*Yawn*

I didn’t get good sleep at all these past couple of days.  You may have wondered why a lot of my recent comments on your posts have occured after 3am.

Thursday night/Friday morning I ended up going Black Friday shopping from 12am-4:30am with some friends over at Arundel Mills.  It was so odd seeing the mall crowded like a typical Friday evening.  It seemed like all my UMBC friends were there as well, as I keep bumping into random friends.  I didn’t buy too much; just a button down from Esprit and a long sleeve thermal from AE.  Did anyone else go Black Friday shopping, or did you guys stay in (like I was planning on doing before my friends kidnapped me )?

Last night, I stayed out until around 3am to hang out with some old friends I haven’t seen since last winter break.  After dinner and some drinking, we ended up catching the 1am showing of Transformer Transporter 3 (I keep saying the wrong name!).  I’ll have a small review at the end of this post if you want to know how I felt about it.

I’m definitely planning on heading to bed early tonight.  I need to get some sleep since I have my first day of training tomorrow, starting at 8am, over at my new part time job at a tennis & fitness facility.  I really hope I like it!  I can’t wait until I start making money again. 

Transporter 3 Review

*Note:  I was rather tired while watching this, so that might have played a factor on my experience with this movie.*

I read some good things about this movie heading in.  I’ve seen both previous Transporter movies, so I already know how ridiculous the series is.  All I expected from this was a high impact popcorn flick.

To be honest, I really didn’t feel that satisfied with this third movie.  It started out kinda slow and there were a lot of scenes that I felt myself getting bored at (again, may have been due to how tired I was). While I didn’t expect much of a plot, the plot they did have didn’t really excite me and I thought they could have really done better.

Another thing that annoyed me throughout the movie was that chick in the movie (Natalya Rudakova) that is stuck in the car with Jason Statham‘s character.  The entire time I couldn’t help but think of her as a female version of Borat that talks way too much about food and “sexy time”.  Seriously, all her dialogue was so stupid.  Not only was she an awful actress, she also wasn’t really that pretty (see picture below). 

 

Jason Statham was really good and probably the best thing in this movie.  He just kicks so much ass (literally) and got such a badass vibe in general.  The action scenes were indeed as ridiculous and crazy as those in the previous movies.  For example, at one point Jason Statham‘s character somehow got his car onto two wheels to drive in between two huge trucks (see picture below).  Too bad all the crazy action scenes only make up about 10 minutes of the movie. 

Apparently if you wiggle your wheel frantically, you too can get your car to drive like this

Overall, I have to give Transporter 3 a 2 out of 5.  It get’s one point for Jason Statham and one point for the few action scenes it had, but besides that it was pretty tough to watch even though I kinda enjoyed the other two movies.  If you saw this movie, did you think it was any good, or if it was on par with the previous movies?  I’m really not sure how much of my tiredness affected my view of the movie, so I’m curious on how others felt about it.

P.S.  My relationship entry that I posted a few days ago is now being featured at Datingish!  Go check it out here.

Yay

Why me?

Before I explain my post’s title, let me first wish you all a Happy Thanksgiving!  Hope you all ate well and had a good time today!  I sure did.  Well, minus one big detail . 

Today, my back right tire exploded on me as I drove my brother and I to a friend’s house for Thanksgiving celebrations.  This is the second time in the past year where my tire owned me.  The first time my tire went haywire was about a year ago, when I was driving down to North Carolina for a tennis tournament.  It was about a 6-7 hours drive from Maryland and my team decided to drive down at night so we didn’t have to pay for an extra night at the hotel (big mistake, as we later figured out).  We were about 3/4 the way there when my back left tire suddenly exploded while I was on the highway.  Luckily it was about 4am so there weren’t any cars around.  I was able to move to the side of the road without too much trouble.  Later on, my friends in the car told me I was strangely very calm during the whole incident.  I’m still unsure why I didn’t freak out, since it was pretty loud BANG and I never experienced this before.  Anyways, I’ve been consistently driving around 85 mph for a couple of hours, so it made sense that one of my tires would finally give way. 

I am pretty sure my dad is to blame for my tire messing me up this time around.  Yesterday, my dad had noticed one of my tires was under-inflated, so he took the liberty of filling it up for me.  However in doing so, he also accidentally drained out my car’s battery, so I had to buy a new battery yesterday.  I thought that would be my only car problem for the time being.  Well, I guess he decided to give me another lovely present by over-inflating my tire as well.  During the 20 minutes drive to my friend’s house, my car started to slowly but surely start shaking violently, as if my whole car was going to explode and burn my brother and I to a crisp at any second.  It was kinda scary because I was also on a crowded highway this time around, so  I was afraid I would hit other cars during the explosion aftermath.  I manage to get my car to the street of my friend’s house before I heard the all too familiar BANG sound from my back right tire. 

Unfortunately for me, since it’s Thanksgiving there is no places open where I can buy a new tire today.  I can’t just patch up the tire because there’s a huge gash, as if some gremlin had sliced it.  I already used my spare tire during the last incident (and lazy me forgot to get a new one), so now my car is disabled over at my friend’s house until tomorrow or Saturday.  Urgh. 

Oh well, good thing I don’t really need to use my car tomorrow or Saturday.  I’m also very thankful that my tire didn’t explode while I was on the crowded highway.  Now THAT could have made my situation today a lot more messier.  It’s funny how I tend to look at the bright side of things, even when bad things happen to me .

So yes, besides that hiccup I had a good time today.  Hope everyone else’s Thanksgiving Day went a lot smoother!

The other day, I met up with an ex who was not only my longest relationship but was also the only girl I’ve ever truly loved.  It took a while to get over her, but I eventually did.  When people give the cliche advice that time heals all wounds, they are absolutely right.  I never would have imagine just a year ago that I would eventually be so comfortable around her again.  I still massively care about her and hope only good things to come to her, but I no longer feel the same love feelings I used to have. 

So anyways we met up for dinner to catch up on some old times and we ended up talking for hours about what seems like everything.  Eventually it got to the topic of a failed romantic adventure I had (that some of you might know about).  After telling my ex about it, she kinda laughed and told me, “That’s such an Alex Chan thing to do.” 

For whatever reason, that made me think about my love life over the course of the past 4-5 years.  From the summer before senior year of high school to the summer before senior year of college I have pretty much been in three back to back long term relationships.  Since last summer, I’ve had a few “encounters” and dates, but nothing too serious or long lasting.  I started to think that I was just very lucky during these past 4-5 years of my life and rationalized that now all the good girls are either 1) taken or 2) too far away from me.

You would think that after being in relationships for so long I would relish being single, but that isn’t the case at all.  If you watch How I Met Your Mother, I’m more of a Marshall than a Barney.  “I’m good for couple, bad for single,” as Marshall once said.

I feel like I’ve matured and learned a lot of lessons during my time being single.  I’m staying patient for now, but I honestly can’t wait until I’m in another relationship so I can apply some of those things I’ve learn, as well as take in all the perks of being in a relationship.  What perks? 

Below are my Top 5 Things I Miss About Being in a Relationship:

5.  Having someone to go do things with all the time.  I didn’t realize how much I missed this aspect until it was gone.  It’s so great having someone you can always ask to go eat brunch, see a movie, watch a concert, see a show, or even just be lazy together.  I will never take that for granted ever again.

4.  Showing off my girl.  Not like treating her like an object of mine, but just being able to say to someone “Hey, see that gorgeous, intelligent, funny girl over there?  For whatever reason, she’s with a shmuck like me.”  It makes me feel like one of the luckiest guys in the world.

3.  Being able to act a fool with someone.  In other words, being allowed to expose myself in ways I wouldn’t around others.  Singing at the top of my lungs or being super cheesy with a girl, completely not caring how ridiculous we sound, is such a refreshing feeling.  If I ever mention in the future about things that I take great pleasure in that are the simpler things in life, mark this down as one of them.

2.  Having an excuse to be my hopeless romantic self.  I don’t care what people say about chivalry and being a gentleman nowadays, but I’m doing my best to keep it alive and well.  I’m the type of guy that watches romantic comedies, sees all those meet-cute situations and says “Who decided those things can’t happen in real life?”  When I had a girlfriend, it gave me the excuse to go all out at times, whether it be surprising my girl with flowers and her favorite soda pop during a particularly stressful time, or getting a local a cappella group to pop up and sing for her in a public place (which sadly didn’t work out as planned, but that’s a story for another time).  It can take a lot of effort, but the end result of seeing my girl genuinely surprised and ecstatic makes it all worth it.

Finally, the number one thing I miss the most:
1.  Simply, the feeling of falling in love.

What are some of the best parts of being in a relationship for you?  Are the things on my list similar to what you would put on a list like this?

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This post is now featured over at Datingish.com!  Click here to check out the post over there.
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Okay, it’s actually a really good fake video made for a Asian phone commercial (even though the video doesn’t really relate).  It’s still rather fun to watch!  Shoot, Bruce Lee could probably play ping pong with nunchucks if he really wanted to.

Wow, I can’t believe how popular my Twilight review post was.  Thank for all the comments everyone!  It was really interesting hearing how such a variety of people felt about the movie.  I guess despite the lukewarm reviews people have given it, it still manage to break some records this weekend and made over 70 million dollars at the box office.  That’s crazy!  New Moon‘s a go!

By the way, I finally got around to changing my page slightly.  I got rid of Rafael Nadal (sorry guy) and added the two roads picture that quite a few people recommended me to use.  I tried to do some cool collage that had more phrases and also uses that dark forest and winter pictures, but unfortunately I’m not that skilled with photoshop yet.  Anyone want to give me some pointers ?  I will probably fix up the layout some more in the future, but I’m too lazy to deal with that now.

Yay finally got to see Serena Williams in person!  (a rare picture of me wearing glasses)

This past Friday night I went to the PNC Tennis Exhibition in Baltimore (for free thanks to a good friend of mine) to see Serena Williams (ranked #2) and Elena Dementieva (ranked #4).  It was great!  I’m so glad to finally see them in person.  There’s no big women professional tournaments around Maryland, so this was a treat.  Elena ended up beating Serena 6-4, 6-4.  Kinda disappointing for Serena, since she was up 4-0 in the second set before losing the next 6 games in a row.  Serena looked like she had no gas in the tank and didn’t seem really into it.  Oh well, still cool to see.

Two particular funny pictures I took:

Rest of the pictures below (click to enlarge):

I love tennis

P.S. If I was allowed to add more people to a private list than just 10, I would write about one particular frustration I’m having right now.  Some of you might already know what I’m talking about.  I need to man up!  Yes…that is all for now.

 

I just watched the noon showing of Twilight with a close female friend.  I decided to watch an early showing to avoid the overtly crazy fans that were sure to be at the theaters later that evening .

If you’ve read my previous post entitled “Why this guy is a Twilight fan“, you know that I was quite interested in how the movie version will turn out.  I would call myself a casual fan of the series, mostly because I like a lot of the supporting characters and I just generally like the universe the story takes place in.  The books are written in such a way that I can see why it attracts so much more female fans than male fans, but it still has some merits to be a book appreciated by whoever reads it. 

Note to readers:  My review is going to have a few minor spoilers for those absolutely unfamiliar with the story, but if you are a fan you’ll pretty much know what I’m talking about.  If you just want to skip to a spoiler-free summary of my thoughts on the movie, just scroll all the way down.  I also have a special section towards the end of my post directed to the guys, who will most likely be going because their girl made them. It’ll be fine fellas!  Otherwise, enjoy my more in dept review below.

What I Didn’t Like:
I’ll start off with what I didn’t particularly like of the movie in general.  One of the biggest critique I’ve been reading about is the special effects, and I got to say I agree.  For the most part the effects are passable, but there are some really obvious wire works that took me out of the movie for a bit (ex:  unrealistic looking jumping done by the vampires). 

There are some unintentional funny/awkward moments that pop up occasionally.  If you’re not a fan, you’ll probably be thinking “stalker!” or “freak!” when Edward tells Bella he’s been watching her a lot while she’s sleeping.  Several stare downs in the movie were done way too seriously that you can’t help but laugh (ex:  the part between Edward and Billy Black).

Finally, the main bad guys aren’t as menacing as they try to make them out to be.  Instead of being frightening, they come off as being more like bullies.  I guess you can blame it partly to the story.  Even in the book, I didn’t like how those bad vampires appeared to be just tacked on into the story to provide some type of conflict.  So yea, the bad guys could be a lot more badass.

Oh how little we see of thee

There were quite a lot of things I didn’t like as a fan as well.  The Cullens really could have used more screen time.  I was mad that some of my favorite characters, like Emmett, only had a few lines, but it’s understandable given the size of the cast.  Unlike the book, the movie never really got to talk about Carlisle’s and Alice’s past (if you read the book you would understand why it was kind of important to know about Alice’s).  Jasper can control people’s emotions, but you wouldn’t know from the movie because he never gets to show it off!  Lastly, the sparkle.  Yea…I’m sorry, it didn’t quite work for me.  That was one of the things I didn’t like in the book as well, and unfortunately the movie doesn’t make it look any less cheesy.

What I Did Like:
Okay I sound like I really didn’t like it, but that’s not true.  Even though it sounds bad based on what I said above, I actually found myself enjoying the movie a lot.

Very well-dressed vamps

The cast did an amazing job.  The movie wouldn’t have worked if it was not for them.  Robert Pattinson (Edward) showed he’s definitely ready to play a lead (although his English accent could be better), and Kristen Stewart (Bella) was likable I thought.  Even though we don’t see much of the Cullens, they really nailed what they were given to work with (i.e. Emmett and Alice are exactly how I pictured them in my head).  The human characters were a lot funnier than they should be and were portrayed well.  In particular, the guy playing Bella’s dad, Charlie, was really good.  He worked the character perfectly, especially with the awkwardness he initially has with Bella.  You’ll also get a lot of good laughs from him as he tries to be a dad throughout the film.  He’s definitely a surprising highlight.

 
Charlie pulling off the protective dad role very well

Movie-wise, I thought the pacing was handled quite well and the scenery was done nicely.  The director did a good job translating the book to movie form and it definitely stayed true to the original story.  I’m glad a lot of the more cheesier lines from the book was either omitted or modified, and the ones that were left in the movie were pulled off decently enough.  The soundtrack of this movie is wonderful as well.

Finally, I got to say the chemistry was great everywhere, in particular between Bella/Edward and Bella/Charlie.  Good stuff.

To the Guys:
If you want to go on a movie date with someone, this isn’t a bad bet.  It works well enough as a chick flick, but still has some male-appealing aspects in it to keep you happy.  The later section of the movie has much more action than romance, and there’s a pretty cool vampire baseball scene that I thought was interesting to see.  There are some particularly cute actresses in the movie too (check below).  The movie also manage to cut out a lot of the over the top love stuff that is in the book (aka all the super detailed descriptions of Edward given by Bella), so you won’t be bombarded by that as much when watching.  Of course, the vampire aspects is another thing that is appealing (it’s why I ended up reading the series).  I don’t believe the movie will suddenly convert guys into super fans (aka “Twihards”), but they will at least see what all the fuss is about.

 
A sample of some of the pretty girls in the movie

Summary:
Overall, the movie was a decent enough romance/vampire movies for both fans and non-fans.  Going in, you should understand that it is a romance movie first, vampire movie second.  Fans of the book series will be please to see that the movie stays extremely true and accurate to the book (although I’m sure they would prefer the book), but they might be unhappy with the movie cutting out a lot of important things from the book (hopefully the DVD will be filled with those deleted scenes).  Even if you weren’t a fan before, the movie will still provide enough entertainment and enjoyment.  The special effects could have been a lot better and the story goes into melodramatic/campy territory at times, but the cast makes the movie work.  As it is, it passes as an alright romance movie, with enough of a twist to the typical vampire story to keep you interested.  In the end, I give it a low 4 out of 5 3.5 out of 5 for fans and a low 3 out of 5 for non-fans.

This is just one guy’s thoughts, so I’m sure some people will agree with me and some won’t.  Feel free to comment with your thoughts on the movie, or if you have any particular parts of the movie you want me to tell you about that I didn’t talked about in this post (i.e. I didn’t mention what I thought about  Jacob or Rosalie).

P.S. If you are interested in a more adult-oriented story involving similar themes as Twilight, you should check out either the new movie “Let The Right One In” and the HBO show “True Blood” (link to trailers).  True Blood is fantastic, and I heard Let The Right One In was really well done although I haven’t seen it.  If you have, tell me what you thought about it and if you recommend me to see it.  The “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” tv series is another great choice as well.  So many options!

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Awesome, another one of my post is on Datingish!  Go check it out:  it’s called “Help My Friend Land The Guy of His Dreams”.  Feel free to offer any advice you might have for my friend.  Thanks!  -Alex
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I haven’t really change the look or the format of my Xanga page in over a few years.  I’ve always like the simplicity of it in that when people visits my site they can find everything quite easily.

Anyways, it’s time for a change.  My page currently doesn’t really have a theme, just a crazy looking picture of Rafael Nadal screaming in the background .  I think I probably will go with BomCamChuoi ‘s suggestion from my pulse question and make my theme relate to my screenname.  I thinking about maybe using a background picture of roads in the woods…possibly diverging (Robert Frost reference ftw!)? 

    

Which one is the best picture to use?  Also, if you happen to know of any other pictures I could use please send me a link.  If you have any other ideas you’re more than welcome to share!
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Wow, wasn’t expecting all the response I got from my previous Twilight post.  Thanks a lot everyone! 

I’m planning on seeing the movie this Friday at noon, hopefully avoiding all the crazy tween girls that will come out at the evening showings (no offense if you are one haha).  I’ll see if I can write up my own review before the end of that day.  I’ve been looking at some early reviews and it’s pretty much what I was expecting.  I knew that the movie’s budget wasn’t so big, so a lot of the review’s negatives has been about the graphics.  Pretty good reviews for the characters though.  My only expectations for this movie is that it stays relatively true to the book and is at least decent, which seems to be the general consensus so far among the early reviews.  Although I’m far from obsessive over it, I’m looking forward to seeing this movie.

I thought some of these early Twitter responses of the movie were interesting:

“Not that it was great, but I actually enjoyed Twilight more than Quantum of Solace (bracing for impact…)”

“If you want to hang out with a lot of teenage girls and sexually frustrated middle-aged women, get yourself to a “Twilight” screening!”

As noted in that article, all those comments were not made by the typical teen girls fanbase but by the guys that went.  I have a feeling I will have an overall positive response when I review it on Friday.  Stay tune!

(Warning:  some minor spoilers sprinkled around the entry, but nothing too major)

 

In case you didn’t know, I’m a guy that happens to be a fan of the Twilight series.  Yup, they exist!  However, I’m not like one of those fanatical teen girls that go crazy over the books (especially over certain characters like Edward).  I have a couple of reasons why I like the series, which may not be what you would have guessed.

Let me tell you how I first got into Twilight.  It was the beginning of this past summer when I initially heard of Twilight.  I was looking online when I saw a teaser video for the movie (which is coming out this Friday).  To be honest, I didn’t think it was THAT great, but from what I gathered there seemed to be a lot of buzz about it online.  A lot of people were comparing it to Harry Potter.  I never read the Harry Potter series, but I know how popular it is and if people are comparing Twilight to it then it must be pretty popular as well.

So I stopped by the bookstore to pick up the book Twilight.  However, I ended up not reading it until the last month of summer, when I brought it to the beach as a reading material.  Before I knew it, I found myself reading the book for hours until I finished it a day or so later.  After that, I proceeded to pick up the next 3 books in the series and read them all within that month.

The books aren’t perfect in my eyes.  I had to get used to the author’s writing style at first.  She tended to go on and on describing either everything that is happening in a scene or describing the features of people (especially Edward) in great detail.  The books also had the tendency to not have anything really big happen until the last 100 pages.  Finally, I wasn’t all that into the romance drama going on between Bella/Edward and Bella/Jacob.

So what do I like?  Well despite the critique I made above, I found myself getting really into the story and the universe it took place in.  I liked the idea of a universe where vampires and shape-shifters existed, and how they try to coexist in the human world (that’s part of the reason why I also like the HBO show True Blood, which has some similarities to Twilight).  Once I got used to the writing style, I realized that it made me care more about all the characters and was very good at slowly building up to the climaxes of each book.  Also, some of the dialogue can be pretty funny, especially the ones coming out of Emmett’s mouth.

Like I said before, Edward/Jacob/Bella are not exactly my favorite characters, despite them being the main ones.  After I was done with the series, I realized I was constantly reading because I wanted to see what would happen to a lot of the supporting characters.  By the end, I figured out the reason why I liked these characters (in particular 5 of them) was because they fit certain ideal archetypes of mine that I have for people in my life.  Here are the 5:

1.  Carlisle Cullen
Ideally, this is who I strive to be in my life.  He seems like the perfect father figure that is kind and is respected by those around him.  He has many strong characteristics that I value such as compassion, tolerance, empathy, and strong self-control (in his case strong control when it comes to his emotions and to blood).  He’s very admirable since he was able to find a way to be a “good” vampire, even though he had to suffer through some harsh times to get to that point.  If Carlisle existed in real life, he would probably be someone I look up to and highly respect.

2.  Emmett Cullen
Emmett fits my expectations for how a big brother should be.  He’s very protective and loyal, yet still has a big heart.  At the same time, he can be very laid back, funny and sarcastic (especially with all his suggestive comments), yet can be serious when needed.  He actually reminds me a lot of how I am now.  I can see my little brother describing me in a similar way.

3.  Seth Clearwater
Now this character would be my ideal younger brother or son.  He is probably one of the most honest, genuine, and purist character of the book.  Very optimistic, happy, generous and chill, he definitely a kid I would want to take care of.  In the book, he is one of the first people to see the Cullens as people, not just vampires, and I like how he’s not prejudice at all.  He also got a strong sense of loyalty and a strong sense of right and wrong.  Now who wouldn’t want to know a person like that?

4.  Jasper Hale
This guy would be the wise friend that I would go to whenever I need help or some insight.  Loyal (notice a pattern?), honest, and perceptive, I could see myself going to him when I need to figure out a problem.  He seems to be a very honorable gentleman that has a strong moral code as well.  In addition, he probably the ultimate empathetic person with his powers to control other emotions.  If I had that I would be an amazing therapist!

5.  Garrett
Finally, Garrett would be that trustful, fun friend that I would take to experience the world.  He’s open-minded (as seen when he attempts try to be “vegetarian”), honorable, and has a passion for justice.  That speech he gave at the end of Breaking Dawn, as well as that line he said to Kate (“If we live through this, I’ll follow you anywhere woman.”) were quite courageous and shows a lot of confidence.  Including the fact he has an adventurous soul, Garrett would be the ideal bro (I’m watching way too much How I Met Your Mother).

Needless to say, I’m excited to go see the movie to see how my favorite characters are portrayed.  I’ll leave the Edward/Jacob/Bella crap for the teen girls .

P.S. Ashley Greene, the actress playing Alice (the short haired chica in the first picture at the top), is H-O-T (pictures below).  Another incentive for us guys to watch

I’ll let her suck me any day (my blood of course )!

P.P.S. I know, I know, this was probably one of the most dorkiest post I’ve ever made.  Might as well take the dork factor all the way!  Just for funsies; me as a Twilight vampire:

 

Go check out Twilight this Friday! 

Last night I went to a ceremony for the varsity tennis coach at UMBC.  He’s leaving to be the head coach of the Navy women varsity team after being at UMBC for over 20 years.  I’ve known him for a few years, ever since I started the tennis club.  Throughout the years I got to know him better through club, camp, and tennis classes.  I don’t even know where to start to begin explaining how much respect and admiration I have for him.  UMBC is losing an amazing man.

The person running the ceremony asked me to give a speech, but I absolutely hate public speaking and try to avoid it when I can.  Instead, I decided to make a video instead with a bunch of club members.  The basic idea of the video is that I keep on trying to finish this one last heartfelt statement, but each time I try to I get interrupted by a club member.  Frustration and sillyness ensues.  The video is below (p.s. it looks better in high quality.  Just click on the video and it’ll take you to the youtube website version where you can choose that option).  What you think?

Pictures from the evening:

By the way, you might have noticed I added a new playlist (scroll down to the bottom of the page to activate it).  The songs I have right now are just some of my favorite love related songs, so feel free to check them out.  Any suggestions for other good love songs?  Big plus if it has amazing lyrics and a good melody!

Thank you to everyone who responded to my last post!  I’ll go through all the true statements first before I get to the false one. 

I know nothing about cars except how to drive one = True!

I know, what’s wrong with me?  I don’t understand how I never got into cars like a lot of guys.  I’m so bad that I can’t tell you what model or company a car is from looking at it, which apparently so many people can do.  Really, what things do you look at to distinguish a car?  Whenever I describe a car I just say the color and whether it was a small car, a minivan, SUV or a truck haha.

At least I’m a good driver.  Never really got into an accident or a ticket, except that one time I got a speeding ticket in NJ (I was trying to beat the light!)

For the most part, I really don’t care what type of car I drive.  As long as it runs well and it isn’t embarrassing, I’m fine with it.

I was on television once = True!

Geez, apparently appearing on television isn’t as uncommon as I thought.  Yes, I know of at least one time I was on tv.  I was interviewed by the local news about the tuberculosis scare at my high school (one of my friends somehow got TB, so everyone had to be tested to check if they had it).  I must have given them about 15 minutes worth of material they could have used for the segment and OF COURSE they picked the one line I said that makes me sound like a moron.  What did I say?  “I didn’t even know what TB was until…it just happen!” (giggles) .  Urgh why… What was the reason for your tv appearances (if it has happened for you yet)?

I have taught a college class = True!

Technically yes.  Last summer, the tennis coach had to teach at a tennis camp, so he needed someone to be a subsitute teacher to teach his tennis P.E. class at UMBC for 2 weeks.  He decided to let me do it, so for those two weeks I would teach the class from 7am-8:30am before driving to my internship in Baltimore at 9am.  Kinda hectic schedule, but the experience was well worth it.

I have only been on love once = True!

In my life so far, I’ve only told two girls I loved them.  I realized not too long ago that I never truely love the first girl, especially no where near how much I felt about the second girl.  I will probably always have a place in my heart for the only girl I loved, but I have moved on since we broke up so I don’t expect to be with her again.  Besides, in a lot of ways she has changed so much that I barely recognize the girl that I loved.  Still, I learn a lot of lessons after my experiences with her, which will definitely benefit the next girl I fall for.

I have not yet been a guest at a wedding = False!

I haven’t gone to a wedding recently, but I do remember going to at least 2 weddings as a boy.  In one of the weddings I was even the ring bearer, holding the ring carefully in this heart-shaped pillow.  I remember being so scared that I would mess something up that I stood completely still the entire time, attempting to be a statue.  Later on my parents and everyone else laugh and sort of praised me for being so still, especially since I was around the age where most kids would be acting crazy. 

Congrats to the two people that got it right:  HeavenlyTears and Lynn1013 .  Go check out their blogs sometime!

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I’m trying to apply for this part time job working at a county day care.  I have a friend who works there and she seems to enjoy it, so I probably would too.  I’ll be so happy if I can get it because I need to start saving up for graduate school, which I’ll hopefully get in.  All my recent job hunting fails have hurt my ego, so I could use a win here.  In the mean time, I’m gonna go cheer up by watching episodes of How I Met Your Mother .

Next post will hopefully contain pictures and the video I made for the coach appreciation banquet.

I have to put this story in private because the girl that’s involved in this story has a xanga.

So there’s this girl (let’s call her Diamond) that I’ve been pretty good friends for the past few years.  Well, I found myself starting to have feelings for her and decided to go for it and make my feelings known.  I was afraid she would worry about messing up the great friendship that we have so far, so I made a plan.

Original plan:  I would pick her up from her house and take her out for dinner.  We would have a marvelous time and later on I would drop her off.  I will give her a present as well as a card that she can only read after I had “left”.  In the card, I pretty much confess my feelings and offer her two choices:  either a) if she really can’t see us being more than friends, she should ignore the card and we would just continue our friendship or b) if she can admit to having some feelings (not chemistry, since we obviously have a lot of that) for me, she should come outside and meet me so I can give her a rose and ask her out face to face.

I thought it was a good plan when I initially came up with it.  Thought it would be romantic way to do it.  So, how did it went?

Well everything that probably could go wrong did haha.  Drawback #1:  she wanted to meet up at the mall instead of me picking her up, since she was close by.  Damn, how am I going to be outside her house when she read the card if we meet up at the mall?, I thought.  I figured that I could just drive to her house after we had dinner and just wait for her outside.  However, that would waste a lot of time and gas, as well as be sorta creepy to be honest.  It would have made sense for me to be there if I had driven her.  So that was drawback #1.

Drawback #2:  I wanted to get her a single rose because I thought more would be overdoing it.  Unfortunately, the place where I bought the roses only sold them in dozens, so I had to buy 12 roses.  Urgh okay, hopefully she won’t find that as too much.

Drawback #3:  During our dinner chat, the topic of how her ex (and mutual friend of mine) had asked her out last time came up.  She told me that she felt sorta coerced into the relationship because he presented her a bouquet of flowers (!!!) and gave her a note that pretty much offered the ultimatum of either going out w/ him or not being friends with him (!!!).  Although my card didn’t give such a big ultimatum, it did seem way too similar.  I also realized that I would be kinda coercing her if I followed through my plan, which I didn’t want to do.  If we were to go out, she would have to want it as much as me.

At this point, I decided I needed to abort the mission.  I decided to give her the gift w/o the card in it (in case you’re wondering, I got her Twilight and she’s hooked on it now haha).  Well, that WAS what I intended.  Unfortunately, I somehow LEFT the card in the gift bag (!!!).  When she took it out and asked “what’s this”, I attempted to look confused and took the card back, saying it was nothing. 

Too bad she already saw “To Diamond” on the card (!!!).  For the next 10 minutes she tried to get me to give her the card, or at least say who it was from, but I manage to get her to stop by saying that it was a card I wrote but I totally messed up on.  I told her it was too late for me to change cards, so I decided to not give it to her and clumsy old me just left it in the bag.  She more or less bought it and went home, as I meanwhile banged my head a couple of times on my driving wheel .

So yes, that was my awesomely failed romantic night.  Don’t worry, for some reason I’m just laughing at myself so much for what transpired.  It looks like if I do wanna ask her out I’m gonna have to try something else.  Any advice?

p.s. Some of you may have saw my pulse about the flowers.  I ended up giving it to a random girl working at Starbucks, under the pretenses that I was delivering it to her from a secret admirer.  It would have been a waste to throw those roses away, so at least I made one person really happy.  I’m so sneaky