Acorns keep falling on my head, but that doesn't mean......

Forewarning: Tyler and I just came back from a bar, so this post is a bit impulsive. It was a drunken rumination of the past four years spent at Berkeley, primarily conversing about how we will miss the food at Berkeley, our friends, and the food at Berkeley (if you haven't been here, you need to; Berkeley has every ethnic cuisine you can imagine).We spent this past week lazily relaxing at Tyler's parent's house, seriously salvaging the last of the free time we'll have for a while and the last (unfortunately) time of really being able to hang out with his parents.

We were both forced to walk at our graduation ceremonies last week (thank you family), and guess what? graduation was boring as presumed. However, our families finally met (I know; it only took three years). The number of times we thanked the Lord that day is truly unfathomable; with gloomy skies and sporadic rain clouds hovering over our heads all day, we thought it was going to downpour during my graduation (which took place in an outside auditorium). Even with that 70% chance of rain and the winds blowing my family back to San Diego and his grandparents back to Hawaii, they came, they sat, and they fell asleep. Devotion? I think so. (By the way, remarkably, it only rained before and after the ceremony).

Afterwards, our families and some of our friends came together for dinner at one of the few places at Cal that is able to hold 20 people in one sitting area; luckily, the food was pretty good too. My family acted psychotic per usual and did not attempt to hide their craziness, but I love them for it. No one was really able to chat as intimately as much as I had hoped, but it was too idealistic given the size of our party. However, it was a stepping stone to what might actually be a good familial relationship. In retrospect, we thought my family would never accept me dating someone who isn't Chaldean, and therefore, would attempt to kill me when finding out. It appears, though, that I am still alive and they still love me; miraculous things can happen when you take risks.

Now, we move; we have been selling our furniture on Craigslist for the past couple of days and have been making quite the profit. We were actually considering doing this for a living. We joke, we joke (parents: we were just kidding... you can calm down now hehe). Packing is actually not that difficult, and it's probably because Tyler's ten thousand boxes of books are already stored away. Next Thursday we will begin the next saga of our lives to Mississippi. For some reason, I have a good feeling about this.

OH. okay. I haven't included any pics in a while:

 Pictures from our camping trip....

 We saw dolphins while kayaking! sooo cute!!!

 

 Love and San Diego beaches....happiness

 Naked bikers in San Francisco.... confusion happiness

Awwww the family :)

ST. MEOW

Friends who studied abroad with us (Mishies)

My cousin and little sis

Tyler being silly as always

There are lots more pictures if you follow the links: 

~Kitties

~Squirrels

 

On Realizing the Dream and the Devaluation of Art

I’ve often debated the usefulness of keeping a blog; as is probably evident by my number of posts. There was a time when I had my very own unique url over at Wordpress. I had picked out a generic template that seemed to have the least amount of aesthetic dissonance and was ready to author my first post. Then I deleted the entire thing and went back to editing page 52. People that know me might ask: “Tyler, you university-educated hipster! You’re an aspiring writer! Why wouldn’t you take any opportunity to publish your words? Even if it’s a single drop of water in the ocean of drivel that is the Internet, that’s still something, right?” Whoops, guess I gave away my opinion, didn’t I? In all seriousness, if I tried to self-publish any sort of fiction via a Web Log, I’d be competing with everyone else who has been entranced with the embarrassingly large amounts of money that certain “teenage romance” (pronounced with the same tone I would use to describe “country music” [to those whom I have not yet offended: don’t worry, I’m getting there]) series have been making lately, and have decided that there aren’t nearly enough knockoffs and imitations within the industry itself and extended the drudgery to new mediums. And the other way that one garners attention besides sculpting out alarmingly specific unrealized high school fantasies, is by having opinions. And not just any opinion; the more incendiary and controversial, the better. It takes a certain sort of pretentiousness to toss out one’s opinions on a regular basis, with the intention of inciting argument (I possess a different sort of pretentiousness, if you haven’t noticed already). It’s a different matter to raise public awareness on topics that most people would rather ignore, but there are just so many people that retread ground that has already been burned over and salted for the sake of attracting undue attention; i.e. blogs whose only purpose seems to be reinforcing a painfully obvious political agenda. To make a long story short, it’s not worth it to me to fight a losing battle on the Internet, especially when I don’t have a finished product in hand. I, of course, reserve the right to change my mind once projects begin to reach their completion; about fighting losing battles, that is.

While we’re on the subject, let’s talk more about writing. I’ve introduced myself to a number of people this semester and inevitably, upon learning that I’m soon to graduate, raise questions about my future plans. After I tell my charming inquisitor that I intend to pursue writing after the completion of my education, the next question undoubtedly is: “What kind of writing?” After I reply that I intend to write fiction, there’s usually a silence, after which we move on to other things. It’s a little disappointing that no one seems to have any idea what to say to that sort of thing. Maybe it’s one of those aspirations that you’re not actually supposed to tell anyone about until you’re already famous. Summer tells me that I get a lot of questions as to why I’m writing, rather than pursuing a career in whatever it is that people do these days; it must be lucrative though, since everyone is doing it. However, I’m not in it for the money, obviously; otherwise I’d already be pumping out a trashy romance series, since everybody seems to love those. I’m doing this because I like it; and because I believed all the advice, that everyone from my generation apparently ignored, about making a career out of something that I love. And also, this isn’t really something I can do as a side project; at least not the way I write. One particular side project has been going on for 5 years and I’ve just hit the 100 page mark in Word. Based on the current production level, I might be finished by the time I’m 40.

I guess this post hasn’t been a total waste of time. It’s actually been more illuminating than I actually thought possible. Some of you may be thinking that I have a bit of an axe to grind. Which is more or less true. What I pursue may very well be a dying career. Perhaps in 20 years my kind will be reduced to posting our works on Facebook 2.0 and spamming friends for donations. That day may yet come; but for now, I’m not ready to delete everything and shuffle quietly into the office without a fight.

End obligatory mission statement.

Peace. Or something like it.

"Do not gloat when your enemy falls; when he stumbles, do not let your heart rejoice, or the LORD will see and disapprove and turn his wrath away from him" Proverbs 24

Is a temporary fix for a facade of peace, achieved through war and hate, really the best route we could have taken? I don't think "disturbing" is quite sufficient enough to describe seeing so many praising death. I know Americans are upset, but how can we fight back in the same manner he made us so angry by? Society never ceases to amaze me.

How about closer to home? The city of Berkeley is discussing a sit-lie ordinance that would prohibit people, namely the homeless, of sitting on the sidewalks of Telegraph--the main street of Berkeley. Why? because apparently they are affecting the income of the businesses on the street.

I think not. Perhaps it is due to the recession instead? Take them off the streets, BUT provide more funding to shelters and programs so they have somewhere to go. Do not merely rid of this "problem" by, once again, arguing that keeping them off the streets will increase the revenue of the stores. It is obvious this is an argument of the wealthy and the privileged; the discrimination is readily apparent.

Good news, though. Tonight our student government passed a resolution against this ordinance. Against open discrimination of the homeless. Against the criminalization of poverty. Thank you entitled people of Berkeley who forget what empathy means. You continually give us something to fight for.

"Today, give a stranger one of your smiles.  

It might be the only sunshine he sees all day"