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