time wasters!!!

to copy emily. i always think these things are kind of lame but it brought back so many memories and made me get excited for christmas so i thought i'd share

1. Egg Nog or Hot Chocolate? neither, I prefer diet coke or vodka during the holidays. But when i was a kid i guess it was just Coke.

3. Colored lights on tree/house or white? the old fashioned, big bulbed, what is now considered "retro", colored lights. I remember sometime around like 1999ish all the color left christmas and all we were left with was fake icicles and white trims and it's like..hello, we live in LA! let's stop pretending it's a winter wonderland and just fucking be gaudy and colorful! I won't let my parents buy white lights

4. Do you hang mistletoe? no, i tried too one year after learning about it on some tv show (which was basically where i got all of my references to normal American teen life) but then no one actually used it and i succumbed to the reality that my family is a little FOBy sometimes.

5. When do you put your decorations up? well before my mom got old and decided christmas was too stressful we used to do it the week after thanksgiving

6. What is your favorite holiday dish? Tamales! and anything my mom cooks since this is the one time of year she will still cook for me. so in that respect this is not a holiday meal but it's pork in green or red salsa sauce. Ooh and posole!

7. Favorite Holiday memory as a child? the year I got to stay home alone, opened up all of my present very carefully, saw how awesome my gifts were, resealed and repackaged everything precisely and then pretended to be excited again on christmas eve. I felt so bad that i told my mom right after that i was lying and had already opened everything. She said my guilt and the fact that i spoiled my own christmas was punishment enough. never again! 2nd to that though was when i got a barbie pool party set. it was so awesome!

8. When and how did you learn the truth about Santa? Sheila Calvario from across the street told me. She was 2 years older than me. But what she actually told me was "do you still believe in santa? it's ok if you do, but when you find out the truth I recommend you keep believing and acting surprised cuz then you get MORE presents!" I realized this was kind of dumb and that i'd get presents anyway so i told my mom she didn't have to sign stuff from santa anymore, she could just sign it from herself.

9. Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve? midnight on christmas eve with the whole clan

10. How do you decorate your Christmas Tree? Hmm, well i have no money for trees and decorations but when my mom and i used to do it we have a mixture of 80's ornaments, random santas and baby jesuses, things from my youth like "baby's first ornament," and my hand print on clay and lights, no garland or tinsel. that's tacky. Sometimes we'd go to macy's and get ideas and decide to add really nice ribbon.

11. Snow! Love it or Dread it? can say now with full validation LOVE IT! but never had it during christmas

12. Can you ice skate? yes, but it's an activity i enjoy more in theory than in reality

13. Do you remember your favorite gift? oh haha, i said it already, but the barbie pool party cabana! it was a porch and it had a gate and a pool and lounge chairs and a bar and barbie and her friends could play and drink pina coladas (you think i'm lying). I actually hated barbie cuz she was blonde and ugly but i used midge and mitch for the barbie pool party and barbie was always denied entrance

14. What’s the most important thing about the Holidays for you? Getting to see my family all pretty and dressed up. Since i moved away 6 years ago i only get to see them a few times of year and this is one of the times when everyone is happy and we sing karaoke and carols and go to church and give each other gifts.

15. What is your favorite Holiday Dessert? hmmm, we don't really eat desert. BUT my mom lets us splurge and around this time my dad and i get bolillo (mexican bread, crusty on outside soft on inside) and then we eat it with cajeta (mexican carmel but it's more milky, popped in the microwave for just a few seconds). holy fuck it's good!

16. What is your favorite holiday tradition? We all used to stand in front of the camera and sing really loud "feliz navidad" and other christmas songs like "the 12 days of christmas" and everyone would get a day, but most of my family has moderate accents so this was a riot because people couldn't pronounce things. so things like "3 french hens" became "treee frinch heeeens" or "6 geeeeses are laaaaajjjing" or the best was when my grandpa wouldn't even try to say "12 drummers drumming" he would just do the motion on his beer can. This tradition then evolved into my cousins and I organizing a christmas talent show to be performed in front of everyone, with lead guitar by my uncle Lou, from the band CLAW!! This then became our annual christmas karaoke singing contest. Jenny and I are lead singing champions. There is a lot of time to fill when you start a party at 7 and have to wait until midnight to open gifts.

17. What tops your tree? This really ugly angel with a candle that rotates back and forth. Everyone in my family has one so i guess we can't really get rid of it.

18. Which do you prefer: giving or receiving? Oh giving is way more awesome when you can find that gift that makes the person go "THANK YOU, JERRY!!" Like when it's something they didn't even know they wanted or needed.

19. What is your favorite Christmas Song? So many. Well anything from the Carpenters "christmas portrait" tape, which is what my mom used to play exclusively around christmas. I love the when Karen sings "i'll be home for christmas" in her soft dulcet tones. she makes me weep and it kind of all has way more meaning now that i live far away. Also the Judy Garland version of "have yourself a merry little christmas" from meet me in st. louise ALWAYS makes me weep buckets. AND "simply having a wonderful christmas time" by paul mccartney. Oh wait but more importantly i'd have to put wham, "last christmas" on here because it screams 80's.

to quote cher

so i'm taking a break from studying about PVEST model of something or other. PVEST is awesome and i will discuss it at length another time and how i have made a renewed vow to be "an agent of change for society." It's deep but i have something even deeper to discuss now.

It's like almost 10pm and this old couple came into the cafe. they have their canvas bags from the public library and the old man is reading a book and dipping biscotti in a latte. his wife is alternating between knitting what looks like a sleeve or a small sock and doing the crossword puzzle. is it just me or is this REALLY CUTE!! Do you think they do this every night? wouldn't you want to be this kind of old couple. The woman is wearing turquoise jewlery and the old man is reading some book called "island of desperation." I bet they have travelled a lot and settled in ann arbor. Maybe he's an emeritus. as Cher in clueless once said "old people are sooo cute!"

coffee shop memoirs part II

I’m at my small asian coffee shop since I have decided to boycott sweetwaters during finals time because

a) they have like 3 outlets

b) it’s too much of a scene (go to be seen and heard. Look I’m studying! I’m at sweetwaters! I’m so hardcore!)

c) my asian coffee shop is cheaper

Anyways this place seems to be a little more family oriented as i always see parents bringing in thier kids. Like this woman i'm sitting across from. I'm guessing she's either a grad student or a professor and she's on her laptop doing work, drinkign coffee, and her son is about 10 and he's drinking hot chocolate from a coffee mug and doing some type of reading for fun. I imagine this is how academics spend quality time and bond with their kids. And i imagine it must be so cool for the kids because they get to pretend to be "doing work like my mom" and they drink "kids coffee." Like earlier this woman had her 2 really cute sons and she was like "ok after this we can either go home, take a walk around town, or take a ride on the bus." And her sons were like "THE BUS!! I WANT TO RIDE THE BUS!!" And i imagine this is pretty standard if you are a kid growing up in a college town, you go to coffee shops with your mom in the middle of the afternoon and get excited about riding the bus around town. I see stuff liek this alot and i wonder, if this what my kids lives are gonna be like? I think most academic parents spend all their time in their offices and not enough time with their kids. not that we have time to like play and run and skip and do all that crap. but just including your kids is really nice

I'm having flashbacks to when my dad would take me to work and we’d have bonding time together. My dad has been crazy busy my whole life, leaving the house at 5:30am and coming home at 9 every night. I mean I guess you have to work pretty damn hard to have people dedicate haiku’s to you . But despite all of that I think we still spent a lot of time together. He used to take me to work during the summer and on my vacation breaks from school and i would help him and we didn't really talk much but i felt liek he taught me lessons in life just by watching him. I really understood how hard he worked to get where he was and it made me appreciate him and i understood that when he was busy he really was busy, and he would tell me while we were working that he worked hard so that i wouldn't have to. And i used to say "but papi, am i going to get the lunch truck when you retire? who is going to take over? do you want me to take it over?" and he woudl say "Mija, you are better than that. I would be disappointed if after all of my hard work you ended up doing what i do." My dad wasn't a professor and he's never worn a suit to work but he understood that it's importnat to include your kids. And then on saturdays when my mom needed alone time we would get in my dad's fiat and drive down to the beach and eat clam chowder and my dad would read the newspaper and i'd read the comics and it was awesome.

so i guess what i'm saying is, i would like to be the kind of professor who takes their kids to coffee shops and spends quailty time with them.

George Michael: YOU MOVE ME!!!!!!!!!!

Down coats needed to fight the cold = 1
glasses (and by glasses i mean blue plastic cups) of 2buck chuck = 5
number of times Beyonce was played = 4
number of times i almost fell off of my bike on the way home = 4
number of times i have played Wham "last christmas" since i got home = 6
homosexxxxxxuals = oooh thousands!!

after months of trying to sell myself: "i swear i'm a hag!! my 2 best friends from pre-school are gay!" I have finally made contact with THE GAYS!!

what a night. It started out with me doing 6 hours of hardcore statification. We finished our problem set and i attemped to do some reading but it just wasn't happening because my mind was dead. I went to dinner with some peeps, worked on an outline at the infamous sweetwaters, and then i got a call from JP that he was having a party. Dubbs dubbs!! JP is this trinidadian gay man that i met last week at babs: underground lounge. I sold myself like a whore trying to get a gig with some frat boys. I was like. "i love perez hilton!!! i saw britney's vagina!! is that what a vagina looks like! It's so CAVERNOUSE!! I love cher and justin timberlake!!" things of that nature. I basiclaly was like "hag for sale, BUY ME!!" so by some magical power (and i mean facebook) i got a holler from JP saying he had a party going on tonight and he called me and personally inivited me and i went and it twas truly MAGICAL! intially it just looked like a black party with your occasional white homo thrown in there. Someone put on Mariah "All i want for christmas is you" and all these's gay's started singing along and harmonizing and i was like "wow this is the gayest party I have ever been to" because it really was. Then JP's roommate put on Whitney "i wanna dance with somebody" and the dancefloor cleared and I knew, like seeing the bat-sign "hags and fags to the dancefloor!" It was my call to arms. Like Delacroix's "liberty leading the people", my breast hung out (metaphorically of course) and I DANCED!!! We danced hardcore to some AhHa Take on me...which took me back to how i met my first boyfriend when i said:

"I love this song!!" and he said
"shut up!! this is my RING TONE!!" and i said
"You LIE!!!!!!!!!!!!"

At one point I kept ademately requested the JLo mega mix but THEY DON'T KNOW!! THEY DO'NT KNOW!! Mo's talked about going to Las Vegas and i told them about Olympic gardens and about the dick slap that was felt around the world and we CONNECTED on a gay-latina-straight-woman/gay man LEVEL!!

DUBBS have i told you all (other than cathy) HOW MUCH I LOVE GEORGE MICHAEL!!! seriously i LOVE HIM!!!!!!!!! Wham and post wham, so good!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

DUBSS DUBSSS I AM HELLLA DRUN KRIGHT KNOW. THIS IS LIKE A LIVE BLOG AND SHIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!

ok but for reals, i discovered the gay community tonight and there are like 4 of value. I was yelling "play Wham 'LAST CHRISTMAS!!'" and this Mo came up to me and was like "my favorite Wham song is 'careless whisper'" and at that moment we bonded on a really deep level (cathy, are you feeling me? please comment!)!!!!. I confessed to him that I had received a score of 97 out of 100% on the Magic Mic for my rendition of careless whisper during my family's annual Christmas Eve karaoke competition (we are sooooo multicultural since my cousin married a fffffffffilipppppino!) and he was impressed dispite not knowing what a magic mic was. PEOPLE DON'T KNOW!!

anyways the point is i am HELLA DRUNK and i had good times with GAYS!!!

FINALLY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
....

I just called david and said "as NATASHA BEDINGFIELD ONCE SAID 'these words of mine.....i love you, i love you, i love you'!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" Why does music speak the words of my soul!???? why did i just quote natasha bedingfield?? why is that song so good!?? Why do i LOVE GEORGE MICHAEL!!!!!!????????


Tonight the music seems so LOUD

I wish that we could lose this CROWD

Maybe it's better this way

We'd hurt each other with the things we'd want to say


WE COULD HAVE BEEN SO GOOD TOGETHER

We could have lived this dance forever

but NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO'ONE'S GONNA DANCE WITH ME

Please stay



point being......................................................................

I'M DRUNK!

3 snaps in a Z formation

http://www.radaronline.com/radar-reviews/

scroll down to the 2nd one. I'VE BEEN PUBLISHED. Sweet! thanks Rach! Dubbs dubbs this is like a legit magazine so snaps to me. My friend is the editor of this section but NOT THE POINT. also snaps to ms. Wood who was also published if you scroll down further.

anyways i would also like to give a shout out to my boo, David who delivered his first baby last night. When i asked him what it was like he said "it was like catching a football...only it was coming out of a giant vagina!" ah the miracle of life. Anyways as bobby would say, 2 e props and 3 snaps for Dr. Love.

and guys, please please please start commenting. Whether I knwo you or not. I feel so lonely in this blogosphere thing we call the internet. send me love and eprops.


edit HERE is the link

coffee shop memoirs

6:30
So i'm at this coffee shop called Sweetwaters (I know. It screams "see, see! we are unique! we are not starbucks! but basically they are starbucks. Anyways) and there is this really loud group of ladies having a knitting circle in the corner, but i like them. I prefer to come to the coffee shops early cuz when you come later it's the stressed study crowd and there are lots of people and they are all undergrads and instead of studying they talk and it's like...COME ON PEOPLE SHUT THE FUCK UP AND STOP TALKING ABOUT DOING WORK AND DO IT ALREADY! But the 5 to 8ish crowd are the hardcore studiers who want to be in bed by 10. The point of all this though was to say that this place, Sweetwaters, has a fireplace with a tv showing "log burning fire" inside of it and this really FOBy asian girl with like colored hair and everything (very harajuku baby love) walks up to this fireplace and crawls up on the ledge and starts like trying to figure out how it works. and me and this asian girl next to me are like, hello silly harajuku, it's a tv! so sad.

Ok wait. I'm an ass. I just tried looking close up at the fireplace and it's NOT a tv. And the other asian girl next to me is also kind of staring at it. Now feel kind of bad for mocking that FOB girl. I love FOBs. Wow this fireplace is rather intricate. It has real wood in it but then it has like a projector somewhere projecting the scene of a fire on the brick. Me and the Asian girl keep staring at it but we are too embarrassed to go up and be like the FOB and crawl onto the ledge to figure out how it works cuz if we were judging her than others will judge us. We are having a moment. I feel you, young asian girl. And we both have IBM computers! what if she is like my asian soul sister, my kindred spirit, the diana berry to my anne shirley!

7:35
on hour later, what have i done. let's see, i had a really deep discussion with orges and emily about Heroes and the butterfly effect and the Ray Bradbury story "A sound of thunder" (if you watch heroes wiki this shit!). i'm not feeling my reading right now. this couple across from me is practicising what appears to be that clicking african language. what's it called???? !click! is that what it's called? anyways what's funny is that they are the whitest peole i have ever seen and here they are having a !click! convo.

i'm reading this article that is basically debunking all kinds of feminist dominance theory stuff and saying that women's voices are suppressed in adolescence but so are mens. this is one of my favorite lines of any psych paper ever i think

reviving ophelia is certainly a worthy goal. however, Hamlet also displaysed serious problems of indecision and lack of voice.

9:40.
it's startig to snow again. I kind of love snow. It's so....magical. that just made me think of gilmore girls and lorelie and how she loves snow. but seriously it's so pretty! it's like everything i've ever eeeeeemagined and nothing i've ever eeeemagined. It's the bomb. I kind of hope it's cold enough to stay on the ground cuz i really want to wear my new snow boots tomorrow. I think if i lived in a city where it snowed and i had to look cute and wear heals ahd drive places i'd hate it. but i live in a small town and i can walk everywhere in my really ugly utilitarian clothing from REI. quote me later during a blizzard, but i kind of love winter in small town america!

it reminds me of when i was younger and my mom had this collection of mini christmas towns.
It's really wierd to describe to people who have never seen it but there are different villages like an alpine village, the north pole stuff like that. My mom collected the "christmas in the city" collection which was basically new york in winter (not that my mom and i had ever seen new york or winter for that matter) and the "snow village" collection which was essentially a small white surburb and "dicken's village" which took place in the village where "a christmas carol" took place. I used to be obsessed with the dickens story I think mainly because of these damn villages and because my mom raised me watching that old version of "a christmas carol" with albert finny. Seriously my mom is the reason why i am a gay man trapped in the body of a straight woman. eeemagine being raised on musicals and making fake christmas villages! that kid from Ugly Betty would have died in my house. Sadly my mom has stopped celebrating christmas cuz she says it's not fun anymore but man we used to go all out! My mom's changed alot. But anyways in addition to having these humongous village sets all over the house we also had a giant nativity set. Flashbacks, we even used to make my dad cut out giant peices of wood so we could have a "stage" to set the village on and we'd use bricks cuz my mom said it "created depth to have houses on different levels" and we would start going to the christmas collectors store months before hand to get ideas and we'd meticulously plan our villages. god my mom was so crazy and yet i see so much of myself in her. this all kind of explains a lot....sorry i'm having a moment. I shoudl unearth the collection. I bet it's worth a lot since most of the peices have been discontinued or retired.

aaaanyways every christmas until puberty we would put up our villages and we would buy fake dead trees and fake snow and sprinkle it on top of fake rocks and make a fake river out of celaphane (spelling?) paper for the fake porcelain kids to skate on and it was like the highlight of my year making these stupid villages. Winter here feels like a mixture of "christmas in the city" and "snow village." because when the snow falls on the rocks it really does look like it did when i dropped the fake snow on rocks in "snow village" and the streets really are kind of made of brick and cobblestone like in "dicken's village" and ice gets stuck in the cracks. and everyone has hats and scarves that flow in the wind and snow topped roofs and dead trees with tiny bits of white snow on them. So I will be honest, we californians really don't know what we're missing.

me, the academic side

I had a moment today as i was reading pages and pages of stuff. Really it was nothing more than stuff, but all that reading finally got me thinking. I feel like i have been having one giant brain fart the past few months trying to get my academic mojo back and constantly asking myself "what was it i wrote my personal statement on? where is my passion? where is my flair? what is my big idea?" And then after watching a very touching episode of oprah today (as though all of her episodes aren't touching) where she had this african band of refugees who made their own instruments and play as a way of expressing themselves i finally kind of got a vision. it was simple but deep. wanna hear it? no? ok i'll tell you anyways (this might only make sense to like 3 people who read this and know about psychology and know what i'm studying so apologies).

latinos are always put together with black as a "racial minority" but no one ever actually does reserach on latinos cuz everytime they do nothing pans out. but i was thinking maybe this is because they are always using black measures, looking at latinos from a racialized lense. then you take the fact that latinos are usually immigrants into account and you realize that if you take their homeland into account most of these people are the poorest of the poor from their countries (mexico, central america). These people are the equivalent of refugees but no one here gives a shit about them. they come here and they fill the lowest caste of society and they have dreams for their children and those dreams don't always mean getting phd's or becoming lawyers. And it's not because latinos some how devalue education. In fact lots of studies show that they really do value it, but i'ts less about learning and more about using school as a means of not "working as hard as i do someday.' But you are talking about a group of peopel who essentially has nothing beyond a 5th grade education, so to come here and have their kids graduate from college is a big deal. I'm not expressing myself well but what i'm trying to say is that maybe it's not a race issue at all. obvi it' sa race issue to americans and to latinos who have been here for a while but i'm talking about the FOB's. maybe to them it's a class issue and you can't expect a group of peopel who are the most oppressed in their country to come here and know what it means to be middle class and to take on middle class values. And some of them become financially middle class (ie my family) but that doesn't mean that they don't still carry with them their 3rd world culture of poverty. So waht i'm saying is perhaps we should stop comparing them to blacks and start talking about them relative to where they come from literally and psychologically.

ok that was kind of really broad and you all are like...whaaa happeeeeen, but point being my prof wants me to do a focus group on latino parents and how they socialize their kids to understand racial discrimination and i was like "um i don't think they do. i think they are more worried about their kids being poor than they are about their kids experiencing prejudice." and she was like...wow that was deep. and we had a moment where i enlightened her. and then i was talkign to ozan and he was like...really, the immigrants from latin america are super poor? i didn't realize that. and i was like...WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN! because seriously i ws shocked.

ok this soapbox is a bit to high for me right now so i'm gonna get off it and watch some gilmore girls. someday when i get published (and make a lot more sense) you can all say you were there at the formation of my theory.

PS, is it odd to see me have some sense of depth when i'm usually talking about drinking and jello shots and clothing and watching copious amounts of television?

flashbacks

2 days later I am sitting here watching Grey's anatomy season 1 and it's the episode where the interns all throw a party and everyone cuts lose and gets really drunk and then all of a sudden midway through this episode i had a flashback! Ozan's girlfriend threw a party and there were jello shots. I gave them my special recipe of making the jello shots with vodka and sprite instead of water wuch that you have a nice little fiz. Thank you Miami, my soph/junior year roommate with whom i co-created the recipe. Ok but the point is, the point is....hmm let me just peice the night together wth you all now:

9:45 - went to wendy's house to throw a surprise "farewell" party for sigaporean jen.

10:00 - started drinking gigantic triple sized bottle of wine that Hugo had purchased at costco = good value

10:30 - still waiting in the dark for jen to "surprise" show up. open up second bottle of gigantic "good value" wine

11:15 - Jen finally rolls in. Me = officially drunk.

11:30 - walk 2 houses over to go to some philosophy party. Hugo decides that he and I should each pick philosophers and walk into the house arguing pro-their point of view. He chooses Kant (btw none of actually knew what Kant's argument was. damn you IHUM!). I decided I would argue for Alexi DeToqueville so I just threw in a lot of words about democracy and stuff. It was kind of awesome and we sort of caused a scene as we walked in. Truth is though, we were both hella drunk so our "scene" could have just been really sad and not at all entertaining. I was entertained though, so that was enough.

11:45 - this was NOT a good grad school party. we decided to blow this pop stand and finally walk to Minayo's jello shot party. We begin walking the 10 minute walk to her house

11:50 - I lose feeling in my fingers. Note to self: buy thicker gloves or double up with some isotoners underneath.

11:55 - arrive at party. lots of "woooo!!!" and high fives. Upon arrival we all down 2 jello shots.

12:00 - here is where the night starts to fuzz up so I'm just going to free thought the rest of this. I think there was another shot somewhere in there. There were also 2 very vodka heavy vodka tonics. I did some dancing, I cockblocked drew as this really drunk silly ho tried hitting on him. Drew is in a long distance engagement so for the sake of his woman i intervened at the request of Fernando. We tlaked SOOOOO MUCH SHIT! Oh and then the silly ho fell on my knee caps later in the night on her head. The sad part about this was that everyone laughed and instead of helping her came to me and said "are your knees ok." haha. silly ho!! This morning I was doing laundry and I had this flashback to smelling someone's shirt all night long and then i remembered! Me and Fernando kept sniffing Drew's shirt because it smelled like downey but it was like the most intense downey smell EVER. it was so nice.

I have little mini flashbacks of the rest of the night which included more dancing (probably highly uncoordinated). Oh god flashback, taking what fernando and I kept calling "futon shots!" This is not alcoholic but consisted of us doing dumb gangsta poses on the futon. thus "futon shots!!" Nishi and I walked home and talked about how awkward this guy Scott was. the funny part of this was that Scott was walking WITH US! ha oh god. I also have a vague recollection of pulling an apple out of my purse (i guess i had stuffed it in there for just an occasion. I'm fucking brilliant sometimes) and then after eating half of it dropping it because i lost feeling in my fingers from the cold.

the only thing i remember next is waking up and thinking...oh shit let me look at my outgoing calls and texts. There was some very mooshy text to david, and then 2 short calls. So I talked to david....hmmm. In the morning he called me with that wierd "hey" tone like "hey my drunk girlfriend, how are you feeling you lush." it was a tone. Anyways apparnetly i had been really mean and beligerant and I was kind of in the doghouse for the rest of the day because drunkenness is no excuse for being mean.

So let's go full circle. I was watching grey's anatomy the episode where the surgical interns all throw a party and get hella drunk and i could relate...really really relate.

I've Changed Part bagillion

It occured to me this morning as I took my 2 tablespoons of "secrets of the psillium" fiber suppliment, after taking my one teaspoon of flaxseed oil to prevent heart disease, after eating my one serving of Kashi "go lean" cereal that I'VE CHANGED!! seriously ugh i've become one of those health freaks! I excercise reguarly, I eat all whole wheat and fiber products and I don't eat butter or unnatural sugars. when did this happen? San Francisco really changed me. Next thing you know I'm gonna start shopping at Whole Foods. Ok I will nto do that because whole foods is one of the places that i do not support like wal mart and abercrombie and fitch. I always say that people can only have like 3 or 5 causes that they really support. Otherwise there is too much bad shit in the world to really support or not support it all. So yeah, those are my 3 that i don't support. Instead i shop at Trader Joe's, which clearly makes me a far superior person. uughh

hate
my-
self

The greatest lesson I will ever teach you

dude, 2 words, VODKA GIMLET.

ok for reals though, I have meant to write about this. A long time ago, i believe it was tory who spoke to me of the gimlet but i never really look her advice to heart. But over teh past few weeks i have been ordering them and I am a convert. It is vodka (or tequila or gin, but i prefer vodka) with just a SPLASH litrrrrrrally of lime juice. So in the end you pay a little bit more but you get more liquor for your bang. And what a bang it is. Tonight i met 2 HELLA cool gays. they are both from the tropics, Trinidad and Haiti. finally i meet the gays! we are all going to a party tomorrow so we'll see how that goes.

But guys, seriously, my only statement as to say I recommend if you want to get drunk for less money, order the vodka gimlet. It has the cristina seal of approval on it, and I know my cocktails.

VODKA GIMLET!!!

ok sidenote, i also just like saying the word "gimlet." It makes me feel british like "halllo guvna!"

Confessions of a Dumb Californian

More proof that Californians really ARE idiots sometimes.


me: (8:43:54 PM): dude ok

me: i'm looking at the weather cuz it's like 60 degrees right now

me: v. strange

cathy: okay

me: and i heard a cold front is hitting us and tomorrow it's gonna go below 30

me: so anyways

cathy: wierd

me: i'm looking at the weather and for friday i shit you not

me: it says on weather channel

me: "wintry mix to snow"

cathy: hahah

me: what does that even mean!?

me: haha

cathy: waht does that mean?

me: but yes it's full on snowing this weekend

me: the lows are 13 degrees at night

cathy: your first blizzard?

cathy: wowo

me: do you think it's a blizzard?

cathy: sounds like it to me

me: i wonder if it wil be enough snow for like the snow to sit and for us to get inches

cathy: wintry

me: so do we think that's what wintry means?

me: hmm

me: should i google this

cathy: i think so

cathy: you should

cathy: mabye it's in the dictionary?

me: hmm nothing really on google

me: this appears to be a common weather term

me: but what does it mean??

cathy: you should ask your class mates tomrorow

me: hmm i will

me: perhaps it means it's gonna go from rain to snow or something

me: like a mix of things

cathy: lol

cathy: i was thinking more like a light snow

cathy: not too threatening

me: "suggestive of winter, as in lack of warmth or cheer"

cathy: one where you can look outside your window

cathy: and feel true winter

me: and watch a charlie brown christmas!

me: how magical

cathy: yes
cathy: i'm singing it in my head

cathy: lalala....lalalal...

me: christmas time is here

me: blah blah blah and cheer

5 minutes later:

me: ok so orges said

orges (8:51:33 PM):wintry mix is like a mix of rain and snow
orges:it's a really weird thing
orges:very very dangerous driving conditions
orges:when it falls to the ground, it just becomes this messy, dirty, ugly slush
orges:it's awful

cathy: oh

cathy: that dosen't sound like the romantic winter i had in my mind

me: haha

me: snot just came from my nose

me: but yes i agree

me: man i shall blog this part of the convo (SO META)

cathy: cuz we are dumb californians?

me: yes

me: and because it's funny

me: at least to me

me: do you think it's not funny to others

cathy: i don't know

cathy: probably not

cathy but it IS worth bloggin

cathy: cuz this is all truth

cathy: we aren't being ditzy to be cute

cathy: we really dont know what winter is

me: dude i'm drinking alone
me: and i kind of like

me: i might start drinking hard liquor alone

me: does this make me an alcoholic

Orges: cristina, i love you!

Orges: i'm also drinking alone
me: i never realized how wonderful it is!

Orges: although, if we're on IM together, we're not alone

Orges: not alcoholics!

me: a buzz and my tivo

me: what more could i ask for!!

Orges: i know!

me: actually good point about being on aim

Orges: i'm so glad you could come to this realization

Detroit or bust

Liveblog from LAX!! Did you know that LAX enacted a new policy at some point in the past 2 months whereby you have to arrive at your flight 45 minutes before take off otherwise they will not let you on? 45 minutes! Did you know that there was hella traffic on the 405 this morning such that a trip that would normally take us 15 minutes, 30 minutes with traffic, took us 45 minutes? Did you know that consequently I arrived 43 minutes before takeoff? Did you know that THE JACKASS LADY AT THE NWA COUNTER WOULD NOT CHECK ME ONTO MY FLIGHT NOR WOULD SHE LOOK ME IN THE EYE!! I kept saying, “mam I have 40 minutes. I assure you I can make it.” And she said “no, mam you can’t.” Did you know that LAX was empty and I have now been sitting in front of the terminal where my 8:37 flight was set to take off. Did you know that it is now 8:00? Did you know that they are now giving away my seat to other standby people? Did you know that I have to wait here 3 more hours for the next flight to Detroit? Did you know that I am in the worst terminal ever because all they have is a starbucks and a jetway candy shop? Did you know that I hate my life sometimes?!? No, seriously how wretched is this. When I asked when this policy was enacted they said “oh a very very long time ago.” I call bullshit. I have been flying in and out of LAX for the past 7 years at a frequency of at least 5 times a year and NEVER have they had this policy. I hate you, northwest airlines. How booty is this. Not only do they not give you food on a 5 hour flight, but they also don’t show a movie. The hell! 5 hours?? Seriously I hate Midwestern airlines.

Oh some aZian dude with a Purdue t-shirt is pissed because he missed his flight too. Oh how sad he’s late for his meeting. He barely got here though (8:39), unlike me who was here 43 minutes before, 2 minutes too late apparently. Turns out he tried to do online check in but their system was down. Wow that sucks for him. Now he’s trying to weasel his way up the list of standby people because it’s not his fault but their fault that he is late. Oh hell to the no, mr aZian man! You will not take my spot on the standby flight. Wouldn’t it just be utterly wretched if I got on this flight and got put in the back of the plane and he got on too but was put in first class because he was lower on the standby list? That would happen to me. Will I ever fly first class?

So a few things I have decided. a) I don’t care how stupid I look I am buying an airplane neck pillow. In fact I bought one in Detroit and used it on the flight here and it was excellent. No shame. I slept like a lamb. My next thought was, “you know since I always get stuck at the airport for at least 2 hours I should buy one of those DVD players to entertain myself.” Do they have longer battery lives than laptops? I will look into it. LAX has no internet. God I hate it here sometimes.

11:41 AM PST

One word to describe my feelings. WRETCHED! Truly truly wretched. I’m still on standby only now for another flight. A flight at 12:30 which I am told is oversold and has like 10 people on standby. The next flight after this is at 5 something or other which is also sold out. Truly truly wretched. It’s not even like I can go home. I’m stuck here. And if I want a guaranteed seat on any flight for tomorrow I have to pay 50 bucks, which I’m say I can’t afford right now. But my point is that being stuck at an airport is not so horrible. What is horrible is being stuck at the airport alone. It means that every time you have to pee or get food or buy water or anything you have to put everything you have away. And then you put all of your stuff away, lug it all to the bathroom and then when you get back your seat is taken! And your electricity jack is taken! And you just want to cry.

6:39 PM EST

Ok so I got on the 12:50 flight, thank the lord. Only problem is that because of raining and some crazy el nino type west winds the pilot had to come on and tlel us that we were going to have some really intense turbulence. Turbulent indeed! The pilot kept coming on every 15 minutes during the first 3 hours to tell everyone “sit down! No excuses!” like yelling at us. That is very assuring. I thought I was going to die like 3 times and I started reciting the “our father” over and over again and the pilot ordered the stewardesses to sit down for the first 3 hours. What I’m saying is I was really scared. To top it off I am sitting next ot his rather large asian dude who is reading Japanese comics on his computer but was passed out snoring earlier and then spent 20 minutes in the bathroom during turbulence. Never have I wanted to be in Detroit so bad in my life.

GUEST BLOG!!

So in honor of the fact that we were reliving our youth and drinking a lot of tequila I decided it was the perfect time to have GUEST BLOGGERS!! Yes that's right. This has become one of my favorite features, for no apparent reason other than i love looking back at things that people say when they are drunk and thinking...wow that shit was deep. So without further ado I give you Casey and Emily as my guest bloggers. The context: Casey's house, night before thanksgiving, one bottle of Jose Cuervo later, episodes 1 and 2 of 90210 season 1. First we drank, then we played trivial pursuit only to realize that i've changed. I used to be so good at this game. I mean seriously when we went camping i won 90's trivial pursuit in 15 minutes flat. 15 MINUTES FLAT!! This night I got one question during this entire game and I realized that i had changed. Then we ordered pizza and drank more and watched 90210. BT Dubbs I would like to note that I actually sacrificed my food budget for one week in order to purchase this show. Let it be known that i am an idiot!

I cannot Guest Blog while I’m drunk. For example, I just capitalized Guest Blog. As if it were a NOUN. Good Lord. It’s like I’m not an English major.
No really. That’s all I can come up with. Now I have to find my checkbook. I will give you to Emily. (I would like to note that casey held the computer for half an hour while writing those 2 sentences)

Hello, I am less driznunk than Casey. By a long shot. Which is really saying something about how far we have come, because once upon a time keeping up with Casey would have killed me. Casey was in many ways my muse and also my role model and also a cause of destruction at the same time.

Today may be about the future and the past at the same time. We have spent a great deal fo time today talking about people from the past (i.e. STEPHANIE was the name of Joseph Chipple’s girlfriend) and doing things from the past (i.e. drinking margaritas and speaking in Espanol cuando estamos borrachas). We realized today that the people in Friends were the same age OR YOUNGER than us when the show STARTED. Since we live our lives not by the book, but by the TV, this is a Big Deal. Much like Casey capitalized Guest Blog, I am capitalizing Big Deal. When Friends started, they were 23. I am 23. Cristina is 24 and Casey is 25. Cristina on the other hand is talking about how if we had more of the DGSC (our bitches, The Dirty Girls Social Club, named after a really crappy latina ChicLit book i read a few years back. Like i said the book was crappy but I liked the concept of female friends who get together once a year to chat and bitch and talk about vibrating cock rings and stuff like that. good times! ) here, we could have a massive event. It would involve watching 90210 for the first time (well, some of us). It would involve margaritas. Cristina just said “The liquor just hit me, like right now. While I was trying to focus on her shoe.” Then she goes “When I am this drunk I think, will I remember this tomorrow? But then I think, since I’m thinking this, I must not be that drunk.” (I DO NOT remember making this statement but fuck, i am brilliant! We then started having this really intense convo about how we are way too metacognitive in everything we do, like that statement that i just made about being drunk but not so drunk that i can't remember how drunk I am. META!)

NOW we speak of metacognition. The meta makes it beta, as Shawn Standefer used to say. We speak of drunken litmus tests. We realize that speaking of such things means we need to drink more. Casey just found her check. The fact that Casey has a checkbook means that things have changed. Casey has a credit card, and a cell phone! Cristina on the other hand did not kick our asses at Trivial Pursuit (EVEN WITH THE PINK CATEGORIES), which means, if you ask her, that things have changed. We spoke of the Stanford magazine. We spoke of people writing into it for the Class Notes section and how that is lame and douchy and yet, at the same time, how we want to do it. Yes, we do. (Dubbs dubbs, I might write in to say that I am going to grad school at UMich and that I am not married and have no children and live in a basement with hand me down furniture. I challenge all of us to write in for the next issue! Let us talk about how our lives are awesome!) Orges is in it, although I don’t believe he wrote in it. He is in it as part of a trip to Europe, which does not mention how he got left behind because his passport issues and damn the man and all that. (He didn't realize that citizens of the Balkans need Visas to get into Hungary. Bummer. Wait, Is Albania in the Balkans? Where is Albania? He also ended up drunk on absynth roaming around a gypsy trailer park/gypsy protitution ring. Dubbs dubbs, this is one of my favorite Orges stories.)

Ok, now we are watching 90210. I already love it. It has been about 2 seconds. We have the instant recap that we know so well (or, I know so well) from the OC, which involves recapping the show blatantly (“New friends, new school.”) while we can already tell what’s going on. I understand the OC so much better now!!! The family scene struck me just now as only a preview of what was to come in later, ripped-off versions of this same show. I LITERALLY am having chills right now! We are now discussing how this show, like magazines in case you do not know, is aspirational. You think, one day, mhy life could be like this (or the lives of my kids will be like this). We are realizing how we have not changed much since 1991 given how these costumes + leggings is about the same as fashion a la Lindsay Lohan right now.

Also anonymous black DJ guy reminds me of Usher playing the school DJ in She’s All That. Who knew how much this owed to 90210? Can we also talk about the class differences and the teachers driving shitty cars when the students drive really swanky cars?

Wow, the fashion in this show is so hardcore. I would like to transport people from 1991 into the present and just see what happens. Why are people so hot in high school shows? No one was this hot at my high school. Also, they have strategically placed black people in this show. Just to make sure people know this is a Real High School.

I really could die. I wish I had watched this at the time. I feel like I am learning about my generation. What a fitting part of this evening (as we wait for Dominos).

I also love how in high school movies people hop into convertible cars – they never actually open the door.

This is really giving me insight into the OC when they show people at a party – Brandon and Steve are the Ryan and Seth (and Seth is a little bit in the freshman nerds). Are high school parties like this somewhere I don’t know about? The music is exactly as appropriate in this show as the OC – did people talk about the 90210 music aesthetic the way they talk about the OC music now? Also it’s like Clueless with the nose job business… This is a brilliant blend of 90s, 00s and 80s chic – the chiming music walked straight out of St. Elmo’s Fire, the fashion could exist nowhere but the 90s (bike shorts, boxy short dresses), and obviously the 00s are actually just a ripoff of the 90s, so really I mean the same thing.

We just learned midway through 90210 that Casey will periodically interrupt her class to say “Did you go to 18 years of school? No? Well, I used to babysit, but I went through 18 years of school, and so if I wanted to get paid 10 dollars an hour to babysit you, I would call your mom and ask you. But right now, I’m going to teach. Ok?” This in itself is awesome.

We also just witnessed Kelly wearing polka dot bike shorts over blue leggings with scrunched socks over the leggings. Death itself!

It just occurred to me that this episode originally aired one whole month before my seventh birthday. MY SEVENTH BIRTHDAY! WTF!

TIME OUT ZACH MORRIS STYLE! We are having a moment. First of all, there was a collective loss of breath the moment Dylan walked into the screen for the first time. Collective! Cristina said it’s James Dean with a personality. I’m shocked that I never watched this and knew of the hotness of Dylan in 1990 when it mattered.

Second, we have realized in this surfing scene (Episode 2) that one of the surfers is wearing Uggs. In 1990! Proof that they were cool before they were cool. Take that.

(We have also had a realization that despite losing at Trivial Pursuit, Cristina still kicks ass at the obscure knowledge of pop culture because she discovered that the guy who plays Jason in the pilot was in Grease 2 and ALSO that he was Rex Manning in Empire Records and also that the surfer girl on the beach with Brandon was also in Better Off Dead. It’s very important to know useless information like this.) (Maxwell Caulfield is his name, bitches. I still got it!)

So I'm in LA which is like 80 degrees or so. David came up last weekend and we had good times. Things i have learned about myself. I've changed. I like football, or rather i like winning. Fuck Notre Dame! fuck USC! Especially fuck notre dame! My mom and i spent last Friday visiting Benny and baby sitting him for a few hours. Isn't he cute


All he did was cry so that was kind of lame but he's still super cute. I can't until he does stuff. Then David came into town and we watched the big game on Saturday. I got to show him all the cool spots of LA like the Redondo pier and the AMC 20 on Crenshaw. More importantly we drove to the grove and saw the American Girls store. Now I never actually had an American Girl doll because my mom thought they were silly and overpriced and i must say it has been something that has haunted me for life. David's sister on the other hand did have an American Girls doll and he confessed that he kind of secretly wanted one when he was really little because he loves historical fiction. This store was crazy. It had a hair salon for you to take your doll so that her tangles could get brushed out for the low low price of 20 bucks. It also had a hospital where you could take your doll to get broken arms and hair to get fixed. It was surreal and there were all of these little blond girls walking out wiht bags of doll clothes and dolls and accessories and i felt supremely jealous.
Then we went to watch the planes take off from LAX which led to some awkward encounters as we soon realized that we were actually at the local make out point. We were the only nerds not making out because we were actually watching the planes take off. Being the loser that I was growing up I had never actually been to a make out point so i never realized how gross they were. There were all of these SUV's and people would randomly get out of them, watch the planes, get back in them, fog up the windows, etc etc. It was gross.

Aaaaanyways a short list in no apparent order of the awesome (read kind of lame) things that i have done while in LA

- seen lots of movies: Marie Antoinette (knew it was gonna be bad but mom recommended it for the sake of watching the "excess."), Casino Royale (seriously this movie was the dick! it was really good), The Departed (really really good. I am oddly reattracted to leonardo dicaprio after all these years. The one man where i say "yes, keep the facial hair!")

- reminsced about 90210 with cathy because this show was seriously good

- sent myself into even more debt by purchased 90210 season1 on DVD which was completely worth it.

- got hella drunk with casey and emily and watched said 90210 DVD only to note that the OC is so very not original and totally jacked entire scenes from this awesome show

- drove my mom's BMW, so choice

- drank and watched Tokyo Drift. I will admit something, i secretly love the Fast and the Furious franchise of films. I also secretly love japan and want to be a harajuku girl.

- discovered the glory of stuffing. how is it so good!

- watched entire first season of "how i met your mother" because, i'm not gonna lie, this show is pretty good. It's like friends during it's glory days (don't act liek you didnt' watch friends and like it. we ALL watched friends). Also felt really old when casey, emily, and I did the math and realized that on season 1 of friends they were 23 years old. younger than us! ugh so disturbing.

I have nothing really to say. I am feeling nostalgic for my post college angst years so i'm watching "kicking and screaming." Favorite line of post college nostalgia flick (a genre that emily and I coined after watching this, "reality bites" and "st. elmos fire"). The character just graduated from college and teh night of his graduation begins to ponder what he is going to do with his life.

"you know, what I used to be able to pass off as a bad summer could not potentially be a bad...life."

VOTE FOR ME!!!

Ok guys so remember how last week i was a finalist to become a tv recapper for www.tvgasm.com ? ok well apparently those asses didn't tell us but those were just the semifinals and now they are having the actual finals. Anyways before they had me in the forum section but now they published me on the actual website!! I've been published! kind of! anyways point being i beg of you again, my friends (all 5 of you who read this journal), to go on and comment on how awesome and funny and "awestacular" if you will I am. I mean i make references to "the cutting edge." how can that not be awesome. also the show i had to recap is really bad so i had to try really hard. so what i'm saying is check this shit out!

http://www.tvgasm.com/shows/index.php#a003515

leave a comment saying you love my writing skizzznills.

seriously if you love reading this "blog" why would you prevent the rest of the world from hearing my point of view only in reference to television? why would you do that? so do your civic duty, leave me comments. this is my dream people!

can i have a melo moment, guys?

Ok i'm feeling very blah and i feel that as a public service announcement to those who are considering going to grad school i have to tell you what it's really like. And i'm not saying that you shouldn't go i'm just saying...it sucks sometimes. My friends came over to watch Heroes tonight. This has become our weekly routine partially because we love the show and partially because we are just really lonely and need to be around others. Afterwards people left and Nishi stayed behind to watch grey's anatomy from last week and we got to talk and wondering "are we depressed?" so the first thing we did was we pulled out the DSM IV (because there can still be comedy in moments of pain), to try to see if we could categorize our feelings. We definitely did not have mania nor did we have severe depression and we didn't have seasonal affective disorder. And what we concluded was that we were just really really lonely. But as i've said before it's not a loneliness that i can really put into words. it's unlike anything i have ever felt before. It's the end of the semester and we agreed that the motivation levels was really really low and i thought that maybe what we were feelings was a great sense of ennui. and she said, what is that and i said "you know, like....blah." anyways we started thinking of everyone we knew, friends and not friends in grad school and truth be told we could not come up wiht one person that we knew who was truly happy. even the married people in grad school are depressed. and the reason all of us hang out together so much is that if we're not together we're alone and no one wants to be alone. And then we started thinking, what is better: to be with someone and not be alone and be dependent on them and not be able to live wihtout them or to be alone and learn to live that way because in the end aren't we just alone? or maybe just us grad students are always alone. And i don't know exaclty what it is about this lifestyle that makes it so lonely and isolating but it is. then Jen called and Nishi was like "dude, we're talking about how lonley we are" and Jen said something that really resonated with me. She said "I am sitting in my empty bathtub with no water, just...sitting here." I know she meant it literaly but it kind of spoke volumes about how we feel all the time. A lot of times i feel liek i am sitting in a bathtub alone wiht no water. so i'm just throwing this out there to the blogosphere, are any of us really happy and does anyone actually feel good when they are alone? I'm listening to Joni Mitchell right now, so depressing, but sometimes you need that.

"I wish i had a river i could skate away on. I wish i had a river so long, i would teach my feet to fly. "

so anyways don't worry because i'm not depressed i think i'm just a little too introspective and know a bit too much about how the brain works which can lead to alot of these moments. I'm just lacking passion. could this be what john mayer refers to as a quarter life crisis? Is anyone else feeling this??????

outcomes of "rally"

so i just got back from the rally/president of Umich talking about how she htinks the ban on aff action was stupid. she says she's gonna take it to the courts...alright, i'll remain hopeful. But i want to talk about an encounter i witnessed. There were a whole group of "yes on prop 2" people holding up signs and having a little rally of sorts and we were all like...dude idiots you won. are you just trying to rub it in? anyways some studnets of color started talking to them, god knows why, but were asking them why they think this was a good thing. And I tell you this had to have been one of the most bizarre experiences of my life for a white, midwestern, male to inform me that because he helped get rid of the one thing that was keeping our numbers relatively "high" in admissions that now "we can be equal." Yes jackass, affirmative action was what was preventing us from being equal. i just....urghh!!!....there were no words. Then at one point this black kid goes up to the white kid and says "look i don't want to be angry i just wnat to ask you a question and you can be honest. Would you switch places and be me? Would you honestly want to be me, a black man." And at that point the white kid got silent...and the black kid was like "i'm serious." And the white kid finally says "now that we are equal yes, i'd switch with you. now that we have gotten rid of affirmative action and are no longer living on color lines i'd want to be you because we are equal." There is such complete and utter ignorance of the reality of this country embedded in that statement. This kid really just does not know. Like he can't even fathom how deep it goes.

anyways enough preaching, i would just like to do a shout out and thank the White man for freeing me from my shackles of inequality. Thank you!!

so many things wrong

Well apparently I live in a red state now and I must admit this is quite disconcerting. I've lived in California all of my life and so it's easy to assume that everyone is the same as we are over there and if they are different it's only by a small amount. But when red wins by a landslide in your state, which is said to be fairly liberal it becomes pretty obvious that this is not the case. And i generally hate being one of those people that talks about hating republicans and christians and the extreme right wing (wow i typed white by accident), but damnit i HATE the republicans right now. I'm sorry, i just do. And I am a christian but i dont' want to live in a country this is governed by christian law. Why can't the gays marry???? It was awful to see that all of these states had passed the ban on gay marriage. just awful. what a terrible message to send to fellow countrymen. "hi, we don't think you are equal to us. go away." And i hate bill oreilly and factor fans. So this election the big deal in michigan was that ward connerly had come from california backed by some rich white people and was trying to pass a ballot measure to get rid of affirmative action at all public institutions in michigan. he called it the "civil right inititiave" and was toting around shit saying that this was truly what civil rights was about and how colleges let in people who are not qualified and this is what martin luther king would have wanted. And that shit really hurts. that shit gets to my core because tey are talking about me and my friends. And i'm sorry but we had just as good GPA's just as good SAT's just as many extra currics, and we didn't go to prep schools so fuck you. I hate when people, especially people of color talks about "i made it by my bootstraps so you should to." Fuck that. you made it because someone took a chance on you. YOu made it by hard work but by luck also. This country is fucked up. Well no one can tell me that i'm not qualified to be here, but more importantly no one can say that they don't need my perspective cuz the perspective here is fucked up and biased and needs to be changed and THIS IS WHAT AFFIRMATIVE ACTION IS ABOUT. god so much hate.

Last night we all went to a bar to drink and watch the election results. As the night wained on and we realized we were losing in our fight to keep affirmative action we got really sad and drank more and got really depressed and started yelling how we hated michigan and this state (we are all from cali). But then we talked about how we loved this country probably more than the average white american because while we know what it means to have citizenship and to be american, we also know what it means to not have citizenship and to want to be american but not be allowed to. And then we talked about how prospective grad student weekend next year was going to suck because fernando and i woudl officially be the only mexicans in the entire school of ed, and 2 of four in the psych department and we're sure none will be let in again. ok this is a really badly written entry so i'm just gonna cut it here. takehome message. I feel about america the way i feel about my religion....i love God and the church, but i hate the way the people misinterpret Him and do terrible things in his name. I love my country, but i hate Americans who think they are following the letter of the law.

I'm going to a rally right now that is being held during the president of Umich's talk. She said if the measure got passed she would have some "interesting" things to say. Is michigan gonna go private????? Am i going to lose my minority only grant? watch cnn tonight, it's supposed to be a big deal.

good evening witches and warlocks, gouls and goblins...

so Tuesday night was technically halloween but hello, it's a school night so there is no partying to be had. but there was plenty of partying last weekend. it was cray cray to the max. so on Friday night i threw on my suede boots and somehow got convinced to go to this med school frat party. big mistakes...and i'm referring to both the party and the boots. it was raining and despite the fact that i had water proofed my boots, and htey were quite resilient to the rain, some stupid bitch dressed as a slutty _______(fill in teh blank) stepped on my shoe wiht one of her slutty platform shoes! ahh!! fuck man! So the deal with this party was that there is an old frat house that is on undergrad frat lane but is inhabitted by med students. our DJ friend brian was spinning chill beats and he needed someone to be his "bouncer" so he hired hugo who then coerced all of us into going to this party that we did not want to go to by promising to pick us up and take us to denny's afterwards. So we all went and liek i said, my left shoe got ruined but man, med studnets are crazy! i was having a total twin peaks liek...holy shit am i 18 again at teh roble pimp and ho party? cuz seriously it was gross. med students running around in slutty costumes making out in dark corners, loud music, sticky beer floors. Hugo promised us some jungle juice which was in a giant plastic storage container and after a few sips i was like "wait is this grape koolaide?" we then realzed that we had dipped into the EANABS koolaid which sucked! god sobriety at a grown up frat party is the worst. But it was also the kidn of party where it taks yo ulike 30 minutes to get anywhere because it's so crowded so somehow we stayed for 2 hours. wretched. But i tell this story because it was also the scene of one of the funniest moments i've seen in a long time. first off great costumes i saw

- borat - excellent and subtle - on a difficulty scale...not so hard
- Notre Dame coach Charlie Weis - i felt that this costume was extremely original. The kid stuffed himself with pillows to create layers of fat and had one of those headphone speaker things that coaches have and a notre dame polo and was yelling at people. The odd part is that i actually knew who he was! i've changed! That's who he was dressing up as Onto the story. So we were walking up the stairwell and coming down the stairs was this woman dressed as Carmen Miranda (fruit head peice with bikini top and flowy skirt, for those who dont' know who i'm talking about). anyways she was i guess a bit masculin but she was def a woman. So then out of nowhere fernando reaches over and grabs one of her breasts and wendy and i are liek...did that just happen. And then he does it again and reaches over and grabs a tit and laughs and says "get some tit action man." And at this point we're like...is this actually happeneing. AND THEN he reaches over AGAIN! Suddenly carmen miranda slaps him and yells "i said STOP asshole!!!" and fernando is laughing and she is teling her boyfriend to go and beat him up and we grab fernando and drag him to a corner of the party and are like "what the fuck where you doing." He starts laughing. "no guys, no, it's ok! she was a man! i was just telling her that she should have stuffed her tits better." we're all like "DUDE SHE WAS A WOMAN!!" he's laughing and laughing and then suddenly stops and goes "oh shit! no she wasn't!" and we're liek "YES SHE WAS!!" and he goes "fuck let me go apologize to her and tell her i thought she was a man" and we were like 'NO! WORST THING EVER!" So we all laughed and laughed about this all night long and how he'd never be able to touch a breast again every time he saw a carmen miranda costume because it's like Pavlov and his dogs (and we are nerds) and yeah my main question was...hello haven't you ever touched a boob cuz you really grabbed her tits 3 separate times and yet still thought they were stuffed. Anyways hilarity ensued. Later that night we headed to denny's for a latenight snack of eggs, bacon, sausage, and hashbrowns...mmm

The next day i did nothing but watch tv and then threw on my costume last minute and ozan and i headed to kevin's history majors party. again...i will tell the story in pictures

Initialy ozan didn't really know waht to be but with his random assortment of strange dressings and my creativity we decided that he would be a nascar fan. in fact, better than that he would be a member of Shauna Robinson's (first female ever to win a nascar race according to wiki) pit crew and her name woudl be darlene. He was also wearing my bikini top under the full body zip up denim suit.
Kevin randomly had some fried chicken lying around from a tailgate he had been to earlier that day so we ate and it was bomb. fernando came as nothing cuz he is a loser but people kept asking him "are you a pizza hut table cloth?" and he kept having to say "no! this is my clothes!"
Ozan's girlfriend and her friend from college went as a "full nelson" wrestling move. it was a bit over all of our heads. Small world though, it turns out the girl on the right lived with ozan's girlfriend freshman year of college at stanford in branner when i was a profro AND is now at medical school one year below david and i acutally met her before at a ucsf event AND is puja's little sib. a small world INDEED! turns out this friend is kind of slutty and kevin found her making out in his loft with 3 guys, at the same time. scandal ensued, as did shit talking
One couple from clinical psych went as storm and wolverine which i thought was quite excellently done. snaps thomba, snaps

Peruvian fernando went as fidel castro from the olden days and tola went as...i don't know but i said he was venus williams. it was ruuul scurry.
like i said..rull scurrry

Kevin, the host of the part was dressed as some type of british hip hop mogul? i'm not really sure and he wasn't really sure because to be honest he was wearing what he always wears only with a hat and cane. Also to be honest the next day when i downloaded my pictures i was like "wait...when did i take this picture??" yup i was what ramit would call "piecing the night together."
for some reason nishi kept sticking her hand under my tutu and touching my booty like such
close up
and then we all started dancing and something happened. i busted out my camere and asked fernando to turn around and...he took teh GAYEST PICTURE EVER! seriously how gay is he in this picture. It's so very judy garland "hello world!!" I love it!
then Tola removed that wierd gold thing he was wearin and he had like 2 other costumes underneath. i'm not realy sure what this was but it was...something
so at one point we had this really bomb playlist going and we were really feeling the music. There was a lot of abba especially the song "fernando" on repeat which we all forced fernando to dance to even though he hates that song. and fernando put on OMD "electricity," a very awesome 80's song but only he ane i knew the song so we danced alone, as usual. And then we decided to do our magical rendition of fat boy slim's "praise you" which is basically like me and fernando's big party trick. We discussed later that some people express themselves through painting or poetry or acting while we express ourselves through our dance. So why hinder people from being moved by our dancing. why, in the midsts of all of this interpretive dance we managed to create the greek letter sigma, as fernando so aptly pointed out to me a few days later. I don't quite see it but maybe after a few shots tonight it will magically appear to me like those 3d paintings from our youth.
Anyways halloween as usual was good times. Sometimes i'm amazed when i hang out with these people because it's like...holy shit, these are some of the smartest people in the country and they are FOOLS! i mean i am a fool too but still, what i'm saying is...i don't know waht i'm saying. BAsically smart people are not supposed to act as retarded as we all do.

cutest baby EVER! part II

ok seriously guys SERIOUSLY!!! SERIOUSLY!!! how cute is my nephew! first off i bought him that michigan baby jersey cuz his dad is into sports and hten they dressed him up as a honey pot from winnie the pooh and SERIOUSLY!!! i could die 5 times looking at these pictures! Mexi-pino babys are the BEST!

you're so beautiful...it hurts to look at you

So cathy sent a few of us this link and i wanted to pass it on to you guys. it's about the guy who writes dilbert and how through some rare disease his brain stopped being able to talk so he lost his voice...like literally lost the ability to talk. Anyways it's very eeeemotional and cahty and i were both crying on gchat adn i wanted to share it with you all to remind you guys to find the beauty in life.

http://dilbertblog.typepad.com/the_dilbert_blog/2006/10/good_news_day.html

what we especially lvoe about it is that in the end he's like...this is the best day of my life now share wiht me the best day in your life. how wonderful! it's like....i love my life and now think about why you shoudl lvoe your life. Adn cathy and i agreed that it was in fact a true pay it forward moment and so i'm paying it forward ot you. think about a great moment over the past few days or whatevre when you were most happy. i todl her it was the other nght when i was driving home listening to "pump it up" and it was dark and the trees had lost hteir leaves and i thought..."wow i'm so lucky!!" I was just so overwhelmed by the simple beauty of life. cathy said her moment was "when i'm fishing, and it's like 70 degrees in oct, and i see the sun, setting/rising, yes! pay it forward!" Please leave comments wiht the greates moment of your life now or then or wahtever. come on guys, if this isn't a great opportunity to comment then i don't know what is.

and yet again just to bring us back to tv i thougth of two great quotes that express how i feel right now.

"so....beautiful...no...words....should have sent a poet." Jodie Foster in Contact. I know this scene was so cheesy and i use this quote quite regularly but sometimes it's so apt! liek really sometimes life is so beautiful that i can't express myself in words and i wish that i were a poet!! seriously!

and then there is also
"you're so beautiful...it hurts to look at you." what angela in my so called life says she wishes somoene woudl say to her in that moment of sssssex. and i think it's also appropro cuz sometimes life is so beautiful that it hurts.

PAY IT FORWARD!!