man, this week has run me ragged. i haven’t been sleeping much at all lately. part of it is because i have things on my mind, part of it is because i’ve just been too busy enjoying myself into the wee hours of the night.

i think it’s finally catching up on me though. i’ll probably take it easy today and just do some quick grocery shopping and then get some much needed rest. perhaps i’ll watch my latest shipment of netflix movies. that would be nice.

i had a donut just now to stave off my hunger. it’s only 9 in the morning and i’m already hungry. how could that be possible? i just don’t get it.

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on [url=http://jimmy.ocliw.com]jimmy’s suggestion[/url] i decided to get the [url=http://www.pricepoint.com/detail/12702-135_SETVV4_KIT-4-Specials-116-Combo-Deals/Sette-Vector-Straight-Handlebar-2014-w_-Sette-Venn-Mountain-Stem.htm]sette vector straight handlebar and the sette venn mountain stem[/url]. i’ve been wanting a new stem for my bike to alter the riding position just a little bit. we’ll see if this makes a difference. now, the big thing is whether or not i have the tools to swap out the stem and handlebar. hmmmmm. i’m not sure that i do. we’ll see though. i haven’t gone biking at all this week. i’ve been pretty bad. i wonder if i should try biking this weekend. it seems like the weekend is already full with the volleyball tournament on saturday and sunday being father’s day. but hopefully the stem will come next week sometime and i’ll have a chance to replace it and try it on. i wonder what i should do with my old stem and handlebar. i don’t think that i would really want to store it around or anything…i already have too much crap lying around as is.

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i’m having a hard time concentrating at work right now. maybe it’s the complete lack of sleep. maybe it’s the weird weather we’re having. i’m pretty sure it’s the lack of sleep. i ended up sleeping a little after 2. not for any particular reason, i wasn’t that sleepy at 2 either, but i knew if i did not go to sleep soon that it would become that much harder for me to go wake up at 5:30. yeah…pushing on a little less than 3 hours of sleep and i think that my plans for the rest of the day just got cancelled so maybe i’ll go home and make some food and call it an evening.

i’ve been craving some good cooking lately. i wonder what i would make if i had my choice. hmmmmm. let’s see. i think that i’m sort of in the mood for some japanese food. maybe some sukiyaki. ooooh, i haven’t had sukiyaki in AGES. hmmmm, you know, i think that’s what i’m going to do. food is such a great comfort.

but i don’t think that i’ll stop there. no, i do feel like something more than just a little sukiyaki. i think that i’ll also make tempura. now that’s something i haven’t made in a long, long time. mmmmm.

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every so often i get this pang of pain. different things seem to trigger it, but it inevitably is the same feeling. i don’t know why it comes over me and sometimes it comes at the strangest times.

i feel like such a rotten friend. a friend recently shared some good news with me and i was happy for them, but at the same time i felt sad for myself. it’s a strange, selfish sadness of mine that i know i had to get over with already. good, happy news shouldn’t be a downer. i tried to put on a good face, but i think i just got a little too caught up in how i felt. i’m mostly over it now, though.

it’s funny how one thing dovetails into another though. seemingly unrelated items can suddenly conjur up related ideas that start to feed off each other.

sometimes i wonder if i’m deluding myself into happiness…or at least contentment. most of the time i think that i feel either genuinely happy or content. but then there’s that moment every once in a while of this greater sadness that seems to well up inside me and once it has reached its brim it comes gushing out all of a sudden. but as quickly as it comes, it goes away. i’m not sure what’s up with these mood swings and i try hard not to let them affect me too much.

is there a greater sadness that is consuming me and i’m just looking the other way? i find myself asking that to see if there really is a greater issue that needs to be resolved. i think ultimately i’m ok. there isn’t anything that i can point out that may be the cause of what’s giving me the blues from time to time. i guess it’s just the way things are.

like i said, as quickly as the moment comes, it usually goes.

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i got into the office at 10 this morning. three hours later than i usually do. i woke up at 5:30, though, before my alarm which was happily still enjoying its sleep. i started to get ready and was all set to go to work when i realized that i was going in late today and i needed to wait a while before i do anything.

i finally rolled into work at 10. the traffic was a lot worse than i remembered it being…or maybe i’m just too used to the traffic-less freeways at 6 in the morning. but now that i’m in the office i’m just getting settled in and i’m trying to prep for a meeting i have soon. after the meeting will be lunch time already! usually lunch time marks the ending stretch of my day, but today it’ll be just the start.

a meeting at 5:30. *sigh* i guess it’ll be ok.

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They say it’s a river, circles the earth
A beam of light shining to the edge of the universe
It conquers all
It changes everything

thoughts of love have been on my mind quite a bit recently. not that i’m in love now, but just the whole notion of whether or not i believe in true love, how one can attain such a thing, and what it is that i’m looking for when i seek this thing called love. despite all of my experiences so far, the belief in true love still resonates strongly in every beat of my weathered heart. i still have a strong conviction that true love is out there and i’m unwilling to close the door to that path of happiness, just yet.

They say it’s a blessing
They say it’s a gift
They say it’s a miracle and I believe that it is
It conquers all
but it’s a mystery

i never really thought that i would be one to be so caught up with love. to be loved, to love, to know why so much has been written, sung, and acted about…it’s such a powerful force that can consume one’s spirit. it can occupy their entire philosophy, paint their world, and change their life.

i have been thinking lately about what it is that might lead me to find this kind of love. the kind of love that endures through the ages. the kind of love that i think i’m looking for knows no bounds, it hesitates for no one, it is just there to be given and received, equally, whole-heartedly, and freely. that’s the kind of love that i seek.

Love breaks your heart
Love takes no less than everything
Love makes it hard

And it fades away
So easily

recognizing this kind of love can be difficult and painful. the problem with love is that though you can give it freely, having it returned to you may not come as easily. it’s one of the most challenging things about love. the challenge is finding someone who will return your love as freely and genuinely as you give it unto them.

one of the most powerful gifts one can give to another is all of their love…their affections…their passion. in this we leave ourselves open to the possibility of great, great pain. we allow ourselves to be turned away. to know that though we feel that we can gives ourselves completely to them…they can stand there seeing this great gift and passing it by. the depths of such pain are excrutiating at the least…yet every day we see people throw themselves into the tangled web of love, hoping to be caught.

In this world we’ve created
In this place that we live
In the blink of an eye babe, the darkness slips in
Love lights the world
Unites the lovers for eternity

Love breaks the chains
Love aches for every one of us
Love takes the tears and the pain
And then turns it into the beauty that remains

the thing about love is once you have gotten caught up in it, its effects are intoxicating.

i think that i used to be quite eager to be in love. i wanted to be in love, i wanted to be loved. i wanted to be a part of that whole loving thing.

it isn’t that i don’t want to be in love, i still do, but i think that these days i’m a little more selective about how it is that i’m going to go about this love thing. before i used to just wear my heart on my sleeve and follow it wherever it may lead me. the problem with that is that i just followed too blindly, without thinking, where my heart would take me. and sometimes the heart just doesn’t know what’s best for me.

that isn’t to say that i will now sit and think about every decision i make in this arena, but i think that i’m definitely a little more cautious about what i do these days.

besides, whenever i’ve tried to look for love, it has always eluded me…but it’s when i stop looking that something just happens to come my way. life has a funny way of doing that.

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this weekend was a pretty busy one for me. no idle sitting waiting for the cows to come home this weekend. no siree, bob.

it all started with shirley’s hawaiian bbq. it was pretty fun to go out and meet new people and just have a good time. i had a few drinks at the constant behest of trang and shirley. shirley’s first challenge was “you aren’t going to let a little girl outdrink you, are you?” to which my reply could only have been, “i have no problem with that.”

but still, between her and trang, i knew that it was going to be a bit of a drinking night. not too bad though, i got a little warm, quite flushed, and a little silly, but not to the point where i got sleepy. alcohol for me is much like a sleeping pill. if taken in excess, i start to get quite drowsy and mellow. it does none of that liquid fearlessness that i hear about. it doesn’t do anything to make me less uninhibited. no, it just makes me sleepy.

one of the things that i told myself long, long ago was that i would never drink myself to the point where i would not be able to remember what it was that i was doing. my college roommate used to go booze it up all the time. apparently he was quite the character when he was drunk, but otherwise was a pretty mellow guy. but to have fun, he needed to drink. and i think that’s where i draw the line. i don’t want to have to drink to have fun, but i can definitely have fun while having drinks.

but anyway, the party was a lot of fun, i was able to meet some people and i learned some new things about some people that i already knew. it seems that i’m meeting more and more of the berkeley aphio gang through these parties. it’s almost as if i knew them with all the connections drawn out here and there.

because of the hawaiian theme, i made spam musubi for the party. i was afraid that it might not have been met with as much excitement as i had hoped, but it seemed that people ate it up and one guy seemed to really enjoy it quite a bit. i also made miso salmon which i don’t think was finished up, so that must clearly mean something about spam musubi and how good it is.

sunday was spent playing volleyball. first in the park and then later in the evening at JACL. i’m not sure if i will do the double volleyball play thing. it’s a lot of volleyball and i’m not sure if my ankle is really ready to take that kind of wear just yet.

there’s a big break for JACL now. i think it’s something like 3 weekends off, so i think that i’m going to have to find something to do on those sundays now. maybe i’ll have a sunday dinner. i haven’t had one of those in a long while.

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[url=http://jimmy.ocliw.com]jimmy[/url], josh, and i went biking this morning on what jimmy calls an “endurance run”. this ride was actually pretty flat the whole way through. we went for about 16 miles this morning. jimmy set out our goal to average between 10-15 miles per hour.

i think that i usually do about 8-10 miles an hour when i go biking so this pace was a little bit more aggressive than i’m used to. sure they say 10-15 miles, but i would say that jimmy and josh probably were averaging 15-20 mph an hour most of the time. i tried to stay in the 10-15 mph range and for the most part i think that i was doing alright. just when i thought that i was getting my groove on (at about mile 10) josh had to turn back so we took a shortcut back to jimmy’s place.

all in all it was a good ride and my legs are actually still burning from this morning’s ride. usually after showering i usually don’t feel anything in my legs so i guess what i need to do is keep up this kind of pace to really get some kind of workout.

after i showered i rested while watching tv. i think that i drifted in and out of consciousness for a while until i started to get ready for shirley’s hawaiian-themed party. this’ll be the second hawaiian themed party in just as many weeks that i’ll be going to. very interesting. i’m kind of tired though, i don’t know how long i’ll last tonight at the party. hopefully i’ll be able to stick it out for a bit, but i am dead tired.

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Someone like me
-Atomic Kitten

Don’t let your head rule your heart
Don’t let your world be torn apart
Don’t keep it all to yourself
Just let all your emotions run free
With someone like me
That’s they way it should be
Someone like me

I know it’s hard
When your feelin’ down
To lift your feet up off the ground
We make mistakes
But doesn’t everybody
You don’t always have to agree
With someone like me
That’s the way it should be
Someone like me

We know the story so far
(What you want and who you are)
What you want and who you are (free)
Let all you emotions run free
You don’t always have to agree
With someone like me
That’s the way it should be
Someone like me
Someone like me

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on an impulse buy i decided to get a new electric shaver yesterday. i’ve had my old shaver for something like 12 years now and the battery just isn’t holding the same charge that it used to. shaving technology sure has come a long way since then. i got the [url=http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/large-image/-/B000068PBL/ref=dp_impu_txt/002-1050512-8088021?me=ATVPDKIKX0DER]norelco 7885xl[/url] electric shaver which uses the patented lift and cut technology. now my old shaver had the same technology but it didn’t feel like this.

the shave is nice and close and doesn’t irritate my skin. what’s cool is that this model can be run under water to clean the heads. AND the heads swivel to conform to the contours of your face. very nice. i hope that it’ll last me another dozen years.

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