home

Reasons why I need to go home for a visit:

- I miss eating at izakayas and good affordable sushi restaurants
- I miss my awesome friends
- both parents have their birthdays in November
- lecture is canceled on some Fridays
- I have more shit to retrieve from home
- last but certainly not least I need to hook up a sling box at my parents' house so that we can watch hockey down here. HNIC is only on Saturdays and CBC doesn't air any games on other days.
I'm thinking to head back the weekend of November 9th, leaving Thursday afternoon, returning Sunday night.

captcha

So you know when you go to register on a web site and you get a bunch of letters all twisted up so that you have to use your imagination to interpret what the fuck it says. Well Denny tells me that is called a CAPTCHA which stands for Completely Automated Public Turing Test to Tell Computers and Humans Apart. It's one of those tests I often get wrong because evidently I'm not a human. I just installed Firefox so none of the sites that require login remember all my info. I was avoiding this for awhile because Firefox reveals all the code errors in my blog and web site and makes it look all jacked up because I'm too lazy to fix it. Anyways, that is not the point of this post. I'm writing because my CAPTCHA on Facebook was methadone and I thought that was cute. I would like my next CAPTCHA to be something along the lines of rimjob. I think that would also be cute.

match 2

Just thought I'd link to another blogger's commentary on lame match profiles because it made me laugh.
http://mamalikey.blogspot.com/2007/10/miss-matched.html

I have plenty more observations and have to admit I spent many evenings checking out profiles with my cousin when I was in San Jose in lieu of watching sitcoms. Far more entertainment value in poorly written profiles coupled with horrifyingly unflattering photos. But alas, I have a deadline every day until Thursday. So that post will have to wait... Until then, seriously guys, don't do the shirtless flexing in front of someone else's car thing especially with the tough guy douchebag expression in your profile pic. All I do with shit like that is circulate it among my friends so we can all laugh at you.

delete

I have an exam to study for, a lecture to prepare, and a research proposal to write. What do I do instead? Go through 4 years of blog posts to delete photos of myself so I can finally make this blog as anonymous as I think it needs to be. I also bought a new down comforter online to replace my crazy heavy Chinese one that is great on cold nights, but my apartment is always way too warm for such a heavy comforter.

Telling myself I shouldn't care about grades at this point in my schooling is actually sort of demotivating. I've tried for my entire life to worry less and be more laid back about things but I'm wondering if this is really a good idea when it comes to school. I think I need the pressure. At least a little bit. Someone kick me in the ass. I need it.

In other news, the Canucks beat Columbus today. Yay!

midweekend

So I'm finally getting over this little cold that I caught thanks to a couple days of rest at home. I spent yesterday studying and then headed over to a friend's house for a grad students assoc meeting and then to hang out. Headed over to Wallingford after that to watch Wes Anderson's The Darjeeling Limited. I had my reservations about this film because though I didn't see the Royal Tenenbaums, I really hated The Life Aquatic because I found the dialog pretentious in a ha-ha-if-you-didn't-get-that-joke-you're-not-as-sophisticated-in-picking-up-subtle-dark/humor-as-I-because-I'm-the-shit sort of way. I also realized that I just cannot stand the sight of Bill Murray. But last night I was pleasantly surprised even though I don't like Owen Wilson and Bill Murray had a cameo. It was actually pretty funny probably because it makes fun of super rich white people trying to find their spirituality. Good nuf.

Anyways, back to studying so I can head out. We're going to check out Common Market at Chop Suey in Cap Hill. I know...me hip hop? But this isn't the misogynistic commercial brand of garbage that I despise so I'll gladly go to take a listen.

gum wall

I went to Theatresports in Post Alley Sunday night and got to check out the famous gum wall. Yeah, it's exactly what it sounds like it is. I guess they used to not allow gum chewing in the theatre so people put their gum on the brick wall. It's kind of gross and interesting at the same time. I'll post a pic later. I'm too lazy to download it from my phone. The whole wall is covered and some people got creative and wrote their name.

I can't believe tomorrow is Thursday tomorrow already. I'm starting to come down with something but decided that I'll fight this with a 2 hour nap, echinacea, a multi vitamin, zinc, fish oil capsules, oil of oregano and grape juice. We'll see if this works. I hope it does. Ok back to studying for my stats midterm.

midwest

I don't know why it is that every conference I get accepted to is taking place somewhere in the midwest lately. I'm writing from the lobby of the Crowne Plaza in Kansas City, MO where I'm presenting at the Midwest Popular Culture Conference. My next conference, the National Communication Assocation Conference, will be in Chicago next month, and if I get into the Association of Asian Am conference (fingers crossed for that one) I'll be making another trip out to Chicago in Spring. As usual I have counted fewer than 3 Asians since I've arrived. And I'm totally exhausted. I present in 2.5 hours and I'm severely sleep deprived. I took a 1/4 of an Ambien CR which knocked me out but I woke up at 2:55am when the thunderstorm started. After that I was just dozing on and off until my alarm went off at 9am (7am my time). I'm not too happy with the set up of the room either. I went to a panel this morning in the same room and what they've done is divide one big room into two with a curtain. Yes, a CURTAIN. So we could hear two speakers speaking at once and it was pretty hard to focus on either one, especially when one of them started playing a sound clip. I don't know whose idiotic idea that was to use a curtain as a room divider. And since I'm complaining incessently I will add that they have this lectern thing set up that I don't think I'm tall enough to see over. Even in 2" heeled boots. Anyways, I need to get back to prepping for this presentation and trying to stay awake. I can't wait to get home. It's raining harder here than it is in Seattle.

match

I must share with you the most awesomely funny match profile ever from a guy who is quite easy on the eyes. He winked at me. I'm blocking him and don't really intend to login to that site anymore. Anyways, read on:

I get excessively drunk at inappropriate times, disregard social norms, indulge every whim, ignore the consequences of my actions, mock idiots and posers, sleep with more women than is safe or reasonable, and just generally act like a raging jerk.

I have to applaud his way with words. I love a good writer. Poor grammar is such a turn off even more so than disregarding social norms.

1408

1408 was such a disappointing movie. The alternate endings on the Blockbuster DVD were even shittier. It's hump day. I think it's funny that white people call Wednesday hump day. In my head I picture people having sex all over the place in public all day. Anyways...

So I'm doing a good job of planning social activities so that my life doesn't completely fucking suck. Heading to an 80s night tomorrow in Cap Hill, Friday I'm having the girls over for Guitar Hero and then I'm going someplace Saturday night with Denny, Justin and friends but I keep forgetting the name of it. Now I need to do a better job getting up on the right side of the bed so I can work on my paper. Next next weekend is my presentation in Missourri at the Midwest Popular Culture Conference.

foul

Why do people say "waking up on the wrong side of the bed"? It makes no sense to me. But yeah, I did that today. When you wake up and the first word you utter in that raspy morning voice is "fuck" you know you're destined to fall face first in shit or get run over by a bus or something spectacular that day. I think I'm going to print myself a t-shirt that says "misanthrope" so I can wear it on days like this. Only because my shirt that says "fuck you" would probably cause me to lose my funding. There is this wise cracking frat boy looking Phd student in Poli Sci in my class whom I wanted to throw my travel mug at today. Actually I would like to first fill it with rocks, and then aim it at his chiseled little jawbone. I am pretty sure of my ability to get vibes from people and his reeked of self-righteousness and conceit.

Alright so now that I got that off my chest, I'm off to watch Weeds on DVD. I cannot get enough of that show. Hopefully it gets me out of this foul mood hell. Although I have to say that my writing gets more colourful and that is at least one benefit of feeling like I constantly suck at life.

weekend

So I kicked off Friday with an afternoon get together with the girls from school. Later that night I had a date with a hot hapa dude who turned out to be a total tool who took 10 years to finish his degree because he got kicked out for engaging in some very questionable activity. He also lacked the finer points of going out on a date that most men over 25 who aren't idiots don't miss. You know, like not making me get out of the fucking car to see when the restaurant closes or complaining I slammed his car door when I didn't. Somehow he thinks we're going to meet up again but good looks only get you so far when you're a broke cocky loser who acts like he's 18. Oh well, the movie was excellent. We saw In the Valley of Elah which I highly recommend. Man am I ever glad I was able to salvage my evening by watching the first season of Weeds on DVD. Last night I met Denny's cousins at the birthday party of one of the cousins. It was a roller rink party 80s style. I brought my own blades and got to try them indoors for the first time. It was pretty fun and I managed to escape any injury. I even won a 3-lap race around the rink without pushing anyone into the wall. Just got back from a happy hour at Norm's in Fremont where appetizers were all $5 and beer I think was $3. They had good wings, bacon wrapped shrimp and brie. Not a bad weekend altogether. Could use another day though. I do have a goal to work towards though. We'll be heading out to Neighbour's in Cap Hill for 80s night on Thursday.

day 1

First day of school today and it was not a lucky day but I survived. I thought my spirit friend had left the apartment with my roomate who went to Shanghai for the quarter but last night after I double checked that my alarms were set for 8:45 am and not pm, the alarms were indeed not set properly this morning and I was lucky I woke up around that time anyways. I headed out to catch the 9:39 bus which gets me there a half hour before. No bus, the next one scheduled for 9:49 doesn't come either, and the woman standing next to me says she arrived to catch the 9:15 bus which didn't come either. Finally 10am rolls around and I get on the already packed bus. I arrive at 10:20 and don't even have time to go to my office to get my attendance list. I was lucky I had the room number scribbled on a pieced of paper from the night before. First class of the quarter and I had to wing it.

detox

I spent the weekend in Vancouver for my best friends' wedding up at Westwood Plateau. The day was spent going from Burnaby to Stanley Park to the Wall Center in a big limo for photos. Drinking in the limo started at 11 am and continued until we arrived at the ceremony at 5 or so. The bride and groom did a fantastic job of keeping us fed and comfortable and all of us in the wedding party did a fantastic job of keeping them and ourselves entertained for the whole day...and night. It was only my second time being in a wedding party but I have to say this one really took the cake. I never had so many laughs (mostly at dirty jokes) and so much fun getting photos taken for 5 hours. Most memorable of the many funny things said in the limo came of course from my friend Dan. Tasha and I were showing off the incredible dexterity in our own toes while the others marveled. Dan says, "damn you girls could put a condom on a guy with one foot while making rice with the other."

Wedding highlights:

The first dance http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLgexf_irYs (woohoo Dirty Dancing)
The wedding party's dance routine (video coming)
The incredibly funny speeches
The videos
Good friends

I'm really not looking forward to seeing the photos and videos of me acting like a loud obnoxious asshole at the reception, although I have to give myself credit for not dancing on any tables and not falling down (like I did the other night last week when I came crashing out of a bathroom stall). Food highlights from the weekend: Dozo Izakaya in Richmond, the wedding food, the double teen burger combo from A&W at 2am that night, a great gyro from a place in Port Moody, and Kiyo for sushi in Richmond.

It was also fun to go on a mini roadtrip with my two closest friends in Seattle. Love you guys.

And after a couple summer months of being pretty much fubar more often than not, I'm feeling like it's time to tame things down a bit and drag myself kicking and screaming back into complete sobriety, at least for a week. I might even exercise or something.

composure

It's funny how awkward and uncomfortable it feels to return to a big room full of my colleagues. Actually it's not an issue with my colleagues but rather one of being in a professional setting, sober, and attempting to be articulate after three months of using the word fuck as either a verb or a noun in every other sentence I spoke, sentences that were never more than 6 words long.

Today was TA orientation day. All the incoming grad students and returning students introduced themselves and listened to the talk about how our funding works and our responsibilities to the program. For whatever reason, I was just not mentally ready to be back in that building, in that meeting room, talking to all those folks, especially all at once. A little overwhelming. I've seen my close friends from school over the last two weeks but having 50 of us in one room staring at one another after being away for three months was just heart rate elevating in a not good way.

I need another month off. Seriously. There are seven boxes of my shit from Simon's house laying around waiting for me to stub my toe on them. I've got some new school year resolutions though. I am going to focus on not losing it. That probably entails scheduling myself time to exercise, watch Heroes, The Office and My Name is Earl, and even go out to see people. These things did not happen in year 1 of this program. I watched almost no TV except for the news during dinner and very rarely went out. Relaxing it was not. I'm determined to make this not the worst 4 years of my life. I want to have a life this year, just a little bit.

the end

Where did summer go?

I saw The Devil's Backbone (2001). Fantastic movie. By the same director who made Pan's Labyrinth. Also saw Hard Candy. Interesting story. Bit gory and hard to watch though, especially for dudes. Denny had to leave the room. Sorry D.

Week and a half to go until classes start. So not ready for school. My head's not in the game and I really don't know what to do to get it there.

17 days

17 days is a long period of blog neglect. In that time, I ended a long term relationship, moved completely out of an ex-partner's apartment, went to LA to party like a rock star for a bachelorette party, detoxed from the partying, unpacked, packed, returned to Seattle, unpacked, saw my therapist, and gave myself a couple of other panic attacks over other shit going on my life and now I'm here. Back in recovery mode. Again. Despite my wishes for stability all I ever find is another adventure I never signed up for. There is never a dull moment in my life but I quite often wish for one. Dull would be a fantastic thing right now.

countdown

I am battling an almost-cold, mostly nose blowing and phlegminess that I'm sure I'll get over soon. The bride has an upper respiratory infection. One of the groomsman is just getting over an illness from last week. But we're all going to suck it up because it's stag weekend. (to the Americans, stag = bachelor party, stagette = bachelorette party). Boys are heading to Vegas to see DJ Tiesto and the girls are headed to LA to see John Digweed. I've hooked up a preparty at Circus with seating, champagne and free entry and a line pass for the main event, the Digweed party at Avalon. Sunday is supposed to be a beach day but I have a feeling it's going to be a write off. In fact I'll probably need to be carried off the plane on the way back to SF.

I just talked to one of the groomsman and my only request was that they not get arrested or hospitalized. Luckily my older cousin is not attending so that reduces the chances of getting arrested.

OK time to finish my writing so I can get packed up.

sicko

Sicko the movie was great. Go see it. But I'm actually refering to me. I'm sick. I never get sick which is why I'm so pissed that I'm sick. I was slurping down that awful oil of oregano like crazy and still I ended up sick.

"and the such as"

If you haven't seen the video of Miss Teen South Carolina, you must see this version with subtitles.

Here's one child who was definitely left behind. (That's my cousin's joke, not mine)

joke

So apparently there was a joke told late Saturday night that we all remember laughing at. But none of us were sober enough to remember what the joke was. Actually, I'll be honest, I don't even remember laughing at any jokes. I only remember eating a double double cheeseburger and it was fucking delicious.

After 72 hours of incubation, my briliant cousin has finally recalled the joke. It goes like this:

Q: Why do Canadians like to do it doggy style?

A: So they can both watch Hockey Night in Canada at the same time

Step It Up 2007

This year's event takes place November 3rd. Please go to http://www.stepitup2007.org/ to get on the distribution list and help fight global warming.

weekend

The weekend was eventful. I'm not even going to try to recap all the weird shit that happened to us during out ridiculous girls' night out on Friday but here is a taste. This conversation took place between us and two guys in line in front of us at VBar. C is my friend who did most of the talking in this situation. I was too busy turning around to yell at this asshole who happened to end up in line behind us with the chump ex-gf who still hangs out with him after he cheated on her a million times. Okay, so back to the drama in front of us in line:

Jackass: Oh perfect, four girls! Hey can you guys lend us $11 so the bouncer can let us pass the line? We don't have enough cash for the $20 to grease the bouncer, but we'll buy you drinks on a credit card when we get inside

C: What about us? How will we get in?

Jackass: You're chicks they'll let you in

C: We already asked, they wont. Plus what kinda job do you have that you wouldn't have any cash when you go to a bar?

[Jackass and his Asian friend produce business cards. Jackass is a manager at Bank of America, Asian friend is an attorney]

Me: you work at a fucking bank and you need to borrow $11 from us? Are you serious? Is this even your business card or did you take it from the bank?

[C looks at the business card]

C: You work across the street from me

Jackass: Oh do you work at Marina (a Chinese grocery store)

C: [steps up to Jackass and gets in his face] WTF??? Just because I'm an Asian woman you think I work at Marina? I work at _______ (software security company)

Highlight of Saturday night aside from seeing all my wonderful friends was eating a double double cheeseburger from Jack in the Box which I'm convinced is still in my stomach.

Oh and I saw Death at a Funeral last night. Great movie but don't read the description or watch the trailer before you see it. It took away from the plot and the laughs. Just go see it. It's great

comments

Shit the notifications that I have blog comments have been going to my spam folder. I just discovered a pile of them. Sorry guys. And here I thought no one ever reads this. They are all published now

gym

Went to Club One with my cousin last night. The place is immaculate and well kept. It makes 24 Hour Fitness look like a fucking bathroom in a dive bar in the Tenderloin. I noticed far less meat marketish activity on the gym floor but still the place is not without its characters. At one point I found myself walking to a piece of equipment at approximately the same rate as another guy. As we both approached the equipment I looked up at him and said "oh were you about to use this?"

The appropriate response for a normal person would be something like "oh you go ahead first."

But this guy just grunts "YEAH" and jumps ahead of me to use the equipment. I bit my lip to keep from blurting out "were you fucking homeschooled or some shit?"

After the workout, we were walking back home and my cousin says that some guy in the locker room was blowdrying his pubes in there and not even discretely. Awesome.

alive

Yes I am still alive. I have not written because I have been blessed with more drama. Ah the life I lead. A couple weeks ago while Simon was at work, many issues -- not the least of which includes dishonesty, zero communication skills, and face-saving tactics that essentially trivialized our entire relationship -- prompted me to pack up my shit and move out. And did he call me to see why I packed up and moved out or to check that I was alive? No, he calls a friend to get the scoop and develop his latest PR strategy to make sure he exits this situation looking like this was his decision and what he wanted all along. What do I learn from this? Don't trust people who are so self-conscious that they can't open up and be themselves even around people who love them. Ego-saving will ultimately be prioritized over your well being.

Not to state the obvious, but we are not on speaking terms. Even after 6 years. What a shame.

Don't worry I am okay. In fact, I'm relieved and, for once in my life, somewhat optimistic. And so begins a new chapter in my life. Please line up the eligible single Asian American men (educated and over 5'6" please) at my front door...naked.

eyesore

Having a messy house when no one is there to see it is one thing. Everyone has their tolerance for mess and dirtiness. Mine happens to be extremely low because seeing dirt, dust, or hair on floors and surfaces is actually nauseating for me and I get all sorts of anxiety about it and have a hard time staying at other people's houses overnight because of it. Okay enough about me.

Now having a big huge fucking mess for all your neighbours to look at every fucking day is certainly another thing. Please click on the photo to see it in full size so you can truly appreciate the detail:

So our HOA states that we are not allowed to have anything but plants, BBQ, and patio furniture on our patios. These losers have decided to use their patio as some sort of fucking storage. Let's play I spy with my little eye. I spy astroturf, a trampoline, an ironing board with an assortment of ugly ceramic fucking swans, bunches of fake flowers, a broken screen from a window, two satellite dishes, a kid's swimming pool, two exercise balls, a tricycle, a rug hanging over the rail, plastic shelving with more junk on it, a pretend lawnmower, cinder blocks, a hose, a broom and two ceramic elephants.


But hey at least they finally moved their couch back inside. I think I'm going to be an asshole and call the HOA to complain.

AsiaSF

So AsiaSF used to be a place we enjoyed taking out of town guests. They had these fabulous drag shows with the girls doing elaborate lipsynch and dance routines on the bartop. The gender illusionists as the web site calls them are also your waitresses. So the person who booked the dinner chose a set menu so fine whatever. The waitress, who used to come and hang out, chat, take pictures etc., I think made one visit to our table with the drinks. Thereafter, the busboy brought our food out. They somehow managed to pack the restaurant with more tables than usual so it was hard to squeeze through the seating areas. And with all the people crammed in there, the place got super hot and stuffy.

As for the service, everything seemed to come at once so there was no room on the table for all the plates. Then the dessert started coming but our salmon hadn't arrived yet. We flagged down the guy bringing the food and let him know. Soon after, another busboy brought more dessert and then the check...still no salmon. Finally, long after the dessert had come out and the check was on the table, the salmon arrived. What the hell are we supposed to do with that now??

To top that, they had forgotten our chocolate volcano cake. So I flag down a dude in a suit who looks like he might be in charge. He offers to take one of the salmon dishes off the bill and bring a round of shots. He also goes looking for our chocolate volcano cake. After what seemed like forever, another busboy comes along with our cake and our shots. The volcano cake, which used to be my favourite of all time, was so overcooked there was no lava spilling out of the cake. Instead it was rock solid all the way through. And the bill for someone who didn't drink? $78 including tax and mandatory 20% tip. This place used to be fun and the food delicious. Now it's hurried, disorganized, over crowded, and generally not a good time. Just too bad. We won't be going back. I wish I could get my 80 bucks back to buy a pair of shoes. Damn them

giving tree

Simon and I are going to be buying a new backback full of supplies for two low income children in the Bay Area. If you want to help too, go to http://www.familygivingtree.org/b2s/Sponsorship.htm
There is a link there if you want to buy the backpack from the online store for the kids and a from to print out a tax receipt. Don't worry I checked it out and they are legit. They get lists of needy children from various schools and agencies. These are kids who are on free/reduced lunch programs and really need help. Just look at these pics and thank yous from them.

pub

English pub food is something I really love to eat, especially sheperd's pie and fish and chips. There was a place called the Prince of Wales pub in San Mateo near my place. It was dark and dingy like a basement from the 60s. They hadn't changed the dirty pukey orange brown carpet or velvet red wall paper in decades. There were photos of people from the 70s who got their Polaroid on the wall for finishing a habanero burger. They had fantastic food -- fish and chips, deep fried pickles, and kobe burgers. Recently it changed hands. Now it is called the Swingin Door Pub. There are hardwood floors where the worn faded carpet used to be, all the photos of people from decades past and dirty framed newspaper clippings have been taken off the wall. The kobe burger is off the menu, ditto the deep fried pickles. Still an English pub with pub food but no more kobe burger, no more deep fried pickles, and a price hike. And the food really does not taste the same. No flavour. I took my out of town friends there today hoping to show them my favourite little hole in the wall but had to apologize for bringing them to a place with horribly bland soggy food. Too bad. I'm sure this breaks the previous owner's heart.

angry

We were carpooling to Mountain View for lunch last week when conversation about who might become the next president came up. Our consultant immediately noted what a bitch Hilary is and how, at the same time, it was pathetic that she took her husband back after the Lewinsky scandal. I had to defend her. I'm sure she had some idea at the time that she might want to run for president in the future. I'm sure she must've come to the realization that being a woman is already hard enough in politics. I'm damn sure that no one would elect a single mom. So her decision to stay with Bill was strategic if nothing else. As for being a bitch. If a man displayed qualities like being tough and stubborn and demanding, he'd be called a strong charasmatic leader. When a woman displays those qualities she is labeled a bitch.

Related to this is a new finding that anger at work earns admiration for men but for women, anger is seen as a sign of incompetence and being "out of control." None of this is surprising to me. I'm generally angry. I'm angry about this, I'm angry about issues of race, I'm angry at the media, I'm angry that I spent years of my life working in the tech industry where testosterone fuels the workplace. What have I gotten for it? Well people attempting to flatter me have called me "feisty" or, worse, "spunky." I consider that demeaning, paternalistic, and sexist. Would you call a man feisty or spunky because they are authoritative or passionate about something? That would sound silly wouldn't it? Being feisty or spunky is cute like a puppy gnawing on your finger. Next person who calls me feisty or spunky gets a fist shoved down their fucking throat. To be honest, I'd rather you call me an asshole.

no fun city

Vancouver is apparently the best city in Canada to live in but placed dead LAST for nightlife.

With the "fake" lines created outside clubs when there is no one inside, unjustified cover charges, tiny boring unrenovated venues (and very few of them), asshole bouncers everywhere, mandatory measured liquor pours (ie weak overpriced drinks), and absence of celebrity DJs willing to include Vancouver in their tours, I am not for a moment surprised by this finding.

As for safety, I know more Vancouverites who have had their cars broken into/stolen than not.

Vancouver has been voted the best city in Canada.
Aug, 01 2007 - 9:10 AM
VANCOUVER/CKNW980 - That according to a survey out this morning.
Though it's probably not a surprise to most Vancouverites, the poll by Angus Reid Strategies finds aside from the overall best city rating, Vancouver is also seen as the country's best city to live in and the best city to vacation in. However the findings are not all rosy with Vancouver finishing much further down the list in categories such as best city to find a job in and best city to do business in. We also finished tied for seventh place as being the safest city and tied for last place in the category of best city for nightlife.

oops

That was a long break from blogging that I never intended. I was busy at work and then took off to Vancouver for a week and a half and along the way started my adult piano lessons and got a used keyboard so I've been a little distracted. So I'm taking these keyboard piano lessons at a community center close to work. I went to class 1 and 3 but missed the second one because I was in Vancouver. I practiced like crazy to make sure I wasn't going to be behind for the third class but it turned out I had worked ahead in the book and now I'm a bit ahead of the class. I have mastered 3 songs with two hands - don't laugh - Jingle Bells, Going Home, and Merrily We Roll Along. I guess taking music all through elementary and junior high at school helped me learn a lot that I didn't realize I would remember.

In other news, the part for the dryer came and Simon figured out how to put the belt on himself, so the dryer is now fixed and we didn't have to pay the $137 for labor because we canceled the appointment. TV is still broken but Sharp is delivering a new one. It has been a bitch not having a TV in the living room. We have my old TV in the bedroom so we spent most of yesterday laying in bed watching TV. Laying in bed all day can, for once, be justified because there is no where else to watch TV. Last night we rented The Good German which is all in black and white. I liked Toby McGuire's character. I fell alseep 3/4 of the way through. I didn't really like it. I also saw Shooter while I was in Vancouver. That sucked. It was a combo of MacGyver, 24, and The Fugitive but worse than all three of them. The guy at Rogers said it was a better movie than Premonition so I guess Premonition really sucks.

spirit

I can blog about this now that my friend who is subletting my room knows about it (my roommate spilled the beans which is not terribly surprising). I was hoping my friend would be able to help prove that we are not imagining these strange occurances I'm about to share.

So about 6 months ago weird things started to happen in my Seattle apartment that I tended to dismiss as me being delusional, drunk, or otherwise as is often the case. Let me see if I can remember them all. I think the first was when I was editing some of my friend's wedding video. I was dragging the pointer thing on the timeline backward so that I could figure out where I wanted to cut the video. As I was doing that, the faces in the video all of a sudden turned into grotesque figures that looked like the painting the Scream. I attributed this to lack of RAM in my computer (and being delusional) and thought nothing of it, except that it was really weird that I could not reproduce it even after opening more applications to tax the computer some more.

Another time I was home alone watching TV when I heard a female voice next to the hall closet say very very clearly, "hey!" I actually thought maybe my roommate had come home and somehow opened the door without me hearing but nope. No one there. Another time in the middle of the night my clock radio which is always set to alarm to wake me up on weeknights turned itself on TWICE. I actually had to switch it ON then OFF and then back to alarm to turn it off. Then a half hour later it turned on again. It definitely was not on sleep mode and again I could not reproduce it.

Weird things happened to my roommate too. When I was out of town and she was alone, her GPS unit which was in her hand bag on the floor turned itself on and started giving voice directions. She got up and turned it off. Later that night it turned itself on again. On another occasion her clock radio, in the middle of the night, turned itself on and then off without her even touching it.

I have a friend who is able to sense certain things that most people can't. I won't get into the details but let's just say I don't doubt her. She came over and told me that the disturbances are being caused by a friendly spirit of a young girl who just wants to get our attention. One note of explanation -- ghost = dead person who is confused/lost and hasn't passed on and can be friendly or malicious. Spirit = person who has passed on to the other side and sometimes comes back just to mess around but tends not to be malicious. My roommate thinks this spirit has actually brought her a lot of good luck. I can't say the same but I have to agree that it's not as scary I expected an occurance like this to be.

Okay, so let's hear your thoughts and your stories of supernatural occurances...

Haier sucks II

So we paid $72 for someone to "diagnose" the issue with this piece of shit Haier Dryer. Turns out the reason the drum of this 3 year old dryer doesn't turn is because the belt broke.

Cost estimate (rounded off):
$137 Labour
$56 Parts

total $192.51 (~$260 total cost with the $72)

The dryer was originally $350 or so. One repair costs almost as much as the dryer itself so now we're trying to find another one that is no more than 22" deep.

Oh yeah the LCD TV we got in April is also broken, audio but no picture. Sharp forgot to send the technician the right parts so we have reschedule yet another repair appointment. We are having home repair and travel hell this month. Still waiting to get our fucked up toilet which is leaking and rotting the floor boards under linoleum fixed. And I wonder why my paper isn't getting written.

travel

Air travel is always an adventure. We had a flight Friday evening to Vancouver. We called a Yellow Cab Express/International Cab based in Redwood City at 5:15pm since our flight was at 7:30pm. Let me first say I hate that cab company. These guys have hung up on me several times after I asked them to repeat themselves because I couldnt understand what they were saying. They are also known to distribute coupons that they don't honour.

35 min later he still had not arrived and we started to worry about missing the flight. The guy said he was stuck in traffic at Hillsdale (it takes me less than 35 minutes to walk from there) after we called back. Finally he arrives 40 minutes late and doesn't even get out of the car to get our luggage. Asshole. He gets into the far left lane thinking it's a carpool lane but it's not. It is the slowest moving lane on this section of the 101. Idiot.

Finally we got to the airport. Flight was delayed an hour. Checked in our luggage, passed through security and Simon realized his phone was missing (again... this is already a loaner phone for the one he dropped in the shitter two weeks ago). He had Alaska call the check in desk and they dont have it so he used this extra hour to retrace his steps. No luck.

An hour comes and goes and the plane is still going through some mechanical issues. The door is squeaky apparently. An hour after that they canceled the flight not because of the mechanical issues, which were resolved, but because too much time had passed and the crew was no longer allowed to fly due to safety issues around working hours. Fantastic. We lined up, got rebooked on a flight the next day, then refunded the booze at Duty Free, and headed to the luggage carousel to get the luggage back. What a huge waste of an evening.

7 am the next morning, another cab driver called to say he had found the phone. He said he would leave it at the cab office since he had to pick up another passenger and couldnt take us to the airport for our second attempt at getting to Vancouver. The flight went off without a hitch but we got in too late to make it to the wedding ceremony we were supposed to attend.

Anyways, Simon is now back in the Bay Area and called the company back to arrange to pick up the phone that guy left for him and also to give this fellow a reward. Guess what. The jerk-off of a dispatcher says he doesn't see Simon's phone there and he doesn't know the names of all the cab drivers so he can't put Simon in touch with this nice guy who said his name was Alfredo or something. Guess some other asshole who works there stole the phone after the one honest driver turned it in. The only thing more annoying than traveling by plane is taking cabs.

month

I came to the realization today that as of 2 days ago, I've been in the Bay Area for 1 month. I can't believe 1/3 of my stay here is already over. I also can't believe that I still haven't finished my stupid paper for the class that I took an incomplete for. There are 4 reasons for that:

1. Working all day from an office cubicle drains the life out of me. Even if the work is not terribly challenging in an intellectual sense, the fact that I'm in an overly air conditioned office with no sunlight for 8-10 hours a day I think is slowly killing me. Going about my business on campus for 8 hours does not have the same effect. Maybe it's because I am forced to walk around, talk to people, and get fresh air.

2. Hamsters. I have missed the office hamsters and I get to stare and poke at them and feed them all day.

3. Darts. We got a dart board at work and I cannot stop playing darts. We've played so much the tips are dull and we need to sharpen them.

4. Last but not least, Super Puzzle Fighter II. We got an XBox to play at lunch and after work and that game is like crack. In fact, I just installed a version of it on my laptop because I cannot get enough. It is almost 2 am and I just finished the 8 stages of normal mode but couldn't beat the final challenger Akuma.

I need to go to bed so that I am good and ready to kick some ass in Puzzle Fighter tomorrow.

concussion

No not me. I've never had a concussion that I can remember (that was a joke, get it?). So we headed out to see Blank & Jones on Saturday night. Aside from the fact that, looking at the crowd you'd think it was a creepy guys' and obese women's convention, it was a good party. Good old fashioned progressive, none of the dark bass-heavy stuff or weird trip hop. We went with a friend who went to roam around on his own for a while. We found him again at almost 3am leaning against the bar casually. He was touching his lip which was swollen. Turned out that someone sucker punched him on the dancefloor. He couldn't remember why or what the guy looked like or whether or not he fell to the floor. Obviously this happened without security noticing and no one coming to his resuce since he was standing around by himself in a daze. He had a missing tooth, a chipped tooth and a top tooth that had been pushed in by this guys fist (or bottle or whatever it was). Worst of all he had no memory of what happened. We left the club and he found his tooth in his pocket. He couldn't find his car key and then found it in a pocket and I took it from him. From there, he asked a list of questions every 2-5 minutes:

- hey how'd you guys find me?
- do you have my tooth?
- I can't find my key, does someone know where it is?
- how did I get here, did I drive?

I figured these were classic signs of a concussion (good old first aid training) and we took him to the hospital on Hyde. He went looking for the bathroom which was locked so we took him to a different one at the other end of the hallway. A few minutes later he had to go to the bathroom again and had already forgotten where it was and kept trying the bathroom with the locked door.

After a long wait and answering the same questions over and over again the doctor saw him. He got his vitals checked, got a tetanus shot, some Motrin and a prescription for some more pain killers. The tooth could not be saved. I knew you are supposed to put it in milk but we didn't exactly have that so I thought putting it in water would be the next best thing. Apparently that is not the case. (water is too much, put it in a wet napkin or your mouth eeeew). The patient in the next bed came in by ambulance for what I'm guessing is a meth overdose. He got impatient waiting for the doctor, stood in the middle of the room and started to cry. Then he put his trench coat on without first putting on his shirt, and wandered right out the emergency room door. The hospital staff didn't even bat an eye. He never came back. Meanwhile we got instructions to take our friend home and wake him up every two hours and to bring him back if he starts to puke a lot or walk wobbly, neither of which were the case when we checked in. Phew. Our friend is okay given the circumstances but now does not remember ever being at the hospital.

What a Saturday night. We spent Sunday laying on the couch and watching 24 on Tivo.

"Caucasian"

I've found myself so many times trying to explain why Caucasian is not a synonym for white, nor is it the polite way to say "white," as if that needed a euphemism. If you trace back a "real" Caucasian, as defined by scientists who failed to find a biological basis for determining race and then tried to define race by origin, you would actually only get a very small handful of people in this world tied to a very specific geographical region. I think this sums it up quite well:

The dominant use of the word ‘Caucasian’ instead of ‘white’ effectively hides
color behind a wall of pseudo-science. Despite a history of scientific
falsification, ‘Caucasian’ was adopted into American vernacular in the
mid-twentieth century as a means of reconsolidating whiteness as a biologically
distinct category of people (Jacobson 1998). (Reitman, 2006, p. 272)

In truth, the act of using ‘white’ only reveals to whites their own
privilege, the historical politics of whiteness. (Reitman, 2006, p. 273)

In other words, using the term "white," instead of the scientifically inaccurate "Caucasian," strips away this notion that "white" is normal or default or neutral and that people of color are inherently deviants of this construction of normalcy.

resumes

So I'm helping with some recruiting efforts to find a junior IT helpdesk person. In searching Craigslist, I've noticed some interesting things:

1. A lot of people have ridiculous spelling/grammatical errors in their resumes. Isn't that the most obvious no-no?

2. The backlash against hiring foreign H1-B workers has manifested in the addition of "citizenship status" on a number of resumes. e.g. "US Born Citizen -- Native English speaker" or "Status: US Citizen and French green card holder." This irks me. Companies purport to hire based on suitability and skill and not to discriminate based on race, religion, nationality, sex etc. but this demonstrates that people don't believe them. They believe, and probably rightly so, that American corporations prefer to hire not just citizens, but those who speak perfect English, nevermind the skills they might bring as someone with experience working in other countries, economies and cultures.

3. Some assholes are ethnocentric enough to demand that the people looking to hire them speak English well e.g. "I am accepting Phone Calls from the local 408 and 650 Area Codes ONLY. This is my Local Job Search Area. NOTE- You MUST be able to speak English clearly and distinctly." I kind of want to email him just to tell him to shove it.

4. Rather than use the title of the post to bring attention to the position they are seeking or the skills they bring, some people (ie the ones I would never contact because they just seem too dull) use their name or something like "APPLYING FOR SUITABLE JOB " as the posting title. See another example below, the best Craigslist resume post ever.

5. Some people are really too idiotic to deserve a job. Yes this is the entire posting, no there is no resume or any indication what kind of job this person is qualified for or seeking. I kind of want to email him to say "you're kidding right?"

Tony's Resume (redwood city) <--- this was the title of the post per #4 above. Brilliant Reply to: [deleted for the idiot's privacy]
Date: 2007-06-30, 12:31PM PDT

Looking for a job higher than entry level, in which will allow me to use my skills and abilities to my fullest potential

[yup, this one clearly takes the cake. Absolutely a waste of time and in no way deserving of even an entry level position in whatever it is he wants to do]

Haier sucks

Here we go again. Why does my shit always break? Why am I always on the phone with some sort of customer service rep idiot?

Dear Haier,

I have a dryer gdz5-1 purchased 3 years ago from Lowe's. Within the first couple months the fuse broke and I called Haier's customer service to find a person who services Haier products under warrantee. Back then, of the list of appliance repair companies your customer service person gave me, only one company actually serviced Haier products.

In other words the list was EXTREMELY out of date and almost all the companies I called said they had stopped servicing Haier many many years ago. A couple of them said they never remembered ever servicing Haier and shouldn't be on your list at all.

Now the dryer's drum won't turn and the one company that serviced it 3 years ago (Alegria Appliance repair in Newark, CA) won't come out to my area anymore because it's too far from them. I am in Foster City and at a loss for what to do next if no one fixes Haier around here. Please advise (and please dont send me that list of people who no longer service Haier as calling them the first time was a big waste of my time and so was trying to explain that to your customer service rep who basically threw up her arms and told me there was nothing else she could do).

Cali

So I'm on week two down here in the bay area. I've been working every weekday since I got here and trying to get used to cube life in a tech company again. My plan was to finish a paper after clocking my 8 hours but it's been hard because I'm still tired from the school year. The most I seem to manage is to look for more articles to reference and add them to EndNote. By the time we get home and fed, it's impossible not to plop down on the couch in front of Simon's new TV. Weekends are too sunny to stay in and work. This weekend we did all the car maintenance stuff on Saturday and spent Sunday at the Asian American expo, grocery shopping and watching a movie with a friend.

The paper I have yet to finish has been accepted to the Midwest Popular Culture Conference in October and another one I wrote in Fall was accepted to the National Com Association conference in Chicago this year so I'm pretty happy about that. Just wish those conferences were some place sunny instead of in the frigid midwest.

In other news someone's idiot dog escaped in traffic on the 101 this morning. A lot of drivers got out of their cars to try and chase it down. Not sure how that panned out. Ok it's my favorite time of day, bedtime.

fire

So the night before I flew down to the Bay Area (last Friday), Denny and I were gettin' ready to head out for happy hour at Ivar's and drinks downtown. All of a sudden a really piercing noise filled the apartment. It was the fire alarm. Not just a smoke detector but an apartment wide alarm. All my neighbors headed out onto their balconies to see what everyone else was doing. We figured someone had pulled the alarm but the noise was so loud we picked up our stuff and headed into the hallway where I ran into a guy in jeans and a t-shirt soaking wet and smelled some smoke in the hallway. I asked him what's going on and all he said was "there was a fire but it's out." It took a while before I figured out that his sprinkler (heat sensitive not triggered by smoke) must've gone off. We headed down many flights of stairs and outside where most residents were already standing around asking each other what happened. It took forever for the fire department which is spitting distance away to arrive. Three trucks came and the firefighters went inside then came back out and went back in with what looked like vaccuum cleaners. Before long, they were throwing chunks of carpet out the window. Then the head firefighter guy announced that anyone next to the apartment or below them would have to find an alternate place to stay since there was likely to be water damage to all those apartments. It's still not clear what started the fire but that apartment is totalled. I have some photos which I'll post later.

idiot

Tonight I went to Cactus Club Cafe at Metrotown for a little mini high school reunion. Not my first restaurant choice by a long shot but I had to please people who don't eat Japanese food which is my staple when I eat in Vancouver. That reunion was fun and all that but one incident really pissed me off. See I was wearing my favorite t-shirt. It says on the front "I WILL NOT LOVE YOU LONG TIME." Get it? White boy waiter comes by and says, oh I like your shirt. My friend can't see the whole thing and asks me what it says so I read it out for her. Stupid waiter says, "no, but you have to say it with the accent." (%$#@ WTF??) I resisted the temptation to climb over the table and punch him in the face to wake up a few of his dormant brain cells. Then I resisted the temptation to say "fuck you" and instead opted for "FUCK THAT, what do you think I'm protesting with this shirt?!" I also bit my tongue before I ended that sentence with "you ignorant privileged frat boy piece of shit." He still didn't seem to understand what I was talking about because he responded to my outrage with this lame nervous giggle. Give it a few years I'll bet he becomes one of those assholes who goes on sex tours in Asia and doesn't see why it's a bad thing.

inc

I'm taking my first "incomplete" in a university class ever. It's for a 1 credit class that requires I send a paper off for publication. This is the real thing, not some pointless exercise. I had a paper that just needed more massaging than expected and it'll take a little more time than the quarter allowed. Luckily all but one of the students in the class will be taking this incomplete and in fact it was encouraged but that doesn't make me feel any better. Neither does the fact that I left way too little time to take a break before going to SF to work for the summer. I always feel like I have to fill up all my time. Part of it was that I know Simon needs help at work and I want to get there to relieve him a bit. I'm in Vancouver now and too mentally drained to work on that paper and too wound up to feel like I'm taking a break. I dunno just being in Vancouver always feels so hectic. People making appointments and all this pressure to be places when I just want to sulk, lay on the couch, and watch Law and Order by myself. It doesn't help that I barely recognize my own city and it's just a constant reminder of how quickly time is passing and how little I've been accomplishing over the years.

jump street

Did you know 21 Jump Street happens in real life??
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/318023_federalway01.html?source=rss

I always thought that was fictional. I mean how the hell can a 33 year old man pass as a 15 year old? The slang and mannerisms and music and culture and all that you can learn. But what do you do about crow's feet and receeding hair lines? I look pretty young at 31 but I don't think that even I would pass for 15.

celebrate

Things to celebrate today -- one of my students got through two rounds of an annual public speaking contest and has qualified to compete with two other speakers at the final tomorrow. I've been accepted to contribute to an encyclopedia which will be published in 2008 (I don't want to reveal details because I haven't received/read the contract yet). I only have 19.5 more speeches to grade (I stopped halfway through the first one to blog, damn adult ADD). Denny made it safely to Eugene, OR on his solo move to Seattle. Upon last update, he was in a movie theater in Eugene, OR and was the only one in the whole theatre.

housewives

So I don't have many channels with basic cable. Most of them are home shopping channels for some reason. So if I'm taking a break I watch whatever's on and remotely interesting, usually it's on the Discovery Channel. Today I landed on a show that turned out to be Desperate Housewives which I've never seen before but have heard of. Maybe it was a rerun, I'm not sure. It would almost be a funny show had it not been for the repulsive stereotypes. Gabrielle has a maid/surrogate mother named Shao-Mei who, of course, speaks in horribly broken English. Of the few minutes of screen time for this character she is demanding (dragon lady) because she, as Gabrielle's surrogate mother, is able to hold the unborn baby hostage in return for making her boss reverse roles and take care of her. She complains that her meal served in bed does not come with crackers and throws a pickle on the floor. Gabrielle threatens to send her back to Shanghai where she'll "be on all fours in a rice paddy" as soon as the baby is born. Shao-Mei then disappears after stealing all of Gabrielle's clothes. Gabrielle goes down to a Chinese Restaurant looking for her and when the waitress doesn't cooperate, she threatens to send the authorities to "see what really is in the mushu pork." I can't even begin to count how many anti-Asian stereotypes were in this episode alone. There's no way I can watch another one. That was just vile. Fuck you Desperate Housewives.

distractions

So my students have started delivering their final speeches. This project is called the advocacy speech (formerly called the protest speech) and it involves motivating a sympathetic audience to take action. The speech is given out on Red Square which is a central area in my school where there is a lot of foot traffic.



So the students are graded partly on their ability to deal with environmental conditions whether they be seagulls flying overhead, hecklers, noisy airplanes flying by or what have you. Well my students sure got to deal with their fair share of challenges today. My first class had a mentally unstable homeless man walking around the area making very loud noises that I can only spell as "mreeeh." I saw him walking towards the speaker and I started to worry a bit but luckily he detoured toward the garbage can nearby, still making these loud noises. After that, another speaker was up. During her speech a couple of ducks, regulars in Red Square, decided to walk in front of her, down the steps, and for a little sight seeing around the audience's ankles, and then back up the steps in front of her. Damn they were soooo cute. Distraction #3 was the crowd of elementary school kids. They were actually not terribly noisy but one of the idiot teachers instructed them to run up the steps toward Kane Hall, right in front of my speaker. WTF?

In my second class, one of my students was doing a speech advocating that our state mandate the HPV vaccine. Just as soon as she said "teenagers are having sex" you could see the two crazy Jesus folks walk towards us with this HUGE, I mean like 12' tall sign held up in harnesses they were wearing. The sign said something like repent for your sins among other things. I'm pretty sure I remember seeing the word hell. One of those crazies decided to park himself right behind the speaker so we could all see his big huge sign. On top of that, some folks decided to set up and test an amplified sound system for an ROTC event to take place later that afternoon so that speaker got to compete with someone saying "test, test 1, 2" through a microphone.

I have to say nothing beats teaching. Everyday is different and usually pretty interesting in one way or another. You can't say that for most desk jobs.

fast

A former professor of mine who is only a few years older than me sure had a big year. He released a CD, got engaged (I didn't even know he was dating anyone), bought a house, and got an awesome new job on the other side of the country. Man things sure happen fast when you hit your 30s. I am so happy for him. He totally deserves all of that. I like it when good things happen to good people.

Admittedly that also means I hate it when good things happen to bad people and when bad things happen to good people.

weekend

What happened to the sun? It was nice out yesterday. I got a chance to run around Greenlake and get some work done before having a friend over to watch Art School Confidential yesterday. The movie was a little dark and twisted for a comedy but pretty creative. Today I got up at noon and had a solid 3 waking hours to do work and watch Anaheim beat Detroit before taking a nap. I just cannot stay awake without more light. I'd sure be screwed if I lived up in Alaska.

Couple more weeks of papers and grading before I get to head to Vancouver to unwind and then to the Bay Area for the summer.

skate

I just finished watching The Lords of Dogtown (2005) which documents the real life stories of the pioneers of professional skateboarding who started the sport in a rundown neighourhood in Venice, CA in the mid-1970s. Did you know three of those original pro-skaters were Asian American, and one of them female? Yup, Shogo Kubo, Jeff Ho and Peggy Oki. Unfortunately they're secondary characters in the movie (if that).

Jensen

Yesterday I attended Robert Jensen's talk titled "The Academy and Activism: Neutralizing Neutrality and Moving Past Polemics" and this afternoon he joined the graduate students in my cohort for a class and a dinner. Jensen is probably best known (I'm guessing) for his article U.S. just as guilty of committing own violent acts, which was published in the Houston Chronicle three days after 9/11 and invited a number death threats and poorly articulated diatribes about being callous and unAmerican. Here is a quote from that article:

... this act was no more despicable as the massive acts of terrorism -- the
deliberate killing of civilians for political purposes -- that the U.S.
government has committed during my lifetime. For more than five decades
throughout the Third World, the United States has deliberately targeted
civilians or engaged in violence so indiscriminate that there is no other way to
understand it except as terrorism. And it has supported similar acts of
terrorism by client states. If that statement seems outrageous, ask the people
of Vietnam. Or Cambodia and Laos. Or Indonesia and East Timor. Or Chile. Or
Central America. Or Iraq, or Palestine. The list of countries and peoples who
have felt the violence of this country is long. Vietnamese civilians bombed by
the United States. Timorese civilians killed by a U.S. ally with U.S.-supplied
weapons.

You can probably see why that article ruffled a few feathers.

Tonight I spoke with him one on one and I cannot describe how exciting it was to have this opportunity. I thanked him for writing that article because it voiced a very unpopular opinion, one that I held but did not dare to discuss with anyone but my closest Canadian friends. I thanked him because when "my people," and I mean this in a collective sense meaning anyone of Asian, South Asian or SE Asian descent, make claims like this we're immediately dismissed and often told to "go home" if we "don't like America and all it stands for." Opinions like this are, after all, used as "proof" of our unassimilability in this country. In Asian American studies classes we talk about the millions of lives lost in SE Asia at the hands of the United States all the time, but this sort of thing doesn't enter into the wider discourse unless someone like him -- a white male professor -- initiates that dialog and he did and I couldn't imagine if he hadn't.

I also thanked him for writing The Heart of Whiteness: Confronting Race, Racism and White Privilege. I confessed that one of my most terrifying teaching moments was introducing the idea of whiteness and white privilege to a racially diverse class that included many white students. I told him that I made a very conscious and deliberate decision to front end the lesson with articles written by white men about white privilege because I felt that being an Asian woman simply wouldn't give me the credibility to get the message across. I admitted that at the end of the class I felt guilty and disappointed that I would not feel comfortable giving that lesson in my own words in my own skin. It's not fair that I feel that I have to direct students to articles written by white men in order to teach about a topic that I can articulate myself, but I feel like I have to and I hate it. We joked about our differences: white - Asian, male - female, older - younger (looking), tall - short. "Well you're screwed," he concluded with a laugh. But in all seriousness, Bob reminded me of what's really important. It's teaching and helping people to understand these things. It's about being strategic and doing what works for you. You can try to overthrow the system and I think we (as in people of color) are taking baby steps to at least shift the so-called system, but sometimes in the here and now you need to just work within it and do little things to make a difference. I forgot to thank him for this conversation. So, Bob, thanks for this (and for being a privileged white man who gets it).

phone pics

Finally downloaded a bunch of photos from my cell phone. Thought I'd share. So this one I took at Long's Drugs during their closing sale. That sale was funny because as the merchandise made its way out the door they started consolidating so you'd have stuff like pork and beans next to the engine oil next to the condoms. I took this photo because the actual La Victoria is a taco place in San Jose where we'd go eat afterhours in the rare event we actually went south to party instead of up to San Francisco. People would get in deep shit for stealing the sauce from the table because it's their own hot sauce and is actually sold in stores even in Seattle. From what I remember they even had a security guy at the door.


This is my campus in March. The cherry blossoms are beautiful. Those clouds were not as threatening as they appear in the photo. That was a warm sunny day.


This is a used bookstore up the street from my campus.



Here is the aforementioned cat.

This is what you get at Cafe Ori in Bellevue for under $7. Yes, for that much you get the big bowl o' noodles AND that huge pork katsu (2 pieces stacked).

There is a little tiny shack on the way up to Snoqualmie Mountain that serves ostrich burgers. Yum. I think the building is red and you'll miss it if you're not looking for it.

Summer

To do list:

- work
- edit my friend's wedding video
- go to gymnastics class in Mountain View
- take a course at a community center, maybe an instrument
- write one paper and submit it to a conference
- do lots of reading (reading list needs to be developed still but definitely some hard core theory and cultural studies stuff I need to catch up on)
- pick up running again, aim to do 10Ks without feeling the need to throw up

stranger

I recently met a person, pardon the vagueness as it is deliberate. You know how you aren't supposed to talk religion or politics with people when you first meet them? In my first conversation with this person (whom I will probably have to tolerate for at least a year), he asked about my research interests and then argued with me that Oriental is not an offensive term and that Asian is more of a problematic term because it leaves out some people in Asia, like Russians and people from Kazakhstan. I made a failed attempt at being patient as I explained that Asian is a term of collective identity that gives us (as in yellow people) some political strength through solidarity. He would not compromise and just pushed the argument harder. He was in complete denial of the social and political implications of this racist notion of Orientalism as it is constructed in the west. He argued that black people call themselves the N word so "Oriental" is also okay. I responded that Asian American people DO NOT call themselves Oriental and even if they chose to reappropriate that term (like queer for example), it doesn't give other people permission to use it unless that permission is granted rather than assumed. Asian American history really needs to work its way into the public school curriculum because obviously there are a number very misguided people out there.

Oh and did I mention this heated argument took place in MY HOME within five minutes of meeting him? Aside from taking Ethnic Studies 101, this person also needs to take a lesson from Miss Manners on how to make small talk with people you've just met.

Canadian accent

What do you do when you don't feel like working on a paper and people are generally pissing you off so that you can't concentrate on anything and you want to hurl someone or something out a 10 storey building? I look at cuteoverload and then I do dumb quizzes like this:

What American accent do you have?
Created by Xavier on Memegen.net

North Central. This is what everyone calls a "Minnesota accent." If you saw "Fargo" or "Drop Dead Gorgeous" you probably didn't think the characters sounded very out of the ordinary. Some Americans may mistake you for a Canadian.

Canada. You probably get irritated when British people and Europeans think you're from the States, but over here we wouldn't make a mistake like that.

Take this quiz now - it's easy!

We're going to start with "cot" and "caught." When you say those words do they sound the same or different?

Same Different Same, no wait I mean different, maybe, a little bit different...

just gettin' by

It's week 6 and I don't see the light at the end of the tunnel. I have a paper to rewrite in an attempt at publication, three final papers/projects to work on, advisor (or lack thereof) issues to resolve, students freaking out about their speeches, and speeches to grade. Everything was pretty manageable but all of a sudden I feel like there is more work than hours to get it done. Oh and the Canucks are fucked if they don't win tonight. I have to put aside a couple hours to watch that 'cause it's do or die.

It doesn't help that Facebook has been such a distraction. It's been cool though to reunite with some of my closest friends from high school/junior high and also some neighourhood kids I used to play with.

I survived

I survived a workshop that I delivered to a bunch of teenagers on the weekend at the Seattle Center, a project that we had to do for a graduate seminar on public scholarship. The group I got was, however, not a group of teenagers. I got a bunch of preteens which is not what I had prepared my material for. This was a workshop on race and the media. When I showed a clip from NCIS of a non-profit office burnt down and a bunch of Middle Eastern men being interrogated by white cops who suspected they were terrorists, the kids thought the characters were Mexican. Things went downhill from there, with the highlight being the scuffle over pens at the next table which was also mostly pre-teens (AKA children).

After that we we went to a bar to celebrate and ran into this crazy junkie bitch. Two of my team mates arrived first and sat at a 4-person booth. The crazy junkie was sitting in one of our chairs but they let her be since we hadn't arrived yet. When we arrived my teammate asked her to move since the rest of the party had arrived. Her response, "Uh no, this is not your seat. Can't you see I'm sitting in it? So no I'm not going to move." The next booth where her two friends were sitting had two empty chairs since she was sitting in ours. Yeah, after dealing with the drama of the workshop we practically get in a fight with a crazy woman. Luckily her friends convince her to move back to their booth and sit in one of their chairs and so we get our seats back. Needless to say, the first thing I ordered was a beer, and with that a big sloppy cheeseburger and fries. When I got home I had to sleep. I was knocked out for 2.5 hours and still woke up with a headache.

time capsule

So my department opened up a time capsule that has been sealed for 50 years. Or so they thought. Sometime between the late 70s and early 80s someone broke into it and added a few extra items.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2003683287_webtimecapsule26m.html

In another article I read it said the undies were dirty. That is just gross.

I'm impressed that they were able to get this thing out of the wall and undo the bolts to sneak the stuff in. Kinda funny.

OK, gotta go watch hockey and grade speeches.

flushing

Man I love my people. Thanks to Denny for this. I'm sure Vancouver is a ghost town right now with game 7 on. I'm trying to do my grading while I watch the game. I'm so happy I get CBC. Go Canucks!

As Game One of the Canucks first round series against Dallas stretched on and
on, it seems few in the Lower Mainland were able to pry themselves away from
their televisions. Instead, not wanting to miss a minute of the action, most
Canucks fans appear to have decided to wait until the intermissions to make a
trip to the bathroom. So many decided to wait until the end of a given period
that by the time each intermission was finished, the Burnaby area had
experienced a steep drop in water pressure.

From http://canucks.com/view_archive.asp?sectionID=5&id=2042

sigh

Tomorrow is Monday. Fuck.

hockey etc

I got back from Michigan at 11:30am yesterday. I slept the first leg of the flight from Lansing to Minnesota and most of the second leg from Minnesota to Seattle. That's about 4-5 hours of intermittent sleep which I thought would do but no. No longer can my body handle short trips across three time zones. I used to do these trips from San Francisco to Houston, Raleigh, and Orlando and be able to get back to work. Yesterday I got back and had two naps, graded some speeches, caught up on email, watched the Calgary v. Detroit game and then the Canucks v. Dallas game (thank the gods for CBC in Seattle) and was in bed by 10:30pm. This morning I got up at 10am which means I slept 11.5 hours.

Tonight I watched Calgary v. Detroit's game 7. So over 24 hours I've watched 3 games which is more than I have all season (except in December when I'm back home and watch NHL, Jr. Hockey and Spengler Cup). And all 3 games, my teams lost. I told Denny that this is all my fault. He claims it's his mom's fault. She's been watching the same games. I think together we're messing with the chi that helps Canadian teams win. Still I have to watch Canucks' game 7 tomorrow. It might be their last.

In other news my long lost best friend Caron from high school found me on facebook. Yay! Facebook has been a mixed blessing. Reconnecting with old friends has been fun. Seeing everyone all settled with kids (some of them school age already) is kinda scary though. All the ladies with kids are stay at home moms or working in administrative or service jobs and did not finish a four year degree. Does that mean women can't have it all, or do the ones with lofty and possibly unattainable career goals just start the family stuff later? (way later when they realize this career shit is all a waste of time...or not at all, no family, perhaps just a cat or 12)

done

I gave the shittiest conference presentation ever. I never read my papers but since I wrote this one back in Fall and could not remember my own arguments I had to read it. And reading makes me nervous because I get all ADD and lose my place and read my own words wrong. I should take my own advice as a public speaking teacher and NOT read a presentation. And my audience got really weird for an Asian American conference. All these undergrad looking white kids poured in, some of them in the middle of my presentation and they were doing what most undergrads do at a talk -- fidget, squirm, make faces, look around the room, and exchange glances with one another. Apparently someone had their students attend for extra credit or something. Fuck this kinda thing throws me off my presentation groove. Oh well. I got to have dinner with a friend I had met at APAGSO last year who is also a fellow blogger, though I only found out about her very hilarious blog tonight.

I guess all in all it was a good experience to hang out with her, to see a bit of Michigan, and listen to an incredible key note speaker. So it's all done now. Back in my hotel room procrastinating because I have to read, grade 10 speeches, and prep for leading my class discussion this week. I have to get up at around 5:45 am tomorrow to catch my flight, which is insanely early... or in west coast time it's 2:45 am if I want to think about it that way.

Lansing, MI

I am in Lansing rehearsing my presentation in my hotel room. This is the first time I've set foot in Michigan. My first thought upon arriving at the Lansing Airport, "holy shit, am I the only Asian person here?" My second thought, "wow this airport is tiny." When I got outside there were only 8 cars waiting to pick people up at the curb and 3 people (including me) at the curb waiting to get picked up. There was no honking, no backed up traffic, and no cops yelling at people who aren't actively loading or unloading passengers. Actually there were no cops anywhere within sight. It was...eerie.

After checking in I headed across the street to get a gyro for dinner and some baked goods for tomorrow's breakfast. It dawned on me that I'm in a predominantly white city just a few days after a disturbed Asian American student went on America's biggest shooting spree. As I walked through the half empty shopping plaza I saw only white people and a couple of them glared at me briefly from out of the corner of their eye with a look that didn't exactly say "welcome to Lansing." And I don't think I'm just being paranoid.

Just as I was in Illinois and all through childhood, I'm feeling a little uncomfortable in my own skin. I couldn't imagine what it must've been like for people of Middle Eastern descent in New York the week after 9/11.

Mental illness affects people of every color and that shooter could have been white, black, or brown. If he were white there certainly would be no discussion of race in this situation at all because to be white is to be default, normal, colorless.

I hope and pray to every god in the universe that there are no acts of retaliation against the Asian American community.

Oprah

As I sit here grading speeches the TV is on and Oprah is having a "townhall" about the Imus issue. This is great to bring attention to issues of race. I applaud Oprah. But where was she when the Tsunami Song about "screaming chinks" came out, or when Adam Corolla did his "ching chong" parody of the Asian Excellence Awards? How about when JR Gach did the piece about slant-eyed gooks? How about that part in the movie Dodgeball with the opium smoking Chinese people throwing human heads? Why are all her panelists either black or white? Why is this sounding like it's never happened before? Or that it only happens to black people? Racism is an issue that is not just black and white and this Imus incident is not the first. When is it going to matter that Asian Americans are frequently the target of racism in the media? We need more Asian American leaders in the media.

Step It Up

It's 10:15 on a Saturday night and I wish I could be at 1015 (as in the San Francisco nightclub) instead of here. I've got field notes and interviews from the Step It Up event I went to today to type up, a conference to prepare for, 2 papers to edit, and readings to read.

The Step It Up rally and march was pretty fun. It was great to see people from all walks of life concerned about global warming (I think climate change is a stupid euphemism and I refuse to use it). Unfortunately it poured rain for a bit and my research partner and I bailed before the big event with the speakers. We were just too drenched and having collected 20 interviews together, we felt our job was done.

Message from me for the day, if you don't do something about global warming we're all going to die -- that includes your children, their children and all those cute animals. Even before that time comes our earth is going to change in very noticable ways very soon if we don't do something now. You can do small things at an individual level and/or you can write to elected officials to make sure this is a priority and that we're not going to forget about it. Here are some more ideas:

http://www.earth911.org/master.asp?s=lib&a=globalwarming/iprevent.asp
http://www.wikihow.com/Reduce-Your-Greenhouse-Gas-Emissions
http://eartheasy.com/article_global_warming.htm

facebook

Unlike Friendster and MySpace, Facebook has the unique ability to let you find people you went to high school with. I just joined a group for those who graduated from my high school between 93-95. I have a strong urge to post a bulletin that reads, "I fucking hate all of you and there is something satisfying about knowing that most of you live pathetic meaningless lives and haven't moved beyond 5 km from that miserable 'municipality' that we grew up in."

bus

Today the bus I was riding took a corner too tight and ripped the bumper off a car. You always see them come *this close* especially when you're the one driving in the next lane. I guess this time really was too close. All the passengers had to get off and walk to the next bus stop to wait for another bus. Luckily mine came within 10 minutes. Alright, that was my excitement for the day.

I've got a busy three weekends. Tomorrow I'm helping some other PhD students with some field work/data collection at the StepItUp.org event, the following week I'll be out in the midwest presenting at a rinky dink little conference, and the week after that one of my grad seminars is running some teen workshops downtown. In May it's final project deadline time so I guess there's no resting until June.

weekend

Friday night was interesting. After surviving two hours of teaching I stunk up the entire hallway that joins the graduate student offices by microwaving my cod with black bean garlic sauce. I knew it would be stinky but (1) I need to eat (2) I had nothing else to eat (3) I didn't know it would be stinky enough to elicit comments like "who is cooking fish?" or "oh my God what is that smell?" Last time I did this was at my start up company where I reheated some Chinese dumplings with leek, cabbage and pork. Turns out those things are full of garlic and onion powder that stink when you cook 'em and also result in very nasty burps. Anyways, after surviving another 2 hour lecture that afternoon it was off to my friend's place to pick up some furnture she was giving away. Using all girl power we managed to move a couch (to another friend's place), a dresser and a nightstand. We then spent the evening at another classmate's apartment indulging in deep thoughts and pizza.

At 10:30 that night I get a phone call from one of my best friends in Vancouver.

J: Hey what are you doin'
V: Hanging out at a friend's place
J: Can we come down and visit?
V: Sure, when?
J: Um, now? Oh and there's 3 of us
V: uh.... bring sleeping bags. Call me when you get here

My friends are impulsive and crazy and that is why I love them. This is the same friend who on a couple hours notice drove from Vancouver to San Francisco (15 hours) without stopping to come visit. Apparently conversation that spurred the decision to make the 2.5 hour drive went like this:

JH: It's such a beautiful night. Let's go hang out in White Rock [which is by the border]. Actually, since we're driving all the way to White Rock let's go a bit further and hit the Tulalip Casino
JL: Well shit, since we're going to the casino we may as well go a bit further and drive to Seattle to visit V. Hmm let's call A and C and see if they wanna come.

Before you know it there is a 5-person caravan headed to Seattle in the middle of the night. They arrived at midnight. By the time I got back home to meet them they were all standing outside my apartment building with sleeping bags in one arm and an open beer in the other. We hung out, drank, watched half a movie, made fun of each other, gossipped, ate some pizza and went to bed. 5 people fit quite comfortably in my living room. The next morning we went to Kona Kitchen for brunch and then they headed back as one of them had some work to do on Saturday. Man I love my friends.

Today is Sunday. It was unusually sunny out so my roomate and I went and ran around Greenlake. Unfortunately I forgot my watch so I don't know my time, but I did manage to run the whole 3 miles (actually I hear it's more like 2.8) without stopping, walking, or throwing up. After that, I headed over to my roomate's friend's place down the street and gave my car its first wash since leaving California. With all this activity it's been hard to get my homework done so that is what I have to get back to doing now.

New free furniture, a girls night, a visit from my best friends, a car wash, a run. This is the most productive and interesting weekend I've had in a long time.

post

I read PostSecret from time to time. Not often because it makes me kinda sad that so many people out there are so troubled.

I have to say though, this recent one is among my favorites.

warm

So it was like 23 degrees C today (that's in the 70s in F) today. All the girls were in their flip flops and the shortest skirts they could find. I even got off my ass and went for a jog/walk which, with my hay fever, asthma, AND poor physical condition, was very difficult. Once upon a time, like last year, I was doing 3 - 4 mile runs back in good ol' Foster City, CA but when it rains every fucking day from Fall to Spring you just don't get the opportunity. Anyways, I'm a little annoyed by the newscasters celebrating the warm weather. One woman said, "it's 20 degrees above average in Medford, OR. Spring has really sprung!" No you fucking idiot. That is not Spring. That is global warming. Mr. Gore, thank you for bringing the issue to America's attention but it looks like people are too stupid to get it so you might need to go recruit those seal hunting assholes from Northern Canada and have them club idiots like that newscaster over the head.

fuck Duff

So I went to CNN to find a link about something that happened at school today but I got derailed when I noticed that one of CNN's "top stories" is http://www.cnn.com/2007/SHOWBIZ/TV/04/02/hilary.duff.ap/index.html

CNN has these "story highlights" (for people who find Internet news isn't convenient enough and need their news written in 3 bullet points) and for that story the highlights are as follows:

• Hilary Duff says she feels pressure to be thin
• 19-year-old says media can be "judgmental and mean"
• Duff has sold 13 million albums worldwide

Are you fucking kidding me? Sure it is the last item in the list of "top stories" on the CNN home page but who the hell gives a rat's ass that Hilary fucking Duff "feels the pressure to be thin?" Go whine to your Hollywood therapist you spoiled little brat. There are unreported cases of genocide taking place all over the world, the country is still at war, there are random hate crimes happening all the time, children are being sold into slavery, global warming is going to render us extinct soon, and the CNN home page has a story about Hilary Duff's emotional insecurities and her concerns that the media can be "judgmental and mean." Fuck that.

Anyways what I was going to write about is the fact that ever since I started going to the UW, there have been shootings like crazy, mostly in the U District by the frat houses on weekends. Today though at 9:30am an admin in the architecture building was shot by her ex who had been stalking her for months. He shot her, then turned the gun on himself. I find this out 20 minutes before it's time to go teach. Horrible way to start a week and it totally threw off my concentration. This woman had a restraining order (which is basicaly meaningless) on the guy and had even sent out emails with the man's photo to her co-workers because she suspected he might come and harrass her at work. But emailing photos is no good when dude arrives with a gun. People like this should skip the first step in their mission (shooting other people) and just start with step 2 (shooting themselves).

noise

So get this. Some asshole filed a noise complaint against my roomate and I. That is complete bullshit. They were complaining about bass (which the idiots in the management office spell base). I have a very tiny sub attached to my computer speakers and the only bass that might ever come out is whatever bass is in fucking meditation music because that is all the music I can handle these days. And I don't ever play it that loud because I am always reading when the music is on. So I gather one of two things happened. My next door neighbour heard the noise coming from downstairs and thought it was us. Or the asshole downstairs whom I've complained about 3 times is trying to get back at us by issuing fraudulent complaints. It might not help that when I hear them pumping up that punk rock music I tell them to knock it off by jumping up and down really hard.