Weekly Bread Sing-Alongs

goodness gracious (10/9/04)

mood: looking forward, not backward
music: interpol - public pervert

Alas, something's up with my old livejournal [enamored_charlatan = 8th grade vocab words]. So here's one with a more original username!

I was supposed to go to sleep earlier since I'm meeting up with Ivy tomorrow, but somehow the minutes just flew by. Guess getting another song from Thomas didn't help =P And talking to Adam about Pig Stick, Freedom Stick, and Revolution Stick which might actually be Pig Stick II.

On Thursday, I headed over to Virgin to buy new headphones. I was listening to Snow Patrol when I was suddenly hit by nostalgia. The thought of winter arriving reminded me of Edward. Then I remembered the day Annie and I waited in front of his house for forever and tried to watch Edward Scissorhands afterwards. I sat in the middle because of all the tension and jumped when they first showed Johnny Depp. Feeling spontaneous, I went over to Chinatown library and borrowed the movie. I had to finish watching it sooner or later; it had already been a year, for Pete's sake! So I finished it tonight. It was bloody saddening and touching. Kinda frightening too.

the big guns [uhhh, don't know what this is about]

I miss him. I miss everyone. But at the same time, I'm starting to love Lowell for what it is. I'm torn...Goodbye.

---

OH JESUS. HOW...EMBARRASSING. I'm still talking about boys in the same way! Except I don't say "bloody" anymore because it's fake and I'm not as obsessed with the British.

Annie: hahaha
charmaine
you bring the lols

About my second post:

Annie: more bloodys!
and brilliant too!
i still get excited when i see edmund

mood: content
music: death in vegas - girls

The first five people to respond to this post will get something made by me! My choice. For you.

This offer does have some restrictions and limitations:
- I make no guarantees that you will like what I make!
- What I create will be just for you.
- It'll be done this year.
- You have no clue what it's going to be. It may be a story. It may be poetry. I may draw or paint something.
- I may bake you something and mail it to you. Who knows? Not you, that's for sure!
- I reserve the right to do something extremely strange.

The catch? Oh, the catch is that you have to put this in your journal as well.

(Really though, if I don't see this posted on your LJ, I'm not making you anything.)

---

This is quite an interesting meme. I don't know how I'll get this done, but if you're curious to find out, comment :)

mood: listless
music: ne-yo on ABC's new year's special

I'm a mess, but I need to be right now.

My resolutions are:

( happy new year! )

It's been a rough year, but a pivotal one. I'm too tired now to reflect, but if it isn't obvious, I've been undergoing a lot of personal drama in the past month. Tonight, I put a stop to a part of it, but if I can't achieve #1, then I'll have lost him for nothing. Eventually, I hope I can be myself - whatever that may be - again. 2009, please don't let me down.

mood: cheerful
music: flo rida & trey songz - gap merry mix it - jingle bells

MERRY CHRISTMAS, EVERYONE!! Annie and I were talking about our favorite Christmas songs the other day. I realized later that mine are "Jingle Bell Rock" (probably because I performed it in 4th grade) and "It's The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year" (BECAUSE IT IS). Keane was being a scrooge and reminding me that people are starving right now, but now is the time to be cheerful and positive! And give! And be with your family! Although I'm yet again spending the most sentimental time of the year without a special someone, I'm happy with the loved ones I am surrounded by.

Merry Christmas, and happy holidays! ♥

mood: curious
music: maroon 5 - better that we break

I need new music! R&B, pop, (especially) rock, whatever. This is mainly for my workout playlist, but feel free to recommend heartbreaking songs too. No need to upload; I can raid mp3_share :P I just don't know what else to get after looking at the most popular songs on iTunes. Thanks, you guys! Hope everyone's having an awesome break <3

mood: giddy
music: britney spears - womanizer (kaskade edit)

FUCK YES. 3.52. SUCK IT, ASTRONOMY. SUCK IT!! It's so sad that I haven't earned such a good GPA since freshman year of high school. But whatever. I'm HELLA proud.

Mandarin 101 - A
Mass Media & Society - A
Intro to the English Major - B+ (soo close, but I didn't study hard enough for the final, resulting in an 83%)
Astronomy - B- (FUCK YEAH!!!!)

I AM SO HAPPY. All that hard work paid off! :DD

Also, I just ordered my new Canon SD1100 IS tonight, so I can't wait for that to arrive in the mail. I love my parents for giving me another chance <3

mood: chipper
music: matt pond PA - halloween

I want to stop thinking and talking about school constantly. I want to stop worrying. But I can't! I wish I had the freedom to blog more often about other subjects, but guess what I'm doing right now? Yep, Astronomy homework. Oddly, I have managed to triumph over my most hated class this term. I got a 10/10 and an 8/10 on my online quizzes today. I'm fabricating 5 hours' worth of observing logs (worth 20% of my grade) because I waited until the end of the term, annnnnnnd it's foggy as hell. I'm actually learning more now because I have to research the constellations and stars that I would be seeing, if the sky was clearer. How ironic. I finally have a solid C in the course, so if I don't completely bomb the final and my log is cleared, then with the assistance of a curve, I should have a B! :D

My schedule for next term consists of Writing 121, US History 202, Comparative World Literature 211, and Chinese 102. I'm not really stepping out of my comfort zone, like I did this past term, but I'm pretty sure that the writing and COLT classes will test my limits. I'm pretty sick of writing papers, and my class is from 8 - 9:20AM twice a week :[ I've never been a fan of World Lit, and the class is two hours twice a week! A 2-hr English class! Can you imagine? Uggghhhh. But the short description does sound sort of promising. Anyway, I picked dead last in the entire university, so I'm pretty happy that I even got something I'm vaguely interested in.

Forgive me for being overly concerned with my studies, but after 4 years of apathy, it's a nice change of pace. Now I just have to push through Dead Week and ace all of my finals. Yeah! Good luck, everyone :)

mood: exanimate (dictionary.com: spirtless, disheartened)
music: john legend ft. andre 3000 - green light (just discovered this song - omg, it's so catchy!)

I've been looking so forward to Thanksgiving Break that I didn't realize that when I come back, it's DEAD WEEK. And then FINALS. OhmyGOD. The only fun thing about Dead Week is the tradition of faculty members cooking late-night pancakes for students, which is really cute and sweet but doesn't exactly change the fact that you're cramming up the whazoo. I've been so preoccupied with keeping up with constant assignments and salvaging my Astronomy grade that it slipped my mind that I'll have to review all this shit pretty soon! I'm getting an A in Chinese (3.8/4, hell yeah!), and due to my professor's awesome grading system, an F on my oral & written finals won't change that. I'm estimating a B on my English final. I can memorize the facts of English lit history, but the essay topic will probably throw me off. I was never good at conjuring up well-developed essays in a short amount of time. Astronomy will suck BALLS, but there'll be a curve, thank goodness. I got a D on the midterm, but so did everyone else, so I think it counted as a B haha. And Mass Media...I'm not sure. We don't technically have a final, but we have an exam that's worth 30% of our grade on Thursday. So it'll basically count as a final, except missing two weeks' worth of material. I'm really not sure how I'm doing in that class, because they take so long to grade everyone's blog posts. I got a C on the first one though :(

My grades for this term are so important to me. Whether I wanted to or not, I've put in a lot of effort into these classes. I didn't even give up on Astronomy, like how I would've in high school. I may not stay fully awake in lecture, but I try to make up for it by studying for an hour per online quiz. New habits like these make me feel proud of myself, as if I'm making up for all of the slacking I did at Lowell. I just wish I had more time to enjoy the material that I'm studying. I feel as if I'm churning out papers/assignments and not really absorbing all of it. I feel particularly guilty about this in Chinese because you really need to understand every character, phrase, and grammar rule. They WILL come up later.

Hahaha, Shannon just saw me blogging and asked if I was doing a paper. I guiltily admitted that I was avoiding my Chaucer short writing assignment (we only have to read The General Prologue to The Canterbury Tales, but I can't do it!! It makes no sense! I think I've found something that I hate more than Shakespeare, shit.) She was like, "Wowww, you wrote so much! That seriously looks like a real paper!" :P

God, I'm so worn down. It just feels like one thing after another, like I'm in a batting cage, and it's the seventh inning stretch, except, um, in a cage. I take breaks, of course. How can you not when you're in college? You can't not avoid distractions. But my general mood all the time is still...not good. Not good at all. Freaking hell. No wonder Keane didn't go to grad school!

mood: numb
music: bright eyes - we are nowhere and it's now

I got the first draft of my first college paper back today: B-. The grade was much higher than I expected. The comments my GTF wrote throughout the paper, though, made me think. He said I didn't do enough analysis on a cultural level, and I felt ashamed. For an English major, that's only kind of the worst weak point you could have. I've been hesitant about remaining an English major, but I haven't been trying to figure out why I fell in love with English in the first place. After another lecture that dragged along, it finally hit me: it's because I have always been praised for my writing skills. It's the ONLY thing in my life that I've ever been told and felt that I was good at. English classes used to make me feel like I had a place in this world and that I was a tiny bit special. I mean, I seriously don't stand out anywhere else. I've never been an exceptional actress. Never been a talented artist (not even in photography). And I've never had my way with science, athletics, or numbers. All I've ever been able to do is write - and, I'll admit, I'm not even very talented at that either.

The point is that the only skill I've ever received any amount of recognition for is writing, which is connected to English, obviously. But I've struggled with analysis since freshman or sophomore year of high school. It's not in me to look deeper. The only English classes I enjoyed at Lowell were Expos (I hated Henares, but I enjoyed arguing my opinion about a current topic, not a novel), Film As Lit, and sort of Adv Comp (I'm sure that I would've enjoyed the writing more, if it hadn't been spring semester of senior year). See, none of those classes involved analysis! They involved strong essay-writing skills, but not analysis. And my favorite non-English class that actually kind of changed my life was Yearbook. Yearbook. I've been considering graphic design and stuff, but that's an entirely different topic that I'm too tired to talk about right now.

So: I always assumed that I was going to be an English major because I couldn't picture myself anywhere else, but it was because I didn't feel worthy enough anywhere else.

keanerie (8:57:20 PM): you should drop the english major
keanerie (8:57:23 PM): judging from your twitter

Knowing that my brother agrees with me, and that it isn't just me doubting myself, makes me feel better. He advised me to leave the major earlier in the year too. He didn't think it fit me. I don't know if Journalism is right for me either though. I was hoping that Mass Media would point me in the right direction, buuuuut it's a pretty dry class, despite the blogging component. I'm sure it doesn't reflect the entire journalism profession, so I'll give it another chance next term. Maybe I'll take a photojourn or magazine writing course instead. I don't know, we'll see. Keane told me to just try different things. I don't think I'll stray too far though. I know what makes me happy: besides photography (financially unrealistic) and counseling (too depressing), I think I'd fit in at an entertainment magazine. I love my TV, and I love my movies. Everyone knows that. Why not try translating that love into a career? Keane's doing it! He writes for, like, three different magazines and all about videogames! He's a more talented writer than I am, but hey, I can improve.

For now, all I know is that I feel free. Scared, without a purpose, but free. I'll take that.

mood: hungry
music: kanye west - love lockdown (surprisingly brilliant)

Man, this LJ's gotten hella depressing. Time to switch it up.

Damn, I'm so excited for the next few months. The fall's always been my favorite season. It has the best weather, entertainment, holidays, and breaks. (This calendar extends into winter, just for the sake of my memory.)

( calendar )

I'm too tired from researching all those dates to elaborate on how the end of my summer's going or how I'm dealing with the breakup. But I'll update again about all my fears about college (blah blah blah) and everything else before I leave, I'm sure.

mood: uncomfortable
music: nine inch nails - hurt

Sometimes all you can do is cry and cry and just hope that afterwards, you'll feel better enough and can get back to a normal life.

Yes, this is one of those entries, where you can read between the lines and still not know what's going on.

No, I'm not dying. No, we didn't break up. No, it's not college.
It's just something I have to take care of.

EDIT

mood: curious
music: elisa - rock your soul

So...IntroDUCKtion (yes, Oregon's mascot is a duck) was the 27th - 28th. I felt pretty lonely, short, and Asian. I'd never paled in comparison to so many skinny, tall, straight-haired white girls. A lot of the guys were ripped too! Way out of my league. I saw some hipsters and emo-banged boys *sighh* But no normal Asian boys, and no one quite like me. I hope it'll be much more comfortable during Week of Welcome (Sept. 25 - 28th). I felt good with two girls, one from Illinois and one from Portland. There wasn't an instant connection, but hopefully I'll see them during the year and bond or whatever. Overall, everyone's really nice and chill. And I started appreciating the campus. I'm basically going to school in a park. It's trees and grass everywhere! My biggest complaint is the buildings. I don't like bricks whatsoever. But the Lillis Business Complex is gorgeous and - of course - features glass. I have two classes in that amazing building! Seguing into my schedule...

CHN 101 (Mandarin, shoot me!), lecture M/W/F, 11 - 11:50AM; discussion same time on T/THR
ENG 220 Intro to the English Major, lecture M/W/F, 1 - 1:50PM; discussion F, 2 - 2:50PM
ASTR 122 Birth and Death of Stars, T/THR, 2 - 3:50PM
J 201 Mass Media and Society, T/THR, 5:30 - 6:50PM

(For a better picture, look at the Courses 2.0 app on my profile.)

Discussing Olde - Middle English texts is going to suck so much. I really regret declaring English as my major now...But that's why I signed up for one of the requirements for a Journalism major. I might throw myself back into that arena, specifically magazine. Maybe I can do graphic design, photojournalism, AND write articles for a living?? Those are some crazy dreams, but it'd be a combination of all my passions. I feel like I'd just be copying Keane, though, who's currently interning at GamesRadar, a videogame website. The only difference is that I'd specialize in entertainment instead. But anyway, I'm so pumped for the Journ class, even though it's sort of a night class. Whatever, I don't get hungry for dinner until 8 - 9ish. Omg, Astronomy! Yes, I lazied out on my Science class. I don't care for the subject, OK? The galaxy sounds cool though. And Mandarin...Besides its usefulness and blah blah blah, I feel like I need to start actively working on retaining some part of my culture. I've become so white. It's disgusting. And as Mark will tell anyone, my Cantonese is an embarrassment to Chinese people everywhere. I've never been good with accents. I can understand, but I can't speak or form sentences. That's how foreign languages have always been for me. Now I'm going to be learning one five days a week. It's going to be hell. But for once, I'm genuinely interested in my courses. They actually sound compelling.

Right now, I'm 40% excited, 60% scared shitless. It'll be a lot easier once I'm finally there, settled in, and can start learning and suffering again. It's going to take a lot of motivation, but it's finally time for me to stop slacking off.

Oh God, I'm going to college.

mood: hopeful
music: M.I.A. - paper planes

** PLAYLIST REDUX ** I've been taking a LOT from mp3_share without giving back, so I thought it was time to pay my dues. Most of my playlist is outdated, but hey, something might still jump out at you. This entry is also open to my flist, of course. Personal friends can make a request any time they like :D And no, I didn't type out my entire music library again. I copy and pasted my first playlist entry into a new Notepad document, scanned through for stuff I've deleted, and added in artists when necessary. It still took me about two hours though :P Anyway, ENJOY!! <3 Comments are motivational ;D

MY PLAYLIST IS CURRENTLY OPEN. However, I recently purchased a new laptop and chose not to move certain song files over, and this playlist hasn't been updated yet.

The following rules always apply:

- Limit your request to 10 songs or 2 albums.
- I always use Sendspace. Let me know if there's a problem.
- If you don't alert me, I will assume that m4a works for you.

PLAYLIST

Complete albums, through and through, can be found in the first list. All singles and incomplete albums can be found in the second list. I hope both of these lists are clear enough. If you find any mistakes, please let me know!

( The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee - Yeah Yeah Yeahs )

( 183 Club - The Zutons )

( current requests & uploads )

OK, this isn't much of an update, but GUYS:
THE WRITER'S STRIKE IS OVER.
YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The Office, Ugly Betty, and Gossip Girl should be returning in April.
But (this is almost for sure) Heroes and Chuck won't be back until the fall.
24 might appear in the fall schedule, but it most likely won't be on until January '09 :(

Either way, this is still amazing news! I'm so glad the writers got most of what they wanted and can finally start making money and quality shows again.

Here's a short article from MSNBC: read. It's still going to be two weeks until the writers finish voting on whether to ratify the new contract or not, but you can read the summary of the deal here (PDF file).

EXCITEMENT!

mood: distressed
music: a fine frenzy - near to you

I'M DONE WITH COLLEGE APPS. OH GOD. *COLLAPSE* Oregon & Washington probably meant midnight January 15th, but who cares!

azasalllike (12:07:01 AM): i think they mean midnight tomorrow
sethsaysGPRA (12:07:09 AM): oh well, tomorrow's american idol

I spent half of my Sunday working on my Oregon essay and decided to leave the whole credit card business for tonight. I'd left my Washington application unfinished because I'd fallen out of love with it and felt so low about my chances at getting in that I thought I'd save my dad the $50. Then I talked to Emily today, and she convinced me that all I had to write was 250 words of culture bullshit and that I should just submit it. Of course, I still waited until 10PM to start working on the application again. (In my defense, I didn't get home until 8:30 and ate dinner from 9 - 9:30.) I had all of this information to enter about my activities and not just descriptions but shit about how each one has "affected" me. I'd already filled in all the tiny things, but I kept double-scanning it all, out of paranoia. The short response turned out to be ridiculously difficult to write. I wanted to talk about how multi-cultural my Lowell group is, compared to all the Asians I've hung out with in my past, but 250 words is SO restricting. I got so carried away with descriptions that I didn't have room for a conclusion. Aiiiii! I was typing away at 11:45.

I'm so jittery! How am I ever going to go to sleep? Oh God, I'm going to bomb my Psych CH 9 - 11 FRQ tomorrow. Aaaaaahhhhhhh, fuck! I'm so not prepared for the next two weeks, oh god oh god oh god.

But you know what? I'm so relieved and happy right now. Everything college-application-related is behind me. No more guilt about procrastination, no more struggling over writing perfect personal statements. Now I just have to wait two months to hear if I got accepted into anywhere hah.

I'M FREE!

P.S. Did I mention '08's been absolute shit for me so far? But that's for another entry :)

mood: optimistic
music: rilo kiley - silver lining

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!! I just looked at my resolutions for this year, and boy, did I fail haha. I had so many breakdowns this year and spent way too much money, especially on food. But! I did manage to hang out with my friends more often and continue to open up to them. I also saw plenty of movies in theatres. Two out of ten isn't so bad =P

Some people don't see the point in making resolutions, if you know you can't keep them, but it's about admitting what you need to improve in yourself and trying to change yourself for the better. And I seriously need to do that.

( bring it on, '08 )

Happy New Year, everyone =)

A class of Chinese students looked at me. I thought to myself, "These people look more Chinese than usual..." "This is a Chinese class. Steele must have sent us to the wrong room." My classmates crowded the hallway and looked around, confusedly, for something to lead our way.

We had originally been misplaced by Mr. Michels' class' Urban Plan presentations. I peeked into our usual room and saw familiar faces, dressed up in black suits and skirts. Their purpose that morning was to propose a city, a real city, to a few people from our real City Hall. I laughed. My purpose that morning was to ace a chapter test, nothing compared to stuttering over the decision to place a homeless shelter near an elementary school.

Ten minutes later, a familiar heavy, red-faced man came waddling down the hallway. We immediately started whining. "Let us go, Mr. Steele! We can't take our test in the hallway." "Well, why don't we go into that empty room?" "There are no chairs in that room!" "Well...the copies I made of the test are messed up anyway. Did you guys put a hex on me or something?" "Of course not!" "...Okay, but I do actually have homework for you guys. It's about everything Pepsi owns, and it's on a worksheet, so it'll be fun." I couldn't help but burst out in laughter. Luckily, people had already started crowding around him for the homework, so I didn't receive a dreadful glare.

And that is why Janay and I are in the library right now. I'm not a fan of the computer lab, or the noisy click-clack of the keyboard, but I AM a fan of not taking tests.

I'm currently editing the senior skit for the spirit rally this Friday.
It's due tomorrow.
I hate you, Mr. Schmidt.
I also hate you, technology (specifically, sound FX).
People better like this goddamn thing.

(Contrary to this post, I'm looking forward to this week's activities. And there's a big yearbook annoucement tomorrow!!)

mood: relaxed
music: the new pornographers - all the things that go to make heaven and earth

I am currently in love with:

+ Ugly Betty/Eric Mabius
+ Hot Rod/Andy Samberg
+ Live Free or Die Hard/Justin Long
+ Arrested Development/Jason Bateman

Two other shows that I discovered this summer and like but am not quite obsessed with:

+ Entourage/Adrian Grenier/Jeremy Piven/Kevin Connolly
+ Flight of the Conchords/Bret McKenzie (Jemaine doesn't quite do it for me)

What can I say? I'm a teenage girl. Part of what makes summer so awesome is that you really get to sit down and appreciate entertainment. Too bad none of my friends understand.

Also:

+ New Pornographers' Challengers & Spoon's Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga: my favorite new-ish albums right now
+ Final Geo 2 grade after over a month of hell: B!
+ Yearbook camp with Adam and Steven at Menlo College: mildly fun and productive
+ Keane coming back last weekend: cool beans :D
+ Visiting University of Oregon this weekend: extremely exciting!!

I just got back from watching Order of the Phoenix at midnight (really around 12:30, after previews). Basically: Wow. It was insane. I love Harry Potter dorks. The audience was fantastic. The movie itself was pretty good. The directing was awesome, and I loved the whole "fight back against the Ministry!" feel. I didn't like the book much, but I still felt like the ending of the movie left out a lot. I usually don't even care about that stuff, but I admit to feeling disappointment with the Dept. of Mysteries and the recap meeting in Dumbledore's office. It was, like, two sentences. I can't quite explain it. I was just left wanting more. The whole movie just flew by. They did a superb job condensing Umbridge's take-over plot, but there seemed to be less and less of everyone else. The adult actors really were underused in this movie. And I found myself missing Malfoy! Maybe he wasn't in the fifth book that much...Oh, and Snape's memory was way too effing short. It was basically "James is a bastard." And they didn't even show Harry grasping with the fact that his dad was indeed an asshole to Snape. But Order of the Phoenix is still a great movie by all means. Very entertaining. I LOVED Fred and George, Luna, the whole D.A. thing. And they actually threw in hints to the 6th book! Very little delusional H/Hr love for me :( But Ginny was kickass, Cho was a little bitch, and R/Hr was really cute. Ermmm, yeah, that's pretty much it for now. I need to see the movie a second time or discuss it with everyone else tomorrow. Maybe I'll have more thoughts then. Now to get 3 hours of sleep, then go to my grandparents' and get 2 hours of sleep. Stupid ridiculous system. I wish my parents would just let me stay home alone.

In closing, I love love love Harry Potter. And happy 7/11 Day! Don't forget to get your free Slurpee!

EDIT: Forgot to mention that we were SECOND in line. Thank you SO much, Kathryn! If it wasn't for you and your friends, we would have been something like tenth - fifteenth. It was crazy being at the front and screaming and cheering. We did that right before the movie came on too. Someone led the audience in a wave and scream match haha.