I’m here at the University of Houston’s Satellite Center, eating a Chick-fil-a, and I started thinking about the qualities of a gentleman. The other day, I stumbled upon a quote by Winston Churchill, “Courage is rightly esteemed the first of human qualities… because it is the quality which guarantees all others.”

I really have to agree with Churchill. It takes courage to execute all other virtues. I made a list of nine traits a real man (or woman) should have:

Courage

Honesty

Integrity

Compassion

Kindness

Fortitude

Imagination

Loyalty

Assertiveness

A man must have the courage to defend his loved ones and to make sacrifices. A man must have honesty to earn people’s trust. A man must have integrity, consistency of actions and morals. A man must have compassion and feel the sorrows of others. A man must show kindness and help others in need. A man must have fortitude to withstand the harsh trials of life. A man must have imagination to achieve dreams no mortals ever dared to dream before. A man must have loyalty to his wife, family, and country. Finally, a man must be assertive- not let anyone walk all over him and to stand up for the ones who do not have the courage to defend themselves.

A man with these characteristics is the embodiment of a true gentleman. So, where do I stand? It would be very arrogant and egotistic of me to say I have all those virtues. All I can say is that I try to be the best I can, but I will always have flaws like anyone else. The only way you can tell is by knowing me I guess. There are other virtues one can think of, which virtues do you like in a person?

I once met a girl who would always claim she was going to change the world. A friend once, now friend no longer, not through any fault of mine I assure you. As far as I know I did nothing even remotely out of line, much less insult her. Life is funny like that, you put people in pedestals and then they let you down. Lesson learned. I no longer put people in a pedestal. You shouldn’t either, it would only disillusion you. So, this girl, she never told me how she was going to change the world. I think she was going to be an attorney and maybe enter politics, I don’t remember anymore. All the best luck to her. What I do remember is that she would always wear fancy clothes and take professional portraits all the time. There is no harm in that, I suppose. Her parents apparently had deep pockets. One time, I complimented her on a pair of blue jeans she had on, really cute pants to be honest. She remarked, in an conceited way, that they were 400 dollars!

Then… it hit me. How can someone wearing such expensive clothes change the world? Somehow, I cannot imagine Gandhi, Mother Teresa, or Joan of Arc (people who did change the world) wear 400 dollar jeans or thousand dollar dresses. Nah, I daresay the people that change the world are the people that never say they will change the world. They just do it. Armed with humility, people can change the world, not armed with 400 dollar pants, unless you want to change the world by becoming another Paris Hilton. When I mean change, I mean the real positive changes for humanity. Many of us are caught in our own magnificence and, perhaps, arrogance that just because we certainly know more than others, we think we can change the world. Humility is very hard to acquire, I wrestle all the time to keep it with me, but flashes of arrogance do surface from time to time. I think to myself: First change yourself, and then try to change the world. It is suffice to say that I will never change the world but, then again, that has never been my mission to begin with. Maybe my mentality differs greatly to fellow peers who have always had a privileged life. I come from nothing and I feel inferior, as I still am nothing. Yet, even if I had tons of money, just giving it away will not solve anything. The most I could do is change someone’s life. Yeah, I can do that. If I cannot change the world for the better, I would like to change someone’s life for the better.

How foolish I am. It makes me so sad, so inevitably mad, at what the anonymous poet scribed:

“The hardest thing to do is watch the one you love, love someone else.”

He is talking to me, describing me, informing me of how it is. Has he no heart? Though he is right, he has no right to remind me of my plight, especially tonight while I lay on my bed with no light. What the poet said, it rouses me from bed. I stand and look out the window. Slowly, I feel the heart being invaded by darkness. The mind tells the heart not to lose control, but my heart is stubborn, very stubborn. The heart cares not what the mind thinks. Emotions invade it, but it isn’t really an invasion, the heart welcomes the dark emotions, emotions I usually keep in check, and in a few moments, a flood of darkness envelops me.

I hate. I wish ill. I envy. I feel jealousy. I loathe the world. I care for nothing. And when the heart has had its fill, the dark emotions can no longer come inside it, the heart is full. Seeing the heart a bit more calm, the mind speaks to it:

“Are you satisfied? You are selfish and reckless, and imbue darkness in our soul.” The heart replies, “Talk not to me about such things. It is your fault I am the way I am. If you were to do your job right, there would be no need of that. You simply produce no effect. You have me starved, and I have to feed on something. Men much better than you will always outshine you and the women you like will always prefer them. What? You look like you are going to cry…”

The minds then counters, “You say you when it is actually us. While it is true that I may have starved you, just know that it is not over. I don’t cry. Those women have made their choice. Live with it. Now, let us ascend and show them what they left behind. When you reach your peak, they will be demoralized. Come, we have work to do.”

My greatest strength is my heart. It is ironic that it not only is the site of my greatest strength but also of my greatest weakness. It is this weakness that brings out the worst in me. Yet, even this weakness can be of positive use, it motivates me to become a better person.

[I had nothing interesting to write, so I wrote this. Cicero once said: Even if you have nothing to write, write and say-so]

We all walk through life looking for something or someone that can fill the void that exists in our heart and mind. This happens whether we realize it or not. It is an unalterable fact of nature. Genetics and our environment turn out a product that is attracted to certain things and thus, we covet. People always want something that they think they deserve, but those same people never stop to think if they truly are deserving of what they want. It is pointless to say, “I deserve so-and-so because I am a good person.” The world could care less if you are good person; in fact, if you are a bad person you have a better chance at getting what you want. Not that I would suggest that you become bad. Life is but a continuous hurricane that hits you from all angles but your core instinct is to survive, to fight back. Life laughs at the longings of your heart and the desires of your mind. I figure it out long ago, that those that are good have it much harder. Thinking of such things propels me to ask: is destiny true? Is everything predetermined and no matter what we do, our lives are on automatic? Are we heading on an inescapable path towards what God intended us to be since the moment of conception? I believe half is predetermined and the other half is based upon the decisions we take on the journey. Man is also an architect of his own destiny.

Life is mathematical; random probability imposes its will over your desires. In essence, life is but a game of chance. Most people do not know how to play the game, and even when you know the rules, it is a very challenging game. I try to play by the rules, but need to readjust my pattern to evade life’s “mines”. It irks me when I try to do everything right, when I go out of my way to show that I care, that I am a sincere and honest individual, but what do I get? I get to be back of the bus. When I point such things out, I am disliked for showing people that they are in the superficial box. Let’s face it, most people are not God’s gift to mankind, they are average and need to come back down to earth, or the fall will be harder by someone else’s hands. We all go on this merry-go-round of coveting something or someone but life has other plans. I, for one, prefer to ignore such nuisances. I prefer my own little world inside my mind than the unfair real world outside. At least, until the real world becomes more pleasant than my world; it is mathematical certainty that it will, and then “checkmate”, I win. Forgive me for being reclusive.

Today, while holding my Blackberry during lunchtime, my mind drifted. What I was wondering was if my Blackberry actually “touched” my hand as it laid on it. My brain told me it was touching my hand, and the brain was relayed this information by Merkel cells, Meissner’s corpuscles, and possibly Pacinian corpuscles. I think there is one more Mechanoreceptor but I don’t remember which right now. So, my brain was detecting light touch, but was I really holding the Blackberry?

If we could zoom in to the atomic level, the atoms composing the Blackberry and the atoms composing my hand, will they be “touching”? I do not think so, as the electrons from hand and phone would repel, there is electromagnetic repulsion among the electrons. Atoms cannot really touch even when they “collide”. Also, there is no chemical reaction occuring between my hand and phone. Gravity is pulling the phone down into my hand, and according to Newton’s Third Law, the phone is pushing into my hand, therefore, my hand presses equally and opposite into the phone. However, at the atomic level, classical physics breaks down and gravity no longer works, making the case that I cannot hold the phone. Biology tells me I was holding my phone, whereas Quantum physics tells me I could never touch it. What should I believe? What might bake your noodle later is… what if the phone is holding me?

Ode to My Woman

Day and Night I think of you,
I know not why I think of you.
Could it be your mind?
Or your beauty that my heart it grinds?
I succumb to you, woman of virtue.
The world can go to hell
Because all I want is to hear you whisper…
No! Don’t whisper! Rather, tell and yell
How I, the pauper, won your precious heart,
Something Picasso himself could never put into art.

I love you woman. Oh, beautiful woman.
You are my equal, you are my light,
You are brighter than the Big Bang,
And something about us just feels right,
I knew since the first time the phone rang.
Our lives have intertwined; do not fear
Your feelings or my touch; our love is a spear.
With it, we will fight the ruggedness of life.
I am here to protect you from any strife,
Like a Roman would; you are my woman and I am your man.

This next Drug Action test is annoying the hell out of me. Jonathan posted 21 pages of notes and I have been procrastinating because the material isn’t too interesting. Alpha 1 and 2, beta 1,2,3, Dopamine. Ugh. I understand the importance of the mechanisms but dang, it isn’t really appealing. This might have to be my drop test, even though I’m still going to try to ace it. After all, she got me on that last one with detail on my essays.

My favorite chess players are Jose Raul Capablanca, Paul Morphy, Bobby Fischer, Emmanuel Lasker, and Gary Kasparov. It is unfortunate that my ELO went down from 1780 in Yahoo Games due to my lack of form and not being able to play often and with human players. I have liked chess since middle school, where I actually won second place in a school tournament. Also, I have Fritz Grandmaster challenge and I have been able to figure out the computer’s pattern, rendering the software useless now.

Fidel Castro isn’t the villain America makes him out to be. The USA hates leftists anyway, and American books always portray him as a malicious character. Well, I am reading Ignacio Ramonet’s Fidel Castro, in which the renowned Spanish journalist interviews Fidel for over a hundred hours. Castro is supremely intelligent and unique, nothing to do with the inept Hugo Chavez. Did you know that there is free healthcare and education in Cuba? That they have tremendous athletes and deploy doctors to Africa and other nations in dire need? Did you know that there is virtually no homicide cases or illegal drug usage? Let’s just say that Cuba is better with Fidel than it was with the American-favored Batista, in which Cuba used to be just a Thailand for American perverts.

For people that are afraid I recommend the following Bene Gesserit Litany from Frank Herbert’s Dune:

“I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.”

This should help premeds for the MCAT and med school interviews.