Chimaobi’s Neighborhood

I feel like I would be perfectly content spending the rest of my life lying in a grassy field. Miles and miles away from any and everything...

All I'd need is my guitar, a pick, and a lifetime supply of Golden Delicious apples. And notebooks. Lots and lots of notebooks. I'd come up with the dopest stuff EVER.

Songs, screenplays, poems, novels...I already spend soo much time in my own head space. Just give me a chance to get things out, to create, to make something of substance out of nothing.

To make things that move people, that heal, that fix, that awaken, that mean something. Art that evokes emotion, that strikes chords, that resonate with people in truly amazing ways.

I just want need to make people feel.So years from now when people look back on me they can say, "David? That guy had something. He understood human connection and was able to touch people in astounding ways. He changed lives for the better because all he knew how to do was feel. Maybe I can too..."

I could do this, right? All I need is time, space, and a sky to look up at

One of these days....

I'm actually trying to have a moderately productive break. I have a lot of time to burn, and a lot of good could come from it. So here is my plan. Each day of break I plan to do the following:

- Work on  a screenplay: I have a bunch of movie ideas, and I'm constantly getting ideas for scenes, dialouge, shots, etc. These ideas will never come to fruition if they're not in a screenplay. And though I wish they did, screenplays do not write themselves. It's actually fun work though, just tedious with all the formatting. They say a page of screenplay translates to about a minute of screentime. We'll see...(Daily allocation = 1-2 hours?)

- Practice guitar: I love playing guitar, and I'll only get better with more practice. I'm not bad right now, but open chords are pretty much all I know. I need to learn and practice barre chords. I should also be practicing single-note stuff like scales and solos. All those fast and complex solos start out slow and simple. I just have to learn and practice them in pieces. (min. of 2 hours)

- Work on scholarship stuff: College isn't free, and getting in doesn't mean anything if I can't pay for it. I could get into Harvard (though I didn't apply) but if I can't come up with the cash, my butt is staying in Trenton. There are maddd scholarships out there, and I won't get them if I don't apply. A lot of them have easy requirements, but some of them require more time. So...I should work on this stuff. (should be at least 2hrs., but let's say 1-2 hours)

- WATCH A MOVIE!!: As an aspiring filmmaker, I should be watching films like a freakin junkie, right? It's like a basketball player watching NBA games or a writer reading a good book. I do love movies, so I should make it a habit to watch more. At least one a day. (2 hours)

So all this stuff should take 6-8 hours a day. This leaves me plenty of time to sit around and watch "King of Queens", which is my current favorite show. I have several seasons on my computer and watch at least 4 episodes a day. Let's see how well I can stick to this. Any suggestions for more productive stuff to do? Or movies to watch?

Peace.

     So I'm done with the last finals I'll ever take in high school, since Lawrenceville seniors don't have finals spring term. I stayed up until 5 this morning working, even though I had a science final at 9. I don't really have any spring break plans. I'm going to visit my bro in Mississippi during my last week, but that's about it. I have off from now until the 23rd. I'm really just glad to be home, where I have weeks to just chill, sleep, and not stress. Plus, when I go back it will be senior spring, the most infamous trimester of the Lawrenceville experience. I'm only taking 4 classes (2 of which are Filmmaking and Film Criticism, both courses I'm pumped about), I don't have to do a sport, and I don't have to check-in until 10 each night. My plans? Lots of guitar and lots of Halo 3. I can't wait.

     Haven't been back in Trenton 2 hours and I already remember why I miss it. Literally two seconds after we stepped out the car when we got home, some dude approached my mom trying to sell something. My immediate thought was "Wow. Some dude is really trying to sell my mom drugs in front of my face." After he greeted her politely, something I would not expect from the average drug dealer, I thought he was trying to sell CDs. Turns out he was trying to sell neither. He told my mom some story about how his girlfriend broke his heart, so he took all her stuff and is now trying to sell some of it. This dude was trying to sell my mom bikinis. Keep in mind it's 10:30 at night, she is clearly a grown woman with at least one kid, and it's March. He said, and I quote, "They're cute. If I was a girl, I'd wear them." The icing on the cake? My mom bought one. She clearly realized something fishy was up, but she felt bad for the dude, having broken up with the "love of his life". I just thought it was funny. Oh, Trenton.     

Oh yeah, I got my first college acceptance letter today, from Hofstra University. I'm extremely happy about this. This means that no matter what else happens, I'm definitely going to college. The great thing about my college list is that all the schools on it are actually schools I wouldn't mind going to. Hofstra is great, so I'm really excited. I mean, (Francis Ford) Coppola went there for crying out loud.  Hopefully, this is the first of many acceptances. We'll see.

Peace.

Cause that's when our weekends start here at Lville. Here's what my week looked like...

Monday - Well, I think you know what Monday looked like...

Tuesday - Went to get free pancakes at IHoP for dinner. I should have known how long the lines were gonna be. People love IHoP. People love free stuff...The line (once you actually get in the door), was really tightly packed. This made for lots of awkward conversation, as you can't really stand inches apart from someone else's face for 20 min. without saying something. Things really got interesting when people tried to leave because for some bizarre reason, the mangaer decided to seal off the exit with duct tape and booster seats. This forced everyone, coming or going, to go through the same narrow space. The people leaving all essentially said the same thing. "Excuse me. Excuse me. Whoops, sorry there. Wow this line is still long. Worth it though. Those pancakes are delicious!" This gave the rest of us the determination to keep going. An hour and a half and many greedy bites later, we realized how much truth there was in IHoP's slogan. "Come hungry, leave happy."

Wednesday - Went to driver's ed which as usual had me bored out my skull. The worst part is that already boring material is not made any better by the frigggin demon that is my driver's ed teacher, a woman whose unique blend of sarcasm and d-bagness regularly makes me want to slash her tires and/or face.

Thursday - Nothing at all happened on Thursday. Nothing at all.

Friday  - Bought tickets to the Theo London concert on campus in April. A couple of my good friends hooked it up and I'm mad excited. They've been talking to me about the plans for the concert and if they come through (which they will) it will be the biggest social event at Lawrenceville in the past I don't even know how many years. And the dude's actually pretty legit. I have one of his mixtapes and I've been bumping it lately. Tickets are only $7 for regular and $10 for VIP, though I got a VIP for $7. Tickets have been flying. They've been selling them for less then 24 hours and they already had to halt sales for fear of breaking fire codes by overselling. It should be good.

All in all, I guess my week turned out pretty well. Though I did stay up till 3 this morning (which i soon found out was unnecessary). Now I have to go to my second class of the day, and I have one more after that. Today, however, is the last day of classes for the term. Finals start on Monday and then Spring Break starts on Thursday. We have off for like 2.5-3 weeks. Expect several stressed out posts next week.

Peace

   So this isn't one of those cheery blogs. It's one of those Everyone EveryTHING sucks blogs. I am falling behind on everything because I have 1,000,001 things to do. College stuff, school stuff, film stuff. Everything is just coming together to form one colossal foot that promptly kicks in me the butt whenever I try to stand. And to top it all off, finals are next week.

   But that's how life is at Lawrenceville (for those of us who choose not develop cocaine addictions). Everyone just says, "It's good preparation for college, which in turn will prepare you for the real world." Well if the rest of my life is going to be like this, please club me hard enough for me to suffer brain damage that will allow me to at least mentally, remain 17 forever. Better yet, knock me back a few years to a time when video games and Saturday morning cartoons filled the space now occupied by Microsoft Word and College Board.

   I suppose it could be worse though. And the infinite source of wisdom that is my brother assures me that I am working hard now, so I don't have to later. I hope so, Chip. I hope so. 

P.S. Does anyone want to finish reading The Grapes of Wrath and write a paper on it for me by tomorrow afternoon? Cause that would be awesome.

FML

 I had my interview for Columbia this evening at 6:30. I found out about it at 5:23. Apparently some dude from Columbia e-mailed me days ago saying that he was coming to campus for an interview. The thing is, I get e-mail from about 4 different accounts forwarded to my g-mail account so I only have to look in one place. While convenient, this leads to my inbox filling up really quickly, about 4 times as fast I guess. I was napping this afternoon when I got the call...

Digression on my weird lucid dreams: So I was seriously only napping for about 15 mins., 20 mins tops. But in this short time I had like three lucid dreams. I only remember two. The first one I remember was me in some sort of coffee shop. It was at night, and there were two other teenage dudes sitting there. Keep in mind, I was completely aware that I was dreaming while this happened, so I was able to like...control stuff. I looked around the coffee shop until I eventually said to the employee there, "Yo! What up my dude?". End of dream 1. Dream 2 was much much weirder. I actually had a dream that I woke up from my nap, and it was kinda scary. So in this dream, I woke up and looked at the clock. It said 5:28 (the actual time was somewhere around 5:15). My room was dark so I tried to get up to turn on the lights. However, I couldn't see anything so I tripped over my guitar (which I have actually done before). I fell, and was sort of sitting on the ground reaching towards the lightswitch that I couldn't reach. It felt like I was sitting there for a while. End of dream 2. Weird right?

Back to the actual story. So while I was in this weird napping/dreaming state, I heard the phone ring. I figured it was Chip, and I was really tired so I didn't answer. (Sorry Chip) Like 5 minutes later, it rings again. This rarely happens, so I thought it must be important. I get up, answer the phone and its my mom. She calls me to "remind" me that I have an interview for Columbia in an hour. I have NO IDEA what she's talking about at this point. She says the dude e-mailed me several days ago and scheduled an interview. I didn't see the e-mail, so I didn't know. I got off the phone and got dressed and stuff. I got to the library on campus like 10 mins. early. He was late. The interview went OK though. The guy was sort of unresponsive and didn't nod while I was talking, so I wasn't sure if I was making sense. I was nervous and still sort of dazed from my trippy power nap. In addition to this, he majored in particle physics at Columbia, so he knew next to nothing about film stuff there. Weird day...

Oh, and the icing on the cake is its been snowing all day and night. And raining. Meaning the campus is now covered in wet, muddy, slush. Just about every school in the area, including other private schools and even Princeton (I heard) got off from school today. Not us. I tripped on my way back to the dorm and got water and mud all on my pants.

Now I'm back in my room listening to Miles Davis. Plans for the rest of the night? Finish homework, watch Diggnation, go to sleep.

What I'm Listening to:
Miles Davis
Notorious B.I.G.

So here's yet another one of my returns to the blogosphere. One of my resolutions is to bog more consistently. Not that there's hordes of people anxiously sitting at their computers waiting for me to ramble on about guitars, girls, and such. There are a special few of you, however, that do read the blog.

So what's going on with me? Let's see...

I've gotten a lot better at guitar. I got an electric for Christmas, which I've been playing a lot. I also got a webcam, which I've been using to broadcast on BlogTV. It's a pretty cool site. It allows you to essentially run your own live video chatroom. A bunch of the YouTube celebs (kevjumba, happyslip, etc.) broadcast live on there.

I've also been using twitter a lot more.

Here are my links. Follow, subscribe, friend, and stuff.

BlogTV
Twitter

I'm honestly gonna try to blog more this year. I'm aiming for at least two a week. I'm also getting more into making videos on BlogTV and YouTube, so watch out for those too.

Thanks for reading.

Peace.

I  looked at my 25 most played songs on iTunes, and thought it was so weird...

Top25

So, I'm back in the blogosphere. A few things have happened since I last wrote, nothing major...

- I became a high school senior
- My brother was on NBC
- I met my father for the first time
- My sister was essentially married
- A black guy was elected president of the USA
- I listened to MGMT's "Electric Feel" about 100 times...
- VINCE GOT SMOKE JUMPERS (kinda...)

peace