a plateau of very subtle emotions – sometimes a little depressing and sometimes a bit happy – has characterized a great deal of my experiences in the past year. as i perfect the art of dismissive nonchalance – not so much as in a lack of enthusiasm but as in a lack of emotional investment – i feel as if i have been floating through the various landscapes and going through the motions. do i get nostalgic still? surely, but i feel as if that is something i can protect myself more effectively from as well. gone are the days when it would literally hurt the stomach, or “heart” in romantic terms, to think about the lost opportunities or the screw ups. nowadays, life just waltzes by and i am often just sitting down. and i don’t think it is a situation unique to my own circumstances – when i watch films such as lost in translation or garden state, the celebration and specific framing of indifference and detachedness from the surrounding world is something that my peers seem to identify with as well. perhaps we are all looking to be sedated and shielded from emotional excesses. after all, it does sound like the “cool” thing to do.

but i cannot help looking inwards and criticizing a certain degeneration of my personal ways. in reality, i am probably not any lazier than i was as a first year student. however, the idea that i am probably not any more productive or driven as i once used to be disappoints me. there was a time when i knew how to regiment life more effectively, and while i was probably not as “happy,” it certainly pleases me nowadays to look upon such a glorious time. but perhaps such productive times are a mythical creation of my mind. were i to recreate and relive such memories, will i be able to convince myself that i am back on the right track? how about those PK Mission: Impossible lists that i used to write up in high school? get a 96+ average on all english tests, score perfect on all history tests, run for 100 yards each game, write 3 articles, etc. – such was the life i lived, a life with some sort of standard, albeit very practical to the degree of being shallow. do i dare try something similar this late in the game? have i become too comfortable with this life of “who cares?”

Operation Reclaim Life [yes, very corny]

1. Sleep more – lack of sleep leads to extention of unproductive moments as well as unnecessary emotional backlashes that include excessively self-defeating infatuation, loss of self-esteem, and whining. Recommend increasing sleeping hours from 4 to 6 each night.

2. Exercise more – lifting increases patience, or so i read in a fitness magazine once. having a fit body boosts self-confidence and also maintains health. try mandatory gym time at least 3 times a week.

3. Read more – quit being lazy and get those 80-100 pages in each night, no excuses. be able to digest dense material and really be curious to know more.

4. Write more – better pkblog entries, better life documentation, and more creative insight. cannot risk becoming completely uninteresting. already boring enough.

5. More money – embrace the Gekko creed of “greed is good” and work ass off to make money. “whoever says that money is the root of all evil doesn’t have any. look at the fucking smile on my face.” haha, movie quotes aside (can you guess where that’s from?), money is a great way to measure productivity and self-worth (because metrics such as ‘popularity’, ‘coolness’, or ‘nice’ are so subjective and transient). this means getting websites done on time, pressing for payments, and actually being a real business man.

there are some other areas i should probably think about, but as with any proclamations of self-improvement, this one will have obstacles – namely, the incumbent lifestyle of free-flowing actions that include drinking beer at 3am on a weekday to chill out, watching NFL Primetime at 2am before the day an important assignment is due, or having a long-winded conversation with a friend on AIM at 4 or 5am when class starts at 9am. college allows for such behavior, but perhaps it is time to cut down and focus my energies at increasing my personal value. the beauty of it all is that only i will be able to judge myself properly, but whether or not i will remain true to my intentions still hangs in the balance.

i’m with my friend nigi and we’re just chilling in a living room. i hear a constant sound of something clanging against a metal pipe and it makes my head ring. we look for it everywhere but it’s nowhere to be found. then i wake up. it’s 10:50am. shit, late for a meeting.

i learn that teaching should be an option for someone so utterly confused about the future as myself. what about wall street dreams and big money? discouraged perhaps, and maybe looking for something more refreshing as well.

a quick 1-hour workout makes me feel just that much better – i do the clean press a bunch of times and try 2100s with 25lbs. it’s harder when you hold the bar on the outside. i think biceps that are too big makes the arm look too short. i’ll keep mine lean.

shun lee cafe again and it’s with ms. hyun, the one person who really makes me talk excitedly about the stuff i study in film and whatever artsy stuff i’ve gathered from here and there… i love how it’s a lot less awkward, and her face is a lot brighter because she doesn’t have the stresses of school weighing her down anymore. the new york film festival is definitely worth the extra $5 per ticket because it comes with a short – this time it’s a hungarian movie about three fishermen and a blonde whore-girl who has a different experience with each… my guess is that she is some kind of angel and the one that treats her the best ends up catching a boatload of fish. and for the feature, we had “woman is the future of man” which was a series of mise-en-scene shots linked together… absolutely beautiful and the subject matter was naturalistic, brutally real, and, to be pretentious-sounding, very poetic. yes, women are the new men if they become aware of their sexual powers — i wasn’t too sure, but i think it’s something about women no longer trusting men and using them just like the men have used them for a long long time. bleak, sad, but in a way, true.

which brings me back to my dorm and a few minutes’ walk to the dorm i stayed at over the summer. it’s always great spending time with her and yes it’s because i’m highly infatuated. but i must know my station in this life in relation to her, and that is… friend. i am sorry for having thought i had a chance and i cringe at myself for having such hopes. i am not disappointed at you because you were honest and that’s all i really wanted. you want to be friends, and sure, why not? but i promised myself never again to be that presumptuous creep, so say hello to me – the old/new me. i should have known the prevalent logic – why give it a chance, when it’s not going to work out? or maybe i should have read between the lines: not. interested.

yes i walk back humming john mayer tunes because once you live life one track after another – some sad, some not-so-sad – then it’s not such a bad feeling. you don’t need to skip tracks cuz they all sound just so damn good. right?

across from my door flat on the hallway is a good friend who makes my night-time rejection seem trivial… 3 years of solid relationship forever gone… a cup of water, a sleeping bag, a sad sad walk downstairs… rivers flowing and i want to join, too…. i hope he sleeps alright.

all i can wish is for someone to tell me that i did the right thing tonight. i’ve become the all-too-dispensible human waste floundering in self-perpetuated dramas…..must…. stop.