This could be just a rumor but it's in Newsweek. Both parties are trying to engineer a deal in which Democrats will help pass a Republican-sponsored bill to let a foreign-born citizen (I wonder who?!) run for president. In return, GOP'll support the removal of the amendment (23rd?) that bars 3rd terms for presidents, paving the way for...Bill Clinton to run again.

This week, I finally felt like school started. Last week, I felt like vacation finally started. You see, I worked during a good chunk of the actual break so it didn't feel like a vacation. Last week, the combination of me getting sick and the weather got me hibernating for most of the week.

Taking an odd array of classes that I wouldn't normally take. Definitely the last time I registered for classes late. I'm taking 'Fundamentals of Acting'. It's disorientating since it basically teaches people how NOT to be themselves. If you're being too yourself in that class, there's a fat 'F' waiting for you.

Ate at '5 Guys' in Chinatown. They make the best burgers in the world. Their secret is that everything's fresh. Meat's never been frozen. Even buns are delivered to them daily from a local bakery. The only way they could get any better is to have a cow inside the restaurant, milk it and make the cheese themselves.

I ordered fries there for the first time after sampling some from my friend. Very good with vinegar, very similar to boardwalk fries. The serving size is pretty generous, big enough to feed half of Ireland. Just a block away is Fuddrucker's. It's McDonald's compared to 5 Guys.

I've rediscovered my love for seltzer water. I can't stop drinking it. It's like having a circus in your mouth.

Anyone out there who still has their original Sidekick after a year? I do. It fell on a concrete floor about 3 times and survived. I'm beginning to wonder what it takes to break it. Everyone else seems to be on their 7th SK or sumthin'. I know a guy who went through 5 in one month. He once screamed, "I'm sick of people IMing me! They won't stop!" and flunged the gadget on the floor. It blinked its multi-colored lights in an electronic daze. He shrugged and said he still had warranty to burn.

I just remembered a friend and I were riding a roller coaster and his SK fell out of his pocket when we were upside down. Centrifugal force doesn't apply to t-mobile devices.

So, 'fess up, how did you break yours?

Just killing time until I leave for work in an hour.

School's closed due to the inauguration.

My school schedule is in flux. Gally's having the worst course offerings ever. The only classes I know I'll take for sure are modern art, to fulfill requirements, and softball.

Modern Art. The prof says what distinguishes it is that it forces people to think about its meaning. I've gone to a couple of modern art exhibitions, both in the Smithsonians. Some cool stuff, some stupid stuff. I've read about an artist selling his shit, and I mean that literally, for $10k. Contemporary art can be like that. Anyway, I'll enjoy going to exhibitions for the class, but I don't like the idea of *formally* analyzing artwork. It's bullshit.

Softball. The teacher must've gulped down one red bull too many. Full of nervous banter. Nevertheless I'm glad I'm taking the class because I've played baseball, but never softball except for maybe a handful of games at picnics. I wouldn't mind playing in deaf tourneys and getting an A in this class just seems like a nice start to my softball "career".

School's reopening tomorrow. Students are flooding the campus as I speak. I'm gonna go over there in about half an hour- that's when it'll hit me the break's over.

I got a GPA of 3.6 last fall. During the break, I worked on having a real system for managing my time and organizing schoolwork. Let's see if I can get a 4.0 this time. If I end up as a bum living in a cardboard, I'll still be able to say, "I was a 4.0 student once. Nothing can take it away from me." :) Only if I don't get this prof who I heard doesn't believe in giving A's EVER. And since I can't remember her name, there's no way of knowing if I'm getting her.

I read some men's magazine (Men's Health?) and it ranked Fremont, CA as #1 most livable city if you have the XY chromosomes. I scoffed. The town has absolutely no personality. Then I read the main reason: recreational opportunities.

Suddenly I had flashbacks to the summer I lived with the Vollmars in Fremont. It was a dream situation- their parents were travelling in Europe so we lorded over the whole house by ourselves for 3 months. How often do teens with so much snot in their noses that they have to carry around kleenex boxes and take NyQuil every night have that opportunity?

Yep, it was easy to get active there. Soccer fields, indoor local basketball gyms, skateboarding parks, swimming pools everywhere. During night, it was a snap finding a hot tub to sneak into. The excursions to the great outdoors- close as Sunol and as far away as Big Sur. It was always around 75 to 80 degrees and sunny with no humidity. There was no reason whatsoever to stay indoors.



Anyway, here's one memorable photo of that summer. Steve, Scott and I had a fierce rivalry going on over this video game, NBA Jam (the only times we were indoors, I guess). We'd even record scores. I'd have the upper hand for a while, then Steve would have it, then Scott, and so forth. Scott's known as a well-adjusted, coolheaded guy but the rivalry often got better of even him. He'd blow his top over stuff like his electronic players missing easy 3-pointers or whatever. Well he was 16. It became so predictable that I could sense a tantrum looming when he was playing Steve so I grabbed my Polaroid camera- sure enough, he was ranting and raving like a madman. CLICK! Scrutinize his face to your heart's content :)

Amusing discovery I made recently #37

I knew my grandpa was a journalist, teacher and had a music band (early 1950s style, guys wearing suits and ties, at least one playing a saxophone, get the picture?). But I just found out he was also an orchestrator for almost 20 years. Cracked me up. He was so old and dignified all my life so it was hard to picture him waving that stick in fervor.



Not hard to figure out who's who. I was 10.

My grandparents were also missionaries in Iran for 2 years. Above the fireplace at their house was a bunch of beautiful swords and ivory sculptures and I wondered how they got them, until I found out. Lovely people, the most stable people I know. My grandma was a good humored redhead (some of her genes made it to me- If I grew a beard, it'd be reddish, serious) and a GREAT cook. They were married for 70 years before Grandpa passed away. Grandma followed a few years later. My dad said one thing he appreciated about them was that they never showed favoritism to any of their children or grandchildren.

What did your grannies do?

We all are here because our parents had sex at exactly the right time down to the millisecond, using the exactly right position (had your dad came while doin' it doggy style instead of the wheelbarrow, his ejaculation's trajectory would be different, altering which sperm arrived at the egg first).

Let's say you were conceived in the night. Earlier in the day, your will-be daddy left work and was driving home when he saw a yellow traffic light, on the verge of turning red. He hesitated. He decided to hit the pedal and blazed over the intersection as the red light came on. Thus setting the chain of events leading to your conception. But had he decided to play it safe and stopped at the red light, or if a cop pulled him over, you wouldn't exist.

There are millions of sperms clamoring for the egg, so it really comes down to milliseconds and precise angles. Not only there are millions of competiting fishies, there are billions of events that had to unfold in a precisely correct order. What's even more, all of your ancestors also had to overcome the same odds. We have millions of ancestors and every single one of them had to couple up with correct partners for you to exist. The odds against your existence are trillions and trillions to one. In other words, you're not supposed to exist. State lotteries pale in comparison. You've already won the ultimate lottery. So just shut up and enjoy it while you can :)

I do wonder about something. If another sperm reached the egg instead of the one carrying your genomes, would you (meaning your consciousness) exist anyway? You'd have a different appearance, different traits and maybe even a different gender, but you'd be conscious anyway? Or you'd be simply...nothing?

Nothingness. That's what we associate with death. But strangely, we've already experienced it. Before we were born. And if we never were born, nothingness would be all we know, but yet we wouldn't even know it. We wouldn't be conscious to *experience* nothingness. I associate nothingness with blackness, but in reality, it isn't black like outer space. It's literally nothing. Mindboggling.

Yeah, there's a possibility there's a God and we have souls and are destined to be born, and when we die, we go up to the stratosphere to play golf with Jesus. Or be reborn as ants if we were bad, as anteaters if we were good.

A VERY cool bar.

The birth of year 2005 was anticlimatic. I was in a party in MD, watching the countdown on TV with the crowd. It was ticking down to about 30 seconds when it went dark. The power was out. Y2k was 5 years late? When the power finally went back on about a couple of minutes later, everyone was like "Oh rightttt, happy new year!"

Got to see Tayler and Debbie there. Tayler seemed even more excitable, if that's possible. Debbie's in law school at UCLA and she said when she heard people talking about how hard law school was, she thought it was just talk, but turned out it IS hard. Plus, she feels a bit out of place among her classmates because almost all of them were Ivy league alums- Harvard, Yale, Princeton, etc. When she told them she graduated from RIT and Gallaudet, they asked her what they were. She had to squirm as she said "Rochester...Institute...of...Technology." And they'd never heard of Gallaudet either, I think. But if she's the only non-Ivy alum in the class, it's an impressive accomplishment anyway.

When I wasn't working or running some errands, I spent most of my time vegging out in my house. Getting to know myself better. Just kidding. Today, I finally got sick of it and roamed in DC. I used to do that a lot before I returned to school last Jan. and missed it. Reminded once again how great DC is. It's like several towns in one big city. I like to cruise around in far NW where the nature, the hills, the tall trees, the river merge with the city.

Took a leisurely stroll in Georgetown. One cool thing about window-shopping by yourself, there's nobody to hurry you up or slow you down. Went to Whole Food. Only about my 5th time there but I resolute to eat healthier, and it's easier to do that if you shop at an organic-type food store, no? Drove back, idly realized that could be the road Michael Jordan regularly treaded on the way to MCI Center during his diasterous stint with the Wizards- he lived in a condo in GT. Zoomed by the old convention center. It's being demolished. Yeah, Deaf Way 2's legendary nightclub's GONE.

Here I am, home. Absolutely, from now to on, my every free day, I'm gonna storm the town until my friends come back. Next target: Smithsonian museums. Been forever since I went there. Clap clap.