Unagi Sushi & Diet Coke

My previous post was a giant bitch-rant. Did I mean every word of it? Yes, but I don’t feel that way all the time. It is just that when my mom is with my sister, she gets in this particular mindset and she is completely ridiculous and irrational. When she just with me – she’s great and I love it. After all, we just went out for sushi, picked up endless bottles of diet coke, and went to the market for fresh lettuce and salad ingredients.

The bad is bad, and the good is good. But I am not going to worry about it. I’m sitting on five bottles of Diet Coke and unagi sushi. I am not complaining!

281 Days

I do not drive. I do not like being behind a wheel. And I refuse to sit behind a wheel of a car that is a piece of shit. For my sixteenth birthday, my parents promised to buy me a Land Rover. I wanted a fairly older one (I like the boxy shape of 2002 Land Rover Discoveries) and they were more than thrilled to save money. I turned 16. No car.

My sister is seventeen months older than me. On her 16th birthday, she received her first car. She has never pumped a single ounce of gas into her car, she has never paid anything in reward to her car – insurance, gas, upkeep, nothing. She crashed her first car. It was a “clear danger,” according to my parents. So, they traded that car, threw down several thousand more and bought her another car. Did she pay anything this time around? Nope. The car, the insurance, the gas – everything, came free. Again.

I’m now seventeen and a few months and I do not even have a car. My parents talk about buying another car. But never talk about buying me a car. And, if, by any means, I get a car, I would have to contribute to insurance and will be expected to pay for my gas and everything else.

At that point, I threw in the white flag and accepted the terms: they weren’t going to get me a car unless I chalk up some cash. I wasn’t going to chalk up any cash – if my sister can get off scotch free for over two and a half years now, I am entitled to receiving the same gratification.

All of my friends drive brand new cars. And I don’t drive. I’ve learned to shrug it off. It makes it easier when they are punctual when I give them a time. I get out of school at 1:40. I expect them to be there no later than that time. My father is on time every day. When it is my mom’s turn to pick me up – all one day a week – she always manages to stroll in late. She’s late. Every single time. Who is to blame? To her, I am to blame. I am to blame because I don’t drive.

I am sick of it. I am sick of paying for everything of mine. I am sick of my sister spending $200 on boots, shirts, and jeans on my mom’s credit card, and the minute I ask for something, it is a no. It is a no because I “could pay for it myself.”

I feel as if I am typing this out of typical, teenage angst. But, am I being really unfair or is this a clear unbalance?

Lucky Numbers

Senior pictures were today. They told everyone to meet in the gym after the pictures and they’d direct us from there. I head to the gym, grab my books and wait a little bit. Anyone on the loud-speaker? No. Anyone trying to tell us where to go? No. Where are 85% of the students going? Out the doors and heading home. I followed.

I sent a few texts to friends asking where they were. Some replied that they were going home, others said they were in class. Scrolled down in my inbox: lunch plans. Do I stay for Literature, all twenty minutes with less than half of the class, or do I go out for Chinese with endless Diet Coke? C’mon, now. Hello latter. So I left and went out for Chinese.

Significance: I cut my first class ever. It was not completely legitimate, but it is a cut, none the less! And I know how to say Soybean Milk in Chinese. So, yes, Starbucks, I believe you should invest in some Dou Jiang. There are some accents over a few letters, but those aren’t important.

Les Projets

I do not feel as if I am holding my weight at Subeta. I am a part timer programmer there. Not only am I the only part timer, but I am the worst programmer there. It doesn’t seem as if my expectations are high, but I want to deliver great changes. However, I have the worst concentration. My projects always fall into one of these categories: Planning pit of doom – it never makes it out of the planning stages and I constantly talk about it as if I am going to program it, the hot and dry Partial deserts – some of it is programmed, and then I ditch the idea and, very few make it into the high heavens of Completion. Where do I go wrong?

I used to have a Subeta legal pad. I would write down my pseudo-code and notes and refer to it quite often. But like every legal pad, it started to fall apart – the front page would always rip off. And so I slowly ditched that idea. I tried using a regular sheet of paper, but when I get mad that my room is not organized, I clear my computer desk. And there goes that paper. Sticky Notes, for a Mac or even in real life, do not work. I hate them. Obviously, keeping a to-do list is hard for me.

So I took it to the Programming Forums. I created a thread, “Les Projets” and plan to list all of my projects. Keith and alx will be able to view the thread, so it gives me that push to add more, cycle more, cut more. The push to do more. I think that is what I need. And new quota month starts on Sunday. Maybe I will really try to stick to the four hours a day, five days a week schedule.

Camillionaire

I’ve been following Camillionaire on Flickr for a year. He’s from Chile and he dresses very well. The girl appears in a majority of the pictures. Both of them are equally attractive. It’s odd. They are ugly as sin, but because of their demeanor and what they are wearing, they are gorgeous.

I’m jealous. I dress nicely, but not nice enough. I am skinny, but not skinny enough. I can always say that a picture is perfection and what is captured in the lens is not reality. But is it a bad thing to aim for?

I think not.

Confidentiality

My original goal was to have a well-known blog when I created Diet Coke Diaries. I did not know how I was going to extend my user base and reach, so I dabbed my paws in a few topics.

I thought to write about Burger King and create a blog version of Nickel and Dimed, How Starbucks Saved My Life, etc, but I realized that I vented so much after work to my family and friends that I could not rehash the bullshit that took place there and talk about it again on a blog. And who really cares? Sure, it is interesting to read about the world of minimum wage, but there is only so much you can hear about weak immigration policies, crappy border control and shipping your “grandma” a drugged human inside a package to Ohio. The idea of dedicating a blog with a witty name to Burger King went out the window.

I love politics. I love politics so much that I dissociate myself from it. I argue on principle, I don’t debate with facts. It takes away from the argument and there is a limitless supply of internet sources supporting X or Y theory – there are scientists who conclude that smoking is good for you. Fighting on principle allows me to cover my ears and shout out how bad taxes are, how pointless marriage is and ultimately create a third side of a coin. I decided to ditch the idea of political commentary because it would get repetitive very quickly – taxes are bad, marriage is for lowers, taxes are pointless, marriage is ridiculous – you get the idea.

Book Reviews was my next best option, but considering that I do not fully understand the book without reading the plot summary on Sparknotes beforehand, I felt it would be best for me to leave this subject to the professionals.

Television would be interesting. But I’d need to soup up Diet Coke Diaries and get some heavy PHP work in place. As much as I love to program, yeah, no. It’s not worth creating a Burn Notice fansite out of a blog.

Instead, I am going to continue what I’ve been doing for the past month or two – stop tagging posts, keep to myself and post about whatever the hell I want. Toast to Diet Coke, no?

Ya teeth ain’t clean till ya gums are bleedin’

Brandi joined a triathlon training class, Alex works out every day. And what do I do? Sit on my ass, sip lattes and eat cookies. I feel like a dud. No, no. I am a dud. And I really want to change that.

I started running Monday. I did 2 miles and a few weights. Not much, but it was something. Tuesday, I stepped up my game and did 2.2 miles and more weights and crunches and pushups. It was some progress, but I feel as if I can do more.

I developed some form of standard on Wednesday. I’d like to not only do this, but to do this and some more. But I need to look up some more exotic exercises.

• 2.3 Miles
• 40 Bench Reps
• 30 Curling Reps
• 160 Crunches
• 20 Pushups

I’d love to get that 2.3 miles to 2.5 or even 3.0. The higher, the better. Maybe tack on another ten reps for benching, twenty for curling. Crunches and pushups will rise until I realize that I cannot spend over an hour on crunching and doing push ups, haha.

Here is my current work out schedule:
Morning:
- 80 crunches: 20 regular, 20 to the right, 20 to the left, 20 regular.
Night:
- Run 1 Mile
- 10 bench reps
- 15 curls
- 10 bench reps
- Run .5 Miles
- 10 bench reps
- 15 curls
- 10 bench reps
- Run as long as possible! (usually go about .7-.8 more)
- Shower
- 80 crunches, same format as the morning.

It is some form of diversity and it is less boring. Plus, the spacing between the three running sessions really helps. I get bad cramps, so it is nice to take a breather and work another part of the body while my body re-oygenizes (.. is that a word?).

And I have a more intense teeth cleaning practice. My teeth are white to begin with, but I figured, what would another brushing a day do? Oh, right. Nothing! It’d take ten minutes of my day to get my teeth even whiter. Not a problem!

I’d like to see some form of improvements within a month. If not, then I’ll probably just go back to eating cookies. And lattes. Man, do I miss my lattes.

College Applications

College applications are due November 1st. I wanted to ship my application out Thursday the 15th. But after some last minute checks, I decided to completely throw out my application and restart from scratch. Theresa and I exchanged resumes and buffed them up. Andrea assisted in making my supplement answers professional. I spent an hour today revamping and formatting my attachments.

My scores and class rank are low: 1910 SAT (CR610, M640, W660), 670 US History, 610 Math I, 191/506 rank (85.6 GPA). But I think I will be able to capitalize on my ECs: Debate Club Member, Associate Member of the Mu Alpha Theta (Math Honor Society), Vice President of Jay Design, Lifestyle Section Organizer and Writer (Newspaper), President of the Foreign Relations Committee (Model Congress), Owner, – Head Programmer, Art Director and User Administrator of Ataria, Freelance Developer and Programmer of Monoclide, Member of the Ethics Committee at the Columbia Model Congress and Member of the Judiciary Committee at Arlington Model Congress. And, of course, Mentor & Trainer at Burger King and Programmer at Agoge, Inc.

I went in depth with Programming. Granted, I do not plan to make a career out of it, but I have spent the past four years doing it. Leaving it out would have been stupid. And, besides, it’s not like many high school students are programmers for real companies. Or even had their own site. Or know what an API is!

Where do I stand? Not sure. I’d like to think that these ECs are strong and will be able to get me into NYU Gallatin. But we’ll see! I’m handing everything in tomorrow!

Brooklyn

Fine, fine. I didn’t take this picture. But I was there. And I touched the camera before. That qualifies as usage rights, right? Who cares.

I was hanging out with Brandi, a friend and NYU student, and her NYU friends. (Technically: they are my friends now. At least on Facebook.) There were no official plans for the night – we were just going to hang out. Well, guess what?! Plans came to us! Warehouse Party in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn. Why the fuck not?

Intelligence: Barely any. We had a street address. Nothing more, nothing less. We did not know if the street address was legitimate, if the warehouse even existed and if it was on that address, if there was a party – nothing. We just knew an address and an alleged “party.” This was not in Manhattan, so it was surely an adventure. Outside of the giant red flag of uncertainty explained in prior sentences – we faced some more:

• Taking the L train into Brooklyn.
• Arriving in a desolate and dark area of Brooklyn.
• Taking directions from two hipsters drinking out of brown bags outside a closed bodega.
• Getting ID’d by the bouncer and being let in when my ID clearly states I am 17.
• Walking up 40 steep stairs to get into the warehouse.
• The obnoxious rave music.
• The amount of piercings that were on the first people I saw.
• The amount of cocaine being snorted on the stairs.
• The marijuana (God knows what it really was) being rolled.
• The barbed wire on the roof.

All in all: there were a shitload of red flags. Not one did I care about. I just felt like going on the journey. However; from the minute I walked in, I knew I was not going to stay long and that this place was not safe, cool, whatever. Thankfully, I was not the only one receiving bad vibes. We stayed for thirty minutes and trekked back home.

To thank the Lord above some more: I was glad that we were able to get from the warehouse to the subway to Union Square and to Rubin safe and sound.

I went home the next day and Google’d the neighborhood.

I don’t know what to say.

Photos? I can try.

I am searching for an oversized sweater that is oversized but does not look too oversized. This sweater? I paid $40 for it at American Apparel. Is it oversized? Yes. Too oversized? Yes. Result: I wasted $40 on an oversized sweater that I probably won’t ever wear. Well, no. I’d wear it. But never outside of the house.

News flash: I don’t work at Burger King anymore. I might review all of my old posts to get the Burger King juices flowing and sit down and write a book. But that’ll be after I apply to NYU. NYU kind of takes priority over my book about Burger King.

I also want to start adding pictures to my blog. Pictures that I take. My problems: a) it is hard to carry around an obnoxious camera, b) I hate taking pictures, c) getting them onto my computer is cumbersome d) I just hate the whole process. But I’ll attempt it. Maybe even take some with my phone. That might help out – especially in the ease of access. But, unfortunately, Blackberry cameras take forever to load, forever to adjust and just generally take forever to do anything involving multimedia.

tl;dr: my life sucks and I’m applying to NYU. I probably won’t get it.