Month: April 2012

April fools

thehungryrunnergirlLeave a comment

What did you do today? Did you play any prank on anyone?

Well, I did…on the (thebrownguy). I thought it wasn’t going to work out, but it did.

So this morning, I texted him saying that I twisted my ankle very badly when I was running down the hill on the Pi course and was at the hospital in Ventura.

He was worried and asked me if I was on crutches. I said no, but I’m in panic.

He tried to convince me that it’s a long season and I can bike and swim.

What a good coach 😀

Afterwards I called him and told him that it was a joke.

I like doing pranks on people on this day every year.

One of the videos of my favorite prank channel on youtube:

Pandora Online Radio Station

r3t5nom1 Comment

This website has been out for a couple of years now but I have to say that it never gets old to use it. If you want to listen to good music of almost any kind of genre it is available for free with the click of a few buttons.

The idea that you can just listen to music for free (and no torrenting it is not legal people) instead of buying it is simply great. I was sitting in my room trying to write a blog today and I realized that I wanted to listen to music to get inspired. I couldn’t decide what song to listen to so instead of choosing i just went to Pandora and let the website choose for me :).

This site contains a technology that truly should be appreciated, it provides the music you want to hear when you ask for it. I will sit and listen to music and then all of a sudden a song that I haven’t heard in years comes on and makes my day!

Pandora has also gone as far as creating an application for phones, iPods, and tablets that allows users to use pandora on their electronic devices! I love this website, it is such a great addition to the internet and I hope it continues to prosper for a long long time.

I recommend this site to anyone that loves music, and anyone who loves NOT having to pay for music OR download it illegally!

http://www.pandora.com

ENJOY!

C’mon man! WE NEED HELP!!!!!

backinphillyLeave a comment

Demetrius Bell left Philly without a contract this weekend, which is not good news for the Eagles.

Following the injury to star tackle Jason peters, the Eagles need some serious help on the offensive line, and the team brought in Bell to try and get a contract done. Unfortunately, they screwed up and missed out.

Now, the Eagles may have to focus their attention to either obtaining another free agent O-lineman or drafting a replacement for Peters.

Either way, something must be done now. This is not a good sign, but thank God (or Tebow, whichever you prefer) that there’s a lot of time before the season stops.

Time to get serious, though.

By the way readers, Sorry I haven’t been doing any worst person stories lately. I’ve been really focused on free agency and have been covering that mainly. I will be getting back to those very soon.

Enjoy this random picture of happiness for my return to the worst person stories.

Family.

rangerthecatLeave a comment

This weekend, my Mom came down all the way from Santa Cruz to see me and take me out for the weekend. I was counting down the days until I could see her, and when she finally got here, it was the best feeling ever.

Each day, whether it is on purpose or not, I think about my family. My mom, dad, brother, and sister. All of them cross my mind at some point during the day. Even if we are fighting or haven’t talked in a while, I always think about them no matter what.

Before I came to this school, I guess I never realized the importance of family. I took them for granted more than I even like to admit and I did not pay them enough respect. But being away from them for so long has lead me to truly appreciate all of my family in every single way.

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All of the things my parents have done, whether they have been good or bad in my perspective, have been for me, my sister, and my brother. Looking back, I cannot say I would have had them do anything differently. Of course, in some of those moments, I thought I absolutely hated them because of some decisions that were made or rules that were enforced. Some punishment seemed like the end of the world. But my parents had a much different perspective than me, of course – they did things that they believed would be best in the long run rather than short-term.

Time spent apart from my family was, at first, something that I really enjoyed. And to some extent, I still enjoy it. But a larger part of me realizes that in the past years, I have not spent time with them the way that I should have. I spent more time complaining about what we didn’t do and things that didn’t go my way that I have not cherished the memories with them.

And, even though friends can be considered to some people family as well, there are only those few people related to you by blood that are truly of the utmost important. No matter who you spend the majority of your time with, or who has been the most prominent guiding figure throughout your life, family is the root of your existence. Family is the reason that you are on this earth. Family should be the most important thing in each and everyone’s life. They are the people that have made you who you are.

I will never take them for granted again.
Who knows how much longer we have left?

An Ideal Sunday.

Yourcupatea1 Comment

Papa Lennon's

Sunday is traditionally a family day, a day of rest, good food and relaxing. A day that includes some sort of walk or exercise and family bonding.

I woke up, ate breakfast and as my family travelled to the farmers market to gather provisions of fresh fruit and veg for the week, I sat studiously doing my homework. Traditionally on one of these days lunch  consists of a pub lunch, but as I now live in America the steak and ale pie and chips had to be constituted with a panini from Ojai’s delicious, Papa Lennon’s.

After eating some delicious food my family and I travelled up the 33 to Rose falls. Here we followed the short trailhead to the magnificent falls, nature at its finest.

After a period of time we travelled onwards to White Rocks where we admired the view from the roadside. After a long day we travelled back into town stopping for a handmade pastry and coffee at the artsy Ojai cafe, Bohemia. We  travelled home, as the sun set, preparing ourselves for the feast that would be cooked by my mother.

Now I am looking forward to a night in front of the fire with a good film and a cup of hot cocoa and a big slice of chocolate cake, after I have stuffed myself with dinner that is.

What a relaxing, ideal Sunday.

College Crap

therightliberal1 Comment

Throughout the entire process of applying to colleges I have been disgusted. The application process is one of the most bogus ideas ever conceived and it should be changed.

Firstly, the process is incredibly biased. I am a very middle class white male which puts me at the back of the pack to begin with. But I have always had good grades and tested well so I wasn’t too worried.

Then it came to the actual application-filling-out part. This was incredibly time consuming during a period in which I was studying for three AP classes as well as working. I struggled to find time to work on the applications but with the help of my mother, the English major, I managed.

Recently, I have been receiving my letters back from the colleges, and there is only one way to put it: it has been disappointing.

Now it’s not what one may think because it’s not that I have been rejected from my top schools. I was wait listed at a couple and got into the rest (minus Pomona who unsurprisingly rejected me).

But despite getting in, I can’t go to most of them because my family and I cannot afford it. They have given me both achievement and need-based scholarships but to no avail. This angers me.

We live in a society that is constantly preaching about how important education is. Yet a student like me, who would almost surely succeed in these schools, is not given a real chance because I don’t have enough money.

Now, I understand that it really is a business. But if our country wants to really go up in the education rankings we need to make it easier for motivated students to get the education that they seek.

But despite my disappointment with the system, I still count myself lucky. It looks like I will be going to Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas. They gave me a very nice offer and, despite being in Texas, is a very nice school.

“Beyond La Mer”

kirbyfullyloadedLeave a comment

“La Mer

Qu’on voit danser le long des golfes clairs

A des reflets d’argent 

La mer

Des reflets changeants

Sous la pluie …”

“La Mer,” Charles Trénet.

The first time I heard “La Mer” was during the credits of Finding Nemo.  Of course, I don’t remember hearing it at all.

The reason I know it now, is because I got into the TV show Lost this winter.  A group of survivors from a plane crash are stranded on a mysterious island come into contact with a French woman, Danielle Rousseau, who had been trapped there for sixteen years.  She takes Sayid Jarrah, an ex Republican Guard, captive.  He escapes and steals her maps of the island.

He turns to another survivor, Shannon Rutherford, to translate the French writing on the maps.  Her French is “bad” and at first she is confused by the strange words and they abandon their attempts to translate it.

But later, she comes to Sayid, remembering that she heard the words -the song- at the end of the movie “about the fish.”

She sings “La Mer” to Sayid on the beach by firelight.

It is a beautiful song so I began, enthusiastically, writing out a phonetic pronunciation guide.

Then I realized it sounded like a cover preformed by Damian McGinty, a song called “Beyond the Sea.”

“Beyond the Sea” was written by Bobby Darin in 1946.  A contemporary pop song, it reached number 6 on the Billboard Hot 100.

Darin took the tune from “La Mer” and wrote in entirely unrelated English lyrics.

“Somewhere beyond the sea

Somewhere waiting for me

My lover stands on golden sands

And watches the ships that go sailin.”

-“Beyond the Sea,” Bobby Darin

Both songs are great.  Check them out!

Blinking

thehungryrunnergirl1 Comment

In average, woman blinks 15 times and men blinks 20 times per minute. Since blinking only takes about 0.3 seconds, men blinks 6 seconds worth blinking which means you’re blinking 10 % when you’re awake.

The amount of blinking shows your activity of neurotransmitter dopamine. One experiement with monkeys show that when they were injected the drug that makes their dopamine more active, they blink more, and also the other way around.

For example, patients who have schizophrenia or Tourette syndrome blinks more than normal people because of their active dopamine.

My First Rejection.

yrreskrap1 Comment

The small, white envelope lay limp in my hand. A paper fringe lined the top of the envelope, standing like the dendrites of a hairy neuron, signaling the haste I had in tearing open the envelope.

By its mere size, I knew that the envelope did not hold favorable information. The only question I had was whether or not, inside was letter of rejection or a letter of a waitlist.

“Dear Serry:

It is with genuine regret that I write to inform you that the Admissions Committee is unable to offer you admission to the class entering Pomona College this fall…”

It was fine. I didn’t feel the stereotypical emotions that follow a rejection letter. Perhaps it was because I never intended to go to Pomona College. But nevertheless, it was an interesting experience.

However, this makes me worried about the upcoming notifications this week. I hear from Brown, my number one college, this week. I am scared of receiving a rejection. I don’t want to know how a true rejection, a rejection to a school that I want to go to, will feel like.

SO SCARED…to be continued.

The hunger games

venturatreker2 Comments


Tonight I went to go see the Hunger Games movie.  I went with my girlfriend and her family and I was the only one that had read the book.

I have to say I am a little surprised about the criticism surrounding the movie.  I personally though it was spectacular and incredibly intense.

One criticism is that it shies away from some of the things that happen in the book.  I must disagree, the story is about 24 kids between 12 and 18 fighting to the death for a corrupt societies sport.  It’s hard to dumb that down. Obviously they do not show gory images of dead teenagers which is a good thing.  It shows enough and hits it right on the money about connecting with the audience.

There definitely was times when I myself was wondering what it would be like to be in her position or just to be in the games themselves.

Overall great film, and a must see.