Fish on the Ceiling

2006-08-14T12:44:00.000-05:00

testt

2006-08-14T12:25:00.000-05:00

...the end...

Tomorrow I depart for Japan. I thought it would be fitting to move out of my blog as I move out of my hometown, so I have started a new blog which is located at mokudekiru.com. For those of you who haven't figured it out yet, I am going to Japan for a year to become a high school student (five years of high school just wasn't enough). So goodbye, maybe I'll post here again one day... but likely not, that I have my domain.

2006-08-11T00:45:00.000-05:00

...oh my god...

Will you look at this.

2006-08-10T14:37:00.000-05:00

...I hate microsoft...

If anyone has an idea how to make css appear corectly in internet explorer, please talk to me and help me. I am working on a template and it looks great in Mozilla, Safari, and even Internet Explorer for Macs, but it looks like shit in IE because of their stupid css. I need to resolve this before I go or else I have to assume that no one who will read my blog uses IE, which is 90% of people.

2006-08-06T01:23:00.000-05:00

...goddamnit...

In trying to redesign my blog... I basically have figured out that I have NO IDEA what I want it to look like. I have one banner. That is it. I think I need to just sit down and draw it on paper before I can make any real progress. It's rather infuriating. Also, taking other templates, really takes forever to edit. Blah.

In other news... very relaxing day. Time to shower.

2006-08-02T13:58:00.000-05:00

...this is really all I do anymore...

Yeah, I sit on my bed and upload pictures to facebook and take pictures of myself and attempt to video chat even though I haven't gotten the kinks out yet and listen to the radio and sing along....

In other words I am happy my final's over and can play with this new computer constantly. Except when I really need to continue cleaning my room. Oops. The Pynk Pyritz bag was a smashing success though! One day you WILL see it on Knitty. Yes. In the same way that one day I will have my own website.

2006-07-29T16:10:00.000-05:00

...breaking up is hard enough...

I don't usually expect flowers, especially not from Physics teachers who will remain nameless. So the Pynk Pyritz, after 3 happy years together, finally had our final lesson last night. Quite bittersweet. Except, surprisingly, there were several flowers there, anonymously... yep. Both Claire and I had apparently been IMing him a few days before about this. Weird.

2006-07-28T17:41:00.000-05:00

...i must party...

Finally took that midterm for psych! I am three lessons and two finals away from being done with school for...well for about a month. But done with AMERICAN school in over a year.

In other news, I have been buying electronics faster than I can learn to use them (though that might not be saying much). I bought a hott new digicam and I haven't had a chance to play with it yet, which pains me so.

Last cello lesson ever in ~20 minutes. Depressing isn't it.

2006-07-23T18:30:00.000-05:00

...suppose I kept on singing love songs...

As everyone knows, Ms. Linder is getting married in September. Sadly, this will be just one month too late to have the well known and loved Pynk Pyritz to be the feature artists at her wedding. August would have been a perfectly lovely month to be married in! Honestly! Since Angelina and I will be off galavanting in exciting cities (possibly asian countries too, I don't know about her travel schedule), Claire is the only remaining Pyrit. However, the trio must go on, and in fact, my cello will be playing at her wedding. Just not by me. Claire, Angelina's brother (Alan!), and Ms. Linder's brother will be the Pynk Pyritz cover band. And my cello will come to the rescue, since he has the same dilemma I do about flying with cellos (buying an extra plane ticket, not so fun). This should be super cool, for the following reasons:

-Ms. Linder's brother is a professional cellist
-he took from my cello teacher some years ago
-he will now be stuck walking around with a cello with my bumper sticker on it (see left)

2006-07-22T16:03:00.000-05:00

...reverse psychology...

The other day, I woke up and it was raining outside, so it wasn't very light out and I didn't know whether it was early in the morning or later. I felt pretty wide awake and didn't really feel like going back to sleep. Then I looked at my watch, and it was 11 or so, time to get up. Instantly I felt sleepy and wanted to go back to sleep.

2006-07-14T01:48:00.000-05:00

...嬉しくて眠い...

私の日本語がひどくなった。本当に話せない。アリアナでも私より上手だねぇ。。。

明日シカゴへ行く。よし!

2006-07-07T12:52:00.000-05:00

...say my place at nine...

Disregard previous post, somehow a false rumor that the cast party had happened was spreading around.... yeah don't ask, I'm not. Whatever.

In other news, it's definitely an experience to go shopping for flowers with your ex, for his new gf. Perhaps not quite as exciting as having him show up with Aut at 1 am and serenade you with backstreet boys songs... but close.

5 weeks till I leave this place. Aweeesome.

P.S. Belle & Sebastian is (are?) good.

2006-07-04T01:41:00.000-05:00

...stormy...

Les Mis is over. What am I going to complain about now? How about how I missed the cast party. Oh is everyone sick of hearing me complain about that?? Well then maybe someone could have told me when it was. I guess I was at Jono's house from about 6-12 or 1 or something, but jeez I could have come afterwards. Now I'm going to have to go hunting for my dvd, which is unnecessarily challenging, AND I will probably never see again several of the friends I made during the show.

I guess the lesson here is that it's best that I don't see any of these friends anyway, because they're just going to end up doing something bitchy too. So from now on they'll live in my mind as better than they actually probably were. Or something.

Bye.

2006-06-30T10:40:00.000-05:00

...efficiency...

Since I am often so busy with:

java
psychology
work
les mis pit orchestra
addiction to notpron
eating
sleeping
maintaining some semblance of a social life
learning to drive

I don't really have time to study a lot of Japanese, which is unfortunate because there is less than 2 months time remaining. In fact, a month and a half. However, I have successfully managed to DREAM in Japanese, which eliminates some study time! This morning my Japanese feels quite refreshed. Now onto more java.

2006-06-26T00:09:00.000-05:00

...story of my life...

(00:02:45) roamnoth: haha, i wish i could join the "i only kiss beautiful people" facebook group

2006-06-24T17:08:00.000-05:00

...land of the rising sun...

This is how I know I am going to the fucking right country.

2006-06-23T18:04:00.000-05:00

...okay...

So far today, they have played "Turning Japanese" twice on 1071. If you say so! And no, there is no such thing as too much radio.

2006-06-20T10:48:00.000-05:00

...fast times...

Surprisingly, I am not significantly less busy now. I am just doing things that aren't as stressful. Also, i have finished very few things on my to do list. But no matter. It's off to try out some more java now. I refuse to get behind.

Les Mis has been pretty great so far -- it's toughening up my hands at least. Also, it's nice to make fun of what must be happening in the show... seeing as I have never even successfully looked at the stage, nor know the show, nor can hear the singers... when Dave the Day Saver, as we call him, says "Jump off the barricade!! What did you think it would be made of, sytrofoam!?" it's especially entertaining.

Tata. See the show people.

2006-06-13T20:04:00.000-05:00

...I'm addicted to you but you know that you're toxic...

Last night at Coldstone, there was this group of like 50 girls, all blonde and highlighted, exiting. Not hard to spot the solitary, cynical looking one with a Jew-fro in all that. Later on, the same group of girls walked past the Union, post-shopping (all with bags). Who were these mysterious girls? Why were they so well groomed? The world may never know.

He said "If they don't have coconut ice cream, I'm going to punch them in the face. Every one of them." That's what I've been missing around here. Some good old ANGER at inconsequential things like ice cream flavors.

But I did see my first real live breakdancing.

And someone was talking on a cell phone, and he said, "Yeah, I feel weird talking to parents in English," clearly a bilingual dude, but still sounds funny just the same. Parents = no English. And, the song that has been stuck in my head all day is now on the radio. I win, I win.

Sometimes, you have to look sorta normal.

2006-06-11T18:25:00.000-05:00

...I had a clever title but I've forgotten it...

A week of fun in the sun on Florida beaches, and two lovely 20 hour car trip marathons.
Sunburns.
Sand.
Surf.
Watching MTV with relatives.
Gameboy addicted cousins.
Never being hungry.
Taking a million showers to wash the chlorine, salt, and sun out.
A piratey shirt bought.
Walgreens that close at 10 pm (what the fuck?!).
Proving to my relatives, through that OG picture from senior supper, that I am in fact not tall (though they still think I am), and being reprimanded for my purple shoes in said picture.
One of my cousins thinking that my family is sooo much fun, while another thinks that we are totally boring. My brother figures this cousin has realistically compared our family to the gameboy, and the gameboy comes out ahead.
Missing all my good music, especially Sufjan. Especially when discussing his music.
Getting the biggest tan I have had in several years. I am at least half a shade darker. Unintentional, and a little creepy, but with me, pastiness always prevails.
Staying in a really sketchy and rednecky hotel somewhere in Tennessee last night, where our car was the only one in the parking lot that was not a red 4x4.

But now I am home and I get AIM messages like this:
if marquis == 'hungry'; dumplings > mo

it feels good to be back.

2006-06-02T17:15:00.000-05:00

...it sucks to grow up...

I hate mornings. They mean to me not the beginning, but the end (of what? Sleep perhaps?)

Thursday: alone in the lounge with only Amirah and Al Renner's company, listening to Air, quietly putting our handprints on the walls or ceiling. The calm before the onslaught of other seniors.

Kangway, up on that ladder, trying desperately to step on the wall in the correct fashion. Success.

Friday: not a morning at all but the continuation of a night. The awkward[ly beautiful] moments were over. When do we touch, when do we kiss? Now, apparently. At least I feel I have lived my childhood out in a more stereotypical manner. Cell phones are more representative anyway -- what does a bottle have to do with anything?

The bright morning sun shone down upon one remaining sleeping bag outside under the deck. Adjacently, a half-full Mountain Dew, aggressively green, reflected. This is what we are.

MJBP can kickass at wrestling.

Any awkward moment can be made 10 times worse by simply saying, "awkward"

yes. we went out. apologies to those who had to witness it in real life.

George stole my sweatshirt, but then returned it. Is this good or bad?

I got very close to crying, reading a yearbook signature. This is so uncharacteristic of me, that it must have been really good.

pants. pants pants pants!

As this blog is entitled, there is now a fish on the ceiling of the lounge.

Everything has been so.

2006-04-28T02:09:00.000-05:00

...california...california...

Right so if you didn't catch that yet, I'm in CA right now, living it up. 12 hours from my house to my uncle's, and that's where we are. And yes, I don't really go to school anymore. My fun filled Caltechian day starts tomorrow and it is definitely going to involve some physics, math, a Caltech sweatshirt, and the quest for bubble tea. My aunt bought a lot of Japanese food in anticipation of my arrival. I find this ironic, because she is Japanese. Anyway, LA is an insane place, definitely will never drive here.

Also, was a combination of very lame and excellent to have to call from the OC to tell my brother to tape The OC.

2006-04-25T16:55:00.000-05:00

...really bogus...

Okay, update on Washu later... first, I must comment on Day of Silence which is tomorrow (I keep forgetting)...

What is up with this bogus email that Sue sent out, threatening us to stick it out and take the consequences? Sure, someone who signs up for DOS should ideally make an effort to NOT TALK, but what's up with fascist dictation of what DOS means to the administration? Lots of people answer questions when called upon in class, which apparently offends the administration, but I think it's a valid interpretation either way. As is the whole writing on paper thing. IF you write everything you were going to say in a day down on paper, you 1) weren't going to say very much in the first place, and 2) are still somewhat incapacitated, because it is a bit more difficult to convey things that way. Still valid, IMO.

"Please also remember that selective protest--in the classroom but not in the hall is not in the spirit of the day."

So now the "spirit" of our protest is defined by someone else? What is this?

2006-04-18T14:32:00.000-05:00

...Jenny was a friend of mine (Commentary on Cornell)...

My date with Cornell is over. And, since I am currently at home sick (well, kinda) post a night of extremely unpleasant puking, I will use this oppurtunity to write about it before it's too late.

Kangway and I left Friday morning bright and early, got to Ithaca around 2pm, and called up Dan. We chilled in his dorm room for a bit, and then he gave us a rainy tour of campus. I just have to say that the campus is INSANE. Insanely good, I mean. Hills, gorges, towers, more hills, quads galore... thought I wouldn't be a sucker for this middle-of-nowhere-classically-beautiful campus, but totally wrong!

After Dan's tour of campus, we came back to his dorm room (luckily his roomate was not there), lots of TV (Family Guy, Futurama) and I worked to no avail on math (10.5 still makes no sense to me). Eventually I got sick of that, so I went to explore the library, because clearly, libraries rock. Don't deny it. We ate dinner in collegetown at a classy Japanese restaurant (little did they know we actually know Japanese... it's like having a secret!)

On the walk back to the dorm, there were these crazy batman-esque searchlights coming up from somewhere in the distance. Like moths to a flame, we tried to follow it, but found ourselves continually seeing that it is really quite far away. And a gorge was in the way. Gave up, decided it was coming from a frat party, and then watched more TV.

Lesson 1: In college, if you want to watch a lot of tv, you can.

The next morning, Kangway apparently ran up the most gigantic hill on campus, while I was asleep. Then it was time to shower (read: time to find the all female bathroom, which is infinitely cleaner than the unisex one), except that I didn't bring any soap or shampoo. Oops. So I ended up borrowing shampoo to use as soap. Which turned out ok I suppose... but still obnoxious.

Lesson 2: ALWAYS BRING SOAP.

I went to a dorm tour, but ended up not touring, and just seeing the info part, and then going to lunch with dan, kw, and kw's cousin. He told kw to go to Berkeley, and for some reason really wanted me to go to Michigan. This drives me INSANE. I am trying to CROSS OFF schools from my list, not bring them back. Right. So then we saw his apartment, some waterfalls, a giant skeleton of a whale (since when do whales have skeletons?), Bubble tea house numero uno, which was about 1/10th the size of Evo but about 10x more crowded, and bought our cornell gear. By then it was 4:20 and I had to be somewhere far away at 4:30 to check in with the official Cornell Days ish... so that was fun.

Lesson 3: Bubble tea is popular, and it takes a long time to walk anywhere.

Spent time with the freshman and other prefrosh who they matched me up with, who were some girls who had all been friends in high school but didn't have any horror stories from rooming together. Walked around the entire campus, for the 3rd or 4th time, and ate dinner with them (+dan+kw) and discussed what kind of animals we would kill and eat if it was necessary to our survival.

Made a giant L-shaped cookie because it was this guy, Lucas's birthday, discussed important topics with Cornell girls, such as chick flicks (read: Colin Firth), and considered the possibility of starting a Cornell Dumb Club chapter, after finding out that one of the girls, Jenny (was a friend of mine), had the previous week, been playing cards and asked, "wait, do the 3's have to be in the same suit?" Met a guy who slept in a box all of first semester, affectionately called "Box", who was a chick flick enthusiast (or maybe just really excited about watching the notebook). Discovered exciting chairs with spinning tables. Ate almost a whole bag of popcorn. Went to bed pretty early.

Most nerdy cornell experience: while watching the Notebook, there is a scene in which Rachel McAdams and... that guy, are in a boat in a lake full of an utterly ridiculously amount of ducks. The Box guy says "Wow look at all those ducks... the logistic equation is going to kick their asses!"

Despite that significant mathematical experience, I still don't understand 10.5

Eventually made it back to our hometown, despite being picked up late, having plane delays, falling asleep while doing the math review on the plane... yada yada.

Too bad my parents hate it. Seems like a good place.

1 college visit down, 3 to go.

2006-04-12T20:35:00.000-05:00

...ABAB rhyme scheme...

I just have to say right now, that college is like love.

I got into 7 schools. Now, I can't even imagine a situation in which I could possibly have 7 different boys to choose from, but they each have a slightly different personality.

Cornell: Our first date is this Friday and Saturday -- I'll finally get to meet him and spend a little time, but I've heard he can be a little cold. Only problem: my parents konw him, and don't like him. But they will give their blessing if I really fall for him.

WashU: Still haven't met him, but he sends me letters and emails ALL the time -- it's a little overwhelming, but I've heard he flirts with everyone this way. Not too far from home, and a little more affordable than some other guys. Also, seems to be really straightforward, not playing any games.

Northwestern: I've met him before, but I'm not sure how well I got to know him that time around. He doesn't seem like he'd be too caring in a relationship, plus a little more preppy than I would like. I've also heard some bad rumors.

Caltech: I have a crush on Caltech. Although he said yes to a date, he's totally unwilling to pay even halfway, so I'm gonna have to pay for about 75% on our date -- totally jerkish behavior. This might be evidence that he might not treat me too well later on. Really really smart, but maybe a little too intense for a long-term relationship.

Pomona: Don't know at all -- asked out on a whim, but going to go through with a first date. Totally willing to go dutch on the date and pay half, and seems to have a bunch of really nice friends to hang out with. Feel like I don't deserve the affection though, with such little planning involved in asking him out.

Michigan: Kind of flakey, seemed nice at first, but won't call back, is totally disorganized, and he was going to leave me with the entire bill. But now he's just bought me a really nice gift. I still think I'm going to say no.

UIUC: The best friend. I've known him forever, my parents like him, and it seems almost like we should just date out of convenience. He's totally into me too, always pampering me, calling me up, making sure I'm comfy. The more I think about it, the more I like him, but at the same time I want to leave behind my childhood.

And it just almost never works out that the one you like likes you too!

2006-04-06T22:25:00.000-05:00

...time goes so fast...

Only like 9 shopping days left for prom. AGHGHGHHGHGGHGH!!!!!!

Yo-Yo Ma tickets have essentially just been dropped into my lap: only problem, he's playing tomorrow night, during the play. Try to make a getaway post play and see if I make it to any of the concert??? Sounds like a plan.

Else, the other 2 Pyritz will at least get to see him. How ironic that the cellist may not be able to make it.

The play rocks my socks though. Or my lack of socks (things were a little soggy tonight).

2006-03-31T19:49:00.000-06:00

...alive...

It's been forever, and it may be another forever. Reasons:

1) totally addicted to facebook
2) tech week next week, must make CD for ridey and do sound/lightsish stuff
3) i feel dizzy
4) lots of work and decisions to make

So basically all my college decisions are in. Except Pomona, but too bad. The options on the table are down to 5 (since michigan gives me no money):

here
Washu
Northwestern
Caltech
Cornell

Pretty sweet options, no? Screw those other ivies, who needs those jerks. Except, congrats to Colette for making the Brown cut!!

I was invited to an "admitted students lunch" sometime next week, for Caltech, by an alum in town. My question: who else in town got into Caltech??? Who even APPLIES to Caltech? Weirdos???? This should be really interesting, and maybe they'll take that opportunity to slip me about $100,000, which would help with the whole money ish.

Yeah, I have been looking a lot at the Caltech people on Facebook.

And yeah, I am still addicted to CC. Even more so.

2006-03-25T14:59:00.000-06:00

...I'm blogging this...

Last night, I finally lost it. I'm no longer a Sims virgin.

The evening began simply enough, me and Angelina knitting on the couch, trying to convince Julie to finally show up. Katie arriving, watching a chick flick, watching the early episodes of the OC, making ramen, playing several games of pool, in which despite Angelina's impressive skills, Katie's team inevitably triumphed. Sometimes with me, in our anti-fun alliance. Julie singing the Arthur theme song. Bothering Ben Tuttle by calling him on three different phones.

And finally, playing the Sims.

I find it kind of creepy actually, yet mildly entertaining (though I just watched as I knit). Angelina, Julie and I shared a house, and attempted to flirt with Seth and Ryan from the OC. Julie and Seth were getting pretty steamy, and I wasn't too terrible in my attempts to flirt with Ryan either. The scary part, I guess, was when we would do things like make them go to bed because they were low on energy, after which we eventually went to bed. Or having them wake up, make breakfast, eat, and clean up, which is what we would do. Or, most disturbingly, saying "Let's all go shopping! Let's try these clothes on!" after one day earlier this week when Julie, Angelina and I actually did go shopping together.

And how you just can select "flirt" without having to think about how to flirt.

And how now I feel like I'm fulfilling the Mo Sim's life instead of my own -- like my hygiene and bladder bars are doing great right now, as well as fun and social. I'm not sure if I will fulfil any of my goals, but my thought bubble is totally about Ryan, just like in the game, for I'm about to watch the OC.

[Even though I'm a Seth girl].

2006-03-20T17:45:00.000-06:00

...California here we come...

I.
Got.
Into.
CALTECH!

KA-POW!!!!

2006-03-15T19:49:00.000-06:00

...homework marathon...

I'm taking a break from the homework. It's good. These past school days have been nice, actually. Dance parties after school, definitely a plus.

Spring break is soon. I have four different TV shows that I want to watch. This may pose problems. However, apparently all of my friends (all?) are leaving, so I will be lonely and seeking to live my life vicariously through TV characters. My potential tv shows are:

1) My So-Called Life
2) Freaks and Geeks
3) DENSHA OTOKO (THE GREATEST SHOW EVERRRR)
4) Suzuka

This would total 74 episodes. Somehow, I don't think I'm gonna average 10 episodes of whatever per day. So this is where I need to prioritize.

So anyway, you guys (except domier and amirah and people I have told about it) don't know what Densha Otoko is... it's this fantastic new drama, and the title means "Train Man". Except, Domier and Amirah absolutely hate it. And I am so in love.

Think this really nerdy Akiba-kei dude (Akihabara, the electronics district in Tokyo) who is totally obsessed with anime and gundam-ish models, wears glasses, and has little anime characters hanging off his backpack. And he hopelessly loves strawberry shortcake. Well, one day he is on this train, and a beautiful office lady is being harrassed by a drunk guy. He works up all his courage and eventually tells the drunken man to stop! They get into a fight, he gets kind of hurt, but the beautiful girl thanks him. He immediately goes home, and signs onto this chatroom/forum ish thing, and tells everyone the story. Various Japanese people reading the forum give him advice and support. The best part about this is to see all the different people at their computer, from ultimately cool guys, to fat drinking dudes, to an abused wife. And, when he gets online, it's accompanied by this funny little visual of THE INTERNET, with these lines emanating from Tokyo and going to all those chatroom goers.

Anyway, the reason Domier and Amirah hate it is because the guy is actually quite pathetic, and while I feel sympathy for him, they just want him to die. Sensei claims it's because they can relate too much to it (Domier DOES have gundam models all over his room and is an anime fanatic) but what about Amirah? Is she too good at being the pretty office lady to sympathize with this dude??? TOO POISED?

Whatever, they don't have to like it. But I definitely feel like it was made for me personally. Also, I think that Snatia may like it.

Also, the first episode opened with scenes of Tokyo, to the music "Domo Arigatou, Mr. Roboto". How could this be any more perfect?

2006-03-12T11:33:00.000-06:00

...last night...

My biggest accomplishment last night was when the song "dancing with myself" came on, I was actually dancing alone.

2006-03-08T20:28:00.000-06:00

...yummy...

I am so good at eating -- I totally kicked Sayako's butt in eating today at lunch! Yeaaaa! I'm gonna become the number 1 eater in the Kansai area next year (totally!)

Also, I am very very psyched about WYSE tomorrow. Even though I only heard like three of them, Lucy's puns were way appreciated. My goal is to do two more practice tests before tomorrow -- a lofty goal since it is already 8:30 and I will need my beauty sleep.

Mpitt however, kicks my butt at being a good friend. He sent something to Ariana, and I have sent NOTHING. Even my stupid 1/4 of the way done scarf is not going to ever get done. Ugh! Now I'm inspired to bring the CDs to Noam, but I won't see her tomorrow (see paragraph 2).

My printer is getting tired of printing. I'm sorry, this contest has tests that require many pages.

Also, here's a story for you that demonstrates a really important character trait of mine (that I'm dumb). So I was thinking that I'm gonna be chillin in Kansai for a year, picking up their accent and wearing a cute uniform... but what if I get bored?! I know, I'll start a stitch n' bitch! The only problem I foresee is that I am below drinking age and therefore might have a tough time organizing meetings at bars (which is where they normally meet in Tokyo and such). However, I emailed Pinku (and here's the part where I am stupid) and asked her about the Tokyo SnB and how it got started... completely forgetting (or never knowing?) that she was the FOUNDER. AWKWARD. She says that Kyoto and Osaka have killer yarn stores though.

Pinku did make it sound like no biggie though to start a SnB. We will see.

2006-03-06T19:44:00.000-06:00

...let's pretend we don't exist...

I'm in the metaphorical sleeping bag.

Leo vs. Dude vs. Man: the movie "The House of Flying Daggers" hit a little too close to home.

"Hey Noam, what's your opinion on facial hair" (my words at 3:30 am)

What a great weekend in every respect.

Tonight we played at the Virginia. Afterwards, I saw someone with a Virginia license plate. After we finished playing, we hung around with the caterers who were cleaning up. The table was set up nicely to display each platter of fancy expensive food on a slightly different level, with a gigantic glass of fruit in the center, above all else. Underneath the festive tablecloth, what was differentiating the levels of food was many duct tape covered boxes, and a plastic basket (the kind that milk come in). Now we know all of their secrets.

I think I'll stay in here a while. Maybe instead, I will study physics. Or both.

2006-03-04T20:14:00.000-06:00

...bitter rejection...

So I got my rejection letter from the Japanese speech contest -- after all that work! It was a good speech too, I thought (and sensei seemed to think so), so I was rather pissed. Way to reject your award winning participant from last year! Ugh! It relieves the stress of having to memorize that gargantuan thing, but honestly, they could have at least let me PARTICIPATE. I suppose I just can't make the transition from the 19th annual speech contest to the 20th!

If that wasn't bad enough, the stupid list that I submitted to McSweeney's (after Sara got me reading it) was also rejected! Ugh! Actually, it wasn't stupid, it was a good list -- I promise. It was about Japanese homonyms (but all the words were in english) so I will cling to the idea that they are simply not educated enough to appreciate my clever list. Even Johnmark liked it when I told it to him. What douchebags. Never reading THAT website again.

I am so underappreciated! I will get over it though.

2006-03-02T23:12:00.000-06:00

...sticks and stones...

I think we should discuss all gradeschool proverbs, like for example, "it's a free country."

After the storm of today...

The feel of warm, post-bath newly shaved legs, sliding into pajama bottoms. Pink toenails poking out the bottom, smiling up at me.

self satisfaction doesn't come often.

2006-03-01T19:28:00.000-06:00

...oh i see...

Spent a long time tonight, messing around with recording myself (cello), to pretty much no avail. I am in fact human, and like many humans, not a great cello player. I will claim that I am better than most people at playing cello, but that's simply because I have studied it whatsoever. Anyhow, I am trying to figure out what to do with this rather dull recording, of Squire's Tarantella, now that I have it. All of my previous attempts at mixing music have been, to say the least, NOT VERY SUCCESSFUL.

Japanese was a little bit of a letdown though, because now all the stress of taking tests in the subject is over. The only big frontier left is... of course, spending an entire year there, but I am not too worried, because it sounds so good. Instead I just talked to Sensei in pathetically broken Japanese, and then eventually gave up and continued gossiping in English.

Whenever I wear this skirt, I think about my host cousin in Tokyo, and how she drew me as an anime character, wearing it. And about the rest of that day, when I went shopping in Harajuku for the first time (hajimete dude). After dreaming about it for several years pretty much, being there was no letdown at all. Streets crawling with multicolored heads (due to hair dye, not to diversity). Piercings, tatoos, lots of fishnets, and all in all full of totally intimidating Japanese people. This was also the only place where I managed to find mean Japanese people. And the extent of their rudeness was not allowing me to try on clothes before buying them. Still, their "dekinai, dekinai" got to me after a while, but this was my first day shopping in Tokyo, and I didn't know the magic thing about Japanese clothes, which is that they all fit me. Next time I'm there, I will have no qualms about buying things without trying them on.

Or else I could have been driven totally insane by the incessant "irasshaimase!" from every one of the thousands of stores. But harajuku was great.

Enough about Japan. I'll tell you guys more than you want to hear about it next year. Today, here, was great. Just the right amount of everything. Or just ever-so-slightly-less than the right amount.

2006-02-26T17:42:00.000-06:00

...adventures in 料理...

So yesterday, Sayako came over and met my parents for the first time, and they seem to be reasonably convinced that she is a perfect child, and a good person to show me the ins and outs of Kobe next year. Jono was around too, and I learned a Japanese (?) clapping game, several card games, and... that Japanese cooking is NOT very easy.

So first, we tried to make our own green tea ice cream. Sayako brought this green tea powder. My affinity for green tea made this all the more exciting, and we mashed it together with a lot of vanilla ice cream, to the disgust of my parents (though for some reason my dad was the one who insisted on stirring). Every once in a while Jono would stick a finger in (but a different one each time, for sanitation), and say "we need more green tea", so by the time we actually ate it, it was rather powdery, and not very ice cream-y. Jono's dad suggested that we should just snort the green tea powder, or mix it up and inject it, instead of bothering to cook with it.

So then, we decided to try to make dango -- BAD IDEA. One phone call to sensei later, we discovered that sensei really doesn't know very well either. And so we embarked on a journey. Halfway through, we gave up on this journey, played cards, and let our parents continue with the dango-making, despite the fact that they have not only never made dango, they have also never eaten it. An hour later, we had gooey, yet granular balls of rice, covered in really thin sauce, that actually tasted pretty good. Despite my parents claims that it tasted like glue, which I guess are partially true, I'd say we had about a 50% success rate as far as accuracy to the real food. Huzzah!

So enough of recounting my yesterday. Tomorrow life goes back to normal, and that's something I'm totally looking forward to. Ha!

2006-02-25T12:34:00.000-06:00

...sometimes I know things...

So yesterday I found out also that Def Tech's "My Way" was the best selling song in Japan of 2005. And sensei claims it's too fast for her to sing along with, and yet I can pretty much keep up. In other words, sensei is modest.

So I finally finished Prep last night around 2 am. Not because it was so good that I couldn't stand to stop, but because there was really not a good stopping place. And I wanted her to graduate already.

Basically, the main character annoyed me, but I'm not sure if it's because she is too much like me or not enough. Her inability to say things, to act, got on my nerves. I may not be the most confident person in the world either, but her lack of confidence that was never overcome was somewhat disturbing. Also, her relationship with Cross was rather creepy after a while. I guess maybe it's because I usually don't go for the blonde hair blue eyed athletic type, or because at some point the person you like actually becomes approachable, wheras for Lee he never did, even after four years. I'm not quite sure what it was, but something about her was a little bit off to me.

However, I completely understood how she felt in relation to friends. The book was about her lack of confidence, basically, but the message by the end was really that the way you really get close to someone is through friendship. The relationship with Cross was lacking because even though she loved him, they were not friends. I guess we all need people that we can talk to openly without worrying that we are bugging them.

Then again I'm not exactly the poster child for a good friend either! In fact, I am entirely emotionless, and don't like my friends (remember TweenTalk, everyone??)

Ummmm yeah, time to go clean my room some more.

2006-02-24T22:23:00.000-06:00

...I want to live where soul meets body...

So as I sit here listening to Death Cab, it reminds me of:
-the OC, because Seth Cohen is dreamy and he <3's Deathcab
-Books to Prisoners, because on Ms. Linder's iPod, there is ALWAYS Deathcab playing, and more specifically the song "soul meets body" to which I always sing to myself the "bada" parts
-Jarred, my South Carolinian friend, because he often has their lyrics in his away messages
-the fact that I can't remember whether or not Spencer used to listen to them, but it seems like I should because we often talked about music. However, the fact that I cannot remember is interesting, and surprisingly pleasant to me. Not everything is trapped in this head of mine.

I finally talked to Ariana. For like two hours. It was good, we got updated on each others lives, at least to some extent. And I talked to Ho and I helped her with physics and she listened to my general ramblings. I talked to Ryo recently too. He just graduated high school, and is going to school in Tokyo soon. All these people are so far away, and yet with the power of the internet (*superhero theme music*) they can be just a click away. Will so many people I am close to continue to be far away? And to what extent is it creepy to be close to those who are far? I hope it doesn't creep her out, but I am definitely sending pictures of this scarf to Fo. Because she asked me to. It wasn't supposed to take half a year, but it did.

I'm reading the book Prep but I will talk about it once I am done with it (which will probably be tomorrow). The way I feel in relation to the main character is... slightly disconnected, but still able to exactly relate to certain things. Which is I guess how she feels about almost the whole world. I know, me, reading, it's amazing. But hey, it's a change from college confidential at least.

2006-02-23T23:05:00.000-06:00

...no time to finish a post...

Partial post from 2 days ago:

I am so fucking proficient! Yes my friends, in Japanese, LEVEL 3. Not quite as exciting as your different levels of biohazards that you get in biowarfare novels, etc... but level 3 means that I am in fact, DECENTLY GOOD. So there are 4 levels, 4 being the easiest, and 1 being the one for people who are insane[ly good at japanese]. I really really did not think I had made it. But I guess it's time to start cramming for level 2! I only have 9 months left! Ha ha, just kidding.

On the flipside, Domey and I are teaching a Beginning Japanese Agora Days class that SOMEONE *coughAMIRAHcough* has bailed out on us in favor of teaching belly dancing. Which is a very important endeavor, agreed, and I suppose we're handling it. Anyway, the depressing thing is that TODAY, on the very first day of Beginning Japanese... I learned a new Japanese word. [the word was rokudenashi meaning "useless person"]

Thoughts as of now:

This week has been so amazingly relaxing. In fact, probably the best school week all year as far as tension goes (duh, no classes). However, my forearms are absoultely demolished: after three days of hitting people with weapons (medieval combat), finally picking up the knitting again, and actually beginning to practice my cello, these arms have a heavy load here.

Also, the little cellist dude who is in the strings class... he's really good! If I could write my senior will again, I would give the cello section to him. Obviously it goes to Aran first, but Aran already knows what she is doing and is essentially like me, so she does not really qualify as my successor. However this kid, reminds me of me when I was a subbie. He's ridiculously tiny, though not quite as short as Jasper, but he is definitely as good as I was as a subbie (I actually think he's better). So I hope he joins Uni orchestra, and a growth spurt wouldn't be a bad idea either.

In other news, I finally finished that stupid Harry Potter scarf. I don't even like Harry Potter anymore, because of this scarf! Just kidding. I will always have a special place in my heart for Harry Potter. But once I put the finishing touches on I will be able to finally walk around in true Hermione Granger style. Yes, I relate to Hermione. Because of my dorky male friends, or my hair?? I don't know.

2006-02-20T19:28:00.000-06:00

...trying again...

Okay so now it appears that it was ONLY deleting posts from that one day, the 17th or whatever. I do not know why. Maybe this one will stick as well, we can only hope.

Righto, so uneventful yet relaxing weekend due to the loss of the wonderful habitat people who I love so very much, and I really haven't accomplished very much either. I have the desire to mess with the template here, but I don't really know what kind of new design I would like. Perhaps agora week is the time to do that because I usually am too busy dramatizing with others. Or else I could keep on with this manga (almost done with the first runthrough of the last chapter, yay) or I could try something totally different. Maybe something totally different?? I don't know.

However, as I learned on Friday, while our school may have its own Wikipedia page, my friend's school in South Carolina (SOUTH... I seriously cannot deal with that)... has an Urban Dictionary entry here.

What else. I dont know... I'm too lazy to be interesting right now.

2006-02-19T20:27:00.000-06:00

...pissed off...

Once again, my posts are disappearing. What is wrong with this? I Don't get it. it shows up but not anywhere in my blogger account, only on the website. If someone knows what is going on, please help.

This one seems to have saved, but we'll see if it's here tomorrow. I don't get what is going on here, but it makes me want my own domain.

Last post:

...hmm...

it seems that none of these posts are saving...

BUT someone exciting will be at the game tonight, and hint, it's not me (though I will be there).

Edit: It's just the last one that deleted itself. Dang. It was stupid anyway. Just about how we chose graduation music that I like, but some people have a low tolerance for screaming and yelling.

2006-02-14T19:42:00.000-06:00

...my speech...

okay first off there is NO WAY it's ever gonna reach them in time, I have just done my second draft but the tape and application and everything has to be there by february 17. WTF!! I really wanted to enter... but I guess I will try anyway. Maybe if I managed to mail it on thursday it would be ok...

Also, sensei made it not shorter but LONGER. It is now three full pages, but she has all these notes that I don't understand where they are supposed to go. If I do end up memorizing this thing it's gonna be monstrous.

I wish there were contests for Japanese poetry. I want to write Japanese poetry. Does anyone know of any contests like this? I don't. But I would like to. Because it's fun to make things rhyme in Japanese, and syllables are easy (it is the land of the haiku after all)

And now it's time to start this darn english paper. I dont' want to reiterate everything we said in our presentation! But I don't want to try to make up something new, since I think we did a pretty thorough job. Hmmph.

Too cool for valentines! Yea! But sadly, just lame enough for school (i.e. not "too cool" for school... as Kenneth Price apparently is)

2006-02-09T17:44:00.000-06:00

...another day...

My brother's friend in 6th grade came out of math class once saying, "another day, another D."

Yesterday, a miracle happened, ordained by the ancient greek gods. So I had no freaking clue what to write this Japanese speech on, I was at my wit's end, and about to hurt myself/something else in frustration (okay maybe not quite), and then I decided to just listen to Tom and Anita's radio show, conveniently called Muse, and see if anything came to me... AND IT DID. Yeah, so 15 minutes into it, I came up with a brilliant idea and I have over six freaking hundred Japanese characters to back me up on that. I am still in the race, I could still get to that damn contest, which would mean that I didn't break the promise I made to myself last year of getting there again this year.

So they'll probably reject me, which would be ironic. But maybe not man.

I'm feeling this semester is on the upswing. We even have mod new chairs in the hallway (soon to be in the lounge) which are fantastically exciting. The no food in the lounge policy is slightly disturbing. You look around, and NO ONE IS EATING. It's good of course, I don't want a mouse to come and steal my sandwich or something, but maybe we should all become anorexic and continue this forever!

Right so I have clearly run out of things to say. The world may be filled with possibilities. But I have to really get crackin on this speech. Somehow I think that 0% of my grammar is correct.

2006-02-08T18:58:00.000-06:00

...the uc...

I am currently in the process of realizing my dream -- to BECOME JUST LIKE THE CHARACTERS ON THE OC. Yes, I have as much attitude summer, as tall/skinny/beautiful as Marissa, as witty as Seth, and as brooding as Ryan. So maybe not quite. But, as in last week's episode, I was just called for my Brown interview! It is this weekend but I will not say when/where in case you guys all sneak up on me. Notes to myself for this interview:

1) Don't say Prada has influenced me the most
2) Don't get high before my interview
3) Don't walk there, turn around, and leave
4) Don't rip the pages out of the Brown brochure
5) If interviewer asks a TOUGH QUESTION (i.e. why brown, isn't the CS department here better?), use the Michael Pitt school of persuasion, and proclaim, "Yeah, but still"
6) TRY WITH EVERY FIBER OF MY BEING TO NOT MENTION THE OC

Now, it's time for stab number 3 at this Japanese speech thing. I've decided that writing about Japan/Japanese is a no go because, things that are weird to Americans in Japan are NOT weird to Japanese people, seeing as they live there. I have tried to play on the fact that these are all Japanese people who happen to live in a large midwestern city, but it's just not happening. Instead, I need something brand new. Something... inspired.

And I'm running out of time.

2006-02-07T19:35:00.000-06:00

...dress for success...

Damn you homework! A major project and a math test due on the same day? Hardly surprising. I'm feeling that senioritis.

My japanese dictionary is opened to the page with "distinguished" on it, but it does not list the famous batsugun! WTF! it says "sugureta". What a crap word!

Today I made up some killer free weights lifts. I am getting so strong, but I must hide my arms from the world (I don't remember why). But at least Ellen and Beno have stopped dueling over who gets to tell Monah stories!

AND, NOT ONLY ARE THERE GIANT SQUID OFF THE COASTS OF JAPAN... BUT GIANT JELLYFISH ARE INVADING TOO!!! Read about it here!

2006-02-06T18:55:00.000-06:00

...japanese???...

So last night's attempt to write a Japanese speech, took four hours... and COMPLETELY FAILED. Like honestly, I made no real progress. I did discover rulde #1 of talking in a foreign language:

When your language skills are a shoddy as mine, do NOT, I repeat do NOT try to explain how you made mistakes with the language. Batsugun story: good idea, did not work.

Tonight I make attempt number 2. Hello to Japanese ice cream. Similar problems emerge for this topic because I have to explain how I totally didn't know that I was eating sesame flavored ice cream because I didn't know the vocab word.

In other news, the song "Melissa" by Porno Graffiti, which I am listening to now, is really good. I also like to secretly pretend it's about me, which I have a right to do because in Japanese, my real name and the name Melissa are totally indistinguishable! Good memories of singing this song in Ryo's school's library with his two buddies, who apparently fought over whether Bethany or Josie was the hottest in our group! Dang, ouch on me, emily, and krista.

At least Ryo thought Emily was hott!

And finally... an elevator that I rode today smelled like oranges. Has someone been eating citrus on campus elevators???

INSPIRE ME

2006-02-04T23:57:00.000-06:00

...midnight quote...

(00:00:37) Supakwak2: i'm like spiderman, except jono

2006-02-03T20:49:00.000-06:00

...THIS is a dilemma...

I am working on chapter 2 of my manga (yes, yes I started this chapter ages ago but other things got in the way). I'm now at the point where I still don't understand about six individual sentences throughout the 40 pages of manga. This is about 6 lines out of the 400 or so that make up this chapter. And I am getting annoyed with these phrases, which are all very ambiguous.

I've come to the point where I just want to be done with this chapter! Stop being so ambiguous and get to your point, instead of confusing me! Or write the kanji neater, so that I don't have to spend over an hour looking it up, to no avail because I don't actually believe that kanji EXISTS.

Unfortunately, it would be morally unsound to just make things up to fill in the gaps that fit.

Today was a rainy february day, at least for a little while. I like rain! Rain trumps snow! Snow sucks! Other memorable rainy days:

5ks 2002 and 2003 (hooray for the thunder gods!)

junior year after japanese

raindrop catching, a major sport

a day where I played a gig back in 7th grade or so, in the middle of freaking nowhere. My cello case was completely soaked. Luckily, it's waterproof.

the day this year while walking back from PE, and I was holding my pink penguin-duck umbrella. I was walking with Beno and Noam, and a guy was walking the opposite direction from us. He had a sweatshirt over his head because of the rain, but I stupidly assumed that he could, you know, see. This was a bad assumption to make as he completely slammed into me, turning around, very confused and blind. It was quite awkward. I bet he makes holes for his eyes since that.

The best OC episode ever, in season 2!!!

the entire week that I was walking around outside last summer

at the bus stop in Totoro

So as you can see, rain has a lot of significance. I need things to keep me entertained while I wait.

2006-02-02T16:41:00.000-06:00

...another list...

My first ever WYSE competition! Don't academic tests just rile you up? Actually, they do for me. I have a love-hate relationship with them. I like being part of a team, and being part of an academic team seems many times more appealing than being part of any other kind of team (especially sports). No offense to sport people, but last time I did a sport (7th grade), the "team spirit" was there, but it just wasn't as exciting. Maybe It's just good to take tests in things YOU DON'T ACTUALLY KNOW (eg Computer Science).

So here's my list of notable occurences today:

-a highly korean team from another local high school
-missing the physics proof in math to take a physics test
-dancing in the lounge alone with an invisible boy (or girl!)
-missing 5 out of 8 classes
-steak n shake, my first real meal there in approximately ten years (minus a shake here and there at other uni events)
-running fitness less than two hours later --> NOT GOOD
-jimmy deciding that I could totally beat up all the other wyse competitors, because i'm so fierce
-no news

goals for this evening:
-not go to dance, even though I'm not sick, I'm not feeling good either after that fast food and running
-do something for entertainment purposes
-14.4
-too tired to practice cello
-study that physics
-talk to my ho about our respective academic meets
-potentially give guy advice to a fellow female?! (because i'm a seasoned expert)

Today was good. Uni swept!!! It's great competing with yourself. You always win, but you always lose. In fact I have two new 2nd place medals. This is alright, and in fact I think with those two... that's the fifth 2nd place award I've gotten in the past year. Two japaense speech contests, a math contest, and wyse later, perhaps I should embrace my spot as 2nd best. Of course, that will all change when we have REAL COMPETITION!!!

I wish this abiguity would end.

2006-02-01T19:58:00.000-06:00

...today...

Today had its good points and bad points.

Good points (I'm thinking positively):

-health = no exercise
-yummy bombay grill food
-taking the elevator down 2 floors
[note: the past 3 points can be summarized by: LAZINESS]
-my hair is oh so clean
-jamming with Beno after school in the hallway, and singing backup to her, as well as playing my one and only musical composition!
-the weather was okay
-NO EXTRACURRICULAR TODAY (because it's wednesday)
-watching "Shall We Dance" in Japanese class
-not way too much homework
-realization that I will miss most of school tomorrow, which is mostly good but a little bad

Bad points (back to my default):

-Domier got annoyed with me today, because I am an annoying person. This needs to change.
-still bummed out about same deal
-still haven't started my japanese speech, nor figured out what to write about
-was totally apathetic in pretty much all of my classes
-the blister on my thumb from like, a month ago is never plannign on leaving unless I stop doing any kind of guitar strumming or pizzicato. Not going to happen.
-this computer does not have flash and I am too lazy to switch computers to do my agora sign up
-I still know NOT VERY MUCH about computer science, and my physics, which I have not been studying, has probably escaped my brain by now.
-I have extracurriculars every day except for wednesday and friday, but I have 2 more hours of extracurricular goodness that need to be added in somewhere. WHERE? Unfortunately, I enjoy each and every one of my engagements, and therefore do not want to quit them
-the mentioning of a certain freshman's name today in Social Ad, to potentially HELP US ON OUR PROJECT! I will personally murder him before I let him anywhere near our project. And no, I am not talking about my brother. My brother is cool. BUT I hate this kid with a fiery passion. I will personally edit our entire documentary myself if necessary (though becca wants to work on that too, which is definitely way more excellent)
-I remembered that I have to be done with my psychology course by the end of this semester. I have BARELY STARTED. This is bad. Must get to work soon.
-parents yelling at each other makes for an unpleasant environment --> not inspired to practice cello, despite the fact that I want to desperately. Also, they disapprove of me in most ways imaginable!

Blah to the blah. Maybe I'll go work on beautifying my hair. It seems like the most productive thing to be done now.

2006-01-31T19:48:00.000-06:00

...oh no...

No progress. May drop dead any minute. Life is terrible.

2006-01-26T19:39:00.000-06:00

...right...

So I've decided to try and chill out a bit, at least until this weekend (or next week), and have tried to consume my time with things I enjoy. There are several points of interest in the upcoming days.

1) My self intro for Japanese is complete (I hope)! Pretty soon the people over in Kobe will be itching to meet me, because of my interesting and witty self intro. Sensei also liked my metaphor for life regarding ramen, ice cream, and Japanese movies, and thought it was interesting from a Japanese perspective. So maybe they won't think I'm an idiot from the get-go. They will soon learn, however!

2) I am going to sing. Yes, Mo will sing! What, you HATE SINGING WITH A FIERY PASSION, you might say. And it's true, I absolutely despise singing and even worse is listening to people sing. But that will be put aside this saturday evening because I am going to be a temporary radical cheerleader. Yes, I've always wanted to be a cheerleader (NOT) but hey it could be fun, judging from our harmonious practices in the library.

3) This isn't about me, but I just have to say, to wear a really big hat, you sort of have to know what you're doing, and not get really confused like some alleged subbie and walk into walls. I know we can all be klutzy, but making a fashion statement like that... well you have to be able to pull it off you know? Like eddie izzard says, if a bloke falls while wearing heels, you just have to kill yourself.

4) Speaking of fashion, I was very very irked that the current issue of People was not in the library today. I finished the English book and wanted to reward myself for this accomplishment, but all I found was a smelly vogue magazine since I'd already read Seventeen. I guess I could look for back issues, but I am lazy.

5) I am going to be in a string quartet! The number 1 cellist in my orchestra, Jessica, is unable to do it, so I am the next pick --> SCORE! I have always wanted to do that but been too low on the cello chain to manage it. Being second best doesn't really bother me, but it's nice to be able to quartetify, if we get this thing going.

6) I'm hungry. I was going to eat a snack but then I realized I had dance, which meant eating is a bad idea. So then I went to dance, without my shoes because I forgot, and instead danced really badly in purple socks, since i have missed the past two weeks and do not know approximately half of the choreography. Then, I came back and drank water, but still haven't eaten anything due to the fact that dinner is impending. The everpresent large stash of chocolate in my room is tempting though.

7) It was extremely entertaining to chat with those military recruiters today. Even though lucy was someone from a very messed up background, and a wimp, and roveiza was a tough question-asker... it made it all the more fun. Especially when they told roveiza to leave.

8) I want to get to 10. These have also stopped being strictly about the future, but I think I just like to number things.

9) Tess and I are planning to have an OC watching party, once she buys the first season. But this party will not be together, we will sit at our separate houses alone watching the same TV show. But it will still be a party. Similarly, we used to be partners in fitness class because we were the two people who didn't want to run with a partner. So we were partnered in our antipartner way.

10) Alright I made it. I have said enough for one day. I am trying to put off my depression until sunday at the very earliest. But we will see, we will see.

2006-01-24T20:35:00.000-06:00

...so bad...

Yeah. I'm doing terribly. And not in an emo way either, in an actual way. But I feel obligated to write something here, and perhaps it will make me feel better. Which will be fleeting anyway. But whatever.

The plus side to all this is that I can convince myself to go to sleep very early, which means I am well rested. The bad side is that no matter what it still hurts.

Right sooo not feeling better.
Did finish a study abroad scholarship deal, though, makes me feel soo accomplished.

Pretty soon, this Japan stuff will be set.

Yes. Yes.

But I have not enough foresight for that.

"This is the thought that fills me with sorrow:
You might be dead tomorrow."

2006-01-21T13:24:00.000-06:00

...no way...

So it turns out that I'm not actually very good at Japanese. I have realized this, in trying to write a one page self introduction for my application for Konan next year. Unfortunately, writing a page in Japanese is way harder than it looks (despite the fact that to an unlearned eye, it looks rather impossible due to the character set), but there is something about Japanese that makes writing long sophisticated prose difficult. And that thing is kanji. For those of you who don't know, kanji are the ones that are basically pictographs, stolen from the Chinese, that usually represent things like nouns, verbs, or adjectives. This means that some words which are three or four syllables long are condensed into one or two characters. The nice thing about kanji is that they are distinct, so there is no homonym ambiguity that would occur otherwise, especially caused by the fact that in Japanese there are no spaces between words. This is also where many Japanese puns come from, stringing two words together to make it sound like something else, probably inspired by the potential written syllables. Anyway, this means that while it might take a long time to read the text out loud, it takes up only a small amount of space on the page.

I'm trying to make this self intro interesting enough and reveal something about my personality, sort of like a college essay. However, it's hard to tell how formal I should be since I don't know who my audience is. Sensei never told me whether it was the administration, the faculty, the students, or all of the above, so I am assuming it's everyone for now. I am trying to come off as enthusiastic about next year (which I am) as well as discuss my exciting interests. I end up feeling like I am repeating myself though.

Also, last night, I downloaded and listened to 2 of Tom and Anita's radio shows (the newest one wasn't online then) and I thought it was pretty cool. It was rather relaxing, and undisturbing as this was while I was writing all that Japanese, but it got me thinking about doing one myself. I'd like to do a show about Japanese music or something, but I'm not sure that I have enough material alone. This comes from the fact that most of my Japanese music comes from various friends (mostly Domier and Jono). Also, I don't have much expertise on it, but I like it just the same. Or any other topics, but I'm not sure what sort of thing I could sustain, either alone or with a friend. We're thinking about a radio show being part of our social ad project too though, so perhaps it would be easier, but it could also just become overwhelming.

I'm not sure, but it's something to consider now that I have a little bit more time.

2006-01-18T19:28:00.000-06:00

...unneeded...

It seems unreasonable that I am stressed out for a math test that will not be a large factor in determining whether or not colleges will accept me. However I still have a drive to do well. A drive to understand linear algebra, which actually has nothing to do with calculus, but that makes it all the more fun, right?

Also this english thing is really bugging me. Because I have no creativity left, as you can tell by this blandly unimaginative blog post.

I guess everything is just more exciting in Wisconsin.

I do have a hott winter formal date though, aka Beno. Now back to you, math studying.

2006-01-17T21:03:00.000-06:00

...the senior trip...

I went, and I had fun. I did several things that I have never done before in my life, including:

-face masks
-watch so many chick flicks in a compressed period of time
-watch chick flicks with boys
-say something nice about all the girls in our class besides rachel and katie
-hugged julie
-took a double shower (by myself), and figured out that it's nearly impossible to get both sides to spray water at the same temperature
-slept with colette
-made pancakes (or at least flipped them over)
-survived such a long period of time without a watch (okay a lie, but I haven't done that in years. Finally I got a new one)
-gone in that thing at the water park where it was like a hot tub/onsen idea and outside...
-lived with almost the entire girls basketball team, and enjoyed it
-survived on my/my classmates' cooking for so many days
-met Tom's dad, and talked to him about my volunteering after Kangway's request
-been to that wonderful state
-seen such a large pile of video games

and much much more! Some of these things I could live without, like my shoddy cooking skills... but whatever. great times.

2006-01-12T22:02:00.000-06:00

...dear seniors...

Dear Seniors,
If any of you happened to tape tonight's OC episode, which I unfortunately was unable to tape, could you PLEASE bring it on the senior trip, so we can all share the magic? Or else, can I borrow it afterwards?

Desperately,
Mo

2006-01-11T21:05:00.000-06:00

...life is unfair...

Apparently they refuse to print the famous quote, "I got near you and my pants started moving" from Ray to Domier, in the yearbook. Despite the fact that the next line he said was "Okay, everyone write it down for senior quotes!" How cruel and terrible! Now he claims he never said it. Hmph. One of my favorite quotes, and despite the fact that all of 7th period physics witnessed it, history shall be rewritten!

Oh well, at least the physics quiz day 2 went better than day 1.

And soon it will be time to really celebrate the end of college applications and the demise of first semester!

But for now, it's dinnertime.

2006-01-10T19:15:00.000-06:00

...finish strong!!!...

"It's amazing I have any hair left" -- Beno after the physics quiz

The last night of the semester. I AM GOING TO DO THIS!!!

I just have to imagine it's a big blue furry monster that I have to kill with my awesome big blue furry monster slaying powers! I have my weapons here: my calculator, pencil, erasers, and my mind. The enemy: a calculus book, the english book, a few notebooks, a bunch of physics worksheets. My allies: the rest of the senior class, particularly the physics students.

Or we can decide that the big blue furry monster is actually cookie monster, and eat a LOT of cookies.

I seriously cannot believe we have to cook for ourselves on the senior trip. I hope no one minds getting REALLY REALLY SICK or eating food with the consistency of wet or dry cement. Maybe I should stay away from the food, or decide to embark on experiments in the chemistry of food!

Or we could go Japan-trip style, and just buy a ton of cream puffs and apple juice, and eat them all in the middle of the night!

2006-01-08T17:31:00.000-06:00

...I will conquer this too!...

Only one main thing stands bewtween me and academic freedom: A DOUBLE-PHYSICS QUIZ. Some of you may laugh, say "ahaha, I never study for physics, and I get 40/40 on every single quiz I have ever taken in my life!" However, I am different. I need to study, and finally understand, become one with the thermodynamics. So that's my plan.

Plus various other things, none of which are too trying.

However, now that it turns out I can go, I have become extremely excited about the Senior Trip. Water Parks and hanging out for 3 days sounds excellent. Apparently my entire condo thing is full of basketball playing girls, who won't be there on Friday night, leaving me and like maybe one or two other people. First of all, I don't understand why they are playing a game on a Friday night, don't people have better things to do? And second of all, why are they all in the same one? I have nothing against any of them, they're all fine people, but shouldn't it have been divided more evenly? Or just say, to hell with the game, I'm going to Wisconsin? I guess it must be a team thing, I couldn't possibly understand.

Who knows if there will be DVD players around? I'm looking forward to having some sort of first season OC marathon, preferably while everyone is skiing their hearts out. But in the middle of the night would be an apt time as well.

Alright, time to go do my stuff, so I can survive until Friday.

2006-01-07T12:31:00.000-06:00

...a weekend...

Things seem to be sort of quieting down a bit. However, the dreaded Domier conversation with my mother has yet to happen. As of now though, I am allowed on the senior trip, which I am completely excited about. BUT NO SKIING. Jeez. I definitely don't ski.

Finally watched 2 episodes of the OC as well, and it's nice to be going through the college process with all of them. It feels good to see Seth and Summer in their ridiculously huge mansion, writing college essays on their laptops, because that's what I spent my winter break doing. Or Marissa not being able to write one, because of the painful memories. I had different problems, which involved a lack of substance, rather than pain and suffering. However, it's still nice to see my favorite characters work on this, and the Brown viewbook on Seth's bed while they were working. It's like, ahh, good stuff, I HAVE that viewbook, in fact. And how they went to a Brown admissions meeting, much like I did. And how Summer is actually smart. And everyone says, "Well she did save Chrismakkuh"

Attempting a relaxing weekend. We'll see how that happens. FINALLY I have gotten to do what I have been dying to for the last month or two -- go back to translating my manga. It felt nice to do about 20 pages of the first runthrough. However, I discover that when I first translate, sometimes my translations are completely WRONG. This is because I don't understand the context yet, and Japanese, especially with its grammatical structure that often lacks subjects of sentences, it's very important to understand what is going on in a situation in order to translate correctly. It feels nice to finally piece parts of the story together, and understand the bigger picture, but those golden moments are not very often.

So I think I'll do that for a bit, my kanji and furigana dictionaries by my side, I'm ready to go.

And be happy that I'm not running like 10 miles or whatever Domier is running/has run. Not that I was planning on it. But seriously, I'm exhausted enough without more exercise. I am also very very sore from PE this week. I guess that is what happens when I sit at my computer and write essays for two weeks.

2006-01-04T21:04:00.000-06:00

...i'm feeling so great...

SO actually if you couldn't guess, I'm not actually doing very well at all.

Momier is officially over, yet again. This time, it's seriously not my fault. My parents have enforced a split, and so that's what has happened. Honestly though, when even kangway is being supportive about our relationship and noam is being friendly to domier... you know things are terrible.

So aside from being ripped away from him by my beloved parents, things are doing even better. My mom absolutely hates me, and refuses to drive me anywhere anymore except school. WHAT DID I EVER DO!??? I don't get it. I'm a good kid. I even got a compliment from Jockusch today, that she didn't think Stanford should have rejected me... okay so they did, but jeez why be bitter about that. It's just a college they didnt' even want me to go to.

Wonderful wonderful as usual. The only uplifting thing in my day was when Ray told the story about how Domier's envelope was addressed to northwestern college instead of northwestern university. The rest of physics I was totally and utterly confused, but at least I understood that bit.

How many other people have this problem??? I dont get what I have done that is so offensive. Yeah yeah they can blame it on domier, but I think they have a problem with me. I don't know why or what, but apparently I've done it. No one is around to talk to, so I'm talking to you, dear blog readers. My parents would say that's because I don't have any friends, because I spent all my time with him. Very nice.

Lots of people have said "don't worry, it will work out... you guys are just like romeo and juliet now"... well thanks for the support, because their relationship just turned out wonderfully. Maybe I should write an absurdist play, instead of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead... something like, Romeo and Juliet are in High School. It would be boring. Everyone would think it's stupid. AS OPPOSED TO THIS SITUATION.

Oh my god I can't even take this anymore. Next time I'm crying in the lounge, you'll all know why. See you there. Maybe I'll have more rants in the future here, because I cannot imagine things becoming happy anytime soon. I'm doomed to misery. I'll share details of such with my most dear friends and mathbuddies. WHY???

I hope that you guys adequately understand my agony now. Maybe I should become anorexic. That would show everyone! No, I have a bunch of really yummy chocolate sitting in my room, but guess who it's from... someone REALLY TERRIBLE. Yeah, I bet you can guess.

And what about that fortune cookie I got that said, "You will be successful in love"???

2006-01-01T20:26:00.000-06:00

...feeling relieved...

Around 6 am on the morning of December 31st, I finished up 6 college apps. Not bad for two weeks of work, and they were mailed off later that morning. Now I'm probably going to do one more (due Jan. 15th) and it's quite relieving actually.

Last night we (the pyritz) played at a beautiful wedding. The church was huge, nice, and we did end up playing right next to the baptismal fountain, however by great skill managing not to fall in. The tough part was timing. Usually not such a huge deal, but we went back and talked to the groom beforehand, and switched the order of a few pieces (there was no reason not to do pachelbel when the bride made her way down the aisle), but the problem that there was a gigantic wall between us and the front of the church. Therefore, we could not see when anyone had arrived in their spot, and rather could only make out when they were maybe 2/3 of the way down the aisle. Also, we could not see at all what was happening, so we couldn't tell if it was over. Yes, yes, they said something like "I present to you, Mr. and Mrs. ______" and people clapped, but this wedding was so full of religious ceremony and such (i.e. the communion, which we had to play during, but again could not see. At first only the religious... dudes... were participating, and we were utterly confused, since we figured that something called COMMUNION was more COMMUNITY-like than just religious leaders eating. Luckily, we figured it out and all was not lost), that we couldn't really tell when it was over. BUT, people were sort of nodding at us, and so I did my solo start to the wedding march, and everyone was thrilled. Or at least I hope so. There was a wall in the way, so I couldn't tell.

What's even more exciting though, is that this couple was related to another couple whose wedding we played at a couple years ago. I recognized the bride (and vaguely the groom), and what's even better was they still appeared to be married! Oh, success! They didn't plan to hire us because we were at their relative's wedding though, it was accidental, so the original couple was pretty excited to see us again. I think they were maybe the second wedding we ever played for.

SO anyway.

My party last night, not bad not bad. However, most people who read this blog were there, so whatever. Also, I am totally addicted to CC.

CC thread of the day:
someone who doesn't quite get the definition of interesting

2005-12-31T05:46:00.000-06:00

...college apps...

almost done!

2005-12-29T15:33:00.000-06:00

...news...

No longer allowed to see boyfriend. Bad events. The end.

2005-12-27T15:56:00.000-06:00

...today, I will conquer Caltech...

So far my schedule is working out -- Northwestern is done (though I might make a few changes on my WHY NU essay), Brown is done, with the exception of a little employment/OTHERWEIRDSTUFF box that I don't get, and of course cutting out and pasting (definitely the best part of the college process is making your written portions fit into the boxes provided on the paper. This is definitely why I am applying on paper and not online).

So today I do Caltech. 2 essays plus a box.

Is anyone else in our class applying? I don't have a chance, due to my lack of math/science extracurriculars, but at least they don't affirmative action girls. I think that pretty soon, I will have to hit college confidential and see what people are saying about it.

WHO HERE IS ADDICTED TO COLLEGE CONFIDENTIAL!??!

We want t-shirts.

2005-12-26T15:46:00.000-06:00

...well this is just great...

Yet another day is completely ruined.

My boyfriend hates me, AND my mom hates me.

I was supposed to go to his house today. I didn't ask soon enough so he's mad at me. My mom said no, so she's mad at me for asking, and he's mad at me for not getting a yes. I can't go because my mom is too busy to drive me, and neither he nor his parents are allowed to. Also, I can't drive because I'm incompetent at driving and also do not have a license.

Why do I even bother trying to enjoy myself? I'm clearly not allowed to have fun.

Goodbye. No one even cares.

2005-12-26T00:04:00.000-06:00

...1 down...

So I FINALLY finished Northwestern. What a bitchy app.

However, I have made little headway on Brown. Here is my plan of action for the rest of the week...

Monday the 26th (today at this point) BROWN
Tuesday the 27th CALTECH
Wednesday the 28th CORNELL
Thursday the 29th YALE
Friday the 30th POMONA
Friday the 30th STAY UP ALL NIGHT AND DO ALL THE CRAP I HAVEN'T FINISHED YET
Saturday the 31st BRIEF SIGH OF RELIEF, PRACTICE FOR WEDDING, PLAY WEDDING, SEE PEOPLE HAPPILY MARRIED, LEAVE, GO TO MY OWN PARTY, HAVE TONS OF FUN.

And then it will be back to college apps and history paper!!!

This winter break ROCKS MY SOCKS.

In other news, I saw Tess today at dinner. Her whole family was there, as was mine. However, unlike last time we encountered each other at the same restaurant, there was no Domier present :(

Right, so, also something to do soon is to start my xmas shopping. I suppose I should no longer call it xmas shopping since that time has passed... but how about present shopping! There we go... I have only given something to Beno, cuz I saw her at the sp.

These posts are getting really boring, because my life is getting really boring! Please please someone help me! Think of clever and witty reasons why I want to go to Brown! I mean, okay, open curriculum, but that's like DUH.

At least their app is nicely color coded. I was getting sick of purple and white all day and all night.

2005-12-24T19:51:00.000-06:00

...my progress...

My progress is minimal.

If I complete an average of 1 app per day for the next week or so, I should be set. HOWEVER. I have been working on Northwestern for like, a week straight. I need magic college skillz dust.

Unfortunately, all I've done is become addicted to college confidential.

9 apps left guys, 9. okay so i've only done 3. but I AM SO CLOSE TO BEING DONE WITH NU.

So my game plan after that is to complete the other 5 that i need to ship off to their fates by the 31st (way to make January first be a sunday, God) And then do the last 3 in a fairly leisurely manner... NOT

i.e. write the history paper.

I'm so stressed out! SO MUCH TO DO!!!

However, I have discovered that IRC rooms are a good resource for college essay help. Now how is that for counterintuitive???

Ok, I am officially going insane. This morning, I turned into a whale. An unelectrocutable whale, by nature of my thick thick blubber. I sang whale songs and was dehydrated on the beach.

Goodbye.

2005-12-22T20:16:00.000-06:00

...since it's in fashion...

I, like everyone else, begin on the college journey. Of course, I've already been accepted by one safety and rejected by Stanford, and applied to a third, but I still have 8 apps to go for my total of 11.

The current project is the Northwestern app.

It seems that a zillion people are applying to this school.

So the 4 short answers, the personal essay, and the why NU essay.

I dont' know what to say for the why NU one. All of them ask this, and the answer is "well... I don't actually know, it just seems like a good idea!"

It seems that my rate of college essay completion is negligible in comparison with other bloggers in our class. While I must have dozens of essays to eventually fill in (some common app, luckily) and yet I have not even really completed an essay. How are you guys so fast at writing? And how am I so slow?

Today I had a mocha shake and noam and Domier thought I was stupid. Then I went ice skating and wore a helmet, like I do. A bike helmet. Then I chatted online for long periods of time, but it definitely doesn't lose its charm... and then I went to dance, in which I learned some crazy good dance moves.

So in other words, I have gotten like, inordinate amounts of exercise today. And had a shake. So my life is way balanced, except for the high concentration of college applications in my diet.

2005-12-20T21:32:00.000-06:00

...OH MY GOD...

HOW COME NO ONE EVER TOLD ME THAT POWER RANGERS WERE JAPANESE?!?!

I know wikipedia lies but it's the most straightforward...

super sentai!!!

Japan really ruled the world in the 90s! This is sooo interesting!!!!!

Right. Back to college essay. :(

2005-12-19T19:31:00.000-06:00

...where oh where...

Is my Domier?

:(

Oh wait. I found him.

Also did my first official college visit today. with approximately 2 weeks left in the school-shopping period, I have about 8 apps to do, one college visit, and a partridge in a pear tree.

But I'm doing great! Ha!

I did finish my manga chapter (if I haven't mentioned that like 3000 times yet) and when it comes out at some point I will most definitely link up to it so that everyone can seeee that I in fact have manga skillz. Ha. Not really. I had a lot of help. Especially from Domey and Sensei.

Today, I learned about the coriolis effect during rush hour city traffic.

Is there anything else of note? No.

2005-12-15T19:54:00.000-06:00

...it's about time...

SHUT DOWN

I've been rejected!

WhateveRRR. I don't need you anyway, Stanford.

Clearly my next move is:

Drive to CA, try to get them to change me to "accepted" while my brother burns down the admissions building, resulting in my family donating a lot of money to build a new one, and thus gaining me admission to Stanford.

Unfortunately, my brother isn't Jack Black. So scrap that. Later dudes.

2005-12-14T17:48:00.000-06:00

...the plan...

Everyone bring your preferred suicide weapons to school tomorrow! Why? The early decision/early action notification deadline!

So, as you know, (or don't), 5 out of our wonderous class of 06 applied to a certain high profile southern california school. These 5, myself, Colette, Alejandra, Tom, and Kangway to be precise, i.e. the early action Stanford support group, are waiting anxiously to find out if we really did get into that all important school. We have considered killing each other, being a "package deal", and impersonating whoever gets in, breaking off and building our own university, escalating into an empire... but this has all culminated in the final admission plan.

So the deal:

Whoever gets accepted (either a single person or multiple parties) must take remaining, rejected members of the support group out to dinner and pay for their meal, at restaurant of rejected members' choice. So something really classy and expensive.

If all of us get in (ha) split the bill.

If none of us get in... we go to a fast food place and cry as we eat a bunch of french fries.

The stakes are on! May the rejection letters commmence!

I am waiting for my free meal.

2005-12-10T15:13:00.000-06:00

...yoku ikiteta ne...

I did manage to survive a domierless week. It was difficult, it was terrible, I feel sick and tired, but hey, I did it. Good practice for next year, ne? Hopefully there will be less disease and hospitalization then though.

Unfortunately, I still have 1 month or so until I'm done with all -- homework, college apps, stress, etc. For now I've got to trudge through it, with winter break only serving as mild refuge from this crazed amount of work. For today, the project is to start the english project, which should be exciting. I think that perhaps we get a little carried away with the artisticness of it all and avoid actual shakespeare, but perhaps something good will come of this. Hopefully good enough to be an impressive final project. At least we have the oppurtunity for once in english class to do some project besides writing a paper. Enough with the papers already.

I have officially translated my first chapter of manga! Hooray! So it took over a month and it was an extremely trying experience, but 54 pages is a lot of Japanese (though there are a lot of pictures). I'm getting bettter. Domier is translating anime for them, or perhaps page editing, or perhaps both, so now we have been enveloped in some sort of strange IRC japanese subbing subculture (a sub-subculture!) and have made "friends" with them. The most entertaining point was when I showed up at his house, to find him chatting with the mahou crew on IRC, and he changed his nick to Domes|melisa.

Yeah. They call me by my "real" name. What weirdos.

Ok, time for rosencrantz and guildenstern. Those names are absolutely horrendous to spell.

2005-12-05T22:09:00.000-06:00

...my boyfriend madeleine...

I visited Domier in the hospital... in winter. This is so fuyu no sonata esque. Luckily, he wasn't hit by a bus and subsequently turned into a less attractive, strangely monotone-wearing man who didn't know who he was. Domier is still Domier, just without his appendix.

And yes, he was totally fine last night when I saw him. Or, yesterday like the entire day that I spent with him, living it up at the Japanese Language Proficiency Test. Which I have much to say about. If I had the energy, and if more important things like surgery hadn't taken place.

So I'm tired, not nearly tired as Mr. Kun San (i.e. Domier, as jono called him), but it's time for bed anyway.

2005-12-02T21:24:00.000-06:00

...no tech week for me...

Although I didnt do anything StudProd related (of course, I will see it tomorrow night), I seemed to have massive amounts of homework and stuff to do this week, and did not get to sleep until very late. This I do not understand. Nor do I understand physics to an acceptable degree, despite the fact that I must take a physics SAT II tomorrow morning. This will be the end of my collegeboard testing, and I will subsequently move onto the 9 college applications to do. Ha, yea right. There's no way I will do that anytime soon.

Instead I will volunteer at b2p, go to see studprod, and then sacrifice a whole day in order to chill out, flunk the Japanese language proficiency test, and study for monday's math test.

I keep telling myself... just another month or so and this will all be over.

However, that doens't work very well and instead I lock myself up at home for an evening (and almost the entirety of thanksgiving break) trying to patch up the holes in my physics knowledge. If I had not been completely confused the entire second semester of last year... then I think this task would be much easier for me. I'm still confused (hooray for getting 3/5 problems on quizzes) but at least I don't feel so confused in relation to everyone else. There's a relativity problem somewhere here, which we do not learn until second semester, but is mildly on the sat ii.

if the students are travelling near the speed of light... learning physics... then how much physics do they learn relative to the kids on earth learning it?

Or, Zeno's paradox which we applied to physics today: if we fit infinitely many units into physics A by doing shorter and shorter units (dividing by 2) we'll have infinitely small amounts of knowledge about infinitely many physics units. Mhm. I think the gist of all this is that studying physics is at some point detrimental to my health.

Also, we got those sheets to fill out who is the best at ____ for the yearbook. It occurred to me that I'm not really the best at any of these things, but I would like to win one anyway. Personally, I think I would be happy if I were voted laziest. But no one I talk to seems to think I am lazy. This could potentially be a problem (or is it a kinetic problem... ok enough with the physics terms). But I'm pretty lazy. So I do my homework yeah... and I even am a pretty first rate fitness student by now (though somewhat slow) so I guess I'm not mentally or physically lazy. But what about emotionally lazy?!? How is one emotionally lazy anyhow... no wait I've got it... I'm SOCIALLY LAZY.

Alright all you people. Think about when the last time it is that I called any of you (discounting yourself if you're domier, because that doesn't count). Or talked to you on AIM for any reason other than trying to get homework answers out of you?! Or had a party!??! OR WENT TO A PARTY!?!??! Or made a friend???

Also, I am usually really tired cuz I'm one of those people who needs a lot of sleep, and I don't get it.

So there we go. Mo for laziest, 06!

Or anything else you want to put me as, but I'm out of ideas. I don't really think I'm the biggest pimp.

2005-11-27T15:01:00.000-06:00

...oh studying...

Wowie, I have spent a lot of time this weekend studying. And I'm not even close to being done, how's that for awesome. I did however address all my secondary school report envelopes (yessss) but no stamps yet. I'm one short. Since I'm clearly not starting this whole college application thing until I take my final SAT II on December 3rd, that means I will have 9 college applications to do in approximately 1 month. This is a lot in comparison with the 3 I've done so far, each taking a few weeks. I guess I'll have to pick up the pace, because I WILL get these apps in, at least approximately on time.

Sensei says lots of students ask her for letters of rec. and she sends them, only to find out later they never bothered to fill out the application! How silly.

I hope this studying pays off... that way I can get into a good school and spend 4 more years doing homework! yesssss! Perhaps I will just go here after all, when all of these snotty schools don't give me any money. I guess they're just too cool for me.

dumdedum bye.

domierdomierdomier.

2005-11-25T21:11:00.000-06:00

...breaking news...

As designated by Noam, I am the moral center of the universe.

2005-11-24T14:44:00.000-06:00

...right...

I hate Thanksgiving.

Getting out of school on a wednesday is a good thing I suppose though. Then I came home and did several hours of math homework. More and more and more math. A math marathon. In fact, all of 11.5, and about half of 11.6. It took me a long time because I am not only overworked, I am overworked during a "no homework" break. Mhmm. Well I guess it's my own fault for not being caught up.

So then Domier eventually came home after his magic and halo whatevers with the SS and friends and we did get to talk for a little while, which was good.

Unfortunately then today happened, during which I was supposed to go to Domier's house for a DDR party ish thing, which was supposed to happen this afternoon. But I also had to see harry potter. Right, so then since the rest of Domier's friends apparently are very early risers, they were all gone from his house by noon, wheras that's when the movie was starting, ish. Mhm. So now it's 3, everyone is gone, and the jury is still out on whether I can go to his house or not because his oh-so-lovely friends won't be there.

Honestly, they're not any better than me, but I guess we need an army of babysitters.

oh well, i guess the decision si that I can go, for a bit.

2005-11-21T20:56:00.000-06:00

...just a quick post...

I just lost a contact in my eye. Don't you hate when that happens? I mean, I found it again, but it decided to lodge itself in the bottom corner of my eye, near my tear duct. This isn't as bad as sometimes, when i simply can't find it at all. Anyhow, now I'm back in action.

Domier went to sleep about an hour ago (before 8:00). I shall be up for a while yet preparing my teacher rec forms for the ~10 more schools I'll apply to (I've done 3 so far). But he was up until 3:30 doing the philosophy paper, he deserves a good night of sleep.

Deciding on which colleges to apply to is so hard. I guess I should have started thinking about it before mid-September, but honestly I was not in the mood. So i'm sort of haphazardly doing these, and hopefully have enough on my list that I'll get into enough that I'm into. I don't have a school I'm in love with though, so It really makes no difference to me which of these reject me and which decide I'm good enough. It would be nice to make it into at least one Ivy though, ne?

On the Penn app (I haven't decided if I'm applying there yet) it says:

Application Instructions: Loosen and remove the center staples that secure the various portions of this application. Once you have done this, the pages will separate easily.

Wow, what faith they have in their applicants.

2005-11-19T21:32:00.000-06:00

...American food...

I had to eat Pizza Hut today. I haven't done this... since a year ago, when I was also at district orchestra, and there were no other food options besides burger king. The food itself wasn't awful, and I'm not too picky about how food tastes anyway, but after eating fast food I just feel so... disgusting. Not just for anti-corporate reasons, which there are definitely some of, but literally it makes my insides feel like I'm abusing them. Plus, I was so full for the rest of the day, after eating only a one person pizza, 3 breadsticks, and drinking a coke. Those things must be so full of calories and fat, because the actual quantity of food appears rather small, until after I'm done and I feel so full.

Although I must say I do have rather fond memories of eating in that Burger King with Greg Colombo and letting him rant and spoil the ending of Kekkan Kazoku, but I don't really associate any happy feelings with the chain itself.

2005-11-18T21:03:00.000-06:00

...not quite so angry right now...

Following up on that... I think my brother should propose a 3 day stay-in-your-room-only-coming-out-to-eat-and-use-the-bathroom-retreat, where each person is forced to stay in his/her room and watch star wars, visit star wars forums, or read star wars novels. No opening the windows, no going outside, no using AIM or the phone, and definitely not doing anything that is unrelated to star wars in some way.

Ahh what a plan.

As for me... this weekend shall be fairly miserable, with my two nights of good sleep ruined with the 7 am call time for district orchestra tomorrow. I am sort of in the not-caring-about-it state... I don't really care how well I placed, because I've not known long enough that I've grown used to it. There are more important things. Plus, I know I couldn't have made state, so what is the use in worring about whether i'm 5th chair or 10th? Unfortunately none of the friends I have worked so hard to make over the last two years will be there, and instead just a bunch of people I know (laaame). I guess this proves I'm a senior, I sort of know all the cellists around.

Another note about the freshmen, they had to talk about class bonding, because their class has cliques and people gossip about each other. LIKE THIS IS A BAD THING??? Since when did any class in the history of time NOT have cliques and gossip? Isn't it normal, at least in our culture, to have cliques and gossip? I haven't grown up in radically different cultures, but I don't know of any that refuse to talk about each other, or deliberately include everyone in everything. Plus, those things still describe our class, and we're getting along fine. We had those ridiculous meetings sophomore year about the "conflict" between the boys and girls in our class. WTF was that about?!?! No one ever even explained what the supposed beef was. I sensed none, I don't know who did, but that was completely fabricated as well. And look, we're so well bonded now. There are still some people I never talk to, or that don't like me, or that only hang out in their own group, but who cares!??

Hmm what else... didn't mean to get on that topic. Don't even know what my original train of thought was...

Ohhh! We started composing a JohnMark rap today in PE. I was distressed because Domey was quite pissed at me for reasons involving a lot of stupid things that do not matter anymore, but I was extremely proactive and did not let it bother me to the point where I could not go on with life. Instead I helped make this rap. So far it goes approximately like this:

I'll tell you 'bout this guy
his name is johnmark
he's a really cool dude
and he's also really smart

my name is noam,
this is beno and mo
we like to go
wherever he goes

*It's Johnmark, he's here, i'm excited uhhuh*

we're in this math class
and we know he's the best
cuz he always does well
on the Jockster's math tests

differential equations
and integrals too
he alwas understands them
more than we do.

Okay I realize this is kind of creepy if you dont' understand that johnmark seems to be at least mildly amused by this. Anyway, who sees a music video coming here??? With us in a lot of bling? Hey Beno has proved she can be the Godfather, why can't she be 50???*

*I don't actually know who 50 Cent is, besides Zhe. I just know he is some rapper, and there is an apparently bad movie about him. I just needed an example of someone gangsta, and while i have no idea whether he is or not, I can't think of any other hip-hop/rap people at the moment. MAYBE BECAUSE I DON'T LISTEN TO THAT STUFF. I know it's a betrayal of my generation, but it just doesn't do much for me.

Anyway, the Johnmark rap sounds promising.

Can you tell I'm avoiding my college application? My mom wants to mail it tomorrow. This will be #3. And it will probably be the second school I get into. Yeeea. I think that we really should send each other sympathy cards when we get rejected mid-december. Except for Tom, who will get in, so we can either send him "congratulations" cards, or "Tom, we hate your guts" cards.

Then he'll reject it and go to Amherst or something.

Despite the laid back tone of this blog post, I'm really upset and depressed lately. However, this is more fun than thinking about my troubles. I guess that's supposedly what writers discover... but I'm not a writer by any stretch of the imagination. I just have a blog.

Bye guys, see all of you on monday if I live that long.

2005-11-16T19:13:00.000-06:00

...stand up for what you believe in...

Our school is so fucked up. People are being threatened with expulsion (some actually expelled) right and left, and pretty soon there will be no students left.

HOWEVER, that is not the topic today. The topic is the INSANE freshman required field trip to allerton in April that Isaac Chambers has proposed singlehandely to the staff, and furthermore then GLORIFIED in the Gargoyle because of it.

Why do I care, you ask. Well first off, I hear about this shit because my brother is in the class, so he's coming home complaining about it. Second, a large portion of the Gargoyle issue was devoted to this topic, and made it sound really great. Well there are at least a FEW reasons why this plan completely sucks.

1) A large group of students dont' even want to go on a fucking cabin-in-the-wilderness outing with 59 of their closest enemies in order to be one with nature in extremely crappy living conditions.

2) Nobody asked the 59 students besides Isaac that he's forcing into this. No one asked their parents. No one asked anyone if it they wanted it to happen. It was assumed that this would be an excellent thing to do because everyone is normal and has the same concept of what a "good experience" is because we're all supposed to be fucking conformists. Who said the 1950s are over?

3) No one asked student council, i.e. the class representatives that were elected by the students whether the class was in favor of it, etc etc. Way to bypass the system of democracy, which clearly exists neither in this country nor in the microcosm of our high school.

4) After it's published in the newspaper, approved by the principal, and unchangable, he sends out an email. Here's the second half:

Tell me which of these activities you would like the most and least, or
other possible activities you would like to add.

Just a final note, I hope this is a great experience for everybody. I've
heard some negative comments about the allerton trip, but I
think it will be a lot better if we all have a positive attitude
about it. I am open to all of your opinions and suggestions so we can
make it as much fun as possible for everyone. And keep in mind, that this
is at the very least better than a regular day of school, and hopefully
much better than just a regular school day. You get to be outside doing
fun activities during the day instead of boring work and impossible
multiple choice history tests (for those who have
Vaughn) in a classroom. And did I mention that there is no homework? --
The evening time will be occupied doing tons of fun activities.

Right. So if you don't have something nice to say, you shouldn't say anything at all. How cliche. Also, I especially like the part where he asks for input from the other students, despite the fact that they were NEVER ASKED IF THEY EVEN WANTED TO GO. How nice of him to consider their opinions!

Also, what about the assumption that everyone would rather spend 3 days in a cabin hiking around than in school doing homework. Whatever happened to the idea that you're actually supposed to learn things in school, or that school could actually be, god forbid, interesting. Yeah, it may be repetitive to be at school all the time, but at a supposedly nerdy school, this is a really anti-intellectual attitude. Jesus.

5) it's required. No, not optional, required. And it costs money. Since when does Uni have money to be wasting on this kind of crap? They don't, so they will demand it from the parents, who are forced into paying because this is required for school and their kids will be academically punished if they don't attend.

BUT THERE IS HOPE:

Many of the freshman think this is a god awful lousy idea. These freshman (including my bro) are writing a petition to show that a large part of the class is against it. This group includes my brother's crew, which is admittedly, not the most popular or influential clique (though clearly the most awesome). It also includes everyone's favorite slutty girls, the BC as I've heard they're called. However much I disapprove of them, luckily the fact that they refuse to give up

A) Shopping,
B) Their high standard of living, or
C) alcohol

for three days, means that they also don't want to do this thing.

Student council is also pissed, because their power was thwarted and they were entirely bypassed. Evidently Isaac just really wants to get elected to StudCo, which explains the power grabs.

WHAT IS OUR SCHOOL COMING TO???

2005-11-13T11:05:00.000-06:00

...sunday morning...

While Julie might be sorry, I'm not. I still think they're hobags.

The rest of today though, is gonna be devoted to applying to Michigan. Yeehaw 3 essays, here I come! At least I am somewhat confident I'll get into this school, which might soften the blow of my other reach schools' rejection letters. At least I am only one standardized test away from being done with all college admissions tests, and done for a while with the collegeboard. Boy how I hate them. I somehow think that my Thanksgiving break is going to be full of wonderful Physics SAT II studying. I can't wait.

Yesterday though, I wasn't exactly thinking about this and I was instead doin the usual, fantasizing about Japan next year. I was thinking about how fun it will be to pack. No, it's definitely not lame to enjoy packing. I guess it's sort of novel for me still because I don't get out very much, but I like the idea of taking just the essentials... not in a backpacking over the rockies kind of way, but in a minimalistic way. I have so many clothes and books and papers and photos and junk that I don't want to get rid of, but that I will have no use for in the next year, so it will be nice to leave it behind. However I'm sure I'll show my mom my suitcase and she will say "What, that's not nearly enough! If you can close your suitcase, you're not done packing."

I won't have to pack for another 9 months or so, but somehow I find clothes in suitcases more interesting than writing about art, truth, science, and beauty in a 500 word essay, which is what I will go do now.

Edit: THIS JUST IN!
My aunt likes Colin Firth, just like me. AHhh I would say it's genetic if she weren't only a relative by marriage. But anyway yes, Colin Firth. But she hasn't seen A&E P&P (If you got that, you are a devoted Folin Cirth fan). GAAAAH. Who wants to watch Love Actually over the holidays?!??!

2005-11-09T17:32:00.000-06:00

...update!...

On my life. Not much happening man. I've essentially been dumped by rotary, so I think that I will just go to Konan. Gotta turn my forms in to sensei and such. MHM. Finally went to the doctor today, funfun...

My cousin has just invited me to a chatroom. This is exciting. Me, my cousin, and her friend. Okay be quiet, it's not that cool. She is 9.

I don't have the energy to update recently. Too much work is happening, and i look forward to the carefree days to come (next year). It's also a lot easier to update when you're miserable, but now that Momier is back and such there isnt' way too much misery around here. Or if there is it's homework related which eventually becomes boring to write about.

I am excited about translating this manga though. 10 pages of progress (ish) have been made. Tata guys. One day I'll think of something brilliant and bloggable.

2005-11-04T15:11:00.000-06:00

...the internet is an interesting place...

So I've gotten in on this subbing group for manga and anime (er, translations) and it turns out that I'm gonna get to translate some MANGA. HOW COOL IS THAT? But the interesting thing is the whole.... community around it. I was told, when I emailed, interested, to go to this room in IRC and start talking to this dude (alias verm__) about it, and saying that my Japanese skills are mediocre at best, but if there were something pretty easy I could try my hand at it. Anyway, I guess this is the first time in recent memory I've been chatting with some person I have no information whatsoever about, he/she's just a username in irc. The internet is weird like that, I have no connection to people I am talking to all the time. This verm person could be a robot or artificial intelligence, and I wouldn't know.

I like the freedom though. I can talk to this subbing group and they might let me do this, and it doesn't matter who I am essentially, or who they are. In fact, I don't even have to be me. I like the non-ageist ness, which is really liberating, though in another year or so I'll be a legal adult, so I guess it's soon not mattering anymore. But still. Freedom man.

I told them I didn't want to translte echhi though, cuz my mom doesn't approve. I was practicing on one and my mom asked me what it's about and I said "incest" because it is... that was bad enough.

In other news I'm TERRIFIED of the SAT II tomorrow in Japanese. I hope I live to tell the tale.

2005-11-02T21:18:00.000-06:00

...i'm so happy!...

i have learned of the wonders of irc today. Yeah shut up ive never used it before. and i might be translating MANGA! Hot damN!

2005-10-29T21:29:00.000-05:00

...and I make so much progress on my college apps...

Yesterday in Japan club we showed sensei the excellent song that Domey and friends want to play for the WSP (clever acronym for the winter surpise party), and sensei seemed to kind of approve (i suppose) but we gained the full support of Masahiro, who knew the song from Naruto and loves it. We started singing along except for those who are out of the loop, and it was exciting seeing him be loud and enthusiastic... he is rather quiet usually. Also, I found that in Japan itself it was always good to know Japanese songs, because there's nothing more fun than bursting out into songs they NEVER WOULD HAVE GUESSED YOU KNEW! Stupid Americans. So anyway, the song is good. It's called Haruka Kanata. Despite the fact that I've been totally booted out of the music group part, it's a fun song and I've heard the 3 of them play... they can actually do it, and the beginning sounds genuinely like the song. Impressive eh?

In other news, WHY DIDN'T ANYONE TELL ME ABOUT THIS???

I also today went to dallas to get hazuki costume supplies -- cat ears and vampire teeth. They didn't even HAVE cat ears man... the best I could do was tiger ears. However, they did have CRAB EARS... a headband with a bright orange crab on it... in case you want to be... a crab? The vampire teeth suck too. However, I didn't have the stamina to get a cape there, it was very crowded, and apparently deren needs the cape, but if anyone has an extra cape it would be appreciated! I'm just gonna end up looking like a schoolgirl with catears, which is not as good as the gothic lolita look with catears... but WHO KNEW I would need the look!

Whatever, back to college essays.

2005-10-26T20:05:00.000-05:00

...observation of the day...

you know you don't deserve admission from your top choice school when...

you have to look up one of the words in its application instructions.

feel free to add your own!

2005-10-25T19:42:00.000-05:00

...maybe this post won't get deleted...

Today I felt fine and good (aside from waking up), and then I had weights, and now I feel sick. I really hate lifting heavy things. It doesn't even make my muscles tired, I just can't make them move at all. I'd much rather be non-muscular really. Muscles aren't attractive anyway.

I helped with the books to prisoners book sale this saturday. Lucy and Ro fell in love with a skater boy, but then he left. I didn't fall in love with him, but I guess they saw the appeal. Lincoln Square is such an exciting, happening place, isn't it? This weekend I am going to do my college applications, and play at the fun fair thing with the pynk pyritz, and perform a solo I haven't prepared adequately for. I am beginning to hate weekends actually. There's too much to do.

Boring post. Look forward to next year when I post exciting Japan stories. If I have time for you guys, perhaps I will be off having such an exciting life that I won't even have time to tell you about it. But whatever, everyone else will be in college, haha suckers!

2005-10-21T19:34:00.000-05:00

...ugh...

my post got deleted. Don't feel like typing it all again. I think blogger is messed up, wtf is that second box down there? if i click it, the post gets deleted. Whatever. My thoughts are now secret.

2005-10-20T19:27:00.000-05:00

...i am pissed off...

Today I left my bittorrent running before school so that by the time I came home I could have episode seven of tsukuyomi. But no, apparently my mom turned my computer off or something so I didn't get any downloading done, so I currently have less than half of the file downloaded. This makes me very angry, because it is one of the few things that brings me joy in my home life, that at least I can watch an episode of shojo anime every once in a while. But no, even that is far too much to ask for apparently.

Today I wore a pink butterfly in my hair. Noam says that means I'm suicidal (i.e. the suicidal butterfly)... but I don't think I'm likely ever to become suicidal, I think it's much more likely that I would be homicidal. So I think it's the suicidal butterfly's evil twin, the homicidal butterfly. Perhaps the suicidal butterfly's suicide was assisted!??!

2005-10-19T16:41:00.000-05:00

...i see...

Everyone wants to conspire to make me into a penguin for halloween. This is a lovely thought. Go for it. I will wear your penguin costumes assuming I like them.

Today is October 19th. The clock is ticking and my apps are still not started, of course, because none of my essays will ever be good enough until halloween night at 2 am when my mom decides to give up and use what I have. This is why I will work all this weekend and all next weekend and still not be done.

I also need to study Japanese for the SAT II because my Japanese is absolutely abysmal. I think that instead of starting my math homework therefore, I will watch Tsukuyomi because it's cheerful (in a vampire sort of way) and will encourage me to study Japanese more because I understand absolutely none of it. I don't understand any Japanese whatsoever. How people can do this is beyond me. So perhaps my estimate of getting 2/3 of the listening questions on the SAT II was extraordinarily high, and even with that I didn't break 700.

Whatever, I'm gonna go eat a pretzel now.

2005-10-18T16:53:00.000-05:00

...I don't have time for this...

I have to leave for cello in like 5 minutes, so I'll say what I can.

1. Whoever came up with this stupid term "spearhead" for taking on a project. First off, I have never even heard this pre-Katrina hurricane disaster, so where the hell did people come up with this, and second of all, it's really dumb. Why not skewer, impale, or stab, if you're going along with the same idea? I hate words.

2. I have my Halloween choices down to 2. Votes are always appreciated. Hazuki (the vampire anime chick with cat ears) or a sleshman? I am not going to be a penguin guys, sorry.

3. Apparently my handwriting is "too messy" to read on my Rotary app and my Stanford essay "isn't good enough" so this inspires me just not to apply to anything, ever, because no matter what, it won't be good enough for my parents, nevermind what the people at these various organizations think.

4. Pynk Pyritz are 1) playing at the fair dealy on saturday after next, and 2) might have a wedding on new years eve. Excellente! Maybe we'll get some champagne, but probably not. I wonder if people will wear really crazy New Years Eve outfits or the classic boring wedding stuff. I also wonder if we get to play this because it's not quite set as of yet. Anyway, I think that would be pretty raw, assuming I have all of my college apps done by then so I can party hard after the wedding.

5. Sick of school. It's definitely better than being at home though. Which tells you absolutely nothing.

6. Never gonna get my license, yippee. Come on guys, I really must make my goal of pre-July 17... or some other date in July that I don't really know, when my permit will expire. That gives me... about 9 months. Maybe I can get it before then. Does anyone know what happens if you just don't get it? Do you have to take another drivers ed course? what?

7. I don't like lifting weights because they're too heavy. Apparently all of the weights that I could lift last year "don't count" because I was not going through "the full range of motion" so I'm pretty much a complete failure in life. But guess what, maybe that's the only way I could lift these things, because you know what, weights are HEAVY.

8. Enough complaints about school. I haven't practiced my cello and I have a lesson in 6 minutes. Make that 5. But when I get home I get to relax and do my homework, now that's a fun evening plan. Maybe I'll just knit, and not fill out any college applications and not go to college, and instead land a high end job by miracle or computer error, be rich and famous, have my own fan club, and live in a small village in northern japan for the rest of my life where vending machines outnumber people by a ratio of 6:1.

2005-10-16T22:54:00.000-05:00

...yeah...

Dear Lizzie,
Sorry about the comments that I made on Domey's blog. After talking to Jimmyhuggett today I guess I realized that I kind of was jealous, but unfortunately I don't know how to delete comments. I hope that I didn't bother you too much, and I definitely don't hate you.
--Mo

2005-10-14T17:32:00.000-05:00

...another week gone...

It's been an alright week overall -- I think 4 days of school definitely are better than 5. I want to cook in 日本ｸﾗﾌﾞ next week but unfortunately I am completely devoid of any cooking skills. So instead I will sit here and try to download the next episode of Tsukuyomi (I've watched 5 so far) and muse about having cat ears. And listen to Ayumi Hamasaki music, because I can.

Jono is extremely infatuated with Ayumi, because yes, she is beautiful, and does cosplay in her cds, like this but I think she would look better in normal clothes. Apparently that is just me though, and Jono was quite excited upon arrival in Towa to find that his room (his host-sister's room) had Ayumi Hamasaki posters all over. As of Domier giving me a sampling of the music (before he had all 28 or whatever of her CDs), I've sort of taken a liking to it. It's kind of techno ish, and her voice is really high, but not bad. I guess it depends on one's mood. I will always have some sort of alliance to Utada, since she is the first jpoper I really learned of. She is much more americanized though, and her stuff can get away from jpop and into R&B/hip-hoppy stuff which I don't like so much. But she does have some classics, particularly Hikari, and the feeling I get from Japanese people is that there is some sort of respect for her (as far as I know she doesn't do any sort of cosplay on her CDs for example). But anyway. The point is that I like listening to jpop.

Right so, this weekend I have got to work on some college apps. Gahh.

2005-10-12T21:39:00.000-05:00

...ARRR...

Another day another gig. This one was fun, we played at the library for swarms of little kids. We taught them the exciting difference between violins and cellos, because violins play high notes and cellos play low notes (but they are indeed both playing twinkle twinkle little star). The scariest part was when little kids came running up and I almost impaled them on my bow, which is dangerously at little kid eye level while I play. Luckily I deftly avoided murder and the children were unharmed.

Domier and Ben Tuttle, the groupies, also came. What nice support.

But that was yesterday, I just didn't post it.

Today was filled with awe and wonder yet again. But I don't think I will elaborate on such, because I am busy and don't feel like dealing with another post. the end!

2005-10-11T19:40:00.000-05:00

...hmm...

blogback is refusing to support my comments. for now i'm using haloscan, inspired by noam's blog. what do you think? like it? hate it? no comment?

but now i have 3 journal entries to do.