Disturbia

the Olympics just ended. for the last two weeks, the world was delighted to the greatest gathering of athletic spectacles, and boy were we delighted. it's pretty interesting that the most popular Olympic sports are the ones that are in the media spotlight only because of the Olympics, but I am not complaining! from the Olympics we are treated to a new batch of athletic heroes

the athletes' passion and zeal for the Olympic medal never ceases to amaze me. for me, the best part of the games are the athletes' reactions after competing. of course, the gold medal winners have the best reactions, but just the fact that all of these athletes giving their utmost effort is the best

I stayed up late last night to watch the US Men's Basketball Game finally be shown live, and they did it! Redemption. brilliant. the team could not have been a more professional team, both on and off the court, and their medal reflects their superiority

for these games I was probably the most interested in the indoor volleyball teams. I'm not very inclined to the sport, but maybe it was from all the times I watched TV at the gym, or from catching as much of the Olympics as possible, or the tragic stabbing story, but I think I watched most if not all of the M & W volleyball games, including the quarterfinals women versus Italy (come from behind), and men versus Serbia (close one)

school starts tomorrow. am I excited? absolutely not. I suppose I should "get it over with," though, and thus have compiled the mandatory list of goals for the year

- make use of my yoga mat
- make use of my trumpet
- read more books leisurely
- score well on the GRE
- get into good grad school with financial aid
- anything else?


currently listening to: "Run The Show" Kat Deluna

Handlebars

so lately I've been running. now, I suck at running. godawful form, limited physical endurance, lack of a physical build. but I got sick of the ineffectiveness of the elliptical, and I can't really swim either (heck, maybe I'll work on that next, but I can't flip turn decent enough to save my life). thus I started running. and I've slowly been building my speed, going from 5.2 MPH (pathetic, I know) to 5.7 MPH to 6.2 MPH, where I stand now. I guess I want my goal to be at least a solid 35 minutes averaging 7.0 MPH or more

but the downside of running is I'm starting to get sore around my ankles again, primarily my right foot (I've always had an uneven gait; I use my left foot more than my right). so I've turned to bandaging my ankles, makeshift braces to limit unnecessary mobility. they've been working quite well. but now I look kind of ridiculous because I have little rubber booties. I took them off today, but they've been hurting, so it looks like I'll be putting them back on

did I mention that I have a developing bunion on my left foot. I think it is because I put a lot more weight on my left foot and use my left foot more. I am quite obsessed with it

today was my last day of work. it was quite nice. I really grew to like the company. they treat their employees well and they are very knowledgeable on engineering. I hope to one day be able to work for a company as nice and legit as that one. but I'm flying back to San Francisco for a break before school starts. I hate school. I don't want it to start. I'd rather spend all day watching the Olympics. bah

my feet feel worse bahhh

currently listening to: Daft Punk "Too Long"

Stronger

currently blasting - Daniel Powter "Bad Day", Kanye West "Stronger"

jesus fucking christ. today was a REALLY BAD DAY. and I'm not exaggerating - today was just godawful. probably one of the worst days of my life. see, there's no such thing as a "somewhat bad day" or a "so-so bad day." no, a bad day is when everything around you just falls apart. when one moment you think everything is fine in la-la land with fairies and birds and lollipops, and then the next moment you are strung out, cast out and thrown at the mercy to the lions of society. yes, a bad day is when society unfairly fucks you over for no reason at all, other than to mess with your mind

where one day you're thinking about what activities you are going to do this weekend, and then you are suddently thinking about how can you even do those activities in the first place. where you get played, shafted, short-changed, and there is hardly anything you can do about it

oh, damn wheel of fortuna!

okay, among the people I know, there are some people who seem to NEVER have a bad day, where life is just laid out perfectly for them, where they barely have to break a sweat and they get everything they want. these sunavabitches coast through life. they have it made. they always get the perfect hand. everything in life comes super easy; all they have to do is stick out their hand and it gets filled with riches. the perfect people

currently listening to - India Arie "Video"

on the other hand, there are those who aren't as fortunate. who, for some reason, always seem to be playing with a losing hand. people that desperately want to join the winners' circle, but seem to always fall spectacularly short because of the hand they are dealt. these people try to make the best of their situation, "play with the cards they have," but who are they kidding the cards don't lie. everything is a struggle for these people. these people understand the value of their remaining chips. they keep this number in their mind. often times, they ask themselves why they are even playing the game in the first place. do these people have the choice to walk away from the table? can they stop playing? why are they playing in the first place?

do we ever have a chance to truly do whatever we want?

now listening to - Augustana "Sunday Best"

life is not fair. jesus christ, life is unbelievably unfair. ask the civilians in Georgia and Saint Ossetia. look at the pictures in the New York Times, The Los Angeles Times. did they ever do anything to have their homes devastated, everything that they own destroyed? WHY IS LIFE SO UNFAIR?!

we were never truly masters of our own destinies. life just APPEARS to be controllable, but in the end we are all God's little sock puppets. or in a darker way, we are all fate's bitch (that brilliant little insight came from Wonderfalls, my favorite show). I don't even know why we try to assert ourselves, we're just going to get fucked anyways. and by such I mean the "unlucky" ones. perfect people never get fucked

so now I'm fuming over my superbad day, and I'm a whirlwind of emotions, some angry, some sad, a lot confused

I feel like I am NEVER, EVER truly appreciated for anything I do. that my labor is taken for granted, and I end up as a casualty of society. after all, I never had much worth anyways. oh sure, I was useful when bitchwork needed to be done, but any other time? nah, she's pretty useless. easy to dispose

jesus fucking christ. what a fucking bad day


EDIT: and I also twisted my ankle. physical and emotional distress. nice

Black & Gold

currently listening to: MGMT "Electric Feel"

I passed the Engineering In Training (EIT) exam! I got the results when I was in Texas (yes, I was in Texas!), and was very pleased. I don't know what I would have done if I didn't pass. well, I would obviously re-take it, but I wouldn't be very pleased with myself about it. the experience was forgettable enough; airplane hangars are for airplanes, thank you. but what this means is that I get to play engineer for the next several years until, with three Professional Engineers' recommendations, I go back to the hangar and take the Professional Exam. and then if I pass, then I can be a licensed engineer. yay!

XXIX SUMMER OLYMPICS. holy shit. I love the Olympics. I love how it only happens every four years, how the entire world watches, how it displays human physical performance at its best. I love the Parade of Nations (although I have yet to find Burma in the past three ceremonies), the elaborate performances, the surprising victories.

Shake It

thank god for Garfield Minus Garfield to get my mind off things

currently listening to: Sam Sparro, Black and Gold

oh my god! the Bloc Party new song "Mercury" sounds like shit! geez!

so I have a couple of new favorite obsessions in my life that I would like to sing about. my first obsession is with vintage stores. who knew used clothes could be so exciting, cheap, and fun?! for me the thrill comes from scoring that unique find or look. and because what I wear is always changing on a whim, cheap, trendy clothing is a must. it was only appropriate that I was introduced to vintage goodness on Melrose Avenue, since it has been THE place for me to hang this summer. the stores I discovered include Wasteland, American Vintage, and Crossroads. I'm still on the lookout for good vintage stores, such as Buffalo Exchange and American Rag Cie, so keep a heads up for future posts on adventures to these stores

I guess I'm experiencing yet another major style shift. okay, I'll confess. I used to be into a little store called Abercrombie and Fitch. god. I would spend a lot of money at that store because I thought it was "cool" and "mature." looking back on the trend it was even a bit embarrassing because I would try to own as many different zip ups and t shirts and jeans as possible. yikes. and then I...stopped. I guess the overpriced sweatshirts and the huge ABERCROMBIE letters across the chest just got to me

UPDATE: today Los Angeles and the Southern California area experienced a 5.4 magnitude earthquake (initially reported as a 5.8, downsized to a 5.4). I was in the Pasadena office when I felt it and was like fuck it's an earthquake! all the workers got super giddy because being structural engineers we work a lot with preparing for earthquakes. everyone prairie dogged their cubicle and was like "IT'S AN EARTHQUAKE!" it started out with a sharp jolt, followed by a longer, more powerful vibration. immediately I went onto the USGS website, and sure enough, fifty "refresh" clicks later, a huge dot appeared. the news wires went nuts, the phone lines were jammed. I was lucky to send out a quick text to my brother telling him to let my parents know I was okay

it was fairly interesting to see people's reactions. a lot of the coworkers immediately began checking for structural damage. we found one wall panel had been knocked askew, and peered into the building. we discovered the column in the office was not properly seismically braced. hah hah. for some people, this was their first EQ experience, and it definitely unnerved them. they were very excited, nearly hysterical. as I hail from the also earthquake prone Bay Area, I was nonchalant about the EQ. it was pretty exciting and made the day more interesting, as it happened right before lunch. we felt a small aftershock afterwards, which was nice. the most amusing part for me was the countless status updates on facebook: "-- just experienced their first earthquake!" "-- is safe from the earthquake!" "-- felt the earthquake!". holy fuck, it's not that big of a deal. unimpressed

so there's a 1:20 chance that a major earthquake will strike in the next twenty four hours and a 1:100 chance of it happening in the following week. hooray for tectonic stress releases in the form of seismic energy

anyway I'm actually tired from blogging. I'll continue bitching about clothes another time. since you know, that's all I ever talk about anyways

Mr. Pitiful

if you can't tell from the date, this is the Dark Knight weekend. I've already seen it twice. and the only other summer movies I've watched are Iron Man and Wanted. it is quite a good movie. arguably the coolest part of the movie is the use of sonar from cell phones and such to create a map for Batman to scope the vicinity. it's fucking echolocation! another way to tie Batman to the bat animal. and yes, Heath Ledger was amazing as the Joker. it's so hard to believe that under all that is an Australian young man!! also extremely underrated was Aaron Eckhart as Harvey Dent / Two-Face. I know all the attention's been on Batman and the Joker, but AE nearly steals the show with his own transformation

I watched the movie twice. the first time was at the Landmark theatre at the midKNIGHT showing (har har). it was super swanky, and most of the crowd were young hipsters. EVERYONE had an iPhone (seriously? is it really that cool?). I sat in the fourth row from the front, so it was a ridiculous three hours. before the movie even started, they had a movie worker "announce" the movie, which I found utterly pointless. the audience cheered and clapped when HL first appeared on the screen, then whenever there was a new twist, and when his name appeared in the credits. definitely the first time was to get the storyline out of the way, and for me to think about things for a bit. the second time was at the uber-ghetto UV theatre. the people next to me were downright nasty for a no good reason ("we don't have to answer to anyone!") and some idiot family brought their baby, which of course cried through the entire three hours. ugh. but I enjoyed watching the movie both times very much

unfortunately the midnight showing left me with a mere four hours of sleep, so I was very tired the next day at work. but I was able to work through it

the weekend I didn't really have an agenda, so I went to the Glendale Galleria and Americana again. I kept buying frozen lemonades and slurpees. they're cheap and tasty! probably loaded with more sugar than I would need for an entire weekend, but that's the tradeoff you get for such deliciousness. I bought....a lot of clothes. I went back to Melrose Avenue, but this time I hit up the famous Wasteland. Wasteland is a vintage used clothing store where people bring in their old clothes and receive cash back. because it is LA and it is located on Melrose, all the clothing is riduclously trendy and heavily labelled. I found a NEW zip up jacket for eighteen bucks that I had seen at the USC Library (the on campus designer store). I also swooped on a zip up hoodie. I also found some amazing old school style, but I had already made some earlier purchases at other stores, and thus refrained from them. I was extremely impressed though with the clothes because it is very similar to the stuff I am trying to project. I am DEFINITELY going to check out this place again; it's amazingly cheap and you score some seriously good stuff. when I was making my purchase, the hipster cashier kinda sneered at me because I asked if I needed to wash the clothes (how was I supposed to know! I've never bought vintage!), but then he laughed at me when I threw my ID at him. sigh

there was also a huge Urban Outfitters sale of an additional fifty percent off sale items and I found the right shoes of some attractive sandals, but couldn't find their left counterpart, so I was extremely disappointed. and speaking of shoes, I think my beloved gladiators are finally wearing down; I wore them all day Saturday and was hobbling when I made my way upstairs back home. I don't know how I got so addicted to shoes this summer!

Leavin'

currently listening to: Jesse McCartney "Leavin"
currently reading: Seabiscuit
currently watching: Los Angeles Dodgers

go blue! so I watched three home Dodger games in last week, one against the Atlanta Braves and the other against the Florida Marlins. the first night the pitcher Kuroda throws a near perfect game - a one hitter shut out, with the hit coming in the 8th inning. it was an amazing athletic feat. it was also pretty cool to check out Dodger Stadium for the first time. I was pretty impressed with the venue. the second night I went with the company, and that was another similar yet different experience. everything was paid for, I still sat in upper reserve (aka nosebleed), but the Dodgers lost. then on Friday I went to another Dodgers game and it was a nice warm evening with a fairly large crowd but they lost again

I've also been having fairly shoddy car woes. this last week I raked up near four hundred dollars on my car. fifty dollars went to a parking ticket because I apparently parked during street cleaning (I suck at life - I moved it to avoid the street cleaning but moved it into another street with cleaning at the same day and time). and then I needed an oil change, but when I went to the store they said I needed to change my brakes and everything else, thus costing me even more in repairs

work's been pretty steady. I'm enjoying it. I'm also keeping up with the gym, so that's nice. I recently switched my routine from an inclined speed walk to a full out 35 minute run on the treadmill. my feet muscles have started to act up again. but I definitely feel like my legs are a lot more toned now

mmm there's nothing else I can really post on this public blog, so I'll leave it here for now