A day in the life of Jake...

6:30am
My alarm sounded at 5am this morning. Set a little earlier than usual. More often than not, when my alarm is set at such an absurd hour I am waking up to do last minute cramming before a test. This was the case today. The test covered 13 chapters in Oracle's latest and greatest Oracle Forms book. I had managed to read 10 chapters before I fell asleep. I started to read again at a maddening pace before I had to get ready to leave. I shower, dress, brush my teeth, and gel my hair. I take note that my hair is getting rather long and maybe I should get a haircut tonight. I don't take long with my hair...maybe 3 minutes at most. As long as my hair is somewhat presentable I'm happy. After the gel in my hair sets there's really no going back regardless of whether I think it looks ok or not anyway. My girlfriend once told me I had hair with principles. Once gelled it will not "bend or compromise for anyone". I suppose anyone's hair has principles if they're using DEP gel, level 8 - ultimate hold.

7:30am
As I sit on the curb of the street still reading my textbook, Tom arrives to pick me up in his rather clean black civic. I think to myself, "Tom takes rather good care of his car and is generally a very organized person. Women are generally very organized and clean." Fully aware of my sexist thoughts I mentally spank myself and promise never to think that way again. As I get into the car I notice Tom sporting a new haircut. It looked pretty good and I proceed to mentally spank Tom. We exchange our morning, "wasssssssup" (mental note: it is no longer cool to say that, please erase from vocabulary). What ensues is a 30 minute car ride that has more awkward silences than being stuck in an elevator with my bitter and spiteful ex-girlfriend. Why Tom and I have never "clicked" in terms of conversation I will never figure out. Too often our conversations are stranded in smalltalkville followed by awkward silence where both of us are trying to pretend to listen to the oh-so-entertaining radio disc jockeys. Maybe in some past life I violated our friendship and slept with his sister, or vice versa. Ok...maybe not vice versa. Bad thoughts, bad, bad thoughts.

7:55am
I arrive in class with an hour and a half before test time. The class is as usual fricken freezing. My nipples harden and I try to refrain from touching them (I am kidding). I see Lisane, a french student and Microsoft Access wizard. I promptly say, "Hi, how's the studying going?" She answers back with her usual french accent, "Bleh, I'm a bit concerned but I don't care anymore." I look across and I see Cyrus. He's my arch nemesis. Forty plus year old Iranian man who's very voice, laughter, and presence drives me to the brink of insanity. He is about 5'7", has a very large nose like the proboscis monkey, bad skin, and slouches. I know these facts because I categorize them in my database of nemesissss (shouldn't the plural form of nemesis be nemesi?...I digress) like any smart superhero would do. What is a nemesis? No, not just a bad guy/girl. A nemesis is your own personal bad guy/girl whom you view it as your mission to defeat on a consistent basis. The very nature of the nemesis though gives them power over you and you may often find yourself at a disadvantage. This is the case with Cyrus. I find that his voice and his laughter weakens my spirit and dulls my humanity. I don't say "Hi" to my arch nemesis. We know where we stand. Our story goes back a few months but that is neither here or there (well maybe a little bit "there"). I shall explain another day. All you need know is that each time I see him, I want to hurl my laptop across the room at his nose.

I sit down and continue reading. I am now on chapter 12 and the hour of my impending doom is fast approaching. I have an almost unnerving calm about the test. Like a man who's been sick for a long time and has seen the degeneration of his body but has fully accepted his fate. Wow...that analogy sounded a lot more morbid than I had intended.

8:15am
I have resigned to the fact that I will not finish chapter 13. I log onto MSN and start reading today's sports news on ESPN.COM. This is the site I frequent the most throughout a day. I cannot get enough of sporting news. On any given day I may read possibly a novel's worth of sporting news. Do I retain a lot of what I read and do I have steadfast and brilliant opinions on the state of today's sports world? Not really but it amuses me immensely. I read sports because I am genuinely interested in it and I have a passion for it. I also have a competitive fire that motivates me to try and improve my life, my personality, and my game, whatever that may be. Today's game is to see how long and boring I can make this blog entry. I think I've already succeeded but I press on.

9:30am
Test is about to begin. Good times. Reading the first few questions I soon realize I'm screwed, at least for the theory part of the test. Out of 25 multiple choice questions I confidently answered 10. "Bell curve" passes through my feeble mind but as the Japanese would say "Shoganai" (ah well). I start the practical. It's much easier. I think it might even make up for my lacklustre performance on the previous section.

11:55am
I'm the first to hand in my test. I don't know if that's good or bad but it's done.

12:45pm
Dropped off by my friend Ron back at home. My grandmother asked me to take her grocery shopping. While at the grocery store she starts telling me how fruit and vegetable prices in California are so cheap. Going into each fruit's exact price and the difference in price painstakingly so. She's a cute little lady who likes to ramble a lot. This is possibly where I got my rambling skills from. As we pass the junk food aisle she asks me if I want anything. She goes into a story about how at age 3-4, I would come over to her house in Vietnam and ask her for candy. I think she misses that. I don't ask her for candy anymore. I contemplate possibly buying all the candy and chips in the entire aisle just to make an old lady happy...ok...maybe to make myself happy. "mmmmmmmm...Party Mix!"

2:30pm
After returning home and putting away the groceries I turn on my laptop. I get an email from Miss Tracy Ho about writing a chain story where each person contributes 1 paragraph to the story and sends it to everyone on the list. This turns out to be my afternoon entertainment. The story was about a poor sap named Gary(<--- Go ahead...click it...I know you're dying to) and his adventures with some lard err...large lady. I pity the fool. The story was quite rivoting and at times I couldn't distinguish fact from fiction. What I got from the story was this...the protagonist Gary struggled with his drinking habits as well as the possibility of falling in love with a woman nearly twice his size (I believe there's a reggae song about this story -- "I'm in love with a woman nearly twice my size"). In the end falling in love with this woman drove him even closer to the bottle and he ended up realizing that the bottle and the woman were actually ONE and the SAME. Both were desperate cries for help and temporary fixes to his issues of unrequited love. Ok...maybe I'm making this all up but it does make for a interesting read, no?

5:30pm
Love stories make me sleepy and I was spent. Nap time.

7:15pm
Was rudely woken up by my grandmother cursing about how every time she calls my mom's cell phone she gets some "Canadian" lady speaking in English. She wakes me up to help her re-dial the number just in case she dialed it wrong. I dial away and after many rings I get this "Canadian" lady's voice message, "I am unable to pick up the phone right now. Please leave your name, number, and a brief message and I will get back to you as soon as possible." This lady was MY MOM. I then annoyingly explain to my grandmother that it was her daughter's voice mail. She walks away almost as unamused as I was. I try and get back to sleep. No luck. I then do a bit of surfing online and decided to write in my blog about my interesting day. In retrospect it wasn't so interesting. After this I think I'll attempt to do some homework.

9pm-12:30am
Homework...very mundane.

12:45am
An anticlimactic ending to an anticlimactic day...zzzzzzzzzz.

1:50am
Bahhh...I lied...got caught up in a conversation on msn...still awake ='(