mood: relatively good, slightly incredulous
music: Jerk It – Thunderheist

On May 8th, I took Mark to go see Wicked in San Francisco as part of his birthday present — from last year, LOL. Hey, better late than never, right? But first, we went to go eat at the CPK by MoMA. (Can you tell I like acronyms?) It was the first CPK I’d had in over a month, so that was refreshing and yummy. Definitely not the same as eating it back home, though! But I won’t complain; it still tasted like heaven after weeks of ramen.

Afterward, we rode the BART to Orpheum Theater, which was nice in that very historic theater kind of way. The bathrooms sucked, though. But I obviously didn’t pay $200 for bathrooms, so that was fine. Mark was crazily excited, though I have to admit that I was, too. He was like enraptured throughout the entire show; it was adorable to watch. And what a show it was! We got an understudy, but she was really good anyway. It was definitely worth it. On a side note, I freaking love set changes. I think they’re one of the most entertaining things in the world to watch, hahaha. And the sets were so amazing! Also, OMFG, I have never seen so much green in one room in my life.

It was our last fun thing before Dead Week settled in, so we both really enjoyed it. Dead Week was…well, more stressful than busy, I suppose. I made what felt like a gazillion study guides, wrote what felt like thousands of drafts of the same essay over and over again, and caught up on a ton of reading. I did get to make a cool lexicon for World of Warcraft, though, that I’m quite proud of, heh. Oh, I also bought a ridiculous amount of food and other miscellaneous items, trying desperately to use up my meal points.

Mark left a week before me, but his roommate went home for Dead Week so I got to stay over at his place for a few days, which was really nice. When his parents arrived, I went to dinner with them, and there were some awkward moments, but that’s hardly unexpected. After they dropped us off to go back to their hotel, we went back to his room, and while he packed, I worked on my Art History study guide. In the end, he was so behind (procrastinator! -_-) that I had to help him so that he would actually be able to sleep in time to wake up at 9 the next morning. We ended up staying up until 4 or 5 in the morning, and I was a little exasperated, but he had just finished a gazillion assignments and pulled an all-nighter the previous day (all his finals/finals assignments were on/due on the same day), so I gave him a little slack.

The next morning, we said goodbye and then I went back to my place to study. Unexpectedly, he called me later in the afternoon and asked me to feed his parents with my meal points, and I was happy to see him again. We chilled for a bit with Katie, who had gone with him to the storage place. When we finally said goodbye, it was for a week, which seemed so long after seeing each other frequently in the past four months, and yet seemed so short compared to the time we’d spent apart during Fall Semester. I’m hardly one to go crazy after not seeing someone for a week, so I was fine, although it would’ve been nice to have somebody to comfort me when I was stressed like whoa, seeing as I kind of lacked friends in Berkeley. Oh well, I did fine. My finals all went well, and I got good marks. A- in English, A in Linguistics, B+ in LGBT, P in Art History, and P in Taiwanese. Not bad for my first semester at a school in which I was afraid I would perform second-rate. I’m proud because I proved that I do belong there — at least academically — no matter what anyone says about my intelligence, or lack thereof. Even though part of me is really mad that I didn’t get all A’s (4.0 GPA or not), the more sane part of me realizes that that’s silly. I performed above my expectations, even though those were under my standards, if that makes any sense.

My mom drove up on the 19th, and I took her to dinner at my favorite sushi place. She wholeheartedly approved of the food, which made me happy, haha. She is a Japanese food veteran, after all. I hung out with her for a while, and then I went back to my place. I didn’t really have much packing to do, since I had already been packing throughout the week, so I mostly just chilled. It was a nice last night; felt a little weird leaving, though. I hadn’t lived the whole year there, so I wasn’t like attached to the place or anything, but I had definitely become used to it. I wasn’t sad leaving — hell, I was ecstatic to be going home — but I’m always a little bothered when the routine I’ve settled into is disrupted, so I did try to memorize the room and everything that had happened in it.

The next morning, I met up with my mom and we struggled to parallel park for the longest time before giving up, LOL. Piled the stuff I was taking to storage into the car and then piled Katie and Linda’s stuff into the car as well. Katie took us to the storage place, where I marveled at the ingenuity of the tiny spaces that were perfect for college students’ stuff. Managed to fit all of our stuff into the place and then went back to school, where we dropped Katie off and then piled the car up with all the stuff I was going to take home. Somehow, that filled up the car, even though half of my stuff was in storage, and we had driven up with Mark and some of his stuff when I first moved in. I hate that stuff just randomly expands like that! Anyway, I took my mom to the Crepes shop that I really like, and she was impressed by how filling they were, haha. Then, we headed home!

Returning home was one of the greatest feelings I have ever felt in my entire life.

There is no place — no place — like home.

I don’t need fancy cars, I don’t need name-brand clothes, I don’t need flowers or chocolate, I don’t need tons of money, I don’t need expensive furniture or bedsheets — but I need my own space, more than anything. And that’s something I don’t think I’m going to get for a very, very long time. Why, college, why?

IT’S THE WEEKEND!!!!!!!!

I’m really excited, even though I have no plans except to play WoW and catch up on all of the homework I had to miss this week because I was working on a midterm and two papers. Also, I’m supposed to make/help Mark study. …Yay!

Oh, and he said that we could go out to dinner and get Japanese food! DOUBLE YAY!

It’s amazing how Leroy Jenkins never gets old or any less hilarious…

Reminds me of Ocean, and when he, Jayne, Di, and I played WoW every night this past summer. Those were some real fun times, and we got a shitload of gear (oh my god, I just typed “hella”). We would use Vent, and Ocean used to do the whole speech before every big boss, LOL; it was hilarious. The four of us made a good team, even if Jayne was a creepy motherfucker who liked to take too much aggro and died all the time, and Diana was the most useless, ditziest lock ever who would always forget to frickin soulstone me or give out healthstones. Ah well, Ocean and I made a good team, LOL. He was an awesome tank. 75% of tanks, I swear, are absolute dipshits. The really good ones are assholes and the really bad ones are douchebags. And to make the situation worse, tanks are always lacking so you never get to pick and choose, haha. And tank-healer relationships… Oh, man. I can’t even count the number of times I’ve started yelling at my screen or on Vent because my tank was being a fucking asshole to me. Can’t heal my arse. I’m a fucking awesome healer.

Seriously, though. I was talking to my roommate Wanni’s boyfriend (who is like ridiculously like ME in dude form; it’s weird; I’ll discuss that later), who also played a healer and absolutely loved healing (he had three healer characters of different specs!), and there’s just this like… I dunno, healing is just awesome. Even though you don’t fight, you’re responsible for the entire party (just as important as the tank), and no group is complete or powerful without a healer. Even though you just stare at green health bars for two hours in instances, you can salvage your group from a wipe or even just a single teammate from walking back to their body and paying repair charges. And people know it; and most people (read: people who aren’t dipshits) will thank you for what you do. Which is a great feeling. Pah, DPS never gets thanks!

The only downside of healing is that since I’m staring at health bars (the left side of the computer screen), I don’t really get to see the instance or the mobs that much, LOL. Unless I do an instance at least three or four times, I usually don’t know what’s going on, LOL. I just keep healing! It’s a simple but important job.

But going back to last summer… I seriously miss those times and hope that we’ll be able to play lots this summer. School is so shitty for trying to get playing in, but I’m trying my best to play every weekend. It’s a good excuse to do something relaxing (if fighting monsters and struggling to find mobs and NPCs can be called relaxing ) — and I’m trying to get my money’s worth, hahaha. I’m about a quest from dinging 73, which I’m super excited about. That will definitely happen this weekend; maybe even later tonight. I hope that my friends can play soon, because I want to do Utgarde Keep! They’re kinda busy all the time, though (since they have social lives and all… Haha), so maybe I’ll do it tonight when I’m chilling at Mark’s place and making him study.

mood: excited and pleased
music: We Don’t Care – Akon

she said she wants to bring me to bring me to her world
she whispered some words
that damn near made my toes curl
she said she’s got that
that i have never seen before
and if i get the taste
i’ll be coming right back for more

To loosen up the atmosphere around here, yes?

1. I have a secret thing for Joel Stein, the LA Times/Time Magazine columnist. I was secretly excited to read his Facebook article and learn random facts about him.

2. I apparently really like funny writers. Well, I guess I’ve always adored funny people, and I do love reading, so combining the two is positively wonderful. I have a not-so-secret thing for Chris Baty, the man in charge of NaNoWriMo. But I do secretly miss his pep talks. I’m glad that I bought his book, No Plot? No Problem!

3. Speaking of NaNoWriMo, I’m a couple thousand words from the end of my novel and I am super excited to print my first draft. For only $5, we get to print 250 pages at the computer center here, and we even get free binding! Aah, I can’t wait to read the whole thing, however shitty it may end up. I hope that I finish soon.

4. I’ve been reading Frances Potter’s fics in the past few days, and man, have I forgotten how exquisitely talented the classic Harry Potter fanfiction writers are. Her language is absolutely beautiful. This, my friends, is why I always say that fanfiction has spoiled Harry Potter for me — fanfiction authors write better about the world that JK Rowling so ingeniously created than JK Rowling writes about it herself.

Harry Potter flopped onto the sofa and let out a long sigh of contented satisfaction. Allowing his body to mould into the soft cushions he sprawled spread-eagled, legs stretched out before him, arms almost at right angles to his body, palms facing upwards.

He felt as if he had crawled inside Harry, inside his skin and bones, within those thoughts and memories. Held softly and safely within those arms and soul. . . .

Occasionally the softness of a kiss would be reinforced by a swift nip of teeth or the scrape of a nail. Sometimes he would feel the fleeting touch of Harry’s hair brush against him and he decided that if he were to die today, he would, at least, have this memory to take with him.

What I look for in a work of fiction is beautiful, exquisite diction. Writers like Frances Potter, Aja, Maya, Furiosity, Cinnamon, Rhysenn, McKay, Arionrhod… (Oh gosh, I can’t even begin to name all of the big authors in the Harry Potter fandom.) They know how to manipulate language, how to give depth to every character, how to make someone weep. I commend Rowling for the fabulous world she created, but the fact remains that she was writing children’s fiction, and her writing reflects that. Rowling’s writing? It doesn’t hold a candle to the beauty that is good Harry Potter fanfiction.

5. The weekend is here… You know what that means? It means that it’s time to watch X-Men: Evolution with Mark and play WoW! And even better — it’s a THREE day weekend! Woohoo! I’m going to frickin’ ding 73 on WoW by Monday night for sure. Super excited.

6. YGO! Series 0 Observation: LOL @ RANDOM YUUGI DAYDREAM FACE WHEN RYOU IS INTRODUCED AS NEW EXCHANGE STUDENT (Heartshipping, FTW!)

7. This isn’t so nerdy, but… I can’t wait to spend tomorrow with Mark!

mood: good
music Song for A Friend

Orchestra makes me realize how much I hate people who stereotype teenagers, which leads to a bunch of other realizations about people making assumptions about stupid things and how it really, really bugs me. This has historically been Jayne’s field, but it’s begun to bother me more as I’m exposed to more of it.

1. Teenagers. My orchestra director (who warrants a rant of his own, ugh) likes to complain about kids these days and how they are deficient in manners, sense, and attention span. He also likes to blame this on the music we listen to, the video games that we play, and the technology that we’re immersed in. He yells at us when we miss a cutoff and then complains about this, as if music, video games, or technology are actually relevant to the fact that we just didn’t look up in time. He once spent twenty minutes telling us this story about these punk teenagers who yelled and swore at him and all this shit — as if all teenagers are like that. Oh, puhleeze. What stupid bullshit. So a couple of assholes were total dicks to you — they’re hardly representative of the entire adolescent population. Get real — there are plenty of adults who are total pricks and bitches, too. Hell, YOU’RE KIND OF AN ASSHOLE. How do you explain that away?!

2. Music He also likes to complain that we can’t play classical music because all teenagers nowadays listen to is “[insert beatboxing sounds]“. Okay, first of all, this is a really stupid stereotype that’s extremely untrue. Second of all… God, this has been a huge one of my pet peeves since forever: I hate it when people declare certain genres of music “not music”, like hip-hop, rap, techno. MUSIC IS MUSIC. Anything can be music — I can drum my fingers along the edge of my wooden desk to a quirky beat — AND IF I WANT IT TO BE MUSIC, THEN IT IS. It’s fucking stupid when people try to like… I dunno, act like snobs just because they listen to classical or rock or jazz or country or something. A lot of “hardcore” musicians feel this way, which always really irks me. Hip-hop and techno, dude, those beats alone are music; they’re frickin’ amazing. And rap? I don’t care how corrupted or messed up or misogynist it is, it’s still MUSIC! Rap is like…frickin ingenious, anyway. Some of those rhymes are like…super intense. Ugh, I don’t know, it just makes me so angry. And it is VERY possible to appreciate both rap and classical and like them both; I certainly do! Along with techno and rock and jazz and hip-hop and alt and indie and country and a bunch of other stuff. I’m very proud of it.

3. Video Games I’m also very bothered by people stereotyping people who play video games to all be idiotic nerds whose entire lives revolve around their game and who miss out on social interaction because of their game. There are people like that out there, sure. But it doesn’t mean that we’re all like that. The WoW stereotype is the worst. My director likes to bring WoW up every rehearsal to make fun of it, which makes me incredibly uncomfortable. I’m sorry if I don’t like the implication that I’m a nerd-drone with no social life or manners who should be looked down upon, but I hardly see any of those qualities in myself or any of my friends who game. I love WoW; it is a brilliant game with an ABSOLUTELY BRILLIANT and RIDICULOUSLY FASCINATING backstory. It’s a great way to bond with friends, meet new people, and escape from the world. I’ve become so much closer with Di and Jayne just by playing with them, and I’ve even become a lot closer to Ocean because of it. I’ve met some really nice people, although I’m not as social as either Di or Jayne (but that’s just me as a person). And a lot of times when I’m fighting with one of my friends or really, really upset over something, I’ve gone on WoW and done a few quests or an instance and you know, it’s like reading — all your worries just vanish and seem totally inconsequential. It’s a social tool, a stress reliever. It teaches teamwork! To instance, you really have to work together; if the group dynamic sucks, then you’re screwed. If you don’t have manners, then you’ll get kicked or ditched and won’t have anyone to play with! So it’s stupid to say that video games corrupt kids. They’re actually really beneficial; as long as you don’t get ridiculously obsessed, then you’ll gain a helluva lot from WoW. And about the obsession/addiction thing — fuck, being obsessed with/addicted to ANYTHING is harmful. So stop blaming the goddamned video games.

4. Technology Which leads me to a rant on a similar vein about technology and how its benefits outweigh its shortcomings significantly. All that shit about how like… Technology renders us incapable of communicating in person and having like knowledge of common courtesy and manners and shit… It’s so stupid. I know for a fact that technology helps build relationships, not ruin them. A lot of times, people feel more comfortable being themselves online where they’re not being watched than in person. I believe this is why online dating is such a booming business. When you meet someone online, you hardly lose all your manners, but you definitely feel more comfortable acting like yourself; significantly more anxiety is involved when you’re interacting with people in person and have to act/respond instantly. Online, you can think through your thoughts before you say things without being stared at weirdly.

I dunno, I always think about Mark and me, and how there is no way in hell that we would be so close if it weren’t for technology. Because it has been online that we’ve really gotten to know each other, spilled our secrets, shared our deep thoughts. In person, there was always all that awkwardness and uncertainty about how to act towards one another. But online, it was easy to share the details of our lives and our dreams and our problems. We even argued online, you know? We still do this online thing even though we’re dating now, and Mark worries that it impedes our relationship in some way, but I think that it only enhances it. Now that we’re super close, I feel perfectly comfortable talking to him in person about all the things that I tell him online, something that I don’t believe could have been achieved without the miracles of instant messenger.

It’s the same with my other friends; I’m super close with the ones who I’ve gotten the chance to talk to online — and the ones that I haven’t are never really up-to-date about my life. ‘Cuz when something happens, I tell the people who are online, you know? I hardly call up all of my friends and tell each of them whatever happened. It’s just so much more practical and easier, in the way that it’s just easier to share my thoughts through written word than oral language.

Hrm. Anyway. Back to studying for Astro… LOL.