Worth reading.

'Remember ... that human life is the journey of a day. We rise in the morning of youth, full of vigour and full of expectation; we set forward with spirit and hope, with gaiety and with diligence, and travel on a while in the straight road of piety towards the mansions of rest. In a short time we remit our fervour, and endeavour to find some mitigation of our duty, and some more easy means of obtaining the same end. We then relax our vigour, and resolve no longer to be terrified with crimes at a distance, but rely upon our own constancy, and venture to approach what we resolve to never touch. We thus enter the bowers of ease, and repose in the shades of security. Here the heart softens and vigilance subsides; we are then willing to inquire whether another advance cannot be made, and whether we may not, at last, turn our eyes upon the garden of pleasure. We approach them with scruple and hesitation; we enter them, but enter timorous and trembling, and always hope to pass through them without losing the road of virtue, which we, for a while, keep in our sight, and to which we propose to return. But temptation succeeds temptation, and one compliance prepares us for another; we, in time, lose the happiness of innocence, and solace our disquiet with sensual gratifications. By degrees we let fall the remembrance of our original intention, and quit the only adequate object of rational desire. We entangle ourselves in business, immerge ourselves in luxury, and rove through the labyrinths of inconstancy, till the darkness of old age begins to invade us, and disease and anxiety obstruct our way. We then look back upon our lives with horror, with sorrow, with repentance; and wish, but too often vainly wish, that we had not forsaken the ways of virtue. Happy are they ... who shall learn from thy example not to despair, but shall remember, that though the day is past, and their strength is wasted, there yet remains one effort to be made; that reformation is never hopeless, nor sincere endeavours ever unassisted; that the wanderer may at length return after all his errours, and that he who implores strength and courage from above shall find danger and difficulty give way before him. Go now ... to thy repose, commit thyself to the care of Omnipotence, and when the morning calls again to toil, begin anew thy journey and thy life.'

Monster.

I'd imagine this to be true:


I feel like in the event of a nuclear holocaust, 3 things would survive: cockroaches, Hot Pockets, and Monster drinks.

I wish these goddamned drinks actually worked for me. They never make feel anymore awake than I did before consumption. All I get is a increased heart rate and a bouncing leg. I could fall asleep after downing an entire can if I wanted to. I'd probably end up with a dream like something out of Crank 2: High Voltage, but I'd still be sleeping and not focusing on these f*cking stat notes.
Eff being a south campus major and having 2 sets of midterms.

The Meaning of Life?

"I believe that if, at the end of it all, according to our abilities, we have done something to make others a little happier, and something to make ourselves a little happier, that is about the best we can do. To make others less happy is a crime. To make ourselves unhappy is where all crime starts. We must try to contribute joy to the world. That is true no matter what our problems, our health, our circumstances. We must try. I didn't always know this, and am happy I lived long enough to find it out."
-Roger Ebert

The master of the art of living makes little distinction
between his work and his play, his labor and his leisure,
his mind and his body, his education and his recreation,
his love and his religion.
He simply pursues his vision of excellence in whatever he does,
leaving others to decide whether he is working or playing.
To him, he is always doing both.
-Laozi




Oh yeah, new poll. Vote! It's anonymous.

Art

So I've been through Music, Comm/Soc/Psych, Econ, and Statistics, and I still don't know what I want to do with my life. I think I'll inevitably be led back to some form of art. What's interesting is that many things can be viewed as an art, depending on how you look at them. When I think of the arts, I think of language/poetry, drawings/paintings/etc, and music. I guess theater is kind of an art too. And dance.
I'm sure some people regard engineering and computer programming as an art?
Anyway, the two I appreciate most are language and music. The thing that bothers me about language is that it seems to have intrinsic limits, while music seems capable of "expressing the inexpressible." But at the same time, that's what makes language so interesting to me. I want to push those limits. I have a long way to go before I reach that point. I feel so clumsy with words sometimes. How do I fix this?
Practice, practice, practice.
And I guess I should read more too?


Bring it, life!




P.S.
New pet peeves:
-People who buy expensive water
-Fat people eating McDonald's. It's like watching someone smoke through a hole in their throat. Or watching a diabetic eat Cinnamon Toast Crunch soaked in Sunkist. They need to be slapped.




Flight of the Conchords!

These guys are like the opposite of a pet peeve.
I know. Eloquently spoken.

Puppet me

New goal:
To reach the point where I'm so famous, I have a muppet made after me that is featured in a series of commercials.


Shut up. I can dream.

Don't you hate when...

... you come up with a really good idea, and then forget it, but you still remember it was a really good idea that you told yourself to remember? F*ck that.

... you sip through a straw expecting Sprite/Sierra Mist, but you get seltzer water. *gag*

... the way you discover the hole in the sole of your shoe is by stepping in a puddle.

... when you choke on water and you're coughing and someone tells you, "Here, drink some water!"

... you can't think of more things you hate.


Anyway. Just for the segment on Fox News ft. the Shake Weight:

Rain makes me lazy.

I like to read biographies of famous people. It's like a manual that teaches you how to be badass.


Exhibit A.

When I get bored in class, I draw a bigass tree and sketch each leaf individually. Good for killing time in a 3-hour lecture. 'Cause it takes about 5 hours to complete.


like this, only more leaves. A LOT more leaves.

I'm trying to get better at cursive. I think it makes me seem smarter.


Yeah, this is totally how I write now.

One of my proudest accomplishments as a music major was learning how to draw a decent tenor/alto/C clef.


booyah.

I went to Mai and Margaret's junior recital today and it was amazing how much they've improved. I'm kind of jealous. So proud of my ex-quartet-mates!

Things I'd rather not hear on a plane.

OK since I didn't put much effort into this post, I'm gonna put up a video. This guy's actually pretty funny.

Give him a chance:



I kinda hate flying. There's something about being 10,000 ft high with nothing between me and the ground that mildly terrifies me. So to comfort myself, I think of everything that could possibly make the flight worse. There's obvious stuff like, I dunno, having birds get caught in the engine and not having Sully Sullenberger there to land it in the Hudson, and then there are other things.

Here's something I'd rather not hear over the intercom:

"Everyone hold on, I'm gonna try something. *muffled* John, just because it isn't in the pilot manual doesn't mean this plane can't barrel-roll."

It's always unsettling to me when the pilot asks "Is there a doctor on board?" Because you wonder what the hell is going on or what the fuck the person is dying of and if panicking is necessary and why your heart rate just tripled and you can feel your pulse in your temples.

But I guess I'd much rather hear that request than, say, "Is there a pilot on board?"

Or how about:

"We're approaching our destination. Get your parachutes ready."

Something tells me my seat cushion isn't gonna keep that 300lb fatty next to me afloat in the event of a water landing.
For some reason, its comforting to me to get on a plane that has the yellow slides that turn into rafts. I feel sorry for the people that end up in the water.

What if they moved all the luggage to the top of the plane and made a glass bottom?

Ever wonder what would happen if the wings just snapped off? You'd be going pretty fast. But probably not in the direction you'd prefer.

Andddd one more:

One week down.

Pet Peeves Part II

I'm not actually sure if there was a pet peeves part I, but I complain enough for this title to be justified. Anyway...

Why does it seem like all the ugly ones wear the "UCLA GIRLS ROCK" t-shirt?

Drivers who don't use their fucking blinkers and slam on the brakes before making a turn when I'm right behind them. In the rain.

Parking enforcement officers.

Overly enthusiastic cashiers.

People who still "poke" on facebook.

Professors who make really bad jokes.
And the lone douchebag who laughs at them.

People who say they "stop liking" someone because they find out that person is in a relationship and they wouldn't wanna be a "home wrecker." It implies that if that person found out you liked them, they'd abandon their significant other to be with you. Get over yourself.

The sound of sharpening a knife.

Unless you're a professional photographer, don't take pictures of your food. It rarely looks as good as you think and it proves that you're too boring to talk to the other people at the table because you'd rather take pictures of the condensation on your plastic water cup. If you're trying to avoid socializing, go ahead and take the pictures. But don't go home and upload the close-up low-angle black-and-white shot of the half-eaten tomato that fell out of your exotic-looking BLT.

People who think it's clever to turn words into "math equations," e.g. ba(na)²
[(ma) (d/du .5u²) sqrt(E/m) (ln e^k)]* people who think that's funny. ☺

When two people in a group have the same name and someone thinks it's outrageously clever to say "omfg it's like JOHN SQUARED!" No, it's not. Two people having the same name doesn't mean you can take a 2 and put it anywhere relative to the name. If there are two "John"s, you have (John + John), or 2(John), which doesn't sound nearly as intelligent as John², but at least it's correct, and not fucking retarded.

Too much cheese.

People who say "no offense."

"You're kind of an asshole, no offense."

So what do we call this decade anyway? The twenty-tens? That bothers me too.

Best of '09!

Starting back up again for 2010.

Check out the most popular posts for '09:

http://punkinbread.blogspot.com/2009/07/hahaha-no.html

http://punkinbread.blogspot.com/2009/07/summer-fun.html

http://punkinbread.blogspot.com/2009/07/what-does-your-handwriting-say-about.html

http://punkinbread.blogspot.com/2009/09/bonjourno-gratsi.html

http://punkinbread.blogspot.com/2009/09/trains-hermaphrodites-etc.html

And, as always, a new poll. Voting is fun.