Adventuring.

When I first moved into my apartment, I didn't have my own copy of the house keys. As such, I spent many an hour tending to the bruises I got from jumping our stucco-ed balcony (I bruise very easily). When I had my keys made, I thought I'd never have to jump that damned balcony again.

So I think it's quite understandable that I would avoid going home for a few days when I accidently locked my keys inside my apartment. I mean, I could have been home easily if I had been willing to put up with climbing that balcony again. That goddamned balcony. I decided that it was summer's way of telling me to adventure, and try new things. So I did.

Much thanks to J-lo, Yumi and Robbie for housing me. Thanks to everyone who put up with me in the same clothes for two days (I actually couldn't do it...I ended up buying a new shirt because it bothered me so much). I have learned that Hedwig and the Angry Inch makes for beautiful watching, and I couldn't have watched it with a more appropriate couple (because botched sex change operations, soul searching rock ballads and tranny loving christians make me think of robbie and yumi). Thanks to Stan for beer and cherries and Project Runway watching (psst-I won't tell anyone!). So yeah....

Fuck you balcony.

Speech.

OK, so the comment problem has been fixed: you can now comment on my blog! Feel free!

Kimmie

Weddings and stuff.

Eric and I attended his ex-girlfriend's wedding a while back. When he last had to attend a wedding, he took our other friend Lynn. He learned a lot from that wedding. You could see the experience he gained from that event from the instructions I was given: "Look cute and don't embarrass me."

Here I am almost ready to head out.



This is how happy we were to be stuck in traffic. The longer we were stuck in traffic, the longer we wouldn't have to be with strangers making small talk.



On our way there, Eric was telling me about how he fell out of touch with his high school friends. He wasn't really expecting to know anyone there (hence my presence there: better to be awkward in a social situation with someone you know than someone you don't).
...Yeah, everyone Eric knew from high school was there.

A mere fraction of them: Hoai, Eric, Jay, Lynn (the bride), Reid (the groom), Johnny, Mike


A good time was had by all.
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I was going to post this yesterday, but it seemed to be missing something. And then it hit me. It was missing this:
(Chess in a ball.)

Ok, NOW i can post this entry.

I love me some bullet points.

1. For those of you who want to comment on my blog but feel you can't because you have no blogger ID (ahem, ahem, Ms Suh), feel free to reply as anonymous and identify yourself in the body of the text. Or leave it blank, so we can play guessing games.

2. Thank you to Spiffy for capturing on film two pretty important moments in my life:

A. My family at my graduation. Although I do wish we were smart enough to do this in a place where their faces were lit. Because they do have such pretty faces, the Tongs.



B. Me meeting one of my heroines.

Good things.

Congratulate me, as I have officially passed all of this quarter's classes, and therefore am officially graduated from the UCLA School of Letter and Sciences with a B.A. in Psychology. W00t!

My plans this summer include:
-Shortening my "To Read" List considerably. (More on that in a later post)
-Beach bonfires.
-Camping in Yosemite.
-Weekend getaway to Carmel Valley.
-Las Vegas birthdays.
-Visiting the beach at least once every other week.
-Writing for the sake of writing.
-Making good use of my Disneyland Annual Pass before it expires. Especially making good use of it with good friends. Anyone? Anyone?

Wigging Out.

I wig out from time to time. Not the good wigging out, like "Time Warp" wigging out. Wigging out like, "Strongbad getting the jibblies" wigging out. When life is really good, like it is for me right now, being reminded of when life was really bad makes me wig out.

It happens from time to time. No one's fault. Just know, that if I suddenly need to take a walk at three in the morning, or feel like I have to take a cab home, don't worry. It's not you. It's just me a-wigging. Let me do my thing, and I apologize if anyone gets wiggy because I'm getting wiggy.

Wiggity-wig-wig-wig. Gettin' wiggy with it.

...Ok, I'm done.

Wig.

Effin Family, man.

I am currently hanging out with the familia in Long Beach. Comments overhead:

"Can you buy me a saxophone?" (My brother, the jazz musician. He got all the music talent in the family. However, I find it interesting that he'd turn to his broke-just-out-of-college sister for a $2000 saxophone instead of the parentals. Sometimes you need someone in your life who's not constantly thinking everything in terms of how it will help your GPA.)

"Did you lose weight?" (I've lost five pounds since the last time my uncle saw me. Last I saw him, it was "Wow. You look kinda big." Thanks Uncle Oeuy. I appreciate that. Bastard.)

I've been more irritated in the past six hours than I have been through the entirety of Finals Week. I snapped at people at least twice, and each time it happened, I got a look from my mom. You know, the 'I can't believe my daughter is so rude' look. My family has a knack for brining out the worst in me.

However, in the past six hours it hit me that I'm graduating. Sixteen years of school behind me, and I didn't start to get really excited until I saw my family congratulating me, telling me how proud they were of me, for doing something no one else in our family has done. It makes a person feel kinda good. Almost good enough to forget that they're trying to get you to move back home with promises of "It'll save you money," and laments of "But we're lonely without our kids!"

My rep.

I recently found out that I have a reputation. It's not even a cool reputation, like "Girl who kicks most ass in a bar fight," or a scandalous one like "Most likely to have crazy make outs while drunk."

I have a "Hates to have people touching her" reputation.

I'm not quite sure if I should be insulted or flattered. If anything, I'm confused because it's somewhat erroneous. It's a title given to me by a very friendly, very physical asian american theatre group. I'm think that their social behavior is not indicative of the majority of the American population (and it's certainly not indictive of the majority of Asian Americans... it might be indicative of the majority of theatre people though. Those people are FRIENDLY). I really don't think there's any merit to what they're saying.

I love people! I'm very friendly! I love hugs and noogies. Yeah, I weird out when people try to give me massages, or when they try to touch my hands, or if they try to hug me without giving me prior notice. And man, I hate tickling. HATE IT. I will deck anyone who tries to tickle me.

...I may have a slight problem with comfort zones.

Distractions

Things keeping me from focusing on my pending Psych 110 Final (t-minus twelve hours):
1. Chess. Owning a hamster is too much fun! We frolicked on my bed and I gave her a new toy. It's a Nut Knot Nibbler; basically it's a tangle of mini-Lincoln Logs with a nut in the middle. She's supposed to chew through to get to the nut. I figured she needs to start working to get to her food (girl is going from PHAT to FAT), but she took one look at the Nibbler and walked straight for her food bowl. Curses, foiled again!

2. Seanbaby.com. I'm not linking this because I want to save you from my fate. Damn you Mike Golamco! Damn you and your random facts about Hostess fruit pies! Damn you for telling me about this during Finals Week! ARRRRGH!!!! Too...entertaining.... Must... close... browser.......

3. Carol. I haven't seen said roommate in about two months (excluding the show, which she always faithfully attends), so we're catching up BIG TIME. Of course, this involves plenty of talking and eating and tea-making and Friends reruns watching.

4. My apartment. What with the rehearsals, the show, banquets, beach day, work, and finals studying, the past few weeks has me coming into my apartment just to change and drop shit off. I took a good look at my place today and saw the biggest mess my apartment has ever been in since the last time Eric visited. (He's a pig.) My fingers ITCHED. I really, really, REALLY wanted to clean the apartment. I humored myself by doing laundry and going through my loose papers (you know, to throw away the unimportant stuff such as old receipts, bruinwalk flyers, the communist manifesto).

5. This blog. It never fails. Any time I have a deadline or an exam, I find myself doing this exhaustive posts that probably no one will read all the way through just because I can't seem to bring myself to do what I need to do.
....
Um, yeah. I uh, I should go study for that final, huh?

Ten weeks in ten sentences.

LCC was pretty amazing this quarter. I loved the script I was working with, thanks to this guy, and I loved my cast:


They did such a great job. If you didn't get to see them in action, or didn't get it the first time around, here it is again.

It was my last quarter with LCC, so Janet played my substitute boyfriend and got me a flower. Here I am basking in the glow of her love:


Our theme for banquet was "Game Characters vs. Film Noir." Here are two of the five people who dressed up as film noir:


Here are the people who joined the group the same time I did. I love these guys so much, I would walk on fire for them.


There were so many things that happened during my time with LCC and I am so sad that I wasn't able to chronicle every moment. I really can't imagine UCLA without the people that I met through this group and really grew to love. I can honestly look back on my time in college and say "That was the best four years of my life" and my LCC pals really had a lot to do with that. Thanks for the memories guys.

I hate blogger.com

So there have been a lack of posts because Blogger somehow manages to fuck up whenever I am trying to post an entry or add pictures to an entry. Believe you me, stuff has been happening in my life that I want to chronicle: my last Mentorship event of the year, my last LCC Show, banquets, new roommates, graduation. I am frustrated, to say the least. Hopefully Blogger doesn't fuck this post up too.

Damn you blogspot! Damn you!

Entropy.

Creativity is almost never as good executed as it is in your head, unformulated. Someone once told me, "I have this awesome idea for a story, but I don't want to tell anyone because i can't do it justice right now." I think that it probably has something to do with entropy.

I'm not very good at explaining things like this (I took Physics 10, aka "Physics for Poets"), but I'll try to give this some context. I apologize if I offend any Physics (PhySUCKS) fans out there. From what I understand, when you're doing something, and it takes energy to do it, entropy is the stuff that you can't use to do what you want to do. It's increasing inefficiency. According to the second law of thermodynamics, entropy is always increasing within an isolated system.

Well, I figure that an idea, that perfect idea, is in this little isolated system in your head. When you want to write, this idea has to get from your head to paper. Your vision has to go through a series of transformations before it can be realized, and everytime it undergoes a transformation, from this vision of perfect clarity to your outline to your dialogue, to agonizing over every word to get the tone *just* right, your idea gets a litle muddled. It gets a lttle chaotic. Suddenly everything isn't as crystal as you thought it was. When it's done, maybe you're a little let down that the execution of this awesome thing brewing in your head wasn't as you pictured it.

Often what I see in my head doesn't translate as well onto paper. Hell, this post looked a lot better in my head ( I was more coherent, and WAY more knowledgeable about physics), but that doesn't mean it's bad. It's just different. The work that you put out is imperfect. It's been affected by your experiences, your moods, the people you surround yourself with. It was influenced by the egg you had for breakfast and the bum you saw on the way to work. This thing, this physical manifestation of your thoughts may be flawed, but within its flaws is something beautiful.

So yeah, entropy rocks.

Oh, and the german word for poison is Gift. Effin' Germans, man.

Dancing.

I think giving up dance was one of the biggest regrets of my life.

I started dancing really late, age twelve or thirteen. Before, I was a proud tomboy, and shunned dance as a pansy sissy past time. I went to a middle school that had a huge emphasis on performance arts, but I requested a PE class instead of the Pre-IB Dance Class. Somehow, I got bullied into going to an audition by my one friend in seventh grade. Even back then, when I had this wannabe tough gal persona, dance was so easy to fall into.

I remember the first time I danced. It was an afro-haitian fertility dance, lots of body isolations and rhythmic stomping and feeling the percussion through to my bones. Man, it was an awesome feeling. It was like crack cocaine. I wanted more! Give me afro and Irish! Lyrical and tap! Modern and swing! I didn't touch ballet though, because ballet is intimidating. Ballet is all rules. Ballet is for girls who took classes from age three, not someone who got in so late that she lost all her flexibility (to this day, I can't do the splits). Ballet girls scared me.

They still scare me.

Yeah, I wish I stuck with dance. I wish my mom enrolled me in baby ballet, I wish I wasn't such a stubborn boy-girl. I wish I could see my old friend from seventh grade, and tell her thank you. Maybe I can go back in time and tell myself young self to stick with it, even if what's-her-face is sniggering at my arabesque. And then I'd go and kick what's-her-face in the fork. I wish, I wish, I wish.
...
Well, one of my wishes is coming true. BEST SHOW EVER COMING BACK ON FOX. Tune in!

Get your shit together, BROTHER!

There is a very real chance that I may not pass all my classes this quarter. This is bad, because that means I don't graduate and I bought a cap and gown and special grown up clothes (a hat that says "grown up") all for nothing.

Got a new phone! Yay! Same phone number! Double yay! Unexpected financial expenditures!?! Boo!

Getting life back on track feels subtley good.
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I'm a big fan of that show on vh1, the one with Hulk Hogan and his family. He's so cool! Really strong, but mellow and an all around good guy. He reminds me of really strong, mellow good guy Mr. Knudsen, my old biology teacher. I don't really think of him as The Hulk anymore; in my head, I call him my friend Terry. Today, Terry realizes that he's too old for wrestling and that selling energy drinks may be a more lucrative creative outlet. Good for you Terry, good for you.

Making things work.

I have an addiction to trashy blogs. Seriously trashy. I love celebritiy gossip blogs and fashion blogs and he-said-she-said blogs. I often waste hours reading these things instead of updating my own. Here are some of my favorites:
Bryanboy
Go Fug Yourself
Hollywood Tuna
Highly addictive!
I've been trying to figure out what makes these completey different blogs so entertaining, so that I can apply them to my blog. Here are some things I've noted:
-Pictures. I need more pictures. Preferably of skinny blonde girls and things/people I can make fun of.
-Links. I need to link more often to dumb news stories, gay people blogs (for some reason gay people have the BEST blogs. I LOVE reading them), and funny pictures. I should be as link friendly as Fark.
-Disdain. I need to be really mean. But funny "Oh my god you're wearing last week's Fendi and it's not even cute young Fendi it's old used to like Chanel but can't afford it now Fendi." Right now my funny is at a "Your mom" level. Must up the catty in my funny.
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My phone died. Like, literally. I was crossing the street and the phone fell out of my pocket. Before I had a chance to run back and get it, a car hit it and smashed it to pieces. Then a truck came by and smashed the pieces into tear sized shreds. Once again, I will be very difficult to contact until I get this resolved.
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My Thursday exame is not actually a Thursday exam; apparently it's a Tuesday exam. In other words, shit is hitting the fan RIGHT NOW.

Catching up.

I am the most awkward phone person in the world. I hate hate HATE talking on the phone. I'm just no good at it. The awkward pauses, the telephone hum in the background, the "ums" and "ahs" as you try to think of something, something, ANYTHING to say is worst than a visit to the dentist.

So it's a very special person who can keep me on the phone for thirty minutes at a time and leave me thinking, "Thank goodness they called."

Religious stakes.

"I call your Virgin-Mary-burned-into-a-slice-of-toast and raise you a koranic-verse-embedded-in-tuna-scales."

As a passively amused (and Buddhist) observer, I often have many questions for my God-loving friends. Why do they love him so much? How does He improve their day-to-day lives? And why does he keep leaving signs of himself all over the place? Is he trying to teach his flock about everyday miracles, or is he just a lazy deity who won't pick up after himself and thus leaves vaguely religious residue all over the place? Maybe he's too lazy to do real miracles, like making the earth stand still. I can't blame the guy. After millennia in the same profession, he's bound to want to slack off a bit. I think maybe I'm thinking about this too much like a Buddhist.

...God needs a vacation.

New things I have learned.

-Adam Baldwin of Firefly fame? NOT a Baldwin brother, despite the name.

-Trying something new means risking falling flat on your face.

-Loss of visual acuity may be due to diabetes. Get checked NOW, especially if it runs in your family.

-Baby rabbits are called kits. Bunny is just a cutesy nickname for rabbit.

-Bravery is putting your feet back in the water, especially if you know there are alligators waiting, they've already got one of your toes, and you're scared as a Mcdonald's hamburger on 29 cent Wednesdays (does anyone else remember that promotion?).

-I am not brave. Not yet.

Newsie Shoesies.

What is wrong with these shoes? I mean, sure, they're a little dirty, a bit scruffy, they may have seen better days. But serviceable, right? That's what I thought. These are my favorite shoes in the whole world. I wear them almost every day to almost every occasion.

I guess that may have led to their faster-than-regular wear and tear. I mean, sure I wear them to class, to work, to clubs, in the rain, on the beach, while fighting crime, etc. They're easy to slip on and off, they're comfy, and they're so cute! But come on, does it really explain this?








Boo.

I'm so sad. I have to find a new favorite pair of shoes now.

Wheels.

I recently got myself one of those wheeled carts. You know, those carts that blue-haired women fill with leafy greens and daisies at the Sunday Farmer's Market. Those big black carts with cushioned handles and a wide turn radius. I'm going to trick mine out with spikes and a troll doll.

I got a new back pack too, also wheeled. It's gray and orange. I'm trying to find a picture of it, but it seems to be a discontinued color. This makes my bag twice as cool. I now understand why some pianists prefer classic ivory keys and why my dad finds turtle meat so delicious.

I need to find a third wheeled item, so that my wheeling trifecta is complete.... Chess would look awesome in one of these: