mspaint addiction

2012-01-21T18:22:00.000+08:00

2011-11-05T14:56:00.011+08:00

today (yesterday), science center, ca. 4pm.
and then a student stumbled on me like this.

10 hours earlier...

6:00 AM | chaosmueller: chaosmueller ist jetzt fertig!
chaosmueller geht jetzt 3 stunden schlafen
chaosmueller aus
6:01 AM | me: :( schlaf gut
chaosmueller : Du bist noch wach?
me: leider ja
chaosmueller : wann geht's morgen bei dir los?
6:02 AM | me: ich muss um 8.40 mit jemandem treffen
chaosmueller : Nicht gut...

nicht gut indeed.

2011-10-20T12:18:00.007+08:00

things that would make me incredibly happy right now:

to have my laundry done,
my floor vacuumed,
gov20 reading out of the way,
knowledge of what i'm going to have for dinner tomorrow, and
twelve extra hours to catch up on everything else.

2011-10-19T14:25:00.002+08:00

up next: free rider, the third wave, relative backwardness, the j curve.
watch out, students.

2011-08-22T23:59:00.000+08:00

(for 8.21.2011: sanssouci)

2011-07-29T14:08:00.002+08:00

and they want people to pay $14 for this thing.
worse: $20-25 for "bulk" orders of this solution.
ridiculous weather in berlin; where is my summer.

2011-07-07T19:10:00.002+08:00

viscous cycle: staying up later and later, getting up later.
i just want to watch old movies all week.

2011-04-23T15:57:00.007+08:00

PARTY AT RICHARD TUCK'S! IT'S GOING TO BE INSSSAAANNNNNEEEE!!!!
but not.

(tam: "i hope he's going to DJ.")

academia in the news: lazy and ungrateful graduate student hordes drive professor to untimely death

2011-04-12T14:32:00.001+08:00

mail

2011-02-07T13:53:00.013+08:00

for the umpteenth time and once again with no warning, the other tutor in my time slot left it to me to apologize
profusely to her students for her unexpected tardiness / absence, including the one who had driven two hours from
the other end of massachusetts to see her. and then the day i had gratefully planned around (what was then likely
to be) a free afternoon quickly filled up with the tutoring of said inherited students, and errands, and obligations
i didn't even meet, and then the whole thing unraveled into several strokes of bad luck and just as many occasions
for me to demonstrate my incompetence at life and in german.

and then i received half a postcard in a plastic bag.

2011-02-03T23:21:00.000+08:00

... because, in order to do just this yesterday, and not go out into the third circle of the inferno, i dropped a required class.
let them come after me, if they ever notice.

plug: anyone want to come see this with me?

2010-12-20T20:17:00.000+08:00

yesterday, 9am - go to bed
yesterday, 4pm - wake up, stay awake indefinitely

today, 7:30am - submit last term paper
the next half-hour - cram semester's worth of german
the next half-hour - give up
9am - final exam
12nn - done.

as kafka(, e.) once said: GAME. OVER.

oh wait, i still have incompletes from last year.

2010-10-12T12:24:00.005+08:00

midterms week. just want to be on anesthetics through the next papers.

2010-09-10T22:46:00.002+08:00

this week:
- chauffeurless again in cambridge, ma
- sat next to the smelliest undergraduate ever in lecture
- why are complit professors so nice? weren't they ever complit grad students?
- greek homework from boyfriend (thank you)
- insane reading

2010-08-23T02:05:00.000+08:00

in and out of weeks
and almost over a year

2010-08-19T15:50:00.000+08:00

for €15, a three-tier tray setup of sandwiches and tarts for two at café einstein. amazing.
why i never had it in england, i have no clue.

2010-05-11T15:45:00.004+08:00

intensive german sequence, done.

i confessed in the essay portion of my final exam that "anstatt zu lernen habe ich die ganze nacht diesen song gehört."
then i misquoted the lyrics.

micha, mein micha, und alles tat so weh!

if i really willed, through a supreme good will, to finish my kant paper, i'll get it done.

2010-04-26T14:32:00.000+08:00

majorly deprived.

2010-04-17T14:32:00.003+08:00

hard to keep hating on something that looks like this.
especially when there's plenty of schadenfreude / commiseration to go around.

:-/

2010-03-27T10:49:00.003+08:00

ὄπιθεν κομῶσα αἴξ

2010-02-13T21:53:00.001+08:00

reference.

2010-02-10T23:59:00.000+08:00

:-/

2010-02-02T13:08:00.001+08:00

why am i so hungry?
and did i finish my last box of cereal in two days?

2010-01-22T07:40:00.000+08:00

2010-01-02T22:47:00.001+08:00

reference.

2009-12-13T13:19:00.000+08:00

- on the nyc > boston chinatown bus:

a monk's response to a little chinese woman bellowing at the top of her voice:
'HEY, WHO BROTHER? YOUR BROTHER TELL YOU GET OFF!'

2009-12-09T13:59:00.002+08:00

the mad urge
to lock them
in a golden
cage
and feed them birdseed
and morsels of pink melon
every day

2009-11-18T12:10:00.000+08:00

ich will nicht lernen!

2009-11-07T10:22:00.001+08:00

weather's getting cold again. i may have to resort to getting a hat.
how does one wear a beret without making it look like a shower cap?

2009-10-20T14:51:00.001+08:00

2009-09-28T01:43:00.002+08:00

browser
windows
that seem to be
perpetually
open.

2009-09-23T13:47:00.002+08:00

bring it on.

2009-09-19T13:26:00.001+08:00

2009-09-13T14:21:00.002+08:00

options 1, 2, 3 and 4.

2009-09-06T20:54:00.002+08:00

sometimes a sail. high, high stars.

2009-08-27T05:55:00.000+08:00

walk slower.

2009-08-25T01:00:00.000+08:00

nnnnnnnnnnnnooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.

2009-08-10T14:15:00.000+08:00

3 eyes = 2 m's, not 1.

2009-07-15T23:32:00.007+08:00

i'll live.

dhl has lost two large boxes containing all my winter clothes, most of my shoes, most of my formal clothes,
and some books including the complete works of plato. i'm letting the loss sink in before i decide to go apeshit.

2009-06-29T12:00:00.000+08:00

- hedgehog.

2009-06-28T11:11:00.009+08:00

when a place feels at once acutely foreign and acutely familiar.

i'm wondering about the first line of werther, the only thing i remember from that book.

i'm also thinking of my last essay at yale, and how i'd really wanted it to be about 'there’s no place like home: the
concept of a singular place of dwelling is relevant to us now vs. in our age of extreme mobility, the idea of a fixed
physical home has become irrelevant' - even though it wasn't at all, and was instead about great books education.

2009-06-22T09:05:00.000+08:00

sigh.

2009-05-12T10:03:00.003+08:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-re8z-H1UqY.
i'm vincible.

2009-03-30T03:10:00.004+08:00

- rep. x.597b,
or,
my cambridge experience, by term.

and hence my first big decision of the year: goodbye.
but could it really be that anything is different elsewhere?

2009-03-25T10:33:00.004+08:00

"calvino also reminds us that plato's analogy is about heat as well as light - about passion and yearning as well as seeing.
palomar longs for the tranquility that accompanies stable knowledge: he longs for the absence of longing, the end of
wonder. he seeks sophia rather than philosophia - wisdom without its love."

- andrea nightingale, spectacles of truth in classical greek philosophy: theoria in its cultural context (cambridge 2004), 3.

2009-03-17T22:55:00.001+08:00

green . . . cards.

to schedule a visa interview appointment at the american embassy, one has to call a number that charges £1.20 a minute.
this has something to do with why neither skype nor my cellphone would successfully call this number. so my college porters
directed me to one of those red british phone booths.

i spent my first minute navigating through the phone system ("press 1 to order a pizza. press 2 to file a lawsuit.") before
i ran out of coins. i ran across to the nearest store, bought the smallest item, and started over with £10's worth of change.
i made it to round 2 ("do you intend to enter the US to engage in any terrorist activities?" "did you ever, god forbid, vote?")
before the phone went dead again. effectively, i spent over £10 in a british phone booth and i still don't have an appointment.

i told my college porters about the adventure.

"who charges a pound a minute?" one said incredulously. "damn yanks!" said the other.

2009-03-11T08:15:00.005+08:00

- giuseppe ferrari, vico et l'italie (paris, 1841-42), 465, qtd. in arnaldo momigliano, "vico's scienza nuova:
roman 'bestioni' and roman 'eroi'," in history and theory, vol. 5, no. 1 (1966): 3-23.

norma thompson once said, if you find yourself approximating the voice of your author in your writing, that's a good sign.

if only.

i'm really good at the rubik's cube.

2009-02-11T22:36:00.000+08:00

i'll probably make a resolution to get really good at it, then never follow up.

... and i forgot i had to turn in a dissertation proposal.

2009-02-07T09:13:00.016+08:00

for its size, the cambridge mml library is probably the most confusing library i've ever been to. for borrowing privileges,
i signed a contract that i briefly glanced over under the assumption that by now, i should know how libraries work.

librarian: did you read what you've just signed?
me: yes.
librarian: well, you didn't read the back of the page.
me: oh, sorry, i didn't realize there was a back.
librarian: right above your signature on the front, it says,
"i have read the details on the back of this page."

2009-02-05T11:27:00.003+08:00

ouch.

in other news, it snowed a little and the brits went crazy.
now it's slushing all over the uncleared paths and i pretend i've been snowed in.

2009-01-28T09:18:00.005+08:00

my predecessor at exeter was an aspiring writer named john.
one day he found himself in an elevator with john updike:

john: you're john updike.
john: yes.
john: my name is john, too! isn't that funny?

according to legend, john updike was very nice about it.

2009-01-22T10:10:00.003+08:00

wow.
... simply, just, wow.

i need a social consultant.

2008-12-09T07:17:00.000+08:00

apocalyptic angst, then the post-paper nothing.

2008-11-26T10:22:00.003+08:00

sometimes, i'm a genuinely creepy person.

also, my monitor died. i can't see colors properly on the boxy 90's monitor i borrowed from my college.
i might fix this once i can see, but i probably won't.

2008-10-24T09:44:00.000+08:00

cristina: ugh! indeed. i think it works!

2008-10-19T11:02:00.001+08:00

three hours ago: boat cruise on the river thames.
the next three days: all the academic stuff i haven't been doing.

2008-10-15T09:06:00.001+08:00

- from miller williams, love poem with toast

(posted two days later because, after three weeks in cambridge i only just got internet from my room.)
i meant to spend the afternoon reading journal articles but instead i shelled really tiny lentils with derin.

2008-07-24T21:34:00.000+08:00

[expletive]

2008-07-19T12:06:00.005+08:00

favorite activity: when i forget to have the machine 'collate' the 26 copies of the same couple of pages,
and so i spend a good half hour making coherent packets out of the 26 copies of page 1, the 26 copies of
page 2, and so on. it's disturbingly satisfying.

2008-07-18T12:32:00.000+08:00

reflections on payday.

2008-07-13T10:47:00.000+08:00

more or less.
teaching is hard.

today was field day: the other teaching interns and i were required to participate in the "izzy dizzy relay race":
an activity that involves running from one side of the field to another, resting one's forehead on one end of a
baseball bat and spinning in place ten times, then running back.

of our several non-teaching duties as teaching interns, this was probably the first that no one tried to
follow up with a drink.

2008-05-14T12:29:00.000+08:00

2008-04-25T03:22:00.002+08:00

vague longing feeling with no object. been like this for the past week.
i don't want to shake it off because it's been so long since i've really felt anything anyway,
but i do wish i knew what it was.

2008-04-04T09:33:00.002+08:00

- from 'fight song melodies' by eef barzelay.

while making this post i completely lost track of time and missed an appointment i'd made with anne fadiman
several weeks ago. she'd waited for me for fifteen minutes. by the time i realized what time it was and ran
to her office she's already left. ironically, i'd sent her a confirmation email just the day before because
i thought she might stand me up. it's like some uncontrollable part of me wanted that irony to fold out to
the fullest. then the universe wanted my life to be even more dramatic, and i cabbed it to the station and i met
her there, and it just so happened that her train was delayed.

i'm a mess. don't know what to do with my life. the senior essay is not writing itself.

john hare hates me. jonathan safran foer hates me.
and anne fadiman has every right to hate me.

2008-04-03T23:19:00.000+08:00

2008-02-29T17:57:00.002+08:00

and my sleep schedule is permanently damaged.
...which is why i'm posting, probably.

OH MY GOD MY SENIOR ESSAY IS DUE REALLY REALLY SOON.

2008-02-21T15:59:00.001+08:00

2008-01-17T20:13:00.001+08:00

lots to do and little motivation.
my crush on jsf will most definitely ruin my work for his class.
that is, if i can figure out a way to take john hare's (my other professor crush) greek reading section
at a time slot that doesn't conflict with jsf.

2007-12-19T20:46:00.000+08:00

i've got to stop doing this.

got into jsf's class. thought i really wanted it but now i don't really know what's next.

random: i wish i could vote.

2007-11-28T22:48:00.000+08:00

except that it's almost over, and i haven't done any work. i have no idea how, but nonetheless by the end of next
week, i'd have churned out three papers and two essays (distinct from papers).

2007-11-12T16:07:00.000+08:00

i've spent the past three weeks at a funeral home profiling a funeral director for my nonfiction writing class.
now i have to write the darn thing up by tomorrow.
someone from the class brought up the kid from almost famous.

in the meantime, i've 'discovered' (the way fire was 'discovered' - people always knew it was there but it had no
personal significance for them) ebay and the vending machine in the basement of my building.

2007-10-27T13:23:00.000+08:00

for several weeks until early this monday, willie yeats was "my heart's victim and its torturer."
i don't remember being more disappointed by a paper i put effort into.
i got it back today, and gradewise i did well, but i could tell my professor wasn't really convinced by my argument either.
i feel like a hypocrite. i am using my sulky mood as an excuse to watch firefly all weekend.

2007-09-22T06:08:00.000+08:00

... as in, photoshop masks. what the hell are they?

(i've finally given in. a friend gave me a bootleg copy.
but as charming and practical as photoshop is, mspaint will remain my first love.)

2007-07-17T03:21:00.000+08:00

whenever i'm sick i give myself free license to do no work whatsoever. that is my plan for the next week.

edit: i no longer have chicken pox; apparently i've been misdiagnosed. now i have a "multiform" something
that is possibly an allergic reaction but they can't really figure it out.

2007-07-16T15:11:00.000+08:00

21 days left in india. lots of ups and downs that were on the whole, an up experience, but i can't help but keep thinking of the
soulless job in korea that i turned down. i'd have had subways that actually go to places, 'coffee milk' and oh god korean food.

watched the english patient all of yesterday afternoon instead of doing work, just so i could feel like a rebel.
what a beautiful movie. made me miss the book.

also, i have the ~~bubonic plague~~ chicken pox. WTF.

2007-07-04T01:17:00.000+08:00

2007-06-27T23:39:00.001+08:00

i spent the day laying out the groundwork for the website of the NGO i work for. graphics look familiar?

the internet was super slow and i took forever getting things uploaded, etc.
in frustration i took a nap, then made this blog post, and seems as though things sped up while i posted.
blogging is therapeutic indeed!

2007-06-19T23:24:00.000+08:00

peacocks are relevant to my stay in india because:
- i saw one this weekend at humayan's tomb, before it flew onto a tree and disappeared
- people on the street keep trying to sell me peacock feathers.

2007-05-04T04:33:00.000+08:00

for takeo who's not picking up his phone

2007-05-01T14:03:00.000+08:00

it's been such a long day.

2007-04-25T15:22:00.001+08:00

barry mccrea is our long-lashed, somewhat brilliant, extremely scattered, and rather unfathomable irish professor.
unfortunately, his accent has been watered down a lot, except when he says the word 'threaten,' which he pronounces trr-eh-ten.

all morning we racked our brains trying to figure out if he
(1) really uses omg lol!!!!!!!!11
(2) was mocking us for using the chat room (?!)
(3) let his "roommate" (who was mentioned today) use his computer

2007-04-22T13:50:00.000+08:00

gah i need to do work

2007-04-18T00:04:00.000+08:00

whatever.

and that's not a cabbage head in the picture.

2007-04-16T11:45:00.000+08:00

this would be me in any interview situation, like the one i had this morning.

2007-04-13T16:56:00.000+08:00

- my favorite passage from e.m. forster's where angels fear to tread, which i finished recently for first novels.
oh racial stereotypes.

it's nearing 5am and i'm maybe halfway through my conlaw paper and 2/5 through my greek assignment.
i'm not even worried. (which is why i'm blogging.)
but really, this week has been so unbelievably crazy, on so many different levels.

months ago my mom (in a good mood) sanctioned takeo's visiting the philippines and staying with us, because she didn't
think it was ever going to happen, but now it just might and my dad balked as though he'd never heard of such a thing.
i thought parents were a cohesive unit - don't they ever communicate?

2007-04-08T09:45:00.000+08:00

WHY IS PERSEUS DOWN?!!

(happy easter, people.)

2007-04-02T05:39:00.000+08:00

and this took a lot less than 15 minutes. the new direction of this blog is minimalism.
i have a story, but i probably shouldn't post it online where members of the yale community at large have access to the info
(especially since my facebook profile links to this blog.)

also, happy birthday margie.

i will upload my spring break pictures when takeo does.

2007-03-29T21:14:00.000+08:00

this actually took less than 15 minutes - which was the original plan when i started this blog almost exactly 3 years ago.

2007-03-01T09:42:00.000+08:00

what a week.
sad part is, i've been getting something like 14 hours of sleep a day regardless.

2007-02-19T11:40:00.000+08:00

it's a little late, but yeah.
yale dining halls had trayfuls of fortune cookies last night and they had some left over today at lunch. my story was getting
workshopped in fiction later that afternoon, and it featured fortune cookie fortunes, so i grabbed enough cookies for everyone
in my class and bribed them before they started the critique. the critique went well, but i still need to get my act together
responding to this hacker business. the ca's recommend that i back up all my files and reinstall everything, which is a huge
hassle, especially before midterms. i also need to freeze my old bank account and get a new one. all in all, a pain.

this is how disfuntional my life is: today i tossed some law school snapples onto my bed, and i don't know what i did but
the entire bag rolled off and one of the bottles broke. there was so much liquid that all day i've just been stepping around
the puddle waiting for most of it to evaporate so i can just clean the stickiness separately. i suck at life. but nonetheless
i go to ikea.com and bananarepublic.com so i can still envision a future where i'm good at it. life, that is.

2007-02-16T05:40:00.000+08:00

i looked through some of the comments on the old posts, and soong had directed me to an anime called gankutsuou that
uses similar layering techniques (i'm assuming). i haven't seen anything of the anime beyond this preview, but it's
rather amazing. hence, i was inspired to create another (more intricate) pattern as seen above.

also, my newest obsession.

lately someone hacked into my computer, which was really scary, and though it seems to have stopped now the ca's
recommend that i reinstall everything.
which is annoying.

2007-02-11T10:14:00.000+08:00

2007-02-06T11:54:00.000+08:00

currently working on: odyssey v.158

just as jeff buckley was singing, Listen to me... I cannot see cle--a-rly
i found derkomai in the lexicon. δερκομαι - to see clearly.

2007-01-28T07:38:00.000+08:00

2007-01-04T10:39:00.000+08:00

posted belatedly on account of the earthquake in taiwan that set off all the internet and phone servers in the philippines

2006-12-17T09:26:00.001+08:00

translation: i am ending my life.
I NEED THIS GREEK FINAL TO BE OVER.

edit some hours later:
teleutesw touton ton bion emou. i will end this life of mine.
khalepotatos gar ho Hellenikos esti. for most difficult is Greek.
apothneiskomai hupo tou Hellenikou. i am being killed by Greek.
ho Hellenikos me apothneiskw. Greek is killing me.

2006-12-15T12:27:00.000+08:00

i will write this paper. i will write this paper, i will, i will.

2006-12-06T08:02:00.000+08:00

rehearsal schedule this week for street scene. i play in the pit orchestra, back stage where i can't even be seen.

and the following week goes something like:
monday: another concert, with berkeley orchestra with the requisite dress rehearsal in the afternoon
(come! i have a nice part in the haydn!); philosophy of architecture paper due.
thursday: greek project due. friday: goethe paper due.
the following week: greek final, fly home, fiction portfolio due (for which i have yet to write two more stories. argh.)

what am i doing with my life?

2006-11-30T12:54:00.000+08:00

parima says i'm lucky to study things that are interesting to me (major paraphrase), and i suppose it's true. but if only they
didn't all drop at once! today i resolved to manage my time better, but my very posting must be a great demonstration of
my success in that field.

during dinner today i had a blast from 1st grade when i got bullied by an unnamed someone (my facebook links to this page)
and i cried it out in my room afterwards. you'd think college kids would be more mature - on both sides; bully and bullied.
hence, i got no work done, and now i have to come to terms with my epiphany.

2006-11-26T12:24:00.000+08:00

right. it's ironic, but the things i spent the most time on are the things that ended up not getting finished:
the BCO poster - I only have to paint the background colors and scan it and add text to it; Victor; Derrida - sort of.
the scary thing is that i haven't even started thinking about my papers and i'm generally really really screwed
for end of term. my excuse is that i got sick, but i think i might have been more productive then. ugh.

23 days till i go home.