Stupid thing of the day
I have several, actually. The first is that stupid facilities told us there would be no hot water (again) from 10 to 6 today. What everyone in the dumb building found out (and there are a lot of us) is that there's actually NO water at all. I had to like, go to one of our bio buildings, borrow their sink in the bathroom, and take care of personal hygiene, like face-washing and teeth-brushing and all that.^^; Then I went to buy cotton pads and clementines from CVS and Fresh Grocer's respectively, using dad's credit card with my name on it because he insisted.
...I'm going to get my own credit card so I can build up good credit, except despite that decision I'm taking forever figuring out what credit card I want to get. That plus the lack of water, the fact that I got sticky @#$% on my hand for no reason and had, as I mentioned, NO WATER to wash it off, the fact that I had MORE stupid outreach emails to send out for ECO-NE because a girl asked and I was too dumb to just say no, all combined should put me in a foul mood.
But why be so petty?-_- I still have physics to read over and genetics to work on, an animal behavior experiment to think out, a summer research opportunity to consider and then maybe apply for, not to mention slipping a bit of fun stuff like writing or drawing in there... I've got no time to be petty, you know?^^;
So I guess being busy makes me more mature.^^; Maybe that's why I'm a workaholic, if I'm not I degrade into a brat of the first order.
Besides which, the water's back.
NOW happy Chinese New Year!
Ok, I've got it right this time. Yup yup.
Just finished an insanely large amount of rice plus a piece of eel, cooked the way they have it on those unagi-don. You know, with the soy sauce and everything. I didn't make it, I just heated it up in the oven as per directions on the plastic packaging. And now I'll have soy saucy tin foil to wash, since roommate pointed out that you can *gasp* reuse the tin foil, so it doesn't get wasted.
...I think this time I'll throw it out though.@_@ Too full to move...
But I know as soon as I'm not so full I'll be eating a bit of pineapple cake and drinking milk tea as dessert, because heck, if I can't go home to eat mom's cooking, then I'm gonna eat the best food I've got here! Granted that's nothing more than the eel and the rice--made a bit more special by adding this neat Japanese mix of carrots, Asian mushroom, bamboo shoots, etc.; it's actually a dish, I just don't know the Japanese name--plus the pineapple cake and the milk tea, bagged or canned. So yeah, I'm banqueting, considering what I have.^^;
Otherwise though, the day was pretty uneventful...the only thing even marginally exciting was that...er...I paid my bills... Then I was late to physics lecture because I stayed too long in the bookstore, first to gawk at a fashion drawing guide (this is the coolest thing EVER. All these willowy unrealistically tall/long-necked/ long-legged ladies! Reminds me of manga! I want to buy it except it probably costs, like 30+ bucks), then to read Blade of the Immortal. I read the volume titled "Heart of Darkness" the other day, and there was this one guy in there...man, he was sick. 0_o; Chopping peoples' legs off and half sawing off this lady's breast while he was fondling her.... *puke*
Er, yes, if this were a movie it'd be rated a big fat R. But it's not porno! It was just that one guy, an example of...very sick human nature (hence why the title is "Heart of Darkness." I'm so clever)! The art's really something to praise, and the story (from what I can glean of it with just two books) seems engaging. Has that...wandering, episodic feel which I really like.^^;
Heaven knows the major project I'm working on with Majo right now is nothing BUT episodes.@_@ How many arcs do we have?^^; Like, 100?^^;;; Ok, exaggerating there, but only slightly....
Debating whether or not I should turn on the heat...hmmm.... Or maybe I should just make myself a hot steaming mug of milk tea.... Mmmm.....
I think I'll do the second thing.^^
HAPPY CHINESE NEW YEAR...'S EVE!!
(**edit** Oops, I read my calendar wrong. New Year's eve, not New Year's... How embarrassing.**end edit**) It's the year of the Monkey, folks. I've realized that I don't know anybody who was born in the year of the Monkey, but I know one person for every other zodiac sign...I think.
Well, anyway, that's not too important.^^;
The new year has officially begun, and there should be a huge celebration, but I'm here alone, and well...it's not the same without family.^^; Right now I should be feasting and seeing all my relatives (who are in Taiwan so that's even more impossible) and wishing my elders a prosperous new year. Later I'd get my red envelope with money to put under the pillow. If we were in Taiwan it'd be an even bigger deal: incense and offerings to the ancesters or gods or both, big huge spring cleaning, lanturn festivals, firecrackers, New Year's cake (two kinds, the soft gooey ones and the puffy ones--the word for "puff out" or "expand" being "fa," the same word used in the phrase "to get rich." Chinese are fond of puns like this)....lots and lots of stuff.
But alas, I am in the United States, and it's a Wednesday, and the western world doesn't stop for this eastern holiday...so I'll have to make do with what I have.^^; (Namely...er, canned milk tea and pineapple cake.0_o; Man, I don't even have dumplings...) Oh well, life is good anyway.^^;
Case in point: today I went birdwatching for my Research Experience in Animal Behavior class, and I swear I saw something significant. The rattling female was definitely directing her rattles to the dominant male in the cage, or at least it seems very likely that this is the case, because she'd rattle immediately after he sang. So that was totemo exciting.
Earlier today we learned the coolest thing ever in the ancient Rome course I'm taking: namely stuff about Hannibal and Pyrrhus (whose upper jaw was one big tooth. And whose right big toe was supposed to have arcane healing powers, as evidenced by the fact that when he was cremated, everything burned except for that toe. You can't get any stranger than this, folks. And why am I using "folks" so much?). Seriously, I wrote so fast my fingers nearly cramped, but man, I'm so glad I'm taking this class.
Then yesterday I went to kempo (I love how this is in no chronological order whatsoever. No wait, it is...backwards), where we sparred toward the end of the session. Now, I suck at sparring and I was up against a guy who was at least 2 levels above me. So imagine my intense surprise when we broke, and 3 people (including my opponent and a black belt instructor[!!!]) complimented me!!! 0_o I was so floored, I couldn't do anything but stammer a lot of thank yous. The black belt instructor said stuff like, "That was terrific! Like, 20 punch combos....[and other stuff, but I forgot this part]... You were a beast up there!" I rather like the sound of a "beast." Heh heh.^_^ And here I had only been thinking...well, I hadn't done that much thinking at all, I was too busy trying not to get punched!^^;; I guess I was just more aggressive yesterday...?
Gosh, I hope that wasn't a fluke.^^; If I could be good at sparring for real, how great life would be...!
So it has been a statisfying (BUSY!) two days, totally ripping apart the somber, pessimistic mood I found myself in on Monday (I'm beginning to think I get like that when I have nothing to do).^^; That was pretty melodramatic, yo...good thing Majo came back and we wrote myself out of it (sounds better if I say "we wrote ourselves out of it," but she wasn't depressed).^^
Yay for stuff in general! And I just wasted 1/2 hour! Oh no!!! Homework~~~~!!!!
A moment of silence for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
If he had not been assassinated, Dr. King would have been 75 years old today. I read that email from a friend of mine and felt this sense of shame for our flawed human race. Why kill someone who stood for peace? Does that mean we lust for strife? Does that mean people just don't want peace?
Everyday I find myself slowly losing faith in people. Everyday I read about those already rich wanting to get even richer, at the expense of the less-privileged or at the expense of our earth. Everyday I wonder to myself: are humans, for all our cold intelligence and big brains, just brutish animals under the polish?
So sometimes I feel like my struggles are in vain, that despite all hard work we're just spiraling along down a maelstrom of greed and shortsightedness.
It's at these times I have to really sit down and remind myself of several things. I have to remind myself of those I call friends, because they are more hopeful than I am and more forgiving. They look around themselves and they believe they can make a difference. I have to look at those activists who take up a cause with more passion than I ever could, probably, and believe that they're making progress. If I can see people like that, if I know people like that, then they can't be the only ones. I'm a small speck on this small speck of a world, after all, and I don't see much. Finally, I have to remind myself of the joy I feel when I read a book, my fascination with this world and its inhabitants, my marvel at a beautiful painting or my tears at someone's eloquent words. So somewhere else there are other people who believe in peace, a beautiful world to live in, in the glory and potential of the human race...I'm one of those people still, and well, maybe there's enough of us to matter.
Dr. King, you've made me all depressing.0_o; But the end note was hopeful, wasn't it? I do like being a member of our species...I just lose sight of it once in a while.@_@
And in an effort to end this happily....Chinese New Year is coming up! Whoot, if for no other reason than that it's the year of the monkey and monkeys remind me of Son Goku from Journey to the West, my favorite bit of Chinese literature. Ohohohoho....
Majo, I can't til you're back from shopping.@_@ Me descending into the darkness here.
A discovery
Upon lotioning myself thoroughly after a shower, I happened to look closely at my face in the mirror. My left eye is higher up than my right eye. It's really noticeable if you stare hard enough, but if you do that I'd probably give you a weird look and leave, so yeah....
Heck, and here I'd always thought that it was my glasses which were crooked. Guess not.0_o;
Boy, am I random or am I random?
