And I totally, totally love it.



That's all.


P.S. farewell_mask, you're going to the Youth Orchestra Festival on Sunday, right? See you there!

I've been very busy the past couple of weeks, so I haven't blogged about China yet. Well, here's the photo-blog!

( Lots of pics! )

More China pics in my Picasa album. Check them out, they're very pretty!

In other news, teh bf is in Canada, I got a Nintendo DS + two games for very cheap and am currently addicted, I just had a midterm, I'm having a folding bike ride on Saturday, and teh bf is coming home Sunday! Back to my busy life!

Remember the brand Derelicté from the movie Zoolander? Well, designer Jeremy Scott decided to do something similar. Oooh, I think that trashcan hat paired with the wrench earrings will catch on. *rolls eyes*

Speaking of derelict, my mum says my room looks like a garbage can. Does that make me Oscar the Grouch? If so, I shall keep my room this way!! Just kidding. As of now, I can hardly walk in my room because all the stuff is still on the floor and not in the cabinets. I'm not quite sure how to set up my room yet, so everything is a tangled, piled up mess of blah.

( The tangled mess of blah! )

Oh, and I'm in the closet. I mean, I'm sleeping in it. Here's what my bed --or rather, mattress, since I have no bedframe yet--looks like:



Note the clothes hanging overhead, and the tangled wires near the foot. In the old apartment, it was quite likely that I would die because of strangulation or electrocution because there were sockets at the head and right side of my bed, so wires crisscrossed my sleeping space. Now, I'm likely to die of suffocation, in the event that one of the dresses fall from the hanger and smother me in my sleep, or the old standby, electrocution. I can't move the mattress anywhere else though, as there really is no space. Great. I have to do something about this.

Will post pics of the room after I clean it up, but don't expect it to be anytime soon. I have a stats exam coming up, and studying takes precedence over having a clean room. Won't you agree?

Oh, and lolsecret of the day:

I have new spectacles, yay! I like the shape of my new glasses--Magnum helped me pick them out, and he has pretty good taste, don't you agree? However, I think I look terribly like a grad student with these eyeglasses, so hmmm... but I can actually see now! I'm not blind! Hurrah for eyeglasses!!

( Megane! )

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(x-posted on other sites)

Ok, I'm posting this because I'm fed up with my parents calling me from being comfortably curled up with my laptop in bed just to fling every bit of news about sex offenders in my face and imply--no, outright say--that the friends I meet online are all perverts/child molesters/rapists/[insert sex crime here].

Seriously.

Not everyone who is online is out to rape you, murder you, then throw your body into the ocean for the sharks to eat (takes care of evidence and is fun to watch too, haha). Most of us on social networking or blog sites are nice, law-abiding citizens who are just out to connect with other people, take tests, be meme sheep, rant about stuff, and basically waste their time puttering about teh intarnetz. Sure, many of us want sex, but that doesn't automatically make us sex offenders. It's one thing to go out on a date and have consensual sex with a person, and another to slip rophynol into your date's drink, then rape him/her. The former doesn't make you a sex offending bitch/bastard, mmkay?

The way the media presents the "sex offender" stories is like every single person who goes online falls prey to these horrible creatures. It creates unwarranted hysteria, and just gets in the way of people enjoying their time online safely. The internet can be scary, yes, but if you take proper precautions, you can meet up with people from online safely. I for one, have never been raped or molested by anyone I met online (or offline, for that matter). Raise your hands if you, like me, have never been victimized by an online acquaintance. On second thought, I can't count raised hands--comment back instead. I'm predicting most of you haven't been victimized by any online acquaintance either.

I'm not saying sex offenders don't exist online--they do, and people should take steps to avoid them and bring them to justice.I'm just saying that it is insulting to imply that just because you're on the internet and you want sex, you are automatically a sex offender. 'Cause I'm not one, and I'm guessing you, dear reader, aren't either.

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Other things:

>I just finished reading Philip Pullman's His Dark Elements Trilogy, and I love it. Deep philosophical and religious articles packaged into a fantasy book for children? HELL YES! Can't wait for The Golden Compass to go out on movie--I hope they don't bungle Iorek, who is by far, my favorite character!

>Going on to read Isaac Asimov's Foundation series--so far, I've only read the first one. Must go to the library and borrow the rest of the series.

>Any good book/movie/site recommendations? I'm bored out of my wits.

>Classes at UCLA start on Sept 27. I have around a month to putter about and do nothing. Please, please, send me a big pile of interesting books, or throw an interesting person who is not interested in romantic involvement at me. Kthxbai.

Well, since I've been bawling all day, I should try to be happy tonight so...

Ladies and Gentlemen, I present my Musical Instrument Menagerie!

( Much fanfare and pictures )

Yep...that's all of them. I hope to add an electric violin to the menagerie soon (must pester parents to buy for birthday :P).

I've been bawling my eyes out the whole day. Then laughing. Then smiling. Then crying again. My sister says I look like a panda. Gahds...I feel stupid, my eyes hurt, and I look like a non-cute panda. But considering what happened last night and today, I think I deserve to be a total mess right now.

Remember that scene in the woodlands with X-3? God. Last night topped that by (10^100)! times, and more. I mean, that time with X-3 was pretty emotional and intense, but those feelings pale in comparison to this. I've realized this before, but last night just confirmed how paltry my feelings toward X-3 were. I suppose at one time I really did love him, but it was the kind of love that fades and is eventually remembered in a dim gray light.

This time, with Pig, it's not like that. Or at least, I hope it's not. My inner cynic (term borrowed from farewell_mask) tells me you can never really know when it comes to love and relationships, but still... that intense emotional, mental, physical, and even spiritual (yes, spiritual!) connection I have with him is unlike any I've ever had. There aren't really any words in any language--at least among the ones I know--that can describe it. It feels right. He's the one for me. That's all I have to know for now, because if I overanalyze what we share I'll probably end up ruining it.

Remember Sternberg's Triangular Theory of Love? Intimacy we have, though it's still new and growing. Passion, yes, yes--most definitely, YES. Commitment...well, not yet. But I want to have that too. I'm just waiting for him to ask, that's all.

It would've been a happy ending, but this is real life, and happy endings don't exist. Happy endings are all but new beginnings, right? This new beginning is bittersweet, tinged with memories of the past. Today I finally I let go of X-3, which is a sad thing, considering all the special moments we shared. Over half a year's worth of memories...maybe someday I can look back at them fondly and without hurting, but for now I can look forward to creating even more wonderful memories with Pig.

( For 3(^@^)3 (that's a pig, in case you were wondering XD) )

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In other, more amusing news, I bought a pianica for myself as an early birthday present. Yes, Nodame Cantabile had something to do with it, but I also missed the one I had in Japan, and I wanted to bring back some of the happy childhood memories I had with it. It arrived today by mail today, and it's...



Well, I wouldn't call it gorgeous, though that's the first term that springs to mind. Gorgeous would be this:


(Someday I will buy this. SOMEDAY would be when I have $3900++ to spare.)

The pianica is...cute? Cuddly? Adorable?

I suppose I'll call my pianica Mongoose, after Nodame. Welcome to my musical instrument menagerie!!

Clickety for a sound sample, which I recorded on my new pc mic.

Now all I need to complete the menagerie would be a better violin, and a meisel spitfire electric violin. *Looks pointedly at calendar, then at friends*

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In basketball news...

OMG, I GOT TO SEE STEVE NASH AND AMARE STOUDEMIRE. LIVE. WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. They were tiny though, as we had the "nosebleed seats". Still. I got to see them in action. WOOOOOOOOOO.

I watched the Suns-Clippers game at the Staples Center with Pig last night. But the game wasn't as exciting as I thought it would be. I thought the Clippers would put up more of a fight, but nooooooo. The Suns were running circles around them, and Diaw didn't even play. Nash didn't play for half the game either. 115-90? Seriously. That's pathetic. You can excuse that kind of score when the star players are gone, like in the case of that Suns-Supersonics game where Diaw and Nash were both out.

It's a good thing the evening had a better ending.

Some pics from the vacation I just took:

San Francisco Pics

Solvang Pics

San Francisco was a blast! I'd love to live there when I'm rich and famous. Screw LA and OC.

My family decided to take a road trip this vacation, so I'm writing from the picturesque city of Solvang, CA! It's wicked cute here, since this city is a Dutch community with windmills and architecture of the kind you'd see in the Netherlands. My family and I spent the whole day exploring the town with all the cute little shops and stuff. Here's a sample:



More pics here.

Next stop--Monterey Bay to see the Aquarium, then San Francisco to explore. More pics tomorrow!