this is actually yesterday.

<<<<<<<<<<<<<< written yesterday (though edited today to some degree)

I decided earlier today to walk from Capitol Hill to University District – a three-and-a-half-mile escapade I have done a few times before, though never on the particular route I took today and never when I actually lived here. Peter spent the previous weekend in Portland, so I hitched a ride back up to Seattle with him on Super Bowl Sunday. It amuses me immensely that Super Bowl now creeps up so suddenly; I find out about its existence a few days before, and it always comes as a complete shock. Not that I was ever extremely gung-ho about it, but I can appreciate most sports – baseball being the only real exception – and do find it interesting to miss out on such a huge part of American culture now, when I had at least some sense of it before (that sense shaped as person who was throwing a Super Bowl party or even more than a handful of people attending a Super Bowl party). Now, I don’t even have a party to attend even if I wanted to (and I would rather want to) unless I went up to Seattle and asked my Seattle friends if they knew of one I could attend, I guess! Perhaps even more interesting than that, though, may be going to a bar and watching it, given the recent hobby of visiting the most random bars ever and the fact that I’ve never done that before but nacho-eating huddled around a television is probably more or less the same no matter where you are or who you’re with…

As I was saying, I walked to U-District and was certainly more or less over the walk by the time I got there. It was nice to retrace my steps to my old workplace at the Experimental Education Unit, though; over the course of one summer I walked to and from work daily and lost an exorbitant amount of weight doing so. I would be so sweaty by the time I got to work that it was the kind of sweat that soaked through parts of your shirt you didn’t want it to soak through.

Losing weight is no longer such an easy feat, even if I do walk for miles at a time. I know this because I do that. I am curious what the difference is; is it really as simple as metabolism and growing older? It may also be the fact that I eat way more now… pretty sure that is a truth. It’s a mystery.

I walked through the University of Washington campus to the University District post office, making a couple of pit stops along the way. The first was stopping near the fountain by the Architecture building. The last time I was in Seattle, Troy and I happened to be in the Suzzalo Library – a true beauty, with one hell of an amazing reading room I had never taken the liberty of using when I went to school there – when I ran into Tammy and we came across a series of posters describing a Cultural Fair they used to have on campus. The heart of it was around the Architecture building, and it looked fucking incredible. While doing research to find photos of this, I also just came across this awesome blog of University of Washington’s historical photos. This article tells more about it as well (written in 2009, it celebrates the 100-year anniversary of the event). Am I getting school-sick? Seattle-sick? It seems that I am, big time, and I guess it’s pretty appropriately timed considering some things I will mention later on in this post.

Back to where I was. Walking through the UW campus, there was just one lovely stone bench that wanted so badly to be sat upon, the sun just slightly having been introduced to a corner of it. I granted it my ass! And faced slightly east and sat cross-legged upon it, welcoming in the morning sun with eyes closed, long my favorite way to meditate. Something about the rays upon your eyelids and turning everything an equalizing red, while highlighting patterns of eye dust, really just feels cathartic and radiant. (I also vaguely remember someone telling me once that looking into the sun in that way gets rid of some cells you no longer need and ultimately makes your eyesight or something better. Who told me that, and is it true? Who knows.)

I distinctly remember one meditation session in the backyard of the 716 house in Greenlake when I still lived there. It dawns upon me now that I may not even have purposely been meditating, as I’m not sure it was a practice I did then; it was just an appealing thing to do. I remember opening my eyes for the first time after an extended session adoring the sun in that way, and the world was not the world as I had seen it before; it was tinted blue, or green, but all things were visualized as they were in comparison to the sun’s strength and color. This tinting gradually subsided, but it was powerful to me then, a type of inducement of hallucinogenic states through doing nearly nothing at all. Today, meditating in front of the fountain, I expected difficulty; I expected that those passing by would distract me, that I would get lost in their footsteps and chattering and not be able to focus, similar to what had happened to me the other night with the Shamanic Mysteries. For the most part, though, I meditated for perhaps twenty minutes and many passed by, but none were chattering, save for a man who burped right towards the end of my session. And because I was out in the open, for all to see, I figured that some were looking at me while passing and wondering what I was doing, while others were perhaps not at all curious. As distracting as those iterations on human reaction could have been, they were a minor aside, small notes considering what I was actually thinking. The meditation thoughts were more worthy, rising to the top while the other portions sank down. I was proud to have been influenced so little by the thoughts of them, more interested by the thoughts of them inside me. It was a self-back-patting moment, the non-barrier to meditative entry always a graceful and satisfying moment.

<<<<<<<<<<<<<< written today

I have been reading much of Henry Miller’s Tropic Of Capricorn, and quite pleased to say that after putting it down for months I am now nearing the end of it (note: my copy does not nearly look this awesome). This book was purchased by he, one named The Unmentionable Other, back in January 2011, and it was gifted to me by Rose when she headed off to the East Coast. He had left it at her house, and she knew not who better to give it to than me. But of course, the book’s existence was of eerie timing, similar to how Jean-Paul Sartre’s Nausea had been, and I can’t help but think that the silly Unmentionable has some sort of magical ability, akin to what I have developed, to manifest wishes desired into reality. But the difference seems to be that he wishes to manifest tragedy, imposed tragedy, inexplicable tragedy, where I desire for more peaceful, soulful, constructive things. I suppose our romance never would have worked. I suppose the place we are now is the perfect place – and I do not doubt this, have not doubted this, but it is always popping again as the type of reminder that might never die or dispose of itself, that pigeon-pecks seeds of reality. But more fitting, though, is that one sir Mr. Henry Miller writes like me, or more I write like him, though if you take the logic that he subscribes to of there being no time but only present – we both write like each other, quite mutually. But not always. The writing is mutual when I am feeling poetic and down in the dumps, when my internal monologue is strong and rambling and stream-of-consciousness rather than analytical and exacting. The writing is mutual when my roots are, as Miller says, rooted in the ground rather than in the brain – when the brain is in the heart rather than in the head. Of course, unlike Miller, I think I find value in both, whereas he seems to find value only in the one, in the heart-in-brain…

I am here, right now, in Albina Press in South Portland. I am playing catch-up on yesterday’s activities, as they are more of note than today’s. Yesterday, I was in Seattle, and after my morning meditation which I previously described, I happened by the set of lecture halls I previously had known so well – the ones which seated hundreds of people for General Ed courses, the ones which I fell asleep in innumerous times…

I passed by at 10:15am or so, and classes were just letting out. It had crossed my mind many times to visit one of these halls again, to barge in on a random class and let fate decide what I would learn that day as though I were some Freshman or Sophomore once again. But every time I return to Seattle, I never follow through with this plan because to actually plan the plan takes away from the magic of the plan. This particular morning, however, was ripe for my education! In I walked, decision made in a matter of seconds – straight into Kane 130, site of where I failed the hardest in college (Linguistics, Dinosaurs 101… I’m serious…)

I sat down, the same college awkwardness I had once known so well once again rearing its ugly head. Am I sitting in the right place? What if I’ve taken someone’s seat? What if I end up making conversation with a college student? Wait, what the hell! I’m almost 30! Shouldn’t I be over this shit?!!! But it seems not, as in this case, I am worried I might somehow be caught and that my imposter, education-gold-digging ways might be discovered, leading to ostracization – or probably not ostracization because I don’t think anyone would have that extreme an opinion – but misunderstanding, yes. Definitely misunderstanding.

To my chagrin, the class was a Communications class. I suppose in some way a Communications class should be something I’m interested in, considering I run a music and arts publication… but by god, there’s a reason I didn’t do Communications in Undergrad; it’s just not interesting to me in the same way that Sociology was! It’s similar to the lack of magic in planning on going to a random lecture class versus the magic of stumbling into one on a whim; deconstructing Communications not my jam. Making communications more my jam. And anyway, the concept we were initially presented with in this lecture – media bias and objectivity – were ones I learned about in high school Journalism class ad nauseum. Not to say that the information wasn’t valuable, but I was seriously hoping for some information about Linguistics or Dinosaurs (maybe to make up for my previous failures) or at least something I’m a little less knowledgeable in. C’est la vie, though, and the class was interesting in very particular ways, as it was a meta-commentary upon itself (which I will get into in a little bit here).

Some things have changed since I went to school at UW. For starters, laptops are now allowed, though only in the last five rows in this particular class! I suppose this comes as no surprise, but they were never commonplace when I went to University. But I just remember someone telling me recently that students don’t write real words anymore in class, and this is clearly a lie, I’ve now discovered through first-hand knowledge (though perhaps with younger generations this is indeed true).

At one point, the teacher, Randy Beam, put up one PowerPoint slide that asked the students whether M.I.A.’s flipping off people during the Super Bowl (see below) would “fall under the FCC’s definition of indecent content?” along with a multiple choice poll where 1 meant “Probably” and 2 meant “Probably Not”. All the students immediately reached into their backpack – a point of great confusion – and retrieved teeny tiny remote controls with which they punched in their answers! What! My mind was blown! What is this madness! Technology! Interaction! Teachers who actually employ participatory tactics in a class with hundreds of people and succeed?! This is remarkable!

In fact, the teacher did much back-and-forth with the large class, and students were surprisingly responsive. No question was met with complete silence, though I will say that most opinionated students were actually rather lacking in backbone. At one point, a series of cases were presented, and students were asked to decide whether they considered the cases to be news or not news. There were some quibbles amongst the class, wherein some considered The Daily Show news and some did not; some considered an opinion piece about supermarket purchases news, and some did not. A discussion ensued. Beam asked students how they arrived at the decisions that they did, and it was altogether too easy to back those students into corners! Come on, kids! If the professor saying something like, “Why isn’t [The Daily Show] news to you? Isn’t it from the World News Headquarters in New York?” – a clear joke – is enough to notably rattle your foundations, you’ve really got to think through your answers a little more! He in fact played Devil’s Advocate a lot, and almost every time the students gave up their original opinions and some even became confused about what their original opinions were. But I suppose they are still youth and the growth of backbone and well-thought-out opinions will come in time. Or not…!

My favorite response came from the individual who decided that celebrity gossip news (about the custody battle over Anna Nicole’s baby boy – or whatever, who cares) is news, despite the fact that it may not be particularly interesting to everyone. He said, “Just because news is esoteric doesn’t mean it’s not news. Some people wouldn’t consider sports news news.” This was perhaps the most profound and well-thought-out argument in the class. Kudos!

Though I left half-way through the lecture, during the conveniently-timed break (I really needed to leave then, and it would have been awkward if I had to leave mid-lecture!), the teacher hinted at what he would go on to discuss in the second half: how certain stories are picked over others, and why.

“It’s kind of chance [and idiosyncratic] what gets to be news,” he said, “because there is no standard definition of what is news and what is not.”

But the point of mega-meta-hilarity came from Beam’s earlier question. “Why isn’t anyone going to cover Com 201, unless I am doing something illegal?” he’d asked.

Exploding silent giggles to self! I was planning to cover Com 201 the whole time! And he wasn’t doing something illegal! But is this news? What is news? Is a blog post news? Is this too esoteric to be news? Is my opinion news? God, I don’t know anymore! I am reporting facts but my opinion is all over this thing! But isn’t that all news? Isn’t that the Daily Show? Isn’t that NBC and Fox News? Help me, Mr. Beam! What is news!!!!!!!!!?

EDIT >>>

Of course, I wrote the professor. His response: “This is a hoot — the irony of you “covering” a class about news when I was suggesting no one would ever consider it news. I just gotta talk about this tomorrow. Thanks for sending, Vivian. –RB”

These things are fun.

caaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaajun.

inversion,
in this form
reconstitutes its borders
into framed petals,
unwrapped.

i write because i know not how not not to in these moments.
ever i find myself more caught up in my own thoughts.
it’s horrible.
but it is a moment of introspection –
of a returning to familiar grounds,
which i have not truly tread for years.
i am turning back inwards,
into myself,
a simultaneous blessing and a curse.
but from a interactive level,
i’m having a fucking hard time giving a shit about anyone else.
like i said:
it’s horrible.
i hate it.
but i just need this time to sort out my dismay.
then i can get back to asking people all about themselves.
because that’s all i ever do.
i just want to be selfish,
to indulge in me me me me me me me me me,
to better me
without constantly doing the thing i always do,
which is turning the conversation outwards
to ask everyone else a million things about themselves
while avoiding the topic of me.
who the hell are we all anyway,
and why do these windows keep giving me a glare of unreality…
if even such simplicities can turn me inside out
what won’t, idiot!

if a prospector can mine for gold through centuries of dirt, so shall i.

—

12:45
i just got dropped off at bottom of the hill in san francisco for a ty segall and trmrs show. i wasn’t on the godamn list even though i just confirmed it yesterday. so i walked back to the financial district-ish… took me a bit more than an hour. i got back and told tinwin and her friend this; they said i was CRAZYYYYYYYY. “look what portland has done to you,” they said, but it isn’t portland that has done this to me; it is other parts of the country, where i never know a soul, where my lack of advanced gadgetry leaves me ignorant to bus routes. walking is not simply traveling, though; it’s exploration.

what moments of lucidity to be found in night walks… of seeing a city’s dimmed delicacies! layered cascades of shadows cast by trees and framed windows harboring any number of panels — ranging from cardboard inlays to the pristine! in that setting, child-like wonderment remains commonplace rather than luxurious and foreign — one sees an old world with new eyes when in the night, when given the moments, presented by mobility, to reconsider all. the clarity they offer is transcendent.

night walks are the fucking best! i would trade them for nothing! absolutely nothing!

—

01:09
and finally, this letter i have been crafting for a month’s time; i think it’s ready. i think i’m ready. hope to talk to you in the future nearest to ours, where we will be real human beings, saying and doing real things.

we gather as moths to the light.

tomorrow, i meet one of my writers, of five+ years, whom i have yet to meet. this will be the first time. i’m excited.

this track below is from the death cab for cutie album, transatlanticism. as “un-hip” as death cab is in recent times, i can still remember the first time i heard about them. it was from my “gothic” and rather hermity freshman year roommate, who often smelled a bit surprisingly like cheese, and really, really loved radiohead. her name was julia. she had pretty good taste in music — far superior to my next roommate, who was far worse, though on the surface a much “nice little asian girl,” rather than a gothic hermit. in many ways, i rather liked my freshman year roommate, though we were drastically different at the time. in any case, i remember her listening to death cab for cutie — i think “company calls” was a notable track — and it was instantly appealing… i had no idea who they were at the time… and how humorous that i am now here, and now who i am…

transatlanticism, at the forefront of death cab’s journey into un-hipness, still means a lot to me. it is nostalgic. i recently (a couple days ago) found the album burned onto a cd in the car. i don’t know when i put it in there, but it must have been quite a while ago. re-discovering it has been quite pleasant… even if the feelings are bittersweet.

there are three, embedded into this album’s whole.

Sometimes I think this cycle never ends;
We slide from top to bottom and we turn and climb again,
And it seems by the time that I have figured what it’s worth,
The squeaking of our skin against the steel has gotten worse.

But if I move my place in line, I’ll lose.
And I have waited, the anticipation’s got me glued.

I am waiting for something to go wrong;
I am waiting for familiar resolve.

Sometimes it seems that I don’t have the skills to recollect –
The twists and turns of plots that turned us from lovers to friends.
I’m thinking I should take that volume back up off the shelf,
And crack its weary spine and read to help remind myself.

But if I move my place in line, I’ll lose;
And I have waited, the anticipation’s got me glued.

I am waiting for something to go wrong;
I am waiting for familiar resolve.
I am waiting for another repeat,
Another diet fed by crippling defeat.
And I am waiting for that sense of relief;
I am waiting for you to flee the scene
As if you held in your hand the smoking gun
And on the floor lay the one you said you loved.

And it’s strange –
They are basically the same,
So I don’t ask names anymore.

Sometimes I think this cycle never ends;
We slide from top to bottom and we turn and climb again,
And it seems by the time that I have figured what it’s worth,
The squeaking of our skin against the steel has gotten worse.

The squeaking of our skin against the steel has gotten worse.

DEATH CAB FOR CUTIE – EXPO ’86

—

The Atlantic was born today and I’ll tell you how.
The clouds above opened up and let it out.

I was standing on the surface of a perforated sphere,
When the water filled every hole.
And thousands upon thousands made an ocean,
Making islands where no island should go.

Most people were overjoyed; they took to their boats.
I thought it less like a lake and more like a moat.
The rhythm of my footsteps crossing flatlands to your door
Have been silenced forevermore.
The distance is quite simply much too far for me to row;
It seems further than ever before.

I need you so much closer.

So come on…
Come on.

DEATH CAB FOR CUTIE – TRANSATLANTICISM.

all things are manageable.

i’m listening to… george harrison!!!!! mostly these tracks: “what is life” / “if not for you” / “i dig love” / “hear me lord”… so goooooooooooood.

i don’t want to sleep, but i have to, cause i’m in new jersey and kinda getting bitched at by grandpa who randomly popped out of his bedroom. it’s around 10:45pm pacific time, aka 1:45am eastern time, aka, still not my bedtime! shit!

life is fine, good, great, though the arts blog on redefine has been neglected lately. gotta queue up a buncha posts tomorrow. sorry, family, time, you’re going to have to wait slightly! i’ve got shit to do, omg!

family time is but a forced interaction, largely, anyway.

i feel good being this cog in this machine. but only because it’s a machine i don’t understand, and can’t.

started re-reading “journey to the end of the night” from the beginning, so i can finish it in one sitting and not get distracted by other books intermittently. fuck. the writing is amazing. like, i seriously have to put it down every so often to be like, “fuck. genius.” this is maybe a problem, because no matter how much i improve, i will never get there. i wish i had studied writing in college… or art… i dunno… why… i never… i dunno. college. what a wash. not that i didn’t like sociology, but in retrospect, i would have done a lot of things differently. i feel like lately i am constantly at odds with which portion of myself — art or writing — is more important, and more me, and more significant. historically, writing has -helped- me more, but both have the same amount of cathartic quality. i am mediocre at both, but think better in terms of artistic visions… so i feel like that’s the route i should take, yet at the same time………………… question mark! question mark! børk børk børk!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! [ http://uncyclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/Bork ] < uncyclopedia is seriously GENIUS. not sure how i never saw it until yesterday.

new lingo:

oOgley mOogley / gOogley mOogley = great cosmic coincidental bliss
herndy verndy børk børk børk = great cosmic unbliss and confoundment

college classes and daily living.

* song of the moment * – “fly away” bai vincent de mOor [trance]. it’s from one of two wonderful mixes bai paul ^_^
* mood * – great.

this morning i was woken up bai the friggin phone. i hate that, cuz then i never remember mai dreams >P anyways, some fOo called for mai dad. and then i fell into a deep sleep again, and then mai mom woke mee up. i slept some more. and then stupid sheebahla woke mee up. *sigh, i guess one o’clock is enough sleep -_-; only ten hours. agh. to tell yoo the truth, i still am very tired. is that normal?

anyways, sheebahla came to mai house bearing drinks that he got from tapioca express. man, he’s so nice =) i need an un-cheap guy like that! he always buys all of us drinks [he bought xinlei and fontaine drinks too, and all out of good will... hmmm maybe his buttkissing is because he has a secret ulterior motive??]. thanks sheebahla! ^_^ so far i think i owe him a couple of drinks, a couple of burned cd’s, and ice cream. hum. sheebahla drank two boba naichas and he had to drink the one he bought for fontaine because we didn’t see her, so yeah… hyperactive.

well we met up with xinlei who magically got out of the house. wow, her mom is anal. always wanting her to study calculus shit or something. o_O; even more anal than mine. poor xinlei dOo. well we played tennis for an hour in scorching sun… kinda odd because it didn’t even seem like an hour. tennis is oddly fun, despite how bad i may suck. er, no may. how bad i do suck.

well the main reason i’m in a great mood is because i finally finally got the classes i wanted to take this coming fall @ u-dubb. i had to totally rearrange mai schedule, but i don’t care and i am damn glad [altho it took so much out of mai precious tym!]…

now i’m taking a history of landscape architecture course in which yoo “survey the development of landscape architecture as an art form from mesopotamia to the present. relationships to physical landscape, climate, culture, religion, and other arts.” sounds interesting to mee… architecture is mighty koo. i would SO do it if i didn’t suck @ math. -_-; i’m also taking an asian-american studies course on chinese-american history and culture. this kinda sucks because i would rather be in a chinese history course [couldn't find one that worked] instead of a chinese-american history course, but oh well i guess. -_-; in this course yoo study the “transformation from an immigrant to chinese-american community : immigration patterns, anti-chinese movements, ethnic, sociopolitical, and economic institutions, community issues, chinese-american culture.” good enough, i guess. and then i’m taking the same intro to linguistics course. ^_^ that one linguistics course satisfies FOUR different requirement categories. HELLA GOOD! wahaha >P last one i’m taking — the one i’m really happy about — is the second year chinese. it actually counts for a requirement [first year doesn't] and i only got it because the teacher said that someone dropped the class. i’m sooo damn happy… i rearranged mai whole schedule just for this damn class. better be good >P so far i have to spend $120 on books tho. agh. =P

excuse mee while i go shower now and study the first-year chinese materials =) god, i am such a nerd when it comes to languages… i want to learn everything on mai own -_-;

selecting classes.

* song of the moment * – “korean music mix” bai p-dog [korean]. i miss that guy and his mixes *sniff. this has “get up” bai baby v.o.x., “gori” bai diva, “gyunggo” bai tashannie, “nothing” bai shinhwa, and “oOrineun yg family” bai yg family [who else?]. godammit claire is leaving tomorrow for the shinhwa [and other groups i really dun give a shit about] concert in l.a. godammit, i hella wanna go. it’s mai fave group from KOREA godammit and they’re so close… i should be going >_< doubt mai parents would have let mee tho. dammit.
* mood * – okay.

i’m writing in here abnormally consistently. i expect maiself to stop writing everyday in a couple of days… o.O; wow joe just im-ed mee. thas equivalent to mai amazing thing of the day?

today was hellish, actually. the first thing i did when i woke up was try to find a class to take fall quarter @ u-dubb and i looked through ALL the listings for social sciences, psychology, international studies, history, asian languages and literature, english, philosophy, sociology, and much more. did not find JACK SHIT that worked with mai schedule or that was even available. argh. the thing that sucks the most is that i e-mailed the first-year chinese professor about taking her class and she said that i was too advanced and should take second-year chinese… and then the second-year chinese teacher tells mee that second-year is full and because i can read letters people write mee, i should take THIRD-year chinese. ooooo hell naw. i’m hella gonna die if i take it… but maybe i will try and then if it’s too hard i’ll drop it… cuz i tried for first-year korean too but thas full as well so i’m on the waiting list… right now i’m taking a composition course, an intro to linguistics course, and…. german. -_-; i’m disappointed with maiself, especially since i could not find something better. well actually like ten minutes ago i found a philosophy of religion course, but i’m not sure if i wanna take that… but @ least that fulfills requirements… and it sounds interesting, but not THAT interesting. what do yoo guys think? i really wanna learn german but it fulfills NO requirements and one year really does not teach yoo that much [or does it?]. so what should i do? -_-; oh well @ least mai earliest class is @ 10:30, and thas only twice a week. the rest of the daze the earliest class is 11:30 muahaha!

i’m not a person that cries very much. i think partially cuz most of the time i don’t care enough to give a shit what yoo think to cry. but once in a while — like today — i just can’t help it. it’s weird. i mean something DOES happen that is sad or frustrating, but not particularly for either. anyone else probably wouldn’t cry in such a circumstance… i just don’t kno why i would. -_-; i think i am just a fukin weirdo. but i’m glad. cuz if i wasn’t, i don’t kno what word i would use to describe maiself.

well, after dinner mee and sherry went to play tennis @ central park. it was mighty fun despite our suckiness o.O; i think i’m good sometimes ummm but rarely. >P

anyways, bored of mai journal? check out other people’s…
allen — http://www.asianavenue.com/Members/Me/personalpage.html?MEMBER=Mystic511
xinlei — http://dignan.anomalistic.net
diana — http://www.anomalistic.net
chris — http://www.livejournal.com/users/cpfryrice/ <~ i’m in it so yoo have to look >P
woo [and friends] — http://www.yumminess.net/smokies/

you know nothing.

* song of the moment * – “track three” on an mc hansai cd [korean]… i bought this double cd bai mc hansai… only cost mee twelve bucks! one of the cd’s is hella good [the one i am listening to] but the other one sucks crap… aish.
* mood * – pensive? pensive.

today was a boring shit day. mai parents want mee to work… they got mee an application to washington mutual! o.O; darnit and i have a job interview this thursday for miller’s outpost… i sooo don’t want to work. i enjoy just being a lajee bum that wastes money, but yeah, i can see why i do need to work.

it’s too friggin hot here in cali. that’s the ONLY reason i am glad i’ll be spending next summer in washington [i have to apply for residency, thus i have to get a job there and live there for a longass tym >_<]. i can only come back for a total of like… five weeks during the whole year. *bOohOo. i hope everyone visits mee in washington but i kno that only like three will. ah, well.

i got mail from u-dubb today. i dunno mai exact living arrangements yet [no one knows], but i do kno that i’m living in a double. yay! >P hopefully mai roommate is kool.

anyway, i’m getting a checking account AND a credit card. i was telling them i didn’t want a credit card, but they’re giving it to mee anyways. aiyoooo. @ least it LOOKS kool… -_-;; hopefully i will show some self-control and not end up buying hella cd’s online >_< but i can’t help but buy cds… >_< maybe i’ll make better use of mai money and buy a cd burner (?!)

i hate it when people don’t believe stuff i say… or they don’t see mai side of things, i guess. i tell people i hate a certain person [those of yoo who kno mee well will kno the one person i hate] and everyone’s just like, “why??? how can yoo hate him??” it’s like… don’t be so surprised unless yoo kno all the details, which yoo don’t. pisses mee off… cuz no one can see any reason for mee to hate him, but i kno that i have one of the best reasons that there is. so i don’t care if YOO get along with him and are best frendz with him or something. he hasn’t done shit to yoo. just don’t tell mee i shouldn’t hate him because yoo don’t kno ANYTHING.

more great americaaaaa.

* song of the moment * – rakuen” bai hirai ken [japanese]. he has a lotta really good songs.
* mood * – i feel sick… mai tummy hurts from eating lasagna during dinner… but it was soooo good! >_< owwwieeeee ~ *

food food food… i finally kno why people gain their freshmen 25 pounds or whatever… i guess that is a little excessive, but i can see why people gain weight in college… yoo can eat food wherever and whenever yoo want, and there’s such easy access to good, greasy food… >P

today mee, sherry, gloria, and jOody went to great america again… i went exactly a week ago, but i didn’t mind going again since last tym i didn’t get to go on a lot of the rides i wanted to go on. btw, stealth is SUCH an awesome ride. it’s like yoo’re flying. hard to describe unless yoo’ve actually seen it or been on it ^_^ but yeah… food @ great america and theme parks are so expensive… i was surprised cuz this random black girl asked us if we wanted her food because she didn’t want to throw it away… unfortunately we finished eating just then or i think we would have taken it… i wonder if most people would have??

on the way back home, gloria was waving to random people driving bai and trying to see if they’d wave back… but she wouldn’t wave to old people, korean people, black people, and hispanic people… really limited the selection. i think the only people i wouldn’t wave to were asian girls who wore a lot of makeup because they’re scarie and bitchy. question to any asian girl reading this who draws on her eyebrows — why the hell do yoo do that?? i dun get it… well… just wondering. if yur eyebrows were REALLY that ugly, can’t yoo jes… tweeze or SOMETHING? o.O and is it really tru yoo dunno what kind of expression a person has if yoo shave off his or her eyebrows? yah… full of random questions.

i was supposed to go to this aiya dance / party thing tonight… hella people i kno are going, but i’m not allowed to. mai parents say that i go out too much… ugh… i’m not even in trouble for anything! sort of ridiculous, eh?? oh well, that’s the story of mai sucky lyfe ^^*

and lyriks in regards to mai current mood… “no scrubs” bai tlc [english]. not directed towards anyone of course *rolls eyes*…

a scrub is a guy that thinks he’s fly
and is also known as a buster
always talkin about what he wants
and just sits on his broke ass
so no, i don’t want your number
no, i don’t want to give you mine
and no, i don’t want to meet you nowhere
no, i don’t want none of your time
and no, i don’t want no scrub
a scrub is a guy that can’t get no love from me

blahdyblahblah. so i lie.

my first trip to seattle… zomg!

* song of the moment * – “need you” bai devotion [english]. beautiful song ^_^
* mood * – good, i guess.

oooo right now it’s the 27th so i’ll give yoo a day bai day account of mai trip to seattle… ummm yay!!!

saturday, june 23rd — we got to seattle [mee, tin-win, mai mom, and mai dad] and drove a rental camry to this lady [family frend]‘s house… we went out to dinner @ some chinese place and went to this lakeside house that this guy owned but didn’t even friggin live in. he owned it for like ten years but never lived in it and just let his friends go there and live in it… hella weird. but it was nice-looking with cool furniture, good location, good view, yada yadeh. then mai parents drove us to angie’s dorm… that night got to meet lotsa people… two girls [jane and valerie] who were frendz of this guy jim… one of them’s from san jose which is hella close… and the other one was from maryland [they're cousins]. hum also got to meet jim, john, wes, tony [who does the most amazing magic tricks... we were sooo entranced and it is soooo amazing... they're card tricks but no, not just lame card tricks... amazing card tricks =O]… angie only has frendz that are boiz ^^ but it was okay. ummm we watched “what lies beneath” in the lounge… that was pretty kewl, i guess. that’s about it.

sunday, june 24th — got woken up hella early in the morning for one of the most hellish experiences of mai life… we went to this one chinese church. awww shiet, it was psycho. we only stayed an hour but that was horrible enough that i will never return. the church is one of those churches in which they don’t believe in pastors, which i totally agree with, but other than that, there’s nothing good about it. during communion, they would sing a hymn, and then five people would start praying and after every single line that they said something as lame as “gan xie zhu [give thanks to god]” or “zhan mei zhu [praise god]“, the people would say “amen!”, “yes!!!”, etc. hella loud; they were practically screaming it. hella psycho. hella fake [as if church isn't fake enough already]. i’m NEVER going back. anyways, mai parents told the ah-yee and uncle that we wanted to leave early [thankfully they didn't ask why, cuz we were gonna say that angie had to meet a frend and so we had to leave wahaha]. so then we drove to richmond in canada. canada is soooo clean. and nice. and clean. yeah in richmond we ate @ this place… and then went shopping. they have kinda kewl fobby stuff but it is SO expensive. so that’s a turn-off. didn’t buy anything; the only thing we did was take sticky pictures. i guess that was kewl. but they weren’t that special. blah. hum yeah and then we went to vancouver which was boring; we just went to the pier thing and watched a cruise ship leave [mai dad found this soooo exciting]. it was embarrassing cuz a foghorn went off and mee, angie, and tin-win all screamed hella loud and many a people were looking @ us funnie -_-; later that night we went to eat japanese food at this place… SUCH a nice restaurant. they had the best interior design ever. the furniture, layout, even the friggin WALLS were awesome. and the food was good. best japanese restaurant i’ve ever been to and it was so nice. and the owner was ACTUALLY japanese. that is never the case anymore; the owners are usually either chinese or korean. but yeah then we went back to the place where we were living and played pool downstairs… that was kewl i guess. ^^

monday, june 25th – orientation for mee today. in the morning we [mee, jane, and valerie] walked to the hub, which was the orientation building… lugged a big bag and a sleeping bag HELLA far and it pisses mee off cuz i didn’t end up staying overnight and i did all that work for nothing ^^* well anyways, we checked in and the first person i met was this korean girl, grace… kinda funnie cuz for the rest of the day i didn’t really see her, but thas another story. but yeah we checked into our rooms and i actually didn’t have a roommate… hum and after that we went to this auditorium and from there we split up into small groups… mai small group sucked… all of the people were unfriendly and no one talked to each other @ ALL. hecka lame. after that went to a computer lab to do… stuff, and then went to lunch… met a girl named amy… we got lost trying to go to lunch for a while but finally found it. met a japanese fob guy who was directly from japan! WAH. good english, tho. i forget his name cuz it was too hard -_-; he was a chinese guy born in japan tho. lucky. after lunch [which was OKAY, i GUESS], went to take placement testing which now that i think about it i shouldn’t even have bothered taking, but either way, i took a spanish placement testing…

on the way there, met a guy jared from hawaii… and i was talking to him and he said he was half-japanese and half-chinese and while he was saying that this girl jennifer turned around and was like, “hey! sorry to interupt but yur half-japanese and half-chinese?? i am too!” and yeah… she lives bai mee! in fremont! yay. the spanish test was hella easy, actually… i was supposed to stick around for results but i forgot. this one guy zach [goddammit, why do i remember everyone's names?? i'm psycho] shocked everyone in the room cuz he took up to spanish 7 + 8 or some shiet… who the hell takes spanish 7 + 8???? o.O there IS such a thing??? strange ~~~

but yeah after the test i saw jared outside the room so mee and him waited for jennifer and we went to our little meeting thing for our job… jared went to business and mee and jennifer went to the humanities meeting… it was hella boring and not very informative, but then everyone went to the computer lab and did their schedules… hella confusing… i didn’t finish mai schedule yet, but i am taking this introduction to linguistics course [which counts as mai math cuz i'm an arts and science major], this english course [iono what it is exactly... i think it's composition], and then i have to e-mail this chinese teacher about taking chinese. ^_^ hopefully i get everything i want. if not… arrrgh.

okay anyways after going to the computer lab umm i went with jared to the “ave”, which is a street nearby cuz he wanted to get his frend from hawaii a present from the student bookstore so we were in there for a while… and we went to get boba nai cha but it was hella gross yuk and i think we waited a half hour for it… iono why. but it was nasty and sooo not worth the wait. @ least i didn’t have to pay, tho! ^_^ yoo kno naicha’s in hawaii cost like $5.40 for a cup or something??? shewt and i thought us paying $2.50 here was a rip!!!

anyways, it was hella weird cuz i saw nick debarr from amador [mai high skool] there and he wasn’t even going to skool in washington!! and he was @ the chinese restaurant eating and he walked bai and we both kind of pointed @ each other and were like “hey! what are YOO doing here??” and he was there for baseball… just hella random and weird. o.O; actually i saw him walking bai from the student store through the window and i was like “WHOA! WHOA! WHOA!” hella loud… i think i was embarrassing. ah, well.

ummm after our little trek we went to go get id cards but the place was friggin closing so friggin jared ran hella and i was all tired and stuff… ugh i need to exercise more. i guess the id card turned out good. saw jennifer again. then we were going to the dorms cuz jared had to get something and ran into amy again… she came with us and then we went to dinner together… it was bbq stuff… i just ate a slice of watermelon, tho hehehe. yukkieeeee. yeah but we met this new hawaiian girl named erin. hella hawaii people up in there. after dinner, we had to go back to the bookstore because sharilyn and amy wanted to buy stuff and i left mai binder in the boba nai cha place… luckily they had it when we returned *whew.

@ the bookstore we ran into tin-win randomly, and so she went with us when we went to a nearby shopping place [it was sharilyn, erin, mee, amy, and tin-win... we had to walk hella far up and down hilly places... tiring >_<] and bought… groceries. they have self checkout counters there! exciting. but yoo can cheat hella easy… we scanned this bottle of iced tea and it asked us if it were single or multi-pack… we could have said it were single but we were good 0=) bought hella more food and then after that went back to mai dorm and mee and tin-win sat around for a while cuz mai feet hurt and then we went back to angie’s place… kinda got lost and asked like three people for directions, haha. hum that night we ended up playing cards with jim til like two in the morning… blah.

i think these big paragraphs are intimidating to read and it makes things look sooo uninteresting?!

tuesday, june 26th — i decided to ditch mai second day of orientation so after angie came back from class @ around 11-ish, mee, tin-win, jane, valerie, angie, jim, fu, and david [fu and david are the first vietnamese guys i've ever met!! and on top of that... they're vietnamese FOBS! omg!!!!] walked down to the ave and we ate japanese food… well fu and david went to eat pizza instead but yeah… hella cheap japanese food… it cost five bucks for a big plate of tonkatsu or teriyaki stuff that we all only ate half of… yeah afterwards david left cuz he didn’t like us and we went to went downtown bai bus… their bus system is sooo kewl. halfway they attach these metal things to those wires that cable cars have and it turns into a metro… like a subway. hella tight.

yeah and they have hella nice malls in seattle too… and all over the place they have this thing right now where people decorate pigs and then the pigs are sold to people as fundraisers… the pigs all look hecka different… some are made into pianos, some are painted differently… it’s really interesting, but hard to describe. i’ll get some pictures of the pigs scanned once i get mai film developed ^^*

but yeah we just walked around and stuff. met up with this guy named stone [there's a long story behind his name] and he held jane and valerie’s luggage until they had to ride the bus to the airport, cuz they were leaving a day earlier than we were… hummmm and then we went down to these fish markets that apparently were very famous… they throw fish around in this one market where angie, jim, and fu knew this guy named ___ [i finally forgot a name!]. he was on the real world seattle, not as an actual real world member, but as a guest. kinda kewl. ^_^

but yeah after going to the fish market, fu left to meet up with david who didn’t like us [they're cousins], and we dropped jane and valerie off at the bus that they took the airport. then mee, jim, and angie took the bus back to the dorms… that night angie wanted to cook us curry and so they had to buy potatos… so her and this guy mike went to safeway for like an hour while tin-win slept and i talked to people on AIM ^^*

when they came back, they came back with wes and we went to the student store… @ the student store yoo can use the money yoo dun spent on meal plans and get random junk food. ugh… we ate SO much junk food. i think mee and tin-win both gained like five pounds. -_-; horrid. when we came back, mee and tin-win sat around watching tv while wes and angie cooked… kinda. mike was off doing something else, i dunno what. but yeah we watched “dark angel”… i slept through half of it but it was a crappy show. that show is SO crappy. why the hell is it so famous? jessica alba isn’t even that hot.

but anyways, met two more guys named craig and craig… i met one of them before cuz he went to mai skool last year and he went to mai church once… and there was this other girl who iono. hum hella people joined us for dinner… i dunno three of their names because i never LEARNED their names, but there was this guy andrew who ate a whole lot, and this other guy matt who worked @ an ice cream store that is called the mix [which is kinda like coldstone's] and so he brought people tubs of ice cream]. but yeah, the curry was yummie ^_^ hella “ma-fan” but still.

after eating lots of food we went to “our [angie's room]” for a while and then we went to wes’ room to look @ a demented stuffed penguin… and then we went to mike’s room to look @ HIS stuffed animals [hum i don't understand it either] and he played guitar and sang some green day song for us… it was quite interesting ^_^ and then wes left for a while to talk to his girlfrend and mike had to entertain mee and tin-win cuz angie fell asleep… after a while we tried waking up angie and it friggin took a half hour… but actually she was awake but just pretended she wasn’t. she’s hella good @ that tho… she didn’t even laugh when people tickled her o.O; scarie… hum yeah then went to bed. ^_^ well actually mee and tin-win stayed up for like another hour almost just talking about random shiet.

wednesday, june 27th — mee and tin-win went downtown again… it was raining… hum iono went to the malls and i bought a yellow tank top and a green / blue / yello tank top with a criss-crossed back thing… ur… yoo have to see it. i really like the style, but the pattern on it isn’t that great, but oh well. hella cheap. they were like less than 10 bucks each… but tax in washington is 8.8%… hella… and drink tax is 10%!!! crajee… tin-win bought a pair of pants…

we ate lunch @ this hella big food court that friggin had everything… reminds mee of taiwan. it had mongolian bbq [what tin-win ate], philly cheesesteaks [what i ate], mexican food, italian food, chinese food, japanese food, friggin everything. it was AWESOME. hard to decide what to eat, haha. and not just that, but it was cheap… and it LOOKED good. seattle is SO awesome. ^_^ i have nothing bad to say about it… i love the weather that is never too hot, and damm. wonderous skool for mee to go to!! i’m so happy.

but yeah after shopping for like three hours we went back to angie’s dorm where we met stone again cuz he was taking us to the airport… nice guy. and yeah after meeting people @ udubb, i’m gonna rename mai buddy list categories… cuz right now they’re named after… cha siu bao [chinese ppo], kimchi [korean ppo], mochi and pho [japanese and vietnamese ppo], milkshakes [people who are something but think or act like they are something else], s’mores [black and white ppo], leftovers [other people... they're actually cambodian, thai, and crajee mixed hawaiian]… i think i’ll change it to huskies [university of washington ppo], fishies [so-cal ppo], cows [nor-cal ppo... i think of cows cuz davis = cows], aliens [outta state ppo], and flies [highskoolers]. yeah i’m lame. guess i’ll go do that now. what a lame life i live. and it’s 1:14 am. oh well. who needs to sleep anyways?? psha.

(diana’s response:)
woohoo!! i’m an alien on your buddy list~!! >=D but i can’t believe you had the categories named after food. you glutton!! =P i either have way too many categories that don’t deserve to be categories [there's only like 3 people in each >P], or i have big lumpy categories called “people”, “more people”, & “other people”. [just in case anyone ever thought i talked to aliens o_O]

anyways, seattle sounds fun. confusing, but fun. college sounds pretty cool. except for the whole cohabiting with strangers part. and the school part. and the mass drinking & promiscuity part. are you gonna join a sorority?? mwahaha

btw, glad you’re liking the book so far. did you get to the cow part?? i love the cow part. “i begin to resent the cow and the cow begins to resent me.” that’s got to be one of my favorite lines ever. the cow & the limo driver rock my world. ^_^ *a hard-boiled wonderland and the end of the world* is interesting in a quirky way too. the only thing with murakami is that practically all of his main characters are thirtysomething men who pretty much have the same personality-traits. >P oh well~

(my response to diana:)
mee? binge drinking??? hummm no… drinking is gross >P i’ll pass. i’ll be anti-social if i have to. being a picky eater is probably the only thing that steers mee away from drugs. wahaha.

i can’t believe ur categories are so boringly-named!! what am i?!?!?!?!?!!? hmmm??? better not be other people! >_< that one just sucks [like the other ones are better].

seattle is kewl. u should visit mee there. wahaha. >P hey didju ever take ur test?!!! anyways the strangers part… i am scared that mai roommate will be psycho. uh-oh.

i haven’t gotten to the cow part yet… i’ve only read up to like 1/5 of the book maybe. gotta read more =)