nightmare flight before christmas

i got to the airport around 6:30, fully expecting to swing into the check in, get past TSA, and have plenty of time to visit the bathroom and peruse the trashy magazines before settling in at the gate to wait. upon handing my passport and web check in boarding pass to the luggage check lady, she looks at it, asks me what my flight number and destination were. los angeles, flight 468. she then tells me very bluntly that i was supposed to be on flight 466 that departed at 12:30 pm.

suddenly everything from earlier began to click into place. my dad had called me about an hour before my shuttle from school to the airport was leaving to tell me to check the flight status, since it looked like my flight had been delayed from 2:00 pm to 8:00 pm. i checked my email confirmation for flight 468, double checked the time then for 2:00, then checked the flight updates. 8:00 pm. so at that point, i decided to forego the shuttle, and kill some time at school and leave around 6:00 pm with lawrence, who offered to drive me to the airport since he was going home anyways. we watched wizard of oz (i slept through most of it), played some girl talk jenga, had a little dinner, then set off.

fast forward to present moment. initial thought: fuck! luggage check lady tells me that she will put me on standby for flight 468, still leaving at 8 pm, but if i don't get onto flight 468, i will have to pay an extra $100 fee for another flight. i say fine, not really pondering repercussions at the moment, just praying that i squish into flight 468, the flight i was originally supposed to be on. apparently, it was my fault for not checking my boarding pass before getting to the airport. but even if i had come via SU shuttle, i still would not have made my flight, which not only changed numbers, but moved up a couple of hours.

at the gate, a very korean looking middle-aged woman approached me to ask if she could use my cell phone to call someone in los angeles. she offered to pay, but i refused, so she gave me a lindt chocolate in thanks and sat next to me and proceeded to interrogate me with various questions. i obliged, since she had given me chocolate and was so cute! she even showed me pictures of her new granddaughter, and her family. after cooing over the pictures for a good 10 minutes, we both get called for standby, and manage to get onto the flight, except i am assigned to the emergency exit aisle so that korean woman can get a normal seat. how could i decline?

the entire flight was awful. i had a window seat, but no armrest, so leaning against the wall was impossible. there is plenty of leg room. but the drop down table didn't even get close to my seat. there wasn't anyone in the middle seat, and the guy in the aisle seat was studying to be a paramedic, and used the middle seat as his storage area. happily enough, he wasn't a make-small-talk-conversation guy. and yet, i couldn't even appreciate this miniscule pleasure for the extremely obnoxious, loud women behind me, and their chair kicking children. they carried on conversation that was not only completely idiotic, but ever increasing in volume, so much so that yoda on full volume couldn't even drown them out! at least their children fell asleep halfway through the flight. but their jabbering, which knew no pause, no breath of silence...continued from takeoff to landing and beyond.

official worst flight ever! on a happy note...am home, ate in n out immediately, got a kick start to christmas shopping yesterday, and lindsay managed to pass pharm! i guess there always is a silver lining....^^

pop art shoes!

"Inspired by comic book drawings of the 1960’s, the 917 Lo Popart stands out with double take-worthy details. "
since my faithful tweed chucks have developed holes in the heels, i left them in california where it doesn't rain so much and mentally vowed to look around for new shoes to replace them...shoes that are a little more rain resistant than canvas? anyways, after many months of poking around, i just found these. And despite the enormous probability that these are canvas, i want them anyways! so...now that i've gotten a little frivolity out of the way, i'm gonna go back to studying.

squeezing in a last november post

yowza. it's practically december already!
i'm procrastinating studying in hopes that my large large coffee will start to kick in.

updates:

thanksgiving break was amazingly welcome and fun!

• thursday i went to liz's, had intense and hilarious board game moments, meat sweats, pie sweats, pumpkin roll sweats, and walked in on joe showering. good times.
• friday, we went black friday shopping downtown, then came back and hung out in our cleanish room, and then emie, krystian, bridget and michelle and i had a fatty party at honey court in chinatown, stopped for gas and doughnuts, then went to cary park to take in the seattle view, visited the fremont troll, and chilled at gasworks park. such a great night!
  
• saturday, went to sarah's for more delicious thanksgiving food, and then hung out with emie and krystian watching movies, chowing on leftover chinese, and going for a nighttime stroll.

it's getting closer to christmas!!!! :D i now have 2 secret santas, and inspired by aimi's post about an awesometastic santa clause, my ultra wishlist that only a very generous and wealthy santa should think about would include:

• a car! ANY car. just nothing too large or gas guzzling.
• a new camera, one that would inspire me to lug it along with me and take more pictures.
• a CD drive for my laptop that works!
• speakers...i really really like creature speakers
• a nintendo DS or a gaming system with the new guitar hero!
• clothes and shoes money!

tomorrow i have my first final, skills validation, which is basically picking a random skill out of a hat (like injections or wound dressings, etc) and doing it perfectly while a professor watches you. i wasn't nervous at all before thanksgiving, but now the anxiety has kind of caught up. i think it'll be alright. but i really need to stop blogging and start studying.

p.s. i almost forgot...what is everybody thankful for? i'm thankful for friends. lots of good friends. old ones, new ones, ones that help you clean. here's to friends, cheers!! ^__^

the anatomy craze is creeping back into my life

well, i suppose it never left.

i'm enjoying drawing and researching pictures of hearts a little too much.





while helping me research heart graphics, emie ran across iheartguts.com. there, i found a haven for my ridiculous obsession for stuffed parts of human anatomy. every time i go back to this website, i can't stop the rush of excitement...it's really sad, but i can't help it... they're just so stinkin cute!!!

definitely my favorite...but only slightly.

other websites to fuel the fetish: street anatomy and morbid anatomy

and today, i opened my TSGC day present from emie. it's a 6 foot tall, life size pop anatomical figure that emie and charlie have dubbed, the dimensional man. just the thought of assembling him makes me giddy!!! we should get together and have an assembling-the-dimensional-man party. for those of you who can stand it. :D thank you sooo much emie-chan!

finally...a little unconventional...but i loved these awesome vintage illustrations of godzilla and other famous kaiju from pink tentacle. here's a taste:

california's burning

how bittersweet this transition to a new era is for me. i'm excited to see what will come for america in the future. and i loved being able to dance in the streets about it with perfect strangers. (who incidentally, cleaned up after themselves...my faith in human nature is increasing). i know many people are not dancing. and i know that this change will tear as many people asunder as those who are uniting with the hope of change for our time, our now. that is a truth that we cannot ignore, and a truth i am sure that those people won't allow us to ignore.

there are hardly any words to describe the outrage and disgust i feel in regards to what my home state just did. i cannot believe the nightmare of utter regression that people have chosen.

particularly, i am furious about the fact that my own parents believe that the passage of prop 8 is good news. although we are at an impasse, at least my father had the decency to respect my opinion. as for my mother, i have nothing more to say. not because i actually have nothing more to say, but because i don't want to say anything more in vain, waste any more words on something so asinine. often times, i have let things slide in order to prevent unnecessary conflict. but this time, i will not yield here, not in the face of this intolerance, this ignorance. this doesn't mean to say that i will provoke rash conflict. but if it comes up again, i will not back down. equality will come, it must. if not today, then someday.

which sailor scout are you?

FIND OUT THE ANSWER TO YOUR LIFE'S MOST BURNING QUESTION!

in anticipation of tonight's sailor scout meeting:

You Scored as Sailor Jupiter You're just awesome. Powerful lightning attacks, strong-willed, and a great morale booster. You are very good at cooking and like the colour green. Sailor Jupiter 100% Sailor Moon 92% Sailor Uranus. 67% Sailor Saturn 67% Sailor Mars 50% Sailor Mercury 50% Sailor Pluto 42% Sailor Venus 33% Sailor Neptune 8% Sailor Chibi Moon 0%

mary shelley: unexpected hero

last night, victoria invited me out to discovery park for a bonfire. i was kind of not into doing anything that involved me wearing anything other than pajamas, but i said yes anyways, and agreed to meet her around 6:45-7ish. we met up and drove to pick up morgan from downtown, and then we drove to discovery park, watching the last vestiges of the sunset along the way. we parked and met up with sam and george (victoria's couchsurfer from amsterdam) who had been there all day. the sky was that perfect twilight/dusk color as we were walking. we all went for a beer run, and picked up some munchies and supplies along the way, crucial things like hot dogs, marshmallows, skewers, and jiffy pop.

we got back to the park, and started the trek to the hangout spot that they had been prepping all day. the guys kept telling us about this "little bluff" that we had to climb down, and victoria and i kept joking about building up the bluff in our minds to be a sheer 90 degree cliff, so that when we got there, it wouldn't be as bad as we imagined. it wasn't too bad, but still took a good while of clambering, trudging, and sliding down to get to the beach, lugging the provisions, the victuals, what have you. the only thing was that it was super dark, and even though the moonlight was fairly strong, it was mostly covered by the surrounding foliage. we forgot to bring a flashlight, so we used morgan's bike light and mary shelley to help us navigate. i am truly, truly grateful for mary shelley...who knew that her power LED light and quacking would come in so handy?? :D

we finally made it down to the beach, and the guys showed us their handiwork - a chair, two benches, a table, and a windwall, all constructed of driftwood, a little cave/hut, and of course, a firepit. it was PERFECT. the tide was out, revealing this huge stretch of round, wave-polished rocks peppering the shore. the guys had already collected a pile of huge shells, but i picked one big, smooth, white clam shell up just for good measure. george started the fire up with an unfortunate copy of the stranger, and soon enough, we had a good crackling fire, open beers, and hot dogs on skewers. halfway through, we spotted the rope swing hanging from a nearby tree, and i hopped on with great enthusiasm. victoria pushed me a little, and it didn't take too long before the swing was going high and fast...towards the tree trunk! luckily, i only had one beer and one hot dog...otherwise, that swing would have been a terrible idea.

the park was closing at 11, so we decided to leave around then...after we'd eaten/drank our fill of hot dogs, popcorn, beer, and marshmallows, the fire put out with sand and piss, we packed our crap up, and made our way back up the "bluff". we didn't get out of the park until about 11:30, but luckily, we caught the guard just as they were closing the gate, so we didn't have to scale anything. we left the park and drove out to a point near the seattle center so that george could take pictures of the city, and then we drove back.

i think i'll never forget that night, something i almost missed out on. plowing through the sand, the reverberating quack of mary shelley, the sound of the water, the crunch of broken shells under my feet, the smell of the night, the stars, victoria's fluorescent legs, george's glasses glinting in the firelight, morgan coughing/hacking up something nearby, and sam's amused, half-lidded stare. i want to keep the memory of it all behind my eyelids.

time to binge blog

sorry for the hiatus...but here's hoping my 4 consecutive blogs will make up for it. 8P

my first clinical day was quite dramatic! my shift started at 7 in the morning, and i was assigned to a nurse and a patient. my patient had been in labor since 2:50 am, but was only about 2-3 cm, and her water hadn't broken yet. she was doing a natural, normal vaginal birth, and was only taking half doses of the usual routine pain meds, but she had a history of rapid deliveries (her last delivery only took two hours of labor!) so we were expecting her to progress pretty quickly...but NO. she took my entire shift to dilate up to 9 cm! it took much longer than any of us, her included, were expecting. but then again, when you're expecting, i guess nothing really goes as expected.

she asked for an epidural around 5 cm, and she took 3 boluses after that, and we had to send for another anesthetic order because she was still complaining of pain. pretty soon after her epidural, her contractions became much less effective, and she was only dilating half a cm an hour. the doctor decided to artifically rupture her membranes, since her water hadn't broken yet. we hoped that would move her along, and it did, but she was still only dilating about a cm an hour. my whole shift was basically watching her dilate! finally, we gave her some pitocin (labor inducing hormone) and she got up to 9.5 cm around 2:40. my shift was supposed to end at 3, and then i was supposed to go to a post clinical conference, so i thought i was going to have to miss her deliver entirely. luckily, she kept telling us that she even though she was trying to control the urge to push, her body was involuntarily pushing, and the baby was coming!

we quickly prepared all the things for delivery, and it literally took her only 2 pushes (it took her longer to push out the placenta afterwards, can you believe it?) and her baby practically shot out, at exactly 2:54 pm. it was a girl, and perfect! her eyes were open, and she was 6.9 lbs, very pink and healthy. i actually got a little choked up, which i hope no one saw, but you have to understand, i had spent all day with my patient and her family, and gotten to know them, and they were so excited when they heard that this was my first day and first birth. they kept asking me to ask my professor if i could stay longer to watch her deliver, and my professor was so cool about it, she suggested i stay even before i brought it up!

so it was all very exciting and emotional, but the thing that really got me was that the patient's husband started crying when his daughter was born. anyways, mostly, i just observed the procedures, watched the fetal heart monitor, and took the patient's vital signs. but it was awesome to get to see a normal vaginal birth, since most of my classmates had been watching c-sections or stayed in postpartum or NICU. i know, how lame to be excited about having a front row seat for a vaginal delivery! probably too much information for you too (i promise, i tried my best to leave out the gory details)...but i was really glad i had a good first clinical. :)

do the kegel!

i watched this video in the middle of my postpartum workshop...this was essentially the greatest 57 seconds of my life.


apart from the very inspiring nursing convocation (which i almost didn't go to), this made me all the more excited about being a nurse.

oh, and just for kicks, here's the song: do the kegel and the lyrics, complete with annotations

yes, i know, i have a strange fascination with stuffed parts of human anatomy. but really...don't you want your own victoria, the "unusually vocal velvet vulva" puppet?

apology to anthony...now we're even?

wrote this a while ago, but posting it today, 9/26

i helped my darling friend anna move out of her mother's house today, the house that she's lived in for all the 7, almost 8 years that i've known her. it took about 4 hours, mostly spent driving, to haul anna's bed, a chest of drawers, her drafting table, and some cleaning supplies over to her new place. i met her new roommate, an graduate student in astrophysics (i know!) and her boyfriend, andrew (finally!) helping anna completely reminded me of xavier move-in day, two whole years ago. it seems like fate that anthony just posted about this very subject.

to be honest, i had a completely different experience. move-in was so exciting and liberating! i was sad to leave home, but i couldn't wait to start fresh, live the college life, and be on my own. after so much pressure from both family and friends to stay in california, actually getting to seattle with all my crap was like the feeling in your lungs as your face bursts into fresh air after holding your breath under water...adrenaline pumping, relief, exhilaration! as for friends, i think it helped so much that i already knew someone who was going through the same experiences, a familiar face there along for the ride. i've forgotten along the way what a valuable person he was to me then...things were much less lonely, and we were always together.

the most depressing part of it all was when my parents actually left, and as we said goodbye in front of the dorm, both of them cried. i've never seen my parents cry...and it was horrible. they also said i love you, and they didn't really need to; but they said it, out loud, it was tangible at last. (all through high school, i laughed it off whenever i listened to friends say those three words so casually to their parents on a cell phone or on the way out of a car because it was so unfamiliar. my parents never said i love you). right then, i wanted to go back home with them. just the other day, my mom was joking about how she basically just ate all the free food at that whole orientation, and didn't pay any attention to the workshops they had about "letting go" and how to handle the "separation". i had no idea that those workshops even existed! but whatever they managed to take away from those talks, i'm so grateful that i was "let go" of. everything i had worked so hard for had finally come together. i was finally in a college, a legit university, where i felt at home. of course, my dad told me later about how if i hadn't kept my grades up that fall quarter, they would have made me come home. but my parents had trusted me enough to let me leave california, move a thousand miles away, and make my own choices. and that gave me the confidence to plow through the depressing parts, the awkward and anxious parts, and to make the most out of my new environment.

and of course, where would i be without everyone i met along the way? they say that the friends you make in college become your second family, and nothing could be more true with the friends i made in xavier. not to be sappy...but no matter how much time has passed, no matter how long we haven't talked, i'll never forget you, and my thoughts and best wishes go with you always. i love you guys...really. ^___^

salsa!

i was supposed to go to a drag show at the queen mary. we ended up going to a salsa party. salsa party you ask? were there enough tortilla chips?

no, no. this was a hardcore, two dance floors, flowing corona and margaritas, hips swaying, people spinning, salsa danceathon. anna is in the salsa club at PCC, and they learn salsa at lunch, do a couple of performances, and also occasionally get invited to cool stuff like this.

i learned the basics of salsa from anna and her friends eric and alexis on the emptier floor. but for most of the party, i watched wistfully as most everyone, including anna, partner up and dance like they were pros. i loved watching people who, if i ever saw them in any other circumstance, i would have never guessed them to be such amazing dancers! i was also surprised at the mix of people there, there were mexican, cuban, chinese, filipino, white, black, all sorts of people. and everyone was there to dance. but my real salsa lesson came when this middle aged guy, jaime, asked me to dance. i said yes, but i warned him that i sucked, and he laughed and said he would take his chances. he took my hand, led me out to the dance floor, and proceeded to laugh as i tried to keep up to the thundering beat, stepped on his toes, and repeatedly turned the wrong way (you're only supposed to make right turns, like zoolander). after the song finished, i was about to flee, when he pulled me back and informed me he was keeping me out for another couple of dances, and sooner or later, he was going to get me to turn the right way. i also learned a little merengue, and bachata.

and so with more explicit directions and a lot more coaching, i was able to salsa kind of decent. and had SO much fun! this was by far one of the coolest parties i've ever been to; everyone was completely gracious, and so nice, and they were all there to dance and have fun. and salsa, as a whole...it's so subtle and precise, but so sensual at the same time...i want to learn more! and not just salsa, but i've always wanted to learn proper dance styles, like tango, rumba, swing, waltz, etc. at least the basics! i'm putting it on my to do list. :)

this is why i can never be vegetarian.

today, i went to a ridiculously good (and so cheap!) vietnamese restaurant with my dad and my brother for dinner. i was kind of feeling like pho, but i decided to flip through the whole menu and see what they had. i was so excited when i saw that they had the 7 courses of beef for $12, i slammed the menu shut and ordered it right away! the waiter was like, whoa, can you finish that? and i was like, HELL yes!

since i am camera-less, i couldn't fulfill the asian/blogger duty of taking pictures of my food, but it was absolutely delicious! the first course was raw slices of beef to cook in broth, and then there were little meatballs, grilled beef and ginger rolls, beef wrapped with grape leaves, and this enormous meatball that had peas in it. then came beef salad, and finally, beef soup. and of course, spring roll fixins with everything. i really did finish it all...while my dad and brother sat and watched and refused to help. oh, except for the giant meatball, which had whole peppercorns in it...eating it was like trying to navigate a minefield.

did you know that the 7 courses of beef is supposed to be just for weddings? oh well...

there's just too little of.

i went to church today, it's been a while. i felt more heathen-ish than usual, saying all those familiar things that i don't quite mean.

i think i did mean them at some point. maybe i didn't mean them ever. maybe i do mean them... or want to mean them, somewhere deep down.

anyways, the homily had just started, and i was preparing to zone out when the priest (our new pastor) said something so profound that i was instantly snapped forward to the moment i was in, and frantically eyed the pews for one of those stubby, dull-ended pencils meant for writing on the offertory envelopes (you know, the kind you used to draw with on those offertory envelopes when you were bored out of your skull at mass) to write what he said down. i managed to remember it, i hope i always will.

he said, "where love reigns, law becomes unnecessary."

sketches and such

some things i've been working on over the course of the summer to tide you greedy bastards over. :3 some are incomplete, some are just doodles, nothing terribly special. i too, have felt the creativity drought that seems to have become an epidemic. it's been a parched, scummy state. but we must take from the air, take to the sea.

we'll be reborn
we'll simply be free
and we'll be the colors
that pour through the streets

And find in our after years
that we're all the same
we're all made of colors
and pour through the streets

-P.TM "And I"

the great restart.

things have been a little rough the past 3 days. my beloved laptop contracted a virus or two. there was a big angry message that replaced my desktop background, and then my computer started slowing down and restarting after certain periods of time.

and so i took it in to fry's (where i bought it) and the guy there was such an asshole, (unlike the guy who tried to help me when i brought it in last summer when my CD drive started doing funky things, he was really nice, and in hindsight, maybe a little too nice? @__@) this asshole was like, you have to restart it, that's the best way. we charge $99 to restart it. you want to restart it? you'll lose everything. and i was like, fuck! i'm not spending that much for something i can do myself. i figured, with that money, i could do some other things...so i bought an external hard drive and mcaffee virus scan, and went home to tinker. my plan was to first try and install mcaffee in vain hopes of getting rid of the virus without losing anything. i popped the CD in, and instantly remembered that my CD drive doesn't work. shitballs. so i took it out, and tried the external drive. after a few failed attempts at saving whatever i could salvage due to some silly messages about partition failures, which i can only assume was due to the virus, i decided to forego the external drive and just save the most important docs onto my gmail account as well as some pictures, and then totally wipe my computer and start from scratch. luckily for me, i have a recovery drive...silver lining!

so here we are...my computer is newly reformatted, and i am procrastinating installing things like microsoft office, itunes, and skype. tomorrow, i shall start the slow, maddening process of downloading things. the thing i'm just a little upset about is how much music i lost!!! that was basically why i got the external...but i guess we can't win them all. i'm just grateful that my computer is working again, and without too much tussle...especially since this is the first time (apart from temperamental CD drive) my computer has had a major issue.

if you're reading this: let me steal your music! XD

it's a pterodactyl out of a gay jurassic park!

i think i died and went to heaven. two of my absolute favorite things: drag queens AND project runway all wrapped in one package? not to mention chris march? rupaul?? and tim gunn??? truly the most fabulous runway show in all of history!!! exponentially more fabulous than the WWF challenge last season!! there were so many amazing moments, so many gorgeous quotes...where do i begin?

i think that the only thing that would have made it even more perfect, would be both tim gunn and michael kors dressed up in drag. i love love LOVED the text message poll that they made for this episode...and righteously, tim gunn received the majority (i personally screamed his name at the tv the instant they asked the question)! nevertheless, it was a close race, and i would also be extremely excited for michael kors to be in drag. he would be so bitchy and fabulous!!!

now...onto the actual outfits. i LOVED the dress that korto made, and i think it should have won! i also really liked terri's design, except for the extreme lack of tit tape. but joe did a good job, so i suppose i'm alright with the judgment. (heaven forbid he actually make that sailor outfit as a halloween costume for his daughter!!!) also, i'm extremely glad that daniel went home...all talk and nothing to show for it! although, i was kind of pissed that keith stayed on, but i guess someone had to. somebody, do SOMETHING about his fucking rat tail!!!

i guess all that's left to say is...last image: tim gunn amidst all the drag queens, smiling and commenting about the "flotsam and jetsam".

dream blog...or should i say nightmare blog?

i was dreaming that i went back to my old dojo, only it was different. there were a lot more senseis and students that i didn't know, and they were teaching things in stations that all the students rotated through. you had to wait in line, and then you were taught the technique individually, judged by the senseis watching, and finally you were given a score on how well you did.

the first two rotations, i got perfect scores in. then, the third rotation i got deducted some points for addressing the teaching sensei rudely, which i didn't understand since i had no idea what i did to offend him! shihan jenny was talking to me, and she had these perfectly white and straight teeth. i was so mesmerized by her teeth, that when she turned away, i kind of absentmindedly noted that her gi was wide open in the front and she wasn't wearing a shirt underneath. then i looked down, and realized that my gi was kind of loose, and i wasn't wearing a shirt underneath either! i frantically fixed it and retied my obi.

after i had gone through most of the rotations, i was waiting in line for the last station, which was taught by shihan robert. the line was soooo long. all the people who were waiting had these giant clipboards (the kind you use for art class) and they were drawing their homework for an art class they were all in. there were also these people mass producing deer shaped post-its while they were waiting. yes, i know. crazy. so i was around the middle of the line when shihan jenny announced that time was almost up. shihan robert just looked at her and kept going, trying to go a little faster to get to everyone. but the line was so long, and it didn't really move either, it just kept filling up with more and more people. i never got to the front of the line, and then suddenly, the dream changed.

i was in some weird clinic, and they were doing checkups. a bunch of people, including myself, were standing in straight lines, like assembly lines, and people in white uniforms would go down the lines and do one thing each, like check your eyes, mouth, or hair. finally, after a while, we were being herded somewhere, but we didn't know where we were going. my gi had come loose again, and before i could fix it, they took it off me, and i was naked, and pushed into a room with shelves of medical supplies and operating tables. there was another girl in there, and she looked scared, but she smiled at me a little. then, this doctor and this intense nurse lady walked in. the doctor just sat down, but the nurse started grabbing all sorts of shit from the shelves and piling them on one of the operating tables. the nurse was super bitchy, and going on and on about how disobedient and rude we were, and how we needed to be punished. she started unwrapping all these syringes, and she told me i was first. the girl next to me was shaking, and she took out this deodorant stick, and shook something out of it into her mouth. i just kind of stared, and she smiled and offered me the deodorant, which had a compartment in the back for post-traumatic stress pills. i told her no thanks, and then the doctor stood up and asked why i didn't want the pills. i replied (kind of arrogantly, actually) that i didn't need the pills, and that i preferred to feel things, as opposed to being a zombie on meds. the doctor then nodded at the nurse, and she took this huge syringe and started running the sharp tip of it down my back. she finally jabbed it into my thigh. then she took another one, and injected my ass, and then another one, and injected it into my arm. each one hurt like fuck! i think she was twisting them in...D:<. and then i woke up, all sweaty and twitchy.

story of my life.

i've been obsessed with reading this manga, nodame cantabile. (siiighhhh)

YES!!!!

yesterday and today were EXTREMELY productive.
why?

well, yesterday, i decided that i was going to clean our bathtub, the soap-scum-calcium-and-rust-ridden. and now, we have our bathtub, the-sparkly-clean, after a good 2 hours of scrubbing to the pirates of the carribbean soundtrack.

ALSO, and more importantly, yesterday and today, i passed BOTH six and knights of cydonia on hard mode!!!!!!!!!!! very lame, i know, but i had that nice, warm, honey-melting feeling of accomplishment...kekeke.

i passed six after cleaning the bathtub, and played it again today just to make sure that it wasn't a fluke (it wasn't!). and today i passed knights of cydonia, FINALLY FINALLY FINALLY!!!

updated guitar hero status = i am narwhal. hear me roar. XD

sisyphus, i'd like to introduce you to...

yoda.
i've decided to officially name my ipod yoda.

and so, in celebration and exuberant gratefulness to everyone who contributed to my happy ownership of yoda, i present: with love, from yoda

it's not much, just some songs yoda has enjoyed playing so far this summer. disfruta! ^___^

ideal house characteristics!

a little more than emie, a little less than victoria,

-hardwood floors.
-tile in the kitchen and bathroom, NO LINOLEUM!
-a big open kitchen, with granite countertops and an island.
-big windows, with lots of natural light.
-a heated pool, preferably big enough to do laps, with a diving board.
-ridiculously low maintenance front and back yards (or a really good gardener).
-good A/C and heat.
-i would love to have two double helix staircases, but it probably won't happen!
-rounded wall corners (like my aunt's house in vancouver).
-bathrooms that have quarantined toilets (exception of powder room-esque bathrooms).
-a library-like area, or lots of good shelving, with cushy seats.
-really gorgeous sinks.
-clever, function-with-form storage everywhere.
-a deck for barbequing and chilling outside.
-a nice room for guests. :)


and something i found the other day that was supremely interesting, and that i'm definitely envious of, which fits perfectly with this post. gotta love david ling, in manhattan, no less! what? your house doesn't come with a built-in waterfall, bridge, and moat? tsk tsk.

oh, irony.

just when i've decided that i want to start using my camera (a chubby sony cybershot dsc s600) and working on building some amateur photography skills...my camera decides to die. it makes all these angry noises at me, and the only thing it says is ACCESS on a big black screen. i tried taking it apart, but then i didn't know what to do from there...so i put it back together, and have achieved much of the same, unfortunately. i think this is retribution for taking it for granted for so long...

and yesterday, i was dreaming that we were in an earthquake. and then i woke up to the 5.8 earthquake (centered around chino hills, a good hour or so away). creepy. i wasn't scared at all...i just waited for it to stop and then went back to sleep. but i hope everyone is ok!

[tangent: blogging is really addicting!! this is my third in a row...!! i think i'm some sort of binge blogger...nervous laughter....um...i think i'm also blogging as procrastination.]

there was something else that i thought was ironic, but i truly cannot remember what it was. i've been wracking my brain, and just can't come up with it. so if i remember, i'll let you know.

tag...again!

i just realized...why the hell didn't i post this in my ACTUAL blog??? so here it is....

1) my right leg is rather unlucky. sprained ankle, 2 burns, and innumerable other mishaps, the most recent being a dramatic knee skid while running to cross the street, in heels and a dress, because i was late to an opera.

2) i love words, pardon my superfluous verbiage. i love lowercase. and properly used caesuras. i secretly like being challenged to write. (providing the challenge is a good one with purpose). and i write. a lot. it's my primary catharsis.

3) i would be totally screwed without friends, music, art, and chocolate. but most especially friends…you know who you are. ^__^

4) i am a first degree brown belt in jujitsu. i wrote my college essay on my 7 years practicing it. i should technically be a black belt, but i was too scared to test for it. i miss it all the time.

5) strange obsessions: duckies and sausage. XD

6) things i want to do in my lifetime: travel the world, swim with jellyfish, buy outrageously expensive shoes with my own money, and fall in love.

7) i mispronounce things constantly. they're known as bessie-isms, and the list grows ever longer. popular ones: archipelago, fuschia, salmon, etc. etc. etc.

8) it's a terrible habit, but i can never say no, without feeling horribly guilty (like can't-sleep-can't-think-of-anything-else kind of guilty). i also have this constant need to help others, to be the vault for one way secrets, to be involuntarily yet voluntarily the diplomatic advisor. I have thus come to blame it as my personality, as part of my inherent being and existence.

9) something i always note on first impressions: people's legs from the knee down. don't ask me why.

10) whenever i smell fried fish, fried eggs, or fried spam, i think of home.

11) i'm still not quite sure exactly why i want to be a nurse, but i like it so far, and i think it fits me.

12) i believed in santa claus until i was twelve.

13) favorites:

-season = fall

-food with ketchup = eggs

-ride at Disneyland = matterhorn after dark

-kids cereal = apple jacks/cinnamon toast crunch tie

-color = green

-candy = sour apple rings/starburst tie

-smell = new books

-ice cream = tiramisu

-flower = snapdragons

-holiday = christmas

-commerical = sony bravia...BRILLIANT! i loved this one, and this one too.

14) i almost never wear jewelry. i will wear necklaces and bracelets on rare occasion. i like the idea of rings, but i always lose them. i hate earrings and wearing pearls with fierce indignance. you wear them.

15) i failed my first driving test, and i took another one at a different dmv the next day and passed.

16) i had a really happy childhood, and i don't say it enough, but i'm grateful beyond words and i love my family with all my heart. :)

so i tagged people already, yay emie and elaine! one person i'm retagging....aimiface. do this!

i must be in california

i am updating to appease the blog gods! well...mostly emie. :P (i've also realized my blog is really kinda serious...sorry about that!)

summer has been spectacularly lazy so far. i spend much of my time with nonsensical things, like shopping, guitar hero, downloading music, surfing the net, watching dramas, watching tv, sleeping at odd hours, etc. things that i should be doing: reading, drawing, painting, cleaning, and getting my ass on required stuff for fall.

bridget jones time----
weight = 131 lbs. YES!
ice cream consumed = too much.
books read = 3 (kitchen, persuasion, pain: the fifth vital sign)
shopping results = 3 dresses, 2 belts, 1 oxford, 1 pair leggings, 1 pair sandals, 1 pair boots, 1 pair shorts, 1 pair sunglasses. (i think that's it. i think.)
room status = closet and desk area, organized chaos. meaning, i think it's clean. you might not.
in-n-out visits = 4.
temporary body art = 1 (blues clues ducky on hip, BUT! i have unopened batman temporary tattoos, courtesy of anna...)
guitar hero status = trying desperately to pass six and knights of cydonia on hard mode.

stories =


fourth of july was good...i went to katie's house for a BBQ/birthday party for kevin, her boyfriend. i was dreading it...it was the first time i'd see my friends from high school (excluding catherine, she was out of town) this summer, and i was nervous as fuck. but i got there, and i felt kind of silly for worrying so much. conversation was okay, and we went over to my house to do fireworks since katie was worried that the cops would stop them over in monrovia. fireworks were great, as always...who doesn't enjoy being a pyro and watching the neighbors' illegal fireworks? after megan and marlena left around 11ish, katie, kevin and i hung out just talking for a while. it really wasn't bad. apart from katie talking about their wedding. @_@

i bit the bullet and went to visit my old dojo. it was a really strange feeling. michael came with me, to help alleviate some awkwardness...i dunno if it helped, but i was glad he was there. :) shihan robert looked very amused and actually stopped the class to come over and chat. the whole experience, aside from jon trying to get me out on the mat and the constant prodding me about coming back to classes for the summer, was pretty surreal.

7/12/08-

i went to huntington beach with tiffany and anna, and we went super early to reserve a pit. later on, a bunch of people i used to hang out with at church came by, and we had a really fun day hanging out, swimming (anna and i got caught in a rip tide by accident...oops...!), watching these guys who were in an open RV just oiling themselves and flexing for girls THE ENTIRE DAY, playing touch football (i was elected team captain, no idea why, but my team won, woo!) and then we had a bonfire and smores. i got utterly sunburnt...i now resemble a raccoon and it totally sucks!! but the good thing is, i definitely got a little tan, so yay for skin cancer! hahaha. oh! these crazy ass people a couple of pits away started jump-roping with a fire jump-rope...it was so painful to watch! and other than the sunburning, it was a really really fun day!

THE DARK KNIGHT-
the lines were unbelievable, but totally worth it!!! lol. my only complaint was that christian bale was completely overshadowed by the villain's characters, most obviously heath ledger! (speaking of christian bale...arrested for assault = WTF????) i have never thought that the joker was anything more than a harmless nuisance of a pussy, but heath ledger's portrayal...it was terrifying. and so so brilliant. i read this article after watching it, they said that his voice was the lovechild of daffy duck, marlon brando, and hannibal lector. spot on! the BEST was when he slammed that guys face onto the pencil. [will put up pics soon]

7/19/08-
i was supposed to have a belated birthday party with anna and tiffany (anna's is june 3) and so i went over to anna's, but tiff couldn't make it, so anna and i just had a chill day, swimming, watching tv, pizza, cake and presents, and mall. excellent birthday, i must say!

7/22/08-
michael called about a brand new show, so he picked me up and we went to the roxy and it was a really awesome show! it's been so long since i went to a show where no one was being stupid and shoving people. the guys playing (brian bonzo, kevin devine, and jesse lacey) were super nice, and they kept saying how respectful the crowd was, and how grateful they were. they all played with each other, and it was just a really cool experience. we went to canters afterwards, drank a shit ton of coffee, and then met up with joseph and played some rock band, and then we watched michael play metal gear til like, 4 in the morning. i was falling asleep when they dropped me off, but when i got home, i was wide awake, so i went running instead.

7/25/08-
anna called me and asked if i wanted to go to a kickback that a guy we went to elementary school was having. so i told my parents i was "sleeping over" at her house, and we went to the party, which ended up as...just a kickback. hahahaha...there was a bonfire, smores, and ice cream. and video games, pool, and darts. and two six packs of bitch beer, for like, 15 people. HAHAHAHA! it was fun anyways, and then we went back to anna's house, and stayed up til 5:30 just talking and talking. we wanted to wake up at 1, but ended up sleeping til 3ish....gahhh....!

7/30/08-
today, i'm going to see the body worlds 3 exhibit (kind of like bodies the exhibit) at the california science center with my aunt, my dad, and my mom. i love the california science center, so i'm super excited! and friday, i'm supposed to meet up with the otter pops (katie, marlena, catherine, and megan) and alex and maybe michael to go to the beach. in other news: i absolutely cannot wait for aimi to get here!!! i'm excited to go to canada! and i'm ridiculously excited to get back to seattle! ^_________^

OOBLECK [the sequel]

so heard something new early saturday morning. the morning after my birthday. something even more enormous than last time. and the funny thing is, last time, after mentally vowing to keep my mouth shut, i find that everyone and their mother knew after all...so ironically funny. but this time, i know that i'm the only one. and i know that this time, it's going to stay that way. (with all that is in my power anyways).


i feel like throwing up.


and the worst part about it all? it's still oobleck. still oobleck. nothing has influenced either liquid or solid. absolutely nothing. i have said many times that i don't know what to do. not only has this statement never, in my entire life, been more true, but more than that; i don't know what to do with myself. i don't know what to do with my thoughts, with my heart. i don't know how to handle myself. i don't know how to begin.

OOBLECK

so i heard something today. something HUGE. so huge, so enormous that i can hardly keep from spontaneously combusting. i wanted to tell someone right away. but the more i thought about it, i won't be able to prove it, it's not really any of my business, and what would it accomplish anyways? everyone assumes as much already...so i decided to keep it to myself. for the most part anyways. it took a lot of self-control not to breathe a word of it, even to people i believe i can trust not to tell, or even those who i know wouldn't really have any way to spread it around effectively, even if they told people. but that's beside the point i guess. what the more pressing issue really is...what do i do with what i know?

to me, this is the most solid thing i have heard so far. at least, solid at that nice, cornstarch and water mixture state. oobleck. it all depends on surface tension from now on, and it can turn solidly solid from here on out, or back to liquid that slides through your fingers. do i use this knowledge to apply more surface tension? or do i sit back and let it be what it wants to be, now later, or maybe never? do i let it sit to evaporate, or to congeal? i don't know.

i fell like i've been waiting for something like this for far too long. and now that it's here, i have no idea on what to do. do i prod at it and increase surface tension? or do i believe it to be fixed at either solid or liquid? the more i think about it, the sillier this gets. i feel like exploding. and yet, i've decided i won't say anything to anyone. but i wish i knew. i wish so so so badly that i knew, so that i could get a grip and leave it be at last.

i wish i had veritaserum.

1

this is my first blog. ever. a little surprising, since i write a great deal...but mostly i keep it to myself instead of posting it for the world wide web. not that the world wide web gives too much of a shit about a wee little blog like this. nevertheless, on a passing fancy, i have taken the plunge into the taboo world of blogging...well, taboo for a journal writer like myself...and it's more than a little nerve-wracking. what am i supposed to write on this all-important-self-defining first post?

ummmm....maybe a good idea would be to post a light subject, like, for example, the metaphor for my life. hahahaha! (oh don't fret, it was a class assignment, and its an interesting read...) here goes!

"Charles Kingsley once stated, "All the ingenious men, and all the scientific men, and all the imaginative men in the world could never invent, if all their wits were boiled into one, anything so curious and so ridiculous as the lobster." Lobsters are invertebrates that possess hard, protective exoskeletons. They must molt in order to grow, shedding their exoskeletons then eating the shed skeleton after molting. Lobsters grow throughout their lives, and can live up to 100 years. Because a lobster lives in a murky environment at the bottom of the ocean, its vision is poor, and it uses its antennae as sensors. The lobster is fundamentally a scavenger; and in the proper sense of the word spiritual man is a scavenger enabled to salvage and make useful every item of experience. The sign of the lobster on family crests is a symbol of great strength and power in gripping and holding. It was also thought of as the enemy to serpents, and thus portrays temperance with the serpent associated with sin. In tarot cards, the lobster is a sign of cycles, regeneration, and protection.

To me, the basis of real living is utilizing to the fullest every element in the experience. At each stage of growth, one must pick up all the shreds of his or her life. The process is seen in natural form as it goes to seed in the memories. In summary of my life, each time I’ve grown, I’ve molted my old skin, and eaten it, making it a part of me, of who I am. I am a scavenger searching for what my purpose is and what my passion is. And I intend to make every bit of my experiences useful, those past, and those to come."

that should be good for now. more to come, obviously...

oh, and p.s. i have absolutely no grip...but would like to have some.