Insomnia would be a lame excuse

Winter break = SLEEEEEEEPPPPPPPP

Right?

Maybe?

Kind of?

I thought it did. It has been.... Kind of. Just because it means sleep it doesn't mean at a decent hour, right?

I hope it doesn't because let's just say that I've been a night owl this whole break. My usual sleep time has been about 2 AM (shhh don't tell my mom). Last night was just an all time low. I went to sleep around 5 AM. And then I basically slept for half of the day; I ended up waking up at 1 in the afternoon. At least I've been getting 8ish hours a night, which is the only positive about this situation.

My sleep schedule is so messed up. I am screwed when school starts again.

BANG!

Yesterday was my first real time playing Bang!, which is an Italian card game (don't worry, there's an English version). I had kind of played it before, and by kind of I mean, I 'played' on my friend's team (read: I watched her hand while they played). So basically, I was a complete amateur. It was embarrassing how little I knew about the game since my sister and all of my Asian friends are obsessed with it.

The first game I played, I was that guy. You know. The one that tries to learn a game as he/she goes, which basically makes the game boring and difficult to play for everyone since it goes slow and the person is clueless and asks too many questions. Everyone tried to kill me off first because I was so slow and bad at the game.

After a few hours and many games, guess who turned pro?! THIS GUY (girl)! I only killed four people in one turn. And if you're familiar with the game, you know how spectacular that is. So, no big deal.

You probably have no idea what in the world this game is, but just know that it is the best and most fun card game to play with a small group of people. It will keep you occupied for hours. It's great.

It's Risky Stuff

When I think of "risk," I think of stepping outside of my comfort zone. The bubble that protects my sanity, self esteem, and feeling of security gets rubbed by something from the outside. Its fragile membrane could be broken by any sudden movement. My precious bubble gives a little with the exterior friction. There's a chance of it popping, and all hell could possibly break lose.

If taking a risk stirs up so much commotion, then why do people still choose to take them? It could be because they think that the outcome will be good. Or because they want attention. Or they just want change.

But when I take a "risk," it's an impulsive decision that I don't really think through. And I usually end up regretting it, even if it turns out to be OK. The uncertainty of not knowing how things are going to turn out is scary, and I'm not a fan of it. When I take a risk, the stability of everything in my bubble is at stake. The bubble is slightly nudged, which sends its content into temporary chaos until everything can settle. It's that nauseous twisting that you get in your stomach when you don't know what's going to happen.  If the consequence of my risk is a positive one, then the bubble comes to a standstill and all is right in the world. If the consequence of my risk is a negative one, then everything in the bubble is shaken up with no sign of calming down.

Haha

Spotify - The Next Best Thing

If you haven't heard of Spotify, you are seriously missing out. It's the best music library type program after iTunes. Seriously. You can listen to your favorite songs or discover some new ones without buying them. This program has saved me some cash and is very friendly to my wallet. You can get this lovely program for five easy payments of $0. It's great.

This program has a huge library of music to choose from. It even has music iTunes doesn't sell. The creators of Spotify also provide a Top 100 chart that doesn't consist of only every overplayed song on KDWB but also other awesome songs that don't play not the radio. You can even see the Top 100 charts of other countries and listen to the songs on them. That's something that iTunes doesn't offer. In iTunes, you can't buy songs from a different country unless you have a mailing address in that country. I assume that it's because of copyright issues, but it's still lame.

It is also extremely easy to create a playlist of all of your favorite songs. There's a "Starred" playlist that can have songs easily added to by clicking the star icon next to the song you're listening to. Unfortunately for other playlists, you have to click and drag. But doesn't that sound so much more appealing than click-and-dragging-and-maybe-some-scrolling for adding songs to a playlist in iTunes?

Spotify also makes it very easy to keep up with (creep on) your friends' latest fav songs by connecting to your Facebook account. It syncs with your friends list and allows you to look at playlists made by friends who have their Facebook accounts connected also. So, instead of having your friends burn you CDs, which is technically illegal, they can just go listen to your playlist on Spotify. You don't have to spend time to burn a CD (who uses CDs anymore?), and you won't arrested. Your friend also doesn't have to buy the songs. It's a win-win situation.

There are only a few negatives about Spotify, but they're tolerable. The first is the occasional commercials that play in-between songs, but the good news is that they're only 15-30 seconds long. It's the same as Pandora, except you can actually hand pick the songs you wish to listen to and there's also a radio for those who just want to listen to a certain genre/mixture of genres of music. The second negative is that you can't put the songs that you listen to from Spotify onto your iPod or other MP3 player you own. You can only listen to music from Spotify on a computer with internet connection. This is not a major dilemma though in modern times because in this era most people use their laptops more than their iPod or MP3 player and internet is easy to find.

The program is overall very easy to use. All you need to do to get started is make an account on the site spotify.com then download the program, which all takes a total of about 10 minutes. And then you're free to play all the music you want, with the exception of occasional commercials.

Now don't worry, I'm not getting paid by Spotify to gush about it. If I was, I'd probably have a lot of obnoxious emoticons and too many exclamation points. But sadly I am not. I just love it that much.

"F" for Effort?

A woman went up to the cash register to pay with her two rowdy boys in tow. She had her purse hanging from the crook of her arm. Her other arm was occupied with shoo-ing away her boys each time they presented to her a candy or snack while rattling off in a foreign language. The cashier gave an unenthused greeting then proceeded to scan the woman's items. Realizing that their mother would not give into their pleas, the young boys started to punch each other back and forth. The mother spun around and grabbed both boys by their arms. I watched her give her boys stern eye contact as she spoke in hurried, hushed Spanish. She let go of the boys, and they silently marched to stand by the bags of groceries.

The cashier told the woman her total; the woman opened her purse to rummage around for her checkbook. There was a lot of rustling coming from the woman's purse as she dug through. As she pulled out her checkbook and quickly closed her purse, I caught a glimpse of some small clear packages. My suspicion was confirmed when the cashier's was-dull face turned to alarm. "Where did you get those?" He demanded.

The woman replied in a thick accent with incoherent broken English. All I could make out was, "I.... not... her.... gave me..." The rest was incomprehensible mush.

Flustered, the cashier called over his boss who was a small Asian lady. After the cashier explained the situation, the small Asian lady screeched in a shrill voice, "WHAT?" In the same shrill voice, the boss started yelling at the woman about how she was stealing and that she was going to call the police.

The cashier positioned the family against a wall; the boss took a picture of them. The mother was smiling for the camera.

This irked me, and it still does. I witnessed this several years ago, but the memory always randomly comes up. The woman seemed to be a struggling single mom who was foreign to America. She definitely was stealing, and the check she was going to write probably would have bounced. As any mother would, she was giving her children what they wanted - even though it was through illegal means. However, I don't know if she was unashamed of her act or if she just didn't understand the situation. She could have just thought the picture was for fun, but I don't know of any sane person who would think so if they were in her place, foreign or not.

But the mother should get some credit (I guess not some. A little. Very little.). It's in a mother's nature to try to give their children the best life possible. I guess that was her attempt. "A" for effort? Maybe not since it was illegal... More of an "F".

On a broader scale, the situation served as an eye-opener to the sad reality that there are people who less fortunate and struggle daily. People do whatever they can to survive, even if it means committing crime.