Huh?

Okay, so I haven't posted in foreeeeeever. Forever of course being a week. But alot has happened in that week, most notable: I finally got my visa, in hand, attached in my passport with my I-20 in an envelope (for what reason, I have no clue) stapled to said passport.

Today is a day that merits celebration.

Anyway, in other news, I have not progressed with my thesis proposal, which I was supposed to have done, printed and bound while here in Thailand. Whether or not that happens remains to be seen. Also, Maya will be here for a few days, so I will be hanging out with her, going shopping and probably melting in the heat. Then it is possible that I might get some work done. Notice I said possible, not will, or definite, or anything that indicates that I most certainly will get alot of work done. Just making sure I cover all the bases here so I'm not lying to anything, most importantly myself. Which I am very much inclined to do is such circumstances.

Have a great weekend!

The sun'll come ooooouuuut, tomorrow!

Actually, it came out today as I was waking up at five in the morning. Partly from jetlag and partly because I was so nervous about my visa appointment today. Honestly, from six a.m. (when my brain actually began functioning) to let's say...11 a.m., I was the biggest ball of nerves I have ever been.

But before I regale you with details of my morning (which I'm sure you're curious about), let me say that my last post was, less than efficacious (woohoo thesaurus), but things are better now, and hopefully they will be for the remainder of my stay here. In my mind, I am free to be as bitchy as I want when I'm in San Francisco, but not when I'm home with my parents.

Hmm...onto the visa stuff, I had planned to do a detailed play-by-play, and while typing it realised that it was as boring as a textbook, and written like a Rosie O' Donnell blog, cryptic and just plain weird. So let's just say, my dad wasn't allowed in, I got more nervous with every step, waited in a room for an hour for my number to called (air conditioned, thank goodness), got to the desk and the only question I was asked was "Why in the WORLD did you go to Fresno?" Loved the interviewer, good humoured guy and nice to boot. So all those nerves weren't for nothing, but it was a huge relief off my shoulders, and even though I was out of there at 9, I didn't even start relaxing until hours later.

Yesterday went to the design library at Emporium TCDC, registered (which was an oddly laborious process) and hung out there with Michelle and Golf reading and learning how to use the library. Went for ramen afterwards, which was very tastey, got the Japanesse-style ramen, burned my mouth, but still loved it. Put some pictures of the Orchid Fair on my flickr. More in a few days!

P.S.

Before I forget, I discovered this great cartoon that (for whatever reason) have fallen in love with: PUCCA!

Pucca and her love interest, Garu.

I was (of course) UBC's (or TrueVision, whatever the hell that is) cartoon channel Spark! and saw this show that has minimal dialogue, and the dialogue they did have was in English (score!). The cartoon is just really cute, the graphics are super clean and simple, which I love, and it's pretty entertaining. Unfortunately, I only watched it that one time, and have been hunting for it ever since. Damn UBC.

Did you know....

....that they restrict certain websites here? I can't access the Seattle PI website because of said restrictions, it's a newspaper site, of course they're going to have scandelous subjects on that website. Anyway, the biggest problem so far is that I can't look at any blogger websites, either because the internet is too slow or because the website is restricted. So that's just a big pain in my ass.

Meanwhile, yesterday I went out with Michelle, and of course ate up a storm. I will simply do a food log, because other than that, all we did was wander around Siam Square, Siam Center and Siam Paragon, since neither of us wanted to buy anything. We started out at Ice Monster, ate ice covered in red bean and green tea with (vanilla?) ice cream on top. Very, very tastey, will go back again, but not to sit, because it's just too crowded in there. The next food stop (hours later) was popcorn, we chose cheesy and sweet (not mixed, just...in the same box) and munched on that...after a while we moved back to Siam Square and went to Baan Khun Mae and ate pla sumlee daad deow (cottonfish with sliced mango and carrot?), po pia tod kung (shrimp spring rolls) and tom yum kung (spicy soup with shrimp). I accidentally ended up eating a full pikinew (tiny superfire chilli) which was one of the most painful experiences of my life, but everything was great, okay, except for the plang plang of the "authentic" Thai instruments in the background. Good third day back. But very hot.

Beauuuutiful Girl....

Damn song... My sister played me this "old style/reggae song with a twist" the other day, and of course, being as catchy as it is, and as one-track-mind as I am, I can't get the damn song out of my mind. And on top of that, I need to through all this U.S. bull-junky that I honestly hate. Stupid forms, with their stupid constant questions and with the system so messed up with the buying of the PIN to the scheduling of the appointment, to the RED TEXT that of course is a "something to take note of" but mostly what it does is scare the shit out of me and cause me to have a near panic attack. That red text is something that I'm supposed to have, well, what if I don't have it? Like proof of payment for my SEVIS I-20? I'm sure I did it, if not, SEVIS would for sure be up my ass asking for some cash for their boleta, but I have recieved nothing since the first time they introduced SEVIS, so what now U.S. Embassy in Thailand? What NOW bitch? Ugh. Honestly, the last time I was this panicked, it was when I realised the hadn't gotten my I-20 signed the DAY BEFORE I WAS GOING TO TRAVEL. Sorry for the caps with the combination of bold there, was completely necessary to make my point.

So right now I'm installing the printer at my parent's place onto my computer so that I can print out the stupid confirmation page that appeared when I made my appointment for my visa 8am. Meaning I must be there at 7:30am. Which is fine since I'm still jetlagged and waking up at a hearty 3:30am. Meanwhile I'm still singing the song, which although a nice song by..uh...*quick research* Sean Kingston, (the song can be heard at his myspace page www.myspace.com/seankingston) it's just a little weird to be singing "suicidal, suicidal" when I'm truely feeling somewhat near that right now...printer installed.

P.S. Do you see the color issues I'm having? After the whole red text thing, I have no way of changing it back to default. So I"m leaving it as a reminder to never do that again. And also because I still haven't figured out how to change it to default.

When the moon hits your eye...

...Cuz you just had to fly,
Thaaaat's the jet-laaaagg.

When the world seems to quake,
Cuz you can't stay awake,
Thaaaaat's the jet-laaaag.

Clocks that tick, dogs that lick,
I can't sleep, I just weep,
I can't help iiiiiiitttttt.

Can't you see, I can't sleep,
It's to early for meeeeeeee,
Iiiiiiiittttt's theeeee jet laaaaaaaaaaaaaag!!!

(Sung to "That's Amore" Dean Martin version)

No troubles in this paradise...

*Knock on wood*

Gotta do it, even if it is superstition, I must do something to make sure that I have warded off the evil that is irony. Or just shitty luck. Can't believe how much Alanis has messed up that word for me, after all these years, I still don't really know how to use it.

So my last blog was a whopping...twelve (give or take) hours ago, and now I'm in Taipei, sitting in the First Class lounge which is a little irksome. It started when I walked of the plane, done the hall towards the transfers to go through security again, when I saw this lady waving a sign that had: VANTHA scrawled on it, figuring it wasn't a hugely popular name and the fact that none of my tickets ever have my whole full name on them since apparently those two extra characters are just to much, I walked over, told her that was my name and she directed me towards the counter. Walked up and found out that because the TPE-BKK flight was overbooked, I got bumped up to Business. Woohoo. So walked into the lounge, which has a lobby and two directions (left and right) to go, right being the regular lounge, and left being the "first class lounge". She looks at my lounge voucher and says "Due to the fact that you have a gold card and are flying business, you're going to the that lounge, bye!" Now I have to mention that just a few days ago I was telling a friend about the lounge and how I'd never seen the left lounge, I always went right, and I have tried surreptously peering down the hall to no avail, that is a very long hallway leading into the left lounge.

So I walk in, it's pretty much the same, there's a "quiet room", bathrooms, it's a little smaller, but far more empty, which is nice after being on a chock-full plane with two unhappy babies in the row in front of me. (On a side note, I have -yet again- sworn off children.) So what to do now? Taste the fare of course! I have so far gobbled down a cup of stir fried noodles, potato au gratin, a slice of bacon and a beef pot pie. Ummy. Not sure what else is there, must peruse more. A few more hours and I'll be in the big BKK! More then.

Traveling...or is it travelling?

I can never spell the word, honestly, I make a note to remember how it's spelt then I forget what the note was about. "Did I tell myself to make sure I spelt it traveled, or did I make a note that it wasn't spelt traveled?" Fark.

Anyway, I'm sitting in the EVA lounge at SFO and it's pretty nice, there's Anderson Cooper on the widescreen in the adjacent room, meawhile I'll sitting in a spot where I can acess the internet through a DSL cable, while everyone is typing away because I'ms ure they don't have completely tempermental built-in wireless cards. And why is it that everyone in this room is using a mac? Guy sitting two seats away from me? Black ibook. Three people behind me? All white ibooks, one with those built in cameras. Yes I looked, I'm absolutely nosey.

So far I've eaten a chicken salad finger sandwich and some palo which I guess is braised pork that comes with a boiled egg, but I didn't think my innards could take any egginess, so I stuck to the pork and the sauce. I have absolutely been overeating the past few days, and it is not good. But I'll wait until Thailand to reconfigure my digestion, which usually takes the form of me not eating for a meal or two so my body can ebb off it's sugar-high-insanity and float back down to earth.

Since I quickly mentioned the widescreen in the next room, and spent about ten minutes sitting in front of it, let me tell you this: People do not look good on a wide screen. How does that even work? Anderson is not that wide-faced, yet I was watching as he and his correspondant were talking about Warren Jeffs, I noticed their faces decidedly wider than natural, even though the crawl on the bottom did not look distorted...odd. I don't know anything about video or television technology, whenever W and I end up perusing Best Buy we're both struck by how shitty HD always looks, that's about as far at my knowlede goes.

And since I touched upon macs earlier, let me continue that vein of thought (and let me also interject that the guy with the black ibook actually has an IBM, so that closes it down to three ibooks in this room), I have once in a while considered buying a Mac, they're pretty, cute and apparently the best thing in the world, the computer version of meth, but then I go to the school library and am forced to use a Mac when I realise that I love me some Windows technology (strictly XP, I've heard Vista's quite the crapper). It's just the interface makes absolutely no sense to me, it seems clunky and at least once in every duration of my use of an Apple computer, the screen will freeze and I will be forced to sit there waiting while the computer "computes". A great website that I came across (I don't even remember how anymore) was this one, particularly because of this page where the writer vents about Macs, love it: One thing PC users can do that Mac users can't... And those obnoxious "I'm a Mac, and I'm a PC" ads drive me up the wall, and chase me farther and farther away from the hoity-toity (teehee, funny spellings make me giggle), stick up your ass way of life that Mac'ers have.

This is the first time in a month or two that I don't feel the weight of the world crashing upon me, and the first time in four months that I've actually got nothing school-based to do. So I guess that why I'm blogging, for lack of anything else to do and because I haven't done it in two weeks. The other day I was browsing through Yelp and wondered aloud to myself "How did I have enough time to Yelp as much as I did?" Luckily no one but Moo was around, and she gave me a death glare at interrupting her cleansing ritual, curled up and went to sleep. But honestly, how did I have the time? The last few weeks have been so panic-driven with finals and getting all the documentation for my visa, it's just so weird to actually have time to myself. Nice, but totally weird.

Oh, I guess I never explained why I'm sitting in the EVA lounge at SFO. I'm waiting to fly to Bangkok, with a stop in Taipei, and luckily (thank goooosness) I have a Gold card after flying with them so long, so checking it was quick, got ahead of the crowd at security and flew (speed walked?) to the lounge to hang out. That Gold card, it's quite the lifesaver, don't know what I'm going to do when it expires in July. Probably cry the next time I have to check in at the "regular" line. I know, I know, you probably want to say "Oh how sad for you." while at the same time pushing me over and kicking me in the face. But you know how you experience something good and then you can't go back without comparing to it constantly? Well that's how it goes for me. Now I'm going to go get some food, relax and surf while I wait to get on the plane so I can fall asleep drooling.

Friendly Neighborhood Spiderman

Yes, yes, I gave in. I went to go watch Spiderman last night. And let me tell you, it was better than I thought it was going to be. But that's not really saying much since I thought it was going to be shit.

I will keep this brief, simple and hopefully spoiler-free. But I must start from the beginning, for the full experience. I came straight from school, toting my handbag AND a laptop bag, while my friend toted her tube with her rolled up plans inside. My sister's friend had saved us seats, a complete boon since I was looking at the line for the 7.50 show and let me tell you, it was a looooooo-oo-o-oong ass one, probably because it was for imax. Got in, sat down, popcorn in hand (which in my hands, kernals of course went flying when I sat down), and waited for the movie to begin. I love previews, I love watching them on this huge screen right before a movie with my mind tingling that I'm about to watch a movie IN THE THEATRE. As you may have gathered, I do not do this much. I usually say I'll watch them when they come out on DVD and rent them, but I never do. Three previews that I recall looked very good, Harry Potter (eek), Shrek 3 and Across the Universe. Eddie Izzard's in the last one, which was an instantaneous pull in, but the preview was exclusively Beatles music (love it!), Harry Potter was looking dark and surly, and looked really kick ass, which was probably just the preview, and Shrek 3...Gingerbread man shitting a marshmallow was just too good.

As for Spiderman, there were some incredibly corny parts, pretty much every "sad" and "emotional" part made me crack up, Tobey Maguire being "bad ass" was just too much nerdiness to handle, too long, too many characters and a very drawn out movie, but still good. I ended up enjoying it and it was worth going out to see. That said, I'm going to relax for the rest of my Sunday and go to sleep soon. Zzzzzzzzzz.....

Oh The Insanity...

Do you know how I know finals is getting to me? I just pressed the button for the "key lock" on my phone and held it to my ear for at least 10 seconds before I realised that I wasn't calling anyone. Because I had just locked my phone. With the intent to put it in my pocket and continue working. This is what happens during the few weeks before finals, I slowly lose my mind and drink more and more caffine so that I am not only crazy, but wired.

It's weird, yesterday I got to school at 8am and worked (on and off) throughout the day, and left at about 8:30pm and was feeling great when I got home. Yet today I leave home until 1pm, got to school around 3pm and it's only 5:30 and I'm tired as all fuck. I haven't accomplished near as much as I wanted to. Maybe the key is that I need to wake up early. I'll test that theory tomorrow.