changing colors

Contrary to what you may think, I am not referring to the transition into bright leaved and colorful autumn. I'm talking about my flip flop tan.

Since arriving in SoCal, I've been wearing my beloved Rainbows basically every day. A few key occasions merited gladiator shoes or running shoes, but other than that it's been Rainbows from day one. Evidence is presented in the prominent tan I now have, making me look like I really am wearing flip flops every day even when they are absent from my feet.

I'm getting more and more used to Irvine, and with this comfort comes love. I love the ARC, I love my hall, I love the Thai lettuce wraps!! I do miss Cupertino and my friends though, and I'm glad I have photos up in my room to look at whenever I'm doing homework or just missing them.

Yesterday I went to the ARC with some people from my hall and climbed the rock-climbing wall! I got all the way up which was both a surprise and an accomplishment that I was very proud of. I'm planning on going back and trying to climb the side with the overhang, hopefully it'll balance out my arm muscles, because yes, my right forearm is still noticeably larger than my left due to my year of scooping ice cream.

bandwagons and things

My first class was today! Humanities Core discussion. A rather small room with 20 students in desks with reclining seats (!!!!!) all pointed towards an updated version of David Clarke. Except his name is Brian Thill and he's a little bit more current and hip than David; he watches Lost and the Office, texts on his Blackberry, and keeps his hair short and trim. Other than that the two are pretty similar: melodious voices that soothe you to sleep (had to keep my eyes from drooping), energetic and super knowledgeable about lit and everything concerned with it, and very genuine, approachable, and pragmatic with a hint of sarcasm.

Towards the end of class, he started taking role. Since the theme of my HumCore class this quarter is "Thinking, Making, Doing," he requested that we share our favorite thinker after he called our name.

After hardly even finshing saying her name, the first girl promptly responds, "Thoreau." And goes into a little schpeel about why Thoreau is the greatest and how he really embraced his philosophical ideals and married practice and preaching and yadayadayada. It was a brilliant, well-thought out answer -- much more so than I had expected from anyone on the first day of school. Which obviously put more pressure on me.

As he goes down the list, the students call out names like Plato, Jane Austen, William Shakespeare...even some obscure philosophers I haven't even heard of. Damn, I think. Everyone is so damn smart. Hell, after that first response I started delving deep into my mind to think of the last time I was really actually, profoundly, impacted by a thinker. Hell, all I came up with was the guy who wrote Fight Club. Seriously, that guy was the man! But I didn't want to be the girl who says "UH, the guy who wrote Fight Club" on the first day of class. I seriously don't even know his name! So I cast that idea aside and resumed my hunt for a remotely interesting thinker.

Luckily for me, AP Lit prepped me well enough to know how to spew some big names out and by the time he reached my name, I had decided to hop on the nerdy bandwagon and say Albert Camus. What a lie, I pretty much hated reading The Stranger until the last three freaking pages. God. After I said that I pretty much hated myself for not going with my gut instinct and saying "that guy who wrote Fight Club." Not as intellectual sounding I guess, but at least it'd be real and honest. So that left with me a pretty sad feeling, but it's something for me to work on and it's definitely nothing a nice walk around Aldrich Park can't fix.

Side note: I LOVE ALDRICH PARK! Such a nice place to cancel out calories from last night's two corndogs, aka heaven in corn dog form.

my first official college post!

As the title of this post explains, this is my first official college post! I am sitting here in the pitch darkness, staring at the bright screen of my laptop and probably ruining my retinas but whatever, blogging is necessary for right now! My roommate, Sarah, is asleep, as I probably should be (considering I got a total of maybe six hours of REM in the past two days) but I can sleep in a little tomorrow and I want to reach out into a world I'm more comfortable in -- because SoCal is not that.

Don't get me wrong, Irvine is definitely nice. My hall is really nice and conveniently located near the dining hall, housing office, student center, and just a short walk to the BEAUTIFUL Aldrich Park. The weather is perfect, people are friendly and nice, and my room is pretty set up and I like it how it is. But it still doesn't feel like home, and I feel like I'm drifting around with no definite anchor. It's hard to be in a place with so many people you don't know, trying to build connections and find that click, but part of me thinks that you really can't force it. It'll come with time, just chill and go with the flow! Oh well, who said life was easy. Just doesn't feel like home yet, and I hope that it'll get there soon though. For the most part I am keeping busy with the crazy welcome week activities and missing my friends like a crazy person. ):

This whole experience has really made me question the type of person I am. I always thought I was the independent, outgoing type but I realized I can be really dependent on others and pretty introverted. That's not the best version of myself at all, and it's definitely not the image I want to project on these first few crucial days. It's just tough cause it's all so new and different I guess...I take a while to get used to things.

Contrary to the general tone of my entry though, I have been having fun. Welcome week is CRAZY and the people I've met and hung out with have been really nice. So far I've pretty much settled in my dorm, bought most of my books, gone shopping, bought a TV!!, explored campus at night (BUNNIES EVERYWHERE!!! Chiang didn't lie.), checked out the freaking AMAZING ARC, and participated in hall competitions. Fun stuff! For the rest of the week I'm looking forward to the pre-show of Eagle Eye, Middle/Mesa Mixer, Iron Man in Aldrich Park, shopping at the District, and the beach trip this Friday! I am even excited for classes. How surreal. I really am enjoying myself though, just wish my good buddies were here to share the fun and sun.

last goodbye

SO I'm in a hotel room in Irvine! It's weird to think that this morning was really the last time I'll ever live in Cupertino. How strange. Also, mornings are SO not my thing so I definitely didn't even realize the full impact of it all until I woke up around 2:00 when my parents and I went to lunch in LA. GO ME!

Anyway, I don't have much to say right now except I am very excited to move in tomorrow at 2ish, and that I miss my friends like freaking crazy and I wish you were all here with me. ): Irvine will be a strange adventure without my best buddies at my side.

I will update later! For now, I need to get my books and some other supplies at Target...then tonight definitely webcamming with my homies.

This was a pretty useless post but I just wanted to alert the internet and all it's users that I am alive and well. More laterr.

wow, life.

Life is not captured in photographs. I just spent the past hour and a half looking through photos and trying to decide which of them were college-wall-worthy. I wanted my favorite photos EVER, ones that still make me smile when I see them. I thought I got a pretty good set of them until I actually looked through my selection again and realized they kind of suck. They're not giving me what I want, but what I realllly want is something I can't bring to college. I want my friends with me, not just 2-D pictures of them on the wall, reminding me of what I'm missing. Here is where I heaved a big sigh and accepted the fact that things are definitely changing.

BIG DAY TOMORROW.

Last note: friends with blogs make me happy! Update often, cause I like you guys. (:

REM adventures

First I was in an unfamiliar hotel room with random MV kids from 07, 08, 09. I stepped out of it into a bare patch of ground and saw that we were in the hills. Shawn was sitting under some trees and we decided to go for a ride in his car. For some reason, I sat behind him instead of sitting shotgun. I remember rolling the windows up and down and enjoying the speed at which we were careening through the hills. Suddenly I looked up and the sunny, rounded hills were gone and we were driving up a huge, steep mountain, with the peak shrouded in fog. We could only see about 20, 30 feet above us and yet we kept going up that damn mountain; I remember thinking that we were probably going up it at a 90 degree angle. I look out the window to my left and see an old, Amish-looking couple standing on the porch of their small house. They were gazing around at their property and as my eyes followed theirs, I realized their house was planted in the middle of a huge cemetery. White gravestones populated the spaces of lawn as dandelions often do, bearing a heavier emotion than yellow weeds would. At this point my heart grew heavy and fear and regret settled within me in some dark place. Soon, we took a right turn and the road flattened. Now making our way through a dense, black forest, I thought about each of my friends who had left for college already and felt how much I missed them. I voiced my thoughts to no response from Shawn; he just kept driving fast through the dark trees. Suddenly our surroundings changed into that of an indoor shopping mall. Deserted, dimly lit, and spacious, Shawn careened through the mall making wild turns and even driving through a diamond shop. The salesgirl didn't seem to mind, she kept reading her magazine through her rimmed glasses. After exiting the diamond shop I found myself alone, standing by the entrance of the mall and seeing people coming in. Familiar faces strolled into the shopping mall, each looking for something in particular and bypassing me with no second thought. I sat down in a swivel chair and soon saw Kevin was making his way into the mall. I remember I was singing 'Goodbye To You', and then Kevin pushed me on my swivel chair out into the dark parking lot, which was surprisingly filled with cars. Spinning and spinning away from the mall, I saw headlights flashing as I narrowly missed one speedy white sedan, and then I woke up.

I had a dream, and it scared me to pieces. I woke up with 'Goodbye To You' echoing in my mind and a heavy sadness plaguing my thoughts.

Two days.

another dream shattered

TAXIS ARE SO EXPENSIVE! I always imagined taking taxis everywhere (just like in the movies set in NYC) would be so much fun. Hailing a bright yellow cab and then racing off to some far off corner of the earth seemed like such a fantastic thing to do. Little did I know this feat requires LOTS and lots of money in the bank. Crystal and I were stranded at the Mountain View Caltrain Station today with little hope of getting home, so we decided to take a cab that was waiting nearby. I had always wanted to take a cab and was excited to embark upon this dream-fulfilling journey, but soon enough reality crushed my bright taxi dreams when, as I watched the meter intently, our fare rose a spectacular amount after not even exiting the parking lot. The rest of the ride was spent craning my neck in disbelief, staring at this magical machine that was telling me how broke Crystal and I would be soon, and wondering how on earth it could possibly be right that a 10 minute ride cost around $25. Moral of the story: don't take taxis unless you are stranded alone in a crime infested city with a 99% chance of getting raped and/or murdered! Anything less, and walking should suit you fine.

it's all about location

You know how Friends had Central Perk? The crazy kids I hang out with have favorite hangout spots too...and as I got to thinking about it, I realized we'll be missing some of these places soon. THEN where will we get to hang out and be our ridiculous selves??? ):

My pool area: witness to many a poolside picnic, tanning sesh, BBQ...the list goes on. Late night hot tubbing and spontaneous/hilarious dancing, awkward stretches and watermelon bars. After my parents move to a townhouse in SC we won't have access to the pool unless we hop the fence, and I've seen some fierce Valley Green maintenance guys yelling at kids who try to get in without a key. I don't think I can handle that!!

Meher's garage: after his parents move to India I don't think they're keeping the house! ): Where will we have all our scary movie nights? All our random singing/dancing parties? Where will we practice our Forever choreo?

Arjun's backyard: K so this will still be there, but bonfires will be completely changed if our little friend Baldie gets his way. Sure we can have bonfires on the roof (RIIIIGHT). No but bonfires will totally be different without that gorgeous view. Jeebus.

Anyway, this post was pretttty pointless, but what I'm really getting at is that the time to move is coming closer than I'd ever imagined, and I'm just now really appreciating what I have. Ok, or maybe I'm trying to make meaning out of a load of crap, you tell me. I'm tired!

Layang Layang was fun tonight, food was delicious as always and I'm glad we got to get together one last time. I felt like a mama bear with thirteen starved children.

a story about a sock.

I wrote this in the middle of cleaning today. A well deserved break, I would have to say.

---
A couple of minutes ago, I was thinking I held what remains of my childhood there in my slightly clammy, very dusty hand. I was holding a sock puppet. Crudely constructed out of an old sock, rice (yeah, I'm Asian. WHAT.) and some tape and string, I had christened this creature 'Gallop' and given him to my sister one Christmas long ago. The realization that I was actually holding uncooked rice that was over a decade old convinced me to throw out this particular piece of childhood. Thus 'Gallop' joined the multitudes of other miscellaneous old objects (collectively called CRAP) that I couldn't find the heart to let go of at one point or another in my life, but have since realized as useless and...rather old.

Admittedly, I write this now with stuffed animals surrounding me, all destined for my new Santa Clara home instead of Goodwill. (Those Goodwill-bound critters are in an unfriendly and suffocating garbage bag. Seven-year-old me would have shrieked with indignation and horror.) Yeah I haven't seen these guys since I last moved in 2003, but they're still the same friends I cherished when I was just a kid. Only now they smell like cardboard box. Fun how reality interferes with sentimental ponderings, isn't it?

Among the jungle of animals, I also found a set of Disney books. I spent some time flipping through it, admiring the pictures and not paying a second of attention to the words. As a child I would have read every single letter on every single page, until I'd finish the book. Then I'd set it down with pride in my accomplishment and move on to pick up the next book. Now I just look at pictures? Am I backwards or what.

---

Four days. So am I ready? No. I wasn't even ready to throw out a freaking 10 year old, rice-filled sock for crying out loud. But I'll get there.

Ten days

I started packing some stuff up, yesterday and today. Amazingly, I'm actually excited to pack my life away into boxes and get rid of the useless crap that has piled up over the years. I'm making piles: things to save, things to donate, things to toss. It's really quite a refreshing process, and the deadline I'm working towards only makes it more exciting to me. Ten more days and I leave this place, pretty much for good.

My parents are moving to a townhouse in Santa Clara at the end of September when I'm already at school. So when I come home from UCI, I'm not really coming home. New house, new surroundings...and I feel like I'll be estranged from my friends and what I've become so used to in the past four or five years I've lived in this apartment. This move will make it harder to come to Cupertino to hang out and just do whatever it is that we do so well, but hopefully I'll adjust and the people who remain important to me will still be as important.

Ten days left.

P.S.
Talking to my friends on Skype/AIM/gchat when they're so far away makes me so happy and sad at the same time. I'm glad we have internet. I'm sad that we're not still high school students with the same schedules/classes/teachers/hang-out spots. We're growing up, I guess! Tis a strange process.

No more camouflage
I want to be exposed
And not be afraid to fall.