i’ve been without beef now for nearly two weeks. i believe i’m suffering from withdrawl. i’m a big beef eater and with the mad cow scare i’ve decided that i want to stay away from beef for a little while.

i am rapidly approaching the longest time i’ve ever gone without beef. back when i was growing up, i would say that the longest stretch of time i went without beef would be no longer than a day…my sandwiches or dinner usually had some kind of beef in it, or at the very least some kind of meat.

i think that i’ve been craving beef lately though. when i go to nations, i order the chicken sandwich. for dinner, when i went to mcdonald’s i almost had the #1 combo. the big mac looked so enticing. oh, everything about it looked so enticing…so delightful…so inviting. and when that mysterious, choppy voice asked me what i wanted, i couldn’t speak for a moment.

my stomach was yearning for the big mac. just eat it. it’ll taste SO GOOD. but i yielded. instead i got the chicken combo. i really feel that i’m all chickened out.

today for lunch we had pizza from round table. the combo that i was eating had meat on it and it tasted so good. but before i started devouring the pizza, the first thought i had was, “is there any beef in it?” it’s aggravating.

i don’t know what pepperoni is made out of, but the guys assured me it was some kind of mystery pork product. so i guess it’s all safe.

i wonder how much longer i can last. i know that i’ll never be able to cut it as a vegetarian. i just love meat too much.

today marks the first day of the 2004 volleyball season for me. i’m looking forward to it, but i’m sure that i really suck now. it’s been so long since i last touched a volleyball that i’m quite afraid of what it’s going to be like. my only comfort is that hopefully everyone else is the same way and that we’ll all suck together.

yes, team suckage is ok.

can a thought be too short as to not qualify as blog-worthy?

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while we all tread furiously to keep our head above water, we sometimes meet new challenges that seem to overwhelm us. when experiencing a new challenge for the first time, it definitely can seem like an insurmountable task. the pains that we go through the very first time can cut deeper than we’ve ever felt.

life is not kind. it is not mean or cruel, it just is. but when we encouter that rough spot for the first time, this flood of despair and pain overwhelms us in a way we’ve never felt before. it’s easy to become immediately cynical, bitter, and resentful of the world. it’s easy to be lost in the overwhelming sea of emotion.

we all come across these difficult times. i guess the only salvation one can have is knowing that regardless of how dark times may look now, others have tread in the same waters and have survived to find happiness themselves. if they have found their way, so shall you.

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all of us have a set of morals. these morals are derived from various experiences that we’ve had while growing up. our parents, our peers, our own experiences all make up the sum of our moral and value system.

i believe that some people have a predisposition towards some types of personalities. some people are big hams while others are inherently shy. this doesn’t mean that it always has to stay like that. our morals may change as we grow.

i believe that my mom contributed to a rather significant part of the person who i am today. she is a strongly moral pacifist. increasingly more and more i’m getting into situations where either i have to deal with confrontation or i am a direct witness of confrontation. let me just say that this is troubling for me.

i think that my mom has taught me, by example, that it is better to bite one’s tongue than to speak your mind. it is better to avoid confrontation instead of fighting it head on. it is better to take personal loss than to inconvenience others and it is better to avoid confrontation instead of getting yourself into potentially harmful confrontations.

the problem is that there is only a limit to which one can do this before you just have to say or do something. sometimes i wonder what other people do when they are faced with similar situations. do you just let it go?

confrontation. i think it is the natural tendency for people to avoid it. it’s easier to not deal with if you ignore it. weird how that kind of mentality could just lead to even more significant consequences than dealing with it from the beginning.

today is the worst day i’ve had so far this year.

in fact, it’s probably the worst day i’ve had in a long while. you know, when things go wrong, they seem to go wrong all at once. i’ve been particularly stressed out lately and i think that it’s finally having its lasting effects on me.

i just feel exhausted and it’s all i can do to get through the day. it seems that there’s a dark cloud hovering over me. it’s been like this for a while and i guess it’s about time that i start doing something about it.

there are bunch of [url=http://people.aol.com/people/news/now/0,10958,570224,00.html]reports[/url] claiming that britney got married last night. crazy as that sounds, it seems to be true. she married her childhood friend at vegas wearing jeans and a baseball cap. not exactly the glamourous wedding one would think a pop icon like britney would have, eh?

it also turns out that they are getting the marriage annulled and have signed the papers for it already. go figure.

what a bizarre world.

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