Yasen Angelov

By Louie Rodriguez
Valencia Voice

Yasen Angelov’s dream is to become a medical doctor, but he states with his European accent, “That simply will never happen, I need to be realistic.” Yasen Angelov was born with glaucoma,
the leading cause of blindness. In Angelov’s country, Bulgaria, many people in his family are medical doctors; you could see why he would wish to aspire to be such a thing.

“There are no major differences between you and I, I am just like everyone else.” He really is, he is married and has kids. Being blind and trying to live one’s life would seem impossible for many but just know there are people out there becoming just as successful as anyone else.“I don’t think this will hold me back, I have all the same opportunities,” said Angelov.

He is in the process of getting citizenship here in America, attending Valencia Community College, and to top it all off he is blind. Yasen is attempting to achieve the American dream. Angelov said, “I just live my life with no obstacles,” everyone should have this mindset.

Angelov explained that when studying it is a lot more difficult for him and that it takes much longer. “It is not about being smart, you just have to be a hard worker,” said Angelov. When asked about what he could see himself realistically doing in the future he responded with “I would like to possibly become a college professor.” Angelov jokingly told this reporter, “So you want to become a journalist? Journalists have to be aggressive in Bulgaria. They should learn to box, they might get hit.” Angelov also stated that in Bulgaria, journalist have to be very careful with who they question, it would not be surprising for one to end up dead.

Yasen Angelov has his head on his shoulders and is moving in the right direction. The future looks bright for this determined man. If there’s anything that we can learn from Angelov it is to never give up, even when one thinks they have hit rock bottom.

Chuck Klosterman comes to Valencia

ORLANDO, Fla. - After being paid $7,000, Chuck Klosterman the author of "Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs" decided to pay Valencia a little visit. From about 1 p.m. to 2:15 p.m. on Nov. 13 he had many in the Performing Arts Center sincerely intrigued.

For those of you who do not know who Klosterman is, he is an American Journalist. He was a senior writer for Spin Magazine and has also contributed to Esquire, GQ, The New York Times, The Believer, and The Washington Post.

If there was anything Klosterman emphasized throughout the entire discussion it was that “The best decisions in your life will be made totally arbitrarily.” The majority of the discussion was based upon hypothetical questions that are in his book Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs.

For example here is one of the hypothetical questions that was discussed: Let us assume you met a rudimentary magician. Let us assume he can do five simple tricks. He can pull a rabbit out of his hat, he can make a coin disappear, he can turn the ace of spades into the Joker card, and two others in a similar vein. These are his only tricks and he can’t learn any more; he can only do these five. HOWEVER, it turns out he’s doing these five tricks with real magic. It’s not an illusion; he can actually conjure the bunny out of the ether and he can move the coin through space. He’s legitimately magical, but extremely limited in scope and influence. Would this person be more impressive than Albert Einstein?

Countless amounts of people argued that Albert Einstein would indeed be more impressive. Some said his life was diligently spent slaving over work and complex issues. One lady argued that the magician could end world hunger by simply pulling rabbits out of his hat. There indeed was only one right answer to this question and the majority of the audience was wrong by agreeing Albert Einstein hypothetically would be more impressive. After a pretty serious and intense debate Klosterman informed us that everything Albert Einstein discovered would be insignificant and mindless with someone having the ability to conjure real magic. Most people started applauding him after that was said.

Klosterman is the author of five books. His newest, Downtown Owl is his first publication comprised of all fictional writing. He said he is working on a new book that he hopes to finish within the next two years as well.

Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs one of his most notable publications took him about four to five months of non stop writing. He said he would usually wake up around noon and work on the book till about three in the morning, often times throwing in some Chinese food. He explained that he wasn’t necessarily rich but basically he could sit around all day and just write if he wanted to.

He was a very friendly man, and he seemed very interested in what people had to say. After the event he did a lot of book signings and even took pictures with a few.

In his book Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs the very first sentence of his first chapter reads “No woman will ever satisfy me.” Throughout being graced by his presence Klosterman stated that just this Halloween he proposed to his girlfriend. When asked if that statement still holds to be true he kind of just smiled and said “I don’t know, at least not completely.” It is also funny that in his book it states “If I become marginally famous, I will undoubtedly be interviewed by someone in the media, and the interviewer will ask - Now that you’ve been married.. are those words still true?”

If your looking for a good read, some entertainment, and a new perspective on American popular culture read a book by Chuck Klosterman.