I just lost my rain of thought

I am officially cursed with electronics. My laptop has passed away and I am missing a couple months worth of photos because the last time I backed up my computer was in March. Farewell, Drew Jr. Luckily I got off my resume and movies. The pictures are important but I have a lot of them on my Flickr, so I guess that’s good. Sigh. It’s my fault. I shouldn’t have bent (bended?) the truth because now my computer and I are suffering. I’m on my sister’s computer now and she’s not here in the daytime so no worries. I’ve been keeping busy anyway. Sunday I went to Heren’s grad dinner, Monday went to Old Town and Panera Bread with Wendorz and then we went to do decor child labor for Susan’s mum. haha. Today I met Dar at Boba Express by biking and then we biked to his house to Partyville and then play Diddy Kong when his dad kicked us out of the TV room (crazy new TV they have) to watch the Lakers game. Biking home was pretty tough because it’s all uphill but perhaps I will have awesome legs by the end of summer then.

Before all the hype about gas rising to four bucks, I was looking at folding bikes. It wasn’t because I wanted to save money on gas, since I don’t drive, and it wasn’t because I had any difficulty getting to places I needed to go, because there is a shuttle that stops right around the corner from my apartment that takes me to campus, which is really the farthest place I need to go during the week. I wanted a bike just because. I wanted the option to bike somewhere if I felt like doing so, thinking mostly about bringing it to campus for when the shuttles stop running.

Thinking about biking is a lot easier than actually doing it. Duh. I rode around a lot as a kid, but I kind of stopped when I sold my soul to the computer and started spending most of my time online. We’ve got a couple bikes back home, but I wanted something more BA, something not that common but easy to transport. That’s when I got to lookin’ at folding bikes. I wanted one of those cool, shiny ones that fold in 15 seconds, but they were pretty expensive. I thought I needed something fancy that changed gears and whatnot and I was on the verge of calling this person on Craigslist when I thought I found the perfect deal until I saw another Craigslist post with pictures of this guy. I can’t resist something fun looking AND vintage. Are you crazy? So I went and bought it and it is a BA piece of pre-loved awesomeness.

The first week I had it, I thought it would somehow enable me to beat traffic, but I seemed to have forgotten that it is powered by my ability to ride it. Because I leave for my sister’s work during typical LA rush hours, I thought I would gain the upper hand in traffic by riding my bicycle part of the way and then boarding my normal bus when I got too tired to go on. I did not account for my out-of-shapeness, the hilliness of Wilshire Blvd, and the fact that Wilshire doesn’t really get so packed that a bike would outrun a bus. As I trudged along, watching bus after bus pass me by, Wilshire began to bend. I figured it would be a shortcut if I took some local streets and then met Wilshire again later. Unfortunately, the moment I turned onto a street, it was all hill. I figured after I went over one, that would be it, but no, there was more. I eventually made my way back to Wilshire, probably only moving up one block, and gave up. It was beyond hot and my legs were butt tired. I had barely put a dent in my nine-mile trip but wasted probably at least half an hour.

To make matters worse, the driver of the bus I boarded was SUCH a jerk. It was my first time using a bike rack and I had no idea what to do, so I asked the bus driver and he, with a scowl on his face, impatiently told me there were directions on the rack. I fought with the bike rack for a minute or so (mind you, I had a large duffelbag and heavy backpack to carry, as well) and I looked up to the bus driver for a little sympathy but there was none to be had and his scowl just turned more sour. Finally, this nice man on the bus got off and asked if I needed help and he put my bike in the rack for me. I was already running late to my sister’s and all the previous events of that day had just put me in such a bad mood. At least I found out the rack thing on my bike can hold my duffelbag without needing bungee cords. That was pretty impressive.

But anyway, when I’m not pressed for time and carrying a buttload of stuff, biking is a pretty cool, relaxing, and sustainable way to get around. Speaking of sustainable, sorta, I actually read somewhere that some old Royce Union bikes (don’t know about mine) were made from scrap metal from cars, which I thought was interesting enough to share with you. Anyway, for longer commutes with heavy items, I suggest just taking the bus if it is more convenient (which, for me, it is, since the bus stop is very close to my apartment and drops me off a couple blocks from my sister’s work).

I don’t really know anything about bikes, but according to my friend, I am in desperate need of a new bike chain, because mine could potentially kill me. I have made few mods to it since its purchase (by few, I mean adding a bell that says “I <3 My Bike”), but I am going to clean it up some more during the summer and decide if I want to give it new parts or keep it original. I’m considering a new seat because my bum really hurts after riding a while. All this talk of biking makes me want to ride around the block, so I am going to do that now. If anyone wants to join my bicycle gang, feel free to ask me.

This is kind of weird…

So Discovery is launching a new “green” TV network and all the shows described on that page include some extremely random casts. Ludacris and Tommy Lee? Battling against the toxic forces destroying Mother Earth? They make it seem like they’re the new Captain Planets or something, which, might I add, was a really awesome show and totally ahead of its time and may have had something to do with my childhood greenness. Anyway, the network’s line-up sounds (weird but) interesting and I’m glad Bill Nye will have his own show again, instead of being a street correspondent for The Weather Channel.

I’ve been so out of it lately. I haven’t done anything productive in weeks, it seems. I’m such a bum! And I’ve been getting sleepy a lot earlier lately. What is wrong with me? Also, I am very irritable. Maybe it’s the Spring Quarter Blues. I can’t wait for summer.

I’ve been flyering this week for this referendum we were trying to get passed to fund student-led sustainability projects called The Green Initiative Fund, which has already been passed at three other UCs and last night we found out IT PASSED! Yayyy! 74% of the voters voted yes on it! All that bad press from all those Negative Nancys seemed to have had little effect on the voters, or it could possibly have been the lightbulbs that we handed out that won people over. Haha, just kidding. I hope. Flyering kind of sucked and I probably didn’t help a whole lot, but it’s over now. Yays. Thanks to all who voted yes!

I probably did not do everything I could have to maximize greenness today, but I did stop by the little Earth Day Fair on campus to see what clubs and such were tabling there. I got a few goodies, which include a homemade notebook of recycled paper, a biodegradeable highlighter, a foldaway shopping bag, and California poppies. I planted the poppies myself in a plastic bottle, which was cool because the top half was turned over into the bottom half, allowing excess water to drain out. It shall be a nice addition to my attempt at a garden. The goodies gave me a couple ideas. The highlighter looks like a giant fluorescent pencil, which made me think 1) How am I going to sharpen it when it’s so large? and 2) I can totally use all my bright color pencils and crayons as highlighters also. You know those colors that you probably would never want to use, like electric orange or blinding green? I don’t know who would want to color with those because you can’t really see them that well and they hurt to look at, but it’s perfect for highlighting! I also liked the way the notebook was bound, which was by rubberbands and paperclips. I never thought to bind paper that way and sometimes I use binder rings, yarn, or twisty ties, the latter two having on occasion ripped my paper. What I currently do is take notes on scrap paper folded in half, which I holepunch and put into a small binder, but I will keep their idea in mind.

I also discovered today that I have way too many reusable shopping bags or things of that nature, counting six total. I will probably bring some home to encourage my mum to start using them because we have way too many plastic bags. The green bag I got today was from Microsoft and it’s pretty cool because it folds into a little envelope-like thing. It’s sort of similar to the Target one I bought but it velcros shut instead of zippers, which is sort of a hassle sometimes. The outside of both bags also double as pockets, which you can use to keep receipts, I suppose. By the way, I got another bag for free yesterday from Ralphs, but I thought it was kind of stupid that they handed them out outside only after you made your purchase, because encasing your plastic bags with a cloth Ralphs bag kind of defeats the purpose of having a reusable shopping bag. It would’ve been better to hand them out at the cashier counters or something. One of my classmates showed me the bag they gave her in the morning, which was distributed by LA County, and it was totally cuter than the one I got, but whatevs as long as people are using them! By the way, have you noticed that more women use reusable bags than men? My friend that I went to the Earth Day Fair with told me he would never use the bag he got (having called it ugly but it’s so not) and that paper and plastic is the way to go. Eep!

At approximately 6:20am Saturday morning my break began at full throttle. I kicked it off by going to sleep and waking up sometime before 2. I had come back unannounced Wednesday night/Thursday morning, but break was yet to be official. I spent the next couple days procrastinating, rewatching the part in Enchanted where Patrick Dempsey sings over and over again, rewatching some of my other favorite chunks of the movie but mostly the one previously mentioned, attempting to work on my project, eating, transcribing my interview with my dad, and sleeping. I went in to work late because I thought I could finish in time on Friday, but alas, I gave in to time and decided making money for Europe would be more beneficial. As soon as I came home, I worked on it nonstop until I finished, turning it in several hours late but having it turned in nonetheless. It would have been a little sooner but I had a massive headache, which are rare for me. I don’t know what caused it but I wanted to break my head open and hope that a little Athena would come out, but I’m not immortal so the consequences could have been not so great. I got some great pictures out of doing my project, which I will post soon. My project was about my dad’s immigration story, which was very exciting, but he didn’t want to go too into detail.

So on Saturday, I went to Friendest’s house and we watched all the Smallvilles we haven’t seen, which were crazies. Then we went to President Thai with friendlies. The service is very good and the dinnerware was rather fancy. Thai food does not quite strike my fancy, but for those of you who like Thai food, that is a pretty good place to go. But I do not recommend the Larb. haha. Just because it has a funny name doesn’t mean it tastes as lovely. One of the dishes we ate was so spicy it made me cry a little. I couldn’t taste anything for a good ten minutes so I just drank water and nibbled on rice for a while. I had work at 9 so Daryl took the extremely long way to the mall and we got frozen yogurt at Se Fiore, which was pretty good but no Pinkberry. Next time I will order something that is non-Pinkberry-like, because they’ve got other fancy things.

Sunday I hung out with my sister and her friends. They went to check out the Body Worlds Exhibit at the California Science Center, but I had seen one of them a few years ago on a field trip in high school, so I decided not to pay to see it again. I feel like once you’ve seen slices of people and every system inside of them, you don’t really need another look. Some people would say otherwise, but that’s just my opinion. I instead hung out at Exposition Park and drifted in and out of sleep on a bench like a bum. After a while of sleeping, reading, and finishing off my box of dimsum, I decided to venture into the California African American Museum. It’s not very big, but they have some interesting things in there. There’s a little section dedicated to ex-mayor Tom Bradley, whose name has been branded all over Los Angeles with all his achievements and such. The international terminal of LAX bears his name, for instance. His section in the museum was right next to Ella Fitzgerald’s and there’s one picture in that area with the two of them, when they first met, I presume.

The reason I was there was because we were supposed to go airdiving afterwards at Universal City Walk. It was not until we got there that we realized how lame it was. I’m not saying it wouldn’t be cool to float in that tubey thing, but the way it’s set up versus what I had imagined totally did not see eye to eye. As put by my sister’s friend Wing, I did not want to be watched like I was a zoo animal. It’s basically this large conical tube with air blowing you upwards from the bottom and it’s all outside for everyone to see. There’s an instructor who is in there with you and you just float around for two minutes. As cool as it sounds, I didn’t think it was worth it. So we pretty much drove to Universal and paid for parking so we could get Jamba Juice and leave. At night, I put my telescope to use and looked at the moon. That was actually really, really cool, but I feel like that’s all I can use my telescope for astronomy-wise. Looking at planets and stars is pretty useelss, because they’re just slightly brighter and bigger dots in the telescope than they are viewed by the naked eye. Dar and I decided to drive around and see if there was anything cooler to look at (not as creepy as it seems ok) but found nothing so we went to his house and watched last week’s episode of America’s Best Dance Crew, which I found to be preposterous. America voted, and frankly, I think they made the wrong choice, so America, I am very angry with you. One of the last routines done was just ridiculous and I don’t know what the heck they were thinking. A clown theme should never be thought of as cool when it comes to dancing.

After that, I went home and called to see if I had jury duty for the first time. I still haven’t gotten it yet but with my luck, something inconvenient will happen. I don’t want to say any more because I may jinx myself.

Monday was rather uneventful. I woke up late, watched TV, ate, and went to work. Tuesday, I woke up a little earlier, ate dimsum with my mom, aunt, and grandma. My brother’s girlfriend called me when I got home and we hung out in Old Town until dinner time. We hit the usual spots but did not really buy anything. I just bought a fun penguin shirt from Urban and Steph ate some stuff and spoiled her appetite. haha. We also spent some time at Barnes, where she tried out her Cantonese skills. Then we went to Target to pick up some stuffs. We then joined some Freundinnen but not at Green Street Cafe, where we were waiting for them. We ended up eating at Cheesecake Factory at the mall, which isn’t really that great, I noticed. Their food is subpar and it takes forever to come out, even when it’s not extremely busy. The only thing I would go there to eat is, well, cheesecake, and I’d rather not wait years and years for a slice of deliciousness so I wouldn’t even go for that. We all happened to order pasta dishes and nobody finished. I had to work so I bade them farewell and embarked on another fantastic voyage of updating a store I don’t even like, but I happened to get my black card that night. hahaha.

My strawberries finally started growing the other day. I’m very excited about that. My radishes have been doing quite well, also. I will have to switch them over to a different container soon!

Here is a short list of things I had compiled prior to my break’s beginning. I have taken the liberty of crossing out things I have accomplished so far, which is not much:
.use telescope
.Smallville
.craft/knit
.watch Enchanted again!
.guitar
.read
.chipotle
.rearrange room

There are, of course, other things I want(ed) to do, but this was the list I made in anticipation of all the relaxation and freedom I was going to experience. It’s hard to get a lot done when you’re sleeping in all the time and then have work at night, though. haha. I don’t want break to pass me by!

By the way, Helen’s Etsy, Sheer Whimsy, is finally up and running! Everyone order a cute case for your gadget from her! And check out her crafting blog!

Upon one of my frequent visits to the Emerald City blog at the LA Times site, I noticed this disheartening photo. If you’ve never really thought about the consequences of using plastic bags and tossing them around nonchalantly, maybe that picture will make you think a little bit about where bags end up. Do you really want to be responsible for killing cute animals, amongst other things?

I’m really glad that “going green” seems to be becoming the new trend instead of some dumb item of clothing like space shoes or ultra-mega-miniskirts. I’ve never really been an environmental activist, because I’m not really the aggressive rallying type, but I have been a supporter since I was little and crushing cans for the monies. I do not understand how society became so wasteful. Yeah, maybe styrofoam cups are convenient and whatever, but how can you knowingly destroy Earth for convenience when it houses you and gives you nice things like beaches, snowboarding and Takeshi? It is very awesome that there are so many resources available to teach people nowadays and I think with this whole iGeneration, people are becoming more and more aware of what’s going on. I just wish more people had cared enough about it on their own, rather than following in the footsteps of celebrities, but what matters is that people are caring.

This is my last week of summer school and then freeedom. I haven’t been doing what I had planned to but I have been trying to organize the room. I have rearranged some things to get rid of some cardboard boxes, though. I think I keep ignoring everything else I wanted to do because my cleaning hasn’t been complete. This week I shall be reading and studying though.

Regarding movies, so far this summer I have seen Ocean’s 13, Transformers (twice), License to Wed, Die Hard, and Knocked Up (the last four in one day, thanks to ninja skills). I have not been disappointed so I am glad. I hope to see the Simpsons movie when it comes out as well. I think the best part in Transformers is the twenty seconds they waste on the close-up of that screaming girl as one of the robots is flipping over her. Maybe she’s friends with Shia Lebeouf or something. And when I went to watch those four movies, there were so many cameos of people from The Office that I am getting the movies a little mixed up. When I watch movies with a lot of extras, I wonder how I can get in on the action, because it seems so easy to just walk around in a background for a living. I mean, I totally did it for free in the spring musical my senior year. I don’t see why I shouldn’t get paid for it.

Next month I will be going to China again. I hope we get to go on a Chinese tour because I don’t know how much shopping I will feel like doing this time. I am still bitter about everyone saying what they did, of course, but this time my mommer will be there to help stave off the meanies. Alright! I also want to go on the tour because I will get more usage out of my neck pillow that I bought recently. YESS. Maybe this time my mom can assist in finding me a hubby, preferably one who looks and sounds like Wang Lee Hom.

Yesterday I went with Wendy and Susan to Huntington Beach. It took forever and a day to find parking and all the lots were full. It was a little bit of a shock, because I had never seen a parking lot that you have to pay ten bucks to go into be full before. What sucked was that not long before we got to the beach, the sky turned dark and got darker as time passed. We were probably there for an hour before we started feeling drops of water. Since there were so many people, we were nowhere near the actual ocean, so it couldn’t possibly have been the waves splashing at us. The drops gradually fell faster and we realized it was sprinkling, causing us to leave in disappointment. So the day would not be a complete waste, we went shopping in Irvine/Tustin and then had dinner at Lucille’s, where my sister met up with us. Oh my goodness I thought I was going to burst after dinner. It was so delicioso and even more so because it was free since my sister paid for me. Teehee.

So I guess that’s all I can remember for now. Keep recycling, folks. Oh, speaking of being green, the reusable shopping bags from Target are freakin’ cute. I heart them!! <3