Why, hello there

Heeyy, blog, it’s been a while.  What have I been up to?

September 18 was my birthday, which was spent with (now ex) boyfriend P and Mum.  They fed me a lot, took me to the Chinese grocery store to restock on much needed and craved Asian cuisine (meaning microwavable char siu bao, mochi, milk tea, Pocari Sweat, and microwavable rice, among others), and just made what could’ve been an otherwise lonely first weekend at school very pleasurable.

I’m always up for free dessert, after all.  I forgot how much I appreciate my mom’s company (and cooking).  I was more bummed than I thought I’d be when she left, and also a little sad to see my car go back home.  But cheering up ensued!  P and his family took me along with them to see U2 in concert, which was, needless to say, amazing.

I’m still reeling from their awesome techno samba version of “I’ll Go Crazy If I Don’t Go Crazy Tonight.”

Post-U2 concert, things went slightly downhill.  For the most part, my classes are kickass.  My favorite, as I guessed, is drawing with Lenny Long, the notorious demanding douchebag (who is not so douchy after all; just very blunt).  Painting class, conversely, ended up with me sporting this guy below.

So I bought this eyepatch in Korea a while ago because I’m one of those weirdos who like bandages and shit, and I think Asian eyepatches are badass.  I keep it in my first aid kit that I bring to school just in case, and I haven’t had to use it at all.

Well, till I went to oil painting class.  Turns out I’m allergic to rabbit skin glue (which is a gelatin-based powder, I believe; nasty shit once it congeals post-boiling).  I only reacted a little the night of sizing my boards, but the morning after…  damn.  I must’ve gotten some in my eye, ‘cos the thing was blood red and oozing nasty fluids.  I was afraid it was pinkeye, but apparently allergic reactions in eyeballs can go as equally apeshit on you.

Aaaand since my illustration homework is still waiting for me, I’ll keep this brief.  Life is back to normal, with a few improvements: my eye is healed, I have a new boyfriend, and I essentially live at Larned now, though I do miss my room at Barstow and all the food it has.

The only sucky part is, I still have to finish this illustration.  It’s a woodblock print-style illustration of a ninja and samurai getting ready to rumble in a cow field in Montana explaining the mystery of the dying cows in the Midwest.  Er, explanation to come.

Mission complete!

I am all moved in!  Hence commences year two, 2009-2010.

I got up around 9 AM, showered, helped Mom shove everything into the car, and then we we were off.  Two hours later, a rather empty Barstow house greeted us, and after getting my ID card registered for my room, began the dreaded unpacking process.

Narrow but long, it’s a surprisingly big and cozy single.

Square footage is a number that doesn’t come to mind, but it’s fairly large for a single, is a little smaller than I expected, but is still wonderful and homey.  Everything has a nook of its own, but there’s still a lot of room for storage and walking.  The bed sits at the far end underneath a window facing west (score!).  This is also the first time I’ve seen shelves on the wall!  It seems some of the other house rooms have this too.  Also, the ceiling is huge! Or, well, it’s really high. Makes the place feel fucking palatial.

My favorite part is the very high ceiling.  They say high ceilings help creative thinking processes!

The dresser, which serves as clothing storage in addition to vanity.  Hello, beauty products!

I am definitely my mother’s daughter.  Every item has its own container or specific place and position.  The shelves on my wall are ordered left to right from frequency of use, so I can reach them easier at my height.  Towels in the top drawer.  Xbox to the right because God-given gifts go on the right side. 

Tiny closet, maybe a third the size of the one I had last year.  Home of the vacuum as well.

SHOES.  Because I am a ridiculous shoe whore.  Stole those heeled gold Marc Jacobs rain boots from Mom…

And my floor is spectacular in its carpeted glory.  And being the Asian I am, this means I’m going to be enforcing the No Shoes In My Room rule more vehemently.

Keyboard.  Can’t live without some semblance of a piano.

Guitar, too, of course!  With my corny strap.  (Haha, get it? Corny?)

These two followed me to school.

Mm, all right.  So.  When I turned and looked up, I discovered that there is a very wide ledge above my door and closet, probably big enough to fit an air mattress.  With this in mind, I have devised to create some sort of rung or ladder system for guests to get up there and sleep.  With barriers, of course, like a bunk.

Or I could just make them parkour their way up.

Desk space.  Look who’s on my calendar!

Yes, so that’s it!  I am enjoying my time here so far.  I don’t start class until Thursday, so I’m just going to chill out until then, get registering for classes at Brown sorted out, get some supplies if my professors ever email me, order my monitor so I can play my Xbox…  Sigh.

Sleep prevails.  More tomorrow!

Curses, OIT!

I was giddy upon receiving my copy of Snow Leopard, courtesy of Boyfriend, two or three weeks ago around the time it was released.  We hopped over to Best Buy, nabbed the last copy, and I spent the following day nursing a cup of mugicha and scribbling in my Sudoku book while it installed for an hour or so.  And other than the atrocious web blue that highlights screens on Exposé and the breakage of Candy Bar, Snowy proved to be a worthwhile companion, running much faster than just an hour ago.  Much delight ensued, I assure you.  Photoshop didn’t take a million years to open; iTunes 9 is gorgeous; everything is in sparkling condition.  (Also, when the hell did I get 15000+ songs?)

I got an email a couple days ago from the Office of Information Technology about new network systems, and I was about to delete the message until, lo and behold, my eyes fell upon this cute little paragraph:

OIT suggests Macintosh users not upgrade their Mac operation system (OS) to Snow Leopard (v. 10.6) as we encountered some connectivity issues on campus.

What? RISD, what? Seriously?  You mean two weeks after I’ve installed and enjoyed the big cat I’m going to go to school and not have Internet?  Ridiculous; there shouldn’t be any connectivity problems.  And it’s clearly not the OS; it’s them! Suffice to say, RISD’s WiFi baptism just last winter should be proof enough that OIT isn’t exactly the most efficient group on campus.  (The only upside to this is that they still don’t know how to deal with torrenting and other P2P parties.)

If I get to school and I have to deal with this crap, there’s going to be some major butt kicking (translates to: sneering and snarky commentary to OIT folks).

Intense failure, OIT, intense.

So here we are…

I’m currently surrounded by six small mounds of neatly piled clothing and I realize I haven’t even gone through the contents of my suitcase, which has been neglected to be unpacked all summer since I got back from Korea.  Heck, all my clothes are going back in that giant orange thing so what’s the point?

Oh swizzlesticks, and I just remembered coats and jackets.  Well, I suppose I don’t need to bring all those on Sunday.

So, what am I looking forward to in my second year at RISD?  Moreover, what did my first year teach me?

1. Eat three real meals at proper hours of the day. I didn’t realize how important this was until my revelation last winter of why I was lacking so much energy.  A second revelation followed, explaining why I was missing all my meals…
2. Get a humanly amount of sleep. Most of my excuses for missing meals, especially dinner, was because I was too sleepy to get up from my hefty 4-hour naps, inviting tiredness in for the rest of the night, which was absolutely wretched.  While I do enjoy working late at night, I love being able to be attentive in my classes much more and actually absorbing information given to me.
3. Seriously, don’t procrastinate. And usually this advice sticks in the beginning… but come week two or three, there’s some major figurative defenestration going on.  I really have to work on this this year, because if I didn’t learn anything last year, it’s that my usual mantra of “I work better under pressure” is absolute crap.

I suppose in the end, the most vital things I took away from freshman year was to take better care of myself.  Family and close friends know: oft times I get so distracted by something that I forget to eat.  And as a family member of avid mangeuses, this is absurd and unacceptable.

Oh, I forgot an important one.  Bring your fucking car. While Providence is walk-friendly to people with thighs the size of Serena Williams’, simple tasks like getting groceries (or even just getting to a grocery store) can become a nightmare of a workout.  You’re thinking, hey, I could use something like that, but not only will trekking up and down Providence hills give you a rock hard butt you could only otherwise achieve through P90X, it will severely damage your knees.  Oh wait, mine are already dying.

On a related note, I discovered the magic of chiropractor this summer, after avoiding treatment for a few years.  The insanely pleasurable back-cccrackin’ has left me so satisfied, but also really terrified of what my back is going to do to me once I’ve gone without treatment for a long time.  School consists of sitting or standing around for a million hours at a time, which is the worst thing I could do for a misaligned back, twinged nerve, and possibly herniated disc.  (I know, I’m like an old lady.)

I also decided to try my hand at golf this summer, which, to my surprise, ended up being one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.  I’ve tried a handful of sports in my life, mostly because I love sports (and on the contrary despise working out at gyms; consistency bores me), but I’ve stuck with horseback-riding for the most part.  Intense equestrian training lightened up when I turned around 16, but the damage stayed, and I have tendonitis, back issues, and a pathetic level of flexibility in my hamstrings (this will change with yoga, soon, soon…).  Golf is definitely a sport geared towards perfectionists, because even if you hate the game, you’ll be thinking about it all day and how you know you can swing just that much better.  It led to me realize that, well, doing sports actually makes me feel better!  As long as it’s not in excess.

I always loved martial arts; muy thai and boxing were exhilarating and fun, and I loved beating the shit out of sandbags and trainers.  I found a legitimate dojo in Providence via the wonders of the Interwebs, specializing in Uechi karate.  I also found a Chinese cultural center that specializes in Shaolin kung fu, taught by a real shifu (woman, too!).  This piqued my interest of course, being a big fat Bruce Lee dork.  It seems the latter is much more competitive, which I like more, and seeing photos of this kids doing crazy splits is definitely selling itself to me…

So, lesson learned.  Hopefully when Mum comes to visit for my birthday next Friday (Rosh Hashanah, again), I’ll have Winston my yellow Mini Cooper with me.  If there’s one thing I miss most at school, it’s driving.  Having my baby with me would be amazing, and as mentioned previously, so so so convenient.

Boyfriend is also coming for my birthday weekend, and on Sunday he and his family will be taking me to see a U2 concert (!!!).  Exciting, no??  I’m expecting an epic performance chock full of improvisation.

All right, I have to return to packing.  I can’t wait to try out these vacuum-sealed bags.  Peace out, girl scouts.