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Thrusday July 28th, 2011

Hey! I’m sorry I forgot about my website! I graduated and suddenly had no time to spend idling away on my computer, it has been a couple of months now and I am writing here from a beautiful villa in central Bali. The sun is setting over the rice paddies outside my window and I am editing the photos I took today of a ceremonial cremation of a high priestess who recently died here.

Anyways, it has been quite a rip roaring summer, full of foreign time zones, unclean tap water, and sunny beaches, not specifically in that order. Maybe I will just list off some of the thing I have done instead of write about them, perhaps I will do this because of laziness.

Yes laziness is the reason.

Summer 2011 so far, and in roughly chronological order: Party, sleep, party, sleep, sleep at a party, drive to the beach, swim, eat, sleep, party, sleep, party in my sleep, netflix, airport, airplane, airplane, airplane, airport, airplane airplane, India, hotel, sweating, taxi, taxi, taxi, sleep-awake-sleep-awake at 3am, build pathways, pick up trash, eat, sleep, hike, get rained on, hike, teach English, monks, eat, sleep, carry rocks, monks, eat, mix cement, drink water, take shower with a bucket, don’t drink shower water, sleep, monks, meditation, Buddhism, sleep, meditation, more manual labor, taxi, taxi, see a shitload of trash, live in two-room apartment, meet wonderful people, eat too much food, Dalia Lama, monks, eat some more, sleep, wake, explore, repeat, taxi, taxi, taxi, taxi, airplane, airplane airplane, airplane, try to sleep, sleep, land, sick, sick, sick, sick, sick, sick, San Diego, jet skis, go too fast, fall off jet ski, fall asleep on beach, make jokes with funny people, drive home, airport, airplane, oh-my-god-my-seat-goes-all-the-way-back, airplane, sleep, airplane, Hong Kong, airplane, drinking age is non-existent, drink wine on airplane, fall asleep, land in Bali, beach, beach, beach, rent scooters, fall off scooter, hotels are the best in the world, so are the restaurants, people so nice, dazed, sleep, eat, eat, eat, sleep, meet people, drink Bintang, swim, meet more people, drink more Bintang, sleep, eat, walk to villa, sit down and write this.

Well that about sums it up.

Sunday May 22nd, 2011

Great news: the Rapture did not come to pass! I know it was most likely because of my fervent prayers for Jesus to, "please not allow flying scorpion-locusts to descend upon my planet to sting me for five months without killing me before exploding the universe." Or we all died and this is hell. In which case, Great news: it turns out that hell is awesome!

Besides surviving the Rapture, this is the very last weekend of my entire life! Ahem. I mean of high school! And tomorrow is the last day of high school. How bizarre! Seems only a few short days ago I was tripping up the first few rungs of the long, arduously twisted ladder that is the American educational system. I have learned a lot in these past four years, although almost none of that from a classroom. I have learned more from people. I know I still have so much more to learn but I definitely have the basics: how to make people smile happily, laugh joyously, have fun ecstatically, jump proudly, and most importantly how to manipulate them to get what I want. No but seriously, it's an essential skill that you learn in high school.

What else have I learned you might ask? Well not much, maybe that change is good. It is sometimes even necessary. Change is also frightening, but if you can be awesome like me you can just hunker down, look change in its beady, red eyes, and shout: "You will never defeat me! I am your master! Now buy me a drink!"

Okay that's enough existentialism for now. This weekend was actually really wonderful. A few friends of mine came from Pasadena to film a scene for a movie they are making. My friend contacted me and asked where he could get in contact with some stars, as they are currently experiencing a star shortage in the greater LA area. I told him that where he needed to go was Joshua Tree. They drove out to the desert, and exempting some lost time trying to fruitlessly track down some Chipotle, followed us out to the back entrance of the park. We drove about fifteen minutes into the total darkness that is the wild, desert landscape of Joshua Tree. We stopped off the side of a random stretch of road surrounded by a dark, brooding desert plain entrenched below us, a silhouetted mountain range encircling around us, and a vast vault of brilliant stars enshrined above us. Then the gibbous moon birthed gloriously from behind the curtain of dark mountain. We danced and waved and photographed in the moonlight for a period of hours and not once did another car pass by on that road, nor did a single human sound intrude upon our sanctuary.

Okay I apologize; I said I would stop with the existentialism, I just can't help it. I had a wonderful time at a graduation/rapture party last night. It winded down to just me and a new friend sitting outside waiting for the sun to rise, just to know for sure that we had survived the night. Unfortunately, as my mother says, the approaching sound of Apollo's galloping horses can last for a time seemingly endless, and I had to retire to sleep before the rising of the sun, but with the light of the day already warming the air.

Oops, there I go again. I'll see you tomorrow world…

Saturday May 21th, 2011

Now 2am exactly. Waiting for rapture.

Thursday May 19th, 2011

Today seemed like such a long day, even though what I did mostly just consisted of sitting, with a short break of gentle walking that was quickly converted back to sitting, perhaps in a new location.

I woke up at 6:30. Then again at 7:30. Then finally I managed to get up around 8. I do feel bad for missing my first two periods though. My class periods, I'm not pregnant. I don't even think that's possible. Anyways, I feel bad because I am missing that valuable time in my young life that I only get to experience for these singular moments with my friends, in which I get to play the original super smash bros for N64 on a projector that James brought to class, for a solid hour.

So I planned on making it to school for econ, 3rd period. When suddenly, as I pulled out of my driveway, what did I hear but Obama's beautiful, baritone drawls resounding out across the airwaves and onto my radio. What I didn't know was that he would speak for an hour, forcing me to arrive at the school and simply wait in the parking lot for him to finish his speech. It was a very interesting speech, and as you may know, I am a bit of a romantic when it comes to politics, so I simply could not turn it off. I know that Obama stopped talking precisely at the end of third period for me. He loves me.

We had an assembly so I walked over there and goofed around like a fool, had a cameo in the assembly video, in which I was a bigger fool (although maybe you can tell that I tend to get my jollies off from being a bit foolish sometimes), got all stink bombed, and left school. One funny event did occur though. I turned around to see our head of discipline lady, Inigez or however you spell her name, bending down and yelling at some minority student for having his hands in his pockets. She yells 'Get out!" and proceeds to search the vicinity for drugs with her cell phone as a light. Apparently she was unsuccessful and trudged back down, saddened by her apparent inability to inflict any real damage to this particular student's life, and escorted the kid out of the gym. I yelled "The law!" and John made police siren noises. Good thing she didn't search me, she would have found a treasure trove of cough drops and Advil worthy of Hunter S. Thompson himself.

Had an argument later about the Middle East, neither of us arguers really knew what we were talking about though, something I realized later that day when I encountered a dialog between two adults at a friend's house. Then I did fifty pushups while Landen yelled at me like a drill sergeant, I think he has found his true calling. Back to that dialog I was talking about. They were discussing politics, Obamanations and above all, religion. Is it really religion that drives all the crazy in the world? I always thought it was money, but maybe it is god or goddess or whoever. I mean, it seemed pretty crazy what these people were talking about. I mean, is god a guy or a gal, when did eve eat the apple, why is it important? Well it most certainly isn't, is what I wanted to say. However, they seemed much more knowledgeable of Middle Eastern history and bible quotes than I ever will be, so I stayed out of the conversation except for one well-placed (if I may be so humble) joke concerning "playing for the other team."

I don't want to bore you so let's move on to the part where I went to watch my friend ride horses! Yay! It was great. First, we just stood around and pet horses for what seemed like hours. Time must slow down when you are petting an immensely awesome, majestic horse on a moonless, starry, cool, desert night. Because that is totally what we were doing. Well Francesca rode that horse valiantly. We also met some nice people there, and one guy asked us if we were getting into any trouble. As we moved around the corner I called back, "No, not tonight." He responded, "To bad…. This is a great place to have sex at night." He was shushed by his companion, but not before he also uttered "I get more trim here than anywhere else." Trim? Maybe it is just some fancy horse lingo I don't understand. Like "canter."

Now I am home, nothing to report. I away too sleep. I have dreams to make!

Wednesday May 18th, 2011

Today I was told that: "You are a minor until you move out of the house and pay your own bills."

This was of course stated in response to a school permission form that I was turning in late for an upcoming beach trip. The form had been subtitled as a "Minor Release Form." Now normally I would just put scribbles for all the signatures (just kidding I don't do this, pay this no attention), but I left it out overnight on the entryway table and my mother signed it for me. She had however made a slight revision and crossed out the word "Minor" and had written "error, not a minor, 18." Apparently this was a point of contention when it came time to turn my page in to the proper authorities. Normally when confronted by such a statement as "You are a minor until you pay your own bills," I am quick to react with such powerful, soul-wrenching retorts, containing so much wit and derisive mockery that they are rumored to have, multiple times in the past, breached the linear flow of time and traveled back into our own history to kill Hitler. Yes, I said multiple times. Multiple Hitlers.

"legally recognized" adults) who had waited until the day after the deadline to turn in the form. Also I know one of them to be a nice lady, although she was not the one who made the comment.

Another fact that I should mention is that I never discredited her statement as false; it may in fact be true! If indeed there exists a legal loophole that allows me to be classified as a minor upon the qualification that I do not pay my own bills, I could quickly make a fortune defending murderers, rapists and robbers of all sorts. I would simply enlighten the judge to the fact that: "This particular 54 year old man, accused of such and such brutal acts, is not a viable defendant in this court and must be tried as a minor for the reason that he, your honor, is on welfare and does not pay his own bills!" Case closed.

Well that is what I would have said. What I did say was "Oh really. Is that so?" Then I promptly took my leave.

In summation, this is also a lesson. Yes, a lesson from the Buddah himself. Next time you want to unleash the hounds of hell upon your particular, momentary adversary, instead just say "Is that so?" In this way you shall become more enlightened and more conscious, moving to a higher plane of existence and realizing your full potential as an elevated being of compassion.

Unless they really deserve it of course.

Monday, May 16th, 2011

Hey so this weekend was interesting. It's Monday so I thought it would be fitting to write about the weekend, as the only good thing about Mondays is the fact that they are so close to the preceding weekend. On Friday I drove out to Joshua Tree Music Fest…

Seriously it was crazy, that place is amazing, totally relaxed, great music, and very interesting people. I had backstage passes and mostly just relaxed backstage at my parent's RV. I, and my compatriot Landen, helped to hook up my dad's projector/audiobox/speaker/DVD player, half car battery operated and half generator connected. It was really an evolutionary process to get the thing to turn on and display the artsy movie that my father has been crafting so meticulously for the last few months across a fabric screen supported by two PVC pipes rammed into the dirt.

Well I got back late that night and promptly fell asleep.

On Saturday I witnessed the One Acts, to which I can confidently say "Damn that was good, my friends are awesome." Then I managed to gain access to the super exclusive after party, which was a "wonderful, colorful romp across a roller coaster ride of the full spectrum of the gambit of human emotions," as the New York Times might put it.

Then today was another great learning experience at the old institute of higher education. Our econ teacher called in security guards to watch his class while he calmed down outside, don't question him. Once the teacher left, the security guard remarked, quiet brusquely I might add, that it was a waste of his time to come to our class, I remarked that it was a waste of time for all of us to come to class. I made a few more remarks about the deplorable conditions of our school bathrooms with my friend John over the ten minutes the guard was standing watch like some kind of ancient Egyptian statue (this guy had the stature and humor of one), keeping guard over a pharaoh's tomb. The guard apparently didn't like this and when our teacher returned and the security guard turned to take his leave, he thought twice and decided to take us with him to the office. Oh god. I could feel death upon my brow in that instant. I knew the strict punishments for breaking the holy, basically constitutional laws that expressly forbid speaking about the bathrooms or making jokes at school. However it was, we giggled our way to the office like the trouble makers that we were. We were told to be quiet and to fear our fate. What we did was sit and wait, and when no one ever came to collect us and pass judgment upon our heads, we asked if we could go back to class and left. How very entertaining. At one point some fellow student asked us in wonder "What did you guys do to get three security guards take you in?!" making us feel promptly like total badasses as I replied, "absolutely nothing." We were told to stop talking.

On another note, this is my last week at this school before I graduate, forever. Oh the horror.

Wednesday May 11th, 2011

Check out the high-res Prom pictures here: Prom 2011

Monday May 9th, 2011

Taken, shamelessly I might add, without permission from http://zomgscience.net/

Well I thought you should know how I feel about modern, medical technology.

Saturday May 7th, 2011

While it is nice to set your alarm to 11:30, the reality of the situation dictates that you will probably never reach that alarm in a sleeping state. For example, it is 11:40 am as I type this, and I most certainly did not wake up ten minutes ago, in fact, I have been awake for several hours already. Why? Well there a couple reasons, but I will have to take you back in time a couple of months and get you up to speed.

So about half a year ago the house that we share a backyard-wall with was empty, repossessed or abandoned or whatever. A family moves in, they seemed nice. Although it was hard to tell as here in the wonderful, gated community of Versailles, it is expressly forbidden by the high council of the home owners association to communicate with your neighbors, or so it seems. It turns out that this particular family owned some wonderful, little dogs that ran around their backyard, playful and free, enjoying their little doggy lives with a wide-eyed rapture that can only be described as loud. The incessant "yip yipping," and that's a direct quote, was perfectly tolerable during the day, even though the dogs do happen to be about 20 feet from my room and the sound penetrates seamlessly across my balcony, through my sliding glass door and into my ears, it was okay. Turns out though, that these dogs enjoy their yapping so much, they can't even sleep, they just keep on yappin. Ok cool, that's fine, I don't need sleep, I am better than those dogs right? Well no, wrong. I was continually awakened in the night by their barking escapades, and would often loll into a semi-dream delusional state in which I hallucinated wild images of dogs ripping my flesh from my bones.

So after two kindly worded letters that amounted to us imploring them to keep their dogs inside, the plot seemed to come to a climax on Tuesday of this week. I went to bed happy that I would get enough sleep so I could be prepared for the week of AP tests ahead of me. I set my alarm for 10am, and as you guessed, I never reached that mark. 4:03am, yip yip. My eyes spring open and I am wide awake, although I have no idea why, I was seemingly jerked into consciousness by no apparent stimuli… Yip yip. Instantly upon hearing the yipping of the demon spawn doggies, I was filled with a rage that formed from the base of my spine, rose through my chest, and gathering steam and pressure erupted volcanically from between my furrowed eyebrows. It is hard to get back to sleep while anger is erupting out of your face. So I grabbed my bath robe, grabbed my car keys, grabbed my mother, and drove down the block and back down the next street all the way up to the door of their house. I was planning on ringing the doorbell from anywhere between eight hundred and nine thousand times, however much I could get away with before they called the cops, but my anger had diminished while I drove and I only rung once. A woman came to the door who spoke no English, I tried to summon up the words from yesteryear to communicate but could only say "perro perro," luckily a young woman came to the door and apologized and said she would keep the dog inside. I told her "I'm sorry but I just have finals this week and have to get sleep, could you just keep the dogs inside for the next week or two?" and then realized what I actually wanted and changed my mind, "Actually, just forever, just keep them inside forever." She said okay and we all departed in our various bath robes.

Well I got my sleep this week, and I guess that's all I needed. I will spare you the details from the stories of the times I got out of bed and ran to my balcony screaming, yelling at the top of my lungs, "Shut up! Shut up! Be quiet!" my cries merging with the barking of the dogs into a glorious midnight symphony. This morning I was awakened by the unforgettable sounds of the neighbor dogs, once again enjoying so much the prospect of being dogs that they had to shout their glee to the world. I don't mind though, they are a great alarm clock. Can you imagine sleeping in until 11 o'clock in the morning? It would ruin the rest of my day. Now I have these extra hours to do all the things I never had time for. Like write this long-winded post.

Friday May 6th, 2011

So this is the first post! So this is the second line of the first post. So this is the third. So what? So anyways. It is Friday, and you know what that means? I hope you do, because I don't. I just want someone to tell me, okay? Is that too much to ask? I'm just a city boy, with big dreams, and I am not to blame for the inadequacies of this absolutist society! So anyways, let us see what happens. Maybe I will put stories up on this here website concerning all of my mind-blowing adventures, crazed, wild parties, and painful medical procedures. There will most likely be enticing and subtly confusing images to accompany these tales.