Born From Boredom

Well, I thought I escaped the blogging world when I quit Xanga, but it looks like my procrastinating habits have created a new monster. And there it is, my welcome statement to my readers.

Andy, a good friend of mine has a blog here, and after reading his blog a few times, I've become tempted to start blogging again. Excuse me while I chuckle at my cleverly composed title...

Anyways, let's start out with a little bit of an introduction hm? My name is Jay Hsu (pronounced shoe, don't even start...) and I'm an 18 year old freshman at the University of Illinois at Chicago. I'm working towards a major in finance and a minor in international business, but my true love is music. I've played violin since I was 5. I've dabbled a bit with guitar, bass, drumset, piano, and trumpet. I like pretty much all types of music. My music selection goes from Audioslave to The Strokes to Mika to Kanye West to Nirvana to Jay Chou to The Chicago Symphony Orchestra to Paramore to Jack Johnson to Colbie Caillat to Switchfoot to... If you skipped about half that sentence, I don't blame you. I would, too. Back to the introduction. I chose to go into business because I'm a slacker. I haven't practiced violin seriously since I was 13, although I have kept my "chops" by participating in various musicals, chamber groups, shows, and even played in a band for a little while. I used to swim competitively. And I procrastinate. A lot.

I don't want to depress or bore you with too serious of a topic, so let's start out with a topic that I love to bring up during awkward moments (insert awkward turtle here...maybe even go as far as row the awkward canoe away?). Anyways...back to the topic: the amazing taste of artificial grape syrup (that stuff they use in grape flavored popsicles and soda). Just kidding.

Oh, I know. I'll tell you about my little stint in competitive swimming.

It all starts with a minor back problem. I have extremely minor scoliosis (curvature of the spine). It's something like 8 degrees off? I forget... Anyways, a doctor recommended that I start swimming regularly in order to decrease the curvature, which would in turn help minimize something I can't remember how to spell or pronounce. So, with this doctor's recommendation in mind, my mother drove me home.

Now, there's something you should know about Asian mothers. They are very extreme in everything they do. They either talk extremely quietly, almost to the point where you can barely understand them, or they yell to the point to...where you can barely understand them. They either drive extremely passively, or more aggressive than the average teenager. And when they do either, it's scary. So, add that characteristic onto the usual mom characteristic of being over-worrisome, and you got one crazy mommy.

While on the ride home, I was thinking that my mother would probably just get a membership to the local park district's pool, but oh was I wrong.

About a week after the doctor's appointment, my mom comes home to say, "Jay, you have swim practice tomorrow at seven o'clock, so have your suit, towel, and goggles ready when I get home from work." Umm...PRACTICE?!?!? Too bad Asian mothers are pretty determined to control every aspect of their child's life, so any hope of getting myself out of this situation died right there. I went to practice, and got hooked. Swimming up and down the length is actually a little more amusing than it looks like, especially when you're as scatterbrained as I am.

Two years later, with one high school swim season over, I reached the apex of my swimming career. I had finished sixth in the state for my age group in the equivalent of the state championships in club swimming. Stepping up on that podium at the end of the race was one of the most amazing experiences I've ever had. That feeling of accomplishment, of hard work paying off. It's not something a slacker experiences often, which brings me to the purpose of this story.

Thank you, Mom, for pushing me to accomplish what I have accomplished in swimming, in music, in academics. *Happy Tears*

Well, it's almost midnight now...enough procrastinating. Homework time...

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Now playing: Rooney - When Did Your Heart Go Missing?