rhythmia

I'm spending my 24th birthday working and doing inventory at the store that I manage. 11am-hopefully 10 or 10:30pm, baby! *_*V So anyone who knows me from facebook, I won't be replying anytime soon, haha. All my love to you all, hope you're having a good day, that you're in good health, and know that you're in my thoughts. ♥

Today I had the day off, and got to do some fun things. ^_^

First- making baozi with my mum and brother. Lunch of deliciousness, between the jook with zachoy and sesame oil, the pork buns, and the lettuce wrap thingies.

Second- seeing Ratatouille with Mom and the Queen. The verdict is in, Pixar rocks and I think this movie is better than Flushed Away *and* Happy Feet. The concept is cute (really, you can't go wrong with food and cooking of, in the midst of finding who you are and all that jazz XD) and its messages well presented (not so much of the hit-you-over-the-head-with-the-moral-mallet the way Happy Feet was; I liked the messages there, but it felt a bit too heavy handed). My mom couldn't quite get over the rat part of it, but I thought it was awesome, the animation was great, and the closing sequence is gold. Pure gold. And yay for the music for it!

Third- speaking of music, I posted earlier that I was in the Stanford Summer Choir. Our performance was tonight, and I was so happy my family and some of my Lunch Bunch could finally come to hear me sing, since all the times I've sung before were at my college...in Southern California. I felt like the performance went well, though I flubbed some bits I never did in rehearsal. The Song for Athene was just...fwooo, lovely and resonant in the Stanford Memorial Church. The folks I sang with were awesome, and the choir director was great. I think I'm going to have to find another choir a little closer to home to join now....

( And bonus pic of me with my friends in choir, back in college and now )

So one of my friends in working in Swaziland in the Peace Corps, and there's a project she wants to get going. Here's the email, and you can decide for yourself if you want to donate. ^^ I just wanted to post this, because as she said, every little bit helps, and 1 USD especially goes a long way in most other parts of the world...

******
Sanibonani! (Hi everyone!) My name is Jessica Oya and I am currently serving as a Peace Corps volunteer in rural Swaziland as a community HIV/AIDS educator. I have been in Swaziland since June 2005 and will remain here until July/August of this year. Swaziland is a tiny monarchy located in the southern Africa region (it shares a border with South Africa and Mozambique). While it is one of the smallest countries worldwide, it has one of the highest rates of HIV infection, of about 40%. My focus since being here has been on HIV/AIDS prevention and mitigation.

With less than five months in Swaziland, I am trying to wrap up my projects. I am currently working on a project to refurbish a kitchen structure at the Mahlangatsha Methodist Primary School. Mahlangatsha Methodist has approximately 350 students, doing Grades 1-7. Of the 343 students attending the school, 222 of them have been classified as an OVC (orphan and vulnerable child), nearly 65% of the total student body.

The primary school provides a free midday meal to all students. This meal is especially important to OVCs since it is one of the few meals which children can rely on. Throughout the year, there are days which this meal does not get cooked because of weather conditions and lack of food security (due to theft). In an effort to insure that all students are provided with at least one nutritious meal a day, we are attempting to secure funds through Peace Corps Partnership (a program that allows for people at home to donate to volunteer projects overseas) to build a kitchen. Our total project request is $2,814.86 USD, and we are hoping to have the money raised AS SOON AS POSSIBLE. If you are interested in donating the website is : http://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=resources.donors.projdetail&projdesc=645-056, Project number 645-056. Any donation, no matter how small, is welcomed. If you have any questions or would like a copy of our proposal, please contact me at jessica.oya@gmail.com. Because of the distance to town, I only check my email about once a week.

Jessica Oya, PCV
U.S. Peace Corps
P.O. Box 2797
Mbabane, H100
Swaziland

jessica.oya@gmail.com
(+268) 631-6085

******
yeah, I'll do some RL posting soon, I know I'm overdue...

Hey all, thought I oughta tell people (ehehe) that I will be gone for about a month, I'm not entirely sure yet. I leave July 19th by Amtrak (whee trains) with a couple day stopover in San Antonio to visit a friend, then from the 23rd til the end of August I will be in New Orleans.

I'll be volunteering there, with the People's Hurricane Relief organization. Maybe office work, maybe organizing in the community, maybe construction, maybe all of the above. The super spiffy Tasia and Mary Rose will be there too. I haven't bought the return tickets yet, but I'll be back before or at the beginning of September, I reckon. Anybody gonna be in the area while I'm there? Gimme a call on my cell, perhaps I can visit at the end or something.

Meanwhile- ( Stories of my daily life )
that's all for now, all my love ^_^

So...is there anyone on my flist who happens to read fic in the Bleach and Ouran High School Host Club fandoms? I'd like to read some good fic in these fandoms, but I'm too scared to trawl ffn.net and I'm not sure where else to look. Recommendations please?

And I am back in the United States. To back track from my last post, here's a quick rundown of my last couple days in China. ^_^

-Day of the monster post of DOOM! Right after I got back from the wang ba (net bar) my Mom, lil bro and I went out to wan (play) with her school friends. Basically, we went out to karaoke and ate buffet food and stayed there from about noon til about dinner time, hehe. Listened to Mom and her friends reminisce and rag on each other (her group is basically five women and one guy, and they've known each other variously from childhood living on the same street, middle school and high school).

Also watched lil bro and two of my "aunties'" sons play this kind of gambling thing with dice that's basically like BS with cards. Roll your (5) dice and guess how many total of some number exists in the group, like 10 fives. Each successive guess either has to have a higher count of the same number, or the same count of a higher number. You don't believe someone's claim, then reveal your dice. The boys and my "uncle" and one of my "aunts" were playing with forfeits- cough drops. *sigh* I learned how to play but got bored after a couple rounds. :P

At about 5:45 we got kicked out, so walked to the Saxophone Bar for dinner. Wow food, of Chinese and Western style. Very tasty, and there was a lot of it. I got grilled on my future plans while the boys were (again) playing dice, and the crew thought I expressed myself surprisingly decently in Cantonese, and suggested avenues to explore in jobhunting. Mainly, working in government (local or whatever), or possibly looking into a US or other international company with an office in Guangzhou or Hong Kong, since my day-to-day Cantonese is decent, my Mandarin is decent (and all writing regardless of what you speak is done with Putonghua grammar and phrasing anyway), and my English is native, so that would be an advantage. We'll see if anyone wants me first. :P I'm not terribly ambitious, but if I did get hired by anyone in GZ or HK, my uncle said to think of it as an internship or whatever, work for a year or so and get experience.

China is so competitive now that the theory is if I'm able to do well in China, then I'd certainly be able to do okay in the states, because people who follow all the rules in China? Don't get very far. you need to be flexible and whatnot, and we're (me and lil bro especially) are too used to a society where people "play by the rules" or something, too nice, hehe. so I guess my aunties and uncles want me to get toughened up.

then i wandered over to the dice-gamers to watch world cup. Oh man, Australia v. Japan. The first, oh, 80 minutes of the game were just bleh. It was like, wow they really sucked. That one goal Japan scored was pure dumb luck. We were thinking about leaving the restaurant with fifteen minutes to go but decided to stay. And OMG, three goals in nine minutes from Australia. o.O That was incredible, considering earlier in the game both teams had an awful (it seemed to me) passing/interception rate, and kept getting close to scoring but never kicking the ball with enough force to get it anywhere into the goal, etc etc. Crazy game.

-Okay, day 2 in GZ. Basically an all-day shopping expedition. Kill me now. Mom and I went with one of my aunties back to the street they grew up on, where there's a highly recommended hairdresser. Shampoo and cut and dry, all for only RMB 12. Crazy how in the states it's lots extra to shampoo, forget the hairdryer. :P I've never had my hair take so long to wash in my life, all massage-y and everything. And now I have boy-hair! "Western style" um something, so it's super short in the back like a boy's, and slightly longer in front. I like it. ^_^

we then went to meet up with the other aunties at a wonton noodle shop. Soooo yummy. They were all o.O at my short hair, since right now no one's cutting their hair like that now, long hair is in. And then they decided to make me their dressup doll. Yeah, Claremont folks might know how Wendy was always talking about dressing me up? Yeah, my aunts and cousins actually succeed in doing this to me, and I get carried off in their whirlwind. So a day of shopping. Mom got some stuff too, but a lot of the clothes my aunties directed her to were a bit too expensive or too...young and stylish for her taste. :P But I ended up getting clothes- lots. And also a suit, craziness. For interviews and whatnot. o.O

right before dinner it started raining really hard. And my aunts saw a tang yuan (sweet dumpling) shop, and ran for it, giggling like school girls. Sesame dessert (zhi ma hu) with and without the yuan, so yummy. we ran in, spend ten minutes eating it and ran out for the car one of my aunt's husband was driving to pick us up for dinner. :P My mom's friends are too busy to get together often, so my mom's presence was basically a great opportunity.

- Day 3 in GZ. Hanging with my cousin and my actual aunt before leaving for Shenzhen and crossing the border to Hong Kong. Shandong food of tastiness (it's nice to eat qingqing dandan GZ-style food again after the heavier, saltier, oilier, spicier food we've been eating during our travels through Sichuan and Chongqing) with potstickers, dumplings, tasty veggies and tianji (ahaha frog, the literal translation is chicken of the fields, the way tuna in US parlance is chicken of the sea XD). Bought more shanxia (cranberry) snacks to take home, and then off to the train station.

Going through borders stuffs was pretty standard, and then we were in HK. Stayed the night, eating Taiwan-style food and wandering the local area around the mini-hotel we were staying at. Turns out the tv didn't get any sports, so no football for us. But lil bro and I ended up watching this bizarre US movie called Species. I understood what was going on, but nothing of why. ^^;;

-Up in morning at 4:45 to take the airport bus with all our luggage. Then on the plane- first a four-hour flight at 9am to Narita Tokyo. Stayed in Tokyo for a couple hours reading this week's Newsweek in the airport and going O.o over the news, then on a 9-hour flight to SFO to arrive at 9am, hee. Narita-SFO dinner was surprisingly tasty- beef noodle with tomato sauce and carrots and broccoli, and there was a little box with a slice of salmon (wow, salmon that I could actually eat and was very tasty), edamame, and a slice of pineapple. I ate lil bro's portion of that. :P Ended up watching "The Perfect Man," which in the synopsis sounded horrifying but in execution was actually pretty clever and funny. Hilary Duff's girl friend makes me think of a punked out Gabby from Ghostwriter, hahahaha. The boy draws comics! hahahgeeky. The actual scheme is kinda dopey, and we were hit with the irony sledgehammer with an inclass discussion of tangled webs of deceptions, but overall i liked it. not too many humiliation!squick moments.

arrived in SFO, cleared customs at 9:40, and then I hung around with the luggage til noon since the car could only take half of it. ^^ Back home to crash, and I am now as you see me online. I'll post up pictures at some point soon, we'll see how that goes. :P

Hope everyone's summers are going well, that you are relaxing, or enjoying whatever your doing, whether it's travel, gainful employment, lab *pokes Christine and the Sharonkitty* or whatever. *hugs* My love to all.

It amuses me that even copperbadge likes Ouran High School Host Club.

This is a series of manga and anime that I was introduced to by the lovely yxonomei in early March, when there were only a couple volumes of the manga out, and the next ones weren't due for another month or so. It's great- genderswitch! Snark! Tea! Haruhi is definitely my kind of girl, a twist on the classic feisty!girl archetype that I love so well in manga. :P Anyhoo, the anime is out, but I now only have dialup, so I'm wondering if bittorrent is still okay for me to do.

In other news, I am back home. Will be emailing permanent contact info to people soon, and need to start unpacking. Gah, I have so much stuff this is ridiculous. Also need to register to vote and get an absentee ballot, because I will not be in the country come voting day...

Happy New Year, all those in LJ-land.

Also, WFT world? This weekend, when I want to meet with the Lunch Bunch which I haven't seen in forever, and it feels like we've got a *typhoon* here. Wtf? I thought we were in the wrong part of the world for that. Warnings for 45mph winds! Boom, there went grandpa's potted tree in the backyard. Rain til at least Tuesday! Whyyyyyy world, whyyyy?! It's definitely not safe to take the winding roads of 17 to get to Santa Cruz, alas, alack. ;_;

( Meanwhile, in more holiday-ish babble... )
Last couple bits of squee: I've been playing cds on background to my organizing time. And I've found that some of my Chinese cds my aunt pushed on me before leaving China are pretty good. Zhang Xueyou 张学友 and Andy Lau are still kinda sketch though. And my mum's been ordering from BMG again, and I got to pick three cds. So I picked the My Fair Lady original cast recording with Julie Andrews and Rex Harrison, Avenue Q, and the Triplettes de Belleville. So much love for those cds right now. And I really really want to watch all three moveies/shows now.

For New Year's Eve, yaviasad you'll want to hear this: I watched on PBS (yay pbs!) Great Performances a movie version of Pride and Prejudice. Two hours, caught on tape, black and white. A young Laurence Olivier as Mr. Darcy. I'm sorry my dear, he is *so* much hotter than Colin Firth. *fans self* They tweak and fuse events in canon creatively to get the point across, and I rather liked it. commodoremarie, we all of us need to meet up before break is over, I propose I bring this tape for us to share. It's lovely.

final thoughts: whoever thought eggnog was a good idea? Even light eggnog...um. Maybe I shouldn't have microwaved it. ^^;; And I think I need some variation on an "abuses commas- NO SHAME" or some phrase icon for when I ramble. :P

Ah, home at last. Estoy muy cansada. Have slept for 14 hours straight. It's been raining the entire time. Never have I been so glad for the fingerless gloves, I loves them so. I wish there were a similar thing for my feet, or at least socks that held in heat better (because however fuzzy these are, they're not holding in as much heat as I'd like.

I really really hope I pass Language and Power, but the prospects are not good. At least I'll be doing okay in all my other classes, sigh. Finished the semester in a rush of knitting and typing, and the lady I met in the Jo Ann's I did a commission for didn't even answer her phone when I called and left messages about picking it up Saturday. Ah well. She can get it after break, since it wasn't a gift for anyone but herself.

I really missed Chinese food, didn't quite realise it till I was home. Tofu, and ginseng soup, and *good rice* and *good fish* that isn't dried to a faretheewell. Yumyumyum.

Okay, I hope various people have arrived at home or vacation destinations safely. I'll try to go on aim some this break, we'll see how it goes becaue i'm going to try to be a good daughter and not completely take over the computer every time I'm home. Ehehehehe. No promises on updates, emails, or anything, though.

If anyone has any idea why a CD burner would suddenly no longer be recognized by a computer as a burner, but as an "image writer" like they have with printers, plz to be giving me suggestions, thx. ^^;;; No, not the home computer, but my own which I currently have no access to, but which I meant to use to burn off Naruto for my brother but which it failed spectacularly to do. At least nothing blew up. *crosses fingers* Goodbye good grammar.

Much love to all, I think i'll be more coherent later. And ha, for once I'm done with school before my brother is, who has his finals tomorrow. XD

A list. Because I haven't written in forever. And things need recording, or something. ^^ 'Ware the babblage!

As of today:
--Three (3) cases of computer deathage. Luckily solved, because mon copain rocks as an IT guy. --One (1) house completely repainted and the insides moved around like a cow in a tornado. Only less destructive, I think. My room is blue! And full of all my crap that used to litter the downstairs. Now it's all (mostly) in my room, hehe.
--Five (5) weeks of summer school at DeAnza completed. One to go! Chem, with a prof who's been teaching for 30+ years, the most bombastic man I've ever had the (mis)fortune to be a student of. He thinks he's funny....some of the time he's even right. But the labs are fun. Balls and sticks and HCl and NaOh. W00t. And singing, with the most awesome singing prof ever. Lots of Italian and learning how to sing properly. I learned a lot, and the songs are fun. ^__^

--the public transportation in this area isn't half bad, actually. I've spent a lot of time wandering around downtown as a result.
--visited the San Jose Museum of Art. It doth rock muchly. Will visit again before I leave, because there's an exhibit by Yoshitomo Nara, with this art of a sulky girl that looks disturbingly familiar
--visited the Tech Museum of Innovation with the bro. Yup, the perpetual motion ball machine thing is still there, cool as ever. Had my head scanned, designed a roller coaster, learned the history about DNA, rode a segway, played with programming a chip, wore drunk goggles, and saw a portrait of me on a screen as heat. Spiffiness.
--visited aunt, uncle and granma in Daly City at least once every weekend. Thus trips to Golden Gate park, Asian Art Museum (much coolness), all over San Fran included used book stores (yay!). Much spiffiness and shopping.

--Have become addicted to Milliway's Bar almost since it's conception. It's an online RPG. Given that it's the bar at the end of the universe, there's fictional characters from *everywhere*. Liz Bennett, Peter Pettigrew, Lucifer, charas from HP, Hard Core Logo, Lotr, Wheel of Time, Good Omens, yeah. Barbie is creeping me out, she's so scarily IC. Ophelia (Hamlet) and Kassandra (of Troy) and Drusilla (Buffy) are the resident crazy ladies who rock. Raph (TMNT) and Hob Gadling(Sandman) are cool. Yeah, this is the good crack. I'm so addicted, and I *never* follow RP. Mostly I used to only know of the tabletop ones (scary scary boys) and the rpg video games (yawn). I'm tempted to join myself. Hmmm. Maybe Tris Chandler or Briar Moss from Tamora Pierce's Magic Circle. ^^ [/mad pimpage]

--schemed with friends to have crazy video night once we get back to school. Involving Batman Beyond, Hard Core Logo, possibly Justice League, Teen Titans and Master and Commander as well. And I might be contributing some old Chinese movies. I think we should rewatch Talented Mr. Ripley, don't you erjika? ^_~ Oh! I have a Josh Groban PBS concert taped, I shall bring it!

--more schemes! Food! Dimsum! And I'm learning to cook, so I can cook for myself once school starts again. Maybe I'll eat more that way. ^^ Also, Olive Garden is very yummy. But not as yummy as the food my uncle and aunt cook.

--Have been chatted up/hit on at least three times. Which is just odd, considering my usual record is zero (0). It amuses me, and at least they're not like the clueless freshmen who try to be suave at parties. ^^;;;; Though they were all rather older. Um. eep. I think I want to buy a "Not Your Fetish" t-shirt from Diana now.....

--Read at least thirty (30) books. Revisiting my teenage years, so everything Tamora Pierce I can get my hands on. Various David Weber space/military type novels. e.e. cummings, which is all Erjika's fault. Mara, Daughter of the Nile is a cool historical fiction/spy/romance novel. Historical novels. Knitting and crocheting books. ^^ And ridiculously large amounts of fanfiction.
--made up one (1) fairy tale for my Queen as a bedtime story. If curious people prod me, I'll clean it up from the IM log and post it.
--vaguely sorta beta'd two stories/fics. FangedTauran, you still working on "Pronunciation"?

--Had one (1) garage sale. In which stuff, some of which is at least 15 years old, most of which used to be my and bro's playthings, goes on sale. Sold some stuff, at least. ^^ Will continue tomorrow.
--started playing piano again! whee! I can play a really simple (but pretty) Scarborough Fair and (not so pretty) Jingle Bells now. And working on Canon in D, most repetitive piece ever, but I like it. ^_^ Can't wait to play on the pianos at school. I owe it all to the evil influence of mon copain, really. and my mum. ^__^ Maybe I'll take guitar lessons at DeAnza once I graduate and live at home, so my bro's acoustic doesn't go to waste, heh.

--have had many good conversations this summer (several of them with mon copain. ^_^). it makes me happy. though i wish i were better at keeping in touch with my lunch bunch babes.

That is all. Perhaps I shall be more regular about writing in the near future. Hm.

link to original post:
http://melen-chan.blogspot.com/2004/07/list.html