introversion

My life is so generally uneventful and unexciting that I haven’t taken the time to write in this thing for a while. Let’s do a mini-update about recent thoughts and events.

(more…)

I like it when Renee and Nikki come over to the house and the house is filled with the noise of everyone conversing; it’s nice. (Sometimes it’s not nice, like when I’m trying to study and my patience becomes nonexistent, but for the most part, it’s nice.) I think it’s because the house feels alive rather than our usual silent solitariness (that is, each of us doing our own thing). I don’t know; this is really random but I’m just sitting here listening to the separate convos going on, like Hung laughing downstairs with Renee and Don and Nikki discussing law stuff. Actually, I was thinking that it would be nice to have a place filled with such conversation when I move on, I guess, and then I wondered what kind of people I’d like to have filling up such a place. Then, of course, it occurred to me that this might drive me nuts since I do like my quiet time, too. There’s just no happy medium. However, without mom and dad, the house has been too quiet lately. It’s weird not hearing someone shuffling around downstairs all the time.

/random

You know, I really, really miss the days when I wasn’t procrastinating and thus not writing craptastic papers in one day that make me sad and more stressed out when they’re finished because they’re such shitty quality. Yeah… so how do I, at eight weeks into the quarter, get my ass into gear and stop procrastinating? And catch up with all my reading? And generally do not sit on the Internet and fool around telling myself to go do my homework? And actually get myself to write something rather than letting 101 ideas float around in my head?

Some original ideas would be nice, too, brain. How about something more regarding Vilena and Aezek?

Damn me but I still have two more papers to write this quarter.

Hmm… I feel slightly better now. I have discovered that I am the type that needs to bitch and complain and vent about my deficiencies in the hopes of assuring myself that I am not as crappy as I think. This morning was a good morning, though, since Nene and Nikki had stayed the night. I had missed seeing them and it was good to talk to Nikki this morning and to eat pancakes. I’ll feel much better in 10 minutes when my Hum paper is out of my hands and beyond my power; well, maybe I will. I know how badly this paper is written so I’ll probably be bothered until I get it back and see if I managed to get a B and not a C. God, that’s depressing.

Jeff said I should write in this more, so maybe I should.

First, because it’s most prominent, school: I don’t know what changed from last year to this quarter, but I am friggin’ swamped with work and more often than not behind in it. It’s true that I have been slacking… a little… ok, more than I should, but still it just blows my mind that I always seem to have something NOT done and something looming in the future (a paper, a test, something–this time around it’s a midterm and a quiz on Friday and a paper due next Wed. Gr.). And it just really hit me that this quarter is already half over. That’s so crazy.

Other than that, classes are alright. Chem is boring as heck and if I weren’t taking it for a grade, I’d probably just blow it off, but since I am, I do have to put some effort into it. I definitely don’t really have the time to devote to it; I wish it were just bio where you memorized stuff instead of all this figuring out how electrons pair up or what molecules look like crap and the Daily Specials are more of a pain in the ass than interesting, especially since we have to know that material in addition to the course material for the tests. Ugh. Hum drives me nuts on the basis that my professor doesn’t lecture very well; it’s history and history and history and not much about the actual work and even then I’m usually so tuned out by that point that I take crappy notes. This makes me sad because the texts themselves are very interesting: thus far, Boccaccio, Machiavelli, Christine de Pizan, de las Casas, Vespucci, and, which I should be reading but have not started yet, Thomas More. I’m not on the edge of screaming or ripping my hair out, but this may chance once I see the grade I got on my first paper (25% of my grade! Only 2 papers this quarter! AAAH!). Spanish is Spanish and such a pain in the ass with the amount of work it is. It doesn’t help that I hardly even thought about Spanish over the summer aside from the random times I attempted to use it at work. I wish it was 2B again where they ease you into all the grammar rules instead of assuming you still must remember something. The readings are also boring since it’s all articles about social commentary rather than short stories (although the themes of the stories in 2A and 2B were very depressing; I think 2A was like oppressed peoples and women and 2B was war). I like my TA though; I had him last quarter. We still chat a little bit before and after class, but not really since I have Lit right after that class and he has another 2C class anyway. And there’s no doubt that Lit is the class that makes this quarter all worth it. Ok, so I hate the research paper writing aspect of it (and I was shocked when our TA used one of my body paragraphs from my essay as an example on using textual evidence), but Prof. Tonkovich just lectures so well that class itself is awesome. I like it a lot because it’s a lot of social studies through literature; Ally tends toward thinking it’s too much in that direction rather than studying the literature itself. Whatever the case is, those 50 minutes always seem to fly by while in every other class, especially Chem which follows immediately afterwards, 50 minutes seem to take an eternity. AND we have an awesome TA. I can almost forget the horrors of fall and spring quarters of last year.

Strange, though, but all my classes seem to be overlapping this quarter. Talking about slavery in Lit ends up connecting to other talks about slavery in Hum which somehow even hookup with talking about slavery in Spanish?! It’s weird, but if there’s one thing that college has really been developing in me it’s a broader way of thinking and just questioning. Hum and even Soc 1A back in Fall Quarter have been really good at this, and Prof. T. seems really determined to break down all my preconceived notions about literature. I like it, but it has been making me question what I want to study. I really, really like delving into social issues and just plan sociology and how societies operate, but I really, really like literature, either as literature or as a tool to understand or decipher society or people, too. If I could combine the two somehow, maybe with a little science like bio that while more indepth wouldn’t make me want to cry with tests (how I wish grades didn’t matter!) and psychology too, it’d be close to my perfect course of study.

The only other big thing going on in my life right now is learning the violin. I love my lessons if only because I end up discussing the most random things with my teacher when I go. We talk about literature sometimes and music history (she has so much random knowledge about women musicians in the past–part of her very feminist spirit I’m sure–which resonates very nicely with all my feminist lit teachers which is really working towards making me pretty feminist, which I’ve always kind of been anyway but not in any real intellectual sense) and just some of the most random topics that always add to the pile of stuff I’m already thinking about. Sheesh. I try to practice everyday, though now school just makes me lazy sometimes and I don’t want to pick up the violin. When I can get over my laziness, though, I’ll sometimes end up playing for like an hour just because the act of playing itself and the sound and feel of the music is so absorbing. I’m still nowhere near decent, but at least I can play stuff now and even fool around and almost decipher songs by ear. Learning and, dare I say it, playing the violin has really affected how I listen to music now; I notice violins in music now that I never noticed before and I find myself randomly thinking about tempo and beat and just how things sound. (I’m falling in love with the concept of sound; it’s part of why I love language–the way it sounds. If foreign languages weren’t so hard for me to learn, I’d definitely be learning more of them. As it is, some of my favorite music is in other languages or in nonsense languages just because not being able to understand the music renders, in a way, the voice as just another musical instrument. I love the pure range and expressiveness of the human voice, which is maybe why I’m so attracted to the violin and the other string instruments.) My singing hasn’t improved much–and I sing in the car a lot during my drives to and from school–but sometimes I can hit notes, even if it does sound horrible.

Thinking about a random comment I made in a conversation between Ally, Michelle, and me, I’m not sure which would be worse for me: going blind or going deaf. I think I’d just go crazy if either happened.

To end on a random note: Ally’s apartment is awesome and I’m sure all her roommates are sick of randomly seeing me there. And I’m not dead on the Internet; my LJ is very active. It’s just… fandom stuff, which I assume doesn’t interest most of the people who would read this blog.

Saw the Diavolo show with Dana tonight. Slow at parts, but at other times simply amazing in the breadth of skill and example of human strength and grace. Some segments even had my gut clenching in fear that someone was going to take a bad fall or get crushed, but there was never a moment that the performers were not in control. The props were amazing and well used for their relative simplicity: a prop that looked like a big human body and a door for single acts, a board with metal pegs spaced out across it, a giant wheel, and a half-sphere with panels that served as a representation of a ship for the multi-person acts. Certainly worth it for $5 a ticket.

I have always been amazed by any performing art and/or sport that exhibits what the human body can do. I can’t really express my obsession with the Cirque du Soleil or how badly I’d love to see a show of theirs (but not really willing to pay the extremely exorbitant prices) or why I like to watch gymnastics and cheerleading and all those random sports that require such extravagant movements and maneuvers. I found a part of the reason tonight when the knife of envy stabbed through me as I watched the performers. They have such freedom with their bodies, able to do with them as they wish: cartwheels, back handsprings, handstands, climbing, swinging, etc. They just can and do. It’s not only amazing to watch, but it really made me wish I could exert that kind of control over my own body. Not that I’d ever be motivated to really go work out like that to get there. (Although lately I’ve really had a desire to go try out yoga or something. Meditation, too.)

I think envy is also kind of what motivated me to start learning the violin as well. Musicians who’ve played for years have such a freedom with music that’s startling. They just pick up their instruments and go. Dancing, too. Gah. The list just goes on and on.

But I just wanted to note that the show tonight was amazing.

John O’Neill III, if you see this, I’m going to have to steal my anime back from you one day. And how the hell are you doing?

I was continually amazed today by just how many times my coworker can mention to people that she has two children and relate to them, one after the other, the same goddamn story or circumstance. To me, it just seems odd to tell people things like this, but maybe this is my lack of customer service skills or personableness shining through. It actually makes me feel kind of sad for her because I know this is pretty much the end all, be all of her life and I can’t understand for the life of me what compels her to try and convey this to everyone in the world. I don’t get “I am happy” vibes coming off of her. Then again, she annoys me so much most of the time that any pity I feel immediately is overcome by my irritation. It’s something about her voice and her tendency to tell me inane stories about her home life that I never ask about or even suggest that I want to know. I have no idea why she feels like I would care one iota for her goddamn circumstances or this or that. I don’t. Get over yourself. Or go find yourself so that you don’t feel a need every day to reaffirm your existence by telling everyone about it. (Do I sound bitter? Good.)

Also, why the hell is she so nosy? There is absolutely no reason that she has to ask me every single goddamn time I pick up the phone and deal with a customer who it is or what they wanted. I wanted to just say to her, “Why the hell do you need to know?” I answer anyway but everytime a growing feeling of annoyance and resentment grows in me like WTF does it matter to you unless it’s the boss?

You know, I was just talking to Dana recently about how I feel like I’m a much calmer person than I used to be. (Dana says that she had the first impression of me being a calm person and when I told her recently how irrationally angry I could be in the past, she said to me, “You’re trying to ruin my zen!image of you, aren’t you?") And I do believe this to be very true for, as I told Dana, I react to many things that would have made me just go berserk in the past with either this strange resignation or self-deprecating regret or even humor. However, people like this coworker immediately put me on my short temper and I can tell when I’m getting short with her, too, or when I’m going to just want to punch her one of these times.

Now I’ve worked myself into a frenzy. Well, the countdown to my last day has begun, so I won’t have to work with her much longer. (Thank the cosmos.)

So while trying to tune the E string on the violin today using the peg, there was suddenly a loud bang. A little chaos and disbelief later, I realized the tailpiece’s, er, string? (that which attaches it to the button–the violin is pretty much just held together by tension) had broken and there was no way I was going to play the violin this morning. So I called my teacher first thing and we lamented the violin’s fate and then I started looking around yellowpages.com for a repair shop. I knew of a violin shop, but knew they weren’t open today. A few phones calls later found me suddenly speaking to an older man (a deep, warbling voice that put me in mind of a small old man). I bunglingly asked him if he did estimates after he told me twice to speak up and then slower and eventually got around to finding out that from him, it’d probably only cost $10. I got his address from him (the one listed in the yellow pages is for some reason his home address and not his shop–yes, I also managed to mess this up). I decided I had time enough to head up there and see how long it would take him to fix it, completely willing to let it be overnight if so. Anyway, I get there, around University Ave, and am completely reminded why I hate trying to find stores along those streets. So after circling twice, I found it and then thought maybe it wasn’t open. Actually, I was confused because the little building had a sign that said “Violin Maker” and yet in another window it had a sign that said, “Sorry, we’re closed” and when I looked inside, I could see and hear a woman playing a violin.

As it turned out, if I had only tried the door the first time before angrily stomping back to my car and using my cell to call the store to confirm that it was a) open and b) on that street, I would have saved myself some anxiety. Anyway, the grate door ended up not being locked (the reason I thought it was locked is because the other violin store actually locks its door and I assumed this was a similar set up) and that there were actually several offices set up inside. The “Sorry, we’re closed” sign was for one of these. The violin maker was busy with another customer when I walked in, which for some reason completely surprised. Something wrong about the quality of sound from her violin, so I gathered, which they seemed to decide to solve by replacing the strings with a set of imported expensive ones. Anyway, I proceed make an ass of myself and paint myself stupid when I come in and set the violin down. I was shocked to see the violin maker. He is old, yes, but tall and shockingly skinny, and yet looking at his arms I can see all the veins pressed up against the skin and couldn’t help but wonder if they were a legacy of muscles long gone. So, I set the violin down and he immediately, well, not berates, but his voice might have projected such a quality, as gruff and perfunctory as he was. So he hands me the little mechanism to take the chinrest off and then he told me to take the strings off the tailpiece (I misunderstood, at first, and thought he just wanted me to take the strings off the whole violin and he had to correct me) and then felt very, very stupid when he told me to look in the drawer behind me to find the tailpiece attachment we needed. Pulling out one big enough for a cello was not the highlight of my working intelligence. I eventually found what he asked me to with the old woman amusedly looking on, since she was waiting for him to change the strings on her violin. By now I was just feeling embarassed and somewhat intimidated by this old man. But his little workshop (just a room) was cozy and dotted with all sorts of random stuff he must use in his trade as well as lots of pictures. Asian children, I think, and also, which I found odd, a calendar from the Asian supermarket, Ranch 99. Eventually he finished up with the woman and went to work on my violin and I sat down in the chair the woman had vacated. It was then, lulled somewhat by the heat and the silence between us, that a strange feeling of peace settled over me as I watched him working on the violin or the random person that passed by the window. I don’t know; I felt suddenly very content. I would have liked to have asked him questions about his trade, but I was still smarting with my own stupidity and the strange sense of intimidation I got from this old man. I was kind of sad when he finished and it meant I had to get up and leave. I don’t know. A very strange experience.

BUT, the real topper of the day was when I came home after work and tried to tune the violin again using the pegs (again) and the E string completely snapped. *sigh* I have to call my teacher again tomorrow.

Yesterday, a man newly wed came into the store. I greeted him, as I greet about 80% of the people who walk in, and he gave me this smile that while open, immediately put me on edge because I knew there was a question coming and I hate not being able to answer a question or have to deal with a search for some vague present. Anyway, he even said he had a question for me and then told me he had bought his wife a steam cooker and wanted it wrapped. I gave him the usual spiel that if he bought the wrapping paper, we would courtesy wrap for him. Well, he did so (something with purple in it, since apparently she loves purple) and then went off to find a card while I wrapped the present (kind of crappily, but I did my best). Anyway, he started looking around the store and said he wished he could find something else for her. I told him that the cooker seemed like enough of a present and he said he’d still would have liked to find something else for her since he would probably end up using the gift more because he did most of the cooking on account of his working nights and her working days. He always smiled as he said this and then confided that his wife thought he bought too much for her. I was amazed when he divulged that their first date (some three years ago) had been a 14-mile hike and that they both loved it. They had just returned from their honeymoon. Anyway, he noticed there wasn’t a bow and decided he had to get one and I helped him with that too. As he paid for the bow, he asked me, “You probably think this is really sappy, huh?” I told him, honestly, “Really, I think it’s rather sweet.”

And I did. I think if that man is really the impression that I got of him, that his wife is a very lucky woman. At the time I found myself thinking, I could love a man like this. I think that was the first time I could really picture myself falling in love with someone.

So today at work this old man walks in and asks me if I had been working yesterday. I asked him if it was around this time and he said yes, so I told I had been. Then he informs me that yesterday his wife had been in the store, had purchased three cards, and had $110 or so dollars on her. Apparently she lost the $100 and he had come back to see if we had it. Well, I immediately thought about the $100 I had counted the night before and immediately thought, “I’ll go check the report after this guy leaves to see if we balanced out last night.” Anyway, I told the man I hadn’t seen it and the old man starts looking around on the floor and around the counter as if it might be there. He then said, “I didn’t expect anyone to return it anyway,” and begins to walk away and then hesitates and turns around again. He raises a finger and then says something like, “You’re going to go to hell” or “This store is going to go to hell.” I was so shocked, I didn’t know how to reply. I know that my Catholic upbringing still lingers with me and I especially was reminded of it today when I felt a literal pang go through my gut. Anyway, I had no means of replying and let him go on. He continued after the “hell” bit, saying something like, “Because that $100…” but he never finished that sentence. I half-expected him to launch into a story about how it was a gift to his wife or she was going to give it someone as a gift but then he eventually just walked out. Really, I was just flabbergasted by the whole incident.

Do I look like an immoral coward or something? Do I wear some kind of guilty expression? The Hell bit was completely uncalled for. I was amused and angered (more amused). I felt bad for the poor girl I was helping at the moment. She was getting balloons I was going to inflate for her and had the misfortune to step back just as the guy was getting going.

However, that really made my day. I just had to laugh. Oh, and we did balance out last night, so the store didn’t miraculously make $100 more yesterday and Rose didn’t mention at all to me that she found $100 either, which I think she would have done or like to think she would have done. Whatever. I hate dealing with people. This job is showing me that more and more. I do enjoy it when I help someone who is very nice, personable, returns my greetings, smiles, and is generally pleasing. Some people just give off an air of assholery that goes beyond my comprehension. Just be civil for like one minute. If I have to fucking smile and attempt to be pleasing and compliant all day for the likes of you people, you can spare me five minutes of civility. In fact, when I do meet those very nice people, it completely makes my day and it’s uplifting in a way that vaguely depresses me because it is uplifting.

I’ve given my notice though. September 15. I could have used the money (mainly to keep up violin lessons, but I’ll be cutting back on the frequency of my lessons, so the money I haven’t spent this summer yet will hold me for a bit), but working this job and dealing with school would have prompted me to strangle myself at some point in time. The job isn’t bad or hard, but sometimes the boss just expects too much of us. It’s like how can I work in another part of the store and be expected to mind the cashier when I can’t even see it? And then people give me the resentful eye when I make my way up to the register. I hate it when people archly ask if they can pay for something or if there’s a cashier who can help them. I don’t people using the little bell–in fact, that’s what it’s there, people!–but they really don’t have to get all snickery and annoyed. I can’t be everywhere at once and my friggin’ boss doesn’t want me to just sit behind the counter if I have nothing to do! And if I’m doing something else, give me a break.

Maybe I can get a student-friendly job over the school year–which isn’t in retail. I doubt I’ll try restaurants; that just requires more interaction with people. It would really kick as if I could get a job in a field that vaguely has to do with things I might be interested in doing after I finish my degree, but my resume has no merit to speak of. ;_;

Summer has barely begun, yet already I feel like weeks and weeks have passed. I’m working at Hallmark now–minimum wage–and it’s the kind of job that just tires me out from always having to say “Hi” to people and try my best to answer questions, often fleeing to find someone who knows what’s in the store. It was really funny, though, last night when I went up to La Jolla to grab some dinner with Dana (since she is now back in town) that I went to the bathroom and instinctively said “Hi” to the woman I saw in the bathroom. It was kind of ridiculous and after I questioned why I had done that, I had to laugh at myself. The job keeps me on my feet all the time, too, and after a few hours my legs are really angry with me and I’m really angry with having to stand up all the damn time. My real regret though is not being able to read or something when no one is in the store. I have to actively try and keep myself busy, like straightening cards out or something. Coincidentally, I’ve also found a new pet peeve: Please, please, please if you ever go to a card store, PUT THE CARD BACK WHERE YOU FOUND IT! Thank you.

Aside from putting money into my pocket, the job is supposed to serve the purpose of keeping me motivated to learn the violin, since I’ve resolved to pay for my lessons. The violin is, in fact, very cool, but I think whoever designed the thing wanted to use the most unnatural position for all things; plucking or bowing requires keeping your arm up in positions that it normally doesn’t fix in. Between work and practicing the violin, I get sore in the legs and the arms. It’s as amusing as it’s annoying. I’ve been slowing picking up the items I’ve been needing, but am still short the metronome. There are online metronomes, of course, but even so I’d like to be able to pull myself away from the damn computer, not to mention it’s just a pain in the ass to always walk around my bed to change the tempo. Incidentally, I also ended up winning a tuner on eBay that I just won’t be needing since the apparently awesome tuner Hung used when he played guitar does indeed still work.

SO if anyone reads this and is interested in buying a chromatic tuner then drop me a line or something. I’m selling it for how much my total paying for it came out to (the winning bid + the shipping), which is like 10.something so it’s not so bad at all. It’s less than the retail price anywho. It’s a Qwik Tune QT9.

Technically I don’t need a tuner–my teach never mentioned I should get one–but I am tired of not knowing if what I hear being played on the violin is the A (or G, D, or E) that I hear on my little chromatic pitch pipe. It’s nice to ear train–but I’m not sure what I’m training myself to hear, so it’s all very frustrating. But I like my teacher a lot, even if I have to drive a bit to get to my lessons–she gets excited thinking about what she wants to teach me and I can tell she likes all sorts of music styles, not just classical. I’m hoping Ally will practice her clarinet so that when (I’m trying to convince myself that I can use “when” and not “if” meaning I’m not going to give up) I get decent we can find something we can jam together to. That would be very cool.

I also did better on my grades than I thought. I pulled two A-’s, but I expected to get B’s in those areas, so I was very pleasantly surprised. It’s funny, though, how I kind of wish school would hurry up and start so that I wouldn’t have to work, but then I know once school starts I’ll be pining for summer again. Even knowing it I still can’t help but feel that way.

Funny story from work today that completely made my day (I didn’t even know I was working today until yesterday, which destroyed all the plans I had made for today. Out the window went my violin lesson scheduled for today and my *sob* appointment with the optometrist. My right eye is friggin’ killing me; it’s so bad now and it’s probably because my prescription is three years old. It’s weird because my left eye is stronger enough that I see far away objects as both clear and blurry at the same time as my eyes compete to send messages to my brain.): So a guy walked in and came up very confidential like to the counter (I’m standing behind the counter folding foil balloons–that’s right, I’m folding foil balloons), shooed his little daughter away and said, “I wonder if you guys can make a card for me.” I was thinking, “We don’t make cards” but I just smiled uncertainly as he continued and said, “I want it to say: ‘I hate you, you bitch…” and on and on with this horrible but nonetheless funny message which I’m sure would be nice to say to a customer or two. And I was just like, “What the hell?” but I was still smiling and when he stopped I said, “We don’t make cards. But you can make it at home.” He looked disappointed for a moment and then he grinned and said, “I’m just kidding.” And we laughed and he walked off. We joked a little more about how cards like that would probably sell–"I hate you” cards–and when he left he told me not to steal his idea. Nonetheless, I’ll remember that confused moment as I stood there listening to him, disbelievingly, and I’ll say that completely made my day.

In the end, I am grateful that I have the job there. People are supposedly having difficulty finding jobs around here, so it’s nice that I did manage to grab one, even if it’s one that makes me want to scream sometimes and spork someone very, very badly. Sitting here, it feels like it’s going to be a very long summer, but I know that by summer’s end I will probably be sitting right here wondering where all the time went. Ah, well.

I’ll close with a book recommendation: Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro. It’s sad, but good. Until the next random update then, adieu.

Why are my suitemates musical geniuses?! And why do I only know about this now?! It’s simply unfair and amazing how carelessly Danni plays the piano. She’s like, “I can try sight reading that” and there are like a million notes all over the page and I’m going, “Oh my God!” inside. It’s… goddamn, it’s just beautiful–to hear the music, to watch her fingers dancing across the keys. Those first few bars I think my jaw dropped.

“Ngan, you should do to Ally what I did to you the other night.” -Dana to, as Ally put it, ‘her lover’

That alone made my night that day. It’s finals week. I’ve finished two, Spanish and Brit Lit, and I’ve two more to go, Biology and Hum 2. Fun. When I finished my Spanish final, though, I held out my hand to my TA to give him a handshake, but he surprised me by hugging me instead. Surprised me, but still made me smile. I went to the piano room with Ally and Michelle tonight and was really amazed by Ally’s music theory knowledge. She could just randomly play things and I was like, “Wow.” I felt jealous, sad, and appreciative all at once. Michelle had some amusingly cute moments today too:

Relating how her piano teacher was frustrated with her for not being able to identify intervals: “‘Major sixth?’ ‘No.’”

And then, as Ally was playing some Major and minor intervals and chords, I said I liked the minor ones, which sound very sad, and then Michelle said with such conviction: “Of course you would.” =D

Also, my jeans have this huge rip along the inside edge of the right pocket. It makes me very sad, but I still want to wear them… even if people can see my underwear. Fuck.

OK, I admit it, I felt bad when Prof. George “scolded” us for being all giggly and generally not paying attention in class today. But I’ve pretty much learned not to pay attention in that class and this is probably the second time she’s “scolded” us with some indirect comment. But, really, it was quite amusing when people did walk out of class like 10 minutes later–hey, she invited them to. We probably should have too, but by then stubborn pride kept me in my seat. But, really, Dana makes me giggle. How can I not enjoy her offhand comments?

But I guess in the end I just feel bad that I generally just blatantly disrespect my Lit prof. And my Lit section. Sometimes Hum section too. Wow. I was goin go to say “There, better, conscience?” but it seems somewhat… hypocritical now.

I found eraser shavings trapped in the crevice of two pages of my Spanish workbook. I wondered how many lost words blackened their once white surface, how many misused, misspelled, unwanted. Too many. Wiped from the face of existence, I will never get them back. I wonder why I want to forget all my innocent mistakes.

Isn’t it funny how I don’t like kissing, but that sometimes the wild impulse to kiss a stranger, a friend will seize me when I study a pair of lips? I wonder why that is. I wonder what I want. I don’t think even my body knows. I am no longer running on instinct.

I learned things I never knew about my suitemates. They’re amazing people lurking beneath the surface of carefree fronts. Amazing people always make me question myself. I feel just that much more inadequate. But what does it take to feel adequate? When does the bar stop rising?

Due dates are evil things. Worse is not procrastinating. Sure, it’s nice to have something done, but anything done early sits there in the background, quietly mocking, boasting of all the errors I believe are in it. Better to have it handed in, out of my hands. I want someone else to take control, but I hate it when they don’t meet my expectations. Why is that? Why don’t I have the strength to step up? But responsibility is a weight I can’t bear. The more you have of it, the greater the counterweight: failure.

I think I’ve stopped listening out of insecurity. Don’t rock my foundations; I don’t want to learn, not really. Learning means accepting that what you believe may be wrong. I don’t like the thought of having been wrong (what have I been doing all this time? what meaning does all that time have now?); I don’t like the thought that my own beliefs don’t matter. But whose does and why? I’m not hurting anyone. Not yet.

Sometimes I believe I can really write something, that in a few years I’ll find a pen(cil) in my hand and suddenly magic words will appear on paper. I want to believe these words will come from my heart with the eloquence of something that has some intelligence–or at least a mind–and that they will touch other hearts and other minds in a way that the great ones have touched me. I want to be like the authors in those wild biographies a page, half a page long, the entirety of lives crammed into the exciting/depressing events of life, work, sometimes marriage, but always somewhere death. Even if they’re not dead yet, in a century the anthologies and reprinted versions will remember and finally add the second date in that blank spot behind the dash. Yet I always know I will never live a life like theirs and I wonder if it’s the life that produces the work–if so, I’m out of luck before I’ve even begun.

Someone tell me if that day is coming. That day I can finally say, “I did something.”

Marat/Sade. How fucked up. And at the same time, how utterly awesome. The UCSD theater program should get lots of love. Greatest way to start a play: have half of the actors already on stage acting as they would in the situation. In this case, as insane inmates. Awesome.

Random tidbit for today: we get the word sadism from the Marquis de Sade.

Wow, I just lost my entire post by clicking the wrong button in my browser. I will start again then.

So, I never did talk about that random night. It ended up being two random nights. Sun God at UCSD is basically an excuse for debauchery all over the campus. Although I missed the lesbians making out on the killer hill, although Ally claims that they were going at it while Michelle says they never even kissed. I’m still not sure how I missed out. Amy did too. Anyway, Ally, Michelle, Dana, and I decided that Sun God wasn’t our thing, so we went out to eat at TGI Friday’s and then went back to Ally’s room to figure out something else to do. We also got in touch with Christina who rendezvoused with us. This is when things started to spiral out of control. So we played a game of Apples to Apples (a fun game with the right group of people), which somehow lead to the most perverse pictionary I’m sure UCSD has ever seen (never again will Christina be allowed to make the prompts–although admittedly it was all horrifyingly amusing and embarassingly funny), which lead to some charades and then more party games that lead to even more randomness, like someone acting out a tampon. … Yes. So while we were playing the question game, the RAs walk through, probably thinking we were drunk as all hell considering how loud we were being, but the real icing on the cake was someone actually telling these poor men about the tampon bit. Just… you know, as interesting as I think it would be, I’m very afraid to think about all of us (the Lit Crew, I suppose) being drunk at the same time. The horror, the horror!

Saturday made me face a decision between John’s invitation to see Taylor’s show or Christina’s offer to see a play put on by Planned Parenthood (that alone should have been the warning) that she claimed featured warped Disney songs. It didn’t. Mostly it was a guilt trip about how the world sucks and we need to do something about it. It had its moments though of absolute, “Oh, jeez, I can’t believe this” and TMI, but I think we definitely broke Michelle’s brain in those two nights alone. I’m surprised she still associates with me. So anyway, after that was some Cold Stone and then we swung back to UCSD where we ended up being random in the Revelle Plaza. Some guy on a Segway came around, but since PotS was closed, he came back and let us test drive the Segway. It’s pretty cool, really. I ended up giving ‘er a spin across the plaza, with the dude walking beside me. This lead to speculation that I was macking on him. Admittedly, I did learn about him, but the thought never actually crossed my mind. Just my curiosity and compulsion to ask seemingly relevant questions to stave off awkwardness. *laughs* I almost wish I had had the thought to mack on him…

(more…)

Tonight has been one of the craziest, randomest nights of my life. More thoughts tomorrow, hopefully.

I write these stupid words
And I love every one
Waiting there for me.
Yes I do, I do.

-In the Garage, Weezer

Weezer has always had it damn straight and these words have spoken to me for years. <3

My Hum TA has this disturbing habit of smiling very widely and amusedly/hesitantly/unsurely when she lectures/talks/whatever even if she’s saying something that’s not quite appropriate for smiling, like… drawing and quartering a man or something equally not smile-inducing. There was a better example, the incident or comment which made me go, Why is she smiling? but I can’t remember it now. Combined with her habit of widening her eyes so that you can see the whites surrounding her very blue irises makes it almost painful to look at her while she’s talking. It’s already painful how dead silent the class gets and how no one wants to answer any of her questions. I really don’t care for Hum section.

Also, today after Spanish class a classmate that I never talk with suddenly started speaking to me. He made me feel very uncomfortable. Something about the insinuations in his voice or something–especially his comment about me being buddy-buddy with our TA. (I’m not, really, though the guy fascinates me utterly with his passion for Latin America, their dictatorships, his knowledge of communism, his very open views about U.S.’s relationship with Latin America, etc.) I’ve chatted with my TA outside of class once or twice, but something about what my classmate was saying really rubbed me the wrong way. I felt like I was being subtly mocked in some way that I couldn’t put my finger on. He was also invading my personal space, which did not amuse me at all. I think he patted my backpack at one point. It was strange and disturbing and I had no idea what to say to him. I hope that we don’t end up conversing again.

Thus today’s highlights.

Just right now, walking back to my dorm from Spanish class, I overheard two guys talking behind me. Actually, it would have been very hard not to have overheard them as the tall, ponytailed guy was lamenting loudly and wholeheartedly how he apparently wasted all his time and money going somewhere (where, I’m not sure, but I assume it was a cafe) because he thought he’d met a nice guy there–"good looking… not flamboyant… intelligent…"–who finally sat down at his table and then turned out to be “just a nice guy.” He went on to bemoan how he always seems to fall for straight guys or the guys he likes have boyfriends. (This guy, coincidentally, turned out to be straight and even started bitching about girls–"some hoes"–which finally set our storyteller off in a rage at the time. He walked out of the cafe, or wherever, according to him.)

Oh my God! He put the biggest smile on my face because he wasn’t really angry; he was speaking in this self-mocking, amused away about his circumstances–and he was so open and un-self-conscious about it. I loved it! I loved how he was completely at ease with himself and didn’t mind talking about this in a public environment with his friend as he walked around campus. I eavesdropped on their conversation all the way back with this huge grin on my face as I listened and tried not to laugh out loud.

He was kind of cute, too. I don’t dig the ponytail thing, but he was broad-shouldered, tall, had a little facial hair going on. Couldn’t see past those sunglasses though. If he cut his hair, even I might have lamented that he was gay.

For one dizzying, even exciting moment, I thought St. Augustine would finally answer some of my questions in his Confessions. But no. I mean, I could follow his logic and he argues beautifully (and the translation isn’t boggling), but even then I couldn’t agree and he didn’t ever really define evil, which is the one thing that has truly bothered me these many years. I realized only too late that what he says is basically what the catechism says: evil is the turning away from God. I guess I should have known better considering he’s a Father of the Church. I don’t know what annoys me more–being suspended between believing something and not or that strange anxiety that twists my gut when I read something related to Christianity. I keep wondering if something is going to pull me back, if I’ll finally have some grand revelation. Actually, I think it’s just the uncertainty of never knowing for certain and the terrible fear that in the end they could be right.

Today, while blatantly sitting in my sections reading unrelated materials (mind you, there’s nowhere to hide from the eyes of the TAs in section), I realized how terribly unmotivated I am this quarter. In fact, I’ve just spent two hours sitting right here trying to get myself to start looking at Jane Eyre so that I can start formulating my English paper. Also, I have an unhealthy dislike for my Lit class, so much so that any enjoyment/enlightenment I might have taken from it is completely out of the question. I go into class & section expecting to be bored. In fact, I zone out so effectively that I come back to myself with the belated realization that I probably should have taken notes on something. But the worst part is that I obnoxiously don’t pay attention. I’ll chat it up with someone (whispering) or scribble things down in someone’s notebook. I’m sure the professor has marked me as an evil child.

God, there is no hope for this quarter at all.

I am upset. I am upset because the lit magazine I’ve been helping with is trying to meet a page maximum. Now, this in itself doesn’t upset me; it’s that the staff never once thought about cutting its own pages down (staff submissions automatically get in without any judging). I personally didn’t submit anything, but if I had, I would have offered to have it cut. Something about this makes me angry, something about the fact that people sent in their works to us in the hopes of being published–and we’ve approved their work already–and that we are the say all, end all of who goes in but it seems like no one really gives a shit if other people get their stuff put in as long as their own stuff does (pages and pages of stuff–I don’t think anyone on the staff submitted anything less than two pages–excepting me who submitted a whopping zero pages, because personally I think my stuff is not all that great and so didn’t want to waste anyone’s time or space (a sudden thought: the oddness of seeing “None” in the box next to “Ngan” as if the universe is mocking me or letting me in on a private joke)). Whatever. Maybe it’s me just being pissed off about something insignificant. Fuck it. I didn’t say anything and I didn’t have a right to. I’m just ranting. But I wonder–do our own rules apply to us? From what I’ve seen, no. But who cares, right?

DAMMIT! I forgot there was a Bio review session today! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

I’ve decided that one of these days, I’m going to archive all those drabbles, etc. on the LJ here. When I have time. A future project. Yeah. Saw volumes of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley’s letters in the library today. I wanted to read them, but sure as hell didn’t and won’t have the time. And good god were those huge volumes! It’s kind of sad that the art of letter writing is lost with e-mail. I wonder what we’ll leave behind for future generations to read of us. Now that I think about it, going to the library is much like going to the bookstore for me, since I rarely buy any books at the bookstore anyway. I like to page through all the books. Really, both are unproductive as I never attempt to read anything from the beginning, but rather just read arbitrary passages. I wish I could read fast so that I could just go through books.

Put up a new counter. I think the other one was doing funky things because I’d visit the page from time to time and never seemed to have an accurate count. Sometimes it was less than when I’d visited last. Let’s see how this works out.

Today was unexciting. Homework day.

It was a long day. Class, class, class. I didn’t work on any of the things I wanted to, though–I as a bad girl. I also managed to completely misinterpret the question Axel put to us today. *laughs* Ah, well. I did better on my second quiz though, so minor pride. I also saw Joe again today; we chatted it up a bit, which left me with a smile on my face. I forgot to ask him something–I can’t remember what now anymore. I guess it wasn’t too important.

There was an arrest in my hall and I wasn’t there for it? Just my luck, huh? But it’s alright; I’d rather have been hanging out at Christina’s watching a bad movie, even if we were lacking one Dana. Friends are good. Yes, very good.

I spent 9 hours on my Hum paper today.

… Moving on (although in all honesty, Camilla is <3. I want to write a story staring a Camilla now in the spirit of poor Aeneid Camilla.), I also didn’t eat at Plaza today in the spirit of the strike. The Sunshine Store has ok stuff and Co-op not much, but their cinnamon raisen bagel with apple slices, peanut butter, honey and cinnamon was good. Yummy.

Gave Lit lecture only half my attention again. Not a good thing. My notes look paltry and sad. And we actually had a quiz today. That was weird. Wilkie Collins gets love though if he invented the Detective novel.

I have no idea what the Bio midterm will be like. I fear. Especially since I’ve been completely slacking in that class. Ah, slacker class.

Should sleep. Exeunt.

EDIT: I just ranted about a whole bunch of thoughts about Camilla of the Aeneid in an e-mail to my professor. I just wanted to thank him for replying to a previous e-mail. But I am really curious to see if he’ll actually read it and reply. I might be impressed if he bothered.

This settles it. Any movie we watch for Spanish is just strange and today’s definitely takes the cake out of the ones I’ve seen so far. The story in a very, very short summary: Widow has a daughter who is a dwarf, an aspect she absolutely refuses to acknowledge publicly (and probably deeply in her mind); rich old millionaire hangs around widow’s store; the daughter turns 18, the widow propositions the old millionaire to help her buy a horse; he does buy a horse (a small pony, really); he falls in love with the daughter; he briefly goes crazy after he realizes he is in love and gets into a duel, is injured, and then flees; he returns; he asks for the girl’s hand in marriage; they marry (an old man randomly dies during the ceremony and is then kept on ice since the news of his death would ruin the festivities, effectively adding to the randomness); the couple are happy for a time; a circus comes to town and the mother asks that the man not take her daughter to the circus; he complies, but then things happen and eventually the daughter runs away with the circus, very loudly acknowledging her differences; widow locks herself up and the husband disappears; end. And, yes, that was a short summary. This movie is almost 2 hours long. I kept expecting it to end at certain points, but it didn’t. That was the most frustrating part of all. Aside from having to wait so long to actually see the damn video since it seemed like everyone and their cousins were watching it today.

In other news, Prof. Wallace is a nice guy who held his Office Hours in what I will forever consider the mini-Humanities library (all the Hum books lined the wall and I wanted to steal them) and our substitute TA, Prof. Lee, is also a really cool guy; he’s very enthusiastic and uses profanity but in a way that just gets his point across on a more student level. Prof. Lee also happens to be the assistant (something) of the Humanities department and coincidentally writes our essay prompts too. While I don’t appreciate the essay prompts (they’re almost so broad that it’s a little difficult to decide how you want to address them), I wish he could TA for us the rest of the quarter. I would definitely take his harsh grading in exchange for his very interesting, knowledgable sections. I thought it would be a bummer to have another professor leading our section, but I was actually willing to stay overtime and would have stayed until the absolute end if I didn’t have another class directly after it (I had five minutes to get there and did my little running spree that I so often seem to do between Hum and Spanish and when I got there (on time) Axel was five minutes late!). Prof. Wallace seems to be TAing our Friday sectiong himself. Very interesting. I also sent the two of them very long e-mails about my thesis for this paper–and, wow, Prof. Lee just e-mailed me back. Hmm… it may be worth it to go to his office hours tomorrow. Why does this paper seem so difficult? For Hum 1, I almost didn’t have to go see Joe; I’d see Joe just because it was fun to chat, really. I don’t think we ever really seriously discussed where I was taking a paper.

Also, why is it that no one stopped me from rambling for endless minutes when I should have been giving only a 2 minute Spanish presentation? My favorite part: looking up as I tried to arrange a very broken sentence and seeing a classmate’s absolutely confused face. I actually apologized for my horrible Spanish speaking skills (I can write decently, but speaking is just scary. Conversation Spanish I may be able to pull off, but presentation Spanish is a no go). Axel also canceled our class tomorrow in the spirit of the strike (la huelga!) that will be going down tomorrow–that was very cool. I love Axel and his crazy enthusiasm for history and literature and political science.

Picked up The Gangster We Are All Looking For from Geisel today. Will probably finish it tonight. A very short read, it’s written in very short sections that remind me of drabbling, really, but with cohesive theme and flow. It has some killer imagery, although even I, the queen of purple prose, have to admit that it purples in some places. One of my favorite lines is smack in the middle of some really purple prose. Although, if I think about it, the sentences are really rather simple–they just get into some crazy imagery that I can’t see working.

I also had Skittles today.

Exeunt.

I’ve resolved to use this blog more once again, maybe take down my thoughts of the day since the Spanish dictionary thing didn’t work out. I kind of like the idea that I don’t have a real audience here, since I’d feel stupid bitching/extrapolating about my boring ass life on my LJ where it might have an audience. It’ll remain the Fandom Journal for now.

First lesson of the day: Procrastination is bad, even if it’s not up until the last minute. I should have started thinking about my Hum paper sooner, since now I’m like, “Oh, shit, what am I writing about?” I’ll go see Professor Wallace tomorrow, which is kind of creeping me out since I’ve never actually visited any of my professors yet. I don’t know; there’s just something about the whole lecture/section with TAs system that makes the professor seem distant and, to me, intimidating as hell. As Alia said once, they seem like celebrities–and it really feels that way when I see them out of class. It’s just weird.

A pet peeve: They shouldn’t make us do presentation in another language. See, I do fine reading Spanish and letting my mind translate it, but ask me to speak and my brain and tongue have a complete communication breakdown. And it’s frustrating because I have semi-intelligent thoughts (sometimes) but it comes out like something a first grader might say. Ah! Spanish, I think you’re a beautiful language and I absolutely enjoy being able to understand people when they speak it (interesting, though, that I seem to only really understand TAs =), but I don’t think I was meant to speak you, at least not in any kind of academic setting.

A contingent annoyance: Who decided we should do presentations in Lit? I am annoyed. Well, in addition to just having my TA be Emily again. Goes to show you that you should never be confident that you’ve escaped a horror because it comes back to bite you in the ass. But in good news, I saw Chris yesterday and the fond memories of a competent, insightful TA warmed my heart. I was also very gladdened when she said that she enjoyed having us for her class and that we helped restore some of her resolve for her chosen career. I wish she could have TA’ed for us again. Suspiro.

Brit Lit lecture: Sex comes up a lot in lecture. It’s really rather shocking and surprising. I never expected I should learn the history of the vibrator. It was probably a good thing Dana and I weren’t sitting next to each other today, as I think we would have snarked entirely too much today.

Thai Tea: is good. I want more. Now. Please.

Biology: cool video today about flowers. I felt kind of bad for the insects though for the plants that pretended to be the female of their species–sex-crazed insects, did the video say? It was rather amusing since I thought it was kind of inappropriate, but, you know, in that you can just snicker at way. You know, I really do like biology; I find it really fascinating. I just don’t want to memorize all of that. I really, really couldn’t be a doctor. I could, I suppose, if I had no other choice, but I’d definitely wouldn’t be passionate about it. That and the whole blood and gore thing–that makes me queasy nowadays. Not a good thing to be.

Day of Silence: I kind of wish I could take part in the LGBT-and-so-forth (the Lesbian Gay Bisexual Trans and so forth) club’s Day of Silence tomorrow, but I kind of have to speak. Spanish presentation and all (yes, the one I was just bitching about).

You know, I will miss not living on campus next year, if just for the sheer convenience of it. I’m going to have to burn some rockin’ music to get me through the long drives–who knows, maybe the drives will give me time to think of inconsequential things. I like thinking of inconsequential things.

End.

I feel very tired and contemplative and somehow even a little scared. Or maybe I just feel uncertain. I don’t know what I want–I’ve never known, really– but sometimes I think I would like to leave some kind of impression on this world, some piece of me that would survive my short, irrelevant existence. For me, writing was the only path I ever saw open to me. I feel like I’ve been kidding myself for a long time, like I never believed I could do it. Because what do I have to say? What do I have to write? What’s worth writing? Lê Thi Diem Thúy made me wonder these things today. Watching her, listening to her, it was real, it was touching, it had meaning. Not in any universal sense, but in something much more human, much more personal.

I am a Vietnamese American, but if I’m honest to myself, I realize I’ve been running away very fast and very hard from that Vietnamese side of me. Why? For what purpose? To what end? Am I any more American than anyone else? Where does this leave me? And why is that we only realize these things too late? I’m feeling rootless, groundless and now I realize that I want to know, I want to learn. I want to know what it was like for my parents to come here and build from the ground up, I want to know the world they left, I want to know the beauty of the language that I should have inherited but of which I only know the barest basics. I don’t want Vietnamese Pride, but I want a quiet understanding. I don’t want to put on the colors, but I want to be filled with it, to have it take root in my heart, in my gut. I want to feel it.

I want it to claim me like an orphan child. I want it to reclaim me as its child.

But I’m not. I can’t be. Not entirely. Something in me weeps when I think about what I have ignored or neglected. But I can’t imagine myself any other way. Why am I thinking these things now? Why have these thoughts haunted me in the past half a year or so? Why do I regret NOW? Why now when I’m afraid, caught somewhere in between, half-daring myself to try and half-fearing its too late?

I feel like something has bubbled up and spilled over within me. I’m glad I went today because it was inspiring, even just as it was disconcerting on another scale. Why am I writing? What do I want to say? Do I have anything to say? I hope if the time ever comes, I do. I hope I can say something that is just as touching, that is something as moving, that is something as provoking.

Paraphrased because I can’t remember exactly what she said, but it struck me:

“The page has an unsullied quality…. It’s quiet…. I want to give the impression of another presence… of something living, of something sweating, of something breathing…” -Lê Thi Diem Thúy

Keeping a journal in Spanish is… hard. I tried writing an entry today–the first, I hope, in what will be a string of entries. Not only that, but I actually feel like I have things to write down and no words to put them into. It’s strange because I’ve always felt that there’s really nothing to write about my life. I think maybe I just want to put my thoughts down, yet when I put the pen to the paper, I feel this fear in me. Is it a fear of being honest to myself? Or that words solidify things? That I will look back years from now and laugh at myself?

Or something worse? I do not know. But I do know that I’ve been quietly asking myself things lately that I’m not sure I want the answers to and that these are the things I’m most afraid to write down.

I haven’t really updated in a while or even given many thoughts to what my life has been like lately. So, while I listen to “Love Will Tear Us Apart” (the Cure version, which is slower, but originally done by Joy Division), let’s see what life’s chalked up for me (long rant ahoy!):

(more…)

Decidí a quedar en LTSP 2A. He querido comprar un cuaderno para escribir en español y, en vez de escribiendo de mi vida aburrida en inglés pero no me gusta gastar dinero. Esta manera me ayudaría practicar mi español con la esperanza de mejorarlo. Ya siento descansada con la escuela and mis clases. No he terminado la primera semana, pero mi cerebro y cuerpo me dicen que semanas han pasado. Escribiendo como éste pasa demasiado tiempo y me hace pensar demasiado. Tengo mucho trabajo para llegar a ser dominar en español.

I am losing my ability to speak. I am losing my ability to write. This is… communication breakdown. Someone fix my head. I wonder what’s wrong with me, why I keep switching words or forgetting words when I type. Is it even a real problem or is it some mental block that’s keeping me from being coherent? So odd.

In other news, I am back in school already. The new quarter promises to be unpleasant. Papers, compositions, papers–at least we can’t argue in math, though the professor has an atrocious accent. I feel kind of sad, actually. The break really made me remember why I love home and it’s odd to be back here. And to be screwed over my something like a Spanish class that changes the readings in its reader every quarter. Who the hell thought of that? And I need my books; I’ll probably pick up the Norton today for Lit… and that damn reader.

Writing has never been so frustrating as it is now. I hate starting things and burning out on them. Although I’ve had a great amount of satisfaction from writing short fanfiction pieces for FMA (*drool*), it’s not the same as writing a story and it’s not nearly the same as shaping a plot since most of those are character studies. I hate not getting anywhere anymore.

Truth be told, it feels like my brain is falling apart. Already I don’t feel too motivated for this quarter; in fact, there’s this feeling that seems to be “let’s just give up now.” And, also, I feel distanced from high school already. It’s not that I don’t want to be with high school friends, it’s just that I feel like I can’t really connect anymore; I’ve not really changed, but I guess a part of me feels they have. I’ve never been good with this sort of thing; just look how my grade school contacts pretty much dissolved. I don’t know anymore… I’m starting to feel solitary again.

I forgot to water the plant and now it’s deader than it’s ever been before… For some reason, that makes me inexplicably sad. I hope that I can spur some new growth. I brought the plant home so that it wouldn’t die over break, but it seems I’ve neglected it anyway. Damn. What is it about seeing a plant grow that can bring such delight? What is it about watching it die that can be so disheartening?

I have not read much this break, but what I have read has left me undoubtedly… sad. Daniel Keyes’s Flowers for Algernon, Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, and most devastating of all Alice Sebold’s Lucky. I don’t read much non-fiction, but the topic of Sebold’s book, of her rape, drew me in. I knew before I read it, opening those pages and scanning them, that I would not want to read it but that I would anyway. Like looking at a car wreck. The pages leave me twisted inside. Even now, confronted with Sebold’s own words of her experience, through her own frank narrative, I feel like I don’t understand… The end hurt; it was worse by far to summarize ten years in twenty or so powerful, no bullshit, straight up pages rather than the two hundred I had been reading before (it was the aftermath that seem to stick little needles and knives into me, not the events leading up to all of it) and it sounds so short, so simple until it really occured to me that it was ten years, ten years of her life. I have many thoughts, feelings that I can’t really articulate; I do not know whether to recommend the book or not, only to say that it is a gripping read, in all its cruel reality. At times, maybe because it was in written word and I am not a nonfiction reader, I found myself sliding back into the protective walls of fiction and having to remind myself that it is all real, that this story–no, history–has a name, even a face if you want to see the picture on the back flap. And somehow nothing made that point hit closer to home than the short author bio; to read that after I had read about her life, about her more detailed description of what she had been through, especially after her rape and college, something just hurt. Maybe it was to think about everything that is not said, all the things you might never know about a person. The world continues to become more and more strange and distant for me. Even to hear that there has been an earthquake, a tsunami, in East Asia sounds far and distant, as if I cannot grasp it, as if these are just words in some fantastical tale.

In my heart there are words and thoughts that I want to say, only I don’t know how. And, I think, they don’t really matter.

Remind me, someone, why I took all my classes for a letter grade? Pure stupidity? Ah, as I said to someone, you live and you learn and hopefully this will not be a painful experience to live through. If anything, I dread next quarter more, when I’ll be balancing Humanities with more British Literature with intro to Spanish Lit. But that’s in the future; for now I have to get over this hurdle.

My classes are over and done with. I wrote the crappiest Spanish essay–my fault, really, for not preparing yesterday and watching anime instead, which was strangely the only time I really watched anime all this quarter (great timing, isn’t it?)–but I hope I do well on it (I think I managed to fit in all the components) because I’ll need it to balance out the horrible grade I will undoubtedly receive on the oral part. Five minutes doesn’t sound like a long time, but I have an awful, sinking feeling that not only will it feel like a long time but that it’ll be filled with either awkward silence or hemming and hawing and lots of “Uh” and “Um.” I’m glad that it’s the first exam I have. I should have signed up for Monday when I had the chance to truly just get it out of the way; as it is, it’s on Tuesday, before my Sociology final.

In other news, I got an A- on my second paper. Not bad, especially since I didn’t really like the type of paper it was, but it seems neither paper was ever really clear. I guess the bizarre commentary and ideas that popped up in them were enough not to give me a C. I didn’t like my TA; nice person, not a good TA. I wish I had had the other TA, just because she seemed like a fun person (with her PhD no less), but nothing I could have done about that. But an A- makes me happy. If I can get a B/A on the final, I’ll be very happy.

Strange, but this week has passed with surprising slowness. At a crawl, kind of, and yet it seemed to move quickly as my mind kept assuming it was some later day in the week. I feel like I have all this free time now, which common sense says I should be using for studying, but I’m so used to just cramming the day before an exam. I’ll probably try to study more than I usually do but we’ll have to see.

I feel like I am forgetting many thoughts I want to put here but nothing surfaces in my mind. I’ll remember later, I’m sure. Oh, but as a final thought, it’s kind of strange how these last lectures end with applause. I wonder what it’s for. Relief or appreciation?

The new blogger, WordPress, was installed because of spamming problems with b2’s lack of filtration. Well, WordPress really doesn’t have a filtration system either, although it has a moderation option. I thought to myself, ok, this’ll do, John’s server won’t be crashed and I can still deal with comments. So, this past week, John and square away the e-mail problems and finally I’m receiving the e-mail from this that I should have.

Today I open up my e-mail and find 96 e-mails for comments that need moderation. All of it is spam. There’s no way I’m going to deal with this everyday. So I’ve spent a nice half an hour, 45 minutes going back to every individual post and made sure that comments weren’t allowed.

So no more comments. Which doesn’t make much of a difference now does it? =D Yes, yes, my life is too drawl to comment on.

Now for a fearsome rant that includes this journal, my life, and school: (more…)

Ah, feeling loved. Amazing the amount of concern saying I didn’t feel well got me. It was sweet and appreciated. You guys are good to me. =D

Essay done and printed out. With an extra space. Dammit. But since I don’t like to waste paper, it will remain with an extra space. It’s not like I’m going to get an A on it anyway (gr).

In other news, the symphony was muy divertido. We saw Verdi’s “Messa da Requiem.” The coming of the apocalypse anyone? Well, there were enough Dies Iraes to make you think so. Also, strange people in Denny’s. We might have been included in that category. Good times. We need to go to another symphony and just have a fun night. Thanks to ze people who came and for Christina for driving!

Also completed another set of FMA themes. I’ll archive ‘em here, I suppose. I think I’ll be really lazy and just use word.

And a very random note for me: Music of the Spheres.

I just wrote the shittiest essay… I’m afraid to think that I’m going to be turning this in. Oh God.

Oh my God. Literally. The forces of this world work in mysterious ways. You, too, can own a nourishing piece of God (but lactose intolerants beware!)!

Quick recap of recent happenings and some thoughts off the top of my head:

So the end of the quarter is coming up. …Yeah. I just need to pass this math exam (which I didn’t study for) and the Spanish midterm tomorrow and then get this paper written somehow. Oh, and not forget to sign up for classes on Friday. And then survive finals. That’s all. Really.

A B+ on my first English paper… bummed… wanted an A. My TA’s comments are also nearly impossible to read. Hmm… looks like I’ll finally have to break out of AWP (but it’s so mindless to follow). Oh God, I don’t want to write an explication. (I actually was into doing the SGGK paper; who knows how this one will turn out.)

So, the honors seminar yesterday was a little… crazy. It started out fine. I mean, the guy had some really good concerns he was bringing up about resources and our world, global warming, and all that jazz; sure, even then I didn’t agree with some of the things he was saying (or maybe it was just the way in which he said it; really abrasive and in-your-face). And then came the end. Oh my god. Basically he said, “End of the world in 50 years. We need to reduce the population. We don’t need to spend money in Iraq; spend it on birth control here. We need abortions…” and I just thought, “Oh my god. I’m pro-choice, but I swear this guy is crazy!” It was this crazy propaganda. Though it was funny that some of the P.R.E.P. (Population Reduction and something about the environment) had “Stop the Lawless Cowboy” on the back… who wasn’t stopped.

Today, Tamal, a guy in my Spanish conversation class, was wearing a black shirt with the words “R.I.P. AMERIKA” on it in duct tape. There was supposed to be a “riot” here? AHAHA. Tamal said it best after Eric asked him about his shirt: “UCSD doesn’t have enough spirit to riot.”

Okay, this thing is the new blogger. John had some problems with spam, so he suggested switching to word press. You may have noticed this thing has a crazy layout (stolen from somewhere) and since I’m too lazy to actually try to customize it myself and this layout looks so much better than anything I could do, it’s going to remain like this. I’ll get around to bringing links back over and whatnot. In due time.

This was floating around LiveJournal. Accurate? I don’t know. Sometimes I just clicked stuff. (And what is 1% of my brain doing if it’s not included here?)

Try it yourself here.

Your Brain Usage Profile:

Auditory : 47%
Visual : 52%
Left : 50%
Right : 50%

No matter which side of your brain is dominant,
M i n d W a r e
can strengthen your emotional brain power by helping you understand how
you feel about yourself.
(more…)

Luis Gispert. Some of his work (notably the Cheerleader series and Your Home is My Home and another (or a few)) can currently be found in UCSD’s little gallery (in between Muir and Revelle, near the Rec Gym and Gymnasium). There is something disturbing about his photography. It isn’t because of obscenity (really only in his video works) or the models, but the clash of images that greets the eyes. For me, it was an image that crashed against stereotypes I had in my head. They didn’t compute. No, instead, they clashed and melded with images that had always been separated from each other in my mind. That’s what it was. Like looking at one person but really seeing lots of people, as if I weren’t willing to reconcile that this one person could be all those things. Or maybe it was the little things in the pictures, the little touches that made my mind go, “What?” The gaudy jewelry that hung with pistols, or the “tattooing” or the positions and poses that hailed to other things. Sometimes it was a background conflicting with the people in it, or just the way he placed an object that felt completely out of place.

His video work, too, arrested something in me. It helped me to realize how deeply imbedded these stereotypes are in me (as if Sociology wasn’t already revealing this to me, but this had a much greater impact… because I felt my strong reaction just looking at something). How can one actress, with two different appearances, posed side by side, acting slightly different, still meet the images in my head and still be the same person? Moreover, why was my reaction so strong? Like some things my thoughts simply went, “Yes. That’s it.” And yet the longer I stood there and the more times I saw it, I could see all those little things that creep in, all those little different actions attributed to one race or another. And the other video… no, I wasn’t as affected by the one with lyrics, but the one where the girl dances to a car alarm? That was cool. I don’t know how I felt, but it was clever. And something else. Again, something else that doesn’t quite mesh, that doesn’t fit perfectly in place.

And now I have to think about racial differences. No, not racial, cultural differences (but isn’t that just a result of all the things that society keeps feeding us–thanks a lot, Sociology). I have to ask, because we see it more and more nowadays: Is it so cool to borrow or even try to transform oneself into another race?

But, even more pressing in my mind: Will we borrow and mainstream something to the point that it no longer becomes “borrowed?” Can there ever be a point, in this society, that culture will stop being “my,” “yours,” “theirs,” and become definitively “ours”? Doubtful. But these little icons that Gispert uses… yes, I think there will come a time where it’s not this culture’s or that culture’s, but just “a thing we do” or “a thing we wear.” Moreover, I have to admit that it scares me that some of his icons may indeed become this. Then again, who knows but if it’s just a fad and it’ll become “Something we did in my time” to our children.

But then again, I don’t know. All I know is that looking at that, I kept thinking about cliques (really, high school), about these rigid guidelines we give ourselves. How we grow out of them (or don’t–or, more important, do we ever really?) and if we ever even needed them.

My thoughts are in a jumble. In truth, I don’t know what to think. All I know it, it sparked something in me and it may spark something in others, too, but do such messages last? Gispert himself believes wholeheartedly in change and its necessity. But does that change lead us to forget all the little important things of our past? Sadder, though, is the thought that we have lost those things and that what we gain now might be lost in the future to prosperity.

Walking away from Geisel Library today I realized how odd it is that during the day the windows hide everything inside, so that when you try to look in, you find yourself staring at your reflection, a not quite perfect mirror image, distorted. Yet at night, all the secrets of the mysterious insides are laid bare, shining from the inside out, but stand before those same windows inside the building and the outside world that is shrouded.

On another note, I sought out a bathroom in there, came to this open space, and had a sudden odd feeling that was at the Convention Center. I half expected to see someone cosplaying (like a Jedi). It brought fond memories of the summer.

I chacha’d today. That’s so damn cool. I wish I knew more dances so I could have stayed behind! I need a guy to come with me to the sessions…

(See what writing the R15 has led me to desire? What’s next? Chess?)

Thank you all for listening to me. In the end, it seems all I’ve ever really wanted was an ear to listen. Funny how I can’t shut up once I get started… You’re probably all sick of me now, and rightfully so.

I make no promises to myself because those are the easiest and the worst to break. But I know, succeed or fail, I don’t have to stay silent. I can share. Thank you for being here for me, every single one of you. You make every day a little easier. And sometimes not just a little, but a lot. Sometimes it makes all the difference in the world.

When you need to talk, I’m right here. Like you were for me. Is this the simplest definition of “friend?”

Dear anyone who reads this:

It’s a somewhat dismal Thursday, though the sun is coming out now. I just had a discussion with a suitemate of mine (a sophomore) that has me sitting here wondering where I’ve come to in my life. Here I am at UCSD, an excellent school–but one excellent for its sciences. And here I am, an English Literature major. I wonder to myself: Is this where I should be?

To tell you the truth, I have no idea what I’d do with a Literature degree. I don’t even know if there’s much future in it. I just have no direction; perhaps I’ve never had direction, the path having always been laid out before me. I wonder if my parents are alright–I can’t quite say “happy” or “content"–with this decision to study literature. What they must see in it… I know Mom would much rather I do something scientifical: become a doctor, become an engineer. Something that I can make a career of. I wonder if they think I’m foolish. Sometimes, like now, I think I am foolish. Is it naive to think that I can get by on something like interest? I was going to say “passion,” but I don’t even know if that’s accurate. There’s so much to learn in this world, so much to study, and here I am lost as to what I should do. The real problem is: Is it really just a question of want? Or is this a time to put prudence over desire?

In short, I am afraid. Not so much about school, but about after school–about where I can go after this chapter–well, assuming I can get through this chapter. I feel lost. Is this the place for me? And does it really matter now, since I shot myself in the foot for not having applied far, wide, and generously (and if I had, would I be somewhere else now anyway)?

In other news, I am well. Maybe not entirely. At times I find myself suddenly overwhelmed with a sense of loneliness or general displacement. Dorm life has its moments where we agree and others when we don’t. Oddly enough, it can simultaneously make me feel out of place at home and in the dorm, as if I have been taken out of reality entirely and can only float outside this boundary, belonging to neither. I am just about done with my first week of college (amazing how late we start–and yes, I’ll keep bringing it up). Incidentally, I also just finished reading Beowulf (translated by Michael Alexander) and we are moving into Chaucer. I dread when I have to begin writing papers, having no idea what is expected of me.

Without answers and troubled with doubt,
Ngan

(22:59:59) Lia: about a daughter and father on opposite sides of the spectrum
(23:00:07) Me: *wince*
(23:00:08) Me: oh my
(23:00:09) Me: alright
(23:00:12) Me: anything more specific?
(23:00:14) Lia: enemies
(23:00:27) Me: any certain conflict?
(23:00:43) Lia: uhm
(23:00:57) Lia: no good sides
(23:01:10) Me: good sides?
(23:01:22) Lia: like no good or evil
(23:01:26) Me: …
(23:01:27) Me: hahahaha
(23:01:29) Me: sorry
(23:01:30) Lia: dad and daughter are in cahrge of armies
(23:01:35) Me: oh my
(23:01:44) Me: here I was thinking household fights, but ok
(23:01:49) Me: …
(23:01:51) Lia: lol
(23:01:56) Me: I’ll stew on that
(23:02:01) Me: hahaha
(23:02:02) Me: ok

(If this happens, expect something very strange.)

It is strange to pack and realize just how little you need (clothes, bathroom supplies, writing/school supplies, a computer–though some might even argue the last), how much is just extra. These little extras that make you something unique, these combination of things that set you apart. These little things that you leave behind. It makes me think of my sister. It makes me think of the future. If/when I leave for good, how much of this will I take with me? The stuffed animals? The pictures? The books? Or will I leave them behind as a reminder of somewhere I was? Because surely I don’t need all of this, but every little bit makes me smile.

Also, you know, I only intended to live on campus for a year, freshman year. But… Kim had the impression that it’d be more than a year. And when I made the comment to Don today, he seemed surprised as well… It was strange, too, (in a good way) when he smiled at me and made a comment that I was moving out. But one year at a time. It’s all I can handle.

On another note, I had a nice chat with Nikki today, one of my brother’s friends. I love his friends. In fact, when I think about it, I’ve always liked my siblings’ friends. When I was young, they were older and mysterious. Now that I’m older, they are still older, but somewhat less mysterious. Something closer to approachable. I always sought something in them, something as of yet still undefined that my own friends lacked. Experience maybe. A vantage point from years ahead (ah, to always be so much younger than they… though that gap is closing… for my siblings, age is perhaps already losing its meaning). And they make me realize that maybe in some ways, we don’t need to grow up. That life is undoubtedly long and that choices are many, so many, and that there is time. What to fill that time with, though? There’s never a concrete answer for that.

(Why is that my entries break down into multiple parts like this?)

A thought: Making non-verbs into verbs with -yze/-ize is fun.

A second: I wrote a story in my dream last night. I remember a line of text (in red, Times New Roman, surely size 10 or 11), but the rest of the story is lost to me, despite how hard I strove to recall it as I lay in a half daze.

A third: The weekend approaches and I’m not sure whether to feel nervous or excited, or if “excited” is the correct word. Anxious, perhaps? It is about time, most would agree. How will we all get along, I wonder? An introvert to the end, this little one, or some new beastie waiting to emerge? A friend or two, a friend or two, if only that, I will be well content.

A fourth: I’ll miss my family. Just hanging out with Hung has made me realize how close in personality we are–and how very, very different. I can finished his sentences or predict what he’ll say next. I’ll miss Don, though I’ve been seeing less and less of him lately; he is the big brother anyone would ask for, crass and generous in turns (sometimes both at once). And my sis… when will we see each other next? How very different we are, but she looks out for me, too, albeit in her own way. And my parents? We’ve never been close–or maybe we were, once upon a time, when I was very young and still so very eager to please with everything I did–but even so, I hope to make you proud. And I pray–to whatever, whomever will listen–that I do not betray your trust in me. Nor the trust, however tenuous, I have in myself.

A final: What does life have planned for me because surely I do not have anything planned for me at the moment? Be kind, life, and answer in the next four years, please.

Do I know how the human mind works or, for that matter, the heart? No. Do I like to make statements that seem like they might contain a kernel of truth? Yeah, I do. I can’t help it; I think about it a lot. About people. About how we think. About why we do the things we do.

I used to hate people on principle alone. I used to think I knew everything. I don’t. I know hardly anything at all. Ignorant and young. I like the high road; I won’t deny it. I cling to romantic ideals despite my cynicism telling me I am a fool to do so. Maybe a part of me even believes in karma, that if I do good then I’ll receive good in the end. I can’t harbor a serious belief in it, seeing living examples of too many exceptions. Nor can I simply cast it aside. Is it self respect? I am inclined to say “No,” if only because my self-image is pitiful and my self respect nearly as dismal (which does little to actually affect an air of arrogance, as you can see, or self-involvement). Maybe a long cultivated sense of obedience, then, a careful selection of right and wrong. The world may be grey, and I do not deny it or try to believe otherwise, but that does not stop me from trying to carefully divide my own world into one or the other, trying to distinguish what I should do from what I shouldn’t–nor does it stop me from having no qualms about doing so.

I don’t believe in God. Not a Christian God. But I believe in something and that something comes with a grain of fear. What if, what if, what if? The possibilties hang above my head like a blade waiting to descend.

So I think about people. I think about this world. If it has problems, I don’t see the solutions. And if solutions lurk somewhere in my head, I don’t see the problems that need them. It’s hard to say what is wrong or right because if you want to say anything is wrong or right, you better have a lot of people supporting you. Or be one damn fine orator. Because no one listens. And why should they? That is, assuming, they’re too busy thinking themselves.

Watching Peter Jackson’s Heavenly Creatures has left me utterly depressed. I didn’t watch it straight through, missed some parts even, but damn… I don’t know if I want to see it again, after that. I don’t know if I can sit through it.

It is the oddest thing in the world, to see myself referred to as “greywing-san,” as if I deserve the honorific. So odd. But cool, too. This being willing to post comments with LJ thing is… somewhat nerve-wracking (have to get over long-ingrained instincts to keep silent/lurk), strange and heartening all at once (and, god, actually posting stories where people who are looking for it can find it? Nice.).

Don’s friends are so much fun and silly. It’s weird to think that he acts the same around them that he does around me and the family–and that they are perfectly happy reciprocating all that treatment. It’s definitely amusing (and they don’t mind telling me stories, either).

I hope that I can find friends like that in my life. I hope that I can find people like that and not be such a scaredy-cat not to grab the opportunity. Fun. =D

Having just about dived into the whole FMA fandom (specifically the RoyAi (or RoyEye) part of it) by doing the whole LJ thing, I quickly found authors that I really admired or simply loved to read. Granted I may not agree entirely one hundred percent with all the interpretations (and they are many and varied and it’ll probably be hard to separate fanon from canon soon enough in my poor head), they can spin a story so damn enjoyable I don’t really care if I agree or not, I’m agreeing at that moment.

Damn.

And another cool thing? A lot of them don’t speak English as a first language or are not in an English-speaking country. How damn cool is that? Makes me kind of sad when the natives can’t write. (Ah, ff.net, if only there was a way to filter things or make some kind of decent lowest common denominator.)

Oh, and I was just IMed by one of said authors. Whose s/n I’ve been staring at on my buddy list. For probably a week or so now. Was I going to IM her? No… (What to say when you have nothing to say and will sound probably very little more than stupid?).

Now we also understand why I have not yet called my potential roommates. Stupid phone. And brain-to-vocal cords/lips/tongue pathway not clear. (It suddenly becomes very clear to me why I write: you can actually fix your sentences before someone sees them, whereas once you say something stupid, there’s no going back.)

And comments in parantheses are fun. And starting sentences with “and” and “but” in that way that just go against all those grammar teachings when I was younger. And now I am done. Fin.

Take care of yourself over there, Bryan. I’ll miss you. =D (Try not to slack too much, ok? =) )

… Was I just rec’ed by a writer I admire? Excuse me while I try to compute this.

Yes, I do have a livejournal account and now that I’ve had a few days to play around with it, it will most likely become my place to indulge my fandoms. So I’ll be cross-posting between this and that a lot less and this can be my place to talk about my mundane life. (Yay, my mundane life!)

This post was for no reason.

Anyone looking for a prereader/editor? I never really edit or proofread others’ works, but I probably should to improve my own writing and skills… (Yes, that’s a warning that I’m an amateur at this, but I’m more than willing to give it a try).

Just a funny thought: In one of the Fullmetal omakes Roy comments that Hawkeye has no naming sense. Now, b/c I’m a RoyAi fangirl at heart, what kind of names would their children have if Riza were allowed to name them?

All that work and I still ended up just reserving my books with the bookstore… Strange to sit here and watch everyone go off and/or start college. Stranger still to wonder why we start on the 23rd–so far away yet! I both hate/like it. And… should I call my roommates or let them call me? =D

Recently I’ve been entertaining thoughts of Enigma & crew and their little world. More importantly, I’ve been recklessly thinking about another try. Not just another try, but an entirely new effort, making changes here and there, tweaking characters, and, most importantly, creating a plot–and planning all of it.

You think this silly little dream should have died by now. Two efforts abandoned. Two very bad story attempts. It’s been five or six years, botched twice and left to die, but somehow it still lingers in my mind.

But although I keep telling myself I’ll put pen to paper and write down these ideas–and not just ideas, but to really outline and make all the dots connect (which in itself scares me, knowing full well that I may very well get to the end of the outline and find myself out of steam–which would be so very typical of me)–I’m too scared to. My writing track record is probably one of the worst all around. I finish very few stories and know far too little to embark on a big endeavor. And this would be a big endeavor. To make it worthwhile, this would have to be it. Enigma’s story. Beginning, middle, end.

But it comes down to one question and if I can’t answer it, perhaps the story shall lie dormant forever, dead in every true sense.

“Why?”

Wow. Wow. I feel young, unread, and overwhelmed. But in a good way. Even with the whole “goddamn, that’s intimidating; I could never contribute anything to such conversations and thoughts.” Amazing what you find on the ‘Net. Even more amazing are the minds all around the world. Sheesh, if I ever hoped of doing/writing something great, I just had the greatest epiphany that anything I do will pale in comparison to what others can achieve. Yet there’s that wonderful realization that we are people, individuals, and we are as colorful and varied as the full pallette of Photoshop and that we shouldn’t shove ourselves into molds. I should be proud to be me–flawed, yes, and young, unread, and ultimately inexperienced. But I’ve got time. To read. To see. To experience. And to let it all become a part of me (or not).

Yeah.

I love how Bryan and I watch the Olympics in different ways. Bryan watches all of it and always wants the US to win. I watch some of it (usually whatever is on NBC) and although I want the US to win, too, I love just watching the events out of pure appreciation for the events and the performances of the athletes themselves. It’s a testament to just how far the human will and the human body can go.

Ah, the Olympics are fun. And, yeah, I get disappointed when we don’t win too. Tonight: Women’s Gymnastics (hell yeah!).

Not really, since I don’t like yaoi. Or rather, I don’t like the yaoi of fangirlism because I can’t see it. Granted, I usually avoid yaoi and have not read much of it (again, because the idea often strikes me as too ludicrous to really dive into) but seeing a fic’s premise as such often makes me stop and ask myself, “How in the world does that work out? How do you take a guy who acts like that and make him fall for another guy?” My mind conjures images of self-loathing (or even just loathing for the object of his desire as misplaced anger) instead of love and pride; the men I know usually vehemently deny being homosexual and those who are and have accepted that part of themselves only do so after a period of self-doubt, denial, and ultimately pain because of the reality of it. The lucky ones are those who have the support to really live an open life.

I do not doubt in reality that many gay men are macho men; I think I actually saw/read that somewhere. And, hell, anime is rife with bishounen guys who are girly (at least in appearance–perhaps too beautiful for their own good) that are probably loads of fun to slash. But so many of their personalities don’t even hint at tendencies toward being homosexual. In fact some are painfully made out to be ladies’ men and who undoubtedly enjoy women–and so many of these slashed characters are often in worlds that would seem to or would very likely disdain homosexuality. So these manly men just suddenly hit on other manly men… like women. They act like women. Yes! They go lovey-dovey and gushy… like women. These are not the manly men we began with. I’ll let all that romantic stuff go on in the bedroom–that I can understand. But the courting… what are the chances that two manly men are so acceptingly homosexual?

Pull off yaoi correctly and, yeah, I’ll give it to you. I have nothing against it. I mean, hell, I immensely enjoy Jacqueline Carey’s world and the D’angeline “Love as thou wilt” (which, literally, they do, loving whomever and however they want to–but the D’angelines have always been like that and the society is completely accepting of, open to, and encourges it). If you’re going to slash, ok, go for it–but make it realistic. Don’t forget about that angst, that human self-doubt. Don’t forget the MALE EGO!

I’m a romantic sap (hell, my secret vice is yuri–which logically works for me because I can completely see women acting so emotional (or in some cases, not)–hell, groups of women are so close that often that’s just the next step in some cases (though one not often crossed and that’s probably a good thing)). Hell, I think yaoi might actually just be yuri in disguise sometimes how these men act.

But… alas, even though I’ve gotten on my soapbox, I’m not going to write a yaoi story to prove it. Not in a fic anyway… In the end it is as it always is… to each his own.

This("Masterpiece") is probably nowhere near what Lia wanted when she threw her request at me ("Write me a story about a painter that’s really good, but can’t find satisfaction in any of his “masterpieces". He can’t find enough inspiration and that’s why he doesn’t like his paintings") and I apologize for that, but then again it was nowhere near as inspired as my other one. Although, in the end, my inspiration hit when I read a line in a FMA Roy/Hawkeye fic:

The map I traced over the years started there, in the solid curve of your collar-bone.
-Kaleidoscope by zauberer_sirin

So there you have it. Enjoy… maybe.

… is so great! I can’t stop laughing at the comments (you know, I should probably share some of their sentiments, but it’s just so damn funny to see the horrified/disgusted/suffering/hopeless/hopeful prayers/threats/wails/laments/rants that are popping up)–not to mention the hypothesizing!

… Yes, I understand that twisted, sadistic pleasure Arakawa must derive from this. I can only hope that one day if I ever get into such an industry where I can cause as much agony that I can… and do. =D

I think the wait to find out what happens next and to see the plot unfold before my eyes is killing more than the… killing.

Why is Fullmetal Alchemist so cruel?! Why isn’t it translated?! Why must I wait? And why must we all wait until next month to find out what happens (again)?!?!

There’s nothing like FRIGGIN’ AWESOME FANART to reignite my love for Juuni Kokki (12 Kingdoms). It makes me almost want to watch the whole thing again to refresh my memory, especially since I can’t recall some of these characters being drawn. JK is one of those series where the artwork is elegant and flowing (like the series)–it’s awesome and beautiful and makes you want to become Emperor (or Empress) of a Kingdom with your own kirin. (Well, I do anyway…)

As a little experiment and for anyone who actually reads this blog, I’m taking writing requests. Those of you who have read my work know my style, but I guess if I want to actually try this I’ll take anything but outright comedy (b/c I can’t write comedy to save my life). Fanfic or original (although my fandoms are somewhat limited, but hey…). Pick your poison theme in the handy little comment box (which no one ever uses…). And you probably shouldn’t expect anything long–unless you really manage to inspire me (secret muses lurking out there?) Anyone interested?

Here is a sample, I suppose. For Lia. =)

Of course, now we have a new layout, as it seems every summer brings. Compact. Black, white, gray (because we all know how much I like to keep things in black and white…) and… purple? Hey, I like purple. Royalty. Penitence. It works. It was my favorite color, once upon a time. (What’s my favorite color now? I can’t decide.) I usually like it in its darker forms, though.I’ve wanted to change the layout for a while now; my original concept was very similar to the first one with a few color changes. Then I realized I didn’t need the stupid sidebar (what the heck did I have to put in it?) and ousted it. Also took down the gallery because Lia displays her own artwork at deviantART. She needs a scanner. So I can look at more of her work. Get a scanner, Lia!

Anyone curious about Bleach? Not yet? Well, I’ll keep mentioning it until you are interested! So, chapter 144 came out in Japan and, of course, me being me, I can’t resist taking a peek (damn my inability to read Japanese!). So… yeah. I kind of eargerly await to see if Kubo, the author, is as malicious or fearless as Arakawa (Full Metal Alchemist). Needless to say, there’s a small furor being worked up over it at the Bleach LiveJournal Community (entitled “soul socity” for interested parties). It’s interesting to see and read all the thoughts pouring out about it. Me? It’s not so surprising, although it is somewhat heartbreaking and well… hopeless. But I’m still dying to see Fullmetal Alchemist 38. Why must we wait? (And watch at the end of the wait that part of the story won’t even be touched. ;_;

Kubo also likes to assign theme songs for his characters and I must say this man is interesting; his music is all over the place (from J-pop to Jap rap to symphonic to English punk to sad Italian songs). Rukia’s theme song (Wing Stock by Ashley MacIsaac) rocks my socks. Goddamn this song is cool. It just builds and builds and makes me itch to touch a violin.

Oh, and I killed the counter. The counter is dead! Long live the counter! (Whenever I get John to fix it.)

And this is a beautiful tribute to Maes Hughes of FMA. It’s just so… right.

That turned out to be probably one of the best case scenarios that could have happened. But now I need to hope that everything works out and everything gets OKed and we can all be happy and stay on this steady course.

I want to write something so bad it hurts. I want to put this fear into words, to see it written out and made real–to acknowledge that it’s real, that I can’t escape it, and that my only option is to embrace it–and let it all come out. But I can’t. I won’t let myself. Not until I see what happens. Not until fate shows its hand.

Not until I know.

But that’s the worst part, isn’t it? The not knowing. Or even better, thinking you know, doubting you know, reassuring yourself you don’t know until you’re back at thinking you know and stuck in a vicious cycle.

But then again I’m more afraid of knowing.

Because that’s final. Whether you want to know it or not.

… no, this is much worse than a missing transcipt. I feel utterly… defeated and helpless, like everyhing I’ve done has truly amounted to nothing. Fuck. And I can’t even say it with energy.

Fuck. Just FUCK. I swear to GOD or WHATEVER THE FUCK IS OUT THERE that they had my transcipts A MONTH AGO. So WHAT THE FUCK? Cancel letter? This is so fucking depressing and frustrating to have to wait until MONDAY and to learn about it only TODAY.

So much Bleach (or here and even here in English)… need more… all the way to chapter 140… why? (And does anyone remember when the cast just included a bunch of high schoolers? Neither do I. And more Rukia, dammit!)

It’s time for my big Comic-Con update where I try to remember everything that we did and that happened.

(more…)

At last, it is finished. Needs proofreading (too late/early to get to that now) and the arduous task of finding prereaders awaits me, but the thing is finished. It has a beginning, middle, and end (*gasp*).

Hallelujah.

I have always drifted towards games rife with story and this summer I am discovering the sheer narrative style of adventure games tickle my fancy more than other genre at the moment. Finally beating Kyrandia: Book 2 opened my eyes and heart to fond memories of King’s Quest VI, of watching my brothers play, playing myself years later, and then sadly watching as it wouldn’t play on my current system. But, by far, it was an odd thing to beat Kyrandia when I can remember when I first purchased the game and could not even puzzle out how to advance past the first part.

What is it about these games that draws me in? It is simple, really: first, the characters and their stories, how they grow and learn, how you slowly uncover their backgrounds and tantalizingly reveal their futures; secondly, the worlds–all these stories have such breathtaking, beautiful, expansive worlds. But, of course, RPGs have these as well. Adventure games, however, offer these in abundance and are not restricted with long, tedious hours of battle. As novel and interactive a battle system is, it is sadly not long before it’s ability to entertain wanes. It is one of the reasons that, despite it’s compelling and huge story, I haven’t picked up Xenosaga again in a long time.

So what brings this onslaught of thought forth? Two games: Syberia and The Longest Journey. Each has so captivated me that I feel a need to rant about them. Each has had the similar effect of making me want more of them long after I have finished the game and stewed upon the stories and sights. Warning: Spoilers ahead.

(more…)

In my heart, in my mind, I do not know where this is going. A part of me says, “Nowhere” and the other part retaliates, “Coward. Deserter. You always give up.” The truth of it stings, but at the same time it offers security and comfort. It is the sure knowledge of myself and the easy escape of falling back on old excuses rather than leap into that void. I could leap out, I know, but I don’t think like this. It flitters at the back of my mind. I’m sorry. I’m sorry if I cannot say it and I’m sorry if I do.

Rio Caramello randomly reads and responds to this blog and I find it funny.

Tired today; odd, since I had plenty of sleep. I haven’t felt one hundred percent the past few days–ugh, if I’m sick, why can’t I just be outright sick instead of this subtle body-shutting-down-slowly-in-bits-and-pieces stuff? But summer is good; sucks that Lia is not around so I can randomly collab with her, but I must live without her (horror!). Summer has been a bit random with me, too. It’s the time for remaking old acquaintances, I suppose… or something like that.

Now if only I could get myself to finish this Zelda fic, things would be close to awesinebess (the holy mathematical cow and the ultimate typo!)! Oh, and it’d be nice if my transcript would magically appear where it needs to be.

I’ve just returned from my orientation at UCSD. Many thoughts and uncertainties run through my head, including how I should have signed up for the higher math and a fine arts class instead of jumping into my humanities and how–dammit–I can’t change my classes right now -_-, not to mention the little fears like living on campus my first year and the sad thought that my second year I’m going to have to drive up to La Jolla everyday… with traffic (ugh). I hate orientations. They always make you do things that you just don’t want to do, like skits and other random group activities they could cram into two days (really, the thing did not need to be two days… they could have done everything in one). My group was pretty cool, I suppose. It was strange being surrounded by such intelligently intimidating people; it made me feel just as uneasy as it did good. I’m afraid, too, of having to start all over again. I have to make friends and lord knows I don’t want to make the effort and, in addition, this time I have to learn how to live with a stranger. I don’t know… college seems like such a big thing and I already feel like such a small person.

*sigh* It’s sad to feel just not ready.

You visit me in my dreams now. It’s strange to me, although it doesn’t feel strange to my dream self. You greet me with that smile and a hug. It’s nice.

Ah, while I’m thinking about it, we played Taboo last night. It was lots of fun. Memories include:

Nikki: “It’s a two part word.” (The word was “Plastered")
Hung: “Jungle blank Jacobs!” (The word you fill in is “Jew,” but the actual Taboo word being sought out was “Jungle"… yes, my brother said the word he was trying to get us to guess.)
Kim: “This is something when you have it you get your IS department to…” (The word was “De-Bug"… yes, my sis is so corporate =) )
Hung: “It’s a type of Western.” Don: “Spaghetti western!” The rest of us: “What?”
Me: “It was a big fad. It’s Japanese.” My brother making pog throwing motions and me wanting to just shout, NO! (The word was “Pokemon")
Renee: “Okay, what’s the bad movie that J. Lo and Ben Affleck were in? The one that no one saw.” Me: “Gigli.” Renee: “Okay, what are the first three letters of that?” Me: “Gig.” Don: “Ass.” (The word was “gig"… we later found out, Don got “ass” from assassin, which Ben was in the movie. It was funny/confusing at the time.)
Don: “What do you do when someone cuts you off?” Me and Hung simultaneously: “Give them the finger.” (Answer: Honk (and we did get it))
Me: “You might do this when you go to the gas station.” Hung: “Use the bathroom.” Don: “Wash your face.” (That earned a “What?"–Answer: Squeegee (we got to it eventually))
Kim: “It causes really bad acne.” Confused looks all around. (Steroids)

It’s definitely a fun game (and there were more giggling moments then that), but when you’re trying to think of what to tell people and the time is running out, the obvious always blows by you, not to mention you have someone looking over your shoulder to make sure you’re not using a taboo word (and during this game, you had two people looking over your shoulders). It’s also impressive to see the levels people “get” each other on and just hearing the random stuff (and the completely right on stuff that makes you just go “Wow, nice"). Suffice to say, within the siblings, we tend to get each other. Oh, and Don called Nikki Radio Selby all night. Not nice. Of course, we got into telling some ghost stories afterwards and I was vaguely disturbed. Figures (scary stuff back in PA–crazy haunted Berks County and all those other old places).

I just want a beta-reader (and to finish a story)–is that so much to ask for? Actually, I can understand. It’s a commitment of time and energy, not to mention it’s better to be wary than to jump into something you may end up regretting. It just feels good to finally get rolling on a work, but in a way, I’m sick of just working by myself. I want actual feedback and to shape a story that’s sound. It’s nice to have friends read your work, but lots of time all you get back is just encouragement.

My writing has been slowly evolving over time, for better or for worse. Hopefully if I can find a beta, I can continue to grow and try new styles. That and it’d be really cool to have new outlooks and writing buddies.

Although the story was just a bit too rushed and almost implausible (come on, one night with a prostitute and you want to take her home to the states with you…? yeah…), Miss Saigon was enjoyable. Several songs I was just like, Ok, they can end now, while other parts you wish could drag out (usually anything that involved the Engineer). And it was funny seeing a Latino play a Vietnamese man. The dragon dance: cool. Too bad I predicted the ending =. Ending was also abrupt. In fact, many things were just abrupt.

Ah, well–I still enjoyed vastly and I thank my sis for my cool grad present! =) (After all these years, since I first heard of it, I discover Miss Saigon is not about a beauty pageant!)

So I’m graduated now. And I didn’t completely freeze up when I gave my speech, although to me it seemed like I was moving too fast (not cool either when you can feel the shakes in your hands). It was certainly a day for memories.

I will miss high school.

I’m beginning to think that we can do this, that I can get over myself.

Isn’t that crazy?

Now… for this speech…

So what are these four years boiling down to? I wish I knew. Then maybe I could write a speech, one that could not only come from my heart, but could reach everyone (and yet, should I even bother trying to reach everyone? It is true that I am not even fond or am on a basis of acquaintance with the majority of my class). Maybe I could figure out what’s going on with me, with those around me, even this thing called “us.” There is this laziness–even a fear–that has settled deep within me. And a tiredness too, as if completely defeated. A part of my spirit is crushed; I admit, I thought it would not hurt opening that letter (I already knew the answer in a way, when that letter was so small; maybe I had known all day, plagued by an inexplicable sadness that festered in my heart), but it did sting nonetheless to find yet another failure. Although perhaps I had gotten used to rejection, for when I found out I would not be going to Stanford, it did not hurt or cut as deeply as a few months ago.

I forgot the tennis banquet was today. In fact, I just remembered a few minutes ago. *sigh*

So what is this other sadness? I know it. I know it well. But a part of me wants to pretend it isn’t there, yet it cannot be ignored. Step forward? Retreat? The options seem so simple, so straightforward. But then I start to thinking and the doubts creep from the shadows of my mind and prey upon me. It is so easy to think of reasons to not and so hard to find the strength to pursue. If only life were a problem I could find the resolution to. I fit in this box too well.

This weekend was the time for random occurrances and nights. Grad nite was very fun; I didn’t meet random people (and I doubt I did as much people watching as some of my friends) or dance (we were going to get around to it, but by the time we did, I was beat–not to mention that’s a lot of friggin’ people to exhibit my absolute no skills to), but I had a lot of fun. And random things happened, more or less. But that’s what made it fun. Oh, and awesome conversation on the way up–good conversation always seems to happen on trips like these.

Then lots of sleep happened.

Then Saturday came ’round and prom happened. Dinner was fun–our table stretched down to forever; as a consequence, the table was divided into mini-groups. That was fine; I was comfortably positioned. Good conversation, pretty good food with the bane of having a huge party. But that was okay. Oh, and forgetting to tell Marian which restaurant it was sucked =(. But she still came, so that was good. Driving downtown = nightmare. Oh, and taking a wrong turn = dammit! We’ll blame Bryan for that one, who willingly admitted to reading the directions wrong (good job, Bryan!). Ok. So we got double-booked and we got slammed into this teeny-tiny hallway and danceroom at the Bristol. You know, I was surprisingly not angry or unhappy. I dragged my date (and consequently, myself) onto the dance floor and just had fun. Why not? I paid my money! I regret not taking a fun, cheap $8 photo for our own memories though. It would have been nice =), but we got one done anyway. Everyone looked so nice last night, regret not getting an entire group photo =(. So prom ’til eleven o’clock–people had a countdown to get out of there–don’t know what after-parties were happening, but ended up at Mariana’s where Twister went down. I didn’t play well, but very fun to watch. Then Denny’s and some ice cream to end the night, dropped off people who need to get dropped off and then home for some long sleep.

Okay. Now the issue I’ve been avoiding, huh? I don’t know. What is with this year? Did I suddenly become a prospect this year? I’m torn. One part of me says, “Why the hell not?” The other part throws all these logical reasons not to.

But there’s one thing I won’t doubt: those two nights, I had a lot of fun.

But is it worth taking to the next level? And am I willing to go there? The fear in my gut says no. The smile the memories brings me says yes. I hate being insecure in this fashion. I wish I could just be like, Fuck it. But I can’t be, because that’s not me. Do you know that? Do you see that? Or do you only see the silly side of me?

I feel like I’ve run this topic into the ground.

Never explain–your friends do not need it and your enemies will not believe you anyway.
-Elbert Hubbard (1856 - 1915)

Wow. Not quite sure if it holds true, but if I ever found a friend who held such faith in me, I’d be shocked (and honored).

Just finished reading The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood. It leaves a feeling of sadness; it is entirely appropriate, but even so, I couldn’t help but yearn for a happy ending, one where the world is not so cruel and events were not so unforgiving. In a way, I was sad that my predictions as to where the plot was heading were right; not because it made the book predictable or less enjoyable, but that it seemed far too sinister in its own way. Nevertheless, it was a good read–I just wish that the story could have gone on, to have bestowed a sense of closure. Do we believe in a happy ending? Or is the reader expected to be cynical? I do not know.

“The only way you can write the truth is to assume that what you set down will never be read. Not by any other person, and not even by yourself at some later date. Otherwise you begin excusing yourself. You must see writing as emerging like a long scroll of ink from the index finger of your right hand; you must see your left hand erasing it.
“Impossible, of course.
“I pay out my line, I pay out my line, this black thread I’m spinning across the page.”
-Margaret Atwood, The Blind Assassin

I feel like I can quote Margaret Atwood to death. She keeps hitting me with these passages that smack of truth.

Going home early… it’s been a while since I’ve done that. Not only that, but practically being pushed to go home by my teacher was a bit odd. I didn’t feel very under the weather really–just a slight temperature (if even that) and a stuffy nose from hell (and I gave it hell with abrasive paper towels). I’ve stayed at school feeling worse; still, home it was for me, where a three hour nap was in order. Strange dreams… that I can’t remember. Although this morning’s dreams were just as strange as well.

Now the Internet connection is acting all screwy on me. Gr.

It’s strange how you learn things and the world is turned upside down, and then a moment later, right-side up. My world just keeps getting flipflopped: things I never would have thought or was too oblivious to perceive.

Story of my friggin’ life, eh?

Damn this obliviousness of mine (as always, no?). Does anyone know a cure? Maybe selflessness?

What goes on in people’s minds? Everyone thinks writers must know more about the inside of the human head, but that’s wrong. They know less, that’s why they write. Trying to find out what everyone else takes for granted.
-Margaret Atwood, “Lives of the Poets”

And right now, I feel like I know nothing. Nothing at all. I just don’t understand. I don’t. I really don’t.

I feel like something in me has broken, a sadness I cannot explain. Everything shattered. Is this what it all comes down to? I do not know. Ignorance truly can be bliss.

To tell the truth, I’m so afraid of disappointing, of never finishing another story I start. It’s happened too many times already… it’s like I can’t stop.

“Aren’t you afraid you’ll run out of material?”
“Not material, energy,” she’d said, making it sound like a joke; but it had been true, that was her fear. Weren’t they the same thing?
-Margaret Atwood, “Lives of the Poets”

And when I read that part, I closed the book and thought about it. It rang so true, it scared me. My mind won’t stop imagining things, thinking up people and scenarios, but where is the energy? Where is the drive? Is it already fading–gone–for me?

I hope not. I’m not ready to give it up yet. But maybe I’m not fighting hard enough for it either. It’s been too long. Too many disappointments. Too many little failures.

Not yet, please, not yet.

… and I hope my grade reflects it. I think I did well on my presentation. I really did just go in there and wing it. The time flew by, as the seniors I talked to agreed. So much I could have talked about, but ah well. I probably forgot tons of things. My mind blanked at certain points, but ah well. It is done, it is done!

So… presentations today, huh? *sigh* Let’s hope that I can be “my charming self” and get this over with.

… Didn’t study… again. Ah, well.

When I read awesome literature, a part of me despairs. Why do I even try, I ask myself, when I could never hope to reach such a level, to find such simplicity of expression, to know such intimacy with the language, to be so beautiful?

It makes me afraid. It makes me feel very small. And I wonder, What is the point of it all? What is my point? What is my message?

Is there one?

Maybe.

Maybe not.

Maybe not yet.

Hmm… … … Why are stickers so hard to take off of the little package thingy? Either I have no dexterity at all or those things are made to frustrate. So… AP exam week, huh? Yeah… Spanish? Well, as badly as I did, I can say that the speaking part was very, very amusing to witness, since everyone was shocked by how short the time periods seemed to be. Not that I said anything–in fact, I blanked -_-. Calculus? Wow. Hard. First of all, I didn’t study and second of all, I completely forgot how to do inverse functions. That free response part was just like: “What the heck?”

Tomorrow is English Literature. I feel like I’m not even really going to school anymore. Ugh. Of course, the multiple choice portion of the Government final just had to be on Friday too. *sigh* At least I’m just about done with my portfolio! HA!

Oh, and Full Metal Alchemist is so much fun.

What completely random occurrences at dinner–I was nearly crying I was laughing so hard. Good times.

“It still comes as a shock to me to realize that I don’t write about what I know: I write in order to find out what I know.” -Patricia Hampl

Sometimes you learn things that really crush your spirit and make you question your view of the/your world. I think it just reaffirms that I need to get out of this house.

…

I need to think for myself. I need to find the courage to do so.

It’s not that I want to ignore people, but that I come to a point where I realize that I don’t know what to say anymore. There is this feeling of awkwardness that clenches hard on my gut when I think about what I could say. Then, the questions: How will it be received? How will I receive a response? Moreover, I hate the feeling of saying things for no reason, simply to say things. If I can have nothing else then I’ll take silence. Whatever choice I make, it’s awkwardness all around. Dammit.

In other situations, I wonder if that old familiar friend, that sly figure of anxiety, is catching up to me again. I thought I could escape old patterns, but sometimes I feel them embracing me again and, when that happens, I sink into those familiar arms, a comfort and safety haven. A part of me dares me to act differently, but the coward in me tells it to shove it. Pretty pathetic, no?

At lunch today, sitting in that little group and having a conversation with them, it struck me at some time that we were an odd gathering. I would not have imagined it, but I enjoyed it greatly. It was something new to interrupt a pattern and routine I had grown all too used to. Certainly, some of the subject matter were things I would not have thought of and I greatly enjoyed hearing Marian speak. I think she even threw in some swearing somewhere in there. It was really strange… and somehow really rewarding. I’ve really learned to respect her. I don’t know where’s she’s going in life or how she’ll end up, but I think she has the ethic to go places.

Just a piece of random thinking. The mood of reflection doesn’t seem to strike me often these days, does it?

This little short almost inspired me to go off and write a short story with some of the same concepts… almost.

(18:27:36) Me: hmm
(18:27:40) Me: what have I been obsessed about lately…?
(18:27:47) Lia: lol
(18:28:21) Me: Sometimes, when I place my hear against the wall, I can hear the singing.
(18:29:45) Lia: A clamor of voices, singing different melodies without words.
(18:30:36) Me: And sometimes… I think I hear your voice, singing so beautifully, so vibrantly, in a language I can’t understand.
(18:32:01) Lia: And I know it can’t be you, I know I’m just leading myself to believe you’re here with me, promising my hopelessness with false faith.
(18:33:47) Me: I remember when I first heard your voice, an angel come down to whisper in my ear, planting flowers in my heart where they bloomed under the soft nurture of your silken song.
(18:36:17) Lia: I was deaf to everything else but the sound of your voice, the way it resonated against my soul; so enamored with you, how was I to know your song wasn’t that of an angel, but a siren guiding me to my demise?
(18:36:19) Me: (wow, I just noticed that I had a huge typo in that first sentence -_-)
(18:36:44) Lia: (The hear that I assumed was supposed to be head?)
(18:36:51) Me: (ear -_-)
(18:37:02) Lia: (Lol oopssss)
(18:37:31) Me: Did you ever notice me watching you when you danced him, when you laughed with him, when you smiled at him, when you… sang for him?
(18:37:42) Me: (dammit… danced with*)
(18:40:21) Lia: Alone in the background of this perfect world I saw that you created for him with your song, and I knew that it should have been me with you, me beside you, me holding you in my arms as you whispered soft melodies filled with dreams and hope.
(18:40:57) Lia: (ex out the I saw)
(18:41:32) Me: I would have given you dreams, you know, beautiful dreams to sing about, a world of flowers and butterflies, an eternity of devotion… a lifetime of love.
18:42
(18:43:30) Lia: But you were drawn to him like a moth to a flame, and he burned your wings off, crippled you, destroyed you.
(18:46:11) Me: I saw him–I saw him!–Bastard… selfish bastard! He locked you up in the cage of his arms, never let you go, blinded you with promises and murmured nothings, his lies hidden behind his beauty.
(18:47:35) Lia: I would never have held you back, I would never have fed off what you had to give and never given back, I would never have let you fade into the waste of life the way you did.
(18:48:23) Me: That’s why I did it–don’t you understand?–that’s why I freed you, had to free, had to send your voice soaring off into heaven–
(18:48:34) Me: (had to free you*)
(18:50:07) Lia: I gave to you what no one else could, I loved you that much, and your voice, it lingers around me, haunts me because I hear what you were before him, and I hate him even more than what he did to you.
(18:52:56) Me: It was just that night, when I heard your voice–when I heard your giggles–resounding with his… that bastard’s… it seized me, seized me by the heart, squeezed hard and long, covered my eyes with a veil–and somewhere I heard you singing, singing… “… help me…”
(18:55:12) Lia: And I ran, went to you, wanting to protect you from anymore of his contamination, because I knew, I knew you wanted to be free but didn’t want to hurt him, couldn’t hurt him because of your nature, of your very being that laid naked in the air when your voice echoed in the silence of my life.
(18:57:20) Me: I never felt the knife in my hand–do you believe me?–can’t remember what you said, what he said, what I said, the singing, so loud, oh gods, so loud–"help me. HELP ME!"–stop it, please, stop it, I
(18:57:24) Me: (damn)
(18:57:27) Me: (wait)
(18:57:45) Me: stop it, please, stop it, I’ll make it stop.
(18:57:48) Me: (there we go)
(18:57:57) Lia: (lol)
(18:59:11) Lia: But then the singing stopped as your blue eyes stared into mine, both our hands over the knife embedded in your chest, your heart, setting you free forever as I leaned down and kissed you for the first and last time as you closed your eyes.
(19:01:19) Me: It’s so quiet now. It’s so quiet here.
(19:04:03) Lia: I thought when they first brought me here that your song had stopped forever, but I was wrong; when I press my ear against the soft, padded walls, I can hear you in the distance, clear, vibrant and free.
(19:05:01) Me: And when I close my eyes, I see you, smiling at me, laughing with me, dancing with me… singing for me.
(19:05:21) Me: (Wow)
(19:05:26) Me: (That’s almost an actual complete story)
(19:07:22) Lia: (yeah, very morbid!! lol)
(19:08:05) Me: (hehehe)

I’ve been thinking about anime (especially since I’ve been watching so much these past few days)… about how amazing some of them are… just the worlds, ideas, the visuals, the feelings, the music driving them. There are some pretty questionable ones, pure fanservice ones, and ones that are just pure enjoyment (Azumanga Daioh comes to mind), but there are also a few that really strike me sometimes, that stick in my mind and make me go “Wow.” Haibane Renmei, Ghost in the Shell (movie and the snatches of the TV series I keep watching–both have amazingly different personalities for some of the characters–amazing how a “Motoko!” scene with Batou pops up in both of them though), Chrno Crusade (anime, but especially manga), Shoujo Kakumei Utena (anime, not the manga–lots of wtf? moments), Narutaru (just shocking in its seemingly innocent presentation), Juuni Kokki (12 Kingdoms), and even today’s Petit Cossette (what a trip–love the style too, though I wish I could figure out what the heck is going on), to mention a few (or maybe more than a few)–amazing worlds or characters or just concepts and plots that make my mind run in circles and circles. They make me wish I had an artistic bone in me. I wonder what strikes these creators and artists. What genius or madness or unmatched imagination brings such things about? Ah, to be so inspired…

It’s amazing… I’m getting spammed through my blog.

I forgot we lost an hour this weekend. Hm. And I forgot to return the stupid library books–and I had even told myself on Friday, “Renew the books!” Dammit!

Hmm, in a way, as much as I’m bummed out and disappointed, I feel almost relieved that a decision is being made. If not this, then that. If that happens, ok, then maybe I can still fulfill a dream. If not, I still have a good path to walk, although I question what I want to do ten years from now and I’m still wondering and searching for an answer (ah, finally moving on from wondering what kind of idiot I must be).

Is money my aim? I don’t think so. I mean, I’d like the security, but I don’t know what I’d do with myself if I had lots of money (chances are, knowing me, not much). Travel? Certainly, I’d love to, but I could always get a job that allowed me to travel. I don’t know if I ever mean to settle down with anyone (right now it seems kind of restricting to me and not something I really want). You know, I’ve always thought to myself: writing won’t get you anywhere. It’s a hell job. It takes so long just to get recognized and published by companies and then it’s a one in a million chance of “breaking through” and becoming a name. But I never thought about editing. I’d get to read a lot and meet a lot of interesting people. It’d probably still be a hell job (probably including hell to find), but it could be rewarding. And maybe I’d be motivated to write my own stuff.

I know that I want to move out of San Diego. I don’t think I want to live here. It’s beautiful, but it’s expensive and I miss seasons. I want winter, though maybe not so much scorching summers. But even now it all seems so far away. I wonder if I’d ever have the guts to move out of the country. But all of that is still far, far away. I wonder what kind of person I’ll be in 5 years? The same?

Well, God forbid.

This is even crueler, keeping hope alive but drawing it out even longer. In the end, it’ll just turn out like all the others, won’t it? Ah, sad again. It hurts.

Ramona was beautiful though. What a pleasant, delightful surprise.

… I can’t even reflect happily, although it was fun. My mood is as cloudy as the weather.

Ugh… now my head hurts… and I still haven’t gotten it to work.

Dangerous thoughts tumble through my head but I know it’s only because I’m angry and frustrated. What was it all for? I ask myself. Just what the hell was it all for? What was the point of it all? Why should I have cared? Was it the wrong way? Was trying and actually caring just the wrong way to go about things? I don’t know anymore. I don’t know. What else can I be but myself? I don’t know… I don’t know… I can’t give anymore than this. I can’t care in the way that’s natural for me anymore than I have.

Is this fate? Or did I choose this road?

I wish I could just scream… but I doubt I’d feel better anyway.

It hurts… but not as much as before… more like watching a dream slowly die… and, of course, self doubt…

ARGH! All that and the server crashes?!?!?!?!

…

They were just asking for us and now all of us have to suffer.

The hour approaches. I hate this. The not knowing and the not wanting to know, but still ultimately wanting to know… it would be fine if it were just me… but, no, if things go awry, sharing the news will be like stabbing myself a hundred times with a safety pin.

… I’m too worked up to do even my homework.

So… tomorrow is D-day, huh? Only… 28 and a half agonizing hours to go. Yay.

Hmm… but is it really agonizing? I don’t expect to get in, but there’s still this small part of hope in me. The rest of me is afraid for that part–if I don’t get in, I’m going just going to be curshed all over again. *sigh*

Life is just barreling along and I’m hanging on for the ride. These weeks are flying by, truly, but at times I look forward to all that remains to be done and I can’t believe how long it seems. This morning, when I woke up, my arm was amazingly sore, moreso than it was yesterday. I truly didn’t want to get up, although I knew I had to so I could at least get some work done (which I have, although my craptacular essay might not be considered much of any work–it took 45 minutes to write anywho).

Last night though… wow… the sound might not have projected so well, but just watching those amazing artists. Wow. I am truly in awe of the skill needed to play an instrument. I just sat there and watched the bows go up and down, up and down, precise and deliberate. The first part and the last part: heavenly. Although I have no idea how anyone could have danced to any of those songs (they seemed to fast to put any stately grace or too formal to just loop an arm through someone’s and swing around). That last piece was like a bit out of a movie soundtrack, or maybe an entire short film(which isn’t surprising since the composer has done many movies), and it was chilling–at times I didn’t know if it were even pleasing to the ear, though it was definitely tense.

I wish it had been an actual hall now so that I could have watched better (it doesn’t help that the lights were all funky and played with the eyes at times). It could be breath-taking when the violins built up (no percussion, at times it was purely just strings), and yet they could be amazingly soft, so soft I had to strain to hear. Oddly enough, probably from hearing my own screeching mess, I thought I sometimes heard some, but it just made me realize that book was right: audiences are willing to forgive mistakes. It was a beautiful show nonetheless.

Hm. I can say the relief I felt this weekend was nice, though it may be a temporary reprieve. However, I hope I get into either Berkeley or Stanford, if only so I can get away from home. But I’m not sure about my chances anymore.

Six Flags wasn’t a great disappointment to me, as it seemed for some. Sure, I wish it had been less crowded and that I could have ridden the new rides, but eh… Though I did wake up sore. Last night’s conversation took me by surprise; that was the last thing I would have foreseen happening. The nap in third period was fun; woke up with a cramp in my neck though–I’m not sure if I actually got any sleep since it didn’t feel like it, but when I “got up” over on hour of class had passed.

Today I felt like I accomplished something, although really I haven’t done much at all. Like doing my ESLR stuff… oops. Looks tomorrow shall be ESLR #1 day (not fun, but I have no choice; at this point, I’m too committed to back out of school now). Seeing Chris again was good too. I’m glad.

What an odd school year this has been.

I think a lot in the car, usually when I’m coming home from school. These random thoughts bounce around in my head for the 15-20 minutes that the drive takes. Today, it was that I feel like time is running out; I’m coasting through this schedule that society has set down for me and I can sense the end coming to smack in the face. Where is the time going?

“Sweet surrender is all that I have to give.” (Sweet Surrender, by Sarah McLachlan)

It feels like that lately, that I just have to surrender to life and let it take me wherever it wants. I can’t say I like it, but I don’t have a choice in the matter–and in general, life has been pretty bright lately. Dark spots may be ahead, but there are a lot of neat things going on too. Though this week hasn’t been very fun. *sigh* And I was looking forward to tomorrow–but, hey, I understand that other people have lives that need addressing first (which won’t stop me at all from complaining).

Well, it seemed the post on Mozart’s Requiem never got put up. Suffice to say, I’ve fallen in love with sopranos. I believe I fair climbed to heaven on that soprano’s powerful voice–or maybe she dragged me up there with her, higher and higher on the musical scale.

In other news, the website will remain up–we have moved to a new server (thanks, John!).

And in yet other news… I think I’m scared shitless. I’ve been having crazy dreams and waking up frazzled; stress dreams probably. Sometimes I’m calm and I think, whatever happens, happens. I can deal. Then other times someone will say something or a thought will pop into my mind and I feel the pit of my stomach drop and that sinking feeling drags me all the way down and I think: Man, I’m such an idiot. In a way I want to know and in a way I don’t because at least not knowing I’m sure that I’m not a total failure.

I get that feeling again, that feeling I haven’t had since I was in RdR. That burning desire for time to stop, for tomorrow to never come. Sometimes I almost want to just cry out frustration and fear and other times I just want to shrug and believe that wherever the future leads me, it’s ok. I waste time second guessing myself, wondering where I fell short, if everything went through fine–and most of all, I agonize if it was just me, just all my fault and there’s nothing to do with other forces or factors.

I don’t know anymore. I feel lost and uncertain.

I don’t want to know and I want to know.

What will the answer be?

I want to laugh at myself–letting myself be ruled by this. But how can I not? There’s nowhere to go from here; only a long agonizing wait and no matter what I do, I can’t make it go faster and I can’t help but feel the trepidation slowly leaking into every limb in my body. Sometimes it paralyzes me and sometimes I can shake it off and say to myself: “There’s nothing you can do now.”

Ah, I am going in circles. Aye… always going in circles.

It takes so very little for things to change.

What a day… Nice drive with Jen, refreshing walk with Bryan; talked about anything–maybe I will actually get to see him play hockey? Definitely a nice day. =)

Notes to self:
Pinky test
No hands test
G D A E -> X X B F (?)

I haven’t really sat down and written something introspective, but today is a very good day, I feel great and energetic (maybe too much so) and refreshed by the weather, so I suppose I shall think on things and see where I go.

One point of interest on my mind today is the Keirsey Temperament Sorter (I’m not sure how great this online version is or its explanations–I did a handout version and I’m not even sure if it’s the first one or the second one). I’m an INTJ. Apparently, I was an INTJ last year when Tommy gave me the test too, so I suppose I haven’t changed. Though I do wonder what the values for the individual traits were… I wonder if I’ve stayed about the same or have become even more or less of one or another. For instance, this time I ended up completely introverted–it was kind of funny because I looked at it and I said “Man, they’re all B’s!” So I suppose I’m a “Rational” person. Ah, if you say so. And I’m supposed to be confident and organized and coherent? I’m not confident and my thoughts are nowhere near organized, nor can I ever seem to express myself coherently anymore. It’s sad. I remember thinking last year the indepth explanations were pretty dead-on; I wonder if I’ll think the same reading them again this year. Maybe people really do change.

Opportunities have been popping up for me. I’m falling behind on a million things I should do (Physics Photo Project, finding someone to write me a Letter of Recommendation, writing my Autobiography, my Service Log, doing the stupid book report for religion, just to name a few), but I really don’t want to do them. They’re no fun and I’ll kick myself later, but for now, it seems like there’s an eternity to procrastinate. But… you know… people say you shouldn’t regret things. And I don’t want to regret not seizing–or at least trying something that seems almost dreamlike to me. I mean, what were the chances? But that’s not to say I’m not afraid that the ghastly pattern I’ve created for myself will repeat itself yet again. I don’t know if I could bear disappointing myself again and I seem to be doing that too much lately. And it’s given me the added opportunity of getting to know someone I had had preconceived notions about better. I need to learn to stop being so harsh and judging. But it’s fun. I can be really silly weird and not feel conscious about it; it’s a blast!

I’ve felt such a strange change recently. Not too long ago I was literally riding a rollercoaster of emotions, being on top one moment and then hitting rock bottom the next. Sometimes it was just from one thought to the next that this would occur, just like that, BAM, happy to sad, sad to happy! But lately, I’ve just been happy. I felt so good today that when I missed my exit I just shrugged, grooved to some U2 and just kept driving until I could turn around. I don’t know how long this will last ("This, too, shall end” after all), and I’m sure I’ll be back on that rollercoaster sooner than I want to, but for now, I’m just going to revel in it. I don’t know what causes my drastic mood swings or anything like that, though sometimes I’m happy I don’t know just so that I can simply experience life and let it be. It’s kind of why I don’t want to read my religion assignment; it almost seems to me people are so concerned to fulfill these lessons and needs that they forget to just live. And I’m learning that it can be pretty worthwhile just to exist and let the world flow through you–it’s a pretty amazing place.

Religion… this was an issue brought up recently and you know I was talking about it with someone and basically just explaining why I’m not in for all the Christianity and Catholicism thing and then I realized not too long afterwards that–what the heck? I probably just made myself out to be anti-religion, but I’m not. Just anti-organized religion. And you know, I really don’t know if there’s a God or gods or something out there, but it bothers me too that it’s come to the point where people have become so forward-looking to the next life that no one’s telling to enjoy life now! It’s all about suffering and living a good a life. I have morals and ethics; I’ll live my decent life, thank you, but it’s my choice and not because I’m waiting to go to some paradise. It kind of makes me sad, actually, to think of an eternal paradise. I mean… I can’t quite explain it. Just, the thought of this place that doesn’t change, praising a being forever and ever… is that really paradise? I don’t know. I think, also, why I’ve lost so much of my Catholic belief is the idea that you can sin all your life and in the end if you’re really sorry at the last minute, all’s forgiven. It’s like, what the hell? Why even bother? What’s the point of trying? It’s the same way with school. I look around and see people not trying and you know, I work my ass off for a lot of things I do; I’m proud of my work and I hate sharing it with others because it’s like… Okay, just take my work and slack off, you jackass. It’s not even a matter of the work being hard or anything, just the principle of it. Argh!

And another random thought on my mind lately: I’ve been seeing people differently too. Hell, I’m not the most perceptive person, but I am the most unforgiving. When my mind fixes on a thought or idea or a view, it likes to stick there. It’s pretty adamant, though when I know I’m defeated and think about things, I can definitely change my mind. But that has nothing to do with anything (rambling again). So anyway, I just can’t seem to think of certain people in the same light anymore. In some cases it’s like I opened my eyes and BAM! I saw something I should have seen before, you know? And other times it’s like, “Wow, I never knew you at all but now that I do, this is not what I thought.” It can be frustrating or disappointing or enlightening or surprising (in a good way and a bad way) or… the list just goes on. But you know, it’ll come to a point again where the new idea and the new vision sticks and it’ll stay that way until I have another revolution. Ah, unforgiving me!

Okay… that’s all for now. I’m sure there was more on my mind, but nothing’s coming. What can I say, it’s been a while.

You know that distant, spaced out look people get when they’re lost in thought? I swear sometimes my cats have that look. I wonder what’s on their minds that you have to make a noise or sudden movement to get their attention.

Random thought as I watch Tiger plopped on my floor staring at nothing.

List of “Worst Movies” Laurie suggested I see a long time ago that I just rediscovered:
1. Glen or Glenda
2. Overdrawn at the Memory Bank
3. Cavedwellers
4. Future Wars
5. Laserblast

Today was a good day =). The things you learn about people… makes me regret making such hasty decisions about them or get stuck with a preconceived vision sometimes. Yes, a good day.

Notes to self:

Frog
G D A E

I had the craziest mood swings today. I was pretty decently happy and content at school, but then I got into the car and on the drive home I felt sad and depressed. Then I got home and everything seem alright again.

What the heck is up?

And I need to get my PIN, gr.

Yesterday I thought to myself: I’m losing my mind. And it scared me.

The intensity of your emotions, your regard frighten me–as much as they warm me and bolster me. How fragile is this ego of mine–I fear a part of me yearns for you because you make me feel so wonderful, so truly esteemed. And the thought of that saddens me, because if that were true, I would be demeaning all that you offer and give. Yet I love being in your presence, your easygoing manner, your gentle but shockingly strong person. At times I feel that it is wrong for us to have met, that I should not be enjoying such a spirit as yours. Equals… is that true? I am not half as deep as you believe me to be. Sometimes I feel like a shallow pond, a puddle of rain water, a being exactly like those around me that I criticize so much. You feed my ego and, damn me, I like it–I can’t help but hunger for more. And damn you, too, for doing it so earnestly that I almost believe it, that I am more, that my doubts are silly–and that’s far more dangerous. God forbid that should happen–for then my mind could justify looking down on people–and I don’t want to… sometimes I want to fade into the background. And why must you tell me I’m beautiful? I hate the way I feel when I hear that.

I hate the way I feel when I accept praise–no, when I know I’m eliciting it, begging for it. Stop believing me… Sometimes I feel like a liar.

Archangel makes me want to a) be able to sing and b) fly. It also inspired a funky dream in which Christie had wings. She wouldn’t use them though and hid them underneath her clothing. My dream-self concluded that she must press them very close to her body to hide them underneath clothing. I envied her greatly–and was very angry because she didn’t even use them!

Damn… this just fuels my obsession with winged creatures. As a novel, it was alright. Not exactly in the vein of the Kushiel series… not exactly as exciting either–but damn, I would die to hear such heavenly voices in reality.

Listening to the pounding surf, watching the city lights and the blimp that looked like a fish lazily crossing the sky, studying the stars and the one constellation I could pick out and the bright light that might have been a planet, the two traffic lights, one permanently red, the other green, as if there were no need for caution anywhere in the equation… just being… no past or future, just that moment, filled with peaceful, inane thoughts. Ah, what a way to end a busy day.

How little time it has been… how little time… yet it’s so easy to just be with you. No anxiety. Just a serene existence. Give it time. Give it time. Where are we walking? And is there time? Where we will be in a year? Life rushing all around me and here I am, on a leisurely stroll with my eyes closed, face upturned to the warmth of the sun, taking my good ol’ time.

What did I learn? I was wrong again in judging/guaging someone’s character, only right now it wasn’t the person who had originally concerned me (though I’m still not quite sure in that case, either), but something completely out of the blue. I guess I was wrong to assume too much. I was more saddened than surprised or shocked. I guess a change has to happen somewhere in here. Maybe it has been slowly coming and this is my signal from some unseen force.

It’s new… and frightening. I’ve never known someone like this, never felt more relaxed rather than that agonizing gut-twisting unease and nervousness that make me babble. Well, not to say I didn’t babble. And yet the cosmos knows I’m the worst kind of people person. Relationships of any sort scare me… I just don’t know how to deal with people, with myself. Why must I be so uncertain? And why did such a path cross/fall upon mine? Why now, of all times, when I’ve never been so confused and unsure of myself? Surely, I should be laughing.

I don’t know how to act around you. I felt like I didn’t have to put on any airs. Maybe it was your honesty. I don’t know if you intimidate me or fascinate me all the more. And I definitely don’t know what’s going on.

I wonder, will this be another case of my infamous bad judgment?

I’m still wondering… what exactly happened yesterday?

After spending so much time on school work all week, it’s suddenly very strange just to sit around and have nothing to do. Nonethless, it still feels nice just to stop. Hm… I need to get depressed to finish the story I’ve been working on (it has somehow managed to become 15 or so pages as a draft). Or maybe if I write it, I’ll become depressed. I kind of want to (and hope that I’ll be able to) devote a Saturday to it.

Oh, and the opening to Excel Saga? So much fun.

I want to play Xenogears again after talking about it with Arthur. Damn.

Yes, many thoughts randomly flitting through my mind. It’s a beautiful day today.

Amazing… the Encarta 96 CD still works… and I still can’t resist playing around with it.

A quote from H.S. Kim over at CrazyKimchi:

I’ve always considered the whole high fantasy thing to be escapist and reactionary at its core. Even back in high school, I wondered what my usually sci-fi oriented visionary geek pals were doing scribbling away at AD&D games and its shallow anemic take at nordic myths and fairy folklore. Spaceships and robots I can dig, but wizards and dragons? Christ, why don’t you just go around pretending to be fucking vampires?

And, I don’t know about anyone else, but I think I am running away, running away fom this world. But to where? I wonder…

I wonder what part of me goes into these characters? Lexie walks on the edge, but it’s not that I want to walk the edge, I want to know what’s beyond it? Emily, so angry inside and gazing out at the world, hating what she’s feeling, hating her inability–yeah, me too, Em, me too. And David, hiding in his room… this room, my sanctuary, my world.

What am I looking for when I write? What is this journey I’m on? What’s at the end? Is there ever anything at the end?

It’s almost strange to write again like this… to just write… to really just run with an idea. It almost reminds me of the days when I could sit down and just write chapters of Enigma a whole day despite waiting months in between. In other news, Academic League practice was fun.

Damn me. Why do I never know what to say on the phone? And why must I always feel uncomfortable when I’m on it? The silences I never know how to fill… and I think my hearing is going. I feel like an ass.

Damn you East Coast people for not having school. I miss snow days.

So it seems that I must say goodbye to “introversion” in the near future. It doesn’t really make me sad; it was a good run and quite frankly, I had been neglecting the larger page. Ah, perhaps I shall move to a crappy free service, but I doubt it. What will happen?

Hm… the MFFRP place is a bit more… descriptive… than I’m used to. But I think whatever style I want to use won’t be frowned upon. Although I now have to make extensive use of quotation marks and color usage. Ah, the colors! Had to figure out how to use them again…

I hope I can slip in-character with this new one… but shan’t be too hard, I think. Gotta think of it as writing a story, and it shouldn’t be awfully bad. ‘Twill be interesting if things work out and I can flesh her out. Must spend a bit more time in this new chan to see if I like it–and log on earlier (darn the differences in time zones).

Today’s session has left a bad taste in my mouth. Of course my own foolish decision makes me sad, but always the arguing that goes on is tiring. What will happen next? Will this campaign continue? I don’t know… I do know that from this point on everything changes for my own character and the (character) group can never be the same. But at the same time, I wonder if these “in-game” spats indicate an underlying unease.

I don’t know. I feel hurt. Not exactly hurt, but that lingering sadness that hits somewhere between your stomach and your heart, or maybe in both places.

Saddened…

Is now the time to get back into MFFRPing?! … It just might be. Talking to Audrey last night and my cousin this morning, who used to MFFRP with me at the good ol’ #Fire_&_Ice_Tavern, the memories ignited. And talking with the people at the New Solace Inn made me crave the Free Forming, to create a character whose role isn’t just to fight, whose existence isn’t based on stats like strength but on a story, a background, to truly role play and lose myself in a character, in a world, in the amity and creativity of others. But a part of me fears, fears getting back into that world where hours are eaten away like minutes, where petty arguments can come between people and rip apart whole role-playing atmospheres, fears that ingratiating myself will be painful and slow. I just remember that big fight b/w Turin and everyone else…

But… but I remember the fun times, how it was to have that core of friends and seeing that they were on could summon a smile. I remember plotting and scheming and generally being silly–and as young as I was then, I thought myself so clever. Ah, Linorra, you were a character who could never quite die, could never quite grow up, always strange from inception, always strange since falling into Turin’s storyline… the Stream… now that I think about it, I wonder if he ripped that off of Final Fantasy 7?

Mu friends… Oh god, I can’t remember her char’s name–Leah? It was something very, very similar. One of my first friends. Ah, I remember the swooning–and the promise of before the act–when I brought back my dead first char to greet her. And Beth… ah, Beth, everyone loved you. How could they not like such an amiable, simple character? How many plots did you get embroiled in? How many times did we scheme? I thought that we were good and special friends, but I realize now that you were friends with everyone, dear to everyone, and most likely far closer to other players.

Hmm… I wonder how it was that so many of the FIT people were from Canada?

Many memories… Good times.

I beat Prince of Persia: Sands of Time(!)… already. *sigh* I wish it had been a longer game. The dialogue b/w the prince and Farah was cute. And the whole “Stop talking to yourself” thing. I didn’t really get to take advantage of all the cool dagger moves though…

This morning and right now feel like completely separate days. Ugh.

I didn’t study. Damn.

If I could have blogged last night… but now I am in a clearer frame of mind and would not disclose what’s not my right to. In other news, I’m amazed we D&D for that long and straight through–a testament to the group and Chris’ DMing. Today I ran out to Wizards of the Coast in Mission Valley and discovered that they are indeed going completely out of business–the whole store is 30-40% off. So I managed to snag a deal; I got two nice complete sets of dice (percent dice, too) and a dice bag for about $8.25 and saved about five bucks. The Player’s Handbook (3.5)was 30% off too, but I wasn’t carrying enough cash to pick one up. >< I felt really lucky though because I spent forever sorting through the dice and despaired that I couldn't put together this nice green set; I gave up and created another set of a similar black pattern when I stumbled upon the missing two I needed to complete the green just as I was about to leave. So I took 'em both =). It all worked out, since I wanted two sets anyway.

I guess I’m not going to study today…

“So Close” was a horrible movie–I don’t know why they bothered to translate it and bring it over here. Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time can be really cool when you reverse time… although sometimes the controls can be a little spotty because there are just so many things he can friggin’ do. And why does he have a British accent?

Two nights ago I had a strange dream. I sat in the living room of my old house, looking out the large window and watching snowflakes flutter to the ground. Then I saw a burning snowflake–and right after that, something huge just plummeting into earth in the background. I don’t knw what happened next, but the next thing I knew I was looking out my old bedroom window; everything outside was flooded. A woman peaked into my window and told me that my house was going to blow up–I think my mind inferred that something from the crashing object had landed near my house and was going to explode–and she added that there wasn’t any time for us to get out of the house. I seeme to accept this and went downstairs and gave everyone the news and we said our goodbyes and hugged and then I woke up.

I went back to sleep easily enough because I’d only partly woken up anyway. But in my next dream my dream self had the idea that I had dreamt that previous dream in my dream. And for the entire time in my second dream I felt this horrible need to just break down and sob–I felt horrible and the thought kept running through my head that it was crazy that my whole family would just be so resigned to die like that and that my family was going to die. And this feeling just gnawed at me the entire dream.

It really bothered me when I woke up, though I laughed at myself and my subconscious. I didn’t even feel that horrible when I woke up, which is probably why I had to laugh at my dream self for getting so worked up. But still… it put this seed of anxiety in me that plagued me for most of the day afterwards, like this premonition of impending doom and disaster. I thought maybe it was gonna be someone’s time to go.

I wonder if my subconscious was trying to tell me something.

It’s odd hearing snippets of conversation of people passing by. You may hear something that can be entirely misconstrued (usually, in my own mind, into something vaguely perverted); or hear just enough to make you wonder what people are talking about; or hear something that just makes you shake your head and smile. It’s sort of… hmm… I’m not sure how to put it. I can relate it to sitting in the park and people watching. Interesting, perhaps? Relaxed, yes. Time feels like it passes slowly.

Christie’s Christmas gift from Laurie is quite… interesting. As she says, “It makes sense” but at the same time you can’t help but giggle at it. I felt I lucked out somehow when I “forgot” my wallet in Mr. A’s room. I walked in on the Drama Club rehearsing and was treated to the delight of watching them practice. It wasn’t spectacular or anything, just kind of cool because I’ve always thought plays were cool. It almost made me want to do something like that, but I know I’d just end up blanking and forgetting all my lines. Like today in Spanish when I had to recite the Hail, Holy Queen in espanol–even though I was sitting on the edge of the table, I felt my knees turn to jelly. Afterwards, when I had returned to my desk, I tried to remember if I had said everything and found I couldn’t remember a thing that had spilled out of my mouth. It was nice and slow today, my thoughts are at rest. AND I beat the goddamn Omega Pirate! HAHAHA! VICTORY!

“Be what you want to be.” I quoted that from one friend to another today and you know what? You can’t be what you want to be–if you could, everyone would be what they want to be(!) and then I think we’d just have a lot of chaos in this world. But you can feel what you want to feel and cherish what you want to cherish and think what you think (and out loud in this country if you so wish without the government coming to kill you–I said the government, not the people who might not like what you say and do something about it because, you know, we’re free to beat each other up and even have the nifty constitutional right to bear arms). I think what’s really needed is to never compromise yourself. I wouldn’t care if I was a sheep or a lion or a wolf–as long as I were true to me, I wouldn’t mind being happy.

I wouldn’t mind being happy at all.

At the park today, I saw a man coaching a boy in baseball. I don’t know if this man was the boy’s father; I don’t think I ever heard the boy once address the man as such. They were using tennis balls. The boy wasn’t very good, but at the same time I don’t think the man’s coaching was very good or encouraging either. Some of his comments made me cringe; he relied more on verbally berating the boy than demonstrating technique. The boy’s mother sat idly by and offered no real help either. Or maybe my disparaging opinion of the scene was heightened by the groups of adults and children who seemed to be having a blast.

I wonder if that boy will grow up to hate baseball.

I think I’m obsessed with death and hurting people–these also happen to be the two things I try to avoid; they don’t bring me much satisfaction either.

I wonder what it would be like to love someone so much it hurts? Or what’s it like to be afraid of who you are? Or what’s it like to spend so long hating something, only to discover you were hating it because you saw it in yourself?

I think it would be terrifying.

It feels like I’m just skimming through life now. Sometimes, it scares me more than I can say when I think about not getting into college–What would I do? Uncertainties always scare me and I feel like the amount of reassurance people have given me will blow up in my face and I don’t know if I could handle something like that. Disappointment, rejection, failure… these are the things that scare me most.

My feelings have been rollercoastering all year long. At times I feel so free, so happy, so careless. Then at other times my uncertainty washes up over me. At other times I’m in free fall, weightless, completely uncaring. And then there are those times, like the anticipation and excitement of ascending for that first drop or flying down a hill, breathless and exhilarated, where my passions run away with themselves and truly I’m just along the ride then.

It’s weird. Sometimes it’s bad. Sometimes it’s good. And I’m one of those people who likes to exclaim to the world when I bitch, so maybe it’s a bad thing for people around me (like I’ve said before, I’m amazed people can tolerate my presence). It’s weird. I feel like I change when I interact with people. I think I lose my self-confidence; all my uncertainties choke me and I’m trying so hard to “please” (or something like that) that I lose sight of me or what’s natural for me. It’s like I slap up barriers all the time. Uneasy, sometimes faked and forced, laughter. Sarcasm. I’m not quite sure if I prefer silence or the sound of my voice, as conceited as that sounds. I’ve noticed that I have this almost painful need to be heard and acknowledged. I’ve known this for a long time andyet somehow I’ve never been able to curb it in myself. So I tend to repeat things a lot or speak loudly or louder.

People are just strange for me. Both a sustenance and a poison. Bittersweet all the way down.

I wonder why?

Hmm… First semester is coming to a close. Finals are coming up. I need to complete FAFSA, too. Actually, the most pressing need right now is to complete all my homework. I can’t seem to move myself from this seat.

It’s 2004. I’m supposedly in the class of 2004. What happened to all those years? I have to really admire my cousin; he’s gone out and done so many things during his high school years–even if, as everyone always says, just to put it on his college applications. So much so, I think he’s gone beyond anything I could ever done and I really, really admire him for that. I hope he can fulfill his dreams because I think he deserves it at this point.

D&D was crazy last night. Fun. Crazy. But I have no idea if I could handle another session today. *sigh* Somehow I knew I’d end up playing a cleric anyway. They always did so appeal to me. Which reminds me that I have an Analect to work on… and one day get back to my other big work. So much writing, so little motivation.

I wonder what it is about Metroid Prime that keeps me coming back to play it. There’s a reason why I primarily play RPGs: I suck at just about every other genre! Especially first person shooters. Metroid, of course, began as something different than the type of first person shooter that I shy away from (i.e. you just went around and killed creatures that didn’t necessarily pop out at you) and I think because of that, I now just grit my teeth and hop back to the Gamecube even when I know that all those pirates popping out at me will scare the crap out of me and they’ll probably kill me (which they do). First person shooters do scare me; I can’t stand things popping out at me and then I slightly panic and struggle to get my crosshairs on the dude and it wildly swings about and I’m getting killed which only adds to the chaos–which is exactly what happens when those damn pirates in the Phazon Mines (I don’t even like the little guys with rocket boosters who randomly sit around the levels). It doesn’t help that the music puts me on edge and I’m just like, “Kill! Kill! Kill!”

So, yes, Metroid Prime is undoubtedly a fun game (despite the scare and anxiety factor).

Also, in the way of games, I recently saw the opening for a Gamecube RPG by Monolith Soft–the Xenosaga team! Baten Kaitos, I believe it’s called, looks to be an amazingly beautiful game and according to the IGN review (yes, yes, don’t hate me) of the Japanese version, the game is evidently already original in certain aspects. Yes! Finally! RPGs for Gamecube! Hm… I wonder if Tales of Symphonia has been garnering any good reviews… (Tales of Phantasia was a fun game, even if it had to be played via a translated rom) Interestingly, Namco seems to have published all these RPGs. I look forward to one day getting to taste Baten Kaitos and certainly if this is the same team that did Xenogears (I can’t quite remember if this is in fact the team that split from *gasp* Squaresoft–for we must all remember that Xenogears is a Squaresoft game before it became the cinematic monster on the PS2, which I still haven’t and can’t play), then they’ve already captured my romantically idealistic RPG heart.

I hate spanish–it doesn’t even deserve to be capitalized! My head hurts… damn, I really hate it. On the upside, Ace of Base songs all sound the same, but they’re still so much fun!

I think ranting and raving yesterday made me feel really good. I felt… lighter, freer afterwards. And today, I felt good to just joke around with the group like always.

Thanks for listening to me, Lia, John.

I was going to write something else here, and then I bumped into my friend on the other side of the country through the magic of instant messaging that would eventually make me sit here and think and think real hard… and not at all.

And you know what? I can rant and rave about it, but chances are I already have. So, yeah. School tomorrow (I got no work done for school whatsoever that I had projected to do). And I finally got past that part in Metroid and managed to snag the awesome Power Bomb, Grappler, and the X-ray visor.

…

“Be what you want to be.”

What do I want to be? Nothing, probably. Dead, maybe. But don’t take that in a dreadful sort of way. Not “dead” as in I hate myself. But “dead” as in, maybe I can be free of the little worries of life and truly just “be.” I just kind of move through life. It points in a direction and I go. Yo voy.

I want to live in dreams… though maybe not mine, ‘cause they’re damn wacky. I think that’s why writing and reading have such magic for me…

Idyllic.

When nothing else seems to be working, write an Analect–they don’t make any sense to begin with anyway! It’s been forever since I’ve actually “updated” the site or written anything, much less an Analect, but it felt pretty good. Granted, the story itself isn’t what I thought it would be (the Analects usually aren’t) and Amia’s speech is very… stilted… but I thought it more natural given the circumstances (this is pre-"Amia worships Serge” (or does she?)).

Yay! I actually got some writing done!

Vegas… What can I say about Las Vegas?

For now, I’ll simply say that was the crowdest place I’ve ever been for New Year’s… and random.

Happy New Year and all that.

But it scares me too… the thought of dying.

Ever think about wanting to die? Sometimes I do… especially when I’m happy. I don’t like knowing that good times can’t last forever… It’s more comforting to think that you can bite it when you’re the happiest.

Of course, the way my luck runs, the more I want something that only chance can bring, the more unlikely it’ll be. I’ll live to be one hundred, you’ll see. And probably bitter, too.

Currently chipper and extremely happy/energetic, I guess this is the best time to heartfully thank everyone who has tolerated me in the past years and those who still somehow manage to put up with me. Lord only knows how anyone can withstand my mood swings, sarcasm, confused (often nonsensical and mumbled) speech, and my strange whims.

I’d also like to extend a thanks to people who visit this site who have no idea who I am. It’s nice to know that all these years of hammering away on these damn-fangled things hasn’t gone to waste. Also, especial thanks to those who have read my work over the years and encouraged me to write on–your praise and support really lifted my spirits and boosted my ego enough to keep me writing these horrible things! (Not sure if that was facetious or heartfelt there…) Last thanks to those who have sent me randomed comments after reading my blog. Your comments/e-mail always show up as a welcome surprise!

The biggest thanks has to go to John, though! Thanks, John, for setting all of this up for me! Couldn’t have done it w/o you!

Everyone, keep safe during the holidays, k? Hmm… it seems this must be said many times since I update this blog too frequently with things of too little importance. But what can I say? I’m in the spring of my youth… it’s alright to be frivolous and carefree!

The counter on the main page continues to mysteriously increase, which prompts me to ask: Who is visiting this page and what are you doing here?

… My previous pages were apparently crappy enough to not invite any traffic whatsoever… but it wasn’t so different from this newer version. So what’s attracting people here?!

Sometimes it’s good to have people who are willing to forcibly drag you out of your hermit hole. What a nice, sunny day in Southern California.

I can’t quite decide if I like Sakamoto Maaya or not. I guess I can simply conclude that some of her stuff is good and some of it isn’t–but when she’s good, she often rocks. (On a side note, I’ve been using the word “rocks” a lot. My vocabulary has dwindled into nonexistence.)

If there exists an anime that I was damned to watch it must be Princess Nine, because I can’t wait for the next episode and yet it seems I must wait an eternity for it. Damn it all. It’s that good.

As I turned to gaze out my window, peering out between the blinds, the panes, and the wire, the glass frosted with a thin film of condensation and dirt and blurred by the streaks of droplets and rain, the intense brightness of the sun hit my eyes as it beamed even through the thick cover of clouds, painful, a brilliant spot in the sky above the hazy, indistinct landscape spreading out before me from which I can only make out the swaying top of a palm tree amongst the reds and tans that must be the houses and the gray, dreary expanse that must be the sky.

My thoughts are still. It is a quiet day. I am quite content.

Merry Christmas, everyone, to loved ones and strangers alike.

Is it really Christmas? I can’t even remember how it’s supposed to feel. Did it stop when we moved out here or had the spirit of Christmas already begun to wane before then and the move was just the definitive blow? It doesn’t help that there are comfortably warm days here and no hope for snow.

Merry Christmas, anyway.

When will I ever find that perfect balance in this see-saw of my life? Maybe it’s never meant to be found… Odd, how things work out. Or maybe not so odd, if you go out seeking them. Certainly, I never would have thought I’d find myself here, feeling like this. I never thought it was for me.

I dreamt last night I went away, transferring to some school. I said my goodbyes, but you came with me. You held me and in your arms I suddenly realized that we had to say goodbye. I didn’t know what to do or how to feel.

I blame Jane Eyre. Or it could be the tons of anime I’ve been immersing myself in lately. 22 episodes of Da Capo (which, for some reason, I really want to end in a depressing manner, but most likely it won’t and all will be right with the world–what can you expect when it’s based on what of those dating videogames (thankfully, this anime is not as perverted as the apparently “hentai” game)), Chrno Crusade (and no, that’s not a typo and if the premise of it promises anything, this should really end in a depressing manner (but will they manage to make it happy after all?)), Princess 9, and I finally finished both Gunparade March and Mahou Tsukai ni Taisetsu. If all of that doesn’t stir something in my subconscious then I don’t know what will.

And that’s why I’ve not gotten around to doing anything else.

I think The Legend of Dragoon’s last leader was the easiest one I’ve ever beaten… I didn’t even have any items to revive my characters and I still beat him (it was pretty hilarious when my “dead” main character got up and then “killed” the monster).

But, man, that took a while.

Oh, and on another note, I thought Xenogears’ voice acting was bad? Man, this was atrocious! The ending would have been 1000 times more enjoyable if the voice acting had been anything close to decent. The game’s dialogue didn’t do wonders for me either…

Now if only I had a PS2 so I could play Xenosaga.

A few notes on this: I shouldn’t even be posting it. It’s intensely personal and usually I won’t post anything that so boldly states the involvement of someone other than myself. All I wanted to do was write a story using my own experience and my own perspective on an event that happened and craft it into something fictional. This came out, on a subject that I’ve been posting on and off about for a while now and that I really just want to get off my chest once and for all, partly inspired by something that happened this week. Fictional? It could be, easily. Maybe, in some sense, it is. But, largely, in another sense it isn’t. This is only one side in a two-sided story. I’m not quite sure of the other side, but please keep in mind this is only what I know, what I feel and if I should offend anyone, forgive me.

I thought I broke his heart. I really did, but I guess that was kind of pretentious of me.

After all, I don’t think you can break a heart that never really yearned for you.

“I want to stay friends,” I told him. Was I naïve to say that? I should have known, huh? I mean, stuff like that always happens in stories, but have you ever really heard of people “staying friends”? Still, I thought maybe, just maybe, things would be alright.

They were, at first. We could still smile at each other. We could even hang out together.

At first.

Slowly… or am I only saying that to comfort my own thoughts? Perhaps it was not so slow, this waning desire to be within each other’s presence, but it sure felt as if one day I looked up and he was gone. Really, it shouldn’t have surprised me. I was back to being me again and even I, as oblivious as I can be, couldn’t ignore the sudden tension and terseness I felt within me, but… I guess we never really were that close. I guess he had no reason to stick around. I guess I never gave him one and I guess he couldn’t find one either.

I guess his heart really always did lie elsewhere.

I always sort of knew that, I suppose. I mean, I could never replace her. Hell, I didn’t even want to—

—Does anyone else think it sounds like I’m just making excuses?

Maybe I am.

It’s just that it…

Hurts.

I kind of want to laugh at myself. Don’t I just sound jealous and spiteful?

Maybe I am.

Was I really so insignificant? Was I just a temporary diversion? Now that sounds bitter. I shouldn’t think that, I shouldn’t, but it’s like being…

Nothing.

Like I never existed and everything I remember was a fabrication. Like everything I heard, saw, and felt were…

Lies.

Funny, how it hurts. Wasn’t it I who said I could never be the girl for him? And I meant it. And I mean it.

I did; I just never thought like this.

I don’t understand him anymore and I get the impression he doesn’t want me to try.

Maybe we just never understood each other.

It would certainly be easier to believe.

I don’t know anymore and I want to say I don’t care, but if it hurts, it must mean I do. But I won’t leap a gap that doesn’t want to be spanned. It’s suddenly very easy to understand why I’ve kept people at such a distance before. I won’t tread where I’m not invited, so I must learn to let it go, I suppose.

Wow, who ever thought I might actually comprehend something from a purely feminine perspective? (I’ll content myself with playing with this cell phone… that was a shock, too. Mom came home and suddenly I had a cell phone. Go, family plans! Finally, we can communicate w/each other when we’re out.)

Hey… I passed 1000 hits (or so my counter says). When did that happen? More importantly, how did that happen?

I must admit, I feel somewhat… disappointed.

Wow… even on that little itty bit of gas, the Accord managed to go from home, to school, to Costco. That rocks. Except for the making me stress over whether to risk it or not, it rocks to know that the car didn’t break down on me.

… I hope I didn’t jinx myself right there.

Being able to write, even knowing there is the high potential for failure and not sure at all where you’re going with the hint of an idea, is nice. When the words flow… it’s… liberating.

Curiously, after ranting a few days ago, I felt neither odd nor uncomfortable around people. Instead, there was this sort of acceptance and resignation.

Actually, it was a really empty feeling, as if my heart knew not whether to relax or tense. For now, I’ll just continue existing. Back to the old routine… old comfort.

Sometimes I regret what I said and what I did, but then I look and see how easily forgotten everything is and I laugh at myself.

I always knew I was a fool. It just hurts when your actions confirm it.

Run away, run away! my mind screams at me. From what, from what? I ask back. There is no answer, only this fear–or perhaps not fear, but an emotion close enough yet not quite that pushes me away, makes me want to cower and hide, to shut off the world.

It’s too much. I finally realized why I can’t do this. Why I can’t relax around people anymore. Why I feel like it costs so much to interact. It’s an effort and quite frankly, I never had it in me to care enough. It’s like pulling my own teeth out when I try to converse with someone. Even in my own ears I sound shallow and insipid. I just don’t care enough to keep a conversation going. Goddamn, why do I even care that there has to be conversation? I like the silence, so why do I feel obligated to say something?

Worse yet, why do I lash out when I do respond or feel that I must respond in a certain way? Why do I feel the need to be biting? Am I really so insecure about myself that I need to demean someone else? Why do I feel this heavy, pressing need to please and be approved of? No. No, no, no. It’s easy. It’s simple. I never know what to say. I don’t know what to say to people. I don’t know how to respond. So much easier to laugh, to appear to be at ease. So much easier to say what I think they like to hear, what will make them like me. So much easier to hurt those that I have already marked instead of making an effort to understand. It’s all about effort… so much effort. I feel like I don’t have any energy left. Drifting…

Masks, masks, masks, I don’t even know what mask I wear and what I’m truly like. I feel shallow. I feel empty. A shadow, dancing on the wall, wondering what casts me, what true thing, true image I am supposed to resemble. I see people and I smile at them. I’m greeted so I greet them back. Automatic.

It would be easy to run away. How many close friends do I have? I don’t know; I’m not sure. Easy to bury myself in books, in games, in writing, in these worlds that don’t exist. So simple, so clear cut and safe–most of all, safe. Yet, I don’t even have the energy for these things anymore. Where has it gone? Where is passion? Where am I? Nowhere, nowhere, that’s what it feels like. Drowning, drifting, blown away. How can anyone possibly understand me when I can’t even understand myself?

Who believes the words that come out of my mouth? Who can believe this fool who rants and prattles on, never knowing what the hell she’s saying, only talking for the sake of talking, only imparting for the sake of creating this image. God knows, what is this image? What is this face, this person I want to make of me? Why? Why do I say these things? Are they true? I don’t know. Will they come true if I say them? No. No. How can they?

I can feel myself slipping, see it in my work, in my grades, in my dedication to anything. Did I stop caring? Or am I only fooling myself? God, I’m afraid to dream. I’m afraid to dare and hope and try because I know, dammit, I know that I’ll only destroy my own dreams, tear them down as I lose heart. It’s always me.

Me, me, me! Selfish, yes, dammit, I know! Think of me as a horrible person if you want to! I know that the person who comes first in this mind is me! Sometimes I just want to tell people to “Fuck off!” and if I had the spine, I’d do it too. But I couldn’t possibly do such a thing in actuality. No. I care too much about what people think about me. Ironic. In order to please myself, to meet my own desire and need for attention and approval, I must court the needs of others. Ironic.

How ironic! How cruel! Why must I feel safest, feel the most like me in isolation, yet care so much about what people think of me? It’s like I can’t connect. Society. It’s society. I feel like I must conform to it. It makes me disgusted with myself. It makes me feel bad that I don’t feel as society says I should. All these people who care, all these people who try so hard to help others–when I see them, I can only feel my own lack of concern.

Sometimes, I think I wouldn’t care if I never stepped out of this house again. Sometimes, I never want to step out of the house. I don’t talk to anyone. No one talks to me.

This trying thing, this effort thing… all of it’s too hard for me.

Frustrated. With me. With school. With people. I almost wish I believed in God, if only to have something to cling to.

Today was not one of my better perfomances… in fact, it’s been a while since I’ve had such a “low” day.

I feel like I let myself down. I haven’t felt such disappointment in myself in a long time.

I feel like I’m slipping. Maybe I am. Slowly but steadily.

This increasing isolation wrapping itself around me… I wonder, am I actively creating it? Or did I step onto this path sometime in the past and wander along it innocently until I found myself here, back to where I started, trapped in my own little world? I feel the distance now and it saddens me, because a part of me wants to rip it down, to shout or say something that will make it evaporate. Another part of me is afraid because I’m so confused as to what I want, what I can’t make myself do, and how I should feel about any of it. Sometimes I think I almost feel a twinge of jealousy, but then I wonder if I really do feel jealous or if it’s something lingering, something wishful but all too aware of the reality. But then I’m all too conscious of what I don’t know and all my insecurities, my indecisiveness, and my own tendency to ignore everything, to exist in my box, to let everything pass me by and somehow still convince myself that I’m happy.

But I feel happy most of the time now. I can just smile, filled with this indescribable fullness. Then other times, like now, I begin to wonder when it ends. Will I start sliding back into that safe niche? And it does feel so very safe, calling to me so enticingly.

Truly, Life is too much for me. Or maybe it’s just People. Or a combination of the two.

I have no thoughts. It’s kind of nice, not to be thinking or worrying or anything else along those lines. But then again, I’m also getting nothing done. That’s kind of nice, too, in a lazy sort of way.

The happiness of doing nothing, huh…

I hate how around certain people, I feel like I’m acting or that I’m simply not myself anymore. It would help to know what “being myself” constitutes, but, hey, if it’s up to me, it’s bound to become more complicated than it has to be.

Sometimes you want to belong and sometimes you don’t.

Sometimes I just want to be alone.

Yesterday’s observation: Apparently, I should put clips in my hair more often. It doubled the attention I got.

(Granted, most of the looks I received were strange/startled.)

Farewell My Friend
by Sergey Yesenin

Farewell, my friend, until we meet
Again, I hold you in my heart.
Our long appointed separation
Foretells reunion over there.

No words, no handshake, till we’re met;
Don’t grieve, my friend, or look so black–
In life it’s nothing new to die,
And living is, of course, not newer.

That was Yesenin’s suicide note. I found it last year, in one of Mrs. K’s poetry books, was struck by it, copied it and have since carried it around in my pencil case. I found it again today. I look at it and I wonder what was going through my mind and what drove me to write it down. And I wonder what I think of it today.

Undoubtedly, it is beautiful… but my heart doesn’t hold the sentiment towards it that it first did.

I’m walking away, finally, from all that crap.

Don’t make me out to be more than I am; I’m a selfish person who does things out of selfish motives. I do things because they make me feel good, not necessarily because I have someone else’s wellbeing on my mind.

It’s been bothering me for a long time how much I crave praise and approval. But it’s such an integral part of who and what I am that I can no more deny it than I can ignore it now.

That’s me.

My screen name… floating around… for random people to find to randomly message me… or just stare at my name on their list, just sitting there all the time, present, idle, and away…

See, this is why I always replace my s/n when I post stuff involving messengers.

(Yes, this is for you know who you are–shocking to see myself quoted! +D )

Today was a good day… even if that darn counselor left before school ended (what the heck is up with that?).

Sometimes it’s good to be alive.

And it’s great to have friends.

Holy crap, there are a lot of just junk comments sitting on my blog… too bad I’m too lazy to go back and delete them. Sheesh. I’m getting spammed on my blog. What the hell? Is there no escaping these things anywhere?! Well, at least now I have a new e-mail addy that won’t get spammed… hopefully. Hotmail will have to take the flak for that. It’s junk filter sucks anyway and when I was getting mailing list e-mail on that thing? Man, my space bar would always be in the red.

So, my Thanksgiving break, hm? Let’s see. I got sick. Damn. I just had to get sick Wednesday didn’t I? And I just got worse over the days. It was alright though; I didn’t go out. In fact, my weekend consisted of lazing about the house, watching anime, and playing Legend of Dragoon. Let’s attack these separately.

Anime. Yes, I admit to watching Sailor Moon Live Action… and enjoying it. Yes, I know it’s ultra cheesy and the acting isn’t that great and the action scenes are Power Ranger-esque. Yes, I know that Luna has suddenly become a talking plushie and the disguise pen and communicator watches have been combined into cellphones (in fact, all the Senshi can disguise themselves using their own cellphone). Yes I know things are being rushed and the events are vastly different from the anime. But, as Sailor Moon always did, the characters draw you in. You want to know what happens to these girls and how they’ll develop–because you know how things turn out, you want to see how the show goes about doing such things. On a tangent, Jesus, they had Aino Minako’s actress wear short shorts for her poster pic. Then again, those skirts are short anyway. *shrug* So, yes, Sailor Moon Live Action… I’m hooked. (I wish they had kept the opening song…)

Other anime: Shingetsutan Tsukihime. Not what I thought. In fact, it’s about… vampires. And it’s kind of dark. And the main character is, as usual, dense. But he kills things. I guess that makes up for it. The opening sequence and music rocks, so I can let it go. Apparently, it’s based on a novel game, which has a lot of multiple endings. But this series is the “true chronicles” so what the heck? The prologue, or maybe just the prologue’s translation, was so confusing I was better off never seeing it. The music in it was kind of nice, though…

The other, other anime: Gunslinger Girl. Sheesh. I love it because it’s dark and at the same time, the way it presents these tragic girls makes you feel so sorry for them. Then, on the other hand, you root for them to go kick ass and kill people. How confusing. Triela is my favorite while Henrietta is probably my least favorite, which is sad since so much of the story focuses around her. *shrug* I rarely like main female leads anyway.

Legend of Dragoon: Man, the dialogue and reactions of the characters make me crack up. Ultra cheesiness! As well as unrealistic. Xenogears remains my favorite RPG. You know, I thought to myself, I’d like to play a realistic RPG once… but then I realized, you’d never get anywhere! HAHAHA… but really… one of my dreams has always been to make a “real” RPG, a dark one. But it’ll remain a dream b/c anything like that would probably be a) expensive and b) unmarketable. Ah well… I shall dream up my storylines anyway.

What I forgot to do: Write. DOH! I haven’t given up on you yet, Xer, Mikrel! I’m just a little… stuck.

The “Party": Random lecture from a stranger… did not make me happy… wanted to slap someone, mainly the lecturer. Oh, the karaoke action… I hid upstairs all night.

Mood right now: Pretty good, despite knowing I have to go back to school again… and hound the counselors.

… who has discovered my blog and made me smile with frank and open commenting…

Thanks for taking the time out to let me know I really am ranting to the world.

-Ngan

(Who would have ever thought that that blasted and shocking Narutaru would bring me such attention?)

So I submitted my Stanford app… I probably forgot a lot of things. … I won’t think about it anymore. I just need to get on the asses of counselors now.

Harvard?

Record of Lodoss War OAV & TV Openings and Endings (I’d list them but I’m too lazy)–the instrumental versions rock

The Sacred Moon - Shingetsutan Tsukihime Opening
-Awesome; no lyrics, just this moving piece. Pick it up and check it out for yourself–and maybe watch the anime while you’re at it.

C’est la vie ~Watashi no naka no koi suru bubun [C’est la vie ~The part of me that I love] - from, of all things, Live Action Sailor Moon; performed by Aino Minako (Komatsu Ayaka)
-Sailor V/Venus is actually an idol in this one… was she an idol in the anime? I like Komatsu Ayaka… although she hasn’t really appeared yet! Gr! I want to see some Sailor Venus action!

The Light Before We Land - The Delgados - Gunslinger Girl Opening and the Ending - DOPO IL SOGNO ~Yume no Ato Ni~ (In Italiano!)

I feel lost and scared and inadequate. I have my down days, but I could never picture myself… hurting myself. That doesn’t mean the thought never crossed my mind, but I’m too much of a coward to do anything like that.

But how do you tell a friend that they don’t need this? How do you make them feel loved?

Times like these I realize just how young and ignorant I am.

Are there people who have no idea who the heck I am reading this blog? Just wondering…

I’ve been putting off really writing in here lately for a few reasons. One, I’ve been feeling a little mixed up and two, I don’t really feel like sharing some of the things that’ve happened and the thoughts on my mind.

College apps… may I just express the severe dislike and annoyance I hold for our counselors? Just a little competence and responsibility, that’s all I want in them. Jeez…

School. Oh, I still spend an obscene amount of time doing homework that would take anyone else half the time to do. I don’t know what I work so slowly, but as time goes by, my tortoise pace is beginning to make me uneasy. Maybe I’m just not being efficient. Whatever is it, there’s something going on there. It doesn’t help that I just don’t feel as driven anymore. There’s no fire behind my work, just the pressing feeling that I must get the assignments done. Oh, and my first period always feels like 100 minutes of hell. I hate being called on in that class. I can’t speak Spanish, dammit, so stop trying to make me! I mean, if I didn’t feel like such an idiot in front of class (since just about everyone speaks the language, most as a first), I might not blank out each time I’m expected to answer.

Life. In general, I don’t feel as angry anymore. I feel a lot happier lately. Or maybe just more laid back. But at the same time, certain events have made me sad. Kind of longing. Yet, I don’t know what to do about these things, since my own actions led up to them and I know that pursuing them would just lead me right back to the same decision as what brought here me now. I don’t know how to act now, or where to draw a line or even if I should be so bothered by it. I don’t know. I’m just a kid. Other times, I’m just confused, period.

I wonder sometimes if I’m just one of those people who try to make themselves miserable.

Oh, and I hate getting in the car in the morning. I keep thinking about getting into car accidents…

… and how that wouldn’t be such a bad thing.

Lost? Yes. Life needs to come with directions. I like directions.

Damn you live action Sailor Moon! I wish someone would get me the original Sailor Moon… all four, five, six? seasons of it… on DVD, so I don’t have to listen to the dub. That’d be great.

goddammit… I better not be getting sick… and I was avoiding illness so well…

Mikrel is like Joscelin. Yes, he is. But… dammit, I don’t want him to be Joscelin. He shall be himself, at odds with Xer, concerned for her, curious about her, and overall a friend.

…

He better not become more than that. Keep your hand to yourselves, you two.

I finally did it… I finally submitted a college app… So why the heck don’t I feel happy about that?

The site lives again!

This essay is craptacular for the amount of work I put into it. How frustrating… I got nothing done today but for this pitiful essay. And it’s not even all of the essays! Freak it. It’s going to stay more or less like this.

Sleep time soon. Healing rest.