holiday party

the st. anthony foundation had their annual children's holiday party last tuesday. lisa and i attended as a youth council alumae.i was happy to get a look at how things are going this year and catch up with old acquaintences. the party is always a fun event and i face painted for the third year in a row. annual picture with santa (...eddie).

ashes

i picked up teddy's ashes from the vet today and went to the beach afterwards to send them off into the waves...was that legal, technically speaking?

a thought on prayer

it's not so much about the religion. every kid in my family is taught to put their hands together and touch their head to the ground starting at infancy, and since i am the youngest member in my household, i've learned to burn nine sticks of incense twice a day in my grandparents' absence: in the morning after i brush my teeth and in the early evening....and a third time before i go to bed if i am extra on top of things. yesterday, was an ancestor's commemoration and i watched my twin cousins sprawled on the ground bouncing their heads against the floor laughing as they prayed. being the older one, i yelled at them like i used to be yelled at for accidentally kicking over the wine cups at the alter. my cousins going "oooooh" at the same time was my worst nightmare.

when i was younger i never knew what to pray about, so i would repeat my grandmother's words and not give it much thought. and then my great grandmother was diagnosed with cancer when i was 6 and i started praying to keep her alive. i made up a prayer that was more of rhyme complete with hand gestures and hand movements i had to recite on my trip home before i turned onto hamilton st. or else bad things would happen in my mind, a childhood self taught religion. it worked for about 2 or so years. the day that the prayer failed me, i cried through ballet class and went home to cry some more under a quilt, while curled in a ball behind my uncle wayne on the couch. i stopped praying in the car and on my car rides home.

as i get older, my prayers get more abstract. i pray for groups of people and concepts most of the time. i have been removed from my grandmother's superstitions and religion in general since my move to la. i only pray at night before i go to bed , a practice i started on my own and whenever i clean the little statue of guan yin on my desk, which is hardly ever.

tonight i am uncertain at what to pray for after another loss of someone dear and find it harder to find words to express my condolence to a friend.

studious

it's amazing how studious the normally party hard campus can get around finals. i went to the library for a study group yesterday and all four floors of study carrels were full (stan was smart and reserved a study room all this week, so we are set). this morning, i went to breakfast and sat in the dining hall for about an hour finishing southland - well researched and does a good job covering race relations in los anageles, but the language flowery and included too many graphic sex scenes in one novel for me to take the book seriously. it was different to say the least compared to the rest of the texts required for my geography/history final, which are stats, graphs, and court transcripts. i still have 4 more texts to read and have a study group tonight. i'll be done at 4ish tomorrow though! and then i get to write and essay and rush to the post office to turn in my scholarship applications. whats my most influential experience at usc thus far and how has it affected me? hm...

i'm a fan

this summer, my mom got me a book of original poems and illustrations by a taiwanese cartoonist, ji mi. it's one of my favorites even though reading the poems require a chinese english dictionary. i just found out that the movie turn left, turn right i watched a long time ago was based on his work too. i didn't like the movie very much when i watched it, but a lot of the scenes make sense now that they were based on comic strips.

breathe

i'm done with classes this semester! woohoo! yesterday was a very good end to a very hellish week. after turning in my last paper at 2pm, laila, jenna and i rode around on our bikes and jenna treated us to food. it felt like summer, except the rain and fog. i then came home and slept for three hours. it was my first time pulling a real all nighter and staying up until three the night after. i don't know how other people look so beautiful after not sleeping cause i look and feel like death when i don't. i also turned in my two art final projects. i enjoyed making my sculpture project, but unfortunately didn't get a picture before the upper division class swept it, which i am still bummed out about. patrick introduced the work of sarah sze to me a while ago, which he brought up during my crit. i admire her work a lot, but don't see the connection so much. i had my last ballet class with jacquline pavlich and she cried. she was a good teacher and reminded me a lot of ms. poon. ballet teachers get so invested and attacthed to a students progress, i guess it hurts them when students don't continue studying with them. i am going to miss that class.

we're playing ucla today and i am recruiting volunteers for relay for life at the tailgate.

it's beginning to look a lot like christmas

after watching rent on friday, lisa and i happened upon the christmas tree lighting ceremony at union square. the lights, carols and apple cider were a nice touch.


lights!


the tree.

happy thanksgiving!

i arrived home tuesday to find my mother with a new fauxhawk do and the house cleaner than i remember it being when i left. some of my art got put on the walls too. it's good to be home. this year, i'm thankful for...

-my family: my grandma's soups and how she turns out my light if i fall asleep, my grandpa's foul mouth, ma and ba, my uncles, aunts and cousins.
-friends: old, new, neighbors and mentors for their constant support.
-good health
-the internet: a way to keep in touch, now that it works.
-san francisco
-the chance to learn about and live in a new city that continues to puzzle me.
-more idependence
-the plants and pumpkins in my house

time to

take a trip back home! i have sculpture tomorrow morning, then i will eat lunch, lock my bike up with an extra lock and head to lax via blueshuttle. yay! i haven't been in sf/ seen family in three months now. i miss them.

class registration

the course registration process they use here at usc is quite frustrating for students with first year standing. students with the most units completed go first and so on, so freshmen automatically get the short end of the stick. students have been bringing laptops into class just to click the register button when their time comes and others take bathroom breaks/ wander out of class to find a computer. good classes are usually full or closed by the time freshmen registration appointment dates come around, so you have to scrap your original plan and improvise when you actually register. i did not get into the design class/media lab nor the vietnamese literature class i wanted to take next semester. i suppose there is always begging during the grace period. how sad, but i'm going to try to get into at least one more class.

my notexactlyperfect,butstillok list of classes i'm registered for:

1)oceanography:( with lab) i guess it's not so bad. i like the ocean and tectonic plates. my friend who took it this semester didn't like it so much, but says all the notes/lecture are online and the tests are straight forward. i guess i'll see.

2)linguistics:(also with an additional lab once a week) sounds interesting enough. the course description says the course explores the sound of different languages and focuses more on the scientific aspect of speech. i imagine a lot of recording and headphone work. it was tied between linguistics and anthropology, but figured i've had some anthropology back with mr. longar at cais and i have never taken linguistics.

3)art history from renissance to modern art: what i wanted!

new addition
4)history of news in modern america:(pre-req for journalism majors) i added this just now. i'm thinking i can always drop it if a) i freak out, don't like it, and don't want to do print journalism. b) my design class opens up (crossing my fingers)

i need a to do list.

i have 8 more days until i go home for thanksgiving! but before then...i have to

1. make my shuttle reservation
2. come up with a concept for my final scultpure project, which is: go to the library pick out 2 books. think about the library as a contianer of ideas and make a sculpture about the two books and why i chose them( not a replication of the book in any way) and be able to retrace footsteps inside the library.
i liked the assignment when we got it. i went to the art library and then to doheny, but i have nothing so far.
3. concept for design final project: investigation and detective work on an aspect of myself. ooh, how deep.
4. little red riding hood concept drawing and character sketches for joie's film pitch
5. finish my paper on crash/isolation/racism in la before thursday! so i can...
6....watch harry potter with katie thursday night!
7. finish southland
8. register for spring classes. i need to get into some classes that are already full, but my registration appointment is wednesday. what to do???
9. attend a lecture wednesday night at bovard.
10. go on a field trip tomorrow to patrick's studio. yay! i can't wait to see more of his work.
11. go to val's performance on sunday afternoon.

ok. i'll see how much i get done.

movies

i watched two good movies today. i watched the japense film, nobody knows with courtney in our room this afternoon while sipping the chocolate vitasoy i bought last night. (yay asian produce!). the film is rather dark for a film about kids, but based on a true story. i then took the bus with vince,destiny and boima to the grove because vince's truck got stolen earlier this week. we ate at the farmer's market and watched jarhead. surprisingly, i enjoyed it. it was poignant and pertinant to current affairs, but not heavy handed. movie prices at the grove are ridiculous though at 12.50 for a movie. we took a cab home from the grove because it got to be late.

i like the bus system in la a lot. it's convenient and new, but would never ride it alone...and at night. you see la in a totally different way than you would traveling by car. we've been learning about the mta in geography and the disparity between the rail and bus systems. my next assignment is to ride one of the bus lines for an afternoon and write about the social factors and do a standing count. according to the bus riders union only 8 people can be standing on a 43 seater bus (which usually isn't the case in the evening), or else the mta needs to purchase more buses. i think it's a worthwhile assignment. a lot of my classmates made a big a fuss about the assignment and it surprised me how many students have never ridden public transportation, but then again a lot of things surprise me here in la.

what a crummy day.

my dog ted was put to sleep this morning. i didn't find out until i called home to ask how he was doing. he was old, 18, but the news still made me sad. death is always a hard thing to take, even when you know it is coming. to an old friend, r.i.p. much love.


boima got sick and had to go to the hospital this afternoon. an ambulence came to get him. we are still waiting to hear back from him.

run down

i've been meaning to start posting in this for a while, but haven't gotten around to it. so here goes.

my geography class was canaceled today for unknown reasons so after ballet i went to a peace protest down wilshire blvd to westwood. one side of the street was closed down and there was heavy police patrol escorting the crowd along the way. i have never seen so many young latino anarachist. it was a strange experience, but a learning experience nonetheless even thoough i don't agree with everyhting they said... or chanted. going to a large political protest is not something i would normally do, but tani planned it and i must commend any attempt at political activism at usc. it seems impossible to get anything done. the posters she had put up on campus yesterday were torn down and only three people showed up including a photogrpaher named bryce from the daily trojan. i would have liked bryce's job. he ran up and down the crowd snapping photos the whole time...print journalism major with photo and viedeo game double minor.hm...

halloween didn't really feel like halloween this year. it was a monday and eighty degrees outside. strange. our hall went all out and started decorating october 2nd though. the hallway was clad with a mummy, a chalk outline of boima, herman the mobile ghost on a zipline, spider webs, bats, skulls, and pumpkins. the frozen yogurt place had country pumpkin flavor leading up to halloween and vince also got pumpkin pie flavored soda to celebrate which tasted only a little better than the brussle sprout and turkey flavored soda.

picture of me and boima on halloween friday: me= 70's, boima= 80's

i went to my sculpture teacher's house/ studio and the broad art foundation in venice for a field trip the other day. i really like this guy tom otterness' work, especially the public art. my ta said he supposedly has installations all over new york's 14th st. subway station. i want to go see it!

it's tiffany's fault.

my first post: i am supposed to be reading about the rodney king riots, but want to leave a comment on tiffany's blog more. hm, i'm torn.