leaves and shit

to my peeps on the west coast:

You know how when you got to college and all of the east and midwesterners kept mocking you for not knowing what a real fall is like? and you kept wondering, wow do leaves really fall and form giant piles into which you can jump and frolick etc etc. Well I am in it, officially. fall that is. I am in fall. And it's true, there are a lot of leaves, everywhere. But coming from the very pristine well cleaned up area of Palo Alto i keep thinking "why doesn't someone hire a gardener to clean this shit up! preferably a mexican one!" Let me tell you a the little realities of fall. There are leaves, but there is also rain and rain plus leaves just means lots of wet piles of orange crap. there is also wind and cold. It's kind of dirty, i will be honest. Basically what i'm saying is those people lied to us and made us feel liek we were misisng out. To them i say, Give me palm trees and sun all year round!!

ok ok maybe i'm being too harsh. The other day i was taking a nice run through a park (i know!) and i saw this tree and it was all kind of beautiful orange and red almost as though I was moses and this tree was on fire telling me the ten commanments (religious imagery, anyone anyone?). And i stopped my jog and went up to the tree and pulled off a leaf, the most beautiful leaf i could find. Well you know what? That leaf was not that beautiful apart from the other leaves. It kind of just looked dead in my hand. And that's when i realized, that leaf outside of the context of that tree and that park and that moment meant nothing. It was all of that together that made it beautiful. And i don't know how that all relates to fall and my opinions on it, you tie it all together but there it is.

Today it's a bit chilly, odd really since yesterday it was 75 degrees! But according to the weather this thursday is set to have snow showers. snow showers! What the hell is a snow shower? is this different from let's say...snowing or a snow storm or really cold rain? these are legit questions i think. oh ann arbor, you slay me with your cunning ability to throw me for a loop. What will you do next!

on that note i leave you with pics of this past weekend. I'm sad to say i had left my camera in my office desk which is why there aren't more full body shots of me. it's tragic really.

here we have a waist up of the costume, which has been discussed at length. what is horribly unfortch is that you couldn't see the lower half of my body. so sad. If you look closely you can see my fanny pack. also interesting to note...my breasts look HUGE. must be an angle thing. This is early in the night...drink 1 maybe?

ah yes...drink 2. i believe i took the "groomsman el super" flask from my fanny pack and spiked it a bit. it was hella weak. Nishi went as a punk and Fernando went as super P man. We thought that was lame and told him he shoudl just say he's "Pedro the mexican." Pedro the mexican and Drew the Pool boy
I think some people refer to this as "bringing sexy back."???
yes yes i think so

Me and Asian Jenn, before she and fernando snuck off to make out on the side of the building.
Pedro and Hugo guest starring as "pepper"
This is one of those pictures that really needs context but that you were way too drunk to remember the context. for instance...what was i singing? clearly it was very eeemotional. I am going to bet my money that it was an 80's song for sure.
I distinctly remember at this point hugo yelling "do the chicken dance, yo, do the chicken dance!!!" beyond that it's a bit of a blur. Also important to note, this shall be my face for the rest of the pictures. clearly i was very excited.
Hugo looks pissed. like someone told him that Taco Bell had gone bankrupt. what!!!! say what!!key to note in the next 2 pics...how fernando's face goes from "i'm about to pass out" to "what time is it guys i'm getting tired."

and that was kind of it for the night. Nishi's camera was dying of battery which is why all the pics look really rushed. cuz we kept yelling "quick the battery is gonna die! quick!! oh wait it didnt' die yet??? ok ok quick another before the battery dies!!"

things that i hvae learned tonight after the "the letter p" party

1) i could live in dancewear. seriously a leotard, tights, and leggings was quite possibly the most comfortable thing i have worn in my ENTIRE LIFE!!

2) i won the best costume contest...my prize is yet to come. BOMB!!!

3) Men still love asian women. why? case in point fernando hooked up wiht an asians woman who is actually hella cool and i like her and all but the principle of the matter is still that asian women steal all the men who like petite brunettes. why????

4) hugo, nishi, wendy, and i are going to denny's tomorrow for brunch to debrief on the whole hook up incident because we were all to drunk to actually drive to denny's tonight and cuz they were all moderately sketchedout by it even though they were urging it on the whoel time, and i am like the objective therapist fo rthem all.

5) that's kind of all...

clothings...who knew??

so many epiphanies today, but ok, check it. I was just watching thankyou for smoking with ozan, sober...so wierd, the sobriety not the movie...but anyways i had driven my car over but some ass hat in a toyota echo (lame loser car) had parked behind me thus trapping me into the lot. fucker! so anyways this meant that i had to walk home and it is currently 30 degrees with wind. seriously cold. Anyways i had a sweater and a scarf and i was fine up there but what was killing me were my feet. i was wearing these cute gold kenneth cole flats, which while nice and matching with the rest of my outfit were clearly not impervious to the cold. And i was thinking...."man you know what would be really nice right now? some nice tall boots that could cover not only my feet but also my legs." and then it hit me! the fucking utility factor of most clothing. i have spent most of my life in southern California where a tall boot is purely worn for ornamental purposes but i always thought "why do women wear their pants tucked into their boots. They must be hot." This to me always seemed liek they were doing it for a cuteness factor but it never hit me that perhaps the trend started because in some places you have to wear tall boots and you have to cover your calves because otherwise you will freeze. clothing can have a function guys! seriously whta a fucking epiphany!

Example # 2. yesterday it was raining really really hard all day so when i got dressed to go into the office i put on my wellies and threw on my thick, water proof, quilted, long SF rain coat. This is definitely under the coat and not jacket category, i think. Anyways i figured rain = cold and wet so i this jacket will work wonders. I hop on my bike and start riding and about 30 seconds later it hits me...fucking humidity like what! seroiulsy it was crazy hot outside and raining and to top it off i had this gigantic ridiculous red coat and i was sweating and not to mention i had like layers underneath and i started thinking, "damnit this would have been perfect for my REI anorak thin water shell jacket, which is suitable for warm weather, but not cold weather."

And so my point is i suddenly have this understanding of the kids who came from wisconsin and thought that we californians were truly ridiculous, because we were! why the hell do we wear boots and jackets and uggs and tights and all that other winter and fall apparel that i now can attest to the fact is useless. But here in the all weather capitol where we go through 5 different climate zones a day there may be 5 different jackets that you would use for different purposes. And not for cute factors liek "this blue one is for when i look casual, and this red is for when i look professiona and the green is for my preppy days." no i'm talking like...this fleece is for when it's moderatly cold but this water shell is for when it's hot but raining and this wind shell is for when it's really cold but i have layers underneath and this gigantic parka is for when it's below freezing and these gloves are for light fall whiel these fur lined gloves are for snow and these unlined water boots are for fall rains while these sheerling lines boots are for late october early november while these water proof sheerling boots are for snow, but these boots would be way to hot for the october november times. This is all causing me to really rethink fashion and completely reclassify the way i think about clothes.

are you seeing what i'm saying!! fucking ephinay! on that note...perhaps this weekend i go shopping, because let's be honest...all the tall boots that i have are like 2 1/2 inches and higher and you can't walk very far in that. so i feel like i legitimately need some taller boots.

shoe crisis

god i hate to focus on the negative but...haha ok that is a lie! i swear!

anyways...let's focus on some negativity. Can we talk about how i hate those stupid "pink" victoria secret sweat pants that women wear with "pink" written on their asses. In fact i hate the women who wear these pants too. These are the very same women who wear their stupid ass sweats with wife beaters and uggs. if it is cold enough to be rocking the sweats and uggs is it really hot enough to be wearing only teh wife beaters? explain this to me please. yes...i hate you! And i may secretly just hate you because i secrely kind of realy want uggs because dear god they would be so damn comfortable in the cold weather for a 9am class or when i just want to walk over to jonathan (david's name for josh and ozan)'s house. But no, you have made such a bad name for a shoe that could otherwise be gloriously unfashionable yet oh so comfortable and now you leave the rest of us with nothing! nothing! I mean victoria secret...people their stuff is not even that good. ill fitting bras and panties that give you extra ass bunching. let's be honest, why do we support them. i am a Calvin Klein intimates girl myself and i am recommending CK to you all today. I say let's stand up today and boycott crappy overpriced underwear makers! i have never found a bra and Vickie's that makes my boobies look well shaped.

anyways the point of all this is to say that i need some kind of comfortable ugg type shoe, but not an ugg. Basically because i'm from LA i will look liek the stupid californian if i wear uggs. goddamn stupid LA whores! goddamn you paris hilton and cameron diaz! damn you all! can a woman just wear her uggs in peace without judgement! do i not bleed! Anywyas point being i need a nice comfortable slip on type shoe. awe fuck guys let's face it. I need a fucking birkenstock clog is what i need. who am i? i've changed! I've changed!!

This was Fernando and I circa Saturday night...2am. eeemagine tights and ugly sweater.

being the psych nerds that we are we could only describe it in terms of research and citations

Csikszentmihalyi (1990) refers to it as flow; the psychology of optimal experience. It was flow. google that shit!!



also can we talk about how i fucking embedded video in my blog!! thank you you tube!!

a P by any other name shall smell as sweet?

ok guys so the P has been decided!! although perez hilton WOULD have been a bomb idea but highly underappreccccciiiiiated. just like weaving all night and saying i was Penelope of the Odyssey would have been underappreciated. but thanks, ivan. sad to say, both penelope and persephone would have gone over the mich people's heads. Anyways after much deliberation i had narrowed it down to a few key ideas

1) pink power ranger - a costume that requires a bit of strategy but this is no biggie for a seasoned costume veteran like myself

2) pinata - wasn't really sure how i would do this

3) Cracked out penelope cruz in "Blow." Just eeemagine i could run around in a fur coat and gold heals yelling "mother fuuuuuckkkerss!!!!" with a columbian accent. Again, this might be over their heads. Today i made a reference to "when harry met sally" and it was over their heads

4) Pee Wee herman - I'm thinking suit, bow tie, slicked back hair. all pretty standard second hand store fare.

well we went out to half off wine night at some "italian" restaurant. Olive Garden is more italian than this place. But it was good people. Anyways ozan brought his pseudo girlfriend of the whole "my boyfrien dhad a seizure" variety and i was running my ideas by the two of them and she, being the artsy stanford alum had a brilliant idea. so she got really attached to this whole Pinata concept and was like "you can just wear leg warmers and sweaters and bright colors in stripes all over and throw candy from your belly." I took it to the next level by adding that i could throw candy from a hot pink fanny pack attached to my belly. ozan took it to the next level by adding that i should wear a birthday hat. done and done!!

leg warmers + armwarmers + bright mexi colored sweaters + covered in COLORES + birthday hat + candy being thrown from hyper colored fanny pack = PINATA FUN FOR EVERYONE!!

OH SHIT THAT RHYMES TOO!!

*** Upon consulting wiht bobby he has just taken to the next level. I will also spend the night speaking only in Spanglish and when people spank me then and only then will i throw candy at them. Holy crap it's gonna be like every fucking Birthday party i ever had growing up! i was mexican before it was cool to be mexican, namely being that i was mexican and had pinatas before the mainstream had pinatas. back when it was just a burro and not a barbie or finding nemo fish, and before having a burro was retro. guys this may be the best costume yet!

************another update...emily just took it there. we're talking fringe and ruffles of some kind....oh yes, she took it there.

do you think i need a sticker that sayd "i <3 Guadalajara"?? haha mexican joke!

i'm SAD

So last night i was planning on seeing "the science of sleep" with a few people and they all flaked on me. I think fernando is hooking up wiht someone on the DL because he was being all cryptic when i axxed why he couldn't make it like "oh i have to study" and i was liek "um the movie is at 9:15 on a tuesday night, what are you studying" and he was liek "yeah...um ok so i have to go." shady. what a fuck. Anyways i invited ozan and josh but as it were i forgot that they are old and only check their email a few times a day so they got the email this morning. so last night wa sthe final night it was showing and i was contempmlating going alone, which is kind of pathetique, but really do i care? i think not. Anyways i edned up not going out alone and staying in and watching my tivoed dancing with the stars and gilmore girls and i just felt so....blah...you know just so....blah. And this morning i'm feeling blah again and i'm realizing....oh my god hwat if i have SAD. What if i have seasonal affective dissorder!! Apparently this happens when people from sunny places move to places that have no sun and so not having sun gets their bodies all fucked up and they get real depressed. What if i have this!! i mean granted i don't actually feel depressed i just feel lazy, and granted i wouldn't technically call LA a sunny place. But seriously. I was mocking my crazy office mate the other day (i use the term crazy quite literally not in like the "oh she's so cute and crazy!" kind of way) because she was talking about how her doctor approved her sun machine and so she's going to have a machine that she sits in front of and it will give her fake sunlight so she can be peppy again, which is super upsetting to me because she's already fucking peppy enough and most of the time i want to smack and her and tell her "chill the fuck out!" ugh see! are you seeing the negativity i am giving off right now! god i so have SAD it's not even funny. alright i'm going to shower, eat and embrace the day. and then i'm going to go drink wine later for very cheap.

the letter P

ok guys, i need my 5 readers to really channel all of their energy toward a very special request i have. So i know that only like two peopel comment, but if you've never commented before this is your opportunity!! I need your help! i need your creativity! i need your ideas!

ok so this weekend my friend Kristen is throwing her first theme party of the year. This makes me very excited as i LOVE theme parties like fucking WHAT!! no seriously, no joke, i love this shit. Anyways the theme is very broad and vague and thus is open for moments of great genius.

The theme is "the letter P"

Ok spend the day today or tomorrow contemplating this and let me know what you guys think...What should i be!????

If no one comments i will hate you all.

i'm up and then i'm down again

Yesterday i was praising myself for being "so on top of my shit, it's not even funny!" I had my problem set done 3 days early, leaving me enough time to go to office hours. office hours! i have never been able to go to an office hours in my life becuase i've never started problem sets earlier than the night before they were due. Grad school guys....i'm always amazed by myself. I kept telling people "i am so on top of my shit! is this what it's like to be a taiwanese student at stanford! or an Azzzian or an indian???!" fun with stereotypes, true story

today is a totally different story. Today i'm going into my seminar not having read a word of the assigned readings. Why do i think i can get away with this, you ask. Well the class is taught by a tiny german man and there are 4 people in it, and today's lecture is on motivation, and hello i'm taking a whole other class on motivation so somethign just makes me feel like i can make this shit up and get away with it. Also i just didn't want to read 80 more pages on motivation. it seemed silly.

on a random aside, i hate learning about motivation. it's so one sided and they spend so much time arguing about theories and like...can we just agree on one theory of motivation, fix that one up, and be done with it. Also can we stop using "students at a predominantly middle class, mid western university" as our subject pool ie White midwesterners. but mostly i hate motivation theory because my office mate (aka crazy red headed teach for america buff who is overly excited about everything and acts super nice but under her facade of happiness is actually really condescending) anyways she fucking loves motivation and seeing how motivated she is just fills me with anger. Because basically this class i an opportunity for her to talk ad nauseum about motivaiton, and let's be honest. i just can't stand her voice and htat is that.

The deep frying incident of Fall 2006

Remember the deep frying i discussed last night. REMEMBER!! this is why no one should own a deep fryer, straight from the mouth of fernando's myspace profile. I love how they call it a "deep fried dinner" when they called around 10pm. disgusting, man

Why You Should Not Deep-Fry Bacon

“Wow, we’re the most disgusting people I know. I wish there were no witnesses.” –Hugo Shi.

This past Sunday we had a “deep fried” dinner. This included deep fried items such as chicken, vegetables, ice cream, and twinkies. You know, the usual. However, some of us, whose names will not be revealed, came up with the great idea of deep-frying bacon. In theory, it seemed like a great idea. Take a moment to think about it: delicious bacon dipped in batter, forming magical flavors as it deep-fries in the nutritious canola oil. It’s an instant winner! “Why hasn’t anyone thought of this?” we asked ourselves. We even considered making a Wikipedia entry in order to secure our names as the inventors of deep-fried bacon. This is how convinced we were that it would be great. So with great enthusiasm, we went ahead and did it. And here’s the best way to describe the taste: When you first bite into it, it tastes like bacon, until moments later when the fat and juices from within the bacon are released and form a little explosion in your mouth which overpowers all your senses with a severe case of nausea. Ten minutes later, the grease gently settles within the stomach forming a fortress, rendering the stomach useless for two days. So there you go. That is why you should not deep-fry bacon.

Lambda Lambda Lambda!!!

so tonight Ozan and i realized that grad school is kind of like a big frat for nerds. we act liek fratty mcfrats all the time. josh had his pseudo girlfriend/19 year old fuck buddy over (ewww!!) and ozan and i were really grossed out by the whole situation because we both can't stnad this girl. She just sits there....nothing. Ramit, she has No-Value Syndrome! Anyways Hugo called us and was like "yo guys come over!" and i was like "are we gonna get mexi melts?" and he was liek "no even BETTER!! fernando's here and we have a deep fryer and we're deep frying shit! we're gonna do ice cream and a twinkie and bacon!! deep fried bacon!! it's gonna be AWESOME!!" and ozan and i were like "nah man, we're gonna watch entourage (so fratty in and of itself) and chill tonight." and Hugo was like "fried bacon, guys!" Anyways we spent like an hour fiddling with ozan's computer trying to see if we could get it to play onto their giant screen tv so we could watch some ali G from you tube because we realized that josh has nothing but fucking horrible movies. This idea seemed super cool and for about 5 minutes we thought we were the shits of technology when we got it to work and we kept giving each other high fives like what and that poor 19 year old was just sitting there probably thinking "i'm way cooler than these peopel" or maybe she was just thinking "(empty space)" because she's kind of dumb. Anyways after about the 5th consecutive "high five man! don't leave me hanging! high five!!" we took a moment of silence and were just liek "who are we??" Anyways the frat party carries on.

back yard brawls and fall

guys, my brain is fried. I just spent the past 5 hours doing stats homework and i could tell it was time to stop when i started being really mean to my partner sujatha for no reason. i was arguing that a p and a b value were not the same and something about an F value and an ANOVA and variance and i was done for the day. hate.

anyways last nights sweater party turned out to be a huge bust. we showed up and the people had a poorly lit backyard, the cider/beer ran out, and they didn't have any music. what the fuck! who invites like half the grad student population to their house and runs out of beer and to top it off doens't have music for you to dance or at least girate to. so wierd. Anyways we were cool because we thought ahead and brought the bar with us in the form of a secret handle of vodka which was mysteriously finished off. did 6 of us really drink that much? was the question at the end of the night. judging by how i felt this morning, i'd say the answer was yes.

anyways the night started to get exciting when people started doing keg stands and it was ozan's turn for the keg stand. btw, ozan is a pretty big guy. So he gave me his digital camera because we were going ot start taking pictures and as he was lifted onto the keg i was fiddling wiht his camer. So it was dark and all i could see on the screen was darkness and i'm fiddling and i'm fiddling and i think the camera is on video and not picture mode, because it's a sony and i odn't know how to use sony's. So anyways i fiddle on and suddenly i hear a big crash and i see from the top of the camera lense ozan's legs flying toward me and he hits the ground and falls off the keg stnad and liek hits his head (i think) and i'm like...wahhh happpinnnn?? And then suddenly ozan jumps up and starts yelling and darts at this smaller dude named Evan and they get into an all out brawl! and they start rollign in the leaves!! leaves people!! it's fall...eeemaigne!! leaves!! and then they are rolling and people are like standing by not knowing waht to do and fernando is next to me and i'm thinking "quick what usually happens when fights break out at family parties. think think!!" and then i push fernando toward the ensuing brawl and i'm like "do something! break it up!" and ozan's pseudo girlfriend is standing on the side like...whaaaa happpinnn? and fernanod is liek "no i'm not jumping in there! ozan is big! he'll beat me up! " and i'm like "you're such a pussy, fernando." and then someone finally breaks it up and has to hold back ozan by pushing him against a 1994 blue saturn, which is liek sad in and of itself cuz it's a saturn. And the other guy Evan, gets dragged away by his girlfriend who proceeds to say "this shit is fucked up! let's go!' and they go and ozan is still being yelled at "chill man!! just chill!!" and dude talk is ensuing and it was so intense!!!

Ok so now for the "whaa actually did happppiiinn" part of the story. So context is that evan is roommates with ozan's ex girflriend, who apparntly ozan did not treat so well in the later stages of their relationship. so evan being kind of a douche doesn't like ozan and was liek "man if i ever see him i'm gonna kick his ass!" little did ozan know that when he opted for the keg stand evan jumped right in and offered to be the other person holding one of his legs up. that's where the problem started. So about 13 seconds into the keg stand (dude ozan is fucking intense!) evan basically just pushed ozan forward so ozan did a pseudo flip over the keg and ended up hitting the ground and thus...fighting began. it was rulllll deep. So at this point i'm like...wow how v. awkward for the poor girl ozan brought. And i was talkign ot her and i was liek "yeah this is kind of....awkward. once this guy i dated had a seizure in the first weeks of our relationship and it was really awkard because waht do you say." now in retrospect i see that this story made no sense in the context of the situation.

So anyways the party went downhill from there what with no music and the leaf brawl so we all decided to bounce and go to this slutty girl named roshin's house. The house was excellent! it was dark and had lots of good lighting and she had a lot of liquor so god knows why, but we all drank more. And drinking plus, darkness, plus good music can only lead to booty dancing and dancefloor scandal. point in case, Rika, the girl who gave lapdances at my last party proceeded to hit on adam AND fernando and the dancefloor got dirty. 3 broken glasses later they started playing "blister in the sun" and suddenly i closed my eyes and channeled the spirit of angela chase and proceeded to dance my hearts pain and i opened up and the dancefloor was empty all for fernando who was also dancing his hearts pain out and we proceeded to do this riducloiusly intense lip sing version of "blister in the sun" and when the song got quiet we got down on the floor and got quiet and whenthe song got loud we jumped up and got loud and we were like so fucking in synch it's not even funny!! and afterwards we were just liek "holy shit waht the fuck was that!! that was fucking AWESOME!! we were so in synch!!!! (pointing fingers at eyes back and forth)!! because really we were! it was intense. and then later in the night they played "praise you" by fat boy slim and again ferando and i were so nsync and we started doing interpretive dances and everyone was staring at us, mouth agape, like wtf guys? but we were acting out the music video and we were so good!

Anyways the night ended with rika sneaking off with fernnado and adam and me and my friend kristen walking home. ah what a night indeed. btw did i mention throughout this whole event i was wearing nothing but leggings, kitten heels, and a very ugly sweater i had managed to convert into a dress? oh yeah....i looked hot. eeemagine blue/purple/white snowflake print. and surprisingly it kept me quite warm!

so last night we had our Latino grad student caucus meeting which was pretty fun. Granted there are sitll a lot of people drinking the haterade, which i was not feeling. alot of judgement like "can i see your boots. those are cute." and then proceeding to give you bad looks the rest of the night. What the fuck! why the hateration! can't we all unite people! hello. Anyways once the haters left and it was nothing but the cool california peeps the night started to get progressively better. One thing i noticed, while mexicans are loud, we are not loud in the same way that dominicans, cubans, and puerto ricans are loud. They all like yell an dinterrupt each other and htere is a lot of screaming and dropping of letters in spanish and it's crazy. fucking islanders. But anyways Hugo, who turns out is not thai but rather taiwanese, invited us allout to go karaoking. I guess there is a place in ann arbor owned by a kolean family where htey rent the rooms out to you by the hour and you karakoke to your hearts desire. saddly i was so tired by midnight after night of latino sabor that i couldn' tmake it to the karaoke bar but i heard it was good times. but anyways this all segues into tonights big event. so we are all going (and by all i mean, my friends) to this thing called the "cider and sweater party." And i was thinking...yay cute sweater and a bonfire! no, turns out the theme is actuallly more nuanced that than. it's themed after the great bill cosby an dhis tacky but expensive sweater collection. So today the goal is to find a fugly sweater. So are kind of some ideas i was thinking of....

i could always just go for the big white fur coat i have, but that's kind of boring

then i had this epiphay, that i could somehow incorporate teh cappie hat and try to do liek a captian/sailor motif sweater. Do you think i could find such a sweater?? one can only dream. i'm gonna hit up the local second hand stores in an hour here. But i actually went to one ealrier this mornign and i realized something. What's cool about going to second hand stores in like sf and LA is that people in those cities have cool wierd shit to give away. Vs. michigan where no one dreses well so you get like a lot of plaid and orthopedic shoes. And i guess if my theme was lumberjack the second hand stores here would be awesome but they leave a lot to be desired in a very le sigh kind of way. Anyways i'm out...peeeeeeaaaaaaacccccccceeeeeeeee

gibran

This is in honor of orges and life and that girl and sandra cisneros and kahlil gibran...

Then a woman said, "Speak to us of Joy and Sorrow."

And he answered:

Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.

And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears.

And how else can it be?

The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.

Is not the cup that hold your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter's oven?

And is not the lute that soothes your spirit, the very wood that was hollowed with knives?

When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy.

When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.

Some of you say, "Joy is greater than sorrow," and others say, "Nay, sorrow is the greater."

But I say unto you, they are inseparable.

Together they come, and when one sits alone with you at your board, remember that the other is asleep upon your bed.

Verily you are suspended like scales between your sorrow and your joy.

Only when you are empty are you at standstill and balanced.

When the treasure-keeper lifts you to weigh his gold and his silver, needs must your joy or your sorrow rise or fall.

....

oh my god what a night of fucking profundity and serendipity and every emotion i could feel and joy and love and just...jodie foster said it best in the greatest movie ever made "contact"

"no words...should have sent a poet..."

first off it's FUCKING cold outside! i just walked back from a bar and my fingers are cold as a bitch and all the locals were claiming it felt like 30 but according to weather.com it's actually 44. i call bullshit. it can only go downhill from here and this is what worries me most.

anyways i am feeling so deep and emotional that all i can do is listen to some sufjan stevens and cry and weep and laugh etc etc. basically my life right at this moment is a cameron crowe film.

Ok so today one of my favorite authresses was in town talking on campus. I don't know if you have ever read any Sandra cisneros and maybe you have, and i hate to say this but if you are not mexican american her stuff won't touch you the way it touches us. basically she is the first author i have ever read where i felt like she was telling my story and not literally my story but the story of my people, of people who share my experience, of the american experience where we are still tied to our "motherland" that is not really our motherland but is. seriously it's some deep shit, and unless you have felt it you won't know. Anywyas she's a relaly good writer and i just love her for the fact that she puts it all out there and she's kind of a hero for me, an di will be honest, i've never had a mexican-american hero so it means alot to me. so she was here and i went to hear her speak and the auditorium was pretty empty which i thught was sad but not surprising. She gave a talk on why she does not like to be called "hispanic" oddly enough as the keynote speaker for "hispanic heritage month." so she gave this long talk, in a very mexican way, where she didn't directly answer the question, but she gave a story to describe and we coudl figure out from the story why she or we should not want to be called hispanic. I personaly don't want to be called hispanic. But this is all irrelevent because it was time for the Q and A and a few white women stood up and told her how wonderful she was as a "latina" and a black girl stood up and talked about how awesome she was and such and the quesitons were good but not profound. And then this young looking india girl stood up and walked to the mic and said

"Hi, i am a um...sophomore in high school right now...and um....i just love you because i am one of the only Mexican's in my school and it's hard and um....i'm....illegal...and my one dream is to go to college...and um...college here...at university of michigan...and (long pause) how do i do that? I thought i would ask you since...i don't know how to do that."

At this point the room went silent and sandra cisneros was silent and there was such desperation and hope in this girls voice and it was one of those moments in your life when you have no words but only emotions to describe how you feel and i just put my hands over my face and started crying because it was so sad and real and beautiful and desperate and every adjective in teh english language and spanish language too. I felt so...sad. just sad. It wasn't sympathy and it wasn't pity it was pure empathy. i felt such empathy for this poor girl who was probably brought here against her will and all she wants is to go to college and her question was not about SAT scores or GPA or letters of rec. her question was of the most simple basic kind...how do i do this? And i have been there, where all you want is to go to college but you have no strategy for how to do that. i felt for her so much.

Anywyas just like the rest of us sandra didn't know what to say so she was just liek "mija i dont' know what to tell you. I am so sorry and i pray for you and i just hope that you know that everythign will work out and you just keep doing what you know how to do best and things always fall into place and there is a reason for you being here and me being here and knwo that you have angels watching over you always." and NO ONE knew what to say because waht do you say to that! an di don't know why i cried. I cried for my dad and my tia eloisa and the kid that david took care of who had kidney failure because he went 10 days through the arizona desert with no water and i cried for that poor girl who had no tools for how to survive in this country. I went up to her later and i gave her my information and told her that if she ever needed anything she coudl call me and i would help her. I hope she calls me.

so at this point i was feelign really sad and i went to josh's so we coudl go out an di told him the story and he cried too because i was crying and we were both crying and drinking and there were no words because sometimes there are no words. Anyways after all of that drew came over and we went out for a drink and i will be honest, i was kind of depressed and felt liek crying more. Bu ti didn't. So i was going to take my backback and drew said that i would look lame if i did that so i left it there. We got to the bar 10 minutes later and i realized....my id was in my backpack. fuck. So i walked back alone to have some time by myself to process the night when i walked by this random old sad looking man selling books on the side of the street. 5$ a book. I glanced over his selection as i kept walking when i noticed a familiar cover. It was the cover of "the prophet" by kahlil gibran, which is by far one of the most beautiful peices of literature/philosophy i have ever read in my life. I left my copy back in LA and so i happened to by chance have a 5 on me and so i figured, you know, in the spirit of serendipity and this night i would purchase this book. So i did and i called orges because this is ourbook together and i decided, what a great way to purchase this awesome book!! the plan is to read it again, soak it in, and pay that shit forward by passing it on to another reader.

so basicallly what it all comes down to is that i am not a writer, i do not express myself well. I had a sad night that turned into a great night that made me realize that everything happens for a reason. But i guess overall tonight i kidn of saw the beauty of humanity and as angela chase once said:

"Sometimes it seems like we're all living in some kind of prison, and the crime is how much we all hate ourselves. It's good to get really dressed up once in a while and admit the truth -- that when you really look closely, people are so strange and so complicated that they're actually beautiful. Possibly even me."

I less than 3 football

not really much to say. all i do is read. i could bore you by explaining the difference between goal oriented theory and goal content theory but seriously, what a snore. what i am excited about is that i'm going to SF in 2 weeks ish and i'm gonna see david and cathy!!! and ivan and bobby!!! and silvia!! all of that was in no particular order except the first one. And through a ridiculous chain of emails ovre the past 2 days it has been decided that we shall mock the straights by throwing an ironic "return of the hags, in a non gay way" tailgate party!! ahh eeemagine us in the parking lot of the new stanford stadium tailgating!! with like beer brats and shit. it's gonna be ridic! but a few quesitons. how does one tailgate? i'm talking logistics, how does one get a parking spot and what not. liek how early do we have to be there for this whole extravaboganza? anyone know? Also surprise surprise my peeps i also made us reservations at Asia SF for that night, the scene of ivan previously being accosted by a young asian bridal party. good times.

I haven't drank in like 3 days...is this why i feel depressed?

dudes so can i just talk about how I am a culinary genius! ok actually I am not really but if you tell me waht to do i can make it work. So Daveeed the Cuban invited me over for some dinner since i let him use my washing machine for free. Anyways he had made some cuban frijoles negros and white rice which was the BOMB!! And then he had the brilliant idea to make some beer brats. So what we did was we boiled like 3 or 4 bottles of beer, added some slices of onion for sabor then dropped in the uncooked brats. We let that shit boil and cook on the inside, then we grilled that shit up and stuck it in a whole wheat bun and seriously, so good. Tomorrow Josh's grandma is making me meatloaf. what a weekend of american food exploration! Anyways I highly recommedn trying this beer brat thing cuz seriously, i don't even like sausages and i appreeccciiiated. ok wait i lie, i really like hot links but mostly i don't like sausages.

Are you ready for some football??

oh man what a weekend, and yes granted, the weekend is not over, but it's gonna be sunday and i need sunday to be a day of productivity thus the weekend is in a way kind of over. Anyways orges came into town as discussed in a previous post and it was SUCH good times. I will go into detail later but basically we talked about deep shit, and i bought a puffy jacket! 700 goose down count!! eeemagine!! and orges was shocked to find that i am in fact already an REI coop member. I know..living with dan had some positive effect on me.

Anyways i would just like to talk about other ways that i have changed since the 3 weeks that i have moved to the mid west. a few minutes ago i was on the phone with david and i brought up football. i know!! and context...he is a wildcat fan, i always date people who have some crazy fanatic relationship with a random team. anyways his is the wildcats. So consequently he hates the ASU sun devils. So anyways Michigan beat Wisconsin today cuz we are da bomb and slowly edging our way up from number 6 ranked in the football nation to being number 1 and when we are number one david and i are totes gonna go tailgate in phoenix at the national champships. and CAN YOU BELIEVE I AM SAYING THESE THINGS AND THAT I KNOW WHERE AND WHEN THE NATIONAL CHAMPTIONSHIPS IS LET ALONE THAT I KNOW THE RANKINGS OF COLLEGE FOOTBAL!#@$#k@jijij#k####djfkj!!!!! And then at one point david was liek "man Cal totally whooped ASU's ass" and without missing a beat i said "do you mean the way that we totally kicked Notre Dame's ass last week!!??!!" and he said "YEAH!!" and it was like the most ridiculous moment of my life because i actually knew what i was talking about in relation to football!!! who am i!


I'VE CHANGED!!!!

Is this what it's like to be at a sports school that actually wins??

guests are teh bomb

Tonight, my friends, i would like to introduce my guest blogger....the one and only Orges, mother fucking what!!

cristina and i are watching the season premiere of grey's anatomy, which is to say cristina is watching it and i am asking random questions about all the characters
and i wanted to have something deep to write about tonight, as i feel this is a pretty damn important event, my first guest blog entry in my best friend's blog
and i know how important blogs are to our generation
but the truth is, guys, i don't have a lot of deep things to talk about
and the reason behind this is not because i am not a deep person, or that i don't have relatively fascinating things to talk about, or that i think less than majestic things about myself
the reason i find myself short on ideas is that i'm here
I'M HERE
i'm in the presence of a friend who is most close to me, and when we are apart from each other, we have deep conversations with each other once a week or once a month or whatever, but this last couple of days, we have been together nonstop, and it has been everything you can imagine it would be
all the things we would want to talk about, all the things that can't be discussed over the phone or interwebs, they have all been approached from a different viewpoint, and from a different perspective, and frankly, from a different place, not because of anything, but because the immediacy of personal contact changes the way people talk about things with each-other
and that, my dearest friends, is the one thing i can talk about that is even remotely deep
but seriously, who cares???

what i really want to talk about with all of you is how much i miss this personal contact with all of you
i miss the daily interactions that are personal and not over the phone or IM or any other online journal or whatever
i miss the actual physical reactions that interesting conversations can have on people
and i guess the reason why this is relevant to me is that now i am unemployed, and i have very, very little tying me down to chicago, so i am virtually free to do anything or go anywhere
and i am thinking about moving back to california, or even new york!
in the words of cristina, can you eeeeemagine!!!

on a sidenote, pay it forward!!! advertisements can sometimes be genius, is all

anyway
the thing i am trying to talk about is my life, and the thing about my life that i am coming to realize, is this
in the last year, i have felt safe about my life
i have felt comfortable
i have felt as if nothing were going to change, and that my life was going to go in one direction
and that anything i wanted to do with my life, i could do it later, and i could worry about it later, but that's not true anymore!
at the risk (nay, assurance) of being a cliche, life is too short to delay things
and i have delayed things
i have put off things that i thought were important to me, and i have done so at the expense of my overall spiritual well-being, and i am only now realizing this, now that, when i think or plan on doing something there is a massive amount of uncertainty, and this uncertainty makes me realize how much i have sacrificed in the name of comfort or ease of living
how many museum exhibits or gallery openings or movies or plays or what have you have i missed because i would think to myself, man, i can catch this shit another time
truth is, you don't know that other time is coming, so my advice to you is as much a cliche as anything you will ever read
or hear
or whatever
carpe fucking diem
seize the day
do shit now!
don't procrastinate, don't put things off, don't rely on anything
i am findind myself now with free time on my hands, and it's not free time, it's just time that i always had but never put to good use
and that's not the point!
the point is that life is a fleeting, ever-changing, ridiculously dynamic experience, and that one little thing or another cannot dictate more than a finite series of events that follow it
and the real thing to take from this, for me at least, is that our notions of power and duty and responsibility and desires and everything else, all these things are basically dependent on other things which are beyond our control
and not just in the strictest sense that we cannot control them, but in the sense that we cannot control who we are and therefore cannot control how we react to some of these things
all my life i have strived to be logical and rational and in charge of everything i do, but the truth is, some things are just beyond me
and the way that i have reacted to what i have had to deal with in this last week is not exactly what i had envisioned
i have been a little paralyzed, a little frozen, a little taken aback by it all, and i don't know that i can justify that
and frankly, i don't know that i want to
it's ok, i am learning, to be completely vulnerable sometimes, and it's ok to occasionally just break down and lose it a little bit
and it's ok, also, to accept these things
and in the spirit of being who i am, it's ok to realize these things, embrace them, and then try to learn from them!
try to learn that some experiences will cripple you, and that once this happens, you need to do something, and this something need not always be constructive
as we all are different people, we move through things at different paces, and my pace, i am finding, is not what i had hoped it would be
and my feelings were hurt more than i initially let on, and my outlook on life was thrown off a little more than i imagined, and my overall attitude is still the fucking same!
my attitude has not changes

i
got
this
shit!

and that concludes our guest entry for the night
as a sidenote, the season premiere of grey's anatomy was only mildly interesting, sorry! i still love you all

Paying it forward

guys my friend from forever was telling me about this amazing story. the other night he was walking his dog in the park and he noticed something sitting on a bench. it was a painting on canvas of mostly primary colors. It was these two cute little monsters, one blue and one red. And they both had big goofy smiles. on the painting was attached a note and it said "this painting is yours if you promise to smile more often at random people." He siad he thought this was aewsome and began to ponder where he would put the painting in his house when he walked to the trashcan to throw away some poop. But as he turned around there was another guy walking his dog and he noticed the painiting and was laughing and asked my friend if he had seen it. my friend said yeah. he then said "that's a good deal" and asked my friend if he wanted the painting since my friend had seen it first. my friend responded "well i was going to take it if you didn't but you can have it." the man said "my girlfriend will like it" and walked away. my friend sat there and began to ponder why the hell he had given away the painting that was so awesome and had such meaning to him. he told me that he felt it was foolish on his part and retold the story to me. 3 words popped into my head

PAY IT FORWARD!!!

dude is this not the most amazingly profound beautiful artistic way of expressing pay it forward! liek seriously the artist's sole intent in creating art was to pay it forward, and really isn't that what real art is? just a way to pay it forward to the world and pass on love and shit. I told my friend that he had in fact done the right thing by paying it forward to the man in the park, which i secretly think was the whole intent of the artist. seriously creating a piece that inspires another human to pay it forward and so on and so on...what is more beautiful that that. so anyways in honor of paying it forward i found a link to the most awesome commercial ever. I saw it the other day while i was watching dancing with teh stars and i had to pause a rewind liek 3 times because it was so fucking amazing. i immediately called bobby and cathy with tears in my eyes and was liek "pay it forward commercial!!!" they can attest to this. anyways bobby has seen the commercial and agrees that it is fucking amazing. and here it is. btw the lyrics to the song in the commerical are also separately amazing, i will link to those too. ignore the last 2 seconds of the commercial where you see the company's slogan, but seriously guys, all i ask is that you PAY IT FORWARD!!! pass on the love

PASS ON THE LOVE

THE BOMB LYRICS

a night of deep thoughts

le sigh le sigh...it's getting fucking cold here guys. it's like 37 degrees. eeemagine!!!
i did a lot of reading today in my office and classes and what not and tomorrow is going to be basically the same thing. but tonight as with all tuesday nights i ended up at josh's with drew for a little "night cap." thus is life as a professional student. somehow we ended up watching raiders of the lost arc and now in our old age we began to ponder certain incongruent facts of the movie. like...why does indie pack a whip? like what made him think, "my weapon of choice is a whip?" I mean really why? drew reminded us that as we see in 3rd indiana jones they explain that indie got stuck on a circus train with lions and found a whip and tamed the lions with said whip. My question was though, did they know about this before they wrote raiders of the lost arc or were they like years later "dude why does indie use a whip? we really need to tie that into the 3rd movie." things that we will never know...

then cathy called me and informed me that she was currently at pac sunwear purchasing some board shorts. i found this such an odd juxtaposition with the fact that it is currently 37degrees in ann arbor and i'm in the process of searching for a poofy jacket to survive the winter. guys 37 degrees!! or as the locals call it "a nice fall briskness." fall!! it's not even winter and it's 37 degrees! wha t the fuck! cathy is buying board shorts and it's 37 degrees out here!! alright, i got a nice buzz and i'm gonna go to sleep...leeeee siiiighhhh

what lurks in your bag lettuce

guys i have to tell you about a new fear that is currently pervading my life! my life i say! a few months ago back in the days of SF, which oddly enough i realize now was way more than a few months ago but whatever. Point being.... dan ivan and i were tivoing 60 minutes not because we actually watch 60 minutes because we are way too shallow for real news. Instead rather i believe we were tivoing it because angelina jolie was going to be interviewed in namibia. Ok so again i digress, the first report was this really dramatic woman travelling through the midwest talking to people who had gotten ecoli from eating bag lettuce. apparently bag lettuce is like a really bad thing and you could die. but the best part, and we rewound it a couple of times because it was so enjoyable, was the part when the woman shows a bag of lettuce and it zooms in and very dramatically pauses as the woman informed us that "you don't know what lurks in your BAG LETTUCE!!!" and it was funny and i didn't think too much about it nor did i heed her warning.

well let's zoom forward to the present where i was the purchaser of said bag of lettuce last week at the super market. well anyways i ate that bag lettuce and there was still a bit left. But yesterday ozan, josh, drew, and i went to meijer which is like a whole different entry in and of itself (one stop shopping! it's like the poor man's walmart. i know right, you didn't think you could get poorer than walmart, but turns out you can). So i was noticing my basket compared to the boys basket of food. mine had things like soy milk, kashi cereal, fruit, cold cuts, meats, canned veggies. Ozan and josh on the other hand had hungry man frozen dinners, lots of pasta for making casseroles (their new big thing), cream of various disgusting things soup, and stove top stuffing among other things. So i asked drew about the kinds of food that he ate since i figured drew is a much more functional human being than the boys are. he listed of various healthy meals etc etc and then he got on the topic of bag spinach and we started talking about how bag spinach is bad and tainted and then i started thinking about my bag lettuce back home and how i really DIDN'T know what might be lurking in my bag lettuce. anyways this morning i decided to wake up and cook my meals for the week and consequently i came across that very same bag of lettuce from last week and i meant to use it to dress my sangwhich but in the end i stuck my hand in it and got the fear.

WHAT WAS LURKING IN MY BAG LETTUCE!! could it be ecoli...or maybe....or maybe the plague...or maybe cher in a bob mackey outfit singing "if i could turn back time"! ok wait that last one would be AWESOME. But seriously guys maybe it was just lettuce. i didnt' want to risk it so i threw it away. so i write this warning to you all, beware of your bag lettuce. for the love of god people just buy the head of lettuce or the bushel of spinach and wash that shit yourself! it could save your life for reals.

weekend recap

i gotta say i have been a complete and total waste of space the past day and a half. i'm currently sitting in my office clearly writing this instead of reading about statistics. tomorrow i am going ot have to be really intense about reading or else i'll fall behind. grad school is SO EXTREME! anyways Friday night was truly the definition of GOOD times. my housemates threw a party and so a few of my peeps came over and we partied in my basement and played some drinking game called "get on the bus" or "ride the bus" or something. clearly it was a good game since i can't actually remember the title nor how to play it. anyways between like 7 of us we finished off a handle and a bunch of beers and a case of smirnoff ice. we are lushes. we were also a majority of the latino caucus of umich which probably explains the lush factor. Anyways here are some photos of that good night. it was so good that people styaed until 4 am and then we went to fernandos house for left over pizza and then i didn't go to bed until like 5:30. The next day josh woke me up and 9 becuase i had promised him we'd go to the mall to give him a make over. i was so tired and hung over i just kept yelling "why???!" and "wretched!!!" we came back to he and ozan's apartment around noon and watched when harry met sally and i passed out on their couch for an hour while they cleaned their apartment. then josh came to my house and i made him watch survivor. he peaced out and i fell asleep watching a celebrity fit club marathon. then i went to some house party down the street for higher ed where i was promised some dinner by ozan. turned out dinner meant bagle bites and pizza minis and twinkies. nice, very nice. ozan and i tried to rally and headed out to pj's to meet up with some peeps and i decided i wasnt' going to drink that night so that i coudl function on sunday. well by not drinking i meant i'd only have 2 drinks, which is almost like not drinking. turns out ann arbor by night when sober is kind of boring. but we ended the night on a high note as we danced to this 20 minute jam rendition of "i'm every woman" and all kinds of white ladies where doing crazy dance moves that i cannot put into words. and now here i am....learning stats. it's like "hi, i'm in delaware."

the night started out with the obligatory fernando posing like a cholo picture. next to him is Adam, our new friend/pot dealer. very exciting for everyone.
here is my one azian friend Hugo! he's cool and all about political action and i think he's thai but i like to pretend that he's filipino because his name is hugo and that sounds latin. and then there is kristine, my nica (short for nicaraguense) friend from women's studies. she's ghetto but cool
note my new red couch. eeemagine. i don't remember what incited the arm raising but it must have been very exciting. it's also nice to see that hwen it comes to that elusive red cup, it crosses all age gaps.
this is the quintessential ozan dance move. there is a lot of fist pumping, a lot of jumping, and a lot tight eye shutting. he gets really into it. also note the missing paint on my walls from the water damage. i think the white part kind of looks like jesus with a dove above his head but it could just be the catholic in me.
me and fernando. i had to make him swear he would not do a cholo pose. on the other hand i am clearly drunk.
here is me an dmy new gay boyfriend daveed. he's cuban and from wisconsin and has a fiance back home and he's generally kind of ridiculous and loud and i taught him the meaning of faching so i think we get alog well
this was a crazy hawaiin chick named rika who was trying to give david a lap dance. she was pretty smashed and proceeded to give said lap dance to every guy in the room.
sexy
and thus the weekend has come to an end. le sigh indeed.

PICTURES! AND RANDOM BARS

so last night was a thursday night which in mich terms was just another excuse to go out. so we did, and i brought my camera and took pictures to prove that i do in fact kind of have friends. the night started at 8 when the boys and i were going to watch survivor: black vs. white vs latino vs. asian! it was going ot be awesome! sadly though due to some technical difficulties with the guys' cable that plan was scratched. Luckily i tivoed that shit at my house and it truly was amazing when i watched it this morning. seriously, ya'll need to watch, so fascinating. So then we decided to start the night out early and head to some sports bar where the business school was having a party. lame. business school parties always make you feel like you are at a grown up frat party. also i hate sports bars for various reasons including that i don't like beer or sports so the whole thing is kind of lost on me.

Luckily though ozan and josh agreed that this place sucked alot so then we headed to a few other bars and ended up later later that night we met up with fernando and drew. Ozan was digging this chick and oddly enough i recognized as going to stanford. so we chatted, i introduced them and was a fantastic wing man. who knew? so this bar that we ended up going to was v. random. It's called the circus bar and they randomly have karaoke mixed with a dj and the theme is circus so they have like free popcorn on the tables and a popcorn machine and wierd clown shit everywhere and this giant stuffed lion jumping out of a fiery hoop on the wall behind the bar. Oh and random fun house mirrors everywhere. seriously that and liquor make for a very strange night where you feel like the scene in "fear and loathing in las vegas" when they enter circus circus. i brilliant theme bar i think. Anyways michigan karaoke is really different from cali karaoke. they sing like "sweet home alabama" and wierd this like that. they didn't even have "living on a prayer" on their song list. i don't know, i have yet to be impressed. i did sing some journey and i did get the party started because you know michigan peeps totes love journey as you can eeemagine. The best part about circus bar though was their drink specials. .55 cent pbr's! eeeeeeemagine!!! where in the world can you buy a beer for .55 cents. i don't even drink beer but i couldn't say no to that deal plus people were buying "rounds" for like 2.75 so i had a couple and it was good times. nothing like some good old pbr to get people excited and bonding. Anyways there was double fisting galore. Then we went downstairs to this other place called live at pj's which was not live but rather had some awesome 80's hip hop playing and we all got up and danced to some bel biv devoe. there i ran into the gayest straight man i have ever met, lloyd who is filipino, and chubby and gay but not gay and generally just kind of awesome. we sang careless whisper together and talked about how you really can't "trust a big butt and a smile." truth, guys, truth. and without further ado, photographs.

Josh and I having a cocktail. Note the fiery ring in the back of the bar as discussed above. Anyways oddly this picture looks like i stood next to a random guy at the bar and told my friends "take a picture quick quick!" But i actually do know josh, he was just in a pissy mood and thus not too excited about the picture taking.
Joshy and drew being amorous. Drew is "that guy" who always looks like he hates going out yet he goes out all the time and acts like he's not having a good time even though you know he secretly is haviing a good time. that's drew.

This seems ot be Fernando's pictures face as this is the face he always has in all his pictures. something about being a "hard foo."
my question is, what is going on with my hair? like seriously. focus on the beer.

Ozan being all loud and shit and Drew. do you see how Ozan kind of borders on being a frat boy. he's good peeps.
At one point drew was double fisting and had this brilliant realization that he could store his extra beer in his chest pocket. I later had a brilliant realizatoin that i could suck from the teet of the drew.

I like to call this picture "alcoholism"
See we were actually posing in the background so we thought we were taking a real picture with our beers but it just turned into a pictures OF our beers.

Point of all these pics being, i hope you all appreeeccceeeeiate that when we are not drinking all of us are working hard to fix the gaps in the education system in america so that someday your kids can go to harvard. word!

YEAR OF THE DOG!!

it's back guys! and with a fucking vengeance! i have to get ready for class so i can't go into the details of which i know nothing yet but basically an entire wall (including the one that holds my tv i might add, is currently leaking water!! ahh! i don't know what this menas as far as "can i live in this room" "will there be mildew and shit growing" but basically i know this is not good! fuck!!!!!!!!!!! and now i have to move my tv and i might have to unplug tivo. why????!!!

Dancing In Heaven

so i'm watching the dancing with the stars results show. i admit it guys, i love ABC's crappy family programming. Extreme makeover home edition is the bomb as is dancing with the stars! So i gotta say favorites, emitt smith. who knew! Also i love his partner. I also love vivica A. Fox. I'm really upset though because i accidentally missed the first 20 minutes yesterday and consequently missed this! Bald dancing joey lawrence! damnit!! this was the only reason i was going to watch. Apparently i read that he came out in a cowboy outfit, did lik e a jump kick and tore his pants. can't believe i missed it. But actually what made the show even more worth watching was Mario Lopez and all the stereotypical words they used to describe him like "latino" "spicy" "lover" "hoooottttt". ok we get it, he's latin. Also he can dance but in that really sleazy "hi my name is RRRrrrramon" kind of way. Actually it's literally like "hi my name is maaaarrrrrio." it kind of grosses me out . Also he's AC Slater and we just can't go there.

On another Saved by the bell note, i had a very Jesse Spano "I'm so excited" kind of moment today when i found out i had to back up my computer and reinstall windows. it seemed liek a really stressful horrid thing to have to do at the time and i definitely starting flipping out wiht fernando randomly talking about the year of the dog striking again and now i think he thinks i'm crazy. Also all of this computer stress was causing my hyperhydrosis to act up like what thus in the end i felt very "scared...i'm so scared zach!" crisis averted though, turns out reinstalling windows when you have an external hardrive is not such a big deal..i mean it still sucked and i still had to buy said external harddrive but now that it's all over i feel rejuvinated and born again.

On another note, anyone else see this yesterday. Lindsey Lohan's faching! ahh!! Shaved faching! ahh!

First day of the rest of my life

So today i woke up early, around 8, went to talk about the multicultural affairs guy about potentially helping him create a "cohesive latino community." The cuban and i outlines a game plan and he loves us and we might work with him. Very exciting. dissertation on mexican american identity here i come! Then it was about 9:30 and i headed to my office in the basement of the school of ed, and proceeded to read straight for like 4 or 5 hours. i went to a meeting in there somewhere and then i also went to the gym! eeemagine me running for 10 minutes straight! this is alot for me. i walked on high incline the rest of the time and ran a little bit in there but the point is that i did 10 minutes without stopping. i think partially the reason i was able to do this was that i was runinng in front of the mirror, which was a first time for me. all this timei was thinking i looked like a goof while running, but turns out i looked like all the other treadmill runners and thus my confidence was built and thus i went that extra few minutes and just fucking ran.

The odd thing about toda ywas that i read and did shcool work like it was my job because in essence it is basically my job. it was very strange to be reading, and talking about and critically thinking about things tha ti actulaly care about and being paid for them. i've spent the past year kind of forgetting what my purpose and passion was and so when i got here and people were asking me about my research project i couldn't relaly verbalize it but i'm slowly getting it back. minority identtity development, specifically academic and ethnic identity. more specifically how awareness of negative stereotypes like affirmative action and "the achievement gap" affect self esteem of minority students and consequently cause mediating effects on their academic identity and performance in school. don't i sound like i know waht i'm talking about.

on a lighter note, then josh and i went to the 8ball saloon and drank and listened to tom waits and waxed lyrical on things like when his sister first got her period (i know why?) and when we lost our virginities and just general things that one talks about in a seedy bar where drinks cost $3 and tom waits is playing in the background. Ann arbor continues to border on depressing but bearable. it's wierd, i cannot put into words. If i had no friends and no boyfriend waiting for me in SF and no alcohol i would hate it. but as long as i have at least 1 of those things i think i'm good.

random stuff

So today ozan and i drove to the local ikea which seemed like miles away but barely took a quarter of a tank. Anyways 4 hours of ikea later i felt that ozan and i were officially bonded for life. seriously a really intense trip to ikea can really make people friends forever "Rremember that time we went to ikea..." it's deep. Anyways i bought a couch. v. exciting!! and it's not a futon it's like a legit couch that i could move at some point in my life. and it's not some wierd euro furniture it could pass for being a real couch and this excites me because it's almost like having real furnitre and as i said before, having real furniture is the first step into semi adulthood for a grad student. yay for me! anyways then we kicked it as his place, created mood lighting and then watched best in show with a bunch of random people. i think josh is sleeping with a 19 year old undergrad because this random very quiet girl was there and we were all too scared to ask her what deparmtnet she was in for fear that she would say "oh i haven't declared a major yet." i felt dirty afterwards. Fernando came over to watch some important football game on their big screen but we were too scared to let him know that in fact the cable in kerrytown was all out. big fat bummer indead. Then i met peopel from massachussets and texas who regaled us with tales of going to summer camp and cowboy ranch camp. At this point Fernando and i lamented the fact that we only knew about summer camp from watching nickelodeon "hey dude" and "camp anawana" and that we really wished that someday we could go to summer camp and be camps counserlors like bill murray on "meatballs" and ride canoes and shit like that, and it would be so awesome. i have way too many fantasies of how awesome summer camp could bE!! anyways point being this chick is tight with some summer camp in maine and is gonna write me and fernando letters of rec and we're gonna be camp counselors this summer!! alright, likelehod of that happening, slim, but eeemagine!! Some people dream of seeing the parthenon, i just wanna go to summer camp.

then we went to a history dept house party which had like this wierd mix of r kelly "ignition" and hall and oats "maneater" playing and i was not impressed. everyone was just talking about hisotry and in grad school it's v. key to get beyond our focuses and talk about real life stuff, like "do you think tom and katie's baby is for reals???!" So then i split up with the group and met up with Fernando again at Bab's for a cocktail and some general revelry. we both bonded over growing up protestant and having things like bibl estudy and the poor mans girls/boys scouts known as "royal rangers" and "primms." it was kind of ghetto. anyways he showed me this game where you have 6 pencils and straws or wahtever, 3 each, and you touch the tips and whichever way the straws turn the devil will answer a question. it was a game called "talk to the devil" and i guess logistically it's hard to explain wihtout being there. Anyways i was kidn of scared cuz it reminded me of playing "bloody mary" in the bathroom in middle school and how frankie gallardo came out of the bathroom with scars on his chest because bloody mary scratched him and THESE ARE THE THINGS THA T HAPPEN WHEN YOU MESS WITH WITCHCRAFT!! true story guy. anyways we played this "ask the devil" game and we asked "is tom and katie's baby really their child?" and the straws went opposite directions. we flipping out cuz it was truly the spirit of the devil! either htat or i thought it might have been the spirit of l. ron hubbard channeling our game and fucking with us. I don't know but we crossed our self real quick. Anyways it was good times.

Then i walked alone to this public policy party to meet up again with Ozan and i had the most LA but not really LA moment. it was like a twin peaks experience to the max. let me explain. So i was walking down an empty residential street but the streets here are creepy because there are a lot of trees and shit and you can eeemagine a girl wiht a jump rope singing "one, two, freddy's coming for you." Anyways this car rolls up next to me with two guys in it and i'm like thinking, oh shit let me get ready for an attack. And then the car slows down and busts a u turn in front of me and i'm thinking "shit shit shit play a, b, and c for survival, get your phone ready." Then the car turns around and, get this, TURNS OFF IT'S HEAD LIGHTS! Ok for anyone from a LA, a car with two sketchy guys that rolls up next to you, slows down, and turns off it's lights, means they are going to gang bang you and have some for reals gang warfare and shoot you. i was seriously scared. Then the car pulls into the driveway next to me real slow. At this point i panic/get my shit togehter and kind of start to speedwalk, turn around to see if i see them, and then run to the other side of the street where i hear people. At this point i ran inot David, the cuban and i was liek "ahh i almost got attacked by an ann arbor gang!!" and then i noticed the guys were just turning off their headlights to pull into their driveway and go home. it was the most "oh my god i'm so LA" moment of my life! Michigan is so wierd!! no fear of drive by's and stuff. SO WIERD!!

so a week into grad skeeewwl and i can tell you guy now my observations. i'm starting to see a patern. While these peopel are very fun i have come to the realization that the reason that thye all drink so much is that they are all moderatly depressed. I mean imagine that you are loving your life on a "i am passionate and care about what i'm doing" kind of level, but you have no material belongings worth anything, you have no retirement plan, you have no one to share your life with, and to top it off you can't even have a one night stand because you are stuck in the small town of ann arbor where grad students make up about 95% of the population and therefore the 5 bars that you frequent you are destined to run into th esame people and therefore the whole "we can bone and i won't see you ever again" thing wont' ever happen. Because the reality is that as awesome it is to be helping people and doing something good for humanit in the end as fernando put it "sometimes you just wnat to stay home, watch a movie with someone, and then bone." And it's true. so i'm finding that sometimes people just drnk to have something to do so taht they dont' end up sitting alone in their basement apartment watching reruns of dawsons creek. i don't know waht the point of this is. i guess it's to say that if i'm 29 and have no marriage prospects or no one to at least watch a movie and bone with i might turn to severe alcoholism. these are things that really run through my head on a regular basis. and honestly honestly this is a hard life, academia. i don't know, i guess i'm just hoping that someday it will all pay off and i will feel like my life was worth something and that i somehow helped someone...ok i'm drunk and getting a bit too emo for the blogger.

So i just got back from going out for Fernando's bday. it was good times. we went to some place called alley bar which was really just a bar that had some guy named dj jazzy jeff or dj something or other playing. What was odd though was that i showed up and was like "hey wait, i know you, dj jazzy jeff!" Apparently this was a guy named brian that i had met at a bbq a few days earlier. v. random. anyways it was good times, fernando got hella drunk and started yelling things like "hey hey remember when we were younger and we said 'you got moded!!'" and i did remember and no one else remembered but us because we are both mexican from la. anyways at one point he was like "hey guys did you hear about paris hilton and how she got arrested. that shit is wack!" and i was like "where did you read about that?" thinking he was going ot say msnbc or something. and he stopped, paused in his drunken state and goes "perez hilton fool!!!" and then started laughing and i was liek "shut the shit up you read perez too!" and he was liek "yeah fool it's the bomb!!" Yes people, someday the two of us will be designing curriculum to improve the education system for your children. I know, you're excited.

day 2

wow day 2 was way different from day 1. it was very similar to my old master's year experience. i didn't even drink! how strange. i went to this morning seminar to shop it and i really dont thnk i'm going to take it because as much as i love the super dorky indian professor i really don't like cognitive psych so that's that. then i bummed around the school of ed and the psych departent with Sujatha, my indian classmate who is obsessed with my hair. She said i was the mexican version of her indian childhood friend and that she felt thatshe had known me forever. We went to the psych building for free printing and then realized that the class that we have tomorrow actually had a really huge reading assigment. Like freaking 300 pages of reading! so ridiculous! The professor is the crazy lesbian with the crazy jewlery and she was all liek "i want us to discuss!" but the exclamation was not one of excitement it was more scary and "we will discuss whether you like it or not!" so then i strted reading about motivation which is not as interesting as you all might imagine. it's actually quite intuitive and boring

Then we had a ed psych "party." this is when you know you are a psych nerd. It was the students and professors and we are really small department so we're pretty tight. Anyways all the pforessors are bff and they make psych/ed jokes all the time and t he dorky indian professor who does cognitive psych brought a cognitive card game called "sets" and made us play and we were all like "um where is the alcohol" cuz seriously. but ok she's cute and i sitll like her. Anyways this is what psych nerds do for fun! we play cognitively motivating games that promote thinking. yeah! then i shot the shit wiht jamaal and fernando and they told me that contraty to what our department chair said we actually should not take 4 classes. Thank god. Granted at stanford i used to take like 5 classes, do my own research, and have 2 campus jobs but i tel you, that relaly sucked and i wouldn't wish it on anyone. And then Kai, oir other professor, this nice little german man who took his wife's last name when they married, told us that we didn't have to take 4 classes. i love kai.
how can you not love this man! this is his professional umich departmental picture. I think i see another academic crush coming on.

Anyways i went home at like 4 only to find that our internet was down and all the readings i had to do were conveniently located online. as much as i love the idea of not having to pay for coarse readers there is also something nice about not having to read off of a computer or print 50000 pages of readings. i don't know, don't you guys agree. this whole move toward online text reading is cool but has some major drawbacks like, oh i don't know, when you dont' have internet! so then i raod my bike to the psych lab and read there on their big screen for a few hours and then i realized the reading wasn't actually that ridiuclous. it was still 300 pages but i neglected to remember that psych readings always have like 25 to 40 pages of work cited so in reality it was only like 150 pages of reading which is totally doable and not at all ridiculous. now i feel like a pussy for complaining to the older kids that i thought it was alot of reading to do in a night. god, cristina, get your shit togehter! you went to stanford! shine like the fucking light that you are! but seriously i have to get my shit together which is what i'm doing right now, one more article to go. then i'm going ot my new gay friend David's house to watch project runway. watch out ivan, you might be replaced.

skeeewwwwl day 1!!

I gotta say the whole school thing, a bit of a let down. I want do research already. but for now i have to take stats and some seminar in my area and a couple other cognitive related classes. so my stats profesor is this latino man named rich gonzalez and he uses this cool computer/tablet so he can draw and he gives us analogies for math like "finding the mean is like balancing a seesaw" and then he drew the seesaw. and guys, i know it's pretty stadard for me to have odd attractions to famous psychologists and statisticians and rich is no exception. I am oddly aroused. As we walked out i grabbed my friend Kristine, ie fake saski, and was like "hey was it just me or was he" and she was liek "hot??!!" and i was liek "YES!" So see i'm not the only one.

Then i went and opened up a bank account. oh did i mention of ann arbor doesn't have any major banks in it. what the fuck! like not even a bank of america or anything. so point being in order to be able to cash my stipend and access the money and waht not i had to open a new account. then i went and visitted my office with my fellow classmates. dude they are wierd. i kind of have this fear that they might read this at some point and this actually legitly scares me because hello, we share an office! but let me tell you, the indian girl is seroiusly obsessed wtih my hair in a very "single w hite female" kind of way. she commented on it when it was straight the other day and again when it was curly and then i threw it up in a quick pony tail today and she was like "sigh.....i could put my hair in a pony tail and it would never look that good." apparently my dream has come true, i do a mad good pony tail. so question, i've never thought my hair to be the kind of hair that looks naturally tossled but in all the right ways but this indian girl makes me think otherwise. do i have casual good hair??

So anyways i can't go into the details of the next seminar i went to because i would be talking some mad shit so i won't. But anyways point being after class the JNB (Jewish Non Boyfriend) josh called me up and i met up with the 2nd years for an afternoon cocktail. i fucking love the ed students! all they do is drink all the time and socialize and then go do work. my kind of people. I could say that this is not what i eeemagined grad school being like but that would be a lie because this is EXACTLY what i imagined grad school being like, afternoon binge drinking. So we went to charley's and had long islands and then the grad students regaled me with stories of how awesome i am. no seriously they love me and i don't say this to rub it in anyones face but i am apparently awesome. According to Josh i have this magical talent of being totally great in social situations upon first meeting people. Something about how i make them feel comfortable and like they shoudl open up to me even though i'm the new person and techically i should be the one that they are making feel comfortable. So yes, this is my talent. Ivan and i had this theory once that peopel who were fat or awkward in youth have to really learn to develop a personality and consequently are awesome human beings in their adult lives. remember last week when i had no friends and was lonely?? who knew. so Drew, the really quiet guy, our relaitonship has reached a whole new level. We were sharing stories of the public policy bbq we had attended together the night before. oooh which reminds me

I went to a public policy bbq and some people's house and they played touch football and i drank beer! beer! i hate beer. I drank 3 miller High life's "the champagne of beer." did i write about this already? Anyways it was the bomb and i had a good buzz going and then someone decided to start a junior high style dance off which can only be described as AWESOME because seriosly it was. everyone was so drunk that peopel were like doing some crazy "so you think you can dance" kind of moves. fernando c-walked and then regaled us with stories of how he got his first blow job at age 14 in the back of his school bus and then there was silence. alot of silence. anyways grad school = good times so far. Actually what shocks me is tha tmost of these people are in their late 20's if not early 30's.

and tonight i got invited to this guy nick's house with josh to eat steaks and mac and cheese and baked beans, i know. that steak is going to be regrettable later tonight and yet so good

things that make you go UUUUGHHHH

ok i wanted to talk about one of the things that makes me so irrate on a regular basis that i just wnat to punch people. Let me preface this with the fact that i have now in my life lived in 2 very tourist heavy places, florence and san francisco, so i hate tourists for the reason which i am about to discuss.

let me paint you a picture: you are walking to class or to the mall or somewhere where you need to be and in front of you is a group of tourists. tourists can also be replaced with people who just gneerally don't pay attention to the world around them. so you start walking and they like walk really slow, in the middle of the sidewalk so that you cna't get around them. they randomly stop to take pictures, or look at there map or just generally take forever and don't ever notice that you are there and need to get by!! let me paint you another picture. today i went to this local jewish deli to buy one of their famed corned beef sangwhiches. truly delicious. i am all about coleslaw and russian dressing. anyways there is this ridiculously long line and the girl taking orders you can tell she's trying ot keep it going quickly. to me i see this situation and i think a few things. First, i should really know what i want by the time i get up there to keep things moving quickly. 2. i should make sure i have all my shit togehter so that i'm not caught unprepaired. 3. just generally i need to remember to be quick, concise, and keep the line from slowing down because it's not just me in line it's like 20 other peopel's lives and hunger i'm dealing with. anyways this is the situation. then this stupid family of 3 in front of me gets to the front and proceeds to do this. Ok when you read this try ot do it outloud and remember that these people were also talking really slow liek they were at fucking nordstroms picking out jeans.

waitress: hi what can i get you
dad: um.....hmm let me look at the menu
mom: i'm not sure you go first honey
daughter: um...no mom you go first
dad: i'll have blah blha blah
mom: can you tell me about the number 96 and the meatballs. are those meatballs made here on the premise?
waitress: yes
mom: hmmm ok well i'll have.....that...i guess
daughter: ok tell me the difference between the 70 and the 76
waitress: (explains both sangwhiches quickly and precisely)
daughter: hmm i don't know what i should get mom!
mom: honey whatever you choose will be great
daughter: i'll go for the 76
waitress: excellent choice
mom: do you have any room temperature water. i don't wnat cold water. is this cold water all you have
daugther: on second thought i think i'll go for the.....hmmm...the number 70
mom: hmm actually could i ahve that sandwhich with no cheese?
waitress: yes mam, and i'll look for that water.

meanwhile everyone in line is thinking "holy fuck just fucking order and move the fuck on!!!!" like serioulsy this was so ridiculous and i almost wanted to say something about the complete lack of consideration. seriously why are people liek this!! you know who i'm talking about. the kind of people who walk in a daze and run into you because they don't notice that you are there. waht the fuck people!! wake the fuck up! you are not the only person on this earth! goddamnit i hate that shit!

my life in A squared

It's been a few days here so let's get to it! I have been trying really hard to put myself out there so that i will have friends in the future. And i will add that i have done so successfully. All the people that i mentioned a few days ago are now officialy my friends. There is "my Jewish non boyfriend" josh, my turkish friend Ozan, my old bitter friend Lori, and my messican friend fernando. There is also the quiet silent poet drew. I don't knkow if he is actually a poet but he's quiet so i'm assuming there is something behind those hazel eyes. Discovery, they are all in their 30's! ok not all of them but most of them which came as quite a shock to me that thye would hang out with such a youngen as myself. The latinos are scarce and the gays even more so. Not a fag in sight! fuck! Anyways the local hang out that we hit up every night seems to be "babs" which is this underground pool hall/chill bar. it's decent. Then we went to this "dance club" called Oz which is also a hookah bar (v. random??), and i use the term dance very loosely as it was just white people flaling their arms and girating in odd direction. oh gringos...this town needs some flavor, stat. We also hit up some brewing house, and some place called "live at PJ's" which has this black soulful singere doing covers of sade songs. smooooooth. but i'm wiating for us to hit up the seedy beer halls which apparently i was promised we will do next week. anyways it's a fun group and it's nice to be included. There is hope though as far as the gay thing goes! today i went to the student of color bbq which was really just one color, black. There were 5, yes 5!!! Latinos among the grad students as a whole, not just from my department. it was kind of sad. but anyways i made a new friend, a cuban named David who is so gay gay gay. he was wearing BCBG women's glasses and was a good time all around. he alreayd kind of has this hag type girl but she seems really possesssive so we'll see how it goes. So all in all it's been a tiring weekend but good times all around.

ooohh and guess what!! I went to a football game! like my pseudo first football game of life! i think i coudl term it my first real football game as it was kind of intense. the stadium is referred to as "the big house" and the people in it are super serious about their football.
Even there band was like...wierd. So i learned the fight song, something about the victorious and valient and there was a lot of fist pumping so i felt like i understood laurel on a whole new level. Anyways the stadium was FULLLLLLLL. it was crazy. too bad football is SOOOO BORING. seroiulsy i'm never going to a football game again. I was kind of bored at the beginning and Drew was like "hey what are you feeling" and i was liek "i'm waiting to be moved" and this woman in front of us with a really thick midwestern accent was like "i know the big house IS moving. i cry sometimes!" I was like...um ok thanks. Anyways the coolest part of the game was when the whoel audience did the wave. now i've done the wave but this was like the most intense wave i have ever seen. first they did like 5 waves around the stadium then they stopped and started a slow mo wave so it was like you had the wave on pause, and then they did the alternative waves that went in different directions and met up with each other, collided, and went back in another direction. it was so fucking intense!! Drew and I could nto get over it. David called me later and excitedly asked me how teh game was. he reallywants me to get into football, but all i was able to talk about was the wave. it was that cool.

So anywyas much awaiting pics of my basement!!!
here is my bed. things i need, um...a bed frame, a dust ruffle, some accent pillows, wall hanging. I'm working on that last part.
Thre is my free chair that someone gave me. And thre is the central focus of the room, the tv clearly. also note my wall of religious paraphenalia. yes! Things that are going to suck in winter, the tile floors. totes not cute. My sad sad book shelf, also free. note where that table is i should relaly figure out how to get a couch or futon on there or somehow. i'm working on it.

But here is the most important, impressive part of the room. the closet! part I
part II
part IIIpart IV
dude can you believe my closet has 4 parts!! i knkow!! it's walk in and fricking huge. i'd say it's bigger than our bathroom in san fran was. intense.