To be or not to be...

“Penny For Your Thoughts” – Gemineye
Can I offer you a penny for your thoughts?
As a matter of fact, how about three?
One penny for you, one penny for me,
And one penny for our minds engaged not so sexually.
Getting intimately closer as we approach the
Climatic altitude of nude, mental, sensational… conversation.

Because I’m trying to get to know everything about you
From the neck… UP.

So these are not your typical, sexual, poetical prose.
I’m trying to close the door on that all too firmiliar freaky foreplay game.
With which most guys have chose to approach you.
While they are trying to get deeply inbedded
In the fine fibers of your bedsheets,
I’m trying to find and define the fibers of which your mind speaks.
I want to engage you
By putting a two karat solitaire diamond ON YOUR MIND
Marrying your every thought!

I want to lick every inch of every crevasse
So I can get an oral fix from each oriface
And taste you passionate IMAGINATION.

I’d rather be naked and exposed, holding you
As we’re lying and you’re crying
While confiding and describing the tough times you’ve had in life
And how you don’t know
If you can keep a relationshop long enough to be somebody’s wife.

I wanna feel the heartbeat of all your inner rhythms
As they lead me toward your warm, wet, waterfalls of feminine thoughts.
…And I’ll swin in them.
From backstroaks, to breaststrokes,
I’m penetrating every entrance… to your mind.
Taking my time to find out everything about you.

Did I ever tell you about how you
Fell asleep in my presence?
And your mere essance
Kept me awake for hours
As I cowered with this feeling
Of sexually unadulterated mental connection?

And as you lay by my side
I pushed the blinds aside
And took the time in the moonlight of that night
To count 72 eyelashes
On the upper eyelid of your right eye!
Because when you sleep
Your eyes remain open slightly.

And while we probably moves in too quickly into some sexual shit
I’ve always cared more about the expilicity illicitness
That came from between you lips.. meaning your voice.

So now I am standing here
Ready to trade in all the sexual acts that we’ve preformed
For the chance to reform the very foundation
And the basis of our relationship.

So I reiterate my opening statement
And I offer you another penny for your thoughts!

Now, Let's Examine Your Soul Urge
(also known as your "Heart's Desire")

We have already done all the mathematics necessary to work out this number. It is simply the total of the top row (the vowels) of your full birth name.

In your case Brian, this totals 1.


Brian, your Soul Urge of 1 ...

What You Desire To Be, To Have, and To Do In Your Life



The highest calling of your soul is to learn about everything scientific and esoteric. Your thirst for knowledge is only quenched by copious hours alone spent studying your pet subjects. This can be any subject as many of you aspire to have brains that are the equivalent of Alexandrian libraries.

You love to read and subjects such as history, science, metaphysics, physics, archaeology and religion fuel your rich imagination with inspiration and ideas. Many of you are geniuses, plain and simple.

Others may perceive you as very cold and even socially dysfunctional but actually your detachment from others is very spiritually sophisticated. You don't like expressing your emotions and like Dorothy Parker said you believe that "spilling one's guts is as ugly as it sounds."

Your reluctance to let anyone get to know the real you is an innate defense mechanism that prevents you from being hurt by others. You better than anybody know that knowledge is power and you don't want anyone to have power over you. This is because you often perceive relationships and their accompanying dramas and emotions to be an intrusion into your personal headspace.

You are usually a dreamer rather than a doer and best suit an occupation that allows you to sit and conceptualize to your heart's desire. Money means nothing to you as all of your riches come from books and learning however many of you often end up in well paid positions simply because you are brilliant and excel in school.

As you are so helpless socially and often unkempt personally as well, one of your greatest wishes is that someone will come along and take care of you. As you are so charming and humble in a mysterious way you usually luck out in the romance department. You have a knack for attracting individuals who need to feel special by being aligned with someone special and your eccentricities certainly fit the bill.

Your tendency to isolate yourself can also lead to distorted perceptions of reality and cognitive disorders such as obsessive compulsion and paranoia. It is a number 7 who is most likely to develop an obsession with a celebrity or create a conspiracy theory. Those are extreme examples but you need to realize that you are only human and that a lack of human contact and especially affection can distort your personality in unpleasant and unproductive ways.

As you are not that concerned with sex your libido which is often badly suppressed may also express itself in odd ways. It may manifest as a mania about a topic or obsession with cleanliness. Like a pure bred horse, you need a practical-minded steady companion to reign you in when your imagination goes wild.

You may also have a tendency to get stuck on one person whether the love is requited or not. You may idealize this person and see them as a symbol rather than who they really are. In romance, you really do need to watch a tendency to project the qualities of a god or goddess on a quite ordinary person.

Living too much inside your head might present a lifetime's worth of challenge for you. Your cool personality often makes it difficult for you to make friends. Opportunities often pass you by because your brilliance makes you forgetful. The best way to draw your soul out of the either and back down into your body is to work out and exercise regularly. Long walks alone in nature can help satisfy your need for both solitude and grounding.

Your Expression Number

Your Expression - which describes your potential natural talents and abilities - works out to be a 7.

How Is Your Expression Calculated?

What we are going to do now is turn all the letters in your name at birth into numbers,
using the following chart :

In practice I put the vowels above the name and the consonants underneath. This is because your Soul Urge is derived from the vowels alone, so it makes it easier at the next step to do it this way.

Again there is one exception to the rule and this is with the letter ‘Y’. If it acts as a consonant and is pronounced it is classed as being a consonant. If it is not pronounced or acts as a vowel it is classed as being a vowel. The ‘Y’ in Yolande, for instance, would be classed as being a consonant, but the ‘Y’ in Larry would be classed as being a vowel as it acts as a vowel.

Let’s work out your Expression number, Brian :

Using the above chart we would put a '2' below the 'B' in your first name. We would follow this with a 9 placed below the 'r', then a 9 above the 'i', a 1 above the 'a', and so on...

We then carry on in the same manner with the rest of your name. When you are finished, you should end up with a chart like this:

Now we simply add up the numbers in each row.

The top row: 9 + 1 + 1 + 9 + 1 + 3 + 5 + 1 + 1 + 6 = 37

The bottom row: 2 + 9 + 5 + 7 + 2 + 9 + 3 + 2 + 2 + 7 + 7 + 7 + 7 = 69.

We now add the total of the top and bottom rows, which gives us 37+69=106. Adding 1 + 0 + 6 gives us 7

And so, Brian, your Expression is 7.

What a Number '7' Expression Says About You

To you the ultimate expression of your higher self lies within the mysteries of science, nature and the occult. Most number 7s tend to be interested in all three topics....

So, I stumbled upon some numerology stuff. I've had my one of my cooky grand uncles figure out my birthday and my name in numbers and tell me some stuff, but here's some official report I got online. It's pretty scary how accurate it is.


The best place to start is with one of the most basic calculations ... your "life path" -- based on your birth date of June 10, 1990 -- is 8.


How Is Your Life Path Calculated ?

This is calculated in four steps:

Add up the digits in your month of birth (if more than one digit)
Add up the digits in your day of birth (if more than one digit)
Add up the digits in your year of birth.
Add up the answers from (1), (2), and (3) above.
With all the above calculations, we keep adding until we end up with a single digit, or an 11 or 22 (which are special cases in numerology, known as "Master Numbers").

In your case Brian, you were born on June 10, 1990.

Your month of birth is June, which is the 6th month. As 6 is a single digit, there's nothing to add here.

Your day of birth is the 10th. Adding 1 + 0 gives us 1

Your year of birth is 1990. Adding 1 + 9 + 9 + 0 gives us 19. Adding 1 + 9 gives us 10. Adding 1 + 0 gives us 1

The totals, then, are 6, 1, and 1. To get our final answer, we add these three numbers together to give us 8: As 8 is a single digit, there's nothing to add here.


What Does Your Life Path Say About You?

"To me, 'FEARLESS' is not the absence of fear. It’s not being completely unafraid. To me, FEARLESS is having fears. FEARLESS is having doubts. Lots of them. To me, FEARLESS is living in spite of those things that scare you to death. FEARLESS is falling madly in love again, even though you’ve been hurt before. FEARLESS is walking into your freshman year of high school at fifteen. FEARLESS is getting back up and fighting for what you want over and over again… even though every time you’ve tried before, you’ve lost. It’s FEARLESS to have faith that someday things will change. FEARLESS is having the courage to say goodbye to someone who only hurts you, even if you can’t breathe without them. I think it’s FEARLESS to fall for your best friend, even though he’s in love with someone else. And when someone apologizes to you enough times for things they’ll never stop doing, I think it’s FEARLESS to stop believing them. It’s FEARLESS to say “you’re NOT sorry”, and walk away. I think loving someone despite what people think is FEARLESS. I think allowing yourself to cry on the bathroom floor is FEARLESS. Letting go is FEARLESS. Then, moving on and being alright…That’s FEARLESS too. But no matter what love throws at you, you have to believe in it. You have to believe in love stories and prince charmings and happily ever after. That’s why I write these songs. Because I think love is FEARLESS."

"I met a woman. The kind of woman that makes you want to go back in time to before you met her. Whatever the hell life was like then, it's not as bad the hell now, knowing she's out there and you can't have her."

First of all, can I get props on the title? Do you get it?! it's got a double meaning... see what I did there? Nice.

I’m a back-to-back champion now in the Pac Rim West Covina league. But I’m a little bitter. I showed up to every game, without a miss, early. But in this most recent championship game, I only got played like 2 minutes. At first, I was ok, just happy that we won, but when I started to think about it, it’s pretty messed up. I practiced by myself, everyday during the week leading up to the championship game. My coach took me out because he wanted me to get out of the way of our point guard who was getting double-teamed. I heard coach tell me to move and so I did, into 3 different spots on the court. And I’m wide open, my defender is not covering me, and the guy with the ball is getting double-teamed. I still don’t understand what I did wrong. But for the most part, my experience with this team for the past two seasons has just been so-so. Don’t get me wrong—it felt really good to win for once. But I’ve played out of my position all the way through, because I’m taller than anyone on the team. I was playing 4 and 5, when I’m really at my best at the 2 or the 1. I played tough, but I know there were times when I looked lost. It wasn’t so much that I was lost, I was trying to get the ball, but these cocky high school kids never really looked for me. It’s good they have their teams to play on for the winter. It looks like I’m going to play in the Pac Rim Eagle Rock league with old teammates (the old St. Dominic Fab 5?! We’ll see).

Another quarter has come and gone at Cal Poly. I took FRL 201 for the second time, IBM 301, Bio 110 online, and TOM 302, Managerial Statistics. Perfect scenario for my second go around with FRL—the teacher broke his arm and missed 3 classes + 2 furlough days. He skipped an entire section of the class and made the final super easy. I replaced my D+ from last winter with an A! IBM 301 was lame. I got this teacher who was really funny with her personal examples and she was really engaged with the class. But she graded so damn difficult and made the tests hard. She also had a condition in which if you had one of the top ten grades in the class on a group project, you can present your project instead of taking the final. My group (err, I) came up with the idea of a shopping cart that scans items as you put them in and take them out, and you can pay with the cart with its built-in credit card slider. Apparently our project wasn’t good enough (because she graded so hard), so we didn’t get picked for a presentation. The final sucked and I got a B in the class. And from the presentations we watched, we had a better idea than almost all of them. The worst thing is that when we registered, we had a teacher that was described as the easiest teacher on campus but he quit and we got this lady. Bio online was easy because Andrew had taken the class last year and had all the answers already, hahaha. Managerial Statistics was seriously the worst class I’ve taken at Cal Poly. This incompetent fool was the worst teacher I’ve had in my life. Like, 8^th grade Nabavi was bad, but she’s teaching grade school, what do you expect? This dude needs to step his game up—you’re a fucking college professor! ugh, sure he’s willing to help you, but we shouldn’t need help if you’re doing your job. Oh, and the sound of my typing is louder than his voice was in class. The book is horrible at explaining things, too! Bad experiences with math + bad teacher + bad book = worst class ever = D+… here’s to retaking another class. It was an interesting quarter—for the most part, I felt like I worked my ass off in these classes and didn’t see the results I expected…

So get this, I work at the bookstore for 2 rushes, last winter and last spring, and I’m all jovial and brown-nosing and working harder than everyone else—because I wanted that job so badly. This fall rush, I basically don’t give a shit (but still work hard) and I get hired for the whole quarter. Life can be awesome, and work has been easy. I hope I get hired for the rest of the year.

It’s been pretty ok at the dorms. There’s more space because it’s just Andrew and I this year. I’ve been keeping myself busy, setting little goals for myself to keep me from thinking too much. I’m learning how to play the guitar, doing some more skateboarding, and I saved up enough money through recycling and working to buy myself an $750 Olympus EP-1 camera (look it up, it’s nice). I thought it would take forever to save for it, but work helped a lot. Andrew and I bought a niiiice Samsung tv, and I won speakers! Ok, get this, every end of the quarter there’s a celebration in our building. In this celebration there’s a raffle with some prizes. I had a final to study for the next day, so I didn’t plan on going to the celebration. Besides, there are so few prizes that you really don’t ever win anything. The celebration and the raffle ‘Door Dollars’ that you earn throughout the quarter don’t mean anything. So I wasn’t gonna go, but I just put in my tickets towards the grand prize right as they were collecting the last of them all. I went on to eat dinner and study, telling Stephen to call me when the raffle starts. So people win sweatshirts and mugs—bookstore stuff I can get. And then for the grand prize, they decided to do something different. Instead of pulling out a single winner, the last ticket in the bag gets the speakers. So they start dumping out tickets, and I’m thinking that it’s over, I should just go back to my room. For the last five tickets in the bag, she even starts reading out “______, you did not win.” So yeah, I knew it was over, and I thought that reading people out like that was just mean.. but then.. “And the winner is…. Brian Ppp-A-G-G-A-O”! Life can be awesome.

And now, on a philosophical note, I want to describe my mind state. In the beginning, I approached this quarter with the same bitterness I’ve had. No doubt thoughts from the summer and the pangs of loneliness still haunted me. With everything I got, I still approached things with a grain of salt. Like things are good, but still suck. Or as good as things are now, it won’t last forever. At the same time, I made sure I took nothing for granted. And then I read this article—I still can’t find the website it was on—and it talked about something called a quarter-life crisis. This quarter-life crisis happens with people in their mid 20s who graduate from college and feel like half they’re life is over and they haven’t accomplished much, and they’re having trouble finding jobs and integrating themselves into society. So they’re full of anxiety and worry, and are fearful that they’ll never achieve what they feel they’ve deserved. That sounds a lot like what I’ve been talking about on this blog. The article goes on to talk about how this is natural, and there comes a point when you stop thinking about the past or the future and start living in the now. And you start living in the now by persisting through every obstacle, no matter what. It also talks about a book, ‘Zorba the Greek’ which is about a character that takes whatever he’s been given and lives through it with the absolute fullest emotion. Instead of worrying about the future, he experiences what he has with all that he’s got. If he’s angry he fully expresses anger; if he enjoys something, he’ll show his happiness. So I got the book to read over break, and I’m not too far along with it, but there are already golden nuggets of wisdom. Reading this article and reading about how the cure to this quarter-life crisis is to approach every little thing with passion has been getting me through. It’s opened my mind to a whole new way of thinking. In fact, there are some things I’m beginning to forget about my past—just because I haven’t thought them through for a while. I guess that’s what moving on is.

It got me to think about how we’re raised to believe that we’re all different; we’re all unique little snowflakes. But the truth is, we’re not as different as we think. We all want the same things: success, love, popularity. We may have different definitions for what those are, but my point is that we all desire similar things in life. But then, we’re raised to think that we’re so special so we deserve those things or that those things are supposed to come to us. And when we don’t get what we want, we don’t understand why. But the way I look at it now, success in life isn’t about achieving certain goals. A lot of the times we say, “I’ll be happy once ______ happens for me”. And while we may be happy for a time, it’s still about what we do with what we have. Success is not about getting something. Success is about being thankful for what you have. Put some gratitude in your attitude! Real success is about taking what you have and making it great. Lemons into lemonade; rocks into diamonds. Success in life is about consistency and persistence, and most importantly, consistently persisting. Write that down and quote me, I like the sound of that.

So that’s where my mind's at right now, and thinking about last year, I’ve changed a lot. I’ve made conscious changes and there have been unconscious changes to the way I act and think. I think I’ve even tried to show these changes on the outside—my hair is long, I gained 10 lbs. of muscle, and recently I’ve been making the effort to dress better. I needed to change. I needed to be different from who I was last year. I needed to become a better person.

And now, as if out of nowhere, someone from the past—someone from my past posts—is back in my life. I’m even more afraid now than I was in the beginning, but I’m optimistic and hopeful that things will work out this time. We’ll see :D

I hope everyone’s having happy holidays.

With another night of having a hard time getting to sleep, I cracked open my 8^th grade yearbook. That was St. Dominic School’s first colored yearbook, and I had a hand in making it happen. Among ten other things I was involved in that year, I was a Historian on student council with Adam Link, which means that most of the pictures of activities in that yearbook are actually from us. I flipped through every page, seeing faces that still don’t have updated features in my memory. I read through all the little things people wrote when they signed, fielding through the occasional “you’re a good baller” and “next Kobe” comments and grinning at the more common “I’ll miss you”s and “K.I.T.”s from people I haven’t talked to in months, some from people I haven’t heard from in years.

I can’t help but think about how everything has changed.

It’s coming up on five years since that 8^th grade year, and yet I remember almost everything about it. I find myself constantly reflecting back to that particular year in my life. To be entirely honest, I think it was the last time I was really happy. At the time, it really felt like life made sense. Maybe that year set the standard for my happiness. And because that standard was set so high, I haven’t really felt like anything’s come close. Everything’s different now, including the people. It seems like everyone has moved on to much bigger and better things. I look at pictures of people who I considered dorks at the time—good people who I still consider friends—but just shy and not very confident or popular people in that world way back then, and they’ve grown up. They’ve come to accomplish things in high school that I thought would come easy to me. They’re happy with the way life has turned out. I’ve stayed the same. I’m getting left behind. I know I keep bringing this up in these blog posts, but I’m not where I thought I’d be at 19 years of age. I think that if the 8^th grade BP were to meet me today and I told him what I’ve done with my life, he’d really think of me as a loser. And I’d argue with him and try to explain reasons why things are this way, but no matter what I would explain, I know for a fact that he wouldn’t understand. Because I certainly still don’t get it.

They say that time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself. ~Andy Worhol

As I continued to read through everyone’s signatures and well wishes, I flipped to an inevitable page I knew I’d get to as soon as I opened the yearbook. It’s one passage from a certain person who meant a lot to me at the time. She took a whole page in my yearbook to right down memories, thoughts, and feelings about us. During that time in my life, those words meant a lot more to me than they do now, but there’s one sentence that still gives me some chills:

“I admire you because of your willpower—no matter what your parents/friends/enemies/even girlfriend say about you, you don’t give up. It makes you stronger, and see, I can’t do that.”

Goosebumps as I type it. I still remember the first time I read that those many years ago. I felt this sudden, huge rush of emotion. Not like, crying or anything, it was kind of an odd feeling. It was like someone understood me for the first time. It was like someone knew exactly who I was, and just summed up on paper. I still get chills from it, probably because no one’s been able to capture me in such a way since then. It really made me feel unique. At the same time, because it felt so personal and so special to me, it made me question it a bit like, “All I’ve done is never ever give up, is that so different from anyone else?” As I would come to learn, I am pretty different.

But now, I’m at a very weird stage in my life. Being disappointed so many times in such a short amount of time can do things to a person. My willpower has been tested to its core. I feel like I’m running on the very last reserves of fuel. My spirit has been broken. It feels like hope is protesting against me. My last couple posts have been about my extraordinary drive to pull through, and I think it’s really because I’m trying to summon it. I’ve been through times like this in my life too many times before, and I’ve made it through. But it’s never been this hard. I feel like the world is telling me to give up my hopes and dreams for what I want in my life. I’m just having a hard time fighting back and saying ‘no’.

I’m really happy for everyone who’s grown and succeeded. I really am. They’re good people, and they’ve deserved it. I’m just getting anxious because I can’t wait for my turn. Today is move in day at the dorms and to tell you the truth, I’m really scared of going back to school. I’m not scared of school or the people in it, but I’m afraid of doing what I did last year. I started last year excited. I put all the Loyola bullshit and college acceptance bullshit to the side, ready for a fresh start. I came in with a positive attitude, ready to make things my own. And what happened? I hate it there. Here I am again, excited, expectations once again set so high. Why do I do this to myself, in everything I do? I’m afraid of the disappointment I’ll face. Lord knows I need to get away from home…but Cal Poly’s only the lesser of two evils.

Anyways, here’s to the class of 2004. I miss what we had.

Quote of the day:

"The next day, after work, we just went to the beach. Far away from anything, everything, just Christopher and me. Far away from buses, and noise, and my constant disappointment in my ten gallon head, in myself. Because when I was young and I'd get an A on a history test.. or whatever.. I'd get this good feeling about all the things that I could be. And then I never became any of them." ~Pursuit of Happyness

For most of this summer, I haven’t been able to sleep for most nights. I lie down at around 11, and I’m awake until about 2 or sometimes 3 in the morning.  I’m severely anxious.  It’s like every night I’m playing staring contests with my ceiling; I’m tossing and turning, rolling around for a comfortable position that I can’t seem to find. But more than anything, I’m thinking, thinking, thinking.  During the day, I distract myself in front of the computer or the TV, but when it comes time for bed, I actually dread it.  At night, I’m most alone with my thoughts.  An anxiety comes over me.  My heart beats a million miles an hour, and thoughts go warp-speed through my mind, seemingly racing my heartbeat.  Every night is a trip down the dark alleyways of my life.  I can’t help but think about how I’m a big believer in the idea that everything happens for a reason.  But at this point in my life, I’m having trouble finding the reasons.  While I think this, I tell myself that even if I don’t know the reasons, everything that has happened has made me into a stronger person; everything has made me exactly who I am today.  But I’m tired of that.  I want to know why I’ve never really gotten anything I’ve truly wanted.  Or maybe I don’t even want to know why, I just want something in return for what I’ve lost; I want something just as good to compensate for the things I’ve wanted so badly but never could have.  I fear that my future is only full of more of disappointments.

Sometimes I think of myself as an old man.  I feel more mature and emotionally secure than any of my peers, to the point where I don’t relate to people who are out all the time having fun.  Why?  Am I so driven that I won’t let petty distractions possibly hinder my success? Am I unusually determined to succeed amidst failure?  Or am I just a snob?  I feel like a guy who has been tried and tested, and I’ve learned from my mistakes and my experiences.  But why haven’t I come out with anything to show for it?  Why haven’t I succeeded yet, in so many aspects?  I fear that I may have too many more mistakes and experiences to still learn from.

In thinking about how everything happens for a reason, I also think about what is ‘meant to be’.  I feel like I hear that phrase a lot these days.  When people say the expression, they point out that in their situation, any number of things could have derailed their course, but it’s as if the universe aligned correctly and the heavens smiled down and let them prosper.  I hear the phrase used to describe happy, successful achievements.  But is there a ‘not meant to be’?  By saying that some things are meant to be, aren’t you implying that some things are not?  If something does not happen, isn’t it meant to be that it did not happen?  Read that last sentence one more time.  Read it twice more.  Let it sink in.  Understand it.  The answer is yes to that question.  A bad thing could be meant to be just as much as a good thing.  People have a hard time with this, because we feel that the things we want will have a positive effect on our lives.  It seems impossible that not getting what we want could also have a positive effect on our lives.  In the times when nothing seems to work and you’re not getting what you want, in times when you’re the one suffering, it’s easy to think that it’s you’re fault, that you screwed your life up all by yourself.  It feels like the universe will never align correctly or the heavens will never smile upon you.  But sometimes, it’s meant to be that you don’t succeed, so that you’ll succeed in something else, somewhere down the road, through the alleyway.  I fear that I’m wrong and that everything is a coincidence; I fear that everything I’ve gone through has no meaning, and that it’s all just been my fault.  I fear that for me, what I want may not be meant to be.

P.S. If I’m so mature, am I naïve to think that some things are meant to be?  Does growing up mean forgetting about your hopes for a fairytale ending, and only approaching life as a realist?

The root of my anxiety lies in not being able to get what I want for my life right now, despite any of my efforts.  I'm afraid that I will continue not getting what I want for the future, and I feel discouraged to work towards anything.

There.  Without mentioning any specifics about what's going on in my life, I've actually rationalized my rationale... I feel a bit better.

Quotes of the Day:

"It was right then that I started thinking about Thomas Jefferson, the Declaration of Independence, and the part about our right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.  I remember thinking, 'how did he know to put the pursuit part in there?' That maybe happiness is something that we can only pursue, and maybe we can actually never have it, no matter what.  How did he know that?" 

~Christopher Gardner, The Pursuit of Happyness

When things are bad, we take comfort in the thought that they could always get worse. And when they are, we find hope in the thought that things are so bad they have to get better.

~Malcom Forbes

Dear Basketball,

We’ve known each other for quite some time now. I was first introduced to you when I was three years old, right when we moved to our new home near Eagle Rock. You seemed just as young back then, coming to me in the form of a six-foot tall Fisher Price court. At the time, I had no idea about your storied history. I barely even knew your name. I only heard about you on Sundays, attending my dad’s Pac Rim games, or during the times when I would sit with my dad as we watched some gold team run around on TV. Little did I know that there would be countless hours spent with my dad in our tiny backyard as he showed me how to dance with you.

I’ve always heard the saying that sports don’t build character, they reveal it. But it’s only now that I’m a little older that I’ve come to understand the meaning of the axiom. With you being a metaphor for life, I’m beginning to realize that even as a young kid, you showed me and showed the world the one personality characteristic that is both my greatest strength and my greatest weakness. I’m beginning to learn that ever since I was young, I’ve always been an extremely driven and determined individual.

When I was six years old, my parents put me in a league that my dad’s friend set up. There were only two teams, a red team that was older than a blue team, and we played against each other every Saturday. Every game was a battle. But my blue team, the younger team, lost every single one. There would even be a championship game at the end of the season, and for two seasons in a row, we lost every game including the championship game. I remember crying after some games; I wanted that trophy so badly. But I also remember playing in my backyard every single day of the week, just for the Saturday games. I didn’t understand you back then. I didn’t understand the work it would take to be great. I learned quickly. But we still lost every game, and everyone’s parents began to feel sorry for me. Here was a little boy, pouring out his heart and soul into every game, and then I’d leave the gym quiet, holding back tears. They tried giving me a consolation prize, the only kid to get one from my team, but I refused it. They even asked me and the other two captains, Matt and Jayson, to join the red team. I told them ‘no’ right away, but Matt switched to the red, and Jayson played one game against me but came back because he felt sorry for me. To this day, I don’t know why I didn’t switch; I was so tired of losing. Something in me fully embraced the challenge of bringing the blue team to glory. Something in me would not give up for anything. I played just two games in the third season before my parents pulled me out because they were tired of seeing me upset. I later found out that my blue team won that championship game that year. I would get the trophy that I had wanted more than anything for two years, in the mail. It still sits in my room, “Speedy Oil Youth League Champions 1998”, meaningless.

I say that this competitive passion to endure that you’ve shown me has been my greatest strength, but it’s also been my greatest weakness. The passion and ambition to be great has sometimes put me on my own lonely island. And sometimes, in my determination, I get too caught up and I overlook other things that are important to me. My hunger has been an attribute that few people have understood about me.

I became most close to you when I came to St. Dominic at that same age. I began to go out to see you everyday at recess and lunch for 5 on 5 half-court games. I would be the captain of one team, and a kid named Andre was always the captain of the other. He would pick JC first, and then Michael second, and then we’d play for fifteen-minutes. And somehow, someway, they would always win. I would lose everyday, twice a day. It helped that they were the three best players at the time, and they always ended up on the same team. I remember getting the first pick one time, only to watch in horror as JC actually gave the ball to the other team every time. I was always frustrated. I was frustrated for myself and my teammates; no matter what we did, we would never win. I yelled at teammates who would lose the ball or miss a shot. There would be games when I wouldn’t pass to anyone just because I only trusted myself. To add insult to injury, Andre loved to talk and poke fun at my frustration and my serious approach to these pick up games. JC and Michael didn’t respect me. Some teammates were afraid to play with me, and then would join in the trash talking when they’d play for the other team. Kids can be cruel that way. Nobody seemed to like me. Nobody understood me. I had very few friends then, and I remember going home and finishing my homework quickly just so that I could go outside and practice. But for every day from second grade to fourth grade, I would play during every recess and lunch, and I don’t think I won a single fifteen-minute game. Now that I’m older, I’m realizing how different people are, and I’m learning how different I must’ve been. How did I have this incredible will? I didn’t understand why my teammates didn’t have this same burning desire for success. With the way that we always lost, most seven year olds would have quit—in fact, some of my teammates did—but I never would. There were times when I’d play already knowing my team would lose, but I consistently went out and gave it everything I got every time. I didn’t know it at the time, but looking back at it now, I was a very different kind of little kid.

And then, you smiled upon me and blessed me with success. In 5^th grade my dad coached the team. Respect for me became a requirement. I remember JC and Andre coming up to me to ask me if they made the team, and I remember thinking, “they’re really talking to me.” For the next four years I began to have fun playing with you, and my popularity only grew and grew. I was team captain, starting shooting guard. There were no longer any arguments or trash talk during recess or lunch. The game was pure, and I kept working hard throughout the years and over the summers to keep team success. By 8^th grade, our class was united. I had embraced everyone as a friend, and everyone had finally embraced me. The only argument people had was, “Who was the best basketball player in the school, JC or Brian?” and I loved it. JC and I never talked about it ourselves, just out of respect for each other, but even our P.E. teacher got into it and had us play one-on-one during one class. I got my butt kicked. The truth is, that rivalry drove me to work to become a better player. I took whatever people said against me as a challenge. Every little thing was fuel for me to keep practicing. I like to think that it drove JC to practice hard too. No matter what, we were better as a team, and we won 10 out of 12 games that year and went to the playoffs—a very successful season for the Saints.

But in that 8^th grade summer going into high school, I neglected you. I held someone else more important, and stupidly assumed I could easily enjoy the same success in high school. I made the first cut for tryouts, but then I was cut after that. I got into my dad’s car, told him I didn’t make it, and a single tear streamed down my face. After that, I knew I never wanted to feel that way again. I worked extremely hard that summer. I sacrificed everything and made it a point to see you every single day. I even got to know your cousins, ‘Running’, and ‘Lifting’, and I saw them during the week as well. It was here that I learned that I’m the type of person, that if I want something bad enough, I’ll do whatever it takes for however long it takes in order to get it. I was at my best with you. People at the park would marvel at the shots I’d hit in their faces, or the passes I’d make in between defenders. JC had made his high school team and I challenged him to one-on-one that summer, and this time, I beat him convincingly. I was bitter, and I worked so hard to try and win you back. But life being the way that it is, I tried out my sophomore year, and I was told that I was good enough to make the team, but there aren’t enough spots. I was heartbroken. Because when I was young, and I needed someone to lean on, someone I could trust, someone that seemed to understand me, I always went to you. You were a sanctuary for me whenever it felt like the world was against me, and then it was like you were gone. I did absolutely everything I could, and it still wasn’t enough. Over the next two summers, I’d still practice and improve, but now not as hard. I’d go into tryouts and already know I wouldn’t make it, and I’d hear variations of “good enough, but not enough spots”. I would play for two more teams, one in my sophomore year and one in my senior year, and I’d win a total of 4 games from both teams. You had left me, and it seemed like no matter what I did, we just weren’t meant to be.

Now it’s as though we’re both making an effort to be friends. I watch you on TV or read about you any chance I get these days, and I respect you more than ever. I’ll always remember how we bumped in to each other when Kraig, Michael, and David re-introduced you and I. It was awkward, and we had a tough season, but ultimately you’ve given me the confidence to trust in you again. And by winning a championship on this Pac Rim team, you’ve reminded me just how good of a friend you can be.

I guess what I’m trying to say here is a thanks, basketball. Thank you for my father, mother, and sister. Thank you for the Speedy Oil Youth League, the blue team, the red team, and Matt and Jayson. Thank you for St. Dominic’s, Saints’ Basketball, Andre, JC, Mike, and all of my life-long friends. Thank you for the respect I’ve been given. Thank you for the confidence you’ve given me. Thank you for every teammate I’ve ever had. Thank you for Coach Thomason, Coach Adams, and everyone else who also said I couldn’t. Thank you for letting me meet Loyola Track & Field. Thank you for Ice Water, and for Kraig and David. Thank you for the love of shoes and for the love of hip-hop. Thank you so much for Inside Moves and Tito Ricky. Thank you for idols to look up to and personalities I can identify with, in Michael Jordan and then in Kobe Bryant. Thank you for the Lakers.

More than anything, thank you for letting me get to know myself. The best relationships are the ones in which you learn about who you really are, and in doing so, you learn about life. You’ve definitely done that for me. You were my best friend when I had none. You were my refuge when no one understood me. And when people started to understand me, even though I’ll never fully understand what you did, you gave me my space to grow on my own. Thank you for showing me that it’s ok to never give up. Thank you for showing me what it means to work hard. Thank you for teaching me that falling is a part of life, and that getting back up is a way of life.

The only thing in my life right now that I know is true is that I love you, basketball. And coming from a man who hasn’t loved much besides himself and his family, it means a lot for me to say that. You have given me the confidence to take on any challenge. You’ve always been there for me, and you’ve shown me what it takes to succeed. And because of you, I know that no matter how difficult the journey, no matter how long it’s going to take, and no matter how many obstacles are in my way, I will have the strength, passion, and courage to remain driven.

Much love and respect,

Brian Paggao

Quote of the Day:

"What is love? Love is playing every game as if it's your last."

~Michael Jordan

With the tributes starting to come around as His Airness takes his rightful throne in the HOF, I thought I'd put my version of a tribute in a little early.