This will be a long post. A lot of things have happened in the last few weeks.

First and foremost, my computer was infected by a horrible spyware last Sunday. I am pretty knowledgeable when it comes to protecting the computer and all, but this was one tough bastard. What an epic battle. So this is how it went down. I left the computer for about ten minutes and then came back in the room and then saw this mob of huge black cyber beetles crawling all over my screen. They were like those beetles that invaded our school, except these sons of bitches secreted semen. That's right. They were skeeting all over my nature wallpaper, covering my sunset background with blue love juice. Which sick bastard would create such a spyware? Anyway it turns out that the beetles are part of a screensaver... except I don't have a screensaver.

So as you can imagine, I was panicking and busting out Spybot and Ad-aware. I managed to get the spyware out but then somehow it sabotaged my Internet connection on its way out. So I gave a call to Time Warner Cable, which I hate doing. A young woman answered the phone, and I was wondering whether she was Indian or not but I couldn't tell. She started walking me through the basic crap like restarting the modem and unplugging the router.

And then the moment of truth came. She told me to run "ipconfig" on the computer. To help me spell that, she said: "I for India... P for Peter..." Right when I heard "I for India," I half-grunted and half-laughed. I for India? Really now? But then it got better. She put me on hold for 30 minutes... and then transferred me to a customer representative in Maine. The guy in Maine had to laugh when I told him my address because, you know, Maine is not even close to California. One call back to the California station got me in touch with a different customer representative. I thought I could detect the Indian accent and sure enough, the woman on the phone said "I for India" as she spelled out "ipconfig" for me again. I wonder if this is their way of retaining their cultural heritage and bonding as a group against the vicissitudes of immigrant experience. I sure hope so.

A few days ago my mom got into a car accident. While I was at school, a dude ran into her bumper at a parking lot. The car only suffered a few bumps and scratches in the back, and my mom wasn't hurt. It was the dude's fault for bumping into her, and they apparently negotiated for a settlement of $100. My mom is very sharp when it comes to these things, and she made sure she got the compensation (she followed him to his house when he said he didn't have his checkbook, then she didn't trust his bulky checkbook so she had him give the money in cash). Then after talking to me about it, my mom started feeling sorry she took the money.

You know that quote in The Catcher in the Rye about all mothers being slightly crazy? Well my mom is pretty crazy. She has these completely false theories about how the world works, and she makes hasty generalizations about things based on the first impressions. So she starts describing the guy to me: he is middle-aged Caucasian male, he was wearing a shabby gray shirt, he lived in an apartment home and his car was old so he was probably single and poor. But based on his facial expression, she thought he was a nice person. He submitted meekly to her requests after the accident and made sure she was all right. Then she tells me that the guy's nails were all chewed up, which means he was probably a nervous person and therefore had lots of things to worry about like relationships and financial security. She remembers the top of his hands being slightly darkened and oily so she thinks he was a car mechanic maybe. By this time I knew my mom was going off on her extrapolations but I was quite impressed by her observations. And I was starting to feel pretty sorry for the guy too. My mom is thinking about returning the money since she knows where he lives. I suggested she buy him lunch instead.

Recently I've been thinking a lot about what it means to be human. Really, what sets apart humans from other living creatures? The first and foremost thing that comes to mind for me is morals. Humans have come up with this thing called morals, which force them to hold back their instinctive behavior and desires so that they can "do the right thing." But it's interesting that the human morals are different across time and place. You look at the past and some parts of the world today, and people tolerate things like abuse against women or persecution of a religious group. And really, that's why there are so many conflicts and wars. We fight over which set of morals is correct.

Still, if you look at the progression of human civilizations over time, there is a general consensus forming about the desired set of morals. Toleration of differences, treating others the way you want to be treated, freedom of speech are just some of the morals that prevail in most parts of the world. This gets me thinking then, just how likely is it that today's semi-universal set of morals prevailed? In other words, what were the chances of humans creating a world like the one today, where they value things like freedom, equality, and respect toward each other? Is it in our nature to create such a world or did it happen by chance? Could humans have created a ruthless competitive society rife with violence and guided by Darwinism alone? It's funny, all humans have is a more complex nervous system than other mammals. Can we attribute a bigger brain to the creation of a collective set of morals?

Sorry about the long boring post today. Next post will be about girls.

Bye bye AP Tests

We're finally done. Ok I still have AP Lang tomorrow but I am going to just wing it because I am a fob and one night of cramming won't refine my linguistic sensibilities. In retrospect, Calc AB was ok, APUSH was pretty hard, Bio FRQ was ridiculous, and Chem was pretty hard. At the beginning of the year, it seemed that the year would never end but time's been moving pretty fast now that I think about it. Now we are ready to be seniors. Scary.

Dining in the Dark last Friday was amazing. We were expecting around 100 people to show up and got about 260. We started running out of tables and chairs so the extra guests just dragged tables and chairs from some other rooms and formed their own communities. Props to Peter Kim for getting volunteers for the event. Without them, serving the food for that many guests would have been impossible. I stayed in the kitchen for most of the event. The volunteers and I formed our very own child-labor assembly line and prepared the dishes. I was the bread and butter guy and damn good at it. But really, serving food for 260 people was much more time-consuming than I thought. I was standing there with bread and butter for what seemed like hours, and then someone came in to say that 75 guests still needed to be served. We ran out of meatballs but I think it worked out all right.

The best part about the event was the talent show. Peter and An delivered an awesome performance. It was actually my first time seeing Peter play the guitar and I thought he would look funny but he looked natural. An's voice really surprised me above anything else. I don't think most people are aware that An can sing damn well. What I will always remember is that during his rendition of What a Wonderful World, a blind girl in the audience just stood up and swayed to the music, despite her mother's chiding. A blind girl and a choir director sang after them, and they were amazing too. Just an awesome experience overall.

When I look back at my experience at Oxford, one thing I will definitely remember is eating lunch by the basketball courts. It started in either seventh or eighth grade, and we the original founding fathers of the sacred playground are still upholding the tradition. I remember about two weeks ago, the basketball courts were shut off so that new courts could be built, and I felt like a displaced refugee. The basketball courts are our natural habitat. There are many memories from those courts that I cherish: Peter Kim breaking Jun's ankles in seventh grade, Alan Nguyen going through a week of shooting superstardom, Chad being Chad. Good stuff.

Recently I've been wondering about whether or not I really care about other people, whether there are common characteristics in people I do care about, and what my motives may be for caring. Because the act of caring is strangely linked to my psychological health, I've been questioning my intention. But I think I can safely say now that acts of kindness I do for others are inspired only by the act of caring. I wonder what the origin of all that is. Whatever it is, I'm glad humans have it.