regret is a broken guitar, and when you shake it upside down, unfinished songs rain gently out, drifting slowly, over and over, side to side, before becoming nothing but soft stains on the ground. a soldier on a battlefield somewhere puts his gun down, closes his eyes, and dreams of white lilies. somewhere else, in calcutta, a man sighs at how in america, the richest country in the world, citizenship still does not guarantee home-owning as a right (not a privilege.) in iraq, a man offers this advice to a lightless notheast america: "don't trust the americans to fix your electricity grid, because they will most certainly short circuit and, worst of all, they will blame someone else for it." in berkeley, in one day, i spend 60 dollars on books, 7 dollars on pho, 14 dollars on new speakers, and only 1 dollar on the old woman on the street with no where to sleep. mars is at the closest its ever been to earth in forever and the berkeley sky is red with clouds. my apartment is full of (whether we realize it or not) some of the most educated people in the world, but there is still so much that we don't know: 1 of us can't fry an egg over-easy, 2 of us has never heard of proposition 54, 2 of us can't clean the bathroom when we're supposed to, 1 one of us does not know what a clit-stimulator is, 3 of us can't write and sing a song for someone, and none of us can fix our own ride. but let's focus on what we do know: how to blog. life is full of close-escapes, this isn't one of them, whether we're escaping or we're trapped is only a matter of perspective. this is really a cliche but you are loved.