Almost....Almost....

When it comes to my thesis, I've been feeling very 'Sideshow Bob vs. Rakes' lately.



There's just so much to do, and so little time, and all I want right now is to curl into bed and sleep, if only I could fall asleep when I actually got into bed. I end up just laying there more frustrated than ever.

The final light at the end of the tunnel is next Monday. Eek.

Short. Sweet. To the point.

That's all I've got time for today.

This is the state of my affairs right now: I wake up every morning at 7, get ready and go to school. I then stay at school until 10 at night. It's been a productive week from a school standpoint, but fuck all if I've actually eaten a proper meal or had any time when I'm NOT thinking about school.

So I've decided to boost the failing U.S. economy in my own way, by continuing to make purchases. At the Gap. Because it's the only store in a three-block radius that DOESN'T sell touristy San Francisco-garb. And no, I don't overly think about whether I need the item or not. Never mind the fact that it's the only way I seem to be able to avoid the constant stress I'm under. Bigger picture here people, bigger picture. Economy!

Honestly I feel like I have no time. It's a Saturday and I got up at 7 a.m. to do some laundry because this is the first opportunity I've HAD to do laundry since I got back to the states two weeks ago. And it's the only reason why I'm still home. If I wasn't doing laundry, I'd be in front of a different computer right now at school, working on Max.

But time is ticking...and I've got a laundry list (no pun intended, really) of things to do.

Totally. Utterly. Random.

It's 11:31 a.m. on a Tuesday, I have a final presentation tonight, but I really want to write a post about my choice of favorite movies. Call it procrastination. Call it laziness. I call it cathartic - come one, compare writing to moving around lines in CAD - or now, the upgrade to moving around polygons in Viz.

Onto the descriptions, in whatever order I put them in on my facebook page...

Meatballs
This movie was made in 1979 and I honestly can't tell you why I love it so much because 1. I never went to summer camp, so it's not like there the nostalgic factor; 2. I wasn't born, raised, anywhere near the 70's, so I really can't look back on that era and sigh with memories; 3. There's nothing particularly amazing about the movie itself.

I guess it's the combination of dreamy music, strange characters, and the fact that I ended watching this multiple times on HBO Asia during high school and now it's just a go-to movie that's relaxing and not "deep" or "though provoking", I can just watch it while I'm working or when I'm having a particularly stressful day (which happens alot nowadays) and it's just all good in the neighborhood.

The Love Letter
Oh this is another movie I watched many times over during high school, just because it was on. but also, I'm so in love with the stupid location of the movie. This deceptively small seaside town, with lots of nature, a summer rush and a community that knows each other is a sort-of dream I have for my future, and these people have it. The main character runs a bookstore, has a complicated life and a strange attitude. All the supporting characters pitch in, some famous, some not, and all of them do the movie good. This is another movie that I can just have playing the background because I've watched it enough to know what's happening without being in the same room. I liked the music so much I bought the soundtrack.

You've Got Mail
This is the third and last movie in the series of I-can-watch-it-forever-without-a-care series, I fell in love with this movie during high school and of course, the damn scenery and soundtrack play a large role in that. One of the main characters owns a bookstore (I didn't realize this theme until this very moment) and it's the whole tiny mom and pop vs. the big superstore deal, but there's love, misery, happiness, and cuteness, and I likey. So suck it.

Hot Fuzz
I have to laugh when I think of this movie, because it's funny, suspenseful and British. The dry humour speaks to me, makes me happy, but I can't watch this movie to many times, the suspense lingers and makes me feel uneasy. But you should watch it if you haven't.

Death at a Funeral
Another British dark comedy, I initially watched it because Alan Tudyk is in it, he was hilarious in '28 Days' so I had to watch him again. It turned out that everyone in the movie was hilarious is that horribly awkward dry humour way. It makes you cringe so much your face starts to ache but it's absolutely hilarious, so much that when I watched it on the plane, the person sitting next to me made a comment about how funny it must have been since I was awkwardly doubling over in my limited space. A must see for sarcasm lovers.

Waitress
Oh the bittersweetness of it all. I've watched this movie three times and I could watch it again, even though it's so incredibly heart breaking. And being the person I am, when I watched it for the first time I had to find out all the trivia behind it, and once I did, for the first time, I regretted it. The director was murdered in real life, and she's in the movie, as is her two year old daughter, so the movie has an air of sadness tied to it. But it's still a great movie to watch, well done and Nathan Fillion does such an amazing job in his whole awkwardness. Of course Keri Russell did a great job in developing a character that cheats, lies, hides but in such a way that you feel it's completely within her right to do it.

Iron Man
The newest addition to my list, this movie was so kick ass, funny, and I absolutely adore RDJr.'s interaction with his robots. You must see this movie, it's gotten great reviews for a reason.

Battlecry

I have seriously been embroiled in some battling since January. And finally, last week, I won.

Let me (of course) start from the beginning.

This past January I started noticing that I wasn't receiving all of my calls. In fact, I wasn't receiving some of my calls, the voice mails those calls would have, or text messages people sent me. Not good for business. So I called to inquire.

This was basically the pattern:
-The problem would occur
-I would call the phone company
-They would assure me the would try to find a remedy
-I would believe them

And so the cycle kept going on and on until finally in the beginning of April I called and wanted some answers. They told me they were sending me a new phone. What they actually did was sign me up for a NEW two year contract. At that point I had been having problems for three months, who in their right mind would sign up for two more years of shit? One of the reasons I was being so co-operative was because I knew my contract as up in August, so I figured I would keep using their service until then, and then move on.

But nope, they signed me up, DIDN'T TELL ME, so that when I called next week, I found out, was totally shocked, started crying on the phone and was pretty darned near hysterical. Not good times.

I was at the end of my rope, I had no idea what to do, they were basically calling me a liar, I was trying to figure out who to talk to, how to talk to them, how to resolve the whole issue. I almost totally gave up, and was resigned to paying $200+ to get out of this ridiculous contract when I started Googling information about contracts.

The best information I got was to file complaints with the Better Business Bureau, Federal Trade Commission and Federal Communications Commission. Which I did. The BBB contacted the company, who in turn contacted me and gave me the option of continuing to troubleshoot the problem or send back the new phone they sent me and have the cancellation fee waived. Only an absolutely insane person would have picked anything but the latter.

So finally I am free, receiving all my calls and happily with another carrier.

Oh yeah, and a MONTH after they signed me up for that b.s. two year contract, I received a letter stating that the action had been done. Complete and utter fuck up. What a waste of almost three years of loyal patronage.

Time is Ticking

Sometimes I honestly feel like I am wasting my time, and missing out on what has potential to be a truly wonderful and magical life.

All the pieces are there, it's just, the process of getting to where I want to be is paved with jagged stones that is my education, which pierce the linen slip-ons that I chose to wear on this journey. It's troubled times like this that I realize I am not as aware, prepared, resilient and flexible that I would like to believe I am.

The worst part is that even on a beautiful day, sunny with a calm breeze, even with delicious food cooking somewhere, even with the waters reflecting the bright sunlight and beckoning to me, I still have to sit in front of this fucking computer and do my shitty, brainless work.

There is simply no time for procrastination.

Now that I'm spending so much time at school, I have found new ways for quick stress-relief. One of them is looking at the biggest lolcat website "I Can Has Cheeze Burger" and basically looking at some of them totally cracks me up and lets me forget for one second that I have 142 things on my to-do list.

A sampling:

Sometimes I just stop and think about how nice it would be to open a bakery or coffee shop with a few friends and bake all day for a living.

Of course it's not as magical as I see it in my head, but it sure is nice to think about the wonderful aromas that would float in the air everyday, meeting new people, seeing some familiar faces, and have a relatively serene time in the kitchen mixing ingredients, rolling them out, kneading them and popping sheet pans of dough into the ovens.

Right now I'm obviously longing to bake something, but I neither have the time nor the resources at the moment, as I'm waiting for April to roll around so I can use my coupon and go to raid my neighborhood organic grocer's for flour, sugar and all the regular culprits in my baking adventures. Sometimes I think about other magical things, like living in some tiny beach town where everyone knows each other and they have tourism only once a year in the summer, and during the rest of the year everyone just hangs out until the next season. I guess what I'm imagining more than anything is a sense of peace and serenity in my life where I'm in control of it and capable of everything that comes my way. Which is obviously what I feel is my greatest flaw, and although I have hope of achieving that sense of balance, it doesn't feel like I'm within reach.

I suppose it doesn't help that my last cooking endeavors have turned out very unappealingly.

You can only have so many off days before it becomes worrying.

*cough*

Oh the forlorn malady of being deathly ill with a head cold. How will I ever survive such trauma?

I don't care if that last sentence didn't make sense, I'm sick dammit!!

Honestly, I'm such a mess of a miserable cow when I'm sick, I complain constantly, never smile, and basically wallow in how achy, snotty, hurty (fuck you, I don't care if it's not a word) and junky I feel. And I randomly say how I'm going to die.

Yup, I feel pretty sorry for anyone that has to converse with me when I'm sick. Luckily, I usually only get this kind of cold twice a year *knock on wood* because of the changing of the seasons from hot to cold and cold to hot. Right now we're experiencing the latter and I'm not happy about it.

But at least I get to stay at home today because I would probably spread it to anyone I sat near for extended amounts of time, which will give me some time to relax and get better. I'm laying here in bed in a sea of kleenex and Moo is quietly napping next to me. It looks like it's going to be a good day *knock on wood*.

I have the worst luck with shoes.

Honestly, I think out of the last six pair of shoes I've bought, two I can't wear because they destroyed my feet, one I wear so regularly that they're falling apart, one I can't wear because they just slightly too long for my feet, and therefore give me blisters, and the last two I just bought today and yesterday, so the results remain to be seen.

I'm not sure if it's because I have weird feet or if it's because I just can't pick the right kind of shoe for my wide feet. The experience that I had last Wednesday was pretty horrendous with bad results on many different levels.

I had a job interview, and decided to wear my new "sensible work" shoes, which would have been find except for the fact that I decided to walk the eight blocks to the office I was going to. By the time I got to the interview, my feet were a little sore, but nothing to freak about. Unfortunately, by the time I got home, my pinky toes were unhappy, my heels were raw, and the last knuckle on my foot were bright red.

Unfortunately I had another interview the next day, and needed to wear the same shoes, since I have no alternative.

So my solution? Walk again, wear sneakers to the interview and somehow change my shoes before I get to the office. Which would have been just fine, had it not been for the fact that the bathrooms have locks on them, and there are no private spots to sit and change my shoes. So I ended up doing it in a stairwell, hiding and with lightning-fast speed.

It's been four days since the last foray with the shoes, and my feetsies are still tender, which might be a good thing, since it made my recent purchase smarter, because my "tender points" were especially sensitive and so any shoes that would mess with those points were thrown to the side.

Enough shoe/feet talk. I'm going to bed.

Juno

What a great, fabulous, cute movie that makes me want to curl up in a ball under my covers and contemplate life.

Honestly, I haven't given props to too many movies lately because none have struck me that much, especially not as much as Juno has. How can one movie make me fall in love with so many people, so many times over? Words do it no justice, just go watch the damn movie.

In other news, I got so incredibly soaked today that I had to buy a pair of socks halfway through my foray into the outdoors to replace the super soaked ones I was wearing. It just didn't stop, and I found out -too late- that my umbrella had holes in it. So even though I was carrying this stupid umbrella, I had minimal protection. So I spent some time looking for a new umbrella, which I found was not an easy task. I suppose I only looked in three different stores, but still, Nordstrom, Brookstone and Eddie Bauer did not have what I wanted and I was not happy.

The search continues....

Travel: Accomplished

Enough planes for me already.

I've been on six planes in the last month, which is nothing to most people, but more than enough for me. And even though I told my parents I was going to go visit Canada to check out the design scene, who knows if that notion will actually take hold.

But I have a question to pose to you.

"Do the picture at the top of my blog fit the border, or does it overflow?"

Because on the computer when I first did that picture, it totally looked great in the border, fit just fine, and now I'm on my laptop and it's overflowing. I assume it's because the computer I first did it on was a widescreen one. But who knows.

And I just realised that I didn't copy a few files that I was supposed to onto my flash drive. Darn it. And I wanted to get all the fonts from my parents computer, since they have way more than my crappy defaults. Darn it! And I'm sure there's some other computer-related thing that I totally forgot about, that will surface in a few days and I will be kicking myself for forgetting. (Say it with me.)

Darn it!

Oh My Motherload...

So...I had a little bout of insomnia today (probably due to the fact I had a huge ice coffee...followed shortly by a super sugary coconut juice, which was followed by an iced green tea...), and started looking through some old photo albums I found.

And boy was I glad I did.

In case you haven't been on facebook, or aren't on facebook, or I haven't added you, or some other circumstance has happened in the two weeks: I uploaded some photos from ancient Patana...Kindergarten & P4 to be exact. And now I've found some from high school. More specifically Y7-10. And some of graduation.

Unfortunately I no longer am in possession of a scanner. Which is probably a good thing becuase I would spend all night scanning, tagging and laughing at said photos. Which is what I will be doing when my parents' scanner decides to return. Until then I suppose I will simply have to peruse through them myself and have some serious giggles.

Awesomeness!

I've played Portal a total of three times and everytime I get freaked out because of the sheer awesomeness of the game...and the fact that the bots are really creepy. Actually the whole game is pretty creepy. But when I saw this comic, I knew I had to post it, enjoy.

There is no limit to the amount of weird, crazy, funny, odd people and events I see in San Francisco. Yesterday I was on the bus when someone standing next to me suddenly said -to no one in particular- "Quit stalking me grandma or I'll throw you off the Golden Gate bridge." He then proceeded to laugh. Unfortunately I was sitting in a one seater and had no where to go since I needed to get to the end of the line and the bus was packed. He got off soon after, to my relief.

In other news, finals are kicking my butt. Hard. And then stabbing me with a rusty serrated knife. Oh I suppose I'm being overdramatic, but if not now, then when? In still other news, the household is now home to a Roomba, which is currently doing it's job vacuuming without my help. I've always got to keep an ear open to make sure it doesn't get stuck on ledge or something. I have to say, the first night with it in the house was eventful, I was in bed when at about 1am the Roomba was knocking on my door, well, more ramming against my door, trying to get in. Half-asleep and fearful of the coming rampage of robots, I thought the damn thing had turned itself on and was coming for my blood. Turns out my brother-in-law had turned it on to see how it would work after it finished charging.

I suppose these are life's little adventures that incidentally shave years off of my life.

Huh...

So today I walked out of a 12 story building into the financial district of San Francisco, thinking I was the shit.

Let me rewind.

On (seriously) a whim, I decided to look on craigslist.org for available interior design internships. I found seven companies, researched them and wrote seven cover letters. Then I sent out seven e-mails with attached cover letters and resumes. At 11 o'clock at night. And one called the next day during class, so when I listened to a voicemail not knowing where it came from and heard "...do you think you could come in tomorrow for an interview?" I damn near fell on the floor in shock.

I was amazed that I got an interview so soon, and so caught off guard that I temporarily forgot that I didn't have a portfolio to show at the interview.

So I rushed home and worked for a few hours on a pretty basic portfolio, but before I begin, I must present to you, the map:
So the story begins on the bottom left play marker. I head north to Pier 39 to print out (top play maker), take the F street car to 2nd and Market and then go to Kinko's to bind my portfolio, then to school to talk to International Services about how and when I can work. Then off to the interview, back to school, get a bagel-wich and take the school shuttle -which somehow I take the long-windy one which takes me through Union Square before I get the bottom left play marker. and then back home.

But I have still not explained why I felt like I was the shit. Let's just say the interview went alot better than I thought it would. I comprehended the questions asked of me, which is a new development under pressure, and had good answers. My interviewer was really nice and let me know that she really liked my cover letter, resume and portfolio. So basically she was the best interviewer I could have had for my very first job interview. And it made me realise that I am a hot commodity and would definitely be an asset to any company I worked for. Let's see how long this confidence will last.

And then a few minutes ago I saw Yoni's flickrstream and his picture of his morning tea made me think about how much I want some stability and relaxation in my life, a regular time when I can just sit on a porch, look at nature and drink some stupid tea. That's so not happening anytime soon. Life is far too hectic right now. I wonder when I'll get to that point, or if I ever will.

Happiness capped with a little melancholy, just another regular day.

Ca-razy!

Usually I'm not that into fashion design, but this is pretty damn amazing! Toot toot!

Today Is A Day For...

...mundo celebration!

Rejoice, for my computer has finally gotten fixed! After two weeks without my own personal computer, I realise how much I rely on it, and how nice my sister and brother in law are to let me sneak onto theirs when it "looks like" they're not using it. And trekking to school just when I wanted to do some work wasn't too great either. Except now I just realised that I saved my CAD work at school without saving it as an earlier CAD file, so I can't open it on my computer. Oh well, that's life I guess (woohoo).

So in case you were wondering what in the world happened to my beloved computer, one day, the motherboard basically decided "I'm not going to work anymore. So. Ha." The BEST part was that my warranty had expired four days before my computer gave up, which I didn't find out until I called Dell to ask them to please figure out why my computer wasn't charging. I suspected it was the adapter, so I called, they shipped out a new one, courtesy of Dell (which, by the way, I love, their customer service has always been nice to me, ask long as I talk to the right person), and found out that it in fact wasn't the adapter, but the motherboard that konked out.

What were my choices? Pay $248 + $45 re-instatement fee since the end of my warranty had already come and gone, and I get my computer covered for two years. So I had to ask how much it would cost to just replace the motherboard. A whopping $500, which happened to include the labor for installation too. How nice. So for a grand total of $303, I got my warranty until 2009, and had a guy come to my house to replace my motherboard. Which was great. Except that he didn't show up the first day. But he did the second, and was very nice and friendly and showed me all the parts of my laptop that he basically had to strip to put the new motherboard in. Who knew there were so many screws in a laptop?

Anyway, my biggest fear was that all my work and pictures and music were going to get wiped off my laptop and I would have lost all my pictures of my dogs. Funny that those are the pictures I cherish most. I've been seriously considering getting an external harddrive to back all that stuff up. We'll see how that goes down.

My head is spinning so I guess it's time for bed.

So I haven't posted anything through-provoking and substantial in quite a while because 1. I'm hardly in the state to provoke my own thoughts, much less other peoples' and 2. My computer's motherboard has given up.

Not much has been happening, but I do wonder how a person who I don't know, and doesn't actually have any effect on me and petrify me to point of inconvenience.

There's this lady, that stands outside Rainbow Grocery, and she asks for signatures to help with the homeless or something like that. I really, really don't like solicitors, they make me very nervous and I really don't like being pressured to contribute to something that I haven't thought through thoroughly (say that fast four times...I did, saliva EVERYWHERE). I mean, send me a pamphlet that I can read, research and make a decision on instead of visually assaulting me in public when I'm pretty much zoned out and already uncomfortable because I'm out in the wild and probably sweaty from walking around. I mean, I've got a frown on my face, and even I have to admit that I have a pretty formidably pissed off looking face when I'm zoning and not thinking of anything. It's just my natural facial expression. You'd think people would leave me alone, but no. Anyway, this lady has perfected her tone of voice so when she asks if I will take the time to sign her petition, when I say no I feel like an absolutely awful person for saying no. I know, I know, it shouldn't affect me, and I've rationalized it to the point where I'm screaming "What are you THINKING?" to myself in my head, but still, that little guilt-ridden voice comes on back in full force.

Eugh, enough complaining, I'm going to eat some mini-corn dogs.

It's Friday...

...and my living room is being overrun by ants.

They appear to be coming from the outside through the outlet we have on an exterior wall (which in and of itself is a little strange), and I woke up this morning to hear that the dining table was covered in ants this morning, which were dispatched before I stumbled from my room. The outlet has been taped up around the box a few times over, sealed as much as possible and we're hoping that the ants will stop their invasion.

In other news, a week ago I fell off my bike. I was going downhill down Bryant street on my way home from getting a backpack at Ross. Getting ready to make a left turn, I was riding down the middle between the two yellow lines separating the two directions of traffic and trying to avoid the little reflectors on the road. While doing my little cautious dance I completely underestimated how low below the road a manhole was, and when I hit it my bike jerked, I hit the front breaks, which made the front of the bike stop, but the back kept going, catapulting me over the handlebars. Luckily all I did was hyperextend my 2nd, 3rd and 4th metacarpophalangeal joints. I.E. I fucked my knuckles up good by landing on my fingers and bending them backwards too far. Other injuries? A scraped left knee and a bruise on my left thigh. It's taken me a week to post about this because I haven't been up to full typing speed up until yesterday.

And in more recent injury news, I pulled a muscle loading laundry into the car last night, which was a very strange feeling, I was lifting (without my legs, bad Asha, bad, bad, bad!) the bag into the back seat when I felt a weird sort of popping sensation in my back and immediate PAIN. Ugh, great stuff, and what i really needed right now.

Luckily I was already going to the chiropractor today, but not until the afternoon and I had a meeting in the morning, two hours sitting in the same position listening to other people talk was not my idea of a good time. At least I got free coffee, orange juice and pastries out of it.

Like I wrote on Maya's facebook today, 23 and my body's already falling apart. What the heck's happening to me?

Frickin' Frack A Rack!

Everytime I think I have a handle on my spending, I take a look at my bank account and I'm floored. Honestly, where is all this money going? $3.50 for coffee at Starbucks? I need to master making my own coffee, but then I'll have to buy a thermos to keep the coffee in so I can transport it to school, and I need to get a dandy milk steamer so that my coffee tastes as good as the one at a coffee place, and I need to find the time in the morning while I'm stumbling around to make said coffee to take in said thermos to take with me to school. And it has to be a thermos not that coffee cup type thing with a lid that people can take in their cars (which we actually already have two of) because now I'm biking to school.

Sheesh. I haven't even spent a dime on the thermos OR milk steamer and I practically feel the money floating out of my bank account. I bought a small water bottle yesterday, but wait, I can hear you thinking "But she bought a water bottle a few months ago, a handy dandy camelbak that she was so proud of..." Yes, but it's huge, and heavy when full of water, so now I have a smaller one that I'll take with me to school. What's going to happen to the big one? It'll probably sit on my desk to I make sure I get my daily water needs. What else did I spend money on this weekend?

Oh yeah, the router. And then I spent $30 at Whole Foods today on shrimp, salmon and pork loin chops. As well as two small plants (one thyme and one oregano) and some orange juice. I've decided to minimize my beef eating and start sticking to the white meat and seafood, probably better for my digestion. And then I spent an additional $10 on mini corn dogs at Smart & Final. Not a word about cholesterol, no one likes a know-it-all.

Okay seriously? I probably will back track in a few days, but I'm putting limits. No more shoes, clothes or superfluous items for at least until the end of the month. So no purchasing random impulse shit except for food until the end of September. Unless it has to do with school. Or I really need it. Again, not a word, no one like a tattler.