"ahhh... les baguettes avec nutella..."
i posted the pictures of me and goonley in europe.
i remember how he drove me crazy when we were there; every two seconds, i turned around to see him taking a picture. we seriously could have pieced together the roads of rome with all the pictures he was taking. and, as the camera was new, he was always figeting with the aperture and shutter speed settings. in the end, i'm glad he took so many pictures. i can remember everything we did when we were there.
yah, he's a big tool. but check out the pictures. goonley's got quite the artistic eye.
"girl power"
today rocked. i talked to my buddies beckfat and christophe, and that made me uber happy. i really missed the beckfat. she threw a couple of funny noises at me on the phone today which made me giggle. the developmental psych exam wasn't too hard, i think i did fairly well. after mit, it's an odd sensation to go into an exam and leave feeling like i know more than 2% of the material.
a few facts, as brain fodder:
1/8000 new born births are triplets.
babies start walking at an average of 11.7 months.
babies as young as 2 - 3 months old have depth perception.
the average 12th grader has a vocabulary of 80,000 words (i think this used to apply. it probably now consists of britney-speak and LOLs).
the brain and nervous system develop from the ectoderm of the blastocyst.
sex differentiation occurs at the 10th week of fetal development.
i saw bend it like beckham last night with shirley and clement. that's two movies in a row the three of us have seen together that are pretty good. let's see... how to describe, how to describe. it's sort of an athletic, sporty, monsoon wedding. not as artistic, but i was pretty impressed with the acting. and it's funny. as much as i like to make myself the neighborhood tomboy, i am such a girl at heart. i started crying at the end, and totally melted at their romance. sigh... i know i'm just a romantic disaster waiting to happen.
other than that, i don't know what else is going on. mouli is coming into town this week and i'm probably going to take him to brother's korean bbq. i'm going to see cohene on friday probably and marla is helping me move into my apartment on saturday. i went to look at it today and it was so beautiful. there are two huge bay windows, and they completely repainted everything a clean, pristine white. my room overlooks a little backyard and has a bay window, it's own bathroom, and this enormous, gargantuan closet. i am so excited to girlify it.
the one thing i noticed about my move out here is that i feel like i really miss some of the profound relationships i established in boston. for the first year, i had monica, but she moved to baylor. and then after that, i became really close with beckfat, huru, and erik. i saw the three of them on a weekly, if not bi-weekly basis, and erik and i even travelled to costa rica together. there was a certain comfortability having those three near me all the time, even if i didn't see them, because i knew that i could always call them or depend on them to be in the vicinity. there were also so many others with whom i was establishing close relationships - hua, malbert, cat. moving away from boston was probably most difficult for that reason; the city itself is beautiful but buildings and trees don't really foster that much of an attachment. so, i guess when i came here, i was so used to being so blessed and having those connections that i sort of expected them to just be. huru had to remind me that it'll take time. i'm relearning patience.
i can see the golden gate bridge from this room. it's so beautiful here.
"phunny bunny on the bus"
dude. this cankersore will not go away. it still hurts. trying to eat this weekend was an intense exercise in pain tolerance.
so i was sitting on the bus today and had the funniest guy get on with me. he was a muni worker, but wasn't working and instead was riding the bus home. he got on at 20th and geary with me and as the bus took off, announced, "next stop, 17th avenue and geary." and then proceeded to make the announcement in russian, cantonese, korean and spanish. then, as we neared park presidio, he said, "next stop, park presidio, also known as 14th avenue, and geary. change here for the 28 and 29 lines. for those of you contemplating self termination, the 28 bus will take you to the golden gate bridge." and then he translated the phrase again in all the aforementioned languages.
he did this for every single stop, and in between would randomly spew a couple of phrases in cantonese and mandarin "yes, very delicious, thank you." spanish: "welcome to san francisco, the beautiful city." he did this until we got to the j-town area, and then got off. ahhh... the phunny bunny bus man. love him =)
let's see. so other than that, things here are really well. i'm sorry to hear that the weather on the east coast has not been conducive to summer time activities, and to make all of you feel better, i hear that it will soon be cloudy here as well. it's actually been a bit frosty here at the nights, dipping into the 50s. still, i am quite happy here. my first exam is on tuesday. augh!!! nah. it's all good =). i'm down with the stuff.
the invitation stands for visits. i think the current schedule is:
next weekend, 28th - moving into apt., gonna drag cohene to sushi.
july 4th weekend (my bday) - dennis comes to visit
july 13th - going down to la to see family wu and mr. monk
july 20th - erik and marc comes to visit
july 27th - rich moy and roberto come to visit, marsha moves in with me
mid-august - going home to ct! wahoo! =). get to see stan and beckfat and erikhead. joy! party in new york city with brother wu
late august - davido comes to see me.
hrm.. i have a disproportionate number of male friends. maybe i'm a closet male...
"i wot a cankerswore on my mout"
ouch. i hate these horrid little things. they take up a tiny little taste bud but wreak havoc on your entire tongue. they're wicked, wicked!
i think i've finally run myself into the ground. i've been out of the house the last few days for 12 hours at a time, not really having fun, but mostly working and sometimes seeing friends. i feel like i'm experiencing serious MA, which i've dubbed as mental atrophy. when i was in high school, i had a really hard world civilizations teacher. her name was ingrid petty. you saw her on your class schedule and the tremors that overtook you were enough to register off the richter scale. so, for some stupid reason, i *switched* into her class. she's probably part of the reason why i got into mit - she whipped my social study / humanity skills into shape. afterall, history isn't just about memorization. there are themes, roles people play, patterns that repeat themselves. in any case, she was notoriously know was being a wickedly difficult teacher, but somehow i managed to get an A+ in her class. i just could understand, learn, remember, recognize the way i had to in order to see and understand history. but now i'm finding it exceedingly difficult to acquire knowledge the way i did 10 years ago. maybe it's because this psychology class is a summer class, and one term's worth of material is crammed into 5 weeks. i don't know. maybe i'm just slow. i'm loving it, but finding it hard to remember all these things. yes, my friends, i am suffering from MA.
ioh, while we're on the wubunary, i've also coined other terms:
UDM - ulgy, demented monkey. those are the anti-social, rude, salivating, gross, hairy, smelly guys that your female friends pick up for you when you're trying to snag the hottie. this is why i love my sisters.
the dark ages - the period of time when you have NO idea what you're going to do with yourself. creating color names for crayola sounds to be the most fascinating thing you can do. or, if you're me, you contemplate being a monk.
okay. i need to go to bed. i am rapidly becoming a tired one.
"niftiness abound!"
so nifty!
1. got a research lab
2. found volunteer work doing stuff with asian immigrants, training starts tomorrow
3. got interviewees for my book
4. taking a cool, class
6. got permission to take a grad class before i matriculate so that i can start working on my master's
7. met cool people out here, tho not as cool as the buddies in boston.. sigh...
8. landed an interview for teaching lsat for kaplan = $$
9. going to see parental units in a few weeks
10. getting to know the city *a lot* bettery. but was baked a little in the sun. am a little toasty dark, now.
11. oh! will be in ct and nyc in august to see family and brother. hopefully will see some buddies, too!
"dur...."
i'm not exactly the most clever person alive. i'll be the first to admit it.
i went running on friday morning, seeing as it was a really beautiful day. the first few days i was here, it was pretty cloudy, a little chilly, rain was sprinkling intermittently throughout the week. but on friday, the sun just broke through the entire city and inundated my room. so i got up, looked outside my window and saw the golden gate bridge. it seemed to be pretty close to where i was staying, probably about 1.5 miles away or so. thinking that wasn't too far, i decided to run to the bridge and back. i figured a 3 mile run, despite my pulled calf muscle, was easily doable.
i neglected to remember that sf's streets are not straight, and that much of the city is hilly. so. i did arrive at the golden gate bridge. about 3.5 miles later. with no money, and a calf that was screaming for advil. i had no way to get back! i was in too much pain to walk, and if i did, it'd take me 2 hours at my rate. so.. i had a few viable options: 1. to beg a tourist for a dollar to take public transportation back or 2, ask a park ranger for help. thought about the first option for a while, but took the second. i think the park ranger thought i was really demented. i had my mit visor on, an indication that i might be somewhat intelligent, but what i said to him probably refuted that assumption:
me: "uhmmm. i ran away too far from my apartment."
park ranger: "huh? what?"
me: "yah.. i kept running away from my apartment towards the bridge. and now i'm stranded here. my leg is cramped. i have no money and no way of getting back"
i got the best blank stare i've gotten in a long time. i eventually got home. but i think he thinks that all mit people are dumb. sorry. didn't mean to ruin the reputation of a 'great' species.
in any case, friday night, i went out with shirley and her friend and we had indian, coldstone creamery, and we saw finding nemo. coldstone creamery is really nifty. they make the ice cream while you sit there and watch them. they put the ice cream on these frozen slabs and fold in brownies, chocolate chips, anything you want. and finding nemo. excellent movie. i laughed so hard. saturday, marla came up and we went to the north beach festival with my friends mike and ethan. drank beer. got drunk. drove down to san jose, met her friends, drove back up and went out with jason, nik, and marc and some other people i don't know to a bar. the redwood room in the cliff hotel. uhhh. a little stifling. i was pooped. yesterday, passed out, got up and went to the alice 97.3 concert in the golden gate park with dave zhang. we watched luce, sixpence, and macy. okay. so luce is really quite good. i really love sixpence because i think leigh nash has a really nifty voice. macy gray just bothers me. it's like she has emphysema. cows sing better than she does. then i met up with maggie and jon salz and some others at brother's. it's a godsend, that bbq place. i love it.
in any case, the first week was quite good. but i'm pretty tired. i need more down time. =)
"the cah no move, indy! it no move!"
so i think i'm wreaking havoc on the muni system. i was taking the ph back from fisherman's wharf yesterday when it came to a screeching halt and started sliding backwards. it proceeded to do this three times. the operator turned blanch white and started bugging out because we were on a hill near lombard (and those hills are crazily steep). 4 times he tried to initiate the cable car and 4 times it kept sliding backwards. we almost rolled into an intersection and hit the people behind us. finally, we made it up. some of the women in the car were screaming to get off. i was hanging off the side. it was kind of amusing, actually.
then last night, i was taking the 31 home from union square when the electricity poles that are attached to the cables fell off. they fell off a block away from civic center, once in lower pac heights, once again near inner richmond and then right in the middle of park presidio. the driver was so angry. the asian women on the bus were all cursing in low voices, trying, but not attempting too hard, to hide their annoyance.
so this is what i do. i wreak havoc on the public transportation system in san francisco.
"i am not wubu the grey. i am wubu the white."
so i arrived last night in san francisco at 10:55 pm. as i was deplaning, the steward asked me, "so is this home for you?" i paused, about to say, "no, i'm just visiting" but then i caught myself. the last 10 million times i've arrived, yes, i was just visiting. but this time, san francisco is home. i smiled and said, "yah. i guess i can call this home now."
jason came and picked me up and as we were rounding 101 up to the city, i got my first glimpse of *home*. it was totally surreal. i've wanted to be here since january of 2001 when goonley and i first visited, and now i am here. and it felt great. although i was totally jetlegged and exhausted from the meditation session and the long plane ride, i could barely contain myself.
this morning, the city was blanketed in a misty gray as i rose to attend developmental psychology, but when i left class, the entire city was drenched with sunshine. i love this place.
i'm going to try and watch the sun set tonight. it's my first night as a san franciscan.
"ooohh... i forgot."
i want to post a message here to thank my friend matt, who was pretty badly hurt on his way to my farewell party on saturday night. i'm sorry i wasn't around to take care of you on sunday and thereafter, but i am so grateful that you're okay. i appreciate that you went out of your way to come, and it was really considerate of you not to call me (although i really wish you had) when you were at the hospital.
thanks.
"c'est un adieu a boston"
dur. so, we moved everything out yesterday. catherine and i had our last breakfast together, at new york pizza on the corner of mass ave and columbus. we love that place. we used to go there for chicken cutlet subs and slices of cheese pizza at late hours when we were too tired to cook. gave away our glasses to erik, our plates to stan. and then that was it. leaving the apartment was an odd sensation, simply because i have enjoyed living with catherine so much, and i realized that it wasn't the physical apartment that i was going to miss, but more our times and memories there.
erik and i then went and worked out at the z-center, mit's new gym. it's pretty amazing and a stark contrast from the hole-in-the-wall gym that they used to have a dupont. we got him a new mattress, (email me if you want really cheap, good quality mattresses in boston. i have a hookup), got some ice cream, went food shopping with mouli, picked up tinalai, and then went to super 88 for a quick dinner. showed up at stan's at 9:00, to attend my going away party, so graciously hosted by stan and becky. it too me an hour and a half to make my boba, but it worked out okay, and people seemed to have fun.
now, i'm not very good at goodbyes. i guess it's because when i was young, i never really had friends to whom i could say goodbye. i was always the anti-social little reject in the corner. recess was a really difficult time for me. last night was a big surprise for me. it was really moving to see so many people who've affected my life so tremendously show up just to see me off, and recount our shared memories, or which me luck. and although it was such a happy occasion to see all my beloved friends, it also made me really sad when the time came for me to say goodbye. it was particularly difficult to say goodbye to catherine and aditi. dependable female friends are so hard to come by.
anyhow, today is my last day here. stan and becky are driving home with me for some dinner, and then that'll be it. so grateful for the last six years here...
ow