:: 1.41421356237 ::

:: Friday, August 31, 2001 ::

went to vicky's house to help her on math this morning. turns out, not much math :D which was a good thing!

hmm. i remember wanting to talk about something. oh--i hadn't read vicky's blog before i left home, so i didn't know that she wasn't feeling too good (mentally? physically as a result of mentally?) this morning. i wish i could have done something to comfort her...or something. well, anyway, i'm always here as a safe harbor.

The sun blinds my eyes. I look away, I cannot see. All is light; all is dark; I cannot tell the difference. There is a void where I once saw. But it is not a question of seeing anymore. It is a question of thinking, and remembering. Seeing, on my own, through my own eyes and imagination, the Eden once again. The flowers, the grass, the sun. The animals. The tree. For I know how I knew it once was and how it can be still. I have the power of faith.

:: sqroot2 8/31/2001 02:42:00 PM [+] :: something to say? []
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i think i should be satisfied and not jealous about anyone, thing relating to my relationship with vicky. i can't ask for much more; why should i agonize about it then? i like things the way they are...

A bird rises from the clump of flowers. A dove, white as fresh snow, its eyes bright and cheerful. In its beak is the stem of a rose, a dark red rose. I watch it ascend into the blue sky, toward the sun, until the sun has absorbed it, until the bird is the sun. They are in another place, that bird, that rose...

:: sqroot2 8/31/2001 12:11:00 AM [+] :: something to say? []
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i hate being able to sign on while knowing that i won't be able to be online for long. i'm blogging now, instead of signing on.

i was just listening to rachmaninoff's second symphony, third movement. it's an all-around panacea for anything. it evokes

A land of pure beauty. The atmosphere is dark, foreboding, but there is a break in the clouds. All that I focus on, all that attracts my attention is the spot of land that the sun illuminates. It is a hill of moderate slope, with grass growing uniformly, green, healthy, full. There is a small tree, leafy and short, to the right of the scene. Under the shade it provides loiter several small animals--mice, rabbits, squirrels. The air is clean and fresh. A clump of flowers grows near the rear of the scene, tulips, roses, petunias, and hibiscuses. The sun does not make me sweat. Rather, it is like a rejuvenating power, putting strength into my wearied muscles and bones...

i wish i were in that land.

:: sqroot2 8/30/2001 10:49:00 AM [+] :: something to say? []
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i just emailed vicky. what was into me? it sounded horrible. it wasn't what i was thinking. it was the output, the effect of my thoughts, the contours on a piece of silk that an object placed under it creates. who knows this blog? this is an earthly confession....................

i'm jealous of startrekkers who can converse with vicky about what she wants. i'm jealous of those who can see vicky without their, or her parents caring. not i, i cannot. what is jealousy? jealousy is lonigng for the ability to buy a 1907 Saint-gaudens double eagle $20 gold coin, in uncirculated condition. the pang that comes when i see a steinway. jealousy is wanting to know what pauling, or arrhenius, or seaborg knew. it is me wanting to compose like rachmaninoff, to play piano like liszt, to conduct like von karajan, to be a rostropovich...

i like vicky. that is undeniable. jealousy is on the side, divorced from anything that our relationship comprises and is related to. this jealousy will not stop our relationship, this jealousy will end my sanity at worst. this jealousy is a plague that i need to rid from my system--a black, stinking spittle that i hack up after coughing violently. i have coughed on you. i have not spit yet. i do not have the ability to spit yet. i cannot, yet, rid my system of this jealousy. it persists.

please, if you read this blog, don't ask me about it, don't tell me about it unless your'e vicky. please.

:: sqroot2 8/30/2001 12:45:00 AM [+] :: something to say? []
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ok, last time i posted was aug 19, when blogger deleted my post...aack. so i deleted the frantic pissed-off posts that followed that episode.

hmm. vicky's coming back from las vegas today. i just woke up...well, i woke up like 12:15 because my mom was out doing stuff and wasn't home to wake me up. i missed her wake-up calls :D and just slept right through. *yawn* okay, i don't know why i just yawned, but oh well...

i think i'm going to do coin collecting again. coin collecting is an investment as well as a pleasure. plus, sorting out my grandfather's coins was fun. sort of a tribute to his life of traveling as the vp of a major taiwan shipbuilding company...yeah. so now i have to build up my own collection, starting with state quarters! and then other stuff. the finances of coin collecting--the trends of prices--are indeed very challenging. seriously. :P

hmm, i've started to play piano more. a lot now. so, that takes away a lot of my time. auditions for south bay youth orchestra are next tuesday, the day school starts. I have to start practicing the dvorak concerto again for that, and i think i might approach it a new way. music is so complicated, so nuanced. i love it.

as you can see, a good night's sleep of about eleven hours did me good. i am talking/blogging coherently now, by my own standards. so many things i need to/want to buy--receiver for sound system, coin collecting supplies, a subscription to coin world,...other stuff that i can't remember now.

USC's fall semester starts today, and half.com lost my sister's book order. so...that's sort of difficult to resolve. we'll see. talk to y'aaaaaaall later!

:: sqroot2 8/27/2001 12:47:00 PM [+] :: something to say? []
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leaving for northern CA tomorrow...have to wake up like 3:30. i'll be back friday morning

:: sqroot2 8/14/2001 09:54:00 PM [+] :: something to say? []
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to blogging. things/person i want to talk about, in chronological order: cds from borders, piano, vicky and redondo beach pier, all of sunday, and then all of today. after that, a tiny bit more on vicky.

at borders i got two cds--both with sviatoslav richter at the piano. one has the tchaikovsky first concerto and rachmaninoff second concerto on it, the two most popular concertos of all time. the first movement of the rachmaninoff is played rather slowly but, as one cd reviewer described it somewhere (i can't remember where i read it), you don't really care about the tempo knowing that it is superb pianism you are hearing. richter's technique is great. anyway, onto the second cd...if i continue at this rate, i'm never going to finish blogging. the second cd is richter playing liszt's first and second piano concertos as well as his hungarian fantasy for piano and orchestra coupled with chopin's andante spianato and grande polonaise in e-flat major. i don't care much for richter as a chopin interpreter...i think his sense of the rhythm in the polonaise is rather sloppy. all chopin polonaises have the same basic rhythm-- 1 &a 2 & 3&, and richter doesn't bring it out enough. on the other hand, his liszt is so masterfully played, both technique-wise and interpretation-wise, but more so interpretation-wise--as the cd booklet says, "One might well believe that Liszt had written his piano concertos with Richter in mind" (Donald Mitchell, The Daily Telegraph).

richter is definitely on my list of the best five pianists of all time. i don't know where exactly, but he's up there.

next item. piano. i'm switching teachers...again! so frustrating...i don't think mrs. ho's regimen will be timely enough. i'm leaving for college in another twelve months, for crying out loud...and she wants me to get simple pieces/remedial pieces done first before i start harder, more extensive pieces. i don't have the time for her completeness of teaching...though she is probably the best piano teacher i ever will have. seeing erika chary tomorrow for a chat/evaluation/performance for her, a hungary-trained pianist of a rather high order...will get back on how that session goes. i really like the rach. second concerto, first movement...

saturday night i went to bike along the pier with vicky. it was fun, especially at the not-pier end with no lights... :D sure tired me out.

humm...bug...sunday, yesterday, i went to my uncle's house at night and looked at his records. he has soooooo many classics of the classical repertoire, with good performers...kempff playing beethoven sonatas, karajan conducting ravel's bolero and more, pollini playing chopin's etudes, tchaikovsky's first concerto with richter and karajan (the cd version of which i just bought friday)...yes, i am seriously boring you guys out. :) after that my sister and i went to pavilions (oh--my sister and i went to my uncle's house, not with my parents) and bought reddi-wip whipped cream! YUM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

today my sister had her wisdom teeth pulled...she was unconscious during the procedure. i woke up at eleven fifteen, had doctor's appt for vaccine at two, went to costco after that, tutored from 5:30-6:30, ate dinner, played n64, played the piano...rachmaninoff *evil laugh* and then came...here! to blog. :) so that was today.

ya know, this is seriously really short...a lot shorter than i imagined. maybe i should have talked a bit more about richter and the liszt concertos...oh well.

i don't get enough time with vicky...half of me is screaming inside and the other half is telling the first half to shut up and enjoy the good things while they last. p'raps i should stop bawling about this matter...most certainly it's caused me more :) than :(. or a lot of :D, at any rate. so...well, the latter half will take over, i will sleep soundly (dreaming of someone), and g'night to you all!

:: sqroot2 8/13/2001 11:41:00 PM [+] :: something to say? []
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today--piano lesson 11:45-12:30, hospital volunteering for abt 2 hours after that...will get home around three-ish. wonder if i can do anything tonight... :)

hmm. ya know what, i really like the rachmaninoff second piano concerto. (hollywood does too.) mrs. ho, my teacher, wants me to play the first movement of beethoven's first concerto, but i want to play the first mvt. of rachmaninoff's second concerto. so i'll see what i can do. my love for the piece was rekindled with the recording i bought yesterday...will blog later about that, as promised! :D

:: sqroot2 8/11/2001 10:50:00 AM [+] :: something to say? []
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no time for real blog...went to borders today and got two cds...will blog about those some other time. bye!!!!!!!!

:: sqroot2 8/10/2001 10:44:00 PM [+] :: something to say? []
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hi! blogging partly at the request of someone ;) and partly because it's fun...

i really want to start restudying chem and learning more...about qualitative analysis (which is often a whole college course in itself), o-chem (organic chem), and just refreshening my knowledge of equilibria and kinetics. important things first--for the first time in my life (that i know of) there is not a single pair of clean briefs in the house that are my size. so--bad news. i'm sitting at the computer in socks and a short pair of soft orange plaid cloth shorts, nothing else. literally. :) heheeehee!

hmm...i have to get started on summer reading soon, though after i packed down the mailer that i did, i don't think that it'll be too hard. mailer isn't really deep material--he's not like heller in catch-22 revolving around deep motif of the chaos of war, or like faulkner or ellison--but he is hard to get through. mailer's writing is dense in a way; i find other authors a faster read. so--back to summer reading, i don't think i'll have too much trouble finishing those books.

for lunch the three of us assistants went to rubio's baja grill where i had nachos and three crispy shrimp tacos...tres tacos and a coke, it's called. i biked there; emi and chie walked. afterwards, since we had time to burn, i suggested we visit the new bookstore called a&s bargain books...and they have a really bad selection of quality fiction (i think). so that was a dud. on the way back on my bike, i inadvertently crashed into the ice plants lining silver spur road across the street from peninsula center. i knocked the chain off the gear and...well, it was hilarious, especially for the people watching me on the street methinks.

my mom gave me a haircut just half an hour ago; i took a shower and here i am now. later i'm going to read some qualitative analysis and some zumdahl, if i get around to the latter.

you know, i had to make a saturated solution of barium hydroxide for the environmental science AP prep class. i wasn't thinking straight, so when the lecturer/instructor/presenter said that he just wanted to precipitate out barium carbonate, i said, well, all you need are barium ions so the OH doesn't matter so to increase the solubility i'll add an acid (HCl) and make the barium hydroxide really soluble. i ended up acidifying the solution to a pH < 1 inadvertently. now the problem is if there's so much H+ then it's going to make the barium CARBONATE really soluble, not just hte barium hydroxide. my mistake. so then some of the teachers in environmental science got really cut up over it, while some other teachers were ok after i explained how i would rectify the problem. i simply added NaOH, brought the pH back to about six or seven, thus ensuring that the precipitate was barium carbonate and not both barium carbonate and barium hydroxide. one long paragraph really isn't enough to cover the whole situation chemically...so this will do for now. for more details, ask me :P

the teachers taking the chem class precipitated out silver from a copper/silver nitrate lab that is basically meant to demonstrate a single replacement reaction. so they gave all the silver to me 'cause they didn't want it and were going to throw it away...pretty much pure silver. cool stuff! :D i have it in a test tube, it's powdery and such.

i rented dumb and dumber and watched that...talk about hilarious. it's sooooooo funny. then vicky was online when i used the computer after i saw the movie! whoooooopeeeeeeee! so i talked to her. :D

and...am i too goof-off-ish sometimes? who's to say? if anyone, vicky. i don't know how to like any other way, or perhaps how to be any other way. i..had something to say about this, but it's not coming out. i don't want to end this post on this rather down note.

so i'm just going to keep being myself...and see how things turn out. vicky, you know the way i feel about the girls that i have liked or the one girl that i madly like now--you. tell me about my personality. i'll change if you want me to, and i won't if you don't. for now,

Late at night when all the world
is sleeping I stay up late and think of you [ :D ]
and I wish on a star
that somewhere you are
thinking of me too

:: sqroot2 8/10/2001 12:26:00 AM [+] :: something to say? []
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hmm...back from work at the AP thing and then mac. i just finished dinner...onto the day, which was pretty uneventful.

well, first off, i made a lot of solutions again--acids, bases, and a few other things. the fire alarm kept on going off, probably due to vapors from the repainting of the campus--the alarm became HIGHLY annoying (went off five times)...mrs. dillard said that everybody would blame it on the chem AP room. :P

turns out calabrese ordered a few extra zumdahl chemistry fifth edition textbooks, so mrs. dillard and mr. calabrese said i could have one. so i have a brand-new zumdahl right here! whooooooopeeee! fun fun fun, i get to read and study :)

chie, emi, and i (the three peonic student helpers) went to burger king to eat lunch. man was i stuffed! i think my stomach is shrinking...that's a good thing, right? :P

*sigh* i like helping vicky with math. ah well...shmuck!!!!!

:: sqroot2 8/08/2001 07:21:00 PM [+] :: something to say? []
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okay, sorry about the last two posts...rather short, i guess. vicky said no food details :)...and, by the way, i just finished two cheesy eggiwegs.

Late at night when all the world is sleeping
I stay up late and think of you and I wish on a star
That somewhere you are thinking of me too

'Cause I'm dreaming of you tonight
'Til tomorrow I'll be holding you tight
And there's nowhere in the world I'd rather be
Than here in my room dreaming about you and me

Corazón
No puedo dejar de pensar en ti
Cómo te necesito
Mi amor, cómo te extraño

i really like that song...dreaming of you, by selena. vicky told me to d/l it. it's grrrreat. i think i'm going to burn a single with just that song and listen to it over and over again. and the lyrics are mostly true, too... :D

well, the AP prep thing that i'm helping out at is pretty fun. i made NaOH and HCl solution--once you open the cap to the HCl lots of HCl vapor goes up and it's pretty scary knowing that if you breathe the vapors, you're going to turn out not too well. dissolving the NaOH in water makes the solution very hot--the dissolving reaction is highly exothermic. 180 g in 750 mL. and one other compound that pisses me off to no end is bismuth nitrate, Bi(NO3)3. yeah most nitrates are soluble--this one is too--just it's barely soluble. it's soluble all right, after half an hour of heating and mixing. great fun! no, not really. but that's been most of my life there--making lots of solutions.

working is really hard and tiring. i'm pooped after i get home, and don't feel like doing much except reading. i guess i can see why vicky's always so sleepy after work...or is it just because she's sleepy herself? :P

the summer is really winding down. this week will end, then three more and then school starts. i...haven't found opportunity to do too much with vicky, but i can't complain. it's been a fun time starting from that night during and then the plane ride home from the stay in michigan...

:: sqroot2 8/07/2001 11:24:00 PM [+] :: something to say? []
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not much to blog. just emailed vicky, that would be my blog, almost...so will blog more tomorrow. tomorrow is work from 7:30 to 4!!!

archives work!

:: sqroot2 8/05/2001 10:23:00 PM [+] :: something to say? []
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oh, chameleons are cute if they're soggy :) especially one in particular... :D

:: sqroot2 8/04/2001 10:43:00 PM [+] :: something to say? []
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hello everybody!

i LOVEEEEEEE my new cd drive! i rip the tracks off as wavs, then burn at 12x and the cd's done in less than ten minutes! :D today i had piano lessons, 11:45-12:30...went to the library book sale after that for about an hour and a half, only brought home two books and three records. the selection is completely devoid of what i consider quality literature--nabokov, faulkner, hesse, etc...though they do have mario puzo's the last don and omerta and the fourth k and lots of tom clancy and others. there's a new bookstore where crown books used to be--a and g bargain books or something funny like that. maybe i'll check that out to build up my collection of faulkner and nabokov, which are two authors that i absolutely admire. ralph ellison is great. i love invisible man; it's sad that ellison only wrote that and juneteenth (more accurately he didn't even write it, he outlined it and another person finished it for him). i don't think i've said that before here. i'm listening to the second movement of joaquin rodrigo's concierto de aranjuez...it's beautiful. the melody is so touching, and familiar, too...the most famous guitar concerto, by far.

i picked up norman mailer's (as in author of the naked and the dead) the executioner's song today from the book sale. he splits his prose into paragraphs, which are usually broken up with a line break in between....just like my posts. it makes it a lot easier to read. i mention it because i think it's easier to follow emails and blogs if they go in block paragraph format with line breaks in between. ANYWAY. :)

yes vicky, i'm going to jump you before you know it. a -nice- kind of jumping. affectionate kind. :D oh, you know what i mean... ;)

okay, next paragraph :) at the book sale i got the original sound of music soundtrack on record! coooool!

hmm...i don't really know if there was any specific thing that i wanted to write about. been reading the mailer and light in august...i'm going to pick up the naked and the dead again. so many characters to remember, it's hard :) i might go to sleep earlier today than the past two days, i went to sleep at like two yesterday blogging and taking care of stuff. so ciao to y'all, ask me for the mp3 of rodrigo's concierto de aranjuez!

:: sqroot2 8/04/2001 10:41:00 PM [+] :: something to say? []
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shit, archives don't fucking work

:: sqroot2 8/04/2001 01:18:00 AM [+] :: something to say? []
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science bowl today...humm. it wasn't all that interesting, i sucked @#*% but vijay was entertaining. i guess he thought i was the only one who cared enough about his new lab at madrona marsh with cool new equipment like centrifuges for him to mention it to me. i got a new cd burner today...or actually, i mean, i got one yesterday, stayed up till one getting it not to work, returned it at 10:30 this morning and got another one. 12x10x32, it's pretty good! i'm satisfied, at last :)

humm. vicky says she's going fishing on sunday. i've never gone fishing before...i don't know if i can stomach the concept of hooking a fish in the roof of its mouth. but then again i've never done it before...so i don't know.

my dsl wouldn't work for a looooooongass time today...like 2-11. and then right when the tech support guy is on the phone it works and stultifies me >.< so here i am now because of that great luck. i was dyyyyyying because i couldn't go online...so i ended up calling vicky :D!

so, i wonder what else is new. next week i work 8-4 m-f helping mrs. dillard, the redondo union hs bioap/chemap teacher, in mr. calabrese's ap teachers teach teachers program thing. so that will occupy most of my time. ::sigh:: summer is boring, i've said...reading is ok, i'm going to go read light in august a little. i'll link up faulkner's and steinbeck's acceptance speeches...they're both masterpieces. ::sigh:: because i want to do something with vicky--and i'm so busy doing just small things--running around visiting grandparents, buying stuff, mailing stuff, practicing driving, etc.--that i really don't have much free time. i want to do something with her! X0 okay that didn't quite look like what it was supposed to. :0...talk to you guys later.

:: sqroot2 8/04/2001 01:17:00 AM [+] :: something to say? []
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i'm going to post first, then paste a section from today's ethnic jokes. hilarious :)

so...vicky came over today to study math. it was fun :P and we actually did get some studying done, studying math, not just anatomy ;) (as goes our joke). too bad my parents were always within earshot. 0:D nothing bad happened, really. UNFORTUNATELY so. hahahaa. okay, anyway...drove after vicky left, at the high school, to practice. made pancakes after i came home--or rather i mixed the batter and my dad actually make them. they were good--spread the butter (or more accurately 70% vegetable shortening or something else weird like that), pour on loads of syrup, cut, and eat. yum!

from ethnic jokes:

Ya KNOW ya on a Black Airline When...
1. The windows are tinted.
2. The plane is sitting on gold rims.
3. The stewardess's are all ex-Hammer dancers.
4. First class, business class and coach is classified as:
O.G., Hustlers, and Playa Haters.
5. Power windows for fly-bys.
6. Pilot comes on the intercom and asks everybody for gas
money.
7. The intercom chimes 'wazzup!, wazzup!' prior to
announcements instead of 'ding ding'.
8. Floating devices have patches.
9. Oxygen masks are turned into bongs.
10. The pilot is doing doughnuts on the runway.
11. The pilot has to check in with his parole officer before
take off.
12. The pilot needs a jump to start the plane.
13. The stewardesses have on Fubu gear as their uniforms.
14. Featured movies are, 'Booty Call', 'I Got The Hook Up,'
and the original 'Shaft'.
15. Served miniature forty ounces and pork skins.
16. The plane has an AMG kit.
17. You can pay for your tickets with food stamps or WIC
vouchers.
18. The black box is really a satellite TV de-scrambler.
19. The seats are covered in plastic.
20. Your flight got cancelled cause the plane got repossessed!

:: sqroot2 8/01/2001 10:33:00 PM [+] :: something to say? []
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hmm...time to blog!!!!!!!

so, what's new. watched three kings today...it's a pretty good movie that's hilariously funny in some parts (at least to my maybe-not-so-normal sense of humor). Otherwise it's not too violent, and completely devoid of any great message. 15 minutes is a movie with a great message. saw that at michigan--peter, alfred, and me. ya guys know what happened the next morning. peter and his zzzzz, my setting the goshdarn car alarm off because i thought it was too hot. must've been josh and grace in the back seat! ;) anyway...well i went to best buy, compusa, and fry's...i think i'm going to pick up a cd burner at best buy and try it out.

shorter post for now, ok? need to go help dad with dinner, so i'll be back to blog later today (i hope). and--are we studying tonight, vicky? email or call...!

:: sqroot2 8/01/2001 05:26:00 PM [+] :: something to say? []
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