islanded in a stream of stars

I used to write my life out in post-it notes. Nothing was too trivial to document: snippets of conversations, phrases that sounded good in my head, song parodies, extensive film score reviewing notes, silly messages to friends, even the occasional cartoon. I used up nearly an entire pad in recording the dreams of a talking sonnambulist. (Sadly, those records of Cathy have mysteriously disappeared.) I've gone through at least ten pads covering friends' lockers entirely in post-it notes partly as an artistic statement, as a challenge to authority (will the maintenance crew take it down?) and as a way of cheering someone up or at least amusing them and myself. I've discovered too many too count in the top of my desk; as of a few days ago I couldn't open up that desk drawer without five things falling out because there were so many pieces of paper stuffed in there.

It's just like me to measure things out in minute quantities. Perhaps it's my innate emotional parsimony; perhaps it's my unreliable memory; perhaps it's sheer apathy. It's funny-I never really pay too much attention to all of the typical milestones like the start of a new year, getting my driver's licence, graduation, those sorts of things (I didn't even try for parallel structure; deal with it). I guess I just don't find those personal enough. These little scraps, like the proverbial message in a bottle, trap emotion as we'd like to remember them. It's savoring every moment to the point where they almost lose significance because there are so many of them. They offer a false sense of permanence in the past; I cling to them because they allow me to slip back for a moment to revisit my old life. And only now have I begun to realize that my attachment to these little slips of paper, often crumpled and unreadably scrawled, borders on the pathological. I have sometimes suspected that my passion for history stems from this deep-seated need to freeze frame and capture all of the moments I'm so afraid of losing, to have something of worth for which to account my life.

As you can guess, I can't bring myself to take them to the rubbish bin yet.

Congrats to all of the Class Day prize winners! You all really deserved what you got :D

Good conversation always makes my day, especially when I get to talk to people with whom I normally don't have the chance to do so. At the same time I hate to realize that there are still so many people I'm only beginning to realize are very awesome whom I wish I knew better but have little time left now to spend with them. And yet I still hold on to the quixotic hope that perhaps it's not too late; it's never too late. We'll see how things turn out.

Apparently Elena is best friends with my ex-Stanford roommate, Anne, and neither of them knew that they met previously through the Great Wilbur Hall Softball Camp Caper. Said Caper involved my fellow Grove Lasuen friends and I being mistaken for a squad of particularly nasty cheerleaders in the next building (?!) and escaping just before nightly room inspections. I swear it started out much less sketchily, but don't we all have the best of intentions? eyepiece_simile is the only one I know who has any idea what I'm talking about it.

Apparently Anne is as much of a Marxist Dickens-and-Orwell-obsessed basketball freak as she ever was. Thankfully the most important things about people don't tend to change. I wonder if she's kept in touch with any of the other Grove Lasuen folk. I don't know if I should tell her about Cathy...

I'm wondering more often now what's happened to all the people I knew in elementary school, from summer camp, old friends who have disappeared from my life and I from theirs. I hope they're happy, if nothing else. I've played around with the idea of an elementary class reunion, but I have no idea how I'd contact everyone.

Running at dusk is surprisingly magical. I've always liked to peer through my neighbors' lit windows to see what they're doing. The contrast with the dark gives you a clearer view. I must sound rather voyeuristic, but you see a different side of the people you only glimpse here and there. You learn more about people if you see them off guard.

I can't quite remember the purpose of this entry, sorry.

Reasons why I love today (and other moments of this past week):

1. I got an e-mail from Danielle, my Harvard summer roommate! I've been meaning to contact her for ages except I lost her e-mail address. But now we can actually talk again and it will be the next best thing to getting boba every night with the Matthews gang. Summer nostalgia is starting to wash over me.

2. (Note: non-classmates will be totally confused by this next point, which describes a slighty bizzare IHL tradition.) I was finally ringled this past Wednesday by Alecia! I never knew that she was such a great baker; she even figured out how to replicated the 007 Walther PPK in chocolate chips on my ringling cake! It was so gorgeous that I actually took a picture of it.

3. The winter concert this past Tuesday-I can't believe that was my last winter concert ever. And the regular choir sang two of the Majestic Britain tour trip pieces, "Ose Shalom" and "For The Beauty of the Earth." The few old Britain trippers waiting backstage and I couldn't help but join in. It's so strange to think that we seniors are the last class to have participated on that trip and have gone through some of the best two weeks of my life. I really hope that we can do a sort of "farewell" concert even though we've only got one unreliable alto (*coughs* me). I like the idea of going around to random train stations and singing like we did at the Bayswater Station.

4. This week's episode of Alias for the uber awesome score this week, a great blend of season 1/season 2 thematics and orchestral approaches and the fresh material for season 5. There's some really awesome development of the season 4 mission theme (love the funky low electric guitar and flute mischeviously calling each other), plus the season 2 "Balboa and Cluber" and "Hitting the Fan"-style circular figure in the strings for the fight sequences. And I can't forget to mention the delicious quotes of the Sark and Sloane motifs. For the quieter moments the lovely season 1 "rebuilding her life/S&V love" theme (best encapsulated in the season 1 soundtrack's "Double Life") at the end plus a little quote of the new "Sydney rebuilding her life" theme. Not that he needed to prove himself, but Giacchino is really hitting his stride in getting his score to reflect the blend of the old school seasons 1-2 feel with the new developments of season 5. I really hope that Giacchino will release a season 4 or 5 soundtrack (I honestly don't remember s3 except for "Almost Two Years" as the new love theme). And then there are some squee! plot developments. It's just a little sad that a TV show can brighten up my day as much as it is now.

5. Bead club and assembling bead kits for kids in hospitals. It's a terribly girly project but the hands-on work is incredibly soothing after dealing with random stress of which I now have none really to speak of.

6. Finding new listening material: due to my vaguely magpie-ish "Oooh, shiny new music! Must pretend to analyze and stick on repeat excessively!" tendencies I have discovered the wonders of legally downloading music via MSN. Surprisingly I'm pretty impressed with their selection-I finally have an excellent complete recording of the Nutcracker (whose orchestrations are more nuanced and whose tempo is more in line with the energy of the work than the London Philharmonic Orchestra's "Highlights") and the film versions of various songs from the Sound of Music. The Bernard Herrmann sampling is quite extraordinary for a mainstream commercial enterprise; yay for finally getting his Jane Eyre composition and some of his chamber music! I could swear that he incorporates thematic material from Vertigo and Marnie with some hints of "Conversation Piece" from North by Northwest, but I'm not quite sure if it's meant to be a chamber music adaptation of those film scores.

And last but definitely not least:

7. My film score composer of choice, Michael Giacchino, is being nominated for two Grammy awards for the Incredibles. It's actually pretty pathetic how much I have been dancing around my room since hearing this lovely news (she notes as her friends list starts backing away from their computer screens, disturbed by this extreme fangirling). Once the winter holidays begin I might finally have the time to design those fangirl T-shirts.

It feels like it ought to be the end of the week already; perhaps it's because I've had to get a lot of big things done lately. I've turned in my first college app and an English essay. This evening I finished working on a new Counterpoint layout (well, Alex and I still have entertainment and sports to do but that should be pretty quick) and my senior page. Due to my indecisive obsessive-compulsive tendencies, I redid the entire thing at the last minute in Photoshop. The design isn't exactly what I wanted it to be-originally I wanted to do a photo montage of sorts-but as I didn't have the time or the resources, I'm fine with the way it is now. Surprisingly I had problems trying to pick the perfect quotation, but I'm satisfied enough with what I have.

It's strange to think that there are so few requirements left that I have to do as a senior. Soon my senior talk will be written (well, hopefully) and delivered a few weeks from now. And then I just have to somehow finish college applications if I work up the motivation to meet with an English teacher to discuss revisions. I don't really see things as "this is the last time I will do this" for some reason; I never thought "This is my last father-daughter dance" or "This is my last tie ceremony" or "Only thirty-odd days until I'm a second semester senior." It's all the moments in between that I find more interesting.

The way I've been getting through things is by thinking "Once I get X done, I only have Y more things to do." In some strange ways I find work very soothing; I like the sense of crossing things off of a to-do list and being able to push aside what's bothering me when concentrating on a task. Yet the steady march of assignments that keep croping up are starting to wear down. I want the slogging to be over so that I can move on to all of the other things that I've been putting off, all those messages I've been meaning to write but haven't had the time to do.

Oh, and I'm not flunking Italian after all!

This, my friends, is a personal cause for celebration. I must say that the student described in my comment cards sounds much more intelligent and more dedicated than me...

I have a social life! Well, sort of, so don't get too excited yet. The only downside to my crazy hedonistic lifestyle is that I'm having difficulty getting my work done. Oh yeah, classes; when are those again?

I went to a dance/mixer for the first time since 8th grade, a good four and a half years or so. I finally know what freaking/grinding looks like, and I was totally disgusted. Danielle, Adrienne, and I convinced ourselves to stop being so quiet and actually go out to meet other Harvard Summer School (HSS) students. I don't mind if other people do it, but sorry, that's just not the sort of activity that I would feel comfortable doing. I danced with a guy for the first time, a really nice Latino guy named Mike from Kirkland who unfortunately is a bit of a braggart about his SAT scores and extracurricular activities. Either way he's not particularly good or bad-looking but he seemed nice enough. He twirled me around a bit after staring at me for some time. I think my friend, Charmin, took pity on me and asked him to ask me to dance because she's nice tha way. And then I sort of danced with the bespeckled guy who wears a bow tie all the time from my behaviorism seminar because partly I felt sorry for him and partly because he's dorky in a cute sort of way. We kept randomly waving at each other across the dance floor.

My various dorm mates and friends (Danielle, Adrienne, Liat, Emily, Sandra, Maya, Christina, and Charmin) seemed to be very surprised that I was dancing like crazy for pretty much four hours straight; after all, it's the only exercise I've really gotten all week. Well, except for Thursday when I ran all the way to my behaviorism seminar from my dorm because I woke up ten minutes before class. I was surprised by how much I enjoyed looking like a wriggling fool with my friends. Sophia, silly girl, stayed in her room to study physics and theoretically go to bed early. I saw her briefly for the first time in two, maybe three days just before we left for the dance.

Adrienne, Danielle, and I walked over to the bubble tea place afterwards, but the shop ran out of boba (the tapioca pearl balls as they're called in Boston) so they were closed. We ended up walking to the nearby 7-11 to get some Ben & Jerry's Phish Food ice cream. Unfortunately we were nearly verbally attacked by a really scary Christian fundamentalist on the way back. We ate melting ice cream (well, Danielle had a huge bowl of Cheerios and milk) and played a little Uno. Danielle and I were sober yet acted drunk, possibly because it was late, we had just gone to a dane for the first time since middle school, and we were on a sugar high. We kept laughing at each other whenever the tilted table surface shifted or when the people in the dorm, Strauss, across from us yelled at each other crazily. When the two of us (Danielle and I) returned to our room, we were literally sprawled on the floor laughing when everything tumbled out of our refridgerator (Danielle rented a combo fridge/freezer/microwave, a.k.a. microfridge, yay!) and when I had to toss the rest of Danielle's Cheerios and milk down the sink. Then, of course, I had to get the soggy Cheerios out of the damned sink and into the trash receptacle while one of my dorm mates stared at me as if I were drunk. I'm entering the sober hangover period now and merely feel very tired with sore feet.

Sorry shakeitdown, but I have yet to see an attractive teenage Asian male, and there were lots of Asian guys who kept grinding with only Asian girls. Ugh, that's just not my thing. There were some pretty hot Latino guys (that should make you happy, latina_business and thehashmark) and some really cute geeks with glasses. I should've asked to dance with them but I was too shy. The really nice and fairly hot Latino guy, Shane, who I keep meeting on the first floor of my dorm, has my cell phone number now, but he also took everyone else's cell phone number. He's always really friendly to me, but he is with everyone. I met him two days ago when he invited me to go to the all-male 5th floor's study break/party, but I waited for Danielle, and the party pretty much broke up by the time we got back up there. I heard a rumor that he's gay, probably because he dresses so well and didn't grind with girls (although he tangoed with Charmin for a bit; did I mention he's a great dancer as well?); I really hope that's not the case as Charmin and I are supposed to go shopping at H&M with him on Monday. Perhaps I'll get a chance to really talk to him next week.

Don't worry, horosha, none of the guys were as pretty as you :D

I'd like to blame Danielle for my increasing obsession with pool; instead of getting more reading done this afternoon after lunch we went down to Loker Commons underneath the Annenberg Hall cafeteria to where the pool tables are. The only open table was dominated by this group of either Thai or Cambodian pool sharks whom I would dearly love to either slap or whack over the head with a pool stick. They kept making some really sexist comments in Thai whenever Danielle and I would lean over to play; they never bothered to ask us how the two of us wanted to set up the teams, and there was this one jerk who literally pointed at me and said "I claim her!" as if I were in a harem or something. Thankfully we met a really nice Latino Harvard student named Solomon who joined Danielle and me and really taught us how to play without being the least bit condescending. He helped chase away the Cambodian/Thai dudes by helping Danielle and me whoop the chauvinist pigs' asses; we could only dislodge the pool sharks by beating them thoroughly. Danielle and I really have to meet up with him again so he can help us improve our game. In the process I also met two Chinese guys who were watching us who spoke terrible French. I find it hilarious that all of the American students I've met seem to think that I've got a decent accent.

I really need to stop procrastinating so much. Danielle, Mekkhi, and I went out to Faneuil Hall again yesterday and went shopping at the Quincy Market. I picked up a really cute cartoon card of my cousin Jason and his soon-to-be wife as they're getting married next Friday. I can't wait to see all of my relatives at the wedding on Long Island! I've still 2 chapters of my behaviorism textbook, 2 chapters in 2 different books on reserve at Lamont Library, and the beginning of B.F. Skinner's Walden Two to read by Wednesday that I meant to finish doing yesterday and this afternoon. Yeah, that sure happened. Did I mention that I met B.F. Skinner's daughter, Julie Vargas, last Wednesday? I nearly toppled out of my chair in awe, and that's just the first class!

And on a random note, half the guys I meet claim that I have a slight British accent. This is the first time when a fair number of people I meet for the first time have told me so. What the heck?

One of these days I'll figure out how to save a scanned image on the Science Lab computers so I can post up the caricature drawing of Mekkie, Danielle, and me. It's tremendously cute although for some reason my hair is parted on the wrong side and I mysteriously wear a Harvard sweatshirt that I don't have. I love it anyway.

I am being bad and slacker-ish, i.e have semi-abandoned my New Year's resolution not to procrastinate. Now that I have no more APs and SAT IIs to take, I am starting to slip into "I like the sound of deadlines as they pass by" mode. I have been self-justifying with "Well, I did take 14.5 hours of standardized testing, not including prep work and study time, so don't I deserve a break?" I don't think I will be able to resist rewatching a Danger Man episode for much longer; I need to go make some new screencaps for The Cat anyway.

There is also the lovely prospect of summer, something which haven't really looked forward to in years. Sophia is going to Harvard with me! She's taking intensive double physics, so she probably won't have as much free time, but hopefully we'll still have plenty of time to roam around Cambridge and act like nerds in desperate need of social lives together. It seems much less scary now flying across the country by myself. The sleepover at Sophia's on Saturday was quite fun as usual, especially when we climbed that Eiffel Tower of rope thing at the nearby park.

Apparently I'm on the front page of the Peninsula section of the big local paper. That was sort of weird having random people come up to me and tell me about it. Of course, Julie looks quite nice and I just happen to be nearly falling alseep in it, hee! It's a photo from a really boring assembly of the audience "paying rapt attention." Yeah, right. This was easily the dullest assembly all year.

The first time I ever appeared in a newspaper, it was in a big group photo of my girl scout troop taken for an article about one of the community service projects we did when I was about ten. I miss my old girl scout days when we would volunteer in soup kitchens, sew nifty things onto our sashes, and go up to Hidden Villa for campfires, horseback rides and hikes. And every year I placed second in my troop for selling the most boxes of cookies; the most I ever sold was 237. Those were the days when I would actually go around my very hilly neighborhood and ring every single doorbell knowing that none of my friends lived nearby and had tried selling them anything. One family across the street, the Wests, would buy 13 boxes every year. Sadly, Mr. West passed away a few years ago, and his widow will probably sell off their wonderfully quirky avocado green house within the next few years because the upkeep is getting to be too much for her.

I got fed up with my old LJ layout because on some computers the text scrunches up into this really narrow column thing (as far as I can tell, this is only an IE problem) and is hard to read. I've managed to keep most of my old color scheme but chose a (hopefully) more readable format.

I actually drove in a relatively sane manner today. I ended up listening to my Secret Agent Man Meets the Saint album. It's tremendously fun driving music, especially when you're driving on the highway. Coming back home today I accidentally went the wrong way while on Alpine Road, but I then I found the 280 on-ramp, so it was all good. It's nice being able to find your way around when driving by yourself.

I managed to find a parking lot about seven minutes away from Green so Thea and Laurel took about twice as long to reach the library. Near the end of the day we wandered into the Education Building for a look around. Many memories for me there-I used to have some of my writing classes from that Bohemian summer writing camp. Thea, Laurel, and I ended up having lunch at 4 o'clock because we were so busy microfiching, and if we left our machine we would never be able to get any work done because the other schools were monopolizing the rest of the materials.

I wandered around the South Stacks for the first time and had much fun randomly running around in boots. There's this long straight corridor that you take, and once you start running through it you feel like you're in some sort of suspended time corridor, and you can hear the air whooshing past your face. It sort of reminded me of when I used to run track when I was a lot younger. I always ran the last leg ("anchor") in relay races, and I remember having a really great time with my teammates.

I guess the weirdest part about this weekend at Green is how at home I feel on the campus. I still remember where everything is after living at Grove Lasuen for two weeks, and everything just feels so familiar to me. Heck, a student actually asked me for directions to some dorm. I guess it's all those fond memories from camp that make me so enamored of that place. I'd like to spend more time on the weekends there if I could, if it didn't sound like such a crazy idea.

I want to go watch some Prisoner or SA/Danger Man right now, but I unfortunately don't have either DVD collection. I would go watch this week's BBC America Avengers except that my dad's watching the Super Bowl right now. Gah!

Happy birthday, Sterling!

Lots of people's birthdays are cropping up. August 4th was my dad's, the 6th, my grandmother's, the 7th, my mum's, and the 10th, Sophia's. We got to go up to the City to see "The Lion King" which was an absolutely amazing production. It's not exactly a musical as the music is rather untraditional (in a good way, mind you) and has a lot of African elements to it (obviously). The puppets, the sets, and the costumes were astounding, and after awhile I didn't know where to look because there's just so much going on. Unfortunately I kept thinking about the whole hero cycle thing and found way too many Freudian influences---gah, evil I&S. And Sophia's parents had to sit in a different section in the same row from us because there was a mix up with the tickets. We had really good seats, just close enough to the stage but not too close. However, there was this rude obese bozo sitting next to Sophia who made the original fuss about the seats (it's all a great view, for crying out loud), and let's just say that he had some body odor problems. I have a lousy sense of smell but I could still smell him; that's how bad it was. But after a few minutes I didn't really notice him so much, except that Sophia sort of sat in my seat for the first act because he was crowding her out. Thankfully for the second act his wife swapped seats. Earlier during dinner Sophia and I were trying to find the best ways to make houses of sugar packets, which is actually quite entertaining. Taking that architecture class when I was in 3rd grade actually was somewhat useful. I haven't sketched anything in ages, surprisingly enough.

We got home at about midnight and talked until 4:15 in the morning. It was an absolutely lovely conversation that I wouldn't be able to have with anyone else. There are some people that you can say just about anything to, and you feel completely comfortable with them and them with you. I love things like that. I finally got to say some things that I had wanted to talk about with someone. She was really interested in Cathy, but even now I don't like talking about her very much, but in a way I do. It's very hard to explain. It was really nice for someone to actually be interested in what's going on with my life. Funnily enough, she wants me to set her up with taity. Ha, ha, ha. Auzzies rock, even if they like their beer a little too much.

I suddenly wish that I could say that I'm from Hong Kong or Switzerland or Canada or any other place except the US right now, specifically California. I am still absorbing the fact that Ah-nuld is the governor. I love this state, really, but I just don't like all of the perceptions associated with it if you're female. A lot of my international friends like to make fun of Valley girl speak, and if they actually heard what I tend to say on a normal basis I might very well turn into a blonde surfer airhead. Eeek. Like, *omigod*! If college-aged women in New Zealand spend lots of time worrying about sounding like a Valley girl, then I'm pretty much sunk. Like, wow.

I have an irrational fear of being forgotten at the moment.