another year

I'm still rather shocked about the tsunami disaster, having just returned from Phi Phi and Phuket not too long ago. Pictures of Phuket and Patong beach are encouraging, as the cleanup effort is well underway, but I have not found, and do not wish to see, what Phi Phi looks like now. It's hearbreaking to me because I still remember the faces of a few locals I met who lived and worked on the island...and I just hope they're still alive, but from what I've been reading, Phi Phi is pretty much levelled, having been hit on both sides by the tsunami.

So it feels so strange to be celebrating the beginning of a new year when halfway around the world, a place I just visited is filled with dead bodies and rubble.

Please be safe tonight.

We accept the love we think we deserve.

My mother’s bracelet was made of tiny rich yellow gold dots connected on either side by delicate flat gold bands…imagine the bottom of a rope-bridge, except the planks are circles. I remember staring at it as a child, watching the light reflect off of it as I sat in the passenger seat of her 1985 Nissan. I’ve never seen another bracelet like it.

Until last Saturday, sitting in the back seat of my stepmother’s car. I watched her raise her right arm to do something, and gasped—she was wearing the bracelet.

The next day, I approached my father:

“Dad, did you give her mom’s gold bracelet?”
“What are you talking about?”
“She is wearing on her right wrist a bracelet that used to belong to mom.”
“What are you talking about? Why do you always have to watch her so carefully? It’s her own bracelet!”

I then told my father that it’s quite a coincidence that she happened to buy the exact same bracelet, and that there’s jewelry missing from my mother’s jewelry box.

Why he refuses to believe me, I have no idea. Shit, I have no idea why he even dated my stepmother, much less marry her and throw all of his money at her.

I mean, it’s pretty horrible to steal your dead friend’s husband, mistreat her children, and do it all while claiming to be a devout evangelical Christian.

But to steal your dead friend’s jewelry, and wear it? Especially when you probably have a suspicion that were she alive, she’s kick your ugly ass for doing all the things you’ve done to her daughters?

She must not have known how much my mother liked that bracelet. She couldn’t have known my mom wore it every day. She must have thought I wouldn’t remember what it looked like.

Sometimes I think I’m the only person who remembers my mother…my sister was so young, and my dad’s memories are tainted by his blindness to the things my stepmother does, in front of his face and behind his back.

But I remember a delicate gold bracelet, shining in the light while my mom moved her wrists to turn the steering wheel.

please donate to the red cross! 

gone. photo taken at the Phi Phi Princess Resort five months ago...this bungalow was about 30 feet from the ocean.  

death toll hits 117,000

Please visit this site to donate to the Red Cross's International Response Fund for the Southeast Asian tsunami disaster.

Here's a list of lots of other charities that have been rated by the American Institute of Philanthropy.

Also, I'm looking into volunteering with the Red Cross in Thailand or Indonesia for a few days this coming summer, probably in late July or early August. Contact me if you'll be in asia around that time and are interested.

so today i went to target
to get trash can liners
and came out with:
trashcan liners
two CD cases
a photo album
a fleece blanket
a black cardigan
jon stewart's America
a battery operated toothbrush,
spending $68 on what should have been a $1.50 bag of plastic bags.

midway

finished my last final exam today.

very much looking forward to a return to normalcy. it's been a crazy week. now i'll finally have time to tackle the stack of literature i've been accumulating since the beginning of the semester. do i start with murakami or mitchell...or john irving? what a delicious problem.

i'm leaving for vegas this weekend with 8 of my girl cousins. everyone is 21 or over now, and it's our first trip where we can all (legally) drink together. can't wait to see which side of the family the immense tolerance for alcohol comes from.

slightly drunk as i am trying to fall asleep before seven AM which is the time i've been regularly falling asleep lately due to horrid PFST (pre-finals stress syndrome). I have gained five pounds, my hair is a mess, roughly resembling the furry red martian character in looney tunes, i'm breaking out with the gross zits that come from deep underneath your skin, and am feeling an overarching, emcompassing sense of futility coupled with acute pangs of uselessness and guilt. am popping 3 melatonin pills to suplement my 2/3 bottle of shiraz i previously downed in order to relax enough to fall asleep. my sleeping, eating and living habits have not been so disturbed since last finals preiod and i noticed today that my patterns bear striking resemblance to the period during which i was regularly consuming ****, *******, ****, *******, *****, ********, and *******.

did i promise not to scare eveyone with nonsenical rantings? sorry.

nk3aiu

finals

finals are upon me again. so as to not bore/scare/tire everyone with my nonsensical caffeine-induced ranting, i am abstaining from writing until my mind is more clear, which will most likely not occur until after december 14th.

i have really been trying not to let this blog focus on law school, because i feel i am so many things outside the definition of "law student." i don't want my life to revolve around this--there are so many other, much more interesting things to explore.

i started blogging because i wanted to keep writing, and i wanted a place where i could chronicle my thoughts and the happenings in my life. and i hoped that what i had to say would actually be interesting. when i look through my archives, it's sad to see that when i'm in school, the law exerts a gravitational pull on everything i write about--i'm inescapably in orbit. the things i love so much--literature, philosphy, art, travel--are replaced by statutes, rules, and their interpretations. this commitment takes over not only my free time, but creeps into my mind--it changes the way i think, the way i write, the way i perceive situations. i don't necessarily appreciate the kind of person this education has turned me into.

see? even after starting a post about how i don't want to write about law school, i still end up writing about it. sad, sad.

"Fire" by Hideaki Kawashima

good idea, bad idea...

commerical for KY lubricant...OK

commercial promoting tolerance and encouraging people to attend church...Not OK.

I'm usually annoyed by religious commercials because they play on the viewers' sense of guilt. This one didn't bother me at all.

Even though I have no idea what I believe these days, I found this commercial heartwarming-not offensive.

It delivers a very important message--that you should never feel too inadequate to seek God. And given the barrage of horribly inane commercials we're faced with every day, it's a breath of fresh air to see one that isn't telling me to buy something.

I think it's ridiculous that the networks refused to air this commercial as too "controversial."

I see no controversy here--just the sad consequence of a paranoid sense of political correctness that ends up perpetuating the intolerance it seeks to assuage.

anyone still without gmail?

i have so many invites sitting around, and i don't know anyone who doesn't already have an account. So if any of you or anyone you know wants one, lemme know.

Last week's Time Magazine touted The Cloud as one of the best new inventions in America.

Um, pardon me if I'm being terribly unsophisticated, but isn't this a $5,900.00 inflatable tent that's shaped like a blob?

And isn't this a $99.00 overturned red plastic tub?

And this one cracks me up. Yay, I put the keys in a friggin hole and they disappear, and because there is a mirror behind it, it's magic???!?? And it costs two hundred dollars?

Granted, the site does have some things I like, such as this, this, and these.

But to each his/her own...if you like sitting on $99.00 buckets, who am I to judge? *snicker*

done!

30 pages and 184 footnotes later, I am done, finissimo, with the erstwhile bane of my existence, my term paper for Comparative Corporate Law.

My sleeping habits have gone to shit. It's 5am but I think I'm going to draw myself a hot bath and attempt to sleep for 3 hours before turning the monster in.

Tomorrow: work on my OTHER term paper. *sob*

crapping camels

I had the most bizarre dream last night about malcontent camels that were holding a grudge and would crap on people. My friends and I kept leaving some kind of book or notebook behind the camel, and when we went to get it, the camel would take the opportunity to crap all over us.
I decided to wash the crap off by taking a bath (eeeewww), and sitting in the shit water, I realized that I was in some kind of military hospital bathtub, and there was a clear brown square sign shaped like a cube in the corner of my bathtub that said "This doctor specializes in diabetes."

Strange huh?

Then I was taking a nap earlier today and I dreamt that I was telling people about my crapping camel dream.

So I decided to look up "camels" and "defecation" in an online dream dictionary.

CAMEL: Portraits of endurance. To see this beast signifies great financial gain, perhaps inheritance. First there will be hardship and obstacles to overcome.

To see a camel in your dream, denotes that you need to be more conservative; you are carrying too many problems on your shoulders. You tend to hold on and cling on to your emotions instead of expressing and releasing them. You need to learn to forgive and forget. Alternatively, it represents your potential for handling big problems, responsibilities, and burdens.

DEFECATION: Release, purging, getting rid of things, etc. etc.

I had no idea that camels and crap were related on any level but apparently my dream is telling me I need to release something. And it's interesting that in my dream the camels crapped on people because they were holding a grudge. But then, what is the significance of the fact that the camel was crapping on me? And on my friends?

Any interpretations?

great restaurant deal--get $25 gift certificates for $4.00!

i had to tell everyone about this:

Restaurant.com has a promotion going on right now that gives you 60% off of their already discounted restaurant certificates. I've been using them for the last few months and I LOVE them! All the certificates I bought are for SD restaurants but they have deals on restaurants in LA and other cities too.

The coupon code is 66980. You enter it at checkout. $25 gift certificates usually go for $10, so with the coupon code you can get them for $4.00!!! Get some to give to your friends, you can print them out on nice paper and nobody will know you spent four bucks on them. Except me.

Watch out for the restaurants that require a minimum purchase or that only work for parties of four or more. Celadon, where I went tonight, does not require a minimum number of people, nor does Seven-17. Oh and most certificates only work on weekdays.

Here are reviews of restaurants I've bought certificates for:

Celadon
Thai Restaurant in the heart of Hillcrest, gorgeously decorated, attentive staff, great food. I would totally be impressed if a guy took me to a first date here (also there is a flower stand a block away on the right that sells bouquets for six dollars, so you can take a stroll after dinner and buy her flowers to cinch the deal). I especially appreciated that when we ordered the jungle curry, our waiter kindly told us it's more like soup than curry, and that he personally doesn't like it, saving us from ordering something we probably wouldn't like. You choose the spiciness of your food from a scale of 1-10. We chose 7, which for me was not too spicy all (only induced mild sweating), so next time I think I'll try an 8. The green papaya salad was excellent, and only six bucks--the prices here are very good for a restaurant this fancy and well-located. The chicken tom yum soup was also delicious. We also had red beef curry and a whole fried striped sea bass in sweet and sour sauce. Total bill came to $45.00, so with a $10 tip and the $25 certificate we only spent $30.00 for soup, salad, and 2 entrees. I liked this place so much that when I got home earlier today I went online and bought 4 more gift certificates, and my roommate bought 2. So sorry if you try and they're out of stock, heehee.

Seven-17
Swank place in downtown, across the street from Horton Plaza. Well decorated but feels a little stark--I liked the more intimate bar area a lot more than the restaurant area. I ordered the fish of the day, and T had the duck breast. Both were really good, especially the duck, which melts in your mouth--yummm. The only thing I didn't like about this place was that it was in the middle of downtown yet completely empty, which struck me as strange. This detracted from the ambience quite a bit. Some friends of mine went here and ordered lobster ravioli and steak, and they said it sucked, steak was dry and lobster ravioli too creamy--so stay away from that. This place a little expensive, but not too bad. I think we ended up spending $65 inclusive of tip and certificate, for 2 entrees and a bottle of wine.

sick

i haven't been this sick in years. my wonderful bf, in the spirit of sharing, gave me a virus that has rendered me completely debilitated. i feel like crawling in a corner to die. my room has that gross sick-person smell to it, and my friends cringe and lean back a few inches whenever i speak or cough (probably a good idea).

but the good thing about being deathly ill is that nobody expects me to be of any use whatsoever, and i can lay in bed all day commandeering herbal tea and blankets, and soliciting head-pats and sympathetic cooing.

however the good does not substantially outweigh the bad, either on an objective or subjective standard. ha. ha.

i'm sick and reserve the right to make lame law jokes.

my brain is mush

I have just spent the last seven hours (with one hour break to watch The Apprentice) working on my brief for international commercial arbitration moot. Interesting but not too fun. If we get the funding, I will get to go to Vienna in March to argue, and that would be an amazing reward....so it's all worth it really. It's just right this moment, there are ten million other things I'd rather be doing than pondering the intricacies of Article 79 of the UN Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods.

Yuck.

My favorite picture: My hand on the Door of Judgment, Notre Dame, Paris, 2001 

thwarted democracy

Here in San Diego, a lot of people really dislike the mayor (Dick Murphy). Neither do they like Murphy's challenger, Ron Roberts. Given the choice of two sucky candidates, last Tuesday a full 35 percent of San Diego voters, 181,544 people, wrote in a third-party candidate (amazing, huh). Turns out that Murphy got 34% of the vote and Roberts got 31%. Although it hasn't been determined yet who the write-in votes went to, it's a virtual certainty that they are for Donna Frye, who ran an extremely successful grass-roots campaign.

There have been write in spaces on ballots in SD mayoral elections for years, and the city has always recognized this method of voting in the past. The municipal code expressly allows write-in candidates. BUT yesterday, a supporter of Roberts filed suit to declare the election results ILLEGAL, because a provision of the city charter appears to limit elections to two candidates.

I am dismayed beyond belief at this unfortunate turn of events. Do the other candidates think that if Frye were to be thrown out, that the 35% who wrote her name on their ballots would take this lying down? They are trying to disenfranchise 35 percent of the city! Shameful, shameful.

***UPDATE***
This just in, from my overcaffeinated rambling incoherent roommate (she has a point):

anyhow, about donna frye, something
interesting: apparently, the mayoral race this time around is a run
off, which means that the two candidates were the ones who survived
the first round and since none of them had the majority vote they had
to do it the second time. given this new info, it makes a lot more
sense why they wouldn't allow write ins, since that would defeat the
purpose of a run off altogether. it would be like 5 people playing a
game and 2 tied and in the sudden death round a 3rd person springs up
to play and wins. that's not really fair. So I guess now that i think
about it i do see arguments against it, and at this point, they are
pretty convincing... on a completely unrelated side note, i broke out
in hives today, must be something i ate during dinner that triggered
an allergic reaction, that's nice. I also haven't studied, but I have
watched a movie, half a tv show, and some of the country music award..
*sigh* we really need that big desk out there so I can glue my butt to
it... wow, i am so random right now, maybe i shouldn't have taken 3
zyrtecs? oh and guess what??? caffeine might prevent women from
getting type 2 diabetes!!! YEAH BABY! see, i'm drinking to my health,
i'm not off the wagon...
now just waht do they mean by "don't operate heavy machinary" on
medicine bottles? what is a heavy machinary per ce? is toilet a heavy
machinary? cuz i can operate a toiler. is teh stove a heavey
machinary? cuz it's heavy, it's machine, and its ary, and i can
operate a stove without burning it down, maybe. is the computer a
heavy machinary? what is heavy? if you're superman, does that mean the
rule doens't apply to you? what is machinary? if a tree falls in the
forest and no one is there, does it make a sound? things that makes
you go... hmmmmmmmmmmmmm... ponder away my frined, ponder away...

Any takers?

Marry an American.... pretty pretty please?

because i'm that mature.

[mat, in his defense, is a med student]
MatTrix700: you're still up?
Baby61212: yah
MatTrix700: i'm really tired of studying the penis right now
Baby61212: wow, i never thought i'd have an im conversation that involved that statement
MatTrix700: the penis sucks
MatTrix700: haha
Baby61212: i beg to differ
MatTrix700: yeah i've just had about enough of the penis already
Baby61212: penis penis penis
MatTrix700: exams coming up?
MatTrix700: no school tomorrow?
Baby61212: penises are great, i wish i had one
Baby61212: i do have school, i have that presentation. ew. i would much rather be studying a penis
Baby61212: oops
Baby61212: the penis
MatTrix700: no you wouldn't
Baby61212: you know in crim law they have something called the penis rule?

theories on the inner workings of the universe

Instead of corruption levels, here’s an interesting topic for social scientists to conduct a study on:

Has anyone else noticed the direct relationship between the level of happiness in a relationship and collective weight gain? It seems when I was in relationships where I argued and cried and shouted all the time, I would neglect to eat and therefore lost weight. But over the last two, blissfully argument-free years, I have gained FIFTEEN pounds.

Coincidence? Perhaps not:

Is happiness quanitifiable as a coefficient of the amount of weight you gain? And if weight gain reaches a certain threshold, after which it causes partners to find one another mutually unattractive, would the phenomenon then self-rectify, causing the couple to break up, resulting in weight loss and restoring previous equilibrium?

Could we solve America’s obesity problem by making everyone miserable, like forcing each and every citizen to date Anna Nicole Smith?

Another unrelated observation: I have discovered this week that the dishwasher eats medium-sized glasses in very much the same manner that the dryer eats one of each pair of socks.

This observation reinforces my yet-unproved hypothesis that the inertia of certain household appliances causes disruptions in the time-space continuum through which small but select items are sucked.

Somewhere in another dimension exists a universe comprised exclusively of mismatched socks and medium-capacity glassware.

My Evidence flashcards are so funny sometimes.... and for those of you unfamiliar with the Rules, yes, the evidence is admissible. FRE 404(a)(1)  

Disgruntled

I am a little put off by this paper, released very recently by two Harvard profs for the Harvard Institute of Economic Research (H.I.E.R.)

Here is the abstract:
We use a data set of federal corruption convictions in the U.S. to investigate the causes and consequences of corruption. More educated states, and to a less degree richer states, have less corruption. This relationship holds even when we use historical factors like education in 1928 or Congregationalism in 1890, as instruments for the level of schooling today. The level of corruption is weakly correlated with the level of income inequality and racial fractionalization, and uncorrelated with the size of government. There is a weak negative relationship between corruption and employment and income growth. These results echo the cross-country findings, and support the view that the correlation between development and good political outcomes occurs because more education improves political institutions.

Now I’ll admit, I have not read the paper in detail, but I have read most of it and looked at the data.

And I’m no Harvard professor, but the assertions the authors make seem to me just a tad elitist.

First, I have a problem with type of data from which the authors derive their statistics: convictions of federal corruption offenses. The contention is that more education makes better political institutions and therefore results in less corruption. Can’t one also conclude from this data that smarter people get caught less, can afford better lawyers, and therefore don’t get convicted in the first place?

Second, using the number of convictions as a measure of corruption neglects to take into account the degree of severity of certain federal offenses. Under this analysis, convictions of one Enron exec, whose crimes deprived thousands of people of their entire pension funds totaling in the billions of dollars, count just as much as the conviction of a small-scale federal violation. Directors of large corporations are almost always highly educated and extremely wealthy individuals. These people’s crimes have a larger financial impact because their shady dealings probably involve a lot more money. So even if there is only one conviction at Enron Towers in Houston, Texas, that one conviction has more of an impact than a hundred smaller convictions in a less-educated region of the country.

Further, the authors point out that the more racially diverse an area is, the more corrupt it is. Especially if the area has a lot of black people. There are so many other factors that would affect the “corruption rate” and also cause an apparent direct relationship between racial diversity of an area and corruption. The authors’ point seems almost to imply that white, well-educated areas are better places to do business, while racially diverse areas (especially black communities) should be avoided until their people get some learning in them. Is it just me or have we just regressed a few decades in political correctness?

And guys, nice acronym. “H.I.E.R”…are your family estates owned in fee tail, too?

Not that I'm against education...I just think it's erroneous to assume that educated people have a lesser propensity to want to take advantage of the system, and this has never been more apparent than after the Enron/Arthur-Andersen scandals.

Wow.

Illusions, an Audi commercial inspired by MC Escher. Awesome.

Saw this link at Cipango.

I was a cat for Halloween :) 

Baby61212: dammit!
CNN: No Canada safe haven for Democrats
T i IVI IVI y: i know a couple ppl in canada tho, i can have them adopt you?
Baby61212: oh great, email them this: Up for adoption. 24 year old disilllusioned American. Quiet and friendly, will work for steak.
T i IVI IVI y: or I could sell you into canadian slavery?
Baby61212: Slightly alcoholic, but friendly when drunk.
Baby61212: You mean the Emancipation Proclamation didn't apply to Canada???
T i IVI IVI y: clearly, no
T i IVI IVI y: and i'm sure I could find something in the Bush Doctrine to support it
Baby61212: I wonder if we could sneak over if we repeat "Ey? Ey? Aboot!"
Baby61212: but given my latest border patrol experiences, it might serve me better to refrain
T i IVI IVI y: i read that on your blog :-P
Baby61212: yeah i'm still laughing, and for that matter so is everyone else i know

election

I'm so sad. I don't think I have it in me to write.

Loving exchange...

Typical morning conversation. Yes these are verbatim quotes:

SCENE: Karen's bed, 7:30am
{T, thrashing in his sleep, hits K in the right eye socket with his forhead. K is awakened by the POP sound of her eye being pushed rapidly inward, and the blinding pain that follows.}

K: FUCKING IDIOT!
T: Wha...ZZZzzzZzzzz *turns over*

K waits five minutes for the pain to subside, then repeatedly pokes T, berating and reminding him that she is in PAIN.

T: Well none of this would have happened if your stupid eye didn't keep getting in my way!
{T then falls immediately asleep, leaving K sputtering, "My....stupid..eye....you...horrible..person...this...hurts..."}
T: Just kill me now.

I need a bigger bed or a smaller bf.

Top 5 Unexpected consequences of having Tim over as a houseguest for four days:

5. Being the target of silent hate-filled stares in the morning (I wake up before he does)
4. When the stares don’t elicit response, not-so-silent cries of “I HATE you and your lumpy bed!” This makes me laugh uncontrollably, annoying him even more.
3. All the cookies have disappeared
2. Ashes in all sorts of strange places
1. I just found a large pair of white briefs lying on top of my desk, next to my water glass. Am too scared to perform the smell test on them.

All this is mitigated, however, by the fact that I sometimes catch him kissing me on the forehead when he thinks I’m asleep. Sigh.

Half Moon Party, Hippies Bar, Phi Phi Island, Thailand 

Aqua, Hong Kong 

Phi Phi 

The Nike Red Sox commercial

Mosh

Eminem's new video is delivers a compelling and coherent message urging young people to vote Bush out of office.

From the GNN site:
Two years ago, this video would not have been approved by a single record label. A year ago it would never had the possibility of being played on television. But with the changing tide of public sentiment marked by the success of our last video for Chronic Future, an anti-war message that made it into rotation on TRL we think it might just have a chance.

Now, it’s up to the broadcasters. Will they ban the top selling musical artist for being anti-establishment while they allow other propaganda to air? Or will they finally allow an artist who has the courage to speak out to take center stage and utilize the airwaves for something other than typical celebrity fodder?

The Kiss, Rodin Museum, Paris. Summer 2003 

Oh yes, they did.

Here is a new book called How to Date a White Woman: A Practical Guide for Asian Men.

LMFAO, chsck out the comments on Amazon about this (link above).

More google searches that led to this site

I find these so amusing...I wonder who it is that's searching for this stuff...and why in the world I have written about it in the first place:

patchouli dreadlocks
"what is a wanksta"
schoolgirl wedgie
vermouth torino rug

Drunken Escapades of Karen, Episode 406

I don't know if I'll ever live this one down....

Last Saturday, I went with Tim, Scott, Susi, Sungjee, Nanya and Dave to Mexico. We went to Puerto Nuevo to eat an amazing lobster dinner (pictures below). Then to Rosarito, where a man approached us with $15 all-you-can-drink wristbands for Club Iggy’s. I think you know what happened next, so I’ll skip to the aftermath:

We were driving past the border checkpoint on our way home, me asleep in the back seat, when the officer stopped us to ask each of us our citizenship. Everyone else told him “U.S.A.” but when he got to me, all I seemed to know how to say was “Citizenessessessz…” (they think I was trying to repeat the last word I heard, “Citizenship.” He asked me about 5 times, leaning over the driver’s window, and then went around the car to my window and asked me 5 more times, and each time, I said “Citizenesesessz…” Tim and Scott told me “Okay, the next time he asks you, all you need to say is USA.” I said “Okay, got it!” and when he asked me again I still said “Citizensessessz.”

So he detained us. In the detention area, Scott took the bright orange ticket stating the reason we were detained (on which was printed “NO RESPONSE FROM KAREN”), stuck it on my forehead ( I had passed out again), and took several pictures. Immediately afterward a cop rushed to the vehicle and stated she would have to confiscate the camera because we were taking pictures in a federally secured area. We pleaded and then we had to show her the pictures of me passed out with the ticket on my forehead and erase them in front of her.

I woke up when she accused us of being either terrorists or stupid. I asked my friends what was happening, and when they told me, I found it incredibly funny and couldn't stop laughing and giggling for quite some time. I wonder if they were irritated at my having caused them to be detained and then waking up only to keep laughing and laughing. But you know, they were laughing with (at) me too...

We ended up having to stay until 6am.

I am, at this moment and possibly forever, the laughing stock of an overwhelming majority of my friends, and the consant butt of border patrol jokes and loud shouts of "USA!"

Rain

It’s raining!! It hasn’t rained in San Diego in 182 days. Hmm whoever saved something for a rainy day sure had a long time to wait.

It’s strange, when I was in Hong Kong this summer I didn’t find it odd that it rained (well that might be because HK in the summer is the land of endless mucky rain), but when the drops started falling here I was shocked. Everyone was like “What? Rain? How could rain happen to us?” What spoiled brats we all are who live in southern California…it’s been nonstop sun for half a year.

Despite the dampness, after so much great weather I kind of miss having an excuse not to go outside and frolic on the beach (because I never go, and thus always feel guilty). I love the crisp smell in the air, and the free car wash. And rainy days are great for staying in and eating lots and lots of congee, and drinking hot cocoa. Mmmmmm….

Sonnet XVII, by Pablo Neruda

I do not love you as if you were the salt-rose, or topaz,
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that never blooms
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
so I love you because I know no other way

than this: where I does not exist, nor you,
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.

Google searches that have led people to this site:

"dentist appointment on saturday"
“woodland fairy costume $99”—I’m number 2 on this search!!
NPR Duxiana
stawberry yogurt mask
naughty schoolgirl outfit
jager blaster
"Georgia O'Keefe lived in"
epuddles (inexplicably I’m number 3…doesn’t anyone else write about epuddles?)

Amelie Mirabelle Tsai, born October 15th 2004 at 11:31 pm 

Isn't she adorable???? 

Me, Sher and baby Amelie 

Selling seashells by the seashore 

Moonrise over Puerto Nuevo 

Puerto Nuevo shore 

$14 Lobster dinner...yummm... 

Back in the day

I put my slow jams playlist on random, and right now Boyz 2 men “I’ll make love to you” is playing… reminds me of freshman year in high school. Remember Atlantic Starr, and Stevie B, and that one Hotstepper song? Surface, Jon B, Az Yet?

I can still remember the insecurity of the early mornings (how did I ever wake up at 6:30 in the morning??), slathering on way too much makeup, dark brown lipliner, huge baggy pants, the smell of the outdoor hallways and the cool morning mist. I remember thinking then of…not much more than myself, and how other people would think of me.

My first boyfriend, Alex, who got sent off to jail for armed robbery of a dwelling residence (a pretty big deal for a 14-year old), broke my heart for about two weeks, during which I wrote numerous tear-stained letters to my friends, lamenting my horrible fate at having lost the love of my life so early on. I would circle the places where the tears fell on the paper and draw little arrows to point them out. My good friend Carol told me she’d save the letters to show me later the depths from which I had risen. I wonder if they are still tucked somewhere in some dusty box in her garage.

I attended lots of church functions as an excuse to socialize (my parents never minded as long as it was a church function)…I remember going to Yorba Linda’s Oktoberfest, this time of year ten years ago, and meeting for the first time a bunch of YL kids, one of whom would end up being my high school sweetheart of four years (after jailboy broke up with me). But that night, I had a crush on someone else, and when we all went to Denny’s afterwards, I got his number and we ended up talking and flirting and he ended up becoming quite bitter later when I decided I didn’t like him after all, and beat up my boyfriend a year later.

The first few months of high school were the last months of my childhood, as my mother had a stroke in October of 1994, and I came to learn very quickly that things wouldn’t always be so easy.

I miss not having responsibilities, being completely self-absorbed (or am I still?), I miss the fleeting friendships, so naïve…but I see that the days that were to come brought me so much growth.

What a trip those days were.

Random pictures

Me on a seal at the beach (drunk) 

Poker night at Tim's 

Sunset on the 5 

Aww he still gets me flowers *sniff* 

Dining Room 

Corner of my bedroom (desk with stacks of law books omitted) 

WMDs

The following is an excerpt from Salon.com. Entire article here.

Duelfer Report on Iraqi WMD:
"The former regime had no formal written strategy or plan for the revival of WMD after sanctions. Neither was there an identifiable group of WMD policymakers or planners separate from Saddam."

President Bush:
"The Duelfer report showed that Saddam was systematically gaming the system … He was doing so with the intent of restarting his weapons program once the world looked away."

Vice President Cheney:
The report shows "delay, defer, wasn't an option."

John Edwards:
"They are willing to say left is right and up is down. The vice president, Dick Cheney, and the president need to recognize that the earth is actually round and that the sun is rising in the east."

A step in the right direction

Finally, a US District court ruling that part of the PATRIOT act is unconstitutional! Click Here

Things I have done today to avoid studying....

I have a 3-page outline of my paper comparing corporate corruption in Hong Kong and the US due tomorrow morning. I haven't written a word, I have 4 inches of double-sided research sitting in front of me that I have yet to read (in my own defense, I already went through one inch, but why am I defending myself in my own blog, I don't know, oh shit I can't stop talking to myself), but I HAVE:

1. Dusted
2. Made and eaten 2 salads (chicken with mixed baby greens and potato salad)
3. Made and drank a banana-stawberry-pineapple-orange smoothie
4. Bought 2 lipsticks from Rite-Aid
5. Returned 1 lipstick at Rite-Aid
6. Taken a nap
7. Eaten ice-cream cake
8. Packed emergency baby-watch bag for when Sherry goes into labor and I have to haul ass to LA
9. Clipped coupons from Sunday paper for some major OCD coupon shopping tomorrow
10. Rearranged the limes on the kichen counter

I've perfected the art of avoiding productivity. This must mean I'm ready to be a lawyer!

Funny...

Gmailswap.com is a site that lets people who have too many gmail invites barter with people who want gmail invites. It's absolutely hilarious what people will offer for a gmail invite. Click Here for the best one I've seen so far... LMAO

So here's a recap of Wednesday night's Girl's Night In:

It's absolutely amazing how much a group of girls can talk, eat and drink when left to their own devices. The eleven of us finished a Costco gallon of vodka, half a bottle of vanilla vodka, and a bottle of wine. No leftover alcohol in any cups at the end of the night. I didn't realize how drunk I was until I awoke the next day feeling like my stomach had been run through a paper shredder.

But it was all worth it--after knowing these people for a year and never once hanging out without our respectve boys lurking around, a girl's night was long overdue. I just miss gossiping and hanging out and not feeling bad that I just polished off a quarter chicken while chips and hummus hang to the edges of my mud-mask and I try not to laugh too hard or it'll crack...y'know? I had so much fun.

Another similar night is definitely in the making.

You know your life has reached a new low when...

You reward yourself with a study-break by going to Target to buy dishwashing liquid.

My day so far....

Awoke feeling more tired than usual, as I was up until 3am finishing How To Be Good. Jean made me a dulce de leche capuccino, and that woke me up, though 30 minutes later my class discussion threatened to put me right back to sleep.

Met the landlord after my first class to sinisterly discuss our plan to evict my even-more-evil neighbor. Felt brief pang of guilt, which quickly disappeared when I reminded myself that 1) she is really a rather nasty, mean woman 2) on an objective basis, she really does deserve to be evicted and 3) I'm one day going to be a lawyer so I might as well get used to being vindictive.

Went to second class, narrowly avoided falling asleep.

Got back from class, ate a mixed baby greens and herb salad from Trader Joe's, augmented by my dad's heavenly, vine-ripe organic tomatoes (he picked them for me when I went home this weekend to visit and raid the pantry) and creamy basil dressing.

Gave myself a footbath and pedicure, while reading Truman Capote's In Cold Blood. Soy-vitamin foot soak, sparkly red polish.

Put together some lemony garlic herb-roasted potatoes, which are at this moment filling the pad with a delicious aroma. The girls are set to arrive in one hour for face-masks, junk food and Sex & The City night.

Hasta Luego...

Of a loss

I was on the internet during Corporations class today, and was deeply saddened to find that two of my favorite blogs have been discontinued: belle de jour and pete's post.

Belle has a new book coming out and I’m going to pre-order it on Amazon because I love her writing so much. I stumbled upon her blog over a year ago, and over that time I’ve grown very fond of her. Always eloquent and witty, her intelligent posts really caused me to open my mind.

Pete’s post was a Canadian man’s frequently-updated chronicle of the end of his marriage and the beginning of a new relationship. It was so amazing to “watch” Pete fall in love. The saddest part about him not posting anymore is that all of his previous posts were deleted…what a shame.

I’m sure I’ll find myself wondering many times after today how they’re doing, and what they’d be writing had they not stopped.

I’m going to miss reading them very much.

Law Like Love, by W.H. Auden

Law, say the gardeners, is the sun,
Law is the one
All gardeners obey
To-morrow, yesterday, to-day.

Law is the wisdom of the old,
The impotent grandfathers feebly scold;
The grandchildren put out a treble tongue,
Law is the senses of the young.

Law, says the priest with a priestly look,
Expounding to an unpriestly people,
Law is the words in my priestly book,
Law is my pulpit and my steeple.

Law, says the judge as he looks down his nose,
Speaking clearly and most severely,
Law is as I've told you before,
Law is as you know I suppose,
Law is but let me explain it once more,
Law is The Law.

Yet law-abiding scholars write:
Law is neither wrong nor right,
Law is only crimes
Punished by places and by times,
Law is the clothes men wear
Anytime, anywhere,
Law is Good morning and Good night.

Others say, Law is our Fate;
Others say, Law is our State;
Others say, others say
Law is no more,
Law has gone away.

And always the loud angry crowd,
Very angry and very loud,
Law is We,
And always the soft idiot softly Me.

If we, dear, know we know no more
Than they about the Law,
If I no more than you
Know what we should and should not do
Except that all agree
Gladly or miserably
That the Law is
And that all know this
If therefore thinking it absurd
To identify Law with some other word,
Unlike so many men
I cannot say Law is again,

No more than they can we suppress
The universal wish to guess
Or slip out of our own position
Into an unconcerned condition.
Although I can at least confine
Your vanity and mine
To stating timidly
A timid similarity,
We shall boast anyvay:
Like love I say.

Like love we don't know where or why,
Like love we can't compel or fly,
Like love we often weep,
Like love we seldom keep.

Mr. Bubble Rediscovered

I have a bathtub in my new apartment, and lately, in a blatant attempt to delay studying, I’ve started taking long baths before my showers each day.

I’ve been experimenting with different bath products: so far, I’ve tried Victoria’s Secret Indulgent Bath Bubbles in Enchanted Apple scent, The Healing Garden’s Green Teatherapy Private Sanctuary Body Soak (a bath salt), and good old Mr. Bubble. The green tea soak was amazing—I really did feel refreshed and the delicious scent lingered on my skin for hours afterward. Mr. Bubble is best when you don’t really want to soak (there’s almost no scent, so no aromatherapy effects), and just want to sit around making bubble sculptures and trying to see how big a pile you can stack on your knees before it topples over. As for Victoria’s Secret, the scent was good but that’s about all it had going for it. None of the muscle-relaxing properties of the bath salts, and although there were a fair amount of bubbles, they were insufficiently fine-grained for bubble sculptures, and weren’t as long-lasting as Mr. Bubble. And the VS bubbles tend to slide instead of stack.

I use my baths as an excuse to read things I shouldn’t be reading (i.e., reading for entertainment as opposed to study), as it is impossible to take a bubble bath and hold a 10-pound textbook at the same time, but extremely easy to hold a copy of The Economist or a paperback Shakespeare play. The Shakespeare, though, is actually assigned reading for my Law and Literature class, so I do feel less guilty—but it’s not assigned until next month.

My roommate and I share a love for great food, so in our two short weeks living here we have filled our apartment with tons and tons of it. A selection: three kinds of cereal, Tiramisu, Three-layer chocolate cake, gnocchi gorgonzola, gnocchi florentina, vegetable pasta, curry fried rice, fettuccini with meatball marinara, herb salad with creamy basil dressing, mango gelato, raspberry gelato, vanilla gelato, taquitos, three kinds of dumplings, herb salad, three kinds of potato chips, chocolate covered blueberries…and lots more.

I suspect that might be why the boyfriends (or at least my boyfriend) are constantly over, rooting around the fridge in the wee hours of the morning. He gets something other than vending machine sandwiches and Mc Nuggets to eat, and I get an in-house furniture-installer and bug-squasher. Everyone wins.

Last weekend I rode out to Vegas with the SD people to attend the much-anticipated, legendary Rubber Pimp-N-Ho costume ball. I looked in my closet and pulled out the dominatrix outfit with collar, absolutely no pictures of which will be posted on this blog. We bought a leash when we got to Vegas and Tim got to walk me around with it all night. Lots of fun!

School is a little draining, but I think it’s not so much the work (my schedule isn’t too heavy right now) as the looming feeling of impending work, since I know things are going to add up really soon and before I know it, I’ll be buried in a mountain of work and crying on my beautiful white and beige striped sheets.

Busy busy busy

too busy to really update but I'll try to soon. I don't even have internet at my apartment yet, so I'm kind of cut off from the world. Call if ya miss me!
Going to Vegas this weekend for Rubber...okay that's about all the time I have. Back to comparative corporate law.

Taiwan

Three hours before I was to fly to Taiwan to stay at Tim’s parents’ house, I freaked out and dyed my hair brown. I mean, I didn’t want to be greeted by gasps and stares, or drowned in a huge basket, or whatever it is they do over there to people with scandalously colored hair. Thus ended my purple hair days.

We stared out in the southern Taiwan countryside. I LOVED the people we hung out with, they were so goofy and adorable and amazingly gracious hosts.

Then we went to Taipei, which was nice, just a big city....but I liked the countryside better. We went clubbing and it was exactly as if we were in an asian club in LA--not too fun and full of drunk ugly guys and skimpily clad 18 year old girls. Yay.

And there is the matter of Taiwanese food. I never really said it out loud but I’ve always thought that Sherry and Tim were a little….obsessively overenthusiastic about their love for hot-pot. While they waxed poetic and wiped drool from their chins, I’d think “for chrissakes, it’s just meat in a pot of soup, control yourself!” but I held silent. Now, I am a convert. Hot Pot is clearly one of the most magnificent inventions of humankind. Spicy broth on one side, clear broth on the other, bbq grill where you make your own Korean bbq ribs and pork, egg yolk with satay dipping sauce…*drool*
They even had the tiny fish full of eggs that you could grill yourself! And oysters! And swallow’s eggs! And sashimi! And create-your-own shaved ice! Did I mention it’s all-you-can-eat?
Forgive me, guys, for secretly thinking you were freaks. I knew not my folly.

Thailand Again!

We arrived in Patong Beach for the first night and hit the town to drink, spending most of the night paying "spot-the-ladyboy"... which is a LOT harder than I thought it would be! Some of them look exactly like girls, and dance better and have better bodies than most girls.

Spent the next two nights on Phi-Phi Island, a beautiful place with crystal clear waters, awesome snorkeling, no roads....and a 7-eleven and a Holiday Inn. Yes, it's overrun with tourists, but it is still one of the most beautiful places in the world.

The hotel I stayed at was called the Phi Phi Princess, and each room is a separate bungalow with its own porch, our own pregnant black cat that lived underneath our room, and a stone footbath at the entrance. In heaven, we will all have private bunglows with footbaths at the entrance.

We got massages every single day, drank astounding amounts of papaya lassi (papaya yogurt shakes) and ate like, well, Americans. Our second night on the Island, there was a half-moon party on the beach. We drank alcohol from buckets and watched firedancers and met some really cool young travelers.

There's one main road in the island that we kept walking in and out of, and a fruit-shake place we visited every day where the owner's little daughter would drag her tricycle around in front of the stand and eye us warily while we were waiting for our order. Two doors down was an art gallery where the painters were always hard at work out front, and their huge cat was always fast asleep in one of two positions, head on the paws or curled up in a ball. I never saw it move even once, and when I walked up to scratch it behind the ears, it would only deign to open one eye--ah, island life.

I'm in Taipei right now, and will return home on two short days.

Travel update

I’m leaving Hong Kong bound for Thailand (again) in a few days. I’ll be staying 2 nights on Patong Beach in Phuket, then 2 nights on Ko Phi Phi (of The Beach fame). Then I’m off to Taiwan for five days, then it’s back to sunny California.

Here are some random pix of my trip, including the much-requested short purple hair pic!

Me and Didi in Phuket 

I'll be here in 3 days.