Knowledge is... well... knowing. Part One

Log start: 2:21pm August 25th, 2011

If I had a dollar for every time I used a two-dollar bill and have them question me if "this exists?" or "is this real?" or "what the shit is this?" I could probably financially support myself for the rest of my life. This post is not actually about the general populus not knowing about the two-dollar bill, but on the people that SHOULD know about the two-dollar bill.

This starts off in Flushing, Queens, NY, in the HSBC banking location where my bank tellar is this asian guy in his 20's not 5 years older than I am. I try to widthdraw some arbitrary amount of two-dollar bills and he chuckles and says to me "what are you going to do with this?" I reply with, "spend them." He says "good luck"

It was the sarcastic good luck because he must know the troubles behind spending two-dollar bills. Let me tell you, and most of you do know, that my hobby of spending two-dollar bills is nothing but a rough journey. Having cops being called on me once, receiving questionable looks all of the time, and some even claiming that these were out of production 100 years ago while the bill clearly marks that this bill was created only 8 years ago.
But it's not even about them this time.

This time, I was unsatisfied by the amount of two-dollar bills that the major HSBC branch carried so I went to my local HSBC branch to try and widthdraw some more. Last time was a great success at my local branch, i snagged up all of their two-dollar bill inventory (which is never more than 20 bills, even then 20 bills is VERY rare) so i wanted to try my luck again here.
This time i was greeted by a middle aged cantonese lady which completely breaks out in laughter when i try and widthdraw my money in denominations of two-dollar bills.

1) Rude
2) The fuck is going on?

She goes "why do you need them?" which is a rude question to begin with because I should not be explaining why I use money to my bank teller.
When she says that she dosen't have any two-dollar bills anywhere without even checking with the other tellers or the vault, I ask if I can order them from the Federal Reserve, a move that I have used and accomplished many times in the past.

She replies to me "even if you order from the money center, they won't have it"

This is where I begin to rage in my head because (in sequential raging order)
1) Two-dollar bills are still in production and still in circulation
2) I know the Federal Reserve has a shit ton of them
3) "MONEY CENTER"... are you for real?


A bank teller that refers to the Federal Reserve as the "money center" which is completely true, and I would accept that answer from anyone who has not graduated high school. But for a professional banking personnel to say "money center" is completely outrageous.
Not only did she mock me for using two-dollar bills, questions what I use money for, completely ignore the banking business ethics, but now uses incorrect terms when dealing with a customer.


This is the kind of shit that makes me want to shove tables over.

I know that two-dollar bills aren't common but that is to be expected from people outside of the banking industry.

I'm going to eat lunch in rage now...
HakoneDayDreamer, i'm writing nasty e-mails to HSBC

Pokemon Trainer

Log start: 8:42pm August 1st, 2011

This is a true story of how I became a real life Pokemon Trainer. Stay awhile and listen.


As a swimming instructor, I see hundreds of children daily. I encounter children of different ethnicities, different backgrounds and most importantly, different personalities. It's the range of people that I get to see daily that makes this job, with a worse pay than other lifeguarding jobs, worth it.
One of the most unique child that I had taught ever was a little 7 year old Japanese girl by the name of Annelise, or Pikachu, as she would demanded me to call her by on the first day where I introduced myself to the class.

Aside from now having to teach an electric pokemon with affinity for water, I had soon realized a few days after camp had started that Pikachu and her classmates were one of the most diverse group of cute little 7 year old children that I have ever taught. No matter how much they annoy me or do something wrong, I couldn't bring myself to yell or be mad at any of them. Even when I was explaining backstroke to the class and a girl named Miriam had splashed me in the face when I was in serious mode, or when little Pikachu herself had round-house kicked me right in the family jewels when I was supporting her freestyle, I would be ticked off for a slight second and when when I looked at the class as a whole, smiling and chatting away at the wall I would suddenly reminisce of the past where life was so much simpler. They were at an age where they could truely do a lot of things without serious repercussions. Nothing in the world would matter to them. Politics, religion, who stole whos land, who owes who money, who didn't make it to what college, whose professor is the biggest twat, whose 100 fly time is faster than whose, whose skanky girlfriend is sleeping with who, who is now in the unemployment office looking for a chance to survive, who needs to save money in the bank, who needs to wake up and get to work in time, and who needs to suck up to who to advance in their offices.

All the drama and all of the things didn't matter at that age because you could just sleep it off and the problems would be gone the next day.
Youth, the thing that everyone yearns for but none can re-live it once it has passed. We take youth for granted when we are young only to regret it when it is gone. The hope for tomorrow, a new generation and a chance to craft someone into the image that you want them to be.

That is me. A lifeguard, an instructor, a teacher, the creator of futures.

In a sense, the nickname of Pikachu isn't really a bad nickname for this. I have thought of myself a a Pokemon Trainer ever since she became my student, and i'm not doing things far off by teaching this Pikachu things so that she may gain experience points and then even evolve. I am also doing a darn good job if I can teach an electric Pokemon some water moves.

Just as Ash did with many of his Pokemon, I will do the same in training them and then letting them free into the world hoping that they make something of the many knowledges that I impart them with. If teaching wasn't such shit pay and physically draining, I would actually do it as a living. I am now teaching a student, Alexandra, towards the end of the day where I have had her as a student ever since she started swimming in a life jacket. Now she is one of the fastest swimmers that I am instructing, just shows how much difference you can make on a student. At the end of the day, that's all I need to make this job worth it.

No matter how much you love something, unless you have the passion to continue with it, it will slowly die. My days of a trainer are short lived but I will have all of the good memories to say that I made an impact on whatever I did. I have always took this job for granted from the first day I started working. I became a lifeguard because my high school swim coach said it was one of the best summer jobs a teenager can have. He wasn't kidding, but at that time I was looking more at the dollar signs than what I was doing as a bigger picture. It wasn't until the second year that I was a lifeguard that I finally understood what being a teacher was about. During the summer where you teach them everyday, you do not notice the little pokemon getting better and better at swimming. It is not until you see them again after a year that you can compare them to the first time you met them.

The beginning and the end, what is the difference between the two?
That's the part where you fill in your story.


HakoneDayDreamer, maybe being grown up isn't that bad.