Category: thisnthat

I finally cancelled cingular and had to say goodbye to flat eric….

. :( in case you do not have my new cell number, please email me and i will be happy to give it to you!

… to YAO MING and the ROCKETS!! WOOHOO! okay, I know this was two days ago, but i haven’t had a chance to post it till today. but boy was that a cool game, and boy, Yao Ming is a badass!! and his parents are so cute!!! hehehehe.

.. as for the shaq comment, well… i wish i could say i was really mad about it, but personally i think shaq is a dumbass, and his comments clearly reflected that he’s really not the ‘aristotle of the nba.’ plus I don’t think anyone really takes him seriously. it reflects a sort of not-too-bright humor, one that reflects a very passe mentality. this is helped along by the fact that his performing it so stupidly is a deterrent in itself to others making asses of themselves in a similar fashion. not all action inspires imiation. sometimes it’s a mistake other people learn from.

and asian american protestors? I feel i’m very much in the Asian American cause, but i feel like protestors at an event like that is ridiculous. it makes the incident not about shaq and his stupidity but about Asians and their uptightness. keep the focus where it belongs…

okay, so instead of actually doing homework right now, it’s time to update the blog!! woohoo!!

it is now week 2 of winter quarter. still being at ucla is very strange. I feel so old compared to the freshies littering the campus, with their super-cheery attitudes and know-it-all-ness. i remember i used to be like that way back when! I wouldn’t say “i know better” now, but i guess i’ve just changed a little bit. or maybe i’m just getting old and bitter! oh no!!

anyway, it’s nice being back in school sorta. the california sunshine is nice, especially compared to spending 3 weeks in the frosty uk. what’s really crazy is that i can still remember being in 2 layers of thermals, a sweater, wool socks, and an arctic down jacket just two weeks ago, and now i’m running around in spaghetti straps and sandals! not that i mind being in the nice weather! I can feel myself slowly trading in my “oh, it’s not cold here AT ALL!” sentiment for, “brr! turn on the heater, it’s 60 degrees!” i’m just hoping i can at least make it through the winter without starting up with those complaints.

school is going okay. weirdest of fates, i’m taking a class with ben marschke, who TA’d for a class with professor sabean I took with thomas waaay back when. he’s actually a pretty cool guy when you’re talking with him rationally and like a normal person instead of about your grade. oi. i’m also retaking anthro 7 this quarter, which is forcing me to push away cobwebs from my memories from 10th grade biology (god bless ms. saunders!). of all the classes i could have screwed up in, this was the class that got me in trouble so long ago. and I think it had something to do with not doing homework or something and playing too much with aphio my junior year. luckily, the part of the book that completely infuriated me with its inaccuracies that year was also changed/revised, and it reads much better now! that’s one less barrier.

ran into gus and jason kwong on campus yesterday. it’s kind of nice to see gus around, even if it is in passing. I had a class with him two years ago, and I we did one study session together with his friends, and I came away from it having a lot of respect for the man. very funny, very smart. also very different from the kind of people I usually hang out with, so that made him interesting too. i think he’s the only latino friend i’ve really made here, and one of only two gay people i’ve befriended. And this isn’t so much about me being an asian girl who’s unwilling to meet other races, or one who’s not openminded to other sexual orientations, but it’s funny that diversity sort of takes effort to happen. like, if i follow my interests in asian music or entertainment or alt-indie music, then i just end up being more likely to meet asians and whites than latinos or blacks. I manage to find myself in asian-majority groups, like alpha phi omega (at ucla) or in the website department at electronic media. which makes me wonder… people are sort of inert and follow their interests. some people tend to find interests that lead them to meet different people; others do not. and with those people, you have to put a rock in their way or something for them to notice, you know? looking back, i see the subconscious decisions i made that led me to have the friends/know the people i know now…

eric pong is one helluva guy. i miss him, but i’m not really sure how to call him up and say hi. that’s definitely one thing i wish i were better at: getting back in touch with old friends. he sent me a few photos from when we were in college together — stuff from formal my sophomore year, wen’s birthday, and a couple of other things. they brought back a wonderful flood of memories from ‘back in the day.’ it sort of made me sad looking back, though. looking at old pictures just has a way of doing that…

maybe i should try to get back into things, eh? get back in touch with some people? maybe.

no, not foot and mouth. and not mad cow, as far as we know, since it takes years to flare up. (on a side note, would you ever guess with me?? hahah!). jer and i just brought back icky flus with us. sure, jer took a flu shot before going, but i don’t think his flu shot had anything on OId World viruses. doh.

Time for chicken soup tonight. or maybe taiwanese style beef noodle soup from Leave Me Alone! yay! Leave Me Alone!

days spent in the UK: 23
hours spent on a plane getting to London Heathrow: 10.5
number of countries visited: 3. england, scotland, wales
number of cities visited: 12 (london, bath, salisbury, malvern, worcester, shropshire, cardiff, edinburgh, falkirk, glasgow, stirling, york, hampton court)
number of cathedrals toured: 5 (bath abbey, salisbury cathedral, worcester cathedral, york minster, westminster)
number of castles toured: 5 (warwick castle, cardiff castle, edinburgh castle, stirling castle, hampton court palace)
temperature of London when leaving for home: 7 degrees Celsius.
temperature of LAX upon arriving home: 81 degrees Fahrenheit.
number of hats lost during trip: 2
number of meals taken at mcdonalds or burger king: 4
… at a pub: 1
… at an iguana’s: 2
… at relatives: I don’t think we stopped eating when we were with our relatives. it should actually be
“number of days of continuous feeding while visiting relatives”: 3
amount of chocolate consumed: approximately 2 pounds.
age in months of cousin’s new son: 4
number of new immediate family relations by cousin’s marriage: 20 (oh gosh!)
hours to be spent correcting red eye effect from pictures taken of cousin’s british, blue-eyed in-laws: 2
approximate number of pictures taken during trip: 481
…of these which are of airline food: 6
number of viewings of “lord of the rings: the two towers”: 2 (once in bath, once in london, in europe’s largest cinema)
pictures taken with ali g: none. :(
hours spent in a computer lab: 10 (all during the first week or so of the trip.)
number of cups of tea or coffee or water consumed daily: 10
average number of bathroom trips per day: 6
cost of using “the loo” at a train station: 20 pence
value of a clean “loo”: priceless!
number of stairs at russell square station: 172
value of 3 weeks out of Los Angeles: beyond the measure of words.

it’s a rather severe shock coming from the sub-freezing temperatures (not to mention wind chill) of england to the ridiculously warm weather we’re having in california. Just last week I was swathed in two layers of thermals, a warm hat, a warm scarf, angora wool socks, and a gap “warmest jacket” in some rather desperate attempts to keep warm. I froze my ass off at Stonehenge, where the wind cut across the hills of northern England with nary a tree to temper it. Temperatures were similarly cold in Scotland, and we got real freezing temperatures with less of a wind chill. That was fun too. England itself was fairly warm, although we hit a nasty cold and wet spell at the end of our trip. Cities all over the countryside were flooding, but luckily we were by this time back in London and away from the rivers of Severn, Avon, and Thames were overflowing. (Thames has nice flood controls in the city of London, but not very good ones elsewhere. =/) Our flight stopped in Washington DC, where snow and poor visibility had delayed our landing a little bit. SNOW! I was so tempted to grab a handful as I walked onto the plane; a bit had collected on the end of the bridge connecting to the open plane door…

and now, it is freaking 70 degrees?? geeeesh!! california is so lucky!!

yo, i am back. lots of notes i want to make about the trip in the next week or so, wee. and lots of pictures to post up! woohoo!

kinda tired of this blogging business. I’m sort of looking back at these entries and i guess i’m disappointed with what i’ve been blogging. I think as someone growing up in the bay area, i’ve always shunned superficiality, striven (sp?) to be “deep.” I remember trying so hard to be “deep” and possess knowledge and understanding, denying anything that may have smacked of superficiality. I just wasn’t “about” that.

and of course now, I live in los angeles, which is the prime example anyone gives as a location of fake peopledom. and over the years, I guess i’ve fallen more under the spell. i’m more aware of how I dress now, become mildly distressed when a picture of me doesn’t turn out as nicely as I’d like, have an unhealthy addiction to all things sephora (even though I really don’t wear much makeup, i have a weird fascination with it), and take a little more time thinking about what I wear when I go out the door.

all of this sort of.. bothers me. I mean, none of this matters! It doesn’t matter how one looks, just what one achieves. Focusing on appearances only distracts from the substantial. Am I replacing substance with style?

… which would be really funny because I don’t think I have any style. I think i’m very critical and appreciative of when someone else has a good sense of style, but I can’t actually pull anything off myself. My current style is basically looking like a twelve year old. it’s not intentional… it just happens! i guess i’m trying to change that, and I’m having fun with changing one’s appearances and such. i’m just not very good at it!

and it’s not something I often have time to do. It just isn’t practical. I mean… it’s fun, sure.

… but then that other part flares up. “Fun??” it rails at me. “It’s silly! It’s superficial! You’re becoming shallow!”

aaah!!

this was highlighted recently when kipper came to visit. kipp and I were best friends in high school, and both of us have changed quite a bit since going off to college. he went to MIT, I went to UCLA. and our sensibilities have been shaped a lot by our environments. Los Angeles is quite different from the east coast, no question. and LA is a place to have fun. our contrasts are all the more highlighted because of where we’ve done our changing in recent years. sometimes, I feel rather fluffy next to him, and I almost feel guilty for being a little light-hearted (and occasionally, shall we say, light-headed).

aargh. but I’m having fun. am I really discarding my norcal past and becoming a los angeleno?? NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO~!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

three more days, and i’ll be in ENGLAND!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :D

oooh.. can’t WAIT~!!! does anyone want anything from across the pond? email me and let me know. :)

no more blogging! aaah!

it’s the last day of tenth week. good luck on finals, everyone~!! well… at least to those of you who still have to endure them. wrawr.