Issue: Amnesiac
Unlike the previous Radiohead record, Amnesiac took me only a few days to really get to assimilate to the new tracks. Kid A, however, forced me to a two week spree of headphone struggle and sore earlobes. It was worth it; Kid A is the best album by any artist of any era (Ok, maybe just the post-Nirvana era) ever and I am not ashamed to admit that I love Thom (blushing like a girl). Amnesiac is, how am I to put it, in between OK Computer and Kid A, in terms of how avant-garde it sounds, and how long it took me to get used to it. The album as a whole ambient piece is less structured, and the tracks are more familiar to the ears, compared to Kid A. I would not say that Amnesiac is more radio-friendly than its predecessor, though there are about two tracks that conform to the verse-chorus-verse format and you could hear a lot of guitar work functioning as melody riff, but I guess the critics were correct to say that Amnesiac is a more accessible cut of the Kid A session. As usual, I do not give a flying fart what the critics have to say (although the majority of Radiohead fans are indeed music critics – just read their reviews!) and even if the Oxford band were to release an album of sounds in an art museum, I would buy it and sleep to it at night. Not kidding, dude.

Issue: Serious Monkey Business
One new Malaysian female student just arrived a few days back to the U of M, and as I had predicted it to the most intimate details, the male students around here are getting as horny as shaved middle-aged monkeys. I think she is good-looking (though when she came by to my place, I only had the chance to see her left foot) and being the earliest of the bunch of forty plus new students to grace Minnesota this fall, for sure she will be the center of attention of these monkeys. All of my roommates had already given her lovey-dovey nicknames (I do not think she knew about this) and ever since Pyan bought his new Accura car, they have been visiting her, faithfully everyday and sometimes at her own behest, like a sick old grandma. I remember a joke a friend told me once, “A guy would leave his decades old buddies just to be at the side of a one-day girlfriend”. In my case, that would be more like “My roommates are so deep into this flirting shit, that they have forgotten tomorrow is the first day of summer class”. Oh well, at least I have the TV to myself for a change.

Issue: No, I am Not Jealous!
Hey! If you are thinking that I am jealous because these purple-assed monkeys are busy getting the attention of the new girl, then you are one high pothead. I do not need to parade my ‘buffed abs’ or show my ‘unique sense of humor’ to get her attention like them monkeys, all I need to do is to come to class every Tuesday and Thursday evening (she is also in the non-native freshmen writing summer section) and do my homework diligently. Like I want her attention, duh! Hey, I enrolled in that course weeks before anybody else, okay? Even before she knew which U to go to, alright? Oh, shut up, you sick perverts.

Issue: Unemployed and Will Stay That Way (For A While)
Yeah, I was right. Both job positions that I had to be interviewed for in the Bio-Medic Department had emailed me of their rejections. It was not that painful having to read that in an email; open email, read email and delete email. If the news came to me by phone, I might have cussed the crap out of that guy’s family. Not that it is entirely his fault though, just that, you know, being it my first venture into the employment world and that he had given me my first bad experience about it. Oh well, it was also my fault (What was I thinking? Bio-Medic? Hello, Mr. Knucklehead, biology and medicine!). I guess I should have first tried looking for the ones that require less brain power, like soaking my hands in hostel toilet bowls or scrapping the locker room tiles, like the ones my roommates are doing. Hah, no way, Jose! The main reason I was not chosen for the Bio-Medic positions was that I had ‘no prior job experience’ and that they could not seek referrals from my previous employees of my ‘previous job performance’. When I read that, I said to myself “How am I going to get job experience if you will not give me a job, you asshole?”. That was the logic coming from a university staff? What, am I in the Cuban Republic already?

Issue: Fat? Not Anytime Soon.
I am doing great and feeling fine. I sleep like a corpse (Whoa, scary!) and eat like a monk (They eat frugally, correct?). Every time I jog, I sweat a bucket. If a bucket worth of sweat is equal to a half-inch shrink of my waistline, that would bring me to…ugh, math. So far, I have ran across the Mississippi more than ten lapses since the first day last week and I do not see anything holding me back from doing that again soon. The effect of it are still vague (but the pain are there); so, I guess I will be doing this through the summer or even fall. Everything depends on the weather actually. In Minnesota, even the level of sanity depends on the weather. Do not believe me? Come here in the middle of a Minnesota winter snowstorm and I will show a mental hospital in the middle of the U during lunch hour.