Archive diving: pt 2

K17,

Nobody used “wicked cool” in 2003. I hope you didn’t say that out loud. No wonder why we had no friends.

-K22

Ps: I know the whole opinionated-without-just-reasoning-nor-background deal was a part of what makes me so awesome today (through a long process of unnecessary fights and depressing self-realizations), but you’re kind of embarrassing me.

Pps: We’re all a little racist. You are always going to think you’re a better fit than she is, but she got the boy in the end. Arguing over something like that and with people like her are going to be a waste of your time, so do your math homework and quit sucking in school.

Ppps: Life is a lot easier when you just reduce things down to “she’s dumb”. The fact that she’s telling you the romantic details between she and the other boy you have a thing for (once boy1 was out of the picture) comes off to you as some malicious plot to get you jealous and to draw you into yet another lame internet love triangle drama is giving her way too much credit. Why the hell were you even hanging around anime forums anyway? You didn’t even like that crap.

The post in which I talk crap about people who barely remember me:

So in the event of Geocities going down this fall, I’ve gone and weeded through my old files to see if anything is worth saving. Random pictures, Facebooking the names I can remember (which luckily, the two that I do remember are already in contact with me :D), and laughing at my overall angstyness. K16 and K17 (Karen at 16 and 17) were definitely interesting people to be around.

On a random tangent: I received a letter from myself about two weeks ago, dated June 11, 2004. I think this was about a week from when I graduated high school. My math teacher asked us to write a letter addressed to ourselves and attach it with double of the current postage price to the envelope. I was kind of an idiot, but I really wanted to hug K17 because she sounded so excited about everything. But more on that later! (Maybe not)

So anyway, I find this! Because I really have no interest in briefing the Plessy v. Ferguson trial at 2 am, I’m going to go ahead and make fun of myself (and others) for a bit here :D Plus, it’s always fun to go through old archives to make fun of yourself in. It’s a growth thing, I promise. (You could probably stop reading here, since the list below really only entertains this certain nocturnal and bored party of one)

1. I can’t believe I used…to..talk…like this….all the time. Hello, ellipses! It may be totally hypocritical of me now, but I tend to stop paying attention when somebody types like that online.

2. I …. can’t……get over…….this.

3. The guy I was talking to (Tofurecords) also ……talks….like…..this. We used to talk for a bit last year, but I’m pretty sure he’s blocked me from AIM now. I think it’s because I more or less called him a chickenshit for not being more assertive with the girl he has a thing for and then complaining about it when his friend moves in on her. Or maybe its because I compared his affinity for President Obama to that of a fair-weather sports fan. I’m really not too sure. In any event, me and the other girl discussed about in the conversation (Susie) had this thing for this guy back in 2003 for God-knows-what reason, and he enjoyed the attention and sort of played us both. I dropped out of the race when I found out he was a fuggo. (Hey, I’m a superficial hypocrite. At least I’ve got the decency to admit it. I’m not even sure why I’m trying to justify myself here. Boy was horrifically overweight and was in desperate need of a reality-check when it came down to his health. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but what’s the point if you’re dead due to weight-related health issues? Okay, that was cold.)

4. The other girl mentioned was Susie, who is actually really nice when you can get over the bit where she’s a still a drama queen and attention whore. Just . . in different situations. I’m pretty sure we all are. She hasn’t changed much since I’ve met her though, and I’m not sure whether or not that’s a good thing. Who am I to say? This is just through lame speculation over Myspace Blogs and Facebook updates. She annoyed the living shit out of me in 2003 though. Plus, she had this thing for being overly sensitive and misinterpreting things (to which I just naturally assumed was based from her being illiterate or something) which has been a long-standing combination that automatically puts a person on my: do not talk to in a bad mood list. But none of that really matters since she’s got a cute face, does it? DOES IT?

5. The last person mentioned is one of my closest friend’s girlfriend, so out of respect for him , I won’t say anything. Besides, anybody who is around me long enough to know about K17 probably already knows that my opinions on her haven’t changed much than what the conversation linked suggests. Then again, she and I were never on good terms to begin with, and she was the youngest of the bunch, so maybe that has a lot to do with it. I keep going back and forth from being rational and wanting to just spill out what I really think. I’m not showing personal growth here, am I? :/ Moving along!

6. I was waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyy. …………… overdramatic. That hasn’t changed much, unfortuantely.

7. By the way, I have no idea what the hell is going on in that conversation. But I’m pretty sure that if you searched it, the line “marry susie, and fucking run yourselves over, okay?” comes up. I was hardcore.

Hey guys!

Just wanted to let you guys know that:

1. I am alive, but I will be unfriendly. Because I couldn’t enroll in Pols 435 last quarter and they’re not offering it this quarter and it’s the only class I need, I stupidly enrolled myself in a prelaw class out of all the other political science classes offered! But in all honesty, I don’t think I would have done any better in another political science course since polisci is not my topic and at least this law class holds some level of interest to me. It’s very work intensive and I don’t exactly have the time for it, but there is nothing else I can do so I may as well enjoy it. Added to the fact that I don’t have a lawyer’s vocabulary makes things all the more interesting!

2. I’m also enrolled in Political Science 373, which requires a 20-paged paper and a 125 annotated bibliographies comparing two countries’ pollution problems! Again, this was something I couldn’t get myself out of. But at least I got to pick my topic? I was originally going to do my paper on human trafficking laws or on labor laws, until I realized I don’t exactly care for humans, regardless of how sad the situation is.

3. My last class is on World War 2. Unfortunately, I cannot find a single topic within WW2 to write my paper on, because I’m one of those people who were never too fond of studying wars in high school. Furthermore, I’m to write this paper on a social aspect of the war, as we are studying it from the ground up. Again, I don’t care much for people. I’m not really sure on how I’m to develop a paper on a subject I have no interest in. What I’m to do is to find primary source documents and work off of them. Ugh. Out of all of the work I have to do for my other classes, this sounds like it should be the easiest. And yet, I hate this the most . . . which probably goes to show you that I should have never become a history major.

Maybe I should have went into Political Science. Although, there’s this annoying guy in my PoliSci 373 course who tries to complete my instructor’s sentences all the time. Dude, we don’t really need you to fill in words for him. Dude, we don’t really need your American v. Canada arrogance — especially when we’re discussing what defines hegemonic countries. Dude, we don’t need to hear your stupid voice and your stupid opinions on everything. Shut the fuck up. And that beret? It looks like shit on you.

He’s a bad representation of political science majors though. I’m fairly certain History Majors under the teaching prep option are the strangest/coolest/ best people to be around, although the few political science majors that I’ve met not including STFUBeretGuy are pretty cool too. That is, the kinds that bother to talk to you.

In other news, I logged into my old Geocities account today only to find out that Geocities is closing down! I mean, who the hell still uses it anymore, right? But I did use it way back in 2000-2003 as a starting ground for my website layouts. It holds archives and my growth in graphics and web-developing. It holds the last collections I have of the old MW days.

. . . I half want to save everything. The other half wants to let Yahoo! take everything down.

Anyway.

Here is a picture I found while going through my file manager!

It’s a picture of me and a girl named Atika in 2001. I was 14. This was taken with one of those sticky film Polaroid cameras. I would be the short cross-eyed one, in case you didn’t recognize. I didn’t like Atika very much because she was the girl who cried over a C in biology and listed “Jesus” as her “Significant Other” in those lame paper chains we used to distribute. She does the same now, over Facebook. Plus everybody had this thing for liking her — because she was nice — and I hated that.

Plus. WHERE WOULD GEMS LIKE THAT BELONG WHEN GEOCITIES GO DOWN? Ahem.

About three weeks ago I’m walking down the street with my friend to his car, when partway down the road he asks “where do we go from here?”

The question went right over my head and I replied with “I thought we were getting food?” What can I say? I was hungry, tired, and bored of reading up on Latin America. Being dense was totally okay.

“No .. where do we go from here in our lives?”

I go through life waiting for people like him to ask me questions like that — the right questions best discussed over green tea in hipster coffee joints, except now that one has I realized I didn’t have an answer. I’m pretty sure I gave him some lame ass answer about going through life with me as friends. He high-five’d me. Question successfully averted!

I bring this up now because I’m reregistering for admission to PCC, as a fallback plan if I don’t find myself a real job/find out what to do with my life by the end of summer. I’m undecided as to whether or not I actually want to go into teaching, especially after taking my capstone course. I have no doubt that I can be a great teacher, but I don’t know if this is the right time for it. It also only took me five years to realize that I stink as a history major. I’ve managed to guess my way back into my account only to have the first question ask “intended major or program of study” and realize that here I am, age 22, still not knowing what the fuck I want to be when I grow up.

So I walked in my graduation ceremony today,

And of course I slipped (but didn’t fall! Phew!) on my way off the ramp.

Thank you everybody. <3

A song for MM

So I’m standing in my friend M’s living room while he’s puttering around in the kitchen, waiting for his breakfast to heat up.

One of my coworkers has been a total shithead lately and he kills my spirits every time I’m near him. I generally ignore his existence, although he bickers with my other coworkers every morning and they all drive me insane. I guess I didn’t have to tell him to shut up, but it wasn’t like it was uncalled for. I’m not really upset over his reaction towards it since I probably deserved it. Still, I don’t need to go through this crap every morning. He’s a jerk to everybody and he doesn’t even do any work, and nobody’s been able to do a thing about it because my supervisor has been out for the past month.

I had spent the whole walk to my friend’s loft complaining about this asshole, wishing for comically large objects to fall on his head, wishing to throw beehives into his car, or just be able to lock him in a dirty room and watch his obsessive-compulsive ass squirm. It got to the point where I wished chemicals would burn his eyes so that he would never be able to photograph a single thing again.

“God Karen, why do you let him bring out the worst in you? You’re better than this.”

So we reach his loft and he puts on a Smith’s record. He’s humming to “The Headmaster’s Ritual” while waiting for the food to heat up. I’m looking at all of the records he’s collected over the years. He must have had over a hundred, and I knew that he knew every song by heart. Everything in this room was impeccably placed to perfection.

M and I have known each other for a little over a year now. His birthday gifts to me decorates my desk and my obsession over great music comes from his constant recommendations. My favorite book, The Little Prince, was a gift from him last August. I was puzzled at why would buy me a children’s book at first until I read it and realized that I learned more from that children’s novel than I ever have during the last five years of college.

Although mine and M’s relationship isn’t as close as it used to be, I realized then and there, standing in the living room that he shares with his girlfriend, that all of the things that I like most about myself — my patience, my incredibly awesome taste in music, the fact that I love stripes and epaulettes — were qualities that were either amplified or established by this man. He brought passion into areas of life that I didn’t even know existed. I didn’t appreciate it then, as I was only a kid being led into a world I was unfamiliar but fascinated with. I know now that I’m here to stay. It finally feels like I belong (somewhere, not sure where, but I have a general idea now), and I am so thankful for that. Often times, people don’t realize how much impact a person can have on their lives until that person is gone. I’ve been fortunate to have mine still around.

“Hey M?”
“Yeah?”
“Thank you.”
“For what?”
“I was . . . a mess when you met me. I didn’t know what I liked. I was coasting through life liking things without ever being able to explain why. I wasn’t passionate about anything and it was because I wasn’t even aware that the venue to love something that wasn’t human existed. I mean I did since they feed you that crap on TV all the time, but I didn’t know where to find mine. I still don’t, but now I know where to look. So now I’m working on fixing it. So . .thank you for being the catalyst. You changed my life, and I don’t think I’ve ever told you that. Just . .thought you should know.”

His face lights up and he gives me a hug. He also hands me a thermos full of coffee to take back to work. It’s blond and delivers a good kick to the taste buds, just the way I like it.

“You’re welcome”

We are so late coming back to work. Asshole Coworker is giving me a face, even though he consistently takes 40 minute breaks several times a day. What did any of it matter now? I sip my coffee and have a damn good rest of the day.

I AM NUCLEAR ENERGY.

I finally thought of a way to make my lesson plan coherent, with ideas for lesson plans and whatnot. Now I just need to find a way to stop time.

Ps: The trick is to stop caring and go.

NEW APPROACHES.

I have decided on a new approach to my lesson plans! I will work on the projects first, since being open minded on project ideas isn’t my area of expertise and then somehow tie them all together with this brilliant, well-thought out thesis and 5 equally brilliant subtheses! KAREN, TIM GUNNING IT. MAKING IT WORK. OHOHOHOHO.

With that said, I’m probably going to get a shitty grade on this portion of my lesson plan. And then I would be able to say “FUCK OPEN MINDEDNESS. MY WAY WORKED THE FIRST TIME I SHOULD HAVE NEVER TRIED BEING OPEN. I TOLD YOU”. Except there’s nobody here to yell at but myself since I’m the only one telling myself that I’m not open minded enough. Does that make any sense? UGH.

Stupid thoughts.

The other day a friend asked what instrument I would play when I join a rock band. I replied with the drums, since all I really wanted to do this entire weekend was to hit something. What was I thinking? I’d look pretty ridiculous as a drummer! And I’ve got no rhythm!

I should have said was the electric violin. This would have successfully confirmed my friend’s thoughts on me being a complete weirdo but more than that, confirmed my status as being TOTALLY AWESOME. WHY? BECAUSE ELECTRIC VIOLINS ARE TOTALLY BADASS. Case in point: Asha’s work in Porcelain (listen to “Again”).

Alright, I guess I’ll get around to doing the rest of my lesson plan now. It’s going to be one long-ass motherfucking night.

Half year checkup

I just finished my eight paged paper only to find out that none of the machines at school are working. But I spoke to my teacher about it and he was cool about me emailing it to him. I neither want to work on my lesson plans or study for my Economics exam, so I thought: What better time to do a half-year checkup than now? :B

I’m allowed to have those weird twenty-two who-am-I moments, right? They don’t tell you these things in high school when all I worried over were boys and parental issues. That in fact, things do get worse when you’re twenty-two and all you want to do is go back to the days you were a crying emo child at sixteen with the knowledge that you have now — that things will get better once you’re seventeen. . . only to get worse when you’re twenty-two. I suppose in another six years I’ll have another one of these standing-at-crossroads moments and will be longing for the days I was twenty-two and sixteen. To be honest, I really can’t see myself at 28. If I make it that long, I’m pretty sure I’ll be freaking out over the big 30, the age where Asians stop looking 17 and age before your eyes.

Alright! I’ve successfully bored myself! This will be done at another time!