A.S.P

I saw Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 last night for the second time ans realized that Albus Severus's intials are A.S.P, which makes his otherwise lame name a whole lot better. He should just have people call him Asp!

He also had a pet ferret which raised him even more in my eyes. Ferrets are awesome!

Diary Tuesday
The Loathly Lady

When I was a child I heard some old folktale about a man marrying a truly hideous woman who became beautiful once they were married. But I will never forget the ending because it was so strange. Rather than her beauty being a simple happily ever after, it said he never forgot her ugly form. It was so bizarre that I've always wished I could find the story again, but I can't recall the name. While volunteering in the library today, I found a book with a very similar story called The Loathly Lady, but without the disturbing ending. Still, I think I may be on the right track because many folktales have several different versions, so it may be if I search enough Loathly Lady stories, I'll find the one I read all those years ago.

Diary Tuesday Club
Jane Austen Book Club

I'm really excited that I found a group of friends interested in starting a Jane Austen Book Club! I didn't think I'd ever find enough interested people. It's also awesome because if you've read the book The Jane Austen Book Club or seen the movie, then you know it takes place in the Sacramento area where I am currently located. Now, if only we could get Hugh Dancy to join our book club...

Diary Tuesday
Thoughts and Yet Another Break

While shelf reading at the library today I came across a book of fairy tale poems that could be read both forwards and backwards in a book called Mirror, Mirror. While reading the one about Rumplestiltskin I realized that it is a story about names, but none of the characters, other than Rumplestiltskin, ever give their names.

I would also like to say that I'll be out pretty much all day tomorrow and will be staying at a friend's house, so there will once again be no Wednesday blog. I hope no one's on the edge of their seats to hear the next installment of my realistic fiction story, Last Wish. If even one person says they are, I'll post it instead of Info Thursday.

Diary Tuesday
Usefulness

I missed being useful! I mean, I guess it is useful to my brothers to have someone to play against in Age of Empires (Which I won three times over the visit! How much did I play? Er...). And it was good to have bonding time with my brothers. Even if one almost never speaks and the other spent half the time in his woodshop creating a repeating crossbow. It is useful to be a good sister, but it's a different kind of usefulness. I almost never have time to be bored, even now, but I did over break, which speaks of just how cut off I was from everything but family. So today it felt really good when I volunteered at the library this Tuesday, as I do every Tuesday. I'm normally a shelf reader but today not enough people were in, so I got to shelve. I miss shelving, but want to see how my schedule goes this before I commit to another volunteer day.

I also get so much more done when I have a lot of stuff to do. It helps me manage my time better. I guess it helps create a framework out of chaos. I can't put off tasks for mindless activities if I can't do them at any time.

Diary Tuesday
It's Not Beginning to Feel Anything Like Christmas

I can't really remember the last time I had a proper Christmas with all the decorations and feelings of anticipation. It makes sense that those feelings would mellow as the years go on, specifically in a family that doesn't really do presents. But I used to still love the season regardless. Now days it just seems to pass me by. It doesn't help that the closest it gets to winter chill in California is a gross drizzly day like today. I did have a nice cup of peppermint tea upon arriving home, which does summon some good memories of childhood. But I still don't feel like this time of year is different than any other.

It's not that I really miss Christmas. It's more that I miss, missing Christmas. I miss how important it would have once been to me to decorate and celebrate. This feeling of sameness when so many other people feel different, is worse than encountering any Christmas Scrooge.

Diary Tuesday
Why are you so cute?!

I will get to the bunny.

Today I was volunteering as a shelf reader at my local public library. For any unfamiliar with library speak, a shelf reader makes sure the books on the shelf are in the proper order. I was working on a section of the youth nonfiction shelves, and if you read those shelves like a sentence, the sentence would be something like: Cat the on mat sat. Yeah, the books were pretty out of order, though this is hardly surprising. Because it's kids, you say? No. Because they actually get looked at. Take a note adults. Read! When I was working as a shelver 90% of shelving was children's books. Which tells me why kids are sometimes smarter than adults. Actually, I'd venture to guess, if you're reading this, you probably do read more than the average adult. Good for you. Here's a cookie.

Anyway, as I was straightening up the animal books, and found like a million books on bunnies, a thought occurred to me. Why are certain animals cute? What useful purpose could it possibly serve to find the young of a different (very edible species) adorable? Shouldn't it be more common to look at it and think: "Yum, a vulnerable piece of delicious meat"? I suppose finding the babies cute could be a way to force us to let them grow before we eat them. But that doesn't explain why some animals are even cute when they're fully grown. Although, bunnies aren't nutritious enough to sustain you alone, so perhaps that's why. But I still remember this line from a fantasy book I read (Foundation, by Mercedes Lackey) where the boy sees a little girl crying over a dead rabbit, and having grown up with no food, the boy's immediate desire is to offer to help her skin it. Luckily, it's fantasy, and his magic horse prevents this social faux pas.

Still, there are some very edible animals that we consider cute. Is it maybe just conditioning, just because we're told they're cute? Did cavemen think they were cute? And why are they always mammals?

Diary Tuesday
Job Interview

Spent the day preparing for a job interview. Nothing particularly exciting to report unless you want to hear about me sitting in the same chair all day as I researched the library I'll be interviewing with and only getting up to eat and exercise.

Diary Tuesday (on Wednesday!)

Go and Punishment

So I've been pretty tired for all the job apps I've been doing but I was very pleased when I remembered I lived near a UPS since sometimes I just don't feel like going to the post office. I wish more library applications could be emailed.

Anyway, I forgot to post on time because I've been playing Go against the computer non-stop because I've also got two human opponents and I want to impress them with my amazing Go skills and make them respect the power of my Chinese blood rather than laughing as their chess champion selves crush me into the dust. Oh, yeah, did I mention they're chess champions? But they've never played Go so that's an advantage. Right? Right?! Sigh... But one was afraid to play against me. So for one brief shining moment I made him afraid. I'll always have that.

Argh! And now I owe my sister another treat!

Sigh...

Diary Tuesday
Energy and Sexy, Sexy Structure

Today I went went out with some girls in my area. We played games, ate lunch at one girl's house, and then saw Morning Glory, which I enjoyed except for the odd part at the beginning where the projection started small and progressively got bigger. But now I'm beginning to think that wasn't part of the movie at all but rather someone just learning to use the projector.

While looking back on some blog posts from my undergrad years, I also realized how much more energy I had back then. I don't think this was just because I was younger, but also because I interacted regularly with the people around me and enjoyed their company. In grad school I was far more isolated, and too busy to work in much social time. Now the trick is meeting people, but I feel like I finally know a pretty decent amount of people for regular activity, so things are definitely looking up.

I also need more structure. In life, just as in other things. The self-imposed structure of this blog has been working out really well for me. At first I thought the restrictions would drive me crazy, but now Wildcard Wednesday is easily the hardest day because I don't know what to expect. I need to keep it though, because there just aren't enough days in the week for all my segments.

What's that? Where's the sexy part? Well, I was just going to write structure in the title, but then I realized how incredibly boring that sounded, so I added the sexy part. I waited until now to tell you, so you'd read this far. Yup. I'm evil.

Diary Tuesday
French Peeps, Trains, and Story Ideas

Monday night I went to a dinner with my French conversation group to meet with some French-speaking peeps at a restaurant called the Hot Italian. Most of the people were very nice, a few I can't speak for because it was a large group, and I didn't speak with them, nor have I met them previously, and one I admittedly cannot stand, but I did not talk to this person much, and I'm probably just being petty as this person has never shown me any actual malice; I just find their manners annoying. Luckily I was seated next to an actual Francophone and someone just learning but reasonably proficient. Actual Francophones are great since you can learn the most speech from them. And people who are just learning but reasonably good are nice to talk to because it makes me feel good about my skills while still exercising them.

The restaurant also had pictures of hot Italians painted on the side and there was a man hovering around our group who looked like the male portrait.

After the restaurant, I went to catch the train to meet a friend at SacState. My friend thought he could meet me at the restaurant at 9:30pm but wasn't certain. I always like to be certain of things, so I thought it might be better for me to meet him at his student union which would be open until 11PM. If it were somewhere I was familiar with, I may have been willing to wait outside, but quite a lot of Sacramento is sketchy, and I'd never been to this area, so I wanted an indoor place to wait. I realized that going to the student union would actually mean I'd spend more time in uncharted city areas, but I tend to prefer moving rather than waiting if I'm nervous about a situation. Harder to catch a moving target is my reasoning. Plus, I just hate waiting and tend to get irrationally angry at the person I'm waiting for if I'm in a place where I'm not comfortable, so I wanted to spare my friend that since he is typically late for things.

Anyway, I heard a guy talking to a girl (sounded a bit like he was chatting her up). But I was amused cause it sounded like what I imagine my dad would have sounded like if he tried to chat a girl up. So I made a fool of myself trying to speak Chinese to him, and he said he was from Thailand and didn't speak Chinese. Then I ended up talking to him and stepping on the same train--which was the wrong train. I'd like to say I was distracted from talking but I step on the wrong train all the time even when no one's talking to me. So I stepped off at the next stop but it was a ways from the other one and I had to walk along the track in effort to find my way back. Luckily, but also embarrassingly, my friend called me en route and rescued me but it of course meant I had to admit what had happened which I was hoping I wouldn't have to. I was so proud of being independent and this ruined it. But safety is always more important than pride so I'm glad he came and got me.

On the way home I conceptualized a whole universe for one of my stories and was really excited. Unfortunately I can't hash it out here other than to say it's about dreams but not in the annoying waking up makes everything better way. I don't like sharing ideas that are yet to be fully realized (or at least partially in actual writing). But I will certainly let all my friends read it once it's written.

Diary Tuesday
Disturbed Dreams

So a few nights back I dreamed that the guy from CSI Miami was hunting me and I had to hide behind these trees which were really good cover, so then I guess my subconscious realized that this would be a pretty lame nightmare if I was all safe and secure behind some actually really pretty autumn trees, so then I was transported to a house which are always terrible places to hide, especially in nightmares. So I got outside the house and ended up scaling three barbed wire fences. I actually woke up tired, as if I'd been running.

Then I had another dream that I think contained some problem but all I can remember clearly is a big tower of Christmas cookies, so that was a nightmare fail.

Most recently I had another dream where I had a little girl named Amanda and let a relative named Stacy watch her. But both Stacy and Amanda got kidnapped and I spent the rest of the dream screaming their names and it's probably the only dream where my throat actually hurt.

This is anomalous as I usually don't recall this many of my dreams.

Diary Tuesday
You Get What You Pay For

I was talking to a friend about the current state of libraries and she commented that people get what they pay for. I think this is actually the problem with libraries. People get what they pay for--and they never know what it would be like if they did pay for it! It's not that libraries aren't useful, even essential services, it's that underfunded libraries often aren't.

A lot of people say the library never has anything they want, or they don't read for pleasure and they can get more information from the internet. Sadly, this is true in a lot of cases, but if you neglected any public service to the level most libraries are neglected, this would be true.

For example, if our public school system consisted of a raving homeless man on the street (not to say in some places it doesn't, but that's for another post...), then you could bet people would ask themselves why we need a public school system at all when kids would learn more plopped in front of an internet access computer (they'd also see a lot of porn, but that counts as anatomy, right?)

I have seen libraries that are palaces of learning and community. The Columbus Metropolitan Library has millions of books, so many free movies that you would never need Netflix, and a downtown building of awe-inspiring white marble, with a Rosetta stone of braille and huge metal globe hanging from the soaring ceiling. Not to mention the topiary garden in the back. Is this because Columbus has more money than other places? Hardly. But they have a community who knows what they're paying for and frequents this wonderful library often. Unfortunately, this is not the norm for libraries.

Many libraries do make valiant and even successful efforts to stay relevant even when funds are low. But the homeless man can only do so much to gussy himself up. So next time you wonder why your library doesn't have this or that resource, remember, you get what you pay for.

Diary Tuesday

Bodices and T-Shirts

As you can tell from my Photo Sunday pictures, I went to RenFaire this weekend and bought myself a bodice. Those are supposed to be quite small. Today I finally received my first nerdfighter shirt, which is awesome but also quite small. I do not think it is supposed to be quite this small. But the trouble is I grew up wearing clothes too big for me, so now I always try to get things that are more fitted. Unfortunately, no one expects someone as small as me to be quite as tall as me.

Oh well, it's still awesome. If I order another shirt from them, perhaps I'll go one size up and just hope it doesn't envelop me.

Diary Tuesday
The Reluctant Organizer and Mangy Grass

I don't particularly like planning, but I also don't really like to expect others to plan for me, so I end up planning a lot of things. Not anyone's fault, really. My personality just won't allow for things to happen spontaneously if I can plan them. Right now I'm trying to organize a Halloween party. We'll see if it actually works out or not. Ideally I'd like everyone to be able to come, but I don't think that's going to be possible.

In more emotional news, I was talking with a friend of mine about whether it's better to have a crush on someone you can't have, or not to have crushes at all. I concluded that whichever predicament you found yourself in would probably seem worse than the other--in the way that the grass is always greener on the other side. Unfortunately, in this case, I think anyone's willing to acknowledge that the grass is pretty mangy on both sides.

Diary Tuesday

Star Trek Exhibit

Last week I saw the Star Trek exhibit at Sacramento's Areospace Museum. We weren't allowed to take pictures, but if you're curious about the kinds of things I saw, you can look here. I think a large part of the reason we weren't allowed to take pictures was because they were charging obscene amounts of money to take pictures for you. There was a recreation of the deck from the original series and I got to sit in Sulu and the Captain's chairs, even if I don't have a $15 picture to prove it. Sulu's was more comfortable. The Captain's chair didn't even swivel! Although, there was a Klingon warship chair that swiveled. I guess the bad guys get all the comfort.

A lot of the props were recreations and not actual props. Probably the most puzzling was the Klingon sash "believed to be" an actual prop. How can you not know? There were several costumes and none of them said they were recreations so we assumed they were the actual costumes. They did look worn in places.

I also really enjoyed the recreation of the transporter set. They had a screen set up so we could see ourselves being transported if someone pressed a button while we stood there. My sister and I rose a simulartor ride where we destroyed some Borg ships and then we toured some of the rest of the Aerospace Museum with the group we went with. All in all a fun afternoon for someone who grew up watching the Next Generation and enjoyed the original movies and the reboot.

Diary Tuesday

Eating Healthy or Exercise?

I know for most people the two go hand in hand, but I have this problem where I feel weird exercising on days where I've eaten healthy the whole day. I feel like I need something to exercise off. Otherwise, I feel like I'm just forcing my body to cling to fat I consume at other times. Which I think is only actually the case if you're starving, but it's still how I feel if I've eaten chick peas and grapes instead of a burger and fries.

With as much as I've been talking about this sort of thing lately, I just want to dispel any concerns that I might be obsessed. I've never dieted in my life, couldn't tell you the caloric intake of anything, and could care less if you did tell me. This will probably make some people hate me, but it doesn't mean I'm healthy, of which I'm well aware. So while you're hating me for fitting into smaller clothes, just remember I could be just as likely to die of a heart attack. I just happen to inhabit a body that, unless I eat McDonalds every day (ugh...), will probably never appear overweight. Because of this, I spent most my high school years having to assure people that I did not have an eating disorder. Now I'm finally at a normal weight, so it's been many years since anyone's thought that, and I'm happy about that. I have no desire to be as skinny as I once was. But in an effort to become more healthy and get in better physical shape, I would like to exercise more.

Diary Tuesday

Fingerprints, Fitness, and Free-Trials

Yay for alliteration! Today I got fingerprinted for my volunteer job, and it reminded me that when I was a kid I had a book that talked about fingerprints, and I used to always want the whorl fingerprint because all I have are a few boring arches and some loops. But I'm not sure why I decided that some fingerprints are more exciting than others.

I rode my bike to the police station, so I decided that was enough exercise for today and opted not to go to the fitness room. But, yesterday, when I went I got to once again marvel at the lackluster exercise habits of the residents here. I'd say they were in there about fifteen minutes and then I saw them walk towards the weight room but they must have either been heading for the drinking fountain or just looked at the weights and felt that was enough because they left seconds afterwards. To be fair perhaps they were chased away by the loud TV I was watching. But they didn't ask me to turn it down or change the channel, so I didn't. To be honest I wasn't that interested in the vapid news show I was watching but I do tend to assert dominance over the TV if I'm there first just so others can't. Also in faint hopes that it might chase people away because I like exercising alone (but I promise this cannot have always been the reason people left because I didn't always have the remote). Maybe that makes me evil, but I promise I'd turn it down and possibly even change the channel if asked.

After cardio, I went to the weight room to try to figure out the odd contrivances they keep there. It took me several minutes to figure out how to adjust the leg machine properly and understand how to change the weight setting because the very helpful instructions went something like: "Change the weight setting to a comfortable setting." Yes...how? But I worked it out eventually.

In more sedentary couch potato news, a few days ago I signed up for the free trial of Netflix, but I have every intention of cancelling after I've watched the DVDs I want to see. The problem I have with subscription based rentals is I can go several months without watching a movie. This is probably a good way to be. But the subscription based rentals have cornered the market. I would have just gotten what I wanted from the library or Blockbuster but neither had it. I'm annoyed that the best service forces you to pay whether you use it or not. As my sister likes to phrase it, "they become your pushers." You're wasting your money if you don't watch more movies than you probably should. But they're also the only ones left who have obscure things available to rent. And by "obscure" I mean the first season of a popular TV show! Very frustrating.

Diary Tuesday
A Blog With Any Other Background Would Read As Sweet?

Some of you may have noticed the blog background and layout going through some changes. It may yet change again, or I may just leave it, like the last one, until several years pass. The dark, dotted background had been around since the inception of the blog and may have stayed that way if the template hadn't been so intractable to new features, such as YouTube's widescreen videos. So in order to give you all better service, I reluctantly updated to a new background. I don't like doing this because I like it too much. If that makes sense. Once I get the idea that I can change the look of something that defines me as much as my blog, I get obsessed with the perfect look. Although this one is quite pretty (my sister describes it as "very haiku"), I just don't feel like it's perfect yet. But it met more of the requirements than the short-lived dandelion background. My requirements on a background are as follows (more or less in order of importance):

1.) Readability and professionalism: Some of the backgrounds that are absolutely gorgeous unfortunately made the blog's title and / or quote nearly illegible, which no matter how pretty, always makes you look like an amateur. Something about the title did look better designed with the dandelions background. But the rest, while nice, was a bit clip-arty. My apologies if you did like it though, I hope you don't mind the new one.

2.) Nature themed: I did consider a few abstract designs just so it wouldn't be that different from the polka-dot background I held for so many years. I may yet go back to abstract. But if I'm going to decorate anything to represent me, it's either going to be covered in dragons (which unfortunately might be too busy) or nature. I suppose it's because I spend so much time indoors, staring at a screen. So I prefer that screen to reflect what I don't often see. One English teacher I once had envisioned me writing under a tree by a babbling brook. In reality, at the time, I wrote on an old computer in my dank, unfinished basement with a little figurine of E.T. dressed as a girl, staring out at me--my muse. In my heart, I guess I was under a tree by a babbling brook. The dandelions met the nature theme requirement but not the next.

3.) A real photo: Otherwise, it's very obvious I'm still staring at a screen.

4.) The color green: It's my favorite color and it's a good color. I snuck some in with the text and there's a tiny bit in the picture, but as much as I love fall leaves, I also love green. So it's a constant struggle for me.

5.) Makes me happy: This one makes me happier than the last one, and maybe I'll get used to it before I get around to changing it. But I look at it too much for it to be something I don't like. Which none of my backgrounds have been, but I don't think I've found exactly what I'm looking for quite yet.

4.) Distinctive: Neither the dandelions or this background fit this requirement but this one is marginally better than the dandelions because while those were one of the template defaults, you'd have to fiddle around with the dozens of background options to get this one, so instead of tens of thousands of blogs looking like mine, now perhaps only a few thousand do. Ultimately I'd prefer one of my own photos so that it would be nearly impossible to be copied, but I've yet to find a photo that perfectly fit.

Diary Tuesday:
Exercise and the Ghost of My Father Enjoys Pears

So I started using my apartment complex's exercise a few days ago and noticed that the residents here aren't much for cardio. When I went to college I couldn't compete with the girls who probably had serious body issues and the students who did regular sports. I usually felt like the most lackluster of those populating the fitness room. I would often arrive to see a person exercise, then exercise for an hour, and leave to see them still exercising.

However, when I started going to the exercise room here I was shocked to see several people devote only about ten minutes to the treadmill, if that, and then maybe a few minutes on the bike. Plus, I outlast everyone. True, some of them may select higher speeds on the treadmill, but the same was true for college and I rarely outlasted anyone. I'd like to think this means I've simply become a thing of steel. But since the time differential is undeniable, and the reason I started exercising is because I was beginning to feel like the exact opposite of steel, I doubt this.

While I was exercising today an older Asian man came in. He didn't outlast me but I thought he might for a while and it made me think of how active my own father was, who had also been one of those older Asian men who clearly grew up sleeping on tatami mats. I had originally been watching whatever struck my fancy on the fitness room TV but finally settled on the news. I knew nothing about this particular Asian man's preferences but I knew my father would have preferred the news. It was rather boring, they talked about a gas leak and I can't even recall what else. They also talked about a truck of pears overturning. Thrilling.

But a part of me heard my father's voice when I saw those pears on the street. "Ah! So many pear." It would have been the type of thing that would amuse him and he would comment on.

It's been more than a year now since my father passed away, but only a couple of months since I had one of my uncontrollable and unpredictable bouts of crying because of it. Usually in front of someone to increase embarrassment. It's not that people aren't lovely and understanding, but I just hate crying in front of them. Still, mostly I'm fine. Or at least, as close to fine as one can be about this. What really bothers me is how the simple mention of my father to someone who knows he's dead brings the conversation to an awkward halt. It's gotten to the point where I often don't even tell people he's passed away if I can avoid it simply so I can still talk about him. Because I loved talking about him and I still do.