(warning: particularly old content) I don't ask for it to make sense

5/30/02

I was completely planning on writing down one of the myriad of interesting things I had in my head tonight. And then I fried my brain playing SimCity 3K until near 4 in the morning. All I can say is, thank fucking god for coffee, and thank fucking god that even if I fail my Japanese test tomorrow, they'll still pass me.

5/29/02

To put things simply, bleh.

5/28/02

And the slacking trend continues, with several hours of video gaming in lieu of Soc tonight, and an hour just spent watching TV while consuming about 600 calories of ice cream. Disgusting, but oh so therapeutic.

5/27/02

Tired, tired, tired tonight. Not that I've really gotten anything done... just a lot of eating at Folklife and some hanging out with the fam and a tiny bit of Japanese. An emphasis on "tiny." I've been hit really hard by senioritis since about last Thursday night; I've found myself seriously saying "eh, whatever, as long as I -pass-, they'll give me my piece of paper." Not so cool for someone whose taken as inordinate an interest in doing well in classes as I have. Not that I'm letting the whole moral dilemma keep me up tonight. Fuck that, I'm sleepy.

5/26/02

Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday dear Foooollll.... happy birthday to you! Peace out to my self-proclaimed "stunningly handsome and witty younger brother."

I watched Training Day tonight. I liked it from an objective standpoint, I guess, but watching it made me feel all gross inside. The Mummy Returns fixes everything, though.

5/25/02

You've got the Touch! You've got the Power! When all hell's breaking loose, you'll be riding the front of the storm! Silly, silly, Transformers movie. Good stuff.

5/24/02

I was quite depressed earlier tonight. And sunburnt. But I chilled out, had a PB&J, watched A Bug's Life... depression not entirely banished, but I'll take mitigation. I'm still sunburnt, though.

5/23/02

I'm tired and don't want to do my Japanese. Funny how I'm willing to push myself until 4 or 6 am to finish chem stuff, but not Japanese. I thought about that to a greater extent on the drive home, but I'm too tired to discuss it right now.

5/22/02

I'd forgotten how much more I like Craig Kilborn over Conan O'Brien. Not as spazzy, a little more intelligent, veteran of Comedy Central, and cuter to boot. And I have a paper due tomorrow yet I'll be in bed by 2 am. Life is good tonight.

5/21/02

I've been meaning to complain about this since about Saturday, but I kept on forgetting. So I have to do this bullshit speech in my Japanese class concerning a "current social problem in Japan." Easy shmeezy... save for one thing. We were supposed to find an article, in Japanese about our topic to turn in on Monday (so that they can make sure we're working on it, I suppose... lord knows that everyone waited until the weekend and then searched for something madly at random). The problem with this is that it is nigh on impossible, even when my limited kanji-scanning capabilities are factored in, to find Japanese information on Japanese social problems. I thought it was just me, but conferring with classmates on Monday, it was confirmed that EVERYONE had the same problem. As one guy groused, the biggest social problem in Japan is that they don't talk about their social problems. It was absolutely ridiculous... Take for example the case of when I was scouring online Japanese newspapers. I would find long articles in the English versions, but the article would be completely missing or reduced to a paragraph blurb in the Japanese version. Or the example of the "Death and Euthanasia" section in the Yahoo Japan "social issues" group. I thought for sure that'd lead me to some interesting website debating the issues, or at least some canned government policy. What did I get? A list of 12 hospitals. WTF? I knew that it's fashionable in the US to bash our society, and I knew that the Japanese don't like to admit their country's faults... but the extent to which the disparity stretches truly boggled me. I was tempted to ask a Japanese friend to spoof an opinion piece just to have something; I lucked out in that I finally found a snippet of stuff discussing the anti-whaling position within Japan because there's some International Whaling thingabang this week in Japan that hit the news. At least I wasn't trying to find information on the yakuza or something. Jesus Christ.

5/20/02

Another sleepless night in the works, slaving on my paper. At least this time I'm relatively sure that if I stay up late tonight and tomorrow night, I shouldn't be wanting to cry come Wednesday night. Sigh.

I had my once-a-year run-in with Scott Chapman today... crazy bat of an aeronautics grad student that I knew my freshman year. He's a good guy, but I think it's funny how he climbs out of the woodwork about every eight months to hit on me,and then disappears again. Though this time it turns out he lives right up the street... with fucking MARK AND THANE, and he still sees Chuck, for chrissakes. I'll never escape Mr. Cluster. Best thing about seeing Chapman, though, are the mental images.

5/19/02

I saw Attack of the Clones tonight, at the Cinerama (alas, there were technical problems with the digital version, so we didn't get to watch it). It sucked in exactly the way I had wanted Phantom Menace to; meaning that it sucked in all the little ways that I can ignore (choppy editing, terrible "love" scenes). And the rest was what I'd desired... the battle of Hoth version 2002, lightsabers lightsabers lightsabers, Ewan McGregor convincing me that he can be Alec Guinness reincarnate, Yoda showing why he's the master, a thousand other little things. And the fact that all the chase scenes made me come out of the theater wanting to throttle my car through the streets of Seattle like a speeder made me very happy; I came out of Phantom Menace just wishing that the pod race scene had never made it to print (well, except for the raiders taking potshots... I liked that bit). All in all... a worthwhile effort that will hopefully be improved on even more in the third one.

5/17/02

I think that trying to write a resume is hands-down the most difficult writing-related thing I've ever attempted to do. This is including the past quarter's pchem labs in the sample.

5/15/02

One of my more icky habits... when I get stressed, I pull out my hair. Not at random... but rather I run my fingers through, looking for the coarser strands and yank. It gets damn obsessive, and is a sure sign that I'm not doing too well in the peace of mind category.

5/14/02

Another long, indulgent bath tonight, when I hadn't had more than one other since I moved in to this apartment... save when staying at John's. Storing up my energy for the hell that will be next week, I suppose.

5/13/02

Boondock Saints was a damn fine movie... I've always been a sucker for the avenging angel.

5/12/02

Today, I cleaned the bathroom and tub and took a long, hot bath. Thanks to John... the hammock statement gave me the idea. I'm still depressed and upset, but at least I'll be able to fall asleep like nobody's business after I have a pb&j and crawl into bed.

5/11/02

It will get switched over at some point. At the same time that I sort through the papers that have stacked up the last month, put away the laundry that's been in the basket for the last weeks, wash the dishes that have sat on my desk for five days, throw away the bottles that have accumulated in the same period, finish my various projects, and get a decent night's sleep. Someday. Oh yeah. When my inbox gets cleaned out, too. I usually keep it to < 40 messages... I've hit 120 today.

5/10/02

The problem is, once you get yourself into a shitty sleep schedule, it's really hard to break out of it.

5/09/02

Sleep.

5/08/02

It's 7 am, so technically it's the 9th. I've not gotten to sleep before 3:30 am the past four nights, and not before 5:00 am the past three. It's not really done because I can't get some units to cancel. It's a fuckload more done than it was at 4 am, though, so that's something.

5/06/02

(happy dance) The Asian Languages and Lit department is awarding me a $1000 scholarship towards graduate school! (happy dance) Sure, it's only about half the tuition for one quarter, but hell, I'll take it. (happy dance)

Groo. I just spent nearly 4 hours immersed in getting paper stuff done. I finally stopped because there was so little blood pumping to my fingers that they'd gone way past ice-cold and well into numb. I know what questions I need to ask my TA tomorrow, which is comforting. Speculating whether or not Marci will actually be in a mood to answer my questions is not so much.

(happy dance) Jesse ripped Agehachou for me from the Porno Graffiti single he owns! Maddeningly catchy Japanese music when I'm adrenalized from paper! Whoo!

5/05/02

I would have gotten a great deal more done on my upcoming paper 'o suck if I hadn't taken a two hour nap this evening. And of course, taking said nap will probably make it difficult to go to sleep... so that even though I've worked on the paper for threeish hours and it's 11 pm and I want to call it quits for the night, I can't really justify doing so. I guess I'll... um, put away my laundry.

Okay, so I played some Civ and read comics instead. Sue me. I'm going to bed now, drugged if need be. Bother life.

5/03/02

I ran into Adam, yesterday. I find running into Adam intensely amusing, seeing as I knew who he was from Zach's comic strip months before I ever met him in person. I also find it funny that he's one of the myriad of CS majors that I know. I know more CS majors than I know Chem majors. Anyway, I like running into Adam because he always shows a genuine desire to talk with me, and manages consistently to have funny and/or interesting things to say. You can't beat a chat about a Tron videogame that he's working on for the games course.... come on, it's Tron!

Completely unexpectedly, I saw Spiderman tonight. I enjoyed. I'll save John the gushing about Tobey Maguire. You saw it, bud. The upside down part... mmm.

5/02/02

I saw Wes on the way to the EP hive this morning... he teased me for my bent head, my coffee, my trenchcoat and my headphones. Said that I looked like I was trying to bar out the world. Funny that I'd been thinking that to myself just a moment before I heard his voice over my shoulder... Stupid being depressed.

The flowers are beautiful, thanks, bud.

5/01/02

Sigh... I can't sit next to Jim at Commencement because he's Engineering and I'm Sciences (and Arts). It rather removes my desire to walk... he's the only person I really care about seeing me do it, after all. Another item to the general funk.