Hooray for returning

It's been a long time. Summer has gone. College has started, and my first semester is in the books with a dissapointing 3.18 GPA. That's how it goes. Alot has changed, but rather than trying to review and ultimately dimishing powerful moments, we'll just forgoe them accepting the fact I've changed. Yet still through these past months the goal is still the same: materialize my dreams, be so ambitious that it frightens those around me and then still come through. It's a tall order, but that's why I want it. I'm not sure what I want to do with my life, and hopefully I figure out soon. I don't want to make money. I don't want to spend my entire life waiting for the next promotion. I want to be different. I want to make a difference. Can I do that being a civil engineer? Could I do it better being a doctor? These are my concerns, that still need to be sorted out. Until then.....

Intense

This blog is incredibly intense all of the time. I gotta lighten it up a bit aye? I hit Rachel Stewart in the face with a frisbee today. She started bleeding. She made a big deal of it, threatened to pull down my pants, but that's life isn't it? I apologized but I didn't mean it. It was part of the game. That's a light topic right, a girl threating to pull down my pants?

Crash

Crash. I knew it would be a thought provoking movie, but I had no idea how far reaching the effects would be. I'm not sure how good it is on a movie level. It does an impressive job of weaving together a handful of plot lines into one cohensive movie. Yet that is not where the strength of the film lies. The strenght lies in the subject matter, race relations. How often do we judge people based upon their race? How often does this happen without us even noticing, with us accepting it? Far too often, for me at least. Does this make me a bad person? Hell yes. That's the point. We are all bad people, however we want to justify it. We are all one comment away from murder, rape, whatever. It takes one comment that turns you the wrong way, brings up bad memories, to set you off. So what hope is there? What safety net is there from total enragement? God. (pause for laughter) Well it's true. What other reason is there to follow the rules? What other reason is there to live a "good" life?

Too Long

I have to get better at this. There is way too much time between my posts. Well I have been extremely busy....ever since Star Wars. Final days of school, a couple papers, a Bio final, Senior Trip in Colorado, and lots of learningn along the way. With graduation tommorrow, I may finally beginning to miss everything. The reality check came right after Episode III (there is a very good reason, it would just take 20 minutes to explain), but the sadness I avoided for a while. Now it's my first day of freedom, nothing to wake up for, nothing to look forward to, the defintion of a summer day. So I'm not sure I'm sad or just bored. It's probably just boredom, because boredom is sad, but regardless, I am going to miss alot of things. But this is all a lie, because at the same time I'm still extremely excited and ansy. I'm excited to open that new chapter of my life, to become what I'm destined to be (that sounds more epic than it probably will be). This next chapter of my life is quite critical, because this is where all the thoughts and dreams I've ever had have to start materializing or else I'll end up just like everyone else. I've never been like everyone else, and I hope I never am. I mean who else can jump from Coldplay to Jay-Z to Explosions in the Sky to The Streets to Rage against the Machine to Elliot Smith all within one day? If you can find someone than I really have to meet them.

Episode III: Revenge of the Sith

I've always been a star wars fan, never obsessive but always a fan. There is so much about Star Wars that just makes you want to get up, scream, and pump your fists; the first death star run, boba fett, the duel between vader and luke, the battle on hoth, duel of the fates, the imperial march, obi wan, yoda's performance in empire, and basically all of episode 3.
There is so much about this movie. There was so much riding on it. This was the joint for all 6 movies and if this failed, realistically, they all failed. The success of this movie was critical. There was so much riding on it, and how did it turn out? It was a masterpiece, an absolute masterpiece. Hands down, best cinematic experience I've had (I don't say this lightly). I laughed, I cheered, I cried, and I left the theater feeling like crap.
It was a masterpiece, because the film knew what it was. It knew it was the last star wars film and made you feel like crap because of it. We all knew what was going to happen, ani going to the dark side and all, but it didn't make it any less suspenseful. When ani was hopelessly in love, when he wanted to save Padme, when he was walking through the manipulative conversations of Palpatine, when he turned on Mace, when he KILLED younglins, when he fought obi-wan, when he lay burning...dangit I didn't want him to become Darth Vader. All he needed was someone to talk him, someone to comfort him. He had been through so much, and was going through so much, if one of the pompous jedis had just sat down with him, all this crap could have been avoided, but no. They were too busy fighting their war and pumping out idealogical garbage. "Learn to let go of those you love"...I'd want to kill too if someone told me that after I dreamed my wife's death. For alot of the movie, I was on Ani's side. I was agreeing with him, "Yea, screw the Jedi, if they dont care about you, do your own thing" But then it got to the end, and I'd realized along with Ani what it lead to; his demise. That's why this film is so tragic, because it makes sense. Ani wasn't evil. He was just a boy with a lot of problems and no one to talk to. Dangit the only person that would talk to him was a man that represented evil incarnate.
Besides the absolute amazing story that drove this movie, there were so many other things. Obi-wan and Yoda were just amazing characters. Yoda was a character for the first time since Empire, he wasn't a novelty anymore. He grew along with all the other characters, and that was refreshing. Obi-wan was just a pimp. He's never looked good on paper, and it's always seemed like he gets knocked out in every single battle, but he finally stepped up to the plate in this movie. When Vader is burning and he just yelling at him, "I loved you! You were my brother!" I got chills. Speaking of chills when Order 66 was put into effect.....damn. It could not have been scored better. The music, the sequences, Yoda's reaction; it all played out perfectly.
Walking out of the theater after I first saw Episode III was the saddest I ever remember being after a movie. In many ways, it represented the end of things, the end of my childhood. Nothing this entire school year has given me a reality check even close to this movie. I realized that I will never see these characters on screen again. I'm never going to get to see Yoda, Mace, Bobba Fett, Chewie, Han, Ani, Luke, Vader, haha Darth Maul.....dangit. Likewise, my high school career has come to a close, in a couple weeks I'm never going to see a great deal of people ever again. I'll go my way, and they will go theres. We should just watch this movie over senior trip, because nothing will be more effective. Dangit it's over, and it's only so sad because it was so beautiful.

Empty Cans

"The end of the something i did not want to end, Begining of hard times to come. But something that was not meant to be is done, And this is the start of what was."

The End

Senior Year is coming to a close, and so is this chapter on my life. It's to reflect mainly because I've had no time to catch my breath. Bloody AP Tests and projects and papers and everything calculus have owned my soul for this past month. The only time I've had to reflect and really, truely enjoy the end is Jr/Sr, our "prom" for you non-wheaton academy people. Good times with Good People, that's the cliche isn't it? That's what it was, and that's what I needed. There are so many cliches involved with the ending of high school. haha...i dont know where I'm going with this, since it's kind of 2 am, and I should kinda be sleeping, because i was kinda up until 5 am last night, and i kind have school tomorrow......kinda. I'll publish this just because I've slacked off for the past month, but I'll give a better post in a bit.

Bulls: A Season Over

A magical season. A great season. I've waited a long time to talk about it too. I guess it has taken that long to let the emotions settle so I could properly reflect. To be honest, I expected nothing out of the bulls, nothing different that is, at least this year. I was convinced that in a couple years they would be really good, because I knew they had an amazing draft in Duhon, Gordon, and Deng (Noc I would find out about later). The first 9 games, 0-9, supported my feelings. I saw signs, but nothing I thought would manifest itself this year. Yet slowly, without me even fully realizing it, the Bulls snuck up on us all. I cheered for different goals; reach .500, make the playoffs, get homecourt advantage, Gordon and rookie of the year, Skiles and coach of the year, winning a playoff round, winning a championship (?). Obviously they didn't achieve everything mostly because of injuries, I would say. This doesn't make the bulls season a failure. Alot of parallels could be drawn to the Illini season. Similarily this team overachieved, and taught the entire NBA how to play real team basketball. You dont need big time stars or all stars. All you need is players that are committed, have a heart for the game, and a coach that will teach players these things. The bulls had all these, and in a couple years they are going to have a handful of big time NBA stars. It's just a matter of the Bulls getting to a stage ot show them off. So next year, I can finally realisticaly expect a Championship (just gotta secure Eddy, Skiles and Tyson) Stay optimistic, because there is finally something to be optimistic about.