for better or worse, my freshman days are over... it's too early to tell if my GPA's screwed for life, but i'm already fretting over it... oh well... can't undo the past... i might as well enjoy the summer... btw thanks God; even though the test wasn't perfect, i could tell you were helping me at least partway through it...

priority #1 as of summer will be to hone down my ability to control time; successful, and maybe my sophomore year won't be as bad as i anticipate... then i won't have to pull all-nighters like today...

*in a somewhat tired, slow, but smiling voice*:

"you guys missed the sunrise..."

only 2 more hours til i take my chem final...

1 left... for better or for worse, my freshman year is coming to a close...

before i forget:
happy graduation, steven! i dunno whether your ceremony's thurs or fri, in either case, i can't make it(maybe friday, but i kinda wanna hook up with my church homies again), but you're through with high school! have fun at UCLA you bastard! :) oh yeah; keep strong in God, and keep worshipping him on your guitar! if you see lisa chu, pass on my congrats to her too; oh yeah ask her where she's going college-wise, and aim me... or make a private blog in the comments...

and in case he doesn't read that far down my page:
happy graduation wes! high school had its ups and downs, but you made it through! g'luck @UCI! enjoy these short days of summer, cause once this passes, i'm not too sure you can potentially relax during summer anymore... internship and summer classes-wise...

to louis and justin:
i LOVED my senior year in high school; IMO, maybe the greatest school year of my recent life... cause there's nothing you can really do to improve your college entrances(aside from writing a good college essay)... and it's the borderline between childhood and adulthood... so just take it easy during the upcoming senior year... take only 5 classes if you can... do some stuff you never found the time to do... like studying the word of God for extended periods of time... and just have fun...

that's all i gotta say... i'm the last man standing... in UCD, that is... crunch time tomorrow, and you KNOW i can't stop! prayers for these critical hours would be nice:
thurs, 4:00 PM~6:00 PM
fri, 8:00 AM-10:00 AM

SONGWRITING THOUGHTS(to answer bob's diary jot):

1)first of all, lemme get off my chest that if you want, i can help you songwrite during the summer... i've got a few other sideprojects i wanted to do myself, and wanted to change my OLD website to exclusively music stuff... i mean, the songwriting process is hard with a group of ppl, even harder going at it solo, and even harder when you are going solo WITHOUT editing software... i fall in the middle, as i go at it solo, but have some laptop technology to back me up in thinking, drumloops, etc... fun, fun...

2)i'll admit my style tends to like guitar talent more or less greater than the vocals... so i'll admit straight off that i concentrate more on guitar than vocals, although that 1st recorded piece i did wasn't exactly van halen material...

3)but technically, here's what works for me:
-write out a rough poem of what i wanna say
-play my guitar to it, using simple stuff, ie power chords, trying to sing/shout/scream/etc with it
-edit either lyrics or guitar, rinse and repeat...
-when i'm finally satisified with the skeleton of the music, then i try to get more elaborate, sticking in riffs and stuff like that in places of chords...
usually, you can't just finish your poem, and THEN try to work on your guitar... for me, that messes it completely up... i find you usually need to work on tiny parts together at one time...
when you're finally done with the skeleton of it, feel free to go nuts... riffs, fillers, pickings, whatever, it's all open here... for me though, i find that if i'm adding drumloops for recording purposes, that it's best to do it RIGHT after this... that way, you can play it while you're recording your guitar/vocals to keep them in line of tempo...

4)drumloop software...
well, if you're interested, i really LOVE this application:
HammerHead Rhythm Station
easily one of the best software things for creating drumloops on your cpu... it's good... just try it... you can even import other sound schemes to work w/it... like tom-toms, or turntabling sounds... really great for helping out your lil songwriting projects... just remember your sheet music knowledge :)

5)recording software...
um, sorry can't help you there, as far as freeware goes :) i use cakewalk music creator 2K3(it's really good), but i can't find anything freeware on downloads.com that you might be able to use... you can use bon wav2mp3 converter to convert wav files to mp3 files, but the wav recording thing on most win cpus only goes about 1 min max... you'll need to do some searching...

6)recording equipment...
here's how it works for me...
take a look at my guitar setup at the top... now imagine a third 1/4" cable coming out the output part of the amp, coming into a 1/4" to 1/8" mono(or was it stereo? anyways i use mono) adaptor, which plugs into the recording slot of your cpu... if you've got a mic, and a "Y" cable, you can actually record vocals AND guitar at the same time... although for me the adaptor part really helps make the guitar sound a lot more crisp... so you won't have to record the guitar in front of a mic and pick up all sorts of other stuff... and i usually have the drumloop software looping the clip, or playing what i want while i'm going, so it's easy to keep tempo... btw you can get the adaptor @radioshack...

btw, on a more personal note, songwriting has me admiring the whole songwriting process too... granted, sometimes i just wanna get pissed at the crud the media sometimes cranks out(how in the world can you admire a person who has good looks and ONLY uses 3 chords+lyrics about effing everyone?), but more or less, i've learned to admire almost everyone in the songwriting process... guitarists, vocalists, drummers, bassists, and especially the studios+their editing stuff(that's why it always sounds so crisp... they've balanced everything on the tracks to make it perfect, whereas i'm still clipping my guitar tracks or playing them too soft to my taste... or cringing at my own voice)... i bet if i actually made my stuff my professional career, that i'd admire every more ppl in the process(like the ppl who get the word out on the streets or distribute the music, as well as the fans who actually take the time and money to buy the music)

so as i write this, jon has finallly left... wow... the space i missed... it feels more like an actual room now, even if i haven't fully taken advantage of his side of the room... it's still great though... i've already begun moving a few things into his side of the room...

so the series is knotted up... i'm still thinking spurs in 6 IF THEY WIN... today's game was horrible... not even gonna go there... both teams weren't doing good... duncan got into early foul trouble, and then a run started for the nets... then, the spurs came back to take the lead, and then from there it was more or less free throw shooting that determined it... ugly...

sorry, no cs tonight or tomorrow... crunch time is rapidly approaching, and it's time for me to do something... maybe friday near noon for a bit though...

seems like that's my other motivation for working hard... not having to have others worry about me... now if only i could somehow channel that feeling into my school studies...

alright later, that's my thoughts for tonight...

and oh yea wes, if you're reading this... happy graduation man! sorry i couldn't attend... but best wishes to you... hope everything goes well @UCI

here we go... LET'S DO THIS GOD!

so wha'd we do?

-dinner @asian fusion... not bad, the korean BBQ ribs weren't too shabby
-go to phil's apartment as well as see where he's working
-bowling... michelle owned both of us, and phil's attempts to put spin on the ball resulted in too many gutterballs
-old teahouse... pearl green milk tea... not too bad...
-visit my next-school-year apartment area...
-occasional small-talk... how michelle and phil have been, what i've been doing, nba, guitar music, stuff like that... davis life...

that's about it... i wish we could do more... there's things you're more willing to explore as you grow older, such as talk about deeper things... oh yea, phil forgives me for breaking his headphones *whew*

i have to learn to let go of my anger, instead of holding it inside of me...

i'm gonna love summer... i will train myself to be able to control my time during then... hopefully, if everything works out, this will carry into my remaining college years, so i don't waste time...

spurs up 1... 2-1... yeap... 2 left...

1 down... and1 later... 2 left after that... it's crunch time! let's do this God!

haha... i love doing that... it really psykes me up when i shout to myself mentally and throw that semi-prayer up to God by yelling in my head, "LET'S DO THIS, GOD!"

think i'll just chill for the rest of the day... gonna see phil... so happy... too bad i'll have to study, so i can't visit where he's working here in davis during the week, just today, but it's all good.

Genesis 4:4b-5
The LORD looked with favor on Abel and his offering, but on Cain and his offering he did not look with favor. So Cain was very angry, and his face was downcast.
Hebrews 11:4
By faith Abel offered God a better sacrifice than Cain did. By faith he was commended as a righteous man, when God spoke well of his offerings. And by faith he still speaks, even though he is dead.

Look at Genesis 4:4b; look carefully; the Bible makes it clear that God didn't favor the person or just the offering, but that he looked upon the person AND his offering... this is why Abel offered the better offering... HIS act of worship was right... you have to have the right attitude of worship, AND present your best... it's tempting to think worship just involves all your heart... if it did involve all your heart to God, you'd very much feel like you have to give your best...

that's the lesson i learned today... i'll add this to the stuff i'm gonna talk about in worship... later...

a n.y. jewish man has an american son... the son grows up distorted by the american ways and becomes materialistic... so the jewish man decides to send his son to israel for a period of time, in the hopes that he'd become a better man by learning the jewish ways... when the time has passed, the son comes home, and to the delight of the jewish man, he has become a better man. then he tells his father, "dad! it was great! i've learned so much! i've become a christian!"
the man is shocked to hear that his son has become a christian... so he goes next door to his jewish neighbor, also a devout judaist... when he explains the incident, he is shocked when the neighbor replies, "y'kno, the exact same thing happened to me! i sent my son to israel, and returns a christian!"
stunned, the two try to find their rabbi, to explain the incidents in the hopes that he could help them... to their surprise, he ALSO tells them that he sent his son to israel to find that he has returned a christian!
so all of them are kneeling before Yahweh, praying desperately for a solution to their problems, when a ray of light bursts through the clouds, to hear a booming voice say, "I sent my son to israel too" :D(please tell me you got that)

bittersweet news... phil's gonna be in UCD soon... why bittersweet? because i could spend more time with him if i didn't have these stupid finals... life on earth can sometimes blow so much... anyways, it's been such a long time since i've seen my bro... sometimes i wonder how life would be if i end up living right door next to my bro when i'm older... but then it would be just like "friends"... you might as well ask jonny with his potential-to-be-wife to move in next door as well... then it'll really be "friends"... michelle will be monica, jonny will be ross, phil will be, well, bing(i dunno how to spell his first name), etc, etc... does that make me joey? geez, i guess i'm dumb...

i wish i could say the lyrics of Superchick - Get Up with sincerity, but my faith isn't that strong yet... the only thing i see are my potential grades... i know, i know, worrying like crazy doesn't do jack about it or change my past, but i can't help it... sometimes i envy the animals i see crawling around UCD... sometimes i just stop walking, stare at them, and think, "man, you guys are so lucky... your life is so simple... God provides for you, and you feel no emotional pain, or have to experience the trials of something called capitalist society"

me: btw i'm getting how to create drumloops
me: so that's cool
laura: oooh
laura: niiice
me: move over sonicflood; i'm making my own version of "in the secret" :-)
me: i just hope they don't sue me :-)
laura: hehe
laura: hahaha