It's Been A While

Ahahaha. The last post I made was on April 16. Quite a long time ago.

I'm posting now because the other day I lost my wallet, and I told myself that I would write a post about why it was meaningful to me (I don't quite remember why I made this resolution). I ended up finding my wallet, but in the spirit of keeping promises I'm going to write this blog post anyways.

A couple of days ago, a few friends and I had some drinks (mostly beers, but a couple of shots), and after sitting around for a little bit we realized that the alcohol made us all really hungry. So the one friend who was sober agreed to drive us to get food, and we ended up going to Jack in the Box, Taco Bell, and Happy Donuts (yes, all three). When I got back to my room, I realized I didn't have my wallet anymore. I had paid for JitB but not the other two places, and so I lost it either in my friend's car, Taco Bell, or Happy Donuts. The next morning, I went back to look in my friends car, and since we couldn't find the wallet, we went on a dude-where's-my-car-esque adventure, retracing our steps to try and find it. Turns out, I dropped it outside of Taco Bell, and someone was awesome enough to turn it in.

Now, as to why the wallet is important to me. I realized after I lost it that I didn't care at all about the money. It only had one or two dollars in it, but even if it had had forty or fifty I wouldn't have cared that much. I cared much more about the other pieces of paper, as well as the plastic. Had I lost my wallet, I would have had to replace two credit cards, which are tied to my father's account, so he would have had to cancel his too, and one debit card, which is tied to my own account. I would have had to pay for a new student ID, and in the meantime a vast variety of services would be unavailable to me. And I would have had to get a new driver's license, kind of difficult considering that I'm all the way in California, and one cannot fly without government issued ID.

And although replacing cards and IDs would have been a lot of unnecessary time and effort, I wouldn't have felt like I lost something that I could never get back. In a special part of my wallet, I have some pieces of paper that, while worth nothing to cashiers and tellers, are worth a fair amount to me. Most of them are tickets to events that I've gone to: currently I have Avenue Q at the San Jose Center for the Performing Arts, The Princess and the Frog at Fairfax Corner, and Up at Tysons Corner. These tickets come and go as I do events and inevitably lose older tickets, but they're still good memory triggers to have. However, they're not as important as two small slips of paper sitting right in the front of my wallet. One of these two small slips is a picture of a panda, drawn for me when I was rather stressed out and needed some encouragement. It makes me smile every time I see it, so I keep it around. The other is my TJ senior prom ticket, which has been in my wallet for probably well over 18 months. Senior prom was just a lot of fun, and prom is a milestone in the life of any high schooler, so keeping it reminds me of all of the memories that I made at TJ, and in particular one amazing night.

So yeah, hopefully I'll post again in the next five months. We'll see.

Hello Goodbye

Just random junk thoughts. Lots of them.

You say yes, I say no

We have to figure out housing for next year; there was some drama already.

You say stop, I say go, go, go!

Classes are so much work. I know I signed up for it, but all I do is work...I feel like I'm losing control.

Oh no!

Sorority rush was last week; a couple of my friends are now members of Kappa Kappa Gamma and it's all they can talk about [they did go mud-wrestling though].

You say goodbye, and I say hello

I saw the return of Glee yesterday [which is where all this comes from].

Hello hello

I'm really desperate to find a summer internship in the area; nobody wants a freshman though. If I can't anything I might have to just work at Target.

I don't know why you say goodbye I say hello

I'm almost done with freshman year though...that's kinda scary. What happened to it all?

I say hi, you say lo

I can't say I've figured out too much from this year, however. Alas.

You say why, I say I don't know!

There are not many parties, mainly cause these two weeks are rush [so frats are occupied] and next week is Admit Weekend, for which the campus is dry. I've been itching to get my drank on though.

Oh no!

My life sometimes feels like a sitcom. Or a manga.

You say goodbye, and I say hello

Speaking of manga, I spend so much time reading it now; favorites: Kimi no Iru Machi & Bakuman.

Hello hello

I'm going to see Bill Gates speak on Monday! I'm excited.

I don't know why you say goodbye I say hello

Midterms are going to destroy me in about two weeks, though.

You say yes [I say yes]

I've slowly but surely gotten messier over the year.

I say no [but I may mean no]

No, seriously. Even I'm slightly shocked when I think about how filthy my living space is. It's difficult to see my floor. I'm unsure how my roommate puts up with it. I think he passively aggressively brushes his teeth really early to get back at me. Unfortunate thing is, I'm such a deep sleeper I don't notice.

You say stop [I can stay]

A good friend of mine lost a grandparent this week. She flew home a couple of days ago, and I felt really bad for her.

And I say go, go [till it's time to] go!

I realize I'm constantly changing as an individual. Every few weeks I look back and think of my past self as naive...yet I will look back on my current self a few weeks form now and think the same thing.

Hellogoodbye hellogoodbye

My hair is getting obnoxiously long....I needs a haircut.

Hello hello

And then I want to dye it green again! That'll probably be a fun summer project.

I don't why you say goodbye I say hello.

I'm constantly waking up exhausted regardless of how much sleep I get...I think I have a Calcium deficiency. Stupid college diets.

Hello...

Speaking of sleep...I ought to go get some. I bid you all good night.

Hela, heba helloa!

I'm sorry this was so long.

WonderCon/Foam

A friend invited me to go with him to WonderCon today. It was a pretty interesting experience, I must say. Even though I knew I was going to run into people dressed as all sorts of things, it still wasn't quite enough to quell the general amusement (and occasional shock). Countless Supermen, Wonderwomen, Jokers, Star Wars characters...I even saw a Sailor Moon and a family from Planet of the Apes. But watching four Storm Troopers play a new Wii game, Just Dance, was full of win though.

There was an entire corner of posters, but I couldn't find anything I wanted to shell out money for. However, I ended up running across a booth for something called PMBQ. I had no idea what it stood for, but the important thing was THEY HAD ALL THESE DIFFERENT AMAZING PANDA SHIRTS. They were really cool designs, with really cool pandas in various states of emotion or really cool samurai/ninja fighting. Really. Cool. I ended up paying $20 for one, but I couldn't find an image of it to post here. I was also tempted to buy a Totoro plushie, but that was $24 and I couldn't bring myself to get it. My friend tried to convince me to buy a hat with animal ears on it, but I figured I'd just look silly. (lol nekos.)

Overall though, it was something that I really enjoyed. I truly respect people who use art to make their living, as do their fans (my friend got an autograph/print from the author of Dresden Codak. He was so elated). Maybe I'll end up going again next year if it's in San Francisco still (I actually have no idea if it will be).

Also! Last night was a foam party at one of the frats. Basically they covered the floor in plastic and then turned on a machine which generated like soap suds. It was dirty, wet, but awesome. We left before the party ended because it was starting to become so crowded that it was a little dangerous to be in the middle of the dance floor. I'm fairly sure the shoes that I wore to it are ruined. But that's okay.

I Actually Love College

I hate college, but love all the parties

Finishing kegs and crushin bottles of Bacardi

King of the class, I'd rather lay up with a hottie

Single doesn't mean I'm lookin' for somebody.

But school's good for one thing, I must add

And that's having a plethora of my vocab

Whole bags of verbs that I must grab

And throw down like a rich girl's bar tab

Spring Break

I'm such a malleable object.

I'm a ball of clay.

I'm a chameleon.

I change alot, based on who and what I'm surrounded by. There are traits, sure, that are definitely me, but even they can be dulled or sharpened.

Some days things make perfect sense, and the path ahead is clear. Other times I can't stop looking back, looking for side paths to take me off the road I've chosen.

Part of the next four years (almost 3 now), I suppose, is finding out who I am and who I want to be. I'll have to discover the things that I like, and the things that I hate. The choices that I'm okay with making, and the ones that I refuse to consider. The goals I'm going to set, and the failures I'm going to face.

I've already figuring out some of it, I think.

For now though, I'm just going to relax, recharge, and return to school a happier person than when I left.

Adventure

Ready?

Set?

Run...___

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***Have an adventure.

Live on purpose.***

Blink

I haven't been this scared in a long time
And I'm so unprepared so here's your valentine
Bouquet of clumsy words, a simple melody
This world's an ugly place, but you're so beautiful to me

I'm going to finish this later. I promise.

Edit:: I promised, didn't I?

It's Dead Week here on The Farm (yes, it's a nickname. Go wiki it if you don't believe me.), which means all sorts of fun. Dead Week is comprised of the 10th week of classes (we're on the quarter system, remember?), which I guess technically are 'optional', because professors aren't supposed to teach any new material but instead review for exams (of course almost all of my classes are nice enough to actually teach us new material though that will be on the final). A dreaded week of every quarter, and oh so easily forgotten once Week 1 rolls back around and we're happily discovering the quirks or pains of each new class that we enrolled in.

One of the perks of Dead Week though, is Primal Scream, whose name I believe is borrowed from Harvard (but the actual event is quite different: Harvard's Primal Scream involves streakers doing a lap around the quad). Every night of Dead Week, at midnight, everyone opens their windows or steps outside and lets out a howl at the top of their lungs. In that howl is all of the worries, troubles, stresses, tribulations, and problems that accompany everyday life. (actually, the name makes much more sense for our event than for Harvard's.)

I've got a few finals coming up in the week after next, and hopefully I can jump through all of the hoops that are set up for me. Fingers crossed?

Education

This week has felt like an eternity. For some reason, I've just been constantly jumping through hoops trying to catch up to the next one before it wipes out my footing form under me. No, not for some reason. Because I signed up for the quarter schedule. Because I signed up for these classes. Because I signed up for one of the top universities in the nation, if not the world. This is the price we pay, I guess, for a good education. The other price we pay is tuition. Today, thousands of people around the nation protested budget cuts in education, but this was most evident in the state of California. At the University of California Berkeley, students lined up to barricade main entrances to classrooms, preventing students from going in directly, and forcing them to take the long way around. A number of the classes had been cancelled anyway, in honor of the ideals that were being protested, but some of the teachers held classes, especially those who didn't feel like the protesters were justified in there actions.

Archaeology

Wow. Haven't been here in a while. I mainly get updates through my RSS feeds, so I don't really visit the blogger site in order to read what everyone's writing. Sadly, this means I forget about writing myself.

Today our Social Dance teacher said that more engineers take Social Dance than is proportional to the campus percentage of engineers. I have a theory about that. Engineers are smart enough to realize that they're not the most attractive of guys, usually. There are always exceptions to the rule, but most engineers are not extremely good looking, or athletic, and aren't the guys that you're immediately attracted to at first meeting. This means that they need to have other qualities, other redeeming talents, that make them stand out in a girl's mind. Dancing is one of these possible talents. Cooking is a pretty good one, and musicianship also works, but perhaps not as well. So the really smart engineers, the ones who have a clear self-image, know that learning how to dance makes them all the more attractive to girls. (For the record, I consider myself a pretty good dancer...ladies.)

I'm moving into the 9th week of the quarter, which means it's crunch time. I've realized that since about the 4th week of the quarter, I've had one paper due at the end of every week. And now that everything's coming to a close, these are some pretty non-trivial papers. For example, last week I had to draft a 12-page research paper, this week I have to research and write a 3,000-word term paper, and next week I have to write the final draft of the 12-page research paper. Oh, Stanford. I can find some things to spice it up with though. This Saturday is Frosh Formal, with the theme "Ocean's Thirteen" (clever.) I expect to go with my all-black ensemble. Who doesn't look good in black?

The frogs are out at night, since it's getting warmer. You can hear a chorus of croaking from the balcony.

Monsters

Every night I fall asleep

Just as the monsters appear

And I think of

How to defeat them. I say, "Hey

You, I'm

Not going down so easy." But I'm

So afraid. What will

the morning bring? What will

Happen if I talk

To them? Can I reason with them

About what I feel?

There aren't too many--

I think three

Are beneath my bed

Words might suffice

But a weapon would be better

I hope I have enough confidence

To face these guys head on

Otherwise, I might lose what's most precious

And I know that they're waiting, watching, preparing

Which is obvious, really. It's

Time to attack as soon as they say "We're coming for

You."

Let It Snow?

It's really nice here. Occasionally it gets rainy, but I don't mind rain so much.

I think I might miss the snow. Sure, I hate the cold, but come on? Three feet? What kid wouldn't pass that up? (Yeah, I'm a kid.) Maybe the federal government will be snowed in and then they'll be forced to figure out this healthcare thing.

This weekend I did Dance Marathon; it's a fundraiser for HIV/AIDS. Dancers raised money (almost $200) and then last weekend we danced for 24 straight hours, 1 pm Saturday to 1pm Sunday. I was disappointed in a lot of my friends, because a number of them never showed up or only stayed an hour or two. Only 5 people from my dorm danced the entire night (48 had registered). Sure, they had homework, but so did I. I made sure it got done, and I followed through on the commitments that I made. I realized that not keeping agreements or promises you make is something I really dislike in people. Your word is one of the few things that you can keep when everything else is taken from you.

There have been a few things this week that have shaken me up. Like when you think there's an extra stair -- except bigger. Sometimes though, being shaken up is good. The puzzle pieces fall back down in a way you hadn't thought of before. You find the edges and think maybe you can start to build.

I'm starting to figure out what I'm doing for the summer. This week has a few phone interviews in it, with various companies in the area. Odds are I'm not going to come back for the summer, or if I do it'll only be for a week or so.

Valentine's day is this weekend. It's been neat watching my friends find relationships (or try to find relationships but fail), especially with two of my really good friends, because they found a relationship with each other. I've been asked to go into San Francisco to explore on Sunday. I'm not really feeling adventurous at the moment. But we'll see.

Final note: trying to put on retainers after not wearing them for two weeks is a BITCH.

if(two.betterThan(one))

i.love(you);

Officially declared CS today.

Five Things I Wish Everybody Knew About Nerds

1. Nerds are people too.

Sure, I've embraced the term "nerd"; if you called me a nerd I'd probably say "damn straight." But not everyone is as okay with it. Name calling hurts. Don't do it.

2. Nerds are socially awkward; be nice.

Lots of times nerdy people are used to going up and initiating conversations, and sometimes they're not even used to other people going up and initiating conversations. So if a nerdy guy tries saying something to you but it's really awkward; just smile and act like he's the most sociable person in the world.

3. Nerds make great boyfriends.

And do you know why? Because a nerdy guy will never take a pretty girl for granted. Ever. (Also: If a guy can take the time to build an entire computer from scratch, at least you know he has passion)

4. Nerds are useful!

Can't figure out how to install Google Chrome? No idea which printer driver to install? (Or what a printer driver even is?) Sure, we might not be able to fix everything and the kitchen sink, but if it comes to the television, computer, or pretty much most electronic things, give us a good half hour and we'll probably figure it out.

5. Nerds will rule the world. Someday.

And the geek shall inherit the earth. Nuff said.

(On a somewhat related note, if you're the kind of person who picks on the nerds at your school, there's a chance that you might work for them someday. So play nice.)

What I'm Meant To Be

I am an engineer,

But everything isn't clear,

On what I want to be.

I'm a biologist,

But I still get kinda pissed,

When people say to me,

I'm a philosopher,

Or I'm an astronomer,

That I'm wasting my time.

Just tell me what I'm meant for,

What life I'm supposed to lead.

What type of cloth was I cut from?

What type of tree is my seed?

My dad said "Ph.D.",

A lot of good that did me,

When I majored in art.

Maybe just one degree,

Is all that's in store for me,

But if I've got the heart,

To do philosophy,

Or maybe astronomy,

Am I still wasting time?

Just tell me what I'm meant for,

What life I'm supposed to lead.

What type of cloth was I cut from?

What type of tree is my seed?

At the end of four years,

I'll have chosen my path.

Be it English, or History,

Science, or Math.

Maybe I'll get what I wanted,

I'm sure that I'll get what I need,

There's only one thing that I know though,

I'll have figured out my type of seed.

Question:

If I was a pokemon, what pokemon would I be?

(Preferably within the first 250, so that I know what I'm being compared to).

Should Have Written This Three Weeks Ago

Things That Happened In 2009:

- I applied to college.

- I got into college.

- I went to college.

- I got my driver's license.

- I came across web comics.

- I had my ass kicked by physics.

- I lost some friends.

- I made some friends.

- I loved my friends.

- I went to the beach.

- I tasted vodka.

- I watched the inauguration.

- I learned Python.

- I learned C++.

- I learned to play guitar.

- I went to China.

- I auditioned for an a cappella group.

- I lost my grandfather.

- I watched romance blossom.

- I watched romance wither.

- I watched Rome ants. (this is a joke)

- I BS'ed a techlab project.

- I created a crazy class schedule.

- I understood the challenges of having a roommate.

- I discovered vast amounts of music, movies, and television.

- I discovered how quickly green dye will wash out of hair.

- I discovered myself.

Lack // Musical

There's been a lack of blog posts over winter break. I really enjoy reading the posts that everybody writes. Yeah, I haven't really written anything either. So let's change that.

Cause the world keeps spinnin round and round

And my heart's keepin time to the speed of sound

Things seem to be taking shape. Like a piece of clay on a spinning wheel. I think my goals and my resolutions are within reach. Course, that doesn't mean things are going to be easy (au contraire, life tends to be quite messy). But I've never been one to sit on my ass and refuse to try, now have I?

The internet is for, internet is for, internet is for PORN!

People are certainly...interesting. Just when you thought you know someone, they find a new way to surprise you. And even when you don't think you know someone, they manage to throw curveballs your way. I have a lot to discover both about the people around me, and the people who aren't as close. College is supposed to be the time when you make the best friends of your life. With any luck I'm headed in the right direction.

I'd sooner buy, defying gravity

I think I'll try, defying gravity

Kiss me goodbye, I'm defying gravity

Isn't it interesting how easily you can wind up becoming someone who you aren't? Maybe putting on an act for new friends, or leading a double life hidden from a spouse, or even lying on a resume. Creating facades seems to be something that human beings are innately skilled at. At some point you have to ask yourself, "who am I?" and be prepared to deal with the answer. Nobody likes realizing that they're obnoxious, or stingy, or arrogant. What's even more interesting though, are the character traits that remain when you put on different personalities for different audiences. The person I am for my family is not the same as the person I am for my friends from Chicago, is not the same as the person I am for my friends from TJ, is not the same as the person I am for my friends from Stanford. Not entirely. But, certain things are the same. I don't go by the same name. But I love nerdy jokes. I don't bring up certain uncomfortable topics. But I leave behind an extreme mess. I don't always sing out loud.

But I die without you.

Lions

The lions of the past are now old

Their manes have turned grey.

Fortunately, they have relied upon the strength of their roars

Rather than the strength of their claws.

If someone you loved could change the world with their death, would you allow them to die?