Thursday, March 29, 2007

Spring Break!

Happy Thursday! I'm going home sometime tonight! And tomorrow!!!

I'm getting my wisdom teeth out.

Yay.

Also! My power cord spontaneously died the other day! So I'm stealing my roommate's, but that's not going to help this coming week...... It's a little troubling. Silly electronics.

I'm also pretty hungry. Awwww. Last solid food for a week!

But after spring break, there's only three weeks of school left. That makes me happy inside. Summer! Yay! For real this time.

I don't think I'll get to watch Raines today, and that makes me sad. I want to see if the third episode is better than the second, or as good as the first. Last week's wasn't so amazing. But not nearly as bad as Lost was yesterday. I mean, c'mon, people. That episode had no point, and the entire world would have been better off if they hadn't made it. It was weird, and pointless, and creepy! And there wasn't a need for any of it. 0o Like, at all. If it was a show that invested itself in vingettes rather than in arcs and plotlines, then it would have been bareable. But....it itsn't, and it wasn't.

When will the Office be new!

I like FFXII. I need to pack my PS2.

Yay, my dad is coming to get me.

Today, 1867 - U.S. Secretary of State William H. Seward negotiated the purchase of Alaska for US$7.2 million from Russia.

Last Thursday is an important date in the Last Thursdayism movement, a parody of omphalism which claims that the Universe was created last Thursday.

Says Wikipedia.

I guess I'll stop now, since I really don't know what I'm doing.

-Steph

Oh, but oh yeah, pictures from when we went to California Adventure are on my Flickr, if you wanted to see them.

Thursday, March 22, 2007

Lemme change it up a bit

Happy Thursday! Today is the 22nd, and I should have come up with something snazzy to celebrate today, but I forgot. Chansey.

Remember how, back in the day, these letters or whatever they were were primarily about Thursday? They were about specifically the neat things that happened today (because "neat" and "Thursday" have a co-causal relationship in Thursdayland, and I was just slapping down the proof), or even completely RANDOM and perhaps untruthful facts about Thursday. I mean, it was strictly a celebration of Thursdayness and the color brown.

Lately, I've noticed that's it's been my weekly journal for a long time now. When I noticed, I thought that maybe I'd try to go back to what it was, ie, stop it from being what it presently was. And then I thought, nah, it's evolved, and I'm sure it'll have several different stages in its (optimistically) long life. No point in turning back when there's still a forward to anticipate.

But then I think, what's so interesting about reading about what I did on Saturday and Tuesday, and what paper I have yet to write in the next half hour and what I think of Meredith Grey? I know I wrote that emo rant a while back proclaiming that I didn't have to nor want to cater to a picky audience, but I'm willing to say that my weekly itinerary isn't that interesting to even the most open-minded person.

I mean, I'm sure it is, for some. And being out of town as I am, it's a pretty easy way to keep people updated and whatnot. For instance, I spontaneously got a hair cut on Monday, and it's very short and I like it a lot. There's some of you who would only ever know that from reading this. But.

I think today I'd like to write you a free-association essay on the effect music has on identity. Wait, don't close the window. I won't take long.

The thing that pleases me the most about my Zune (whom I named Sora -"sky"- in recognition of its wireless capacity), and the feature that I've been abusing utilizing the most is the radio. I've always been a supporter of the concept of radio, and now I have it portably, and it's a musical choice that's way more accessible because of that. I listened to culture-y NPR on Saturday, and that was enriching, but from Sunday to the present I've been exploring the depths of KROQ.

K-R-O-Q, "K-Rock," is a rock station. And after listening to it for four days straight, I've come to realize that I didn't exactly know what rock was. I've had a tendency to label the music Live 105.5 plays as "real music," and have used the flavor of that station to belittle the stations here in LA. 105.5 is alternative, with some rock and some pop. Because this is all there is in Ventura County, that's what I know. That's what I like, through repetition and familiarity more than through actually fondness of the genre or style.

KROQ doesn't play John Mayer. There's no Kelly Clarkson, and there's none of the singles that I know neither title nor artist, but know nonetheless simply because it is "popular." There's no Fallout Boy, All American Rejects, or Panic! At the Disco, and these last three are what I think come closest to "real music" in my mind right now. The world of Rock is Modest Mouse, NIN, Korn, Nirvana, Linkin Park, Incubus, and some Red Jumpsuit Apparatus and Green Day. The major difference that I can see between 105.5 and KROQ (and so the genres of their music) is that every three songs I'll have to switch from 105.5 to 95.1 or some other static to avoid a song I absolutely despise. KROQ, on the other hand, I've been listening to for four days straight.

I don't love every song, no, but I don't hate any, either. I have fallen in love with some, and am hoarding them jealously from the world. What gets me the most, though, is how I never thought to listen to this music before? Look what I was missing out on! I like this animal called Rock, and yet I didn't truly understand it before now. Why?

I think that there's three reasons a person falls on to form an opinion about a song.
First- the sound of the music. There's something about the plain sound of country that makes me cringe. There's something about the sound of Linkin Park that makes me incredible happy.
Two- what the song stands for. I dislike rap for it's subject matter--I particularly like the sound of rapping, which is something I like about Linkin Park and my Asian-languaged rap, but I can't stand the genre "rap." This second condition also points to the artist, and the stuff related to the artist. It's not only that I dislike Britney Spears' music, but I also dislike Britney Spears.
Three- the opinion of your clique. It was cool to like NSYNC, then it wasn't (and even when it was, you couldn't simultaneously like the Backstreet Boys). It was or was not cool to like Avril Lavigne (and still is and isn't). It's never been cool to like Classical. Among Linkin Park fans, liking LP is a cool thing; to everyone else, you're an immature emo-wannabe.

This is where music has the chance to become your identity. I think I stayed at the edges of the Rock community because of its reputation. I'd heard Korn and Green Day before, and they seemed to be the sort of band that labeled its fans. I mean, you can't just be a person who happens to like Green Day. As soon as you say, "hey, this is a cool song," you become a "Green Day Fan," and something significant about you has changed, and everyone knows it and judges you appropriately by it. Music, your taste in it, marks you.

And people do act like this. I know I've looked at some one's internet profile and judged them worthy or not solely on the band names listed under Favorite Music. Loyalty to a style of music is what formed the hippie and grunge and goth and punk and even emo sub-cultures. I mean, fashion sense is affected by the type of music you and your friends listen to.

So when I clicked out of the radio (KROQ seems to stop playing music in the evening, and instead has a "love line") and set my library on shuffle, I felt like a stranger walking into someone else's house. This is what got me thinking, because I truly enjoy my J-Pop and instrumental and soundtrack type music that populates my playlist. This is music I know I like, and have liked, and will continue to like. But after listening to ROCK! for four days straight, it was as if I'd taken on the ROCK! mantle, like I'd been parading around in it, and I had to sheepishly take it off to return to the music I'd abandoned.

My semi-related point is that I can like rock, and I can like alternative, and I can like J-pop, and I can like movie scores, and I don't have to pick one or the other. Or other. They are far from being mutually exclusive, even if I have a funny preconditioned notion that they should be.

Heheh, I didn't mean to write on this for half an hour. I just thought it was interesting, is all. I open the floor for discussion.

-Steph

Thursday, March 15, 2007

Weird and Tired Thursday

Happy Thursday!

I had a fun birthday. Disneyland was fun, not too hot, but it was pretty full of people. THANKS GUYS.

In addition to my fun presents from pre-Saturday, I got several more fun things like a teeny-tiny harmonica and the Casino Royale book. And also! A Zune. A cute brown Zune that gets the radio and I named him Sora.

Today in Scrubs Kelso made everyone wear ugly brown scrubs so people would stop stealing them. And they were ugly brown scrubs, but not because they were brown, but because they were a sort of dirty purple. But Dr. Cox was wearing a brown shirt that was much the same color as mine. And, it was the first Scrubs ep I've seen in a long time, and it was quite excellent. Oh, the Janitor. I've missed him.

And it made fun of Grey's, which I'm watching now.

Another exciting mail item was my memory card, which I've gone without for a few months. Kingdom Hearts is still fun, I'd like to inform you. I'll take another go at FFXII when Raines is over......Maybe tomorrow I'll start the Alias game! Oh, and meanwhiles I re-got into The Longest Journey, and now I'm about half way through. It's still fun, for sure.

The exciting school thing this week was how my clay things are moving along. And then I started the next project, which is to make three related tiles. Tiles are good to me, because they're not frustrating to make. Throwing things is really complicated and I'm not patient enough to like that a lot. But with tiles, you just flatten out the clay and cut it into a square and then draw on it. Monday I spent the entire three hours drawing and coloring three different cactus-based ones. And yesterday I started another set that'll be fun. The designs'll go on after the glaze, so right now they're really boring--just blue. I'm looking forward to how these come out. And for how I'll be decorating my bowl and pot. Fun.

I'd also like you all to know that Raines seems to be an excellent show. Hoshi from Enterprise, and Meredith's dad. And Jeff Goldblum. Oh, I think that guy's from Remember the Titans. I think it's a keeper. Also, I enjoy watching something set in LA. It's been too long.

Erg, though, this new movie The Shooter, or whatever? The Fugitive meets Bourne Identity. Not interested.

Still want to see Zodiac and 23, although I heard that 23 is "as boring as watching some guy do a sudoku" or something to that affect.

I'm pretty tired, so I'm having to dig for words and topics that fit together. Whhhhhhaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat else interesting....?

I don't have to wake up tomorrow, since I got a free chapel absence. That's going to be fun. Everything seems to be fun today. Oh, weather guy said something about fog. That also sounds fun. Azusa's been feeling like Ventura the past few days, and that's throwing me off a bit. Yeah, alright, I'm out.

-Steph

Thursday, March 08, 2007

Teenagedom, you will be missed

Happy Thursday, all! Today is the 8th, and this is officially my last Thursday as a teen. Oh, where does the time go? I remember back when I was figuring out how old I would be in 2000, and was "wow! 13 is really old!"

I didn't ask for Spring for my birthday, and it's actually a good thing, 'cause I got Summer instead~ I'm good for a double summer. It was funny because in the mornings there were clouds, so the house was full of gray, so when you opened the door, the 75 degrees caught you unawares. One of these days, Tuesday it must have been, I wandered to the front door and enjoyed standing on the porch so much that I ended up strolling around the mods area. It was neat because I wasn't wearing shoes, and even though it was like 8:30, the cement wasn't cold at all.

Today was a little colder, but internet says Saturday in Anaheim will be partly cloudy with a high of 82. What am I doing in Anaheim, you may ask? Surely the AX hasn't come around again ALREADY, you may be wondering. Oh-hoh, no! I'm going to Disneyland! I'm taking my mom and my dad and my best friend Carolyn! *waves* I haven't been there since that last band trip I went on. So I'm looking forward to that.

Got two presents in the mail today! That's a once-in-a-lifetime event, getting TWO package slips in your box in a single day. Happy Thursday Packages! From my brother (Firefly soundtrack--very fun, thanks!) and I think Jennifer (cute manga- yay!!).

Another fun but unrelated news is that today the people from the West Wind magazine, APU's literary thing (think Pawprint) emailed me and said they all loved Ballad of an Emancipated Bagger, but that it was a little long. So I did a quick cut and sent it back to them, and I hope that works out.

Ummm, the rest of the week? It was slow and lazy. And warm. No school yesterday due to Common Day of Learning, and sleeping in since chapel was later. Phil Vischer, creator of Veggie Tales, was the speaker, and he was really neat. I'd link you up with the video, but it's not online yet. Also yesterday, I started my 10 page paper on The Office, since five pages were due sometime that day. And you know what! I wrote five pages! And didn't feel like dying afterward! Hooray for my major! I even had time left in the day to watch Lost freely, and read for other classes (including Through the Looking Glass, man my life is hard).

Oh, and the high point from the weekend was that I made curry for the first time, and it was really good. Finally finished it off today. I'll make it for you sometime, it was fun. Still today I'm going to make cupcakes from the cakemix I brought back from home. Hooray for birthdays.

There's a nasty monster cricket who keeps approaching me. I dislike him. There's also a small cricket exploring the kitchen. The crickets are bad because they blend into the carpet. -_-

I'll catch you on the other side!

-Steph

Thursday, March 01, 2007

Springtime?

Happy Thursday and Happy March! You all know what that means~ My Amazon.com Wish List You have a good ten days.

I want to talk about the weather. Last week or so I happened to be walking back from West Campus and I was startled to see that one tree with the little pink flowers. I mean, it already had those flowers. And here I was feeling like winter had finally started. But it's pretty much the same time of year as that photojournalism thing I did last time around. Those crazy trees are growing greeny leaves while their old purple leaves are still waiting to fall.

The weekend, though, it rained. And was really cold. Well, the whole week it's been cold. Cold as it's been all year. For the first time today it cleared up so that Mt. Baldy with its impressive snow was quite shocking. That whole range is just blanketed in snow, and I think that it's just from this last week.

Tuesday I felt like it was Fall again. I know that fall and spring are analogous seasons, being transitions between the hot and cold ones, but you know spring is always supposed to feel warmer (in comparison to the recent winter). But Tuesday had that burning smell in the air that, at least in my experience, tells me that Halloween is on its way. This was on the way to Japanese, and in an hour and half it was feeling like Nantucket. Which I also associate with fall, 'cause that was the only time I was there. But that wasn't nearly as pleasant an association. But also this day I thought that it was cold like Easter morning is cold, the way late spring still feels like winter but looks like summer.

Wednesday was windy (haha), this very clear cold wind. It felt like one of those late spring days like before, but the one that looks sunny so you go to the beach? It felt like I was at the beach, and it was that uncomfortable cold that makes you wish you hadn't come at all. But the clouds were very high and ...artistic looking. Like they were painted up there. But it was sooooo cold last night, seriously the coldest its been all winter. I would have gone to Megan's apartment to watch Lost, but I doubted I'd survive the journey.

I guess I just really love noticing weather and seasons, since I went through this exact same phase at exactly this same time last year. Although I did already declare that it was spring a few weeks ago. I always seem to be too optimistic about this season. But I do think that it'll get warmer fast. It is Azusa, after all.

Going to brag about school:

Jesus class paper that was due a few days before I turned it in? 90. Same grade as aforementioned Megan, who's a little angry with me. ^^ And only 3 other people in the class got As, too. Also, this class is seriously amazing 'cause he's showing us a movie today and next Tuesday, and cut down our final paper to basically just a list. Love that class.

Japanese midterm on Tuesday? Got 99/100. Better than Sho, the Japanese student. XD I missed a part on the little essay section, because I used "と - to" to connect two adjectives (it only connects nouns), and I should have used "くて - kute," a bit of grammar we haven't learned yet.

And, of course, the week is over for me.

Oh, and also, I think I've finally figured out how to work the potter's wheel. Wednesday started out as a failure day in clay class, where I continued and persisted in failing. But it was one of those things where every time I saw something I could do different next time, and then I finally succeeded! I made a pot! It's the most beautiful thing I've ever made. Because there's so many things that can (and do) go wrong in the process of throwing.....you gotta get the air bubbles outta the clay, you gotta center it freaking *exactly*, you gotta center it MORE, you gotta make sure the hole is straight down the middle, you gotta pull it so the walls don't get too thin.....and you have to do all of this every time, or else even if you do start getting something that looks like a pot, it'll fall down before you're done. Just like everything of mine has done for the past two weeks. But I did it! And I hope I'll continue doing it.

I cleaned my desk the other day, 'cause I couldn't nap. It frees up time to do useful things in. Oh, I don't think I mentioned in the Thursday thing, 'cause last week I seem to have been a little scattered. For Lent I gave up naps. Not a comment on the evilness of naps, just, putting something aside for a while to focus on something else. Like cleaning and doing homework.

Oh, and writing! I wrote some randomness for my nii-chan Goten 'cause he suddenly demanded "six more stories" from me. I got two out, and I'm thinking about the third. They're about a crazy guy named Jensen who lives in this abandoned crazy house. If you want to read them, you can always visit my "writing journal," which should be linked on the side somewhere.

I'll leave you all with this pleasant little video: Bits o' GLASS Muffin!

-Steph