drive

For the first time since I've been back in the states, I drove all by my lonesome from Southern California to San Francisco. My parents are very protective of me, so they were a bit wary of me doing the drive by myself. It was quite nice though. And I'd call whenever I stopped and I was paranoid of people and all that as usual.

I got to listen to all my new musics which include lullabye renditions of Radiohead songs. I was at Best Buy and saw it and was a bit intrigued. It did not disappoint. It was super cinematic, and I think adults will appreciate it. Don't think it'll put babies to sleep though. Maybe. It has a lot of glockenspiels and synths to it.

Since I had so much time to myself, I could think and let my mind wander--safely though, since I'm driving. At least, I wouldn't have some human butting in and halting my trains of thought. All my trains were on schedule, going places. Oh my gosh, I'm writing weird, I think it's because I have a headache. Anyway, here are some things I think about:

1. My future: For obvious reasons, I don't know what I'm doing, and I try to appear as if I have a plan. I have more like a list of "to-do's" than a plan. But I have faith that everything will work out in the end. If the next year means the biggest depression of my life, then bring it. Another learning experience. If good things happen, then it was meant to happen.

2. Visualizing myself in situations: I often visualize myself doing things that I could never do. Doesn't everybody. Sometimes it's super little things. Things I should've done. Like when I saw someone at Warped Tour and I didn't go up to him and say how much I love his music. I could've done it, but I was chicken, and I'll never have a chance like that again. I blew it. I do stuff like this all the time. Maybe less than before, but still. I keep ruining things for myself, and it's not good. When I run it in my head like a movie, I do it better this time. I make it right. Maybe I'll get another chance?

3. Goals: What haven't I done? What books do I need to read? What can I do to make the Earth a better place? How can I be a better human being?

thanksgiving break

Hey all, so I'm packing up for the drive back to SF. I've been busy and having a good time and too tired to blog and even write in my own personal journals.

Las Vegas was fun. Got to hang with my parents and other old people as they gamble their money away. What recession? Honestly, even people are out and buying things. Hung out with my good friend Catherine in her hometown. It's nice to be with locals and see their side of the city. She took me to Red Rock Canyon where we climbed a side of a red hill and sat in a little cave for a while. It was fun and a bit treacherous. Then we went on the scenic drive, which was really cool. We stopped off at the highest point and people watched. Lunch at a yummy Thai restaurant. I was hankering pad thai, and it was delicious.

Afterwards, drinks and the Palazzo along with a stop at Kiehl's to con a bunch of free samples. We only walked away with two total. Drinks at the Wynn where I met C.'s friends, Morgan and Lenny. Then Morgan took us to his favorite spot, the pinball hall of fame. We played a lot of games and even a worker came by and let me and C. play a game for free. Pretty sweet. An awesome day, probably one of the best days I've ever had in LV.

Been home hanging out with the fam obviously. Sometimes I don't even want to go out, I just want to be in their proximity because it seems like I'll miss something funny that happened if I'm not there, and something funny is always happening at my house.

Thanksgiving was tasty as well, and I spent some time with my cousins which was nice. I've noticed that all my girl cousins on my Dad's side have really hot husbands or boyfriends. They've got some real catches. They're really sweet, great guys in addition to being attractive. I mentioned before the "spinster" curse or whatever on my Mom's side since 3 of my girl cousins are unmarried with no boyfriends--and there's nothing wrong with that--but man, when they predict that it'll happen to me...that makes me nervous. All the signs are there: I'm an anti-social hermit who doesn't trust anyone and would rather spend time with my fam. I see my cousins on my Dad's side and how happy they are with their husbands/boyfriends...so maybe I've got a chance? It's like half and half.

Not looking forward to going back to school, but it's only like 3 weeks and it'll be over in a cinch.

winter's here

Finally it's cold enough to wear my winter things. I sort of miss the definite seasons of Paris. Yesterday I got to wear my favorite black long coat with its bright orange lining. Today I wore my black short pea coat and a beanie with a black skirt, shirt and khaki sweater over the shirt. I love wearing layers. Wore black tights under the skirt.

Had my second to last class before my break today. Short format screenwriting. It was a lot of fun. I have a good time in that class, despite that day I had the script read-through. There are a lot of good, funny people in it. It's really nice when people pick me for read-throughs. It's a real confidence booster. I was asked to be a main character twice and a supporting character several times. I get really into it, and it's kind of fun.

On the way back to the bus, I saw a sign for the library booksale room. I've never been there before, and I thought I might take a look. It's this small tiny room with no windows filled to the ceiling with books. I immediately knew where it was because I saw those books carts stocked with books in front of the door. Inside was an old lady with white hair wearing glasses and eating tabouli out of tupperware. She was reading as well.

I looked through the film section, the fiction section, the biographies, and finally the children's section. I've been into children's literature for a while. I bought 3 old hardbacks with beautiful covers at $2 and a paperback at $1. The hardbacks were these:

1. Willa Cather's On Writing
2. Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island
3. Hans Christian Andersen's Fairy Tales.

The last two have great illustrations. And Treasure Island was owned by someone in Maine--his address stamp was in it. The paperback was Morte D'Artur. I made small talk with the lady. She was so pleased with what I found, as if I discovered some buried treasure or something. "Wow, these are great!" she said.

So I started packing already even though I'm not leaving for like 2 days, but I wanted to get a head start. I'm also bringing home my bike since I don't use it much up here, and it's getting rusty living out on the balcony. Will be taking home some books to read as well as homework. Can't wait for the drive home!!!

balance

What a lovely weekend. My friends took me to an amazing French restaurant called Clementine. All the waiters spoke French, and the chef (French) came around and greeted us. The atmosphere was just like a Parisian restaurant, the kind far removed from the touristy ones near St. Michel. It was so tasty.

I spent the night at their house since it was pretty late, and I did have wine with my dinner. We watched Dan In Real Life. Pretty decent. I love those Steve Carell moments where everything he does makes you cringe. He's so good at that. I have those moments a lot.

Next day, we ate breakfast at Eats on Clement. Another tasty meal. Sometimes I wished I lived in the city so that I can enjoy all these things. Living in the outskirts makes it hard for me to go out, especially when I LOVE my apartment. It faces a golf course, so I feel like I'm in the woods or something.

Just this past week, my friend told me that she had a scare. She woke up with chest pains and her left arm was all tingly. She's better now, thank God, but it was quite a scare, and it really frightened me as well. I thought about my own health, and I've been battling my weight since grade school (I was borderline obese), but I've lost most of the weight senior year of high school through the first two years of college.

I gained weight since Paris (10 lbs.), and this scare just got me thinking that if I don't watch out, I can gain it all back. And I really want to be healthy, and I want to be fit, and I love how I feel when I'm all healthy, so I worked out for almost 2 hours yesterday--no joke. AND IT FELT SO GOOD!

I figured, I indulged all weekend with foie gras and yummy buttery things, but I need to balance it all out. I jogged on our treadmill on an incline. I NEVER jog, and I did weights on our balcony while facing the golf course, and it was so beautiful outside, and then I did some karate moves and stretched, and it was just the most amazing feeling in the world. I'll never forget it.

I'm so sore today, but I feel so good. Balance. Balance in my life. Exactly what I needed. I'm going to try and do this every other day. My goal is to reach my ultimate goal weight of 118 pounds (healthy for my 5 foot 1 in frame) by June 23--my birthday. I'm not aiming to be skinny, just healthy for my body size.

I can do this! And this time feels so different than all the other times I've tried to lose weight. It has a lot to do with Paris. When I was in Paris, I noticed that the women there are different in that they dressed up when they went out. You never saw a woman out in her pajamas and Ugg boots. And they all walked with a certain confidence. They loved their bodies and they flaunted the parts they loved about themselves. I was never really aware of that when I was in America. Seeing all these women of different shapes and sizes with total body confidence gave me confidence. I started wearing dresses and skirts and I stopped hiding what I thought were my flaws. It really opened my eyes.

This time it's going to be different. I want to be active and healthy, and I finally want to lose this weight.

out and about

I’ve been in the habit of taking my work outside the house. When it comes to me doing something creative, I have to leave the house now. Maybe my chair is too uncomfortable? It’s one of those aluminum interrogation chairs that police question suspects in. Maybe that’s why it’s uncomfortable so that suspects will just confess to the crime since the chair is so damn uncomfortable; they just want to get out of that chair.

I need to have strangers around me. They help me. Like the other day, I went to a well-known coffeehouse to work on my backstory. It was extremely helpful. So was the tasty drink.

Today I did the same thing. It was just so hot at my place, and the open glass door out onto the balcony was doing NOTHING to help the hotness, so I went out to a different location, but the same well known coffeehouse and wrote there. And it was funny. Two ladies in their 20s wanted to sit at the table I wanted to sit at, and at first it was “cool” with them cuz then I could listen to their conversation and maybe even work on my transcribing skills-hey maybe I can get into doing subtitles for films—but then again I wanted to work on other things, so I saw another table open up, and I apologized but then said, “Hey, look another table” and then I just left. And those girls didn’t care, but then I thought, “Shit I just missed my chance of listening on very interesting conversations.” Then again I didn’t want to get caught typing their words on my computer. What would they do? Would they peek? Make me erase it all. Actually it doesn’t even matter, they’re 10 feet away but talking loud enough for me to hear.

Damn people can’t park worth a damn, they have such a hard time doing right turns into parking spots. Then again, I think 90% of my parking spots are on my left or just those slanted parking spots. WAIT, I did do a right turn parking spot yesterday, and it was total perfection.

musics

My friend asked me the other day what I was listening to at the moment and even I wasn't so sure. She wanted to burn some music from me (just a little). She's usually very good about going out and buying the actual cd and all. I started to play some of the stuff that I was into, and she just had this look of distaste on her face like she ate a bad oyster or something.

Right now, I'm really into slower stuff, more electronicky I guess. And this is what I've been listening to lately. So you could either be open and take a bite or just don't touch the oysters.

Today was particularly swell because I went out to get some coffee and write outside the house. I'm creating a backstory for a character in my script. It's for my guy character. I don't know why I particularly like creating guy characters so much. Maybe because I create guys that I wish I knew in real life. Maybe I can apply the same thing to girl characters, because my girl characters seem to be one-dimensional. Gee, I wonder why...haha. It's not that all my girl friends are one dimensional, it's just...I don't know. I have more fun with boys.

Watched Miss Pettigrew Lives For a Day. It's absolutely lovely. Takes place in 1940s London. I loved the production design and the clothing. Plus, it has the gorge Lee Pace in a bad British accent, but oh well. He sings "If I Didn't Care" while playing the piano, so that makes up for it.

oh captain my captain

After yesterday's rough day, today was pretty swell. Prof. R. was totally hilarious today during sci-fi film lecture. Cracking jokes left and right about Aliens and the "monstrous feminine." It was a great day. L. and I just kept laughing at the back, and he'd smile at us. He approached us during a break in our past classes asking if we were laughing at him and we said, "No! We just think you're funny."

When I graduate, which'll hopefully be this May, I'm going to thank all my professors for all that they've done. They've been...exceptional. I've been really blessed to have the teachers I've had, and it's weird to think that it'll all be over soon.

Prof. McBride once said that maybe my TAship might inspire me to teach, but I'm really not quite sure if I could do that. I'm not even that great at giving feedback on scripts. But it must be a really cool feeling to inspire, to teach, and to drive students in the direction of their passions.

humiliation at its core

Today I had to present my script for my short film. We do a read through where people read for the parts.

I came in pretty confident, but right when the prof asked me to go first, it all started going downhill. Firstly, I picked really bad readers. Maybe it's because it was 9:00 in the morning and no one was fully awake yet, but that's where it really went wrong. The readers were stumbling over the lines, so it felt like the script didn't make sense.

I literally put my head in my hands. I couldn't even listen to the script, I felt like they were butchering it. It just wasn't what I thought would come of this. Some of the jokes didn't get across either, and the guy reading for my main character Todd was being too sarcastic, which isn't the character at all, but it's just him being him.

All I kept thinking was, "What's wrong? Why is it coming out like this? Where did I go wrong?" I really started doubting myself as a writer, maybe my stuff's too quirky and not mainstream enough. It was a real downer. I wanted to leave the room. I felt really exposed up there, with my script being read out loud. I wanted to leave, but I couldn't.

Right after, I got some good feedback from my prof and TA and the rest of the class. But I still felt real sore about the whole thing, like when you fall on your butt when you go ice-skating. And I felt it all day.

L. came over, and brought stuff to make drinks, just cranberry juice and vodka. We just drank a little and watched "Alien" for our sci-fi class. I really want to get out of my head and get the feeling of this morning out.

Welcome! Bienvenue! Bienvenidos!

Hey all! This is my new interweb space journal thingey. Yay!

"Let's Dismantle" stems from one of my favorite films, at the moment: I Heart Huckabees. It's like if someone took the themes from J.D. Salinger's book Franny and Zooey and made a film about it, that would be Huckabees. It has a special place in my heart...so yeah. Dismantling is a form of meditating, breaking down our everyday identities ("I am a student. I am this city. I am my car....etc.) in order to see the truth that lies beneath and find the interconnection between all of us, and blahbalhblah...It's all really heavy, and yet not heavy at all. I don't think I even understand it completely.

Enjoy, enjoy.