This is for my grandkids.

stayed up all night to do some reflecting after living at a frenetic pace for the past year and a half or so… frenetic being doing doing doing busy busy busy filling my life with crossing things off of a to do list and more doing things and not that much brain dump/heart-housekeeping time. actually no brain dump/HH time at all.. none of this magnitude. time’s also passing by so quickly! the last time i did something like this was probably about 2-3 years ago. i can’t completely explain why i’ve been moving so quickly.. i guess it’s mostly a defense mechanism against the impending closing of a chapter in my life, and the inevitable beginning of a new one. i suppose i just want to make sure i’ve written all that needs to be written before the chapter’s closed. welp we’ll never get it right though, and it’ll always be imperfect. i guess that’s the beauty of life right? you live and learn. someday down the line i’ll look back at these chapters and laugh my head off and hopefully share them with my little minions.

that and i guess the fact that i felt like i wasted so much time in my younger years… sigh i blame world of warcraft you thief of souls. you daytime vacuumer. sunshine-stealer. and the lack of self-discipline on my part—woe to he who cannot bring himself to leave azeroth! whatever. i have a level 70 orc hunter who pwns n00bs to show for it at least.. oh tonuglawo. i hope you are doing well.

my stroll down memory lane took me through a lot of old pictures, and i realize that over the course of the past four years i’ve met a lot of people… all of whom have touched my life and shaped it in some way. there are special memories that i cherish with each and every person, even if they were tiny and inconsequential. there’s the cute girl in an english class that stole all my attention during classtime, although i never worked up the courage to talk to her except for a “hey, is this seat taken?”. there’s the sudden passing (RIP) that still takes my breath away like a well-placed body shot when it crosses my mind. all the awkward and embarrasing memories of freshman year… where i wore my pajamas everywhere and didn’t cut my hair for 8 months. my delusional period where i rocked a mohawk and thought i was all cool when in fact i looked like a total tool. all the times i messed up cutting my own hair because i was too cheap to spend 10$ for a haircut and had to shave it all off. actually.. i need to make a hair post in the future. phases in my life have often been reflected by my hairstyles, and luckily i have pictures to document most of them. my grandchildren will get a huge kick out of that one.

there are countless more memories with people i haven’t spoken to in a year or more. i have no idea how they’re doing, whether or not they’re happy, whether or not they’ve found meaning in their lives. it’s crazy thinking about them, and how much of an impact they’ve made on me. it’s insane how much my life has changed, and how much i’ve changed. i wanna let them all know how much i appreciate them being in my life and how glad i am to have a memory with them, even if it were only a fleeting moment, and how formative it was for me. 

suffice to say i’m glad i am where i am now, and as much as the past makes me cringe i’m glad it happened because i’ll have the memories with me forever.. i hope i never get amnesia! that’d be pretty terrible..

i’m pretty much all kinds of cracked out right now so i’m going to end this before this gets incoherent, if it hasn’t already. 

lesson of this post—do stuff and meet people so you’ll have memories to look back on! plus it’ll help mold you into who you are at the present moment. regret is the worst. and strolls down memory lane are awesome! you gotta slow down and take one once in awhile just so you can see how far you’ve come and appreciate where you’re currently at and all the people who’ve departed from your life, but have helped you get to this point. just be careful not to get caught up in the past.. like napoleon dynamite’s uncle who can’t get over his glory days of being football champion of the world or whatever. when the sun comes up, we still gotta face the music.

edit*

i just heard someone say “i really do think regrets are something that make us a better person, and a better human being.” and it really resonated with me, even though a couple of hours ago i posted “regret is the worst”. that was a statement i thought i knew to be true from my life experiences, but i never fully accounted for the fact that regret can also be a teacher, something that makes us stronger and better and keeps us from making the same mistake again. it just goes to show how foolish i am and although i think i may have all the wisdom in the world at this moment, i need to get smacked in the face once in awhile (more like every second) with a pan of humble pie, just like everyone else. grandkids, pay attention to this.. i think this is truly a more important lesson. like the great ice cube once said, “yo you better check yourself before you wreck yourself”.

confident mind, humble words

i was looking through some old documents on the comp and i found this story i wrote for a creative writing assignment in 10th grade—roflcopter. man i think college destroyed my creativity… i don’t think i’d be able to come up with anything like this anymore. i can’t believe i turned this garbage in… i remember pulling this out of my butt in about 20 mins before school started. i think i got like a D- or F+ on this assignment—i remember mrs. elwood being pretty displeased. oh well, enjoy!

Bryan Wang

Mrs. Elwood

Period 1/English 2h

March 20, 2006

Why Rainbows are Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, and Violet

            When the sun shines after a cloudy rainstorm, the rainbow stands out to the human eye. Therefore, the brilliant colors and interesting hue makes for an interesting topic to study. Legend has it, the rainbow story started in Chicago, in a time before Stonehenge. Big Momma, an inventor and successful soul food cook, was holding a contest to see which colors to make her newest idea, the rainbow. She sent owls throughout the world to receive suggestions to help her color her invention. In the notes, she explained the purpose of a rainbow. “After a gloomy, rainy day, people need signs of hope. I have designed this to appear after every rainfall along with the sun to hopefully brighten up peoples’ day. Please give me your idea of a bright, cheerful color.”

            Big Momma was always a compassionate woman. She invented soup kitchens, and founded the Peace Corps. Her invitations were sent to every race of people in the world, from leprechauns to smurfs. In a secret meeting, the leprechauns decided they would choose green to represent them. An easy sight on the eyes, green would soothe those whose jobs were spent in front of the computer the entire day.  The smurfs unanimously decided they would choose blue, because, according to their letter, “Blue is the best color in the world.” Papa Smurf personally wrote the letter, which demonstrates huge respect for Big Momma, as he never had contact with people outside of his race (partly because of his recent disapproval of the Crips choosing blue for their gang colors). The M&M’s also received a letter, and an argument ensued. The orange M&M appeared victorious, stating that green and blue were already taken, and brown is just too boring of a color. The yellow M&M was absent as his wife just gave birth and he needed to make a diaper trip.

            In a completely unrelated incident, four Teletubbies were accused of stealing mail from various Sesame Street personalities, but the incident was never solved. However, a mysterious letter arriving at Big Momma’s house revealed the last colors of the rainbow: red, yellow, indigo, and violet. The letters didn’t indicate which race the people were of, but was signed, Tinky-Winky, Dipsy, Laa-Laa, and Po. A few weeks later, Oscar the Grouch, Big Bird, and the Cookie Monster were arrested on suspicion of orchestrating a drive-by shooting on the Teletubbies. Fortunately, nobody was hurt, and the arrest of the Sesame Street members sealed the competition for the colors. Big Momma finally decided that based on the response of different cultures around the world, the rainbow would be red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. She hired Roy G. Biv, a painter, to help her finish off her masterpiece. It still stands to this day, and after a rainfall you can usually catch it shining.

lesson of this post: save everything you create so you can look back later down the road and laugh at your own nonsense

this is coach hector and my boy kdeems is on the right… we look like trash because we just finished another one of coach hector’s crazy workouts.

some context—this winter break kdeems wanted to learn how to box, and i wanted to get back into it after boxing on and off for the past year and a half. so we found a gym and hired coach hector as our trainer, and in the process, i’ve become quite fond of this little gym and coach hector. until last tuesday, pretty much every day (when we were home) we’d make the journey to watts to the broadway boxing gym to basically slay ourselves for a couple of hours and learn the sweet science of boxing in the process. boxing is one of the most physically demanding sports out there, and to prep us for the rigors of the ring, coach hector destroyed us every time we stepped foot into the gym.

in the past month i’ve learned a lot in this gym, not just about boxing, but about life in general.

coach hector is really quite a character. my fondest memory of him was when kdeems and i were grunting out a set of sit-ups he started nonchalantly talking to us about girls and his love life. in between gasps for air and grunts of pain we’d try to be polite and smile but honestly the last thing i wanted to hear at that moment was his complaining about all the hot mamacitas hitting on him.

on our last day at the gym we finally got to know coach hector a little bit. our previous interactions were pretty terse—they usually consisted of coach hector ordering us to do something and kdeems and i looking at each other and shaking our heads in anticipation of the upcoming pain. i’ll never forget these words coach hector said as he began to open up to us.

“my current health condition is poor, and i’m not gonna live too much longer.”

he didn’t mention what was ailing him, and out of respect to his privacy, i didn’t ask. after he said this, however, i noticed his upper arm covered in bruises. i was shocked because he was so young, maybe in his thirties. i assumed him to be in good health because he was a boxing trainer, and i remember a million things running through my mind at that moment. i didn’t know how to respond, and i didn’t want to offend the man. i remember feeling really saddened by what he just said. i had never met anyone who knew they were close to dying before. before i could reply coach hector smiled and said, “but it’s okay, you just make the most of each day you have.”

thinking back, i realize that i’ve never ever heard coach hector say a single negative thing about anyone or anything in general. he was always smiling when we saw him, and he always took the time to ask us how we were doing, and tried to get to know us by asking us questions about our lives (at the worst possible times… usually when we were in the middle of a workout, horribly out of breath). we spent a lot of time together this break, about four hours a day and usually around 3-5 days a week. i remember him always being cheerful and upbeat, and he never seemed to feel sorry for himself. i thought it was incredible that someone that young who knew his time was limited could be this positive about it.

coach hector never mentioned having any regrets, even though he was single and didn’t have kids, and might never have them. i remember him coyly stating, “i never fall for the trap women set for me… i’m gonna wait for the right one before i marry her.” he never complained about money (his job as a boxing trainer couldn’t have made him that much money, since kdeems and i paid $65 apiece for the month, and he didn’t seem to be training that many fighters), nor did he seem to care about it (after hearing kdeems and i were college students, he cut his rate from $75 a month to $65). he was at the gym monday through saturday, rain or shine, from 11-8.

the time we spent with coach hector made me realize several important things. no matter what hand God deals you, you roll with the punches and make the best of it. it’s an easy lesson in theory but it’s hard to really do in your own life. coach hector embodies someone who lives with grace and purpose while facing constant adversity. speaking of God, you gotta keep the big man upstairs number one. i remember coach hector asking if we went to church, and repeatedly saying praise Jesus when we said we did lol. on the real though, coach hector emphasized repeatedly that you must keep God number one in your lives, no matter what happens.

you also must do what you love; coach hector dedicated his life to the sport he loved even if it didn’t bring him riches or fame. he taught me that you must do this well, giving your all every day. coach hector could have just as easily taken our money and focused his attention on more talented fighters instead of two clumsy, uncoordinated, and out-of-shape college students. however he always went the distance with us, pushing us to our limits, challenging us to break those limits and then coming back the next day to do it all over again. 

lastly, you gotta leave your mark on this earth somehow. coach hector spent his time mentoring young people, passing on the timeless values that the sport of boxing instills: discipline, mental and physical toughness, perseverance, courage, and dedication. he led by example, and left a positive impact on my life and taught me lessons that i will hopefully keep with me until the day i can pass them on to my grandchildren. thank you coach, and i appreciate everything you’ve done for me during our short time together. you’ve taught me a lot, not just about boxing, but about how to live a simple, yet fulfilling life. 

‘twas a good break. i’m ready to finish up school and for all the crazy adventures life will bring.

are super powerful and really exhilarating. it’s been nonsense going through old xanga and blog posts, and i’m trying to find my diary from elementary school but no luck so far… i think my only new years resolution for this year is to keep a written journal. it’s really different putting things down on paper and i think it’s a lot more of a trip to look back on later. i haven’t done as much reflection as i used to do due to the craziness of the past year and general laziness. as a result i think i’m really suffering for it… reading old posts i used to be mad deep! i really need to sit down and process, reflect upon, and evaluate all the monumental life events that occurred this past year. a lotta firsts that i bulldozed through without really doing any after action analysis upon. one of these days…

re-read tuesdays with morrie for the first time since high school and am now inspired to live a more passionate, simple, loving, and grateful life—such a beautiful and moving story. i’m also inspired to really try to keep in touch with people… i suck so bad at this.

hip hop hooray for fambam time. waking up in about 5 hours to take a walk with moms pops and the sisTURD along the beach yee!

merry christmukkahwanza!

so what happens when 10 dudes (known as “BROrusalem” or “BROSlife”), most of whom have been friends since middle school, all go to different colleges yet still kick it every time school lets out have all turned 21? vegas, baby. not only was it one of the most crazy and fun trips i’ve ever taken, but interestingly it was also pretty profound. i learned a lot of life lessons and had a few epiphanies along the way. instead of recapitulating what happened (most of which i cannot speak of anyway so i’m gonna have to be purposefully vague…) i thought i’d share them in my first ever tumblr post! this will probably come in handy when my grandchildren turn 21 and decide to embark on their own vegas trip. 

1) food is always worth spending money on. we had a lot of ups and downs on the trip, and pretty much every time things went south food came to the rescue. it was an instant fix and a really dependable source of endorphins. i noted how many countless times food made our day… and food really does cement the bonds of brotherhood. it’s important to clarify that not all food is worth spending money on… there’s nothing worse than spending money on bad food. you’re full after so you can’t eat immediately, but there’s a bad taste in your mouth from the crap that you just put into your system. in those cases it’s really best to just try and make a mental note to never buy whatever it is that you bought again.

2) gambling is dangerous and in the long run, not really worth your time. you’ll never win because otherwise casinos wouldn’t exist… we all pretty much lost money and the odds are against you. set an amount to gamble with and if that’s all gone you’re done for the rest of the trip.. which leads me to my next lesson learned.

3) learn to quit while you’re ahead. pretty self-explanatory, but it’s pretty hard to do in real life. 

4) take calculated risks instead of relying on dumb luck… if you can play casino games that require a little bit of strategy vs just relying on the gambling gods, you have a much better chance of winning. although it’s still pretty much guaranteed you’ll lose money in the long run. this also applies to various other areas of life besides gambling.

5) alcohol is dangerous. moderation in everything, and remember, a true gentleman (or lady) is always in control of mind and body. a lot of close calls this past trip… which make for great stories later but at the time some serious trash could have occurred. good thing we were there for each other and truly some mission impossible james bond garbage went down.. maybe not that dramatic but it was pretty crazy. lol

6) vegas is nonsense. it bends your sense of reality and can really mess with your mind if you stay too long. we all feel like we aged a ton after staying just for 5 days. 3 days is probably the max, 5 days was way too much. by the fourth day we all wanted to go home so badly… i guess it also depends on what activities you decide to participate in while you’re there. we decided to go clubbing pretty much every night which is pretty draining on both your wallet and energy.

7) you have to make the best of whatever situation you’re in. there’s always positives and if you look hard enough and focus on them, you can turn what seemed to be an impossible situation into something bearable and maybe even enjoyable. it’s all mental and it’s all about attitude.

8) you must have some fundamental values that you’ll never compromise, otherwise you’ll lose your identity and become really confused. this lesson quickly became validated as the trip went on.. i can’t give a specific example so you’ll just have to take my word on this. you need to have some kind of moral foundation that you can always check back on and use to constantly reevaluate choices you need to make. there will always be grey areas and uncertainty; in those cases it’s best to roll with the punches and do the best you can with the info you have at the time. afterwards, reflect back and see what sits well with your soul/value system. then append it to your value system as is if it works, or make the appropriate adjustments then append if it doesn’t.

9) females are insane. hahaha obviously not all but there are some true crackheads out there.. that’s all i have to say about this subject. you gotta be careful.

10) almost any group of guys is guaranteed to be ridiculous. there’s something about men being together in close quarters that results in madness and hilarity.. haha. or maybe we just have an awesome group of guys. that’s probably the case.. we’re all crazy different but we get along pretty well together. too many hilarious moments to remember. moral of the story—it’s much better to go with the same sex and just meet friends of the opposite sex there. i don’t think we would have had as much fun if we had gone with girls.

11) no regrets! mark twain said something about 20 years later you’ll be more sad about the things you didn’t do blah blah. pretty obvious but yeah. don’t be afraid and try everything as long as it’s in alignment with your value system/internal compass because for better or worse it’ll be a memory! which is something you will have with you for the rest of your life… and it’s something you can grow and learn from. 

aaand that’s about it. this photo pretty much sums it up: