so anyways

like a tree breathing through its spectacles

2011-12-25T22:40:00.000-08:00

Has it really been three months since I last got to post here? That is just truly ridiculous, and I apologize... although I can't necessarily say I'm totally apologetic about it. This past semester has truly been the busiest time of my life - and possibly the most fulfilling as well.

So many changes have happened that I'm not really sure where to begin. I guess the top two things to note are that (a) my family is hosting a Chinese exchange student, Angel (more on this later hopefully) and (b) I'm nearing the end of the college application process (was deferred during the early application round from my first choice college [which has changed since the last time I posted about college on this blog]).

I feel like I've been pushed to my limits physically, academically, and especially emotionally (weird, right?) in the past couple of months. However, it's been great in that along the way, I've also just grown a lot as a person and learned a lot about myself as well as my relationships with friends and family. I've learned to both take things at face value and not take things for granted.

Mostly I'm just really thankful for what this year has brought me. I have an incredibly large inferiority complex and often feel utterly inadequate, but it's astounding to simply step back and look at what I've been given - I am so lucky to be where I am right now, and I know that things will turn out well even if they don't go exactly as planned (life works in mysterious ways, after all).

I just want to acknowledge the fact that the above writing has given about zero interesting anecdotes from my life, but at this point it's been so long since I've updated that realistically, logging everything interesting that's happened to me in the past few months is just not a feasible task. Forgive me!

So anyway, I rather enjoyed today. After waking up after spending the morning in a field of dreams, I went ice skating with Cindy and Angel for an hour or so. After we got back home, I finished flipping through the Collected Poems of Frank O'Hara (who has recently become my favorite author - his poems are so breezy and accessible but still fantastically reflective of life itself). Then later this night we had a little party where we wrapped the gifts we had yet to wrap for friends. I think Christmas was quite lovely, despite the fact that it's not at all a big deal for our family.

Just want to leave this post with this video of me reciting O'Hara's "Having A Coke With You" which I recorded this afternoon. I'm a little bit obsessed with this piece, and even wrote about it in one of my college supplements ;)
My reading is essentially based off of O'Hara's own reading, which feels pretty much perfect. The poem itself feels pretty perfect to me, actually.

I've never been in love, but I'm willing to bet that this poem is what it feels like.

Thanks for being here, blog lovelies. I miss you.
-K

inflections and impermanence

2011-09-11T02:43:00.000-07:00

空の向こう越える為のこの人生の抑揚 - 嵐, 『Believe』

[to overcome what's beyond the skies, the inflections of this human life - Arashi, "Believe"]

I can't believe it's been ten years.

When I first heard about the crash on the Twin Towers, I was eating a bowl of cereal and watching the morning news. Nobody I knew was directly affected by the attack. I remember the myriad television segments covering, adults around me explaining that something incredibly sad and terrible had happened, and our school holding a penny donation drive for the Red Cross 9/11 victim's fund. We were told to be proud of our nation under God, that we would stand strong against the terrorists endangering us, and that we should be thankful for the lives we were blessed with. In the midst of adversity, we cried collective tears of red, white and blue.

I mostly remember not understanding. We were bombarded in this haze of images showing grief, destruction, pain - but none of it registered as "real" to me. I was 7 years old. The world revolved around me, and I couldn't fathom why people were making such a big deal out of these buildings which I had genuinely never heard of before that morning.

Ten years later, I get it. I get the sheer worry and pain and terror that these victims and their families experienced, and I'm taken aback by how anybody could willingly destroy so many lives. And while I admit I don't know what to think regarding these conspiracy theories, terrorism, and who to blame for this blow to the American psyche, I respect the bravery of the citizens who attempted to rescue people from the destruction. I admire the passengers of Flight 93, am thankful that there are servicemen who put their lives on the line for other people, and hope that the people forced to a tragic end now rest in peace. My thoughts in particular go out to relatives of the deceased as well as survivors of this ordeal - I hope by this time they've all found some sort of solace and closure to this dark chapter of American history.

This past spring break on my trip to New York, I visited the National September 11 Museum and was reminded of how deeply this attack on our national symbols affected the American people. But mostly I found myself proud that while we haven't forgotten, we've moved on in honor of the people lost. In the aftermath of a tragedy, we pick up the pieces, rebuild, and become a stronger people - a stronger nation. This state of impermanence, existence's constant state of flux, is a reminder that while we may suffer misfortunes, better times will inevitably come.

Today we remember the ordeal, grieve for the victims, and in their honor our stars and stripes fly half mast. Today, we are reminded of the dangers life as a human entails. We are reminded that while some people will cause hardship, it we can be the better people, we can be strong, we can rebuild, we can carry on. Most importantly, we are reminded of how beautiful our world can be.

Michelle Obama says "we recall the spirit of unity and compassion that bound us all during that time. We remember the heroes that rose up, the neighbors who reached out, and those countless moments when the ties of family community and country felt stronger than ever. That is the spirit behind the September 11th National Day of Service and Remembrance. It's a day to honor our heroes with thoughts and prayers, but also with action."

I've already spent time volunteering this weekend and cannot commit to doing more today, but I hope you lovely readers are inspired to do some sort of service for our country not only today, but over the rest of the year as well. We can all step up to the challenge.

-K

notes from my summer

2011-07-04T14:56:00.000-07:00

I. Summer Intensive Language Program, AKA what I pretentiously like to call Grad School

From Monday to Friday I have Japanese class from 9-12, Lunch/people watching for an hour, then class again from 1-2:30. I'm a third of the way through the course, and we finish on August 10th - which coincidentally should also be my first day of Senior Year. Oh well, although I'll be missing that first day, I think it'll be worth it - I sometimes enjoy hanging out with my college buddies more than most of my high school, no offense to those of you who're reading this now... ;)

いま, にほんごをはなします! Well... sort of. We just learned how to do past tense, and I still have a lot of trouble with particles and am sure I have a long, *long* way to go... but still, I now know a lot more than the simple "にほんごがわかりません" from the beginning of this summer.

The Japanese program at my school is one of the smallest of all the languages - there are only 5 people in my Elementary level class, and 11 people in all three levels! One is a student of the school, working towards his MBA, one is this nice Russian girl who graduated from UNM awhile back, one is a retired lawyer, and another is this guy who actually was on the last season of Beauty and the Geek! An eclectic bunch, we are.

After school I like to walk downtown and grab a Jamba Juice or Mocha (depending on the weather), find a table outside, and sit down and do homework or read. Sometimes I even go on strolls down to the wharf and grab some cotton candy or clam chowder. Previously I felt like a loner doing stuff like this on my own, but lately I've embraced this sort of introspection and sort of enjoy recharging on my own, so to speak.

I've kicked the fear of going to movies alone and have actually gained a taste for walking downtown to the theater and catching a movie after school every once in awhile. The other day I had a meeting to go to but had a few hours to kill beforehand, so after I got bored of studying I caught a showing of The Tree Of Life - a movie I found visually gorgeous but generally pretentious and overall a mess. I really came in wanting to enjoy it and stuff... but came out having had a short nap (fell asleep around two hours into the movie I think) and having become disillusioned with the melodramatic soundtrack and unnecessarily long/almost ostentatious beginning-of-the-universe sequences. Sorry Terrence Malick, try again.

II. Gavin DeGraw!!!
A dream I've had ever since his album Chariot (Stripped) came out back in 2004 has been to see him live - you have no idea how big of his fan I used to be... and while I feel like a lot of his luster has been lost, and as much as I feel his voice no longer fits the pop scene (not that it ever did - his voice is so soulful and powerful and outstanding that he absolutely should do his own thing), I was so ecstatic to get the chance to see him back in June.
He sang a short setlist (after all, this was a free show that was mostly just for promotional purposes - his new album, Sweeter, comes out in August) which included old favorites and a few covers of old songs from guys like Sam Cooke. He sounds absolutely amazing live, and I feel so honored to have gotten to see him. His stage presence is just so powerful (as well as his backup singer/guitarist's, Billy Norris), and you can really tell he cares about his music and his audience. Here's a clip of him singing "Chariot," which used to be my favorite song:

You can hear me singing (badly) along near the end of the video. Sorry the beginning of the song is cut off, I was freaking out from excitement when he started and didn't think of recording it for a few moments. The video's so shaky because the excitement really just made me generally incoherent. Even now I'm smiling like a maniac and sound stupid. You get the point.

If you haven't heard his new song "Not Over You," take a listen! Not his best work but a good effort for trying to break into the pop scene again. You can really hear the Ryan Tedder influence in this one.

III. Summer Must Haves

1. Barrettes
I will make these happen, just you watch.

2. Light layers
Chambray shirts, striped tees, different cardigans, and various skirts:

3. A good playlist, filled to the brim with catchy, bubbly, stupid pop music that you're ashamed to listen to any other time of the year.
On mine:

[click for larger]

4. Nail polish!
My most recent:

5. Sleep
Enough said.

6. Movies, Candy, Popcorn
I finally set up the old TV (It's from the 80's and has wood paneling and is held together by tape at some parts - so cool!) I had lying around in my room and hooked it up to a DVD player - so my room has been the ultimate veg-out-and-watch-terrible-movies center. Some movies I've watched (in no particular order):

As you can see I have a penchant for teen movies, teen movies directed by John Hughes, teen movies directed by John Hughes starring Molly Ringwald, and Christian Bale's naked body.

I like to go for short mile runs, quit because it's too hot and I'm out of shape, come home and shower, put on a mask like this one, and then turn on a movie and chill. Feels so summery and fantastic.

7. ALIAS!
Easily one of the most clever shows I've ever watched. I've been hooked all summer (originally mostly because I had/have a huge crush on Bradley Cooper, but now because the show really is just fantastic). Right now I'm a few episodes into Season 5, and am simultaneously excited and sort of anxious about finishing the series.

J.J. Abrams can do no wrong.

8. COLLEGE
As much as I love summer and the freedom it brings, there is no avoiding the specter is College, whose applications I will soon have to start writing up. However I realized that there is no way I can humanely find the time and motivation to write essays for applications and scholarships, study enough to raise my ACT and SAT scores, and research colleges during my free time. Did I tell you about how I did a practice Math Level 2 test and scored a 540? Yeah pretty much it's hopeless. Bleh.

9. Fire, Water, Friends!
I've only gone to the beach once this summer (for a bonfire with friends) but it was really fun. I can't wait for the pool party at Nisha's tonight, we're going to hopefully light up the BBQ, splash around in her pool, and maybe even light a few sparklers :)

10. Sunshine?
It's a known fact that my mood improves as the sun comes out. Unfortunately for me, the sun only comes out for about half of the time - but when it does, I make damn sure to enjoy it while I can.

I LOVE YOU, SUMMER. PLEASE NEVER END.
-K

it's on.

2011-05-31T02:05:00.000-07:00

First off I'd like to say how weird it is that (a) I'm a rising senior, and (b) it's actually time to start working on college apps. For as long as I can remember, my parents have been giving me talks about how important it is to go to a good college like Stanford or Harvard (yes, I *do* have Tiger Parents. Although luckily for me, (a) they didn't force me to learn any instruments and (b) I was/am allowed to to theater/go to sleepovers/parties). It sounds a little pathetic to admit it, but to me it really does feel like the one thing I've looked forward to all of my life is getting into college, and now that the time is so near... I'm definitely a little overwhelmed.

Nevertheless I'm slowly getting over that stage of disbelief and am "getting my head in the game," so to speak. My SAT score was mediocre (had close to perfect on Writing, but CR and M were both far from what I hoped) and SAT-IIs were horrendous (we'll see how I did on APs in July, I suppose), so my faith in my standardized test taking skills is definitely greatly diminished. However, I'm going to do my best on the ACT which'll be in a few days, and will definitely be spending all summer trying to teach myself to do the questions on the Math-II subject test properly. Princeton Review, Kaplan, Barrons, REA - Don't fail me now.

Even if I do do horribly on all of them, my extracurriculars and awards (can list them all but it feels pretentious and I doubt you guys are very interested anyway) sort of make up for it. While there's nothing I'm particularly outstanding in, I am pretty good at everything so.... [shrug]
I feel like I can probably relatively easily get into 99% of colleges in the US... it's just the other 1% of them that I actually want to go to which are the challenge ;)

Anyway, what I'm actually here to talk about is the trip that my family and I had the privilege to take during Spring Break. We visited Columbia, Barnard, Sarah Lawrence, NYU, Princeton, Wesleyan, Yale, Harvard, BU, and Brown; we spent possibly more time in the car than anywhere else; my family spent lots of time sightseeing while I spent lots of time listening to the same information sessions over and over again; and I fell head over heels in love with New York City. I know that someday I'll live there - I would say in Manhattan but it's so damn expensive everywhere there, and I would say Brooklyn but it's so HIPSTER, so I don't know exactly where or how the move will go, but I'm still excited for when it happens.

Take note that many of them were probably influenced by the fact that the school was on Spring Break so I didn't get the chance to see students in action, but nevertheless below are my impressions of the school:

Columbia University: This was, before the trip, the school I expected to be my top choice. The pamphlet was beautiful and my personal hero from US History, Alexander Hamilton, went there. The core curriculum really appeals to me, and I love the location of the campus. However, the campus itself seemed so bleak and the students so tired that I didn't really know what to think except that I couldn't see myself going there.

Barnard College: I actually liked the Barnard campus more than Columbia's, even though Barnard isn't quite as large a name as Columbia is. However I'm not a fan of the idea of going to an all-girl's school (however empowering they supposedly are), and once again I couldn't really see myself going to this school.

Sarah Lawrence College: Before this trip my college counselor really pushed this school on me, and after visiting I understood why: It really is my kind of college: quaint campus, vibrant students, interesting people. I definitely can see a person like myself going there. However, again I'm not comfortable with going to a mostly-girls school (as much as I love sassy gay friends, I want to have *guys* to hang out with). I also hate that it's so close to the city, yet so far; that it's so expensive (and sort of pretentious); that the curriculum is too loose-ended for my taste and that classes work somewhere along the lines of "read the material, then come to the class and show the professor that you read it instead of the professor teaching the material him/herself." So as much as I love that they have a stitch and bitch club held in a multipurpose room with yellow walls, that they have "dons" and such a supportive community, and that the info session guy talked about his his different boyfriends including the gay Jewish one. But to be honest I need a little more structure in my life, and it doesn't look like Sarah Lawrence cannot give me that structure.

New York University: I LOVE NYU. SO MUCH. I AM MEANT TO GO TO THIS SCHOOL. For real. Before my visit, I knew I'd like it, but after my visit I was sure that I want to go to this school. I love that it's in the heart of this conglomerate of world culture; I love that it's so urban; I love that there are so many students that you're bound to introduce yourself to diversity (in fact, I *really* love that the diversity of its student body reflects the diversity of the city itself); I love that it has such a fabulous study abroad program (and am really seriously considering applying for the Global Liberal Studies program); I love that internship options are so limitless; I love my sassy tourguide; I love how it doesn't have a traditional campus and by not having a gated community, students aren't "closing theirselves off from the world," so to say; I love practically everything about this school - except its financial aid program. Luckily my parents are in a relatively stable financial situation, so we can afford to send me here but... if I can get into a more highly ranked college for less, I'll probably end up choosing that one over NYU (granted, if I can get a merit scholarship here I will go. No question about it). I also feel like school spirit is something that I'm looking for in a college, and considering that athletics aren't really a large part of this school and the campus/students are so scattered about, that won't really be something that NYU can give me. However, the feeling of "I seriously belong here" is something I really feel in my bones, and I wonder if I do end up going somewhere else if I'll regret doing so.

Princeton University: Too pretentious. This school was my both of my parents' favorite, but my least favorite. Sorry Princeton, you're not for me.

Wesleyan University: Out in the middle of nowhere. As attractive as my tour guide was (British exchange student with attractive cool edgy haircut? Yes please!), I just.... can't.

Yale University: Feels like Hogwarts. I would love to go to this school, although I can't see myself going here as much as I can see myself going to Brown (see below). Anyway, I love that it doesn't have a gate surrounding the campus (something I realized was a big thing for me, after visiting NYU); I love the idea of "shopping" through classes before finalizing a schedule; I love how high caliber its faculty and students are. Again I have issues with how expensive it is, but my parents would have less issues paying for an Ivy League than they would with paying for NYU - to be honest, prestige is a *huge* factor for my family (although not me personally), and Yale definitely fulfills those requirements - It's just getting in that's the hard part.

Harvard University: WAY too pretentious. The sense of entitlement emanating from the walls just was not something I could handle. Not going to happen. Ever.

Boston University: We didn't actually go on a tour or sit through an information session because they didn't offer any the day we were there, but the campus seemed... okay. Really large, but I can handle large. I don't really know what to think about this college, but I'm not knocking it off my list because I hear they offer full ride scholarships to classics scholars... which is definitely incentive for me to consider going there.

Tufts University: Okay, I didn't take the chance to visit there and I really regret it now. After flipping through their guidebook, it seems like a fantastic place to go. I'll probably have a talk with one of the graduates from my school who's going there (same with pretty much everywhere on this list - there's definitely a York graduate who goes to every single one on this list except Barnard).

Brown University: Maybe it has to do with the fact that it's been ranked the #2 school with the happiest students, maybe it has a very chill almost Montessori like yet collegiate vibe, and maybe it just has to do with the fact that it was the only college that wasn't on Spring Break when we visited - but I can really see myself going here. I like that it has requirements, but the curriculum is essentially really open ended. I love that you can shop around for classes at the beginning of the semester, like at Yale. I love the campus, and I love that it's in an urban setting (even though there's technically nothing really to do in Providence. This is my one main issue with all of the schools on this list except NYU: They're not in NYC). Most of all though, I just love the vibe of this school, how liberal and chill and vibrant it is, and how nice the people are (when we were looking for the visitor center and asked a student, not only did she point it out but she walked with us half of the way there!). In essence, Brown is definitely one of my top choices. Again money is a big issue but if I can get outside scholarships (and can get in in the first place) I'm strongly considering going here.

So yeah, that was my long, long ramble about colleges. I've yet to visit colleges on the West coast (Stanford, UC Berkeley, UCSC, USC, and Reed are ones I think I might like / Also: UChicago and GWU are on my mind) so that will happen eventually and I'll report back here with my thoughts.

For now, I'll leave with some pictures:

Delicious Margherita Pizza from some restaurant in Morningside Heights

Fries! :)

The famous New York hot-dog-from-a-cart

Brooklyn Bridge! My APUSH teacher would be proud.

Grand Central Station

At the New York Public Library! My life is complete.

Times Square! So. Many. Lights.

At the most delicious steakhouse I've ever been to: Texas Roadhouse, West Haven CT.

Apparently the creator of the Yale Library set it on fire + poured acid on it to make it look older? Lol.

UNNECESSARY APOSTROPHE. GRRRR. D:<

I definitely had a blast on this trip (my first to the East Coast!), and can't wait to go again. For now, going to attempt to at least try to enjoy my time stuck on the opposite side of the country ;p

-K

karen learns to cook!

2011-05-31T00:27:00.000-07:00

Recently I had an important realization: When I go off to college, I will stab somebody if forced to live on PB+J sandwiches, top ramen, and/or poor cafeteria food. As LuanLegacy says it:

For my whole life my grandmother and father have cooked all of my meals, so I've relied on them to make my food rather than learning to do things myself. But since unless you're Dexter Morgan, "serial killer" doesn't work as an occupation... I figure it's a good idea to teach myself how to cook. Slowly but surely my repertoire has grown - and not gonna lie, I'm quite proud of it.

Egg salad / Egg salad sandwiches
Scrambled eggs
Pancakes

Baked macaroni and cheese

Spaghetti (w/ pesto or pasta sauce)

Poor man's pizza (essentially bread with spaghetti sauce and mozzarella cheese melted on top. admittedly not a meal but... shhh, stop judging me)
Mozzarella sticks

Apple (or peach or nectarine or pear) crisp

Oatmeal/oatmeal raisin cookies
Chocolate chip cookies

Snickerdoodles
Sugar cookies
Peanut butter cookies
Banana bread
Blueberry Muffins
Banana muffins
Biscotti

EGG SALAD.

baked mac + cheese on the left; banana bread on the right

If I wasn't so lazy, I would actually provide pictures of all of the items but for now these'll suffice.
As you can see from the list above, (a) cooking meat still makes me weary for some reason, so I tend to stay away from it (b) I bake more than anything else. So basically I'll just be the fattest sweet-toothed college student you'll meet. But hey, at least it's (slightly) better than eating Burger King or whatever processed food is cheapest at the store! ;)

-K

SUMMER!

2011-05-29T03:56:00.000-07:00

Why my life is awesome:

Done with APs
Done with SAT-IIs (for now. Although I got the scores yesterday, and uh... my USH score is mediocre while my Spanish is horrendous. But let's refain from dwelling on the negative ;))
Done with Finals
I'm now 17...?
DONE WITH JUNIOR YEAR
Summer Break!

Our school's graduation ceremony was today, and while I'm sad to see all of my senior friends go I'm glad that they get to go out and experience the world. I'm also looking forward to next school year, because while it's going to be ridiculously busy [president of senior class and litmag, copresident of key club, lunch Greek class, cross country, soccer, 4 APs... and of course college apps, boo] it'll be work that I mostly enjoy doing.

Can I just say:

Summer before senior year? Yeah, this break will be awesome.

I have two weeks before I'll be taking an intensive introductory Japanese class (it's a graduate level course, and I'll be spending 4.5 hours every day with only 3 or 4 people I think - so either it'll be an absolutely amazing or absolutely awful experience depending on who the people are... I guess we'll see). In the meantime I'm gonna try to catch up on some movies I've been meaning to check out, get a head start on the summer reading, and SLEEP.

...I'll also try to actually get some of those posts for this blog that I've started but never quite got around to finishing. Wish me luck.

-K

sorry.

2011-04-23T23:44:00.000-07:00

I've three posts under progress but have been stuck at just that - drafts - for the past few months. However, I promised myself that I'd stop posting superficial writing to this blog (all of that crap goes onto the Tumblr) but I'd be willing to take the time to post some quick updates to my life if you blog lovelies would like. Let me know.

SUMMER NEEDS TO BE HERE NOW. WHY MUST YOU SUCK SO HARD, MAY? I AM NOT LOOKING FORWARD TO YOU. AT ALL.

[sigh]

I promise semi-regular posting will come back to this blog towards the end of school, but as for now... with APS, SAT-IIs, and lots of end-of-year projects looming over my shoulder's I've hardly had time to breathe. But I can do this. [insert long pep talk to self here]

-K

What's In My Bag

2011-02-21T23:30:00.000-08:00

Because all the cool kids have done this meme (and I'm really slow):

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Now that the superficial is out of the way, while I'm sure most of my blog lovelies place some importance on following what's going on around the world, some might find these links to recent news useful:

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has stepped down: The basics of the story | Why this is important
Representative Jackie Speier, one of my personal heroes (especially because of her speech at NCYLS 2010), spoke out against the Pence amendment which is aiming to remove funding for Planned Parenthood. Sadly, the House of Reps has voted in favor of the Pence amendment. However, there is a chance of it being struck down if the Senate votes it. (extra: why it's important to defend PP / Urge Congress to protect women's reproductive rights - sign the petition to stand with PP)
A magnitude 6.3 earthquake has struck Christchurch, New Zealand. People have died and the damage is extensive.
Major violence is going on in Libya and Bahrain right now. Words cannot express how dangerous it is over there and my heart goes out to everybody over to the civilians who are fighting for their freedom, and for the ones who have been hurt or have lost their lives because of this struggle. (extra: what we can do to help)

So... it's pretty obvious that there's no small number of atrocities going on this world. But something that we can all do to help is be aware of what's going on, and send our support as a sign of solidarity to the groups that need it.

-K

heyheyhey!

2011-02-16T21:35:00.000-08:00

So uh, Happy New Year!
Don't look at me like that. I'm only.... only 1.5 months late ;)
...But really, I'm so sorry it's taken me so long to update this blog! I can't even remember what was the last time I've gone more than a month without doing so. This year has just been so incredibly busy and I haven't really had the time to organize thoughts about my life in a fashion organized enough for the blog, not to mention to develop moderately intelligent opinions about current events. Lucky for me, this afternoon was the start of our school's President's Day Weekend, which gives me the time to ~~sleep~~ catch up on writing, reading, fangirling, and a lot of other tasks (including blogging!) that I've been meaning to do but have just fallen behind on.

For now, here're a few snapshots from my life recently:

Clockwise from top left:
[a] Me in the moss knit circle scarf I made over the course of Winter Break! It's super soft and warm and perfect for cold weather (I also knitted ~10 baby hats to send to the local community hospital to give to newborns, yay!)
[b] After hearing that my dad was heading over to San Jose to go shopping for Asian groceries, I convinced him to stop by Kinokuniya bookstore in hopes that I could find the January 2011 issue of Potato w/ Arashi on the cover. Of course, I had no such luck. However, we did buy a ton of delicious food, including this cream bun which I had for breakfast the next day.
[c] Some of my soccer gear, sweaty and muddy and disgusting after a game against Gonzales. This team became a pretty big influence on my school life this quarter, and I'm really glad to have been a part of it.
[d] I AM NOW A PRO AT MAKING EGG SALAD. I don't even need to have the recipe in front of me! SO TASTY AND EASY TO MAKE. BEST EVER.
[e] Nails in honor of Valentine's Day. While I'm aware that there's about a 110% chance that I'll end up ~forever alone~, I don't need anyone except myself to shower me with love: I can still treat myself to gratuitous amounts of chocolate and shower myself with self praise! ;)
[f] Part of a pile of tissues that collected in my bedroom trashcan after suffering two consecutive colds. I *never* get sick. Having a runny nose that necessitated blowing every 10 seconds and a sore throat with a cough every 5 seconds made for a very disgruntled Karen.

All this afternoon I delighted in the glory of having time-to-not-have-to-do-homework by reading the news (lol what? I'm such a nerd), watching yesterday's episode of Glee (which I missed because of getting home exhausted from our last soccer match), and eating a lot. For the rest of tonight I'm planning on watching Bartender, Aiba Masaki's new drama, reading a magazine or two, and sleeping. Hopefully I can wake up tomorrow energized to work on the application for the Japanese Summer Intensive program I want to go to (it's a graduate level program so they don't readily accept minors, but I won't mind the work if it's something that I love, and I know I can handle it!), do a little cooking, and maybe take an SAT practice test (OH GOD IT'S STARTING!). Isn't it awesome that I plan out all of my free time? I live an exciting life...

Anyway, because the soccer season is over, I get to throw out those ratty cleats, sleep a little more often, study a little harder, and (knock on wood) blog here more often!

-K

PS: If you can brave the excessive randomness, I *do* update my Tumblr on an almost daily basis. Check it out!

2010 treated me well.

2010-12-24T20:24:00.000-08:00

5 Most Memorable Moments [blog entries about some of them linked!]:
1. Italy/Greece Spring Break Trip
2. NCYLS
3. Cleft Lip Revision/Surgery
4. Akanishi Jin's "Yellow Gold Tour 3010"
5. Driver's License!

Happy Christmas! Hope you all have a lovely holiday *<I(:D)}
-K

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Bonus: Since my family doesn't actually celebrate Christmas, I decided to just be thankful for what I already have ;) Here, have a gratuitious display of goods I've bought as a result of my crazed obsession with Arashi:

Got this in the mail today! Early Christmas present, to myself, yay ;) 20% off at CDJapan, whattup!

the holiday season is so lovely.

2010-12-21T00:01:00.000-08:00

Lights at my house.

My friend Nisha's annual holiday party.

I hate winter weather with a passion but love getting festive when it comes to Christmas decorations.
Hope you guys are getting (or will have gotten) a chance to see the lunar eclipse! I've never seen one until tonight, so I found it fascinating. :)

-K

P4A: The Smile Train

2010-12-17T10:02:00.000-08:00

In which I talk about the The Smile Train and am unable to keep the "um reflex" in check.
Please consider donating! It's a cause that's really close to my heart and it would mean the world to me if you did :)

The Smile Train's Official Website: http://www.smiletrain.org/
Wikipedia articles on Smile Train and Cleft lip and palate
Get a free copy of Smile Pinki!

Learn more about the Project for Awesome :)

Thanks for watching!

-K

let's talk about body image.

2010-12-15T21:16:00.000-08:00

This year, I've really grown as a person.
I've learned more about who I am (basically an atypical teenager with the mind of a typical grandmother, in the body of a prepubescent girl).
I've learned more about what I stand for (rights - for the environment, for animals, for humankind in general).
I've learned more about what I want to be (making this world a better place).
And perhaps most importantly how to take care of myself (for you can't help others until you can help yourself).

In the past year I've had to really think about how to become the best person I can be, and because of this I've looked at a lot of different material in an effort to "go educate myself" (ontd_political, ily). The blogs and online magazines I regularly read have led me to think a lot about and form a lot of opinions on today's topic, body image. Some thoughts (guys reading this, be warned that most of it is aimed towards a female audience but feel free to read and chime in. Thanks for being here!):

On Black Friday while shopping in Target, I walked by the girl's clothing section and noticed a huge display of packs of Hane's underwear on sale. On a whim, I bought a pack marked for girls 14/16 years old figuring I might get lucky and have them fit.

Obviously that was a bad idea.

I officially have the body of the average 10/12 year old.

But you know what? I'm okay with that. Sure I'm 16 and a half. I'm 5'1", somewhere between 95 and 105 pounds,and have impossibly skinny and weak arms, wonderfully toned and muscular legs (soccer players represent!), and a sizeable fat pouch on my stomach which I call Frederick [yeah, I see you judging]. I have pretty much nonexistent breasts, exceedingly large shoulders, and virtually no hips. I have scars and a slightly uneven top lip from multiple surgeries to repair my bilateral cleft lip. Although I do appreciate their fabulousness, it's pretty much impossible for me to find shoes that fit me that aren't covered in rhinestones or vomiting pink patterns. I've also never been in a relationship, I've never kissed or been kissed, I've never been one of the girls doing that horrendous grinding that's rampant at school dances (nor do I want to be, on second thought). I'm thinking it's because of a mixture of how I look and how I carry myself. But I'm one of the lucky ones who's realized that that while all of it can be irritating at best, none of it will cause the end of the world, and none of it is worth changing who I am, because frankly, I know I'm awesome.

I'll admit that it hasn't always been this way. When I was little I really wanted to be beautiful. Not the textbook response that adults gave me ("your-personality-is-beautiful"-beautiful), but conventionally beautiful. I wanted to be on the cover of American Girl, I wanted to be the popular girl who everybody wanted to be friends with because she was so cute. Obviously those aspirations were shot down quickly: When I asked my parents if I was pretty, they laughed and said to shut up and go do more math. I was teased and questioned so much about what was wrong with my top lip. Needless to say, my self esteem was non existent for years. I think as I've gradually drifted closer to matching the conventional definition of beautiful, and have met more and more people from different walks of life, I've realized that the truth of the matter is no, not everybody is beautiful. We can't all be blessed with wonderful looks, and we can't all be known for renowned beauty. But just as some people are tall and some people are short, some people are exceedingly smart, some people are exceedingly athletic, and some people.... aren't quite so much of anything but have an outstanding desire to do good in this world (I, for one, am proud to be in that last group).

We are who we are. Isn't that enough?

Actually yes, I would. Three cheers for being "pathetic!"
Hip hip hooray! Hip hip hooray! Hip hip.... Who's with me?

Seeing pictures like this (credit was in the original picture but I cut it out because frankly, nobody needs to see this "thinspiration" crap) makes me realize exactly how often I throw my hands up in the air and mutter "PEOPLE" in exasperation. In this case, the girl is clearly photoshopped to hell (nobody has breasts that shiny and skin so evenly toned, while her left thigh looks like it was poorly cut to make it look like she has a space between her legs - I mean, nobody has angular inner thighs. For real now: if you're going to photoshop, do it right!). But in a lot of the pictures on the girl's Tumblr, she has pictures of beautiful, thin girls who have bodies just like some of my friends, who I know aren't actively working to be skinny. The problem is that society's fascination of weight has led people to equate being thin with being healthy and beautiful, whereas what we should be doing is putting focus on being healthy above all. Some of us are naturally skinny, so what? The fact of the matter is that a healthy size for most people is not a size zero.
It is not okay that we associate our weight with our worth as a human being. It infuriates me when people say "I am a size eight" rather than "I wear a size eight." There's not really much I can do about that fact except say that ladies: the size you wear does not and absolutely should not dictate who you are!
Because popular media's (and sadly, our warped society) has a profound effect on an individual's perception of her beauty, body image is a critical factor in determining how a woman treats herself and in effect, both her mental and physical health.

Now, I'm not going to bash people who're trying to lose weight or be thin or beautiful. Everybody has different desires (for example, I really really want to attain a pet unicorn. It's going to happen, just you watch!) and to each her own. I think it's good to have a goal, and if a physical appearance is the case then so be it. But when these goals become obsessions that cause you to be unhappy and unhealthy in their pursuit, there's obviously something wrong with those aspirations.

Clearly other people have noticed this as well, for there's been the "love yourself" movement going on for I don't even know how long. The problem in the way we approach body issues is that often we try to embrace a side but at the same time manage to criticize the other - in other words, saying "real women have curves" alienates women with naturally skinny bodies (or people like me who aren't actually that skinny but also don't have curves), while saying "high fashion just looks better on tall, thin models" outrages the average woman.
Another problem is that our obsession with beauty starts at birth. Who doesn't comment on how beautiful/chubby/cute newborns are? Society has placed such an emphasis on superficial beauty, and we need to change that. What we can do is actively attempt to place focus on being healthy, strong, independent people, rather than putting some unhealthy, twisted image of what beauty should be on a pedestal where it doesn't belong.

You are you, and that fact alone is beautiful.

---
I'm hoping that this whole post doesn't make me seem too pretentious but chances are it does. I feel like I have a ton of different thoughts on this issue and I'm not really sure how to put them all down succinctly so... this the best I could do.

-K

SUCK IT, FINALS.

2010-12-15T19:03:00.000-08:00

In case you missed it (in which case you should subscribe ;D), here's a little video I did while tearing my hair out studying for finals:

Thank god it's over! Although finals themselves were ridiculously stressful (as they always are), I have to say the weeks leading up to finals were some of the most stressful/draining/etc. ones I've had in my life (read about it here). In case you were wondering, I did absurdly mediocre in pretty much all of my exams because there was just so much I had to ~~relearn~~ review and my brain just couldn't absorb it all at once. Except maybe in the case of APUSH. Comparatively to past experiences with history, I've done a stellar job in that class ;)

Plans for winter break:

Sleep. Today I went to bed at 3 AM, slept until 12 AM, watched Veronica Mars and Himitsu no Arashi-chan until 3 PM, and then slept again until 5:30 PM. Bliss? I think so.
Vlogging. I thought I was going to be done for the rest of the year but I have my P4A video and another ~surprise~ video that would be nice to make as a way to wrap up the year.
Finishing all of Veronica Mars, watching all of the LOTR movies, and knitting baby hats (community service projects suited to my interests, whattup!) while doing so.
Attempting to stay in shape for the sake of our soccer team.
iTunes Overhaul 6
Dreading the 22nd, when grades come out (and hopefully rejoicing the afternoon of, when they come out not too horribly)

Today I woke up to a call from my mom telling me to (a) be more productive (b) not go driving around, esp. in the "bad parts of town," and (c) to start studying for the SAT. Guess who's going to not heed any of those suggestions? Heeeeeh. (Well no, not exactly. I don't have the "cajones" to drive around areas that I'm not super familiar with, and there *is* a little questionnaire thing I have to complete by the end of Winter Break for my college counselor but.... yeah.)

-K

Finals

2010-12-11T13:11:00.000-08:00

Just a quick update (what might and might not be my last of 2010):

It's not much, but I hope it'll do for now ;)

-K

Thanks.

2010-11-25T22:04:00.000-08:00

No dead turkey for me happened tonight. Chinese food ftw!

Going to let my video do the talking:

Hope everyone else enjoyed Thanksgiving as much as I did, or if not at least moderately so ;)
Although I hate how commercialized Thanksgiving has become - I can't say no to some of those deals Black Friday brings (I've got my eyes set on getting an iPod touch, yay)! If you guys are going to be journeying out at 5 AM [I'm not quite crazy enough to get out at 3 AM but won't judge if you are ;)], please - stay safe!

As for the lack of updates on this blog - I apologize but would much rather this page stay empty than post writing and stuff simply to take up space (that's what my Tumblr is for, hahaha).
My life lately has clearly been pretty busy - what with school getting especially demanding (midterms in two weeks!) and the soccer season soon to be in full swing (first preseason game on Wednesday!). I was really glad to have this break + used most of my time so far either hanging out with friends (yesterday night I watched Airplane and Pan's Labyrinth with friends), wasting time on Tumblr (check out my 50 most fantastic!), catching up on movies + dramas, and the best one: sleeping.

I'm particularly proud of my Arashi-themed nails that I painted while watching The Fountain + Freeter, Ie wo Kau episode 5 last night:

Green for Aiba, purple for Matsujun,
yellow for Nino, blue for Ohno, and pink for Sho ;)

My goal for tomorrow afternoon: Get through the small pile of magazines that I still need to read...

Although my bedroom is the coldest room in the house during winter (and warmest in summer, what up with that?), it'll still be nice to cozy up in bed and read ;)

I'll be back soonish!
-K

PS: It's Ohno Satoshi's birthday today! Happy 30th, old man ;) Catch fish, eat lots, and stay adorable~

an important message

2010-10-01T17:53:00.000-07:00

Ellen DeGeneres recently spoke out about the intolerance-based violence that has spurred several suicides around the country. It's a really touching video, you must watch it if you haven't yet:

One death due to bullying is already too much, let alone four. It's frankly appalling that people would so readily turn a blind eye to these poor kids. I admire Ellen so much for doing something about that terrible fact.

From her website:
On a similar note, out columnist Dan Savage and his husband recently started the "It Gets Better" project, encouraging LGBT adults to shoot and post videos to their YouTube channel assuring LGBT youth who might be in crisis that their lives will get better. The project also encourages participants to share stories about how the quality of their own lives improved as they matured.

For more information on helping LGBT youth, contact The Trevor Project at 866-488-7386.

oh, junior year.

2010-09-30T20:36:00.000-07:00

I figured it'd be more entertaining to make a video than make the blog lovelies have to read loads of cohesion-lacking drivel, so:

Plan for tonight: Finish Litmag manuscript!
Plan for tomorrow: Getting through waaaay too many fashion magazines....


I subscribe to Vogue, Interview and W magazine but haven't had any time to read any of these since school started!

Gabby gave me these New York Times Fashion magazines from this year, I'm really excited to check them out :)

Once again, apologies for the lack of updates as of late!
-K

a pep talk.

2010-09-12T23:29:00.000-07:00

I made a wordle using the words off of the first page of this blog. Check it out.
Really don't have much to say right now. As expected I've been ridiculously busy lately, and it's definitely started to take a toll on my mental health I think. Last week's Labor Day weekend couldn't've had better timing. I'm really excited that Fall Break is just a few weeks away - not that I have any solid plans, but it'll be nice to have a little time off for myself.

In the meantime, I've been making an earnest effort to work hard and try my best academically, athletically, and extracurricularly (is that even a word? hmmmm....).

This is a pep talk I wrote to myself a few nights ago and posted onto Facebook. I figure readers might benefit from its positive message as well, so I hope you guys don't mind the long wall of text. Yes, it sounds cheesy. Yes, I probably sound like I'm trying a little too hard to be enthusiastic. But these are genuine feelings and I hope that anybody reading can take these thoughts to heart

---

This week has been so tiring, and I'm sure everybody can attest to that fact (esp. Juniors. OMG, JUNIOR YEAR ASDFGHJKLFFFUUUUUU). So many of us have been feeling sick, exhausted, and generally overwhelmed by everything. Many of us also have personal issues that get in the way of us focusing and putting all of the energy we wish we could put into our work. Our world lately has just been difficult to deal with.

And so, it's become ridiculously easy for us to just sit back and complain about how things are, to find fault in stuff, to just give up. To call ourselves failures. To want to not do anything but stay at home and just avoid the world.

But why not take these things as challenges instead? Why not use the tough things thrown our way as motivators to work our hardest and do our absolute best?

The time we waste time carping and cavilling about problems could be used so much more effectively:
Instead of sitting around whining, why not use a few minutes to take stock of your situation, figure out "what's next," and then put things into action? There's no point in dwelling on mistakes, especially when they can be used as tools for learning (either to avoid making the same idiotic mistakes, or even better: for bettering ourselves as people).

I don't remember who I heard say this, but it's a phrase that resonates in my mind:
"If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem."

I promise to hold myself accountable for my goals.
Rather than whining that (a) Litmag hasn't been published because our staff has poor communication (b) I didn't do quite as well as I could have on that APUSH test because I just fail at history in general (c) I don't have enough time to do all of my homework well, do something about the problems! (simple solutions: (a) work on talking to each other more often, especially in terms of one-on-one interactions (b) study more! (c) reconsider more time management strategies)
I know that there's no point in blaming outside influences for my failures when there's *always* something I myself could have done better. But as long as I admit my faults and can find ways to work with them, no matter how far astray my path ends up I can still reach my goal.

Most of all, we can't be afraid to fail: all of the "what ifs" only serve to hold us back. The hard work will pay off in some way or other, it just has to be given some faith. Don't create invisible barriers for yourself: The only person who can seriously put limits on what you can and can't do is you!

No, you don't have to be naturally talented to get places. I'm definitely not smart or really good at anything (in fact, I'm rather useless if you put it that way - I'll admit I've felt a lot of insecurity about that fact. But an advantage I *do* have is an incredible work ethic and enthusiasm for what's next. This next bit might sound a bit cynical or negative, but I'll say it anyway: It might be unfair that I have to work extra hard to get the same grades/keep up with the rest of the team/be as "awesome" as others, but a lot of times life is unfair. The thing is, we're still so blessed to have the resources we do have - And we're so lucky that we can use these resources work to make things a little more fair for people who have less, for those who truly do have a hard life. The truth is that all anybody can realistically ask of us is to do our best, and that's what I aim to do as often as possible.

I think however that in our day-to-day life it's so incredibly hard to put 100% into stuff when so much crap gets thrown in our way and distractions are placed everywhere. It's certainly a Herculean task to truly "do your best" when it's so much easier to just sit back and complain that things are hard. But if we can face these challenges head-on and earnestly work to learn from our mistakes, we can make this a better world. I genuinely think that our world would be about 5 billion times more outstanding if we did.

How do you react to the crap life throws at you? Will you wallow in despair, telling yourself that you're a failure? Or will you actively work to find a solution and put it to action?

Take the challenge. Be outstanding.

cool beans.

2010-09-05T18:06:00.000-07:00

Reasons why my life is outstanding:

I had 12 hours of sleep last night. 12 HOURS.
Went up to Oakland for my monthly dose of Chinese culture overload:

Bought 6 packs of Hi-Chew (nomnomnom)
Dim sum with the family
Finished reading this weekend's assignment of The Scarlet Letter while waiting to be seated. I felt so pleased with myself for getting it done so quickly - words cannot express exactly how much I loathe that novel. While I appreciate the fact that Hawthorne was trying to be descriptive, I don't appreciate the fact that he puts in about 200 adjectives and 20 commas in every sentence.
I got my iPod back from my Uncle! Being able to carry my Arashi library with me everywhere is now a privilege I greatly treasure ;)

I have a car!

And it's damn beautiful, if I must say so myself. It's a beige 2000 Camry w/ only like 20,000 miles on it. The best part:: It has working AC, working radio, and drives super smoothly. It's like better than my parents' cars!
My Grandpa left a pair of Clubman glasses in it, that apparently he doesn't want anymore. Vintage shades? Yes please :)

No school tomorrow - thank you, Labor Day!

Basically I am so thankful for everything life has given me. I still feel a sense of discontent - clearly not for lack of material possessions, but for some other things that have been constant irritants hovering around my mind for a long time. Anyway I doubt that many people really care about it so I'll save my complaining for a later day, I guess.

-K

we can make it!

2010-08-25T21:05:00.000-07:00

These past few weeks have been ridiculously busy for me. The amount of homework I have every night is pretty much terrifying, and adding in Cross Country, volunteering, Litmag, and... life in general, and you get a whole storm of insanity coming your way. Last night, I wasn't able to sleep until 2 because of a last-minute gift I was knitting for my little sister's birthday (she's now 9 years old!). Normally I would have started a project like that during a weekend, but even all of my weekends are packed! This weekend will be no exception: I'm holding a class party (30+ people at my house, something my family has never experienced before - this will be interesting), going to a movie night with friends, and of course will working on the mountain of homework that I'm inevitably going to have, and trying to get around 8 hours of sleep per night to make up for lack of rest during the week.
But enough of my whining. Although I'm without iPod for the next couple of weeks (long, boring story), I do have access to music on my cell phone and laptop and naturally what gets me through is Arashi music binges. One of my favorite sayings lately has been "becoming an Arashi fan makes you bulletproof" - I'm pretty much positive that that statement is true ;)
During the school year especially, Arashi's positivity is a huge part of my life that I utilize often (I even incorporated their song into my sophomore English final exam, which somehow earned an A *insert overly satisfied grin here*).
The excerpt below is a little something that I wrote for my friend Max's English "20% project" (this one was mine) last year, I hope you enjoy!

-K
---

A friend once told me that in scary situations, the best way to combat fear is to listen to 80’s music. I took her advice until I found The Theme Song To My Life, We Can Make It! by a Japanese pop band called Arashi.

As I read the translation to We Can Make It!, I found myself fervently nodding. This was it. The Theme Song To My Life. As cheesy as it sounds, as tacky as the music video for the song was, and ridiculous as it may seem, singing along this happy-go-lucky pop song never fails to uplift my mood. It was back in October 2009 during a spell of school-induced ennui when I began to really appreciate the song: One night during the middle of one of my homework and study marathons, I was feeling a strong sense of desperation when my iPod shuffled to the song.

We can make it true / hontou no yume wa itsumo soba ni aru (literally, "the real dream is right beside you") – I closed my eyes and appreciated the beauty of the lyrics in motivational songs like this. I generally roll my eyes at such sappiness, and the first time I ever heard this song I couldn’t help but laugh out loud at the ridiculousness of it. But hearing such a gathering of positive energy in the midst of what felt like a wholly negative situation was just what I needed: At the time I already felt a strong appeal towards the sounds of the Japanese language, but when I found a translation of the song my face instantaneously burst into a smile. Since then, whenever I’m faced with setbacks or discouragement, a little voice in the back of my head starts to hum the bubbly melody, my mind floats to the ridiculous dance in the music video for the song, and some newfound motivation to keep going and strive to be better is born.

The fact that I put so much faith in one song is perhaps a bit concerning, but being able to look towards this song for inspiration is invaluable to me. As the members of Arashi end their music video with their arms uniformly rotating towards the sky, the last line hateshinaku hiroi sekai / ima sugu ni tsukamitore (literally, "an endlessly wide world, right this minute I’ll take hold of it") speaks to me and gives me the will to move forward. For this, I am eternally thankful for this ridiculous, tacky, amazing song.

an informal farewell to my "internet life"

2010-08-10T16:14:00.000-07:00

I can't believe that summer is already over! Unlike many of my comrades, I have yet to feel bored even once this entire break - then again, I haven't felt bored since sometime around 7th grade, soooo....
I had a great time, despite the surgery, being stuck at home so often, and not having any huge "adventures."
Things about summer I will miss:

Sleep. I will miss having a full night's sleep, being able to go to bed at 3 AM [heck, two days ago I went to bed at 5:30 AM], and especially the long naps I often indulged in.
Running. Having the energy to go running, and going running on a schedule I decide on was the best.
Arashi fangirling. Having the time to do all of the Jdrama and/or variety show marathons, stalking LJ and Tumblr, learning dances will be so greatly missed during the school year.
Having spare time, being spontaneous. This speaks for itself.
No stress. Also speaks for itself.
Alone time. It's probably pretty obvious on this blog, but I have no problem going weeks without actual human interaction. It's pretty nice to just be able to chill and not worry about keeping other people entertained, meeting their needs, etc.

For all of the whining that I do do, I feel rather rested and almost [okay, not really but let's pretend that I am] prepared to go back to a super structured schedule and lifestyle. Although my brain has been turned to mush after not being used this entire summer, I can tell it's going to get whipped back to shape quite quickly.

Posts here over the past year have been pretty infrequent, but here's another reminder to not be disappointed if there isn't anything new for several weeks. Whenever school starts, things get hectic really soon and pretty much zero free time pops up. Important lesson: Life happens.

-K

a gif-heavy post.

2010-08-04T14:58:00.000-07:00

source

*throws confetti*
If you've followed this blog for long enough, you know well enough how important this is to me. I could just do a happy dance for hours!
A few gifs of the gayest band there is to demonstrate how I look right now: Let's celebrate this victory for gay rights!

[and again]

The Human Rights Campaign has a nifty little webpage where you can send a note of thanks to the couples who led the legal battle - click here to sign!

-K

some videos for your perusal-

2010-08-04T02:05:00.000-07:00

A week left of summer break! D:

-K

creation

2010-07-31T12:23:00.000-07:00

I was doing some thinking this morning [lately, I've been doing a lot of that, actually. It's quite a refreshing change after having about a yearlong writer's cramp, haha]. I went to sleep at 3:00, but after being woken up at 8:30 by the screams of my cousin Alice and Cindy while playing, my mind was naturally kind of spinning. Anyway, in the middle of wandering through topics, I was reminded of this quote from the musical RENT:

The opposite of war isn't peace, it's creation.

I began to again ponder that quote of Murakami Haruki's that I included at the end of the last post:

Do people start wars out of anger? Or fear? Or are anger and fear just two aspects of the same spirit?

Here's what I've now come to think: War is simply destruction with the motive of gaining power.
We fight and fight, whether to gain the power to practice whatever religion, to gain power over a land, to gain power over other people. The thing is, as much as war can add "structure" to a country, it always leads to destruction - whether in people's trust of the other side, in the layout of the land, and of course the kind of destruction that leads to the death of millions of innocent people.

I finally saw Inception with Claire two days ago, and was so thankful I finally did. Simply put, it's definitely one of the best movies I have ever seen. The concept was fantastic and original and very well executed in a brilliant screenplay by Christopher Nolan. I really enjoyed Nolan's direction in the cinematography, and the acting was so perfect as well. I was particularly impressed by Ellen Page, who I feel finally broke out of her typecast "sarcastic and witty teenager" roles. Although there was so much good material in the movie, one quote in particular from Page's character Ariadne particularly sticks out in my mind: when she comes back and admits that there's "nothing quite like" dreams, she says

It's pure creation.

That's what's so fantastic about the human mind. We have the immense power to create or destroy anything we want, given the idea takes root in our mind [Sidenote: do you think "inception" would be considered even remotely ethical in real life? I'm unclear about what I think of this myself]. For a long while, I've had the notion that no matter what, we should be actively working to inspire people, create and innovate new technology and ways to improve life, and to essentially make the world a better place: because to sit around whining about how terrible this world, begging for peace but not doing anything to make it happen really doesn't help very much. I don't remember who said this, but a quote I took out from my weekend at NCYLS is this one:

If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem.

So here's a dilemma: Do you sit back and complain about the destruction of the world [which is clearly easy - I do it a lot, unfortunately]? Or do you take the initiative to work hard to make this a better place to live in, to inspire others and be a good role model, to be a creator?

The choice is yours.

-K

late night (early morning?) unorganized thoughts

2010-07-29T03:08:00.000-07:00

I'm currently downloading the raw version of the first episode of Yamada Tarou Monogatari [after deciding that since this will be my third time watching the series, I should challenge myself to stop relying on subs. wish me luck!], but there are about 15 minutes left until the first half will be finished downloading so I figure I should do something semiproductive in this short time before I ~~drag myself away from this machine~~ shut the computer off and go to sleep.

A few days ago I was having a conversation with my friend Arjun when the topic of my obsession with fashion came up. We were finished talking about Leonardo DeCaprio movies [am I seriously the only person in the world who hasn't seen Inception?!?] when he asked what I was up to. I replied that I was on Chictopia wandering through the fashion forums, to which he replied something along the lines of "lol seriously?"

Although I'm open about my love for fashion, I don't force the topic into my daily conversations, especially because most of my real life friends aren't into it: I have a *lot* of nerdy friends, coming from a small private episcopal school, haha. Anyway, I could definitely sense some incredulity in Arjun's words. Clearly he couldn't understand why someone who gets straight A's like me, who is happy to discuss sci-fi/action type movies, and who was obsessed when the World Cup came along would be interested in something as... frivolous as fashion.

I took a minute to ponder the issue, and replied

I'm superficial but I'm not unintelligent.

Even as I read this response now, it makes me think. Is there any good to come from being superficial? Clearly entire industries are built upon superficiality [think: the millions of dollars spent on cosmetics, accessories, magazines/books based on improving your image, etc.] - but at the same time I feel like fashion can clearly be an outlet for artistic expression.
I also wonder about superficiality due to biology. Clearly we're attracted to "prettier" people [later I'll dig up links to the articles, I promise! for now I'll just point you blog lovelies to Scott Westerfeld's "Uglies" series for reference], and although now with our technology's ability to change our natural appearance [as well as what I feel is a resurgence of the ugly-chic aesthetic: that there has long been a movement geared towards embracing flaws in human nature] this superficiality is not quite as genetic - it's still embedded in our minds. Like my friend Nisha explained to me before, a succesful athlete can often be quite the looker, because if his face is symmetrical chances are the rest of his body is symmetrical and therefore more functional and able to perform better.
Ah, isn't life unfair? We who aren't blessed with such lovely symmetry have to carry on with what we do have~

Anyway what I was kind of trying to get at was what exactly is "superficiality?" I feel like it's a term with negative connotations but something that you simply can't get away from. At the same time, I feel like there isn't really anything wrong with having a little, every once in awhile.
One thing I am sure about: I'm really not sure what the hell I'm talking about.

-K

PS: How many of you blog lovelies have read books by Murakami Haruki? I tried reading A Wild Sheep Chase but gave up after the first sex scene. Then, I started Kafka on the Shore and was intrigued enough to actually read the rest - but boy oh boy, I'm positive that was the most bizarre thing I've ever read in my life. I definitely couldn't handle a lot of scenes and found myself skimming over quite a few parts. However, there were some really thought provokng questions he brought up throughout the course of the novel. I especially find myself pondering the questions
"Do people start wars out of anger? Or fear? Or are anger and fear just two aspects of the same spirit?"
.....I frankly don't really know.
Am I seriously going to post this drivel? Ah, screw it it's already saved and whatnot.
I should go to sleep.
Goodnight, world.

serene, not saran.

2010-07-26T22:53:00.000-07:00

Totally unrelated to the rest of this post but these are what I painted my nails about a week ago. Revlon's newly released "minted" is one of the most gorgeous green's I've ever seen [it reminds me of Tic Tacs!] but unfortunately it creates little bubbles and cracks so easily :(

This past Friday my sister, parents and I drove down [an entire 6 hours!] to Redding, California on a whim. My first impressions: (a) Oh my god, it's hot. (b) Oh my god, it's hot. (c) OH MY GOD IT'S HOT. The city we live in now probably has an all-time high temperature of somewhere around 80 degrees, whereas in Redding the lowest temperature throughout our entire stay was probably something around 85 degrees, in the middle of the night.
Anyway, this is the place we stayed in for the 3 nights we had in Redding:

Although our room looked charming enough, it smelled of old and moldy crap, had a small unsanitary bathroom, and worst of all: the AC. Although it was strong enough to cool down the room to a bearable temperature 15 minutes after turning it on, it was incredibly loud and annoying. Combined with the fact that later at night it worked a little *too* well, along with the fact that my little sister kept on rolling over to my side of the bed while unconsciously stretching her arms and consequentially hitting my face numerous times throughout the night, and naturally: I had the worst 3 nights of sleep I'd had in several years.
Cindy did, however, have trouble sleeping on that last night and consequentially we took several pointless pictures like the one on the left.

A few highlights of the trip:

Seeing not one, but two waterfalls in the middle of summer
Rediscovering a love for English language music [but then still getting my fix of Jpop + Kpop via my handy iPod, 夢 ("Yume")]
Giving the definition of "catharsis" upon hearing the word "cathartic" while browsing TV and feeling proud of myself - and later glancing at my parents' and sister's unimpressed facial expressions ;)
Learning that a root beer float after a three mile hike in 100 degree weather is the most delicious/fabulous/satisfying/wonderful/fantastic/etc. feeling in the world
In-N-Out + Jamba Juice for dinner on the last night!

I got to really practice my photography for the first time in ages [and boy, am I rusty!], so here are a few of my best shots [as with most of the pics on this blog, click for larger!]:


Sundial Bridge at Turtle Bay Exploration Park.

Summit Lake, Lassen Volcanic National Park

While we were hiking down to King's Creek Falls, I looked up and noticed this beautiful skyscape. I love clouds!

We technically weren't supposed to walk down to the base of the falls [not really sure why, because it seemed perfectly safe], but here it was. The cold stream was so refreshing!

The next few images are from the McConnell Arboretum at Turtle Bay Exploration Park, which we visited during our last morning in Redding.

This fountain was sort of randomly placed among lots of grassy plants, but it had a quite striking effect.

Not really sure what the heck is the deal with this bird, but it's an interesting piece of art anyway :)

I forgot to upload the pictures of Burney Falls and Shasta Dam onto my laptop, and frankly don't feel like making the trek down to the family computer so I'm just going to do without them. The tour of Shasta Dam was frankly a bit boring, but viewing the engineering feat was staggering nonetheless. There was a really interesting hallway that was fun to listen to echoes in ;) On our trek to Burney Falls, my mother commented on how "saran" it was to hike in an area so quiet - and she was right. There's something so calming about hiking that clearly evokes a sort of pensive state of mind that really makes you feel very connected to nature and appreciate the beauty of our earth.

To sum it up: even though hiking through that hellish weather was pretty disgusting, I really did have a good time. It's always a good idea to get your arse off of the computer and do something outside for awhile, consider placing some time off to do so yourself!

-K

i've decided to name my vlog segment "verycuticle" due to my YouTube account name

2010-07-21T19:01:00.000-07:00

Excuse my unkempt hair, acne, pajamas and otherwise unsightly appearance in general - I guess when I'm at home I just don't think about it very much ;)

A few things I forgot to mention in the vlog:

*I watched Boku no Hatsukoi wo Kimi ni Sasagu the other day, it was fantastic! I'm so jealous of Inoue Mao ;)
*What do you guys think of SHINee's Lucifer PV? I love the dance and song but hate the concept and Taemin's hair.
*Am I the only person in the world who has yet to watch Inception?
*I started Kurosagi last night. Love Yamapi's disguises, haha. He looks good w/ scruff ;) What do you think of his new single "One in a Million?" I'm personally just kind of *over* with autotune and Engrish in Jpop [another example: "To be Flea"] but I think the song is catchy.
*Anybody know what there is to do in Redding, California? My parents want to drive up there this weekend but we have no plans other than to visit Lassen Volcanic park....

-K

best.

2010-07-21T01:52:00.000-07:00

In the hopes of preparing for a rainy day, I went through every single post prior to this one on this blog to find my best writing. In terms of insanity level, I'm pretty sure I haven't changed, but in terms of writing quality - oh boy has it improved. Feel free to dig through the archive if you truly want to see the drivel I wrote back in 8th grade. *is embarassed*
This post is here to let you blog lovelies know that I compiled a "best of so anyways" list, which you can now find on the sidebar if you are so inclined to check out. Thanks for reading!
I'm on a bit of a vlogging high and am itching to make another video, so I'll do that sometime later today and post it when it's done. Stick around :)

-K

25 things!

2010-07-19T01:07:00.000-07:00

[Note that I have a new YouTube channel! "happyfacesrock" was getting old/moldy for me, so you can find me at "verycuticle," if you'd like to track me down ;)]

-K

12 (random) questions about your personal style

2010-07-16T23:55:00.000-07:00

[In a somewhat futile attempt to combat the writer's block, I decided to dig up this meme-type thing that I bookmarked several months ago but never actually did. Here we go~]

1. What is your favorite outfit that you have right now?
I don't have a favorite outfit, but if you asked me what my favorite piece in my wardrobe is, currently I would say either my product(red) black high-top Converse or my charcoal grey skinny jeans. They go with everything!

2. If you could hire any fashion designer to create a whole wardrobe for you who would it be and why?
Alexander Wang. His aesthetic is so fresh and he makes the most amazing basics. If only I could actually afford his pieces~

3. What are your top 5 (or more if you want) essential clothing staples?
Black skinny jeans
Denim jacket
Denim shorts [I need to buy myself a new pair, mine are pretty much dead!]
Black Converse
Patterned dresses
Fun tights to add color into the mix

4. Is there any person or character who’s style you really admire?
Emma Watson, for sure. She dresses so appropriately for everything while looking gorgeous, which makes her so chic.
I also adore Lily Cole, although I'm not particularly familiar with her fashion choices. I feel that both Ms. Watson and Ms. Cole are lovely ladies who seem like intelligent, beautiful people.
Can I also throw in G-Dragon just to screw with you? Okay, I will. What's not to love?

5. Is there a certain city or country who you think has great style?
Absolutely. Japanese street fashion [specifically, Tokyo's] is just outstanding. According to my friends who have been, pretty much everybody in that country puts in a lot of effort to look the part - in turn, they have no shortage of attractive people ;)
I love how flamboyant gyaru style, gothic lolita, and cosplay are. I love how innovative the people in Harajuku are. I love how nuanced Omotesando fashion is. The varying shades of fashion from the different neighborhoods of Tokyo are certainly a reflection of how varied their lives are, and I think it's fascinating.

6. Which colors/patterns do you love to wear the most?
A thing I aim to do often in my outfits is mixing texture and patterns, but I don't really have a specific pairing that comes up often. However, I will say that lately I have been really into cooler shades/hues. To the left is an outfit I'm particularly fond of. [aaaand here's where I pimp out my Chictopia profile! Click to see actual pictures of my day-to-day fashion :)]

7. Any trends you wish were never created?
Too many. Usually they have to do with shoes: Uggs, Crocs, Clogs - all of them, frankly, I think are hideous.

8. What do you think are the best trends ever?
To list a few off the top of my head: Pink blazers, tulle skirts, bow motifs, polka dotted/patterned tights [too bad they're dying down now], high waisted shorts and skirts.
Admittedly Doc Martens, Converse, and Ray Bans have always been classic staples but a few years ago they all experienced the beginning of a sort of "revival" which still continues to make looking effortlessly chic possible for hundreds of thousands of people around the world.

9. Do you have any clothing goals right now? (ex. you're currently saving up for a D&G dress)
A pair of straight leg, semi-skinny black jeans would be fantastic. I also am on the hunt for the perfect black and grey booties: Ones with about three inch chunky [or rather, sturdy] heels, closed + rounded toed that can withstand the kind of active lifestyle I have.

10. Favorite season to dress in?
Spring. Still chilly enough to wear layers, but close enough to summer to break out the fun patterns and colors.

11. Which clothes from what decade or era do you think should make a comeback?
I love 40's fashion, actually. They simply looked so classy!

12. Why do you like fashion?
The way we dress is a form of communication and can be a beautiful form of expression. The way we present ourselves through our clothes can tell so much about a person - in my case, I choose to present myself as a person unafraid to take chances and look like a fool, haha.

-K

the amount of knitting i do + dramas i watch makes me feel like such an old woman

2010-07-16T22:35:00.000-07:00

[but at least Ohno is such an old man w/ his fishing and sleeping habits, so it's okay ;)]

I've been slowly but steadily improving my knitting skills during episodes of Tokyo Dogs [finished - my favorite part: Mizushima Hiro shouting "tadaimaruo!"]. After I finished the monstrosity of a project that was this hooded scarf, I itched for a simple pattern which still maintained some interest, when I found this post online. I finished a pair of turquoise ones for Gabby, a pair of navy blue ones for myself, and am currently knitting a pair of hot pink/light blue ones for Casey [with bows as well! isn't he going to *love* it??? ;)]. Still need to learn to crochet + use circular needles, but for now I'll stick w/ beginners patterns, haha.

In between Jdrama/Arashi variety show marathons I've been either forcing my way through Harry Potter [in Spanish, which frankly isn't nearly as magical as the original] or my APUSH reading. Nothing kills a summer high like reading about dead white men and their idiotic pursuits, I tell ya. [insert long, angry rant here]
I've also been working on writing a few one-act plays for my school's spring theatre festival but frankly I can't see any of them actually getting done in the near future. I have a terrible habit of getting an idea for a story, but then not being able to figure out how to execute them onstage!

Writing isn't coming easy to me right now. Writer's block is so hard to get rid of during the summer, when you spend all of your time lazing around... although to my credit, I *did* run rather than jog 2 miles the other day.... my thighs burned for three days straight afterward, but I suppose it was worth it?

Rather than continuing off on tangents, I'll just stop rambling here. Let me know if you've a topic I could potentially use to clear my writer's block ;)

so, guess who finally watched the 5x10 concert dvd?

2010-07-16T02:47:00.000-07:00

.... Yeah, I'm pretty slow when it comes to these things. Anyway, I normally wouldn't post a fangirl-rant on this blog but I feel that since Arashi has become such an integral part of my life lately, there wouldn't be harm. Blog lovelies, feel free to skip this post if it's irrelevant to your life.

Anyway, watching this concert made me appreciate Arashi more than ever. I love how genuine and earnest they are, I love how hardworking they are, I love the message that they send through their beautiful song lyrics, I love the fun dances, I love how much detail is put into every single one of their performances, and most of all I love them as people. Seeing 10 years of hard work pay off for them in such a way makes me so proud of them. Words cannot explain how much I respect them as artisans of the highest caliber.

The way that they can so easily engage, captivate, and entertain audiences is so staggering. Even though I can only understand about 50% of what they say in concerts, they never cease to amaze me. Seeing them fly through the air during "truth" [the first Arashi song I ever liked and memorized], listening to Jun's whine while happily snapping along to his version of "Wish," watching the fireworks during "Believe," shouting along with Sho's rap in "Lucky Man" - all of it is the most amazing, unique experience that is Arashi.

Extravagant. Fabulous. Stupid. Talented. Inspiring. All of these words describe the magic of Arashi. Only Arashi would make me will my computer to continue working after three hours of downloading videos. Only Arashi would have me singing Japanese pop at the top of my lungs - in the middle of school. Only Arashi would motivate me to spend hours flooding twitter. Only Arashi would inspire me to shout "do it!" at random times. Only Arashi would have me singing, clapping along, and making a fool of myself in front of the computer on a regular basis.

I can't express how thankful I am to have become part of this fandom. Although it's clearly taken over a *lot* of my time and my level of insanity has probably been taken up a notch, it's opened up doors to learning the Japanese langauge, it's given me a chance to meet and talk to fans from all over the world, it's been a solid source of inspiration, and best of all: it's been a source of pure positivity in an environment that lately has had loads of things ready to bring me down. I hate how cliched this metaphor is, but they really have been a beam of light in the darkness that is our world.

All I really can say to end this post is that it's 2:44 AM, I should go to sleep, but I can't until I say one thing:
嵐, ほんとにありがとうございます!!!

-K
[A normal post/update-to-my-strange-life will be up sometime in the next two or three days, I promise!]

freedom.

2010-07-04T00:49:00.000-07:00

Happy Independence Day to my American blog lovelies! How are you spending your day? Hopefully it's in the company of good friends, family, or both :)
Also, what better way to celebrate the United State's freedom than by posting Arashi's newly released video for their latest single, To Be Free? [ok, i know i just sounded exceedingly stupid. it was a rhetorical question, stop judging me!]

I meant to go to sleep last night around 3 when I finished the Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus [reason #I-Can't-Count-That-High for why I love Lily Cole so much], but then I was linked to The Seventeen Magazine Project which engrossed me in reading for another hour, and finally links to download the To Be Free video + making of started popping up on LiveJournal - in turn, I didn't end up sleeping until 5 AM, haha. Germany vs. Argentina started at 7, but I was far too tired to wake up to watch it. Luckily, GERMANY WON, EFF YEAH!!!!! [spain you betta watch yo' back b/c it's gonna go down~]
Nothing really that interesting has happened in the life of Karen lately. I finished my scarf, as you can see to the left - and in turn I spent awhile looking for something new to keep my hands occupied during my Jdrama marathons. The solution: making lucky stars! There's something really calming about simply folding the little strips of paper into dainty little stars, and I love it.

[long, angsty rant ahead: you've been warned]
A few days ago my parents decided that it was my duty to help them clean up the Hollister rental unit before the new tenants moved in, so I spent the day weeding, cleaning the walls, and getting rid of general nasties. Obviously, I was not happy when they dropped me off, basically just said "go to work," and drove away without helping me at the same time: I spent 10 straight hours doing manual labor in the Hollister sun which is frickin HOTTER THAN SATAN'S ARMPIT. I got sunburned on my shoulders, and I *never* get sunburned - the last time it happened was when I spent the entire day at a waterpark in the Florida sun. Needless to say, I was miserable, hungry, and dead tired while my parents drove me back home: but I took out my stash of paper strips, started folding stars and became relatively pensive and was able to restrain my urge to strangle my parents right then and there, haha.

That's really all that's happened to me lately. Oh, but I *did* complete 30-day Arashi Tumblr Challenge, if you want to check it out. For the last entry, I learned the dance to the song "Monster" and posted a video cover, which is full of mistakes ;)

Clearly, I'm no seasoned dancer: it took me ~5 hours just to get this far, and I took a few liberties in changing up a few steps. Plus, I gave up and decided to just post this version after something like four failed attempts, haha.
Anyway, let me know what you think!

-K

PS: Joy told me to post this up, so I will :)

i can taste your sweet lovejuice

2010-06-25T20:25:00.000-07:00

So much has happened in the past couple of weeks! Notice: The following post is chock full with an overload of parentheses. You've been warned.

For the longest time my daily schedule was something like: (a) Wake up (b) Watch the World Cup with Grandpa [while knitting, nonetheless! It must be a spectacle to see a small person like me yelling at the espn broadcast on my computer, waving knitting needles in her hand and a pile of yarn bigger than my body at her side, haha] (c) Laugh at stupid mistakes and vuvuzuelas (d) Eat lunch (e) Take a nap (f) Study Cantonese, French, and watch a Jdrama (e) Eat dinner (f) Watch more Jdramas (g) Sleep.
[BTW, Who else is TOTALLY disappointed in Italy? I was totally rooting for them, but then those frickin old people FRICKIN GOT THEMSELVES KICKED OUT IN THE FIRST ROUND!!!! I mean, who loses to Slovakia? SLOVAKIA?!?!?]
But starting with last Wednesday, I finally began to [sort of] regain a life after the social void that happened due to my surgery. Fran, Nisha and Joy came over to my house and we sort of just hung out in my room, ate lots of candy, and chatted about everything for hours. We also made mozzarella sticks + spaghetti for dinner, which was very satisfying after the amount of hunger I had as a result of trying to mimic the hip-thrusting dance in HyunA's "Change:"

Needless to say, I had a lot of fun. It was so great hanging out with Fran after so long, I *really* miss having her in the same class as me!
Nostalgia kept kind of kicking in while I hung out with Joy during our trip to LA. On Saturday morning, we (driven by her parents) went on the 8-hour journey of a car ride to get to the land of the rich and famous. Of course, when we got there, we figured out that our hotel was right in the middle of the ghetto.... whoops ;)
It was totally okay though, despite the sirens. Joy seemed to have a very hard time trying to sleep [with her father's erratic and loud snores, I don't blame her], so we whispered about really random stuff until the *really* early hours of the morning until she was tired enough to [try to] fall asleep. In the mornings, her parents would try to wake us up, fail at waking Joy up, and then bring us back breakfast from the buffet. Sunday morning, Joy and I begged her parents to take us to LA Live early, and then we spent ~3 hours waiting in line to get into Club Nokia [even though we technically didn't have to]. But it was [sort of?] worth it: WE SAW AKANISHI JIN LIVE!!!!! To be honest, I'm not at all a fan of him and think he's a total douchebag [case in point: when we got back from LA Joy and I spent like an hour trying to replicate his douchebaggery in picture form] but I couldn't resist the opportunity to see a Johnny's entertainment idol LIVE! I still am kicking myself for spending ~$120 to see songs with pathetic titles such as "Yellow Gold," "Tipsy Love," and my favorite "LOVEJUICE," but I still had a lot of fun ~~yelling~~ singing along with the lyrics, dancing, and waving Joy's penlight around. I even yelled "BAKANISHI" at a few points, haha! Granted, I certainly looked the fool considering how low-tension the rest of the people in my section were [I'm 100% positive I was the loudest person in the entire audience, haha], and most people in the audience [myself included] just spent the whole time sort of staring at the stage muttering "what the hell is this?" but it was entertaining nonetheless. For more info on what the concert was like, let me google that for you or read my response to a fan report on my tumblr.

And look at all the fangirls! I've never seen so many Asians at a typically er... White venue! Joy and I kept looking at each other and saying "yup, they understand."

We also spent a lot of time in Little Tokyo shopping. I've decided that Popkiller is my new favorite store... not only did I buy this fantastic lace shirt for a reasonable price [all the others I've seen were outrageously overpriced], but I also bought this baby:

Awwww yeah. You're jealous. And for only $3.80, what a steal! ;)

Here's the rest of my haul (minus a little bento box I plan to use during lunches next year, and a gift I got for my friend Casey). A few notes:

(a) The issue of Potato I bought had an Arashi poster, so now I have two group posters and one Sakurai Sho poster on my wall! Three cheers for being an obsessive fangirl!~
(b) Ditched my old Hello Kitty wallet [Words cannot describe how much I *loathe* that franchise, I only used it because it was a gift but I hate wasting things] for this AWESOME Doraemon wallet that I also got at Popkiller.
(c) I'm kind of obsessed with the candy Hi-Chew. I started one pack of the melon flavor and finished it in a day and a half! Anybody know if there are "normal" stores that sell it or am I forever going to have to drive down to Japantown to get it? I hear 7-11 sells them as well but eh.....
(d) you see that pack of paper strips for making lucky stars? I went through the entire thing in a night, dammit. I should have bought more packs!

On a different note from the shopping we did, I had Pinkberry for the first time ever! The first time we went I got original flavor with mango, strawberries, kiwi and pineapple; and the second time we went, Joy and I shared original flavor with mochi, dark chocolate crisps, gummy bears and strawberries [a weird but still very satisfying combination, actually]. Never have I enjoyed frozen yogurt so much! I've always preferred ice cream to frozen yogurt, mainly because I'm convinced that the more fattening food is always the tastier of the two.... but I guess this is one very delicious exception! Too bad there aren't any Pinkberry stores in the Monterey Bay area...

Anyway, on Monday morning we went to visit Colburn school and USC, which both have fantastic music programs that Joy was looking at. I found myself often amused, for the following scene happened numerous times on each tour:

Person: Hi are you Joy? you said you were interested in our music program? Fantastic, and you play the violin?
Joy: Yeah....
Person: Wonderful! And we don't seem to have you signed up, what instrument do you play?
Me: Oh.... I don't play anything....
Person: [look of confusion]
Me: Sorry, I'm not a music student...
Person: Oh, okay! Are you Joy's sibling?
Me: Oh, no... I'm just kind of.... here.
Person: Uhm, okay then, let's get on with the tour!

After which time I was mainly ignored for the rest of our visit, which was fine with me considering that I didn't really pay much attention to their descriptions of the music program anyway. Colburn had a fantastic building, but I'm pretty sure if I was a student there I'd go insane due to how intense their program of study is. USC's music program also sounds really intense, but I'm absolutely in love with its campus and student life. I think I might try to apply there when the time comes but uhm... we'll see.

On a totally different note, since we've got back from LA, I've decided I've no longer any excuse not to go outside everyday. I restarted my daily run, and try to run at least a mile every day... However, whenever I run more than a mile, I end up feeling like crap afterwards! It's going to be a loooong journey getting back in shape, haha. But the feeling of being so satisfied with yourself after enduring such torture is unbeatable, and I no longer feel too bad about myself for my excessive eating habits ;)

Hmmmmm.... the end of this post really is just jumping around and has no point so I'm gonna stop writing while I can. Off to [hopefully] start my APUSH reading and French study! Wish me luck~

-K

my toes are cold.

2010-06-09T14:00:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I came back from a visit to my craniofacial doctor, which was just another addition to the string of unfortunate things that have happened to me this summer (getting the surgery on my cleft lip in the first place, scoring a 65.7% on my Algebra II final [although in retrospect I still do believe that going to NCYLS was 100% worth the bump in my grade from an A to A-], and not being accepted to the community service camp I wanted to go to due to limited availability. The doctor told me that my lip is currently more swollen than it should be, and that it'll be at least another 10 days until it's healed. My reaction was something along the lines of "dammit." It's now been more than a week since I've gone running and I can seriously feel my arteries just clogging up...
But whatever. After we left the office [2 hours of driving to get to San Francisco + an hour of waiting in the office = a 5 minute visit w/ this doctor! GAH SO FRUSTRATING!!!!], my father and I got pearl drinks and some Chinese baked goods and headed for home [another 2-hour drive, ahhhhhh].

I was pretty well-rested after returning home though, having taken a nap in the car. Naturally, the first thing I did when I got to my room was turn on the computer and visit Facebook. The first link on my newsfeed: the video for Lady Gaga's "Alejandro."

First thing's first: Lady Gaga. Stop it.
For the longest time I was so irked by her constant overtly flamboyant presence in popular media. My flaming hate for her reached its peak when she performed on SNL wearing some ridiculous, moving metal contraption that kept on bumping into the piano during her acoustic version of Poker Face. However, I do have to give her props: not only does she dare to wear amazing McQueen creations, but she is constantly pushing the boundaries of popular music and I really respect her for taking such risks. This video was really no exception:

The general consensus among my friends is that they like it, but that it was all just very weird. We all were kind of wondering what the video's actually about, and some people offered ideas such as "lady gaga was in love with a nazi but shes a jew. either that or nazis killed her jewish boyfriend and shes mad at the nazis..." or "it's about gay rights." I read a beautiful article written by my friend Kelsey about how the video's about "loss of innocence and becoming a strong woman, mixed in with gender bending and fighting the system."
In this article on MTV.com, "Alejandro" director Stephen Klein explains that the religious imagery 'represents the character's battle between the dark forces of this world and the spiritual salvation of the Soul.'
My thoughts: I really have no idea. I just know that the video's strange and interesting and intense and really well done and very, very Gaga. To me the video seemed more like a "piece of art/film" that you'd see in some obscure art museum rather than a typical music video, but I really liked it and do believe it's one of those pieces of art that will be remembered for being so shockingly good.

Lol Mike Chang I see you thar flailing. ~~It's alright, all there is to fear is Quinn yelling "LET ME GO" at her baby during delivery [wink].~~

On another note, the season finale of Glee was fantastic! I adore all of the songs they covered during this ep (even if they did sadly butcher Bohemian Rhapsody: and why the hell would they mix the performance of that song with clips of Quinn having her baby?!?! IT WAS SO WRONG ON SO MANY LEVELS), and they found a really good way to add closure yet set up the show for next season. I commend the writer's decision to make Vocal Adrenaline win Nationals [for seriously: the episode would have been far too perfect if New Directions won]. Other than that, I really don't have much else to say about the ep, so I'll stop while I'm ahead.

Nothing much else has been happening to me lately. I've been steadily working on the scarf I mentioned last post while watching eps of "Bambino!" which is a Jdrama starring Matsumoto Jun, Sato Ryuta, and lots of really attractive-looking food. Also: I think this boy is really adorable in the drama.

Currently
Listening to: MBLAQ - Y.... oh wait the song just finished. Arctic Monkeys - Fake Tales of San Francisco
About to: Watch another ep of Bambino.
Wearing: School jacket, track shorts, and a yellow t-shirt (all of which i wore as pjs last night)
Feeling: Okay?

-K

machikirenai yo beautiful days!

2010-06-06T12:12:00.000-07:00

My current reading selection, thanks to the Marina Public Library :)

I've been fully enjoying the freedom that Summer Break 2010 has given me for the past two weeks. Unfortunately, on Wednesday I had a "revision" on my cleft lip surgery which has left me with a swollen, stitched up lip for the past three days (don't click the link if you've a strong aversion to blood/general grossness) - the cause of my inability to eat any real food, go out to meet with friends (or to the XX concert that was in Big Sur on the 3rd, GAH!), or exercise. The worst part is that it hurts to smile! Of course, since I smile constantly (hey, I'm an optimist!) I'm constantly in pain, but I suppose this should only last for a week or two.
On the plus side, it's given me an excuse to lock myself in my room and read lots of books while listening to my selection of KPop, JPop, and Strokes/Arctic Monkeys music on repeat. So far this break I've finished Stephen Chbosky's The Perks of Being a Wallflower and Dan Pink's Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, which were both outstanding reads that I highly recommend. Currently I'm working on reading the Spanish Language edition of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (for practice, okay? I'm a nerd, can't help it~) and Arthur Miller's The Crucible (which is required reading which I detest: this play is so hard to read, and I've a feeling I wouldn't understand at all what was happening had I not seen a production of it earlier this year).

I've also been watching a Korean Drama called IRIS which is made really well. It's sort of reminiscent of the Bourne films, in my mind. After the first 15 or so episodes I started to get bored, and began a new scarf to knit while watching: it's pink and will have yellow and blue pockets and a hood :)
Last night I had an Arashi variety show binge of sorts, which was utterly satisfying. Lately all of the members of Arashi have really been kept busy (so busy, in fact, that two of its members [Nino the 17-year-old-brat and Jun the princess] have been involved in car accidents this year and consequently have made the talent agency ban all members of Arashi from driving at all this year, hahaha)! I'm really looking forward to the release of their new single "To Be Free," the ultimate feel-good song which I was enchanted with from the first listen: frankly, it makes me want to frolick in a magnificent field of daisies and wild horses... or something along those lines. The song is just so happy and empowering, it's simply very Arashi-like and I love it to no end! Also, they're releasing an album in August, which naturally I cannot afford but will support enthusiastically nevertheless.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to the rest of summer. It's going to be *amazing.*
-K

PS: Can you believe it?!?! (a) We're already halfway done with the year and (b) this is my 400th post! [throws confetti]

did you miss me while i was gone (in your pants)?

2010-05-29T01:54:00.000-07:00

It's been almost an entire month since I've updated here! Here, have an Arashi GIF to make up for it:

(The Arashi Monsters go "RAWR!")

What's been keeping me from updating this blog has been the most incredible month of my life. It's been stressful to the max and it's been exhausting to the max - but it's also been the most enriching, entertaining, fun, and (I hate to sound pretentious and annoying and cliched by saying this but truly) life-changing month I've ever been through, and I'm eternally grateful for all of the people who have contributed to my experience.

In the weeks leading up to the end of school, the teachers obviously decided to start piling up the work. Endless tests and quizzes, lots of last-minute review assignments, and a history term paper (I decided on The Influence of WWII on American Media in the 1940's) plus a persuasive speech for English class (my topic was Stem Cell Research, which I must say ended up a really well-written speech). Naturally, all of this work did not bode well for me: I ended up with dangerously high stress levels, constant headaches, and of course the strong urge to sleep. But I was relatively prepared for finals week when it came around, which brings me to the topic of THE MOST EPIC WEEKEND EVER.

It was Friday, May 21st. Yes, we were in the middle of finals. I'd only gotten through the Chemistry and Spanish III Honors finals, and was missing the English III and World History II finals to drive to Atherton, California for the Northern California Youth Leadership Seminar. When my father and I drove into Menlo College, we were greeted by a handful of flailing volunteers shouting with signs in their hands and way too much enthusiasm for me to handle. I was a bit disconcerted. Little did I know it was going to be the most OUTSTANDING 3 days I've ever experienced. 115 students (including myself), each from a different school in Northern California, came in knowing absolutely no one there and came out with newly found empowerment and motivation to make a difference in their community (BTW, I have so many ideas for making the York community stronger and to contribute community service hours now! I'm really stoked to put them in action!). I got to see so many amazing keynotes and panels (including Anthony Rapp, the GQMF who played Mark Cohen in the OBC production of RENT; motivational speakers Scott Backovich and Patrick Maurer; and Congresswoman Barbara Spier). My favorite part of the weekend had to be Saturday's Lunch. The entire weekend we spent shouting, cheering on complete strangers, singing, and dancing, but randomly in the middle of lunch that day was a string of coordinated Nor Cal Booty Dances. Essentially: imagine an entire cafeteria full of outstandingly enthusiastic people singing and dancing in sync. It really did make my life.
I spent a lot of time with the people in my group the "Energizing Bunnies." We played a lot of teambuilding games, for example the whole "holding hands and standing up together" task. but also got to meet a lot of other really awesome people during breakfast and free time. My roommate, Andrea, was also really awesome :)
Sunday was also my birthday! I have to say, my sweet sixteenth couldn't have been more outstanding. I sang by myself in front of an audience, a capella, for the first time ever (and even worse, I hadn't known any of the people in the audience for more than 48 hours); Was sung "Happy Birthday To You" by an entire auditorium of people who I'd only known for about 48 hours; And of course, I got home and was able to get real sleep for the first time after 3 days of constant shouting and flailing. I would've watched the LOST series finale as well, but after reading reviews decided against it and just went to sleep. Summer LOST Marathon, watch out.

Of course, Monday I had to go back to finals. Algebra II I just about failed (or got a D - pretty much the same thing), WHII I did mediocre in, and Latin II was just okay. I was, however, quite satisfied with my performance in the English III final: probably because I successfully integrated the lyrics to Arashi's "Monster" while replying to the prompt "We might argue that Bester's The Stars My Destination presents this theme: a monster resides inside all human beings, and it is our challenge to come to terms with this monster. Do you agree?"
I was so thankful when finals were finally over, and of course the Last Day of School was glorious.We had an awards ceremony, yearbook distribution, lots of hugs, goodbyes and cries of "WILL YOU SIGN MY YEARBOOK" or "I'M GONNA MISS YOU SO MUCH." Emily hung out before and after the dance, which was also really fun (I ended up dancing with the Juniors most of the time rather than my "usual" group, which has now become a lovefest. I feel like it'd be an invasion of privacy if I further explicated so I'll stop there).

My first day of break was pretty okay for the most part. I went to the wharf with Emily expecting to hang out w/ a large group of friends, but didn't realize until it was too late that it was going to be a triple-date, and that I was going to be the seventh wheel. I'm the type of person who would sacrifice anything for her friends, so I tried to stay out of the way so that I wouldn't er... intrude on things. And although I'm genuinely happy for all of my friends, now that they're happy about their love, suffice it to say that I felt more than a little uncomfortable. I guess at least now I can truly sympathize with people when they explain the horrors of being a third wheel, eh? Anyway I got home, showered, and slept until about 9 PM - Ah, how much I enjoy the freedom to sleep whenever you want during summer. I can tell I'm going to enjoy these next few months greatly.

---

Things that to come in the near future include:
- Helping out at Graduation tomorrow.
- Moving Emily out of her old house in the middle of nowhere into her new house in the middle of nowhere.
- Another "revision" surgery on my cleft lip (I've a lot of really mixed feelings and thoughts about this that I feel are a little too personal + complicated to explain on here, but suffice it to say that I'm really curious as to how it'll turn out this time)
- The pile of books I've wanted to read for forever that I'm finally going to have the time to read! (including rereading the Harry Potter series - in Spanish!)
- Self studying Japanese, French, Korean
- Learning the dances to several Arashi songs
- Planning a party (with a cover fee that'll go to The Smile Train), planning for Litmag, planning for a new club I have in mind called Smile Club (more on this later).

Words cannot explain how outstandingly STOKED I am for all of this to happen. It's gonna be a busy summer this year, I can tell!

-K

vloggy!

2010-04-30T23:31:00.000-07:00

I had so much to catch up on on this blog that I decided to vlog instead:

I'm sure I left a whole bunch of holes, but anyway..... Do you guys prefer my writing or should I continue experimenting with the vlog format? Hmmm.....

-K
(PS: Happy Late Arbor Day / Happy First Day of May!)

because i haven't updated this blog in almost a month-

2010-04-25T21:17:00.000-07:00

- and because I feel like procrastinating on writing my history essay rough draft, I've decided to provide my blog lovelies with a few things (stolen from tumblr) that have amused me in the past few weeks. I've really had a tough time dealing with.... life lately, and have had absolutely zero free time to write here! I'll try to get a vlog up sometime between now and the end of next weekend, but for now: enjoy!
---

Emma Watson photographed by Andrea Bowman Carter. She's so beautiful~ [source]

GD is my favorite. [source]

Although I guess this pic was taken in Australia, it still reminds me of Italian gelato - and how incredibly badly I miss it. The rose and blood orange flavors look way too appealing to me. [source]

Video of Sakurai Sho practicing his "Dream Chance" dance from The Quiz Show 2. In a desperate attempt to unwind Friday night, I watched the last 3 eps of this drama - 'twas a very good choice ;)

A few quotes to leave you guys with:

"The world is but a canvas to the imagination." - Henry David Thoreau

After I’m done with work and driving home, I look at the night sky from inside the car. I get a sad feeling like “Another day has ended”… along with the thought “I’m starving, what should I do next?” - Aiba Masaki in Potato, 2007.12

(Oh, Aibaka, how I love you)

-K
---
Currently:
About to: write term paper rough draft for history class
Music: Arashi - Believe
Wearing: PJs
Wondering about: how to simplify my life as much as possible in the next few weeks
Worrying about: finding a summer job
Looking forward to: GOING TO SEE AKANISHI JIN ASDFGJKL (more details in the next post, I promise)

nobi nobita

2010-04-04T20:57:00.000-07:00

I present to you tonight's Algebra II homework! We were supposed to create a graph from a drawing and find equations for the graph; I decided to have a little fun w/ Doraemon, my favorite Japanese cartoon character (ANYTHING BUT HELLO KITTY, I generally tend to yell - no offense to its fans, but to me there's just something so offputting about the character + its franchise). Of course, by the end of the assignment I was having zero fun, but anyway, I'm rather pleased w/ the result, haha.

This weekend has been pretty nice, as three day weekends generally are. Friday was an Arashi variety show fest. I also drove with my mother for the first time ever, and just about gave her a heart attack (you should have seen her hands clutching the edge of her seat, the poor woman...) - essentially I was amused all day. Saturday I had a driving lesson, spent almost 20 bucks on lip gloss + lotion at Bath and Body works ;), watched Clash of the Titans with friends and ate lots of cake afterward (Happy Birthday Max!). Today I woke up late, drove around Marina shuttling my mother around to do shopping, and spent the entire afternoon + night working on that ridiculous Doraemon graph. All in all, I'm quite satisfied with how I spent this weekend.

The agenda for the rest of tonight:
(a) Shower - Yes I shower in the night; I prefer to not spend 7+ hours in bed with various grime/dirt collected on my skin throughout the day thankyouverymuch.
(b) Create information to start outline for essay test on WWI.
(c) Watch an ep or two of HnS, VS Arashi, HnA; Finish watching Tengoku de Kimi ni Aetara.
(d) SLEEP.

-K

candied kiwi is fantastically delicious.

2010-04-01T21:41:00.000-07:00

What I'm currently thankful for: 3 day weekends. I have a feeling that these next two days are going to be glorious (Sunday not so much, but let's avoid thinking about that, shall we?).

Today:
Took an algebra test, felt like I aced it, felt good about myself.
Took a chem test, felt like I failed it, didn't feel so good about myself.
Skipped the track meet because (a) I forgot my contacts and (b) I have a shin splint (yes, just on the right side grrrr) from hell. Again, don't feel so good about myself.
Got home around 4, slept until 7, ate dinner, read blogs. Didn't feel better about myself, but felt better in general anyway ;)

Eh, story of my life. Ever since we got back from Italy/Greece it's been a pretty troublesome cycle of ups and downs, leaning towards the downs more often than not. I started out last week with traces of jet lag, and it went down from there until Friday morning when I had a total meltdown; it was a miracle that I even made it through the entire day at school. I really don't know how to express my gratitude towards the fact that (a) this week hasn't been nearly so horrid and (b) I now have 3 days to recuperate and hopefully get back to some semblance of a normal state of mind.

Don't really have any news to report on or things to rant about, so I'll just end this blogpost with these amusing commercials that we watched in English class for our persuasive speech unit:

-K

do it do it te ni iretan nara / kakenuke shake it now, shake it now-

2010-03-27T13:26:00.000-07:00

I haven't updated this blog in so long because these last few weeks have been just a huge whirlwind which is so hard to keep up with!!!!
The last week of school before spring break was super stressful, but I got through and was so proud of myself. You know that feeling of hard-work-paying-off? That's definitely one of the best in the world.
I spent my break with a group of friends and three teacher chaperones in Italy + Greece, and needless to say, it was fantastic. To think, in the past half year, I've been to Jamaica, Germany (albeit only the Frankfurt + Munich airports only, lol), Italy, Vatican City, and Greece! Words cannot express how incredibly thankful I am to have such opportunities - one night in Athens we went hiking up to the Temple of Muses to see the view of the city by night, and it was so astonishingly wonderful that I ended up crying, actually. One thing I love about night - it's a lot harder for people to notice some things ;)
Anyway, some highlights from our trip:

The plane rides there and back were suprisingly fun. I felt really bad for the other people on the plan, as we were such a loud and probably really obnoxious group, but still~
On the way there, when we landed in Frankfurt for our connection to Rome, it was snowing and we all looked kind of disheveled and tired - Except for Emily Rose, who like a freak of nature loves practically all weather. When we finally landed in Rome, we were all tired and pretty much ready to pass out. We reached our hotel and after an admittedly delicious dinner (esp. the potatoes - they were the most delicious potatoes I had EVER had!!!), we went to bed.

I *love* early mornings in Italy! Every morning we had to wake up early, which was not fun for anybody (except maybe me, because I got to wake others up - I'm pretty sure my roommates are now far too acquainted w/ my love of NSYNC's "Bye Bye Bye" and Arashi's "Troublemaker" and "We Can Make It" by now, hahahaha).
Picture details:
1. The early morning view out of our room in Rome. Literally: A rooster always was calling when I went outside to check the weather.
2. The view out of our room in Sorrento. We only stayed one night but it was easily my favorite city in terms of aesthetics, I just love how the bay looks from there. I wish we could've actually visited the city rather than passing through for the night.

My roommates for the duration of the tour were Sonja (far left), Emily Rose (far right), and Chayo (w/ the cards). I had a lot of fun waking up Emily Rose on the first day of the tour, haha. I'm kind of ashamed to admit it, but probably the most fun part of the tour was playing cards with them and other kids ;)

Our first day of the tour, we went all over Rome (and the same for the next 3 days, haha).
Photo details:
1. The Coliseum
2. The Arch of Titus: It was crazy seeing this, as a few days prior we finished a translation related to this Arch in Latin class!!!!

The Vatican: Being not-at-all-religious at the Vatican resulted in my oblivious state of mind towards pretty much any of the allusions to Bible stories. Plus, I don't even know much about Roman/Greek mythology, so even those aspects of our visit were kind of unclear to me, but I still found some things interesting. However, our guide was pretty much the most obnoxious speaker ever: she ended every sentence with "no?" or "mmm?" and even though I made a genuine effort to listen to her the entire time, I absorbed none of the information she blasted at us. It probably would've been more interesting if we could've just visited and explored by ourselves.... next time, I guess.
Photo details:
1. I don't really understand what a giant pinecone was doing in the middle of the Vatican.
2. This statue's face is pretty intense.
3. I spent a ton of time in the Vatican staring at the ceiling in awe (I mean of course, the Sistine Chapel is wonderful, but the other corridors and such were really cool as well). This particular area looked like it was carved out but in reality were painted!
4. Lol, Swiss Guards.
5. I still greatly enjoy the memory of walking through the streets of Rome, I think they're so pretty.

The next day we visited the catacombs + bone church, and I was thoroughly creeped out. As you can tell, I didn't get any pics, sorry! In the afternoon, we visited the Spanish Steps, Trevi Fountain and the Pantheon.

Photo details:
1. People watching at the Spanish Steps is actually quite fun.
2. Of all the things to look at while exploring the streets of Rome, I started to notice that the sewer drains have "SPQR" on them and was somehow... amused? Something of that sort....
3. To be honest, I was actually kind of underwhelmed at how the exterior of the Pantheon looks like. I didn't realize that it actually was the Pantheon until I asked Emily Rose what was so important about the building (and she just about smacked me ;p). I like this pic, however. :)
4. The Trevi Fountain is probably my favorite Roman landmark. Later that night we went to see what the Coliseum and Trevi Fountain look by night and got gelato. At the first gelato place I visited, I really needed to go to the bathroom but it didn't have toilet paper so I went out to grab a few napkins..... the shopkeeper didn't understand me, thought I was stealing, started yelling, and kicked me out of the shop, hehe. Whatever, I'm pretty positive that the second place we went to was better ;)

Photo details:
1. As I said earlier, Sorrento is absolutely stunning.
2. Capri is beautiful.
3. One of my new goals in life is to get a house on Capri..... if Global Warming hasn't sunk Capri by the time I've earned enough to get one of those villas.

Pompeii! I do not hesitate in saying that it was LIFECHANGING. After using Cambridge Latin Course for 2 years and going over the ins and outs of Ancient Roman society, seeing the ruins at Pompeii was such a treat for me.
Photo details:
1. VISITING MY HOMIE CAECILIUS! All the cool people hang out w/ the argentarii ;)
2. Oh, souvenirs. Who buys these kinds of things? Oh, I forgot- people like me.
Ahahaha just kidding, but to be honest I was *so* tempted to buy one of the many penis-with-wings statues that they sold at the different merchant stands around the entrance to the archaeological site.
3. It was almost heartbreaking to see how many stray cats and dogs there were all over Italy + Greece. The Pompeiian dogs were my favorite, though. :)

That was the end of our tour in Italy. We drove 3 hours down to Brindisi, boarded an overnight ferry, and we were off to Greece!
Photo details:
1. We all spent some time on the bus sleeping - although the drive was scenic, much of it was the same and got uninteresting fast. During one such time, Emily Rose was sleeping in this position - as I noticed, I had an urge to pet her spine. Luckily for her, I was able to control myself, haha.
2. Remember how I said I love Italian mornings? I also love the sunsets. Aboard the ferry there was a beautiful view of the Adriatic Sea. During the ride there, we played lots of card games + there was an "overnight disco" where we took great amusement in watching our tour director John (who by the way is pretty much the most awesome person I have ever met) dance.
3. When we docked in Greece, it was a drive straight to Delphi! This was a really cool bridge we passed through.

In Delphi we had a little too much fun enjoying free time. We did so much shopping (I got myself an owl pendant and ox ring, and some souvenirs) and just had a really "chill" time in general.
Photo details:
1. I thought Sonja looked *SO CUTE* in the little bed, I had to take a picture.
2. We found this thing in the street. I can't believe we wasted 2 euros on it. Angela (aptly nicknamed "Mangelo" on the trip) got the highest score "69" while I got the one below it, haha.

Photo details:
1. Another picturesque view of one city (I forgot it's name) in Greece. I have to say, I enjoyed the weather/natural beauty of Greece much more than I did Italy. However, I enjoyed the cuisine of Italy much more than Greece's (except that Greece has CHEESE PIE! Cheese Pie! is pretty much the best stuff in the world, in my opinion)
2. The ruins at Delphi.
3. Showing off our "Whispers," which are kind of like walkie-talkies minus a transmitter. We used them on different guided tours of ruins/sites. I have to say, the name "whispers" is a misnomer - the volume, even at its lowest setting, was far too high.

During our last day in Greece, we visited the Acropolis and visited the new museum. In our free time, Sonja and Emily Rose and I went off to go shopping at cute little boutiques and had lunch eating chicken gyros (and I was so close to asking the cute waiter for a picture to take back to Joy, but we were in a hurry and had to run before I got the chance [insert expression of disappointment here])

Athens is so beautiful! By the last night, I was so sad to leave Greece but also pretty ready to go home - those past 10 days were so exhausting! The flight back home was pretty uneventful but felt like it went by much more quickly - this time, there were the little individual TVs for our entertainment purposes, haha. While a group of my friends watched "New Moon" together [insert expression of disapproval together], I watched An Education (which I thought was okay, but kind of boring overall). I also tried to get through G-Force (and gave up about 15 minutes in), watched The Invention of Lying, The Informant and some of Where The Wild Things Are. Lufthansa's in-flight entertainment system = A++, haha.
It was around 9 when we finally landed in California, and everybody was pretty exhausted. I got home around 11 PM, and immediately got to work sorting through an intimidatingly large pile of mail (half college brochures, a quarter for summer programs/leadership seminars, the rest magazines). Around 1 AM I finished with that and went onto email - I had like 200 emails in my inbox, about 20 that I actually took the time to reading completely, haha. Then, it was that dreaded time: time to look at my grades.
Thankfully, I only got positive feedback on my report card, but it doesn't look like my grades improved at all, so I was disappointed.
...I can tell it's going to be a long, hard last quarter push to get straight As, gahhhh.
It wasn't until around 5 AM that I finally got into bed and slept. I didn't wake up until noon, haha.

-K
(PS: For more pics, visit the shutterfly website one of our chaperones, Abby Sensei, made: http://yorkeurope2010.shutterfly.com)

do it do it

2010-02-27T21:56:00.000-08:00

I don't know how in the world I can organize my thoughts into something cohesive, but anyway.... here's what's been on my mind lately:

Arashi's Troublemaker PV came out!!! This morning I woke up around 10, ate breakfast and did English homework until around 12, and then went to sleep until around 3. When I woke up and decided to check my livejournal friends page, I saw a link to the music video - and just about had a heart attack. I'm far too infatuated with the video, it's definitely my favorite one of theirs now. I spent the rest of the afternoon making icons from screencaps ;)

The most depressing thing in the world happened the other day: I broke my glasses!
It was the first day of track practice and I didn't realize that it was going to be so time-consuming... apparently my carpool had been waiting for half an hour before the team arrived back at school, haha. In a rush to get back to the car, I ended up flinging around my glasses or something because the temples of the glasses frames broke!!!! The most depressing part about that: they were Calvin Kleins. My only designer piece of "clothing," broken! Oh well, it was a nice 2 years with them. So anyway, the other day I went to the optometrist to get a new prescription (apparently my vision has worsened from -2.25 to -2.5), and ordered glasses w/ these interesting rectangular purple frames. Will post pics when I receive them.

I got my permit! Since we had no school Friday ("Professional Development" days, I LOVE YOU), I decided to finally haul my arse over to the DMV and apply for it. The receptionist and the guy who first talked to me were quite nice, I must say. I was apprehensive to take the test (and even more nervous after turning it in, considering that I never actually read the California Driver's Handbook, I just studied using my driversed.com course and in turn had to guess on quite a few of the questions), but the DMV actually wasn't quite as terrorizing as I thought it'd be. I did, however, have to wait something like 40 minutes for someone to finally check the test and give me my permit (I just barely passed, out of 8 questions wrong allowed, I missed 8, haha) - to be honest, during that time I was so tempted to start singing "We Can Make It" out loud just to raise my morale - luckily for the other patrons of the DMV, I maintained my composure.

I recently started (and finished, except for the special) another Jdrama, Code Blue. For once, it's a dorama without a member of Arashi in it, but it does have another member of Johnny's Entertainment, Yamashita Tomohisa (or Yamapi, as his fans affectionately call him) in it - and boy, can I say: he is SMOKIN. That aside, it was a relatively well-acted, well-written drama. Near the end, I started to get bored with the same skeletal structure of each episode, but a few various twists to the plot was enough to keep my attention. Overall, it was a decent show, but in my case mostly helped out because of Yamapi as eye candy. 7.5/10
Screencaps for good measure (forgot to save sources, don't kill me if I took from your website, please!):

(so much Yamapi to love!!!)

(a.]there were SO MANY awkward scenes w/ the doctor interns in the elevator. b.]Yamapi's character, Aizawa, always is looking at his hands and/or twirling a pen in his fingers, I don't get it.... c.]I was so positive that Aizawa and Shiraishi were going to end up together, dammit!!!)

Anybody been following the Olympics? I definitely haven't been following them nearly as close as I should be.

-K

currently i have a strong lack of inspiration when it comes to title-making so i'll leave it as this

2010-02-21T17:04:00.000-08:00

It's quite a surprise that I've been able to finish my homework so early, considering the fact that I've been so obsessed with sitting in front of my laptop watching Asian Dramas or Arashi clips that I haven't spent time doing other stuff.... but anyway, since I have the extra time finally, I figure I should write on the blog. For a long time I've meant to write a review for The Quiz Show Season 2, but since I just finished You're Beautiful I'm going to go ahead and lump reviews of both in the same post :)

---

So first up: The Quiz Show! (virtually spoiler-free)
To be honest, I didn't bother watching season 1 and just skipped forward to season 2 for the sole fact that Sakurai Sho (as Kamiyama who switches from this vulnerable amnesiac to an extremely cocky and frankly annoying MC) is the main character in it... Ah, what the ridiculousness of fangirling does to me! Anyway, I wasn't sure what to expect, but when I saw the opening which had an ominous mood despite the light blue lighting and such, I was confused (and slightly disturbed as well). I was even more confused each time I saw the recurring scenes w/ Yokoyama Yuu (as a mysterious guy named Honma filled w/ way too much anger) pretty much "torturing" Sho in that cell saying stuff like "DO YOU REMEMBER NOWWWW?!?!" but the writers did a really good job revealing the story behind as the season went on - Even though I hadn't seen Season 1 I could still understand what was happening, for the most part. Overall, I enjoyed this show far too much (it was so addictive that I finished it all in one day!) - the characters were relatively well developed, the plot was interesting, and Kamiyama breaking out into random dance during the DREAM CHANCE~ is the most amusing thing in the world.
A couple of screencaps for good measure:

(every time I saw one of these scenes I couldn't help but groan "oh god not again" and then laugh at the ~~sexual~~ tension between the two ;D)

(hearing about this was so sad + touching!)

(Sho's reactions, even when he's not acting, are always A+++)

(I aim to dance like this from now on)

Yeah, this drama is pretty much made of awesome. 9/10

---

(Note: Spoilers involved in this one!)

During New Year's celebrations w/ Joy and Fran, we watched the first ep. of You're Beautiful and there was a whole lot of "wtf is this?" involved. I did, however, find it semiamusing and thought that Hongki was the most adorable Kpop boy ever (which I still believe). The story is about a nun named Mi Nyu who finds out that her brother, Mi Nam has to get an operation and cannot perform with his band A.N.JELL, so she cuts her hair (to a haircut that I am incredibly jealous of and want for myself, haha) and pretends to be a man to take over his place in the band for his sake. Basically all the members of the band fall for her, and when they all figure out that she's a girl, rather than a man, they cover up for her and try to win her over. I thought the story was super predictable but nonetheless very cute, and I loved the little romantic motifs between Mi Nam and Tae Kyung. Couldn't help but laugh out loud at when Tae Kyung whispered "Saranghae" into her ear at the end, and I some of the creeperness that was going on was just super fantastically funny.

Screencaps:

(1. he's so pretty 2. Every time he did the pout/lip movement thing, I laughed majorly 3. his eyeliner greatly amuses me)

(I want a pig rabbit of my own!)

(how are their legs so skinny?!?!)

(Jeremy being a creeper)

(Shin Woo being a creeper)

(Tae Kyung being a creeper, but also really cute)

(Mi Nam being a creeper)

So pretty much this was a creeper party, but I loved it anyway. This drama was almost to the JDrama level in how addictive it was, but like all Kdramas I've watched, it was unnecessarily long (the last 4 eps were essentially just a whole bunch of angsty running around). It was, however still very entertaining, so for that I give it an 8/10.

---

That's all for today. I should probably get some studying (woo, Algebra test tomorrow + Latin test Tuesday ;p) done, and I really want to eat, for some reason.... [shrug]

-K

ai nante

2010-02-19T22:05:00.000-08:00

A couple random occurences/thoughts that have happened lately:

I'm enchanted with the Japanese word "eien," which translates to "forever" in English. It just sounds beautiful to me for some reason? I think it has to do w/ the triple vowel thing going on...
The day before Chinese New Year/Valentine's my family celebrated early: Firstly my parents, sister and I went over to San Jose (Ranch 99) to buy food ($10 of Pocky, lychee jelly, roasted green pea snacks, other Asian foods FTW!) and then visited met up w/ other family at my Uncle Rodney's house. Auntie May did all of the cooking for all 10 of us, so she kept on telling us to eat - and then apologizing for the food, saying she wasn't a very good cook.... which was far from the case, everything was delicious! Just for kicks, I decided to weigh myself before and after the dinner, and it turns out I literally ate 4 pounds of food! Gluttony is bliss. I also watched The Princess and the Frog with the cousins (and sister). All in all it was a great time.

On Valentine's Day I watched Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief with Emily Rose - Essentially, it was entertaining enough but not a fantastic movie. We found it quite amusing that the man who played Hades looks just like our Freshman History teacher, except a bit taller. Later I gave her a CD filled with J-Pop and K-Pop.... her life has been changed for the better! (Well, the other Emily could easily argue w/ that.... she has given me a beating for spreading the JPop obsession around, but I firmly believe that she's just crazy anyway, so pay no attention to her beliefs ;D)
I got chosen to represent my school at the Northern California Youth Leadership Seminar! When I told my mom about it, her response? "Is it free?" (luckily for me, it is ;D)
After several assignments that were complete disasters, my latest project in Photoshop class was a complete success! Ironically enough, we haven't been using Photoshop lately - but I have no problem with that, as Adobe Illustrator makes me much more satisfied than Photoshop.
I have SO MUCH studying + homework to do this weekend! With the exception of Spanish, my test scores in all of my classes have been far from stellar.... must redeem myself!
I did break my promise to not watch Jdramas on schooldays on Tuesday (but it was only one ep of Tokujo Kabachi + I didn't get any hw that night so I still got a full night's sleep), but I also found a loophole in plans to avoid wasting time on the laptop: Kdramas. I've been obsessed with You're Beautiful, but luckily this week has been incredibly light on homework. Unfortunately, next week I highly doubt it'll be the same...
4-day schoolweeks are heavenly. (And we get Friday off next week as well! FANTASTIC)

So pretty much life has been fantastic for me lately. I've been slowly getting rid of my state of apathy and finding (possibly far too many) good things to be glad of in my life.

I find it interesting that in English class we're reading Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God, which highlights the changes in a young black woman's life, and in turn our teacher has made us study Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. He asked us to consider how Janie stacks up on the hierarchy, and in turn to evaluate ourselves through the question of "what motivates you?"
When posed with this question, I answered "failure, wanting to become better and overcome failure.... and Arashi" to which my teacher gave me a quizzical look and said "uhm, what?"

The rest of my class just laughed. Oh, how I love that my friends know about the amazingness of Arashi. Oh, how I love being a fangirl.

-K

eyes with delight

2010-02-13T00:07:00.000-08:00

The beauty of the trees,
the softness of the air,
the fragrance of the grass,
speaks to me.
The summit of the mountain,
the thunder of the sky,
speaks to me.
The faintness of the stars,
the trail of the sun,
the strength of fire,
and the life that never goes away,
they speak to me.
And my heart soars.
- Chief Dan George

Currently I'm watching the opening ceremony for the Vancouver Olympics and pretty greatly enjoying it (as I do for all Olympic opening ceremonies, actually). The artistry involved in this is quite... adroit. I mean some of it is *really* awkward (I mean, interpretive dancers? Nelly Furtado + Bryan Adams + ..... Amerindians?) but even so it's all really beautiful. Anyway, I like to multitask, so I'm going to write my first blog in.... a week I think it's been?

That brings me to my explanation of why I've been away from the blogosphere for so long: on Monday morning, I woke up with a blinding headache, presumably due to my day-long The Quiz Show Season 2 marathon (reviews to come soonish!) on Sunday. As always, I wasn't able to focus on hw until after I finished w/ those distractions, so I didn't end up going to bed until something like 12:30. Because of this, I have now decided to ban myself from blogging + checking blogs and watching JDramas + variety shows on nights before a school day. Luckily for me (or rather, my JDrama addicted-self), this week was a 4-day schoolweek, and so on Thursday afternoon I had a wonderful reunion w/ two eps of Tokujo Kabachi and an ep of VS Arashi.

Thursday night was also the night of our school's Valentine's Dance, but everybody knew it was going to be terrible because the freshmen were hosting it. Hence, I went with Emily to the theatre to help her organize/file "gels," which allow her to change the lighting during shows to.... interesting colors, haha. Unfortunately for us, the people who were in charge of the theatre's lighting department were incredibly neglectful, so 4 hours of long, tedious work yielded us.... half a file cabinet full of organized gels. We have a loooong way to go until it's all cleaned up.

Anyway, today was half productive. I woke up around 11 AM, sat around sending messages/fangirling for two hours, then took my little sister Cindy to Burger King for lunch and Ross + Target to shop (our trip yielded two skirts for me and a water bottle for her). This entire afternoon was spent finding, downloading, and organizing songs for an iPod overhaul of sorts. Lots of new Fatboy Slim, random KPop and JPop music, and of course a couple Arashi songs mixed in for good measure. I downloaded a total of 70 songs, hehehe. Promise I'll buy them.... eventually!

Yesterday (or rather, two days ago), Alexander McQueen was pronounced dead.

(in an IM conversation)
Claire: ALEXANDER MCQUEEN IS DEAD
Claire: :(
Me: WHAT?!?!?!
Me: NOOOOOO :(

I have particular respect for McQueen, not only for the killer clothes in Gaga's Bad Romance, but because he was the one who really sparked my interest in fashion. After seeing his Union Jack boots in the Wynn hotel at Las Vegas, I began to really follow different designer's shows and collections. To hear that such a creative genius is no longer with us is truly just devastating. RIP, Alexander.

To uhm, awkwardly continue with the theme of death, RIP Nodar Kumaritashvili. The ceremony continues to be beautiful, however. Although.... I kind of find it hilarious how Nancy Greene's podium-thing malfuncioned and she's sort of just standing there not knowing what to do.

Gee, why am I so insensitive?

On a kind of totally different note, I also found it kind of hilarious how on my Livejournal friend's page there are accounts of Arashi fangirls swarming around the entrance of the Vancouver airport in an attempt to catch a glimpse of Sakurai Sho while he exited the airport. My first thoughts upon having read this were something along the lines of "oh dear god, just give the poor man a break" ....but now that I think about it, it's a bit of a hypocritical statement considering that I would have definitely flown to Vancouver in an attempt to do the same, given the time and money, haha. Oh, the life of a fangirl is such a sad existence.

Anyway, that's all I really know to say for now.
Tomorrow: Chinese New Year celebrations with family!
Sunday: Percy Jackson with Emily Rose!
Monday: JDrama marathon during the morning/early afternoon, homework marathon during the afternoon + night.

-K

kiseki nado matanai yo / hi no sasu hou e (hi no sasu hou e)

2010-02-01T18:51:00.000-08:00

I was actually able to post every day last month - SUCCESS!
I actually survived last month - SUCCESS!
The first month of the new year, new decade is finished - SUCCESS!

I have to say: I'm quite satisfied with myself. From now on, however (or at least until I randomly decide to join NaBloPoMo again), posting will be much less frequent. I'd much rather post at least semi-good material at a staggered rate than post crap because "I promised myself I would blog!"

With that being said, I now present a random thoughts/tidbits/ramblings/rants/whatever you'd like to call them from today!
---
I've newfound motivation and optimism regarding my academic standing. I'm not sure why, but I'm starting to both work harder and find it easier to work harder in terms of academics.... it makes me feel like a better person, haha. This afternoon I was thinking about how although it really had been a crap day (it being a Monday, being handed back quizzes [although none of them were below what, a B+ so I guess it wasn't that bad], dismal weather, etc.) while at the same time, I felt relatively fantastic and ready to tackle homework - and so I was able to do like half of it during study hall! Nisha and I talked about it for awhile and I figured: Once you fall down in the slumps, the only place to go is up. I figure that since currently I don't have anything particularly amazing going on for me, the only thing that I can do to make myself feel better about myself is to work hard and get good results.... does that make sense? Oh god, I really just need to shut up.

I'm knitting a scarf. It's all stockinette stitch so it might end up just a huge tube, but we'll see.....

I'm starting to get bored of my music (even some of my Arashi music! *gasp*). This probably means it's overdue for an iTunes library overhaul. Gonna get rid of a lot of stuff (except for a few select songs that never fail to entertain me, muahaha) and add lots of new stuff, hopefully this weekend. Any music suggestions, anybody? Bueller?

Today I got like 5 emails from random colleges (which is weird because I've never got them before ??? I'm assuming that the College Board finally sent out email addresses/scores? out, but it's nonetheless still concerning) that I've never heard of before. I'm kind of scared and kind of interested, but at the same time... meh. I don't want to look that far ahead, quite yet.

My nails are now painted a pretty shade of ~~lavender? lilac?~~ purple, I quite enjoy it.

I'm IMing Haley right now, she's quite nice. We're complaining about siblings, haha. Her chat icon is a picture of balloons, I like it.

Just saved the lyrics + translations to Arashi's Life and Cry for You. Life has the sweetest lyrics, and Nino sounds so badass at the beginning of Cry for You, I love it <3
Currently: Listening to Britney Spears - Piece of Me.
Anybody watch the Grammys last night? I didn't, but at school today lots of people were talking about it. I did, however, see the clip of Lady Gaga + Elton John performing together on YouTube.... Still not quite sure what to think about that, haha. I do know that I think that "Grammys" should definitely be called the "Gramophone Awards," or at least spelled "Grammies." ;)

Going to go now: Need to finish writing an English essay, work on another project related to English class, finish a History worksheet, and do Chem + Spanish homework. Thank goodness I got Latin + Algebra out of the way earlier today, haha.

-K

ps: THIS. (click for larger)

Ke$ha, I know it's in your contract that you're supposed to look like the what, badass partygirlbitch but frankly..... you just look like a degraded version of Gaga. And I don't even like Gaga. In fact, I quite dislike Gaga except for the whole McQueen thing she's got going on. Ke$ha, you look like a hot mess. Ke$ha, why does there have to be a $ sign in the middle of your name? Ke$ha, I feel very bothered by you for some reason. Ke$ha, I'm sorry for ridiculing you so much. Ke$ha, I'll shut up now.... if you put your act together.

sou 1 2 3 4 5 hashiru

2010-01-31T12:46:00.000-08:00

Friday night, after doing my daily blog update and such, I finally watched the Saigo no Yakusoku special, which ANM sub team had just released.
After the first 10 or so minutes, all I could really take from the drama were thoughts along the lines of "OH MY GOD THEY'RE ALL SO CUTEEEEEE!!!" (spoilers through this entire post, beware!)

(but really, they are: Aiba totally fits the cafe boy persona, Jun's hair permed/to the side looks really gorgeous [unlike when he first got his haircut, which just make him look like a pedo, hahaha], Nino looks so... do I dare say "kakkoi?" in that suit, Ohno + his hat that said "do the natural thing" [lol] was just "YESSS", and Sho is just.... Sho. Adorkable, "insurance seller who is really a terrorist in disguise" [hahaha] Sho.)

However, as the show went on, it got better and better. The plot was original, and although part of me was dissatisfied by the ending, I thought the whole fireworks thing was really cute. However, until the very end the overall mood was pretty dark so it was kind of... strange when the sponsor thank yous came in with "Sora Takaku" (a undoubtedly happy song) playing in the background. All of them acted relatively well though... I esp. loved Nino + Jun's acting [typical, I know.... but it's true]. The part where they confronted the president and such, however, I'm not sure to think was overly melodramatic, poorly acted, or well acted. Anyway, I'd give it a 4/5, probably.
---
On the other hand, from Friday night - all of Saturday, I, against my mother's wishes, did no homework. Rather, I spent all of my time downloading/watching various Jdramas/Variety shows, as chronicled below:
---
I watched all episodes of V no Arashi (thank you, AST sub team!). I feel that it's 100% fair to say that their acting was.... laughable. Very, very laughable. However, watching it was incredibly enjoyable. The characters:
Jun = rather adorable and super smiley (huge, huge change from his current... DoS bancho role in Arashi)
Sho = BAMF (way different than his current keioboy/fail personality)
Nino = ....he actually reminded me of his character in Yamada Tarou Monogatari, actually
Ohno = Waseda boy? Ahahaha now he just goes fishing >.<
Aiba = DoS Coach!!! (who pulls down his jacket zipper when gettin' down to buisness, ahahaha!)
God, it was just a very.... strange drama. I'm not sure that it's really worth watching, but since each ep was so short I have no complaints. 3.5/5
---
I downloaded Ao no Honoo (The Blue Light) last night, on a whim... Thank you for whoever uploaded the movie + softsubs that I downloaded, I forgot to bookmark the page so I can't credit you for any caps or whatever, but if you see this, comment! :)
Anyway I started watching it relatively late, around 10 I think? so I ended up missing SNL, but I think it was worth it: this movie is by far one of the best movies I've seen lately. Generally a 2 hour long movie is really hard to make good enough to hold my attention, especially one as slow-paced as this one. However, the script was just so fantastic, Nino's acting blew me away, and the cinematography so beautiful that my interest was piqued all the way through. Even after a night's sleep, my mind is still buzzing about the movie: I'm still not 100% sure of what to think of the story except that I did like it. I read a pretty good review on IMDB, which goes over a lot of good points in the movie though:

This movie surprised me completely. It deals with topics that we've seen many times such as child abuse, alcoholism, teenage relationships and juveniles breaking the law. But this is only the surface of the plot and the means of which it contemplates it's main theme. The main theme as I now see it, is the negative side of adulthood hitting a child. This might not sound in anyway peculiar but it's in the delivery that makes it so special.

At first I thought the movie's main function was probably to deliver cheap thrills, raise sympathy in the easiest way, speak against domestic violence, tell a moral story or to portray some typical teenage drama. Before the last minutes I still wasn't sure what to make of it, as it seemed to end without any final conclusion. But then when the ending came it blew me away, even if the viewer guessed what was going to happen long before. The point wasn't about what happened, but how it happened and what we got to know about the main character. Who is this guy? Is he a manipulative scoundrel? A hero that saves his little sister? A criminal that learns a crucial lesson? We don't know this for sure before the last scenes.

He secretly drinks whiskey, he keeps a bat in his room but doesn't dare to use it, his relationship with Noriko is almost nonsexual. This is (at least how I think it) because sexuality belongs to the adult world that he sees threatening. When he hears the not so dreadful moans of his mother he doesn't know how to react. He is embarrassed for the sake of his sister and mother when he hears his real father Sone masturbating, never mind that his sister later hints that he himself is doing it too. In away, I'd say, that Sone represents Shuuichis darker adult side and it is also that what he fights against. Ironically he uses the same means as Sone, force and hatred to solve the problem. He fights fire with fire. He is trying to protect his childhood but by doing it, ends it himself.

One theme of Blue Light is the lack of a father character for a growing boy. He was the only male in the house for 10 years. His teachers seemed to be portrayed either as formally distant or blatantly uninterested in the students. The only one who shows interest in him is the detective, but by then it's too late, as the damage has already been done.

For me, Noriko isn't important as a real girl but as an idealization of childhood innocence with her naive answers and the talking dog. At the end of the movie she is crying. Again I take this as a metaphor. Innocence is gone, a broken childhood. While she is holding back tears the main character's list of favorite things is narrated. Here he finally reveals himself. He was not a hero nor a bad guy, just a typical teenager with his little enjoyments in life (with a hint of soon beginning adulthood). After all the schemes Shuuichi pulled and all the lies he told, the knowledge that he was at he same time insecure and vulnerable made me feel an emotive connection that I haven't felt watching movies in a long time.

There's also an interesting detail about the use of blue light. Every time Shuuichi is portrayed in blue light, whether it's the night time in his room, the seaside dock or the public aquarium, he is at his most vulnerable and honest state. Other times he always masks himself with lies or dismisses the uncomfortable topics with jokes and daily phrases. Noriko even paints him with blue background, a hint maybe, that she likes him that way.

Btw, my favorite parts of the movie were this scene:

and the very end, with this monologue.

My favorite things… My road racer. The world - as I see it from my road racer. Mom’s cooking. Haruka’s chubby face. Daimon’s lousy pictures. Oikawa’s jokes. The nude sketch of Noriko. Her dog-who talked in his sleep. I.W. Harper 101. Faye Wong singing in Mandarin. Zidane’s ball-handling. Kostunica’s movies. Tom Waits’s voice. Crispy fried bacon. Donuts without holes. Ice cream that doesn’t make
your head hurt. Sea-turtle eggs. Cicadas singing quietly. Full-color pandas. Pockets with no bottom.
Injections that don't hurt. Completely empty toothpaste tubes...

Essentially, this movie was very thought provoking. One of my favorites, although definitely don't watch it unless you're in a.... stable state of mind. Although it's kind of a.. downer, it's incredibly beautiful and a must-see. 5/5

-K

(PS: I also watched ep 13 of Golden Rush Arashi!)

nice to meet you anyway

2010-01-30T13:03:00.000-08:00

Me: Dammit iceplant - you don't belong here, nobody loves you.
Me: GO AWAY, why are you so bothersome? You know, this is me sticking up for my homies.... beach verbena and lupine.
Me: GRRR ICEPLANT! :(

As you can see, restoring the environment to native species is serious business.

On another note, earlier I thought about how thankful I am that I don't live in Japan - if I did, I'm pretty positive I'd have absolutely no control over my Arashi fangirling/obsession. Then again, if I lived in Japan I'd probably see plenty of awesome guys like in Arashi, so I don't know that I'd be a fangirl in the first place..... [shrug] I have no idea. Nevermind me and the stupid things I say, haha.

-K

i'm so freakin' thankful that this school week is over

2010-01-29T21:25:00.000-08:00

It seriously felt like this week was dragged far, far too long. Nothing inherently bad happened to me, but it just was overall "meh," I guess?

Today:
Latin was uneventful. In Spanish we watched Shrek 2. During my free I worked on a Photoshop project (in Illustrator, haha). Algebra and English were also relatively uneventful. Chem, however, was a major relief: After hearing about how the test average was 80% (about 5% less than what it usually is), I once again had that sinking feeling that I just about failed the test - thoughts of this kept revolving around and around my mind, and eventually I became nauseous.

Me: EMILY (Rose) I FEEL SUPER SICK, I'M GOING TO THROW UP OHMYGODOHMYGODOHMYGOD HELP MEEEE
Emily: OH GOD I DON'T WANT TO SEE MY SCORE EITHER, IT'S GOING TO BE SO BAD
Me: SHITTTTT
[frantic flailing ensues. teacher sets tests down on our desks, we show each other our scores]
Emily: Is it bad?
Me: No, you're fine. Oh god oh god oh god am I going to die after seeing my score?
Emily: No, not at all.
[I take a breath, and look at the score - 87. I just about collapse/sink further into my table w/ confused face]
Me: OH THANK GOD!!!

Pretty much I freak out over the smallest things, haha. Now, although 87 isn't stellar, it's not nearly as bad as I thought I did, so... I am content. I've taken initiative in all of my classes to do better though: so more work is in order. I know I can do it, though. SELF EMPOWERMENT FTW!

-K

---
Tonight: Upload outfit pics to Chictopia, watch Saigo no Yakusoku (about time!), SLEEP!
Tomorrow: Beach Garden Project, V no Arashi Marathon

hominibus miserrimis cibus solacium semper affert

2010-01-28T22:06:00.000-08:00

I really, really, really like potatoes. Ever since 7th grade I've had odd reactions when faced with thoughts about potatoes. It all started when we read a book called "Redemption" in class - in one part the protagonist, whose name I fail to remember, finds a potato in her backyard and does a "potato dance." Of course, after reading this I felt compelled to ~~flail around as well~~ create a potato dance of my own. (someday I'll videotape it and post it here.... but for now: IMAGINATION IS THE MIND'S MOST POWERFUL TOOL).
---
The other day I was eating at Red Lobster with my family, when the topic of Bruce Lee movies came up. Then, my mother mentioned that I was delivered by a doctor named Bruce Lee: Yes, BRUCE LEE. I pretty much flipped out and started yelling about how cool it was that I was delivered by someone named Bruce Lee, until my parents started chastising me about being rude in public. Then, I dug into the baked potato that we ordered as a side dish and was content.
---
Yesterday after school my mother got angry with me for not helping around the house, and sent me out to the garden to dig a potato from our garden and later peel it (even though I had a lot of homework, when someone is disappointed in me I always feel the need to redeem myself, haha): so, I trekked out into the cold, frigid weather outside to dig for potatoes. I ended up with one good one and two really stumpy ones that my mother ended up having to replant. Later we ate the big one (and a few that my mother dug up after getting fed up with waiting for me to get the potatoes) - they were quite satisfying.
---
This. (I've posted it here before but I figure it's quite amusing anyway - by the way, did you know that 2008 was the International Year of the Potato?!?!)

Cheryl Wheeler - The Potato Song

-K

in my heart i can fly, and i cannot disguise my love

2010-01-27T21:29:00.000-08:00

I've had this song stuck in my head all day:

The Noisettes - Atticus

Otherwise, I don't have much to say. Here's a load of images for your enjoyment:

(via)

Or, alternatively:

(via)

....mmmm yes, Sakurai Sho will ~~be more than sufficient~~ do as well. ;)

-K

hontou no yume wa itsumo soba ni aru

2010-01-26T18:26:00.000-08:00

Today I had three tests (or rather, two tests and one quiz), which in Freshman year I'm sure wouldn't have phased me at all, but as a sophomore the prospect of spending half the day taking tests totally threw me off. This morning, I was woken by my alarm clock at 6:30 with almost no motivation to get up and into what felt like abnormally cold temperatures, despite the fact that Arashi's "Happiness" was playing. However, being late for carpool was not an option for me, so I forced myself to get up and made myself a promise: to get through the day with a smile at the end.

Setting: Having just entered the library, I see Claire (who looks half-dead from exhaustion or something of the like) and sit next to her.
Me: Good Morning!
Claire: mmmm
[I start singing along to my iPod]
Claire: Shut up.
Me: Eh whatttt? This is Arashi! Today is going to be ass, this is exactly what's going to get me through the day! [intense grin]
Claire: I will punch your face.
Me: You know what the song I'm listening to is called? It's called "Kitto Daijoubu" - translates to "everything's okay."
Claire: Oh my god, I WILL PUNCH YOUR FACE.

Anyway, with the theme music of "Kitto Daijoubu," "We Can Make It!" and "Believe" as the soundtrack to my day, I carried on. Classes were hard for me, and not helping was the fact that although I got a full night's sleep (7.5 hours... on school nights, that's rare for me), I was still incredibly tired and probably overstudied last night. However, by the end of the day I felt relatively good about myself: I did okay on the Latin (94%), in History I at least knew what to say/argue, and in Algebra.... well Algebra was kind of disastrous, but we got our scores for the last test back finally, and I did really well so I suppose the scores balance out, haha.

However, now that I've got the obstacle of the three tests out of the way, I'm feeling quite apathetic. I'm thinking I'll watch an ep or two of VS Arashi, take a nap, eat dinner, then get my homework done, read and sleep, preferrably before 11 tonight (Ahhhh, a girl can wish, right?).

-K

2010-01-25T15:07:00.001-08:00

(pointless post ahead, beware)

Currently:
I just spit out some "berry burst" Extra-brand gum. The taste lingers, my lips feel chapped, I've felt oddly thirsty all day actually. My hair feels kind of greasy but I feel warm and otherwise physically good.
I'm in the Mac lab at school, with Emily at my side wasting time on gmail/facebook/channel 131. Listening to "Dull Life" by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Oh wait, now it changed to "Cry for You" by Arashi - Nino sounds so badass @ the beginning of this song, haha.
Technically I should be in the library for study hall, but really nobody ever pays attention to who signs in or not.
Had a free last period, I was in here with Emily Rose (and Anne Marie for the second half) humming/half singing Arashi music while reading over something a friend sent me and checking facebook.
Today was pretty enjoyable, actually - nothing inherently bad happened, yay! Of course, for every good day there's a bad day to balance it out: tomorrow I have two tests (Latin and History, bleh) and a quiz in Algebra (again, bleh). It's okay though: Tonight when I get home I'll have a Sakurai Sho fest ;) Last night I stupidly stayed up until ~12 on a Twitter party helping other fangirls tweet "#perfectbody" to celebrate his birthday (which technically I shouldn't be celebrating, because it means that he's now 13 years older than me, dammit why does he have to be so unreachable?).

I'm feeling quite peculiar - it's sort of like I'm feeling an emotionless emotion, if that makes any sense at all?
I'm gonna post this and try to get some homework done, now. <3
"12345 hashiru!" - (Arashi - Sora Takaku)

-K

whatever tomorrow brings...

2010-01-24T15:31:00.000-08:00

The prospect of driving both exhilarates and terrifies me. Even though I've been 15 and a half for 2 months now, have finished Driver's ed, and have scheduled the permit test (February 9th!), I've still never laid a hand on the steering wheel (except for once when I was little and had the urge to test the horn, haha).
I'm pretty sure some people are just as terrified about the idea of me driving: Not only am I often considered "an angry little asian" (which I suppose I do deserve, considering the amount of times I "slap" people after comments deemed unnecessary/ridiculous), but I can't even drive rides at amusement parks. Those helicopter rides end up in the air for half of the time, while the other half I'm whining that "this ride is lame." Last time I rode the Autotopia at Disneyland was with Joy, and although I was the driver I could hardly reach the pedal to go forward, and when I did, my steering was so horrid that you could hear bumps on the tracks every 2 seconds - not only did the ride attendant just roll his eyes when I finally got back to the enter/exit point, but I'm pretty sure Joy's now traumatized by the event (or at least has it blocked from her mind - when I last asked her about the incident, she said she didn't even remember it happening).
Reading about this, you readers may think: If you can't even drive an amusement park ride, what makes you think you can drive?

My answer: I don't.
However, I'm attempting to get this permit out of necessity: My parents have been pestering me about getting my license for over a year now, which I understand. As a private school student, the only way I can get there and back is to either (a) take the bus which does not appeal at all or (b) take a 10-minute car ride. Ever since 1st grade I've relied on my parents or carpool to give me rides to and from school, and although I'm thankful that I can even get them at all, it is a hassle organizing who to drive, when to pick up, etc. It's even worse asking my parents for rides to social/out of school events because technically I don't actually have to go to them in the first place - hence I'm sort of forced to be "antisocial" in order to help my parents out (but I don't mind, more time to myself to ~~FANGIRL ABOUT HOT JAPANESE MEN FROM ARASHI~~ chill, or something).

Anyway, now that my opportunity to get a permit and drive for the first time ever, I'm not sure what to think. It'll be great not having to rely on others for rides (for I'm generally an independent person and like to do things myself), but at the same time the "dangers" that I kept constantly being reminded of during the Driver's Ed course kind of really terrify me. Although the incredible tackiness/cheesiness of the videos such as "Red Asphalt V" and phrases like "don't let saying 'hi' to your friends be the final goodbye" that are supposedly able to instill a nagging fear at new drivers like me, pretty much everyone just ignores them and/or laughs at them. I'm not an exception to that rule: While taking the course I constantly mocked them, but I'm sure at the back of my mind there'll be a little voice whispering something ominous like "YOU'RE GOING TO DIE IF YOU DON'T HAVE FULL CONCENTRATION ON THE ROAD" to me - at which time I really will lose concentration and get into an accident, but anyway....

I took all 5 available practice tests on the DMV website, and several practice tests on driversed.com last night. The first few tests went uhm.... badly (probably from a lack of concentration - it was like 11 at night), but soon enough I was getting all of the questions right. All of the questions are common sense though, so at times I wonder how people can even come close to failing the test.

....Just watch as I actually fail the test when it comes around.

-K

i'm pretty sure that only like 10 people actually wore masks at the masquerade... whoops.

2010-01-23T17:58:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was incredibly hectic, as exhibited by yesterday's post, which my friend Gabby Jardini wrote after I kind of yelled at my friends to post something on my blog in the last 10 minutes of the day, in order to keep with the promise of posting once per day.... ~~yeah, I kind of cheated but still~~ I should ask more people to guest post on this blog, eh?
My day started out with the usual blasting-Arashi-music-while-getting-dressed routine. This is what I wore during the day:

(cardigan + vest: random place in Foshan, China | jumper: xhilaration | bracelets: gifted | tights are layered and gifted)

First and second periods, History (in which we had a free) and English (in which we essentially, again, had a free) were uneventful - unfortunately, Chemistry was traumatic. I didn't understand many of the abstract elements of the chapter in the first place, and missing the class where he first started talking about the Quantum-Mechanics mush didn't help my standing. I'm betting that a B is the best I might've done on that test [sigh]. At least I tried my best, eh? I spent lunchtime with Gabby listening to Coconut Records in the art room and letting her steal my food. After lunch was Latin class - all we did was review games, which was fun I suppose. Then came a free in which I felt obligated to study for the next-period Spanish test, but eventually ended just sitting around listening to Arashi. The actual test wasn't bad - I felt that I could've studied more, but I also figure that using all of the previous night to study Chem was more prudent than devoting even a little time to Spanish - I really, *really* needed the review at the time.
Anyway, I was so thankful when the school day was over. My ride for carpool forgot to tell me that she was going to be getting a ride from someone else, so I was stuck for an extra hour at school while I waited for my father to be able to pick me up. During that hour I finished all of my homework (yay!) and helped set up for the Winter Ball which the sophomore class (my year) was hosting.
When my dad picked me up, we made a quick detour to the local grocery store to buy some supplies for the sleepover I was to have later that night ("supplies" as in chips, snack mix, and popcorn, haha). I wrapped up Emily's birthday gift:

(she better wear this EVERY DAY OF HER LIFE! ...okay maybe not, but often: this took me like 3 months to make!)

Then I ate dinner, showered and did "makeup" (as in mascara + eyeshadow, haha), put on an outfit which I deemed appropriate for our theme "masquerade ball" (okay not really but still, it was fun), and was ready to go.

(dress: DIY modified, originally Wonderland Wear, inc. | tights: celeste stein, gifted | boots: dollhouse, $20)

I got to the dance an hour and a half early to help do finishing touches - the decorations looked fantastic! All in all, it was a relatively good dance - it would have been fantastic if the DJ didn't mix songs so heavily and just played the hits, rather than playing random songs no one ever heard mixed with more random songs. However, after bugging him about several times throughout the dance, he finally played one song of Kpop (2ne1 - Fire [hahahaha]) and some more popular songs like "I Kissed a Girl" and the "Thizzle Dance," so that was fun.
After the dance I had Gabby, Emily, Emily Rose, and Claire sleep over - ~~I forced them to watch~~ we watched the "Kitto Daijoubu" video, ate a huge load of random crap, talked, then slept. Nothing interesting happened in the morning, either: we woke up, ate breakfast (at least, some of us did, haha), and watched some of "Juryoku Pierrot" (Gravity Clown). After everyone but Claire was left, we watched an episode of True Blood while painting nails. This was what my nails looked like before the silver tips got completely chipped off somehow:

...now they just look like crap, haha.

The plan for tonight: study some driver's ed material, study history, run inside a little bit, watch some movie?

The plan for tomorrow: shoe shopping, running, sleep. I'm also considering going to a People to People information meeting, but I'm not sure.... any opinions out there? It sounds like a lot of fun, but I don't know that the "opportunity" would be worth the cost - although they don't specifically state any prices in the numerous letters they've sent me, after a Google search it seems that they cost thousands of dollars just for a two or three week long trip? I'm thinking a more likely option for this summer is to find a job and take a foreign language/linguistics/sociology course at MPC instead.

-K

2010-01-22T23:59:00.000-08:00

xd fdfgghjkdhfwjgrehljher8ewtbgvfdlkfjdpfjhosfjpkiubhhiianm,gbby cfvkm kk jnhbgtrfdkatreedddddhi i'm gabby, I'm writings karen's blog fo her because she has to take out her contacts. Emily is attacking me so it was hard to write. My razor attacked me while shaveing so I have a monster scratch on m shin. I don't like talking. I like writing...so I'm writng karens blog. it is hard to write on laptops. You're in my pants. So, we just came back from winter ball. the music sucked. Karen wanted them to play kpop and jpop.

sakurai sho in the latest issue of an-an is so niiiice!

2010-01-21T21:40:00.000-08:00

Lately I've had a major lack of focus. I've been so jittery, so unable to think about anything. I've felt both drained and full of energy to be released. At times I feel overwhelmed with all of the things I need to do (like currently), while at other times I'm engulfed with waves of ennui.
Luckily, today I finally got the OK (from my completely INCOMPETENT, GRR) doctor to slowly restart running. It's going to be hard to fight the urge to go run like, 10 miles, but I'm hoping tomorrow after school I can squeeze in 20 minutes to do some light running/walking/jogging. Hopefully soon I'll be able to join soccer, even though the season is pretty much over already.
Another upside to not having to wear the brace anymore is that I can wear something other than my converse! My plan for Sunday is to study the Driver's Ed material (going to take my test Monday, with any luck I'll pass ;D), do my homework, then go shoe shopping at Target/Payless/Ross :)

Basically, this weekend is going to be amazing: Winter Ball, sleepover w/ friends, Arashi/Okada Masaki - related movie/drama marathons *and* shoe shopping (by myself, mind you)? BEST.

What's not going to be fun at all is all of the studying I have to do now: Chem and Spanish tests tomorrow! I'm not worried in the slightest about the Spanish, but Chem is a whole other story: I should've started studying hours ago, why oh why am I such a procrastinator?

-K

2010-01-20T23:59:00.001-08:00

I forgot to post something before falling asleep ~~today~~ yesterday!

To make up for it, I'm back-updating (is that the correct term?).

Promise: full update later today!

-K

apparently the japanese think that crooked teeth are cute.

2010-01-19T19:00:00.000-08:00

My teeth have a bad history. They were incredibly crooked, to the point where my two front teeth actually overlapped. Having a cleft lip didn't do anything but accentuate that fact. After two and a half long years of braces, I'm finally in a set of retainers.
However, I'm not new to the world of retainers - in (I think it was) 5th grade, my doctors realized that I because had a missing canine or something of the like, and in order for all of my teeth to be even and have enough room for them to be straight, I had to extract another 3 teeth up top. In turn, they extracted two teeth on the left and one on the right of my two top front teeth. Needless to say, I looked like a chipmunk for the next 4 months. When my new teeth grew in fully, my orthodontist immediately got a mold of my teeth and made a retainer for my top teeth - it was clear with silver glitter and, of course, with a smiley face in the center.

---

When I first got my braces on, I had pink and black ties, and went around the park yelling "look at my grillz" w/ my friends. Mind you, this was during the time when Weird Al's "White and Nerdy" and that one song called "Grillz" or something of the like was popular, so people actually understood my weird actions at the time. I hated, and still hate braces - which was weird because in 2nd and 3rd grade, I (along with I'm sure everyone else in my class) thought braces were the coolest things. ...So much for that, I guess.

---

I've had a top and bottom retainer in for the past 4 or so months, and it's been okay. The taste of my retainers when I first got them was appalling and almost enough to make me vomit, but after several days it went away, luckily. (unluckily, I still have a lisp while wearing them - the orthodontist LIED!) I'm not the only one who's grossed out by the retainers: every time I go out to eat with Joy, she has to turn away when I take them out.... it's actually pretty funny if I must say so myself. A few months ago I learned that my retainers were actually glow in the dark - the orthodontist didn't tell me about that, so it was a huge surprise and for some reason I got really excited about it. A mother of one of my classmates heard about it and asked me about it, and in turn I immediately pulled them out to show her.... in hindsight it was probably a pretty bad idea to do that (esp. after seeing the look on her face, haha) but it was amusing. Two nights ago when I slept over at Claire's house, we went to sleep after brushing our teeth (and I cleaned my retainer). While we were talking in the dark, Claire suddenly asked something along the lines of "uhhhhh... why are your teeth glowing? Your smile's kind of creeping me out" to which I responded by laughing incredibly hard.

Pretty much, my retainers are just super special. However, I'm pretty stoked to not have to wear them during the day. Soon that will happen.... I hope.

arashi in sequined suits make me happy.

2010-01-18T20:10:00.000-08:00

So I've basically done zero stuff of interest yesterday and today. I weeded a lot of random crap out of the garden, slept over at Claire's and watched Leverage and part of The Holiday, and slept a whole lot. We visited Santa Cruz for like half an hour before we had to leave. I internally freaked out after not being able to find my cell phone, which I think of as my baby, but thankfully Claire found it at her house. I planned to take pictures with a disposable camera with film that expired three years ago (yaaaay experiments :D) but since the weather was far from perfect I decided against wasting that film.
The plan for tonight: Arashi videos and sleep. Aren't I just so good at mixing it up? ;)

-K

2010-01-17T10:00:00.000-08:00

It's 10:00 on the 16th but I've a strong, strong feeling that tomorrow I won't be able to post anything, so readers: know that this is a scheduled post. Thanks for visiting + I hope you keep reading this blog! :)

Here are a few pictures for your enjoyment:

(via)

(you too, gentlemen. via)

(via)

.....And a little Arashi rabu-rabu for good measure.

(via)

-K

unrelated title: last night i watched precious and it was really just depressing

2010-01-16T21:07:00.000-08:00

Today I was typing up a pile of LitMag (our school's uh... literary magazine, haha) submissions when I realized: I've never actually submitted anything for litmag! Even though I've intended to for the longest time, I guess I've never had enough initiative to do so. Having said that, I feel pretty bad because often I get ideas for plots, characters, etc... but never end up getting them down on paper or typed up. What's worse, on my first blog post of the year I linked to an article where Scott Westerfeld gives a tip that says to make a habit of finishing everything you write. So much for that.

Currently about to: Watch my sister's ballet performance on DVD, watch something Arashi, read?
Wishing for: A sense of purpose, inspiration, ~~Sakurai Sho~~, ideas for two days worth of outfits, to be able to go running again.
Music: Arashi - Tokei Jikake no Umbrella
Plan for tomorrow: Go to Hollister (my parents own a rental unit around there woo~), sleepover w/ Claire

-K

(short post today and the next days ahead, sorry. I'm losing steam nooooo! ;D)

omoide zutto zutto wasurenai sora futari ga hanarete iitemo

2010-01-15T23:42:00.000-08:00

This is what I wore today:

You know how people say when you look good you feel good? It may be superficial but sometimes it's true. Wearing tights layered like this, while wearing other comfy clothes puts a smile on my face - which I must say, is very helpful in the mornings when having to pull myself out of my nice cocoon of a bed into the frigid winter air.
That was only the start of a relatively great day. After first period photoshop which, although lately has been a drag, went pretty well today, I went to chem and for the first time in a week actually understood the majority of the lesson! Spanish was amusing, for we got an in-class assignment to give opinions (using the subjunctive) and advice about/towards one person. Obviously, I reverted back to my nerdy self: I wrote about Dobby the House-elf. :)
At lunch, Claire gave me a quiche (well.... of course that #$%^& ended up stealing almost all of my lunch anyway, but still... quiche is so delicious!). I had packed a hot pocket for lunch as well and pondered which of the two to eat, until I realized: it's always fun to be a fatty! Hence, I ate both.... most satisfying choice of the decade, I do believe.

English class was interesting, for we spent the period writing our own poem with the same bob-and-wheel end structure as the poetry in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. I wrote some ridiculous poem that whined about waking up and having to go to school, and in fact used the phrase "scelesta schola" ("wicked school" in Latin) in my quest to integrate alliteration into the poem.
In Algebra, we did a lab involving counting skittles as an exploration of exponential functions. By that time, I was all hyped up on sugar and the day before, ready to face last period: the dreaded History class.

Now, it's no secret that I despise studying history and hardly ever find a practical application for it. Sometimes I think it's interesting, but for the most part, I don't enjoy listening to how humans repeat variations of the same mistakes over, and over, and over again. It's just so tiresome. It's also no secret that history is by far my worst subject. No matter how much I try to remember dates, names, and events... it just never works. Today didn't help my feelings towards the subject: we had an in-class debate scheduled, and because last time we had a debate, my team was completely unprepared and frankly, an absolute disaster. Hence, I spent hours preparing points and counterarguments for our team (hey, if no one else was willing to do the work, I had to take initiative right?) but even so, I had a queasy feeling. During the debate some of my team members were far from passionate during their speeches reprimanding Louis XVI's actions (I guess it probably was because of their lack of understanding exactly what he did.... They didn't really do any research: I sort of just gave them a paper and told them to read off of it, haha), but overall nothing completely disastrous happened. Even so, I was incredibly close to vomiting when they called us back into the class after discussing the argument. Apparently they ruled that Louis XVI should have been sent to the "Forbidden Forest" for ignorance - which I later learned from a friend that it was essentially a euphemism for "everybody except two people voted Louis XVI guilty." Long story short, for once I wasn't a failure in history class and in turn, I felt quite satisfied with myself.

Just about half an hour ago I got back from watching Santa Catalina's production of The Crucible. Despite what I found was an overall ridiculous plot (which is unfortunate because it's part of the curriculum for Junior year English class, so I'll have to experience it *again* [sigh]), loud neighbors, and hearing someone's car alarm go off in the middle of the first act, the acting was fantastic (these girls pull off very convincing men, haha!) and I enjoyed it a lot. I got home and read a little bit more of When you are Engulfed in Flames, and decided to finish off this blogpost that I started early afternoon. Gosh, I take forever to write things.

The agenda for tonight: Watch a movie (TBD) and sleep.

-K

solo para que sepas

2010-01-14T18:31:00.000-08:00

Not necessarily swamped with work, but don't have the motivation to work long and hard today.... I'm totally just out of it lately.

Anyway, earlier I was listening to Tokei Jikake no Umbrella while typing up a list of important points that relate to the indictment of Louis XVI. When I logged onto Gmail to email it to myself, I changed my status to "ai no arashi" (storm of love)..... I love irony. In chemistry we've been studying quantum mechanics and I have understood about 1% of what he's tried to teach us. I could not get We Can Make It! out of my head during chem (although I'm not complaining - inspirational music was very necessary for keeping my brain from exploding during that lesson, haha). What is it with Arashi music invading my life, though?

Real post to come.... before the end of the weekend? I'll get working on that now.

(via)

-K

PS: Apparently Matsumoto Jun is a fan of the Harry Potter series?!?! Reason #5 billion why I LOVE ARASHI!!!!! <3

meh.

2010-01-13T19:28:00.000-08:00

I'm currently feeling absolutely uninspired. Virtually nothing to say, so here're some videos that have amused me in the past few days:

A cello cover of "Skeletons" by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Need I say more?

Part of Himitsu no Arashi-chan ep 75 w/ guest Aibu Saki. This part is so amusing. I really like Nino's blazer (Aiba's, too - but not as much as Nino's, haha).

This. (And all of the McQueen CLOTHESSSSS. "CAUSE I'M A FREE BITCH, BABY!")
And this. (Can't decide which one I like more, haha)

Sakurai Sho being pretty much the most attractive man ever.

Lastly, I love this song. The original acoustic's better than the studio version, IMO.

-K

everybody zenshin, come on everybody, zenshin aru nomi.... (i hope)

2010-01-12T21:07:00.000-08:00

It's ridiculous how college is quickly creeping up to me. For the longest time I've almost eagerly anticipated finishing what I consider primary education and starting my journey within higher education. The problem is, now that it's pretty much time to crack down on the college preparation, I'm finding myself more and more overwhelmed than I expected [I know it doesn't have to be this way, but I assume the importance of all of this (insert vague hand motions here) is probably really weighing down on me]. To think, this time in two years I'll be finished with college apps! That's just so ridiculous and mind blowing to me that I can't even begin to explain.

Anyway, my score report sheet on the PSAT gave me an access code for a program called "My College Quickstart," so I figure I'd check it out. It has a handy study plan (which I will look at during the summer but am far too busy w/ current studies to even bother with now) along with the offer to take the "ORA Personality Profiler."

I just did so, and apparently I'm an INFZ personality type (although last time I checked it was called INFJ? maybe this test just calls them differently [shrug]). Anyway, the information they gave about my personality pretty much fit me perfectly, so I figure it'd be good for me to follow their advice on things I need to improve on:

Stay optimistic and only worry about things within your control.
Take negative feedback constructively.
Stay calm when confronted with unexpected change.
Confront others when something bothers you.
Don't be disappointed when others don't share your level of concern.
Be more rational when circumstances warrant it.
Be less deferential and giving, so as not to overburden yourself.
Vary your activities so life doesn't become routine.

....The only problem is probably the one about being more "rational," warranting circumstances. Although at some times I'm rational almost to the point of overkill, at others there's absolutely no rationale behind any of my thoughts/opinions/feelings.... I guess the key is balance? Ehhhhh I take that back, it's too universal: I always hear things telling me that the key to "life" is balance. [sigh] I don't even know what to think anymore.

-K

you know those days when you wake up and immediately think "oh no!"? today was one of them

2010-01-11T22:31:00.000-08:00

Sorry this post came so late; I almost forgot about posting today!

Anyway: I hate Mondays.

Waking up after a nice, restful weekend and knowing that there's another 5 days of Hell on a Hilltop to go until the next weekend is not a lively thought. In fact, generally on Mondays this thought looms over my shoulders and doesn't leave.

That little whisper in the back of your mind asking "why do you endure this?" doesn't go away, no matter how many times you say to yourself "today will be a good day."

But on a more optimistic note, today actually was relatively okay: at least, nothing inherently bad happened. Unfortunately, that inevitably means that something terrible is going to happen in the near future, but I'll enjoy the good times while they last, haha.

---

This is what I wore this morning:

(the colors are slightly off, but I'm too lazy to go back and edit them, my apologies!)

When my friend Claire first saw me wearing the vest, she said something along the lines of "you look like a hamster." What is it about fluffy down-filled things that reminds people of [insert random item here]?

Claire's comment brought back the memory of elementary school, when I used to wear a puffy purple Old Navy jacket that my aunt/uncle bought me for Christmas one year. I constantly got called a "marshmallow" by Joy and some other people in the classroom, but it was okay: I suppose it was a term of endearment? Back then, I was stick thin and didn't have much of a self conscience (as opposed to just plain thin with pretty much no self-consciousness right now) and so being called a "marshmallow" was strange, but no big deal to me.

I wonder how I'd react to being called one now? I suppose it'd be the same way I reacted to Claire calling me a hamster: indifference.

-K

home alone

2010-01-10T20:39:00.000-08:00

(channeling Macaulay Culkin, ya dig?)

I don't think I've ever watched Home Alone 3 or 4, but I watched the first two a few years ago, I think. Always skip over them when they show them during those movie marathons on TV channels during Christmas every year (in favor of Harry Potter marathons!!! Woo go me~). Unfortunately, my exploits while being home alone are never quite as exciting as Kevin's... Today was no exception.

Around 8, my parents yelled at me that they were leaving for the airport to drop my grandparents off (they're flying to China, where they'll stay until the end of March) and go for a grocery run in Chinatown (oh yeah, that's how we roll- we can't live w/o our asian market foods ;D). I kind of just ignored it and went back to sleep, haha. An hour later, I got up, ate a bagel while watching some seminar on college applications online that my mother linked me to, and then went back to my bedroom to do homework. After getting my Algebra, Spanish and Latin done, I danced around the house singing random Arashi and Noisettes music. :) Lunch entailed some pot stickers, snap peas, terra chips, apple juice, candied ginger and a cookie along with watching last night's episode of SNL on Hulu, which I would have watched last night if I wasn't already dead tired from my D no Arashi marathon (which I am almost done with! just 4 more eps until I'm done watching all that I downloaded, haha).

I finished that and went back to my Chem homework, where I found it fascinating that high energy is denoted by red in terms of colors in artwork and color related to wavelength of light (and the same with low energy in correlation to blue). I wanted to take a nap today (first in awhile; I'm getting used to the lack of naps again!) but that prospect never came to fruition.

Anyway, lately I've felt like I don't have anything useful to say... I frankly don't feel like doing anything about it though, haha. Apathy will definitely be the end of me.

-K

(PS: Cindy says hi! [in the hat that I knit for her!])

yurase yurase yurase

2010-01-09T15:08:00.000-08:00

This morning I woke up (from a dream in which I met SAKURAI SHOOOOOO~~~ <3<3<3) after being yelled at by my mother to get up and get dressed for the community service project we help with every year. I pretty much ignored her and turned on my iPod and listened to all of Arashi's album, "Time" before being yelled at again: I had 10 minutes to get dressed and eat breakfast before they left, haha.
Anyway I burst into my wardrobe, pulled out and put on some old jeans, two t-shirts and a thick jacket, grabbed a granola bar and water, and jumped into the car right as she pulled out of the garage and gave me a disapproving glare. Aren't I cool? ;p
In 10 minutes, we arrived at the local beach and helped with the Beach Garden Project: We pulled out a large amount of iceplant and planted quite a few seedlings of native plants. Saving the world? Not necessarily, but saving the environment I think is an important thing we should consider more often.

Anyway after finishing that, my mother and sister went on a grocery run while I went to visit the Dollar Tree, which I think is relatively new and I hadn't been to. They had a rack of (used I think) clothes and I begged my mother to buy me a sweater and shirt :) They were less than three bucks, tax included, so she didn't really complain.... and I'm happy because uh, I like clothes? A lot. :)

The foreign language fetishist in me rejoiced when after listening to my parents/grandparents converse in Cantonese over our lunch (of McDonalds... I know, they're the devil but THEIR FRIES ARE SO GOOD!), I watched a program on Telemundo called "La guerra de los sexos" (Battle of the Sexes), and then listened to more Arashi music. I'm also looking forward to watching "Halfway" (with Okada Masaki :D) in a few minutes.... so basically, I'm glad my brain's getting used to switching between languages so often, hahaha.

It probably would be more beneficial for me if I focused more on studying and getting homework done... heeeeh. [guilty shrug]

-K

my stomach has been working overtime

2010-01-08T21:58:00.000-08:00

It's relatively surprising that my stomach has yet to explode: I eat an inordinate amount of food for someone so tiny. Over the past year, and especially after I stopped doing sports because of my ankle fracture, I've stopped eating quite as much - but nevertheless I still eat much more than the average person would expect of me and I often have late-night binging (no purging.... I'm not bulimic like that.... just fat ;D) sessions or candy-eating marathons.

---

You know that sinking feeling you get in your stomach during impending doom? After starting high school I became quite familiarized with it, for every time a teacher announced they'd be passing tests back I knew the day had no more chance of being salvaged. Yesterday, the entire sophomore class was called into the chapel (it's like our equivalent of an auditorium... yeah don't ask) to receive our PSAT scores: needless to say, that sinking feeling was about twenty times stronger than normal. When I was finally handed my score I closed my eyes, took a breath, looked at the paper and sighed. It wasn't a relieved sigh but wasn't a proud one either: I scored in the 92nd percentile of sophomores, which I suppose isn't terrible but if I get the same score next year I won't even come close to qualifying for NMSQT. So: Away with the stupidness and welcome lots of more hard work (and a veritable amount of insanity due to it ;p) in the upcoming few years!

---

I woke up today telling myself several times that "today will be a great day." My outfit was nice - Claire gave me harlequin-patterned tights for Christmas so I paired them with my plaid blazer and was an "explosion of color!" according to Bob; I had a free third period; My breakfast was a tasty toasted bagel with cream cheese. At 8:30 my first class started: Latin. It was fun, like always (I love my Latin teacher so much and firmly believe that if every teacher in the world was as enthusiastic as he is, the world would be a better place, hahaha) but about halfway through my stomach started feeling angry. About two-thirds of the way through the class and I could barely focus and remember the difference between the subjunctive imperfect and pluperfect forms. By the end of class I finally found a way to kind of ignore the pain and just carried on...... but then about 10 minutes into the next class, Spanish, I was ready to double over and cry, I had pains in my stomach so intense. Luckily we had a substitute (for our real teacher is at a linguistics convention) so I didn't actually miss any class, but after talking to the teacher in charge I went to her office to lay on her couch while I called my dad to ask him to pick me up.

Me: Dad, can you please pick me up right now?
Dad: Why?
Me: I have the stomach ache from hell.
Dad: .....

Luckily my father is fairly understanding so he agreed to pick me up and in 20 minutes I was back at home, wanting to pass out on my bed but not able to sleep because of the intense pains. My grandmother interrogated me about my symptoms (she used to be a nurse) and gave me some weird Chinese herbal medicine.... and in half an hour I felt much, much better- weak in the legs and such, but at least no stabbing pains. So it's now 9:56 and I've literally been on the computer since like, 1 PM. Heeeeeh. I should probably get off soon, eh? [shrug]

-K

you da fuckin best.....

2010-01-07T22:59:00.000-08:00

(music: Drake - Best I Ever Had)

When I saw that the theme for NaBloPoMo was "BEST," my immediate reaction was "oh man, that totally is best." As you may induce, I really like the theme, haha.
A few months ago I began using the word "best" as an adjective. As with many words (eg. fosho/foshizzle, lovely, fantastic, awesome), I go through periods of incessant usage of them. Whenever I even remotely liked something or found something amusing, I would say something along the lines of "god, that is best!"

"The way your bracelet is shiny is best!"
"You once ate a whole pizza? That's just best!"
"OMG DID YOU SEE WHAT HAPPENED IN THE LAST ARASHI NO SHUKUDAIKUN EP? BEST!"

(etc. etc.)

I'm generally a grammar/spelling nazi, but in some cases I make exceptions. I suppose to many people the grammar that I use in everyday conversation is full of unforgivable, egregious errors but I'm willing to overlook that for my sanity - you know, as much as I try to be conscious about other's feelings, my head explodes fairly easily.

---

Lately nostalgia has really taken root in my thoughts. Today, I went to "Alumnipalooza," a gathering of the uh, many alumni of my elementary/middle school, Montessori. It's funny to see how much things change in just a matter of a few years! The current school site is totally different.... drastic is most definitely an understatement. When I went to Montessori (in a little town called Spreckels), it was located on a small lot and the building was actually moveable [how many people do you know are able to say that they went to school in a trailer? hahaha]. Now, the site is at an old fitness facility, but it's nonetheless multiple times better than the old site: They have a gym, music room, outside playground, and multiple, quite large classrooms.... they even have a reception area!
My old classmates have definitely changed as well: I didn't even recognize some of them until they said their name, haha. Many of us have changed our hairstyles/wardrobe completely, some of us have glasses, almost all of us have some acne (haha), and everybody (except me.... WHYYYY) has gotten so tall!
Of course, some things never change: We all are still gloriously awkward and ridiculously crazy. :)

(Joy's drawing of me before coloring it in.... and adding a "peace sign" + random piece of popcorn on the side)

(my drawing of Nisha + Fran's drawing of Joy)

-K

iiiiiii want candy [dun dun dun dun dun]

2010-01-06T08:00:00.000-08:00

I love candy. I love candy so much I could (and often do) eat stomach-ache inducing amounts of candy. I love candy so much that to get myself through homework marathons, I'll have a concurrent candy-eating marathon.

It's a wonder I haven't keeled over and died of all of the sugar/fat clogged up in my arteries.

My favorite candy? Sour Patch Kids. Although after this year's New Year's Eve celebrations I have an attachment to both lifesaver gummy and hard candies. I also think it's adorable when coming back to your hotel room (or on a cruiseship, your cabin) and seeing a little chocolate or mint on top of the pillow. Little things like that always make my day.

(via B4YK1D5 on Flickr)

---

I've made it a habit to carry a few pieces of candy in my bag all of the time - they're kind of like my sweet little secret :). It's a small step to take, but can be a simple pick-me-up on off days. It's even sweeter randomly handing a piece a friend and seeing their surprised (and generally excited) smile upon seeing.... sugar.

---

My sister also loves anything with sugar in it. Unlike me, she's really had to pay for her sweet tooth: a few years ago her addiction to juices in particular led to having more than half of her teeth being "crowned."
We soon got used to it but it was funny watching strangers react to seeing her mouth for the first time.

I remember taking this pic at Halloween a few years ago and laughing super hard.... Gosh I took such advantage of her innocence back then! I'm such a bad person :-3. But anyway - ahhh embarrassing family pics FTW. Nostalgia FTW.

Unlike my sister, at that age I had a major taste for salty foods. Potato chips, in particular (again, that food hasn't gone from my favorites). You would constantly be able to see me sitting on the couch watching some obscure TV show while chowing down on some Cheetos, or something of the like. Remember those "ePloids" that they used to have on the back of all the frito lay products? I was an avid collector of those, and when they announced they were discontinuing the program I felt let down. But I did turning in my collection I ended up with a light-up yo-yo, glow-in-the-dark stars, a "safe"box (which I still use to store money, haha), and a magic eight ball. Needless to say, I was quite satisfied.

Anyway, that predilection to salty foods has never gone away, but you're just as, if not more likely to see me with a piece of hard candy or chocolate or such in my mouth. Maybe I should go back to my chewing gum addiction from last year - at least I won't be gaining loads of subcutaneous fat along with the crapload of visceral fat I bet I've had for a longlong time. Orbit gum makes some really interesting flavors nowadays - I really liked their pomegranate when it came out, I wonder if they still sell it?

-K

i've got soul but i'm not a soldier...

2010-01-05T20:10:00.000-08:00

I feel so industrious: After working all through study hall and willing myself to not turn the computer on after arriving home, I was able to finish all of my homework before dinnertime! :)

Currently: listening to Glee, Rent, Wicked, Arashi (one of these things is not like the other....). Also downloading a few more D no Arashi eps! I told myself that tonight I wouldn't watch Arashi videos (since they kept me from going to sleep until midnight last night) today, but since I've all of my homework done I think I can afford to indulge a bit.... [shifty eyes]

Right now I kind of want to read, kind of want to pick out outfits (although all I can think of are obnoxiously tacky outfits with obnoxiously tacky color schemes ;D), kind of want to go back downstairs and eat again.

I really don't feel like posting much today. I guess while these videos are downloading I'll start writing a decent blog post...... Hope everybody had a Happy Tuesday! (ehhhh why is it only Tuesday??? oh well, just 3 more days until the weekend.....)

-K

hontou no yume wa itsumo soba ni aru

2010-01-04T19:32:00.000-08:00

Ah, first day of school. How I loathe thee.

Nah, just kidding. Today actually wasn't so bad. My plan was to continually tell myself the phrase "today will be a great day" and occasionally go over Arashi's "We Can Make It!" in my head. It was a fairly successful plan, for nothing inherently bad happened to me, yay! This is what I wore today (or at least, the interesting part):

(the cut up shirt on top is a DIY I did awhile back but never found an occasion to wear..... I was trying to think up something interesting to wear last night and though something along the lines of "why the hell not?")

On the way home, I was talking to my carpool buddy Gwen and apparently I hadn't told her about my trip to Jamaica? Heeeeh. So I figure I should probably update the blog with a few highlights of the trip as well. So, I now present you with [drumroll please]

Highlights from Ocho Rios!

[a] Upon arriving, realizing that they actually *do* have that accent.
[b] Not necessarily a "highlight," but: HISTORY CLASS IS FOLLOWING ME EVERYWHERE! When we arrived my mother wondered why there was Spanish as well as English on all of the signs and TV commercials, and I said "why of course it's because the Spanish colonized the New World first." Later we learned that Christopher Columbus was the one who named the town we visited (Ocho Rios), and visited a museum that had a section devoted to the Arawak - which also had a large quote taken from Bartolome de las Casas' "Account of the Destruction of the Indies."
[c] Being the only Chinese family in a crowd of white tourists and black locals. Actually, on the last day of our stay we were told about how all of the grocery stores are owned by Chinese families, and that there's a relatively large Chinese population there... but anyway we never saw evidence of that. Or maybe we're just ignorant. Anyway, we still managed to have several locals ask if we were Japanese and then if we were from "Hong Kong" (you know, in that "ching-chongy" way.... you know what I mean, I know you do.)
[d] Climbing a waterfall:

[e] Getting hit on by a cute Jamaican boy - problem was he looked about 10.
[f] Warm weather for once - getting used to California weather again was just terrible.
[g] JERK! No really.... we ate jerk chicken, jerk fish, jerk pork and lots of other interesting food (fried bammy, breadfish, festival). We also visited here:

[h] Jamaican fast food. Or rather, singing along to "Shape of My Heart" while wolfing down jerk chicken + Sorrel along with the family in the middle of Island Grill (which was way, way better than Mother's, no offense. Mother's must be like the Jamaican equivalent of McDonald's?)
[i] Napping on the beach - and not getting a tan or sunburn! :-o
[j] Watching mother doing the thing she does best: haggling w/ local merchants. I bought a little wooden elephant from a guy named Irvine :)
[k] Listening to ~~Bob Marley~~ reggae music constantly. Not necessarily a highlight either, but it was funny when the mother asked "what is reggae?" after reading a local newspaper. Another highlight? On the plane, watching Father have an epiphany while looking at the map on the back of the magazine: Jamaica *isn't* in fact off the coast of Mexico like he guessed! [sigh] I guess our family really does showcase the reason why Americans are branded as ignorant bastards. ;p

Anyway, that was fun. Now I need to take a shower and finish my homework. Then get back to the D no Arashi marathon I stupidly started last night.... Heeeeh. [guiltily shifts eyes]

you can stand under my umbarella ella ella eh eh eh

2010-01-03T12:14:00.000-08:00

Last day of Winter Break and how am I using it? Well, this morning I've been downloading a whole bunch of eps of D no Arashi..... although right now I'm downloading so many .part files (I try to cap the number currently downloading at 20.. but there are like 15 more episodes I want to download, haha) that you can't see Sho or Nino on my desktop background! :(
Man, I am *such* a fangirl.
Note:
a. The folder on my desktop named "Asian Pop Groups Pics" (although there's a valid reason for that: I use their outfits as inspiration for mine)
b. Arashi as my desktop background
c. downloading 20 files at once of a 5-year-old variety show.

.....why am I so lame? [sigh]
Anyway, while those download I figure it'd be good to do a little writing to get myself..... out of the state of braindead-ness (and because I signed up for NaBloPoMo, which I succeeded at doing one month.... I think it was November of 2008?) . My problem with the day before school - and I'm sure I'm not the only one with this - is that there are so many conflicting feelings that keep you from deciding what to do. For example:

Contempt - "God I can't believe I have to get up EARLY to go to SCHOOL!"
Acceptance - "Since it's the last day of break, I want to enjoy it"
Confusion - "What should I do?"
Apathy - "Sitting around doing nothing is so satisfying, so I should do that"
Pro activity - "This day is my last day of freedom so I should do something worthwhile!"
More confusion - "But what????"

So right now I've decided to just mentally prepare myself for school. One of the most traumatizing things is the necessity to rip yourself out of the nice, warm cocoon of your bed in the early hours of the morning (before sunrise, at that) in order to go to school. I don't mind waking up early every once in awhile to do something new, or waking up early to watch TV [as in Saturday morning cartoons, or Johnny's Countdown, heeeeeeh], but 5 days a week? To go to hell on a hilltop? No, not fun at all.
Hence, in order to make tomorrow morning as painless as possible, I will now create a to-do list for today and tomorrow morning (some of these guidelines I think almost everybody can use to their advantage, just modify them to suit your own needs, haha):

(a) Pack your bag tonight. It seems like an easy, enough task, right?
Wrong. Don't forget the pencil case, gum, homework planner, books are all at school (refused to study at all during break), lip gloss/balm, lotion, hand sanitizer, bandaids, extra reading material just in case, iPod, cell phone, wallet. Also: consider bringing several tylenol tablets.... you know, just in case things get out of hand. hahaha.
(b) Clothes. Outfit for tomorrow? Again, have it ready it in the night instead of last moment. Something warm and at least semi-comfortable. I'm thinking two pairs of tights (lace over grey?) alongside the black wool skirt, a cardigan over several layered t-shirts or tanks, and a jacket or sweater. Don't forget extra hairties and Fran's bracelets. I hate having to wear my ankle brace, but that'll be necessary as well. Probably should wear my red converse tomorrow. A scarf (black or checkered ones work with everything) is a nice touch as well.
(c) No makeup. I mean, I never wear much makeup anyway (at most, mascara, eyeliner and lipgloss), but on the first day especially - no.
(d) Lunch: Right now, I've a choice of packing a hot pocket, bun from Chinatown, cooking pasta roni, cup noodles, or a PB + J sandwich. The easiest choices are the hot pocket and cup noodles. Healthiest is probably bun from chinatown. I'll probably go with that. Don't forget a bottle of water, bag of chips, fruit of some sort, granola bar.
(e) Arashi music. Not even joking. The moment the alarm goes off, don't roll over and go back to sleep: Blast Arashi music ("We Can Make It," Anyone?) and kitto daijoubu.
(f) No contacts. Glasses are the best way to get up and go. Also: Tie hair up into a ponytail so it's not constantly blowing into you face.
(g) Wash your face. Cold water. Then use a strong smelling lotion. Will wake you up, guaranteed.

It's always a good idea to get a good night's rest - but for me that's never a viable event so I'm not even going to put that on my list. Anyways:

last but not least: (h) Don't die.
Sounds like terrible advice, but it's true: If you don't let yourself give up, you will be fine.

I believe Nike's got it right. My mantra of the moment: "Just do it."

-K

i feel really full right now - i guess fried noodles and papaya are quite filling?

2010-01-02T14:04:00.000-08:00

As the second day of the new year chugs along, I find myself wondering "hmmmm, what should I do?"
I've a full day with no plans, and the only way I can think of spending my time is downloading a string of Himitsu no Arashi-chan videos - which by far is a fantastic way to spend your time (heeeeeh not really but I resolve to stay in my state of oblivion for as long as possible), but no doubt terrible for my computer (it looks like I've only something like 5 GB left of my 70 GB on my C: drive). It also looks like the old monitoring program that my father installed back in 2008? decided to miraculously start working (I figured out how to disable it a few months after he put it on my comp, and it was a glorious period of unlimited computer use while it lasted, haha). Lol, hiiiii Mom/Dad. Sorry if you're reading this!

My New Year's Eve celebrations were quite amusing. Of course, after changing into my PJs I mentally beat myself for forgetting to take a pic of my outfit (which was quite good and festive for once - black tank w/ sequined bow decoration over a green vera wang tank, DIY acid-washed jeans over grey tights) - I guess my "I'm kind of into fashion" stage is over now.... Anyway, back to the topic:
I slept over at Joy's house along with Fran and we watched/sang along to inordinate amounts of KPop and JPop (No Chinese pop, because I have yet to find anything that I actually like, haha) music. We also watched an episode of "You're Beautiful" (Hong Ki = loveeee!), and ate unhealthy amounts of candy.

(Fran sticks! Like Pocky, except more awesome)

(Reindeer lollipops - yes, those tongues are lollipops. Joy got the angry reindeer on the left.)

Minutes before midnight, we had a Glee-music marathon . The last song we listened to in 2009? "You're Having My Baby." Right after we saw that the clock on the corner of Joy's laptop turned 12:00, we screamed and started singing Ring Ding Dong (except for the parts in Korean, during which we just kind of awkwardly danced in our seats humming along).

Oh yes, I think we're pretty cool.

Except for when Fran + Joy decided to be annoying and play with the souvenirs from Jamaica that I gave them:

(Yes, those are wooden turtles. Yes, that is my butt.)

Anyway, after several lifesavers/york peppermint patty fights (Joy's room is now littered w/ the random candy we kept throwing at each other), we settled down and watched Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. We all fell asleep halfway through but somehow woke up after awhile and decided to officially go to sleep. However, when that happened I kept on starting to snore after drifting off, therefore waking up everyone (including myself.... what the hell kind of person wakes up because of the sound of her own snoring? hahaha).
Later in the morning we all woke up (or at least Fran and I did, and then forced Joy up) and kind of just sat around doing nothing. A freaky spider almost crawled onto me, which prompted a bloodcurdling scream on my part, and a nickname (Karen Junior, or "KJ") from Fran and Joy.

My parents picked me up around 9:45 and we went to Oakland where we shopped and ate Dim Sum with my grandparents (paternal ones live in Oakland, maternal ones live with us). After, we drove back home and I had an Arashi Variety Show Marathon.... woo~

I'm gonna watch Arashi videos until my computer time runs out (1.5 hours left, according to the little "monitor computer" application icon), then take a nap and read a magazine and some of David Sedaris' "When You Are Engulfed in Flames." I figure it's a good use of time, yes? Maybe? Okay no, but what else should I do?

[sigh] It's quite troublesome being an indecisive, apathetic, pubescent and angsty teenager, haha.

-K

la la la la la

2010-01-01T08:30:00.000-08:00

As with every New Year, we face a slew of promises for the "new": New Year's Resolutions, the prospect of meeting new people and forging new relationships, traveling to new places and having new experiences. The New Year signifies a "new" beginning. For although technically it's just another "day in the life," we make it into something special: The start of 365 days of mystery. We have the power to change, create, build whatever we want in that time. The decision to set boundaries or break them is yours.
I love beginnings, which is why I'm always prone to starting books that look good but never end them (and generally the books I do read end up being good at the beginning, but never satisfying at the end). I find the wonder and excitement at what's ahead fantastic and enchanting. The mystery of what's beyond the bend in the road brings up the question of where are we going? Do we slow down, take a break, speed up, or turn back? The beauty in human society is that we're always going towards and around that bend at breakneck speed. It can be scary, but the things we discover and see are so inspiring.

2010 welcomes a new generation of ideas, slang, music, technology and people. I personally embrace it as an invitation to continue my quest at being "more:"
More conscientious, more knowledgeable, more experienced, more helpful, more creative, more industrious, more wise, more organized, more passionate, more eloquent, more artistic, more calculating, more spontaneous, more of a human contradiction. Most of all, I look forward to being more "me" - even if that entails far more insanity than may be healthy.

Here are a few links and suggestions to start off and give inspiration for ~~the year~~ a new beginning:

Be more environmentally friendly: The 2010 Gist: New To-do List Part I
Be more inspired: CMYKaboom's Inspiration Machine
Be a better writer: Nano Tip #29: Finish Everything
Be better at avoiding elementary spelling and grammar mistakes: 10 Words You Need to Stop Misspelling

Be ~~clairvoyant (ah, I wish)~~ philosophical: "50 Questions That Will Free Your Mind"
Be happier: The 7 Habits of Highly Happy People
Know the Handwriting on the Wall: Who Moved My Cheese?
Understand what "self-help" is: Self-help - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
More tips: "Do it Better: Flip a Bad Day"

(and for good measure, although this really is unrelated: have some pretty Arashi boys :D)

-K

(PS: and to think, I'll be 25 this time in 10 years! So weird.... how things change!)

on decades.

2009-12-28T20:52:00.000-08:00

Hope everyone had a fantastic Christmas! For me it was pretty nice - however, we were in Jamaica, so it was filled w/ fast food and jerk chicken rather than turkey, haha. It's so weird to think that this year's almost over - in fact, we've less than 4 days left in this *decade!*
It's amazing to think about all of the things that have happened the first few years of this millennium. I wonder how amazed someone from 1010 AD would be if they were somehow teleported to this year, eh? Things happen and change so quickly nowadays, I can never keep up. In fact, I don't think anybody ever does, but we try our best - it's human nature. I find it fascinating how human life tends to be cliched, varied, painful, and beautiful all at the same time. To me, there's nothing more interesting than to just sit and think, analyzing how people interact with each other, how they create and share new ideas, how new things are constantly beginning and ending. When I go over all of these things in my mind, there's always that sense of nostalgia that I just can't help but relish.
As with the end of almost every year, we're bombarded with many "Best of" or "Top 10/25/100" lists. I would do the same thing, but my span of conscientiousness doesn't reach that far - Taking in all of the stuff that's happened in the past year and compiling it into one list is far beyond my ability. Taking in all of the events from the past decade isn't even something I would consider doing - after all, I was only 5 at the beginning of the millennium.
I do marvel over how I've changed in so many aspects. Then again, I'm pretty sure there are somethings that never really are going to change: I've gone from a shy, introverted little nerdy girl to a slightly shy, introverted little nerdy teenager.

(ignore the below if you don't want to read rambling thoughts. begin reading again after the second "---")
---
I was a lonely child in elementary school and had hardly any contact with friends outside of school. But I do remember from 1st through 6rd grades befriending Minnie, Nisha, Bobby and Alex Parks.In 4th grade Joy became my absolute best friend, until 6th grade when she moved to middle school... I remember loving watching Dragon Tales, Zoom, Arthur and other PBS shows after school everyday, and Pokemon on Saturday morning cartoons. American Idol obsession was rampant: my first concert was to American Idols Live, when I went with Joy and Sara Swartz and we fangirled over Anwar Robinson - I cherished that experience so much, especially after reciting journal entries about how amazing he is (alongside with entries about my vendetta against the Etnies shoe fad) out loud to the class. I remember Ms. Leyden and her cooking class, Mythbusters and my obsession with all other Discovery Channel shows (especially "I Shouldn't Be Alive"), class visits to the aquarium, 4th-6th grade weeklong trips to Yosemite, Marin Headlands and Emandal, Test Readies, PE class with Coach K and Coach Eddy (ew that perv). Marina soccer! Improv class with Mrs. McBride, and those terrible plays we put on! Cindy was born in 2001! Remember all of those Science Fair and Geography Report poster boards?!?! NEVER AGAIN! (until 8th grade, when I had to do THE MOST INTENSE SCIENCE FAIR PROJECT EVER!)

Middle school was uh, interesting? Too close for comfort, with what, 7 or so people in a small 3 room building. Nisha Joy Fran and I always just hung out in the back room by ourselves. Remember when we did Cinderella? American Idols Live with the whole Blake Lewis obsession was great as well. And going to the Boardwalk was the best - Joy and Fran rode the Fireball while Nisha and I went on the Giant Dipper 10 times in a row. 8th grade I got into my current high school!!! New interest in Harry Potter and reading. Met Emily and Claire, two of my best friends now. Summer after, went to Disneyland with Joy.

High school: so far, so good. New interest in knitting and Japanese Drama, Japanese pop. 10th grade: Korean Drama and Pop as well. Major fangirl. Obsessed with food and sleep. Remained fairly inconspicuous among my grade but it's good, because I'm still making friends and I've made some really good ones so far. Currently: trying to renew my faith in going to school, gaining more motivation and getting rid of so much apathy.

---

So anyways, I don't make New Year's Resolutions. For one thing, if I do I always forget about them, and for another I've a set of morals that say that I should always strive to do my best and work hard to become a better person in all aspects. However, I do have a sort of loose set of goals for the next 10 years:

1. Know 10 languages beyond a basic level (right now I know 4 languages other than English and Latin, none of them except Spanish very well).
2. Study abroad for a summer or at least a month.
3. Write a book - I've so many ideas for them but never get any of them down.
4. Knit something amazing.
5. Visit all continents.
6. See a marmoset in real life.
7. Meet someone famous.
8. Watch Arashi (or some other musician/performer) live.
9. Find something else to be passionate about.
10. Find happiness. Be happy. Make others happy. Make the world a better place, even by just doing small things in every day life.

I'm really looking forward to the upcoming year(s). It's going to be a fun ride. Here's to the last post of 2009 (and this decade!)

-K

meditations on the holiday season

2009-12-12T21:49:00.000-08:00

Like:
*Watching Asian Dramas while knitting (the little bow in the picture I knitted last night while watching an ep of Full House)

*It may seem tacky, but I paint my nails with colors varying with the seasons. In the past month I've had amber and brown nails (for Thanksgiving), shimmery silver, and currently my nails are navy blue with green, red and silver glitter.
*Sitting in bed with a pile of thick blankets and reading
*Camaraderie
*Parties? Heeeeeeh :)
*Snowflake/seasonal printed clothing + PJs
*Fuzzy Socks
*Scarves + finding creative ways to layer and keep warm.

*New converse! (okay I only point that out b/c I got my first pair today, haha)
*Hot Chocolate [on a separate note: how is it that I've never had wassail or eggnog? I wonder what they taste like? It seems like they're the kind of thing that either you love or hate and there's no middle ground]
*Christmas Carols - although they're best sung in the middle of July. "I've never heard of Christmas In July" you say? What a shame!
*Santa Hats
*Lights! - Take a stroll around your neighborhood at night and admire the displays :) [although in my neighborhood they're not superpopular]
*The smell of cinnamon, gingerbread, pumpkin
*Movie marathons
*Thinking up a wishlist, knowing that you're not going to get any of it (my family doesn't give presents - we give lai see), considering buying something for yourself, and then donating that money to a worthy organization (eg. The Smile Train) instead!

Dislike:
*FREEZING WEATHER! RAIN! (If we had snow here it might not be so bad, but the weather in central California doesn't really have specifically distinct seasons :-/)
*Waking up, pulling the covers off, getting total shock of the cold, jumping back in bed not wanting to get out of such a warm cocoon of sorts.
*Not knowing what to give to friends/family. I'm thinking this year I might just hand out candy canes at school and knit a few things for some close friends + give the gifts to them late or something? Haven't put in much thought to this topic yet, hehe.
*Materialistic thinking - no time exhibits consumerism at its peak better than the Holiday Season.

That reminds me! This post I read earlier really inspired me. Take time to breathe and appreciate the beauty in the ordinary, you might just find something extraordinary instead.

Best wishes for the days ahead + Happy (early) Christmakwanzahannukah to you!

-K