I called my brother today. He didn't pick up, but he did send me this text.

TEXT:
SORRY, I'M ABOUT TO JUMP
OUT OF A PLANE. I'LL CALL
YOU BACK WHEN I'M ON GROUND.

...

Today, I would like to talk about a subject that is very near and dear to my heart.

Lately, obesity in children and adults have taken a forefront in health. Every where people are promoting good exercise and healthy food. Even the cookie monster has been rumored to undergo a strictly no cookie diet. However, this new obsession of reducing our pants sizes has also caused us to neglect an extremely important issue.

Brain obesity.

It's an unfortunate condition that is plaguing our nation's college students and professors alike. Often a person is considered brain obese when the density of their brains are disproportionate to their bodies. Scientists believe that this is often due to excessive academic intake, long hours of non stop studying, psychiatric illness, and genetic susceptibility.

Brain obesity has several negative affects that include frequent headaches, stiff bones, sore backs, extreme fatigue, crankiness, and cramped hands. It has also been proven that brain obesity is in direct correlation to the following diseases:

increased knowledge
atheism
epiphanies
mathematical and scientific discoveries
and so on and so forth

Dr. Klyn, an expert in the field of studying, states that, "Youth today have no portion control. With all such available information at their finger tips, they are often found to study too much. This is most prevalent in college students where the curriculum demands extreme amounts of studying in short amounts of time. In fact they even have a whole week dedicated to the celebration of study. It's absolutely absurd!"

Fortunately brain obesity is easily cured by reducing the amounts of studying and increasing the amounts of activities that require little brain activity. Doctors suggest winter/summer vacations, partying, having movie marathons, or sleeping for more than 12 hours a day.

It must be remembered that to cure brain obesity, one must undergo a change in lifestyle. While at first it is extremely psychologically straining, the benefits are incomprehensible. literally.

tour de mouches!

if happiness were a food it'd be this:

a glass of original soymilk
2 tbsp of honey

eaten with an oatmeal raisin chewy bar

this is a chandelier.

made by
Luc D'Abreau
Matt Quan
Kevin Chen
and yours truly, K

We had 1 hour to complete our final architecture project that entailed a class competition to see who could create the tallest structure with a budget of 5 dollars. Our only requirements: must be aesthetically pleasing and structurally sound.

And so I sat there, outside, in 40 degree weather bundled in winter jackets, winter hats, and winter gloves, shaking and thinking that this was the dumbest thing I have ever done in my life. I cursed design inept architectural engineers, repeating again and again that I should be an architect. I muttered under my breath making angry clouds in the cold, crisp air. And that's when I saw him.

Finally.

Against the dark, I could see his thin silhouette made of broad shoulders and a small waist. But some monstrosity was growing from his back. My eyes squinted and I cursed again for being an ARCE.

He came up to me with a clumsy smile holding 20 some odd skittle colored balloons. My anger quickly dissappated as I saw him. He looked like he had just stolen Santa's Bag of presents.

From behind him came another boy. Taller this time and laughing, carrying another 10 white balloons. Then 3 other boys carrying backpacks full of rocks and rolls of string amounting to 1000 ft in total.

It was time to get to work.

We unraveled each roll of ribbon, string, and twine, making organized rows of 150 ft long lanes. Around the same time our boy scouts were making balloon knots, the master planner came riding out on his low ride bike with 10 more balloons trailing his speedy arrival. We quickly tiered the three layers of balloons to produce a 20 ft. structure with a spire reaching to another 50 ft in the air attached to the long strips of ribbon and string that we tied to our rock filled backpacks paying no attention to the other groups that were in the process of raising their concrete, cardboard made structures.

Architecture students began to pop their heads out of their studios, a couple bystanders were accumulating and people began looking at us, curiously wondering what we were doing. And in one single motion all five of us took a backpack and walked backwards as our group leader released the balloons. At that same moment, our professor came walking up laughing

if i ever saw...

40 balloons rose into the cobalt blue skies warping Dexter Lawn into an entirely new space that redefined the look and feel of not only the exterior space, but our faces as well. We all watched, glowing in the cold air and moonlight, watching as this simple structure fostered childish smiles and honest laughter out of our stressful lives. The wind was soft and the skies were clear with a bright moon shining an incandescent glow onto our balloons that floated with the stars. And as I stared at our structure, forgetting completely about the competition and finals and everything, I smiled.

fall days

My calendar is a pathological liar. He says its November 17th.

I don't think so. If it were November 17th then it would mean that we are in the middle of fall. Which then means that the trees would be red and the chimneys would spout holiday smoke, while rainboots would become a fashion statement and scarves would be commonplace. BUT this is no so.

And i will tell you why.

1. people are still wearing summer dresses and shorts
2. people are still deciding what swimsuit to wear to the beach
3. weekend barbecues occur regularly
4. people are still wearing their rainbow flipflops
and finally
5. it is still 92 degrees outside.

THUS, my calendar must be lying because there is no such thing as 90 degree weather in the middle of november.

And so i will wait with my scarves and hot chocolate outside in that blazing sun until it becomes fall so i can prove my calendar wrong.

home sweet home.

I finally unpacked the last box of my belongings today. I am officially moved in!

summer days

I found my grandma walking around in fishnet socks today. When I asked her why in the world she would wear that she said " because it's sexy."

ashamed.

i feel like shit.

Priceless

Thank You Letters $ 8

Sorry Brownies $10

Alcohol $300

Hospitalization $ 500

Ambulance $1500

Housing License Repeal $5520

The memory of swimming in pools of my own vomit, reminiscing whether or not I would die there in that hospital waiting for my roommate to pick me up and take me home

The throbbing aftermath confronted with a 24- hour hang over, counseling, essays, meetings, and millions of alcohol pamphlets all concealed with a curtain of smiles and the belief that I am okay

The humiliating confession of my vulnerability and weakness to the broken faces of my parents as they see the thousands of dollars in damages for my poor decisions that has caused fights between me and my conscious, reputation, friends, family, and loved ones that has only amounted to a lost in trust within myself and within my friends

Priceless.

nose bleed.

I was standing there; head down, naked from head to toe with hot water beating down against my back, watching the never ending drops of blood fall from the tip of my nose. I stood in that pale beige stall for what seemed like hours, lost in this strange sense of time where nights were days and days were nights and life seemed to become one long continuous cycle of mechanical tasks. There was no distinction from sunset to sunrise or from sunrise to sunset. And with each drop passed another day that I could have had. Another day where I could have made a memory, but instead I am left with this infinite day.

I find myself watching people. Watching people come home and people go home and people leaving and people running, but all the same people going somewhere and I am no where but here. My days filled with nothing but air. My heart forgotten. My breath slow. But there is an inconsistency to my predictable life that is the basic foundation to my existence.

It is the waterfall of crimson red from the tunnels in which I breathe. It revives my being, reminding me that there is life in the warm blood that rushes with a fervid force throughout my veins. It is an opacity that will not last. It is the reason why I know that this day will end whether it be tomorrow or the next day or the next year. It will end because there is something finite to this infinite bloody cycle and it is that that makes my heart remembered and my breath strong.

skit 1

enter kat.

K: Why hello there, friend!

alex: Hello, Kat!

K: You know, I wish I had two cans and a piece of string so we could connect them and talk to each other.

alex: Well,what do you know! I just happen to have two cans and a piece of string.
(pulls out cans and string)

K: Wow, that's fantastic. Now, I can talk to you whenever I want!

end scene.

Lemons.

What do I see?
Vibrant yellow lemons
Each cut into perfect thin slices
And there are millions of them.
And why are there lemons, you might ask.
Because my dad likes to cut lemons. Lots of them.
And for what?
Optimism

You see, each lemon has a little slit in the center of its yellow sun where it will be placed on a polished glass by a dishwasher’s cracked hands, filled with cubes of glistening ice and cold water by a nervous busser, and finally taken by the delicate, but fastidious server to the gentleman in a cashmere sweater who is sweating profusely.

Naturally the more lemons that are used, the more customers there will be. So at the beginning of each day, my dad cuts four extra large lemons into slices of 12 each. And he continues to cut them every hour. This isn’t so bad… if we were an established restaurant with a steady inflow of customers. But we’re not. So by the end of the day, we are swimming in bright neon lemons, breathing in the citrus with our permanently pursed lips and crying because it’s stinging our eyes.

No one wants to tell my dad to stop cutting the lemons. No one wants to tell him that he’s wasting money and that those lemons are probably just going to be stored in the fridge for the next day when they turn brown at the edges and hard on the outer skin. And why not? Because we are all hoping for the same thing: for this restaurant to be successful. We’ve put our hearts and our hopes and we’ve sacrificed so much for this restaurant. We’ve given up the concept of family for this restaurant and now all we can think about is the success for the restaurant because we can’t bare to think of anything less of that. It would be too heartbreaking. So here we are holding our breath and listening to the incessant chopping of the cutting board hoping that a hungry prospect will gallantly walk through those cream colored doors.

A tribute to the late Mr. Puma

I'm afraid to report that my white puma bag that I am so widely known for in ARCH class has finally collapsed into critical condition. It is unfortunate to say that after many failed attempts in surgery I could not save it's only strap, but alas it is not useless yet! Although an amputee, Mr. Puma will remain at a restful peace upon my wooden shelf.

Let us take a moment to remember his most eventful life...

He was first found by Kathlyn in an Isetand department store and bought for 7 dollars (though worth much more!) Then carefully wrapped in a red suitcase where he then traveled across the Pacific and found himself visiting family and after a week or so, he found his new home in San Luis Obispo where he attended college in Calpoly.

He often enjoyed going to movies, shopping, and other such fun places. He began his work with the responsibility of carrying daily necessities like wallets and food, but as he grew in strength, he began to carry textbooks and notebooks. However in his young age, he carried too much for his small frame and that was the beginning of the end for Mr. Puma.

Take care, Mr. Puma! We love you dearly.

to write love on her arms (valentine's day 2008)

There's no combination of words
I could put on the back of a postcard,
No song that I could sing
But I can try for your heart,
Our dreams, and they are made out of real things,
Like a shoebox of photographs,
With sepiatone loving,
Love is the answer
At least for most of the questions in my heart ,
Like why are we here? And where do we go?
And how come it's so hard?
It's not always easy,
And sometimes life can be deceiving,
I'll tell you one thing, its always better when we're together

MMM, it's always better when we're together
Yeah, we'll look at the stars when we're together
Well, it's always better when we're together
Yeah, it's always better when we're together 

jack johnson
better together

On the subject of blogging...

"You know what just occurred to me? You're just a kid.
You haven't the faintest idea what you are talking about."

-Good Will Hunting