people are sick

on thursday i took the train to go meet my parents at the newark airport, we were going to go to my grandmother's house together.

before that all happened i was standing in penn station trying to figure out how the hell to find my terminal for the train since it pops up about 2 seconds before the train leaves. i felt a tap on my shoulder and standing in front of me was a little asian guy with a really desperate look on his face. he asked me why i didn't respond to him for the last 2 minutes, i said i was listening to music and didn't hear him, and he said he thought i was a banana.

so we start speaking mandarin, i was really happy to practice a little bit since the only people who really ever speak it to me are Novi and Isaac, neither one being chinese... well Isaac goes out with enough Chinese girls I guess he could in fact be part of the exclusive club. Anyways, so after making fun of me for not being able to speak Taiwanese, he gets into his story about how his friend told him to get on this bus and go visit in Boston and how he is returning to Malaysia soon. And he at first said he needed $10 and I thought, what the hell, it's Thanksgiving. I only have a $20 so I ask him if he has change and he obviously had a couple bucks because he flashed them in my face when he first came up to me. The entire time, I'm thinking, "make sure he doesn't steal your wallet, be prepared to run after him and tackle him, watch his eyes, make sure he doesn't steal your bag or ipod." So I fish out some money and he starts hopping up and down with an even more pitiful look. what the crap.

He points to a circled dollar amount $28. ticket to boston. I think I rounded up about $26 for him and he was very happy and wanted to get my address to mail me the money back and my phone number to take me out to dinner because he works at a restaurant. I just wanted to get on my train so I jotted down some info and we parted ways. Thinking back about it, about 5 minutes afterwards, why the hell did I give him my contact information.... The guy obviously wasn't going to pay me back or take me out to dinner, for an entire minute, i was thinking about free dinner and being a part of some shady underground asian mafia that I gave him money and my info. stupid.

I talked to my mom about it when I met my family at the Avis car rental place. 10 years ago, I was 10, same station, same short Chinese guy, my mom and dad gave him $30. Apparently he is well known and bounces between Penn Station and grand central. It was Thanksgiving, I actually felt bad for the guy. I really can't understand how someone can have 0 moral regard and go around with this story, pegging Chinese people for money on some fake sob story. He seemed so nice... how does he sleep at night, that was about a few days worth of good eating for me, I hope he needed that money. If I ever see him again I am going to get my money back, shake him upside down for his lunch money and put him in a trashcan highschool style. I'm such a sucker for down and out people. and they know it.

5:30 am. about me.

i like to think of my life as a weird one.

my lucky number over the years has turned out to be 13. Everytime I turn, I see another permutation and combination of 13, I answered a random question during a few math club competitions right with it, my department's floor is there... as life rolls along, i wonder if i'm slated to be shined upon by a gift or hovered over with a curse. 13 is not lucky, it is an odd man out that carries a strange stigma with it.

i was never the smartest kid, but i was always the kid that could pull it all together and come out ahead in the end, always the one that made it during crunch time and say 'i can do it' and it happened. i'm hoping i'm that same person, because i've been looking at my last 2 and a half years of college and realizing that that dependable person i once was, not dependable like a friend, but dependable to myself is fading. i don't want that to happen, one of these days i'm really going to need to take a hard look at myself and fix things or i'm afraid i'll end up someone i'm not.

i've noticed that often in my life i've been faced with two options, suprise suprise. often there is the path that i think is more or less concrete. be it an easier piece for a piano recital, what to eat for dinner, or even the girl that i like that i know likes me. then there is the other path. it's not like the frost poem that paints of a picture of the road less traveled as one that is overgrown and difficult, i'm optimistic about it. i've always thought that the other side of the fence could be greener, and everytime i've based this assumption of something that i thought could become concrete but didn't show itself as such yet. the harder piece that would be in my mind a better concert performance, or the girl that i thought was prettier, possibly more fun, and could like me a lot more as showed a few signs.

i've never liked to resign myself to second best, but it's become apparent to me that striving for what you think is the best at a given time often does not end well. the reward is great, the risk is too high. i've never backed down from risk, but after things fall apart, after things don't work out the way they needed to in order to work, i can't settle back with what is concrete. what's there, feels like second best, what's there feels like a consolation prize for failure.

i've missed out on a lot of wonderful things in my life because of this. i've missed out on a lot of potentially amazing relationships because i've turned people away with a head scratching change from interest to disinterest. i'm always looking for that green pasture but really i'm just passing up the ones that i've already jumped the fence for and know are great.

it hadn't happened in months, i'm not suprised to faced with it again nor am i suprised that i've resumed my strange lack of sleep schedule along with my 'pseudo deep' analysis of myself. i don't know what's best for me anymore, i want the best but i'm missing out on everything. it'd be a lot easier if things would just work out when i want them to. i don't know if i should risk it this time.

the end.

you make me sick.

kerry '04

(collected away messages that i wrote throughout the day... i am so mad right now, the president of the united states of america lied to your face for 4 years and you let him win the popular vote. we will begin at the mccain-feingold campaign finance reform act and hopefully the american political process will be fixed. if the bush administration has shown us anything it is that we are
a. susceptible as ever to terrorist threats
b. americans are easily manipulated and do not bother to learn the truth
c. it is still easy strategy to not untruths in order to slander your opponent and it will stick.

remember. tommorow, nov. 3rd, america will be more divided than it has been in a very long time. i hope bush has someway to bring together the nation, he does not have my ears or my heart for the rest of his existence. there are few reasons for you to have voted for bush, i'm almost positive you did it for the wrong reasons. the next 4 years will open your eyes, i gurantee it. too bad for me i have to be there with you to experience it, i told you so won't mean a thing. the election wasn't about "silly liberals" it was about america acting aggressively and pre-emptively and being wrong and not being able to admit fault. it was about an admistration that kept secrets and lied to the public. i learned more about the president in the last two months than i have in the last 4 years, that's saying a lot, and it's saying he hasn't done anything for us. america you failed me and the rest of us today. thanks.)
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if bush wins, history will show that he has been the worst president our country has had in a rather long time. it's almost telling enough that at least half of the country doesn't like him, if i was the president and about 150 million people didn't like me i'd think i had a problem...

if kerry wins, republicans will grumble about how great things would have been in the event of a bush victory. kerry will inherit a population completely polarized by the bush administration as well as a situation in iraq that has no better explanation than, "a big fucking mess (strategically and logistically)". If anything goes wrong trying to pull us out of this shithole, kerry will take the brunt of the blame. Half the population won't realize that they just avoided an extension of a presidency that has basically taken american domestic and international political and social progress of the united states backwards.
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it's sad when you don't know your candidate's position.

*72% of bush supporters believe Iraq has/had WMD's (they didn't)
*75% of bush supporters believe Iraq was aiding al Qaeda. (they didn't)
*82% of bush supporters believe the administration told them there were WMDs/al Qaeda-Iraq connection

it's depressing that the administration has so polarized the american public that no one is willing to listen and accept truth anymore.(swiftboat veterans for truth: FALSE; Kerry flip flopping: FALSE; all fabricated)

bush did not support the department of homeland security, he did not support the creation of the 9/11 commission. is this your candidate, are you supporting him because he looked in charge 4 days after 9/11 while talking into a megaphone on a pile of rubble in nyc? your candidate has done nothing for the american public but keep secrets for 4 years. 4 more years? you're killing yourself.

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if it turns out george bush wins he will have won on a combination of pandering to the christian fundamentalists of this country, creating a false characterization of his opponent, and lying to the american public.

the next 4 years will be a repeat of the nixon years, i have never ever seen a credibility gap this ridiculous in my entire life.

the worst part about it is that my friends voted for him. half of you i talked to believed the lies of campaign propaganda, if tommorow kerry is not vindicated we will have 4 more years of proof of executive ineptitude. you all make me sick.

the greatest indignity of them all.

How far will republicans go to supress the democrat voters of Columbia University? I had no idea until it steamrolled me this afternoon. Throughout the year Prof. Keren Bergman, our wonderful Solid State Devices professor told us she was Republican, what of it? We did not know that it had anything to do with us, so we continued on, pushing through chapters of minority carrier diffusion, crystal lattices, and p-n junctions.

Today she announced that she was going to hold class on Tuesday, election day. Being an important class where missing one could throw you into a pit of confusion, how many voters will not be able to go home to vote, men and women from New Jersey, Pennsylvania, etc. stuck in room 227 Mudd at 2:40 PM silently watching the clock, knowing that they could be relaxing, voting, and then drinking beer.

Why class on Tuesday? Obviously it is a conspiracy that goes all the way up to the upper ranks of the GOP. She is on the payroll of the NSA afterall... (i don't think there is a real connection, but it sounds incriminating!). Her excuse for holding class on Tuesday? Of course she wouldn't say, "i want to make sure Democrats don't go out and vote". She had a much more... almost more scathing excuse. She was going to a conference. Apparently Prof. Bergman had two choices, goto a conference in Pittsburgh (which she chuckled to herself after dismissing it) or goto the conference in Puerto Rico.

Puerto Rico, "i guess i'm just going to have to enjoy the weather... sigh, So i'm just going to have to have class this coming Tuesday as a make up for my absence". Blasphemy!! How intricate a web of deceit she weaves... She has single handedly crushed go home and vote plans and put the illusion that somehow, a trip to Puerto Rico is in our Electrical Engineering futures... the sly fox. She's good... she's very good.

(ps. she's a great prof. if anyone is an EE major)

oh... in other news. haliburton is in big trouble.

1. Haliburton Subsid. can't account for about $3 million dollars worth of stuff that was supposed to goto Iraq. Where'd it go? Army is pissed, Haliburton subsid says, hey we did a good job.
(link)

2. Usually the FBI doesn't investigate you unless you really did something wrong... one group already has said they unfairly awarded Haliburton a no-bid contract. favortism or were they the only capable company? we shall see.
(link)

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eminem-

[I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America
And to the Republic for which it stands
One nation under God
Indivisible・
It feels so good to be back..]

Scrutinize every word, memorize every line
I spit it once, refuel, reenergize, and rewind
I give sight to the blind, mind sight through the mind
I ostracize my right to express when I feel it's time
It's just all in your mind, what you interpret it as
I say to fight you take it as I知 gonna whip someone's ass
If you don't understand don't even bother to ask
A father who has grown up with a fatherless past
Who has blown up now to rap phenomenon that has
Or at least shows no difficulty multi task
And juggling both, perhaps mastered his craft slash
Entrepreneur who has held long too few more rap acts
Who has had a few obstacles thrown his way through the last half
Of his career typical manure moving past that
Mister kiss his ass crack, he's a class act
Rubber band man, yea he just snaps back

Come along, follow me as I lead through the darkness
As I provide just enough spark, that we need to proceed
Carry on, give me hope, give me strength,
Come with me, and I won't stear you wrong
Put your faith and your trust as I guide us through the fog
Till the light, at the end, of the tunnel, we gonna fight,
We gonna charge, we gonna stomp, we gonna march through the swamp
We gonna mosh through the marsh, take us right through the doors

To the people up top, on the side and the middle,
Come together, let's all bomb and swamp just a little
Just let it gradually build, from the front to the back
All you can see is a sea of people, some white and some black
Don't matter what color, all that matters is we gathered together
To celebrate for the same cause, no matter the weather
If it rains let it rain, yea the wetter the better
They ain't gonna stop us, they can't, we're stronger now more then ever,
They tell us no we say yea, they tell us stop we say go,
Rebel with a rebel yell, raise hell we gonna let em know
Stomp, push up, mush, fuck Bush, until they bring our troops home come on just . . .

Come along, follow me as I lead through the darkness
As I provide just enough spark, that we need to proceed
Carry on, give me hope, give me strength,
Come with me, and I won't stear you wrong
Put your faith and your trust as I guide us through the fog
Till the light, at the end, of the tunnel, we gonna fight,
We gonna charge, we gonna stomp, we gonna march through the swamp
We gonna mosh through the marsh, take us right through the doors, come on

Imagine it pouring, it's raining down on us,
Mosh pits outside the oval office
Someone's trying to tell us something, maybe this is God just saying
we're responsible for this monster, this coward, that we have empowered
This is Bin Laden, look at his head nodding,
How could we allow something like this, Without pumping our fist
Now this is our, final hour
Let me be the voice, and your strength, and your choice
Let me simplify the rhyme, just to amplify the noise
Try to amplify the times it, and multiply it by six
Teen million people are equal of this high pitch
Maybe we can reach Al Quaida through my speech
Let the President answer on high anarchy
Strap him with AK-47, let him go
Fight his own war, let him impress daddy that way
No more blood for oil, we got our own battles to fight on our soil
No more psychological warfare to trick us to think that we ain't loyal
If we don't serve our own country we're patronizing a hero
Look in his eyes, it's all lies, the stars and stripes
They've been swiped, washed out and wiped,
And Replaced with his own face, mosh now or die
If I get sniped tonight you'll know why, because I told you to fight

So come along, follow me as I lead through the darkness
As I provide just enough spark, that we need to proceed
Carry on, give me hope, give me strength,
Come with me, and I won't stear you wrong
Put your faith and your trust as I guide us through the fog
Till the light, at the end, of the tunnel, we gonna fight,
We gonna charge, we gonna stomp, we gonna march through the swamp
We gonna mosh through the marsh, take us right through the doors

[Eminem speaking angrily]
And as we proceed, to mosh through this desert storm, in these closing statements, if they should argue, let us beg to differ, as we set aside our differences, and assemble our own army, to disarm this weapon of mass destruction that we call our president, for the present, and mosh for the future of our next generation, to speak and be heard, Mr. President, Mr. Senator