It Lives!

I created this little Lego creation on a whim after being tired of having my iPod just lay around there all in the way and generally ignored while listening to it, so I created a little stand-up dock.

Behold!

You just put in the iPod and ignore the scribbled-on hands in an awkward position…

Then you lock it into place with a simple 3-piece… piece…

And Voila! No wait…

Much better!

Do drop a comment if you like it!

Perdition

I wrote this story for a homework assignment, originally in spanish. Some things may have been lost in translation, but the meaning is still there.
Tell me what you think. Drop a comment.

Perdition

It all started with the Australian. We called him The Australian because he had an odd accent. He was Australian, of course, but with a bit of Scottish in him. He had an air of young naivety, but in reality he was a mature and almost dangerous person. He was a kind lad, rarely angry, but known to go into fits of desperation. I mention him because he introduced me to Her.

She was a photographer, and everything that entailed. Like all professional and semi-professional photographers, she was quite bossy, but secure in herself. I myself am a photographer. A photographer with experience in the old ways and the new ways. We were both under the guidance of Jim.

Jim was a professional photographer who had been on every continent in the Earth. He took photos of the people and places wherever he went, and in his pictures he captured the essence of entire countries. When he wasn’t on a plane or on the streets in foreign places, he was a freelance photographer and a teacher. When we were working, he told us stories of his journeys and experiences, his opinions on countries, and a view of the world in general.

They both come into the story because they are the ones who taught me humility and discipline in photography. They also changed my life. I noticed things that previously went ignored. I opened my eyes to the world around me. I cast off those rose-coloured glasses. I had a purpose in life, and they awakened me to it. I knew what I had to do.

Life is a circle. Everything eventually comes back to the source. Things come and go like the flow of the tides. I remember the story of the puddle on the sidewalk, and how it thought that the world was made for it and it alone, always waiting for an eventuality that never came and ultimately ended in disappointment. It was all part of life. Evaporation was not the end of its short existence, merely the transition into a new one. It’s all part of the inevitable circle of life.

But all in all, these experiences prepared me for the essential point in my life. The Australian, The Photographer, Jim, my friends, my teachers, my colleagues. I hear their voices in my head.

The Australian asks “If you saw a grain of corruption, a malicious action, a fatal lie, would you go out of your place to correct it?”

The Photographer asks “If you could influence the world with your work, even if it meant gaining enemies, would you do it?”

Jim asks “If you could change the world for the better, even if it meant getting out of place and risking your life, would you do it, even knowing that your life would drastically change?

It all prepared me for this moment. This singular important moment that was the culmination and pinnacle of my life. I threw discretion away, and threw myself into the middle of the revolution. I launched myself through the streets, searching for that perfect angle and the correct moment. In it, I found the meaning of life, of love, of friendship, of charity, of humanity, and the meaning of life itself.

And I took the photo that changed the world.

Still Alive

Yes, I am still alive. I’m just lazy, tired, and generally stressed out. Laboral Experience ended out alright. Took a trip to Michoacan a week after it ended. Then, did nothing for a week and a half.

Sort of annoying, really.

Anyways, a big announcement.
I’ll be back in Canada hopefully by mid-June. Early July at worst. Never if dead.
The special thing about it? I’m moving back there, it’s not just a vacation. So, if any Canadian friends are reading this (you know who you are), please keep it to yourselves until I can make it truly public. That means no telling anyone else unless they were in our class until I give the signal.

That out of the way, I’m off. I’ll post again sometime, maybe, if I don’t forget my password for the three millionth time.

Day One

I went into work at 9 AM. I wait around for 30 minutes. Eventually it’s decided that me and some other guy go to the other restaurant branch. The smaller one. We wait around for another hour.

We get onto a truck driven by an employee. He basically tells us his life story.
It turns out that he quit school after the first year of Junior High. Somehow, he ended up as a waiter in this restaurant, with a 19-year-old kid who basically followed in his footsteps (don’t get the wrong idea. The guy didn’t want his son to go down that path.) and a 9-year-old who he’s hoping does well at school.
His brother, 1 year younger than him, is the head of a school district, and earns about 100 times his salary. All because he went through high school. What a difference 5 years of school can make. He tells us this, and urges us to go to school. We are thankful for his advice and story. We get to the restaurant branch, and it is smaller than I anticipated. A good way to start the day, yes?

We got off to a good start. Good, rewarding manual work. The kind I like, that’s fair and honest. We washed windows, tables, chairs, walls, everything. Then we sorted out the staff room (not really a room), cleaned it, and about 4 hours later at 1, we got lunch. I bought a sandwich at a corner store, and we get free drinks twice a day. Afterwards, we washed more things, cleaned more things, and I got to squeeze the juice out of about 2 kilos of lemons.

Enter Ray Romano. He’s the manager. I shall call him Ray because he looks and talks exactly like Ray Romano, only without the funnyness. He’s your average asshole boss. He has slaved 20 years, and is finally a manager. After all this he still hungers for power. He’s worked so long and he’ll be damned if he doesn’t climb the ladder, even if crushing kids for the sake of glory is necessary. He acts all sincere, but is generally a grade-A asshole.

So we bust our asses cleaning the same things over again, only with him barking orders at our backs.

Right now I have 6 cuts on my left hand, and 3 bruises. I am not looking forward to another week of this.

On Appearances

Nothing has taught me more than the experience I had coming into my current school. You shouldn’t judge people on their first appearances. Sometimes you should, like with chavs or emos or wiggers or people of that nature.

But with ‘normal’ people, appearances can be deceptive. Whether it be visual or physical or ‘intellectual’.

A few examples.
My admission test. I horribly failed at the math test. Horribly so. I got less than 30%. I got questions wrong. Some out of sheer stupidity and tiredness, others because my past school didn’t teach me certain equations. Anyways, it was terrible. I felt bad, especially in front of the school administrator.

But there was also a psychoanalytical test. I placed nearly 95% on that one. It showed I had potential. The school saw me, what with my upstanding parents and good appearance and whatnot. They let me in, but I had to take a remedial course on math. Fair enough.

First semester passed. I got a solid 9. (out of 10).
Second semester started. So far, I got a 9 on my first partial. This last partial, I did better than the last partial of the first semester. That is to say, I got a 9.03 (As opposed to a 9.01). Marginally better, but I felt great. Especially since I got two 7s in two classes. If it wasn’t for those two 7s, I would have got a 9.5-ish. Still good.
And I’m the 3rd best student in the class, and in the top 10 of the grade. Amazing, considering I failed the admission test. It makes me feel proud.

Another example.
One of my friends is a real, real metalhead. He’s crazier than our dear Lobster. He hangs out with the people who get 5s and 6s. He got a 9.85. Sure, at first sight you’d say “no way”, but after a day or two, you can totally see how this guy did it. It’s amazing.

My point is that appearances can be deceiving. Hardly a surprising thing, but something I should keep in mind, considering that…

Every year my school sends the Freshmen to work for 10 days as community service. I got stuck at a restaurant named Kamilos (KARNE EN SU JUGO!). Upscaleish, very reputable, and I thankfully got stuck with 2 of my friends. But, everyone has a different working time, and the point is that you should learn what it’s like to work a menial job at minimum wage (where minimum wage here is roughly $5 USD an hour, I think). There’s little to no special treatment. Just free drinks and one free meal a day.
Tomorrow I’m working from 9 to 5. Standard. I’m a bit scared, but I know I shouldn’t be.

Let’s see how it works out.

More Stuffs

Ugh. Wednesday, I’m procrastinating like usual. Out of all the homework, I have French. The one class that gives homework during Exam Week.

Great.

Anyways, have some more photos. I’m awfully bored and want to sort-of-abuse the 3GB limit I have.

Jubilations

I haven’t written a post in over a month, because I have been in a shitstorm of busy.

Okay, okay, I’ve been playing too much Halo 3 and Orange Box. Sue me.
But yes, I am currently very busy at school. I have 3 exams tomorrow. The French exam I’m worried about, but the I.T exam I’m ready for. I just need to remember to bring the correct book tomorrow. >_>

And my internets have been dying lately. They’ve been slower, irregular, and the router has been crapping out for no reason. I went 3 days without the interweb over the weekend. Now I’m fine.

And my blog has successfully made it through 6+ months of activity. That’s a lot. WordPress automatically raised the media storage space from 50MB to 3GB.

In celebration, pelicans.

D:

Well, after 14 long months, my iPod headphones have died. Add this to a longish list of dead headphones.

They started out well, and they came with my iPod. They’re the comfy newer version, so not many problems there.

That is, until the rubber bits started falling off in April. First the left headphone’s rubber bits were peeling off, or degrading…
Then the headphone jack bits peeled off, leaving naught but a hard plastic nub attached at one end to a jack, and at the other to a wire. Soon the wire started stripping itself for some unknown reason, and now the nub was attached to an inch-long bit of exposed wire followed by insulated wire.
I quickly covered that up with tape.
Then the rest of the left headphone’s rubber bits fell off.
Then the right headphone’s rubber nub at the bottom fell off.
Then the right headphone’s rubbery ear bits fell off.

Today, the right headphone stopped working, followed shortly by the left headphone twenty minutes later.

Oh well, these headphones served me well. I stopped using them from August to October, wherein I bought two other headphones, both of which broke after two weeks, which is also bad, since I was particularly fond of one of them.

It went with me wherever. From planes, to beaches, to beds, to cars, to buses, wherever there was a free headphone jack that emitted a sound signal, basically.

Rest in peace, my headphones. Tomorrow you shall be replaced, hopefully by sturdier headphones.

Happy New Year!

Just wishing everyone a happy 2008. I know I didn’t really have a good 2007. I know that 2008 will be great, just as 2006 was. My luck always seems to turn into bad luck during odd years.

I had two surgeries, two recoveries, a missed boating trip with my friends, a move across countries, emotional and psychological trauma from leaving them behind, a new school, a new country, a new language. Constant bad news.

Then I realized something, at this very moment.
School kept me going through all that. For the first half, I relied on my friends. On the second half, I did schoolwork to keep my mind off of the bad news. A week before my surgery, I wasn’t really thinking about it. I was thinking about the school exams.

So, thank you, school, for keeping me sane this year.

Let’s hope 2008 is better.

Commentaries on Laziness

Okay, I managed to write down an idea for a new blog entry in my mental sketchpad.
Sadly, I forgot my damned password. AGAIN.
Then I had to go around searching for which email adress I used to make this blog (As it won’t let me use my main one since I had a past blog on it…)
Okay, enough of that.

Surgery update: Recovery has been relatively amazing. The doctor is pretty much amazed that I’m healing fast. That’s nice to hear, and he’s pretty much given me orders to be lazy. How relaxing.

Okay, a bit of housekeeping first. Will all my friends from Calgary please email me at RPharazon [AT] gmail.com? Replace the [AT] with a @, and there’s no spaces between RPharazon, @, and gmail.com. Just trying to circumvent more web-crawling spamspiders. I get roughly 70 spam emails a day and I don’t want that number to increase. Also, I want to know if you guys are still reading this. Tell everyone I knew that you know, and point them to this site, please.
Or just drop a comment, but make it well-written with good grammar and spelling or else the spam filter eats it up.

Anyways. Commentaries.
I realized that for all the semester during I.T class (computers), we just wanked around playing games all the time. For the first few weeks, we played small internet games. I introduced them to N (THANK YOU, NATHAN), and they gobbled it up for two weeks.

Afterwards, my friends became more tech-savvy and found ways to break the school network. We got emulators and distributed them to everyone. We played games such as Megaman Soccer and Super Mario Bros 3 together using the online feature that ZSNES has.

Soon, we got bored of that and one of my friends brought a full game, Age of Empires, to the school network via a USB drive. That made its rounds across everyone’s accounts, and LAN parties in the library using the public computers were common after school.

Then everyone quieted down, the work got tougher, and the hours got longer…
So we played Liar’s Dice when we could, during all the classes, whenever possible. It was amazing to see one of my friends lose all the money he had while playing it.

All the time, we were being lazy and bored, circumventing the system to make the school hours shorter.

And I got a solid A (averaged) at the end of the semester…
Not bad for someone who [even today] can’t really speak the language.
Ah, yes. What days are these.

Anyways, friends, drop me a line at my email or comment on this post. Just make them well-written!