Important questions
1. Where will I be in ten years?
2. Are locational preferences inherited from your parents? Though I differ greatly from my parents (and though they differ greatly from each other) we all like to be on coasts. Why is this?
3. What will happen to me if I am not on a coast?
4. How will I obtain more Diet Coke?
5. How can I be more efficient?
6. Why does my historical ling professor know everything?
7. Will I ever realize that it really isn't that big of a deal?
8. Do the carefree people I envy actually exist?
9. Will I ever figure out how to live my life in each phase before the phase ends? Is that how you know when it is time to move on?
10. Will getting groceries ever cease to be a daunting task?
11. When will I feel like my age? Or will I be 13 in my head forever?
!!!!!!!!!!!
Okay, I was just posting a comment on my friend's xanga page, and I saw one of those banners where you answer a question and you can win a free iPod or whatever. Usually they are pretty innocuous, though still quite stupid, like "Which one of these actresses is Mary-Kate Olsen?" with three pictures of blonde people. This one had a picture of Lindsay Lohan, and asked, "How much does Lindsay Lohan weigh?" What the hell is wrong with our society???!?!?! Every so often I am filled with such anger at this culture, its hyperanalytic obsession of bodies and beauty that drives each member mad in some way or another. It is so absurd to me that this country is so obsessed with diets and thinness when there is so much hunger in the world. I'm guilty of being consumed by it too, and I know how consuming it can be, that the width of your stomach becomes the most important consideration in your life. It just amazes me how pervasive it is. That even these stupid banner quizzes concern themselves with someone's weight. Lindsay Lohan is a beautiful girl; why won't they let her just be a beautiful girl? Why isn't that enough? I'm so completely tired of seeing these magazines tracking the internal torture of anorexic (or at least too-thin) celebrities. I saw one in the grocery store with the headline: "Nicole Richie gains 3 lbs!!!" accompanied by a picture of her eating a sandwich quickly. I don't mean to be presumptive, but I would imagine that celebrities that weigh under 100 pounds (and are not 4'8") are exhibiting signs of some kind of problem, and I can't even imagine what it would be like to undergo that kind of pressure in the public eye, to see pictures of yourself eating on magazines. It's bad enough for regular people.
I guess my big question is "Why do we care?" Where did this come from? What makes people in our society think that they have the right to scrutinize people in this way? What will make them stop wanting to?
oh computer...
Something that is causing me great sadness right now is that my iPod will not work in Linux. K. downloaded a program for me that would work like iTunes, but it only worked when he used it, and it won't work for me. (Any of you computer-savvies know how to fix Banshee?) It just crashes whenever I plug in the iPod. Won't recognize it at all. I love my baby iPod that my mummy got me and I can't even add songs to it :( So it looks like K. will have to switch me back to Windows, which I am dreading, because I have grown to love using Ubuntu Linux and have actually learned how to do some stuff by myself! I despise Windows and its constant error messages: "Internet Explorer has experienced an unexpected error and must shut down." Because it makes me feel that much better to click "Send error report." But I suppose being able to easily use my toys is some motivation.
On a happier note, I set up my ethernet cable and I can actually use the internet in my apartment!!!! It's soooooooooooooooooooo fast! And I don't have to keep restarting the computer! I can't get internet if I move anywhere else, but I don't care!
I talked to my grandmother a few minutes ago and I was so jealous because she was going to go to the yarn store and get yarn to make a scarf for my aunt. It is the perfect day for knitting! I wish I could go with her to the yarn store and play with all the plushy yarn and be knitting away for hours with my grandmother, with a cat curled up at my feet. And eat cabbage rolls. And tend a fire in a fireplace. (My grandmother does not have a cat or a fireplace, but I can add them in my head.) Such a happy idea.
can't...move...will...collapse
after a week of being ill i returned to my yoga class, without having done any yoga since a week and a half ago...not a fun experience. i was better than i thought i would be, and i thought my upward-facing dog was pretty sharp, and i was very impressed with my warrior poses. though i unconsciously tried to turn them into ballet poses, so while everyone looked fierce like this, i was trying to do this. but then when my strength was starting to go, she, in her ever-chirpy voice chirped, "ok, now balance all your body weight on your arms!" and i fell, and i fell, and i fell. i am now an amorphous blob, and want to go crawl into a hole and sleep for a couple months. if i can ever get out of this chair.
transcription woes
Dear crazy author and editor of Indo-European Language and Culture,
I am a poor little student of Indo-European languages. I have very much reading to do. You have no idea how discouraging it is to sit down with your book to tackle some tasty correspondence sets when all of a sudden, there are some symbols that I cannot interpret. I realize that it is your intention to preserve the writing traditions of the respective languages that you present to me, but do you think you could have an explanation of terms, perhaps? Little footnote? An appendix? Something? I have dealt with the fact that in linguistics I will never know what j means until its value is stated specifically, but it's everything...the unidentifiable cedillas under vowels, the j issue, and freaking written c's (that you graciously later tell me represent k). Can't you do that for all of your ambiguous symbols? So I don't run around my apartment like a mad woman screaming, "Is it a postalveolar affricate or a palatal glide??!?!?" Or here's a thought: Use the damn IPA! That's why it is there!!!!!!!
Grrrr...
Never really realized how much the long-distance relationships suck...You underestimate how very nice it is to have someone there to give a quick hug to in the middle of your homework. Sad...
Encounter with creepy men
As Prathna has her regular installments of "Conversations with Ashok", I like to have a semi-regular storytime of encounters I have with creepy men. Partly because I wish to warn the ladies, partly because of the incredulity of these happenings.
"The Foot Rubber"
Claire's 21st birthday was last week and to celebrate, we all assembled to go to Club Montero's to go salsa dancing. I was very excited to have built-in opportunity to dance at a SLUgS gathering, since at our house parties the dancing only occurs a) after people are sufficiently sloshed, and b) if Alex and/or Margaret are there. I put on my prettiest party dress (it was green and it twirled A LOT when I spinned!) and met the crew down there. We had Alex, Sepi, her amazing friend Jason who came to my rescue later in this story, Claire, Yuichi, Jimmy, and other friends of Claire's. I thought that our group would be all organized in one place in the club, so that if I didn't want to dance, I could just sit with my Alex, but we were pretty scattered, which meant if you weren't dancing, you were wandering around alone looking for the other people. And that is what created the problem.
After I danced with Alex for a bit, I went to get a drink, came back, and no one was there...so I sat on this little bench where random people had been gathered before. I pretended to be very involved with my drink. But that didn't stop...the Foot Rubber.
So there I am, sipping my drink, minding my own business, when this really creepy guy comes over to me and extends his hand to me, implying his desire to dance with me. The man is super red in the face and he looked incredibly drunk. Not wanting to get involved in that, I politely declined and said, "I'm sorry. My feet really hurt right now, so I think I'd better sit this one out." He kind of looked away, then extended his hand again. I thought I should just repeat what I said, but louder, so I said, "My feet are really killing me. I can't dance right now. But thank you." He kind of stood there for a while, looking at me in an evaluative manner. Or completely blankly. I couldn't tell. The staring went on for a long time. I then tried to send distress signals to Sepi and her friend, who were dancing nearby, and after a couple of tries, they saw my look of sheer terror and came to my aid. Jason sits down next to me in a "she's with me" manner and says, "Dude, she said she can't dance right now. Her feet really hurt." Our little drunk friend then looks at my feet, bends down and begins to caress them. I retracted them like claws, and just looked at Jason because what the hell do you do when a man caresses your feet in a club???
Then he tried saying the same thing in Spanish, which just received more blank looks. A staring contest ensued. Jason then simply shakes his head, perhaps thinking gestural communication was more his thing. At that, drunk guy lightly hits Jason with the back of his hand on his shoulder. Jason stood up and was like eight times taller than him, but drunk guy then just hits him again at his hip. At that point, I was getting really freaked out, because drunk guy was completely unpredictable. This attracted the attention of the guy that was standing next to me, by his girlfriend, and he joined in the effort to rid me of the Foot Rubber. He said something like "leave them alone, she's not going to dance with you", which made drunk guy lightly hit this man on his shoulder, in the same manner. We were all now dumbfounded, and kind of kept looking at each other, and at drunk guy, and at each other again. Finally I just started talking to Jason privately, ignoring drunk guy, and he slowly slithered away.
WHAT THE FUCK?
I learned later that this same man had previously tried the same thing on Sepi, who was too nice to say no to him, so she ended up dancing with him, which led to him nuzzling his greasy head full of hair gel and sweat at her neck, and then grabbing her ass. Jason had to swoop in to her rescue too.
Here is the lesson of the day:
Make Alex pretend to be your boyfriend whenever you go out.
Notebook is here, and other good news
Finally, the day I had been waiting for my entire life...the golden day...the day that would mark my change from a girl to a woman...MY NOTEBOOK ARRIVED! They left it at my door on Monday and I saw it, in its (near) perfection, and despite several strange flaws, it was everything I ever wanted it to be. While the pages were indeed right side up and facing front, there were a bunch of slits in my plastic dividers...but I am just glad I could take my baby I mean notebook home.
NOTEBOOK!!!!!!!!!!!!
In other news, I think something is seriously wrong with Berkeley water or something, because all of my friends that I have talked to and I are having serious difficulties studying. They can call it senioritis, but I cannot, so I don't know what to say. My ability to concentrate and read at adult speed is completely gone. Maybe I should go to the Derek Zoolander Institute for Kids Who Want to Learn How to Read and Do Other Really Good Stuff Too.
I am excited though because the Klinton is coming up on Thursday for the Berkeley Linguistics Society conference/Valentine's Day/our one-year anniversary! I cannot believe that it has really been that long, or that little at the same time. I still feel like it wasn't all that long ago that we finally figured out that we liked each other and when I was constantly at his apartment listening to his music, but I feel like I have known him for so long. !!! And it still makes me giddy that I finally got a red-headed boyfriend :) it was a lifelong goal. I suppose it would be slightly creepy if our hair was the same shade of red and if our eye color was the same (K. maintains that they are the same...only like two other people think my eyes are green! All my official documents say I have blue eyes!).
