mood: placid
music: I’ve Got To See You Again – Norah Jones

All righty, let’s rewind for a bit, since I still want to record the past few months here, even if the past couple of weeks have been an overwhelming whirlwind of…shit.

So Friday, May 29th, I drove with Diana down to San Diego. It was the longest drive I’ve ever driven, so that was kinda neat. We had a good time talking about Mark and her boyfriend Matt and everything else in between. It’s honestly been really cool that she’s finally in relationships; I didn’t feel like we could get any closer, and it seemed like both being in relationships would only distance us, but it’s really brought us closer. She always asks me for relationship advice and stuff, and I think it’s a little funny that she sees me as such an expert, but I honestly do pretty much always know how to give advice on relationship stuff. It’s kinda weird, seeing as I’ve only really ever been in two, but I guess matters of the heart are things that I’m very, very familiar with, and the more masculine/cynical part of me is pretty good at recognizing what kind of behaviors are acceptable and not in a relationship. I guess it’s also a perk that I’m such a…not-liking-to-be-super-clung-onto-24/7/365 person and yet I seem to be really good at inducing people to become really attached to me. I don’t just mean Jayne and Mark but also before; and I guess it even applies to non-romantic situations. It sounds pretty arrogant, but c’mon, let me have this, if nothing else: I think I’m a pretty valuable person in people’s lives. What I mean is, you can’t find an Elaine just anywhere, you know? Sure, I can be really clueless and eager and exasperating and conceited at times, but I motherfucking listen to all your shit. I will do shit for you and take shit from you that nobody else will. Yeah, I know I can be a flake sometimes. But in the end — you’re going to come to me for help, and not the funny friend, or the smart friend, or the kind friend. And people do. That’s always been something, I’m proud of, I guess, that people trust me enough to come to me for help, advice, or just a friendly ear in the direst of situations.

…Anyway, San Diego. Got there and Diana showed me around; god is it different from Cal! For one, it was absofreaking quiet when we arrived there at seven. And then even at one in the morning, there was no noise at all, even though it was a freaking Friday night. Diana said that was how it always was. Crazy shit, haha. So we chilled in her dorm for a while and played Sporcle, which is always fun. Then, we met up with her friends for dinner and I drove some of them to Hooters and they complained about how small my car is, haha. Whoops, I forget that most people are normal-sized, unlike my friends, who are for some reason all on the short side. Hooters was…funny. I had buffalo wings for the first time; the meat was all right, but I’m honestly not that fond of buffalo wing sauce. I’m quite fond of cute, perky asses, though, and there were plenty of those there! The waitresses didn’t have very amazing racks, though, honestly. What a disappointment. I was super amused by the way they took their orders; the way they leaned over the table was SO practiced that I started imagining how they trained them to do that, oh man.

Drove back to the school, and I chilled with Di and her friends. With them, I was very aware of being Asian, which I always hate. I really like hanging out with people who aren’t so…ensconced in their ethnic circles/lives, e.g. people who are pretty anything washed, 3rd+ generation immigrants, people of mixed races, etc. Hanging out with really white people always makes me feel really awkward because they tend to continuously point out the fact that I’m Asian and make me different, apart, foreign when I never felt that way in the first place. And hanging out with really Asian people is just really uncomfortable because really Asian Asians who hang out in groups have a tendency to be narrow-minded, immature, sheltered, and frankly…quite boring. Making “that’s what she said” jokes around sheltered Asian people is so awkward! Anyway… After talking for a while, we went upstairs to play Warioware, which was interesting. When that was over, we just went to my car and sat in it for a while; I texted Mark and Di called Matt to talk.

Next, I met Diana’s roommate and her best friend, who were both pretty wasted. So that was…even more interesting. They asked me a lot of questions about random shit, like what books I liked (contemporary classics), whether or not there were crazy parties at Berkeley (I wouldn’t know), whether or not I drank (no, just because it’s just not my thing), if I painted my nails the same color all the time (no, I like to switch it up), how long I’d been with my boyfriend (almost a year and a half), if he was hot (very much so, when he tries…tried? Post-breakup tenses are freaking confusing), and how he dressed (Quicksilver). I was not very impressed but was faintly amused nonetheless. After a while, they left, but then Di’s other roommate came back and I got to meet her as well. She was pretty friendly toward me, and we talked briefly about NorCal and the differences between it and SoCal (she’s from San Jose). Then, Di and I just decided to try to sleep. We lay awake eavesdropping on the roommate’s telephone conversation for a bit, but she wasn’t exactly trying to hide what she was saying, so yeah.

The next morning, we got ready and stuff and then went to Matt’s apartment, where I met him for the first time. First impression: tall, skinny, cute, a little dorky — which is pretty accurate, I have to say, haha. We went out to lunch at this really delish but grungy Mexican place. Oh man, it was the first time I’d ever had a potato taco, and boy was it incredible. I made small talk with Matt and tried to impress him by being nice but nerdy but a good friend and stuff. Di said he liked me, so that’s a relief. He made a good impression on me, too, even though later Diana told me that he seemed really grumpy. I definitely approve of him; they’re really cute together, and it takes a lot to make Di clingy and lovey like that, haha. We decided to go catch a movie, and he even took the scenic route in order to show me around San Diego! How sweet. Watched Terminator Salvation, which was…very explosion-filled, haha. Afterward, we went to the 99 cent store and had a blast. I bought a bunch of stuff for my collections, along with a Transformers calendar and other random stuff. I bought Mark a mini Axe body wash thing, haha, because it reminded me of him and because I’m like obsessed with buying him stuff. It’s seriously horrible; every time I see something that I vaguely think that he’ll like, I’m overcome with this incredible urge to just splurge and get it. I don’t get it, haha.

Anyway, then I rushed back to Irvine, got Diana Chipotle, dropped her off, and went to pick up Mark to go to UCI to watch Little Women the musical, which was really good! I was really impressed by the singers, and Mark was…superly duperly impressed, haha. I was pleased that he was so happy, ’cause I’d invited him and had basically come back early from San Diego in order to take him to the play. Diana was really upset about it (though she tried to hide it), but it was worth it to see him that excited. And of course I really enjoyed it, haha, since I read the book when I was little and it was weird yet very cool to see it interpreted that way.

The next morning, Mark and my family helped my mom with her Shaved Ice stand at the Chinese School Carnival. At first, it was a total failure because it was overcast, and I had a lot of fun yelling to advertise our products, but then it eventually became super popular. My mom didn’t take any of the profits for herself and instead donated it all to the school district, which I thought was pretty cool of her. I had fun at the silent auction stand and won a pair of $100+ sunglasses for $7 or something, ahaha, how awesome. Afterward, I dropped Mark off at his place and then went to go eat Panera with my family. I think we got into a fight later that day and me going to Panera was brought up (I think he was hungry?), but I don’t really remember what it was about. I don’t ever remember our fights very well anymore. Maybe that’s a good thing? Dunno.

That night, I stayed up late trying to get my novel in shape for the CreateSpace we’ll-give-you-a-free-copy-of-your-book June 1st deadline, but in the end, I totally failed at formatting it and it just wasn’t going to happen. That was really disappointing, since I’d been so excited to see what I’d written printed in book form, but oh well. I wrote it, and that’s what matters! I’m still in the middle of posting it to Fanfiction.net; I think I really only have a few regular readers for it, which is a shame because it’s really a fun story and a departure from my usual stuff. Ah well, I’m proud of it enough.

I WON NANOWRIMO.

This has been my wish for almost a decade. Euphoric doesn’t even begin to describe this feeling.

A million thanks for everyone who has supported me through this, especially Jayne, Mark, Kelly, and Diana. Extra thanks go to Jayne for encouraging me to do this for myself this year and for cushioning me throughout the month with extra support when I was stressed out about plotholes and lagging word count. But still, the greatest thanks go to the twelve-year-old Elaine, whose imagination had no limits. The plot and the original characters of Duelist’s Point was composed by her, and I wrote this story in honor of her and left many traces of her dialogue in the manuscript as a tribute. I’d like to think that she would be absolutely delighted to see Pann, Mikaa, Celestine, Lei, and the others come to life.

Ellipsis updated; NaNoWriMo begins at midnight; “Wrath of the Lich King” is coming out in less than two weeks; parents are out of town; received a really sweet text from Mark last night; gonna see Amanda and Diana today; gonna watch the Memory World arc of Yu-Gi-Oh! with Jess this weekend; gonna go to work dressed up as a flight attendant.

Life is good. Happy Halloween!

I have spent the past two months writing, writing, writing. I’ve been having the time of my life. Before high school, it was easy to write chapters for five different stories at the same time, but once high school began, it was near impossible to get any writing done during the school year. Thank god for the summers, during which I went crazy writing CATCF and Cars–both of which were a delight to be completely immersed in. Ever since school started and especially after everyone left for college, though, the part of me that craves reading/writing has been deliciously sated. I write in class, I write at work, I read at home; it’s a fantastic life, really.

This year, I decided that I would give NaNoWriMo a try. Ever since 2002, two different epic plots have been spinning around in my head–one original and the other fanfiction (Yu-Gi-Oh!), affectionately dubbed “Epic Novel Thingy” and “3D”, respectively. I’ve written many parts of both, but as some of them came into being when I was twelve, a lot of them aren’t exactly the best, most well-thought-out things. So this year, I read the NaNoWriMo website and found out that their purpose is to get authors to get off their asses and write those damn ideas that have been floating around in their heads. And I thought–”Well, why the hell not?” So I decided that this year, I’m going to give my epic YGO! fic a try. It’s not super plausible. It doesn’t make total sense. It doesn’t really fit into the timeline anywhere. It features way too many pairings and original characters. It’s a little too…”I-came-up-with-this-when-I-was-12″… But… Well, why the hell not?! So I’m going to do it. I’m going to attempt to write 50k+ words of action, adventure, romance, and drama. AND I’M GOING TO LIKE IT.

For the past few weeks, I’ve been doing a lot of pre-writing and planning for this epic story, and it’s been a lot of fun. I’m really excited to get started. Even if I don’t win (read: finish all 50k words), I’ll at least have gotten off my butt and started on the damn thing, right? And, well, the story is so shitty (to an outsider, anyway; to me, it’s fucking brilliant, LOL) that it won’t matter if I have to write it under a time constraint! Yay!

So yeah. Don’t bother me when the next month rolls around. But do cheer me on!

I’m just glad that I’m finally getting a chance to do this, after years and years of being too stressed out by school to get involved.