i forgot to mention that my oreo cookie ice cream came out pretty good. a lot more creamy than my first batch, and i’m definitely looking forward to tonight’s batch. we’ll see what ice cream flavor it’ll be. i’m thinking maybe, just maybe i’ll try chocolate chip.
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the thing about me is that i try very hard to have thick skin. i try not to let other people get to me, regardless of what they may say. i think that i’ve gotten particularly good at this in the professional sense. if someone were to come up to me and professionally berate me for doing something wrong or messing up or just yelling at me because they can, well, it doesn’t really bother me anymore. it’s a lot easier for me to let those troubles go.
but i am still very easily affected when it comes to things of a more personal nature. i remember there was this one time someone had said something i feel is completely untrue about me to a friend of mine and they didn’t stick up for me. they didn’t defend me, instead they just sat there. at first i was outraged because my friend didn’t stand up for me, but then i realized that the reason that they probably didn’t defend me is because they felt it was true. that shook me up for a few days. i was crushed. i couldn’t believe that a friend of mine could believe it…i thought that they knew me better than that.
and it got me thinking that maybe that’s the way that a lot of people perceive me to be. it’s sad because i really felt that they knew me better than that…or what’s worse is that it made me sad because that’s what their opinion of me was.
i try not to be easily affected by what other people think of me, and to a great degree i feel like i can do it…but every so often i’ll hear something and it’ll really affect me deeply to the point where it’s hard to think clearly.
the moment will pass, as it always does, i’m just waiting for it to come to pass.
It doesn’t take a talent to be mean
Your words can crush things that are unseen
So please be careful with me, I’m sensitive
And I’d like to stay that way.
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It’s at times such as this she’d be tempted to spit
If she wasn’t so ladylike
She imagines how she might have lived
Back when legends and history collide
So she looks to her prince, finding since he’s so charmingly
Slumped at her side
Those days are recalled on the gallery wall
And she’s waiting for passion or humour to strike
What shall we do, what shall we do with all this useless beauty?
All this useless beauty
Good Friday arrived, the sky darkened on time
’til he almost began to negotiate
She held his head like a baby and said it’s okay if you cry
Now he wants her to dress as if you couldn’t guess
He desires to impress his associates
But he’s part ugly beast and hellenic deceased
So she finds that the mixture is hard to deny
What shall we do, what shall we do with all this useless beauty?
All this useless beauty
She won’t practice the looks from the great tragic books
That were later disgraced to face celluloid
It won’t even make sense but you can bet
If she isn’t a sweetheart or plaything or pet
The film turns her into an unveiled threat
Nonsense prevails, modesty fails
Grace and virtue turn into stupidity
While the calendar fades almost all barricades to a pale compromise
And our leaders have feasts on the backsides of beasts
They still think they’re the gods of antiquity
If something you missed didn’t even exist
It was just an ideal — is it such a surprise?
What shall we do, what shall we do with all this useless beauty?
All this useless beauty
What shall we do, what shall we do with all this useless beauty?
All this useless beauty
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good old elvis costello. when i first heard this song a long, long time ago i thought about how tragic is sounded. useless beauty. one of the things about beauty is that it is meant to be appreciated. there’s not much else about it. it has no other real value except that…to be appreciated. it’s sad though because our society places so much importance on things like beauty, but it has no practical use aside from the superficial.
it’s tragic that there’s so much importance placed on something that…well, isn’t really that important.
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it’s been a rough week. i’ve been trying not to let it wear on me, but i think that with the weekend coming up, it’s finally beginning to take its toll on me. i’ve been trying to keep my mind off of things by doing this or that, but slowly and surely, like a dam under pressure, i think that i’m beginning to crack.
it’s weird, though, i know that in times of hardship, most people generally tend to seek the help of others, but i’ve never been that way. instead, i usually become more of a recluse and i generally tend to avoid people instead of seek them.
i generally don’t find that talking about my problems helps me. usually, talking about my problems just bothers me even more about it and i end up feeling worse instead of better. this is a hard concept for some people to understand.
when i’m sad, i usually tend to drown myself in depressing music forcing myself to just wallow in the sadness that i’m in. i think my approach to things is to hit rock bottom as quickly as you can so that once you hit rock bottom you can start your way back up on the road to recovery. from an outsider’s point of view, i think that this may just look like i’m more upset or sad then ever, but really, i think it’s just my way of dealing with things.
but this week has been a long, painful one. the days seem to just drag on and it seems that there’s little to rejoice about. volleyball used to be an escape for me because i can take out any agressions i had on the court, but with my recent injury, i fear i don’t have much of an option there…besides, my ankle has actually been hurting a lot more recently. not sure why, i probably should go see a doctor if it keeps up.
in some ways i’m glad this week is over, but the weekend doesn’t really look to be much better. maybe it’ll be good to just relax and enjoy some quiet time away from the hustle and bustle of the everyday.
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yesterday i finally got around to changing my cell phone plan. sprint currently has an offering where you can get unlimited nights and weekends and it starts at 7pm. my old plan had a finite, albeit large, number of minutes and it started at 8pm. so i got that pushed back an hour. and it actually turns out that i will be paying $5 less a month for this compared to my old plan. i think that this is fantabulous.
the only downside is that i had to agree to a 2 year contract with sprint, but i don’t think that’s really going to be a problem seeing how i’ve been with them for about 4 years anyway. but i am happy with the change in plans. sprint has been hounding me to renew a contract with them, but i’ve been holding out until a better deal came around. looks like i finally got the good deal.
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so the page got a little bit of a facelift tonight. i guess i was sick of the default template so now my blog has fulfilled it’s blog destiny and it looks like EVERY OTHER BLOG in the world. ho hum. how boring.
i’ve always decided to rename the blog. i’ll have to spend another entry explaining the title of the blog, but i like it.
but i did one thing different. this design is heavily CSS dependent now. i never really like CSS pages, but i guess i can see how it’s sort of nice.
no idea how compatible it is, this is all new to me, and it looks fine on my browser…and that’s all that really matters, isn’t it?
[url=http://www.randomcuriosity.com/journal/]david[/url] wrote an interesting piece about things that he always does. i thought it might be fun to chime in with things that i always do as well.
i always put my right sock before the left.
i always check my email first thing in the morning to clear out the morning spam. it’s a chore, like taking the garbage out.
i always have the same morning routine: brush my teeth, wash my face, gel my hair.
i always put sugar in my mocha from starbucks without checking to see if it is sweet enough for me.
i always use the same recipe to make cheesecake.
i always clean my bathroom countertop beforehand if i know guests are coming. it peeves me if other people know how messy that can be.
i always drink my pearl tea drinks in a perfect combination that ensures that there will not be any excess pearls or tea at the end of my drink.
i always have to turn off any music or tv in the background when i read because i can’t concentrate on two things at once.
i always take pictures by rotating my camera clockwise.
i always shower at night.
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[url=http://www.geocities.com/sushisis]carol[/url] came out from the city to oakland to meet up with me for lunch. we got caught up on each other’s lives over some dim sum at jade villa. after lunch the two of us enjoyed pearl tea drinks (sans pearls for carol) at sweetheart cafe. the two of us then enjoyed the gorgeous weather outside while drinking our drinks.
it was good to catch up with carol, there’s a lot of exciting things that have happened in her life since last we spoke. i, on the other hand, didn’t have as much to share in terms of new things except for my recent gimpiness.
one of the things that i realized while catching up with carol was that it definitely is well worth any effort that one makes to keep in touch with their friends. even though carol and i hadn’t seen each other in quite some time, it still had felt as if it was just the other day in terms of what we could talk about and the ease with which we talked. it was a good feeling. it definitely motivates me to keep in touch with more people.
it was a bit of a longer lunch for me than usual, but i figure i’ve been working really hard, so it’s no big deal. it was definitely hard to get back to the office after enjoying the sunny outdoors, though.
as we were saying out goodbyes, carol made it a point to swat away the remainder of my pearl tea drink away from me and it crashed disastrously to our feet. i stood there in shock while my pearl tea drink dribbling away into the sewers of oakland. carol, of course, apologized profusely insisting that it was an accident and not intentional.
heh. sure.
deprive me of my pearl tea, eh?
just…you…wait.
that’s what i keep hearing whenever i seek advice for ice cream recipes. tonight was relatively relaxing. no poker night, instead, i made my second batch of ice cream. this was actually the most stressful part of the evening, as i was trying to prove my co-worker wrong. he claimed that it was impossible to get the ice cream to the same kind of texture that is sold at the grocery store.
so i was a man on a mission.
tonight’s ice cream flavor? chocolate oreo cookie! we’ll see how it turns out.
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