Colored Ink
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miss something? check the archives about me name: n/aaliases: kit, kits, kit kat, the smart girl, foxay, an chin age: 18 location: oakland, ca hobbies: anime, manga, reading, writing, doodling, video games, french horn likes: all of the above, being lazy, mushrooms, cheese, animals, laughing loudly in public dislikes: nuts, stinging/biting insects, religious fanatics, violence, olives contact: coloredink@mailcity add .com wishlist playstation 2car a good night's sleep money stress-free life trigun long colt keychain cowboy bebop dvd box set ipod world peace realistic wishlist dayworld by philip jos?farmerkabuki by david mack lucifer by mike carey indigo girls shaming of the sun infernal affairs ii long-term obsessions anime/mangayaoi/shounenai writing music animals life and living current obsession(s) infernal affairsfullmetal alchemist currently reading rosencrantz and guildenstern are dead by tom stoppardcurrently watching hana yori dango (20)utena (23) gto tv (39) witch hunter robin (18) naruto (49) get backers (27) rose of versailles (19) matantei loki ragnarok (15) scrapped princess (14) peacemaker kurogane (13) shingetsutan tsukihime (6) fullmetal alchemist (20) sailormoon live action (18) |
Sunday, March 14, 2004 [link] 01:17 p.m. listening to: big honkin' playlist Sometimes I wonder if people honestly think I'm going to hell. Maybe it's just personal biases speaking, but I don't think I'm a terrible person. And I believe in God, or at least in the concept of a creator, just maybe not the way some people would prefer me to. But I can't say that I take hell very seriously; I'm not sure if I don't believe it exists or if I'm just that confident that I'm not going there--if there is a "there." But then, it's not really just a matter of myself going to hell. If I'm going to hell, then by default my family's going to hell, because they believe in God even less than I do. It's not so much that they're atheists but that they're agnostic/deist--or maybe not even that, seeing as how they're all so damn Chinese and concern themselves more with the here and now than examining their beliefs. See, I don't care if you tell me if I'm going to hell for not believing in God or not being baptized or not being of the correct denomination. But I'll claw your face off if you tell me my cousin Lee is going to hell, or my auntie Janet. That sort of thing brings up who's "deserving" of hell, though. Is someone who committed suicide deserving of hell? According to the Catholic church, yeah, although I can't say I agree. Sometimes killing yourself looks like the only way out, or the only way you even have any sort of control over your life, and I can't see why these people would be condemned to eternal fiery torment or whatever goes on in hell. They're more to be pitied than anything else. And there's all these shades of grey in between who goes to hell and who doesn't; so we have Thief A who steals big shit to get rich, and Thief B who steals food and little stuff to feed his family. Do they both go to hell for stealing? And I'm not sure I buy the whole repentence thing, either. So a serial killer who's murdered dozens of people repents and doesn't go to hell? Not that I think said serial killer should go to hell if s/he's really repentent, but something about that just doesn't seem right to me. But conversations about this never go well. One of my friends has a boyfriend who's very religious, while she herself is agnostic. And they had the "do you really think I'm going to hell?" conversation, and it ended it tears and pain, and the boyfriend admitted that though his faith said she was, he didn't really think so. They're still together, after two or three years, and I guess the sex is really hot. It must be easier to condemn "those people" to hell when you don't know who they are. Saturday, March 13, 2004 [link] 06:59 p.m. listening to: "Hurricane" - Lisa Loeb Spring Break at last! **deep breath** I was afraid I was going to be lonely, but I'm not, really. I find I rather enjoy the solitude, and I feel a little resentful towards the people who decided to stay (although, it seems, some people are just staying for the weekend and leaving on Monday or Tuesday or whatever). If only I had the entire dorm to myself! But still, this is perfectly restful. I can read, watch anime, etc. without other people making demands on my time. There may be people coming over tonight to watch anime. I find I'm a little mixed about it now; I was fine with it earlier, but after a leisurely dinner and watching Cats Don't Dance on TV, I find that I kind of want to have the rest of the evening to myself. Ah well. Socializing is good for me, too. Thursday, March 11, 2004 [link] 10:27 p.m. listening to: "Stare Into the Sun" - Thrice So instead of fixing that awful Roy collage like I promised, I made. . . another Full Metal Alchemist wallpaper! I suck. And I'm fixing it (actually, it's already mostly fixed), I just have a short attention span. So, have another wallpaper! That also sucks, but slightly less. Series: Full Metal Alchemist Character(s): Edward Elric Song/Title: Stare Into the Sun, by Thrice Comments: There's a lot of really small things that bug me about this collage that I'd fix if I didn't already want to stab PSP in the face. If it had a face. And Photoshop, too. I've always loved these images from the second opening song of FMA, though (Ed grasping at the light! So symbolic! My heart!), and when I found the song call courtesy of this person's angsty, beautiful art, I thought, well, here's an opportunity to finally use those images! . . . too bad I can't do it justice. link: http://coloredink.shike.org/images/stareintothesun.jpg Wednesday, March 10, 2004 [link] 06:20 p.m. listening to: "fake wings" - Yuki Kajiura Saw the nutritionist today. This involved waking up at 6:45 AM so that I could catch the 7:30 Mills Van. Ugh. I don't know how I managed to do this every day in high school--no, actually, in high school I used to wake up at 6 AM every morning. But I also went to bed earlier, like say between 10 and 11 PM, unlike last night, where I went to bed at 11 PM and lay helplessly awake in bed until probably around midnight, or even past then. Realized today that my watch was off because it was a leap year. Sigh. Why am I always the last one to figure these things out? My elbow has been swollen and uncomfortable these past few weeks. I thought it would eventually go away on its own, but it hasn't, and today it's just painful enough to be annoying. I think if this persists I will make another appointment at the Tang Center and see just what the hell is the matter. It's a good thing next week is Spring Break; that means I can take a jaunt over to Berkeley whenever I particularly feel like it. That means I should also remember to call the Advice Nurse tomorrow, so that if necessary I can obtain an appointment next week. Tuesday, March 9, 2004 [link] 01:09 p.m. listening to: nothing There are people sunbathing all over campus. There's often an aroma of fried fish emanating over by the Teashop, although they most certainly don't serve fish there. I'm not sure whether I should be worried or suspicious. Tomorrow is going to be a very, very long and tiring day. Sigh. Monday, March 8, 2004 [link] 10:00 p.m. listening to: big honkin' playlist Spring today, spring today, spring today! Or rather, spring yesterday, but I've learned to distrust single fine days. Clouds often come sailing in the next. It was rather too bright for me, or maybe the winters here are so dreary that I've grown used to the dimness. Either way, going out even with my hat hurt with the brightness, and it was a little too warm for me. Over seventy-five degrees and I positively melt, really, and not only that I seem to have attained a room that becomes a sweltering furnace at the slightest provocation. But still, I don't think I really appreciated spring until I came up here. In SoCal, there are no seasons, really. The weather turns fine in March and hot in April, and remains boiling until November. Then it rains, and things are wet until February. The trees don't change colors or shed their leaves, and the temperature hardly ever falls below forty. But here, I count ladybugs in the field, and I stand amazed by the cherry trees, watching them unfold in swift bloom day by day, wondering with trembling anticipation how long they'll stay. I notice flowers more often, taken aback by a sea of narcissus hiding amongst the oak trees, and admire the daffodils. A lot of it is decorative, I'm sure, and also the result of one of the founders being an amateur botanist. But it's beautiful all the same. Today I discovered sourgrass. My classmates shake their heads in astonishment. Honestly, where have I been all my life? Sunday, March 7, 2004 [link] 05:42 p.m. listening to: "Air on a G String" - Johann Sebastian Bach I am afraid of fire. It's a little bit strange for those of you who are of an astrological bent, because I'm an Aries. I think it's mostly because I don't like pain, and fire causes pain. It's not like water, which deceives. Water embraces you and kills you slowly. Fire burns. It's an obvious danger. Water, though, beckons you in and laughs when you smother. When I was young, I read that raindrops were not really teardrop-shaped; in fact, they're round, and some are even shaped like donuts. I remember being in the bath in Malaysia, six years ago, and throwing water up over and over again, watching fascinated as, indeed, it came down in little round droplets. My aunt came in afterwards and wondered how I'd gotten everything so wet. I had to shrug and say I didn't know; how could I explain, after all, this deep fascination I have with water? There's something about water that makes me hungry. There's something about water that is hungry. I can never stay away. In Malaysia, this winter, I went walking on the beach in t-shirt and jeans, and I stayed away from the water because I knew that if it touched me, I'd want to go in. The waves hissed and chased at my shoes, and I must have looked an odd sight, following the water in and out in a repeating dance, taking steps in and then scudding away as soon as the tide began to chase me again. Wednesday, March 3, 2004 [link] 03:40 p.m. listening to: "Our Deliverance" - Indigo Girls So instead of writing my midterm paper for History of Women in America or studying for my East Asia since 1700 midterm, I'm pondering LiveJournal. There are several friends of mine who've made the jump to LJ recently, and they seem to like it, and some people have abandoned their older journals altogether. I seem to be the only one among my (albeit rather small) circle of friends who seems able to manage two journals. I suppose part of it is because I talk too much. Admittedly, I was reluctant to go into LJ. It was too big, too popular, too scary. I like the relative sanctity of my pitas, where I could be surprised whenever I found out that someone else was reading it, where I could write whatever I wanted precisely because I was so blissfully ignorant of how many people were reading it. On LJ, I'm mindful of how many people's friends pages I'm spamming, I wonder/worry about comments, and I'm always refreshing my friends page. At the same time, though, that's what I like about LJ. I like that I can reach a large number of people: in fact, that's why I got an LJ in the first place. I wanted people to be able to comment on my writing. It's also a place where I can geek with other people and share information and receive information in turn. Paid LJs make a great birthday/Christmas gift. My LJ isn't a personal journal, it's a thing of convenience. Having an LJ client is convenient, being able to remain logged in is convenient, having a friends page where I can receive comics and newsfeeds is convenient, getting comments emailed to me is convenient. So maybe pitas is inconvenient. Good. I like it that way. Having to log in and code what I say with break tags is good for me. It means that whatever I say here will hopefully be something of more substance than the things that take me three seconds to throw up on my LJ, and I can say it without wondering--or knowing--how many people are reading and whether people are going to have something to say. And I won't be spamming too many people's friends pages. Wednesday, March 3, 2004 [link] 12:08 a.m. listening to: "Pilgrim" - Enya I hearby proclaim this, à la Eggie, The Week of Academic Sodomy Thank you, and I'll see you all again on Friday, if I haven't had some sort of mental breakdown before then. Friday, February 27, 2004 [link] 07:57 p.m. listening to: big honkin' playlist I want to sleep I want to sleep I want to sleep I want to sleep I want to sleep I want to sleep I want to sleep I want to sleep I want to sleep I want to sleep I want to sleep I want to sleep I want to sleep I want to sleep I want to sleep I want to sleep I want to sleep I want to sleep I want to sleep I want to sleep I want to sleep I want to sleep I want to sleep I want to sleep I want to sleep I want to sleep I want to sleep I want to sleep I want to sleep I want to sleep I want to sleep I want to sleep I want to sleep I want to sleep I want to sleep I want to sleep I get cranky when I don't get enough sleep. And depressed. Friday, February 27, 2004 [link] 06:29 p.m. listening to: big honkin' playlist I HAVE LEARNED THE MEANING OF SUCKITUDE, AND I AM THE DEFINITION. . . . I'm back from rehearsal. And also, I suck. Friday, February 27, 2004 [link] 03:30 p.m. listening to: "The Trouble With Poets" - Peter Mulvey For what is perhaps the first (or maybe second) time in my life, I am nervous about a rehearsal. I swear, I'm such a retard. (And yes, I know I need to update my website. Hold your horses.) Tuesday, February 24, 2004 [link] 01:06 p.m. listening to: **puts on the ranting pants** Okay, what with the hoopla in the media lately about the gay marriages in San Francisco and Bush backing a Constitutional amendment and the California Supreme Court having to make a ruling, I suppose it's time that I ramble on at length about same-sex marriage. **suitable pause for people to hit the "back" button on their browsers** Moving on, then. I'm going to put morality aside for a moment here. Some people think that same-sex relationships, not to say marriage, is immoral and wrong and all the gays and lesbians are going to hell and bisexuality is not a real sexual preference. I'm going to try not to address that because it's not really what I'm going to be talking about. Or maybe it is, but let me deal with that in time, 'kay? Or, actually, don't, because someone else has already talked about it, and much more eloquently than I would have. I'm also going to say that I don't immediately hate anyone who's against the idea of same-sex marriages. Some people--like, say, my father, and my band director--believe that marriage should be between a man and a woman because that's the definition of marriage. They don't hold any enmity against gays or lesbians, that's just the way they feel. And that's fine. I disagree, but hey, whatever floats your boat. The real issue at hand here is whether we're going to deny a certain right to a certain group at people. I know that's oversimplifying the case, but hear me out (and tell me if I'm wrong). Not only are these people denied a right that pretty much every other human being in the United States has because of the physical gender of their partner, they are denied hundreds of legal benefits. This includes hospital visitations, wrongful death benefits, crime victims' recovery benefits, extended health insurance coverage, etc. A lot of these can be obtained through other legal procedures, such as writing up a will, working out joint adoptions and joint ownership of property, etc., but there are others that can't. By denying gay and lesbian couples the right to marry, we are essentially making them into second-class citizens. Two people who love each other and have every intention of spending the rest of their lives together are, in the eyes of the law, one step from strangers. That is not to say that I think marriage is the end-all and be-all of all things. Yes, I'm sure that marriage is great for some people. But looking at the current divorce rate (what is it, 50%?), I'm thinking there has to be something seriously wrong with the institute of marriage right now, and it doesn't have anything to do with same-sex couples. Why do two people have to be "married" in the eyes of the church and state in order to be legally binded to each other? Why is marriage so tied up with religion and government? Should it remain this way? I can't really answer that, I suppose. But you can look at this livejournal entry and the comments therein and get an idea of the argument, here. While I'm at it, the whole thing about marriage being a fundamental institution of civilization? Uh. No. As someone so cleverly put it, "Oh yes, because consensual civil union between an adult man and an adult woman, treating both parties as legal equals, dissolvable under law only by mutual consent or sufficient evidence as presented to a judicial party, has been going on since Day One, really." But oh, wait--civilization isn't about language or writing or agriculture or anything! It's about marriage! Silly me! Oh, and by the way, marriage and the family as we know it today has been around for less than a century. And I don't see how same-sex marriages constitute any "threat," either. As I've said before, how is Married Gay Couple A down the street from Married Heterosexual Couple A any sort of threat? Are Heterosexual Couple A's children going to turn out gay? Are Heterosexual Couple A going to break up? Are Heterosexual Couple A going to lose their jobs? Is nuclear war going to break out because the gays are getting married? If someone can point out a definitive link here, do tell me. I mean, Canada looks like it's doing okay. And, uh, I also have to point out that extending marriage (and its benefits) to same-sex couples would probably encourage the making of families. Not that the family is doing so hot right now, what with the current divorce rate and all. [Edit: Allow me to throw in this link, which is terrifically well-informed. I told you I was no good at this.] Monday, February 23, 2004 [link] 09:16 p.m. listening to: big honkin' playlist **screams with frustration** WHY CAN'T I FUCKING SLEEP? In other words, uh, I'm having sleep issues. Again. It comes and goes. High school I got pretty good at falling asleep and staying asleep, but ever since I got to college I don't sleep all the way through the night anymore. This semester it's worse because not only do I not sleep all the way through the night, I also go to bed later (at, say, 2 AM as opposed to midnight like I did last semester). I'd like to be asleep at midnight by the latest so that I can get up at 8 AM and exercise before running off to class, but this isn't possible if I sleep at 2 AM every day. In other words, uh, you guys seriously need to vacate my room by midnight. And if you want anime, well, work it in before then. I've tried taking sleeping pills before and found them fairly effective as long as I got at least eight hours of sleep. This is typically what I try to obtain anyway, seeing as how I need at least seven hours of sleep to function (SHUT UP SLEEP IS GOOD FOR YOU). But this time, upon swallowing the normal dosage, not only was I practically unable to crawl out of bed after eight hours of sleep, I barely managed to get up after eleven hours of sleep. And I remained groggy for half the day. So the next night I took one pill instead of two, and. . . didn't stay asleep during the night. Great. How effective. It's the broken nights of sleep that really get to me. Six hours of unbroken sleep is, IMHO, better than seven and a half hours punctuated by strange and random bouts of awakeness. It's like I'm fooled into thinking I got rest when I really didn't. Monday, February 23, 2004 [link] 12:34 p.m. listening to: big honkin' playlist I WANT TO PLAY GO. And also, I am not wearing my glasses. I can't even see the keyboard. Saturday, February 21, 2004 [link] 03:02 p.m. listening to: same A quick to-do list: - - - - study for Traditional China midterm - study for History of Women in America midterm - read A Hard Life for We - finish reading Liberty's Daughters **looks at everything she has to do and cries** Saturday, February 21, 2004 [link] 02:52 p.m. listening to: big honkin' playlist Someone's killing the bandwidth, and it's not me. This perturbs me. THE BANDWIDTH IS MINE, DAMMIT! MINE! Anyway. So. An update on my life. . . . which is pretty boring, really. I read, I study, I worry about midterms (which are coming up). I cook dinner. I go grocery shopping on the weekends with Eleanor (who has a car and is a most obliging person, although we have a distressing tendency to get lost two miles away from the school). I accidentally crippled my (old, faithful) hotpot at the beginning of the semester. It still works, just not as well as it used to, so I bought a new one. Which didn't work. I took it back to the store to return, they sent it back to the company to be fixed, I took it home, it still didn't work. Damn Taiwanese products. I took it back this weekend and they just gave me a different hotpot altogether, which seems to work. The light turns on, at least. To anyone who's wondering about the two thousand dollar bill I was hit up with a week or so ago, it's been taken care of. I wasn't registered for enough credits at the beginning of the semester (one of the classes I wanted was closed) and lost my Pell Grant as a result. I added a class and got the grant back, but not until after bills were sent out. But hey, now I have two thousand more dollars in my bank account. ^^;; Which I use to buy groceries. And eat sushi. I really eat too much sushi these days. Stupid Berkeley being so close. All right, enough babbling from me. I should really be reading about Imperial China. Or the rise of black women out of slavery. Or studying for any of my midterms. Tuesday, February 17, 2004 [link] 02:04 a.m. listening to: big honkin' playlist Well, today was an adventure. President's Day Weekend is the weekend of the UC Berkeley Invitational. What that means is that a bunch of Speech/Debate teams from all over the nation are invited to go to the UC Berkeley campus to compete, my old high school being one of them. Well, how could I resist an invitation to hang out with the old crowd? Not that I got much hanging out done, seeing as how the team naturally spent most of their time competing, judging, or observing rounds. I did get a chance to take one of my freshmen out to dinner on Saturday, though. Despite misgivings (I had a lot of work to do), I went to Berkeley again in the morning. I almost didn't; the 11 AM Mills Van was late, which is unusual, since the van is usually very punctual. Mary, the driver, told me that she was't supposed to come in today; she'd told her boss that on Friday, only they couldn't get another river, so they'd called her in anyway to work overtime. She didn't charge me for the ride, which I suspect was her small way of getting back at her boss for calling her in to work. I spent a few hours chilling in Berkeley. Barely got to talk to anyone from the school, since finals were in progress and everyone was in a round. Finally, at 2:45, I waited for the Mills Van--which never came. I guess Mary went home and they couldn't find another driver. Oh well. I headed for the BART instead. I was pretty tired and distracted, I guess, because after I got on the BART I completely missed my stop. I woke up/snapped out of it to find that I was in San Leandro, fortunately only one stop away from where I needed to be. I got off, crossed to the other side of the platform, where fortunately the train I needed was just about to leave. I got off at the correct stop, waited for about ten minutes for my bus (did I mention it'd been raining all day?), got on, and told the driver to inform me when we got to Mills College. I'm still not very good at telling where my stop is ever since the bus routes all changed. I guess the bus driver was pretty tired/distracted too, because he completely failed to inform me when we got to Mills. He apologized profusely, I told him it was okay, I'd get a transfer and go wait on the other side for a bus going the right direction. Wait. Wait. Play with dirt. Stomp on thorny bushes. Wait. Wait. Where the hell is the bus? Wait wait wait. Finally, I called Eleanor for a ride, figuring that hell, I wasn't that far away from the school. Naturally, three minutes after I called her, the bus came. Such is the way of the world. Eleanor got a little bit lost on her way to pick me up, but it was all good. I didn't freeze to death. And I got home and spaghetti was waiting for me. I'd called Lynne and told her to go ahead and cook the spaghetti, since it was becoming Very Clear that there was no way I was going to get home in time to cook. Besides which, I was dead tired. After dinner and a bit of light reading, I started on the FAFSA. I'd asked my dad to do it, but he said he was unable to because of browser problems. Turns out he got my birthdate wrong. I hope that's not the reason he wasn't able to renew the FAFSA, because boy was that two hours of my life down the drain. Two hours I could have been working on this 6-10 page paper about Confucianism that's due Thursday. Not that I mind doing the FAFSA on my own, seeing as how independence is a good thing and lots of kids do the FAFSA on the own. It's just hard when you don't live with your parents and they're half a world away and your cellphone plan doesn't allow international calls and neither does your phone card. Yeah. That makes things difficult. And I can't file for emancipation until I'm 23. This sucks. Sunday, February 15, 2004 [link] 01:34 a.m. listening to: Automatic For the People I went to Berkeley today to revisit some people from high school. So much for burning bridges. But maybe it burned bridges anyway; most of them hardly recognized me (now that I have longer, frosted hair), and those who are my age--those I'd been going to high school with for four years--were oddly distant. But I guess I was distant, too. I mean, we don't really know each other any more, I suppose. We've all changed. All in all, I feel pretty good. Valentine's Day today, but I don't really think of it as that. I don't think of it as Singles Awareness Day, either. It's become a lot less important now that I'm in college. A few people gave out cute little Valentines, but all in all it wasn't a really big affair. Those who were couples left campus to enjoy Valentine's Day outside, and those who weren't stayed in and, I don't know, did homework or whatever. Me, I went to Berkeley, but I already said that. I'm thinking of cutting beef out of my diet. It's expensive, hard to cook, and I've never really liked it that much, so it wouldn't be too hard to eliminate it from my diet entirely. I could easily cut pork out of my diet, too, which is even better, seeing as how pork has tons of marbled fat and stuff. I've already started trying to cut pork out of my diet, actually; I've eaten hardly any in the past five months or so. Tomorrow I'm going to try cooking (veggie) curry. Wish me luck! |
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![http://coloredink.shike.org/images/stareintothesun.jpg Wednesday, March 10, 2004 [link] 06:20 p.m. listening to: "fake wings" - Yuki Kajiura Saw the nutritionist today. This involved waking up at 6:45 AM so that I could catch the 7:30 Mills Van. Ugh. I don't know how I managed to do this every day in high school--no, actually, in high school I used to wake up at 6 AM every morning. But I also went to bed earlier, like say between 10 and 11 PM, unlike last night, where I went to bed at 11 PM and lay helplessly awake in bed until probably around midnight, or even past then. Realized today that my watch was off because it was a leap year. Sigh. Why am I always the last one to figure these things out? My elbow has been swollen and uncomfortable these past few weeks. I thought it would eventually go away on its own, but it hasn't, and today it's just painful enough to be annoying. I think if this persists I will make another appointment at the Tang Center and see just what the hell is the matter. It's a good thing next week is Spring Break; that means I can take a jaunt over to Berkeley whenever I particularly feel like it. That means I should also remember to call the Advice Nurse tomorrow, so that if necessary I can obtain an appointment next week. Tuesday, March 9, 2004 [link] 01:09 p.m. listening to: nothing There are people sunbathing all over campus. There's often an aroma of fried fish emanating over by the Teashop, although they most certainly don't serve fish there. I'm not sure whether I should be worried or suspicious. Tomorrow is going to be a very, very long and tiring day. Sigh. Monday, March 8, 2004 [link] 10:00 p.m. listening to: big honkin' playlist Spring today, spring today, spring today! Or rather, spring yesterday, but I've learned to distrust single fine days. Clouds often come sailing in the next. It was rather too bright for me, or maybe the winters here are so dreary that I've grown used to the dimness. Either way, going out even with my hat hurt with the brightness, and it was a little too warm for me. Over seventy-five degrees and I positively melt, really, and not only that I seem to have attained a room that becomes a sweltering furnace at the slightest provocation. But still, I don't think I really appreciated spring until I came up here. In SoCal, there are no seasons, really. The weather turns fine in March and hot in April, and remains boiling until November. Then it rains, and things are wet until February. The trees don't change colors or shed their leaves, and the temperature hardly ever falls below forty. But here, I count ladybugs in the field, and I stand amazed by the cherry trees, watching them unfold in swift bloom day by day, wondering with trembling anticipation how long they'll stay. I notice flowers more often, taken aback by a sea of narcissus hiding amongst the oak trees, and admire the daffodils. A lot of it is decorative, I'm sure, and also the result of one of the founders being an amateur botanist. But it's beautiful all the same. Today I discovered sourgrass. My classmates shake their heads in astonishment. Honestly, where have I been all my life? Sunday, March 7, 2004 [link] 05:42 p.m. listening to: "Air on a G String" - Johann Sebastian Bach I am afraid of fire. It's a little bit strange for those of you who are of an astrological bent, because I'm an Aries. I think it's mostly because I don't like pain, and fire causes pain. It's not like water, which deceives. Water embraces you and kills you slowly. Fire burns. It's an obvious danger. Water, though, beckons you in and laughs when you smother. When I was young, I read that raindrops were not really teardrop-shaped; in fact, they're round, and some are even shaped like donuts. I remember being in the bath in Malaysia, six years ago, and throwing water up over and over again, watching fascinated as, indeed, it came down in little round droplets. My aunt came in afterwards and wondered how I'd gotten everything so wet. I had to shrug and say I didn't know; how could I explain, after all, this deep fascination I have with water? There's something about water that makes me hungry. There's something about water that is hungry. I can never stay away. In Malaysia, this winter, I went walking on the beach in t-shirt and jeans, and I stayed away from the water because I knew that if it touched me, I'd want to go in. The waves hissed and chased at my shoes, and I must have looked an odd sight, following the water in and out in a repeating dance, taking steps in and then scudding away as soon as the tide began to chase me again. Wednesday, March 3, 2004 [link] 03:40 p.m. listening to: "Our Deliverance" - Indigo Girls So instead of writing my midterm paper for History of Women in America or studying for my East Asia since 1700 midterm, I'm pondering LiveJournal. There are several friends of mine who've made the jump to LJ recently, and they seem to like it, and some people have abandoned their older journals altogether. I seem to be the only one among my (albeit rather small) circle of friends who seems able to manage two journals. I suppose part of it is because I talk too much. Admittedly, I was reluctant to go into LJ. It was too big, too popular, too scary. I like the relative sanctity of my pitas, where I could be surprised whenever I found out that someone else was reading it, where I could write whatever I wanted precisely because I was so blissfully ignorant of how many people were reading it. On LJ, I'm mindful of how many people's friends pages I'm spamming, I wonder/worry about comments, and I'm always refreshing my friends page. At the same time, though, that's what I like about LJ. I like that I can reach a large number of people: in fact, that's why I got an LJ in the first place. I wanted people to be able to comment on my writing. It's also a place where I can geek with other people and share information and receive information in turn. Paid LJs make a great birthday/Christmas gift. My LJ isn't a personal journal, it's a thing of convenience. Having an LJ client is convenient, being able to remain logged in is convenient, having a friends page where I can receive comics and newsfeeds is convenient, getting comments emailed to me is convenient. So maybe pitas is inconvenient. Good. I like it that way. Having to log in and code what I say with break tags is good for me. It means that whatever I say here will hopefully be something of more substance than the things that take me three seconds to throw up on my LJ, and I can say it without wondering--or knowing--how many people are reading and whether people are going to have something to say. And I won't be spamming too many people's friends pages. Wednesday, March 3, 2004 [link] 12:08 a.m. listening to: "Pilgrim" - Enya I hearby proclaim this, à la Eggie, The Week of Academic Sodomy Thank you, and I'll see you all again on Friday, if I haven't had some sort of mental breakdown before then. Friday, February 27, 2004 [link] 07:57 p.m. listening to: big honkin' playlist I want to sleep I want to sleep I want to sleep I want to sleep I want to sleep I want to sleep I want to sleep I want to sleep I want to sleep I want to sleep I want to sleep I want to sleep I want to sleep I want to sleep I want to sleep I want to sleep I want to sleep I want to sleep I want to sleep I want to sleep I want to sleep I want to sleep I want to sleep I want to sleep I want to sleep I want to sleep I want to sleep I want to sleep I want to sleep I want to sleep I want to sleep I want to sleep I want to sleep I want to sleep I want to sleep I want to sleep I get cranky when I don't get enough sleep. And depressed. Friday, February 27, 2004 [link] 06:29 p.m. listening to: big honkin' playlist I HAVE LEARNED THE MEANING OF SUCKITUDE, AND I AM THE DEFINITION. . . . I'm back from rehearsal. And also, I suck. Friday, February 27, 2004 [link] 03:30 p.m. listening to: "The Trouble With Poets" - Peter Mulvey For what is perhaps the first (or maybe second) time in my life, I am nervous about a rehearsal. I swear, I'm such a retard. (And yes, I know I need to update my website. Hold your horses.) Tuesday, February 24, 2004 [link] 01:06 p.m. listening to: **puts on the ranting pants** Okay, what with the hoopla in the media lately about the gay marriages in San Francisco and Bush backing a Constitutional amendment and the California Supreme Court having to make a ruling, I suppose it's time that I ramble on at length about same-sex marriage. **suitable pause for people to hit the "back" button on their browsers** Moving on, then. I'm going to put morality aside for a moment here. Some people think that same-sex relationships, not to say marriage, is immoral and wrong and all the gays and lesbians are going to hell and bisexuality is not a real sexual preference. I'm going to try not to address that because it's not really what I'm going to be talking about. Or maybe it is, but let me deal with that in time, 'kay? Or, actually, don't, because someone else](http://coloredink.shike.org/images/stareintothesun.jpg){kind=link}