Another year is over, which means tons and tons of top 10 lists for films. Different critics or different cinephiles will put up their list. Each list is different from others, some are almost the same. Here is my list. Instead of a top 10 list, I have listed all the films that I’ve seen in 2003 (some are actually 2002 films that I’ve seen in 2003, or 2003 films I’ve seen in 2004).

How did I rank them? By technical aspects, by story, by entertainment value, by a general affection for the film? I do not know. I just ranked them on how I felt, how memorable they are, and just honestly how much I liked the film. This really isn’t a complete list considering there are a few movies that I haven’t seen, most importantly Cold Mountain, Elephant, and Kill Bill vol. 1and I’m sure there are others that I’ve seen in theatres but I’ve forgotten, or that I’ve thrown away the ticket stub, or that I’ve rented and forgotten that I’ve rented. Well, here is my list.

Lost in Translation
The Station Agent
All the Real Girls
21 Grams
Triplettes de Belleville
Whale Rider
Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
In America
Bend it Like Beckham
American Splendor
Bubba Ho-Tep
Infernal Affairs
Love Actually
Bad Santa
Big Fish
Pieces of April
X2: X-Men United
Pirates of the Caribbean
Finding Nemo
Hero
Swimming Pool
Thirteen
The Hulk
May
Down With Love
Elf
Intolerable Cruelty
The Shape of Things
Monster
Lost in La Mancha
Daredevil
The Eye
Confidence
Bringing Down the House
Matrix Reloaded
Matrix Revolutions
Underworld
Better Luck Tomorrow
Charlie

Love. I speak a lot about it in my journal, but I never really talk about love, and my beliefs and my philosophies of love.

Love. What is it? What does it mean to me? Well, obviously it means a lot. There is not one minute of every day that it is not in my mind in one for or another. Whether it is in the back of my head or the forefront of my mind. What it is so hard for me to put into words. What I feel or how it just occupies my mind on a constant basis, it is just hard to relay into words.

Love. Love for me, I guess, is just to be with someone. Someone who understands you. A person, a girl in my case, that you just can’t stand to be without our apart of cause you have a sense of security around them. You feel safe, not because she can protect you. No, it’s much more than that. It is more about her finding you. You fit next to her. You know who you are around her, you know where you are, where you are going, and you finally make some sense of where you have been. I believe being in love with a person can bring that to a person. No sense of loneliness, no sense of being lost, cause you are found, not only by her, but most importantly, by yourself. You found yourself and understand yourself.

Love. It is not physical. Not one bit. It is all emotional, all mental. You don’t have to be with some one physically to be in love with them. All you need is just a mental connection, a connection of the mind. Just a look and you understand what she is thinking. No words need to be passed.

Love. The first thing that clicks is the mental thing. For some, it maybe the physical, but I believe for me, it is the mental connection above all…..

I know many of you probably do not agree what I wrote here or maybe don’t understand what I wrote here. I just find it very difficult for me to put these feelings into words. These ideals which I think of every day, I should be so familiar with, so comfortable with, I should be able to put them into words. Describe the feelings that I long for. I just couldn’t. I can’t. I’ve lost my focus.

* * *
Here is something that I’ve known about myself for a while now. I just thought that it would be nice to share. How I treat girls, how I interact with them. They fall into different classifications. There is about 3 different classes I believe. There are girls I treat much differently than others. I would like to disclose my little code right now. Sometimes you can’t really decipher, cause these are really subtle differences. Many may not even see the differences.

Girls I don’t like:
I really don’t interact with. I am courteous to them, but most of all, I really don’t interact with them that much. I rarely converse with them at all. If they do attempt to make conversation with me, I’ll be courteous and go along with it, but mostly, when it is over, it is over.

Friends
Friends are simple. I joke with them more, I get crude, I become an asshole or a prick. I pick on them. I’m nice, but I can be a prick, and be a little mean. A playful mean, a joking mean, not a mean mean. It’s because I’m not attracted to them, or that I do not see them in that way, I am free to pick on them. There’s no pressure for me to impress them or be nice to them because for me, there really isn’t anything there. I don’t see them that way. Sometimes, things do evolve, but that rarely happens. I believe there was only one that evolved from that.

Girls I like
Girls I like are friends, but with the picking and the prick factor dialed down a little bit, not much, but a little bit. I don’t pick on them that much, I’m not as mean to them. I’m much nicer, more genuine and sincere. That’s it. Sometimes, it is hard to decipher. I’m sure there are other signs that I am not aware of, some mannerisms that come through that show them and others that I like them. Maybe I’ll be aware of them later.

That is it. Simple. I’m going to pay dearly for putting this up, but hey it is up.

Well, I am back again, tired than ever. I was supposed to write tonight. To start another script. I’ve been getting that itch to write again, but this time I do not know what to write. So I just thought that I would write something in my journal. I guess I am putting off the script writing because I went out to play some tennis tonight and that sort of threw me out of my routine.

Anywho, what am I going to write about tonight. For the most part, I do not know. How about a little about my trip, eh?

The trip was nice. It was a nice break. Seeing family again, just hanging out with family again. Going back was a little weird, especially meeting and hanging out with my extended family. I miss so much while I am down here. Their lives went on and so did mine. There was so much that I wasn’t a part of, and I felt like an outsider. It was hard to fit back in again, you know what I mean?

New additions to the family, big changes, new lives, just many things that I missed out. I’m sure they feel the same way about me also. So go the 20 questions as they each try to catch up with me and I do with them. The “So what’s up?” “What have you been up to?” “What are you plans?” “Are you going back to school?” “Are you seeing any one?” I think that was the biggest question, or some derivative of that question, “Are you seeing anyone?” and the answer is a definite no.

Oh, how things have changed and how things haven’t. We all still click, but we all have grown up and moved on. People are hanging out with different people, new wars have started, and old battles have ended. Ahh, how life goes on. How time changes things.

But all in all, family is good. Family is great. Family will always be there. Connections will never be lost, even though it feels like it is hard to connect.

Each one of them wants to get that connection with me, and I with them. My limited time spread thinly between each of them. The 30 seconds of catching up and interruptions don’t lead me anywhere close to catching up, which leads to so much that is loss between us.

It seems like there were so many things I want to talk to each of them about, but I never knew how to start. Never knew what to say or where to start. The usual formalities of catching up. Didn’t know what their conversation threshold is like cause we never really talked that way, and maybe they were afraid to pry also. I don’t know. Isn’t miscommunication grand. I’ve had a great deal of it lately. Just funny.

Children, kids, little ones. They were a wonder as usual. I actually got along with one in particular that I’ve always had problems with. Little Jasmine. She’s a little darling. She wasn’t afraid of me. So was Ethan, aka Clark Kent. So adorable. It’s nice to be around children, cause they don’t know what a wonder they are. Well, it’s nice, until they cry, and then it’s like okay. You are no fun anymore.

I’ve met up with two friends also. I couldn’t get the two of them together for one reason or another, but I got to hang out with both of them. It was nice. Just catching up with J Jones cause we rarely get the chance, and I never lost a step with Lisa cause we still communicate on a regular basis. It’s just like I never left. It is always nice to just sit and drink and talk. Just talk about our lives, catching up. I wish I could do this all day, but sometimes, we just run out of interesting things to say. Meh. Lisa still very insistent that I move back up so we could always hang out. Just don’t understand why she is so insistent. I was never satisfied with her answers.

There were some people that I didn’t get a chance to hang out with more than I actually did. One expecting mother in particular, but I guess next time. Time ran short on my visit and her little visit also. I guess that is what busy people do, they miss each other.

* * *

I had a nice little chat the other day with a friend of mine at work. It’s been a long time since I’ve talked with her like this. Lots of miscommunication and mixed signals between us I think. It was nice talking again. It was great. I asked her specifically what her plans were regarding going back to school. She’s still deciding. She’s in a lull like I am, not really sure what she wants to do. Well, eventually of course, the conversation came to me and where I stand in my life right now. I told her how I’ve been reevaluating my life lately, especially this past year. She said something interesting that makes sense. She told me that she would never want to reach that point in her life where she would stop reevaluating her life, to never reach that point where she never thinks about her life, the choices that she’s made, her regrets, so on and so forth. She doesn’t want to do it because it would mean that she’s gotten comfortable in her life. I think that’s how she put it. I may be misconstruing her words here, but I understood what she was saying. She’s not at the point her life, career wise or fulfillment wise, where she is comfortable enough to not reevaluate it. That’s what she meant.

I feel the same way. I don’t want to not think about my life, where I am, so on and so forth, because it is not where I want to be. Plus, I’ve come a long way this past year. Miles and miles from where I was just a year ago. A lot of growing up this year. I guess for me, and maybe for her, to be comfortable at a place in your life where you are not comfortable with it at all, just means that you have given up. You’ve lost hope.

I had a similar talk with Lisa today. I brought up something regarding how people see me. I always ask other people what their opinion of me is so I can find who I am. Reflection theory, if you will. You are how other people see you. Lisa brought up a good point, people see you differently from other people. No wonder I am confused. She then asked me how do I see myself, and I told her honestly, that I’m angry, though not a lot less angry than I was. I’m getting better. I’m lost, confused as to where I want in life, and where I want to go, and that is frustrating me. I’m in the same boat as many people around my age and in my situation.

We’ve worked it out to the point that I have such high expectation for myself, such high pressures that are pressing on me. I have lots of potential, tons of potential. I know this. Yet, I’ve always felt that I’ve accomplished nothing. I haven’t accomplished anything worthwhile.

Lisa’s response. Stop thinking so much. Just live. Just live. I am young (I don’t feel it, but I am). I have all the time in the world to accomplish something. I just have to be patient. Just a little patient and let things happen, and in the mean time just live whatever life I see fit.

* * *

All right, enough with the self reflection. On to something funny that my great uncle told me this weekend. The evil Ho family curse.

Apparently, us Ho’s aren’t supposed to marry any one with the last name Chang because there is this family curse cast by one of my great great great great great great great grandfathers.

How did this conversation come to pass? Well my ex-roommate Vicky came down from San Francisco to visit. I met up with her Sunday morning for some Dim Sum. Anywho, since my uncle’s place is nearby, I thought I’d drop by afterwards. He asked me what “wind blew me that way” and I told him I went to Dim Sum with Vicky. Of course hilarity ensued with the elderly and they thought she’s my girlfriend. No no no, I told them. She’s spoken for. Anywho, he asked me what was her last name, and I told him Chang. And out of nowhere, he and my aunt were like, no, don’t mess around with no Changs.

No good will come out of it. No matter what, do not marry any Changs, no matter how beautiful and breath taking the girl may be. Why, I asked. The curse, the evil curse. No good will come out of it. Death, infertility, miscarriages, bad family, just bad things.

Of course, by now, I’m laughing my ass off at how ridiculous this all sounds. He even went as far as to give me examples of other relatives who married Changs. One lead to death, another to infertility. Bad things I would say.

I went ahead and asked him how the curse came to be.

Apparently, many moons and generations ago, my great great great great to a certain extent grandfather was walking down a street. A Chang went up to him and asked if he had any smokes or pipe tobacco or the ganja. My grandfather said he only had some smokes. Upset, the Chang guy took his pipe and whacked my grandfather across the head, cutting him. The next thing, my grandfather is at home, angry, bleeding, pacing back and forth, back and forth in the back yard with a machete, ready to cut someone’s head open and thinking. Just thinking and being angry. He came to the conclusion that since the Chang guy hurt him so badly, he will cut any and all ties with any Changs from now on. Any one in the Ho family who marries a Chang, no good will come out of it. And so this curse was passed down, from generation to generation.

I will be sure to pass this along to my generation and posterity. I will not be the one who will break the wicked Chang curse.

I just have to say, hearing that story was fucking hilarious.

Well, it is a new year, and here I am. Christmas is over, New Year has passed, and life goes on.

I think for me, every Christmas, I buy myself a present. And this year I bought myself a journal. I bought it before I went up to Washington, so I have something to write down my thoughts whenever I get the free time. I started one entry when I was flying up. I thought about writing another entry during my flight back, but I was sick, and tired. So I just sat.

I will write about my trip later. There are some thoughts I would like to share, I think. They will come later. Hopefully.

This entry is to write whatever I wrote in my journal. I would like to keep it on file, forever, and ever. This isn’t one of my normal entries, but more of a free writing period. Whatever that comes in to my mind stream of conscious like.

2003-12-23
People often ask me “where are you going?” My answer changes everytime I’m asked. Where am I going? Am I going home? Am I going forward, backward, or even sideways? I don’t know. That is about the only sure thing in my life. My little confusion of where I am going.

Sometimes I think for someone to know where he or she is going, he or she must know where he or she is. Where am I?

I am in the air. I am falling. I am walking. I am sitting. I am waiting.

What am I doing in llife? Sitting, thinking my life away. Thinking over the same thoughts that cloud my mind a year, two years, five years ago. The same thoughts. I never change. Don’t think I ever will. Do you?

Sitting here, cramped up and tired, writing. Writing about what? Just writing because I’m afraid not to. These pages will be filled with such nonsense rambling, why would anyone even bother reading. Is this for an audience or is this just for my own eyes? Could I share these words and thoughts? Honestly, I’m not sure.

Where am I going?

Where am I now?

What am I writing?

Where have I been? Where have I been? Hell, heaven, and places in between. Places that bring tears. Tears of joy and tears of sadness. Places that don’t mean anything to me. They are just places that I’ve gone to in this little journey I call life.

What am I feeling? A sense of wonder. A wonderment that I call life. Elation for whatever “LOVE” I am defining. Joy for the moments of socialness. Sadness for all I’ve loss and contemplated. Bewilderment for all the mysteries left untouched, things I’ve yet to see and experience. A sense of calm embalming me, hardening my soul. A sense of anger tearing me to pieces. A blackness that is outside of me, encompassing me. No light can shine bright enough to drive it away. No darkness is dark enough to dampen the light away. An eternal battle, a passionate balance of what is what. A sense of just “being.”

What is in front of me? Seats, hair, heads, open space, roads, decisions, choices, friends, foes, acquaintances, and the list goes on.

What is behind me? A past that is better left forgotten. A past that is better off cherished. Memories, dreams, friends, foes, acquaintances, and the list goes on.

What is behind is what is in front.

I am surrounded by a spherical globe that consist of nothing new, but everything old, yet new all at the same time.

A paradox of wonderment. The paradox of Life.

Globes, sparkles, light. Things that catches my eye. My undivided attention. Attention that is not enough to spare. Spread thinly over whatever is out there. The World. Life.

The World, Life has so much to offer me. Treasures that are beyond my comprehension. Joys I surely do not deserve. Yet I shield myself from them. Not wanting to experience these wonders. Too afraid to experience something special that was given to me. Life.

Fear. Fear is what drives me. It is what drives my existence. My lack of Life. Fear is debilitatiting. Murdering whatever Life I have in me.

Why am I afraid? What am I afraid of? Oh, the list goes on and on, yet how much better my life would be if only I confront the fear. Don’t let it handicap me. If I fail, how different is it from the life I lead now. It is no different, cause the life I live now is a life of failure.

To not try is to fail. To give up on a life that has barely begun. Try, try, try. That’s what life is for, that is what life is. A giant class where all we do is try and we will succeed. To not try is to fail. To not participate is to fail. To not Live is to fail. To fail is to die.

Am I already dead? Am I a walking zombie, living for the basic reasons of food and sleep. The neccessities that keep us alive.

Where are my luxuries? Luxuries are paid for with sweat. Sweat comes from effort. Sweat comes from action. I do not sweat. I do not take action. How am I supposed to get my luxuries?

I need to take action, I need to be assertive. With action comes results. With action comes Life. With Life comes LIfe.

That is all I have at the moment. My very first entry in my other journal. I haven’t been writing much, and I really don’t know how often I will be keeping up this other journal. I just thought I’ll keep another one on road trips or time away from the computer. Who knows. Meh.