10.31.2009

My Misery Is So Addictive

Ever since I read The History of Love by Nicole Krauss, I've secretly kind of wished that my name was Alma. For one thing, Amanda is an extremely common name, especially among Asian Americans such as myself. Second, I've always kind of felt that my name was chosen as merely the complement to a pair, as if my sister and I were meant to be matching salt and pepper shakers. I can't be so cynical though, since the meaning of the name "Amanda" is translated to "she who must be loved", which has been an image of myself my entire life. My Chinese zodiac, the Horse, is described as needing people. In the words of Chromeo, I'm a needy girl. Alma, on the other hand, translates to "nurturer", which is a fitting name for a character in a book that basically inspires the discovery of love.

I dreamt that two recent acquaintances of mine were the main characters of the book, and that I kept them apart.

Tegan and Sara - Arrow


Some links to short stories by Nicole Krauss:

10.30.2009

Pg 144

I just realized I'm only 10 posts shy of 700 blog posts. Which is horrifying to me considering the major bulk of this blog was written by my friends and I, when we all sounded like hyperactive children. I promise, we're much cooler now (except for Laura. I have no idea what happened to her (just kidding Laura, in case you ever stumble on this, which you probably won't since you're not cool now...but if you are reading this, it probably means you got cool again, so the previous insults are now void)). Reflecting back on how most people see me today and how I acted the majority of my life and I think I'm doing a pretty good job at deceiving everyone. It's just a little embarrassing when showing people this blog and having them read through some of the older stuff that was written.

It kind of sucks to realize that this blog is like a relic of a period of time in my life when I had friends, and now it's largely a solo project.

Note to anyone reading this blog: being on your computer all the time so you can instant message your "friends" does not make you popular. Get off the computer and interact with people. Also, sunshine is healthy for you.


10.28.2009

Beware of the Maniacs

Ohhh two posts in one day?! I am just ambitious aren't I...

(The answer is no, no I'm not. I am just procrastinating.)



Just recently started reading Toothpaste for Dinner. It's late, I know, but at least I'm reading it.

Morning Light

So I am finally making good on my promise to come in every week to volunteer for Nancy...next week. (Haha!) I feel bad for being completely unreliable, but considering the little benefit I'm getting from the majority of the work I do there, it should be understandable. General responsibilities in the foreseeable future: tutoring middle school children (which, as far as the creepy child stereotype goes, a lot of them still fall under...it's not very fun to hang out with a kid when the only thing they'll do is stare blankly at your face), and volunteering for Carry5 and Water1st, as well as working on the youth advisory board.

The only thing that I'm really looking forward to is the holidays. Not because it's a fantastic cheery time of year and full of good will and all that other bullcrap they try to package in a card. But because it's the one time of the year that the majority of people actually sincerely try to pretend like their life could possibly be a model for a Hallmark card. Normally I dislike seeing all these fake people but sometimes it's nice to take a break and pretend with everyone else that it really is the most wonderful time of the year.

Other than that life is basically the same. The only other highlight is the possible ownership of an actual high quality camera. I don't pretend to be a good photographer or even an amateur. I will admit that I love beautiful looking cameras, as well as the wonderful pictures that come from them. I am tempted to figure out a way to buy an antique camera.

And I keep telling myself that I'm going to go see that famed Chewing Gum wall, or go to a park, or just basically go anywhere at all, but I'm a liar.

Elliott Smith - King's Crossing

10.27.2009

Ughhhh

I hate being busy. Maybe it has to do with Milan Kundera's book, Slowness. Which basically discusses the relation between speed and forgetting. Then again, I could be honest and just admit that I hate being busy because I'm pretty lazy and would much rather be curled up at home with a cup of hot cocoa.

Which reminds me, I need to lay off the hot cocoa. It isn't even December yet but I've made a serious cut into my cocoa rations.

There is one overarching sound in my life, which is this: Ughhhhhhhhhhh.

I would like to play it all off, like life isn't corny and dramatic when you don't want it to be and painfully boring, despite the fact that you imagine you're the center of the universe.

And to top it off, my usual anchors, the people in my life that you can generally just drop a couple words by and feel like you're someplace safe, are scattered around the world, literally. I lost one to Uzbekistan, one to RISD, and one to time.

(Ughhhhhhh)

Oh, and if I may interrupt myself, I highly recommend Milan Kundera's works. Particularly Unbearable Lightness of Being, mainly because of the whole "lightness" concept which I find interesting. But also because it's a fairly interesting book with a very good plot and interesting writing technique. The majority of his stories follow the same style, in which a few characters' lives interweave and single events are seen at many different vantage points, with added philosophical meandering and just general poetry.

My favorite place right now is the UW libraries, among the book stacks. Unfortunately, I had a mishap and walked through section after section of books describing wars all around the globe spanning human history. It was a little disturbing, yet still satisfying to walk through and read some of the funniest book titles I've ever seen. And the Middle Eastern section of the library is full of beautiful hard cover books that look amazing. I like them even though I can't read any.

10.13.2009

Funny eh?

I quite possibly had the best autumn morning of my life today. During the long walk to the bus stop I was accompanied by hundreds of maple seeds, looking like frantically flying moths. It was the most beautiful thing I've seen, one of the many reasons why early fall is one of my favorite times of the year.

I'm waiting for dinner.

No music today, not because there isn't things worth sharing but because I'm not in the mood.

10.12.2009

Is Just It?

Rilo Kiley - It Just Is


Right now I like the imagery of roots and branches and veins.

A little sick of fighting? With everyone...
Friends that disappear. It's like losing a finger. The phantom limb?
People that expect too much.
Distance that grows with time.
It all sickens and tires me. I have no motivation to even smile.

The perfect day would be a day with close friends, with photography props and crazy themes and costumes, in a field and creating something with someone. That it might be possible, for just one day, to create a world, transpose the utopia in my mind to reality, and the evidence locked in pixels. That would be a wonderful day.

Weather vanes.

It's getting harder and harder to move.

10.08.2009

OMG IT'S A NEW POST

Have I ever mentioned just how much I hate blogger templates? Choosing them out and all that. No matter which one you get, after a while they either seem too over the top or just subtly annoying. And the fact that it probably reflects something about the writer? I figuratively throw my hands up in the air with it all.

I do not understand what's so great about walnuts. Why are they all over my muffins and shit? Peanuts, almonds, walnuts, and pecans can all kiss my ass and stay the hell out of my food.

Here is what I hate the most about blogging. It's so pointless. What am I supposed to say here, what words will jump out in google search and make you read what I have to say. I could probably write the most disgusting racist bigotry and no one would notice. What if I was like Keiko Lynn and I just took pictures and wore wonderful clothes until people believed that they can find happiness in a vintage dress?

When I look into the future and try to decide what I want, what I'm working towards, all I can think is how wonderful it would be to live inside Andrew Bird's guitar, or in Zach Condon's french horn. I want to live inside the Flying Club Cup and then procreate with Armchair Apocrypha. Is that what other people feel too?

And I would love to hear what those albums sound like during sex. Amiright?

10.06.2009

Blind

Am I allowed to admit here that I love torrents? And it's really hard for me to believe how easy it has made my life. I used to download song by song, scouring blogs to find everything I could. Or going on terrible websites like Multiply (I'm not trying to insult people who use Multiply) and searching music posts just to download random music, simply because it was all that was available to me. I feel like someone who used to rummage through garbage and has just been introduced to grocery stores. Even years after its introduction, I'm still surprised at how easy it is, and am overcome with this feeling of utter bliss.

So I guess one benefit of not being in the dorms is this whole torrenting business. If I had to buy all 804 albums I own, I don't think I'd have any money for tuition or space in my dorm.

I think I'm going to have to stop taking naps on the couch because they are seriously messing up my dreams. I've had two of the strangest dreams of my life. I won't even go into them because they're TMI, and I don't think anyone wants that imagery in their head.

La Roux - Quicksand

(Not) Fine For Now

Waiting for the next class to start. I keep forgetting that my bus is really full and that we have to take a detour due to construction. It's completely bananas. I ended up missing my class, though it wasn't on purpose.

I feel like I should just hibernate all winter.

10.02.2009

VCR

The best part of my morning thus far is the anticipation of a cup of nice, warm, chai green tea. I originally bought it for my dad, but for subversive reasons; I've been aching to try it every since I caught a smell of its tantalizing aroma. And now I sit waiting for it to be ready for consumption.

I feel like I love Octobers. The certainty of the end of summer, and the quiet, muting presence of gray clouds. The memory of warmth that you can get from a cup of tea or a warm blanket, and the whole thing is nostalgia.

I'm missing the feel of an espresso machine under my fingertips. I miss the hiss of steam, the rising foam of the steamed milk. I miss the sound of the grinder and the smell of the espresso beans, and the creamy espresso shots filling the shot glasses. I've been contemplating applying for a job again in another cafe. Not that I need the extra responsibility; I just miss making coffee.

I am looking forward to really start working on the Water 1st Youth Advisory Board (W1YAB), however. It's the start of a new school year. It doesn't matter that little over a month ago I was still doing summer quarter, or that the bulk of my summer rest and relaxation lasted for a week, or that it came after summer had ended and fall had officially begun.

Anyways, Happy Birthday Ghandi! and here's to hoping everyone else can enjoy this wonderfully bleary day.

10.01.2009

Getting it Wrong Almost Every Time

I've only just finished the first week of the new school year at UW (it's actually only been two days). A recent $10 bonus to my already scanty monthly allowance, and the apprehension of an 18 credit quarter (yes, I know I'm crazy) and somehow I already look like I haven't had a day of sleep for the last four months. And maybe there is some validity to that claim, as every night I spend whispering into my cell phone, imagining the electrical cords that keep my phone from dying mid-four-hour-conversations, is somehow magically winding it's way to my recipient, like an electrical futuristic version of strings and cans. Unfortunately, that's only a guess on my part, since I never had a friend to play strings and cans with, and besides that I highly doubt my mom would want to tempt fate by allowing me to get tetanus from rusty cans to the ear.

The revamping of Hipsteradio is hardly a permanent one, nor is it much awaited for and to be honest (and I have no reason to fear honesty here, since no one is reading) this is just a purely random revival of a long-dead blog. As the quarter drags on I highly doubt I'll be able to keep this up. But I will try.

So far I haven't yet worked out how to link music here. I forgot how to login to yousendit (and am too lazy to make a new account) and Google recently changed their sites application, so everything is tentative.

What classes are these, that they take all of my time? Introduction to Microeconomics, Introduction to Globalization, Appreciation of Architecture, and Language Policy. The only good thing about this quarter is that I now have my Fridays completely free. You would think with a perpetual three-day weekend this would be a piece of cake, but add on an internship, volunteering for a youth advisory board and possibly heading an organization at UW, and I think we can all agree that my time will be going by very quickly.

Hopefully this will just be enough to keep me on track and from slipping. I'm seriously contemplating jumping on the ADD bandwagon and getting myself a prescription for "student-enhancing drugs" (aka Ritalin), but I'm hoping I have enough determination and discipline that I won't need it. So far that hasn't held true; yesterday my mom caught me making origami stars, and today I've spent the majority of my time chatting, going on Facebook, reading Pitchfork, webcomics, and now this. I am certainly off to a great start.

And though I'm not deathly behind, and I have all THREE days of my weekend (I'm sorry, but I can't stop gloating over this), I went to buy my last textbook today and found out that it won't be in stock until probably next week, though that's not even a certainty. What does that mean for my studies? I'm going to be at least a week behind in readings. Hopefully I can just leech notes off of someone else, but I'm still not comfortable with the idea of it.

And so here concludes the first of probably very few blogs at the start of the quarter when I still have time to do things.


A little blurb: Jessie, I miss you! I hope you're doing great at RISD and it's hard having you on the other coast.