( essay )

I can't believe I cited Angelic Layer in an academic paper and got away with it. Also, no, that's not the title I turned the essay in with. (HAHA if only)

So this conversation isn't all that impressive, really, except that I clarified some thoughts on society and identity and sexuality and am once again at peace with myself. Kind of like - the stuff you always knew but never really sorted out until you, well, sorted it out.

I should organize this into a more coherent essay sometime. With more background than we bothered to cite to each other because, I mean, we knew each other well enough not to...

( AIM storage log )

Yay?

edit: So I think I just may revoke that statement because when I think about in SHS (orchestra at least) (now at least) (now that I think about it, maybe that isn't exactly true either) (I should stop going back and adding comments in parentheses) I hang out with girls more than boys! Maybe Korean boys are just cooler. Or maybe Korean girls are just too different, who knows.

Although, it definitely happened on the SJYS trip too. And to some degree in Australia... no okay that doesn't really count. That was more like co-ed with pervertedness meter to the extreme.

Also, I loved hanging around the tech room back when the Asian gamer crew was still around (sophomore year?) (they've been replaced now! by... the white gamer crew lmao) and that was all male. Also I love frisbee and half the time that's all male. That's when Lilith first started calling me a manwoman & I first started calling her a pansexual white freak! hahaha Vincent your girlfriend is pansexual.

Ahem.

So back to conclusion #1: I am androgynous! Except I like boys, and I think a truly androgynous person would be bisexual.

ahahaha fuck it. It all boils down to semantics anyways.

story 67

once there lived two squirrels together up in a tree.

one day the boy squirrel heard tell of a group trip to acorn heaven. he became very excited and raced back to tell the girl squirrel , but she wasn’t interested. the boy squirrel had to make plans himself.

throughout the week he scurried about, packing up and preparing for the big trip. the girl squirrel watched in silence.

the watching began to make the boy squirrel uncomfortable. he began to worry about the girl squirrel spending so much time home alone. would she manage? he fussed over this, he fussed over that. finally, the day before the trip, he went to the travel group and announced he wasn’t going. he would go next time.

feeling chipper, the boy squirrel scurried home. the girl squirrel wasn’t there, which was strange, but that’s okay, he would tell her later.

twenty minutes later, the girl squirrel came home. nose-twitching and teary-eyed, she admitted that she had signed up last minute to join the trip so she could be with him.

so the girl squirrel ended up going to acorn heaven with the travel group. she saw many cool things, had many fun experiences, and, above all, ate many acorns. the other squirrels were friendly and helpful and she made many friends. but she could never completely enjoy herself. every time she saw something new, tried something different, tasted something exotic, the one that she wanted to share it with... wasn’t there. and her heart hurt.

when she finally returned, she was startled to discover that the boy squirrel, in the monotony of days alone, had moved in with a different squirrel.

because those who follow always find themselves chasing... and chasing... and chasing...

and those who decide always... find it easier to walk away.

fin.

.referenced

not at my best at one in the morning. I can't honestly say where this came from, except that I have a lot of cats, I had been thinking about a boy and his cat (although in a very different context), and I read iggyzzz's story here, and all that somehow combined with late-night anti-insomnia (as in, it's not that I can't sleep, it's that I can and in fact quite want to, but for some reason don't) to give rise to this.

( mmmmmm )

Essay Option 3. Chicago author Nelson Algren said, "A writer does well if in his whole life he can tell the story of one street." Chicagoans, but not just Chicagoans, have always found something instructive, and pleasing, and profound in the stories of their block, of Main Street, of Highway 61, of a farm lane, of the Celestial Highway. Tell us the story of a street, path, road - real or imagined or metaphorical.

assignment: uchicago supplementary essay
comments: this isn't really an essay. and I really should edit it more, but I don't think I'll be able to before the deadline, so whatever.

( The Tale of Apple Street )

original intention/interpretation here unlinked for the time being. relink later.

For my father's father, from my father.

( Chinese )

( English )

A random assignment from our CW class.



Disclaimer: This is in no way meant to be politically correct because I suck at politics, and yes, I know bricks are rectangular and not square. Whatever.

Dear Brick,

You look very bricky today. I wonder why that is. Perhaps it is because you are a brick. I’ve always had a penchant for bricks. They’re very… red. And cracked. And shiny. Besides, they’re square. Who doesn’t love a square? Square things fit so perfectly together. All the lines and the corners and the ninety degree angles – no silly curves, like a circle. Gosh, those circles. They’re positively nonconformist. Put a circle with a circle, a circle with a square, a circle with a triangle… no matter what you do, they always find some way to leave a gap. I mean, even oddly shaped polygons like a star, which does not fit properly with another star, can find their match in diamonds. Oh no, not the circle. The only thing a circle fits in is a hole. A sewage entrance, for example.

(I hear in Japan they have begun designing cube-shaped watermelons for precisely this reason, for a watermelon is a circle in three dimensions and more fearsome than the circle alone.)

Back to bricks, though. Many fun things are measured in bricks. Gold is measured in bricks. Cocaine is measured in bricks. Badly designed Canadian furniture is measured in bricks. In fact, the brick is so great, they named a species of moth after it. They named Newark, New Jersey after it, too, only no one cares but the crackheads.

Hey. Did you know, ‘brick’ rhymes with ‘kick’? It also rhymes with ‘sick’ and ‘slick’ and ‘pogo stick.’ I could write a poem with that.

Look, a brick!
… how sick!
That just gives me
Such a kick.
A brick's so slick,
It could be a pogo stick!

I dedicate that to you, Brick.

You know, ‘brick’ is a fun word to say. So is ‘brickwork.’ Come to thik of it, ‘brickyworky’ is even better. It’s just one of those words, like ‘Penelope’ or ‘discombobulate,’ that you can say over and over again until your friends get so irritated they threaten to knock you over the head, and still it doesn’t get old. “Why, that wouldn’t be very nice,” you could say to them. “What a brickyworky thing for you to do!” Y’see, the beauty of ‘brickyworky’ is that it isn’t actually a word, so you can adapt it to be noun, verb, adjective, anything and everything you’d like it to be. It’s almost like being god!

On top of that, bricks have personality. Scottish bricks all look large and grey and a little burnt, piled up in walls to keep out the sheep. German bricks are all identical and perfectly sandpapered down to the last nanometer, miniature swastikas imprinted on the back, while each brick in France is a different size and has its own stylistic flourishes. English bricks procreate at an amazing rate, and have completely dominated the country with their presence since 549 AD. Irish bricks, on the other hand, are made of beer, and can’t hold together long enough to achieve anything of import. (It should be noted here that Chinese bricks are made of blood, and remain some of the sturdiest stuff on the planet.) As for the United States, it decided after the Industrial Revolution that it was too lazy for the likes of bricks and invented fast food chains instead.

Well, Brick, it’s been a long day, and I think I’ve spent enough of it discussing with you the bricklical nature of the brickiness of bricky bricks. Farewell! I hope your brickiness stays with you for ever and ever to the last days of your bricky life. :)

Love,
Adela Chang

THE TALE OF CUSTARD THE DRAGON

By Ogden Nash

Belinda lived in a little white house,
With a little black kitten and a little gray mouse,
And a little yellow dog and a little red wagon,
And a realio, trulio, little pet dragon.

Now the name of the little black kitten was Ink,
And the little gray mouse, she called her Blink,
And the little yellow dog was sharp as Mustard,
But the dragon was a coward, and she called him Custard.

Custard the dragon had big sharp teeth,
And spikes on top of him and scales underneath,
Mouth like a fireplace, chimney for a nose,
And realio, trulio, daggers on his toes.

Belinda was as brave as a barrel full of bears,
And Ink and Blink chased lions down the stairs,
Mustard was as brave as a tiger in a rage,
But Custard cried for a nice safe cage.

Belinda tickled him, she tickled him unmerciful,
Ink, Blink and Mustard, they rudely called him Percival,
They all sat laughing in the little red wagon
At the realio, trulio, cowardly dragon.

Belinda giggled till she shook the house,
And Blink said Week!, which is giggling for a mouse,
Ink and Mustard rudely asked his age,
When Custard cried for a nice safe cage.

Suddenly, suddenly they heard a nasty sound,
And Mustard growled, and they all looked around.
Meowch! cried Ink, and Ooh! cried Belinda,
For there was a pirate, climbing in the winda.

Pistol in his left hand, pistol in his right,
And he held in his teeth a cutlass bright,
His beard was black, one leg was wood;
It was clear that the pirate meant no good.

Belinda paled, and she cried, Help! Help!
But Mustard fled with a terrified yelp,
Ink trickled down to the bottom of the household,
And little mouse Blink strategically mouseholed.

But up jumped Custard, snorting like an engine,
Clashed his tail like irons in a dungeon,
With a clatter and a clank and a jangling squirm
He went at the pirate like a robin at a worm.

The pirate gaped at Belinda's dragon,
And gulped some grog from his pocket flagon,
He fired two bullets but they didn't hit,
And Custard gobbled him, every bit.

Belinda embraced him, Mustard licked him,
No one mourned for his pirate victim
Ink and Blink in glee did gyrate
Around the dragon that ate the pyrate.

Belinda still lives in her little white house,
With her little black kitten and her little gray mouse,
And her little yellow dog and her little red wagon,
And her realio, trulio, little pet dragon.

Belinda is as brave as a barrel full of bears,
And Ink and Blink chase lions down the stairs,
Mustard is as brave as a tiger in a rage,
But Custard keeps crying for a nice safe cage.

...hm.

I just had a big long ramble here on how computer addictions are really unhealthy for me, then deleted it.

whatever.

It's not a one time thing, though. Despite my periodic abandonments of all usage of computer at all (indeed, all desire to use the computer, because I can't abandon it any other way), eventually I slip back.

'sbeen like this since. hahahaha. ever since I can remember.

I think I'll resign myself to a longterm addict.


hahaha I can't believe I turned into a fangirl over spring break, though. that cracks me up.


anyway, small memo here to myself:

and the phoenix flew on wings of fire
through a cyclone
to a pinecone

go joe~


and while we're in the spirit:

and the demon creeped up through the pipes
in a sector
of a vector
to a Rector


hahaha Rector. They spelled his name wrong. Unless they were right and it's Erik and I'm wrong. y'know, Erik looks cooler. Maybe I am wrong.

Ultimate conclusion: lack of sleep makes me make very little sense, even to myself. or more like especially to myself. Maybe I make sense to everyone but myself. but I'm sure you all knew this already



In other news, Ninad visited today. I walked right past him. AGAIN. How many times has he done this to me? It's always "hey Adela!" "hi" *five seconds later* "WAIT what???"

His college is OUT already. So unfair.

So apparently. In his college. They convinced someone who was sober that he was drunk. Everybody congregated on him until the poor guy was so confused- at first they were cracking joke about this guy who lives underneath him on the 1st story or something that he's apparently never met throughout the school year (the guy didn't actually exist, they were just poking fun @ him), but they were dead serious, and then the guy started getting really confused. And then it was,

"Aw, don't fret about. You're just drunk, that's all. You'll remember him when you wake up."
"But I'm not drunk! I'm absolutely sober! I swear I haven't touched one-"
"You are, you are, trust me. We just had a party... *etcetc insert lies here*"
"...what. I'm sober. I'm sober!"
"...man, they're just pulling a trick on you. Don't listen to them."
"......" *suspiciously* "Now YOU'RE trying to trick me!"
"....." *gives up* "Yeah, OK man, you're drunk. Sorry about that." *joins everyone else*

that sounds like the most hilarious prank to play ever. XD

edit: I just remembered that I was planning to write the LA trip stuff in installments. except my weekends have been so ridiculously filled that I haven't been doing so.

and what happened to the two awesome stories I wrote while on trip wtf?

I'll at least post them when I find them.

hahaha the longer I delay, the more I forget. ohwellz.

edit2:

..........

it took me half an hour to find my rosin.

obviously, I haven't practised cello for far longer than I'd thought.


edit3: ow. my back hurts.

how long has it been since I honestly practiced cello anyway?

ahahaha I forgot to post this up last night before I went to bed x___X

( AIM storage w00t. deb wrote a story AND joe did too! )

too lazy to go through and single out the stories, so if you want to read them you have to read everything. xD;; they're pretty random. It's really funny. When it's Del and Lulu, the stories are perverted as hell, and when it's Deb and Joe, they're random as hell. :D

Let's plan a gathering! Who's free... lessay... Wednesday?

btw Louis do you have a car you could drive people around with? because that would be helpful I think.

Zomg I have a car now! supposedly. My grandma bought a nice new one so obviously I get the crappy old one, but hey it's a car. Except that I can't drive people around, obv. and I don't think you want me to drive you because you'll die of a heart attack if not of a car crash, so yes. ^^

I need to make a checklist of everything I have to do over break. Otherwise I'm not going to do any of it. x______x

:] ♥♥ y'all~



1. IT'S SPRING BREAK. DUHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. ^^
2. Sasuke's back! He looks HORRIBLE and has REALLY REALLY bad taste in clothing, but he's back!! And now I'm mostly caught up w/Naruto, like only a volume behind, I'll wait for some more volumes to come out before reading again. xD
3. I beat the computer at SC lawlz~ still need to get Venuti's CDkey. :o