Pragmatic Dreams

Having just woken up, I believe now would be the best time to share an interesting dream I had. (I'll probably write more later- I just don't want to forget this dream since that tends to happen)

Maybe it was that article I read at Elite which called dogs social parasites, or perhaps it is a reflection of my own long held beliefs. Perhaps completing George Orwell's 1984 or even Sue Monk Kidd's The Secret Life of Bees -both novels of which I have completed reading recently- has had a larger effect on my unconscious mind than on my conscious mind.

I was the same age I am now and it was summertime. I lived in the same house that I currently live in, and I lived with my brother and two parents, the same three people I live with now. As I typically do, I was on AIM (AOL Instant Messenger for that small number that does not recognize the acronym), and I was conversing with a girl named May (reference to Secret Life of Bees), though she was not responding. Just as I am now, I was training myself to use a Dvorak keyboard.

A small, furry, golden blur darted across my room near my feet. For some reason I had a dog. It was a toy dog sized critter with a rather thick golden coat. Most people would describe it as "cute". I did not want it.

I did not abuse it, and I was not mean to it. I was quite good to the dog. The dog would run freely about the house, and when it came to me I would hold it. Being a dog, the creature (of which I cannot recall the name) often peed on the floor.

I was well aware of this and quite bothered. My parents grew irked by the fact that stains of dog piss dotted the landscape of our home.

I sought to solve this problem by designating a place for the dog. I was unable to locate him walking about the house, so I placed a bucket on the staircase. I went away to do some homework for maybe half an hour. Upon returning to the bucket, I discovered a dead squirrel. Puzzled, I looked a bit closer. A rabbit bounded from upstairs, tipped the bucket, and bit a piece off the squirrel's flesh and then continued its descent down the stairs. Oddly enough, no blood came from the rabbit, and what appeared to be hairless rabbit flesh was all that was visible from the bite- perhaps the squirrel only ate a modicum of rabbit hair.

In place of the bucket, I asked my mother if I could put a laundry basket on the staircase (the laundry basket I asked for is sitting right outside my room). She refused. I selected a distinctly colored purple bucket instead, a relic from my childhood (From what I remember, or from the connections I can make, it was associated with some toys called "Krazy Bones").

This failed to capture the dog. The creature ran past me a few times, so I knew it was in the house. I even held it a few times. It was quite a pleasant creature. Soft fur and friendly disposition, it is difficult to imagine how I could have disliked the dog.

My family stood by a fence which was probably less than a mile from my house. Facing towards it, with one food on one of two wooden bars that comprised it, we watched a sunset in the mountains. It was at this moment that I could not remember exactly when and why I had purchased the dog. It interrupted my homework. It peed places. It required a great deal of attention. Though it was a very cute critter, I did not want it. Why did I buy a dog? I could not remember. I recalled being in a "half-awake" state in the pet store. Had I made a conscious decision to buy it? I was also told that I had the dog for at least 4 years. I arbitrarily accepted this as true.

End.

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I don't know if most people look for moral lessons in their dreams. This dream, however, seemed to have a rather clear one: Do Not Buy Stuff Just to Buy Stuff.

I postulate I bought the dog just to buy something. The purple bucket, I am near sure, is a product of buying just to buy. All "sentimental" type objects or arbitrarily purchased in my dream had a negative connotation, such as the purple bucket.

Perhaps you were amused, maybe you even learned something. I hope this entry was not totally useless. Thank you, readers!

Random updates

I bought a new chain and switched the gear in the back of my bike. Now that my chain does not skip, I can take over the world.

I started reading George Orwell's 1984. I've only heard good things about it so far, and to the point I've read (not too far) it's very interesting.



Bach is epic. I printed out a bunch of his stuff for guitar and piano, so hopefully I'll get to that soon.

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안녕하세요, 친구들! 요즈음 키타를 켜고 조율하다.

Drawings, etc...

안녕하세요, 친구들!
I finished reading The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd. It would be pointless to recommend or not recommend this book for probably over half my readers, because its a required school book this year >_>; But for all the other non existent readers out there, if you don't mind politically correct clichés such as white/black race relations, female power, etc. then this book is a very interesting and engaging read. It isn't horribly long either. Its a tad predictable, but the author has a easy to understand and follow style, so its a relaxing read.



Drawings





I made some "motivational posters" too, but I don't know if the person who I featured on them would want this posted up here, so I won't. I intend to make some more generic, rather than inside-joke type, ones later for everyone here to enjoy.

피곤합니다... 안녕계십시오!

Bike Modifications

Playing with bike parts isn't the cheapest thing to do, but it sure is fun :) Yesterday I started converting my old mountain bike into a single speed for easy maintenance, fun, and kicks.

I went to performance bikes and got one of these:





After I finish the technical work on this bike, I intend to spray paint it matte black, so it looks cool :P

Interesting.

Today was pretty interesting. Richard sent me a link to a book about how to become batman, which led me to a link to a public radio story about superheroes. Worth a listen if you have the time to spare (or don't and get distracted. :D )

I used to listen to national public radio a lot when I played maple story. I learned a lot from this and had a lot of fun. Maybe I'll consider it again. Playing a game always has this unproductive overtone to it though that oftentimes steers me away.

Dry erase markers work on desks. Oh snap! Matt was drawing on his desk too (at Elite), and he let me borrow some viet money to draw from.. :D





*disclaimer* I'm not a communist.

Anywho, hope all is going well with everyone else.

New Glasses

HAHAHAHA 4-eyes.

Good Evening

Today's Drawings Etc.













I got a Zune pass for a month for fun. So far it seems pretty cool, though I'll see if it proves its worth in the long run. I'll post more stuff later, maybe even my essay I'm writing for homework, (2 essays actually, I failed one >_> ) if anyone is kind enough to get feed back. Thank you for reading non-existent readers :P

Today

Art and such. In addition to going to Elite and doing homework I went to aikido, helped my mom set up a printer, played guitar (and some piano), and took a nap. There are probably some other minor things in there too :P









Productive work environment!

Test Corrections Poem 2

Test Corrections Poem 2
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Ouch!
For every question I get wrong,
I will do 5 push-ups!
In hopes that I will become stronger,
Or possible smarter.

This is exhausting.

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Meditation

People say a lot of things about how to study. There are myriads of books written on this topic. General consensus dictates that a proper study environment and a healthy diet are good ideas for maximum efficiency and effectiveness. But what about more unorthodox approaches?

I was sitting on my floor listening to my Zune (which is functioning great so far by the way) , stretching, and thumbing through flash cards for Elite, when I thought of meditation. From Aikido I had minimal experience in the area, but I was pretty sure that some nerd or weird new age person had something to say about it (not derogatory terms, just a quick way to classify people, no hard feelings okay? :D ). So I summon the near all-knowing internet and did like... 10 minutes of research.

There are always radicals that claim supernatural abilities from things like meditation and yoga. Then there are people who think it is absolutely useless. Science daily pretty much said evidence wasn't quantitative, but one should not dismiss the posibillity of benefits for such practices. Athletes and martial artists and other such have been using meditation for eons to increase concentration and calmness.

The Conclusion: Meditation is fine and dandy and all, and the benefits are very much likely to be real. However, (though some may call this meditation as well) I think it would be far more practical to do a more "active" activity that offers similar therapeutic results. For example, I find blogging to be relaxing, to help my concentration etc... Other activities may include playing piano, guitar, etc. I guess what I was doing with stretching and such is likely to be an example of what I am advocating as well... a calming activity that increases awareness, concentration, etc.

Ka-Boom!

4th of July!













Also I got a 80 g Zune. It's been high reviewed in a lot of places, but there are always MS haters as there always Apple haters, so I'll see how it turns out. So far however, it has proven work very well.