Archive for the blog Category

What Drives Us?

Posted in Immigration, blog, blogging, book, college, dehumanization, deportation, discrimination, illegal immigrants, illegal immigration, immgrants, immigrants, inspiration, life, personal, thoughts, undocumented student, undocumented students on July 12, 2008 by iamashadow

I asked that question today. What drives me to have this little blog? I don’t know. I don’t know why some of us blog and speak out, while others live on with their lives. Is it fear? I’m afraid. I’m afraid everyday. Now more than in anytime before. Fear doesn’t go away, it is always there. Is it the paranoia? I almost took down this blog because of it, but I guess it wasn’t enough for me to do it.

Why? I have very little to gain and everything to lose. Always. And a lot of the comments tend to be from antis who are trying to tell me I’m wrong. They’ll never convince me so I don’t know why they try.

So, I’m still undocumented. My blogging for months now hasn’t changed that. Now though, it is time to look at the future. Law School. Graduate school. LSATs. Life is about to get harder than ever before, and it is time to live up to the expectations I and other have made.

I don’t know, I’m ranting tonight. Sorry, nothing with much substance. I’m fine. Spending time with my girlfriend which is awesome. I feel slightly guilty because I’m distracting her, she is taking summer school classes. I enjoy my time here though, time with her and on campus. I was able to help out a professor of mine in a Spanish class, it was fun. Can’t wait to get back to school though, things to do, people to see, things to make right. I hope anyone who reads this is well tonight and this entire weekend. If you have an answer to the question though, please, comment.

E3 is coming up so I’ll be posting more about video games than usual. I know this is an immigration blog so forgive me in advance. It is E3 though…

MG

Happy 4th of July

Posted in Americans, blog, blogging, entertainment, friends, friendship, history, opinion, people, personal, thoughts on July 4, 2008 by iamashadow

I hope everyone enjoys their time off. I’ve never really celebrated this holiday actually. Not because I’m anti-American though. Mainly because I can’t get out of the house, I’ve never even seen the fireworks in town. Maybe for another year. Anyways, lets stop talking about my crappy life and just, I hope everyone enjoys their day and all!

MG

Blogging: Last Day of the Month

Posted in blog, blogging, life, personal, summer, thoughts on July 1, 2008 by iamashadow

So, I’ve been back at WordPress for a little bit more than a week. I’ve been enjoying it so far and I’ve been able raise my traffic which is great. So far for this month, nothing major has happened in my personal life. I did quit playing Guitar Hero though, I’m actually playing my other games. My PS2 controller was stolen so I had to get a new one which sucked, wasting money but I had to. Oh well. I’ve been bored most of the time, even with the blogging. Being stuck home because of no driving sucks.

My undocumented status continues to be the same, not that it will change in the time coming. For next month, I’ll hopefully be able to have a post for everyday. I can’t promise that, but I’m willing to try. That means more video game posts! Haha. Its been half a year since I’ve been blogging and I have enjoyed it a lot, despite some of the negative comments. It’s all good, everyone has a right to their opinion, it’s a free country after all.

State of Mind

Posted in Gamecube, Nintendo, PS2, blog, blogging, book, books, college, life, personal, summer, thoughts, undocumented student, video games on June 23, 2008 by iamashadow

So, how am I doing personally. Well, on the video gaming front, I have been addicted to Guitar Hero 3 but no more. I have over 100 video games and I have to play them some time. I played Guitar Hero 3 for almost an entire month straight. So, I’ve moved on to Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes and Viewtiful Joe for the Gamecube and will finish Killzone and Bully for the PS2 sometime this month.

On the reading front, I’ve been concentrating my Stephen King books. I’ve read Apt Pupil which is one of the most disgusting, creepy, psychological wrong stories to have ever been written. So, I suggest people to read it of course. I’ve been reading his short stories for the most part.

As for movies that I’ve seen, The Incredible Hulk was the last movie I saw in theaters. It was alright and really liked the cameo at the end. I also Iron Man, twice too, it was that good. If you haven’t seen it, go now! Narnia disappointed me, it became Lord of the Rings at the end. I’ve also saw rented movies from iTunes, it is great.

As for myself, I’m bored to the point of tears. I have nothing to do here. No friends I can visit and hang out with. I can’t wait for August to arrive. I’m a bit less stressed though, which is always good and I can sleep better, even though I sleep on the floor. My father was never as good as my mom with money and a result of that is that he only rents a room with one bed, which is where my sister sleeps. At least with my mom, I always had my own room, which I was thankful for. So, in short, I’m lonely and hate it. Always hated the summer for that reason.

Blogging is fun though, and I’ll be doing it everyday from now on. Well, that’s all from me for now. I’ll put up a real update soon.

Moving On and Out, A Dream Deferred

Posted in Immigration, blog, blogging, illegal immigrants, illegal immigration, inspiration, justice, law, life, media, news, people, personal, politics, thoughts, undocumented student, undocumented students, writing on March 27, 2008 by iamashadow

Yes, I’m moving on. I will no longer be blogging in WordPress. I’m moving on to Blogger. This will be my new site. http://iamashadow.blogspot.com/

Why did I decide to move? Mainly because I wanted a change in scenery I guess. I’m random like that. This site will no longer be updated! Go to the new one. If you are one of the people who have me in the blogrolls, add the other site.

On far bigger news, my other site has launched, officially. Yayness and happiness. This is the site that I’ve been working on. http://adreamdeferred.org/ I would like everyone to visit that site as well and added to their blogroll if you already have me on. The Dream Deferred blog is not my operation but a collaborative effort by me and other Dreamers. I hope you enjoy it. Some of the people who have commented here in the past are writers in that blog as well. Anyways, I will be writing for Dream Deferred everyday, hopefully because I am working for the non-profit, Brave New Films. And I will continue to blog for the new Blogger Site. So, that’s what’s going on with me. Go to the new sites!

Manuel Gonzales.

This is the video accompanying the Dream Deferred site.

An undocumented university student view of the world

Posted in Immigration, blog, blogging, college, dehumanization, depression, illegal immigrants, illegal immigration, life, personal, random, school, thoughts, writing on March 25, 2008 by iamashadow

Well, it’s been over three months since I started writing this blog. I like it. Love to write. I decided that I’m also going to take a break from my own personal writing and just concentrate on blogging. Fortunately, I don’t have any more stories due for my writing class. I’ll get back at writing during the summer, when I have time and energy to devote to writing.

My views of the world have changed slightly, if they have, it has been on the personal front of my life. Life is random I guess. But I’m still a university student. I still have to do work and such, or really, procrastinate and then do work as everyone else does. And I’m still undocumented. Not that I expected that to change in the last 3 months.

My ability to deal with the frustration has been breached because of something that happened with some of the school administrators here. They have the mentality of ‘wait’. For those who personally have never waited, it might be easy to say. For those of us who actively wait, we can’t really do so anymore. Time passes too slowly for us. But the fight must continue on I suppose. Always.

It is getting harder I suppose, to hide the sadness behind the smiles. To hide the dis-functionality behind my supposed normalness. Normalness? I still do well with it I guess, playing video games and such. I have to admit, Super Smash Brothers Brawl is a great game, very fun, but I don’t play as much as I should. Haven’t played it in a couple of days actually. Sometimes things like that seem meaningless in the overall context of things. I’m getting quite tired of the school paper have things about immigration too, most of the comments online seemed to be negative, just like every other paper out there. I mean seriously people, why do all anti-immigrants usually have to have a pissing contest over who can be meaner to immigrants. Get a life people, a girlfriend or something, a Wii if you can find one. They are fun. I’m just getting quite tired of a lot of things. The pretending though, one day is going to get where I won’t be able to pretend or the fact is that, I’ll feel really uncomfortable around some of the things that could be talked about. It is getting harder by the day and it will just continue being like that. But that’s okay right, this is the life I lead and should suck it up.

My undocumented view of the world will still be the same in the years to come, I bet. I hope I’m wrong. I’ve been wrong about some predictions, like me going to college. That was never going to happen according to my predicting abilities and yet here I am. And there are other things I was wrong about. But that view, the undocumented view, can be quite depressing at times unfortunately.

Apologies

Posted in blog, blogging, college, life, personal, random, thoughts on March 23, 2008 by iamashadow

I have to apologize for the apparent lack of posts recently. I have been busy with stuff. Both personal and school. I was not accepted to the advance writing course that I wanted which did not make me happy. I will continue to write though, not on the blogging sense of the word, but short stories. I’m a short story writer and will continue to do so even if other people don’t like what I write. I don’t care. I’ll try to improve during the summer when I have more time. My grammar is just horrible. As for other things, personal life is going well. Lots of hanging out. I went to see a movie recently, 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days. Let me just say that it is about the most realistic movie I’ve seen since No Country for Old Men or Eastern Promises. There was stunned silence at the end of the film and I could understand why. Great film.

There are some projects I’m going to be working on in the future, for school. I haven’t been able to update my other blog as well, I feel like I’m dry with nothing to write about. I don’t know. I’ve hit a slump. Hopefully I’ll be able to overcome it. Anyways, that’s it for me. So again, I’m still alive someplace. Just busy with things.  I’ll try more stuff soon!

Absence

Posted in blog, blogging, college, life, personal, random, thoughts on March 5, 2008 by iamashadow

Sorry about the long absence of posts and me. I will continue to blog. I’ve been busy. School is taking a lot of my time actually. I have midterms, short stories, papers, and whole of other stuff to do. I’ve barely played the Wii, which is a tragedy. I’ve also felt the impact of the randomness of life on my personal life. Let me just say, it’s very unpredictable and surprising, and great. At least it was this time around, can’t count on that all the time though. I’m an immigrant after all and my life is supposed to be sad. Nah, I’m just kidding, or am I…  So, life is great right now though.

I’ve also dealt with the media in the last couple of weeks. I was almost quoted on an article as an undocumented student but unfortunately, I didn’t go through with it. That was not my personal choice, but one I was advised by certain members of the higher administration at my school. It wouldn’t be the first time I turned down an article and it probably won’t be the last. I’ve been dealing with that and the aftermath of it. Some meetings and lots of emailing to all my mentors.

Now I will also be trying to get another person to go to college, she a junior in high school and I was delighted to meet her. There are more of us here in the state which makes me happy.

Anyways, I’m still around. Not dead or anything of the sort. Not yet anyways, those midterms might do the job. Also, I love writing but editing is a bitch. That’s the part I hate the most.

And I’m back…

Posted in blog, blogging, life, personal, thoughts, writing on February 21, 2008 by iamashadow

“Enough is enough! I have had it with these motherfucking snakes on this motherfucking plane!” Samuel L. “I’m a badass motherfucker” Jackson in Snakes on a Plane.

So, I just wanted to open with that. I’m back from the dead! Zombie style. No, not really but I’m back, in a limited fashion to some extent. I had a week to think about this blogging situation. And I made the decision of coming back to this blog to continue writing. No, the updates won’t be daily even though I’ll try.

As for me, I’ve been incredibly busy. I had a great fantastic weekend but it didn’t leave me any time for blogging or writing or school. I had the opportunity to see a very special show at my school and got to see a celebrity. It was a great show. I’ve met a new cool friend so that has been great. I’ve had a lot of work as well, two midterm essays due last Tuesday and a story of mine is being work shopped at my creative writing class. I hate the story so I suspect that it won’t be a good time for me. I’m dreading it.

As to why I’m back. Well, I came to the conclusion that two blogs are better than one. And I have a lot more freedom on this blog to write about whatever I want. I believe that the more blogs there are the better. I’ve seen that the last couple of posts are not about immigration at all so I’ll be working on that because I’m kind of embarrassed by it. I won’t review another video game until the God of War ones are out of the front page. I might do books but no movies either, at least not at the moment. So, yes, I’ll be still be writing here and try to write in the other blog as well. So I leave you with this,

May the Force be with us all.
PS. If you don’t like Star Wars, you simply suck…

Last Post…

Posted in blog, blogging, life, personal, random, reading, school, thoughts, writing on February 15, 2008 by iamashadow

So, I’m sorry I haven’t had much time to post. I’ve been sick. My memory card for the Nintendo Gamecube games was corrupted. So…I lost about 40 games worth of data and god knows how many hours of game time. So I’ve been mourning it. A lot. I’ve also had to write a short story and I hate it. Despise it. My class is going to hate me.

As for the title, maybe not the last post for sure. Yes, the anti-immigrants have changed my mind. They have convinced me of the fact that I’m the scum of the earth and should be deported, or better yet, be shot. Now excuse me while I laugh…a lot.

No, of course the anti-immigrants have not defeated me. No. I have been given the opportunity to write for another blog and will do so. I’ve come to the realization that I won’t be able to keep both this blog and write for the other at the same time, everyday. The other blog will be a lot bigger than this one, and I won’t be the only writer. The focus will be immigration of course. As for this blog? Well, I want to say that I will discontinue it but I won’t. I will update it from time to time, maybe once a week from now on or something. I don’t want to be focused on movie trailers or video games either so I don’t know what I’ll write about. Maybe about myself and American side of me. You know, my normal life.

Anyways, I don’t want to get all mushy now. I really liked this blog and writing. I want to thank all of my readers for the patience that you had with my bad grammar, and for the encouraging comments. Especially a big shout out to those who backed me up in the comments against the anti-immigrants. And as for the anti-immigrants who commented, thank you for raising my popularity and raising my hits. Don’t worry, I never commented on your sites and never will. Haha, you probably thought I had been deported haven’t you. No, not yet anyways.

As for the new site that I’m working on, write a comment and I’ll let you know what it is. I’ll give out a hint about it though, and the saying goes, this a brave new world isn’t it? With such people in it…

I’ll be back here some time later and this is not the last time you’ve heard of me. Peace!

Personal thoughts of the day

Posted in blog, blogging, college, depression, life, personal, random, thoughts, writing on February 8, 2008 by iamashadow

So, I’m an English/History major now. I’ll be having an advising meeting to see what that involves. I think I’m closer to a history degree now than an English. I dropped one of my classes, I just didn’t think I could handle the amount of reading and writing being asked of me.

I have to write a short story pretty soon. It is due on the 14 and will be work shopped the week after. I’m pretty nervous about it. I’ve never considered myself a strong writer, mainly because my grammar is so bad. I’m trying to fix it by increasing my reading. I don’t know what I’ll end up writing. I want to write a fantasy story but don’t want it to turn out to be a Tolkien clone. Have to be creative. I also had to write a paper on my religious beliefs for my Spanish class. I don’t like to write about those things but oh well, I want a good grade so I’ll do it.

As for other things, I decided to go back to therapy… Yes, I’m clinically depressed and I’ve been sad (not same as depressed my therapist told me) for various reasons on the last couple of weeks. I had a refill of my anti-depressants so that’s good. I had a lot of things to talk about with my therapist. Being clinically depressed…it’s depressing. There is really no other way to describe it. I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone. It’s like believing the entire world is going to end and nothing else matters… Wow, this is quite sad. I should end in the happy note.

The first person who I told the truth about my status had this to say. “Dude…you have the biggest b***s of this university.” He said this in the dining hall, and I couldn’t stop laughing afterwards. It’s something I’ll never forget. Ever.

Sorry…

Posted in Nintendo, PC games, blog, blogging, computers, games, life, personal, random, sick, thoughts, video games, writing on February 8, 2008 by iamashadow

So, no update yesterday, sorry about that. I discovered Steam, online service for selling video games. So I downloaded lots of demos and bought a couple of video games. Okay…couple is small. Anyways, my laptop slowed down to a crawl and couldn’t use it. So yesterday I was dealing with a broken computer but now I’m back. Yay. And I’m sick or getting sick. A cold. :-( But that will not stop me from writing my posts and than sending them out so they can be posted. Hopefully I won’t do anything else stupid on my laptop but than again, this is me who we are talking about and I love those video games. And for the curious, I got Half Life 1 and 2, Deus Ex, Max Payne, Deus Ex: The Invisible War, and a demo of Dawn of War. In my computer I already had Star Craft, World of Warcraft, Rise of Nations, Fable: The Lost Chapters, Civilization IV and the Expansion pack of Beyond the Sword and Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind. Needless to say, I almost like PC gaming as much as I like Nintendo.

End of the Month Blogging

Posted in blog, blogging, fear, heroes, mentors, personal, quote, quote of the day, quotes, thoughts, videos, youtube on January 31, 2008 by iamashadow

January has come to an end. The month’s most popular posts are the following. Illegal Immigrants and Crime first, followed by Immigration Enforcement and the About Me post. As of the moment of this writing I’ve passed the 1700 views mark, with 1400 of those views from January. The best single day was having 82 views.

My favorite video that I posted was the following, Fear Politics.

My favorite quote is the following, from Martin Luther King Jr.

“An individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for the law.”

As for what I hope for February, hopefully continue to blog and have better posts than in the past.

Personal thoughts of the day

Posted in blog, blogging, college, friends, life, personal, random, school, thoughts on January 25, 2008 by iamashadow

It’s been a bad week. Well, maybe not bad. I don’t really know how I feel actually. I’ve been taking part in a fund raising scheme some friends made up in order to raise money for scholarships. I don’t think we will be able to meet the demands that we put on ourselves. It’s depressing to say the least. As for me personally, the long weekend was bad. I ignored some of my work and now that has come to bite me in the ass. I’m getting better though, I’m finishing a paper for my Spanish class tonight. Hopefully it will be good. And yes, I speak and write Spanish but that doesn’t make the master of the language. My English is a lot better I believe. At least with English I don’t have to worry about accents and such, I hate the little things. I can’t hear them but that’s because I’m semi-deaf from my left ear. I always ask my friends to walk to the right of me so I can hear them.

As for other things, I’ve been feeling like crap for some unknown reason. The back of my neck hurts and I’ve been sleepless. I unfortunately stress out easily. I hate it but meh, what I can I do right? I think all in all, it must be the fault of my meds. Or rather, my almost complete lack of them. I’ve been rationing them because I’ve been too busy with things to set up an appointment. Bad choice on my part, I know. I’ll try next week. I need to see my doctor anyways, stuff we need to talk and demons to try to extinguish. I think it is stress though.

A friend and I were talking about a bit our lives and how similar they are to our peers’ lives. Yet so different. Being an immigrant makes your perspective of life a little bit different. This weekend I was planning on trying to enjoy myself by having dinner today with old friends, maybe going to see a play and go so another play on Saturday. Yes, I like plays. I want to go away for a while, and forget about things. I haven’t really been playing video games either, which is a bad sign for the people who know me. I love video games, about my only escape. I still go to classes though, or try to get myself there. I’m not feeling terrible, but feel that I’m on my way there. I have to see someone or something. I don’t want to get depressed again and put the burden on those around me of dealing with me. It’s not fair.

Everyday, I go to class, procrastinate, do my work, play video games, hang out. In biggest sense of the word, I’m like everyone else, at least on the outside. But on the inside, wow, such a different landscape and view. Such a different outlook of life to that of my friends. So many different expectations. Different problems. Different thoughts, dreams and horrible nightmares. A different life. I wish I could live like them, like most people around me. And my back hurts, as if I was carrying a heavy burden. Maybe I am, maybe, but I don’t know. I don’t know anything. Hopefully I’ll get better once I go see a doctor and can get back my daily anti-depressants. Hopefully next week will be better, and the pain will go away, at least the physical one.

Anyways, I’ll continue to blog and hopefully will have something immigration related soon. I know that’s what you come here to read, even the anti-immigrant people come to see those so they can try to defeat my point of view and not about me complaining about life. I’ll have something up soon.

Blogging for a Month

Posted in blog, blogging, life, personal, thoughts, writing on January 20, 2008 by iamashadow

December 20 was the day I started blogging and it is now a month later. I have found it an enjoyable thing to do, blogging, despite the negative comments by some people. I mean, seriously, anti-immigrants are not going to convince me to their side and you don’t see me posting stuff on their websites. I have better things to do…like update my site.

So once again I ask all my readers if there is anything that they think I should do improve my blog. Aside from being more careful with grammar and the like. I love to write but I just can’t get to seem to grasp the grammar work. It’s quite sad actually. But anyways, I might change the format of the blog just for the hell of it too.

So thank you for the people who have commented, even the negative commenters, you amuse me. Also, I would like to thank the people who have added me to their blogrolls, thanks for considering my blog to be good. A special thanks to Moleman from the blog A Case of the Denver Doldrums, dude, you are awesome. While I don’t know much about your situation, I hope you get better and continue to write. I try to read your blog everyday, and on your last post, do try to write if you can. Writing is awesome, it is a great therapeutic technique. It helped me out during my depression. So, thanks for considering my blog a cool one, I think the same of yours.

Anyways, I hope everyone continues to check out this site since I still plan to update it everyday. Maybe not with immigration stuff but most of the time it will be that. I think I need to get better at reviewing things too. Oh, and if anyone wants to know more about me, just ask. I hope everyone is enjoying the long weekend!!