After a hectic quarter, I return once again to the interwebs, at least until the next quarter starts.  Yesterday I spent some time with Dr. Freud.  We ended up driving up PCH all the way to Oxnard and then on the 101 up to Ventura.  Then we took the 126 to Santa Clarita, the Old Road to the Valley, Van Nuys though the Valley and Sepulveda back to the west side.  We got back later than I would feel comfortable asking my dad to pick me up so I said I would spend the night there.  "Where are you going to sleep?" he asked.  "My room," I said.  He said he wanted me to spend the night with him but he didn't think it would be a good idea.  He said it wouldn't be fair to me, even though he has feelings for me, to have sex with me without being able to be in a relationship with me.  I understood, and I agreed with him.  We talked for awhile about that situations.  He said he felt so fortunate to know and be loved by a girl like me.  I'm always going to love him.  

I told him about Tragedius. Remember him?  Well he and his girlfriend broke up.  I've been seeing him lately.  Nothing serious, but who knows.  I am starting to like him. He's a great snuggle buddy and sings with me when we drive.  We make nerdy math and physics jokes together.  I guess we'll see what happens.

 Next quarter: No more boys. 

Fuck you, Sacramento.  And fuck the administration for valuing athletics above academics.

I must hide my feelings so well that other people forget I have them.

I am short, thin, and have relatively no body hair. I do math; I'm "South Campus". My primary chemical characteristic is testosterone. "Pat" says my balls are microscopic. "I know what you are," he said, "You're an Asian male. That's why all the Asian guys hang out with you. You're one of them."

I talked to "Sven" later. He said I'm boyish—but then we started talking about what that really means. Tell me I'm not a woman and that offends me, but tell me I'm a man, and it doesn't. Why? I asked Sven why it's okay, why it can even be a compliment, for a woman to be called boyish, but it is offensive for a man to be called girlish. He said it meant something different in both cases. For a girl to be boyish or "less girlish" meant to defy the social construct of what it means to be a girl. In other words, we are expanding the definition of girl, thus seen as positive. We didn't get into the other side of it, but I've been thinking about what Sven said. It reminded me of this song.

"Wherever you go that's where you are."  My mind has been chewing on this for awhile.  I think I just swallowed.  To say it differently, "Whoever you are is who you are."

This makes more sense—or seems more significant— if you consider who you were a year ago or ten years ago or even last week.  I hate it when people say "that is so unlike you" or "you're not yourself" because I am always myself. No one is more like me than I am. I determine the quality that is me.  (Related question: Is part of me also determined by the perception of others/my relationship with others?)

In any case, I've met some people who cling to the person "I was."  It makes me angry.  I am not the person I was yesterday or last year or when "we" met.  I am different—so are you.  Maybe to a different degree.  That's fine.  But why do they insist on comparing me to that person?  (I don't wonder why so much as I am frustrated by it).  If I liked that person so much I would probably still be them. I understand that they would be concerned if my current path was self-destructive, but my path is progressive. Do not think that I refer to mood or temporary circumstance either.  For example, if I'm having a particularly stressful week, "You seem out of it," would not be inappropriate. I am talking more about behavior with respect to opinions and decision making.  For example, Azalea might say, "I thought you didn't like doing X."  Je peux changer d'avis: I can change my mind. If you wonder why I am so disinclined to speak, to be specific, or say something definitive, it is because I fear the loss of mutability entailed with the fixed perception of others. I am not a snapshot.
   
I have also met (although less frequently) people that forget yester-me.  These are the people that want me to grow, to learn, to progress.  They allow me to be who I am, "to be wherever I go." They do not feel the need to make comparisons.  I also want to be a person like this, though I know sometimes I miss how things used to be.  I thought I missed the old Azalea, but I realize now she has not changed all that much.  She has only become more like herself, and I should not be surprised by this.  Although it means we will most likely never be close friends again, I must suffer the loss and move on.

I was on the radio for the first time today.  You can hear me on my roommate's show "The Back Seat" Sundays from noon until 2 PST. I also intern Monday nights for "Tune In & Listen" from 10pm until midnight.  I'm not sure how much air time I'll be getting yet.  The best time to catch me is on the Sunday show.  You can listen at uclaradio.com and IM us at bruinradio to give us feedback or make requests.

/Shameless plug

I'm still a part of FPS, though it's a bit of a drag right now.  All production is on hold so we can put on the president's premiere.  I don't even like the movie, but it's called Slick if you're interested.  It'll be on youtube sometime in February.  I'm sick of swat men and guns.  I'm working on writing a new script  or joining VPC, the other film club on campus.  More production, less corporate.  They're making Gonzo's film "Play It, Sam" of course based on the Woody Allen film of similar name.  I actually liked it alot, but FPS shot it down. 

Everything in my life is so chaotically normal.  What does that even mean?  It means I'm stuck inside of a clock. Everything moves around me, continuing along according to design, but I'm just standing there with no idea how it all works.  Why did it start and where will it end, I don't know.  "Pat" says sure, the universe as we know it may be just an electron in a bigger universe, but if we can't affirm that then the knowledge is useless.  We should live in the here and now, he says.  I guess he keeps my feet on the ground.

Summers is with his soulmate this weekend.  I wonder what I am to him.  Some tangential line to the curve of his life?  And she—a path-independant integral.  They'll end up together in the end.  Where will I be then? There is a certain tragedy in being the "other woman."  The movies love to hate us, but who are they to judge? Can we help who we fall in love with?  Seriously.  Can we?

People have this funny idea that thoughts come from your brain and feelings come from your "heart."  No, it's all brain.  BRAIN.  How do you separate a thought from a feeling?

Would the solution the be same as for exponential decay?  I don't know.  Maybe things are as bad as they have always been.  Where things get better somewhere, they get worse somewhere else.  I don't watch television often, but when I do, it makes me realize just how bad it is all over again.  I don't mean this economic crisis.  I mean this social crisis.  "Sexting," the called it.  Underage girls are texting nude pictures of to underage boys.  They want to charge those involved with child pornography to discourage this kind of behavior.

You're missing the bigger problem here, folks.  The problem is not the naked human body, which I think is inherently beautiful.  Funny how we develop secondary sex characteristics before it is legal to use them. That's still not the problem.  The problem is why girls are doing this.  They want the attention.  A lot of this behavior can be traced to low self-esteem.  Pornograpy charges are not going to fix this.  If anything, legislating against sharing photos of the naked body will only bring with it a greater sense of shame.  I want to tell every young woman that she is beautiful—not because a man says so, but because of who she is.  They never told us that in school.  No one ever told me that at home either.  Maybe we should focus more on building young womens' self-esteem and preparing them better to make their own decisions about their body.

My universe got too big. It collided with someone else's.

I have been accused of not being "a woman" because I study mathematics, (and partake in other apparently "unfeminine" behavior).  So what does it mean to be feminine?  If I'm not a woman, then what am I?  How can I be a woman, or should I even want to be one?

There are so many things I don't understand.  I'd like to crawl around the mind of someone else some time.  I think that people judge what is normal by comparing the behavior of others to the behavior of themselves.  If this person does x but I would never do x, and I cannot reason why any person would do x, then x is not normal.  Maybe people think it's better to be normal than have to justify x.  Sometimes I bet it is.  I just don't care anymore.  I don't have to justify x. 

I love Summers, but I'm not sure what that means yet.  I suppose I love him in a similar way as I love Shawn.  I care about him infinitely and I respect him in such a way that he cannot be possessed. I do no want to possess him.  In some relationships I found men wanted to possess me and be possessed by me, but I didn't want that, nor do I want it now.  I think I am content.

I'm glad that McCain will not be our next president.  I wish Obama the best of luck.  That's really all I have to say about that.

My life is kind of hectic right now in regards to people and relationships.  I feel overexposed.  Most of my friends right now are male.  This is not unusual for me, but lately I'm beginning to think some of them might be attracted to me.  Some girls like a lot of attention, but I feel strange about it.  I'm used to being the friend, the one you talk to with about the girls you like or find attractive.  But it's different now.  I get attention.  I don't really know what to do with it.  I think I react badly to attention.  I must give the impression that I like it or don't mind it when it actually makes me kind of uncomfortable.  It leaves me feeling washed out. 

I haven't really talked to Summers in a week.  Last Thursday I spent the night with him.  No, we didn't have sex.  We did a lot of talking though.  He told me he didn't want to hurt me because he loves me, but he also loves E----.  I could tell he felt torn.  I told him he might feel better if he just chose one of us, but he said he couldn't.  I understand.  He can't choose because currently there is no problem. She's there and I'm here.  He doesn't have to divide any affection between us except for when he goes to visit her like he did last weekend.  Only his conscience is divided.  That's what troubles him.  He blames society, but I blame distance.  It is permissible to love us both for now, as long as she stays there while I am here. He can't make a decision.  In his position, I probably wouldn't be able to either.  But I'm not powerless. I'm not in his position. I can decide.  Is this what I want?  No, it's not.  I do not want to be a leg in this love triangle.  I told him I could stay away, but he didn't believe me.  He'll believe me now.  I will miss him, but I can live with that pain. What I can't live with is the responsibility of ruining what they have. 

I'm going to start using false names.

I have not posted in ages.  B--- is driving me insane.  It's like he's just trying to pick a fight, always trying to get the last word.  He just says stuff to try to hurt me, and when I don't get upset, he gets even more upset.  I don't understand... if he doesn't like how I act, why does he insist on hanging out with me?  I don't need that.  I don't need him.  I don't think it really has to do with me at all.  I think he's just sore that my life is infinitely better without him, while his life is a mess right now.  I should feel bad about this, but all I can think of is the hell he put me through and sing to myself "Who's Sorry Now?"  I won't be taken for granted again.  I thought I loved him, but I'm not so sure because I don't love him now.  Maybe I have just changed into a person who is no longer capable of loving someone like that, or maybe I have just realized things about B--- that I didn't see before.  In any case, I do not love him now.  I don't even hate him.  I just don't care.  I've spent every ounce of care in my body on him already.  There is none left.  I can't even sympathize with him.  I have been emotionally wrangled by him so badly that I've finally cut the chord.  Summers says I should try to understand what he wants and be sympathetic to him, considering he has lost a lot.  I've tried.  I'm sick of trying.  I'm running out of kind words with which to say "I don't want to be with you." 

Then there's Azalea.  She calls me saying she wants to hang out and then flakes.  And the only time I get to see her is if her boyfriend is there too.  Sure, he's a nice guy.  I like him.  But I'm not going to tell him the things I would tell Azalea and I can't talk to her if he's there.  So whatever.  I don't even call her anymore.  She only calls me when she needs something or wants me to hang out with her and her boyfriend and her boyfriend's friends.  It's like she doesn't know me at all.

/rant

Summers asked me what my ideal man is like.  I told him I didn't know.  That was a lie.  I do know.  I just didn't want to tell him.  I've learned from past experience not to tell a man about your ideal man for several reasons.  One: He most likely does not exist.  Two: By telling him, he may react by conforming to that idea, or worse, making it seem that he is your ideal man.  Three:  Verbalizing your ideal is to some degree restraining.  The ideal loses its mutability, or more accurately, once you have stated your mind, people are reluctant to understand that it can change.  i.e. "But I thought you wanted _____!"  Heartache ensues. 

So what is my ideal man?  Well I'll be as general as possible so that I will only have to refine rather than revise him. 

Social Compatibility - We have enough interests in common that we can do things together (vacations, bike rides, etc)

Intellectual Compatibility - Not that we have to agree on everything, but we have to at least be able to have intellectual conversations or have some common academic interests (literature, psychology, programming, etc)

Lifestyle Compatibility -  smoke/drink/drugs/kids/sex/career/philosophy or religion... It's best we agree on these issues.

In other new, turns out my cousin isn't pregnant... anymore....because she had a baby this morning.  Wtf.

I was suppose to go to Dockweiler with Square tonight, but Attic left without me.  I'm eight years old, and my family leaves me waiting at the Disneyland Train Station.  Does everything happen for a reason; was I not meant to go?  Or was this just how the cookie crumbled.

Either way, I lost my ID last night.  In other words, I can't get into my building or eat in the dining halls until I either find it or pay $22 bucks for a new one.  It's been missing for 24 hours; I'm definitely opting for the new one.  Too bad the Bruin Card office is only open 9am-4pm and I didn't get out of class until 4.  So I'm out of luck until tomorrow morning.  My friend J----- has been a sweet heart though.  He swiped me in for breakfast and dinner.  

Also, I'm still on two waiting lists.  It was only one yesterday, but my French professor told me I should be in French 2 instead of 1, so I had to switch... into a waiting list.  Joy.  Hopefully the new prof will understand.  If nothing can be done... then I just screwed myself.

I guess I shouldn't be so bent up about all this though.  I just told myself yesterday: Think about everything that hasn't gone wrong.  Although the list is shrinking, it still infinitely outweighs my current list of problems.

I finally found out my grades from my summer classes.  I got an A in Linguistics, though no surprise.  I'm sure most people got As.  I also got an A in Cognitive Science, which I was slightly more proud of.  I got the highest grade in the class on the exam, which I guess isn't that impressive since there were only 30 people in the class...  My dad said it didn't matter how many people were in the class and that I should demand that the school pay for my tuition.  He makes me laugh. 

Anyway, my fall classes start tomorrow.  I'm all moved in.  Got my wireless set up, my xbox hooked up, my speakers plugged in and my 36' against the window.  My new roommate seems pretty chill.  I have a feeling this is going to be a good year.

I had my final exams today.  I did well, or "PWNED" as Annette likes to say.  Right now I just want to go home.  This place is a ghost town.  I'm lonely.  My roommate is gone.  The halls are empty. It's just me here singing Gianni Morandi to myself and stealing pushpins off the walls. 

It doesn't feel like summer anymore.  I guess for everyone else it hasn't been summer for awhile, but here in Los Angeles, especially with a UC system that doesn't start fall classes until nigh October, summer sometimes seems to extend until Halloween.  I first noticed it on Tuesday.  The sky was overcast until almost noon.  I felt like I was in the Valley, and with my cold, it reminded me of elementary school: walking to school with a runny nose.  It was nostalgic, but at the same time, incredibly tragic.  This summer has been one of the most influential of my life.  I've had so many novel experiences.  I think I've grown up a great deal.  I'll even miss my classes, my roommate, Sproul Hall and all the international students and friends I made here.

Finals tomorrow.  Back to the books.

I'm having some major issues with my schedule this fall.  I don't think I'm going to be able to work this quarter.  It looks like I'll be taking 17 units.  Everything is so up in the air.  I should really see an academic counselor.   I've declared Cognitive Science, or at least "Pre-Cognitive Science".  I have to finish my prerequisites to be officially Cognitive Science.  In this field however, I'm overqualified in the area of mathematics.  I wanted to double major in Mathematics of Computing (subcategory of Applied Mathematics), but at the same time I've become interested in Linguistics.  Doubling my Cog Sci with "Linguistics & Computer Science" is looking increasingly attractive.  I could even go on to do Computational Linguistics for grad school or some kind of combination of that and Cognitive Science/Psychology/Neuroscience.   But I still want to take more math!  Nicole suggested that I minor in it.  So I could theoretically double in Cog Sci  (with a specialization in Computing) and Ling & CS with a minor in Mathematics, but I would for sure have maxed out my units by then.  I'll have to petition for more.  I'm afraid to commit to this.  What if I am biting off more than I can chew?

Also, I'm getting sick again, and just in time for finals. 

    Some people inspire me to be a better person.  Other people make me ashamed of who I am.  And in the presense of the ones closest to me, the ones I know best or love most, I become someone I despise.  I'm sorry, Dad, and everyone else.