A friend of mine posted his pick for the best albums of the aughts on facebook and it finally hit me that this decade is ending. I'm also sneaking up on a decade of being on this site. Jesus.

I'm sitting at my sister's house in the metro fringe of Atlanta, GA, and much like my first entries on this site, the thing that is driving me to write on livejournal is the internal monologues that rolls through my mind whenever I find myself alone in the middle of the night. I haven't written much since college, really. Moving in with my significant other was pretty much the death knell of me engaging in livejournal in a regular and meaningful way. That's not a bad thing.

This will be my last entry for awhile.

The past twelve months have been really complicated for me. I wanted to simply write down some of the thoughts that have developed over the past few months. It's very much tl;dr, so if you don't want to, consider this your out.

1. I need to stop worrying about whether or not people think I'm attractive, and to what degree. This isn't to say that I want to give up personal grooming, but I just need to come to terms with the fact that I'm never going to be supermodel hot, and just come to terms with the notion that I am at best moderately attractive to some people. In the end, it's more important to me that people respect me, think that I'm (relatively, ha) reliable, and think that I'm generally a good person. There's a phrase that I read a lot by british writers: "there's no accounting for taste." [Sorry, I don't think I see it much in U.S. lit.]

Be groomed, be neat, have some degree of style, and comes to terms with the fact that it is impossible for everyone to think I'm attractive. This happens to no one, unless you're Aishwarya Rai.

The corollary to this is that I'm going to stop worrying about being skinny or not, and focus more on more functional things to my health like: how far can I run? how fast can I run? how much can I squat/deadlift? can I do a pull up? a push up? You can be skinny and look "in shape" to some people but not be healthy. It's called living off of cigarettes and diet coke, and I knew people in grad school who were on that diet.

This entire point may seem ridiculous and/or common sense to some of you, particularly if you are male, but I think that the notion that a woman's worth is entirely tied up in her beauty/sexiness that I just want to call out all of this ridiculous baggage and say: no more.

One of the many things that has pushed me to this is seeing the constant facebook status updates by an old HS acquaintance. Half of them involve her wringing her hands over whether or not people perceive her as pretty. (For the record--and it doesn't matter in the end--I think she is really pretty.) The constant updates were very slightly annoying, but I felt like she was just expressing what I have always asked in the back of my mind and that bothered me. Neither of us, none of us should be or need to be worrying about that so much. There are so many more measures of being a person.

2. On "living your values" and taking on a career that is based on your social and political values: I've been talking about this a lot with different people--some of them the people who might be reading this right now--and I've pretty much reached the conclusion that for me, it's much more sane for me to just work a "normal" job and then volunteer for causes I care about in my off time. I care too much about some things and I'm too hard on myself to make a career out of it; I find myself wondering if I just put in more time, or was a little smarter, or thought a little harder, then I could really make a difference. I could essentially burn myself out or drive myself nuts.

In addition to this, being a volunteer means you actually get to do something meaningful without having to necessarily deal with the internal politics/struggles/heartbreak. [Maybe this is a grass is greener thing, I'm not sure.] Also, some of my experiences at other non-profits makes me wonder if, at the end of the day, I'm actually making a meaningful difference in the name of social equity or whether or not I'm just perpetuating inequity. Example: the affordable housing development industry (yes, it is a bit of an industry). Private nonprofits and philanthropies are a real, structured sector unto themselves and although there are very good reasons for this, I'm.. just feeling very jaded about it.

3. This third point relates to rugby, which I haven't played in three years. However, I started playing for two reasons:

• I wanted to know that if I could take a hit and be able to get back up again. This may sound really strange and slightly macho to you, but it's a core reason as to why I started.
• I have a side of me that is contrarian and possibly self destructive. It comes to this: I'm 5'2", not particularly athletic looking (or simply athletic), uncoordinated by most standards, and asian (which means that I'm probably hyperfeminized by at least some people who think I'm a Delicate and Sweet Lotus Blossom or some bullshit like that). No one ever would expect me to play rugby, and that is exactly why I was interested in it--to turn people's expectations of the kind of person I am on their head.

4. As much as I've whined at this website over past years about feelings of loneliness and other related things, I've started to think that a) it's all a perception thing and b) maybe I like and romanticize the thought of feeling like an outsider. I mean, on one hand I definitely feel that I'm a geek in some circles and a sports-centric gym junkie in other social circles BUT maybe all I'm doing is realizing that I'm an individual while being entirely unfair/a jackass and not recognizing the unique facets of other folks. Or maybe it's both. Or maybe I'm just a one on one person, and in group situations I can fall apart.

I'm not sure if I got everything out, but this was a hell of an attempt. What I'm hoping is that if I can articulate all of these thoughts and pin them down by text, I'll be able to move on and/or take positive steps. Or something like that.

If you got this far--thanks for reading.

-work is driving me crazy, and I've become resigned to not being able to fulfill all of my responsibilities well but at the same time I'm getting some things squared away and I'm.. kind of okay with that.

-after seven months of cat-habiting (that's my oh-so-witty way to referring to when Tracy and I got our cats) I can now honestly say I really adore them in all of their furry goodness. awww, cats!

-during my hours of constantly refreshing Jezebel, I caught a post where one of the writers was talking about creating a journal where you track down things that make you happy. my first thought is that maybe I could make a tumblr page out of this, especially considering this livejournal is where I keep track of things that stress me out or make me sad or anxious.

and I could have it full of arty photos and bright colors. or something.

ANYWAY

I'll just start listing some stuff here:
-watching the bf play with our cats
-sopping up some delicious sauce with bread
-grapenuts flavored ice cream.. seriously, you have to try it. I've only ever had it in Mt. Rainier, MD, which is possibly one of the few DC suburbs that I absolutely love.

-number of alcoholic drinks consumed since April 4th: 2
-number of places I've gotten sunburned this past weekend: 4
-number of rugby games seen this month: 4
-number of miles jogged this month: 3 [wah wah..]
-number of sprinting drill series attempted: 3
-number of decent drawings done at Dr. Sketchy's (Baltimore edition): ...5..?
-number of salads consumed: 4.5
-number of Mr. Yogato consumed: 1
-number of Dr. Sketchy's contests won: 1!

-number of times sleeping on the train, number of times I've whined about how overwhelmed I feel at work, number of hugs given/received, number of gummy bears I've masticated, number of times I've petted my cats: LOTS

-number of times I've used the word masticated this month: 1

bad thing: work has consumed my life to a point where i have anxiety dreams about work, oddly enough about foreclousre counseling, providing translation/interpretation services for people who need foreclosure counseling, and multicultural alliance about said translating. i even brought this stuff up yesterday after a post-mimosa filled brunch drunken stupor. tracy says: "wow--you work too much."

good thing: so i've been feeling pretty blah about my hair and debating wheter or not i want to get it cut, where i want to get it cut, do I still feel like continuing on with the Great Bangs Experiment, etc. and then last Friday I took the time to do my hair because I was going to some meeting in Chicago and I didn't have to get up at ass:thirty in the morning, and guess what? when I actually take the time to blow dry my hair and do the roller brush thing, it looks good! even though it hasn't been cut in three months! it's amazing.

I need to do that more--it's superficial and silly but it's self-image boost.


bad thing: my 25th birthday itself was hectic and crazy cause i was away on a business trip. [although my work collegaues did take me out to dinner and drinks because they felt bad that i was working on my bday.]

good thing: my birthday brunch two days later was fun--i saw old friends, new friends, and had lots of drinks. my boyfriend took care of me in the most bemused and gentle way possible by carrying me into our room and plopping me on the bed after I had apparently babbled a lot about nothing while periodically exclaiming "CAT!!!" whenever one of our cats crossed into my field of vision. and then buying five guys for dinner, heh. mm, delicious junky fast food.


finally, i've gone from one intricately planned tattoo idea to two, which raises an interesting question: how to make them all coordinate together?

I had been thinking about getting poppies done in an art nouveau style, possibly with this sort of color scheme, going from the front of my right thigh and curving around to the lower right hand portion of my lower back. nothing hugely personal significant other than: I like poppies and their symbolism (not so crazy about the opium or the WWI memorial significance for canada and euro which is ok i think since i'm not associated with any of those), I like art nouveau, and I want something that curves from the front ot the back of my body. ok.

but then, tracy and I was talking, and we kind of talked through this great idea for a Baltimore heart tattoo. i'm not sure where i want it though, and i think i'd want it in a bright or deep red with black linework, which might clash with the other tattoo because i was thinking the other one would have dark brown linework.

I still need to draw both of them out, and then I think I'd do the vmore love tattoo first to test my pain thresholds (the other tattoo would be pretty involved and long, and I don't want to wuss out and get a partially done tattoo.) hooray for overthinking?

Sometimes looking on facebook reminds me that at grad school I met some of the most beautiful, articulate and intelligent women one can hope to see outside of movies/fashion walks, which makes me a just a wee bit envious.

There's a lot more going on in my life right now, but at today has been a fun one, involving a combination of both the boy and I being stressed out about our jobs as well as me being hormonal. And I'm having a bad hair day.

TOP SCORE!

Life is messy.. but i've been thinking about new years resolutions today, for some reason. This is my tentative list:

-be more direct with people. not necessarily be more obnoxious with people, just stop beating around the bush when communicating with them. this is especially true with people i care about.
-be able to do one unassisted chin-up
-be able to do a one-handed push-up [this one is my reach]

On next Tuesday, it'll be the four year dating anniversary for me and Tracy. We were planning on going to the national zoo today anyway (red pandas!!!) but since I get so tired during the work week, I suggested to him that we just do our anniversary stuff today anyway. Therefore, today will consist of:

-red pandas
-river otters
-sun bears
-giant pandas (aka regular pandas, don't tell the red pandas that)
-tigers
-ethiopian and/or eritrean food on U street or vietnamese food in Arlington, can't decide
-The Absolute Sandman, Vol. 1!


this is not my copy; it's a picture from the amazon website

I know, I am a geek--it's what I asked for as an anniversary gift. :) He surprised me with it yesterday, and I have to say, the thing is pretty enormous. The box and the cover looks amazing.

Work has been crazy. I'm glad I'm doing meaningful work, but I do feel like these first three weeks of this job have been like a marathon. Everyday there is some urgent, important shit to get done or cleared up or something.


By the time I get home, I don't even feel like cooking, which kind of sucks because a) i like cooking and b) it heightens the temptation to eat something like burgers from Five Guys or something.

I think I covet Thao Nguyen's bangs. Would they look good on me? I don't know. Either way, the tiny desk concert thing is kinda funny.

Also she's playing at the 9:30 club on 10/28, which is apparently a Tuesday. And maybe a good night to work late? Is anyone interested in going?

1)being able to do unassisted pullups
Because Tracy was around to spot me on the chin/dip machine yesterday, I discovered that I can do chin ups with only 55lbs of counterweight! [Usually I set it so I have like, 100 lbs of counterweight, cause I think I'm a weakling.] Spotting is very important to me whever I'm trying to do more challenging weight because otherwise I have visions of being crushed by barbells or having my arms fall off or now, thanks to the one Olympic weightlifter, having my elbow torn out of its socket.

2)learning how to ride a bike and doing it well enough that I can actually ride it for more than 5 minutes
Okay, my most recent bike riding lesson was behind the GSD at Harvard, and while I think I've mastered riding in a relatively straight line on flat ground, I still haven't perfected things like manuevering and non-flat ground. Manuevering should be key, especially since last time I almost ran an undergrad kid into the bushes by the government building, which still makes me chuckle when I think about it [ha! silly undergrad] but he probably didn't like it very much.

This one will probably be a bit because I need to fix up a bike before I can actually ride it, but I'll start on it today so yaaaay!

3)??? okay, a list looks kind of sad with only two points so, um, running a 5K? without walking?
The bf got me all mentally signed up to do a 5k on 9/11 [not sure why it's on 9/11 unless it's a memorial race?] but I didn't realize it was on a Tuesday, and well, hopefully I'll be working and I'd have to take off. Or I could be unemployed and then I can run as many 5ks as I want.

4)10 pushups with my feet on a big bouncy ball without wobbling?
Okay, I always feel like I'm kind of doing these wrong because of improper hand positioning.

So, like most people with a passing familiarity with graphic novels, I've heard of The Watchmen years ago. However, it wasn't until watching the trailers before The Dark Knight when I said to myself, "I have to read it." Two days later, Tracy goes out to Borders, picks up a copy, and since then, I've read it twice.

I was just poking around imdb.com to see released pictures, and they have all of the different versions of the movie posters up. I am so, so excited about this, even though it's seven months away. The posters look awesome.

Also, the trailer for Half Blood Prince looks really good. Hooray young Voldemort?

Here's the weird thing about me: I don't like mice in my apartment, but I think they're cute. I mean, I generally have a soft for cute fuzzy animals, and maybe it's that, maybe it's the whole being born on the Year of the Mouse thing, but I kinda like mice.

Until I see them skittering around in my kitchen.

So my apartment is a cute little one and recently I started catching glimpses of a speeding body + tail around. I'd normal get startled, yell "Rat!" and look to Tracy to take care of it. He emailed our landlord the other day and we figured things would be taken care of.

Our landlord came by today, fixed our shower setup and laid down a sticky trap. :( So we just came in from going to Brewer's Art with a friend of mine from grad school and her bro and sis-in-law, Tracy turns on our bedroom light and the mouse skitters away towards the kitchen. We go ew, settle into the apartment--he's just picked up The Watchmen the other day, I'm frantically applying to jobs--and he stops and says, "do you hear that? I think I heard squeaking."

We stop, I listen, and I go, "oh, I don't hear anything."

Five minutes later, I start noticing it. We tentatively step into the kitchen, pause for squeaking, and hear nothing. Tracy asks for his mag-lite flashlight, I grab it, and we look into this crevice between the counter and a wall. We find nothing except for a tupperware lid and my wiffleball koozy from my first year at the GSD. I get the bright idea to look below the stove, and I see the mouse looking back at me, flailing its little limbs about.

Tracy ends up drowning it in the toilet to put it out of its misery. I made myself watch for some reason, probably because I felt responsible. I know it's stupid, but part of me feels bad for the little guy.

Is it wrong that I spent two years in planning school (and got into a bit of debt) and my eyes glaze over every time I see an advertised position for a city planner*? I mean, I love the education, and I know that I want to utilize it in a related field, but it just strikes me as kind of funny.

I guess you can't get a graduate degree in General Do Goodness.

Also, the recipient of the fellowship I applied for was announced. She's a viet-american woman who graduated from Berkeley Law with a focus on public interest law, organized for increased minority recruitment efforts at Berkeley, created new law clinics for her program, and volunteered at a legal aid center for 10 years. She did some stuff in undergrad that I can't remember as well.. something about tutoring disadvantaged urban youth. And... I bet she saves puppies in her spare time while working at homeless shelters. And I bet she's fully fluent in vietnamese too. bitch.

I kid, I kid--I know I'm projecting. I'm actually kind of glad that it went to someone like her, as opposed to someone a little more ordinary like myself, or else I would be kicking myself in the ass repeatedly. It's kind of sad though, every time I read the bio like someone like her, I feel guilty about not doing more with my life. Like leading an anti-sweatshop/fairly traded products campaign at UMBC. Or raised more hell about diversity issues at the GSD. Or doing more volunteer work in XXXX neighborhood. Or saving puppies.

Seriously though, the big thing that's always kept me back from doing those things was the fear of being completely overwhelmed by them and failing. I know that the immediate response would be "you should get over that" but I never really understood how people could do all of those things and have a sane personal life, which is kind of precious to me. [even if it is a little quiet as of late] I mean, I should be able to, because they do, right? And yet.. I can be completely tired/overwhelmed by less.

blah blah blah individual people blah blah blah different things blah blah blah special snowflake

Sometimes I think I'm just making excuses for not doing more. Other times I think I'm just being a rationale person who understands her capabilities and doesn't want to set herself up for failure.

*these are positions for Small Town, NY though, not for the cities I'm looking to live in.

one of the things i've gotten into the habit of doing is looking up interesting organizations and basically trying to talk to the leadership about what they do. the idea is to do this with th eintention of finding out if they would be interested in hiring me.

i'm not sure if this is standard job-seeking practice, but it's certainly one that I feel like has been encouraged at my grad school. well, actually they encourage going through connections, but cold calling is supposedly okay too. i can't help but wonder if its a bit obnoxious. I usually try to email first and set up a phone mtg because actual cold calls kind of scare me, but I will call, damnit.

scenario
Interesting Organization: Good morning, this is [enter name here], how can I help you?
Me: HOLLLLLLAAAAAA! I'm a self-important recent graduate of an ivy league school who is really interested in your organization, and I was wondering if I could mosey my resume to you in the hopes that you will be so impressed by it that you will hire me right away, regardless of whether or not there is an actual need or funding. and if that doesn't happen, perhaps you can refer me to one of your friends? what do you say?


I actually try to be bit more professional and subtle than this, but this how I think it sounds. ah well.

also, new orleans it is. the bf and I have decided to try to line up a job in a month, or it's bmore. also, no idea how things will work out if only one of us has a job. we apparently haven't thought that far ahead, but hopefully that will be a non-issue.

EDIT: just contacted a Very Important Person of a Very Interesting Intiative. hopefully I didn't sound like a bumbling jackass on the phone, but i got a time set to just chat with her about her work so yay!

i totally overthink things and get down on myself really, really hard. hooray.

also i am totally hormonal. hooray!

speaking of hormonal, you can track your period and get email notifications of when to expect your period through this very cute website: mon.thly.info. ha.

i kind of want to whine or roll into a ball and hide from the rest of the world, but mostly i want to sleep.

graduated from Harvard, spent boyfriend/family time that was generally good and not awkward. my niece even "flirted"--got kind of shy but smiled a whole bunch--at Tracy, which was really cute.

started my internship today, which was great and i've already started doing interesting work! found out i didn't get make it to the next selection round for the fellowship, which was bad. found out that my classmate did make it to the next round, which makes me happy for her but also makes me feel slightly worse that i didn't make it. i think my writing for the essay section might have been a bit on the inarticulate side, and I had tried re-editing but my brain was too fried two weeks ago.

as a friend of mine says, who wants to work in columbia for two years anyway? ;) i'm starting to think twice about new orleans vs. staying here. bmore is wonderful and I just "discovered" the farmers' market under JFX. i am also in a lovely apartment. the office i'm working in is full of happy, interesting people who are so interested in helping me out. things are pretty swell. there's some nagging things about money, but that will probably get resolved over the next two days.

i just need to get over the feeling that i didn't make it to the next round because i suck at lifewriting.

i'm going to go kill things on warcraft and i'll be fine tomorrow.

everyone:

from last tuesday evening until five minutes ago, I have written and agonized over three papers: one 17 page paper, and two 18 page papers. i'm now done with all of my major coursework for this semester. That's 55 pages of writing in 5-6 days! today was the big final push, and I wrote 18 pages today. 18 pages of a mediocre paper that is so, so far away from what i originally intended to write but it's still a coherent paper.

i still have to write an abstract for my studio project, since the studio's work is getting published in a year. i still have to submit high res images of my work for said studio. I have to complete my fellowship application. but i'm done with my last paper of grad school!


!!!!


i would go to school and skip around for joy, but I know people still have end of the semester project due up until thurs.

!!!!!

A lot of my procrastination time these days is spent reading jezebel.com, perhaps the only gawker site worth reading. [Wonkette used to be a Gawker site and it used to be great, but now it's neither.]

Anyways, so one of the recurring features is "Crap Email from a Dude" in which a reader sends in a particularly crappy email that a guy of her acquaintance has sent her. This week's post apparently involves a poet without emotional sensitivity and while the email itself is spectacular in its brevity to douchebag index, I mostly love the comments by the jezebel readers.

this one bears quoting:

but mostly
i am in love
with myself

a shelf, an elf
a washcloth waiting and a cool egg
something else a poet would write
fiction writers
might be assholes too
but at least they won't try so hard
to make it sound pretty
or to format it
when they are acting
like douchebags

also, I left my semi-f'ed up, 4 year old glasses in bmore this past weekend. my solution to this was to buy a new pair from zenni's optical--I've been meaning to this for awhile, and this seemed like a good excuse. I ended up choosing this frame in the black/clear/red. I was trying to find something that seemed somewhat fashionable AND professional. Apparently it takes a while for the glasses to come through, but I hope it does soon cause i'm tired of wearing contacts all the freaking time, esp when i'm up late writing papers.

p.s. so to carry on in my unwitting quest to be a complete Jane Austen geek, I had picked up a copy of Persuasion in an airport during some trip I was on during the past 6 months. [I honestly, don't remember where I was going.] Anyway, like all Jane Austen novels, it's a wonderful love story/mockery of the minor gentry of Georgian England. I didn't care for the book at first, but during my flights this past wekeend, I reread the book and it has really grown on me. It's grown on me so much so that I discovered that I discovered a podcast of Persuasion, and proceeded to listen to it while doing schoolwork.

I am listening to readings of a Jane Austen book. for fun. i'm not sure if this is a cry for help or what. ;P Also I mat explore the world of audiobooks a little more now.. it might add some variety to my walks to and from school.

I am so fucking tired of thinking about making sections or diagramming the communal spaces of some housing typology that I just made up after 72 hours of mental agony that I am just ready to phone this motherfucker in. I have four days left, but I am ready to stop.

Anyway, to switch things up for me mentally, I decided to see if New Orleans has a rugby team. They do! they're the.. New Orleans Halfmoons? Now, I kind of get the "halfmoon" designation--New Orleans is Crescent City, crescents are related to moons, etc.--but I can't help but wonder if they could've come up with a more interesting mascot. Voodoo dolls? Nutria? Gators? Crocodiles? Palmetto Bugs? Fuck, beignets? However, they've been around since 1978, and they've been hosting a Mardi Gras rugby tournament for the past 30 years. They also volunteer at Habitat for Humanity's Musician Village, so that's neat.

Names! I mean, come on, maybe Crescent City Voodoo Dolls? maybe Voodoo Queens? That'd be neat. Maybe that's more appropriate for a roller derby team or something.

Anyway, onto other topics: my bread I made last night was awesome, especially fresh and with tons of butter. Then again, I made it, it was 3:30am, and I had the equivalent of two tiny meals all day because I was so hyped up about the prospect of final review, so my perceptions may be a bit skewed.

I may post up pictures of the bread later. I thought it looked good.

Finally, does anyone else have long bouts of being unreasonably self conscious of their looks, puberty notwithstanding? I mean for the past six weeks or so I've seen pictures/reflections/etc. of myself and a part of me has just about decided that I'm a small eyed, big foreheaded/cheeked freak with a nose that looks like an equilateral triangle. I'm not really sure where this disdain for my facial features is coming from because it's not like my face has changed over the past twenty four years of my life, but there you go. Also, somewhere along the line I've decided that I may in fact fail at smiling in a remotely attractive manner.

I suppose my lj is just a demonstration that you can be a healthy adult with an excellent education, great romantic relationship, and a network of supportive friends and you can still be wrought with anxiety about life. I feel like some sort of walking spiritual lesson or chick lit novel about not getting tied up in worldly things or learning how to be happy with yourself just the way you are or something. Which, you know, I should work on internalizing. Any day now..

Also, listening to various episodes of zero punctuation is really affecting my internal dialogue, and thus my lj writing style. AWESOME.

I got a ton of stuff done today--nothing finished, but I got all of the foundations for drawings done. I think I'm in an okay place for studio right now. It's 1:40am, and you know what I'm doing right now? Baking No Knead Bread and trying to get some of my outline for my Turkish Informal Settlements/Failures of the Turkish Housing Delivery and Finance System paper done. It's actually more interesting than the title suggests, even though I hve very little familiarity with Turkish government.

Also, do I win some prize for using "Turkish" that often?

Next on the culinary to do list:
-make hummus
-make a meal that is something other than mac and cheese or steamed green beans + rice + teriyaki or kung pao sauce
-does mac and cheese + broccoli + sauteed onions + garlic count?
-or rice and beans?

p.s. 2:10am--I am so excited about this bread. this is almost very nearly silly.