The Backwards World That I Live In

No, wait. Really?? Anywhere from 60 – 76% of Americans are Christian? Are you sure, Wikipedia? The vast majority of my friends are hardcore atheists or perhaps Buddhists.

I think I receive a bit of a shock whenever I have an excursion into my newly discovered world of Reddit.

I’m always pretty sad whenever I see something like this. Because for me, the captions “How I feel as a Christian on Reddit” and “How I feel as a Christian in real life…” are both the top picture.

Okay, besides Michelle, Chris, and Lucie, where are all the Christians!?

Not only that, but I’ve always respected people’s beliefs whether they’re Buddhist or atheist or Islamic, plus I can take the constant jabbing for being Christian from my atheist friends. But to be frank, once in awhile you guys take it too far and whenever that rare occasion happens, I take so much offense that I become speechless.

Christians have been punished throughout history. Take Japan for example. American and Dutch traders before Japanese isolation were required to tread on the cross before entering. An American sailor turned prisoner was physically punished when he asked his Japanese captors for a Bible. Japanese Christians were required to denounce Christianity or else die.

I don’t really know what you readers think, but sometimes it becomes really hard being a Christian when you are surrounded by atheist friends. Despite all of that, I’m actually really proud of myself for staying firm in my beliefs and also still somehow continue to love my friends.

…okay I want to be perfectly clear on this. If you currently picture me as a loud, die hard Christian who tells everyone at my first chance that they’re going to hell, you’ve got me WRONG.

I do believe in evolution. I don’t believe that the Earth or the universe for that matter is 5000ish years old. I have this belief (some might call me naive for this) that science and religion can coexist. Why not? Science makes perfect, logical sense and really can’t be disputed. I happen to take the Bible metaphorically.  The Big Bang. That’s Genesis. That’s Genesis chapter one verse one or two or three. Why can’t seven days represent billions of years?

…Checkmate atheists… sorta.

TL;DR this is how I feel whenever confronted by an atheist:

CHEERS

Filed under: General

Saturday the 14th, I can’t tell you how glad I am that you’re here.

Yesterday was hell for me in Taekwondo as I was injured in at least three places while sparring, one of which is a place where you should never, ever, EVER kick a guy.

I thought I was done talking about The Sapphire Princess, but then I found a friend I met on the ship on Facebook and he uploaded a shitload of photos.

Here is a picture of the outdoor pool of the ship. To the left you can spot Aloha Tower since we are docked in Honolulu when this was taken.

This is parts of the floors five, six, and seven. The crew (and the rest of the ship) knew it as the “Atrium.” I just called it the mall. This led to confusion whenever I started talking about a mall on the boat. Yeah, I made life pretty difficult for people on Sapphire Princess…

I would sit in one of these chairs late at night when nobody was around and just relax, pull out the PSP or a book, and just go at it. If it wasn’t too late, I would also have a huge plate of dessert that I had grabbed from the buffet earlier. My plates were huge, by the way. Joey Tribbiani would be proud. Once in awhile, I would catch a passing crew member quickly eye my plate of food while walking past. It amuses me to imagine what they were thinking. Insert fat American jokes here?

This area was a fun place. There were Bingo tournaments, Resistance tournaments, magic shows, karaoke…

On one of the final days of the cruise, there was an early show in the Princess Theater. Turns out our head chef was having a culinary show. His food was pretty amazing. My parents begged to differ unfortunately. Their “Asian-ness” knew no bounds as my mother declared on the third day of the cruise that she missed rice. After fourteen days, I didn’t long for a single bite of Vietnamese food…

 

 

Filed under: General

My Love Hate Relationship with the Sapphire Princess

As I experience the initial shock of going from zero quarter units during the holiday break to nineteen units for the winter quarter, I’m finding it hard to find the time to blog and I apologize. This, along with my cousin siccing reddit onto me, is having adverse effects on my blogging frequency.

Edit: Oh shit oh shit oh shit! I was glancing at my blog statistics and I remembered in my last post that I would be on again in two to three days, and found that two or three days after that blog was published I had a small spike in the hits this blog received. I don’t know if this is coincidence or not, but I’m very very very very RREALLY SORRY!

Okay it’s not really lack of time that’s the issue, but really just how tired I am at the end of a long day of business law, accounting, good guy Gregs, and philosoraptors.

The first time I laid eyes upon The Sapphire Princess, she was moored next to Carnival. It definitely wasn’t love at first sight. Her hallways are fucking narrow. Her rooms are freaking small, about the size of my bedroom, but for four people. I wish I had pictures, but I was so demoralized and letdown that I didn’t bother. Compound this with the fact that her 4-ton propellers were going to take me away from free wi-fi, a holiday with friends, etc. meant that I left the Los Angeles harbor in a surly mood. A police boat escorted our ship out, ready to arrest any 21 year old who decided to jump overboard and swim back to the car to drive home. (Fine, but that’s what it felt like).

The Sapphire Princess had a unique design. Parts of the… bridge?… cockpit?… would stick out over the edge of the ship. Like this:

I made a several acquaintances with members of the crew. One of them told me that the reason they did this was so they could basically parallel park the ship better. The floor could become transparent if the crew so chose. That’s pretty fucking awesome if you ask me. This picture, by the way, was taken off the coast of Kawaii, Hawaii. The captain wasn’t allowed to berth due to excessive wind, so that day was basically cancelled and we were confined to the ship as it sailed around the island. Our consolation prize was the scenic route, although I laughed to myself since I sort of saw it as a statement basically saying Yeah, see what you’re missing out on? No? It’s okay; we’ll show you!

What impressed me the most were the lifeboats. For some reason or another, I imagined large, wooden rowboats that the Titanic used. Nope.

At Maui, the ship didn’t berth. Instead, lifeboats were used to ferry passengers to and from the ship. Each lifeboat has two propellers. They look like amphibious assault vehicles. Not only that, the woman in uniform in the picture told me that each lifeboat can hold about 150 people. That’s pretty crazy. For Maui, about three or four of the lifeboats were used to ferry us. I’m pretty sure we had maybe ten. Ships don’t even get holes anymore when they hit stuff. Another crew member told me in a very conversational tone, “Yeahh if I don’t do my job right, the ship can get a pretty bad dent…”

She said dent. Well, she says a lot of things. She told me once about the time she hit a whale, but that’s a story for another day. She talks in a magnificent British accent I should add. A lot of the crew who work on the bridge are European. I forget but I’m positive they have British people and Croatian people.

What our ship lacked in space she made up to us with… space.

The atrium in the middle of the Sapphire Princess is pretty much a three story mall. She has like ten bars, three restaurants, two buffets, three swimming pools, three clubs, a theater, casino, and a fucking basketball court. She has a library also but it’s very small. You can spend two weeks on her and feel comfortable enough to wander around and yet still get lost if you’re not careful.

Cheers!

Filed under: General

Hello World!

Ah, the title brings me back to my very first post, a post that I didn’t even make but was, instead, a generic post from wordpress that introduced my blog to the world. It told me to edit that post to make it however I wanted, but it just felt right to leave it be. Anyways, after perhaps a month of neglect, it felt that my interest for this blog was slowly starting to fade away. So let’s reboot the system shall we? And that’s my main reason for titling this post the way I did. (Hey, doesn’t titling look like tit-ling? I can’t be the only one who sees this…)

In my defense, it really wasn’t a plan for me to take a break from blogging. Actually, the majority of my break was spent in a cramped location where I was deprived of any wifi hotspots or 3G networks. I was on a cruise. This long break from blogging plus wordpress’s new interface that I’ve yet to get used to factored into my lack of enthusiasm for this blog and might also explain why you see a boat on my blog but no explanation. Oops…

Borrowing from one of my Facebook status messages: As much as I hate to admit it, I miss being on that damn boat. Even though I missed two weeks worth of hang outs with my friends back at home, I was, in the end, forced to meet tons of new people and was swept away on an adventure with several ups and tons of downs, but the quality of the ups made it worthwhile. I’m pretty sure I’m going to blog about that in future posts. Sorry I didn’t tell you guys that what I was up to, but I’ve heard stories of people putting on Facebook or their blogs that they were going on vacation only to come back and find their homes robbed. But don’t worry, I totally trust all of you guys, especially you, reader… from… South Africa or reader from Seoul.

Ah yes, this post won’t be completed without a nod towards the advent of 2012. January 1st is actually this blog’s birthday, but it feels weird to wish a blog happy birthday to a blog so I just won’t say anything. New Years resolutions? Well, I’ve been doing a good job of keeping up with them in the past, so I’ve decided to make things harder. 

For one, in a valiant attempt to become a lean, mean fighting machine, I’ve joined Fitocracy! It’s pretty awesome because you turn fitness and exercise into an RPG. The more you work out, the faster you level up. I would really like some friends on there, so if you’re interested let me know! I don’t have much of a head start; I’m only level 3.

In two or three days I’ll ease into blogging on a regular basis again, posts chalk full of new resolutions and stories about the 50th state.

Cheers! Oh and happy 2012. 

Filed under: General

Sapphire Princess

Filed under: General

Finals are over, bags are packed (sorta)

Yes, yes, I know. I don’t need to be reminded that I have a personal obligation to update this blog weekly. I know I haven’t been true to that promise lately. So in order to remedy this, I’m going to be taking a two week break! 

I hope you guys enjoy the winter holidays at least as much as me… I’m cautiously optimistic about mine. I’ll try to update as often as I can still, but it won’t be my fault if I can’t.

I’ll see you next year! I wouldn’t miss this blog’s birthday if I couldn’t help it!

Cheers! And happy holidays in advance.

…there’s something childish about typing this out while having a P90 airsoft gun with its sling wrapped around my neck.But you never know when the zombies will pop out. I mean, their flesh will be so decayed that a well placed BB shot can penetrate the skull RIGHT? 

Filed under: General

Why I have everything under control

Four theatre essays due tomorrow: check.

Will be halfway through required reading for International Relations. Finals on Tuesday. Satisfactory…

Statistics final – Wednesday. Accounting final – Wednesday.

To do: gather extra credit slips for accounting. Have twenty page report ready for tomorrow – almost check.

Tuesday – IR final. Prep for stats and accounting on Wed. Find 30 minutes to do fencing written final.

Wednesday – Stats, acct, and fencing final. To do: Prep for theatre final.

All manageable hopefully.

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Nothing much going on

Fall quarter is slowly winding down as slowly as the trees lose their orange leaves. The holiday break is approaching as fast a locomotive… with finals week as its cowcatcher. And as certain as the seasons, I will be making my usual crash landing in a spectacular fireball as my wrecked, mangled body bounces ungracefully past the finish line.

Yes, this is how I end most of my quarters. I lose motivation and grow lazy. My grades want to drop lower and lower and damn do they try. And I almost let them. Then it comes down to the wire where the final will make the difference between an A and a B. So, do I make a miraculous, epic landing and catch the third wire, or do I slam into the deck, collapsing the undercarriage, and end up falling into the ocean?

I’m actually playing catch up at quite a leisurely pace. I’ve had two weeks to complete three papers. With one week remaining, I have two papers left to finish. But as leisurely as the pace I’m setting, I still took a brief intermission to visit Melanie. It’s striking how every time I see her I end up seeing how depressed I really am. Friends are precious, aren’t they? And yet, somehow, I feel like they’re all slipping away one way or another.

I loathe myself and wish I could return to the way I was before; self-sufficient, not having any close relationships with anybody, and being happy with it. But I now know what I’ve been missing out on. It’s painful to lose friends. It sucks placing a holiday wreath or a bouquet (I picked the wreath because of the holiday season and also it’s a little nod to the Harry Potter series that I knew she loved). What I don’t understand is that I expect something to happen after I stand up and leave. Maybe if I turned around, I can catch her waving and laughing. I’m not trying to sound poetic or cheesy if that’s what you’re thinking, but that’s just how I feel.

Dammit Bao, the Christmas cheer is on its way. Lighten up!

Sure… but crash landing for finals takes priority. Time to try and study haha.

Filed under: General

Being Alive

I wanted to share this with you guys: a song that touched me so so deep. I had to watch a play called Company directed by Doyle. The finale was so touching that I teared up watching it. It probably won’t be as meaningful to you guys since you haven’t seen it, but I’m pretty sure you guys will understand what it’s about anyways.

The main character, Bobby, edges away from marriage, frightened as his friends push him on, hoping he hits that realization of why he really wants to be married.

This song makes me think of Melanie. I think I’ll go visit her next week.

Filed under: General