Score!

I am writing to you as a woman fresh in her twenties.

Wow. That sounded disgusting. I am in my twenties. Ugh.

One more year before I can stock my cabinets with wine.

Things that are currently stressing me out:
Planning out life/next year's schedule
Finding a place to live.
Aphio stuff
Aphio stuff
Aphio stuff
Impending papers and midterms
Being behind behind behind on schoolwork
The Nutty Run
Ipod crashing

Fuck. I just want to watch TV, pleasure read, and learn how to play my ukulele (yes, I bought one). Next up, boyfriend.

Ukuleles

I want one.
I want a ukulele and I want to rent a boyfriend and make him sing a duet with me on the following songs:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HjbSx89Tt5Q

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OvMVCHhwTPs

That would pretty much make my life.

If you have a ukulele you want to sell to me, or if you want to be my boyfriend (or girlfriend, I don't discriminate) for an hour or so, TELL ME. I will pay you. On both accounts. Seriously.

Being Asian

I don't understand it when people say someone is "so Asian."
I am writing this entry as the risk of sounding hypocritical because I use this phrase too. It's become a word that I use now and again to describe something that is stereotypically "Asian." And I understand some of it's uses. I get it if you say someone is "Asian" for liking anime or for watching Korean dramas. Those things come from Asia. Therefore, by association, the people associating themselves with these things are "Asian."

But honestly, some people use the noun-turned-adjective in ways that really do not make sense to me.
For example, I had a friend (I don't remember who this is so sorry if this is you) who visited my dorm last semester. I asked him to guess which bed is mine. Without hesitation, he pointed to the right bed. Then he said, "Your bed is so Asian."
My bed sheets aren't covered with bamboo designs or Chinese characters. In fact, I got the seashell'd sheets from Ikea. Last time I check, they are Swedish.
You could argue that "Asian people like shopping at Ikea because it's cheap," but that's ridiculous. If I was white and had the same bedsheets, would my friend still say that my sheets are "Asian?"

This is one example of how who I am ethnically is being used to explain my actions, choices, or behavior. Sure, it may have some correlation, but it I wasn't Asian, it'd just be a personality trait or a quirk of some sort. Since I have black hair and almond-shaped eyes, the reason why I value my education is because I'm Asian, the reason why I'm a bad driver is because I'm Asian, the reason why I grab a bunch of napkins from the napkin dispenser is because I'm Asian, the reason why I have strict parents is because I'm Asian. The list goes on.

I'm not saying I wish I wasn't Asian. I just wish society would stop using my ethnicity to explain who I am. I mean, the word "Asian" wasn't even used in a broad way until the 1970's. Before that, the Japanese were just Japanese, Koreans were Korean, Vietnamese were Vietnamese, and Chinese were Chinese. Ask any Asian immigrant in the States what ethnic group he identifies with and I guarantee he would not say "Asian." That's because each Asian sub-category is so different and so diverse that people who are part of one don't see themselves to be related to the others. The term "Asian" is merely a term profilerated by the non-Asian society to lump together a diverse group of people and a bunch of stereotypes, relevant or not.

You can say I'm Chinese because I love Chinese food, call me Chinese because I find beauty in the written and spoken language, the culture, and the people. Hell, associate me with being Chinese because of my surname. But I play the piano because I like playing the piano. I value my schooling because I value my future. I grab a bunch of napkins because I use a lot of napkins. Being "Asian" has nothing to do with it.

EDIT:
Friday, April 17th, 2009
This girl in an Asian drama I watched once had the same sheets as me in the show. I cleverly left out that argument. Hahahaha.

Apartment Living

Holy Mother of God.
When I get a house, the first thing I'm going to revel in buying is a washer/dryer.

This morning (technically this afternoon) I woke up and sorted all my clothes, light and dark. I designated today as laundry day days before. I went out to check to see if the machines were taken only to find the only working washing machine to be filled with water. I thought maybe the other one would be fixed so I put in $1.25 in quarters only to find that it doesn't work.

I called Everest Props and basically took it out on them. Then I called the maintenance people for the washer/dryers and they told me they won't be able to come by until tomorrow or Wednesday. I am working on Wednesday and I leave for NY or Thursday so if they don't come tomorrow I am basically screwed.

Now I have giant angry piles of color coordinated dirty laundry in my room and too much angry pepper in my angry fried rice because I did some angry cooking.

ARGH

Identity

In life, we are always trying to "find ourselves." We seek to define who we are, what we stand for, what we want out of this abstract thing we call "life."
In sociology, we learn that there are multiple selves and we are conditioned to move fluidly from one self to another. Who we are as a daughter is different from who we are as a friend, who we are as a student, and who we are as a stranger.
That's a hard concept to grasp. At least for me anyway. We've all been brought up to look down on "posers," people who are faking their identity, pretending to be someone they're not. But if identities are ambiguous, if there is no "real you" or, more appropriately, no "fake you," then what constitutes as posing? If you keep at it long enough, won't you eventually become that person anyway?
I still get mad when friends "change" who they are. It's frustrating when they become someone I can't identify with anymore. But are they more themselves, posing, or did they just develop another "self"?

Is it me who's having the identity crisis?

Shit Dominos

Have you ever had one of those days where in response to a circumstance out of your control, you make a bad choice. That bad choice leads to another one. And that bad choice to another. So you have a domino effect of truly shitty choices and then all the shitty-ness just crashes on top of you because you just happen to be standing at the very end of the shitty domino chain. And when you manage to crawl out of this mounted pile of shit, you discover not only that you are covered with shit but also that you are responsible for cleaning all the shit up. What makes this even more shitty is, you realize that you were the one who inadvertently set up the dominoes in the first place.

That's basically the day I've had.

Every time you close your eyes, Lies, lies!

Today at the end of my sociology class, my professor puts on music like he always does. I immediately recognize that it's The Arcade Fire. When I got out of class, I looked up what song it is on my ipod. It's called "Rebellion (Lies)." We are studying Obedience in class.
I think I'm in love with my professor.