Archived Backyard Thoughts: 10/21/01-12/11/01

10/21/01 11:37pm.: It's too bad Courtesy Flush (our intramural football team) lost two games back-to-back horrendously this afternoon. It's too bad Fatcat's sick and hasn't eaten much the past two weeks. Yes, that's right, believe it: Fatcat = not eating. It's too bad our country is at war not only against terrorists, but against Afghans. But, in my opinion, this war, to the extent that I understand, is justified and necessary to suppress the international terrorist network. I just hope it ultimately achieves its purpose, instead of the nightmare of exchanges of retaliation after retaliation, and massacre after massacre. May peace come in the near future, for the sake of us all. It's too bad when anyone in this world has to live in fear. It's too bad too many things happening right now... Sometimes with time and muddling, things take a turn for the better... Maybe these couple weeks, Fatcat's just been counterbalancing out his consumption habits from the past couple years. This afternoon was dejected frustration, but after the losses, laughing at ourselves flipped the mood. Sometimes, step back, and take another look.

10/24/01 late, late night: iewjrwjnm;irue.  seiriunmfjr. jioo. ij.

10/28/01, 5:54pm, Ooh hoo! I mean 4:54, thank goodness for daylights savings! I love gaining an hour, it's like a little unexpected present of an extra hour to sleep, and waste time. So, some events from the past couple days: My parents came for parents' weekend; they just left two hours ago, after a whole bunch of us went to Fire and Ice (Chhheeeer, from Elizabeth!); At Saturday's Homecoming game vs. UPenn, I actually got my parents to learn how to watch football, and they actually got really into it--they were even cheering enthusiastically toward the end! Man, that shows me that anything in this world can happen; Fatcat is better the past two days! Thank FatcatGoodness! According to my aunt, who took care of him this weekend, he's eating A LOT. I was really worrying for awhile, that he was going to lose a pound or two.; Ruth Simmons was voted the coolest president ever, in Abe's poll of people who think Ruth is the coolest president ever; Room 403 SoCas has been refurbished with a new chair and a floor "Welcome" mat, so anyone's welcome to stop by to sample the new additions; Abe is the coolest guy in room 403; Courtesy Flush is transforming into Hyunja's Revenge for the upcoming Winter I intramural season, so scrubs everywhere, look out; in celebration of Fatcat's trip back to health, I've changed the Factat picture on this page to another one. The old one can still be seen in the Living Room.

10/29/01, Monday:  I tend to agree with him... I have now installed a Daily Bathroom Stall Door section to my House, which will feature not-very-daily comic strips, which I find humorous.

10/30/01, 11:17pm.: Even though I feel like I have a broken thumb, sprained middle-finger on the other hand, and strained back, we WON (our first intramural bball game)! What'd I tell you, I predicted it (look on underlined notes on 10/28/01)! Hyunja's Revenge is going to romp the intramural basketball league! We're going to make up for our football season record (0-HoweverManyGamesWePlayed). Boy was that an intense game: down to the last second, we won by 1! ooh hoo! Anyone have some icepacks?

11/2/02, 10:03pm: Just talked to the parents--they say Fatcat is back to his normal routine of sleep-till-you-eat-and-eat-till-you-sleep. In my dad's words, he "likes eating as much as before again." Hyunja's Revenge is now 2-0, and undefeated! (the second win was due to forfeit, but as the wise man said, "the Rock is as big as the Wind blowing it." ah yes, wise men always know what to say.) Michael Jordan is back in the NBA--hope you didn't miss his 31 point performance last night, and if you did, you BETTER not miss tomorrow's Jordan matchup against Iverson. I somehow stumbled through the technical process of adding a new "GUEST" "BOOK" to this website. So now I can know who, or if anyone at all, visits this website. So be sure to check out the "Mailbox Outside By the Driveway" and sign the guestbook! 

11/4/02, 6:03pm: Ah, game 7 of the world series tonight. I'm not a huge baseball follower, but game 7's sure are always good to watch, especially of the World Series. Speaking of excitement: it is a bright day in Abeville, when I look on the Brown intramural website, and see this rare occurrence... (disregard words highlighted yellow; focus on highlighted red)

Low Intensity Standings

NORTH DIVISION

11/6/02, 2:42pm: Just got back from taking a Neuro test. What's the big deal, right? It's just one test. Not the end of your life or anything. Other things could've happened that would've been worse. I mean, the weather outside is so nice today; why dwell on the dark past (...need...constant...distractions to...keep...state of...denial) when the bright sunshine of day is illuminating right outside your window! So onto other thoughts: Boy, am I glad to see that someone more than just Anthony signed the guestbook and therefore visits this website. I was about to start just addressing this website to Anthony (i.e. "Just got back from taking a Neuro test, Anthony. What's the big deal, right Anthony?" or "Anthony why am I communicating to you through this website, and why don't I just IM you? It would be a lot easier, you fool.") So I'm glad to see I have an audience for my frivolous-mind-leakages of a website. And to celebrate this recent huge 3-fold increase in guestbook signing, I've added new attention-grabbing moving-picture things in the "Mailbox Outside the Driveway" section so you can stare at and be mesmerized for long periods of time (at least I have).  So, in conclusion, as the poet Dave Matthews put it, "so can pull on through/ whatever tears at us/ whatever holds us down/ and if nothing can be done/ we'll make the best of what's around." Right on Dave, right on.

11/7/01, 10:54pm: Agh. It sucks when you get back from playing basketball, sweat still moist and wrapped in an ozone of warmth to your skin, and you sit down to take a big gulp of just-outta-the-frig Gatorade, right before you're about to head to the shower with your towel and shower basket, and while you're sitting there in the chair, just staring at whatever's ahead of you, not seeing anything but just staring, and then you hear the shower curtain close, and the shower head turn on, so you decide to just read the Walt Whitman poems that are due tomorrow for English class while your floormate showers, and so you finally hear the shower turn off, but you're caught in the current of Walt Whitman's thoughts, so you keep on reading, until suddenly you hear the loud creak of the bathroom door opening again, and "shit," you think, but then instead, you hear the flip-flop's shuffling into the stall, and the metallic clank of the broken-down stall-door lock locking, so you sigh relief and finish up the rest of Walt Whitman's thoughts before you get up to go shower, but then you hear the shower curtains slide close and the water-fall hit the tiled shower floor. So here I am, reading Walt Whitman again. He's a very good writer. 

11/12/01, 3:11pm: I'm glad Thanksgiving is coming around. Home is the best place to regroup all the outstretched facets of yourself into a huddle, and give yourself a little pep-talk. Haven't seen or heard from many familiar faces and voices for a while, and the rift is an especially wide one, with the past couple months separating two worlds--the old and the new. As people recover from earthshaking tragedies, another plane falls out of the sky this morning. My sympathies to all of those affected. My sympathies to all of us.
...11:46pm: Walt Whitman, speaking of the need for an ingenious and unique trend in literature in America: "Daughter of a physical revolution--mother of the true revolutions, which are of the interior life, and of the arts. For so long as the spirit is not changed, any change of appearance is of no avail." Read this how you may; read this in many ways; sometimes, you learn the most from class readings not by analyzing them, but just by reading them.

11/13/01, 4:11pm: After spending the past hour-and-a-half on putting in that stupid little counter on the bottom of this website, I figure: why not just waste a little more time? since it's not like I have lots of homework that I'm behind in, or an unending supply of stuff in general that is brooding over my head for me to get done... Delving into more stupidity, I will now finally change the "(not-so-)Daily Bathroom Stall Door" comic posting. Enjoy.

11/19/01, 12:50am: Hope you all saw the meteor shower last night. It was incredible (despite the fact that we watched it laying out in the middle of a cemetery)! Did anyone else besides me and three of my (possibly hallucinating) friends see the firefly-looking lights that couldn't have been anything but UFO's at around 5:15am? If not, pretend you never heard me say that, and please don't change your sane perception of me. We're turning the corner on Thanksgiving, and festive excitement is in the air--hopefully, this paper I have due tomorrow won't choke me to death before I get to breathe it. 

11/20/01, 12:48am: So I got an extension on my paper. So I'm in the middle of writing a topic sentence as we speak. So anyways, just now, I was on the second-to-last paragraph of the paper, when Eric walked in from  from being out at the library, and I say to him, "Man this paper's a masterpiece!" And he says, "Yeah, a masterpieceofshit!" heheh. Actually, he didn't actually say that. But it would have been funny if he did, which I told him so. And then I was so proud that I thought of that, I told him I'd put it on my website. And so I should now get back to my paper , and stop being a stupid foo. Wow, this was a really stupid entry. Sorry you had to read this.

11/30/01, 1:52am: The impossible has become possible. The unimaginable has been realized. The Brown Bears basketball team last night beat Providence College, an actually pretty competitive team in the NCAA, 60-67. Step aside, UF, FSU, you pitiful, pitiful-sorry-excuse-for-a-basketball-team-Dukies! cause The Brown Bears are comin' through! Just wait till the NCAA tournament, ooh! are we gonna make a raucous! And no, I will not stop dreaming! cause you all "basketball" colleges are gonna be havin' the worst nightmares of your basketball-fan lives when you meet up with Brown basketball! Fine, I'll shut up now.

12/4/01, 12:13pm: Anyone know why the heck they had to put two of the biggest holidays within a month of each other? I mean, how do they expect us to get back to work and studying in between these two holidays, when we just had a half-week of turkey and festivities, and then a month of fireworks, parties, and presents is within an elbow's reach? It's like bestowing a 30-k marathon runner a five course meal on his 29th-k. He/she would pass out and go to sleep by his/her 29.01-k. I guess there's no one really to blame though, except maybe the Pilgrims for having a party with the Natives on that day, or for the Immaculate Conception's timing. But that would totally contradict the spirit of those two occasions, and instead, I should be thankful for them, eh? Alright, enough procrastinating; back to running on a full stomach.

12/8/01, 6:06pm: So I got this dvd called "Ball Above All" showing rap music-video-style clips of high-school basketball highlights; dunks after dishes after crossovers, and there was one clip of Steve Francis in his high-school days, bouncing a dribble off his defender's forehead, right before he crossed baseline for a double-pump reverse layup. So the afternoon I got this highlight film in the mail and watched it with dropped jaws, was the afternoon right before our first intramural playoff game. It was a tough, disappointing loss (they were clearly bigger and more athletic as a team), but as time was running out, in frustration, I crossed over my defender and cut through the lane, went up strong, pumped through the air, and scooped around the weak-side defender clean off the backboard. Though upset about the end to Hyunga's Revenge, the couple ooh's and aah's I got from that final uncharacteristic move helped alleviate my disappointment. In retrospect, it was that afternoon's imprinting "I want to be like Mike," Steve Francis, and the rest of those gravity-defiers I was so inspired by that stretched the limits of my ability to go up for that self-unprecedented move. Many times, your limits are leashed by the limits of your mind. You don't need Steve Francis to unleash it. 
...8:27pm: Holy shivering!--it started snowing outside! and in celebration of reaching a new low in degrees-celcius-I'mfreezingmyassoff, I've updated the (not-so-)"Daily Bathroom Stall Door" with an appropriate comic. 

12/11/01, with way too many consecutive hours of cram-studying, 1:11am: ahhheirjeorw[wlkjrhu09. ooljp9uwpipojrwur;w'ajimagnocellularneurons. substantia nigra. poop.
...1:26am: so instead of studying these past ten minutes, I've just been pointlessly internally voicing my frustrations at the ridiculous amounts of information that is required of us poor students, and so just to procrastinate a little longer, I figured I'd let out my anger (i.e. whining) a little more to whoever's reading this. I think it'd be great if all of us who are frustrated out there could consolidate our frustrations, whatever they are, be it final exams, a bad haircut, the funk of your roomate's socks, or whatever, and express them, and I'll post them up, and it'll be like a constructive group session in Abe's House. So email me with a sentence, a novel, or just a couple words of what you have on your chest (you can even specify to be posted "anonymous"), and just think of me as a punching bag, and you can punch, and punch and jab, and kick the shit out of it, and beat and claw, bite, tear, rip, twist and headbutt (the metaphorical) me as many times as you want. For example: NEURO SUUUUUUUCKS. Whew! much better.
Email me your frustrations/complaints. For all of you who have already submitted: there, don't you feel better? View Submitted frustrations!

12/14/01, 1:38pm: At exactly 6:13pm yesterday afternoon, my brain passed out, and went to sleep for the remainder of my wake day, and is currently on leave on vacation. Here's a synopsis of the five or so days before 6:13pm yesterday: Saturday through Sunday was simply one big block of catching up with the Neuro text reading, with intermittent gaps of eating, staring at my wall, and sleeping. Monday and Tuesday resorted to cramming down my throat all of the Neuro semester's Bertha of information, and by Tuesday afternoon, my brain neurons were synapsing for mercy. After taking a half-hour gulp of breath after Wednesday morning's Neuro exam, my brain dove back in, this time into the frigid sea of chemistry, where I just began to look over the material from the whole year that would be on the test the following day. So by Wednesday night, the symptom's of brain suffocation began: playing with the hair follicle that has landed on your textbook, and twirling it around with your pen; reading one sentence over and over again for 10 minutes, until realizing you were reading Silicon and carbon are next to each other in Group 4A. which was not only pointless, but the wrong chapter; making funny noises (when no one else is in your dormroom), continuing on to rap beats, and laughing out loud at your own funny noises. So Thursday, after a good night's nap, I woke up bright and early to stuff down more equations into my bloated brain in the couple hours before The Exam, which consisted of a magazine-thick packet of chemistry problems, and lasted 4+ saturated hours. Wow, I'm glad I got all that off my chest, and speaking of which, be sure to email me your frustrations/complaints, and I'll post them up!  (from 12/11/01) Email me your frustrations/complaints. For all of you who have already submitted: there, don't you feel better? View Submitted frustrations!

12/15/01, 6:01pm: Jeez, I thought this mental collapse into laziness would pass within 24 hours; but now it's been two full days since I finished my Chem exam, and here I am still doing absolutely nothing all day that exceeds the intellectual level of a caterpillar. Anyways, in celebration of the successful response Abe's House has received from people submitting their casual frustrations/complaints, I have added a new "The Punching Bag in the Back Patio" section. Make sure you check it out, and if you ever feel the need to share any casual frustrations, or just get some weight off your chest, like these people have, feel free to email me and I will post them up for you.

1/22/01, 10:50pm: This is going to be short, even though it's been over a month since I last had an entry. Starting a new academic semester is like making a new year's resolution, or like making a determined pact to work out at least three times a week, or maybe it's like going into a weight loss program. Even though I have never submitted myself into a weight loss program (which otherwise would result in my waist size close to that of a No. 2 pencil), the times I have made a new year's resolution have crashed and burned into ashes, and the times I have had rushes of inspiration to work out every week have slowed to a trickle of thought buried somewhere in the back of the archives of my mind. HOWEVER, this semester, I intend to CONTINUALLY keep on the ball with ALL my readings, papers, work, compliments to the professor, etc., and sleep on a more regular, human-resembling sleep cycle. I hope you all had a great Winter Break, and for those of you that have already been swimming in the frigid waters of academia for the past couple weeks, I'll soon be diving in to join you. Speaking of which, I don't like the cold. ...Florida... 

1/24/02, 11:25pm: Eric, my roommate, IMs me, "you dumb bitch, the date is wrong on your first backyard thought of this year." For all of the rest of you out there that also have wrong-year-rage, I apologize deeply, and I bestow my sympathies. Speaking of which, I can't believe it's 2002 already--a year-long palindrome! In a brief mood of celebration, I will finally post a new, long-due comic in the "Daily Bathroom Stall Door" section. I picked a comic appropriate to my recent decision to opt out of Chemistry class, along with its weekly 5-hour lab. 

2/5/02, 7:54pm: I just ate dinner at the Ratty (synonym for "our wonderful cafeteria" here on campus, for those of you unfamiliar with the lingo) to the point that if someone would have gently tapped me from behind while I bloated there in the wooden armchair, my dinner would have ended back on my plate (and its surroundings) in a different form. It was not my choice to sin with gluttony: in line, I was disappointed to meet the tofu parmesan and barley pilaf, but because I was extremely hungry, I had to settle. Only after getting a plateful of that Soul de Ratty, did I remember the recently installed "Chicken to the Rescue" line on the other side (always there to rescue students with a bearable alternative), and they even had ornamenting pasta and tomato sauce for the full chicken pasta meal! But there was a long line of students there that hadn't fallen into the trap that I already had, so I decided to sit down and start eating until that line receded...but the line just stayed its length, and I just kept on slowly eating, until I was practically done with the barley and tofu. Finally, I saw opportunity, and dragged my ninety-five-per-cent-full stomach to the Rescue Line, and because it was the final batch, the cafeteria lady balanced three large chicken breasts on top of the bed of pasta, exclaiming, "Here you are honey! take all you want!" so I had to smile and act hungry. And based on my ever-pervasive internalized guilt of ever not finishing my food, you know how the rest went. So now after climbing up four flights of stairs, I will sit in a brief period of hibernation at my computer desk while staring at my blank wall and think happy thoughts unrelated to food. (Here's a new "Daily Bathroom Stall Door" posting of a comic concerning food.)

2/10/02, 1:59am: Going to these two Brown Basketball games in the past forty-eight hours has been kinda like throwing up twice in a row--after the first disgusting showing, you think all of the unpleasantness is out of your system, and you presume the next meal will go down nicely to sort of "make up" for the prior incident, but the second game (this time, against underpuppy UPenn) turns out almost even more repulsing, and you become nauseous throughout those forty minutes of game-play just before spewing up a disgusting performance of deja-vu-beaten-down Brown players. Sorry about the grotesque imagery; I actually have felt a little sick all day, and that was the first metaphor I could come up with. On a brighter, less nauseating note, Dave Matthews is coming up to Providence in April. After a two-hour frost in a line of over 300 other people in front of us in the biting crossbreeze of below-thirty bitter-cold of the Dunkin Donuts Center Arena in downtown starting at eight this morning, a couple other fellow Sufferers and I are going to be rewarded with some good 'ol Dave jammin. Possibly with the repercussion of my current pseudosick-state and the full blown cold I will have tomorrow morning. Jeez, not a very bright entry after all. Apologies for my gloom; blame Brown Bball.
...2:25am: I just realized how appropriate (on many levels) this entry would be to submit to "The Punching Bag in the Back Patio" section, but I'll leave submitting frustrations/complaints to you all. Feel free to view them too!

2/10/02, 5:37pm: I was right. I woke up this morning feeling like someone jammed the entire Olympic torch (still on fire) down my throat while I was asleep. I hate when you're in a room of people, and a deep pool of saliva collects in your mouth in between your soar throat and your tightly closed bottom lip, and you have to wait for the opportunity to go to the nearest water fountain to inconspicuously empty it out. I was just talking to my roommate about this phenomenon, and we reached a consensus that back in high-school, the most common scenario of this type was a reluctance to swallow throat-cleared flem, leading to a mumbled request to the teacher to go to the bathroom. I don't know what's the deal with the general grotesque theme today (see previous entry).
...6:08pm: Roommate mumbles disgustedly under his breath, "you're so gross man..." Blame Brown Bball.

2/12/02, 12:50am: I don't think I've ever had so many pages of reading logged up behind me that I need to get through, but I can't help it, I gotta take a brief moment to drop my immediate priorities, and laugh (HAHAHAHAHA) at my cousin Anthony! Here's his pathetic-yet-have-to-have-a-taint-of-sad-sympathy-for-him IM profile message: "$20 reward for anyone who can find my glasses..... i'm serious.....you're welcome to come to my room and search for them.....really need them and would be much happier if i can find them.." So now that I got that off my chest, let me get back to page 36 out of 1,397. But not before I laugh a little more to get it all outta my system: HAHAHAHAhaha. (cough). haha. ha.

2/20/02, 1:03am: It always seems to work out that I end up getting the urge to write a Backyard Thought at the most impractical times. I had plenty of time lazying around, eating Tostitos and dip, playing videogames, flipping through a two-year-old edition of Sports Illustrated this entire long-long-weekend, but I choose to dabble my frivolous thoughts at 1am the night before I have a paper due for my 8:30am Insect Biology class the next morning. Well, this weekend was streaked with neon highlights: at the Taiwanese Students' Conference, I took part in the first-ever videoconference with the first-ever democratically-elected Vice President of Taiwan, Annette Lu, who was an exceptional and inspiring speaker (her speech clearly stamped out the issues of Taiwan-China relations, and made headlines across the media in Taiwan--for a transcript of the speech, see http://www.president.gov.tw/1_news/index_e.html, and click on "news releases in the top right corner); also at the conference, I met Jenn Chen, the professional Taiwanese pool player who was once #1 in the world, and now is #4; this morning, I went to a lecture by Allen Dershowitz, who even though may not be very well liked, was a brilliant (in a lawyerly kind of way), lively and funny lecturer; I also saw Natalie Portman briefly (Tony, wipe the drool off your keyboard); I also saw a large tour group standing beneath the metal statue of John Harvard, waiting for their turn to reach up and rub the toe while being told (as I was when I went on the tour years ago) that "all the students come rub his shiny copper shoe for good luck before their exam!" when in reality, the Friday-drunken-night passtime for countless students has been to relieve their nature calls down John Harvard's iron leg. Some may feel this last part of my weekend surely does not measure with the rest of my celebrity-filled weekend, but it surely was a highlight.

2/22/02, 1:50am: It's surprising how many times it constantly runs through your head when your team is down by one and you are at the line shooting two foul shots all by yourself because there is zero seconds left in the game, and, even though you made the three other free throws you took earlier in the game, you miss, not one, but both free throws. If I could somehow readjust the elasticity of my joints, and rotate my right leg 180 degrees, I'd be kicking myself in the ass right now. On some happier groundbreaking news: my cousin's getting married!! Congratulations, Henry!!

2/24/02, 4:51pm: Haven't stopped having recurring nightmares over those damn foul shots...(see entry below) Just a quick entry before I get to my paper. Eh, forget it, I'll take this time instead to mention that a couple sections of Abe's House have been recently updated: 1) obviously, the Backyard Thoughts have been ever-flowing, cause I have so much mental crap to constantly spew out, as you can see. 2) Cocoa (my dog) has made her debut of Abe's House in The Living Room section with a flattering pose. 3) There has finally been a new submission to the Punching Bag in the Back Patio! So follow suit, and in times of seething frustrations, be sure to take advantage of the punching bag and I'll post your complaints up for you. 4) With so many changes, I can't help but also finally update the (not-so-)Daily Bathroom Stall Door with an appropriate comic honoring Cocoa and her fellow race.

3/2/02, 6:09pm: This is going to be under 2 minute-flat entry. I love people that give a hand when you ask for a favor. I think there should be a national holiday honoring people that grant favors. Or if not that, at least I think I'm going to dedicate this Backyard Thought entry to people who are kind and thoughtful enough. Here's a tribute to a certain favor-giver who will remain unnamed due to an otherwise onslaught of people asking him for last second rides to the airport to the airport, thereby saving the $30 "Airport Limousine" shuttle fee that would have ensued--if not for the kind generosity of this favor-giver. If this tribute applied to more people, the world would be such a better place (except for the "Airport Limousine" business enterprise). Note to self: these under-2-minute entries just aren't worth writing.

3/5/02, 11:16pm: It sucks when you're on page 76 of a 664 page novel that's due tomorrow, and another half of a book due on Thursday, just before you have an exam on Friday to study for, not to mention the other class and its reading that will take a couple days to catch up with. Wow, I wish I could go to bed right now (which I don't think, in a couple more minutes of page 76 and 77, will be a very far-fetched wish...).

3/7/02, 11:16pm: Not too surprising: I'm taking the time out (again) to write a useless entry in a website that an approximate average of .36 people visit per day (which includes my own visits when I pursue another illogical outlet of procrastination), when I have an exam tomorrow, and (as of yesterday, before I read a little over 100 pages of text) had a combined estimated 1000 pages of reading to catch up on. However, contrary to what you may assume from these past two entries of bloated-academic-cynicism, I actually really enjoy the classes I'm taking; this semester, I suddenly find myself enthusiastic about the material and subjects of my perusal, and actually am motivated to educate myself through the supplements of the lectures (i.e. doing the assigned readings). So my motherload of reading probably isn't a result of harder classes, but just a more narrowed concentration (i.e. effort) on the three interesting classes I am taking, and now I will resume page 101 of 1000. And I will now update the (not-so) "Daily Bathroom Stall Door" with an appropriate comic for the occasion.

3/12/02, 12:22pm: After a midterm, it feels like there's absolutely nothing in the world out there you have left responsible to do. "I might as well begin pointlessly rearranging the objects in my room and sitting around beginning my lifelong pursuit of gazing and outlining mental figures out of the clouds outside of my window, since I HAVE NOTHING LEFT TO DO," you think to yourself, and actually begin doing just that. Your body just feels so relieved that you almost feel empty, but a good empty, like you are a balloon and helium is in your arms and shoulders about to lift you up to the ceiling, and maybe out of your window and up to accompany the hippopotamus cotton-puff up there outside. Aaahhhh... this must have been what John Nash felt like after he finally created his nobel-winning mathematical theory: it's no wonder he started hallucinating--to fill the mental space left vacant after the enigma was solved. I think the hippo is swimming...   
...9:44pm: "It SUUUUUUUUCKS when..." ----> refer to bottom of frustrations page. Uuugh.

3/13/02, 11:24pm: Earlier today, I decided that I want to expand the sphere of this website's audience beyond my roommate; the couple middle-school kids doing research papers on our beloved forefathers and typing into Google search engine, "young Abraham"; and my cousin Anthony. (see archived Backyard Thought on 11/6/02.) So I submitted this URL to a directory listing of people's websites that can be accessed on the web. It also has a feature to "vote" for a website if you like it; I'm not sure how it works, but Anthony and Eric, and lost-websurfer kid, if you enjoy the frivolousness of this website, check out the blue-box link on the bottom of this page. (I suddenly feel like a scoundrel salesman promoting his crappy product.) I think I hear my conscience calling me... 

3/15/02, 3:50pm: Rule of thumb: never enter a NCAA betting pool when the last time you watched a college hoops game was in Shaquille O'Neal's debut movie Blue Chips (when it was still in the theaters). There goes my $5, only after the first round. Could've bought a chicken sandwich value meal at BK, with extra mayo...mmmm... I think the Ratty's calling me.

3/17/02, 5:31pm: It's extremely hard right now to read about the Social Construction of Psychiatric Diagnosis when it is dark and cold outside my window, with ominous rain clouds blocking what little sun Rhode Island had to offer in the first place, and in the juxtaposition of all juxtapositions, only five unbearable days away, I will be back in the greatest city on this earth to live in, bathing under warm sun in nothing but shorts (if even that). Check out the dedicatory-countdown-to-Miami site of one of my friends that will be coming back home with me over Spring Break. (make sure to click on Eric's picture and take a minute or two to laugh at my roommate, Hommie G. Zamore's, thugged-out high school picture. Cause he's such a thug.)

3/31/02, 8:21pm: Good things travel by too fast--just now, reading over my last entry below, I coulda sworn I wrote that no more than three-quarters of an hour ago! Now, what's already passed by and gone are the "five unbearable days" of shivering anticipation of Florida, a week of the delights of Miami while chillin without a care, the inevitable approach of the Final Friday and Saturday in freedom/paradise/Miami, and the exausted and loathed planeride back to Providence/hell-frozen-over-and-by-frozen-I-mean-cold-as-in-not-warm-anymore/schoolwork. And now I sit at my desk, anti-anticipating the coming of Monday, left with only the scattered memories, a roll of film, and a wrinkled postcard of Miami's glamorous skyline at sunset. Good things travel by too fast... summer's in a month and a half... mmmmm...

4/1/02, 1:37pm: Boy is it a nice Tuesday outside, and the sun is glaring warmly on the rooftops and on the grass outside. HA-HA! Pulled an April Fools joke on you! unless, of course, you noticed that today is Tuesday, but the date is for yesterday, 4/1, so it's an April Fools joke, though not on April Fools, and that's the joke. Heheh. Heh. Yeah, I just wanted to join in on the fun somehow, because at lunch just now, I flipped open our school newspaper today (which was also a day late with the April Fools jokes) and read that Dave Matthews was coming to perform on our campus lawn in two weeks. So I ecstatically pointed out the great news to everyone at my table, only to pretend soon after realizing their blank stares that I was just "playing along... (chuckle)...heheh." But joking and April Fools aside, I can't believe the weather outside! The thermometer reads 61-degrees, and I actually don't have to piggyback my monstrosity-snowjacket all day! If you've been in Providence for the past months, you may still think "you're keeping the Fools theme going a little too long and you should FREAKIN' drop it already cause it's getting old," but I'm really not kidding you. Maybe I'll walk to the rest of my classes of the day in boxers to prove it to you. So listen for a crowd on campus derisively laughing and pointing later in the day. 
I will now finally update the (not-so) "Daily Bathroom Stall Door" with a comic commemorating the scene of last week's Spring Break, and Cocoa.

4/7/02, 7:51(shoud be 6:51)pm: Daylights Sucking, is what I'd prefer to call it. It's probably the third time already in my lifetime that I've been duped by the arbitrary "Hey, why don't we make everyone move their clocks forward an hour just for the hell of it" crap. So I glance at my clock from under the covers, and smile myself back to sleep when I see that I still have an hour and a half before rehearsal; wake up 45 minutes later to leisurely get ready to go, only to curse an unremitting stream while I adjust my clock one hour ahead. Then run, fast.
On another note, take a look at the new picture of two lobsters in "The Living Room" section.

4/14/02, 9:41pm: Wow! it's been a week since I last wrote; time flies, or at least flew by this week. Too damn much happened; Sunday, after I wrote the last entry below, scrambling to finish Opinion column; Monday, Opinion column published in Brown Daily Herald! then volunteer at RI Hospital emerg. rm. for 4 hectic, stressful hours; Tuesday, big dinner discussion at Ratty after months of planning; Wednesday, commute to Boston to see the Heat lose to the Celtics, but have good food at Taiwan Cafe afterwards, get back at 2am; Thursday, find some time finally to play some bball, only to frantically show up late to first Taiwan Society general body meeting since I've taken the signatory responsibility; Friday, a Dave concert that was Too Much cause it was so freakin good; Saturday, a good party and a half-awaken viewing of The Usual Suspects; Sunday, what-the-hell-have-I-done-all-day I-have-a-freakin-paper-due-tomorrowholyshit. 

4/15/02, 5:41pm: Damn this website, it vomits procrastination all over the place. Last night, at 10pm, with a paper due the next morning, I messed around with the stupid entry below for over 2 hours. And then the link to "Heat lose to the Celtics," (which I thought was the better of the crappy jokes I made) wouldn't even work. But my cousin Tony, who lulled me into the sinful realm of website-making and updating-and-updating-and-updating, redeemed his demonic ways by playing Doctor, and fixed the damned link with his godly computer wisdom. Yeah, a real good help you are, selling me crack while correcting my ways. 

4/16/02, 9:18pm: I just spent the past half hour, well I guess the past 8 minutes I've been taking a shower, but before that, I spent over twenty minutes chasing a tremendously ominous bee over every cubic inch of our dorm's communal bathroom. It wasn't just any little flower-loving bee: it was one of those big, fat bees, about the size of a baby's fist, and you could see each little leg, and the killer needle, dangling from its plump, black-and-yellow blimp shaped body; it was one of those fat, angry looking bees that says all over, "outta the way, or I'll sting you a new asshole." So I ran, reached up, jumped all over everywhere the buzzing decided to clumsily bump into, trying to direct the thing back out of the tiny window that it came in from; all the while, I ran around holding two corners of my shower towel as a net--I must have looked like a schizophrenic matador on Ritalin. I now appreciate a peaceful shower so much more than before.

4/21/02, 4:25pm: Spring Weekend is great. Filling out your concentration form sucks. I haven't touched a basketball in weeks. Zhi-Zhi Wang is tall.

4/23/02, 11:07pm: My IM away message today: "IgotSummerbridge!!! Yeebs is the man for risking frostbite for a bit of computer data. Yeebs the Summerbridge Savior." So, to explain a little to anyone who doesn't get it (which includes everyone except me and Yeebs), first of all, Summerbridge is the summer job I applied for to teach/mentor middle school students. Yeebs is a cool guy that lived on my floor freshman year, and was one of the guys that came to Miami with me for Spring Break (except he came a day later than the rest of us, luckily). So, since my novel-length application for Summerbridge would be due a couple days into Spring Break, I save the application that I've been working on on my dorm-room computer to a disk to bring to Miami to finish up. Or so I thought. So when I'm in my house in Miami, over 1000 miles away from my dorm-room computer, I try to open the document of my almost-done application from the disk, but find that I had saved the wrong data on to the disk. Oh SHIT, "OH SHIT!" ohshitshitshitshit (this goes on for about 10 minutes). 3am, I call Yeebs, who is luckily there, and willing to walk, no, tread across campus in a blinding blizzard (it was actually about 30 degrees, and it wasn't snowing, but I'm trying to be dramatic.), while I simultaneously call and plead the Brown security office to help let my friend into my room and access my computer, and then send over a VITAL file via email. Whew! That all works out, and here I am heading head first into a full-time pool of middle-school students for the summer. Maybe my Summerbridge employers will somehow see this entry, and decide to fire me on account of absentmindedness. That would be unfortunate, cause I am definitely anything but that.

4/26/02, 2:50pm: I hate when the world just looks like a piece of shit. Except for the nice weather outside. That actually looks like a happy sunflower smiling at me. Now I will finally update the (not-so)"Daily Bathroom Stall Door" with a comic of what I feel is going to happen to me tomorrow morning.

4/28/02, 9:48pm: Every part of the day just seems so much more unpleasant when you have the flu. Even just sitting and looking at the spiral coil on your notebook or putting on your shoes seem painful tasks. Eyelids hurt, the back of the shoulders ache, and my legs and arms feel absent. I think I will go to bed as early as I have ever gone to bed since fifth grade, and cuddle into a fetal position for the night within the next half hour.

4/29/02, 11:30pm: Sometimes, you just gotta ignore the final exam you have the next morning and the large amount you could be studying, and disregard the flu you are slowly recovering from, and just pick up a basketball and walk the ten-minute walk through the breezy wet weather outside and just shoot some hoops.

5/6/02, 11:46pm: I feel guilty for having neglected writing an entry for this website for over a week now, instead spending my time eating gluttonously and getting a few hours beyond the doctor-recommended amount of nightly sleep and watching an incredibly unhealthy number of hours of the NBA playoffs and the 3-hour NBC special last night that was a FABULOUS program and I LOVE TV and watch it now like I would gasp clean air after my roommate finally does his month old fermenting laundry. And intermittently among all these tiring activities this past week, I have also stuck in some studying time for my finals. Steve Nash is great.

9/6/03, 5:14am: Wow it's been a long break since I've entered my frivolous thoughts onto the uncontainable current of the e-information superhighway; but while all the e-information flashes by at light speed in unquantifiable quantities because of Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle every mini(smaller-than-milli)second across, between, within/out, through the globe, I feel like the stuff I spew onto this blue page plops and sits like one big sedentary rock. It's been awhile, but then again, it's been no lapse of time, because this is the entry immediately following the prior; I haven't done this for so long that I almost forgot how to dig up my website, update it, and post it on the web--which would almost be the equivalency in routine incompetence of "back in the day," forgetting how to turn on the computer, type the magical single sequence of commands on the pure black DOS screen, with the little impatiently leading, flashing _ blinking one step ahead of every keystroke, and gaining access to The Smileyface Run Through the Maze Full of Obstacles and Bad Guys Game, the only function yet discovered at the time for that box and screen with the "ON/OFF" button on it. Anyways, I remembered, and so I am, returned from hiatus, back where I left, Providence, that is, and ready to embark on another journey of frivolous documentation and amusement, life, that is.  

5/11/03, 2:48am: Food I've consumed in place of the Ratty in the past few days: Malaysian food at Penang in Chinatown Boston is pretty damn good, and spicy, but in a good way with them beef noodles and bean sprouts; the Heineken at the random bar a block equidistant b/t South Station and Chinatown was a little warm, but the real-life Celtic fans cheering on at the tv fanatically made it taste not bad at all; bubble tea, passion fruit style; Sicilian sandwich from the convenient store; Ethiopian dinner with no utensils; Gray's Papaya's two-hotdogs-and-papaya-juice deal, plus another frankfurter all at 2:30am before heading to brother's friend's house to crash on pull-out couch; fried chicken and rice, to-go before rushing to make the 1:15 Greyhound out of NYC, back to the PVD. 

5/6/03, 1:25pm: "abe, stop doing nothing--you've got a lot of nothing to do."--my roommate, who doesn't know what to say to his roommate that's got nothing to do.

5/4/03, 5:23pm: When the fire under your butt gets ignited, and you still ignore the fire until it slowly roasts so that you can feel the gluteus maximus padding on the dorsal side of your pelvic bone reach well done, you hit a point when you get a surge of motivation to leave your room at 1am and tread over to the campus's 24-hour library, carrying only a few pens, highlighter, a notebook, and the books that you have to base your 10-page paper on. So you sit there staring, typing, flipping through the book, writing notes, dozing sitting up, checking out the girl that walked in, napping on the hard wooden bench outside the computer clusters as people walk back and forth, do more typing, more incoherent typing, find the vending machines in the building, continue typing, until you crank out the most quantity-based production you've had all semester. And as the sun rises in the Eastern windows, and you are the last man standing (or sluggishly sitting), you pack up your bags and walk home. The next day, you read over the crap you wrote the night before, and wonder how-the-fuck-i-wrote-this-crap, and polish up your production the same way you would attempt to apply wax polish to a totaled car. I love people that can play piano with feeling. Chopin is a good guy. 

4/30/03, 12:55am: it's great when two college kids who've been putting off studies of all kinds for weeks decide together to go to the library for the night so they can focus on finally doing some work and first sit down at a campus snack bar to eat briefly before the library, but end up eating their subs in front of the snack bar tv and spending the next two hours watching basketball playoffs with a bunch of other guys who are putting off their studies. I passionately hate the Lakers, and right now Kevin Garnett is like the Jesus Savior to me, but I do appreciate Fuck-u Shaq and Shit-I-hate-u Kobe giving me the satisfaction of watching a game with a crowd of strangers that commonly share the communally repeated urges to curse out the Lakers and display their intensely spurted disgust-they-fucking-suck. Speaking of Jesus Savior, Timmy Haaaaaaaaaardaway is again in a jersey, and seeing him on the court was like witnessing the Resurrection. I am now a Pacers fan (though this state of being will terminate exactly when the Pacers are eliminated), because Reggie has kilt the Heat one too many times down in the books--though the other college kid did point out that Reggie also killed the Knicks not too few times also. Rap in Taiwanese by a guy named Dog-G is the funniest, oddest, yet most genuine and patriotic of spectacles. Thoughts grow wild with passion instigated. 

4/28/03, 12:21am: damn what was i talking about a Koosh Ball. Jeez, someone needs to shut me up when my rambling is forced. Finally a bit of warm up at the Prov-D. Fire & Ice is pretty damn good, can't go wrong with the tuna, scallops, noodles, and cajun barbeque sauce. Jeez, freshman year one-one was quite a long time ago, but then again so close. Nice to have a brother around like a roommate, chillin. Chillin too much for too long can be a bit hazardous to the academic record. I better chill a bit less in a bit soon, or in a bit not too long i'm gonna be a bit not too chill anymore. The Big Brother program is a godsend, in the sense that it fills a void in a kid the way faith fills a void in a follower. Chill some more.

4/27/03, 2:35am: man the world and life is like a Koosh Ball trying to gather all its out-spralling little rubber stringthings back in so that it'll form an actually compact solid rubber ball. It sure isn't characteristic of my Backyard Thoughts to generalize such a philosophical metaphor on the definition of the world, and of life--but I sure wish I had a Koosh Ball right now, so that I could get up from typing right now to run out my door, veer right, run through my roommate's door, and throw it with all my strength at the back of my roommate(who is also now typing on his own computer)'s head. And by roommate, I mean suitemate, since he doesn't actually live in my room, but simply in my suite, but it's just a more common, and more direct, reader-stumble-over-less word in online all-accessible-quickread journals to use roommmate. And I gotta say this must be the most uninteresting, uncharacteristic entry that i've ever made, and I know i've said this before, but before I just said it as a joke, as a part of the humor of the entry itself--but here, I actually mean it, I actually think this is pretty lame, probably because of the self consciousness of the entry, as in the entry referring to itself. Alright, advice to self: never again write an entry because of external urging (though I appreciate the support, fosho)--stick to spontaneous inspiration. Don't forget.

4/19/03, 8:58pm: Now what the hell's wrong with me! I suddenly asked myself whether the NBA playoffs have started so I check up on nba.com and realize that the first round's already almost halfway in!! nevermind that I have been absent from writing entries now for a long while and nevermind that I've been putting on stupid entries of other personas that I create on a whim to put on entries for me, for a long while--I'm pissedashell at myself for being so friggin ignorant of my surroundings! what have I become! jeez, last year I fully dedicated my full procrastination to watching every drop of playoffs I could get and this year the playoffs just as well could have passed me by without me peeking my head out of my ass for a second crap what has become of me. I don't deserve to have stolen the banner at the top of Abe's House from the NBA.com Co., to use for my own decorations.--actually come to think of it, THAT's IT! that's why! oh my goodgod, I'm salvaged--that's why! ooh hoo, it's only because the poor poor friggin Heat for the first time (since the painful Kevin Loughery days (jeez I'm old)) has not advanced to postseason play, and so that is why my interest has subconsciously subsided. oooooooh, it's all becoming clear to me. Sweet sweet pain. Maybe we can now get LeBron "the Heat's Holy Savior" James in the lottery this year as retribution.

4/18/03, 3:09pm: Abe u fuckincrackhead why don't you post on your website more often. ur backyard thoughts are like sweet sweet drugs to my soul, and thirst and starvation has consumed my all for almost two months now!!!! c'mon dude, where's the love, where's the sympathy, where's Abe.
(Entry submitted by: afuckincrackhead) 

2/20/03, 4:57pm: It sucks when you got so much shit to do, that you can't even get around to the shit to do.    
(Entry submetted by: someone with lots of shittodo)

2/17/03, 3:36am: Read small print Scot Zhang, you sunofabitch.  Niacin 15% and Pantothenic Acid 4% is contained in Nabisco honey roasted peanuts. Passive voice is forbidden in high school AP English classes. My Girl is different from My Girlfriend. A Post-It note, after repeated use, becomes as useless as a scrap paper ripped from the corner of a discarded mail advertisement that does not stick. And this is a run-on sentence.
(Entry submitted by: a friend of Abe's that took high school AP English)

2/10/03, 12:46am: I love basketball and the NBA. Retro is the way to go--I like the respect and attribution paid to the Teachers of old, the fathers of the kids. Even the newer guys--Iverson, Mcgrady, YAO!, Stevefrancis, NOT Kobe--are beginning to rub off to my liking. I love Jordan is my hero, and so is Mariah Carey and her tight jersey-dress.
(Entry submitted by: a formerly skeptical, faith-dwindling NBA fan)

2/9/03, 8:14pm: Does anyone know how to make something useful out of massive amnts of snow and wet slush? Tell me, and we'd make millions! and we'll be helping all the people that use the grad center walkway to be happier. and their shoes drier.
(Entry submitted by: a temporary Providence resident)

2/1/03, 8:14pm: Happy New Year! 
(Entry submitted by: an Asian person)

1/22/03, 11:15pm: 8 degrees outside, the heater in the room doesn't heat anything beyond a two inch radius beyond itself, I can feel the breeze on my feet and I'm in-doors, Winter Break was an amazing Break, Miami was great, friends were fun, all the cousins around felt nice, I miss Fatcat and his Presence, New Years Eve into the new year was tons of laughs and undecipherable boisterous communications with a coupla good guys, Tampa with the older generation, spending some quality time in Gainesville, road trippin up to Duke U, and back, and NYC I fell for in five days (I will return...), and road trippin it up back here's been a trip, and now the first day of classes are over, and I got into an art class by lottery--the first name picked--and I anticipate. I want to write, it's creeping at my fingertips like web waiting to be flung from Spiderman's wrists, but wriiiiiiiiiiite, and I have momentarily lost sight of the writing here, on this blue page--so, if ANYONE would like to post their own Backyard Thought(s) in substitution to mine during this undefined hiatus, just email me with it, and I will try my best to post it, whatever it may be, onto www.geocities.com/leesheenyoung as soon as possible. Thank you for your gracious help, and may this semester be a good one.
(from 1/22/03, 11:15am: ...so, if ANYONE would like to post their own Backyard Thought(s) in substitution to mine during this undefined hiatus, just email me with it, and I will try my best to post it, whatever it may be, onto www.geocities.com/leesheenyoung as soon as possible.)

12/14/02, 11:15am: Just took a final, of which I had to get a 98% on to get an A in the class. The last 25 minutes of taking the test, I sat there staring at this one question I wasn't sure on, as if staring at the sentence a little more intensely, I would be able to squeeze out a better answer with the strength of my eyeballs. I don't include personal anecdotes that include other people in here too often (except my stank roommate, which I can't help but mention; suffocation (of stankness) cannot be ignored), but Brian, me, Audrey, after century club and Max's, an intense game of War with chips, and the shocked faces of the 20 people studying in the CIT at 2 in the morning--is all I gotta say. I didn't think it was possible to laugh so violently for such an extended period of continuous time. Check out the new picture added for "The Living Room."

12/5/02, 5:26pm: I love my jacket, the way it swallows all of my upper torso except for my eyes in a fluffy layer of puff buffer against the attacking snowflakes all around while I walk to/from class: I think if I didn't have this jacket that I love, I would have dropped out of school and moved back to Miami by December of my freshman year. I love hanging ugly cardboard life-size effigies of my roommate outside the third-floor kitchen window for all passersby to see in 20th year commemoration of the day of the year he was born. I love when professors say cool shit in class, "No. No. He's saying you're my bitch, and I sired nine wolves on you."
-Professor Russom, English 22: Roots of EEnglish Literature. I'm hungry and like watching the snow outside my window only when it is warm in my room.

12/2/02, 12:09am: It's a big difference coming from shorts and a t-shirt all Thanksgiving weekend at home, outdoor bball, going kayaking on the water while baking under the sun; and coming back up to school with a blast of ice cold once the automatic doors slide open at the airport exit, and now looking out my wet window seeing the streets and cartops coated with white. I just saw a program on VH1 about Dave fans and one guy's seen 71 concerts and another "inspired" (aka obsessed, crazed) mother flies to at least three concerts a year--I'm such a bad fan. Oh, and I saw the program on the new tv, I guess not new, that now sits right within arms-reach of my workdesk that my suitemate decided to forgo tonight after he realized it has been sucking in all the attention span and work motivation from the air in his own room since the beginning of the year. And now it is threatening to gulp down the same in my room. I haven't turned it off since. It's still on. Gotta go.

11/22/02, 12:07am: I just gotta make the claim now: that I am fucking AMAZING at putting off work. No doubt about it, better than your average bear. Amazing.

11/20/02, 8:07pm: It's a bit worrying when you've looked at so many genetics problems that when you write out the formula, and are about to calculate out the numbers, you pick up the portable phone lying on your desk and start punching in numbers, until you see the calculator lying right next to where the portable phone was, waiting to calculate.

11/17/02, 9:21pm: I love a combination of a nice sunset everyday beginning at 3:45pm, cold biting air with sprinkles of wind, and wet rain soaking merrily down the mushy leaf-decomposing sidewalks. I love Providence, and feel a bit selfish describing all this to you poor Floridians, who are unfortunately missing out. TV is a time-sucking devil, but Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker make a pretty funny duo.  

11/14/02, 9:25pm: Being an overstuffed fat Taiwanese choking ghost onstage is kinda fun. Except you gotta get all the baby powder off afterwards, and the baby (powder) smell doesn't leave your nostrils for another couple hours. After going to a season-long of soccer coaching ridiculously rebellious ten-year-olds, it's actually kinda hard to leave 'em; I'm actually hoping that we have that make up game next week. I think it's a good start to my idealized improvisational traveling that I plan on doing at the end of my winter break: I already bought a one way air ticket out of Raleigh (Duke) to an some unfamiliar location on Long Island, NY, but I have not found a way to get from Miami (home) to Raleigh first--guess I'll get there somehow, huh? Anyone driving in a Northerly direction from Miami around the ninth of January? I'll provide Doritos.

11/10/02, 11:24pm: The page that is a screen replaying a poignant moment is hard to read.

11/7/02, 12:33am: Jeez, I'm such a FRIGGIN' procrastinator. Case in point.

11/3/02, 2:16am: Helen Zia is the most down to earth, normal, interesting person when chatting with her; she is also the most bold, composed, strong, brave, trailblazing Asian-American when on national interviews in the early 80's as a civil rights leader. Vincent Chin is a foundational part of my history that I have just discovered from nothingness--what Zia would call "MIH" of even my own previous consciousness; I wonder how aware or emotionally involved my parents were with the situation those years after 1982--or maybe they were too busy after my birth. Tina Kim is pretty funny, but Mark Fernandez, Kermit Apio, and Kevin Kataoka are freakin ass-smackin hilarious; Taiwan Cafe has good oh-ah-ghien, and their stinky tofu is pretty stinky. Do not ever wear shorts in November Providence when going to coach an hour-long outdoor soccer game just because you are from Miami and whenever you see sun, you foolishly think "warm." Happy late Halloween, and happy late birthday dad (I called yesterday, don't worry).  

10/29/02, 10:28pm: Playing 3-on-3 intramural basketball against a team full of guys on speed is the most surreal experience known to man.
...11:52pm: after about a half-year hiatus, the "Punching Bag in the Back Patio" has been updated! Hope this kicks off a string of frustrations submissions--c'mon let loose on all that pent-up ANGER.

10/28/02, 3:22am: For some reason, I wanted the Giants to win at the end; maybe it was the miniature baseball player sobbing with streams from his eyes as his dad quietly carried him from the dugout to the lockerroom. I realized that I forgot there was food that existed outside of UFS; I love Boston Chinatown. I wonder how Yao Ming'll do; it'd be great the day I see him posting up against Zhi-Zhi Wang in the key on national television--five years ago, never could've imagined imagining two Asian NBA players on NBA court, playing. Keeping track of all the tasks is a headache; juggling is hard. "Where in the world is Alex Young?" (not a rhetorical question) My eyes hurt. 

10/23/02, 10:30am: I wake up to realize that the first day, the first sight of snow--just like explosive noises, like the sight of Zamore's (my ugly, ugly roommate) ugly face first thing in the morning, like the movie Beetlejuice--scares me, and will always scare me.  It's just that for 18 years, I have already been accustomed to wake up to see nothing but bright sunshine, or drops of rain outside my window--never anything solid falling out of the sky--and to anticipate nothing but warm rays of sunshine falling on my skin.  I guess the snow's ok, as long as it gets thick enough one day that I can gather enough to create a snow doo-doo sculpture on Zamore's bed. And it's okay that I mention it here, because he never checks this website anyways, as long as my miniscule website audience (myself, my dad, once in a while) keeps silent to him. And now in celebration of the first snow, I will finally change the "Daily Bathroom Stall Door" to a comic that will suit most people but offend Vinnie.

10/20/02, 8:33pm: That was no doubt the most satisfying 0-2 basketball tournament that anyone has ever participated in. First game was nice and intense, losing only by one because time ran out, but it was peas and baby carrots compared to the epic second game: For some reason, the Brown University Varsity Players decided to join in on this "charity" tournament, so as Fate would have it, we the Davids, faced up against the Goliaths. To give away the ending, it didn't actually happen the same way as it did in the Book: they still outscored us in the end, but we sure pegged our rock pretty good at their forehead, and dizzied them up a bit before they stomped on us. Well, you gotta consider that their smallest guy was the size of an average football fullback, and before the game started they were casually competing against each other about who could get the highest above the rim before dunking it down. We were actually beating them 9-7, and kept them almost point for point-and-a-half, so the score ended up around 20-30; not bad, I'd say. But here's the sportscenter highlights: I rejected the fullback halfway through, and towards the end, Brian blocked a guy that was a full foot taller than him; Sheets and I were on fire probably 50% from the three point line, I broke down and dished out quite a few times, and Sheets...get this...made a guy fall down in a textbook "broke his ankles" crossover; the culminating moment--Brian dribbling through a double team, going up Brooklynstyle, pumping in the air and swishing over the guy's face. Ahhh, what a sweet loss. And now, probably tomorrow, I will be wearing my "Brown Intramural, CHAMPIONS" t-shirt (that everyone who participated got) and feeling like a champ. Brain loves his new shoes, and I love my new Hyunja.  

10/15/02, 1:38am: Haven't written a Backyard Thought for a lonnng while; guess I used up all my creativity for the past two weeks in the last (lonnng) entry below. It's been a crazy long weekend. With all the free time I had, I sure don't have enough work to show for it--by tomorrow, or I guess today, I supposedly have about 300 more pages of the 500+ page Faulkner book, and plenty of trudging through the Genetics textbook to finish. But the clock and my heavy eyes are telling me otherwise. Miami Dolphins make me happy, Three Kings is a great movie, and my epidermis is not happy with the icy Providence night air. 

10/3/02, 2:03am: So, I had this 10-minute presentation due for section in my Faulkner class.  And the section I was in was a smaller portion of the entire class, maybe twenty, twenty-five people, and we meet once a week.  It's pretty intimidating there, in a small setting.  We all sit in a large circle cluttered across couches and strewn single chairs, and maybe a person sitting on the floor once in a while. And everyone in there is a brilliant English major. Or at least that type; the type that speaks extremely intelligently while their eyebrows tent and their mouths pucker in that thoughtful, intelligent way, and they seem to always speak in thesises. Really, I mean it, every sentence they utter is a thesis. Period. Connecting thesis. Period. I don't think I've uttered a squeak in that class, and I've been there for nearly a month now. Well, I guess I probably did squeak once, but that was an actual squeak in response to the guy sitting next to me improv-ing on the spot an analysis of a particular theme in The Sound and the Fury that I'm sure would have won him a Nobel Prize for Literature or something. So this was the context of which I was supposed to present, in front of the Elite Literal Analysis Society (ELAS), my (figuratively) 10-year-long (literally) 10-minute presentation on my analysis of As I Lay Dying, which was obviously appropriate for how I felt at the time. So I actually mustered up enough anti-Abe, and decided not to procrastinate, and started brainstorming insignificant ideas in my little insignificant head of what to present the next week. So on a particular Thursday night, I filled an entire scrap sheet of paper with microscopic scribbling slanting at every possible angle and altitude to the bare edges of the scrap, and finally (it was Friday morning now) came up with a cohesive, coherent, not-to-shabby thesis of my own. Throughout moments of light throughout the next week, I added details, ideas, connections, Dorito chips, and examples to the presentation, and my confidence of my sizable ness against the Large brains of my section foes slowly gained momentum. (ignore asterisk)* So when I presented, I started off a little slow, and the section was shocked mute momentarily due to my anachronistic quotation of the movie, Shawshank Redemption, but they got the jist of that allusion, and surprisingly, my thoughts flowed from the neatly arranged points on the pages in my hand, up to my eyes, into my brain, spit out into my throat, and back out coherently through my lips, and things went beautifully. I was one of them. Afterwards, they tried to persuade me to join their ELAS club, and even offered to do all my homework for the next three semesters for me, but I felt I had obligations elsewhere, and winning a Nobel Prize for Literature just wasn't my thing. So it all went well.
*(The asterisk above denotes the point at which this narration turned into fantasy due to Abe's sudden squirt of nervousness because of the 10-minute presentation he has to give tomorrow at 2pm. However, everything before the asterisk is fully true, or at least maximally true to the writer's own experience.) 

10/2/02, 7:31pm: I love windows that fill up an entire wall without any buffer cement to frame the viewing glass before it reaches the outskirts of sight and angles perpendicularly to the adjoining wall or ceiling or floor. Just thought I'd share that. Grad Center's great. 

9/28/02, 3:29am: I now have a renewed faith that anything can be accomplished: Brown Football was mentioned in the NY Times!! And more so, got an entire article (though not very flatteringly)!!! 

9/25/02, 9:47pm: Geneti, ti, ti, ti, ti...ti...ti......ti........................tihhhhhhh...

9/24/02, 1:26am: Unless you want it to seem like a flea market was compacted and displayed within the four affectionate walls of your dorm room, do not ever overload three-weeks laundry into a single dryer. I thought I'd never use the three hundred hangers I have tangled like fishing line from under my bed, but every single one of them were put to use this afternoon decorating every square foot of wall with half-dripping tshirts, jeans, boxers, and other foolishness. Just finished Faulkner #2, but didn't beat, couldn't beat his Sound and his Fury.

9/21/02, 2:10am: Kubb's spreadin like the diffusion of stank from Zamore's laundry in an enclosed room. Kubb it up, yo, right under the Bear's Lair window. If you're curious about "what the fuckin' 'ell is Kubb?!" then feel free to let me know, and maybe one day, you can become initiated into the Kubb Klub. Just enclose in the e-mail: "What the fuckin' 'ell is Kubb?!" and you'll be set. Wakin up in under 7 hours to coach YMCA soccer in our first game. If we don't win, I am a failure. Or at least, I will sigh briefly.

9/17/02, 2:35pm: Faulkner is god; Sound and the Fury is god's creation; Professor Weinstein is a pretty damn good professor. Those of you at Brown, take the class. Those of you not at Brown, work really really hard for the next two semesters, transfer to Brown, and then take the class. That is all.

9/15/02, 5:14pm: You guys, if you're going to eat me, promise me... that you will clean your plate.
And I just decided, at this exact moment, that that will be the first quote in the new addition, "The Home Video Rack of Quotes" section (right under the "Punching Bag in the Back Patio"), just born, at this exact moment. If you have any quotes (that I will understand), feel free to Submit them to me, and I will post them up. The weather is not nice outside.

9/13/02, 3:44pm: So I finally get some time, or maybe I finally get some courage to try my hand again, this new school year, at manipulating this combined virtual-world of technology and warm mind-flow. I thought a different mood, or maybe a refreshed feel, would do good for My House, so I repainted it   from the old color  , to this new color                       . And I added a solid red border to the "Abe's House" banner, above--hope these major changes haven't thrown you off too much so that you can't handle it, although getting thrown off is a good thing, helps you see things better. So before, I hated this dorm all through the housing lottery, and I wanted so bad to live at  many other options; as a result of the housing lottery, the many other options, were not, and this dorm that I hated, became our choice. Howevernow, this dorm that I hated, I love, and the other options that I wanted, I don't. Sometimes closed doors lead to other, new, open doors. But other times, you just gotta bust through the first closed door with a dropped shoulder.
I won't even try to begin describing this past summer, I won't do it that injustice. Another renovation to this place, is that in that meaningless green box at the top of this page--that is nothing but a remnant of my infant-like experimenting on the first day that I started this website--I added a picture that symbolizes something to me (that will be changed once in a while); whoever can tell me what the picture is of, and find Abe in it, will win a prize. Faulkner is my friend.

9/8/02, 1:12pm: Hello. My first entry in over four months, will be to excuse myself from making an entry for now. So now that I am excused, I promise, I will update this site sometime soon. I miss Caswell. I love Grad Center.

5/10/02, 4:05pm: I would like to take this entry to bid my audience, however miniscule, however sparse, however absent and imaginary, a farewell. Or at least farewell for this school year. With my final paper due at 3pm today, I started working on it uncharacteristically early--three days ago--and set my goal to finish by 2am last night. I finished 13 hours past the deadline of my goal, so basically, I was one of those people you might have seen running across the campus with a thick flailing stack of stapled papers. And now my second consecutive year of post high-school school has concluded, and I still do not know what I am doing here. Hopefully, I will find out within the next two days in limbo between the end of my academic life and the beginnning of my summer doshit tenure in Miami. The next two days in Providence, RI, a town that I would NEVER have EVER thought of THINKING of coming to step one FOOT nor a toe in. EVER. Wait, I lost track of what I was getting at. Oh yeah, so Providence, a place that is not very well tailored to my warm-blooded need of notfreezingmyassoff, should be the place where I find out what I am doing here, and on this earth in general. The next two days should be fun, doing pre-doshit before I leave for Miami to doshit, packing--although it will be sad taking down the thumb-tacks that my roommate and I have sporadically pinned to the side of the shelves by the door for the apparent reason (which I now realize) of pinning thumbtacks to the side of the shelf. I don't really remember where I was going at many aspects of this entry, but I guess I should tell my online journal that, "Hey, it was a pretty good idea to start this website (and I hate Anthony for it), and writing these backyard thoughts have helped me much in clearing the garbage out of my head once in a while so I'd have space to think of more useful things, like my schoolwork. So I guess I'll continue this next year. But I look forward to doshit before then. And Providence is pretty cool too. Or at least Brown is. I like the way double cheese chicken burgers here are called 'Carburry's'." Have a nice summer.

...back to Abe's House