I loved this movie. At first, I debated waiting to just get it on Netflix, but then I decided that I wanted to help boost its box office. And I’m really glad that I decided to go! The comic book and video game effects were BRILLIANT, it was filled with the quirky nerdy humor that I’m a big fan of, and I laughed a lot. The storyboarding was far from perfect, and character development could’ve been taken way farther, but all-in-all, I enjoyed myself. Michael Cera did a great job, and it was awesome to see him kicking ass.

mood: >:[ angry
music: Place for My Head – Linkin Park

If there’s one thing I hate about the world other than war and prejudice, it’s how much our lives are shaped by money.

Just had an argument with my parents about the furniture for my new apartment. You’d think most parents would be proud of their kids learning to be frugal and finding good deals and trying to save money. Especially if it’s the parents’ money. Not my parents; they get mad at me for being too thrifty. It seriously infuriates me.

I’d figured out a plan for my bedroom furniture: a bed, mattress, and desk from Ikea along with some stackable drawers from Target. Simple. Cheap. Practical. Even cute. Would probably be under $500. Pretty good, considering that all the rest of the furniture is already accounted for (my housemate Katie’s mom has a friend who left the country and gave them all of his stuff), right? Yeah, no, apparently not. My dad flipped a bitch about having to assemble the furniture. I was like, “DAD. You see my desk here in my room at home? And my bedside table? And my bookcase? Yeah, um, I ASSEMBLED THAT ALL BY MYSELF. WHEN I WAS NINE.” What the fuck is the big deal? He was like, “What if you assemble it wrong? No.” And I was like, “Are you serious? THEN YOU TEAR IT APART AND FIX THE MISTAKE.” What the hell? And then he tells me to look up furniture stores in Berkeley. No, that is freaking ridiculous! I’ll have to pay a gazillion dollars for the furniture, pay a ton for delivery, and then not be able to lift it myself. And it probably won’t be as cute as Ikea furniture anyway. GOD. And Ikea furniture is GREAT. I don’t care how shitty the make is, it lasts years upon years. And it’s SO CHEAP. It’s not like I’m moving into a fucking house with a family or some bullshit! It’s just a freaking college apartment. I am SO pissed. Can you tell?

My father is such a fucking snob. He wouldn’t even believe me when I said that my friends were taking secondhand beds up.

Who the fuck do you think you are? Believe me, I am more than grateful for how much bank he makes, but it gives him NO RIGHT to be ridiculous like this. It makes me so fucking angry. And of course my mother just sees it as him having the right to make the decisions regarding this kind of thing because the money that he wants us to splurge with is the money that he makes.

And all of this just makes me look like this stupid, cheapass, stingy bitch.

Jesus, sorry if there are things I’d much rather spend my money on. Like, um, FOOD. Or like, ELECTRONICS. Or BOOKS. Not fucking FURNITURE.

And trust me, this is not a one-time thing.

GAHHHHH SO MUCH RAGE

mood: gleeful
music: Waking Up – OneRepublic

Not pictured is Superman #702 (I’m mad that Red Robin #15 was sold out) and Netflix’s Vol. 4, Disc 2 of Batman: The Animated Series.

This is how I’m spending the weekend. Well, between the craft party (I need to finish my new photo collages), the ten-year cousin reunion dinner, watching Inception FINALLY OMFG, and hanging out with friends for possibly the last time before I leave and don’t get to see them for another three months.

BUT YES EXCITEMENT

Yesterday, I finished one of the Tiny Titans books, which was amazing and adorable and hilarious all at once, as usual. And I read the Artemis Fowl book today, and wow, it was really good! I love action/adventure books because so much stuff happens, but the characters are always so much fun, too. Also, Atlantis Complex thing made everything so much more fun. Orion indeed! When Jess saw me with the book she was like, “Didn’t you read those like when you were ten?” and I was like “Hell yeah! And why shouldn’t I continue reading them as they come out?” Other people (even avid readers) seem to grow out of children’s series as they get older, but I say there’s nothing wrong with enjoying a kids’ book, especially if you’ve been following it since you were little! And hell, I absolutely loved Percy Jackson & the Olympians, and that was definitely a kids’ book. Okay, honestly, I actually make a note to stay on top of the bestselling kids’ series. I dunno, adults just seem to have this tendency to take the fantasy/sci-fi stuff way too far. Takes away the fun of it for me. It’s the suspense of disbelief that makes the worlds people create for stories so interesting, after all.

Then again, this is coming from the girl who likes cartoons and animated films better than live action television shows and movies, so…

Our penultimate day was really great. In the morning, we visited the Bund, which was this Shanghai district by the Huangpu river that showed off a bunch of old, European-style buildings which were a total rarity in the zomg!modern city. This also gave us a good view of the cool buildings we’d seen on the river cruise the previous night, so that was pretty cool. Katie and I had pretty much taken in Alexandra and Nick, so it was fun to hang out with them. We just walked along the river front and chatted and played and laughed and took pics. It was really fun, and the view was pretty damn neat, too.

Then, we went to this silk carpet center in the city, which was kinda lame but since I was having so much fun socializing, I didn’t really care. Oh, and their food was really good! We got to have Mongolian-style barbecue, which I absolutely love. I had some very tasty garlic-soy sauce chicken and chow mein, which I had been craving the whole trip. Yum.

After lunch, we went to a bazaar for some cheap shopping, which was a lot of fun. I got really good at bartering, woot! It was actually very nice to practice making people bend to my will IN MANDARIN! Got some pretty epic deals, including a $4 Iron Man shirt. Yeayuh. Everyone was in a pretty good mood after that, haha. After that, we went to visit Xin Tian Di, which was this district that had a BUNCH of Western stores. I’m used to Chinese Starbucks and stuff, but it was a real surprise to see some of this stuff, like Coffee Bean, which I had no idea was an international thing. Pretty cool, but definitely made more interesting by the socializing. Yay!

After dinner, a lot of people left to go to the World Expo, which Katie and I didn’t get tickets for just because we’d been forewarned that we’d basically barely get to look at any of the pavilions, since there would be crazy lines for everything. So we went back to the hotel and hung out with Adina and Nick, which was a lot of fun.

I want to take a moment and talk about them.

Nick was the most amazing kid I’ve ever met. He was nine-years-old, his parents were divorced, he loved skateboarding, he got motion-sickness, and he made me really, really consider having a kid. This is like, monumental. I don’t mean “Oh, I guess it would make sense for me to have one” or “Maybe I would make an okay mother” or “Well, I need to advance to a different stage in my life eventually, I suppose” (and these are rare for me already, haha). I mean, straight up, “I want to have a child, to raise a child, to teach and learn from a child.” Pretty remarkable. I don’t know, Nick was just such a good kid. He was by no means perfect; sometimes he was hard to keep up with, sometimes he argued with his mom, sometimes he whined when he didn’t get something he really wanted. But spending a week with this guy, it really, I dunno, opened my eyes to how maybe having a kid wouldn’t be so bad. He really took to me, and I became his surrogate sister or something for a few days. I translated stuff for him, I bartered stuff for him, I kept an eye on him and hung out with him so that his mom could get a break and chat with adults, I laughed and played with him. At one point, I bought him an ice cream bar, and he was so amazed at the gesture that he started calling me the nicest person he’d ever met, something he said again and again up until we parted ways.

Mark seemed incredulous of the idea that I suddenly understood wanting to have a kid because some kid had told me I was nice; he reminded me that my kids would probably not think that, haha. But I don’t think he got it. It wasn’t the compliment that got to me — it was the idea that I had done everything right. Ever since I stopped “raising” my sister (when she got all bratty and mean at seven, pretty much) and met Diana, I pretty much was turned off of the idea of having/raising children. I mean, my INTENSE FEAR of childbirth is one thing, but the mere thought of having a kid that I wouldn’t be able to handle (or god forbid, that I wouldn’t like) is just so unpleasant. And then there’s the whole domestic dealio with the cooking and the diapers and the cleaning and then WTF would I feed it since my diet is so freaking weird… Anyway, Nick made me realize that despite all that, I think I’d make a pretty bomb mom. I mean, with my whole obsession with self-improvement thing, I’m sure I’d keep striving to improve as a parent. GOD, listen to me talking about this. Ugh. ANYWAY. If you’d told me beforehand that I would meet a kid I actually liked on the trip, I would’ve denied the possibility. But I really did love spending time with him. He was just such a great kid. I can’t do him justice with words.

OH and our meeting was so totally meant to be, because believe it or not, this kid and I had the most random things in common, including the same favorite color (yes, my exact shade of electric-turquoise blue!) and THE SAME BIRTHDAY. (It was the coolest thing, I just randomly asked when his birthday was, and he was like “July 13″ and I just started flipping out, LOL.) Also, he deals with scary movies/nightmares the same way that I do — that is, thinking about the scariest stuff when you’re trying to fall asleep so that you don’t dream about them. I’ve done that since I was a little tot, and when I heard that he did this, we SUPERBONDED, especially since he’d always told his mom about that strategy but had it dismissed for its irrationality. We kept saying “OMG, I’ve never met someone else who does that!” for like ten minutes straight, LOL. I also was very pleased when he declared that I was a total tomboy. I’ve waited all my life to hear that, you don’t even know! Since I was little, I always thought tomboys were the coolest ever. (I know, I know, such a lesbian. LOL) No joke. I always strived to be one but could never manage totally becoming one because I enjoy working on my appearance too much. I also cry easily, am abysmal at almost any physical activity, and am an absolute wimp about the dumbest things — things that are always pinged as girly. So yeah. I always failed. Honestly, this past year at Berkeley has been the most tomboyish I have ever really been, what with the whole T-shirt-and-Vans deal, being open about what I totally fangirl over, and my blatant disdain at a lot of girly behaviors. And yeah, I know that’s not even saying much. But that’s what I mean, and that’s why it was so nice to hear that. And then it was even better to hear Nick admit that he was something of a “tomgirl,” but he liked weapons and sports and such about as much as I liked dressing up and doing makeup and having painted nails. I dunno, he was just so cool!

And then there was Adina, his mom. What a fantastic lady. That last night, we talked for like hours, and it was just…so easy. I’ve never been very good at talking to adults or making them respect me or think that they can converse with me as a peer. I don’t connect very well with teacher figures, and I’ve never really had older friends, except online. All my life, I honestly haven’t really met anybody older who’s like a role model for me. My older cousins are not exactly inspiring, and I only have a younger sister, and my parents aren’t exactly what I want to end up like. TL;DR Adina may have been the first adult that I’ve ever really connected with. We talked about all sorts of things, from nature vs. nurture to divinity to job hunting to charisma to school to kids to marriage to self-improvement and gosh, it was just so amazing. It was like talking to Katie or Hill. We shared opinions, we discussed controversial ideas, we applauded each other for our insightful/interesting insight… I don’t know. It was just so great, and I think I’ll remember it for a long time. She even told me that she saw me as someone who would be successful, because I had such a good attitude about everything and treated everyone with such respect and had new, interesting ideas and a lot of charisma.

Now that’s something I’ve never heard before. Definitely not with such faith, anyway. It made me really happy. Whether or not it’s true, I think everyone just needs to hear that kind of thing said really, really sincerely at least once in their life. And I know she was sincere because she didn’t just say it once, and she didn’t just say it when it was nice to say it. What I mean to say is that it’s a good feeling to have someone believe in you that strongly, after only having known you for a week.

Anyway. I am so glad to have met them. And hopefully Katie and I can reunite with them at Berkeley, which is where Adina is going to school right now. That would be pretty awesome.

mood: proud
music: Into the Night – Santana

This is the news that I woke up to, and I hardly even know what to say about it. I am flat-out floored. Delighted. Thrilled. Triumphant.

Anyone who knows me knows that I’ve been really passionate about gay rights ever since I found out there was controversy over them at all (I think I was eleven, maybe?). It’s an uphill battle, but civil rights is what I’m all about. I know we can’t win everything, because our society is not ready for that kind of advancement yet. But I am absolutely confident that we LGBT(QQIA) folks will have equal rights in the name of the law (de facto discrimination is another thing entirely, of course) eventually, even if I don’t know how long it’ll be until that day. I just hope I live to see it, or dare I say, even experience it!

The fight over Prop 8 was a beautiful thing to behold. I am so glad that I turned eighteen that year and could put my vote in what I believe is right. Besides just voting, though, I also did a fair amount of campaigning back in Fall 2008 (protests, door-to-door stuff, Facebook posts and debates) in my rather-conservative Orange County city, but part of me was always convinced that despite the tremendous effort put into the campaign, we would still lose because so many Californians just weren’t ready for this big step. But this is seriously amazing! It’s so good to know that the fight wasn’t for nothing and that this will really encourage everyone who didn’t give up fighting, along with bring the fight to the forefront of the minds of everyone who stopped paying attention.

And yeah, I know Prop 8 backers are going to appeal and all that, but this is a fantastic victory for us! The fight goes on!