mood: chill
music: Clocks – Coldplay

On January 6th, Mark came over and we just hung out all day. I made dinner but it turned out badly and I was disappointed but Mark was really nice about it and said it smelled really good, I just didn’t have flour on hand so the texture wasn’t right at all. We also made lemon cheesecake bars together, which was fun. Except that we were kinda n00bs about it, but they still tasted good, haha. Oh, and I conquered my fear of the oven! (C.J. says it’s more like paranoia than fear, but still.) I just put on that damn oven mitten and stuck my hand in the oven and pulled that container outta there. It made me feel pretty awesome, hahaha. You know what this means, though? It means that I can start baking! I’m excited. Must learn how to master a bunch of baked goods this summer. Hopefully I won’t fail too horribly.

That day served as kind of a reality check for me. It brought to surface a lot of emotions that I thought were long gone. I thought really hard for the next few days, and I sorted everything out in my head (as well as possible, anyway), so that’s good. I’m not going to pretend that everything is fine and dandy now that I’ve learned that everything isn’t, but facing your problems head on is definitely healthier than whatever was happening in my head before when I didn’t even realize this was really a problem. I understand myself a lot better, now, so I’m glad for that, but I definitely could’ve done without the agonizing nightmares. They were pretty tragic; I’m glad that they were only dreams.

It also served as a reality check in another way. For one, circumstances made me realize again how lucky I am to go to school in Berkeley, where nobody blinks an eye when I announce my bisexuality. I’m not saying that everyone’s like WOOHOO AWESOME but it’s definitely different from things at home, where it’s not necessarily the end of the world but it’s definitely far from awesome. I dunno. It’s been a long time since I had to feel defensive about it, I guess? :\

Went to work on the 7th and was very productive since there was like almost no business. Yay, writing! Then, I went home to eat stir-fried crab for dinner (mmm!) and then headed over to UTC, where I met with Mag for some Cha for Tea. We had a good time talking for hours, and it made me feel just…really happy to be friends with her. Mag and I definitely have one of those friendships where it’s like… No matter how frequently or infrequently we talk when we’re away from each other, we can always just pick up where we left off and it’s never awkward or anything, and it’s always fun. I’m so grateful for her. She’s gone through so much with me, and she’s put up with so much of my shit, and she’s always ready to be a good friend and to speak her mind whenever I go to her for anything, whether it be advice on decisions, opinions on my feelings, or even just book recommendations.

The first half of Friday the 8th was full of errand-running. Stopped by the bank, Target, Office Max, Barnes & Noble (talked to an awesome store rep about books and ended up getting some recs, which was pretty awesome; I want to work there so badly!), and GameStop. Had to go to multiple Targets and GameStops before I found freaking Wii remotes… It was ridiculous, but I got them in the end. And then Mark came over and played the new Super Mario Bros. game that I bought with Jess and me, which was a lot of fun (yet very frustrating for him, I’m sure, seeing as the two of us veer on the pathetic side in that game, haha).

I spent a lot of time in the next few days watching The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, Justice League, and Yu-Gi-Oh! while working on the coasters that I was making my friends for Christmas (late presents since I got back so late and then had to go to Vegas). I really enjoy doing crafts, and I really liked catching up on those shows while doing something productive as well, so that was cool. I was a little emotionally unstable, too, for a few days, so it felt good to just keep myself busy. Reading and writing also helped for sure. I was really excited to start working on stuff again. I really hope that I can keep it up, now that I have school and socializing to worry about as well.

On Tuesday the 12th, Katie came over and we went to Pinkberry and just sat and talked about random stuff for a long time. It was laid back and nice. I always have a good time just talking with Katie, since we never seem to run out of things to say and stories to share with each other. She invited me to sushi with her friend at UCI but I had dinner plans so I took a raincheck. Went to Buca with Mark and my sister, and I stupidly was unaware that the coupon I’d been intending to use had expired and felt like a dumbass. Things seemed kind of really tense between Mark and me but I think he was just stressed out… I don’t know. We ended up going back to my place to play more Super Mario Bros, yay.

I spent the next few days mostly just working and spending time to myself. On Wednesday, Mark and I went to dinner at Veggie Grill and got some Cha. He convinced me to try Jade Green Milk Tea, which I really liked, hooray! We had good, long talks that made me very happy, and just chilled in general. The next day, we got Pinkberry and talked some more, and he asked me to accompany him on some errand running the next morning, but I had work. I’d traded shifts with someone so that I could spend time with Katie on Tuesday. But Mark seemed REALLY bummed so I tried reaching my mom unsuccessfully (she was sleeping)… The next morning I asked if I could switch shifts to the night one. She said no because the night person had school during the day. I told her I just wasn’t going to go because if I hadn’t been home, they would just have had to deal with not having a sub anyway. She freaked out and kept asking why I would not go and I just said that something came up; didn’t want to give her details because it would just be Thanksgiving all over again. I went to my room and called my aunt to tell her I wasn’t going to go in. But she said they were really desperate for help that day especially (since it was Friday) and I said fine and told my mom I was just going to go.

But then she went fucking NUTS over the fact that I wouldn’t tell her why I didn’t want to go. Like screaming nuts. Like ranting about how she could’ve raised two such horrible daughters nuts. She was absofucking RAVING. Venting much? She even brought up that Monday, when I had been in the middle of a bad argument and had been really upset and feeling like there was no point of doing anything anymore — and my dad had heard me crying and stormed in and acted like a fucking douchebag and then announced the fact to the whole house. My mom had come in and I had told her I didn’t want to talk about it but she wouldn’t leave me the fuck alone so I had to just kind of ignore her. Anyway, as she was going nuts, she kept asking really annoying questions about that night and why I had been crying and this SERIOUSLY pissed me off. Serious pet peeve = people who pry you and refuse to mind their own business. I told her that I had just been arguing with a friend, which happened regularly, she just wasn’t ever home to see it, which was not a bitter statement wanting her to be home more because I certainly don’t, but more like a “Bitch, do you seriously believe that my life stops when you’re not around?” Anyway, I was really effing pissed off. She kept talking about how I was “so different” now and never told her anything and more and all this fucking bullshit. I have no obligation to tell you everything that goes on in my life. I NEVER HAVE. You just can’t handle that instead of just not mentioning things, I actually straight up tell you that I’m not going to tell you things. Dumbshit. As you can see, I’m still pissed off about it. But whatever. I’m not going to cave into her demands. Pathetic.

Thank god for Mark, who said it was fine that I couldn’t go. I still really bad and disappointed, though.

Anyway. On Saturday, I had lunch with Mag, Kell, Manda, and Erin at Spectrum. Kell left because she was sick and didn’t want to walk around. After some satisfactory shopping, Mag had to leave because a family friend was having a baby or something. Manda, Erin, and I chilled at Barnes for a while, reading silly books and just talking. That was cool. Then, we were going to go to Erin’s to play RockBand, but Di called and said she wanted to play Super Mario Bros. and that Matt could help us, haha. After I got there with my game, she realized that she didn’t have the two controllers that she told me she had, so I had to drive home and pick up two more. Then, I tried to go to Target to trade one in for the super Wii remote thing, but they were sold out, so then I got annoyed that I had just wasted all that time. And then when I got back to Di’s, they were just watching a movie and not even playing so I was like WTF did I just do all that for nothing? But then later we did end up playing so that was a relief. Erin went home around seven, but Di, Matt, Amanda, and I went to eat dinner at Buca di Beppo, which was relatively fun. I like Matt a lot.

So yeah. The next morning, Mark picked me up at like ten to go to the airport to head to another home.

mood: confident
music: Ke$ha – Tik Tok

My family spent Christmas in Vegas again, surprise surprise. Don’t get me wrong, I love Sin City, but we go there twice a year, do essentially the same things, and get in essentially the same arguments. It gets kind of repetitive. But I guess going anywhere else would induce complaining from Jess (who doesn’t think that vacation is good for anything other than shopping), and if we stayed home, it would induce complaining from Jess that we were being boring (it happened a couple of years ago). The “real” reason we go so much, though, is that my dad has VIP membership to the Venetian, which generously invites him to its resort with complimentary housing. Like, this trip we only paid the Venetian $120 for food and board (well, no board, I suppose). So that’s pretty cool, especially since Vegas boarding is so expensive (I freaking love the hotels, though).

I told myself that I had to enjoy the trip this time. My family is not a lot of fun to be around (the good, laughing times are always punctured by arguments and irritating comments and criticism and awkwardness) and vacation always results in a lot of grumpiness from every corner. I’m definitely not exempt. So I decided this time that I would actively stop myself from getting too grumpy or pissy and just have a good time, because it’s about time to shed the moody teenager act and act in uncomfortable or undesired situations like a damn adult. I’m lucky to be able to go on these vacations, especially if we’re being given complimentary housing, so why waste it being in a bad mood? It kind of worked. My family still kind of got on my nerves pretty frequently, but I tried to just let it slide. I need to do this more often in my life anyway. A lot of times, things that should get to me don’t so I come across relatively good-tempered, but when things do piss me off, I sometimes don’t really know how to deal with it. I think learning when to confront problems and the people causing them versus when to just let them slide is a vital part of growing up. I’m definitely still learning.

Anyway, the drive was relatively calm and devoid of arguments, which was a relief. I worked on my new superhero story and read a YGO! manga. When we arrived at the Palazzo, they told us that they had no more rooms with two beds. Which was ridiculous because we’d already called to confirm before we left that there would be rooms for us. So my parents complained to the manager and he told us he could get us some but it would take a couple of hours. So we just had a late lunch at the Cafe and they had a room for us by the time we finished, yay. Later that night, went to have midnight dinner at a yummy Asian noodle place at the Venetian. Jess was grumpy but the food was good so that’s okay.

The next day, we went to the Mirage to have their international buffet, which is always very good. Enjoyed the snow crab legs, mmm. At night, we went to go see the O Show at Bellagio, which was trippy and pretty…eccentric but featured some amazing acrobats, dancers, and musicians. Was inspired to make one of the characters in my superhero story an acrobat! The next day, we went to the new City Center to check it out and had lunch at the Aria. I really liked all the contemporary architecture! It was really creative and cool looking. Had lunch at a cafe there, and it was overpriced and took forever and the portions were tiny, but the corn chowder was good, I guess. We spent the rest of the day just chilling in the hotel room and I read My Sister’s Keeper, which was…super intense.

When I finish a book, I like to let it sink in. I just finished Jodi Picoult’s My Sister’s Keeper, which was very good, but also really heavy. The subject matter is one of those really controversial ones. Can you imagine losing your sibling? Your child?

I can’t. I often consider the possibility of losing friends, but I always take my sister for granted. I speculate on my parents’ deaths much more often, between my father’s frequent flights and my mother’s dependence on us. I dreamt once, though, many years ago of Jess dying and me screaming, screaming to go back and save her.

I am whizzing through books, searching for release. Release, relief in the form of a fight against Medusa, in the form of Malik’s revenge, in the form of Gogol’s failed marriage, in the form of Moushimi’s affair, in Anna’s inner conflict, in Campell’s convoluted love. To remind myself that there are problems bigger than mine. But is it wrong that these are fictional? But then again — to what degree are they fictional? Marriages fail every day, and people always have to choose between two people or things they love. We may not all be swordwielders bent on traveling to the Underworld, but we all doubt ourselves, we all think we’re doing the right thing for the people we love when really all we’re doing is hurting them. We all think that we are the center of the universe when there are so many things bigger than us, we all think that we are suffering unjustly when there are so many people suffering more than we are. We all make choices each day to try to take control of our lives, and many times, those decisions are ones that we regret.

Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays, not because of the food (okay, fine, half because of the food) but because it gives me a chance to reflect on my life and all the wonderful things in it.

I am thankful.

For being here, alive, today. Many times in the past three months, I have felt that I would rather die than feel the pain I was suffering and have wondered if it would be better just to end everything for good, but my friends have helped me move from that. We all suffer so much in our lives, but there are so many things from which we have the opportunity to derive joy, as well. I am thankful for anything that makes me smile, because it has kept me from that dreadful abyss.

For being happy, despite everything. For a long time, Mark was the light of my life. Certainly not my only source of happiness (my friends were definitely the bright stars to Mark the Sun), but most definitely an incredibly large contributor to it. That time is over (for now, at least), as he moves on, and I follow in suit. But…I have found happiness in being at peace with myself, and in the camaraderie and support of the friends I have found at Berkeley, and in the love and loyalty of my friends from home, and in the presence of Mark in my life. And for this I am endlessly grateful.

For another chance with Mark. I never imagined that I would truly have another one, after everything that happened in the summer. I hoped and dreamed, sure, but it pretty much just fell into my lap. Now, this is the hard part, living apart — mentally, emotionally, physically, romantically. Who knows what will end up happening? I won’t ask for certainty in that… In fact, I don’t need it. I have never been one for a planned future. I am just thankful that our love has not gone to waste. I am grateful for the knowledge that whatever happens in the future, we once bared our souls to each other and changed how the other perceived life and shared a dream. And even if how we see our relationship changes in the future, I am so thankful that we were once at a point when there was nothing in the world more certain than our love for each other and our desire to be together for the rest of our lives.

For another chance for college friends. After everything last year, I was so terrified of going back to Berkeley, especially without the security blanket of Mark. I didn’t really think that I would really make friends; I hoped and dreamed of it, but I didn’t really believe it. But here I am, surrounded by these wonderful people, who have already proven to me over and over again that they love me and support me and care for me and are here for me, who have shown me that they really think that I’m worthy of being friends with, that I make enjoyable company, that I am someone they are interested in getting to know better. Every day, I am so thankful for this second chance at a successful social college experience. Without it, I don’t know if I would be at all happy today, if I would be standing on my two feet, if I could have moved on after everything that happened with Mark.

For my wonderful new friends. For Sandia’s good morning hugs and sympathetic and worried looks every time I cough and declarations of love and understanding talks and absolute love of fun. For CJ’s amazing support and understanding and comforting hugs and wittiness and fun/relaxing company and studybuddyness and our dynamic that allows us to just hang out for hours. For Katie’s endless stories and general goofiness and how well we get along and our ability to talk about anything for hours. For Jordan’s affectionate teasing and funny Asian jibes and genuine concern and comfort when I’m truly upset. For Dana’s trust in me and support for me. For Dan’s relentless but interesting rambling, for Eleanor’s approachability, for Amy’s willingness to join us to talk, for Lara’s reassurance. For Julian’s respect, for Chris and Judy and Mike and Shark and formerly Patrick’s affection. For random conversations and smiles and elimination of awkward silence in the bathroom. For having people to say hi to in the elevator, for people to go to dinner with. For people to walk to class with. For wonderful, wonderful QualComm lunch bonding time. For people to say good night to. For people to ask, “How was your weekend?” and “How was your night?” and “Are you sure you should have another one?” and, best of all… “What’s wrong?”

For my amazing old friends. For Di’s phone calls and supportive talks and ability to always make me laugh. For Alex’s checkup texts and dedication. For Amanda’s support and interest. For Kell’s weekly texts that get me all excited. For Mag’s willingness to sit through hours of updates. I don’t know what’s happened to Jayne and Erin, which terrifies me. But I’m thankful that when we do talk, it’s not awkward. Jayne called me a week or so ago, and it really made my day. I know she’s so busy, and I feel like she’s purposely distanced herself from me, but I really miss her. I’ve thought about contacting her a lot, but Mark’s right, thinking of being a good friend is not the same as acting as a good friend. I’ll try contacting her more, and Erin too. They mean so much to me.

For my family. Despite how much I dread family time (always filled with incessant arguing and awkwardness and rolled eyes and awkward laughs and uncertainty), I do love my family. I truly appreciate the laughter and stories and familiarity that my sister and I always share, no matter how long we’ve been apart. I am so grateful that she’s growing up (slowly but surely) and we’re able to connect more as I grow up more as well. And I do enjoy all of my mom’s stories and the good times that we spend together, whether it’s in a car or at a sushi restaurant. And I’m thankful for the tokens of affection that Dad buys us on all of his business trips away, and it doesn’t quite make up for his absence in our lives and his unawareness of much of anything about us, but I don’t begrudge him for those things. I am just thankful that my parents are still together and still affectionate and that despite all their weird arguing, they still get along. And I am thankful that despite her temper and narrow view of the world, Jess still respects me and likes spending time with me.

For my things, my money, my electronics. Always grateful for these things, without which I would live a completely different life.

For the Internet. Without which I wouldn’t really be much of anything.

For my health. Even if it has been wavering recently (I keep getting sick and my eczema is almost worse than it’s ever been and I’m just barely 100 lbs. again and I keep breaking out), I am thankful that my limbs are working, that I can walk, that I can talk and hear and run and see and experience the world as I do.

For food. Trying to be less picky, trying to eat meat more, trying new things. I’m lucky just to have food to be picky about.

For college at an amazing school. A school that fits me so well, with its crazy protests, its students who put their heart and soul into causes they believe in, its students who support same-sex marriage, who throw crazy Obama rallies (that I missed, unfortunately), who say “Oh my god, what a joke” to the crazy fundies protesting at the Telegraph/Durant intersection. In a word, its utter…Berkeleyness. This semester, I realized… I don’t know if I could be so happy anywhere else. So I am very proud and very thankful. Go Bears!

For what brains I do have. CJ’s right, just because I’m not fantastic at math and science doesn’t mean that I’m not smart. The humanities are academics too, and require a different sort of skill that I definitely have more of. I know I’m still not the brightest crayon in the box, but I do try my hardest, and I do realize that I probably didn’t get this far by only working hard without using my brain. So I am grateful for what smarts I do have.

For the will to go on. After everything… It was difficult to look forward to tomorrow, another day of suffering and confusion and doubt and hurt. But I trudged on in life, and look where it’s gotten me. “And some days you may feel that there is no ending / But if you give up now you’ll never know if you could have won” is one of my favorite lines from Scott Alan’s “The Distance You Have Come” (one of my favorite songs).

For the confidence to be myself. If I hadn’t decided to just go out there and give socializing everything that I’ve got, then where would I be now? I honestly have no idea. So I am very, very grateful for my confidence in myself and the strength I mustered when I got to Berkeley and realized that I got nowhere by being quiet and shy and afraid to be myself last year. Life’s all about trial and error, yeah? And I found success in being myself, and every day, I feel like I am tested to take the easier route and succumb to old habits or to be strong and overcome temptations and just keep striving to be better. And to just continue to be me, and to continue being friends with people who accept me for who I really am — they’re the only people who are really worth being friends with anyway, yeah?

Friday March the 27th, I went to watch Watchmen with Diana at Spectrum. I really liked it! It was really deep and really interesting. It was definitely violent and I had to look away from the screen a lot (as is the norm for me, LOL, since I love comic book and/or superhero films yet am a total wimp), but also very sexy. I really want to read the comic now; I’ll definitely do that over the summer.

Afterwards, we got Chipotle and then went to my house to change and get dressed up and then rushed to meet our friends at the Benefit Concert at my old high school. Things were fucked up for a bit, with Mark and Jess both raising their voices at me in annoyance, which obviously resulted in me crying. But I don’t think that anyone actually knew that, so it wasn’t too embarrassing, just distressing. I hadn’t even done anything wrong or stupid in the least. So my friends all went in and got seats (I gave Amanda my ticket because I’d promised to buy her one) but I couldn’t until my mom and sister came with my ticket, which was like after 7 PM, which was when it was supposed to start. So I didn’t get to hear the pre-concert stuff, which I was disappointed about. So I just sat on the steps and at my Chipotle while trying to stop being stupid and crying until my mom and sister came. Then I joined my friends, who had kindly saved seats for me.

The concert was definitely not as good as it has been in its previous years, but it was still very enjoyable to watch. I spent half of the concert being mad, but I got over it eventually. At Intermission, I chatted with my friends, hugged some acquaintances I haven’t seen in a long time, and got to talk to Helen and Sean for a while, which was really nice. I miss them kids; Pit was so much fun. After the concert, the Venadies asked us to eat with them at Denny’s. We decided that we’d go to BJ’s instead, but then Diana announced that she wanted to make an appearance at Denny’s to see the Venadies before going to BJ’s. So everyone except me headed over there. Once everything was cleaned up, I drove Ben, Tiffany, and Mark to Denny’s to join them. But the Venadies hadn’t shown up — in fact, they never actually did. Wooooow. Apparently they decided to go to Guppy’s instead and didn’t feel the need to inform us. What bitches. Whatever, it’s not like I was super eager to hang out with them anyway. It’s always so awkward being Diana’s best friend because we’ll be chatting incessantly and arriving everywhere together (including social events) and then suddenly people will see her and be all excited and huggy and totally ignore me. Yes, even people who I am acquainted with. I mean, I know she’s so much more exciting, but would it kill people to at least say hello to the friend? The friend, who they are plenty familiar with? Jesus. And they rank ME “worst-mannered” on Facebook.

Denny’s was all right; I arrived late because I had to wait for Mark, Ben, and Tiffany, so I missed out on Diana telling everyone about her (now ex-)boyfriend. I sat with Mark at first but then switched seats with Diana so that I could talk to my friends. After all, I hadn’t seen them in ages! But multiple people (including this very talented singer named Amy, who apparently keeps telling Mark about how I’m so pretty; I’m really, really flattered because she’s super cute) asked Mark why I wasn’t sitting with him, and he got all joking-sad but I’m never really sure if he’s really joking or just covering up his actual sadness. I wasn’t sure how to react to that. I’m hardly an inattentive girlfriend, but there is no way I would sacrifice time with my friends to spend it with my boyfriend, who I’d seen nearly daily during my months away from home. I especially did not want them to think that I was valuing him above them and was being a bad friend and lavishing attention upon him.

Later, I remembered how distressed he had been throughout and after the concert. That was why I had waited to give him a ride in the first place; he was just so bummed and I felt really sorry for him and felt really bad for being mad at him earlier. (Still, I severely dislike when he raises his voice at me like that. It happens often enough to leave an impact but rarely enough for it to lose its ability to get me down.) But maybe I should have been a better girlfriend and comforted more and talked to him more throughout the meal, rather than ditching him for my friends. I still stand by my choice of talking to my friends, but I now really regret forgetting his unhappiness so quickly that night.

“Bros before hos” has always been a really important philosophy for me. But then again, maybe it’s more bros = hos, or something. Mark and I talked about this recently, discussing how for him, his love is divided into different categories (e.g. friends, family, lovers) that he loves a lot but in completely different ways. He brought to my attention that in contrast, my love is distributed along a hierarchy of people. For example, I always put friends first, but I also consider my lover to be my best friend. I dunno. It’s interesting.

Anyway. On Saturday, we all went to Kelly’s house. Her family had friends over, and Wendy cooked up some delicious things, as usual. I always look forward to her meals; they are simply wonderful. Hanging out at Kelly’s is always a lot of fun; she always has lots of drinks and food and the nifty kitchen area for all of us to chat and tell hilarious stories. We updated each other on college, and everyone got to hear my angsty tales about my college experience. Fun stuff. Dale also approached me and asked me about how things were going at Cal, and I told him the truth. He has probably been the most helpful person I’ve talked to so far, which is so freaking random, but I’m grateful for it, of course. He expressed genuine sympathy and told me that he couldn’t imagine my position because all of the college friends that he’d made he had met in the first semester through living together. That made me feel a lot better, you know? He didn’t reprimand me for being too shy to join clubs, he didn’t tell me I needed to get out there and make friends on my floor and in my classes, he didn’t look at me funny with somewhat of a pitying look. He just told me that I was in a really bad situation and that he was sorry but hoped that next year I would get the opportunity to do what most college students get to do–meet people at a time when everyone is like WTF IS GOING ON?! That really helped, somehow, and I’ve been much more apathetic to my lack of friends here ever since (props to Alex as well, who told me flat out, “Why do you need friends?”, LOL). It’s really contributed to my happiness.

Anyway. So after dinner, we went upstairs to play Taboo, which I am of course pwnage at. Yay! After some fun rounds, we went downstairs again and had some REALLY GOOD DESSERT, OMFG. It was this delicious angel food cake with ice cream; so simple and so, so good. I love simple things. Afterwards, we hung around for a bit upstairs before deciding randomly to go see Monsters vs. Aliens, haha. It was a good movie, a fun flick to watch at night with friends. I was really sad when we had to leave. I hate leaving them; I miss them so much up here. I’m really looking forward to getting to chill with them a lot over summer.

Overall, it was a good spring break. Oh, except…

My great-grandmother passed away, bless her. It was pretty crazy, actually; my mom came home from spending time with her in Taiwan the Monday after I got back, and she passed away two days later. So then my mom that Saturday morning to go back and figure stuff out with the funeral and all the crazy will blah blah stuff. I teared a little and “prayed” a little, but overall, I’m glad that she died. She hadn’t been living much of a life (for the past two years, especially), with her vision and hearing shot, her physical body weakened (she used to exercise and garden all the time), her constant returns to the hospital, her “adopted” daughter feeding her ridiculously scant meals just to save money so that she could spend it… A life like that isn’t really worth much. She was suffering greatly before she died, and I’m really glad she doesn’t have to suffer now. I only wish that she could have witnessed me speaking Taiwanese the way that I can now. She would have been so delighted and so, so proud.

Me with my buddy Sean!

Me, Mark, and his ridiculous Asian afro.

mood: thoughtful
music: Let Me Be – Britney Spears

The weekend of the 20th, I flew home at last. I have to return every month or so for orthodontic work.

My teeth have a long history of causing me trouble. When I was three years old, I got excited during a meal at a restaurant and fell off of my booster seat. This resulted int he loss of one-and-a-half teeth. THe other half had a cavity (my only cavity ever) and was taken out. When my permanent teeth came in , my two front teeth did not grow out. They had to cut into my gums in order to let them grow out. Unfortunately, they grew out about a centimeter apart. So, at age seven, I got braces (but only on the front two teeth). Later, they found that four of my teeth had no room to grow out and needed to be extracted, so I got that done. Then, they changed to braces to work for my top four teeth. I wore them until sixth grade (age 11).

I was to do Phase II, but we realized how silly it was to drive to Glendale (~2 hours depending on traffic) and decided that we’d look for a local orthodontist. We put it off for a long time, and by the time high school rolled around, I was wary both of the appearance factor and the insane price (I had never known that it cost thousands before). Despite my dad’s insistence, I said no to Phase II.

Seems like the guys in my life just really do not like my teeth. Mark bothered me like fuck about it, and I was very offended and annoyed. And then he started talking to his mother about it and telling me how they both thought that I should get braces and speech therapy and shit (’cause I can afford to, so why the fuck wouldn’t I want to, right? HAH.) I decided that I was NEVER going to, and I essentially told him so. I’m still annoyed and offended whenever he brings it up, but that’s Mark for you. It’s one thing to make fun of a friend about something like the way she talks; it’s another to actually encourage her to get it fixed.

Anyway, what got me to get braces was the health of my teeth, not my appearance. Luckily, the orthodontist we decided to go to specializes in Invisalign, the invisible braces. It’s a helluva lot more expensive than I’d like, but I blame that on my dad’s shittyass insurance that gives us like no coverage for anything (but of course when he goes to see Asian doctors, it’s all free, pfft). Kelly made me feel better, though, in that by skipping fall semester, I got to save my parents a ton of money, and the price of my braces is still less than half of college tuition for a semester.

They’re really cool, though. I thought that it would be a pain in the ass to have to take them out to eat all the time, but you get used to it pretty quickly. I hope that it’ll be done w/i a year, but my luck in the area of teeth is very minuscule.

Why am I talking about teeth again? Oh, yeah.

So I went back home. At the Oakland Airport, I got Starbucks (Passion Shaken Iced Tea Lemonade FTW) and a CPK “The Works” pizza. Mmm, so good. My mom picked me up at the airport and brought me a Thai tea, my favorite. How nice of her. That night, I had salmon teriyaki, yum! It was wonderful being home again. Everything felt right again. I felt truly, completely happy again. It felt like the world had been tipped over during my time at Berkeley, and it was suddenly tilted upright again. It felt good.

On Saturday, I slept in and chilled for a while before going to Yen Sushi with my mom, yum. Then I drove to CVS to spend $50 with a coupon my mom gave me and got to get a bunch of stuff I needed for Cal. That was fun, except that I kept trying tow ork the weird razor drawer they had…and failing miserably, LOL. Ah, well. Later that night, I went with my parents to eat Thanh. My dad asked me a lot of questions about Berkeley, which was kinda nice. There were some tense moments throughout the night, though, as my parents argued and my ddad kept telling my mom that she didn’t understand anything. I feel really bad for her; it made her really mad. She even went to sleep with the door closed.

A big point of contention throughout the weekend was the Cintiq Wacom tablet thing. My sister decided last year that she wanted it, and she finally got up the courage to ask for it. My dad, of course, said yes (he has a bad history of succumbing to her ridiculous desires). The catch? The tablet costs a whopping $1000. His reasoning? She got straight A’s, and it was supposed to be her motivation for getting more.

Okay, dude, I’ve gotten straight A’s a billion of times. Where the fuck is my $1000 gift? Gifts, I should say. The last time my sister got straight A’s (in middle school) she got a fucking LCD TV. So yeah, I got my pimpass Lexus, right? And I’m damn grateful for it. But you know, they’ve already promised her a BMV if she gets into UCLA. Say what?! Why does she get all these rewards for doing less work? I don’t understand.

The fucked up part is that they don’t’ even like her more. It’s not an issue of favoritism. I know I’m a better kid. Nobody doubts that. The difference is that she’s wiling to ask for her impractical desires to be fulfilled while I don’t indulge in my wishes like that and actually respect the money that my parents work really hard to make. God, that pisses me off, her making them spend unnecessary money on expensive things that she loses interest in within a year. Ugh. My mom told Jess to wait a month because she didn’t have enough money, but my dad dismissed her and just told Jess to order it. I have to admit that I was pretty tired of my family by my second day there.

The next day, I slept in again and then took Jess to lunch at BJ’s, which was delicious, of course. Then, at night, we (as a family) went to eat Korean barbecue, which was also good.

On Monday, I drove myself to the orthodontist in the wee hours of the morning (8:30). It was very uncool to learn that I’d paid for a $200 flight home just for my orthodontist to peer at my teeth for 5 min, give me my next 2 sets of braces, and schedule my next appointment.

Anyway, the last thing I did back home was eat Stewed Veggie @ the Bakery, yum. Then it was back to Berkeley… Sigh.