2 down, one more to go
Ah, what's more frustrating than not being able to register for classes? Why, it's finding a parking ticket on your windshield. At first I thought horror!!! Bright orange ticket on my car. Did my placard fall down? That would really suck. So I looked at my car and I see the bright purple permit correctly displayed on my rearview mirror. What gives? The ticket was all crumpled and dried up too. You know, there's something that I always take for granted. I always thought that people don't give out tickets on rainy days. It's just unnecessary since you'll just be wet. Well, now I know another reason not to do it: You're freakin' BLIND in the rain, Officer Cortez or whatever they call you. You idiot! Now I have to make another trip over to parking services to fix this. It was raining cats and dogs yesterday too. WHY THE HELL DID YOU GO OUT GIVING TICKETS!
I found out why I have a hold on my record. And I sure got a kick out of it when I found out why. So I have a overlap in classes. I go over to the Admissions building and give the lady my form with signatures from a thousand different professors authorizing my classes. I swear it takes so much work to do something at this school. I completely forgot I have a hold. But she reminds me and prints out a neat form saying Housing put a hold on my record. No hardships at all. She said go over there and fix it. WOW, wasn't that simple. I didn't even ask you for the print out. You just did it. Now why didn't that woman from yesterday do that for me. Right next to my name is the reason why there is a hold. How hard is it to type in my student id?
And of course I meet the other side of mean women at the housing office. Yes, it's her again. This time she has a big frown on her face. I think that frown is glued on. You can't remove it. Quite sad actually. She could be pretty if she was nice. Anyway, the hold turned out to be the late fee I talked about last month which I already paid. I even came back to the housing office with a receipt saying I paid $20 for my late fee just to make sure they received it and don't mess with me. Unfortunately it didn't pan out the way I thought it would. They put a hold on my record and didn't even bother telling me about. Which would be nice since so few are willing to tell you why you have a hold. Add to the fact that I already paid. But I understand what happened of course. You see, the register handles the payments. Housing handles the billing. And collections handles the "screw you" bit. And no one was talking to each other. So my bill is paid off but no one bothered to check at collections because that's not their job. They just get a list of people to mess up. I hate bureaucracies.
I'm awaiting my 3rd thing. So far these two have been annoyances so no long term damage, thank goodness.
This school ROCKS!
Never look too brightly at your life. It just comes plundering down on you. I thought I couldn't be anymore annoyed with this school. But I'm wrong. So utterly wrong. This school likes to show me how dysfunctional it can be as if trying to make me do something about it. Like Ghandi being thrown out of the 1st class train or Rosa Parks into the back of the bus. Heh, you like how I compare myself to great figures in history?
So anyway, what's worse than having a root canal? Well, having a double root canal of course. Likewise, what's worse than having a hold put on your academic record two quarters in a row? You guessed it, three quarters in a row. Why you ask? Well how the hell would Admissions and Records know? That's pretty much what they said to me. "No idea." "Can't help you." It was a little hilarious though I got one of
those ladies again. And it sounded like she just got off the phone with a tough student. Of course, I put on my innocent naive front.
"Admissions and Records," she said with a secretary jovial voice.
"Hi, I have a hold on my record." Pause for a moment. I was awaiting the Let me check that for you reply. Seeing that she couldn't care less about my predicament, I hesitantly added, "And I would like to remove it."
"Who gave you the hold?" she asked sardonically.
"I don't know it just says there is a hold on my record."
"Well you need to find out who put the hold on your record," she said quite matter of factly.
"I try to register for a class and it says I can't because there is a hold."
"You need to click on the link to find out who put the hold there," she sounded exasperated.
"How do I do that?"
"Hold please." 1 minute later... "Your student system is different than ours you need to call the get website. Let me get you the number"
YES! That's the CalstateLA I know. We don't know what the problem is and we don't really care. Let's transfer you to someone else. And knowing full well that no one will pick up the other line, we arrive with me moaning about this school and an answering machine at 9 in the morning from the number she gave me.
1st day jitters
After the devastating $133 E&M book blunder last quarter found online at a paperback rate of $33 bucks, I have decided to move onto the 21st century and purchase used books online.I'm fast in adopting some things like cell phones and DSL but in others I am slow go. My first argument was always, what if I don't like the class and drop? Traditional means you can return the book when you drop. Online means you eat it. But looking at my track record, I have only dropped a single class from not liking the professor the 1st day. The rest I have remained. Add to the fact that all my classes are of the take-it-now-or-wait-two-years variety, I don't really have a choice but to stay in the class. Secondly, not having the correct edition is just stupid. Some people have older editions when they buy online. They always have a little trouble with homework problems. I don't want that. But now that I am buying online, what the heck is wrong with people? The editions are clearly labeled. ISBN numbers are clearly displayed. So they are getting early editions only because they are going the extreme cheaper route. Kinda stupid to me, get the US edition please. Thirdly, it takes a while to ship. Since I started to sell books, I realized that if you send to states around CA, it comes in about 3 days if the seller sends immediately. And my teachers actually have pity for studens now. They actually say we will not work out of the book the 1st week until you all get the book? The heck? My teachers used to always say, you have to have the book NOW! or die. So a little push and shove and the University Book Store will have to raise prices on remaining souls who still uy the archaic route.
I saved $40 today so I just wanted to rant about it.
Living in Oblivion
I saw myself enter oblivion
Then a little bird whispered in my ear
And I turn my back to the void
And rise up out of soaking lifelessness
She said, "Good"
I respond in kind
Tomorrow I bask where once I melted
Live Nudes
Had an eventful weekend. I always do when Nam comes to visit. He is afterall the bringer of people together... er.
Started off with a quiet dinner with a gentleman in a shiny red sports sedan. I like the Fusion. The suspension felt much tighter and secure than the usual giant barge float feeling of your typical American car. It was also extremely quiet inside and the quality of the interior was quite good. We talked about logic of thought and how much it matters to me over dinner.
Friday brought the last research meeting of the week and went off fairly well I suppose. I finished my sole program goal for the quarter. She presented me with the choices for this summer's intern program. She first asked me if I was still interested. Are you kidding me? I'm ecstatic!
I came home to pick up mail and found my paycheck $400. Pretty cool but I also got a letter saying I have a late charge for Jan. rent. I went over to housing to check it out. You know at some places there are always some people who've worked there so long, they think they run the place. They probably do sometimes but they've been there so long that they figure customer service is not important. They love giving you a hard time and have no compassion whatsoever. You find these types at the post office or the cargo area of an airport or at the DMV. See these people don't have to be nice to you because you have to go to them for service. When I walked in, I was "oh gosh not you. Why haven't you left this school like the rest of the people your age." I would normally turn tails and run but this had to be taken care of right away. The last time I dealt with her was over applying for housing in the Fall. I explained to her my situation and all she said was too bad. A nice person would say, we're really sorry, I'll try to help you out. Or maybe you could try talking to someone. Anything besides, "You should've known." I mean this is the Housing Services Office, right? You are here to give me help in housing, right?
The only formidable defense against this type of service to act naive and lost. Don't raise your voice or she just gets more uncooperative. So I prepare myself and say, "When do they start charging for late fees?"
And she starts her arrogant posture, "We've always done it. Just because you've never been charged before doesn't mean we don't do it."
"I know, I know, I mean for every month."
She starts getting mean now, "Rent is due on the 1st of every month and if you don't pay it then you are charged a late fee."
"I know that, I just want to know when they charge it in general every month, I just got this late fee notice."
"Well then you were late paying rent!" she said still not rising from her chair.
"But this letter says they start charging it on March 9th."
"I don't care what the letter says, you're late if it comes after the 1st!"
Who the hell died and made you bitch queen of housing? You don't care what the letter says? Do you run housing? Do you make financial policies for the school? NO! You are just a secretary who pushes papers at the housing office. Arghhh it pissed me off. But I kept my cool anyway because I need her to write me up an invoice. Which pissed me off even more because she never got up off her chair from across the room while talking to me. Obviously, if someone has a bill to pay they have to get an invoice from you so they can go to the cashier's office to pay it. Yeah I know this school is stupid. They segregated everything so that money is only routed through a single location. So you need an invoice to pay for everything so that the money gets to the proper department. So every time you need to do something and have to pay for it, be prepared to line up at least 3 times. God forbid the cashier people make a mistake. Anyway, it was as if she was expecting me to get mad and walk off or something. What the hell is wrong with her? So I asked in a whimpering voice. "Could you write me an invoice to pay this off then?"
There was no use arguing with her. She's a bitch. Kevin told me something when he was manhandled by a bouncer at a club once. The bouncer will always be there earning minimum wage but we'll find a good job and get paid way more than him. We might even hire losers like him to do manual labor jobs. So it's quiet comfort for me that she will be stuck there possibly her whole life earning crap wages. They pay students $8.75 to work her shift, I know that much.
Ack I wrote too much about that incident it just pissed me off so much.
I went out to eat with Nam's group of friends later that day. I was expecting to go to South Coast Plaza but alas we only passed by it. It was nice to give the Civic a little bit of exercise around town. Thuy-Vu was her usual nice self. She had something in her nose though. I think it's a piercing but I am not sure and I didn't want to stare too long. When I stare too long at girls they start thinking I like them and avoid me. When I stare at guys too long they ask me what I am looking at and I tell them. Eric had some crazy long hair. There was another guy there who seemed really shy. And there was also the signature white guy. Nam and Eric got real fortunes in their fortune cookie instead of a statement about life. But I thought this was Japanese food?
Eric invited me to another "Live Nudes" impromptu show. I gladly accepted of course since we're only a few minutes from UCI anyway. As you can see my camera is quite crappy so I didn't take many pictures. The girl in the middle is crazy hyper. That's why I like her. She keeps making anime poses of success. (Fisted hand in the air and legs spread out)
Saturday I slept in watching TV. I was gonna do some studying. I ended up not doing it and not going to dinner with Nam's friends. I should've gone considering I still didn't do any lab work at all. But oh well, from Eric's review it sucked butt. Something about being out of lamb and not telling them about it until everyone else already had their food. How rude! And they took a long time bringing out the food too. They didn't finish until a little under 12 AM. Yikes! Well, I guess I made up that $20 late fee from before by not going because it was an expensive place. Eric stayed over again for the night. I gave him 2 of my 3 blankets because he had to sleep on the mattress without a sheet. But I should have kept the warmest one for myself. I nearly froze to death last night and it was too stuffy to turn up the heat.
Sunday brought my group meeting. It was interesting that the teacher gave us a final project that all 4 of us couldn't do. I thought I didn't know because I wasn't paying attention. But this astonished me. These are smart people by the way or I wouldn't be studying with them. And because it's physics at CalstateLA. 4 of us effectively means half the class can't do a single part of the final project. Now that's hard.
Lui Yi Fei
The first half of Return of the Condor Heroes finally got released. This is what? The 5th remake in the last 25 years. Really ridiculous but I guess Taiwan, China, Hong Kong and even Singapore wanted a version they could call their own. Two for Hong Kong. All the better for me since this is my favorite Chinese story. I'm not one of those who say "Oh don't make a sequel" or "Don't remake that, the original was perfect." Sure, you'll get a lot of Matrix Revolution and Bewitched. But sometimes you'll get a Terminator 2 or an Empire Strikes Back.
This isn't much of a workout for my mandarin since even if I can't read the simplified Chinese and they talk too fast, I still have the story memorized. So far I hate the dubbing. I just don't understand why they don't use their real voices in mandarin shows. At the very least dub your own voice. 18-year-old Xiu Long Nu sounds like a 35-year-old woman with emphysema. And all the male dubbed voices are Otakus. *read* High creaky asian squeaks! Any excuse they use for dubbing, high background noise, machinery, and wind, is negated because Hong Kong cantonese shows successfully use their real voice. The fight scenes are very much emphasized in this series much like a HK production. Outside of a HK show I normally just see fast action blur. No one else seems to have the talent to show proper kungfu fight scenes. CGI while still distracting is at least more tastefully done here except for that stupid floating sword in episode 3. I mean what the hell? Why does a sword suddenly start floating out of flower petals when you are practicing Yunu Xinjing?
What is the point?
I ran into my old Chem partner from last year the other day. It brought me back to a memory of the last thing we did together. The 4 of us, 2 guys and 2 girls just got to lab class and there was a canceled message on the door. So we decided rather than go home we'd have some lunch together instead. It was my lab partner's last chance to get some time outside of school with the other guy. She had a crush on him for about a year. This was his last quarter here at CalstateLA as he was going to transfer to UCI come fall. We took two cars to get to the restaurant and I wondered why. She told she wanted to tell him she liked him. So she needed some alone time with him. I didn't mind because the other girl was driving a brand new Civic and I wanted to check it out. Which made for a good excuse why we were taking two cars too. But I kept thinking, what's the point? He's leaving. You won't be able to start anything up anyway. You should have said something earlier or just leave it be.
After it was said and done she told me she felt good about it. He turned her down. UCI isn't that far from here to start a relationship but we all knew his personality. He wasn't a people person and he enjoyed his solitude. Still she told me she had no regrets and made the right choice. And now 6 months later. I still don't see why she did it. Why did it feel good to be rejected? Is it like letting a big secret out and a burden off your shoulders?
Episode 7 of Gumiho
What to do when someone is about to find out you're a cold-blooded assassin.
A quick roundhouse to the head should do the trick. That's what you get lowly human for thinking you can take on a warrior of the Nine-Tailed Fox.
That's the expression of having someone you love stab you in the back, quite literally.
Will Min-Woo ever find out that Si-Yon is the enemy he's been searching for in the last 7 episodes? And will a knife in the back stop Si-Yon from loving Min-Woo? Tune in to find out!
Well, you already knew the answer to that one.
Aoi Tori
Been busy the past few days. Been cramming all the lap reports into one weekend with my lab partners. We're gonna do everything all at once so that next week we will be free of everything. Tough stuff to do but I'm glad we have each other.
But this doesn't mean my tv serials take a break. Aoi Tori still has my attention and I will be very sad to see it end. A series of events have led up to something in the story I really didn't like and I didn't want it to happen but I guess it had to in order to progress the story.
The Train Master and Shiori are again staring up at the stars. Again they see a shooting star. Too cliche I know. This time he asks her what she wished for.
To which she replied nothing. So of course he says:
Then she says: "I was wrong."
"If you have nothing to wish for, it means you are dead inside."
I'd be hard pressed to find another series so in touch with feelings. Feelings that are so near to me.
The Bookstore
Nice looking huh? It's also the reason why my textbooks cost upwards of $165.
Go figure. I had the best conversation with Marie on Friday night. I haven't felt that way since we went to the Irish pub. Funny how it works that way. When you're not aware of it, it just hits you. Completely throws me off guard just like that first night. Maybe a fear of success does haunt me. If that is so that is just too bad for me.
First, it was Kim moving down here. Then it was Nam going to New York and me following suit. Now it's Ying-Ying again coming down here. It's so nice to know that I can always dream of having someone I know close by me. It could happen. Solitude is by my side yet hope is always there. The way life has been played around me, there is just no point in predicting what will happen. I will just vegetate and find out.
