Summer is winding down and I felt it appropriate to post again at its resolution seeing as I began with a post just after school got out.

I noticed Cody has been updating a bit more since leaving the States back to his rainy/cold premises overseas.   I have respect for his dedication to working out and staying healthy, especially with his commitment to running.   Personally, I’ve never been much of a runner.   I’m quick from here to there, as long as there is less than a mile.  Any more than that and I’m dead in the water.   While I do always run before I workout, it’s only to get my heart rate up and to actually make me sweat while I work out.   However, that run is always around the 1 mile mark and the pace is set to about a 8-minute mile.    Still, I plan to adopt a similar strategy of monitoring my measurements throughout the Fall semester and hopefully further.   LMU has a nice gym and the Fitness Center there has a machine that will measure your body fat, your muscle percentages for each part of your body, and other neat, little things.   The machine is available for use so that people can check their vitals about once a month and keep a printout with all the details.

Dedicating yourself to a task, whether that be a blog, entertaining an online community of gamers, or a single relationship; is never an easy undertaking by any means.  They do not often earn the appreciation or respect fitting the time and toil that goes into them, and sometimes leads others to downright disdain.   Still, the way I see it, the rewards are usually worth the amount of toil that go into the task.

I can’t help but think that expectations rule my life.   It’s not enough that I’m constantly questioning my own effort and expecting more of myself in everyday activities, but the carry-over effect to everyone else I encounter really takes a toll on my opinions of others sometimes.   I expect that others should feel an equally pervasive need to improve themselves whenever possible.   How often do we have to settle for less or look the other way before we realize that there is something that we could legitimately make better about our own lives?   I know it’s not easy; I struggle to improve things about my life all the time that simply do not get any better, but I never just give up outright.   I appreciate constructive criticism and I don’t mind giving it out either.   I get labeled as bossy or a jerk, but sometimes people have to hear it.   We don’t always realize what we’re doing wrong after all.   Unfortunately, I have to mention the worst part of expectations ruling my life.   Knowing that I can do better makes me constantly question my effort, leaving me slightly depressed and forcing me to look at what I have done and to try to be satisfied with that.   On the other hand, knowing others can do better makes me constantly question their own efforts, often to their complete and total aggravation.   And I’ll be the first to admit that while I am often the nice guy to those I do not know well, I am quite critical of those close to me.   At times I am simply annoyed, but most of the time I truly want my friends and family to improve their quality of life.

I mentioned to my parents last weekend that I feel really horrible when I am inclined to hope someone might experience a downfall so that they are forced into an epiphany of sorts to improve his or her life.   But that is often how life works and it is something that everyone experiences.   For most of us, it takes a lot to have to want to do something that is tedious and does not show immediate dividends.   In the end, there is nothing more satisfying than actually doing what you intend to.

I intend to go back to college tomorrow and improve upon my previous semester.   My grades may not be better, but I hope I will work generally harder, in all areas of my life.   This includes rebuilding a relationship with my friends I lost, building on a great relationship with my girlfriend and being everything and more she could ever expect, keeping up a good connection with family and friends that are not near me, staying health, and hopefully being active in school matters and even potentially starting a shirt sales business.   Video games and such are fun, but they do not really bring the kind of satisfaction I could receive from completing real life tasks.   I want to explain that by real life, I don’t mean that internet friends that you truly know or speak to often don’t count as part of your real life.   The things my brothers do, from talking online with less-than-complete strangers about things that interest them to playing games with such people, are actually quite real and invigorating.   My point is more in the following sense: the last few days playing Team-Fortress 2, I was truly bored without any friends on to play with or any real human connection besides the people spitting out jokes every few minutes.   I sat in an idle server a few nights ago for the first time and all of a sudden I don’t even have the motivation of getting items to craft into awesome hats because of the cap of items you can get in a given week set by Steam.   Yet, I still waste my time playing these games because they are more stimulating in the short-run than say, writing a blog or doing my homework in a timely manner that does not involve me staying up all night the day before it is due.

There were a lot of things I put off this summer that I should not have.   I tire from staring at to-do lists, whether concrete or in mind, for weeks at a time and not completing them.   I want to improve; don’t we all?

So, in case I didn’t make in evident enough by now, I got accepted to attend Loyola Marymount University for the spring semester of 2009. I guess I’ll start by saying what led up to finding out I got accepted. I sent in my application and the necessary materials in early October. I went to the Open House hosted at LMU on November 2nd and it made a great impression right away. I knew that this was the place that I wanted to be for college. I asked a lot of questions to counselors and students about the school and how things worked regarding students joining in the spring. In early November I received a postcard saying that they had received all necessary materials and were to begin the decision process. But when mid-November had come with still no word on acceptance, I began to worry (more than before anyway). I talked to a few counselors both online (thru AIM even!) and on the phone, but they just told me that it was still in the decision process. By then, lots of things went through my mind about my future and I made wishes, prayers, and pleas that I would get accepted to this college.

Throughout work I was able to text Mike and talk about our impending reconcilation (he flew in that night). He was actually at my house playing D&D with the guys before I even made it home. After a short, but fun run through a dungeon in which I dominated the casserole competition, Mike and eventually Cody left. It was around this time that I realized no one had gotten the mail on Saturday. I figured I might as well, after all, I had been doing so for the past 2 weeks looking for a letter from LMU. So at 2 AM, I walked outside and in the dark found a rather large letter from LMU. I immediately ran inside and ripped open the letter to read my acceptance letter and began to celebrate.

So everyone has been asking me what I want Christmas and honestly I don’t really know… I am already getting what I really wanted, and at some level, desperately needed: an acceptance to LMU and a new phone. I also went to Eagle yesterday to talk to my uncle about funds for college and somehow ended up with a brand new laptop! Figures that my grandpa would offer one to me. So now I guess now it’s down to clothes. Otherwise I have no idea. More blogs to come on a more consistent basis. Let’s just say my life has brightened up a little lately

So.. I didn’t get into UCLA. Yeah, I found that out long ago, but I have yet to update for quite a while. So basically I’m looking at LMU for Spring semester, which would be awesome because then I wouldn’t have to attend Junior College and I’d still be near home. Original plan was to go to Santa Monica Community College in LA to be near the ex still, but then I’d have to get an apartment out in shady LA. So this works out much better. Anyway, I’ll get back to college later.

I want to talk of more recent happenings. I guess first thing’s first: I got a job! Anyway, I’m working at Hollister now as a “model.” That’s just the position they call it; I’m not actually modeling. That wouldn’t be so good lookin anyway. So I had orientation at… well… it was supposed to start at 8, but the manager Lily told me to be there at 8:30. So I showed around 8:15 and waited outside. After a while at 8:25, I noticed there was actually a doorbell on the outside of Hollister, so I rang, not expecting it to do anything at all. To my surprise, out popped another new manager of mine, Christa. I told her I was there for orientation. She told me I was late; that it started at 8. I explained what Lily told me. She was cool and nice about it, even joked around about Lily. Anyway, Lily also forgot to mention I needed my social security card (she only told me I needed a photo ID, as in license). Once again, though, Christa just joked around and told me to bring it next time. I just filled out some forms and got my Associate Card. So then the other new recruit there and I watched a 20 minute video on Loss Prevention and a few of the what-to-do’s. Otherwise, I didn’t really get any of the info on how much I’m being paid, what else I need to know about what to do there, how much of a discount I get, or anything else. Well, I’m going back Thursday at 4 to get my schedule. Until then, I’ll just read the Associate Handbook they gave me.

I’m hoping to see Wall-E tomorrow, which I heard is good. Uhh.. I’m kinda blogged out for now. Some other time, then…

I spend most of my time checking UCLA’s site to see if I got in for appeals. For those of you who don’t know, I’m a complete idiot and didn’t even try on my applications and thus lost any chance at getting into anywhere…

So anyway, I decided to appeal to UCI, UCSD, UCLA, and UCB. So far, I’ve been re-rejected from UCSD and UCI.. Still no word from Berkeley or UCLA, but I’ve been reading forums online and apparently I’m not alone. At this point, I’ve been told that I should just move on because I probably won’t get into either. So basically, I am. I started looking at community colleges and cal states. I’m looking at CSULA for Winter Semester right now. I’ve been thinking about finding housing in LA somewhere, then going to Santa Monica College in the Fall and transferring to CSULA for the Winter, then to UCLA as soon as possible. That way, I could hold the same housing in UCLA, but go to all these different places. But maybe I should just stay put and go to a community college closer (like Irvine Valley, Santiago Canyon, or Santa Ana) for a year with my credits and transfer to UCLA in a year. I think that’s possible anyway… I don’t know. I’m still holding on to hope that I’ll get into UCLA, but probably not…

Anyway, music is updated.