In Reverie

Today was a gloomy day in Orange County. In the morning, I drove down and spent a quiet moment alone watching the ocean breathe waves as they crashed into the shore and collided with the sand of the beach. The Pacific is beautiful as she transforms from the darkest most unforgiving black to brilliant sapphire-and, without missing even a moment, creates a frothy white wash that gently rumbles and slowly dies out as it approaches the beach.

My parents, and older people in general, always told me that life seems to pass you by quicker than you could hope. I'd never really appreciated that advice until today. As I sat there, alone on the gloomy, windy beach, I realized that this was my last true summer, and that it was already ending moment after moment, quicker than I'd ever like, and yet so harmoniously that I couldn't help but wonder if there was maybe some master plan, some great gig in the sky.

Everyone deals with loss in their life, and everyone has some sort of struggle at some point or another. Everyone (I hope) also feels love in their life, and has great feelings of accomplishment. Maybe it's all for nothing. Maybe it's for everything, to the extent of which we can never truly comprehend. Either way, I'm doing my best to find the beauty in everything life has to offer, which is a hell of a lot in case you haven't noticed.

Sometimes I find the best thing for me to do is just sit back and watch the world as she revolves and rotates. She has been pretty fucked up lately, and it's all our fault and none hers. Radical terrorism is still a global threat. An enormous oil spill is poisoning much of the Gulf region in the states. People remain jobless and helpless to change this by themselves. The global food crisis endures. The European Union is on the verge of economic ruin, which will likely overlap into global economic instability. Today's university students are learning concepts and skill sets for jobs that don't even exist yet-but soon will.

I'm trying to make sense of this as best I can, if there is any sense to make of these vast complexities and problems. It's been exhausting, and I think that sometimes the only thing you can do is embrace the chaos. You'll never be the smartest, best looking, wealthiest, perfect being. You've got to let the veil of darkness engulf you, conquer it, and emerge victorious, in whatever small way you can. You'll find help along the way. There's magic everywhere if you only take the chance to find it.

Maybe I should take my own advice. I'm far from perfect, and I've been trying, and most of it has been me clumsily stumbling through motions as I make mistake after mistake. I also feel that I should confide the fact that this year I failed immensely. I had some of the best opportunities I've had to make that one beautiful girl I've been entranced by since my first year in college mine. I still remember the first time I noticed her on Stewie Beach my Freshmen year. She was beautiful then and I was too afraid to introduce myself, and she's beautiful now and I'm too afraid to put myself out there and let her know how I really feel. Chances are I'll get shot down anyway, but fuck I have to try someday, because otherwise I'll always wonder, and I can't live with that anymore. Three years has already been too long, and I don't think I can take it much longer... I've got one more year, which is a pitiful excuse, but maybe I'll man up between now and the end of it. Keep the music playing, girl, and this boy will stay even after you're gone...


Thanks to all my friends and my family. I love you all and you're what makes this blog worth writing and these thoughts worth sharing. You give me my motivation and my love for adventure, and without you my life would surely lose what little meaning it has.

Sic transit gloria mundi-so passes the glory of the world.

Western Winds blow the American Summer into Me

Well my Junior year at Oxy has come to an end, and it couldn't end any sooner. I've spent my last few days between friends' houses near school and Orange County, where I've almost finished moving into my room for the six weeks I'm here this summer. I've had a couple of good surf sessions, and I'm running on the beach to get back into the shape I expect myself to be in but I'd fallen out of because of finals and work and Europe and gurlz LOL.

I'm moving into a house next semester with Ian Powell and Jake Wright, and couldn't be more happy about it. Ian and I lived together my sophomore year and threw some great themed parties when we put our minds into initiative mode, and I can't wait to see how things play out. Jake Wright is the illest surfer kid from San Diego, so I doubt I'll have any problems getting along with him.

On the real, though, it is good to be done for the summer and I've been reflecting on my priorities and where I am in life currently. I'm proud to say that I could care less about having a beautiful barbie-doll type girlfriend and proving how cool I am to the world-which was kind of what I put my focus into this time last year and the year before. Instead, I'm living for myself, getting back into shape, visiting family and good friends, and getting ready for a summer that will likely be the best I've had yet, though last summer will be hard to beat as I spent half of it in Australia. My how time flies.

I've been hanging out with Phil a lot, living like a deliquent, and drinking a lot of beer and sangria and getting fat. It's a pretty good life, I must admit. Here is a picture of Phil in San Diego, perched up on a rock formation. He claims someday soon he will swim back to Taiwan. I guess we will just have to see. I've got a EUrail pass that is good for 15 days within the two months I'm in Europe, so things should get interesting as I now have a great deal of mobility available to me.





Plenty of surf in the next few weeks, and I'm happy to be back in the season. Hopefully I can put my mind body and soul at ease and prepare myself for Europe and all the glory two months there has to offer.

Denmark July 5-11

Hey Kids

So it looks like I'll be attending the Danish Atlantic Youth Seminar in Aalborg on an airport base in Denmark.


I'm really excited because this means that I get to talk about American National Security with other students. Here's an image from the website at : http://www.atlant.dk/days.html




Also one of the social events is skydiving, so I'm pretty stoked.


That's the only update I have so far.

European Travel Dates Summer 2010

Here are my tentative travel dates based on tickets, arranged meeting times, and modes of travel-planes, trains, buses, boats. Contact me if you will be in this same area at the same time as me and would like to meet up.

Depart: June 2nd, LAXm Los Angeles
Return: July 29th (tentatively), Heathrow, London

Sweden: June 3rd-12th
June 3rd:Arrive in Stockholm, meet Swedish friends from Melb
June 7-11th: Interview week in various Swedish cities-Stockholm, Goteborg, possibly Lund.
June 12th: Depart for Norway

Norway: June 12th-17th
June 12th: Arrive Oslo
June 14th-18th: Meetings in Oslo and Bergen. Meet with Mathias and Hege Lundgren
June 18th: Return to Stockholm

Sweden: June 18th-19th
June 19th: Depart for Helsinki

Finland: June 20th-26th
June 20th: Arrive Helsinki, meet with Finnish girls
June 21st-25th: Meetings in Helsinki
June 26th: Possibly Tallinn, Estonia
June 27th: Depart Helsinki/Tallinn
Denmark: June 29th-July 2nd

The Netherlands: July 2nd-5th
July 2nd-5th: Amsterdam, meet with Fleur and Dylan
July 5th: Depart Amsterdam for Pamplona, Spain

Espana: July 6th-20th
July 6th-14th: Encierro, Pamplona
July 14th-20th: Barcelona

Italy: July 21st-24th
July 21st, 24th: Rome and surrounding areas with Lorenzo, maybe meet Matteo.

United Kingdom: July 25th-29th, maybe longer
July 29th: Depart from Heathrow and return to Los Angeles

Transcendence

Does anybody even read this?


I've moved beyond my melancholy mood. I am still somewhere between here and there, and I go through the motions of the waking world, but I always remember there is something more, something beyond, some sort of etheral landscape of dreams that I am welcome to visit but can never stay at for long...

Tomorrow I will receive the funding for northern Europe. I've received significantly more than anticipated, so I will be spending half of my summer in Europe. Why the hell not, right?

Santa Barbara brought on a weekend of debauchery, new friends, new experiences, new women, and beautiful seaside adventures. Here is a picture of the mission, established as part of Spanish colonization in the early 1600s if I'm not mistaken.
My Tuesday class was canceled so I used it as an excuse to sneak away to Malibu and get some rock climbing in with Ben. The day was perfect, and we could climb rocks, swim in the ocean, and watch the attractive girls put a show on for us at the beach. I like to think they were dancing to put on a show for us, but maybe they just enjoy dancing anywhere anytime, which is also good.



Last night I went to the Getty for college night. I wound up going to UCLA afterwards with some new friends and had a charming and eventful night.

You're in my eyes, in my head, in my soul-I feel you there.

I LOVE STELLA ARTOIS

Time Flies By

When did the world start spinning so quickly? I feel like I've spent the past few months trying to figure out who I am and what I normally do with my life since I left California for Australia. Suddenly I awoke from what was a shadowy masquerade of me going through the motions of reality, watching the seasons change without exerting myself or making plans with the ones I used to think matter. I find myself reflecting back on foreign women that took my breath away, new friends and times so fucking golden that I can't help but question whether or not the best six months of my life have come to an end...

The experience itself, the people, and the way I've changed have permanently altered my view of Occidental and my life as an American Boy. My return on the whole has been disenchanting, and as I face life's ups and downs the highs are higher and the lows are lower. Turning 21 added some temporary spice, but I still feel some inexplicable void in my life right now. Yet I know that Australia would eventually lose its luster, especially with all my great friends from the program back in their home countries. I suppose sometimes there really is no safe exit.

This is what particularly troubles me, as I have a job, a car, a great group of friends, and plenty of toys and opportunities to distract myself when real life gets to be unbearable. Not to mention, I've enjoyed (and am thankful for) ample attention from girls since I've been back, though the ones I really want always seem either out of reach entirely or obligated to some other boy. Truth be told, given my colorful past with women, I don't really think that another girl is the answer right now, or maybe I just need to wait to meet that one beautiful and spectacular girl. Time is a double edged sword in that you know eventually things will come around, which is wonderful, but for the time being you have to slowly suffer through, bear it, and carry on, which is terrible. I suppose life is like that, though. If I had white horses and pretty women knocking at my door everyday I'd probably even tire of those before too long.

My summer travel plans have been confirmed and funded by the school and I will be visiting Norway, Sweden, Finland, and either Russia or Denmark. I'd love to visit Russia more than anything, but that is contingent on whether or not my friend can meet us there as we will inevitably need a Russian translator. After the trip is over, I will return to Los Angeles and conduct undergraduate research on the varying socialist systems, and contrast them with the American system, giving special regard to healthcare, and also focusing on population size, the country's GDP, and the long term goals of the varying countries in question.


Domestic travel plans have been placed on standstill status as I continue to take extra hours at the office to make money for my travels abroad. This will also pull me out of Hollywood and Pasadena bars and put me back at Oxy parties, drinking keg beer on the cheap and drinking with the same 200 kids who go out to Oxy house parties every weekend. Sooner or later I'm bound to find the fucking silver lining I'm looking for, so I'll continue to search and keep a smile on my face.