Searching for clues about a missing future

Dream Diary: December 13, 2007+

Fri, 14 Dec 2007 22:13:32 GMT

Yesterday:

So I'll relate what I remember of this dream. It's a strange one and I'm sure I'm remembering some of it wrong, but I'll have to make due with what my waking mind can grasp out of the fuzzy haze of dreaming.

So I'm in the car with my mom and I'm driving down a busy city street. This wasn't the beginning of my dream, or maybe not the beginning of my first dream, but it's the beginning of my memory of the dream and so that will have to do. In the car, I'm driving and fiddling around with the radio stations. Soon though I get tired and sleepy because my mom's had me driving for a long time.

Time passes without notice, as happens often in dreams, and I feel myself in the back of the car and waking up. Someone else is driving the car while I slept and I'm grateful for the reprieve. When I look up, I see someone's hand groping blindly for the radio tuner. At the same exact time I see out the front window and notice that we're approaching a T-intersection at great speed with no signs of stopping. My attention swings back to the driver's hand and suddenly his head pops into view as he stares down at the radio's LED display. The driver is Ron Fucking Weasley. I yell at him to slow down, but too late to prevent the car from plowing into the plate glass front of a laundromat (at this point I don't really know if the storefront we crashed into was a laundromat or not, it's just the impression I get from what I can remember of the dream).

Time passes and we're all out of the car: myself, my mother, and Ron Weasley. Yes, the red-headed stepchild of Harry Potter and Hermione. I turn to my mom and yell, "Why the fuck did you let him drive?" I get no answer from her. I turn to Ron and start lambasting him about destroying our new car, for indeed we had been driving a new white Corolla. He says nothing useful, as usual. I spin away from him in disgust as he stands there with the same stupid expression on his face that you see so often in the movies.

So as I survey the scene of the accident from across the street, I overhear my mom listing a few things she needs from out of the car. Among them I hear her say that she needs her disabled parking placard, the kind that hangs on the rear view mirror of a car and lets you get away with semi-illegal stuff that normal people aren't allowed to do. I tell her that I'll go get it, since I figured that I needed to get my luggage out of the car anyway. So I start my way across the street, despite the light being red for me. As I start across the street I notice a law enforcement officer staring at me. I dodge cars and come to the trolley tracks in the middle before I think to myself that it might be too dangerous to continue. So, at the half way mark, I dodge my way through traffic BACK to the side I started from and wait for the light to turn green for me.

When I finally get across the street I walk pass the store we demolished, wait...not we but RON WEASLEY, and to a row of parked cars, among which I assume I'd find our car. My search is a short one for all the cars parked there are full length and not truncated by three feet as my car had been. On my way back I notice some street urchins pawing through my mom's purses, because for some reason we went from a busy urban street somewhere in the U.S. to a third wirld South-East Asian country. So I yell at the kids and grab my mom's stuff away from them, fully three large purses with nothing but useless crap in all three, and head back towards my mom.

Time passes and we're walking through a jungle/city street landscape, headed towards where our car was taken. The time in between my retrieving my mom's valuables and now seems to have been spent finding out where our derelict vehicle was. I'm being badgered by one of the street urchins for hand-outs and I finally flip him some foreign coins of various denominations. I hear the boy's mother telling him to stop begging and I turn around to see a beautiful woman picking the boy up onto her shoulders and walking away. Note this: the woman will enter into the dream again.

We reach a large body of water and it appears, for some odd reason, that our car was taken to an island in the middle of this lake, or river, or large brackish swimming pool. Well we start wading, Ron Weasley is now gone and in his place is one of my little nephews who recently came over from Vietnam, the youngest one. And out of no where my sister is also with us, wading into the muddy water. When we get waist deep into the water (and I mean waist deep for everybody, my three year old nephew's in about the same depth as we are and the water is waist deep for him, myself, my mother, AND my sister) she yells for us to stop. She explains that there are alligators in the water and we shouldn't go any further.

Well I laugh mockingly at her and ask her where the alligators are since I didn't see them. Sure enough, one pops up right between use, cutting me and my nephew off from the women folk. Even in dreams I can't keep my big mouth shut. We slowly move ourselves to shore and the alligator floats along with us. We all get onto land and try to slowly move away from the alligator, except that my little nephew is his usual hyper self and he stumbles across a second alligator. We yell at him to get away as the alligator snaps at him and he jumps out of the way and into the water. And them I'm there with my sweater in my hand, fully equipped to fight off this beast.

Of course I trip and fall and the alligator goes for my throat (we of course know that real alligators would have gone for any limb close enough to clamp down onto). I manage to get the sweater into play long enough to manage to close the alligator's mouth, although I lose a few fingers. The alligator starts rolling and I manage to finally stop it by wrapping my legs around it. Conveniently enough, the alligator is now stuck with its belly in the air, so I wrap one arm tightly around its snout and I reach into my pocket and pull out a bottle opener. I then procede to perform unlicensed surgery on the beast since I need not fear malpractice lawsuits (yay for referencing current events).

As I push the alligator off of me and climb to my feet, I notice that same woman from before stepping pass me and towards the water. I watch her dispatch an alligator in the water, one that was trying its best to eat my nephew. I don't know how she did it but in less time than it took me to blink in surprise, she'd killed the alligator and saved my nephew from certain death. I then slung the corpse of the alligator I killed over my shoulder, not being surprised at all that it was light and felt like a rubber alligator, and went over to pick up the freshly killed corpse. As I walk back towards my sister and my mother, there's a third dead alligator. Looks like the pretty lady managed to kill two alligators in the time it took me to kill the one. I throw the third alligator across my shoulder and walk off, planning to sell the things for meat and leather.

And then I wake up.

Today:

So I can't really remember much of last night's dreams, but something uncomfortable did happen as I was waking up...

My mom had knocked loudly on the door telling me to wake up, so I'm already half awake when this happened. So she'd taken me out of deep dreaming and I'm laying in bed doing the half dream, half thinking thing. The tail end of my last dream had me saying something along the lines of, "What am I, being haunted?" Almost immediately after saying that I was acutely aware of myself lying in bed and a pressure was suddenly pressing down on the left side of my chest, as if something was leaning on me. I then heard a snuffling, snorting kind of sound from my left and then more pressure added to my abdomen. It was uncomfortable and weird so I opened my eyes and looked to my left, and the pressure disappeared and I saw nothing.

But I really did feel the pressure, as if something had stepped onto my chest, and then onto my stomach. And I did hear the sound of something sniffing at me. It's kind of weird and I know I was half asleep when it happened, but my consciousness went from the me in my dream and saying those words straight to the me in my bed feeling the pressure. I'm just wondering if that means I'm going to win the lottery today.

I'm alive!

Wed, 05 Sep 2007 16:21:52 GMT

So I'm back from Orlando. Josh was good enough to pick me up from the airport last night and I got back home at 11:30 PM. He crashed at my place since he had to get up at 4AM to go to work. Love you man! Did you take a muffin?

Anyway, had a blast with my guild mates. They're all basically the same as they are on Ventrilo so it's like I already knew them. Very little drama, a lot of fun times and about 13 out of 15 days I went swimming. It's convenient having a pool in the backyard. There were some bad things, mostly minor things; no heat for the hot tub, a broken big screen TV, very little personal drama. For the most part we all had a good time.

And they want to go Mexico next year and won't take no for an answer, =O. Ixtapa here I come? We'll see, ^^

Back!

Thu, 28 Jun 2007 06:07:45 GMT

And so my return trip pretty much overshadowed any enjoyment I got out of this New York deal. First, I kept thinking we were supposed to go home on an afternoon flight on Tuesday the 26th. The morning of Monday the 25th, my mom leaves the room early to go get some last day sightseeing in, I get up around noon and check our itenerary. Whoops, silly me, our flight's on Monday in an hour and a half. So I call my mom and ask her where she is. She tells me she just got onto a three hour boat tour. Fantastic.

So I cancel our afternoon flight and see if they can reschedule our reservations for tomorrow. They can! For an extra $700. A person. So my mom says no f-king way, and we catch a cab to LaGuardia at 4AM and put ourselves on the standby list. We just miss getting onto the morning flight to O'Hare, so they put us on the list for a flight to Dallas/Fort Worth. We manage to get on the next flight and I manage to catch an hour or so of sleep (all I've had so far for the day).

In Dallas we manage to get onto the first plane heading out to San Jose. So we board the plane, taxi to the runway, and sit there for the next four hours waiting for the weather to clear. There are several storms swirling around Dallas closing off all flight paths in and out of the airport. After four hours sitting on the plane, the pilot takes us back to a gate and tells us that the flight's now cancelled.

Next comes four and a half hours of waiting in line at the ticket counter, because the weather has grounded just about all flights into or out of DFW. Oh yeah, those four plus hours to get to the ticket counter and talk to someone was all so that we can find out that there aren't any available seats on any flight until Thursday, so we'd have to be on standby for every flight out to San Jose until then.

Instead of spending the night at the airport with the other thousand or so people stranded there, we find one of the TWO hotels in the area with rooms available and book a room for the night. Needless to say, we managed to get onto a flight back that wasn't delayed or cancelled outright, and I am damned glad to be home.

New York Update

Fri, 22 Jun 2007 23:34:45 GMT

Update! So last night I managed to get out of the Washington trip so I had all of today for myself. I got up around noon, showered, broke fast, and then I was off to the subway. My first stop of the day was downtown and the World Trade Center site. There's nothing there now except for concstruction equipment. I stood there and reflected for a time before I headed uptown towards the American Museum of Natural History.

I got to 81st and headed towards the museum, but then I overheard some woman telling a child that it was a beautiful day and they should spend it outside instead of the museum. Well damned if she wasn't right, so I took a detour and headed into Central Park, where I wandered around for the next 5 hours. It was a beautiful day to get lost in Central Park. As I made my way around the park I had plenty of time to think and reflect and contemplate...too much really.

I got some nice pictures of the park: the lake, the pond, Sheeps Meadow, Strawberry Fields (very small), some scenery, etc. I managed to find three seperate wedding parties all in the park and took a picture of each just for kicks. I took a small detour back to the Museum to find out that it closed at 5:45 and that if I wanted to get in now, I'd have only a full hour to walk around, so I decided to leave the museum for another day.

I felt that it was time to leave the park when I felt a cramp beginning to start in my right calf. Of course, I was also getting hungry and the hot dog and Snapple I bought earlier in the day was wearing off. So around 6PM, I got on the subway and headed back towards Times Square. I got myself a pizza and now I'm just going to head back up to my hotel room and rest for a while.

Today was a decent day. We'll see about tomorrow. Tomorrow is practically the whole reason for this trip in the first place. There's a Vietnamese Heritage Festival going on and that's why everyone's gathering in New York City. Anyway, I need to lie down, my feet are killing me.

In New York

Fri, 22 Jun 2007 02:33:06 GMT

So I've been dragged to New York City by my mother, and here I am now, staying at a hotel a block from Times Square. I left home on the 19th at 5:30AM and got into LaGuardia at around 1AM EST. Delays and flight cancellations due to the bad weather around New York contributed to such a late arrival time, the hour of flying around NYC in a holding pattern didn't help either.

I've pretty much explored all of Times Square in the day and I ventured out last night at 12:30 when I couldn't sleep. I won't even get into the hotel and sleeping arrangements because that's still an annoyance. But yeah, I'm alone out here (my mother doesn't count as company since talking to her is impossible) and I've been left with my thoughts for way too long lately. Thinking too much hurts, in more ways than one.

Tomorrow, I plan on getting onto the subway and going beyond Broadway and 7th and Times Square, maybe go to central park, visit the Natural History Museum. I don't know, I'm going to have to look at some maps and stuff to figure out what exactly I want to do. Anyway, here's hoping that I can maintain my sanity long enough to get home on the 26th. Only 5 more days to go after this.

::hugs:: to everyone who matters. And just for the record, everyone matters.

A Simile

Wed, 13 Jun 2007 06:10:05 GMT

You know how it feels when your hopes and dreams have been crushed, and to top it off your self esteem and sense of self worth are ripped to shreds until you're left hollow, with nothing but this dull throbbing pain in your chest that gets sharper after every breath and you just sit there for hours staring at nothing until you realize you haven't eaten anything since you woke up and you're surprised you don't feel hungry at all? Yeah, it's like that.

Gallstone Pancreatitis

Sat, 24 Feb 2007 08:59:05 GMT

http://www.endonurse.com/articles/2c1feat3.html

Apparently that's what my mother had. They took her into surgery at about 6PM this evening and at 7:30PM the surgeon told me everything went fine and that there were no complications. I'll be able to bring her home tomorrow. I'm going to the hospital early in the morning to see how she's doing and then I'm taking her home.

My sister came home yesterday but my mom told her to go back to SF and keep up with her schooling, so she went back earlier this evening, but she'll be back tomorrow morning.

Thank you to everyone for your support. I should sleep now, I'm getting up early tomorrow.

From the Emergency Room

Thu, 22 Feb 2007 11:12:30 GMT

So my mom's currently in the Emergency Ward at Kaiser on S. Main in Walnut Creek. She told me to get her some Tylenol earlier tonight, and then around 11PM she knocks on my door and tells me to drive her to the hospital. Well I had no idea where the nearest hospital was, so I had to call 911 and get an ambulance.

She was feeling pain all along her back and in her abdomen, specifically the area between her ribcage and her waist. She says that her chest didn't hurt, just her back and her midsection. It seems like she'll be fine, the doctor thinks it has something to do with her stomach, but this still has me thinking about death and mortality.

If my mother dies tomorrow, my sister and I would be left with a lot of things to take care of, and we'd hardly know where to start. If I were to die tomorrow, would anybody other than my immediate family or friends ever find out what happened to me? I mean, who will go online and tell my guildmates and online friends that I'm dead? Or who will call my friends from college or highschool and tell them I'm gone? Who would really care?

Life sucks

Tue, 30 Jan 2007 23:26:25 GMT

Yes, life sucks. Long distance relationships suck. I wish I could kill myself, but I just can't bring myself to do that. The next best thing is for a spectacular car crash. I could live with plummeting off the face of a cliff, enginge on fire, and a huge boulder following to crush whatever's left at the bottom. That sounds pretty good right about now.

OMG, this is still here?!

Fri, 22 Sep 2006 05:44:00 GMT

So yeah, long time in coming, but this is an update, -_-

August 12th I went out to Baltimore. Had fun with Lindsey, I miss her, =(

Looking for a job, had a few interviews, nothing. Granted I'm not looking all *that* hard, I still need a job, >_<

I'm still playing WoW, took a month off but I got pulled back in.

Found a French singer named Alizee, don't know why I never heard of her before but she's hot! =O

Been reading a bit lately. Getting through some books that have been sitting for nearly a year now. Yay free time! >_>

Gah, I'll be back here eventually.

Random Update - FF in KH2

Tue, 25 Apr 2006 05:54:22 GMT

So yeah, Auron is in Kingdom Hearts 2 and he kicks ass!

The girls from X2 made a random cameo appearance that was odd.

Aeris' voice actor does NOT fit her character.

Tifa has much smaller boobs than in any other game or anything else I've seen her in.

I'm not actually playing myself, Darian is.

Back to fooding.

Spring Break almost over

Fri, 31 Mar 2006 09:46:21 GMT

So yeah, I've been at home a few days, not much has changed. Some weird things may have happened while I was away from home, but nothing that can be proven or disproven. It's been a long time since I've updated, it just means nothing interesting has happened lately.

I've gotten sucked deeper into WoW, we've started raiding MC a little under two months ago. Getting epically geared. I *did* get my Benediction on Monday! I was so happy! ^^

Oh, now I'm hungry. Hope everyone's doing fine, though I haven't kept up to date with my friends' journals either, ><

It's a good time to go to sleep though, so good night!

James just fucking screwed us over

Fri, 24 Feb 2006 20:57:09 GMT

So James went to see someone in Vermont for the "weekend" and he was supposed to be back Wednesday. His mom comes over today and says he's not coming back. That FUCKING ASSHOLE. He's seriously left us with one week before our next rent's due just so he can live with somebody who'll give him nookie. He screwed us over badly. Now we've got to see if his deposit will cover our next month's rent and then either find somebody to move in or find ourselves a new place to stay.

The bastard still owes us over $1000 too for groceries and utilities that we've been paying for the past year. He didn't even call US to tell us about it, he called his mom and told her to pack up his things and ship them over. So in reality, he didn't even TELL us about it. He told his mom and his mom told us. I'm fucking PISSED. GOD DAMNIT. I want to kick his ass.

Look! A seagull.

Sun, 19 Feb 2006 11:12:21 GMT

::runs away::

My head will explode!

Mon, 30 Jan 2006 22:35:39 GMT

So I just got back from 3 and a half hours on the road, the sole purpose for which was to retreive the blankets I had left at home. Last night was a throwback to my semi-hobo days. I slept covered and wrapped up in whatever clean clothing I could find. Jackets, sweaters, sweatshirts, anything that would serve as insulation. It worked though, and now I have my blankets back with me so that won't happen again.

Oh yeah, I heard a song on the radio as I got back into SC titled "If You Talk Too Much My Head Will Explode." Hehehe, instant classic.

Shuffle and Robotech and anime aplenty

Fri, 27 Jan 2006 08:08:36 GMT

So school started three weeks ago. Class at 8AM on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, 4 hour class on Thursday nights. Taking a reduced course load this quarter and quite possibly the next as well. It's been all right, but I'm a little apprehensive about this Marketing class. That's the Thursday night class, and the final is a group presentation. I don't know at all how that will go since my group is made up of people who missed the first day of class (including me).

This past month Danny and Darian have been coming over quite frequently. They're Cabrillo boys so their classes don't start until February. Hell, all Danny's taking are online courses. The strangest thing, Danny showed up last night with a 15 pound turkey his mom had bought. They were on sale for $3 and she just bought 4 of them and gave one to us. It's in the oven right now, but it won't be done until 1 AM and I'm going to sleep after I finish posting this.

In between classes, I've been watching a lot of anime. I've seen about a dozen complete anime series in the past two months. Most recently I finished watching the last couple episodes of Shuffle. I stopped watching for a while because the episodes got pretty dark and depressing, but it ended fairly happily. I also watched Moon Phase, which was something Ray had been watching while he was still in SC. I liked it a lot.

In other news, New Years is upon us and that means food, family, and maybe some fun. I've got to go home again this weekend, as well as studying for my mid-term next week. I just got my textbook yesterday so I've got 10 chapters to catch up on. Yay.

Speaking of reading, I just finished the first volume of the novelization of Robotech. Talk about nostalgia and emotional. I almost cried reading several passages of this book, and this volume ends with the death of Roy Fokker. God damnit, I need to find the series and watch it over again. I loved that series, watched it freshman year of highschool, maybe earlier, and I want to relive it. Fond memories of the past...

All right, I'm going to bed. And remember, I love you all! <3

I got lucky!

Sun, 01 Jan 2006 22:01:24 GMT

In your face Death! The skies are relatively calm and no sign of rain at all! The severe storm warning Friday and yesterday seems to have blown over for now and I'm going to be driving back to Santa Cruz without rain. Yay!

I was suffering some apprehension when I woke up yesterday and heard what I assumed to be thunder. Turns out it was only another 60 mph wind gust. Yikes, if I had to drive back to school in that kind of weather I seriously doubt whether or not I'd have survived. Some of you might know, but I've got bad luck concerning Highway 17, rain, and holiday weekends.

So Happy New Year! It's another year and another chance to do something you've never done before. But I think I'll just go to sleep when I get back. Much safer that way...

Christmas!

Sun, 25 Dec 2005 20:27:33 GMT

Lots of things to say. I just don't remember most of it. Went to church this morning, first time in months if I recall correctly. Some procedural changes, but most of the basic stuff is the same. This year's celebration of Christmas has been a little less festive than others, but there is family here so it's no less special.

Oh yeah, took my mom to the hospital a while ago to get a prescription and she started talking about random things. Turns out my name came from a list of three names my mom's doctor had given her. She chose one of the three and that's what I'm called today. The same was done for my sister and my brother. Thus Natalie, Christopher, and Alexander were all suggested by my mom's doctor, among 6 other names. I wonder what the other two names that I could have had were. Maybe I could have been Jeremiah? Or Gregory? I don't know, what name do I look like?

Yes, and there are Christmas babies to remember! Happy Birthday CJ! How's it feel to be the Messiah? And to my niece, Thuy Theresa Nguyen, your family remembers you. Your aunt and I will bring toys out to decorate your headstone soon.

Tired now

Tue, 06 Dec 2005 07:38:58 GMT

Studying most of the day. I've got two finals tomorrow, first one at 12 and second one at 4. And I've been looking over Winter Quarter's schedule of classes and I've got an unavoidable 8AM class, ><

Also, I have no idea what I'm going to take for my third class. Maybe I should just opt for 10 credits next quarter? Ah, study, study, study.

Bakuretsu Tenshi (Burst Angel)

Sun, 04 Dec 2005 10:04:30 GMT

Finished watching it earlier tonight(I was on an extended study break!) and it was good. Some things I might've wanted a little resolution on story-wise but the series overall was action-packed and exciting. I know I'm a hypocrite, but I would've liked to have seen a happier ending for this series. And though the series opens up with Kyohei, he's not really a main character at all. He's more of a plot-device than a character.

Fun, action-packed, good story-line, good character development. Fair ending that could've been better, some unresolved issues left open, some character mismanagement. I liked it all the way until the end.

Study time! Study time! (sung to the tune of "Smelly Cat")

Sun, 04 Dec 2005 03:55:40 GMT

So I'm trying to get as much crammation in as I can. It's going slower than I'd like, mostly due to Bakuretsu Tenshi being on my playlist. Hopefully I'm going to be ready for my Tuesday/Wednesday finals. Luckily, no 8AMs this quarter! Hooray!

"Do you even know who I think I am?"

Thanksgiving update!

Tue, 29 Nov 2005 06:31:44 GMT

First and most important, I'M ALIVE! It only started raining today! Lucky me! If it had started raining yesterday on my way back to SC, I would have been worried. But I was lucky! Yay!

Went home Wednesday night and did the whole Thanksgiving thing. It was the usual fare, but no homemade pies this year. Still, good food is good food and you know how much I love good food! Took my niece and nephew to see Harry Potter on Saturday. I liked it, much more actionful than the last one. My nephew of course babbled incessantly during the movie. He's talking a lot now. Maybe almot . . . too much. Nah.

Alas, this is the week before finals. Much studying to do, must pass all my classes!

Oh yeah, saw CJ's new address. ::snickergigglecough::

Song Lyrics: Audioslave - Be Yourself

Fri, 11 Nov 2005 11:16:23 GMT

Someone falls to pieces
Sleeping all alone, someone kills the pain
Spinning in the silence
She finally drifts away
Someone gets excited in a chapel yard
And catches a boquet
Another lays a dozen
White roses on a grave

Chorus
And to be yourself is all that you can do
To be yourself is all that you can do

Someone finds salvation in everyone
Another only pain
Someone tries to hide himself
Down inside himself he prays
Someone swears his true love until the end of time
Another runs away
Separate or united
Healthy or insane

Chorus
And to be yourself is all that you can do
To be yourself is all that you can do
To be yourself is all that you can do
To be yourself is all that you can do

Even when you’ve paid enough
Been put upon or been held up
With every single memory of
the good or bad, faces of luck
Don’t lose any sleep tonight
I’m sure everything will end up alright
You may win or lose

Chorus
But to be yourself is all that you can do, eh
To be yourself is all that you can do
To be yourself is all that you can do, eh
To be yourself is all that you can do
And to be yourself is all that you can
To be yourself is all that you can
To be yourself is all that you can do

Again I forsake my studies

Mon, 07 Nov 2005 09:20:14 GMT

I watched all of Tenjou Tenge today. I just couldn't stop watching, I wanted to know what happened next. And after watching all of it, after spending a good 10+ hours of my day, which I should have spent reading for class, the show just pissed me off. After seeing the series in its entirety, it made me angry. I'm sleepy and can't really put emotions into words (or the reasons behind them) but I'm just seething right now.

Oh yeah, and the ancient Greeks heroes piss me off too. Yeah, lots of things pissing me off today.

When I should be reading the Illiad and Oedipus Rex

Fri, 04 Nov 2005 10:06:36 GMT

I just finished watching RahXephon. Whooo, talk about emotional joy ride. You can draw a lot of parallels between this and Evangelion. Just so many mind games, it's unnerving sometimes.

Saw Jennie on the shuttle this evening. Hey lady, =P. Hope you're doing well.

Have mid-terms for Classical Mythology again. Next Wednesday. One mid-term a week for four weeks straight. Yippee!

I'm so very tired.

Looking for that something. Feeling empty. I must be hungry again.