I had a terrible day at work today because I was hit with sinus pressure that rendered me useless for the entire day (with 10000x tasks to finish, no less) as well as fatigue from general sleep deprivation/stress/menstrual woes.

I'm feeling quite forlorn about things, though I'm trying to keep my chin up. Work's really difficult right now. I'm transitioning onto some new accounts, and it hasn't been easy. One of the accounts calls for me to operate at above my current position, and I'm currently struggling with it since there's minimal guidance available. I feel like I work 10+ hours a day. It's exhausting. On top of that, my health has been terrible lately. I'm not sure if it's stress or anxiety or just a general inability to make time to "take care of myself" (aka going to the gym, making myself healthy lunches, etc) but it's really starting to take a toll on me.

Being at home is also increasingly depressing by the day. Don't get me wrong - I love my parents and I love my brother (especially), but I feel like the more I am home, the more I lose sight of myself. I'm forced to revert back to this obedient family-oriented, church-going, career-minded daughter with nothing else going on, and it's rather disheartening. I know that my parents want the best for me, but I'm increasingly realizing that their idea of what is best for me is very different from what will actually make me happy.

I need to move out soon after my brother goes off to college. One of the only perks of being at home right now (besides the general financial benefits) is that I get to spend time with my brother during his last year at home. We've definitely gotten closer and I appreciate that even on the worst days, I feel like I have someone who's got my back in the house. But I can't imagine how much more stifled I'll feel once he's out of the house and living his own independent college life.

Yeah, so overall I'm sort of an unhappy camper today. I should be asleep, but I was riddled with anxiety so I couldn't stay asleep when I said I would (though I do plan to wake up at 5:30 tomorrow morning to get some work done, yippee).

This blog should be alternately titled, "Ongoing Angst," hehe.

The last Harry Potter movie comes out this summer...

my next goal in life: run an alpaca farm

I can only hope that I will look this adorably awkward when I shear off my head of hair 

cutest video of all time.

Meet the sloths from Lucy Cooke on Vimeo.

omg really?

Sad they didn't perform this. :(

Artie was so good! I don't know if I want Brittany to be with him or Santana. I suppose if she goes full-lesbian, Artie could always be with Tina again. They were super cute.

this was INCREDIBLE live:

If they had tossed in some of that father/son montage or, god forbid, actually had the father character there, I definitely would have burst into tears.

just came back from glee live:

I JUST DIIEEEEEEEDDDDD.

see you tonight :)

Perfect.

you guys... there's a new muppets movie!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Mementos from my lovely Sat dinner/dessert with Annie in Palo Alto :)

Hey there, Vonnegut. Looks like you and me are spending a nice Sunday night together. 

"Hi, my name is Teresa, and my hobbies include taking every kind of allergy medication at the same time... and still feeling miserable."

Today's intake:

• 1 Zyrtec
• 1 expectorant
• 4 amoxicillian (for a sinus infection) 
• 1 Sudafed 
• 1 Claritin (when the Zyrtec started wearing off) 
• 2 puffs on the inhaler 
• 1 Benedryl (before bed) 

OKAY GOODNIGHT. 

Watching "Une Femme Est Une Femme." It's a Nouvelle Vague kind of Sunday afternoon. Aren't Godard & Karina lovely in the photos above? 

I watched an interview (after their divorce) in which they are asked whether or not one can be happier after living through such an intense relationship.

Karina says, yes, but in a different way.

Godard says something to the effect of, no, I believe you can be much happier afterwards. 

And even all those years later, Karina tears up and has to excuse herself from the interview abruptly. So sad and so lovely! 

Sunday for me: 

• French films
• Charlotte Gainsbourg grrrl crush
• DYING FROM THE WORST ALLERGY SEASON KNOWN TO MANKIND, GRRR
• Dreading mass
• Lots of choco soy milk 
• Etc. etc.

RAPTURE-READY, ARE YOU?!!!

just kidding. if the end of days was upon us, i wouldn't be sitting here watching afro samurai and contemplating whether or not to start watching naruto again, would i? 

my friday night:

• Korean food w/my parents 
• Gelato until stuffed
• Nails and rediscovering old dresses
• This American Life
• Tidying up my room 
• Hangin' out with a flower that Kyle gave me last week (tis still alive!)
• Heidi braids 
• A bit of Vonnegut (not a total fan, but I'm trying to branch out) 

Not bad, not bad at all :)

I AM PREPARING FOR THE RAPTURE TONIGHT

...just kidding. I'll probably be eating fudgsicles, clicking through my Netflix queue and collaborating on online crosswords whilst videochatting with Kyle. And perhaps reading somethin' fun on the Kindle.

I'll deal with the rising dead and whatnot tomorrow.

hmmmm...

This Hunger Games inspired song is TERRIBLE:

Flax seed oil softgels. They're good for dry eyes, or something (or so claims my optometrist). 

I guess you can't get chewables for everything :( 

Aw Aggies, you so cute

I see you Rachel ;)

CAKE

oh my goodness, look at all those lovely colors. i want to mix colored frosting!

Feelin' a bit glum because my checking account has been effectively decimated by a rash of bills coming in at once (student loans, car, auto insurance, phone, optometrist appt co-pays, an extra $100 for extra thin lenses because my eyesight is that poor)... but at least I love my new glasses!

Now excuse me while I go stuff myself prior to a gym class. I am starving, and damn it, I refuse to hop around from foot to foot looking extremely silly on an empty stomach.

you always hurt the one you love

This movie was sooo depressing, but I do love this scene/song, and Michelle Williams and Ryan Gosling were both so good in it! However, it is not a movie I'd recommend going to see in theaters by yourself. Which is what I did.

Work has been so crazy lately. I keep catching myself thinking, "It's almost summer!" BUT THERE WILL NEVER BE SUMMER VACATION EVER AGAIN. Whaaat.

My new short term goal is to find the Treatbot truck and get an horchata ice cream sandwich with snickerdoodle cookies. Does that sound amazing or what? Droooool.

I love you like grave danger.

This is perfect.

my weekend, an update:

Spent a nice weekend at home with Kyle + the parentals. We gallivanted about, went to Bill's for brunch (is there any better brunch spot in SJ?), watched my cousin's film - which was just as cheesy and Vietnamese as expected, and made our habitual trip to the San Jose Museum of Art. 

Now I'm doing charity cupcake-baking for my mother's school (yay, second graders!), and watching an episode of Death Note, which was just added to Netflix instant streaming. 

Not a bad weekend. Not a bad weekend at all.

Now if I could just avoid returning to the vortex of unfinished tasks for work...

YESSSSSS!

Wasn't the Glee prom episode one of the most satisfying ever?! The whole cast was so cute in their fancy attire!

hey guyz.

when stressed, the answer is always new bangs + giant bouncy ball:

I pick up my new glasses from the optometrist next week :)

I am sooo excited to be able to wear glasses to work w/o freaking out when I realize that they're 4 years out of date and that my drive home is a blurry ride of terror in which I cannot see separate lanes in the road.

Oops.

I have the inexplicable urge to karaoke to Disney classics. SOMEONE, FULFILL THIS.

oh, yes please:

you know you're in the corporate world when everyone you know is temporarily shaken up by microsoft outlook's failure to send/receive emails for the day.

snapshots from boston:

new grad hazing

@ harvard

my dad's constant refrain when taking photos: "okay, a picture with all the ladies now!"

tracy & I before her graduation :)

creepin' on lobster times

OUR FIRST TIME DRINKING W/THE PARENTALS (omg). my brother & cousin have virgin mojitos btw - we're not that rebellious.

asians jumping!

asians being kawaii!!!

asians glowing & taking pictures of food!

I'm currently watching "A Single Man" (beautiful and heartbreaking so far!), which reminds me of "Mrs. Dalloway," which makes me miss sad girl classics (aka Virginia & Sylvia), which makes me miss writing, which makes me want to spend all my hours in a coffee shop with a journal and a stack of well-loved books.

Unrelated to that chain of thought, I also really really miss picking up The Aggie every morning to do the crossword puzzle. Seriously. I did a crossword puzzle on the plane yesterday and it almost made me weep with fulfillment.

So my cousin's movie "Vietnam's #1 Box Office Hit of All Time!" is playing in San Jose this week at Camera 12, if anyone is interested in going :).

Yes, it looks extremely cheesy, but hey, support.

embarrassing moment: mom walking in unexpectedly while you are inflating an exercise ball whilst dressed as a crab and listening to podcasts at full volume

She pretty much just walked out without a word. 

An homage of sorts to Ann Beattie’s Snow, which despite its brevity, continues to be one of the pieces of writing I return to when in need of inspiration. I think there is an unflinching nature to it, and also sweetness. I’ve been reading a collection of hers, The New Yorker Stories, and there’s something of the way she expresses human sadness and frailty (the way in which relationships fall apart, how people can be scared and frail and rash) that speaks to me. It’s what I’ve always wanted to emulate in my writing and though this is simply a frivolous Monday morning poem, I hope it’s a start.

In fact, I’d love to do an edit of that short story I turned in for 5F a million years ago (freshman year of college! Can you believe it?), in which a woman dissatisfied with the failings of her marriage and of herself goes on a pilgrimage to Disneyland, a place of wonder and (she reasons), the fulfillment of dreams. I remember on my evaluation page my instructor wrote something to the effect of, “You have a way with words. Now go find yourself some troubles and sorrows to fuel your writing.”

I think the more I “grow up,” the more I feel like I’m woefully underprepared to face the world. It makes me laugh incredulously when I see people in their 20s who are working on their memoirs? How do you have it all figured out already? How can you extract such insight from the retrospective of your short life already?

Anyway, a poem!

After this, back to work + fretting about how I need to edit all my stories and (someday) begin submitting them again, ugh.

Water

the stochasticity of their movement through water
slippery bodies pushing against current, the scales straining
eyes flat as empty windowpanes, the emptied out corners of the cabin

where once we slept, grit burrowing into the pores of your skin,
the way your mouth would fill with bad dreams, leaving a foul odor
when we woke up in the morning, summer sun like rashes on bare legs

and that night, when exhausted, we folded a blanket on the banks of the river
our toes steeped in ice water as we leaned, our limbs wrapping, finding each other
as we watched the salmon leap against moonlight, our current of disbelief suspended

I did not notice then, how your eyes grew dark with each passing day,
how by autumn, we edged around the piles of fallen leaves, avoiding the dead crunch
how at night, I felt the chill as your sticky summer embrace drew away

when I tell this story to my children (the ones you will not know), I will say –
once a friend and I went on a trip, where we lived and loved like pioneers,
our hearts thrumming like rushing water, our hands slick from holding

Tickets booked for Portland/Seattle trip in September!!!!!!!!!!!!

"Adult" vacations are fun to plan :)

Has anyone tried Dishcrawl? And whether yes/no, does anyone in San Jose want to try one of the upcoming ones with me?!

View more videos at: http://www.thefeast.com.

So I kinda want to see this.

HOME AT LONG LAST

pictures to follow soon!

tidbits of writing (because I need to start doing this more):

1. I feel most like myself when I am anticipating a trip to somewhere unknown -- the anticipation building upon childhood optimism, the idea that, despite the places, people and experiences that have disappointed, this could be home. This could be it.
2. The amount of ideas and aspirations floating around on the Internet is mind-boggling. Once, we kept our craft and attempts at genius close to home, scrawled into journals and tucked beneath the floorboards of our attics for future generations to find. Now, that which we create finds itself floating in cyberspace, among millions of similar images, thoughts and sounds. They exist in a public sphere, yet may never be seen by anyone but the artist, who waits with abated breath for the approval of an unseen audience. I think about all those unread words, those orphaned images.
3. Time zones are exhausting. I can never see them as a product of rotational necessity; I always carry the suspicion that they are as they are just because someone is trying to fuck with us. 
4. There's nothing that makes anyone's life experience stand out from anyone else's. Sometimes, I feel like it takes a remarkable amount of vanity and ego to write, to push out a perspective that you can claim as fresh. Or the idea that you can empathize with the human condition, that you know what it hurts like, here, and here, and here.
5. I need to engage in more rewarding pursuits, but as it is, all I do is eat, sleep, work, and occasionally buy clothing online. 
6. So we are here, so it is morning, so the nights are filled with wine-laced invectives, your biting look, my sweet-edged sword. Here we are in the gloaming of it all, mouths dry as bone, this hopelessness fine as powder. 
7. She looks upon the city where she lived: streetlights and sleeping trees, sleepy children trundled along the sidewalk in strollers and tense young men waiting at bus stops with their headphones on. It strikes her that she will never see this place in the same way again, in the detached cursory way she has for these past years. When she visits in the future (at first frequently, then less so as the years drop off), she will think, This is where I once lived. This is how it was. The gravity that she will attach to her observations will render her a stranger, a tourist in a city where once, she had noticed nothing.
8. How is it that parenting is so easy to mess up? I don't know how many times I've stated, following incredulity at someone's behavior, that "I don't know how his/her parents could have raised him/her like this." 

whats up guys, im blogging from boston on my kindle of all devices, since the internets at the hotel isnt free and i can only use the 3g on my kindle. lol!! its pretty here but it mkes me long to live in a city more than anything sigh. anyway off to my cousin's commencement!

List of items to pack:

• Clothing, of some sort. I am ignoring the rain warnings for Boston on weather.com and will stick to whatever I have already tossed on my floor, damnit!
• Laptop. Obviously.
• Kindle. Also obviously.

Do I even need anything else for survival, except for some garments and my most beloved devices? 

Up past midnight still working on a client project. The cab comes to take us to the airport in a mere 4 hours and I still have yet to pack my things. Is it even worth it to take time off?! 

So.

Tired. 

GOOD POINT.

Don't you hate it when trailers give away the entire plot of the movie?

I read this book, actually, quite recently. It was sort of compelling on Em's end (as she has real struggles, such as unrewarding employment in one's early 20s, trying to figure out whether or not to stay in a lukewarm relationship, etc), but Dex was just kind of an appalling character.

I know that there is this myth that girls like to be treated like shit, but in reality, it's not the case (most of the time). I couldn't understand for the life of me why Em would continue to pine after Dex despite his self-pitying, alcoholic, womanizing tendencies.

I mean, seriously, there's a moment in the trailer that points to this, when Em says she's a teacher and Dex says, "You know what they say. Those who can do and those who can't teach." I mean, wtf? How offensive! Another great part in the book (sorry if this is a spoiler) is when she's working a humiliating waitressing job at a Mexican restaurant after college and Dex, who is smooth and wealthy, brings all his hot girlfriends to eat there and then proceeds to laugh at the restaurant with them. And then tries to tip Em in front of them, as if to humiliate her further. How is that attractive?!

I'm convinced that Dex is so skewed because the book is written by a man, who doesn't understand the thin line between someone who seems like an asshole but is actually not (potential for charm), and someone who is straight-up a jerk.

Anyway, that is my rant concerning One Day. I'm not saying that I didn't enjoy it, or even that I'm not going to see the movie in theaters. I'm just saying that I had some issues with the likability factor of Dex's character right to the very end, where he is supposedly redeemed.

ALSO WORST ENDING EVER. JUST WARNING YOU IF YOU DECIDE TO READ THIS.

my backyard looks like a fake photobooth background.

I don't know the first thing about home fitness, but dancing around to pop music/sitting on an exercise ball whilst scrolling through my Google reader counts, right? 

I know "Bad Romance" covers are passe but one done by the lads at St. Andrews (where Prince William and Kate met)? I couldn't resist.

my search terms, in order of frequency on various news article aggregator sites:

1. serial killer
2. crime
3. death
4. love
5. magic
6. con-artist

Oh, occasionally I also search "ghost" but that doesn't turn up as many satisfying results as you'd think. More often than not, articles show up with more figurative definitions of "ghost" as in "he was a ghost of his old self" which is stuff I don't really care about. Give me the paranormal! More haunted house stories to keep me up all night!

raw & heartbreaking.

TIME article: "If You Want to Humble An Empire"

Published Sept. 14, 2001

"If you want to humble an empire it makes sense to maim its cathedrals. They are symbols of its faith, and when they crumple and burn, it tells us we are not so powerful and we can't be safe. The Twin Towers of the World Trade Center, planted at the base of Manhattan island with the Statue of Liberty as their sentry, and the Petagon, a squat, concrete fort on the banks of the Potomac, are the sanctuaries of money and power that our enemies may imagine define us. But that assumes our faith rests on what we can buy and build, and that has never been America's true God."

too much work.

(short) vacation at the end of the tunnel!!!!

for those of you i forgot to mention this to, i'm flying out to boston on thursday morning to attend my cousin's graduation from northeastern. i'm quite excited, mostly to take my first couple days of pto (wow, i'm all grown up!), and also to see boston for the first time (however briefly).

i figure a couple nights of stressin' through projects is worth it at the end of the day when i can pack for a little trip to get away from it all, eh?

Six months later, my company has "Welcome! Yay you started working here!" flowers delivered to me.

Better late than never, eh?

hello, four-eyes

Excuse my general greasy/sick girl look going on -- I'm still feeling a little bit woozy (and anti-primping) and it also feels like it's about 100 degrees in San Jose tonight. Hey, when did that happen? Did we seriously skip spring weather and jump right into summer? Anyway, wanted to share the Warby Parker frames I received for at home try-on:

webb

fillmore

tenley

crosby

winston

I think that my favorites are Webb & Winston, though I might go with Webb just because it seems like it'd be more work appropriate. In any case, I'm excited to order a pair once I get my prescription updated (pleeeasee don't let me be a -8.00 or worse. I'm blind enough as it is). 

best cake ever!!!

omg grease cover

You better shape up 
'Cause I need a man 
And my heart is set on you


Need to watch some Travolta & Olivia Newton-John soooon.

i want to watch this movie based entirely off of the soundtrack

I only vaguely remember the trailers for it, but it SOUNDS so good, doesn't it? Next on my Netflix queue!

life updates:

• I'm sick 
• My boyfriend is sick 
• Went to Davis just to go back the next afternoon (due to aforementioned illness) 
• Lay in bed, tried on Warby Parker glasses, read the entire archives of NYT's "Modern Love" columns 
• Despaired at the state of modern love
• Hugged Dugglas
• Still contemplating Boiling Crab with my brother tom despite a rather weak stomach

BLARGH. I can handle colds and your run of the mill allergies, but anything that makes me nauseous and/or achey makes me want to whine all day. Comfort eating is how I make myself feel better, and how am I supposed to do that when eating sounds like the least appealing thing ever?! :(