My Life Story (Part 8): Sophomore Start

So Sophomore year started, and I was excited for it because I had friends now, YAY!  Lols, it's sad but it's true xP  I had chosen to switch dormitories to ISR, which stands for I'm Socially Retarded ahaha JK, but not really (Illinois Street Residence Halls).  I lived in a triple with my before-mentioned new friends, Bing and Kevin.  (Yay they have names now)

There were some pretty awesome times in this dorm.  Whether it was through the many gamecube games we played, including smash, mario tennis, or watching them play harvest moon LOL, the many comp games including gunbound, counterstrike, America's army LMAO, or just staying up late to watch the Fresh Prince on nick at night, sophomore year with my roommates was amazing and fun filled =D

Random story.  So our room was right next to the staircase and the elevator, and one day when I was coming back to the room from the bathroom, I saw the RA run to the elevator, yell out a HOLY$HIT and run back down the hallway.  Confused and curious, I walk to look at the elevator, and there was water gushing down it everywhere LOL.  Apparently someone on the 5th floor hit the sprinkler thing ahahaha xD

So as soon as I got to campus, I had to start help TASC out at quad day, which is where all the clubs sets up a booth on our main quad so people can see what they are interested in.  It was pretty fun being that it was my first event on the board.  However, it was also very tiring since we had to stand and talk to everyone who came to our booth.  We also were promoting our first event which was a shaved ice event and some light info on our club.


So truth be told, I started looking for pictures for this awesome blog post today, and I ended up browsing through a lot of pictures and ended up reminiscing about college times.  Now I'm kind of sad :(  And tired.  Hence why there are so many pictures haha xP

Yay shaved ice event.  It was free of course, and all were welcome!  Part of the TASC board pic there --->

Like I mentioned in a previous blog post, I also was involved in the Asian American Association.  I decided to join their big sib lil sib program because I wanted to help freshman transition into college better than I did.  I ended up with the best lils ever :D  And best family ever haha xD  (I ruined that pic -->)

There we go, there's a complete AAA family picture.  So yeah, sophomore year started out well (and therefore it's boring for you guys).  But things got more interesting as the first semester progressed...  but you'll have to wait until the next post to read about it!  I'm falling asleep... sorry >.<
:P ace everyone

My Life Story (Part 7): Fitting In

The hardest part about moving to some place new is fitting in, adapting to one's environments.  But being the person I am, I care and think too much, and don't like "intruding".  From my perspective, everyone already had their own friend circles, whether it was from their high school days, or from early college days, since I didn't go out to try to meet people until a few weeks/months into the semester.  Luckily through basketball, I found a few people to ball with on a more regular basis, and eventually latched on with their friend group.

With sophomore year roommates
and roommate gf, with Wong Fu

This group consisted of the friend I balled with, his roommate, his roommate's girlfriend, the girlfriend's roommate, a bboy, and on occasion my temporary roommate haha.  It was an interesting group, not gonna lie.  I ended up rooming with the bball friend and his roommate the next year, while the three girls ended up living together (I think, don't remember).  Lol okay, kind of irrelevant to the story.  Let's move on.



I just remembered that last post I ended on the notion of me joining the Asian American Association (AAA) and the Taiwanese American Students Club (TASC).  Funny story about that actually.  In the beginning of the semester, me and friends A and B decided to go check out the AAA bbq event to join and meet people.  We were told it was hosted in Illini Grove, so we walked across the street to the area.  We found a group of people and started eating and conversing with them.  Honestly, I didn't know if there was something wrong with my English or my understanding of English, but I could NOT understand what these people were saying most of the time.  Two possibilities came to mind: 1) people in the Midwest absolutely could NOT speak English, or 2) these guys were SOOOOO Asian that they couldn't speak English.  Regardless of which one it was, we decided to not go to any more events lols.

*Side note* I found out towards the end of freshman year (I think) that we ended up going to the wrong barbeque.  That park had multiple spots and we just walked to the first Asian one we saw.  Apparently, we ended up at some Singapore club barbeque LAWLS

ICASP (this is actually from sophomore year cause
I couldn't find a picture from freshman year)

So how did I end up mustering up the courage to try to fit into already established friend groups you ask?  Through going to events that I could relate to and fit in better.  TASC hosts this program once a year (twice a year now) called ICASP, the Illinois Chinese Adopted Student Program.  Here, each person who volunteers to be a "big" gets paired up with a "little".  At this program, the littles are able to learn about their Chinese backgrounds since most of them are adopted and otherwise do not get a chance to.  There's also an adult program that runs

at the same time where the parents learn about their children's backgrounds as well as how to raise them in a way so their culture is not lost and that they aren't as confused.  I signed up to be a big for this event because I saw it as another way to work with children, which I love, and through this I met other people as well.  At this event, many people on the TASC board tried convincing me to run for a board position.

TASC Winning Team Picture

Another event I signed up for is TASC's dodgeball event.  Unfortunately, that year happened to be the last year that TASC hosted the dodgeball tournament.  For those of you who don't know, and that's probably almost everyone haha, I have a pretty sicknasty throwing arm.  When I played baseball in New Jersey, coaches always put me at shortstop or third base because I oftentimes had the strongest and most accurate throwing on the team.  But yeah, at this tournament, I was one of the biggest reasons the TASC team won the tournament :D 

Can you guess which one is me?  Hint: I'm extremely out of place LOL

Although I didn't sleep before the tournament (I have trouble sleeping before competitive events), I still went all out during our games.  I'm pretty sure I nailed the AAA sports chair in the face in one of our games (too bad only below the head shots count xP).  But yeah, I believe I ended up being sore and dysfunctional for a week afterwards since I hadn't thrown in a while haha.  We all went to Perkins to eat afterwards, and later on in the week, TASC had a barcrawl, and I decided to go to get to know the board better since I planned on applying.  The board was so nice.  I will never forget how one of the board members sat with me outside this one bar because I wasn't old enough to get in LOL xD

Pyro me with the bboy

Eventually, I made it onto the TASC board... as the webmaster LMAO.  Haha, it was actually the position I applied for though, cause they needed one and I just wanted to get in.  Plus at the time I was going for a CS minor, so why not?  Hmm, I think that pretty much sums up my freshman year.  I can't think of anything else... hmm... well, I guess that'll sum up tonight's post then xD  Thanks for reading!  =D  Keep it real folks, :P ace

Randoms

Sorry guys, been too busy/lazy/tired to write anything.  But I did stumble upon these pictures recently and I found them pretty entertaining/cute/true.  I'll make a more substantial post soon, I promise!  :P ace

My Life Story (Part 6): Settling in to Illinois

So from the last post, you guys learned that I was basically living by myself in da hood, with one friend.  The first college "event" for UIUC was our convocation, which is about...  actually I couldn't tell you LOL.  Funny story.  I was leaving my dorm to head out, and based on what I heard, there was gonna be a bus that takes me to the convocation.  Naturally, I thought, "oh, there will be a shuttling

bus with a convocation sign.  EASY."  I walk outside to the bus stop, and to my delight, the bus was already there.  As I was walking towards it, I noticed the bus name thing said "22N Illini" on it.  WHAT THE @#$% DOES THAT MEAN?!  Plus there was some scary looking guy in the window waving at me (in the picture on the left).  LOL, why is that guy in that picture on google?  Anyways, I immediately turned around and walked back to my room haha.  For those of you who don't know, I'm not the type of person who likes to do stuff on my own, so I was already iffy about attending this convocation. 


One thing was/is for sure: the UIUC bus systems was and is very, very inefficient.  Plus their website is www.cumtd.com.  Something about that url just seems really unassuring... hmm, wonder what that might be... Not only do their bus systems suck, but many dorms do not have AC as well.  The summers are scorching, and I would oftentimes sweat in my room from doing nothing.  It was nastyyyy :( 

Anyways, back to the story.  The one friend I knew had a friend attending this school who went to the same high school as him, so us three basically hung out every day, since we didn't know many other people.  For the story's sake, I'll refer to my original friend as Friend A and his high school friend as Friend B.  Friend A lived in the same residence hall as me and lived in a double.  Friend B lived on the other side of the campus, lived in a triple, but was in a room the size of a double.  Friend A naturally started hanging with his roommate more; however, Friend B only hung out with us.  Since she was in an inconveniently sized room already, she would oftentimes just stay in my room since I did not have a roommate.  Actually, she practically became my roommate for a while lol.  Do not interpret this wrong... we were just friends.  I mean, why would I lie to you guys about stuff on my blog anyways?  I've been open about everything else LOL. 

Friend B and I became really good friends in a short period of time, considering the situation, and she became pretty reliant on me for many things.  (I'm starting to ask myself why I even set up this Friend A and Friend B thing when I'm basically only talking about Friend B.  But I'm too lazy to go back and edit it xP)  There must be a point to this story, though, right?  Yeah, this friend was also a victim to one of my very character flaws.  Her constant need of relying on me eventually started becoming an annoyance to me, and over time, I pushed her away, oftentimes saying things along the lines of "I need my own time."  Eventually, she stopped staying over, and I effectively lost the only new friend I had and basically the only one I talked to.  We never really talked much afterwards, so I have no idea what her take/view/feelings on the situation were.  On the bright side, she's now engaged and happy, and I wish her nothing but the best for her future. 

Me studying in my White form

So, what did I do with all my free time then since I had no friends?  I actually studied and did all my homework on my own.  Even for MPs (machine problems) where almost everyone had partners, I decided to do on my own.  I've always been on who has thought that I'd rather rely on myself than take the chance on relying on others.  Plus the fact that I had no friends didn't help either haha xD  I was quite the studious person my freshman year first semester... not saying I wasn't all the other semesters haha xD


I believe I was taking 5 classes that semester: VBA for Excel, Microeconomics, Linear Algebra, Rhetoric 105, and Speech Comm.  Fun classes.  So besides going to ALL my classes... actually there's a funny story about that.  So for my microeconomics class, I had the worst professor of all time.  He was actually on probation for failing too many students.  His name is "Gottheil" for those of you are curious/know of him.  The guy's a rich old bastard who doesn't know how to teach, and constantly makes a clicking sound with his tongue. 

Anyways, for the class, there are 5 pop quizzes, each worth 1% of our grade.  I missed 5 classes in total that semester, all of them being in this class because it was a 9 AM class.  Of those 5 classes I missed, 4 of them had pop quizzes.  FML LOL.  So I just decided to google the syllabus for that year to see if it still existed.  Yeah, his exam grade breakdowns... quite unfair.  And he was an unfair grader as well.  I believe the class average for the midterm was a failing grade LOL.  I remember getting a 58 on that one... heheh.  So statistically speaking, I already lost 11.34 out of 100 points for my final grade.  Then add on the 4 from missing pop quizzes, and that's 15.34 points lost already haha.  Luckily the class was curved, but I still didn't do too hot in that class xD

Oh yeah, I was talking about what I did in my free time.  My hatred of Gottheil made me go on another rant.  So in between going to classes and eating... oh, forgot to mention my residence hall had no dining hall cause it was under construction.  It wouldn't be finished until the next school year.  So in between going to classes, eating, and doing work, I would go to the gym (CRCE) to play ball.  Playing basketball in college was when I first realized how good people could be and how important size was.  In more ways than one LOL sorry had to say that.  I wasn't able to dominate like I did in my high school days.  Actually, I had trouble getting the ball a few times because I would play with random people since I knew nobody.  I struggled and only scored a few times a game, and I ended up becoming more of a role player than a "carry."  In hindsight, my offensive game got worse in college, but all my other skills got better.  And I never got dunked on.  Thought I should put that out there xP

EZ Bucket

EZ 3 Ball

Admirin' my shooting form? ;)  JK LOL.  Eventually, I met a few friends from basketball, and a few more from the few clubs Friend B signed us up for.  Two of the clubs whose events I started occasionally going to were the Asian American Association (AAA) and the Taiwanese American Students Club (TASC).  Yup, the inner Asian began brewing again.  But I'll leave those stories for the next post.  Sorry today's post was more boring due to the ranting.  Perhaps the next one will be more interesting?  There's only one way to find out =)  :P ace

My Life Story (Part 5): Intro to Illinois

Over 800 miles.  OVER EIGHT HUNDRED MILES.  It wasn't actually that bad the first time, since everything was new to me.  Seeing how I was moving to the Midwest, I needed to bring a lot of stuff with me, so I had no choice but to drive over to Illinois in my family's large van.  According to mapquest, we were told that the trip would take about 13 hours.  The trip would take us from New Jersey through the WHOLE WIDTH of Pennsylvania, partially through West Virginia, through Ohio, then Indiana, and finally Illinois.  For the trip, we decided to rest in Indianapolis and finish the rest of the trip tomorrow.  I didn't know anything about Indianapolis except for the Colts, but apparently the town is bad?  Iunno, just some random "fact".  But yeah, when we woke up the next morning and started driving, I got to experience the most exciting phenomenon of my life.

Me getting out of my car just to take a picture with the corn...

CORN!  CORN!  And MORE CORN!  I was so excited, couldn't you tell?  (See above.)  I got to look at corn (instead of the road) for the rest of the trip to campus.  Lol, and I'm just kidding about the picture above.  Did you actually think that was me? xD  But yeah, after I got to campus, we went straight to moving my stuff into my room.  I was the first one to my room, so that made setting everything up very easy.  I lived at the Pennsylvania Avenue Residence (PAR) Halls my freshman year in Babcock (lols) hall.  After moving in, I went out to eat with my mom and uncle before they left for their journey home.  Of course my mommy was very sad :(

My Desk

Oh, I forgot to mention how many times I've made that drive between New Jersey and Illinois.  Hmm... let's see... summer before freshman year to Illinois, summer before sophomore year to Illinois again, spring break sophomore year to illinois,Winter break junior year from and to Illinois, Winter break senior year from and to Illinois, summer after senior year... 8 times... over 6400 miles LOL.  Gosh, what a waste of gas...

Me and Ramon's Door

Okay back to the story.  So I move in right, and I'm all anxious to meet my new roommate for the whole year.  Ramon Gutierrez (I think).  I tried contacting him before to try to arrange who is bringing what, but when I called, some Hispanic dude who spoke minimal English picked up and I tried to converse with him; however, he hung up on me within a few seconds =.=  So I'm sitting in the room right, thinking "oh great, I'm gonna live with a Hispanic dude who will probably steal my stuff."  LOL, iunno if that's what I thought, but I can be pretty racist.  But this Ramon guy never showed up.  Yup that's right, I had a double to myself

=)  However, my luck had just about run out after that.  You know how I mentioned I can be pretty racist?  Well at the floor meeting, I got a chance to see everyone on my floor.  At least 75% of the people there were black LOL no joke.  Man, freshman year... what an experience.  It was dark in my hall 24/7 LMFAO, DARKNESS IS SPREADING (laughin at my own jokes a little too much seein how it's 2:45 AM right now...)

My RA

On a more serious note, the RA lived right next to me.  But not like he was any better.  The guy got it on every once in a while, and he tended to start watching movies at around 3-4 AM.  Normally I don't think that would affect my sleep, but he being black and all of course he had those massive stereo systems so the whole room would shake when he watched movies lol.  I also had the chance to catch a whiff of marijuana a few times when my window was open.  How did I know what it smelled like?  Someone once described it to me as the smell of a burning tire.  I never understood that, but when I smelled it, I GUESS it kind of resembled it... but yeah, I was able to piece everything together.



Going to Illinois, I only knew one person.  ONE.  It was a classmate of mine at the Chinese School I went to.  We never really talked much, but I did use white out to draw on his binder a lot during Chinese School.  Yeah... I used to be kind of a bully in my early days and got into a lot of trouble.  Did I fail to mention that? xD  I dislocated my best friend's shoulder and pushed him down the stairs (on separate occasions) before I even turned 10.  I have fond memories of being yelled at by other people's parents haha.  During middle school, I once took a glue stick and smeared it all over the seat of a chair so my friend would sit on it and get


stuck xD.  I might of put hot glue on a stick then put it on someone's neck as well.  Oooohh yeah, I once tried to hit a friend on a run with a peach, but ended up missing and hitting some old dude in the back FAIL LOL.  My mommy told me that at parties, whenever someone's kid started crying she would worry and look to see where I was, just because it'd be my fault most of the time xD  Man, this is ridiculous.  I just randomly remembered getting detention in middle school for dunking a kid's head into the water fountain, wtf lol.  But I don't come across as a bully right?  First think you guys think when you think about me is that he's a little angel right? :D

This pretty much accurately sums me up.
I'm a fun guy right? =)

Gosh, I spent too long thinking about awful/amazing things I've done, depending on how you look at them... OKAY FINE, I admit, MOST of them were awful xD  But I guess everything averages out now with my composed, laid back, good kid demeanor... :)

Sorry guys.  I promise to not go on too big of a tangent next time.  Hope you all found all my "bad kid" memories at least a little bit entertaining.  Thanks for visiting, I'll make sure to post tomorrow since I'm off from work on Wednesday!  :P ace

My Life Story (Part 4): The Last Year of Jersey

Looked something like this, but not
this one.  Random google photo.

So senior year was where all the "fun" happened.  Of course, first thing's first: I got my full license senior year, muahaha xD  My family friends had let me use their car, and I am forever grateful for it.  I drove around in a 1990 red corolla, a car that was a year younger than me.  The car itself came with a countless amount of upgrades as well.  This included, but limited to, a natural transformation to a "low rider" when more than one person got into the car as well as an automatic addition of a creaking soundtrack and a rumble pack once the car breaks the 25 mph barrier.


For those of you who know how I drive, needless to say, these "perks" didn't affect the way I drove xP  I drove back a full car of people from regionals practice where the average weight was at least 150.  I think the car scraped the concrete if I were to turn too fast.  So remember me mentioning the car creaking and rumbling once I hit 25 mph?  Curiosity drove me to test the triple digit ability of the car.  I believe I hit 103 mph on the New Jersey turnpike (I forgot if I drove anyone the few times I did that).  Honestly, there were moments I thought the bottom of the car would just fall out haha :D

So let's see... some fun and random things I did senior year...  Oh yeah, I worked at Kumon, something a lot of Asians in New Jersey did heheh.  It was a very interesting job, and I got the chance to work with children again.  Since Halloween is coming up, I'll share my last Halloween experience.  Sadly, it was during my senior year of high school haha.  At that time, I still only had my driving permit, but I decided to take the car out by myself to go to a friend's house to trick or treat with them.

About 2 months before I cut it?

Me being the lame-o I am, I wanted to just walk around in normal clothes with my backpack as my trick or treat bag.  However, I got conned into "being a girl" for Halloween.  The females in the group I was with decided to give me pig tails and the umbrella thing that girls hold.  Actually, I think the group was all  females lol.  But interesting fact: I decided to grow my hair out senior year.  Around that point, my hair was almost at my shoulder I believe xD  But yeah, interesting night, got a lot of candy (wish I had some right now), and had almost every household comment on

About a month before I cut it?
Kind of missing it now... LOL

my hair lols.  So why was I with a group of girls?  Obviously, it was cause I liked one of the girls in the group (oooh juicy stuff, NOT).  That night I got a chance to take a picture with her, and I believe this is the only picture we have together.  *checks facebook*  Okay maybe 1 of 2 photos we have together lol (sad).  The timing and such never worked out between us.  We had a chance to talk about it this past year and it was pretty fun to reminisce about, with everything basically coming down to, "what if?"

So senior year is also when everyone is applying to colleges.  It was also around the time where I was hit by reality and received one of the biggest shocks of my life thus far.  So I only planned on applying to one school, and after doing some light research, I found that my GPA and my SAT scores were more than qualified for NYU when comparing to the AVERAGE student that got in.  However, I was waitlisted for my early decision.  I think I must have screwed up hardcore on my application somehow xD  But yeah, that forced my hand and I ended up applying to 4 more schools.  My plan for college was to do something business related, and then choose my specific major based on the ratings of the curriculums in their respective colleges.

The Quad of UIUC

 I ended up choosing to go to... *insert drumroll here*... oh wait, this happened over 4 years ago LOL.  Gosh, I'm so old...  Well yeah, I chose to attend the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.  Not gonna lie, I hadn't ever heard about this school LOL.  My parents were the ones who told me to apply to this school, and this was actually the furthest school I applied to.  All I knew was that apparently, all Chinese parents know about this school lol.  The accounting program at this school was top 2, so I thought, why not?  In hindsight, I'm really glad I didn't go to NYU because NYU and UIUC are complete opposites in terms of environment.  UIUC is in the middle of nowhere and has a campus while NYU is smack in the middle of the city and has no campus (so sad). Gah, I miss being at UIUC :(

Aight, gonna quickly sum up the rest of my senior year cause I'm getting tired and it wasn't actually as interesting as I put it/thought it out to be, sorry guys xD  So yeah, got my first girlfriend around fall/winter of my senior year.  Wasn't much though, since it was before I could drive and we lived 40 minutes from each other, so seeing each other was quite rare.  Let's see... senioritis kicked in hardcore haha.  Started missing some classes, writing my own notes, forging school absentee forms (shhh, don't tell anyone :D).

I sleep with this bear... not.

Finally graduated in June; I can't believe Midwest people finish in May, totally not fair.  Summer then came, and so did the CACA Summer Camp I mentioned before.  Towards the end of camp is when I got my 2nd gf, and I've already told you all how that went.  Since I decided to attend college in the Midwest, school started unbelievably early =.=  It was like August 20th or something I believe.  I moved in on the 18th, so my (permanent) life in Jersey ended there.

It was fun reminiscing about Jersey times with you guys.  Stay tuned as I continue my life story, but onto another state!  Good night everyone :)
:P ace

Irregularities

I'm too tired tonight to write anything of significant content or length, so I will be taking a break from "My Life Story."  Tonight's post will be rather short, and all I'm gonna show you guys is some of the more random and interesting things I have encountered in my short time here in California.  Hope you guys enjoy the pictures =)

Little Dog Being Transferred

Pink Wrap in Warehouse

Oldest Basketball Ever

Panda Cup!

New Jersey License!

Mickey Mouse Phone

More Mickey

Aww, Bunnies

First Cooked Meal in Cali

TeeHee xD

?!!??!!?!?!

Captain America Hard at Work

My Life Story (Part 3): The Later Years of Jersey

So my time in Westfield during school was rocky at first, but over the years, things started getting better.  "So Christopher, you've only talked about life at school.  What did you do in your summers?"  Excellent question, friend!  (What, I can't be friends with myself? :P)  From what I can remember, I didn't do much in the summer.  However, every year towards the end of my summer breaks there was this Summer Camp I would attend as a counselor called the Chinese American Cultural Association (CACA ) Summer Camp.

The Chinese Yo-Yo, or Diabolo

This camp had campers ranging from ages 6 through 15 and the camp itself lasted for only a week at the Rutgers Community Christian Church (RCCC).  At the camp, the kids were able to experience Chinese cultural classes, which included Chinese Arts, dancing, and the Chinese Yo Yo.  Besides attending these classes, the children also went on field trips for bowling, ice skating, and laser tagging.  In total, I attended this camp for 6 years.  I was a camp counselor my first 3 years of high school, the head counselor my senior year, a class parent my freshman year of college, and I just helped out my sophomore year.

My Class Parent Year (At Laser Tag)

Over the years I met and befriended many counselors and campers alike.  These people became my best friends, friends I would prefer to hang out with over the ones from school.  It was at this camp I began slowly changing back to my open, friendly self from my Catholic school days.  It was also through this camp where I discovered my love for children.  On the surface, you would think it was because they were so cute, little, and adorable, which they were.  Something about seeing the smiles of children and witnessing their happiness just gives me a warm feeling inside.  But upon further analysis, I was thinking that

Summer After Junior Year
(At Ice Skating)

maybe it is the innocence of little children and their carefree nature that makes them so lovable.  They don't have to worry about the burdens of working for money, or the evils of the outside world because they are still too young and are sheltered and protected by their parents.  This of course reminds me of my elementary school days again.  Being with little kids and around them allows me to be carefree and worry free just like them.  In a sense, I get to share and experience the pureness of their hearts.




My first year as counselor I was assigned to the "A Group", which was the youngest group.  The group consisted mainly of 5-7 year olds, and this was in the summer of 2004.  2004!  That was 7 years ago!  (my Asian math skills coming into play there :D)  I'm still friends with some of my campers today, and it's been so fun watching them grow up, and interesting as well watching them change from their innocent little kid stage from so long ago.  It also reminds me of how old I'm getting, since some of the campers from my first year are old enough to be counselors now >.<

Sorry to have to do this, but I must switch gears now and talk about something that's not as happy in nature.  I must confess that as friendly of a person I am (well, it depends on the friend I'm with LOL, [jk]), I'm also the type of person that let's go very easily and therefore, fails to keep in touch.  This holds true to almost ALL of my friends in New Jersey.  After leaving New Jersey to attend college at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, it was


basically as if I cut off all connections with my Jersey peeps.  Of course, this affected the people I was closer to much more than the others.  My friends that I made from this camp were the unfortunate victims of my inability to stay in touch, and believe me, we were REALLY close friends too.  I considered my friends from CACA as my bestest friends ever, ones I can share anything and do anything with.  People often say that in college, you either stay close to your

high school friends, or stick close to your college ones.  Having moved out into the Midwest, my hand was kind of forced.  Another confession I have is also related to this.  My second girlfriend ever was one of the close friends I had from this summer camp as well.  This "distancing" that occurred indirectly or directly affected our relationship, depending on how you look at it.  There wasn't a fair/realistic chance given to her and ultimately, had no idea what was coming.  I never got a chance

to apologize to her, to the many friends I am no longer close to, or even to the greater amount of friends that I have lost.  I have actually been told by some of these people that they were upset with me.  Clearly I never grasped the extent of my actions, or lack of, to keep in touch.  Attempting to reconnect has not been an easy task either, seeing how it's been many years already and people have either moved on and are caught up in their own lives, or are simply still upset/bitter over the disconnect.  In one conversation, I was rebuked in a harsh, but deserving manner while trying to reconnect... "yeah, and you stopped talking to us" ... "the friendship isnt going to be super close over night."

I am sorry to whoever was affected by one of my many character flaws.  I truly regret losing my friends who have been nothing but good to me over the years, and I wish there was a way for me to show it or make up for it.  I know this may come across as a lame attempt, but it is honestly all that I can do if you don't give me a chance.  If you see this and don't accept my apology, I can understand.  But if you do accept it, please feel free to hit me up, because I am more than willing to try to patch things up.  My screen name, email, and phone number are still the same from back then :P



Okay, enough of the confessions, sadness, whatever feelings I just brought up, for now.  Gonna add more random pictures from my CACA days for your entertainment at the bottom of today's post.  Thanks to everyone for following my post(s).  I hope you guys come back again very soon! =)  If you don't, I'mma hunt you all down, one by one...
JK xD
Or am I?
(<------ I'm watching you...)
Haha, :P ace