got a new fridge today :)

oi. Rounds were a disaster (my fault). Some reason my weight is really non-fluid and funky. I feel drunk, or light-headed, or something. I don't know.

reading to the lighthouse for midterm on Friday, thought I'd share this quote because well.. Rabah knows what I'm talking about:

but Minta still sobbed, all the way up to the top of the cliff. It was her grandmother's brooch; she would rather have lost anything but that, and yet Nancy felt, it might be true that she minded losing her brooch, but she wasn't crying only for that. She was crying for something else. We might all sit down and cry, she felt. But she did not know what for

er.. yeah. I have wanderlust. bad wanderlust. want to go somewhere quiet and peaceful, where the tides can cover me and my grandmother's brooch and we can sail, lose sound, and sleep.

Our new fridge is awesome. it's bigger. and things only freeze in the freezer.

Rubal is awesome too. she brought me pekore from the gurudwara, and makes me aloo parantha in the middle of the night.

Next week will be my week. My week to catch up on school, get in more hours at work, work on my ballroom technique (buy new heel caps for my standard shoes) read faulkner... and sleep. and essay. but sleep first.

To-Do by end of Friday:
English midterm prep:
# Finish Lighthouse
# portrait of the artist
# The darkling Thrush
# I wake and feel the fell of dark, not day
# no worst, there is none, pitched past pitch of Grief
# Second Coming
# a pact
# In a station of the Metro
# oread
# thepool
# sea rose
# garden
# tender buttons
# the oven bird
# birches
# design
# chaplinesque
# repose of Rivers
# Voyages
# poetry
# to a snail
# the Pangolin
# spring and all
# Review: to Elsie (WCW), the fish (moore), easter 1916, leda and swan, Lakeisle of innisfree(Yeats), dickinson, terms to know

Spanish midterm prep:
# hand out sheet
# go over rhyme terms
# lit terms
# poems
# meet with Elana tomorrow?

Lunch/dinner with Michelle/eric

Prep for Calstate

OSL constitution

Alumni House contact

Faculty club contact (to jennifer)

Meeting Agenda

Points budget fixes

Sleep (hopefully)

Do well in comp (hahh)

almost kinda worth it?

placed in 9/10 dances yesterday. pretty awesome.. I don't remember which one is what ranking... but i'm happy. after thinking last monday in rounds, "oh baaallls, we're gonna do horrible." Dan and Sharla came to the rescue, gave us some office hours, gave us, probably more importantly, some confidence, and we did pretty damn well in my book.
I (stupidly) decided to dance for four more hours (after the initial 6 from the comp) at the party afterwards. hahhh.. I can barely move. well.. sort of.
Doing well in comp, and private lessons seem to make up for all the crapola that I go through for the team. I hope it continues to be like that.

need to write spanish essay... must write spanish essay.

must study. focus. focus. focus.

I deserve a bit of random right?

Found this on a lj of a person who was commenting on the lj of Anis Mojgani the poet (in other words, a complete and utter stranger) "These are the top 106 books most often marked as "unread" by LibraryThing's users. Bold what you have read, italicize those you started but couldn't/didn't finish, and strike through what you couldn't stand. Add an asterisk to those you've read more than once. Underline those on your to-read list."


Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Anna Karenina
Crime and Punishment
Catch-22
One Hundred Years of Solitude*
Wuthering Heights
The Silmarillion
Life of Pi : a novel
The Name of the Rose
Don Quixote
Moby-Dick
Ulysses
The Odyssey
Pride and Prejudice
Jane Eyre*
A Tale of Two Cities
The Brothers Karamazov
Guns, Germs, and Steel: the fates of human societies
War and Peace
Vanity Fair
The Time Traveler's Wife
The Iliad
Emma
The Blind Assassin
The Kite Runner
Mrs. Dalloway
Great Expectations
American Gods**
Atlas Shrugged
Reading Lolita in Tehran: a memoir in books
Memoirs of a Geisha
Middlesex
Quicksilver
Wicked: the life and times of the wicked witch of the West
The Canterbury Tales
The Historian: a novel
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Love in the Time of Cholera
Brave New World
The Fountainhead
Foucault's Pendulum
Middlemarch
Frankenstein
The Count of Monte Cristo
Dracula
A Clockwork Orange
Anansi Boys
The Once and Future King
The Grapes of Wrath
The Poisonwood Bible: a novel
1984
Angels & Demons
The Inferno
The Satanic Verses
Sense and Sensibility
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Mansfield Park
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
To the Lighthouse
Tess of the D'Urbervilles
Oliver Twist
Gulliver's Travels
Les Misérables
The Corrections
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay*
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time
The Prince
The Sound and the Fury
Angela's Ashes : A Memoir
The God of Small Things
A People's History of the United States: 1492-present
Cryptonomicon
Neverwhere
A Confederacy of Dunces
A Short History of Nearly Everything
Dubliners
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Beloved
Slaughterhouse-Five**
The Scarlet Letter
Eats, Shoots & Leaves
The Mists of Avalon
Oryx and Crake: a novel
Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed
Cloud Atlas
The Confusion
Lolita
Persuasion
Northanger Abbey
The Catcher in the Rye*
On the Road
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Freakonomics: a Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
The Aeneid
Watership Down
Gravity's Rainbow
The Hobbit*
White Teeth
Treasure Island
David Copperfield
The Three Musketeers

Wow. there's a hell of a lot of Gaiman on that list.

"it's three am and I want to go to bed"

That post below is kinda grossly whiny. I think before I start work for the morning I'll go back to that Plath passage that still makes me think that maybe I'm going crazy just like Esther Greenwood:

I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story.
from the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet, and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, an beyond and above all these figs were many more figs I couldn't quite make out.
I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet.

The Bell Jar
must I choose?

must study- focus. focus. focus.

misshapen words

I look through this blog, and my old xanga and I see how I haven't changed very much at all. But if I looks through my fiction, it's so apparent how much I've changed over the years. what used to be important to me, no longer seems to be.

I seem to have an obsession with the song "Near to You" by A Fine Frenzy.. which was given to me by Dearest Rabah, who has a similar affliction. it's.. fitting of my mood these days.

I feel like what I do and who I am are separating, and I don't like that. I don't like it at all. I think... i need time to enjoy what i'm doing.. and that appreciation for the work that I put into things will translate into me a coherent self.

I had a really good talk with Janie the other day. She always reminds me of what God wants. what God is like, and how much He fixes things. I wish I could see her more often.

I wish so many things. I feel so nostalgic.. maybe melancholy is the better word.. but only when I'm alone.. and only when I allow myself to be. When I'm with you, I'm better. I think I may just be homesick. sad that Dharasalam is taking a piece of home away from me.

must study. focus. focus. focus

Words of advice

"Rejoice, young man, during your childhood , and let your heart be pleasant during the days of young manhood. And follow the impulses of your heart and the desires of your eyes. Yet know that God will bring you to judgment for all these things. So, remove grief and anger from your heart and put away pain form your body, because childhood and the prime of life are fleeting. Remember also your Creator in the days of your youth, before the evil days come and the years draw near when you will say, "I have no delight in them" Ecclesiastes 11:9-12:1

Everything is about balance. You can't go overboard, but at the same time, you must enjoy the present, no Franciscan lifestyle here. I love Ecclesiastes, it's depressing, but still so good. Faith as an anchor for everything else. I need to get back to that.

New Post

I had a really good talk with Cindy this Saturday about Christianity as a religion, versus Christianity as a faith. We talked about how to blend dancing with our faith, and whether those two things were contradictory or not (they aren't). I guess I've been receiving a little bit of stress from that, from what my parents say about dancing, and from the amount of time I spend on it. She said something how practice studios make her feel safe. I'd agree that they're comforting. I like being the first person in 234 with the lights dim and the floors squeaking. It's relaxing when everywhere else, there's tension.
I also had a good dinner with Philip. I have respect for him and I feel like I can relate to him well with how busy we both are. I don't know my FiC class outside of superficial knowledge. I want more than that. Unfortunately, I can admit to the fact that Fic gets pushed aside when other things get busy. Well.. so does God unfortunately. I should fix that.
Connected to that thought, I need to read my Bible more often. I pretty much... don't. what kind of Christian does that make me? a bad one.. and an ignorant one I suppose. That's not who I want to be.
Rabah just sent me a song "Near to you" by a Fine Frenzy.. and I'm not listening to the lyrics much.. but the feeling of the song is hitting the right spot. I've got Wanderlust right now. I just want to drive around and not worry about work right now. I don't want to do anything- but I need to do well on this essay to prove that I can after 45b which was a disaster.
I feel like all the things I'm doing are all things that I love to do (with the exception of maybe work- but my boss makes up for that) but I feel like I'm still trying so hard to prove something all the time. Trying to prove that I can do everything, Trying to prove that I can be a good dancer and make it to finals, Trying to prove, I can handle Dancing, Being President and school, trying to prove that I can teach, trying to prove I'm decent in English, Trying to prove ... everything, I don't know whether it's proving it to myself, or proving it to other people. I think it's a little of both. I think this aspect of everything is grating on me.
I have very few strong friends here. I see people. and I see people more often than others. but I feel like I don't have a very equal, or just.. comfortable relationship with most people. still. I don't know whether being as busy as I am is helping. It isn't. I don't get to see anyone anymore. I'm complaining too much. I'll stop.

I'm ready for a day that isn't ordinary.

I just read Rabah's blog and she says this:

yang said i'm disappearing. i think i am. in the weirdest way. just....disappearing into priorities. disappearing into "can-do-this-all." i'd rather be disappearing into love and comfort and healthy education and bigbelly laughter.

We're in the same place even though we're 1,300 miles away.. I wish we were in the same place physically.

midterm season?

Of course I'm updating at 1am when I should be doing my Shakespeare paper/assignment. oh well.

I need to keep up with reading.. and life in general. and my family. and friends. sometimes I wonder where all my time goes, and how much I "waste" over whatever period of time.

Finished his dark materials series. Was pretty good... probably would have been better if I had read them as a kid to begin with. Also- hard for me to imagine 12 year-olds having sex. Did people have sex when they were 12? Middle school? it seems too young. but I guess Pullman left it deliberately quasi (not really) ambiguous as to whether they actually did or not. No. but what is age anyway other than an arbitrary marker of time?

I'm craving tacos dorados from La Taquieria in the Mission. but do I have money for that? nope.

time for some shakes

BART of conciousness

I had one of those moments today in my modern lit class. Eric (Professor Falci, in this case to not confuse him with friend-Eric) mentioned something in brief at the end of class while discussing Joyce: how the pronoun "I" is both completely specific and completely generic at the same time. Have you thought about that? I never had before, I hate it and love it when something someone else says makes complete sense and I couldn't quite get there myself. its like there's a sense of relief that I finally got there, but disappointment in that I only got there by being nudged.. or maybe even shoved there.

I feel like when I focus on Spanish, my English comprehension skills go to crap and when I focus on English lit, I can't seem to articulate myself in Spanish. then again... I don't articulate in English either- I just use hand motions and noises most of the time. I should work on that- in both cases. stop rambling. get to the point. and use words correctly (unless of course I want to make one up.. probably shouldn't do that either).

To food then history. I've freed up my Mondays (thank god). now hopefully i won't spend the rest of my week catching up to what i couldn't do at the beginning. No more 10-midnight Mondays. woohooooo

Both Rubal and I need to clean up our crap. our apartment is gross.

Fall back

In order to catch up in History, I have to read: Ch 1-5 in Bakewell, and read victors and Vanquished more closely.
In order to catch up in English 45c, I have to read: Hopkins, Hardy and Yeats
In order to catch up in the Shakes, I have to read the sonnets and finish Love's Labours Lost
I'm caught up in Spanish.

when did I get behind? Why aren't Latin America lectures more interesting? the reading is (if I had the time or the energy for it)

Week three.. already have essays coming up....

Do you ever want to call up people you've lost touch with, or haven't talked to in a long time, but think it might be too awkward of a conversation to start? I do it all the time.

I think I need a nighttime adventure.

I have not yet looked closely at hardy, Hopkinds or Yeats, but so far, I like this one (no I am not [yet] an Emily fangirl)best.

"The Brain - is wider than the Sky-
For- put them side by side-
the one the other will contain
With ease - and You - beside-

The Brain is deeper than the sea-
For- hold them - Blue to Blue-
The one the other will absorb-
as Sponges- Buckets- do-

The Brain is just the weight of God-
For - Heft them- Pound for Pound-
And they will differ - if they do-
as Syllable from Sound-"
-Emily Dickinson

Falci noted that Syllables and Sounds don't have any weight to them- they're jsut ideas, how can you weigh them against each other... but then again, is there any weight to God? to the Brain? what is either if not ideas created?

anyway, Hopkins is fun to read out loud... try it sometime

madness

My toe isn't getting any better. it was supposed've to be healed in 6 weeks. adag;iahgggehh... all I want to do is dance so that there's some comfort in the massive amounts of work I have to do. but no, i can't even do a basic rumba walk. or a lock in quickstep because of it. it's so enfuriating, makes me want to cry out of frustration.

today I realised, I have two midterms on the same day (for spanish and english), two essays due on the same day (for spanish and english) and two Finals on the same day.. for what? oh that's right, you guessed it, Spanish and English. I just want to do wellllll in both classes

Emily Dickinson is pretty interesting... never liked her before... but in some ways she's mind blowing and in others, she's still this ordinary recluse, who may have had an easy time thinking outside her shack.

someone's playing pretty good music outside (CCR earlier and now janis Joplin), I think it's down at Kips, maybe just a homeless person with a boom box. (do they call them boom boxes anymore?)

I'm going to go to office hours this semester, and I'm going to write. early reminder: NaNo WriMo is November... got your novel/screenplay ideas rolling? (I don't)

Yesterday I went to an amazing lecture by Michael Watts... sadly, it's nigh impossible i'll get into his class. so I'm sticking with the latin america. the sheer amounts of crap I have to do daily is slowly catching up (I slept a good Twenty Eight hours on sunday), but I'll beat it. With awesome friends like Eric to take me away i sure will.

on a side note, I hope i get into the swing cal.

Okay to do list for tomorrow:

- staple gun/fliers to Sarah
- class
- Contract signing with the Works
- Robert at 3:40
- Sports club meeting at 7
- Make it to rookie DS before it ends
- Give staple gun to Michelle after DS
- Get staple gun from Abhishek
- LAUNDRY
- Read rest of Emily carefully
- Office hours for Chuck (mandatory)
- Matute cuento + example intro paragraph
- Skype Meeting at 10:45

The sad thing I realise, is the only way I'll get to see people is to schedule them in (like robert here).

I have massive mosquito (or something) bites, including one on my face. they itch.

should I do dishes? or sleep?

so it begins.

This thing has become more and more decrepit as time goes on. I should probably just stop blogging all together, just like everyone else, considering, Rabah... and maybe Eric are the only ones who read this anymore. but just because it doesn't have content doesn't mean that it doesn't still have myself enmeshed into it. I guess it's a little piece of Jessica if anyone ever wants some. Maybe that's why I miss reading people's blogs. it's the fast and easy way to keep in touch, or feel like you're still in touch (even if you're not). It's kinda shady. makes me feel like a voyeur, but not in regards to sex, but in regard to other people's lives. I think that might be worse. more personal depending how much they encrypt and how much is blatant.

I'm back into a Neil Gaiman fix. read/watched Stardust, i think it's one adaptation I don't mind, even if the CG was a bit... CG-esque, but I suppose it's that sort of fantasy. They did a good job of turning the book into something movie-able. Finishing Anansi Boys, and then going to quickly read golden compass before I have to start reading the Shakes, or something else for epanish or 45c. Espero que esta chica "Mayra" es tan chida como Dan, o por lo menos como Mary.

Dance party yesterday, need some new moves. learned that "hyphy" was dead. Saw Church kids today, that really made me feel like school was starting.

gonna go back to reading.. as if I won't be doing that for the next 15 weeks...

Summer's over in three days.

I finally have a pair of sunglasses that pass the cheek test! took me long enough. damn my super pudgy cheeks and my infant like lack of a bridge on my nose... but i like them. a lot.. birfday present from Jen, who gave me a gift card.

Final tomorrow. I think ill do okay. hopefully really well, so I can get an A- in the class.

someone is playing blues outside my window... it's not bad, kinda makes me want to go to Friday Night Blues in SF... but I don't have the time, or the money for that. I want to try and get some of my church friends to learn how to lindy or something, it would be fun to go to a club in a big group.

I saw a girl today wearing a Darfur shirt like it's a brand name... i can't decide whether that disgusts me or not.. i think part of me hates it and is repulsed by it, and the other part of me thinks that making human rights causes into fashion statements sells whatever it is you're selling to raise money, and therefore, you get more money for the cause? I don't know.

I say por eso a lot when I speak in Spanish... maybe I shouldn't... becuase it's not direct cause and effect statements and such. I dunno.

I raise my glass to the last days of summer... and Yang coming tomorrow!

Deathly Hallows, Brownies, Ballroom

Harry Potter is interesting. I've noticed for the last three books, that I enjoy them after I've let them marinate a while. initially, it's entertaining, and just that. but later, it's nice to see I can appreciate them on a level that's at least somewhat deeper than that. 7... I'm not sure yet, i think I have to read it another couple of times before I can really say whether I dislike it or like it. I don't think I hate it.. but it isn't my favorite either. she's stepping away from black and white, but then again.. she's becoming more hollywood with Snape, and Hermione and Ron.... I won't say more until later.

Been making batches of brownies with David and tweaking the Alton Brown recipe to make it better. apparently they're better cold.. but they're always gone before it gets there. another batch tomorrow.

I wish there were more time to read.

should I be a Spanish minor?

I HAVE INTERNET!!!!!!

yayyy... I need to pull a Ben though and tape all my wires so they're not right infront of my door... and get like ten jagillion surge protectors. how many things can you plug into one plug thingy safely? I don't know. but I think i'm going to find out soon.

I used to like shopping. Slightly dissapointed in Safeway... but the Berkeley Bowl... yayyy... its like...producegasm. I bought something called a Mango Nectarine.... it was super expensive.. but I had to try it. I didn't believe my mom when she said food was expensive.. uy. I know why she's said that. I blame it on the produce.

I shoudl be at practice. but I'll start going this up coming week once things get settled in.

Back In Berkeley

I can see Sausalito and the Golden Gate Bridge from my apartment. I like to eat dinner on my floor (becuase I don't have chairs)with my door sized windows open watching the sun set. my apartment is way cool.. and seems... bigger when all my stuff is in it.. wierd huh? like when it's empty and just feet of carpet, you don't really get the sense that all your stuff (and Rubals) can fit into that measly 480 square feet.. but it's so worth it. I'm just glad they don't make you pay more for the view.

I've decided to stop using plastic bags, and carry/fill my own cloth totes. usually the cashiers give you strange looks, but it's nice- like I'm sure that my bag won't rip and send everything falling through.

I have no shelving, no drawers, but I do have a really awesome kitchen space. small.. but awesome... partly becuase of mom... partly because of Eric...

Hopefully, once I start dancing again, all this work for Ballroom will start to pa off, and I'll enjoy it again.

I need internet. yesterday I got lucky and somehow accessed Airbears (school network) from my bed. not so lucky today. so I'm sitting infront of our (locked) library... kinda sketchy... but it'll do.

I love this place.. but I miss colorado's people. :(

so much stuffffff to dooooooo

Ugh. so I come back from Chicago and suddenly a gajillion (and that's a lot) of things start popping up that I have to do. People to call, places to go, things to pack, emails to write...

it seems like we're not much closer to getting social class space than we were three weeks ago. it's so frustrating.

I need another day. I should have bought my books for the summer before I went to Chi-town. how stupid of you Jessica.

I wish I were in Argentina.

"Flew over Alaska... "

not really.. just the good ol' Midwest.

Leaving tomorrow, gonna be back on sunday. I said I'd see a lot of people again.. which is goign to be crazy.

I should be buying my books already for class, huh.

okayyy focus on packing.. why does my room always look like a hurricane's blown through it post-packing?

'nother short post.

I'm really thirsty.

my jaw is infected... sexy eh?

I'm back on antibiotics, couldn't eat yesterday, played ultimate today- almost died for lack of breath.... i don't know whether that's two weeks of doing nothing but sit on my ass, or whether that's because my body's stressed out from infecction.

I have this habit of stretching out words when I type them. is it annoying?

short post.

I feel gross.

drink up me hearties

I've had a full week. I love being home. but as always I feel a pull between spending time with my parents... even if we're just in the house together. and going out with friends... which always happens to cost money (which I'm trying to save) so... yeah. also have to keep track of when everyone's leaving and see them before they do.

Life is pretty good right now. I saw Pirates yesterday and bakes cookies with Kaitlin... thought it was pretty good except for the giant Tiadalma... and I totally called a whole bunch of plot devices throughout the series. hung out with Sharla and Cindy in Boulder, Red Robin and B&N with Joyce (where I proceeded to buy a book [Amazing adventures of Kavelier and Clay] she had been recommended.. got to talk to Eric, starbucks with Rabah, ultimate...

I like home because everything is safe, and how it used to be. maybe it's that I don't really meet new people here.. or I don't really have to see people I dont' want to see... but it's nice. v. different from Berkeley- where I don't know (most) people. it'll change. Can you have two homes? Berkeley feels like home, it feels permanent. but Denver feels familiar. like I can navigate it with my eyes half shut and be fine. Like the skies should always look this big and different all the time. and the mountains should always be visible and recognizable.