Year: 2003

i’ve always tried to not delete old email. in a way, email that sticks around in your sent box or email you received is kind of a journal in it’s own right. i tend to use email *constantly*, so chances are, if something is going on in my life or i am planning on doing something, there will be a record of it in my email. i’ve worked here at consumerreview for a bit over 3 years now, and today did a little digging through some mails i have laying around from when i first started here. it’s so weird! so many of the emails are about raves etc. it’s crazy to think how much a part of my life they were at that point, even though by then my interest in it had been waning for years. it’s also pretty trippy to see who of the people who were my friends back then are still my friends now, and who has fallen through the cracks. it’s pretty nuts how much can change in just 3 years. on the flip side, a lot of the stuff i wrote about back then, i’m still into now. i wonder what parts of my current life i’ll keep w/ me when it’s 3 years from now? how different will i be?

It keeps making me think of this book i read back in the day, where the main quote was “I gave my life to become the person that I am right now. Was it worth it?”. If you think about it, at any given time, if we take a current snapshot of our lives, it really does come down to that. everything a person has ever done in their life… all the places they’ve gone, all the jobs they’ve had, all the choices they’ve made, all the time they’ve spent.. basically everything in their life so far, they have given and spent in exchange for the present which is: their current personality, a bunch of memories, and interpersonal relationships that they have formed. as we continue to live life, the amount of time we have traded to be who we currently are keeps going up… and we can only hope that the barter is still worthwhile.

-v

over the weekend i celebrated thanksgiving a bunch of different times. i celebrated on thursday at my aunt’s house, friday at my parent’s house, and saturday at caryn’s family’s house in Clear Lake. it was a crazy thanksgiving marathon that just wouldn’t end. luckily, i actually really like thanksgiving and love the food, so i had a good time. it was pretty interesting to see how different the 3 versions of thanksgiving were, how different each group of people would interact, and how differently the exact same food items can be prepared. going up to Clear Lake was pretty cool. i met a ton of different people from caryn’s extended family and struggled to remember who each person was and how they were related to her.

although celebrating thanksgiving so many times almost took up my whole weekend, i did have a little time for some other things too. friday night i went to see the play “the book of liz”. it’s a play written by david sedaris and his sister amy. it was written in their usual wacky, off-the-wall, funny style. also, we went to natasha’s birthday. really good thai food. and it was good to hang out w/ people who i haven’t seen in quite a bit.

once again i’m lagging on posting in my LJ. argh. i never had time to post about: hiking down to stintson beach w/ joey and caryn, going to the “Tv On The Radio” concert, Yan’s latest house party, and other stuff that’s been happening… oh well.

a couple of nights ago, i saw the movie “13 conversations about one thing”. the movie was made up of several loosely intertwined stories that showed differing viewpoints on happiness and what it means to people. i gotta say that this was definitely one of the better movies i have seen in a long time. it was very interesting, thought provoking, and emotionally powerful. it really hammers in the point that your happiness and fate are really what you make of them.

i’ve been watching a lot of Survivor recently (yeah, i’m pretty addicted), and find it so funny how Rupert is having such a different experience on the island than everyone else. most of the castaways see living on the island as an ordeal that they have to struggle through. they constantly are depressed and complaining about lack of food, shelter, and whatnot. on the other hand, Rupert is just looking at it as an incredible vacation in an exotic locale. he is loving every minute of it. one man’s hell is another’s heaven.

of course, for most people, no matter how happy and excitable they may be, the amount of fun and interest that situations bring about also depend on the newness of the situation. things that at one point excite and interest people to no end, eventually usually fizzle out after being experienced a ton of times. humanity’s constant striving and searching for something better and new may have helped us over the centuries as a species, but in a lot of ways i find it really really sad how we can never be satisfied. we can spend months anticipating something: that new house, a drivers license, whatever…. and soon enough we couldn’t care any less about it.

i once read an article about a wandering group of refugees in Sudan. these people had lived their whole life in the hot climate of africa and had never experienced modern technology. these people had never experienced cold. yes, cold. they did not know the meaning of cold. all temperatures they had ever experienced ranged from warm to hot. the article describes how the refugees, upon arriving at a red cross shelter, were given a iced beverage form the refrigerator. they were totally amazed and shocked. could you imagine that? cold is something we *completely* take for granted. everyone knows what that means. but what if that was a new and exciting sensation to be experienced? something totally unheard of and enthralling. it must be the most amazing and crazy feeling in the world to feel something cold for the first time.

if something as trivial and mundane as coldness can be new and exciting for someone, it really makes you think about how everything around us must be interesting for at least *someone* out there. i’ve driven the commute from SJ to SF a kajillion times. maybe even more. everyone takes that drive for granted and grumbles about it. but i always try to stop and think about how for someone who’s never driven it, it’s probably a very scenic and nice drive. and shit, for someone who’s just gotten their license, driving that route (or *any* route) is an exhilarating adventure. i’ve gone to santa cruz a ton of times too, and yes it’s fun, but i always try to wonder what it must be like for people who have never seen an ocean before. someone who came from kansas or something; someone who, during their life, has seen pretty much nothing but flat plains… and all of a sudden you stumble upon this incredible gigantic mass of blue unlike anything you’ve ever seen.

the list goes on and on. imagine seeing the snow when your whole life has been lived in a hot climate. or flying in an airplane when you’ve never known what it’s like to be a million feet in the air. or taking an escalator if you’ve lived your whole life in cambodia and haven’t ever seen such a weird crazy thing. all these things can be so new and thrilling…. and yet for the most part, we dont let them be that way. it’s always “shit, i can’t stand this 9 hour flight, when is this damn thing gonna land” or “goddamn, it snowed again, i can’t believe i have to shovel that crap” or “sheez, why is this stupid escalator so crowded”.

we rush through our lives treating everything like a hassle or inconvenience. anything that isn’t new or rare goes by either unnoticed or unappreciated. there’s so much stuff out there… so much *not new* stuff. so many things that are just begging to be enjoyed. we rush by those things, constantly searching for something more exciting than the last thing we tried. something flashy.. something cool… whatever. we just keep on searching for that ever elusive thing that’ll make us happy when we just need to realize that we can make *ourselves* happy by enjoying what we have.. because it’s really only the perception of what we experience that is important.

-v

when i finished school a few years ago, i was so relieved. thank god! no more studying. no more busy weekends. no more constantly being stressed out. i was so glad to have gotten that part of my life over with. i was so psyched that from now on i would just work at a job where the work stopped after business hours, and i would not be working during nights and weekends.

strangely enough, all of a sudden i’m starting to feel very differently about all that. i’ve been kind of missing school lately. i miss learning new things on a daily basis. i miss being pushed into examining the world around me more closely. i miss trying to figure out the answers to complex questions. it’s nice to have something to stretch your mind to its limits on a regular basis.

in a lot of ways, work used to do that for me. programming was tough. i was constantly learning new things everyday and struggling to keep afloat. most of the engineers i worked w/ had at least some formal training in web programming, but i had to just pick stuff up as i went along. of course, everything i was learning was all on the same topic, computers, and not diverse as the learning in school is, but at least it was new and interesting.

now my job doesn’t really seem to have much more to teach me. i’ve learned most of what i need to know to do it well, and therefore am not pushed to find out new things. dont get me wrong, i still love my job. it’s a lot of fun. the people are cool. it’s *great* to have projects you work on be seen by over 10 million people a month. bt i definitely miss the learning….

-v

for the last year or so, i have not been eating at home. pretty much ever. almost every single meal i ate was at a restaurant. now that i’m trying to actually stick to a budget, i obviously can’t keep that habit up. so recently i have started eating at home and cooking more. it’s actually been hella cool.

this weekend caryn and i cooked up a storm. we made a ton of good meals. saturday morning, she had the idea of trying to make “mcgriddles” at home. mcgriddles are a new kind of breakfast sandwich at mcdonalds that are basically a sandwich w/ eggs, bacon, and melted cheese in between 2 pancakes instead of bread. dude, these tasted soooo damn good!

the following morning, we made eggs blackstone. they are a poached egg on top of an english muffin w/ cheese, grilled tomatoes, and hollandaise sauce. i’ve never tried to poach an egg before and it turns out it’s really not that easy. each time i would try to pour the egg into boiling water, the egg would just dissipate and flow all over the place. i fucked up a bunch of eggs in the process and had to start over a couple of times. in the end, i pretty much got the hang of it though.

then, sunday night, we decided to make sashimi for dinner. we bought some green tea, miso soup, rice, salad, and some raw fish. the dinner was soo damn good. it’s funny, when you go to sushi, the best part is the sashimi and it’s sooo damn expensive. i usually can only afford to get a little. but if you just buy the fish at a store, you can get a *ton* of it for way cheap. the meal we ate would have cost a zillion times as much if we had ordered it at a sushi place.

-v

ack! i’m once again lagging on writing in my LJ. dammit!

last week catherine and i went to go see a play called Nickel And Dimed. it was based on a bestselling non-fiction book by Barbara Ehrenreich. She was doing a lot of research on just how difficult it is to scrape by in the world if you are a single mom with no means of getting a high paying job. to write the book, she went undercover and got jobs that uneducated single moms often get. she would move to a town, and try to live only off the income she got from her jobs.

what she came to realize very quickly was that it was basically impossible to pay for rent and food with the income she would get from just one job. in all 3 cities that she tried to live in, she had to get 2 jobs just to scape by. she did work like cleaning houses, waiting tables, and working at wallmart. every single day she worked like crazy doing difficult and unrewarding work only to get off of work and go to her next horrible job. after that she would really only have time to sleep.

i’ve always realized that a lot of people have it really rough. but i dont think i grasped just how bad it can be. this play was definitely a real eye opener. i didnt know that restaurants could claim that your tips are “part of your pay” and therefore pay you well below minimum wage (she earned $2.15 and hour at one place!!). i didnt know that wallmart, in order to pay it’s employees less, would ask them to punch out after working 8 hours, and then continue to work for several hours unpaid. i didnt know that in a lot of places, even with *2* jobs, it’s still difficult to afford to live in even a trailer!

it was just so sad to watch these people struggle. and to think that that’s how they have to live day after day after day. the reporter could barely afford to take care of herself, and couldnt even begin to think how someone could afford to fee their family on these salaries. *sigh*

-v

erica, yan, and i went to our rommate brandon’s fashion show last night. brandon’s major is fashion and he’s way into it. it was pretty fun to go to the show. but it was *short*! in just like 10 or 15 minutes it was all over! it’s crazy to think that him and the other 2 people that worked on it spent several months designing clothes for this show, and it all ended so quick! the clothes were pretty cool. very indie rock scenester style.

-v

The thing i really hate about keeping a journal is that i’m much too lazy and am too much of a procrastinator to have one. i always end up not writing for a couple of weeks at a time. then, when i finally get the urge to post something, i end up trying to post about everything exciting that’s occurred since i last posted. By the time i write all of that, i’m tired and bored and dont have the energy to post about what i originally wanted to post about. i kinda want this journal to be a recording of my day to day thoughts, feelings, and other stuff and not just a description of things i did. unfortunately i just cant pull myself out of this endless loop of procrastination, and when i write about the past, it’s really only easy to remember what occurred as opposed to events *and* thoughts and opinions. oh well…. anyways, here’s what’s happened in the last 2 weeks.

last weekend caryn and i drove up to Rocklin to visit her dad, step-mom, and brother. this was the first time that i would be meeting them and honestly i was hellza nervous. i really didnt know too much about them, and wasn’t sure what to expect. what if they didn’t like me for some reason? what if i ended up fucking up and making a bad impression? also, i’m usually super shy and quiet around strangers… so what if i just didnt have anything to say to them? ugh! since caryn lives fairly far from them, it didnt make much sense for us to just go up there for a quick dinner. instead we went up there to spend the night and hang out with them all day. yikes!!

well, surprisingly, everything went totally well. we got up there late on Friday night, chatted a bit, and since it was late, everyone went to sleep fairly soon (phew). the next day, her dad made a really good breakfast and then we just kicked it for the rest of the day. her family was hella nice and pretty easygoing. we spent most of the day there and i didnt make any crazy blunders. afterwards we also took her little brother bowling which was pretty fun. he’s a total superstar bowler who’s almost bowled a 300.

Saturday night we came back to my house cause my roommate Brandon was having a birthday party. he had only started inviting people to the party like 3 days before, so i thought the thing was gonna be a total flop. well, i thought totally wrong. fairly quickly the house was totally packed full of people. unfortunately i didnt know like 95 % of them, but overall the party was still fun. Brandon’s friends are pretty nuts. he passed out at the end of the night, and woke up later to find that someone had poured hot sauce all over his lips and smeared cake all over him. ew! one of his friends was actually a total bitch at the end of the night, but that’s to long of a story to go into here.

the weekend ended w/ a bbq at li’s house. li tried to kill us by feeding us raw chicken, but luckily caryn caught it just in time.

this weekend was Halloween. i always totally look forward to Halloween. it’s such a fun holiday. this year it happened to land on a Friday, which meant that critical mass was that day. joey and i rode in it and it was really cool. everyone was hella dressed up in costumes and stuff. afterwards, i picked up caryn from the airport and we went home to get dressed up. we then met up w/ joey, tom, jamie, Alex, jenny and some other people. we headed down to Castro. this year we heard that they wee totally cracking down there and that cops would be searching people and not allowing open containers of alcohol. because of that, we didnt actually go to the center of the castro area but instead just went to some bars and hung out there. of course, i heard later that people were totally not being searched and that open containers were totally fine. doh! unfortunately, my memory of that night is kinda hazy,. so there’s really not too much to report.

this morning, caryn, heather, and i took a flying trapeze class. dude, it was so crazy!!! after a quick 10 minute demonstration and practice on a low bar, they told us to just go for it. yikes!! so we made the long climb up to the platform, which was 25 feet above the ground. now, i’m *deathly* afraid of heights, so this was no easy feat for me. i was so damn freaked out the whole time up there. basically what we had to do was grab the trapeze, swing out, hook your knees on the bar you were swinging from, and then let go with your hands and swing hanging from just your knees. sheez. it was so crazy to be doing all this so high up in the air (over a *huge* net and with safety harnesses of course though). then you swing your body back up, grab the bar, unhook your knees, and then drop down into the net. caryn and heather managed to get it on the first try, but i wasn’t able to hook my knees till my second time. heh, no matter how many times i climbed that ladder, it was so freaky each time.

the next thing we had to try was to do a catch. we would do the same thing as before, except that there would be an instructor swinging on another trapeze in front of us, after hooking the bar w/ just our knees, we were supposed to swing out, grab the instructors arms, and let go w/ your feet and just swing out being held by the instructor. caryn, being a total superstar, got this on her first try. i totally fucked up my first try. on the second try, i hooked my legs correctly but just narrowly missed holding on to the instructor. damn. SO CLOSE! but then the lesson was over and i didnt get to try it again. now, as i write this, the palms of my hands are totally sore from the lesson and so are my legs. i’m definitely so glad that i did it though. such a rush!!

-v

Erica’s Bday – sept 5th

For Erica’s bday, she and kevin decided to rent a navigator limo to party in for the night. i’ve never been in a limo before, and honestly never really saw the point of getting one. it turned out that i was very wrong. Riding around in the limo all night was soooo much fun. the limo was supposed to hold 16 people, but we managed to cram 18 in there. we brought tons of alcohol, and within minutes we all got incredibly drunk. kevin was opening champagne bottles by shooting the cork out the sunroof, people were pouring (and spilling) vodka drinks everywhere, music was cranked WAY on the limo’s really good sound system, and everything was just totally crazy in general. most night’s people kind of have to curb there consumption due to the fact that they have to drive etc… but not tonight…. everyone could go as nuts as they wanted to. plus, having so many people in a small confined space just made the mood and energy of the night go higher and higher. we spent most of the night just cruising around the city and having a good time. we also stopped by a few clubs too. first we went to this place that was supposed to have a club night called “dirty”, but for some reason Dirty wasn’t happening, so we only stuck around for a little while. then we went to Fake, and near the end of the night we stopped by the Top. overall, this was definitely quite a night to remember. for photos, CLICK!

The rest of the weekend was quite mellow, which was really nice after such a hectic friday night. Just hung out down in Mt view w/ caryn, watched the second harry potter movie, made dessert…

Chillits -sept 12th

I’ve never gone to Chillits before, but this year i decided to try it out. It ended up being pretty much what i had expected… a really relaxing mellow camping experience. Unfortunately, we only got to enjoy about 1 days worth of it. we didnt leave SF until really late, so by the time we actually got to Chillits it was like 4 or 4:30. we groggily set up our tent (on an incline) and went to sleep. sleep was tough when gravity keeps pulling you down off the air mattress and roosters crow like crazy trying to keep you up. We woke up the next morning and spent most of the day hanging out, drinking vodka/gatorade, swimming in the pond, and walking around the place. at one point i saw a tiny snake trying to hide in the bushes. i was somehow able to catch it and held it for a while until it bit me and then started peeing all over the place. ew! After drinking most of the afternoon and being out in the hot sun, caryn and i got pretty tired and were to beat to stay up late that night. we ended up going to sleep early and the next day we got up, ate, packed, and went home.

-v

i’m such a fucking slacker when it comes to this journal. i’ll write a bunch of entries and then just write absolutely nothing for like a month straight. so here are some odds and ends i figured might be worth mentioning about this summer.

Haight street faire (june 8th)

i’m not exactly sure why, but every year that we go to this, everyone ends up *totally* wasted. maybe it’s partially cause we always end up at hobson’s at some point and drink their deadly long islands. who knows. this year was no exception. poor robert and erica were left *completely* wrecked. the rest of us had an absolutely epic battle at our house using every single pillow we could find. 45 minutes later, the room was utterly destroyed with stuff scattered everywhere, a huge painting being knocked off the wall, and broken potted plants.

Hawaii – July 4th weekend

like i wrote earlier, caryn took off to hawaii for work and ended up being there for about a month and a half. having her be gone was really hatin’ it. we had gotten pretty used to seeing each other every few days, and now all of a sudden we had to spend weeks at a time apart. our contact became limited to late night phone conversations, cell phone text messages, and Lj posts taken from the “Book of Questions”. Although it was awful not having her around, it was kind of fun in a way to always have that end of the day phone call to look forward to. Before caryn left, we had hardly ever spoken on the phone at all… there really was no need. but now we started spending at least an hour or two a day chatting away and also sending photos back and forth of us from back when we were little kids.

for 4th of july weekend, i flew out to visit her for a few days. It was a really nice and chill vacation. we didnt spend any time rushing around or scurrying from place to place. instead we took things at a totally leisurely pace, relaxed, slept in, hit the beach here and there, and ate at a bunch of *bomb* restaurants. there is this small white truck on the north side of the island that makes *the* most amazing shrimp scampi ever. this stuff was sooooo good! we also saw fireworks on the 4th of july, did a waterfall hike, and snorkeled a couple of times. the vacation was too short of course, and all too soon i was back at home.

Las Vegas – July 24th

natasha, marcel, caryn, elena, patrick and i took a weekend trip to vegas. we stayed at the Paris hotel which was really awesome. it has this dope indoor lighting that makes it seem like it’s dusk at all hours of the day. the hotel itself is really beautiful both inside and out. we spent the weekend doing the usual vegas sightseeing stuff.. checking out casinos etc. the pinnacle of the trip definitely was seeing the cirque du soleil “o” show. it was soooooo good. incredible! the whole thing was totally visually stunning w/ great music, impressive tricks, great imagery, and was just very deeply moving. all of us were completely and utterly impressed. We also ate at Emeril’s restaurant for Marcel’s bday. the food there was super good. surprisingly, for a trip to vegas, i did very little drinking and very little gambling. i somehow managed to lose 100 bux in like 10 minutes on roulette, and wasn’t exactly eager to waste any more $$. unfortunately, we made the mistake of staying in vegas one day too long, and the last day just kind of dragged (due to lack of a) sleep and b) motivation).

My birthday – Aug 13

Elena and i spent countless hours trying to figure out what to do for our birthdays. we just couldnt come up w/ a good plan. we tossed around several ideas, like having a bonfire on the beach and whatnot, but just couldnt really figure out what we really wanted. it was so stressful to decide! finally, due to much indecisiveness, we just decided to go to dinner that weekend and then just wing it after dinner. for dinner (another difficult decision) we decided to go to this restaurant called Pasha. it’s this crazy morrocan restaurant in the city that looks all super decorated on the inside (fancy carpets etc) and has live belly dancing etc. elena and i were told that we’d get “special treatment” since it was our birthdays. we weren’t really sure what that meant, but it turned out that halfway though dinner, they made us and the other birthday people get up and belly dance in front of the whole room! doh! being completely sober still, elena and i were *so* embarrassed, but it was still really funny nevertheless. Also, later on, they made pretty much everyone in the restaurant join hands and do a dance outside on the busy SF streets while a waiter banged a drum. too funny. after dinner, everyone was indecisive as to what to do again, so caryn and i just went to hobson’s w/ erica and kevin for a few drinks.

Art Snob soiree – aug 16th

Erica decided to have a house party at our house w/ an art theme. she sent out emails to all the artists she knew asking them to bring some art the night of the party for her to put up on our walls. the party itself ended up being pretty fun, even though not too many people actually brought art. everything was a bit more mellow than some of our other parties, but everyone still had a good time.
Here are some photos that caryn took of the party: click!

Aug 23rd

for soooo long i had been trying to coordinate it so that people would go w/ me to see this play Urinetown. it’s a off- the-wall wacky musical that has played on Broadway, but is super irreverent and hilarious. as soon as i read about it, i knew i *had* to see it. at first, like almost 20 people agreed to see it w/ me, but it was practically impossible to find a date that would work for everyone and to motivate a group of people that large. in the end, i ended up just going w/ jamie, tom, and caryn. the play was *So* good!! fucking hysterical. good plot with a lot of interesting political and philosophical points, but set up in a totally fun and funny atmosphere. the actors did a really good job, and i really got to say that i enjoyed this play more than most plays i’ve seen in the past. so cool!

that same night we celebrated joey and li’s bday. we started off by going to eric’s chinese restaurant (yummmm), and then headed off to club six. very soon, everyone that we were with was quite drunk. it ended up being a really fun evening. everyone was dancing and having a blast. tom kept messing w/ homeless people outside the club, and eventually i think random people started slapping each other. did i mention that everyone was pretty drunk?

Burning Man – Aug 25th

I set out for burning man for the 5th year straight this year. For some reason, this year, unlike years in the past, none of us were really that motivated to plan for bman before the event. i’m really unsure why we were so apathetic. possibly because we spent so much time and effort last year that we just wanted to be lazy this year? who knows. unfortunately, i think our lack of enthusiasm prior to the event, made for an un-enthusiastic time at the event. now dont get me wrong. i didnt have a bad time. there was still *tons* of cool stuff to check out. and the burning of the man itself was the best i have ever seen. but at the same time, there definitely was just something missing. i guess this just goes to show how important it is to participate. the first several times i went, i could have the most amazing time just watching things, since i had never ever experienced anything like it before…. but after a while, things really need to be taken to the next level. last year we did that. we signed up for a bunch of greeter shifts. we built a ducky artcar and cruised around the playa. once you do something like that… you cant really just go back to doing nothing. you have to keep building!

anyways, despite all that, burning man was still pretty cool. we bought these little electric scooters and drove them around the playa a few times. it was nice to have a motorized vehicle that you didnt have to pedal. there was kind of a lack of large scale art exhibits this year as compared to previous years, but there was still some neat stuff. they had this thing called the temple of gravity, that had 3 huge 75,000 pound slabs of granite suspended by chains that you could stand on and swing around on. there was a massive chandelier that was broken and made to look as if it had fallen out of the sky. there was a roller skating rink where you could borrow skates and skate around. there was a bman equivalent of a mechanical bull (a huge pig barrel with ropes on pulleys at each corner, that was pulled violently by 4 guys). Piotr had built this cool thing called the fountain of frozen tears. before coming out to the playa, he made aluminum foil castings of several people’s faces (including mine), and then set them up looking downward and having water droplets sprinkle down from their eyes. then, there was a strobe light flashing at the faces that made the tears look suspended in the air. really cool!

Chinese Acrobatics – june thru august

yan and i signed up for a chinese acrobatics class that met once a week. it ended up being really cool. we did all sorts of stuff like headstands, learning about handstands, dive rolls, and other stuff. the class was hard. really really hard. each time we would leave from the class totally exhausted and would be sore fore several days. we had to do upside down pushups. we had to stand on our hands while balanced on the wall for a long long time. it was so tough! but at the same time, it was so so fun! it was totally something we looked forward to each week. unfortunately, by the end of the class, even though we were definitely improving, we still couldnt do a handstand for a long time or anything. to do that, we would have had to take more classes etc. *sigh*. oh well, it was fun while it lasted.

-v