my best judgement signed its resignation

this will be yet another boring post. cheers.

so. the u.s. olympic committee is coming to campus tomorrow to check out the dorms and assess whether or not the summer 2016 olympics should be held in l.a. or chicago and whether or not our dorms are good enough for the athletes and shiz. pretty exciting.

guess that explains the unaccessibility of the whole first floor for the past few days. rawr. >:| my laundry is clearly more important than some famous old people. bah.


secured me tickets for ben gibbard's solo tour (with pedro the lion opening for him yayz!) this spring. and what better location than to have the performance right on campus. may 17th, royce hall baby. i'm there.

...meh. i don't like it very much when my roomies come in the room and turn on the lights when we clearly do not need them. it's a cloudy day today too. just ruined the atmosphere. or maybe i'm just emo.

anyways. midterms part 3284932 results back. did pretty well on chem (meaning okay) despite being short on time. the curve this time was freakishly high (probably cause everyone has figured out the prof by now). math..got the median after i totally skipped the last 20 point problem...meaning i could've done much better if i had actually seen the problem and that i need to study my ass off for the final.


my dilemma over whether or not to continue pursuing the taiko team has been made for me. apparently, lion dance wants to begin teaching me the drumming parts soon and are somewhat expecting me to replace our awesome drummer now (since she's leaving next year and they're running out of time to figure out this problem). this is probably in part because i'm whiny and keep bothering them about drumming.

lion dance also has an interesting relationship with the taiko group (let's just say, they don't have the highest opinion of them (regarding certain aspects). and it's infiltrating my mind too) and do not encourage me to tryout again...in fear that i might leave liondance, and all their efforts to put up with me would have been in vain.

i may, however, decide to try out for the other taiko group on campus, which is a lot more "for fun" based and less strict (on requirements such as appearance and race, as well as, attendance to practices and such). some lion dance people do it has a fun side thing (along with martial arts o_0). plus, i've built myself a sort of life with lion dance, and the group and its people are way too awesome (and the "sport" too fun) to ever leave *reminisces team sports* ...something kyodo taiko could require me to do. always did have to be a part of something.


anyways.

peer editing engcomp essays still makes me immensely frustrated. this time even more so. the prompt: make a proposal to change something about universities. imagine reading papers claiming that using SATs is completely and utterly unfair because they are "harder than material learned in school" and do not assess how competent they are. now imagine that every other sentence you read does not quite make sense because the grammar is falling apart, the argument sounds immature and superficial, and the tone is complainy.

i dunno about you, but it makes me angry.

not saying i don't agree with the opinion that the SAT isn't the best assessor of student qualities. of course it's flawed. nor am i trying to say my writing pwns all cause most of you will know i think my own writing is shit (and it is). but man. it makes you wonder 'bout some things.

and if you're going to make an argument like that...it's useful to first make sure you don't use yourself as an example before guaranteeing your own points about yourself are sound. it just. it's like defeating yourself before others can even get to you. that's sad. rule of thumb: using yourself as an authoritative piece of evidence is usually not a good idea.

then again, i guess it's nice that people even try. and this was a required assignment. but why not try going for...i dunno. serving more jelly beans in the dining halls or something. at least that would be entertaining.

i'm a mean, bitter person. and college makes that worse.

behind the curtain, in the pantomime

aha back. it's been awhile. since i'm feeling uncreative and my mind is dead, i will list out my life
of the past couple weeks or so.

1. liondance for dance marathon last sat. first time under the head. messed up a bit and had no idea what i was doing but overall, successful. actually managed to "eat" the candy packages on the floor in front of us, tear it open while making "chomping" movements, and make a successful throw at the crowd, producing many surprised "oh!s" much fun and got some asthma like coughing fits after. but it was worth it. (have also finally made my way onto youtube. but i won't say where cause i suck like that :P)

2. liondance for pasadena parade last sun. actually performed on a central stage. at last minute (we never find out our parts until seconds before the performance. talk about impromptu >:|), find out i'm cymbaling for malay...which newbies haven't learned yet. proceed to make up entire part. and learn very fast indeed.

3. after liondance for pasadena, dim sum at LA chinatown's empress pavilion. SO GOOD that it obviously deserves it's own number for my list of events. haven't gone there since maybe end of middle school. proceeded to dominate at eating chicken feet (or "phoenix claws" as justin corrected). SO GOOD. i think i've said that already.

4. chem midterm last wed. no one finished on time. prof is angry at my class cause apparently everyone told later section all the midterm questions, screwing up his curve and making the average unbearably high. this is his retaliation. idiot peers.

5. liondance at usc last wed night. usc apparently doesn't have their own liondance team (suckas), invited us to perform for their pacific asian festival or something. was tail for namsi and gong for malay (this time i've figured out the parts ha.) they were kinda unorganized and things ran late. gave us food tickets and there was a mix of experiences with usc peeps. some were told, wtf are you doing here? some were treated decently. one of us got intentionally elbowed hard in the stomach by a usc-er. mind you, she is a foot shorter than me. i was going to punch someone in the face. ended up not getting food at all. at least they paid for our performance (ha.)

6. math midterm on friday. as time was called, i close the packet promptly. backside faced up, i realize i completely missed a whole question on the very last page. each question is 20 points. my stomach dropped and i froze completely over. after initial shock, my head started swimming and i felt like throwing up and crying at the same time. it was odd. could not concentrate in chem (shiz.), got back and punched a few walls. got really tired all of the sudden and napped. and napped. and kept on napping.

7. liondance at alhambra parade yesterday. in actual parade this time. never knew a parade could feel so long and time so slow (yeah, it's a weird phenomenon). routine: groups cycle from bannerholding to music (cymbals), to lions (lion head and tail switch underneath whenever partner feels tired). was almost overcome by fatigue in legs after second shift under lion and after 5th switch in total. also got my first red envelope from some lady. successful in recieving and shoving it down my shirt (yes, dirty money indeed) in a timely manner. except, after my first bow, realized i was bowing to nobody since the lady had run away. that was sad. made a baby cry too. spent too much time playing with crowd and had to "gallop" almost a 100 meters to catch up with the truck again. trust me, it was hard. also cymballed ten times as loud as anyone else cause half the people were too shy about it >:| by the end, my hearing was muffled like no other. next time, i'm bringing ear plugs dude.

(random note: parade is on the street that the "far away" 99 ranch plaza (some of you know it as "the place") is on. the one that has the TOFUPOT place my family always goes to :D. started at that corner and ran for about a mile down the street. never knew this parade existed :P)

8. dim sum after liondance at alhambra. never knew that dim sum place existed either. not as good as chinatown but hey. got my chicken feet. because i'm really whiny. SO GOOD.

9. liondance this morning to afternoon for harvard-westlake event. apparently location changed from school to some reallyreallyreallyreallyo_0really rich person's "humble" abode(not.) in beverly hills. was tail (someone tried to yank my tail away from me again >:|) for namsi.

10. seeing/being on such rich property gets its own entry as well. seriously. never seen a "house" that large. it consisted of a front yard larger than two uppermiddleclass homes with a longass gate fence thingy. garage for three cars on one side. a row of parking attendants dressed in snazzy suits opened your car doors and parked your cars if you so choosed. enter to back. backyard is huge. contained an individual building in one corner (garage number two) that held 5 cars. three more cars were parked outside. in other (far) corner, there was a huge pool and a frigging poolhouse. pretty snazzy one too.

there was a large stage (enough for four of us lions to fit) and probably 10 mics. perhaps 20 large round tables with umbrellas set up in the field, leading to a hugeass patio with the best catering i have ever had in my entire life. it was basically dim sum + variety of other main dishes including two complete pigs (i say pigs not pork because the heads and legs were fully intact). on other side of field (yes, there is still some field space available), there was a little band set up, a dumpling stand, and a BOBA stand. good boba too. also on the field, closer to the tables was a desert stand which served freshly cut fruit, lichee and peach konnyaku jellos, mochi balls, some ginger stuff with those little squishy balls inside, egg tarts, puddings, ferrero rocher? chocolates, and more o_0.

then to top it all off, the decorations were elaborate. they had trucks of flourists there, setting up the prettiest array of plantlife i'd ever seen (well, for a "small" event at some person's house). many cherry blossom branches, orchids, i don't know the names of anything else i saw there. but man. they were everywhere. lots of asian decorations too, none of that cheap chinatown stuff either. all i could keep thinking was. man, if they gave away all their money until all they had was enough for a good upper middle class life, they could probably make like 10 homeless people very well off too. but then they let us frolick and eat all their food. sadly enough, i was sedated. but. SO GOOD.


man. i've eaten quite a bit for the past couple weeks. yay chinese new year.
also, i aspire to be as good as this kid right here. some day.

if you're really bored, this is crazy, and we are so totally not allowed to do this :(

shiz. lion dance makes me really asian. o_0

cause everyone's saying different things to me

so. been feeling kinda shitty lately. can't concentrate on work, can't sleep right, don't find any interest in pretty much anything, been exiled from my own room every fucking day from fri to sunday, watched frigging garden state...when i couldn't find i heart hucklebees, and even picked up a brochure (it was situated in front of my face so i just took one for fun okay >:0) about psychological services on campus, but after skimming it decided no, it's too risky. plus it costs money. it's been a sad life.

and then the stupid fire alarm has to go off. again. at 6:30am today. fuck.

unlike last time, being now experienced with fire alarms, i was well aware of what i was doing the whole time...which basically consisted of much profanity and weak attempts to ignore the screeching and go back to sleep.

after a few mintues, decide i don't really want to be expelled or anything, so i get up and take my time slipping on my sweatshirt, putting on shoes, and grabbing my phone, id/room key...and ipod.

that is probably really reflective of what i'd grab in a real life-threatening situation...just in a quicker fashion.

unfortunately, it was much colder than last time. also i was actually in the middle of an interesting dream this time, which i wanted to go back to finishing. eventually was let back in, climbed the stupid stairs back up, slept for an hour or so and woke up even more tired than before.

enrollment for next quarter starts on the 20th. think i'm going to screw over chem just so i can take a seminar that takes place in the film building (melnitz) situated in the farthest area on campus possible. i decided this upon entering the building and being immediately met with 578493 large framed posters of any movie you can possibly think of. walking down the strange warehouse-styled hallway, i spotted a cool yellow sign outside one of the doors labeled "animation reels" and tragically sealed my d00m.

here's a pic i found online of melnitz (it's much dimmer and dingier looking in real life ha.):


it's okay. a bit more suffering in ochem will be worth it, right. and whoknows. i might chicken out and drop the seminar. or perhaps my enrollment time sucks and my whole schedule will be messed up anyways.

also, college keeps making me realize that people are not very nice creatures. students can sometimes be really rude to eachother which ticks the hell outta me. i dunno what it is. is it the competition and cut-throatness. bitterness and stress or the "mind your own fucking business" and "i probably know better than you" mentality. some people need to learn that wow. guess what buddy. you're actually not the only one who matters in this class of 300 people. or the world for that matter.

it always makes me reflect on nelson's comment once upon a time about the op. how people are generally pretty civil to eachother. of course it wasn't entirely true, but i'd say at least our particular class was pretty above average with that.

and so here are the uc's. where yes, there are a lot of dicks out there. and there are even more in the real world. public high school once again. in some ways, even more so than the op ever was. all the superficial judging. the condescending thoughts. the "wow you're a dork"s or "you're too stupid for this class. get out."s or the "you're hot and you're not"s. at least keep these thoughts to yourself or something. making rude comments and hissing sounds doesn't make things any better.

of course i'm generalizing. lots of people aren't like that. or if they are, they're good at hiding it. and yes, it's natural to respond rudely when your space or whatever is encroached upon by a stranger rather than acquaintance...even if accidentally or unintentionally. i mean, why should you care for them if they probably don't care for you? just...try not to be an ass about it.

and so i guess that's what i meant when i always told people that going here is very "normal." it is quite normal by society's standards. nothing special here. just people being people. making friends, forming alliances, working hard, trying to settle into the quarter before the next one starts, competiting for the grades that will make or break their dreams. all bitchiness included.

...and how did i just eat half that box of triscuit in one sitting. dammit.

the birth was quick but the death was slow

omgz. for a limited time only, you can now get that special someone HANDCUFFS via a valentines gram for only TWO dollars. aww how sweet.

thasright kids. be good now.

so. recently watched "super size me" which actually made me feel gross this time because the guy's expanding stomach resembled mine. a lot.

thus, my roomie and i have come up with some rules over our diets and such. shuddup, we're desperate >:0. this is probably a preliminary outline of some rules we set:

- gym: at least 3-4x a week for at least 30min each visit
- no smoothies (from bruincafe)
- pizza/corndogs/burgers - 2x(any combination) per week MAX
- dining hall frigging desert bar - one visit per week max
- bruincafe sandwiches - must switch default hugeass fat bread to thin-wheat-type-one
- tater tots/fries - once a week max
- fruit - pleez get this instead of chip bags
- pleez eat more salad shit.
- sodas are up to you, betch.
stuff from rendezvous:
breakfast:
-bacon/egg/cheese bagel (triple b) - once a week max
-watch out for tater tots...they are evil and come with every meal
-breakfast burrito - once a week (don't eat them anyways)
- those parfait thingies - ...i purposedly did not bring it up shhh
- other shit - whatevs they're too healthy to make it on the list
lunch/dinner:
-asian meals - may only eat HALF of what is given. mygod.
-mexican meals - tortilla chips - once a week max OR can eat half if only eat half of main course


yuh. as you may have noticed, these rules mainly concern food on "the hill"...so there are obviously a ton of loopholes (eg. walking down to in-n-out or getting jamba juice from ackerman lalala). whatevs the basic ideas are there. plus, if we made it too hard...we'd just give up right? heh heh.

so on tuesday, i went to the gym for the first time evah (on my own accord...and not for another clubtype practicing thingy) with my roomies. we signed up for raquetball raquets but realized after we got them that we had no ball to play with and no money to buy one with. le suck.

also completely forgot how to use all the weight room stuffs even after the rugby peeps had taught me which resulted in my roomies and i looking really stupid admist the crowd of tallsmellysweatyratherbuff men who actually knew what they were doing. so we eventually stopped that.

BUT i did do an eliptical machine thingy for around 50 min and accomplished a bit more than 5.5 miles on it NONSTOP. yeah i dunno either.

random note: if you ever try to convert me, no matter what religion/belief you have...pleaseplease make sure you know what you want to say and how to say it. otherwise you'll look/sound pitiful and i'll find it even more pitiful and feel bad for you and then feel compelled to listen with a sympathetic smile the whole time because you are nice people and mean well...and i just much rather not. also make sure if you're going to fall flat on your face while trying to "save" me, that you're not in the same class as i am in.. that also happens to be the one i was off to in the first place. that just makes it unbearably awkward later.

if you cannot do all that...please just leave me alone. i am not lonely or depressed, and if i was, i probably do not need an invisible friend as my companion, much less my savior. believe it or not, i actually just enjoy sitting outside sometimes and admiring the sky when it is not clear.

sorry that prolly sounded really offensive. no, i don't hate religion or anything. but so many frigging religious groups have been aggressively harrassing me lately that i just get fed up sometimes. why are the most annoyingly pushy people always the best speakers and the nice ones just horribly sad. do it right and maybe i'll convert. or not.


also, after uploading my new cd by styrofoam...yes that's the band's name right there.. and searching for them in my itunes, i've found that the only bands that have songs/cdtitles/collaborations/bandname, etc. containing the word "styrofoam" are deathcab, the postal service, and styrofoam. this is how you can tell which bands are the best. clearly. i mean, it's such a random word to use. so nerdy and cool and geeky and ohsodamnhot.

dorks. <3

fail with consequence, lose with eloquence. and smile

short hiatus due to midterms. how midterms are situated 1/3rd of the way through the quarter is baffling. destroys the meaning of MIDterm in my opinion but whatevs.

chem midterm was the stupidest thing i've ever taken in my life. it was basically a "have you read my ohsowonderfullyandgloriouslyintelligentbuthorriblyexpensecausenoonebuysit book??" test (sorry got carried away). and no, the book my prof wrote is not a chemistry textbook...but the stupid history of the fugging periodic table. who. cares.

also i've been much more antisocial, and sadly, i realize that i still don't really care. anyways. finally got me packages from bestbuy and am very content at them moment.

well. because my roomie and i have such good work ethics and all...we somehow found time admist all our stress to:
1. extend my desk (omgz so big nowfdkalf)
2. find a v. large crevice behind my closet via underneath my desk
3. take turns exploring said crevice
4. play frisbee in the hallway...destroying everything in our path as well
5. play more frisbee in our room...destroying yet more stuffs
6. go to battle of the bands 6hoursdoodfdafkrlejfndakfe

battle of the bands last wed was pretty awesome i must say...even if the genre of music was not my favorite (of course, since most battle of the bands include primarily alt. punk (tight girl pants, cursing, black allstar shoes and all)...makes for more exciting shows if you know what i mean).

the battling bands were mayday! mayday!, never heard of it, and westview. a heartwell ending also performed but didn't compete. and of course, to actually make people show up, the special guests of the night were sugarcult.

only initially knew of never heard of it and sugarcult so it was interesting. didn't really matter in the end cause there was so much "ear fucking" as neverheardofit deemed it, that my sense of tone went numb. i knew it was a bad idea to forget earplugs.

my roomies and i were right in the front so there was a lot of pushing and shoving. also the bands had this weird obsession with spitting all their water and shaking the sweat from their heads at us. they also loved jumping onto the crowd which made people insane (no, none of them were dropped if that's what you're thinking).

also the guy from never heard of it was totally high cause he kept leaning dangerously far off the stage so much that we'd have to push him back so that he wouldn't fall off. also one time he did stumble off, and i had the pleasure to have his whole sweaty back plastered against me. his butt crack was also very pleasant indeed btw. ew.

one of the biggest disadvantages of being right in front of the stage is that when the band throws their used shit at you (guitar picks, drum sticks), usually it makes it all the way out into the middle of the crowd leaving you hopelessly emptyhanded. for some peeps that stuff isn't as awesome as having the main singer's face literally in yours as he bends over and screams into the mic, sweat dripping straight from the ends of his greasy hair into your open mouth...but every one has their own preferences.

unfortunately, we didn't manage to snatch a drumstickfjdakfld. but i did throw my roomie onto the stage to get a fallen pick from sugarcult. and then right after, i searched the floor and found another really sweet pick that actually said sugarcult on it. also on it was the chinese character for "love" underneath and an engraved autograph of one of the band members on the back.

anyways. it was all good. best part in my opinion wasn't the hour long performance by sugarcult or the free stuff...but the little performances by our own students in between the acts. scattertones (a cappella) was very amusing, and the winner of last year's big talent show, a little band called mikey g and dan from danville, was definitely my favorite. i loved the guy who played the drums...using a box with a hole in it. so many different sounds from a few slabs of wood :D

so after the earfucking my ears were muffled for the rest of the night and the ringing didn't stop until a day later...which killed my soul because i usually take extra precautions to protect my ears... for the love of (ironically,)muzic. seriously. i wouldn't be able to imagine my life without muzic. ever. people who listen to their ipods with the volume on max are crazy. o_0

oh. and don't ever be a fanatic groupe. they're annoying as hell. i swear i was going to turn around and punch that idiot who kept shoving me into the stage if she wailed into my ear just one more time.


also saw being john malkovich and borat yesterday. being john malkovich is a very interestingly bizarre movie that raises many questions about life and how we value it, etc. i recommend it very much so.

borat is a totally different genre. to watch it, you are required not to take yourself or others around you too seriously. and in a way, i do like it for that. it's also awesome that most of the scenes weren't setup (amazing how much some people will reveal to a guy dressed up as an ignorant foreigner) and its fusion of documentary with contemporary movie making. if nothing else, you gotta at least give it a little credit for being so damn offensive to pretty much the whole world through its mockery of all things prejudiced...as well as the extensive improvisation the guy did for the movie. o_0 supposedly it's hurt and used many peeps in the process of its making but. who said life was fair. probably won't ever watch it again though heh.

i wrote this while listening to music. because i suck at multitasking in all contexts of the word, this entry probably sucks like no other. i apologize to your eyes.

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NOT.