[183] Work somehow keeps me happy

It has served as a respite and a sanctuary from the things that bother me in my life.

I am glad to work with so many great people.

Work really has kept me alive.

[181] Something can be said about good music

It really doesn’t matter what genre it falls under or who made it, sang it, or arranged it.

 

It’s all about the individual joy.

 

It’s the mood it gives you.  It’s how it makes you feel when you connect a song, a verse, a piece of the instrumental track to an event in your life, whether it be important or mundane.

 

You can pretty much do whatever you want with whatever song you listen to.

 

Not everyone will see eye to eye (or hear ear to ear?) with you but music is ultimately what you make of it.

 

Put that song on repeat, enjoy every track of that album, and happily spend those two hours and 12 minutes listening to a playlist from top to bottom…and have no remorse doing it all over again.

 

Just do you.

 

Album cover to RE:COLLECTIONS, a two-disc compilation whose second disc has been my music of choice for the week. It's been soothing for my arduous morning commute and for hellish periods of work where I needed something to maintain my sanity.

[180] Perdition Crisis?

I apologize for these entries becoming more and more infrequent.  I haven’t had the time and energy to blog and there haven’t been new things worth writing about.

Work has been taking a toll on me.  The daily grind leaves me feeling like I need 15 hrs of sleep.

Of course there are always those moments I want to beat myself up for wasting my childhood achieving the wrong goals.  There are times I wish I could chastise myself for being my own obstacle.

After another brutal loss with my company’s softball team, I sat alone on the subway ride home and reflected.  Despite a handful of good things happening in the game, we still lost by a tremendous margin and I had some really bad at-bats.

Don’t you ever wish there were times you could achieve so much more?  How you want to be the object of praise but you can’t because you just aren’t good enough to live up to what your colleagues, acquaintances, friends expect?

I wish I had better stuff to share but I don’t.

[179] Heed Stephanie’s Words

Brian(20:48:08): i kid…im not [sic] saint myself

Stephanie (20:48:11): lol

Stephanie (20:48:25): no one is

Stephanie (20:48:30): people need to man up

Stephanie (20:48:45): psh i barely cry

That’s right.  MAN UP!

[178] Yes, You Can Be Functionally Anti-Social

For all the people trying to force me to make friends with people I don’t want to be friends with, just stop.

[176] If you need instructions on how to live, check out the enclosed instruction book!

Rules: they govern how to play games and they govern our lives.  Funny how we are encouraged to be ourselves but if doing so results in rules being broken, we are then reprimanded.

How are we to live?

We often encounter people we dislike in our lives—and we are expected to grin and bear it.

We do something nice and the favor isn’t returned—and that is something we are supposed to accept.

I think you can see where I am going with this.

You cannot believe how many times I’ve just wanted to really reprimand friends of mine for doing things or saying things that really bothered me but I could not because the “rules” of society say you can’t do that.

It just seems society punishes those who do not want to adhere to social norms—as if those who think outside of the box are to be thrown inside a cage.

But I guess you can still live your life…but only in the ways everyone else wants you to.

[175] Welcome to Fecesbook!

This was a rant I had typed on Facebook in response to a third-party application that allows the user—once he or she downloads it—to find out who visits his/her page each day.  Wow, what happened to privacy?

Naturally, I was unhappy about all this and even more unhappy to find out this nonsense is popular among those in high school or college but who have the mental capacity of kids in a day-care center.

Time to tell you why I’m mad.

[174] Attachment

No, there is nothing here for you to download.

While I was terminating friendships with some people, I wondered when we decide to end friendships.

Naturally, some friendships deteriorate over time.  It makes sense, though—you defer maintenance on something, that something will fall apart, resulting in potentially disastrous consequences.  That decision to put off checking your brakes is the difference between you and your friends waking up the next day and you and your friends going face first into some car with “KAGAMIKU” on the license plate.

Or, if you are too squeamish to think of something so morbid, think of it as some glue drying up over time.  We all know what glue does, so I hope I don’t  have to use an example.  But over time, the adhesion becomes weaker and weaker until separation happens.

But what compels a person to re-apply that glue so that the bond is restored?  Likewise, what compels a person not to do anything and to let the friendship deteriorate even further?

I guess you can take the time to think about your friends.  Do they have any value to you?  Are you happy associating with them?

Do they embody people of good character, or are they just characters?

You don’t win an award for having over 9000 friends (those awards you might win on Facebook cannot be exchanged for money in real life).

[173] Look at what this person said

Stephanie (00:53:26): look at what this dumbass said- SocialInterview.com asked me “How likely is [...] to win an Oscar?”
I answered ”Likely. Shes got an eye for beauty”

Stephanie (00:53:35): i’m not sure she knows what an oscar is

Brian (00:53:37): LOL!

Stephanie (00:53:46): ugh

Stephanie (00:53:48): people

[172] Merry Christmas

This year had its obstacles but some good things happened and this year might actually end on a high note (for once).

To get you all up to speed, I have finally found a job in late September after being unemployed for more than a year.  It was a tough journey for me, having been shot down after so many interviews.  But no matter how dire things were, I knew I could not give up and it paid off.

I’ve gotten closer with friends (you know who you are) and I now know who I should keep close.  You are foolish to think if the number of friends you have actually improves your reputation amongst your peers.

Despite the positives, there were some negative occurrences sprinkled in between.  I know that things happen for a reason and that the ends will justify the means, even if it takes years for that to happen.

As we march on towards 2010, I hope that things in life can continue to improve and that I can continue to mature and grow.

Enjoy your Christmas, even if you don’t celebrate it.