I know, I know, I know I’m a loser for saving all these, but I couldn’t resist. I thought it would be a fun experiment. According to facebook, this is what I was doing:

• You are none of your goddamned business.
• You are waiting for Godot…
• You are not going to wake up early to sign up for classes. Fuck that shit.
• You are going to eat chicken on a stick for every meal this weekend.
• You are walking in space.
• You are 509 Bandwith Limit Exceeded.
• You are appalled at the Spanish-language Star-Mangled Banner.
• You are still 509 bandwidth limit exceeded. Hm.
• You are looking for a new webhost.
• You are changing your nameservers.
• You are going to get this last essay done somehow.
• Shawn is sick as hell… throat is sore.
• Shawn is celebrating the return of his weblog.
• Shawn is almost ready for econ.
• Shawn is too busy to change his facebook status.
• Shawn is back in the UC, bitches.
• Shawn is Shawn.
• Shawn is adrift, once again.
• Shawn is trying to remember PHP.
• Shawn is judging people based on their race and/or ethnicity instead of as individuals.
• Shawn is hanging out with Ken Lay and Tupac.
• Shawn is a motherfucking snake on a motherfucking plane.
• Shawn is still a motherfucking snake on a motherfucking plane, bitches!
• Shawn is “Most Likely To… die in a pool of his own vomit.”
• Shawn is on a horse with no name.
• Shawn is stalking you via news-feed. Yes, you.
• Shawn is remembering.
• Shawn is bananas. B-A-N-A-N-A-S.
• Shawn is unconvinced by Descartes.
• Shawn is telling you not to be fooled by the term “coercive interrogation.” Torture is torture.
• Shawn is preparing to enter the wilderness.
• Shawn is especially good at expectorating.
• Shawn is shocked by USC’s loss.
• Shawn is rejoicing over the resignation of Rumsfeld.
• Shawn is also a cartoonist.
• Shawn is thankful for Thanksgiving.
• Shawn is hoping there is no Ohio-Michigan rematch.
• Shawn is going to spill the wine, take that pearl.
• Shawn is figuring out how to focus.
• Shawn is never so happy before a test, but he can’t stop thinking about going home.
• Shawn is the one who stole the cookies from the cookie jar. You can all stop asking now.

I’m going back to Hopkins.

[insert string of obscenities here]

I don’t care if it’s January 6th and that you’re supposed to do resolutions on January 1st. I want a change, so I’m doing it. Henceforth, my resolution is: Today, not tomorrow.

It’s more of a motto than a resolution, really. I stole the phrase from the book I just finished by Larry Winget, It’s Called Work For a Reason. This is the theme for the year. This is what I really want to improve on. This is the one thing I really, really want to change about myself.

Today, not tomorrow.

Or: Stop being such a lazy motherfucker.

Pretty self-explanatory.

I have a chance. While this chance is always open, the new year is an especially good time to jump upon it. It is the chance to start anew. Every moment, we have this chance. We may believe at times that we are stuck in a rut, but we always have the opportunity to get back on track or to take a different path. I choose this moment to wipe the slate clean once again and take advantage of what’s in front of me. Step forward, not step back. This year, I want to become a better person. I have three resolutions: 1) Get it done. 2) Be impetuous. 3) Live in the present.

But first, I want to reflect upon the past year and what lessons I can learn. I had two resolutions from last year: 1) Make every move a killing move. 2) Smile.

I failed pretty miserably at #2. Mostly, I took it to mean smiling more in public, but that resolution fell through quickly. To tell you the truth, I didn’t feel as if I had much to smile about. I’d rather be a happier person than the same person who just smiles more often. So, I’m going to focus more on who I am, than how I appear, at least for now.

#1 didn’t work at all. To understand why, we’ll have to go back one more year, when my one and only resolution was “Seize the day.” I was dissatisfied with that resolution because I felt like I was merely seizing whims. I wanted to be more calculated. My resolution for last year was supposed to refine 2005’s resolution. However, instead, it just led to inaction. I didn’t know what I wanted to do in the first place, so how could I “make a killing move”? In the end, this led to a certain contradiction in my desires: to be impetuously deliberate.

I’ve moved to a new mode of thinking. I like to frame things in terms of habit. To be able to make that killing move requires such practice that you can recognize the move when it comes. It’s very difficult to make a killing move in a swordfight if you have no experience swordfighting. To be successful in life requires practice living, so to speak. And it requires upkeep.

Which sort of brings me to resolution #2. (We’re skipping #1 for a second.) I don’t want to seize the day, but I want to re-develop the same sort of habit. I actually reflected and felt that I didn’t seize the day enough. I’m very influenced by this quote from Machiavelli’s The Prince: “For my part I consider that it is better to be adventurous than cautious, because fortune is a woman, and if you wish to keep her under it is necessary to beat and ill-use her; and it is seen that she allows herself to be mastered by the adventurous rather than by those who go to work more coldly. She is, therefore, always, woman-like, a lover of young men, because they are less cautious, more violent, and with more audacity command her.” (I like the translation in my book later, and I’ll find it later.) (I apologize to any girls reading this.)

[Wow, this is not flowing very well. I feel disjointed while writing this. This is what I get for taking so long a break. It’s not naturally flowing.]

I know that whims aren’t always good, but this is a resolution to be more aggressive and adventurous. To be more loose and uncaring about consequences. There’s a certain trade-off, and I think that being more impetuous will pay off in terms of grabbing more opportunities.

Resolution #2, then, is the latest refinement of my resolution from 2005. Now, seizing the day has morphed into acting aggressively/impetuously in general. It is a habit I need to develop and maintain. At the end of 2005, I decided acting impusively wasn’t what I wanted. At the end of 2006, in the beginning of 2007, I’ve decided that acting impulsively isn’t such a bad thing.

Resolution #1 is number one for a reason. My worst habit right now is procrastination. I want to develop a new habit where I just do things instead of putting them off. I think I’ll also try to develop better time-management skills. This doesn’t mean I have to plan everything out in my day. I’m going to try to find something that works for me.

Another bad habit is dwelling on the past. In poker, I used to dwell a lot on my bad beats. Then, I figured out that bad beats were just a part of poker. Of course, I still get mad at the time, but I’m able to move on. When I do something really stupid, I don’t dwell on it either. I will mull it over in my mind, but I try to take lesson from it and then move on. In life, there will be plenty of bad beats and bad decisions. There will be plenty of missed opportunities. What can I do? Accept what has happened. Learn from it. Move on. So, resolution #3 is telling me to clear my mind whenever I focus too much on the past. Instead, I should think about now.

These resolutions are about breaking old habits and installing new habits. #1 is meant to break the habit of procrastination. #2 is meant to break the habit of passivity. #3 is meant to break the habit of living in the past.

For myself, I want to christen 2007 the Year of Reformation. As a side note, Lloyd talks about revolution, but this path doesn’t appeal to me. Although I said I was going to “start anew,” that’s not actually true in a strict sense. I want to reform myself, but it will be a process, not a revolution. Perhaps that’s my political beliefs bleeding into my personal beliefs, as a conservative who thinks revolution in general doesn’t produce the wanted results. Then, there’s also the fact that there’s a thread between 2005 to now, so I don’t really need a paradigm shift. In one sense, I want to become a new person, but in another sense, I don’t.

In a way, the real paradigm shift came at the end of 2004. Before that, my resolutions were big lists of things to do. This year, like the two years before, there’s nothing I can simply check off. I’m not declaring myself a new person at this very moment. I’ll be successful if at the end of 2007, I’ve established new habits. However, I must remember not to neglect what I’ve accomplished in the beginning of 2008 (or perhaps sooner). I’ve noticed how my skills in pool deteriorate without practice. My efforts to become a better person will likely deteriorate as well. Thus, I must focus everyday on becoming that new person.

And after writing this (unlike how I was feeling the past few days), I feel very optimistic.

Next entry will come from sunny California.

I notice that I haven’t written anything substantive (at least when it comes to politics) in about a month. This corresponds with Thanksgiving break. Truth is, I’ve been pretty burnt out from school — not that the workload was overwhelming, it’s just that I was sick and tired. Luckily, I only have one test left. After that, I’m off home, where I can work on various things, including varying my sentence structure.

Well, since I have finals and a final essay due soon, I’m going to have to shut myself off from the world for a few days. See you later.

I just want to go home.

What I put on Chalkboard Manifesto a few days ago:

Do not lose faith, readers. I will update late this Wednesday. I’ve figured out the problem. I usually say to myself, “I am a student. Therefore, I will do my work first, and then my comic.” I have three essays to write in the course of 2 days. That’s why I can’t update now. Yet, I managed to write a political essay for my weblog. I can call myself a satirist and a political commentator as easily as I call myself a student. However, calling myself a cartoonist seems foreign, even though that’s all you know me as. But, dear readers, from now on, I will be a cartoonist. This cartoonist will be taking a brief hiatus until Wednesday. Then, I will return with a new frame of mind. Each time before, I said I was going to “get back on track,” but there was no track to get on. That formulation was entirely wrong. When I return, I will make this comic a bigger part of my life — making it as important to me as it is to some of you. Broken promises were the norm here, but not anymore. Thanks, I hope you continue with me on this journey.

So, now I’m a cartoonist.

Will be in California over Thanksgiving vacation. Tomorrow, I’ll be blogging from the other side.

I think the path to virtue is through habit. I’ve been trying to force myself to get things done instead of procrastinating. Just little things right now.

My first sentence is an odd claim that I can’t really back up right now, but I’ll get to it eventually. I’m beginning to feel out some very strange views on the mind, habit, and ethics.

I’ve been studying Machiavelli lately in preparation for writing my discourse. I’ve found some very interesting things in Discourses on Livy, specifically, chapter 9 in book 1, “That It Is Necessary to Be Alone If One Wishes to Order a Republic Anew or to Reform it Altogether outside Its Ancient Orders.” Of course, as a conservative, I despise overthrowing these ancient orders. However, I do not wish to ignore it altogether. I may have to split my work into two books. One will be the one I’ve originally planned. The other will be much more dangerous. In fact, I may decide to never write it.

For some reason, I’d like to take this opportunity to evaluate my New Year’s plan to make every move a killing move. First, what prompted me to do this evalution.

I recently revisited an old post-it note, “What do you want? Take it.” I needed motivation. But then, I thought, “What do I want?” I had no idea what I wanted.

Therein lied the dilemma with my New Year’s resolution. How can I make every move a killing move if I don’t even know what I’m trying to kill? I was trying to make every move have a purpose, but I had no goal. That’s why it hasn’t proven effective. I like the idea of the method, but it’s too focused.

I think of pool and how the purpose is to try to win. However, you can’t just will yourself to win. You have to practice and practice in order to make shots. You have to know how to play. You have to know what you’re playing.

I have no idea what I’m playing or what I’m doing.

Sure, I can tell myself, “Take it.” But what the fuck am I taking? What the fuck do I want to take?

Sorry about the profanity, but this is really frustrating. I’m currently paralyzed with indecision.

I think I’m going to reformulate the resolution to “What do you want? Take it.” At least it acknowledges that there’s a question of what I want.

Even then, I want to be president, let’s say. But I’m not going to make everything in my life push towards that goal. That’d be a very unsatisfying life. I have other pursuits. Hm. I guess that kills the “Every move is a killing move” idea.

I’ll tell you what I don’t want, though. Whatever it is I’m doing now… this college thing… I’m sick and tired. I mean, even if I take a new frame of mind to the issue and look at college as a place with lots of opportunities, I still see my classes as essentially useless. Well, not useless… just… extraneous. Yes, that’s the right word, I guess. I don’t want to be that negative, but that’s how I feel. There are a billion other things I’d rather do. Now, if I could only figure out what those billion things are.

What do I want?

Due to a (kind of) last-minute drop-out, I decided to participate in the College Democrats vs. College Republicans debate. I was woefully unprepared. Furthermore, I hate Bush and I’m disappointed in Congress. I think our foreign policy is a mess. I’m abstaining from voting because I can’t in good conscience vote for the current batch of Republicans. So, you can see how difficult it was arguing for a party I’m disillusioned with. But during a deficit question, I managed to say, “As a Republican, I’m confused…” and then proceeded to say that we need to cut spending.

I don’t know if the other Republicans agree, but we got our asses handed to us. At least they didn’t quote from the article I (barely) co-wrote for the Black Student Union in which the Republican party was chastised for suppressing the black vote. Hahahaha.

*Sigh* At least I got a free bottle of water, and some more public speaking experience.

Guess I’ll continue wandering the political wilderness…

Been busy. Essays, blech. More busy-ness to come.

Tomorrow, Newt Gingrich is coming to speak at Hopkins and he’ll be on C-SPAN. The speech starts at 8 Eastern time. I think I might be working a microphone during Q&A, so you may see me.

Blogging will be light for the rest of the week.

EDIT: Haha, I’m an idiot. I have no clue when the CSPAN speech will be on. They recorded and will probably play it within the next two weeks. I’ll tell you when it’s on.

EDIT: I got to eat dinner with Newt Gingrich (along with some other peoples in the Symposium). We didn’t talk about politics at all. Some conversation centered on technology. I explained to Newt what Facebook was. That’s exciting on some level.

Today I went to see Reverend James Forbes speak. I probably would not have gone had I not been part of the staff of the MSE Symposium. Actually, I just went because I was obligated, not really out of any desire to see Forbes because I didn’t really know who he was.

I am really glad I went. He was so charismatic and energetic. It was infectious. I felt his energy in me.

He talked about finding a “project.” Finding purpose, a calling, in a way, but much more than that. What will they say about you in your obituary?

I could try to make this clearer and more distinct to you the reader, but this is primarily a marker in time for myself.

What I can say is that at the time, he said exactly what I needed. I felt doubt and he introduced a certain type of certainty. Or rather, he inspired me… that I can achieve the change I wish to make in the world.

I’ve been doing some thinking and begun vaguely to define a certain mission as preserving democracy in America. But isn’t this more like preserving the status quo? I answer: “Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.” — Wendell Phillips

At the time, I felt a fire burning within. I was ready to attack the world.

As the energy fades, though, the question arises: “How?” I realize once again that it will be a long and arduous journey. But at least, for once, it seems possible. I suppose some solace can be found in the formulation “project.” It’s something I will work on all my life.

And now, even further from fiery rhetoric, I suddenly realize that the current thing nagging at me hasn’t been answered. Do I stay within the Republican fold and fight for change from within? Or do I start anew with a new party? And what do the words “youth movement” mean to me?

So, I’m thinking even more, and I’ve remembered a phrase, “Above all, you must have faith in yourself.” I suppose that is what has been restored, which I had lost even before my whole political apostasy issues. It cannot be a logical faith. It must be a burning passion.

No, no, now my clarity has been replaced with confusion. It was but there for a moment. I think I need to sleep on it.

I started work on my discourse again, and I’ve limited the scope even further. More details as they come. For now, I’ve got a new working title: Principles of Agitation.

I really need to sit down for a while and just think… really think about what I’m doing…

How am I supposed to pursue my interest in politics while at the same time being so busy with schoolwork? I can handle my classes, but I can’t handle them and all I want to do at the same time. How can I write my discourse?

I think I might have to drop a class… Then again, if I’m so busy, other people must be more busy. How do I convince them to act when the time comes?

I remembered when I was 12-13 or so, just in the beginning stages of puberty. I totally wanted facial hair because it seemed so grown-up. Shaving seemed like a marvelous rite of passage, or something.

Now, that I’m older, I realize that shaving is a hassle and… well, it sucks big time.

Luckily, I have some Asian genes in me, so I am not very hairy. Some hair on the chin. Some hair on the upper lip. Some hair between the chin and lower lip. No hair on the cheek. Or actually, at one point in time, I had one hair on my cheek. I thought it was an eyelash or something, and then I realized it was attached to my cheek. It was freakin’ hilarious.

The hair that does grow doesn’t grow very fast. I can go days without shaving. It’s fantastic, but it would’ve made me sad when I was little.

Sometimes, it’s important to re-focus. As of late, I’ve lost my sense of purpose. I’ve no goals.

I’ve set my eyes on a big prize, but I haven’t thought any steps through yet.

How can one become a great sword-fighter without any practice?

I must practice life as if it were a skill I had to hone.

I must re-focus.

I’ve been adrift.

I must set achievable goals.

I must do more than dream.

I must define my grandiose visions.

I must keep my eyes on my goals.

I cannot grow complacent. Complacency is my biggest enemy.

I’ve been living my life defensively.

I need to go on the attack.

I must be aggressive.

I must find passion.

I must be tenacious.

Do not lose track of your purpose.

However, you must focus on the “how” more than the goal.

Go. Go. Go.

Do not falter.

Every move is a killing move.

I’ve essentially won $10. I wonder what I’ll spend it on.

Do I belong here? Or am I not cut out for college in general?

Last year when I left, I had a completely different feeling than now. I was simultaneously in a state of happiness and a state of sadness. I felt like an era was ending. Like things would never be the same.

Now, I feel differently. I realize life doesn’t have simple little chapters that you open and shut. Things are more entangled. I’m still friends with my companions from high school.

So when I finish college, I won’t suddenly embark on a new life. It’ll be the old life entangled with a new life. Just like what’s happening now. But geography is catching up to me. I can’t just visit back and forth easily. It leads to a more schizophrenic existence. What happens when I’m done with college? Where will I live?

To be perfectly honest, I’m not happy at all about going back. I’m dreading it. Before I was just anxious about flying (well, not flying, just going through security at the airport) and frustrated that no one sympathized with my anxiety. Now, it’s full-blown anxiety about leaving. What’s annoying is that there’s no transition period. It’s just — boom! — suddenly I’m on the other side of the country.

I feel as if I should have mixed feelings. Like, I should be looking forward to going back somewhat. Yet, I’ve recently found myself once again second-guessing my decision not to transfer. I just can’t bring myself to be optimistic.

That’s all I have to say for now. I’ll see all of you on the other side. Updates may be non-existent for a day or two (or three?). I know I don’t like to say that I’m going to make an entry on something in the near future because it usually never materializes, but I’d like to further examine the term “Islamofascism.”

I know my comic’s traffic is not very impressive. I know that there are few people who know about it. But I still really, really love the e-mails I get from my adoring fans. That’s the great thing about the internets.

Ah, huge spike in bandwidth! It wasn’t new visitors, though. All the traffic was images. (Chalkboard Manifesto, mostly.) It was all due to hotlinking. I finally went through and disabled hotlinking once and for all! My bandwidth should be going back to normal levels now. So annoying. If I wasn’t on top of things, there could’ve been another bandwidth limit exceeded and you know what happened last time. I honestly don’t really know what caused it. Probably the Myspace again. Those damned hooligans.

Could I climb Mount Everest? Yes and no. It sounds like a simple question, but it’s not. If you were to let me train for years and gave me the proper equipment and team, then yes, I could climb Mt. Everest. If you picked me up in a jet right now and dropped me off at the base of the mountain, then no, I could not climb Mt. Everest.

I think the task I’ve set before myself is too much. A general discourse on governments is just too much to write about. I mean, even Machiavelli separated his discussion of republics and principalities. I’ve never written anything like this before, and I feel like I don’t know enough to write something so broad.

The solution? Limit what I write about. Of course, I’ve been thinking about that all along. What should I write? What should I leave out? But now, I’ve given it even more thought. I’ve decided that I will limit my discourse to the topic of democratization. It seems especially relevant to this time period, and it’s the topic I’m most interested in. I’m still debating whether to limit it further.

One more thing, the current book I’m reading, The Marshall Plan: America, Britain, and the reconstruction of Western Europe, 1947-1952 by Michael J. Hogan, is not telling me what I want to know. I think I’m not going to finish it. Maybe I’ll read the conclusion and introduction. I did manage to finish The Marshall Plan and its Meaning by Harry Bayard Price. Next, I want to pick up a book on the occupation of Japan after WWII.

I was going to watch Full Metal Alchemist tonight, only to find that it wasn’t playing. Am I never going to see the final episode? Argh. I never saw the last episode of Wolf’s Rain either. Of course, Wolf’s Rain wasn’t nearly as good as FMA, but I kind of enjoyed it towards the end.

Ah well, at least I won at poker tonight.

When I was looking at my website statistics, it appeared as if July would easily defeat June in every category. That prediction seemed like it would come true even with 3 wacky days in which my site logs disappeared and so there were practically no hits recorded for those days. Then, the “number of visits” statistic on AwStats dropped below 1000 on July 21 and my hits never recovered, dropping below 500 on July 28. I’m wondering why my hits suddenly dropped. Was it because I neglected to update the Chalkboard Manifesto during the heat wave? It seems like the only conceivable reason, aside from something happening at stumbleupon, which was directing a lot of hits to me.