Hello, Lovine.com

happy birthday, erika! i love you! :)

i'd write lots and lots of cheesy sentimental stuff about how you'd make me cry before i would leave back to the states, or how i'd fly across the pacific ocean in the middle of the school year just to be your 18th rose, or how we'd talk nonsense hogwash until the wee hours of the morning. or how we'd get drunk after playing stupid paper-rock-scissors and break your shoe. or.. or.. a multitude of other things that defy all relics of time and space, leaving me with an immense feeling of gratitude that you are who you are, and all that cheesy stuff. but it would be embarassing if i said all that, wouldn't it? but the funny thing is, i don't really mind because it's true and a half.

i miss you. a lot. :) happy birthday!

i'm addicted to my life. experiences of different shapes and sizes, intravenously injected, visually stimulated, organically produced. inside, outside, upside down.

not even the momentary pains of solitude can get me down because knowing that strength lies in the patience of waiting for all the right moments, will bring forth the blossoms of the good karma. and if the right moments never come, i manage to have fun anyway. in a bad space, a good space, or with no space at all. life goes on.

so many good things yet to discover, and all it takes is to slow down and look at a flower, or run fast and feel the wind on your face. get lost forever in a girl's smile, or find yourself in your art. the papers can remain in the suitcases, the banks can churn interest rates in their machines. but at the end of the day, the darkness when you close your eyes to sleep is not really the absence of light, but a blank slate to draw your dreams on. anywhere you go, there you are.

i spent the weekend up at sanfo with kathlyn and mikkel, where we successfully crossed lines that have never been known to exist before. being with people you love, a brother and sister that you've grown up with, is just a wonderful mix of good vibes.

friendships keep your feet on the ground, but allow you to bend and circumnavigate the perils of worldy ills. sometimes, the only thing that's better than a cold pilsner urquell or a stella artois after a harrowing day of living through the numbing routines in life, is being able to share it with your best friends. especially when you know that your friendship will transcend all known, and unknown dimensions. :)

aw shit, valentine's is coming up.

wait, who am i kidding... like it really matters anyway. ;)

there's this sport i've been trying for the past few months, that i'm starting to really like. slowly, i feel like i'm coming back into shape.. almost when i was before, waaay back in sophomore year of HS. everytime i drive back from the 'house of champions' in van nuys, i feel really different. i feel electric, and on top of the world. haven't really enjoyed anything this much, that makes me coming back.

other senseless trivia: i enjoy pseudo skateboarding outside my house to get letters in the mailbox. work has been going well, i'm meeting more people in the firm and slowly, slowly, acclimating to the position of organizational sell-out. prop the collars up yo! time to pick out the contributions on my 401k, IRA, and possibly look into reviewing for the GMATs. is my life back on track? yikes.

i don't know where to start before i start gushing about seattle. so i guess i won't write about it, to preseve the sanctity of the experience. and my mind is awash with all the small tasks i need to accomplish, one of them having to revamp the current photo gallery i have. i like a few pictures that i took, not distinctly seattle, but pictures nonetheless.

its a funny feeling when you have all these small stories you want to share, but in truth, no one will really understand the meaning of it all. unless you're with a bunch of good friends who are piss drunk as you are and things magically seem to make more sense. but with the way things are going, i might have to throw in the towel and start anew while i can. and so seattle was sort of a last hurrah before the gears start churning again. wait, my last hurrah must've been being clocked doing 105mph by the CHP, but that's another story. i hope i'm not in trouble, but i have a sinking feeling that i am.

i start work in a couple of hours, with a risk consulting firm. i bought new yellow onitsuka tigers and a sector 9 long board. and as a final rebellion for being unable to purchase U2 tix, i got coachella instead. you can hate me now. :)

i think today's sunrise will bring about new beginnings. but i'll most probably sleep on it.

i am in love with seattle. this trip was really great, flush with the token ups and downs along the way. although i always come home mangled and filthy, i stand a little bit wiser from meeting new people and reconnecting with the old. so many things to say. quite interesting how it's always a mystery when that next card is drawn from the deck.

i will be gone for a week, to spend some time in the northern reaches of this continent. not as far north as i would've wanted, but still northern nonetheless. i'll be taking a car up to sanfo, and boarding the amtrak for the coast starlight route up to seattle.

in the meantime, i daydream about the sheer wildness of going to alaska or plunking 10 g's towards a trip to antarctica. isolation! but with the way things are going, they'll be a little bit longer than a daydream.

inside me burns an insatiable desire to explore the world, because i'm certain that it is only in knowing what's outside of me that i can begin to realise the truths inside. i may never really understand, but i might as well have fun trying. even if it slowly kills me.

the biggest mystery of life is trying to understand the reasons why i loved you. but maybe the mysteries of life are meant to be that way, never really knowing the reasons why... but accepting it for what it is, for what it means. even if it never really does make sense. remember the stills: "logic will break your heart."

we all only live once. and denying yourself the few things that make life matter, is the least you can ever deserve.

i find it funny how we all wish for the power to change things in our lives that we can actually control.

and she might never really understand, all the difference it makes. just the way she smiles, and shrugs the troubles on her shoulders. and she may never really know how heavy it is a burden, to look into her eyes and... lose.

stories untold are left to be forgotten in the gardens of the past, except by the memories of hearts that tread them. moments lost are moments forever gone, except in the regrets that linger - but when eyes meet for that split second, it's also enough to last me forever.

stories untold are left to be forgotten in the gardens of the past, except by the memories of hearts that tread them.

the wanderlust is insatiable.

went out to santa monica to bring our friend olaf from deutscheland out. study abroad rocks. maybe had a drink too many, but what's life for if you don't enjoy the excess? as nietzsche would say, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. and if is does, well, live fast.. and die faster.

( wir machen spaß )

jetlag? no excuses for your first weekend in LA! woot!

crouch down a little bit so we're all the same height, dammit.

crashed this anniv party in santa monica at this place called the kutting room, where this band called the soccer moms were rockin out. pretty hip crowd, scored a shot of some sort of vodka creme liquor, then off to gotham where i drowned myself in B52's. i need to get out more often. i guess i realized that the world isn't as square as you think it is. although i've been many places and left my presumptions many places, there's always more to than what you think you can discover.

off to san francisco tomorrow. hoping to take wonderful pictures, and meet up with wonderful friends. the world get smaller, but is never small enough, is it?

i feel like the choices i make are based on a WACC (weighted average cost of capital) curve, a logical assertion that the risks i expose myself to in the different facets of this dumb life are bouyed by the potential benefits of such undertakings. now, there's nothing wrong with being careful. but something tells me there's something amiss, a curveball against a seemingly foolproof way of going about my life. sure i've jumped off a cliff, ran across campus naked, and flew alone past the arctic circle to balance things out. dear grandkids, i wasn't a square. unfortunately, i sit here with the stark realization that i am still awaiting the day that i venture out of my processes. throw me off my rocker! that one crazy thing that will defy all explanations, that will go against all the rules i've accustomed my standards to. and not something that can be diluted by time, but i want to find something, someone, that will make me drop what i'm doing and ask questions all over again. to surrender, all over again.

or maybe love is just a fallacy. :)