annelase

Well, hello there. I must say it feels weird writing under this name and icon, the latter of which is a Paint job done right (read: tacky). I'd rather be a leisure dystopia than an enzyme anyway. (Speaking of which, my favorite dystopia website has finally been updated!) I don't mean I hate what I've written here-- everything was written and felt and experienced because it had to be-- but I just don't foresee myself ever "posting here occasionally" as I once anticipated. I know some people who have stayed for years with the same journal and am almost envious because I can't ever do that. I'm on my sixth online journal (excluding Xanga, the multiuser blog experiment, etc.) in about six years, which is sort of ridiculous. Then again two of them were entirely private, updated alongside my extremely self-indulgent public blogs (of which this is one). Anyway, one day.... One day. One day I fell asleep on a couch in the architecture building and dreamed I was one of the dictators of the world, a loudmouthed asshole/genius whom everyone hated but no one could live without ("Yes, she's awful, but....") who constantly demanded, "Why should things be easy to understand?" and reshaped the landscape into a steep spiraling extreme sports course that was near-impossible to navigate, outright dangerous to walk on, and which acted as a perfect physical manifestation of Thomas Pynchon's writing. Speaking of which, if you haven't read V., you must read it now. Or don't. Read what you wish, be pretentious, be too-pretentious-to-be-a-hipster, go to college, flip burgers, drink and sink and sing and sting, smoke a bowl and cross the nation and write bad poetry, do whatever you want, be whatever you want-- but don't try to be dictator of the world. That's me.

dessel 

Add the new if you like. Don't be too hasty to delete this one from your friends list, though, because I might still post here occasionally. The new journal will eventually be friends-only, so shoot me a message if you want to be added back.

My goal for winter break is to hang out with as few people as possible. No offense to anyone, but I haven't spent much time with my family since I started going to college, and I want to be with them as often as I can this break. Most teenagers (yes, I am still a teenager, even though I quiver and shiver and hesitate to regard myself as such) don't get along with their parents. Most of my friends don't understand how or why I need them so much. But I do. I really, really adore my family. I've realized that I won't ever live with them again the way I used to, and that I will grow physically farther from them as time passes.

A lot of other people think I love them and need them, and I do to some extent, but at the end of the day I am self-contained. When I want to wind down, I want nothing more than my family, books, and a steaming cup of tea. When friends come and go it hardly hurts (yes, this is the truth), but when my family goes, I will be sobbing and tearing my hair out and crawling on the floor. It will be agony.

Sydney Carton, from A Tale of Two Cities
When I was a sophomore in high school, my English class read two novels that ended up defining my life as I knew it then. While I identified with Gene in A Separate Peace (the first book we read) to an alarming extent, the character that kept my attention after the journal entries and Socratic discussions and essays were all over was Sydney Carton in A Tale of Two Cities.

I loved him. I loved that Charles Dickens refused to draw the typical conclusions from his character-- that just because Sydney was beautiful and brilliant didn't mean he was perfect, or even remotely lucky. It was those imperfections, in fact-- the drunkenness, bitterness, and overall debauchery-- that made my heart go out to him. I felt for him and I felt with him. It might be funny to think that a man went to the guillotine in place of his drab lookalike gave me hope, but he did. The end of A Tale isn't nearly as depressing as it seems. Every action, and every feeling, I think, will be reciprocated in time.

There have been others since, of course. Holden Caulfield (A Catcher in the Rye), the second Mrs. de Winter (Rebecca), Vincent Freeman (Gattaca), Esther Greenwood (The Bell Jar), and the aforementioned Gene Forrester. But none of these characters has resonated with me the way that Sydney has. I don't think any character ever will. He isn't a man I would want to be caught in an alleyway late at night with. He isn't a man I would marry or date or even befriend. And yet-- in so many ways, I will never be over Sydney Carton.

Don't ever let a man become the motive for your decisions in life.

I wish I had the time and guts to do NaNoWriMo.

Unfortunately I'm just too chicken. My second story is due at the beginning of December and I have no idea what it'll be about. Bacteria? Vegetables? Love...? Chicken.....? Dresses?

The possibilities are endless.

Happy Halloween.

Oh and I just spent like three or four hours writing and rewriting a letter. A letter of interest. I know, I know, I'm a moron.

P. S. The time is wrong; it is already 12:23 AM on November 1st. NOVEMBER! My birthday is in November. So is Kurt Vonnegut's.

You know what I realized the other day: I love people. I love going into studio and seeing my friends, because even though we're all struggling, we're struggling together. It's architecture I hate. I don't think I've ever hated anything so much.

Studio #2 is stupid and annoying
I moved into my apartment and am now almost completely reliant on a stupid and annoying bus
I joined a sorority, which is not stupid or annoying, but exorbitantly expensive

My latest ambition in life is to become a police officer. It didn't start out that way--- it is the natural consequence of my greater ambition to become a licensed private investigator. But I know my chances at the police force are slim, sadly slim. I could never look like a proper policewoman without drastic surgery, if you know what I mean. My form is unfortunately better suited to 'teacher,' which I might become after all since function follows form and form follows function.

Truly, when I think about it, I would be a much better teacher than police officer.

My dad told me not to tell anyone about this, since I am a big empty talker, but I'm only writing it down for future reference. Writing it down where anyone with an internet connection can see, yes, but that's a minor detail.

It's way hard, especially the listening (I've always sucked at listening, even in English), and it's every weekday for three long long hours, but I don't mind. It must be a pretty effective class because I can already read a tiny bit. I'm looking forward to testing out my bad accented speech the next time I'm in Chinatown!

zaijian & wan'an (it's all meaningless without the tones, but oh well)

I need to do something productive.

Once upon a time, when I was in high school--- sophomore year, to be exact--- my chemistry teacher placed a red sheet of paper in front of the class and told us to stare at it. We did. After a while, he took it down, baring the white screen behind it, and asked, "Do you see green now?" (since the opposite of red, as we have learned, is green) And everyone was like, oooooh! yeah! and I thought...what?

Because I didn't see green. I saw cyan. I know, I know, no one says "cyan" these days...but you would say it if you saw it more often. It's pretty blinding. So, I told my teacher about the cyan, and he tested me again. And I said, "I still don't see green." And he just laughed and said, "Well, maybe you have a deeper color perception than most people."

I haven't thought much of it in the years since. It's one of those stories I keep as a novelty, when the subject of colorblindness or color illusions comes up. Conversation fillers.

Anyway, for some reason...I don't remember it now, but I just started googling to see if most people did indeed see green. And while I didn't find anything on the test specifically--- most of the links related to image editing and whatnot--- I found this:

"Cyan (blue) reflects blue and green light and absorbs red light."

Furthermore:

"In the visible spectrum, cyan is directly opposed to red; magenta is the opposite of green; and yellow is the opposite of blue." - ColorGuide

Basically, my teacher lied to me. All the teachers who have ever told me that red and green are complementary colors are liars. Liars, I tell you, vicious liars. Cyan is not even remotely close to green. Closer to green than to yellow or red, I suppose, but that's like saying red is close to brown. What crap.

As for my classmates? Well, you know what happens when an authority figure tells you what to see...you see it. Or at least you think you do. Maybe I would have thought I did, too, if I had had more respect for my teacher.

But I swear on my honor I saw cyan.

cyan

love

I've personally always liked cyan, myself.

learn more about the truth

i'm home! i'm home! i'm home!

now for the rest of the summer.........

substantial post later. maybe.

how much i adore you and admire you and
that everything i feel for you is pure
at least purer than anything else i've ever felt
i want nothing from you
i ask nothing of you
i am simply honored
to have known you
i am simply touched
that you ever took the time
to learn my name

over the years, i've made several crucial alterations to my diet.

i have consciously stopped eating:

• ice cream (because i've always disliked it. it has a terrible texture and, in the case of soft serve, it sometimes comes out looking like poo. very appealing.)
• soda (i used to crave it, but it's bad for me and bad for my bones.)
• donuts (because the way they are made is absolutely disgusting! even though they are dee-lish.)

i have grown out of eating:

• sour skittles (i used to buy some every day for several months in freshman year of high school.)
• packaged burritos (ditto)
• chocolate chip muffins (ditto)
• breakfast burritos from this one place near my high school (because they are so soooooo oily and fatty and transfatty and cholesteroly.)

and i have recently decided that, because i have gained five pounds this semester (as opposed to zero last semester--- could be because i went to the gym instead of sleeping half the time), that i will go on my first temporary diet. i have these meal points, you see, and quite often i buy bags of candy to deplete them. they actually sell pretty excellent candy here--- kasugai candy. kasugai makes fruit gummies, milk candies, peach candies, soda candies, and really great cookie-shell nuts (the campus restaurants don't stock that last one, unfortunately). i keep them in my desk or in my backpack and just pop one when i want to feel good (and sometimes even if i'm dead full and have just eating dinner). also, i haven't been too strict about eating desserts when i go to my dc, which is not often at all, but still. i also eat cookies and crackers now that i have studio and have to stay up all night and don't have access to real food.

so, my plan for the next month or so (until i get out of school) is to stop eating desserts, cookies, and candy. not even one. i'll eat crackers, but only in times of despair. so far i've been good. it's not just that i want to lose my freshman 5, it's also that i want to wean myself off my dependence on sweet treats. next year i won't have sunk-cost meal points. i don't want to waste actual money on expensive, unhealthy foods. that's all.

i have pretty good self-control when it comes to food. i once wrote about vegetarianism in here and actually stopped eating meat (my most favorite food ever besides avocados) for two months. i also gave up coffee for a few months because i thought it was bad for me. and while it is bad for me, i need it. i wouldn't pass my tests or go to class if i didn't drink it. that's another dependence, but i'll allow myself that, for now.

oh yeah. also no more fried things if i can help it. the dcs offer late-night menus which resemble diner dishes rather than the 'organic,' 'healthy' cuisine in which my school takes so much pride.

i have a headache and have to finish writing something for class now.

bye

oh yeah and i got a gmail account. it's faaaantastic. sort of. no less than i would expect from google.

i write very badly now. (It could be because I haven't slept well for weeks.) i want to deep talk about all my emotions and how theyre destroying me and wrecking me but they arent really at least they arent compared to how bad the workload is. i mean i just cant build what they want me to build and read what they want me to read and even though ive been working so hard and trying almost my best for the first time in my life i just always have this terrible overpowering feeling that im sinking into quicksand and i wont ever come back up. its like before when i was obsessed with being perfect and i hated myself because i couldnt meet my ridiculous standards. now i am fairly laid back, almost a type b personality, but i still havent gotten over it. i still think i should be able to do everything. but at least now i dont know anyone whos on top of everything so i dont feel so bad. im actually doing pretty well. i am going crazy but maybe not enough yet to seek counseling. i will though if i go completely bezerk, which is possible since ive been looking up professors in my department and i see how they all went to harvard and princeton and whathaveyou but theyre all completely insane

oh yeah

my drawing gsi said to me (direct quote):
"when i first saw your self portrait i thought, what a sweet little girl, i can't wait. but NO, she's insane!"

bet youve never heard that one before