Today was a good day.

So, day six of my break is done, with essentially two to go before my retreat, and today shaped up quite nicely.

First thing I did was visit my old high school friends Mike & Joe. It was OK; they were playing a trading card game that I wasn't exactly familiar with. Although not all of you play them, I'm sure you've heard of some of them: Magic: The Gathering, Pokemon. My flavors in high school started with Magic and ended with Star Wars. This one they were playing was called ".hack//ENEMY", based on the video game series. I learned to play a bit, but I must admit that I felt a little more like the outsider. You see, games of this sort create a close knit community, which was why I was attracted to them in the first place, but being involved in that community, like any community for that matter, requires that you are familiar with the lingo and nuances of the game, so I was definitely out of the loop.

Afterward, I met up with another old friend, Reva, in Berkeley for late lunch. It's crazy 'cuz I really don't talk to her too much, but we ended up talking for hours about our days in St. Joe's! A lot of my other friends could care less about the folks not in our circle, but Reva brought up names I hadn't heard in years, and we definitely had a blast.

At the same time, it was kinduva tragic conversation because we talked alot about the fucked up shit that happened with our classmates. That's the way w/St. Joe's. Don't let the "St." fool you; just because it's a private school doesn't mean we don't have our problems. Sex, alcohol, drugs, that stuff is rampant in St. Joe's, but taboos, strict parents, a school that won't admit the issues in the open, and the lack of safe spaces for students to express themselves and deal with these issues allows this shit to continue. It's part of the reason why I want to come back to St. Joe's to teach, and breathe some fresh air into a system that's gone stagnant. But public schools have their needs as well, so it's tough to say where I belong, but there's no doubt that high school is a place that I need to be.

After walking Reva to the library, I drove back home, popped in a DVD, and watched A Beautiful Mind. I must say that I really enjoyed this film, and in particular, I felt connected with Russell Crowe's character, John Nash.

There was something about John Nash and how his schizophrenia created this internal world with vivid characters that hit me, 'cuz I kinda do the same thing too. There are times at night when I sit up in bed, and I think about all the people and events in my life, and I play them back in my mind, but they play out differently, to my ideal. That ideal makes me happy, but it's usually enough to pacify me, and so I don't try to work to change my real world situation into my ideal, and so things stay the same. I don't know if that made sense, but it made sense to me, kinda like John Nash. =P My personality profile says that I should learn to take in more objective information (i.e. check in with reality more often), so that's my goal for this next quarter; check-in w/reality more often (Yeah, that did sound really weird, didn't it).

So now I'm contemplating how I should spend my two other days of freedom. I was thinkin' of visiting the high school again, only for their musical practice, and maybe breaking in a new game of mine. But yeah, today was a good day.

Love... or something disguised as it.

Wow, only two days with a blog and I'm already on my fifth entry. Can you tell I'm making up for lost time?

Anyways, as I said before, whenever I come home I end up thinking a lot. I tend to do a lot of reflecting in general, but this house makes it go into overdrive. During the first few days, I usually think about UCLA, since I was in that mode for so long. But as the environment begins to set in, with the old yearbooks side-by-side with English books I read for 11th grade honors English, with all the posters and paraphernalia from all the theatre shows I did, I start to think about my high school days again, and all the drama I had left unresolved here. And a majority of it came from a big huge dose of a broken heart.

You have to understand that my high school days went downhill ever since the middle of my junior year. At that time, I had finished my last play with our director Mr. Hooke (who did an absolutely amazing job, considering the small resources we had), I was the lead in "Black Elk Speaks", a play adaption of both the biography "Black Elk Speaks" and "Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee", which to this day was one of the most amazing roles I ever had the honor to perform, and I just became an upperclassperson. Things were pretty swell.

But then Mr. Hooke left, and in all honesty, the quality of the plays went down, pressure to get into college went up, and the school just started feeling smaller and smaller. While these were natural growing pains, things just seemed to become exacerbated when it happened the middle of my senior year: my first relationship.

Growing up with an immigrant mentality from my parents, I figured that as long as I tried hard enough, things would work out. And for this relationship, I tried. Really, really hard. But to make a long story short, stuff happened, and my pleas for a restoration of a friendship that had once existed (prior, we had been good friends for almost two years) were denied.

The strange thing about it was that it wasn't just myself, but all my good friends had been going through some sort of relationship trauma our senior year. And none of us could understand it; all of us were really well-meaning guys that didn't want to hurt the people we cared about. And what we got in return was a helluva lot of profanity, or worse, the "you don't exist" attitude. I got the "you don't exist" treatment.

And there were other examples where feelings of attachment seemed to fuck us over. There was another girl (let's call her Sara) who I had become good friends with, and she was growing a liking to me. But I also knew that one of my good guy friends, (let's call him Bill) had a thing for her. I knew that Bill had asked Sara to the prom, and she had turned him down. I also knew that Bill had broken up with his gf a few weeks prior. And wouldn't you know it, afterschool, Sara asked me to the prom... in front of Bill.

You know what happened? Bill went into seizure.

Yes, you heard me, Bill went into seizure. Fucking scary. It was at that point I was like, FUCK THIS ATTRACTION SHIT, IT CAN'T BE WORTH THIS. (I also came to realize that Sara, in many ways, was just clueless about being sensitive about relationship trauma, 'cuz when she got a bf, all she could talk about was how happy she was, while I was still trying to get over my ex. I then stopped talking to Sara.)

Oh yeah, and I didn't go to the prom with Sara.

Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not gonna taut myself in saying that I did everything right. What made the whole thing worse was a thing called "My Pride", and I had a whole lot of it. In the end, if I had just swallowed my pride and moved on, most of this trauma would've never happened. For the most part, I feel like I have moved on, but the fact that I haven't been in a relationship since that time leaves a lingering, bitter aftertaste.

And so is my history with "love." And so a few things came out of that period of my life that shape me into the man you know today:

1) I re-dedicated myself to work and school.
I was doing so much better when I had just focused on those to things, and I found that the relationships I made that revolved around those things were much more stable than anything involved with "love".

2) I grew to completely detest cutesy couple shit.
Don't get me wrong; I'm not against couples per-se. It's just that I only come to respect couples that can still act like NORMAL PEOPLE IN PUBLIC. You know, the folks who don't make you feel like you're a 3rd wheel, that don't have to be in constant contact with one another, that don't need to have to express their "love" every hour, that don't need to keep reminding each other that they "love" each other, etc. Couples who are confident in their love, like those that live in my complex, I've come to respect; as for those who need to make an exhibition, get a room. Special moments between two people are exactly what they're described to be, between TWO people, not THREE.

3) I was going to work on being myself and just let folks who naturally drifted my way, well, drift my way.
I wasn't going to take any sort of initiative with romance; I wasn't going to force anything. I was just going be the best me I could be, and let the people fall where they may.

4) I would make certain that my next partner would have to understand that school, family, and community service, would all be on a higher priority than her.
I know that sounds hella cold, but honestly, I wouldn't expect her to put me within her top three priorities either. Those are my passions, and my next partner would have to respect those passions, because I wouldn't expect myself to change them in the near future (just as I would respect her priorities).

And so for better or for worse, that's where I stand. Where do you all stand on this thing called "love"? Let me know. I need the research.

You know the old saying... "You can't go back to high school again."

Today, I went back to my old high school, good ole' St. Joseph Notre Dame High School of Alameda, California (and current Division IV Boys Basketball State Champions!). I always have an interesting time going back. The strangest thing about this year is that there's no students left from when I went to school. Odder still, I recognize a whole bunch of relatives of the folks I went to school with, so now it feels like one huge alternate universe where the people I knew evolved ever so slightly, but were definitely different people.

The teachers also tend to have a few more grays, but overall stay consistent. I begin to understand how they could constantly mix up our names with those of our siblings. In a school of less than 600, you know everyone, and everyone knows you, and your entire family. Such is life at St. Joe's.

I know that I'm getting older when my memories of the school become much more fond than I remember. I know that by the time I was a senior, I grew so frustrated of the structure, and how a lot of my classmates were really treated with a lot of disrespect. I also came to notice how students whose parents had strings within the PTA had a few more chances than the students who were on financial aid, most of whom were students of color. I remember the story of one student of the class after me who got expelled for mentioning the school's name on a radio station while she was talking trash about some other girl. It was worse in that she was a senior and had already gotten an acceptance letter to college. Now I agree that what she did was petty and adolescent, but geez, just ruin her college hopes for that?!? It was ironic that in our religion classes we were taught that we should follow Jesus's example and show mercy, and yet the administration wouldn't blink an eye to force a student out. You could say that my senior year was the first year I became conscious of the System, and how politics played favorites for some and screwed the rest.

At the same time, many of the same teachers and administrators from my days remain, many of whom were there when my sisters were there 7 and 11 years before me, and I've come to respect their deep and true passion for education. True, I do have concerns about some of their methods (Maybe I should give them a copy of Friere and SPEAR's Spiral Model counseling methodology. Can you say "acknowledging the student's experience"?), but their heart is in the right place, and that should count for something.

At the same time, I also get a kick out of listening in on teacher's conversations of how things REALLY work in school. It really does pay to be an outsider, and it actually does explain a bit in how the students can get so frustrated, and how the teachers can get just as frustrated. Maybe we were all in the same boat after all.

I try to tell my teachers about UCLA and how college has treated me, but it's kinda like talking to my family about school. There's so much that I want to tell them about: my friends, Samahang... my friends in Samahang. But when it comes down to it, all I tell them is that I'm doing good, my year, and my major. Such is the UCLA experience and in particular the Samahang experience; how can you describe the responsibility of reading evaluations of retention projects, making recommendations, sitting on subcommittees where you're planning to talk with UCLA administrators about academic policies and what they should be doing, plan programming for your general membership, all in the name of "positive, systemic change", not to mention that you've also found an amazing family, and the only impression you seem to make on folks is "oh, you're in a club?" Either Samahang is something a helluva lot different from anything that's out there, or UCLA truly is in its own bubble, detached from most of the real world, or maybe it's a mix of both. It reminded me of how I used to think about power structure, with administrators on the top and the students and teachers getting screwed at the bottom, and how my life at UCLA has completely changed the way I think about power. The administrators aren't all that powerful, just detached, and the students are not all that powerless, just unaware. It also reminds at how much I would like to go back and create some good ole' "positive, systemic change", and hope that the students can truly come to realize how much potential they really have.

I guess in the end, I go back to always remind myself of how far I've come, a litmus test of what my UCLA experience has really been. And I must say that I've grown so much: now I'm a little more assertive, a little less angry, a little more proactive, and a lot less fearful. I've still got a ways to go, but for four years, I don't think I've done half bad.

Sleepless in Oakland

This always happens. I come home, ready to rest up, and here I am, 3+ AM in the morning, updating my webjournal. I don't know if I just get antsy at home, or if it's some subconscious reaction where I return to my bizarre sleeping schedule during high school. It's just that when I get home, I end up thinking. A lot.

It's usually a bunch of random stuff. Mostly, it's been about UCLA. Really, this is the first time in a long time that I haven't had something pressing to do in 10 weeks and honestly, it's a bit unnerving. I think it has something to do with my nature. I have this need to do work, probably because it's through my work where I interact with my support group. In high school, it was theatre. At UCLA, it's Samahang. And the times I felt the crappiest was when I had neither. Vacations are that bizarre period when you're taken away from what has essentially been your life for almost three months, and I can't help but feel a little empty.

It's not that I don't value the time I spend at home. Just last night, my cousin came down from Canada to celebrate his birthday with his family, and we came to visit. I really had a great time, especially seeing my cousins. God, I missed them! Most of the cousins I feel closest to are in high school and getting ready for college. Although I love UCLA, one of the bad things about it is that I don't spend as much time w/my cousins as I would like. I just think they're an amazing group of people with a lot of spirit, and we really don't get together as often as we should.

And that's just it. I really get a high when I'm connecting w/people. And I don't know if people around me are aware of that because I'm by myself so often. It's true, I do like to spend my time alone, meditating, thinking about the day, being my naturally introverted self, and being around people for an extended amount of time does wear me out, but it's because I get so much energy from those people that they just wear me out. And I have my own belief that when you've collapsed in your bed, completely exhausted, that you know you've had a good day. Although I love vacations, I don't have too many days like that, which is why I'm up on the better side of 4 in the morning, waiting for that exhausted feeling.

Return of the Mack

So here I go again. I finally come back to the web journal community. If you want to see my first attempt at web journals, click here. If you ever get a chance to read through that thing, you'll realize why I stopped updating. Most of my entries began with "I've had a long day..." or "Whew, I really haven't updated in a while. Gosh, there's so much that's been going on..." or something towards that theme. Me being two years older, and wiser (supposedly), I've come to realize that moderation is a virtue, and thus I will try to keep things moderate and regular. Yup, that's me. Moderate and regular.

So why have I decided to re-start this webjournal thing? Well, I've realized that I don't really get to keep up with people I really need to keep up with, even with people I see on a regular basis. I also tend to have a work mentality in my regular spaces, and so it doesn't occur to me to let folks know where I'm at, who I am outside my positions, my history, etc. I also found myself point-clicking my way through endless links through my friends' webjournals, being fascinated and entertained in the process. And after all, I can't let my friends have all the fun. =P

And so begins the second era of webjournaling, and hopefully a new insight into the man, the myth, the legend that is Randy Bautista.

I have returned!!!

Can you believe it? My return to the online web journal is complete! It's kind of like the return of the old school Undertaker on WWE, but with more pizzaz. Anyway, I actually have three web journals running simultaneously: a xanga, livejournal, and blogger, simply because I have friends using all of these services, and would like to give all of them equal opportunities to respond to my lovely writings. Don't worry, all of the content on all three will be exactly the same. So that's just my notice; a real update will be coming real soon.