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.