It's Not About the Money...

that's what one of the cooks in my school cafeteria said to me last week while he was talking about mike tyson and jackson being broke. And they don't even play poker! ^^

The cook sounded like really believed in that line. I respect that. Nowadays in our society, rather than striving to live, our commonly shared goal is to reach upper class. For some of us, we demand it and expect no less. It's a pretty absurd goal. People in 3rd world countries struggle to live, yet we believe we need to struggle for plasma TVs and sweet Jaguars.

Heh, I'm a victim of the upper class goal. Truthfully, I really think it's how I was raised. I was born in a well to do family, not absurdly rich, but we definitely have enough money. My relationship with my parents isn't that great. My dad worked really hard when I was a toddler. He usually left around 10am and came back at 12am, so on weekends he'd be pretty drained. And even then, I think he worked every other weekend. My mom didn't play with me much either; she was usually sleeping, watching tv, or cooking I think. Where does that leave me? Well my sister usually played with me (until I was 5) and sometimes the housekeeper. Haha, due to an inciden I wasn't supposed to talk about, I told my parents when I was 5 and they got pissed to the roof. She got in big trouble and after that we fought a lot - after all, we are 8 years apart. I had 2 neighbors to play with for awhile, but they both moved out when I was 7 or 8.

My parents would always tell me how my sister is getting straight A's in school and that I need to work hard and go to an Ivy League school. The concept of working hard and getting rich was always constantly grinded into my head. And seriously, 19 years later, there's no way I can change that concept now. I'm majoring in film, want to be a director, yet I'm more serious about poker. Poker is my source of hope to satisfy my primary goal - supporting a family financially. I'm actually pretty insecure about money. Don't get me wrong, I love to spend it, but not having it or making a girl pay for a meal is pretty unacceptable to me. And I don't use these guidelines to judge people by the way, this is how I personally feel when I'm in the situation. I've been broke several times. This past Christmas break, I had about $4 in my pocket when coming home and $0 in the bank. Now I have $2,046 to my name in poker $ and I'd like to continue rising. I don't want to get caught in a gambler's addiction and I don't want to squander away a big portion of my bankroll thinking that I can easily build up again. Why waste money??? After I'm done with poker - not permanently but to the point where I don't have to play for $$$ rather than for pure enjoyment - I have other goals I want to finish off.

So if I'm in a well to do family, why don't my parents give me an allowance? They did up until 11th grade. I got about $30 a month - probably the lowest allowance among the kids who went to private school, lol - I could make an additional $20 a week if I didn't buy any lunch - which I sometimes did, I'd mooch off of my friends' food. Back tracking for a second, when I went to visit relatives, they'd give me money since I saw them once a year. Weird custom huh...I'd always spend a lot on video games and after awhile I had about 2k in my bank. Summer of 8th to 9th grade comes along and I decide I want to invest in Sega. This was my 2nd investment, 1st being I put $$$ in IBM simply because one friend started to invest. That IBM stock later went up and split, haha. And what happened with Sega? It went from $2 to $10 !!! I invested for the sole reason that the Dreamcast was coming out, haha. My mom invested my $$$ too late and I got the stock around $3-4. I was still happy though, I had 5k! I didn't spend too much of it til later on, computer parts here and there, video games, etc etc.

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It's funny that I was thinking about that yesterday, and then as I was watching this one anime - Onegai Teacher (Onegai Teacher) - which is FREAKING GOOD by the way! during one of the episodes, this girl gets dumped by a guy she really likes, and the teacher says something like: how did you feel before it happened? She responds: excited. And he goes on to say that a lot of times we fail in what we try to achieve, but each experience is fun and when you finally get to your goal, it's the best feeling ever. And I fully agree.

note ~ I rarely, rarely, like to relate any film or tv show to reality. I think it's very cheesy and if you're a good enough talker, you can relate almost any concept to reality, it's not that hard. Such as: the director had a camera watching a flower bloom into something beautiful, and that's just like life. Work hard and you'll blossom! aaaaaaaahahhahahah

It's hard for me to always look at what I do in poker for long term results. For instance yesterday, Friday the 5th of May, I was on a rollercoaster. Down $70, up $170, even, up $60, down $70, and up $1 thanks to two bonuses lol. It was really hard to stick to just longterm longterm longterm and not be phased by the fact that I had only managed a $1 profit. But after watching that episode, it hit me that IM A DUMMY! Do I have fun playing poker? Yes I do! Should I be phased by the fact that I didn't make money or worse that I'm down in $$$? No! why? Because I'm a winning player. Swings come and go and if I continue to play well, I'll make it back and then some. Not every day is going to be a golden day. Gosh, what an easy concept! I should just pin a note to my forehead :p

I'm gonna hit the cards today or tomorrow again, starting to feel more confident.
See ya
~Mikey Song