speeding towards the new year.

mum, dad and i departed taichung early this morning for kaohsiong via bullet train. what would normally be a 3 hour train ride was a measly one hour and a very smooth hour at that. once at the kaohsiong station, we hired a driver for the day who proceeded to drive us through the city making little picturesque pitstops at all sorts of landmarks along the way. temples, pagodas, lakes, bridges, tunnels, etc etc. one really cool place we stopped was this tiny marine aquarium that had tons of coral and exotic fish. theodore would have felt like a kid in a candy store. i was able to take a few pictures there, but got yelled at several times by the staff since i'm technically not allowed to, and they started watching me rather closely. took a lot of pictures today with dad's new fantastic nikon digital camera (a christmas present from john), but sadly i will have to wait until i'm back in the states to upload them all.

did some shopping at this huge new mall in the city - found a muji store and stocked up on pens, as well as finally found something i think theodore will like. ate a LOT, especially for dinner. we just spent an hour at a night market and ate at about five different little food stands. i had pig brain and spinal cord for the first time ever. it was neuron-y, corpus collosum-y goodness:

well. it's just about 9pm on new year's eve. we were going to go where there's an outdoor concert and fireworks, but we're all pooped out from ten hours of sightseeing today (10a-8pish).. so i'll probably be asleep when the clock strikes midnight. kind of sad, but i'll be awake for all the american new years' so i'll just celebrate in my head and wish i were in LA or chicago.

{ 9.03p taiwan / 5.03a los angeles }

culture shock.

after my late night arrival to taichung on friday night, i still couldn't sleep - you know, the whole unfamiliar surroundings and it being daytime in california. saturday was my cousin shiao yu's engagement. amidst several ministers speaking, three dress changes for his fiance, the twelve-course meal, slideshow and romantic music, i became really confused as to whether i was at a wedding or an engagement. i guess the so-called engagement is what the bride pays for, and thus it is mostly her family and friends in attendence, and the wedding is the groom's time to shine. hell, they even exchanged vows that translated to "do you take this woman to be your fiance, blah blah blah.." since i won't be here for the wedding in two weeks, my uncle gave me the wedding favors : a deck of cards, each with a different picture on it of the bride and/or groom, all very done up in different styles of clothing and backgrounds. jo-fucking-der. i think i prefer the american tradition of the engagement being a private ordeal between the two people, and then just a single culminating event as the wedding.

i was finally able to sleep last night, since it'd really been about 48 hours since i'd slept any amount more than dozing off for an hour. this morning mum, my aunt and i went to a street market to shop around for a bit and get some breakfast. then a bunch of the fam drove up into the mountains to this little bbq place where you pick your chicken live out of a pen, and a style of cooking, then slaughter and season them for you to cook over some hot coals. after we finally got back to my aunt's place, mum, dad and i went to the costco which happens to be less than a block away. seriously insane. i mean, it's the same as any costco in the states, same setup, same look, same products (all imported) plus some additional stuff catered to the taiwanese palette. however, if you imagine the busiest you've ever seen a costco in the states, and then multiply the number of people in it by about fifty, then you have what it was like here. you could barely navigate the place without a cart, it was so freaking packed. and there were huuuge lines waiting just to get at the food samples, and the rotisserie chicken and other deli goods. i don't understand. i wanted to get out of there as fast as possible, being claustrophobic and all. obviously, the taiwanese don't believe in the mantra "time is money."

i miss los angeles and chicago terribly. only when i'm eating the delicious taiwanese foods am i happy to be here, and while that's been a lot of the time, there's still a lot of down time in between. tonight it's off to a night market for shopping and more eating. then gaoshiong early tomorrow (via bullet train!) for new year's eve and day.

{ 6.30p taiwan / 2.30a los angeles }

landing.

some sixteen hours after we boarded our flight to taipei, we have finally landed, gone through customs, fond our bags and boarded a "free go" bus and await departure to taichung. another three hours to go before i'm tucked into some unfamiliar bed at one of my aunt and uncle's.

the flight wasn't bad as far as 14.5 hours flights go. we flew EVA air and their new jets are actually qutie roomy (at least in comparison to my memories..) and each seat had a large touch video screen with on demand movies, tv, music and games. i can't sleep on planes (it is approx 7a in california and 11p here in taiwan, so i've essentially pulled an all-nighter) and spent my time watching a couple movies (i have finally seen breakfast at tiffany's), playing sudoku and reading the book harv got my for christmas.

the bus is on the go now. time to try and get some sleep.

{ 11.24p taiwan / 7.24a los angeles }

pinkberry schminkberry.

ah, the last day before i depart for taiwan. the day was spent getting travel supplies and packing. i did spend a one hour stint in old town pasadena just for shits and giggles. it was a beautiful crisp day out and i felt i needed to spend some of it outside my parents house. it was kind of cool also to see all the stands set up on the side of the road in preparation for the rose parade. didn't buy anything while i was there, though i finally tried the infamous pinkberry. my impression? no big deal. same as my reaction to berryline over in boston (which is essentially a pinkberry knockoff). i mean, the froyo is tasty and the fruit is nice, but i've been frequenting 21choices since high school (imagine coldstone creamery, except with frozen yogurt instead of ice cream) and neither pinkberry nor berryline even come remotely close.

after dinner my parents and i went to this little chinese massage parlor nearby where i proceeded to get my neck, shoulder and back pulverized by a little old chinese man. it was so painful that i loved it, and even wish he'd applied more pressure (but he was practically wheezing by the end so it would probably have been rude of me to ask him to exert any more energy). does that make me a masochist? hmm..

anyway, as previously mentioned, i'm off to taiwan tomorrow. my parents and i have a 3pm flight out of LAX and we're supposed to land in taipei sometime friday night, and then we have to make the drive down to taichung since my cousin's engagement is on saturday. i'm kind of dreading this trip, but i'm trying to keep an open mind about it and hopefully it turns out alright.

if i can get my ass up early enough in the morning, i'm going to grab a chicken curry salad tartine at le pain quotidien and coffee from peet's coffee&tea, both of which i have been craving but haven't had the opportunity to go get yet. mm..

christmas and its eve.

this was probably as low key as it gets, and thank goodness for that. most of the past two days were spent at home, alone, since my parents were at their office (the office was closed on christmas day but they still had work to do). monday morning i spent at the dmv getting my license replaced (since my wallet was stolen back in october) - luckily it wasn't too bad since i had previously made an appointment. when my parents got home from work, my mom and i prepped for christmas eve dinner, hot-pot-style. mike and his girlfriend mary joined us and brought a tasty bottle of wine. apparently, my parents don't exactly have wine glasses so i was finally able to bust out theodore's birthday present to me earlier this year: four riedel stemless wine glasses, or tumblers.

after dinner i went over to jackson's house to catch up for a few hoursand meet his new girlfriend, adabi (sp? i'll have to double check that with him). she's a half-nigerian, half-czech sweetheart and they seem really happy together, so i'm happy for him. despite becoming a marine corps infantryman, jackson is still the same old jackson, though a little more mature and confident.

today i stayed at home, did some work, and went to pasadena and watched the new keira knightley, james mcavoy movie, atonement. surprisingly, after the movie started, i realized that i had actually once read the first part of the book - guess i should go finish it at some point..

and now to list off the christmas presents i acquired this year..
_mom+dad: palm centro, large white salvatore ferragamo purse.
_harvard: first three books of robert jordan's wheel of time series.
_john: amazon.com gift certificate.
_theodore: harman kardon soundsticks (speakers).











a pretty good year, i think. no?

home is where the heart is.

it's good to be "home", albeit weird. my room is the same room i had in middle school - same desk, same bed, same crap stuffed into the nooks and crannies - with additional crap from my parents and recent years piled on top. this is a result of going to a boarding high school. i have no personal closet space and live out of my suitcase. but in the end, this is where the temperature lingers in the 70s during the winter, where i can jump in my car and drive 80 mph on the freeways, where i have access to peet's coffee&tea, sprinkles, le pain quotidien, urth cafe and toast, where fresh healthy california foods are aplenty, and where the best authentic asian foods i crave are cheap and better than you can find anywhere on the planet outside of asia itself. don't get me wrong, i've been home a little over twenty four hours and i'm already itching to get out, and yet a good part of me is enjoying basking in southern california goodness.

but to get back to the word "home": i could really either say "i have no home" or "i have three homes: philly, chicago, LA." but there is really no place that i feel completely at ease.

philadelphia is simply where i go to school, not a city in which i would truly want to live, but also the only city in which i have my own personal space. many of my closest social ties are there, but they are also in the city for school and over the next couple years will migrate across the country and the globe.

my parents house in arcadia is where i have lived since i was seven, and where i will probably live for a few months after i graduate, but every inch of my being wants nothing more than to get the fuck out of here after about a week. i love the LA area and am relatively familiar with those parts which are important to me, but social ties here are wanting - another result of going to a boarding school and not keeping in touch with anyone from before high school.

chicago is currently fantastic middle ground, or rather, a neutral playing field - a place where i have no obligations, a city that i love with the man that i love - but it is still so newly unfamiliar both socially and geographically that i feel like a constant guest/tourist.

having lived in what-to-call-home limbo for nearly seven years, i can't decide whether i am aching to be able to definitively call someplace "home", or if i am scared shitless of it.

go west, young man.

friday was my last day in chicago, so most of it was spent doing laundry, running errands and packing. met up with theodore after his company christmas party and we went to his parents house in schaumburg to give them their presents (the aforementioned coasters), which they loved and watch daniel's basketball game against fremd. sadly, they lost, but what can you do. had dinner with theodore and his parents after the game at the village, then the two of us went and watched national treasure. i was very confused because all the previews before the movie were for animated and heavy vfx films (pixar's wall.e, dreamworks' kung fu panda, blue sky's dr. seuss's horton hears a who!, disney's the chronicles of narnia: prince caspian, etc, etc) and then there was a disney 2D animation short about goofy buying an entertainment system.. i swear i thought we'd walked into the wrong theatre and were about to watch enchanted or something. the movie itself was decent, not great. first half was good but the 2nd half kind of felt like they ran out of money to do what they really wanted so they just resolved it in a quick, dirty, happy way.

saturday morning i caught a flight back to los angeles, with a transfer in las vegas. got delayed and i didn't get into LAX until 6pm. finished reading kite runner while sitting at the airport. this morning i went hiking with mum and dad, then mum took me to see my chinese chiropractor who cracked all my joints and it was fabulous. then we drove to beverly hills to go shopping on rodeo drive. weather was beautiful: sunshine, blue skies, temperature in the 70s. i got a white print dress and small black leather purse from bcbg, then a large white leather salvatore ferragamo purse from saks fifth avenue. and then we waited in line for almost an hour to get some sprinkles cupcakes. then for dinner we went to my all-time favorite dumpling place. fun fucking times. i heart LA.and oh how i've missed driving.. >.<

chicago happenings.

monday and tuesday were spent in theodore's apartment writing a paper or working on my resume and, of course, catching up on sleep. wednesday afternoon i decided to go to chicago's natural history museum, the field museum. spent several hours in there and loved it. i'm not sure why but i've always loved natural history museums, even if i find them slightly creepy and being in them often gives me goosebumps.

thursday i went downtown and had lunch with theodore at wow bao, then i proceeded to a movie theatre to watch juno, which was absolutely fantastic and so quirky and laughable. it makes me wonder though, what michael cera is like in real life because he is just so damn good at playing the infinitely awkward but still lovable teenage boy (eg, arrested development and superbad).

afterwards, to kill even more time, i stuck around the theatre and watched alvin and the chipmunks. terrible terrible idea. i mean, the movie is good for kids under ten, and there were plenty of those in the theatre (my favorite part, when the chipmunks watch TV and spongebob comes on, the whole frickin' theatre of little kiddes started singing the theme song along with the movie.. another personal solid point for the movie, matthew gray gubler, who plays dr. spender reid on criminal minds, and whom i find absolutely dreamy in that nerdy, skinny, socially awkward way, voiced simon the chipmunk.


on a side note. theodore and my joint christmas present for his parents are coasters for their bar. but not just any coasters. i redesigned this neon light that they really want to say "slowik style" instead of "old style" and he laser cut them into bass wood and mounted some thin cork on the bottom. they look really good, albeit kind of cheesy, but hopefully they like them.

the dark knight: official trailer.

taken from this blog (which also includes the first 6 min of the film, bootleg style).



it looks amaaaaaaazing!

winter winter in chicago.

making time was fantastic, especially since we all had the brilliant idea of bring and wearing ear plugs rather than go deaf for the following 48 hours. went to grab cheesesteaks at pat's afterwards with jason, so i didnt get home until after 3a, and i got back up at 6a to do some last minute packing before flying to chicago.

saturday was cold, snowy and windy. theodore and i drove out to elgin to watch daniel's basketball game, went to petco and bought a beautiful anemone (pictured), and spent the rest of the night hanging out and drinking with his roommates in their apartment.

sunday morning, theodore's mom and her friends debbie and linda came over to look at his apartment for the first time, then we drove out to woodfield mall out in schaumburg to do some christmas shopping. got something for my mom from swarovski, as usual, and he got some stuff for his brothers. we also went to aquarium adventure where he bought a blue hippo tang (ie, dori from finding nemo).

hardship makes the heart grow fonder.

so after another 48 hours of hell trying to get my phone shipped and to my apartment (i really won't elaborate on the details, except that i had a major freakout and major breakdown in the process, among several mini breakdowns), i finally have my centro. oh dear goodness, it is amazing and i adore it. also, it's nice to have a functioning phone again, because verizon canceled my service to my old phone last night and i had hell trying to get things done today without it. oh, lordy lordy. i am a happy child after a week of misery.

in other news, took my last exam of the semester today, computer animation algorithms and techniques. i don't really know how i did, but i came away from it feeling pretty good about it, so.. fingers crossed!!

making time tonight. chicago tomorrow morning. pow!

wtf, sprint?!?!

so, i ordered my palm centro on monday morning. it is now wednesday night, sixty hours later, and it still has not shipped. the "order status" online has been asi_fulfillment since monday night. according to ALL the customer service people i have called, that means the warehouse got the order and is just waiting for UPS to pick it up and give it a tracking number. uhm, did someone drop the package in a corner and forget about it? i don't understand - according to them, everything is fine with my order, it's even been charged to my credit card. i am really effing frustrated right now, which is not a good sign for sprint considering i haven't even started using their service yet. then again, it's not a good sign for me either because i am stuck with them for two years. i'm on the verge of canceling the whole thing because if it's not here by friday, i'm fucked since i leave saturday morning for chicago and i don't get back to philly until mid january. and because life is so ironice, i'm either going to get an email in about five minutes saying it's shipped or it's really lost in a warehouse and not going to get here by friday, or ever.

a lovely shade of yellow.

so, about a week ago i pulled out my yellow silk bcbg dress that i bought 2 years ago, wore once, then stashed in the back of my closet. when i took it out of it's bag, i discovered huge wine-looking stains all over it. obviously, someone borrowed it without telling me and didn't even get it cleaned (though my summer subletters deny any knowledge). after a week at the dry-cleaners, i finally got it back and they worked magic! that fabulous dress is back to it's original beauty and i couldn't be happier about it. lame i know, but it was expensive and meant a lot to me.


today i ordered the new palm centro (in black) and signed up for 2 years with sprint. i was going to wait until i graduated to get a pda/smartphone, but theodore found special deal with sprint that is unlimited data and texting plus 450 anytime minutes and unlimited nights and weekend for $30/month. a plan like that would normally cost around $70-80/month, so i went to the store and played around with the centro to make sure that i'd like it (which i do) then ordered it online. hopefully it gets here before i leave for chicago..



i worked on my graphic design final portfolio for must of the day then had dinner with honea at the new dumpling house in chinatown. afterwards we met up with hastings and his fiance amy at the trocadero for their monday night movie event, tonight's movie being superbad. it was $3 (which counted toward a drink at the bar) and a lot of fun. i'd forgotten how funny that movie is, and they even had a tasty drink special called the mango mclovin'.

first snow and last week of classes.

the title says it all.

kisses.

nightmare-ish.

recently, i have been having some very vivid dreams, some good, mostly bad. the bad have been particularly bad (someone breaking into my apartment and raping me at gun point, for example) and have left me feeling anxious and on edge a lot. upon mentioning my recent flood of dreams to theodore, he said that on the bright side, it was a sign that i'm sleeping better. i have in deed been sleeping better due to a more regular sleep/wake schedule i've sort of enforced on myself. but his comment reminded me of something from my childhood.

ever since i was little, i hated dreams whether they were good or bad. i think it's due to the fact that if i have them (or rather, remember them) they are so vivid to me that i have trouble distinguishing them from reality sometimes. there are a couple nightmares that i had when i was around five or six from which i can still remember every detail. anyway, i used to pray every night before i went to bed (i was raised christian) that i would have no dreams, good or bad (hao mong, hwai mong do bu yao). looking back, i really didn't dream after i started going to elementary school, but that's also about the time that i started having trouble falling asleep / staying asleep, ie, that's about when my insomnia started kicking in.

so i guess it comes down to which i'd rather live with: insomnia or nightmares?

wanderings.

thursday night i grabbed dinner with cricket and garrett (who was in town for a quick second) at bubble house after seeing that both new deck and white dog were packed, and we were on a tight schedule (since garrett had a recruiting thing to be at). it turned out to be a great choice (i highly recommend the burger there) and a very good time. afterwards, since it was still early, cricket and i bought some cider and watched reruns of america's next top model and south park before heading downtown to irish pub for more drinks and food. there, we were hit on two very drunk, very stupid, very weird guys. we peaced out first chance we got and went to roosevelt's for a bit where, surprisingly, the music was a little better (though not much).

saturday, i left siggraph work hours early to buy a book from the penn bookstore then head to the central free library of philadelphia (over by logan square). it was a beautiful day and i really haven't been in that area much so it was nice, albeit cold. my purpose was to get anthony bourdain's no reservations : around the world on an empty stomach signed for my dear brother. i had to forgo listening to him speak so i could stand in line (otherwise, i would have been in line for at least three hours instead of my quick half hour once he actually started signing).

this morning, i went to domi's place to address funk about and apologize for my mode of departure from the group last semester. it was hard, slightly emotional, a little tense.. but it was good for everyone i think. we'll see how it goes.

ALSO, i can't wait to see theodore's saltwater tank. last time i was there it was just a few live rocks and a damsel. now there are two clownfish (named dumpling and sushi, loves it!), a chocolate chip starfish, two damsels, hermit crabs, snails and the feather duster.

dancing, sexy furry animals..?

probably the most disturbing and ridiculous commercial i've ever seen. oh, orangina. made by the mill: www.the-mill.com

i <3 target.

it's holiday season! and that means holiday commericals, and that means target's marketing people must have come up with some sweet tv spots with some sweet music. i adored last year's using the sounds of frapp. this year, it's jim noir's "my patch" reworked especially for target. very catchy little tune that's been running through my mind all day. gee, it must be tired.

and of course, the actual jim noir song:

A message from the President, Provost and EVP

We are writing to inform you of a serious incident that occurred on the periphery of the Penn campus involving several individuals not affiliated with the University.

At approximately 12:10 a.m. today, two Penn police officers responded to a reported disturbance involving an armed suspect inside of Club Wizzards, located at 38th and Chestnut streets. The Penn officers found that one of the club employees had been shot and critically wounded by the suspect. The suspect, who ignored police requests to drop his weapon, was subsequently fatally wounded by police. The club employee is listed in critical condition at HUP.


which reminds me, just a few weeks ago, there was a shooting outside koko bongo's (same block) on a saturday night around 1am. oh, ilafilthia, killadelphia, how you worry me.

thanksgiving2007 : bostonMA.

thanksgiving i was up from 4am until 6am. woke up that early to ensure i could shower, walk to the train station, take the train to the airport, and go through airport security without having to worry about time. surprisingly, the airport wasn't that busy and my flight wasn't delayed and even landed early.

after taking the free shuttle from manchester to boston, harv picked me up and then we went to logan airport to drop off heidi (cindyL's sister) and pick up theodore. from there we went to john's house where i got to see my niece natalie for the first time in almost a year (and she has gotten so smart and talkative and even more adorable, which i really didn't think was humanly possible) and meet my week old baby nephew dylan. he's a little ball of sleep and gums. and so tiny!

dinner consisted of wine, a turducken, meat loaf, green bean casserole, mashed potatoes and gravy, sweet mashed potatoes, creamed corn, cranberry sauce, mango salsa and yellow tail sashimi fresh straight from japan. it was a very yummy dinner. around 11, harv, cindyL, mum, dad, theodore and i drove to the outlets to do some black friday shopping. i was feeling sick, and traffic was absolutely horrendous, but we managed to start shopping around 1ish and stuck around until almost 5am. once i walked around for a bit in the fresh, albeit freeeeeezing, air, i felt a lot better. in the end, i bought a pair of pumps (originally $120, marked down to $30) from kenneth cole and theodore got a bluish-grey sherpa-lined hoodie from j.crew.

friday, the fam had a late lunch at shabu-zen in chinatown, and teddy and hannah came along. nowhere near as good as the shabu shabu place in little tokyo, los angeles, but still decent. we walked around boston for a bit. had dinner with the fam at giacomo's, which has an amazing huge-portioned seafood pasta. saturday morning we had a taiwanese-style breakfast at this little place in the middle of nowhere, then we headed over to harvard square. while mom and dad did their shopping for harvard paraphernalia, theodore and i grabbed burgers at bartley's - sooo amazing. other tasty stops that day in the square: berryline for frozen yogurt and burdick's for hot chocolate. theodore left to catch his flight to chicago in the evening, and harv rented i now pronounce you chuck & larry. stupidest movie ever. but, it was so funny to my parents that neither of them fell asleep at any point, which has never ever happened. ever.

today low-key and spent mostly at john+cindy's playing with natalie and dylan. caught the shuttle back up to manchester and got back to my apartment in philly around 9pm. exhausted, btw.

as for theodore and my family. things went pretty well. my mom's biggest complaint was that he wasn't talkative / social enough, which, if you know him, is really funny. but since there was no drama or joy-luck-club-esque fiasco, i'm quite happy with how things turned out. he even learned to play mah-jong after thanksgiving dinner and won a game! i'm so proud.

for some photos, click-y here.

pre-thanksgiving thoughts.

i am quite proud of myself. while i thought it would be a sleepless weekend spent unsuccessfully trying to get my programming assignment to work, i left the lab by midnight on both saturday and sunday nights, and finished it around 9pm monday, and turned it in a whole 3 hours early! it wasn't working quite perfectly, but the one thing that was questionable was so minute (occasional flickering when using squad interpolation for motion blending) that it really wasn't worth it.

tomorrow is thanksgiving. my flight to manchester is tomorrow morning at 7.45, which means i need to catch a train over to the airport no later than 6am, probably earlier since there will definitely be thanksgiving congestion once i'm there. from there i have to catch a shuttle down to boston. weee... i hate the traveling part of traveling.

this weekend is a much anticipated one for several reasons:

_the last time my whole family was together was over christmas/new year's last year when we all took a trip to spain.

_john+cindy just had a baby boy last week, so i have a new nephew to meet and play with. also, i haven't seen my niece, natalie, in almost a year and she is quite possibly the most adorable and smartest little girl i've ever met in my life.

_probably most pertinent to me, is that theodore will be there to meet my family for the first time. before now, he's only met john, cindy and natalie. now he meets everyone at the same place and time. luckily, baby dylan will probably be the center of attention and that will make it easier to avoid awkward situations. i still remember the first time i told my parents and harv about him. it was during spring break of my freshman year, and we were visiting hawaii. we'd just eaten at a restaurant that a friend had recommended (that charged $12 for a single pan-seared scallop that we split four ways). in no way did i think he would still be a part of my life two and a half years later, much less actually meeting my family. anyway, i can only hope for the best.

_and last but not least, it is rumored that we are having a turducken this year (for those that don't know, that's a turkey stuffed with a duck stuffed with a chicken, and no, i'm not kidding). omg, i've never had one before and it sounds TASTY! can't wait for the tryptophan-induced food coma. bring it on!

celebrate!

my nephew has a name! dylan wu pan. quel adorable!

since i have tons of work due on monday, i spent all thursday and friday furiously trying to finish everything other than my computer animation assignment, since i knew i'd need the whole weekend to finish that. friday night was AJ's birthday dinner and celebration. a whole big group of us had dinner at 707 downtown, then headed to pure for making time. soooo much fun! even jason and jared came for the superb little dance party, but now my ears are shot and have been ringing since before i even left the club.

the whole of today was spent in the moore100 computer labs programming. took a break in the afternoon to go watch beowulf (subsidized by our siggraph student chapter) in 3d. first time i've seen something in 3d that didn't give me a headache. i actually kind of liked the movie, but i went in with really low expectations since both brad and danG told me it was a terrible movie. i guess that's the trick.

great and bad news.

great news..! john+cindy had a baby earlier this morning. a baby boy, 7 lbs 1 oz. adorable!! no name yet from what i've heard.

terrible news..! (and completely unrelated):

"Penn’s Division of Public Safety has had a productive partnership with AlliedBarton Security Services since 1996 when the organization, originally known as SpectaGuard Inc., partnered with the Penn Police Department to become the first security company in the country to employ street patrol as a routine part of its operation. Regretfully, on Monday, November 13, 2007, an AlliedBarton Security Officer compromised the integrity of not only DPS and AlliedBarton’s mission, but also the public’s confidence in the many services that the Division provides to the Penn community. After providing a walking escort to a female student, the Officer allegedly indecently exposed himself to the complainant."

again, i really do not feel safe here anymore. this. is. not. a. good. thing. at. all. again, i can't wait to graduate and get out of here.

a bit of housekeeping.

1. i no longer feel safe here in philadelphia. five police officers have been shot in the past three weeks (one fatally). and two days ago a student here was sexually assaulted - she woke up to find the guy on top of her in her apartment. this happened less than a block from campus. i'm a little unnerved by it. and i live about 5 blocks deeper into west philly than she does. i've started jumping every time i hear people outside my door.

2. the teacher for my writing seminar is so annoying. she is insane. doesn't make any sense. treats us like five-year-olds. comes up with these weird ideas.. and it's not just me that thinks this, the entire class rants about her before she arrives to class. every minute in that class drives me to the brink of insanity.

3. confessor, terry goodkind's 11th and concluding novel to the sword of truth series arrived in the mail today (i pre-ordered it awhile back), and i am soooo excited to read it.

4. i got a hand-written letter in the mail today from lucas who is studying abroad in japan for the year. there really is something Romantic (yes, with a capital R) about getting tangible mail from people (other than bills and junk mail).

middle america.

flew to chicago thursday night. theodore took friday off work so we got to spend the day together. we went to wiener circle for lunch (which has the most amazing chicago-style hotdogs), we also checked out a cool aquarium store where he bought some live rock for his new saltwater tank, and watched american gangster (the new denzel washington, russel crowe flick - a really good solid drama).

that night began my twenty-four hour excursion into middle america. after his roommates got home from work, we all headed the two hours out to the small town of rocktonIL - on the illinois/wisconsin border - where brett and kari grew up. we went to the "town-y bars," which was fun, and spent the night at kari's house. saturday morning we drove out to brett's, which was out in farm land, had breakfast there, shot some rifles (i think) at some little gourds (i shot two from 30 yards!! my first time shooting too, hehe), spent the afternoon hiking through a patch of woods that his family owns, and even went to his grandparents' house for a bit. back at brett's later that night they set up a tent and built a bonfire where we sat around, had some beer, and cooked up some brats and turkey dogs. around 10p, theodore and i started back to chicago since i had an early flight sunday morning back to philadelphia. the rest of the guys stayed overnight to camp out.

fantastic weekend.

bars, bulls, bees and brotschuls.

thursday night i met up with liz, erica and feldman at bonner's as usual, but the place was dry so we headed over to the irish pub. nothing eventful, but a good low-key time to be had. stopped in at roosevelt's too after we parted ways because i recognized my bartender friends working. needless to say, i slept like a baby that night.

friday night domi and i headed to old city for a first friday interpretive dance thing-y by headlong, because honea supposedly had won an interpretive dance to be done about him. if you're confused, don't worry, i was too. it never happened because he was late, but we stuck around for over an hour and it was, uhm, interesting. i've never understood interpretive dance and i still don't but, oh well! post said dance experience i headed over to the F.U.E.L gallery (the old real world philadelphia house). it was the last night of the red bull : art of the can exhibit, which was pretty cool. mostly lame, but a few good pieces here and there. there was a pseud0 crazy-drunken party going on and the DJ was one of the guys from the roots.

saturday was uneventful. worked on cis462 homework and also had siggraph work hours. i did however go watch bee movie. given i went in with pretty low expectations, it was actually really good. and the rest of the audience seemed to really like it, kids and adults alike. i mean, they all even applauded at the end, and this is philadelphia!

today i went to bryn mawr in the morning to meet up with lily. we had lunch at cosi with the brotschuls (they drove out last night because amyB has a conference of sorts here until wednesday) and it was so good to see them and the boys. severin is in first grade now and dorian is four years old and running around and talking! most of the rest of the day was spent doing schoolwork, but i managed to stop by south street's chop shop to get a quick haircut. weeee!

autumn's leaky roof & a brave new funk.

so it rained for a bunch during the last week, and when the rains went away our indian summer ended (fingers crossed) and beautiful cold crisp fall weather settled in. thank goodness for that, but on the downside, the leak in my roof from last year that my landlord supposedly fixed has returned. seems like they simply but up a new layer of plaster - hopefully they actually fix the leak this year because my wall looks like its melting, moldy and probably detrimental to my health.

strictly funk's fall show a brave new funk was this past weekend. i had helped my boy jason finish the video on time and was also asked to take photographs during their saturday matinee show (photos here). tannis came back all the way from paris!! she, cricket and i grabbed a quick dinner and cocktails at pod between the two shows. quite a few alumni showed up (greg, haley, hilary, tami, anna, shosh, anthony, eric, ryan) and a good chunk of mask&wig boys were there too. the thought of re-auditioning for funk has crossed my mind, but a lot more consideration will be going into that before anything happens.

after the saturday night show, i headed down to old city for ben & tiffany's halloween party. i didn't dress up of course (i don't do halloween), but most everyone else was and it was a good time. nice and low-key which was fantastic and exactly what i hoped it would be. i headed back to west philly around 1.30a and made an appearance at the funk party for a few min before heading home and crashing. somehow though, i had managed to contract food poisoning (it wasn't alcohol because i really didn't drink anything after my cocktails at pod much earlier in the night) and got really sick later that night so sunday was spent in bed recuperating.

today i got to meet jerry tessendorf who is the principal graphics scientist at rhythm&hues. we chatted about the studio for a bit and then i attended his talk on the bamf effect (used in xmen2) and how that evolved into some of the particle, voxel grid and fluid effects (used in superman returns, happy feet, etc). good times.

AutoCAD monkey.

A tourist walked into a pet shop and was looking at the animals on display. While he was there, another customer walked in and said to the shopkeeper, "I'll have an AutoCAD monkey please." The shopkeeper nodded, went over to a cage at the side of the shop and took out a monkey. He fitted a collar and leash, handed it to the customer, saying, "That'll be $5000." The customer paid and walked out with his monkey.

Startled, the tourist went over to the shopkeeper and said, "That was a very expensive monkey. Most of them are only few hundred dollars. Why did that one cost so much?"

The Shopkeeper answered, "Ah, that monkey can draw in AutoCAD - very fast, clear layouts, no mistakes, well worth the money."

The tourist looked at a monkey in another cage. "That one's even more expensive! $10,000! What does it do?"

"Oh, that one's a Design monkey; it can design systems, layout projects, mark-up drawings, write specifications, some even calculate. All the really useful stuff," said the shopkeeper.

The tourist looked around for a little longer and saw a third monkey in its own cage. The price tag around its neck read $50,000. He gasped to the shopkeeper, "That one costs more than all the others put together! What on earth does it do?"

The shopkeeper replied, "Well, I haven't actually seen it do anything, but it says it's an Engineer."

from: les très riches heures de martha stewart.

by Margaret Talbot.
...

Martha Stewart is the apotheosis of this particular cult of expertise, and its most resourceful entrepreneur. She imagines projects of which we would never have thought - gathering dewy grass for our Easter ham, say - and makes us feel the pressing need for training in them. And she exploits, brilliantly, a certain estrangement from home that many working women feel these days. For women who are working longer and longer hours at more and more demanding jobs, it's easy to think of home as the place where chaos reigns and their own competence is called into doubt: easy to regard the office, by comparison, as the bulwark of order. It is a reversal, of course, of the hoary concept of home as a refuge from the tempests of the marketplace. But these days, as the female executives in a recent study attested, the priority they most often let slide is housekeeping: they'll abide disorder at home that they wouldn't or couldn't abide at the office. No working couple's home is the oasis of tranquility and Italian marble countertops that Marthaism seems to promise. But could it be? Should it be? Stewart plucks expertly at that chord of doubt.
...

For women such as these, the didactic faux-maternalism of Martha Stewart seems the perfect answer. She may dispense the kind of homekeeping advice that a mother would, but she does so in toes too chill and exacting to sound "maternal," singling out, for example, those "who will always be lazy" to do her projects. She makes housekeeping safe for the professional woman by professionalizing housekeeping. And you never forget that Stewart is herself a mogul, even when she's baking rhubarb crisp and telling you, in her Shakeresque mantra, that "It's a Good Thing."
...

But if we had the hours, if we had the circumstances, wouldn't we want to fill them with something of our own, with a domestic grace of our own devising? Well, maybe not anymore. For taste is no longer an expression of individuality. It is, more often, an instrument of conformism, a way to assure ourselves that we're living by the right codes, dictated or sanctioned by experts. Martha Stewart's "expertise" is really nothing but another name for the perplexity of her cowed consumers. A lifestyle cult as all-encompassing as hers could thrive only at a time when large numbers of Americans have lost confidence in their own judgment about the most ordinary things. For this reason, Martha Stewart Living isn't really living at all.

making sausage, time, history & darjeeling.

friday was as good a day as any. the penndesign happy hour was the annual much-anticipated archtoberfest - a happy hour with more than twice the booze (mostly german, of course) and lots and lots of hot-off-the-grill sausages. pork or turkey, spicy or mild, cheese or not, marinated in beer. even little veggie dogs for the faint of heart (read: vegetarian). three hours, two slices of pizza, two sausages and four beers later, i was at aj's apartment, drinking sangria that was really more triple sec than wine, hanging out with architects and "the gays" and getting ready for the big night out. every month or so, making time happens at pure night club. yes, pure is a gay club, but making time is a "straight night" with live band and internationally reknowned DJ, and most importantly, always a good time. needless to say, i was pretty waste-y but had a blast dancing the night away and killing my eardrums standing next to some intense subwoofs. twenty four hours later, they have finally stopped ringing.

and, this weekend is homecoming weekend here at the university of pennsylvania. they went all out this year - college green was roped off like a club and the admission lines extended almost the entire length of locust walk. there were beautiful translucent tents galore with architectural lights and canopies scattered about, a ridiculous stage built around the ben franklin statue (not the one everyone pees on), free food and beer, performances by student groups (dhamaka, african rhythms, some a capella groups, and of course, strictly funk), and a world-famous DJ who was sick. the big deal? penn's new campaign: making history. three point five billion dollars to increase financial aid for both undergraduate and graduate students as well as endowment for faculty, new facilities, expansion and construction of the postal lands extending to the schuylkill river.

ended the night with a trip to the ritz theatre in old city with nico, bryan and alexLee to watch wes anderson's new movie the darjeeling limited. classic wes awkward humor. though this one had a flow and feel-good-ness about it that his others did not. still great. still hilarious. loved it.

from: the seam of the snail.

by Cynthia Ozick.

...

I am a kind of human snail, locked in and condemned by my own nature. The ancients believed that the moist track left by the snail as it crept was the snail's own essence, depleting its body little by little; the farther the snail toiled, the smaller it became, until it finally rubbed itself out. That is how perfectionists are. Say to us Excellence, and we will show you how we use up our substance and wear ourselves away, while making scarcely any progress at all.

paramore : crushcrushcrush

I got a lot to say to you
Yeah, I got a lot to say
I noticed your eyes are always glued to me
Keeping them here
And it makes no sense at all

They taped over your mouth
Scribbled out the truth with their lies
You little spies
They taped over your mouth
Scribbled out the truth with their lies
You little spies

Crush
Crush
Crush
Crush, crush
(Two, three, four!)

Nothing compares to a quiet evening alone
Just the one two of us who's counting on
That never happens
I guess I'm dreaming again
Let's be more than this

If you want to play it like a game
Well, come on, come on, let's play
Cause I'd rather waste my life pretending
Than have to forget you for one whole minute

Rock and roll, baby
Don't you know that we're all alone now?
I need something to sing about
Rock and roll, hey
Don't you know, baby, we're all alone now?
I need something to sing about
Rock and roll, hey
Don't you know, baby, we're all alone now?
Give me something to sing about

phallus in wonderland.

oh, mask&wig. i went to their fall show phallus in wonderland tonight. as usual they put on a fantastic show. great skits, side-splitting satires, excellent tap-dancing, hilarious song and dance, sexual innuendo, drag and some damn good music. i can't believe they put together their fall show so quickly.

this is your brain not on drugs.

you know you've impressed your professor when as he is handing you your midterm exam he puts his hand out to shake yours, and with your hand still in his he whispers, and i quote, "good job. that was fuckin' awesome." not frickin', not effin', but straight up dropped the f-bomb. loves it. told you i kicked ass on my persuasion+communication midterm.

also, i got back my first homework assignment for computer animation - best grade i've ever gotten on a homework in a CS course. wooo!

so this is what it's like to not be in funk and have the time to study and put legitimate time and effort into schoolwork. hmm.

oh, windy city.

first of all, i am pretty sure i kicked ass on my persuasion+communication midterm last thursday, so wooooo!

anyway, since it's fall break and we have monday and tuesday off, i flew to chicago thursday night (my flight was delayed by two hours because PHL absolutely sucks and if one thing goes wrong, the whole place goes to shit and every flight gets delayed) and stayed until tuesday morning. it was a good time - relaxing and low key but still fun. spent most saturday in schaumburg to watch daniel's homecoming, celebrate theodore's mum's birthday and then do a little shopping at the aquarium, mall and ikea (random, i know). rest of my time there was good - had some good meals, walked around the city, hung out with his friends and roommates, etc etc. i really do love that city - it puts philadelphia and nyc to shame.

i am a plecostomus!

solitude+SYTYCD.

what a bummer. i really wanted the cubs and phillies to win so they would play each other, and yet both just lost and lost and lost (literally). now i am officially bored and have no further interest in post-season baseball, except that i hate the diamondbacks and hope they get killed.

this past week was one spent relishing in algorithms, essays and solitude. after theodore left last weekend, i realized that i was lonely for the for first time in a long time - but i'm taking it for what it is and really enjoying the hours i spend by myself. i went to the UCAL milonga for the first time this past friday. not too bad, though i think i prefer my wednesday night practicas in center city more. it's nice though since it is only 3 blocks from my apartment.

tonight i had dinner at anjou in old city with tiffany then we headed to the so you think you can dance tour show at the wachovia center. it was awesome!! i won't go into details, but they performed many of the best pieces from the season (though there were some they didn't that i really wish they had). it was a lot of fun and i bought a sweet zip-up hoodie too.

happyfuntime!

a mostly uneventful week. went to the south street tango practica for the 3rd week in a row - it's really a good time. i love it.

theodore came to philadelphia for the weekend! he arrived friday night while i was having dinner at monk's with nico and bryan (omg, those spanish flies - super hot wings - are ridiculous and delicious!).

saturday was a very busy day. we met up with honea and hastings in center city for a street fair, a michael nutter for mayor event (because they volunteer on the campaign), and the city's own octoberfest. afterwards we managed to get standing room tickets to the phillies v. nationals game at citizen's state park. phillies lost, but the park was packed since it was the first time all season that they were in first place in their division. we had dinner at continental in old city with ben and tiffany and hung out with them at their place afterwards. i got to play with their bunny wolfie that i absolutely adore and i'm really thinking about getting one.. hmm. last stop of the night was simon's place in center city afterwards for a mostly-600s architecture party.

aujourd'hui was nice and low-key. we made lunch at my apartment, watched some football games on tv, made our way to campus for a little so he could get some penn gear and say hi to some people before he left for the airport. happyfuntime!

un petit peu de la grande pomme.

i took the p2p bus up to new york city on friday night and got there around 9pm-ish. after meeting up with brad we had dinner at this amazing little turkish place - so good! and then we went to watch the 11.30 show at the comedy cellar which wasn't too bad - first couple of comedians were really good and the few after that were just okay. saturday we grabbed a quick lunch and ben&jerry's before walking around the city for awhile. when brad left to go to long island for yom kippur dinner, i headed over to central park for an outdoor milonga. it had rained earlier in the day so the ground was a little sticky and muddy on top of being uneven cement tile. other than that though, it was a great milonga and i danced for nearly the whole time - three hours! needless to say my feet are dead sore, but it was very much worth it. next week is supposed to be the last one until next summer, and there's supposed to be a live band too, but i doubt i'll be able to make it up.

got back to the iladelph this morning around 11.30. got home with enough time to shower before i head to head off to a meeting. later walked down to chinatown to get my shaved noodle fix and buy some groceries. good effing weekend.

our love to admire.

a fantastic weekend all in all.

but first of all, i forgot to mention that i had dinner with lily and her parents and friends from bryn mawr at morimoto's on monday night in celebration of her 21st. i haven't seen her parents in years but it's always such a strange experience - they are far less conservative than my own, yet lily is far more conservative than i. who knows. it was a good time though.

friday night i left the penndesign happy hour early because the lovely amyT made her way up to philadelphia from dc. seeing her was definitely refreshing, and catching up with her it surprised me that we're both at similar places in our lives and dealing with similar issues. especially since our experiences over the past 12+ months have been completely different and on opposite sides of the planet. we had dinner at cafe spice (indian) down in old city then rented the science of sleep to watch at home, which is probably the weirdest and most confusing movie i have ever seen (but i really haven't seen that many movies).

saturday was a beautiful day - cold too! felt like fall, which is strange since two days earlier it was hot and humid to the point of unbearable-ness to my dry southern-california-desert-air breathing self. aj, ashley, kristen, uteki and i had thai for dinner at this place called lemon grass that i'd never heard of - but it was quite tasty. then all of us except for uteki went to the interpol concert at tower. it was amazing. they're one of those bands that sounds even better live than they do recorded. such a great show - loves it.

philadelphia tango.

last night (wednesday) i finally dragged my ass to a tango event, this one being the south street practica in center city. the south street tango studio is actually the very large studio apartment and workspace of an artist named jerry klein. it was pretty nice - i would say about 20 people were there by the time i left. and i definitely had some great dances. my only not-so-great observation was that despite the floor being able to hold at least 6 or 7 couples very very comfortably, there were usually only 2-3 couples dancing at a given time. but other than that i really enjoyed it and look forward to going back. i'm so excited there's actually tango in philadelphia - who knew?

some firsts and getting situated.

i arrived in chicago thursday night and stuck around until tuesday morning. it is truly a beautiful city, though the blatant racial divides is still quite shocking. friday consisted of my very first pair of diesel jeans, my very first friday-night-lights highschool football game (pretty intense and mildly entertaining) as well as a night out at salud in wicker park (and several pomegranate mojitos) followed by smart bar and my very first chicago-style hot dog (with pickles, mustard, onions, relish, tomatoes and celery salt.. dragged through the garden, as they say). it was delicious, fantastic, amazing, orgasmic. the rest of the weekend consisted of dinner with his fam at maggiano's, car washing and driving (his '73 nova is really quite a piece of work), wandering the city and seeing the sights, checking out smith+gill where he works, going to a cubs game at wrigley field (vs. the dodgers who won 11-3, weee!), and a pleasant bike ride down the lake side. all in all it was a very good time.

arrived in philadelphia tuesday afternoon and spent the time unpacking and cleaning my apartment. lunched with liz, jared and alexaB at koch's deli, studied physics for hours, then went to liz's apartment in center city to drink and hang out. jared, mack, gill, mattS and newbie 'sheeps' was there. we ended up going to roosevelt's and then proceed to watch mack, mattS and sheeps climb into the inner workings of one of the schuylkill river bridges. first day of classes was a long one, but i got that damn physics exam out of the way finally. i'm in a writing seminar with all freshmen which is awkward. the class i'm dreading yet still really looking forward to is CIS462 (computer animation) - syllabus looks hard, and we're supposed to use C++ (i'm screwed) but it's all about the inner workings of animation so i'm totally excited for it too. went to rittenhouse square for an outdoor concert with honea then had dinner and a long talk back at roosevelt's (again) which was nice.

unprecedented.

for the first time, i am not pulling my hair out screaming to go back to school. i am actually kind of dreading it. don't get me wrong, i can't wait to be living in my own apartment again, to be in the same city as most of my nearest and dearest, to be able to stay out past midnight and be able to go out drinking because i don't have to drive everywhere.

however, there is a twinge of sadness that the summer is coming to a close, that a great internship has ended, that i have a physics exam the first day of classes, that i will again be stressed and sleeping an average of 4.5 hours a night, that i have to really start applying to jobs, that i have to figure out and complete my senior design project, that i won't have 15 hours a week of dance practice to keep me sane (though with how things went last semester, that may be a good thing). this will also be the first time theodore isn't around, seeing as how we met pretty early on my freshman year.

but! i'll make it through it, as always. and of course, i first spend a few days in chicago. (=

fin.

yesterday was the last day of my internship. we had a little cross-site farewell party in the pe pod, which was interesting. as a parting gift, i got a brown dragon shirt!! i loooooove it. i don't know who let it slip that i really wanted one, but thank goodness. i nearly cried. i spent most of the day sitting in various ppls offices saying my goodbyes. later on at around 5, the bee movie tds provided me with good ol' captain+coke and beers in one of their offices as we sat around and chatted. it was a great end to an amazing thirteen weeks. words can't describe how grateful i am for this experience.. so i'm really bummed out now, but i have to really focus on that upcoming physics exam anyway, so hopefully that will keep my mind off of it.

siggraph2007.

after work on monday, i grabbed a train down to san diego and met up with mike and zai. we went to a milonga in the city. it's amazing how different the tango styles are from place to place. we spent the night at zai's in carlsbad.

in the morning we had breakfast at zanzibar in pacific beach. i was bummed because i hate going to pb without eating at cafe976, but i was too lazy to walk the 2 blocks there. haha. then we went to siggraph at the san diego convention center where i proceeded to 'drop my resume' and collect business cards and swag from the various booths. after every booth i stopped at, i had mike telling me what i did wrong (as usual). it was good though - by the end i was able to better reign in my nerves and sound relatively coherent and intelligent. (=

at dinner we ran into bjoern, a dmd alumnus who was in the program back when mike was at penn. at the penn party we then ran into ray (dmd alumnus currently at curious pictures) who mike had recruited to dmd, and had then been one of the ppl who recruited me to the program. paul (dmd alumnus currently at pixar) who was a senior when i was a freshman was also there. current dmders included matt (senior interning at pixar) and nancy (junior interning at disney animation). sadly, none of the vanguard animation interns could make it down. )= and of course, my advisors and other key people in the cggt/dmd program were there.

we then made our way over to the dreamworks party at the stingaree rooftop. it was so much fun, and quite interesting to see people i've been working with all summer letting loose, drinking and having a good time. mike left early to return to la, and i was supposed to go with, but we'd been at the party for less than an hour so i decided to stay and just crash with whatever dreamworks employee was nice enough to let me.

woke up with a decent hangover, and managed to make it back to arcadia finally at around 6. funnnn times.

a fantastic weekend.

friday night after work, i headed over to a duna csardas (sp?) with mike for tamas' birthday dinner. it was a group of about ten of us from tango. then we went to the groundlings to watch an improv show. it was a good time, low-key, no big deal. just the way i like it.

saturday morning i went to the edge to take a hip hop class. my first in a year! it's surprising how out of shape i am, but it was a great work out and a fun little routine (wipe me down!). met up with tannis afterwards for lunch at toast. while we were waiting for a table, there's this guy standing around that looks really familiar, and the instant i whisper to tannis that i think he goes to penn, he walks to us and asks "is one of you in strictly funk?" WHOA! pretty sweet. turns out i recognize him from all my comm classes. then when we finally get a table, we walk into the cafe and sitting there at a table by the door are anthony, dan and quoc, all funk alumni who are currently living in san francisco. tannis and i were very taken aback and in a state of shock through the rest of our lunch. who knew so many penn people would be at toast at the same time. after an afternoon of catching up with tannis, i went to a tango technique class in west LA.. i had no idea that a simple walk could be so technical and intricate. tannis and i made dinner at her place in marina del rey. it was so nice to be back since i lived there all last summer. post-meal i went to a house party with her and a bunch of her high school friends in beverly hills. not only did i not know anyone, but it was a pool party (and i was sans bathing suit) so i got to sit awkwardly at the edge of the pool for the whole of it. it wasn't bad though - it just wasn't great either.

sunday morning, tannis made me breakfast ;) and then we went to a salon where i got a manicure. the old white man before me tipped the asian lady big (i didn't see how much, but there was more than one bill, and that bill was a $20), so i'm thinking someone got a some happy happy in the back room. (= maybe i'm just sick-minded. my afternoon was spent at zuma beach with my favorite interns from dwa (steph, andy, felipe, allison, jade). i definitely got a little sun-burnt, but it's good. i haven't had this much color in over 2 years. i headed to the santa monica promenade around six and spent the next four hours tango'ing at the weekly milonga there. my body is sore (like whoa) from all the dancing i did this week. it's fantastic.

dwa v. penndesign ?

it is just about 6pm on the friday of the tenth week of my internship at dreamworks animation.

two weeks to go!

i have absolutely loved working here. the environment is one that i never quite imagined possible: laid-back, fun, interesting, productive, creative. it's beautiful - and i'm not just talking about the physical campus. while i don't love what i'm doing (how can i when i don't even know what i want to do with my life?), i do genuinely enjoy it. and i can honestly say that i like most of the people i have come into contact with here - which is rare for me. i would definitely love working at DWA next year - but i'm trying not to think about it; i don't want to get my hopes up or anything. and who knows.. a lot can change in a year i guess.

one thing i've found particularly interesting on a personal level is my current social environment. i'm surrounded by engineers, which is strange for me. at school, i can safely say that a large majority of my friends and acquaintances for the past couple years has consisted of architects. ivy-league full-of-bullshit 'algorithmic'-emergent-rigorous-non-linear-design visual-masturbation architects. don't get me wrong - i find what they are doing fascinating and i love many of them. but they really are full of bullshit when they talk about what they're doing.. it's not that i didn't know this before, but being around people who actually know what they're talking about (and actually try to understand what they don't), people who aren't competetive or elitist, has definitely made me more aware of it. it's been different, ...refreshing.

theodore came to visit a couple weeks ago and met the hengesbachs (one pair of my surrogates from high school). they loved him of course. and little kaley thinks my first name is 'jennpan'. we then drove to vegas to meet up with theodore's family. it hasn't ceased to amaze me how different they are from my own - everything from what qualities they value in an individual to their general family dynamic (perhaps i will elaborate on this another time). i can't wait to visit them in chicago.

and finally, tango has been going really well. i've finally managed to get myself to stop thinking and to just, well, follow. i really love it, and i'm looking forward to finding some good milongas in philadelphia.

une autre vie.

so i managed to get through my finals, but i also managed to completely miss one of them because i somehow put it on the wrong date on all 3 of my calendars. wooo, go me. my last week in philly was bittersweet since i was able to relax and spend a lot of time with theodore, but it was also leading up to his graduation and departure. i met substantially more of his family members who, i have to say, are wonderful people.

anyway, since my return to los angeles, not very much has happened. i went on a baja trip with mike and some other people, and i started my internship at dreamworks! it's only my second week so i haven't really done any work - just trying to learn and comprehend as much as i can about the infrastructure and pipeline here. kind of feels like school. the campus (yes, it's a campus) is absolutely beautiful. very well landscaped, and there's a lake and rivers with koi fish in it and lots of greenery.

and, i have restarted up with the tango classes. so that's fun. this has been a lame post, but *shrug* what can you do.

focal point.

and so.. classes are over! however, i have 4 finals and 1 final project and i am in quite the rush. it is crunch time and i've been able to finally get myself to focus, as hard as it has been with the beautiful sunny 70-80 degree weather outdoors.

i definitely skipped the rising senior tradition of hey day on the last day of classes, but i was sleeping because i had stayed up all night to write and hand in a paper. i wasn't exactly about to lose sleep to get food thrown all over me while surrounded by drunk ppl i don't like. i did buy the shirt though.

other than that, it was a productive yet relaxing weekend and hopefully things stay that way.. but i doubt it. i can already see the stress coming my way.

what?

how the hell is it that..

1.. it's the last week of classes already? i'm going to fail out of school.

2.. it's mid-april and it's freezing and even snowy?


shoot me.

medium hazelnut with cream and sugar.

it's 8am here on the east coast. i am in meyerson. i have been in meyerson since about noon yesterday, and i most definitely did not sleep. i spent the past 20 hours working on a paper, doing some reading and helping theodore finish his furniture design project - the final review is in two hours.

let's see. since i last posted, i officially accepted the internship from dreamworks animation, have been researching and writing my final comm paper, and self-taught myself how to make a run and walk cycle on a rigged character in maya. also, it was spring fling this past weekend, and i most definitely did not fling, but spent my time working on the above-mentioned school shit. oddly enough, i did stop by fling festivities for a little bit and ran into someone from high school that i haven't seen in four years. how strange.

as busy as i have been, i did take friday night off and theodore and i went to a pleasant corner restaurant called Striped Bass. one word: delicious. another word: expensive. but in the end it was definitely worth it.

and who knew, blueberry donuts exist at dunkin' and they are amazing.

serenity..?

an encounter with a funker this week only served to further solidify that my decision to leave the group is the right one. it's amazing how much less stressed and worried i am all the time now that i have taken myself off the listservs and i don't have to deal with the people, the bureaucracy or the drama. deep breath. whew.

so as i previously mentioned, dreamworks animation offered me the production technology summer internship on sunday (they really called me on easter sunday, isn't that ridiculous/hilarious?). i didn't want to make my decision until i had heard back from everyone in my family. i talked to the HR rep from vanguard animation today, and while i have yet to inform either company of my official decision (which i will do tomorrow), i am about 99.9% for dreamworks. now i just have to make the call.

passover ended today so i took nico to chinatown for some good old shaved noodles. then, on our way home, we decided to stop in penang to get an order of hainanese chicken. i love that i'm not the only one who loves to eat huge amounts of food. he's my new eating buddy. (= other than that, things have been pretty good. still haven't gotten my ray tracer functioning properly yet, but i'm working on it. i'm really behind in all my classes, it's actually really.. sad. next couple weeks are going to be hell-ish.. but hopefully i'll manage somehow like i always do..

twenty one, debauchery and decisions.

woo. it's been quite a productive weekend. not in terms of school, but more in terms of life.

on friday i turned twenty-one. it was a pretty good day. i was freaking out because i was told to expect a phone call from dreamworks (!!!, more on this later), so really didn't drink much. post-phone call i went to marathon to have dinner with some 500s (nico, andrew, matt, bryan) and domi. while the food wasn't the best, the atmosphere and the people made it a good time. i think we were there for over 2 hours. afterwards i went to studio and did work until almost 3am, but a bunch of us took our laptops to the basement and watched marie antoinette on the big screen to get in the mood for beaux arts.

saturday morning liz picked me up and we went and got manicures, had lunch, then went food shopping for our little pre-beaux arts shindig. she made her amazing "boy-catching" cookies. jared, nico and bryan came over to help make food. jess, her sister sara and andrew came over for food. all the while we start drinking wine and champagne with strawberries. more ppl start showing up around 7.30-8p. anyway, just past 9p we head over to stotesbury mansion. the beaux arts ball was awesome. sarah was DJing and everyone looked amazing in their cake at versailles themed costumes. the live band was cheesy but not so bad. afterwards some of us went to midtown diner (as usual) and i get my usual drunken steak and eggs (medium rare, sunny side up). good effing times.

today i had lunch with jared and spent the rest of the day in meyerson doing work. and.. dreamworks called me today and extended to me the offer of a summer internship. SO happy. while i'm not completely decided on them yet, because vanguard's offer is better, i'm leaning toward dreamworks because they're a better company and far more organized. .. but i don't know quite yet. i plan on asking the bros for their advice as to what i should do.. regardless though, i am SO excited, SO happy and SO relieved. whoever would have thought i'd be in the position where i had to choose between two offers (much less have an offer at all).

and finally, theodore came back from chicago / indianapolis today. while this weekend has been AMAZING, it really kind of sucked that i didn't get to share it with him. oh well.. it looks like it's going to be another late night for both of us in meyerson.

weeeeee!

i am sooooo happy right now. i can't divulge why just yet, but i will soon. hopefully.

anyway, theodore left for his conference in indianapolis today so i'm a bit bummed about that, but this weekend is looking like it will be a fabulous extravagant time regardless. and at the very least, i turn 21 in less than an hour.

good and bad news.

bad news first.

so this really kind of sucks, but i've decided to really quit funk. not just take a semester off, but quit. we had a board meeting today and i honestly felt nothing. there is no funk withdrawal, no affection/nostalgia or anything for this group that i dedicated the past three years of my life to. i'm not even angry anymore. i just don't care. the past three years have been like a relationship - it started out awesome and along the way there were bumps and obstacles. but i loved it, and dedicated everything to it. however, it's gotten to the point where the group has broken my heart so many times.. and it's not the group that i fell in love with 3 years go. it's just time to move on. i'm not saying it will be easy, but it's something i have to do.

but onto the good news.

vanguard animation up in vancouver has offered me a summer internship! it's a pretty sweet deal and i'm very excited. i don't want to divulge too much, because i don't think i'm allowed to really, but trust me, it's good. the only glitch in the plan right now is that they want me to work 30 april - 31 august, which is a problem considering my last final isn't until 4 may.. and theodore's graduation is 14 may. however, i've offered to work a bit into september, possibly missing the first week or two of school, so we'll see what they say. in any case, it's a great opportunity and i couldn't be happier. whoosh! relief! (=

some six months later.

somehow i managed to completely forget that i had this blog. six and a half months have passed, and a lot has happened. this past semester i directed FUNK on top of choreographing and doing all the promotional and media stuff. and with that, i am done. at the very least i am taking a semester off. while the shows turned out great, the group itself is no longer something i can put such time and energy into anymore.. especially when the younger funkers are completely lacking in any sort of respect for the group and what it stands for. if it weren't for a couple of the members within the group who i have come to consider great friends (and i am so grateful to have them in my life), i probably wouldn't have made it through thus far.

as for a summer job.. i'm potentially working in vancouver this summer. or hopefully los angeles again. things are kind of shady/sketchy/up-in-the-air right now, but i can start focusing on getting an internship now that funk is over. i'm also ridiculously behind in school again, but i'm thinking i'll be able to make it through relatively unscathed..

in other news, things are going great with theodore i dread his upcoming graduation, and the past few weeks have been hard on both of us do to extenuating circumstances. but i guess that's just how it goes. i am, however, looking forward to the actual commencement when his whole family will be here.. as awkward as that could turn out to be, i think it will be quite an experience.

and of course, penndesign. i love my little circle of penndesign buddies. especially the current 500s (and the usual 600s). beaux arts ball is this upcoming weekend, as well as my 21st. it should be a good one, even if theodore won't be around. while i don't plan on the usual wasted-21st thing, i do want to relax and have a blast at the cake-at-versailles-themed ball.