littlestar

just read the comments that people have left me...

a few interesting things about me:

did you know that i sleeptalk?

did you know that i sleeptalk in english AND korean?

i've dreamt in both spanish and french before. especially right around those times when you have exams coming up.

and... my freshman year roommate, annie ro (annie, where are you????) swore that i was speaking in some language that wasn't english, korean or french. considering that she was korean, took french in high school and obviously knew english and that i hadn't taken spanish yet....

it's just bizarre, don't you think?

also... another way stormy is like me. she experiences the world through eating.

mind you, i eat more palatable things. no carpet, rugs or clothes for me.

but yeah... i could pretty much tell you where to eat in washington dc, because that's pretty much what i LOVED doing there.

and yes, the art gallery was nice....except we decided to wander instead of looking at specific things so i didn't get to see all the great master's stuff. so... the yellow tomato soup in the little cafe at the center of the building, next to the fountain, was the best tomato soup i've ever had.

definitely better than the cafeteria food.

and i don't remember the name, but in downtown dc, there was this restaurant that had the best softshell crab dish i've ever tasted in my life.

food is good stuff.

Posted by littlestar at 01:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

bend it like beckham was definitely a good movie.

stormy gave me quite a scare yesterday. she accidentally peed on my bed while i was petting her. i think some noise that anne made in the living room must have scared her.

anyway... incontinence is a sign of urinary tract infection in rabbits. and she stopped pooping. so i got worried and took her to the vets. and they couldn't get any urine out of her to do a urinanalysis, so they sent me home with some antibiotics.

i waited in giving the antibiotics because the vet basically gave it to me as a safety measure, and wasn't sure if she had a UTI because they weren't able to get a decent sample of urine.

so... being the zealous bunny mom i am, i waited patiently with an empty litter box until she peed enough and took the sample to the vet.

she's in the clear and she doesn't need the antibiotics.

i think anyone who's known me in my earlier college years will know why i had antibiotics so. and i really dislike how doctor's policies tend to be "give them strong medicine and send them home." i've suffered much for that. :-p

still... you can't blame the doctors only. the health system is in desperate need of reform. i can only hope that it happens soon so that more people's healths/lives aren't sacrificed for the sake of "business".

anyway... bend it like beckham was a good movie. i could relate a lot on some things, actually. once again, i came across the idea that yes, the movie parentes are difficult.... my parents are harder.

i think it's because i haven't reached a happy ending where they have some sort of epiphany about me and my life. rather, where the movies can cut out 2-3 years of painful comments of parenets and cram it into 20 minutes in the movie.

i'm fine with that. it makes the movie more bearable.

i've been having a hard time with my cousin again, but i suppose that isn't new. i'm just holding on to the idea of moving out in a week.

a great big "thanks~" to my friends who have been supportive of me on this and listened to me complain about the difficulties i've been having.

Posted by littlestar at 01:40 AM | Permalink

foreign languages are definitely cool.

but when you have too many of them floating around in your head, it can get to be a little challenging to think, let alone speak.

i'm fluent in korean and english. i took french in high school (which is only enough to confuse me). and a semester of spanish in college (learned more here than high school, but isn't that generally the case?).

and for whatever reason, my brian is getting all jumbled. i'm thinking in these weird sentences that have a mix of french, spanish and english. korean words seem to be at rest because i don't really use korean when i'm up here. but when i'm using korean, i hear spanish and french.

you know... like... juego con mi lapin maintenant.

or como estas aujourd'hui?

and with korean and english.... i frequently don't remember which language i heard things in. obviously, if it's someone that doesn't know squat about korean, there is no question. but for other people....

and my own thoughts. i don't see words. i see ideas.

is it any wonder i sit there and make up my own words to get my meaning across? or refer to limitless number of things as a "thingy"?

Posted by littlestar at 01:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Fight!Kikkoman

so my friend is really weird and finds weird things like this all the time online. go figure.

i'm a little worried right now. i think stormy might have a UTI and i know personally how uncomfortable that can be. so we're going to the vet's again tomorrow.

of late, i've been feeling social at times and anti-social at others. swing the pendulum multiple times each day. and when i feel social, i go out and do stuff so i don't write in my blog. and when i feel anti-social i don't write in my blog because i refuse to turn my blog into a ranting site.

don't get me wrong, i do rant. my frustrations about my apartment and sometimes stormy is proof of that.

i just don't want to write myself into a bitterness pit that i would have a hard time getting out of.

i'm just learening clever ways to avoid stress and make things easier on myself.

anyway, i really want sushi. i hope this dinner thing i have planned with kevin works out.

Posted by littlestar at 01:03 PM | Permalink

so i got angry about the fact that whoever found my bag was jerky enough to take it instead of returning it to intermezzo.

so i went out and bought exact same bag again. but then i found another bag that was cute. and before i went to that store i went to another store and i bought a bag and a cell phone accessory.

anger=spending money??

anyway... i have a thing for bags. actually, i have a thing for things.

at costco, i bought two dvds (liar liar and guys and dolls) and two books (three fates and confessions of a shopaholic). i can relate to the title of the last book.

i'm thinking.... i'm moving. i'm poor. i'm independent of my parents and without money...

what the heck am i doing buying all this stuff???

i really need to find a better way of handling stress.

Posted by littlestar at 12:14 AM | Permalink

it was a hot day.

actually, it was pretty nice outside, my apartment just burns up, that's all.

i can't wait to have air conditioning.

so i have decided to get the canon s400 ELPH to replace my nikon coolpix 885. it's cute. it's small. it's freakin' expensive.

i never thought that i'd have to spend that kind of money again. well, at least not for a while. man...

i guess i should forget about getting a tv that's larger than 13'. that's what i use right now. it's smaller than standard computer moniters now. =)

i was telling my friend alisha that i miss my bible. thinking that i would be moving last friday, i packed it. now it's at my friend's place in a box out of 20 or something. despite the fact that i don't read it that frequently, i still miss it and wish that it was here.

i know that i've been pretty bad about going to church and all... i just still have issues to deal with. i thought that i'd start going to church down in san jose. maybe i actually will again.

see... this is weird for me. i grew up in the church. at the age of 8 i was telling my parents that i couldn't miss church, even if i was sick. i loved god and jesus and thoroughly believed that they love me.

i still love jesus and god, just not as strongly, i guess.

god, that sounds bad.

anyway. i love them, i do. i just don't trust them to take care of me. at least, i'm starting to recognize that "taking care of me" can't be put into a human level. they aren't going to make sure that i don't get hurt... by other people, by moving cars, by a random accident.

i suppose they take care of you by caring for your soul. allowing you the freedom to love others because you know that they love you. giving you that extra push to love others because you know that in loving them, you are loving god and jesus as well.

but man... is that stuff tough to accept or what?

as if i don't have vulnerability issues already, i have to put myself out there on purpose, knowing that i might get hurt?

and this is where i'm still working on it. after all, jesus did say to be as pure as lambs but cunning like the serpent.

i will be cunning. i will learn this thing called boundaries that my parents didn't get across to me very well. i will develop a stronger sense of self-esteem and some amount of confidence. i will learn to be assertive.

it's either that or i die trying.

anyway. i think i'm fairly heat exhausted enough that what i just wrote didn't make sense to me. i tried two time to spell the word "green" and i failed both times.

it's because i want a lime-green bible. go ask alisha.

Posted by littlestar at 12:05 AM | Permalink

so being the obsessive freakazoid that i am, i finally went through ALL of my friend's blog. from the beginning to present.

he's had a blog for about a year and half.

meanwhile... i've determined that stormy, like me, is not a morning person. she is so much more friendly in the evenings. this morning, she bit my leg.

i decided to wear my warmups over my shorts.

yesterday night was hilarious... she was lying down on the bed (this was the first time she's done that) and i was petting her.

she started to slide off the side of the bed.

i had to catch her butt and push her back up.

then she lied down more towards the center of one end of the bed. this time, when i pet her, she rolled onto a wooden chest i have at the foot of my bed.

funny, yes?

these days, i wonder a lot about relationships. i realize that my parents have never really loved each other. i've pretty much known this throughout my whole life.

this sort of skews my views on relationships and marriage. what is a happy relationship/marriage? obviously, it's not like people don't argue ever or anything like that. so at what point is it too much?

i really really really like parakkum. but some of these issues are important for me to address, because i'd always be commitment-phobic otherwise.

another issue that plagues my mind lately is housewares. anyone who sees my wishlist on amazon would know.

oh yeah... and my digicam is no longer. i think someone took my forgotten purse and that bag had my digicam.

i am so sad =(

Posted by littlestar at 02:57 AM | Permalink

What Kind of Relationship is Right For You?

I am the princess (...with a pea)!

Find your fairy tale character at kelly.moranweb.com.

I am truly passionate.

Find your soul type at kelly.moranweb.com.

it's a little strange, really. i'm getting these tests from a friend's blog and we come out pretty similar. i suppose it's no surprise why we can get along well.

Posted by littlestar at 09:13 PM | Permalink

another friend's blog is preoccupying me right now. it's also introducing me to even more personality tests, those evil time-consuming things.

Take the What Should Your New Year's Resolution Be? Quiz

My #1 result for the SelectSmart.com selector, What Kind Of Pokemon Are you? , is EEVEE

What Kind Of Pokemon Are You?

My #2 result for the SelectSmart.com selector, What Kind Of Pokemon Are you? , is CHANSEY

What Kind Of Pokemon Are You?

This quiz says absolutely nothing about your personality. Take it!

Posted by littlestar at 02:46 AM | Permalink

since wednesday... i got average of about 4 hours of sleep. this includes nights where i didn't get any, and finally getting 8 hours once the graduation craziness ended.

i've moved a little more than half my boxes to kevin's place. and now i have the rest to move over there.

this is so that my cousin's new roommate lupe can move her full-sized mattresses into the apartment, because she doesn't have anywhere else to do it.

yesterday, i had a sort of frazzle breakdown after alisha and franklin left for la. too much crap to do....

now... i'm in this state of given-up. if anne finds the apartment a mess, that's her problem. i'm moving and another person is planning to move in. moves are messy.

i'm doing my laundry now and the dishes. i figure i'll move the boxes i was planing to move yesterday today instead, since i never got around to it.

my parents expect me to be their errand person. i understand that they might find certain things intimidating, but i can find myself getting angry when it's because they're just giving up without giving it a try first.

for instance... paying credit card bills online. they don't want to learn, yet they keep almost missing the payment deadlines so they call me instead. i don't understand why they just don't pay the stupid thing off when they get it, you know? or take the time to learn from me what to do. they are adults and so am i now. we have adult things to take care of, especially since i'm moving.

so i sounded tired on the phone and a bit annoyed... and there is my mom telling me that i shouldn't take on other people's errands. at which point i tell her i'm not, i do hers. i mean... last weekend was basically me dealing with her new computer.

and now... when i'm about to move and with the new girl needing a place to sleep in, at least, starting june 2nd... anne is disappointed that she's not going to have any quiet time to herself. if she wanted some, she could have come up sooner. i understand that she couldn't because she's helping her mom at the store these days, but then at least expect to have the chaos of people moving out, right?

and apparently everyone thinks that it's my job to deal with all the furniture because i happen to be the one here. if anne's so curious about christine's schedule to get up here and moving out her stuff, why does she keep asking me? a simple phonecall to christine could do it. ugh.... the chairs, the microwave... i'm tempted to just buy them from my friends so that i can donate them out of my life. and with anne talking about how she wants to have minimal amounts of stuff in case she moves later.... it's like, she's not doing anything to get rid of it. she's expecting me to do all the work. it's like... if it's not her stuff, it's not her problem. but she's totally fine with receiving help from me when she needs it.

i suppose some of this is because i do things thoroughly and take the time to read manuals (mom). but... i just wish people could do their own parts for things, as well.

i mean... things are hectic enough for me right now. i'm moving to a new place. i have to find a job because my parents told me that i'm independent now. and i'm moving schools, so there is a ton of extra stuff i need to deal with. administrative things. i need to figure out what i'm going to do about health insurance. reserve a moving vehicle. figure out where i can find a dolly to move boxes. etc etc etc.

this is probably why i have little sympathy for others right now. because i'm tired of having to hear about their problems without their caring to ask for mine, or not caring that i have a lot of crap to do. i can have the patience for that when i have free time of my own but like any other human, i wish that people cared enough to see if i was doing ok or offering some help. i guess i'm just disappointed that the "flesh and blood" that is family that apparently i can't ditch no matter how shitty they can be (according to my parents) is the people that give me the most stress.

Posted by littlestar at 10:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

my friends kick ass.

today was just yet another reminder of how my friends are THE best.

due to some logistical complications, i had to get my new couch early. this would pretty much have been impossible without dave's help. we two double-handedly (two sets of hands, right?) moved the sofa. pretty good, right?

and kevin is just so cool. i'm pretty sure that my roomie would freak if she saw my place right now since it's full of stuff. so he said that i could use his spare room (which already holds my sofa) as a sort of storage space. now the only task at hand is to move all those things before she comes up on sunday.

and this is just today. my weekend trip would have been impossible without the help of victor and miller in taking care of stormy.

my friends rock!

and now i have another one of my cool friends driving up to attend graduations and crash at my place. this is good.

stormy and i are much alike. we hate overly loud noises. we startle easily. we LOVE food. we love to explore new things but love even more returning home to roost. we both like a lot of chill time.

i just don't like to chew everything in sight, that's all.

Posted by littlestar at 10:26 PM | Permalink

i wasn't kidding when i said that stormy is a little dictator. she apparently gave miller a hard time and now is in the care of victor. thanks, victor~!

to me... she's an angel (ouch!). sort of.

all hail, stormy-rah!

i completely forgot to add the final leap of faith that me and stormy had before i had to leave for la.... because i was worried that stormy might scratch miller and victor while i was gone, i clipped her nails. this involves holding/cradling her and taking each of the "fingers" in her paw and trimming the nails with this clipper. she hated being caught but didn't mind being held so much, i think.

this is such a vast improvement from the first time her nails were clipped after i rescued her from the shelter... she was very jumpy while working with the vet. she wasn't used to people yet.

i'm so proud of my brave girl.

Posted by littlestar at 11:06 PM | Permalink

i am trapped in front of my mom's old unreliable computer, patiently trying to transfer her documents to the new computer by the painful attaching files to email process.

i will be up for a while.

i'm just happy that the evil thing hasn't crashed yet.

this computer was the very computer that pissed me off enough to switch to macs. and now i love macs. so maybe i should consider that a blessing?

i finished watership down today. it was a really good book, especially for someone like me who can picture all the rabbit antics that adams describes. but reading this book in combination with being worried about and missing stormy led to some very interesting dreams where i had multiple rabbits, some of them stormies, running around and making mischief.

i haven't written my papers yet but i don't think i really expected to. after all... working on computers (even chump stuff like i'm doing) can be time consuming. as i was scruched up under desks connecting wires and such.... i realized that i could never do this for anything beyond a couple times a year, if at that.

kudos to y'all who like doing this stuff and want to do it for a living. *applause*

from after june, i will be financially independent from my parents. this is sort of a scary thing. i mean... parakkum wants to help out and stuff, and this is reassuring, still, i feel bad about taking huge chunks of money from people. i will finally get a paying job (no more of those volunteer positions) and maybe that will help me have even more of a concrete sense about money.

money money money. never thought that i'd have to worry about it so much. after all, i've been planning to go to med school, forever. now that i'm pursuing this idea of art and i hadn't really made provisions for it, i find the lack of money pretty disturbing. all will turn out in the end. after all, it's not like i'm going to starve.

sometimes, thinking about the future only makes doing things you need to do that much harder. sometimes, what you need to do is throw yourself into the thick of it and just do what you need to do.

that doesn't mean that you don't plan things out, just you try not to think of how hard it's going to be... how annoying something is going to be... how tired you are...

you just do something because you need to do it and try to enjoy the process as much as possible.

i heard a really good sermon from church today. enough of one that i liked the pastor enough to ask about churches in the south bay. he said that NCBC (new community baptist church) is a good one. anyone know about it? it's in palo alto.

the sermon was about how single people shouldn't fear. that fear of loneliness, getting too old or never finding somebody has people just grabbing at anyone, inappropriate or not. this is something that i've been trying to explain to some people for a while. most of my friends don't have this problem though.

the other thing was... to enjoy all the seasons in your life... childhood, teens, young adulthood, etc... after all, each of those seasons have their own characteristic blessings that can't be find in any other seasons. so make the most of the season that you are in now because before you know it, that season will be gone.

carpe tempus! = seize the season!

Posted by littlestar at 10:50 PM | Permalink

so i am hopelessly besotten stormy mommy.

i have dreams of her and expect to be waken up in the morning with her landing on my head again.... except i'm home with my parents and i wake up to my sister peaking through the door to see me wake up.

not too bad, to have another small mammal making sure i'm up.

much thanks and props to.... MILLER. who is being a good stormy-sitter. i pray and hope for the best.... that she's not trying to intimidate my 6'2" friend through behaving badly.

i've sort of declared to my parents that i will be getting a rabbit once i move to my new apartment. they don't really know that i already have a rabbit.

i'm a good daughter, really. i just have stubborn parents that require working around sometimes.

Posted by littlestar at 11:32 AM | Permalink

ok... i'm not going to go into the details because it took me 1.5 hours on a cell phone to sort it out.

i'm not moving on the 23rd. i'm moving on 6/7. because.... they finally did get a notice for a one bedroom, and the transfer process (to live in the studio before i move into the one bedroom) would have cost me ~$1000, so i opted to take the risk of being homeless and putting a reservation on the one bedroom that opened up (basically, i won't have a hold on the studio anymore, and if the people that have the one bedroom decide that they don't want to move out anymore, i'd have no place to move into).

it's apparently one of the biggest one bedrooms in the unit, so it's going to cost me much. but parakkum said it's ok, so i guess i'll just go along with it. i didn't need a big one bedroom, but oh well. more stormy running space!

and i bought this nifty sofa from someone, thinking that i'd be moving on the 23rd (the owner needs the thing out by the 25th at the latest), and now i have to somehow transport it over to a friend's place (thanks kevin~) until i move.

so... anyone know anyone with a truck? or van? or suv? if not... it's one of those menace-to-society uhauls for me.....

despite all the difficulties, i am actually looking forward to all this change. still... it would help if the people at this new building weren't such bureaucratic, capitalistic jerks. i mean... the person i'm working is fine, but he's just a newbie so he can't make any decisions on his own, and the person he works for has total lack of sympathy for a mover's point of view.

ickiness.

still... hoping for the best, really.

Posted by littlestar at 07:43 PM | Permalink

i'm in SJSU!

finally, after months of waiting they told me that i'm in. this makes moving to san jose less nerve-wracking. now i justt need to call every day for a one-bedroom.

today has been a big day. it was the last day of class, meaning that it would be the last day to see some of the wonderful people i met through classes this semester.

since it's the last day, it was also the day that i hauled all my crap out of kroeber and wurster. i helped agustin move his enormous torsos to his home (he does a 1.5 hour commute every day by public transit) and he helped me carry my crap to my car and into my apartment.

afterwards, we went to the starbucks he works at and he made me two drinks. two because i was so out of it that i dropped the first one. this was after i stepped on his cat's tail earlier (i'm not used to wearing shoes in the home). the second one had caffeine in it.

and after lusting after this thermos for like 2-3 years, i finally got it with agustin's handy 30% discount. yay~

when i got back home, stormy was grumpy. after all, she'd been in the cage way longer than she thought she should've been.

i moved around my boxes and packed some more. then checked my email to find out that i got in to SJSU!

ecstatic.

now... i'm putting together a list of tasks and things to do. why am i not using my pda for this? i don't exactly know. i think i just need to calmly jot these things down for now.

tomorrow will be another busy day.

Posted by littlestar at 12:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

i've calmed down a bit since yesterday. after i dropped steve off to the airport, i just hung out with stormy and read stories about house rabbits and went to bed. so i woke up feeling more at ease.

there honestly isn't anything i can do about the apartment situation anymore, you know? yeah, it sucks that they were negligent, but nothing i can do about it now. and yeah, i'm going to burn through some money trying to move to one, but it's not like i'm going to stay in a studio for that sake and it's not really worth it for me to be pissed about it all that time.

so... i'm just going to call every day and pester them until they give me a one bedroom.

stormy likes company. this may sound like a "duh" statement since rabbits are social animals. but i mean... she likes it better when i'm sitting on the floor with her instead of sitting on the bed and doing my own things.

how do i know this? well.... she just sits there and lies around when i'm in bed. when i'm on the floor she'll run around and do stuff.

maybe... she just thinks that she needs to be lying around if i'm in bed. the whole "bedtime" thing. i'm not sure. but she likes me sitting on the floor with her.

this is killing my butt and back. i'm considering a bean bag (one with foam, not hard round pellety things) or a cushion. i'm leaning more towards the bean bag, for the back support, but why don't we all take a vote?

use the comment feature, people. =) or the chat box to the side of this site.

Posted by littlestar at 09:50 AM | Permalink

victoria's secret catalogues... can we say TRASHY?

1) i honestly don't think that women are going to go orgasmic just because they're wearing flimsy swimming suits.

2) the women are emaciated, with ridiculously huge fake boobs and without nipples.

3) do you really have to have topless women to advertise underwear? whatever happened to bra and underwear ensembles?

which goes to show why guys probably have more subscriptions to these catalogues than girls do.

we have a generation of guys growing up with women with fake boobs and won't really know that that isn't real.

it's like... everything fake is becoming normalized... fake boobs, fake food, fake art, fake personalities....

sorry for all the attitude today, but this is how i can get when i'm generally pissed at the world.

Posted by littlestar at 05:45 PM | Permalink

it's now changing into summer weather here, which means that it starts cooking in my apartment. this is fine. it was anticipated. i already have an air cooler (water evaporation powered) so that my rabbit won't cook to death. i also am benefiting... no heat stroke for me.

i'm glad to say that my new place will actually have air conditioning. unfortunately....

well, here is my rant on incompetence:

i called last monday asking for a one bedroom. there was one available starting first week of june. so i said that i'd come by on friday.

no one...and i mean NO ONE mentioned that they dealt with apartments on a first come first serve basis and NO ONE mentioned that i could put the place on hold by leaving a holding deposit.

by friday, it was put on hold by someone else and i was told all these truths that they neglected to tell me before.

i placed an available studio on hold, also asking them to keep an eye out for a one bedroom, because that's what i really need.

on saturday, *I* call and find out that someone left an intent to move notice on a one bedroom. i ask them if i could transfer to it after i moved into the studio since that place wasn't going to be available till July. he said that he'd leave the file with the head manager and talk to him on monday morning since they're closed on sunday.

monday morning, i call and he's still working on my application for the studio apartment. while he is getting that done, he doesn't talk to the head manager, who gives the one bedroom to someone else.

so basically, they no longer have any one bedrooms. and i have a studio that doesn't really have a kitchen. and if i were to transfer, i have to pay a cleaning fee for the studio and a transfer fee of 20% of the higher rent... ALL BECAUSE THE PERSON I TALKED TO LAST MONDAY DIDN'T TELL ME THAT I COULD PUT A HOLDING DEPOSIT ON THE FIRST APARTMENT I CALLED ABOUT.

and this is one of the many reasons why i find incompetence a hard thing to deal with. because it's not like they're going to cut me a break because they were negligent. they're not going to guarantee me anything, because this is capitalist, litigatory america. and it's going to cost me at least $300 to transfer to a one bedroom, should one open up, but i need to do it anyway because i have too much stuff as an art major and the studios don't really have a kitchen or a fridge. they have those fridges that we used in the dorms (the thing won't hold enough vegies for my rabbit, let alone food for myself).

basically, the message is "tough luck. sucks to be you."

i can't decide whether it makes me pissed or sad that people don't have integrity or a sense of responsibility these days. that those things are considered an economic liability and that economics determines the value of people, their actions and the course of their lives when, really, you would think that being a decent person and living a life that is true to yourself should come above all other things.

*sigh*

Posted by littlestar at 05:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

yay~. i might get a one bedroom in the apartment complex i looked at before. it does mean i'll probably have to move twice, but i don't mind. i'd rather move without fully unpacking rather than live in a studio apartment.

my tummy's been giving me a hard time today. and stormy likes parakkum more. instead of taking the treat away from him and eating it a little distance away from him, she eats it from his hand now.

i've packed a good half of my stuff now, i think. the studio that i hope to live in temporarily will be available in late may, so i'd be able to move things in gradually. the two apartments are even on the same floor.

Posted by littlestar at 12:32 AM | Permalink

i got a lot of things done today. i put an apartment on hold in san jose. the place is literally across the street from campus. things didn't go as easily as i wanted--as the one bedroom that i wanted was already taken by someone else. right now, i have a hold on a studio. once a one bedroom opens up, i'll move to that.

then i went dress shopping. i bought THREE. one was a pretty generic flower print dress. the other two are interesting. one is intensely pink strapless with a '50s style of puffiness and the other was a navy strapless dress. both come a little below my knees.

don't worry, i have ways of de-girlifying the pink dress. don't i always?

so here's the hilarious part:

guys.... NEVER try to buy a girl a dress. it doesn't matter if you know her size.

never mind that each dress fits different on a woman's body, to flatter or to.... well... not flatter.

these three dresses i bought were sizes 3, 7, and *9*. and yeah, the 7 and the 9 were a little big, but not noticeably so (they were the smallest sizes of the dresses they had). and i know that i'm usually a 3 or 4, so it's not like my ego is damaged for having size 7 or 9 dresses...

but do you have how up the creek you would be if you bought a dress that was like 3 or 5 sizes too big??? i mean... what would you implying, right?

so don't buy dresses for them. unless they've already tried it on, loved it and had to leave it because of monetary reasons (ie. you're already married/engaged).

and while we're on the topic of gifts. seriously, girls are so not going to be impressed by random, expensive, impersonal gifts. i think that's why my friend alisha hates flowers. never mind that they have already been saccharinized (if you don't know already, i make words fit my needs) to DEATH, but you could pretty much give flowers to anybody. it is very rare for people to put thought into flowers. granted, if you've put thought into it, flowers are fine.

but none of that generic "red roses are romantic so every girl must like them" crap, yeah?

Posted by littlestar at 10:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

stormy's come such a long way. i mean... truly an urban bunny. the loud noises of buses, trucks, bad radio with loud base, police/ambulance/fire truck sirens no longer phase her.

she still nips me sometimes, but i realized that i am now an honorary rabbit now. when she nips, it's usually not that hard and if it is, i squeal (not exactly the most dignified, but it gets the message of "you hurt me" across and she nips less hard later). with this squeal she gives me this look:

you sorry excuse for a rabbit, you think that HURT?

hilarious.

i finally had a chance to have dinner with kevin tonight. it's been a while since i've seen.

oh crap. haha~. he forgot to bring me my water bottle... and i told him to remind me to give him the pictures i've forgotten to give him for the last 2 years, and quess what?

i forgot to give him his pictures again.

i mean... this is serious stuff. i've MOVED at least to two different apartments with these pictures. these pictures are like 3 years old.

is that sad or what?

Posted by littlestar at 10:58 PM | Permalink

this was a realization i had when i was walking home from class yesterday and i thought it was important enough to merit it's own entry:

if people genuinely, truly loved themselves than they would never have to hate anything or anyone (except maybe raw onions. i hate raw onions.)

when you think about it, if someone was truly happy and satisfied with themselves, they would not feel shame. they would not feel that they have to live up to some expectation. they would not feel the need to validate their lives and their decisions by imposing them on others. they wouldn't need to declare that other people were bad (usually in comparison to themselves) so that they could feel good. if you truly loved yourself, you wouldn't need self-destructive behaviors to make life easier for you to bear.

in an ideal world, we could all live together happily, knowing the true value of ourselves and recognizing the unique elements of others.

this ideal world is worth dying for (or at least facing a whole lot of opposition for).

and i think that's what god does. maybe that's why so many are drawn to him, in whatever form they think he exists in.

but those moments when that ideal world coexists in this world for a short, brief, barely-there moment in time... isn't it one of the most beautiful sights in the world?

if we loved ourselves, we could truly be ourselves...without putting up facades to hide our insecurities and fears. this would allow us the freedom to love others.

sometimes, it is the other way around. if you can love others the way that jesus loves, truly and whole-heartedly... then you can learn to love yourself truly and wholeheartedly. after all, jesus loves you that way, right?

Posted by littlestar at 10:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

it's my dad's birthday today so i gave him a call this morning.

lately, since my uncle's death, i have the feeling that my dad has finally realized that he is mortal and that his time with me is limited and he keeps emphasizing how little time we have together.

honestly, as much as i love my parents, until they learn to let go a little, i would never be able to live with them.

and here's the thing. the families in the US assume that the time with their children is limited from the beginning (in an ideal situation, that is. people usually have a porous concept of time). so they know that they will have up to high school and then the children will go off to lead their own lives.

well... my parents, and i daresay a lot of korean parents out there, never really acknowledged that. after all, in korea, people don't move out until they're married. if you do, people wonder if there are family troubles or something. so because they never really lived those years with me thinking of the limited time that we'd have, they spent it doing other things: working, mainly.

so they are faced with this situation where they finally want to spend time with me (which in their eyes means i live with them) but i'm in a position where i have to shape the foundations of my future.

it's a situation where they will have to be disappointed, and i hate that. but still... i try my best. after all, i don't know that many people that fly home as frequently as i do.

Posted by littlestar at 10:20 AM | Permalink

stormy has declared my foot hers: she chinned it.

i have the suspicion that her nips mean either "move it" or her painful way of grooming me. i mean... the silly chit licks my pillow

the rain is suddenly pouring, sapping all desire for me to leave my place for class. but it is the last day of class after all, so critique time.

besides, i bought a present for prof. shaw. he's like one of the nicest people in the world.

i'm glad that i'm blessed to know so many of them.

Posted by littlestar at 10:14 AM | Permalink

after deciding to move at the end of this month, things have been a little hectic. i realize that i shouldn't be so stressed out. i mean... i already have my stuff packed already, being the obsessive weirdo that i am.

still... it feels strange to move to san jose without knowing for sure whether i'm in the school or not. and well... i get to check out a place i'm interested in tomorrow, to see if i'd want to sign this lease there. *sigh*

you know, i was telling agustin about this yesterday... after doing some fancy mental math (counting), i realized that i moved 7 times while i was in college. that's not counting the time that had to move up here from LA.

i'm just hoping that this will be my last move in a long while. so i'm making sure that i really really like the place. it sounded cool. i'll write more about it once i see it.

stormy... she somehow managed to get a sticky part of a piece of envelope from london (christine sent me a picture from the art gallery there) stuck to her chin last night. it was a pretty sad sight to see, actually. she was running around and it looked like she had a weird beard/bandana on. finally, i chased her down and managed to relax her enough so that i could cut the thing from fur with a pair of scissors. i tried earlier to pull it off but it was too firmly lodged into her fur and it was hurting her, so i stopped.

anyway, i guess i'm gloating. she's come so far from the aggressive, anxious bunny that would box your hands as you open the cage. i felt blessed that she trusted me enough to approach her with a pair of scissors to take it off.

these days, she'll come to me if i ask nicely (and when she's not preoccupied with something else), sometimes even into the cage.

and you know that it's a happy bunny when it does a roll over in front of you.

an example of my bunny's athletic capabilities. i am currently using anne's computer desk. as most of you know, computer desks usually come with a tray for keyboards that slides out. stormy managed to get her self in there somehow, using my chair. she was afraid to come down for a while, but after she did, she tried agian and again to go into that section again.

that same evening, she also managed to get on top of the desk and proceeded to calmly eat away at my bamboo plant.

bad bunny.

so i shooed her off.

Posted by littlestar at 10:05 AM | Permalink

i just found out this morning that my phone doesn't work. which isn't good and i have to find a new one. i've been researching phones online and it honestly is a pain. the customer reviews... they don't tend agree with each other and either way, there is always someone that complains. i come out with the notion that there isn't a perfect phone out there, which is like a duh, right?

i guess it's not all that different from how we approach life. some people are pleased. some people are never pleased. and some people will list the pros and cons.

anyway... looks like a busy day of errands for me today.

and stormy keeps nipping me. i haven't figured out why.

Posted by littlestar at 11:46 AM | Permalink

stormy had her final ivomectin shot today. dr. harvey (awesome bunny vet) told me that her ear mites are gone (yay!) and that she's just grooming normally when she scratches her ear with her hind leg and shakes her ears.

for whatever reason, i've been having a headache for the last few days. it's been very distracting and tiring, making it hard for me to take care of things day to day.

i had dinner with perry today. we had jja-jang-myun. apparently, he's had an itch for while. anyway... it was good to see him doing well. we talked about how korean i was, how he's watching korean dvds and korean parents.

don't we all just love korean parents?

stormy is eating carrots now. but she likes the super-fresh ones that still have the carrot greens attached. she's a gourmet bunny. no wonder why we get along together so well.

Posted by littlestar at 09:31 PM | Permalink

Manor House. Quiz PBS

according to the above snob test, I am 48% snob. haha~

it says, and i quote:
you haven't quite cut that snob mustard, christine. being 48% snob doesn't make you properly stuck up but no does it condemn you to burn in middle-class hell. unless you want to hang in snob limbo forever, brush up on those P's and Q's, but yourself some fruit knives and start lying about your education quick.

haha. just what exactly are p's and q's?

and this is apparently my life in 1905 (mind you, if i were "western" and not already dead in korea because of certain health concerns):

I am a Box maker!

apparently, i could've had the joy of being a shopkeeper, milk seller, waitress, confectioner and fishmonger as well. but i get to be married at 17 and have four children... who would ever give that up?!?

Posted by littlestar at 08:16 AM | Permalink

i had this incredible experience with stormy. she decided to sleep against me while i pet her. she was in a all stretched out position and nodding off while leaning her head on my knee.

very cute.

watching notting hill right now, for the first time. i reserve opinion till later. but so far, i'm finding it pretty funny.

Posted by littlestar at 10:24 PM | Permalink

stormy is a sneaky one.

she starts to chew on my rug (my beautiful rug which is apparently great for her to pull out tufts of)... i say no. she looks up.

and then as soon as i look at something else, she starts to chew it again.

i say no.

she stops.

the next time is when i bring out the spritz bottle... this time, she chews right until i bring the bottle out and she runs right then.

then she comes back to do it again. this time, it only took me saying no for her to start running.

it's just like a michievious kid. they test you to see how much they could get away with.

she sorta keeps me busy all day, but i don't mind.

i have this sneaking syspicion that her tail wag means she's up to something or planning on it. still figuring this one out, though.

Posted by littlestar at 12:02 AM | Permalink

i would like to take a moment to mourn the demise of my squirter bottle.

you have served me well. you were always small, light and pretty. you will be sorely missed.

stormy is, as parakkum put it, a thorough demolisher of her enemies.

Posted by littlestar at 06:34 PM | Permalink

i would like to take a moment to mourn the demise of my squirter bottle.

you have served me well. you were always small, light and pretty. you will be sorely missed.

stormy is, as parakkum put it, a thorough demolisher of her enemies.

Posted by littlestar at 06:34 PM | Permalink

stormy has come a long way.

she actually listens to me now when i say "let's go in the room" when she's running around in the living room. i give her treats and some petting as a reward after i close the door. yay~!

she's a smartie

Posted by littlestar at 05:03 PM | Permalink

i took my friend to this place called urban ore so that he could pick up the stuff that he bought yesterday. that "store" is amazing!

they get their stuff from donations, dumps, etc... and sell it for a really nice price. it's like a constantly running garage sale, except better organized.

i got a ton of stuff ro $25 dollars. two of the books i'd grabbed were $10 each, so the guy just glanced at the other stuff and said... how about 25?

so i got....
5 books
5 wicker baskets
1 iron
5/6 cups

all for 25. bargain or what?

stormy is napping right now, in that crook of the chair again. here's a pic:

Posted by littlestar at 01:24 PM | Permalink

stormy cracks me up sometimes.

so in order to train her to not do undesirable behaviors, i use a spray bottle and say "no."

she's learning. she definitely knows that she shouldn't be doing things. she looks up at me to check if i'll do anything to stop her.

she's also decided that she doesn't like the bottle much. anytime i leave it on the floor standing... she steps up to it and knocks it over and hides it under my desk. she's conquered it. she's annoyed that it keeps getting resurrected.

one of these days, she's going to hide it, i'm sure.

silly bunny

Posted by littlestar at 10:15 PM | Permalink

i spent the last 30 minutes trying to change my profile image so that it would have both the enso i already have there and a picture of stormy.

i failed.

so i'll just post it as an entry:

stormy trying to figure out if my cell phone is edible

this is her in her "room" before i added the litter box

Posted by littlestar at 09:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

did you know that there is a drive case (makes a standard hard drive portable) manufactured in korea called....

the CUTIE.

leave it to koreans to make an ordinary thing CUTE.

apparently, it got good reviews... except for the name.

hilarious!

Posted by littlestar at 07:57 PM | Permalink

so i did the big nasty thing called cleaning stormy's cage. usually, i change the litter every day but today i decided to clean the whole tray. this involves a water and white vinegar concoction, soaking it in the pan, and scraping off the mineral layer from the calcium from stormy's pee.

this took me an hour.

then i had to change the trash bags lining the cage.

and i vacuumed the apartment.

this took me about two hours.

so i've decided to potty train stormy to use a litter box. litter boxes are smaller than the trays from a cage. so it should be easier to clean. heh heh.

she thinks it's a sand box. it's kinda cute, actually, how she pushes around all the litter. it's a sight to see. and if you want to see it, you have to visit me.

she's decided that the space between my desk and the legs of my chair is a perfect cranny to nap in. she just flops down and sleep. it's very cute.

oh yeah... did i mention how dharma is my absolute hero? she's so hilarious.

"do you want to hurt his professionally, emotionally or psychology?"
"yes"

haha~!!

"oh yeah. got'im."
"what?"
"cans, bottles, newspaper... he doesn't recycle, that evil man."

oh yeah... like my bunny? ='.'=

Posted by littlestar at 07:49 PM | Permalink

so these days, i've been spending a lot of time reading messages on a group for bunnies. i am utter thorough bunny mommy.

i just has a potential replacement for me in the apartment i'm living. the only issue i have with that is san jose state's ridiculous admissions process.

we're in may now. they're still processing first-time freshman, which i am not. they said to give them another 5-6 weeks. that puts us in JUNE.

so i'm a little stressed about my living situation because i may have to move out by the end of the month, but i'm not really going to move down to san jose without knowing whether i'm in the school. i asked a friend if i could bum off their living space. hopefully, all this will work out and i won't be homeless.

Posted by littlestar at 05:37 PM | Permalink

art hurts the wallet

Posted by littlestar at 05:22 PM | Permalink

so i just realized that what i was seeing when i make entries into my log wasn't what other people saw as they read. apparently, i'd managed to put a skin on my site during this weird xanga premium trial period.

anyway... i got rid of that.

i had a good lunch with my friend dino whom i haven't seen for over a year, i think. it's always nice to get back in touch with people.

dino has this beard now. it makes him look older. i think his sweetie likes that. i remember a time when parakkum was really excited that i turned 20 finally... you know, he wasn't dating a teenager anymore so it didn't make him look like a cradle robber. haha!!

Posted by littlestar at 05:22 PM | Permalink

so i would like to say a piece on how i have the some of the coolest friends in the world.

i have some of the coolest friends in the world.

they're also pretty busy friends because they do awesome things. either that, or they have no lives because they're keeping themselves busy all the time.

anyway.... i'm really lucky and excited because i have two friends that are coming up in a few weeks for their friends' graduation. i basically get to be a B&B with the perk of having a resident rabbit. actually, one of my friends wasn't sure if she could come. and my other friend just asked me today if she could stay over.

anyway.... so i got this blog entry about me on alisha's page. hehe. i'm special.

ok... lots of things going on in my mind.... like why is my rabbit not going into her cage??? i need to go out and meet someone for lunch.

so i took matters into my own hands and tricked her into going into her cage. dried papayas do magic.

i also have to force myself to get some art done. usually, i'm more than happy to, but because i've been stressed recently, i just want to stay at home.

so my friend just told me that she feels like her brain is atrophying being she can't do arithmetic anymore. i'd just like to say that.....

i haven't done arithmetic since calculators were allowed in school. well... i can still multiply and divide, but subraction is beyond my ken. seriously, i tried to make myself practice subtraction by balancing my checkbook manually....

after i was off by a hundred dollars (i carried over something i wasn't supposed to), i gave up and reverted to the aid of technology again.

anyway, i need to go.

hasta.

Posted by littlestar at 12:45 PM | Permalink

christine likes to watch happy shows. ex:

dharma & greg
boy meets world
kimpossible
proud family
lizzie maguire (sp?, i have a 10 year old sister)
buffy (though not so happy lately)

if you looked at my dvd collection, by and large, most of the ones i own are comedies, romantic comedies, or drama with some humor.

life is too sad without humor. even in the worst of times, things are more bearable when you laugh or smile.

so i have a tendency to gravitate towards these sappy, lessons of life, things turn out well shows.

and definitely, some of these episodes will deal with hard, painful issues. i actually find that a blessing. i can learn from their mistakes without making my own. and though their words are carefully put together by highly trained writers, they give me a glimpse of how relationships between people can be.

i know that my communication with my parents leave room for much improvement. and really, i'm not going to constantly put myself out for them to trample on until they learn what communication actually means.

but it comforts me to know that it is actually possible for people to learn to be with each other, accept each other and love each other.

for instance.... whenever me and my bf have problems due to our different styles of communication and approach to life and people, it gives me great comfort to watch dharma and greg interact. because they sort of represent some of the issues that parakkum and i have to deal with. in some ways i'm the dharma and in other ways i'm greg. (he's more greg than i am)

but regardless of whatever seemingly insurmountable issue they have to tackle, they seem to do it. their love survives. they grow in their love and change together.

it's a beautiful sight. it inspires and emboldens me.

for most of my life books, touching movies and tv shows have played a huge role in the person that i want to become. anyone who's known me for a while knows that i'm a tremendous bibliophile.

and i realized... that a lot of my ideals and mentors come from the characters i've read when i was younger. the idea of going down an unconventional path, standing up for your own beliefs, challenging traditions that don't seem to make sense.... these were all things that were acceptable and encouraged in the books i've read.

the characters weren't encouraged by other characters. the encouragement, inspiration, reason behind taking this risk comes from the potential happiness.

and even if it doesn't work out, you have tried at something that really matters to you. and you've probably learned some invaluable lessons, you know?

i suppose this is why i try to do things that seem difficult to me and why i have a hard time doing pretty easy things that i have no interest in.

anyway... i think i'm starting to ramble. too tired. only got 4 hours of sleep last night. i can't do that anymore. i must be growing up or something.

Posted by littlestar at 12:34 AM | Permalink

my life has been a little weird lately. my uncle passed away. someone i knew committed suicide. and this morning, i got a call from a friend's mom saying that he was missing.

at 6:30am in the morning.

needless to say, it was a hectic day. but i talked to different police officers and my friend's mom.

and all i have to say is.... parenting must be HARD. i'm so glad that i don't have to deal with it for a long time.

anyway.... my friend was perfectly fine. he just has a really nice first date, that's all. i was just really glad that he's ok.

if my child ever does something like that, i'd tie him up in his room. haha~

no, really. i'd probably slap him with a cell phone and he wouldn't be allowed to ignore my phonecalls. i don't care whether they're in the middle of making out, he'd better answer my calls.

after all, that's what i do for my mommy.

aaaaanyway. life has been funny today. but i'm glad that it all turned out well.

Posted by littlestar at 12:13 AM | Permalink

despite what victor thinks, this blog isn't dedicated to stormy.

it's just that she's been preoccupying my life lately. my final drawing project is based on her. i keep having to buy supplies for her. and she nips me when she's unhappy.

i mean... that's sort of in your face, you know?

still.... i find talking about her much more interesting than talking about my school life or family life.

all i can say is that i'm glad that the semester is almost over. i can feel myself wearing a bit thin. my parents have been getting on my case about dating parakkum and how they don't believe it's true despite having been together for 3.5 years. they also think i'm a failure. the specific phrase is that i'm at the same stage i was in when i graduated from high school, all because i want to go for a second bachelor's in art.

it's not like i'm even sure that i want to do art professionally. i know that i probably don't want to be part of the art world. i don't really feel like dealing with all those people. especially if they're all new yorkers and they're going to be in your face all the time.

i've decided that i really don't like that.

i don't believe that you have to be rude or abrupt to get your point across.

Posted by littlestar at 12:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)