MILES to GO || before I sleep

Whoo-hoo, Giants beat the Padres 3-5! I wish we'd beat them 1-5, then I could have gone to the Levi's store at Union Square and gotten 10% or so off a purchase with a ticket stub, but alas... I suppose I don't need the new pants anyway (even though I really do, I think). But it was still nice having post-game bragging rights and text messaging Scott to tell him GIANTS WON HAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHA (among other things, which prompted the following reply: !...go Padres?)

So generally speaking, it's been a good Spring Break. I wish I'd gotten out more... hopefully if I get up at a semi-reasonable hour tomorrow (and Mom doesn't have me cleaning again *pray pray pray*) I can do some last-minute shopping at J-town and downtown, if I pack my other things in the morning. I hope the weather will be nice, because no matter what outfit I choose, it'll be a skirt. :P

Thankfully Dad wasn't PO'd at all when I called him earlier today to ask him about the plans for Friday... he still doesn't know if Kathleen is coming for Passover, though. o_O; And he refuses dead-on to come to S.F., so that means Mom'll be stuck shipping any leftover things of mine, rather than me taking it via car. :P Honestly, parents can be so immature at times...

But rather than rant and rail, I'm in a pretty good mood. I snagged YGO: Duelist #20 (yea for more errors by Viz so I can put them on WikiFic!) and The Prestige on DVD for only $19.99 (plus 30% off YGO!). And the game was pretty damn good, even if Bonds... well, he didn't do much. He caught one good hit somewhere in the last innings, but hitting-wise, he didn't do much. When he finally got to base, it was because he got a run. Everyone was booing. I think booing is tacky, but... whatever. It helped us score in the end, I think.

It's a shame I didn't get to see more of my friends and do more with my Mom, but that's the nature of Spring Break. I'll be back in summer, for sure.

"But it's still winter!" you say. "Why Mer, are you thinking about Spring Break already?"
"Why," says I, "it's because I have a $100 United gift certficate that must be booked by January 31st! I can travel any time until January 31st of 2008, but I have less than a month to book! Whatever shall I do? Wherever shall I go?"

Note: my Spring Break starts from March 30th (Friday evening) to April 8th (Sunday evening). I might not be able to leave Friday evening if I have work, but leaving on the weekend seems to make travel more expensive. Likewise, since classes restart on Monday (the 9th) in the mid-morning, I'd rather be back and comfortable (and ready to go) before that.

Also, if you have suggestions for ways to budget-travel, let me know... but obviously, I have to fly United to make my gift certificate worth it. :P

[Poll #901425]

Find your Celestial Choir

Go to Wikipedia. In the Search box, type your birth month and day (but not year). List three events that happened on your birthday. List two important birthdays, two interesting deaths, and one intriguing holiday or observance. Post this in your journal.

Events
1471 - In England, the Yorkists under Edward IV defeated the Lancastrians under Warwick at the battle of Barnet; the Earl of Warwick was killed and Edward IV resumed the throne.
I find this interesting because I've come to greatly enjoy this bit of history because of the Rose Chronicles fanfic that I've been languishing on.

1828 - Noah Webster copyrights the first edition of his dictionary.
And thank GOODNESS for that!

1915 - The Turks invaded Armenia.
Yes, it happened.

Births
1336 - Emperor Go-Kogon of Japan (d. 1374)
1977 - Sarah Michelle Gellar, American actress

Deaths
1995 - Burl Ives, American singer and actor (b. 1909)
2001 - Hiroshi Teshigahara, Japanese director (b. 1927)

Holiday
Black Day - informal celebration day for single people in South Korea

I'm back in black (read: I have money)! Thank goodness for generous grandparents and upcoming birthdays. I might even get to go to the first West Valley Witches Meetup tonight at the Denny's in Woodland Hills, but because Zack would have to go out of his way to take me there, he's being particularly devilish in coming up with a "fee." I wish my 'feminine wiles' (a pout, a certain stance, whatever) worked on him... or maybe not. That'd be bad.

I'm excited about Sunday~! I finished packing already, but I have to do a lot of homework, since I'm going to be gone the whole time. Unless I manage to do phone or email interviews, I don't know how I'm going to get my Feature #2 done. I hate stupid Prof. Brown. If I'd had this idea and resources a while ago, I might have had a head start on it, but there's nothing more than I hate than a teacher that doesn't understand the concept of a SPRING BREAK. We're not supposed to DO anything having ANYTHING to do with school! ;_; I'm going to try and finish my Japanese tonight. There's no Geography (thank god), but my biggest worry is, of course, for Journalism. There might also be a paper for English, so there's that to worry about, and I have to get my research paper started for WWA.

I'll most likely be focusing on Naoko Takeuchi as a contemporary female manga-ka, contrasting her with Kazuki Takahashi for the male. I'll write for Banana Yoshimoto as the female writer, and likely Novala Takemoto (author of Kamikaze Girls) for the male. I'm most definitely open to more suggestions for the expansion of the research paper -my "book" which I hope to write with Prof. Hirota as part of my Presidential Scholarship award stipulation. :D

Oh, and as a note to all the females out there - when some strange guy looking suspiciously like Napolean Dynamite asks you to sign a petition to END Women's Suffrage, JUST SAY NO. Otherwise you are a Dumb Female and do not deserve to have a Vagina. Go away, shoo, shoo.

Whee, Hawaii! Whee, birthday! Beaches and Mai Tais... and I hope it doesn't rain!

I'm not someone who just sits around and writes in LJ all day. Honest. I actually go to university. :P And today I got my 10-question Weather & Climate test back, along with my "midterm" (I guess?) paper on traveling from Crescent City across the state (describing the geographical features we'd seen on our way). I got a 80% on the first one, and a 14.5/15 points on the second. So it's not perfect, but I'm pleased. :)

o_o... would someone please tell me why I have 132 userpics? No, not really-- I only have 81, but there are 132 SLOTS. ;_; That's too many! I NEED MORE ICONS! (I don't have that many lying around... at least, not that many that I haven't used already and WANT to use again)

Too many people have birthdays in March. *shakes fist* And me without my rainbow-colored font colorizer. Maybe I'll take a page from crpsaiyan's book and make a massive monthly-themed birthday image and put everyone's name on it. :P

Speaking of birthdays and birthday-type food, does America have a Cupcake Day? I mean, we have National Craft Month and Hug Your Dog day (maybe?)... every day and every month is something; every color and pattern has some sort of significance. We're holiday-crazy. I want a Cupcake Day. mklutz says she had one on the anniversary of her school (founding, perhaps?) and they actually had a RAINBOW of CUPCAKES. Who the hell wouldn't want one of those? I've actually been (unreasonably) craving cupcakes for a while. Just one, delicious rainbow-cupcake, and I'd be a happy camper. In the meantime, CUPCAKE DAY, DAMMIT! Quite possibly on my birthday.

Hawaiian cupcakes? *shrugs* Why not?

Back to the fun that is Carmen Electra's Aerobic Striptease, I find it incredibly difficult to do that whole "wiggle" thing where you shift the top part of your body to the side, but without moving your hips or feet. As in, moving just your chest using your ribcage. o_o... This makes it harder to do the full body roll, because even though I can do the "Cat Cowl" thing, trying to combine all the moves into one causes me to become really short of breath, for some weird reason. But for everything else, I breathe just fine. I know I'll never be able to do the workout on Mondays, because I'm so busy, but I can do it for the rest of the week.

Scott finally "guessed" (I dropped about 10 tons worth of hints; sometimes that boy is so adorably dense) about what I'd got, and he was pleasantly 'surprised.' He was working out too, to build up his own endurance (and for me, he said. That makes me giggle). So now we're "even." He's definitely coming up here for Passover now, just to see if he can get a sneak preview of me supposedly knowing how to striptease. *laughs* something tells me I'm going to turn into a potted plant and not be able to do it without looking stupid.

When I have some free time:
* Get a wireless card
* Move everything around/clean for Passover (since I won't be here during Spring Break)
* Finish up my scholarship applications
* Finish up my 5 on-hold fics for 30kisses - "Kaiba the Virgin Sacrifice," "Girls' Club", "Sight Unseen," "Voice," and "Someone Else's Wife." Just by looking at the titles, which TWO would you want to read the most? (atlantian_magic, if you read this, your choice is important. It's your birthday coming up, and I wanna give you a fic. :P)
* Layouts? Everywhere (LJ, seventh-star.net, etc). I need to get the site-formerly-known-as-AMC up. I need a new site title. HELP!
* Tax return? Hey, it was $100 I didn't have before. And now the damn school is jumping down my throat over it. So I need a 'dependent' verification form (shiz. Am I still considered a dependent in school/legal/medical terms, even though Mom doesn't financially support me?), her tax return (copy), and my tax return (ugh).

So much for the end of stress. I can't wait until spring break.
19 MORE DAYS!!!

Spring Break in Hawaii after all! WHOO HOO!

Early this morning Mom called me, saying she felt bad that she'd killed my good idea (and generous offer) to spend my spring break and birthday with her-- my treat, a trip to Hawaii. Her excuse was the kids, and she knew it was a bad one, so she changed her mind. I'm thrilled-- not because I don't want to see rhapsody_dragon or mklutz (I do! Though Mamono, I would probably only try to visit you at school and help you upstage that brat-that-shall-not-be-named, not stalk you at home. o_o;), but because I was just running low on other good ideas.

Mom got us reservations at the Sheraton Waikiki from the 9th to the 15th, so I'll need to get plane tickets-- I've searched all the major sites I can think of, but I still have to check STA travel tomorrow, in case they can still get me something cheaper without the hotel room package. I wonder how Mom's going to get here to LA, though? It'd be sort of stupid for us to fly on separate planes to Hawaii and meet up there... o_o; But I don't think I can afford paying for her ticket to LA, *AND* both our tickets to Honolulu. A ticket down here is only about $90 or so on Southwest from Burbank, so hopefully Mom won't see that as TOO much of a cost to spend a whole week with her loving daughter that she spent 36 hours in labor to bring into this wonderfully screwy world. :D

In other news, the Coworker-who-shall-not-be-named sucks. Even more than ever. Funny how this whole "I like him, I hate him" thing works. Well right now, I hate him, because his sense of humor is about as low as the Miranda Trench, and I don't like being teased in that weird, snotty way of his. I suppose it's partly my fault, because irritates me to the point where I make stupid comments, and then that leaves me open for his stupid retorts... Well. :P So he knows I have a "boyfriend" (quotes for you guys; you know me and my anti-label/who-the-fuck-cares status at the moment) and I hope that will shut him up, thinking I was or want to flirt with him. I met his girlfriend, she's nice, sweet, and... even without her, he's made a bad enough impression on me at this point that I do not care. Maybe it's not just an "older guys" thing, but a "older than the last guy." o_o Think about it. I've started a trend! Crush-wise, I started out liking guys in my grade. Then a grade or two over. Cunningham was 3 years above me; a senior while I was a freshman. My first boyfriend was already in college while I was still a junior, and Mike was around the same age, plus or minus. Lonnie was the kink in the chain, but then, he was practically inhuman, so he doesn't count. Then there was Scott, 5 years my senior. We have to keep going up-- going down proves fatal!

My PS2 premod has made it to Toledo, OH and is expected here by the 18th. Scott's coming tomorrow night, and I'm off work and school by 4pm, so I'll have enough time to clean up before he comes. :) I have no plans, no idea what he'll eat (he says he's been beefing up lately and eating 5x a day! o_O!), and I'm still as happy as a clam. I think I'll duel Parshath on JTP again, see if my new deck works. :>

Yesterday a funny thing happened-- I was walking back from Subway, after getting a small lunch to eat before my Major American Writers class started. The University Student Union is under construction, so to get from the USU area (with Subway, the Pub, the Matador Involvement Center, the gym, the arcade, the graphic design center, Wells Fargo, and the Digital Photo place), you have to walk past the construction on your right, and the meeting halls on your left. You come out of this outdoor hallway/tunnel thing, facing the new clothing store (Sam's), and the Mercantile Exchange (convenience store). There are some tables with umbrellas out there on the raised patio so people can eat.

This girl and her guy friend/whoever were sitting on the corner table, right near the "hallway" exit, and as I came out, she turned and looked at me and said "Miss-- you're very pretty." I was so baffled and surprised ("was she talking to me?") that I stuttered out an "Oh! Thank you!" and walked into the Merc and bought my daily iced tea. o_o; I wasn't even dressed in anything remotely attractive yesterday; I was wearing my black track pants, my blue and white track jacket, and a long sleeved shirt with a beaded American flag on it. Nothing special. I get more compliments about my purple satin Converse than I do about me, overall as a person.

I guess the fact that someone complimented me out of the blue is what's baffling me, not the fact that said compliment came from a female. But it's nice to know there are OTHER bold girls out there who admire other girls... That is, maybe she was bi? Or hell, maybe she was lesbian (that's what my grandmother thought), but who cares? I appreciated the comment, even if it was startling. And who knows? She might have been playing silly joke, but whatever. It made my day all the more memorable.

(To be honest, I did wear the track pants for a reason-- they make my butt look nice! HAH!)

Oh, and thanks to jacksonslam, I now have a digital version of the picture they used in the Daily Sundial last Friday, of me working in the bookstore. It's in my Pics Gallery under 'school'. If you've never checked it out before, there's also all my delishidoodle icons, banners and assorted stuff for my other comms. (which I need to get working on!), photos from all sorts of events and places, and the occasional helpful thing (backgrounds for your journal/webpages, etc).

I got my FAFSA done and filed, but I just remembered about this mysterious savings bond thing that WaMu mailed to me. I don't have a Savings Bond. But this number (a measly $57ish) would screw up my FAFSA and my taxes (if I file them), because it counts as Interest Income, which I reported as $0! It's not much, but I have to find out from Mom if it's worth it to file, and then I can correct the FAFSA once I find out where this money came from, and if it's even really mine. I need to get all that done ASAP so I can see a FinAid officer and get her siganture on the Freeman-ASIA scholarship, since I want to get all the big, important ones out of the way.

Speaking of big important ones, both guardian_kysra and Scott came through with recommendations for me-- Prof. Hirota told me she got the both of them. Takase-sensei was still reluctant when I asked her (as a LAST resort, because I would like to have a recommendation from a professor in the language of the country where I hope to study!), which kind of upset me-- she has 4 TAs correcting homework for her, so what's the big deal? I know she wrote two recs. for me in the past, but there's $20,000 riding on this! I wish Hirota-sensei would speak to her, but maybe that's just mean...

In any case, Scott forwarded me a copy of what he wrote, and MY GOD, it was so amazing. o_o I'm just bowled over by the kind of things he said about me (and Scott told me he spent over a week getting it all thought out and well-constructed; he did a fabulous job for a guy that likes art more than writing!). I really hope that what he and Kysra said will give me a leg-up.

I'm still waiting on the CCSF transcript-- I ordered it on the 2nd, but I don't think it got mailed out till the 3rd. Still, the postal service works on Saturday, so I'm hoping it got to SF by Saturday night, and to CCSF by Monday morning. They should have processed it within 2-3 days (assuming now isn't still 'peak period') and it would get here today... I hope. I asked my grandparents to call me if it comes in; if not, I will tell Prof. Hirota to hold off on mailing the package without the transcript, because tomorrow is the latest I can wait. It's true I only took one measley (rhymes with Weasley) class (that I aced, because it was elementary Japanese), but it WAS Japanese, not some weird, meaningless class. And when they ask for ALL college transcripts, I take it seriously. CCSF better come through, because I don't want to miss out on $20,000 because of their inefficiency!

Finally, I'm 90% going to go through with this Hawaii for Spring Break thing, even if Mom doesn't come with me. It looks like Passover will probably be in San Diego the week AFTER (unless Fred decides to be weird and change it around; I just hope we don't try to have it at his house again), since Joyce and Sally think that doing it in Northridge would be too stressful for Baba and Grandpa. I suppose they're right, and Joyce's new house IS big enough for everyone (from what I saw; it was under construction when I was there last). I can't think of any better ideas-- I don't want to stay here in Northridge for my birthday, doing nothing. I don't want to go to San Francisco and do what I've done, see what I've seen, even if I could *MAYBE* hang out with some of my friends. I still plan on being back by Friday night or Saturday night, so cutieme4u (even though you won't read this because you're swamped with 6 midterms), I'll still go clubbing with you if you want. Too bad you're going to be out of town for YOUR birthday though, otherwise we should totally do something for YOUR birthday together! ;)

So I'm waiting for mom to find out if we could stay at a Starwood Resort hotel (likely a Sheraton) for a cheaper rate than the travel agency is quoting me for a lower-star hotel. $66 for 4-star as opposed to $88 for a 2-star!? I'm all for it. But that would change the price that the lady at STA Travel quoted me, and I need to go back there soon to make reservations anyway! :O I hope Mom gets back to me soon.

Well, that's really it for now; I've memorized my dialogue for Japanese already (and Takase-sensei's new system leaves it up to chance whether you'll get the hard lines or the easy ones; so far I've got the easy ones, and the guy I was paired with was unprepared!) and am going to polish off the response drills; I've already done my Listening Comprehension, and that's it for the day until work starts at 4pm! I've got my fingers crossed for that transcript, though...

It's a widely known misconception that to go to "boot camp" is to sign your soul away to a bunch of tall, crew cut guys with a mouth that would make your mama shame-faced. I just came back from "boot camp".
What, you say? You got sent to boot camp? Uhm, no, more like I volunteered. As anyone who's read my diary before, they know I'm in JROTC, also known as HSROTC. For the uninformed, the former stands for Junior Reserve Officer's Training Corps (or High School JROTC for the latter).

In any case, I hadn't gone last year, and all my friends came back ranting and raving that they had had so much fun. Mostly they went to dances, which I am so against, but I figured I'd have fun being my bitchy self at a place where power-tripping is the dress code standard. ^^;

So, I went this year. Unfortunately, there were some "cons" to going to this "boot camp". I'll start off my saying it wasn't really a boot camp, but that's what people think of it as. It's pretty similar, but I've heard stories from older classmates of mine who are really in the Reserves, so... this place is heaven in comparison.

Hehe.. in any case, you start the day by waking up at 4:30 AM. That's right, when it's still DARK. Mind you, this place is in Dublin, California. Unlike last year, when it was in some place near Anaheim. So the climates are very different, though I can easily say it rained in both places both years.

Dark, cold, wet. *shudder* I don't want to sound like a wimp, but I have asthma and am about as skinny as a pencil or thinner, so physical fitness isn't really up my alley. I can barely walk up three flights of stairs without heaving. I happen to have a high metabolism-- for me, that means eating in strange spurts, sometimes a lot, sometimes a little. I can burn the energy pretty fast, but I need to sleep ASAP or I faint. Exercising is only fun for me if I can pace myself. And that doesn't mean keeping PACE with everyone else. So trying to run with 70 people in the middle of the night when it's about 40 degrees outside is not my cup of tea. I figured that as a trainer, or someone who helped the cadets from the other schools learn about the place, I wouldn't have to do PT (physical training). BZZ! Wrong. It seems this year's brigade (citywide) staff was so disorganized, that the battalion (school) has power over everyone. This would be the one time I'd have a problem with that, because the teachers at my school for ROTC are, without a doubt, and with proof, sexist and uncaring towards medical problems. They don't care when people get hurt, have excuse notes from doctors or parents, or are about to pass out. I managed to get excused from PT every morning, but just barely, and not without escaping a yelling.

And that's just the beginning. After a half hour of PT, everyone returns to their barracks. I should state here that the male and female barracks are separated (duh) but, again, thanks to the wonderful lack of planning on the brigade staff's part, we weren't in the larger barracks. So many girls has to sleep on mattresses (and box springs... oww...) in a cold, dark room. The bathrooms are shared by the girls (all of them) and the brigade staff.

Now, normally, older teens can take care of themselves just fine, but these ones figured since there were 40+ girls in the lower barracks with them (the barracks are two stories) that they could get away with anything and everything. And that they did. They blamed us when a door in the bathroom showers broke, despite the fact that we are only allowed to use the bathrooms in the early morning and late afternoon. The door had been broken when no one was in the barracks. At least... not one of the girls!

Oh yes, and how fun it is to be sharing barracks with overblown egotistical guys, who reserve the bathrooms for themselves, even when girls have to use the toilet. The bathrooms, mind you, are separated: toilets, sinks, then showers. So anyone using the toilets wouldn't see anyone taking a shower.

And what's the big deal, anyway?! We've all taken Health Ed, and judging by their egos they wouldn't be very shy if someone DID walk in on them...!

I could keep on ranting... but the worst is yet to come. Now, brigade staff is made up of guys and girls from each of the six schools in the SFUSD. Mission, Lincoln, Wash, Bal, Gal, and Lowell. Our one representative was known as "Bubble Butt" to those who have a sense of humor. He wasn't mean or anything, but that year, I discovered that people in brigade forget that they have friends, significant others, integrity, or loyalty. They are a class and group in and of themselves. This "Bubble Butt" as he was, did not stay with the other boys from my school, but with Brigade. When his girlfriend got in trouble -for not being allowed to supervise over a cadet that had gotten injured- with another brigade member, who was,in fact, the brigade equivalent of her OWN position... he didn't stand up for her in the slightest. Despite the fact that JROTC and the brigade staff is supposed to be like the real army, and similar to the government itself, they follow one rule there: Guilty until proven Innocent. And we don't want to hear you defend yourself. They don't give anyone a chance to speak up in their own defense, yet blame them for everything. Oh yes, and they are TOTAL hypocrites. They say the girls at my school can't wear tank tops or short skirts, but they do it themselves. And they seem to hate our school, by singling us out for everything, including making us second to last for food. How horrible is it when you have to exercise at 4:30 in the morning, come back at 5:00, have a half hour to prepare, and then stand in line for an hour before you get your breakfast? And what's more, you're in line by rank, so the school with the most freshmen always gets to eat before us... and the same applies to our school, with a load of first year cadets. *sigh* At least I got to eat a bit longer. It wasn't the other people who had problems, it was really brigade.

This concludes my list of why I don't want to stay in RO, even if I *do* get a staff position. It isn't worth the stress... right?