Car

Lately I've been increasingly interested in having my own car. part of me knows there is no good reason to have one in Berkeley and they are bad for our environment and our lifestyle and land uses (oh, and I can't afford one...yay insurance) but part of me still wants one.

I've got things to do right now but expect a more reasoned look at the car issue later.

Hypochondriac

I'm hoping I'm not really sick because everything that google searching tells me about the weird tickle in my throat that I keep getting (the one that wakes me up because it turns into a coughing fit) says it could be related to my thyroid. Which my mom had to get removed when she was in her early 30s. Which made her weight change a lot. Which is something I do not need/want.

My roommate says it could be stress.

So I'm hoping I'm just making a bigger deal out of this than necessary, even though the doctor is always telling me to LISTEN TO MY BODY and pay attention to the cues it gives me. The opthamologist is always amazed I'm actually passing classes because I shouldn't be able to see that well; the doctor is usually amazed I haven't dropped dead of stress; the woman who checekd out my ear was surprised I wasn't having more pain in my ear.

At any rate now that I'm 21 I'm not supposed to see my "adolescent"/pediatrician doctor. What a pain in the ass. Finding a new doctor is super annoying.

On a somewhat related note, I would like a massage. Kthx bai.

drained

I'm so so so incredibly.....empty. I don't care about doing my work for school, and for no reason. I don't have any crises per se (snicker - watch this week's south park if you wanna know why). I don't care about doing my work work, even though I think it should be done. I don't care about the fact that I can see myself crashing...fast. I just don't want it any more, I guess. 

A lot of my drive evaporated throughout the semester, but I just keep trudging along - even when I'm not trying - because I know there is nobody there to pick up the pieces for me, or to force me to do things, or to even acknowledge that hey, things aren't going as great as they could be. Sometimes i feel alienated, even when I'm in my own apartment. 

Some of the things floating around in the back of my head that don't really have anything to do with what is going on in terms of school is surrounding the big "what happens when I graduate?" plan. Because my current plan is that I don't have a plan. Kind of like the Easterly book. Except I tend to be a planner, not a searcher. Also, I fail at many basic life tasks: keeping my room clean, laundry (I'll do 2 weeks at once), feeding myself properly, exercising, etc etc etc. Getting the mail out. I always think next semester will be different and it NEVER is...now I've realized that it's because I choose to take on a lot of extra things. And while some times those extra things are what feeds my soul, I come to resent them every so often for what they deprive me of. So what if other people can keep it all together. Clearly, I am not those people.

I'm also in one of those fat-and-ugly ruts that leads me to the why-should-I-care-what-I-look-like-anyways attitudes. I haven't worn makeup in weeks. I haven't run in god knows how long. I've almost given up on mirrors...

I don't really know what it is in my life that is so horrible that it's crippling me but I do know that deep down, no matter how much I do not want to admit it, I am very, very lonely. I've got friends and they tell me things will be all right and they will be fine but at the end of the day they've got their own and I don't. The negative energy I run into really gets me down too.

So right now life is tragic for me, because there IS no tragedy. There's no "ah, that's why things suck" thing to point to. But there's no real "concrete" plan to throw all my hope into, either. And nobody's going to come shake me by the shoulders, make my bed, and get me back on the right track.

status: not at the SOCC at UCLA.

It seems that..well....a LOT of people are attending the Students of Color Conference at UCLA. I am not...I have things to do...NSU is having their first ever community performance in Japantown this sunday!!!

I am, however, a tiny bit jealous.

Every time I go to UCLA it's for a conference or something where I'm surrounded (and energized) by passionate leaders. Couple that with the sunshine and car-centric culture and you've got a guaranteed exhilarating weekend. Bah, someday I'll go to grad school there and have all the smog and sunshine I want.

Until then, I'm not letting all the cool kids know I'm jealous. NSU is making history this weekend!

Eye Twitching

My left eye's been twitching off and on since Monday.

The Univ. of Maryland Medical Center suggests that it may be caused by "fatigue, stress, and caffeine." Le duh......I hope this goes away soon.

Flashback

So...I have been having the WORST week ever. Saturday's Mixed Student Union conference was good - interesting, and not what I expected - Saturday night was....well annoying but memorable (just gotta remember I'm not always doing things for *me*)...Sunday was just a very long day. As in, 10am to 5am. I forgot that I hadn't actually ordered the programs for (r)evolutions and I screwed up a few times (and watched my computer die a few times) and yeah. Plus, this whole weekend I was dealing with an ear infection (which I think might still be there but I finished my round of antibiotics today). Monday I woke up to NO HOT WATER and REALLY LOUD repairmen RIGHT UNDER MY BED. The boiler room is under my bedroom. I was none too happy, but I got over it. Went to Richmond, picked up my package. So far, so good - crises managed.

Monday evening after all my meetings and practices (I am REALLY excited about our latest piece), I watched Gossip Girl. It totally SUCKED, the only thing it had going for it was good eye candy. Then my laptop charger starts..um...overheating and emitting high pitched noises. I have 20 minutes left on my computer. OH CRAP. I decided to write a letter to Kim and then go to bed.

Tuesday involved me not showering because we still had cold water, but having my plans to sleep through life thwarted again. I went to classes, disgruntled and falling asleep without my shiny beacon of amusement (aka my laptop). Nobody I know has a Dell computer anymore!!! I went to Emeryville with Alex, got lost, and proofed the program. It's not 100% perfect but I am crunched for time and nothing BAD is wrong...just personal preferences. I made it back to class in time for a mildly interesting lecture on water systems (sunlight apparently kills germs!) and then went home. Talked to Dell for an hour...will be getting a new charger soon. Hopefully. I still haven't gtten an email to confirm it yet. I went upstairs to borrow a friend's charger but it didn't work. I haven't eaten since 11am. I haven't showered since Saturday afternoon. I am stressed to the max. Then my friend tells me she has a charger for me...I just gotta get across town. So I made dinner, left, picked it up, walked to my old roommates' place, and took a nice long shower. Oh god I love hot showers. They are so amazing!!

They also make me sleepy. I fell asleep without finishing reading, let alone writing. Crap crap crap.

This morning I was awakened at 8am by the toilet installer and reawakened at 9 by the welding and banging going on downstairs. RAWRRRRRRRRR I kept yelling but they couldn't hear me. I went to classes. I was not inspired. I spent 3+ hours debating if i want to join zip car or city car share (conclusion: wait till I can ask my mom..even though...she knows nothing about it). My cmputer as shut down on me four times this evening...........

anyways....
I was cleaning up my desktop (it was 3/4 full of icons and documents...kind of like my real desktop...) and I found something I wrote in Italy that I never posted because I never had reliable internet. It's interesting to look at...

=============================
Things that make my day

salt + olive oil
cappuccino + sugar
mini coopers with british flags painted on the roof
emails from friends
phone calls
my crappy taste in music
decent food
exposed piping that's actually designed instead of being thrown down as an afterthough
Exchange rates that are less than $1.5 to the Euro (sad, I know)

Things that I am learning, mostly about myself:

I am responsabile and independent
Friendship is not all about similarities...
I like to tell stories...or rather write them...and I'm not just talking about emails and dry recounts of my days.
My "eclectic" music tastes are really just a mishmash of less-than-classy artists.
I do not like mushrooms so much, unless they are the kind that come from california
A great pumpkin dish can be made in any culture
I am and always will be totally American, whether that is good or bad is up to you
Toilet seats and paper are a luxury
Half an hour on foot is a doable commute.

hot and cold

I won't won't won't play the game. Holding out hope and chasing after carrots that are dangled in front of me - only for them to be politely yanked away - is not acceptable. What do you expect?? I fell all over myself once and you said oh no, not now, good bye. I don't make the same mistakes twice so if you have something to say, say it loud. 

Pensavo che il positivismo senza una vera speranza fosse sufficiente. Ma speranza falsa non e` speranza, solamente una bugia. Non posso sostenermi con un gioco di possibilismo. La possibilita` di te mi sta ammazzando! Voglio i tuoi braccii attorno di me ma non posso sperare per sempre. Dunque devi fare la prima cosa. Alzati, dichiarati, o vai via. So che un po' della culpa e` mia, e sembro strana...pero hai un pezzo di me e richiedo controllo di tutte le parte di me. Cosi` non abbia paura....devo andare avanti.

Carelessly Optimistic

I'll be the first to admit that lately...things have not been so great. There haven't been any major disasters or tragedies (well...Prop 8 passed...) lately but I've been too worn down and tired to care. I had a monstrous headache monday - I was literally crying at dance practice. (I had to tell myself over and over that I am a big girl and that storming away from practice was not a good example to be setting - even if the drummers WERE annoying as hell). The sun hasn't been out as much. Nothing is on time, I have so many things to research, NSU is either on the verge of imploding or great success (ah, risk- taking), I haven't seen friends in a while, etc etc etc.

I've been feeling like something is missing and I don't know what it is...and I haven't got that fire lit under me anymore. And today wasn't all that great either, looking back on it:

I got up in the AM and stepped on my glasses. Strike 1....I had to skip my first class to get them fixed. Then I went to a restaurant and got lunch and I had some issues with my tongue - at first I thought I ate something I was allergic to. I decided to ignore it and went to class where I learned about the Umayyad Empire except not really. I stuck my headphones in and my ears hurt A LOT and at that point I realized....all this ear nose throat stuff is an EAR INFECTION. So I walked my butt down to Tang and got myself checked out - they can't explain my headaches or my mouth really but my ear is definitely infected - and then I got my flu shot. $25 please! Drugs at Walgreens cost me another $20 and 40 minutes of my time, making me late for my next lecture. Which made me mad because the lecture was REALLY GOOD. He said more about energy policy than my Energy and Society professor has said ALL SEMESTER!!

JA history was pretty interesting today. We talked about redress and reparations. I did the math and my family never recieved reparations because my grandfather died of stomach cancer/suicide a couple of years before redress happened =( We also watched a thing on the JLAs - soo sad and what was sadder was half teh class had never heard about Japanese Latin Americans that were kidnapped during WWII and used as human hostages against the Japanese during the war. After the war most were deported not to South AMerican but JAPAN and didn't get the same redress/reparations as the rest of the JAs. They were treated so much worse than Japanese Americans were, too. 

The other film we watched, "9066 to 9/11" drew all the parallels that I was already really conscious of. Seeing 9/11 footage, even though it wasn't the actual planes, hit me harder than I thought it would have though. It's so much more real not because it is in color but because I lived through it. It changed how my generation sees Arabic people, Muslims and Muslim-Americans, imperialism, the middle east, dictators, oil....yeah it cahnged a lot of things. It reminded me of what happened to myself on 9/11...when a classmate of mine asked me why I had bombed Pearl Harbor. I think that was one of those moments in my life that will always stick out. My friends actually laughed and didn't think much of it when I got angry about it. I don't think I ever felt more alone up until that point. I was the "other", America's "enemy" in that instant...and I was thirteen at the time. I thought I was American and nothing more. I knew about internment but at that point didn't know my family had been interned at Tule Lake. I didn't know a lot of things and I didn't have a clear sense of my identity, but that day whatever sense of identity that I had was shattered instantly. I didn't realize all of this in that instant though...all I could think was "how IGNORANT!" and get really, really angry. Angry at the kid who thought he was a smart ass for asking that question, angry at his parents who had raised his white self to hate on others, angry at my friends who didn't think there was anything wrong with the comment, angry at American History class, because it didn't teach Americans shit about any of the things it should. Now that I have a clear sense of my identity and I know a LOT more about the intricacies of JA and AA history in the US, I shouldn't care so much about that moment...but for some reason I still do.

Anyways.

Back to 2008.

Life's been going along in a haphazard manner, and all these stupid little things like getting infections keeps coming up and I just can't get ahead in anything. And I haven't been super positive. But tonight I am choosing...choosing to be optimistic...even though I don't have any really good reasons to. Because I don't have any really good reasons to be negative, not really, and negativity doesn't get you anything positive. I need positive. So. I'm going to be optimistic, even if it means setting myself up for disappointment.

I'm putting that happy record on, cleaning up all of my clutter, and hoping that someday soon I won't be going to bed early just to avoid my life.

World Class Cities

I realized something amazing this weekend...I don't necessarily have to go back to Europe to feel adventurous and alive like I did across the pond. All I have to do is go to San Francisco (which, at $6.80 a pop, is exponentially cheaper). 

I guess I should back up....Saturday I went to a spanish tapas bar with a friend in the Mission district. As soon as I opened the menu, memories of my amazing tapas experience with the practically-a-stranger Canadian girl I made friends with came back. The finger-food sized portions, sangria, a bread charge....yup it was a lot like my Barcelona trip. I probably made a boring dinner-date for my friend since I was halfway lost in thought (OLIVES....spritz...damn I miss those) and halfway spouting off all these facts, observations, and memories of Europe to my friend. It was good for my soul though. I've been pretty bummed as of late since I'm in the hole and the economy sucks and I haven't any job prospects at the moment, so no funds to get back to Europe. 

Later that evening we went through North Beach and had dessert. It was a lot like being in Italy minus the fact that we ended up choosing one of the most touristy restaurants instead of one of the more authentic ones. The desserts were still good though and the barista dude was Italian, even if none of the servers we had were.

At any rate, the desire to make your city into a "world class city" has some bad side affects to be sure, but Saturday night I was very glad to be living so close to a world class city. San Fran has enougn diversity and enough character to give you a semi-authentic experience when you really need one (well, a semi-authentic european experience. IDK about a Japanese experience, but then again I've never been to Japan!)

Grumpy

I keep screaming "this is BULLSHIT" all day. Or rather  asking "WHAT?", proclaiming "LAME", and rolling my eyes. Today I am very grumpy.

The more I sit in transportation class the more I am convinced that it is a joke. Not only are the lectures boring and uninformitive, but the two instructors don't seem to communicate. It's quite often a case of "the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing". It makes me resent going to class because the instructors don't seem to care much about being decent teachers rather tahn transportation researchers. I also raised my hand for the first time like, ever, and got acknowledged and then talked over. That really made me angry because some folks get to talk about their (sometimes) stupid ideas at great length but I wasn't allowed to contribute anything. True, I used to skip class a lot and I come in late sometimes...but this week I decided to begin making a conscious effort in that class. Clearly, the majority of the class and the instructors are not though.

I also had to go to the post office to track down a birthday gift that I never recieved and after a long harrassment the postal clerk told me to call some number at SEVEN AM and talk to my local carrier. Ummmm yeah. Sure. I'll do that.

I also thought I'd take a stab at doing the reading for Arch History this week but I oepend the PDF of the reading and it is literally PHOTOGRAPHS of an article. And badly lit photos. Ones that I can kind of read at 300%. I hate PDF reading anyways because I have a difficult time seeing things on a computer, but that one just really took the cake. Bulleffingshit. My GSIs don't really make it easy for me to care about their classes sometimes.

I think I'm cranky because it is raining and my trusty boots leaked like crazy and I'm wet and the toyota repair and service center next door has a flat roof so it sheds all of its water into very concentrated parts of the sidewalk...creating a lake...and the auditory illusion of a waterfall in my ear.

Rain!

I meant to write about the first rain of the season in Berkeley but I went home the same day so I didn't have time. If the first rain makes the world seem clearer to me, then midnight walks in the rain are my catharsis and cleansing.

The thing I love about rainy days are the intervals in between and after the rain. The whole world is quieter and cleaner. I feel like a hush has been cast over the world. Walking through Strawberry Creek, this was especially true. I felt like I did when I was seven, hanging out under the pine trees in a timeless wonder-world. It's probably one of the only times that I still think of the town where I was born. Everything's safe. The smell of wet earth and wet pavement and wet vegetation come together to make what I associate with the essence of natural life. [I find that if the temperature is right I can recreate this with a garden hose, but in Berkeley I don't have a yard so it doesn't ever happen...]

Tonight I left a friend's place only to find that it was raining - and not just drizzling. So I took a walk in it. Listening to the rain actually hit everything, seeing the water fall from the sky, and feeling it hit me, I continued to walk and walk...feeling both purified and lightened all at once. Maybe this is why baptism is so popular? Eventually I did get soaked and freezing so I retreated to my car and drove home. Driving in the rain during the day only feels cool because I know I could be sopping wet outside and am instead cruising down the street with the heater on, but other than that driving in the rain is somewhat terrifying. Perhaps this is because the roads in Nipomo are not very well-paved let alone well-maintained. I caught a giant puddle on Mesa that I don't remember being there, but they have fixed the spot that constantly floods on Osage so that was nice. At any rate I was glad to make it home alive because sometimes I think driving + rain is about as bad as driving + drunk.

Now I'm listening to a massive downpour from the comfort of my own room, sitting underneath my down comforter. It is perhaps the only place that, when it is raining like crazy, I feel safe, warm and dry. Not only is it well-insulated (and the heating is free), but I have a big window where I can look out on everything and doors that lock...for some reason I feel like the isolation that rain brings means we're more susceptible to the wolves and other critters out there. Yes, I know that they are all hiding in their holes too, but I still feel that way! I'm far enough from the power lines that I don't think they are going to fall on me (not that it matters because the power shuts off all the time out here), and it's the top of the hill so it won't flood. None of these things sound particularly compelling on their own, but I still feel like it's the safest place in the world when it's raining.