The Minja

The World is Ours Tonight

theminja — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 08:09:00 +0000

Hello March! What a breath of fresh air. I’m actually looking forward to this month. I even made a little graphic to go with it! I’m not going to be going into this month with my head down. I’m going in with my head held high. I am still unsure of Spring Break plans but I will get that figured out soon. I got my grade back for my first RTF project and it definitely wasn’t pleasant. It brought down my weekend considerably, but I’ve scheduled a meeting with my TA and I’m going to LEARN from it. I’m not going to beat myself up about it any longer. It is what it is and I’ll just have to move on and hope I can do even better on my second project.

This past weekend I pretty much worked on that project nonstop. Recording sounds is a lot harder than it may..well..sound! I got to catch up with an old friend and it was really nice. He helped me with my project and recording sounds so I’m glad I got to do that. I’ve already faced a few obstacles with this project but I really hope I’m able to execute it well. I took my film to get developed at Walgreens and they turned out GREEN. Thanks WALGREENS. I’m going to take them to a real photo lab tomorrow so hopefully I can get that sorted out. I’m pretty much done with all my audio recordings and I’m going to the lab tomorrow to try to import that stuff in.

This is slightly hectic but after writing everything down, I feel better. There are two more weeks until a much needed break and then we’re halfway done with this year? This year is speeding by. I can’t believe next year will be my THIRD year in college. I don’t even feel like I’ve been here this long. I need to start racking in my accomplishments and get things into motion.

And to switch topics just for a little bit, I realize the last post was pretty emotional. Layla is still hurting and my thoughts are with them. Her parents have posted a new blog post since the one I’ve read and things are not looking up. I admire their strength and wish them the best.

Goodbye, Goodnight.

Everywhere I Go

theminja — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 06:15:00 +0000

I am overwhelmed with emotion. I just don’t understand you. What were you thinking? Why would you put people through this? There is no reason for your being. Other than destruction. Other than hurt.

I stumbled upon Layla Grace‘s Blog on Twitter. The mother of Layla Grace tells the story of her 2 year old daughter battling Neuroblastoma, a type of cancer. She will not survive. Reading just the first blog post reduced me to tears. I can not fathom the undeniable pain and sadness her mother must be feeling. This little girl, this precious little girl. She has done nothing in this world for this to happen to her and I wonder why. Why does this have to happen to her?

So now I share with you my feelings. Feelings I’ve always wanted to tell you. I hate you for existing. I hate you for the pain you cause people and their loved ones. People die from natural causes. This is not natural. This is anything but natural. Natural is growing so old that your organs begin to fail because the heart is just too weak. For you to rear your ugly head out of nowhere and decide to change someones’ life forever is not natural. I don’t understand why you were put on this Earth…why there are so many different kinds of you. You clearly show no remorse for the victims you take as you continue to infect others. You’ve taken two of my loved ones from me. I don’t know what I would do if I had to see your face again. People think they’re so invincible, death would never affect someone close to them. At least I thought so. And in 2005 that all changed. And then again in 2009. I hate you. I hate you for what you’ve put my grandmother through. I hate you for what you’ve taken away from my cousin. I hate you for taking the patriarch of our family away.

You are no accident. You just happen. You think you are so invincible. You walk this Earth knowing there is no complete protection from you. There is no cure. We can’t get rid of you. All there is, is the power to make you retreat and hope that you never come back. But just you wait. Wait for the day where you are the least of our problems. I wish I never have to see your wretched face again. I hate you, cancer.

Earlier in November, 4 years had passed. In exactly a month, a year will have passed. And as this year comes around I can’t help but think about the whole thing. I lost sleep last night. Over it. Over what happened after. Over how my life changed. I wasn’t sure how I would handle this point in time when it came. It’s coming back — the feeling’s. I don’t know whether or not I’m angry with how things happened or if I’m sad by them or what. All I know is that it’s affecting me. It’s funny. I feel like I’ve put the past behind me, let bygones be bygones. I just keep on getting flashes of what led up to the moment. All this talk of Spring Break. I don’t think I told anyone but I got a text during Spring Break from a cousin. Now that I think about it, that’s where things started going downhill. It was bad news about my Grandpa, he was getting even more sick. Still I ventured on, I put it in the back of my head, thinking everything would turn out for the better. I ventured on to try and have fun. I was in Padre! Little did I know…

Congratulations. You will forever be apart of my life as I come upon the “anniversary” (for lack of a better word) of my Grandfather’s death. Yes, in the future, it will be more about remembering his life. I will dwell less on the emotional roller coaster I endured, about the pain that I remember that my family went through, about the pain that I went through and about how quickly his life was taken from him.

For better or worse I mended ties which seems to be only for convenience now that I think about it. There is no substance to it. I am not doing myself any good by thinking it’s different. As I look back it seems that I just helped you clean your slate of the possible remorse that you may have felt.

I keep those who have dealt with and is currently dealing with cancer in my thoughts. And to the survivors, I applaud you and wish you the best.

“And i fall on my knees

Tell me how’s the way to be

Tell me how’s the way to go

Tell me all that i should know”

Everywhere I Go by Lissie

Live Like We’re Dying

theminja — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 07:44:00 +0000

courtesy of wordboner.com

Let it Snow! Let it Snow! Let it Snow!

theminja — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 09:10:00 +0000

it snowed. a lot. – February 23, 2010

Everywhere I Go

theminja — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 07:53:00 +0000

I’ve been dropping the ball on this blogging thing. I used to blog because I was venting, I needed an outlet for the feelings I was keeping bottled up inside of me. I was blogging to relieve myself from pain, to rid myself of angst, to just vent. I guess it’s good that I have blogged less. Does this mean that things are going alright in my life? That i’m finally at peace with where I’m at so far? I guess that’s the case — for the most part. Why would I start blogging right now if something wasn’t bothering me? It’s nothing I want to get into though. At least not right now.

I’ve finished my first RTF project which I think can be considered a success. As you can see above, I created my first legit graphic. I’ve always made fanart, but to be professional/legal, you have to use images that you have taken yourself and no other images. I have done just that. Although the graphic may look simple, it actually took me almost over 2 hours to finish it up and make it look exactly like how I wanted it to. It kind of renewed my love for making graphics. It’s always great doing something that you really enjoy and I sincerely enjoyed creating this. I could get into details, but everything in this graphic was done for a reason. The positioning of each picture, the glow in the background and the text was created by two different fonts, obviously. You can click the picture to view the original full version.

Anyway, I have another project to do that’s due before Spring Break and I haven’t even thought of a full concept yet! Great. Scrambling to get things done just like usual, good job, Minh. The month of February flew by fast…after all, it is the shortest month of the year, but it seems like it barely started just a couple of days ago. Next thing you know, we’re almost at the end of it — the weather is acting crazy — and we have an almost 100% chance of snow tomorrow! I’m not that excited though, surprisingly, about the snow. It’ll be cool, but I don’t see myself having the urge to rush outside and frolic around like a 10 year old in the snow. Who knows though, I guess we’ll wait and see tomorrow.

I’ve decided this Spring Break I will be working the whole week. There is the option of going to South Padre (AGAIN) for Spring Break, but I just don’t think I can handle it. I may go for a weekend, or maybe not at all, just playing it by ear. But honestly, I can’t imagine spending Spring Break there again. I know this time would be different, especially since I’ll actually know people living there and there hopefully wouldn’t be the birth of a life changing event during the trip this year around, but who knows. I would love to spend the break hanging out with my new friends, but as I’ve said before, I don’t think I can really mentally prepare myself for another wild ride, especially after everything. Maybe that’s me being too cautious, too afraid — but I think I can afford that for one year.

Haha, my post is goin all over the place, but I’m just trying to touch on bits and pieces that have happened in my life. I am an unbelievable night owl. I get the most work done at night, I am more focused at night, I am everything during the night. I just don’t understand how either! During the day, I am tired and lazy and yet here I am at night, typing away at 2 AM and I could probably be doing homework or some other stuff if I had it due the next day with no problem. I can stay up till 5 AM no problem. Too bad I have 9 AM class.

And finally, I would like to share that I have found the apartment I will be living at next year! Finally, secure living arrangements and I am excited about moving in! My very own place with some awesome roommates! I can’t wait to deck it out, I can’t wait to move in, I can’t wait to see how this will all play out.

Breakeven

theminja — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 06:34:00 +0000

I have nothing to blog these days — maybe it’s because i’m content with how things are going? that’s a good thing right? right. classes so far have been pretty dull — I am very nervous about this RTF class. I’ve done little projects here and there, but nothing for a grade so it’ll be very interesting. For our first project, we have to use a film SLR camera (that means with actual film, not digital) and take 12-15 pictures in black and white. It’s a photo story with a beginning, middle and end. We have to take a test roll (which I’m excited to do) by February, but our concept/story idea for our actual project will be due this Friday. Too bad I have no earthly idea what to do.

Accounting seems like a challenge, but I’m up for it. I’m glad to work with some numbers again and some business type of work and I think that definitely means I’m going to finish my Business Foundations concentration.

Spanish, well I figured out my weakness and that’s with preterite and future tenses. So far though, we’ve been going over everything we did last semester which I already knew everything, so I feel like it’s a complete waste of time. Not to mention, I haven’t met all that many people yet and the class is at 9 am. I’ve been late twice already, one more and it’s counted as an absence. 3 absences leads to grade deduction. FML. I need to roll out of bed earlier. 9 am every day though..not used to that.

Finally, there’s English. Comp 1. FML i didn’t come in with that credit as most everyone in the world did, so I’m stuck taking it now. It’s not too bad, aside from the fact that we have to pick a controversial topic and agan I don’t know which to pick. We’re talking about food and the different takes on food — vegetarianism, school lunches, animal rights, etc.

I’ve finally set into motion the getting an apartment next year and I’m pretty excited. Sad that my brother can’t be there to help me move in. Now, just gotta figure out where to live and when to look and what to look for. Something else for me to worry about. Great.

I feel like I’ve been at this semester for more than just a week and a half, it feels like it’s been a month already. Hopefully things will pick up. And that’s all that’s going on in my head that I care to share. goodbye.

The Secret’s in the Telling

theminja — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 06:39:00 +0000

Twenty Ten. Welcome to a new year.

I’ve been thinking about things — what else is new? I’ve been thinking about this blog. Sometimes I question why I put out all of my things out there in the open. Granted, even though I don’t necessarily publicize this blog, it is accessible if you look hard enough. I write the things that I do to get it off of my chest and inadvertently allow others to get a vague glimpse into my life. I make the posts somewhat generic enough so that you don’t know the details or the people involved, if at all — or under what circumstances I’m going through. So I wonder, how long I’ll keep writing in this blog. I think of this blog as a type of reflection on my college career, yet lately, this blog has served as an outlet of some of my emotions and state of being. It’s to let people (sometimes, certain people) know how I feel about a situation…all without really letting them know how I feel. Is it because I find it easier to type it out, knowing they might read it rather than telling them face to face? The lyrical facebook statuses. Sure they may be lyrics that we like and we may post it because we like it. But the reason we like it, is because we can relate to it. Instead of saying it outright, we hide behind these lyrics or even quotes. Is that what technology has done to us? It’s allowed us to hide behind pixelated text, sound waves, and video filters when we’re afraid to take a stand and look at someone in the eye and tell them how we really feel–what we really want to say to them. we’re all cowards in that way.

So I sit here and think about this semester. Think about the things I want to accomplish, the things I want to do. Things I want to change, things I hope will change and things that I fear will become a problem. But unlike before, I will keep these things to myself. at least for now.

We Build Then We Break

theminja — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 04:20:00 +0000

We Build Then We Break.

I think sometimes people try and build up to a point where they are trying so hard to reach. Once they get there, they end up losing it all and break everything that they’ve spent so much time building. You start from the bottom, you forget why you’re building this and once you reach the top, the foundation is so weak that it all crumbles.

There are also times when people build up to some sort of fantasy, that even the building blocks are hollow and weak. And in one instant, when you realize that this is only a fantasy, you find it easy to knock everything down and to break all that you’ve been trying to build. you get pulled back into the reality of things.

And then sometimes, people just think too much.

I hope everyone’s had a great Christmas and here’s to a great New Year! Be with your loved ones, both friends and family and be grateful for all that you have.

All You Need is Love

theminja — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 20:28:00 +0000

So here I am, waiting for my class to start. I only had one class all day today that was absolutely mandatory to go to or else I would get one point off of my final grade. I guess I’m officially going to convert to apple soon but I have to save up money for that. I hate money.

My next phone I’m gonna get WILL be an iPhone and I would like to get the 3GS (I am praying that there is not going to be another model released like 4 months after I buy mine) — anyway that by itself is $199 + the monthly $30 for the data plan. THEN, I want to get a MacBook Pro and that is $1199. I want a Macbook, because if I seriously start to get into editing, I’ll need to start learning how to use final cut. Plus,Windows Movie Maker just isn’t cutting it.

I’m doing a Group Project for Spanish and we’re making this little mock telenovela and I’ve enjoyed editing it. I think I enjoy editing when things are my vision or I understand the vision trying to be implemented. It actually is fun — a little tedious, but the end product is pretty satisfying and that’s what I like.

BUT HA, when is all that going to happen? On top of saving up for that, I need to start saving up for Christmas Gifts, for Birthdays, for possible apartments — which in itself is a whole ‘nother story which I don’t want to think about. I think I’m getting the iPhone first, since I’ll be eligible for an upgrade soon. I just want something nice. haha I never buy things for myself — I guess it’s because I don’t have enough money to just buy things for myself.

Thanksgiving break will literally be a blur, I think. Juggling time between family, friends and homework and of course the dreaded Black Friday. (I kind of want to do some black friday shopping too, but AGAIN — WITH WHAT MONEY?!) I have 3 tests next week ; Astronomy, Black Power Movement and Spanish as well as homework due in astronomy. Then I have 2 finals. Then this semester is over. WHAT? yep.

I’m Setting Us In Stone

theminja — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 08:37:00 +0000

So I’m a little late in writing this, but better late than never, right? It’s been a full year since I’ve started this blog. I keep on saying lots of things have changed, but it’s all been true. Get ready for a long blog.

I couldn’t make it to the last home football game this weekend because instead, I went out of town. My family had a family get together in honor of my Aunt Tam (mass was dedicated to her), and we also had an early Thanksgiving dinner with everyone as well as celebrated my brother’s graduation (very late!) It was so much fun to be around all my cousins and aunts and uncles. To see the interactions between my father and his brothers and sisters is something I always enjoy watching. Sometimes, we forget that our parents were kids just like us and to see the way they treat each other, the sibling relationship between each of them, it was really nice to see.

I believe that things happen for a reason, and at the end of the day, the most important things in your life are your family and your friends. This notion of this type of hierarchy in friendship is kind of strange if you think about it and yet we all buy into it. What is a “best” friend? Someone you’d do anything for? Someone who knows everything about you? Someone who has your back no matter what? At it’s core, a friend is just a friend. There is no thinking involved, it simply just is — and yet we all have trouble wrapping our heads around that–even I do. Life is too short to be in meaningless fights, to change relationships and friendships over something trivial when there is such a clearer and bigger picture.

People come and go in your life, I said it before and I’ll say it again. It’s hard to find those friends who will be friends for the rest of your life. It’s a fact of life that with each phase that we go through we will be surrounded with a different circle of friends. However, I believe if you make an effort and you want things to work, you will be able to keep in touch with your friends no matter the distance. These people have a piece of your life that they carry with them whether you know it or not. There will always be a memory that they have of you, with you or about you…and to think that they can just slip out from your lives is crazy. It happens though. It is up to us to make sure that doesn’t happen.

That’s why, in some ways, depending on your family, I think friendship is a bit more volatile. I have a very close family and with family, there is assurance that you will always see them, no matter what. Family Reunions, Weddings, at the end of the day, you have your family always there with you, whether you like them or not. There is this undeniable tie, a blood tie between you and your family that you can’t get rid of. With friends, it’s not so much. In one instant, something can happen and you both can go your separate ways, memories you had of each other go along with you and in a sense, part of you is drifting away. We have this idea that people should know what you’re thinking or what is really bothering you. To a certain extent, I can see that, but we must also realize that all of us are just human beings. We aren’t mind readers. We are allowed to make mistakes, to not be as perceptive as we think we can be.

That’s why I think that it is important to say how thankful you are for the people you have in your life. Both family and friends. If you know me, then you know that you will get a detailed card during Christmas expressing my thoughts. But with Thanksgiving coming up, I am in the spirit of giving thanks. And that is what I will briefly do in no particular order with ten people. This is in by no means everyone who I am thankful for. Do not feel hurt if you are not on this list.

one. I think we have grown so much closer and I think this has been a really good thing. Although we bring out the immaturity in the both of us, I know that when it comes down to it, we can get serious and talk about important things. We both know where we are coming from and what we are thinking and I can honestly say, sometimes you are the only one who would get whatever I’m thinking or trying to say. That is both creepy and amazing at the same time. I am so proud of you.

two. I apologize again for upsetting you. I know things aren’t what they used to be anymore and it bothers me that that’s what this has come to. I do miss you, and I hope you are doing well. We used to see each other a lot more and I enjoyed spending time with you and joking around. I will never understand how you have continued to be as strong as you are now with everything that you have gone through, but I think it is amazing.

three. There is so much that I have to thank you for and I will. It has been such a memorable moment in my life meeting you as it signifies a sort of new chapter of my life. I appreciate all that you have done for me and I’ve become immersed into this new surrounding because of you. The people that I have met because of you, the memories I’ve made–I’ve enjoyed every single moment of it. I could not imagine this year without you.

four. It’s funny that we’ve gotten close and the circumstances that started it all, but I wouldn’t have changed it one bit. Just think if you never came over that night, all the inside jokes we’ve had and keep having could have never really existed. You are another person who gets what I’m trying to say and has pretty much the same type of humor that I have. I know that you aren’t afraid to tell me what I may not want to hear sometimes and I appreciate that about you.

five. things have always been a little up and down between us, but I can’t believe it resulted in what it did. I am glad we have decided to put that behind us and just move on. Although it was difficult, it was also an important time in my life where I was able to do some growing up. Although it is still sometimes difficult to fully wrap my head around just being friends again and to kind of go back to that mindset, at the end of the day, it is what it is.

six. I too think that we have grown closer this past year and that’s a good thing. There have been some good talks that we’ve had that I haven’t necessarily gotten to hear about from you and it was great being able to see that part of you. Always positive and optimistic, I envy that about you.

seven. You are genuine, caring and beautiful. Although we may be separated far away and not talk everyday, we are still there for each other. You are goofy and zany, yet professional and have extreme work ethic. You do not let drama affect you as much as it does some of us and that is one of the best things I like about you. I still believe that out of all of us, you have achieved a considerable amount of success in your college career and I am so proud. Just remember to take a breath and enjoy yourself every once in a while.

eight. Our relationship is love-hate for sure, but I love it. and hate it. We always seem to find ways to butt heads or get into little dumb arguments, but I hope you know that at the core of things, I will do things for you if you really needed to do it. I think this year, you are growing up in some ways and I think that’s great. You are smart and funny and you have so much potential.

nine. The one that is sometimes forgotten, but that’s only because you put everything you have into your schoolwork. You are so smart, so funny, and you were always there for me. I know that you still are there for me when I need it. I can’t wait till you come back. You are seriously missed.

ten. Although we have never really been close, I still see why people like you so much. You are a great person, with a good heart and I will always remember that you did not treat me any differently, not once. Thank you.