Earth to Alisha

Resolutions II

2008-01-09T21:28:00.000-08:00

Another one of my New Year's resolutions was to live a more sustainable lifestyle. By that I don't mean I'm going to live in a tree, but try my best to reduce my carbon footprint in the world. So with that in mind, I started taking BART and have been walking a lot more. So far my commute has been pleasant especially when you have the whole train to yourself after a long day of work.

I love the cold weather. I guess it balances out the warm-bloodness in me. I love the fog and how glows under a bright streetlight. I love the rain and storms because it smells so fresh the minute after it stops. I love air so cold you can see your breath. I like it when my scarf is wrapped around half my face. Most of all, I love the snow. As I was walking to the BART station from work I could only imagine myself gliding through the powdery surface of the mountain and completing the trail without falling once. Ah, a person can only dream.

I can only hope for great things to come to me this year. After all, it's the year of the rat - that's me!

Resolutions

2008-01-08T22:19:00.000-08:00

"Staring Contest Semi-Finals"
Yosh and I do this everytime I come home from work. Generally, she wins but it's only because I let her.

When it comes to New Year's resolutions, I take them very seriously. I make about 10-15 resolutions a year and try to accomplish them to the best of my ability. It's been a reoccurring theme in my life to set unhumanly goals for myself and then crawl into a mild state of depression when I can't accomplish them. It's just a sick habit I possess.

My first resolution was to give up on essentially candy, cake, ice cream...in general, foods packed with monosaccharide or what I like to refer to them as "fun food". I was doing fine until the 3rd day of the new year when a pack of Tropical Fruit Starburts was sitting on top of Dang's untidy desk, screaming for me to carefully undress them from their vibrant, individually wrapped waxy papers and into my inviting and salvating mouth. Oh, the sweet, artificial mango flavors bouncing off my taste buds to the roof of my mouth and doing the forbidden dance with my saliva. I knew I needed to have more. One by one, I ravaged through the pack...mango and melon, fruit punch, pina colada - I tried them all. Then just when I thought I was home free, Dang comes in to find me eating the remains of this freshly opened pack of Starbursts and shaking his head in shame with endless guilt trips throughout the night. Glad to say that I did not finish the entire pack which goes to show that I do have some self control which also shows a great deal of effort because if it had been 2007, the whole pack of Starburts would have been devoured without a second thought. Hey, I'm only human!

Another new year's resolution was to try and take a photo every day. I tried to do this last year but gave up when I got bored of all the stupid, avant garde like photos I was taking during my daily routine. How many ways can I take a photo of my morning tea cup? So this year, I've approached this resolution a little differently and try to summarize my day in one photo. I will upload the pictures of January 1st until the 7th later because I'm experiencing technical difficulties with my Sony Cybershot DSC. I'll get them up as soon as I can upload them from my camera. Until next time..

Changes

2007-11-20T00:03:00.000-08:00

Called in sick today. I caught a nasty cold Sunday morning after going to Blue Chalk for John's 30th birthday. Somehow catching a cold at a bar sounds a lot more disgusting than catching a cold any other way. I'm trying to make a fast recovery so I can celebrate Thanksgiving to its optimum pleasure. Not to mention, the excitement of going to 5 Thanksgiving dinners on Thursday. This year I have a lot to be thankful for and I try not to have one ungrateful moment.

Lots of changes coming up for the next year. I've decided to go back to school full-time for my 2nd bachelors. This was a difficult decision to make...mainly because, I never thought I'd find myself coming back to my first love, art...in any medium or form. It is something so natural to me and I don't need logic or the Socratic method to derive these answers. Creatvity is what always made me happy and felt free...my thoughts and ideas suspended in mid-air, exploring uncharted areas of my mind and looking for a way to best reveal itself to me. Here I go again...

Rainy day knitting

2007-09-22T21:41:00.000-07:00

Whoever thought this hobby is therapeutic must be insane. Getting the perfect loop can will make you mental.

Well, apparently I've risen from the dead. It's been awhile since I've typed a decent entry on here. Mainly because I am a very neurotic person and felt I needed to mentally draft a meaningful and logical entry before I let my thoughts free-flow into my finger tips while I feverishly type an entry, trying my best not to miss a single word. I've also been mad, crazy busy too.

Just a whole lotta thangs I've been dealing with. Lots of changes going on around me but I, however, remain idle. Working my disgusting 8-5 (most of the time way later than 5) along with school has been keeping me from sitting around my parent's house all day saturated in my gluttony and sloth.

It's exactly one month before my 23rd birthday. Sadly, I don't find turning a year older exciting as it used to be, it's more daunting, if anything. All I can dwell upon is the slew of responsibility of being older.

Calculating my next step in life. An adultish decision that's drastic. I can't use indecisiveness as an excuse for not knowing what I want. I need to learn how to steer my own fate into something that I want.

I've been learning a lot about myself lately, like little emphifanies that explode when I come to a reasonable conclusion. Acknowledging some personality traits I posses - for some reason I seem to have more weaknesses than strengths and I'm working on that, something that I never thought to do. My little pre-welcome into my 23rd year..

Ode to Brooke

2007-06-17T12:19:00.000-07:00

My parents surprised me last Wednesday with a new 2007 Toyota Pruis. He's beautiful and I'm in love..It feels as if I gave birth to him. He's a masterpeice - His sleek body and curves imitates the mountains to the North. His soft interior creates a ying-yang to his strong-built exterior. And he comes equipped with a 6-disc changer and air conditioning.

This gift can only leave a bittersweet taste in my mouth as I finish another chapter in my life and leaving it behind in the past. My Brooke, who taught me how drive, got me in my first accident, assisted in my attempts to sneak out, was there for me all the years in college. She was always there for me. After I graduated high school, I remember turning to Dang who was sitting in the passenger seat and said, "I'm going to drive Brooke up until grad school." And now, years later she's still here. But sadly, I have to let her go. With this new sense of maturity, I think it's the proper time to say goodbye.

Hello Socrates. He represents what's ahead, adulthood, my future.

As nauseating as that all sounds, I can't help but to be so nostalgic and attached. In essence, I'm just sad to see my car go.

wacky, tacky and possibly true

2007-06-01T18:22:00.000-07:00

I had an epiphany at work while I was drinking my morning coffee and surrounded by the jungle of papers that I've ignored since finals. Right now, I feel like I'm a mess - fresh from college with absolutely no direction. I can't even predict what lies ahead and I am paving the road to no where. I need someone to point me in a direction...any direction. 'Round and 'round, I go..where I stop, who the fuck knows?

I look at the jungle that sits before me. I reach into the drawer that screams for organization as I shuffle through it looking for my chapstick only to realize that it's in my jacket pocket. I grab my jacket that I hastily threw over my chair when I walked in the office and patted-down in search for it. I finally find it, swipe some balm on my lips and throw it back into the sea of pens in my desk drawer.

I step back and look at the disarray that epitomizes my situation - my room is in shambles, my car is disgusting, my credit history is worse, my iTunes library is out of whack, my books are like buried treasures, my purse that I don't even carry because it's filled with old receipts, my closet...

Perhaps if I clean, it'll move the obscurity in front of me and I can finally make a rational decision. As stupid as it sound, a little cleaning is probably all it takes...

parenthood

2007-06-01T18:02:00.000-07:00

My friend recently confessed that he's ready to start looking for Ms. Right and tie the knot. He wants his 2.5 kids, soccer games, mini-vans and play dates. He has the name of his children already picked out and is already finding room for them in his next film. All that Leave It To Beaver shit...it leaves me thinking, "When did 24 become the new 35?"

Quarter-life crisis, at it's best.

decision '07

2007-05-31T23:45:00.000-07:00

I've been planning on building my own compost bin for quite some time now. Construct my DIY bin, get down with some vermiculture, witness the magic as garbage turns into healthy, fertilized soil and finally start my organic herb garden that I've been dreaming of. I even went to the Home and Garden show amongst all the old white ladies and their gardening visors. This has been a seemingly intangible goal because I know I can never stay and commit to a garden...

Now that my undergraduate career has come to an end, I'm left staring down a diverged road. A part of me wants to settle in the comfort of my hometown, my Bay Area...stay with my folks, commute to school or I'd pick up a full-time job, raise my pups, plant my garden and begin to map out the rest of my adult life. While another half of me wants to pick up and leave - run away to the other side of the country or even the world, start anew, cultivate my knowledge and experience through my travels and not think twice about how ridiciously in debt I'll be once it's over. Now the question that lies before me is this: Where the hell do I go from here?

If only flipping a coin were that simple.

calling in sick

2007-05-29T10:12:00.000-07:00

I called into work and now my cousin and I are going to get massages. We will probably have lunch, if we don't attack the free hor'dourves buffet at the spa's lobby and then I'll head home and play with my newest purchase, the Wii.

Maybe go to the driving range and relieve some suppressed anger or go paint a pretty picture. Afterwards I'll try to get some cleaning done...my room, my car and my mind.

Oh and did I forget to mention, it's beautiful outside. Excitement all around!

Okay, she's back

2007-05-28T15:22:00.001-07:00

Thank God(dess) that there are some people that still practice good customer service, it's a rarity just like chivalry. Anyway, I got Brooke back safe and sound..and it only cost me a mere $240.

Moral of this story: never drive to Quang's house ever again!

Sadness

2007-05-28T04:01:00.000-07:00

Brooke got towed today and I didn't have my insurance card to take her out. Poor Brooke.. Hopefully I can get it straighten out by tomorrow before I have to 'fess up the deed to my parents. With the amount of parking tickets I have collected this past year, they will certainly get nasty once they hear about this.

such great heights

2007-05-27T11:55:00.000-07:00

I am still recovering from the sensory overload I endured yesterday and the night before that.

I can still feel the pain from finals, papers and the high expectations I had for myself this semester. My body and mind still feels tired from working it overtime this past week. I'm seizing all these feelings while I bask in my fruitful reward to remind me of how painful it was to get to it. It's definitely a great balance.

My aunt texted me after the ceremony, "You're a woman now."

Cheers to Trad'r Sam's, great company, cocktails in fruit bowls, graduating, San Francisco and a dark chocolate truffle martini to kill for.

Pictures and a re-cap shortly to follow..

fin.

2007-05-25T12:47:00.000-07:00

I am done! So wtf do I do now?!?!?!!?!?

Say your prayers, scorpian bowl.

proofread

2007-05-25T10:25:00.000-07:00

"At the beginning of Chapter 10, Posner takes issue with the attempt to resolve questions of interpretation by political or ethical judgment, referring to resolve questions of interpretation by political or ethical judgment, referring to Dworkin’s attempt to justify Steelworkers v. Weber by the concept of equality."

Amazing what you don't notice at 4 a.m. while coming down from your caffeine high.

Earth to Alisha?

2007-05-24T16:44:00.000-07:00

The sleep deprivation, heart palpitations from the excessive amounts of coffee, the stress and the inability to find the right words to formulate a well-rounded thesis is killing every ounce of hope of every making it out of this semester without hurting someone or myself.

The non-stop research, the typing of the keyboard and the overused phrases like "According to..." and "In X's essay..." is keeping me from knowing what else that has been going on with everyone else. Being stuck in the library while I marinate in my thoughts is causing mild insanity and neuroticism.

Don't mind me - I'm sleep, hungry, aggrivated and stressed.

While I was leaving campus and feeling bad for my sorry ass, I looked over and saw a little girl with her mom flying a kite. The little girl was sprinting as the mom was encouraging her and saying, "Go, go, go!" Eventually the two managed to get the kite in the air and both cheered in unison. Then all of a sudden, I felt a whole lot better.

Chapter 1

2007-05-24T13:37:00.000-07:00

Call me Ishmael. Or well, just Alisha will do.