:: Pedantic Platitudes ::

:: Sunday, January 29, 2006 ::

Happy Chinese New Year!!!

Fittingly, my friends and I went to the Kong last night to get Chinese food. Yum. I haven't had Kong food in a while. After I poured the tea for everyone (I was assigned to do it because I'm Asian and I have to deal with something racial every day... hahaha), I proposed a toast: "Since it is the year of the dog, may we all have lots of doggy-style sex this year."

Earlier in the evening, we had a mini dance party in my friend's room, where we danced to Steps and songs from other fun artists. This was after having dinner at Grendel's, a bar/restaurant. I ate raw instant oatmeal from a cup that I got from the dining hall. Ah, it was a good day. Now, I am staying up working on my website, but this will cause me to sleep into the afternoon. Alas.

This past week has been nice. I've been hanging around school and Boston since it is "Intersession," when we don't have classes between the end of finals and the beginning of spring semester. It's weird being around here during this time. I've always been away whenever there's a break, so it feels strange to be on campus with no work whatsoever to do.

Ah, it's been exactly a year since I went to Hawaii and Walt Disney World for Intersession. Luckily for me, winter this year has been particularly mild so I'm not longing to get away as badly, but a change of scenery would be nice. I should have gone to Montreal like I had considered... ah well... it's fun staying around, working on my website, and hanging out with friends.

Quote(s) of the Day: "I'm worried you're going to kill me and then dump my body into the lake." "Um, the lake's frozen right now."

"[Doncha wish your girlfriend was hot like me? Doncha wish your girlfriend was a freak like me? Doncha? Doncha?]" "Hey, it's our song!" "Why is that our song?!?"

"Lesbians are lousy tippers."

"If you're going to be drunk, you might as well speak in a British accent!"

"Watching Oprah Winfrey tear someone a new asshole is like watching God create the universe."

:: SL 3:12 AM [+] ::
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I Have To Deal With Something Racial Every Day

"Remember the Cabbage Patch Kids? You're like one of those."
"OK, there was not an Asian Cabbage Patch Kid."
"Fine, you're like Hello Kitty."

:: SL 11:51 PM [+] ::
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Exchange of the Day:

"I have underwear with Spider-Man's face on them."
"Like, on the crotch?"
"Uh huh."
"Gasp! What would Mary Jane say?!?"
"Oh, baby!"

:: SL 12:39 AM [+] ::
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It's time for another installment of "I Have To Deal With Something Racial Every Day"!!!

While visiting my sister at Yale, I went to an "arts and crafts" study break hosted by one of the residential colleges on campus. There was a nice Asian-American girl who was leading a session on origami and teaching people how to fold paper cranes.

I used to be quite proficient at origami, if I may say so myself, and I would take delight in all these delightful paper projects. However, it has been many years since I last folded a paper crane.

Since it had been so long since I last "origami'd," I was having quite a bit of difficulty folding my paper crane at this study break. I asked for some assistance from the girl leading the session, and when she came by, she told me, "Oh, I just assumed you would be really good at Origami and wouldn't need help because you're Asian."

Tee hee!

:: SL 8:02 PM [+] ::
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Haha, yay. I'm at Yale visiting my sister. I left Sunday morning after an amazing Saturday. I had an exam Saturday morning, and I got up early that day following only three hours of sleep after a long night of last-minute studying (is there any other kind?). That was kind of a downer. The exam went alright, though, and it was my final final exam, so after having lunch, I celebrated by going into town and shopping.

I had seen a really nice green shirt online, but I procrastinated on ordering it, even though there was free shipping. By the time I got around to ordering it, it had gone out of stock, and I was really disappointed because I really wanted this shirt. So I went into town to look for it in the stores. I started in the American Eagle Outfitters on Newbury Street, but the store there didn't have the shirt, so I walked to the AE store at Faneuil Hall, all the way across the city.

I passed by Boston Common, and I strolled by the lake and stopped by to watch the people skating on the outdoor ice skating rink set up during the winter. Even though the temperature was a "warm" 50 degrees, they still had the rink running with the cooler underneath running. I also toured the big cemetery downtown, which I'd passed before but had never gone into. I saw the graves of Sam Adams, John Hancock, Paul Revere, and Benjamin Franklin's mother and father. That was particularly cool because I had seen Benjamin Franklin's burial site when I was in Philadelphia last summer.

The store at Faneuil Hall didn't have the shirt I wanted either, but they called around and said that the shirt in the size I wanted was available at the Cambridgeside Galleria mall, so I walked all the way there, a good 40-minute walk into the neighboring city, to get the shirt. Yay. It also happened to be the last day of the store's winter clearance sale, so I picked up a couple other items of clothing for cheap. Yay for sales.

I hurried back to campus where I met up with a couple of friends, and we had dinner at a nice Japanese restaurant. We had sushi, and my vegan friend had five orders of avocado sushi. I had a California roll, which also has avocado. Avocado overload!!! My friend tried a Philadelphia roll, which has lox and cream cheese. It was like eating a bagel at Sunday brunch. After dinner, we hung out some more until I was no longer interested in spending any more time with them it got late.

I then visited another friend, chatted for a bit, and then we went to my friend's birthday party, where I had a great time with friends. After the party, we stayed up and chatted until we were too tired to talk.

The next morning, I took the subway to South Station in Boston and took the (as-always) sketchy Greyhound bus to New Haven, CT to visit my sister. I slept for most of the trip, but that was good because I was very tired. I settled in at my sister's dorm and then I went out to get some food. I finally got to try Yale dining hall food, since the last time I visited (during the Harvard-Yale football game weekend), the dining halls were closed for Thanksgiving break.

After dinner, I went to see a concert by The Click Five, a new band I recently heard about. They have some pretty catchy tunes, and it was a fun concert. There were also a couple of opening acts that were pretty cool; I wouldn't mind listening to their songs again.

Monday, I went to lunch at Commons, the big dining hall that is reminiscent of the grand hall at Hogwarts in Harry Potter. The food was pretty good, and they had more salad, fruit, and dessert options than at Harvard, but fewer hot food selections.

Afterwards, I went to my sister's friend's introductory astronomy class, which was fun. My sister and I then went to a special house master's tea at one of the colleges here where the guest was composer Stephen Schwartz, who wrote the musical Wicked and wrote lyrics/songs for the Disney films Pocahontas and The Hunchback of Notre Dame. I've been a fan of his music, particularly the Disney stuff, for a long time, so it was neat to hear him talk about the process behind writing for these movies/musicals.

Afterwards, we went to dinner. Later at night, I played Super Mario in my sister's dorm's common room, and then we went to an "arts and crafts" study break, where there was paper folding/origami, cupcake decorating, button/pin making, and other assorted paper craft creating. We then got snacks at the late night grill. I played some more video games and finally went to bed really late.

Today, I went to lunch again at Commons, and then I sat in on another lecture, this time an introductory psychology class. The topic for the lecture was cognitive development, and the professor offered a lot of interesting examples of how babies lack/possess certain mental faculties.

Later, I went and took a look at the main library at Yale, which was built in the style of a church, as well as the school's famous rare books library, which is built with these translucent panes of marble that let light in. It's so beautiful inside, despite the ugly exterior. There was also a Gutenberg Bible, one of five in the country and dozen or so surviving around the world, on display. That was cool to see.

Yale is so pretty. I think I wrote about this the last time I was here, but the architecture is really beautiful and really reminds me of Oxford's. There are parts of campus here where I feel as if I've been transported to England. The classroom interiors are really nice, too. The school is nice, but one of the major drawbacks is that it's kind of in the middle of nowhere. Sure, New York City is just a train ride away, but it doesn't come close to the convenience of taking the T into downtown Boston from Harvard.

Quote of the Day: "[Looking at calculator] Wow, that's a really big number." "See that number? That's how large my cock is." "[Points to calculator, which reads -97,382.36]"

:: SL 8:01 AM [+] ::
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Earlier this week at dinner, the dining hall offered a delightful "Savory Spotlight" (a special display featuring various variations on one food item) on honey. This Savory Spotlight set out five different types of honey (from regular dining hall honey to "apple blossom honey"), as well as some biscuits and apple slices on which to drizzle them. It was a fun Savory Spotlight, like many of the others, such as apples, pears, nuts, and citrus fruits (which we used to reenact the opening sequence from Disney's 1994 full-length animated feature The Lion King). At the very least it was certainly better than the Savory Spotlight on salt. Ha. That one was interesting.

During dinner, my friends and I made terribly unpalatable puns about the Savory Spotlight on honey... "Honey, check out the honey!" "I can't BEE-lieve how good the honey is!" "People are swarming around the honey!" "Damn, that honey display is //sweeeet//!"

This past Thursday evening, I ate waaay too much at dinner and forgot that there were two study breaks that night. The first I went to started right after dinner and was a fast food study break. Our entryway tutors bought tons of food from McDonalds such as Chicken McNuggests, Big Macs, french fries, and even healthier items from the menu, such as salad with chicken, yogurt parfait, and apple salad. For dessert there was even the baked apple pie with filling hotter than lava.

Afterwards, the mitigation pizza arrived. There has been heavy construction next to our dormitory, and to assuage complaints about the noise a mitigation fund has been set up. The crews tapped into the fund and for the past three days have been offering pizza as a late-night snack, basically a bribe to stop our (rightful) complaints about the noise. We call it mitigation pizza and keep making frivolous comments about it, such as, "I have not been mitigated by the mitigation pizza," and, "I think they should have mitigation sex acts."

Anyways, I had some of that pizza on top of the McDonald's food on top of dinner.

And since I clearly cannot tear myself away from the comestibles at any event, here's a new photo album I created entitled "Sam J with Food": Click here to view!

Quote(s) of the Day: "If you vomit in my room, I'll kill you." "Don't kill me." "Don't vomit in my room."

"Your revolutionary tendencies have turned capitalistic, and it'd be tragic if it weren't so lucrative."

"Thanks for the ice cream! You're the best sugar daddy ever!"

:: SL 12:19 AM [+] ::
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"I Have To Deal With Something Racial Every Day"

Today, I was enjoying some sweet and sour dipping sauce with my french fries, and my friend remarked, "I see you are eating the sauce of your heritage."

:: SL 1:24 AM [+] ::
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From earlier this week:

I must say... the highlight of today certainly was attending a study break where a game of charades was suggested and played. Among the innocent words that were acted out were "Rosetta Stone," "argonaut," "chipotle," "Riddle of the Sphinx," "the Hamptons," and "Oedipus complex." I, however, was assigned in one particular round to act out the word "prophylactic." While the word does mean anything that is preventative (like a malaria prophylactic), I thought the quickest way to get the word across was to convey it in the context of a reproductive contraceptive.

Someone walked in during the middle of my gesturing and asked if we were playing "naughty charades."

Good times...

:: SL 11:48 PM [+] ::
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Two Fridays ago, I visited a couple of friends at the Kong, and while the Chinese food looked amazing, I didn't have any because I wasn't very hungry. We stayed up and chatted into the evening.

That Saturday night was... interesting. And magical.

Sunday morning, my friends and I went out to have dim sum for brunch in Chinatown. It was delicious. I haven't had dim sum in a long time. There were the usual dishes, like the pork buns, the shrimp dumplings, and the turnip cakes. We also had delightful desserts such as egg custard pastry, lotus roll, and sweet tofu! Yum. My friend remarked, "I've never had dim sum with so many non-Asians!"

Afterwards, my friend and I visited some stores to find a present for his significant other while I recounted a tale of sordidness.

This past week has been more writing of papers and then mad studying for my final Saturday.

Friday was the tradition donut bash where we ate tons of donuts and then it was off to the yard for the Primal Scream run, where students run naked to celebrate the night before finals begin.

My final on Saturday went well, I think. I knew how to answer all the questions asked, and I thought my essays were pretty decent.

That night, my friends and I had a small get-together. A couple of friends were getting their hair dyed, and then we played a hilarious round of bowl full of nouns, the game that's like Taboo and charades. There was much fun, and we munched on delightful Chinese takeout.

Sunday night, I went out because it was a three-day weekend. I finally managed to get my hair into a fauxhawk, something I've wanted to do for a while but have never been able to do because it is usually too short and my hair is too stiff. Perhaps I can get a picture up sometime.

Quote(s) of the Day: "On New Year's Eve, did you... indulge in any spirits?"

"Zimbabwe is sooo bad at being a country."

"Cannibals eat other things, too, besides people, you know; it's not like they can find people to eat all the time." "With 6 billion people in the world, surely there must be //someone// who is suitable for consumption."

:: SL 6:31 AM [+] ::
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I Have To Deal With Something Racial Every Day

"I have to deal with being a racist everyday," says a friend of mine in response to the ongoing series on my blog.

:: SL 8:05 PM [+] ::
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One of my resolutions for the new year was to update more frequently about the goings-on in my life. I guess I can start by doing a quick recap of winter break... (Here's part 1... Part 2 comes in the next post).

It started pretty terribly... papers due in the midst of my dying of what the doctor said was probably pneumonia or bronchitis. Nice. But Mr. Pharmy gave me some nice antibiotics in pill form, and that helped me get better over the course of two weeks.

Over break, I visited my friends Jessi and Bruce at their Bay Area apartment. Former high school classmate Sandy and her friend Misty were there, too, and it was a big party. Jessi and Bruce took me to a Chinese buffet, which was pretty good (Bruce thought I could get them a better deal because I'm Asian and all... I told him it doesn't work like that... White people don't give their white customers discounts).

Later in the evening, I reconciled with my high school friend Katie, who stopped by to visit with delightful Cranberry Bliss Bars, and we all made merriment with such activities as stealthily taking photographs of Jessi when she wasn't paying attention, hiding things, watching The Colbert Report and the Family Guy movie starring Stewie, and throwing stuffed animals and paper airplanes at each other in the living room. (Wow, the preceding sentence was waaaay too long.)

Jessi even brought out her stuffed bear (from the Build-A-Bear Workshop in Downtown Disney at the Disneyland Resort), which makes a disturbing giggling noise when you press a little box sewn inside. However, occasionally the little box migrates down the bear's body, so it ends up giggling creepily when you press its groin. Later, when I accidentally sat on the bear and it started giggling, I said, "Why is my laugh assing?!?" Of course, I meant to say, "Why is my ass laughing?" Can you believe that I was the only one sober in the room? Alas.

I shouldn't have kneed that poor bear's crotch to make it giggle. Luckily, the bear is ok.

The next day, we went shopping at the mall, and it was a lot of fun. I got some new shirts including this nice one, which I wore to a recent party:



We also ate at the food court, where I told some story from school that ended with the quote, "I CAN NEVER USE THE REMOTE CONTROL FOR THE TV CAUSE THE BATTERIES ARE ALWAYS IN YOUR VIBRATOR!!!" I accidentally said that line a little too loudly in front of a bunch of children who suddenly appeared next to us. It's alright, though. I'm sure they weren't listening.

:: SL 4:37 AM [+] ::
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Part 2:

There were lots of fun times over break. My sister (and one of her friends from high school and one of her friends from Yale) and I went to Disneyland! It was the first time in several years we've been to Disneyland during the (busy) winter season when all the amazing holiday decorations are up.

OBLIGATORY PHOTO IN FRONT OF SLEEPING BEAUTY CASTLE!!!!



Another one! (We had fun taking pictures while waiting for Walt Disney's Parade of Dreams to start):



There was also the delightful Christmas Fantasy Parade. We hopped over to Disney's California Adventure and got to preview the upcoming Monsters, Inc. ride. It had only been open for soft openings for a few days when we went, so it was exciting to see something so new. I really liked the ride; its storyline gave it a sense of excitement, even though it's a slow-moving dark ride, and there were a lot of excellent special effects.

We were quite disappointed that evening when the 17-minute-long "Remember... Dreams Come True" fireworks spectacular was cancelled due to the weather (curse you, Santa Ana winds!), but we carried on and enjoyed the rest of our day. However, I was exhausted by the end of the day at Disneyland; I hadn't slept more than 4 hours each of the 4 nights before the trip, and the entire day of walking didn't help matters. You know something's wrong when you can't even stay awake for the duration of the nighttime special effects extravaganza Fantasmic!, which is blindingly bright and ear-splittingly loud. I actually fell asleep during the show (which is my favorite show anywhere). Well, at the end of the day we all drove to my sister's friend's dorm at a nearby college, and I fell asleep immediately.

Over break I also saw a bunch of movies. My friends and I went to see Chronicles of Narnia, which was visually exciting, and nothing beats the magic of discovering a completely different world.

"Aslan was totally into Lucy... It was like pedophilia and bestiality at the same time!"

Alas, some of the Christian references may have been lost on me. Oh well.

I also saw The Producers, which was a faithful reproduction of the Broadway musical, which I saw in New York a few years ago (but not with Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick). They kept a lot of the good jokes, songs, and of course the amazing Springtime for Hitler musical number.

The film wasn't too good cinematographically, though. Theater direction is different from film direction, and it's painfully obvious in this film when blocking used in the theater is reproduced exactly for the movie, so things just look awkward. If you do see the film, be sure to stay through the very end of the credits for a hilarious Will Ferrell song and a final song and dance number with the whole cast.

It was nice being home and seeing some friends I haven't seen in a very long time. This was my first time home in six months (the longest I've ever been away from home) because I worked in Philadelphia, then went to Oxford for summer school, and then came directly back to school.

I finally turned 21 on Christmas, and my friends took me out to celebrate a few days later at the local bar. They bought me an A.M.F. (Adios Motherfuckers), which has sooo much alcohol. Too much, actually. Alas. We went out a few days later and went bar hopping (my first time, woo!). 'Twas a lot of fun. We ended the night at Denny's and ate lots of unhealthy food. Yum.

For New Year's Eve, I hosted a small get-together with a few friends. 'Twas lots of fun. We played games and watched the ball drop in New York at midnight, and we banged pots and pans while screaming "Happy New Year!" at the top of our lungs in the quiet residential neighborhood at 1 a.m. Pacific Standard Time. We then stayed up eating Bagel Bites and Haagen-Dazs ice cream bars while watching Margaret Cho's hilarious "Notorious C.H.O." DVD.

Now I'm back at school, madly studying (yeah, right) for final exams that begin next week. Then, I get another week off, and the spring semester (my last college semester!!!) begins in February!

Quote(s) of the Day: "I can't close the glove compartment because your tube of lube is too big!"

"I'm more drunk sober than I am drunk!"

"Awkward is the new suave."

"I spent all of today groping an old woman." "And by that you mean you spent all of today dissecting the body of an 81-year-old in your anatomy class."

:: SL 4:26 AM [+] ::
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"I Have To Deal With Something Racial Every Day"

The other day, three of my (white) friends and I were chatting late at night on the corner of an intersection, when suddenly someone in a car drives by and screams out the window at us, "GO BACK TO AFGHANISTAN!!!"

On top of that, my friend then says to me, "He was probably yelling at you."

:: SL 10:47 AM [+] ::
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Alas! I have not yet made resolutions for the new year.

For 2006, I hope to:

Exercise more
Be more punctual
Socialize more
Do more work on my website(s)
Blog more
Eat healthier foods
Be friendlier

And perhaps graduate from college...

:: SL 10:42 PM [+] ::
...