High School Stories: Sleeping with the "Frenemies"

Frenemies--- two people who are in an odd situation of being friends and at the
same time, enemies.



First I want to clarify... NO I did not sleep with this frenemy of mine (although we were roomates for our senior trip and had to share a bed), nothing scandalous happened. I just kinda like the title of this post.Now that's clear, I should get to the story.



When I was in high school in the not so lovely city of Vallejo, California (a.k.a valley of the ho's) I had a classmate who in the beginning I was attracted to. Normally, I don't use people's names in my blog but since he's on some silly tv show, I'm sure that he wouldn't mind being talked about in this lowly blog of mine. I first saw Ruben in my locker hallway. Like every high school-er who had a thing for one of their mates, I would ocassionally look at him while he's at his locker or sometimes I would change my way to class so I can pass by him. His hair was always perfectly coiffed, and he has a pretty handsome face. Although there are cuter guys on campus, they're all straight and based on my gaydar he definitely plays for my team.



My little crush oh him slowly disappeared after I actually got to know him better. Since I was the new kid in school (and a new kid in the country) I started in classes for non-English speakers. I was pissed off! I knew that I'm not in the right place so I asked the school counselors to move me to other classes. They insisted that I have to show that I'm capable of moving to the regular classes. Now, I don't want to brag or anything (ok maybe just a little bit) but when they asked me to write a few sentences... I wrote an entire fucking essay... breaking it down to why they're ass holes and why my stank ass should be in the honors classes ( Ok my essay was more formal than that). After a few weeks, they realized their mistake and placed me not only in honors classes but also in advance placement (AP) classes. Sorry I digress... that is when we became classmates and finally got to talk to Ruben and spend some time with him.



The first thing I didn't like about him was how annoying his voice is. He kinda sounds like that character on "Friends", I believe her name is Janice and she was Chandler's ex-girlfriend (for people who watch Friends you know who I'm talking about). Almost, high pitched and overall painfull to my ears. He also had some major diva attitude. He was part of the cool crowd since he decided to be a cheerleader (well more like the guys who carry the cheerleaders). Sometimes, he would say some snide remark about me being an immigrant or what I was wearing or other stupid comment he had that he would say outloud in class. I secretly wanted to tell him "BITCH PLEASE SHUT THE FUCK UP!!!!" Of course I didn't have the guts to say it so I just ignored him. By the end of our 10th grade, I completely avoided him.



We had a World History class together and one part of the class is to get a good grasp of world geography. Every week our teacher assigned a region of the world or a specific country and we're supposed to learn where the major cities and points of historical interest in this map. We are then tested either the same day or the following week by drawing it out and labelling all these places. I LOVE GEOGRAPHY so I started to catch up with the work (I was transferred to this honors class three weeks after the school started). I would complete that week's work and ask our teacher for some more. Ruben did the same thing.We had this unspoken competition, every week we would up the ante. He would do the entire South America and in response I will draw out all the African countries, label their capitals and then some. It got really competitive that in the end of the year we had drawn about 60 maps while the rest of the class were still working on their 20th map.



It wasn't till our senior year that we actually sort of became friends (and I'm using that term loosely). We were hanging out with the same group of people, often having lunch together in the cafeteria. Sometimes he would hang out with his cheerleading friends but you would often see him in our table (and we had a great table, it came with the senior status and most of my friends were leaders of whatever school club). We would even hang out outside of school. He's still pretty abrasive but thats just his personality. When I left for college, I lost any sort of communication with him ( I was also preoccupied with all these cute college boys hehe).


Recently, I started adding high school friends/acquaintances on my friend's list on Myspace and found his. Apparently he was on an MTV show (for more info click here NEXT) where he was on a series of dates with 5 guys. It was a medieval themed date and as always he looked good but acted like a complete ass... I guess things never change. Check out the video...sorry this was the only one I can find online and theres French dubbing but you can sort of still hear the real conversation (in English).
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Terrible Two: Happy Birthday Tres

Baby Tres is no longer a baby. He's about to embark on his second year of life where a lot of a childs development occurs. Apparently, this is also the time when their personality really starts to show. I just hope he doesnt turn into a complete brat!

From left to right: Birthday boy with his mom, my lil' sis, aunt, uncle, The Boyfriend, cousin and moi. Ready to feast.

Ready to open his gifts with Ernesto Sr.

Tres and some of his playmates enjoying the party.

Time for the pinata. Well someone's addicted to Sponge Bob.

Will he hit it?

Ooopppsss better let the big kids do it!

Hmmm cake time...just what I've been waiting for.


Its his birthday and he'll pig out if he wants to.

Race L.A.

Before I talk about the race...just a quick update. Baby Tres is feeling much better. He's also preparing for his birthday party this Sunday. I can't believe he's turning two. He's currently addicted to "Finding Nemo" so I'm getting him a small bowl aquarium and hopefully a clown fish (but most likely a regular beta fish since it'll be easier). Now to my race story.

As most of you (my dear readers) already know... I'm addicted to the show "The Amazing Race". How addicted am I? I spent way too much time watching (re-watching), reading up online about spoilers, recaps, reviews etc. I've gone to a couple of finale parties, met previous racers, and forced The Boyfriend to try out with me. Since the casting folks didn't quite like our 3 minute tryout video... I decided to do the local version instead.

I found online that theres several scavenger hunts around L.A. thats inspired by the show. They were mostly for a team-building retreat for office workers or some organization except for Race L.A. I saw on their website that they really stick close to the "Amazing Race" formula. I convinced The Boyfriend to join. Originally we were Team Boots. Its weird, I know but its a term we use to call each other (as opposed to calling each other honey or baby). Where did it come from? I'm not even going to attempt to explain it.

A week before the race, we decided its a silly name so we asked to organizers to change it to Team E.C. ( I know it still sounds stupid). Its our initials and its easy to remember (yes its a pun hehe). I was sooo excited, I've been thinking about possible scenarios of how we can win (haha I'm soo full of it).

So last Saturday, we got to the starting line bright and early. It was interesting trying to scope out the other times...see who would be the good competitors. There was a good mix of teams, most were couples, some siblings, cousins, friends. There was one team from the local NBC station so they were filming the entire race and hopefully I can find a clip when they finally show the segment. In the beginning of the race we had to introduce ourselves ... it was exciting to say that we were dating. Im sure throughout the race we were called the gay dating couple by the other teams.

Anyway, I don't want to spoil the details of the race (for those who are in L.A. who wants to do it )... ok I know I'm attaching pictures but I won't mention the places and certain tasks. As you can see from these pictures, we went to a lot of places and had to do different task. Unfortunately, we lost by one minute. It was small mistake of not paying attention to the details of the clue. Oh well...second place out of twenty teams ai'nt so bad especially we worked hard to get it sprinting to the finish line, passing several other teams ( as seen in one of the photos below). I hope I didn't piss off The Boyfriend during the race so we can go do another race.

Some More Random Blahs: Fire, Seizures and Reality TV Roundup

This past week has been crazy for me. Before any stories, I'm posting a picture of the mentors from the LEAF mentoring program (through Camp Laurel) that I talked about in my last post. I know its blurry but I'm posting it anyway coz all of these guys (and gals) are awesome! I look like a little kid in between two very tall guys (2nd from lower right).



So back to the stories from this past week. All of my favorite reality shows are ending! What am I going to do with my life????????? Haha I'm soo pathetic.

• The Amazing Race; All Stars just ended last Sunday and I was really disappointed with the results. For those who actually watch it, I wanted the Beauty Queens to win. I would even accept the crazy cousins, Charla and Mirna but of course the annoying pseudo couple ended up winning. I hate Eric and his nipple rings....he needs to come out of the closet (his homophobic remarks are in fact internalized homophobia projected to the two gay teams on the race).

• This weekend, Survivor Fiji is ending. This season started on the weak side but really became more interesting mostly because of the fabulous duo; Big Earl and Yau Man (my Asian brother immigrant). I love that Yau Man is really playing a very balance game; he's smart, he's very aware with whats going on in their camp and lastly he is doing great in some of the physical tasks. Yau Man for the win!
  
• The other reality shows thats consuming my life will end in a couple of weeks (Idol, Top Model, Shear Genius, The Bachelor, Dancing with the Stars). I'll discuss them in later posts.

I'm shifting from the superficial to a more serious story. I'm sure most folks heard/saw on the news that there was a big brush fire here in L.A. last Tuesday. The fire started just east of the Hollywood sign and moved towards my area. I went home early from work when I saw online that theres a fire near our place. Sure enough a huge plume of smoke can be seen coming from my beloved Griffith Park. Since I love to hike, this park is the most convenient place for me to go to since its only minutes away and it has an excellent view of the L.A. basin, valley and its surrounding mountains. As soon as I got home, I made sure I had all the important documents in one place so I can easily grab it, together with my pictures, and my laptop. I also started watering the side yard where my vegetable garden is located and the front gardens including the ivy bed and the bamboo trees that we share with the neighbors. The fire got worse later in the night. There were ton's of firefighters but most of the actual progress was done through the use of helicopters. I counted about 6 choppers and two planes dumping fire retardants and water.

By midnight the whole eastern edge of the park is on fire and slowly climbing down to the houses below. They eventually evacuated the houses closest to the fire. I stayed awake, checking on the progress. I was worried that some of the embers being blown by the wind can start a smaller fire near our place because theres tons of dry grasses and shrubs in our backyard. By Wednesday morning, the fire was pretty much contained. I was really sad to find out that a couple of my favorite hiking paths no longer exist and that a couple of beautiful gardens were destroyed. In fact I spent a day in the Pine Garden on my birthday a couple of months ago (click for a recap). Heres some pictures and videos of the fire.

The Boyfriend and I hiking at Griffith park before the fire.

A couple of videos on youtube. A good panoramic shot of the fire and the helicopters picking up water from the reservoir to dump on the fire.

Taken from my street.






This photo is taken by Benjamin from blogging.la

After the fire, I got a text message from my younger sister. It was short but it brought so much fear in me as soon as I read it.

"Tres is in the hospital"

I freaked out. I called her immediately but she wasn't answering. I kept trying, eventually she answered. She sounds like she's pretty shaken up too. She told me that they're still in the E.R. so she had to whisper. Basically, Baby Tres had a severe episode of febrile seizure. This was the second time it happened but this time seemed a lot more serious. Apparently he started crying and then hugged his mom. My sister was getting ready to leave for work when he started shaking violently. They tried to control him, called 911 and called the neighbor for help. My dad rushed back from work but the EMT had already picked up my poor brother. They spent the rest of the day in the hospital, lots of tests and talking to the doctor. The sad thing is now that this happened, theres a greater likelyhood that it will happen again. My poor brother : ( He's in a lot of pain right now because the fever was brought about by an infection in his throat so the poor thing is having the hardest time swallowing food or drinking anything. I want to visit him this weekend.

(L)Tres getting potty trained. (R) Tres with his future girlfriend (or is it future fag hag..lol my dad's going to be really disappointed to have two gay sons...one is acceptable)