cold october

arabic all day and arabic all night. slow but sure progress. the more i learn the more i want to keep learning. this is a photo by shirin neshat.

whenever things go awry i fall back on the principle of self-efficacy. i do not need you.

3809

two weeks of debauchery and mayhem. time to settle down and get some actual shit done. other than that though i love my classes and i love my suite. the year's just getting started.

first week

i did not care about the uc budget crisis until my middle eastern professor proclaimed, "higher education is every person's birth right."

much love to academia.

arabic is very tough. my short term memory is worse than i thought... as of now all i can say is "my name is...," "good morning," and "yes." i also know the first four letters of the arabic alphabet... these minute fragments of knowledge took me a total of two hours. i am brilliant.

also, i got a job at the art history department. basically i scan art slides, extract images from art books and update professors' websites. easy peasy stuff. let's hope that my brilliance doesn't fuck it up somehow.

2:29 AM

my raging case of insomnia is frequently accompanied by a will to write and to rant about nothing of great importance. anyways. the last saturday of the summer was mostly spent at home, doing (also) nothing of great importance. is that anticlimactic or what? for some reason i always feel a need to equally split my time between that spent with others and that spent by myself. i do love my friends and family with all my heart though - don't get me wrong. i guess i'm just a bit of a loner by nature.

this is why i doubt i will ever get married.

back to the last of summer though. los angeles weather is clinging onto the last remnants of sun and heat with all her might, but i think it's about time for a new beginning.

introverted
aloof
snobby

just some words


yeah yeah yeahs last night did not disappoint. toes got completely smashed; punched myself in the face - or rather, my flailing arm was rammed into my nose by another sweaty body; nearly passed out due to dehydration and lack of oxygen. but i loved every bit of it. just about lost my mind when "black tongue" and "miles away" came on. as much as i love it's blitz, the new just does not even compare to the old stuff in terms of attitude and raw energy.

i desperately need a job. california's state budget has dire consequences for ucsb, but let's keep our fingers crossed for an opening somewhere...

in retrospect, who wears sandals into a mosh pit?

elite banana

meet my new obsession.

also, i finally overcame my fear of rats and watched ratatouille for the first time today, with my dad and sister. i am all cute-d out.

a list

to do between now and school:

1. venice beach
2. vivian girls at the smell, sept. 13th
3. yeah yeah yeahs at the fox theater, sept. 15th
   
4. watch taking woodstock, (500) days of summer, and paper heart - just checked online and thankfully the latter two are still in theaters
   
5. spend time with my dad
6. mini trip to orange county with elise ma
7. "in focus: making a scene" exhibition at the getty
8. anna sui for target
9. fish tacos

can't believe it is already time to leave, although i have yet to pack anything. i have been throwing all of my purchases - and there are quite a bit - into a pile in a corner all month... as a result there is now a very overwhelming heap waiting to be tackled.

thank you family for making august such a good month. i feel loved. will genuinely miss every one dearly.

roots

i moved to california two months after my sixth birthday. i am now nineteen. seeing that over two-thirds of my life was spent in los angeles (and that i barely remember the first third), it isn't really much of a surprise that i thoroughly identify myself as an american.

i often find myself watching other young people on subway trains and buses, wondering how different my life would be had i not moved. would i be into the same things as them? would i sound, dress, and act like them? there is no way to know the answers to these questions, but still i can't help but wonder.

with that said, my month here has led to a renewed appreciation of family. as much as i love my friends at home, it is an entirely different kind of "nice" to be surrounded by kin.

currently reading

i came to hong kong equipped with a collection of short stories by ernest hemingway, but have been temporarily sidetracked by steven levitt's freakonomics. saw it in a book fair here and promptly bought it after a few pages. difficult to give a good, quick summary because each chapter vary in topic, so here is an excerpt of publishing weekly's review:

Forget your image of an economist as a crusty professor worried about fluctuating interest rates: Levitt focuses his attention on more intimate real-world issues...There isn't really a grand theory of everything here, except perhaps the suggestion that self-styled experts have a vested interest in promoting conventional wisdom even when it's wrong... [deconstructing] everything from the organizational structure of drug-dealing gangs to baby-naming patterns. Underlying all these research subjects is a belief that complex phenomena can be understood if we find the right perspective.

it sounds a bit on the dull side, but it's such a fun read. not nearly as dense as it seems... in fact it's easy to read and very humorous at times. started it on the way to bangkok and i am already halfway through. highly recommended for the curious minded.

sawatdee

spent the great part of the past week in thailand. spent a good half day being utterly awestruck by the grandeur of buddhist temples. made some giraffe and elephant friends. (the tiger cub was less friendly.) weaved my way in and out of impossible bangkok traffic, in motorbike vehicles known as tuk-tuks. shopped my heart out, in swanky shopping centers and sweaty night bazaars alike. the heat was sweltering; most days we went out in the morning, retreated to the oasis that is our hotel and its swimming pool during the late afternoon, and then ventured out again near dinner time. amazing experience indeed.

on my way from airport to hotel on the first day, it suddenly occurred to me how remarkable the world is. it strikes me how cities - whether it be new york or bangkok - are simultaneously so different yet somehow much more alike than we usually think. for example the same concrete networks of congested highways dominate the landscape everywhere, but vast differences lie in the details. i'm exploring and learning about these differences and similarities city by city, bit by bit. i'm only getting started.

just saying

a professor once showed a documentary on dr. martin luther king and the civil rights movement of the 1960's. the general sentiment around the room was something along the lines of "those stupid, ignorant white southerners; thank god that's in the past." but discrimination, time and time again, has proven to be just as present today as it was ever - not as apparent for sure, but present nonetheless. people hold different prejudices against different peoples, but i find that being self-centered is almost always the reason cited. "those indians are selfish cheats." "jews only care about their own bank accounts." "the french are elitist pricks." "koreans are only selfless when around other koreans." maybe it would help if people would just realize that perhaps we are all self-centered as humans...

food for thought

quite a ways to go until the new school year, but i've been thinking of...

• trying out for the daily nexus (the ucsb newspaper). will keep a look out for the quarterly training sessions in fall.
• getting a part-time job, ideally for the arts library, arts & lectures or java jones?
  
• internship of some sort... sbma would be a dream.
  
• becoming an active member of a worthwhile club. i think definitely students for justice in palestine, possibly amnesty international or human rights group?
  
• getting straight a's all the way.
  
• further exploring political science and middle east studies as a major. possibly english? art history minor.

i don't expect everything to be as ideal as i plan, but i will try my best. :) speaking of food though, i have been overstuffing myself in hong kong. i cannot possibly overstate how good my grandmother's cooking is.

hong kong

screaming babies, no air, smelly cup noodles (i hate the smell), fourteen hours. equals zombie mode. landed in the humid midst of a typhoon. i've been here for exactly 24 hours now. adventures to come.

malaise

maybe it's just the fact that it's 4:40 am or my general lack of sleep this past week. maybe it's the ambivalence and anxiety that comes with traveling to a place you feel utterly foreign in. most likely it has to do with some recent events. i don't entirely know what it is, but i am in such a strange mood right now. malaise is a good word.

i've certainly had my fair share of mishaps and fuck ups. most days i am okay with that. other days i contemplate and honestly am not sure what to think about myself. i'm exploring in every sense of the word, which is fine with me - i would probably be doing myself an injustice if i wasn't - but i hope i'm heading in the right direction.

food diary #4

baked chicken with lemon juice, olive oil, and rosemary. with brown rice (cooked in chicken broth... ten times better than plain water) and steamed green beans. i got a huge sack of green beans, for like $5 from the farmer's market... so simple and so good! in retrospect though i would have liked to bake the chicken slightly more... i was worried that i would overcook the meat, but it would have looked a lot nicer if it was more brown. hm next time...

second attempt at quiche, except this time i went for a normal, fatty recipe. spinach, mushrooms, and onions with feta and cheddar cheese. pretty fucking heavenly, if i do say so myself.

yellow thai curry! who knew this was so easy to make? it's basically just coconut milk, vegetable broth, curry powder, and turmeric with your choice of veggies. now if only i could master pad thai as well! side note: please excuse the filthiness of our stove... my apartment is occupied by four college students hahah.

unfortunately my stay in this apartment ends this saturday, which ultimately means no more cooking for at least a little while. after these six weeks i can safely say that i now fully appreciate the act of cooking... food truly tastes better when you make it yourself. :)

summer living

haven't written anything substantial in awhile, mainly because there is nothing substantial to write about - i'm still in the best mood ever. most days i take leisurely walks to and from class (aside from the few occasions when i'm late), soaking up the full radiance and beauty of summertime. come back to my lovely apartment, prepare a meal or two, spend some time with my housemates, chill out to some music, read a bit. sometimes on the weekends i sleepover at my friends', where we chat and laugh about careless nothings into the wee hours of the morning. sundays i take the bus and do my grocery shopping. most simple lifestyle ever, but i adore everything about santa barbara.

food diary #3

you are most likely sick of seeing pictures of sandwiches, but they are a staple of my diet... this week it is tuna with olives and artichoke hearts. the day i tire of sandwiches is the day the world ends.

a continuation of my undying love for quiche. soy mozzarella cheese, soy milk, orange peppers, zucchinis, and yellow onions on a store-bought crust. my camera does not like to focus.

pizza bread, with tomatoes and more soy mozzarella piled on top. had my fair share of mishaps (five cups of flour instead of four resulted in the first dough going in the trash), but it came out quite tasty! thank you to my martha stewart roommate for teaching and helping me out. :)

food diary #2

this recipe is called "ten minute tasty asparagus and brown rice." admittedly, just mincing the garlic took me about ten minutes and i had some help from my roommate (i am a total pansy when it comes to sizzling hot oil), but this was still quite a departure, as it involves actual cooking. onions, chick peas, and asparagus on brown rice, with a mixture of tahini paste, olive oil, and lemon juice on top. really good, if i do say so myself.

the last recipe resulted in tons of leftover tahini, so i thought i would try this cookie recipe - all you have to do is mix tahini, honey, oats, and sunflower seeds together. easy enough. somehow it became a culinary catastrophe. in the honest words of a neighbor: "do you want me to throw them away for you?"

maybe i should just to stick to sandwiches. curried egg salad with pecans, granny smith apples, and onion on lettuce and whole wheat bread.

the highlight of my culinary career thus far. baked salmon with olive oil and lots of fresh dill, more asparagus from the farmer's market, and brown rice. this probably has more to do with luck than anything else, but everything was PERFECT. paper plate (my roommate's) because i am a poor college student with exactly one bowl and one set of utensils.

for breakfast i've graduated from cereal to oatmeal with honey, cinnamon, and raisins. also picked up some fresh strawberries and a pint of pomegranate and acai berri sorbet as a late night dessert. if you couldn't tell already, i am becoming quite the food addict...

snarky

i don't know what it means when one is genuinely amused by a college textbook/reader, but ninteenth-century art critics are funny:

"the academy contained the usual proportion of landscapes, and these landscapes contained the usual proportion of mild merit."

"a third is a head of a german professor, most grotesquely hideous in feature and physiognomy, looking a great deal, as to his complexion and eyeballs, as if he has just been cut down from an unpractical attempt to hang himself."

evidently, sugarcoating was not en vogue back then.

food diary #1

one of the most self-gratifying part of apartment living, personally anyways, is cooking! i am a little embarrassed to say that it took me nineteen years to finally get a chance to prepare my own food, but this really is new to me. thought i would document the things i make, over the duration of this summer session. here is the first of hopefully many more to come:

this morning i went to the camino real farmer's market in goleta, where i was met with rows and rows of delightfully colorful fruits and veggies. why eat over-processed junk when you can have organic? they are there every sunday; i fully intend on making this a weekly ritual.

i am getting really good at making sandwiches. hummus, tomatoes, vegan mozzarella cheese, broccoli sprouts (which i find to be slightly stronger than alfalfa, but they are quite tasty), and hass avocados on top of whole wheat bread.

actually this has been my dinner for nearly a week now... simple cobb salad: romaine lettuce, cherry tomatoes, more hass avocados, and grilled chicken breast. i cheated and bought the kind that comes pre-grilled and pre-sliced. have yet to venture into raw poultry and fish.

also bought a huge can of tahini, which is a type of middle eastern sesame paste, today. never tried that before, should be interesting...

happy july

last night a friend called to ask how i've been, when i suddenly realized that i am currently in a blissful state of happiness and contentment. just a general feeling of well-being, with a sense that everything is in order and exactly as they should be - for no apparent reason whatsoever. some might say that such is the essence of youth, that perhaps youth is the singular pinnacle of life. in another time i might have shared these doubts, but for now i remain optimistic in regards to both the present and the future. there is so much to be excited for; i don't know if life could be any sweeter.

more things i love

• sitting on this armchair with my laptop. if i'm in the apartment then chances are i am also in this armchair.
• thurston moore's "tree outside the academy" album. especially good for june gloom mornings. i love "honest james" the most.
• silvergreens (a restaurant in IV for non-sb folks). half ahi tuna salad with half hummus+mozarella sandwich... heaven for the taste buds.
• ace of cakes.
• just apartment living in general.
• facebook. which is not really anything newsworthy, but my tedious obsession has definitely escalated, since becoming attached to said armchair.
• blueberry bagels with cream cheese.
• talking on the phone with my sister, in the rarity that she does pick up.
• jojoba oil body wash and lotion, from crabtree & evelyn.
• time magazine's middle east blog.

urban exploring

got back from san francisco last night and now i am sitting in my summer apartment in santa barbara; i've been moved in for about seven hours and i like it so far. anyways, s.f. is a sweet place with a very distinct, laid back vibe. it's not my first time there but we tried to avoid the tourist traps for the most part. highly recommend the street art around the mission. next stop las vegas (for the millionth time) for fourth of july; hong kong, along with hopefully bangkok and beijing, in august; san diego in september. the more traveling i do, the more i love it.

on the road

on the plane coming to san francisco, i began to read the first of my many designated summer reading books. just thought i would jot down this passage:

"i woke up as the sun was reddening; and that was the one distinct time in my life, the strangest moment of all, when i didn't know who i was - i was far away from home, haunted and tired with travel, in a cheap hotel room i'd never seen, hearing the hiss of steam outside, and all the sad sounds, and i looked at the cracked high ceiling and really didn't know who i was for about fifteen strange seconds. i wasn't scared; i was just somebody else, some stranger, and my whole life was a haunted life, the life of a ghost. i was halfway across america, at the dividing line between the east of my youth and the west of my future, and maybe that's why it happened right there and then, that strange red afternoon."

looking forward to the haight today.

one year down

first year of college, summarized in a quick list:

1. learned a whole lot about myself. i am aware that i say this after every year, but i swear i mean it every time... i think it is only natural that i learn more about myself with every progressing year anyways.
   
2. gained a much greater perspective of the world.
   
3. went to state street obsessively. urban outfitters, reference, pad thai, repeat the next weekend.
   
4. met some great people - can't say i was very close to most, but i genuinely enjoyed everyone's company.
   
5. also successfully kept in touch with old friends.
   
6. had a lovely roommate.
   
7. did pretty well, grade-wise.
   
8. struggled (and am still struggling, unfortunately) with choosing a major.
   
9. became fascinated with middle eastern history and culture, after taking an 'islam & modernity' course.
   
10. did more writing than i have ever done in my entire life, and in turn got to hone my writing skills a little bit.
    
11. also probably ate more desserts in the dining commons than ever before.
    
12. isla vista - 'nuff said.
    
13. fell in love with santa barbara.
    
14. thoroughly enjoyed myself!

may thirty-first

once again i am really behind on news (i have been living under a rock ever since college), but dr. george tiller, one of the very few doctors who were willing to perform late-term abortions, was shot to death a couple of weeks ago, in wichita, kansas. quite ironic, considering that pro-life advocates use the "every life is a precious gift from god" premise as the primary basis for so much of their argument. and as if the irony was not scathing enough as is, tiller was shot while attending church! where would the world be without those silly religious zealots?

what i want for my birthday

an original copy of the diary of a century... hardcover, bound in gold foil, edited by richard avedon, published in 1970. took me a long while to track it down in the l.a. county library system, but i want it for myself!

i guess i'm a long way from owning a home, but i dream of having deep mahogany wall-to-wall bookcases in my living room some day, along with marigold walls in my kitchen and an antique chandelier in the dining room. still can't stop buying clothes but these days i'm a bit more interested in collecting books. it will be beautiful.

gulabi gang

just read in the june/july issue of bust magazine: the gulabi gang is a vigilante organization in banda, an impoverished region in northern india. impatient with the lack of progress from pre-existing organizations, the gang took it upon itself to actively fight (literally, with bamboo sticks) against wife-beaters, rapists, and corrupt law enforcement. since its inception three years ago, thousands of women - many of which were victims of domestic abuse - have picked up the gulabi (pink) sari as a symbol of resistance and emancipation. as stated by their BAMF commander sampat pal, "we function in a man's world, where men make all the rules. our fight is against injustice."

you're on top of the world again

three more weeks of school but my head's set in summer mode already. i spend my days drifting from class to class, to the lazy luminous sounds of belle & sebastian. i suddenly feel so at ease and at peace with myself; it's an amazing feeling that only summer could bring. weird how little - just some sun and some pretty songs - it takes for you to realize how glorious life can be.

jesusita fires

santa barbara is (quite literally) on fire at the moment. thankfully our campus is next to the ocean and away from the mountains... from the eighth floor at night, however, you can see a glowing red outline of the mountains. so many little pieces of ash stuck in my screen window. third fire this year - crazy stuff!

strawberry rhubarb cake

the past two-three weeks have been a frenzy of papers and midterms. made it out alive, and now i get two weeks of relative leisure. thursday i came home and initiated operation couch potato... there is nothing i love more than muttering answers out loud to the television set, schlumped on the couch with a bowl of cereal on my lap. (i love cash cab.) also, more things to look forward to! turns out yours truly will be traveling to seattle, memorial day weekend. actually nothing is quite finalized yet, but it's looking pretty likely. sasquatch music festival, here i come!

april showers bring may flowers right? i could use some sunny weather.

edit: turns out i have a midterm next week AND seattle is no longer happening. pointless post hahah.

coachella

yeah yeah yeahs were near life-affirming (but why didn't they play art star?!) and i still can't believe robert smith was in front of me. no comment about the severe length of the cure's set though... the entire thing lasted three and a half hours and included three encores. crazy stuff. i'm sad that i didn't get to stay longer for the kills and that i barely managed to catch devandra banhart... though thankfully he did save carmensita for last!

to illustrate how great it was, i didn't even notice the sweltering desert heat. (it was a consistent 100 degrees throughout the day.) next year i'm definitely attending all three days.

twelve hours

stale air, sun on my back, breeze in my face and other people's conversations drifting in and out. since high school days i've developed a liking for people watching on public transportation. friday was no different. i've always wondered where all of these people came from and where they are each headed. only in elevators and public transportation do such strange groupings of people come together. i wonder what impressions i'm giving the other people watchers. i'd like to start a conversation with the man in orange, and ask him how he lost his right hand. maybe that makes me rude and maybe i'm just nosy, probably both. i just think it is a shame that people are so very disconnected from one another.

pitiful pathetic post

i
feel
like
dying.

i hate being sick. the past three days have been terrible... need to get better asap because a) my dear friends are visiting this weekend and b) the next three weeks will consist of three papers, coachella, and three midterms. no time to waste. i've been sleeping early, drinking water, keeping warm and taking various cold meds, but nothing seems to be working! any suggestions?

so glamorous

napoleon crossing the saint-bernard in 1800, as depicted by jacques-louis david. you are probably familiar with this image, but did you know that napoleon actually made the journey on the back of a donkey? (i didn't.) hilarious.

put out the fire boys

does anyone know where i can recycle plastic shopping bags and magazines? i've acquired so many of either that i suspect my room may explode at any given time. (i solved this same problem with my overabundance of clothes, by donating huge garbage bags to goodwill.) shame on me, but i just can't stop buying things.

highlights of my days since new york:
- watched religulous while consuming strawberries and cream with the bestie. since watching the film, i've come to the conclusion that the problem with religion is that the majority of followers aren't educated enough about their faith. in the u.s. alone, religion has become such a taboo subject that we can no longer openly discuss it in a public forum. as a result, people become uneducated and vulnerable to blind obedience to fanatical individuals. particularly problematic because those individuals are usually the ones who alter scriptures for the benefit of their own agendas. anyways, bill maher is great. highly recommend for theists and atheists alike.
- cold war kids last night at the orpheum. fun.
- i got bit by a dog. there is a brutal mark on my wrist. i secretly think it looks kind of cool. maybe i'll acquire supernatural canine powers. (such an attractive image, i know.)
- bagels with cream cheese and smoked salmon. or better yet, salmon cream cheese. my sister should go to vancouver more often.
- more shopping with the sister. to my delight there is a new madewell store in glendale. i'm so in love.

currently waiting to go to venice beach. there's a daddy long leg inching towards me, about ten feet away. time to abandon this room.

march 26th

i originally intended to briefly recap my trip to new york, but it's so hard to pick and choose highlights when everything felt so amazing. so in short: i love everything about the city (minus rats in the subway... puke) and i will move there one day. oh, and the cupcakes from magnolia bakery really are as good as they say. then again i can't imagine ever objecting to cupcakes.

i never felt any sort of affinity towards rembrandt until i saw this image in the met. i particularly love self portraits because i think they are windows into an artist's mind. i can't think of anything as personal and intimate. there are literally thousands of works in the met, if not hundreds of thousands, but i think just their collections of rembrandts and pollocks are enough. so beautiful.

life list

i somehow lucked out with only two finals this quarter. one down, one to go. (then new york!) none today so i'm just wasting time. waking up to sugar ray and devendra banhart, and taking my time with everything feels so so so good. to be fair i do plan on spending the afternoon and tonight on calculus in preparation for tomorrow, but i like to just enjoy my mornings. the weather could not be more beautiful in santa barbara today as well.

to do list:
- change major to middle east studies and art history.
- learn arabic. (arabic I, II, III next year!)
- 8 weeks arabic intensive program in marrakesh, morocco, summer 2010.
- make the $4000 necessary for said program.
- internship at an art establishment of some sort. (currently in process of applying... what does 'brief biographical statement' even mean?! so vague.)
- ace as many classes as possible, for purposes of next point.
- go to grad school in NYU.
- score an amazing job at the MET or MoMA.
- have an apartment in brooklyn.
- travel to india, turkey, france, etc etc etc etc. i want to experience the world and all its beauty.

- have a fulfilling life.

...now go!

perfect week

- kimya dawson at the biko garage (donation-based venue just outside of campus) on april 15th
- coachella sunday on april 19th (yeah yeah yeahs, the cure, the kills, and devandra banhart!)
- fleet foxes and blitzen trapper at the hub (on campus) on april 20th


so much fun. sometimes i think my taste gets weirder and weirder, but i love the obscure. (ps i recently watched 'rachel getting married' - i want my future wedding to be just like rachel's.)

islam (with many edits)

my religious studies course on islam & modernity triggered a fascination with islamic culture. so much so that today i briefly contemplated changing my major to middle eastern studies. (this was until i realized that i had to learn coptic, hebrew, arabic, AND persian for the major... uhh i don't mean to underestimate myself but let's not kid ourselves here.) it really is a shame that islamic culture is so grotesquely misrepresented by the media... a lot of the tension between the west and the the middle east could be alleviated, if everyone would just take the time to educate themselves a bit more, to learn how to look past superficial and biased portrayals.

we point fingers at the taliban for being destructive and oppressive, but many fail to recognize how they rose to power in the first place - through u.s. military support during the cold war era. the point isn't that the taliban isn't oppressive, the point is that a) we should stop putting ourselves on a pedestal, and b) we need to stop making judgments about cultures that we barely know anything about. islamic fundamentalism and terrorism are not the same thing. (side note: you want to know what i think consists of terrorism? i think invading a country under the pretense of 'liberating' the people is an act of terrorism. i'm not trying to be anti-american, but the statistics are there - how many dead iraqi civilians to how many dead americans? honestly, who's doing more terrorizing here?)

i hope i'm not sounding pretentious, all i'm saying is that the course definitely changed my view of the world. anyways, my new goal is to learn arabic next year.

-------------------------------------------

another side note - i dream of seeing:
- hagia sofia
- st. mark's cathedral
- taj mahal
- versailles


edit: correction, you pick ONE of the mentioned languages for me studies.

recurring theme

apparently, according to the attachment theory, there are three primary attachment styles amongst people, each formulated (and set in stone until death) before a person reaches the age of five:

1) secure - generally at ease with becoming emotionally close, rarely worry about abandonment or rejection.
2) avoidant - uncomfortable and nervous from emotional closeness, often suppress attachment needs as a safety net.
3) anxious-ambivalent - constantly in search of emotional closeness with others, often worries that others do not return same sentiments.

spring break

twenty more days of hard work and then it's off to nyc. life is great.

subject to change

books to read (or re-read):
- on the road by jack kerouac
- walden by henry david thoreau
- the feminine mystique by betty friedan
- grapes of wrath by john steinbeck
- everything hemingway ever wrote

movies to watch (or re-watch):
- amadeus
- who the fuck is jackson pollock?
- amelie
- ghost world
- frida
- sid and nancy
- this is spinal tap
- bottle rocket
- basquiat
- welcome to the dollhouse

this might have to wait until the summer...

february

february is almost over but strangely i can't seem to remember anything happening at all. either the month was totally uneventful or my memory is deteriorating. maybe it's both. valentine's day my dad bought me flowers - a single rose and two carnations with a note "to my dear vivian" attached. there are ten more days, but i'm thinking that that just might be the highlight of my february.

warrior

first round of midterms down. pleasant surprise: i actually aced my calculus midterm. not so pleasant: one mo-fucking point away from an A for theater design. how annoying. and really not too well on my econ. still waiting to hear on my religious studies paper (which i have an ominous feeling about) and my theater presentation. my partner and i felt totally juvenile, as we sat on the floor with glue sticks and construction paper. weren't poster board projects over with in grade school???

agenda for this weekend:
- kim chen down from berkeley
- haircut
- fish tacos
- lacma (not only have i been meaning to see the vanity fair and german expressionism exhibits for quite some time, i also have to write an essay on an art piece for design class...)
- valentines DAY with my bestie (can we get pho? i want hot food.)
- i just want to stay warm (i feel like i've been cold for three days straight.)

shit

i'm falling behind in school work.
not good.

i feel like i'm on some psycho nonstop treadmill - the workload's piling up and i'm running and struggling to stay on top of it all. the situation is definitely not looking very favorably right now...

time to play a serious game of catch up!

ps: i finally watched slumdog millionaire over the weekend. i'm not sure what it was about the movie, but i was completely emotionally overwhelmed. emotionally overwhelmed as in i cried three times. highly recommend.

because it's friday night

i think it'd be hilarious if everyone danced like this at parties. who needs the gym when you have riot grrrl music to completely lose your mind to??? hahahah.

where does the time go

i have things to do but all i want to do is nothing. it seems my life is plagued by perpetual laziness. my sister's life is a cycle of classes and womens rugby and research labs and volunteering at the childrens hospital, fueled by an overbearing sense of motivation. (quite the renaissance woman, non?) my life is a cycle of listening to music and reading non-academic books and shopping and napping and eating. my parents always tell me that it would do me well if i emulated my sister's ways, but truth be told i wouldn't have it any other way.

above: sensible julia and psycho-weirdo vivian. apparently not much has changed, though we (thankfully) no longer wear matching denim jackets.

self-efficacy is key

everything will be ok.
everything will be ok.
everything will be ok.
repeat a hundred more times.

need to keep telling myself this, in order to keep total insanity at bay.

calculus is torturous, i may or may not have somewhere to live next year, i may or may not get kicked out of the honors program due to a lack of honors sections (due to my own stupidity; long story)... BUT after three days of bitching & whining, it's time to get over it. go optimism. :)

new year

besides cutting back on desserts (can you say chocolate overload this break or what?) and maintaining good grades, my new years resolution this year is simply to enjoy myself. i've recently come to the realization that there really is no better time to enjoy life than now.

2008 is a tough year to beat. so many good times and so much personal growth... but here's to an even better year with 2009, i hope!