Last night, I took the time to look over my Xanga to see how long I’ve come. For my entire life, I’ve actually been quite adverse to journaling, and I don’t think I’ve ever taken Xanga as a serious journal, unlike some other people that have actually used it to do some real journaling in their life, and not just random blogging. It’s been interesting to see where I started, all the way back in junior year of high school, to where I am now, a first year professional school student in pharmacy school. The posting frequency has certainly dropped off to a post or so a semester, unlike back then, when I would post once a week. I think that no matter what you write, whether it is done seriously or not, what you write inevitably reveals a part of who you are. I look back at past posts, to see how I acted back then, my motivations, my goals in life, the people I respected, and the people I felt, and continue to hold as my role models. There were a lot of really funny events in life that I had forgotten, kind of like when you see a stuffed animal that you were inseparable from during your younger days, found in a house moving box in your room’s closet. In many ways, I miss those days, and sometimes wish that I could go back and fix mistakes, or even continue to live a single, more simple day in order to avoid the problems in my current life. It was also exciting to see that people that I developed good relationships with back in high school, I still hold a pretty strong friendship with. On the other hand, it’s disappointing and somewhat demoralizing to read names from summer camps, school, etc of people I knew, or at least thought I knew, but reflecting upon the more immediate past, seeing more of those attempts as failures. To sum it up, it’s interesting to see how open I am with my thoughts through indirect means of communication (blog, IM, phone) versus face-face direct conversation. My world was pretty small, and is still pretty small today, and I think if you look through all of those posts, you would be able to find everything from the girl(s) that I liked/still like, my hobbies, friends, role models, irritations, goals, etc.

So some thoughts on Urbana before I close it out: The most cliché thing I could say about Urbana was that it was educational and that I learned a lot. To be honest, I think that was all that it was to me. It wasn’t a revival, it didn’t pump me up. In essence, it was no summer camp experience, whereas it was the most educational (and by far the most expensive) field trip that I had ever been on and a trip where I had my convictions confirmed. Truth be told, I’m glad that I went, and if it were not for my friend, I don’t think I would’ve gone, primarily for reasons of crossing paths with people that I was not too excited about seeing. Although the trip was a good one, it made me think heavily about my past decisions and the consequences those decisions brought about. On the way to Urbana, I prayed that I would be able to trust and share with other Christians more, especially those that I felt I held a relatively closer relationship with, and hey, after some bribing with candy, I was able to share a little bit. The reasoning why I’m hesitant on sharing with closer friends? It’s exciting and encouraging to hear how faith works in the lives of these closer friends, but it also gets me when there is nothing encouraging for me to reflect on when it becomes my turn to share “how life’s going.” What’s worse is that as a result of over six years of bottling up these thoughts to myself, it’s hard to figure out how to unwind without turning a conversation into a whine-fest. After all, who would want to go hang out, only to get discouraged by what I have to say? After I tried it once, it got me in the heart to see how I could single-handedly bring down the excitement/happiness levels about twelve notches. A lot of times it feels like opportunities are dangled in front of me and then times taken away, then presented again, and then taken away, and this only confuses me on whether or not I should continue to do this or not. So for those of you that have ever sat down with me face to face and had tried to talk, and have walked away disappointed that I was not more open, I’m sorry. It really is a lot more multi-dimensional than what I have typed, despite sitting here for almost an hour trying to think how I should word this. If you ever want to know the thoughts on this, I beg you to seriously… ask me and want to know, preferably in a face-face environment. I also want to apologize to those that I had met before the UT years for the manner in which I had treated you in first years of our friendship up until maybe past one or two years (if you are wondering what I mean, I think you do). Despite my putdowns, jabs made at your interethnic heritage, etc, it really amazes me the Christian love and patience that you have demonstrated towards me when all the other sane, normal people backed away. I don’t call everyone “cool” and “popular,” and the word “awesome” is really reserved for those that I think really are so. Amidst all the unseriousness that I am, please at least take that for all that it is worth. For those of you that are thinking this is a totally different side of me that you are reading, seeing, or have heard about, thank God this is so. The conviction comes from Eph 4:17-end. The good news is that for the past three, four years, I have been getting better at being a decent, encouraging human being. Please allow me to continue to make this up to you.

So 1,418 days (3 years, 10 months, 16 days), 1,842 eprops, 974 comments, and 75,646 words later, I have decided to end my Xanga days, and that this will be my last post. I have since had not as much time to do this, and I figure that if I’m ever going to figure out how to become a more open person face to face, it would be silly to continue to have Xanga to fall back on. For those of you that are not faint of heart, and would like to help me and encourage me with that, that would be awesome. I took the time to take some stats about my Xanga, and the timeframe of my life that Xanga was a part of. If you’re interested, you can look at the highlights of what I thought was interesting in my life by clicking and downloading the Excel spreadsheet. Learn more about me there! That graph is actual data collected from my Xanga btw.

Thanks to those that have read for the past 3 years. For the last time through any meaningful post, have a good day and a very good future =D

Thanksgiving break was awesome and a much needed change of pace from school. Props to the guys that took some time out of your busy/popular lives and made my few days home all that much better =) And thanks to you kids that helped make all that XLR-XLR cable this past Friday. Hope the uncoventional fun (burning stuff, speaker throwing, and screw-ups) was somewhat enjoyable. My apologies to those that we couldn't do anything together, but there are also a few opps during Christmas time, but hey, it's the thought that counts =)    

My sister and I. She's so big now =(

Here's the booty that I brought back with me for my (actually parent's) Thanksgiving shopping/Christmas presents

A 2lb pack of Viet BBQ, 6 pairs of CLEARANCE socks, an iPod Nano 4GB; and 1.5lb of preserved dried plums =D

I did really miss my guitar though while I was back home. Hopefully, I'll be able to bring it back with me for Christmas, butttttttttttttttttttttt I'm back with it now =D

Some people have also asked about what my apt looks like. To put it in one of my friend's words, it looks like a drug dealer lives here due to its err, lack of furnishings and extensive use of crates and foldable tables and chairs. Think of your room with a mattress and a foldable table. That pretty much sums up my flat. I guess that's why when I got back home, I felt like the place was physically a darker color because there were actually things in my house/room. Here, there are only two things that hang on the walls in my apt.

The Longhorn flag in my room that I bought with the remainder of my Dine-in-Dollars from UT and...

The best birthday card ever, again in my room.

Oh yes, and I only have a mattress that sits on the ground. Sleeping on the ground is quite an invigorating experience =D

Here are some pictures of people here that are quite cool:

Martin. It is rumored that there are no normal pictures of him. You should see pictures of him with his beard.

Other cool people and me during the Kappa Psi pledge scavenger hunt.

Ok well that's it for me. 3 more tests and 6 finals to go until the next break. Peace out and take care! Finish the semester strong! XD

So long time since the last post. I think this will be my summer post for the next few months or so =D

It was yet another awesome school year. As far as band goes, another Rose Bowl, my first National Championship, as well as... another semester of Special Band! In my entire band career, I’ve experienced 2 Rose Bowls, one of which was a National Championship and a Presidential Inauguration parade where I got to see our President and… ludicrously cold, possibly rainy, drizzly, snowy weather. The memory of death marches for a Rose Bowl Parade and at Disneyhell are by any means less memorable, if not MORE. Sighhh nuts. I’m glad that I stayed with it for these past two years. Let this be a lesson to anyone that would ever want to join orchestra or quit band. It’s also been great to meet and become friends with people that I’d never think to be friends with or do the crazy stuff that we’ve done, with which 100% I have felt to been proud to be part of. Thanks to all the Texas Trombones and insider people that have made this year fun. Fortunately, my grades were also able to keep up with the fun.

Lucky for me as far as school goes, my GPA only dropped 0.2 pts =D =D. Sighhh 3.69 is going to have to do it for me. It was hard this semester though, and I think I slacked off a lot. I did have PLENTY of fun though with ochem lab. Oh yeahh… despite lab being at 8:00 Tuesday mornings, we certainly had our share of fun this year due to…

Eating nylon and breaking just about every lab safety protocol…

Eating slime and again breaking just about every lab safety protocol…

And wasting lab supplies to do mix and match lab protocols and stuff like... making rubber band balls…

(And… taking lots of weigh boats and pipettes =X. Sorry no incriminating pictures here.)

The O-chem Lab Crew

And for Ochem lecture, thanks to Geo, Jing, Bryan (and Wei) for making all of that great =D. (Heh… no picture. You people suck. Ooooh… oxymoron or perhaps paradox?) The study groups in Jester were great =D Any studying mixed with Family Guy or Simpsons on the projector screen makes everything awesome =D Oh and how could I forget, the DOC CAM!

So the sum of the sophomore experience? All good, since it was at the expense of making other people particularly uncomfortable and/or feel awkward. Heh heh heh. You know your life will never be the same. Ever. Mwahahaha =D

Summer has also been great so far. What have I done?? EUROPEE!!!!!!! OOohhhh that was great. Although it was quite expensive (=X) it was definitely worth EVERY SINGLE PENNY SPENT (ah hem to a certain someone in the UK). Not only did we get to see a lot of the big places in London, Paris and Rome, and eat the fooooooood (Chinese was ok… but Italian was sock-knocker-offers), but got to see/hang out with Ben and Jackson for a few days!

Yeahh… uhhh… we had our deal of fun. In London, we got to go see the Tower of London, Harrods (JamesH would die in this place), the British Library, Regents Street (too many times), Hamley’s (possibly the freaking hugest toy store ever), the Apple Store (had a cinema???), Buckingham palace, the British Museum, Windsor Castle, and drinking (but not getting wasted). Paris was great too, where we got to see the Eiffel Tower, Napoleon’s tomb, Sainte Chappele, Notre Dame, the Louvre, and the Palace of Versailles. I have to hand it to the French for building the most insanely beautiful palaces ever. Ironically, this is what got the poor chaps killed, so I guess we win in the long run?? =D In Rome, we went to the Forum, Coliseum, Trevi Fountain (where I saw someone get pooped on by a bird) and St. Peter’s Basilica/Square (where I got to see tour groups battle each other and the tour guides screaming at other tour guides… which was interesting in itself). The line for the Vatican Museum and the Sistine Chapel could have easily beat any line for tickets for any popular music artist, whatever, maybe even to see the Queen of England. To put this in perspective, think about people lined up around the entire Galleria from Dillards by 610 all the way to Saks Fifth Avenue and around Galleria III (or whatever the newest part of the Galleria is).

So in summary (minus the persistent rain), 13 days, 3300 pictures taken and two thumbs up for Paris, London, and Rome!

And the day after I returned… SUMMER SCHOOOOOOL!!!!!!! I have a Ms. Fish with a Ph.D for my literature prof, an economics prof that looks like actor John Ritter (Jack Tripper from “Three’s Company” or for the more historically disinclined, the dad from “8 Simple Rules to Date my Teenage Daughter”), and a ridiculously perky speech prof (only because this is an 8a class). So if I don’t go insane first from 7 hours of class Mon-Thurs and 2 hours on Friday and at least 1 exam, 1 speech, 1 paper due every week, I’ll keep my perfect 4.0 GPA at HCCS. If not, then I’ll be happy with C’s and dying/barely breathing come July 6.

And now for some of the more serious stuff. As many of you are aware of, I’ve been going to school at UT for the past 2 years as a pre-pharmacy student, officially majoring in something the school likes calling “Undeclared/Prepharmacy” (HAH…. So I’m better than you 100% undeclared people). This being my second year and completing all these prereq (heh that almost LOOKS like a palindrome!) classes, I applied to the pharmacy schools of UT, UH, and Texas Tech. Lucky for me, I got pretty quick responses from two of the three pharm schools, but UT dragged out their response for the longest of times. Out of the two initial responses, I received one acceptance letter from Texas Tech, and a rejection from UH. This left only two possible options to me. If I were accepted into UT, then I would have the choice of either attending UT or Texas Tech. For awhile, I felt that if such a decision where I would have to choose between UT and elsewhere befell me, it would have been a very difficult one to make, with no one choice being a clearly obvious winner. As of this past Wednesday, I was relieved of that scenario with a rejection letter from UT’s pharmacy school. This coming fall, I will officially become a student at the Texas Tech University Health Science Center’s pharmacy school in Amarillo. Looking at this and not being a particularly smart/intelligent/perfect student academically or through extracurricular or social activities, I find myself extremely lucky to have been accepted into a pharmacy school on the first try after my second year. While others may have been thinking Texas Tech was my last ditch choice, I can never say once that was the case. During my past two years at UT, although having a great and memorable time for many reasons and with many people, I have also felt on multiple occasions that Austin has been a Purgatory-like place, with me having no clear idea whether or not I was completely happy being at UT and should I have the choice to leave, if I would do so. The prospect of being there for another four years, seeing if current what-if’s and past wasted opportunites would ever be answered or made up for had been stirring in my mind during the time I waited for UT’s response. All in all, with the decision to leave for Texas Tech, I have felt that a large personal request to be given a chance to start anew, had been answered, and thus many of my worries laid to rest. I could not be more excited to be given a second opportunity to start fresh, and see who I really am as a person free of the obstacles, apprehensiveness, fears, and scrutiny that have so far held me back from being more than what I've felt that I could be. The best part of this deal is that I still get to study what I've always wanted to study while in the process of this change.

For making the last two years the best years of my life to date, from the LHB people to the non-LHB people that I’m proud to know and to have good laughs with, a lot of them creations of our own, I am forever indebted to you for making the past 2 years nothing less than great. For LHBers, I will definitely see if I can do LHAB next fall. To everyone, although I did not get to know 95% of you as well as I had like to, you people have been nothing but an inspiration for me in the goals to shoot for academically, socially, and as a person. Many of you have blown my mind and earned my respect and awe about what it has meant to be a caring/cool/awesome person despite my shortcomings to you in return. To the few people that have especially come after me and asked how I was doing, eat, hang out, and/or… study… despite my lack of effort to be your friend or do the same in return, I thank you guys/girls the most for giving me the time of day that I didn’t, and probably still don’t deserve from such awesome people as yourselves. On those days where life was not great, you gave me the energy to make the day better and in the end, have a good day, and I will never for the rest of my life be able to return that (unless… you’re dying and you need meds). Above all else, I cannot thank enough those willing to be friends knowing that they be putting up with a lot of things that people of sane mind would never bother to deal with such as: my weirdness, experimental awkward situations, stinginess, anger, bad/unexciting/boring lunch/dinner dates, inwardness, blitherings, and other things that are characteristically James. All I can say is that these are an automatic defense mechanism that is activated when I’m around ridiculously cool people. For those particularly traumatized, all I can say is that I’m very very very very sorry. At least, you’ll be rid of it from now on =D For those that I only got to really know this past year through classes or other stuff like that, it will be one of the two things that I think really stinks about having to leave now. I hope that despite going to different schools, we will ace the test of friendship… if not get at least a C. Thanks for two good years at UT. I will never forget them.

I hope that everyone has an aweeeeeeesommee summer! My summer school assignment for you: Go be more awesome and productive! =D =D =D For those that read the entire post, thanks a bunch. For those that read only this paragraph, it’s not like this is “Pride and Prejudice.”

Peace out! =D