Chained Dove

The Target commercials have so many variations that I have to fully watch the commercial before I realize what they are for. I hear their, “Hello - Good-buy!” song, and I go, “Ohhhh!” They’re so tricky/clever. Their marketing team is anyway.

August is halfway gone. And once again, I feel like I’ve missed out on life in some weird way. How I have used up half the page on my calendar already is beyond me. As per usual, nothing is done. This ugly layout is still up. I still haven’t fully moved my fanlisting server because I’ve forgotten how to use phpFanList that codes it and I’ve yet to actually figure out how to do that (and it’s been 2 months!!). My photo gallery-turned-blog-and-various-other-sites-supposedly was taken down 4 months ago, and it’s 5 different portals still aren’t done. I fail at online life~~

It’s funny how I used to be completely absorbed by the ‘net. My world revolved around message boards, and fan sites, and coding, and layouts, and all of those things that only virtually exist. People say that these sorts of hobbies tend to show up in their college days, but for me it was my junior high and early high school days. I’m a nearly-college student (one month until I move in!!), and that hobby seems to be fading away for me. I can’t find the motivation to make and create things anymore. I can’t find the time to sit down and learn something in front of my computer. Reading is a hobby that I can carry with me in my purse and do while waiting for a meeting or a bus; web design and things online are certainly not as portable.

This is not a goodbye from the web though. I’ll still try to stay as up to date as possible. This is more of a warning. Although you probably should have seen it coming considering my updates for the past year or so. I’ll try, but don’t expect much. I’m sure I’ll make a come back eventually. You never know - maybe I’ll get bored of college life by winter quarter. :) If that’s possible in a school as big as mine…

The other day, I rode the bus all the way to the U-District all by myself. I was eterally proud of how brave I was. When you live in the suburbs, it’s lame to ride the bus. Now, I ride the bus to the mall because it’s cheaper (since the bus drivers have no idea that I’m nearly 19 now). And I don’t feel too incredibly guilty about not really knowing how to drive/not having my license yet (but I still drive illegally to work because it’s not even a mile away).

But then, to treat myself, I swear I’ve blown like two paychecks at our newly reopened mall. :( And I work full time. My closet is now over stuffed and I have more shoes than I really need (and no sensible ones as of yet). You’d think I’d be smart and blow my money on something useful like books. Or I’d just save it. But I blow it on new dresses and tops and shoes and lunches with my friends. I am so lame. D: It’s a good thing I’m going to be a starving college student soon. I can learn to be humble. Thankfully, I get my check weekly, so when I say I’ve blown 2 paychecks, it’s really like one because every else gets theirs bi-weekly.

I will be taking 15 credits at the university this upcoming quarter. :) My schedule consists of 3 classes: Economics, Astronomy, and Japanese. And although I was panicked for a while since I had a very late orientation (people have been going since June!! Mine was in August!!), I ended up with a really nice schedule. As in, I will be done with classes by 1:30 every day. :) Although my classes will be starting at 8:30 everything, since working morning shifts all summer, I no longer have the capability of waking up after 7:30AM anyway. Apparently it only takes 10 minutes to walk anywhere on campus - hopefully, this will prove to be right.

This is one of the ugliest color schemes I have ever used in my entire life. I may be murdered for creating something so horrendous and putting it up. But alas, I’ve done it, and I’m too tired to take it down. It’s tough to be out of the loop for two years and try to get back in - it really is. I had to reteach myself what everything meant. And while I’m still fully capable of using Photoshop (thus decent looking header image), I apparently have no knowledge left of coding (i.e. the ugly stuff that you’re forced to look at once you scroll down).

Day off of work tomorrow since starting summer full time~~! Maybe I will work on my sites some more. Since I think I threw out all of my knowledge of art out the window when I graduated.

Happy July. :) Since May: I went to prom, I graduated, I had a friend stay over for 2 weeks, I worked 48 hours the week of the 4th, I got a 5 on my Calculus exam (but totally bombed my Psych one), I went to 3 graduation parties in one day and then some, I reorganized my room, I blew over $100 in one store during a shopping trip, I have kept busy and would post pictures, but really need to get sleep. Perhaps pictures of my recent adventures later. When it’s not midnight, during a time when I have been going to bed at 10 to go to work at 5. (as in tomorrow if I can fit it in between of my family’s current obsession of rearranging furniture)

Just scroll back up. This is really much more appealing when you’re looking at the header image. Really.

My goal is to have this site, along with memoir. back up and running by the end of June. Mind you, that’s just a goal and these days I hardly ever meet my goal…. but hey, it’s still a goal, right? I’ll work on it. :)

 With LiveJournal, Facebook, and all those other automated sites, it’s hard to keep this one updated too, especially just after typing up an entry in LJ and keeping my friends up-to-date through countless texts and facebook wall posts. I feel repetitive on here.

 I looked at Clara’s site again today though, and was inspired by all of her pictures on the site. Maybe I’ll turn this into a photo blog? Not sure yet. I’ll see what I can do. :) And what I can fit in between work and school work.

AP Exams are finally done (thank goodness!), and although I’m pretty positive I did terribly, I feel much better now that they aren’t hanging over my head anymore. I have a few finals left, and prom coming up, and then I’m done! A week afterwards I graduate! There’s so little motivation left in me, it’s a bit frightening… I really need to get back into the swing of things! These aren’t exactly things I can slack off on!

I was asked to prom on Saturday, during/just after work. :) He kept himself anonnymous for days, had me calling his cousins’ cell phones, sent me bits of our short online conversation through a fake email he made up, had his youngest counsins yelling out his proclaimation… and brought me flowers when he “revealed” himself. Never ever going to forget this one!! I’m actually excited for prom now.

 Even though I have to cram and study like crazy between now and then.

Oops. My poor site, it’s been neglected over and over again all year. Or for the past two years I suppose. I don’t know. I have a hard time keeping track now.

We got our caps and gowns this week. As in, caps and gowns for graduation. With the senior projects and presentations over, acceptance letters all rolled in, and caps and gowns in our hands, I have no motivation for the rest of this year. I mean, I suppose I still have AP exams in 2 weeks to study for, and prom to look forward to - but really, I’m ready to graduate tonight. Actually, three nights ago after we had our senior assembly at school and they announced that we only had 36 more days left of school. 36 days at five days a week - we’re down to roughly 5 weeks, a little bit more. Everytime I think about it, I get really excited. 5 weeks!!

I am officially attending the University of Washington in Seattle this fall, and have been accepted as a direct admit to the Foster School of Business. I didn’t make it to their honors program though - it was disappointing, but really quite reasonable since my essay was so terrible. Getting into their highly competitve business school was good enough. :) I was also accepted and offered scholarships to the UC Santa Barbara and their honors program, Arizona State University, and Gonzaga University. I didn’t get into USC or UC Berkeley like I had hoped, but sometimes those so-called elite schools are just a bit overrated. Paying $2,000 a year to go to UW thanks to the grants and scholarships the school offered to me is way better.

Since my last update (at the beginning of March, ahaha), I have also hosted and said goodbye to another set of Japanese students (it gets less emotional each year), learned how to ice skate, secured my spot for graduation, saw off my older half brother as he got married (FINALLY our spare room is back and doesn’t have that weird smell!!), secured a dorm for myself at UW, and built a scaled down bridge for physics. Between work and school, you have to understand - updating CD was hardly an option when you have a 500 page book to be reading and calculus integrals to be memorizing (I still never remember what the integral of secx is - and always get embarassed when I realize that I have a tendency to forget to write the ‘c’ at the end of the abbreviation ’secant’).

I almost want to close down CD knowing that… I don’t update it. And no one else reads it. But it’s my baby. :( My first website on the face of the web.

… or should I? :/

Decisions, decisions…

33 days until adulthood, when decisions have to be made even if I don’t want them to be made.

I told my parents that I wanted to be a princess and live in their castle forever instead. :)

March is my busiest month. And to think I only blogged once in February. I may never blog again in March.

I haven’t been blogging because things are getting personal. Things that are worth blogging I mean. I try to remember the funny moments to blog every day, but I never get around to blogging it and lose it by the end of the day. I can’t lock things up in here; even if I could, I don’t know how, and would rather not take the effort to figure out who to let in and who not to. I’d rather not give my usual list of scheduled events because it makes watching grass grow more exciting than my structured lifestyle.

It’s my structured lifestyle that’s killing me though. I’m tired of playing my role as a traditional Asian girl, listening to everything that my dad tells me regardless of if he’s right or wrong. I’m tired of having decisions made for me, and having no say in my own future. I’m tired of being pressured to do things that I am not in my own household because no one at school would have the guts to pressure me. They know I’m beyond that. And I’m so tired of knowing that even though I’m ready to explode, if I don’t play my role then I have no where left to go.

I want to rebel. I want to, for once in my life, not listen to what my dad has to say about a college, and not conform to my mother’s ideal daughter. If they want me to go to University A, then fine, I’ll go to University B. If they want me to live out of my house while I go to University B, they can think again because I will repay those debts so that I can live on campus and away from their constant bickering over senseless things and peering over my shoulder to ensure that I am infact studying 200% of my time.

Some people move out, some people run away… I can’t do any of that. I’m too attached to my family. Societal acceptance is an important part of every culture - for Americans, society is made up of your friends and your community. For Asians though, society is your family. And that’s it. You can survive without friends; you have your family. And that’s all that matters. I can be as sick and tired of anything I want in my family. But I’m not going anywhere. Because it’s just not possible for me to.

I don’t know how much longer I can keep breaking my own heart for my dad’s ideals. Hopefully long enough to survive my own graduation, at the very least.

There are no specifics in here for good reason. Not that I ever do post with too many specifics. It’s a long, senseless blog of pure feeling. Because I haven’t had time for feelings, and the specifics would give away all my secrets. And life just isn’t the same without all of its little secrets.

I do, want to specifically say though, how ridiculously stupid my Japanese teacher/Japan Club advisor is.

Happy March, everyone.

figures that a new semester would screw me over already. after treating myself to a shopping trip at the mall for my birthday and paying for everything at school, i have less than 100 dollars left in my once very full checking account. *sigh* now to start fresh… almost literally.

failed the calculus test that i was so confident about last week. =/ well nearly. luckily there exists that grade just a hair above failing that they don’t count as failing, but don’t count as passing either. apparently i didn’t know the material as well as i thought i did. i made a rash decision to work when someone called in sick the night before the test, and now regret it considerably. and once again, i have started off the semester in calculus with a D in the class. how lovely.

the material now is just going over my head. i don’t even know what to do. =/

am treating my long time buddy eve to ice cream tomorrow after school , since i promised i would after she auditioned for uw’s music school over the weekend. maybe that will cheer me up. :)

FINALLY got an acceptance letter from the university of washington! THANK GOODNESS. i love seattle, so much more than spokane and tempe, arizona. i think i will stay here if i don’t get into cal. :) even though my dad will hate me for it.

back to concentrating on the double chapter test tomorrow in ap psychology. for real. really. even though there’s a whole chapter dedicated to sex. how irritating.

4 days until one-week vacation. oh, what a long 4 days it will be…

happy early valentine’s day, folks. :)

i am a GENIUS. all best friends have something stupid inside joke tradition thing. just because we’re a bunch of nerds doesn’t mean we can’t have them. victoria’s secret was just so inspiring, i couldn’t help it. :) five friends at victoria’s secret when their panties are on sale for 5 for $25? psshh - it was just asking to be made into a birthday tradition!

naturally, aubrey’s boyfriend had to come with us. only to make it less awkward, right?

people asked me why i didn’t run out and buy cigs and lotto tickets, but really… new panties and shoes were just so much more fun.

so i’m legal, starting yesterday. i started adulthood in a stupid way (or rather, ended childhood in the best way possible for mature kids like me haha. on my defense, it was the 30th, i was still 17!!)… but i have a fresh start!

new age, new school year. let’s do this!!

hopefully, because finals and grades are done, i don’t drop out of top 10%. :( that would be tragic.

there are only 429 students left in kr’s class of 2008. we started out with 500. WHAT HAPPENED TO EVERYONE?? now i can’t say that if i’m top 50 i’m in. :(

school still makes me nervous. and paranoid. and i still procrastinate.

so much for starting new.

but the room is clean!

and i have balloons. :) life is good.

xoxo, me

um. wow. stop procrastinating and go do something productive. like the homework that you missed that one day you skipped school to finish the college english portfolio. and the homework from today that has piled up after 3 hours of nothingness. and the essays and scholarships you’ve been meaning to do for the past month and still haven’t done even though their deadlines are tonight.

and god damn it, the room looks like a cyclone went through it with no mercy.

it’s getting to close to the end. we’re a semester from graduation, prom, and all of that stuff at the end of the tunnel. you’re 18 in a week and two days.

so, no more let downs from this point on. hopefully.

hellooooo adulthood. :)

love,
me

Until the 18th birthday. I’m getting old. I think.

The other day on the bus, I overheard a conversation: “You just turned sixteen, right?” “Not yet, just a few more months.” Oh my goodness. I’m eighteen. Almost. Ahhhhh this getting old thing frightens me.

I read Twilight. And now I look forward to the movies like all the other fangirls out there, even though I am most certainly not obsessed with the book. It was interesting, and a good guilty pleasure while it lasted, but quite honestly, as a master of fanfiction reading when I had time back in junior high… it was written like a fan fiction. And Bella was the ultimate Mary Sue. I’ve read fan ficiton written better than that - but it was still a good story while it lasted. :)

Um, some one get me the next two books please!

It’s getting close to the end of the semester at my school, and this means the end of my art class. This also means me in complete distraught because I really like that class and would rather not lose it. :(

It’s 2008!! In approximately 25 days, I will be 18. In 6 months, I graduate! Everything in between I’d rather not face. In fact, I’d rather not face anything between this moment and tomorrow morning, but alas, I have no choice.

Thus far, two of my six acceptance letters have come in. The first one was for Gonzaga University in Spokane, WA. It’s a small private school, but still a very good school. Almost a libral arts school, but not quite. The second one was for Arizona State University in Tempe, AZ. A pretty big school, fairly well known, a member of the PAC-10 football/atheletics league, which sounds like a stupid fact, but the PAC-10 are the top 10 elite schools of the West Coast.

When I applied to the six schools, I was excited knowing that I would at the very least have to choose between these two schools, plus the University of Washington - I knew I would get into these schools. How? They aren’t that difficult to get into for hardcore kids like me. But now that I’ve been accepted to two, I can’t decide. What happens when I get accepted to all of them.

My mom at one point just said, “Pick whichever one costs less, or gives you more money.” But there are other factors too.

My dad’s trying to decide for me, but… I don’t want him to run my life for me anymore. To make things worse, he tells everyone, “She’s not going to Berkeley. That’s the school she wants to get into, but she probably won’t go. It’s a big school, and that’s not what I have planned for her.”

Thanks Dad. He thinks about everything that I don’t care about, and he’s taking all of the fun out of it. He’s making choosing colleges tormenting rather than exciting.

What happens when I don’t get to choose what happiness I want anymore? Apparently the happiness that I want and hope for isn’t good enough for my dad. If I end up choosing something he disapproves of, the only thing he waits for is for me to fall flat on my face so he can tell me, “I told you so.”

Between now and Tuesday I have to master derivatives/antiderivatives and various theorems of calculus, and have a full length (three-page, single spaced, block format) draft letter done, and go to school, sleep, and eat. Between now and Friday, I have to do that, rewrite two essays, write the final draft for that letter, and be ready for a 40-page chapter’s psychology test.

It’s January. Finals month. Birthday month. My brain can’t focus. It’s downright awful.