roboppy.net

Crap crap CRAP, I was just finishing up an e-mail to my mum when Firefox crashed. All the more reason for me to write all my e-mails in wordpad. It was because I was opening too many tabs at once though, so I guess I was asking for it. Still, computers should be smarter and be able to save my e-mail. Or something. My school's webmail system actually does that for you. If something crashes while you're writing an e-mail or if your session times out, you can get the e-mail back when you log in. Oh well, I'll just type this over again.

Today I went to Let's Get Personal right down the street to order some Poofy tote bags. Woo! Merchandising! EVIL! MWAHAHA! But if I'm not making money, is it really all that bad? The bag has this Japanese Poofy design in pink on off-white. Guys probably wouldn't want it. I ordered 25 bags for a little over $200, so if I sell them for $10, that should work out. I plan to give some away as gifts, so it's unlikely I'll make the money back, assuming I could ever sell the rest. I also placed my t-shirt order today through Brunetto t-shirts for 75 shirts, totalling $530. Not bad, eh? It'll take a while to make the money back, but it'll happen. I hope.

This past Saturday was Founder's Day, a campus celebration of...our founder. I heard it would be a lot of fun and while it wasn't un-fun, it didn't quite live up to the expectations. After I went on one ride (giant swings), I felt kinda woozy and that killed my spirit. I started the day by helping Joan with WVKR stuff she needed to sell at Walker Field, where all the festivities took place. By the time I walked to the bridge that connects the regular campus with the terrace apartment area, I found out that I had left my ID card in my room. Of course, that was the only time I had ever left it and the only time I really needed it. Great! After going back to my room and back to the field with my card in hand, I finally go to see everything. Which wasn't a whole lot. I guess there was a lot of food, and there was a stage set up for performers, but maybe the main point of the day was just to lie on the grass and do nothing. There was a big swing ride and a small ferris wheel set up nearby and, of course, a truck dispensing a seemingly endless amount of beer (if you bought a $10 mug, you could drink all the beer you wanted...uh, assuming you're 21+). Joan and I walked around and went on the swing ride (which was fun for the first 10 seconds and then lasted much too long) and the planetarium exhibit, which was pretty cute.

I wanted to

FUCK FIRE ALARM! NOO.

********some time later********

I hate the fire alarm. It's great if there's a real fire, but otherwise it's one of the most annoying, grating sounds ever.

So what was I talking about? Huh/wuh? Oh yeah, Founder's Day! Well! Joan and I got kind of bored, so we went back to our rooms before dinner. No food places on campus were open because there was an all-you-can-eat bbq by Walker Field, although nothing that I could really eat (unless you count burger condiments). Joan got some stuff but then was nice enough to come with me off campus to get some Chinese take out. Mm...cooked veggies. COOKED! BWA! Quite yummy. I wanted to see Ratatat play, but I was too lazy to go back after dinner. Besides, I'm going to see them this Saturday when they open for Clinic. I don't really like their music that much, but I love Evan Mast's solo stuff. So. Blah.

Before the fireworks show at night, Joan and I watched Spirited Away. That was the third time I've seen it, but it's always good. I need to watch it in Japanese though.

The fireworks show was really good! I wouldn't have minded if that were the only activity for Founder's Day. They played Charlie and the Chocolate Factory after the show on a screen across the lake, but I didn't stay for it. I wish I had though, because i heard it was really fun to watch with so many people. The screen looked really small so I didn't think it would be worthwhile. :\

Yesterday I pretty much just stayed in my room and attempted to work on my psych final. I didn't get very far though because I'm STUPID and can't answer easy questions. *sigh* Being unsmart is ungood.

On Friday night I saw a bit of the Sleater-Kinney show. It was good, although there were a lot of people and you know me...lots-of-people = OH NO. Haha. Ha. Lots of non-Vassar people, which was odd. Actually, it's odd that I'd find seeing non-Vassar people odd. It shows that I've been here too long, probably. Which is true. The last time I went home was a while ago...can't even remember. My brain is deteriorating.

...and I have a bio paper due on Friday that I don't know what to do about. Please kill me. KILL. If that doesn't kill me, than maybe the tons of food I'm eating will. Yesterday I only ate oranges and some seaweed because that was the only food I had, but this morning I ate breakfast for the first time consisting of melons, and I skipped lunch to go to to the printing place. For dinner I had a huge salad, four oranges, and a 5 oz pack of trail mix. Yes, I caved in a bought trail mix. I went one week without nuts, and even less time without dried fruit, but I was craving something with substance, rather than just water. Sigh sigh sigh. I know all the food I eat is pretty healthy, considering I don't have to worry about what other foods are mixed in because it's all pretty much whole (if something you eat is manufactured, thing about what others "ingredients" must be lurking inside!) and fresh, but I don't have super-health in any sense. I might be better off than most people, but still. ...

I wouldn't give up my raw food diet, but sometimes I wonder how much worse off I'd be eating cooked food. I think that I'd eat myself to death and become obese. Or maybe I'm being overdramatic. People think I have willpower to not eat cooked food (most of the time), but I really don't. People who see me eat know that I eat a lot and don't leave one crumb (er, or the raw equivalent to a crumb) behind. I need to change my relationship with food, but I don't know how. I tried getting off of nuts for a week, and that was okay. I went about three days without dried fruit. Not much of a battle won there.

That was just a little rant-thing.

For the record, I think I ate enough to feed a horse. I'm paying for it now by feeling highly immobile. What's in my stomach exactly? Eh. Lots of dried pineapple, some cooked veggies, salad, various seeds, some kimchee, water, two bananas, and babies. I mean. No babies. Well...*pats stomach*...who knows? I don't know why I go through this cycle of eating-too-much-and-feeling-bad so much, but I guess I don't learn. I'm just stupid. *burps* That was the kimchee.

I had a pretty good weekend that resulted in this annoying ringing in my ears. Oh well, that's the price I pay for being stupid. I met up with CJ at the Times Square Toys R Us. Yay for meeting internet friends! :) We went on the Ferris Wheel and sat in the Mr. Potato Head cart. TATO HEAD! HA HA! That was fun.

We went to Life Thyme to eat some lunch/dinner. I love love love it there, although my raw burger patty tasted kinda funky. Too many spices. My spirulina earth pie was delicious though. I left a teeny bite behind because it was getting to the point where I thought if I ate anymore my stomach would reject it. That made me sad...the pie must be eaten! Ahh! I don't know the concept of leaving food behind. ;)

I really have no sense of direction. If only I had a built in compass in my head, then I wouldn't have to guess whether to go right or left and go in the wrong direction for 5 minutes before finding out that I am going in the wrong direction. So that's what happened yesterday as I tried to find Other Music. Doh. I was planning to just buy the new Mum album and instead I also bought Happiness by Fridge and Those Who Tell the Truth Shall Die by Explosions in the Sky. I was going to get something by Minotaur Shock and decided I should listen to more of his stuff first, but I wish I had bought the CD because his stuff sounds pretty cool...oh well, I'm going back to NYC at the end of the month. WEE!

After the random splurge, we took the subway to Park Slope to go to Southpaw, where the Clinic concert was going to be held. We had a lot of time beforehand, so we just roamed up and down the street. A trip to the supermarket rewarded us with pooly designed cereal boxes and a tomato drink called Clamato. Clamato? ...yes. We went to a vintage store where I bought my mum a Mother's Day card (that was actually addressed to "Grandma" but it was the closest thing I could find) and went to a cute stationery/toy/book store called Scaredy Cat, where I bought my mum a gift (two pencils and a cute book). I asked the woman who worked there if they did consignments and they do! So maybe there will be poofy products in Brooklyn in the future. ;)

The doors were supposed to open at 7:30, but didn't open until 8, and the concert didn't start until about 10. Aaahh! The first band, Mad Action, was okay, but made me realize that I was going to go deaf. LOUD LOUD LOUD. My ears are still ringing right now, actually. The second band, Ratatat, was okay but I thought they'd be better. Clinic didn't come on until about 11:45 PM, which was bad considering that the last bus I could take home was at 1:30. Crap. We saw them play for about 25 minutes before I had to leave. :( Good stuff though. YAY concerts! Boo killing my eardrums!

More stuff happened, but that's all I feel like talking about. CJ is cool! Yay for meeting net friends! Not everyone on the Internet is scary...although I guess I'm a little bit odd.

I still feel too stuff. Dammit. DAMN YOU, FOOD!

The guy who lives in the room below me used a pole to knock his ceiling. HAHA! It was funny and scary at the same time. I mean, he was IM-ing me, so I knew what to expect. Otherwise I'd just be confused.

Now I am back in school. Fun fun fun. Not really. I was hoping to do 16 hours of work for my two week work period, but I think I'll only do 14. That's $16 less for me! Grr! Can't fit in two stupid hours...grr grr! Unless I go to the library tonight and sit there aimlessly. Nooo!

Blogger has gotten a beautiful redesign and to celebrate, you can read my old entries. I have about 950 posts. No joke. It's frightening to read stuff from so many years ago, but amusing too. Maybe.

I got my poofy tote bags last Friday and they're pretty sweet. I'll take a photo later. As for selling them, I don't think anyone will buy them for $10 so I might just give most of em away. Would anyone object to that? ;)

I'm reading my old blogger entries right now and as bad as my writing was, my entries used to be much more interesting than they are right now. At least, to me they are because it feels as though someone else wrote it. To think, only three years ago I was a raving depressive lunatic! Ha! Actually, I wasn't, but I pretended I was one half of the time. God knows what was going through my head. ...actually, I made it pretty clear in most of my entries what was going on in my head. I think these days I just write what goes on during my day without delving into my thoughts and such, mainly because there's nothing interesting about them, but for my record I guess I could start talking more about those things.

So. Right now. I still feel bloaty, as I talked about in my last entry. Heaven help me if my intestines collapse. Did I just say "heaven help me"? What's that about? What does that even mean? Great, now I'm talking to myself. I'm always doing that. Still doing it. Damn.

I'm working on my psych take-home final and not getting very far. Please please please, give me a B. Or a B-. Let me end up with a decent grade.

My upper lip is itchy. My body is trying to tell me something...stop eating so much or you'll become a whale. With an itchy lip. Gotcha.

I suppose I'm more happy than sad without being extremely happy or sad. I don't glow with radiant sunbeams of joyful peace loving smilies. I'm just sitting here in my sad room with my roommate's 13 or so boxes as she travels to Hawaii. If only...hohum. This room is so sad looking.

I'm going back to evil psych paper. Sorry for this pointless entry. I guess it's better to have a drama-less life.

It's over. No more freshman year. No more Vassar. I'm free to run crazy and wild and poke things with sticks.

Shall I do that "reflect on all the things I did/did not do and how much stuff sucked/did not suck" thing? I guess I'll start off by saying that college wasn't as scary or bad as I thought it would be. I wasn't one of those people in high school that looked at college as an exciting experience where I would learn new things and be exposed to cool people and experiences. It's not like the idea didn't enter my brain at some point, but I'm a pessimiste and my biggest hope was that I would survive the year. I wasn't as scared as I was going into high school (which was much, much worse than college) but I think it took me longer to adjust. And the whole picking a major thing threw me off, besides living in a place possible more boring than the area around my hometown (sidenote: I never knew my town had such an ugly website...it's not bad, it's just ugly. Man, I wanna redesign this thing). Actually, it wasn't that it was boring as much that Vassar can feel like a bubble/prison and it felt weird to not ever have to leave campus. I went home practically ever weekend during the first semester.

And that's when something in my head told me to transfer to NYU to major in nutrition and live in NYC, which is where I had always wanted to live. I went through the annoying application process that i thought I would never have to go through again after 12th grade, or at least not so soon. But it all paid off because I somehow slipped through the cracks (I attribute this method to how I got into Vassar as well) and was accepted. Woo! For a while I was almost hoping I wouldn't get into NYU because I became more comfortable in Vassar with some good friends, a high-paying campus job, probably getting a radio show next semester, and being in the best Japanese class ever coupled with a new Japanese major, but when I thought about how miserable I was in the beginning of the year and the second semester, I became set on transferring. Before transferring I would have to brand the school with poofy. ;)

When my roommate had left 13 or so boxes of stuff to put into storage, I was somewhat horrified. How could anyone have so much stuff? I take that back after having packed all of my things. I think I may have had more stuff than she had! I have no idea where all my crap even came from considering how small our room is, but I had tons and tons of junk (no photo, unfortunately) that somehow all fit into my mum's Jeep while having enough room for Joan to come home with me for the weekend. We just shoved everything in the back (finishing off the grand pile with my guitar and the 30-something pound pack of water bottles) and hoped it wouldn't collapse and kill something. I should figure out a better way to pack things. I didn't use any cardboard boxes because I didn't have any, but I think crates and bags are easier to carry. They don't stack well, but who needs stacking when you can just smoosh and pile everything on top of one another? "Smoosh and pile" is all the rage.

My two finals were not nearly as bad as I thought it would be. Remember that I'm a pessimiste and equate everything to death, or at least look at the bright side of things by thinking, "At least I have both of my arms and legs and am not having my stomach poked out with a garden hoe and that I can walk and talk somewhat intelligibly without screaming random obscenities or POOP CRAP huh?" My Japanese final went okay, although I'm not sure if I made the 85% mark that I needed to get an A- for the semester. I waaay overstudied for bio, but I guess I'm glad I did or else I would have been more worried beforehand. Our practical consisted of 19 stations at which we had 3 minutes each (or 6 minutes for two of the stations) to complete a task and show our bio prowess. I really screwed up the Punett Square and somewhat messeed up graphing with Excel, but besides that I think I pulled a high B or low A. Our written part consisted of 3 questions, one of which was "What is biodiversity and why is it important?" or something to that extent.

The past week has been race to use as many meal points as possible. This involved eating three meals a day as stuffing myself to the point of thinking "I wanna puke and die and puke after I die and maybe do more dying after that if my soul can handle it". I've gained about three pounds in the past week and I've been eating despite knowing that I already overate and that I wasn't even hungry. Yesterday I got loads of stuff from the salad bar (not all raw) because I didn't have many Retreat points yet and figured I'd just get some more fun veggies and beans (beans are too tasty...damn them). After that I felt like a blimp. I went back to my room and ate MORE FRUIT, putting me into "puke/die" mode. Lovely!

So I gotta lose weight over the summer. 10 pounds, if possible. I've gained more than that since last summer and I don't think I can even fit into the clothes I bought last spring. Keep in mind that this happened not because of what I ate but because of how much I ate. It's probably better to eat a reasonable amount of cooked food than eating buttloads of raw food. I've decided that I can't handle eating even little bits of cooked food like I've been doing over the past week ("little bits" actually equating to about 24% of my daily consumption). It's sad to think that I put on so much weight (that isn't muscle) from eating such healthy foods (at least to the regular person's eye) but there you go...I'm hopeless. And eating a partly cooked and raw diet doesn't even work for me because to an extent, I have no willpower.

This morning I ate an orange and two bananas for breakfast. Damn. I've been eating way too many bananas lately, something like 5-6 a day. If that was ALL I ate in the day, it wouldn't be a problem. ...but that's in addition to three meals. Eh oh.

I woke up today at 9, which gave me about 6 hours of sleep. I don't know why I woke up so early and in fact, I've been getting less sleep now with the cooked food and such than during most of the school year when I ate nearly all raw food. I don't know if I burned out some of my organs or if I'm just screwed up.

Yesterday I walked to the TH (townhouse) that I'm going to live in over the summer. It was much more cramped than I thought it would be and since it's off-campus, it feels a bit secluded, but I hope it'll be fun. The houses out there look like toolsheds and the grass is way overgrown. It's a huge difference from the main Vassar campus despite it still being a part of Vassar. I looked at the schedule for my summer job, which is actually more like a media summer camp, and I'm schedule to do something, maybe a presentation, on two days. What? HUH? I have no idea. Gaaah! Noo!

I woke up nice and early today to go to Michi Beauty Salon to get my hair cut. I've been going there since 11th grade when I chopped off something like a foot (erm, okay, maybe not quite that much, but close) of my hair and banished my locks to hair hell (it's really annoying having long hair). So I drove about 45 minutes to get there and for the first time drove all by myself. Becoming a "big girl" doesn't stop at going to the bathroom by yourself (you'll be glad to know that I possess this skill), but also includes driving a long time knowing very well that you could crash and die/lose a limb/be covered in third degree burns. I drove to the Mitsuwa shopping center this past Sunday with Joan and while the drive there went okay, I ended up on the wrong highway on the way home. Crap. In the express lane. Double crap. I called my mum and somehow got back on the right way home (after missing yet another exit I was supposed to take) but now I'll never go the wrong way again. Hopefully.

After getting my hair cut I went to Kinokuniya to buy some books for my mum. She really wants to learn tole painting, so naturally a Japanese bookstore would be the best resource. ;) For whatever reason it's hard to find books about tole painting in regular stores, even craft stores, yet Kinokuniya has an entire shelf dedicated to it. I got my mum two books and ended up buying two books about myself about making stuffed animals and little figures out of felt. I perused the Japanese instruction shelf and picked up another kanji book. And a cute plastic katakana cheat-sheet. ;) I forget them sometimes and it still takes me ages to read anything, even hiragana. Katakana is worse than hiragana though.

I had a nice lunch at the nearby Whole Foods (a salad and too many cashews) before heading home in the rain and not getting lost. WOOHOO! On Sunday I ended up on route 80 (or route you-are-going-in-the-wrong-direction) and I felt bad for Joan because she probably though I couldn't drive. ;) Actually, I had never driven so much on my own until I drove Joan around to places. We had a lot of fun around the Mitsuwa marketplace, although Joan's favorite food is Japanese food and she ate so much that by the time we finished lunch she was sick of Japanese food. Oh noo! I'll get sick of a food for a while, but I'll still be able to eat it later in the same day. I eat everything...honestly. It's scary how much food I eat.

Today I went to see my English teacher who wrote me a recommendation and probably got me into NYU. I gave her a poofy tote bag and she started using it right away. ;) My old high school is really different from last year since there's a whole new wing in place of where the upper gym used to be. I got pretty confused and almost went into a construction area. Oooops.

I didn't finish talking about my weekend...and I know how much you're dying to know what happened! DEATH + YOU = CORPSE! I've learn my arithmetic, yup. I went to Minado with Joan and my mum. Minado = food heaven (more math). It specializes in Japanese food but they had the best salads I had ever seen before. It's relatively cheap considering what a nice place it is and how much food there was ...and how much I ate (something like 4 plates of oh so delicious salads). My favorites were seaweed, the bok choy, and green beans. Mmm. I gotta go back there again.

Yesterday I dropped off Joan at Vassar and went to my room to pick up the contact lenses I stupidly left behing while stopping by Megan's room to give her a little something and have a Kodak moment. So that was the last time I was at Vassar ...at least until next Monday when I have to go back! :( Not that I'll hate it, but there's so much I want to do. Today I started playing drums again and it was so much fun! I don't know why I never practiced over these past 3 years or so. I enjoy reading plain old rhythms without any kind of melody. Is that strange? Of course, I also like composing music when I'm not lazy or braindead, which hasn't occured in a while. I'm going to bring my keyboard and groovebox with me so maybe I can do something while I'm in school. There's so much I want to do...make more music, learn more kanji and beat the kanji I already know into my head so it can't escape no matter how loughly it screams and kicks my skull, learn some basic Norwegian because it's useful if you like Norwegian artists, update all my websites (okay, that's probably not going to happen) and learn something new about web junk. Like...anything. Database stuff maybe? Or something technical that is likely to make me want to cry and drown myself, like PHP, DHTML, or Javascript. Hooray!

Well. It's time to make buttons.

*HACK COUGH HACK* Okay, all better. I based the subject of this entire entry on choking on my own spit. I choke on my own spit quite often. Thank god the human body has a way of making sure my saliva doesn't go down the wrong tube. It just goes into intense hacking mode. Gee, thanks!

I keep forgetting to update this thing. I'm sure no one sheds any tears over this, but I think I'd like to update more. My butt is already permanently stuck to this chair, so it's not like it'd be a big deal to type some semi-meaningful thing. Not that I'm saying this is meaningful. What am I saying? I dunno.

Yesterday (well, two days ago now that it's so late) I came back to Vassar to move into a TH for my summer job. Before that, I spent the weekend in St. Louis at went to my brother's school to see his graduation. St. Louis is much nicer than Poughkeepsie and my brother's school is much MUCH nicer than Vassar. Or somewhat nicer. Of course, it's a university and its student body is about three times bigger than Vassar's, but it almost made me sad. Vassar is a really nice school already, so image what Wash U was like. Since my brother has been going there, they've been building loads of new stuff and just a few weeks ago unveiled a refurbished library. An AWESOME library. An awesome library with shelves that move around and could possible squish people. ...okay, maybe not so cool.

My brother's graduation lasted about 3 hours in the blazing hot sun (as opposed to a non-blazing one...). At least we all got free water bottles imortalized with a Wash U label. They didn't pass out diplomas at the ceremony though...students had to pick them up afterwards. The school would mail it home though if you didn't pick it up, which is what my brother opted to do.

In St. Louis my mum and I walked around a street called "The Loop" which is chock full of fun eating and shopping places that don't remind you of a mall. We also went to the Contemporary Art Museum for a short while. There's a lot of space in there but not much...stuff. The museum is the kind of place I'd love to live in when I get older though. Just have a HUGE room with stuff spread out in it. No small spaces or dividers. I'm still obsessed with some kinds of architecture, but I don't know why. I mean, I'm obsessed with design junk in general. Why oh why couldn't I have been born a designer? WHYYYY? (angry..ish)

So. Back in Poughkeepsie. Yesterday was a bit of a disaster due to res life being a pain in the bum and my life being suckage. I was told to arrive at school between 9 and 11 AM to pick up my keys (9 AM was the checkout time for the seniors) but of course when I arrived there at around 10:30, most people weren't finished moving out. I was told to come back in the early afternoon (just "early afternoon", no definite time) so my mum, brother and I had to kill time at the Galleria. We went back to school at around 2:30 and I went to three different places on campus to attempt to get my key before being told to pick up my keys at the THs (town houses/temporary housing), which are off campus.

When I got to the THs, there was crap everywhere. The THs are arranged in a circle with a big grassy area in the center, which was covered with old furniture and crap that people didn't want anymore. Charities come by to pick stuff up and the summer housing students can take junk too. I got a wastebasket and some plates. The THs themselves were pretty gross since the people living in them before SUCK ASS and no one from the school got to clean them out yet. And to make things worse, I found out I wasn't going to live in the TH I originally thought I was going to live in due to some stupid housing arrangements the school made. So now I'm living in a TH with three other guys. Wee. It's not bad or anything, but I don't know any of them that well and I spent all my time in my room. JOY.

And my leg is itchy. Maybe I'm allergic to something in the room. Stupid dust. Making me sick. GRR. [scratch scratch]

Today all we did was meet in the morning for a little meeting and breakfast and again at dinner for a barbecue at the head professor's house. It was fun and the house was very picturesque...a cute yellow house with a big backyard and front yard. There was lots of fruit for me to eat. ;)

Damn, leg is still itchy. I think I'll take a shower now.