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I'm not really sure why, but I was quite morose yesterday. I think it was a combination of my stupidity in the subject of physics and the failure to fulfill my daily quotas for getting tortured by Steve's hair, getting my face tenderized by Steve, being nibbled, and receiving the stone cold stunner among other fake wrestling moves. I also really miss going to the library, listening to "Learning to Live" with his hundred-dollar headphones, studying, and going to Wendy's at 2 AM. I miss getting angry at defective sweet and sour sauce packets. And I miss just being together in general. I miss laying in bed and laughing, dozing off, and studying while Steve is practicing his etudes and pieces by Fernando Sor of which my opinions change depending on my waking status. I miss hugging him and scratching his back. I miss getting my back scratched. I miss going to Guitar Center so he can buy string cleaner and assorted guitar supplies. I miss falling asleep while Steve is busy only to have him wake me up with a kiss. These are things that I require to function normally.

I also feel that despite my frequent feelings of fear, uncertainty, anger, and dissatisfaction, all of which had arisen from the fact that Stephen hadn't fully committed to me, he is an amazing person that any mom would be happy for her daughter to be dating. When I am hungry, Steve drives me somewhere so we can get food. We study together and I am safe being out late at night when I am with him. He tries to make me feel better when I'm sad. That's all that I really need. I am sad that girls did stupid things to him in the past and that they hurt his feelings because he is such a great guy and he doesn't deserve it. It's really quite amazing how heartless people are sometimes. They've been heartless to me too, and I hate to see my friends feel the way that I've felt.

Yesterday I cried a lot, but I think that I have to just look forward to all the good things that I'll have going in the future. I can see Steve again and I'll be finished with the optometry test and all the studying that it entails. I also may see Jennifer in September! We'll see. I desperately look forward to any time that I spend with her because she's so far away but I love her to death. As we were discussing yesterday, our friendship transcends whole continents. When I say this, I mean that we are more important than continents. We are also separated by North America, but we are more important than Asia. OK, that doesn't really make sense unless you were there. Which she was. And she reads this. So that's fine.

Other things that I am pleased with:
I am lucky to have such special people to miss.
I've grown to enjoy TCNJ and all the people I've met there.
I've learned who matters and who doesn't.
I know who really cares about me.
SUNY College of Optometry is pretty awesome.
My parents, although irritating, are pretty awesome.
My friends from TCNJ are really great.
My friends are few in number, but the ones I have are high in quality.
I'm being healthier.
My GPA isn't perfect but it's pretty good.
I'm not perfect but I'm pretty good.
I have a roof over my head and Viet foods to eat.
I have a nice car, and I like driving it.
My room, although pink and childish, is comfortable.
I have a great MCAT book from which I study. It has typos but I see them.
My study charts are bangin'.

There are many more things which I love but I'm too tired to list all of them. So there you have it. Now I've got to get back to physics.

One week and counting to the wedding.
Six days till I turn 30.

Almost done with everything! Favors are being finished today, Costco run during the week (thanks future mother in law!), programs on Thursday, flowers on Friday. Then bringing everything to Heritage Square on Friday afternoon... Then that's it, I think!

Except that the dogs HAVE to get a bath today. They're gross.

Those of you coming in from out of town, a reminder:

1. If you haven't sent me your hotel info, do it, or no welcome basket. And the welcome baskets are CUTE. (PS. All those staying at the Sheraton, I know!)

2. Rehearsal dinner Saturday night. Rehearsal at 5:30, San Rafael Park, Dinner at 7:00, Senor Fish (tacos). Casual. Directions are in your welcome basket (see why you need to give me hotel info?).

3. Girls - Saturday at 1:00 PM, mani/pedi at Mademoiselle Nail and Hand Spa. Will send a reminder email.

4. Weather: It's f#$@ing hot here at the moment, please plan accordingly. Bring sunscreen!

Can't wait to see you!!!

I'm officially in love with the silent film Pandora's Box and Louisa Brooks. I've never really watched silent movies but I really liked this movie. Probably because despite it being from the 1920s, it still had this twang of modernism to it.

Louisa is too wonderful







Went to Six Flags for Physics on Friday. I finally completed my life when I bought this:



It's a duck bouncy ball! :D


Go watch the Twilight trailer and be prepared to laugh hysterically. God those books are so terrible beyond belief.


AHAHAHA



By the way, my friends at lunch & I are making a fanfic comprised of Power Rangers, The O.C., Pokemon, and Twilight. And yes, we've included the odd period blood bit ~funny parody here~. Dead on critique of the awful awful books [here]

Hello! Your other half (me) has chosen to contact you. Congratulations on your completion as a whole! I'm supposed to be studying right now, but writing a letter to you is my break. Good news - I don't see anything about rotational motion on the MCAT. If they try to put it on the OAT you may have to stop me from breaking things.

You'll probably be worn out from your midterms by the time you get this. I hope you did alright. Just remember that no matter what happens, there is a future for you, and it's a great one. Yes, sometimes (quite often really) I get depressed from feelings of inadequacy. But no matter how inadequate you or I may feel, at any given time we are smarter and more attractive than the majority of the world. And that's just a shame for everyone else.

In other news, your birthday is rapidly approaching! To be honest, I was not impressed with my 20th "anniversary," as Mariah Carey calls it. Everyone says, "Wow! You're not a teenager anymore!" In reality, sadly, we are still teenagers because we are devoid of many opportunities that older twenty-somethings enjoy. For example, we cannot rent cars from Enterprise or get smashed at Applebee's. In addition, you and I can expect to be treated like 12-year-olds for several years yet. With all of these problems compounded by inherent social disadvantages due to immigrant parents we can expect to be in agony for many more anniversaries.

There is more good news, however. I'm going online shopping to find you a gift. It'll never make up for the disappointing quality of our past and current social lives but you'll still feel good. I guarantee it. Well, another section of physics is beckoning. It's time for me to go now. I love you! I would marry you but that'd be quite homosexual and incestuous of me!

Yours always,
Gina

Which is why it always seems to burn out.

I'm pretty sure that Jharick and I are actually done for good this time. It's so unfortunate because we had such a good time together at formal.

At formal I told him that I wanted to go back to his place so we could be alone. But, we got back to Hiett and stayed, but were interrupted by Mia and Andrew coming home. So I kept asking if we could go.

It erupted and he got super pissed and pulled his whole 'there is a minor problem: run away from the relationship' thing.

Honestly, there are only so many times he can do that. I will not continue to try.

I spent yesterday evening walking up and down Brunnenstrasse, the street that many of Berlin's tiny one-room art galleries have collectively settled on as home. Every Friday evening they simultaneously open their doors, bring out the booze, shove a DJ in the corner (optional), and show off their latest display for the wandering crowds. It's a perfect example of culture being dictated by economics: none of the galleries are large enough to justify a visit in themselves - but darting between a dozen of them there's certain to be something worthwhile.

So some Fridays I trot down there with the rest [*]. And...I spend a lot of the time trying to figure out why so much of the art leaves me cold. Partly, yes, it's Sturgeon's Law. But much of it is due to my own horribly narrow taste in art - and that's something I can probably change, or at least understand. So I've been trying to figure out exactly what that taste is, and what scope there is to squeeze it out into other areas.

There's one class of art that almost always appeals to me. I guess I take my art as I take my politics: gradually built up from the details, the overall interpretations multiple and provisional, rough guides to a landscape just this side of chaos. That means I'm a sucker for a certain subset of surrealism, and that among the Old Masters I go for the paintings full of convoluted, ambiguous classical and religious symbolism. Above all it means I love complex drawings, projections of multi-dimensional mental fantasies that don't fit neatly onto paper. Better still when they're in colourful paint. Then seeing the painting becomes something close my stereotype of an acid trip [**]: filling my mind with more fantasies and more layers of meaning than it can cope with [***]

I've mentioned before my love of Alexander Rodin, who is a perfect example of this: he seems to have some kind of synaesthesic SF epic trapped within his head. More mundane is Norman Sandler, whose latest work I saw yesterday: fragments of cityscapes and household objects, layered over each other, full of rubbish and cryptic text and what look like tea-stains (was this planned, or did he just knock over a cup? We may never know: the drawings are none the worse for their brown stains, but nor are they noticeably improved by them). It doesn't have visual impact or the imaginative complexity of Rodin, but there's enough in it to set me dreaming.
( Stuff I dislike is more predictable, so deserves to go under a cut )

When people talk about languages 'borrowing' words, they generally mean copying.

Are there any cases of actual borrowing? i.e. Language B copies a word from Language B. The word evolves inside Language B, and then A copies it back with the new meaning. Bonus points if the word vanishes from Language A once B takes it, or from Language B once A takes it back.

There must be a lot of these French -> English -> French. Right now, all I can think of is boeuf/beef/rosbif.

Yes, I'm sure Google or Wikipedia could find me a list of thousands of the things. Asking you lot is more fun.

My big news for the week is: I now have a cane.

Finally, I think my vision is being taken seriously. Some of you may not be aware of my vision impairment. I am an albino; although many people don't realise it, albinism is not simply a skin condition - it affects the eyes (and sometimes solely manifests itself in the eyes), due to a lack of the pigments that aid in sight. Accordingly, I have a stack of eye conditions, including astigmatism, nystagmus, photophobia, and strabismus, along with just simply being shortsighted. In controlled clinical conditions, I test as nearly legally blind, but I'll be going to an opthalmologist soon and we'll see if I get declared functionally legally blind or anything like that.

For now, after meeting with Vision Australia, I have a cane. I thought I would just receive an ID cane, which is used to indicate that you have low vision and little else. However, in something I didn't expect, the Vision Australia representative thought I would be better served by the long cane. I'm so used to my vision not being taken seriously, by everyone from my father to my teachers back in school (especially in New Zealand) and various others who have come into and out of my life. There seems to be this assumption of "oh, you aren't totally blind, you can see, so you must be OK", or "it can't be that bad". I lived in a comfortable environment at home with Mum, where if I had any problems she was there to assist, and I made my adjustments - including using the computer in a way that is quite frankly terrible for my posture, but at least I can read the bloody thing. Even when I lived in Brisbane, Luke was around and Mum visited weekly. Since moving to Melbourne, I have become abundantly aware that I am probably pushing myself more than I should, excessively straining my eyes, and basically trying to live like a normally sighted person when I'm not and can't. In the last couple of months, I think people have really started to take that seriously. No longer is it "oh, your vision's bad - but you've got your glasses and you aren't blind". Now, I've got a cane and maybe I am functionally legally blind.

It's been interesting using the cane for the last week. I don't like the assumption that I'm totally blind, and I am nervous about some of the looks I'm sure to get when I'm taking photos. People just don't seem to understand the dynamics of low vision. Just because you have a cane doesn't mean you have no vision; I have some vision, but it isn't spectacular by any stretch of the imagination. One thing I have noticed straight away from using the cane is that without it, I unconsciously walk with my head tilted at the ground and my eyes focused on what's a few steps immediately in front of me. Using the cane for that, I can look straight up and ahead. I hope this will do something about my shocking posture. And maybe, as reluctant as I am to do so, I should enlarge text on my computer so I can sit further back. I hate large text, I really do, since it looks so n00bish and frankly isn't that ideally comfortable to read due to how many more line breaks there are to follow, but I don't want to end up with a bad back by the time I'm 40 or anything.

Anyway, back to writing boring essays for university ...

We won the Virtual Enterprise ads and commercials. The results were announced yesterday. I have been anxiously waiting for it. I felt bad because the other team had to endure so many harsh criticisms from Mister Shafer. Everyone except for Kelven got fired, since he was the only one who worked. Although our team did well, I still think that we could've done better.

I've decided to work with my two friends for the book project in Seeley. I guess I owe Kevin a Jones soda bottle and three Nerds rope.
I am very grateful that they offered because they didn't make me feel uncomfortable. They didn't look at me as a burden so for that, thank you very much, you guys. Although my drawing and writing abilities suck, I will give this a damn good effort.

I don't think Cindy and I are friends anymore. We've been ignoring each other these last couple of days. The truth is, I'm a bit bummed out because I thought that we were going to be best buds. Then again, I am not surprised because I am not good at keeping friends anyway. I'm okay now, though. And I'm trying my best to not hate her, but what she's doing to Devin is devastating, and I don't want just sit around and watch. If many hear a scenario like this, they would think that I am trying to sabotage their relationship. Hell, I even thought about that of myself. But she's just being a bitch. Cindy and Devin have known each other since middle school, and now she's just spilling her relationship to Leann, a girl she's known for only five, six months. One of the things I've learned is, you don't tell Leann anything because once she makes a comment, you are going to want to fucking punch her in the face. Juan told me that Leann said "He seems so insecure. If I know him, I probably wouldn't like him either."  It just lighted a fire onto me. You don't say that about Devin. He is one of the nicest people you will ever meet in your life! The girl just does not know when to shut up.
Cindy's just fooling around with her life right now, trusting the wrong person. And I sometimes do the same thing too. We're not friends right now, and I don't think we'll ever be. If I'm the one failing in life while she's decided to turn herself around to become and really cool successful person, then I'll be miserable and grieve then. But now, having her discarded from my life .. it feels good. I feel like I have something lifted from my shoulder, and it's not a exactly a burden either.

Mister K told us about the love story between his wife and him, today in class. They have only known each other for three days, and then he proposed. By week two, they were already married. He said "When that person is the one, you just know. It's indescribable, but you will know." It seems absurd and impossible, but hey. They've been together for seven years, and as far as I know, Mister K is a very happy man.

I am obsessed with Algebra 2. it is sooooo fun. I think Ms. Jones is very pleased by my sudden interest. Today during tutorial, she told Francisco that I've been doing very well. She is officially my favorite teacher ever. It's not because of that comment that brought me to like her so much. Seriously, I don't know a lady her age that rockin' and cool.

Listen to this terrible news: After over 2 years of loyal service, my iPod has suddenly ceased to function. I guess I'll see if I can get it repaired, since I most certainly do not have the money to but a new one. I am filled with sadness at my currently inability to listen to my ridiculous music collection whenever I feel like it.

Also really depressing: The currently state of my dorm room. I'm the only one here at the moment, since Christine and Maura went home and I don't know Erin or Colleen's current location. All that's left in our living room are two desks, two chairs, my computer, a random tv, and a pile of my stuff I still need to move out. It's really echo-y and the walls are depressingly blank and it's just really lonely.  I miss my roommates and all of our stuff. What will I do without Overlook 4E in my life? How will I live in the winter without the loud hissing/horrible smell of the heat coming on? How will I shower without having to wait a good 30 minutes for the water to not be a frigid temperature? How will I get through the day without hearing a long rambling rant from Colleen, usually directed at John? (Also, lol Jolleen.) These are the things I will fondly look back upon.

Of course I am apparently just going to live with Christine and Maura for the rest of my days and starting in a few months I'll be moved into an actual apartment that is down the block from where I am now, so I guess I'll survive. MAYBE.

Oh, but there is some goodness: I don't know if I mentioned it, but I have a job for the summer! I actually started today, although I really won't be able to work again until the 28th. But still, JOB! I'll be interning at University Neighborhood Housing Program, which is a non-profit here in the Bronx. Some days I'll work out of their offices on Grand Concourse, but mostly I'll be working essentially at Fordham at the Rose Hill Apartments, which is housing for senior citizens. (I'm sure none of that means anything to anyone who isn't in the Bronx.) They're starting to do renovations of the apartments, and I think I'll be helping the residents deal with the renovations by helping to move things out of kitchens or closets or whatnot.

Basically I couldn't spend another summer dealing with kids, so I went ahead and decided to work with old people.

AND: I AM A SENIOR IN COLLEGE NOW!