Multiracial in America

Because this is who I am . . .

Multiracial in America
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24765917

Lists make life easier

It's not so much that I forgot that I had a blog but . . . well, yes, from time to time I forget to keep this going.

Things that I've been thinking about the last couple of days:

1. The intoxicating smell of lilies that wafts through the living room. Even though there are only a few of them in the bouquet on the table, they manage to permeate the whole room. As I sit on the couch, I'm bowled over by their musky scent and for moments on end I am lost in that smell and can think of nothing else.
2. The comfortable coolness of the evening air as it pours through the window. Now that the days get warmer, the contrast in temperature between day and night is once again comfortable and that is a true sign of summer.
3. The uncomfortable reality of needing to find gainful employment. Apparently I can't be a student forever.
4. I miss my friend Casey. Sydney really is too far away from Seattle.
   
5. I'm really not looking forward to next Tuesday because that's the day that I have the oral defense of my thesis (x2), I need to submit my final paper for one of my classes, and then I need submit written reflections on all the reading assignments for my other class. That's a lot of organized work to turn in on one day.

That's my story lately . . .

April showers bring May flowers

The weather is crazy out here. It snowed - yes, SNOWED - over the weekend. We've already had crocuses, daffodils, cherry blossoms, tulips, and weather in the high 60s and then it snows?! I don't think this is what they had in mind for 'April showers.'

Falling off the wagon

The title is self explanatory and I apologize to those of you who are faithful readers. Life has been (and still is, really) just a little crazy over the past month. Here are some short lists to illustrate the current state of affairs in my life . . .

Things I should be doing:

1. Working on the glossary for my boss' book
   
2. Reading about early Mahayana Buddhist scripture
3. Reading about postwar Japanese history - yes, it's broad but I haven't looked at my syllabus since the class started so I have no idea what I'm supposed to be reading at the moment. "Bad form young lady," you say? Yes, I would agree.
4. Writing up thesis number 2 . . . yes, there are two to be written
   

Things I'd like to be doing:

1. Finishing up the knitted T that I started just before spring break
2. Baking cookies for Sarah's birthday - 'cause I ate all the cookies I initially baked for her
3. Watching the rest of Season 4 of The West Wing - I love the public library!
4. Knitting of any and all sorts
5. Shoe shopping

What I'm actually doing:

1. Posting
2. Contemplating how much longer my laptop will survive (it's almost 5!)
3. Making unrealistic plans to get up early tomorrow and go to the library to do work
4. Ruing MS Word and it's malfunctioning ways
   

My reality is so far off from where I should be . . . if only there were a couple extra hours in the day and laptops (or cash) grew on trees.

More snippets

I should write about this before I forget. I had a most fantastically strange dream the day before yesterday. The strangeness isn't unusual, if you've know me for any amount of time then you'll know that my dreams are all quite bizarre. So, without going into the entire dream I'll just tell you all how it ended and the particular bit that my roommate found hilarious in my recounting of it.

"So, her mom walked up the stairs and onto the roof. And we just knew inherently that she wanted us to empty all the food out of our tupperware onto the ground below to make a trampoline for us to jump down onto. "

It's not the strangest dream I've had but it's up there. That bit sounds crazier without the context of the rest of the dream but it just gets too long. But be rest assured that the necessity of a trampoline was real. In case you're curious, the food in the tupperware was linguine and green beans . . . and lots of it too.

Snippets

I love the small pieces of conversation that can be overheard when walking about campus. A priceless piece from this morning.

"Hi Ryan, I just finished writing a 16 page paper on Nancy Drew."

Now, if I were in the children's literature section of the library or the school of education or anywhere else where children's literature would be a topic of academic conversation this might not seem so odd but I overheard it while walking through the halls of the Computer Science & Engineering Building. The nature of computer science must have really changed since the last time I looked into it.

Politics and failure

Yes, it's the middle of the night and yes, I should be sleeping but it's my favorite time of day to catch up on my blog reading. I'm busy following everyone else's political commentary. I must admit that I haven't quite made up my mind about who I'm supporting this time around. The Washington Caucus was over the weekend and many of the candidates were in town. I had several students miss section on Friday because they were going to hear candidates speak. For most of them I was quite happy that they were off having such a great experience and I look forward to what they have to tell me about it. There was one student however (who has yet to show up to any of his sections) who blithely wrote me an e-mail to say he had missed section to go to the Obama rally and had he missed anything important. Anything important?! "Um . . . dude, you're failing this class right now, why don't you try and change that?"

Catharsis in sadness and heartache

There are moments in life when pain and heartache are fitting. Right now all I want to do is lay down, listen to heart-wrenchingling sad music, and let the sadness overpower my limp inert body. I want the heartache to swallow me whole and embrace me in its cold but familiar arms. Is it odd that I find it easier to be utterly devastated than to be happy? That here in this sadness I feel more 'in place' than anywhere else. That this is the emotion in which I seek solace and at times peace. Is it odd that I revisit this emotion by choice for no particular reason at all?

If words were images

It seems mildly pointless to share this since you can't see it and I can't get a picture of it but none the less . . . at this moment there is a perfect halo cloud above the peak of Mt Rainier, as though the mountain were somehow being angelic. The mountain is covered in snow but with the sunlight raining down on us today it can't be seen. Instead the whole mountain looks a misty blue lost in the haze. Even though it is bitterly cold for Seattle I'm not going to complain because the sun is out and that doesn't happen so often around there this time of year.

Sparklyland meets creamland

Oh dear, I haven't posted in an eon . . . over a month I see. Well that's unfortunate. Clearly I had more than enough time to post while in Japan since I was on vacation but there always seemed to be other things to do. And since getting back to Seattle my life has just been a whirlwind of activities and I really haven't had time to sit down and do anything sensible or productive. Needless to say my room is in a complete state of disarray and I can't find a thing.

I was feeling ever so motivated to post yesterday evening and was all set to do so but ended up watching a DVD instead and then crawled into bed because I had fallen asleep on the couch . . . a situation that I find myself in with increasing frequency, and it makes me feel like my grandmother.

So what was I so excited to blog about yesterday? I can't recall anymore really. Some snippets of conversations that were had in the apartment that were entertaining and interesting episodes from campus. What I do remember though is the Poetry on the Bus pieces that I had enjoyed on the bus ride home. I particularly liked If I Were A Bus and creamland. I think I too would like to go to "sparklyland," it sounds lovely wherever it may be. And "creamland," really need I say more? That is totally the place for me. The imagination of children is just so wonderful, isn't it? I think I like the worlds they create more than the world we live in.

It's story time . . .

So, I've been a tad slow in responding to Anne's tag. But she raises the excellent point that the meme writing will contribute to my ultimate and perpetual goal of procrastination. So here goes . . .

The original prompt:
Here's what I would like to do. I want to create a story that branches out in a variety of different, unexpected ways. I don't know how realistic it is, but that's what I'm aiming for. Hopefully, at least one thread of the story can make a decent number of hops before it dies out.

The story:

I woke up hungry. I pulled my bedroom curtain to the side and looked out on a hazy morning. I dragged myself into the kitchen, in search of something to eat. I reached for a jar of applesauce sitting next to the sink, and found it very cold to the touch. I opened the jar and realized it was frozen. (Splotchy)

"That's strange," I said out loud to no one in particular. My fingers slowly reached towards the jar again. My body experienced a wave of apprehension as weighted blanket covering me as I did so. The jar was completely frozen.

I picked it up and stared at it, my fingers stung with little knives of chill. "What the..." again I spoke aloud. Then I realized what had happened with a shock. Suddenly the jar flew from my hand. It shattered creating a collage-like mixture of frozen applesauce and glass shards on my kitchen floor, the lid lazily rolling to a stop across the room.(FranIam)

I stood for a moment considering what all this meant. Oh, I knew what it meant, I didn’t need to waste time thinking about it. He was back. And he was mad.

I ran down the hallway and flung open the door at the end. I was immediately hit with a blast of cold. I took a step back as I tried to catch my breath. I bent over, hands on my knees panting. He always had this remarkable effect on me. After so much time, it no longer scared me, but it was a shock nonetheless……

“You know,” I panted, “There’s no need to break things to get my attention.” (DCup)

I woke up hungry. I rolled out of bed smacking my alarm clock that was singing Carly Simon and thinking to myself I have to stop eating pizza right before bed and then sleeping till noon. I must remember to change that station to something that will actually wake me.

Stubbing my toe on my boots on my way to the kitchen, I glanced sideways down the hall and caught the dead body out of the corner of my eye. (Wyldth1ng)

As I limped along, slipping on the melting applesauce and jumping when a shard of glass gouged my foot, I wondered what to do. I could scream or I could call for help or I could clean up the mess. Might as well yell: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

Then there was a knock on the door. Why would someone knock so early in the morning? And so quickly after I yelled? (Jan)

I limped over to the door and looked through the peephole. 'Not again,' I thought, as I saw my annoying neighbor from across the street.

I opened the door and before I could say a word, she walked past me as though she owned the place. Immediately she began talking about what her precious son had done at school yesterday and how cute and precocious he was. "He's gifted, you know!" She exclaimed for the millionth time and then she turned to me and without pausing, said, "You know, you really shouldn't live all alone in a big house like this. It's creepy and look at this mess. You can't even keep it clean. You should think about getting married or at least hiring a maid." She looked down at my foot disdainfully. "And you're bleeding, too. You can't even take care of yourself."

She never lets me get a word in edgewise, so I really don't know why she always comes over. Maybe there's a good reason why her husband stays at work so late every night. 'He'd go deaf or crazy if he was around her all the time,' and with that thought I let out a short laugh.

Upon hearing that, she looked at me as if I'm the crazy one and said, "Do you think bleeding all over the floor is funny? And what is that smell? Did you leave apples lying around to rot? You're going to end up with an infection or worse and I'll find you dead on the floor one day, smelling worse than those apples."

I rolled my eyes and just as she was about to open her mouth again, a loud crash came from the kitchen. (Infinity^2 a.k.a. Garlic)

She made a beeline toward my kitchen and I trailed behind her. 'It really doesn't phase her that someone might want to investigate their own household commotions without her nosing around, does it?' I'd have preferred that she didn't see the day old applesauce and broken jar on the floor but there wasn't any avoiding it now.

"This is awful! I mean, it's practically a sty! How long has this mess been here? And you really shouldn't put your dishes down so close to the edge of the counter. Otherwise it's just a matter of time before you break all of your dishes. This is why you need to get a maid or a man."

'Oooh! She makes me irate! IRATE! I find her presence distasteful but her man-or-maid solution to life drives me bonkers! I could just reach quickly into the pantry and grab an extra-large jar of pickles and break it over her head. The headline of "Death by pickles" would almost be worth it.'

I push past her to look at the broken shards of plates on the floor. 'Why did he have to go for the nice dishes? I liked them. And I'll never be able to reassemble a set like this again . . . but then again he knows that and probably picked to break these ones on purpose.' Defeatedly, I sigh. "Well, I suppose I was a little careless in putting them down. Um, I'm going to clean this up now. Why don't you come back later." (Jen)

So, who do I tag . . . for now I'll say . . .
Bethany (as she curses me from the other room, I can't imagine why *evil grin*)
Derek

Letters unsent, words unsaid

愛しい君に書く手紙
久しぶりに手にとる筆　

いつか書いたあの詩
覚えてるかな

天から降り落ちてくる星
見上げる淡いブルーの空

君のために書いたつもりはなかったけど
結局はそうだったかもね　

君を思うと欠けたハートは
一昔に知っていた「愛」を思い出し

寒い星空の下でも
暖かく微笑んでいる

君におくる言葉
心をこめたこの気持ち

愛情ではないこの気持ち
それが君におくる言葉
それが君に書く手紙

It's SNOWING!

So, yesterday we had our first snow of the season here in Seattle. I think it was entirely appropriate that it was on the 1st of December. Bethany and I went for a walk in the park to enjoy the snowy scenery.

The view from our apartment.

Photographing the photographer, squared.

Bethany doing cartwheels in the snow.

Oh, the futility. It's as though they're mocking my shortness.

So, you get the idea - a fun time was had by all. I stole these pictures from Bethany but I'll get my own up eventually . . . sooner rather than later I hope.

Um, random info

So, did you know that duct tape is actually completely useless in repairing ducts? I was a little surprised upon learning this. I mean, why is it called duct tape if it's not actually used on ducts?

In case you're wondering where I'm getting such random information and why I'm pondering such thoughts, well I was listening to the podcast for this past weekend's "Wait Wait . . . Don't Tell Me" - have I mentioned how much I adore NPR? *smile*

Faux is in . . . and that goes for turkey too

As you may have noticed I've sort of disappeared again. It's the end of the quarter, enough said, right? But I couldn't miss out on sharing my Thanksgiving with all of you, because that is the spirit of the holiday is it not? I had intended to spend Turkey Day at home writing a paper, not because I'm a huge procrastinating nerd (is that contradictory?) but because I was scheduled to work at the yarn shop for 3 days of the holiday. So I really needed to get work done. Well, as usually happens in my life, there was a change of plans and I ended up hosting Thanksgiving for a few friends whose original Thanksgiving plans had fallen through.

We were going with a vegetarian menu for the evening including some 'raw food' (as in the raw food movement) dishes. Here's what we had:
Wheat berry salad
Wild rice salad
Roasted vegetables
Faux 'raw food' turkey
Kabocha (Japanese pumpkin) soup
Hawaiian rolls
'Raw' sweet potato pie

Sound tasty? Definitely not your average Thanksgiving spread. It was delightful. I must admit that the faux turkey may not be my first choice for Thanksgiving dinner entree but it wasn't all bad. It was a combination of seeds, nuts, herbs, and celery blended together and then formed (very artistically I might add by dinner guests) into a turkey shape. The way it tasted reminded me of Mediterranean salads, except thrown into a blender. And I would probably have eaten even if it hadn't been the main dish for dinner but the idea of it being faux turkey sort of distracted from the whole eating experience.

Anyway, Happy Thanksgiving . . .

And now back to writing my paper because as you might have guessed this post was a little jaunt down that oh so tempting road of procrastination.

Bittersweet fruit for a bittersweet time

A brief moment of the Cranberries on the radio this afternoon made me desperately want to listen to them. So, now I'm finally at home sitting at my desk listening to Everybody Else Is Doing It, So Why Can't We? I know that I've said it time and again but there is a certain special quality to music. It can transport you through time and make you feel as though you're reliving moments of your life. The Cranberries take me back to being a teenager . . . all the bittersweet memories of teenage heartache and heartbreak. Somehow it's both exhilarating and heart-wrenching to recall those feelings. Oh, to be a teenager again . . . to have those cares and concerns. I suppose I can only say that though because I was a relatively happy adolescent. I know there are plenty people who were unhappy adolescents and would never wish to return to that time in their lives. It's a scarring time for all of us, though in vastly different ways.

Though I won't bore you with the memories associated with them, I'll tell you that my particular favorites on the disc include "Sunday", "Linger", and "How." They are attached to both immensely fun and happy memories and blisteringly painful ones.

Into the night

The other night I was waiting at the bus stop on campus regretting the fact that I had stayed so late since it's not fun to wait for the bus in the damp cold darkness. There was a sudden gust of wind and the leaves in the tree rustled so loudly that I looked up to see a burst of leaves in the wind backlit by the orange street lamp. Against the deep navy sky they looked like flakes of gold pirouetting through the air. It was so beautiful. And in that moment I couldn't remember why I didn't like the darkness and the night. We only fear the night because of the things that we humans have created and infused in it - violence, crime, heartbreak. Without those things the night is just another time of day, a time when the world feels smaller, cozier, and intimate.

The darkness brings the magic hour where illusions seem more real and time can't be trusted to tell the truth. I used to imagine the night as the softest embrace of the darkest velvet. In the darkness I can lie in the grass and listen to the tree frogs and crickets sing as the stars inch across the sky. In the darkness I can drive through the cornfields to watch the harvest moon creep along the horizon. In the darkness I can watch the snowflakes drift upwards in the air, glowing in the moonlight.

And since related things always seem to happen as if by chance at the same time, I came across this poem on the bus a day or so later. Another sentiment for the darkness and the night. In my heart of hearts I love the darkness and the night.

This is why I'm really in grad school

Hhhmm . . . after my earlier post I feel the need to reassure people that I really do enjoy academia. Mostly it's the little things I find highly entertaining. Such as the story about the Taisho Emperor (who was to be honest probably a couple cans short of a six pack in the brains department, proving that the Japanese royals could make them just as inbred as the Europeans) and the incident in which he went to a Diet session to deliver a proclamation. Instead of reading the proclamation he stood looking around for a couple of minutes and then proceeded to roll the proclamation up into a telescope and peered through it at the Diet members, no doubt accompanied by a "Why, helloooo there." Ah, gotta love the crazies.

Yes, the grass is always greener . . .

So, now that I'm overwhelmed with work I think longingly of the days when I actually had free time, when I could come home at the end of the day and not have homework to do or tests to study for. But I know that back then I thought longingly of being in school, doing research, and having witty debates in class . . . well I assume I did or I wouldn't be back in school now, would I? So, yes the grass is always greener . . . at some point someone is going to have to incorporate astro-turf into that sentiment.

Yes, so I'm back from the land of non-blogging. And as I've already mentioned I'm a little overwhelmed with work. I'm not entirely sure how that happened, one day I was pretty much on top of everything and then the next day everything had gone to pot. I'm decisively behind in 2 of my 3 classes. And on top of my classes I'm still working 3 jobs . . . don't ask how that happened. I know I swore that off after Spring Quarter but . . . well I'm a pushover and get suckered into things. Today is a perfect instance of my pushover-ness - as part of a class project I've been setting up an interview with a contact at the Japanese Consulate. Part of the assignment is to record the conversation so that my instructor can listen to it afterwards. Well, of course, the Consulate has a no recording policy so I can't record the interview but I only found this out yesterday. So, I'm asking both instructor and interviewee what can be done about this situation . . . apparently a whole lot of nothing! So, now I'm going to go do an interview that no longer counts as part of the assignment since it's not recorded all because I feel guilty about canceling the interview I set up. And all when I have precious little time to be doing any of these things . . . pooh.

On the up side, it's Wednesday which means the week is half over. And yesterday I saw the public library's bookmobile and that made me smile - still smile actually. I mean, it's a truncated school bus with giant cartoon animals painted on the outside, how can it not make you smile?

Computers = vegetables, yes?

I'm feeling particularly computer illiterate at the moment - I can't sign-on to my own wifi network . . . pooh. So, how am I blogging then? Yes, a very good question. Well, let's be honest, I'm jacking my neighbor's wifi. I don't even know which neighbor . . . I can't decide if that's better or worse. But really does it make me a bad person if I'm taking what they haven't bothered to password protect? I hardly think so . . . but maybe my saying/thinking that is proof in itself that I am a bad person. Fuzzy moral ground.

Anyway, at this moment I wish I were tech savvy enough to figure out my computer issues but unfortunately I don't even know how to properly verbalize my problem to do an on-line search. How is it that computers and the internet which are supposed to make you more knowledgeable (even if it is mostly about ridiculous and inane issues) only succeeds in making me feel like a big potato-head?