I fell asleep with my noodle bowl in my hand today. Sure, laugh. It's quite humorous. Everyone I've told today seemed to chuckle a little. It's Angie being funny... I'll agree with that. How often do you get to interject this kind of a statement into a conversation? I fell asleep with my noodle bowl in my hand today.

But really, it's not that funny. I fell asleep because I'm so fucking exhausted. All of the time. Not just some of the time anymore. All of the time. And then I wake up. In pain. Recently it's been headaches, but usually it's just muscle aches. I either fall asleep again because I'm so exhausted I can barely figure out where I am or what time of day it is. Or I lie there, unable to sleep anymore, but still, I'm to exhausted to move. Of course I can't just lie in bed all day. Even if I had no school, or no commitments, or nothing to do, I'd go crazy lying on my ass all day. So I get up. The pain usually somewhat subsides. Then I get ready for whatever it is I have to do that day. And I go through the actions. And most of the time, I don't notice the headache. Or the fatigue. And there are times, usually for about thirty minutes, maybe a couple of thirty minute sessions a day, when I feel about 75% healthy. And there were actually two days this week, Tuesday and Wednesday, when I felt about 80% healthy most of the day. We'll forget about the part where I fell asleep for 3 hours on Wednesday afternoon. But those were two days out of the last three months. And there were probably less than a dozen of those out of the last six months.

I trivialized it for a long time. I denied it for a long time. Then I thought I came to terms with it. I was proud of myself for dealing so well. I thought it was a waste of time thinking about how I felt. But then I did start thinking about it. It's subtle, but it's there. I lose concentration on anything after a couple of hours. I read at the rate of about a page every five minutes. I lean on the side of the elevator to support myself. It doesn't even occur to me to go to bed unless it's bedtime, no matter how I feel.

I didn't care before. My rationale is that we all have our shit to deal with. We have family issues and insecurity issues and financial issues and relationship issues. I've been blessed to not have dealt with any of those problems, so I have this instead. And there are so many others out there who have it so much worse than I do. So what if I can't go snowboarding this year. So what if I can't dance all night at a club. So what if I can't carry in a bottle of laundry detergent from the car. So what if I can't take the stairs up to the third floor without worrying about not being able to get out of bed the next morning. I'll deal.

If only it weren't so fucking annoying.

Fun things that happened today (well, technically yesterday... you know, days really need to switch later in the evening, like at 4am):
-talked on the phone w/ an old friend until the wee hours of the morning
-ate way too much fake Cinnamon Toast Crunch for breakfast
-learned about a new element of Baddeley's working memory model
-rode the bus home with Professor Holyoak
-ate dinner with Leah
-watched both Will & Grace and Friends
-observed an fMRI experiment
-chatted with my cog sci lab TA Bas
-chilled with Pauline on her quaint but cavernously echoic balcony
-hung out and had some superficial fun at 2-for-1 with Jesse and Scott
-took the last bus home (and got there in only 5 minutes)
-saw the stars
-posted to my blog :)

sometimes you just need to put aside all your worries and burdens and just chill...

So I've deduced that the most important thing in life (see blog on 11.7.2002) is "meaning." The most common answers to that question were love, family, friendship, relationships... what you would expect. I also asked the guy who approached us with the question what he thought. His answer: "truth." Eh, I think even truth has its faults because the interpretation of truth is subject to individual variance. But back to meaning... life is full of activity and information and people and emotions. It isn't until you attribute meaning to these things, though, that they actually affect you and thus have an importance in your life.

So what's my meaning? I am still in the process of figuring that out. I once heard a soc professor speak about how the meaning of life is efficacy. I think there's a lot of value behind that statement. What is important to us is that we are in some way, shape, or form important to someone or something. It can be importance to people, to professions, to disciplines, to culture, to bodies of thought... basically the rest of the world. Perhaps this is why we so often identify ourselves by our profession. "Hello, what's your name? What do you do?" We are defined by what we do; our sense of importance is derived by what we do. We all desire to have an effect.

Efficacy isn't my meaning per se, but it's potentially the basis behind it. I'm searching for the rest. I have experienced though, in the past week, how we affect others in the grandest ways and how we can be so unaware of it. It's seeing another "list" on a friend's blog. It's being asked about #6 in your list by someone you didn't realize actually read your blog. It's getting a letter from an old friend thanking you for something you did years ago. It's finding out that a letter you wrote so many months ago is still being read. It's realizing that you were never the same after something someone else said to you years ago.

We all have so much effect on each other, so much more than we could ever realize.

It's been six whole days since the last time I "blogged." That was definitely a change from, I don't know, 3 posts a day. Well I'm STILL here, and I'm STILL posting, so I hope you don't think I've given up. A lot has happened in a week, some good, some bad... well, mostly bad. It's been really rough actually the past few days. Really rough. But I won't get into that now. That'll be saved for the next rainy evening. :) For the time being...

It's time to start www.losetoledo.com. No, really. The one redeeming factor of today's oh-so-humiliating "thrashing" or "trouncing" or whatever else ABC 5 o'clock news (which happened to be absolutely ridiculously poorly produced) wants to call the USC/UCLA football game was the hope that FINALLY they will get rid of Bob Toledo. Those who had a sliver of support for him should look at what happened today. And last year. And the year before. And the year before. I'm not really as upset as I sound (though I did sit down and hung my head in shame during the 16th second of the first quarter), but I'm at a friggin division one school, and I would've liked to have enjoyed the sweet victory of beating SC just ONE year... just ONE year... And without fail, the minute the game ended I got a nice little phone call from a darling Trojan Enginerd named Melissa Hsieh. I let her have her fun. I was a good sport about it. After all, she has to live the rest of her life knowing she threw away tens of thousands of dollars for a halfway mediocre education... :) yeah, I'm going to die for that comment. :) But anyway, football is now officially over in my mind. Time for basketball. Speaking of which, check out LoseLavin.com. Palabra.

smile against the weight of your shoulders.

To Dance: no way to make a living, masochism, pain, perfection, muscle spasms, chiropractors, short careers, eating disorders.

Film: adventure, tedium, no family, boring locations, darkrooms, perfect faces, egos, money, Hollywood, and sleaze.

Music: food of love, emotion, mathematics, isolation, rhythm, feeling, power, harmony, and heavy competition.

Anarchy: revolution, justice, screaming for solutions, forcing changes, risk, and danger, making noise, and making pleas.

Lone guy with a guitar genre has just turned into not-so-lone girl with a borrowed guitar genre. :) Arun just got new speakers for his computer and hooked up some audi-whati device to it... and BAM our very own recording studio (after playing back at 300% amplification). It's so cool!! No matter how lame we sound (and trust me, after playing for only a few weeks we're no Clapton's), the raw sound of an acoustic guitar is utterly indescribable. Ok, our acoustic guitar sounds are not quite indescribable yet, but it'll get there. And when it does, and we're on tour or posing for the cover of Rolling Stones or something, we'll be able to listen back to the beginning days, when it was just us, two borrowed guitars, and the bedroom above the living room in the house on South Barrington street. Poetic, eh?

a hopped-up on caffeine stressed-out UCLA first year taking Psych 10 and thus a part of the psych subject pool student just told me that my job is boring...

So, yes, I've been asian since August 4, 1981... but I still have not yet gone to one of Mell's asian parties that she's always trying to drag me to. Tonight almost counted. She'll say it didn't, but let's pretend it half-counted. We went to Q's in Pasadena. Thursday night = Asian night... It was quite the experience. Let's just say that my parents better settle for a white guy cuz' I am so not attracted to asian ones... I don't know what it is. Maybe cuz' it somehow seems incestuous or something. Well whatever. Regardless, I actually had a decent time. Cage-dancing with Cindy was part of it. But that doesn't mean I'm going back... :)

yet another GORGEOUS southern california morning...

never take your family for granted.

my Roman blind is my canvas.


Today for lunch: sliced turkey on toasted 12-grain bread
Today on the stereo: you seek up any monster for him to fight your wars for you --Dave Matthews
Today in paint: Observation.

a couple of interesting quotes from my policy reader:

Even the most damning indictment of a policy is almost certain to be met with the response: "But what would you replace it with?"... Such a question confuses rather than clarifies... No one who extinguishes a fire or removes a cancer has to "replace" it with anything. We are well rid of evils. --Thomas Sowell

(this next one intrigues me... but I really don't know what to think of it... what do you think?)
Treating everyone equally does not mean treating everyone identically. --F.J. Crosby

42. a photographic image that you really didn't know you were capturing

Fun things that I did today (well, technically yesterday):
-slept for over thirteen hours
-watched 8 Mile with Matt
-made a collage of Two and Three
-cooked with Leah
-got the electricity bill
-had a green tea latte from Rooms Cafe
-almost made the non-dynamic waiter at Jerry's smile
-pondered such issues as appearance at the Getty lot, intelligence, articulation, curriculum, child
development, affirmative action, alien abductions, a fifth dimension...
-saw the stars

I've been reading stuff on Michael Moore's website. For those of you who know me, I have what I call a "calm and collected" stance toward information. You'll rarely ever see me visibly react to something I hear or read. It doesn't mean that I don't care... trust me, I definitely care... it's just my way dealing with the millions of sensual perceptions we encounter every day. I hear it. I read it. I think about it. Then if I choose to do something about it, that's when you'll see my reaction. Here's a link to an online chapter addition to Michael Moore's "Stupid White Men." Warning: it may piss you off.

never take your health for granted.

41. The post-rain sky in Southern California.

Arun: I'm not deviant!
Mell: You're Canadian!
Arun: It's morally sound world domination!

(yes, these are two of the main influences in my life... now you wonder why I NEED a weblog...)

Today on piano: Phantom of the Opera
Today on guitar: everything I know how to play...
Today on TV: Debate about Iraq resolutions. Lots of words were said, few were actually communicated.

I went to the LACMA today with some ex-C2 buddies (that's ex-C2, not ex-buddy). I had a really good time. Ricky got to look at his piece of Southeast Asian Art, Olga and I got to see our century of fashion, and Lucas got to see George Washington even though the rest of us weren't too keen on that. THEN... and THEN... we saw the Donald Blumberg exhibit!! It was amazing!! I had never heard of this guy before, but his work was absolutely amazing. The exhibit is mostly black and white photography (simple room, basic black frames with white mattes). My favorites were the TV series and the Daily Series... If you get a chance before January 5th, hop on over to the LACMA ($5 for students). Here's a little clip from the LACMA press release:
Described as a “consummate technician” and “photographer’s photographer,” Blumberg is an artist whose signature style rests not in his selections of subject matter or in how those subjects are portrayed, but in the manner in which his images address issues of the photographic... The importance of Blumberg’s work lies in its reconciliation of the cognitive with the visual, the conceptual with the visceral, and the common with the exceptional. Donald Blumberg’s art is an art of integration.

I've been trying to figure out what to research for my final paper for my education policy class. I always have the hardest time deciding on a project when the assignment is left so open-ended. On first inclination, I started thinking about race issues. This all links to affirmative action, the definition of racial subgroups in terms of evaluating public schools, the upcoming Racial Privacy Initiative that will be on the 2004 ballot. Then I turned my focus to reading curriculum. Think about how you learned how to read. I can't remember exactly how I did. California just implemented a phonics-based reading system in 1999. LAUSD specifically uses what's called the "Open Court" reading system that is a rigorous 3-hr a day phonics-based curriculum. Now that sounds like a good thing, because for decades people were leaving high school with a diploma but without basic reading skills, so this was an issue they knew they had to attack from the beginning. But we're looking at a rigid curriculum that has improved reading scores, but that must take away from other things important to an elementary education, say, science, social studies, history, music, art...
Then I realized that there was an underlying issue beneath all of this. Quick-fix policy vs. long-term-change policy. Everything that is implemented is quick-fix. Kids can't read, so let's do something drastic that may take away from other education opportunities, but it's ok as long as their reading scores go up by the first year. There are racial injustices, so let's reverse that by accounting for the hardships that minorities face in admissions processes. All quick-fix. In the long run, these systems don't hit the core of the problems. But what's the alternative to quick-fix? There really is no alternative. We have government officials who are in office for such a short amount of time that they have to prove themselves in two years before election time rolls around again. So if you were in office what would you want to do? Implement some policy that will show significant results before it's time for people to vote for you again. Then it looks like you actually did something. And think about if you were the person in charge of all the money. You have such a limited pool of resources to work with, how do you decide how much goes where? You give a system a certain amount of money and that system has to prove itself worthy before it comes time to redelegate money, otherwise it risks losing that funding for the next term. So again, what does it have to do? Produce significant results in two years. But things really don't work this way. Nothing can be fixed in such a short amount of time. Long-term change happens slowly... results may not show up for years... Now that I've complained about that, do I have a solution? Nope. Kinda sad though.

"Because you can't change the world, but you can make a dent in it." from Death to Smoochy

"everytime she sneezes I believe it's love." from Anna Begins, Counting Crows

the LIST is now officially in three locations: on a sticky, on a shrinky-dink, and now here.

the LIST, v 1.3

1. the after shower smell
2. filtered light (both through a window and through clouds)
3. cumulus clouds (indicative of a smog-free sky and clear weather)
4. the driver's "thank you" wave (rare among LA freeways)
5. the look on JTs face when mom comes home (absolutely precious)
6. eye contact (among strangers, indicative that others matter)
7. feeling independent
8. morning (freshness and renewal that cannot be experinced by
sleeping in til noon)
9. a hand-written letter (shows the extra effort made by a personal
touch)
10. innocence (lost too young too frequently)
11. a newly-made bed
12. freshly sharpened #2 pencils
13. "just because" gifts
14. listening to the same song as the person in the car next to you
15. reflections (from the water; thinking back--demonstrates the
importance of your previous experiences)
16. being understood
17. natural light
18. learning to learn
19. acoustic guitars
20. being picked up at the airport (it shows that you were missed, and
someone wanted to get you home as quickly as possible)
21. perfectly feathered drop shadows (the aesthetics of details)
22. Friday afternoons (a time to fully relax)
23. e-mails written at half past three (it just had to be said at that
moment)
24. having faith in people (rarer than you think)
25. Rent
26. doodles: ink on narrow-lined notebook paper
27. not wanting to go to sleep
28. being told it was the nicest thing anyone has ever done
29. seeing someone stop to smell the flowers
30. feeling emotion ("I don't own emotion I rent")
31. lack of boundaries (the ability to be completely honest and
vulnerable)
32. waiting up for the birds with someone who thinks it's selfish
33. being checked up on
34. walks with mom in the evening fog
35. the endless possibilities held by a sheet of clean, white paper
36. something so beautiful they should've sent a poet
37. sharing a book with someone
38. not being afraid of tanning your left arm (actually enjoying an
extended commute on the 405)
39. listening to someone sing who doesn't know you're listening
40. reminiscing with an old friend

Elizabeth: "Do we need our neighbor's business cards?"
Arun: "No, and we certainly don't need four of them."
Leah: "I certainly feel ridiculous writing a three dollar check."

Monday, September 2, 2002. Dundas Square, Downtown Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

Random Guy on Street: "What's the most important thing in life?"
Arun, Amy, Ang: (long pause)
Ang: "Meaning"
Random guy: "I've asked this question for years to hundreds of people on the street, and that was the first time I've ever heard that answer."

go see Bowling for Columbine. now.