love

As an unmarried 32-year-old I obviously am no expert but I find strategizing in relationships a la Rules of the Game is manipulative, overly defensive, and self-serving. I can understand how it can be important not to just jump right in the deep end with unrestrained optimism and I can understand why wearing your heart on your sleeve all the time could invite heartbreak, but I don't like the idea of hard and fast rules aimed at self-protection like Women should'nt say 'I love you' first. I think, in my mind, I file this sorta thing under "thinking too hard" and "using your head when you should be using your heart" and "silly social rules that perpetuate a static and essentialized notion of gender and that reinforce traditional gender roles in heterosexual courtship." Okay why does feminist theory get into my musings about everything. Anyways, it is an interesting topic. What's been your experience?

holidays

So I made it through grading hell and survived the drive from Seattle to Vancouver. The drive was actually pretty easy as I took off 3 hours before the huge snow storm that blanketed the pacific northwest. I5 got a tad bit sketchy with compact snow up around Arlington, WA but with some slow and steady maneuvering it was fine. Even had time to stop off at the duty free store for some 75% off Lancome and liquor for some friends. Those of you who take the truck crossing northbound into Surrey, show your AAA/BCAA card for a discount, even on fancy cosmetics (but not liquor). This is at the first duty free store, not the second one.

First night I got to see a couple of friends and their awesome 6 month old who is rarely without a big toothless smile on his face. I can only hope for a kid as awesome as him. He even sleeps through the night.

After that it snowed and snowed and snowed some more. I've been stuck at home since Saturday as a result. It's not really a bad thing since I have a lot of work to do over the holidays. So far I've finished No-No Boy, a novel that I have to teach this quarter for an American Ethnic Lit class. Now it's time for exam reading which includes The Deathly Embrace: Orientalism and Asian American Identity, which I've been dying to read.

I've also been appointed to cook/prep for the potluck Christmas dinner which means no fucking way I'm making turkey. Too much pain, too much time, and no one but my younger cousin even likes turkey. My older cousin whose family used to host each year particularly hates it. So we're doing Chinese food and whatever. I guess you could call that fusion even though I don't really fancy fusion restaurants.

Here's what I got planned:

Other people’s contributions so far:

Chinese mushrooms
Chinese cake (probably with that gross chestnut cream shit, ugh)
Others TBD

Mom buy/make:

Curry beef brisket
Roast duck
Gai lan with garlic, and oyster sauce

Me to make:

Salad with grated cheese, dried cranberries, sliced almonds, crumbled hard boiled egg, sliced ham
Honey garlic chicken wings
Tomato basil bruschetta
Goat cheese red pepper phyllo pastries
Mixed berry trifle

seclusion

I read this article about public schools locking up mentally disabled, autistic, and special ed kids in seclusion rooms where some have been left for hours. One even hung himself. Yes here in the great United States of America. How fucked up is that? If teachers aren't trained to deal with special kids then get some who are. Oh I forgot, not enough funding for such things. Let me just say that we had a lot of kids with mental disabilities in my elementary and jr. high school and they had a very small class and many assistants trained especially to work with special ed kids. A couple of my childhood friends are special ed assistants now. Do such positions even exist in public schools here? Maybe there is one for the whole school rather than several for one small class. Money needs to be allocated for things like this. But here money goes to senseless wars and things like building stupid fences at the Mexico border. Public education and health care are so pitiful here. I hope Obama is able to undo some of this mess.

ex-pat

So I read this headline, "Canadian Living in SF gets 6 1/2 years for soliciting 'girl' for sex," and thought for a split second, this better not be someone I know. Canada really is not all that big. Thank the gods, it's some old white dude. Freakshow.

shooting

Another shooting about 10 blocks from my place. This one is pretty ballsy. Someone shot someone in the head outside of a youth event protesting violence. 

In less violent news, I've been doing fairly well with my post-exam-grading, pre-going-back-to-Vancouver to-do list. I took most of the weekend to unwind but did manage to start on the list. Done to date: dropped off gifts to committee members and other helpful faculty, revised exam reading lists, returned library books, registered for some of next quarter's credits, paid bills, opened my stack of snail mail, filed my huge pile of miscellaneous unfiled shit, vacuumed, organized my closet, sent post dated cheques for January's rent and Internet, uploaded a few batches of old photos, and got some snow boots (just in time) and a new messenger bag cuz I just am not a carry a handbag everyday kinda girl and my two other bags have broken zippers from overuse. So. Hopefully I will be all ready to go by this Saturday and the weather will cooperate so I can get home safely.

But before that can happen I need to chip away at my to-do list a bit more yet. I still need to: fix my printer, shred my pile of shit to shred, change Oscar's cage, upload my friends' wedding photos, and finish up some sewing and hemming. The snow should keep me home most of tomorrow to work on all that I think.

sucks

Just spent a bit of time chatting with a good friend who recently had her second child. I went on her facebook to remind her to add some other friends so she could check out their baby pics. That led to a series of random clicks to the pages of our mutual friends, most of whom are in Vancouver. That was such a bad fucking idea.

Surfing FB and seeing all those baby, wedding, vacation, [insert other indicator of personal achievement/luck/success/stability here] photos reminds me of just how stagnant my life is. I haven't traveled overseas in 17 years and don't really have the time, money or travel companions (with compatible schedules or interest) to do it with anyways. We were thinking of going to Thailand, the one place I can maybe afford but now that chaos has erupted there, it's a no go. I did surf onto an old friend's fb page and it looks like she is doing a 180-day round the world honeymoon. How pleasant for her. I live alone in a dark rainy cold city (did I mention I have seasonal affective disorder?) below a couple of noisy racist assholes and the only thing certain about my future is uncertainty. I can barely afford my rent and bills, my department constantly fucks with me by forcing me to swap advisers, and even if I did have a lot of friends in this city, I wouldn't have the time or money to hang out with them. Pretty soon I get to go home for the holidays where my parents will test my patience by nagging at me for trivial things and I will sit in traffic alone trying to visit my happily married friends way on the other side of town. Being the fifth wheel rocks. Oh and if we go out and hang out with other folks, I will inevitably be asked the most annoying question ever. What are you going to do after you graduate?

Well. Let's see. I am on a student visa so I live in a country where I have no rights. At all. Most of the programs that are hiring are in the midwest (or some ridiculously small town) where I refuse to live. But that's okay because I have not published jack shit which will make it really hard to get a job anyways, as does the fact that the university would have to fork out some cash to deal with my visa issues and I doubt we'll be out of this recession by 2010. So what am I going to do after I graduate? To be honest, I don't fucking know and sometimes wonder if I even care anymore.

The other annoying question is where are you going to live after you graduate? Well. Let's see. I have to live where 1. I can find a job 2. I am legally allowed to work 3. I will not have to re-live the racial ignorance that plagued my childhood 4. I will not die of loneliness. I'm not sure that there is such a place.

I have a long day tomorrow and I really don't feel like facing it.

BlogHer

In my pursuit for distractions from exam reading I checked out the web site for BlogHer which holds annual conferences for women bloggers. There are various categories to which you can submit a link to/feed from your blog. Naturally I clicked on Race and Ethnicity. Browsed about 8 pages and nope. Not one Asian blogger. I think I'll stick to my other blog community - Rice Bowl Journals (btw, they moved so update your bookmarks).

late

I'm usually pretty good at getting to bed by midnight, earlier on school nights. But when I don't have an appointment or class in the morning it's hard to find a reason to get up and so I let myself go to bed way too late the night before. I just can't help it though sometimes. I get work done too so if I'm up doing work I let myself stay up even later. Obscenely late. Like now. This is going to foul up my sleep schedule tomorrow. I know it. Consistency with anything is so damn hard for me for a lot of things. It's almost as though I get bored or wound up when things run too much on a schedule and things don't change.