so, as i've said i'm learning PuTongHua! (mandarin chinese).
Wow, this is a lot more difficult than i thought it was going to be. I thought it was going to be tough, and at times frustrating. But, even after a nice chinese lady told me 'it's a hard language.. don't feel bad if you can't.' i just decided to try harder.
But wow, sometimes i feel like i'm spinning my tires and not going anywhere. O_o. Today I ate some delicious Chow Mein at a local imbiss/food shack place. There actually were chinese customers, which is rare. normally it's just americans, from my experience. Anyhow, they were speaking so fucking fast it was incredible. I thought i was going to be sick. I could pick up a few words and phrases, which i guess I shoul dbe proud of. But they were really cruising along. Yeah, it's not good to listen to other peoples conversations. but I can't understand most of what they're saying, it was loud and in public. So, just because it's in a language most people don't understand doesn't mean you should talk about personal things in public. So ididn't feel horribly bad about listening.
Also, There's a 1LT in my unit who is also learning chinese. She already speaks fluent french, is married to some french doctor or whatever, and is getting out of the military. She's currently the Commanders secretary(they say 'executive officer'... but that means secretary that has other secretaries. :D ) she's really nice, a health fanatic and very intelligent. So we're going to pool our resources when learning chinese for the next few months. She's getting out of the military and will be spending the summer teaching Chinese children English over in china. I'm so jealous. I don't think I can pursue this route because I don't have a degree. by the time i get a degree and get out of the military (6 years from now probably), i'll probably be too old to get a good job in that field. It seems like so many people are heading out into that career path, i hope it's not overfilled by the time I can actually enter it as well. I don't want to get rich or make a ton of money doing it. I make 'ok' money now, and I pretty much hate my life. money is not the source of happiness. Doing something worthwhile with my life would probably make me feel better.
I just ordered Integrated Chinese 1 and it's work book, as well as 'reading and writing chinese; simplified' from amazon. It should be here withina week or 2. I'm excited! :)
Also.. chinesepod.com had an awesome show this Saturday. They had a special guest who was this little british kid that is learning chinese. he made up a 'the sunday show' to copy chinesepod.coms 'the saturday show'. it was brilliant. i wish i had learned chinese when i was a youngster. Hell I wish i learned ANY foriegn language.
till next time ,
Zai Jian
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
Saturday, January 13, 2007
It's been a while!
Hmm, since last posting, i have done a bit more. but nothing mind blowing or so awesome that I had to write about it.
Lets see, I finally got a chance to talk to my grandfather on the telephone. He was recently diagnosed with cancer. He has it in 2 spots. one in his lungs and one on his back. They are not sure if it is the same cancer or different. If it is the same cancer, it has spread too far and they can only hope for the best. But if it is 2 seperate types of cancer, there is a chance they can treat him. Wednesday they did a biopsy to get samples to test.
Work sucked this week, as usual.
I was going to go on a trip today to Cologne. But, i didn't. :( I always get myself so worked up to do things, and then just let it drift away. I spent the day studying chinese, reading blogs, researching a new digital camera, playing nintendo DS and shopping.
I bought two 20 lbs dumbells to work out at home, and a Racquettball racquett. I love playing that game. I actually stay in my physical training gear LONGER to hang out in the gym and play after i'm done running or doing whatever stupid organized PT the military makes me do. The gym has horrible quality sporting goods and in the short time it takes to check a raqeut out, all the courts could be filled up.
I watched a couple movies this week.
Little miss sunshine : this movie was outstanding. Very dark comedy, some of it being subtle and kind of in the background. But it was more than a comedy. I think the interaction between the characters was much more important. a lot of people I know slagged this movie. I don't think they picked up on a lot of the movie. hmm, oh well.
The Illusionist : long winded, but if you made it through, it was enjoyable. nothing breathtaking. Ed Norton is a fine actor. :)
Children of Men : I was bored friday night, So I checked the movie listings for the german theater and this was playing as the late showing. Man, I'm going to have to see this again. It's a very grim movie set in the future. I enjoyed how the movie portrayed hope and how bleak the world can be. some of it might be too obvious, i don't know. I thought it was a fresh science fiction movie. a genre that needed a good movie recently. :)
hmm.. oh yeah..and i finally saw the 'dick in the box' video from saturday night live. Andy Samburg is a genius. :D. 'mad props' to justin timberlake for singing that crazy song. haha.
for those who haven't seen it.
Lets see, I finally got a chance to talk to my grandfather on the telephone. He was recently diagnosed with cancer. He has it in 2 spots. one in his lungs and one on his back. They are not sure if it is the same cancer or different. If it is the same cancer, it has spread too far and they can only hope for the best. But if it is 2 seperate types of cancer, there is a chance they can treat him. Wednesday they did a biopsy to get samples to test.
Work sucked this week, as usual.
I was going to go on a trip today to Cologne. But, i didn't. :( I always get myself so worked up to do things, and then just let it drift away. I spent the day studying chinese, reading blogs, researching a new digital camera, playing nintendo DS and shopping.
I bought two 20 lbs dumbells to work out at home, and a Racquettball racquett. I love playing that game. I actually stay in my physical training gear LONGER to hang out in the gym and play after i'm done running or doing whatever stupid organized PT the military makes me do. The gym has horrible quality sporting goods and in the short time it takes to check a raqeut out, all the courts could be filled up.
I watched a couple movies this week.
Little miss sunshine : this movie was outstanding. Very dark comedy, some of it being subtle and kind of in the background. But it was more than a comedy. I think the interaction between the characters was much more important. a lot of people I know slagged this movie. I don't think they picked up on a lot of the movie. hmm, oh well.
The Illusionist : long winded, but if you made it through, it was enjoyable. nothing breathtaking. Ed Norton is a fine actor. :)
Children of Men : I was bored friday night, So I checked the movie listings for the german theater and this was playing as the late showing. Man, I'm going to have to see this again. It's a very grim movie set in the future. I enjoyed how the movie portrayed hope and how bleak the world can be. some of it might be too obvious, i don't know. I thought it was a fresh science fiction movie. a genre that needed a good movie recently. :)
hmm.. oh yeah..and i finally saw the 'dick in the box' video from saturday night live. Andy Samburg is a genius. :D. 'mad props' to justin timberlake for singing that crazy song. haha.
for those who haven't seen it.
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
German beer is the shizzle!
Ok, So Monday i went on a trip, it also turned out to be my land ladys birthday! :)
My landlady turned 71. she is the nicest german lady i've ever met. She is so kind to me. She left some cake outside of my door (i live in the apartment above her.) and i brought it in, but it was late so i didn't get to talk to her about it. Tonight she noticed my light on, and she came up and brought me two nice german beers leftover from her party!
I am trying to not drink as much. I used to spend 100 euro every friday and 100 euro every saturday. :( I was binge drinking, consorting with the wrong people and doing bad things. This started when i first moved to Germany. :/. but Luckily the last few months i've been pretty clean about drinking. But when i have let myself 'hang loose', i went back to my old ways. on new years eve I drank a half a liter of vodka by myself. O_o. but this is only 2 beers, i'll be fine. :)
German beer is quite a bit stronger than American beer. especially if you're not used to drinking it. I'm not even done with 1 and I am feeling a buzz.
the Strongest beer i've ever had was beer from Belgium. It was one of those beers that the Monks make. My supervisors wife works up in belgium, so he visits almost every other weekend. (it's a 3 hour drive or so from where we live in germany.) It was delicious.. I only had one glass (german style .5 liter beer glass.) and i was buzzing.
I suggest it. :)
And if you're ever out in Germany and not a psycho killer... we should get together for some Schnitzel and Beers. :)
This saturday there is a train to Koln (cologne, we english speakers call it). it's only 12 euro, and it will give me a lot more pictures to share with my new found Chinese language exchange friends.
I sent out a ton of messages on this polyglot language exchange place. in the course of a day 4 seperate people replied back! and they all have wonderful personalities and really want to learn english and help me with chinese. I think this is a great opportunity to help people and learn a lot about their culture.
One of the people is a self described 'poor' person and says there's no time for fun in her town. But she likes japanese Anime. She was really amazed to find out that I also like Anime! I think sometimes people get so hung up on 'american' 'chinese' 'iraqi' 'french' they forget.. we're all humans and a lot of us enjoy the same things! even if not everyone loves anime.. i'm sure everyone at one point or another in their lives like cartoons.
ok.. till next time!
I really hope somebody reads these someday.. i feel weird writing about things that noone is going to care about. but oh well. maybe someone somewhere will enjoy a little bit of my life. :)
My landlady turned 71. she is the nicest german lady i've ever met. She is so kind to me. She left some cake outside of my door (i live in the apartment above her.) and i brought it in, but it was late so i didn't get to talk to her about it. Tonight she noticed my light on, and she came up and brought me two nice german beers leftover from her party!
I am trying to not drink as much. I used to spend 100 euro every friday and 100 euro every saturday. :( I was binge drinking, consorting with the wrong people and doing bad things. This started when i first moved to Germany. :/. but Luckily the last few months i've been pretty clean about drinking. But when i have let myself 'hang loose', i went back to my old ways. on new years eve I drank a half a liter of vodka by myself. O_o. but this is only 2 beers, i'll be fine. :)
German beer is quite a bit stronger than American beer. especially if you're not used to drinking it. I'm not even done with 1 and I am feeling a buzz.
the Strongest beer i've ever had was beer from Belgium. It was one of those beers that the Monks make. My supervisors wife works up in belgium, so he visits almost every other weekend. (it's a 3 hour drive or so from where we live in germany.) It was delicious.. I only had one glass (german style .5 liter beer glass.) and i was buzzing.
I suggest it. :)
And if you're ever out in Germany and not a psycho killer... we should get together for some Schnitzel and Beers. :)
This saturday there is a train to Koln (cologne, we english speakers call it). it's only 12 euro, and it will give me a lot more pictures to share with my new found Chinese language exchange friends.
I sent out a ton of messages on this polyglot language exchange place. in the course of a day 4 seperate people replied back! and they all have wonderful personalities and really want to learn english and help me with chinese. I think this is a great opportunity to help people and learn a lot about their culture.
One of the people is a self described 'poor' person and says there's no time for fun in her town. But she likes japanese Anime. She was really amazed to find out that I also like Anime! I think sometimes people get so hung up on 'american' 'chinese' 'iraqi' 'french' they forget.. we're all humans and a lot of us enjoy the same things! even if not everyone loves anime.. i'm sure everyone at one point or another in their lives like cartoons.
ok.. till next time!
I really hope somebody reads these someday.. i feel weird writing about things that noone is going to care about. but oh well. maybe someone somewhere will enjoy a little bit of my life. :)
Monday, January 8, 2007
I was a tourist today!
Well, today I had off for working this weekend (see my previous post about that one. )
My friend had his mothers in laws from Oregon visiting and his wife had to work. So to break up the monotony and add some flavor, he invited me to tag along on one of their trips! :)
We went to Rothenburg Ob Der Tauber, which is about 2.5 hours from where I live in Germany.
Unfortunately, the batteries I thought were good.. were not. Though I did manage to buy replacement batteries, for 10 euro... O_o... it turned out that they were Rechargable and didn't come with charge already. My friends mother in law and sister had way nicer cameras than I did and they took a lot. They even took some with me in there! I'm debating on whether to include the ones with me on the images i'll post when they send me a CD with all of the pictures. :)
I got a brouchure from the place, 1 in english and 2 in japanese. One of my Taiwanese online friends said she likes japanese things.. so maybe i'll mail her one.
Hm..so.. the things I saw. It was mainly a really old walled in town, with lots of Towers and churches inside of it. a LOT of cobble stone roads. hmm, very tourist. Actually I was amazed at how much it catered to japanese tourists there. Which there was a huge bus load, so they were all over the place. Almost every sign was in German, english, spanish and japanese.
I think the 'big thing' for most people there is the Torture Museum, which shows how they used to torture people in the middle ages or whatever. I didn't find that too cool though. It was really gruesome. so, I tried to make light of all of the torture devices... but, not matter how many jokes you make about something.. it still was designed to cause pain..and that's not cool.
lets see if i can post some pictures!!!! i'll post more when I get them (hopefully tomorrow)!.
for some reason photobucket kinda 'clips' the picture off about 3/5ths through(you like that fraction? heck yes! ) . So Click on the pictures to view the full thing!
On the way there, I saw a bunch of air planes.. including the Concorde..which is an awesome plane.. so i took a practice picture out the car window. (i was navigator for the trip..but it was simple, because it was just 2 major autobahn roads. )
]
We're HERE!!!!
that's the perimeter wall. i guess you can walk up there, but we were with old people too so we couldn't go up too many stairs. The Torture Museum was torture enough for their old american legs. :D
first building we saw.
There's a random face watching the corner. kinda creepy if you ask me. creepy fits the theme of this town. I kept expecting to be escorted to the 'Art Show'.. like in the crappy movie Hostel.
This is cool, it's a clock tower that's built into the wall. why is it cool? IT JUST IS!!!
Germans love their Sausages!!!
check out this bad ass cobblestone street. It's even more narrow then typical german roads! O_O. if that's possible. They still hang signs like that in villages in germany as well, it's not just for this 'antique' like place. neat huh?
What guy doesn't like Knights and Samurai? I couldn't get a good angle on any of the swords. but here's a shield and some figurines from one of the collectible shops. I guess this walled in village had some problems with Samurai in the midevial times. haha. i kid i kid.
I hope you enjoy my pictures. I know my camera isn't that great. The ladies pictures will be much better. But These are still pretty bad ass. I've been in germany almost 2 years and I haven't really gone anywhere because i'm terrified to be too far from base. :( I got in a very very bad car accident in Luxembourg (the country to the north, it's really tiny. but very nice.) I came out unscratched, but i have a fear of driving over 60mph(i tend to drive 40-50mph..and get made fun of all the time for it...) and I don't driving anymore.
My friend had his mothers in laws from Oregon visiting and his wife had to work. So to break up the monotony and add some flavor, he invited me to tag along on one of their trips! :)
We went to Rothenburg Ob Der Tauber, which is about 2.5 hours from where I live in Germany.
Unfortunately, the batteries I thought were good.. were not. Though I did manage to buy replacement batteries, for 10 euro... O_o... it turned out that they were Rechargable and didn't come with charge already. My friends mother in law and sister had way nicer cameras than I did and they took a lot. They even took some with me in there! I'm debating on whether to include the ones with me on the images i'll post when they send me a CD with all of the pictures. :)
I got a brouchure from the place, 1 in english and 2 in japanese. One of my Taiwanese online friends said she likes japanese things.. so maybe i'll mail her one.
Hm..so.. the things I saw. It was mainly a really old walled in town, with lots of Towers and churches inside of it. a LOT of cobble stone roads. hmm, very tourist. Actually I was amazed at how much it catered to japanese tourists there. Which there was a huge bus load, so they were all over the place. Almost every sign was in German, english, spanish and japanese.
I think the 'big thing' for most people there is the Torture Museum, which shows how they used to torture people in the middle ages or whatever. I didn't find that too cool though. It was really gruesome. so, I tried to make light of all of the torture devices... but, not matter how many jokes you make about something.. it still was designed to cause pain..and that's not cool.
lets see if i can post some pictures!!!! i'll post more when I get them (hopefully tomorrow)!.
for some reason photobucket kinda 'clips' the picture off about 3/5ths through(you like that fraction? heck yes! ) . So Click on the pictures to view the full thing!
On the way there, I saw a bunch of air planes.. including the Concorde..which is an awesome plane.. so i took a practice picture out the car window. (i was navigator for the trip..but it was simple, because it was just 2 major autobahn roads. )
]We're HERE!!!!
that's the perimeter wall. i guess you can walk up there, but we were with old people too so we couldn't go up too many stairs. The Torture Museum was torture enough for their old american legs. :D
first building we saw.
There's a random face watching the corner. kinda creepy if you ask me. creepy fits the theme of this town. I kept expecting to be escorted to the 'Art Show'.. like in the crappy movie Hostel.
This is cool, it's a clock tower that's built into the wall. why is it cool? IT JUST IS!!!
Germans love their Sausages!!!
check out this bad ass cobblestone street. It's even more narrow then typical german roads! O_O. if that's possible. They still hang signs like that in villages in germany as well, it's not just for this 'antique' like place. neat huh?
What guy doesn't like Knights and Samurai? I couldn't get a good angle on any of the swords. but here's a shield and some figurines from one of the collectible shops. I guess this walled in village had some problems with Samurai in the midevial times. haha. i kid i kid.
I hope you enjoy my pictures. I know my camera isn't that great. The ladies pictures will be much better. But These are still pretty bad ass. I've been in germany almost 2 years and I haven't really gone anywhere because i'm terrified to be too far from base. :( I got in a very very bad car accident in Luxembourg (the country to the north, it's really tiny. but very nice.) I came out unscratched, but i have a fear of driving over 60mph(i tend to drive 40-50mph..and get made fun of all the time for it...) and I don't driving anymore.
Sunday, January 7, 2007
I feel like i'm stuck in an episode of Lost!
Ok, I worked around the christmas holidays, and while most of my other military co-workers had off guess who was sitting at work?
Bingo!!
ME!
While I could puff out my chest and march about like a warrior, not caring that only I got shafted out of all of my co-workers.. why should I not get to take days off? So, my Boss gives me 'comp time' so I will feel special and just like everybody else.
However, Everytime I try to use this damn time, I have to work. This weekend for instance, I get a call at 9am, "hey man, where are you?".
Me: " Umm.. sleeping? Who are you and where are YOU?"
airman X: "hey, it's me. i'm covering for you... you're supposed to be at work."
This will be the 3rd weekend in a row that i've worked...when I know for damn sure that noone else has. Because i've been working them.
So I toss on my least wrinkled uniform, toss combat boots on and head to work. This was supposed to be my 'holiday break'. but no. I feel like Dante from clerks "i'm not even supposed to be here today!".
Ok.. whine fest over.
This job.. do you know what it entails?? Are you PREPARED for your mind to be boggled?! I don't think you are. i'll give you a few minutes, then you can read the next line. ok. go.
welcome back.
I sit here, at the watch desk over a weekend, and I watch a bunch of phones. Yup. Once an hour it rings. I pick up and say ... "Hello? ok. " and that's it. Yet if I don't do this, Aliens will destroy the planet and all manner of bad things happen. Just like onthe show Lost.
I am so proud to be serving my country... answering this phone.. writing in this blog.. I just can't put it into words. I know that all of my advanced technical training really paid off every time I pick up that phone.
It's not a hard job.. you just have to be near the phone. but i've done everything here.. read books, read blogs...start this blog, practiced guitar, done college homework, written songs, studied for my next promotion test ..and only one of those is anywhere close to what i'm trained to do.
at least i'm getting paid....
uh oh..phone is ringing... i better get it!
Bingo!!
ME!
While I could puff out my chest and march about like a warrior, not caring that only I got shafted out of all of my co-workers.. why should I not get to take days off? So, my Boss gives me 'comp time' so I will feel special and just like everybody else.
However, Everytime I try to use this damn time, I have to work. This weekend for instance, I get a call at 9am, "hey man, where are you?".
Me: " Umm.. sleeping? Who are you and where are YOU?"
airman X: "hey, it's me. i'm covering for you... you're supposed to be at work."
This will be the 3rd weekend in a row that i've worked...when I know for damn sure that noone else has. Because i've been working them.
So I toss on my least wrinkled uniform, toss combat boots on and head to work. This was supposed to be my 'holiday break'. but no. I feel like Dante from clerks "i'm not even supposed to be here today!".
Ok.. whine fest over.
This job.. do you know what it entails?? Are you PREPARED for your mind to be boggled?! I don't think you are. i'll give you a few minutes, then you can read the next line. ok. go.
welcome back.
I sit here, at the watch desk over a weekend, and I watch a bunch of phones. Yup. Once an hour it rings. I pick up and say ... "Hello? ok. " and that's it. Yet if I don't do this, Aliens will destroy the planet and all manner of bad things happen. Just like onthe show Lost.
I am so proud to be serving my country... answering this phone.. writing in this blog.. I just can't put it into words. I know that all of my advanced technical training really paid off every time I pick up that phone.
It's not a hard job.. you just have to be near the phone. but i've done everything here.. read books, read blogs...start this blog, practiced guitar, done college homework, written songs, studied for my next promotion test ..and only one of those is anywhere close to what i'm trained to do.
at least i'm getting paid....
uh oh..phone is ringing... i better get it!
Ni Hao! Hi! :)
Hey i hope everyone had a great holiday season and New Years.
This is my first 'Blog' and i'll try to keep it somewhat professional, where i'm not flat out bitching about things. I just thought it might be interesting to give people some insight into my life, as i'm finding out a LOT of fantastic things from reading other peoples blogs. This first blog will just be a quick summary of my life, i'll probably go into specific details in their own seperate entries.
I want to remain anonymous for security reasons.
I am 23 years old, i work for the united states Air Force and that's the primary reason I don't want to be known. But also because i don't want people i know in person to hear of my blog and 'get up in my grill' if i say something that might offend them.
I was born in 1983 to a Navy family in California. within a year we re-located to Conneticut. a few years later my Father got arrested for Rape of a minor. I still am not convinced he did it, however, that's for another post. Needless to say, life was hard from age 4 and on. My mother moved us back in with her parents in upstate New York where my grandfather had retired from being a police officer in Yonkers, NY. I was raised there by my grandparents and my aunt while my Mother decided she could make the most money as a Cross Country Truck Driver. (my mother is short and not 'heavy set'.. not at all what you'd think of what a Trucker should look like. haha. )
yeah, it sounds like i'm making this shit up, but i assure you this really is the truth.
My mother did that for a couple years until one year she dropped a giant pallet on her toe.. shattering it and putting her out of a job. Until she got one closer, parking milk tank trucks at the local Dairy Creamery. (which fortunately, is right next door to my grandparents house. )
So we finally moved into our own place. and to make the story short.. we have never stayed in one place for longer than 2 years. there's always been some sort of problems with the land lord or paying the bills. more often then not we end up moving back in with the grandparents.
Then one year, my 8th grade in school, my mother gets a good job driving milk tankers across new york state and we move up to the Capitol Region in New York. We live in a duplex and a special 'community' (more on these later). it's a huge upgrade from where i grew up, probably the first big 'shock' I got to the 'real' world. (though it's just a plastic 'real' suburban world.. more on THAT later. )
So we lived there for a year and a half.. a lot of crazy shit happened. I couldn't adjust and fit in with other kids. they just took 'stuff' way too seriously. I wanted to draw, play video games and act a fool with friends. While it seemed most of my 'peers' wanted things to show they were superiour to the rest of us. With myself being an outside, this led to me being a good 'scapegoat' for others to feel better about themselves. I'll talk more about this when i do a post on High school.
As soon as I started to fit in, my mother hurt her back. she herneated on disc and ruptured its neighboring one. This put her out of work, in bed and on some severe medication. She pretty much lost her ability to remember things and was very dependant on me. My sister never really helped much, she's always been the antagonist in the family. Whereas I sit in the background and watch what she does, so i know what NOT to do. unfortunate but true.
Guess where we moved to after my mother lost her job? you guessed it, a 6 month stint back at the grandparents home. Then my mother finally got a sweet deal from a prior boss and moved into a house he had. It flooded the day after we got allof our posessions into it. Back to grandmas house! Then we got a sweet deal out of one of my mothers boyfriends friends, we moved into a trailer near the towns popular bar. wonderful. this is where i spent the rest of highschool.
It was hard to adjust to a smaller rural highschool again. Even though i had grown up with most of these same people as children, I had changed, they had changed. I wasn't used to the same 'tribal' ways of a rural area, I was used to the suburban social scheme. So, once again, I was pretty much flying solo. The one friend i had as a child was still there and we got along. However, never having left, he never learned to fight for himself. Therefor he was always the target of jokes and highschool cruelty. Don't get me wrong, I was too. But I fought back and people were scared of what i'd do to them. I never would hurt any of them, but I would defend myself. I wouldn't go to the extent of 'columbine', the worse i've ever done is thrown a bully down a small flight of stairs and then kicked him a bit. But, he probably shouldn't have been using a slingshot to shoot pennies at me and my friend, should he? I don't like violence.
I'm a pretty big nerd. lets get that out of the way and in the open. I like computers, anime, video games, Fantasy books (well written ones anyhow...) and plenty of nerdy things. I've done martial arts on and off throughout my life, whenever we were in a location and had enough money that it was possible. It kept me busy, healthy, disciplined and well balanced. I love martial arts. i'll probably save that topic for another blog as well. I also taught myself to play guitar. maybe sometime i'll post some tracks i recorded.
After high school, what is expected of modern children in less than perfect monetary conditions? COLLEGE!!! Well, my sister is almost 2 years older than myself and she completely bombed out of college. She got alcohol poisoning and then missed too many critical classes or something. But to this day, the reason is 'well, i got sick.' hmm. I went to SUNY Oneonta, a state college in New York pretty close to my house. My family wanted and expected me to be the next Bill Gates. Especially with all the "Dot Com" buzz going on. My uncle went to college for computers and he was doing alright for himself, or so the story goes. I kind of rebelled and went for Music Industry/Production. because i actually ENJOY sitting in front of the computer and editting 4 minutes of music for hours on end until i get something that i like. (well i used to like it, when I had hours to spend doing that.) But College turned out to be one of the low points in my life. I felt alone and helpless. My classes all sucked, it didn't seem like i was doing ANYTHING that had to do with music. Except 'advanced jazz guitar' which.. i was in NO way supposed to be in, yet they wouldn't let me join the beginners class. how ridiculous.
Then September 11th 2001 happened and it completely changed my perspective. up until that point, i had always been thinking about how shitty my life was. how bad "I" had it. Well, when you see a lot of kids who are from the new york city area wandering around wondering if their parents are dead you tend to stop thinking about yourself and start sympathizing.
THEN i got to see a guy get hit by a bus. that certainly was a lesson in mortality and the first and 0nly time i've ever seen anyone die with my eyes in my life.
So, not even halfway through the first semester, i was going through so many changes inside it was really freaking me out. I was online constantly, reading about who attacked us and what we would do to them. I volunteered to get stuff to send down to ground zero. I remember staying up all night long making these little red white and blue ribbons to sell and then gave the money to the red cross. The next day i made it to inorganic chemisty and i fell asleep. which isnot a good idea when you're inthe front row.. i fell off my chair and onto the 'lecture floor'. boy..that was awkward. haha.
I talked to a few of my teachers and they really had nothing to say to me. One of my teachers, a history teacher, is actually from a town where i grew up from. He plays drums and is part of the volunteer fire department in my town. So he knows my family and has known me for a long time. He told me to just do what i needed to do. My mother kept trying to play the 'shame' game to keep me in college. So.. i just hung out, played guitar, helped people as much as i could and tried to observe everything. 2001 was a crazy year and showed a lot about humanity in my opinion. the good and the bad.
I decided i wanted to do something more meaningfull with my life. The world didn't need another Producer to pump out shitty pop tunes and help perpetuate that horrible plastic culture that america is filled with. I failed out of college (actually i passed history AND inorganic chemisty, but not on purpose.. i just happened to kick ass on the tests i DID show up for.. i guess it's the nerd in me.. and almost every night watching 'the history channel' ). I decided i wanted to join the military. for the next year i went to live with my father, who had been out of prison and remarried with 2 more children. (i really wasn't important to his life.. and he wasn't important to my life. i'll do another entry on him alone.) He promised me a job at the company he was the General Manager for. Yet when i showed up, oh look at that, no job open. So i took a job washing dishes at the resteraunt down the street and another job stocking shelves in a walmart like grocery store overnight. I really didn't do anything but work those days. I'd eat at the resteraunt in the afternoon, go home.. eat an egg sandwich and sleep until 8. wake and eat an egg sandwich. work from 10pm-7am. go home and start working again at 9am. it sucked. but i made a lot of money and paid off any loans i had. I met alot of people and got some more ideas about how things should be.
wow. this is getting to be pretty long. i hope it's interesting enough that someone gets through it!
I did this for almost a year before i decided I wanted to join the Air Force. I wanted to work with cutting edge materials, travel the world, do things that noone else could do and finally to get into a position where i could maybe do something worthwhile to help people. So, i went back to NY in 2002 and helped my mother around the house while i signed up for the military and went over all my options. I enlisted for 6 years and had to wait over 6 months for a spot to be available for my career field in the military. So, ididn't REALLY get to enlist untill march 3rd 2003.
since then i've been in the military and done lots of military stuff. i'll probably share some of those with you. but this post is getting way too long. Stay tuned! i've met some funny people since joining and experienced a lot. I've been stationed in Florida and am currently stationed in Germany.
But as I'm approaching my 4th year in the military and about to put on Staff Sergeant (e-5 in the air force) I am starting to feel wornout and that i'm not achieving a lot of the goals that i actually joined the military for.
For this reason i'm starting to take more advantage of the 'free' education. I am studying for CLEP tests and looking into what online colleges will offer the best courses for me. I am trying to decide if i am going to re-enlist in 2 years. The more i get 'screwed' by the military system the more I think about getting out and going to school fulltime. There's benefits both ways.
I am currently learning Mandarin Chinese as well. I just started. Thanks to the air force I have been able to get free access to the Rosetta stone language program and that has been AWESOME. i've also used Chinesepod.com (i'll probably link to them from here.. i really like their show). I want to get a degree in either International Relations with a concentration on East Asia or get an East Asian studies degree with a focus on Chinese. Either way, I want to get a job that will allow me to put myself in a position where i can help people get together. I think that Chinese is the fastest growing language and if nothing major happens will be a super power. it's only a matter of time before chinese people and americans see each other more often and have to deal with each other more. It's happening already. but not on 'the street' level as much.
I think going to China and teaching english is a good thing to do to help foriegn people learn a little about our culture and bring everyone together. In this 'global' age, it seems like the people who are missing out on Globalizations good points are the everyday people. The businesses are flourishing and governments are making money. The people should get more than McDonalds and Starbucks from the entire movement.
Wow, that was a lot and it was with leaving a lot of stuff out. I hope ididn't scare anyone away from my posts, i just wanted to give a point of reference as to where i'm coming from with my ideas. I'll make shorter posts next time, and even include some pictures.
thanks for reading!
Zai Jian! (good bye! )
This is my first 'Blog' and i'll try to keep it somewhat professional, where i'm not flat out bitching about things. I just thought it might be interesting to give people some insight into my life, as i'm finding out a LOT of fantastic things from reading other peoples blogs. This first blog will just be a quick summary of my life, i'll probably go into specific details in their own seperate entries.
I want to remain anonymous for security reasons.
I am 23 years old, i work for the united states Air Force and that's the primary reason I don't want to be known. But also because i don't want people i know in person to hear of my blog and 'get up in my grill' if i say something that might offend them.
I was born in 1983 to a Navy family in California. within a year we re-located to Conneticut. a few years later my Father got arrested for Rape of a minor. I still am not convinced he did it, however, that's for another post. Needless to say, life was hard from age 4 and on. My mother moved us back in with her parents in upstate New York where my grandfather had retired from being a police officer in Yonkers, NY. I was raised there by my grandparents and my aunt while my Mother decided she could make the most money as a Cross Country Truck Driver. (my mother is short and not 'heavy set'.. not at all what you'd think of what a Trucker should look like. haha. )
yeah, it sounds like i'm making this shit up, but i assure you this really is the truth.
My mother did that for a couple years until one year she dropped a giant pallet on her toe.. shattering it and putting her out of a job. Until she got one closer, parking milk tank trucks at the local Dairy Creamery. (which fortunately, is right next door to my grandparents house. )
So we finally moved into our own place. and to make the story short.. we have never stayed in one place for longer than 2 years. there's always been some sort of problems with the land lord or paying the bills. more often then not we end up moving back in with the grandparents.
Then one year, my 8th grade in school, my mother gets a good job driving milk tankers across new york state and we move up to the Capitol Region in New York. We live in a duplex and a special 'community' (more on these later). it's a huge upgrade from where i grew up, probably the first big 'shock' I got to the 'real' world. (though it's just a plastic 'real' suburban world.. more on THAT later. )
So we lived there for a year and a half.. a lot of crazy shit happened. I couldn't adjust and fit in with other kids. they just took 'stuff' way too seriously. I wanted to draw, play video games and act a fool with friends. While it seemed most of my 'peers' wanted things to show they were superiour to the rest of us. With myself being an outside, this led to me being a good 'scapegoat' for others to feel better about themselves. I'll talk more about this when i do a post on High school.
As soon as I started to fit in, my mother hurt her back. she herneated on disc and ruptured its neighboring one. This put her out of work, in bed and on some severe medication. She pretty much lost her ability to remember things and was very dependant on me. My sister never really helped much, she's always been the antagonist in the family. Whereas I sit in the background and watch what she does, so i know what NOT to do. unfortunate but true.
Guess where we moved to after my mother lost her job? you guessed it, a 6 month stint back at the grandparents home. Then my mother finally got a sweet deal from a prior boss and moved into a house he had. It flooded the day after we got allof our posessions into it. Back to grandmas house! Then we got a sweet deal out of one of my mothers boyfriends friends, we moved into a trailer near the towns popular bar. wonderful. this is where i spent the rest of highschool.
It was hard to adjust to a smaller rural highschool again. Even though i had grown up with most of these same people as children, I had changed, they had changed. I wasn't used to the same 'tribal' ways of a rural area, I was used to the suburban social scheme. So, once again, I was pretty much flying solo. The one friend i had as a child was still there and we got along. However, never having left, he never learned to fight for himself. Therefor he was always the target of jokes and highschool cruelty. Don't get me wrong, I was too. But I fought back and people were scared of what i'd do to them. I never would hurt any of them, but I would defend myself. I wouldn't go to the extent of 'columbine', the worse i've ever done is thrown a bully down a small flight of stairs and then kicked him a bit. But, he probably shouldn't have been using a slingshot to shoot pennies at me and my friend, should he? I don't like violence.
I'm a pretty big nerd. lets get that out of the way and in the open. I like computers, anime, video games, Fantasy books (well written ones anyhow...) and plenty of nerdy things. I've done martial arts on and off throughout my life, whenever we were in a location and had enough money that it was possible. It kept me busy, healthy, disciplined and well balanced. I love martial arts. i'll probably save that topic for another blog as well. I also taught myself to play guitar. maybe sometime i'll post some tracks i recorded.
After high school, what is expected of modern children in less than perfect monetary conditions? COLLEGE!!! Well, my sister is almost 2 years older than myself and she completely bombed out of college. She got alcohol poisoning and then missed too many critical classes or something. But to this day, the reason is 'well, i got sick.' hmm. I went to SUNY Oneonta, a state college in New York pretty close to my house. My family wanted and expected me to be the next Bill Gates. Especially with all the "Dot Com" buzz going on. My uncle went to college for computers and he was doing alright for himself, or so the story goes. I kind of rebelled and went for Music Industry/Production. because i actually ENJOY sitting in front of the computer and editting 4 minutes of music for hours on end until i get something that i like. (well i used to like it, when I had hours to spend doing that.) But College turned out to be one of the low points in my life. I felt alone and helpless. My classes all sucked, it didn't seem like i was doing ANYTHING that had to do with music. Except 'advanced jazz guitar' which.. i was in NO way supposed to be in, yet they wouldn't let me join the beginners class. how ridiculous.
Then September 11th 2001 happened and it completely changed my perspective. up until that point, i had always been thinking about how shitty my life was. how bad "I" had it. Well, when you see a lot of kids who are from the new york city area wandering around wondering if their parents are dead you tend to stop thinking about yourself and start sympathizing.
THEN i got to see a guy get hit by a bus. that certainly was a lesson in mortality and the first and 0nly time i've ever seen anyone die with my eyes in my life.
So, not even halfway through the first semester, i was going through so many changes inside it was really freaking me out. I was online constantly, reading about who attacked us and what we would do to them. I volunteered to get stuff to send down to ground zero. I remember staying up all night long making these little red white and blue ribbons to sell and then gave the money to the red cross. The next day i made it to inorganic chemisty and i fell asleep. which isnot a good idea when you're inthe front row.. i fell off my chair and onto the 'lecture floor'. boy..that was awkward. haha.
I talked to a few of my teachers and they really had nothing to say to me. One of my teachers, a history teacher, is actually from a town where i grew up from. He plays drums and is part of the volunteer fire department in my town. So he knows my family and has known me for a long time. He told me to just do what i needed to do. My mother kept trying to play the 'shame' game to keep me in college. So.. i just hung out, played guitar, helped people as much as i could and tried to observe everything. 2001 was a crazy year and showed a lot about humanity in my opinion. the good and the bad.
I decided i wanted to do something more meaningfull with my life. The world didn't need another Producer to pump out shitty pop tunes and help perpetuate that horrible plastic culture that america is filled with. I failed out of college (actually i passed history AND inorganic chemisty, but not on purpose.. i just happened to kick ass on the tests i DID show up for.. i guess it's the nerd in me.. and almost every night watching 'the history channel' ). I decided i wanted to join the military. for the next year i went to live with my father, who had been out of prison and remarried with 2 more children. (i really wasn't important to his life.. and he wasn't important to my life. i'll do another entry on him alone.) He promised me a job at the company he was the General Manager for. Yet when i showed up, oh look at that, no job open. So i took a job washing dishes at the resteraunt down the street and another job stocking shelves in a walmart like grocery store overnight. I really didn't do anything but work those days. I'd eat at the resteraunt in the afternoon, go home.. eat an egg sandwich and sleep until 8. wake and eat an egg sandwich. work from 10pm-7am. go home and start working again at 9am. it sucked. but i made a lot of money and paid off any loans i had. I met alot of people and got some more ideas about how things should be.
wow. this is getting to be pretty long. i hope it's interesting enough that someone gets through it!
I did this for almost a year before i decided I wanted to join the Air Force. I wanted to work with cutting edge materials, travel the world, do things that noone else could do and finally to get into a position where i could maybe do something worthwhile to help people. So, i went back to NY in 2002 and helped my mother around the house while i signed up for the military and went over all my options. I enlisted for 6 years and had to wait over 6 months for a spot to be available for my career field in the military. So, ididn't REALLY get to enlist untill march 3rd 2003.
since then i've been in the military and done lots of military stuff. i'll probably share some of those with you. but this post is getting way too long. Stay tuned! i've met some funny people since joining and experienced a lot. I've been stationed in Florida and am currently stationed in Germany.
But as I'm approaching my 4th year in the military and about to put on Staff Sergeant (e-5 in the air force) I am starting to feel wornout and that i'm not achieving a lot of the goals that i actually joined the military for.
For this reason i'm starting to take more advantage of the 'free' education. I am studying for CLEP tests and looking into what online colleges will offer the best courses for me. I am trying to decide if i am going to re-enlist in 2 years. The more i get 'screwed' by the military system the more I think about getting out and going to school fulltime. There's benefits both ways.
I am currently learning Mandarin Chinese as well. I just started. Thanks to the air force I have been able to get free access to the Rosetta stone language program and that has been AWESOME. i've also used Chinesepod.com (i'll probably link to them from here.. i really like their show). I want to get a degree in either International Relations with a concentration on East Asia or get an East Asian studies degree with a focus on Chinese. Either way, I want to get a job that will allow me to put myself in a position where i can help people get together. I think that Chinese is the fastest growing language and if nothing major happens will be a super power. it's only a matter of time before chinese people and americans see each other more often and have to deal with each other more. It's happening already. but not on 'the street' level as much.
I think going to China and teaching english is a good thing to do to help foriegn people learn a little about our culture and bring everyone together. In this 'global' age, it seems like the people who are missing out on Globalizations good points are the everyday people. The businesses are flourishing and governments are making money. The people should get more than McDonalds and Starbucks from the entire movement.
Wow, that was a lot and it was with leaving a lot of stuff out. I hope ididn't scare anyone away from my posts, i just wanted to give a point of reference as to where i'm coming from with my ideas. I'll make shorter posts next time, and even include some pictures.
thanks for reading!
Zai Jian! (good bye! )
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