Okay. So maybe I’m exaggerating a little. But point is: I’m excited for the new quarter. And also: For the first time since I started university, I actually brought yarn from home! So now I have several projects in working order, most of them started over spring break. So yarn. Yes.

Here’s a hat that I knit for my friend a while ago. It’s a pretty quick knit-up (I think it took me less than 5 hours), with Vanna’s Choice Yarn, US 9 needles. Let me know if you want the cable pattern! It’s a 16-stitch, 14-row (I think?) cable pattern. I just repeated it 8 times around and it turned out alright, I think, but a little on the small size. If you want a bigger hat, you could try using US 10 needles instead.

Last quarter, I went to this talk about hyperbolic space and the speaker showed us these crocheted pieces of negatively curved surfaces! So I made one too:

It’s still in the works because I’m making it for a friend and he wants me to make it as large as possible, so I’m just going to keep going until I run out of yarn. It’s super easy, though. Here’s the pattern:

Row 1: Chain 2. Single crochet (sc) 6 stitches into the first chain. (6)
Row 2:  Crochet 2 sc in each stitch. (12)
Row 3:  Sc 1, sc 2 in next stitch, and repeat around. (18)
Row 4: Sc 2, sc 2 in next stitch, and repeat around. (24)
Row 5: Repeat row 3.

And then you can keep repeating Row 5 ad nauseum, and then you’ll have yourself a nice work that looks like crocheted coral. Yay!

Okay. On with my Sunday now. Toodles! :)

But last Thursday, I decided to slack off, and then the next day, I didn’t want to do work either. And then the weekend came along, I wrote an essay and studied Chinese, but for the most part, slacked off again. And then the week started, and I wrote essays for an application, edited some writing, studied Chinese, but still, for the most part, I slacked off. On Tuesday, a friend of mine convinced me to bring my violin back to the dorm, and that evening, I spent three hours having “jam sessions,” or as close to jam sessions as I will ever get, as a classically trained violinist. We played arrangements for piano and violin, and then (!) some friends and I read Vivaldi’s Concerto for Four Violins. It was the most fun I had had all quarter (possibly all year!), and afterwards, I was in too good of a mood to do work. So I went up to my friend’s room and listened to him give me a presentation on biology (which was interrupted frequently by my questions), which was absolutely fascinating and re-sparked my love for biology. It was such a great day (topped off with a wonderful mug of honey citron tea), and I was so happy that the following day (yesterday), I found it very hard to do work. I talked to friends, did some Chinese homework, and, yet again, like I had been doing for the last week, slacked off again.

My friend said that it’s easier to do work when you’re mopey. Then doing work is a way to avoid being mopey. Maybe I’ve been too happy recently to do work. But I love doing work! I really do! I really love learning and I really love feeling like my brain is growing! It makes me really happy when I do problem sets because I learn so much from them! So why is it that I’m procrastinating? Why would I ever want to deprive myself of something that I know will make me happy? I’m homesick. I want to go home. I don’t want to take finals. I just miss home.

["there was never much grass where i grew up, but there is plenty here." film. june 2009]

["if i wave my arms around, will the satellite still be okay?" film. june 2009]

["in these clouds are the stories of our lives." film. june 2009]

["breezy, yes, and hair that wisps and whips." film. june 2009]

["the hills are never the same." film. june 2009]

I just spent the last two hours scanning photos from the 11 rolls of film I got developed a few days ago. I watched Lie To Me, a television show, to keep me company in the late hours of the night. But my mind wandered. As photo after photo went through the scanner, I was taken down memory lane. A recent memory. A continuous one of these last few weeks. A wonderful one full of the warmth of family and home.

As I grow older, even though I have not even seen two decades of life, I am increasingly aware of the transient nature of things. Perhaps it is because of the new year, the opening of a new decade, that I feel so pressured by the way time never waits for anyone or anything. Things that are will not be forever. Nothing seems to stay the same. And the strings of todays are not the strings of yesterdays or the strings of tomorrows. Why is it that we are trapped in this world? It is like we are stuck on a train that never stops moving. Is it possible to smell the flowers as they pass by?

Most of the time, I try not to think about the future. I find the prospect of the future frightening, impenetrably mysterious. But tonight, one of the first evenings of 2010, I cannot but think about what this year will bring, what this decade will bring. What will become of my life and of me? What will become of my family? When hundreds of thousands of people countdown to 2020 in ten years, where will we all be?

I have my hopes and my dreams. But as time passes and I keep striving to make them a reality, the thought of dark things presses in on me. I have never been scared of death much. Mostly, it’s the dying part I’m scared of. Will there be pain when I close my eyes for the last time? But sometimes I am scared. Not for me, but for those close to me. I cannot imagine a world without them, and perhaps this is why it is becoming harder and harder to leave home, even if it is only for a few months in college. So much can happen in three months. Why can’t I be in two places at once?

These are dreary thoughts for the start of a new year, so perhaps to cheer myself up and let my tears dry cold on my skin, I will write a list of resolutions for 2010. Perhaps they will not be resolutions in the traditional sense (e.g. “Lose x pounds.”), but hopes. Things to look forward to. Things to love.

1. Family. They’re always there for me, and I love them more than I can consciously imagine.
2. Friends. Who are wonderful, always.
3. Math. Which I love, deeply and simply.
4. Books. Which work wonders for the heart and the imagination.
5. Words. No one can live without them. I want to learn to use them better.
6. Walks. Because they make you slow down and smell the air.
7. Music. People like Sufjan Stevens and Priscilla Ahn have creative geniuses that should be recognized.
8. Photographs. Memories on film. Must I say more?
9. Clocks. So that we can make the most of our time.
10. Planners. For the same reason as above.
11. Moleskines. Because they’re wonderful for journalling and anger-release. And for thinking “out loud” on paper.
12. School. Learning in concentrated form.
13. Men. Dating’s fun. Stuff you can’t learn from books. Thankfully. I think.
14. Yarn. I should put more yarn stuff on here. Like hat patterns I’ve made up and such.
15. Movies. Because even a nerd like me likes to give her brain a rest every once in a while. Romantic comedies? Yes, yes yes!

The list could go on for ages, but it is the early AM, and I must get up early in the morning. I like getting up in the morning. Sometimes, you get to see gorgeous sunrises. The type that makes the world seem heavenly and unreal.

[Ashland, OR. October 2009. Disposable Camera.]

[June 2009, Film, There Was a Fence Between Me and the Tree]

[Chicago, Summer 2009, Film]

As far as break goes, it’s been pretty nice. My family and I have been vacationing for the last week, which means that I have finally tried to do this thing people call “relaxing.” Haha. At home, I always feel like I should be doing something productive, but in a hotel room, it is almost like that obligation is relieved from me. Instead of sitting down at a computer and doing work of some sort, I’ve been thinking more and consequently returning to my journaling habits.

re: NaNoWriMo. I had this vision at the beginning of November that I was going to write some sort of masterpiece. At the pace of 2,000 words per day. Ha. Only now do I realize how delusional I was. In a perfect world, I would have written a beautiful novel that would mark the beginning of my JCO-esque career, I would travel the country (and later the world!) to do book readings, and I would be holding highly coveted book-signings. But alas! this is reality. And at the end of November, I was left not with a 50,000-word masterpiece, but a 50,000-word manuscript that can only be called a “draft” is one is being ridiculously generous with one’s words. So it is that I sit here now, at the end of December, not wondering which publisher I should go to, but rather wondering whether I should give it a thorough edit or not. Truth be told, I don’t know if the “draft” deserves anything more than the recycle bin.

In any case. One more week at home, and then another busy, busy quarter will start up again. I love school and all, but really, I wouldn’t mind another week or so of vacation.

I think I am scared of my writing. It is hard for me to read what I write and I think that it is because I am scared of what I will read. I think that sometimes, I write like I am scared of what I am writing. It is like I skirt around the story instead of sticking my head inside it. I don’t want to be scared of the stories in my head and I don’t want to be scared to feel things for the characters that have lives waiting to be put on paper.

I have a question. Or maybe a few. How do you know that what you write is good or bad? How do you know it was worth writing down? How do you know that it deserves to be read?

I should just stick to writing for myself.

Step 1: The Base

1. Make a slip knot. Chain several stitches until your chain is about as long as a typical pencil (I had 27 stitches using an F/G hook).
2. Chain 1 and turn. Single crochet in each chain stitch.
3. Chain 1 and turn. Single crochet across.
4. Repeat (3) several times until you have your desired width (I had six total rows as my base).

Step 2: The Pouch Bit

1. Chain 1 and turn. Single crochet across.
2. When you are at the end of the row, put 3 single crochets in the last stitch. This will serve as one corner of your pencil case.
3. Single crochet in the stitches extending off from each row of the base (I had 5-6 stitches).
4. At the next corner, put 3 single crochets in the last stitch. This will serve as another corner.
5. Keep single crocheting around the work. By now you should be single crocheting in the chain stitches that you started with in Step 1 (1). Single crochet across.
6. At the corner, again put 3 single crochets in the last stitch. This will serve as yet another corner.
7. Continue single crocheting around the work.
8. You have just crocheted all the way around the base. Finish off this row by joining the last stitch to the first stitch using a slip knot.
9. Chain 1 and turn. Single crochet in every stitch and join this row as in (8). A tutorial for joined rows can be found here.
10. Repeat step 9 until the pencil case is of the desired length (I had 11 rows here).

Step 3: The Flap

1. Chain 1 and turn. Single crochet only halfway across. This will be the width of your pencil case flap.
2. Chain 1 and turn. Single crochet across.
3. Repeat (2) three more times. Take note of where you want to put in buttons and how many stitches a button will take up. On average, a button is usually 3-4 stitches.
4. Chain 1 and turn. Single crochet across until you reach a place where you want to put a button. Chain 3 to make the button hole, skipping 3 stitches. Then continue single crocheting across until you reach another button location. Continue doing this until you are at the end of the row.
5. Chain 1 and turn. Single crochet across.
6. Repeat (5) two more times and then tie off.

Step 4: Embellishments

1. Sew buttons in appropriate places so that it matches where you put the button holes in the flap.
2. Have fun jazzing up your new pencil case!

Please let me know if there is any confusion! :)

This last quarter has been quite a ride, and now that I’ve finally gotten a chance to sit down, to breathe, to think about the last eleven weeks that went by in a whirlwind of work, work, and more work, I can actually reflect back on this quarter. Sort of. To be honest, most of this last quarter has gone by too quickly. One moment I was struggling to write a thesis for my first English paper. And then before I knew it, I was thanking my math professor, handing him my final exam, and opening the door of the math department to let in the cold winter air. I breathed in the mist and let out that breath in warm, cloudy white puffs. Winter break.

I flew home a few days ago, and it’s been wonderful spending time with family and a couple friends, though many are only just starting to fly in from various parts of the country. In a few days, most of us will be reunited, exhausted from finals but glad to be home, where our friendships first began. Yes, I love school, and when I am there, it is home for me. But Home will always be here, where my family is. Home. It is wonderful to be home for the holidays.

I should apologize here for the incohesiveness of this post… perhaps holiday-induced intellectual debilitation has already begun. Or perhaps my brain decided to take a holiday also. In either case, I think it would be best if I stopped writing in paragraphs and made a list. Here is a list of things I have thought about recently. Some involve the past. Some involve the future. Others are in-betweeners.

1. I think this quarter has been the most intellectually fulfilling quarter yet. I hope next quarter will be just as amazing as this quarter has been.

2. My schedule next term sounds a bit like a high schooler’s schedule… English, Geometry, Algebra II, Music, Chinese. I am quite looking forward to it.

3. I miss taking pictures. I will try to do that more over break. And maybe next quarter also.

4. I’d like to exercise more. Maybe I’ll start walking in the mornings.

5. The world’s a beautiful place. I love the mountains. And here, the sunrises are beautiful. I would like to go hiking sometime. Soon, if possible.

6. Reading list for winter break only has a few books on it. Atkinson, Oates, Styron. Then I can head to the used bookstore and not feel to guilty about picking up a couple more books to add to my winter list.

7. I love Pandora.

8. I can’t believe that this decade is coming to a close.

9. New Year’s Resolution: Keep all new year’s resolutions.

10. This song is beautiful: Song for You by Alexi Murdoch.

Prior to this last week, it was actually alright, I think. I would wake up early to write papers or get ahead in reading, study between classes, do my problem sets on weekends, leaving only a few problems left to finish during the week before the Friday deadline. And despite the insane amount of class and the insane amount of work, I was still managing to tutor, organize events for a student club, and socialize with dormmates. And then last weekend, I spent three days in Ashland for the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. It was absolutely amazing and was, I think, a well-deserved break that followed a particularly stressful week. But. During the three days I spent in awe of the fall foliage of Oregon and the beauty of the rising and falling hills and valleys and streams, schoolwork piled up and by the time I was ready to start reverting back to an academic mindset, I was already far behind. Far behind on a week that was going to be a busy week already. And so in my attempt to catch up on work, my sleep schedule went haywire and I have, over the last week, gotten an astonishing 22 hours of sleep. Yes. 22. As in, I spent more time in class than I did asleep. Crazy? Yes. Absolutely insane.

In the dining hall, most people would greet me with the oh-so-positive observation: “You look tired.” And when I told them all the work I had to do, they would smile, pat me on the back, and say, “You can do it. Just think… after this week, it’ll all be over.” What I neglected to tell people was that last week was only the first of a sequence of several busy weeks. This week, I have 3 essays, 2 midterms, and 1 oral presentation. Next week, I have 1 essay, 1 mini-essay, 1 oral response, and NaNoWriMo will kick off with what will probably be a sleep-deprived start. Point is: I’m busy. I’m tired. And now, at 4:26 am, I’m finally going to bed. The sad thing is, this is the earliest I’ve gone to sleep since… Tuesday night.

I want to know why the weather god is crying. That’s why I walked to class. I held my umbrella up and pushed the dome of it against the wind so it wouldn’t flip inside-out. As though I were scared of the rain, I looked down at my feet as I walked, watching flecks of mud speckle the white tips of my converse and feeling the water seeping in through the black fabric. My socks soaked through.

To minimize the amount of water that was beginning to pile up in the plastic buckets of my sneakers, I made sure to step on the driest parts of the sidewalk. You could tell where the dips were in the concrete because when the rain came down, there’d be this reaction like the puddle was empathizing with the tears. Maybe that’s what happens with humans, too.

When the weather god cries, the earth reacts. When someone close to us cries, we react, too. I guess it just makes you think about how everything is all inter-related. What we feel affects those around us, what those around us feel affects us. And when you think about it, maybe the analogy goes even further. Just as we put umbrellas up to shield ourselves from the tears of the weather god, perhaps sometimes, we have to put umbrellas up to shield ourselves from the tears of those around us. Not in the sense that we shut them out, but in the sense that we empathize with caution, we support without being crushed, we lend a shoulder but remind ourselves that it is still our shoulder.

I hope that I know how to do this. I hope that I know when to feel the rain on my skin and when to hold up an umbrella. And I hope that these tears stop falling.

It does indeed sound insane. And yes, to an extent, it is insane. But it’s also wonderful. I assure you that my schedule is not actually as intense as it sounds (it helps that I love all my classes) and that the workload I have taken on this quarter is actually feasible without the possession of superpowers. I love being busy. Busy is good for me and, therefore, this quarter is and will be good, I think. It’s just getting in the groove of things that is exhausting. After a humdrum, sit-on-your-donkey-all-day summer, this super-packed, run-from-meeting-to-class-to-work-to-class-etc fall quarter is quite a change. But things are settling down, I think, and things are becoming more stable.

I can’t believe it’s already been three weeks since term began. At the end of the first week, it felt like a month had gone by. And now, it feels like I arrived on move-in day a week ago. It was a shock to open my planner a couple Thursdays ago and see that September had come and gone, and now, with my birthday coming up in less than a week, I find it difficult to fully feel the time that seems to be so suddenly slipping by.

A lot of things have happened that I wish had happened differently, but that’s what a lot of life seems to be about, right? Looking at the cards you’re dealt, sometimes followed by complaining a little about their perceived crappiness, and then making the most of whatever you have in your hands.

It makes me sad that so much of my experience of my room this year has been at this hour, when all is silent but for the sound of footsteps above me, when all is dark but for the glow outside, when I am alone. These last two weeks, I have spent more time asleep in my room than I have awake, and when you factor things in like the weekend, that’s quite a statement. My schedule has had me out of the dorm by 9 am and back at 10 pm on every single weekday. You’d think it would be exhausting, but it’s been fine thus far. Surprisingly. Not that I’m complaining or anything… I just thought it’d be more stressful than it has been.

This quarter I am auditing two credits, enrolled for twenty-two, working at least ten hours a week, and am an major event coordinator for an organization. I thought I’d be way over-my-head in work and just barely keeping up, but this week has been quite comfortable. There is no doubt that I have quite a lot of work to do, but all things considered, these last few days have really been alright. I am more emotionally stable than I was last week and am therefore more able to concentrate on my work, the new event I organized went splendidly well today, and in general, things are going quite smoothly.

Only shock of today: it’s already October.

It’s a new month, and a new month calls for resolutions. So:

1. Spend more time in room and with roommate (!!!)
2. Keep up with work and get ahead if possible.
3. NEVER procrastinate.
4. Sleep an average of 6 hours per night, 8 hours on weekends.
5. Go to office hours and talk to professors.
6. Plan for NaNoWriMo, which is going to be amazing.
7. Get ahead of HW and essays and reading before November starts.
8. Talk more during English discussions.
9. Practice violin more regularly.
10. Continue meeting new people! :)

But for now… bed time! Good night! Happy October!

But as my academic life seems to be stabilizing itself, my social life seems to be taking quite an emotional toll. It isn’t making new friends that’s the overwhelming part; in fact, it has been wonderful meeting all the new people in the dorm and the freshmen are fantastically enthusiastic and friendly. The emotional exhaustion seems to stem from trying to resolve issues of a friendship/relationship that abruptly took a turn down the wrong road. There is just so much to feel, and no matter how much I try to talk it out with my close friends, sometimes, all I want to do is just let it all go, blow up, explode.

What keeps me back are the questions. What would be the use of such an explosion? What would I achieve? And after all that has happened, what do I expect? What should I expect? Is there something I expect to gain from an emotion-driven confrontation? And after rationalizing it out, I calm the fire that burns inside me, and again and again, I keep the things that piss me off to myself, bottling it up and shoving it behind my protective brick wall.

I fear that there will be some day when I can no longer control the massive amount of pure feeling I keep inside. What would happen if, for once, I let someone see the raw emotions that I keep under lock and key? What would happen to my wall if I lost the strength to guard it?

Perhaps these feelings will pass and what has happened will merge into part of the past that we can acknowledge with a mature, knowing nod. And maybe all I need is time to stop wondering why and how and just accept things the way they are. I can only hope that I can find a way to come to terms with everything and be at peace like I was before things progressed beyond acquaintanceship. Anything beyond that is, at the moment, rather unfathomable.

• excited beyond belief
• ready to take on a 23-unit, 7-class schedule
• looking forward to meeting new people and seeing old friends
• making a list of resolutions
• going to try to not break any of the aforementioned resolutions
• promising myself to actually mail all letters I write to friends
• trying to decorate my room better than I did last year
• getting used to the busy academic life again
• preparing myself to take on the challenges of this quarter
• determined to not lose my sanity
• etc.
• scared shitless

So yes. Excited beyond belief, but also scared shitless. And a whole bunch of other stuff in between. Holy shiitake mushrooms. This quarter is going to be insane.

Since June, I have spent my days recovering from sleep debt (which, comparatively speaking, was not all that significant) and letting my ample free time glide by undisturbed. Hours were spent lounging outside on the porch, writing and reading. But not all days were spent in solitary relaxation; with my newly free schedule, I finally had the time to spend time with friends I had not seen in months. It was lovely: no pressure to read before an upcoming lecture, no deadlines flying in faster than I could keep up, no guilt when I took the time to actually enjoy life.

I’ve gotten to know a few of my friends more than I had in high school. It’s an incredible feeling to get to see and appreciate someone as more than just an acquaintance. People never fail to surprise me in their amazingness, their quirks, their beings. It’s really quite something to open your heart and let people in.

There are, of course, the times when people disappoint you, but I like to think that everyone is good at heart. That is not to say that we should befriend everyone we meet and let them in on the most personal aspects of our lives. In fact, I think trust is one of the things I have learned to be more careful about doling out. It’s such a precious thing, and I think that handing it out like free samples is too much of a risk to take. For me, at least.

But this is not to say that we should guard it with moat, a stone wall, and an army of archers. It’s good to trust, and despite the emotional risk, it feels good to know that there are people out there who will catch you when you fall. Trust is a wonderful thing and I guess what I am beginning to learn is this: that there are people out there who will surprise you, for better or for worse. Judge too quickly and you may turn away someone who could be one of your closest, most trustworthy friends. Trust too easily and your heart may feel like it has suddenly been thrown out on a line, the cord ripping at the fragile lining that keeps you whole. I guess what I need to learn is where and when to draw the line.

But for all the ups and downs of these last few months, I think I am, in general, glad of the way things turned out. I have learned, I have experienced, I have felt. I wish I could write about the events of my summer so that one day, when I reread journal entries, I can immerse myself in these wonders. But I guess some feelings can only be preserved in memory, and for that, I am grateful. We at least have our brain and our heart and the rest of our organs to lock in the experiences of our past. There are, of course, things I wished had not happened, and as for those, I guess what I need to learn now is how to forgive.

Before I know it, I will be back to the thrills of a college girl’s busyness. There will be classes to attend, notes to sort through, essays to write, problem sets to do, people to tutor, and, most importantly, friends to keep and make. Perhaps my sleep hours will be reduced. And perhaps my schedule will go from open time-slots to pages of hasty scribbles. But really, it’s all a part of life and experience and I’d really hate to see everything go by in an unhappy blur.

I was distracted for the remainder of the episode, thinking about this question. I mean, once the romantic relationship is over, why should one care about when the other finds another person to snog? To make references easier, let us consider Person A and Person B, who are no longer seeing each other. Person B has found Person C, with whom Person B is now involved romantically. So I thought about these things:

• Perhaps the fact that it was so easy for Person B to find Person C makes Person A feel… replaceable.
• So would Person A prefer if Person B were to feel the pain of the recent breakup for a decent amount of time before finding Person C? In which case, doesn’t this imply that Person A is happier if Person B stays miserable for a (relatively) extended period of time? Doesn’t that seem cruel and unfair?
• In a way, it isn’t completely Person B’s fault that he or she met Person C so soon after the breakup. After all, life keeps going, people meet people, and things happen.
• Would it be a courtesy to Person A if Person B were to wait before proceeding with romantic developments with Person C? But why would Person B owe this courtesy to Person A if their intimate relationship had already ended? If they remained friends, then perhaps. But if not? What obligates Person B to consider that Person A may be upset by Person B’s intimacy with Person C?
• How far does this extend? Can Person B date casually without further hurting Person A? Or is it also frowned upon to simply date after a relationship has ended? Why?
• I suppose one of the dangers is that Person C could be the “rebound” of Person B. Does Person A’s upsetness about Person B’s new relationship involve the consideration of the emotional well-being of Person C?
• It feels to me like Person A’s pain of seeing Person B in a romantic relationship with Person C is more out of jealousy of Person C rather than concern. Perhaps Person A compares himself or herself to Person C, wondering why a Person B would choose Person C over Person A. What does Person C have that I don’t?, Person A may wonder.
• But don’t we all know that the spark between two people is not completely dependent on the “goodness” of the two people? And how do we measure this “goodness” anyway? Can we really compare two people and make an objective judgment as to who is the “better” person? If no, then can we say that the average person is not necessarily a better person than a serial murderer?
• If we know that the “goodness” of Person A vs. Person C is not necessarily indicative of the success of the Person-A-Person-B relationship vs. the Person-C-Person-B relationship, then perhaps what Person A may wonder is not, What does Person C have that I don’t?, but rather, Why would Person B choose Person C over me?, which is essentially the question, What is it that Person C has that I don’t that draws Person B to him or her?, which takes us back to the previous thought process.
• Is this a pointless discussion?

In the end, maybe it really is that we want our ex-lovers to feel the pain that we feel post-breakup in the same intensity and duration. And because this cannot possibly be measured exactly, perhaps we use the period of time it takes to find someone else as a quantification of how much and how long we hurt. Thus, when Person B finds Person C shortly after the Person-A-Person-B breakup, Person A is hurt because Person A interprets this event as an indication of Person B’s lesser post-breakup pain. But this, again, seems wrong. Doesn’t this still mean that Person A would rather Person B hurt more?

Maybe this isn’t even worth thinking about. At least it helped me go to sleep last night. I probably got so tired of listening to myself that sleeping was a better alternative to continuing my loop-dee-doop-dee thought process. But if anyone has any thoughts on this matter, I’m all ears.

I wish your hands and my hands could reach out far enough to touch.

You should check them out: http://mosscomic.wordpress.com.

I don’t know whether the four-lies-a-day statistic sounds about right or sounds like bogus claim, but I can personally attest to the “I’m fine” lie. That is, I am, and have been for nearly all my life, guilty of the aforementioned automatic response to the question “How are you?” I could be returning home or back to the dorm after a horrendous day, but if someone asked me how things were going, I’d just look at them, smile, and say, “Alright. How are you?” If I felt like my life was falling apart into a vortex of entropic chaos: “I’m okay. How about yourself?” And if all I really wanted to do was to have someone hold me and rock me back and forth like my parents did some 15-odd years ago: “I’m fine. Really.”

Over the years, my close friends and family members have learned to better distinguish between my various degrees of “fine,” “okay,” “alright,” etc. But still, in the end, the only one who knows what “I’m fine” really means on a given day is myself.

Perhaps “I’m fine” has been my default response for so many years that changing this routine is too difficult. Old habits die hard, so they say. But I think it is more of a deflection agent rather than a programmed default. Having a rough day? Put on a smile and try to shove the bad things to the back of your mind. If someone suspects that you’re just putting on a happy face then: “Are you alright?” “Yeah! I’m fine.” “Are you sure? You look…” “No really. I’m fine.” “Okay…” “Mm-hmm! [GRIN!]” No more questions. Concern: extinguished. Everybody: happy. :D

But the thing is, “happy” is a rather mysterious adjective and, I have found, quite easy to fake. Laugh often, smile at passersby, answer standard greeting questions with non-negativity. It’s the perfect recipe. Almost. Problem: it’s tiring. And: it’s lying. So: it does your friends and family a disservice. And in the end, the “I’m fine” lie just makes you less fine, makes you push away those you care about, and makes you wish that you just told the truth in the first place. Because just like all easy-way-outs, “I’m fine” will come back to bite you in the ass one day. And by that time, the only people who will be happy will the the ones who didn’t really care whether or not you lied in the first place.

The good news is that if I choose my courses carefully and try to make the most of each and every unit in fulfilling the department requirements of my two majors (Math and English), then I believe I will be able to (comfortably!) graduate with more than enough credits. The bad news is that the parenthetical “comfortably!” actually refers to a rather rigorous constantly-pushing-the-maximum-course-limit workload. According to my plan, the average number of units per quarter will be roughly 20.4, which is already above the maximum unit allowance. So I’ll have to petition to the university, write essays explaining why I desperately need those extra units, and get on my hands and knees, begging them to just let me take more classes than any sane person would ever want to take.

Despite the insanity that lies ahead in these next few years, I cannot wait until I actually get to execute my four-year plan. I love both the math department and the English department and I feel so fortunate to have the opportunity to learn from the amazing professors and lecturers. If I had a choice, I think I’d want to stay in school forever and just keep learning and learning. I’m such a nerd, and I’m proud of it. And also: I’m tired of summer. Why must there still be three weeks until the start of term?

Maybe it’s more than just that, though. During the day, I spend quite a bit of energy trying to meet life’s social demands. You know, when laughter and smiles are appreciated and sometimes even expected. And when I’m not making small talk with classmates and acquaintances, my energy is devoted to staying focused during lecture, at work, in the library. And when all I’m doing is sitting on a bench, daydreaming, my energy is spent putting up a defense wall against all potentially unpleasant memories. So I guess I live most of my life trying to forget pain. By the end of the day, when my energy level is nearing empty, there is not enough left to keep unhappy thoughts at bay. As the night wears on, I find myself feeling increasingly vulnerable, and when left to my own thoughts, sometimes I can’t seem to muster the strength to keep on a happy face. Perhaps my dislike of the night is related to my dislike of seeming anything short of happy?

I was going to write more about this. I had planned on writing a cohesive blog post for once. But it already seems to be fraying between phrases and sentences and paragraphs. Maybe it’s just too late for anything good to be written. Maybe I should just go to sleep and recharge for another day of laughter and smiles and happy faces.

I then sewed on two buttons using some yarn…

And then topped it all off with a border around the base of the case.

And taddah!

Let me know if you want more details. I can post the actual pattern if you want. :)

UPDATE: The pattern for this pencil case can be found here.

The university here just started their fall semester yesterday. As I drove through the campus yesterday just passing by, watching the crowds of people commuting between classes by foot or by bike, I found myself wishing that I, too, was in school. Perhaps I am an exception to the norm, an outlier of a nerd. But really. I cannot wait until term begins.

But since the Fall quarter is not due to start until the middle of September, I have found myself trying to make up for the lack of school by planning out my weekly schedule and thinking obsessively about course registration. Except for one class, which is dependent on luck in a lottery system, I believe I have my classes all lined up. I’ve planned my study time and social time around lectures and have essentially outlined every day of the upcoming term down to the minute. It’s quite insane, actually. Ironically, the insanity of this scheduling is keeping me sane.

This summer, though better than last summer, has been a constant battle to keep myself busy. For me, to be busy is to keep my sanity. And to see a sparse to-do list is to lose my head completely. I have not yet mastered the art of doing nothing, and I can’t seem to wrap my head around the concept of vacation. Perhaps it’s my fear that if I don’t keep it working, my brain will turn to mush. I don’t really know. I guess keeping myself occupied is a superficial way of convincing myself that my life is not completely useless and that during the days I walk this earth, I have actually done something with my time.

Today, I meant to go to bed around 9. I was tired and sure enough, by 9:30 I was in bed, tucked under my humongous super-heavy down comforter. But my brain didn’t seem to want to calm down. So I got out my journal and started writing about things. When I was relatively satisfied with the quantity of text, I wrapped the elastic back around the leather cover of my Moleskine and put the cap on my pen. But still, I was restless. I didn’t really understand why. I usually have very little trouble falling asleep but tonight… tonight there was just too much on my mind. It’s odd. So then I got out my laptop, brought up my blog dashboard, and began to write. And so here I am. Churning out random thoughts that are probably ridiculously disjoint and nonsensical and not even worth posting. But oh, well. Here I am.

I think what I need is a to-do list for tomorrow. And then I can go to bed in peace, knowing that I have a list of things to do lined up, waiting to be done when I wake up in the morning.

To-Do:

Clean boxes of books
Clean dresser (re-fold clothing in more organized fashion)
Clean room until spotless
Do laundry
Vacuum
Buy contact lens solution
Read 50+ pages of Infinite Jest
Write 1000+ words
Post a snippet on creative writing group blog and respond to other posts
Keep up on Facebook duties
Call people
Organize email inbox
Practice violin
Do stretches and exercises prescribed by physical therapist
Read Flaubert’s Parrot
Read Naming the World and perhaps pick a writing exercise
Journal and blog
Write and send letters

Exposed brick
Chalkboards
Throw pillows
Planners
Yarn
Writing manuals
Herbal Tea
Handmade things
Ethnic food
Film photographs
Short stories
Films
Moleskines
Tumblr
Jigsaw puzzles
Antique library lamps
Earl Gray
Fiction
Omelets
Socks
Sufjan Stevens
Pandora

Update: I was just shot in the face repeatedly with two water guns. The person does not look funny. However, she does act funny. Try tickling.

P.S. I still love her. Very, very much. <3

Paul Auster’s The Brooklyn Follies

I found this one in a used bookstore when I was looking up novels by Paul Auster. This one looked interesting, so I picked it up along with City of Glass, which I read earlier this summer. I very much liked both of them. Paul Auster has this way of twisting and toying and playing with your expectations until you no longer trust yourself to even have expectations. And then after that, your only choice is to keep reading and plunging forward without so much as a hint of what will come next. Because no matter how many hypothetical subsequence scenes you can think of, Auster will present you with the one you never thought to consider. It’s a pretty incredible ride, reading Paul Auster, and it really is quite incredible the way he never, not once, gives into the reader’s expectations. Cool stuff. It’s a nice read, too. Not brain-straining like Infinite Jest, though I still love David Foster Wallace for all his insanely long sentences infused with (sometimes unnecessary) details and scenes that make you laugh your donkey off at the most terrible situations. Anyway. The Brooklyn Follies. It’s fantastic. If you want to read something entertaining that explores relationships between friends, family, lovers, and in-between-ers and the changes that utterly human characters (there really is no other way to describe them) endure through unexpected happenstances, read this novel.

Nicole Krauss’s The History of Love

During the spring quarter of my freshman year, I took a fiction writing class. We read quite a few short stories, but the one that stuck with me the most (or one of them at least) was “The Last Words on Earth” by Nicole Krauss, which was apparently an edited version of a few excerpts that she took from her novel The History of Love. Since I absolutely loved the short story, I figured the probability of loving her novel was rather high. So I put in on my book list. It was amazing. Just absolutely amazing. So amazing, in fact, that I recommended it to several friends. A couple of them actually picked it up an read it and then we had a lovely book chat about it. (Mixed reviews: One friend loved it. Another said it was alright.) It’s the story of the influences people have on each other without realizing it, and even though you know how it’s going to end the way you know that boy-meets-girl is followed by boy-falls-for-girl which is followed by girl-does-not which is, in the end, followed by boy-gets-girl, it’s still worth the read to find out how beautifully Krauss navigates us from point A to point B. She has this mastery of language that is absolutely beautiful and makes your heart melt. I mean, when you read the line, “Once upon a time there was a boy who loved a girl and her laughter was a question he wanted to spend his whole life answering,” how can you do anything but say aloud, in the station waiting for the 5 o’clock train, “Awww” and clutch your chest, your eyes drooping at the corners a la begging puppies? Point is. I love Nicole Krauss. I want to read her words over and over until I have memorized every line she has committed to paper.

I was also going to talk about Stephen Chbovsky’s The Perks of Being a Wallflower, but it’s nearly 1 am and I must wake up in six hours. So I should probably get back to trying to fall asleep in spite of my back pain.

(And I miss you two.)

(I miss you.)

Summer’s been good: relaxing, easy, and, for the most part, rather unproductive. I’m trying to embrace the lack of productivity though, because I know that when I go back to school in September, I will be swarmed with more work than I have time for, and will inevitably have to choose between school, a social life, and sleep. Clearly the latter will be sacrificed first. Just kidding. Sort of.

I’m currently taking a class at the university which, although has yet to become challenging, gets me thinking about math and hopefully, it will prevent my brain from turning into unresuscitable mush. I’m trying to restart my daily word quota writing regimen after a two-and-a-half-week-long hiatus, and if all goes well, I’ll have a draft of a short story done by the end of August. I’m picking up the violin again after a rather long break (which was necessary due to an unfortunate bout of back pain) and will be learning the Sibelius Violin Concerto. As for progress on my extensive summer reading list, I am still slowly working my way through David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest and am about to embark on a journey through Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night with a couple good friends. It should be fun, and I’m excited to get some more Shakespeare in my system.

It’s nice being back home, where I spend time with family and old friends. And of course, I love being next to the mountains again.

[My mom took this picture of me a few weeks ago.]

I’m sitting outside right now, listening to the symphony of birds, swooping whistles permeating the air among the short, crisp chirps. The sky is spattered with wisps of high-altitude clouds and the horizon is hidden by Saguaros, Palo Verdes, and the Catalina Mountains. This morning light is so soft that even shadows seem vague and nearly nonexistent. It’s beautiful out, and I think it’s plenty enough reason to wake up early.

Sometimes I wish that more people would see Arizona as a place of natural beauty and awe. But then again, if too many people realized that the desert is not just a sea of sand where adobe dwellings rise out in the middle of nowhere (“You see those two things sticking out of the ground over there? That’s a neighborhood. People actually live there.”), then there wouldn’t be that quiet, under-appreciated nature to this place. And for now, quite frankly, I want to keep this (albeit 110-degree) haven all to myself.

[I've never seen better sunrises than the ones from my own backyard.]

City of Glass (Paul Auster)
Brooklyn Follies (Paul Auster)
Back in the World (Tobias Wolff)
The Yellow Wallpaper and Other Writings (Charlotte Perkins Gilman)
Ana Historic (Daphne Marlatt)
Dismantling the Hills (Michael McGriff)
Nineteen Minutes (Jodi Picoult)
Gilead (Marilynne Robinson)
The History of Love (Nicole Krauss)
Family Planning (Karan Mahajan)
Through the Looking Glass (Lewis Carroll) 

I’ve read Ana Historic one and a half times and am halfway through Gilead. I’m a bit of a slow reader. But I’m determined to get through all of these because I promised myself earlier today that I would stop buying books until I had read all the ones I had sitting on my desk. (I made an exception for the purchase of The History of Love, which I ordered off Amazon about 15 minutes ago… I swear I’ll keep my promise from now on.) So for now, my summer’s an infusion of super-humanities-ing. I haven’t thought about math since I turned in my math final a week ago (Whoa! It was only a week ago? It seems like so much longer than a week ago!), and I’m plenty entertained for now with my 1000-word-a-day writing quota (minimum quota, that is) and my current reading list. I can’t wait to finish this batch and go back to the used book store! :)

Tumblelog of Chan

Since this summer is essentially wide open in terms of my academic commitments, I figured I would try this method of a pre-set daily dose of writing. Knowing that I wouldn’t write more than a sentence or two if I only gave myself a required number of hours to spend sitting in front of a computer (and I would probably start surfing the internet instead of actually writing or even thinking), I decided that I would give King’s recommendation a go.

So last night, I cleaned up the remaining clutter in my room, making sure that there was not a single stray item in sight. That way, I would be able to wake up the next morning with nothing to distract me from starting Day 1 of my writing regimen. Sure enough, I woke up this morning, sat Indian-style in my comfy black roll-y chair, and wrote. Day 1: success. More precisely: 1093 words. And tomorrow: hope.

I said in my last post that I didn’t really feel any different than I did when I was sixteen. The other day, we some friends and I went out to Indian for dinner, we were talking about how we may or may not have changed. My roommate said I had, but I didn’t ask for details, perhaps in fear of what she’d say.

Since then, I have been thinking about how this year has shaped me, and the more I think about it, the more I feel like it has. Even though there’s still the goofy side of me, I think I’ve become more serious than I was when I first arrived. There is a sense of this-is-life-now-whether-you-like-it-or-not-so-you-better-make-use-of-it. And the overwhelming amount of opportunities and resources this university has for their students reinforces this in every single way possible. But I don’t want to make it seem like I’ve taken advantage of all this place has to offer or that it is because of these extracurricular opportunities that I’ve become more serious… because I haven’t and it isn’t.

I’ve met so many different people here… from the laid back to the stressed out, from the early birds to the night owls, from the live-in-the-moment’s to the plan-ahead-ers… and, like I alluded to in my last post, I think it’s the people who have made such a difference on me.

I’m less eager to please those around me, less eager to put up smiling facades, less eager to hide who I am by the means of happiness. But I am still not too eager to show who I am. I think I’m more dedicated to my work now, thinking of classes as ways of discovering the beauty in subject matters rather than a unit-weighted GPA on my transcript. Procrastination is no longer something I resort to when I don’t want to do work, maybe because I love my classes so much that I want to do work. But at times, my dedication to not procrastinate has driven me nearly to insanity because of work that needs to be done for a deadline a week or more later. And because of this, I think I have taken a path towards a college experience with more solidarity than I had envisioned. My days begin in the early hours of the morning, when some people have only just started drifting off to sleep, and end in the evenings, when I get out of my last class or finally feel the necessity to leave the library. Sometimes, by the time I get back to the dorm after a 12+ hour day, I just don’t have the energy to cheerily make small talk with dormmates. I have, perhaps, become a little more impatient, a little more easily upset, a little more close-minded in my interactions with others.

On the other hand, I don’t think I have ever enjoyed my selection of academic courses as much as I have this quarter. Math became enjoyable again, despite its ever-increasing difficulty, and I think I have finally come to view it as a part of a grander scheme of things rather than a sequence of lectures, problem sets, and examinations. Music has proved to be a commitment that I am happy to spend even the latest of hours doing. And English… English has become an exponentially growing passion.

Last Monday, I woke up at 7:30 am and read a book for pleasure. It had been nearly three months since I had done that, and it wasn’t really all that enjoyable then. But this time, I couldn’t stop… I just kept taking in the words and turning the pages until there were no more words to take in and no more pages to turn. For the first time (or the first time in a long time, at least), I could truly say that I love to read. And for the first time, reading is one of the activities I have listed on my summer to-do’s.

The fiction writing workshop I’m taking this quarter has sparked a passion in me that I always knew I had, but had never realized was so powerful. Some days, all I want to do it just sit down with a pen and my journal (or my laptop) and write from morning until dusk. Indeed one of the most memorable moments this quarter was the day I spent writing from 11 am to 6 pm at the English department’s creative writing retreat. And regardless of how well I write, I still love it, stubbornly and honestly.

This summer, I plan on doing three things: reading, writing, and doing math. I’m determined to keep my brain from rotting, exercising its (limited) creative and academic capabilities. And as for the people I owe for shaping me, for better or for worse, I will most certainly keep in touch, whether it be by facebook, email, skype, telephone, or an actual trip out to visit them.

It’s crazy to think that in a couple of weeks, I will no longer be a freshman. But there it is. The end of one year, but the beginning of another that will undoubtably be as fulfilling as this one has been.

It’s been pretty incredible how quickly this year has gone by. Through the rapidity of the quarter system, the constantly changing dynamics of dorm life, and the struggle to get in a decent night’s sleep, I have learned much about the art of time management. It’s different than high school, where most study hours are spent doing busywork. Here, I actually feel like I’m using my brain, and although sometimes, it really just plain sucks when you have a crapload of work to do and not enough time to do it all, it feels wonderful when you literally feel like your brain is ready to shrivel up like a raisin. I love the feeling of burnt out brain cells not because I desire to feel intellectually exhausted, but because I derive satisfaction in knowing that my brain can be challenged up to its breaking point. It’s fantastic, and I think I’ll in school for a while, because I simply can’t get enough of it.

But it’s funny. While I feel like I’ve had all these new experiences, while I am no longer the clueless freshman who walked onto campus thinking that it’d be like summer math camp with more subjects (which it is, in some ways), I have trouble believing that it was over a year ago that I first decided to come here. I don’t feel much different than I felt when I was sixteen. I just know that I’ve had a couple extra years under my belt.

As Week 8 begins and this year draws to a close, I can’t help but think about the aspects of university life that I’m going to miss…

… the campus, the train, the bikes, the walking, the classes, the work, the dorm. But above all else, the people. The people here are the ones I’ll miss the most.