes for my car, paying bills.. haha.

Got invited to my first wedding as an adult (besides my cousins when I was 19??). Shoutout to Shane and Monica congratulations!!! Thats at the end of July, which works out perfectly because I was planning a trip up north at the end of july anyways so that will work out quite nice.

I have been getting some good work done on my thesis. Im going to email the final 2 chapters to my professor in the next few days as the first draft is due in about a month. I dont think im too far off, so Im feeling pretty good about it.

Other than that, just gonna keep reading, working, exercising, and all that fun stuff. See ya

Pictures finally: grass court tennis and graduation!

2010-06-20T11:31:00.000-07:00

Well, my friend John and I finally went out and did it. We went and played tennis on a grass court and I have to say its one of the coolest experiences of my life. We played at the JW Marriott in Palm Desert and had a great time. Its 20$/hr for the grass court (not bad considering there is only like 15 public grass courts in the USA now). We played 3 sets (I lost the third in a tiebreaker), but man it was fun, definitely want to do it again soon. It was the perfect start to the grass court season and Wimbledon starts tomorrow which is exciting. Then, my aunt, cousin, and sister came down on Thursday, so we all watched Game 7 of the NBA finals and just hung out. My sister stayed down until today, but my aunt and cousin left early Friday morning.

I got a second job doing research for an accounting firm from home. So far I've only worked ten hours but it seems like a sweet gig. Its 10 dollars an hour, and its cool I call a phone number to clock in, and I just have to do the research and email it in as I finish. My boss seems like a cool guy. It will probably be 20-25 hours a week, so between my 2 jobs I will be working over 40. It will be nice to be making a decent amount of money for the first time in two years haha. Oh ya, I am still watching the World Cup a lot and the US tied with Slovenia and then England blew it and tied against Algeria. As long as we beat Algeria, we will advance to the knockout round for the first time since 2002, im really excited.

I walked in my graduation ceremony yesterday so I am officially graduated from CSU San Bernardino woohoo! It was cool, I got to sit with my friend and I saw two of my professors working with me on my thesis. Then, I had a little barbeque at my house and had some family and friends show up which was low-key and fun. We played some basketball, ping pong, and just relaxed. I just need to finish my thesis now and I will be completely done. Thats what my main focus will be in the coming weeks is finishing that up. I only have one more week of my two teaching classes so those are almost done too and then I have one more next month, but after doing 2 in one month, one should be a walk in the park.

My focus as far as jobs go has shifted away to finding something now since I found this online gig, to what I am gonna do when I finish my thesis. More and more, I think I would like to teach english abroad for a year. In fact, today I am going to apply to places in Japan, Turkey, and Dubai. I just think its something I would enjoy a lot.

Anyways, hope everyone is doing well, talk to you all sooooooooon.

I'm feeling my philosophy

2010-06-13T11:02:00.000-07:00

I'm currently listening to When I look at the World by U2, which is currently my favorite song. Moreover, this song makes me feel... peaceful? I don't know how to explain it. My life currently revolves around: music, tennis, schoolwork, reading, and movies... not too shabby ya? But I'm missing that human connection, the deep connection you get when your surrounded by those you care about. Not to say I'm unhappy because I'm not, I'm quite content actually. I feel like I'm coming out of a long stretch of being buried in a tunnel and emerging into the open air.

Just some thoughts I've been having: true strength is not present in the ability to grasp something and hold on to it with everything you have. I have believed this for a long time, but its just not accurate. This strength is really demonstarted in the ability to let go of events, experiences, people, and things. I am by nature an extremely hopeful and optimistic person; but as I get older a tone of realism creeps into my belief system that tempers my imagination. This is both good and bad. I have always believed in the power to create and manifest the things you want most in life, and I still do. BUT, you do not create and manifest specifics. You create and manifest the concept, and life fills that concept in for you.

As a result, what is life's experience truly about? It is about growing, learning, and loving on one hand. It is also about experiencing hurt, loss, and pain on the other. We all love things that are not destined to last forever, including ourselves. For myself, I am really discouraged and tired of losing the things I love, but I'm sure everyone feels this way, no one has the pleasure of gaining and holding everything they lose in their life forever. Another aspect of this is loving yourself, which for some reason so many people struggle to do. And if you do not love yourself, life is not nearly what it could be. This is not to say to be a narcissist or egotist, but to be confident and at peace with who you are: emotionally, mentally, physically. All in all, everything is about balance. I used to know this to my soul, and it seems I have forgotten it for so long.

Bottom line is, I care/feel/love TOO hard, TOO strongly, and TOO intensely for my life situation. People are not ready for this at this stage in their life. For some reason, I am not afraid of these feelings, but I really am in the minority. It isn't even about thinking long-term or jumping into something, its just that when I feel for someone, I let everything else go. I used to always think this was a great quality, and it is on some level, but for this society and this timeframe and age, it isn't. Its a one way ticket to getting hurt, yet I haven't changed my action. So either I am a lot stronger mentally/emotionally than most people or a lot stupider... hmm... However, I think it really is time to change.. Like I already said, having the ability to let go is true strength and this includes letting go of your past and parts of who you are. I guess I feel sorry for people who fear love and deep emotions, because they don't know what they are potentially missing out on, but everyone has to find it on their own. At any rate, this is basically a compilation of my last 2 months of thinking, but its taken until now to have enough of an outside perspective to put it down.

Anyways... went out last night with some friends in Temecula.. had a fun time down there. I graduate in 6 days, which I can't wait for. I have been playing a ton of tennis, thank god. Its become my outlet, instead of coaching, my aggression goes out through tennis. Federer lost in a final today which sucks. OH, the WORLD CUP is on!! US battled England to a tie yesterday, which is huge for us. I think we have a legitimate shot of making it to the round of 16.

Have a great day everyone.

Summer is definitely here

2010-06-06T11:07:00.000-07:00

It finally is starting to get hot down here, its been in the 90s the past few days. I finished my first week of teaching classes up, which are going well; and got a little bit done with my thesis too. Im reading a great book called Stones into Schools written by Greg Mortenson, the same guy who wrote 3 Cups of Tea. This guy builds schools in Afghanistan and Pakistan and focuses on female education. Since I took a class on Central Asia, I know some about the region and its amazing what Mortenson has been able to do so far.

I woke up at 6am today to watch the French Open Final, and it was disappointing. Robin Soderling got throttled by Rafa Nadal 6-4, 6-2, 6-4. I must say I have to finally give Nadal is due, he has an amazing game and work ethic and even though I like Federer I do respect him a lot. Speaking of tennis, I have played 3 times this week after not playing for 6 weeks and have been playing really good. I have won 8 out of 15 sets, by far the best I have done against John. Watched Hayao Miyzakis new film Ponyo last night, it was really good, more like a My Neighbor Totoro than a Spirited Away type film. Like all Miyazaki films though, it was warm, well-written, and Joe Hisashi is always amazing with music.

Developed some electronics trouble the last week. First, my cell phone now will only charge thru my car charger, the wall charger will not work anymore. I even bought a new wall charger and that didn't work so its the phone. Next, I dropped my laptop off at best buy to fix the display (I had these weird colored lines running verticle through the screen) and I won't have that for a month or so. This is both inconveniant and refreshing as weird as it sounds. Im always in front of a computer so its forcing me to do other things. Third, My xbox has frozen several times over two straight days so I think that is going to need to be sent in. Luckily my laptop was still one warranty (by a day) so that is free but the xbox will cost about 140$ so im going to have to wait. I have a wii which i havent played in a while but its time to bust that out. I ordered the software disc from netflix that lets you stream on the wii too so i will still be able to watch movies and shows which will be nice.

Anyways, thats about it. Hopefully Ill have some interesting pics for next week since I havent had pics in a while. Take care.

Gap week

2010-05-30T11:17:00.000-07:00

Sorry for not posting last week. I took a week and went up to norcal. Visited lots of friends and family, saw stacy off to grad school, which was nice. I went up to the high school and chatted with all the coaches and teachers which I really enjoyed too. I stayed with my buddy Garrett the whole time, and we had a lot of fun. Also, had dinner with an old co-workers and her family: I made Sangria and Garrett cooked dinner so that was really cool. Then, I went down and spent a day with Shannon and Rob and then the night with my buddy Matt and his girlfriend who just moved into San Franciscio in a really nice apartment.

So I was gone May 17-25, then I got home and finally got some stuff done. I sent out my grad announcements the few days before I left. I re-enrolled in my teaching credential program, I only have 3 classes left woohoo. Im taking 2 in june and 1 in july, so im really excited about that. Then, I finally bought an external hard drive and recovered the data from my old laptop. The guy who did it lives where I work and he did it for like 40$, super cheap. If anyone lives near Riverside and needs CPU repairs, hit up http://www.ewsss.com/. Anyways, I got all my music back which is like 4000 songs, about 1000 pics, and all my old documents including my coaching stuff.

I have been watching the French Open a little bit, this marks around 2 years that I have been watching tennis a lot. Crazy it has gone by so fast. Anyways, Federer is in the quarterfinals and will play Robin Soderling who he beat in last years final. It should be a good match, but I think Fed will take it. John and I are going to start playing again next week which will be nice since I havent played in like 6 weeks. Im going to be so rusty.

Other than that not too much new going on.. Couple of potential teaching job prospects back up near Auburn, so we will see how those shake out. Still graduating June 19, still working on the thesis (kinda), I need to really get on that this next week. Oh yeah and im going to vegas tonight for a couple days so that should be fun.

Anyways, hope everyone is well, see ya!

Yepppppppppppppp

2010-05-16T10:43:00.000-07:00

Hey hey,

Just watching the Federer-Nadal final at the Madrid tourney. Its a good match so far, Nadal just won a first tight set.

Not too much exciting this week, hung out with Omar friday night and had a good time. Lots of running, working out, and thesis. Printed out my grad announcements friday and im going to mail them out tomorrow I think.

Going up north on tuesday to see some friends which will be fun, wish I was going up today because Lance Armstrong is riding through auburn and it would be cool to see him.

Anyways, not much else going on, see ya all later.

Happy Mothers day

2010-05-09T11:55:00.000-07:00

Happy mothers day to all the mothers out there, thanks for bringing us all into this world and doing what you do.

Just got done chatting with my own mom for about 30 minutes, good talk, we don't speak that often so. Spent all week working on my thesis really hard, got a lot done. Im meeting with Dr. Jones tomorrow, to discuss the layout and argument of the thesis some more. Just trying to push through it.

Went down to USC for a night to hang out with some buddies, good seeing those guys. Also, Friday night I hung out with Omar, one of my tennis buddies down here which was fun. Nice to get out. Yesterday I played golf with my dad for the first time in 9 months, I bet everyone can guess how that went haha. We also had dinner and tonight are going to see Iron man 2, which will be fun.

Trying to plan my summer out. I graduate June 19, which will be nice. Then my sister and her fiancee are moving to Boise, ID in the beginning of july, so Ill probably drive up and help them move. I dont know if this means Im going to Boise too or what but I can at least help them pack. Omar is going to Europe for a month in July and wants me to tag along. I really do want to get back to Europe, its tempting to have the opportunity to travel with someone too. I just dont know if I can swing it financially, Europe is expensive over the summer. Also, my other tennis buddy John is going up to Vancouver for several weeks and wants me to come hang out for a week or so. I definitely want to do some traveling, just need to figure it out money-wise and time-wise with my thesis.

Anyways, hope everyone is good. Take care.

Better week

2010-05-02T11:03:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone,

Just at work, working on my thesis. My thesis has a total of four chapters (Intro, literature review, main body, and conclusion). Im just about done with my first 2 chapters and am going to email them out to my committee tonight.

Seems like everyone around me is going through a hard time right now, its very disconcerting. Maybe people are constantly having issues but I just have been blocking them out the last few months? Hard to tell.

Nothing new really to report, just really need to keep working on this thing. First draft is due May 14, so its coming up in a hurry.

Take care.

Hello

2010-04-25T10:44:00.000-07:00

Well if anyone saw that last post (cousin Jordan) forgive me it was a bit of frustration. Anyways, things are good, I talked with some friends and I feel much better. Hope all is well with everyone.

Spring Spring

2010-04-18T10:27:00.000-07:00

Springtime has definitely arrived in southern california or so it seems. By pring, I mean 80 degrees which will soon be 100 here in a little over a month. Anyways, first to school stuff: never met with my graduate coordinator apparently he is gone this quarter, but I have been emailing with him. Spent all week going through sources and have a few more to go. May start writing today, but probably tomorrow. Filed my grad check, I just need to enroll in my continuation "class" and Im all set.

Stacy got officially admitted into Antioch University of NE in Keene, NH so congrats to her and that is where she will attend for graduate school, big exciting news there.

Won my second match ever against John on.... Thursday the 15th I think? It was a 5 setter that went 6-4, 1-6, 7-6 (3), 4-6, 6-4. The 5th set was serve and volley only, so that was exciting to come through on that. Going to play again tonight, hopefully eradicate the vision I watched today of Nadal pummeling Verdasco in the Monte Carlo final 6-0, 6-1 blah.

Finished up Fable and ME1, so I can give those back to Shannon. I tried Knights of the Old Republic, a star wars game that was really popular about 6 years ago, but I just couldnt get into it. So I have really been playing alot of Final Fantasy, I have about 16 hours into I think, its a great story and game.

Been doing really well with my fitness lately, my last off day was last sunday. Ive run 3 miles twice this week, worked out twice, and played tennis twice. This is the pattern I want to settle into if possible. My diet has been ok maybe 75% where I want it to be, so I need to keep trying to improve in that area.

My friend Mike from San Diego is coming up tomorrow night for his bday and will stay until wednesday afternoon. That should be a lot of fun to have him around for a few days. Tough to never have friends around but it will be a nice change. I just need to really focus in on my thesis and keep plugging away at it. I feel good because Im working through these sources but ultimately I havent done any writing and its a little intimidating. Oh well, Im confident it will be ok in the end.

Hope everyone else is doing well.

Where does the time go??

2010-04-11T09:16:00.000-07:00

Hello,

Wow so its been a bit since ive posted. Well lets see, my birthday was good, I won my first tennis match (against John) so that was a nice bday present. Then the trip up north with stacy was great, we had a lot of fun in wine country I was bummed to leave. Wine tasting was fun, it was a cool experience, I defintely want to try it again. We took a back way home too that was really pretty so it was awesome to spend some quality time together. Then my friends Jon came for a week, we had a really good time. Saw San Francisco, Stanford, Palo Alto, the Google Complex, Los Angeles, Palm Springs, San Diego, and went for a hike. Fit a lot in for just 6 days, he had a really good time and loved it though so Im happy about that.

Tomorrow, Im going in to meet my graduate coordinator to get all my stuff sorted. Im going to try to enroll in the comp exam class and dump the thesis. I just have no motivation to finish it, and I NEED to graduate in june. I dont want to waste anymore time and money here. I finished all my classes, and I got all A's and 1 A-. I just need to finish this one stupid culminating experience and Im set. So cross your fingers I can take care of that tomorrow.

Other than that, I have been playing tennis a lot, my serve has really improved since I have been practicing it a lot more. I have been losing a lot of close sets that were just decided by a few points. Um, Im playing fantasy baseball for the first time and Im in second after the first week which is good. Trying to beat the first Fable on my cpu and Mass effect 1 on the xbox so I can give those back to Shannon and Rob. Also, I have been looking for other jobs in the area, but there just isnt much out there right now. It can be a little frustrating but it is what it is I guess.

Thats about it, things are pretty good. Ive had a rough last few days just dealing with boredom, trying to figure out my school stuff and crap. Hope everyone else is good.

Hello Spring

2010-03-21T10:32:00.000-07:00

Hey all,

Hope everyone is good, been a few weeks since I posted. Going to keep it short. I went up north the 11-15 and had a great trip with Stacy. We did a lot of things and it went by really quick, but it was fun. Im driving up there a week from today, so I'm really looking forward to that. We are going to stay at my sisters for a night and then in Napa for a night, so it will be a nice little getaway for us. Then, my friend Jon is flying into SF on the 31st and he will be out here until the 6th, so for about a week and a half I will have some good company.

On St. Pattys', I went to the Indian Wells tennis tourney for the day. I had a lot of fun, got to see some great matches, and had breakfast with Nonnie (my grandma) that morning. Hmmmm, what else... Turned in my last paper in class last thursday and I have my final this upcoming thursday. Oh yeah got a letter from UCLA... denied. I have heard back from everywhere except Oxford and UCR, UCR still needs my transcripts but Im not going to send them in so blah. Reading a couple different books and been watching March Madness of course. I picked Syracuse to win the whole thing and their chances are looking quite good at this point. Also, Im trying out fantasy baseball this year and had my draft yesterday: I got some pretty solid players so hopefully I have a good first year. I finished Long Way Round, the motorcycle documentary on Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman riding around the world, and started Long Way Down, where they ride from Scotland to South Africa. It really makes me want to get a bike and go for a ride.

Played tennis yesterday, played really well too considering I havent played in 2 weeks. I'm revamping my serve, so it will take a while until I get back to serving well but once I get there my serve should be a lot better than it was. Hit the ball with a lot of spin yesterday too which is important. My older sister, Shannon, drove down last night too for a few days so that will be fun. What else... Stacy's bday was March 19, Happy birthday babe, and mine is March 26; so I'm turning the big 24 here soon haha.

Anyways, thats about it; things are good. Hope everyone else is well.

Living the ups-and-downs of trying to finish grad school

2010-03-07T11:58:00.000-08:00

Welllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll it was not my favorite week of the year thats for sure. Basically, I got an email from my grad coordinator saying he couldnt sign off on my thesis due to some issues he had with it. He suggested I take it to a political science professor affiliated with the program and see if he would be willing to sign off on it. I've done this, but given the late notice of this and his apparent anger at the whole situation, it is doubtful that he will agree to pass it through. More than likely, Im going to have to do a substantial rewrite of it that will take me into next quarter. It wont change my graduation plans (June) but it will cost me close to $1000 dollars that I dont want to spend. Oh well, what are you going to do right? Such is life.

I finished Friedman's Hot, Flat, and Crowded. Overall, its a really good book, a bit repetitive, but carries a strong message. There is substantial economic incentive to pursuing energy efficiency in the US, and it could help bolster our economy during the 21st century. But as he points out, we are currently not ready to make the hard decisions necessary to move into this direction. If we do move this way, it could be seen as an influential piece that helped trend the country in that direction. I learned a lot, however some parts were a bit dry due to Friedman's detailed explanations on certain energy things, but I liked it.

Didn't have to go to class at all: had a furlough on tuesday and skipped thursdays class. Ill get my essay back in next tuesdays class. Got some bloodwork done and got the results, everything came back great so im as healthy as an ox for now. The next nice thing to do would be to visit a dentist since I haven't seen one in about 5 years, but without insurance thats a no go for now. I began reading Supercapitalism, a book for my econ class, its a pretty easy read and somewhat interesting which helps. Oh, I also bought my tickets for the Indian Wells tennis tournment. Im only going one day this year, March 17, but its the quarterfinals so there should be a lot of great matches that day.

Flying up north on thursday, definitely looking forward to getting away. Have a lot of things planned with Stacy, so it should be a lot of fun. Hmm... I think thats about it for now. See ya later.

Goodbye February... Hello Month of My Birth

2010-02-28T12:08:00.000-08:00

Well, its been an interesting week to say the least. I finished my essay for class and turned that in, feel pretty good about it, Im shooting for a high B, maybe low A. I got my exam back and got a 93.5%, one of only 3 A's, so that was definitely a good start to the class. My next assignment isn't due until March 18th, so I have a nice break and hopefully won't feel so burned out by the time that rolls around. Still waiting to hear back from: UCLA, UCR, Oxford, and Harvard for whatever thats worth.

Went out to Palm Springs on Monday and spent the night with my uncle Brendan, which was good fun. We played apples to apples a really fun board game, which I proceeded to win because my board game skills are off the charts haha. Then, a bunch of us played ping pong for a few hours which was a lot of fun. I was pretty rusty at first but warmed up quickly. The next day (tuesday), I visited Jennie's (Uncles gf) new salon she opened up. Its got a good location and is pretty good sized for what she needs. Got my haircut, which is always a plus.

I finished Mass Effect 2, which was a great game and I am definitely looking forward to Mass Effect 3 in 2011 ugh. Started a second play through on Dragon Age, been playing halo a lot with garrett again which is fun, and I am about halfway through Thomas Friedman's Hot, Flat, and Crowded. HFC is a really good book so far, but pretty dense on environmental terms so its not for everyone. Jennie also gave me 4 books to read, so I definitely have a big pile of them just waiting for me.

Overall, everything is good no complaints, I just have been dealing with boredom a lot lately. I think I am so used to having so much school stuff going on from the past 6 months that not really having anything to do has been a weird transitions. Im trying to do other stuff more, Im planning on either running or playing tennis tonight but it rained yesterday so I will have to check conditions. Im flying up to Sacramento in 11 days on March 11 to go see Stacy so I am definitely looking forward to that. Take care everyone.

Restless Restless

2010-02-21T12:07:00.000-08:00

Ever have one of those days that you just feel slightly irritated? Just sitting at work bugs me, the fact that I have school work bugs me, the fact that John won't email me back to play tennis bugs me haha. I don't know what my problem is.. just like this ever-present impatience.

Well after 1 stressful day (Thursday) and 1 somewhat stressful day (Friday), I got all the necessary forms signed/filled out and turned them into the office of graduate studies with my thesis on friday. I definitely felt a huge sense of relief after that. I also got an email from Berkeley... didn't get in. Thats 6 responses so far.. hopefully I will here from the rest soon so I can put that behind me. I'm currently working on a 7-10 econ paper due next thursday on budget deficits and the national debt. Pretty easy stuff, just a bit boring and I literally have zero motivation since I finished my thesis. I'm pretty sure I am experiencing burn out. I am so close to finishing this degree that I just want it to be over with now. Especially since I had to pay my school 700$ out of pocket to pay for my thesis class since I added it past the financial aid deadline or some shit. That was another reason my thursday was stressful besides finishing my thesis stuff. It takes a lot for me to get stressed but man having those 3-4 things in one day sure did it to me.

Anyways, got about a page done of this econ essay and im dragging my feet. I was going to work on it yesterday but decided to read a book instead. I read and finished the Art of Racing in the Rain, one of the book's nasty sent me. It was really good and I highly recommend it to anyone who has a dog or loves dogs. It will definitely give you a new perspective on your furry friend; had some sad parts, drama, really well-written I thought and an easy read. Then, I went for a run (2 miles) and just played video games.. pretty boring day but much needed.

Hope this feeling goes away, I hate this, I'm usually so content lol I don't want to feel uncontent. Anyways, talk to you all later.

In a thoughtful, but peaceful mood

2010-02-17T18:57:00.000-08:00

Hey everyone,

I was just thinking about how important it is to be humble in life. I mean, by all means have confidence in what you do, but just remember how lucky we can be in life. Especially here in America, we have some extraordinary luxuries that we expect and are provided daily (such as food and shelter) that are completely unknown in other parts of the world. I feel very blessed and fortunate most of the time.

I got my thesis back from my committee chair with his edits yesterday, he was very thorough which is good. He also said he thought it was interesting, enjoyed it, and it definitely offerred something for people looking to expand their knowledge on politics in Africa. In other words, it was better than I feared. The other member of my committee was unable to return an edited version to me because he had the birth of his son! Congratulations to him, I told him not to worry as my chair was thorough. He said he would read through it and contact me if there was anything glaring that needed to be fixed. I guess this is a little of a blessing in disguise for me as I am already short on time, the thesis needs to be confirmed and signed off by my committee and turned into the university for the first formal review by friday. Also, my chair had never read a thesis before as a chair so its kind of been a lemming-like experience with none of the 3 of us exactly sure what to do or if we are doing to right. Clearly, I am the one idiot in the history of the program to choose to write a thesis haha, and its increasingly going to be a waste since the chances of me pursuing a PhD shrink by the day. Nonetheless, it has/is been a good experience and I will always be able to say I wrote a thesis. Plus, it literally means that besides this and my last class I am done with the program, so its nice that I won't have to take comprehensive exams at the end. I started working on his edits last night and have worked on them literally on and off all day. I'm about halfway through I would say, so making fairly good progress.

I had my first assignment in my economics class last night, it was an essay exam worth 25% of my final grade. It went fairly well, I'm guessing I will get a high B or low A. Pretty long exam, but not too difficult. The first paper is due on February 25, a week from tomorrow, that I haven't even thought of. It only has to be 7-10 pages though so I'm not worried I can write that pretty quickly now.

Speaking of the PhD thing, I have heard back from a few other places. So far I have received 5 responses: 4 no's from Cambridge, Stanford, UC San Diego, and Yale and a request from Leeds uni for a more detailed research proposal. Leeds was kind of a shot in the dark school because I met some cool guys in Barcelona that lived there and at the time was considering England, but I am not going there. Its just not meant to be. I still am waiting to hear back from Harvard, Oxford, UCLA, UC Riverside, and UC Berkeley. Like I've said, not expecting to get into anywhere and not sure if I would go even if I did but we will see how it goes.

Played Mass Effect 2 a lot last week. In about 4 days time, I logged over 20 hours of gameplay. Great game, nice distraction too. I hadn't played video games in nearly 2 months so it has been fun to get back into one.

And most importantly, I got to spend Friday night-Tuesday morning with the girlfriend, which was awesome. We had a lot of fun, got to do some cool stuff like hiking, playing tennis, seeing movies, going out to dinner, and just enjoy each others company. Already looking forward to my next trip up north.

Anyways, hope all is well out there. Im doing good, getting close to finishing this master's thing so just trying to push through before I have to figure out my job/living situation haha. Take care.

Happy February 8th!

2010-02-08T18:18:00.000-08:00

Hello all,

I'm trying to do a better job of posting more often, seems like I'm doing a good job, plus I have been on my computer non-stop lately. First, today is my dad's 51st birthday. I got him a book and took him out to dinner so that was nice. Next... I submitted my thesis to my committee for review . This is by no means the end of the process, but to have a near completed draft is a huge deal. Ill find out in about a week what I need to fix (and how bad it is). As long as it doesn't completely suck.. I should graduate by the end of March, thank god. So needless to say, its like part of a weight has been lifted off my shoulder, not completely off, but there is definitely a little less pressure on them. This also means that yes tonight, I will finally start playing Mass Effect 2 after 2-3 weeks of it just sitting in my room.

And most importantly... only 4 days until I am extremely happy. Have a good night everyone.

Quick Update

2010-02-06T10:23:00.000-08:00

Hey hey,

Its raining and I'm at work, which suits me fine. Getting pretty close to having the first draft of this thesis wrapped up. Im sending it off to my committee on Monday, I just need to finish the body and conclusion, the introduction is virtually done. I went down to USC last night and hung out with a few buddies for a couple hours. It was nice to get out of the Inland Empire (basically anywhere east of Los Angeles) for a little bit, change things up.

In PhD related news, I got my first ~~acceptance~~ rejection letter back... Stanford U. No big surprised there, that was by far the school that I had the least chance of getting into seeing their average minimum GRE scores was 1400 and mine is only at 1240. As I have posted, I'm fully prepared to get 10 letters that follow this vein, so it really doesn't bug me in the slightest.

6 days until the girl comes down, can't wait. Take care all.

PhD? Maybe going the way of the white buffalo...

2010-02-02T10:25:00.000-08:00

So I have been laboring at the actual thought of entering a PhD program and the implications it would have for my future. I was first warned against this by Dr. Chambers, my ancient greek history professor at sac state. Then, more recently, by Dr. Janiskee who is the chair of the political science department at san bernardino. Both professors pointed out to me the ultra-competitive job market for people seeking university teaching jobs in the humanities. That the long hours of graduate school combined with the reality of going $40,000-$50,000 dollars worth of debt is not worth it. That you are extremely over-qualified and extremely under-paid for the work you do. At the time, my thought process was such that I acknowledged these problems but brushed them aside and continued to blindly pursue this idea I have of being a PhD holder. Thats one of the main things I have been worrying about lately. I have an IDEA of what I imagine it to be like in a PhD program and how the job market would just open up to me afterwards.

So I have been scouring the web researching this topic. I have read the blogs of the now-departed Invisible Adjunct. I also follow a few other blogs of professors who write explicitly about this. The outlook is extremely grim. Across the board, the number of tenure-track university positions has declined dramatically over the past 20 years. Adjunct professors who work part-time with no benefits are becoming the norm at universities, with many of these professors teaching at 2-3 different colleges a week to make ends meet. A predicted expansion of PhD jobs that encouraged an explosion of students to get their PhD's never came to fruition; which produced a saturation of PhD holders in the job market. In other words, there are X number of PhD academia jobs and X+1,000,000 job applicants. While competition alone isn't enough to scare me away, there are other mitigating factors.

1. Without funding, I would go deep in debt (roughly $50,000 dollars) and as an adjunct would make $30,000 dollars a year? No thanks.
2. A PhD program would take a minimum of 4-5 years, putting me at 29 years of age before I even enter the job market.. thats a lot of lost time and opportunity. Not to mention, I could easily spend another 4-5 years and countless moves trying to find a tenure-track position and NOT find one!
3. While the thought of being a PhD student has a certain amount of prestige and romanticism to it, the reality is that I will spend long hours in isolation: researching and writing, helping professors with their research, and rubbing shoulders with a certain type of person which I'm not entirely sure I care to spend a lot of time around.
4. I don't have a financial net to fall into; my family is not available to help me financially. So, if I was unable to get a job, you could see me in the streets living in a cardboard box.
5. There are a few others I was thinking of last night, but can't seem to come across them at the moment.

Now I have other options: High school and community college most notably. Also, If I don't enter a PhD program I have the flexibility of choosing where I want to go and what I want to do. A program would lock me into a location for 4-5 years and prevent me from pursuing other goals. Not to mention, what if I went halfway through a program and decided at that point I no longer wanted to do it? What a waste of time. I have spent many hours and nearly $1,000 dollars completing my 10 applications for programs, but that defintely will not be a deterrent to me if I decide I do not want this. I have never been afraid to walk away from something, and this is no different.

Now just in case someone is reading this and getting depressed because their life goal has always been to get a PhD (it has never been one of mine, which makes this realization probably easier to bear), There are exceptions. My older sister Shannon is getting her PhD in Clinical Psychology because it is necessary to have this qualification in order to have job options. People in Engineering, Math, Medical, and the Sciences will have no trouble finding jobs with a PhD. If you are in the humanities: it really comes down to teaching or if you are in Political Science like me working for the government, or a Non-Governmental Organization. I don't really have the desire to work for the government, and NGO work can be difficult to break into without having the right connections.

Basically, these are the thoughts I am having while waiting for my ~~acceptance~~ rejection letters to arrive. This could all be moot point, because to be honest I am not expecting to get into more than 1 or 2 programs if I'm lucky. Its all really a crapshoot: getting accepted, making it through the program, and finding a job afterwards. And then there is this, I am not sure that the thought of constantly reading academic work, researching, and trying to get paper, articles, and books published is something that exactly thrills me. While I have been fortunate to have a few publishments now and its very exciting, they were papers written for classes, not because I was trying to get published. I like reading academic and intellectual stuff when I want to learn it and its exciting, and I like learning in general when it comes to that. But its the idea of teaching, instructing, and interacting with students and other intellectuals that really draws me to teaching. I am a pretty social person, and I don't want to have to lock myself away from my family because I have some deadline I need to hit on some paper or something. Plus, I really want to be able to coach football again (something I love dearly) and the thought of never doing that again is something I am not really comfortable with.

Just on my mind, felt like I needed to write it out after thinking about it for a few days. I can see a scenario where even if I get accepted to some places, I just turn them all down and walk away from it. I need to start looking back into finishing up another bachelors (so I can teach at a community college) and finishing up my high school teaching credential. If anyone has any thoughts, feel free to post.

Sunday Bloody Sunday

2010-01-31T12:11:00.000-08:00

No, nothing is wrong; I just recently listened to this song is all haha. New developments:

1. Finished my UCR app
2. Submitted my final paper for the publication in the Journal of Peace and Terrorism Studies
3. Did my taxes (got 400$ back, thanks Obama!)

Slowly working on my thesis... My goal is to finish it by February 5 and give my committee 2 weeks to read and review it before the first formal review is due. Watched the OZ Open Final last night and Federer beat Murray in straight sets, so congrats to him on Grand Slam #16, what a great achievement. Speaking of tennis, played the last 2 nights and playing again tonight, fun fun stuff.

My Aunt Nasty sent me 3 new books that I am really looking forward to reading, but like ME2 they will have to sit on my desk until I finish my thesis. Not much else new to report, just trying to stumble through this thesis and get it done.. what a relief it will be. Anyways, hope everyone is doing well.

New post already???

2010-01-27T22:11:00.000-08:00

Haha, not sure why I am posting again so soon, I feel like a lot has happened in 3 days I guess! I have a few new developments: first, I decided to apply to ONE LAST school as a backup college so I am applying to UC Riverside. Not sure if I would go if it was the only place I got in, but hey why not. Second, I got an email this morning notifying me that a paper I wrote on arms control measures in West Africa had been accepted for publication in the Journal of Peace and Terrorism Studies. Really exciting stuff, they are based out of Syracuse University in New York and if I want to, I can present the paper at a conference they are having at the end of February. I just need to check my schedule and see if I can get some funding and I might consider doing it. Their editing board ripped my paper apart pretty good, so I am in the process of fixing it and hopefully resending it back tomorrow or the next day.

Monday, I went quadding with my pops for the first time in a few months. We had a good time playing in the mud (it recently rained down here) and it was nice to get out. Quadding has always provided me with some of my best thinking time, my body is so engaged with the environment and controlling the quad that my mind becomes super clear and I can really focus my thoughts. Kind of a strange phenomenon because I really zone out, which could be a bit dangerous while riding but oh well lol no accidents yet right? Tuesday, I put in a good day's work on my thesis. I consolidated most of my writing from the summer and am at 54 pages. My target is 80 so I'm hoping with my introduction, literature review, cleaning up the body, transitions, and thesis I will be close to that target. Also, got my books for my class on Tuesday which look pretty interesting.. I'm looking forward to reading them.

I watched the Pianist today (great movie) and Obama's first State of the Union. He said all of the right things, I just hope there is some substantial action behind it. Our country really is in a tough position and I hope he can provide the leadership and strength the country needs right now.

Ran 1.5 miles on Sunday and 2 miles today without any pain in my left knee/upper shin. I am going to really ease back into running, and only run on the track. I think I would flip out if I got hurt again.. but I felt good overall. My cardio is pretty decent because of all the tennis, but my legs are definitely out of long-distance running shape. Suppose to play tennis manana, but never heard from John, so maybe I will just work out in the morning. I hope some people watched the quarterfinals of the Oz open.. there were some great matches. Oh yeah, My sister and her fiance bought me Mass Effect 2 for Christmas which arrived in the mail on tuesday. The game looks so fun, but I think I won't be able to play until after I finish my thesis. If it is anything like the first one or Dragon Age (made by the same company: Bioware) it will consume all my free time. So that is just sitting on my TV stand and tormenting me for the next few weeks I'm afraid.

On a more personal note: Stacy bought her ticket to come down here from February 12 (night)-16 (morning). Needless to say, I am ridiculously excited for this.

Where did January go?

2010-01-24T14:10:00.000-08:00

Hey everyone,

Been a bit between posts but for good reason. I spent January 17-22 up in Sacramento with Stacy which was really good. Did some fun stuff, walked around Old Sac, went to a drive-in, had dinner with some friends, watched a lot of movies, and just got to spend some good time together. I also got to see my uncle and cousin, and another friend that I coached with at Colfax. Definitely was tough to leave, but she will be back down for Valentine's day weekend so in about 18 days or so.

Finished the essay for the Magdoff book, so I am officially done with my independent study. All I have left to graduate is one class and finishing my thesis. Today, I caught up on all my reading for the class (I skipped both classes last week while I was in Sacramento) so I should be all set with that. Starting this week I really need to treat my thesis as a job and put good, solid hours of work into it. The first review reading or whatever is February 19th.. so its coming up in 3.5 weeks. I also finished my Oxford application, so I am completely done with apps since I decided not to apply to SOAS. Now I just have to play the waiting game until March to see if i get in anywhere.

Got my school money, which was nice. Catch up on some stuff... also I got 240$ back on my credit card from my bank. When I originally bought patriot tickets in December a guy tried to burn me by not sending the tickets so I was able to cancel that transaction thankfully. I need to buy my books for class on tuesday.. I only need like 3 and they are only going to be like 60-70$ which is nice.

I haven't played any tennis in about 8 days since I was gone, I was going to play last night but had some miscommunication with my buddy. It worked out though I had a really good in-depth talk with my dad for about 3 hours which was nice because it doesn't happen often. I have only seen like one match in the Australian Open too, which is already halfway over but Ill get to watch more this week.

Things are awesome though, everything is great. Hope everyone else is good. Take care.

2010 has the start of a wonderful year

2010-01-13T23:52:00.000-08:00

First things first:

On January 7, Stacy and I decided to officially start dating. I am extremely happy about this and very excited for the future =).

Quite alot has been going on the past 8 days. I finished the second of my economic independant study essays, so all I have left is Harry Magdoff's Imperialism without Colonies. I had my first paper presentation at a conference last Saturday ... it went pretty well, it was more laid-back then I thought. There was about 15 people in the audience and all you do is read your paper to everyone. Its good though, you get some good feedback from people and get experience presenting things to people you don't know. I also was able to have dinner with my buddy JB and hang out with my friend Mike for a few hours while I was down there, so it was a good trip.

I started class last night... my only class of the quarter and my last quarter hopefully!! Its an economic class, I think I will like it and the teacher seems nice, if but a bit boring. My Oxford app is due on January 22, so I need to finish that up. I think that will be my last application (I don't think I'm going to apply to SOAS in London; don't really want to go there). Been having some issues with money; work hasn't paid me on time, my school grant got delayed by a few weeks, along with having to pay for a stupid speeding ticket. No big deal just kinda weird how everything hits at once. A friend who owes me 150$ though is about to pay me back so that will be good.

Tennis has been really good lately too. I experienced the best 2 week stretch of playing I've ever had. I won at least 1 set for 9-10 straights days of playing. Yesterday, I didn't play that good, but hopefully tomorrow Ill pick right back up where I was playing.

Got a few things to take care of.. Sunday as soon as I get off work I'm driving up to Sacramento spend 4 days with Stacy. Its going to be awesome, I can't wait. Need to get my hair cut, finish the last economic essay, and.... I think thats it lol. Anyways, hope everyone is good; Im doing great! bye bye.

Welcome 2010!

2010-01-05T12:53:00.000-08:00

Well I have to say it was a good start to the new years. I spent a wonderful weekend with quite a special person :). Miss Stacy came down and we had a great weekend together, hope everyone else really enjoyed the kickoff to their new year as well.

Got a bit of a busy week coming up: I finished the first of my three economics essays (15 pages!). Paul Baran's Political Economy of Growth was challenging. Next up is Andre Gunder Frank's Capitalism and Underdevelopment in Latin America that looks to be more of the same. On Saturday, I am presenting my Rwandan Genocide paper at the conference in San Diego. I finially heard from the professor who heads the phi theta alpha chapter and im a little more at ease.. I thought it had to be this big presentation but she said most people just straight up read their papers, which sounds boring to me. I imagine ill talk about the more interesting parts and maybe ready some direct quotes from the paper, should be a good experience. So I'll head down there friday night and chill with Mike and then probably hang out with him on Saturday after my presentation.

Watched Boise State beat TCU last night 17-10... really good defensive game. Chris Petersen and Boise never fail to amaze me; they called this fake punt on a 4th and 9 from their own 30 when it was tied at 10-10. Great stuff, makes me really miss coaching. I have been playing a lot of tennis lately too and quite well I might add. I think I have one a set for 3 or 4 straight times. Last time I should have won 2, but the lights shut off right as I was about to serve and completely screwed up my momentum. Im going to play today and we are at 4-4 in a set with me serving again so we will see how that goes. Been eating a little better, need to keep working on that, and I really need to start hitting my weight machine blah.

School starts next Tuesday, somewhat excited for that. A little anxious though because I REALLY need to get going on my thesis and I just haven't had the chance with these economics essays and my applications. I really hope I can knock this thing out because the first reading is mid-February :\. Other than that I just have one class so the school stuff should be fairly simple besides finishing my thesis.

Lifes great and today is beautiful. Wish the best for everyone. Speak soon.

Merry Xmas and here comes New Years!

2009-12-27T10:55:00.000-08:00

Hey everyone!

Hope you all had a great xmas, I sure did. I got: A vest (grandma), 50$ (mom), 25$ itunes card, 100$ jcpenneys card, a tomtom, axe stuff, a new racket (which i returned and got some other tennis stuff since I already have 2 rackets), and some little stuff. The rest was all from my dad, who always hooks me up on christmas. My older sister and her boyfriend got me something too, but I wont get it until the end of January... pretty sure it is Mass Effect 2 though which is rad because that game will be epic. My dad and I went and saw Sherlock Holmes on xmas too, which was pretty good I thought, I haven't read the books but I know it was a lot different from them. Santa brought my dad a bunch of movies which is always good for me since I am a pretty big movie buff.

I had a quick 2.5 day trip up to Norcal last sunday through wednesday. Monday night we had a huge party of like 25 at Chevys, which was fun because one of my best buddies Brett was in california from florida with his girlfriend and I havent seen him in forever. I got to see some other friends I hadn't seen in a while either which was good. Afterwards, we went to Club Car and Pistol Petes (2 auburn bars). My other friend Matt and I shot some pool and then my friend Stacy met us there and we played for a bit. The next day I got to visit my friend Kyle and see my cousins Kari and Kelsi, who were in town from Minnesota and Oregon. They were both home from college. That night, I went out with Stacy and had a blast at the Auburn Alehouse and Petes again. Then, early wednesday morning, I left and drove straight to San Diego and watched Cal play Utah in the Poinsettia Bowl at Qualcolm; shoutout to Ernie for hooking me up with tickets. Mike went with me and afterwards we got some pizza and I drove home. I was pretty tired given I had only slept 4 hours the previous night.. just a whirlwind few days.

Im really excited for New Years; Stacy is coming down to spend a few days and we are going to have a great time. We will be going out to Palm Springs to kick it with my Uncle and his gf and some of their friends. It will definitely be a good time. Hope everyone else is enjoying the holidays and speak soon.

Its beginning to look alot like christmas..

2009-12-19T14:06:00.000-08:00

Hello all,

Hope everyone is enjoying a wonderful holiday season. Where to start? Well I got A's in both of my classes, which is awesome. My independant study will be done by january 1 (my self-imposed date for finishing my essays). So basically, I am 3 essays, 1 class, and 1 thesis away from my master's degree. Exciting stuff huh? What else.. oh yeah I now officially have 7 of my 10 applications submitted. The next one is for Leeds Uni on January 1st as well. Today I submitted my arms control paper to be published and accepted at a conference at the end of February at Syracuse Uni, so I hope it gets accepted.

I had a great trip to the east coast: 2 days in NYC, 1.5 days in Boston (got to see the patriots live WOOO), and 2 days in Manchester, CT (my former old town). The picture above is of Grand Central Station on Manhatten, then the patriots game (our seats were 7 rows back from the endzone!), then me and kaat at the game, the old north church in boston, and finally my old house in manchester. Got to spend some time with Kaat, a friend I met in Spain, who is studying in NYC and we had fun going to the patriots and walking around Boston in the rain. Then in Manchester, I spent most of my time with Jon Phelps, who is an old football buddy. I also got to see my friend Mike Goldstein for a few hours and my last relative in Connecticut, a cousin named Val. All in all, great trip! I had some transportation issues in the form of delayed flights, missed buses, and missed trains haha. It all worked out good though, except for my patriot ticket fiasco but I don't even want to get into it.

It was a short trip, but a good length althought I forgot how amazing boston is. If I ever move back to the east coast, I will definitely be moving there. What a great city... it just felt like home. Id like to take a trip back and spend 3-4 days in Boston and another 3-4 in Connecticut. Got some good reading done on the trip too: Superfreakonomics, The boy who harnessed the wind, and Open (andre agassis biography). All 3 books were really well done and I enjoyed and recommend them all. Tomorrow night, I am heading back up to Norcal for a few days to see some people. Then wednesday I am suppose to go to the Cal vs. Utah bowl game, but my friend hasn't let me know if he was able to get tickets yet or not.

Things are going pretty good, I really need to stay focused on school and I completely failed at that today haha oh well. Playing tennis tonight which is a plus! Oh yeah, saw Avatar last night.. really cool movie with the best CGI effects I have ever seen. Pretty soon they won't even need actors. Anyways, take care and speak soon.

End of the Quarter is so close!

2009-12-08T23:51:00.000-08:00

I submitted my app to UC San Diego last night, so I'm officially done with 4 out of the 10 apps. The next 3 (Harvard, Yale, UCLA) are due on 12/15/09. I need to finish these by thursday night, because that is when I am flying back east for 5 days and I don't want to worry about it while I am out there. I also submitted my paper for Geography 600 tonight, so I am officially done with Geography. I should easily get an A in the class I only needed a 70 out of 100 on the final paper to do so. I finished my paper for Poli Sci 622 completely too, so I will just do one final readthrough and edit tomorrow or thursday and submit it on thursday. That class I have an A in, so if I get an A on the paper I should get an A in the class. My goal is to finish one of my three essays for my econ independant study. Even though my professor said he would extend it into the next quarter, its probably a good idea to get one of them done. Then, I can finish the other 2 over break and focus on my thesis.
Today was pretty productive, I edited 2 papers for a friend for his classes. Also, I saw slumdog millionaire.. GREAT movie I highly recommend it. Really powerful and just the flow and style of the movie were great. Also, my buddy Garrett and I beat the new Halo ODST campaign woohoo it only took us like 2 nights lol its pretty short, but fun. I bought my patriots tickets today, booked the hostel in Boston, and got things cleared up with Kaat. Really excited to go back east for a few days. Speaking of that, I got a surprise call from my buddy Jon who I will be hanging out with. I played football with him in Connecticut and have not seen him in like 10 years!!

I finished fast food nation yesterday, pretty good book. The author's writing style is a little repetitive, but the message and information were really sound. On the flight over to NYC, im planning on reading SuperFreakonomics, the sequel to Freakonomics. The first one was really good, so Im excited to read this.

My dad brought home the Xmas tree today and I decorated it.. always good times and memories. Ill have to take some pictures and post them. Anyways, happy holidays to everyone and god bless....

PS: Oh yeah! It is Jimmy V classic Week on ESPN for College basketball. This is my favorite charity and supports cancer research. PLEASE go donate something, anything!! It is the best charity ever!!!!!

Crunch Time

2009-12-02T22:56:00.000-08:00

Hope everyone had a great thanksgiving! I sure did; spent a week in northern california with friends and family. Played some tennis, met with some old friends, made a few new ones.. always a good time. Oh yeah, I bought a few books before I left: Fast Food Nation, The Gathering Storm, Open, and SuperFreakonomics. I'm about halfway through Fast Food Nation so far and it is really good; its about how the fast food industry develped, does business, and spread across the country. My Aunt Nasty gave me a book too called "The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind", which looks really good too.

So I am done with 3 of my 10 applications. I submitted to Cambridge, Stanford, and Berkeley. The next group are due in about a week. School-wise Im done for the semester except for my 25 page paper which I havent started yet.. Yikes! Other exciting news is I got Netflix today and LOVE IT. All Ive done today is watched movies: Nick + Norah's Infinite playlist, 10 things I hate about you, Mall Cop, Phenomenon, and now im watching the Never Ending Story. Its 9$ a month, I get 1 disc for free at anytime, plus through my xbox there is 100's of movies you can stream instantly.

When I was up north I played some tennis with my buddy who works for Berkeley's football program.. it was so cool I got to tour the football facilities and even met some coaches. I have definitely been missing football lately.

Tomorrow I need to mail some writing samples, and work on my paper. Oh yeah my East Coast trip is coming up in like 10 days super excited for that too! Hope everyone is well!

Happy 1 year blogging anniversary!

2009-11-15T14:25:00.000-08:00

Well its been about a year of blogging! So I decided, Hey! Im going to mess with the blog, change the layout, the colors, the font.. ya know jazz it up a bit. Well I spent an hour messing around with it just to realize that there really isn't much I can do and I already like the way it looks haha.

Finally slogging through the end of my application process. Let me tell you, it is a royal pain to apply to graduate school, much less 10 of them. Essays, Letters of rec, GRE scores, filling-in-the-blanks, research proposals. Im glad this is almost done, because its definitely taken a lot of my time and energy. This quarter is quickly coming to a close. Im pretty much done with my classes besides 1 powerpoint presentation this Tuesday and then some papers.

I finally bought the Roger Federer racket this past week.. so stoked about that. I played with it for a couple hours but I have shin splints so couldn't do much. Got some greaty poly strings on it, I also bought new shoes (K-swiss) and an actual tennis backpack for my racket. Hopefully later this week my shin splints will be gone and I can play.

Thats about it... Still playing Dragon Age a bunch.. great game. Still thinking about buying some winter clothes and some books. Take care all.

Hi All

2009-11-10T01:03:00.001-08:00

How is everyone? Good hopefully. Im doing well, starting to get very busy though. Halloween was low-key although I did win 100 bucks playing black jack at a casino. I got a new video game to be my distraction about a week ago after beating bioshock (excellent game by the way), called Dragon Age Origins. This game is utterly massive, Im already 32 hours in and maybe a third of the way through. I love fantasy RPG games sigh... I literally played all day today.. its all I did.. really... Anyways, everything school-wise is coming together quite nicely. I got my Letters of recommendation all lined up, so pretty much im done with my US applications, I need to upload transcipts and write my research proposal for the UK schools and I will be done with those as well. Tomorrow I'm hoping to be productive since I was utterly unproductive today. Playing a bit of tennis lately which has been nice, although my legs killed when I played yesterday, must be time for new shoes.

Biggest news is that Im going to NYC, Boston, and CT in December, Ill be gone from 12/11 to 12/16 visiting friends and doing some stuff. I might make it up to a Patriots game, which would be glorious. Im starting to get excited for Thanksgiving as well since I will be going to Northern California for a few days and that is always a good time. School-wise I am down to a presentation, a 10 page paper, and a 25 pager. Then I have my independant study papers, which hopefully Ill finish 2 of those before the end of the quarter.

For some reason, I have had an urge lately to go clothing shopping. I can't really afford it, but I want some new WINTER clothes... problem is.. not much of a winter in southern california. I really do need a peacoat/coat thing though, so I might just go ahead and get one. I have a jacket and plenty of sweaters and long sleeves. My shoes are getting a bit beat up.. I don't think I will go with airwalks again.. I've had these a year but they just seem weird I don't know. I've also had a strong urge to do some recreational reading, but between playing Dragon Age and school work, I have plenty to read.. hmm...

Ive been thinking a lot lately... just about the future and what I want. I think im really excited about pursuing a PhD and its coming quick. I hope that I get in somewhere, and also I think I really would be ready and prepared to move to England. Something about that just feels right to me... I don't know how to explain it. Also, have been thinking about Africa a lot... I really feel like I made the right decision in choosing to specialize in it. Its just such a massive, diverse place that is super important. It almost has a magical aura to it, although Im pretty sure its just because I haven't been there. Also, I get this charity magazine and it had a bunch of articles on it.. I don't know just excited and anxious to do more research on it. I really feel like I am ready to move on and advance myself academically. I just hope I get the opportunity.

Anyways, like usual, missing my friends a bit. Its been tough not having a lot of friends around. Just got to suck it up a little longer. Well, I guess thats it.. Don't want to ramble on too much haha. ^_^

U2 Woohoo!

2009-10-28T23:11:00.000-07:00

So I have had a fun and busy 10 days. Last week on Monday, I saw the Yankees and Angels play in Game 3 of the playoffs for baseball! The above picture is one of Alex Rodriguez from our seats. It was my first postseason baseball game and even though the Yankees lost I had a really good time. Then on tuesday, I went down to San Diego for a couple nights. I spent the first night with my buddy Mike and went hiking at La Jolla. The picture above is from our hike right next to Torrey Pines golf course.. it is so beautiful there.The next day I met up with my old friend Andrea and hung out with her in Ocean Beach. It was really nice to catch up with her and get back in touch. Then, the next day I had lunch with one last friend who happened to be in town as well which was nice. Then, the night I got home after school; my friend Matt drove out from USC to hang out. He hung out for the night and then drove home the next day after I got off work. His brother Steve drove out from USC friday night like right after he left and we played tennis which was a lot of fun. Then, we went and picked up my buddy Matt Christopher who I haven't seen in about a month. The 3 of us went to Fridays and had dinner and a few drinks it was a good time. Steve drove home that night and Matt went to work with me the next day.

We invented the best darts game in the history of the world. We came up with a darts football game including scoring, kickoffs, and everything. It was so much fun we pretty much played all day long. Then, that night we decided to go down to hollywood and hang out with a couple friends from high school. It was a blast, we hit up some really cool bars, and didn't get back home until 5:30am lol. Well I had to wake up at 9am for work which wasn't much fun, but no worries. Luckily for Matt, he got to sleep all day. Well Sunday night, we went and saw that man right above there.. thats right Bono. We saw U2 perform live at the Rose Bowl!!! It was such an epic show, the Black eyed Peas opened for them. My dad went with us, and I sold the extra ticket I had to make some of my money back. The picture of the top is a picture of the "claw" or massive structure that U2 hauls around on their tour acting as a stage. It was truly one of the best concerts I've been too.. BEP played for an hour and U2 for 2 and a half hours. It was such a trip to see 100,000 people rocking out to the same U2 songs. They even streamed it live on Youtube and are making the show into a DVD; ahh it was amazing!!!

Anyways, so I slept another 3.5 hours on sunday night since I had to take matt to the airport at like 6am. I went home and slept for another 6 hours and just kinda hung out all day. Yesterday though I slept in and got recharged. Most importantly, I FINALLY FOUND MY MOTIVATION. I finally got my school grind back together again, I have been struggling so hard to find it. I worked on my thesis prospectus yesterday and today I pretty much finished all of my statement of purposes for my applications. Im nearly done with US ones since I already got transcripts and GRE scores. I just need to get my letters of recommendation in order now.

Anyways, played some tennis this morning, it was super windy not a lot of fun and I got my ass kicked by John. Going to finish the SOP's tomorow and maybe start of my research proposal for the UK school's apps. Things are going good though, Steve is coming out friday night to play some tennis and chill for halloween on sat night. I think we are just going to hit up a bar, I dont feel like getting crazy. Hasta Luego everyone.

Fall Quarter 2009

2009-10-18T10:28:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone,

How is everyone doing? I'm doing well, but things are starting to get busy. I have 2 classes (which I am not really enjoying, but hoping they get better) and an independent study. For the study, I have to read 3 economics book and write an essay about each one. I have also started my college apps (I'm applying to 6 schools in the US and 5 in the UK). Im in the process of writing the statement of purpose and research proposals for those. I need to order my GRE scores, transcripts, and contact my professors for letters of recommendation. I also need to keep working on my thesis, which I have failed to do so... definitely a lot of stuff to do.

I started back to work, in fact this is my third weekend back and it is going well. I have been running and playing tennis again, so its nice to be getting back into shape. My body feels pretty healthy, and I have been trying to eat healthier too. I have also started playing my xbox a lot lately, which I am sure is detrimental to my studies but oh well. I bought assassins' creed and beat that in a week. Its a great game, lots of fun, and im looking forward to the second one which comes out in a month. I also bought Bioshock, which is a really unique first person shooter. I am about 4 hours into it and it is a great game about an underwater city. I also bought the new Halo and have only played the firefight mode but it is just a blast. After beating assassins' creed, I took it back and reserved Dragon Age. Dragon Age is like a massive RPG set in the medieval/fantasy realm and is suppose to have 80 hours of gameplay. Im sure my life will truly shut down after that.

I have some exciting events coming up too. Tomorrow, my dad and I are going to watch the Yankees vs. Angels in Anaheim in game 3 of the conference series. Im really stoked about this as NY is up 2-0 after winning a marathon game in the bottom of the 13th inning last night. I have never been to a baseball playoff game so it should be exciting. Then, next sunday, Im going to see Black eyed peas and U2 live in concert WOO! I bought these tickets like 6 months ago and I can't believe the concert is finally here.

I think I might be going up to Santa Barbara or San Diego for halloween. I haven't completely decided, but I want to do something fun. Anyways, thats about it from my own. Take care everyone.

What a great second half to the summer!

2009-09-27T15:09:00.001-07:00

Well, the two pictures above are the beach in Barcelona and Picasso's Guernica in Madrid. Just a small example of the amazingness that is Spain. I'm not going to write about my trip, I did that on my travel blog, which you can read at http://worldswerver.livejournal.com.

Read a few good books since I last posted: Freakonomics and I hope they serve beer in hell. Freakonomics is about the economics of everyday life and situations. Really interesting, I highly recommend it. The latter is probably the funniest thing I have ever read and is about the exploits with women and drinking that a former Duke law student has gone through. Very offensive to women and digusting, but unbelievably funny. Kinda stalled on Milton about 45 pages in, somewhat difficult reading, but I will get into it.

I had my first class on Thursday night, Im excited to get back into school I think. It will be nice just to have some interaction. I also start work next weekend which will be good as well. I have also bought a reverse blade sword like Kenshin from Rurouni Kenshin so Im really excited for that to get here.

Overall, life is pretty good. Im definitely missing the traveling and the new friends I made already; but such is life. Oh yeah, I spent 2 days in auburn and saw the Killers live. They put on an awesome show, and got to hang with some friends. Hope everyone is well.

Its been a great month!

2009-09-03T21:02:00.000-07:00

So, I just got back 2 nights ago from my fortnight on the big island of Hawaii. I put up a few pictures I thought really highlighted the trip. The first picture is the view from my friend's house that he is building. He is at about 1,200 feet of elevation and I worked construction there for him for 10 days while I was there. The second photo is Hapuna Beach, which is constantly ranked in the top 10 in the entire world. This was about 40 minutes north of where they live. The third picture is me on Hapuna Beach. The fourth and fifth pictures were from about 100 feet away of the lava that is going into the ocean. This was on the southwest part of the island and was absolutely stunning to see. All in all, the trip was amazing. I got spoiled rotten with my own condo, not having to buy food or drink, getting to snorkel and do other amazing activities. The Morrisons were the perfect host and they even paid me for my time. I hope I can repay them for their hospitality someday. The money I made will pretty much pay for me entire trip to spain, which is wonderful.

Not much besides that. Yesterday, my first day home, I went to Magic Mountain with my buddy Mike. He had never been and I hadn't in 3 years. It was perfect, we zipped through every ride in about 2 hours until the last one which was about a 1.5 hour wait. It was worth it though, we were able to blaze through the park and it was a lot of fun. Then, we went and saw inglorious basterds, which was a true Quentin Tarantino masterpiece at its finest. I highly recommend it, especially if you hate the Nazis and Hitler, than I REALLY recommend it.

I haven't worked on my thesis at all, Im hoping to organize it a bit before I leave for Spain. I bought my books today for the quarter, I only needed four and got them all for a little under 100 dollars. Still waiting on Professor Toruno to email me the reading list for my independent study, I sure hope he hasn't forgotten. I also had a really good phone call from my boss today and touched base. He is looking forward to me coming back to work so its nice they are still missing me. Another good thing is that I haven't run or played tennis in 17 days or so, and I won't for at least another 17 so I am hoping that a month will be enough time to completely heal my left knee.

Well, I am probably going to take the train back to USC on saturday again and stay with the Ragusano brothers for 2 nights before I leave. Then, im gone for 2 weeks in Spain and 3 days in Auburn. Its going to be really hectic. I booked my train from Madrid to Barcelona today and about half my hostels. Im staying close to the nightlife in some "fun/party" hostels. It should be a really good time and I should meet a lot of people hopefully. I haven't talked to Irene (my friend in Spain), I need to write her and see if we are going to be able to meet up.

Started reading Milton's Paradise Lost, really good so far. The flow is very different and the content is heavily biblical but I am enjoying it so far. I think I will leave you with that, I have some more to say; but this is long enough ha. Good night!

Whew... Good week!

2009-08-08T11:56:00.000-07:00

Well, here are some pictures of me playing tennis, my buddy was nice enough to resend them to me in jpeg format.

All in all, this was a damn good week. I worked out twice, and Im going to work out for a third time here in a bit. The Yankees have won the first two games over the Red Sox in their 4 game series. I checked my financial aid crap on my school website and found out the disbursement is September 14; right in the middle of my Spain trip. So, when I get home I will be ballin' haha. This is good because I can start planning a few little trips I have up my sleeve for the fall and winter. Also, I learned a few new songs on the keyboard. Parts of the Speed of Sound and The Hardest Part by Coldplay. And........ the Harry Potter theme song! Ta-Da haha. Its really easy, so it was cool to learn it.

Most importantly, I was SO productive on my thesis. As my last post stated I started this week off at 20 pages or so. Then, I proceeded to write each day this week: Monday= 5.5 pages, Tuesday= 5 pages, Wednesday= 2.5 pages, Thursday= 4 pages, Friday= 2 pages, and today=4.5 pages! So basically in 6 days I went from 20 pages to around 42. So unbelieable what you can do when you really set your mind, not too mentioned I worked through about 6 of the 13 books I had; so I've completely gone through half of my initial sources which is good. I've also started making chapter titles and somewhat moving things into place. My goal now is to have over 60 by the time I leave for Hawaii in 9 days, which I think I can really do! 60 pages of body will be really good and will probably be most of it minus the transitions and polishing up.

So, my dad and I are going to Pismo Beach super early tomorrow morning to go ride and camp for a night. Im pretty excited, Ive never been to the Central California coast and you get to ride right on the beach! It should be a lot of fun. We are coming back monday late afternoon, so I won't get to work on my thesis that day but I wasn't really planning on it anyways. The only thing is that one of my books is due back that day so Im not really sure what im going to do lol I guess it will just have to be a day late.. oops!

Life is really good right now.. I definitely have no complaints. Hawaii coming up, thesis is trucking along, Spain after. Not too mention 2 of my best buddies just moved down to USC and are only an hour away. Its been really nice too because of Nicole. That is my new friend who I connected with that I wrote about in my last post. Pretty much amazing, definitely makes life better when you have someone you look forward to talking about on the daily.

Anywaysssssssssss, Ill probably post again mid- next week unless something crazy goes down. Hope everyone is doing good.

Time to be productive!

2009-08-03T14:20:00.001-07:00

Well after not doing much the past few weeks as far as thesis writing, I am definitely trying to put in some work. I wrote 5 pages today to bring me up to roughly 25.. so worst case scenario I am like a quarter of the way done. Its exciting because I'm getting to the point where my sources are referencing each other in their work and starting to overlap meaning: 1. Im actually learning this stuff and 2. Im working my way through the material and 3. My topic has finally become specialized on democratic consolidation. My goal was to write another 20 before I left for Hawaii which is in TWO WEEKS oh boy! Hopefully I can stay motivated and somehow write 5 a day mon-fri which would bring me up to 70 before I left haha. Fat chance but its nice to dream yes?

Been playing a bit of tennis too which has been good. Actually my tennis buddy is gone for the week in Vancouver so it will allow me to focus on my thesis more. We went out and set up his camera on a tripod and got some pretty cool actions shots of us playing. I was trying to upload a few but since he has a mac, they are in the PICT format which is recognized by nothing. I need to find a way to convert them and then I will upload a few in my next post.

I went quad riding with my dad yesterday which was a ton of fun! I haven't been riding since we went to Ocotillo Wells on Easter I think. It was definitely good times and my back is a little sore since its not used to the vibration of riding. It would be nice to go more often but its pretty hot now so no dice I think.

The other big news is that I have been playing my keyboard everyday for the past, oh I don't know, 8 or 9 days. I hadn't realized how much I miss playing music. I listen to music pretty much all day nonstop but I haven't played my keyboard since last summer :S. Its been a lot of fun though, Im learning a lot of Coldplay songs seeing how I have been listening to them so much lately. Also, I am learning the first movement of Moonlight Sonata which is just a gorgeous piece. Anyways, it has been really relaxing and soothing. Maybe if I get a few songs down pat.. I only have like one or two right now, but if I get a few more I will make a video and upload it. Would be kinda fun.

And of course, there really is nothing like meeting someone you didn't know before and realizing how awesome they are. I recently reconnected, well really connected for the first time a girl I went to high school with and she is really cool. Its so nice to meet someone that you share so much in common with and connect with.

Anyways, on the whole, life is pretty good right now except for the fact that Im super broke haha. I just need to wait for school to starts because Ill be working again and get my living expenses loan I took out (just a small one). A bit of a long post, but I had a lot to say. Hope everyone is doing well and take care =).

Fun times with the family!

2009-07-23T19:47:00.000-07:00

Well the house is super quiet now, I guess that is what happens when it goes from 7 people being here to 2. I had a great time with all the family. Played lots of ping pong and video games with Rob and Shannon. My niece Madi is absolutely adorable and a joy to be around. She is always smiling and laughing, when she isn't crying or sleeping haha. It was awesome to see my mom and little sister too since I hadn't seen them in a little over a year. Cleaned up today, did laundry, and the house is pretty much back to normal. Played tennis the last 2 days and worked out today; trying to get back in the groove of things. I also wrote 2 pages for my master's thesis, so I'm up to 14. I got 3 new books via Interlibrary loan(ILL) that should really help me. The ILL system is brilliant as it lets you borrow books, articles, and other things for free(usually) from almost any library in the country/world. Its very helpful.

When everyone was here we went to Palm Springs, Huntington Beach, LA, bowling, saw the new Harry Potter movie which rocked! It was weird knowing the story beforehand since in the past I had never read the books, but its cool to see how they translate it to the big screen. Also, last Sat. night I took my friends Jessica and Amanda to see Coldplay and oh man did we have a good time. They put on such a brilliant show, they definately rank up their with the best bands I have ever seen. It was by far the biggest concert I have ever been to, there was so many people there.

Well the big news for me is that I am definitely going to Hawaii! I bought my ticket yesterday from August 17- September 1. The cheapest listed price to Kona from LA right now is 550$, so I gave priceline a go and got one for 450$! 100 bucks cheaper! I guess priceline does work (this was my first time); its good for last minute and really expensive trips. Good connections and it is on United so good deal all the way around. The Morrisons are kind enough to split the cost with me and then they are going to pay me to do work out there for them. Sounds glorious.

Well the pictures above are of my cute niece and the coldplay concert. I guess this is all for now, hope everyone is good.

Viva Las Vegas

2009-07-13T10:28:00.000-07:00

Well,

I had a pretty fun-filled weekend in Las Vegas. It was super packed because they had a UFC championship fight over the weekend too. It so hot too, we couldn't really walk around during the day since it was like 108 degrees. I had a lot of fun gambling and checking out some of the clubs though. I lost 150$ the first night, but won 100$ the second night; so I only lost 50 for the trip. Not too bad I think.

I bought and read the last Harry Potter book last week. I have to say that J.K. Rowling was able to do what few others can. She made each book progressively longer and better, and she did a really good job of tying everything together in the last book. I'm really excited for the Half-Blood Prince to come out on Wednesday.

In family news, Meghan (sister) and Maddy (niece) fly in tonight. This should be really fun, a lot of family is going to be coming here in the next week and it should make for quite a merry household.

I need to get working on my thesis here, Im going to go on Worldcat and order some books today. Worldcat is a wonderful thing, through the school library I can borrow books from universities all over the world. Its either free or for a small fee. Pretty helpful stuff eh? UCLA will definitely have a lot of good books, they have a huge African studies program. It should be free too since they are so close.

Have a good one.

Fate will not be denied

2009-07-06T21:32:00.000-07:00

Congratulations to Roger Federer on winning his 15th Grand Slam! He outlasted Andy Roddick in an epic 5 setter at Wimbledone: 5-7 7-6 7-6 3-6 16-14! For those of you who know tennis; Wimbledon does not do tiebreaks in the 5th set, which means the two players had to go for an eternity with Roger finally prevailing.

Well, I have the fortune of having a very active family member who I have yet to meet on my mother's side of the family, who decided to set up a family blog so everyone can post and keep up on each other's news. I think this is a brilliant idea and have been actually contemplating doing this for my dad's side of the family. So depending on the success of this new blog, I might do it as well. I might also have some people visiting my blog now. This has served as my own personal journal for the last 8-9 months, but I definitely wouldn't find if people were reading it and keeping up on me and my life.

In any case, I think I will go blog over there in a minute and introduce myself to some extended family. Its crazy how you can be related to people, but never have met them or even know they exist. Family is truly a wonderful thing.

Heres to a beautiful day and a beautiful life.

Happy 4th of July!

2009-07-04T22:42:00.001-07:00

I hope everyone had a great day enjoying our country's freedom. I celebrated on thursday by going down to Huntington Beach. I met up with a friend and we went hiking with another of her friends. Then we hung out drank, went to the beach, and went into the hot tub. All in all it was a really good time. They might come up next week and come spend a night with me out in Palm Springs, which will be fun. Tomorrow is my last day of work for the rest of the summer. Pretty crazy but Im looking forward to it, I have a lot of fun stuff going on this summer so it will be nice to get away from work for a few months.

Im going up to Las Vegas this weekend which will be awesome. I have a few friends from high school that are going to be there as well so it should be fun to meet up with them in Sin City. My little sister and niece fly in the day after I get back from Vegas, so the fun will be beginning really soon here. I've written about 10 pages on my masters thesis so far. 10 down and 90 to go haha. Its kinda discombulated and all over the place, but Im gradually narrowing down the topic. I just need to keep chipping away, 2 pages at a time and it will be done before I know it.

Most importantly, tomorrow is the Men's Final for Wimbledon. Roger Federer will be facing Andy Roddick for the 3rd time in the Wimbledon final (they met in the 04 and 05 finals). Im really proud of Roddick for making it and if it was anyone but Roger I would definitely root for him. However, Roger is chasing history. This is his 7th straight Wimby final and if he wins it will be his 15th Grand Slam, breaking his tie with Sampras and push him into Tennis immortality. Anyways, I hope everyone is doing great. Take care!

Ny Ny

2009-06-26T11:15:00.000-07:00

OMG I GOT A 4.0!!!! Wow, what a relief, surprise, and happiness. I had two grades posted as A's already.. my History and Poli Science class. My Econ grade was like a 91% going into the final paper and final. I had to get high A's on both to even have a shot at getting an A. I got a 96 on both assignments and finished with a 93.1 %. I have a 3.968 cumulative now. Whew, now I really just need to dominate this Master's thesis this summer and everything will be okay.

Anyways, I got home from NYC last night and had an amazing time. Did all of the touristy stuff: The met, central park, empire state building, took a cab, rode the subway, walked down wall st, went to ground zero, rode the staten island ferry, saw the statue of liberty, and so much more. Steve, Mike, and I had a blast and took a ton of great pictures so I'll be uploading those to my facebook.

Everything else is good, exited for the summer and for life in general. Hope everything is good for everyone else too. Take care.

Wowzers..

2009-06-20T10:16:00.001-07:00

So two weeks flies by pretty quickly doesn't it? Man oh man; well lots of new news here. First of all, I bought a plane ticket roundtrip from LA to Madrid for 299$! So excited! Im going for 2 weeks in september. Also, Hawaii is for sure happening and Im going for like 3.5 weeks in the beginning of August to the beginning of September. I just finished school last night. I know I have 2 A's already and I am just waiting on my econ grade which could be either an A or A- depending on how well I did on my paper and the final. Our new couch arrives tomorrow and I leave tomorrow night for New York City for 4 days, which should be awesome.

Been reading a lot lately, read the 6th Harry Potter book, Read the book of 5 rings, and now im reading Dreams from My Father which are Obama's memoirs. I put my 2 weeks in to my job yesterday and they like me so much they offered to hold my job for me until I get back at the end of september! So i won't have to work all summer and I'll still have employment when school starts back up which is awesome. My new laptop has been awesome too I love it. Im almost finished with the rurouni kenshin anime series I only have like 10 more episodes, it has been awesome. Also, I bought the new tiger woods game and man is it addicting. The graphics are beautiful and it is a lot of fun.

Quick Tennis update: Nadal pulled out of wimbledon, which means that as long as Federer makes the final again he will take over the #1 ranking again. Only Ivan Lendl has regained this spot after losing it, so Fed could be the 2nd guy ever to do it. Im sure he would like to win though, it would be his 6th Wimby and 15th Grand slam making him the all time leader in slam wins.

Hmm what else.. Oh yeah my mom is coming out while my sisters are in town, so it will be good to see her again and have the whole family together. Thats about the main points, its going to be a fun and hectic summer between traveling and writing my master's thesis. Hope everything is good with everyone else. Ciao.

Big things this last week!

2009-06-07T15:18:00.000-07:00

First and foremost. CONGRATULATIONS ROGER FEDERER!!! Today, Roger won his first French Open, completing the career grand slam. Also, it was his 14th major tying him with Pete Sampras of all time. It is hard to argue against him being the greatest player of all time. That is the scene of him after the final shot. I am so happy for Roger after all the trouble he had last year. Wimbledon is next and if he can win that not only will he have his 15th major but will probably be ranked #1 in the world again. Which would make me quite happy. Speaking of my own tennis, I took a set off John last night on the Clay. I think i have won a total of 6 sets now. Not much but its progress. Also, Congrats to Tiger Woods who came back from 4 shots down to win the memorial tournament, the final warmup before the US open.

I bought a Toshiba Satellite A305-S6916 Special Edition laptop this week too. My old one finally died and Im tired of messing with it. This thing is fully loaded and was on sale from best buy so I got a good deal. Its nice to have a new cpu. I saw changeling last night at caroline's house, what a great movie; angeline jolie was superb. My friend Matt got into USC and is driving down right now to come stay with me for a few nights. We are going to check out the campus and UCLA too which will be cool because I have never been to either campus.

One more week of school and then finals. Here is the to-do list:

PSCI 540: Final presentation (paper is done just needs to be edited: both due June 10)

Hist 600: Final paper and presentation (due June 19)

Econ 500: Final draft of paper and Final (Paper is due June 10th I think and final next week sometime)

Hopefully I can pull off 2 a's and an a-. I have an A and 2 a-'s right now. The potential to get all A's is there but I would have to get nearly 100% in econ on the last 2 assignments. I can deal with a 3.9.

Dad is buying a new couch today and maybe a new laptop for himself. Good for him. Still waiting to hear on whether I am going to Hawaii or not. Anyways take care and talk to you soon.

God Im getting bad at this

2009-05-29T23:10:00.000-07:00

So I havent posted in a millenia right? Im a terrible person. Well there has been way too much that has happened since I last posted so Ill just give some highlights. My trip up north was awesome, I got to see a lot of friends I normally don't see which was super nice. I saw the friends I always do too which was good. I turned in a rough draft for my term paper in econ today, its getting down to the nitty gritty: only 2 more weeks and then finals. Here is a layout of what is due in each class:

Econ 500- Final Paper and Final
PSCI 540- Final Paper and Final Presentation
Hist 600- Final Paper

I have an A- in econ and PSCI right now and a high A in history. Econ I think ill get an A-; I would have to get like 100% from here on out to get an A. Hist is almost a guarenteed A and for PSCI I need to do a good job on the last 2 assignments. I can handle a 3.9 but if i get a 3.8 im going to be pissed.

Been reading a lot too, read a few books and im working on the last one in the sword of truth fantasy series which I have been reading for years. Oh yeah Roger Federer beat Nadal ON CLAY in the Masters Madrid final, I was so happy. The French Open is going on right now so hopefully Roger can win it since it is the only grand slam he doesnt have. Speaking of Clay, I won my first set on clay ever tonight against John! I shouldve won one a few weeks ago, I had a few set points but blew it. Not tonight though, im playing much better, serving better, my backhand is clean, and im starting to get some topspin on my forehand.

Well I guess the big news is that Meghan, Madi, Shannon and Rob will be here for like 10 days in July which will be sweet. Also, I might live in Hawaii for the month of august and first 2 weeks of september since the Morrisons live there and are building a house. He wants me to come out, said he would buy my ticket, free room and board, and pay me. Sounds like a pretty awesome deal.

Well thats it for now, Ill post again soon, unless I get enveloped by school. Bye

Blah de da blah blah

2009-05-09T13:53:00.000-07:00

Ah, Im just sitting here relaxing at work right now. I feel kind of tired, but I haven't been doing much lately. Maybe that is why. School is moving on nicely; only 5 more weeks including finals. Going up to Auburn in 2 weeks which will be fun. Hmm, just had my first round of midterms and papers which went well. Oh yeah, I met with the third member of my thesis committee which went really well. Monday night, Im going down to San Diego until wednesday afternoon, which will be fun. Oh yeah, I just watched Donnie Darko last night for the first time, talk about a freaky movie. It was really good though. Lets see, fixed my laptop so that works again thankfully.

Im SUPER excited for summer. Trip to New York, few trips to Vegas, also im taking french over the summer so I will hopefully be trilingual here in a few months. Oh yeah my dad bought a ping pong table which is awesome and we have played twice in the last few days so much fun. Going to play on a clay court (tennis) on monday which will be my first time so im really stoked about that.

All in all, I dont really have anything to update, havent been doing much. Little running/working out/tennis here and there. Spent Cinco De Mayo with my uncle in Palm Desert which is always a good time. We even had a pinata haha. Anyways take care.

Oops!

2009-05-02T14:16:00.001-07:00

Well, I had been doing better about posting. It seems like I average about one a week which isn't too bad I guess. Hit some tennis for a little the other night, my shoulder is completely healed. Thank god! I hate having a bum shoulder. I seem to have developed a cough as well, which is actually more fun than usual given all the panic about the "swine" flu. Oh lord, pandemic my ass.. it will be gone in a month. Well, been watching a lot of movies lately: Sweeney Todd, and the Pirates trilogy. Hmm, read the fourth Harry Potter book (The Goblet of Fire). Oh my laptop has been having one issue after another. First, the power cord broke; so I ordered a new one. Then, a day later, the cooling fan broke. I ordered another one and am waiting on it. I guess 3.5 years is getting up there in laptop age. So lets see, my sister got engaged! Yay congrats Shannon and Rob. Exciting stuff. Trying to get back into an active mindset: worked out this morning and ran twice last week. I don't know why but its been hard to stay motivated with that.

Spent yesterday doing a bunch of random school stuff. I have my thesis comittee locked in and I had to submit a graduate check for next winter. Revised a big paper thats due monday and turned another paper in last wednesday. I have a midterm in my econ class on wednesday, so I'll probably study for that tomorrow. Thinking about going to San Diego next week for a night, I'll have to see if Mike is free. Oh yeah! bought a webcam and a flash drive. The flash drive has already come in super handy and the webcam is sweet too. Also, there is new tennis center opening near my house that has 10 courts (9 hard and 1 clay!!!). Clay courts are really hard to find in the US and usually expensive. Its 50$ a month and it has a pro shop, tourneys and all kinds of cool stuff. Im really excited.

Going up north for memorial day weekend. Im really excited about that. It will be nice to get away and see some friends. Caroline might ride up north with me too which will be nice to have some company. See my sister, go out a little, be a nice change from sitting around all the time. Oh yeah, I need to call Uncle Brendan and see if he is doing anything for cinco de mayo. Well im sure there is some other stuff, but I cant think of it for now. See ya later.

Harry Potter and U2

2009-04-21T23:47:00.000-07:00

Now, I know most of you are thinking... What does Harry Potter and Bono have to do with each other? Well nothing, except they are the two most prevalent things on my mind. I read the first harry potter book about 10 days ago in 4 hours. It was awesome, so today I borrowed the second one (Chamber of Secrets) from a friend and finished it in probably 4.5 hours. The thing with me and reading that I have always known, but have really only become self-aware of in the last few months is that I have to balance my reading. By reading all these heavy, deep-thought, political, and philosophical works by some of the great minds in our history, it really pushes and stretches my mind. Most people would respond to this by not reading at all. However, I have found that my mind best responds and internalizes this by reading a story, for the pure joy of it. These first two books have done a marvelous job of that for me this quarter. Not too mention, they are just great stories and I love reading them.

Now to Bono, I have just been listening to U2 a lot and I figured I would throw a picture of him up there for you all. If you haven't listened to U2, I STRONGLY suggest it. In fact, I would demand it.. They are truly one of those bands that can touch you through their music, and I feel that I am a better person just for having heard it.

Other than that, got some sources for my thesis today at school. The library actually had a fairly large amount of information on Senegal and is going to be a great help. Im beginning to develop some ideas of why Senegal is so stable, and I think it is more based on the political history/actions and the religious aspects of the society versus the social or economic factors of the country. Ill have to continue to look into that though.

Worked out today for the first time in about a month. Kicked my butt a little, but its good. Now that my tattoo is pretty much healed, I can work out, run and play tennis again. Im planning on going on like a 2 mile job tomorrow since I havent run in like a month too, and hopefully play some tennis on thursday. Hope everyone is having a great Tuesday and talk to you soon.

Wowzers..

2009-04-17T10:31:00.000-07:00

Oops! I did not realize so much time had gone by since I had posted on here. I have been a bit busy, so I guess its not a bad thing. Lets see... School is going good so far. I really like all 3 of my classes. I've done most of my reading for my history class already, so that is paying some good dividends. I need to buckle down here tho because in the next 2-3 weeks I have a few papers and tests coming up. Um, I played tennis like 5 times in an 8 day period and something is clearly wrong with my right shoulder. Ever since coming back from cancun, it has been killing me and it has not gotten better. It doesnt affect my groundstrokes, but my serving is definitely a lot worse than it was. Which is really frustrating.. My new strings are nice though.

Oh yeah, I got my second tattoo last tuesday =). Its a greek proverb written in ancient greek which says "wonder is the beginning of wisdom". Its on my right side in a single vertical line. The tattoo guy was really cool and it only took like 45 minutes. Oh yeah for anyone who says the side/ribs hurt, its really not that bad. There was only like 2 parts that hurt a little, I thought the one of my chest hurt way more. That same night was Brendan's (uncle) 31st birthday so it was fun to go out there and hang out.

What else.. Work is good, im there now actually. Never saw Fast n Furious, but I watched a few new movies that my pops bought. Eagle Eye was pretty good. Also, I have been watching a lot of older movies: Stand by me, Sandlot, Harry Potter, so I have actually been watching a lot of movies lately. Oh yeah, bought my tickets and hotel to New York, Im going from June 21-24, should be a lot of fun. Also, going to see the Killers in concert in September, so I have quite the concert line up for the end of summer/ beginning of fall.

Took my dad and Brendan to the airport yesterday, so just hanging out alone for the weekend. Can't play tennis until maybe Tuesday, have to give the tattoo at least a week to heal before I stretch it out. I know there is some other stuff that has gone on, but I think that is all of the main points. Overall, everything is going pretty well and I can't complain too much. Oh yeah, for Easter, my dad and I went camping at Ocotillo Wells, which is by the Salton Sea. It was fun, we camped and rode our quads. I hadn't been riding in months so it was nice to get out. Im 2/3 of the way through my Grandpa's last published book too so. Also, been playing a little Xbox too which is always fun.

Alright alright, thats it for now. Hope everyone has a great weekend.

Sunday sunday

2009-04-05T11:26:00.000-07:00

Not sure why, but that song just popped in my head (The one in my title). Well its been an up and down few days since wednesday. My alternator was bad so I had to spend another 150 to replace it. Then, Roger Federer lost to Novak Djokovic on friday and played really poorly. He got so frustrated he smashed his racket, which is something you never see from him. I think his back is injured more than he is letting on, hopefully switching to the clay season will help him out. Then, last night, Uconn lost in the final four to Michigan State. Mich St. didn't really do anything special, Uconn just played poorly. They couldn't make shots, free throws, rebound, or play good transition defense. Oh well, was still a great year for them, their women play tonight in the final four and should win comfortably.

I just finished reading Reason in History by Hegel, A german philosopher from the 19th century. It was one of the most intense reads ever for me maybe. Only 95 pages but it took me like 5 hours to get through, just so much information and weird lingo going on. Im starting on the Social Contract by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, which should be a bit easier of a read. Ive read 3 books for my History Proseminar class which starts monday, its good too because there is seriously like 10 books; so its good im getting a jump on it.

Played tennis last night. Oh yeah I didn't write this down, but I actually beat my friend before I left for Cancun. I took a set off of him 6-3, I was up 5-1 but he won a few more games before I closed it out. I don't know what it was about watching the professionals live, but something clicked for me. All facets of my gave have gotten significantly better in just a month. I probably had 10 aces in 5 sets last night. He beat me pretty easily, but one set was 6-4. It seems like there is always one set where it is close like 6-4 now, which is nice. Its nice to be getting considerably better in something, always a good feeling. I have new strings and overgrip on the way because my strings are dead, Ive been playing with them for like 6 months now. I need to get some balls too.

Talked to my uncle Pat last night for like 30 minutes, it was really nice. My dad and uncle brendan are going up there in 2 weekends for a late 50th celebration for my dad. I wish I could go but I have to work, my uncle joel from washington is even flying down so its going to be all 6 brothers again. They are going to go to reno and do some other fun stuff. Oh yeah, I bought two tickets for the coldplay concert in July that is going to be in LA so im really pumped about that I love Coldplay. Also, Im buying my tickets to see U2 at the Rose Bowl tomorrow. They go on sale at 10am and its in October. Im so pumped these are like my 2 fave bands.

Im excited for school tomorrow, hopefully I have some cool people or good looking women in some of my classes haha. I know my graduate will be blah cause I know the people in it, but hopefully the class itself is good. The other two we will see, one of them is with my thesis mentor so that will be sweet. Should be a fairly easy quarter, each class only has like 2 papers and a test so not too much work. Oh yeah, I might be going to see fast and furious tonight with my friend Caroline, which would be cool I want to see it. If that falls through, then who knows. Talk to you later

IM BACK

2009-04-01T20:04:00.000-07:00

Well, I dont want to write a super long post about the trip since I blogged while I was there. If your interested in reading all the details of the trip check out http://worldswerver.livejournal.com. Bottom line is: I have new friends now from Maine, Canada, Colarado, and two local girls that live in Cancun. The first three nights we partied extremely hard and the last few we took it easy with the girls. I saw the Mayan ruins at Chichen Itza which were awesome, got fried from the sun, enjoyed the crystal blue carribean water. I got to do everything i wanted except for go to "the city", one of the clubs, and go to isla mujeres. Other than that, I got to do everything I wanted. What a great trip. I definitely want to head back sometime, see the things I missed.

Last night coming home sucked. Long story short, My car broke down and I had to get towed to paramount, a city next to compton, and spend the night in the hotel there. Good news is I got home this morning and uncle Brendan had found my lost wallet.

Watching Roger Federer right now in a tight match against Andy Roddick, its 5-4 in the third set with Roger up. My shoulders feel like I tore muscles in them, I think its from sleeping weird on the plane yesterday. YES! Roger just broke for the win 6-3 4-6 6-4. Thats a big win, hes in the semis for the third straight tournament. Anyways I just took a motrin which I can already feel taking the pain away.

Tomorrow, Im just going to rest and take it easy like today. Oh, I have my grades from last quarter.. I got a 4.0 =). So I got a 3.9 and then a 4.0. I hope I can keep this up, and get into a kick ass PhD program. Anyways, have a great night everyone. Ciao!

Cancun!

2009-03-25T23:56:00.001-07:00

I leave early tomorrow morning for Cancun and will get home super late on March 31, Ill blog about my trip when I get back; take care!

Bittersweet

2009-03-21T12:37:00.000-07:00

Well, Im afraid I have some bad news. My Grandpa Bryner (mom's dad) who was 74 passed away two days ago. I hear that he went peacefully in his sleep, something I am grateful for. Its never easy to lose someone you have met once, much less a family member. My grandfather was a very special, intelligent man. He graduated from the University of Miami, was a Staff Seargeant who served out of Germany during the Korean War. He met my grandmother there on a blind date actually, which I think is a wonderful story. He had four kids including my mom, owned several businesses and began publishing a few books in the last few years. He has 3 published (Ive read two and have the third just havent read it yet) and supposedly has 9 more manuscripts finished on his computer ready to be published. He has had some health issues for years, so its not completely unexpected but still weird. I hadn't seem him in like 9 years, but we had recently been emailing fairly often about his books and some other things. I don't know if it has really sunk in or not. I just seem to get the most sad when talking to my mom because she is the connection to him I guess. Ugh, I don't know. I know I owe him a lot though, I really think that a lot of my ability as far as school and my intelligence comes from him...

On a happier note, Roger Federer plays Andy Murray in 15 minutes for a spot in the final. If Roger wins, I will get to see him live in the final tomorrow which Im really excited about. Murray has beat him the last few times, but I really have a feeling Roger is going to win today. March Madness: I picked 24 out of 32 first round games right and im 1 for 1 in second round games so far. I lost one of my final four teams but I still have a shot of winning if the other teams make it through. Uconn looked good, so I like their chances. Im probably going to head out to Indian Wells tonight and stay at my uncles.. the gates open at 10am tomorrow for the final and it will be the last chance I get to get Rogers autograph if he makes it to the final.

I need to get a hair cut from Jennie while Im out there, its starting to get shaggy and I want to be all trimmed up for Cancun. 5 days now.. im pretty excited, but I wont be like estatic until I get there im sure. Ordered new bank cards, canceled the old ones, and ordered my new license from the DMV (PITA= Pain in the ass). My Senegal books came so im looking forward to beginning my research for my masters thesis. Thats about it... There was something else but I can't think of it right now. Talk to you soon

Post- St. Pattys Day

2009-03-19T12:02:00.000-07:00

Well well, the Moscow deal was only up for one day so I missed out on that. Hm, I had an epic St. Pattys Day. Got pretty drunk before class with Brittany and Stephanie and then went out with my uncle and Jennie. It was so epic, I broke a Urinal, lost my wallet, and lost my cell phone holster. I was pretty sick all day yesterday, just felt like I had a bubble of gas stuck in my chest and then last night I had to do my final presentation for my graduate class oh man. It went pretty well though, Im definitely getting an A in the class. Here is a quick school update:

SSCI 600: Done
Hist 360: Done (Just need to edit my final paper and email it in)
Hist 370: Final on Tuesday

School is pretty much wrapped up, I have a few more assignments for my last online credential class, but I think im just going to recycle a few papers from other classes because they are similar assignments. Called my bank and cancelled my cards and ordered new ones. I have to go to the DMV later and get a new license. Other than that I only had like random business cards and a best buy reward zone card in my wallet. The wallet was hella nice black leather from buckle which cost me like 30$ its only like 2 years old too oh well. I have a backup wallet from last x-mas that I haven't used. Also, I had like 45$ in the wallet, thats what sucks the most. Oh well, I guess its good I spent so much of the money I had on St. Pattys day haha otherwise there would have been more left.

Sunday I get to see the men's and women's finals at the Indian Wells tournament. Roger is still alive so hopefully there is a good chance Ill see him. He plays Fernando Verdasco today though which is going to be a tough match. I leave for Cancun in a week too which is insane.. Im totally not ready for it but its coming fast. Thats all I have for now.. Oh yeah March Madness started, which is my favorite and Im in a bracket pool which is sweet. See ya later.

Indian Wells

2009-03-13T14:57:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was so awesome. I have like 60 pictures and probably 15 videos.. all I can say is tennis tournaments rock. If you want an opportunity to meet, talk to a little, get pictures of, and autographs of famous athletes, this is as good a place to do it as there is. I got James Blake, Marat Safin, and Fernando Verdascos autographs. I saw and took pictures of all the top players in the world minus Andy Roddick and Andy Murray, but Fed, Nadal, everyone it was so sweet. Im going back for the night session tonight and the final on March 22. Its the 1st round and even tho the best players dont play, its actually better because you get like courtside seats to watch them practice and most of them are scrimmaging with other top players anyways so its like your own private match.

In other news, all I have left for my three classes is this Hist 360: final paper (5 pages), Hist 370: final test, and SSCI 600: Final presentation. I have 100% in the last 2 classes and a 96% in the first one so the chances of getting a 4.0 are looking good. I decided to drop out of my teaching credential program too and fully pursue a PhD (Can't remember if I posted this already or not). If I decide to go back im almost done with the program anyways so it wouldnt take me long to finish... just two classes.

Uconn lost to Syracuse yesterday in 6 OT's.... 6! Second longest game in college basketball history. So we are out of the Quarterfinals of the big east tourney. Im guessing we will be a #2 seed, but since Pitt and Oklahoma also lost who knows. Louisville and UNC will def by 1 seeds and the only 2 are in the air. Im guessing Memphis gets one, with either Uconn/Pitt getting the last one and the other one being the top #2 seed. Since Pitt has beat us twice, Im guessing we will be the two. I guess ill find out Sunday.

Been out in the desert/hanging out with my uncle all week... good times. Lets do a quick recap: Tues night we went to two bars and partied back at the house and was up until 5am, Weds night we went out to two bars and went to a little house party afterwards and was up until 4am. All day yesterday I was at the tennis tourney and went back to uncs and crashed at midnight I was exhausted. Oh yeah, on tuesday me and these two girls from my class went to a bar during our break and had drinks haha probably the funnest thing ever. Next week we are going to meet up an hour before class and drink before we go... Lots of fun and crazy stuff in the desert never a dull moment for sure.

I leave for Cancun in 13 days... Im so god damn excited. Trying to plan the NY trip too, dates are locked in and just waiting for a good deal on flights. Saw a crazy deal to Moscow too so who knows I might use my tax return money and take a little weekend trip to Russia. Haha, see you all later

Big Shit Poppin'

2009-03-09T02:19:00.000-07:00

Im going to keep this short, simple, and sweet since I tend to write so damn much when I post. First, Im dropping my high school teaching credential program after this class. As of right now, I dont plan on teaching high school anymore and continuing the program is just a waste of time and money. Its sapping energy and thought that I could be using towards my thesis or other useful venues. Second, I have a new business venture that Im going to keep under wraps until it unveils in about 6 months or so, but just know something is in the works and I will be working very hard on it. Third, Indian Wells in four days which I am freaking out about . Fourth, Im going to Cancun in less than THREE WEEKS HOLY SHIT! Its going to be so nice to leave the country and get away. Anyways that it is, oh I played tennis yesterday and for 2 of the 4 sets served the best I ever have. So some exciting news for sure. Peace to everyone

I don't have a good title to put here

2009-03-06T00:38:00.000-08:00

Today was a good day. I met with my professor from last quarter Dr. Chau and he agreed to be my Master's thesis mentor. This is a huge relief, I wrote about my topic earlier (Senegal for those of you who dont rememeber... wait who am I kidding? No one reads this hahaha). Anyways, he really liked the idea and was super excited about it. I also talked to him about pursuing Phd's, and some other stuff. Im glad he liked the idea, I was worried it might be crap but he said Senegal is different an interesting case regarding African nations. He said I probably have a good shot at getting published if I can write a good thesis too, which would be sweet.

What else is new lately.. level 40 in Halo, been running and working out quite a bit. Oh yeah, been getting some great music thanks to Kenzie. She knows so many Indie bands that my library is growing hella fast haha. So thats been good, plus U2 realeased their new cd so I need to get that. Im hoping to play some tennis tomorrow, played last sunday and my serve has improved a lot so im getting really excited. Oh yeah! Indian wells is next week so Ill get to watch some professional tennis live which I am completely stoked about.

School is good, quarter is wrapping up just 3 more weeks including finals. Im going to try to knock out some papers this weekend. My third to last class for my single subject credential just started and it is retarded. I am seriously considering either stopping after this class or just finishing my course work and skipping student teaching. First of all, the chances of me starting off my teaching career in high school are looking slimmer by the day. Second, if I have my masters or PhD and I decide to teach high school , all I would have to do is student teach and I can intern and basically skip the student teaching. Plus, its just time that would take away from focusion on my grad studies and my thesis. The money has already been spent as far as loans for the program but i dont know if there is any point in student teaching if I might not do it.

The only thing is I still really want to coach and I dont know how that will all work out if I decided to become a professor or not. Eh... might have to suck it up for a few more years and not coach as weird as that is. Who knows.. I still have time to think about it, this class will go until April and if I decided to just finish the classes Ill be done in June and I wouldnt student teach until next fall so.

Thats about it, need to get some books on Senegal and begin my literature review. If I can finish most of my reading by summer, knock out my paper over summer, and then just touch it up in the fall it would be ideal.

And another trip!

2009-02-28T13:07:00.000-08:00

Well, I finally pulled the trigger and made the 3 hour drive to Las Vegas. My friend Matt was in town for his job and he got us a room comped at the Mandalay Bay shown above. It was the nicest hotel Ive ever stayed in and huge! We could have spent the whole time in their and not gotten bored. I was only up there for 2 nights and a day, but it seemed like we packed a lot in. We walked the strip a few times, gambled a little, drank a little too much on wednesday night at least, saw a burlesque show at one of the night clubs in the Mandalay Bay, went and saw Hoover Dam which is about 25 minutes southeast of the city. All in all it was a pretty cool experience, definitely something you should check out if you have the opportunity. A few words of advice however... first, make sure you have plenty of money as it is very expensive there; second, don't plan on sleeping a lot, the city doesn't really wake up until 9 or 10pm and goes all night. The weather was perfect when we were there, in the 60's and 70's; in the summer it is constantly around 100 so it gets super hot being that it is hot in the middle of a desert. I can see how people get trapped into Vegas and obsessed with it, but its not really me. Fun to visit once in a while, but there are a lot of other places I would rather go.

Its been a really busy 9 or 10 days for me. 3 papers, a midterm, and two trips. I think I've driven about 1,600 miles or so in 10 days.. which is a healthy amount. I don't mind that, I love driving and its been great. I was pretty exhausted yesterday though, I had to leave Vegas at 6am in order to get back home for work at 10am. So i was pretty tired, I went to bed at like 11:30pm last night and woke up at 8:30am for work so I got a good 9 hours which is like an eternity for me. I think that is what has made me the most tired, ive had alternating nights of 2-4 hours of sleep a night with 7-8 hours the next night, which will really screw up your sleeping schedule. Not too mention I probably drank 4 nights in the last 10 days, by far the most I ever have. So those things combined had worked me over a little. I feel good today though, my diet has been wacked out too (not diet like im on one or something but just the food I have been eating in general). So that is getting back to normal as well.

Im trying really hard to find some work I can do during the week. I love my job its so easy and I just do homework and read and stuff, but Im tired of working weekends. I dont make enough money (minimum wage) to make it worth my time anymore. I never hang out with my dad who goes quad riding like every other weekend but I always work. Also, I have to take off work to take all these little trips which I dont mind but it is just a pain. Im going to try to start subbing I think, also I have an interview tonight to assist a senior citizen just like 5 hours a week but 10$ an hour. I applied to a few writing things on craigslist to so we will see. If i can get 2 or 3 little things going that add up to how much I make right now, Ill quit here pretty soon I think.

School is finally winding down for the quarter, I only have 3 more regular weeks and then finals week. I have all 100%'s in my classes right now.. so I think I have a pretty good shot at getting a 4.0. I only have one more test left in any of my classes, its all papers and activities so its easy. As far as activities go.. The Indian Wells Tennis tourney will be here soon and im going March 12,13, and 22 I think. And then I leave for Cancun on March 26(my bday!) until March 31. Pretty busy month starting with the first trip up north last week, but I like that.

Sorry this post is so long, just had a lot to talk about I guess. Also, Im considering trying to create some kind of advice website.. I don't know just something I have always wanted to do, I think i have a lot of good advice to give on stuff and I like helping people so. We will see. Anyways take care and see you soon.

What a Trip!

2009-02-24T00:31:00.000-08:00

Well I had quite the good time up north. I don't want to get into all the details because I could write for the next 6 hours about it. There are a few key points I want to point out however:

1. I made the 504 mile drive from Palm Desert to Vallejo in 6 hours and 15 minutes. This is an hour and 45 minutes less than Mapquest's estimated travel time.

2. The Bay was awesome as always; got to see my sis and Rob and see some friends in the city.

3. Reno was amazing. Im so happy I got to see Kenzie I had such a great time and was so bummed to leave. I hopefully will make it up there again soon...

4. Auburn area was good, got to see some family which I skipped last time I was up (X-mas/New years). Two uncles and two cousins. Got to see some of my best buddies too which is always fun.

5. The drive home was pretty good, saw Kyle Stowers before I left and made it from Roseville to Mo Val in about 7.5 hours or so. Not burning like I did going up, but there wasnt much of a rush.

Well thats it in a nut shell, I could write about Reno in particular for quite a while. Those thoughts however I shall keep to myself haha. My dad and I got like a weight machine tower today so i have something to work out now besides my little free weights. Ran today for the first time in over a week, which was good. Finished my paper turned it in and scheduled my classes for next quarter. Take care everyone.

Calm before the storm

2009-02-17T14:06:00.000-08:00

Well I am about 7 hours away from beginning my drive to the bay area. I already did laundry and packed. I finished both of my papers for my online class and submitted them. I finished half of my analytical paper that is due next monday, so ill just finish that sunday when I get home. I put together a study guide for my midterm tonight and I have studied a little so I just need to finish studying it and Im all set. I watched 300 earlier and Im just about to finish Super Bad, both are great movies. Ive just had them going in the background while I finished everything. I got my directions ready to get to my sisters, even tho ive been there a few times from this direction, I always forget one exit. Im hoping to be leaving my midterm at like 9pm and its going to take me around 7 hours and 15 minutes to get up there so im gonna get there around 4 in the morning. Im going to get a coffee right before class and have a few energy drinks in reserve. Got my music ready.. should be all good.

I dont know if Ill post while im up north so if not hope everyone has a good week and Ill post again when I get home. Bye

The Grind

2009-02-14T10:11:00.000-08:00

Well, it has been a busy few days and its not going to get any slower. I took my dad thursday night to see Robin Williams perform standup comedy live in San Diego. He was awesome, completely funny. The guy has so much energy for a 57 year old, he is just like non-stop go go go. He made jokes about bush, obama, the human body, all kinds of stuff I loved it.

Then last night I took my friend Andrea to see John Legend live out in Indio. Oh man he was legit! His voice is so good live, plays the piano and just entertains. He played about 20 songs from all 3 of his cds. The night started out kind of stressful with traffic and we thought we were going to be late. The show was suppose to start at 8pm, we got there at 8:30 and he walked in right by us so it was perfect timing. What a great concert. Afterwards, we stopped by my uncles for a bit before heading back home.

The rest of this weekend I need to try to do all my homework for my next week in my teaching class because Im leaving tuesday night and I do not want to have to worry about doing homework up north. I also have my midterm tuesday night that I need to study for and I have an analytical essay that will be due the day after I get home from up north. Busy busy, but its good I like having stuff to do.

Played tennis thursday, it was the first time ive played in probably a month that I actually felt like I had improved. My serve is slowly working itself out and I was a lot more steady on both the forehand and backhand sides. John and I played four sets and it was good, somewhat competitive tennis.

Today is Valentine's Day, so I guess I should say a little something about it. Ive only ever had a girlfriend on two valentine's days, so it has never been a huge holiday for me. I spent last year's in Athens and there was no mention of it anywhere - apparently it barely exists in Europe. I did do something special for someone, we will see if they can figure it out and I get a phone call from them later today. Ill have to post in the next few days and disclose my plan to everyone haha.

Oh yeah.. Finished the Obama biography. It was a really good and insightful book, from an outside perspective. I am about halfway through a book called "Life of Pi", which is a really cool, magical, cute kind of story. Haha that sounds weird, but I don't know any other way to describe it. Its good though and I highly recommend it. I hope everyone has a wonderful valentine's day and weekend. See you soon.

Super Saturdays

2009-02-07T23:24:00.000-08:00

Well, I think I might have figured out a topic for my master's thesis. I was in the shower today when it struck me that Senegal is one of the most stable democracies in Africa.. maybe the most stable. Another interesting thought hit me... Senegal is a Muslim country.. wait what? Thats right, A muslim country besides India (which has a multitude of religions and is not predominantly muslim) that has a healthy, stable operating democracy. Why? I do not know, but maybe I can find out why and write my thesis about it. In this day and age where our new President is about DIPLOMACY and spreading democracy peacefully it would be an interesting thing to look in to. I have been thinking about writing my thesis on Africa so why not Senegal?

In other news.. I have a busy week coming up. Thursday is San Diego with my pops to see Robin Williams perform Stand up comedy. Friday is John Legend concert in Indio. Hmm, The next week might be even busier though, but Im going to keep that under wraps unless the chance that a certain someone stumbles on this blog and it ruins a surprise. Did not have the greatest week as far as working out and my cardio ugh... Its been raining down here and messing with my plans a little.

Everything is going pretty well though. I have been playing a lot of Halo and Rock Band 2. I can play most songs on expert for guitar and bass pretty easily except some of the solos. I can sing a lot of the songs on hard, expert is pretty tough. On drums I have gotten a lot better and I am starting to play almost all the songs on hard and a few on expert. In Halo, there are two areas of my game that have really improved. First, is sticking people with sticky grenades. I probably average 1.5-2 sticks per match which is really good. Ive had some unbelieable ones in the past week too. The other area is my sniping because im finally practicing it a little. Also the last two days I have been using the Spartan laser a little and have improved with that as well.

About done with the Obama biography I have been reading, have only like 20 pages left. Ill probably finish it tonight. I read Obamas Audacity of Hope which rocked, this is called from Promise to Power by David Mendell. It covers Obama from before his race for the Illinois senate right up to the point where he announced his presidential candidacy. Its really interesting to get the opinion of someone who was near him almost every day and had a lot of access to him (Mendell is a writer for the Chicago Tribune who covered Obama). I want to buy and read Obama's first book now "Dreams from my father" its suppose to be really good.

I feel really restless lately. Im fairly busy I guess, with school, work, exercise, reading, watching movies, tv, and playing video games. I dont know why but I constantly feel the need to plan and look to the future. I just have a hard time being content with things. It is a little frustrating because I plan trips and buy things to fill up my schedule when its not always necessary. I dont really regret it, just not sure why I wont let myself feel complacent. Oh well.

Tomorrow is my dads birthday, Im suppose to take him to BJs tomorrow night with my uncle but Brendan never called me back. I didnt buy my dad a card or bake him a cake yet.. hmm. Not really sure what to do, I would bake him a cake but we have had so many cookies and candy and junk in this house lately I really dont want to have to eat any. Its kinda selfish. I got an idea though. I could wake up early and make him breakfast... Thats a good idea. Pancakes maybe.. hmm I only have 1 egg though. Ill think of something. Anyways long post, guess I had a lot on my mind. See you soon

I love Thursdays

2009-02-05T13:43:00.000-08:00

Well the Cardinals almost pulled them off, but the Steelers held them off 27-23. Great super bowl though. Lets see Roger lost in the Oz open final to Nadal in 5 sets which im still a little bitter about so I dont want to talk about it lol. Things are going well though. School is going really good and its easy which doesn't hurt. Reading an Obama book right now which is really good. Tells the story about his rise to power, so its really interesting. Been playing a lot of Halo with Garrett and Randy which is always fun and my sister and her bf got their xbox back so Ive played Rock Band 2 with them a few times. Im probably going to play a little later today. Cancun is only 7 weeks away so its coming up quick. Im still doing cardio and working out; my nutrition has not been as good as it started but Im starting to whip it back into shape. Ive gained about 5 lbs in muscle mass in a month though which is a good start. I have been playing tennis two times a week which I love... Im trying to learn the legitimate way to serve a tennis ball and its really hard. I have my serve that I do just to get it in which is fine, but its not the proper way to serve. Also, my backhand slice and drops shots are starting to really develop. However, my forehand and regular backhand strokes are still really inconsistant. Just have to keep plugging away I guess. John and I are thinking about going to see the French Open which is the last week of May and first week of June which would be totally awesome.

Lot of interesting dreams lately: three nights ago I was a bodyguard for Obama, 2 nights ago I was back coaching football at colfax, and last night I was at a grocery store and saw like 10 people I knew from high school. All really vivid too.. I go through periods where this happens. Its usually a good thing too so no complaints from me.

In other news, my dads bday is on sunday and hes turning the big 50. Im taking him to Bj's since he has never gone and Brendan (his bro) and Brendan's gf are going to meet us there. Then, a week from today Im taking him to San Diego to see Robin Williams do stand up comedy, which should be sweet. The night after that Im going to see John Legend in concert which will be sweet.

The only other news is that in the last few weeks Ive really begun to develop an awesome relationship with a friend that I went to high school with but was never super close with. Its been awesome talking to her each night and I definitely like talking to her this much, shes an awesome person.

Well thats my update for now haha, hope all is well with everyone.

Friday

2009-01-30T21:36:00.000-08:00

Hmm.. My posts are starting to get further and further apart. I dont think its lack of interest in posting, more of just having more stuff to do now that school is going on. Well, Roger Federer destroyed Andy Roddick and will be facing Rafael Nadal is the Aussie Final. It should be a great match althought it took Nadal 5 long, hard sets and the longest match in Aussie open history to advance. Im hoping his match against Fernando Verdasco wore him out. Got to play Rock Band today with Rob (Sister's bf) which was a lot of fun. He got his Xbox back from being repaired. What else.. about finished with my online class and a new one starts monday. Went out to dinner with a friend tonight.. was good to see her haven't talked to her much lately. Tried to get her to see John Legend with me, which she initially agreed too but then realized she is going to be out of town. Not much going on otherwise, playing tennis tomorrow night after work, which im excited about. Have to finish up some homework that is due wednesday. Super Bowl is on sunday... I hope Arizona wins; Im not a huge Pittsburgh Steeler fan. I have been playing a lot of Halo lately too which has been fun. Hmm... I guess thats about it for now, take care everyone!

Yesterday was one of the greatest sports days to be me!

2009-01-25T11:18:00.000-08:00

First, Uconn's Mens basketball team which is ranked #3 in the nation beat #19 Notre Dame at Notre Dame. They won by about ten points and this is huge because Notre Dame had the nation's longest home winning streak at 45 games. It was a great win and since the #1 team lost last week, Uconn should be ranked #2 just behind the hated Duke Blue Devils. Next, Uconn's Womens basketball team which is ranked #1 and has been all year rolled up poor Cincinatti by about 35 points. Things are looking good for Uconn basketball, especially the women who have not lost all year and beat the #2 ranked North Carolina by about 30. The men have only lost once, so things are looking good.

Then, I went and played Tennis with my friend John and FINALLY figured out how to spin the ball in on my serve. Its more a slider spin then the traditional top spin the pros use as there second serve. But, when I got it in John had some trouble returning it, so I played fairly well and Im getting better. I just dont get my backhand right now though, it consistantly floats out of the court. That is easily the worst part of my game right now and I need to figure out how to make it better. Also, I hit some flat serves with more velocity and some pretty good forehands. I even landed a drop shot on him, so things are improving there.

Finally, I get home to Watch Roger Federer (above) play Tomas Berdych in the fourth round of the Aussie Open. They have played 8 times, Roger has only lost once it was the very first time they played at the 2004 olympics. Berdych won the first two sets and Roger managed to come back and win the last 3 sets to win the match. Besides the Wimbledon final last year, it was one of the best matches I have seen. All in all it was a good day. Im just working on some football stuff right now (watching film) and im excited that ill be playing tennis again tonight at 5. See you later

Crazy Week

2009-01-22T14:09:00.000-08:00

Lets see.. I played Tennis last Sunday night. I found out on Monday that John Legend is going to be performing in Indio on Valentine's Day. Im so pumped he is one of my favorite singers so I will definately be there. I just need to find someone to go with me haha. School was good this week, had a big presentation on Wednesday that my group nailed. Tuesday night, my uncle and his girlfriend took me out in palm desert and I met Anthony Kim. He is a famous golfer, he bought us shots, i got his autograph, picture with him and I even sang kareoke with him haha. I have never sang Kareoke before that night but I did it 3 times that night and it was fun. He was hella nice and down-to-earth and so were all the people he was with. I talked to his trainer for like 30 minutes and he was cool too. I got him # and gave him a ring last night but I doubt he will call me back. He is hella busy and probably has a million people bothering him. It was a good night though.

I went to Anaheim today and had lunch with Dennis, an old buddy with Winchester. He came to Disneyland with him family for one of his son's birthdays. Its always fun to chat with Dennis, he is funny as hell. Everything is good besides all that too, school is good, and my workout/cardio/nutrition deal for spring break is going well too. Anyways, talk to you soon.

Plans Plans Plans

2009-01-17T12:55:00.000-08:00

Lets see: Im going to try like a laundry list type post to see how this goes instead of my traditional blog.

1. Just finished my online hw and reading for my master's classes while I was here at work.
2. I went to My first lakers game last night, a tennis buddy (Omar) brought me on his field trip with his class it was pretty awesome and a good game. Lakers lost (sorry for all you lakers fans)
3. Trying to get my dad to take some time off so I can fly him to Dublin for like 4 days for his 50th birthday. I want to do something big that he will never forget.
4. I have monday off of schools because of Martin Luther King day... Yay!
5. Im playing tennis tonight with my other tennis buddy John at 6pm which will be fun since I haven't played since last Sat. or Sun. I think.

Well that worked pretty good, don't think I will be doing it permanently, but its a nice change up. Oh yeah watched "Memoirs of a Geisha" yesterday-today; LOVE that movie. In other big news.. well I guess that is it for now. Don't know if I mentioned it but getting ready for cancun im working out and doing cardio 3 days a week so 6 days im active and I take sundays off. Im also writing down my workouts and everything I eat in a journal. First week went well so far, after this 9 to go... See you soon.

Thursday..

2009-01-15T17:11:00.000-08:00

Thursday is by far the best day of the week.. Why? because I don't have school or work! lol not that my work is very hard. Well the only two big things going on right now are 1. me getting ready for Cancun, and 2. I had my first week of classes. Im doing a cardio/work out/nutrition program for the ten weeks leading up to Cancun. I want to get my chest a little bigger and tone my abs a little bit. As far as school, I think this will be a really easy quarter; my longest paper is going to be 12 pages. Also, there is only a few assignments in each class so it should be good. Two of my professors seems a little boring, so I need to try and stay motivated... Other than that life is good.

Oh yeah! I got my Indian Wells tickets in the mail, so excited for that tournament. My Tuesday night class is out in Palm Desert too so I get to stay at my uncles every week now which will be fun to see him and Jennie. Thats all for now, take care!

BIG TIME!!!

2009-01-10T23:58:00.000-08:00

For those of you who do not know what that picture is of, it is where I will be spending my spring break for 5 days and 6 nights, from March 26 (my birthday) to March 31.... CANCUN!!! I am so pumped for this!! It all started with me wanting to do something and go abroad for spring break. I have been checking airfare for a few weeks and trying to decide where I wanted to go. I finally had an idea that it might be fun to go somewhere tropical for spring break since I have never done that; in fact besides going to Maui for a week one summer I haven't been anywhere tropical period. So I called my buddy Matt and after talking about it, planning on a trip to Cabo San Lucas for 6 hours, realizing that wouldn't work, then spending another 6 hours planning a trip to Cancun and finally pulling the trigger on it. This all occurred yesterday too by the way. I am so excited for this trip for a couple of reasons:

1. Gives me motivation to run/lift weights to look good for my birthday and the trip.

2. Gives me something to look forward to after this next quarter of school.

There is so many cool things to do in Cancun.. obviously the nightlife, clubs, bars etc will be awesome. However, there is also snorkel, scuba, atv, horseback riding, beaches(some of the most beautiful white sand beaches and crystal blue water in the world), deep sea fishing, Mayan Ruins, golf, tennis, shopping... and the list goes on and on. My friend Matt doesn't have his passport yet so hes going to get that, which is good because I think everyone should have it. Also his airfare roundtrip out of Sacramento was 430$... pretty cheap and its only going to get more expensive as time goes on. Mine including the hotel booking was like 697$, the flight stand alone was like 320$ so 5 nights at the hotel was only 380$ about 75$ a night which is really cheap for cancun especially on spring break. The brilliant thing too is that we are staying right in the hotel zone which has the best beaches and nightlife.

One last thing about Cancun... our other friend Garrett might come which would be fun and good because the hotel would be cheaper and this is like a once in a lifetime experience.

Hmm, thats my big news for the last 5 days.. My teaching credential class is going and seems pretty good so far; real school starts monday night which will be nice to get back on the grind. Oh, I played tennis tonight and during the day on thursday. I really have improved quite a bit which is nice. My friend I play with is a 4.0 and I actually played a set with him tonight in which I broke him 3 times and held my serve once so I only lost the set 4-6; a big improvement for me! My serves actually are getting better and more consistent as are my groundstrokes.

Well I know this was a long post, but I guess it doesn't matter since no one reads my blog haha. Im just so excited about Cancun. I have a blog I run on my International trips and I might have to bust it out for this trip. Although, this time I don't know if I want some of my older family members reading it haha. Anyways, Im figuring out my workout/training regiment for the next 2.5 months and I AM SO EXCITED FOR CANCUN!!! Talk to you all soon!

$$$

2009-01-06T02:33:00.000-08:00

Well I spent a ton of money yesterday and today. Yesterday I bought my tickets for the Indian Wells Tennis Tournament at the end of March. Its right next to my uncle's house in Palm Desert and I bought tickets for 3 days and it cost 140$. I really want to see Roger Federer live though so I don't mind. Today, I bought the rest of my books for school which ran me about 75$ not bad. Thank god for the internet, otherwise school books would be brutal. Then, I bought Rock Band 2 from some guy for 160$ which is about 40$ cheaper than in the stores. THEN, I bought a new phone for a few reasons. First, my contract ran out this month and secondly my old phone was at the point that if I talked on it for more than 20 minutes it would die. Slightly annoying. So I bought a Blackberry Curve which is sick. Ive heard they tend to break but I'll just have to be careful (I bought a holster so it should protect it.

I was wanting to go somewhere this week since its my last week off before school starts, but since I spend so much money I think I will just hang out at home. Im contemplating taking a trip somewhere on my spring break which is the last week of march/first week of april. We will see. I want to travel again. Hm, Europe would be cheapest, well domestic would be then carribbean and central america. I want to go across an ocean though. Oh I played Portal (game on the Orange Box for Xbox) and beat it in like 3 hours. Just a cool puzzle game made by Valve and I started Half-life 2 by the same company. Played Halo for a bit tonight with a buddy, so I haven't even opened up my Rock Band yet haha. Tomorrow though; I'll have to get Shannon and Rob on it so we can play together.

Well thats about it, not sure why im still awake. Just don't feel like sleeping yet. In one of those weird, pondering moods too. Not that its a bad thing, just thinking a lot thats all. :) have a wonderful night.

What a Fiasco

2009-01-04T19:21:00.000-08:00

"Fiasco" by Thomas Ricks is one of the most powerful books I have ever read. It describes in depth the American operation in Iraq from before the invasion in 2003 to mid-2006. The amount of detail is insane and for someone who embarrassingly didn't know a ton about the war I learned so much. I really want to look more deeply at the war since mid-2006 too that way I really know what has transpired during the length of the conflict.

Work was nice and easy this weekend; just read and watched football. This next week is my last week off before I start back at school so Im trying to decide what Im going to do. I might go down to San Diego for a night or maybe somewhere else. Also, Im going to try to get up to the Bay Area the weekend of January 23-25 since my buddy from Athens is coming to visit.

I have a few more books I want to finish before break: No Country for Old Men and then the rest of my Euripedes (Ancient Greek Playwright) plays. I know I'll finish No Country, not too sure about the plays though. This is kind of off-subject but I have really been giving thought to pursuing my PhD. When I talked to Jason Stowers when I was up north he suggested if I can keep my grades up. I was considering adding a Political Science class because of this (Although I have already completed my Poli Sci requirement for my Masters degree, if I got a doctorate it would have to be in Poli Sci because History PhD's require competency in like 3 or 4 languages). However, I think that since im already taking 3 classes which is 13 quarter units, I'll wait until a later quarter. Thats all for now, hope everyone is well.

Home Again

2009-01-02T19:06:00.000-08:00

Well I left Roseville at 1pm yesterday and made it home by 7:30pm. Pretty good time considering a stopped twice and I had to take I-5 straight to I-10 instead of using the 210 as a interchange. This was because the Rose parade and bowl were yesterday and I figured there would be a ton of traffic. Monday I saw Yes man which was pretty funny; actually that was tuesday night. Monday I don't think I did much since I can't remember. Tuesday morning I bought Fiasco, a really good book about the American War in Iraq that I have been meaning to read for about a year. Im halfway through so far and its really powerful. I also got my hair cut and bought new shoes. Oh yeah monday night, I went to the mall with some buddies and I bought a dress shirt.

Then, on wednesday my little sister had her daugher Maidelein and I'm officially an uncle. Its totally crazy, I can't imagine being a parent right now but I'm glad she has my mom and her boy friend out there to support her. Also on Tuesday I met with Jason Stowers for 3 hours and we talked football and school which was nice. I always enjoy spending time with him and I got to play with his 2 beautiful little daughters which was nice as well. Then wednesday night; me, matt, steve, and steve's gf lauren went to downtown Sac for New Years. It was okay nothing too special. It was just a little anti-climatic I guess haha I was expecting more stuff going on. Then, thursday or yesterday for those of you keeping score at home; I met up with my friend Briana who I had not seen in like a year and a half and we got coffee and chatted for like 2 hours. It was really cool, Briana is the only close friend I made at Sierra College, so it was cool to catch up.

Today, I went to work, read, and now Im just at home watching Utah stomp on Alabama. My dad went riding so he is gone for the weekend. Im probably going to play some video games for a little, shower and read later. Thats about it so I will talk to you later.

NorCal

2008-12-28T14:25:00.000-08:00

So my friend Caroline couldn't come on the trip because her friends had to work. I left at about 9:20 and got into Vallejo at 3:30. I did the trip in 6 hours and ten minutes which is a new record for me haha. I hung out with my sister and her boyfriend Rob for about 24 hours. We bought Rock Band 2, which is awesome, and played a bunch of other games too. We also watched Pick Of Destiny, which was pretty funny. I came up north about 2:30 on saturday and went over to Steve and Matt's house. Steve, our friend Mike, and I went out and lets just say it was a crazy night. I drank a little too much but it was a really fun time. I got to see a bunch of people that happened to be there which was weird lol. It was fun even though I felt sick until about 1 this afternoon. Tonight Im meeting with some friends for dinner and probably going to try to see a few other people.

Merry Christmas

2008-12-25T09:40:00.000-08:00

I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas with friends and family and that everyone receives and gives everything they want. Happy Holidays to all.

Merry Christmas Eve!

2008-12-24T08:44:00.000-08:00

So I saw Seven Pounds last night with my friend Caroline. It was pretty good and really sad, so if you don't like sad movies it might not be for you. It had a pretty confusing plot, we were trying to figure out what was going on throughout the whole movie and didn't really figure it out haha. Anyways it was a good night though and a lot of fun.

I spent yesterday downloading a ton of music; got some new akon and some xmas music that I have been meaning to download. I ran a mile and a half, after running 4 miles two days ago. Its nice to get back into running. I've been doing a little lifting too and its always nice to wake up and have that sore feeling in your chest. I'm suppose to play tennis today at noon with a friend, but it looks like it might rain hmm. It would be nice to play once before I leave for Northern California, but I'm feeling a little lazy too. It feels like this December has gone by too fast and I haven't really been able to enjoy the holiday season as much as I would like. Tomorrow should be a good day though, get to hang out with my dad and stuff. I hope you all have a great holiday.

Uconn basketball and grades

2008-12-20T20:36:00.001-08:00

I finally got to watch my beloved Uconn Huskies basketball team play today. Their men's team is ranked #2 in the nation and their women are ranked #1. Since they are from back east, I rarely get to see them unless they are on national tv. Today was such a day when they played the #7 ranked Gonzaga Bulldogs. It was one of the best regular season college basketball games I've seen in a long time. Uconn started off hot and led by 11 early but Gonzaga came back and led by 11 with about 11 minutes left in the game. Uconn fought and crawled back and A.J. Price, their senior guard, hit a huge three with about 8 seconds left to tie the game and force overtime. Uconn pulled away in OT and won the game. It was awesome to watch, and different from many Uconn teams in 2 respects. First, they were excellent from the free throw line, something that traditionally is a bad area of the game for the Huskies. Secondly, they fought back when they were down and pulled out a win against a potential final four team. I think Uconn has a legitimate shot at the Nat'l championship for both Men's and Women's this year; exciting times. They play Buffalo in football for a bowl game coming up too, so Uconn's major sports are doing well.

Grades... My final grade was posted this morning. Proseminar for Poli Sci: A, Central Asian comparative politics: A, Terrorism in Africa: A- = 3.9 GPA. I'm so happy and surprised to do so well in my first quarter of grad school. My first four teaching credential classes have been 3 a-'s and 1 a; so in all my classes so far i have gotten all a's and a-'s. Pretty awesome and I just finished my 5th teaching class and will get either an A or A- in it too. Hopefully I can keep it up. Im really happy. Hope everyone else had such a happy day too, talk to you later.

How Sweet it is

2008-12-19T19:09:00.000-08:00

Well I finished my online teaching class today, so I am officially and completely done with school until January 5th, which is when my next online class starts. My next quarter of graduate school starts on January 12, so I have a nice 2-3 week period coming up here. I went for a quick run today only 2.5 miles, I'm slowly getting back into running more now that school is over. I didn't run for like 3 weeks at the end of the quarter and it sucked. Its nice to get back into it for sure.

Oh! a totally cool thing happened. To park at my school is 85$ a quarter, not the end of the year but still a nice chunk of money. Well on Monday I went for a run before my buddy came down and I saw a parking permit on the sidewalk in my neighborhood. Well I picked it up and took a few steps before realizing it might belong to the house in which the side walk was in front of. So I took it and tossed it in their yard next to the truck parked there. Well when I went running today it was still sitting there so I snatched it. First, if it belonged to someone who lived there why would they let it sit outside for almost a week when it has been raining, windy and cold? Second, its worth 85$. So that was a stroke of good luck I guess, I'm definitely happy about it.

My last grade still hasn't been posted yet so I'm waiting on that. I did get a check for 3,000$ in the mail today, too bad its from my loan to pay for my teaching classes haha. Oh well its nice to have anyways in case something crazy happened. I have been talking with my friend Caroline and we finally have hammered out the details for our trip which is awesome. We are going to leave next friday (day after xmas) around 2pm after she gets off work and then we will be coming home probably around midnight or 1am monday night/tues morning. It should be a nice little trip to see a few more people even though I was just up there a month ago. Once again, there is too many people I would like to see and not enough time, but I'll try my best. Anyways hope everyone has a great weekend.

One week to Christmas!

2008-12-18T13:11:00.000-08:00

I really just realized today how close to christmas it is. I normally am obsessed with christmas all through December, but I have been so busy that besides decorating the tree I haven't really thought about it too much. Well, I had a great visit with my friend Steve. He got down about 10:00pm on monday night and we talked until about 4:30am. We slept in and headed to San Diego in the late afternoon. We met up with our buddy Mike and went out to dinner down in Pacific Beach (picture above). After we went back to his house and starting to drink a little and play some ping pong, which was fun. Somehow I managed to beat my friend Mike who I am like 0-15 against lifetime haha. I had some really lucky shots. Anyways, we headed over to this Irish pub called the Blarney Stone in Clairmont, which was totally fun because they had some good drink deals and had Rock Band going. It was the best idea, instead of having a live band or music playing you just have Rock Band set up and have people at the bar take turns playing. It was pretty awesome, I played one song on guitar and another on drums so that was fun. Then, we headed down to Pacific Beach and went to the Pacific Beach Bar and Grill after checking out a few other spots. It had started to rain so there wasn't a ton of people out, but PB bar and grill was pretty packed. We hung out until about 1:30am and then headed back to Mike's house and went to bed.

The next morning, we got up around 10:00am and played a little Tiger Woods 09. We just hung out for a few hours trying to decide what we wanted to do. About 4am, it started to absolutely pour rain. I felt like I was back in Northern California, it was raining so hard. It was still raining after we got up, so instead of going to the mall like we were planning, we went to the movies and saw the new James Bond. "Quantom of Solace" was good, I liked it more than Daniel Craig's first Bond movie Casino Royale. After the movie, Steve and I blew out and came back to Moreno Valley. The rain had stopped while we were in the movies, but as soon as we left to drive home it started pouring again so it was a bummer he had to come down to crappy weather. We got home and watched some basketball for a while. Then we went to Bj's for dessert and drinks for a little which was fun. Bj's pizookies are legit for anyone who likes dessert. There is nothing like a huge cookie with vanilla ice cream on it. We came back home, talked with my dad for a bit, and then watched the new Indiana Jones movie since Steve had never seen it. After that we went to bed.

I woke up this morning at about 9:30am and Steve had already left. So we had a fun little jaunt down to San Diego. Two of my three grades for school have already been posted, but I'm going to wait out on posting the grades because I want to wait until I get the third one (There might be a small celebration haha). Today, I just have been hanging out - I watched Prince Caspian (Awesome Movie) and now I'm watching Survivorman, which is about Les Stroud (the guy in the picture above) surviving in different environments. I'm going up north again in about 8 days so I just have work this weekend, then just x-mas and hanging out next week before I leave. Hope everyone is having a great week.

Monday monday

2008-12-15T11:54:00.000-08:00

Saturday night was a fun night. My dad and I went to my uncle's x-mas party and it was a blast. They had a keg, like 30-40 people, food, beer pong, and a white elephant. I got a medieval knight's helmet which is pretty sweet. My dad got crown royal glasses and a 60$ bottle of wine. So it was fun especially since I had worked 9 hours that day. Yesterday I worked 6 hours and then i played xbox with two old buddies - Garrett Kern and Randy Avalos. It was a good time. Today, I was going to go riding quads with my dad (we have 2), but it is raining down here so its a no go. My friend Steve is probably leaving right about now to come down, so hopefully the rain will lighten up for his ride. Anyways thats about it for now, Ill blog a little later.

Nice day

2008-12-12T13:56:00.001-08:00

Well I have to say it has been nice for the last two days not having to worry about school assignments (besides my credential class). Just been relaxing, ran for the first time in 3 weeks (I almost died because im so out of shape), and played tennis with a buddy last night. I'm at work right now until 4 and I am almost done with this week's assignments for my teaching class. Then next week, I just have to take these 2 tests and do like one assignment; so im pretty much done with this class. The good thing is too I think they give us like 12 days off, the next class starts after x-mas sometime, so i'll have a couple weeks with no school period. I have to go schedule another elective class I keep forgetting to do that. I think i'll do that after I finish blogging here.

I had a nice unexpected call from a certain Jason Stowers today. It was good to talk to him and we spend about 20 minutes on the phone together. When I go up north around x-mas we are going to get together and go over some football stuff, which is something I always enjoy. I had another unexpected call from a certain Laura Inman too, which is always nice and we talked for a bit about John Legend. John Legend is the man people I don't know how many times I need to say it but go check him out. Thats about it for now, my friend Steve will be down monday sometime so i'm looking forward to hanging out with him. Sayonara for now.

DONE!!!

2008-12-10T18:39:00.000-08:00

My first quarter of graduate school is officially over. I turned in my group's Africa compilation tonight so I have turned in everything! It feels good to be done, and now its time for the waiting game... What kind of grades will I get? Theres a possibility of getting straight A's but I think I will get either two A's and one B, or one A and two B's. Either way its a good first quarter start. I have one A guarenteed and the other two classes could go either A or B since my grade is based off like 2 assignments in each class. I wrapped and sent off all my x-mas presents so im done with that too, except for finding some thing for my mom. I might just send her a card. Oh! I won 70$ last weekend in a football pool. My dad's work has a football pool each week and I won so that was a nice little boost, helped my get my little sister a gift, and pay my dad the $20 I kept "forgetting" to give him.

In other news, I started reading a fiction book from the Roman times that is good so far; Ill write more on that as I get into it, im only 100 pages in. My friend Steve is coming done in 5 days for 3-4 days. We are going to SD to hang out with our buddy Mike for 2 days and spend the rest here. Sorry if I already wrote about this I didn't look at the blog before I posted. Also, I am going back up north again the weekend after xmas which i have off from work. I plan on leaving friday the 26th, and probably driving home monday the 29th. I have to talk to my friend Caroline, who is going to ride up with me, and see what her schedule looks like.

I think thats about it. One of my professors is having a going away party on friday at the school and then i guess a bunch of students and faculty are going out after. It starts at 4 and I get off at 4 but Ill probably shoot up anyways and just be a little late. Oh yeah, on Saturday night my Uncle is having an xmas party at his house in Palm Desert. Should be fun, with a white elephant and all that jazz. Anyways, thats all for now, Take care.

Why do good days have to have bad turns to them?

2008-12-08T21:54:00.000-08:00

So this is about how I felt earlier. The day started off great, was pretty much done with school, getting ready for my interview with National. So I get to National and I find out that I actually can't student teach until I have finished my coursework, which won't be until June. Hmm... I wonder why my advisor would: 1. schedule my classes in a way that I didn't get all of the requisites out of the way first and 2. tell me that after completing my first 3 classes I would be eligible to student teach. So I tried really hard not to get too angry because I still had to do my interview which I did a pretty good job on the lady seemed to like me enough. The next wonderful thing to happen was that I was suppose to submit my group's compilation for my terrorism in africa class. I had finished my portion, incorporated one group member's work, and then I never heard from the other group member. Now im not really mad at him because he is usually nails, but coupled with what had happened earlier I was just like come on you can't do this to me. I never even heard from him either, I hope he is okay, I just called him to check. I talked to the professor too and he said it was cool to turn it in tomorrow. Its not actually due until wednesday really so its not a big deal I just want to get it in and over with.

So, that pretty much sucked. The good news is that I really will be done with school tomorrow. I have one more quiz to take in my comparative politics class, turn in my final paper for that class tomorrow, email my analytical book review and final exam essay for another class, and turn in my Africa compilation. So I will be legitimately done. The silver living too I guess is that I can really load up on classes next quarter and the spring quarter. That way, when I student teach in the fall I will just have to student teach and take my core classes. If I can swing it right, ill be completely done with my electives after the spring quarter. That way I'll only have two courses left to take which are the core ones ill take in the fall and then the winter quarter. That way I can focus on my thesis, student teaching and only one class. So maybe it happened for a reason. It just really pissed me off that my advisor gave me false information. Its been my experience in college that advisors and counselors really just jerk you around and never give you the information you need. Maybe I should be a college counselor or write a book on it, or something haha. Anyways sorry to vent, but I don't get worked up to often and this was just one of those days. I did get 40$ back from selling my books to school, go Coyote bookstore haha. Oh man alright Im gone, hopefully my next post will be a little more pleasant.

The Craziness is coming to an end!

2008-12-08T10:34:00.001-08:00

Wow, sorry I haven't written on here in a few days. I have been insanely busy. First, on friday, I edited and finished my 25 page paper for my comparitive politics class. Then, I spent most of the day doing the work for my online teaching class. I had to do discussion board posts, a power point, and create a lesson plan using a program called Inspiration which I had never used before. Then I called and set up my interview for student teaching (you have to interview with the placement coordinator before you can get placed), so that interview is today. Then late friday night I got a email from my comparitive politics professor with the take home final. I thought it was not going to be assigned until tuesday of this week but apparently not. So Saturday I had to answer two essay questions with my answers needing to be between 7-10 pages each. So i finished that on saturday. Then sunday, I edited those, printed them out, and printed out my 25 page paper. Then I spent a good amount of time on my Sudan compilation yesterday. So all I have to do is turn all those papers into class tonight. Then I have to finish doing my sources for my Sudan compilation and then compile my other two group members work into mine and then turn that in tonight too. Its been a crazy week, I have written about 50 pages this week (I wrote 9 in another class on monday); but it feels good to be about done with the quarter. I have to take a small quiz tonight and another tomorrow night but that is nothing.

Anyways, my buddy is coming down in a week for 3 days so that will be fun. We are going to go to San Diego for a night or 2 and then just hang out. I'm also going to go back up to Auburn for a few days at some point over christmas break. Oh yeah I decorated my x-mas tree on saturday night too so im definately in the holiday spirit. Thats all I have for now, hope everyone is doing good.

808s and Heartbreak

2008-12-04T20:06:00.000-08:00

So I know a lot of people don't like Kanye West, personally I think he is way misunderstood. However, you can't argue that this guy doesn't make fire and work harder than almost anyone in the music industry. I saw him live at the Glow In The Dark Tour and I can tell you that I have never seen a better performance in my entire life. Anyways, his new cd 808s and Heartbreak is not a rap cd, its a r&b cd that he uses auto-tune on to sing. Auto-tune is like the cher thing from a few years back where you computerize your voice. The Cd is about his mom Dr. Donda West passing on earlier this year and him breaking up with his long-time fiance. Anyways if you like good music with a lot of emotion, you will absolutely love this cd. Its been on repeat on my computer as I work on school work and in my car all week long since I got it.

School update: I finished my 25 page paper today, what a relief. For my Africa class, the teacher gave me an example of the compilation and its going to be a lot easier than I thought. My group definately made the right choice when we chose to do this project instead of the regular class. Not only is it a lot easier, but it is something that is actually going to be used by the NSA, which is awesome. Anyways, thats all I got but go check out 808s and Heartbreak with an open mind and you might find a new artist that you respect and can connect with a little. Oh, and go donate to the Jimmy V fund! http://www.jimmyv.org. Much love to you all

Jimmy V Foundation

2008-12-03T23:37:00.000-08:00

To Do List:

1. Write 25 page paper - Progress: 17 pages

2. Take Home final - Program: starts on 12/10

3. Terrorism Complilation - Progress: Have information and maps, just need to compile

Sorry just doing a quick to do list for school, which ends in about a week :). The quarter system is wonderful for all of you semester students. I had never done quarters before I got into Grad School, its only 10 weeks so its a little compact, but it goes by so fast, its really nice!

Anyways on to the really important stuff: The man above is Jimmy Valvano, former head coach of the North Carolina State Mens Basketball team. He died of cancer when he was in his 50s, which is much too young for anyone to die. Anyone remotely a fan of college basketball should know who this man is as Dick Vitale talks about him often as they were good friends and they have a week called the Jimmy V Classic each year. Oh... what a coincidence... that is this week! December 3-10. He also has a cancer foundation in his name called the Jimmy V fund. They take 100% of the money they receive and put it towards research and treatment. This is the second straight year that I have donated and I plan on doing it until I die. If you need inspiration for anything in life go watch on youtube "Jim Valvano Espy Acceptance Speech". It is from 1993 and is what that picture above is from. I wear a blue band on my left wrist that says "Don't give up, Don't ever give up". Well that is from that speech and he was just an amazing man. My papa (dad's dad) died of colon cancer a little over 8 years ago at the age of 68, which is still too young. I guess you can say that I have a passing interest in solving the cancer issue as I'm sure many people do.

Go do something special for the holidays and donate to this fund. They take 1 dollar and they take 1,000,000 dollars. You will be making a difference in someone's life and it always feels good to contribute in some way since most of us are too busy or not in a position to do so. Especially in the holiday spirit. God bless you all and I wish you all wonderful health for yourself, friends, and family. Talk to you soon.

What a Good Day

2008-12-02T12:27:00.000-08:00

Hey Everyone!

So I had a great day yesterday. First, I got the results back from my CSET and I passed all 3 sections. This means that I can student teach and get my teaching credential now. I'm really happy that I passed all 3 because each section is like 70$ so its a really expensive test. Then, class got out last night 2 hours early and that was the last time I have that class because we are turning our final in over the internet. So I was home at like 8:30pm and I figured "I should finish my last essay since its still early". So I finished my last essay for that class last night. Then, when I woke up this morning I did my Final exam essay. So basically, I'm completely down with one class which is nice, because I have a lot of work left in my other two classes.

What else.. I started putting up those posters I bought. I put up the Vitruvian Man and the Great Wave. I'll probably put the rest up later today or tomorrow maybe. I have 2 quizzes to take in my Comparative Politics class tonight, so I already studied for those. In that class, the big assignment is a 25 page paper. I already have written about 11 and a half pages so Im probably going to work on that for a little bit today before class. Hmm, thats about it; thought I had more to talk about. See ya later.

Happy Thanksgiving!

2008-11-30T22:49:00.000-08:00

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!
I hope everyone had a great time with family and friends. My dad and I went up north for like 5 days and it was a blast. I got to see a ton of my friends.. some I hadn't seen since I graduated and I got to reconnect with some of the people that are the most important to me so that was amazing. I even made a new friend, so it was really nice. I just really love that area, I feel the most comfortable and in my element there. Lets see, ate some food of course, played some board games (Scattergories is legit thats all I'm saying), watched some football, played golf for the first time in 3 months (lets just say the first 3 holes were unbelievably bad). It was a really good time though, unfortunately I wasn't able to meet up with everyone I had plans with or wanted to see; but for the most part it worked out pretty good. Hopefully I'll head back up there again in a month or so, at least that is the plan.

Its back to reality now. I have two weeks before my quarter is up and a lot of unfinished business left to go as far as writing papers. I need to really crunch this week and try to knock out as much of it as possible. That way next week (finals week) ill be able to just coast. I know I can do it I just have to maintain this state of concentration and motivation that I have right now. Oh yeah, tomorrow I find out whether I passed the CSET or not... big day. If I passed I might be able to student teacher this upcoming spring and get it over with, otherwise I'll have to wait until the fall. Either way its not really a big deal, but I hope I passed it just so I don't have to deal with it again. Plus, its hella expensive (70$ for each subtest and there were 3), but the good news is that if you pass one section you don't have to take it again.

Other than that, I finished my Grandpa's book. It has a a really good story/plot, but the syntax is a little weird and the character development feels rushed. I liked it though. I guess thats really all I have to update on, traffic was a nightmare getting up north but coming home it wasn't bad. I feel really good after that trip, Im always really happy around the holidays. Theres just something about it, I don't know what, but I like it. I think I'm going to leave off on that note. Have a great night world.