STEVE YAKKED INTO MY NEIGHBOR'S GARDEN
but he says he was a pro. spam kimchi fried rice is still hella good at ramen house even though it has new owners. stupid phoogie, says laurie. i think his last name's macpainter, though. laurie is macclicky. who's his former student she wants to kill? bill! steve says: thank you, kimi! the food in the opening credits of napoleon dynamite (dy-no-mite!) correspond to the cast member. the four stages of "yeah": 1) what? 2) yeah! 3) okay! 4) yeah! kimi and ali say: all guys like thongs. king dong's dinner B for seven is not bad. going to stonestown to promenade around. the life acquatic is okaaaay, but no royal tenebaums or rushmore. steve's hair is long now. i'm crossing my fingers that it will look like orlando bloom. shleepy!!! all you're good for is stupid. me: ok, do you know what you're supposed to do with the bubble wrap? steve: yeah. pop it one by one!

cry into your christmas cake, don't know what else to do
ah, holidays.
overall it's been pretty nice to be home. the weather is GORGEOUS -- every morning i walk out of the house and say, "damn! so warm!" it's nice to feel sun again, and not have to bundle up when i go out. my friends were complaining about the cold last night, and it was like 50 degrees out. i love it!

had an extremely successful shopping day yesterday (mostly stuff for me), plus i bought some gifts off my mom and sister that they weren't going to give (and i might have regifted a few gifts :P). we went to milk on haight w/frees, ali, margotbot, kimi, braz (aka old man luxury), braz's friends, kat and rich. they had $4 champagne specials for the night, which margot and i were all about. the champagne came in these little red bull-like cans with a straw. nice. at milk they were playing a movie on the screens above the bar that was a very 80s-new york-breakdancing movie. at the end there was a chase on the subway tracks and then a fight and both of them died b/c they fell onto the third rail.

we left milk around midnight and went to mighty, this club in potrero. it's a cool club w/a good looking, mixed crowd, and damn people could dance there. ali, margot, and i all snuck in for free (kimi: "just go, go!") and so we didn't have to pay the $10 cover. it was nice to dance and i miss the sf party crowds (NOT the azn ones). i want to have my next bday there. or maybe this year's bday. it's not too late, right?

going to eugene's party at lit lounge tonight after xmas dinner w/the same crew as last night, anyone else want to join?

email of the day
angus is a bespectacled canadian thom yorke-ish fellow classmate that my roommate has a crush on.

From: Kiera
Date: Wed Dec 22, 2004 08:24:03 AM US/Eastern
To: Lisa
Subject: Re: thanks

I thought I saw Angus, but it turned out to be just a little girl with glasses carrying rolling luggage.

view from bethany and steve's apt.

california, i'm coming home

look who got the cover story this week...

i can't take my eyes off you
i went with my roommates and saw "closer" tonight.
oh my god.
it really gave me a visceral reaction. it's a movie about the relentless brutality and viciousness of love. not the vague broad concept of relationships, but actual love. it's about simultaneously loving and hating someone and yourself, about hurting those you love, and above all, how sex is the ultimate and only weapon in the game of love. it reminded me of the darkest depths of love, shining light on the shady corners of your mind where you can't trust the one you love and you can't trust yourself to do the right thing.
it's a tough movie to watch, no matter what your relationship status is. my roommate lisa walked out and said it made her feel relieved for once that she was single. i couldn't decide if i'm lucky to have someone i love or if i'm ultimately fucked because nothing ever works out happily.
the movie's point is that love is filled with anger, violence, and betrayal. that where you feel most safe is where you are most vulnerable and can experience the most pain. it's for anyone who has cheated, or been cheated on, been hurt, or hurt someone. and i know there are a lot of you out there.
i rarely get a chance to really think about love anymore. i've been hurtling along at breakneck speed for the past year (can you believe it's been a year almost?), and especially the past four months. and for the most part, it's been a string of ecstatic moments. i might have lost sight of my pessimism for the moment.
now that i consider it, sex in the movie might be a metaphor for any act that can hurt someone -- lying, hitting them, cheating, etc. it's all the same. you can give someone your else body, but it's no more or less hurtful than giving them your heart.
i used to believe that no matter how it turns out, good or bad, love is always worth the experience. the movie reminded me that the bad parts can be really bad. but i guess that's how you know it's really love.

so three of the five guys in my RW1 class complimented me on my marc jacobs shoes at our party last night. how crazy is that? and they're all straight! although, i must admit, i had my doubts at first.

one of the most frustrating things about journalism is that your power to make substantive change is so much more limited than if you did direct organizing. because stories are always so focused on what is new or recent, the bigger picture is always absent. and i'm fairly obsessed with bigger picture type stuff. for example, almost every story you'll read about chinatown in nyc is about 1) gangs 2) sanitation 3) underground economy stuff -- knockoff purses and bootleg DVDs. see a trend here? it's all related to illegal activities or breaking laws. it's 2004, and chinese neighborhoods are still shrouded in this aura of illegal activity. and it's not entirely the fault of the media -- it's also the fault of the system's inability to offer better opportunities to these people. it's like we're still in the 1860s when chinese were shut out of all other labor fields b/c of racism and only "allowed" to work in laundries. today the system shuts these people out of the economy and they are forced to do whatever they can to make it, and most of the time it's what's considered "illegal." and the whole knockoff purses and bootleg dvds brouhaha is so infuriating b/c it's so insignificant in the larger scheme of things. who is really losing out? louis vuitton? kate spade? as if the majority of people who buy fakes could even afford the real thing, so how are these huge retailers losing customers? and don't nypd have better things to do anyways? apparently not.

so i just bought a new clock radio in hopes that the radio part will better help me wake up, and i asked steve if i should program it for a music station or NPR, and he said he'd do NPR: "there's a lot of bad music out there. i mean, can you imagine how much it would suck to wake up to the strokes?"

best wipeboard post ever

"Memoirs of a Geisha Guerilla," SF Chronicle

**i highly suggest you read the entire article -- it's very good.**

Tsuchitani saw the exhibition, but is unpersuaded. "For me, it was the museum's choice of using that image and the presence it had in the visual landscape of the city," he says. "It's a loaded image in our culture -- perpetuating the imagery of the sensuous Asian woman, the Asian mystique of the East. It's constructing an idealized 'other,' and for what purpose? While the exhibit may have tried to deconstruct that image, the number of people who actually had their minds changed can't compare with the number of those impacted by that image."

almost....there.....
apparently more people read my blog than i think, so i guess i will update to satiate the masses.

so what's been new. i officially have no more real deadlines for this semester. whoo! it was hard work, i tell you.

i've been making money by temping for steve's work, so i can buy myself something nice from h&m for the holidays. :P some things will never change. it's really cold here in nyc, but some days are milder than others. no snow yet. i look forward to thursdays and sundays, when there is an outdoor sidewalk farmer's market 114th and broadway, and they sell the best hot mulled apple cider ever for only $1. mmm. yum. oh my god, dennis was right. i am bougie!!! fuck.

what else. i'm on a major soon doo boo obsession right now. i must have had it at least 5 times in the past two weeks. it's just so good and warm when it's cold out, AND it's good for you.

i've been going out a few times with the j-schoolers, and i've realized i'm not the man i used to be. a few drinks, and then i've got this headache, and i have to eat something, and then i have to pass out in my clothes on my bed at 9:30 pm. seriously! it's happened twice now. i just can't handle the alcohol like i used to. hopefully it's just a side-effect of the cold weather, and i'll be back to my carousing self in the bay area ;) whatever happened to the shit-talking-ramen-craving belligerent drunk i used to be? steve says it's cuz i'm getting old.

i guess i should say something about the people who have been teaching me and influencing my work here. after much finagling and an unbelieveable meeting with the dean, i've had the great fortune of switching to a new master's advisor. i don't want to write her name here for fear of her googling her name and finding my blog (LAME) but she's really great. she used to write the media column for the village voice, and she also used to work at the new yorker. she's really patient and helpful and supportive, unlike my old advisor. my life is so much easier now. i've also been paired with my very favorite writer from the village voice through aaja's mentor program. i can't wait to meet with her, and she's been very helpful already. i think i'm going to learn a lot from these great folks. my professor for my elective is also really great. i used to call her "yoga lady 500," but now i really respect her. so, as my advisor told me today, it seems i'm surrounding myself with the right people.

that's about it for now. i've got a ton of holiday/birthday/end of semester parties to go to in the next few weeks. whoo!

favorite quote of the night out with the j-schoolers
"hey, i'm an oppressed palestinian! .... anyways, what i really want to do is work for entertainment weekly."

iTunes picks:
"see you soon," coldplay
"this fire," franz ferdinand
"rip it up," razorlight
"turn the lights off," tweet feat. missy elliott
from a basement on a hill, elliott smith

steve's pick (and perennial favorite)
"easy (like sunday morning)" lionel richie

last weekend, steve and i actually had time to do something together that didn't involve stress, my apartment, the new york times, or koreatown. we did one of those typical new york things that we rarely get to do. we bundled up and took a walk in central park.



it was great. it was too late in the season to look at fall foliage and too late in the day to enjoy any sun, but it was lovely all the same. the ice skating rink is already up, and it was packed.



we each had the worst pretzel in the history of pretzels and an unsatisfying bag of nuts. i don't know why i always forget, but central park really has the worst food. definitely bring your own. we trekked through the horse poo-lined walkways and ended up at the plaza hotel. we were in awe of how pretty it is in there -- lots of flowers, chandeliers, and mirrors. by the way, remember that Paris movie theatre from the first episode of the fifth season of sex and the city? where carrie goes and watches a movie by herself? it's right next to the plaza, and it really does show romantic movies, but current ones.

anyways, i know people used to say that i always take pictures of things and none of people, so here is one for you.

heaven!

email of the day
from my roommate

From: Kiera
Date: Thu Nov 18, 2004 05:12:58 PM US/Eastern
To: Lisa
Subject: Re: MUTINY!

what the fuck is k-town?

message from the dean of the j-school

Someone left a Nautica jacket (tan with purple(?) collar) in the deans’ suite yesterday. Winter is coming. If you notice that you’re really cold and your shirt or blouse is blowing in the wind, ask yourself, “where is my jacket?” My assistant has the item.

Take Action!

Abortion Non-Discrimination Act (ANDA)

In spite of what the name might indicate, this legislation does not protect women seeking abortion services from discrimination. Instead, it would allow any health care provider or institution (not just religious entities) to refuse to provide, pay for, or even refer for abortion for any reason. Supporters of this bill claim this is a matter of religious freedom.

With the reelection of President Bush, the conservative right has claimed it is the moral majority in this country. But we know there is nothing moral about preventing women's access to needed health care services.

Speak out against the federal refusal clause and help women maintain access to needed medical services.

launch of my portfolio site (designed by moi) -- http://www.columbia.edu/~lwm2103
bookmark it, love it.

Tonight Get Details | Get Audio
Hourly Weather | AccuPOP™
Heavy rain mixing with snow
Low 33° F

ohmygod.

here's a pic of my rw1 class:


upper: kiera, nicole,alex, katie, lynnell, jaimal, adam, brandon, karen, gina, ivan
lower: wendy, alyssa, alisa, me, shannon, jayanthi, ben

naascon board 2004:

may, james riley, chancey, helen, steph, sam
tom, james, smiley me, bethany
rj and corliss
at usc last weekend

congrats everyone on a great job!

tell me this girl doesn't look like margot

pics from dinner with laurie and mike



at balthazar, a swanky french restaurant in soho (my mom paid for us all to go)

at ñ, a soho bar

i met with my thesis advisor last week, telling her the many many problems i've been having choosing a topic. after unleashing my woes, she looked at me and said, "are you a shy person?"

am i a shy person?

i do hate doing interviews, and i'm very sensitive about asking appropriate questions. but does my reluctance translate to being shy? laugh if you will, but she was definitely implying that i need to grow a backbone to be a better journalist. lame.

excerpt from RW1 midterm evaluation:

"Lisa is an energetic reporter, a lively writer, and a critical thinker who has managed to make some important inroads into the difficult neighborhood of Chinatown from the outset. She has made steady progress since the beginning when she was writing thinly-sourced stories that made one unchallenged point (thanks, hardboiled -- ha!). She is now ferreting out multiple sources, such as she did for a complex immigration tale surrounding ESL classes. I count on Lisa to bring a critical news sense to class discussions. ... She has an instinct for the unusual, for the unpredictable. As I alluded to above, she struggles with finding multiple sources in order to tell a full story, rather than just a piece of it. ... Needs more showing and less telling. She needs to step away from personal opinion more and enter the world of larger analysis in order to truly tap into what will distinguish her as a first-rate journalist in the weeks ahead."

WHOOOOOO!
lisa's first byline: a.k.a proof that my parents aren't wasting $50,000

I am Indie Girl Click on the picture below to read more: Take the 'What Kind of Girl Are You?' quiz at CookingToHookup.com

steven email of the day
From: "Chung, Stephen"
Date: Tue Oct 12, 2004 02:47:26 PM US/Eastern
To: Lisa
Subject: RE: A washingtonpost.com article from: ******@columbia.edu

dont forget to eat salad

annoying columbia j-school kids in the news.

steve talked me out of going to boston this weekend for the basic conference at the last minute. he convinced me by saying that if i didn't go, we would do whatever i wanted to do all weekend. so, it was a weekend of sleeping, eating, and watching tv. whooo!

my prof. used my lede as the class example (again). my roommate says that i am one of the favorites of both of our professors, which is NOT my intention at all. seriously. i'm totally the scowling girl slumping in her seat in the back. but i guess i'm not the worst writer in the class.

steve and i saw michel gondry speak last week. that was ok, it was hard to understand what he was saying.

i spent three days last week temping at steve's work (tfa) tediously making binders. but at least it's some pocket money.

laurie visited. will post pics later.

finally have a chance to catch my breath after all the deadlines earlier this week. whew.

things are really getting going at school. in addition to our bi-weekly neighborhood stories, we've started "spot news," which means we cover an event in one day's time. it's stressful stuff, esp. since this time around we had to come up with our own story ideas related to the state primary election on tuesday. i had no story idea related to the chinatown primary elections, so i was really worried, but then, as always, at the last minute i got a story tip from a source i happened to call. so i schlepped over to flushing and got a great story about problems at the polls. i've also been busy doing informational interviews with a lot of community folks, some of which have been more interesting than others. but i definitely feel like i'm getting a better sense of the neighborhood and its issues. i met with the head of nyu apa studies yesterday since he teaches a class on chinatown and the american imagination, and he was like a breath of fresh air to talk to. he really knew his stuff and was interested in how information circulates, and, what impressed me the most, said that his intro apa course was based on the feminists of color paradigm (i.e. your background -- gender, class, priveleges, etc -- has a huge impact on your experiences, which should always be taken into account when considering ideologies and groups). he also helped me piece together why the apa community scene is so much different here than in the bay.

i also got invited to go to an OCA ny chapter banquet in flushing next friday by a source. yay sources! and yay banquet food. there are a lot of big community folks being recognized there, so i'm excited, and bethany is coming with me.

i feel like i'm learning a lot of many levels every day. it's stressful when there are so many stories to write so frequently, but the process is fun. i've also gotten to know my section classmates a lot better, and i've decided i got a great section, and the majority of them are definitely cool. there isn't so much competition among us as the feeling like we're all in a sinking ship, so we should all be sympathetic and help each other when we can. it's really great. we spend a lot of time outside of class complaining about stories and commiserating about how tough things are, and i think people have put their egos aside after our first stories came back to us with all those comments! so that's the deal with school.

ok i have to run since i'm meeting with the organization i'm going to start volunteering at.

CFW in the news again!

ego-surf of the day: someone clicked to my blog by searching "drunk loud women" on MSN (scroll down).
journalism professor quote of the day: "Celibacy is ruining civilization."

weekend update (sans republicans)
lots of RNC watching -- strange obsession with the bush twins
watched bush's speech with 100 people screaming at the TV screen.
unlimited wings and beer with CFW led to belligerence in rite aid and purchases of riesen and butterscotch candy. as margot would say: MEAT.
said adieu to the margotbot with wine and cupcakes.
bought one of those granny grocery carts in chinatown. it's called a "bunny" cart.
tax-free week in nyc means more shopping. damn you beacon's closet.
saw elaine chao in chinatown at a republican event.
found out my two partners covering chinatown have asian fetish.
watched VMAs with minnie. what happened to mtv?
bethany's birthday tonight on their roof -- watch the whore get faded! :P
new song of choice: "take your mama out," by scissor sisters

email of the day

From: "Chung, Stephen"
To: Lisa W. M.
Subject: RE: tonight

yeah

we built this city on rock n roll
blogging from "GOP R Us"
first and foremost i'd like to start out with a rant about my fellow j-school students: click here for our class blog (how cute). while this might not give you the best idea of what is just so special about my class, this rant by one of them on how racism is not the number one issue facing the African American community will. you may remember him from the much beloved daily cal (does anyone know what year he graduated?). what a fucking prick. and when i say that, i mean the majority of my j-school class. what a bunch of elitist, insensitive, smarmy, ego-centric, passive-aggressive, tongue-in-cheek, self promoting WHITE LIBERALS. why don't you put down your fucking new york times and GET A CLUE. more to come on my class later.

anyways. this weekend was filled with some interesting stuff: 8 arrested for getting naked in front of madison square garden in protest of Bush's AIDS policies in South Africa. 4 arrested for rappelling down the Plaza Hotel to hang an anti-Bush banner. 264 arrested for blocking traffic during Critical Mass. haven't heard about any arrests today, but i'm sure there were many at the United for Peace and Justice rally.

thursday minnie, margot, steve, and i went to a cool bar in williamsburg called alligator lounge, where they serve a free personal sized pizza (!!!) with each drink. that night also happened to be karaoke night. lots of white people singing cheesy 80s (and 90s) music and faux rocking out -- "living on a prayer," "like a virgin," "we built this city," "say it aint so," some radiohead, "with or without you," etc. this one large white guy did a spot-on rendition of shaggy's "angel," much to the shock of all of us, esp. our resident jamaican expert, minnie.

friday after class I went to a taping of Washington Week at NYU, which was pretty cool. it reminded me of when lin and i went to see a taping of Crossfire in DC last summer. click here for a webcast. after that, i checked out an immigrant solidarity speak out thing at st. mark's church, but it hadn't really started yet, and i had to book it to 36th street to go to a briefing on rights for independent journalists held by the ny civil liberties union. that was not that helpful because i wasn't planning to go to the UFPJ rally or get arrested. BUT there was free pizza, including a cheese and broccoli one, be still my heart. that night, i went to a bar around the corner called 1020 (as in 1020 Amsterdam) with some people from my program who are cool. yes, lisa is making friends, against her will of course.




saturday margot, minnie, and i (aka CFDub) crafted some fine lookin tees and posters and went on down to the march for women's lives. we stood in the hot sun for about 4 hours and marched across the brooklyn bridge. will post pics up here when bot uploads them. apa women represent! whoo hoo. it was a very white march, very second wave. oh well.

have to run and write a pitch for a rnc-related story. more updates later.

journalism: masters degree in stalking?
some interesting things found today in our lecture on better internet surfing:
Cooking With Google: you enter what you have in your kitchen, and it will give you recipes you can use with your ingredients
Your Friends and Neighbors: Find out who they are donating to and how much
Missingmoney.com: find out if the govt. owes you or your family any money that you don't know about
nycbloggers.com: who is blogging near you (sorted by subway stop!), or at least who admits to it
kittay??

on another note, the story i wrote last week for our first reporting assignment was used as the class example yesterday! whoo-hoo. it was on how young people in chinatown feel about terrorism (they are blase). neat-o.

pics from my last night in s.f. --

twelve dollars
i think it's because we don't have any groceries to eat in, but for whatever reason, i think i've only eaten in once since i got here. this week we double dated with bethany and the (in)famous jerry at this indian place called pongal, which i've been to a few times before, and people are always saying how their indian friends say it's the best indian food in the city. steve doesn't even like indian food (he had a bad experience), and he mentioned how he wanted to go back there last week, so that says something. i've been slowly moving up in complexity in terms of the dosai i order there, and this time around i tried the onion rava masala (onions, potatoes, cilantro in a crepe) and it was very good. they all kind of taste the same, but they're all great.
afterwards we all went to this bar that our bosses at asianavenue had taken us to oh so many years ago called bar 89. if you click on the link, you'll see it's listed in the website "world's best bars," but it's known less for its drinks and ambiance than its bathrooms. anyways, it is quite sex and the city, and yes, i ordered a tartini (cranberry vodka martini) in my best sarah jessica voice (see season 2 or 3, it's in an episode where she goes to a bar with stanford), and yes, it was $12, but it was delicious (although not strong enough for me), and as i always say, why not be so new york when you're in new york?
last night we hit up this sushi place called yama, which is supposed to have the best sushi in the city, and i remembered it to be quite good last time i went. the sushi was only ok this time. afterwards we stumbled onto a bar called dove bar on macdougal and west 3rd, and it's a really cool chill little bar with deep red walls and kind of victorian-ish living room decor, a cross between alice in wonderland and the victorian punch bar. i liked that place a lot -- instead of bar nuts, they give you these spicy cheese breadsticks served in a teacup and saucer. cute. there are also a lot of seats around the tables, good for groups.

live from new york....

DOH!

itz just j a i (11:01:26 PM): if only margot and you had hooked up as well..then it woulda been a real party

xSgtMeatx (11:03:01 PM): ah well you had your chance

801 luv


801 + freesia before dream (and too many shots and free drinks)



before h20 (the new v.i.p.) (and too many creepy old men and not enough drinks). freesia looks sleepy!!

new guilty pleasure: coffee with defamer first thing in the morning after checking email
examples:

Short Ends: Demi And Ashton Are More Kabbalah Than You

--"Yeah, you heard me right, Britney. My mothafuckin' wedding is more Kabbalah than your mothafuckin' wedding. I'm taking this shit to Is-ra-el."

also: everything you wanted to know about donnie darko* *but were afraid to ask

from this week's "best of the bay" issue, written by yours truly:

Best Place to Hit On Matt Gonzalez
It's hard to find articulate, good-looking, ambitious, mysterious Ivy League men who are passionate about social justice and local politics, isn't it? Well, there's at least one in the city, and you might be able to find him haunting his neighborhood bar, Place Pigalle. The Matrix Fillmore this is not — where else would you find a humble and low-key guy than at a humble and low-key bar? The laid-back atmosphere, good music, and sparse candlelight in this beer-and-wine spot provide the perfect ambience for seduction. Plush couches in the front and back rooms conveniently allow patrons to get, ahem, more comfortable with each other. If opening lines about Gavin, eye contact, and all else fail, grab the peroxide: we've spotted him there chatting up a blond. 520 Hayes, S.F. (415) 552-2671.

Best Place to Meet the Social Justice Activist of Your Dreams
To find true love, forget eDating.com and work on a local, state, or national political campaign. These offices are teeming with new activists, especially young ones, and they're always looking for more help. Check out the presidential campaign, voter drives, and local ballot measures this fall when the get-out-the-vote efforts kick into high gear. Meet smart, passionate, and similarly minded folks at any number of campaign events — you and your politico will always have something in common. Chat up the cutie phone-banking next to you and get those digits. Get sweaty together while precinct-walking in the hills of San Francisco. Cap off your efforts by drunkenly partying with your love interest at the victory party. Get active, get motivated, and possibly get laid in the process.

Best Bar to Clown on Long Island
You don't have to be from New York City to have a superiority complex toward the isle of suburban mall outlets and seagulls, nor should a cosmopolitan city dweller like yourself be forced to imbibe something named in honor of it. Instead, drink to that bleak eyesore we call a "beach" at the Elbo Room, where the sweet Ocean Beach Iced Teas are likely to make you forget all about Long Island, crappy San Francisco beaches, and, well, just about everything else. While the bartenders tend to prepare these particular beverages with a kick so strong that one might be the magic number, the Elbo Room also considerately boasts the longest happy hour in the city, 5 to 9 p.m. nightly — ample opportunity to toast our fine city and be grateful you don't live in that other one. 647 Valencia, S.F. (415) 552-7788.

see DC pics

ten memories from my DC/NYC trip
1) "maybe if the OCA girls were a little bit HOTTER, we wouldn't have to steal their men!"
2) at tryst: me: "is $9 tip enough?"
freesia: "you already paid!!!"
3) random dude at dream who tried to dance with jaime: "who does she think she is, j-lo?"
me: "YEAHHH!!! she DOES think she's j-lo!!!"
4) margot: "salaam bombay!"
5) me, hella loudly in front of a restaurant in adams morgan: "alice, we ate here, remember? it was bad!"
6) clarence to a server's recommendation at a korean restaurant: "oh no, i don't want that."
7) overheard at the natural history museum: "you can't drink a mammal!"
8) overheard at the mall: man, to a young girl: "look over there. what's that building?"
young girl: "the white house?"
man: "no, that's the capitol."
woman: "how was she supposed to know that?"
man: "well, you learn."
9) margot, about me having a red-headed slut at dream: "yeah, drink names are pretty misogynistic."
me: "a red-headed slut could be a guy....prince harry!"
10) me: "oh 'razor bob' is the style of your haircut?? i thought it was the name of your hair stylist!"

kimi: have you heard about the rooney?
me: no
me:.......................

my playmate has been working like crazy lately, so i've been left to my own devices for most of the days.

last friday's "girl's night out" with chizu (visiting from sd for a week), freesia, and kimi was a bust when kimi brought braz and his friends, but it was still fun. jade bar is a cool spot to go and sip love potion #9s, and i hear the mojitos are really good. definitely check it out with your girlfriends, since it seems like most guys don't like the lack of seats and the fact that it's really crowded.

last saturday was day of graduation parties. we went to novato in the north bay for braz's graduation party at his aunt's house, and it was SO GORGEOUS. the weather was so hot i got a little bit of a sunburn sitting out on the deck by the pool. the food was really good -- it was a mix of pilipino food and american food, and it was catered, so they had not only beer ON TAP, but also a MARGARITA MACHINE. margarita machine + lots of sun = all gravy. apparently you can get some really good pilipino food at serra bowl in daly city; braz had some pansit from there, and it was hella good. yes, pilipino food at a bowling alley. his aunt's house was really beautiful, too. all in all very pleasant. we left early and came back to the city to go to kimi's house for her and chizu's graduation party. i could barely eat any more, but of course i had to try. :) they had these yummy wasabi flavored chips.

wednesday we all went out to see napoleon dynamite (again, for me, steve, and kimi). so funny, again!! i was laughing before the movie even started. afterwards we went to mel's on geary where we all laughed about how silly/lame we were freshman year of high school, and how freesia is trying to holler at steven. YOU KNOW YOU ARE!!!! you like puberty mustache!

last night kimi, braz, steve-o, and i went to biff and regan's for a houseparty. they live in hayes valley, and i haven't seen either of them in forever. their place is a great little san francisco apartment -- it's one of those old victorians, and they've got a breathtaking view of the downtown skyline and city hall from their back deck. so nice.

only 19 more days until i leave for nyc, and i'm going to be in DC for 8 of those. i know i'm supposed to see about 30 million people before i leave, including tiffany, peter, james, biff, and regan, and i definitely want to. so little time! kimi is graciously throwing me a going away party before i leave, time and date tba, i think it will be august 3 or 4, so save the date.

p.s. guilty pleasure summer reading -- "the nanny diaries" on audiobook, read by julia roberts

Olympics hurting struggling sportswear workers

The Olympic Games are now one month away and we need your help now to expose a dangerous hypocrisy that's taking place.

The upcoming Olympics are supposed to represent the triumph of humanity, yet the business practices of Fila and the other Official Suppliers of the Games (sportswear giants like Umbro, Puma, Asics, Lotto, Kappa and Mizuno) violate accepted international labor standards!

Click below to join Oxfam America in speaking out against this hypocrisy by sending a free message urging Fila's CEO to ensure that all Fila's workers are paid a living wage, have free access to trade unions, and enjoy safe working conditions.

http://ga0.org/campaign/play/7k38k79pjdi8d8

Ironically, the official promotional theme of next month's Olympic Games is "Celebrate Humanity," yet the workers, mostly women, in Fila's factories are being forced to work extremely long hours for poverty wages in order to produce gear and uniforms for the Olympic teams in time for the games in August. This is no way to "celebrate humanity!"

Oxfam's investigation into Fila's factories in China, Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam, Cambodia and Malaysia found widespread abuses. Workers at one Chinese factory were fined $6 for each mistake they made! Others reported being forced to work until midnight without any advance warning before an export deadline. If they refused, they risked losing their jobs - jobs they needed badly to support themselves and their families.

And these workers have almost no chance to join trade unions to improve their working conditions. Factory managers can and do fire workers who join unions. Knowing this stops most workers from even thinking about trying to unionize.

Help honor the spirit of the upcoming Olympics by pressuring Fila to clean up its act. Click here to send your letter asking Fila to reform its exploitative business practices now:

http://ga0.org/campaign/play/7k38k79pjdi8d8

When you're finished, please help us spread the word by telling your friends about this campaign, and asking them to join you in making Fila play by the rules.

TAKE BACK THE WEB
everyone should drop what they're doing right now and get over to Firefox and download it. we should be applying social justice principles to all sections of our lives, and that includes the internet! plus, microsoft is evil, and firefox is just a better browser, really.

I'm gonna get a lot more visitors to the site after this

from salon.com's letters section:

When Wilder's 2-year-old was holding his Thomas the Tank Engine in the air, he was saying, "Percy," not "Pussy." "Percy" is Thomas's best friend, looks just like him, and is the favorite of most kids (as he is not quite the bootlick that Thomas is). I've known many 2-year-olds to make the same mispronunciation (including my own).

CLASSIC MARGOT-ISM
xSgtMeatx (12:42:13 PM): i kept touching his arm b/c he kept saying stuff and i was sort of hitting him to be lik, uh no you are (wayne's world, iguess). i forgot that most people aren't like wayne's wold
xSgtMeatx (12:42:15 PM): world
xSgtMeatx (12:42:25 PM): too bad

ok short update. does anyone still read this?
things have been really chill. the temp agencies haven't gotten back to me, so i've given up and have devoted my summer to plowing through columbia's suggested and required reading list. books on tape are my new best friend, since i can listen to them on my way to/from berkeley and while at the gym (yes, i'm working out again, close your mouth!). anyone recommend any good books on tape?

been seeing a lot of movies-- napoleon dynamite is so fucking funny, definitely see it, when stoned, preferrably. also saw dodgeball, which was NOT FUNNY and a waste of time and money. also fahrenheit 9/11, on the first weekend, of course. crazy ass lines to see it. it was ok, didn't blow me away like i expected. see napoleon dynamite instead! or rent roger and me.

saw giants/dodgers game a few weeks ago.
hot dog: $5
gordon biersch beer: $6
garlic fries: $6
tickets to see giants beat down the dodgers: free (thanks ali!)
watching steve chant "beat l.a.!": FUCKING PRICELESS

back to dc july 21-28. things to do:
-c-town express and greasy ass noodles and dumplings!
-party like rockstars
-h&m
-see uncle mark at the eeoc
-throw up in front of the white house, like i always wanted to! ;)

It only takes like three seconds
Urge Your Senator to Support Women Refugees!

The case of Rodi Alvarado, a Guatemalan survivor of severe domestic violence currently seeking asylum in the U.S., is pending before Attorney General John Ashcroft. On February 19, 2004, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) filed a brief urging Attorney General Ashcroft to grant asylum to Ms. Alvarado. In its brief, the DHS promises to issue regulations soon that will provide guidance in cases involving similar issues. Members of the Senate led by Senator Clinton (D-NY)and Senator Brownback (R-KS) have joined in support of regulations to govern gender-based asylum claims. Please contact your Senator and express your support for women refugees who have fled gender-based persecution such as trafficking, sexual slavery, honor killing, and domestic violence who are seeking refuge in the United States. Urge your Senator to sign the Clinton-Brownback letter to Attorney General John Ashcroft on this important issue.

To sign on, please visit
http://action.humanrightsfirst.org/campaign/senate_sign_on_gender

To learn more about this issue, see Asylum Protection News #23:
http://www.humanrightsfirst.org/asylum/torchlight/newsletter/newslet_23.htm

summer is becoming really frustrating. plans are dropping left and right, and i've got nothing to do all day. no dc, no la, nothing until nyc. i'm trying to find a way out to dc before nyc, but we'll see.

i'm so comepletely distraught that i won't be able to see the pino when he visits dc, along with my 801 gals, or lin when he visits there over the fourth. i'm reminded daily of all last summer's memories because not a day goes by that i don't talk to someone from the 801/1327 crew. sigh. and i'm stuck here in berkeley...

i've been trying to find a temp job to keep me busy at least. but things are pretty dead. i miss the east coast, but i suppose i'll be getting my fill of it in august. until then, i'll try to enjoy the little things i love about the bay -- like finding new cool bars in unexpected places, spam kimchi fried rice from ramen house, falling asleep during afternoons on the couch in my living room, shopping at mars on telegraph, reading magazines for hours at barnes and noble, and watching steveo be SO SHLEEPY.

help stop displacement of newcomer high school (my mom's work)!

Save SF's Newcomer High School !

- Revoke the Superintendent's decision to place Xcell Academy at Newcomer High School as it will displace 1/3 of the existing students and their teachers.
- Involve immigrant parents, students and their teachers in all future decisions effecting Newcomer High School.

Act now by contacting Superintendent Ackerman and letting her know that you and other members of the community find her actions unacceptable.


June 14, 2004

To Concerned Parties:

Twenty-five years ago the district saw the need and made a commitment to create a special program to serve new immigrant high school students. That s why Newcomer High was established.

• Newcomer is a one year transitional program to prepare immigrant students for regular high schools.

• Newcomer has open enrollment to receive immigrant students whenever they arrive. The population of the school grows throughout the semester. For the fall semester, we began with 309 students and ended with 456. In the spring, we began with 424 and ended with 530.

• Students come with little or no English often under educated. Newcomer has ESL and primary language content area classes so that students receive high school content and acquire English as quickly as possible.

• Immigrant students arrive physically, emotionally, socially, and economically stressed. Newcomer, with its understanding adult and peer support, is a safe environment for them to adjust and learn.

• Many community services come to Newcomer to help students adjust: they include Horizons Unlimited, Chinatown Youth Center, Mission Neighborhood Centers, Inc., Charity Cultural Center of Chinatown.

Six weeks ago, XCEL Academy, a charter school, was offered the third floor of the Newcomer High School building. No member of the Newcomer community was consulted. Newcomer High was only informed of this proposal in the second week of May, at which time the administrators of the two schools were told to discuss the accommodations necessary for receiving the other school. In the first meeting with a district official this past Thursday, June 10th, the members of the Union Building Committee of Newcomer High School were informed that this plan is all but imminent. On Friday, Newcomer received a request to begin the merge and open two rooms for the charter school in the coming week.

While we respect XCEL Academy and its mission, we are still extremely concerned that placing another school onto the Newcomer premises may not be in the best interests of the students of either school. More importantly, we fear that the temporary displacement and diversions required to accommodate the other school will lead to the END of the unique services at Newcomer High School.

Consequences of putting XCEL Academy into the Newcomer High School building:

• Newcomer High must give up 8 classrooms to accommodate XCEL Academy. This means that Newcomer will be giving up 40% of its instructional classrooms. As a result, Newcomer can only accommodate a maximum of 375 students rather than the 530 who currently attend.
• Approximately 130-200 new immigrant students for the next school year will have to be sent out to other high schools.
• Newcomer staff and students may be displaced to other schools.
• The education and welfare of new immigrant students are jeopardized despite a suggestion for the district to set up or reinforce existing ELD programs on other campuses to service new immigrant students who would have otherwise attended Newcomer between now and August.

Some points/facts that were never considered:
• Newcomer currently uses 18 of its 20 classrooms. The remaining two are in constant use: one is for
community service groups, tutoring, and student lunchtime creation; the other is a staff workroom.
• The Newcomer School Site Plan provides 20 teachers for the 2004-2005 school year. Losing 8 classrooms will displace teachers and students.
• Immigrant students arrive highly stressed physically, emotionally, socially, and economically;they require a safe and tranquil environment.
• Students arrive with little or no English often undereducated; they require a specialized instructional program.
• The library and technology room are composed of resources specific to the needs of English learners.
• Many of the resources were purchased with LEP funds and cannot be shared.
• The Newcomer cafeteria only holds 250 students and Newcomer already arranges for 2 lunch periods for its students.
• There are only 2 basketball courts for student recreation.
• The two bathrooms are already overcrowded one for the boys and one for the girls.

If anyone has more questions regarding this issue, please contact the Union Building Committee at Newcomer High School at 415-241-7584
---------------------------------------------------------------------

The following is a sample letter that you can adopt to send along your requests and concerns to the superintendent of schools and to the board of education.

Dear Superintendent Ackerman and the Members of the Board of Education:

I have just heard of the disturbing news that the district plans to put XCEL Academy into the Newcomer High School building. I strongly urge the superintendent to reconsider this decision for the following reasons:

• Newcomer High School is an unique, historic, and internationally recognized program that services immigrant English Language Learners.
• Reducing 40% of Newcomer High School s instructional classrooms even for a proposed one year will adversely affect the education and welfare of immigrant high school students.
• The subsequent diversion of staff and resources may irrevocably damage the current program at Newcomer.
• The community, immigrant parents/students, and Newcomer staff should have input in all decisions affecting the future of Newcomer High School.

The minority, immigrant, and English Language Learners in our district are some of the most vulnerable students in need of our greatest support. Therefore, I beg the superintendent and board members to act with the interests of ALL students in mind. Please find a permanent home for XCEL Academy and preserve the current program at Newcomer High School.

Respectfully yours,




Please send concerns to:
The Superintendent of Schools:
aackerm@muse.sfusd.edu (phone) 241-6121

The Board of Education:
dkelly@sfusd.edu, echin@sfusd.edu, hilesh@sfusd.edu, slipson@sfusd.edu, emar@sfusd.edu, msanche@sfusd.edu, jwynns@sfusd.edu

board office, Esther Casco, 241-6493; fax 241-6429

THANK YOU ALL!

The Community of Newcomer High School

man it's crazy how many people read parry shen's blog andangryasianman. our modest little "are you down?" quiz has caught on fire the past few days, and bot, min, and i are enjoying our 15 minutes of apa internet fame (friendster who?).

anyways, last week i thought of one more thing i wanted to add to the "quiz":
28. Your favorite quote is: "Be the change you want to see in the world. -- Ghandi"

feel free to post any more additions you think of. also, i'd just like to say thanks to all those apa student activists across the country who inspired us to write this. you don't know who you are, BUT WE DO. sucka!

thanks rj!

How to make a Lisa

Ingredients: 5 parts competetiveness 3 parts brilliance 5 parts instinct

Method: Blend at a low speed for 30 seconds. Add a little cocktail umbrella and a dash of curiosity

Username:

Personality cocktail
From Go-Quiz.com

I NEED DC HOUSING!
if anyone knows anyone looking for a roommate or subletter for the summer, please let me know. i'm looking for a place from now through the end of july in washington dc.

THE RETURN OF THE BIG 3??



watch out, dc.

great news: i've been accepted to columbia's journalism school for the fall. i don't think it's fully hit me yet that i'm going back to nyc.
ahhhhh!!! wtf?

PDA!!



who's on thefacebook? i know it's elitist, but great for stalking.

from jai's blog:

Post a memory of me in my comments...
It can be anything you want.
Then post this to your journal and see what people remember of you.

i can still smell barbeque in my hair after showering, which of course means it was a good weekend.

steveo unleashed the koreanness on our friends before the rice show with a bbq and hella good spam-kimchee-fried rice. so. fucking. good! (all my spam fans out there MUST try this)

freesia came up with a good theory: all asian am. guys who are from anywhere besides the bay area dance like white guys. the only exception to this are pilipino guys and gays. so true. smiley much?

oh, and re: the "are you down?" quiz below: please do not post on your blog/send to your friends/etc. without putting our names on there. we don't want it to get around the internet and have it be all anonymous. we're fame whores, we know.

i can't believe it's may already. has it really been one year since graduation? good luck to everyone finishing up their last days of college. it's a jungle out there.

Dine for a Change -- Together we can end sexual assault

 Dine at participating restaurants for breakfast, lunch, or dinner (or all three!) on Thursday, May 20th and support San Francisco Women Against Rape, the city’s 30-year-old rape crisis center. Each restaurant will donate a portion of their proceeds to support critical services for survivors of rape and sexual assault. Let’s work together to promote healing and get these restaurants full of conscious people on May 20! Be sure to mention to the restaurant that you’re there to support SFWAR. (All restaurant addresses below).

Aperto Restaurant
1434 18th St@Connecticut
252-1625          

Atlas Café
3049 20th St@Alabama
648-1047          

Aux Delices
2327 Polk St@ Green
928-4977

Bissap Baobab
2323 Mission St@19th
826-9287          

Boogaloos
3296 22nd St@Valencia
824-4088

Charanga        
2351 Mission St@ 20th
282-1813                      

Dolores Park Café
501 Dolores St@ 18th  
621-2936          

Dottie's True Blue Café
522 Jones St@ O'Farrell
885-2767          

Estela's Fresh Sandwiches
250 Fillmore @ Haight
864-1850

Habana Bar y Restaurante
2080 VanNess@ Pacific
441-CUBA

Jakarta           
615 Balboa St@ 7th
387-5225          

Jays Cheese Steak    
3285 21st St@Valencia
285-5200                      

Little Baobab 
3388 19th St@Mission
643-3558          

Magnolia Pub Brewery
1398 Haight St @ Masonic
864-7468          

Mariachi's Taqueria  
508 Valencia St@ 16th
621-4358          

Metro Caffe
247 Fillmore St@ Haight
621-9536

Notes from the Underground Café   
2399 VanNess @ Green
775-7638                      

Papalote         
3409 24th St@Valencia
970-8815          

Pho Phu Quoc
1816 Irving St@19th Ave
661-8869          

Rosamunde's
545 Haight St@ Steiner
437-6851

Tallula
4230 18th St@ Collingwood
437-6722

Tita's Hale 'Aina        
3870 17th St@ Noe
626-2477

At SFWAR, we believe that no single individual, organization, foundation, or business alone can stop the epidemic of sexual assault, but by responding as a whole community, we each bring our piece of the solution. Please join us on Thursday, May 20th and Dine for a Change.

Need a Recommendation?
Having a meeting? Do it at a café(Metro Caffe, Dolores Park Cafe, Notes from the Underground, Atlas Cafe). 

Going on a date? Go to a nice restaurant (Tallula, Habana, Charanga, Aperto). 

Need a little fun? Eat at one of these places (Little Baobab, Bissap Baobab, Magnolia Pub and Brewery). 

In a rush? Try some fast food (Jay’s Cheesesteak, Papalote, Estela’s, Mariachi’s). 

Late Breakfast? Relax at these yummy spots (Dottie’s True Blue, Tita’s Hale Aina, Boogaloos, Doloros Park Café)

Catching up with friends? Try something different (Aperto, Aux Delices,Jakarta, Pho Phu Quoc, )

Restaurants by Neighborhood:
Portrero Hill –Aperto Restaurant, Atlas Café
Mission– Bissap Baobab, Boogaloos, Charanga, Dolores Park Café, Jays Cheesesteak, Little Baobab, Mariachi’s, Papalote
Downtown and Tenderloin – Aux Delices, Dottie’s True Blue Café, Notes from the Underground Café
Haight – Estela’s Fresh Sandwiches, Habana Bar y Restaurante, Jakarta, Magnolia Pub and Brewery, Metro Caffe, Rosemunde’s
Castro – Tallula
Noe Valley– Tita’s Hale ‘Aina
Sunset – Pho Phu Quoc

l.a. trip update

steven insisted on bumping "yeah" hella loud and rolling down the windows while driving around. and hella mugging. koreans.

he also insisted on taking like 5000 pictures of k-town signs.

capitol records building

r2d2 and c3po footprints at mann's chinese theatre!!!!! darth vader's were also there, but they were just regular footprints.

i don't really love l.a., but i got some love for the erotic museum....

neat-o mural off of hollywood blvd

Are You Down?
The Code for Being a Young AA/APA/APIA/AAPI Activist

By Minnie Y. ’04, Margot S. ’04, and Lisa W. M. UC Berkeley ’03 (guest writer of UC Berkeley’s Hardboiled).

One point for each question answered in the affirmative.

1. You own a BlackLava t-shirt. (+1 if you have the V. Chin shirt, +2 if you wear it to Asian American events.)
2. You own a spoken word CD.
3. You are or once were a spoken word artist. (+1 If you performed in a skinny scarf and spaghetti strap tank top.)
4. You hate Abercrombie & Fitch and dog on Asian Americans who wear it, even if they bought it pre-boycott.
5. You think Yuri Kochiyama is totally rad!
6. You own an autographed copy of “Better Luck Tomorrow.” (+1 If you were on the street team for BLT.)
7. You have a poster of one or both of the following: 1. Che 2. Malcolm.
8. You HELLA think that San Francisco is the center of the universe and the APA Movement.
9. You dyed your hair bright red at one point.
10. You protest the Euro-centric, hegemonic, patriarchal, heterocentric, capitalist petty bourgeoisie of THE MAN.
11. You are a “brother” or “sister” of the “The People’s Movement.”
12. Instead of saying “goodbye,” you say “peace”.
13. You have a Xanga, are on Friendster, and were a part of Asian Avenue.
14. You write your Friendster testimonials in Spoken Word verse.
15. You AIM name includes the words “Angry” or “Asian” or “Yellow Brown Power.”
16. If you wear glasses, they must be the thick, plastic, black rimmed glasses to show the world how intellectual you really are.
17. You are an APA conference whore.
18. You cried the first time you heard “I Was Born with Two Tongues”. (+1 If you actually cried and not just claimed you cried.)
19. You majored in, minored in, or helped start Asian American Studies at your school.
20. You only listen to hip hop and only really enjoy Talib Kweli or Dead Prez.
21. You have read one, part or all of the following: The Autobiography of Malcolm X, Fast Food Nation, Stupid White Men, or anything by bell hooks.
22. You’re so underground, you’re fucking magma.
23. As you chain smoke, you intellectualize how nicotine is the tool of THE MAN.
24. Every time you watch TV or movies, your Asiandar kicks in. (“Look! Asian woman’s arm in the back! WHAT WHAT!”)
25. You mad dog Asian women with White boyfriends (minus 1 if you've ever had a White boyfriend; minus another 1 if you actually admit you had a White boyfriend, but you swear it was when you were really young and before you became down).
26. You hate on AZN Asians as much as White people, if not more.
27. You hate on Asian fraternities or sororities, but used to go those parties before you were down (minus one if you ever pledged an Asian
sorority, minus two if you were a Little Sis).

If you scored 21 or more:
Congratulations, Poster Child de La Revolución. You’re so down, you’re abajo. After finishing your manifesto and reaping vegetables in your biosphere, we’ll see you at ECAASU 2005, fool. Paz.

11- 20:
Poseur. What’s up, poser? Put down that copy of Audrey and read Asian Americans: The Movement and the Moment already. Practice raising your fist and looking hard in the mirror when no one's looking.

0 – 10:
You’re a tool of THE MAN. Proceed immediately to San Francisco and get a picket sign already.

Minnie Y. ’04 is a part of the Chinese Filipina What?! (CFW) club. Lisa W.M. UC Berkeley ’03 is not only a CFW founder, but she’s also a member. Marg0t S. ’04 tries to be the “C” in CFW.

so i'll be a shadowboxer, baby
it's been a great week. returned from a mentally/emotionally exhausting dc/nyc trip (my third trip in three weeks) with coffee jitters and a case of sleep deprivation bordering on delirium. but i've relished being back in the warm hug of the bay area for the past few days, and we've been eating really well. thursday night we decided to save money and eat in for a change. i made my mom's nationwide famous chow fun--hadn't made it in quite a while, but i aced it. we pigged out and passed out in a greasy, but happy food coma. the next morning i made my specialty, the salmon-green onion scramble over sticky rice. later in the afternoon we knocked back a few pints at the bear's lair, just like old times with anne. they've totally descrated upper sproul, such a shame.

friday night steve made a crab dinner--SO GOOD. we conked out again, woke up around 1:30, and went to thalassa for a last-call vodka tonic and then top dog for a late-night snack. saturday we went with alex to the oyster and beer festival in north beach. it was crazy crowded, but the sun was out, and there were beer and oysters, so all was good. the beer lines were too long, so we got some 24 ouncers at a corner store and sat on a stoop with our seafood and liquor. and, for those wondering, oysters actually are aphrodisiacs. damn, they are. we ended the night with the stoners at a korean restaurant on telegraph (i wimped out and got chicken katsu) followed by manhattan at home.

cd resurrection of the moment: fiona apple, tidal

dupont circle, washington, dc, march 2004


big sur, march 2004

i've decided a blog is basically a surrogate boyfriend, so now that i have a legit SO, i've abandoned my blog. sorry, my faithful readers, updates will be sporadic.

honolulu, march 2003

oh man. the sky opened up to me this morning at 6 a.m. driving into the city. it was creamy yellow and shiny blue and there were no clouds to interfere. the commuting cars streamed quietly into the city via the bay bridge, and i had visions of coffee. such a beautiful sight.

You're France!

Most people think you're snobby, but it's really just that you're better than everyone else.  At least you're more loyal to the real language, the fine arts, and the fine wines than anyone else.  You aren't worth beans in a fight, unless you're really short, but you're so good at other things that it usually doesn't matter.  Some of your finest works were intended to be short-term projects.
Take the Country Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid

roads
in hawaii, i stuck my nose in julian barnes' talking it over, and there's an interesting distinction made in the story, between falling in love and being in love. you see how falling in love is different from "the chase"? i hate it when people say they love "the chase" -- it sounds so vulgar and void of emotion. i feel like the chase delineates the hanging out, the "i'm breezy" phone calls, and the "it's not a date" dates part, the "do you like me?" bit. who could really like prefer that part of it? sure, it's an essential component, but it's also so juvenile, so middle school, like eating animal crackers before your soy sauce soaked tender veal cheeks. falling in love is different from the chase. it's the time of discovery, of "firsts," of having to be near each other all the time, of being perfectly content to lie in bed all day and chat, stuff that slips away after a while, when you settle into the comfortable and somewhat complacent "being in love" phase. the "being in love" phase definitely has its perks, but i think overall i prefer the falling in love part the best out of everything. it only happens once in the relationship and for a finite amount of time, which makes it all the more sweet.

it's a weird feeling, being able to see the end from the beginning. relationships are supposed to be full of promise starting out, but i think there's also a sense of fatality there, an unshakeable feeling that the end (as inconceivable as it seems) will be bloody or at the very least turbulent. there is no modern romance.

---------------------------------
an interesting read: the politics of the lonely crowd

flurry of updates before i'm off to pass out for a minimum two hour nap so i can be sufficiently awake and coherent before getting faded tonight at scott's:
- i'm going to be in dc mar. 25-28 and then nyc mar. 28-30, and would love to meet up with anyone in the vicinity of those areas at those times
-going to see the yyys next tuesday at the fillmore (read the interview and see why karen o is my idol)
-still waiting to hear from one more grad school, but it's a real reach, so it looks like i'll be off to maryland come june
-hawaii pics to come

off to hawaii for a week. be back next wednesday. it's a tough life, i tell you.

a reaction to some soft skin
all of my close friends seem to have sex on the brain, and i love it. nothing makes me happier than hearing (and subsequently retelling) people's sexual misadventures. these include the confusion surrounding omnipresent pads, post-coital crying, signs from god that you shouldn't be having sex, and the standoff over who should be buying the condoms (answer: ALWAYS the guy). i love marvelling at the draughts (two years!!) and the floods (five guys in five months), both of which i heartily commend.

people always seem to be talking about relationships, too: what to do about a guy who doesn't share your political beliefs or your level of emotional detachment, the inability to find the proper time to break up with a boyfriend (answer: after LSATs), how to deal with exes lurking around every corner, and the urban myth (recently discovered to be true) of successfully turning a hookup into a relationship. people spend so much time looking for and endlessly analyzing signs of love or desire, it's crazy.

anyways. keep those stories coming. :)

---------------------------

also, dirty dancing: havana nights: WHO'S COMING WITH?? diego luna is fucking hot.

and, there are really few things sexier than a guy recommending a book to you that he thinks you'll enjoy and loaning you his copy. :D

ok this one's for sam, who i know will probably read this tonight because he's the type of guy to check blogs on a friday night (it's not an insult!):

finally gave in and watched goddamn vanilla sky. i saw abre los ojos (the original version of the film) one random saturday night in england with my flatmates in jenna's room when it was on the bbc or itv or something. abre los ojos gave me fucking chills, and i couldn't sleep a wink that night (ask sam, i think i called him). it was a total mindfuck; it was unexpected, it was visceral, it was about science, and arrogance, and love, and physical beauty, and utter ugliness, and sex, and the completely fabricated line between dreams and reality, and the lengths people will go to in order to blind themselves to things they can't handle or don't want to see. even the title, "open your eyes," has so much more meaning than "vanilla sky."

damn, do i have a bone to pick with cameron crowe -- he has this annoying tendency to simplify everything, to sanitize it, and he throws in all these unnecessary pop culture and music references (which is probably why sam likes him so much; cameron crowe is the nick hornby of film). cameron crowe took the soul out of abre los ojos and replaced it with tom fucking cruise. also, he's really got a thing for conventionally beautiful women -- kate hudson? penelope cruz? he fetishizes them with his camera, and it's just too easy for men to fall in love with them. i dunno, i think his movies aren't very challenging, that's all. it's not a bad movie, i suppose, but it didn't give me chills.

OH MY GOD it's fucking true!!!!!! all the guys i know are "the boy next door"!!

if you are a guy and you took the test in the last post, and you're NOT the boy next door, please leave a comment, so i know the apocalypse isn't near.

on a related note, it seems the girls are, well, girlish: two girls i know are "the priss" and one is "the sonnet." wtf, gender roles?

got this test from corliss:

The Wild Rose
    Colorful, but unpicked. You are The Wild Rose.
    Prone to bouts of cynicism, sarcasm, and thorns, you excite a certain kind of man. Hoping to gather you up, he flirts and winks and asks you out, ultimately professing his love. Then you make him bleed. Why? Because you're the rare, independent, self-sufficient kind of woman who does want love, but not from a weakling.
    You don't seem to take yourself too seriously, and that's refreshing. You aren't uptight; you don't over-plan. Romance-wise, sex isn't a top priority--a true relationship would be preferable. For your age, you haven't had a lot of bonafide love experience, though, and this kind of gets to core of the issue. You're very selective.
    The problem is them, not you, right? You have lofty standards that few measure up to. You're out there all right, but not to be picked up by just anyone.

"You're never truly single as long as you have yourself."
ALWAYS AVOID: The Bachelor
CONSIDER: The Vapor Trail.

WTF IS THE VAPOR TRAIL!?!?!?

for the koreaphiles (you know who you are, and yes, you should hang your head in shame!)
from an interesting la weekly article on k-town, courtesy of g-lo:

All this talk of movie stars leads the conversation back to American misconceptions about Koreans — this time in Hollywood.

“On TV and in the movies,” says PK, “the order of sexy guys is always white, black, Latin, vibrators, Asian guys. We’re always below the vibrators.”

where's the love, east coast?
so this handy site tracker thing shows me where people are reading my blog from, and every time i check it, i always hold my breath in hopes that it will be 50% west coast and 50% east coast. i guess i like to think my blog has bicoastal appeal or something, or that my east coast friends will represent. alas, it's usually 85% west coast and like 10% east coast, with the other 5% coming from random people searching for things like the "restaurant from seinfeld" or "hemingway + the lost generation" or "sexy resume" (seriously). but lately, the east coast has been coming up, and yesterday we were at 65% west and 25% east. not bad, but where's the love, east coast?!? (god, i'm lame)

well the freak weather has left us, and we're back to foggy windy rain, which is somewhat comforting. i can't decide if i'm a warm weather person or a cold weather person. i used to love love love the sun (who loves the sun? who cares that it makes plants grow?), but i dunno, i think i'm probably more of a cold weather person simply because it's more romantic (ne ho romantic-ahhh), and i like the whole long coats/sweaters/scarfs/long-hair-flying-about-in-the-wind-thing (except i don't have long hair anymore, boo). but you know what the one good thing about warm weather is: miniskirts. ;) are you more of a warm weather or cold weather person? (ok that was pretty lame too)



i saw the dreamers on friday with regan, which was an interesting experience. did anyone else see it? it definitely leaves an impression on you. it's rated nc-17, and there's tons of nudity and explicit sex, but strangely, i was totally turned off after watching it. i was like, ew, is that what it really looks like?!?! the french guy in the film is MAD HOT though, and, as miguel said after seeing the matrix reloaded last year, i wet myself like five times. it's a nice-looking movie, but plotwise it's a little heavy-handed.

listening to: death cab for cutie's transatlanticism on permanent repeat (thanks to the margotbot aka columbia house)
reading: candy by mian mian

oh jake

love is for suckers
about to start my new internship, and today was our first meeting. i'm really really excited about this gig; it's something i've wanted to do for years. i actually interviewed for and was offered this same internship the summer after my sophomore year, but i turned it down to go to new york city. i briefly wondered today how things would have been different if i had taken the internship here instead. briefly. i'm feeling like, after a long break, this is a good step on the right path of what i really want to do in life.

so my first task is to write a "superlist", which is basically a list on any topic i choose, but it has to be comprehensive, so it has to be something where there aren't 10,000 items. if anyone has any good ideas, let me know. it can be about anything in the city.

things have been really relaxing in the city this week -- i didn't have any commitments or deadlines, and the weather has been absolutely beautiful. i've actually been wearing sunglasses out. for you poor frozen east coasters, the weather's been about low 60s here, which means you don't need to wear a jacket until nighttime. absolutely lovely. freesia and i had lunch at this great little patisserie on guerrero and 18th called tartine. the food is so so good, but a little on the pricey side. definitely the place to go for ham and cheese croissants on saturday morning. i miss paris like crazy (and am in desperate need of a shopping spree in london).

well i suppose i should say something about valentine's day. it's not a big holiday for me, just another excuse to drink. my associations with valentine's day and boyfriends are overall pretty negative, save one: way back in seventh grade, my boyfriend at the time gave me a silver necklace with a heart pendant that had an "L" on one side and "Love, Eric" on the back (his family owned a jewelry store). yes, i was a golddigger even then.

but you don't want to hear the good stuff, do you? you want the dirt, of course, you cheeky thing, you. so i will tell you, even though my ex-boyfriends do read this blog. but i do it all for you, my faithful readers: i broke up with one boyfriend the week before valentine's day, and a few years later i got into a horrendous fight with another one to the point where we almost broke up. thinking about the latter today, i had forgotten how bad that fight was--we had fought about something that i can't even remember anymore, but it was so intense that it brought us to the brink of ending the whole thing. instead, we decided to not speak to each other for a few days and to spend some time thinking about it while i went for a weekend break to edinburgh. i remember that before i left i got a very nice valentine's day present from him in the post (the mail). i thought it was a sign that he had gotten over whatever we were arguing about and that things were fine again, but it turned out that he had sent it before we had the fight. that was probably the worst fight we had in our entire relationship. oh l'amour.

within you without you
there's this scene that always haunts me from annie hall: annie and alvy are about to sleep together, except she wants to smoke pot first but he doesn't want her to be under the influence while they're having sex. so they forge ahead without the weed, but a transparency of herself steps outside of her body and goes to sit on a chair nearby, watching the scene from a distance, slightly bored. alvy asks her if she's alright, says it seems like she's not really there with him, but she assures him that she is. that scene pretty much captures the state of things for me these days.

i've had to learn how to separate my mind and emotions (yeah, i've got a few) from my body, and it hasn't been the most pleasant experience. your body does one thing while your mind sits on the chair next to the bed, wishing it had brought a book along to pass the time. and you can't help but slightly miss the old times, when your heart and your body were one, when you had a heart, when you weren't jaded beyond belief, when you believed in love and romance and first kisses and the meaning of love songs and fluttering heartbeats and holding hands and coy glances and things unspoken but understood. but you wake up blinking one bright sticky sober morning with dry contacts and a dry mouth, and the radio's been on all night, and you ponder what it would take to bring those two things (your emotions and your body, that is) back together, and if you even want those things to be back together. you stare at the ceiling, thinking back to a time without secrets, when things happened spontaneously, when you didn't have to worry about mutual friends, or the past, or an uncertain but surely volatile future, and the judgment of your peers. but you can't think about all this right now, because after all, your body is still in that bed and you have to put a wan smile on your face.

excerpted from my favorite column, putting some perspective on the janet jackson super bowl debacle:

So outraged was the populace that Michael Powell, sanctimonious head of the FCC, he of the flagrant corporate whoring who recently tried to cram through new rules that would've allowed a handful of media giants to own almost every media outlet in the nation, is actually launching a probe into the Janet episode. How cute.

This is the message: A woman's bare breast is a horrific and disturbing thing, completely inappropriate for an afternoon of wholesome macho homoerotic skull-bashing NFL violence and endless hours of nauseating commercial crassness -- unless the woman is, you know, a cheerleader. Now rush off to bed kids, and read your Bibles while Mommy and Daddy pop some Zoloft and Levitra and crack a few Bud Lights and head off to the fetish dungeon to lick our new Ford GT. Got it.

Yes, a woman's flesh is unspeakable evil. However, umpteen erectile-dysfunction commercials and crotch-biting pisswater Bud Light commercials and toxic-junk-food commercials and faux-macho truck commercials and the ad featuring two old people beating each other up over a bag of greasy potato chips, why, that's just tasteful, healthy capitalism. Is that it, Mike? Politicians? Just want to be clear.

Because there is no outcry. There are no snide FCC honchos or uptight politicians hurling the terms "vile," "disgusting" and "crude" at the true poisons of the culture, like those above -- not to mention politicians' own oil cronyism or easy lies about war, or the decimation of our foreign policy. You want to talk vile and disgusting, senator? Have you seen the new BushCo budget?

...

But in the final analysis, which is more harmful to your innocent unsoiled perfect child? Hearing Bono say "this is really fucking brilliant" during the Golden Globes and ogling Janet Jackson's PR-happy breast for all of 1.7 seconds, or the endless stream of blood-soaked images of BushCo's bogus war machine interspersed with never-ending commercials featuring misogyny, bestiality, cheap beer and toxic sodas, along with arrays of pneumatic bleached-toothed cheerleaders doing the splits while sweaty 300-pound men in tights pulverize each other like gorillas on meth?

Verily, congressman, and truly, Mr. Powell, why are you not out there screaming and clenching your fists and protecting our innocent children from the endless array of sociocultural lies and abuses and corporate whorings you yourselves support and help perpetuate?

Why are you not, in short, ranting about the need to protect our children from the likes of, well, you?

i was catching up on current affairs (i.e. reading US weekly and Lucky) at borders at stones today with jokey, and i came across this article about the sf dating scene. it was a boring read, but an interesting acronym caught my eye: "I started talking to a guy, who was not only too young but also GU (geographically undesirable, because he lived in Mountain View)."

although i will freely admit to having a superiority complex when it comes to being a san frncisco native, i've never necessarily marked a guy down for where he lived.

HAVE I?!?!?!

thinking back, it might be subconscious. my friends love to essentialize people based on where they grew up or what school they go to, but it's all a joke....right? is it really ok to judge a guy based simply on where he hangs his hat?

on second thought, i'm not sure if this writer labeled the guy as GU because Mountain View is so far from The City or just because it's Mountain View. one can be GU if one lives too far away; but one could also be GU if they live in a place that's, let's say, culturally impaired. but if the latter is the case, i'd say about 94% of American guys even qualify to be GD (geographically desirable), since only one city really gets respect from sanfrncscans, and there aren't that many guys who live in new york city. personally, the only other city besides nyc that i would consider GD is berkeley: oakland thinks it has more street cred than sf, san jose is too far, and all the other places in the bay are suburbs (enough said).

but this GU thing really got me thinking: as if guys don't have enough to be insecure about (not tall enough, not cut enough, bad dancer, bad breath, etc.), now they have to worry about whether or not they live in a GD place. it can probably be proven, though, that the further one lives away from a major metropolitan area, the less action one can expect. i mean, seriously, what would you say to a guy who said "Hey, come back to my place....in Mountain View"?

how is it february already??
on friday for some reason i can't remember at the moment g-lo suggested i set up a counter on my site, to track who is reading my blog. i guess i wasn't really that drunk cuz i remembered the website the next day and set one up. scratch that, the site isn't hard to remember, and i was faded to the point where i was sitting there "listening" to steve pontificate about hb allthewhile thinking "goddamn. i'm faded." the point is i've got a counter now, and i can see you muthafuckas. yeah, YOU. it's weird, someone actually found my site through miguel's blog. odd. STALKERS!

moving on. i've realized that my ex-boyfriends have all gone on to be better at things that i considered myself talented at -- one's currently in journalism school, and another is just a better goddamn writer than i am, the fucker. i'm not sure what the other one's up to, but i'm sure he's better at something that i think i'm good at, too, like parallel parking or kissing or drinking or mocking. something, damn him. as the woefully underrated nikka costa said, everyone's got their something -- i guess, but why do they all have to take mine?

i was in berkeley three times last week. on a not unrelated note, i cracked the 1PM wake-up, a few times, as well. i am a goddamn lazy ass bastard! if you see me online at 1 PM, and i've just signed on, please call me a lazy ass bastard, cuz I AM.

now that my teeth aren't bothering me anymore, i've been eating like crazy recently trying to gain the weight back, trying to put some junk in my trunk to make cherry proud to call me pilipina. speaking of, my dad just put up a new painting of his in the living room, and i love it. it's a really serene ocean landscape, with tiny yellow birds, a big rainbow, and a happy little boat sailing off to warm clear waters you can swim in. i told dad how much i liked it, and he said, "when i die, i want you to remember: i am the boat." my dad's the cutest, and he can cook a fish like no one.

i'm not sure what it is, but there was way too much sexual tension last week. is it that whole feb. 14 thing? *eye rolls*

and now, a list of small obsessions:
"me, myself, and i," beyonce knowles, remixed with the "uptown baby" (tariq and peter gunz) beat
"yeah," usher feat. luda and lil jon: DAMN YOU JOKESTER. DAMN YOU.
persepolis, by marjane satrapi: my second graphic novel; in sam's words: "Lisa, what has happened to you? You've changed, you've definitely changed."
"toxic," britney spears: i know, i know, my ibook's going to hell because i downloaded it, but it's still a good song.
"go it alone," noonday underground
"scream," and "let's talk turkey," ima robot: no one trusts me about this ima robot thing, for some reason, but you'll see. you'll see!
"a favor house atlantic," coheed and cambria
the grey album, dj danger mouse
"inside of love," nada surf

who are these people?
haven't blogged a real entry in a while, too busy with my ziggy stardust lifestyle. here goes.

so you think you know a person, but you really don't. even the people you see every day, for say, eight weeks, or ten weeks, or 23 years. how well do you really know them? it's even more strange when you grow close to people in a short period of time in an isolated place away from home, and then, when you see them again, it's as if they're totally different people. you notice things about them that you amazingly overlooked before. makes you wonder if you ever really knew them at all, or if the person you knew was somehow incapacitated in an accident and this person is just masquerading as them, or if it was all just a facade from the beginning. i guess it's the ultimate truth that we are products of our immediate environments, that we can change chameleonlike to fit the situation. we can change our spots, bringing some characteristics to the forefront while drawing back others.

and i'm no better than anyone in this way, not even bitch-ass girls who blog shit about me and my friends while being nice to our faces. if anything, i'm probably worse. with each new section of my life, i've been able to successfully reinvent myself, improving upon each previous version. there's a drastic difference between personal growth and reinvention. the point is that when you live in the moment, like most of us do, it's hard to really know what's real. we try on different hats, different personas, see what works, what sticks to the wall. but i like to think my core values stay the same, although my actions might not, and i haven't actually changed so much to the point where people who knew me before would say about me, "who is this person?" i think i treat people the same across time and locations, and i definitely don't front about how i feel about someone. as most of you know, i have a really hard time masking on my face what i'm thinking. and why should i?

one of the most unforgivable traits i find in women is deceit. i say in women specifically because i feel women are more predisposed to deceit than men and more adept at it. honesty, almost brutal honesty, is something i will always welcome in both men and women. most people will say it's one of the foremost traits of my character.

...or is it?