Uncustomary Hiccups

every bit of you and every bit of me

2007-05-28T20:34:00.000-04:00

hi. it's been a while. hope you're well as i share my thoughts with you.

what would happen if every bit of me was removed from every bit of you?
would you think of me? no.
would you feel that there was something missing? maybe?
every little bit, from the way i express my thoughts, to the movement of my hands, my favorite sayings, my favorite places to be, my favorite things to eat, what if they were all gone?
like all the black grains of sand were gone from all the sand in the world.
would you really notice?
would you notice my silence?
that i no longer spoke? that my presences was no more?
quiet....without noise.
oceans without waves.
water without the trickle.
rain without the roof deflection.
what if i didn't exist in this world, in your life. would you miss me?

Broken Sky

2007-01-15T14:10:00.000-05:00

It broke and seemed to slop over the edge, slide down to the sides and drop off the side of the horizon.
I lost my sky.
I lost my clouds, the blue, the rain, the whisper of wind that whips upon it.
And as I looked up all I could see is beyond.
And I missed my clouds, my blue, my rain, and my whisper of wind that whips upon it.
I missed you and felt so lonely.

Sunshine.

2006-11-09T22:06:00.000-05:00

I'm praying, praying for sunshine.
Even though I don't hold a god, don't hold a hope, I'm praying for the day that sun shines.
When it feels like the warmth will never stop, and all my days will be glazed with sunshine honey.
When I feel like my path is right and I have to wear my shades all the way down.
When the clouds move aside so I can see, see my way out of this world.
So I can drop my umbrella and skip and run every step of the way instead of fighting to keep what footholds that I have.
And I no longer have to pray, hope, and just know.
I'm praying, praying for sunshine.

I'm praying for you.

China Babes.

2006-07-13T23:22:00.000-04:00

So I finally am going to put together the china post, almost a year later. It's really still very clear in my mind and I also journelled the whole time, so if I don't really remember something I can reference it again ;)

Day 1
So stephen picked me up and took me to the airport and I got on a flight to chicago. He really only picked me up cause I said I would wear his rebuild shirt to travel in. Instead of giving me a hug before I left, he just grabed my shirt and stared at it. So much for friendship. From chicago, we flew over the north pole and dropped down over the upper portions of russia & china. It was really cool and I took a bunch of pictures. On the flight there were a bunch of people from venezuala, I think they were on a tour and they keep drinking bad red wine and clogging the aisles and chatting really loud. They were cute even though I really just wanted to sleep. I realized at the end of the flight that alcohol is free, I got some on the way back. I first arrived in Beijing where I was to meet my uncle and cousin who live in Belgium. My mom was really worried about me getting lost in the airport and actually so was I ><. And so I kept asking where my connecting flight was and no one could seem to give me a straight answer. When I went to transfer my baggage to my next flight, the lady just pointed me through the door. The door defeated me for awhile cause it wouldn't open and it looked just like a wall. But the nice security guard was just like, "keep moving through (idiot)." And it actually was this huge glass sliding panels/walls. It was pretty cool, untill I realized they had kicked me out of the airport system and would have to go through security again. Damn it. And now I was outside and I didn't know where I was. And I felt really uncomfy because people were staring at me. It's pretty obvious that I'm chinese and I think they were really curious, because it's not like I'm straight american. I look chinese but also american. I actually passed some americans and one person was like "Billy! Look we're actually in Beijing!" XD like where did you think you were? So after asking around and going back and froth a bit I finally found the security point, because I was switching to domestic, I was in international till they kicked me out. So then I go in and I'm looking for my gate right? Can't find it. So anyways, I'm wandering around and finally find my security check point. But once I got past it, the next thing I knew, I couldn't find my gate! The reason being that it was 1.5 hrs before hand and they usually don't put in the gate information up till like an hr before hand. So I chilled. I finally met up with my uncle and cousin, they had run out to the city to eat. Jealous. Anyways, when we arrived in Chong Qing, which is in the lower SE area of china, my mom and my great uncle came to pick us up. Chong Qing for history buffs was the capital of China at the time of the WWII invasion. It's also the largest city in China at 3million. There's actually another man along and at first I thought he was a relative but actually he wasn't. The problem in china is the fact that there is too large of a population and thus there aren't enough jobs. Therefore people just end up taking jobs that we would find weird or below or whatever you want to say you know? He is pretty much the driver/secretary/general gofer of one of my aunts. And actually my other aunt, her sister has one too. It's kind of strange because we will just sit in the car and talk and I don't feel comfy cause there's someone I dont' consider "family" in the car. Anyways. They drive us out of the airport and into the city. There were so many neon lights all over the place, even on the highways into the city and then when we got into the city it was a more classy las vegas on two rivers. We go stop at a resturant and then climb at least 5 set of stairs to the ROOF?! I'm like dinner is up here? And we come up into a courtyard and there are three rooms on top and tons of people running around. I have no idea who they are. But here is one of the pictures of them. To be honest, all my uncle, my cousin, and I wanted to do was eat our faces full but everyone wanted to take picutres. And to be honest, I don't even know who half the people are I guess I could try. so sitting at the table from left to right: My uncle, my cousin: yen yen, me, & my mother. Next row is: my aunt, someone, my great uncle in the back on my grandma's side, my great uncle on my grandpa's side infront of him. Someone, someone, someone, someone...till the end which is my 6th great aunt. Obviously I know all these people. Right... There were a ton of kids running around and most of them were boys *raised eyebrows* my mom said that the girls had left earlier for class but you have got to wonder neh?

Day 2 or 1 depending on who's time sched you are counting on. I lost a day for people in america.
So when I woke up I woke up hungry. The jet lag had made me hungry, it was only 7am but old people, which was the majority of my party get up early. So we rolled out and went down for a continental breakfast mixed with chinese food, like ti fan or congee for you cantos. They had these adorable cute little oranges the size of stones, they were really sweet and stuff like that. Anyhow, we hit the road at 10am with one of my grandfather's friends. When his son had come to america he didn't know anyone so my grandpa had taken him in and all that stuff so when my grandpa came here the father felt like he really had to take care of my grandpa, which included today's little excursion, getting a driver, and renting a car, and paying for my grandpa's hotel stay. A pretty penny. sigh. Anyways, It's pretty interesting driving around because when I came in last night it was dark and all I could see were flashing lights ><. We are staying in the city center area and we drive out and see what everyone has been talking about. Fog. Yes. Fog. Chong Qing and the surround areas are famous for its fog. Also the city itself is built on a rock. Yes a rock. so it's actually a really safe place and very defensible. So the houses seem to shoot straight up off the rock and up and up on ledges and other things. Also, it's pretty safe from flooding or other major problem. And also they were able to during WWII bombing hide in the tunnels through the city and the rock. ANyways, we drive north of the city to Bao Ding I think? To this huge valley gully that as you curve down the side, they are covered in carvings from different eras. Some took 3-4 generations to finish. Most of the carvings are about buddist theory and what happens after you die and stuff like that. They actually have 18 levels of "hell" Before heading down to the valley they actally had a themed route so you could see the 18 levels. It was lame, but interesting in a bad halloween haunted house with lots of manicans, flashing lights, moving parts etc. But My mom tooks a ton of pics but the one that I like and took was this:
Yes, no carvings or scary haunted houses. Yeah yeah, crappy and boring but I like it better than the statues. SOme of them were so old they were just smooth people and walls. hmm anyways the drive out there took 2 hours. The countryside was really interesting because it was all farm land and then this sudden intense city and then farmland. It's interesting to me I guess cause I don't see it very often in the US. On the way there there was a car wreak and they were trying to get the pigs back into the truck. Interesting. So for lunch we stopped at this intersting place that was on a swamp/pound of lilies and for each table they had a little hut or room built over the swamp/pound. It was interesting. It was hot pot and they put a whole fish into each one. The following two pictures are to express my shock. Pretty much the had killed the things seconds before and then when they put it in the water, the hot water cause the muscels to tighten up and cause the fins to move and I thought it was alive! My grandpa's looking at my face in the second pic I think it's funny ;') MY EYES! Don't miss my eyes now ok?!

The food was really good though. They had such good hot mala. I took a bite and half of my mouth went fricken numb. Serious. I'm having a bit of problem with the food cause it's a little oily and there are things that I've seriously never seen before in my life. But I'm still willing to try...a little bit. ANyways, the ride back was long and I was still pretty jet lagged so I slept and then when we got back we went to dinner. Pretty much everyone was trying to fight to take my grandpa out to dinner but it's kind of hard cause 1. he's only one person and 2. He can only eat so much. Oh! Did I explain why everyone's fighting over my grandpa? My grandpa was the only child of his family to leave china during the revolution. He left around his late teens and haven't been back, he's 80. ANd he's the oldest of 8 kids. So everyone wants to fight over him and he suddenly was like, I'm goign back to china to see my hometown, everyone follows. ANyways, back to dinner. I liked the meal but really wished it had been a bit more spicer. Pumpkins in China don't taste the same as in the states. They are SWEET. They are so good. They fried them and it's so sweet. But yeah pretty much every table, every time we ate, there were like 5 servers and it just made me uncomfy. It's really anything you do, there's always 5 people serving you. THe bell boys at the hotel, just there to open doors for you. Servers at resturants to peel your chopsticks, serve your tea, listen to your conversations, etc etc. Sigh. I hate when people are around watching me, taking pictures, or staring...I just glare back. OH and the other interesting thing I found out is that they pretty much force retirment in public service. A great aunt of mine is a professor of appied mathmatics and she was force to retire at 55, men get to retire at 60. You know what I think about it, if you want to know call me and I'll tell you...very nicely.

Day 3?
Hello World, And we are off. We got up, ate a hearty breakfast, and went down to wait for hte buses. We have two drivers today and a huge car for 24 people. yes a big bus essetnially. But we only had 16...only 16 and two drivers. And we head out, with another car in tow of other cousins, uncles, and relatives to take even more pictures. Ok so the people along: my grandpa's younger sisters, 6th and 7th. There's also 5th brother, and then there's another brother...that I don't remember the number forI think 3rd, but who knows. There's also my grandpa's older cousin, the one below that he grew up with and loves and misses very dearly. He's almost 90, smokes, can move around without help, relatively healthy and problem free, and has a full head of black hair. How cool is that.
HOpe I'm like that when I'm 90. Mayb enot smoking but everything else. There is also the 3rd cousin younger than my grandpa. That's not confusing right? right? alright let's go on to name their gkids and grandkids. Ok no. I actually did name them in my journal but I'm not going to. Anyways, So my grandpa's home town is Yang Si (direct translation: Lamb Stone. Don't ask, I don't know.) and it's on the bank of a river. But no on knows where we are going, they just "know" where it is. They have never been there so they are like uhhh ok. So we start driving and we are taking the highways. My mom says that in 1985 most people didn't know what a high way was and now they can't even live without it. The reason that no one knows where we are going is becuase most people when traveling fron Yang Si is to float down the river. We really can't do that cause we have so many peopl and now there are roads...unlike before...scary. Supposely it's about 3 hours away. We first start out on highways, then city roads, and then we get serious country roads. They are full read dirt and full of stones to provide better tractions but it cause the bus to swing back and forth scarily. Instead of taking 3 it takes about 6 hours. About 4 hours in we hit the YanZi River. It really has become the National Geographic for the Tan family. We hit the river but there's no bridge to get across it. So we get off and pile onto the beach and pile on this little boat to cross the river while the car takes another. THat's the river below. The city on the other side of the banks is where my grandfather went to middle school. When we finally crossed over it was still another 1 hour of driving before we go to Yang Si. It took so long. ANd when we hit the river we also were told we took the wrong route cause there was another one that was shoter and had a bridge -_- oh our preparedness. The city is called Hu Gong (Hu Zhou the Hu and Gong, 3 water dots and a prince gong...I think it's gong)
While we were driving over to the town we saw a pubic bus that runs to Yang si. The whole bus freaked and everyone had to take a picture. It was actually really funny cause when we saw this we found out that my grandpa's uncle was in this town gambling. He really wanted my grandpa to come back cause he couldn't leave his game and we were like come with us but he was like....I'm winning? oh the tan family. full of gamblers.
My grandpa's uncle is a foot doctor but he was about an hr away from his area of business gambling. amazing ;) 5th uncle was the last to leave so he knew the most and he started getting excited when we got close. When we pulled into town the road changed to paved and it looked like a small city in taipie....tall tiled buildings and stores. We parked and then walked over to my grandmpa's house. It was like an old chinese soap apera but older and less quality materials. SLanted roofs, wide doors that open the whole side of the house, and a block of wood acrosst he bottom of hte door. We wound up in this little street and up these stairs.

ALong the way we stopped at a open room. I guess it was an old tea house resturant that my great great uncle had opened and there were a number of tables in there for majong or Sichuan cards (big2). If you passed the house and looked around it's corner you could see the river right down a slope. and along the house you could see where water would sometimes flood up to cause it was growing green stuff up it.

And here it is, in all it's glory. The house use to be 3 stories and then also a basement but it's lost two of its floors and the front had been built out so it didn't look the same. My great aunt said there use to be a grape tree in front and huge door to get int he house. The only thing recognizable was the basement door that they all ran out of to go to school in the morning.

That required like 5 million pictures. We finally got someone to come and open the house cause no one lives in there anymore. It's really run down inside. It was kind of cold and dirty. The walls were made out of paper thin plaster and wood frame. The kitchen wok placements were kind of run down and falling apart. My grandfather went to the back room which had a cart full of hay in it...don't know what it was doing and said that this is where he was concieved and born. It just hit me then, the strength of will to get back to this place no matter how far he had gone just to come all the way back and drag the whole tan family along for the ride. The whole time we were walking around the town my grandma kept turning to me and being like, aren't you lukcy? If your grandda hadn't left you would be here pulling up yams. And yeah we are very lucky. Pretty much after that we packed up and headed out...my mom wouldn't let me go to the bathroom anywhere on the trip cause it was the country side, good thing I didn't drink much water. blah

Day 4
Pretty much for the rest of the trip it was visiting relatives and just doing touristy things. The most interesting things happened the first three days of the trip. This day we just went around viewing Chong Ching.
Chong Qing, and where the two rivers met. You can see if you look closely...one is green (Jia ling Jiang) and the other dirt redish (YangZe). It's a cool city and I would love to go back. It's such a mix of old and new. It reminds me of taiwan but then there are people walking around with bamboo sticks and rope on the end so that if they need to carry anything heavy then can put it on either end and balance it on their sholder. Most people do this becuase most people don' thave cars to carry them in...just very rich people do. We had some real hot pot. Real hot pot is just oil with hot spices. My mouth was going numb becuase some of the Ma La spices they were using. The food was different but it was good. The tripe was black and they brought out duck blood jelly and threw it in there. I tried everything but I was confused by half of it cause it looked so different. We went shopping for the rest of the day and ate.

Day 5 (the 2nd of Nov, I think)
We packed up to head out to Beijing. THere are three things I forgot to mention. 1. No wonder everyone is brainwashed here, chinese propaganda is painted all over the place, especially the country side. It's on tons of houses and it's white on red brick so it's really stands out. ANd in each town center they also have a nice little picture and some local saying or issue of propaganda. Man the governement really knows how to brainwash and send people out to paint. And there seems to be trash everywhere. I think they jsut take the trash from the city and dump it int he country side. it's going to come back and bit them. A lot relatives came out to send us off. To be honest through out the whole trip I just felt uncomfertable. THese are people that I barely know and yet they are my family. If I see them a few more times I might get a little more comfy...hopefully.
My grandfather getting drunk at dinner. Again. He really can't hold his alcohol. at all.
My family on the great wall of china.
Pretty much I'm going to wrap up here. Beijing was more touristy then Chong Ching. We were staying with my grandmother's side of the family, her cousin, my mom's aunt but just about the same age. I really enjoyed eating in Bejing cause my great aunt is taiwan born and raised so she took us to all the the good taiwan places. One for lunch which was super good. Shaved ice, we had peanut and it was super good I don't knwo why. The thing that really stood out to me was how different beijing was after 5 years. I had come a few years earlier and all the houses were being torn down and rebuilt and the roads were being fixed up to the point where it was becoming a huge city...any city int he world. There's a really famous street called Silk Ally and it had a lot of history as the ending point of the silk road. They tore it down and then put a building housing a bunch of merchants. It's sad and such a lost but the chinese just steamed ahead. So much is being torn down. We did go over to the old governmental quarters which they are keeping and some of them have been turned into unversity's and gardens and what not. It's cool, just think Chinese soap opera plus royal court and you get the general idea. My great aunt lives in a really nice apartment but she doesn't jus have one she has three. the other two is for the aunties which do everything, cook, clean, and sleep with her adopted child. it's weird. Having someone do everything for you. I also met a few kids who were born in US but living in China. I think they are going to have weird lives going back to america for college. They've been able to pay for someone else to do everything for them. I've been told that they actually have classes for seniors on how to teach them how to cook and do their laundry to prepare them for college. oh the sadness.

That's about it. It was a great trip and I'm so glad I took school off to go. It was once in a life time and I know my bro missed out and regrets it. But man the ducks and chickens in the country side....scary...scary....

Thanks for waiting for this post so patiently. I hope you felt it was well worth it ;)

Here on the spin again

2006-07-13T10:40:00.000-04:00

hi everyone,

I changed the blog layout. I'm not really having more time at the office but I just felt like keeping this up. I'm going to change it more for poems and travels since....that's pretty much what it's become. Shadywaters will probably become my everyday thing. I'm goign to get up my china trip (back in november ><) as soon as possible. Should be this weekend sometime. So get excited. Or not. Or get some ice cream.

But is the layout not cool? tell me it's cool. Cause it totally is!

Hello Lovlies!

2006-01-27T11:06:00.000-05:00

Alright, long time no see. Yeah I've been horrible. I will bring you the China blog soon, sometimes soon, promise.

but on other notes, I've started another blog. HAHAh imagine that: Lame Conversationalist Like the title says, its really about how one can um...have some bloopers in conversations. Go share you're own too ok? ;D I'll keep this as daily life, that as my bloopers, and I have another one that I have yet to figure out what to do with -_- I feel like I have too many. Oh I can't forget about my last one. Shoot...what am I doing with 4. There's no way I could ever....keep them all up. urg.

11:59 time

2005-12-26T02:56:00.000-05:00

So as I sit here...on the day of xmas and wonder....its such a strange day for my family. We don't have any beliefs but we just use the religious holiday as an excuse to get a huge gathering together. There are least I want to say...7 or 8 families in the house, including mine. They all bring the food, starting around 4 and they still haven't left yet. I use to know every kid that came to the house, they were kids that you grew up with, but now a days, I'm not sure who's kid is who's. they come walking through our house and I'm not even sure if they are attached to anyone. So this year, we watched lots of movies, kung fu hustle, shaolin soccer, saving face, polar express, etc etc especially since, all the little kids had forgetten to bring their own xbox 360's or whatever console is popular right now. Instead, by the end of the evening they had settled for our old N64, yes....N64 *gasp* how can they still exist. Blah you, I like my mario. But currently they are playing star fox. A game is a game is a game. And that's all I have to say ;D And we of course ended up breaking out the Majiong game for about 4 - 5 hours, I feel like I'm getting worse but its still so much phun to use my brain.

It's nice being home. I miss the peace, my big bed, and my family. The fact that I can't walk on any of the wood floor without slipping, no matter if I'm wearing socks or not since my aunt doesn't have anything to do now that she's done with classes, so she bakes, cooks fantastic things and cleans everything, including the floor which really isn't meant to be since....well we were planning on ice skating on it right? Or the fact that my mother still buys me such girly fashionable clothing....that it sometimes puzzles me since well...I don't wear those types of clothing....I think she's hoping that I will be the girly girl that she never was...maybe the next generation. My cousin, is still my cousin. ANd my brother still puts everything to the last moment, namely presents. First we had to wake him up, then we had to sit around waiting for him to wrap last minute presents, and the night before he had to order my mom's present online. Ahhh child, get off the computer and remember to do things.

My dad has restarted his love affair with the fish tank, except this time he's going salt water. The freshwater fish did not take well to the well water, hopefully this will last longer. And he waited until michael and I were home so we could go pick up two nemos.....and rent the movie to watch. Ahhhh my dad's so corny....both of my parents are, that's probably where I get it from. But we were in Petco getting my dad a gift certificate when I was like....I haven't seen April yet (my cat) and my mom stops dead and is like, stephanie, I'm sorry I didn't know how to tell you but April died on the 12th of december. And I didn't want to tell you during finals and distract you. ANd I was like....and instead you told me in the middle of Petco. It's really hard, April has been with us since 1994, which means she's almost 12 years old. And she's been through so much, growing up, knots in her hair, moving, being ignored, kicked by the male members of the family, shaved, gross stuff growing in her ears, declawed....man the list goes on. And it probably all shapped her personality into what it was. Didn't like little kids chasing her, sometimes changed her mind about affection, became the "watch dog" of the famliy, since the family dog, Goldie failed miserably at it. hated Goldie, loved sneaking out of the house and into the woods for some random trecks, had a really weird meow. And I'm going to miss her, cause she loved the fireplace, and when she was sweet....she was sweet, she liked sleeping on my bed, but could never settle very well unless it was on my body and she pressed against me at least 50 times, she liked to pretend she was a real cat but picking up the dead mice in the mouse traps in the basement and give them to us, or chase insects around, but not kill them. And she really was a memeber of the family.

My dad buried her in the back, and I wish there was more to mark her passing, and more for her to leave behind. It just makes me sad. I'll get a picture of her up once I find one that I like. At least I have a few of those.

I'll get working on china trip soon and pictures. Until then I'm off.

Can you ever lose it all?

2005-12-18T22:48:00.000-05:00

Pride
------
Like the water slipping through your hands.
Never calm, never settled, never perfect, and always overflowing
I want to be held by you, protected by you, even as I slip away, down your arms, sliding across your skin,
And I hope you won't throw me away, even though I am, never calm, never settled, never perfect, and always overflowing,
Even when your irritation crashes over you like a diving wave,
Even when you can't get rid of the wetness, the dampness, the creases in my little pond.
Please don't toss me away,
because even though I am never calm, never settled, never perfect, and always overflowing,
I try, I try so hard to be calm, settle, perfect and not overflow from you hands,
I try, I try so hard to still my waters, leave no marks, and erase all the dark smudges that I always seem to leave behind no matter how hard I try,
I try, I try so hard to reflect back what you want to see, just so you won't throw me away.
I know I'm not what you want, what you hoped for, what you even planned for,
but don't throw me away, don't throw away my calm, my settleness, my perfection, or all those things that I lack.
Don't throw me away.

Reliance
------
I lied when I said I could stand alone.
I lied when I opened my mouth.
I lied when I smiled for you.
And I lied when I tilted my eyes.

I lied because it's easier then telling the truth.
I lied because I never want to reveal my weakness.
I lied because I have my pride.
And I lied because I want to pretend, in some dark corner of my mind, that I can stand alone.

And I will.
I will stand alone.
I will pretend, move on, not look back, and find my own way.
I will because there is nothing left except me.

------
Ok honestly. I was at this party this weekend and my friends where there, about 7 and 3 of them have significant others, and that's fine, but they brought them. And as I was sitting there trying ti figure out a stupid topic to speak about that everyone would want to talk about....I realized....why people find significant others. So that when they are at a party or a meeting or a place they never have to be alone, they never have to look uncomfertable. They always have some to turn to, talk to, laugh with. And as I was sitting there, my next thought was...maybe I should get one, you know like...something you pick up at the store. "Um yes, do you happen to have any blue significant others? my green one ran out." Oh yes I could see it now. Ug. So at that point I was like...either I could pine and find one or I could move on. I choose to move on. I will now state that I will never find a significant other, at the store or any where else just for the reason of having one. However, I can very much see the reason why it does occur the way it does. Oh the pressures.

Show me your Care

2005-12-12T22:19:00.000-05:00

I couldn't think of any hot or good title for this post. The other one that I could think of was "Love" and I thought that was just too lame for words so I will now stop typing about the title.

I've been going up and down lately, trying to supress my emotions...or deal with them responsibly without them coming out and attacking people unexpectedly. It's hard, I'm a very emotional person and its like this flood that sweeps me away. But sometimes I just need to release...so I feel better...I just need an outlet to let it all out...and sometimes its yelling..sometimes its crying...and sometimes its just hitting my pillow on something inatimate lots and lots of time...and sometimes it a bit of all of the above.

And I haven't talked to my bro in weeks, even though he's like a 10 min bus ride from my place. We are both very busy and its hard sometimes to settle and just hang out cause he's so stressed and I'm so stressed....and we are really busy. But anyways....My family...they may drive me insane, piss me off, but I know that if I ever needed anything or had a need, they would be there. They are so comforting to me when I'm uncertain about things or about what other people feel about me because they are the only ones that I'm sure of....I'm totally sure of their care and love. That's never a question for me. And I know that I am extremely lucky in that aspect that....I'm confident in their care.

There are some people that I know they care about me...those that are closer...but even then....I'm not as sure as my family. And to be honest...I don't think I could expect anyone other than my family to do so.....

So kudos to my family and seeing them soon. We may not talk a lot but I know that they will always express their love to me in any way they can, because they care, because they love me....that's never a question.

-------
As I walked down the street, passed down the aisles, sat in the classroom, and ate lunch at a counter, I felt your thoughts pass mine,
As you passed me on the plateform to work, went to buy a get well card, sat on a bench in the park, and called your mom on your phone,
I felt your thoughts, your feelings and for just a moment
For just a moment I felt your rage, your passion, your pain, you love, you haterd, your heart, and your calm,
I heard all of it as it whirled within you, outside you, wrapped you in its contents, squeeze you tight, soothed your soul, whip around you in the air, and snap out to attach itself on me,
As it sucked me in, made me join the whirl, the wave, and crash and then slowly receed away as we walked further and further apart as the line stretch thin...tighter...and then snapped.
I felt everything when I brushed you on the sidewalk.

Rundown: Sliding down the wall

2005-11-22T11:09:00.000-05:00

So I haven't posted in a while. For all you hopefuls, China's post won't be up till I get home for xmas and I get the mass amount of pictures we took there. My family took so many that my mom couldn't even burn it on to a DVD cd. Can you imagine. Only my family. It was almost like, everytime there was more than 3 people together in the same general area and then five cameras would whip out and they would be like, we need to take group pictures! SIgh. I might get it earlier if my brother brings me pictures when he goes home for thanksgiving but probably not! so hehe ;D

I've been meaning to blog about something that pissed me off in class the other day. We happened to be talking about activism and corporations in a bschool class. ANd this kid sticks up his hand and is like, where do these people come from? They must all come from Seattle, becaseu the WTO riots were there and those people in Seattle are so weird. And he goes on to dig the whole and be like, yeah I was there for microsoft second wrong interviews(oh don't you sound so cool and smart) and was shocked by the people there. Diamond lanes, the whole atmosphere. And I'm just like yes! let us just generalize a whole area of the country aren't we good at that!And what the hell is wrong with caring about the earth and the water we are drinking. Yeah you might not understand since you've lived in auto capital of the US but still. Sometimes I don't understand what people are thinking!

And then some other kid goes on and is let me rephrase the first student's comments. ANd I'm like lets not! And this kid goes on to say that activists shouldn't even been around to do the things they do. I blew up! But really....why do people feel so comfertable just saying these things and just generalizing a whole population? And the teacher said nothing. And I'm like here I am being typecasted as this radical in the bschool. Honestly....sigh.

But it really does extend to how well people are able to just generalize a whole population. ANd really do these kids think about it when they walk out of hte classroom. Do people really think about these things and how they think about the people and institutions in their lives? SIgh....

So Gm, is going to lay off 30,000 employees. My mom sent me a email along the lines of "I guess you were right" Really...Iguess? hahahah my mom I knew she thought I was kind of out of my mind to turn down GM. But look at it. Its a huge ship and its stuck on a sandbar. Its still floating but really its just sinking further into the sand and its not going really anywhere. And to add onto further shadiness of Gm, there is this hybrid they put on display but its not actually a hybrid, people found out afterward. Oh dear.

And finally, Wouldn't it be hilarious if life was a musical. Everything you did or say would be in song and everypainful memory would be accompany by a song. Or how about having a soundtrack when you walk in the door or whatnot ;D

Hello

2005-11-07T10:24:00.000-05:00

Hi everyone,

It's been a long time. I just got back from a trip to China and I'll post about it....soon...in the next two months. I have it written down but its a pain to transfer to the computer. And I'm really busy so hold out till xmas ;D.

Contrast

2005-10-11T20:36:00.000-04:00

Light or Dark,
Heat or Cold,
Icy...

Will I be able to be all the things that I want to be or the things that you need me to be, at the sametime, at the same place, within the same hour.
Will you leave me if I'm not. Will you hold me even as a I fade from your expectations and will you seek me when you need comfort.
And even as I'm selfish, want for myself, hold to myself and only to myself. Will my heart be big enough for you, and yours, and those of theirs, and maybe just some of mine?
It won't will it. I can't expect, accept, hate, deny, want, or push away the things that I want to be when I want to be and where I want to be. Can you deny them for me? Can you deny me for me?
And even as I say I should will I should? or will I not or will I do or will the avalanch that carried me to this point die or can I jump off or can I just throw it all god damn away?
What I want? What do I want? And why can't I leave that questions behind and focus on what you want, what you care, what you fight, and what you hide.
Why can't I forget myself sometimes, fade into the mist, become a part of the whiteboard and leave no smears on your windshield of a car. Why can't I disappear into the wind, rustle in the trees and be nothing more than a thought, because thoughts are all that are intangible and not real because thoughts are not really whats important. Ideals are not what's important, its what you hold, see, breath, take, touch, kiss, crush, and kill that's important. Leave me behind. Because that's all I am...behind. Leave me behind.

Dream Hazing & Shakes

2005-10-09T10:01:00.000-04:00

So hi. I haven't posted in so long and I'm sorry, life's been moving and I'm trying to slow it down...if not stop it.

So lately....I've been having dreams when I'm sleeping but its really hard to remember what happened. Usually I can remember it all. But hmmm...I don't know its really interesting. They are ususally about people I deal with everyday in my life. But I will wake up and be like, oh I didn't have a dream last night. But then I'll be going through my day and I'll be like thinking and say "oh yeah that happened" in real life. And then I'll realized that it didn't actually happen....it was a really explicit scene from my dream.

Like last night I had this weird Haze that we were on this whole like trip/class/competition where you have to go to in a class/room and do something to pass the level, but the group behind us kept crowding us and trying to get in to our level. A lot of UAAO folks were there and marcia was there and she was like just skip out and come to detroit to hang with me over the weekend. And I was like...ok...and this guy in my section, George gave me a ride...it was weird.

So I just found out there was an earthquake in S. Asia. My heart hurts, the issues and the problems are just numerous. Ahhh...I hope the news coverage is better this time...instead of helpless white tourists....and the aid....hopefully will be better. Ok world here I come.

Blaaaaaast

2005-09-18T20:46:00.000-04:00

I breath, I sigh. I don't want to but I do.
My breath barely stirs as I start up. Slowly working, building up the hill.
It's as if I've seperated from the rest.
What is happening over there is reactless to over there.
I know its coming, I'm not expecting much, even as I pick up the pace.
Work hard, work hard, harder....
I sigh out. The breath isn't hurried or lifeless.
And suddenly I peak the hill and I'm sliding down... and it starts
catching me by surprise...

blast
blast
blast

blaaaaaast.....
and I arch off the ramp of the hill and spring into the air.
How unexpected in a time of dullness and breathing...
even as the blasts echo from within...without...and around me....
And as my breath....blasts out. one, two, three.

Do it again.

Inadequacies aren't Enough

2005-09-17T14:16:00.000-04:00

Aaaaaaaaaargh. I took an LSAT test today and it just wasn't that good. At least good enough. And I didn't imporve. Argh. Harsh....I should really be like 10 points higher, but who's really counting right? Law Schools are. I just want to cry, fall into the pit of despair....argh.

Another inadeqacy is responding to comments. I'm just not quick enough my my mental brain feet to move into the right position and think of the thing to say.

Actually I don't want to share, so that's it for the inadeqacies but be asured the list is really much longer.

Dipar Rash

2005-09-15T16:59:00.000-04:00

Yes omigod, I gave birth to a child and it had dipar rash. No not really.

But I happen to be sitting there. I wasn't sitting there, well I was, but I wasn't just sitting, but you don't really need to know what else I was doing. And thinking. So for little kids, when they wear dipars, it like a totally huge problem right? Everyone talks about it and is like omigod, those poor kids, always screaming and their skin is so horrible and so people come up with these great things to take care of it so its not as bad.

But I never really made the one plus one connection with dipar rash, and pad rashes. Yes. Can you imagine! These things, these pads that are suppose to stop blood are just like diapers. I'm sure when they were designing them that they wanted to make sure that it didn't look like a diaper, not like ensure. Which they spent no time at all on the design, it looks like a diapar, feels like one, hooks on like one...it basically is a diaper but we don't call them that. We call them something like..I can't remember, security pants or something like that?

But Pads. Honestly. Why when we are older do we not complain about rashes and get something for it. Maybe we do. I should check sometimes. Especially when its hot out its just too horrible to describe. Sigh. Why hide the fact that the pad is basically the diaper. And if it was designed like a diaper maybe I wouldn't fricken not sleep well everytime cause I'm so afraid of leaking. Or maybe could we come up with a better material, one that is not so harsh on my most sensitive parts? You know. I was talking to a friend and they were saying that if you get regular tampons that they actually cause you to bleed more cause as you push them up and pull them down the fiber actually tears on the inside of your walls. I try not to think about it too often when I'm using tampons. Supposely organic tampons are better but I haven't run across any, whole foods here we come!

I'm done with my rant. I'm not exactly calm but some what better

Lay out your Heart

2005-09-08T13:45:00.000-04:00

Hey!

So I updated the layout ;3. I got it from blogger templetes. It's great. I really liked the person's designs but nothing was coming out that I liked and work. Till this one, I was so excited that I started doing it in class ;3.

I started another blog on a different program ;3 It has tags for topics so I think its going to be cool. Its for class and will be a bit more technical so ;) But check it out, I'll probably keep it aftewards ;3 maybe. Shady Waters And I need a new layout. woof ;3

Hummmmm Hummmmmmmm me a soooong

2005-09-07T17:13:00.000-04:00

Hey everyone,

It's been a bit. I'm back at school and I really can't think of anything to write. I'm tired and kind of chill. My mom told me a joke when I was at home. She's told me this before but I kept forgetting. So I don't forget:

At microsoft, you know what they say about the changes of getting a husband:
The odds are good.
But the goods are odd.

It's really mean but I thought it was a clever play on words.

This is a site that I really like. I love the little characters that she has. Angry little girls The most recent comic is hilarious it says:

"In life and in cooking, I have a foolproof philosophy"

"Weenies should be fried!"

See for your self. Breath

Hawai'i!

2005-08-23T17:09:00.000-04:00

Alllllllright. This is going to be a seriously long post. Not only are all the days on here, but so are a serious number of pictures. SO have phun ;3 Anything that says Edit: means I added it when I got back and was going through it. I have many many more picutres. If you would like to see them all ask....there are many many...;3

Also, some of these picutures were with my dad's canon. So if you click on it, some of the nice picutres will be huge and very detailed.

DAY 1
Yesssssss! And here we go! We start vacation 2005, Hawai'i. So the family filed out of the house at 4am this morning. My mom was a little stressed cause we were flying United and we were heard that United was being picky and took a while. Our flight was at 6. So we were on the move. Making me wake up at 3:30 is a killer. So when we fly up. The clouds are there, hanging over Seattle. And I was sad, cause here I was leaving when there was such great weather. And we rose through the clouds and as we broke, dawn broke behind us. And the mountains were in front of us. It really was like the islands in the Puget Sound, but islands in the sky clouds. It was so cool.

And as we flew across the pacific ocean, there were clouds everywhere. And this was the best picture that I took.

As you can tell, I love to take pictures from the plane. I hope that I can take some of Seattle and Puget Sound in the sunset, I always don’t get a window seat when I fly in or out. It’s almost golden, the water that is ;3 Ahhh well.

So we flew into San fran, and then from there to Lihue, Kaua'i. In San Fran airport, it was so phunny cause we would be speaking in Chinese and then someone would just cut in and be like, no no you should try this instead. Its so unexpected even though my family just walks around talking in chinese. Its so phunny. And then we found out that sushi actually keeps for 4hrs at room temperature. Just so you know ;3

So there we went, 5hrs and 30 mins later after San Fran we were in Kaua'i, Hawai'i. It was a great flight in. I slept for over half of it, cause of 3:30 and then ate 2 hr warmed sushi. Took some more pictures and arrived. It was a balmy 82, breezy and actually pretty warm. But not warm enough so you start sweating. Its like that tosty warmness you feel when you are getting in between the sheets and they are just about to warm up, its not overly warm, but just getting warmer. The great thing about airports in Hawaii is that most of them don’t have walls. Yup, just open roofs. I just think about if you come in when its raining, storming, Hurricane ect ect.

So while my brother and I was waiting for my parents to get the rental car (or suv as it turned out: honestly …spending more money on the rental and for gas, which is 2.82 right now), my brother turns to me and was like how can there be clouds on the ocean! And I was like uhhhh. He said he couldn’t remember ever there being clouds on the ocean last time we flew into Hawai'i. And I was like…uh hurricanes? Tropical storms? Those are clouds, Puget sound clouds. And he’s like there is more ground there and that’s why, but near Hawai’i? I was like uhhhh yeah! Weirdo, why wouldn't there be clouds on the ocean? But for some reason I couldn't explain why the clouds should be there.

So we drove further south along the coast of the Island to Poipu Beach. The scenery was sweet....and green. yum green. Kaua’i is actually one of the older island, so it is much more lush and vegetated than the Big Island and O'ahu which is the only thing that I can compare to. Actually we found out that the main mountain on this island is “the wettest spot on earth”. It falls about 400 – 600 inches of rainfall a year. Its in the World record books at 715 inches. I could live here, there are enough greens and its damp enough. So a lot of the volcanic rocks are already worn down and the mountain in the middle of the island has been worn down. But its kind of like a smaller version of the rookie mountains but with lots of green grass on it.

So we get to the hotel and can’t get into the “villa”. please is all I can think of. Villa. So anyways. We end up using the locker rooms of an insufficient workout room and head out to lay by the “beach” and figure out what we want to do for the next 5 days. There doesn't seem to be enough beaches on this island. THe big Island had tons. Anyways, the Hotel had "fixed" up the area so that you could sit there and see the ocean. Waa hoo. Rather sit on the sand, but there isn't any shade for my dad. boo.

We of course, don’t figure out what we are going to be doing. Really, I don't think anyone really needs to know or bring their little things to do books to Hawai'i. From the airport, to the hotel, to different stores...they all have these little books of things to do, advertisment etc etc... Dad falls asleep. And the rest of us head off to the beach and test out the waters. Its really really cold. Much colder than excpected. Not only that, the lava rocks are still sticking out of the sand and of course I then proceed to scratch myself twice as we walk across to a little piece of sand out in the ocean where some guys are catching fishies. WE head back and then figure out that the beach kind of sucks cause we spend most of the time worried about rocks. But its still ok.

We move in to the “villa” which is actually pretty sweet, two big bedrooms, two big bathrooms, a living room and a small kitchen. Woooo. So we finally head out to get more food cause we(I’m) still hungry. It becomes that I have had 4 meals today and I’m still hungry. I think its cause I’m on my period. I just thought of it. So go to, Save Big, yes folks Save Big Market. The fruits selection is really lacking. We will be searching for a better market and better food. But we ended up spending over 120 on food for the next couple of days. But really, each meal today cost over 35/40, so I guess it saves us a lot of money. When we got out of the market there was this GORGEOUS RAINBOW in the sky. It’s a half circle, no breaks, no dissaperences, end to end, double rainbow, reflectant colors, and NO CAMERA among the 4 of us. We each have a camera and we don’t have one with us. I’m sorry, I don’t have a picture for you. But I promise that I will keep a look out. edit: sorry to say not another one popped up while I was there. Don't think I'll every forget.

So we went home and ate more food, yum and then ended up veggitating in font of the TV. Actually, just my dad and my brother. They never change. We go all over the world, but we always end up in front of the TV watching some stupid thing we could have watched at home. Sometimes that just pisses me off. Then why the hell are we here. Urrg

So recently, I just got a hair cut and chopped off a lot of my hair cause I couldn’t take it anymore, and my hair looks similar to Rukia’s from bleach. Yes I’m obsessed and yes I know. But it's really phunny cause I was talking to my brother about it and he's like, you're such a dork....but the scary thing is you kind of do ;3 so it's not just me.

Oh last thing of the day. Some guy tried to talk to me at the market and was all like “Hiiiii. How you doing?” And I was like uggg, urrg moving on. I talk to my mom about it and she was like, you need to open up and stop being so like “What do you want” to boys. I was like….hmmm she must be getting worried about my future. Yeah, you damn well be worried about your future, cause I’m going to destroy it.

Day 2

Catch up catch up! So, since Hawaii is 3 hrs ahead of west coast time, which means its 6 hrs from east coast time, we all ended up waking up early. I didn’t get up till 9 but it still kind of early for a vacation…ok ok 8. But my mom was up at 6. Oh dear. So we ate a nice breakfast of fruit, sweet bread, and poppy seed bread and headed out.

Since before we got here, my mom’s been talking about Fern Grottoso that’s the first thing that we decided to do. We got in the car and hit the road. Kaiu’i is actually a very small island. And going up one side probably takes 40min to an hr to go up one side. The funny thing is that the road just stops up near the NW side of the island. Mainly cause the canyon over there, yup canyon. We'll see that later. So after driving up like 20 mins, we arrive at Fern Grotto, which is about 20 a person. The nice lady who took our money really wanted to give us a discount….I think she really didn’t think that the 20 bucks were really worth it.

So you know what this is, its really a little boat ride up the river and then a 150 yard walk up to this grotto. It’s nothing compared to the one in Europe that we went to and was an actually cave we went to. Its pretty much this little indent in the cliff. But what made it really cool was the water fall over the ledge onto us.

And people come to the little indent to get married. I can understand, its pretty cute. But dude the bugs were out and I got bit twice. But what really was phunny was the trip up the river.

So, this little trip was planned by the Smith Family. Yes, the smith family…very home and hawaiian traditional style. SO the idea is you go up the river and then as you go up, this group of people play music for you, and there are two hula dancers. Yeah part of me was like…this is really sad. Do I really want to take in this kind of exploitation. I’m not claping, trying to sing or anything like that…but I’m sitting here. Sigh. But this was the 10am trip, so it was kind of quiet and I think we weren’t chipper enough for the lead singer, and he started singing this sovereignty song about giving back Hawai’i its island. But no one was listening...except me. Yeah….here he was, singing something anti nationalist and no one even flinched. I thought it was great. I even asked my mom about it afterward and she was like...."they did?"

So we got back on the road and headed further north. We were trying to find also a better boggie board surf area. The beachs really are much more rocky than those on O'ahu and the Big Island. On our way up north we stopped at the Guava Kai Plantationfor some of the best Guava I’ve had in awhile. Its pretty cute place, self directed tours. And there’s a little garden with fruit you can pick. I really really love guava. There are so many types of Guava though. THe one that I'm familiar with is white insides and hard on the outside. BUt the Guava in Hawai'i is very pink and a litter green on the outside. But you can eat the whole fruit, even the little green hard outside. hmmm so good. The thing is though, there are little hard seeds inside. You can eat but you can not eat too. My mom says that if you do eat it, you can't poop for a couple of days. I think she just might be right ;3

And we kept driving till we reached the end of the road. I will not regal you with stories of the drive. Needless to say that I did not come all the way to Hawai’i to sit in the damn car. We did the same thing on the Big Island. I don’t get it. My dad likes to come this far and just drive, how stupid can you get. So we finally reached the end of the road, the further West and North we went, the narrower the street got and there were more and more one way little bridges. There are a lot of rivers flowing out of the island. When we reached the end of the road, we checked out the caves…they are really cool. We went in a bit to a Wet cave, where the water floods into it, when there are flash floods from the mountain or from the sea. But its still standing water so there’s funky bacteria in it so we didn’t touch.

As we were driving up, there were a lot of houses. And others being built. Actually a lot of them near the shore are built like a tree house, single story, high above the ground on tall pillars of cement. The cement beams extend further up into the house. I think its to make sure for any tsunamis or any flash floods. But the houses are so cute….with the stairs up to the house way up high. There like little tree houses. Want one want one ;3

One thing that has really gotten me is the number of chickens on this island.

Michael says that when chickens were imported tot his island that none of the predators of chicken…so they are everywhere….I SWEAR everywhere. At least every stop has 4 or 5 chickens and they squawk everywhere. No other island has as many chickens I swear.

So we head back and little bit and pick out a beach to go hang out at. We don’t have any gear so we just soak in the water for two hrs. When in the water, if you looked up at the mountain, there really looked like there was a skull in the mountain side. I’m sorry, I didn’t remember to take a picture…but it really had two indents in the side and looked like the eyes of a skull. Kind of scary.

So we head home and end up chilling at the “villa”. My mom and I went down and grilled the chicken. Honestly though, yesterday, the two boys went and grilled the hamburgers and we stayed up stairs and fixed everything else. But when we went down for chickens, no one said anything and I actually had to be like, can you guys do the damn salad which is soooooooo hard. They come so far and just sit infront of the TV learning about logging techniques and the changes. Seriously. That pretty much ended the day.

I did notice however, that I wasn’t bleeding anymore. Yes, more stories about my period. I seem to always be on my period when we go on a trip. But, so usually you put a tampon in if you get in the water on your period, I think its cause its really unhealthy for water to go up and flush out all your blood. But I think because of the sea current and I kept floating back and forth, that it just flushed they system out. So instead of a 6 -7 day period, I ended up with something along the lines of 4 -5. Oh well I can’t really complain. It just left me feeling a little quesy. Edit: Just kidding. I came home and bleed instead. How unfortunate. Especially sinc eit was spotting...my body is just not happy with me.

Day 3.

So my really great and wonderful brother who I’m sharing a king size bed with, which I steal all the covers from, wants to the see the sunrise at 6:15. I’ve seen in Australia and there are tons of pics from it, so I’m not all that gear and don’t wanna get up right? 5:45, my mom comes and wakes him and I up. Damn. So I’m lying there trying to fall back asleep. My brother starts snoring…a d I’m like well, so much for the sunrise. I can’t fall asleep and suddenly the sunrises and all the chickens that inhabit the island, croweded around my open window and crowed like it was their last cry, for like 10 min straight. I was like…dude I don’t want to see the sunrise, and the one who actually does is snoring next to me. Dude. SO I finally roll out of bed at 8am.

We eat breakfast and then drive around looking for a better beach in our area for some body surfing. We then head to the botanical gardens near the Sheraton down the street, The National Botanical Gardens on Kaua'i, on the south side. . It’s some serious business over there. Much recommended. There’s two tours, a guided one and a non-guided one. We take the non (McBryd), cause its cheaper. Also they have to drive you 3 miles out to a little valley that they have set up for it. It takes about an hr to walk it quickly and straight. And there’s a little river going down it. The guided tour is through a private garden of this family who has spend year collecting native, and exotic, extinct plans. Honestly though…those rich people….This family spend years traveling around asia and other parts, collecting this kind of stuff and artifacts. But they have this nice beach that we got a shot of from up high, seriously, its sweet and anyone can go cause Kaua'i beaches are public property.

But they have this really nice But our tour was cool too. Here are some pictures. One of the best moments is when I went under the tree of a starfruit plant. All the fruit were ripe and the starfruit smell was everywhere. I love the fruit and it reminds me of Taiwan everytime. They had fruits like, jak fruit (liu lian), bread fruit, mango, starfruit….can’t remember the rest. But it was kind of cool cause it was a little valley and there weren't many people its kind of like jurassic park...even though that movie is lame.

After that, we headed to Old Koloa Town and ate some lunch. Lunch wasn’t that good at the Tomkat Grill….its ok…not to fancy or anything. And then we head to this great ice cream place at Lappert'sthey have flavors like Guava, manga sherbert, mango ice cream, White chocolate macedamina, passion fruit. Yum. After that we stopped at crazy shirtswhere we bought some tees. I really liked the guys board shorts, but they were a little big for me. So no shorts.

After that, we came home, dad went to take a nap and my brother and I and my mom headed to the beach to boogie surf. It was great. Except for the rocks. There was a beach on the Big Island, north side that was really really good for boogie surfing…kind of want to go back, but this wasn’t bad…not toooooo many rocks, a few and a few times I thought my blood was flowing but it was good. After, I lost a contact….which now has resulted in my wearing glasses….yucky, my mom headed out. It was so phunny. I took some pictures. This is her first time catching the wave. Wipe out. hehehe but it was phunny cause my mom isn't strong enough, so my brother had to push her off ;3

So we came home, cleaned off…watch some what not to wear TLC. Honestly….away, away from the TV! And headed out to Lihua, the city further north for some PHo. It was pretty good. I also got some bubble tea which was good too. We were kind of out of place though…cause there were lots of locals…and we were not locals ;3

The smallness of this island is kind of nice, everyone knows about the other shops and stuff in the other towns cause they aren’t that far away, the big island is huge to drive around in one day and tiring. Also, I’ve noticed that there are a huge amount of interracial asian couples here. Not only that, they have tons of kids. Its really interesting to see, cause since, I believe that the asian population is 60 percent of Hawaii, its hard not to, and they all have really cute kids. And then a lot of tourist who come are interracial asian couples and have kids. Its kind of nice to see….our future. But I wonder if the acceptance of it is better here, if people ask if those really are their kids or not. Oh well.

I have to go to bed cause I’m getting tired…its almost 10 omigod. But I kind of don’t want to got to bed, cause I had a horrible dream last night, where a teacher that I really liked told me that they didn’t like me cause I whined a lot….it was a really confusing dream with librarys, tests, dark wood stairs, and interviews. Whoooooooo knows!

DAY 4.

Ok, so I woke this morning again at 6am, because Mike still insisted on waking to the sunrise. Which wasn’t out cause it was cloudy. Its been kind of cloudy and cool for the last couple of days, but it still….listening to the chickens yell at the sunrise.

So finally, we head out and head up the west side of the island to visit the canyon up on that side. Its so fasinating. Since this island is a bit older than the other islands….the lava is sprouting up the east on the Big Island because the plate is shifting west, so that’s why it’s a chain of islands.The lava that flowed to form Kaiu’i has crumbled. And actually, some of the lava that is more iron rich, has oxidized, so its blazing red and the contrast against the green sugar canes and the blue sky. It almost looks like the desert but yet, its so lush. My mind was kind of reeling from the colors…but the problem was that I was behind a tinted window. Bleh.

So we drove up into the canyon, which was really cool. We, kept going up, stopping at every view point, snaping a few pictures and then moving on. Here's a picture, I have many many more.

We headed back down the sides of the island to a shrimp shack. We ended up getting shrimp burgers, coconut shrips, and shrimp tacos. They were really good. And just down the street was this great little shack, JoJo’s shaved ice. It was soooo good. Cause they have ice cream at the bottom of their shaved ice, either vanialla or Macadamian. They also have swean may (sour plum) flavor, some thing called hilohilo, a mix of shaved ice, different eats and jam, read bean at the bottom.

So we got back finally. There was an art fair near the hotel so my mom and I hung out there. And we bought these hand made saraongs, they are really really beautiful. And then we went to the beach to hang out and relax a bit. The nice thing about all the beaches on Kauiai that all the beaches are public beaches, so anyone can be on any beach. So its kind of cool cause a lot of locals are on the beaches and no hotel, or persan can own it. SO its cooll ;3
Anyways today was sort and we are going to bed early case we have to get up at 5am to go get on a cadermerain! Lets hope for dolphins and turtles tomorrow!

Day 5.
So it was an early morning for us this time…again. SO much for a sleep in vacation. We got up around 4:30 and filed out of the hotel to drive to Port Allen. Oh wait. So now…I’m sharing this king size bed with my brother, and its been awhile since my brother shared a room. We use to when we were younger, bunk beds and all. So now, we are relearning each others habits. Bathroom habits are nothing new cause we still share one. But bed’s are phunny things. I’m a messy sleeper, I toss and turn a lot and so we all now know that I steal covers. Usually when my friends come over and share a bed with me, I just give them a whole another blanket cause….well they wouldn’t have on in the morning. But, my brother always was a little phunny while sleeping…he has a really hard time remembering things when he’s half asleep….even if he’s moving and doing things. Lots of times people will think he’s awake cause when he sleeps, he only closes half of his eye and they kind of flicker…kind of freaky to see.

So one night, he goes to bed early and falls asleep. I get in and I’m getting comfy and I stick my hand under the covers and I encounter something round and warm. I freak out cause I think its some small warm animal that’s snuck into the hotel room, so much for top class marrott. I grab the round animal and startle my brother, because it is his arm. And I wake him. I am properly apologetic, but a bark of laughter escapes me, but really is he noticing? Nope. Lays back down. And then I snuggle down, ready for some sleep. 5 minutes later, my brother starts twitching and mubling things. And suddenly his arm lifts straight up and slams back down on the bed ontop of the cover. Yup, small round warm animal snuck into the bedroom.

The next night, the night before we woke up early….this night, I couldn’t sleep very well. But something woke me up once. A quick jab to my butt. I had taken the right side of the bed and was lying on my right side and I startled awake and looked back and was like…what the hell are you doing? And he’s like “urrrrrm” of course half asleep. And I was like, You just grabbed my butt!....I exaggerated of course…jabbing never sounds as good as grabbing. And he’s like “oh sorry about that” and I was like…just don’t do it again and feel back asleep. But when I happen to recount the episode to my brother, when he was wide awake….he couldn’t seem to recall. Dangerous villain in the bed and it ain’t just a small warm round animal. Oh the joys of sharing a bed. I have a feeling I wouldn’t get much better at it, especially recognizing small animals.

Alright. Back to the boat ride. So we booked with Holo Holo Tours, which uses a cute Honu (turtle) as its logo. I bought a tshirt so you can see it. It was about 100 bucks a person. And pretty much the whole trip consited of a ride on a cateramerain, a more stable version of a sailboat. Two flotation legs and then a board across it, with a sailing mast….or no sailing mast if it was just a fake sailing boat and only had a motor. We happen to be on the smaller tour, which happened to cost less and didn’t take us around to the Na pali island. Which is actually a really fascinating island. It’s owned by the Robinson family…yes you read correctly. Is it not ironic? Ok, not really, but it kind of is after you hear this story. The only way to get to the island is by boat, tourists are not really welcome cause its privately owned. Not only that, about 200 plus Hawaiians live on the island, helping out the local industry of….I can’t remember and the island is the best preservation of the Hawaiian culture. Hawaiian is learned as the first language on the island. Yes it is ironic and I don’t care if you disagree.

So we head out and its actually pretty cool. The front of the boat has two tranpaleens and I sit on it as we head out. Its cool cause you can look down and see the water go under you…but the spray is kind of funny too. Cause it comes up from the boat and then collects on the tranpalen. And you know those little, flat needle toys, where you flip over and it does an impression of what happenes to be on the other side? The tranpalens are like that, as the wind or wind from the wave makes it fluctuate up, it forces the water on the underside to squeeze through and make little bubbles on the top as it arches and then as it sucks back down, the water disappears. Ok only my little fancy.

So we head out and its really dark. And we are all kind of quiet cause we are tired. The first sign of life we see are flying fish. There are a few and they flutter up….none land in the boat, belching for air, darn. It would have been phun. After that we actually catch huge pod of spinner dolphins. They are so cute. They are actually one of the smaller dolphins and when they jump in the air they spin, thus the name, and its so cute and they had little babies! The time we caught them, they were taking a nap and the cool thing about dolphins is that they can nap and shut down one side of their brain and still move and function. Spinner dolphins are in pods anywhere from 20 – 100 and I wold have to say its somewhere in the middle what we saw.

We moved on and traveled up the west side of the island and up towards the north. The are that we traveled is only accessable by boat, or use to be by trail made by the Hawaiians, between all the living communities along the coast, but good portions of it have been washed away and actually were pretty dangerous anyways 15 in across…could you do it?

We pulled into this one really cool beach area. Can’t remember the name, will look it up, Edit: Honopu Beach, but it’s the beach where all the chiefs were buried. Their families would take the bones as far up the cliff as they could and bury them there. And since it is considered religious and sacrid, you can only swim onto the beach, unless you’re a Hollywood movie company and you pay the Hawaii government enough money. Oh the stupidness of it all. This will be the only time I will mention the movies made on this island. Be prepared. Jurrassic park, raiders of the lost ark, 6 days, 7 nights…and the rest I forget.
But this beach was gorgeous, and there were these waterfalls in the dark crevecies of the cliffs that surrounded it, And there was a little archway to another beach on the other side. I can understand why it is a religious site. I think its really phunny now that I think about it, the only religion that I’m not patient with or understanding of is chrisitianity…all others I think are great…well not great, but I’m more open minded about. Hmmmm.

Anyways, we check out the other beaches, there’s this one cave where a waterfall dripps over and you can get blessed…but I refrained. We finally stop at a reef outside of one beach and snorkel a bit. It was pretty cool, except for the fact that the crew fed the fish so we could all have more phun. Seriously…not a good habit. After snorkeling and going down the slide they had off the back of the boat twice I chowed on lunch. The nice thing about this was that they offer you breakfast and lunch and if you take the afternoon cruise you get dinner.

On our way back, we ran into more spinner dolphins and they were much more awake this time. I wish I was a dolphin. I love swimming. They had cute little babies with them and all I really wanted to do was jump in the water with them, but I didn't think the boat would wait for me.

I’ve been noticing the sounds lately and the ones that I love. I of course, love the sound of the waves. But I also love the sound of the sand as it shifts back and forth under a strong current. I love the sound of the wind, the palms and leafs swaying and the flipping of the pages of books as they pass through it.

Edit: So I just realized that I stop typing at this point. And so now you will have to suffice with my shady memory and the fact that I have to type this for the second time because....blogger is crashing on me.

So we got off the boat and started back. On the way back we stopped by, Kaua'i Coffee. We tried all the coffee that they had, oh sorry, I tried all the coffee they had. Really the holiday blend was great. Had lots of spices. But compared to Kona land over on the Big Island, Kaua'i coffee was a little weaker in flavor and depth. Kona Coffee really had a depth and grit to it, while Kaua'i coffee was a bit weak and watery like. That's just my opinion.

So we got back tot he hotel and everyone got on their beds, except me. I'm so bored after sitting just for a little while. My brother doesn't sleep but watches the TV. ANd I just sit on the porch just typing away. That's why I'm not very good at tanning at hte beach....I get bored after like 20 mins. Really. So finally my mom gets up and I drag her and my brother to the shopping area down the street. My brother decided to come when he realized that tomorrow was our last day! ;3

So it was kind of nice and we walked around. We went to this store, called the Whaler General Store... its pretty much a little Tourist store....sells all the things that are stereotypical of souviners from hawaii. Similar to an ABC store...which are kind of like the staple of hawaii for this kind of store. It's really scary. And I am apologizing now to my friends...I didn't buy you much cause I couldn't stand to buy many of such things...since most of them were made in the Philipines. Yes...sigh anyways.

We came back to the hotel and I think my mom and I went down to the beach to soak a little bit and get rid of our headaches. When we came back we got all the food out and gorged cause you really can't take all the food back with you. Fruit is not allowed. Oh when will the US let us import Guava....sigh.

I don't really remember if we did any thing else that night. I think we did..but I can't remember sorry. I told you my memory is shaddy

Day 6.

Ok, so our flight was at 9:30pm but we needed to be out of the hotel by 11am. So we got up. packed...I swear I packed less than my brother! And I'm damn proud! ;p Anyways. So we get out by 11am, but we still get access to the locker room to shower and stuff. So we put on our suits and head out to this beach down the road, called Shipwreak beach...supposly there's a boat that was sweat into the little area...cause of the current. It's suppose to be a really hot spot for boogie boarding and especially if you are a good swimmer.

Well I get ther, and I'm planning to get in...I even get sucked into a current wave...but the waves are scary...they are at least 12 feet high if not higher. And as it starts up, sucking hte water of the beach at least 15 - 20 feet down and then crashes back up....its kind of scary....the water just dissapears. So I get hit by the first two. And then I stop thinking and stick upt he board and brace myself with my had against it. The water knocks me out, my wrist and ankle groan and I'm down for the count, sands all in my shorts and I'm not sure what I'm doing but I'm rushing to stand back up as the next wave comes in. I decide to sit it out, I can barely see cause of my contacts and I'm tired. My brother gives it 3 runs and gives up. But the waves were so big that the boogie boarders that are out there, are able to kneel or stand up....so weird. But it was kind of a quiet beach cause not many kids were there and the guys out there were pretty serious ;3

So we switch back to the beach that we were before...the waves are big...about 10 feet, but when they hit the beach its a little shallower and shooter. But since the beach shallows so fast, the waves actually echo back out and hit the waves coming in. If they are strong enough. And if you happen to be riding the wave in, you hit the wave coming back out, curve up....like a skateboarder on a ramp and slam back down. It hurts, but its kind of thrilling. THe waves aren't as consitent as they were the afternoon we came...I think its cause its still morning...maybe...who knows.

My mom came out with me and she's so cute...the wave is like 30 feet off and she starts kicking....like this light flutter..she could only really catch the really big waves cause they really go. But after awhile she started chasing the two turtles near the beach. They are adorable and they're eating hte seawee. My contacts were out so it wasn't very clear....but its head was the size of an Osrich egg and it was huge and I almost swam into it by accident. It was so cool ;3

So we get out and go back to the hotel and chill for a bit. I start getting antsy as everyone starts falling asleep. We finally go and clean up. And head over to asian cafe. We look at hte menu and most of it seems to be thai so we sit down. And as we are disscussing our choices infront of the waiter....as he's leaving...he asks if we would like a bowl of rice...in chinese. oh my family ;3

The food is really similar to what you could get in seattle...and good...how I missed rice. ;3 after that we drove to the airport. Did some shopping there and then got on the plane. Kind of sad...it was so dark you couldn't see anything out the window....oh well

When i speak, i speak of only lies to you

2005-08-10T00:41:00.000-04:00

Life is so complicated and relationship require such chess playing.

Ok. So I'm going to hawaii for 6 days. Many might know, many might not know, most probably won't. I might do a daily journal like I did for europe. I just might have internet access but probably not ;3.

Just as a basic background. I'll be in Hawaii for 6 nights on the Kauai island of Hawaii. Its one of the less populated island and hopefully less commercialized. We are staying at the
Waiohai Beach Club Resort, it should be pretty cool. And all I'm going to do is lay there and hang out. I'm so happy cause we are staying in a two bedroom something, which means that I will be able to sleep and rest nicely, since my dad's snoring is going to be far far away.

My family, last time we were in hawaii, visited the big island and then Oahu and Honolulu for much longer. My family really enjoyed it. So another opportunity came up and my mom took it. But even though hawaii is really great I'm really hoping for a less commercialized version. I think it takes a lot of strength to sell something that important to yourself. I know I couldn't sell my culture like that. But we have heard rumors that we should rent a 4X4 when we go to kauai because the roads aren't as good as other places, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Mahalo!

---
I lied....
I lied when I said I loved you, adored you, would tear down the sky for you.
The things that I really want to do, really think of you.
My chest tightens when I'm near you, I just want to grind down on you.
Pressure on your chest, your neck, until you essence leaks out, your husk is just left, and I can watch the flakes of your bone fall off into dust.
The light shudders from your eyes and all I can do is laugh maniacally,
laugh deep and long from the depths of my heart, the pit of my gut, and the swirl of my vortex.
Leave me be, for I only lie to you.

Showering in the Dark

2005-08-06T16:09:00.000-04:00

Ever do that? Without the lights on? It's really soothing. for some reason. ;3

Anyways. I decided to do a little kind of article. Its really come to my attention that my house's garden is really weird. Everything grows kind of big and large. So here is the story about my garden. I love it.

The first piece is the NW palm tree near our front door. Yes, can you imagine? an palm tree meant for the NW. Got me. Now if you can't tell, this thing is at least over 10 - 12 feet tall. Now, it looks totally normal right? However the books have said that this species of NW palm tree should only grow to about 4 -7 feet. Yes. I think my family just grows everything abnormally tall. Kids, counters, and palm trees.

The leaves on the ground use to have a lot more, and started growing up the side of the house, but my mom cut the palms branches that are lower and they started dying. When my mom asked the nursery about the palm they asked where ti was situated and thought perhaps, since it is so close to the house, it just is a really happy palm tree. Well hehe....here's to the happy palm tree.

So the next item in our garden is a "tree". yes I put quotations around it because it really is a "tree". Its actually a vine, but my mom wants to make it a tree. So she props it up witha stick...and maybe one day, eventually it will stand on its own. Just like kids aw. Ok this is getting to sappy. So anyways yeah, it's a wisteria....I think that's what it's called, and it has these really cute lavender flower that droop from it and it's vines are really curly. Yes....the vine that is a "tree" but really isn't. It falls over at least once a year because it gets too top heavy.

Next our the Lilies. Actually I wanted to take a picture of our peonys but they are already gone. They grow to the size of small children's heads sometimes. They are huge and really fragrent. But the lillies just came out and actually if you stand about 15 - 20 feet away you can still smell them. And they are almost a little taller than me....;3

These are some of the older pictures from a year or so ago. When the Rhodadendrens were out and blooming. These things are are also taller than me. Its kind of scary to walk through now...cause they over grow a little during the summer and it seems like a jungle.

Well that's pretty much it for the safari tour of my garden. It's one of my favorite places. I always take loads of pics when I get back cause during the school year I miss lots of things and stuff like that. Cause if you don't go out at least every two weeks, it changes a lot. Things dies, things grow back. And things grow really really tall ;3

Camping at Orcas island

2005-08-02T02:17:00.000-04:00

Weeeeell...so were are back from camping ;3 and here's the story:

so we started out on friday morning. Ever got up on 7am and then fell out the door 8:15. we joined the other family that we were going with further up and then drove up to anacortas. Which is about 2 hrs north of Seattle. It's a little peninsula off into the Sound and caught the ferry. For those of you who don't know. Most of the ferries in WA are double decker ferries, for two decks for cars and then another deck for people. So it packs on a lot of people and cars. while we were waiting for the ferrie I got a wonderful cheesecake dipped in chocolate. It was pretty damn sweet....specially with the crust. but it was a little early (around 11am) fo rme to be eating sweets.

So I was going at it with Harry Potter. Man if the guy who plays harry potter was only older and without gloasses yum. WEll this book was definatlly better than the last one. I feel asleep during the last one. There are very few books that I fall asleep on. The other was Watershipdown and no offense to steph, but honestly how can anyone read that book about bunnies. urg. I finished the book the same day. Honestly. *spoiler* How could they kill the headmaster! urg. Well I'm not that shocked now that I think about it, but it was a sick ending and really I just want it to end I hope that the 7th book is the last book, I just want to know! Anyways. So we got on and did the hour ferry ride. My family is so phunny. We packed the rice balls for lunch and we also had some sow bin and beef with veggies. WE had it set up all over the table and we were all going at it and it was so phunny cause people would walk by and stop and stare, muahahah we are goign to take over the world ;3

Well so we got off the ferry on Orcas Island and then we headed to Cascade Lake. We pass through some of the hill side and then through the town and around the little bay and then into the state park. I hadn't really thought about where we were camping till we got there. But yeah, I've been there a lot of times. When I was younger for camp and then at least 3 differenct more times before. So we got up and set up camp and then sat around munching on food. We then decided to head up the Mt. I think its Mt. Constitution. Anyways. We get up there and there's this tower up there. When we got up there I remembered why I loved the San Juan Islands.

They are little hills sitting in water. There isn't much beach and there's a little dirt under the tall trees and then the dark salt water. We were actually able to see Mt. Baker, in Canada, which is a great place to ski.

We've been going for years and that was the first time we've ever seen it. And we also so Mt. Rainer...but it was a little spec and everyone thought it was a cloud at first.

Well anywyas. We came back and then ate food. I really can't remember what but it was meat. What is it about camping and eating tons of meat. Sometimes I think the whole world made up camping just so that they could just eat lots of meat. URG. ANyways. I went to bed at 7pm, woke up around 10 to take a shower and went back to sleep. and sleep till 9. I'm tired. SO we get up the next morning. Eat the usual bacons (Ew) and eggs and then laze around. since I'm done with Harry, I move on the Lsat studying. Doesn't work really, I fall asleep and end up taking a nap. oops. I've gotten better at taking naps recently. I wake up and then we take a nice little hike around the whole lake, 2.7miles.

Urg It was ok. Half way through i remembered that there was a bridge on the other side of the lake that we had gone to jump off of when I was younger. I had chickened out but I decided that I woulc come back the next day to finally do it. So we went home. rested and got ready to go kayaking.

So we got there, hung out at hte dock for a while. I helped my aunt search for jelly fish in the water as they floated by. We finally started getting prepared. So first we got this thing to keep water off us. It was hung on like suspenders and had like a little skirt. It's longer in the front, cause the oval shape whole in the boat. And on top of that went the life jacket. This was a little different from the ones we had used in Hawaii. We did an open kayaking. This was a closed shells. I got stuck with the little girl. My bro got stuck with her brother. itwas phunny cause jessica, whenever she got tired would just rest, whih was often and there I was making sure we kept up ;3. But kayaking was phun. We went into the lagoon first in the back. Saw an egal. Went back out, headed past the boats, the dock parties, and headed out of the marina and headed toward the first island. That had just been sold recently for $4.3 million. O.o Yup you heard right. We went to the next island and actually saw a dead shark in ghte reeds. It was kind of cool. The water was great. It was so calm, when there were speed boats or tourist boats. And its so dark and deep. And cold. They didn't let us get in, probably cause they were afraid that we would get hypothermia cause it was so cold. But I wish we couel ;3

So we went home. Everyone's hunger and we break out, of course, the meat. WE break out hte marshmellows again and then I'm using this super long spike, that the other family has. It's so phunny. It;s like over half of my height and actually to turn the stick, there's a little knob at the bottom to turn the damn thing. It's like for the lazy of all campers. it was phunny though.

So next morning we really didn't get to do anything, cause we were packing up to head out. We stop on the way out to pick up some huge ass prawns but that's about it. There's a ferry at 12:30 and then another at 1:30 so, we were hoping to get on one of them. We get there and they tell us that we are on standby for 1:30. Uh oh cause we wanted to go shopping at the outlet before we went home and then next ferry was 4:30.
BUuuuuuuuuuuuuut. We got on! We had three cars in the party and my car was the last one on! out of standby, we got on. We were so lucky lucky. And we went shopping. That's about it for camping. i'm tired and going to bed bye by.

Bathroom Shades

2005-07-27T18:26:00.000-04:00

Bleach 189 translation. Raws aren't out yet. This chapter was pretty unsatisfying. I want to be like....story...MOVE! Ichigo didn't meet up with his dad... they just toally skipped. I'm getting this arg feeling of another week of waiting. I don't think I'm going to make it ;p

So we went to Uwajimaya yesterday, a japanese supermarket mainly because a lot of Japanese came Seattle a long time ago. They only have two stores, one 15 min from my house, another in downtown chinatown, and another in oregon. The one in Seattle was rennovated a few years back. And its damn sweet. it's not as big as a Ranch 99, which is just sweet and huge. But its pretty damn close to huge. It also has a ginormouse bookstore, Kinokuniya Bookstores which has tons of Japanese manga, growing taiwan manga(YEAH!), cd's, magazines, stationary. I love going there when i go home. I need to go again, I'm going to buy the bleach manga in english, and they shrink wrap there so I know I'll be the first one to read it...fufufuf *cough* anyways.

I was in the food court section. Oh did I mention they have a pretty nice food court? well mentioned. So anyways, I was in the bathroom waiting for my cousin and my aunt and looking at the signs they had posted on the wall for works when they go back to work. You know wash your hands and stuff. And I took a picture...cause it was so cool.

There are 4 languages on the wall, Chinese, Japanese, Tagalong (Phillipine), Lao, and english. Man I love it. Just wanted to share. Can you figure out which one is which? Man why in the hell do you need three english ones?!

Soooooo Look how well I'm doing. Hold off on posting for so long. Actually its cause I've been waiting for the pic.

So the other day I totally killed my mom....with laughter. So I was asking around for a tissue to blow my nose right? And I'm like where's a tissue? And my mom is like, what do you need it for? And I'm like "I need to blow my nose" Except I said it in chinese...direct translation. My mom started laughing so hard that she was crying. IN chinese, the word for blow your nose (shin) is a different verb than the verb "blow" (tchway) which is used for things like, blow up a ballon etce etc. My mom laughed for like 10 minutes straight....I was so embarrassed cause I do that all the time, I translate directly from chinese or english into the other language. And of course, everyone in my family heard about it. And my dad comes over a few hours later and is like, dead straight face, "do you have a tissue that I can blow my nose" with the incorrect blow....shooot hate my family sometimes ;p oh well at least I won't ever use the wrong verb ever again.

We went to visit this old couple, friends of my grandma. The woman had had a stroke recently and the husband had alshiemer's. The woman was able to speak, there were a few words were it would get garbled but she was pretty normal. They were the cutest couple. The husband kept inturrpting whenever we were talking and say something like "I graduated from UW too", he said it like 5 times. or "I use to do that...etetc" it was so cute. I really had to contain myself so I wouldn't burst out in laughter cause they were such a cute couple.

Hey little girl, Where's your boyfriend

2005-07-26T13:23:00.000-04:00

So the other day, I was hanging out with my aunt, in what I'm sure will become a trend for the rest of my days of summer. And we were doing or usual gossiping. I haven't seen her in a long time so we haven't talked in awhile. We were talking about our family and gossiping. Her sister, my other aunt, a lot of people say looks very similar to me. And we were talking about boyfriends etc etc. Guys in general and I was thinking they are pretty annoying neh?

Anyways....all this talk about boys got me thinking. And as I was pulling out of the parking lot chatting away with my aunt, I suddenly had this horrible thought....It totally freaked me out cause I actually thought it. I thought "I need to get a boyfriend, I'm getting old and I'm running out of time" ARHG!

It made me realized that I had totally been conditioned by the fact that when i was younger, older people would ask me all the time if I had a bf and I would be like Hell no, and they would be like well its ok, you are still young and have time. Well now I'm 21 and I'm legal in every sense possible...and I think I've run out of time. I'm old and my biological clock has stopped. Oh migod...I'm so insecure that I don't have a boyfriend. If I get a boyfriend I'll be young, beautiful, have lots of money, never need plastic surgery, lose weight without exersizing, and have lots of friends and fun. All cause I have a boyfriend. Yes let me go out and find one right now. And since my whole purpose is to procreate, and its best to do it at the peak of my life , 21 - 25 I best find one now so I can start popping kids out like they are pills.

AND that LADIES and GENTLEMEN is the reason that I'm so angry at society and its treatment of women. I hate how it trains us to think about the roles of men and womyn in relationships and life. I know that it should not be this way and I'm going to try my damnest not to, but even I've internalized it. It shows up in the littlest things, the littlest thoughts. My life is not spent to be some barbie doll on some idiot's arm, charming the guest and making sure that the sheets are 300 thread. My life will be spent for me, knocking down every asshole who stands in my way. And the first way to do it is to beat the bschool in the ass...arh I'm so angry now.

And now I need to make sure that I don't date, look sideways, etc etc for at least 3 years to make sure that I don't give into the thought ;b.

But even trying to strive and call for equality for women is hard, the line is hard to draw and where do you say enough is enough, or is where we stand even enough. I don't need guys to open the door for me and they should get more comfortable with me opening the door for them. But at the same time I kind of expect them to accompany women home when its late at night. Is that a contridiction. Part of me says yes. But a big part of me says no. Yes, in terms of brute strength guys are stronger, there's no denying that. Not only that, Women have to deal with so much more when walking down a dark street....do we have a keys prepared to strike at someone who attacks us, should we call a friend so someone knows what we are doing? Am I strong enough to push someone off me...for most girls, probably not. You know what...it doesn't necessarily have to be a guy who walks the girl back, it can be another girl. Thoughts swirl in my brain. Angry mostly.

So it has come to my attention that I'm predictable. Just look at the aim conversation below. I'm talking through slchang's sn and some how hugo just knew. Scary ain't it. And Stephen knew how I apologized to my brother. How do these people know these things? I always thought in HS that I was really independent and only relied on myself. I've come to realize that I do need people (unfortunatly). But I'm still hesitant about how close I get. Obviouslly I'm not really doing a good job about my exposure....if people find me this predictable. Ok need to put on mysterious mask of stephanie ;3 I always thought I was harder to understand. Guess I'm wrong...sigh, so much for being beo-ti-fuuuuul and mysterious ;3

9:21:39 PM thepiper71: what're you doing?
9:21:52 PM formosapie: locking my house down in case you show up
9:22:04 PM thepiper71: oh darn
9:22:13 PM thepiper71: I guess I won't go knife shopping tonight then
9:22:46 PM formosapie: good...I'm thinking of setting up some hugo specific bomb traps in the furure
9:22:51 PM formosapie: you step on them and you go kaboom
9:23:24 PM thepiper71: steph k is a piece of poo
9:23:51 PM formosapie: HAHAH how did you know!
9:24:00 PM thepiper71: cuz I'm watching you
9:24:08 PM formosapie: HELL NO YOU AREN"T!
9:24:14 PM thepiper71: how do you know?
9:24:27 PM formosapie: Cause I know for a fact that you aren't!
9:25:17 PM thepiper71: why?
9:25:19 PM thepiper71: I could be
9:25:21 PM thepiper71: and you just don't know it
9:26:01 PM formosapie: and that would just freak me out....you know what...instead of regular bombs they would be hug hugo bombs
9:26:11 PM formosapie: you step on them and someone would just pop up and give you a guh
9:26:27 PM thepiper71: yea sure uh huh
9:26:43 PM formosapie: *pop* *hug*
9:26:48 PM thepiper71: gross
9:26:56 PM thepiper71: I'm minimizing this window now
9:27:00 PM thepiper71: and not reading it anymore

And so much for not posting almost daily anymore. I'm trying to break this habit, but I thought it was such an interesting thought. ANd then I became angry so ;3

Slipping through the Wind

2005-07-22T10:21:00.000-04:00

Today is the end of my internship. I wish I could say something meaningful about the experience, or the next stage in life. But really, all I can say is: FREEDOM.

yes, i can't say I learned much more than excel phun and how slow and small an office can be. And how much I really don't want to be stuck in a desk job. I hope I am able to keep this feeling forever

I feel like I've been in limbo lately. Just doing this job and trying to plan for the next year but not able to actually do something. Which is frustrating. I want to move forward but I couldn't cause I was still stuck in the summer.

Beth told me something phunny yesterday, there's a girl who's name is Pretentia. I leave the thoughts to you, the reader

Sigh. Life is about to really start forward. I guess I better get ready. Are you? HAHA so lets hope for the best and step forward. The blog isn't going on sabbatical but definatlly will not be posting as often. Sorry for that, but be amused over and over of what is already here and check back periodically about to see if any more herds come to graze here and if you can study their habits as the move across the plain. Ok ok I'll stop.

To start the next portion of life...or what has already started, but other things that are slowly stopping is this picture. It will lead us forward and hopefully will always be a bright banner, and never touch the ground. Kudo's to Stephen for a nice shot and even nicer editing.

---
Lucky are those that notice,
Lucky are those that care,
The only thing that seperates us is the wind.
And as one slowly seeps away, the colors blending together into another
another page turns, but the colors of those before leave their echo and stain,
blending and spreading across the coming pages,
those that should be blank.

Make your walls, your pages, your minds splashed with color.
Make sure it gets all over, splattering your hands, your text books, your teachers, your family.
Make sure you notice where they land and what they are on.
Smear them hard.

---
Anyways. I'm home now. Its nice to be home. I'm going camping this friday and I'm going sea Kayaking...so exciting. It's a lot of phun.

We also wne to Bite of Seattle. Tons of people and it was packed. I'm tired so I'm not writting a lot. bye

Drudgery to the 5th degree. Eradication to the 3rd. Hopelessness to the 4th. and Death to the 1st.

2005-07-21T08:01:00.000-04:00

Translation Here Ohmigod ohmigod....nothing. Urg. Chapter 188 translation is up. We are waiting impatiently for the raws of Bleach 188. So its confirmed, Isshin knew about his wife's death and the hollow that killed it. He used a Gigia for a body...everyone is debating if he really lost his powers or if they were put on hold or if he was just hiding. Quetions questions Questions at a Bleach Forum. This one has the most comprehensive discussion so far.

So there's discussion of a new war coming out, 3 captins need to be selected and Ichigo's Lineage needs to be uncovered. I'm sitting here to wait for a whole nother week....urg.

*News Break*

So Shari and I drove seperatly to work today because she needed to leave earlier from here to go downtown for a meeting. It really sucked though, cause really...we should have carpooled. So I was thinking aobut it yesterday...kind of like the jetsons but with cars. If you had a car that could split into 5 different parts...I mean...yeah less people would buy cars..but this way more people could car pool and as the need arise to go somewhere else...you just split off the car into a smaller maybe a little more uncofortable part so that you can drive seperatly. Ahhh that would be great.

---
I need to decide to day if I want to dwell, to think about the thoughts that cross my mind, my forehead.
Or just cover up my wheel of fortune and hide the thoughts that bind me.
Do you hold my hand, or my heart. Do you lead me forward or blind my eyes.
Do you wish me well or just press forward.
---

Tiiiiiiired again. I got home and crashed like no other. I didn't wake up at all, all night, till the alarm went off. I can't seem to get my feet under me since Saturday. I think I'm getting bored of blogging. I've almost done it for over what....1.5 months? I think I'm running out of things to write about....naaaaah, I'm just getting tired.

---
I won't fight you for this and I won't let go for this.

Knawing on the Flesh, Tearing through the Blood

2005-07-20T08:30:00.000-04:00

If you get to close I just might eat you and suck on your bones.

So last night, I was trying to watch the nomination thing for the surpreme court. I tried really hard. I watched, and then I tried to do something at the same time so I would be somewhat distracted from the annoying grate of bush's voice. I was trying even to read manga and I still couldn't take it! I ended up screaming in frustration and then turning off the tv to focus on my manga. And ended up missing this nominee's speech. Sucker.

I would hate to be the speech writer. If you think about it, usually its such a great honor to write words for the president, but at the same time if that person is able to butcher every flowing sentence that comes from your pen...would you really want him to be presenting your speech. I know I wouldn't. Oh the delimmas. Life must suck.

But on that note, I found a website, SavetheCourt.org that is up about the Nominee and the things that you can do. Seems pretty sweet and I think they are just getting started. Here's another site, Progressive Pipes They have a lot of articles and stuff and also, they are juggling 47 mailing list...I think I'm goin to join if they combine all 47 woot. Less spam...or more depending on how you look at it. Here's an article that provides some good indepth information. Its from the economist. I think Madhu told me it was conservative but I've found it to be really indepth and cover a wide variety of topics and not really lean one side or the other heavily. I guess I trust it or at least take it with some grain of salt. But when I pick up the magazine it always gives me a headahce cause there are so many words and articles and I try and read it in one sitting...not a good idea.

I had another dream about doors. Oh I had one the other night and it was scary. Not doors but door frames. This one was a little more clear. We were living in house like dorms. And my old High School Physics teacher was there....and he was taking something from us. It was really confusing. I think I've been relaxed enough to sleep but not enough to remember all my dreams. Urrrr I really can't remember now...;3

This seems like a boring post...no picutres, no links...lalalal

I've waited a few hours and it seems my boringness will not pass. SO enjoy as is.

Noooooooo.....wait I feel something coming on....RAINER CHERRIES! These are a picture of Rainer Cherries. These things are one of my favorite fruits. And so for the last two year, I have been away from home when they were in season. They only grow near Mt. Rainer, hence the name, and are oh so sweet and are only around for a few weeks. I bought a bag at the market this weekend and ate some....oh so sweet. I'm ok with Bing cherries, but Rainer cherries...move aside and make room for me. yum. I hope my mom sealed some up for me. She did last year.

I'M GOING HOME IN 4 DAYS. The thrill can't even be known!

Death of All Forms

2005-07-19T08:14:00.000-04:00

In the Detroit Free press is an article from FRANK WU: We all favor diversity, now plan out best path. It's a good article about Affirmative Action. I really really like it and the analogy he makes at the end of Affirmative action is similar to a natural disaster and our different reactions to each and how they shouldn't differ that much. Kudos to SLchang for the article

Sharing for no one
Life is like a Boat - Rie Fu*Right click and Save as target* This is the Closing to the first season of Bleach. It's really haunting for me. And I play it over and over again...even though I shouldn't.

I found this little senario on the the Bleach Forums at Animesuki.com

Uryuu: My dad told me I sucked, I have to stay away from you, he's the LAST quincy, not me, and he took out a Menos in two shots.
Ichigo: My dad is a shinigami, probably a Captain, he took out Grand Fisher in one swipe, and his forearms are thicker than my legs.
*pause*
Uryuu: That sucks.
Ichigo: Yeah. It does.

Heheh...it's phunny. Ahhhhh good I want chapter 188. Tomorrow..... can't wait for

an article from the NY Times about how to code fruit now with lasers instead of stickers. How its not only for convienence but also to track our food for security. Not only that...this was probably the best "idea" in the whole article. Riiiiiiiiiight.

With the right scanning technology the produce could even be bar-coded with lots of information: where it comes from, who grew it, who picked it, even how many calories it has per serving," said Fred Durand III, president of Durand-Wayland. "You could have a green pepper that was completely covered with coding. Or you could sell advertising space.

The Riots in China are slowly growing...Hopefully they will actually be able to do something. In a lot of ways sometimes, I feel like China is this country of so many different contrasts. We'll see.

An article on Bush about the CIA incident stuff. If you don't have an NY Times account here is the BBC article. Gah. Only 3 more years. When I think about it....sometimes I feel like just fainting....the damange...the damange!

And lookie here, The KMT in Taiwan hold1st ever leadership elections in over 100 years. Could be interesting.

Lao Tribes were forced to leave their homes for the city to accommodate the US govt and EU's crack down on Opium Poppy Trade. Even though I really don't like Opium and it pisses me off to hear about Opium of any sort, this sort of pisses me off even more in the fact that the trade in Lao was only a very minor player and now in retrospect, authorities are saying

Western embassies concede that their anti-drug policy may have been over-zealously implemented.

Seriously...I feel like for almost anything that the US gov't takes on, it ends up saying this in the end. The tribes are having issues in regards to being uprooted, losing their livelyhood...etc etc...sigh. I'm goin to huddle in a little cave somewhere and live on my own.

Final Article. At least I'll try. Its about the Muslim Response to the Bombings in London on Blogs and the different responses and how people want a response from the Muslim Community...but its so big and varied in opinion that that is expectin too much.

A spectacular Flickr of some 4th of July sparkler Pictures. I think they used a long exposure to get those pics but its pretty sweet.

An article from the Pacific News Service about Marijuana, from a kid and his experince with his friends when they are stoned.

So Becky was over last night, cause she won't be around this weekend. We went out to eat at Red Robins because I've had this horrible craving for their french fries. After eating there I have to say....I've gotten old and can't take greasy foods anymore. My tummy just didn't sit well after that burger...even though it was really good. I'm so WEAK! oh gah. how am I goign to go home and have all my spicy food. I have this dish at home...its roughly translated as...knight of something or other. Its basically this huge big bowl, cabbage at the bottom, meat on the top and full of oil and spicyness and I think boiled in water. Ohhhh its soooooooo good and bad for you but it's so oil I'm not going to make it.

I give up. Just leave me here to rot to high heaven.

Sucking out the Marrow

2005-07-18T10:25:00.000-04:00

Yeah so. This was a pic from the end of the year when we were having cochair transitions. I'm at work...which is the only place I will have internet for the rest of the week and they don't have any sort of photo editing. so It's sideways. Sorry. But it's still pretty cool looking at it from the side like that. I've been meaning to post it up for awhile anyways.

OpenMic Xanga Some people I don't know. I know Marcia and she post. some of them are really good. Check out the one about poker...I love it.

SO this weekend. I just hung out in ann arbor. I ended up being the photo assistant of a one stephen ahn aka Marcia's boyfriend. I don't think I've ever see so many pictures of me on one computer and that just freaks me out. If I could and if it wouldn't piss people off...namely mr. ahn and the proactive team, I would go through and delete them....my hand just itches. But maybe its made up by the fact that we have pictures of Hugo in a white robe, light pink scarf and flipflops. hmmmm no...close but no. I really don't like pictures of me....I don't like looking in the mirror...why would I like seeing pictures that won't disapper even if I move. hell no.

But we went to get a massage on sunday. It was sweet and I feel lots better. Pretty sore but lots better...hopefully I don't tense up too much. The guy found all my knots and slowly worked them out...mmmhmmm wanna go back. After about 5 - 10 mins, I could feel everythign loosen and I felt my arms tingle and I was like...ahhh we've past the point of no return. I love massages...they losen your muscles but not only that...you pay someone to touch you...man that sounds so shady. But honestly... I love the warmth of people and their palms...they are the next best things to my flannel bed and lying under lamp shades and lying on top of anything rock like that has sucked in the warmth of the sun.

Saturday night I had a bought of insomnia. I get them every few months or so where I just can't sleep and I'll just lie there kind of on the cusp of conciousness...not sleeping but not fully awake. After awhile I give up and get up and do something. Usually read. Didn't want to read lsat. So I just sat around with stephen till the birds started chirping. God...I haven't been up that late in a long time. But I'm better now.

I guess this is many an update post of my life. Nothing interesting to share or anything like that. I'm pretty boring I guess...no I know.

A skateboarder jumped the great wall of china. I'm too lazy to link it. Go search for it on Google news and a bunch of stuff will pop up.

Do you ever think of the habits that we build. We are just habit driven people. I had a dream the other night about how I was explaining what I do before I got to bed and how I sleep...to someone, I can't remember who. I guess...for daily things that I do...I'm really habit driven, I do the same things after I get up in the morning and before I go to bed. I would have to say that if there was anything that was consistent in my life it was the order that I do things when I get up in the morning and how I get ready for bed. Or the most consistent. I guess that makes me a pretty boring person, but it makes my life so much simpler and easier to deal with. But think about it...all those habits!

Morning Routine: Getup, put in contacts, brush teeth, washface (peeing can be dispersed wherever, usually after contacts) dress, eat food/drink tea, head out to face the rest of the world
Night Routine: Take out contacts, brush teeth, take a shower and wash my face, dress, blowdry hair, go to bed
Fall asleep routine ;3
Three bottles of water a day
Three meals a day? what you eat?
Number of hours of sleep

Not even just routines! How you do thing? How you cook, How you clean, how you wash the dishes, wash your clothes, turn on your car, talk....wow...if you really thought about it we would be useless if we couldn't do habits.

That's about it for today I think. I'll probably edit as I please.

Split the Sky

2005-07-15T08:26:00.000-04:00

So I've just picked up the translation of 187 of bleach here. You need to register to read the translations. They are well worth registering for. The raw scans haven't even been released yet and I've just been itching to read the chapter, after 186 where Ichigo's dad shows up. I got to the end of 187 and all I can say is "NOoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooO! *gasp* NOooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!" but since I'm at work it was a silent "Nooooo" *gasp* "NOooooo" (shortened so you would have to go through it all over again). I was so frustrated that I raised my fists to the sky. Ahhhh life is so hard.

A lot of people were saying that Kubo (the mangaka: manga author) has made the series excellent with this newest arc which just brings it up a notch. I have to agree but I also have to say he was excellent before then. The fact that the Soul Society arc and Rukia's execution just ended and this is already stepping off the pages well...duh, not many people would have the imagination or the drive to have such a complicated story and keep you intrested in the 187 chapters...this thing is going to last so long. Arrrgh. Ok I'm done with my manga section.

*Thanks for that commercial break Bob, and now on to the serious portion of the news*
A shamless plug to get people involved and interested. Check it out. I think I'm going to try and pick it up for UAAO.
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Americans voted in the 2004 presidential election. Latest census information on the Asian Pacific American population Listing of major national and local Asian Pacific American
political and civil rights groups, APIAVote! Executive Summary and Findings of Asian
American political mobilization in key states during the 2004 Elections Special tribute to the late Congressional leader Robert T. Matsui

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on:

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The impact of the 2004 elections on Asian Americans, the struggles of
Native Hawaiians after the elections and the changing face of politics in Texas are examined in the 2005-06 National Asian Pacific American
Political Almanac.
The almanac also documents the continuously growing numbers of Asian Pacific American elected and major appointed officials. It includes a
listing of more than 2,000 Asian Pacific American elected and major
appointed officials at the federal, state and local levels for more
than 35 different states from Hawaii to Connecticut, as well as the
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research and policy perspectives on the electoral involvement of the nation's
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Pieces of Cake (since Stephen refuses to really confirm to using it, I will ;p)
Changin' my Life: Eternal Snow So I've been posting her stuff lately, but this song is from the Full Moon wo Sagashite Anime. It's one of my favorite songs and i can sing along with every word even though I don't know much Japanese ;3

Its a bit slow so I'll include this. It's the Bleach season1 opening song. I have only seen one episode but I can't remember it. I like this cause near the middle end there's this pause and then they start singing...its cool yeah just listen yourself. Orange Range- Asterisk

How Costco totally beats on Walmart and Why

Green as your Nose

2005-07-14T08:07:00.000-04:00

For Surfers, a Roving Hot Spot that shares Woot! Wifi without the attachments and you can have lots of people on it. And its greeeeeeeeen ;3

An article from the NY times about a house robot called nuvo. The woman who writes the article is really phunny. She tests out Nuvo for 4 days and I can imagine myself doing the same exact things as she did with Nuvo. I want one now ;3

Green Buildings
I don't know how long ago, but I started having this fasination with Green Buildings. Basicly the building is built so that it has the least impact on the enviornment in different aspects such as water usage, energy usage, waste recyled reuse, etc etc. They try and integrated the building with the enviornment surrounding it as much as possible. Builds are something that humans put up because of a need for protection and shelter, I really don't feel that there will ever be a way for it to "be a part of nature", but I think that we should try and keep its impact low.

Most of the time, because of the type of material used to build these things and the time it takes to design and creat a building, the costs are higher. However, in the long run, the operating costs of these buildings are much much lower. This is due to things like, solar panels, reuse of water from toilets, collecting rainwater for usage, and my favorite: creating the building so that it takes advantage of the natural sunlight, usually the building is slanted in such a way to allow for sunlight in all areas of the building, and setting up ventilation that reduces the need for heating and air conditioning, such as taking advantage of the wind outside or the set up of the locations of the vents.

When this idea first came out, a lot of people were skepitcal, lately the tide is turning. Also, there are more architects and builders willing to build something like this, and enough suppliers of the special material to make it cost possible. This is just way too cool and it tickles me way too much. I want to live in one.

R-E-S-O-U-R-C-E-S
This is the best site that I found about Green Buildings. It provides indepth information about the different aspects of how to build green buildings. It also gives examples, benefit, etc. It pretty much lays it out for you on how it is. If you want a good intro, this is a good site.

Some initiatives of Green Buildings and some basic facts. The websites is pretty cool too, also talks about Weapons of mass desctruction, Climate changes, water, and recycling.

The US Green Building Council Provides information on legislations, the certificites that buildings can get, resources, news, workshops: cool things like that.

Whole Building Design Guide gives further information on tips and specifc designs for people. caool.

Hand Outs
Here's today's music. It's TM Revoution again. Its one of my favorites...its pretty fast. If you listen carefully at the beginning, you will hear water running as the artist burshes his teeth and hums the song. I don't know why I think its so great oh well ;3 Actually the first like month, whenever I heard this song I thought someone was calling my name. There's a part at the beginning of the song where a girl is calling someone. And I thought I would be hearing things when I heard the song and I would look all over my room. It was really phunny now that I think of it...but kind of frightening...ahhh well. Here's to my stupidity
Oh! My girl, Oh! My God!: TM Revolution *Right Click, Save as Target* Enjoy

I lied when I said that I loved you. Oh does that hurt....too bad

I was bored and took the test again...cause I'm obsessed. I was being truthful but I was feeling a little mean. YEAH ICHIGO;3 I'm going to try and get reji, his pic is soooo phunny

Take The quiz yourself

OK! Phew...I gave up. So I took it like over 15 times at least I kept getting Ichigo or Ishida. arrrgh. I don't know how to get Renji, but here he is. I cheated, don't tell. But tell me that the words on the pic don't give you a pause and then burst of laughter. Cause I know it me ;D

Take The quiz yourself

Nothing Much Except...

2005-07-13T09:30:00.000-04:00

Hide your eyes when you hold my hand, give me hugs, play with my hair,
Hide your eyes when you lean close and call to tell me the color of your sky and the number of jelly beans you have eaten.
Hide your eyes when I smile at you,

Because I don't want you to see when my weakness well up between the cracks of my earth,
How much I really need you and the comfort you bring.
Even as I work at breaking the wire that hangs between us with my own hand, I attach another click somewhere else.

So Hide your eyes and walk blindly in this world for me.

------
So there has been this little email going back between some of my friends about the newest Fast and Furious 3 movie. The story line is some guy goes to Tokyo and races. These are the comments. THey make me laugh cause these are my friends...and they are great

1st Email response: Stephen
when they announced this a while back, all signs pointed to the lead being a
white male.

who of course, comes to dominate a sport ruled by asians and woos their women.

white men can do/be/win anything!

*swoon*

~stephen

2nd Email response: Chris
Yea man,

omg that pisses the shit out of me. I can picture it now... white guy moves to
japan, beats asians at "their own sport", then hes comes home and fucks the
asian chick.

and of course, theres gonna be a big bald asian meat heat probably playing the
bad guy...whos only lines are

"GRGrrrrr RHGHHHHHH AhhhhhHHHHH! YOU BEAT MEEE AGAIN OUTSIDERRAAAAA HOW IS
THIS?? AAHHHhhHH!!!"

The end. Wasn't that a great story. The sad part about it is that these two are probably right

Sharing Sharing....
Changin' my Life: Dahlia *right click and Save target as* Like this song. It gets stuck in your head really easily. Gawin always use to make phun of it....she almost ruined the song but if I sing loud enough I block out the sound of her voice ;D It's kind of jazzy...enjoy

And just because I'm nice and I haven't shared a lot in awhile...I'll put up two links k :3 T.M. Revolution: Destined for This is the guy who sang a song for the newest Spiderman movie. I haven't heard it, but his other stuff hypes me up. This is a bit of a slow one...but most of his songs are really quick.

This is from the Seattle Indymedia, an article about how people in Seattle, Stand Up Seattle were protesting military recruitment and the result. There are more links on the site for more information.

An article from Pacific News Service about if Asians and learning to think like asians, not comforming to what should be thought. I really like pacific News Service. Check it out

That's it for today. Out to go make a few children cry ;3

Mirror

2005-07-12T10:57:00.000-04:00

Marcia wrote this for me. Makes me happy.

Mirror
For Stephanie

The girl in the mirror looks at me and wonders when we will meet again.

And I want to ask her what she sees

how she sees it

what color it is,

how it smells

tastes

feels

sounds
and why.

She questions

the same as mine

but we do not quite meet at the same place

in the same time.

Still, I seek the conclusions that she does not have

because conclusions are not what she has to give

And she asks because she cannot give me the senses that I seek for

in the underscored order I unconsciously ask it

And so we frustrate our confines of two and three dimensional answers with
four and one dimensional questions manifested in dew drops that only lend comfort in seconds while the minutes of cubicle color continue to close in

Frustrate into an understanding that

the girl in the mirror does not know the woman that is looking back

heart wondering when she will be able to see forward

Yet again she knows that I know that she knows that I

in the moment that does not two or three dimensional appear

in that moment

the girl becames herself and I passes through the mirror without knowing that she’s left.

Left a woman through the mirror within and without myself

freeing the confines of neurons pursuing circles that were already absolved by an understanding beyond

and in that continuum conclusions will be dissolved

answers will became questions become answers become questions became
and she will as she was as she is as I is as I was as I will as I…be.
Me.

So it was able to turn out the exact way she wrote it cause of stupid coding.. but ;D

Commute Found this pic on a NY article, linked above. Something about it gets me.

Slchang quote of the day to wrap everything up: insanity is proof that you're okay

Shards of glass Only come to find...

2005-07-12T09:11:00.000-04:00

Star Wars mistranslations From stephen again. and for all you star wars fans. Made me laugh and it was really hard to keep in even if I am at work.

My brother said something to me today. That he didn't like to read my blog because its out of character of me. I guess my questions, what am I not? What is my character?

I remember having a conversation with my friends....I have a hard time with people who change with who they are with. I have a hard time with myself when I do that. Part of it relates back to Jr. High and High School, when a few of my "friends" kind of did a double face. They didn't really try and stick the knife in really hard...the just didn't really try and stop it you know what I mean? And it wasn't really till afterwards that I knew the truth. The people I grew up around with, it was really hard to figure out who was real and what should be see through cause it all looked the same.

So I was thinking...do you think its still you? When you change and act a little different...a little more giddy, or like me at work, a little more quiet and polite? I always...in anything I do...try and find that one true value..which I think shouldn't be changeable...eternal core value that is your personality and thats what you should stick with...It's hard for me to figure, is your personality, the way you are...do you dress it up and decorate it, ontop of the core or do you actually try and hide it with different coats and layers so you can't see it at all. I always think you should walk around with the core unclothed...sorry for back of letter wording...but that's the way I view it...But I know I change too when I'm around other people or atmosphere....is it right? is it wrong? or is it inbetween.

Menstrual Cycle
Ok, so I felt like...I needed to provide some information on periods. It think its really amazing the number of people (*ahem* guys) who really have no idea about this whole thing. It's like a magical mystery to them. It's not. It's blood. And it can drip out of your body for anywhere from 3 - 9 days...maybe even more or less depending on how lucky or unlucky you are. I get cramps...they just are pains in your lower abs, especially if I'm exersizing at the same time as my period is happening.

Also most people know that the whole process is that it is shedding the skin that has developed right? Most, or ok I thought originally that it was just blood that came out, that the layer inside would disinigrate into blood and leak out. Nope...skin chunks come out....they're kind of slimly and see through and weird, but packed full of blood. And another thing to think about...that blood...it smells funky...like its gone bad. Yeah that's right...it smells imagine that ;p

I don't know for other people, but the week my period is here, I feel really sluggish and tired. especially if I don't get enough sleep. ANd if I push myself too hard then I usually get sick after my period. I think in that aspect I'm a little weaker than others on my period. donno....that's another problem, rarely do women compare their periods. We only talk about days comparison...like that is enough....why don't we talk about it?

So that's the crash course/not really...there's more if you want to know... in the links below
Irregular stuff

Basic Information

And I really liked this line in one of the links...

Many times, young women are frightened when they discover dark clumps of tissue in their menstruation. Most often, this is a part of the endometrium (uterine lining) shedding and is nothing to be concerned about.

And guys too I'm sure fufuf

Sugar coat that Smile baby...

2005-07-11T10:14:00.000-04:00

Chocolate Sushi Sushi from stephen, check it out

I was going to post a S.H.E.: exact translation of song is not avalible due to bad chinese but I'm not able to cause its not in a mp3 format, I just realized. It was going to be the first chinese I've posted, sooooorry ;) but anyways, these three girls are really popular in asia. I really like this song cause they are singing about this guy and they are like, if you don't make time for me and if there's no meaning (sorry there's no real other way I can translate the meaning), etc etc then I won't go out with you. And my favorite lines are talking about how, based on his life where will a girlfriend fall and it asks who he thinks is actually going to clean his clothes, not her. Yeah empowerment sounds ;3 ok sorry the song definatlly sounds cooler in chinese...if you can understand it *fingers crossed*

Yeah so I've been surfing the web for some great pics...just seeing what people draw. That's a great site, some of the art on there is fantastic. It's mostly computer art but some of its really spectacular. I've been surfing and found some good artist like Kid-chan. If you can ignore the fact that she spells phunny...OK OK, PHunnier than me, she has really great art up...lots of it is anime kind of stuff

Norli's stuff is fantastic too.

I also found this
really cute pic of a girl. The colors and stuff are really great. It's touching for some reason. Go check out the person's stuff

I really wish I could draw that well...I'm working on it...but nothing close...we'll see. I am trying to do some inking of stuff I draw but its hard, cause I'm in this constant sketch mode and I really don't want to be doing that with pen. I guess I don't have enough confidence in my hand or pen...or enough practice. We shall seee. I know that I've gotten better...sort of. but yet again we'll see.

But really I have to move in steps. First I need to work on my drawing...and drawing bodies...faces are pretty much ok for me...but I need help with the body, the proportions, and how the clothing stretches across the body. Once I have that I can start playing with Photoshop, etc with coloring...but till then, sigh shoot...I've said till then crap etc etc too much. Shoot I'm starting to sound sappy *slap slap* snap out of it now!

But one problem I have is, why in cartoons can no one have muscles except guys huh?! Seriouslly! I have muscles...and the are bulk ok? Yeah maybe they aren't the norm...but lots of times I like them...sometimes I don't but we wont' go into that today.

Nothing too exciting in my world. Oh yesterday, marcia, stephen (marcia's boyfriend '3), steph, and hugo came up to novi for some dinner cooking. It was lots of phun. Hugo tried to drown us with olive oil and regular oil which now has caused my tummy to really rebel at eating anything. I haven't eaten that much oil in awhile sicne I've been cooking for myself. We then went swimming, jumped the fences to get in, and then finished the night with Love actually and scaring hugo out of his old man pants. FUFUFUF that's the best part...making hugo uncomfy ;3 But it was a good way to end the weekend. <3. oh geez...where is this sappiness coming from. will not. ok just to make sure I'm normal:

I will take over the world. People I hate will die....those stupid people...man I'm laughing...this isn't working. I was feeling suitable dark this morning...I'm even wearing double layers of longsleeves and they're black. Hmmmm let me think. I will come up with a way to change back don't worry...muahahahaha...ok that work.

Later...off to darken the world.

Yup definatlly back ;3

Masks that leave Scars

2005-07-09T15:12:00.000-04:00

So I woke up this morning....and suddenly I'm attacked with pain in my lower abs...ummm I'm not on my period so this shouldn't be happening....I'm going through my daily routine of brushing teeth and washing face in the morning and I suddenly realize that I'm almost touching the counter because I'm bent over from the pain.

My vision narrows and so I cut the teeth brushing short. Stumble into my room and just as my vision blacks out I hit the bed....not all the way on, but the most important body part on the bed...my abs....I come back around and realize that I'm lying down and really don't have the strength to do much else. I lie there for about over 10 minutes. I'm extremely warm even though the AC is on and I'm sweating big size pebbles. It feels like my vagina is being ripped off my spin....and I'm like WTF am I having a baby?! My lower back hurts really bad from the cramps and the warmth of my hands really wasn't improving the situation.

I have these candy things, "black candy" that my aunt gave me awhile...its just regular candy...nothing shady about "black candy" fufufuf that she told me to take when I was on my period. She would know, because her vagina is at a different slant in her body than the usually, she never stops having her period. It just keeps coming out..that's my understanding and because it builds up like that, she gets cists too...I feel so bad for her. I pop one in...take about a 5 minute nap and I wake up a little better. But eating is hard. I just had some sushi...and it went down ok cause it was cool...but I don't think its going to sit very well. We'll seee....

I just wanted to record the worst cramps I have ever had. Its really werid though, I didn't make any noise...its hard too cause the cramps build up and suddenly is like bamb...and then they fade away...hmmm and then they start back up.

Well anyways. Novi has a really big asian population. That or lots of people come here to do their shopping, cause there's this great Japanese food market and bakery and some odds and ends store with music, videos, anime etc. When aaron comes back, we can drive out and go shopping when he misses japan ;3 But its really comforting to just go out and see other asians doing normal things sometimes. Living out in novi here and not see anyone really...makes it depressing and makes me feel so alone. It's just a comfort and makes me happy to see little asian kids running around...sigh. Ok I think I'm going to go and lie on the couch....my tummy doesn't feel so hot.

*bluroooop* oOHMIGOD...its a baby!! ;3 and it looks like this

Tootals...say congrats to my baby ;p

Tattoo me Hard

2005-07-08T09:51:00.000-04:00

I'm going through some of my old emails and pulling up really interesting articles, so here's the postings and links. I thought this was going to be a short post, but it actually ended up being pretty long whooopps.

Oh yes! Oh yes it is mr. pig! My favorite pig from Shinsengumi Imon Peace Maker & Peace Maker Kurogane. The second is like a second season. Really good manga, and being published in the US, but they started with the second series first, don't know why. They have problems what can we say

A Concise History of Black-White RElations in the USA <- its a comic, you don't really have to read anything ok. Just click. APIAs, Women, Unequal Pay & Social Security

What's an Otaku you say? You better find out before its too late ;3 Fufufufu

The money behind Ward Connerly If you don't know what's going on then read

The Power and the Glory
Myths of American exceptionalism

Criticizing Patriot Act Lands Manlin Chee, Asian American Lawyer, in Jail
News Report Ahhhh man

A horrible view on Native Americans and how the US govt should treat them

You know that pic I was talking about finding the colored one. Well I found this one...pretty sweet ain't it ;D except all the orange I'm going to be blown away ;p

So I'm really not that interesting today. I wish I could be. But its friday and its time for the weekend and phun. And I don't have as much time at work to site and surf, because I actually have stuff to do, phonecalls, making excel sheets, emails and such...so I'm not as up on the news....oh boo an uneducated stephanie

The Backwardness of Sex Selection Technologies
BY YIN LING LEUNGNAPAWF
Organizing Director

As the eldest girl of a family with three daughters and a son, it was
notuntil I was adult that I realized that my very poor immigrant parents
kepthaving children because they wanted a boy. Somehow it was etched into
theirminds that only a son could carry on the family name. I have made peace
withmy parents and their beliefs, but I am not at all at peace with the factthat
female fetus abortions, infanticide, and the neglect and abandonment ofgirls in
Asia have experts estimating that nearly 100 million girls aremissing due to
beliefs similar to my parents. As a result, today sex ratiosin parts of India
are as low as 766 girls per 1000 male children. In Chinain 1996, there were 121
boys ages 1 to 4 for every 100 girls in the same agerange. Now the marketing and
promotion of sex selection technology (likesperm sorting) is threatening to make
this even worse.

But before we shake our heads and wag our fingers in dismay at
the“backwardness” of Asian culture, we need to also expand our focus andconcern
to emerging trends of the marketing and use of sex selectiontechnologies right
here on our home turf. This past year, advertisements inthe New York Times,
American and Delta Airlines in-flight magazines andSouth Asian American
community publications ask, “Do you want to choose thegender of your next
child?” and promise to make it possible.

Unlike other countries, sex selection in the United States as a whole
seemsto be driven less by cultural norms, such as son preferences, and more by
acombination of biotechnology and marketing. These new,
pre-pregnancytechnologies challenge us to reframe the debate and avert the
future dangersof “designer babies.” The Assisted Reproduction Industry markets
sexselection under the rubric of “family balancing” or “gender balance”, andsome
people are willing to pay $10,000 – $15,000 to get (or buy) the genderof their
choice. Marketers hope to “normalize” this practice of sexselection and are
working to make this technology widespread and cheaper.Consider this, we
perceive cosmetic surgery as a luxury for the rich andfamous, but today over 65
percent of elective cosmetic surgery is done bywomen with household incomes
between $25,000 and $55,000.

Commercialized sex selection poses several important risks for women
andcivil society. Gender is one of the most significant determinants of
lifeexperiences, and if we are willing to open the door to engineering
thischaracteristic, where do we draw the line? Recently a research
projectdocumented that the vast majority of CEO’s of Fortune 500 companies
aremale, heterosexual, light-skinned and 6 feet tall. Will couples wanting
togive their children an edge in life select for such traits? Today we selectfor
gender. Tomorrow will we select for homosexuality, skin color, eyecolor, IQ,
height and muscles?

Sex selection challenges feminist and social justice activists
nationallyand internationally in significant ways. Much of the women’s
reproductiverights movement is based on a pro-choice paradigm of a “woman’s
right tochoice” and the right to privacy. We need to grapple with and draw
somelines about what “choice” and “privacy” mean in the context of the
newreproductive and genetic biotechnologies. Certainly it cannot mean
theunfettered right to a market-based eugenic future. The political climate
inthe United States is ripe to debate the language of “choice” and consolidatea
framework that takes on these ethical challenges.

We already know how these technologies travel in the form of “reproductivetourism” and we know about the race to the bottom of the most unregulatedindustries. These pre-pregnancy technologies have the capacity to decimatethe number of women and girls born in some countries. This preference formale offspring is an ancient problem in Asia. Yet even in countries likeIndia and China there is a ban on the marketing of these new sex selectiontechnologies because they see the dangers of the widespread use of thesemodern technologies now and in the future. Most European Union countrieshave banned this use. Here in the United States we are free to market thistechnology as we want. Which country is really the “backward” country?

Divide me Kitsuki...

2005-07-07T13:52:00.000-04:00

Mecha for $38,000 on Ebay Check it out. It's only on bid for another day. But the thing is over 18ft tall and was put together for research and has all these little extras...like lighting, heating...they just ran out of money to fund the project. And can you imagine, there are now over 16 people who have bidded on it! for 38K?! You could buy a car...a nice apartment....waaaaaaaah....O.o my eyes are so wide!

OMIGOD OMIGOD! WHat the hell! Ok, so Bleach Portal Provides the raws/not scanlated of the Manga Bleach. But so anyways...people have only scanlated (they scan the pages in, and then translate them -> its a lot more difficult than it sounds) up to 184. So I picked up chp 185 and 186 just to see the pictures...OMIGOD....all these things you don't know...the pictures...they give you half of the story...but you really need the damn words. Where the hell is Aaron when I need him. AARON COME BACK!...sob sob sob....hell....God I'm getting this achy feeling in my chest when i get frustrated and just want to hyperventilate!

oh ok...I'm better now. I found the translation. Well I joined lots of groups, finally found the translations....felt calm for about 5 sec and realized that I NEEEEEEEED The next chapter. Oh this is killing me.

Anyways. I happen to be bored this morning and flipped on the news while I was eating breakfast. And England was splashed all over the news about the bombs. It was eery how they were describing it. They said that a city of that size...the streets were silent and people were walking all over the places, but the police had put down a quarintine and people were not allowed to take the subway, people crowding pubs but not saying a thing etc etc...it was scary and the sad thing is.....Silence hurts sometimes. I was also thinknig about the fact that yesterday they had just won the olympic bid for 2012 and how I kind of wished it had been in Paris. But its just weird how 12 hrs can make such a difference in what you're feeling. I'm not going to post any links, its all over the news and you can look up news sites yourself, or use the ones over on the right ;p

Compelling interest of Race in Admissions A very good and interesting short book on the title mentioned. I think that before you point the finger at someone about preferences, losing "your" spot, whatever, read and understand the issue. It uses studies that have been done to give support to its summary.

Sharing or No? nothing to share today. I'm going to start trying to get some L'arc and jay chou on here. We will see....;D Probably not any L'arc now that I think about it...they are really good, but pretty popular...you can find it yourselves...yet again ;o

Picture for phun: He's from Bleach, Rukia's childhood friend with weird tatoos as eyebrows....he's pretty cute *woof woof* ;3

I dream of Ichigo

2005-07-06T09:38:00.000-04:00

I wish I did...but I've been too tired lately to actually dream. There are some good color pics, people coloring in or the mangaka (manga author) coloring in, but something about this pic gets me...and the writing behind it ;3 I have a colored one at home. I'll go home and check it out again and see if its any good. But I usually like the black and white the best

So for the last couple of days, I forgot to mention some other things that happened to me.
1) When I went camping I got a misquito bit on my upper butt...but when I got home I realized that I had gotten TWO bites! oh the horror! hehehe...the itch like maaaad
2) I got this sweeeeeeeeeet 120 Gig external harddrive. All silver and shiney...smooth...sexy...miiiiiiine. *Snuggles with it for a couple of minutes* If only all my guys could be like that too ;3
3) The reason I got the 120 gig is because my laptop is having issues and needs to be sent in...oh my heart...I hope my baby comes back ok. I'm such a computer freak compared to the general population, while in other comparisons, I don't know anything about computers ;3

Other things to share, other than Ichigo:
Another Mika Nakashima: Fake *Right Click & Save as target* Not sure which albumn its from. Most likely the most recent. This song is really jazz and smooth. I really like it. I am currently listening to it over and over at work. niiiiiiice.

Sad things of Women and Society/culture:
So, today I am downtown detroit again making phone calls. So I make a phone call and I'm usually talking to someone in engineering and the lady refers me to someone, and when she says the name my first thought is, "Don" as in a guy. I then get transfered over and I get a voicemail, but I still think Don is a guy, even though the person on the Voicemail is a woman...I'm thinking oh this must be his secretary. It's not until I hang up that I realize that it could be "Dawn". My expectations and heuristic slips up, made me think that it had to be a man, when in actuality there is no such thing.

It makes me so frustrated and angry at myself, that even I, not that being a woman should make me immune to the teachings of society *I mean I still wear pink....ugg* But I think that as a woman I should be more aware of these kinds of thought patterns that are taught to us. But sometimes it is so hard and automatic. How do I stop myself? How do I stop others?

My brain has been wired as such, I need to rewire my thought process.

Obsessions:
So I get them...not so easily...well easily. Oh stop lying. Anyways. Usually obsessions are varying...and some obsessions are easier than others. If there are lots of people out there who are also obsessed and collect info and pics like me, then the obsession is stronger then if not many are obsessed. But I'm still obsessed!

What do you obsess about?

Not too long of a post today. Just lots of stuff to look at or listen to ;3

A nice Bleach Image/Scan Gallery

Bleach the Stains in your Heart

2005-07-01T08:05:00.000-04:00

NY Times article about Mao's Myths and how people in china are somewhat brain washed. Nothing new, but interesting still. It mentions a book and some facts that really show the dark side of the revolution and the long march

Another quiz, its for Bleach(anime and Manga) which is actually pretty cool. Its about this guy who can see spiritual monstors and shiniguame's (Death Gods, they come and take your soul when you die) So anyways, he gets involved with this Shinighuame (which I don't spell correctly, and actually ends up taking her power, and his own spiritual power is enourmous...but now he can't give it back to her for some reason and she needs to kill monsters and pick ups souls, so she makes him do it ;D It's actually pretty phunny and once I get more harddrive on my comptur, I will be getting the manga, but I think its kind of long...oh well. And visually please. This quiz is acceptable for all ages. Quiz away! ps the site is actually a wealth of information on bleach too...so check it out.

SideNote: so this post was suppose to be posted on Friday, and look here it is tuesday. But during the weekend I read over 20 vol of Bleached and loved it. Its so phunny. The last couple of volumns have been slow and serious....it gets the DBZ feel with all the fights over and over, but its pretty phunny and I like it a lot. Reallly unique story line. And after reading it...the quiz was so right ;D heheh try try

Take The quiz yourself

I'm really getting amused by these anime/manga quizes. Be on the look out for more. I definatlly will be looking for more ;3

So for the next two weeks I will be in downtown detroit for the next two weeks of GM shutdown. If you are there and want to do lunch, just give me a call. That means you MADHU! Ok, anyways ;3 <- New favorite little smiley face. If only I could remember to use it. Ok hurry hurry! Must type about this weekend before I forget, or I lose my damn post again. Honestly!

Ok so, on Friday, I left work early and took shari to the airport. After that, I went home and chilled out, it was really nice, went to bed at 11pm and didn't wake up till oh...around 8? Earlier...but then I just layed there ;D But till about saturday afternoon, I just lazed around, stealing wireless and reading BLeach. I went and picked up Steph in Ann Arbor and then we went and got some packets of Udon noodles and cooked them at home and then pigged out infront of the TV. Lots of phun. We watched Parent Trap and Monsoon Wedding...Well Beth watched Monsoon Wedding, I played in my laptop and Steph took a nap.

We didn't go to bed till about 3:30...so we got a slow start the next morning. But we then went to the mall to get steph a build a bear for John and then we ended up hanging out there for awhile. Steph bought a ton of stuff. PANTS WITHOUT HOLES! ;3 I bought a bit, but not too much...just some lotion and lip stuff. I'm going back for more lip stuff...I don't know why I like lip stuff so much. A Nyways...la lalal...so then around the afternoon....a little before 4, we drove out to brighton, which is actually really close. We checked in and went to our site, which was pretty sweet...tree=shade= YEAH! We went down to the lake side and checked out the swings and stuff like that. But then we got bored, so steph and I went back to the site and threw everything out of the car and then laid there for like...an hr! hehehe...I actually fell asleep but steph was antsy. Why didn't we set up stuff you say? Cause no one else was there adn they definatlly had all the tents and stuff like that...so we just veggitated.

Just so you have alittle understanding, Hugo, Cliff, Steph, Marcia, and Stephen went to costco to buy food....they ended up spending 80 bucks for meat! ~20 lb....it became a running theme of the whole 24hr of camping that we eat meat. They also I would like to mention bought fake nalgenes....4 for 10...gaaaaaaaah. Anyways. They arrived and pilled out of the car, hugo, cliff, john, marcia, and stephen...I don't know how they made it with all those people and then all their stuff....so hugo and cliff started setting up the grill and the rest of us went down to the beach. The shallow water was pretty gross and for a while there...I was kind of nervouse about the water...cause I really don't like water getting in my vagina...its a sensitive area and when I get out of the water, not all of it will get out...so it just festers inside of me and I'm thinking...stephen just mentioned something about michigan lakes and parasites. EWWWWWWWWWW. ohmigod ewwww....

so we were swimming around....and I really wanted to get out to the middle of the lake...and just float...so I was like...lets swim out to the island and back. And marcia, stephen, and steph just looked at me....but everyone, including john and I started swimming out. fufufuf....so we were swimming and swimming....it took about 15 min to get out there and 15 maybe to come back...not bad at all ;D but about 3/4 over there...stephen and steph started lookin tired...so I was like...maybe we should turn back....or just float in the middle of the lake for a bit....stephen got annoyed and started swimming back. But John and Marcia were like we have a goal! lets go...so ;3 But stephen looked so phunny....his eyebrows and his hair has gotten pretty long lately. He looked like this kind of shady old asian man. Marcia and I started cracking up and couldn't stop and she was like...oh man I was trying to save my energy...hehehe

So we swam and swam and then we got near the "island" cause we realized that it might not be an island and actually....the other side ;D so we touched the weeds and decided to head back. THat was one of the best parts of the day. hehehe specially when we realized that it might not be an island So then we hung around the beach for awhile then got hungry and headed back...but I guess there wasn't any food cause I mean...it was going to take an hr to set up the grill, an hr to prep the meat or whatever and then another hr just to grill... It didn't really actually work out that way...but we really didn't get food fro 3 hrs...so I was partly right ;D Anyways sooo we sat around eating meat, hotdogs, chicken, corn and chilling...it was phun. We set up the tents and started the fire....man I don't remember going through wood that fast anymore...hmmmm it seemed like we kept having to throw wood in, but Joe Reily and later Hugo went into the forest and came back with a whole host of wood. We also ended up throwing this huge can of beans that Hugo had for some reason in the fire pit so it would cook. We got a can opener from the group across the street...they had like 30 people from an neighbor and they kept running around...all those kids...but they were nice. I think they thought we were poor college students (which we are) and so we couldn't spend money on firewood...which we really didn't want to, so they gave us some fire wood and this one guy tried to chop it for us...he had an axe and then after he left Hugo was like....I want an axe....sometimes *eye roll*

So we ate and ate and just sat around chilling. The people across the street started playing this cd...over and over again. THere was some evanecance and Queen...but over and over. For awhile it stopped but then started up again. I had yelled at John about sticks and marshmellow sticks...So he whittled and carved this super ass long stick for me...with THREE! let me repeat. THREE prongs on the end. SO SWEET! and it had my name carved on it and the date at the end. But I left it there for the next couple of campers...More people will enjoy it that way. So it was getting dark and we had joe pull out his gutair and start singing...he's so good really good...and he's good at impromto stuff too...he sang a great song about marshmello sticks, the monstor under bishop lake and marcia. It was great. And then we passed the gutair around to stephen for sing alongs...he still hasn't learned more than words...man...;p that is all I have to say. And then Hugo played a little jazz.. it was nice...started falling asleep, specially since marcia was massaging my head and petting my hair....mmmm its so soothing when people play with your hair and pet your back.

Oh I also made some marshmellows....with my...THREE PRONG MARSHMELLOW STICK! woo hoo ;D I love them a little crunchy on the outside and all melty inside. Hugo was estatic over them, even though he likes them burnt...man that's what you get for camping for over 20 years of your life ;3 sweet marshmellows. Man I love those things. The people across the street really appreciated the music and wanted it louder...but our voices are only so loud. ANd a park ranger came around at midnight to say its quiet hrs and we should wrap up....ahhh booo. But I'm glad some people could enjoy the music. So we decided to brush teeth and stuff...I took out my contacts and could only see blurry stuff. Oh I forgot. As we got up to move around, we saw racoons eating our buns...uhoh. We tried to scare them off but they wouldn't runn of...and then someone decided to scare them off with a....bun. Yes ladies and gentleman, a bun was thrown at the racoons...which made sure that they didn't leave. So we did Pee waves and then started cleaning up int he dark. once we got that settled, some of them decided to walk around in the dark...I was too tired to think anymore. So I went to bed. Steph and Noelle came in later, And marcia much later....she said she fell asleep in front of hte fire for 4 hrs. Oh geez. As I kept sleeping...we were sleeping on a hill so I kept sliding down and I would wake up and start pushing myself back up likea little catipiler that we found the next morning....my butt's too big to sleep ont he ground...my lower back couldn't even touch the ground. And sleeping on my side didn't work really cause my hips kept digging into the ground. So I alternated between my front and back. And during the front, my hands would fall asleep and I would start to drool... When marcia came in...she put a pillow near me...so I keep saying pillow pillow...I really was half asleep....I think she thought I wanted it...but really I just was saying the word...she ended up giving it to steph ;D Anyways. Next morning...I start burning up...I had on jeans, a tank top, a long sleeve and then a sweat shirt. I last till about 8? and then I had to take off the sweat shirt. SO I stumble out of hte tent around 9:20...you really can't sleep late when you camp cause...welll it gets hot and the sun rises and there's light all over the place.

So I get up and Cliff and Hugo are already attacking the meat. That makes me sick so I'm sticking with non meat stufff...even the veggie burger was too like meat for me oh well sigh. SO we just keep eating and eating...marcia, john and joe left for some sing along in lansing....and we just keep eating. STeph wants to go to the beach. SO we go and then Hugo and her go swimming while cliff, stephen and I just chill. Steph then demands that we go to ice cream. ;3 We then go into brighton and unfortunatly steph got ice cream first....she got double scoops and a waffle cone and it was all down hill from there...ever one else got double schoops and waffles except for stephen who got a cup. I was so sick by the end that I about barfed. But I got something called bumby road...which was really really good. yum yum. So but that was about it ;D ;3 phun and wished we could have stayed longer but it was still good.

Sharing portion of blog
So to share for today, I've uploaded the first chapter of Bleach. It's good, check it out. That's all I will say. YOu can get the rest from me later, just let me know. It's just a zip of pics, so click slowly through them. And READ RIGHT TO LEFT. It's asian style so start from the top right corner work to your left and then as you go down work right to left. k ;)

Bleach Chp 1 *Right click & Save* This is a pretty big file for my ifs, so it won't be up for long...maybe a week? SO get it while you can

Mirror Mirror on the Wall

2005-06-30T08:02:00.000-04:00

With Vulcan as My Landscaper New York times article about Lava living in Hawaii. SOme lady was found living in a lave tube, which is kind of against the law and kind of disrespectful of Pele....hmmm but its interesting and there are some really great pictures of Lava.

.:'

So I was talking to Stephen last night about mirrors. ANd we were talking about dreams where we don't have a reflection in mirrors and how we don't really agree on our reactions and mirrors.

I really don't like mirrors. I think that the longer you stare in the mirror, the uglier you get. So when I walk by mirrors, I don't stop, I don't stare, it's a flicker and than I scurry off to where I can't see my reflection. Stephen was saying seeing your reflection is a confirmation that you are alive, that you are there. But is it really?

The mirror, it doesn't capture anything, it just reflects what it sees back. It is nothing with out objects around it. What if it was in a huge white room...it would just become part of the wall, the floor or the ceiling. And it depends on the mirror of how it reflects it back, sometimes it distorts and sometimes its just a shiny bit of something. I hate my room right now, cause the closet doors are all mirrors, I try and push them back to shari's side when we go to bed so i can't see myself.

I think part of the reason I don't like the mirror, is because when I don't look in the mirror, I forget what I look like. I don't think about it, don't think about hte moles, the scars...if my hair is sticking out at weird angles, if my clothes are on right. I just don't care cause I can't see it, but the mirror reminds me... to care about my looks...

.:'

Online Dating? Thin and Rich Works Here, Too
Speaking of looks, so I ran across this article and I'm like laaa....stupid. But some of the worst parts is the stats they give in the article. Here are some excerpts and my rants.

Having a lot of money is good for attracting e-mail messages, at least for men. Those men reporting incomes in excess of $250,000 received 156 percent more e-mail messages than those with incomes below $50,000. Women like men with a higher income than they have but men do not want to date women who earn more than they do.

Now see here. This is stupid, what the hell is your problem with your significant other making more that you and is female. These's stats say so much about our society and the place of women. Why is there this expectation and why can't guys deal with the fact that some females are going to make more money than them. Get over! Is the ego and pride so great that you have to expect something like this and pass up women who don't fit it. I wonder if guys don't date girls cause they make more money than them. Grrrrrrr...stupid...they aren't worth it or my time, but I have a feeling they make up a good majority

What about this one!

The worst thing a man can say is that he is "seeking a casual relationship," receiving 42 percent fewer e-mail messages than he would otherwise. A woman, by contrast, gets 17 percent more e-mail messages by reporting this goal.

Take it as you like. People could just say that its men and woman differences but what about what we teach our children. Oh girls have to wear pink, like floffy things, play with barbie dolls and have tea parties. Boys wear blues and greens, play with GI joes and war weapons, have to be stronger and not cry, mainly less emotional. Grrr you wanna die!? Cause I can arrange it for you, right here right now!

.:'

An Inexpensive Laser Printer Gives the Inkjets a Run for Their Money This Printer is so cute! just want to pick it up and take it home!

Bush sets up domestic spy service Ahhh we are going to all get arrested!

Taiwan ponders constitutional reform Issues Issues Issues. At least they aren't seriously considering a name change again. China did it way back and got disrecognized because of it. It's just hilarious sometimes. hopefully these issues will get solved soon, but its doubtful and there are so many corners to force oneself into. My uncle last year, left taiwan because of the election stuff. He was so fed up with Taiwan politics that he left for a couple of months ot visit people around the globe, I think he went to Italy to visit my great aunt, came to WA, seattle and spokane, Vancouver BC, and Cali. ANd probably much more...just don't know. Ahhh well...I wish I was retired to do that

Women gear up for gaming invasion oh yeah! ;p

Myco - Hibari *Right Click & Save* Another from my-collage. To be honest, when I first listened to this albumn, I didn't really like it. I came back after a year or so and for some reason it really clicked for me...just waiting for me ;D

Rainbow Parties

Just wanted to keep this one ;D

2005-06-29T13:01:00.000-04:00

Sharing...taught to all ages

2005-06-29T08:32:00.000-04:00

So I've been wanting to do this lately. Which is share the music that I'm listening or I think is interesting. So from now I'll be posting some music or providing links to music that can be dl easily...every once in awhile when I think to do so ;D But to be honest, I've been wanting to do this for like over....a couple of months but never got around to it...amazing since I have so much to do at work ;p

Mika Nakashima
This is her newest single: Hitori. It's being hosted on a nice person's site so leave a comment if you want, its nice and slow...soothing....*yawn* wannatakeanapsobadrightnow...booo

Yeah so....I was thinking last night I would end up typing about bush's speech last night. But since the apartment was glued to the BET awards, I didn't really watch it...and really did I really want to? I'm like my mom, I can only really watch for a few minutes before I becoming sick, disgusted, irritated, etc and have to switch the channels. And I doubt I would have really learned anyting earth shattering, which is confirmed by all the news articles that I read. So yeah, I'm so glad his ratings are going down!

Sweet picture of Downtown Seattle at night, with long exposure

An awesome pic, where someone took 9 pics, merged together and a really nice effect

One of my favorite flowers,Plumaria or you could just go to the group that just posts pics of plumaria. sweeeeeeeet.

Final part of entry.Da Capa by Myco *Right click, and Save* Albumn is my-collage. She's also known as Changin' my life, I don't really understand why she had two different names and different songs for each of them...but oh well...nothing ever makes sense to me. I like her a lot...her voice is distinctive but not high enough to be very whiney. She did almost all the songs in Full Moon wo Sagashite but the manga (book comic) is better than the anime (animated comic), its been full scanlated. The author TANEMURA Arina has done a lot of works that are quiet good...her style is pretty distinct. It's kind of close to HINO Matsuri But Matsuri.....well nevermind. Go look for yourself.

I'll post some chinese music soon. I only have japanese at work k ;D

OK OK!...so I came back to add to today's post. I found this on some random blog. It's hilarious...I mean...look at my battle cry...and doesn't that just fit me so well ;p Anyways. Just type in any name/username and click away! SHARE WITH US WHAT YOUR BATTLE CRY IS :D

This is for stevie3vixen...which I also use a lot ;D
Zang! Who is that, rampaging through the candy store! It is Stevie3vixen, hands clutching gilded boxing gloves! And with a mighty cry, her voice cometh:
"Brace yourself, oh human speck of dust! I tear into the enemy until everything has croaked!!!"

Laaaaaaaaaaast thing ;D

Words with Flickr So Madhu on her site did this cool thing with her name in photos...and I wanted to to do it...but didn't know how she did. But I just found this site that lets you do it. Waaaaaay cool. Just go and type in a word and up it pops ;D like this

Waaaaay cool no? I spent minutes just sitting there clicking back and forth to see what other stuff would pop up ;D This has got to be like the 5th time I'm updating this post...must stop

Frumpy Grumpy

2005-06-28T11:24:00.000-04:00

Who Are Americans to Think That Freedom Is Theirs to Spread? It is long, but its really interesting. He really puts his finger on it and it totally makes sense...at least for me, but he's preaching to the choir for me...so what about people who are against it....who knows what the hell they are thinking.

Korea Wave Just talking about growing trends in asia

Inveiw GogglesWAY GOOL! If I was still competitively swimming and really worried about my times and stuff...that would be on my top priority list. Seriously though...this might change swimming a bit since the swimmer can pace themselves more accuratly and won't have to break their stroke to check out the clock

So today. Today is a day where I vent about People at my job. No No...sorry habits and the culture of my job.

Someone came up to me and was like "stephanie I don't understand what you put together" Fine, I can explain no problem. And then she continues and is like "It's not easy and I was thinking, why should I even have to try." What she really wanted was the whole set up to be how she wanted it. Seriously. Who taught people to be so inflexible that they can't look at a little summary chart without freaking out and wanting to have it exactly this way. Some days I come in to work and wonder...how did so many anal people get combined into one group....

I know that I'm not really one to point the finger, but honestly....people relax! If it doesn't go your way, what the hell, you deal with it...not stress so much you get angry and can't deal with it and try and make it go your way all the time. Where did these people learn these things... I'm sorry I'm just being cranky now.

Work is slowly killing me. I can feel myself getting more and more fed up. About to explode. Just shoot me now. I'm really glad that Shutdown is coming up in a week. I will be alone, somewhere new and maybe doing something new...or not.

And now I will take my grumpy self and slot myself in a dark corner to mutter and draw dark pictures on the ground

This is a Great day!

2005-06-26T10:01:00.000-04:00

so I ususally don't post on the weekends cause I have things to do. Well no...I'm just not as bored at home as I am at work. But I had a great day yesterday so I wanted to post about it ;D OHMIGOD! BLogger let me upload a picture waaay cool ;D But I like the way my pic is displayed...they made mine smaller ;D

I stole this pic from mikey's site ;D

Anywaaaaaaays. So on friday, I went into ann arbor for shari's bday and to hang out with mike and everyone, cause mike's leaving this tuesd. It was lots of phun and we danced....except I hate those creepy guys on the dance floor that start trying to dance with you....UGGGGGG....my feelings just can't be expressed! Seriously....WHAT DID THEIR MOTHERS TEACH THEM!!?

Anyways, the next day since we went to bed so late, I didn't really get up till about 11am...and then we decided to watch saving face. but it was so hot and haning around in Steph and stephen's aprtment about killed steph, me, and christine so we went to sadako's for lunch cause it had AC and was cold food...we stayed for 1.5 hrs and didn't really want to leave. That's when I had the This is a great day feeling. It was just so much phun hanging around steph and christine...don't know why ;D Grin! big grin!

then steph and I hung around at the union for awhile doing emails, and I did the lsat studying and it was phun. We then were waiting aroudn for Madhu before we left for the movie. That was phun, parts of old board just hangning around...complaining, talking.

we went and saw the movie and then that's when it got kind of sad. Cause I had to say goodbye to mikey....not really goodbye cause we will still talk and you know suff like that...but....it's like it's really over. This year, and uaao board...is really over...John and chris left first....I actually don't know if anne marie is still on campus...and marcia's around flying the nation....you know...it's like it's ending and I don't want it to end so bad...and so I cried a little on shari....

We were so lucky. And that's really all there was to it. We were so lucky to have this time in our lives to spend time together, learn from each other, laugh at each other...and smile. And know that it will always stay with each other through our lives. On the way to the movies...I was thinking....man I can't wait to grow old with these people...and I know....I will.

It was a great day and the memories can't be replaced.

Sidenote: I would hate to have amnesia...to lose all these memeories that will be all that I have left in the end. I would never want to lose them...The thoughts, the happiness....never.

Speak no English? GOOD!

2005-06-24T13:00:00.000-04:00

Unclear on American Campus: What the Foreign Teacher Said First of all...this article's title is misleading. It's trying to do a pun. But in actuality falls flat. It's really what students are saying about GSI from nonenglish speaking countries.

This article have students complaining about the fact that they can't communicate and that the majority of math and science are foreign. Well no DUH! The US doesn't really encourage students to go into sciences and math...and math and science abroad at the lower levels is much better, encouraging high levels...We get what we sow.

I just hate it when people complain about the language barrier. I'm like hell...why do you expect someone to learn english for you if you don't even try and learn another language. What are people thinking? yeah it can be hard to communicate, but english isn't the universal language as many people would hope ;0 imagine that!

And for those people who say everyone should be required to learn english before coming here...give me a break. Those people are only saying that cause they never will leave the US...which is a sad fate just within itself. I was so surprised in Jr. High that some people didn't have a passport...I thought everyone would have one.

Google Search engine tricks ;) Waaaaaaaay cool. Look at these and all the things that you can do!

Look...more money wasted by the government...still

That's basically it for me, pretty managable post to read neh? It's a friday and I'm off in TWO HOURS! whoo hoo! Life couldn't be more sweet...specially since I got a new CD Drive! To the weekend, Saving face, and Shari's Birthday!

Family Tears

2005-06-22T12:56:00.000-04:00

Question of the Day!: Do you think any one has estimated the amount of time we waste sitting in front of the computer, waiting fot the pages of the internet to load? It has to be a hold load of time!

Some intresting articles:

Foreign Makers, Settled in South, Pace Car Industry : Talks about the great things toyota is doing for the US. in response to a post some while back where I vented about GM execs ;D
You should check out Toyota's Site and their future/concept cars Waaay sweet. Especially the CS&S...hybrid two seat roadster which has Toyota Space Touch," where the driver selects functions by "touching" holographic projections. SWEET!

U.S. Borders Vulnerable, Witnesses Say Even after spending so much money, we still suck at protecting ourselves. Surprise surprise. Think of all the other things that are in need of money...EDUCATION!? CHILD CARE?! ukk.

Ok now on to the main part of the post.
China In-Depth
This is a BBC indepth articleS about China. Let me emphasize the s...there are tons of articles, little blurbs about the society, economy, the ethnic make up, changing soc. econ. etc, articles. Its pretty cool actually.

To be honest, my knowledge of chinese history...mainland chinese history is pretty slim...its the same for taiwan history too now that I think about it. I started learning about mainland stuff in Jr. High, and further on. I learned more about taiwanese history in college...freshman year.

But in regards to China Mainland history, I have a really hard time sometimes, accepting it and celebrating it. Actually just the stuff from communism till now. They dynasties before are a bit more "Historical" to me and doesn't effect me as directly. Lots of people, praise communism in china, and Mao. And I understand their ideals and how they wanted to reduce the whole class system...I read marx and I wanted to get rid of capitalism too afterwards...that's a good piece of propaganda there... But the scars left on my family from the whole process is too much to ignore for me.

I started researching during junior high, and my mom recommended that I check in with my Grandma and Grandpa, Gaga and Gakon. My dad's side has been in Taiwan for awhile now. I remember the feeling I had when my grandparents told me their stories...I started crying.

For my Gakon, it is simpiler...well not simplier but easier said. He was in Navy school which supported the Democratic side and when he was 19, he left with the school when they moved to taiwan. He left all of his family there. His parents, whole host of siblings, aunts uncles...everyone. And he wasn't able to see them till about 7 years ago...when he was about 70. He hadn't seen his siblings in over 50 years...hadn't seen their children born, their grandchildren born. They had written letters, but there were issues because the governement goes through all the letters to make sure there isn't anything threatening...and who knows what that actual means...so there were pen marks and blacking out of letters. not only that. During certain parts of the communist takeover...there was a huge move around where they shifted families from one side of the country to another, so that they couldn't collaborate and bring down the governement. So you moved to an area you weren't familiar with, next to people who didn't speak your dialect.

My Gakon is from shechuen (what most americans think is just spicy food and the americaized version I can't pronounce) its a province in the south of china, but most of gakon's family is in the north of china now... When I meet the family, my great aunt...who spoke a different dialect cried over me and told me that she had forgotten the stamps that she had gotten for me and that next time she would get them for me. I think for me it was bewildering in Jr. high to have someone cry over you like that which you don't know. But I think for her, she had seen so much and to see me and be able to say next time I see you must have meant so much to her. Damn, I'm tearing. It means so much to me now. I hope I go back soon.

For my Gaga, its more complicated...sort of. Her family in china was much more well off. Her family is from norther china, north of beijing a bit I believe. Its that area that is suppose to be one of the most beautiful places in china, but its now covered by a dam....and doesn't that say it all? She had tailored clothes, a chaueffer and the house was huge enough to contain the whole extended family. And my Gaga also likes to brag about the fact that their house had one of the few natural springs in the front....yeah T_T...tell me about it. Her grandfather was the principal of a High School. My grandmother had 8/9 sisters and brothers. I know...my extended family is reallly huge and they pop out of the wood work all the time from my mom and dad's sides.

On top of destorying beautiful art and history throughout the country, the red army, in some cases tortured people. her grandfather was taken, beaten and thrown into jail, where he died for being the principle. His wife was forced to walk back and forth on a low narrow beam. it doesn't seem that painful, but her feet were bound. For those of you who don't know, that means when she broke her foot in half and then bounded it so that it grew back misshappen and that from then on she could not walk very well or fast. It was a big fad for awhile, like it was cute to break your bones and then shuffle around at a crawl for the rest of your life. Many times, they would do it when you hit your teens. She walked, and then after fainting from exhaustion and pain in her feet...she died.

Her dad decided they needed to move to tawian. It was a last minute run and the first three to go where her dad, and two of her brothers. They sent for the rest of the family later. I heard a rumor among my family that to escape, two other brothers had to pull a hay cart while the rest of the family huddled underneath in fear. But I don't know if that's really true, because gaga's family brought all the servants with them. So my mother's childhood and life has been filled with many visiting "uncles" and "aunts". The family at the time didn't have enough money to care for them, but they gave them places to stay and live for awhile.

My gaga and her siblings, grew up and built lives in Taipei but the scars will never leave them. Just last year, the family was finally able to get property rights of their house back from the government, but my great uncle: the one who gave my mom her first pair of jeans, refuses to go back and claim it. He has such horrible memories and can't stand the thought of going back and what could happen if he went back, like the chinese govt keeping him there. He's one of the oldest siblings. Eventually the house will revert back to the governement, but he still won't budge.

I interviewed gaga, gagon, and my great uncle last summer about their lives and what they have gone through. And all of them skimmed over their flight to taiwan and the whole communism takeover. My great uncle explained like this: "Life is so happy now, we should focus on those happy things. Not the unhappy periods of life". I agree...but at the sametime, will we let it pass? This great unhappiness and horror. Will we let the Holucoust pass? Will we let Tiennamen square pass?

sigh...it makes me incredible sad. And I haven't even gotten around to my dad's side of the family and history...and the Japanese Occupation. Another day, when I haven't typed as much or felt as much.

Manga Study Courses and Choosing your Neighbors

2005-06-21T08:05:00.000-04:00

CUTE NO?! *HUGGLES!*

Sorry kiddos. I'm a day behind. This was suppose to be posted yesterday and forgot ;D

I Want My Hyphenated-Identity MTV Really cool article about upcoming MTV Desi, MTV Chinese, and MTV Korean...caaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan't wait!

I reaaaaaally reaaaaaaally want to live near this university. Soooooo bad. Sooooooooo baaaaaaaaaad....*drool* Who wouldn't want to have a study course in anime/manga *Me mememem!*
Tokuyama University Opens Manga Room:

"Tokuyama University has opened a special manga section of it's library
consisting of 5,000 books. Title were said to have been chosen based on
character and title popularity. The purchase of the books was made for the cost
of about three million Yen via a second-hand bookshop in Tokyo according to a
Chinese newspaper. The school recently announced it's anime / manga production
study course."

yeah Madhu sent me this article, and she wanted me to post this with the article my response to the article: Why the FUCK do white people get to choose what minority lives in their frickin neighborhood?

Welcome to the Neighborhood
MINORITY REPORT-NY Post
By ADAM BUCKMAN

A new reality series in which three white, self-described "Christian" families get to pick their new neighbors from among a group of minority families is already drawing fire. And it hasn't even aired yet. The show is called "Welcome to the Neighborhood" and it's coming to ABC July 10. "I will not tolerate a homosexual couple coming into this neighborhood," one of the neighbors, Jim Stewart, says on the show about one of the candidate families - a gay couple with an adopted baby. "I want a family similar to what we are," asserts another neighbor, John Bellamy, in a statement that would seem to dismiss at least six out of the seven candidate families.

The diverse group includes African-American, Caucasian, Korean, Latino and gay families, plus one family in which husband and wife are heavily tattooed, and another in which mom and dad are devoted to the practice of Wicca, sometimes known as witchcraft or paganism. The show's first two episodes are filled with statements such as those above. Along with the show's premise, in which neighbors get to choose who will move into a vacant house on their cul-de-sac, the attitude reflected in the judging families' statements is raising hackles among fair-housing and gay anti-defamation activists - sometimes sight-unseen. "The show perpetuates the problems of housing discrimination, segregation and racism in America, and it undermines the fair-housing rights of a person's ability to go buy a house without any approval or judgment from a neighbor," says Shanna Smith, president of the Washington-based National Fair Housing Alliance. She hasn't seen the show yet, but is basing her conclusions mainly on reading ABC's press> materials promoting the show. She is already talking about launching an advertiser boycott.

Meanwhile, from the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation comes this reaction: "Watching three privileged couples vote to get rid of disenfranchised families they don't like is really disturbing," says Damon Romine, Los Angeles-based entertainment media director for GLAAD. Romine watched the first two episodes of the show last week. "Welcome to the Neighborhood" was filmed over a four-week period last winter in a suburban housing development in Austin, Texas. The winning family gets a four-bedroom, three-bath home, plus furnishings, upgrades and two years' worth of property taxes paid for them - a prize worth somewhere in the neighborhood of $900,000, estimates two of the show's executive producers, Jay Blumenfield and Tony Marsh.

In an interview last week, they said the show does not violate fair-housing laws, according to what they were told by ABC's lawyers. "This isn't like [the judging families] were renting an apartment to somebody or actually the sellers of a home. This is a prize, so in that realm, those discrimination laws and all that stuff are not part of this process," Marsh said. They're aware of their show's potential for controversy, but they're also hopeful that some people's outrage over the show will soften as the series plays itself out and attitudes among the judging families evolve and change. "I think this was an incredibly ambitious project, and I respect ABC for giving us a chance to be honest and to show what people really say behind closed doors," said Marsh.

Vie Durant

Hoppity Hop Hop...plop....Aruuba

2005-06-20T12:19:00.000-04:00

a former mayor testified that the white-supremacist group, the KKK, was a ''peaceful organization.'' The title says it all, check it out. If it needs a password I'm willing to share *^^

Interesting article that I got in the email. One that I totally agree with. Shari and I were talking about it the other day. it's really stupid how the media highlights this girl and doesn't splash all over the place about others who dissapear. About girls in Mexico who disappear on their way home from work from the factories. About girls in asia who get sucked into sex trade. No, instead they talk about girls who get lost on vacation, this girl who is so innocent and pure, who would never had gone out with guys she didn't know and do all those bad things that we aren't suppose to talk about...Riiiiiiiiight.

(White) Women We Love
By Eugene Robinson

Someday historians will look back at America in the decade bracketing
the turn of the 21st century and identify the era's major themes:
Religious fundamentalism. Terrorism. War in Iraq. Economic dislocation.
Bioengineering. Information technology. Nuclear proliferation.
Globalization. The rise of superpower China.

And, of course, Damsels in Distress.

Every few weeks, this stressed-out nation with more problems to worry about than hours in the day finds time to become obsessed with the saga -- it's always a "saga," never just a story -- of a damsel in distress. Natalee Holloway, the student who disappeared while on a class trip to the Caribbean island of Aruba, is the latest in what seems an endless series.

Holloway assumed the mantle from her predecessor, the Runaway Bride, who turned out not to have been in distress at all -- not physical distress, at least, though it's obvious that the prospect of her impending 600-guest wedding caused Jennifer Wilbanks an understandable measure of mental trauma.

Before the Runaway Bride, there were too many damsels to provide a full list, but surely you remember the damsel elite: Laci Peterson. Elizabeth
Smart. Lori Hacking. Chandra Levy. JonBenet Ramsey. We even found, or
created, a damsel amid the chaos of war in Iraq: Jessica Lynch.

The specifics of the story line vary from damsel to damsel. In some cases, the saga begins with the discovery of a corpse. In other cases, the damsel simply vanishes into thin air. Often, there is a suspect from the beginning -- an intruder, a husband, a father, a congressman, a stranger glimpsed lurking nearby.

Sometimes the tale ends well, or well enough, as in the cases of Smart and Lynch. Let's hope it ends well for Holloway. But more often, it ends badly. Once in a great while, a case like Runaway Bride comes along to provide comic relief.

But of course the damsels have much in common besides being female. You
probably have some idea of where I'm headed here.

A damsel must be white. This requirement is nonnegotiable. It helps if
her frame is of dimensions that breathless cable television reporters can credibly describe as "petite," and it also helps if she's the kind of woman who wouldn't
really mind being called "petite," a woman with a good deal of princess in her personality. She must be attractive -- also nonnegotiable. Her economic status should be middle class or higher, but an exception can be made in the case of wartime (see: Lynch).

Put all this together, and you get 24-7 coverage. The disappearance of a man, or of a woman of color, can generate a brief flurry, but never the full damsel treatment. Since the Holloway story broke we've had more news reports from Aruba this past week, I'd wager, than in the preceding 10 years.

I have no idea whether the late French philosopher Jacques Derrida hung on every twist and turn of the Chandra Levy case; somehow, I doubt he did. But I suspect the apostle of "deconstructionism" would have analyzed the damsel-in-distress phenomenon by explaining that our society is imposing its own subconsciouslychosen narrative on all these cases.

It's the meta-narrative of something seen as precious and delicate being snatched away, defiled, destroyed by evil forces that lurk in the shadows, just outside the bedroom window. It's whiteness under siege. It's innocence and optimism crushed by cruel reality. It's a flower smashed by a rock.

Or maybe (since Derrida believed in multiple readings of a single text) the damsel thing is just a guaranteed cure for a slow news day. The cable news channels, after all, have lots of airtime to fill.

This is not to mock any one of these cases (except Runaway Bride) or to diminish the genuine tragedy experienced by family and friends. I can imagine the helplessness I'd feel if a child of mine disappeared from a remote beach in the Caribbean. But I can also be fairly confident that neither of my sons would provoke so many headlines.

Whatever our ultimate reason for singling out these few unfortunate victims, among the thousands of Americans who are murdered or who vanish each year, the pattern of choosing only young, white, middle-class women for the full damsel treatment says a lot about a nation that likes to believe it has consigned race and class to irrelevance.

What it says is that we haven't. What it says is that those stubborn issues are still
very much alive and that they remain at the heart of the nation's deepest fears.

Question
So some rap and hip hop and stuff has really derogatory wording towards women. Women are not peices of meat, ass, things to grab, etc, but people made up with more than what is outside. What bothers me is that people have no real problems listening to it, especially some women. It's so derogetory to one's self just to listen to music that redueces you down to a certain denominator. I don't know why people actually listen and accept it as it. Yeah I'll be the first to say, when I go out dancing, some times I end up dancing to the songs, but more often then not...I try and sit them out...which is hard because there are just so frickin' many.

So why do we listen and accept?

I commend you for reaching this far ;) especially if you have read the whole entry. Now for the amusement of the entry

Are you a Seme or Uke?

I couldn't help it. I'm sorry...dark secrets are coming out. I found it on someone else's blog and suddenly the arrow jumped and there it was clicking on it. It had a mind of it own. I wasn't going to do it, especially not at work...but I couldn't stop laughing! or at least deep hyperventilating breathing. HAHAHA. That's what I might be...but I thought the picture below was the best ;D so cute.

Are you a Seme or Uke?

And really...don't worry about knowing what these terms mean unless.....well you really really want to know *pfffffffht* Must not laugh out loud at work

I found this on the same site and added it on. It's so cute ;D Ok the "dirtiness" will dissapear after this post ;p

You're a Shounen-ai fangirl

Are you a yaoi fangirl?
brought to you by Quizilla

Tuitions, Emerald Earrings, and....Happiness

2005-06-17T14:39:00.000-04:00

University of Washington Pricing Change

This is a link is to an article in the Seattle Times in regards to UW and their difficult with offering schooling to the students in WA state. UW has started to become similar to Berkeley in that students usually don't graduate till 5 yrs after because they can't get into the classes that they needed to get into. The number of freshman is huge and it overtakes everything. Including the dorm rooms: there were horror stories about how 3 -4 kids had to share a room only meant for 2. Its amazing and sad that the university doesn't have the ability to cover all the students who want to go the University. A big roll is the budget cuts and the diminishing support and money that they get from the state and federal government. The idea is to have a ladder system, with the richer students paying more while less well off students pay less. Its an interesting idea that has been put into place at the university of miami in Ohio (you know they were thinking abou the beach when they named the university, too bad they were in the middle of the nation -- jk I'm not sure)

But at the same time, it upsets me that our public university's have to fight for money like this. And that parents would rather send their kids to private schools because the public isn't supported enough and doesn't offer enough. What is wrong with us that we cannot see the indirect relationship of how we spend our tax money will support the education of our future? And I think its sad that once people have left college and are working that they are not willing to invest in education that made it possible to reach the stage they are at for others. And college students and younger are left to fight in a system they know very little about -> due to their public education no less. Why are americans so short termed in some ways? That's not very fair of me....cause I'm way too long termed

I didn't but...I did and now I'm *ashamed* ^^ or not. So most of you know of my recent obsession with no other than Howl's Moving Castle no? I watched it for the 3rd time last night since I got it...on Saturday? oh dear me my. Well lately I've been fantasizing bout.....earrings...these green earrings that howl wears. I really want them. yes Damn it I WANT THEM and I'm not ashamed to admit it. They have them for cosplay but I just want them. I found a review and an example in the link above. Yes, I searched on google for Howl's earrings. Sue me. And then buy me a pair ;D I don't like the ones in the link...but they are close enough to make me drool.

I ran across an interview ith Miyazaki. It's really great. I really love what he says. And they also talk about why most of his movies are woman leads...which is fantastic. I hope he makes more and more movies! Pictures of the Movie at the Seattle PI -> have to click on link on side of artical

So I meet my GM mentor for lunch today. She seems like a really nice person and stuff. But she kept saying something about this....its what you make of it. I felt like she was implying that if you want to be happy with what you are doing, then you will. And part of me agrees with her, but is it really that simple? Is it so simple that you yourself can make yourself happy or unhappy. It would definatlly put all the responsibility on me and I couldn't point fingers anymore. But it almost seems to extreme to me...claiming that nothing else effects you except yourself. I wonder....but it seems so simple, you can make yourself happy and satisfied. but if its so easy then why does everyone have such a hard time doing it?

Boredom Overrun

2005-06-17T08:12:00.000-04:00

Did you ever notice that in an article title...many times instead of saying a name or some of the describing characteristic they say...."Woman eyeing job..." "Chinese says China Gov't ...." I think they partly do it so that it will catch people's attention more because most people won't know the names mentioned. But honestly...can we not title it any other way. No class. No Style. And is that the only characteristic that is of significance

As you can see below. My boredom has overrun me.

Press Think Way cool blog that just won the reporters without boarders award for Americas

journalism.nyu.edu i'm going to NYU. I'm going I'm going!!

Guardian Unlimited another news source for me now

TELEPORTATIOn .....or no ;)

thememagazine.com Cool asian culture magazine that we ran across in borders ;D Maybe I'll get a subscription. If only I didn't move so damn much.

Video of violet riot in chinese village -> They are being forced to leave so a electric plant can be built
BLogs -> How bloggers are pressing the Downing street memo

Downing Street Memo -> info on the downing street memo ;)

So I looked over the statement issued to bond holders by rick wagnor for gm right and it was so so interesting. But I felt the really interesting part was at the bottom. only after rick had stopped talking. The warning label.

In the presentation above and in related comments by General Motors management, our use of the words “expect”, “anticipate”, “estimate”, “forecast”, “objective”, “plan”, “goal”, “project”, “outlook”, “priorities/targets” and similar expressions is intended to identify forward looking statements. While these statements represent our current judgment on what the future may hold, and we believe these judgments are reasonable, actual results may differ materially due to numerous important factors that are described in GM’s most recent report on SEC Form 10-K which may be revised or supplemented in subsequent reports on SEC Forms 10-Q and 8-K. Such factors include, among others, the following: changes in economic conditions, currency exchange rates or political stability; shortages of and price increases for fuel; labor strikes or work stoppages; health care costs; market acceptance of the corporation's new products; pace of product introductions; significant changes in the competitive environment; changes in laws, regulations and tax rates; and, the ability of the corporation to achieve reductions in cost and employment levels to realize production efficiencies and implement capital expenditures at levels and times planned by management.

It's almost like you are buying form a tv ad. It looks so so great but then there are all these strings and whistles on it. -_- The fact that they need to put such a qualifier on the end to cover their butt just startles me sometimes. like this line!

actual results may differ materially due
It's so phunny....its like diet pills or exersize....acutally results may differ due to your body ;p

Go diet pills Go!

Clouds Syncronization:: Women portrayal in Media

2005-06-16T09:17:00.000-04:00

Yeah so I LOVE CLOUDS. There's really nothing else to it. They are great and they filter the sunlight so its not to bright. And perfect for taking black and white photos.

I love the ones that are really close to the ground...almost like you can touch them. I love the ones where they are flat on the bottom and fluffly on the top. I love the ones that are thin and wispy and seem to be kites against the sky. Did you ever notice the clouds that take over the whole sky...its like one who fluffy blanket and you can't see the end and it hands so low. And the rays break through. I don't really like the clouds that are just blank...they take over the whole sky and there's not texture or feel.

The greatest part I think is to look for shapes. I once saw a butt in the clouds...the other day I saw a flying squirral. hehehe. I miss clouds. I'm so glad its rainy and cloudy...cause I feel better when its dark.

Below is an article that I got in email that is in regards to statistics about medai portrayal of women. ANd of course being women just gives you less air time. But its so amazing to find out how much and how little it has actually changed. read away.

Multi-Media Tune-Out: Ignoring Female Expertise
Run Date: 05/25/05By Sheila Gibbons
WeNews commentator

We all know by now that women get overlooked and ignored as sources for news. What we didn't realize until this week's study, says Sheila Gibbons, is how consistent the problem is across all news media.

Editor's Note: The following is a commentary. The opinions expressed are those of the author and not necessarily the views of Women's eNews.

(WOMENSENEWS)--Women continue to be underrepresented as news sources.

No news there.

But a study released Monday tells us what we couldn't really be sure of before this: That when it comes to including women, there are no good guys. Whether in newspapers, on Web or TV, women as people with authoritative views on the world are neither seen nor heard.

The failure to include women's perspectives holds across all news media, according to "The Gender Gap: Women Are Still Missing as Sources for Journalists," released May 23 by the Project for Excellence in Journalism.

There are some circumstances under which women stand a better chance of being treated as though they have brains to be picked.

Women are most likely to be included as sources if the story being reported is a "lifestyle" piece, as opposed to hard news, business or sports, or if the reporter is female.

In newspapers, female sources are more likely if an article is longer than 1,000 words (increasingly rare given most newsrooms' strained resources) and if the newspaper is a large-circulation daily.

In television, female sources are more likely if it's a morning interview program devoted to light features and entertainment.
Treated as Non-Entities
Then there are the circumstances under which women are pretty much treated as non-entities.

A woman is least likely to be cited as a source if the news program is on a cable network or PBS' "NewsHour" or if the story is about sports.

Women are also least likely to be quoted in stories about foreign affairs, according to the Project for Excellence in Journalism, a research institute affiliated with the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in New York.

Given that foreign policy and wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have dominated news coverage in the last several years, it's easy to see that failing to include women as sources in that coverage would dramatically reduce their presence in the news, and block our perception of them as people with ideas and expertise.

The study, funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts, examined 16 newspapers from a range of circulation categories, four nightly newscasts (commercial networks and PBS), three network morning news shows, nine different cable programs, and nine Web sites at four different times during the day for nine months. Three quarters (76 percent of all stories studied contained at least one male source. Just a third (33 percent) contained a female source.

The sourcing gender gap worsens as the number of sources in a story goes up. Reporters were more than three times as likely to cite two or more males within a news story as to cite at least two females (55 percent vs. 15 percent).

"This suggests that the orientation towards males goes beyond the primary source in a story," the report said. "Finding a male as the best first source does not apparently lead a journalist to look for a female as the second or third source."

Yikes. Not even an also-ran.
Trend Lines Going Down
The trend lines in this study seem to be heading down.

Cable networks, which favor men as sources, are drawing off viewers from the commercial networks, which use female source somewhat more often.

Foreign affairs news, where women are nearly invisible as sources, is likely to remain important for years to come. And the number of female journalists, who are more likely to quote women as sources, is not increasing. Nor are female journalists staying in the profession as long as men.

What is disheartening, even outrageous, is how long this problem has persisted.

The warning signs of involving women and men differently in news coverage have been well documented for years.

Beginning in 1989, Women, Men and Media, headed by Betty Friedan and the late Gannett and Freedom Forum executive, Nancy Woodhull, initiated a series of studies that looked at a media coverage involving women. They consistently found women to be fewer than a fourth of mentions on the front pages of newspapers, and often of a lower socioeconomic status than male sources. In a 2000 study of news coverage of the military, Women, Men and Media found that civilian experts and politicians commenting on military stories almost never were women.

In 1989, the Amateur Athletic Foundation of Los Angeles looked at television coverage of women in sports and found that men's sports received 92 percent of airtime, with female spectators often the target of male newscasters' jokes.

Studies by The White House Project, which has compared coverage of men and women running for political office, found that women's authority as leaders is often undermined by gender disparities in coverage of women, including the low numbers of women interviewed on political talk shows.

These and many others, along with task forces inside news organizations themselves, have audited sourcing of women and all have found it wanting.

Later this year, the Global Media Monitoring Project will release the results of its third worldwide survey conducted Feb. 16, in which volunteers from more than 70 countries took a "snapshot" of news media to study the representation of women and men. It would be a miracle if that report looks much different from the one just released this week.
Dozens of Discussions
Over the years I've sat in on dozens of discussions on why this is a problem. Often, the discussants are preaching to the choir. It has always been difficult to get the senior, male managers into the room and around the table to hear the context of the discussion.

Instead, they generally dispatch a "diversity" expert from their organizations, who usually is already well versed on the problem and, essentially, joins the ranks of the already convinced.

And then there are those who just don't believe this is a problem.

They insist that sources are chosen for their expertise and prominence, and that reporters will go for the most prestigious, authoritative source possible, regardless of that person's gender.

If that is always true, I would argue that even more women should be sourced than actually are being sourced.

Nancy Pelosi, minority leader of the U.S. House of Representatives, is a case in point. I don't see her quoted as often as many of the junior windbags with whom she works and not nearly as often as one would expect, given her senior leadership position.

Consider the density of journalism produced in the discussion of reproductive rights and abortion. Even though men aren't the ones to get pregnant, chances are that most of the stories that you read on this issue quote guys as primary sources. Now that reproductive rights are a political football, politicians, the majority of whom are male, are grabbing at it and trying to control how it gets handled.

Or take a gender-neutral subject, such as health or science or space exploration. There are many female senior scientists working in these areas. Why don't we see them more often or hear from them more often?

It can't be just that men are more prominent and authoritative on all subjects outside of home and Hollywood.

It can't be that all the newsroom coaching on diversity has fallen on deaf ears. It has to be something else.

It could be that to the people in charge of newsrooms, the majority of them men, it just doesn't matter.

Sheila Gibbons is editor of Media Report to Women, a quarterly news journal of news, research and commentary about women and media. She is also co-author of "Taking Their Place: A Documentary History of Women and Journalism," Strata Publishing, Inc., which received the "Texty" Textbook Excellence Award from the Text and Academic Authors Association, and of "Exploring Mass Media for A Changing World," Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers.

---------------------------------
For more information:
Project for Excellence in Journalism--
The Gender Gap: Women Are Still Missing As Sources for Journalists
May 23, 2005:
http://www.journalism.org/resources/research/reports/gender/default.asp

Global Media Monitoring Project 2005:
http://www.globalmediamonitoring.org
The White House Project--
Research Overview:
http://www.thewhitehouseproject.org/research/index.html

Randomonian Link

2005-06-14T19:11:00.000-04:00

SOmeone took some screen captures of Howl's Moving Castle and put together a little side story with subtitles on the pics. Its hilarious, for the people who have seen this movie.

And yes I know. I'm obsessed. I've crossed the line. And now I'm going to go out and dance in the land of Howl's Moving Castle. Tootaloo!

Lemon After Taste

Brain Kill....& Rape

2005-06-14T13:18:00.000-04:00

Ok it's official. My brain has died. It started gradually with my eyes and then slowly expand backwards on the highways that extend between my eye sna dbrain. I've just sat infront of the computer for 5 min, just staring at the screen. 5 min of nothingness...how did I do it, usually I can't sit still really for what....3 min tops? And here I am starying at the flickering screen for 5. My eyes can't take it anymore. Any minute they are going to pop out and dribble all over my sweater and onto the key board.

So last night. I'm trying to fall asleep and nex thing I know, there is giggling and high pitch girl screens from the neighbors. I hear lower muttering of a man's voice. If I had really tried I probably could have heard their whole conversation. At first I thought they were just playing. But the girl kept screeching...I thought she was being tickled, but on closer listening...I didn't hear any giggling anymore. And I couldn't tell if it was actually domestic violence or not. I was like...well if it was, I was going to call the police. But I had such a hard time deciding if it really was that I actually feel asleep listening for so long. Finally I decided it wasn't, I'm not sure why, I think because I was so tired I was like...it just is and I was fed up with this girl screeching....so I rapped my knuckles against the wall and they stopped. Thank goodness...sleep. I swear everyone was out to make sure I got the least sleep as possible.

But you know, domestic violence is really a difficult issues. For bystanders...how is one to actually tell if it is dom. vio.? Are they just kidding? having a little fight? And if it actually is, could you really call the polic on it. I think the main issues is, does one hit, batter, or word count as domenstic violence? A lot of people when they hear about the issues, or the story of someone going through that kind of violence think, oh I would get out rght away, who would be stupid enough to stay?? But in the actual situation I think the real question is, can you say the same again?

Being the victim of such violence is such a difficult situation. When do you draw the line...when is it actually considered "domestic violence" or just punishment or phun? I'm not just talking about partners but I'm also talking about between family relatives, to your childern, from your aunts, uncles, grandparents etc. The first time it hits, its so unexpected and you're just amazed that the person acutally did it. Then you convince yourself that it won't happen again...so you stay. And the cycle continues. There are so many different reason that people stay, and they are all very valid reason to that person. And it is always that person's decision to stay or not. You might be one who would want to leave, but could you really say the same until you are in the situation?

In some ways I think many view domestic violence, since it occurs to women so much, as mainly the woman's fault. She can leave can't she? Or maybe she asked for it. It's in some ways very similar to how people view rape. She asked for it? She's a tease...it's almost like...what girl wouldn't want to be raped. You got to be kidding me. The fact that our government and society have a hard tim protecting children against convicted child molesters and believing women when they are raped or violence is committed against them makes me so angry. These are the people, especially children, need support and protection and its not offered and in so many ways it is hoarded.

When a woman walks in and says she's been raped, the first thing should be to make sure she's comforted, and be on a charge to find the person who inflicted. But I feel like the first feels many people have are....are you sure you were raped? Like geez I wouldn't know if I wasn't raped, if I had my body violated? I know people will point to how girls have misused the call of rape but honestly...does that mean we mistrust the rest of womenkind? It's like saying well....some men have raped, so all men are probably rapists underneath it all.

God damn it. If I get raped I expect to get the respect I deserve as another person who has been violated. And if not...you will definatlly feel my wrath.
Men can stop Rape
Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network

Obsession: no not the fragrence

2005-06-13T09:53:00.000-04:00

I'm obsessed. I don't get like this often but I'm obessesed.

Ok, so howl's moving castle's plot isn't put together as well as some of his others. There are some holes and some of the side characters flash in and out and could be more indepth, but the main characters are all there, including all their parts.

The movie has miyazaki's usually themes of anti-war, flying (my favorite), but they weren't as prominate as usual. The story was really centered around Sophie and Howl and how they each change and come to understand themselves. It's such a happy little story and there are so many great little characters! Like Michael...wanna take him home with me. Or the fat doggy...oh god, the fat doggy.

I watched parts of it again last night with Shari. It just makes me so happy and there are so many things that you see in there that you didn't notice the first time. The backgrounds and landscapes are honestly...just gorgeous. It makes want to live in there. He's so creative with his worlds, they are so facinating in that there's so much of what we live in, but so much more of things I've never thought of and how it seems to mix seamlessly together. I think that's one of the greatest things about his movies, any writers, is how they can make a world that would never be on this earth, seem real and possible. I've read very few who can do it: Anne McCaffery, Patricia Wrede, Piers Anthony. My heart is giddy with excitment....it's like I'm in love.
Howl's NY Times Article where I got the pic

As an Add on : I just discoverd that script when originally compiled was not meant for Miyazaki and that he wasn't intended for the director. He just joined pre-production. So it has the feel but maybe not the complexity or the depth that most are use to. But I have been reading some forums and it is good to point out that this movie shouldn't be compared to others as a rating of how good it is. It should be rated for itself. And based on itself it's great!

I think humans are one of the most akward things I've ever seen. How we stand. How we walk, our gait: The lift of the leg, the slide forward, the twist of the upper body, the pounding of the foot as it comes back down. When we talk, those pauses, those akward comments, the hand gestures. And then we add things like...hair accessories, hair gel, gunk, color, high heels, shoes, loose clothing that slows us down. We decorate ourselves with cars, roads, houses, unbrellas that don't seem to fit in with us or the enviornment around us. Why do we require the need to reshape things around us so that it fits us better?

I ran on friday, and my upper thighs are still sore today. ba-lah! my legs are really out of shape, my upper body is better cause I use it more when I swim....when I swim.

Ok off to search for more howl's moving castle links. Must find OST: top of list ;)

oh yeah. my brother is keeping track of some of his days in taiwan. Check it out. He's pretty phunny...considering he's my bro ;)
Michael's Site

Day of Festival & Howl's Moving Castle

2005-06-11T21:08:00.000-04:00

Today we went into Detroit Festival ran around with madhu and Steph and erin and....jarad? is his name no? And it was phun phun. But we ran into this one music group with a ball of drum and two gutairs....and this long wire thing...its the silver thing in the pick and it has like 5 wires attached with weights at different points to give it different sounds. It was so cool looking. But I never got to see them play. But here's a pic and there's music samples below. Madhu thought the guy who played the gutair was hot...he was pretty cute ;D (Guy in pick) Also the drum globe, there were some drum with metal centers and when it was plugged in and you hit it,it would make a differnt sound, then that of a drum. Waaaaaaaay cool.
Mass Ensemble
Music Sample

And I accidentally pulled the chair out from underneath slchang. She got made at me cause wehn I could have said don't sit down, I just started laughing. I didn't mean to, the chair was wet and there were chairs that were dry, but I just couldn't talk quick enough. It was so phunny I laughed for like a....5 min....5 min.

Just wanted to throw in a pic of beth being silly. SHe has a similar picutre of me but fortunatly its not digital and can't be posted on the web like this ;D

So, I was looking at movies online and I ran across the fact that Howl's moving castle was being released in the US. So I was like...oh maybe I'll go watch it on the big screen. I clicked on the trailer and you know what....they were speaking english. I rolled my eyes. ANyways. I watched it today with my roommate and I LOVED IT. honestly....I love this guy, Hayao Miyazaki. His movies always hit the spot. This movie is simplier than his other movies and has more to do with love and stuff and the people themselves. There are other movies that I love of his, like Nausicaa, princess mononoke, Latupa. ahhh my heart. I'm on a high of this movie
Studio Ghibli Fan Site
Official Studio Ghibli

My roommate wants this pic up. So you may all smile as I ride off into the sunset with my donkey.

PS. If you see my brother wish him HAPPY BIRTHDAY. It's his bday today ;D

Linkaholic Driveby

2005-06-10T12:58:00.000-04:00

I'm on a blogging drive... look at me go, my boredom has prompted me to do so many things: watch more anime, read more manga, answer emails right when I get them, surf the net to: read mass amounts of news and articles, find sites of interest, and stare at the ceiling to make sure my eyes don't go bad. Reading chinese news, looking for radio sites which are blocked my gm's internet security systems.

Seriously. Would you still read if I just wrote about the daily adventures of little Steviek at the big bad GM world? HAHAH probably not, cause my day would probably put you to sleep and you wouldn't even finish it.

So here's the results of my surfing:

News Documents of interest:

China's intolerance of Tienanmen dissent: these people have been calling on Chinese gov't to apologize and acknowledge the incident which they still deny ever happened. Many of these people are mothers of students who died. And they are followed and harassed by the police, not allowed to leave their houses etc.

Changing your Muslim name: Yes, so all of you who say there is nothing to a name, check this article out. Gawin and I have had lots of talks about this and what our name says about us even before we meet the person.

Immigration population is getting younger and more diverse: do you need anything more than the title?

Bush aide 'edited climate papers': Yes, how unexpected. The bush admin edited papers to say that there isn't as strong of a link between global warming and emissions, papers that had been researched and compiled by leading scientists. They were edited by a lawyer of the bush admin who has a background of lobbying for oil interests and has no scientific teaching or learning. And why are we all not surprised.

Chinese Internet Security: Talks about how the Chinese gov't locks down on certain websites, blogs etc. And how it becomes easier and easier to do so even as millions start joining the internet. They show error pages or that the pages just don't exist. They even block bbc.com ;) Maybe they are blocking my blog ;o

Global internet security: This is more global about restricts in the internet. It also talks about how people in china have to register their blogs with the governement now.

Photoblogs:
I found these sites and some of the pictures are beautiful. They aren't just of their friends or their lives, they are real pictures...really like ;D

alwayscurious : a really great and humorous site of pictures

Photofriday : a main site for many other photoblogs, they also have contests each week for a certain theme

clk : Another great photo blog sites, i think she might be semi amaturish, but she's really good ;)

wideangle : great pics from all over the world. Lots from WA. I went through them all...so many places i would rather be right now ;)

mirrorproject : this one is really cool in that the whole point is pictures taken through the mirror, Check it out

Phew! done finally. Check it out ;)

Nationalism and Hell

2005-06-10T07:57:00.000-04:00

NY Times Spread on Economic Class Divisions
Yeah so, NYtimes has been having this spread on Class divisions. Its not very scientific but it is very interesting. They talk about people how have risen through the classes, those who have fallen, different types of forming classes, how its less able to define, immigration (my favorite) class, hyper rich, and how how literature displays it. They add on articles every few days, and there are lots of interactive little things to do ;) Check it out.

As mentioned by Stephen in my GM vent, Toyota is thinking about price hikes to keep nationalism hate down. An article giving more detail is below.

And as we were walking through the plant, I remember the guide kept cautioning us to not get offended by the fact that some of the workers were glaring at us because of Rick wagoner's speech the day before. But honestly, I don't understand why people take their hate out on the small fries. They have no idea and they just use their hate to harm others.

I sometimes wonder how one can be so loyal to the point of being oblivious. I remember there was a girl who lived in my hall, who's dad works for GM. We were talking about ferraris and how yeah...one to own would be nice. But I cut in and say oh I rather have a honda/toyota hybrid. And she shoots back, well she wouldn't ever want to own a foriegn car.

yes....we sat in silence there for a minute and then slowly pointed out that ferraris were foreign cars.

She gasp, stuttered and turned, and then revealed that well...she only considers japanese cars foreign cars. Oh lets backtrack some more shall we.

It's sad that toyota has to come out about this in such a fashion. That they have to worry about a backlash against themselves. The US national pride will not stand up in the face of growing economy globalizm and to use it to stop it is like pounding nails into our feet. Its extremely painful and in the end makes it so that we can't move.

Toyota Fears Backlash Amid GM, Ford Woes
Financial Times
By James Mackintosh June 9, 2005
Toyota , Japan's biggest carmaker, fears a protectionist backlash from the US if financial troubles worsen at General Motors and Ford, the leading American vehicle manufacturers.
Hiroshi Okuda, chairman of Toyota and head of the Japan Business Federation, said "nationalistic sentiment" could be stoked by the problems at the two US industrial icons, both of which have been downgraded to junk bond status.
GM on Tuesday announced that 25,000 US jobs, one in five of its blue- collar workforce, would go in the next four years.
"Many people say the car industry wouldn't revisit the kind of trade friction we saw in the past because Japanese automakers are increasing local production in the US," Mr Okuda said. "But I don't think it's that simple.
"GM and Ford are symbols of US industry, and if they were to crumble it could fan nationalistic sentiment. I always have a fear that that in turn could manifest itself in policy decisions."
However, GM and Ford yesterday said they did not want trade restrictions. This stance contrasts with the anti-Japanese lobbying of the early 1980s that led to a voluntary agreement by Japanese carmakers to curb exports.
The US market share of GM and Ford collapsed from 65 per cent in 1982 to 47 per cent last year as Japanese carmakers, led by Toyota, sold better quality cars at lower prices.
Fred Bergsten, director of the Institute for International Economics, a Washington think-tank, said the focus of the car industry's lobbying was on the exchange rate of the yen to the dollar, not on imports.
"Most of the auto companies themselves are now so international it really does militate against their pushing in a protectionist direction," he said.
Toyota , Honda and Nissan, the leading Japanese manufacturers, all opened factories in the US in part to prevent a repeat of the 1980s arguments over imports.
Toyota has also been running patriotic US television campaigns since last summer to promote its credentials as an employer of 31,420 people in the country. DaimlerChrysler, the German owner of Chrysler, America's third-biggest carmaker, is running a promotion in Washington to stress its US roots.
Mr Okuda's comments came as Kirk Kerkorian, the billionaire investor, aged 88, received a lukewarm response from GM investors to his attempt to buy a big stake in the carmaker. He had hoped to increase his holding to 9 per cent, but his offer of $31 a share proved too low.
GM yesterday repeated its call for Japan to stop intervening in the yen/dollar exchange rate. "We are happy to compete with any automaker around the world but the issue of currency manipulation is still an important issue for us," it said.

Breathless....Loveless....and Heartless

2005-06-09T20:24:00.000-04:00

I think breath is such a phunny thing. We don't think about it very often, we do it so naturally that we forget sometimes and maybe fall into bad habits. Like when you get stressed or angry and the breath stops...picks up....accelerates and gets shallower. Not many people actually think about taking deep breaths. I always forget to and so when I do its so weird and I feel light headed like I've just come off of a hard swim and tired.

Once, someone told me that he would just let his body deal with breathing...but its so important why don't we think about it once in awhile.

I think it's a scary thing, sometimes I will suddenly feel like I can't breath at all...I'll be sitting there and my throat will choke and the air stutters around between my cheeks....it doesn't happen very often...once in a movie theater when everyone laughed...I just felt hatrad and couldn't breath. Or when I'm stressed.

I think the fact that we don't think about breathing, even though its so important is like a methaphor of our lives and things that are important to us, we don't spend much time thinking about them. Is it too hard, or do we think there's something that's already taking care of it. Like our hearts? Our Emotions?

I think I hear the ice cream truck. Ran out and got some. Yum, not that it really makes a difference to me and the a/c in the house.

I miss home.我想我的家. View of Lake Sammamish

So how do people deal with stress. I've gotten better at controlling my brain to not think about it...but my body still carries it and it won't let go? How do you deal?

Speeches...the deranged...and the bored

2005-06-08T21:44:00.000-04:00

So today was......dum dum du dum: GM Intern Finance Day.

And yes, it was a great day to talk about how great, how wonderful, and how it will get out of the rut. Yeah and I had the same feeling when people get togther at Michigan to talk about how great it was. My eyes just rolled. I am always amazed by the number of people who get together to just talk about how great they are and the things that they work on are great and greater than anything else, ie number 1 carmaker blah blah blah. Just let me leave!

Anyways the best part was, Paul Smitt I think...some director of something or other gets up there to intro the "career fair". Which was not a far...but 10 min presentations and 5 min questions of r 6 different departments in finance. Woo hoo...let me contain my excitement and direct my undivided attention to...this letter I'm writting to Eileen. ye-ah. So he starts talking about how great GM actually is and how really...Toyota and Honda don't really compare that much to it. I took down stats I was so pissed.
So here are the stats:
**Amount invested in the US: GM - 20B, Toyota - 10.7B, Honda - 5.6B, Nissan - 2.8B
**Number of people employed per 100 cars: Big 3 - 23.4, Jap Big 3 - 13.3

So then this guy was like...look look. GM is obviously the better of the two. ok lets makes some points here:
1. No duh Gm invests more in the US, they started in the US. I think it should really be a comparison of home country investments. Lets see how GM compares to Japanese car companies in terms of investment in Japan huh?
2. Japanese Cars are built more efficiently: therefore they don't need to employ as many people. Seriously. They give the statistics but they try to view themselves int he best light and actually...in some ways really believe it.

One of my managers said also, that he didn't think the reasons that SUVs and Truck sales were decresing because of gas prices, but because of loyalty and waiting for the newest trucks about to roll out. *please* ugg.

But the best part of the day was when we went on a boat ride on the Detroit river and talked to a lot of directors and executives of finance and we just got to chill and mingle. It was just really cool talking to people about these things and just about their lives.

I kind of turned into Mini-Steph Chang and attacked the audit director who is Angie Chin, to talk about asian interest groups in GM and if they were working with capa and OCA about things like mcri. And she's like babble babble so...we will keep in touch and see what she can do for us. ALso, someone in CAPA works at gm too. I should email here. Perhaps I will ;D

Anyways I just wanted to vent my frustration with GM. bleh ;D

WASL Test

2005-06-07T12:34:00.000-04:00

bzzzpeek.com
Before we bet started. This is a website that has imitation noises that childern/adults make in different countries for different kinds of things, ie cats, dogs, ambulances, ducks, bigs, mice, etc etc. It's so much phun and cute. It just totally makes me laugh. Go check it out. There's a country that really really sounds like a duck! honest!

WASL TEST
Now then, down to serious business. WASL stands for Wasington Assessment of Student Learning. It is a state wide test that is required to be taken by certain grades...10th. Now I took this test and deemed it pretty stupid. The sad part of this situation is that next year, students who take it in 10th grade will be required to pass it in order to graduate. Now, that doesn't seem so bad right? hahahaha.

But given the fact that over half of the 10th graders last year failed the test and 43% of African American's failed the test...I think we are at an issue here.

Now I remember taking the test and having no trouble. But I remembered many people who did, and failed not the whole test but portions of it. I think there's a math, writing, reading, and science sections. They had to retake the section to pass the test. The link above is about a group of students who decided to do some TV Ads about what they thought about the test etc etc. It will be released tomorrow at Rainier Beach High School, but pretty cool eh? About time they spoke up.

But this situation kind of pisses me off. Honestly, how can a test be used to qualify if the student should graduate or not? Just one test?! No way, it's unfair and what can you really learn from a student about their preparation for college from a multiple choice test. Nothing and not enough to evaluate if they are ready for collge.

But lets say, lets say that hypothetically, the test really does measure the apptitude for collegeness (I just made that saying up. I know. It doesn't make sense. But it sounds really snobby doesn't it?) Then the issue changes. OVER HALF OF HS STUDENTS IN WA ARE FAILING IT. I think its a big sign that our education system needs to be revamped. If we think students should know this information before they go to college, then why don't they? Where is the system failing.

But this test makes me angry, because it's trying to make sure that the students are prepared for college and are educated enough and think that if we test them, they will some how magically have the knowledge needed! They are treating a sympton, badly if I might added, when they should really be focued on making sure that the education infastructure is in place to provide education and make sure that the kids walk away with the education.

Because that's the key point. Its not the time during the education, but the time after education, what students, people, animals, that is important measure of how well you educated.

Blah. I'm going to listen to animal noises to make me feel better ;p

or take an anime test. Pulled if off of Madhu's site. I wonder if she's even seen Cowboy Bebop?

what's your cowboy bebop theme song?

Drooling

2005-06-06T08:11:00.000-04:00

So, shari and I drove back to Novi in the thunderstorm yesterday. It was phun. Well, phun for me and scary for shari. She can't drive in snow or rain, so it was a good thing that I was driving. it was really cool to see the wind blow the rain across the road and feel it hit the side of the car. I forgot how much I miss driving in the rain. Don' t do it much often now that I'm in Michigan. Can't wait to go home...even though it won't be rainy over there. Boo.

But man....tornado funnel clouds....kind of interesting. Shari and I realized that neither of knew what to do if there really were tornados, since we didn't come from tornado areas. The biggest thing we are worried about in the NW is earthquakes which I've been through a couple. one time I was in the shower and the glass panels of the shower started shaking back and forth really badly. My bro freaked out and yelled for me to get out. I guess if the glass had shattered, it would have been troublesome, me being naked and all. Does anyone know what to do if there's a tornado?

So I was thinking....why do we drool? specially when we lay on our stomachs and our heads are turned to the side. Or is that just me. How does the saliva collect in that corner of your mouth...why that specific corner and so far forward. Its such a phunny feeling when you drool too if you think about it. I mean...its like when they have numbed some area and you can feel something touching the area but you really cant't and you don't have control over your facilities in that area...its just werid. It just slides out and there's nothing you can do about it but whip the stuff away...or let it soak into to what every you are leaning on and get a face wash. If you ever catch me lying on something of yours on my stomach...most likely I've drooled on it and you have my condolences ;)

-----------------------
As we sit here,
watching time pass us by,
wrapping our faces in its cloth,
pulling its self by,
only the gentle pressure of the fabric, a reminder of the world we have been injected in
flaping in the wind of activity and we wonder...
is this the moment?
Should I be paying attention to this moment?
Will it be the one to change my mind, my path, my heart?
Will it mean so much that I can't forget, hope to forget,
suck the juices and color out until its just a dry carcase of a hulk and say...
it was a good moment?

Feel the slow decay
...as the skin starts to sag off the bone.
Becoming jiggly, doughy sacks of skin.
As it drops off in slow glomps of death,
and all that's left is the bare ivory of bone and few scarps of skin, feeble and only able to hold on for dear death.
The jaws fine line of definition that gives you such unigue features starts at the tip of white and slo~wly travels up the smooth jawlength of bone,...
turns and encounters the pit where your ear use to be before it too...
slowly slide down the side of your neck, your muscle, your blood, and into the trench of your white collar bone. and as you lift your fingers and listen to the clackle of bone hiting joints you have to wonder....

Why you can't breath,
why it seems that even as your breath has been clogged with cotton and seems to slow, and time calms its cloth,
that your rhythem is shallow and fast and why it seems to keep picking up with no deep breaths,
harder and faster till nothing else matters as you gasp for so called life,
even as you lethargically inhale the humid air, waiting for relief, wating for clarity and breath, and realize

....there just isn't any air

Saving....bubble gum, pixie sticks, and eyes

2005-06-03T22:24:00.000-04:00

So this movie was just released in LA and NY. It's going to spread out soon, to the rest of the nation, dependent on how well it does in theaters. Waaaay exciting, it looks so cute. And its time we supported. Gina and I agree that it hits home. Saving Face
It went to sundance and stuff. And I heard rumors that one of the head guys at sony is chinese and he really liked the script and gave it to will smith, who took in home on friday and on monday called up and was like how much money do you need to do it. Sweet. Can't wait to go home and watch it neh? I think I will go with my mom, my aunt, and cousin. They will enjoy. Maybe my brother too.

So I was going to write more. About...something. But I think I can't remember ;D

Ahhh I remembered! After a shower, it helped relax my brain. SO I decided to wax my legs so I could wear shorts. But those little strips of stuff that goes with it...I seem to misplace. So I tested out a theory that I've had for a few years...dryer sheets. I say no more, except the wax leaked through and so I put a piece of paper on top and now my legs are hairless. Hehe. So my cousin and her mom (my aunt) just got their green cards and they will be coming over to Seattle and she's emailing me questions and stuff about you know, jobs, majors, adjusting and at the end of the email she asks about hair on legs andarms and stuff. Way great. what is it with hair.

So I was watching the disney channel and I came across this show title:
American Dragon Jake Long
In actuality I don't know what the show is...except that its about a little asian boy who is angry and when he's angry he turns into a dragon and shoots flames and I'm sure kills bad guys...maybe not kill, but humiliate the bad guys. Seriously...the title...the storyline. gah. gah. gah. ok bye by

Irony

2005-06-02T13:03:00.000-04:00

I found these great sites today.

The first is a place where chinese mp3 can be dl.

The last two are independent media. I'm sure that many of my friends will scoff cause they found it many moons ago. But I'm proud of myself and its interesting. ANd it ironic that I found them as I was searching for corporate info. But one is for Seattle so i can keep up on what's going on over there. yeah!

http://www.baidu.com/

http://seattle.indymedia.org/

http://www.indymedia.org/en/index.shtml

Cold wind. Blow wind.

2005-06-01T12:25:00.000-04:00

Man...so the air conditioning is on at work and home now. Brrr. my nails turn such a nice shade of red purple and my skin is so dark with the blood flow underneath it against the cold over my skin. But the worse is going to the bathroom. Who the hell would want to pull down their pants in that kind of cold to go pee...Part of me just wants to hold it till I can't go to a place where its warmer. They probably don't heat it cause no one is in there the whole time and its a waste of energy but seriouslly...my thighs and butt need some protection when I'm doing a daily function of life. ANd I don't think is very fair for women cause we pull our pants down more often in the bathroom than guys. boo.

So my mom and I had a real serious talk about lsats, law school, and our game plan for the next couple of months. Its given me some piece of mind, but not. There's a set path, but I wonder if I'm just trying too hard to get off the bschool path and just getting onto any other path that I think is viable, mainly law. I'm trying to work out why I think it is viable and why I think its important. We shall see. But while we were talking, my mom was like "oh stephanie I know and think you will make a great lawyer." The wierd thing is that she's not the first to say this to me, and people actually say it all the time. Did I pick the wrong area of interest of business then because of this? -_- then I asked my mom why, cause so many people say it to me and she's like "its cause you are so anal" and I'm like...blaaaah

After the bschool and work, I realized that I'm not as anal as I thought I was. that's so phunny.

This is too hard to type. I quit. Its easier for some reason just to go through emails. scary.

phunny blog I found

Immortal Technique

2005-05-26T10:27:00.000-04:00

So I'm at another day of work. Waaa hoo. Let me break out my party package and get down. or not. But you know the really scary thing is that I almost seem to enjoy the blankness. Nothing really demands on me. I just come and play with excel sheets and don't really get bothered by anyone, read the news, play music all day etc....It really scares me how much I could just slip into it cause it's comfortable and it doesn't challenge me. I think that feeling always pushes me. The feeling that I'm getting really comfy and could keep this way for awhile, pushes me to change so that I don't become like that. oh dear.

So I started off the day's mix of music with Immortal Technique. HAHAHA....it gave me chills. It's really interesting music and if Stephen reads this mabye he could post some links to it ;) hint hint ;) It gave me chills just listening to it at work. And since the work doesn't take any brain power I can listen to all his words and what he's saying. But its phunny....he's so opinionated. I guess I am too on things too, but I wonder sometimes how right am I? When he sings, raps, whatever, it seems so definate, like there is only one way, and I know that I approach life like that a lot, but at the same ti, I try and remember that it's not only one way. How do you know that way is "right" or the way it's suppose to be.

It makes me think of a conversation I had with Beth back in...soph year about how you can want to go out there and change things. She asked me something that has always stuck with me. She asked me how I could be so self righteous as to say that there is a way that it should be and try and change it to that ideal. And she's right, in a way. But at the sametime, if we don't then we won't have change, is the way we are doing it right too? sigh...so many questions

I think I think.....I think I'm incapable of loving someone. it might have to do with the fact that I don't really think "Love" really exists. or maybe...I've been feeling a little emotionalless...does that make sense? I was listening to this NPR show that was talk about testosaron(which is another word that I can't spell). And they were talking to a woman injects it into her and then they talked to a guy who's body stop producing it for awhile. And that was really interesting....he was like, It was almost I think something of maybe what god feels. He looks at everything and is like "That is so beautiful" But it's really passive and there's no emotional rush or happiness or anything...just....and I kind of feel that way...just emotionalless and nothing pushes me to either side of the table. don't know.

I've been in a weird mood lately....forgive me

High Heels of Hell

2005-05-24T20:48:00.000-04:00

As I am sitting here at work, flooded by excel sheets, I sit here and
wonder about the rest of my life. Will it only be filled with business
suits, excel sheets, and high heels? Its enough to make me want to jump
now.

Speaking of high heels. Have you ever tried to walk in them? I don?t
understand at all how other girls walk so well in them and don?t stomp
around like me. It?s not like I am like?boom boom in my sneakers, but in
high heels, I guess I might be at least 100lb heavier. I strike the ground
so hard. I was trying to walk on my toes and it kind of helped but then it
was so uncomfy and I felt just like Barbie. Yuck. So I guess I put most of
the pressure on my heels when I walk. Seriouslly who created these stupid these.
I wish we went back to the days of court where even guys wore heels, sure they
were shorter but they were still heels ;)

So its kind of hard for me to come to work. I do come and do work and work hard
and try and make sure that I do well. But at the same time, I just depresses
me. This company is not anything that I really believe in but what keeps me
going? and am I strong enough to throw it away. I know that this will ensure my
future, make sure that I never want for anything, never huddle for warmth when
my heat is turned off when I don't pay, or what it feels to be truly hungry,
have people judge me by my clothes.

And those all sound like really great reasons why I should stick with it. But at
the sametime, am I killing myself and am I really challenging myself as I
compete to have the best numbers and suck up the best and network with people....don't know

I really am not hte best at networking. THere's this guy who sits next to me and I feel the most comfy with him cause he's a nerd. Makes me think of Aaron! Ahhh aaron, miss you lots in japan. Yeah but he's a nerd and keeps all these facts and stuff like that ;)

I'm sick and getting worse.

Sometimes I get stuck in the silence. Or I get really comfy in it and suddenly I just don't want to talk. I was thinking...when we open our mouths to talk, its just saying that we know what's going on and we are saying that our opinion matters and will make the difference....but do we ever know and do we really ever have a right to talk.

OH OHOH. So I was talking to stephen last night and he said he was sitting around with a couple of guys and they were talking about how guys don't like to talk on the phone. BUt then he was saying that he usually doesn't but he can talk to Marcia and me for over hours. And Allie was like...man your manhood went from here to here. and I was like...um so that's how its measured eh....But the kicker was then Hugo was like...you know why you can, cause those two are psychatrists. and I started laughing. ANd then I told my mom and she starts cracking up and she's like that....that's why I like talking to you so much.

The phunny thing is that when I was little I thought about being one...but then I decided that I couldn't listen to everyone's problems like that and not get depressed. ;)

call time ;)

Missing Pieces

2005-05-13T19:55:00.000-04:00

There are Dandylions here at home. (Is that how you spell it Dictionary Stephen?) THere seem to be a lot more this year. And they are everywhere. When you walk down the street, drive in your car, walk in a resturant and see the mats...they are everywhere, floating, sticking, swirling, and hanging. It's kind of strange but its almost like you're moving through the universe and you pass stars...not that I would know what that is like.

It's so green here, dark, light, torn, mostly dark. Trees, grass. And when it reflects against the blue sky, it just makes me sigh. Even better when the clouds cast themselves against the sky. Clouds that have personality and can be touched when you just reach out to it. Fluffy pieces of white cotton candy swirling around in the wind, across the surface of the earth.

The lake looks so calm today...like glass laid between the roads and green of the earth. That only ripples in reaction to the clouds hanging above. I miss winters here, where clouds hang so low that they are only feet from the lake surface and the other shore of the lake is obscured by a hazy dream.

I wanted to go downtown and eat some real fish, do some real shopping and buy some manga, but I slept late yesterday and I'm still pretty sick, so it's not a good idea. Sigh. Gray shadowy concret, gray waters, green humps and blue grey towers.

I heard that a famous photographer came to this area and took pics and fell in love with the area cause, with the overcast clouds the lighting was perfect and soft. SOmetimes the clouds break and ray casts in beams on to water or trees.

I don't want to leave, I don't want to leave at all.

I like light, but I love the dark, shadows, casts, and haze better

One last thing

2005-05-10T13:57:00.000-04:00

I forgot to say. That even though, it was hard not speaking the language...I know I will kind of miss at the same time too...cause then I didn't know what other people were talking about. We were sitting in the waiting area to get on the plane and these 4 middle age women were talking...and you know they were gossiping and stuff...but it was in english so I could understand and I just didn't want to hear it.

ste

At the end of the flight!

2005-05-10T13:49:00.000-04:00

Sorry! So I just didn't touch a computer for awhile. But this is what happened for the last couple of days ;)

Day 5

Sooooooooo, we got up way to early for me….we had like at least three alarms going. The front desk, the two tvs and their alarms. But we got up and did our thing and got in the taxi to the north part of paris. We actually ended up driving past Moulin Rouge, which was kind of cool considering we didn’t get to go in and the taxi driver & Aaron told me that its kind of shady part of town, lots of dance shows and prostitution. He had some very definite opinions about prostitution, tourism, and parking traffic.

We then rode the bullet train out of paris. It was the same stop that was in amelie. That was pretty cool. I took pictures and look like the tourist that I am. Yeah so, the bullet only took about 1.5 hrs to get to Brussels. It was cool, most of the fam snored on the way there. I put some thoughts on paper.

So we arrived here and my uncle and aunt picked us up. We went to eat at an Chinese restaurant. And I realized that after eating, that I wasn’t full and that I hadn’t had Chinese food in awhile and they could probably set out 6 more plates and I could have eaten them all. I have a bottomless pit for Chinese food, nothing else but Chinese. So from there we drove home to move all our luggage in and take a break. On our way to the suburbs the last thing I remember was seeing the smart cars made by Mercedes. They are cute two seaters that can fit anywhere, kind of like a small dinosaur head. I zoned out. And then I went into the house and zoned out on the couch. Seriously, falling asleep around other people who are awake is kind of scary, you wake up and you don’t know what happened for the last couple of hours, yet you don’t know what they did.

So we went to pick up my three cousins and headed to Waterloo. We climbed like 300 stairs to reach the top of this artifical hill. It just makes me wonder what people are actually thinking…when they dump more dirt on more dirt. My cousins are really cute. They are 5, 7, and 11. The oldest is a girl and the other two are boys. You are totally asking for trouble. They definatlly liven things up but they are kind of scary too. I keep wondering if I was like that when I was younger. Hoooooope not. So then we went home and then let my oldest cousin go to extra classes. And then we got to the interesting part of the evening. We went to an all you can eat restaurant called Mexican BBQ.

So, I’m thinking, I flew across the Atlantic to eat Mexican. But it wasn’t but it was. There was a lot of seafood, fries, cold veggies, mozzarella, etc. And then they had an area for raw meat which you could go and BBQ yourself. But I’m sure that most of the people didn’t go for any of that…they went for the free beer and wine. Once you had paid….there was no end to the alcohol to be had. Can totally imagine a few people into that. But what got me about the place is that they have pictures of Nevada, the grand canyon, nature of the Americans, and then pictures of the Iraqui or Navaho (is that how you spell it? I can’ remember but) They had pics of plains Indians, and the chief of the tribe in California which were moved on the….trail of tears? No? So yeah, I mean you could stretch it and say that the N. Natives Americans had ties with the Aztecs, Incans…etc. but still. And yet all these French people just don’t know…gah. Oh dear. Brittany would be slightly angry if she was there. I thought it was just too weird. The place was packed too cause the holiday started tomorrow and my uncle was like, everyone has money now ;D

Day 6

So we started the day off at 10am. We all piled in the car that was rented, 9 person van, which is huge on the streets of Europe. And I apologize now. Not to you. But to all the people in Europe who need to drive next to this van driven by my father. Yes I’m sorry, the pain is all yours. So we headed for Holland/dutchland/Netherlands for some extra phun. My mom told me that when she heard about Netherlands, that she initially thought of Never Neverland, you know in peter pan. And she only heard about the Netherlands about 5 years ago when she started working for Phillips, who’s headquarters are there. I kind of just played with hemp string most of the way. I used to make necklaces etc all the time when I was little….where did I find all that patient to make such things, I lasted like 1.5 hrs. And then I fell asleep. Belgium and the Netherlands are a lot like Seattle. Lots of rain, cloudy, and green. Awwww home. I kind of want to go home right now. I mean it’s phun being in Europe and all but at the same time, I just want to be at home and comfy.

Anyways, it takes about 3 hrs to make it to Holland and the tulip garden, Keukenhof. It’s pretty cold out and I’m wearing my berks. At least I have my helly hanson coat, it’s pretty warm, but damn it where the hell are those fields on fields of tulips? Guess we will never know eh? Actually they are moved into the garden and replanted. And once they wilt, their heads are chopped off. Most of the fields are chopped off, we came a little too late, too bad. In part of the garden there was this young guy chasing these kids around, and he was making growling noised. He was fake kidding, but he reminded me of hugo, except hugo I’m sure would eat the children after catching them. So after that, we headed to the hotel. As we were driving in, it came to my attention that there were trees surrounded by tall blocks of wood. Doesn’t it seem sadist to purposely wrap live trees with dead ones? I know I wouldn’t grow.

After settling and scoping out the sauna room, we headed into Amsterdam and I forgot to switch out of my berks. Actually, I realized that I had been insatiable for the last couple days, and really tired. I think it’s a sign that my period is coming. I always get tired and can’t seem to get full when I’m about to start. Actually, in paris, my brother finally learned that we are probably part jewish. Aww the slow and the ugly. It’s a story that’s pretty old (ask me about it if you want to know) and that’s why my mom and I probably have smaller red blood cells, it’s a Mediterranean thing I guess. And that might make my periods more difficult, since I’m gushing blood from a certain area.

So we park, and head to one of the main canals of Amsterdam. I found out htat Amsterdam is below sea level and that they have tons of canals. We took a little boat cruise through the area and went down a lot of canals. A lot of the building architecture is different and yet the same in paris, Brussels, Amsterdam, and suburbs. It’s kind of interesting. After the boat cruise, where the captain showed off his skill at boat driving through the canals, we walk a ways in to a square. There were lots of cool souvenir shops etc on the street which I wished we could have stopped up, lots of cool tshirts that I’m sure many people would enjoy, Stephen perhaps. There were lots of Marijuana shirts. The fact that I can spell Marijuana without spell check must say something. There was also a sex museum, which I couldn’t go in with the children around…but I was very curious. My understanding is that that is not the worse there is in the city.

We ate at another Chinese restaurant till we were full, sort of…period and all. Actually, some Europeans came and in and when their food was served, they had hot grills on the table. My uncle said it was cause they take so long to eat, that this way the food stays warm. Cause they could eat for like 2 hrs. I was like…2 hr? wow…but it makes sense, the heating not the two hr eating.

As we were walking back to the car, at like 10:30, I realized how I really should go on vacations with people my age. I wanted to shop through the shops and check out the interesting areas…instead I continued walking with a 5, 7, 11, 18, 21(me), and 4 adults past the age of 45. I talked to my mom about it and she was like…yeah you should. And then talked about how she went to palm springs with her friends, and they got a massage, pickup some Chinese takeout, went back the hotel and….knitted. And don’t that just say it all. Wonder if I will get that when I get older. Does anyone want to make any future orders? I will make scarfs, little hats…whatever else.

That’s it for the wild ride in Amsterdam. Disappointing but still phun sort of ;)

Day 7

So I was in a bad mood for about the first half of the day. I had to sleep in a bed with an 11 year old. And even though she’s in 5th grade and looks how I looked when I was that age, tall and way older than my 11 years of age, she still sleeps like a child. This includes a lot of turning and tossing, arm and leg flailing. I had also happened to drink a bit of water before sleeping and when her leg slammed into my abs…lets just say there was no way that I wasn’t going to wake up. And because I didn’t fall all the way asleep, I remembered a dream I had, a horrible dream about UAAO. Let us not stain this area with it. And on top of all that, I woke up with a scratchy throat…which totally means..yeah I got a cold. UuuuuuuuuuG. Everyone’s going to be like “again?!” but I don’t get a cold that often anymore. I think I got so many colds 1st semester cause I just took on too much, 5 classes, UAAO, Utter Mandarin, Swimming just killed me.

Ok, so me and bad mood, got in the car and we drove up north to the dyke that the Dutch built, its about 32 miles across I want to say. It’s really a big dam with grass growing on it. It was kind of windy and cool. But if you look one way, there was water and the otherside was water too. They built the dam so that they could add land. Since they are below sea level, they keep losing land and the harbor keeps getting bigger. So they damed the harbor and then started dumping in more dirt.

From there, we drove back south to Haven. A cute little seaside city, a lot of the stuff was much cheaper there than paris, its amazing the difference. We had some weird ice cream dipped in chocolat. It had some light banana flavoring. It was interesting. The roads are really narrow and stoned. Parking was hard with the 9 person van and it was windy and cold.

I will just put on paper here. Beth asked me if paris guys are all they are rumored to be. And I will say, they are ok, maybe not up the rumor. But let me tell you, Dutch boys ;D HAHAHAA they are all blond, spiky gel hair, good clothes taste, tall….yum yum, sooo cute. Not all of them but lots of them. I kind of want a darker haired version. But I can’t be that choosy neh?

So continuing. We piled in the car and drove to the otherside of the little harbor thing, on the opposite side of Haven, which is a little town call Marken I believe. And here, is the oldest little fishing dutch town left standing in Holland, and with hand made traditional dutch clothing on sale. We pay to get in and start walking the streets. Part of the town is build on the sea, they piled dunes of dirt and built the houses on top. The houses are not very big, we went in the oldest one and the beds are built into the walls, at least in the old ones. The interesting part of the town, other than the fact that everything was stone and almost all the houses were green, is that people actually live and work in the town. There is a supermarket, there are bikes going all over the place etc. I think they made it into a tourist town after they couldn’t be a fishing town anymore. Can’t remember the reason why. But there are so old people there and they are all wearing old traditional dutch wear and stuff. It’s kind of amazing how well you can preserve the culture. But I think it would be weird to make your town a tourist attraction. Its kind of like when the Native American’s open casinos or set up their traditions to attract tourist to make money. It takes a lot of guts and willpower to stand there and do that. I really admire those people, but at the same time I don’t know if I could do something like that. I have a hard enough time when others do it for my culture. Sigh.

Oh did I mention that there are cows and sheep everywhere in Holland. And there were some in the town, everyone just had babies so it was really cute. But the black sheeps were off by themselves while all the white ones were together. Discrimination! No just kidding…but for a sec there I thought it was and I was like…EVEN AMOUNG SHEEP!? jk

So we all pile in the car and start to head home to Brussels. On the way home, we stop in Antwerp, which is a town just past the border, which there was no custom and no money has been needed to be exchanged to get some food. Of course we stop for Chinese food, blaaaaaaaaaah. I like but still ;) It’s not as good as last nights, but still munch munch. However, the Chinatown of the city is kind of shady, but cool. There’s a lot of mix, there’s some Himalayan, African, Indian, Chinese, etc. I really wanted to try the Himalayan food but…Chinese here we come!

I think what made my day today was, as we were heading back from Antwerp, my middle cousin is talking to my mom and calls her the wrong honorable title, he calls her grandma. And my mom is like “NO NO!” I’m your aunt blah blah. And he’s like oops sorry, aunt. And my mom continues to explain and is like you also have an uncle. And my great wonderful cousin is like uh-hu, yeah he’s dead. And I just can’t stop laughing cause he’s not dead, but it’s so great. It’s my older uncle that I mentioned in other entries. If you really want the whole story, you can ask but its something else that I will not stain here. We also sang old Chinese lullabies and riddles which I haven’t heard it so long, its kind of soothing. Well that’s about it. We are going to an antique market tomorrow and I’m excited, we shall see.

Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay 8

Soooooo I woke up this morning. And it was rainy and windy and the antique trip was called off. I also woke up at 9:30, which was too late. Geez…we are suppose to get up at 7 for this? Ummm we might do it tomorrow and I will try but it will be nasty. I’m getting more use to the time difference though, cause I woke up without someone calling me or noises going on. And so we watched TV with the kiddos for awhile. My Middle cousin is great…he started to sign “I’m too sexy” in Dutch. That’s just great, I leave Hugo and the English version to come to a miniature and a dutch version. It just started the day correctly.

So instead, we first went shopping for food for tonight, HOT POT! Yum yum I can’t wait. So we first went to the pharmacy first. Three in the family, me, my mom, my dad are all sick. The pharmacy is pretty interesting. There’s very little in the actually store that you can grab. But you have to talk to the lady behind the counter and be like, this is wrong and this is what I need. And then she/he will pick it out for you. The medicine is stored in these cabinate things, that pull right out of the wall and can be accessed from bothsides. And there are about 10 of them all side by side. Its pretty cool, but makes for a long line wait since everyone needs to talk to the person behind the counter. But obviously the person behind the counter has a lot of good nknowledge of what works and what doesn’t. It made me think of OMS and queues…stupid bschool intruding on my trip.

After that, my oldest cousin and I went to Blockers, which I felt like was equivalent to the dollar store, while the rest of the group went to a chocolate store…which I didn’t know ;( god…the horror and the pain. My mom’s like we can go back..and I’m like please…I’m not going to make everyone do the same thing again just cause I want to. Unlike some people I know…cough..ahem dad and michael.

From there we headed to this Japanese store where we picked up the hot pot stuff. But there was also a lot of Korean and some Chinese stuff. The employees there could speak, Japanese, Chinese, Korean, all major e.asian languages covered. There was a really cute little kid in there, she was about 2 -3 and she was screaming and calling out to her mommy. So cute.

Oh my bad. We are having Hot pot tomorrow. Tonight we had dumplings, hot and sour, and some sushi rice, and red wine.

Anyways back to the Japanese store. We got lots of food…and I tried to not seem to obvious about viewing the alcohol section, lots of plum wine and sake…eeps ;)
After the Japanese store we went to the European supermarket, Delaize. So we shop a little, getting other stuff we will need. We come across this little CD section and I’m taking down artists like the shady person that I am. Dl here I come. We also got a ton of cheese. Yeah for cheese! We got some Brie, some old Amsterdam, some…chocobloc, some creamy white stuff…etc etc. That chocobloc…yeah its chocolate and cheese…it’s pretty sweet and pasty like, so that you can spread it across crackers. It’s sweet and pretty nice…even covered with chocolate sprinkles.

So then we head home, stuff ourselves some more and then head out to brussel’s downtown. My aunt and uncle live in the suburbs of Brussel about 10K out. So we park about a block from the EU building and then take the subway into the center. And the first thing that we hear/see when we come out of the subway…is the LGBT Parade. There’s flags, floats with the europe’s version of the fab five. I personally really liked the long bus with about 5 palm trees of two lines. And around each palm tree, was men…wearing little briefs and and necklaces?...can’t remember and they were dancing…and there was loud music…I have pictures and that’s all that matters. It was a pretty cool parade. I wished we could have watched longer, but everyone one was like…oh man..its too loud and crowed…side streets it was… But walking in the opposite direction of the parade were people holding pink signs that said things like “do you know where you are going” and I was just like…man…just leave..this is not your parade ugg.

Anyways we walked around, it was pretty cool…all the old architecture and there happen to be a tin tin shop. I almost bought a tshirt, but it cost about like 30 bucks and I was like..nothing is that cute. Tin Tin is cute but Milou is much much cuter ;) I’ll check it out on the web. We also went and rubbed some lady’s arm…she’s made of gold….I still need to get the story from my uncle why we rubbed it. But you rub it with a wish you want.

After that we headed to another part of town and went shopping. On the subway ride there, some guy got on the subway with us…and has an accordion….is that what it is? It compresses and has holes for fingers and has a keyboard…accordion? Anyways he starts playing….its kind of nice to ride the subway with music….but other people ewere not so happy. It’s really hard to shop with so many people and there are so many different. I think I will have to come back to Europe with my friends. I think with my family I get one experience but with my friends another and one that I can enjoy and go into shops more often. Maybe after graduation? I saw these really cute shoes that I will have to try on eventually, when I can. I figured out there’s and H & M store around the place, but no one doesn’t know where it is…soo sad. I did want to go and buy some cheap nice clothes. But we instead went to Hagen Daas and had high priced, fancified ice cream. It was phun and it was kind of cool. The store was huge and there was places to sit and stuff like that.

After that we headed home, ate dinner and then proceed to watch old videos. We watched the wedding ceremony of my uncle and aunt, from 1989. My brother was the ring boy and I was the ring girl, I was 5 and my brother had just turned 3. Yeah, so my brother was almost asleep even before walking down the aisle and fell asleep during the ceremony…his head was against the pillow as he walked down. I felt like the aisle was much much longer in my memory, but its defiantly a lot shorter. I was pretty good about sitting there through out the ceremony but my brother was all over the place, climbing over things and stuff. And then when I walked back down the aisle throwing flowers…I was a bit slow about throwing it and moving down the aisle. It was phunny though, the video took about 30 -40 min, everyone was focusing on the two kids, not on the ceremony of love going on…of dear…important things really do come out 15 years down the line. We watched a few more movies of my 3 cousins.

I forgot to mention that, a lot of Europeans seem to smoke better. Well at least in regarding of releasing smoke and effecting others. A lot of them smoke, but in blowing smoke they seem to do better, blowing up instead of at other people. Also, the restaurants and areas seems to be better ventilated with the expectation of the smoke to come. A lot of Europeans seem to smoke a lot more but it doesn’t smell like it ;)

Well I’m going to bed early so that we can get up early for the antique market and some mineral cave. DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY 9 here I come! UGG

Day 9!!

Yeah for last day! So we got up early this morning…like 7:45ish to go the antique market. I took a little nap before we left and I took a little nap after we got back. So anyways. The market wasn’t that big, but it was in the city of Brussels. We headed in and walked around. It was pretty cool. There was a lot of old stuff there, but I think you need to pick through and figure out what was good and what was new…I saw some bracelets from Hawaii in the mix. My brother wanted to buy a dagger for 130 e. And I was like…uhhh like there would be any use. And he’s like oh I could hang it on my wall. My parents then rec that he take a pic and I’m like yeah and then you can hang the pic on the wall, same effect ;). I found a pin that I really liked and ended up buying. But it was really phunny cause the lady was like, its Art Nuevo, made out of plastic not the real thing…laaaa, oh buy.

So we got home, ate spaghetti…my favorite bleh and then took a nice long nap. I think the cold is getting into to me….I think everyone else thinks I have strep throat….and I hope to hell not. So then we climbed into the big van and headed for parts unknown of Belgium.

We went to a Mineral Cave called Domain of the Grottoes of Han. (www.grotte-de-han.be). It’s actually a huge cave and pretty cool. Only a majority of my pics came out cause the flash is pretty lame. But you have to take a train out to the cave and then after the cave you get to take a little boat ride back. It’s kind of phunny cause we went into one of the biggest parts of the cave…it was huge and then they played music and light up different portions of the cave with the music….It just made me laugh…honestly they were trying to keep the cave natural…and that’s why you have to ride the train in, but all the lights and people walking through probably doesn’t help at all. And they dug up portions so that they could be placed in a museum, trees and such. Ohhugg. But the place we went seems to be a tourist place but not for Americans. Cause they gave tours but only in French and dutch…so we were kind of out of luck. But when they were flashing the lights and it was pitch dark I couldn’t see a think…my hand was right in front of my face and I couldn’t see it at all. Ohhh scary.

So we left the boat and walked back. Most of the public bathrooms need to be paid for in Europe so when we found out one was for free…my family of course rushed the bathroom. I don’t think we would survive well here. The water needs to be bottled, tap is not ok, and going to the bathroom costs lots of money. A lot of the European public bathrooms are different from the American ones and this free one was probably the closest in terms of soap dispensers and towel dispensers. Most don’t have towels and the soap is dispensed in interesting ways. The most interesting is this bottle attached to the wall and you flip over and squeeze. But the one here was just a regular one, and my mom said one little kid was so fascinated that she pumped her had full of it and it was dripping off down to the floor. My mom was saying that she thinks most of the kids in Europe don’t have as many experiences…like being able to get out of the house and exploring other things…their lives are much more bitter than those of kids in like the US. So they are amazed just leaving their houses and towns. I agree but at the same time…for kids in the US, to get that OMG feeling they have to leave the nation to get it and very few do. I mean…I thought everyone had a passport until like jr. high. And I think that’s kind of sad and that its not encouraged in any sort of way. Especially language learning. Most of the kids here know at least one other language fluently…or pretty close. Take my uncle’s family, the parents speak mandarin and French and the kids speak dutch and mandarin, and understand English and can speak a little. Aren’t we a much better equipped family? No?

Oh I forgot to mention, that the bathrooms here are pretty sweet. There often time is only one door to the bathroom and then two hallways off with one for guys and one for girls. It’s so great. That way if girl is full you can hop over to guys. Also, the stalls are like little rooms, so it doesn’t really matter who’s next to you. And they usually only have one set of sinks for everyone. Waste not want not no?

Anyways. So we had hot pot tonight! Yeah! Instead of a huge pot, it was Korean style? Well it had the BBQ thing in the middle and the water around the side. All the oil and sauce from the meat would fall off the BBQ and into the moat around the thing. It’s pretty good. Except I think we killed it, the light stopped shinnying after awhile. So we stopped. But I did get some good soup out of it before we really stopped. After that we watched one of Andy Lau’s earlier films…it was pretty good…about the imperial cat and shinning mouse about back in the time of emperors and talked about a famous fighter who was so good that he was called a cat and his friend from war, a court official who was very wise and solved many crimes. Fighting, phunniness, and more. So now I need to go to bed and close this out. We are getting up at 6 tomorrow morning and I feel like that’s a bad idea already. Well that’s about it for the phun and madness. Will be home soon.

moooooooa Mooa!

2005-05-03T16:27:00.000-04:00

Day 4

Yeah....last day in paris ;( So at the complaint of Stephen, I will try and spell correctly. But I would like to point out, and also say that I proved to Stephen, that my spelling is not targeted at the french language...but all languages, even english. When I learned french I just didn't really memorize the alphabet. I'm not even too hot on certain chinese alphabet letters either ;) Yeah for not learning words well.

So we got up...around 10 I want to say. And headed out to the Musee d'Orsay. So while we are standing in line, my dad picks up a random guy who's here for a conference from taiwan. He's an engineer for Toyota. Ohhh dad...picking up random strangers. He's like we should buy him and ticket and he should come around with us. My dad is way too trusting sometimes. People will call us out of nowhere and are like, will you back us for a visa and my dad's like "yeah! no problem! who are you again?". ANyways, It's a lot smaller than the Lourve but I loved it so much better. It has a lot of impressionist and neo impressionist art and I LOVED IT. I really like Neo impress stuff cause its how I dream, in dots of colors and none of the colors are quiet the same as they actually should be. I really love Singac, Pissarro and Max Luce. Monet is hot too but yeah not as many crazy colors. My family was just not as amused as I was about it. I think they liked the palace better. After doing the top floor of impressionist art, my family was like time to go. x-x I was like NO! There are still like 2.5 floors left. And they were like, well we will meet you in the front in 15 min. I speed walked the rest of the floors and vroomed around. I really wished that hadn't happened. Some of the paintings were HUGE. Ahh well. As I was running to the front, I ran by a special exhibt for a neo impressionist artist, I think Seurat. gaah but I would have to buy another ticket and my parents were waiting. BLAH!

oh speaking of dreams. I had a werid one. I usually have werid dreams but the problems are there are very few that are applicable to my life. There was one a few months ago, about pills, video games etc that freaked me out. Anyways this dream that freaked me out this morning. So I started having this relationship with this really great guy. He was super sweet etc etc. But he would want to take picuters, have me write my names in all his stuff, on his walls etc etc. But I refused on every front. It was like I didn't want to leave any sort of mark in his life. So we went on for awhile, having phun together. Suddenly the dream speeds into the future and I'm with a new guy, near the end of our realtionship and I start thinking about hte guy before. Flashback, man my dreams are like movies. Anyways, there's a flashback to how I broke up with the other guy. I started disapearing, like I didn't hang out as much, didn't speak to him as much. But I don't know why I wanted to break it off, he was great, but I just wantd to leave.

And so one day to break it off fully, I got him a toaster ;) He really wanted a new one. And oh did I mention that I have super powers?And my previous bf had super powers. So one night he was training this little kid of his, not actually kid, just some kid that he looked after, and I ended up saving the kid when he ran off looking for mischief. So we are standing together on this tall tree and I tell the kid, here give the toaster to him and tell him that I love him lots but I never want to see him again, and I disappeared from his life. I ran into him and couple of years later and he was happy with a new gf and they were getting married soon. they were really cute.I felt really sad but I felt that he was better off with someone else other than me. So now to my current bf, who only wears white undershirts....I wanted to leave, but I didn't know why again. Ugg and then I woke up and freaked out. Yeah freak.

Ok back to my last day in paris. So after the greaaaaat musee, we went to the chateau de versailles, which was where the court of Louis XIV set up the culture of europe. I took that out of the guide book so I wouldn't spell anything wrong. As we were walking up, I lean over, bending in half to tie my shoe. My back breaks, my palms slap the stone road, and my knees slams down. We have been walking or standing a ton for the last 4 days, and my back is at its end. Uug. The place is humungas. We walked through out the rooms and a few things stood out to me, 1) everything is glited in gold, 2) there's a sweet sticky perfume smell in all the rooms, 3) Why did they paint all the walls and ceilings? poor artists, and 4) They must have been damn short in their time cause there's no way that I would fit on their beds. I really didn't enjoy it as much as the Palace in the heart of paris. The palace was much more open rooms, tall and lots of windows and not smelly. But it was really interesting to hear about the place and how the King set up everything about him and how he made everyone come to the chateau so that he could control them and run the country as he wanted. But what was pretty cool is the gardens. They are amazing!

They are probably 3/4 times the size of the house and the house is huge! and beautiful and the garden is well groomed and trees and bushes all over the place. The fountains are great too. I just keep imaging all these well dressed people walking around in their heels, slowly, and ribbons flapping in the wind, some light music going on, and servants glasses clicking as the court circles the garden with the sun king. It's pretty cool. So my family was like, I don't want to walk, my mom got sick so she wasn't feeling too well about walking but I was like, I came all the way here and I want to walk some of it. So I end up walking around, get lost in the maze of over 10ft bushes and get to the fountain with Apollo comiing out of it and then come back and they are gone. They actually rented an electric golf cart to drive around, so I sat around and people watched untill they came back. It was nice. There's also a green house under a cliff under the house where the King use to store his Orange trees. It's a pretty cool place.

So then, we headed to a resturant down the street, that's a house of crepes. Everything is in crepes. Even the food you eat. I ordered a salad and it was in the crepe. It's pretty cool, my mom was like, they don't have any stoves just 4 plops of places for crepes. It was phunny though, cause we ordered apple cider that has about 2% alcohol content. And my brother drank for the first time. Ok, so like most of you konw that I'm not much for drinking, but Michael is even more against it. LIke no impurities in his body period. So I watched and then gave him a hard time. It was phunny.

So from there we headed home. I've realized that for all the nights we have been here, at night we would come back home and pull out al lthe food and crunch on fruit, CHEESE, chocolates, etc. oh my family. We've been watching BCC and also the Chinese tv stations and really been following what's been going on btw china and Taiwan. My mom wants them to get back together but my dad is kind of from a more national taiwan and doesn't want it to happen. Oh the difficulties. They have been seperate for 70 years and lately the president of taiwan who is kind of lame has been really antichina. Lots of people are getting restless, specially China's govt. So the former president fromt he KMT party who was for china and taiwan getting back together goes to china to do a little diplomocy and stuff. so you know what china does? they respond back by lending two pandas to taiwan. Oh the chinese...sometimes I don't know what we are thinking at all.

They cut the trees here kind of phunny, they are like blocks of squares on top of sticks...like lollipops. And I forgot ot mention that our toilet has a seperate room and it has a little water spray next tot he toilet that is....hahah and yeah it works pretty well, but only sprays cold water....not that I would know or anything like that. ;)

Well that's it for paris. I really liked it, the transportation, and all the great food and phun. But I would definatlly have to brush up on my french if I were to actually stay here. Well it's been getting better cause I've been in the middle of it and there's actually a lot that I remember. It's werid.

So tomorrow we get up ealry and go take the bullet train to see my uncle in Brussels. Can't wait, will be cool, ANd this uncle is the cool uncle, not the one who needs a good spanking. That one, has the maturity of a 10 year old. Ok bye by. I think my uncle does have internet, but if not, there won't be any more updates till I get home. I'll just write on the laptop.

Salut!

Loota Loota!

2005-05-02T14:58:00.000-04:00

Yeaaaah so ;)

Day 3

So we woke up a little later today and made it to the lourve. It was interesting. THere is so much art in that palace, but what really got me was that the palace. The rooms, the arches...everything, it's amazing to me that people use to actually live in such a place and it was all meant to serve a few people. But now...the hallways are crowded, the breathing is less, and the heat seems to wilt everything. Almost every room/hall was at least 20 feet tall. I probably have more pics of the building, rooms then the paitings themselves. We sat around and watched and looked around, for a few hours. It was cool, I like the paintings better, but most of them are religious....that was kind of erking me at the beginning. THere are so many painting with Jesus and Mary. Oh dear. All those nails, children, halos, etc. I just didn't know what to do. Pray, kneel down and cry for my sins, or walk down to hell. Couldn't decide. Then we saw some sculptures and most of them were missing arms, heads, feet, and....other parts *smirk* must control myself. THere were these 4 statues of the same exact guy, he was about 10 feet tall and his chin was on his chest and he was looking straight down and he was naked. muahaha. I really wanted to take a picture and um...yeah hehehe ;) there were 4 of them...looking down. Man...I was way too amuse, but I felt it would be a bit crude to take a pic. I really liked this one painting of this girl who was holding a spear and she was stepping on a demon with like short bat wings and she had wings on too but hers were a nice gold and blue. It was way cool.

Oh...it was phunny too. THere were tons of tours going on around the place. And so there were a couple fo chinese groups. ANd we ran across one group with a french european tour guide. Man...it was scary and her chinese was so good. And then we were standing around looking at staues and this group of chinese people start touching the statue and then a tour guide who is white and speaking in french comes over and says in chinese "don't touch please" and the group of chinese people look kind of scared. I realized that this was because there is such a difference in how europe views learning other languages then compared to the US. In the US we are like, a couple of years is fine etc etc. But in Europe they will learn it and learn it very well. My mom says it has some to do with the need and the closeness of other countries. I agree, but there still needs to be an emphasis which the US does not place on learning other languages...which is unfortunate and should be done. sigh. Yet another problem.

After that, we went shopping for a bit and then headed to a southern part of Paris and Chinatown. There are a few things that my family needs to do when we travel:
1. Buy a cup with the place where we are at on it
2. Visit the local market and pick up lots of edibles
3. Find a local chinese resturant to eat at
And those are the only things that we need to do when we travel ;)

The chinatown was very interesting in that it was different from the US chinatown. There were people other than asians there and seems like the french are more ok with walking into other areas for sure. But you could tell that it wasn't as good of town as the center of paris. Kind of run down and the buildings are a little newer and not preserved. DId that make sense? oh well too bad.

I've noticed that there seems to be an asian fetish going on with the french, just like with the US. The huge expensive department store that we went to the other day, has this whole theme going called "Bollywood at the Galaries" The Galaries is the department store that we went to the other day. So all the indian sales people were wearing traditional clothes etc etc, and all the things with the department store brand were of indian style. ALso on the street, many of the kids and people are wearing chi puas, etc etc. But at the same time it seems so crude how they adopt the asian cultures. Also, I was in an arts and crafts store, and they had written chinese chracters on a sheet and then hung it up on the wall. Sooooooo, there is a 50/50 chance for anyone to hang up characters correctly, up or down. And I feel like, they get it wrong more than 50% of the time. blah blah blah. Seriously...makes me angry....we will not go into it today

I'm sooooooooooooooo HAPPY! we went into the chinese supermarket and guess what we ran across....Lian Wu! I was so happy. I haven't gotten it in so many years. It's like my favorities fruit, right up there with guava and I only have it in Taiwan. And gawin was bragging to me the other day about how she had it and that made me angry...cause I want I want I want! And I've had. They are thin redish greenish skin on the outside, an inside the meat is a little whiteish greenish styrophom like. And sweet and good. Yum yum. It made up for the day of aching back and feet.

And yet again, I relize that I am just not patient enough and too independent for my family...I wonder where I got it from. I hate waiting in lines...I can do it but don't like. I also have a faster pace of walking...even my medium to slow is too fast for my family. ANd I'm not even walking that fast. And I seem to leave them behind too often. Why do we need to walk to each painting and sculpture together and gaze at it together...I don't need to.

Well that's about it. Except I'm not talking to my brother....cause he's an idiot. la lala...for the stupid! Just reminds me why I'm happy he's on north campus.

Wow we just saw a bird talking in chinese. Way cool.

ste

booga booga

2005-04-30T04:28:00.000-04:00

Soooo.

I'm in europe. It's come to my attention that some of my friends do not know this....sorry I just don't think to mention it. Therefore I will mention it here. And yet you will still not know cause well who actually reads this on a daily basis? I know that I don't and I'm the one who writes it.

So I'm going to keep a log of my days here. So I don't need to write it in a journal.

So, my brother and I arrived back in Seattle at about 10pm, after a wonderful trip by stephen and a 4hr flight with mr. talkative. Sometimes I hate being in an enclosed space with my brother, I'm suprised I don't choke him. We watched some anime which I haven't done in months. Honest. Months. Well we found out that 3 of our luggage didn't make it and that's a bit of a problem cause we were going to leave in 10 hrs for Europe. Yes the next morning and I would not get to see Washington in the sunlight for another 1.5 weeks. Sucks.

I at least have some of my clothes, not all my underwear and none of my socks. My bro has nothing.

Oh sidenote: Soooooo, the President of the US, monkey boy, decided to do a primetime showing of himself regarding Social security. He aired at 9:30 but he had originally planed for 9. The reason he did was because ABC et al didn't want to interrupt their nightly lineup, including "the apprientance" And doesn't that say it all. The monkey boy was going to talk about SS, and media is like no, it will interrupt our entertainment. Honestly, why do people not have time or care about what is going on with the government? specially when it effects your future like Social security. Oh wait. I'm sorry it's interrupting your entertainment. Please I think is says a lot about americans when we don't want such things to interrupt or reality shows. Stupid stupid stupid!

Day 1

So we landed, finally, we had connecting flights in nework and I had been on an airline for 15 hrs in the last two days. I hate flying cause I can feel the germs coming in my body from the recycled air and my water leaving. Ugg. So we arrived at 7:30 am, and my body was ready for a bed. But instead, I took a shower in a very nice hotel in the suburbs of paris. I do like those shower knobs, they have on the left, either the shower or the water pump to fill the tub, and on the left you have the temperature knob from like 25 C to 55C. It's phun and very cool.

After the showers, we left at about 10:30 and headed out to Notre Dame. Really, the subway/public transp. here is just way to convienent, I don't understand why every major city doesn't set one up cause it just makes it that more attractive to make it here. So it's pretty sunny here and when we got to the island, after realizing that where my mom had thought the hotel was at, was not anywhere close to where we were actually. We got there adn the first thing we did was eat lunch at a little cafe and get ripped off. Everything is pretty expensive, no way I could live like this, also it partly to do witht he fact that we only go the tourist places. Next we climbed the tower and went to the top of the church. It took awhile but is was phun, all those winding stairs, the circular ones. But I didn't have phun coming down...never have been really well about stairs going down, I think it cause I always think I'm going to die by falling down stairs and cracking up my head. I was enjoying myself till we went into the main part of the curch and I was reminded that a church is a religious symbol and crosses were all over the place. I'm so not a religious person...blah ;(

After that, we went to this rich department store near the opera house. It reminded me of bloomingdales but with different brands...cool brands but expensive. And then...yes and then...my brother and dad started dying and they are like, since we are tired everyone should go back to the hotel and watch us slumber. Yes, just what I came to europe to do...watch two idiots slumber. Who ever made up the stupid rule where the whole family needs to do everything whenwe go out. I'm just too independent to stick to each other like rubber. Gah, so my mom and I let the boys go home first and we shopped more. ugg...

we then went to the local huge drugstore/market and picked up some tv dinners, juice, and CHEESE! Ohhhhhhhh the cheese...so good yum yum yum ;)

So last night, we were watching the chinese channel here. ANd they have a bunch of stuff...it's cool, all the commercials are all asian people, its nice. But then they had this show about chinese french. And showed how the chinese people had assimilated to french culture. There were asian girls doing the cancan...it was werid...and kind of wrong in a way. And there were lots of white people in the show speaking better chinese than me *ouch* It was interesting cause as an asian american, I've been assimilated in a way, hotdogs, sports, etc...and I never thought about how other asians in different countries assimilated hmmmmm.... I guess I always thought that asians just learned english if they learned another language...but there they are speaking perfect french...something about the language is sexy...specailly when everyone is speaking it.

I also noticed that there are a lot more interracial couples here, they are way cute...and everywhere. It think the french are much more open about it, but I do still think they have problems. most of the nice areas that the tourist go to, they are mainly white people serving and around, there is a better mixt than certain parts of the US, but when we were riding the train/subway, there were areas where more blacks were hanging out etc.

It's so beautiful here. Almost every building is built with so many windows and rails. ANd when the streets are narrow, it almost seem as if the buildings are leaning together to hug ;)

DAY 2

so we woke up way to early to go to the lourve, which was not open since it was May 1st and labor day for almost all of the worl...all of the world. Instead, it was closed and there protests going on aroudn the city. A lot of people were protesting the constitution being debated by the french government. A chinese guy we had run into yesterday had warned us to be careful because lots of french people don't like americans and what nonfrench to leave. Which my family ignores and proceeds to speak loudly in english...la la lal! Angry glares from the french.

Also realized that probably half of the city is made up of tourist, and of that half, about 3/4 are french people from around the country...Paris is such a tourist place. So since it was closed, we took this green double decker that has a planned route of part of the city (which is huuuuuuge by the way) so we got on, and you usually can get off or on whereever you want, but my family is like, lets just take the whole route once and then get off and go later. So my brother and my dad proceed to sleep around the city of paris. oh geez. I'm tired and I feel asleep near the end...after like 2 hours but they sleep from the beginning. So we got off and went visit the arch built by napoleean for his armies' victories...don't remember the name ;) And then we went to the effial tower. It was cool to get such a view of the whole city, I have them and ifyou want to see them, just ask, but it was amazing how large the city actually is and how well they used the sapce, I think americans are lazy since they feel lik they have so much space.

That's about it. I hate talking to my brother sometimes, we are close, but I hate talking to him cause he freaks out, repeats things like 50 times, and he's so whiney expects us to do so much for us. I just ignore him afterawhile....gah.

soo that's it so far. See you guys tomorrow. look look, its becoming a daily thing ;) how exciting

Closing to the School Year

2005-04-25T23:35:00.000-04:00

Hey....so I haven't posted awhile and now that I'm done with finals. Lets hit it.

So I walked out of my 2nd test of the day, this afternoon at 3:30 and spent the rest of the day listening to Killer Coke lies and information. And then I hung out with Beth and old board. And I realized that my day really didn't start untill 3:30.

Sidenote: Hate those conversations where people are talking to each other and they are like...I'm not "blah" and the other person is like, yes you are "blah" and then the other person hits back and is like no no I'm not I wish I was but no I'm not. And the other person responds with "Yea yeah you are blah, I woudn't lie to you" and they go around and around like that forver. And I'm like shut the hell up. Yes you are, and the other person will lie to you. now shuddup.

Anyways. I was/am really angry. Right before my second exam, some guys where talking about how a guy in my section had been cheating on an exam, the one we had taken that morning. And they were going on about how shameless and etc he was....but honestly they were just bragging about their friend. Yeah, the school has honor codes, yeah we say we aren't suppose to cheat.

BUT lets be honest here. The system wants you to cheat and the fact that it says differently just pisses me off. You are rarely caught for cheating and the pressure, curves, all those things riding on the grades just encourages us to cheat. As we say in MO rewarding B and hoping for A. Lets get realistic about what our society is rewarding her. Paper. They are rewarding us with ink and paper, not minds, thoughts, intelligence.

We should be really rewarding children for what they learn, not what they output in a 2hr time span. Tests do not cut it as a metric anymore and grades do not accuratly reflect what you learn or the effort you put in. I think it's time we re-evaluate. I think it's time you re-evaluate. It's time I re-evaluate. What am I really learning from this education of powerpoints, group projects, slides, black suits that make people look like pricks. Honestly. Will this teach anything about myself? what I like, what I want to do, how I work with others? Will it help me grow as a person, develop so that I can reach my full potential. Likely...Not.

And yet, I can't stop myself from working on the hws, making sure that I complete the studying required for an exam. Do I really want to just throw it all away? Can I? Am I strong enough? Can I really afford to do so?

The coke thing really made me angry. Who in the hell acutally lies like that publicly.
http://killercoke.org But some really articulate people got up there and spoke against them. I wish that I could be that articulate and have a real point. Most of the time I just ramble on and blah blah blah. ANd hafl the time I don't the things that come out of my mouth make sense. Oh well. Beth just says its cause I'm in a hurry. Probably.

Well, so this is a closing isn't it? So I've changed and learned so many things this year. Most of is due to UAAO and the board. But it's phunny, a lot of the changes, I didn't even realize were happening till they were here and done. The 8 of us on board are a cohesive group and it's hard to let go. I'm going to miss those guys, we hang out and are just comfy together and didn't ever realize that it happened. They really hit home for me so many things. Like not vauling yourself or others on grades and those letters, how the things we learn are often not from the classroom, how to be comfy with people and be close to others, how to be more comfy with guys in general and rid me of a lot of my hate. I've learned to question myself and others more. Listen better, talk less....maybe not lower my decibles...but talk less. How, my anger should motivate me to do things, not just be angry. They help me grow.

There are lots of things that I need to think more about, grow more, but the main ones are that I need to be more patient with myself and others...We aren't at the end yet. And realize that a schedule helps but it won't break you to kill it.

That's it for now.

Ok I'm tired nithgt

ste

After a while

2005-04-15T13:24:00.000-04:00

So the snot factory is definatly back in business. Quota is used up. I can't get sick anymore...at least we are at the end of semester. Marcia sent this to me and...it almost made me cry... ;)

after a while
by veronica a. shoffstall

after a while, you learn the subtle difference
between holding a hand and chaining a soul,
and you learn that love doesn't mean leaning
and company doesn't mean security,
and you begin to learn that kisses aren't contracts
and presents aren't promises,
and you begin to accept your defeats
with your head up and your eyes open
with the grace of a woman, not the grief of a child,
and you learn to build all your roads on today
because tomorrow's ground is too uncertain for plans.
and futures have a way of falling down in midflight.
after awhile, you learn
that even the sunshine burns if you get too much.
so you plant your own garden and decorate your own soul,
instead of waiting for someone to bring you flowers.
and you learn that you really can endure...
that you really are strong.and you really do have worth.
and you learn and learn...
with every goodbye you learn.

More Words from DiDi ;)

2005-04-11T22:50:00.000-04:00

Since I know that my brother will not display this loudly....I'm going to do it for him ;D
ste

I don’t fit in…

They tell me I am American
They tell me I am Chinese
They tell me I am Asian…-American?
Who am I? Where do I belong?

Asians are short they say
Chinese are short they say
I am too tall they say
Who am I? Where do I fit in?

I am told I speak English with an accent
I am told I speak Chinese with an accent
Who’s accent is it? Where does it fit in?

Everywhere it says Americans are white
Everywhere it says Asians are yellow
My passport says I am American but my skin says I am Asian
Who am I? Where do I fit in?

I am me, because I fit in here, where I am, right now, right here.

Michael Kao

Leave Encouraging Thoughts for my brother!!

Words

2005-04-06T23:58:00.000-04:00

I am Angry.

I am angry at the damp musty smell of the a lite shower.
I am angry at the sweet, sticky perfume scent that mixes with the rain scent as three girls walk by me.
I am angry at their click click click of heels to high for their legs.

I am angry at the the light that blacks out as I walk past.
I am angry at the car that flicks its lites at me when I take too long to cross the street.
I am angry at the heavy bag that lays across my sholder, digging into my bone and dragging at my feet

But mostly, I am angry at me, at the ball that burns in my upper chest.
I am angry at my need to change things.
I am angry at my need to judge and say of how it should, can, and cannot be.
I am angry at the fact that even though I want to let them go and do what they want, I have to control myself, from telling them what they should, could, would do.

But all-ly, I am angry at me.

Snot and More

2005-04-01T14:34:00.000-05:00

So my wonderful friend Gina sent me a nice blurb to complement my post a couple of months ago about the snot factory:

"The human body is capable of many stupendous functions; but for my money,the most amazing of all is the amount of snot it can produce when you have abad cold. You blow the equivalent of a Big Gulp from the left nostril. Youblow another Big Gulp from the right nostril. You go through half a box oftissues wiping everything away. And then five minutes later, you're cloggedup again and have to repeat the whole process. I ask you - where does allthis stuff come from?"

Nice neh!?

Take me away.

ste

Happy Happy Bday Day!

2005-03-21T23:09:00.000-05:00

So today is my bday today. It was a great special day, nothing out of the ordinary...just a nice day hanging out and talking with the people who make me happy ;)

So I was going to do a little thing like, 21 things I think are important, but then I realized that there are more than 21 things and realized that I might not be able to make 21...and then I would look like a dork...but I'm sure that many of you will point out that I'm already a dork, so its too late.

Sooooo

::Take long pauses when talking, so people can interrupt you
::When rain is falling, stand under the sky so you can catch its tears
::Screaming is ok, so is crying extremely...almost anything of excess emotion is ok
::Passion and Maddness should be expressed as often as possible
::Why you are talking lots it means you're thinking isn't enough to even cover two people
::When you respect someone's opinion, you don't try and change it.
::Sleep should rule your schedule, and nothing else
::Listening is the hardest thing to do and we should do it when we don't want to
::Be happy for yourself, cause no one else is going to do it as well as you
::Chocolate is the cure for everything
::Slchang's & Gandhi's quote: We must be the change we wish to see in the world
::The best question is Why

That's about it, I think. These are the most important things to me right now. ANd I think I'll keep adding hehe.

Thanks to everyone who made today special. You guys are pretty special to me ;)

Chu CHu!

2005-03-20T12:09:00.000-05:00

So some thoughts for today!

1) I LOVE GAWIN! She's the greatest Roomie every (Even though she's not here anymore *tear*) She got me a roxy tee and a tee that has Eyore from Pooh on it that says "I need a hug" (So wearing it tomorrow ;3) She's so sweet. Need to call her

2) So the other day, I was talking to this nice girl from bschool...I mean she wasn't mean or anything horrible or something like that. We were talking about this bidding system for our classes next year: Back up -> Break time

So this Bidding System: Is the STUPIDEST IDEA on Earth. ok Done.

ANyways, We were talking about the classes and we came to the realization that we might be bidding for all the same classes and my first impulse was..."yeah, someone I know will be taking the same classes as me!" And then I stopped cold. Why did I need someone I know in the class? Don't I want to meet new people? OR IS IT BECUASE: I want someone to work with on homework and stuff....Right then and there I was like...what is it? And then I started Searching for my Heart, since as Stephen pointed out I have none.

3) To be honest...I forgot. So I'll make one up. Not really make one up. The Malaysian Dikir Barat is like the Hottest thing on earth. heheh ok I'm done

Black, White, and Colors of the Rainbow?

2005-03-17T11:48:00.000-05:00

I thought this was a really interesting article.

Link It!

And as Leemy pointed out, why is only a black and white world

Questioning a Question

2005-03-06T23:46:00.000-05:00

So I was thinking. What makes what you think right? Why is there a "right way" of doing this?
People gossip, talk about what others are doing and say, "oh but that's there choice" But if it really was their choice and you didn't really mind then you wouldn't have mentioned it.

But then I keep of thinking of that one quote, "If you don't stand for something you will fall for anything" So, I'm afraid of falling but I don't feel it's right to say I'm right on something. How can you just assume this. But how can you decide what is right? Do you only decide for what is right for you? So there is no overall right? only your own right?

What is right? and who makes the decision it is right?

Bubbly Thoughts

2005-02-28T02:10:00.000-05:00

HI EVERYONE! Sorry I haven’t posted in awhile, been very very busy Stephanie. A very very Bad Stephanie >< Not studying. So Here are my thoughts for the last bit of time. I promise to post more

So I was walking in Middle Earth the other day and I ran across this new product. The brand was called “Miso Pretty”. Now me, being the naïve shopeer that I am was like….oh well that’s kind of stupid. Cause Miso is a type of Japanese Soup and yet there was a little Chinese Asian girl on the box. So I continued shopping, looking further and it suddenly hit me. Yes, I am slow sometimes. If you sound it out is sounds like, Me so Pretty. Which makes me so angry. It’s a lame title and could the marketing branch of the corporation be just a tad bit more creative in their stupidity. If you see post below, “Angry Asian” you will understand why this makes me so angry. Not only that, but if you really think about it, If this issues was brought up, people would be like “Yaaaaaaaawn, not another PsuedoAsian product to product. My brother would like to add “White racist basterds” but I find that extreme and saddening cause it almost assumes that there is no hope for the white people. To which my brother would like to respond “There isn’t”. Ok back to the main program, commercial over.

So the Miso Pretty thing made me really angry. Like my language, like my culture is just for sale for the public. It’s not and if you are going to use, use it correctly and with knowledge of why you should do it a certain way. Don’t take the red and plaster it all over the place cause it’s sexy and that’s what Asians do right? WRONG! You know, one year my family had a Chinese new years get together with the neighbors, who are mainly white. And you know what? Some nice person got online and research what was acceptable to bring to such a party, it was nice cause it showed that they just might care. We had a lot of Tangerines to each for the next couple of weeks.

So, I am sitting on the airplane and thought came to my head. An Evil Though. You know how often I get those. I thought that I should print a sign and then post it all over the bschool saying:

Have you forgotten how to be a child?
Do you know how to enjoy the simple things in life, like joy?
No, you don’t you lost it some where along the line.
If you are looking to get it all back, call:
1-800- Checkifyouhaveaheart

Yeah….wouldn’t that be hilarious. Oh dear…I really want to do it. Well hopefully someone will stop me before I scar too many people …. MUAHAHAHHAA but then Stephen said I should call the number...do I hae no heart?

So I had another thought on the plane. So those little baby carrots you know….how are they peeled? They have to be done by machine, but it must be really hard cause you know…they are all sorts of different sizes and they somehow end up being all nice and round.

Angry Asian!

2005-02-10T10:02:00.000-05:00

So I haven't posted in a long time. Here's my love for all of you. *smooch*

Happy Chinese New Year!! Hao Bao! Hao Bao! Ok so my Ping Ying isn't to great but, yeah give me the money.

This holiday, especially when I'm celebrating it without my family and stuff makes me a little uncomfortable. Because everyone else tries to get in on the celebration. But....

The bschool had this event for New Years where they had a dragon dance and free Chinese food. My teacher encouraged us to go and he did all of the following to do so 1) butchered the chinese language to wish us happy new year, even though he asked who could speak chinese in the class and 2) let us out early so that we could get in the free line.

I had to go up to the same room to heat my lunch and my wonderful section mates were all in line waiting for the great free chinese food. THE GREAT FREE AMERICANIZED CHINESE FOOD. And one guy was like come and join stephanie. You don't want to invite me when I'm angry. ANd I told him about hte americanization and how I wouldn't partake in it. He responded with something along the lines of, Stephanie you are a party pooper. I can't really remember what he said but honestly is that really important here? No! ;)

Yes, the truth comes out, Stephanie is a party pooper. And you know what? You would be one too if you had to see your culture ripped apart everyday and rearragned in the form that amuses everyone else. I see it tattooed on to the arms of people who have no idea what it means, I see it in the clothes that uses our "fabric patterns", I see it on Ambercrobmie shirts and all the look alikes. I see it everytime in a Chinese Resturant and don't you say it's how the owners try and make it who are chinese, but for the customers who expect to see gaudy red things all over the place, greasy fried food, msg, and FORTUNE COOKIES *See post below.

I see it every damn day when I look in the media and we have the geshia (which is Japanese incase you were confused), the submissive massage girl, and the wild supressed sex dragon. I see it when cartoons have slanty eyes and straw hats pointed hats on. I see it when Disney produced Mulan yet the army was wearing Japanese outfits. I see it when people see asians as thrifty, shy, and spys for other countries. I see it when people ask me questions about how we make our asian children so smart. I see it when people ask me why I take my shoes off when I enter a house. I see it when people tell me that people should be required to know english when they come to American. I see it when people are like, ohhhh China is the new emerging economy, we should learn chinese yet don't learn anything of the culture or customs. I see it when I don't want to. I see it when I hide. And I SEE it and it better damn well make me a party pooper!

So don't expect me to keep my opinion in, cause I've done it for way too long. And if it makes you uncomfortable when I bring it up, ask yourself why.

Reverse Discrimination and Fortune Cookies

2005-01-21T19:33:00.000-05:00

Sooooooo... There's this recent story. Two white policemen were beating a black man....(everyone sighs, it's almost like *excuse me, can someone please come restrain these two* *yaaaaaaawn*) Will anyone get off their but and do something for other than themselves.

BUT that's not the best part. After it occurred and they were punished, these two wondering representations of law SUED for reverse discrimination. They felt that the had been overly punished because the man they beat was black. PLEASE! And guess what! They won, they won 1.6 million. And people wonder why African Americans don't like the law.

BUT! Let's think about reverse discrimination for a sec here. THERE IS NO SUCH THING. Look at the post before this. But if racism is defined in terms of power, then it's not possible for reverse discrimination to occur. Think of all those people out there who think it's all about skin color. It's so simple to think of racism that way, HOW could racism be that simple...we live in a complex society which produces COMPLEX PROBLEMS, no matter what Bush tells you.

Will someone rescue me?

AND, Fortune Cookies.
1) they were created by AMERICANS
2) they are used in Asian restaurants because the Caucasians expected
3) Stereotype the Chinese Culture
4) AND Should not be used for Dance Marathon Fundraising.....Well at least get rid of the pseudo asian font on the poster

And the girl who created it was like....well I showed it to friends and they were ok.....where they asian friends? And she still feels like they weren't offensive and doesn't understand how we could be. PLEASE, do people use their brains anymore? NO! It's not the intent, but what we are worried about is the INTERPRETATION.

Do you think I like it when guys come up to me and say, *I think you are hot cause you are asian* NO! because all he is thinking about is subservience, foot massages, and hot sex. He's not thinking about me. Asshole.

Race IGnorance or IgNorance

2005-01-19T22:54:00.000-05:00

So I was sitting in class today and I was frustrated. It's a very sociology based calss even though it's bschool. Yeah, I know shooooocking. But so we disscuse human interactions and relations. BUT, we seem to ignore something, yes a little bitty thing....LIKE RACE!?

No one wants to talk about it because it's too "sensitive". Well whatever!! About 70 people sitting in the class have NO idea what RACE IS and they need to! People are so ignorant/unknowing of the issues of race. Do they know what I go through everyday with my face, my background, my culture, my life. Do they know about what other minorities go through everyday. NO!

I was sitting another class that discusses race issues. It's like my outlet at least. But some of the freshman express some very unknowing views. I understand totally that they are here to learn and that when I came I had know idea either and I'm so glad that they are here with us in this space to talk. BUT I think off all those kids walking around out there who don't know and who don't have a place to talk!

Racism should be defined in terms of power! Racism isn't about race. We just use it as a way to divide us into different levels of power. So that's why when even though the amount of asians on campus is more than the population that DOESN'T MEAN THAT ASIANS ARE NOT DISCRIMINATED AGAINST.

And! based on this definition of racism, other races can not be racist, they can only have prejudices.

Think about it.

Corrupt Society Dream

2005-01-19T21:09:00.000-05:00

So I had a really weird dream today.

I lived in this house that was my society. I was really good at playing video games and so where these other two girls. However, we were all very weak, sick, tired, and getting thinner. nothing we did made us get better.

However after awhile we figured out that before we had arrived there that our wardrobes had been selected for us by someone. And we all ate phunny shapped pills. Mine were hot pink, square and a bubble in the middle. And we also had a similar tshirt, with a black line across the top and then a red line across underneath and then a letter printed in a weird pattern, but unique for each of us.

We finally realized that these wardrobes and these pills were making us sick. So one girl, burned all her clothes and stop eating the pills. She became much better and stronger but she couldn't play video games as well. The other girl decided that the video games were too imporant so she continued with the pills. But me....

There I was, wanting to shed the wardrobe and pills, but didn't want to lose my game powers. I just couldn't decide.

I thought it was a really weird dream. Like it's very similar in some ways to my life and how it is in society. When I woke up I was just like....wooo

Washing Puff & Tsunami in the Bathroom

2005-01-18T11:51:00.000-05:00

So I remembered another of my revelations!

I like to draw designs on my washing puff with my body wash! ;D

So, I've been thinking about this Tsunami Stuff. I really am glad that people are becoming active. But some people are pointing out it's really sad that so many people had to die before people would come together and work.

Some of these people are really resentful that now people are trying to come out and help out. And that they only want to help out with by donating money. Many people don't try and learn about the culture and societies that they are trying to help.

I am appreciated of peoples efforts but I guess I wish people would look a little deeper and have a better understanding of why these people need help more than others.

And what about US contribution. Like what?!

There's a leak in the bathroom....it spread across the floor, ew.

Revalations!

2005-01-17T19:43:00.000-05:00

La!

So there are a few things that I realized

1) I was talking to slchang and decided that I need to list my hang out time. To make sure that I hang out with people and stuff. Like a Hang Out Quota!! But with conditions like, not late at night, not for too long, doing something phun,....and not with Stephen....muahahah!

....Acutally I had two other revalations but I forgot them. Gawin's going to yell at me again for forgetting. Sooo forgetful. I'll probably remember them as I fall asleep tonight...when I find my bed

But I think Hang Out Time is nice. I did it all Friday and stuff. But sometimes i just like to hang out hw and not many people like to do that. Sad. Ok Tired now and must look at stuff before meeting.

Two!

La La la laaaaaaaaaaaaaa

2005-01-12T16:57:00.000-05:00

So....It depends on day to day, but I'm feeling better.

Just really really tired. I sleep 9 - 10 every night but yet I still drag myself through the day. Who ever came up with this stupid idea of meetings!?!

SO. Everyone can post now! Since I know some of my friends check and can't post. HOWEVER, identify yourself or I WILL SHOOT YOU!

Ok ;) Happy days to you

The snot factory is back in business but with a new additive: anemia

2005-01-06T17:27:00.000-05:00

Yes...so I'm sick again. Anyone would like an IPO?

I think it's the flu. It's worse than the other colds I've been getting. Fever. vomit. etc.

I'm really fucking tired.

And I found out that my mom is borderline anemic. And so am I. Life does seem to be a circle.

I feel like I'm really dizzy. And my arms and legs feel like they are really fuzzy and not there. Kind of like when I drink a lot of cough syrup.

PROMISE: Only get sick one more time this semsester!

How Many Licks Does it Take to Get to the Center of an Affirmative Action?

2004-12-27T15:57:00.000-05:00

So, slchang forwarded to me this article. It's chapter 1.5 of the continuation of the lawsuits from my freshman year against University of Michigan for payment of "emotional" damages for not making it into the school.

I find the news ridiculous but the great part of the article is after the article itself. A huge thread debate rages within the course of about 3 days about the pros and cons. And it's a discussion that everyone should have to really understand why and what they support in regards to affirmative action and just why minority support is important. I recommend that you read the whole debate, it is long but very informative.

As a side note: People of Tj's ilk are not rare.

*restdom*