Epistemology

Currently in the fourth week of my summer science program, I'm enjoying my summer somewhat. Purposefully, for the protection of my identity, I won't specify which program or which subject I am participating in (I'm a bit paranoid). However, I can say that it has been an eye-opening experience thus far.

The general topic and discussions in class have focused on Epistemology, the study of how we know what we know. I realized within the first couple of days that the so called 'facts' which I had firmly imprinted in my brain along my knowledge of the universe were baseless. All my life, I have learned of the world through the print of a textbook accompanied by unquestioned authority of 'great' philosophers and scientists, like Newton and Copernicus. I am not suggesting that they are incorrect or false in their discoveries. However, I have consciously taught myself to accept their findings as truth with doubt, rather than finding out for myself. How can I aspire to be an engineer or scientist when I have not sought after knowledge myself instead of being fed the information given to me? Even worse, how can I complacently accept the knowledge from a science textbook, yet profoundly refuse to accept knowledge from a religious book? They are one and the same. By refusing to seek knowledge for myself, I have followed the same path of a believer of religion. Both are baseless, both are aimless.

This is the revelation I experienced in just the first few days. The class extensively covers the working of the universe from the macro to micro, not with textbooks, but empirical evidence and experimentation. I can truly say, that this class has begun to foster in me, the mind of an independent thinker and scientist. It's really powerful and I'm excited for this new development that will surely grow throughout my lifetime.

However, there is a downside. Yes... the inevitable bad news. D: While my mind is flourishing, the poorly watered, crumpled-looking thing I call my social skills is deteriorating in comparison. It's been three full weeks and a day, just past the halfway point, and I haven't made one friend. I am introverted, so it not as easy as I'd like it to be. I have a few acquaintances of course, from group Q and A time, but no friends. Maybe I expect too much out of a six week summer program, but it feels strange being in the presence of people who you don't know, yet work with as classmates. I feel like I should have one good friend, but due to my unsociable tendencies that probably won't happen. It isn't so much of a problem, but it feels unusual.

I am not too discouraged, because I have newfound appreciation for epistemology. To my goals, I have added the task of creating my own philosophy using firm, logically based reasoning. I feel that philosophy is also another discovery to made that will improve my life. I'm also interested in philosophy because I recently finished Ayn Rand's "The Fountainhead", which was an amazing book that offered many interesting philosophical ideas that appealed to me as well as those that didn't resonate so well. I will try to post my developing philosophy as well as critiques of works by others, as I explore the field.

Summer's Off to a Lovely Start!

This summer of 2010 is turning out to be one of the best summers ever and it hasn't even started! So far, I've gone to an exhibit, seen an awesome movie, and taken a wonderful stroll in the park. I can feel that this summer is to be one of the most exciting summers that I've had in a long time. It's been lonely though. I have these amazing days, but no one to share it with. :( Maybe I'll find someone this summer ;), considering I have the guts to come out of the closet. It feels like the person who I want to be there isn't yet, and I'm just waiting for that person to arrive. It's a bit too childishly romantic to be wishing these things, but I guess it only human to want someone there.

The first thing I did this summer was the Cooper Union Art and Architecture Exhibit. It's a free exhibit that features all the work done by the students of Cooper Union at the end of the year. Here's a pic I took of Cooper Union's cool, modern building:



It's awesome! I love all the buildings of New York that dare to defy the norm. Most of Manhattan is filled with common rectangular brick buildings or towering skyscrapers which are really boring to look at after seeing them for the millionth time. Cooper Union's building is relatively new, since it opened in 2009, I think. The exhibit was great, and I took tons of pictures. The best part was the architecture. I don't know what it was, but when I arrived at the architecture part of the exhibit, I was completely fascinated with all the miniature models of future houses and buildings. Each part of the process was so intricately detailed. The drawings and the models all looked so great, I ended up spending hours in that one section of the exhibit. I was inspired to be an architect in that moment. I can't draw though and I don't have that much of an artistic side, so I don't think I'd want to actually design house as much as I'd like to look at the designs.



I also went to go see TOY STORY 3!!!!!!! Which was... so awesome in IMAX 3D! I loved everything about it. Now, I hate to admit it, but this 16 year old boy is really a kid at heart. I loved it, loved it, loved it. It made me laugh, scared me to death, and touched my heart right at the end. It was an emotional rollercoaster, and I'm not someone who's emotional at all. This was the best movie of the year, and a great ending to Toy Story.

Today, I had the most peaceful, serene, calm days of my entire life. On 104th street, on the East Side of Central Park, there is a piece of absolute bliss that I discovered. My grandma and I took a walk in Central Park, and happened to step into this wonderful heaven on earth. There is a garden with two lovely sections of cleanly cut hedges and gorgeous blooming flowers. In the center of these two sections, is a pristine lawn with hedges outlining the edges of the grass and a huge sparkling fountain at the end. Behind the fountain, there are rows of bushes cut into a step-like form and the top has a terrace like area covered with vines entangled with the metal as if they joined in perfect unison. It is an absolutely breathtaking place, and I am ashamed that as a New Yorker, I didn't know about it. Here's an overhead view and some pics I took:















I've had a lovely day and great summer so far. The best summer I had, was when I was younger and much more unrestrained. :D Ah memories! But that's a blog post for another day. I just hope this summer won't be spent alone. ;)

Moving my hips like yeah...

OMG, I had sooo much fun on Saturday. I got to go to a club for the first time in my life! SO EXCITING, and revealing as well. I'll talk about it later. I absolutely needed that release after an extremely long week of AP tests and Model UN debating. I was really tired of all the work and cramming, and this week is finally over. I felt confident about taking my AP tests and I'm sure I earned a 4 or 5 (highest grades).

Model UN was interesting, not that it's ever boring. I had a relatively simple topic which I will not specify for anonymity's sake. However, the simplicity of the topic was kind of an unfortunate thing, because it led to the same people coming up to the podium, reiterating the same general points over and over again. Trust me, it gets annoying after about the fifth time. I thought I that I could've brought up some original ideas and new thoughts on how to address the issue. That's what I thought, but not what I did. It's a huge problem with me, that I thought I'd get over by now, but whenever it comes to public speaking, it's incredibly hard. I guess I'm what you'd call an introvert. In my mind, everything is completely organized and very analytic and insightful. I love being able to remain in nothing but my own presence and focus on my thoughts. When I get in front of people, it's an entirely different story. First of all, I absolutely cannot stand being at the center of attention, with everyone listening to your word choice, your tone of voice, the pronunciation of your words, and all interpreting them at the same time in their own way. When you think about it like that, it is pretty scary. However, I managed to speak twice by reading off of a paper on which I pre-wrote some things I wanted to say. I felt proud that I was able to do that in front of 250+ people, considering my fear of public speaking. Maybe next year, I'll be more confident and I get an award for Best Delegation or an Honorable Mention.

It wasn't until after, the conference was over, that I really loosened up. I was so free and unrestricted in my inhibitions, I surprised even myself. Not only did I have fun, I had some particularly personal revelations. So, I went to the club for the first time. The pics at the top of the page.


It's like that except, Saturday night it was packed. Hundreds of people were rubbing up next to each other unintentionally and you could hardly move. I was really nervous about going, so I spent at least an hour getting ready before heading out. I put on my favorite blue-greenish shirt from urban outfitters, that looks really nice on me but it's still casual. I got my best jeans on, with some matching sneakers, and made sure my face looked reasonably attractive. Yes, as you can imagine, I was really nervous, so I had to be a perfectionist. When I entered the club, I tried looking for friends or even classmates from school, but I couldn't find anyone. So, I sat down, and looked at everyone dancing, while being shy. Then the song came on, Party in the USA by Miley Cyrus. Let me just say that I absolutely abhor most pop, especially pop by Miley Cyrus of all people. Pop lacks the creative, awe-inspiring, original feeling that music should give to its listeners. With the exception of a few **Lady Gaga :D** pop rarely goes out of the monotony of a simple beat and overused hook, with unintelligent, meaningless lyrics to accompany. I could go on about my belief in what true music should be, but I digress. Anyways, I don't know what it was about that song, but as soon as it came on, the Miley Cyrus' digitally enhanced voice captured me , and made me wanna put my hands up and move my hips. lol. I went to the downstairs dancing area and a friend spotted me, and pulled me into the center of the dancefloor. I hadn't expected it, but it was the thing I needed to bravely start dancing in the crowd. After that, the rest was amazing. My friend left me to dance by myself, and at that point I was shamelessly dancing to the beat of the music, almost as if I had let go of all my precautionary thoughts and worries and my body was flowing freely, connected with the music.

Then, what happened was a moment that I will remember for the rest of my life. As I was dancing to the music, a girl and her two friends approached me. Her friends told me that, she wanted to dance with me, and I replied yes. She was an attractive blonde girl with an average weight, about my height. Now, having never been to a club or a party, I thought dancing meant her and I, face to face, with limited contact between each other. Woah, was I wrong! Unexpectedly, she suddenly turned around and began rubbing her butt on my dick, gyrating her hips from side to side. Completely shocked, but unable to show it since her back was turned to me and the strobe lights were flashing on and off, I went with it and danced with her for about thirty minutes in that position. Now, I must say, it was extremely exciting and I felt a pure adrenaline rush through my body, however my "gayness" was never as clear to me as in that moment. Here I was with this hot blonde, pressing her butt against me, and I had no erection, no hard-on, no anything. Later, I danced with another girl, in the same way, except she was a bit more aggressive in her movement, and got the same result. Some of the guys started taking off their shirt cause it was really hot and sweaty in there. I found my self looking at them. The Italian guys were especially hot; most of them had cute faces, medium length brown hair, and the sexiest abs I've seen up close. I was literally inches away from touching them ... oh the temptation! It doesn't take a scientist to figure what went on that night. I quote A Pimp Named Slickback, lol, "Scientifically speaking, has [it] achieved the desired result?" My answer is yes, and heterosexuality wasn't the desired result anyway. That night at the club was just an affirmation of what I already knew to be true.

To anyone, who thinks being gay is a choice, you are sadly mistaken. The blonde girl who was (I'll use this term cautiously) 'bumping and grinding' on me was very visually attractive and I still felt nothing sexual towards her. I just wish everyone could experience what I felt, and allow themselves to become much more open-minded about sexual orientation. I'm really tired right now, and it's time to go to bed. Goodnight to all.

Closed Doors, Open Doors

It's been really hectic and at the same time depressing this past month. So, to recap everything, I have been busy with lots of studying and stress. I took my SAT II's (French, Mathematics Level 2, and Physics). For those who may be reading and don't know what those are, they're specialized college admission assessment exams. They are really important if you want to get into an ivy league (top tier) college. So, being the lazy person that I am, I decided not to study until the day before the test. As bad as that sounds, it actually helped! It gave me some confidence before taking the test, and it helped to refresh on some of those old, forgotten equations. Overall, the test was not that difficult. I honestly expected something extremely hard, but it turned out to be moderately easy. Only the grades will tell how well I did. Hopefully, my confidence during the test matches those scores!

Also this month, were the notifications for the three programs I applied for. I applied for Questbridge's scholarship, MIT [Massachusetts Institute of Technology(ahhh...my dream school)] summer program, and NSLI-Y summer abroad to China. I was really hopeful about the summer abroad to China and I even started to learn some Chinese (mostly characters, because the tones were hard). 我想去中國. I want to go to China. The first character is pronounced wo in the third tone and means I or me. The second means to want, and you can tell because the heart at the bottom of that character signifies feeling or desire. The third means to go. the fourth means center or China (center of the world >_<) and is pronounced Zhong in the first tone. The last one means country.

I learned these characters and a whole lot more, while prepping for the possibility of a summer in China. I was rejected by NSLI-Y, but it wasn't all that bad. I still want to learn Chinese. 我想學中文. I have a newfound appreciation for China, that wasn't really as strong as when I've learned about it in history class. So, I've made it a life goal of mine to learn Chinese and go to China at least once. :)

I was also rejected from The Dream School (MIT), L'université de mes rêves, for the summer program at least. To be realistic, there was an 8% chance of getting accepted, but nevertheless, it sucks to be a reject :'( I was, however, accepted to Questbridge's scholarship program, so one thing went well. I don't know what that program means for me, but at least I have something that i got accepted to. lol

Closed doors mean open doors, windows, and most importantly an open mind to what the summer holds for me. So far, here are the options: take one of the two free college courses offered at one of the local colleges, get a job so that I can earn money, and/or participate in the Siemens Math, Science, and Engineering competition which might give me an upper hand in my MIT application next year! Thankfully, I live in a city with boundless opportunities and lots to do. Who knows, maybe I'll spend the summer here in the city better than I would have in China. *barely clings on to the hope of a good summer, and swallows the pain of rejection, sniff, sniff* jkjk. What's gone will never come back, I must look towards my future with unfaltering idealism. I think that sentence sums it up for me.

Inner Conflict

I really don't want to start ranting on and on about how much life sucks right now for me, but I feel like the safest way to get this off my chest is to just write it out. I'm at a place in my life where everything is just falling apart internally, and I need to restructure everything. It might not make sense so far, but let me explain.

Discovering my sexuality and slowly learning to accept it totally changed everything about my life. Since I was a kid, I was completely sure that I was a Christian and believed everything that the Bible said. I went to Sunday school every week, I went to the youth groups, and I went on the church trips. Going to church has been pretty much like a ritualistic chore for me. I used to go because I was encouraged to, but now I don't even have a reason to go anymore. As I grow older, it's really hard to try and go to church without having a feeling of skepticism or doubt. I always come up with questions that challenge God, wondering if anybody else asks these questions, or if they have an answer.

These are some nagging questions I've had:

1. If God doesn't like homosexuality so much, then why would he even allow the attraction. He is all powerful, right? If God doesn't like it, then why did he make me gay?

2. If Jesus is the only way, then what about the people who don't know him? What about the people from China and India who didn't get to hear about Jesus, because missionaries didn't arrive there until many centuries after? Did they go to hell since they didn't have Jesus?

3. How can a God care so much about punishing or judging sinners, that he would send them to hell, yet care so little about children dying of starvation in Africa? Does he take the time to provide them with food? No.

4. Since there are so many different sects of Christianity, which one will God 'accept'?

5. If God doesn't want us to be focused on worldly things and he wants us to be with him, why did he even create an earth? Why not have everyone start off in heaven with him?

6. If God foresees everything, why did he create man, knowing that man would sin and some would go to hell and suffer?

Aside from these questions, I still believe in God. I'm just not sure that any religion properly describes him. Anytime I see one of those nature or universe videos, I'm absolutely blown away by the complexity and beauty of everything our universe has. That's the only thing that makes me believe in a God. I was watching one today. Here's the video if you wanna see. It's really cool!

Nature by Numbers from Cristóbal Vila on Vimeo.

Anyways, back to my internal struggle. I feel like I'm totally disconnected with my church despite going there for many years. It's hard to separate myself from such a powerful force. I feel like I have to start over again, and find myself without religion in my life. My political views, my moral views, everything is changing. It's definitely scary, but that's not going to stop me from exploring a totally new world and finally being me.

New Beginnings

Ok, so this is my first time ever having a blog. First time ever being so open to the online community. With firsts come new beginnings, and I hope that this new journey will be awesome for both myself and anyone who reads this. Don't wanna start off with a cliché sounding intro, but that's how I feel. :)

So why do I want to start this blog?

1. To discover myself

2. To connect with other people like me (In other words: I'm lonely right now :P)

3. To share all my thoughts for organization, analysis, and inspiration

4. To document my life (not that it has any importance D:)

5. To develop my writing skills in English and perhaps French as well

6. To mark the day when everything changed (read later)

That's all I can think of for now , but there are many reason why this blog cannot be put off any longer.

So, let me tell you a bit about myself while trying to remain anonymous. Basically, by label definition - everything that people "define" themselves as or immediately recognize in others - I am a 16 year old, black, gay, semi-closet case, intellectual(geek, but intellectual sounds so much nicer, don't you think?)male. Now, I am all of these these, yet none. While people might see these things, I am not defined by them; I am (my name here). I don't follow stereotypes. I'm just me, whoever that is.

Anyways, about my story as mentioned in number 6, it happened today. So, like I told you, I'm gay, however until two days ago my mom didn't know. She found out through some, shall I say ahem... internet browsing history ;), that I was gay. If you're wondering why I didn't tell her, it's because I come from a very religious family, thus the problem. Being the organized person I am, I had a plan to conceal my homosexuality from my mom, try to act good, and come out in college to friends only. That way I could keep everyone happy. However, I didn't count on the fact that one day I would forget to erase my internet history . So, she found out. But it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. She didn't kick me out of the house. She didn't yell or scream at me. She was surprising calm. She sat with me and showed me bible verses(the regulars - Lev 18:22, Lev 20:13, Rom 1:27), told me it was wrong. At this point in my life, I have realized that it really doesn't matter anymore. I have one life to live and if it means denying my inherent nature for the rest of my days, then it's not worth living. I cannot imagine a future where I try to live some happy, heterosexual, Christian life with a wife and kids, and believe me, I have wild imaginations. So, this event was the last push for me to start this blog.

I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I will have fun writing it. Thanks for reading this far, and tell me what you think, or what needs improvement. Thanks!