Hello,

As I mentioned previously, I’ve been deeply inspired by the combination of Gary Vaynerchuk’s keynote speech and taking the time off to relax and BE with life and the Earth and EVERYTHING during my Hawaii trip.

I really need to get back in shape–TOTALLY not literally because I’m FAR from being inspired to actually get off my ass to exercise. I need to REBOOT a lot of things in my life. And there’s many portions of my life that I need to completely REVAMP altogether.

This blog theme layout has been bugging me for a while and I’ve begun checking away at the things I need to do in order to make it what I want it to be. And I want it to be how craisin.com used to be–original, created by me, to totally fit my own personality. I’ve lost touch of that greatly in the last 2 years.

Things I’ve done in the last two weeks after my wake-up trip:

• Step 0: First things first–had to post the Hawaii pics! http://picasaweb.google.com/craisin All of the pics are up now. The “Part 2″ Oahu pics consists 90% of LOST references so uhhh I hope you watch LOST! ;) — DONE
• Step 1: Found new hosting — DONE
• Step 2: Backed up everything from the old server — DONE
• Step 3: Transferred the blog from the old server to the new — DONE

Things to do from here:

• Step 4: RESEARCH before revamping the site.
  I’m about 3 years behind with web knowledge and I’m gonna dive right in! So far, Alvin’s provided me with some pretty good resources that I’m soaking ALL in already: http://www.smashingmagazine.com and http://www.alistapart.com.
  Please let me know if you have any other suggestions!
• Step 5: LEARN how to create my own Wordpress theme
  :O GASP! I usually fail at these kind of personal projects because I end up getting lazy and seeing a nice theme that might be suitable, but I’m 100% willing to take on this challenge since the themes I see neevverrr seem to fully appeal to me.
• Step 6: Figure out what to do about PHOTOS.
  I’m going to try to bring back my photo-blogging, since I’m taking pics so often, and since that’s why most people would visit my site in the past.

  Picasa 3 Beta seems to have a lot of potential and I’m willing to trial with it to see how it goes. But one thing I dislike the most about Picasa’s web albums is that you have to log into Picasa in order to comment! Meeehhhhh, I never seem to be able to find the right photo gallery. I might go back to hosting my own photos with Gallery, but it doesn’t seem to be as easy for me anymore.
  Got any suggestions for online photo galleries? Please let me know! :D

• Step 7: IMPLEMENTATION!

I’m pretty excited to get started, and I’m pretty juiced to soak myself in all the possibilities!! Yayyyyy productivity!!! =D

MUCH needed vacation! Totally needed to just chill out and not think about anything. I totally ate x10 over there and I totally feel very plump at the moment. Errggg…

Anyway, after a week of being away (a short week, at that… really…. way too short…) and returning home to my little nook of a room, I’ve come to the realization that there’s a lot of things I need to change and rebuild in my life.

A lot of this has been inspired when I was watching Garyvee’s Web 2.0 keynote speech: http://garyvaynerchuk.com/2008/09/23/my-web-20-keynote-in-nyc/ I know, sounds really “geeky” but there’s SO much that hits home…. for me, at least.

The idea of TRANSPARENCY… Man… I really need to revamp this site… I mean, I used to do major layout changes every year! Of course, I didn’t study worth a hee-haw when I was in school, so I spent most of my time hobbying. There’s been so little time to actually work on any progressive change on my page. Srsly, I probably lost half of my regular hits from back in the day! (Of course, a lot of my audience has composed of yellow-feverish folks that stumbled on my page one way or another.) Humm… I like the idea of possibly building more of a nerdy nerd audience…. GASP! Is it true? Am I starting to be a part of this whole… WEB 2.0 BUSINESS?! There’s so many ways to grow now, and I’m like 5 years behind with my technology now, but I’m planning to immerse myself again. And it all starts with my e-home…. gotta fix it up.

Coming home, sitting at my desk, I actually took the time to look around my room. Man… these pictures are old. Well, they’re from my last year in college, which wasn’t that long ago, but… this all seems so distant now. I’m totally NOT the same person I was 2-3 years ago, and I can FEEL it every time I look at these pictures. Following the flow of my life, I’ve taken them down, and I’m looking forward to what new things I can put up on my wall. I need something that resonates more… something that hits my core, something that won’t change. I guess I’ll figure that out soon.

Dedication, patience, and sacrifice.

Zomg… Is it true? Is it finally time for me to stop sleeping 9 hours a day to get back in touch with my personal life? (Read: this is the perfect time for you to place bets on this, btw.) Well… here I am, up at 11PM! Let’s see how long this can last….

Oh well, anyway, I’ve posted a few pics from the Hawaii – Kauai trip here: http://picasaweb.google.com/craisin I’ll be uploading the rest of the Oahu pics up to the same location.

(Erg… I know I’ve had a few of you following my photo galleries around from the Gallery program, now to Picasa… I can’t seem to find something that works, but Picasa seems to be doing well for me lately. I’ll be thinking about these type of things when I revamp. Thanks for hanging along!)

Some of my favorite pics of the batch:

After much thought (actually, I really didn’t think about this too much), I’ve decided to make available my twitter account. http://twitter.com/craisin

Just a heads up that almost everything is probably geared towards the coworkers since they’re pretty up to date with the day-to-day, hour-by-hour situations.

Also, I think after ever class, I’ll be posting up my drawings from the class: http://twitpic.com/photos/craisin

Sloooowwwwlllyyy getting back into the e-world.

Yep.
It’s official.
I’m the emo kid of any given situation these days.

It’s been a while since I’ve been stuck in a rut like this, and I guess I know how to pinpoint exactly how this all happened. It’s one of those “I have no one to blame but myself” situations, but it’s 100% one of those “Hey, how was I supposed to know unless I tried?” situations. And here I am now, totally aware of what the puzzle pieces are… and I’m so hesitant to make a move.

I’ve been laughing and smiling, but I don’t think I’ve really felt HAPPY for a long duration since May or June. I completely feel that I’ve lost all spirit for the most of my days. Get up, take the carpool, go to work, do whatever crazy work is going on, take the bus home, eat and listen to someone or other rant about something or other, shower, go to bed, talk on the phone, sleep. It’s only gotten more mundane in the last two months.

And two months is a short amount of time to gauge these types of things–especially when I know my own habits. It takes me a longer time to get a better grasp of how I actually feel about something. At this point, I’m not sure if I want to wait any longer to see what will become of this…

I’ve lost vision of what I actually want to do with my life.
I’ve lost vision of WHY I live to do the things I do. I just need to take the time to figure out why I HAVEN’T been doing those things.
I need to put time aside to figure out WHO I want to be and HOW I’ll be able to do that.

This was only supposed to be “temporary,” remember? I swear… everyone tells themselves that… Now, it’s just a matter of how much time I should actually allot for this. And if I DO figure out how much time I should allot for this, I need to figure out what I want to do AFTER that. Holy shit. I have 0 clue. All I know right now is that I need to get back on my art track. Through all of this, the MOST at peace I am is every Tuesday and Thursday night in art class. It’s a very pleasurable, gratifying, productive, SATISFYING time. I’ve decided to make it a goal to make it to every art class for the rest of the semester (with the exception of the vacation week).

I’ve lost sight of so many things.
And I’ve definitely drifted off onto a path that I don’t think I ever planned to be on–spontaneity, I guess.

I was in a car the other day with a driver who was super Christian, listening to super Christian music. The lyrics and the driver (totally not driving hands-free, btw) greatly emphasized the idea of letting yourself go and putting your life in the hands of the Lord. That carpooling moment has rekindled and reinforced my strong belief that we are all makers of our own fate, and we are all completely capable and responsible for handling our own lives. I trust in fate–something that I guess may be written out by the universe’s patterns and laws. Regardless, I trust that it is a fate that I create on my own. (I know, I know, it’s completely contradictory to believe in something that is pre-determined and also freedom at the same time–whatever… it works out fine in MY mind… that’s all that really matters..) But I’ve been at such a standstill, so reluctant, hesitant, and even LAZY to even do anything about the situation in my life.

Unfortunately… a huge roadblock I’m facing is money. I hate that this is where my life has ended up, completely restricted by money and my plans for the future, which are greatly limited by my financial flexibility or lack thereof. I wish it weren’t such a huge factor… but it has been.

I need to redraft my life…. At least I’ve figured that out??

Vision without action is a dream. Action without vision is simply passing the time. Action with Vision is making a positive difference.

I’ve been living a very bitter and unhappy life.

Some days, I have very little patience for people’s antics. I’ve become grouchy and discontent with a lot of my social life. This, of course, is most likely because of how tired and unfulfilling my lifestyle has become in the last month and a half.

I have a lot to question: my motives, my goals, my reasons, my DREAMS.

Is it WORTH it?

I’ve been living my life mostly on a “Oh well, suck it up, Tse. You have to get it done so just shut up and eat the lemons” mentality. And I guess that’s where the sourness has been coming out from. But don’t get me wrong… I like the challenge, I like this change, and I like the affect that I can make. I know I’m producing good work. I know I’m giving it my all. And I know that it’s paying off.

But I guess the question is whether or not it’s paying off for MY needs.

This was the heavy storm that had just passed, and I was convinced that maybe after this deadline season, things will lighten up and things will get better soon. But, knowing myself, and knowing how antsy I can get when there’s a large checklist to accomplish, WILL I ever feel like it will lighten? WILL I ever feel like it’ll be better? It’s all relative, I suppose.

For my own sanity, I guess I need to consciously learn to SLOW DOWN and to be OKAY with undone tasks.