Has it been only 3 days since I last updated?  Time isn't flying as fast as I wish it would.  Today I woke up at 8am, the sun starts beating down on my face at this time every morning, and once it does, I can never get back to sleep.  So the deal has been secured; I got enough financing to double my classes starting after summer.  This means that I can graduate from college in roughly 1 year.  I will be taking 18 units per semester.  I am still trying to pass my math class, but I have a secret weapon now, and I am sure to pass with at least a 'C'.  With that class over with, it should be smooth sailing.  Ever since I can remember, I've only done poorly in math related classes; Physics, Chemistry, Algebra, whatever.  Every other class has always been cake because I find writing long papers to be very easy, and sometimes even relaxing.  I had a job interview on Friday, it went well.  I will go in again monday morning for interview # 2.  This job will be my part time job, it has a set schedule and it's monday-friday.  After securing this job, I will look for a full time job. 

You might be thinking that I am crazy doing 18 units per semester and having two jobs.  In reality, this is not too difficult for me because at least half of my classes will be online.  Before I left America, I was doing 9 units per semester and working 3 jobs.  I slept for 4-5 hours a day and still passed all of my classes with a 3.4 gpa.  So with two jobs, the money should start to flow pretty soon here, and since I will be too busy, I probably won't have time to spend it.  That's fine with me, next year I was either going to buy that Porsche that I wanted, or I was going to wait until July or August and move overseas again.  London is actually pretty appealing to me for some reason.  I was thinking 3 months in Europe, followed by a few weeks in Hong Kong, maybe a month on the beach in Thailand before proceeding onto Japan to work for a year or two.  Or I could just buy the Porsche and get myself a cool studio downtown.

The USA doesn't hold a lot of appeal for me, mainly because I am fucking bored every single day of the week.  Something I hope getting a job will remedy.  Today was another one of those days where I just sat around the house all day, and finally it drove me nuts and I took a drive to the mall.  Not to buy anything in particular, but just to see other human beings.  Just to make sure that I was still alive.  My good buddy Akira met up with me on Thursday night, we ate in Mission Valley and had a few beers.  That was the first time I'd had a beer since I lived in Thailand.  It looks like my prediction about San Diego was right; not a god damned thing has changed since I left.  This place is as fucking boring as it ever was.  I guess it's just not a big enough city for someone like me.  For me the hardest thing in the world is living here and being bored out of my mind all day.  I suppose that once the money starts flowing in, I can invest in some type of hobby, or at least buy some beer every so often.  I miss Japan!

I've read 3 books in the 2 weeks that I've been back.  It's great how the day quickly progresses from morning to afternoon to evening when you are reading a good book.  I sit at home surrounded by near silence.  The occasional dog barking, birds chirping.  The phone seldom rings, and it seems like the door to door salesmen have long forgotten my sleepy street hidden on the outskirts of a canyon in hot and windy San Diego.  I applied for a job, only to have another interview scheduled tomorrow.  I'm still trying to pass my Math class.  I charged into the first week with enthusiasm that seemed to wane as I entered the second week of this 5 week summer class.  I need to recharge my enthusiasm, and getting back my homework yesterday with a big fat 4/10 marked on the top helped me get back into the proper frame of mind that I need to be in to pass this annoying class my fourth time around.

As I did during my travels on the other side of the world, I spend most of my day in silence.  No one is here in this house but me.  My sister is long gone having moved to San Francisco for school.  On some days I see my mother, who is tired from work.  I suppose I could go all week without saying a word to anyone.  This lifestyle sucks.  It's like that video game 'The Sims', where you build a huge house for your little simulated computer-dude, you add a pool, a big bathroom, a big kitchen, all these home entertainment systems and at the end of the day, your little dude just wanders around the house and doesn't really accomplish anything.  Waking up with that feeling today, I decided to take a drive.  Getting out of the house every once in a while is the only thing I can do to remind myself that I am still alive.  I've only driven three times since I got back, and the last time I went out, I got lost for an hour in Mission Valley, my own home town!

Today I set out to no where in particular, just headed south.  I ended up at Fashion Valley mall at 10am.  Not many people where there aside from employees, old women, and the occasional twenty-something baseball player's wife in her new BMW 6 series and Paris Hilton sunglasses.  She is searching the mall for something that must have been haunting her all night while she tried to sleep.  Probably a new YSL shirt or Louis Vuitton handbag.  I march from store to store, making the rounds.  Yes, it is confirmed, American fashion basically sucks.  Americans have gotten so fat that I think European designers have thrown their hands in the air and given up on sending clothes here.  The only store worth visiting is Saks.  Good old Saks still has a good selection of D&G, though this season's colors are a bit too homosexual for my tastes.  I head into Banana Republic.  As usual, their colors suck too.  Too many pastels and light pink/orange/lime colors for the summer.  I did find the new short sleeved stretch poplins on sale for $27, a deal too good to pass up on.  They changed the cut of that shirt this season, it's a slimmer cut and more contoured to fit the body of someone who is not yet overweight. 

The salesman, John, made a comment about how much he liked my watch.  I'm used to it by now.  As much as Americans are obsessed with brand name crap, they still seem to lack the proper skills to choose a tasteful watch.  I am a watch maniac, I always scan people's wrists to see what they are wearing just out of shear curiosity.  I headed back home to the usual boredom and emptiness that I am growing used to now.  I check my mailbox to find only a PennySaver magazine and an offer to finance a house or something.  That is the kind of shit you get when you have no bills, you get mail from people trying to CREATE bills for you.  Of all the places I traveled this year, I think Thailand sticks in my mind the most.  I have pretty much forgotten China (or blocked it out of my mind), Japan and Hong Kong are also distant memories, but for some reason Thailand is vivid.  If I stare out my balcony into the canyon long enough, I can imagine myself back on the beach in Thailand, staring out into the ocean with no concept of time.  I can remember renting a motorcycle from a local villager and just riding around the Island alone all day long and returning the motorcycle along with 300 baht in rolled up bills to it's grateful owner at the end of the day.  Ifm sure with enough time, Ifll be able to put the good times in the back of my mind, and continue living in this pollution we call reality.

Am I going to be one of those idiots who gets addicted to that place and returns year after year?  Maybe so.  As far as I can recall, sitting on the beach alone in Thailand, amidst the sound of crashing waves and wind was for some reason much more relaxing than sitting in my San Diego house, rotting away to television and music.  I need a haircut, and maybe a rum and coke.

Koh Lan, Island near Pattaya, May 2005.  Taken by me:

I've been back in the USA for 10 days now.  It feels like I've been back for much longer.  I started school the day after I got back, re-taking a math class that has kicked my ass in the past.  It has finally gotten to the point where my counselor won't let me take any more classes until I pass it, so I will pass it this time.  So far so good.  I have one buddy who is very wealthy, he doesn't work, and barely goes to school.  He lives by himself in his own self-created paradise bubble where the only rules that apply are his own.  I used to think it was funny when he would always tell me how busy he was with this or that, never had any free time and yet he had no job.  Now I understand what it's like.  I don't have a job, I'm only taking one summer school class, and yet I have so much shit to do every day.  These leisure activities include studying, cleaning the house, doing laundry, cleaning the piece of shit car I bought and performing basic maintenance on it, reading, jogging at the beach, watching movies... seems like I just don't have a whole lot of time to look for a job these days.

In reality, I will find one as soon as this math class ends.  I pass all of my other classes with minimal effort, so I can work and juggle other classes, no problem.  The car I bought cost me like $200.  It's a 1988 Volvo 240.  I bought this car because I've owned a Volvo in the past, and it never broke down on me.  I drove my last one all the way up to 314,000 miles, and still it ran, and that one was turbo!  By contrast, I owned a relatively new Audi that essentially had some type of computer virus which kept causing the car problems...  I've owned quite a few cars, and in the end, I'm happy with my $200 car at the present time.  I pay $15 per month for insurance, I don't worry about it breaking down.  It's clean, it runs smooth, and even the paint is good.  I've learned quite a few things about money and living in America.  All of my neighbors buy fancy new cars, and finance them.  They pay $450+ per month for their cars and $250 per month for full coverage insurance.  SO basically their monthly car expenses add up to enough money to buy a ticket to Tokyo and back.  So no more sports cars for me, no more expensive payments, no more bullshit.  I like being able to cash my paycheck and keep 100% of the money.  I have one friend from High School whose little sister (age 21) recently got pregnant and married her 26 year old boyfriend.  They then bought a house with zero down and now have a $3000 monthly mortgage.  She doesn't work at all.  Her military husband has to pay for everything.  $3000 a month is JUSt for the house, it doesn't include insurance or any other bills.  Needless to say, what good is a big empty house if you can't even afford to fill it with furnature.  Typical.

I visited my grandmother yesterday.  Shefs 81 years old.  There is no impressing that old woman, she's seen it all.  I showed her my pictures from Thailand, Japan and China.  She liked them.  She's been to all of these places of course, so she's seen it all before.  She gave me a new set of luggage, which was nice of her.  Since I don't really go anywhere these days, I started digging into my old book collection and reading them all again.  One of my favorites is "Bangkok 8" by John Burdett.  I read this book before I had gone to Thailand, and I couldn't quite visualize everything.  Now that I have lived in Thailand, I really enjoy Burdett's books much more because I know all of the places and people he is talking about, and I have been to most of these places.  It's intriguing in the way that it would be if someone where to write a book about your home town.  Burdett has a new book called "Bangkok Tattoo", I'm going to pick that one up as soon as I can. 

I also watched some movies recently.  I watched "Whale Rider", and the Hong Kong movie "Magic Kitchen".  I didn't buy the later movie, it came free with my region free DVD player that I recently bought from yesasia.com, so I figured I would watch it one morning.  I actually thought it was pretty cool, but I'm sure most HK people would say "that movie is so old/lame/cheesy... blah blah blah", who cares.  I like HK movies, mostly because they can be either really emotional, or really cheesy, and most of the time the same actors are in every single movie. 

Photo of the Day:  Jonathans restaurant, Higashi Kurume, Tokyo, Japan.  Home of the best hang-over food in Tokyo!  I'll never forget the Bacon Pizza and Smoke Chicken Salad at 4am. 

So I started looking for a job today.  Needless to say, I didn't have a whole lot of luck.  I don't really have a talent, and until I graduate next year, I don't really have any qualifications.  That puts me at the bottom of the job hunting barrel where I have to compete with all of the other people who either never went to college, or are too young to be in college, in other words; 75% of the American work force.  Just more motivation to finish school faster.  In the mean time, I have no idea what to do.  I suppose people like me usually end up at a dead end job, working at a grocery store, or video store, or some other bullshit job where you don't have to use your brain.  Once I get this kind of job, how long will I be able to take it?  How long will I be able to follow directions coming from someone who is even more stupid than I am?  Probably not long..  Should I just sit at home and not work for the next 18 months?  That would deprive me of any fun I might have if I had money in my wallet.  No going out, no nothing.  Just studying all day.  No saving money, no cash when I graduate.  No good.

I also noticed that lots of lame-ass jobs such as Insurance Agency Customer Service Rep. are requiring BA degrees.  Is this what really awaits me after I graduate?  Does one really need a degree to sit in an office and take phone calls all day at an insurance company for $12 per hour?  Pretty soon even garbage men, or excuse me; "Refuse Recovery Technicians" will need BA degrees in environmental law.  Fucking ridiculous.  I don't know where I am going to work, and when I do get a job I will surely not post it on here because I'll be too embarrassed to even admit how shitty my job is.  Yup, that will be me at your local VONS, bagging your groceries.  I can speak 3 languages, and I'll be bagging your groceries at VONS for $7 per hour.  FUCK.  I'm leaning towards not even getting a job at this point.  It's simply too degrading and I have no bills to pay so I'm not going to degrade myself for some pocket change.  I might just fax my resume out to 15 different places, and then when some of them call my house to follow up, I'll give them my own interview to see if they are a suitable company to work for.  If I think so, I'll go in for a real interview, just for kicks, just to check the place out, just to get back into the swing of things and see what it's like for people to actually apply for a job, to actually sit in front of someone and explain why I would be a better dish washer than the other 50 applicants, and where I got my dish washing degree. 

This whole concept is new to me.  Applying for a job.  This whole process is foreign.  Maybe I can sell one of my kidneys and just stay at home until school is finished, without working.  I'm young, I don't smoke or drink, I could get at least $10k for one of my kidneys.  Maybe I should dress up like a homeless person, and beg for change every day.  Then at the end of the day, I can use the change to buy lottery tickets... it's nice not having any bills.  Maybe I have enough crap left in my house to throw on ebay and survive out the year.  Who knows...  What I do know is that getting back into the workforce is going to be slow. painful. agonizing. and very degrading.  Maybe I'll just work construction, at least that way I don't have to do any fucking p a p e r w o r k.

Breakfast:  Oatmeal, Orange Juice

Lunch:  Oatmeal, Salad, Water

Dinner (not after 6pm):  Chicken Salad, Vegetables, Water.

It's not that hard, you just have to compromise your desire to eat the foods that made you a fat-ass.  At the point right after I dropped burgers and soda from my diet, I lost about 2lbs per day doing practically nothing and still eating food.  It can be done, it just shows that people don't care enough to do it.  This fat-ass epidemic just makes us Americans look lazy, uneducated, and sloppy.  It gives classic American cuisine a bad name, because if eaten in moderation it won't make you fat.  I just wish my fellow countrymen would do something about this problem and help themselves.  Living in the "Fattest Country on Earth" is not a glamourous title at all.

Here are some of my friends back here in the USA:

Adam

Brian Kim

The Boys