Home for the Holidays

Hello, it's definitely been a while since I've written here and on xanga. Since I'm home and sick with nothing to do, it seems appropriate to indulge in a blogfest. WHOOOOOHOOO.

Every time I'm home in the Bay on holiday I become bored with home. Don't get me wrong, I love being around family and old friends, but I can't help feeling rather useless and unproductive. My life revolves around finding things to DO - hence the constant reading and other self-imposed work. My mother tells me that I'm turning into my dad, a workaholic. Fantastic. I've always found my dad to be more than a little masochistic because he sleeps littles, works a great deal, and disapproves of idleness to the point where he believes that sleeping in past 9am is a waste of a good chunk of the day. Sadly, I agree with him.

This break I've had the pleasure to go hiking in the woods at UC Santa Cruz, seeing SD friends around the Bay, just general hanging out with some old friends, and skiing in Tahoe with family friends. It's been a pretty good break so far. The downside is that I am still sick . . more-so in fact than I was when I came back home from school. Technically I've been sick on and off for the past two months, which just means I need to take better care of myself at school.


This past fall quarter has been tough. 21 units = stressed beyond belief more often than not. Of course, in a typical me-fashion I simply shrugged off my friends' warnings that I was pushing too hard to do everything and the resultant stress debilitated my immune system. And of course, next quarter I'm determined to do the same thing all over again ... and start tutoring for Humanities.

I'm actually incredibly excited for next quarter. I'm absolutely resolute about doing even better academically than I did this quarter. Gotta keep the good ol' GPA up and whatnot like a good Chinese American kid should.
Plus, I'm already starting to feel bored without classes to go to and papers to write. Le sigh.

Oh and I'm addicted to chocolate pretzels, which do nothing for my coughing.

This time though, I think I'm bored simply because I'm still sick and hacking my lungs out and therefore quarantined in my house without opportunities to go out and see the people I haven't seen or talked to in ages. (I struggle to even talk at this point.) Hopefully I'll be able to leave the house soon, since I'm only at home for another week before I head back to school. I suppose we'll see.

Happy Holidays

Summer Reading List

I started thinking about my summer reading list today and I became quite excited because I love reading. I love reading far more than I love writing, which I don't really - I just sort of do it and like it a little more than occasionally.

So here are the books that (hopefully) will occupy my interest during my three or so months of summer:
1. Harry Potter # 7 - I've been waiting for this one secretly since the 6th book. I love a nice good tale I can just lay in bed with. Harry Potter books require so little thinking that I find them to be among the most relaxing.
2. The Confessions of Max Tivoli - recommended by my boyfriend. He suggests books rarely, but the one other one he suggested "Ordinary People" was an extraordinary book. I trust his judgment.
3. The Golden Compass - The last time I read the book was in 7th grade, and I want to re-read it before the movie comes out. I'm really very excited.
4. The Kitchen God's Wife - Another book I've encountered before, but I failed to finish this one. I first started reading it when I was in grade school or something because my mom had it lying around and I always liked to poke around at books. Unfortunately, this book was far too daunting and I lost interest (comprehension never settled in) after a few pages. My apologies to Amy Tan.
5. The Best Little Girl In the World - This is a story about eating disorders. Very dark, and may hit a bit close to home if I choose to read it during a "i-feel-like-a-blimp-sort-of-fat" period of time - namely during pms. I hope it's beautiful and sad and honest.
6. The Other Boleyn Girl - There's a movie coming out based on this book that stars Scarlett Johansson and Natalie Portman. Phillipa Gregory is supposed to be good.
7. Song of Roland (La Chanson de Roland) - This is supposed to be the oldest French literary work. Like other ancient works like Beowulf and Njal's Saga, this is an epic about the hero Roland. I love Medieval Europe.
8. Euripides' works - I love ancient Greece more than I love Medieval Europe. Euripides was quite the playwrite in his day.
9. Find whatever I can on Cicero, who is said to be the most influential writer in all of Rome. He may prove to be quite boring to me, but I think I will be satisfied if I can just be exposed to his supposed genius.
10. A Thousand Splendid Suns - This is written by the same guy that wrote The Kite Runner. That book made me cry. I have high hopes for this one, which is about 2 women.
11. The Assault on Reason - Al Gore came to UCSD on Monday and I went to go see his presentation "An Inconvenient Truth". He was amazing. I will read his book. It's far more interesting than Bush will ever be able to come up with.
12. The Tipping Point - I've always wanted to change the world someone in some small way (for the better, not for worse). Perhaps this book will tell me how. The same guy wrote Blink, which is a fantastic book, I highly recommend it.
13. A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier - At first I thought that this book's cover was just too sad to make me want to pick up the book itself and read it, but I've changed my mind. Our world is a sad place, but there's beauty in being able to confess that sadness.
14. The Innocent Man: Murder and Injustice in a Small Town - I love John Grisham. I love John Grisham's fiction. This is his first attempt at nonfiction. I want to read it! period.
15. Buddha: A Story of Enlightenment - Religions intrigue me. Siddhartha was a great book and perhaps this will be great too, in a different way of course.
16. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly - this is Nayson's favorite book and I remembered that I wanted to read it. The author wrote this book by blinking because only his eyes work after some accident that paralyzed him.

I think that's all for now. Gosh I want to be able to just curl up with some books at home in Cupertino with a nice hot coffee. [=

while i was in cupertino i kept on referring to the apartment in san diego as home. my mom and sister were present for most of these references, and it definitely didn't make them very happy. butttt now i am back at my home away from home and i'm so blissfully happy.
there was a lot of drama stuff at home that i really could've done without. im glad to be back in a place where i can care very little and potentially piss off people i will never see again, save a few passes walking around campus. i don't miss high school drama at all.
i read ahead for next quarter's humanities class while i was on break, which most of my friends and family reprimanded me for. i just like reading, especially books i haven't touched before. (though some books are not worth opening at all). but not being around school makes reading seem more leisurely. njal's saga reminds me a lot of beowulf.
next quarter i get to read ralph ellison's invisible man and toni morrison's beloved again for my literature class. i'm pretty excited. my first lower div class that's actually for my major! w00t! i think i'm ready to dig around in between words for a plethora of symbolism.
lets just hope that physics and calculus don't eat me alive. last quarter's grades were sort of meh and thankfully i won't have to shut down my facebook to punish myself or anything. BUT if my grades slip this quarter . . . then yea, it just might happen.
YAY I HEART REVELLE [=

i have a new obsession with lily allen, this british singer. she's kind of off-kilter and kind of wild. i think she's absolutely brilliant because her lyrics are so blunt it makes me smile, even when the words are sad. i'm going to post lyrics because that's the cool thing to do when i'm obsessed with her songs.


You're just doing your own thing and some one comes out the blue,
They're like,
"Alright"
He's saying,
"Yeah can I take your digits?"
And you're like, "no not in a million years, you're nasty
please leave me alone."
-knock 'em out


At first when I see you cry,
yeah it makes me smile, yeah it makes my smile
At worst I feel bad for a while,
but then I just smile I go ahead and smile
-smile


she makes me wish i had an interesting accent. i wonder if i lived in new zealand with my cousins long enough i would pick up an new zealander accent. that would be hella cool.

after a few days of terrible mood swings, i think i'm starting to mellow out. but then again that could be the soy dream and nutella that i just had for breakfast talking.

"Don't Let Me Be Bad"

"...the real high virtues which we do not possess at all, we cannot depict except in a purely external fashion. We do not really know what it feels like to be a man much better than ourselves...To project ourselves into a wicked character, we hae only to stop doing something, and something that we are already tired of doing; to project ourselves into a good one we have to do what we cannot and become what we are not... The Satan in Milton enables him to draw the character well just as the Satan in us enables us to receive it." C.S. Lewis on the character of Satan in John Milton's Paradise Lost.

I admit that I usually have a love/hate relationship with antagonists. Examples? Cathy in East of Eden, and currently Satan in the poem Paradise Lost by John Milton.
Some might find it appalling that I should be able to sympathize with Satan when I am Christian. (This warrants a debate sometime. Let me know if you want to talk about it.) My attraction to these characters has nothing to do with wanting them to win, so to speak. I know they won't. Antagonists are flawed in ways that they cannot win; they cannot complete "the hero's journey." They experience no growth. I can't even say I LOVE these characters so much as I pity them. I empathize with them BECAUSE they are flawed.
I don't want to be bad (How very like Cal of me to make that proclamation). I don't know how to be good, which is a huge part of being human. C.S. Lewis was right about not knowing how to be better than we really are. I'm not going to let that be an excuse for my failures however. I must fight the self-imposed blindness and reject taking the easy route of succumbing to the bad. Enough pity parties. Enough anger. In the end, the only one I wrong most is myself.

Silly that I should start analyzing my reading on my blog. A sure sign I need to get off the computer.

Two Points for Honesty

I hated these visits, because I kept feeling the visitors measuring my fat and stringy hair against what I had been and what they wanted me to be, and I knew they went away utterly confounded.
-from THE BELL JAR by Sylvia Plath.

I grew up with people expecting great things out of me. And getting into whatever college was like the test to show everyone how great, or not I am. I guess I fell short. By a lot. Does this mean that people no longer have expectations for me? Whatever potential I had apparently went no where in the eyes of a lot of people. They are likely to believe that I'm nowhere near as smart as they had presumed me to be and nowhere near as ambitious. As a little girl I told everyone I would go to Stanford. Parents took me a little seriously I suppose. I no longer want to go to Stanford, but then again, how nice would it be if I DID have the option of going? And yes, I am still sore as hell about the whole college thing.

The college that I DID really want to go to rejected me outright and rejected my appeal. I didn't get into Berkeley or UCLA, though UCLA music was an option I outright turned down (a decision my mother would not let me live down). I feel as though I've let down so many people, especially myself. I should've worked harder, I know I should have. All I can really say now can just be summed up in four words: Hindsight sucks major ass.

I'm going to be honest now . . .
I am much more insecure than I'd like to let on. I am, hands down, a proud person and I hate admitting to my weaknesses. Most people are afraid to confront the worst of themselves. It's easier to vehemently deny the existence of a weak link in ourselves and ignore it rather than fix or accept the flaw.
I care more about what other people think of me than I'd like to let on. I put on the front, the mask, the walls to bolster myself against the possibility of an onslaught of judgments.
I feel unworthy sometimes, talking to some people. I feel like I wasn't high reaching enough or something, or I simply don't have the track record to be of any use to anyone. It's such a negative view that I hold of myself, but I'm just being honest now. I don't think I'm a stupid person, but I do think that I am a lazy one. My laziness has stood in the way of opportunities in the past and it's not something I wish for my future. More than anything I wish I could be truly self-confident. A little self-love can go a long way.

I just wish that in the following time I can finally be completely open and honest with everyone, especially myself.
A happier post next time.

Signing off,
C

Heroes

It's summer. Summer means movie release time. School is out, and work is more lax. What's interesting is the fact that we have so many movies that are based on real-life heroes and surprise successes like FLIGHT 93 and GLORY ROAD. And now, coming soon to theaters near you, WORLD TRADE CENTER.

The concept of heroes is not a new one. All cultures have their heroes. The media has theirs. Hollywood has theirs. No, heroes have been with us for a long, long time. Perhaps it is just me noticing the recent boom in movies that are based on REAL stories. Or maybe it's not a recent Hollywood trend, but one that has been ongoing for ages and I only notice now. In any case, I feel the need to share my thoughts about it.

We certainly love our heroes. We love glorifying all that is good, or at least the potential of greatness in everyone. These movies are an escape from reality. The reality in which 400,000 people die per year because of cancer sticks known as cigarrettes. The reality in which violence runs rampant in Iraq, Iran, North Korea, Darfur just to name a few. The reality of broken families and broken dreams. These movies give us a break from tragedies, some of which are the products of our own selfishness.

We want to believe in heroes. We want to believe that we can be heroes. So many of us are motivated by some desire to be great, just, and make an impact some where, some time, on some one. Is that not what it means to be a hero? But desire does not necessarily translate into hard-on, ugly reality. Too many of us do nothing because we wait for someone else to care, someone else to be the instigator, be the hero simply because it is too hard to take initiative. Often times we are cowards wanting to be heroes while waiting for the right ones to come along and save us.

I'm not saying that humanity is doomed to apathy or sloth or anything. God knows that I, too, wait around for things to happen to me too. It's just that with all the movies circulating about middle-of-nowhere teams winning national titles and September 11th I can't help but wonder why we need so many true stories to hit us in the face from a large or small screen. I suppose we need these movies to affirm the reality that success happens, and that tragedies occur but there are real heroes to step up to challenge adversity.

I do believe that heroism is something that should be celebrated. Heroism is the representation of the best in each and every one of us. There are so many success stories out there. Monta Vista's cross country team is a freaking success. The girls have gone to the State Meet 3 years in a row, which sharply contrasts to the image twenty years ago when football guys and field hockey girls were begged to run in meets. Our story is merely one of thousands everywhere.

How interesting that it can be so hard to motivate ourselves, when it's so easy to be motivated by someone else. Perhaps this is another sign that humans are social creatures and are not meant to survive independently of eachother.

Rambling post.

Summer Days

Summer this year is possibly the most challenging summer I've ever experienced. I've never had to THINK this much, but then again I haven't attempted taking three classes. And work. I guess this is a mix of good and bad. I definitely do want to feel productive with my time, but my sacrifice is the precious time I can actually spend with my friends. I've seen fairly little of everyone this summer, and it saddens me. However, since I'll be around during the fall, I don't think it will be too bad, but it scares me how far away I feel from everyone even though I'm still in Cupertino . . .